Belief or without belief. Assertion or lack of assertion.
The words atheist and atheism are inaccurately defined in many dictionaries as someone who is a disbeliever/denier or has a doctrine that there is no God. Some dictionaries even include in their definitions phrases such as “immoral” or “someone with nothing to touch their inner being.”
My experience is that most atheists think an atheist is someone that is simply without any belief in gods.
This may not sound like a significant distinction to some, but it’s very important because sometimes atheism is portrayed as an assertion of a negative, which is a false argument. Sometimes atheism is also portrayed as a religion or doctrine which comes down to a matter of faith.
Although some dictionaries at least include the “without belief” phrase, the problem seems to be that dictionaries are about the common use of words, not whether the concept is necessarily valid.
For example:
“A nether world in which the dead continue to exist : (2) : the nether realm
of the devil and the demons in which the damned suffer everlasting punishment.”
(Merriam-Webster definition of “Hell”)
“The appearance of the sky when the sun starts to rise”
(Cambridge Dictionary definition of “sunrise”)
Although these definitions are how the words are probably most often used, some people might not agree that the definition of hell was factual and many people would agree that the sun doesn’t really “rise” (it appears to rise because of the turning of the earth).
Again, nit-picky? Yes, but the atheism definitions are often pulled out of dictionaries and paraded in discussions about the validity of atheism as if they are precise, valid, technical definitions.
Isn’t a lack of belief agnosticism?
Yes, but an agnostic is someone who asks a question about the existence of a particular god or gods and says that the answer is unknowable. The difference is that the atheist is not asking a question.
Does this imply the atheist thinks the matter is settled? No, it just means the atheist is not pursuing the question any more than the atheist would have a burning desire to know if Fred Flintstone exists.
I believe Fred Flinstone exists. They show footage of him on my TV every day and I’ve heard him scream YABBA DABBA DOO!
Actually I personally believe in Fred Flintstone also.
I became a convert one day when I was driving an old car which had ran out of gas. When I got up to get out of the car, my feet fell through to the pavement because the floorboard had rusted out.
I thought to myself “Why not?” Made it to work that day and I’ve been a believer ever since.
Capella
This is an argument I’ve had many times, and essentially that is what I’ve ended up at. My position is now essentially this: I am not “disproving ” or “denying” the existence of God — because God has never been anything other than a fairy tale people made up. Everything about the Christian God and religion in general can be explained in those terms. I passed that juncture in my thinking about the time I became an adult, and am now freely thinking far beyond whether or not there might be a God. When I was a child I used to stop, stock-still, and wonder if I was being watched by an invisible being and all my activity recorded by Him for later judgment. Or I would have a moment of fear when I thought that I could be wrong. But that hasn’t happened to me in almost 20 years now. I was never raised with religion in my life, so the only impression of religion onto my thinking was made by people outside my circle of trust. By the time I was an adult those impressions had entirely faded.At any rate, any notion that I’m busily “disproving” something that is logically ridiculous is one that I try to dispell immediately. I have much more adult things to worry about.
Umm…. Fred Flinstone does exist. He is one of the greatest classic characters created by Warner Bros. ;o) (You have to live in Burbank to get that one)
As for Max Grant, I love the hostility and all the implications the Christians are childish, irrational and stupid. One of my best friends is a very devout Christian, and I mean very, and I have to say, based on your writing, he far outclasses you in the maturity and rationality department. You’re obviously upset because, I can only assume, some Christian control freak probably tried to control your life at some point and you are glad to get out of it.
Either way, having listened to my friend’s experiences, I cannot fault him or anyone else for their beliefs, neither can I consider them childish, irrational or stupid. Having been involved in the world of martial arts for a long time I can say that not everything is black and white or simple. Some people have experienced some pretty amazing things, some that defy explanation, and how they choose interpret those things does not make them any less rational or mature than anyone else.
Regardless of whether or not I share the beliefs of my Christian friends, many of them have done far more good in the world, taking tons of food and clothing to third world nations and inner city children, than most of the people who sit on the web tearing down everything the have aught against.
Real Teruchan and Max Grant, My thoughts on any conversation on religion really can come to this.
Anytime someone else has a different belief about religion most people will think of it as an attack on their own belief system, whether that was intended or not. Truthfully this could be though of as being illogical. Think of it this way: take a belief that cannot currently be tested but is not religious based. Such as the popular belief that the universe was created by the big bang. If you happen to come across someone that says they believe that the universe never had a beginning and will never have an end, most people may respect both beliefs. Why? Because at this point there is no way to confirm either one is true.
That said, lets put this in context with religion. Say you believe that God exists, someone else believes that he doesn’t, at this point there really is no way to know for sure who would be correct. Just like there are several religions with completely different thoughts about what happens after you die, no one can say for sure who is correct. But nevertheless every one of them preaches it like it is total fact.
If there is proof, show it and make sure it is rock solid. If you can back up why you are angry, with solid evidence, then you are justified in any attack. If you bash someone else’s beliefs directly just because you think you are right, but you have no proof, you are unjustified in your attack.
My thoughts about Atheists? I believe atheists that used to be Christians tend to have a hard struggle they go through to change from Christian to an Atheist. Usually this is brought on by the willingness to critically think about the questions that come up from a religion that almost all Christians rely never want to think about. Such as why do i truly believe in god? Is there anything tangible about my beliefs? Can anyone completely prove without a doubt that god exists? Would I know the difference if i was being controlled by a made up religion or if I was controlled by god? Currently Christianism offers me no differentiation between being controlled by a group of ancient authors who imposed their ideas forcibly on others and being controlled by a deity. All I have to go by is what is in the book and what a pastor says. How can I tell if they really know what they are talking about? I can’t, no one can, there is no proof to disprove or prove any part except some of the general events. It was like someone wrote their beliefs into a history book and reinterpreted all the stories to include their own beliefs. My perception is that everyone who has a religion is being lied to and is lying to themselves. Therefore the definition to an Atheist “Should” be: someone who can see through the most elaborate lie ever told. Or someone who refuses to disillusion themselves.
I challenge anyone with a religion to truthfully and completely answer all of the following questions with a rock solid answer, try to put forth as much though as possible on the tangability of your answer. Is it something that can you can feel with your 5 senses? (your welcome to be harsh if you want)
Why do i truly believe in god? Is there anything tangible about my beliefs? Can anyone completely prove without a doubt that god exists? Why hasn’t the world ended yet? (Most importantly) Would I know the difference if i was being controlled by a made up religion or if I was controlled by god, and what is that difference?
ADAM Said
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If there is proof, show it and make sure it is rock solid. If you can back up why you are angry, with solid evidence, then you are justified in any attack.
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Brother I wouldnt insist on rock solid proof of god.. just even get me some slight suspicion of his existance
Azzy
We go based on our beliefs and what the evedences point to. Can we truly know anything 100%? Absolutly not, but that doesn’t mean we throw things out as not being historical or an other field. We must have a criteria that we follow and we must keep it consistent. Be true to your self. It seems that when it gets to “religous” stuff people change their criteria all of a sudden. Do we know that Hitler existed. Well, whatever the answer may be, I try to use that criteria with everything else in my life especially my beliefs.
Thank you for your time.
Common sense says that molesting little children is a bad idea.
Ironically rape and murder is rapant in Bible stories and often committed or commanded by the heros of the bible.
The reason why is that (also ironically) the Old Testament was written by primitive barbaric people that were impressed with such things because they operated on lower moral grounds.
Long time ago, but still, “a bad idea” Capella? common now. It’s more than a bad idea, or a way of social acceptance. It’s wrong.
If there was ever a murder commited without the instruction of God then it was wrong. If GOD chose to judge, which is his right, then the instrument of judgment is just that, an instrument of judgment. Easy to point out all the killing, more diffucult to point out WHY. WIthout the WHY, you have a book worthy of all the Athiests verbal abuse.
It’s not hard to point out why. The stabbing to death of massive amounts of children and infants obviously had nothing to do with “justice.”
For ancient people and their inferior levels of morality, it made for more impressive story.
Cappela,
You are of course right. I come from a tribe in Kenya which had stories similar to those in the Old Testament long before it was introduced to Christianity. There are stories of leaders like Samson, slayings of entire members (including children) of other tribes and of course animal and human sacrifice to gods and other spirits. After reading through the old testament I was struck by how the stories were similar to those of my tribesmen. It was clear to me that the Old Testament is the work of primitive man. To hear a theologian giving a supposedly educated lecture rationalising (as zulla is doing) the genocide in the old testament convinces me that Richard Dawkins is right: theology is not a subject at all.
Ok, i know I broke one of the rules of posting but i didn’t read through all the replys. Here’s one of my thoughts though. Atheism, to me, has always been that one holds the belief that there is no god. This means that they have asked the question, and do care about it. Even if they have not really “asked” the question, they have acknowledged it by admitting no god. If you are to completely “not ask” the question, and not respond, you are a Nontheist, not an athiest. Nonthiests not only do not ask the question, they simply don’t care one way or the other. As soon as you ask it, or say, God doesn’t exist, then you are either an Atheist, or agnostic, or what have you. Just some of my thoughts though.
I realize that the following will most likely not sway many people because most have their opinions about what certain classifications of people think and many don’t care what the people in these classifications themselves think.
A good example is the assertion by many religious people that all gay people have a choice, that it’s a “lifestyle” for them. These people curiously don’t seem to be overly concerned about asking the gay people themselves, because they feel that their interpretation of the Bible is all that is important. Same thing with their view of atheists.
Then there are those that enjoy pondering this philosophically rather than functionally. I think philosophy is fun, but respectfully, here I would like to be logical and functional about this.
In any case, I recognize a couple of common problems from myself having been brought up in a society that was heavily religiously biased.
The first is the bias that there is only one god (with a capital ‘G’) that is in question, the “God” of the Bible of course and the second is that an atheist is just as actively concerned as a believer or agnostic and has to assert from this concern that this particular god definitely doesn’t exist.
To help divorce the subject from such bias: one might ask people instead if fairies exist. Here are possible positions on the subject:
1) To actively believe that fairies do exist. They have their cameras ready and believe that past photos of fairies are genuine.
2) To lay awake night after night and wonder if fairies exist. “Should I or should I not go buy a camera??”
3) There are definitely no fairies anywhere in the universe I tell you, none whatsoever, anywhere.
4) I don’t think fairies exist and I don’t care.
Position one either requires genuine evidence, of which very little exists or it requires faith.
Position two is more like an agnostic. They are actively concerned with the question.
Position three, like the first two positions, is actively concerned with the subject but this position is illogical. No matter how silly the idea is, you can’t absolutely prove that fairies don’t exist somewhere, particularly outside of one’s experience. As a discipline, you can’t prove a negative no matter how ridiculous it is.
Some atheists fall into position three, but my experience is that most atheists fall into position four. It’s simply not a concern. They have filed all gods away with the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus. It’s not a question on their minds.
They don’t go to bed at night wondering “Does the God of the Bible exist??” Nah… wait… maybe?? No, definitely not, nowhere, nohow, notime, etc…
The position becomes clearer if you substitute Fred Flintstone for the God of the Bible:
They don’t go to bed at night wondering “Does Fred Flintstone exist??” Nah… wait… maybe?? No, definitely not, nowhere, nohow, notime, etc…
My position is this: I don’t think that any gods exist and the question is not any more important *to me* than if Santa Claus exists. If someone is old enough however, I might point out things that present difficulties with the idea of Santa Claus such as the improbability of getting to all those houses in one night, etc…
Every normal (non-insipient) human always wants to avoid disasters. One of the few certain things in his life is its loss (his death, a major disaster). He wants to survive, hopes there is a way, but without God there is no such hope, so he cares and believes in God. I’m afraid the rest of your discussion is hopelessly futile. Thank you.
zulla writes: 5)… Maybe he [God] wants to respect your GOD given right to choose to deny him if that’s what you feel.
This article is about the “proper” definition of atheist, and here Zulla is giving us precisely the wrong definition, but one that is popular among Christians, namely that atheists DENY God (the one in the Bible, of course). This says that atheists really know that the God of the Bible exists, and for some reason are stubbornly pretending that he doesn’t exist or are pretending that he has no power over us, or something along those lines.
No, Zulla, we do not believe in the God of the Bible or any other god(s) because the claims about those gods do not make any sense to us. We are not saying: “Hey, God, I really know you are there, but you gave me the right to deny you, so that is what I am doing.”
Zulla, I assmue that you do not believe in Krishna or Zeus or any of numerous other gods. Do you say: “Hey, Krishna (or Zeus or whoever), I really know you are there, but you gave me the right to deny you, so that is what I am doing.” Atheists don’t say that about those gods, or yours either.
But you’re looking at the Christian perspective, which won’t relate to yours, because they see things on a different level to you.
Don’t forget, even if you don’t acknowledge God’s existance, you are still denying it. If you are not denying it, you are not an atheist.
Athiests simply live on the believe that there is no God, any god, some of you seem to be calling yourselves atheists when you are not!
I would say agnostics can also fall into catagory 4. Catagory 4 is more a scale of apathy. Indeed theists can too.
In fact, looking at it, it seems you are mixing 2 concepts into 1. You have peoples beliefs (theist, athesist, agnostic) and you also have how much people care about the subject (veiwing god like Fred Flintstone).
You need to be careful to separate these:
“4) I don’t think fairies exist and I don’t care.”
This is mixing the 2, and is almost an oxymoron, for example “I want my car to be blue, and I don’t care” Doesn’t fit quite right.
You’re suggesting that agnostics care whether there is a god, and atheists do not, yet I know a lot of atheists who would take offence at that, and they do very much care!
Sorry about the long post, I hope you guys can see what I am trying to say, if of course none of you actually care, then it’s going to make no difference and none of us is going to get anywhere.
This is a very convenient rationalization for Christians and other types of believers.
The definition of “deny” in this use is to refuse to acknowledge somebody. In other words as Jim put so well, Christians would like to infer that there is an issue, that their god (with a capital G) is the only one at issue, that particular god exists, and that atheists refuse to acknowledge that existence.
Again, if Fred Flintstone is substituted for “God” then the faultiness of this rational becomes even more apparent.
I’ve already covered how many dictionaries are about the use of words, not their accurate meanings. Some common dictionaries obviously want to appeal to religious people, hence defining heaven and hell as if they are real places and even giving insulting definitions of atheism such as “immoral godlessness” or “someone with nothing to touch their inner being.”
The correct definition of an atheist as given in some Collegiate dictionaries is someone who is without any belief in gods.
An agnostic is someone asking questions. An atheist is someone who isn’t.
Your use of the word “want” here either means you misunderstood or you’ve concocted a convenient straw man. A more accurate analogy would be “I don’t think Vladimir Putin’s shoes are blue and I don’t care.”
Having corresponded with hundreds of atheists and of course actually being one, I can say that none of us have any questions about whether Allah, Yahweh, Buddha, Krishna, Brahma, Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny, etc… exists. We don’t care.
If you think someone who is really an athiest is caring, they are caring about things like religious people trying to legislate their morality on others, trying to brainwash public school children, going to war because “God” “told” them to (as Bush has said), etc…
In otherwords the existence of Fred Flintstone may not be an active concern of yours but you might be concerned if some psycho was invading another country, killing thousands of men, women, and children, because Fred Flintstone told him to.
“The correct definition of an atheist as given in some Collegiate dictionaries is someone who is without any belief in gods.” I agree with this statement.
“An agnostic is someone asking questions. An atheist is someone who isn’t.”
I really don’t see how that can be true. In my experience, there are a lot of agnostics who don’t ask questions, and many atheists who do, as far as I can see, the 2 factors do not correllate at all, like saying how I feel about sheep correllates to the phases of the moon.
I think you are going to have to give me your definition of a “straw man.”
“A more accurate analogy would be “I don’t think Vladimir Putin’s shoes are blue and I don’t care.””
Then this is the one I shall use, in this sentence you are infering 2 separate notions, to demonstrate with variations:
I don’t think Vladimir Putin’s shoes are blue and I don’t care.
I don’t think Vladimir Putin’s shoes are red and I don’t care.
I don’t think Vladimir Putin’s shoes are blue and I do care.
I don’t think Vladimir Putin’s shoes are red and I do care.
The problem I have, is if you are right, and atheists are people who don’t care, so generally haven’t thought about it or checked the facts, which I do see a lot… Then it is a very powerful argument for theism, as many theists spend a lot of their life checking things over. Where as I guess you might say “Why bother.” So it would suggest that those who care, and therefore check the facts, become theists…
Hence, theism fits the facts. In which case athiests would be wrong but, as you say, “do not care.”
This is why I’m trying hard to find athiests who do care, so I can verify this hypothosis, but they seem increasingly rare!
Let me try to simplify the concepts further:
Theist: God of the bible exists.
Agnostic: Does the God of the bible exist?
Atheist: Not asking if the god of the Bible exists. Without curiosity on that particular subject and without belief in that particular god or any other of the hundreds of different gods that various people believe in.
The correct definition of a straw man is what you did in the previous comment and what you did again with the sheep analogy: falsely
characterizing a position to make it easier to attack.
Yet another straw man. You are mischaracterizing don’t care as “haven’t thought about it” and “haven’t checked the facts” and care as the opposite.
Then you run with that straw man to try to portray atheists as ignorant and theists as in the know.
Sorry, but as we say in Texas: “that dog don’t hunt.”
I was a Christian myself for several years before I awoken out of it. To claim I “haven’t checked the facts” because I no longer care about the question of existence of the god of the Bible is obviously wrong.
Fair enough, thanks for your time.
I looked up the definition of “agnostic” and “atheist” in the Mirriam Webster Online Dictionary. An atheist was defined as someone who believes there is a deity. Agnostic was defined as someone who did not profess to know if there was a God or not. I think these definitons are completely biased. I think the definition for “agnostic” fits my beliefs and that the one given for “atheist does not. I consider an atheist as simply having no religion. Even a Christian could fall under the definition for agnostic given by the dictionary because they need only profess to believe that God exists. Knowledge that God exists is not needed. These are only labels. My beliefs have not changed even if you change the way I am labelled.
I agree. In the same dictionary “hell” is defined as:
(1) a nether world in which the dead continue to exist : hades (2): the nether realm of the devil and the demons in which the damned suffer everlasting punishment —often used in curses, (etc…)
An atheist might instead define hell as place imagined by Christians, Muslims, and some Jewish people, a concept in the Bible and Quoran borrowed from earlier religions and mythological stories.
It’s obvious that definitions such as the former hell definition and the atheism/agnostic definitions are catered to the buying audience of the dictionary namely Christians and other religious and superstitious types.
Agnostic’s don’t know. Atheist’s dont care.
Most people don’t seem to realize that they are Atheists about all gods except the one(s) they happen to believe in.
I happen to be an Atheist about just one more god (or a few gods) than them.
Your article brings up the issue of having beliefs and believing versus experiencing and knowing. Beliefs (for me) are confining when they are maintained without inquiry and investigation. When inquiry is restricted to intellectual inquiries, that is mental exploration only, it too seems stifling. When inquiry extends into honest and full experiencing, then I feel myself expanded and moving into a sense of knowing myself. Thanks for your clarification of the word “atheist”. I had assumed it to mean one who negates the possibility of…
One bad thing most most religions do is stand by old books and say the all the books are true when they are not all true even if some parts are good. One good thing about science is when a book is not true it gets toss out. Question what is the difference between god and laws of physics?
God cares and laws of physics do not is one answer. What is the nature the caring, love, freedom, truth? The laws of physics seem to allow them and is religion man’s poor attempt to understand his place in everything? I have my faith in truth, my hope in freedom, and my caring in love. It is all about relationships truth you know relationships, freedom you make and change relationships, and love you care about relationships. My god is truth, freedom, love but when ask what I believe I say truth, freedom, love because I do not want people to think I believe in a god of those old books.