Friday, August 29, 2014

Atheism Definitions

I should have started this long ago, and I belatedly do so now. I'm starting a new category of Definitions of Atheism. It seems as if every Atheist wants his own definition, and that dovetails with the general self-ness which Atheism confers upon its adherents. In fact, many will reject any definition but their own. So I'll collect those I find.

Here's one now:
"As far as the exact meaning of atheism goes, in the general sense of the term, it is the rejection of beliefs that embrace the worship of deities."

http://www.boldsky.com/yoga-spirituality/faith-mysticism/2014/what-is-philosophical-atheism-044655.html

9 comments:

Shizmoo said...

Atheism IS a neutral position. Quantised to integer values, you have theism at 1, anti-theism at -1 and atheism at 0. The theists have to demonstrate their god exists, the anti-theists have to demonstrate that no gods can exist, and the atheists are waiting for the other two to make their demonstrations.

Unknown said...

"Atheism IS a neutral position".

Ah, that explains all the atheist organizations running around suing to stop public displays of religion -- because atheists are neutral.

Unknown said...

PZ Meyers, drawing on an analogy with the gamers community, blames No True Scotsman for what he sees as the implosion of the atheist movement.

In the comments, someone offers up more definitions for your list:

"There are, broadly speaking, two kinds of atheists, the Scientists who disbelieve in magic because there’s no evidence for it and the Infantile Solipsists who can’t emotionally handle the idea of a being greater than they are."

Unknown said...

OK the link didn't get published. You'll have to copy and paste this:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/08/29/a-cautionary-tale/#more-20324

Stan said...

A coupla things here.

First anti-theism and atheism are not exclusionary; agnosticism, which is not part of Atheism except in the attempt by Atheists to increase their population numbers, would be the null position, if the unitary valuation system is used.

And it is incorrect to refer to an Atheist who uses science in his claims as a "scientist", regardless of his occupation; he is using Scientism, not science. Scientism is a non-falsifiable, non-contingent belief system, while science is falsifiable and contingent. (The same goes for Materialism).

Phoenix said...

Atheism IS a neutral position

Yet another redefinition of Atheism.

Anti-theism is a sub category of Atheism.The former is just a more militant approach of the latter.Atheists oscillate regularly between the two,depending on their mood and how much they've been offended.

Stan said...

Ah. So perhaps a definition of anti-theism is in order here. Until now, my perspective has been that Atheism is acquired as a rejection of theism, so that the anti-theism is the superset, occuring both before and during the conversion to Atheism.

That does leave out the passive Atheists, and those who were raised Atheist.

So maybe the angry, aggressive Atheist is an entirely different beast than the passive Atheist.

But then if passivity = neutral, there are also many passive Christians, Muslims, Hindus, etc.

So it would seem that it is the scale which seems to fall apart (or at least not differentiate well), since neutral would also contain religious as well as Atheist.

Or perhaps I still just don't understand...

Steven Satak said...

Of course, PZ Meyers COULD explain the implosion of the atheist movement by stating the truth: their nihilistic self-worship was never going to create even one virtue necessary for the survival of the 'movement'. They sawed away at the branch that supported them all along. No one should be surprised that the 'movement' is currently headed for the ground.

But PZ Meyers long ago discarded the idea of objective truth as an inconvenience. His echo-chamber on the internet, his withdrawing into a blubbering foetal ball at the mention of any religion beyond the worship of PZ.... it's only a matter of time before that rebel soul is headed for the same doom as the 'movement'.

Phoenix said...

Ah. So perhaps a definition of anti-theism is in order here. Until now, my perspective has been that Atheism is acquired as a rejection of theism, so that the anti-theism is the superset, occuring both before and during the conversion to Atheism.

Stan,I'm going to disagree.I think Antitheism is the subcategory since its definition is contained inside the definition of Atheism.

If Atheism is the disbelief in God then it presupposes an active opposition to religion,which is Antitheism.
Their differences seem arbitrary but I think we can agree,Anti-theism is a more aggressive version of Atheism,to which Atheists can switch to at any moment.