*[I believe] Atheism is an absurd worldview

[Curious George]

If one person says he's a theist and another person says he's an atheist what aspects are you contrasting?

Most likely, the world that entails from no deity or a deity.

 

[Curious George]

A person's world-view has many aspects. Belief or disbelief in God is only one of them.

I understand you want to think that. But listen to what you are saying. You are rendering the use of the word untenable. Whereas I am allowing for different worldviews to be compared according to the qualifiers.

I could for instance talk of a "cat lover's" world view vs. A "dog lover's" worldview.

You are hyper-focused on one aspect of how the word is used. It is completely acceptable to say the atheists worldview, as long as that of which you speak is entailed by atheism. There is no reason why one could not. Even if, as you are trying to frame it, the atheists worldview regarded one aspect.

The problem with your viewpoint is you fail to acknowledge all that atheism...Even "weak or implicit" atheism, entails.

 

[Willamena]

I already mentioned a few.
I guess I just don't see how atheism is a worldview. I see how it can help a person make up a worldview, but in itself, I just don't see it. Personally, my lack of belief in deities has pretty much nothing to do with how I go about my life. It only really comes up in forums such as these or if someone brings up religion in conversation.

I guess I expect a worldview to have some kind of philosophy or beliefs behind it, rather than something just based on a lack of belief.
If I don't believe in ghosts, do you consider that a worldview?

A view of the world isn't something you choose, anymore than beliefs are chosen. It doesn't dictate what you do, but then it's not about you. And the recognition that a person lacks belief in gods is very much a part of philosophy, just as the study that looks at the math behind holes in the fabric of the universe is a science.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Would you like to understand how it is a worldview?

Start from atheism, whatever you determine that to be. Assuming you are using the broadest view of lack of belief, ask yourself what that lack of belief entails. For instance, lack of belief in a creator entails lack of belief in intelligent design.

Not necessarily - you may not believe in intelligent design by a God, but you may still believe in directed panspermia. Also, theistic intelligent design is essentially just a subset of theism, so all it really entails is "an atheist is not a theist". That is not enough to call atheism a worldview.

Now think about what form of atheism is part of your understanding. What does that entail.

What FORM of atheism you use is irrelevant to whether or not atheism itself is by definition a worldview.

A worldview is a particular conception of the world.

That's inaccurate. A worldview is a collection or set of beliefs that colour or inform our view of the world. Atheism cannot be said to be a collection of beliefs, nor does it necessarily inform or colour our view of the world (as one does not need to be aware of the God concept in order to qualify as an atheist). The definition you are using is so broad that "eating a burger" could be considered a worldview, as someone who is eating a burger has a particular conception of a world in which they are eating a burger.

Atheism only addresses one aspect of the world.

More accurately, it only adresses a single response to a single aspect of the world.

Atheism cannot be a particular conception of the world.

Again, this is an inaccurate statement of our position. Nobody has claimed that atheism CANNOT be a particular conception of the world, it's that atheism is not a worldview in and of itself.

The questionable premise is that atheism only addresses one aspect of the world. What is one aspect? I could easily say that creation is one aspect, revelation is another aspect, and afterlife is yet another aspect. And atheism deals with all of these, regardless of the type.

Wrong. Atheism deals exclusively with whether or not a person believes there is a God - nothing else. It does not deal with the concepts of revelation or the afterlife and says nothing about either.

 

[Willamena]

A worldview is a collection or set of beliefs that colour or inform our view of the world. Atheism cannot be said to be a collection of beliefs, nor does it necessarily inform or colour our view of the world (as one does not need to be aware of the God concept in order to qualify as an atheist).

If a worldview is, as you say, the set of beliefs that inform us, then that stands apart from those beliefs that fail to inform us. Thing is, if someone approaches us to discuss their god and we have sufficient information to engage them on the topic, we do not fail to have beliefs of the world that have informed us, a world where that god or gods occupy a particular niche, be it imagined, mytholigical, or simply mistaken.

That is an atheistic worldview.

 

[SkepticThinker]

Not necessarily - you may not believe in intelligent design by a God, but you may still believe in directed panspermia. Also, theistic intelligent design is essentially just a subset of theism, so all it really entails is "an atheist is not a theist". That is not enough to call atheism a worldview.


What FORM of atheism you use is irrelevant to whether or not atheism itself is by definition a worldview.


That's inaccurate. A worldview is a collection or set of beliefs that colour or inform our view of the world. Atheism cannot be said to be a collection of beliefs, nor does it necessarily inform or colour our view of the world (as one does not need to be aware of the God concept in order to qualify as an atheist). The definition you are using is so broad that "eating a burger" could be considered a worldview, as someone who is eating a burger has a particular conception of a world in which they are eating a burger.

More accurately, it only adresses a single response to a single aspect of the world.


Again, this is an accurate statement of our position. Nobody has claimed that atheism CANNOT be a particular conception of the world, it's that atheism is not a worldview in and of itself.


Wrong. Atheism deals exclusively with whether or not a person believes there is a God - nothing else. It does not deal with the concepts of revelation or the afterlife and says nothing about either.

I was going to respond myself to Curious George but I would have said pretty much the same as ImmortalFlame did here.

The only thing I might add is that an atheist could very well believe in some kind of afterlife without believing in any deities.

 

[ArtieE]

1. That the possibility of god less than or equal to 50%.

Doesn't believe in the existence of gods.

2. That revelations according to various religions are equally likely or more than likely fabrications.

Doesn't believe "revelations" come from gods.

3. That once life ends one is more than or equally likely to never meet a deity.

Doesn't believe that he will meet a deity once life ends.

A definition of "worldview" is "A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group." What you listed are things an atheist doesn't believe. What does an atheist tell you he believes?

 

[ImmortalFlame]

If a worldview is, as you say, the set of beliefs that inform us, then that stands apart from those beliefs that fail to inform us. Thing is, if someone approaches us to discuss their god and we have sufficient information to engage them on the topic, we do not fail to have beliefs of the world that have informed us, a world where that god or gods occupy a particular niche, be it imagined, mytholigical, or simply mistaken.

That is an atheistic worldview.

Again, you're essentially saying "people have views". That doesn't mean that atheism ITSELF is a worldview. It's like saying "People become vegetarians because they are concerned about animal welfare in slaughterhouses - therefore, if a child has never eaten meat, it must mean that they are concerned about animal welfare."

I have already explained that there IS such a thing as an "atheistic worldview" - that being anyworldview with INCLUDES atheism as a position - but that ATHEISM ITSELF is not a worldview on its own any more tham vegetarianism, not drinking, or not owning a lawnmower can be considered "worldviews" .

 

[ArtieE]

I could for instance talk of a "cat lover's" world view vs. A "dog lover's" worldview.

Not in this context. You could talk about a "cat lover's" world view as opposed to the worldview of a person who is not a cat-lover. What special worldview is required to have to not be a cat-lover?

 

[Willamena]

...Start from atheism, whatever you determine that to be. Assuming you are using the broadest view of lack of belief...

Actually, that's the narrowest. The broadest is rejection of god or gods as something believable.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

world·view
n.
1. The overall perspective from which one sees and interprets the world.
2. A collection of beliefs about life and the universe held by an individual or a group. In both senses also calledWeltanschauung.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/worldview

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Not in this context. You could talk about a "cat lover's" world view as opposed to the worldview of a person who is not a cat-lover. What special worldview is required to have to not be a cat-lover?

Loving cats might be an aspect of an individual's world view, but you can't assume very much from that about other aspects of their world-view. It's possible they hate dogs for example.

 

[Willamena]

Again, you're essentially saying "people have views". That doesn't mean that atheism ITSELF is a worldview. It's like saying "People become vegetarians because they are concerned about animal welfare in slaughterhouses - therefore, if a child has never eaten meat, it must mean that they are concerned about animal welfare."

I have already explained that there IS such a thing as an "atheistic worldview" - that being anyworldview with INCLUDES atheism as a position - but that ATHEISM ITSELF is not a worldview on its own any more tham vegetarianism, not drinking, or not owning a lawnmower can be considered "worldviews" .

People have views, but ideas (essential parts of people) do too. Atheism has a view of the world.

If your objection is only about conflating the term atheism with the atheistic worldview, then fine. But it's neither controversial nor uncommon to conflate the idea with the worldview centered around it. My only objection is in those posts that seem to deny an atheistic worldview.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

My only objection is in those posts that seem to deny an atheistic worldview.

Atheism is not a world-view. A world-view is a collection of beliefs or overall perspective, it is comprised of many aspects for each person.

 

[ArtieE]

Loving cats might be an aspect of an individual's world view.

So could not loving cats. But if I ask a person about his worldview and he answered "my worldview is that I don't love cats" I wouldn't consider that much of an answer.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

So could not loving cats. But if I ask a person about his worldview and he answered "my worldview is that I don't love cats" I wouldn't consider that much of an answer.

Exactly. To get a sense of a person's world-view you would need to ask a long series of questions about their values, beliefs, personality, lifestyle, interests, priorities, politics, religion, etc etc.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

People have views, but ideas (essential parts of people) do too. Atheism has a view of the world.

Which is...?

If your objection is only about conflating the term atheism with the atheistic worldview, then fine.

No, my objection is that there is no such thing as "THE atheist worldview". There are atheistic worldviews, but atheism itself is not a worldview.

But it's neither controversial nor uncommon to conflate the idea with the worldview centered around it.

What worldview?

My only objection is in those posts that seem to deny an atheistic worldview.

Again, I have no problem with people saying there is such a thing as an "atheistic worldview". My problem is with people calling atheism itself a worldview or conflating atheism with unrelated positions. By the definition of a "worldview", atheism is not a worldview. I don't see why this is so difficult to understand. It's no more difficult to understand than saying eating a salad once constitutes a "diet".

 

[Midnight Rain]

The atheistic worldview is an absurd one. Why? Because the atheist views the world as ultimately meaningless and therefore as absurd.

Meaningless and absurd are two different things. Neither is dependent upon another. Meaning is also vague and subjective. So the basis for meaning is also flawed.

 

[Desert Snake]

No, my objection is that there is no such thing as "THE atheist worldview". There are atheistic worldviews, but atheism itself is not a worldview.

/Do you consider theism to be a worldview?

/If atheism is not a worldview, then what is it?

 

[Rick O'Shez]

/If atheism is not a worldview, then what is it?

A disbelief in God. That's it.