Is this an Accurate and Easily understood definition of Atheism?

[Tcg]

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I recently heard this definition of atheism:

"Atheism is the condition of not believing that a God or deity exists."

I think it is clearer than the one I usually espouse which is that atheism is the lack of belief in god/gods. The only issue I have with is its singular nature. Perhaps, Atheism is the condition of not believing that any gods or deities exist, would be better.

Is this a good definition?


Tcg

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to William in post #209]

So far as my experience goes the definition of atheism is consensus (amongst atheists) and agreed before i started posting, because I'd been fed the wrong idea that agnostics hadn't decided whether to believe in God or not and theists and atheists had. I was corrected and the need for correction seems ongoing.

You posted various tweaks and twiddles, none of which seemed necessary and some of which seemed wrong and serving no purpose than to try to undermine the logic or credibility of atheism.

Your interest may have waned because your attempts to try to undermine the logically sound definition of atheism have failed and so does your last effort, which is simply a canard and a claim without any verification.

Arguably, in fact logically given the material default being sound and theism needing to be validated, not claimed as a given, it is atheism that is the (physically) natural situation and theism is the artificial one. Though of course, theism may be an instinct in humans which of course doesn't make it right or true.

Thus, quoting various remarks made (or supposedly - some look like your unsympathetic paraphrases) by various atheists may reflect mistakes, hasty remarks or wrong ideas. Atheists (as I said) are people, and people make mistakes, but you can't dismiss car engineering just because some dude mistook a crankshaft for an axle. Atheists as people do not define the logical definition of atheism. They can only understand it rightly or wrong.

It seems to me that you have nothing but claims, and faith claims at that and illogical ones on top of that. I seem to have observed before that your argument fails on a succession of levels.

[TRANSPONDER]

The next has legs. arguably, logically, there would be no belief in religion and other 'claptrap' unless it is taught. That is certainly the position I take on atheism - that it is the default in babies until they are taught religion.

I think that is true and that babies aren't born believing in gods. If it is true that there are no gods (not making that claim) then unless it was developed before us, there was a time that humans developed gods. We went from a state where no one believed in gods to a state were some of us did.

I'd love to know what that first spark was. Maybe during a long-standing drought, Nokk accidently left his walking stick out one night and it rained the next morning. Have that coincidence occur a few more times and we have the first god - "Nokkstick."


Tcg

Yes, indeed. This is something that interests me, since the origins of morality and society are to be traced back to animal pack instinct becoming communities wider than just the pack, which...I was going to say was unusual in animals, but I can think of so many examples, hives, herds and schools of fish that perhaps it's more common than not. But humans can think about this stuff which is uncommon.

I can track religion down to a number of instinctive traits - curiosity, story - telling, the need for authority. The need to invent religion isn't actually too hard to guess. What I am more interested in is the instinct behind music and art. Dance is not hard - communication (hunting dances, war dances, mating dances) and literature is a no - brainer. draw pictures, number with dots. One can see the evolution of writing as plain as the evolution of life - forms.

Yes, the evolution of music is interesting to ponder. It might have started as simply as the rhythm created by banging sticks in specific patterns. I could imagine the varied pitches our voices can make as being used to repeat something pleasant someone stumbled upon. Combining the two had to be a rather large advancement at least in its complexity. Looks like everything goes back to sticks. gods, music, and who knows what else. Where would humans be without them? [/sarcasm]

Getting back to the development of Nokkstick. If there were a time when no humans believed and then that changed and some began to, that would be the genesis of atheism at least as I understand it. Most of those atheists would have done absolutely nothing to become one. Maybe Nokk's brother knew of Nokksitck but wasn't convinced, but most would have no concept of this development and especially not at first. They'd still lack belief in Nokkstick though.

I recently saw a listing for a discussion titled, "The History of Atheism." I didn't watch it, but as far as I am concerned it goes back to that moment when humans first began to believe in gods. And no one, except maybe Nokk's brother stated, "There are no gods!"

ETA: Oh, and getting back to music, I wonder if some primitive form of it existed before language. I bet it did and who knows, might have played a part in the development of language.


Tcg

Yes. I am sure that the communal unison jumping up and down to a mind bending repetitive rhythm banged out with a minimum of musical variation (what you mean, Bone age? I'm talking about the latest in music) is the basic as part of a society -bonding exercise, and twanging hunting bows...and wow..two of different sizes make different notes. And some genius put bowstrings of varying sizes on one 'Bow'. And the harp is perhaps the 3rd most ancient musical instrument (1).

Bernstein did an interesting talk on psychological instinct in musical intervals, how they make us feel. And feeling as a communication is at the basis of music, I think, and leaving symbols (as dogs know too well) is what art is all about, given that pictoral representation (leading to writing) is very early in human society. Clearly hunting was vital and art was about that, but with farming, weather and fertility was more important and I suspect the mother goddess was vital at the time and it was only with rival tribes, conflict and bronze weapons that we got the male -dominated sky -gods.

There's also ancestor - worship, but that's a different matter.

(1) this is the direct descendant of the Egyptian harp that got as far as China but it was replaced by the zither about 2nd c AD because that could be fretted.

[William]

[TRANSPONDER]

No. Again, it's the problem of taking a belief -position regarding the god -claim (not believing it) and confusing it with people, who individually 'are' various things, which may be informed or uninformed, logical or illogical. Bertrand Russel was an atheist, Stalin was an atheist, but two very different people. It is not sound to try to use people to define atheism. It is a descriptor of a situation. I see no value in proposing all these other descriptors when we have a logically sound one already, especially as the ones you propose don't seem useful or accurate.

[Kylie]

.
I recently heard this definition of atheism:

"Atheism is the condition of not believing that a God or deity exists."

I think it is clearer than the one I usually espouse which is that atheism is the lack of belief in god/gods. The only issue I have with is its singular nature. Perhaps, Atheism is the condition of not believing that any gods or deities exist, would be better.

Is this a good definition?


Tcg

I've got no problem with it.

However, I must point out that there is a subtle but important distinction between "not believing that a God or deity exists," and "believing that a God or deity does NOT exist."

Not believing something means that one is open to that thing. I do not believe there is a cat on my front doorstep, but that's not the same thing as me saying that I believe that a cat is NOT sitting on my doorstep.

Yes, that is an important distinction. One that some, and perhaps purposefully so, overlook.


Tcg

Yes. It is an apologetic basic in making atheism a positive assertion of claiming a god does not exist rather than not being convinced that it does. This is vital in the Theist apologetic armory because the burden of proof would shift to atheism and Theism is then in the easy position of winning by just dismissing all the atheist arguments, whereas agnostic -based non belief puts the burden of making their case for persuasion on the Theists, and they really hate that.

I'd like to point out that, for me at least, agnostic means simply "not making a statement of knowledge."

For example, If some one asks me, "Kylie, is there a cat sitting at your front door," I'd answer no. But that is not me saying that I KNOW there's no cat there, just me saying that I don't believe there is. To be more accurate, I would answer, "I don't believe there is a cat sitting there, but I could be wrong." In terms of agnosticism's relationship with atheism, I would say that theists and atheists can be either gnostic or agnostic. Thus, a gnostic would claim to KNOW their viewpoint was true, and an agnostic would claim that they could not KNOW FOR SURE that their viewpoint was true.

In this system, I am an agnostic atheist. I lack belief in God, but I do not claim to KNOW that God does not exist.

A gnostic atheist, on the other hand, would say, "I KNOW that God doesn't exist."

And likewise, a gnostic theist would say, "I KNOW that God exists, and an agnostic theist would say, "I believe that God exists, but I can't KNOW it."

Bear in mind, I'm speaking of knowing in the sense that one can KNOW that all corners of a square are 90 degrees. Not the way many people use "know" to mean, "Be really sure of because they feel that it just must be true."

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to Kylie in post #215]

I am an atheist, and I agree this message.

[William]

[TRANSPONDER]

A Chariot exists with the driver or without. Atheism is a belief - state that is what it is no matter what individual people may think it is. However, it is true that it would not be a thing known and discussed if there were no theists. So the response to theist god -claims (that is, atheism) is in a sense what drives atheism. But it is not what defines atheism. So again, a point that is useful to clarify but doesn't alter anything.

[William]

[TRANSPONDER]

Look, this is the last time I'm going to bother with these pointless assertions, which (in view of the topic) do not help in a definition, which we surely now have Yes, it could be said that atheism is a consequence of not believing in a god.