Jashwell wrote:We reject that they are atheists.
Right, which in and of itself isn't a problem- we "reject" they are atheists in the sense that, according to that set of definitions, they don't qualify. So do they have a particular emotional attachment to this term "atheist"? Why else would "rejecting them as atheists" be a problem in itself unless they have some special attachment to this particular term as opposed to "non-theist" or "agnostic"? I mean, obviously one result of accepting one set of definitions over another is that the application of those definitions may change- citing this as an objection to one definition as opposed to another seems somewhat pointless.
(and you can't be telling people what they believe, you should just address what they say they believe)
I am talking about what they say they believe. When someone like Dawkins, after considering various arguments and pieces of evidence, explicitly and knowingly rejects theism
qua theism, that sounds suspiciously like "strong" atheism to me- which is incongruous with the song he sings when the question arises of the evidence or justification for his own position.
It's neither precise nor clear.
What exactly is
unclear about the following definitions-
Theism: the position that "at least one god exists" is
true
Atheism: the position that theism is
false
Agnosticism: the position that "at least one god exists" is
undecidable
They strike me as perfectly clear. And they have the consequence of being exclusive, and with the addition of non-theism as anything that is not theism, they are exhaustive. They render further labels like "weak", "strong", "positive", and "negative" redundant. If that isn't "precise", then I'm not sure what you understand by precision.
Oh, you mean that they have an additional context, that is included in the definition.
Possible and necessary didn't lose meaning when the additional philosophical contexts came into usage.
I'm not sure what "losing meaning" even is, but they certainly become restricted and narrower in scope- the extension of "possible", in logic (i.e. not contradictory), is a subset of "possible" in colloquial discourse; its definition is more specific and narrow, and thus applicable to less things.
Without a God.
Lacking a God.
No, "ungodly" as in
against god- impious. As far as I can tell, "atheism" was, for centuries, equivalent to a charge of heresy or blasphemy, it was a way of saying that someone believed heretical things about God, NOT that they didn't believe in God. It was only relatively recently (the last 300-400 years) that it came to mean anything like not believing in God- and the original atheists were men who actively rejected theism as such on a reasoned basis; "strong" atheists. But this in itself doesn't mean much; that a word has meant a certain thing isn't necessarily an argument against an alternative definition, if that alternative definition has practical advantages. But it is interesting just to note.
This argument is a massive loss of scope. It wouldn't make a difference if it did include inanimate objects, the whole point of the term is that it means you aren't a theist.
You've merely restated what one of the definitions under discussion means. I can't imagine why; I already understand what the definition of "atheism" you are endorsing is. It would be awfully curious that we had gotten this far if I didn't.
Do you consider "I'm unaware of any reasons to believe" to be a justification?
That would depend. Are you unaware of any reasons because you've never bothered asking or looking? If so, then no, that pretty clearly wouldn't be an appropriate justification.
You don't need to say or think "I haven't been provided with any reasons to believe in X" to "justify" lacking belief in X.
I don't even think lacking belief does need justification, that implies it's some kind of positive action itself, which it isn't.
I'm not sure what "positive action" means exactly here, but in any case, there is certainly a relevant difference between an absence of belief, and rejection of belief, in the sense that the former doesn't necessarily need to be epistemically justified, because it isn't any sort of a position or belief at all. For instance, no one can seriously dispute that pre-linguistic infants lack theistic belief- they do not believe that any gods exist, they don't even know what gods are. No need for epistemic justification here, there is nothing to justify. On the other hand, the rejection of theistic belief, even if it falls short of active disbelief (i.e. "I don't believe theism" as opposed to "I believe theism is false"), on the basis of reasoned consideration and examination of the evidence, is to take a position on the matter (i.e. that there isn't enough evidence/good reason to believe that theism is true), and so admits of epistemic justification. If it does not, it is unreasonable.
I'm holding fingers up from both of my hands.
Am I holding up an even or odd number?
I imagine you don't believe either way.
Do you need justification for that?
Sure I do- and I don't believe either way
because the information provided me is equally consistent with either possibility. My lack of belief is justified.
Does a baby need justification for lacking belief in literally every concept that does or even could be imagined? No, that'd be absurd.
No. Covered above. But there is a meaningful distinction between the baby's non-position regarding theism, and the reasoned, considered position of, say, Dawkins or Hitchens, and the latter do need justification in order to be reasonable.
But in any case, the question of whether atheism needs to be epistemically justified falls outside of the scope of what is the best way to define atheism/agnosticism/etc. If you'd like, one of us could create a new topic to continue that particular discussion (I'm more than willing), but its probably best to table it for now, on this thread at any rate.
Yes, and saying "I don't play football" doesn't say much either.
Doesn't say much about
what? "Atheism" is specifically supposed to be a label for a position RE the existence of gods, or theism- so if it nevertheless doesn't tell you very much about the person's position RE the existence of gods or theism, and requires a bunch of further labels, then it isn't very clear and would not seem to be the most optimal terminology.
It's not a valid objection to say "This definition shouldn't be used because X, therefore we should use this definition for another word."
Um, why not? Why isn't it valid to say that a certain definition shouldn't be used for such-and-such reasons (especially if its a
good reason) and that we should use a different one?
Do you know what will happen if you somehow managed to globalise usage of non-theism as a replacement for weak atheism?
Well first, many atheists would instead call themselves non theists (many do because they acknowledge this kind of debate still happens). Strong atheist, implicit & explicit atheist would still be terms with the same definitions.
We would have non theists saying "no, non theism doesn't have a burden of proof", and then you know what we would get?
We would get theists saying "non theists have to believe there are no gods", "that definition of non theism is too broad", "non theism should mean belief in no gods".
Unfortunately, "non-theism" is the only one that I am NOT offering any change in. So if true, this objection applies either way. Non-theism encompasses anything that isn't theism. The difference between mine and yours, however, is that "atheism" and "agnostism", "agnosticism" and "theism" do not overlap.
In any case, I'm not necessarily saying that I wish to "globalize" the definitions I've offered- I'm not saying there is any normative force here. My point was merely this- that on this thread there have been some people fundamentally misunderstanding the issue, as if there were some matter of fact in dispute, rather than being merely a semantic dispute. Consequently, many of the arguments are just wide of the mark; the entire dispute turns on whether/why we ought to prefer one definition of atheism as opposed to another. Both of them are fairly common. They both seem to work relatively well in getting our point across. For my part, in most of the contexts in which I find myself talking about theism, atheism, and/or agnosticism, I find the set of definitions I've endorsed to be preferable to the ones most people on this thread seem to prefer, for the reasons I"ve already mentioned. I have no problem using the definitions you prefer, when they are the definitions employed- its not like I'm going to barge into someone's conversation/thread about the existence of god and start demanding they define atheism is the position that theism is false. But, if I am going to start a thread on a related subject, I'm probably going to employ the definitions I've offered here, for the reasons I've already given.
In any case, RE your objections-
Jashwell wrote:
Weak/negative atheism, strong/positive atheism, implicit atheism and explicit atheism will still be used. Agnostic atheism, gnostic atheism, agnostic theism and gnostic theism will still be used.
They wouldn't need to; my definitions would render the distinctions between weak and negative, strong and positive, implicit and explicit atheism
redundant. And one doesn't need a specific label to describe how strongly one feels about one's position- if you think you know it, say you know it, if you merely believe, say that.
But now we'll have a word that :
Doesn't incorporate a usage that a large number of people who profess it use it for
This cuts both ways; the definitions you prefer are inconsistent with the ones I prefer, which are also used by quite a few people (Sagan isn't alone here)
Is in opposition with existing philosophical terms such as weak atheism, negative atheism, implicit atheism and agnostic atheism which themselves are used largely be professed atheists.
That it dispenses with such terms is one of the
advantages; it renders them redundant. In any case, you won't find the terms "weak/strong/positive/negative" atheism very much in professional philosophical literature- they certainly would've been completely foreign to philosophers like Nietzsche and Marx (I can assure you that Nietzsche never makes any distinction between strong/weak/implicit/explicit/ positive/negative/gnostic/etc atheism), and I doubt you'll find them much in the contemporary literature either. It seems that these terms are more common in the online community, so far as I can tell anyways (for instance, I have a MA in philosophy, with a focus on the philosophy of religion, and I had never heard several of these distinctions until I started participating in online forums)
Requires changing multiple dictionaries
For one thing, there are still dictionaries that explicitly mention the definition of atheism I'm endorsing as well, and I would bet quite a bit that if we pulled out some dictionaries from, say, 50 years ago, the majority of them would reflect my usage. The usage you're talking about has gained popularity relatively recently, so far as I can tell. But even if this were true it isn't really any objection- not that I'm recommending everyone adopt my definition in the first place, but dictionaries change to reflect usage
all the time. But I'm not trying to "globalize" my preferred definitions- for the most part, both definitions work, especially colloquially, and so I'm fine to abide with whichever people happen to be using. However, in certain specific, scholarly contexts, such as the philosophy of religion (and perhaps comparative religion/anthropology and a few others as well), I prefer the definitions I've offered, because they are more precise and clear, and are consistent with much of the philosophical literature.
Anyways, if you would like me to start a new thread to explore the question of epistemic justification and atheism let me know- and if you happen to start one yourself, either make note of it here or send me a PM.
