The Negation in 'Do Not Believe' Statements

[iamtaka]

Atheists often claim, "I do not believe God exists." When asked to clarify what they mean, they point out that they lack belief in God's existence. When they read the sentence provided, they see the negation as being applied to the verb believe and not the content of belief (i.e., God exists). That is, "do not believe" means simply "lacking belief."

Alternatively, if the negation applied to the content of belief, then the statement could be rephrased as "I believe no God exists." or "I believe God does not exist." This means the atheist would not "lack belief in God's existence" but would rather hold a belief about the non-existence of God.

Question for debate:
Q. Within a linguistic context, does the negation apply to the verb believe or the content of belief?

[Furrowed Brow]

[Replying to post 46 by Furrowed Brow]

Here is another set of oppositions that may work better than my first attempt.

As before ¬□¬A ↔ ◊A is a theorem. The box □ is interpreted as Accepted and the diamond ◊ Imagines, and A = "there is a God, ¬A = "there is no God", and if we follow the standard modal oppositions we get four possibilities:

• 1] a strong atheist accepts there is no God (□¬A), and this is equal not imagining there is a God (¬◊A). 1000
  
  2] an agnostic does not accept there is not a God (¬□¬A), and this is equal to imagining there is a God (◊A). 0111
  
  3] a weak atheist does not accept there is a God (¬□A), and this is equal to imagining there is not a God (◊¬A). 1110
  
  4] a theist accepts there is a God (□A), and this is equal to not imagining there is not a God (¬◊¬A). 0001

[keithprosser3]

I'd boil it down to two questions

1 - Do you believe god exists?
2 - Do you believe god does not exist?

NN - agnostic.
YN - theist
NY - atheist
YY - extremely confused.

I have never seen much point in distinguishing between strong and weak atheists or theists. If you believe in god/gods you are a theist, if you believe god/gods don't exist you are an atheist. If you don't fall into either of those camps you are an agnostic (or confused!).

[Furrowed Brow]

I'd boil it down to two questions

1 - Do you believe god exists?
2 - Do you believe god does not exist?

NN - agnostic.
YN - theist
NY - atheist
YY - extremely confused.

Potential problem (well maybe more than just potential really) with this framework is that now the negation of agnostic is "extremely confused" which means it is a contradiction to be both. Some might (and I think I would ) say that agnosticism and confusion (even in the extreme) are not contradictory. In which case the four terms you offer do not provide a satisfying opposition. bottom line is that YY should be "not agnostic" and this is not a synonym for being "extremely confused".

As a sketch I could see what you want to say but this four valued logic isn't working.

[NoisForm]

An agnostic CANNOT say they "do not believe a God exists." Agnosticism says that there is no way that we can know whether a God exists or not.

You seem to have conflated belief and knowledge here. You say the agnostic cannot say they do not 'believe', and then follow this with agnosticism claims there is no way to 'know'. Agnosticism does address knowledge, it does not address belief.

From George H. Smiths, " Atheism: The Case Against God" (pg. 10, my bold); "Properly considered, agnosticism is not a third alternative to theism and atheism because it is concerned with a different aspect of religious belief. Theism and atheism refer to the presence or absence of belief in a god; agnosticism refers to the impossibility of knowledge with regard to a god or supernatural being. The term agnostic does not, in itself, indicate whether or not one believes in a god. Agnosticism can be either theistic or atheistic."

Agnostics may indeed claim that they cannot know one way or the other, they can and do also have a belief one way or the other, simultaneously. The two are not in conflict.

[alive]

I'm just glad that I have no beliefs either way..

Sure you do. It is impossible to not imply belief on the subject. Do you believe that a God exists? If you say "no" you're applying a belief and opinion that God does not exist.

I have no clue if a god exist...I do know however none that been worshipped by humans ever existed...

[iamtaka]

There is some value, for philosophers, in the close study of how people use language. (Compare, for example, Wittgenstein and Chomsky).
But speaking is primary. Language is a means of social exchange, depending on agreed (and shifting) signifiers.
It is not for the analysts to lay down rules for the native users of a language. Linguistics is analytical, not prescriptive.

First, I am not prescribing how language should be used. I am describing how language is used. As such, this particular subset of atheists is using language in a way which breaks with convention. They either need to recognize that this is not the "right" way to say it, or they should be more than ready to explain.

To that latter end, if an atheist wants to communicate "lack of belief" by "do not believe," then they should be well aware that few English speakers are going to interpret their statement in that way. Why? Because the convention is to understand "do not believe X" to mean "believe not X." This is clearly addressed in the articles by Gajewski and Edlestein. To put it another way, if you want to refer to the babbling brook next to your dream home in the woods as "an apple," that's perfectly fine. However, you should not expect anyone to know what you're talking about until you've explained. Further, you should not expect those less given to linguistic analysis to be willing to accept it.

If I tell you I don't have a belief in God, there is not sufficient information there for you to draw any further conclusions. You need to ask me, not tell me, what my answer signifies!

If you say, "I don't believe God exists," then I can deduce that you mean "I believe God does not exist." Why? That's how English works. It's the established convention of neg-raising predicates of the opinion type.

[NoisForm]

My goal is not to establish that atheists have belief, but to establish that a subset of atheists misappropriate English in defense of a belief about a definition.

If you're truly only interested in syntax, rather than the content which is trying to be communicated, you may have little interest in the following. I submit it for those who are, as it is directly related (some here dispute the meaning, rather than taking issue with the syntax). If you truly aren't interested, skip to the last paragraph.

I think 'I have no belief in a god' may be more accurate than 'I don't believe in a god' for the 'soft' atheist, though I think both would suffice, and I suspect you may disagree regardless. Consider this example I've used in the past to help explain why there is a valid distinction between 'not believing in' and 'believing there is not';


1)

You receive a random, unsolicited text online. During your short discussion with this stranger, they type "I am in Detroit". Due to the strange, anonymous nature of your exchange with this person, you have no particular reason to believe that this is truly their location. Perhaps this is simply because you don't yet have enough information.

At this point, you would 'lack a belief' in the truth of their statement about their location. You simply do not accept the claim, and therefore don't have a 'positive' belief in their location being Detroit. The phrase 'I don't believe you are in Detroit' or 'I have no belief that your location is Detroit', are both accurate in this situation, though the latter seems a bit awkward.

At the same time, you've no particular reason to believe it is a deliberate deception, and have no 'absolute proof' that said person is not in Detroit, so the statement 'I believe you are not in Detroit' is not accurate (i.e., not warranted). You have simply not accepted the truth of the statement that they are in Detroit. This does not automatically translate to a belief that they are not in Detroit.

This demonstrates a clear distinction and a very different meaning between 'not believing' something, and 'believing something is not'.


Another analogy or two that I believe I heard on 'The Atheist Experience';

2)

Consider; a jar full of gumballs. The number of gumballs is either even, or it is odd - there are only these two possibilities. If I tell you that the number of gumballs is even; based solely on this, are you convinced that the number of gumballs is even? Belief here would be unwarranted.

But, are you then convinced that the number of gumballs is odd? No - also unwarranted. You see, the negation of a claim ('I don't believe that the number is even') does not necessarily result in a belief in the opposite ('I believe that the number is odd').

Theists make the claim that "the number of gumballs is even". I reject this claim as true. I also do not accept that the claim "the number of gumballs is odd" is true. The rejection of one does not lead to the acceptance of the other.

One last analogy, that should be quite familiar to many;


3)

Is there no difference between;

"I'm not convinced that the defendant is guilty"

and

"I am convinced that the defendant is innocent"?

Are these truly the same? No, they are not.

Juries don't speak to innocence. They address the issue of guilt. They decide whether they are convinced that the defendant is guilty, or not convinced that the defendant is guilty. If they vote 'not guilty', this does not mean that they are convinced that the defendant is innocent.

'Soft' atheism is merely a vote of not guilty. It does not claim innocence.


Again, if your only issue here is with grammatical structure, then wonderful - set them straight, point them to the proper way to construct such a sentence. It seems as though you have only taken issue with the usage, but not actually corrected it. But as clearly shown in the above examples, it is quite possible to both reject a claim that is made, while not accepting the opposite as true. So, how might you construct such a statement if the atheist simply rejects the claim 'there is a god'?

[iamtaka]

Thank you for the reference. I suspect the history and subtlety of the grammar passes most of us by. At which point I'll say I am a strong atheist and happy to say there is no God without trying to soften how that sounds. But it does seem to me there is a distinction at work. A strong atheist vehemently disagrees with the all the evidence, arguments and reason put forward for the existence of God finding them all false whilst a weak atheist may find some false and others unconvincing.

No problem. You might also find the additional two references interesting as well. Negation is a fascinating component of language.

I think the subtlety of this particular point is what makes it so easy for many atheists to allow their commitment to "lack of belief" definitions influence their interpretation. Few of us actually take the time to think critically about language itself, but there's certainly no shortage of opinions on the issue.

That said, I don't mind whether one wants to consider themselves strong or weak. Though, I have never quite understood why weak atheists prefer the term. I've always thought non-theist better describes them.

Maybe this could be improved with a more thought regarding the choice of terms but I think it kind of works, and it allows us to distinguish the strong atheist who is convinced there is not a God from the weak atheist who is not convinced there is a God, and so when a weak atheist says they do not believe there is a God what they are struggling to say is that they are not convinced there is a God. But the point is we can carve out a logically distinct position for them.

What is interesting is that on this square of opposition the negation of an atheists is an agnostic, and the negation of a theist is a weak atheist. So weak atheism is correctly associated with non theism i.e. not theism. Whilst strong atheism and theism are contrary terms.

It would be interesting to see how pantheism, panentheism, etc. could be incorporated as well.

[iamtaka]

If you're truly only interested in syntax, rather than the content which is trying to be communicated, you may have little interest in the following. I submit it for those who are, as it is directly related (some here dispute the meaning, rather than taking issue with the syntax). If you truly aren't interested, skip to the last paragraph.

I am not particular clear what you mean by syntax. If you review my posts, I have referred to syntax, semantics, and pragmatics. These are all technical terms in linguistics. Some people equate syntax with grammar, but that's not how the term is used in linguistics. As such, I am interested in the linguistic analysis which ever areas of linguistics that might draw upon. I'm simply pointing this out so that there'll be no confusion.

I think 'I have no belief in a god' may be more accurate than 'I don't believe in a god' for the 'soft' atheist, though I think both would suffice, and I suspect you may disagree regardless.

The problem you'll encounter is that this is simply embedding the 'problematic' verb phrase into a noun phrase. It retains the problems which have been outlined before.

Again, if your only issue here is with grammatical structure, then wonderful - set them straight, point them to the proper way to construct such a sentence. It seems as though you have only taken issue with the usage, but not actually corrected it. But as clearly shown in the above examples, it is quite possible to both reject a claim that is made, while not accepting the opposite as true. So, how might you construct such a statement if the atheist simply rejects the claim 'there is a god'?

The concern is with language. I don't care, so far as this thread goes, what another believes or does not believe about God. As for your final question, I'd call them a non-theist.

[iamtaka]

I think 'I have no belief in a god' may be more accurate than 'I don't believe in a god' for the 'soft' atheist, though I think both would suffice, and I suspect you may disagree regardless.

The problem you'll encounter is that this is simply embedding the 'problematic' verb phrase into a noun phrase. It retains the problems which have been outlined before.

I might have to retract this. I have to reconsider it. I'll post later when I have more time.