Is Atheism Merely Disbelief?
The reason why I ask this simple question isn't to start a debate, but to help myself understand my own reasoning better and maybe correct my flawed logic. The reason why I came up with this question is because in the past I saw a person start an argument that atheism is merely lack of belief and not disbelief. I didn't read the replies to his argument because I was busy at the time and there might have been none. Also, I'm not sure if this should be under philosophy of language section or philosophy of religion section.
Anyways the reason why I dislike the definition of Atheism being merely lack of belief and not disbelief is because it goes against this diagram:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theological_positions_-_alt_version.svg
If the definition of Atheism is merely lack of belief, both of these diagrams make no sense whatsoever.
I also have a counter-argument against the definition of Atheism being merely lack of belief as well. Given that someone has the opinion that God doesn't exist and yet says s/he is an atheist, in the sense that s/he merely lacks belief, isn't that a contradiction in a way? What I am saying is, "having an opinion requires believing." If you merely lack belief in God, then you ought to be under the title of agnosticism than atheism because logically that makes more sense and is less misleading. I know that atheism isn't a religion, but how can you have an opinion on the same subject that you have no belief nor disbelief in? That makes no sense to me. Also, beliefs aren't only in the systems called religions, anyways. It makes more sense to me that atheism is disbelief and not merely lack of belief.
Anyways the reason why I dislike the definition of Atheism being merely lack of belief and not disbelief is because it goes against this diagram:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Theological_positions_-_alt_version.svg
If the definition of Atheism is merely lack of belief, both of these diagrams make no sense whatsoever.
I also have a counter-argument against the definition of Atheism being merely lack of belief as well. Given that someone has the opinion that God doesn't exist and yet says s/he is an atheist, in the sense that s/he merely lacks belief, isn't that a contradiction in a way? What I am saying is, "having an opinion requires believing." If you merely lack belief in God, then you ought to be under the title of agnosticism than atheism because logically that makes more sense and is less misleading. I know that atheism isn't a religion, but how can you have an opinion on the same subject that you have no belief nor disbelief in? That makes no sense to me. Also, beliefs aren't only in the systems called religions, anyways. It makes more sense to me that atheism is disbelief and not merely lack of belief.
Comments (79)
I think the distinction you might be after is between 'strong atheism', which believes strongly that there is no God, and 'weak atheism', which doesn't claim to know, but also says it's not an important question.
Quoting WiseMoron
Much modern atheism, like that of the 'new atheists', and 'evangelical atheists' like Richard Carrier and others, is very much a mirror-image of theism and is therefore defined, in some sense, by what it denies. There's a publication called 'The Good Book' which purports to be a secular bible, and another by Carrier, 'Good without God', which likewise tries to articulate a secular ethical system. Not being an atheist, or drawn to atheism, I don't have detailed knowledge of the contents of these books, but I think they illustrate the point regardless, that they are in a real sense anti-theist, or even misotheist, i.e. they are motivated by a positive animus towards religion, not mere indifference.
Isn't the latter a better description of "apatheism" rather than atheism?
Yes.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apatheism
I can't speak to the Australian census, but the U.S. census, as far as I'm aware, has no category for apatheist.
The difference between hard atheism and soft atheism (also known as strong/positive and weak/negative atheism respectively) is the distinction that you're pointing out, and so it's true that there's ambiguity inherent in the term "atheism". All atheists lack belief in god, but only hard atheists go further to possess the belief that no god(s) exist.
The diagrams still do make sense, they're just less useful if we take atheism to mean soft-atheism.
I consider myself an agnostic (soft) atheist (I don't believe in God and I believe knowledge of gods is unattainable). Gnostic soft-atheist would be someone who doesn't believe in god but believes that knowledge of god is attainable. A gnostic hard-atheist would be someone who believes no god(s) exist and believes that knowledge of god(s) non-existence is attainable.
I don't think a person can have a blank-slate "lack of belief" unless he grew up in a society where religion was a non-issue (or didn't exist). For the rest of us atheists, or for many of us, at least, we grew up in societies where religion was very much a going concern. Some of us even once believed in this or that religion, and positive "dis-belief" is a necessary part of our atheism. It takes nothing away from the atheist if he "believes in atheism", "disbelieves in religion", or just plain doesn't give a rat's ass one way or the other.
Atheism is quite often reactionary -- it is a rejection, reaction to, specific religious beliefs, activities, and maybe religious people. Being reactionary doesn't make it less. "Reactionary" merely specifies the route by which someone arrived at atheism.
Taking the position that God doesn't exist of necessity entails a belief--a belief that God doesn't exist. It is a belief because the existence of God can neither be proved (hard on the believer) or disproved (hard on the disbeliever). It can not be an indisputable fact, either way. (Lots of things can not be proved indisputably. We have to put up with that, like it or not.)
That may be overstating it a bit, but I think the diagram does have some problems.
I think that to be internally consistent, both dimensions need to be belief, with the scale indicating degree of confidence in the belief and the top/right being maximum confidence the belief is wrong and bottom/left being maximum confidence it is right.
Now comes the tricky bit:
While the horizontal scale represents belief in the existence of a certain sort of god, the vertical scale is belief that it is possible for anybody to know whether or not that certain sort of god exists.
In other words, the vertical scale is not knowledge but strength of belief in the possibility of knowledge.
Without that adjustment, I don't see how the vertical scale can be continuous. It seems to me it would have to be simply binary - Knows or does not Know.
To equate agnosticism with "weak atheism" is to beg the question and ignore the legitimate concerns actual agnostics have against either theism or atheism.
There is absolutely no need for any of these silly "sorting" diagrams, as if it's a political spectrum but for theological issues. You're either a theist, an atheist, or an agnostic, with the particulars happening within these three positions, just like any simple ontological debate. If I do not believe electrons exist, but I don't "know" electrons don't exist (wtf?!), I'm not an "agnostic a-electronist". I'm just an a-electronist. Nobody gives two shits how "strong" your belief is - because the actual strength of your belief is brought up through testing your reasons.
If you ask me "do you believe in God?" I will respond with "tell me what God is and I'll tell you whether I believe in it." I do not believe in the gods of organized religion, but that does not make me an atheist. It just makes me non-religious. That's it, folks. These are not the droids you are looking for. Move along, move along.
The area above the parabola is agnostic and below it gnostic. The six markers are:
GT = Gnostic Theist
AT = Agnostic Theist
GA = Gnostic Atheist
AA = Agnostic Atheist
GU = Gnostic Uncommitted
AU = Agnostic Uncommitted
This diagram captures the idea that it is not possible to believe with virtual certainty in god, or its nonexistence, while at the same time believing that knowledge about that is impossible. The more towards the middle one gets horizontally, the more viable it becomes to be either gnostic or agnostic.
The GUs are an interesting group. They have no strong belief or disbelief themselves but they are convinced that it is possible for others to know one way or the other.
I don't know what the word "gnostic" means in your diagram.
As for your question: Do you believe there are not two moons that revolve around the earth? Do you believe there are not three moons that revolve around the earth? And so on?
It seems to me that we do not walk about carrying beliefs about what is not the case, at least if its the sort of thing which we haven't given much thought. So I could be an atheist if I were the sort of person who came across this category "atheist" and said, well, yes, that is something I do not have a belief in.
It also seems to me that a person could actively form a disbelief, or a belief that God does not exist, and so could be an atheist.
Both seem to fit the category to me. Which kind of atheist a person is is just a psychological fact about their state of belief. And maybe a person could even slide from one kind to the other, too.
You do realize agnosticism is a position about know-ability and not about existence? The way you're employing it is in a bastardized form.
There is however emotion and feeling, which we tend to separate out as if they were different or lesser ways of apprehension, when the likelihood is they are every bit as profound and perhaps more fundamental to us than intellect. I have religious feelings, for instance when I listened to part of Bach's 'Art of the Fugue' today I had to stop the car and be emotional. Joy, empathy, love and aesthetic pleasure are all experiences where it seems to me I approach something like religious feeling.
You're ignoring the main connotation of agnosticism which is "skeptical of knowledge", not "abstains from belief or disbelief in god".
Many people are skeptical of human knowledge pertaining to god but they believe in god none the less. Originally agnosticism was a skeptical reaction to theistic claims of knowledge (which rationally leads to abstaining belief) but the new colloquial usage forgets that to focus strictly on the "abstaining from belief" aspect. People who can say "I don't believe in god" (atheism) use agnosticism as a label to try and highlight the fact that they abstain from belief either way, but in doing so they're removing the nuance of it's original thrust (skepticism toward knowledge, not explicitly abstaining from belief).
The bad rap of atheism (people insisting it's a claim to knowledge, rather than a lack of belief or disbelief) is what drove people to try and redefine agnosticism in this way.
Disbelief is a claim of knowledge. Any sort of belief is held because it is seen as true, even if one is a fallibilist or whatever.
Agnosticism applies to things outside of the god debate.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
Which makes them theists, not agnostics.
You can choose to use the word agnostic that way if you wish. It would be consistent with how some people currently use it, but not consistent with the meaning it had when originally coined by Thomas Huxley. Nor is it consistent with Bertrand Russell's use. As one of history's most famous atheists, Russell described himself as an Agnostic Atheist.
A practical disadvantage of using agnostic that way is that one loses a simple way to refer to Christian agnostics, who have historically been very important. Aren't they often mystics, and weren't Kierkegaard and Simone Weil amongst their number? [I'm asking, not telling. I have read very little of either, but what I've read I've admired]
Some atheists possess disbelief, some do not. (hard and soft-atheists respectively). What's common between both positions is specifically: lacking belief in god. That said, you can believe something is true without any rational reason to support that belief (agnostic theism and agnostic hard-atheism)
Quoting darthbarracuda
Yes but it has to to with knowability, not belief. It's an epistemic position about whether something is knowable, not whether it is believed.
Quoting darthbarracuda
A theist who claims their belief in god is based on faith rather than knowledge is a good example of an agnostic theist.
Can you define what GU and AU is? That would help me a lot because I kinda get what GU is. AU is a group that has no strong belief or disbelief, but they are convinced that it's not possible for others to know one way or the other? Two very interesting groups imo.
Quoting Moliere
I would consider the first example as a type of agnosticism and the later atheism. Because babies are born into this world knowing very little, they thought nothing about God or whatever it is, wouldn't it make more sense to classify babies as a type of agnostic than any other type of category? The way the majority uses the term "atheism" is obviously flawed...
If the diagram is cancer, the ethnicity systems are equally as much. People can obviously have complex minds, but that doesn't stop us to attempt to understand one another by simplifying things and breaking down a complex world into a series of simpler systems. We do this in math, science, and even philosophy. Reason why I said ethnicity systems can be cancer too is because if you have someone whose ancestors are a mix of Native Americans, African Americans, Mexicans, and some Europeans...what category should that person identify himself or herself as? Just by the way s/he looks? Obviously the ethnicity system is more than just about looks. Just like the ethnicity system is more complex than it's actually represented as, photosynthesis is more complex than a mere teaching diagram as well. My point is, humans naturally think in a way to simplify complex things into smaller or simpler things in an attempt to understand it.
If you don't attempt to simplify things in order to understand it better, how do you expect to understand anything complex? A math teacher once told me, "Something complex is just a group of simple things."
Agnostic Uncommitted (AU) are people that that have no strong belief or disbelief in God, and who believe fairly strongly that it is impossible to know whether there is one or not. I would expect this to be a large group. Maybe a lot of non-philosophical, non-religious people are in this group.
Gnostic Uncommitted are people who have no strong belief or disbelief in God, but who believe it is possible for somebody (else) to know whether there is one. I sometimes think I might be in this group. I certainly think that, if there were a God, it would be possible for people to know of its existence, since such a powerful being could reveal itself to certain individuals, thereby removing any possibility of doubt from their minds. Of course, that knowledge would only pertain to people that received such revelations, (and gullible others that were told about it).
I don't think it works so well the other way though. I don't see how it could be possible to know with certainty that there is no God. But it depends on definitions. I think one can know with a great deal of confidence that there is no God of the type described in the Bible, because it is (IMHO) self-contradictory. But that is only one of a vast range of possible conceptions of God(s).
But asserting that lack of belief in God makes you an atheist is to beg the question. What if I just don't believe in God, one way or another, but neither do I disbelieve in God?
Not believing in God is a necessary but not sufficient condition for atheism.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
In this case, the etymology of agnosticism is not really accurate at all.
Quoting VagabondSpectre
But they nevertheless believe God exists. They may think they cannot "know" if God exists, but clearly they do think they have some reasons to believe God exists.
If you truly do not believe one way or another, then you are an agnostic, plain and simple. Nobody actually goes around denying knowledge of God and yet believing anyway. That's stupid.
Saying "I don't know God exists" but believing anyway is confusing and dishonest. Why would anyone believe anything they didn't think was actually true? And how can someone actually know that they know something? And why should anyone else care how "strongly" you believe in God or whatever? Why don't we just ask them what their reasons for belief are and go from there?
Nobody knows that they know God exists, but that doesn't matter at all. What matters is their belief.
Say I ask you if you think/belief if trillion of dollars is real or not? You cannot say for certain you know that trillion dollars exist because you have never seen it. Even though you can look online and see other people have trillion of dollars, something cost trillion of dollars, or the stock market shows trillion of dollars are being exchanged still isn't sufficient evidence because you can legitimately become skeptical of that. In terms of being logical and being very certain beyond doubt that trillion of dollars exist, you must have the requirement of first hand experience in seeing it physically. Therefore, you heavily believe trillions of dollars exist because of conformity, yet aren't 100% certain beyond doubt that it exists.
We are of course talking about philosophy, not practicality.
Then this applies to basically any judgement at all, and agnosticism becomes an annoying baggage term. I'm an "agnostic" about the real external world. I'm an "agnostic" about my car existing. I'm an "agnostic" about how many toes my dog has. I'm "pretty sure" the real external word exists, that my car exists, and that my dog has twenty toes, but of course I'm not absolutely certain.
But since when did absolute certainty become a requirement for belief? Why is it so important? Why can't we just say, you believe God exists = theism, you believe God does not exist = atheism, you lack a belief in God = agnosticism? Making all these extra terms only muddies the water and makes things even more pretentious than they already are.
Absolute certainty isn't a requirement for belief, obviously...it's a requirement for actual knowledge, not the mere knowledge one can day dream about.
Quoting darthbarracuda
Doesn't this agree that agnostic theism is a legit theological position?
Lol, you haven't met them yet. They are called gnostics for a reason and I'm primarily against them. Both atheists and theists. Gnostic theism is what most atheists hate anyways.
In terms of being rational or academic no, but that's my personal opinion. However, in terms of being realistic yes, Gnostic Theism has affected the world negatively and practically it's a real problem. Some try-hard philosophers are also Gnostic Atheists to attempt to fight back, but I think it's the wrong way to do so.
Studying irrationality might be important for psychological research anyways. We aren't logical beings by design, we are irrational beings.
Active disbelief of P is 1) lacking belief in P, 2) lacking belief that possibly-P, and 3) being aware of both of these things. I don't mean phenomenal awareness, per se, so much as in the sense that I am aware that I have five toes on my left foot, even though I'm not always concentrating my attention on that belief.
Aside: I do not thing that the negation of state of affairs is another state of affairs. This is not a technical term - you can replace "state of affairs" by something less highfalutin like "situation."
When was I talking about colloquial terms? Because I don't see the issue you are addressing. The analogy about the trillions of dollars was an analogy to help you understand how an agnostic theist thinks. It wasn't an attempt to redefine agnosticism.
Saying this is stupid is a vague expression and the words agnosticism and gnosticism, I believe, originated from academic philosophy. If it hasn't prove me wrong because I don't see everyday people using those jargon words (agnosticism and gnosticism). Probably because everyday people think the two terms are stupid to use as well.
"Agnostic theism" fairly describes a large number of religious attitudes toward the nature of their own belief in god. Reason logic and evidence are concerns of science and (some) philosophy as a means to indicate what to believe is true, but this brand of agnostic belief differs because it uses things which are distinctly separate from reason in order to substantiate or justify a belief. I've seen it countless times; here are some examples of it's framing:
"I believe God exists because I feel him in my heart".
"I believe God exists because faith in God transcends logic".
"I believe God exists because that belief offers me comfort".
Even pascals wager is an example of a theistic argument from an agnostic perspective. "I believe in God because I'm gambling intellectual integrity on a hypothetical afterlife"...
Are these the sort of arguments you expect to see in philosophy, though?
To be honest, the only people I see bringing up this distinction between belief and knowledge are atheists who want to call themselves "agnostic" to avoid actually arguing for a positive position. Belief is a requirement for knowledge, but does not entail knowledge- this is true. However, when someone says they are an "agnostic atheist" or an "agnostic theist," all they are saying is that they are agnostics with a inclination towards one side.
To say one is a theist is to express a positive position. The theist claims that god (going to completely avoid how vague that word is and how it can radically change) exists. I would say that the theist believes that, in some meaningful sense of the word "know," they know god exists. They may not give traditionally philosophical answers of reasoned justification, but they still give some sort of justification that they accept as grounds to belief in god. Even when the theist bases their belief on faith or something similar, there is usually some justification for using faith in this context, either from the theist themselves or a theistic philosopher.
This is easier to see in some lines of thought within atheism. For example, when the atheist is saying the burden of proof is on theism to show it is true and that atheism is the default position, the atheist is really saying that they meet a requirement that allows them to claim that god does not exist. In other words, the atheist is saying they are epistemolgically justified in claiming god does not exist, and in a sense, know that god does not exist. They acknowledge they might be wrong, but, under their epistemological system, they can claim knowledge on the nonexistence of god.
I will go further into depth as needed.
These individual phrases? No. But there are people who argue for religious experience and feeling, pragmatism, and faith on philosophical grounds.
It would be a wonderful world indeed of all philosophy was rational.
Quoting Chany
But most atheists don't say "god does not exist" and claim it as knowledge. When atheists say the burden of proof is on the theist, they aren't really saying they have proof of god's non-existence.
You've brought up the fact that god has an amorphous definition, so let me ask you this (presuming you believe in a Christian god):
Do you lack belief in Zeus?
Do you believe that Zeus does not exist?
Do you have proof of Zeus's non-existence?
Are you an atheist or agnostic when it comes to Zeus?
What about all the other notions of god?
How can the burden of proof be on the soft atheist to disprove the existence of all possible gods if all we really do is reject arguments for specific gods when and where they arise?
Why don't atheists just refer to themselves as agnostic instead of sneakily trying to avoid a burden of proof? It's because we use the terms differently: "atheism" for lacks belief in god(s) (and optionally possesses belief in god(s) non-existence) and "agnosticism" for believes knowledge of god(s) is unknown or unknowable/unattainable.
In this case the proposition would then come from theism.
How are beliefs formed anyway?
Quoting VagabondSpectre
I don't believe that 'the Christian God' is comparable to Zeus or Apollo or any of the ancient deities. It was presented in those terms, due to the culture in which it had to be communicated, hence, 'one of the Gods'. It's true that to many people, God is thought of as 'Jupiter', with all of the associated imagery, however I think that is a holdover from earlier belief systems.
So my point is that when a theist asks an atheist to disprove all possible gods (such as Zeus) the theist also has to disprove all possible gods (minus the one they believe in) because they too must share the atheist lack of belief or disbelief. So, as an atheist I only ever need to refute one god at a time, the one a given theist happens to believe in.
Basically, I am in favour of a relatively broad and flexible set of definitions for atheism, and I think that those who would rule out either one or the other of the two main definitions of atheism, namely as [i]lacking the belief that there is a god[/I] or as [i]the belief that there is no god[/I], are just wasting their time. The reason being that many people will carry on using the word in these ways regardless.
For the atheist, all that is at stake is a belief. As far as they're concerned, it is simply a matter of a false belief - a belief which has no referent, belief in a fictitious, if comforting, illusion. The pink unicorn of joy, the flying spaghetti monster, the comforting heavenly father who soothes away childhood frets.
'Snap out of it, wake up and get back to the real world', they will say.
For the believer, on the other hand, what is at stake is not simply a belief, but a matter of life and death. It will have consequences that reverberate far into the future, maybe forever. It's not simply a belief, which is only a bellwhether, but the very thread that leads out of the labyrinth, the gateway to a higher and different kind of life, one that those around us cannot imagine.
This doesn't mean, incidentally, that I claim to know whether 'God exists', as I remain agnostic. But I've realised I'm a religious agnostic, in that I feel that I intuit what it is that is behind the yearning of believers. And that is something I feel, that I think atheists don't. They seem to be wanting to persuade the believers that they're deficient, in some way: that they have an un-acknowledged inability to face things 'as they really are', and so need to cling to a comforting illusion, which is what they take religious belief to be. Indeed it's all the atheist can believe it to be - that's their belief (which is the point of the OP).
Never mind that religious believers often sacrifice everything, including themselves, for what they believe - as if that is a 'comforting illusion'.
I think it's quite fair to say: 'look, there really is nothing corresponding to 'the sacred': no religious beliefs have any basis in reality. We are basically creatures who survive for however long, and do what we do, and that's all there is to it.' This is the view that all religions are simply grand, if edifying, delusions.
But such a 'belief in nothing' is only a better kind of belief if there really is nothing to believe in. In that case, the unbeliever is better off than the believer, solely for not having the burden of carrying a false belief.
But if there is any sense in which religious belief is true - if in reality, there is a radically different kind of existence, which religions point to - then the consequences far outweigh the advantages of a mere absence of a belief. That is the asymmetry that I'm referring to.
(Tip of the hat to Pascal's Wager.)
The more innocuous track is a view that if someone simply has no belief in a deity, because they are more or less unaware of even the idea of a deity, then that person is an atheist in a literal sense of the word per the Greek etymological roots of the word.
The less innocuous track is an attitude about beliefs where the person associates the idea of belief with "buying something on faith." And usually the cause of this is the association of belief with religion in combination with a rejection of religion. Some people have this attitude to an extent where they'll get bent out of shape at the idea that they have any beliefs whatsoever.
However, if you accept that assenting to "New York is north of Florida" is reflective of a belief that you hold, then atheism is going to involve belief insofar as you've heard ideas about gods and rejected them. In that case you'd say that you have a belief that "There are no gods" or something similar.
One can reject a proposition because of a lack of certainty, rather than a belief that its contrary is true. In such a case, the degree of certainty which is required for belief would not have been met. And so, in such a case, one would not necessarily have a belief to the contrary. Although there would still be a belief: that it is uncertain. I suppose that that could be included under your "something similar" category.
Right, in that case, the belief would be belief in "degrees of certainty".
Yes, like I said.
If you read enough of these debates something you might notice is that evidence is never presented to support the claim that "beliefs" are the powerful determinants of behavior that fanatics on both sides say we must control.
Beliefs, rather than being determinants of behavior, could just be necessary intellectual tools. Evidence--solid, concrete evidence--is never presented one way or the other.
Do people really consistently hold the same beliefs? Or are our beliefs? in a constant state of flux?
Is a belief really a distinct entity? Or are beliefs gray areas that can't be categorized?
And, good grief, why do people get so agitated, offended, annoyed, etc. by other people's beliefs? Probably 99% of the time I could not care less about what other people believe. Somebody might believe that I am a trespasser and be prepared to shoot me with a gun, but somebody else's belief being a threat like that is an extremely rare scenario. And we pay little attention to those kinds of beliefs--often, clinical psychologists have to bring them to our attention. But if somebody believes? in a deity we've already got our guard up!
I think that it is all politics and has very little to do with intellectual or spiritual life.
A lot of interesting insights, especially where religious myth is compared to art.
That explains a lot about where Christians have gone wrong.
But how do we explain the fanaticism of the irreligious over "beliefs"?
Again, I think that it is all political. If you want to increase your power and reduce other people's power then an often-practiced strategy is to make it about "us" vs. "them" and portray "them" as subhuman, inferior, backwards, etc.--or say that their "beliefs" are dangerous and must be exposed, contained, eradicated, etc.
Actually my long-standing view is that the dynamics of ecclesiastical power held by the Church has a great deal to do with the way this conflict has unfolded in Western culture. This is because of the power wielded by religious orthodoxy and, conversely, the treatment meted out to heretics and schismatics. That played out over centuries in the West, and of course it also became deeply intertwined with politics, in the Wars of Religion and the 30 Years War, not to mention many bloody episodes in the Inquisition, such as the persecution of the Cathars.
I am inclined to think that is the underlying cause of the anti-religious attitudes of the so-called 'secular West'. That, in turn, grew out of the Enlightenment and the belief that science, not religion, ought to be the 'arbiter of truth' - which is, of course, true, in respect of the kinds of matters that can be made subject to scientific measurement. But religions deal with many ideas and values that are quite out of scope for science.
Actually this is a subject which Karen Armstrong's book The Case for God, talks about - that essay is basically an abstract of it. She shows how early modern science, by appealing to 'God's Handiwork', inadvertently brought about its own undoing - 'Fatally, religions tried to defend themselves against science by arguing that they knew the truth better than the geologists, rather than presenting themselves (as one feels Armstrong would have wished) as the guardians of mystery and therapeutic manoeuvres of the mind. 1.'
That impulse is what gave rise to biblical fundamentalism and the 'culture wars'. Most people don't realise that Augustine and Origen were fiercely critical of biblical literalism and fundamentalism, in the early days of the Christian church.
Very interesting issue you brought up. I've come across it many times - didn't give it any thought.
It does matter because atheists use the ''atheism is lack of belief'' to wiggle out of logically ''inconvenient'' positions.
Atheists take this stance especially when theists demand disproof of god. Nobody, as of now, can disprove god's nonexistence - there's too big a lacuna, despite our pride, in our knowledge bank to say anything definitive on the issue. Note this applies to theists too.
What does lack of belief mean? For me it's the blank slate which @Bitter Crank mentioned in his post. To illustrate, as a 4 year old I lacked belief in gravity. The concept simply didn't exist (for me). As far as gravity was concerned I was a blank slate. As I grew up I learned the concept and then formed a belief, that gravity is real, and the blank slate was replaced by knowledge of gravity.
Likewise, as a 4 year old I was a blank slate where faster-than-light-speed travel was concerned. With time this was replaced by knowledge, disbelief of such a possibility.
So, there is a difference between lack of belief and disbelief. In simple terms, the former is ignorance and the latter is knowledge.
The song of the atheist is ''God doesn't exist'' which, to me, is simply the short version of ''I know God doesn't exist'', which is a claim to knowledge of God's ontology. So, atheism is definitely not lack of belief.
It seems to me that the reverse has also occurred: the irreligious have dragged science and rationalism into a culture war against "religion".
Chris Hedges wrote I Don't Believe In Atheists: The Dangerous Rise of the Secular Fundamentalist. But atheists in general, the New Atheists, and others responded that they are not fundamentalists, there is no such thing as secular fundamentalism, etc.
In Only A Theory: Evolution and the Battle for America's Soul, Kenneth R. Miller shows that the Intelligent Design movement is not about evolution. The Intelligent Design movement, he shows, uses evolution as a smokescreen to hide their actual agenda: changing the definition of science and in the process subjugating or destroying science. If I recall correctly, it all started with a small meeting in the home of Michael Behe.
Again, it is not about truth, spiritual well-being, improving the human condition, etc. It is various interests struggling to gain and maintain power.
If there were nothing to gain politically from it, would anybody care about what personal "beliefs" people have?
And the people who claim that they are on the side of Enlightenment liberalism seem to be very illiberal when it comes to people's "beliefs". True liberalism accommodates a diversity of beliefs, lifestyles, religious practices/traditions, etc. The "belief" police, on the other hand, say that some beliefs, such as the belief in supernatural beings, have got to go.
And I don't believe that it is all some understandable response to millennia of oppressive ecclesiastical power. It is one thing to want to liberate people from an oppressive power structure by emphasizing the rights of individuals, the primacy of the individual subject, the efficacy of reason/rationality, etc., it is another thing to say that "beliefs" determine behavior, to single out certain generic beliefs such as the belief in the existence of deities, and to treat anybody who possesses or supports the latter like they are inferior, in need of reform, deplorable, etc.
Most significantly, again, the "belief" police never hold their position to their own standard. They say that only anything "evidence-based" is reliable, but they provide no evidence to support their view that "beliefs" determine behavior. They display the same irrationality that they say religious people display.
Finally, I don't know the whole history or sociology of fundamentalism, but in Global Problems and the Culture of Capitalism, Richard H. Robbins shows how Protestant fundamentalism developed as a response to the expansion of capitalism. Maybe trying to prove logos with mythos set the intellectual stage for it, but if Robbins is right it is the encroachment of capitalism and globalization that has been the impetus behind the religious fundamentalist response.
I think that doesn't do justice to the role of religion in the formation of culture. It also completely fails to grasp the kind of existential issue which religions present themselves as an answer to. And finally, it must mean that a great deal of culture and civilization, Western and Eastern, has been founded on a delusion, or even a conspiracy theory, from the very beginning.
Quoting WISDOMfromPO-MO
I think there is a fundamental difference between the materialist view of life - which is the view that the Universe is ultimately just dumb stuff, and life is simply a kind of bio-chemical reaction that just happened to take root in it - and any religious view, which is the universe is a drama, or an unfolding story, in which the human has a part. It's a profound difference.
If you have a group of people trying to find the truth as best they can, and another group of people who oppose the first groups efforts for political or ideological or religious reasons, it doesn't follow that what the first group was doing was motivated by political or ideological or religious reasons. It also doesn't follow that what the second group says is false; only that their methodology was designed with some purpose other than finding the truth in mind.
Quoting WiseMoron
I'm not sure about that, since any time I see a chart like the ones you brought up, they seem to always take atheism as being merely a lack of belief or "whatever isn't theism". Really, this is why people take the whole black and white approach with regards to atheism/theism, which is what your charts seem to indicate.
Quoting WiseMoron
The response here, I imagine, for someone defending the definition in question is that if your stance on God does not include a belief that he exists, regardless of whatever opinion you hold on the matter, you are an atheist by definition. Your objection amounts to using a definition they already reject and the whole disagreement lies in the differing ways you both define the terms "agnostic" and "atheist".
That is not to say I don't sympathize with your definition. Indeed, the thing that irks me about the definitions that atheists have been insisting upon has always been the way in which it obscures the difference between simply not having an opinion, and disbelief (believing that God does not exist). For instance, I believe that the Earth revolves around the Sun is true, and I believe also that Santa Claus existing is false, but I am on the fence on whether Donald Trump colluded with the Russians and I am not willing to say whether that is true or false. All three are clearly different stances on a particular issue, and to me it'd be better if they were distinguished with the proper terms, but by redefining atheism as being merely "not theism", we lose that distinction.
Like, imagine if we decided to flip the scenario and had atheism traditionally defined as disbelief and theism as "whatever isn't atheism". We'd have the same problem of course, but I imagine the atheists wouldn't be the ones pushing this definition for reasons I'll leave you to figure out.
it does not 'leave out agnosticism' as some have said, it does not 'confuse belief and knowledge' as others have said, it explicitly distinguishes between them, thats the very point of the thing.
Atheists are NON-theists
agnostics are people who lack knowledge of whatever topic is at hand, Gnostic's are those with knowledge of the topic at hand.
And agnostic is a TYPE of atheist / theist. its a claim of how sure one is, a person who claims to be an Agnostic theist is one who believes in God but recognizes they cant prove it.
Everyone is Agnostic with regards to the existence of God.
Of course most or all humans harbor beliefs of whatever kind.
In the case of atheists, I guess that could then be anything but theism.
I just tend to get a bit suspicious when discussions like this come up, because often enough they're attempts to shift the burden of proof.
alludes to Russel's teapot. Of course every proponent of a specific religion cannot demand a disproof from disbelievers. Rather he/she has to deliver really good reasons for believing. On the other hand an atheist stating that there isn't any form of a divine entity and one should believe in plain naturalism makes a claim, which needs to be vindicated sufficiently either. Maybe the most teapot-like (admittedly there is a problem with definition) extraterrestial object in the solar system has an amazing similarity with something that would be generally accepted as a teapot. In analogy a god-like being might exist, that shows more similarities with Gods of known religions than atheists would suspect.
Nothing funnier than destroying arguments with unexpected answers to rhetorical questions, don't you think? I believe in square circles.
Besides, even if we assumed they don't, it'd be because their definition is self contradicting. That's not comparable to deities.
Sounds conspiracy-ish, over thought and baseless. The people behind that movement are intelligent enough to neither come up with such an agenda nor to not believe in intelligent design.
It's not a conspiracy theory.
He sheds light on a lot of the politics of evolution, like how when the anti-evolution people were voted off the Kansas state school board they got elected again later by changing their strategy: instead of directly trying to get evolution taught in the classroom they stopped talking about evolution and instead tried to change the definition of science.