What does it mean to be an Atheist ( not a mocking thread)

[Revoltingest]

it was a good thing I checked out the context. I was going to tell him Kentucky, hmm come to think of it not terribly wrong.

They use Possum grease in Kentucky.
So I hear.

 

[Curious George]

Just the one?

We have been over this before...

If no god exists that means not even one god.

 

[Curious George]

I think you missed my point. I'm an atheist, too.

What I was getting at is that it's pretty common for theists to say that a theist is someone who believes no gods exist, but when you pay attention to how they use language, it becomes obvious that they're using a two-tier approach: as long as someone rejects that theist's particular god, they're fine with slapping the label of "atheist" on someone who hasn't even given other gods a second thought, never mind actually rejecting them.

For these people, when they say that atheism is a rejection of gods, they don't actually mean "all gods;" they mean "the gods *I* think matter... as long as the person doesn't accept any of those 'lesser' gods."

@Curious George seemed to be hinting at this two-tier approach.

Yes and no. Certainly i am using my definition of a god. So if you think a potato is a god, great for you...i don't think that god matters as a god because i do not consider it as categorized as a god. But it doesn't even have to be a god of which i have heard. Quite simply i do not believe anything exists, except in people's imagination, that i would recognize as a god.

 

[PureX]

So then it could be that you're not being honest with yourself about atheistic thoughts, eh.

Except that I'm willing to debate the issue. I'm not hiding behind phony proclamations of "unbelief" while I demand that everyone else meet my impossible standard of proof.

 

[Revoltingest]

Except that I'm willing to debate the issue. I'm not hiding behind phony proclamations of "unbelief" while I demand that everyone else meet my impossible standard of proof.

Calling other people dishonest when you don't really know that is distracting at best.

 

[PureX]

Calling other people dishonest when you don't really know that is distracting at best.

No, your refusing to recognize the obvious and yet continuing to post these useless comments is what's distracting.

 

[Revoltingest]

No, your refusing to recognize the obvious and yet continuing to post these useless comments is what's distracting.

Refusing to agree with you =/= Refusal to recognize the obvious.

 

[McBell]

According to the American Atheists website they state this

Atheism is one thing: A lack of belief in gods.
Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. Atheism is too often defined incorrectly as a belief system. To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.
What is Atheism? | American Atheists

But in many discussions in this forum with many good Atheists i come across many ways to describe what atheism is.

Could i get some more info from Atheists in this forum? What is Atheism to you?

I have no active belief either way.
Meaning that I do not believe any god exists and at the same time do not believe that no god exists.
I am comfortable admitting I do not know either way.

 

[Willamena]

According to the American Atheists website they state this

Atheism is one thing: A lack of belief in gods.
Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. Atheism is too often defined incorrectly as a belief system. To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.
What is Atheism? | American Atheists

But in many discussions in this forum with many good Atheists i come across many ways to describe what atheism is.

Could i get some more info from Atheists in this forum? What is Atheism to you?

I disagree with the American Atheist group. Atheism is and always has meant not believing in god or 'a god.' That's an affirmative belief.

 

[Spirit of Light]

I disagree with the American Atheist group. Atheism is and always has meant not believing in god or 'a god.' That's an affirmative belief.

Can i ask a question?
As buddhist i do not believe in a creator god, but i am sure there are countless gods and buddhas in other realms, what category do i belong to then? Not atheist for sure

 

[charlie sc]

According to the American Atheists website they state this

Atheism is one thing: A lack of belief in gods.
Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. Atheism is too often defined incorrectly as a belief system. To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.
What is Atheism? | American Atheists

But in many discussions in this forum with many good Atheists i come across many ways to describe what atheism is.

Could i get some more info from Atheists in this forum? What is Atheism to you?

Don't you think it's humorous that this thread was meant to be for atheists and a non-mocking thread, but it ended up with theists mocking atheists

 

[Willamena]

Can i ask a question?
As buddhist i do not believe in a creator god, but i am sure there are countless gods and buddhas in other realms, what category do i belong to then? Not atheist for sure

You are firmly in the category of being sure there are countless gods and buddhas in other realms.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

My first answer in this thread tried to explain what atheism really means...and doesn't mean. But the thread's topic "what does it mean to be an atheist" cries out for another answer altogether, one that I think is richer and deeper:

Being an atheist means that I am free to think for myself, never constrained by creeds and mandatory dogma. It means I do not have to worry that some "power" is constantly watching and judging my thoughts, as I struggle to live as good a life as I can.

Being an atheist means never having to worry about resolving the multitude of theodicies and contradictions that plague believers, and require the tireless efforts of so many apologists.

Being an atheist means not having to feel guilt over my natural, human urges...and who really enjoys wearing a hair shirt, after all?

Being an atheist means not having to contribute, through the collection plate, to the livelihood of those whose job it seems to be to tell me how corrupt I am -- this one's huge!

On the downside, being an atheist means that I must give up any notion of living on forever, or hoping to rely on divine help when things are going badly, or the lottery seems like my last lifeline.

 

[Curious George]

I have no active belief either way.
Meaning that I do not believe any god exists and at the same time do not believe that no god exists.
I am comfortable admitting I do not know either way.

I just wonder how people can think they are equally probable. I understand that religious folks were either ingrained with a belief, hope so strongly for one that they cannot help believing, or have had some sort of experience they believe is sufficient evidence for a belief. Fence sitters, that makes me scratch my head a bit though.

 

[Spirit of Light]

Don't you think it's humorous that this thread was meant to be for atheists and a non-mocking thread, but it ended up with theists mocking atheists

I am a bit surprised yes

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

what do you think happens to people after they die? I'd be interested to hear an answer from someone like yourself who lacks a belief in god

The same thing that was the case before they were born. I expect after-death to be very much like pre-birth.

As an atheist I can't say I have "lack of belief". There is no evidence that any gods exist and I can't claim they don't. To me it's more of a "no reason to believe".

How about that you lack belief in a god because you find no reason to believe otherwise? That describes most if not all atheists.

We don't label people non-football fans or non-democrats. Instead, the precedence has always been in the positive aspect of belief not the non part.

I'd say that we do at times. We call ourselves nonviolent, or a non-drinker, or a non-contender, or nonconformist, or nondenominational, or nonpartisan, etc.. Isn't vegetarian another way of saying non-meat eating?

And sometimes, we say it using different prefixes than "-non," as with unconvinced, impassive, ineducable, illegitimate, abnormal, asymmetric, etc. - all privations.

humans don't actually rely on evidence to approach a truth (of any kind)

Humans and lower animals alike do just that continually. When a zebra sees a lion pursuing it, the zebra certainly behaves as if it is using evidence to come to the conclusion that it is in danger and should run, which is likely true.

When a friend told you that he had a big meal on Christmas, that remains the only way such a fact can convey. Demanding evidence for this historical event itself is a joke.

Wouldn't you agree that if a person who is known to be reliable says he had a big meal on Christmas, it makes the likelihood of that being true shoot up from the likelihood that he did not have a big meal? If so, doesn't that mean that the simple act of making the statement serve as evidence that it is probably true? For example, if your brother, who you know to be an honest and reliable person, says he had a large Christmas dinner with his wife's family, is that not good evidence that that probably happened, especially if his wife and her parents corroborate the claim.

Now proving that claim is a different matter, but that goes beyond mere evidence being able to support a claim.

Evidence? What is it, other than a joke?

Evidence is what is evident. Understanding it's significance, that is, what it implies about reality, is sometimes obvious, such as seeing smoke and flames billowing out of a burning building, and sometimes requires specialized knowledge and training, as with forensic science.

Basically, these atheists are liars. They believe that gods don't exist, yet they know they can't possibly defend that belief with the same requirement of evidence that they demand from everyone else for their beliefs, so they feign "unbelief" and claim they don't have to defend it. It's just linguistic misdirection meant to avoid being honest and forthright about what they believe and why they believe it.

With that comment, you reveal that you are just another theistic, athoephobic bigot. It is people like you spreading hate speech like this against atheists and atheism who justify the anti-theist's desire to see less religion in the world. Atheists don't need people with ideas like yours in it, ideas that harm millions of law-abiding, hard-working citizens trying to do right by their families and communities. Why should we have to contend with bigots like you?

It is you that is the liar here, not the atheists telling you that they don't believe in any gods. You have been told repeatedly what it is that atheists believe, yet you continue to misrepresent most of us, probably because you have no honest argument - just bitterness for atheists.

And we need defend nothing concerning our atheism. We are merely telling you that your beliefs are unbelievable to people who decide what is true using evidence rather than emotions, and that since you can't make a compelling case for the truth of your beliefs, we don't believe you. And your response: "You're liars."

Someone is always telling us what we really believe, that we're liars,
that we really do know God &/or that we're going to Hell for hating God.

And that somebody is always a theist. Although many reject that kind of bigoted teaching, certainly the Christian ones are encouraged to think like that, and probably the Muslim ones as well. The rest of the religions seem much less atheophobic. Since I don't mind those religions, or the Abrahamic theists that reject the message of hatred for atheists in their Bible and coming from many of their pulpits, I don't think that anti-theism is the best term to describe the idea that many of us want these huge, organized, politicized religions to fade from prominence and take their place with the Druids and Zeus followers as yet another small sect with virtually no cultural hegemony.

 

[It Aint Necessarily So]

Most atheists are not open-minded at all, regardless of their "it's only unbelief" BS.

Closed-mindedness is characteristic of faith-based thought. Consider yourself, utterly unwilling to learn what atheism is despite repeated attempts at educating you.

Atheists are the ones that tend to be open-minded. Bring us your evidence and most of us will consider it impartially with a willingness to be convinced if your argument and evidence are compelling. The theist cannot say the same. His mind is made up and impervious to evidence. Evidence didn't get him to his faith-based position, and cannot budge him from it. Look at you and your atheophobic bigotry. The evidence contradicts you, but that doesn't matter to you.

There is no burden of proof for anyone's "beliefs"

There is no burden of proof for the person who doesn't care if he is believed.

There is also no burden of proof for the reason-and-evidence based thinker when dealing with a faith-based thinker, since the former has nothing with which to convince anybody of anything except reason applied to evidence, and that is useless with a person who doesn't use those things to decide what is true. Thus, there is never any burden of proof for the skeptic when dealing with the faithful.

The fact is that almost nobody cares what others believe. It's what they can convincingly demonstrate to be true that is of interest to people that care if what they believe is correct.

Unsupported claims are at best noted as somebody's opinion, and usually not given even that much attention. For example, you claim that atheists are liars, but can't support your calumny. Opinion noted, and not taken as having any meaning except as additional evidence of the harm that religion does.

Anyone can believe anything they want to for any reason they want to.

That's not correct for me, although it may be for you. There is only one reason that I could believe in your god - compelling evidence of its existence. I am not free to choose what to believe. I can't make myself believe that this month is September, or that I can survive a fall from a tall building..

Nor is it a good idea to do so if you could. Faith is a logical error, and not a path to truth. How can it be a path to truth when any idea or its polar opposite can be believed by faith when at least one of those ideas is incorrect. Fortunately, that kind of thinking is impossible for me now.

but very few theists (only the most profoundly uneducated and confused) ever assert the existence of God as an objective truth.

In my experience, most theists make that claim. Are they all profoundly uneducated?

God is experienced as true to those who choose to trust in that ideal.

That's pretty poor thinking. Substitute Spiderman, Santa, or Pikachu for God and you'll see what I mean.

I call them liars because they are lying. Many of them are lying to themselves as well as to others, so I'm hoping that by using that term they might be prodded into a little bit of self-awakening.

Actually, by calling atheists liars, you have shown the thread what an atheophobic bigot you are. That's an awakening, but not a self-awakening.

And of course you are lying again. You aren't trying to help anybody but your own ego, which is for some reason offended by atheism and atheists. Are you bitter that your most fundamental belief is rejected by atheists because there is no reason for them to hold it? Are you upset that many people can live full, satisfying lives without a belief in gods?

Atheist questions the existence of God but does not state there is no God only that he does not see any evidence for it.

Thank you for this, yet another declaration of what most atheists actually believe and say.

But you are wasting your time. He considers you (and me) a liar, and is committed to that position. He didn't arrive at it by evidence, and no number of us telling him that what he claims we believe is not what we actually believe will change that. He's committed to derogating atheists and atheism for having the sense not to believe what he does.

their facade of "unbelief" is obviously bogus, and deliberate.

You're lying again. You're pretending that you can read minds, and calling others liars based on your uncharitable guesses.

I'm not hiding behind phony proclamations of "unbelief" while I demand that everyone else meet my impossible standard of proof.

Our unbelief is genuine despite your continual effort to pretend to be able to read minds and claim the opposite for whatever your reasons.

Nor do most of us demand that you produce evidence. We tell you that we require evidence to believe knowing that you have none.

 

[Evangelicalhumanist]

Just curious; what do you think happens to people after they die? I'd be interested to hear an answer from someone like yourself who lacks a belief in god.

Always one of my favourite questions, because it simply ignores the question of "what was happening to people before they were born?"

Think about it: what were you experiencing when Cleopatra ruled Egypt, or when the Crusades were going on, or the year you father met your mother? Was it good, was it bad … or was it anything at all?

Mark Twain once wrote, “I do not fear death. I had been dead for billions and billions of years before I was born, and had not suffered the slightest inconvenience from it.”

The problem is, I think, that most people -- once they have experienced existence -- cannot fathom their own non-existence. And yet, for the vast majority of the time since the universe began, that's all they had.

Apologies to @It Aint Necessarily So who already said the same thing, with far fewer words.

 

[siti]

You also get 'providential deists', Thomas Jefferson for example, who married a stripped-down Christian Divine Providence to an otherwise deistic god. So you get a god who doesn't interfere in the world, but was specifically benevolent in his act of creation.

Well yes. Quite a few of the 18th century English Deists also had the divine providence/non-intervening deity non-sequitur. I'm not really sure that they weren't simply retaining the notion of 'divine benevolence' for political/cultural reasons - after all, it wasn't very long before their time that heresy was punishable by death - and certainly denying God any role at all in human affairs was still dicing with the death of one's political career in those days.

 

[Pudding]

According to the American Atheists website they state this

Atheism is one thing: A lack of belief in gods.
Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. Atheism is too often defined incorrectly as a belief system. To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.
What is Atheism? | American Atheists

But in many discussions in this forum with many good Atheists i come across many ways to describe what atheism is.

Could i get some more info from Atheists in this forum? What is Atheism to you?

What does it mean to be an atheist? What is atheism?

Check dictionary...
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Here is your answer...

Oxford Online Dictionaries:
atheist: A person who disbelieves or lacks belief in the existence of God or gods.
atheism: Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods.
disbelieve: Be unable to believe.
belief: (1) An acceptance that something exists or is true, especially one without proof. (1.1) Something one accepts as true or real; a firmly held opinion.
god: (1) (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being. (2) (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshipped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity.
lack: The state of being without or not having enough of something.
Without: In the absence of.
absence: The non-existence or lack of.

Cambridge Online Dictionary:
atheist: someone who does not believe in any God or gods.
atheism: the belief that God does not exist.
believe: to think that something is true, correct, or real.
belief: (B2) the feeling of being certain that something exists or is true. (B2) something that you believe.
god, noun [c] (SPIRIT): (B2) a spirit or being believed to control some part of the universe or life and often worshipped for doing so, or something that represents this spirit or being.
God, noun [S not after the]: (A2) (in some religions) the being who made the universe and is believed to have an effect on all things.
God, noun : (esp. in Christian, Jewish, and Muslim belief) the being that created and rules the universe, the earth, and its people.

Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary:
atheist: (1) a person who does not believe in the existence of a god or any gods. (2) one who subscribes to or advocates atheism.
atheism: (1a) a lack of belief or a strong disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods. (1b) a philosophical or religious position characterized by disbelief in the existence of a god or any gods.
god: (1) capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: such as (a) the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe. (b) Christian Science : the incorporeal divine Principle ruling over all as eternal Spirit : infinite Mind. (2) a being or object believed to have more than natural attributes and powers and to require human worship. Specifically : one controlling a particular aspect or part of reality.

Does that answer your questions?
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