Word Usage Survey

[LittleSidhe]

I don't think a baby is any of the above. If the baby has no concept of a higher power how can it believe or not believe? You can't disbelieve in something you're not aware of can you?

 

[Koldo]

Not in this speech community, but that should not surprise us, given the number of times we've been exposed to the stock definition "lacks belief in gods". Not everyone likes that definition, and, as you know, I'm one of them. I still doubt very much that the same opinion would follow from the general population of English speakers.

I am sure the results would be very different if this survey was made to the general population in my society. In my society, the term 'atheism' is not used to describe simply the lack of belief, rather it is used to describe the belief that God doesn't exist.

To be very honest, i have only heard about the actual definition of 'atheism' this very year.

 

[Magic Man]

If the baby has no concept of a higher power how can it believe or not believe?

Well, it can not believe by not holding the belief in a higher power.

You can't disbelieve in something you're not aware of can you?

Sure, you can. I don't believe in many things I'm not aware of.

 

[Kilgore Trout]

Personally, I wouldn't describe a baby as an atheist, as it doesn't supply any meaningful information. However, the "baby as atheist" slippery-slope argument has no meaningful relevance to atheists having an absence of belief in the existence of god either.

I think one has to have a concept of how a god could be described in order to be meaningfully be described as an atheist, but that doesn't preclude one from not holding a belief in its existence one way or the other.

 

[LittleSidhe]

Well, it can not believe by not holding the belief in a higher power.



Sure, you can. I don't believe in many things I'm not aware of.

I still don't think you can purposely disbelieve in something you're not aware of, but this is my opinion. Everyone's gonna have a different opinion, I don't think there is one "right" answer.

 

[Magic Man]

I still don't think you can purposely disbelieve in something you're not aware of, but this is my opinion. Everyone's gonna have a different opinion, I don't think there is one "right" answer.

Well, no, of course you can't purposely disbelieve in something if you're not aware of it. But you can not believe believe in something that you're not aware of.

 

[methylatedghosts]

Well, no, of course you can't purposely disbelieve in something if you're not aware of it. But you can not believe believe in something that you're not aware of.

A fair few people believe in God, even though they're not aware of God

I think theism and atheism requires a conscious choice in the matter. At least, conscious awareness. A baby doesn't have a conscious choice in believing or not-believing in God(s). I don't think non-thought about a concept is the same as non-belief.

 

[Riverwolf]

I'm sort of part of the nerd/gamer culture. I collect comics, and I'm in IT. I don't actually do any real gaming, but I do get large doses of the culture. This pet peeve doesn't bother me that much, mostly because it's just a new use of a word that doesn't conflict with other uses. The misuse of "literally" is a much bigger pet peeve.

I didn't even know that was misused.

I never knew you had Asperger's. I guess that would be a compliment to you.

 

[Penumbra]

From a purely etymological perspective, you are correct. However, the word "atheism" is not necessarily perceived that way by every speaker (especially those who tend to spell it "athiest"), and we know that modern English only has a productive prefix a- that attaches to adjectives. So you are committing an etymological fallacy to argue the meaning of this word based on etymology. I'm sorry, but that is a recognized fallacy.

According to your poll (at least as of this post), it's 15/14 regarding the use of the word. How can it be an etymological fallacy if it's currently roughly tied (and slightly ahead) in terms of popular use?

Besides, etymological fallacies occur when the use of a word changes. Atheist is a derivation of another word, theist, which hasn't changed. If the core word hasn't changed, there's no reason to change the privative of that word, and it would specifically make sense not to. If years from now the word theist comes to mean something completely different, than so will the word atheist. Due to its structure, it's a word that is tied directly to another word.

But it doesn't work with other nouns. So you cannot call someone who is not a politician an "apolitician". The productive privative prefix in the case of nouns would usually be "non-", as in "non-politician". And you can have a "non-theist", which is simply anyone who is not a theist. The word "atheist" is an older word in the language that came into English via French with its Greek morphology already intact.

That is true. The word goes all the way back to Greek language.

But atheist is a word that appears in many forms- atheist, atheistic (where the a makes more grammatical sense), and atheism. Few other words used to describe people utilizing privatives occur in several forms like that.

English utilizes privatives from several prior languages.

It isn't too broad if you use "believer" as a synonym for "theist", which we frequently do in this forum.

A believe lots of things, and don't believe other things. In addition, theism narrows the scope down to theistic religions rather than all religions. One can be a Buddhist and an atheist, for instance. (And there are ones on this forum.)

When you really examine word meanings, it turns out that there are no pure synonyms. However, "non-theist" can be a euphemism for "atheist", so it is used as a synonym sometimes. Normally, it just means anyone who is not a theist, which could include people who have no concept of a "god".

We are no longer talking about the prefix "a-" here, so I'm not getting your point.

Well, the question here is one of how people use the words "atheism" and "atheist". I would maintain that most English speakers associate the concept with rejection of belief, not mere lack of belief. So, if Tarzan doesn't know about gods because he was raised by animals in the jungle, one might refer to him as a "non-theist" more readily than an "atheist", which carries a lot more semantic baggage.

Can you provide a few examples of words in the English language that have different privates depending on the reason for the negation/absence of the core word?

I can't think of any, but I'm not much of a linguist, so maybe someone else can.

 

[Revoltingest]

Besides, etymological fallacies occur when the use of a word changes. Atheist is a derivation of another word, theist, which hasn't changed. If the core word hasn't changed, there's no reason to change the privative of that word, and it would specifically make sense not to.....

Language isn't always strictly systematic or logical. Just look at the prefix "in", which has opposite meanings depending upon the following
word, eg, Inflammable & infertile. Even the prefix "a" can mean opposite things, eg, atheist & anew. Also, the word "atheist" has several different
meanings in the continuum between weak & strong atheism, so it makes sense that popular usage could continually shift between these extremes.
I sympathize, as a fellow recovering engineer....we want things to make sense & be orderly. Language is just a more complicated thing than can
be summarized in a logical set of permanent rules. Make me dictator, & I'll see what I can do about it for you....until the violent coup anyway.

Well, no, of course you can't purposely disbelieve in something if you're not aware of it. But you can not believe believe in something that you're not aware of.

Careful there....you're starting to sound reasonable.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Can you provide a few examples of words in the English language that have different privates depending on the reason for the negation/absence of the core word?

I can't think of any, but I'm not much of a linguist, so maybe someone else can.

The only one I can think of offhand is "moral": "immoral" vs. "amoral".

 

[Penumbra]

The only one I can think of offhand is "moral": "immoral" vs. "amoral".

That's a good example. Immoral specifically means not moral, while amoral implies that a given thing lacks morality (much like atheism).

It gives precedence for having two different words for types of people that are not theistic, but oddly, they'd be reversed from your example if we follow the OP's idea, with "a" specifically meaning disagreeing with the idea, and something else like "non" meaning the more neutral approach of simply lacking/absence.

 

[Orias]

I am curious about your understanding of the words "theist", "atheist" and "agnostic". Please just answer the following questions according to your understanding of the words "theist", "atheist", and "agnostic".

1. Given that a baby does not have a concept of a "god", which of the following is most true?

A) The baby is a theist.
B) The baby is an atheist.
C) The baby is an agnostic.
D) None of the above.

D.

Labels only subject oneself to hypocrisy, and self deceit. Those who hand out labels only commit the same "crime" ten fold.

2) If someone uses the following expressions, what would you infer about Bob's beliefs with respect to the moon landing?

A) Regarding the moon landing, Bob considers himself an agnostic.
B) Regarding the moon landing, Bob considers himself an atheist.

Feel free to explain your answers, but please give your answers before you elaborate on them.

I'd say Bob is a pretty irrational guy basing his "God" position off of something we've landed on over 40 years ago.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

D.

Labels only subject oneself to hypocrisy, and self deceit. Those who hand out labels only commit the same "crime" ten fold.

Is "not an atheist" a label?

 

[Koldo]

I'd say Bob is a pretty irrational guy basing his "God" position off of something we've landed on over 40 years ago.

You should have put a smile at the end of your sentence. Sometimes it is hard to figure out if people are being sarcastic .

 

[Orias]

Is "not an atheist" a label?

That depends on if you're one of those people who thinks you're either an atheist or a theist. If so, then I'm just screwed :help:

You should have put a smile at the end of your sentence. Sometimes it is hard to figure out if people are being sarcastic .

I completely understand. But I was being serious in a sarcastic manner

 

[Willamena]

1. Given that a baby does not have a concept of a "god", which of the following is most true?

A) The baby is a theist.
B) The baby is an atheist.
C) The baby is an agnostic.
D) None of the above.

D) None of the above. The baby practices "just me."

----------------------------------------------------------------

2) If someone uses the following expressions, what would you infer about Bob's beliefs with respect to the moon landing?

A) Regarding the moon landing, Bob considers himself an agnostic.
B) Regarding the moon landing, Bob considers himself an atheist.

Feel free to explain your answers, but please give your answers before you elaborate on them.

The terms agnostic and atheist are --or, at least, should be --used in reference to "God," not moon landings. I'd probably just give Bob a skeptical look, and offer him a drink.

 

[Alceste]

It should probably be pointed out that EVEN IF Copernicus had found that nobody (as opposed to about half of us) is happy to describe babies as "atheists", it would not be at all relevant to the question of whether atheism is, can, or should be defined as "a lack of belief in a deity or deities". It is a simple task to add a qualifier to a "lack of belief" definition that requires that some kind of "world view" be present before "atheistic" becomes a useful adjective.

 

[Copernicus]

Personally, I wouldn't describe a baby as an atheist, as it doesn't supply any meaningful information. However, the "baby as atheist" slippery-slope argument has no meaningful relevance to atheists having an absence of belief in the existence of god either.

But you are wrong about that, Kilgore. This survey (as opposed to the second one I posted) is actually quite good at teasing apart actual usage. It asks you to classify an individual for whom only one of the two word senses would work. My intuition is that calling a baby an "atheist" is simply absurd, but I am a much older speaker than most people here. It is quite possible that general usage has shifted over my lifetime, and my intuition could be skewed by age. It would be really interesting to pose this survey question and related ones to the general public and correlate the results with age and religious belief. I would expect a much larger percentage of young non-believers to call a baby an "atheist" than in the population at large.

I think one has to have a concept of how a god could be described in order to be meaningfully be described as an atheist, but that doesn't preclude one from not holding a belief in its existence one way or the other.

Not holding a belief can be achieved by two methods--having no concept of the content of belief or having the concept and not taking a position that it is true. Babies fall into the former category. You fall into the latter. You have a general idea of what gods are. For most gods we know about, you probably agree with me that they are mythical beings, but you want to allow for a much vaguer concept of godhood than I do. That is my understanding of your usage, based on your posts in the past when you were not trying to defend a definition of "atheism".

 

[Kilgore Trout]

But you are wrong about that, Kilgore. This survey (as opposed to the second one I posted) is actually quite good at teasing apart actual usage. It asks you to classify an individual for whom only one of the two word senses would work. My intuition is that calling a baby an "atheist" is simply absurd, but I am a much older speaker than most people here. It is quite possible that general usage has shifted over my lifetime, and my intuition could be skewed by age. It would be really interesting to pose this survey question and related ones to the general public and correlate the results with age and religious belief. I would expect a much larger percentage of young non-believers to call a baby an "atheist" than in the population at large.

Outside of these ridiculous threads about babies being atheists, I've never encountered anyone who has expressed such a thing. I expect that you're wrong. Anyway, your response really has nothing to do with what I said.

Not holding a belief can be achieved by two methods--having no concept of the content of belief or having the concept and not taking a position that it is true. Babies fall into the former category. You fall into the latter. You have a general idea of what gods are. For most gods we know about, you probably agree with me that they are mythical beings, but you want to allow for a much vaguer concept of godhood than I do. That is my understanding of your usage, based on your posts in the past when you were not trying to defend a definition of "atheism".

If you've been reading for comprehension, then this should be your understanding of my usage based on all my posts. My posts regarding the definition of atheism are not incompatible with this view in any way. If you can find a single example of me posting something that is inconsistent with this perspective, then feel free to point it out. Otherwise, please refrain from repeatedly making incorrect judgments and assumptions about what I say.