Is this an Accurate and Easily understood definition of Atheism?

[Tcg]

.
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

[Longfellow]

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?

Good for what purpose? For example, that might be a good definition in a conversation between people with disparaging stereotypes of atheists, where everyone is thinking of it that way. It might be a very bad definition for friendly conversations with most of the atheists that I've met in Internet discussions.

Also, it depends on the topic of conversation. For example, is it about how atheists define atheism? If so, different ones define it different ways. Is it about how a person is recognized as an atheist in an atheist forum? It looks to me like that would be by continually denouncing Christians and Christianity, and raking up muck about them, and/or liking and approving Christian-bashing posts, without promoting some other religion that has gods in it.

Well, the thread title may answer the question of, "Good for what purpose?" Good in that it is accurate and easily understood.

Not accurate if "accurate" means applying to all the people who call themselves atheists, and only to them.

Not easily understood because of the ambiguity in not believing.

If you're idea of "good" includes "not insulting," then calling it a "condition" is insulting. Trying to define it in a way that it is not defined by any atheists is insulting.

[Tcg]

Not accurate if "accurate" means applying to all the people who call themselves atheists, and only to them.

Then please explain why.

Not easily understood because of the ambiguity in not believing.

What ambiguity is there in not believing?

If you're idea of "good" includes "not insulting," then calling it a "condition" is insulting.

Again, please explain why.


Tcg

[Longfellow]

[Replying to Tcg in post #332]

Can you give some examples of when you would want to use the word "atheism"? What kinds of conversations, and what you might want to say about it.

(later) I would never call anyone's view "atheism" in public discussions, because it doesn't communicate any useful information about a person's views. The only time I would talk about atheists in general would be in discussions of what to do about prejudice and discrimination against people who identify as atheists or who are labeled as atheists by others.

[Tcg]

[Replying to Tcg in post #332]

Can you give some examples of when you would want to use the word "atheism"? What kinds of conversations, and what you might want to say about it.

How does this address any of the issues I brought up in post #332?


Tcg

[Tcg]

[Replying to Tcg in post #332]

(later) I would never call anyone's view "atheism" in public discussions, because it doesn't communicate any useful information about a person's views. The only time I would talk about atheists in general would be in discussions of what to do about prejudice and discrimination against people who identify as atheists or who are labeled as atheists by others.

Your addition here adds nothing to the question at hand. I didn't ask if you would or would not call anyone's view atheism.


Tcg

[Longfellow]

... But I rather like the term ignosticism. I googled for a wiki definition (obviously the ultimate dictionary.... )

Ignosticism - Wikipediahttps://en.wikipedia.org › wiki › Ignosticism
Ignosticism ......... is the idea that the question of the existence of God is meaningless because the word "God" has no coherent and unambiguous definition.

Yes.... my idea of deism, every thing and force and anything else all together is an ambiguous incoherent idea about any entity, and so....... ignostic.
I like it...

Yay! That looks right to me too, from everything I've seen you saying about your view.

[historia]

But therein lies the problem, I think.

Two people with the exact same opinion regarding God's existence could answer the second question quite differently depending on what they mean by "know" or "objective truth" or how much they've even thought about such things -- and thus end up with different labels, even though they have the same opinion regarding God's existence.

We don't do this with other controversial topics. We don't ask people what they believe about abortion, for example, and then ask them to separately provide an epistemological appraisal of their opinion. So why do that here?

The topic here is a person's self identified position on the existence of God.

And? How does that address my point here?

I suspect that's the case because trying to delineate between belief and knowledge here is not useful. That's just not how most people communicate their own subjective ideas on this (and most other) controversial questions.

I tend to think it's more to do with the fact that it's generally atheists who propose this system.

Perhaps, but have you seen people in real life identify with the label "gnostic atheist"? Presumably they wouldn't be bothered by the system being proposed by atheists, since they are atheists themselves. But I've never seen anyone use that label for themselves. I just don't think most people are thinking in these terms or will identify with the descriptor "gnostic."

However, your proposed system doesn't differentiate between a person who doesn't believe in God because they were never raised to be religious and has never put much thought into it and a person who has studied the issue for a long time and believes that they have proof that God can not exist.

I've altered your comment here slightly to divest it of your own labels.

The old atheist / agnostic / theist scheme identifies the first person as an agnostic and the second as an atheist, so it clearly does differentiate between the two.

However, I use the term atheist to identify myself because I lack a belief in God. Yet I do not claim to know that I am right. So which am I by your system, an atheist or an agnostic?

The old scheme is simple: If you are willing to affirm the proposition that God exists then you are a 'theist'. If you are willing to affirm the proposition that God does not exist, then you are an 'atheist'. If you are unwilling to affirm either proposition then you are 'agnostic'.

I leave it to you to decide which propositions, if any, you are willing to affirm. But let me just note that one doesn't have to be 100% certain to affirm a proposition.

The problem here is that we both agreed that your proposed scheme is really only measuring belief, so the 'knowledge' axis isn't measuring anything meaningful.

At worst, it's measuring how strongly that belief is held.

I think at best this is what it can accomplish. In that case, I think the scheme should drop the language of "knowledge" and replace it with adjectives that actually describe what it is measuring, like 'certain/uncertain' or 'strong/weak'.

There are, after all, many people who believe that they KNOW that their position is true. Most are believers (in my experience), but I've seen some atheists who KNOW that God doesn't exist.

I think that difference in frequency exists because many believers are using the word "know" in a different sense from the atheists, which is, again, why framing the positions in terms of "knowledge" is problematic and should be discarded.

And the system I proposed is adaptable as well. We can say that the atheist/theist axis is divided up, and people can describe how far towards either side they are on a scale of 0-100. So zero would be completely between the two, 100 theist would be completely believes that God exists, 100 atheist completely lacks belief in God. That allows for a great deal of specificity in the description while still keeping it relatively simple.

But this actually works better on single-axis schemes (e.g., mine or Dawkins), not one with two axes (the one you are proposing).

The first axis measures the position from atheist to theist. The second axis measures the holder's certainty that the belief is true.

But what is the 0-100 scale on the "atheist to theist" axis measuring if not how certain the person is?

The "knowledge" axis has to be measuring something different to be meaningful. Clearly, it's not.

[William]

[Replying to Kylie in post #324]

The topic here is a person's self identified position on the existence of God.

Is it?

In that case;



Think of the two axis and add at least one other to account for that imaginary number...



And what can Theisms or Atheisms say about that since I am in a person's [mine] self identified position?

Simple...

Question 1: When it comes to belief that God exists, do you have such a belief or do you lack that belief?

That depends on IF atheism defines GOD.

If Atheism doesn't define GOD, then what of 'belief'?
Atheism attempts to define types of atheists as having this lack of 'belief' in this 'God' existing.

Until something solid is presented re those definitions, "Question 1:" is unanswerable as it is missing those essentials.

[Kylie]

But therein lies the problem, I think.

Two people with the exact same opinion regarding God's existence could answer the second question quite differently depending on what they mean by "know" or "objective truth" or how much they've even thought about such things -- and thus end up with different labels, even though they have the same opinion regarding God's existence.

We don't do this with other controversial topics. We don't ask people what they believe about abortion, for example, and then ask them to separately provide an epistemological appraisal of their opinion. So why do that here?

The topic here is a person's self identified position on the existence of God.

And? How does that address my point here?

I honestly do see what the point of your point here is.

I've proposed a system where people can say whether they have a belief in God or not, and how certain they are of that. That's all.

I suspect that's the case because trying to delineate between belief and knowledge here is not useful. That's just not how most people communicate their own subjective ideas on this (and most other) controversial questions.

I tend to think it's more to do with the fact that it's generally atheists who propose this system.

Perhaps, but have you seen people in real life identify with the label "gnostic atheist"? Presumably they wouldn't be bothered by the system being proposed by atheists, since they are atheists themselves. But I've never seen anyone use that label for themselves. I just don't think most people are thinking in these terms or will identify with the descriptor "gnostic."

So?

It doesn't matter if a person actually uses the term, it's whether they would say, "Yeah, that describes my position" if they were told about this system.

However, your proposed system doesn't differentiate between a person who doesn't believe in God because they were never raised to be religious and has never put much thought into it and a person who has studied the issue for a long time and believes that they have proof that God can not exist.

I've altered your comment here slightly to divest it of your own labels.

The old atheist / agnostic / theist scheme identifies the first person as an agnostic and the second as an atheist, so it clearly does differentiate between the two.

However, I use the term atheist to identify myself because I lack a belief in God. Yet I do not claim to know that I am right. So which am I by your system, an atheist or an agnostic?

The old scheme is simple: If you are willing to affirm the proposition that God exists then you are a 'theist'. If you are willing to affirm the proposition that God does not exist, then you are an 'atheist'. If you are unwilling to affirm either proposition then you are 'agnostic'.

I leave it to you to decide which propositions, if any, you are willing to affirm. But let me just note that one doesn't have to be 100% certain to affirm a proposition.

The trouble is there's a big difference between not believing in God and believing that God does not exist. Your system can not account for that.

The problem here is that we both agreed that your proposed scheme is really only measuring belief, so the 'knowledge' axis isn't measuring anything meaningful.

At worst, it's measuring how strongly that belief is held.

I think at best this is what it can accomplish. In that case, I think the scheme should drop the language of "knowledge" and replace it with adjectives that actually describe what it is measuring, like 'certain/uncertain' or 'strong/weak'.

And what is knowledge if not something that you are 100% certain about?

There are, after all, many people who believe that they KNOW that their position is true. Most are believers (in my experience), but I've seen some atheists who KNOW that God doesn't exist.

I think that difference in frequency exists because many believers are using the word "know" in a different sense from the atheists, which is, again, why framing the positions in terms of "knowledge" is problematic and should be discarded.

I KNOW the Earth is roughly spherical because I have seen what I consider to be valid evidence from the real world and arguments which show that a roughly spherical earth is the best possible explanation.

A believer KNOWS that God exists because they have seen what they consider to be valid evidence from the real world and arguments which show that God existing is the best possible explanation

And the system I proposed is adaptable as well. We can say that the atheist/theist axis is divided up, and people can describe how far towards either side they are on a scale of 0-100. So zero would be completely between the two, 100 theist would be completely believes that God exists, 100 atheist completely lacks belief in God. That allows for a great deal of specificity in the description while still keeping it relatively simple.

But this actually works better on single-axis schemes (e.g., mine or Dawkins), not one with two axes (the one you are proposing).

The first axis measures the position from atheist to theist. The second axis measures the holder's certainty that the belief is true.

But what is the 0-100 scale on the "atheist to theist" axis measuring if not how certain the person is?

The "knowledge" axis has to be measuring something different to be meaningful. Clearly, it's not.

Okay then. There's a person who thinks that the issue of God's existence is inherently unknowable. They claim to KNOW that God's existence is always going to be unknowable. There's another person who, similarly, can't say if God exists or not, but they do NOT think that God's existence is inherently unknowable. How would your system describe the difference between these two people?

[Kylie]

[Replying to Kylie in post #324]

The topic here is a person's self identified position on the existence of God.

Is it?

In that case;



Think of the two axis and add at least one other to account for that imaginary number...



And what can Theisms or Atheisms say about that since I am in a person's [mine] self identified position?

Simple...

Question 1: When it comes to belief that God exists, do you have such a belief or do you lack that belief?

That depends on IF atheism defines GOD.

If Atheism doesn't define GOD, then what of 'belief'?
Atheism attempts to define types of atheists as having this lack of 'belief' in this 'God' existing.

Until something solid is presented re those definitions, "Question 1:" is unanswerable as it is missing those essentials.

So you just avoid the issue. There's no point in trying to have a discussion with you, is there?