I see no value in atheism

[ImmortalFlame]

No, it would not. Cabbage is not meat.

And someone who doesn't believe in God isn't a theist.

 

[Curious George]

And someone who doesn't believe in God isn't a theist.

Your conflating truth and semantics.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Your conflating truth and semantics.

No more than you are when you assert that cabbage is not meat. These are terms were use to refer to things. The word theist no more applies to a person who doesn't believe in God than the word "meat" applies to a cabbage. It is TRUE that an atheist doesn't believe in a God and a theist does, and it is TRUE that a person who doesn't believe in a God therefore is not a theist, just as it it TRUE that cabbage is not a meat and therefore TRUE that eating cabbage doesn't mean you are not a vegetarian.

 

[Curious George]

Words have meanings.


That depends entirely on what criteria I use to separate them.


No it would not, because it was what was required of me, and it is a distinction that exists. The definitions of atheism and theism require us to separate those who believe in God from those who do not believe in God, which is a distinction that exists. Please stop throwing the word "arbitrary" around like some sort of magic trump card.

Lol, what is reason we need to define atheism and theism as you suggest? Because other people before us did? And what was their reason? Because people before them did? Are we going to chase this train back? Ok what is the historical reasoning for the definitions as you want them? Unless there is a reason...I am terribly afraid that the decision was...arbitrary.

Now my approach is reasoned, therefore not arbitrary. The choice to go with my system over another may or may not be arbitrary. Depending on the other options and how we choose.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

Lol, what is reason we need to define atheism and theism as you suggest?

Because it's what the words mean. I'm not telling you you HAVE to define it that way - people can have all kinds of personal definitions for words if they like - but I object to people telling me that my definition which is consistent with every definition I have ever found in any dictionary is somehow "arbitrary". It's no different than not using the word "meat" to refer to a cabbage. Because words refer to specific things, and while people can interpret words differently you cannot just chuck out the dictionary definition of a word and call it "arbitrary" for no good reason.

Because other people before us did? And what was their reason? Because people before them did? Are we going to chase this train back? Ok what is the historical reasoning for the definitions as you want them? Unless there is a reason...I am terribly afraid that the decision was...arbitrary.

I don't care about historical usage. I use the term as it is currently defined.

Now my approach is reasoned, therefore not arbitrary.

Saying that someone who doesn't believe in God can be considered a theist is not reasoned. That is no different to saying cabbage is meat.

The choice to go with my system over another may or may not be arbitrary. Depending on the other options and how we choose.

I'm beginning to think you just think the word "arbitrary" means "anything that doesn't fit my personal definition".

 

[Curious George]

No more than you are when you assert that cabbage is not meat. These are terms were use to refer to things. The word theist no more applies to a person who doesn't believe in God than the word "meat" applies to a cabbage. It is TRUE that an atheist doesn't believe in a God and a theist does, and it is TRUE that a person who doesn't believe in a God therefore is not a theist, just as it it TRUE that cabbage is not a meat and therefore TRUE that eating cabbage doesn't mean you are not a vegetarian.

No, if you labeled cabbage a meat, the vegetarian would no longer not eat meat. They would not eat animal or make some other distinction. That you change a label does not change the idea behind the label.

We are talking about the idea behind the label and not merely the label.

 

[ImmortalFlame]

No, if you labeled cabbage a meat, the vegetarian would no longer not eat meat. They would not eat animal or make some other distinction. That you change a label does not change the idea behind the label.

We are talking about the idea behind the label and not merely the label.

I know. And just as the labels "cabbage" and "meat" and their associated ideas can lead you to state "cabbage is not meat", I can state the the labels "theist" and "God" and their associated ideas can lead me to state "someone who does not believe in a God isn't a theist". I really see no reason why you're able to accept "cabbage is not meat", but you're utterly resistant and stubborn to the suggestion that atheism and theism refer to specific things, or that using their actual definitions is somehow arbitrary? Isn't "cabbage is not meat" an equally "arbitrary" distinction by this logic?

 

[dgirl1986]

You can't be serious?

You actually know of the concept of god.....you have heard of it, read about it, etc., and decided to believe it was not true...you disbelieve..yes?

Forget about amazonian tribesman....your example is nonsense..nay..insane,,,let's get it from the horse's mouth...give me an example of a disbelief you have of something that you do not know exists?

Just because there is a concept or an idea doesnt mean that it is true or even a good one.

I might have an idea to commit mass murder and say it is in worship of the star/planet pluto. Pretty sure there is no deification of pluto but no one knows for sure that it doesnt exist. Does that mean people should commit mass murder to honor it?

 

[Ben Dhyan]

Just because there is a concept or an idea doesnt mean that it is true or even a good one.

I might have an idea to commit mass murder and say it is in worship of the star/planet pluto. Pretty sure there is no deification of pluto but no one knows for sure that it doesnt exist. Does that mean people should commit mass murder to honor it?

No concept is equal to that which it is meant to represent...none at all...the only thing true about concepts is that they are mental constructs that symbolize something..

What I am saying is that an atheist has to have heard of a concept of God and form an idea of the reality it represents before they judge it to be not existing... iow..they can't be an atheist until they have heard of the concept of god and believe that their idea of god formed from the concept is not plausible...atheists must have an idea of god in their mind!

As to your comment about mass murder and star worship...I am lost as to context and relevance to anything I have said?

 

[McBell]

No concept is equal to that which it is meant to represent...none at all...the only thing true about concepts is that they are mental constructs that symbolize something..

What I am saying is that an atheist has to have heard of a concept of God and form an idea of the reality it represents before they judge it to be not existing... iow..they can't be an atheist until they have heard of the concept of god and believe that their idea of god formed from the concept is not plausible...atheists must have an idea of god in their mind!

Do you believe in Mriswiths?

According to you you cannot not believe in them until you know what they are...

 

[Willamena]

Not really. It's very simple: the question is whether or not to believe a claim, dividing the debate into "those who do" versus "those who don't" is a lot simpler than dividing the debate into multiple categories from the outset.

Does atheism mean not believing in god or not believing in a claim made about god?

 

[outhouse]

What I am saying is that an atheist has to have heard of a concept of God and form an idea of the reality it represents before they judge it to be not existing... iow..they can't be an atheist until they have heard of the concept of god and believe that their idea of god formed from the concept is not plausible...atheists must have an idea of god in their mind!

You have never heard of implicit atheism have you.

One can be an atheist and not make a conscious rejection of theism, that is how it is defined. It is not up for debate

 

[outhouse]

Does atheism mean not believing in god or not believing in a claim made about god?

Both and more.

 

[McBell]

Does atheism mean not believing in god or not believing in a claim made about god?

Atheism is lack of a belief concerning god and or the belief there is no god.

 

[Bunyip]

No I don't. I haven't said anything about that. I might believe neither team 'A' nor team 'B' will win. I might believe in a draw. Or I might not have any positive beliefs who will win at all."Not believing god exists" makes me a weak atheist (not theist) without a belief. "Believing god doesn't exist" makes me a strong atheist with a belief.

Other than semantics, I see no meaningful difference between 'not believing god exists' and 'believing god doesn't exist'. It is the same position just worded slightly differently.

 

[McBell]

Other than semantics, I see no meaningful difference between 'not believing god exists' and 'believing god doesn't exist'. It is the same position just worded slightly differently.

Dismissing the difference does not make the difference go away.

 

[Bunyip]

Dismissing the difference does not make the difference go away.

What difference?

 

[Willamena]

Why? What does it matter? How is that in any way meaningful or indicative of anything wrong in my definition?

You quoted me, but of a post I never made.

 

[Willamena]

Once again, you are just asserting something is arbitrary without making any real argument. How is this distinction arbitrary? If I worked in a factory that made balls of multiple different colours, and the boss told me to sort all of the balls into two piles - one red and the other not red, and I proceed ed to sort the balls into one pile of red balls and one pile of every ball that isn't red I have not just assembled two "arbitrary" piles of balls. I have sorted the balls into two clear categories. How is this arbitrary?

Not-red is not a proper property. However much we may use them in language, non-existent properties don't exist.

 

[Curious George]

Because it's what the words mean. I'm not telling you you HAVE to define it that way - people can have all kinds of personal definitions for words if they like - but I object to people telling me that my definition which is consistent with every definition I have ever found in any dictionary is somehow "arbitrary". It's no different than not using the word "meat" to refer to a cabbage. Because words refer to specific things, and while people can interpret words differently you cannot just chuck out the dictionary definition of a word and call it "arbitrary" for no good reason.


I don't care about historical usage. I use the term as it is currently defined.


Saying that someone who doesn't believe in God can be considered a theist is not reasoned. That is no different to saying cabbage is meat.


I'm beginning to think you just think the word "arbitrary" means "anything that doesn't fit my personal definition".

Arbitrary is without system or reason. Random is arbitrary. Could have gone either way is arbitrary. No relevant distinction is arbitrary. Choosing to define atheism as not a theist is arbitrary. The best answer you have given so far is relating to the prefix a- however, the prefix a- and in- are similar in that they negate. That the term was historically used to denote a belief that a particular deity or deities did not exist tells us much of its use. There is no intheistic, or imtheistic so the need to distinguish people who were unsure or babies or rocks did not come about until later. You must know all of this, this is not the first time you have participated in a "definition of atheism" type thread. That Christians distorted the term does bear some relevance. For I guess they had their reasons (to spread Christianity). Sorry if I don't recognize that as a valid reason.

But let us get back to the distinction we can either choose y not y or x not x. Unless we have a reason or a system to choose the choice is arbitrary. Your reason is one of two things "it is common definition," or based on the prefix "a" you can rationalize that this must incude the not x and the y categories of which you earlier spoke.

Regarding the prefix we have legion to thank:

"for Herodotus, the problem of describing foreign religions could be reduced to the question 'which (other) gods do they worship and how'. In such an environment atheism was simply unthinkable. The term atheos did not originate before the fifth century and even then indicated only a lack of relations with the gods."

Bremmer, J. (1994). Greek Religion (Greece & Rome: New Surveys in the Classics vol. 24). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

The word "atheist" and cognates were coined not as "plays" on atheos but in line with the then (and present) tendency among the French, Italians, and English to coin words based on the (relatively recently rediscovered) Greek language, which had been relegated to the dustbins in the West but preserved by the Muslims. There isn't even any indication that it was actually based on atheos rather than simply the Greek prefix and the Greek word for deity. In the case of agnosticism, we know that it was the prefix and that "gnostic" had nothing to do with the Greek word, but with atheism we have a Latin suffix on a Greek word that could also be a Greek word and a Greek prefix to indicate what atheos did not.



Christians were called atheoi (the Greek nominative plural for theos). Everybody believed in the gods, and even the few possible exceptions are questionable. For example, in the Apology, when Socrates is accused of impiety and irreligion he says "θεοὺς μὴ νομίζειν" ("to not honor or deem worthy the gods"). Because of the way Greek tends towards polysemy far more than English (we coin words rather than extend meaning) those who few whom we think might actually have not believed in gods didn't likely think gods didn't exist.



Which will never happen, alas. But this need not mean we run wild with definitions by claiming that atheism, a word that has been used do define a denial of the existence of god for half a millennium should suddenly indicate some default epistemic state possessed by children. Particularly when, if anything, a predisposition towards religious views appears to be empirically supportable (a problem, in my view).



Of course it is a description. But language is intersubjective. If someone tells me they're a warrior I might ask if they were a marine, but I wouldn't as how long they'd been studying accounting. The fact that concepts (and therefore words) do not have sharp boundaries does not mean they have no boundaries.



Ironically, we had a problem with "painter" in the same fMRI study I mentioned earlier in this thread where we looked at how inclination towards spirituality vs. materialism influenced concepts both naturally associated with this axis (e.g., rabbi) and not (e.g., professor) were organized in the brain. We figured out in the trials, thankfully, that people were sometimes thinking of painters as people who e.g., paint houses, but we meant artists.



An identifier that doesn't identify is no longer an identifier. To say that atheism is defined as "not theism" when theism itself is a nebulous category, and to mean by it that infants are, is to render the term useless. This is, in fact, the goal of many. However, language does not work like this. As long as the term pertains to a meaningful distinction about one's views of god that is distinct from others like agnosticism, it will remain in use, whether the New Atheism wills or no.

And regarding the meaning again legion to thank.

This is an extremely recent development. For a very long time the word meant not to worship the gods or impiety, a sense that lasted from ancient Greek to Milton and arguably after.

Spoiler: an 1821 example

"Ye Gods infernal! hear us from the gloom
Of Venerable depths remote, unseen
Hear us, ye guardians of the stained tomb
Majestic Pluto- and thou, Stygian Queen,
On the dark bosom learning of Great Dis-
Thou reconciled Star of the Abyss.

Blood, not for you, unholy hands have pour'd
Ye heard the shriek of your insulted shrine
Barbarian blasphemies, and rites abhorr'd
Pollute the place that hath been long divine
Ye heard the shriek of your insulted shrine
Borne from its wounded breast an atheist cry
Hath pierced the upper and the nether sky."
from vol. II of John Gibson Lockhart's 1821 novel Valerius

The great atheist philosophers who contributed so much to culture, learning, philosophy, and more were quite clear that the position "atheist" was a deliberate stance. Hence Huxley's coining of the term "agnostic":

"The story of how Huxley came to invent the term 'agnostic' in 1869 is well known. Huxley's account in 'Agnosticism' emphasizes his embarrassment among members of the Metaphysical Society, which included many of the leading intellectual figures of the day, when he found himself metaphorically naked, without a label to describe his philosophical position. While most of the other members were '-ists of one sort or another', Huxley was a man ' without a rag of a label to cover himself with'. So he invented what he thought to be the 'appropriate title of " agnostic " ', which had come to him as 'suggestively antithetic to the "gnostic " of Church history, who professed to know so much about the very things of which I was ignorant'."

Lightman, B. (2002). Huxley and scientific agnosticism: The strange history of a failed rhetorical strategy. The British Journal for the History of Science, 35(03), 271-289.

Only with the "new atheist", led by those who have in general done nothing but produce inferior works that are travesties compared to those of their forebears, have we found the rhetorical strategy largely bereft of logic or meaning that seeks to define atheism as a kind of default position, thereby side-stepping the need to produce the great intellectual works such as those by Nietzsche, Sartre, Freud, Marx, Feuerbach, etc.:
"Georgetown theologian John Haught (2008, xi) has commented that “the new atheism is so theologically unchallenging. Its engagement with theology lies at about the same level of reflection on faith that one can find in contemporary creationist and fundamentalist literature.” He states also that “Their understanding of religious faith remains consistently at the same unscholarly level as the unreflective, superstitious, and literalist religiosity of those they criticize” (2008, xiii). Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga (2007), in his critique of The God Delusion opined, “You might say that some of his forays into philosophy are at best sophomoric, but that would be unfair to sophomores; the fact is (grade inflation aside), many of his arguments would receive a failing grade in a sophomore philosophy class.” To summarize, critics have pointed out the lack of philosophical and theological sophistication of the New Atheists, who they accuse of holding to an ill-informed conception of what religious beliefs really are. Furthermore, they accuse the new atheists of a self-serving, predatory selectiveness in choosing their battle partners."
Falcioni, R. C. (2010). "Is God a Hypothesis? The New Atheism, Contemporary Philosophy of Religion, and Philosophical Confusion" in A. Amarasingam (Ed.) Religion and the New Atheism: A Critical Appraisal (Studies in Critical Social Sciences, Vol. 25). Brill.


It should. Atheism is a venerable philosophical an intellectual tradition that asserts a position on the nature of reality, morality, humanity, etc. There are absolutely still atheists of this type:
"atheism casts a wider net and rejects all belief in "spiritual beings," and to the extent that belief in spiritual beings is definitive of what it is for a belief-system to be religious, atheism rejects religion. Thus, it is not only a rejection of the central conceptions of Judeo-Christianity; it is, as well, a rejection of the religious beliefs of such African religions as those of the Dinka and the Nuer, the anthropomorphic gods of classical Greece and Rome, and the transcendental conceptions of Hinduism and Buddhism...To be atheists we need to deny the existence of God."
(italics in original; emphasis added)
Nielson, K. (2005). Atheism & Philosophy. Prometheus.

Nielson doesn't stand alone: Nicholas Everitt, William Rowe, Nick Trakakis, Robin Le Poidevin, and various others to varying degrees (e.g., Michael Martin or Antony Flew for most of his life) continue to treat atheism seriously (as opposed to Dawkins, Harris, Hitchen, Dennett, Stenger, Steele, etc.).



Or one could avoid logical contradictions an nonsensical phrasings such as "lack of belief" and recognize that there is nothing gained but much lost when one asserts that atheism is some default position and doesn't entail epistemic or ontological claims.

So we have two definitions, one requires the use of all sorts of qualifying subcategories to explain, and another which we get from negation that has historical backing. While the etymology may normally give us a clue the etymology for atheist is at least ambiguous. It seems to me your reasons are dwindling. Ready to admit it is arbitrary? I assume not. So tell me what is the reason to define it so? It is not history, and it is not etymology, and the fact that one definition is questionably of common acceptance--see quagmires posts on the subject--still doesn't lend a reason. Now there is a word for deciding something without reason, or system...oh yeah, "arbitrary."