I have heard several atheists claim that “all people are born atheists.” One popular slogan says “I’ll die like all believers are born: an atheist.”
If the point of such slogans is merely that no one is born with a belief in God’s existence, and that such a belief develops later, I agree. Babies do not have beliefs regarding such things. This much is obvious (although it is irrelevant to the question of the truth of theism). But if their point is that babies should be described as atheists, this is patently absurd. Indeed, it’s because babies do not have any beliefs regarding God that they can be neither a theist nor an atheist.
No one is born an atheist. To claim otherwise is to employ a faulty definition of atheism as “a lack of belief in God.” So defined, atheism is relegated to a psychological state rather than a rational claim regarding the veracity of a particular proposition. This is not only a departure from the historic definition of atheism, but it guts it of any rational significance. Atheism is not a lack of belief in God. That is more properly described as “agnosticism.” Atheism is the belief that the proposition “God exists” is false. No baby is born with that belief, and thus no baby is born an atheist.
Thinking to Believe 
December 17, 2012 at 10:39 am
How can atheism be a belief? Theism is a belief, without which atheism would not exist. Atheism is a non belief, bereft of, void of belief.
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December 17, 2012 at 10:46 am
If you don’t have any belief, then you are, by definition, an atheist, as atheism is simply the absence of believe and not the believe in absence.
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December 17, 2012 at 10:54 am
“If the point of such slogans is merely that no one is born with a belief in God’s existence, and that such a belief develops later, I agree.”
That is the point of such slogans, yes.
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December 17, 2012 at 11:20 am
Leonardo, atheism is not void of belief. Atheism is the belief that the proposition “God exists” is false. We all have beliefs regarding the truth or falsity of propositions. The existence of God is no exception. If you don’t like the word “belief,” then substitute it for “commitment” or “conviction.”
Jason
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December 17, 2012 at 11:22 am
Atomic Mutant, you are free to believe as you wish, but you are not free to define your own terms. Atheism is not the lack of belief. That’s agnosticism. Agnostics have no belief that God exists or does not exist. Atheists, on the other hand, are those who think the proposition “God exists” is false.
Jason
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December 17, 2012 at 11:24 am
NotAScientist,
I don’t get the impression that that is the only point of the slogan. Those who use it seem to think that babies should be considered atheists. I argue that this is a misuse of language based on a misunderstanding of the meaning of atheist.
Jason
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December 17, 2012 at 11:56 am
Theism is a belief. “A-” means without.
The significance of “A-” meaning without is the difference between “immoral” and “amoral”.
To confuse belief with knowledge simply so that you can claim atheists are making a specific claim is a weak foundation to an argument. A’theism: ‘Without Belief in God or gods’. Why is that so difficult?
Of course, babies are also ‘apolitical’ and ‘asexual’. It’s not significant in anyway, it’s just true.
Look at it this way, here’s a question followed by what certain answers would mean: “Do you believe in God?”
Yes = Theist
No = Atheist
Maybe = Agnostic
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December 17, 2012 at 11:59 am
” Those who use it seem to think that babies should be considered atheists.”
I think the point is that babies start off without a belief (and so you could, being strictly technical, call them atheist) and they need to be taught or at least introduced to a religious belief before they have one. They aren’t born with some sort of innate knowledge of a specific god, or any god, as far as we can tell.
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December 17, 2012 at 12:34 pm
I could agree that atheism and agnosticism are sometimes used in slightly different meanings, but sorry, your definition of agnosticism is nonsense:
Agnosticism is about knowledge, not belief – while atheism is about belief, not knowledge. Look at the word: Gnosis – Knowledge. You are agnostic if you think god is unknowable, that you cannot really have knowledge about his/her/its existence.
Theoretically, I am both – I accept that there is probably no way to be sure, as the god theory is simply not falsifiable, making it “not even false”, as they say – but that doesn’t change the fact that I simply don’t feel any belief. Note that: I don’t feel any believe, but I lack knowledge about things that are not falsifiable – but of course, the lack of evidence and the lack of necessity of god to explain anything makes me think that god is rather unlikely.
Children don’t feel any belief, either, this has to be taught. But of course, children lack knowledge, so they can’t reasonably argue about the idea of god, making it impossible for them to be truly agnostic.
Technically, Agnosticism can be both combined with a religion and with atheism, as belief doesn’t need knowledge – and the lack of belief also doesn’t.
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December 17, 2012 at 2:01 pm
Allallt,
Yes, theism is a belief regarding the proposition “God exists,” namely that this proposition is true. And atheism is a belief regarding the proposition, “God exists,” namely that this proposition is false.
Just because “a” can serve as a negation does not mean that atheism means “without belief in God.” As I discussed in https://theosophical.wordpress.com/2012/12/12/what-exactly-does-it-mean-to-be-an-atheist/, even trying to define atheism etymologically (rather than by historic meaning) will not yield this definition of atheism.
There can be no confusion of belief with knowledge because belief and knowledge are not in opposition to one another. The standard definition of knowledge is “justified true belief.” If you do not believe X, then you cannot know X. So to speak of atheists believing that God does not exist cannot be pitted against knowledge. Atheists are making a claim. They are claiming that the proposition “God exists” is false.
Jason
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December 17, 2012 at 2:03 pm
NotAScientist,
You wrote, “I think the point is that babies start off without a belief (and so you could, being strictly technical, call them atheist) and they need to be taught or at least introduced to a religious belief before they have one.” But my point is that technically speaking, you can’t call them an atheist because atheism requires that one have thoughts about the truth or falsity of the proposition “God exists,” and since babies have no thoughts regarding such things, the terms “atheist” and “theist” are not applicable to babies. While they do not have beliefs concerning God, they are not atheists because atheism does not mean “lack of belief concerning God.”
Jason
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December 17, 2012 at 2:07 pm
Atomic Mutant,
Like others here, you are setting up a false dichotomy between belief and knowledge. One cannot have knowledge without belief. It’s part of what constitutes knowledge. Knowledge is justified true belief.
And when it comes to defining agnosticism, I have acknowledged elsewhere that it has a range of meaning, often called soft agnosticism and hard agnosticism. But in both versions, one is saying they do not know whether the proposition “God exists” is true or false.
God is falsifiable. If it could be shown that there is something logically incoherent about the concept of God, theism could be falsified.
Jason
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December 17, 2012 at 2:22 pm
Jason,
No. If I say that the claim of a God is unsupported then I am an atheist. That doesn’t not mean I believe the claim “God exists” is false, it means I think it is unsupported. There is a clear difference between a false claim and an unsubstantiated claim.
Let me illustrate this further: every meaningful definition of God I’ve ever been given is something I believe does not exist. That makes me an atheist in every sense of the word. But I do not believe that no God–not even the most nebulous and deistic God–does not exist, it’s just that the claim is unsupported. That is still atheism. I am without belief in gods. I lack a belief in gods.
That is not the same as holding to the positive claim that no Gods exist.
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December 17, 2012 at 2:34 pm
Allallt,
You are simply using a new definition of “atheist” — a definition I do not accept because it makes no sense.
An unsupported claim is not reason for thinking that the claim is false. It is reason for withholding judgment on the truth or falsity of the claim. And that’s what agnostics do regarding the claim that God exists. Atheists deny the claim is true. They think the proposition “God exists” is false, not merely unsubstantiated.
If you truly have no beliefs regarding the truth or falsity of the proposition “God exists,” then you are an agnostic, not an atheist.
Jason
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December 18, 2012 at 3:51 am
Jason,
Again, no. “Not believing A is true” is not the same as “believing A is false”, and I do not believe God exists. Notice my use of the word “believe”. When it comes to ‘belief’ in a God, the word we use is ‘theism’ (e.g. monotheism, polytheism).
To not have a belief in a god is atheism: without belief in a God. You can be without belief in a God if you are simply ignorant to the concept (like a baby), or are not convinced by the evidence and arguments presented (like me) or think you have active evidence against the claims (which for most definitions of God is also me, but for those that think they have evidence against even the nebulous definitions of God you’ll have to look elsewhere).
In some ways I have not progressed in this area since I was a baby: I still don’t know and I still don’t believe.
I concede that I also do not know. I could not confidently and sincerely make the claim “there are no Gods” because I’m not sure what the more nebulous definitions of a god are. I am agnostic. But I am an agnostic atheist. I also don’t believe.
Remember, you can’t call my position agnostic because there are people that call themselves ‘agnostic theists’. They may not get into Heaven with faith like that, but that’s the position they find themselves in.
If you want to call me an agnostic, do as you wish. But people aren’t going to understand the truth about me if you tell other people I’m agnostic. They’ll understand better if you tell them I am an atheist.
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December 18, 2012 at 6:45 am
Jason,
Aren’t you playing the same game by redefining theism as “the proposition that God exists is true?” That’s certainly not the dictionary definition of the term. Can you justify why we should accept this redefinition of theism rather than the commonly held definition, namely “belief in the existence of a god or gods?”
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December 28, 2012 at 4:57 pm
Now you can come up with many excuses why God is not self evident: testing us, to see who really loves him, prove us through suffering; but, in offering excuses, you deny reality, reason, logic, knowledge.
Religion is Pregnant with assumptions:
1st. If there was a God it would be self evident,
2nd. Religions would not have to proselytize; and,
3rd. There would not be a fractured human race, each faction promoting their God Brand and Messenger and making extravagant claims of miracles, Why would anyone presume to think that a Creator needs to be defended by the Creature? Ego created Religion, Church, Prophet and God. The audacity of arrogant clergy perpetuate hoax, myth & magic as true creations.
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December 29, 2012 at 9:32 am
Allallt,
My friend, you are making it more complicated for yourself. You believe that there is no God because in your opinion, the evidence doesn’t support it. Therefore, you BELIEVE God does not exist. That is a belief my friend whether you accept it or not. Belief constitutes a opinion, trust, confidence in something or a lack of something whether it is true or not. You made the claim that you don’t know that gods exist because you don’t know nebulous defenitions of gods are. Would it also make sense to say you BELIEVE that God doesn’t exist?
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December 30, 2012 at 4:17 pm
Directed @ J Says.
J Says, I’m failing to see how your following comment helps someone from your perspective:
“Aren’t you playing the same game by redefining theism as “the proposition that God exists is true?” That’s certainly not the dictionary definition of the term.”
Even if one was to accept the common definition of “thiesm” as a “belief in the existence of god…” how does that change anything? “Athiesm” can still be properly defined as a “non-belief in god.”
A “belief,” whether to believe in a god or to not to, is based in action. It can either be based in evidence (weak or strong) or not at all.
Athiesm is NOT a simple absence of a belief. It’s a concientious decision, just as thiesm is.
Babies are not born having made a decision in either direction.
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March 13, 2013 at 9:47 am
It’s like saying “all non-human animals are atheists” or “all doorknobs are atheists”. Equally valuable and purposeful statements.
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August 17, 2013 at 12:13 pm
Jason, the obtusity of your affirmations makes me think that you are more like a troll than a real person. I also know that reality often may seem stranger than fiction. This last one has three meanings.
1. you may be simply trolling the environment, being camouflaged as an idiot.
2. you may be a genuine ill-informed person.
3. the reality of a world not governed by gods seems stranger than the fiction told by religious books. Which is strange, since the world looks exactly as if there are no gods to con-troll it…
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August 17, 2013 at 1:29 pm
@Albert Guilmont
Ahhhh, nice! Idiots and and irony….like a moth to a flame.
You’ve trolled Jason’s blog and jumped on a thread that’s been dormant for five months and accused him of “trolling.”
That’s rich.
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October 12, 2014 at 12:30 am
People are born not atheist nor religious- They have no concept of any “God” whatever the family they are born into. How you are raised, or what your beliefs are are developed over time.
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October 18, 2014 at 7:09 pm
Everyone of us is a victim of our conception and birth. We are the product of those who influence our thinking and educate us, we reflect their programming. Not one of us requested conception and birth, those conditions being bestowed upon us without prior knowledge and consent. The location of our conception and birth, those who conceived and gave us birth and the subsequent ramifications of those acts were again without prior knowledge and consent. As a result, our individual roles to be played out were imposed by inscrutable evolution, without prior knowledge of how these roles would become reality. We are all simply living the results of others actions and daily, we are required to deal with those actions. Should an occult theology have merit and there is a hereafter, again we will be forced to deal with it, without prior knowledge or consent.
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January 28, 2015 at 9:45 pm
Atheism is not a belief. It’s just a lack of the belief in a god. However, a lot of atheists know about religion and a lot of them would have moved away from religion. This could be called exintric atheism. It’s the same way how a non stamp collector could differentiate himself / herself from a stamp collector. Just because there is a distinction it still doesn’t make not stamp collecting a hobby. And there is intrinsic atheism. Babies are born without the knowledge or belief in a god. Atheism by definition is the lack of belief in a god. So yeah all babies are born atheists but they are intrinsic atheists and they are not aware of it.
So let’s go back to the stamp collector example. Imagine a tribe living in some remote part of the world, who doesn’t know anything about stamps, he is still a non stamp collector and he doesn’t know about stamps. Now we are going to introduce him to the hobby of collecting stamps, he tries to understand it and then decides stamp collecting is not something for him and he remains a non stamp collector. In the later case he knows about stamps and in the former he doesn’t. But in both cases he doesn’t collect stamps and hence a intrinsic non stamp collector in the previous scenario and an exinstic non-stamp collector in the later.
When we discovered the Pirahã people. They had no idea of a supernatural being governing their lives. The whole concept of god had been unknown to them and they were just living their lives for generations without the concept of a god. They also refused to start believing and laughed at missionaries trying to preach their religion since they thought it sounded silly and unreal. They vastly still remain god-less. So they were atheists before we discovered them and they are still atheists after they heard about religons.
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January 29, 2015 at 5:10 am
Gowtheman T:
I was a little awkward even tying to say the word “Exintric” so I found it in Merriam-Webster but your spelling is just slightly off a bit: it is Extrinsic as intrinsic / extrinsic…here are the synonyms and antonyms for same:
Related to EXTRINSIC
Synonyms
accidental, adventitious, alien, extraneous, external, foreign, supervenient
Antonyms
inherent, innate, intrinsic
Now having said that I get your analogy re: the stamp collector analogy and I think it is a good one the way you relate it to the atheist at birth without the knowledge of the belief as opposed to the atheist having the knowledge about belief but rejects it.
Personally I was an intrinsic atheist just like baby Jesus at birth and guru and guru up with religious education into an extrinsic atheist, just like adult Jesus did after learning of the ways of religion and the clergy who perpetuate the conjured myths of their fathers, their father being referred to by adult Jesus as the “Devil”, noted in:
John 8: 42-47 “If God were your father,” said Jesus, “you would love me, for I came from God and arrived here. I didn’t come on my own. He sent me. Why can’t you understand one word I say? Here’s why: You can’t handle it. You’re from your father, the Devil and all you want to do is please him. He was a killer from the very start. He couldn’t stand the truth because there wasn’t a shred of truth in him. When the Liar speaks, he speaks in character, he makes it up out of his lying nature and fills the world with lies. I arrive on the scene, tell you the plain truth, and you refuse to have a thing to do with me. Can any one of you convict me of a single misleading word, a single sinful act? But if I’m telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Anyone on God’s side listens to God’s words. This is why you’re not listening—because you’re not on God’s side; you are not the sons of God.”
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February 4, 2015 at 1:11 am
gowthaman, rocks are also atheists on your definition. When even rocks qualifiy as atheists, it’s not a very meaningful definition. Indeed, it turns atheism into a psychological desription rather than a position at all. If that is so, then what do we call the person who thinks the proposition “God exists” is false?
Jason
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March 12, 2015 at 12:08 am
Retarded post.
Agnosticism is a stand about knowledge. You can be an agnostic atheist and an agnostic theist. Being agnostic simply means that you not clain to know whether or not god exists. Agnosticism and atheism are in no way mutually exclusive. In fact a ton of atheists are agnostics too.
And yes, atheismn is lack of belief in god dipshit, look it up. Which is why anyonr who does not actively believe in a deity, is atheist.
You like so many other seem to confuse atheism, theism and agnosticism with each other.
Atheism- ground base, you do not actively believe in any god (s).
Theism – to actievly believe in god (s).
Both of those are concerned with BELIEF^
Agnosticism – To say “i dont/can’t KNOW whether or not god(s) exist.
Agnosticism does not have anything to do with belief.
Please understand what you’re talking about, before you post dumb shot like that
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March 12, 2015 at 1:09 am
Nathan, where did you get your definitions from? Can you please direct my attention to any dictionary of philosophy that defines atheism as a psychological lack of belief in a deity? Granted, one who believes God does not exist (ontological claim) will lack a psychological belief in God (pscyological state), but that is the effect of being an atheist (if you think God does not exist, you will naturally have no belief in God), not the definition of atheist.
Jason
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March 12, 2015 at 4:39 am
Nathan Reece:
Personally I have never heard of “active” belief and “inactive” belief, where is the active/inactive button located; and, while there are thousands of Gods I never knew there was one named “God Dipshit” so that makes me an atheist for sure because I don’t believe in God Dipshit either.
However it is refreshing to hear from somebody who knows exactly what he’s talking about although spellcheck might be useful to you.
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March 12, 2015 at 10:41 am
@Nathan_Reece
You need to educate yourself Nathan.
Atheism and theism are affirmative beliefs which can stem from an examination of evidence (or lack of), deduction, faith or a multitude of subjective reasons. Whatever the reason(s) are, it’s not a neutral position. When one claims to be an atheist or theist, they are in fact affirming how they identify themselves based on their “beliefs.”
Most would agree that babies are born ignorant, devoid of any opinion for or against God. As such, it’s complete nonsense to claim babies are born atheists.
Atheism is not simply a default position if you don’t believe in a god.
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March 12, 2015 at 10:44 am
@Nathan_Reece
You need to educate yourself Nathan.
Atheism and theism are affirmative beliefs which can stem from an examination of evidence (or lack of), deduction, faith or a multitude of subjective reasons. Whatever the reason(s) are, it’s not a neutral position. When one claims to be an atheist or theist, they are in fact affirming how they identify themselves based on their “beliefs.”
Most would agree that babies are born ignorant, devoid of any opinion for or against God. Babies have not weighed out the evidence on any subject. Being such, it’s complete nonsense to claim babies are born atheists.
Atheism is not simply a default position if you don’t believe in a god.
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March 12, 2015 at 11:33 am
Phillip:
How can “belief” be a position for atheism; “belief” is the domian of Believers.
WHAT IS ATHEISM?
No one asks this question enough.
The reason no one asks this question a lot is because most people have preconceived ideas and notions about what an Atheist is and is not. Where these preconceived ideas come from varies, but they tend to evolve from theistic influences or other sources.
Atheism is usually defined incorrectly as a belief system. Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods. Older dictionaries define atheism as “a belief that there is no God.” Some dictionaries even go so far as to define Atheism as “wickedness,” “sinfulness,” and other derogatory adjectives. Clearly, theistic influence taints dictionaries. People cannot trust these dictionaries to define atheism. The fact that dictionaries define Atheism as “there is no God” betrays the (mono)theistic influence. Without the (mono)theistic influence, the definition would at least read “there are no gods.”
Why should atheists allow theists to define who atheists are? Do other minorities allow the majority to define their character, views, and opinions? No, they do not. So why does everyone expect atheists to lie down and accept the definition placed upon them by the world’s theists? Atheists will define themselves.
Atheism is not a belief system nor is it a religion. While there are some religions that are atheistic (certain sects of Buddhism, for example), that does not mean that atheism is a religion. Two commonly used retorts to the nonsense that atheism is a religion are: 1) If atheism is a religion then bald is a hair color, and 2) If atheism is a religion then health is a disease. A new one introduced in 2012 by Bill Maher is, “If atheism is a religion, then abstinence is a sexual position.”
The only common thread that ties all atheists together is a lack of belief in gods and supernatural beings. Some of the best debates we have ever had have been with fellow atheists. This is because atheists do not have a common belief system, sacred scripture or atheist Pope. This means atheists often disagree on many issues and ideas. Atheists come in a variety of shapes, colors, beliefs, convictions, and backgrounds. We are as unique as our fingerprints.
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March 12, 2015 at 11:43 am
Phillip:
ALL Babies are born atheists (that is, without a belief in God; then; along comes religion to mold the soft putty of the new brain with imaginative absurdities passed on for the last ten thousand centuries…..) oh oh.
From there on: God’s will is revealed in the holy scripture. The sacred book formulates the will of God and specifies what is to be given to the clergy. Clergy become parasites. “… All things of life are so ordered that the clergy is everywhere indispensable; at all the natural events of life, at birth, marriage, sickness, death. Not to speak of ‘sacrifice’ (meal–times)… .” Natural values become utterly valueless. The Clergy sanctifies and bestows all value. Disobedience of God (the clergy) is ‘sin.’ Subjection to God (the clergy) is redemption. Clergy use ‘sin’ to gain and hold power.
Another question is, isn’t atheism itself just another religion? Well, I suppose atheism is a religion in the same way that creationism is a science or Islam is a religion of peace; in other words, when language no longer really means anything. How can atheism be a religion? Who do we worship and who’s going to kill us if we don’t? Atheism doesn’t demand absolute unquestioning obedience or make threats about eternal damnation nor does it take childish offense over trifles. It doesn’t treat women like livestock.
In a way it’s a shame it’s not a religion because we might be able to get a few tax breaks out of it but no; atheism doesn’t get any special privileges, there are no schools teaching atheism to children as a belief system, paid for with public money. Nor does atheism require anyone to tithe part of their income to keep a few cynical con-men in luxury so you see it doesn’t begin to qualify as a religion worthy of the name.
Atheism is another word for reality, it means not seeing any need to apologize for being human. And to be happy to live the life we have and not just wish it away on some celestial wingnut that tells me heaven is right there waiting and all you’ve got to do, is DIE. That’s some price to pay for admission to a place that is likely to be full of clergymen, born again christians and suicide Muslim JigSaw puzzles.
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March 12, 2015 at 11:51 am
Theism is defined by Mirriam-Webster‘s as:
belief in the existence of a god or gods
The operative word here is belief in the existence of a god, as opposed to the knowledge that there is a god. Conversely it is important to note that the addition of the “a-” precedent denotes that something is “without”. So “atheism” despite what popular (Christian owned) dictionaries may falsely say would be properly defined as:
without belief in the existence of a god or gods
Any change from this definition is decidedly incorrect. It need not be further explained with different “levels” of disbelief, it is simply the complete lack of belief. Adding anything else to this definition would require an additional adjective as opposed to a manipulation of it’s definition.
To put this in mathematical terms:
if belief = 1
then
belief – 1 = 0
atheism= 0
Why is this concept difficult?
Ultimately I believe this concept is difficult for the theist to grasp for one of two reasons; the first being an intentional manipulation of the real definition in order to make the discussion center around one faith system vs. another, and the second being a genuine lack of understanding because of the popularity of the erroneous definition.
For those intentionally using a definition they know to be incorrect I believe that the motivations are to move any debate to be about “belief in a god” vs “belief in no god” – not only does accepting such a term make reasoned discussion nearly impossible, it removes the scientific process from the debate wherein one must begin at the point without presuppositions as to the existence of a god or gods. To fall prey to a presuppositional argument is to forget what science is all about – asking questions and seeking evidence for the answers as opposed to making conclusions and seeking evidence to back those conclusions up.
Repairing misconceptions:
I think it’s important for outspoken atheists to take the time to communicate with members of the religious community in order to find ways to correct common misconceptions about what we are – and because we have no doctrinal statement or governing body to refer to we have to be representatives of ourselves first and allow positive associations to be built around who we are that will eventually become positive associations for the rest of atheist activists.
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March 12, 2015 at 12:09 pm
@SonofMan
Fantastic. We don’t have appeal to a Webster’s dictionary to define atheism, but instead, we can shape our definition philosophically.
Atheism and theism are most definitely belief systems based on evidence (or lack thereof), deduction, and subjective beliefs, emotion, et cetera, which lead to ultimate conclusions and an affirmation that identifies your belief system (i.e. “I’m a theist…I’m an atheist”).
Babies have no notion of the concept of god(s), nor the capacity to even weigh evidence to draw conclusions from.
Atheism is by no means a neutral default position resulting from simply lacking a belief in god(s). Atheism effectively makes a positive affirming claim that there isn’t a god(s).
Agnostics believe that nothing is known or can be known about the nature of God. They make no declarative statements that there is or isn’t god(s).
So here’s a question:
Do you believe or are convinced there isn’t a god(s) based on your life experience examining the evidence (or lack thereof)?
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March 12, 2015 at 12:56 pm
Phillip:
Theism is a belief system in a personal God; Deism is the belief in an impersonal God. A theist believes there is a god. An A-theist does not believe in a personal god and A-deist does not believe in an impersonal God.
Babies have no belief in the notion of God period regardless if they have the capacity to reject the God Myth since atheism simply is lacking any belief in a God.If I say I do not believe in Gods it has no bearing on the Gods’ existence at all; it is a statement that only focuses on my lack of belief.
If the theist says I believe in God in like manner also has no bearing on the existence of Gods only on the belief of the speaker.
So you are talking about two different things here 1. on my lack of belief but then you are projecting that “lack of belief” to mean that “Gods do not exist”.
My position is simply put if I say “I do not believe.”
Now if you want to discuss the existence of God on experience, on education on empirical evidence then that’s a different topic. As an Atheist I do not believe. IThere are lots of things I do not believe in. Now “I do not believe” is more than just about God, it also means that I operate on a knowledge system that needs to prove all things and then we can diversify the subject; instead of using God, let’s say leprechauns. I do not believe in leprechauns is not to say that leprechauns do not exist, I just do not believe in leprechauns. I do not believe in Creation; I do not believe in Evolution; I do not belive that magic tricks are miracles and so on so when it comes to God I do have a belief; that is, an understanding and a knowledge that a God exists, just not the supernatural God that is commonly believed in by Theists.
So if you want to know the God I believe in you’ll need my definition of God and if you want to say that I believe that God does not exist then I need a definition of what you mean by God in that case too.
Many disagreements hinge only on the definitions of different people when God for example is so varied throughout humanity: Mohandas Gandhi said, “There are people in the world so hungry, that God cannot appear to them except in the form of bread.”
Belief is a contentious iissue between theists and atheist when it comes to knowledge when Theists want to claim that “belief” is knowledge by manipulating language with various descriptives.
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March 12, 2015 at 1:08 pm
@SonofMan
You’re providing simplified explanations of belief systems, but not addressing how one derives those beliefs.
That’s what is relevant as it pertains to this discussion.
“Now “I do not believe” is more than just about God, it also means that I operate on a knowledge system that needs to prove all things and then we can diversify the subject; instead of using God, let’s say leprechauns.”
I’ll just end the quote there because you’re missing the proverbial forest through trees.
Your belief system is derived from a conclusion formed by how you have interpreted available evidence in your life experience.
You are an atheist because you’ve drawn a conclusion.
Yes or no?
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March 12, 2015 at 1:58 pm
Why do you insist that I have a belief system? It doesn’t matter how you phrase the questions, my answers will not support your conclusion that I have a belief system.
Do you not want to acknowledge that I have an understanding that is different than your own? Even superior?
You have a belief system; I have a knowledge system. Your insistence, because you have a belief system, does not apply to me; how can you “know” anything while you operate on a belief system. You may want to believe that I have a belief system like you but I do not. You are not seeing the trees because your all inclusive forest won’t let you. I am a tree.
I have a knowledge system derived from a conclusion formed by how I have interpreted the available evidence in my life experience and while I am an atheist because I have drawn a conclusion, the conclusion is not based on or arrived at through a belief system that’s why I now “know” things; you can only believe things.
The only belief I have ever had was the belief that I could discover the truth of knowledge and when I found that knowledge, that truth set me free; something belief can never do. One can have belief all one’s life but if the seeker cannot find what is sought one will never be set free from one’s belief; thus, having sought, asked and knocked, by persistence I found the answers as doors of knowledge opened.
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March 12, 2015 at 2:00 pm
Phillip:
If I agreed with you we’d both be wrong.
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March 12, 2015 at 2:35 pm
@SonofMan
Lol, I see you’re from the “saying so makes it so” school of thought.
You can claim you don’t have a belief system all you want. Problem is you haven’t offered one shred of legitimate reasoning to support that contention. All you’ve effectively said is “no I don’t (have a belief system).”
In fact, the rest of your post (#39) logically takes you down the path I’m leading you, and you’re obliviously making my point.
For example: “I have a knowledge system derived from a conclusion formed by how I have interpreted the available evidence in my life experience and while I am an atheist because I have drawn a conclusion, the conclusion is not based on or arrived at through a belief system that’s why I now “know” things; you can only believe things.”
Beautiful!
Let’s take what you said and bring it back to your entirely unsubstantiated blanket claim that “ALL Babies are born atheists.”
Your statement (quoted above) completely undermines that notion.
Why?
Because babies have no knowledge system; no outside-the-womb life experiences; nor the reasoning capacity to deduce and process various complex information to even formulate a conclusion. ALL of which you used to come to your conclusion about being an atheist.
The default position for a baby is ignorance, not atheism.
You’re tripped up trying to distinguish between conclusion from belief. Again…forest through the trees. Your “beliefs” are drawn from your conclusions. No way around it.
[knowledge, (then) conclusion, (then one arrives at…) a belief]
End of story.
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March 12, 2015 at 2:56 pm
@SonofMan
You said: “If I agreed with you we’d both be wrong.”
Lol, yeah not quite.
I think you’re realizing your claim has shown to be bunk under examination.
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March 13, 2015 at 7:39 am
No “legitimate reasoning” can support belief systems because belief systems are bereft of reason.
“Your statement (quoted above) completely undermines that notion (ALL Babies are born atheists.)
No it doesn’t at all. There are atheists born from the womb (without a belief in Gods) and there are atheists who after being exposed to the god myth of theism rejects the belief system and does not believe anything religious, including religions’ god because of the lies, deception and hypocrisy theism is founded on. Baby Jesus was born with a brain like a virgin piece of putty and had no belief in any gods; adult Jesus when he was exposed to the religious shananigans of religion, its magic miracle and the created supernatural gods of men debunked the supernatural god and came out of the atheist closet by reason, knowledge and common sense. It seems to me you admit that there are only belief systems but do not admit there are knowledge systems apart from belief; you think knowledge and belief are synonymous but they’re not; they’re opposites. Belief is like the tail on a dog of knowledge but guess what, the tail does not wag the dog.
All babies are born atheists, which is to mean “without belief in any religious gods”. Babies begin a life that by design embarks on a quest to learn, to explore, to “know”; it is not a life designed to establish belief systems that conspire to degrade and destroy knowledge but a life designed to establish a knowledge foundation. Knowledge is the hallmark of progressive civilizing and always increases; belief can never progress because it is based on the erroneous religious idea of Absolute Certainty once and for all time which can never progress because it resists change, retards growth and frowns on knowledge; in fact, belief tries to hijack knowledge by claiming that belief IS knowledge; that’s like darkness claiming the sun is its companion when language no longer really means anything.
Babies learn knowledge and parents teach knowledge. It is a ludicrous to claim that life’s role is to establish belief sytems. How smart is that? Religion comes into play when the child begins to discern between fantasy and reason. During that transformative period, religion brings to the innocent child “the demons of doubt”, by a grotesque form of child abuse and persuades the child he is a wretch, full of corruption and the religious concept of invented sin. The child, religion says, therefore is in need of improvement: so that afterwards the child becomes a caricature of a human being, like an abortion: he has become a sinner; he is in a cage; religion imprisons him behind nothing but sheer terrifying concepts . . . . There he lay now, sick, miserable, filled with ill-will towards himself, full of hatred for the impulses toward life, full of suspicion of all that was strong and happy. In short, s/he is religious.
We find that which has been reverenced as God not ‘godlike’ but pitiable, absurd, harmful, not merely an error but a crime against life; a conspiracy against health, beauty, well- constitutedness, bravery, intellect, benevolence, against life itself. Religion promotes the unhealthy aspects of a fabricated belief system that has enslaved the world with its diseases of pity, guilt and revenge; contempt has been taught for the primary instincts of life; that a ‘soul’, a ‘spirit’ has been lyingly invented in order to destroy the body. And finally religion teaches that there is something unclean in the precondition of life, sexuality, that denies the very foundations of life.
Atheism says: “I’ll believe it when I see it”
Religion says: “I’ll see it when I believe it”
Knowledge systems are built on from experience, reason and educated conclusions of reality; the absence of which all one has are beliefs, non knowledge, speculation, imagination, hypothesis, maybe, I suppose, I think.
Belief is the darkness of all religions that flees like an antelope from a lion when the light of knowledge is turned on because only knowledge will set you free, belief never will.
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March 13, 2015 at 8:29 am
@SonofMan
You continue to want to have your cake and eat it too, but your responses on this subject and plainly self-defeating.
Being an atheist or theist is an affirmation of one’s own belief related to the existence of a god (or gods), based on subjective interpretation of available evidence (knowledge), and drawn from a conclusion. related to the existence of a god or gods.
Babies aren’t born with such “knowledge.”
Babies are born ignorant, as in “lacking knowledge.”
Lacking knowledge related to any concept of god DOES NOT equate to atheism.
Babies fresh from the womb have no knowledge of the New York Yankees. That lack of knowledge doesn’t equate to babies being anti-Yankee, or a non-believer in the Yankees existence.
As you’ve already admitted previously, your atheism was “drawn from a conclusion.” Babies have not made any such conclusion on ANY subject, nor do they possess the capability to do so.
For you to continue to try to obfuscate and try to make the square peg fit through the round hole is frankly comical at best, and at worst, intellectually dishonest.
Lol, I mean, seriously, how can you type this (claiming atheism is derived from this process): “Knowledge systems are built on from experience, reason and educated conclusions of reality” and then turn around and claim babies are born atheists, as if they’ve gone through those same processes?
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January 25, 2016 at 2:07 am
[…] Babies and cats also qualify as atheists. […]
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May 29, 2016 at 11:32 am
“it’s because babies do not have any beliefs regarding God that they can be neither a theist nor an atheist.”
How many gods do babies believe in? ZERO.
What is the absolute minimum required to be an atheist? Belief in no gods.
This notion that you must knowingly have beliefs about any god(s) one way or another is what is absurd; you either believe in any gods or you don’t, and the reason why DOESN’T MATTER.
Babies are atheists because the number of gods they believe in is zero…just like me.
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May 29, 2016 at 1:02 pm
Atheism is having no belief in any Gods or Gods; therefore it is a non belief. Theologists always want to try to put atheist in the same hole they are in by calling their non belief, a belief. How can you have a belief that your non belief is a belief in nothing?
Christians in particular are a weird lot of rationality; they claim you cannot believe in Jesus if you don’t believe in their concept of the supernatural God and supernatural events. But Jesus did not believe in theologists’ supernatural Gods either; neither did he believe in supernatural events. So unfortunately they have lumped Jesus common sense into the dogma of the supernatural because “nothing” turns them on.
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May 29, 2016 at 2:29 pm
Babies are born ignorant or devoid of knowledge. Atheism is an affirmation made intellectually that there are no gods (or conversely, that there is a god(s) if you’re a theist). Babies don’t have the mental or intellectual faculties to process, interpret or ruminate on the available arguments or evidence to make such an affirmation.
If you really want to say you’ve arrived at your decision to be an atheist the way a baby has, I certainly won’t argue with you for the sake of comedy relief.
Be informed and carry on.
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May 29, 2016 at 2:36 pm
LeoTheGreater…..How did you arrive at your atheism? Would it be safe to say that in your personal experience, you’ve weighed enough evidence, done enough research, heard enough arguments, that in your mind, you’ve confidently come to the conclusion that there is no reason to believe in god or gods (deities, spirits, ghosts, et cetera)?
Is this accurate? Yes or no?
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May 29, 2016 at 8:33 pm
Phillip:
In my own essence I arrived at the conclusion that I do not believe in God. I was born without a belief in God. Being without belief is not an activity; it requires no thinking. However actively thinking about something is not the criteria for not having a belief in God. It is this precise point why babies are born atheist which is to say that they do not believe in God ……….period.
Now you may argue and you seem to do so by suggesting that one needs to be intellectually convinced there is no God but that is intellectual dishonesty because the reality is that babies do not believe in God anymore than they believe in genital mutilation. It takes religion and cultural stupidity to indoctrinate babies of the way they should believe, how they should behave and a whole hosts of other behaviors but that does not mean they have got to differentiate whether the behaviors are valid or not in order to arrive at their belief or no belief. Non belief is not something you need to arrive at, it is already there until along comes brainwashing to trying to direct your thoughts.
Babies do not believe in anything when they are born. so not only are they a-theist, they are a-religious, a-moral, a-education, a-nationalism, a-carrot, a-vegetable, a-fruit, a-ocean, a-mountain, a-cosmos, a-everything…..so in the case of religion the priest comes along and determines that the child needs to know about religion and the God of that religion, so they are baptized, taught catechism, go to Sunday school, learn all the nonsense of mythology and are expected to follow the adult indoctrination and accept without question all the supernatural nonsense religion teaches.
In education they are also taught about mountains, and geography, science and physics, play, games, work, school and in self education: don’t touch hot stoves or matches and other similar sensory things. Without education they are a-schooling. Children have no belief about anything until they learn things but until they learn things they are without belief still, and that is the only criterion for being an atheist; you don’t have to know what it is that you don’t believe; that is a rather shallow approach to say that you have to know about something in order not to believe in it. I don’t believe in lupscrockalism and I bet you don’t believe in it either but I don’t have to describe lupscrockalism to you in order for you not to believe in it. You just don’t nor can you even.
Before you teach a child about magnetism she will not believe in magnetism unless you describe it and maybe she will believe it but after you teach the child about magnetism she will not believe in magnetism still because she doesn’t have to believe; she has the knowledge and belief then, in magnetism, is meaningless. Knowledge requires no belief. Belief may lead you to knowledge but knowledge once attained belief vanishes.
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May 29, 2016 at 8:50 pm
Phillip:
I must say however that I do believe in a god but that would be the God that Jesus revealed; that god, yes I believe in. But the Gods that religions teach are false, they are supernatural, based on superstition and do not make sense to anybody. The God on the other hand that Jesus described, that God does make sense to me and I can ID with that God. That is a God that religions do not know and therefore do not teach and what they do teach is contrary to the teachings of Jesus.
However I did not believe in that God either when I was born so I was still born an atheist. Yet when I hear the description of the God that Jesus revealed that makes sense,k like magnetism to the child but then I had knowledge that most of the world did not have and does not have still.
The religious world still marvels about the Gods of supernaturalism and the supernatural events those Gods effect, which do not exist and if they did exist religion ought to be able to demonstrate them but they cannot and never will. The God Jesus described was, can be and can still be demonstrated yet again……
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May 29, 2016 at 11:16 pm
Lol, smh…
I purposely asked you a ‘Yes or No’ question because I wanted to avoid the obfuscating I knew you’d likely subject me to once you realized the philosophical bind you’re in. Clearly, you had other ideas.
The long-winded screed you wrote is probably the most thoroughly and sincerely ignorant post I’ve read on this forum.
I can’t spend too much time dissecting the fuzzy logic bit-by-bit, but here’s a few of the main egregious errors.
“[…] you don’t have to know what it is that you don’t believe; that is a rather shallow approach to say that you have to know about something in order not to believe in it.”
You simply can’t be serious? Are you actually trying to claim you don’t need an intellectual basis for not believing in something? Your blunder is that you keep trying to equate ignorance (i.e. being devoid of particular knowledge) with an active affirmation (such as belief or non-belief), based on an intellectually derived conclusion to choose not to believe in something.
If you think you’ve somehow side-stepped the intellectual component by saying “well, I don’t have to know leprechauns to actually say I don’t believe in them,” then you’re woefully misinformed. The reality is you don’t believe in leprechauns because in your life experience you’ve never witnessed satisfactory evidence to believe in them; are unaware of any similar precedent to believe they could exist; don’t have any reference to a trusted resource to believe they would; et cetera. Guess what? All of those reasons are factors you weigh in your mind intellectually that lead you to conclude there is no reason to believe in leprechauns.
Babies are born ignorant and don’t have the intellectual sophistication to come to a conclusion on anything. Again, to try to equate the basis of your atheism with the pure ignorance of a baby is absolute comedy.
“Knowledge requires no belief. Belief may lead you to knowledge but knowledge once attained belief vanishes.”
Oh, what whimsical and non-sensical drivel!
So, once you became knowledgable about gravity, your belief in the science behind it vanished? Let me help untangle your self-contradiction. Your personal belief systems on every subject under the Sun are derived from conclusions based on perceived knowledge and your belief in the reliability of the information, resource, reference and/or experience.
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May 29, 2016 at 11:33 pm
Lol, no, you were born ignorant, devoid of knowledge and the intellectual faculties to draw conclusions about any subject, including the belief in God.
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May 30, 2016 at 7:39 am
Phillip:
It is better for a baby to remain ignorant about the supernatural mythology of ancient man than to stumble around in darkness most of its life trying to climb out of a brain infection put there by religious insanity from birth. The teaching of religion to children should be banned until the age of maturity. But religion objects because its demise would be more clearly at hand if not able to get the jump on sanity by shoving a fool’s foot in the brain door exposing pliable minds of youngsters to the ravages of savages. What knowledge does any child or adult for that matter have about a supernatural God? About a supernatural event? None………..!
It’s unfortunate that many people on this planet seem to believe the very first thing they’re told and stick with it for the rest of their life. Not only does it remain unexamined but any attempt to challenge it is taken as a grievous insult. That’s why religion objects to religious teachings now banned in some daycare centers
Clearly those early few months and years of life are a very sensitive time and whatever ideas are imprinted into the soft putty of the unformed mind at that stage stays there pretty much forever and yet for some reason, here in the civilized world, it’s still perfectly legal for us to indoctrinate our children with the most hateful and divisive absurdities it’s possible to imagine. And imagined them we have.
Creating in them not young, vibrant, healthy, inquiring minds but rather stunted little freakish bonsai minds that are no use to anyone but a perverted proselytizing preacher.
We not only allow this abuse, we actively encourage it; we throw public money at it.
You can niggle that non belief in God needs to be intellectually rejected but the only thing that needs to be intellectually rejected is the religious insanity of theism that has been visited on the world by ancient egotistical men wanting to keep the world entangled in the web of deceit.
God serves up only good for man so that all there is of good is available to the man who is available to all there is of good. Religion interferes with that process trying to fake the role of Gods through clerics. Religious men would be wise to let God alone to work through man, not man’s warped views of non existent entities of imagination that fosters and promotes financial security and ego esteem for wannabe messengers of non existent supernaturalism.
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May 30, 2016 at 8:16 am
Phillip:
Terms of academia: obfuscating, philosophical bind, long-winded screed, thoroughly and sincerely ignorant, fuzzy logic, egregious, blunder, woefully misinformed, absolute comedy, whimsical and non-sensical drivel.
For your information, knowledge of gravity requires no belief in science. One doesn’t need intellectual belief in science to know why or what happens when you fall down.
Newton’s “eureka moment” did nothing to affect the apple’s fall. Your analogy erroneously mixes apples and orangatans.
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May 30, 2016 at 9:50 am
Right, so in filtering your response for relevant substance, all I was left with meaningless pontification on the evils of religion and indoctrination (in which you’re obliviously supporting my point about babies being ignorant and devoid of knowledge).
You don’t actually forward any support to gird your faulty claim that a baby’s ignorant intellectual state, dearth of knowledge, capacity for reasoning for sophisticated reasoning somehow equates to your intellectually based self-affirmation as an atheist.
Let me help you friend. You can still be an atheist but abandon this horrible false equivalence. Atheism doesn’t stand or fall on babies supposedly being atheists. You won’t catch more well-reasoned and learned atheists making this oversimplified blunder.
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May 30, 2016 at 10:07 am
“For your information, knowledge of gravity requires no belief in science. One doesn’t need intellectual belief in science to know why or what happens when you fall down.”
Lol, smh….c’mon, you can’t be serious with this stuff, looool?
First, if you don’t believe in the science behind gravity, you cannot then hijack the term “gravity” and claim to even know the meaning of the term. The term gravity in a scientific context does not simply mean “when I throw something up it falls down.”
To say “One doesn’t need intellectual belief in science to know why […] you fall down” is plainly stupefying, but please, go ahead and explain to me why you fall down without appealing to scientific concepts?
Don’t dodge the question. Answer it. I’ve got my popcorn ready.
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May 30, 2016 at 10:53 am
You tell me, does gravity mean something more to you now than it did to ancient man in stoneagism?
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May 30, 2016 at 12:01 pm
When you fell down as a toddler did you appeal to the scientific concept of gravity? I don’t think so.
Theism is the belief in god or gods; atheism is a non belief in theism; therefore atheism is a non belief in god or gods.
The gods of theism are supernatural entities which no intellectual thought or experience can explain, describe or understand because they do not exist. I cannot prove what does not exist nor can you. And I could care less about a semantic niggler.
I did not have a belief in theism when I was born; I did not have a belief in theism when I was 7 years of age or at any age, neither did I have a belief in Santa Claus when I was born or at any age and beyond and remains the same. When l learned there was a concept called Santa Claus (and God) I did not believe it and did not need to appeal to intellectualism and experience to know that I knew I did not believe it.
My non belief at birth stayed with me (call it ignorance if you like) because it was innate; I did not need academia to explain why or why not and that is the way it is with all human beings born; until and unless they lose their innateness and conform to the culture of society for approval or the academia type, such as yourself, who through coercion, ad hominems and derision try impose their supremacy onto others which is the religious, bully pulpit way but that only satisfies one ego, yours; it does nothing for me and I am not bowed by ridicule.
Trying to define concepts like the Big Bang Theory and the Supernatural God Theories that do not exist are mere attempts to impose ancient cultural biases or modern scientific appeal on everybody who do not believe in the TheoryGodMother or FairyGodFather.
I do believe however that Cosmic Will states I am the cause of my own effect and Cosmic Will is also innate and intuitive.
Thanks for the schooling though; it is a reminder.
Please don’t slur me if you find a typo.
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May 30, 2016 at 1:02 pm
“You tell me, does gravity mean something more to you now than it did to ancient man in stoneagism?”
And once again you’re dancing around the question. Let me refocus you.
How about you answer my question (i.e. explain to why it is we ‘fall down’ without appealing to established scientific concepts) like an intellectually honest person and I’ll be glad to answer your question once you do so.
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July 4, 2017 at 10:09 pm
Sigh…. I am SO bored by this argument & I have to say I 100% agree with the philosopher Sam Harris on this one when he said we no more need a special word for people who do not believe in gods than we need words like ‘a-horoscopist’ for people who don’t believe astrologers claims, or ‘a-fairiests’ for people who don’t believe claims about fairies. There is one & only one shared attribute every single atheist shares: They’d ALL agree that there are no good reasons to accept god claims. That’s it. That all. Can a baby agree with that? No. Babies have no conception of truth vs. delusion. This article is dead wrong when it states that “Atheism is not a lack of belief in God. That is more properly described as “agnosticism.” No no no no! Agnosticism refers to your lack of knowledge as regards god claims – but that’s yet another silly ‘non-term’ too. Strictly speaking I also can’t be 100% certain that Nessie the Loch Ness Monster does not exist either but so what? Do we need a special word for people who cannot say they know that Nessie isn’t real like “agnessists” perhaps? No it’s just as daft as having special words for people who cannot find god claims believable. We don’t need a term for people who are unconvinced by god claims or a term for people who cannot be 100% watertight sure there are no gods either. All we need to discuss are the claims about gods & those people generally call themselves Christians or Muslims or Hindus or whatever – but they certainly are theists: people who think there are good reasons to believe in a deity or deities. – OK then now we have the focus on the important issue at hand: their assertions, we can then ask ‘Are there any particularly compelling reasons to think your claim is true because I’ve never heard one?’ (Something no baby could ever ask). Now the burden of evidence lies precisely where it belongs & no where else – fairly & squarely on the shoulders of the claimant rather than the skeptic. If you still think atheism IS some kind of belief rather than a lack of one ask yourself ‘Is health some kind if disease rather than a lack of any?’
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July 7, 2017 at 2:30 am
Jason asked: “……..what do we call the person who thinks the proposition “God exists” is false?”
We might call that person an ex-theist; e.g., a person whose mind has been unlocked by common sense?
A person who claims to speak on behalf of god is also known as a prophet, minister, preacher, priest, holy person and lots of other terms and if the tradition holds fast in a religious community then it would be perfectly reasonable for a believer to say that s/he talked to God and God talked to s/he after a conversation with a member of the clergy.
So when the bible speaks about hearing God, listening to God; reading the word of god as written by such a one as “God says…………” such and such, you are not talking about God, you merely are talking about the “tradition of religious people” claiming to speak on behalf of the god they conceptualized.
Therefore in stating that God says “you shalt not do this” or “you shalt do this” what you really should be saying is that the ” tradition of certain people claiming to speak on behalf of their caricature concept god, say “thou shalt not do……….”; or, “thou shalt do…………” not god that says but the person who speaks claims to speak and listen to the god in their imaginative mind not in their real mind, in their “make believe mind”.
And that tradition morphed from the Gods of Mythology to today’s idea of the One Lump God of modernity but there’s absolutely nothing modern about the god tradition; it is still the belief systems of ancient man clinging to a changing society via that religiously despised term …….”Evolution”………..of civilization unfolding as it should. Eventually the ancient god will be slain on the altar of common sense as the antichrist tries to dismantle all righteous progress perpetuated today around the world.
We see the evidence as greed of self morphs yet again to feed the ego like fire that can never say “enough”. The status quo turns upside down, and the new slogan for the world becomes, “G20 Welcome 2Hell” and the chains of hades are loosed by marauding maniacs of mayhem posing as righteous charlatans of chaos for the good of mankind, one ego after another, “masked” for shame they hide from the light following the Lord of the Ring, Donald J. Trump, Antichrist Anarchist. Trump was the fourth of five children born to Frederick Christ Trump (“Fred”) (1905–1999) and Mary Anne Trump (née MacLeod, 1912–2000).
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July 7, 2017 at 7:48 am
Paul, whether we need a word to describe people who do not believe in the existence of God or gods is a practical question. I would argue that there is good reason for such a word, but that is besides the point. For the sake of argument I could agree with you that there is no need for such a word, but the fact of the matter is that we have created a word to describe those who do not believe in God/gods, and such a word has existed for millennia. Just because you don’t think we need a word has nothing to do with how we define a word that was invented for that purpose. The fact of the matter is that those who have a belief that there is no God have historically been called atheists, and there is no good justification for changing that word to mean something different now.
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July 7, 2017 at 9:40 am
Jason:
Why do you insist on using two different definitions for atheists; they are not both correct.
You said:
“…………the fact of the matter is that we have created a word to describe those who do not believe in God/gods…………..” THIS IS CORRECT
Then you said just the opposite
“The fact of the matter is that those who have a belief that there is no God have historically been called atheists………..” THIS IS INCORRECT
You use both definitions like they are interchangeable and they are not.
The one presumes an atheist person does not operate on a belief system while the other presumes that an atheist person does operate on a belief system.
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