For Atheists - define what you don't believe in

[braces_for_impact]

Nope, seemed like a reasonable question to me.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Nope, seemed like a reasonable question to me.

...As part of a thread specifically created in response to Lion's post about what god atheists don't believe in, and why that's a silly question?

Seems more like a derail, to me.

 

[Keith&Co.]

But there are not two competing theories. There are thousands. So the question of how to define a deity is not simple.

But 'atheism' isn't a competing theory on how to define 'deity.'

A-theists are completely without a belief in a deity, no matter how you define that word.
Unless you're a Hollywood Atheist, who believes in God, but is angry and withholding worship in order to punish God for some injustice he allowed.

Furthermore, it is complicated by the fact that a great many, if not a solid majority, of atheists are former theists, who did not suddenly develop a new understanding of what "god" means after they rejected belief in such beings..

No, but I did go through a number of definitions during my search for god(s) back when I still believed in him/them.

Still, that is a different conversation. What god did (I/you) used to believe in is not equal to what gods (I/You) currently reject.

We speak a common language that conforms to norms of usage. The word "god" is an English word that means something to English speakers, not just atheists or theists who happen to speak English.

Yes, but it's still a silly question.
God, to me, brings up thoughts of the biblical god, Judaic, Islamic, Mormon gods, various pagan traditions from stories I've read in school, various pagan gods from comic books (with and without historical basis), various gods from other works of fiction (historical or not), gods from role playing games, protest gods like the IPU, FSM, and a hundred verses of 'gimmee that old, old, old time religion.'*

All of these are beings or punchlines I associate with the word, 'god,' and all are beings I reject as objects of worship or subjects of prayer.

It's more like asking a scientist which sort of magic do you not believe in? Abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, transmutation... How he defines the term 'magic,' as, say, a process whereby actions and consequences have nonlinear links, or whatever, has little to do with 'which form of magic he rejects.'

 

[skepticalbip]

The thread title starts out with the assumption that the burden of proof is only on theists to define the concept of a deity, but both sides of a controversy bear an equal responsibility on that score.

Why? I mean, it's one thing if there are two competing theories about an event or artifact that both sides accept as a fact. For examples, the controversy on some Shakespeare plays. Whether you think Bill or Marlowe or Queen Elizabeth wrote them, they all agree that the play exists, details to follow.

But for most atheists, questions about God's qualities are like questions about Superman's abilities. There are references that can be used, common sources and less commonly accepted rewrites, fanfictions, movie interpretations, TV shows and so on. We can discuss god as described in the OT, in the NT, in the BOM, and so on, but none of those are atheist source documents. No atheist has set down the revelation he's received from God about God's nature.
If someone thinks God or Superman is real, then they are coming from an entirely different POV, not comparable to the 'within the fic-ton' discussion.

But there are not two competing theories. There are thousands. So the question of how to define a deity is not simple. Furthermore, it is complicated by the fact that a great many, if not a solid majority, of atheists are former theists, who did not suddenly develop a new understanding of what "god" means after they rejected belief in such beings. We speak a common language that conforms to norms of usage. The word "god" is an English word that means something to English speakers, not just atheists or theists who happen to speak English.

Since all atheists don't hold the same understanding, a precise description (down to the size g-string god wears) of god atheists don't believe would be silly. Religious debates can only center on the description of god the theist is arguing for since the atheist doesn't have any specific god they don't believe in. The most common thing that atheists don't believe is anything to do with the supernatural. If the god (of whatever description) being offered by the person debating the atheist includes supernatural powers, then that is sufficient enough for the atheist to not believe. Personally, I have never heard any theist of any religion who do not attribute supernatural powers to their god.

 

[skepticalbip]

Would it be fair to say that many atheists don't believe in freedom of religious expression?

No...

It may be a reasonable assumption about some militant anti-theists but certainly not atheists.

ETA:
You may note that this is an atheist web site that has a forum that welcomes posters to express their religious views regardless of their religion. I don't visit Christian websites but you could check to see if they welcome posters expressing atheistic views.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Again. There are what I call the Pest religions. The religions that are bothersome and do objectionable things. Christianity. Why we cannot have good science education in our schools, make room for creationism et al.

The God I argue against in such cases is derived from the claims of their supposed true revelations, the Torah, Old Testament, New Testament, Quran, et al. These Gods soon are entangled in self contradictions, special pleading, incoherency and must be false. I use their own claims derived from their books, I don't need to erect straw men arguments.

Of course, there are variations to the God hypothesis, and if needed, I can argue about them also, again, from their proponents claims.
Berkeley's Idealist God, Process theology's God. The problems with old paganism gods. And others. The zoo of gods in all their glory.

Some theists like games, moving goal posts, refusing to engage in discussing what their God's most glaring problems mean, allegorization games, the usual lot. And when we call them on it, they start yowling about "fundamentalist atheists".

And when finally backed into a corner, a lot of them play the old theist get out of jail card. "God is incomprehensible!" God's ways cannot be known. God is inscrutable.

 

[Copernicus]

But 'atheism' isn't a competing theory on how to define 'deity.'

Exactly right. It is a competing theory about the existence of deities.

A-theists are completely without a belief in a deity, no matter how you define that word...

That's true, but the word is spelled without a hyphen. People who reject belief in gods lack belief in gods. That's not the same thing as lacking a concept of a deity. You don't have to believe that deities exist in order to understand what kind of entities the word refers to.

...Still, that is a different conversation. What god did (I/you) used to believe in is not equal to what gods (I/You) currently reject.

The issue here isn't which particular gods one rejects but the general pattern of usage that allows one to call something a "god". Calling someone a "theist" or an "atheist" is pointless if you have no common agreement on how to use the word. Theists and atheists don't decide what the word means. English speakers in general establish the norms that define the word.

...God, to me, brings up thoughts of the biblical god, Judaic, Islamic, Mormon gods, various pagan traditions from stories I've read in school, various pagan gods from comic books (with and without historical basis), various gods from other works of fiction (historical or not), gods from role playing games, protest gods like the IPU, FSM, and a hundred verses of 'gimmee that old, old, old time religion.'*
All of these are beings or punchlines I associate with the word, 'god,' and all are beings I reject as objects of worship or subjects of prayer.

Right, but I consider it a mistake to confuse the general concept with a hodgepodge of prototypical experiences. We abstract away from such experiences in order to arrive at the general usage. What that means is that we learn to ignore all of the things that make those individual gods different from each other.

It's more like asking a scientist which sort of magic do you not believe in? Abjuration, conjuration, divination, enchantment, evocation, illusion, necromancy, transmutation... How he defines the term 'magic,' as, say, a process whereby actions and consequences have nonlinear links, or whatever, has little to do with 'which form of magic he rejects.'

Bad analogy. It is more like asking scientists what they think an atom or a molecule is, not what sorts of atoms or molecules they believe in. The thing to remember about theists is that they don't believe in the existence of all gods, just one or more particular ones. They don't differ significantly from atheists when it comes down to rejection of all the others.

 

[skepticalbip]

.......snip.........

And when finally backed into a corner, a lot of them play the old theist get out of jail card. "God is incomprehensible!" God's ways cannot be known. God is inscrutable.

At that point, I generally ask them, if god cannot be known or understood, how they can claim to know and understand him, what he does, and what he really wants.

 

[Copernicus]

But there are not two competing theories. There are thousands. So the question of how to define a deity is not simple. Furthermore, it is complicated by the fact that a great many, if not a solid majority, of atheists are former theists, who did not suddenly develop a new understanding of what "god" means after they rejected belief in such beings. We speak a common language that conforms to norms of usage. The word "god" is an English word that means something to English speakers, not just atheists or theists who happen to speak English.

Since all atheists don't hold the same understanding, a precise description (down to the size g-string god wears) of god atheists don't believe would be silly. Religious debates can only center on the description of god the theist is arguing for since the atheist doesn't have any specific god they don't believe in. The most common thing that atheists don't believe is anything to do with the supernatural. If the god (of whatever description) being offered by the person debating the atheist includes supernatural powers, then that is sufficient enough for the atheist to not believe. Personally, I have never heard any theist of any religion who do not attribute supernatural powers to their god.

The problem with your argument is that theists are no different from atheists. We don't get our understanding of what a "god" is just from theists. We get it from everyone who uses the word in a conversation. The meaning shifts around, depending on the conversational context, but there is a consistent pattern of usage that really tells us what the word means. It doesn't matter who is using the word in individual usage, but how the word behaves in common usage. The atheist who rejects belief in the supernatural can still use the word "supernatural". Otherwise, how could he or she even begin to claim not to believe in it?

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

.......snip.........

And when finally backed into a corner, a lot of them play the old theist get out of jail card. "God is incomprehensible!" God's ways cannot be known. God is inscrutable.

At that point, I generally ask them, if god cannot be known or understood, how they can claim to know and understand him, what he does, and what he really wants.

And then there are the theist who move God from the category of God's of the Bible, Quran et al into the realm of the vaporous and vague. God is existence itself, God is the ground of our being and other ponderous and pompous. For some of these schnooks, God is either undefinable but then becomes a definite God until you pin them down and they squirt off in a squid cloud of verbiage. Back and forth they go. The jelly God you cannot nail to the tree of logic and reason.

 

[Underseer]

Would it be fair to say that many atheists don't believe in freedom of religious expression?

Asking you to not use the state to give the appearance of endorsement is not the same thing as taking your free speech away.

Stopping Christians from imposing their beliefs on everyone else is not an example of the "persecution" of Christians just like asking Muslims to not persecute homosexuals is not an example of the persecution of Muslims, and for the same reason.

- - - Updated - - -

Would it be fair to say that many atheists don't believe in freedom of religious expression?

Trolling much?

He's not trolling, he's desperately trying to change the subject.

When they do that, the thing to do is figure out what it is they desperately don't want to talk about, and keep steering the conversation back to whatever that is.

 

[Keith&Co.]

They don't differ significantly from atheists when it comes down to rejection of all the others.

I think they do.
Christains don't believe in Thor because he's a False God, not to be confused with the real one. When they hear 'God,' there's a specific deity they think of first. That space is taken and they distinguish between their god (s) and the false ones.

My immediate reaction to the word, if given without context clues, is literally to think of the Deities and Demigods handbook from D&D. Probably because of the naked women like Loviatar and Hecate, but that's still what my mind ponies up as the concept behind the word. To me, the word means 'all the candidate concepts mankind has offered.'

 

[Random Person]

Asking you to not use the state to give the appearance of endorsement is not the same thing as taking your free speech away.

Stopping Christians from imposing their beliefs on everyone else is not an example of the "persecution" of Christians just like asking Muslims to not persecute homosexuals is not an example of the persecution of Muslims, and for the same reason.

- - - Updated - - -

I'm not making those arguments or even suggesting them.

Trolling much?

He's not trolling, he's desperately trying to change the subject.

When they do that, the thing to do is figure out what it is they desperately don't want to talk about, and keep steering the conversation back to whatever that is.

What I desperately don't want to talk about? That doesn't make sense.

Why would I be desperate to avoid discussing what atheists don't believe in other than it's not a very well constructed question?

I withdraw my question. Quit answering it already.

 

[Lion IRC]

That doesn’t make any sense.

It's obfuscation.
The burden of proof remains connected to the claim.
If there were a third party attempting to decide the facts in the atheist/theist dispute, both sides would have to provide their reasons for their stance, and each side would have the burden of persuading the third party of their side...

Lion cannot escape his burden of proof by claiming the atheists need to explain their side, too.

But apologists love them some tu quoque arguments, whether or not they make any sense.

Can we stop with the shifting of the burden of proof? I expect better from theists that hang out here, this isn't Rapture Ready for fuck's sake.

The persuasive burden rests on whoever wants to do the persuading.
If atheists want to remain unpersuasive that's perfectly OK with me.

Someone isn't paying attention here.
I did NOT say atheists have to be persuasive.
Frankly, I would rather atheists remain quiet and just stick with their non-stamp collections.

What I do argue is that if you're gonna be all emphatic (and preachy) about your disbelief you should at least be able to define what it is you're claiming doesn't exist. If you're gonna be ranting about stuff not being evidence^TM you should be able to explain what it isn't evidence for.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

How about - whatever god you claim exists, I claim it doesn't exist. The goalposts of what a person means when they say the word "god" shift so rapidly and are so inconsistent between any two people that any stance we take in regards to what we're saying is fictional is rendered irrelevant as soon as the next person enters the conversation. If you have a concept of God, my position is that your concept is wrong.

Note that the above obviously doesn't apply to Odin, because if he weren't real, then explain the lack of Frost Giants.

 

[Lion IRC]

I do not honestly believe that Lion is out of line to ask atheists to define what they think they reject. The thread title starts out with the assumption that the burden of proof is only on theists to define the concept of a deity, but both sides of a controversy bear an equal responsibility on that score. From many past discussions on this subject, I've learned that theists and atheists are all over the place on the question. Are we talking about a generic concept of a deity or the specific one that Christians or Muslims or Jews worship? Is atheism about rejecting belief in gods or just not holding a belief about their existence? Is it even possible to describe a generic concept of a deity that fits all of the various entities that people use that name to refer to?

Yes!

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Can we stop with the shifting of the burden of proof? I expect better from theists that hang out here, this isn't Rapture Ready for fuck's sake.

The persuasive burden rests on whoever wants to do the persuading.
If atheists want to remain unpersuasive that's perfectly OK with me.

Someone isn't paying attention here.
I did NOT say atheists have to be persuasive.
Frankly, I would rather atheists remain quiet and just stick with their non-stamp collections.

What I do argue is that if you're gonna be all emphatic (and preachy) about your disbelief you should at least be able to define what it is you're claiming doesn't exist. If you're gonna be ranting about stuff not being evidence^TM you should be able to explain what it isn't evidence for.

A conscious all powerful deity that gives some level of a fuck.

 

[Copernicus]

They don't differ significantly from atheists when it comes down to rejection of all the others.

I think they do.
Christains don't believe in Thor because he's a False God, not to be confused with the real one. When they hear 'God,' there's a specific deity they think of first. That space is taken and they distinguish between their god (s) and the false ones.

As a preliminary step to grasping the concept of "god", you should probably start by recognizing that it is a common noun, not a proper noun that refers to, say, the monotheistic Abrahamic god. So when you refer to "the real one", you are showing that you have an intuitive grasp of the meaning of the word "god", which is a synonym for "deity". Atheists reject belief in "God"--the Christian one--because that god is just another instance of the general category that you already understand. My point has been that the generic concept that you, Lion, and I share comes from the English language, not any subset of people who take a position on the existence of particular gods. Atheists reject the existence of all such entities, whereas theists tend to believe in a small subset. In this era of monotheism, many believers simply do not want to talk about gods that they don't believe in, although they ought to be able to explain why they believe in any god. Conversely, I believe that atheists ought to be able to explain why they reject belief in the existence of any such entities.

It really isn't all that difficult. Sometimes it is just a matter of using the same reasoning that theists use to reject belief in so-called "false gods". I say "so called", because I believe that there are no entities in existence that could reasonably be called "gods" in a conventional sense. If you ask theists why they don't believe in pagan or false gods, the first thing they say (in my experience) is that they have no good reason to believe in such beings. There is simply no evidence that they exist. What it comes down to, in my view, is that any particular theistic doctrine relies heavily on special pleading to survive competition with other theistic doctrines.

My immediate reaction to the word, if given without context clues, is literally to think of the Deities and Demigods handbook from D&D. Probably because of the naked women like Loviatar and Hecate, but that's still what my mind ponies up as the concept behind the word. To me, the word means 'all the candidate concepts mankind has offered.'

I think that we develop a concept of "god" well before we learn about all of those other versions of god-belief. Gods have a lot of properties that we first experience in parents, siblings, and other close relations. So pantheons almost always involve a lot of family structure. Children are required to obey parental authority without question, just as they are required to obey divine authority. Parents define the difference between "good" and "bad" or "right" and "wrong", just as parents do. Gods have the full range of human emotions, just as family and friends do. Gods are immensely knowledgeable and powerful, just as parents are. So the core meaning of "god" is going to overlap with that of parents and siblings ("big brother"). As we mature, we add a lot of other attributes to the concept, but that is what we do with our entire growing vocabulary. Experience adds to the set of properties we attribute to concepts like "god".

If you try to think of meaning in very narrow terms--as just a collection of specific beings that people have called gods--then you are in danger of seeing only trees where there is a forest. That is the point I've been trying to make.

 

[abaddon]

God |ɡäd|
noun
1 (in Christianity and other monotheistic religions) the creator and ruler of the universe and source of all moral authority; the supreme being.
2 (god) (in certain other religions) a superhuman being or spirit worshiped as having power over nature or human fortunes; a deity: a moon god | an incarnation of the god Vishnu.
• an image, idol, animal, or other object worshiped as divine or symbolizing a god.
• used as a conventional personification of fate: he dialed the number and, the gods relenting, got through at once.

(from the New Oxford American Dictionary)

Any believer in #1 or #2, if he wants to convince anyone, needs to provide the particulars for why it should be seriously considered. The atheist needs nothing but to share the most general definition (given above). Which was already the case before either Lion IRC's argument or Copernicus' argument.

The particulars enter into it as the theist supplies the details to justify his claim. This is where the "shifting around" happens. The skeptics deal with the theist's shifting, but they never have to provide those details. The claimant does.

Doesn't matter which culture's or sect's or individual's god(s) is/are being discussed.

I'm a skeptic of all extraordinary claims. Atheism is a side-effect of that general skepticism.

It's not only skepticism of the supernatural. Ghosts, for an example, are sometimes called "supernatural" but in the case of ghosts that means "a feature of nature that defies scientific explanation". So ghosts are features of nature, according to their believers. The skepticism applies regardless that it's a "naturalistic" claim. Exact same principle applies with gods because some are described as features of nature. Other gods, like the Christian one, are the makers of nature and therefore a different sort of god.

But, point is, these particulars don't matter ... What matters is they're all extraordinary claims for not being readily evident. All claims deserve skepticism, just some more intently than others.

It'd be remarkable if ANY god of any kind at all existed. So if the claim's made, the claimant needs to present a good case or the claim can readily be dismissed. The specific traits of whichever god don't matter except when a theist presents them and they're just a pile-on of more wild claims. Until a god of any sort is demonstrated, the general concept is bunk.

 

[Copernicus]

abaddon, I would caution you not to get too hung up on dictionary definitions, which are not full descriptions of meaning. Lexicographers only intend them to enumerate and distinguish the most common usage of words without elaborating on all of the properties that make up the core meaning. Worse yet, they have very limited space in which to convey a clear sense of how a word is used. Hence, no two dictionaries are likely to have exactly the same definition of the word "god". (Encyclopedias tend to do a better job of explaining what words actually mean. Lexicographers explore the nature of word definitions, but lexicologists are scholars who specialize in word meanings.)

Right off the bat, there is a small problem with your dictionary entry--that it confuses the definition for the proper noun "God" with the definition for the common noun "god". That's not necessarily a bad thing, if you are compiling a small dictionary, but it ought to be avoided in unabridged dictionaries. If I were writing the definition, I would probably divide the common noun entry up into a larger number of word senses, but your source gives a reasonably concise definition for a dictionary of limited length.