Atheism Shouldn't Exist

[Oirish_Martin]

The fact that you can define it that clearly, means it's still a belief system.

Nope, clarity of definition has nothing to do with it whether a set of claims is a belief system or not.

Ultimately, it depends on what form of atheism you're talking about. If you're talking about something like weak-atheism, then that doesn't hinge on belief, it hinges on the absence of a belief. Lack of a belief =/= belief.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

Also, Sam Harris is a pretentious fool.

A fool? The man is an award winning author, neuroscientist and widely praised intellectual who attended Stanford.

You seriously going to call a neuro-fucking-scientist that graduated from one of the most esteemed universities in the world a fool?

 

[viranimus]

Atheism is the belief system of atheists.

There's no such thing as an Atheist belief system. It is the absence of a belief.

Exactly. I always laugh my ass off when someone says "Atheists believe God doesn't exist." What don't people get? Atheism by definition means lack of belief--not disbelief. It means neutrality. It means absence. No one calls a baby an Atheist.

Kudos on the thread as a whole. This is a level of attention to context I can really get behind.


However, the notion of atheists not believing in an ideology is patently false. It is not false in definition alone, but it becomes false in practical application. When your lack of belief transcends the point of simply saying no when faced with a theist and the individual feels compelled to discuss and defend that ideology it is no longer being devoid of belief, but it in itself becomes a belief.

Spoiler: Heres an couple of examples

Non theist:

A: I believe in God
B: Ok, I dont.
A: Why not?
B: I dunno, Just dont.

Atheist:

A: I believe in God
B: I dont
A: Why not?
B: Because I believe there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of an invisible man in the sky

You basically cannot have a lack of belief when you believe something to support your lack of belief. Richard Dawkins is a Good example of this as he is an individual who believes there is no God and feels compelled to try to prove a negative and he does so by creating his own system of beliefs to justify his ideology.

So when people come onto a message board to "preach" to others about the evils of religion, they are in fact expressing a system of belief that they have, because they believe it to be true, but there is no way to prove it to be true.

 

[JediMB]

One could perhaps argue that non-believers should call themselves "atheistic" rather than "an atheist" in response to religious inquiries, but honestly... it doesn't matter. At least, it doesn't matter to most people.

In a world that has in large part been dominated by various theistic religions for thousands of years, the non-belief in gods is considered notable enough to require a label. We do love our labels, after all.

 

[Spineyguy]

The basis of language lies in Falsification. We naturally separate things into categories based on what qualities they don't have more than what qualities they do have. The reason we identify a Cat as a Cat and not a Dog is because they're not the same thing and the fact that they share so many qualities doesn't even come into it.

So to say that Atheism (in the modern, informal sense) is a pointless term is a massive tautology, of course it's a pointless term, in the same way that 'Cold' is a pointless term.

Cold = Lacking heat
Dry = Without fluid
Dark = Devoid of light
Atheist = Not religious

Of course, that last one doesn't quite work, because the A in Atheist is a prefix. We call people who believe in a single deity 'Monotheists' (Mono meaning 'one'), we call people who believe in many deities 'Polytheists' (Poly meaning 'Many' or 'Several'). 'Atheist', therefore, is the name of a category of people who choose not to believe in, or rather, not to worship,any Gods. 'Atheist' describes a conscious decision that a person makes, not a quality that they lack.

So what we're really dealing with is the separation of the word 'Atheist' from 'Godless', because they are very different things. 'Godless' refers to something that is 'lacking God', but God is an immaterial, esoteric, non-quantifiable, intangible thing, so things can't 'lack' God in any real sense. The point that Harris is trying to make just doesn't hold up, because he's not thinking about the root of the word.

Another problem with trying to make this sort of point is that it works in reverse. Now as amusing as it would be to group all believers under the heading of 'non-atheists', I get the impression that it wouldn't sit well with the vast majority of them. Also, 'Non-Atheist' is a double negative, and so is even more pointless than 'Atheist'.

Unfortunately there's a huge amount to say on this subject, and I'm bored of typing now.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

You can keep on defending yourself, or, you can propose something. Cause I can try to read this whole forum post but it just keeps falling down to you correcting people. This thread is really going nowhere. If it was, than imagine what other discussions that could be made.

What do you propose we should do? If we don't use the word atheism, we should just say to others if we are asked that we just don't believe in God(s)?

I just wish he'd stop repeating his own definition of atheism over and over again with nothing to back it up and then ignoring every cited definition of atheism. If he could at least show that this isn't just what he decided atheism is because I have checked a lot of places and I can't find any that support his definition.

Firstly, I'm female. Your assumption is hilarious.

Second, you may want to actually do some research. I suggest starting here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_and_explicit_atheism

There has been a LONG running debate about the definition of Atheism. Many see it as conscious disbelief in a god. Many see it is neither a rejection nor an acceptance, but a middle ground, where an individual might not believe there is no god, but does believe there is no evidence to support the claim. You your self used the terms weak and light to roughly describe the issue.

The debate is widely known among intellectuals and many times there has been calls to modify the definition as given by some dictionaries.

 

[Kordie]

There needs to be some serious clarification here over the definition of "Atheism" before you can actually decide if the word is needed...

Here is line 1 from the "Stanford Encylopedia of Philosophy" article titled "Atheism and Agnosticism First published Tue Mar 9, 2004; substantive revision Mon Aug 8, 2011", "Atheism means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God."
(http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/)

From wikipedia, "Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities."

From the mirriam-webster dictionary,
"athe·ism noun \ˈâ-thç-ˌi-zəm\
Definition of ATHEISM
1 archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2 a : a disbelief in the existence of deity
b : the doctrine that there is no deity
Origin of ATHEISM
Middle French athéisme, from athée atheist, from Greek atheos godless, from a- + theos god
First Known Use: 1546"

There is more, but I can leave it as that. Atheism means the you do not believe in god. Period. If you are claiming to be looking for evidence, or proof that there is/isn't a god, you are not an atheist. You are more accurately labelled an agnostic...

From an article "Atheism vs. Agnosticism"
"Agnosticism is not about belief in god but about knowledge ? it was coined originally to describe the position of a person who could not claim to know for sure if any gods exist or not."
(http://atheism.about.com/od/aboutagnosticism/a/atheism.htm)

Again from mirriam webster dictionary,
"ag·nos·tic noun \ag-ˈnäs-tik, əg-\
Definition of AGNOSTIC
1: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god
2: a person who is unwilling to commit to an opinion about something "

After reading a few pages of this, I feel the need to make this clarification. Ask yourself this question before giving yourself a label... Is there a god(s)? No = atheist, Yes = theist, Maybe/I don't know/theres no proof = agnostic.

 

[Baby Tea]

Let me explain: free means no price. The 'thing' being described is the lack of repayment required. Atheism means not religious. But religion shouldn't be accepted by default; you shouldn't need to state that you aren't religious. It is reasonable to expect an object or service to require payment, so it is also reasonable to use the word free. Why should it be reasonable to expect someone to have a religious perspective?

Because the vast majority of people on this planet subscribe to SOME religious affiliation. Whether it's Christian, Buddhist, Islam, Shintoism, Taoism, Paganism, Hinduism, whatever, billions of people have SOME faith-based worldview. It's silly to assume one is a specific religion (I.E. going around calling everyone a Muslim), but statistically, you've got a better chance of being right assuming someone has a faith of some kind then assuming they don't.

That also all depends on where in the world you live, but the point still stands.

So the term 'atheism' or 'atheist' is perfectly valid.

 

[SuperNova221]

Then perhaps we should also remove the word free from the dictionary since there is no need to state an absence of price or absence of some sort of overlord.

Yeah, you seem to have missed the point entirely.

Let me explain: free means no price. The 'thing' being described is the lack of repayment required. Atheism means not religious. But religion shouldn't be accepted by default; you shouldn't need to state that you aren't religious. It is reasonable to expect an object or service to require payment, so it is also reasonable to use the word free. Why should it be reasonable to expect someone to have a religious perspective? The terms (free and Atheism) are being used to describe lack of what is otherwise implied--if everything was free or it was rare for anything not to be free, the term wouldn't exist.

If you still don't get it: Atheism can only exist in a world where people are expected to be religious by default--a.k.a.: a fucked up world--and need to inform others otherwise.

Atheism doens't mean "not religious" though. Theism and religion are independant of each other, there are plenty religions which aren't theistic, and plenty theists who aren't religious.

In an ideal world it shouldn't be needed, but it's not an ideal world. The majority of people are theistic so it's prevelent enough to warrant "atheist" being required. Atheism is technically the default, no child is born with any theistic or religious beliefs, but that's just a bit irrelevent when a majority of people, from when they are children and onwards, do still currently have theistic beliefs.

 

[surg3n]

Because all religious people are idiots, all religions are pointless, blah blah fricken blah... if there's one thing worse than religious idiots, it's athiest idiots.

People = sheep, just like the slipknot song says, that is the word isn't it?

People spend so long emphasising their own beliefs, they don't notice that most people don't give a fuck about their beliefs - people care about what they believe, some of them care enough to try and convince others, some of them know better.

In my opinion, people who dismiss religion as unnecessary, negative, causing wars, or any of that diatribe need to educate themselves. Or rather don't educate themselves - because by educating themself, they'll be relying on at least one of religions contributions to the modern world. Where the hell do people think we would be without religion, I have no idea - I'm not talking about the belief, I'm talking about the establishments. Some people must think that the world just decided that literature is a good thing, yeah we all learned it from the egyptions don't you know. Can anyone really imagine the world before religion?, would anyone really want to go back to that?

It might surprise some people who've read the above, to learn that I'm an athiest - I don't believe in an all powerful superbeing, I've never seen convincing evidence of such a thing. But I respect the contributions that religion has made to the world, it's not all about who we can blame this or that war on - people have been fighting wars since before religion was even a concern. People have been annoying each other and disagreeing despite their religious beliefs. People = sheep indeed... being an athiest is just a different colour of sheep - what matters is your own actions and how you justify them.

 

[Tanakh]

we aren't saying there is no god. We are saying you can't prove there is--and you CAN'T. Go ahead, try. I'll read it.

You can't prove shit in this world mate. There is absolutely nothing outside the realm of pure formal logic that can be proven, we just bag and tag reality based on our preconcived ideas. Not being able to prove something isn't a solid argument for anything really, you can't even prove that you exsist, much less than I or God do.

And no, "Not believing cannot be proven." is not what i said, i said that God not exsisting can't be proven. Quite a diferent statement.

 

[Airsoftslayer93]

Religion came first, so they get first dibs on picking a name. Being a-something suggests reacting against a norm, which religion has been for a long time, hence atheist.

Religion came first? what?

But yes, religion is the social norm, or has been for many thousands of years, so athiesm is simply a term to describe people not adhering to the norm.

Btw, Athiesm doesn't have to apply to religion... you can be an athiest about many things.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

you can't even prove that you exsist

Aaaaand the argument is over, lol. I was right there with you, having a conversation, but then you went and jumped off the ledge.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

And in both cases you provided, there is a clear absence of belief in a deity, thank you for proving our point for yourself at last.

Oh, hey, I noticed you don't understand that not believing something isn't the same as believing something doesn't exist. Thought I'd try and point that out so you could learn about it. For example, I don't believe there is a unicorn on your head, but I can't say there isn't because I can't prove it.

I love sharing knowledge with people. Makes the world feel warm.

 

[Kordie]

This is kind of a silly thread. Atheism is a word that describes the natural state of a human being; we're all born atheists. Saying that the word "atheist" shouldn't exist is like saying the word "exist" shouldn't exist... it's a self-defeating line of reasoning. Seriously, it's a word, just a damned word.

Lets throw a wrench in all this... Atheism is the belief that there is no god, theism is the belief that there is a god. A child born has no knowledge of the concept of god. Thus a child born does not believe there is no god, or believe there is one. Untill the concept is introduced he is neither a theist nor an atheist. It is only when the concept is added that one can make a choice and say yes there is, or no there isnt...

Think of it as schroedingers baby. he exists in neither and both forms untill the concept is introduced at which point his system collapses and he forms an opinion/belief.

 

[Aerosteam]

Being an Atheist is about not believing the existence of a supreme being/beings. It isn't about not being part of a religion.

Wait... You just try and say you can believe there is no god and still be part of a religion?

Look up Buddhism.

If you look behind you about ten miles, you may notice the context you blazed past. The original comment I quoted was suggesting Atheists could be religious, but not believe in a god. So, you either ignored it entirely and rushed to try and one-up me, or you believe Atheism and Buddhism are one in the same.

Please, don't try and defined your statement with out of context jabs. You and I both know exactly the mistake you made and this won't save face.

If I had to choose one of them, it'll be rushing your claim and one-upping you, since Atheism and Buddhism are different.

Buddhism is all about stopping the suffering in life that is caused by desire and the way to end it is through enlightenment. Being enlightened is to be free from the cycle of personal reincarnations, which others would otherwise be in.
Atheism is not as much into all the meditating and enlightenment things. See the difference?

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

See the difference?

I just... I just said they aren't the same, like, in the very post you quoted... And then you tried to explain how they are different... Despite me saying they are already...

I don't even...

 

[JediMB]

However, the notion of atheists not believing in an ideology is patently false. It is not false in definition alone, but it becomes false in practical application. When your lack of belief transcends the point of simply saying no when faced with a theist and the individual feels compelled to discuss and defend that ideology it is no longer being devoid of belief, but it in itself becomes a belief.

Spoiler: Heres an couple of examples

Non theist:

A: I believe in God
B: Ok, I dont.
A: Why not?
B: I dunno, Just dont.

Atheist:

A: I believe in God
B: I dont
A: Why not?
B: Because I believe there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of an invisible man in the sky

You basically cannot have a lack of belief when you believe something to support your lack of belief. Richard Dawkins is a Good example of this as he is an individual who believes there is no God and feels compelled to try to prove a negative and he does so by creating his own system of beliefs to justify his ideology.

So when people come onto a message board to "preach" to others about the evils of religion, they are in fact expressing a system of belief that they have, because they believe it to be true, but there is no way to prove it to be true.

"Because I believe there is no scientific evidence to support the existence of an invisible man in the sky" is just a different, arguably more intellectual (and definitely more condescending), way of saying "because I have no reason to."

One could perhaps argue that atheists have an ideology based on the virtues of science and critical thinking, but on the other hand you'll find plenty of theists in that same camp (except when their religion is involved) and atheists that believe in other sorts of superstition.

Finally, belief in "the evils of religion" and atheism are wildly different things. If the religions in question are exclusively theistic ones, then we've got us a case of antitheism [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antitheism], rather than atheism.

 

[Relish in Chaos]

I'm just going to jump in here and give my interpretations of the definitions of Atheism, Agnosticism and Anti-Theism.

In the strictest and most literal sense, Atheism denotes the lack of belief in any deity, whether that be simply "God", the singular deity central to the Juedo-Christian religions, or multiple gods, such as in Hinduism. Agnosticism denotes the uncertainty of any deity's existence. Anti-Theism is the opposition to the belief in any deity.

That's it. They don't necessarily need any other connotations. You can add your own subsections, like "Agnostic Atheist" and "Theist Agnostic" or whatever, but those are the basic, literal definitions.

 

[Grey Day for Elcia]

And in both cases you provided, there is a clear absence of belief in a deity, thank you for proving our point for yourself at last.

Oh, hey, I noticed you don't understand that not believing something isn't the same as believing something doesn't exist. Thought I'd try and point that out so you could learn about it. For example, I don't believe there is a unicorn on your head, but I can't say there isn't because I can't prove it.

I love sharing knowledge with people. Makes the world feel warm.

And yet you still seem to miss the point. Atheism is the absence of theism, Theism is absent in both of the examples you gave and while the method may be different, it has little relevance to the end result, and that result is the lack of theism. Case closed.

Yeah, again, you don't seem to understand what's going on. I'll type it out:

Some people believe there is no god. At all. End of. Some people think there isn't, as no one can prove it, but since they themselves cannot disprove it, they refrain from actually stating that there is no god. I believe Atheism is the latter, while some believe it to be both or only the former. There is debate going on (and has been going on since the word was created) as to what definition is accurate. I believe to state as fact that there is no god is silly, as you cannot actually prove that and saying something is a fact without having proof is... well, religion. I believe (and those debating the latter definition believe) Atheism means thinking there is no god--not believing there is no god. It's like if someone says the answer to a math question is seven, while the other says they think it is seven, but can't prove it.