Was atheism invented?

[Unveiled Artist]

Now I see it. You answered my question. Good. But you gave no evidence for this: "Being an atheist really has nothing to do with the progress of history and how beliefs in gods came to be."

I "think" you misread it. Since I said development of belief in god is culture based (which signifies we were not born belief in deities but were taught it), then you said you were an atheist. I said but (you) being an atheist has nothing to do with the (facts of) progress in history and how gods came to be (per their culture).

Atheist was addressing you specifically not atheism having nothing to do with history. I think when we started questioning christianity and the church authority in our sciences and so forth we start branching out from theism indoctrination and political power. I "guess" that's the birth of atheism.

So here is a new question: Do you have evidence for that being an atheist really has nothing to do with the progress of history and how beliefs in gods came to be?

Isn't that the same question?

 

[blü 2]

Because to you subjectively in the end only the objective is real.

How do you define real?

To me both the subjective and objective are real as different aspects of the everyday world. That is where it ends.

Then you distinguish subjective and objective just as I do, and all you're objecting to is nomenclature?

I see a fundamental difference between the two ─ self as distinct from other.

We can't subjectively agree on how subjectivity works.

Well, it's only 2021 ...

 

[blü 2]

But that's not relevant to the question I asked.

Just to be clear, what question was that, then?

 

[paarsurrey]

You are right, Paarsurrey. Indo-Europeans after the ice-age began their journey from somewhere around Astrakhan, north of Caspian sea from the valley of River Volga - Yamanaya region. The moved towards west, north, and lastly towards east, probably around 3,000 BCE. They reached India not before 2,000 BCE after the decline of the Indus valley civilization. There were various views among Aryans as it always happens. There were monotheists led by Zoroaster who did not come deep into India, those who came were mostly polytheists. Even Zoroastrian books mention Mitra, Varuna, Indra (Verethragna), Vayu (Wind God), etc. They named them 'Yazatas' (Worthy of worship - derivation from Yajna, the Aryan fire-sacrifice). And there were some atheists too. It is not that all Indo-Ayans had became atheists.

In other words one agrees that the Aryans in large numbers believed in G-d and only some were non-believers, please. Right?
This is true about the Eastern non-believing Atheism people, please. Right?

Regards

 

[Aupmanyav]

Is one sure that this hymn was not interpolated in the Vedas by the non-believers 3000 years ago, earlier the Aryans believed in G-d, ..

As we have today, some people believe in God/Gods, some don't. Even in Aryan times, people had different views, some did not accept existence of God/Gods, some did. Nasadiya Sukta did not make all Aryans into atheists, it was answered by theists by another hymn, that is known a 'Ka'. 'Kasmai devaya havisha vidhema?' (To which God should we pour our libations?). That again is a celebrated hymn of Hinduism and recited at the beginning of all Hindu rituals:

"hiraṇyagharbhaḥ samavartat agre bhūtasya jātaḥ patireka āsīt l
sa dādhāra pṛthivīṃ dyām utemāṃ kasmai devāya haviṣā vidhema ll"

"In the beginning rose Hiranyagarbha, born Only Lord of all created beings.
He fixed and holds up this earth and heaven. What God shall we adore with our oblation?"
Read the hymn here: Rig Veda: Rig-Veda, Book 10: HYMN CXXI. Ka.

In other words one agrees that the Aryans in large numbers believed in G-d and only some were non-believers?

Yes, you are correct here. Most Aryans were theists and had a host of Gods and Goddesses - Rigvedic deities.

 

[eldritchsleep]

??? -- These statements contradict each other.
But a subcategory of atheism is still atheism.

For your first point, how? I honestly do not know where your confusion is. What statement is contradicting which other statement? I am stating that being uncertain if a god exists or does not exists falls within atheism as atheism is being unconvinced that a god exists.
In other words, I am pointing out that what some people claim the definition of agnostic to be is in fact atheism i.e. there isn't a middle ground (the law of the excluded middle). You either believe god exists or you do not believe god exists (a true dichotomy) and saying "I don't know" is still atheism as it is being unconvinced. They are saying "I do not know" to the question of "Does god exist" NOT to "Do you know god exists" which is why it is a belief claim not a knowledge claim, it's just that the expression includes the word "know" in it.
If your answer is "I do not know" to the question of "Do you know god exists" then that is agnosticism. If I made this more confusing I apologize. And yes, anti-theism is still atheism but atheism is not anti-theism. So it is correct to say that an anti-theist is an atheist but the reverse isn't true. Anti-theists actively proclaim that god does not exist (and therefore they obviously are unconvinced that god exists) while an atheist is simply someone who is unconvinced of god existing. An oak is a tree but not all trees are oaks type of situation.

 

[firedragon]

Can’t speak for Greek, but in English, theism does not mean higher power, it means God belief.

A higher power is not a divinity? A deity means something that has a divine status or quality. Higher power is just an English word that speaks it.

 

[firedragon]

What is a "Higher Power" for atheists?

A God, a divinity, a flower, a human being or a flying teacup?

 

[firedragon]

I feel like some of the atheists have resorted to the same polemics the theologians resort to when they get into the group mentality and feel like their group is attacked.

I would like to ask those who responded. What does "Higher Power" mean in these two articles?

1. 10 facts about atheists
2. Americans' beliefs about the nature of God

I understand that Atheism is not believing in any theism or even anti-theism. Its pretty simple. But the atheists seem to grapple with the fact that some atheists yet believe in a "higher power". That goes against the definition atheism. But this is normal as anything can become an identity statement. But some atheists are fighting to redefine and reinterpret "Higher Power" to defend the tribe. I find it highly contradicting because atheists claim they are not a religion, while they also claim the religious people do just the same thing they are doing.

Thus. Let me ask again.

What does "Higher Power" mean in these two articles?

1. 10 facts about atheists
2. Americans' beliefs about the nature of God

 

[eldritchsleep]

I feel like some of the atheists have resorted to the same polemics the theologians resort to when they get into the group mentality and feel like their group is attacked.

I would like to ask those who responded. What does "Higher Power" mean in these two articles?

1. 10 facts about atheists
2. Americans' beliefs about the nature of God

I understand that Atheism is not believing in any theism or even anti-theism. Its pretty simple. But the atheists seem to grapple with the fact that some atheists yet believe in a "higher power". That goes against the definition atheism. But this is normal as anything can become an identity statement. But some atheists are fighting to redefine and reinterpret "Higher Power" to defend the tribe. I find it highly contradicting because atheists claim they are not a religion, while they also claim the religious people do just the same thing they are doing.

Thus. Let me ask again.

What does "Higher Power" mean in these two articles?

1. 10 facts about atheists
2. Americans' beliefs about the nature of God

Higher Power I believe would either be contextual or need further defining. Traditionally in English the term Higher Power typically denotes a deity of some sort. Most importantly, we need to know what "higher power" or "spiritual force" meant to the atheists being asked the question, not how the articles define the terms.

I'm coming into this discussion kind of late so I don't know what the point of even bringing this up is. It isn't important (at least to me) what other atheists consider higher powers, only what I do and what it is to the person I am talking about. If I am talking to a Christian about their religion, I want their definitions, not some online articles definition of Christianity or even the popes.

With that side tangent passed, the articles seem to equate higher power to something supernatural especially a god but not necessarily limited to such. The second article refers to a "higher power of some kind, but not in God as described in the Bible." The first article explains that atheists in the U.S., as defined by the dictionary, "fit this description: 81% say they do not believe in God or a higher power or in a spiritual force of any kind."

Again, I am unaware of the context of this discussion in general as I came in late. To me, an atheist, a higher power could be anything that is super-human but of greater influence and I would include demi-gods, titans, avatars, immortals, kami, deities, genii, jinn, demons, devils, angels & their order, sufficiently powerful extradimensional aliens, and so on to be included in this. So to me personally, higher power does not necessarily mean only deities. So, if I were to be asked this by this survey, I would say no. However, an atheist that did believe in say...supernatural immoral beings or even eldritch horrors that were technically aliens but could travel through dimensions or time in the vein of Lovecraft might say yes.

 

[Valjean]

For your first point, how? I honestly do not know where your confusion is. What statement is contradicting which other statement? I am stating that being uncertain if a god exists or does not exists falls within atheism as atheism is being unconvinced that a god exists.

You said:
"Theism and Atheism are claims of belief. Either someone is convinced a deity exists or they are not. Not knowing whether a god exists or not is literally being unconvinced a god exists and therefore falls within atheism."
Not knowing and believing are two different things. A "claim of belief" is a positive assertion.
Not knowing or being unconvinced is not. They make no claims and are not beliefs.

In other words, I am pointing out that what some people claim the definition of agnostic to be is in fact atheism i.e. there isn't a middle ground (the law of the excluded middle). You either believe god exists or you do not believe god exists (a true dichotomy) and saying "I don't know" is still atheism as it is being unconvinced.

Exactly.
Not knowing, ie: withholding judgement pending evidence, is your basic atheism. It also conforms to the definition of agnosticism as "not knowing."
I see no disagreement, here.

They are saying "I do not know" to the question of "Does god exist" NOT to "Do you know god exists" which is why it is a belief claim not a knowledge claim, it's just that the expression includes the word "know" in it.
If your answer is "I do not know" to the question of "Do you know god exists" then that is agnosticism.

Again, No disagreement; although definition of agnosticism as not knowing is falling out of favor. There's too much overlap with weak atheism for philosophical precision.
The trend is for agnosticism to be the positive claim that the existence of a deity is ontologically unknowable.

If I made this more confusing I apologize. And yes, anti-theism is still atheism but atheism is not anti-theism. So it is correct to say that an anti-theist is an atheist but the reverse isn't true. Anti-theists actively proclaim that god does not exist (and therefore they obviously are unconvinced that god exists) while an atheist is simply someone who is unconvinced of god existing. An oak is a tree but not all trees are oaks type of situation.

Agreed. Atheism comes in many flavors, but a definition is a single factor common to all subdivisions. That would be lack of belief.

 

[Valjean]

A higher power is not a divinity? A deity means something that has a divine status or quality. Higher power is just an English word that speaks it.

"Higher power" does not necessarily imply a conscious personage. Gravity is a higher power. Electromagnetism, and the weak and strong interactions are higher powers.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

If God was invented by priests, then godlessness was invented by atheists? How is it better then?

An atheist Bob might reply: "By analogy, smokers have invented smoking; and who then has invented non-smoking? Non-smokers, maybe?"

Me in reply: "Non-smoking as well as a sober lifestyle was invented by the Ministry of Health."

Bob: "Atheism is based on the achievements of science and its evidence, and religion is based only on legends and blind faith."

Me: "Atheism is unscientific because the Supposed Death of God is not scientifically proven. Faith in Wikipedia is defined (with peer-reviewed references) as loyalty, faithfulness to Omniscience. After all, God knows everything.

This is extremely silly, even for your standards.

Tell me, who invented "not playing football"?

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

How do you define real?
...

Well, I can define define in 2 ways.

• Here is one way: Any definition is by definition true of the world as such and not just an usage of words and an explanation of how a word is understood and used. Example: blü 2 means by definition an irrational human that is not in reality and not real. But you wouldn't accept that in all likelihood.
• Here is the other: A definition of a word denotes its usage by humans, but says nothing about its truth as in connection with the rest of the world. Example: God means the creator of the world.

So which definition of definition are we going to use? The one where the definition of real is automatically true, correct and so of the world as such, because I say so. Or one where we are skeptical of any word and its definition in regards to the rest of the world?

So back to you. Which version do you want me to use?
Do you want me to win by definition? I can do that. blü 2 means by definition an irrational human that is not in reality and not real. Or we can both be skeptical of all words and not just some words, and not use definitions, but rather check our understanding and how it works.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[blü 2]

Well, I can define define in 2 ways.

• Here is one way: Any definition is by definition true of the world as such and not just an usage of words and an explanation of how a word is understood and used. Example: blü 2 means by definition an irrational human that is not in reality and not real. But you wouldn't accept that in all likelihood.
• Here is the other: A definition of a word denotes its usage by humans, but says nothing about its truth as in connection with the rest of the world. Example: God means the creator of the world.

Ahm, thanks, but it was your definition of "real" that I asked you for.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Ahm, thanks, but it was your definition of "real" that I asked you for.

Well, you are framing if you only accept one definition of definition. So I will use one definition of definition, because there is not only one definition of definition: the action or the power of describing, explaining, or making definite and clear.
Definition of DEFINITION

I could describe how the word "real" is used, explain how its usage can change depending on how it is understood and make clear how different understandings of real get different results.
So if you don't subjectively accept my subjective usage of definition and use another, it ends here. You apparently don't accept in effect, that I can do it differently, because you define as true what all the world is for all humans as we, because you are in effect the correct source of the proper and true definition of what the world is and what we are as humans for an universal we.

That is the game. We are playing in effect limited cognitive relativism. Not that the world is subjective as such nor that it is objective as such, but that there is a limited variation of how the world is to a human, including you and I, that can't be done just objectively.
The joke is, that if you don't catch, when you are subjective and claim, that you are objective, you can subjectively deny that my variation as subjective is relevant, because your subjectivity is the only relevant subjectively as it is an in effect objective standard, because you subjectively think so.
That is not unique to religious humans, but rather it is common in some humans including non-religious humans.

So here it is in all its absurdity. You have do it before, namely you speak for a we that is all humans. I then treat that claim as a falsifiable statement and the falsification is ,that your "we" is not a part of objective reality. It is in you, in your brain as a subjective behavior for which I just don't accept your "we" and do it differently. That is all.
And for real, here it is as science observed as behavior in humans including you and I, because we can be studied for how we subjectively act.
"
THOMAS THEOREM
QUICK REFERENCE
A concept formulated by the American sociologist William Isaac Thomas (1863–1967) that ‘“*facts” do not have a uniform existence apart from the persons who observe and interpret them. Rather, the “real” facts are the ways in which different people come into and define situations’. Famously, as he and his research assistant and wife Dorothy Swaine Thomas (1899–1977) put it in 1928, ‘If men define situations as real, they are real in their consequences’. Such a ‘subjective’ definition of the situation by a social actor, group, or subculture is what Merton came to call a self-fulfilling prophecy (as in cases of ‘mind over matter’). It is at the heart of symbolic interactionism. See also constructionism; frame of reference; framing; perspectivism."
https://www.oxfordreference.com/view/10.1093/oi/authority.20110803104247382

So if you want to play science for the word "real", we are playing sociology, psychology and a host of other sciences, which treat subjectivity as real and some times different in different humans.

So what frame of yours is it, I must accept as real not just for you, but for all humans a we? Well, it is that you are always objective, with reason, logic and evidence, even when you are not.
So here is the definition of real that you want: You and a limited set of humans and not all humans are the only real humans, because you as a limited sub-group of humans, have by definition the correct understanding of the world.

And all I do, is to contline to do it differently in a limited, real set of cases of differences in subjectivity.

Regards
Mikkel

 

[blü 2]

I could describe how the word "real" is used

Just tell me the test you use to determine whether something is "real" in the sense of having objective existence, existing independently of the concept of it in any particular brain.

 

[mikkel_the_dane]

Just tell me the test you use to determine whether something is "real" in the sense of having objective existence,

That I or any other human can't control it using only our brains*. But that in turn depends on that I understand objective existence differently than you.

*That is the short dirty version, but it is even more complex.
And that is not the only version of real.

For real, as with philosophy and based on observation of how the word is used in practice, the closed you can get is this:
Trouser-word - zxc.wiki
"
In John Langshaw Austin's philosophy of language, trouser-word is a term that is not itself defined in terms of content, but only receives a meaning through the contrast to its negation.

According to Austin, terms are usually defined by their own criteria. In order to know what it means that something is X (or is an X), one has to know the criteria for it. Only with this knowledge can one say when something is not X (or not X). With trouser-words it is exactly the opposite: something is Y if it does not meet any of the criteria of not being Y. Typical examples for Austin are real and direct . Without z. For example, to know what it means that something is not a real duck, there is also no difference in content between the terms a duck and a real duck . Only in the context of B. a toy duck or a picture of a duck, the predicate real gives a meaning, which is different depending on the context-dependent definition of a fake duck."

So here is, how I was taught, what real is using a real duck.
You know about ponds, right? Now imagine a small pond. That is not a real pond, because you imagine it, but it is real that you can imagine a pond. In this pond are 2 ducks. A real duck and an unreal duck, because it is a decoy duck, but it is a real decoy duck.

So I am skeptic, because I can doubt that the word "real" has only one proper definition.

 

[SalixIncendium]

Are you being serious? Of course children have to be taught about religion and their gods. Children only know what they are taught.

Yes, I am. If you go back and look, I didn't say they're born knowing about religions and their gods. That notion is just plain silly. Just as silly as saying a child is born with no predisposition to a belief in or knowledge of something greater than them.

In my view, the causal body which contains the impressions of one's experiences over many lifetimes is inherent to every life, even at birth. In my understanding, this is what forms personality, disposition, and tendencies toward theism, atheism, or neither.

Putting it plainly, we don't know whether or not a child is born an atheist, and to my knowledge, there is no way to test this.

 

[firedragon]

Gravity is a higher power.

See, rather than making guess work to save your kind, why dont you read up on the research and prove that they were indeed talking about gravity.

This kind of apologetics is worse than the most dogmatic religious missionaries. Making up polemics on the go.