(Sigh), perhaps, but I think the purpose of language is to communicate. If people understand what you mean when you say "irregardless", then that becomes the meaning of "irregardless", even if its definition is self contradictory.
Depends. (Did you miss the whole bit about context?) If it's a bunch of my friends from the daycare at my house, I won't even hear it. If it is a different bunch sitting around at a JREF whisky party, I'm on it like white on rice, in a lighthearted manner. If it is in a paper by one of my students, it gets corrected; if it is in a paper I am reviewing...
You probably grind your teeth at "irregardless" too. Yet you don't seem to flinch when someone calls himself an atheist, even in your belief that they are technically incorrect.
I cannot know that they are technically incorrect unless they tell me they are using your definition.
I am saying that the opportunity to use "atheist" in the privative sense would require some contrivance, which appears to be the same thing you are saying. Sure, it is one correct definition, but not a particularly useful one.
Correct. It is only correct in the same sense that earth-rotation is--the literal sense. Colloquially, the prescientific, flat-earth definition of atheism rules.
No, we're saying similar things, yet we come to different conclusions as to the utility of the DPA definition of atheism. I'm confused by your disagreement.
I think I find the contrivance of situations means that there is no reason not to use the more correct definition, while you find that the contrivance of situations means that there is no reason not to use the more commonly used definition. If challenged, I have to say I am using a different definition than my conversation partner is; if challenged, you get to say that you are both using a technically incorrect definition. No biggie.
Then it's not a very useful definition, is it? It doesn't describe anything that you would normally need to describe. What could you possibly do with that definition other than engage in semantic arguments?
It is only used in the sort of situations when the definition of atheism might come up, so yes, it is used rarely.
I'm just trying to come up with some possible reason why you would ever use the DPA definition, and it requires that a great contrivance be made in order to do so. Perhaps you can describe an everyday situation where calling someone or something a "Default Position Atheist" is appropriate. I can't.
Oops--I thought DPA meant "'Default' (Privative) Atheist". If it is "default position", I must say I do not care for that either. It's this thing I have about being right. It is not a "default position" for some arbitrary reason, it is a privative definition, utterly meaningless in the absence of some positively defined alternative. The distinction is important, but easily misunderstood, as Tai Chi demonstrates.
If DPA asserts that something has no beliefs (about god) then the question of whether babies can have beliefs is germane. However, I feel the question will always remain semantic, therefore we can't really answer it.
It is only an important question to theists, IMO (which explains the long and complicated history of anabaptist movements), and is part of the "atheist" semantics only because the word "atheist" was initially used only by [some] religious people, as an insult. The privative sense may not even apply to infants at all, come to think of it--if that page I cited is reasonable, then religious belief of any sort is not a characteristic of any infant, and thus a privative category is utterly irrelevant. If there are no theist babies, there is no need for an atheist category--there are just babies. (this is a new thought, so I won't promise to defend it.)
Sorry, I don't see your point. If it can be shown that instinctual behaviors and baseless beliefs have several of the same characteristics, then it could be argued that they fall into the same general category. In any case, it would provide a challenge to the blanket statement that "babies have no beliefs", a statement I think is without support.
The whole business of babies and beliefs bothers me--it is much too easy for anyone at all to claim that babies believe X, Y, or Z, or the absence of these, without (to the best of my limited knowledge) any actual evidence that babies do hold these beliefs, or any, or none (I won't look now, but it is a good question--did anybody who said "babies believe..." offer any evidence to back up this claim?).
I fail to see the similarity in these arguments. "A bird can fly" is defined as the ability of the bird to fly, which is obviously circular. But belief can be described without reference to belief.
But what evidence do you have for a baby's "belief"? Other than what the alleged belief is supposed to have led to, I mean, cos that would be circular an' stuff. You will note that the two sides in this debate have each called on super-baby to explicitly believe in a god or explicitly deny the same.
It is not an important point to me. It was proposed only as an example of why a statement like "Babies have no belief" is unsupportable. You can say the opposite with equal surety.
I agree completely. Anyone who claims to know with certainty what babies believe (or don't believe) is begging the baby. or question. or whatever. (is there an "argumentum ad infantum"?)
Seriously, that was priceless.
