Atheism: Do Atheists actually disagree about anything? (ritual, moral, Abiogenesis)

[wjb2008]

Justa_gurl: That was good... I never quite thought of it like that
stemann: I'd have to say that the baby prob'ly wouldn't survive, but that's an aside. We are conditioned by society and how we're raised. If your parents are Christians, you will PROBABLY be Christian, especially early on.

[stemann]

Justa_girl: ye good one

wjb2008: I agree with you whole heartedly. It also depends on your brain, though, since some people are more convinced by religion than others, even when both fed the same stimuli. It's a mixture of Nature and Nurture. I think.........

[cmotdibbler]

Steman,
I got a bit lost in your definition of atheism. Are you saying that not believing that there is a god is the same as not believing in anything at all? I'm an atheist but "believe" in many things that have nothing to do with gods. Gods, demons, angels, ghosts are just blank spots for me.
I'm not sure if your comment is directed toward the issue of the burden of proof or the definition of strong and weak atheism vs agnosticism.

For what its worth... From Wikipedia:
Agnosticism is the philosophical and theological view that spiritual truths, such as the existence of God, gods or deities, is either unknown or inherently unknowable.

Atheism is the state either of being without theistic beliefs, or of actively disbelieving in the existence of deities. They explain the differences between Strong vs Weak atheism which might be the heart of the matter.

So you can be an agnostic atheist, lacking a belief in a deity but knowing that the proof is not knowable.

I agree that the non-socialized child would be more like an animal and predict that it would have no religious beliefs. If the feral child were to develop theistic beliefs after being rescued would you then predict that those beliefs would mirror the society it later "joined'. Probably going to depend on how old the child is however, from googling "feral children" it looks like most of them have a hard time joining society.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Originally Posted by stemann

Atheism means ...

Oy vey! We seem to do this once a week whether we need to or not.

Words are not constrained by their etymology and a more than reasonable definition of one category of atheism is the view that insufficient evidence has been submitted to warrant belief.

[cmotdibbler]

Sorry, you must have that discussion quite a bit here. That seems like a good definition as well.

[Jayhawker Soule]

Originally Posted by cmotdibbler

I agree that the non-socialized child would be more like an animal and predict that it would have no religious beliefs.

It seems to me that this is the 2nd time I've heard this recently, and in both cases it was from someone whose comments I appreciate. In this case, however, I think I must disagree. Being determines consciousness and the religious impulse is very basic and clearly ubiquitous. I suspect that a non-socialized child would attempt to make sense out of its input and would conjure up / project a very primitive animism.

[stemann]

Atheism is the state either of being without theistic beliefs, or of actively disbelieving in the existence of deities

sorry you're right. I didn't mean belief about other things that aren't God, I meant the difference between 'belief that God does not exist' and 'no belief that God does or doesn't exist'. I don't think I'm explaining it very well.

[cmotdibbler]

I've been googling feral children and while there are several documented cases, religion of any type is never mentioned. These children rarely become socialized and frequently die young. A huge part of the problem seems to be loss of learning the basic human language structure prevents further development.

[michel]

Actually, you are quite right; there is a trend here to communicate with children before they can pronounce words, by speaking whilst combining it with a simple 'sign' language. Not only has it demonstrated that children are ready to speak long before they can do so, but it has been shown to develop their ability to learn,

[Original Freak]

Originally Posted by Deut. 32.8

It seems to me that this is the 2nd time I've heard this recently, and in both cases it was from someone whose comments I appreciate. In this case, however, I think I must disagree. Being determines consciousness and the religious impulse is very basic and clearly ubiquitous. I suspect that a non-socialized child would attempt to make sense out of its input and would conjure up / project a very primitive animism.

This has always been my belief for this hypothetical question.