Well catholics took what I am saying seriously, condemning unbaptized babies to hell. Other denominations created age of accountability theology to help with the issue of them being filthy heathens.
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Atheism is not a default position
- Thread starter Willamena
- Start date
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
Ask a physicist if you want answers about cosmology, atheism is just the absence of a belief in God.
marcosmasliaev
Member
You made me questions, I never no doubts.
marcosmasliaev
Member
I'm not playing argument tactics. You don't have a satisfactory answer.
Curious George
Veteran Member
Because some religious people in history employ faulty logic, atheists should?
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
What? Can you re-write that please?
Thief
Rogue Theologian
There is guilt enough for both sides....
marcosmasliaev
Member
Bunyip
pro scapegoat
What?
Underhill
Well-Known Member
I think the default position for intelligent humans is curiosity.
I think belief is just someone taking advantage of that curiosity.
Picking a belief as a default is impossible. Beliefs are rooted in experience and learning. So any 'default' belief would just be the result of someones life experience.
I think belief is just someone taking advantage of that curiosity.
Picking a belief as a default is impossible. Beliefs are rooted in experience and learning. So any 'default' belief would just be the result of someones life experience.
StopS
Member
The level of ignorance and suspicion regarding atheists always astonishes me.
Human + god = theist
Human + 0 = human
The term "atheism" is a misnomer as such as an -ism is action, goal, system, practice, doctrine, following, etc
As a human who does not do any of the above regarding gods I can't be part of any -ism.
As a human without something I can't be part of something.
There is a fundamental difference between
1. I don't believe X exists
and
2. I believe X does not exist
1) simply represents a neutral, non committal expression and 2) is a statement of positive reasoning which requires substantiating factors.
As a human being without any beliefs regarding gods I don't make any knowledge claims and don't really wish to be labelled as something which I don't have, as though I am somehow defective or am missing something.
There is no "a-racism" if I am not a racist so why is there a term like "a-theist" if I am not with any gods?
There are a number of things I am not, so why pick an idea as absurd as gods to label me with?
Why do so many theists feel better if they can stick a label on humans regarding the religiosity they themselves have invented?
Human + god = theist
Human + 0 = human
The term "atheism" is a misnomer as such as an -ism is action, goal, system, practice, doctrine, following, etc
As a human who does not do any of the above regarding gods I can't be part of any -ism.
As a human without something I can't be part of something.
There is a fundamental difference between
1. I don't believe X exists
and
2. I believe X does not exist
1) simply represents a neutral, non committal expression and 2) is a statement of positive reasoning which requires substantiating factors.
As a human being without any beliefs regarding gods I don't make any knowledge claims and don't really wish to be labelled as something which I don't have, as though I am somehow defective or am missing something.
There is no "a-racism" if I am not a racist so why is there a term like "a-theist" if I am not with any gods?
There are a number of things I am not, so why pick an idea as absurd as gods to label me with?
Why do so many theists feel better if they can stick a label on humans regarding the religiosity they themselves have invented?
Jared Jammer
Member
Atheism was never the "default" position; that's something atheists concocted in order to ooze their way out of having to present a positive supporting argument.
In fact, I'll go a step further and say that of the three broadest worldviews (atheism, agnosticism, and theism/deism), atheism is the furthest from being the "default."
My reasoning, in smarmy form:
In fact, I'll go a step further and say that of the three broadest worldviews (atheism, agnosticism, and theism/deism), atheism is the furthest from being the "default."
My reasoning, in smarmy form:
Premise I: Research shows that belief in God is an innate trait, hence why it's been the dominant position in (almost) every culture throughout history.
Premise II: Both theism and atheism entail positive claims about the nature of existence ("God exists" and "God does not exist," respectively).
Premise III: Agnosticism is neutral; it neither makes a positive claim for, nor against, God's existence.
Conclusion: Either theism or agnosticism is the default position, depending on how you define default. If you define default as the consensus position held at birth, it's theism. If your definition of default is the position one must take in the absence of evidence, it's agnosticism. One thing is clear: Atheism cannot be the "default" position.
Premise II: Both theism and atheism entail positive claims about the nature of existence ("God exists" and "God does not exist," respectively).
Premise III: Agnosticism is neutral; it neither makes a positive claim for, nor against, God's existence.
Conclusion: Either theism or agnosticism is the default position, depending on how you define default. If you define default as the consensus position held at birth, it's theism. If your definition of default is the position one must take in the absence of evidence, it's agnosticism. One thing is clear: Atheism cannot be the "default" position.
StopS
Member
Oh dear. Please tell me this is not another Barrett belief.
What research?
By whom?
Published and peer reviewed where?
With what data and what assumptions?
All your premisses are 100% wrong, faulty and easily corrected.
Bering, J. (2010). Atheism is only skin deep: Geertz and Markússon rely mistakenly on sociodemographic data as meaningful indicators of underlying cognition. Religion, 40(3), 166-168.
Bloom, P. (2007). Religion is natural. Developmental science, 10(1), 147-151.
Heflick, N. A., & Goldenberg, J. L. (2012). No atheists in foxholes: Arguments for (but not against) afterlife belief buffers mortality salience effects for atheists. British journal of social psychology, 51(2), 385-392.
Boyer, P. (2003). Religious thought and behaviour as by-products of brain function. Trends in cognitive sciences, 7(3), 119-124.
Jong, J., Halberstadt, J., & Bluemke, M. (2012). Foxhole atheism, revisited: The effects of mortality salience on explicit and implicit religious belief. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48(5), 983-989.
Kelemen, D. (2004). Are children “intuitive theists”? Reasoning about purpose and design in nature. Psychological Science, 15(5), 295-301.
...I could go on. Before your skepticism concerning the cognitive science of religion or the scientific study of religion more generally, you may wish to have a familiarity with the scientific research relevant here.
StopS
Member
Erm, if you look at my comment you will see I was addressing the claim "Research shows that belief in God is an innate trait" and I distinctively wrote:
What you are doing is simply piling on more claims. Useless as an answer.
As far as I know, science handles nature and facts, religions handle faith. Every time I have seen apologists attempt to drag their superstitions into the area of science, they have failed.
KnightOwl
Member
Maybe I'm missing something but here is how I see it.
Babies cannot process logic on the level of adults and not only don't have a belief about there being or not being a god, they can't even comprehend the idea of a god.
At some point, most humans gain that ability and subsequently are presented with conflicting claims or arguments for theism. If the two sides of the argument are presented before the ability to process it, then I suppose one would have room to argue what the default position would be.
On the other hand, if prior to gaining the ability to process the logic, one were never presented with one or the other, that person would be in fact an atheist. They would have to ponder SOME logical question to decide, 'Oh, there must be a god.' I'm pretty sure one doesn't gain a belief in a theistic entity by default without either being presented with that belief by others, or (in what I would think would be VERY rare circumstances) by having never been presented with the concept, then gaining the ability to reason, and upon pondering a question like, 'Why am I so perfect?' or 'How did complex ecosystems come to be?' coming to an independent conclusion that some entity was responsible that has 'godlike' properties. Under those circumstances, one wouldn't know the term, 'godlike' but the properties attributed to 'godlike' would be understood.
Babies cannot process logic on the level of adults and not only don't have a belief about there being or not being a god, they can't even comprehend the idea of a god.
At some point, most humans gain that ability and subsequently are presented with conflicting claims or arguments for theism. If the two sides of the argument are presented before the ability to process it, then I suppose one would have room to argue what the default position would be.
On the other hand, if prior to gaining the ability to process the logic, one were never presented with one or the other, that person would be in fact an atheist. They would have to ponder SOME logical question to decide, 'Oh, there must be a god.' I'm pretty sure one doesn't gain a belief in a theistic entity by default without either being presented with that belief by others, or (in what I would think would be VERY rare circumstances) by having never been presented with the concept, then gaining the ability to reason, and upon pondering a question like, 'Why am I so perfect?' or 'How did complex ecosystems come to be?' coming to an independent conclusion that some entity was responsible that has 'godlike' properties. Under those circumstances, one wouldn't know the term, 'godlike' but the properties attributed to 'godlike' would be understood.
StopS
Member
Exactly.
What apologists do is quote mine some articles without understanding the bigger picture and pretend that children develop a god-like belief like they develop a language.
If someone like "LegionOnomaMoi" would actually read the articles s/he proposed it would become clear that someone like Dr. Paul Bloom says that religions are nothing special and that kids can be primed for any catch words or concepts. They are kids.
He writes in "Religion is natural" that "Also like language, religion is not present at birth. It develops instead through immersion in a social environment. The specific language or religion that a child develops is determined by the culture in which the child is raised, not by genes or the physical environment."
Dr. Olivera Petrovich also laments that there is no research for psychologists to dig into and determine where this religious belief comes from. It is impossible to measure religious indoctrination and kids are prone to fantasy-based intention and purpose oriented explanations. Useless for any scientific research.
What they ignore is that tribes without any exposure to gods quite happily live without them and don't develop a craving for the super-natural.
It's sad to see some apologists try and wriggle in their favourite god here somehow and at all cost.
By that same token, though, one doesn't 'fail at believing' for simply not knowing. Just as it takes a pondering to decide, "I believe in that," it takes a pondering to decide,"No, that's not something I believe."
KnightOwl
Member
Now that you mention it, I do remember reading about a Christian missionary who went to study a native tribe (South American IIRC) that held no theistic beliefs, hoping to convert them, and instead converted to atheism himself. So that might be a place to examine this concept.
(I am replying to the post above Williamena)
(I am replying to the post above Williamena)
KnightOwl
Member
Only because you are wording it that way. If I've never been exposed to the idea of fairies being tiny humanoids with wings who exist in wooded areas and cause mischief, I can still not believe in them in that, they are not in that set of things I believe in. I don't have to ponder them if I've never been presented with the concept of them.
Only after one has been presented with the idea of fairies, or independently, using imaginative thinking, conceived of the idea on one's own, can one state their belief or non-belief in such terms.
And of course, theism is a broad brush adjective. Once one decides one is a theist, one has to decide the nature of the theistic entity they believe in. Male, female or gender neutral? omniscient or not? omnipotent or not? vengeful or forgiving? Misogynistic or not? Genocidal or not? Racist of not? Petty or not? I could go on and on.