What do people think "atheist" means?

[ArtieE]

You mean; Don't believe God exists. Which is not a claim is it?

Legion seems to be on some sort of crusade determined to make sure that when people hear the word atheist they think: "Psalms 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good." I am trying to advocate that we use the definition "not theist" which has less negative baggage. It seems very important to him that theists should look down on people calling themselves atheists.

 

[Bunyip]

Legion seems to be on some sort of crusade determined to make sure that when people hear the word atheist they think: "Psalms 14:1 The fool has said in his heart, There is no God. They are corrupt, they have done abominable works, there is none that does good." I am trying to advocate that we use the definition "not theist" which has less negative baggage. It seems very important to him that theists should look down on people calling themselves atheists.

I think that all the arguing about correct definitions is superceded in futility only by trying to re-organise words to make a claim out of disbelief with word play alone.
As if such a simple semantic trick could carry any weight.

 

[Norrin-6-]

Wrong. It is quite certainly true that rocks and weeds don't believe god exists. It is just as certainly true that they can't believe god doesn't exit.

Same difference as microevolution and macroevolution - atheism and agnosticism in your view.

Proper negation is essential. It can be said of anything incapable of belief that, for any claim X, that thing doesn't believe X (this includes statements like "crows are black" and "crows aren't black", because a rock doesn't believe either statement is true, while it is impossible for anybody to logically believe that one statement is true but believe the other isn't).

It's not impossible to not believe both until further evidence is presented. Simple, really.

Time was, physics didn't have "interpretations". There were not families of interpretations for Newtonian mechanics, electromagnetism, etc. There are, however, families of interpretations of quantum mechanics. Most physicists would agree that they don't believe gravitation to exist. Few would say they believe gravitation doesn't exist (gravity is perhaps the unsolved problem of modern physics).

Not sure what your point is. Can I have some of what you are smoking though?

In conversation, we frequently say things like "I believe he's at home", "I believe Kepler's laws were proved by Newton", "I don't believe that's the day", or "I believe it's happening tomorrow". Such mental state predicates belong to the (linguistic) realm of epistemic modality: they express our degrees of certainty, much like "I don't think Kepler's laws were proved until Newton" or "I guess he might be at home." They are important for discourse precisely (albeit not solely) because they allow us to distinguish between not believing and believing not. That is, they allow us to express our views in terms of doubt rather than negation.

I agree. So what are you refuting with this?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Legion seems to be on some sort of crusade determined to make sure that when people hear the word atheist they think

This would be true. It is in fact my position: using thought when using language. Unfortunately, you seem opposed to this practice (at least insofar as by "thought" we mean "rational/analytic/logical reasoning"). You would prefer to forego logic AND language (usage) in favor of a definition which you invent to ignore both.
I sometimes wonder what the great atheist minds like Nietzsche, Sartre, Freud, Marx, Russell, etc., would say in response to the anti-intellectual "new atheism" in which reason, logic, and evidence are thrown to the wind in favor of making "atheism" the epistemological default despite the inherently contradictory nature of any such belief.

I am trying to advocate that we use the definition "not theist" which has less negative baggage.

And you are failing to realize this applies to rocks, ideas, paper, molecules, etc. It is logically useless, pragmatically pointless, and intellectually bereft of any value. We need merely see how many other terms in any language EVER used exist that are defined solely by being "not X", where X is some other term used in that language.
The great philosopher Calvin (not the religious not, the 6-year-old from "Calvin & Hobbes") once remarked, "if you can't go for reason, go for volume." Here, the equally inadequate and irrational approach is "if you can't go for reason, go for assumptions your define to be true by assumption and act otherwise." What's an atheist? Something that isn't a theist, but somehow also isn't infinitely many things that aren't theists and can't be equated with many non-theistic belief systems (deism, polytheism, agnosticism etc., which are defined in opposition to theism).

It seems very important to him that theists should look down on people calling themselves atheists.

It is of EXTREME importance to me that they don't, and is of ever more importance to me the there exist no possible rational reason for theists to do so.

 

[Norrin-6-]

They are important for discourse precisely (albeit not solely) because they allow us to distinguish between not believing and believing not.

I must have paid poor attention to this part. Please substantiate this with something. What is wrong with negation by the way?

 

[Bunyip]

I must have paid poor attention to this part. Please substantiate this with something.

Is it Olde English? Believeth not? I would think; Doesn't believe.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Same difference as microevolution and macroevolution

I would be surprised if you were aware of how evolutionary biologists distinguish the two, but I am quite sure you can't defend the comparison.

It's not impossible to not believe both until further evidence is presented. Simple, really.

Forgoing logic is always easy. Tell me, are you even aware what we might call the approaches to evaluating (formally) belief claims so as not to make your trivially obvious but non-trivially problematic assertions?

Can I have some of what you are smoking though?

Well, I don't so much "smoke" it as read it, teach it, and use it. Actually, it's not even an "it", but a set of fields: epistemology, modal logic, modality (formal and cognitive), cognitive psychology, philosophy, ontology, neurophysiology, metaphysics, theoretical physics, quantum mechanics, QFT, the standard model, and so on. But like your ability to address absolutely BASIC elementary negation in linguistics, logic, or mathematics, it does appear you don't "have" enough familiarity with such fields to proffer a intelligible or defensible perspective here.

So what are you refuting with this?

You can read. So you can read what I've written before. This time, though, try not to assume you know what my point is before having read and thought about what I've said, and you might actually answer your own question.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Please substantiate this with something.

I already did. If you want more examples, then how about the basis for virtually the entirety of scientific development for the last 150+ years? The rigorous formulation of the calculus. One of the (increasingly problematic) issues across the sciences and even more so mathematics was the lack of rigor in analysis (the mathematical field that "calculus" really is or belongs to). Underlying it all is the definition of limits (of sequences, functions, even theorems), and the fact that so many had tried to rigorously define the initial impetus that underlies limits (infinitesimals) and failed. One of the major obstacles to formulating a correct definition of limits was negation. The definition (for a function in 1D, but this can be extended to higher dimensions as well as to e.g., sequences of numbers or random vectors) is (simply put) that a limit L for the function f(x) as x approaches a exists iff for all epsilon>0, there exists a delta>0 such that |x-a| < delta implies |f(x)-L| < epsilon. This is one of the single most important developments in all the sciences. It is worthless without understanding how negation works (how one demonstrates that there isn't a limit L for some function f evaluated at a). To show that there exists no limit L as x tends r such that we can't say

one must know that we can't demonstrate this by saying "there exists an epsilon greater than 0 such that for some delta greater than 0, |x-a|<delta but |f(x)-L| isn't less than epsilon."

If you think this is convoluted, wait until you deal with negation in logics/formal systems capable of dealing with the truth of statements involving mental state predicates like "believe."

What is wrong with negation by the way?

Nothing. What's wrong is getting negation itself wrong (or confusing the negation of a statement with a statement of negation).

 

[Norrin-6-]

I would be surprised if you were aware of how evolutionary biologists distinguish the two, but I am quite sure you can't defend the comparison.

Speciation is probably the answer you're looking for. But micro and macro refer to scale. I'm no evolutionary biologist though.

The two sentences I just gave are the reason I chose it as a comparison to begin with. It's a more apt comparison than what you tried to pass off based on those factors. No need to defend something you clearly can't surmount with what you previously presented. Come up with a better comparison than what I presented.

Forgoing logic is always easy. Tell me, are you even aware what we might call the approaches to evaluating (formally) belief claims so as not to make your trivially obvious but non-trivially problematic assertions?

You're a cunnin' linguist bro. Explain yourself.

Well, I don't so much "smoke" it as read it, teach it, and use it. Actually, it's not even an "it", but a set of fields: epistemology, modal logic, modality (formal and cognitive), cognitive psychology, philosophy, ontology, neurophysiology, metaphysics, theoretical physics, quantum mechanics, QFT, the standard model, and so on.

That's fine. So you're a beast.

But like your ability to address absolutely BASIC elementary negation in linguistics, logic, or mathematics, it does appear you don't "have" enough familiarity with such fields to proffer a intelligible or defensible perspective here.

Umm... tell me what perspective you think I have. I attacked your position. Doesn't mean I hold the diametrically opposite belief.

You can read. So you can read what I've written before. This time, though, try not to assume you know what my point is before having read and thought about what I've said, and you might actually answer your own question.

I think we're both guilty of making assumptions man.

 

[Willamena]

No Willamena it means the truth values "are unknown", that we don't know. And even possibly unknowable.

How do we know truth values are unknown? Note, it's not the same thing as that we don't know.

 

[Willamena]

The notion of "insufficient communications" does not require some quantifiable measurement to satisfy. It is an abstract expression in this way.

That was my point. It's not a "not enough" example for that instance.

 

[Willamena]

Gnostic theism: One who is convinced that at least one divine being exists and claims to know this beyond any reasonable doubts.

Except that Gnostics don't claim that. The gnostic position is a Demigod created the world of flesh and matter, and that deity is remote and eternal.

 

[ArtieE]

And you are failing to realize this applies to rocks, ideas, paper, molecules, etc.

Maybe to you but not to those who uses "rational/analytic/logical reasoning" as you put it.

It is logically useless, pragmatically pointless, and intellectually bereft of any value. We need merely see how many other terms in any language EVER used exist that are defined solely by being "not X", where X is some other term used in that language.

You have defined yourself as an agnostic and all that tells us is that you don't know if gods exist and you also don't know if gods don't exist. You have defined yourself solely as a person who doesn't know. "It is logically useless, pragmatically pointless, and intellectually bereft of any value" to define yourself as a person who does "not know", or as you put it, "not X". "What you are failing to realize this applies to rocks, ideas, paper, molecules, etc." You see, they don't know either.

 

[Bunyip]

Maybe to you but not to those who uses "rational/analytic/logical reasoning" as you put it.You have defined yourself as an agnostic and all that tells us is that you don't know if gods exist and you also don't know if gods don't exist. You have defined yourself solely as a person who doesn't know. "It is logically useless, pragmatically pointless, and intellectually bereft of any value" to define yourself as a person who does "not know", or as you put it, "not X". "What you are failing to realize this applies to rocks, ideas, paper, molecules, etc." You see, they don't know either.

LOL Bingo!

 

[NulliuSINverba]

Is that a serious question?

Of course.

A "weak" theist might be the sort of person who only believes in a god (or gods) because of some soggy-brained argument like Pascal's Wager ... while a strong theist might believe because his family have served as the village's witch doctors for untold generations and his personal identity and self-worth hinges entirely upon his religious beliefs. In any event, he has other excuse to believe beyond being simply fearful of not believing.

Because of course a theist doesn't have an absence of belief just a presence.

How ridiculous. Of course theists can have absences of belief. By definition, they cannot believe in the rival claims made by other heathen and heretic theologies that they don't ascribe to, correct? Or is (for instance) the Pope able to simultaneously believe the accepted Catholic hodgepodge and also accept the Islamic version of monotheism? Because if he isn't, then he does indeed have an absence of belief.

Additionally, don't theists tend to have an absence of belief concerning any materialistic explanations of the nature of the universe that don't ultimately cede all the credit to a divine being?

The definition of a theist is a person who believes. The definition of a gnostic is a person who knows. I don't see the point in rewriting the definition of theism.

It isn't a rewrite in any way. It's merely a distinction regarding the nature of belief. Because one of the two can apparently believe without claiming to know. In fact, I'd argue that a theist who claims to know isn't exercising faith at all.

Anyway, if you're going to ascribe qualifiers to the atheist side of the equation, aren't you risking a false dichotomy (and perhaps accusations of special pleading) if you exempt the theistic side from the same qualifiers?

 

[Kirran]

Speciation is probably the answer you're looking for. But micro and macro refer to scale. I'm no evolutionary biologist though.

I'm just going to show up here and say that there's microevolution, then speciation, then macroevolution

So microevolution refers to the process of evolution occurring within a defined species, speciation refers to the process by which microevolutionary divergence reaches the point where non-mutually-interbreeding populations form (as per Biological Species Concept anyway, there are plenty of others) and macroevolution is about how higher-order clades arise. E.g. genuses and phyla and all that.

 

[Willamena]

I am trying to advocate that we use the definition "not theist" which has less negative baggage.

It would seem that, for some atheists, it carries a lot of baggage (those who think theists would use it to look down on them, for example).

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

The definition of agnostic is a person who doesn't know if gods exist.

No, it isn't. An agnostic is someone who considers the question of the existence of god(s) to be unknowable. "I *can't* know", not "I *don't* know".

 

[Kilgore Trout]

My atheism is the result of years of knowledge gathering, experience, reflection, and analysis. In the end, my being an atheist is largely a matter of what I believe about people, and far less a matter of what I believe about gods. Regardless, it's anything but a position of pure ignorance, and any label which could equally be applied to my fully considered analysis and conclusions as it could to a barely conscious newborn's near-blank slate of a mind, would be a rather useless and meaningless label.

At the end of the day, if we're talking usage, I've never met an atheist who has used the label to describe themselves who also hasn't had many opinions, beliefs, and conclusions about many things which have given them sufficient reason to label themselves an "atheist."

 

[Ouroboros]

My atheism is the result of years of knowledge gathering, experience, reflection, and analysis. In the end, my being an atheist is largely a matter of what I believe about people, and far less a matter of what I believe about gods. Regardless, it's anything but a position of pure ignorance, and any label which could equally be applied to my fully considered analysis and conclusions as it could to a barely conscious newborn's near-blank slate of a mind, would be a rather useless and meaningless label.

At the end of the day, if we're talking usage, I've never met an atheist who has used the label to describe themselves who also hasn't had many opinions, beliefs, and conclusions about many things which have given them sufficient reason to label themselves an "atheist."

Thank you! Well put.