No. The default position isn't cultural.The default position is the position you're born with, an empty set, a lack of belief.
No. An infant is incapable of having any position whatsoever. To have have a position on anything requires a perspective, a
point of view. It requires minimally a cognitive development at least approaching the
concrete operational stage of development at around age 6 - 7 years of age. Prior to that, at the pre-operational stage, the child pretty much adopts whatever is told them, whatever they are programmed to believe. They lack the ability to take the point of view of another and are simply following what they are taught as being true. Prior to that, at the infant stage, which is what you are claiming is the position of an atheist as a simple "lack of belief", is the
sensorimotor stage of cognitive development. Let's take a look at this "default position" that you think atheism is reflective of:
During this stage, infants and toddlers acquire knowledge through sensory experiences and manipulating objects. It was his observations of his daughter and nephew that heavily influenced his conception of this stage. At this point in development, a child's intelligence consists of their basic motor and sensory explorations of the world. Piaget believed that developing
object permanence or object constancy, the understanding that objects continue to exist even when they cannot be seen, was an important element at this point of development. By learning that objects are separate and distinct entities and that they have an existence of their own outside of individual perception, children are then able to begin to attach names and words to objects.
So to you, atheism reflects this primary stage of cognitive awareness. Atheism is about discovering there is a difference between the blanket and the thumb, that one object is "me" and another is the "other"? I am serious when I say that to claim that the infant have a lack of belief is the "default position" that atheism is doing, would in fact require the same level of cognitive thought, the inability to conceptualize anything beyond object permanence, recognizing the differentiation between what is attached to you and what is not. In other word you are saying this "default position" of atheism is the same mind as the way an infant sees and conceptualizes the world.
Are you really sure you want to continue to claim this? It is essentially saying you have completely gutted higher cognitive function in order to assume this default position of a "lack of belief". It would in effect require some serious brain damage to developmentally regress to that, a chunk of the brain removed in order to duplicate this "default position" of an infant. But since you in fact have cognitive development, sufficient enough to form words and ideas, you in fact are capable of hold a "position" which requires a point of view on conceptual ideas. And the "default position" is the one where your mind is trained to see, which is in fact culturally relative. You're not going to escape this. Any and all "default positions", require a level of cognitive development sufficient enough in order to have one. And at that stage of development, it is the what is culturally programmed into us, because we are yet incapable of conceptualizing beyond those frameworks into the much later formal and postformal operational stages, which many adults may never even enter into.
The essence of atheism is simply a lack of belief, usually called weak atheism. It holds no beliefs and makes no assertions. Ants, baby's and cats are weak atheists.
I've of course shown the absurdity of such a claim and its implications if held to logically above. But I want to re-quote a post from another poster in this thread touching on what you said here about ants and cats and whatnot, as I really enjoyed the eloquent, to the point perspective they offered:
Then you don't lack a belief. An infant, lacks a belief. An ant, lacks a belief. You (and all self-described atheists) certainly have a belief, and that belief is that God (whatever God is) is exceedingly unlikely. Word games aside this is a definite position and it demands justification. I never claimed that an atheist must claim one hundred percent certainty, but I do claim they have a definite belief regarding God and denial of this by playing etymological games is, in my opinion, sophistry. You either believe in some notion of God or you do not.
Overlay everything I described above about cognitive development on this they posted and you will see why they are absolutely correct. An infant not just "lacks a belief", they lack the ability to have any beliefs as that's way beyond what their minds are capable of. It's just a word game, sophistry to make this "lack of belief" comparable to an adult's lack of belief".
But if you wish to say atheistic thought is the same as the mind of an infant, then you're going to have to take a gigantic backwards step in cognitive development and have the reality of an undifferentiated, infantile-level fusion of mind with the world around them, where it is nothing my sensorimotor in nature and there are no beliefs whatsoever that they are capable of forming or holding. In adults this is a brain dysfunction. If that's the atheist "lack of belief", then that's a serious problem.
It's only strong atheism that makes any assertions or requires any theological awareness. Only strong atheism has any burden of proof. Only strong atheism makes any assertions that would require proof.
No, these "weak atheist" points of view are still a point of view, and not the "default position". It's simply a softer, more open-handed position. That's actually possibly developmentally higher than the strong, "I know for a fact" position because it reflects the ability to take multiple perspectives as holding possible truths, as opposed to seeing one's own point of view as the correct position. In a sense, the "strong" concrete-literal, black and white position is closer to the "default position" stage developmentally.
You have to look at that where that "default position" comes into being developmentally, and what it looks like. When it does come into being through cultural programming, that becomes the truth, and everything that doesn't fit that is a lie or is false. So the "strong" position is actually closer down the developmental stage as it sees only its own perspective it holds as truth. If you want to look and where things fall on that line, this is where they would appear to fit better. Formal operational thinking is where scientific thinking comes into being, as opposed to dogmatic black and white thinking. To me the "weak" position is actually more sophisticated in thought.
