What is meant by the term "default position"?

[Windwalker]

It seems that you think that children are dumber than they are. The only reason they believe is due to strong and constant indoctrination.

That is untrue. Children will believe whatever you tell them. This is all pre-indoctrination. How do you think it is possible to indoctrinate anyone if they aren't believing by default? They trust what they are being told, whatever that is. They are waiting in an open state (that open state is the condition of faith), for you to fill their heads with whatever you want.

Are you this naive, or this unexposed to actual children? Are you this out of touch with your own childhood you don't recall being this open to whatever you were told? Have you rewritten your own history as a human child to imagine you were a supposed critical thinker at age 3?

That means that It is not "default".

Your premise is flawed. Belief or faith is the default. Children are in the default condition of receptivity, or belief, and unscrupulous adults take advantage of that to fill their heads with their nonsense, or their versions of reality. Do you, in all honesty belief children are skeptics by default? Do believe distrust is the default? I don't know how that can be rationally defended, or supported with actual evidence.

Are you that slow? Seriously it is not "nonsense'.

I am not slow. I'm patient, and willing to continue to explain rationally the basis for my statements. Responses that don't actually address my points and simply repeat dogma means, you probably just haven't gotten it yet. That, or you're blinded by your beliefs and aren't accessing reason, and restorting to imagining I'm "slow" or something because you can't see past your own blind spot to common sense. Children are trusting by nature, unless something happens to make them distrust. This is the default. Ask any parent.

Faith is never the default position.

Then what is? Doubt? Distrust? Skepticism? Cynicism? You consider those the default? I'm anxious to hear your proofs for that cynical position. I'm interested to examine the rational structures you're going to offer me to rationally support that claim with. Where are they?

It is an excuse, not a reason.

An excuse for what? What do you consider my ulterior motives? I seriously don't think you even understand what it is I believe, let alone be able to attach some agenda to something you can't see. I am basing this on simple observation of pretty much any child that has not experienced a betrayal of that inherent trust they give. You think children distrust by default?

Children are indoctrinated, faith is an adult reaction.

They couldn't be indoctrinated, if faith didn't come first. That's not possible. You're putting the cart before the horse. You can't see this? How can you indoctrinate someone who doesn't believe you first? How? Rationally explain this to me.

Children usually believe their parents because they have proven themselves to be generally reliable.

You imagine a child is skeptical of their parents until they are proven right to them? Hahahaha! This is a rich fantasy, but not reality.

No, what you are blinded to here, for whatever reason of your own, is the faith was offered first, before any results that "prove themselves to be generally reliable". That all comes after the fact of faith in the first place. Again, you are putting the cart before the horse.

Unfortunately they fail when they force religion on their children.

This sounds like your personal projection of your own disappointments and dissiullisons and self-blame for you placing your inherent, default faith in others to be let down. All of this is projections, not scientific nor rational. I'm not slow. I'm dispassionate about it and can see it for what it is.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

It's not a made-up word.

One of those words that some dictionaries contain, but not others, apparently.

Two people with knowledge of a subject (I prefer simple comprehension, but meh) can easily and validly speak about a third party's condition. Heck, even one person can. There is nothing wrong with that, and it is captured in the definition of atheism.

Then why are we even worrying about someone who uses the term "atheist" to describe any other person who has lacks belief in god(s)? If we're in agreement that it doesn't really matter if a person uses the word to describe themselves (sort of like the people who insist that humans aren't animals), they can still be found to lie under its definition, then what are we even discussing?

One last thought which I had - if we went by your earlier logic that you have to have knowledge of something in order to "disbelieve" it, then no one on Earth can actually call themselves "atheist." And here's why - I can't pretend to have come across all concepts of what I would consider "god(s)" - and so, there have to be some I don't have knowledge of, and so (again, according to your strange notions) I can't disbelieve them - and therefore I couldn't be considered "atheist" - since I couldn't have a non-belief in ALL gods, because I don't know about all gods. Does that get you any closer to understanding how flawed that way of thinking is?

 

[Windwalker]

Sorry, but I just can't understand what you are saying as anything but an odd, strange confusion of unlike concepts from your part.

It can sound that way because it may seem foreign to the ways in which you are used to thinking about these things, but there is a sensible coherence to it, once you get beyond the shallow understandings and uses of these things like belief, faith, doubt, etc. that common misconceptions create in our thinking. What exactly is faith? I'm looking at a deeper understanding of these things than those ideas which conflates them as all pretty much the same thing. Faith is not the same as believing in something. It's much more fundamental than that.

Faith is what moves us to believe whatever. Beliefs are supports for faith, not what defines what faith is. Beliefs can come and go, be modified, grow and evolve, dropped, dismissed, embraced, or whatever. But it is faith, that which looks for truth, that is the same through all of it, both in states of belief or disbelief. Whatever you are looking which you then form an opinion on, becomes an expression of faith itself.

Beliefs are positionalities. Faith is just simply the reaching out towards truth, that the mind then creates all these positionalities surrounding, these beliefs of this and that. All of it, belief in the existence of God, or no belief in that, is all a matter of faith itself, which is that which reaches out for truth, whatever that may be.

Now, this may seem foreign to your thinking, but it's my hope that upon a deeper consideration and honest examination of it the logic of it stands. I believe it does, even if it is challenging to first untangle the confusion of ideas that common usage presents us with, let alone to find the right way to communicate this getting past all that common confusion.

Actually, atheism is. Because of what you say right next:
Again, and from what you say after that, I think that you are confusing atheism with skepticism.

I am equating atheism with a choice of belief. That's all. Atheism is a positionality on the question of God. If the question doesn't exist, then neither theism nor atheism do. Faith exists prior to the question, prior to the answers, prior to opinions, prior to beliefs themselves. Faith is what leads one to seek truth in the answer to the question. Atheism is an answer, not a prior condition. Atheism is a response to the impulse of faith itself.

Do you imagine someone who identifies themselves as atheist, have never looked at the question of God? That's very, very odd indeed! Impossible, I'd say.

"Non-position" in this field is atheism-by-default, for exactly the same reasons why ignorance of (and therefore disbelief in) say, manticores also is.

Atheism is a position on the question of God. There is no alternative. It has theism in the name. As long as that remains there, so does the question itself. Faith however, is able to embrace both theism and atheism, as both are faith trying to find expression in beliefs.

I honestly wish atheists would just stand up and say it's a better belief than theism. That actually has real meaning, rather than all this denial it's a belief. All that is beneath the dignity of the atheist position on the question of God, IMHO.

Again, if its a default, it's a pre-question state, not a negative response to the question. The pre-question, is the impulse state that leads to "questioning" itself. That impulse is an expression of faith, that which looks to find itself in positions of belief. And all of that, eventually gets moved beyond into Faith itself, which is then able to see and embrace both atheism and theism as simply expressions of faith itself.

 

[LuisDantas]

Active atheism is certainly defensable. But I think that we all are better served by emphasizing the dangers and cares that theism brings with it.

Atheism should be, for lack of a better word, "protected" and appreciated. But it is not much worth pursuing as such.

 

[Willamena]

Then why are we even worrying about someone who uses the term "atheist" to describe any other person who has lacks belief in god(s)? If we're in agreement that it doesn't really matter if a person uses the word to describe themselves (sort of like the people who insist that humans aren't animals), they can still be found to lie under its definition, then what are we even discussing?

I was discussing what a "default" is in terms of a state of mind. (By the way, "blank slate" cannot be the default, because it represents no state of mind.) And then I was discussing the inherent claim of "there is a god" in theism, of which atheism is a response.

One last thought which I had - if we went by your earlier logic that you have to have knowledge of something in order to "disbelieve" it, then no one on Earth can actually call themselves "atheist." And here's why - I can't pretend to have come across all concepts of what I would consider "god(s)" - and so, there have to be some I don't have knowledge of, and so (again, according to your strange notions) I can't disbelieve them - and therefore I couldn't be considered "atheist" - since I couldn't have a non-belief in ALL gods, because I don't know about all gods. Does that get you any closer to understanding how flawed that way of thinking is?

I didn't say that. Perhaps it was someone else.

To respond to it, though, theism and atheism are about beliefs, not knowledge. The claim, "there is a god," is a belief, and atheism takes the opposing or skeptical stance against it.

Edit: The person who has some comprehension of a "god" image, and says/thinks, "I don't believe that," has expressed atheism. The person who says/thinks of someone else, "That person doesn't believe in gods," based on their comprehension of a "god" has expressed atheism.

 

[Willamena]

People seem to have their boxing gloves on today.

 

[Khasekhemwy]

I agree with the contents of the post, except the portion dimmed by me in the end of it, please.

You’re not obligated to believe any deities exist, thus joining the company of millions of people around the world throughout history, including perhaps Socrates. While this early philosopher’s theological position isn’t clear—he paid homage to the Athenian gods to the point of willingness to drink hemlock in order to uphold his city’s religious law after his conviction on impiety and other charges, but never recommended a religious approach to life, assuming, of course, he was an actual person and not a creation of Plato’s writing—Socrates, in the Symposium, identified functions of religion as social glue and means to acquire virtue.

I’d characterize virtue as a deontological quality, the plinth Immanuel Kant set beneath his system of four categorical imperatives. But neither this nor faith will help us explain the shortage of solar neutrino flux on the surface of the earth, a thing physicists have recently ascribed to the neutrino’s oscillation between three identity statuses while on its way from the sun’s core to zip through our bodies and our whole planet alike. For each lepton, there corresponds a neutrino, whereupon the huge vat of chlorine in the South Dakota Homestake Mine detects the electron neutrinos, but misses those for muon and Tau. Under equiprobability, we thus “see” one third of our star’s neutrinos.

Yet what does it mean to see such a critter? If I dunno how good your eyes are, mine prove incapable of the feat whether glasses on nose or on nightstand. QM students espy the neutrino as a case of Shrödinger’s equation their professors helpfully wrote on the blackboard, and it was the day I bolted from the science building, at my alma mater an edifice in the shape of a UFO, for the more pedestrian Hall of Pure and Applied Mathematics. Kant would have grabbed by hand to run with me, too, for although the cat—I mean the equation that says she might be dead or alive—was clear enough, the idea my angelfish enjoys a less than certain existence baffles me no end. I want that eight ball to drop in the side pocket with a definitive clunk, not a probabilistic one. Whispers of particles just don’t suit me.

The numinous, whether manifesting as Christian Trinity or as the word nTr, the flag-shaped, cloth-wrapped fetish which serves as hieroglyph and chapter in Erik Hornung’s The One and the Many: Conceptions of God in Ancient Egypt (German, trans. by John Baines, Cornell University Press, 1982), is both like Shrödinger’s cat and the duty-bound Kant whose schedule was so regular that Euler told us he set his clock by the moment Kant walked over a bridge in Königsberg.

My god demands I serve him exclusively. Lest you get the idea this means intolerance or flight of brains, however, I’m Episcopalian, my pastors a woman who entered the USA illegally from Guatemala and an older gay gent. An Allosaur tooth rests in a glass case in the foyer, mute witness to the millions of years the Creator took to make the world we enjoy today. Whether the Evangelical rightists want you to think so or not, there is such a thing as liberal Christianity. John Lennon’s “#9 Dream” is playing on my radio now. No longer a young buck, I need God because I’m gonna die someday a few pages down-calendar.

Children will believe whatever you tell them.

Really? They’ll believe a fair amount of what you tell them as long they remain dependent on your protection, then throw those beliefs out the window once they turn 23 and move out of your house. Indoctrination is indeed a powerful psychological force, but even if rooted, it’s not guaranteed to last forever once the pupil escapes physical control of the master.

 

[paarsurrey]

Active atheism is certainly defensable. But I think that we all are better served by emphasizing the dangers and cares that theism brings with it.

Atheism should be, for lack of a better word, "protected" and appreciated. But it is not much worth pursuing as such.

Atheism people and the Believers both need to be protected. The same way the Atheism people must guard against the coreligionists and the Believers must guard against the Atheism and those who belong to it. Neither the coreligionists nor the Atheism people are innocent all the times.

Regards

 

[LuisDantas]

Atheism people and the Believers both need to be protected.

People should be protected from harm as a general principle.

Atheism is not a person or a group of people, though. It should still be valued, because it is the main defense against the excesses of theism.

Theism, too, is not a person or people ... and I don't think it needs any protection really. If anything, we should allow ourselves to let go of it somewhat more.

The same way the Atheism people must guard against the coreligionists and the Believers must guard against the Atheism and those who belong to it. Neither the coreligionists nor the Atheism people are innocent all the times.

Regards

Why would believers (in the existence of God, I assume) have any need to "guard against atheism"?

I fear that you may be dwelling far too often in narratives that banalize violence and intolerance to the point of assuming it as a given, as an unavoidable part of even the ideal situations.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

I didn't say that. Perhaps it was someone else.

Perhaps it is my misconception of what you have said, but this is where I got the idea from:

"atheism" is a response to claims that there is a god, and until and unless those claims arise, atheism cannot arise.

But I disagree with this. Ignorance of the subject of god in any form could still be considered atheism. As I stated before, just because one isn't informed on a subject, doesn't mean they can't be qualified under term describing ignorance of said subject. Just as, if we came up with a new term now for people who, specifically, have no ideas about unicorns - that symbolic "word" would apply retroactively to anyone who didn't have any ideas about unicorns - whether or not they had any knowledge of the fact that someone was categorizing them such.

 

[Polymath257]

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[Willamena]

Perhaps it is my misconception of what you have said, but this is where I got the idea from:


But I disagree with this. Ignorance of the subject of god in any form could still be considered atheism. As I stated before, just because one isn't informed on a subject, doesn't mean they can't be qualified under term describing ignorance of said subject. Just as, if we came up with a new term now for people who, specifically, have no ideas about unicorns - that symbolic "word" would apply retroactively to anyone who didn't have any ideas about unicorns - whether or not they had any knowledge of the fact that someone was categorizing them such.

If atheism were also "ignorance of god," it would have been included, for clarify and fullness, in dictionaries. But it is not in any. In any case...

Atheism is a term that means, "disbelief or lack of belief in God or gods." That term can apply to any number of people in a number of ways, including the person who is ignorant of "God or gods." However, that person would not be applying such a term to themselves, as for the person who is ignorant of "God or gods" there effectively are no "God or gods" with which to apply the term. Applying the term requires someone with a comprehension of the words and concepts involved, namely "God or gods."

I had said, "...'atheism' is a response to claims that there is a god, and until and unless those claims arise, atheism cannot arise." Where there is belief in "God or gods," there is an opportunity for a person to comprehend "God or gods" and take the contradictory stance, even if it's about a third party. Where there is no effective "God or gods" there is no opportunity for such. That is what I meant.

The person applying the new term for people and their relation to unicorns would have some comprehension of the use of the words involved, including "unicorn."

 

[paarsurrey]

If atheism were also "ignorance of god," it would have been included, for clarify and fullness, in dictionaries. But it is not in any. In any case...

Atheism is a term that means, "disbelief or lack of belief in God or gods." That term can apply to any number of people in a number of ways, including the person who is ignorant of "God or gods." However, that person would not be applying such a term to themselves, as for the person who is ignorant of "God or gods" there effectively are no "God or gods" with which to apply the term. Applying the term requires someone with a comprehension of the words and concepts involved, namely "God or gods."

I had said, "...'atheism' is a response to claims that there is a god, and until and unless those claims arise, atheism cannot arise." Where there is belief in "God or gods," there is an opportunity for a person to comprehend "God or gods" and take the contradictory stance, even if it's about a third party. Where there is no effective "God or gods" there is no opportunity for such. That is what I meant.

The person applying the new term for people and their relation to unicorns would have some comprehension of the use of the words involved, including "unicorn."

In other words Atheism people's claim that Atheism is default position is not justified and unreasonable. Right, please?
Regards

 

[Willamena]

In other words Atheism people's claim that Atheism is default position is not justified and unreasonable. Right, please?
Regards

In my view, yes. I would argue against anything having to do with epistemology (as atheism is) as being "default" in the sense that they mean.

 

[Polymath257]

That is untrue. Children will believe whatever you tell them. This is all pre-indoctrination. How do you think it is possible to indoctrinate anyone if they aren't believing by default? They trust what they are being told, whatever that is. They are waiting in an open state (that open state is the condition of faith), for you to fill their heads with whatever you want..

The default position is the position they have *before* anyone tells them something one way or the other. They have nothing to believe, so they lack belief.

The start to believe when someone tells them *because* they trust that person to give reliable information. But the default position is that before they are told one way or the other.

 

[Ponder This]

What is meant by the term "default position"? and why?

Regards

_____________
#119 and #121 of a friend

A default is the situation that one has when no decision, no action, no choice or no event presents itself.

Many of us atheists (myself included) consider atheism a defautl stance.

Personally, I call even rocks atheists. It helps to emphasize how unremarkable atheism is and how odd it usually is to attribute active properties to it.

The claim "there is a god" is present in every instance of atheism, whether explicit or implicit. To introduce the term is also to introduce the claim.

I would like to add that we should all be wary of a 'default position' because some people take default position to mean 'lacking a burden of proof', which is not the case in philosophy. In fact, one cannot declare a position to be the default position without incurring a burden of proof to show that it is the default position. This is in regards to philosophical debate.

On the other hand...
In Roman law, the accused was guilty until proven innocent. In U.S. law, the accused is innocent until proven guilty. This is in regards to court room debate. The law allows for the existence of default positions and for one particular side to have a burden of proof, which, if it is not fulfilled, results in the default position (innocence or guilt as the case may be).

In regards to theism vs atheism, a debate centers around the statement, 'God or gods exist'. It is a philosophical debate.

A third person, not involved in the debate, may hold a position that 'God or gods exist' or that 'God or gods do not exist'. For that person, the burden of proof will be on the person in the debate with whom he disagrees. Meaning that if the person with whom he disagrees fails to fill a burden of proof, the observer will not change his position (regardless of a fulfillment or lack of fulfillment of a burden of proof on the part of the person with whom he agrees).

It is said that a person who has never heard of a God or gods must needs be an atheist. Therefore, the 'default position' is that 'God or gods do not exist'. Thus, some will assert that there is a burden of proof on the theistic assertion that 'God or gods exist' and that there is not a similar burden of proof on the atheistic assertion that 'God or gods do not exist' because 'God or gods do not exist' is the 'default position'. Moreover, if neither side fulfills a burden of proof, the person who has never heard of God or gods will remain an atheist.

However, this is misleading and false because 'lack of belief' in a God or gods is not a position, but 'God or gods do not exist' is a position. In other words, if neither side fulfills a burden of proof, the person who never heard of a God or gods will not have the position that 'God or gods do not exist'. He will say, 'Maybe God or gods exist, maybe not'.

This shows the fundamental flaw in assuming a default position (and that the default position has no burden of proof) in a philosophical debate.

 

[A Vestigial Mote]

If atheism were also "ignorance of god," it would have been included, for clarify and fullness, in dictionaries. But it is not in any. In any case...

Fine, let's throw out "ignorance." How about what I originally stated: "inability to believe." I think you will find that less simple to dismiss.

Atheism is a term that means, "disbelief or lack of belief in God or gods." That term can apply to any number of people in a number of ways, including the person who is ignorant of "God or gods." However, that person would not be applying such a term to themselves

Whoever said they would be? I think we're done here.

 

[paarsurrey]

Fine, let's throw out "ignorance." How about what I originally stated: "inability to believe." I think you will find that less simple to dismiss.

"inability to believe."

What about saying "disability to believe", please? It is just a suggestion, please.

Regards

 

[Windwalker]

The default position is the position they have *before* anyone tells them something one way or the other. They have nothing to believe, so they lack belief.

Yes, I've heard all this before and it still misses the mark. I'll see if this maybe makes more sense to you. If there is a "before", it is before a position. What comes before taking a position? Openness. Would you define atheism as openness? Would you consider it tabula rasa, a blank slate which is open?

What comes before theism is openness, receptivity, seeking, or to give another term for all of that, faith. Is atheism faith? But this is what comes before beliefs. Faith is what opens you to beliefs. Faith is what brings you to take a position of belief, or disbelief. A lack of belief, is a state of faith. To say one truly lacks a belief, is to say one rests in their faith.

Does this sound like atheism to you? It doesn't to me. It's providing an answer to a question. It's not a pre-question "position". Pre-beliefs, pre-opinions, are pre-questions. You cannot call that atheism, any more than you can call that democrats or republicans. These are all post-question positions. Atheism is a position on theism.

If you disagree with this, let's look at the points specifically together and see where they do or do not fit properly. To me this makes a lot more consistent sense than claiming atheism is a pre-belief state. That has never made sense to me, even when I was calling myself an atheist and championing the viewpoints as I did for many years. I see why even more clearly now than I did back then.

One thing to watch out for though, is the way you see me using the term faith, I am purposefully separating it out from any beliefs. What someone believes can change, but its the same faith that drives the whole seeking to find expression of itself through beliefs. I'm really hopefully you will chose to engage this line of thought with me.

The start to believe when someone tells them *because* they trust that person to give reliable information. But the default position is that before they are told one way or the other.

To make a clarification here that hopefully may help avoid confusion. As I said above I use "believe", I mostly will mean it like faith or trust. They "believe" their parents because they are open. Children are highly vulnerable to be preyed upon because they are so open. They are full of belief, even while having no real belief structures in place.

I think that's an important distinction to make. I'm talking about belief itself, not "believing" in this or in that, or uncertainty, or indecision, or that sort of thing. Belief structures are the products of belief, but they are not belief itself. That belief itself, is faith. It is that faith that a child has which is open.

So, a child is open. That is the default. They aren't atheists. They are pre-atheists, and pre-theists. They are simply little vessels of faith, which then later seeks to find itself in the objects of belief, or their structures, or systems, or what have you. Those can all change, but belief still remains, seeing yet the next thing to "believe in", some object in hopes to see itself reflected back at itself.

 

[Willamena]

Fine, let's throw out "ignorance." How about what I originally stated: "inability to believe." I think you will find that less simple to dismiss.

An "inability to believe" is incredulity. Disbelief often connotes incredulity. When I was young, I was told that "God" was a man sitting on a cloud in the sky. Incredulity lead directly to atheism.

Whoever said they would be? I think we're done here.

It's hardly the point. But okay.