For Atheists - define what you don't believe in

[Jobar]

If "God" is an imaginary concept made up by people, then the statement is true.

Nope. Imaginary concepts aren'y necessarily true or false.

People exist so God must exist too. That's incoherent. We, being people, know people exist, yes. But for that statement to be true, there has to be some necessary link between 'people' and 'God', and none has been shown. You can conceive of a society with no concept of God, real or imaginary; so people may exist without God, or gods. So RP is right, though I would put it "specific imaginary concepts may or may not exist, regardless of the existence of people who might imagine them."

 

[Jobar]

Random Person, you've said some things in this thread that lead me to ask- are you an atheist? I had thought you were Christian.

 

[Random Person]

If "God" is an imaginary concept made up by people, then the statement is true.

Nope. Imaginary concepts aren'y necessarily true or false.

People exist so God must exist too. That's incoherent. We, being people, know people exist, yes. But for that statement to be true, there has to be some necessary link between 'people' and 'God', and none has been shown. You can conceive of a society with no concept of God, real or imaginary; so people may exist without God, or gods. So RP is right, though I would put it "specific imaginary concepts may or may not exist, regardless of the existence of people who might imagine them."

Thank you. That was exactly the point I was making. There is no necessary connection between the two. The truth or falseness of each statement is determined independently using differing criteria based on what each claims.

I was pointing put that because Santa Claus doesn't exist (which we know to be true) it doesn't necessarily demonstrate that God doesn't exist.

- - - Updated - - -

Random Person, you've said some things in this thread that lead me to ask- are you an atheist? I had thought you were Christian.

I am not a Christian.

I am interested in knowing what's true.

 

[Copernicus]

My main contribution so far has been to point out that there is a fundamental difference in meaning between "God" and "god" and that atheists reject belief in the latter category.

They're the same category. A God is a particular god that got singled out for reverence by whichever theists.

If theists find the distinction significant, that's their problem (and yours if you want to extend special deference to that view).

No, abaddon, they are not in the same category. They are not even the same word technically, but homonyms. Proper nouns do not take articles like "a", so you probably ought to have typed: "A 'God' is a particular god that got singled out..." That is one way to convert a proper noun into a common noun--by setting it off in quotes. I think that was what you were trying to say with your nonstandard style of English.

What we need to come up with here is therefore a reasonable description of what we mean by common nouns like "god" or "deity".

And what is the "need to come up with" compulsion?

The need comes from the fact that the thread topic is about what atheists claim not to believe in. I made quite clear what the problem was with trying to enumerate all the different gods that atheists claim not to believe in. Atheism and theism are both categories of belief in deities. Christians are not atheists because they deny the existence of Zeus, Krishna, or Quetzalcoatl. They are still theists, as are believers in those so-called pagan gods.

This is a bullshit thread split off from another because some theist wanted to shift the burden, and then you came up with a distinction of no distinction that complicated the matter needlessly.

Why the anger? This thread was created at the request of an atheist who felt that Lion's point was derailing the other thread. The thread itself was started with an explicit demand to transfer posts from the other thread to this one. That is what happened. FWIW, I didn't agree that it was a derail, but most folks seemed to think it was. Here we are. If you feel that it is a "bullshit thread", then you should probably not post in it. I believe that my posts here have been completely on the topic of what atheists claim not to believe in. I am an atheist, and I am defining what I do not believe in--gods/deities. Is that also to be taken as some kind of derail?

We aren't interested in specific gods, because we can't be atheists unless we believe that all gods are fictional (i.e. nonexistent) beings. Is that clear enough for you?

How do you mean "not interested in specific gods"? Does "interested" mean "believe in"? If it doesn't mean "believe in" then why can't an atheist be interested in specific gods?

I never said atheists could not believe in specific gods, but that strikes me as irrelevant to the request in the OP. This thread is about defining what atheists deny belief in. My point was that it isn't helpful to try to list the thousands of gods that they disbelieve in. What makes someone an atheist is not the denial of belief in specific gods or specific categories of gods. It is the denial of belief in any being that would be conventionally considered a god by a reasonable speaker of English. So it makes more sense for an atheist to explain what qualifies a putative entity as a "god". I am at a loss as to why any atheist here would think that that did not make sense or take umbrage at me for saying that it did.

 

[Jobar]

Here's a video from QualiaSoup that may be of help in this discussion.

[YOUTUBE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wV_REEdvxo[/YOUTUBE]

It's well worth watching the whole thing if you haven't already; but in particular from 4:25 forward, it explains that we aren't trying to prove that a specific god does not exist, but instead to show that theistic claims about any specific god are invalid.

We atheists lack belief in all gods- whether we have ever heard of them or not. However, the more philosophically savvy of us won't claim that no god or gods can possibly exist; only that no one has offered us a definition for any specific god that doesn't contain contradictions which render its existence impossible, or vagaries which make it indemonstrable. Thus, it's pointless for us to try to define the word god; we could just say we disbelieve in all of them we've ever heard of. But if any believer wants to try to convince us a god or gods exist, we will listen politely until we spot contradictions, fallacies, or incoherence.

 

[Jobar]

Ya, it's not really up to atheists to define to Christians, Muslims or whomever what their religion is about. It's their God, so they're the ones who need to define it.

I've been at pains to explain why this isn't true from a purely linguistic perspective, but you aren't the only one to reject the idea. The problem is that "define" has at least two senses. In one sense, it means "to provide a definition of common usage". In the other, it means "to prescribe how one ought to use a word".

Let's take the first sense--providing a definition of common usage. That is a straightforward empirical issue. The first thing you discover when you look at the word "god" is that atheists, Christians, Muslims, and people of whatever religious belief all use the same word sense for the common noun "god". Its meaning isn't tied to the religious identity of the speaker, because the common noun does not refer to the specific deity or deities that the speaker believes in. People of all religious beliefs also name their specific gods. Christians use the proper noun "God" (note the capitalization) to refer to theirs, and Muslims tend to use the Arabic derivative "Allah". The labels "theist" and "atheist" do depend on the meaning of "god", but not "God". Someone can believe that God does not exist but still believe in deities of other sorts. Such a person would still be a theist. And if someone disbelieved in all deities but the Christian God, that person would still be a theist. So your generalization is not right with respect to the first sense of "define".

You could have been talking just about the second sense--where speakers of the individual religion prescribe the intended usage. The thing to remember here is that they are not prescribing usage of the common noun. What they tell you about their specific gods have to do with concepts associated with just those particular deities. Since Christians tend to have a very strong taboo against belief in other gods, they will only try to define the one they believe in. But that would be a definition for "God", not "god". Those are two different words.

Tom, I want you to look at the spelling in your second sentence. You wrote "their God". Technically, that's a punctuation error, because you were capitalizing the common noun, not the proper noun. If you intended to use the proper noun, it would have been ungrammatical to use the so-called demonstrative adjective "their" as a modifier. Proper nouns don't tend to allow modifiers in English syntax. I think that the slip was the result of equivocation on the two senses of "G/god". People of specific religions have every right to prescribe common usage for specific gods. It's just that atheists do not reject belief in particular gods. They reject belief in all gods. So much of what you get out of Christians isn't going to be helpful in defining either theism or atheism, just a particular instance of god-belief. Maybe that is all you want for the purposes of discussion, but that is going to draw you into a lot of minutiae that have little or nothing to do with theism and atheism generally.

As English speakers, we atheists theoretically contribute to 'common usage'. I get that. A really thorough dictionary might have listed under 'god' the definition 'imaginary being found only in fables'- very far down the list, I'd expect.

However, when we talk to theists of whatever sort, we have to first get *their* definition before any sensible exchange of ideas can even possibly take place. Doesn't the word 'atheist' make it plain that we consider all gods fictional? Seems to me that it ought to, to any person with sufficient intelligence to discuss the subject. We shouldn't have to spell out the entire Big List o'Gods and say we don't believe in any of them!

 

[Juma]

since an atheist doesnt necessarily know that he/she is an atheist, or what atheist means, why would we ask this atheist to define a concept he/she doesnt know and isnt aware of not believing in?

 

[Copernicus]

since an atheist doesnt necessarily know that he/she is an atheist, or what atheist means, why would we ask this atheist to define a concept he/she doesnt know and isnt aware of not believing in?

In its most common usage, "atheists" are usually taken to be narrowly construed as people who know what gods are and reject belief in such beings. Every culture and theistic religious tradition has a specific set of gods (or a single god) with specific characteristics. Atheists naturally tend to be focused on rejection of belief in the gods that they are most familiar with, but they tend to reject the entire class of beings as implausible. Not worth believing in any more than other mythical beings that they are familiar with from folk tales or cultural narratives. For the sake of reference, I'll call this conventional type of atheist a "narrow band atheist". In this sense of "atheist", a baby would not be considered an atheist, because babies have no concept of deities to reject belief in.

On the internet, where debates over the existence of gods tend to be popular, there is a very broad sense of "atheist" that is popular, especially (albeit not exclusively) among atheists--that anyone who simply lacks belief in gods should be considered an "atheist". People get very defensive of that usage, perhaps because it turns the category into a sort of natural "default" word sense that is very easy to defend in these kinds of polemics. That's ok. Words can have a range of meanings. I'll call this usage for "atheist"--probably the usage most preferred by the TFT community--as "broad band atheist". In this sense of "atheist", babies might be considered atheists, because, not knowing what deities are, they simply lack a belief in deities.

So, to answer your question, we would ask narrow band atheists what it is that they reject. They would answer by describing the properties of beings that are conventionally referred to with common nouns like "god" and "deity". These words are defined in every English dictionary, although I always caution people not to confuse definitions with full-fledged word meanings. Like any meaning that we associate a word or expression with, the meaning of "god" is a tangled, structured web of associations. Definitions are just concise heuristic pointers to a word meaning in common usage.

A narrow band atheist would defend rejection of belief by explaining why such beings are implausible. That's not terribly difficult, but it is still easier just to demand that theists try to defend their acceptance of belief in the particular god or gods they profess belief in. Juma, I think that you are trying to work with the broad band concept of "atheist", so it makes sense to ask what possible definition of unbelief they could have. That is because your preferred usage includes people who consciously reject belief in gods and those who simply don't know what gods are or don't care to think about them. In that context, it doesn't always make sense to demand that atheists define what they don't believe in, because they could simply lack a god concept.

 

[Juma]

since an atheist doesnt necessarily know that he/she is an atheist, or what atheist means, why would we ask this atheist to define a concept he/she doesnt know and isnt aware of not believing in?

In its most common usage, "atheists" are usually taken to be narrowly construed as people who know what gods are and reject belief in such beings. Every culture and theistic religious tradition has a specific set of gods (or a single god) with specific characteristics. Atheists naturally tend to be focused on rejection of belief in the gods that they are most familiar with, but they tend to reject the entire class of beings as implausible. Not worth believing in any more than other mythical beings that they are familiar with from folk tales or cultural narratives. For the sake of reference, I'll call this conventional type of atheist a "narrow band atheist". In this sense of "atheist", a baby would not be considered an atheist, because babies have no concept of deities to reject belief in.

On the internet, where debates over the existence of gods tend to be popular, there is a very broad sense of "atheist" that is popular, especially (albeit not exclusively) among atheists--that anyone who simply lacks belief in gods should be considered an "atheist". People get very defensive of that usage, perhaps because it turns the category into a sort of natural "default" word sense that is very easy to defend in these kinds of polemics. That's ok. Words can have a range of meanings. I'll call this usage for "atheist"--probably the usage most preferred by the TFT community--as "broad band atheist". In this sense of "atheist", babies might be considered atheists, because, not knowing what deities are, they simply lack a belief in deities.

So, to answer your question, we would ask narrow band atheists what it is that they reject. They would answer by describing the properties of beings that are conventionally referred to with common nouns like "god" and "deity". These words are defined in every English dictionary, although I always caution people not to confuse definitions with full-fledged word meanings. Like any meaning that we associate a word or expression with, the meaning of "god" is a tangled, structured web of associations. Definitions are just concise heuristic pointers to a word meaning in common usage.

A narrow band atheist would defend rejection of belief by explaining why such beings are implausible. That's not terribly difficult, but it is still easier just to demand that theists try to defend their acceptance of belief in the particular god or gods they profess belief in. Juma, I think that you are trying to work with the broad band concept of "atheist", so it makes sense to ask what possible definition of unbelief they could have. That is because your preferred usage includes people who consciously reject belief in gods and those who simply don't know what gods are or don't care to think about them. In that context, it doesn't always make sense to demand that atheists define what they don't believe in, because they could simply lack a god concept.

This is getting silly.
The majority of atheists I know doesnt have any particular image of what gods are other than the mythicsl ”bearded man above the clouds”, ”man with axe that noone else can lift” etc. thus more concepts of folklore. a lot like superman etc.
”Gods as real objects” doesnt come in to their minds as something to be believed in at all.
We believe in stuff that works, stuff that actually matters to us, as the IRS, the ground we walk on, the moon etc
The majority of atheists do not discuss religious matters.

Since you probably does not believe in Fjugkiv, please define what you dont believe in.

 

[skepticalbip]

For me, I see no reason to accept any claim that involves the supernatural without extraordinary evidence. It doesn't matter if the claim is a supreme being, a superman, magic, miracles, etc. etc.

 

[Rhea]

It appears to me that you seek to disagree with everything I say lately, but maybe I'm reading too much into your posts.

You are reading too much into my posts.

I see little or no incompatibility between rejecting a belief and rejecting the argument that supports that belief. This seems to irritate you, but I apologize if I'm misreading you.

I am not irritated, you are misreading me.

OK. I've just been replying to comments you've made about my posts that seem to misunderstand or distort what I said

Perhaps what you said could be read in different ways by different people, and they are choosing to discuss it. "especially if it doesn't actually reflect the usage of people using the word. "

 

[Rhea]

The need comes from the fact that the thread topic is about what atheists claim not to believe in. I made quite clear what the problem was with trying to enumerate all the different gods that atheists claim not to believe in.

To be clear:
This thread came up because some THEIST thought it made sense to demand that atheists describe what they don't believe in before they inquire about what a believing theist _does_ believe in.

Since this request is nonsense, in no small part because of the "soft atheist" or "negative atheist," "weak atheist," or, as you are coining, "narrow band atheist," who simply lacks belief using the term literally a-theist = without theism, I started a new thread so as to leave the original focused and interesting. That is, discussing what christians believe.

So, to be clear, the reason we are having this debate in this thread is that theists think we "owe" them some explanation of our lack of belief as on par with them owing us an explanation of the god they think justifies oppressing us. And of course they are wrong in thinking that those two explanations are equivalent, just as they are wrong in thinking that all atheists are either positive or negative atheists.

The thread itself was started with an explicit demand to transfer posts from the other thread to this one. That is what happened.

That word "demand." I don't think it means what you think it means. See post #1 for reference.

I am an atheist, and I am defining what I do not believe in--gods/deities. Is that also to be taken as some kind of derail?

Not at all. But some people are reacting to the posts of yours that claim our answers are "wrong" and only you are correct in talking about what atheists disbelieve.

This thread is about defining what atheists deny belief in. My point was that it isn't helpful to try to list the thousands of gods that they disbelieve in.

On the contrary - it is about responding to a Theist's demand that we define what we don't believe in. And those who are positive atheists "There are no gods!" may answer one way and those who are negative atheists "I haven't yet met a god that imbues belief" may answer a different way.

What makes someone an atheist is not the denial of belief in specific gods or specific categories of gods. It is the denial of belief in any being that would be conventionally considered a god by a reasonable speaker of English. So it makes more sense for an atheist to explain what qualifies a putative entity as a "god".

No. That makes a person one kind of atheist. There is another kind.
And also, the uise of the words "deny" and "reject" are loaded words for religionists who take them directly to mean "rebellion" and muddy the discussion. A more clear term is probably lack of belief for the negative atheist and belief that no gods exist for the positive atheist. This doesn't confuse the religionist with thoughts of anger and rebellion.

I am at a loss as to why any atheist here would think that that did not make sense or take umbrage at me for saying that it did.

Then perhaps you want to ask? Instead of just claiming that those doing so are wrong? Just a thought...


It's a good discussion, but I think you are jumping to conclusions that we are all positive atheists (strong atheists, hard atheists, "broad band" atheists) and in this thread, we are very clearly NOT.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

As an atheist I realize that most people believe in God that is derived from supposed revelations that is self contradictory, incoherent and thus is nit a possible God. There are lesser species of God that also have problems, but then the theists don't believe in them so who cares?

I see no evidence for anything like a supernatural realm, and the usual Gods the theists want to argue about do not really fit well with that concept anyway. Metaphysical naturalism. So we have deeper problems with God that make the usual Gods the theists want to argue about that make the entire concept suspect. God as a concept has so many problems, no matter how one approaches the subject, that concept self destructs.

My 2 cents worth.

 

[Jobar]

Since we're speaking English, most of us (believers and unbelievers both) are usually exposed to Christian concepts of God, so we tend to think of those first and foremost when we're asked what we think a god is, or gods are. Other concepts- Muslim, Jewish, polytheist, whatever- are relevant to such discussions as this, but not as commonly addressed.

since an atheist doesnt necessarily know that he/she is an atheist, or what atheist means, why would we ask this atheist to define a concept he/she doesnt know and isnt aware of not believing in?

As Copernicus mentions, that brings up the babies-are-atheists-too argument. I have said before that I think babies are better termed igtheists- ignorant of what the concept means. But since babies are ignorant of pretty much all verbal/philosophical concepts, you have to be careful to avoid equating them with those who are consciously atheists. (Although Catholics in particular say babies need 'christening' very soon after birth, so apparently they think babies are indeed atheists.)

Just from curiosity, does anyone here know someone who made it to adulthood without ever being exposed to the concept of god(s), or ever heard of such a person? I admit to some skepticism that any exist, in this day and age. Certainly no one who can speak and write English!

 

[Juma]

Since we're speaking English, most of us (believers and unbelievers both) are usually exposed to Christian concepts of God, so we tend to think of those first and foremost when we're asked what we think a god is, or gods are. Other concepts- Muslim, Jewish, polytheist, whatever- are relevant to such discussions as this, but not as commonly addressed.

since an atheist doesnt necessarily know that he/she is an atheist, or what atheist means, why would we ask this atheist to define a concept he/she doesnt know and isnt aware of not believing in?

As Copernicus mentions, that brings up the babies-are-atheists-too argument. I have said before that I think babies are better termed igtheists- ignorant of what the concept means. But since babies are ignorant of pretty much all verbal/philosophical concepts, you have to be careful to avoid equating them with those who are consciously atheists. (Although Catholics in particular say babies need 'christening' very soon after birth, so apparently they think babies are indeed atheists.)

Just from curiosity, does anyone here know someone who made it to adulthood without ever being exposed to the concept of god(s), or ever heard of such a person? I admit to some skepticism that any exist, in this day and age. Certainly no one who can speak and write English!

Then tell me what the christian god is! I dont know.
Because what most christisns tell me does not correspond well with what the bible says. And the bible itself is very vague in its description of god.

Most christians dont know what their god is. So why should I?

I am not atheist becausr some definition of the christian god, because I have never seen any.

I am atheist because the concept of god is shite. (Partly because it is ill defined)

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Since we're speaking English, most of us (believers and unbelievers both) are usually exposed to Christian concepts of God, so we tend to think of those first and foremost when we're asked what we think a god is, or gods are. Other concepts- Muslim, Jewish, polytheist, whatever- are relevant to such discussions as this, but not as commonly addressed.

since an atheist doesnt necessarily know that he/she is an atheist, or what atheist means, why would we ask this atheist to define a concept he/she doesnt know and isnt aware of not believing in?

As Copernicus mentions, that brings up the babies-are-atheists-too argument. I have said before that I think babies are better termed igtheists- ignorant of what the concept means. But since babies are ignorant of pretty much all verbal/philosophical concepts, you have to be careful to avoid equating them with those who are consciously atheists. (Although Catholics in particular say babies need 'christening' very soon after birth, so apparently they think babies are indeed atheists.)

Just from curiosity, does anyone here know someone who made it to adulthood without ever being exposed to the concept of god(s), or ever heard of such a person? I admit to some skepticism that any exist, in this day and age. Certainly no one who can speak and write English!

Then tell me what the christian god is! I dont know.
Because what most christisns tell me does not correspond well with what the bible says. And the bible itself is very vague in its description of god.

Most christians dont know what their god is. So why should I?

I am not atheist becausr some definition of the christian god, because I have never seen any.

I am atheist because the concept of god is shite. (Partly because it is ill defined)

I think it's safe to say we don't hold to the reality of there being ghosts or ghostly powers, of which gods are part. Gods are after all just alleged ghosts that live in the sky and can be anywhere. People who believe in this stuff are ghost collectors.

So maybe I don't believe in collecting ghosts because I know ghosts aren't real. They're not my ghosts so whoever describes and defines theirs, bingo!

 

[Keith&Co.]

I think it's safe to say we don't hold to the reality of there being ghosts or ghostly powers, of which gods are part.

Hardly the same thing. I believe in ghosts.

 

[Juma]

I think it's safe to say we don't hold to the reality of there being ghosts or ghostly powers, of which gods are part.

Hardly the same thing. I believe in ghosts.

Really? Irony?

 

[Keith&Co.]

I think it's safe to say we don't hold to the reality of there being ghosts or ghostly powers, of which gods are part.

Hardly the same thing. I believe in ghosts.

Really? Irony?

Yes, really. I grew up in a haunted house, and not everything has been explained to my satisfaction by skeptics who were not there.
No irony, as far as I know.

Atheist just refers to belief in a deity, not all forms of possible woo.

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

Really? Irony?

Yes, really. I grew up in a haunted house, and not everything has been explained to my satisfaction by skeptics who were not there.
No irony, as far as I know.

Atheist just refers to belief in a deity, not all forms of possible woo.

What's the diff between a ghost and yahweh?