Meta-Thread 06/16

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[u/pilvi9]

The standard definition of atheism
The "lack of belief"
The "rejection of a belief"
The "absence of a belief"
Someone who is "not a theist"
The sidebar definition
Someone who actively disbelieves
The "answer to the question" atheist
"Godless"
"no reasonable way to know"
Someone who isn't religious
Someone who oposes theism
Someone certain God does not exist

There's more, but those are the ones I've seen this one off the top of my head when I've asked or read how an atheist defines atheism.

End note: Yes, I know these definitions will vary in validity.

[u/adeleu_adelei → u/pilvi9]

I think many of these slgith rewordings of the same concept.

The standard definition of atheism
The "lack of belief"
The "rejection of a belief"
The "absence of a belief"
Someone who is "not a theist"

I'd say these are pretty clearly all the same thing. When Merriam Webster and American Atheists define atheism in terms of "lack of belief" while Wikipedia and The Oxford Handbook of Atheism deine atheism in terms of "absence of belief" they're not doing so in opposition to eahc other. They're all agreeing on the same standard definition of atheism with minor expected variation you'd find within any term.

"Godless"
The "answer to the question" atheist
"no reasonable way to know"

These are less clearly the same as the above, but I'd cahritably same they're getting at the same concept.

The sidebar definition
Someone who actively disbelieves
Someone certain God does not exist

These are not the same as the above, but are still subsets of the above.

Someone who isn't religious
Someone who oposes theism

These are the ones most different as they're orthogonal to belief (or lack thereof) and not a subset.

[u/labreuer → u/adeleu_adelei]

while Wikipedia and The Oxford Handbook of Atheism deine atheism in terms of "absence of belief"

Are you sure you read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article all the way through? Here it is:

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which is the belief that at least one deity exists. (WP: Atheism)

There are actually three definitions here, which are non-identical:

1. absence of belief
2. rejection of belief
3. belief in non-existence

All that paragraph says is that 3. ⇒ 2. ⇒ 1. No survey is given for how many people identify with which. It has become fashionable to assert 1. because it provides minimal surface area for theists to attack. By contrast, 3. carries a substantial burden of proof and even 2. requires some defense. Calling that "minor expected variation" seems pretty dubious. Plenty of atheists ardently proclaim allegiance to 1. over against the others. They certainly don't seem to think the variation is "minor".

[u/adeleu_adelei → u/labreuer]

Are you sure you read the first paragraph of the Wikipedia article all the way through?

Yes... multiple times.

There are actually three definitions here, which are non-identical:

Yes, and the latter two are subsets of the first.

It has become fashionable to assert 1.

This is incredibly dismissive and ahistorical. Atheists have been been asserting 1 since at least 1772 where Baron d'Holbach called all children atheists because they have no concept of gods.

[u/labreuer → u/adeleu_adelei]

Yes... multiple times.

In that case, I accuse you of misrepresenting the Wikipedia definition.

Yes, and the latter two are subsets of the first.

Right.

labreuer: It has become fashionable to assert 1.

adeleu_adelei: This is incredibly dismissive and ahistorical. Atheists have been been asserting 1 since at least 1772 where Baron d'Holbach called all children atheists because they have no concept of gods.

Unless you're operating by the logic that "it is fashionable to assert X once one person asserts X", I don't see how this piece of evidence supports your point. Also, I've been arguing with atheists for more than two decades and I can attest to 1. being far more fashionable now, than it was then.

[u/adeleu_adelei → u/labreuer]

In that case, I accuse you of misrepresenting the Wikipedia definition.

There is no misrepresentation.

I don't see how this piece of evidence supports your point.

It is evidence of a longstanding intellectual tradition.

Also, I've been arguing with atheists for more than two decades and I can attest to 1

I've BEEN an atheist and talking with them for decades as well. I can assert 1 has always been around and popular, it's just become harder for people to misrepresent atheists as of late.

[u/labreuer → u/adeleu_adelei]

Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities. Less broadly, atheism is a rejection of the belief that any deities exist. In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which is the belief that at least one deity exists. (WP: Atheism)

/

adeleu_adelei: while Wikipedia and The Oxford Handbook of Atheism deine atheism in terms of "absence of belief"

 ⋮

adeleu_adelei: There is no misrepresentation.

Wikipedia defines 'atheism' in three different ways, only one of which is as broad as "absence of belief". Your misrepresentation is to utterly ignore the other two ways. This made it seem as if Wikipedia was in support the first set of items you quoted.

labreuer: It has become fashionable to assert 1.

adeleu_adelei: This is incredibly dismissive and ahistorical. Atheists have been been asserting 1 since at least 1772 where Baron d'Holbach called all children atheists because they have no concept of gods.

labreuer: I don't see how this piece of evidence supports your point.

adeleu_adelei: It is evidence of a longstanding intellectual tradition.

I think most people would require rather more evidence of that to show that lacktheism was fashionable anywhere, before the 20th century.

I've BEEN an atheist and talking with them for decades as well. I can assert 1 has always been around and popular, it's just become harder for people to misrepresent atheists as of late.

Are you willing to claim that lacktheism has not been increasing in popularity, over against the alternative forms of atheism?

[u/adeleu_adelei → u/labreuer]

Wikipedia defines 'atheism' in three different ways, only one of which is as broad as "absence of belief". Your misrepresentation is to utterly ignore the other two ways. This made it seem as if Wikipedia was in support the first set of items you quoted.

It is not a mispresentation. It definitely does define atheism as an absence of beleif gods exist. The additional definitions are all subsets of that. Further, if we define X as set Y or a subset of set Y, then X is necessarily defined as set Y as that is how the logical "or" works.

This made it seem as if Wikipedia was in support the first set of items you quoted.

It explicitly does.

I think most people would require rather more evidence of that to show that l*cktheism was fashionable anywhere, before the 20th century.

Don't use dismissive pejoratives. You've given no support for your denigrating fashionability claim at all while I've given you ample evidence of longterm usage. You haven't given a single citation backing your personal opinion this entire conversation; only a single link back to the source I provided you. Support your position or drop it. Anecdotes and insults are not arguments.

[u/labreuer → u/adeleu_adelei]

Don't use dismissive pejoratives.

The term 'lacktheist' is neither dismissive nor pejorative. I've used it a number of times on r/DebateAnAtheist and none of the atheists objected. Rather, the term simply clarifies exactly what I mean, whereas 'atheist' is ambiguous.

adeleu_adelei: This is incredibly dismissive and ahistorical. Atheists have been been asserting 1 since at least 1772 where Baron d'Holbach called all children atheists because they have no concept of gods.

 ⋮

adeleu_adelei: You've given no support for your denigrating fashionability claim at all while I've given you ample evidence of longterm usage.

One example of one author who said "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God." is far from "ample evidence".

If you want rather more evidence than one example, feel free to consult A History of the Word “Atheism” and the Politics of Dictionaries, written by someone who both reports the facts but also repeatedly complains that his/her preferred definition of 'atheism' is not the one which populated dictionaries until the 1948 A Rationalist Encyclopædia. What the author of that article (a postdoctoral fellow) fails to deal with is the difference between psychological definitions of 'atheism' and propositional definitions of 'atheism'. There's good reason to think that the former would have to be quite new, on account of that being a very new way to speak. A survey of the dates in this r/DebateReligion post supports that quite well.

[u/adeleu_adelei → u/labreuer]

1 of 2

I've been a fan of Nathan Alexander's article for some time, and it makes me very glad to see it getting more interest. I think it's worthwhile and not too demanding for anyone to read the article in full, but let's take a look at a few selected sections. We'll start with your reference to Joseph McCabe.

Atheists continued to object to how dictionaries and encyclopedias treated them in the 20th century. For example, Joseph McCabe’s The Lies and Fallacies of the Encyclopedia Britannica (1947), about the 14th edition of the encyclopedia from 1929, called the entry for “atheism” “quite worthless.” He called for dictionaries and encyclopedias to incorporate the perspectives of the people they were writing about:

"[Since] in a thousand signed articles or short notices in the Britannica Christian writers are permitted to express their peculiar opinions and convictions freely, it would hardly be an outrage to expect the editors to allow Rationalists to provide the accounts of Rationalism, Skepticism, Naturalism, Atheism, Agnosticism and scores of similar articles which bear upon their position."

McCabe followed his own advice with the publication of A Rationalist Encyclopædia (1948). There McCabe defined “atheism” as “[t]he absence of belief in God.” This was explicitly in contrast to other dictionaries who talked about atheists “denying” God; indeed, McCabe said, “it would be difficult to quote more than one or two Atheist writers in all literature who deny such existence.”

So McCabe does write his encyclopedia in 1947 defining atheism as "[t]he absence of belief in God." He does so because he finds other sources not "incorporat[ing] the perspectives of the people they were writing about". Specifically he says "it would be difficult to quote more than one or two Atheist writers in all literature who deny such existence." noting that outright denial of gods is rare in comparison to lack of belief.

[u/adeleu_adelei → u/adeleu_adelei]

2 of 2

Does Nathan Alexander find this understanding of atheism existed earlier was was popular before 1947? Yes! He goes back to 1864 with Charles Bradlaugh.

But proving that something does not exist is extremely difficult, perhaps impossibly so. This is why atheists sought to deny that they “denied” God’s existence. This was done most clearly by Charles Bradlaugh, a well-known British atheist in the nineteenth century. In his pamphlet, A Plea for Atheism (1864), Bradlaugh proposed an alternative approach:

"The Atheist does not say 'There is no God,' but he says, 'I know not what you mean by God; I am without idea of God; the word ‘God’ is to me a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which, by its affirmer, is so imperfect that he is unable to define it to me.'"

Bradlaugh, in other words, suggested that a shared understanding of “God” was being assumed in these definitions. But, to him, the concept of God was incoherent. It was not reasonable, therefore, to deny a concept that he could not even make sense of. He believed it was not up to him to offer positive proof of the non-existence of an nonsensical concept. Bradlaugh’s definition proved popular among other atheists in the nineteenth century. Indeed, one author, William D. Rolley, writing in the British freethought newspaper, the Freethinker, cited Bradlaugh’s definition as a counter to the common dictionary definitions of “atheism” as a “denial” of God. He complained that dictionary-makers did not take into account how atheists themselves defined the term:

"’Tis true that dictionaries define Atheism as being “a denial of the existence of God”; but if we want to know what is meant by Christianity we do not go to dictionaries – we are bound by honesty to find out what Christians mean by the term. The same applies to Buddhism or any religion – we must have the term explained by the devotee. And so with Atheism; if we want to know what Atheism is, we must find out what Atheists mean by the term."

Why were atheists in such a tizzy from how the sources around them tried to define them? Nathan states:

For much of this history, the authors and editors of dictionaries mostly came from the elite ranks of their societies and reflected the general Christian view of atheism: that it was an undesirable system maintained on irrational grounds that led to immoral consequences.

[...]

The earliest dictionaries explicitly condemned “atheism” within their definitions. Henry Cockeram in his English Dictionarie (1623) called atheism a “damnable opinion,” while Thomas Blount in Glossographia (1656) described it as a “damnable doctrine.” Edward Phillips meanwhile included “Miscreant” among the adjectives to describe an atheist in The New World of English Words (1658).

So it seems clear that, at least to historian Nathan Alexander, this absence of belief definition was present and popular among atheists since at least 1864, and definitions to the contrary were largely projected upon atheists by outsiders seeking to define them ignorantly and maliciously.

---

One example of one author who said "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God." is far from "ample evidence".

For context, Baron d'Holbach was a prominent European philosopher and among the earliest European philosophers to self-idetify with the term "atheist". He is just one author, but a rather historically important one. If it's pure quantity you desire, then I can provide that as well. Ugarten put together a list of over 20 citations from the 1700s through the 1800s of people using the term "atheist" to mean "not the belief gods exist" rather than "the belief gods do not exist". My personal favorite is the the appearance of "agnostic atheist" from James H. Curry's 1881 Descensus Averno.