How do you define "Athesim"?

Falvlun · Oct 11, 2012

idav said:
I think it is safe to say that if the person at least has a decent grasp that they can reject but God is far more ambiguous than characters from any fiction or non-fiction story. It is so bad that people who actually "reject" god are merely rejecting bible version god so I'm not so sure a "general concept" exists.

I'm pretty sure one does, else people would not be able to correctly and contextually talk about god, which they do, and which you are doing right now.

And even Westerners are familiar with more types of gods than just the "Bible" one: most know about the Greek/Roman ones, a good number will know about the Norse, Egyptian, and Native American ones, and a big minority would probably even recognize Hindu/Buddhist sort of conceptions as well. In addition, deism has always had a strong vein among the academic circles.

Draka · Oct 11, 2012

idav said:
I think it is safe to say that if the person at least has a decent grasp that they can reject but God is far more ambiguous than characters from any fiction or non-fiction story. It is so bad that people who actually "reject" god are merely rejecting bible version god so I'm not so sure a "general concept" exists.

I do think that is a problem some atheists do seem to have. There seem to be quite a few that learn of and reject the Abrahamic deity and that's that. They don't bother to really learn of any other concepts and think that all other deity concepts are the same and so when arguing against deity concepts they use the same arguments over and over. Kind of annoying actually. As to a "general concept", well, if one can just grasp the idea that deity can be many different things to many different people and usually just means at least something transcending just this physical world which eludes to a greater meaning, then they can have some "general" idea.

Draka · Oct 11, 2012

Falvlun, may I just say, I knew that voicing my thoughts on this were going to land me in the hot seat, but I tip my hat to you.

Orias · Oct 11, 2012

I voted that atheism is the belief that there is no God for a number of reasons...

#1 - Anything involving God is a belief
#2 - Lacking a belief in God insinuates that one believes that there is no God, ergo lacking a belief in God

Thats about it, I define "atheism" as believing that there is no God, via lacking any belief that there is such a being.

If its not a world view, then there wouldn't be doctrines, essays, and documents justifying the systematic belief in their denial of the aforementioned being.

outhouse · Oct 11, 2012

I am an Atheist and I choose the first definition. So I am curious to see what the majority preference is from others. I have a theory that most Atheists would chose the first, and most believers would choose the second... let's find out. Please answer the poll honestly based on the provided criteria...

Im a atheist

and its my opinion, and I have a 100% CERTAINTY that god does not exist as written, this is factual.

if we look at the OT and the Canaanite religion there is a clear picture that god is a compilation of more then two concepts merged into one, add jesus and it gets worse.

If someone wanted to get technical and say well what about just El or just Yahweh or jesus by themselves, I think one would then have to give a exact time period before would could even start to define the concept.

as far as im concerned if you cannot define something, it doesnt exist. And scientifically, there is no evidence any deity has ever existed.

thus like a baby, I have no belief in a deity. Our natural position. I feel I have reached a level of knowledge that makes my stance quite clear.

Photonic · Oct 11, 2012

Willamena said:
Ignorance.

I don't think that qualifies the context properly.

Draka · Oct 11, 2012

outhouse said:
thus like a baby, I have no belief in a deity. Our natural position. I feel I have reached a level of knowledge that makes my stance quite clear.

Are you claiming it is a natural position which a baby holds or are you claiming it is a stance acquired through reaching a certain level of knowledge? You are stating as if it is both, yet they are two opposing things.

Photonic · Oct 11, 2012

Draka said:
Are you claiming it is a natural position which a baby holds or are you claiming it is a stance acquired through reaching a certain level of knowledge? You are stating as if it is both, yet they are two opposing things.

Well, that's why both implicit and explicit atheism exist.

RedJamaX · Oct 12, 2012

outhouse said:
I have a 100% CERTAINTY that god does not exist as written.

I agree 100%

RedJamaX · Oct 12, 2012

Evensong said:
I recently came across a definition I'd never heard of before:

"Atheism is not the disbelief in the existence of God - it is belief in the non-existence of God. "

Never seen that one before, I'd be curious to know the source and date of origin. I'd be willing to bet the the author has some biased opinion.

RedJamaX · Oct 12, 2012

Draka said:
Okay, I picked the second option and here's why:

At least to my understanding, atheism is a stance. One must be informed in order to have a stance on something. To say I do or do not believe this or that. If one is ignorant of a subject then they cannot possibly form a stance on it.

This makes it impossible for babies and small children yet uninformed of any concept of deity to be considered either atheist or theist, no matter how badly some atheists want to claim babies and small children as atheists (and lets admit it, some do do that).

Once someone has information enough to make some decision as to whether or not they believe that a deity exists THEN they have a stance...then it is most definitely clear that theism is a belief that deity exists and atheism is a belief that deity does not exist.

All this playing around with "disbelief" and "lack of belief" and so on is really just playing around with semantics as to some atheists "belief" apparently takes on the quality of a "dirty word" and they want to distance themselves from it as much as possible as to disassociate themselves from theists. At least, that's how it has always come across to me. It seems silly actually as logically, as I said, you can't honestly really claim babies and small children as atheists as they haven't got a clue. Once that is acknowledged then it just follows that "lack of belief" is not the real factor to being an atheist.

You present a good argument, however... please remember that the view you are exemplifying is not just "There is no Zeus... or Ra... or Christian God", but "There is NO GOD AT ALL".

I am intelligent enough to know that, "I" am not informed enough to blatantly state "There is no god at all". I can conceive that there may be a god that ONLY exists on a spiritual plane of existence, and has no involvement in our physical world in any way, shape, or form. In that context, a god like that could never be proven or disproved in our physical universe.

I will be bold enough to say, there is no "God of Abraham", no Zeus, no Ra... in fact, I will blatantly state that there is no existence of any God as described in any scripture ever written. This statement is based on the word "God" being defined as a single supreme, all-knowing, omnipotent, over-watching being, and/or creator of the universe.

RedJamaX · Oct 12, 2012

Storm said:
If I say my tea cup is God, and I can prove to you my tea cup exists, does that make you a theist?

Just because it can be proven to me that your tea cup "exists", does not mean "I" believe that it is a God... so, no.

It does indicate, however, that you may be mentally unstable.

Storm · Oct 12, 2012

RedJamaX said:
Just because it can be proven to me that your tea cup "exists", does not mean "I" believe that it is a God... so, no.

My point exactly.

It does indicate, however, that you may be mentally unstable.

Was that strictly necessary? Actually, did it serve any purpose at all?

Willamena · Oct 12, 2012

Photonic said:
I don't think that qualifies the context properly.

Where I cannot have a belief, I cannot lack a belief. What you describe is merely being ignorant of a thing.

RedJamaX · Oct 12, 2012

Storm said:
Storm said:

If I say my tea cup is God, and I can prove to you my tea cup exists, does that make you a theist?

Click to expand...

RedJamaX said:

Just because it can be proven to me that your tea cup "exists", does not mean "I" believe that it is a God... so, no.

Click to expand...

My point exactly.

RedJamaX said:

It does indicate, however, that you may be mentally unstable.

Click to expand...

Was that strictly necessary? Actually, did it serve any purpose at all?

Actually, I originally had a long explanation that followed with examples of those who were cult leaders and basically played on the weaknesses of others to acquire followers. These cult leaders would make outrageous claims (obviously more significant than a tea cup deity) and exploit the weak minded, or the spiritually needy and get them to do what ever they were told...

I chose to simply leave it at that the fore-mentioned because...
First, I do not believe that you really think your tea cup is a god
Second, I am sure you were using it merely as an example for the argument of perception
Third, if somebody in this day and age were to revere their tea cup as a god... that person may actually be "mentally unstable".

And if that mentally unstable individual was intelligent enough to manifest an argument convincing enough to rally up weak minded, spiritually needy but unclaimed individuals searching for some truth that could be found in the preachings of a prophet with a tea cup god..... I'm just sayin'... it could happen.

So, I did have a point. But it had nothing to do with the thread so I left it out.

But, if you saw somebody who was wholeheartedly revering their tea cup as their god, would you not also think, even just a passing thought in the back of your mind... "They might be crazy"

It was not intended as a personal attack directed against "you".

Storm · Oct 12, 2012

RedJamaX said:
Actually, I originally had a long explanation that followed with examples of those who were cult leaders and basically played on the weaknesses of others to acquire followers. These cult leaders would make outrageous claims (obviously more significant than a tea cup deity) and exploit the weak minded, or the spiritually needy and get them to do what ever they were told...

I chose to simply leave it at that the fore-mentioned because...
First, I do not believe that you really think your tea cup is a god
Second, I am sure you were using it merely as an example for the argument of perception
Third, if somebody in this day and age were to revere their tea cup as a god... that person may actually be "mentally unstable".

And if that mentally unstable individual was intelligent enough to manifest an argument convincing enough to rally up weak minded, spiritually needy but unclaimed individuals searching for some truth that could be found in the preachings of a prophet with a tea cup god..... I'm just sayin'... it could happen.

So, I did have a point. But it had nothing to do with the thread so I left it out.

But, if you saw somebody who was wholeheartedly revering their tea cup as their god, would you not also think, even just a passing thought in the back of your mind... "They might be crazy"

It was not intended as a personal attack directed against "you".

I picked a random, ludicrous hypothetical. If you're going to leave out the tangent, I recommend leaving out the dig, as well.

RedJamaX · Oct 12, 2012

Orias said:
I voted that atheism is the belief that there is no God for a number of reasons...

#1 - Anything involving God is a belief
#2 - Lacking a belief in God insinuates that one believes that there is no God, ergo lacking a belief in God

Thats about it, I define "atheism" as believing that there is no God, via lacking any belief that there is such a being.

If its not a world view, then there wouldn't be doctrines, essays, and documents justifying the systematic belief in their denial of the aforementioned being.

I have two items to address with this... First, understanding the concept of a "god", does not indicate a belief, whether it is for or against. Do you "believe" in Zeus? or Ra?

Secondly, the large majority of doctrines, essays, and documents which exclaim a definitive "non-existence" are directed at specific gods which are defined in religious scriptures, not the overall concept of the possibility of a god at all. Although, I am certain there are some writings out there which do make this claim, I do think they are far less prevalent than the fore mentioned. But that does not mean that all atheists feel that way.

idav · Oct 12, 2012

Falvlun said:
I'm pretty sure one does, else people would not be able to correctly and contextually talk about god, which they do, and which you are doing right now.

I don't even know what specific god we are talking about.

And even Westerners are familiar with more types of gods than just the "Bible" one: most know about the Greek/Roman ones, a good number will know about the Norse, Egyptian, and Native American ones, and a big minority would probably even recognize Hindu/Buddhist sort of conceptions as well. In addition, deism has always had a strong vein among the academic circles.

Seems the problem is that everyone wants to take ownership of the word. Not the same when your talking about dragons and unicorns, even though I've never seen any.

Draka said:
I do think that is a problem some atheists do seem to have. There seem to be quite a few that learn of and reject the Abrahamic deity and that's that. They don't bother to really learn of any other concepts and think that all other deity concepts are the same and so when arguing against deity concepts they use the same arguments over and over. Kind of annoying actually. As to a "general concept", well, if one can just grasp the idea that deity can be many different things to many different people and usually just means at least something transcending just this physical world which eludes to a greater meaning, then they can have some "general" idea.

I always just like to say the general idea is being the source of everything but it doesn't quite work. Surely everyone agrees there is a source for everything some just wouldn't want to call it god which would require contemplation in order to reach some sort of conclusion. Also seems like a lot people just choose to be agnostic because they don't believe any knowledge is even possible or they don't choose to believe one way or another (which still leaves them as atheist). Without any sort of knowledge being possible on the matter or not making a belief commitment how can a person reject belief.

Willamena · Oct 12, 2012

idav said:
I don't even know what specific god we are talking about.

The whole idea of a "general concept" is to avoid specifics.

idav · Oct 12, 2012

Willamena said:
The whole idea of a "general concept" is to avoid specifics.

When people are saying God or god or deity they don't all really mean the same thing and depends on context.

How do you define "Athesim"?

How do you define Atheism?

I am an Atheist: Atheism is simply a lack of belief in a god.

I am an Atheist: Atheism is a belief that there is no god.

I believe in a God: Atheism is simply a lack of belief in a god.

I believe in a God: Atheism is a belief that there is no god.

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