Is there an "atheist perspective"?

[Christian]

Hmm, I was told by a native speaker that this sentence could be interpreted multiple ways. Never mind.

How would you interpret the word "ideogram" in English compared to how a Mandarin speaker would intepret the Mandarin translation?

This is interesting. I'm very confident about what I'm about to say. There are many words and expression that translate very well from Spanish to English and vice-versa. There are other words and expressions that have equilavents (very good approximations of the meaning), and there are those words and expressions that don't have equivalents (the most one can do is find a poor or fair approximation)

I would speculate that a person who speaks Mandarin would find an excellent understanding of the word.

 

[Christian]

I am sorry you have chosen not to answer Sledge's question, as I too would be interested to read your reply.

I did, in #209.

 

[ideogram]

This is interesting. I'm very confident about what I'm about to say. There are many words and expression that translate very well from Spanish to English and vice-versa. There are other words and expressions that have equilavents (very good approximations of the meaning), and there are those words and expressions that don't have equivalents (the most one can do is find a poor or fair approximation)

I would speculate that a person who speaks Mandarin would find an excellent understanding of the word.

So you don't really understand the word. Now, you said that many Chinese might label themselves "atheist" because of the government, and not really understand the word. Is that correct?

 

[Christian]

So you don't really understand the word. Now, you said that many Chinese might label themselves "atheist" because of the government, and not really understand the word. Is that correct?

I think I understand the word, maybe not.

Ok, let me try to be more precise. If one lives under a communist country that states that the legal position of its citizens is atheist, then people in that regime might not care what the answer in a survey or how they are labeled. Maybe they have so many other more important things to worry about (other things that the government is doing that affects them much more). There might be so many reasons why a person might say they are atheist in an oppresive (religion wise) regime. These people who, by decree, are not exposed to religion, might develop their own brand of personal secret religion. That if an atheist were to interview them, he or she would conclude that the interviewed is not really an atheist.

My evidence of this, is that where oppresive countries have opened up to religion, there has been an explosion of conversions of the ones that prozelitize the most.

 

[ideogram]

I think I understand the word, maybe not.

Ok, let me try to be more precise. If one lives under a communist country that states that the legal position of its citizens is atheist, then people in that regime might not care what the answer in a survey or how they are labeled. Maybe they have so many other more important things to worry about (other things that the government is doing that affects them much more). There might be so many reasons why a person might say they are atheist in an oppresive (religion wise) regime. These people who, by decree, are not exposed to religion, might develop their own brand of personal secret religion. That if an atheist were to interview them, he or she would conclude that the interviewed is not really an atheist.

My evidence of this, is that where oppresive countries have opened up to religion, there has been an explosion of conversions of the ones that prozelitize the most.

I don't see how that answers the question of whether they understand the word or not.

I hope you will agree that the categories or "boxes" used in different cultures and languages can be different. We can't even agree on the definition of the category "atheist" in English. You have now implied that the category "atheist" in Chinese might require individual interviews to identify. I have a hypothesis that the category "atheist" in Chinese is different from the category in English.

So, what are we discussing now?

 

[slingblade]

Does it matter?

 

[SezMe]

Don't mind at all.

I do. If you're going to pursue a different topic, start a new thead.

 

[SezMe]

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

First, this implies that someone has had a mental process that lead to reject the idea of gods. I don't think a 2 year old has that capacity.

No it does not. Everyone, EVERYONE, is born without any notion of god. None at all. Thus, maintaining that view into adulthood involves no rejection of any sort.

Conversely, adopting a belief in god does involve rejection. Rejection of logic and evidence and replacing them with faith. And, as a Christian, you know how the bible defines faith.

This is yet another area where you have been told this before and you just continue on with your same erroneous thoughts. Pretty frustrating.

 

[Fiona]

Yes it is. I have only expanded on the dictionary definition.

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

First, this implies that someone has had a mental process that lead to reject the idea of gods. I don't think a 2 year old has that capacity.

Second, there must be a consistency in this rejection.

In your previous thread I tried to understand your position and you did not bother to give me a substantive reply. But I will try again

In this thread you proposed a hypothesis that there might be something which atheists have in common and which they do not share with theists. You very properly acknowledged that this would not be a perfect match and that if it were true it would only be saying something about the average. Later it seemed that you were founding on the premise that theism is a biological trait. You also listed a number of possible commonalities which many people would see as positive; and in doing both of those things it seems to me you sought to distance yourself from those theists who characterise atheists as amoral or immoral and all of that negative stuff we hear about as typical views in some parts of the united states.

What is the evidence for a biological basis for theism? I think you are proposing that it is possible to infer that from a high incidence of theism over many cultures. I often see that kind of reasoning, and I do not think it necessarily holds. In this instance what seems to me to be true is that most people accept the narrative they are given by their parents and their society.

You have pointed out that some people who describe themselves as atheists are not necessarily right. And you have also said that some people who describe themselves as catholic are not necessarily right. Think about that for a moment. If a person says they are catholic what does it mean? In my experience it means that they identify with a particular cultural group, quite often: it is a form of tribalism. That is quite different from what the pope might think (though I suspect the pope is very well aware of the value of such tribalism) or what a catholic theologian might think: they might think that catholicism consists in a series of beliefs such as transubstantiation or the immaculate conception or whatever. But they are just plain wrong. Some catholics subscribe to those things and many do not. They don't reject them either: they just don't think about them at all. I have had met many catholics who take the view that if you are born a catholic you die a catholic and it really does not matter what happen in between. They don't go to church regularly: they don't confess regularly: they don't do any of the things conventionally supposed to indicate membership of the religion they say they espouse. But they support celtic football club: not rangers. They make sure their kids go to catholic schools: and they make sure the kids go to church so that they can participate properly in the tribe.

I am not so arrogant as to ignore what they say and I conclude that that is what it is to be a catholic: it is not something you do: it is something you are by your own lights and affirmation. At least for some that is the way it is, and there seems to be a great many of them. It boils down to group identification "we are the people who put dirty smudges on our heads on Ash Wednesday" etc is not about the practice of religion: the normal view of that practice (belief in god etc) is secondary to the tribal markers.

Everybody has a tribe of some kind, as FromDownUnder said. There is no difference between theists and non-theists in that sense. We may well be hard wired for that: I think we are, because we are a social species and so we need a group (several perhaps, organised into a hierarchy).

This is where I think some of the miscommuncation is coming from. You are trying to establish that atheism is a tribe. People are resisting that idea because that is not how they experience it. That is just a fact. A tribe exists where people identify themselves as part of it as a central tenet of their sense of identity. There are some atheists like that: the atheists in america appear to be embattled and some have formed tribal identity in face of that (maybe: I am not american and so I cannot be sure). That seems to be a fairly common response to prejudice or "otherness" when one cannot gain acceptance in the wider society: but it is the response of only some of the people and only in some circumstances

For me you appear to be doing what many theist do: you are assuming that the way you slice the world is inherently important. You further assume that since that is the case then everybody must grant that same importance to your tribe or category system that you do yourself. What some of the people here are trying to tell you is that you are wrong in that assumption

I do not reject the notion of a god: I blandly assume there is no deity and I get on with my life because it does not matter. Not. At. All. I enjoy thinking about various belief systems and also tribal groupings and what they lead people to do and say and think. But it is merely a discussion. It has nothing at all to do with the price of fish. I do not slice the world into religious and non-religious: theist or non-theist. It is not a construct that makes a difference in any way I find important. It is true that on Ash Wednesday I see people with dirty marks on their foreheads and I realise they identify as catholic: often that is how I find out. Does it make any difference to my views of those people? Not even slightly. It is wholly irrelevant to how I see the world.

You have chosen to presume that mass conversion in states where atheism has been imposed is significant: it isn't. Most of those people will espouse what seems good to them for a tribal identity, and in those instances it is perfectly possible that the wish to distance oneself from a political or economic ideology which doesn't suit can best be done by joining an "off the shelf" alternative which provides a ready made and well organised support group. That is quite likely in fact, if that which is rejected happens to be heavily collectivist: individualism is not valued everywhere in the way it is in the post enlightenment west. Indeed even there there is a will to the tribe as well as a will to the individual value of each person: that tension also seems to be widespread and the balance between those different values varies in different places and at different times. It may be that this is also hard-wired: I do not know

But the phenomenon you choose to see as a construct with theism at one end and atheism at the other does not strike me that way at all. What I see is is a construct with individualism at one end and tribalism at the other. I do not share that with all other atheists: I do not identify with them in that way.

 

[Helen]

In your previous thread I tried to understand your position and you did not bother to give me a substantive reply. But I will try again

In this thread you proposed a hypothesis that there might be something which atheists have in common and which they do not share with theists. You very properly acknowledged that this would not be a perfect match and that if it were true it would only be saying something about the average. Later it seemed that you were founding on the premise that theism is a biological trait. You also listed a number of possible commonalities which many people would see as positive; and in doing both of those things it seems to me you sought to distance yourself from those theists who characterise atheists as amoral or immoral and all of that negative stuff we hear about as typical views in some parts of the united states.

What is the evidence for a biological basis for theism? I think you are proposing that it is possible to infer that from a high incidence of theism over many cultures. I often see that kind of reasoning, and I do not think it necessarily holds. In this instance what seems to me to be true is that most people accept the narrative they are given by their parents and their society.

You have pointed out that some people who describe themselves as atheists are not necessarily right. And you have also said that some people who describe themselves as catholic are not necessarily right. Think about that for a moment. If a person says they are catholic what does it mean? In my experience it means that they identify with a particular cultural group, quite often: it is a form of tribalism. That is quite different from what the pope might think (though I suspect the pope is very well aware of the value of such tribalism) or what a catholic theologian might think: they might think that catholicism consists in a series of beliefs such as transubstantiation or the immaculate conception or whatever. But they are just plain wrong. Some catholics subscribe to those things and many do not. They don't reject them either: they just don't think about them at all. I have had met many catholics who take the view that if you are born a catholic you die a catholic and it really does not matter what happen in between. They don't go to church regularly: they don't confess regularly: they don't do any of the things conventionally supposed to indicate membership of the religion they say they espouse. But they support celtic football club: not rangers. They make sure their kids go to catholic schools: and they make sure the kids go to church so that they can participate properly in the tribe.

I am not so arrogant as to ignore what they say and I conclude that that is what it is to be a catholic: it is not something you do: it is something you are by your own lights and affirmation. At least for some that is the way it is, and there seems to be a great many of them. It boils down to group identification "we are the people who put dirty smudges on our heads on Ash Wednesday" etc is not about the practice of religion: the normal view of that practice (belief in god etc) is secondary to the tribal markers.

Everybody has a tribe of some kind, as FromDownUnder said. There is no difference between theists and non-theists in that sense. We may well be hard wired for that: I think we are, because we are a social species and so we need a group (several perhaps, organised into a hierarchy).

This is where I think some of the miscommuncation is coming from. You are trying to establish that atheism is a tribe. People are resisting that idea because that is not how they experience it. That is just a fact. A tribe exists where people identify themselves as part of it as a central tenet of their sense of identity. There are some atheists like that: the atheists in america appear to be embattled and some have formed tribal identity in face of that (maybe: I am not american and so I cannot be sure). That seems to be a fairly common response to prejudice or "otherness" when one cannot gain acceptance in the wider society: but it is the response of only some of the people and only in some circumstances

For me you appear to be doing what many theist do: you are assuming that the way you slice the world is inherently important. You further assume that since that is the case then everybody must grant that same importance to your tribe or category system that you do yourself. What some of the people here are trying to tell you is that you are wrong in that assumption

I do not reject the notion of a god: I blandly assume there is no deity and I get on with my life because it does not matter. Not. At. All. I enjoy thinking about various belief systems and also tribal groupings and what they lead people to do and say and think. But it is merely a discussion. It has nothing at all to do with the price of fish. I do not slice the world into religious and non-religious: theist or non-theist. It is not a construct that makes a difference in any way I find important. It is true that on Ash Wednesday I see people with dirty marks on their foreheads and I realise they identify as catholic: often that is how I find out. Does it make any difference to my views of those people? Not even slightly. It is wholly irrelevant to how I see the world.

You have chosen to presume that mass conversion in states where atheism has been imposed is significant: it isn't. Most of those people will espouse what seems good to them for a tribal identity, and in those instances it is perfectly possible that the wish to distance oneself from a political or economic ideology which doesn't suit can best be done by joining an "off the shelf" alternative which provides a ready made and well organised support group. That is quite likely in fact, if that which is rejected happens to be heavily collectivist: individualism is not valued everywhere in the way it is in the post enlightenment west. Indeed even there there is a will to the tribe as well as a will to the individual value of each person: that tension also seems to be widespread and the balance between those different values varies in different places and at different times. It may be that this is also hard-wired: I do not know

But the phenomenon you choose to see as a construct with theism at one end and atheism at the other does not strike me that way at all. What I see is is a construct with individualism at one end and tribalism at the other. I do not share that with all other atheists: I do not identify with them in that way.

This is almost exactly what I was going to say! (No, it's not, not at all, but I can pretend, can't I?)

And nominated.

 

[Elizabeth I]

Although my native language is Spanish, I know what a double negative is. It was a careless mistake. Please forgive all my grammar and punctuation mistakes, I'm kinda rusty in English. It's good practice to write in English again and please feel free to correct any other mistake you see fit to, that helps a lot (if you care to, of course).

In that case, I apologize. Your English is much better than my Spanish (I like to say I'm always fluent though not necessarily correct ) - good enough, in fact, that I really did think you might be trying to express something I wasn't getting when you said, "didn't not invent."

 

[Ladewig]

That means that, while in a survey or statistic they labelled themselves atheists, their mental processes lead them to the supernatural just like most of the population.

A quick question: would you be bothered if I asked you to replace the word supernatural with superstitious when using this description? If so, why?

 

[Ladewig]

I define an atheist as someone who does not believe in deities based on a mental process that brought him or her to this conclusion.

So, I want to ask some questions to make sure I understand this working definition.

1) A parent prays to God to save his sick child and then watches his child die a painful death before becoming angry and leaving the church. If one bases one's decision not to believe on emotions, is one still an atheist?

2) A young adult has given absolutely no thought to whether or not there is a God, but chooses to adopt the title of atheist to annoy parents and other family members. Is that person an atheist?

3) A Christian is bothered by his inability to stop committing sins, so out of fear and regret, he rejects his belief in God to avoid feeling bad about himself. Is that person an atheist?

I ask because folks like these make up a large part of American atheists.

 

[Sledge]

Then, with all due respect, I prefer not to earn your respect. And, you are wrong, by the way. Respect is a right in many situations, it does not have to be asked for or earned. I think you know this.

With all due respect (none), you are wrong. Again. Interesting to see that once again you're making assumptions about what other people really think. That really is what this is all about, isn't it? What those nasty old atheists say isn't what they really think. They KNOW there's a god, they're just denying him to be contrary. Funny that someone who is so big on "respect" shows so little for other people.

 

[Jeff Corey]

So, I want to ask some questions to make sure I understand this working definition.

1) A parent prays to God to save his sick child and then watches his child die a painful death before becoming angry and leaving the church. If one bases one's decision not to believe on emotions, is one still an atheist?

2) A young adult has given absolutely no thought to whether or not there is a God, but chooses to adopt the title of atheist to annoy parents and other family members. Is that person an atheist?

3) A Christian is bothered by his inability to stop committing sins, so out of fear and regret, he rejects his belief in God to avoid feeling bad about himself. Is that person an atheist?

I ask because folks like these make up a large part of American atheists.

I don't think so, but then I have as much evidence as you do.

 

[slingblade]

Then, with all due respect, I prefer not to earn your respect. And, you are wrong, by the way. Respect is a right in many situations, it does not have to be asked for or earned. I think you know this.

Respect is a right? Where on earth did you come up with that?

 

[Matt the Poet]

I define an atheist as someone who does not believe in deities based on a mental process that brought him or her to this conclusion. I would never say a 2 year old is an atheist.

I have bolded your problem, here. There are plenty of atheists, particularly in the more secularised areas of Europe, who have not arrived at their position via any kind of thought process at all. They simply grew up not being aware that it was important to have an opinion on the matter at all.

I’m one of these – my parents made me aware of religion as a thing that existed but no more than that. I did eventually encounter people who thought ‘what I believed’ in this sense was important thing to know about me, but in the absence of any particularly strong pressure from the authority figures I trusted at the time I never bothered to make a decision. I am an atheist by default – or rather an apatheist in the strong sense of not caring and not understanding why I need to care. I remain genuinely mystified as to why people think ‘beliefs’ of this sort are necessary at all – as mystified as I suspect you are as to how and why people ‘arrive’ at an atheist position.

I do actually think there could be traits that associate with atheism, but only in countries/cultures where people like me are not much prevalent – that is, where discussion of religion is so prominent in public life that most people are convinced that it’s an essential element of their identity.

This would cover very religious states (e.g. Saudi Arabia) and ones where religion is noisily denounced (e.g. China). In both places it probably does take a certain kind of person to go against, or with, the grain. Norway is probably at the other end of the spectrum, the USA somewhere in the middle

So I’d say a more plausible hypothesis is that you would find a positive correlation between some proxy of ‘religious prominence’ (say, minutes of coverage of religious issues per week on public broadcasting) and statistical measures for ‘trait clumping’ among people who self-identify as atheists.

 

[Lothian]

Yes it is. I have only expanded on the dictionary definition.

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

Small point but I would prefer "Atheism, in a broad sense, is the non adoption of belief in the existence of deities."

Atheism is the default. It is where we all start. Some never leave the default, others return to it.

 

[D'rok]

I have bolded your problem, here. There are plenty of atheists, particularly in the more secularised areas of Europe, who have not arrived at their position via any kind of thought process at all. They simply grew up not being aware that it was important to have an opinion on the matter at all.

I’m one of these – my parents made me aware of religion as a thing that existed but no more than that. I did eventually encounter people who thought ‘what I believed’ in this sense was important thing to know about me, but in the absence of any particularly strong pressure from the authority figures I trusted at the time I never bothered to make a decision. I am an atheist by default – or rather an apatheist in the strong sense of not caring and not understanding why I need to care. I remain genuinely mystified as to why people think ‘beliefs’ of this sort are necessary at all – as mystified as I suspect you are as to how and why people ‘arrive’ at an atheist position.

I do actually think there could be traits that associate with atheism, but only in countries/cultures where people like me are not much prevalent – that is, where discussion of religion is so prominent in public life that most people are convinced that it’s an essential element of their identity.

This would cover very religious states (e.g. Saudi Arabia) and ones where religion is noisily denounced (e.g. China). In both places it probably does take a certain kind of person to go against, or with, the grain. Norway is probably at the other end of the spectrum, the USA somewhere in the middle

So I’d say a more plausible hypothesis is that you would find a positive correlation between some proxy of ‘religious prominence’ (say, minutes of coverage of religious issues per week on public broadcasting) and statistical measures for ‘trait clumping’ among people who self-identify as atheists.

Seconded on all points.

 

[my_wan]

Yes it is. I have only expanded on the dictionary definition.

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

First, this implies that someone has had a mental process that lead to reject the idea of gods. I don't think a 2 year old has that capacity.

I actually remember detailed events before my 3rd birthday. Though I didn't specifically reject the notion of a God, I was well aware that those speaking of God in a factual sense weren't speaking from a factual experiential basis. I was also aware that God existence probably wasn't the most likely explaination of our existence.

This is also about the time I started doing experiments to figure out how things worked. Mostly simple, like verifying line of sight represented a straight line (not always valid for perceptual reasons), or using finger gaps to compare apparent size to actual size. Some were so weird and embarrassing I wouldn't admit to what they involved to this day.

Here's an event I can roughly date, but I can also describe earlier events. Before the birth of my youngest brother, who was born 1 month after my 3rd birthday, I remember going to the hospital parking lot with my dad. My brother was actually born some time later. A local peach farmer showed up with 3 bushels of peaches in the back of a pickup. We ate peaches while my dad explained he couldn't do certain things to an air conditioner (HVAC buisness) due to regulations. I also understand my dads explaination of the pressure gauges in his truck seat, but the meter took a bit longer as the unusual design didn't appear to make sense.

Second, there must be a consistency in this rejection.

What constitutes "consistency" here. I may not have rejected the existence of a God outright, but I did effectively reject the belief it was so based solely on authoritative statements by adults. It simply seemed obvious based on the open ended way adults would attempt to contemplate God on personal sensibilities, without general consistancy. Does a recognition of a lack of consistancy qualify as a "consistancy" to a rejection?

Funny thing is my mother had friends that didn't know I could talk when I started kindergarden, and was suprised when they heard I was starting school.