"Humans are born as atheists"

[Valjean]

There are blind people and there are people who perceive a rainbow of colours. The blind are ignorant of colour. They are a-colourists.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Easy. The box contains neither a black ball nor a white ball, but contains a grey ball.

But a grey ball is still "Not a black ball". In terms of implicit atheism, you don't have to be "A specific colour that is not black", you just have to be "Not black". Do you understand?

For a baby, who is not even aware of the concept, 'neither a theist nor an atheist' is a true description.

Only if you adopt a narrow view of atheism. It is a true description to say "A baby lacks a belief in a God", therefore it is not necessarily true to say a baby is not an atheist.

For a stone, there is no ability of discernment, so the question is indeterminate or meaningless.

Agreed. So why keep bringing it up?

For an adult, a statement such as "I lack belief in love", implies a knowledge of what love is.

Indeed. But there is a difference between an implicit rejection of something and an explicit rejection of something. Someone can be completely unaware of the existence of the Jackrofandoblag (an evil, winged creature that lives at the bottom of my garden and has seventeen eyes and breathes fire) and be said to lack belief in it's existence, insofar as belief constitutes the acceptance of a given claim as true. Until such a time as they accept the claim as being true, even if they are completely unaware of it, they can be said to lack a belief in such a thing. It's no different to saying "This person has no idea of the existence of blue coats, and therefore does not own a blue coat".

 

[atanu]

Please explain this 3rd state, atanu. A slate is either blank or inscribed, a box either contains something or does not. What would this 3rd state be?

The world is layered, nuanced. It is rarely This or That.

Tell me, if a marble is of grey color, it may be provisionally okay to say that the marble is not-white.

But surely it is more appropriate to say that the marble is grey, which is neither white nor black.

Also, to claim meaningfully, that the marble is not-white, one must know what white color is.

Now, who knows God? Neither the theist nor the atheist. Theist believes that there is a God. But atheist (of the variety of stones and babies) do not want to accept that they believe that there is no God. They assert that they lack belief. How can there be lack of a belief in an object without knowing about the object? IMO, It is a slimy expedient tactic that has no value. One can utilise the time spent in defending the belief that they lack belief in search of source one's "I" awareness and attain better results.

I have written all these since you seem to be a Vedantist.

 

[atanu]

They are a-colourists.

No. They are blind.

 

[Valjean]

There are colored marbles and colorless.

 

[ArtieE]

The world is layered, nuanced. It is rarely This or That.

So what? We aren't discussing nuances we are discussing theism/atheism theism/no theism. Stick to the subject. You're either a theist or you're not no matter how many 'nuances' you can find.

 

[atanu]

So what? We aren't discussing nuances we are discussing theism/atheism theism/no theism. Stick to the subject. You're either a theist or you're not no matter how many 'nuances' you can find.

No. I am not a theist. And surely I am not an atheist.

You may colour your world black or white due to your ego involvement with the issue, but universe has many consciousness layers and consquent colours.

Your stance is simply a fundamentalist stance that everyone must agree that a baby is an atheist.

I do not agree. A baby is neither an atheist nor a theist.

 

[ArtieE]

'Not an theist', implies that they have made that decision. 'not a theist', is just as much a position, as theist.

Everybody are obviously not theists before they become theists position or not.

 

[atanu]

There are colored marbles and colorless.

Yeah. But to know the colourless marble, one must know the colours.

 

[ArtieE]

No. I am not a theist. And surely I am not an atheist.

Your sentence reads: 'No. I am not a theist. And surely I am not an not theist." The word atheist literally MEANS 'not theist'. Maybe you should rephrase?

You may colour your world black or white due to your ego involvement with the issue, but universe has many consciousness layers and consquent colours.

And here yet again you demonstrate your inability to assimilate information. How many times do we have to tell you that in this context we aren't talking about black and white or colors but BLACK AND NOT BLACK?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

You seem to have no idea of nature of 'measure'.

If measures such as 'atheism' and 'theism' can be used similarly as 'tall' or 'short', without referring to the actual belief of the subject, then anything goes. Like stones are atheists.

Theism and atheism pertain to belief/non-belief of the subject person and is different from measures such as weight, length etc.

As long as you employ ego, you will not agree to this.

I have absolutely no idea what you're trying to say here. Can you rephrase?

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

It is a position in regards to given information. Without knowledge of the information having a position in regards to it is impossible.

Exactly what position has any atheist taken with regards to the god believed in by a single person who never shares it with anyone?

What position has an atheist taken with regards to the god of someone who insists his god can't be described?

 

[LuisDantas]

Easy. The box contains neither a black ball nor a white ball, but contains a grey ball.

For a baby, who is not even aware of the concept, 'neither a theist nor an atheist' is a true description.

Good model. It does seem to perfectly demonstrate the understanding that you, @Draka and @Willamena are having and attempting to convince us of.

It is also truly weird and pointless. There is neither a need nor a clear benefit to insisting that "atheist" should be synonimous with "manifest atheist".

Of course, you three are hardly the only people who feel differently, and obviously it is just as weird from your that we do not share that understanding. For some or several reasons that I have little chance of guessing, you all not only see lack of abstraction power as somehow forbidding atheism, but also expect others to share of that stance.

I take it that you see the distinction between conscious and unconscious atheism as somehow significant and... necessary, somehow? As if it were in some sense unfair or inaccurate to fail to notice the need to stress that babies and stones can't help but be atheists simply because they lack the power to be anything else far as beliefs go?

I can't claim to understand why you feel that way, but it seems clear that you do and expect us to do be convinced of the need to agree with you.

That is unlkely to happen before we attain a functional understanding of why you disregard our own understanding, which seems so natural and ellegant to us. What exactly do you see as misguided in it? Is it just that it states atheism as a default state?

For a stone, there is no ability of discernment, so the question is indeterminate or meaningless.

"Meaningless" is it. Atheism may be, and often is, meaningless indeed.

"Indeterminate" would imply that we lack the means for learning whether there is a belief stance applying to the stone. That would be pretending not to know that it has none, that it is in fact incapable of having any. Or else, which I find more probable yet puzzling, that you somehow think of atheism as something that can't exist without some mental faculties.

For an adult, a statement such as "I lack belief in love", implies a knowledge of what love is.

Or even for a child. But love, unlike atheism, needs some ability of perceiving the world and reacting to it to exist.

 

[LuisDantas]

Your sentence reads: 'No. I am not a theist. And surely I am not an not theist." The word atheist literally MEANS 'not theist'. Maybe you should rephrase?
And here yet again you demonstrate your inability to assimilate information. How many times do we have to tell you that in this context we aren't talking about black and white or colors but BLACK AND NOT BLACK?

To be fair, "theism" is often seen as one of several mutually exclusive stances of faith, one distinct from not only atheism, but also from Deism and Pantheism (at least). Arguably also from ignosticism, "pure" agnosticism, and several other possible stances, depending on who one asks.

 

[ArtieE]

To be fair, "theism" is often seen as one of several mutually exclusive stances of faith, one distinct from not only atheism, but also from Deism and Pantheism (at least). Arguably also from ignosticism, "pure" agnosticism, and several other possible stances, depending on who one asks.

One step at a time. The people I am addressing here haven't reached the first step yet.

 

[Augustus]

What position has an atheist taken with regards to the god of someone who insists his god can't be described?

A God that can't be described can't be said to exist, as 'exists' is descriptive.

Atheism can be one, but it never needed to.

Actually, it always needed to be until quite recently.

Historically, atheist had 2 major usages:

1. Somebody who denies the belief in God
2. Somebody whose beliefs/behaviours are seen as implicitly rejecting the society's god(s) - an enemy of god(s)

There is a much longer history of the term referring to people who believe in god(s) than who 'lack' belief in them. It always referred to beliefs you held though, as it wasn't defined as a lack of theism.

[This is a point about historical usage btw, not a point about the 'best' modern usage]

 

[Thief]

ignorance is a default position.
if you CHOOSE to equate atheism to ignorance.....proceed.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

The world is layered, nuanced. It is rarely This or That.

In this case, it is a matter of definitions. We have created a distinct category where it is either this-or-that. It really shouldn't be any less conotroversial or difficult to understand than saying "This person either collects rare fish or they do not collect rare fish".

Tell me, if a marble is of grey color, it may be provisionally okay to say that the marble is not-white.

But surely it is more appropriate to say that the marble is grey, which is neither white nor black.

Why would it be "more appropriate"? What makes a particular label "more appropriate" than another if both apply? It may be more accurate, but that's not the same thing. The fact is that "not white" is still a category that said marble falls into. If you are dividing marbles into categories of "white" and "not white", the exact colouring of any marble that isn't white is irrelevant.

Also, to claim meaningfully, that the marble is not-white, one must know what white color is.

Sure, to claim it does. But it doesn't matter that the marble itself knows, or is even capable of knowing, which category it belongs to. No claim needs to even be made. Philosophically, the category "not white" exists independant of any ability to adopt such a position.

Now, who knows God? Neither the theist nor the atheist.

That's a pretty exceptional claim. How do you know that there aren't theists who know God?

Theist believes that there is a God. But atheist (of the variety of stones and babies) do not want to accept that they believe that there is no God. They assert that they lack belief. How can there be lack of a belief in an object without knowing about the object?

The same way you can not believe the position "carrots are delicious" without ever having eaten a carrot. Absence of belief in a proposition is the default.

IMO, It is a slimy expedient tactic that has no value. One can utilise the time spent in defending the belief that they lack belief in search of source one's "I" awareness and attain better results.

A slimy tactic to achieve what, exactly? I've heard it said that this definition of atheism is somehow some underhanded attempt to achieve... something. But I have as yet never come accross a reasonable explanation as to just what that something is. It can't be to "avoid debate" because atheists who adopt this definition are constantly engaging in debates on a variety of religious topics. It can't be to avoid any burden of proof, because most atheists accept the burden of proof when a claim is made, and any reasonable person should understand that not believing something can't come with a burden of proof. It can't be to "bolster the numbers" of atheists, because I have never once seen any atheist on any forum or any kind of discussion use any kind of numbers argument or try to win a debate by pointing out that babies can technically be considered atheists. The only time I see people bring up babies (or rocks, or dead people) in relation to this definition of atheism, it is by people who object to the definition. If you feel it's silly to include them, then why even bring it up in the first place? If you think it's meaningleess to include them in the debate, then stop including them. It's not the fault of the definition itself that you have an issue with a term being so broadly defined that it can encompass children, and it is not the fault of atheists who use the term that way - who rarely bring up babies in any significant manner in the debate other than to illustrate that atheism is the default position - that you are uncomfortable with it. The only conclusion I can come to is that the word "atheist" itself still, for many people, carries negative connotations and they don't feel comfortable with being associated with it, even as infants. I simply can't conceive of any other reason why people would object so stongly to something that is, ultimately, utterly benign and insignificant. I just wish people would have the honesty to admit their prejudices rather than try to hide them in a semantic debate.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

A God that can't be described can't be said to exist, as 'exists' is descriptive.

Well, take that up with the people making the argument. Regardless of the problems with how their concept is being communicated, "poorly explained" does not necessarily imply "non-existent".

... which just gets back to the problem I was getting at: you can't reject that which you can't even conceive. Some gods can't be conceived by the average atheist because the theists who believe in them aren't telling, some can't be conceived because they haven't been explained properly, and some can't be conceived because - due to the sheer number of god-concepts out there - a single person can't learn about all of them. Some theists claim that their gods can't be encapsulated in a concept; this would imply they can't be rejected either... but if you're right and this claim is bogus, then they're still just god-concepts that haven't been explained properly and therefore still a problem.

Actually, it always needed to be until quite recently.

Historically, atheist had 2 major usages:

1. Somebody who denies the belief in God
2. Somebody whose beliefs/behaviours are seen as implicitly rejecting the society's god(s) - an enemy of god(s)

1 has been obsolete at least as long as we've recognized that polytheists and other theists who don't believe in "God-with-a-capital-G" aren't atheists.

2 is obsolete at least in every secular or religiously pluralistic society, since it depends on there being "society's god(s)" to reject.

There is a much longer history of the term referring to people who believe in god(s) than who 'lack' belief in them. It always referred to beliefs you held though, as it wasn't defined as a lack of theism.

If we're going to get nit-picky, I'd say it was much more traditionally associated with people who didn't participate in religious rituals or practices more than it was about belief.

In that context, babies didn't count as atheists because:

- babies don't have many religious rituals or practices, so non-adherence looks the same as adherence for the most part.
- the sort of religious participation expected of an infant is normally satisfied by the parents just bringing the baby to the ritual. The baby can "participate" without being an active participantor holding an opinion about what's going on or its theological basis.

 

[Willamena]

Good model. It does seem to perfectly demonstrate the understanding that you, @Draka and @Willamena are having and attempting to convince us of.

If you want to lump us together, fine, I could hardly be in better company, but atanu, Draka and I argue from different stances.