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What is atheism?

What does being an atheist mean?

  • Atheism means the belief that there are no gods or supernatural entities.

    Votes: 23 41.8%

  • Atheism includes everyone who currently has no belief in any particular god.

    Votes: 27 49.1%

  • There should always be an "other".

    Votes: 5 9.1%
  • Total voters
    55
Tsunami said:
Atheism. Does it mean the belief that there are no gods or supernatural entities? Does it include everyone who currently has no belief in any particular god? Or are there better terms for such people, such as unbeliever, skeptic, or agnostic?
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Athiesm is the belief in non believing. Of which i strongly believe in haha
 
Tucker Case said:
The ball was belief in my analogy.
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In that case, you are presenting something that is supposed to represent a "belief", that is in this case a contradiction. The ball being non-existent, or being a contradictory claim, are all the same, ie. "nothing".

I believe a supernatural thing exists in reality. (I believe something outside of reality is inside reality).

You don't need to actively reject these, they are meaningless by definition, which relies on the underlying premises of logic/reasoning, in this case, non-contradiction.

Someone who accepts non-contradiction as axiomatic we usually call "reasonable". We don't need to call them atheists. We can also call them correct, or rational, right, etc. Most people accept it naturally on things that matter.

What do we call someone that claims to believe in contradictions or wants to suggest we accept contradictions as menaingful? Confused, incorrect, wrong. In this case...superstitious?
 
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Dav said:
To you the claim of a deity is "extraordinary". To others, the claim that the physical universe is all there is to existence is extraordinary. It's entirely subjective.
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Okay, listen. If you don't find claims of defying gravity, changing the molecular composition of water, and creating duplicates of food items in untold amounts to be "extraordinary," you're losing it. You want to claim those behaviors are in some way not extraordinary, you've lost the argument for God. In fact, the claims for God, especially by Christians, ARE EXTRAORDINARY. That's the whole point.

Jesus.
 

The ball being non-existent is something you arbitrarily decided.

What would potentially be nonexistent in that analogy is not the ball, but the person throwing it. In which case, the ball would remain unthrown. But the ball itself would still exist regardless of the passer's nonexistence.

And in such a case the passive non-acceptor still ends up in the same place with the same results having done nothing to accept or reject the unthrown pass.

In cases where the passer doesn't exist, the rejector whiffs on it's rejection because the pass was never thrown, and the acceptor whiffs on the attempted catch because, again, the ball was never thrown.

But an acceptor can always decide arbitrarily and without reason to run over and pick up the ball on their own and pretend a pass was thrown.

And the rejector can arbitrarily decide to run over and kick the ball because he or she has too much time on his or her hands and wants to pretend that he or she was doing something valuable by kicking the ball.
 
Tucker Case said:
But the ball itself would still exist regardless of the passer's nonexistence.
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Contradictions by definition cannot exist. If you want to use a word other than existence then it might make sense. Like imaginary. i.e. imaginary ball = there is no ball = ball doesn't exist.

If your analogy misses the distinction between an imaginary concept, and bestows upon it existence for the sake of analogy, then we argue it "exists", then it's a bad analogy.

-Mach
 

You aren't getting the analogy. The ball isn't imaginary. The ball is belief. the belief is real regardless of whether the thing being believed in is real or not.

There's no contradiction. You just aren't getting it.
 
Catz Part Deux said:
You lost me at ball.
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It made me pause too....Tucker your balls are imaginary...I mean, how would I know that....wait, that was insulting...oh never-mind.
 
It is impossible to create something from nothing.
The very first origin that brought about the universe must be infinite in order to bridge between the void of before & existence after. I personally think G-d is a nice name for that infinite origin.
Secondly according to atheism how would you define right and wrong ?
Why is any saint or rabbi better than Hitler?
With no absolute law you’re creating a state of anarchy that legitimizes everyone , which is why democracy can always revert to tyranny.
 
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Your reasoning is flawed. Belief in a deity is unnecessary to the existence of the universe and to morality.
 
you said:
It is impossible to create something from nothing.
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Yet most theists hold that their god did just that. Amazing.

The very first origin that brought about the universe must be infinite in order to bridge between the void of before & existence after. I personally think G-d is a nice name for that infinite origin.
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God is a word that means nothing, and the whole G-d thing is laughably ridiculous, knock it off. If you're just using it as a label for the universe itself, we already have a perfectly good word for it: universe. Use that instead.

Secondly according to atheism how would you define right and wrong ?
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The same way you do it, we're just honest about it. Right and wrong are social constructs, blaming them on an imaginary man in the sky doesn't mean that's where they come from, it just means you've ignored the reality of the situation.

Why is any saint or rabbi better than Hitler?
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I don't think they are, especially those wonderful priests who molest children. Don't forget, Hitler was a Christian who thought God had directly commanded him to destroy the Jews.

With no absolute law you’re creating a state of anarchy that legitimizes everyone , which is why democracy can always revert to tyranny.
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Laughably untrue. Funny how we find that states that practice religious law are also the ones that are the most tyrannical. I mean, sharia law doesn't lead to anything but democracy, right? :roll:
 

B”H
Law that was created by man, those of Christianity, Islam, a democracy, an autocracy, can be changed by man (just as we see today in terms of homosexuality, for instance ) and religious regimes will manipulate that factor in their favor. Atheism, however, epitomizes that human tendency since the man made law needs no divine legalization of a G-d.
A true law is one that will never be changed.
In truth the only religion that offers such laws is Judaism. That is why
A. The Jewish code of law has never changed.
B. Judaism could never be associated with tyranny.
 
I think atheism in America these days is mostly just a rejection of the big three(Christianity, Judaism, Islam). Almost all criticism of belief are directed at these religious structures. There is very little criticism of eastern philosphies/religions even though they have as little(or as much depending on your perspective) evidence for their belief structure.
 

I don't believe in God.

You *can't* prove God, fairy's, etc., don't exist. While that isn't reason to believe them, it certainly means you cannot be confident that are not true. You simply don't know.

You can't prove I'm not an advanced computer typing these messages, therefore you don't *know* I'm human. You only make beliefs off of prior evidence. This is induction, and induction cannot provide knowledge.
 

The way I see it, in either case the ball touches you. In other words, the conclusion from either position is: "God doesn't exist." Trying to couple "agnosticism/gnosticism" with "atheism" is just a new fad invented by people who call themselves atheists but know that they are on shaky grounds if they say that "I believe god doesn't exist." As an exercise, is there really a difference between someone saying "I do not believe that God doesn't exist" Vs "I believe in God"? They both say "God exists". The only middle ground position that accepts both the possibilities of either the existence or non-existence of God is "agnosticism", but those who call themselves atheists, when their position is better described by "agnosticism", is trying to muddy the water.
 
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It's not muddying the water anymore than the large number of varied denominations of people who call themselves Christian.
 


There isn't a "contradiction" as you put it, because the existence itself is unknown. To claim to know that something doesn't exist in itself unreasonable. One can say "I will start from an assumption that it does exist because there is so and so supports for its existence..." or "I will start from an assumption that it doesn't exist because there is so and so support for its non-existence..." That's the best we limited human beings can do.
 
We can reasonably start from the premise that if there is no evidence for the existence of something there is no reason to believe it exists. We may not know that it does not exist but the pragmatic approach would be to treat it as non-existent, pending evidence being found to the contrary.
 
AgentM said:
It's not muddying the water anymore than the large number of varied denominations of people who call themselves Christian.
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There's one thing that unite all of them: they believe in Jesus and the one God. If someone comes in claim that they are a Christian who doesn't believe in Jesus or God, we would take it that the person is either joking or doesn't know what "Christian" means. We don't expand the definition of "Christian" to suit them, do we?

What unites atheists if not the believe that there is no god? If we were to accept the word "atheist" to include people who believe there might be god, the word "atheist" loses its original meaning and it steps on the meaning of "agnostics". So it does muddy the water more substantially than the term "Catholics" Vs "Protestant".
 

There is no evidence of certain scientific theories, such as dark matter or the Higgs boson, but many people still believe they exist. There is a gap in our understanding of how things work, and scientists have created theories to fill in those gaps. This is not unreasonable. Having no evidence for something is not the same as having no reason to believe something. Sometimes these theories prove true. To me, religion is similar, but harder to prove. It is like science for people who aren't that curious, and don't need to find out whether they are right or wrong.

What does seem unreasonable to me is to believe so much in any unsupported explanation that we reject all other possibilities. This is the reason I see a significant difference between true atheists and other unbelievers. True atheists have made up their mind and rejected other possibilities. And true atheists do exist.

Since this is the significant part of atheism to me, the other unbelievers (including "implicit atheists") are closer to agnosticism. It's not true agnosticism either, but I don't know if there are any true agnostics. Believing that something is impossible to prove is circular logic, it means your own belief is also impossible to prove.
 
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I pretty much agree with your first two paragraphs but have some bones to pick with the third.


It's not circular logic because the claim is not made to all "belief" but specific to knowledge of God. And I think most agnostic would add a qualifier: at present time. I hold by the belief that it's is impossible to prove if there is or isn't God, right now, but if a big face covered with grey beard appears in the sky tomorrow and kills anyone who question him, I would be willing to reconsider my position.
 

Many self-labeled atheists define an agnostic is someone who feels that nothing can be known about the existence of God and that it does not relate to belief.

Ironically, given the nature of the debate I've been having about definitions of words and authoritative sources, this definition is supported by what I consider the most authoritative source for definitions, askOxford: AskOxford: agnostic.

Based on my previous arguments, I feel that the definition given by askOxford is the most authoritative definition, and is therefore the one that I should adhere to.

This presents an interesting conundrum. I cannot accurately state that nothing can be known about God's existence*. I can say that I feel that nothing is currently known, and that it is unlikely that during one's lifetime such knowledge will be acquired, but in the event that a God does exist, and an afterlife does exist, one must conclude that such knowledge can exist.

However, in the event that God doesn't exist, and/or an afterlife does not exist, such knowledge cannot be acquired since at the end of one's life, one would cease to exist and if one ceases to exist, one ceases to acquire knowledge.

But I cannot make a definite statement about the ability for such knowledge to be acquired without first coming to the conclusion that an afterlife definitely cannot exist. Essentially, to make such a statement, I must first reject the possibility of an afterlife.

But I do not do that. I lack all belief when it comes to these concepts of a religious nature.

So I cannot accurately describe myself as an agnostic using the definition I have given the most authority to.

So using these Oxford definitions, we come to unbelief. This is defined as a lack of religious belief.

So, using the Oxford definitions, I cannot accurately describe myself as an atheist or an agnostic.

In order to remain consistent with the standards for myself that I have describes previously in this discussion, I must therefore describe myself as an "unbeliever".

So, while that is the best descriptor available, most people might just call that atheism due to it's superficial resemblance to the colloquial usage of that term.





* In previous debates here, I have made claims about the inability to know the truth quality of specific logical premises. This is because the only way that such knowledge can be acquired is through certain conditions being met that will, by the nature of those conditions, prevent one from being able to discuss the truth quality of said logical premise, not to mention being involved in a logical debate with living humans.
 
I agree with most of what you said except the first paragraph. Actually, Dark Matter theory was created because there is evidence that something is holding the universe from flying apart faster than what is observed with the amount of viewable matter we see. Scientists see something happening and then make a hypothesis (based on previous knowledge) about what is causing what they are observing.

Science is objective, making use of methods of investigation and proof that are impartial and exacting. Theories are constructed and then tested by experiment. If the results are repeatable and cannot be falsified in any way, they survive. If not, they are discarded. The rules are rigidly applied. The standards by which science judges its work are universal. There can be no special pleading in the search for the truth: the aim is simply to discover how nature works and to use that information to enhance our intellectual and physical lives. The logic that directs the search is rational and ineluctable at all times and in all circumstances. This quality of science transcends the differences which in other fields of endeavour (like religion) make one period incommensurate with another, or one cultural expression untranslatable in another context. Science knows no contextual limitations. It merely seeks the truth.

Religion is subjective, uses no method of investigation and the only proof is the Bible, which is itself questionable as the word of God. Theories are never constructed nor tested by experiment. If the results can be proved to be false, you get burned at the stake. Religious standards are not universal. They change based on culture and the whim of Man, which is why you have so many different denominations within the major religions. Religion sees the effects of the universe and automatically applies a supernatural cause to the effect they see. Once the scientific method is applied to the effect, the cause switches from supernatural to natural. Take the sun for instance. It was believed to be caused by a supernatural God. When the scientific method was applied to the sun, we find that it's a enormous sphere of hot hydrogen gas undergoing nuclear fusion. Science will continue to transform the supernatural into natural until religion basically becomes a branch of metaphysics.
 
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