Poll: Are all babies atheist?

[Jayhawker Soule]

If you don't know about/have an understanding of a concept, you can't believe it exists.

It's late - or early - it's hard to know which. Nevertheless he groggily rolls out of bed and, as he's done countless times before, makes his way to the kitchen. He raises his hand to the light switch ...

He stops. The hand begins to tremble. Sweat breaks out on his forehead, and his forlorn cry could be heard throughout the house:

Holy crap - I don't understand electricity!​

 

[outhouse]

AFAIK, atheism means:
Atheism | Define Atheism at Dictionary.com

lets break it down.


Atheism - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary

a disbelief in the existence of deity

disbelief - definition of disbelief by the Free Online Dictionary, Thesaurus and Encyclopedia.

1. the inability or refusal to believe or to accept something as true.




By definition babaies have the inability to believe

Combined with the lack of theism, makes them atheist.

 

[Willamena]

How can you believe in a concept that you're not familiar with or aware of?


You don't need to believe in a concept in order to understand its premise, but you need to understand the premise to believe in the concept.

I argued those points myself. Understanding and belief are separate things, and their negations are similarly distinct. You can understand god or not on one hand, and you can not believe in god on the other, but only one of those is atheism.

 

[LuisDantas]

Wikipedia has some references at the bottom of the page.
History of atheism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

AFAIK, atheism means:
Atheism | Define Atheism at Dictionary.com

What in the second definition:

disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.

would not apply to babies?

 

[Willamena]

would not apply to babies?

It's for you to decide if the inability to believe implies the capacity to believe.

 

[LuisDantas]

You did not answer my question. Anyway, capacity and inability exclude each other, don't they?

 

[Willamena]

capacity and inability exclude each other, don't they?

On one hand I have the capacity to give birth, being that I am fully functional female, and on the other I have either the ability or inability to give birth. The second hand may be exclusive if it represents physical problems, but it may also be represented by psychological or circumstantial problems that speak nothing of the capacity.

The world is not so black and white that things must be this way and no other, but on the other hand definition is easy and works best when it's not complicated by extraeous concepts.

 

[LuisDantas]

And that applies to babies how?

 

[Willamena]

And that applies to babies how?

I answered your question about capacity and inability being exclusive. I don't believe they are.

It's not relevant to the discussion, but was an interesting question.

 

[LuisDantas]

Well, it turns out that I don't think your attempt at defining inability and capacity as not mutually exclusive was succesful either. It can be made to work, but not quite in the way you presented them above.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

Well, it turns out that I don't think your attempt at defining inability and capacity as not mutually exclusive was succesful either.

The success or failure of such an attempt may well depend as much if not more on the listener.

 

[Magic Man]

Regardless that they have a relationship, "the absence of understanding" and "the absence of belief" are two different things. Atheism is only defined by one of those things.

If you don't know about something, you can't believe in it. So, if you don't have knowledge/understanding of gods, you necessarily lack belief in them. Hence, if you don't know about gods, you don't believe in them, and you're an atheist.

 

[LuisDantas]

The success or failure of such an attempt may well depend as much if not more on the listener.

And on his expectations, goals and premises, yes. I think I have said as much.

I am still wondering what else would you demand of babies to acknowledge them as fully-entitled atheists.

 

[Magic Man]

It's late - or early - it's hard to know which. Nevertheless he groggily rolls out of bed and, as he's done countless times before, makes his way to the kitchen. He raises his hand to the light switch ...

He stops. The hand begins to tremble. Sweat breaks out on his forehead, and his forlorn cry could be heard throughout the house:

Holy crap - I don't understand electricity!​

This might be relevant, if we were talking about having to understand an idea, but we're not. You must have confused "have an understanding of" with "understand". I guess it's an easy mistake.

 

[Jayhawker Soule]

I am still wondering what else would you demand of babies to acknowledge them as fully-entitled atheists.

"fully-entitled" no less. :biglaugh:

I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that your definition equates babies and pet rocks as fully-entitled atheists.

 

[Alex_G]

I'd like to garner some idea of how many people believe what about the topic of babies being atheist.

The issue is in regard to 'atheism' being a response to 'theism', having some other relationship with 'theism', or having no relationship to 'theism'.

Holding beliefs is very characteristically adult thing to do. As we grow older we get more stubborn, more rooted in what we know and what we think, more closed off to embracing change or new things, making 'beliefs' an ever increasing aspect of who we are and how we identify ourselves. We move from a more explorative stance to a more defensive one.

Young children are the opposite of this, being utterly open to new experiences, ideas and perspectives. They live in questions, and are as free from the burden of beliefs as we get.

So in answer to the OP, its almost the wrong question. Yes i would agree that babies and young (uninfluenced) children lack any theological beliefs, and as such any express a-theological beliefs, because having beliefs like that in the first place is not in their nature. I'd rather label them as pre-(a)theists, in an attempt to convey that they are before such considerations become a major aspect of who they are.

 

[LuisDantas]

"fully-entitled" no less. :biglaugh:

We're a stern bunch. No half-membership allowed. Only full rights, full recognition is to ever be considered.

Tough, I know, but so are the breaks.

I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that your definition equates babies and pet rocks as fully-entitled atheists.

Of course it does. And it should.

 

[Magic Man]

I am perfectly willing to acknowledge that your definition equates babies and pet rocks as fully-entitled atheists.

His may or may not, but mine only allows for babies, not pet rocks, since pet rocks aren't persons.

 

[Willamena]

Are dead theists atheists?

(I won't clutter the forum with a new thread for such a silly question.)

 

[Me Myself]

Are dead theists atheists?

(I won't clutter the forum with a new thread for such a silly question.)

Depends on whose right in the afterlife department.

If no afterlife, then dead theists are no more