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

[historia]

A person can believe that they KNOW something and still be wrong. A person can believe they KNOW the Earth is flat, but that doesn't mean they are right.

As I've repeatedly said, I am using it as a measure of their own position. It is NOT ever meant to be an objective measure of whether their position is objectively true or not.

. . .

Again, as I've said countless times, the gnostic measure is a measure of the person's subjective opinion. It does NOT reflect the objective factualness of what they are saying.

A person whop genuinely believes that vaccines cause harm would be a gnostic anti-vaxxer. The term GNOSTIC reflects their position, not the validity of their beliefs.

How many times do I need to make this clear?

None. I fully understand that you don't think your scheme is measuring whether the person's position is objectively true or not, and have said so several times throughout our discussion.

The thrust of my argument is that your scheme is inconsistent in measuring the person's subjective opinion. But each time I point this out, you respond by saying the scheme is not meant to measure the objective truth of their opinion, which is simply not relevant.

Perhaps we can make better headway going forward if we both keep that in mind.

Like you said, a person who believes in God because she "just feels that it must be true", I would classify them an agnostic theist, since they are not making claims to KNOW that God exists.

Feeling that something is true and knowing that something is true are two different things.

Okay, that much makes sense, and is consistent with what you said in your first post:

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."

So, even if someone says they "know" that God exists because "they just feel it must be true," we would not classify their position as "gnostic theist" because, even though they uttered the word "know" what they meant by that is not what we mean by knowledge?

Agreed?

You are demanding I say, "Meh, close enough,"

On the contrary, if your description above truly reflects your perspective, you have way more than enough.

Let's back up here a second:

I believe that there are no elephants in my front yard. I'm looking out my front window right now, in fact, and can see for myself that there are no elephants. Do you believe that there are no elephants in your front yard?

(Note: I'm not asking if you can be 100% certain, but simply whether you believe there are no elephants in your yard. Also, I'm not "demanding" you do anything. I'm just pointing out the logical inconsistency in your argument.)

I would say that "there are elephants in my yard" is a belief that I lack. However, that does not mean that "there are NO elephants in my yard" is a belief I hold. I can not currently see my yard, so I do not have access to the information I require to claim a reasonable knowledge.

Feel free to go to your front yard to take a look -- I'll wait.

I'm not sure what you mean by "reasonable knowledge." And, again, I'm not asking if you can be 100% certain.

Are you saying it's unreasonable to believe there are no elephants in your front yard after looking and seeing no elephants in your front yard (and likely being nowhere near an elephant)?

Ah, but if I go and check, I would be gathering objective proof. This can not be done when it comes to the existence of God.

Okay, but keep in mind you are the one making this comparison. You said you are as certain that God doesn't exist as you are that there are no elephants in your front yard.

So, if you are as certain that God doesn't exist as you are about something for which you can have "objective proof," then that is very certain indeed, right? More than enough to affirm a proposition.

That doesn't make sense.

Both people don't believe in God, right? So surely they would be classified as "atheist" in your scheme. Neither claims to know that God does not exist, right? So then they must be "agnostic atheist" in your scheme. In other words, your scheme "just lumps them together under the same umbrella."

Even if we accept your (frankly rather labored) explanation here that these two positions somehow fall on the axes themselves, and so don't get assigned any of the four labels, that would mean that your scheme has no description (no label) for these positions, and so doesn't "describe" them at all, let alone "easily."

Hence why I said they would be in the CENTER, and not off on the THEIST or ATHEIST sides.

Sorry, but this comment is nonsensical as a rebuttal to my critique here.

I don't see how. Such a person would not be on the theist side since they do not hold the existence of God to be likely, and they are not on the atheist side since they do not hold the existence of God to be unlikely.

Ah, interesting. I've been reliably informed that an atheist is someone who "lacks belief in God." But you're defining an atheist here as someone who thinks God's existence is unlikely. Before I comment further, do you want to change that definition?

Why do you think the two are mutually incompatible?

I don't. We're discussing your classification here: You said the person who thinks God's existence is unknowable is not "on the atheist side" since they "do not hold the existence of God to be unlikely," and you appear unwilling to give them the label "atheist."

Yet, they don't believe in God. So why doesn't your scheme label them an "atheist"?

Thus, a person who considers the existence of God to be unknowable would be right in the middle.

So they don't get assigned one of the four labels and your scheme can't describe them at all, then?

If you are so bothered by it, please feel free to assign numbers for the horizontal and vertical axes.

A person in the exact center would be 0,0, for example.

I'm not bothered. I'm simply pointing out that your claim that your scheme "describes this position easily" turned out to be false, since it doesn't even have a label for it.

[historia]

you were right in defusing the attempt to say that not believing in a god and it being unlikely there was a god was somehow two different positions.

But it's actually Kylie herself who is making this distinction, saying the person who doesn't believe in God because they think God's existence is unknowable should not be classified as an "atheist" in her scheme.

This is very simple and logically sound, yet theists persist in trying to introduce differences that are irrelevant (if they are true) in some effort to show (as some have let slip) that atheism is invalid or illogical, is made up of conflicting sects or even does not exist at all. You do a nice job of rebutting such an attempt.

Kylie is doing a good job rebutting herself? You seem confused here, TRANSPONDER.

[Kylie]

A person can believe that they KNOW something and still be wrong. A person can believe they KNOW the Earth is flat, but that doesn't mean they are right.

As I've repeatedly said, I am using it as a measure of their own position. It is NOT ever meant to be an objective measure of whether their position is objectively true or not.

. . .

Again, as I've said countless times, the gnostic measure is a measure of the person's subjective opinion. It does NOT reflect the objective factualness of what they are saying.

A person whop genuinely believes that vaccines cause harm would be a gnostic anti-vaxxer. The term GNOSTIC reflects their position, not the validity of their beliefs.

How many times do I need to make this clear?

None. I fully understand that you don't think your scheme is measuring whether the person's position is objectively true or not, and have said so several times throughout our discussion.

The thrust of my argument is that your scheme is inconsistent in measuring the person's subjective opinion. But each time I point this out, you respond by saying the scheme is not meant to measure the objective truth of their opinion, which is simply not relevant.

Perhaps we can make better headway going forward if we both keep that in mind.

I don't see why it is not relevant. Someone who KNOWS that they are right is likely to be a lot more closed-minded than someone who is willing to entertain the possibility that they are wrong.

Like you said, a person who believes in God because she "just feels that it must be true", I would classify them an agnostic theist, since they are not making claims to KNOW that God exists.

Feeling that something is true and knowing that something is true are two different things.

Okay, that much makes sense, and is consistent with what you said in your first post:

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."

So, even if someone says they "know" that God exists because "they just feel it must be true," we would not classify their position as "gnostic theist" because, even though they uttered the word "know" what they meant by that is not what we mean by knowledge?

Agreed?

I think you are mixing the two things up here.

If someone just has a feeling that God exists, I wouldn't necessarily categorise that as "knowing."

You are demanding I say, "Meh, close enough,"

On the contrary, if your description above truly reflects your perspective, you have way more than enough.

Let's back up here a second:

I believe that there are no elephants in my front yard. I'm looking out my front window right now, in fact, and can see for myself that there are no elephants. Do you believe that there are no elephants in your front yard?

(Note: I'm not asking if you can be 100% certain, but simply whether you believe there are no elephants in your yard. Also, I'm not "demanding" you do anything. I'm just pointing out the logical inconsistency in your argument.)

I would say that "there are elephants in my yard" is a belief that I lack. However, that does not mean that "there are NO elephants in my yard" is a belief I hold. I can not currently see my yard, so I do not have access to the information I require to claim a reasonable knowledge.

Feel free to go to your front yard to take a look -- I'll wait.

I'm not sure what you mean by "reasonable knowledge." And, again, I'm not asking if you can be 100% certain.

Are you saying it's unreasonable to believe there are no elephants in your front yard after looking and seeing no elephants in your front yard (and likely being nowhere near an elephant)?

Ah, but if I go and check, I would be gathering objective proof. This can not be done when it comes to the existence of God.

Okay, but keep in mind you are the one making this comparison. You said you are as certain that God doesn't exist as you are that there are no elephants in your front yard.

So, if you are as certain that God doesn't exist as you are about something for which you can have "objective proof," then that is very certain indeed, right? More than enough to affirm a proposition.

At the moment, I do NOT have sufficient objective evidence to claim there is a 100% chance that there is no elephant in my front yard. I haven't been out to check, after all. I just believe that it is extraordinarily unlikely that there is a elephant in my front yard.

And again, when you say that my certainty levels are sufficient that I might as well affirm a definitive position, you are demanding that I say, "Meh, close enough." I've already said I will not do that. For me to abandon the position that I could be wrong would be intellectually dishonest, and I will not do that. Yes, I believe that the chances of me being wrong are extremely small, but I will not ever treat such small chances as being the same thing as zero chance.

That doesn't make sense.

Both people don't believe in God, right? So surely they would be classified as "atheist" in your scheme. Neither claims to know that God does not exist, right? So then they must be "agnostic atheist" in your scheme. In other words, your scheme "just lumps them together under the same umbrella."

Even if we accept your (frankly rather labored) explanation here that these two positions somehow fall on the axes themselves, and so don't get assigned any of the four labels, that would mean that your scheme has no description (no label) for these positions, and so doesn't "describe" them at all, let alone "easily."

Hence why I said they would be in the CENTER, and not off on the THEIST or ATHEIST sides.

Sorry, but this comment is nonsensical as a rebuttal to my critique here.

I don't see how. Such a person would not be on the theist side since they do not hold the existence of God to be likely, and they are not on the atheist side since they do not hold the existence of God to be unlikely.

Ah, interesting. I've been reliably informed that an atheist is someone who "lacks belief in God." But you're defining an atheist here as someone who thinks God's existence is unlikely. Before I comment further, do you want to change that definition?

Why do you think the two are mutually incompatible?

I don't. We're discussing your classification here: You said the person who thinks God's existence is unknowable is not "on the atheist side" since they "do not hold the existence of God to be unlikely," and you appear unwilling to give them the label "atheist."

Yet, they don't believe in God. So why doesn't your scheme label them an "atheist"?

You don't seem able to understand the concept of a spectrum.

ATHEIST...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...THEIST

The person who holds that the existence of God is unknowable would be at position ZERO. They do not think it is more likely than not that God exists, nor do they think that it is more likely than not that God DOESN'T exist.

Of course, I would go by what they say. If they want to describe themselves as "atheist," then I wouldn't tell them that they are wrong.

Thus, a person who considers the existence of God to be unknowable would be right in the middle.

So they don't get assigned one of the four labels and your scheme can't describe them at all, then?

If you are so bothered by it, please feel free to assign numbers for the horizontal and vertical axes.

A person in the exact center would be 0,0, for example.

I'm not bothered. I'm simply pointing out that your claim that your scheme "describes this position easily" turned out to be false, since it doesn't even have a label for it.

*sigh*

The position of such a person on the graph is easily plottable. Do you think things don't exist unless we have a specific name for them? Are you going to demand that I create completely unique names for every single possible position on the graph?

[TRANSPONDER]

you were right in defusing the attempt to say that not believing in a god and it being unlikely there was a god was somehow two different positions.

But it's actually Kylie herself who is making this distinction, saying the person who doesn't believe in God because they think God's existence is unknowable should not be classified as an "atheist" in her scheme.

This is very simple and logically sound, yet theists persist in trying to introduce differences that are irrelevant (if they are true) in some effort to show (as some have let slip) that atheism is invalid or illogical, is made up of conflicting sects or even does not exist at all. You do a nice job of rebutting such an attempt.

Kylie is doing a good job rebutting herself? You seem confused here, TRANSPONDER.

Possibly I am I don't keep a list for reference of who argues which side. It looked to me as though Kylie was arguing a sound case for the atheist definition (and I thought merited a bit of encouragement under a work-load) but I'll just watch from now on.

[historia]

I fully understand that you don't think your scheme is measuring whether the person's position is objectively true or not, and have said so several times throughout our discussion.

The thrust of my argument is that your scheme is inconsistent in measuring the person's subjective opinion. But each time I point this out, you respond by saying the scheme is not meant to measure the objective truth of their opinion, which is simply not relevant.

Perhaps we can make better headway going forward if we both keep that in mind.

I don't see why it is not relevant.

Perhaps I can clear-up your confusion, then.

There are two different issues here: (a) whether your scheme measures if the person's position is objectively true or not, and (b) whether your scheme consistently measures their subjective opinion.

Every time I offer a criticism of (b) you respond by talking about (a). But, clearly, your response about (a) is not relevant to my criticism on (b), since these are two different issues. This is conflating the two issues.

Makes sense?

Like you said, a person who believes in God because she "just feels that it must be true", I would classify them an agnostic theist, since they are not making claims to KNOW that God exists.

Feeling that something is true and knowing that something is true are two different things.

Okay, that much makes sense, and is consistent with what you said in your first post:

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."

So, even if someone says they "know" that God exists because "they just feel it must be true," we would not classify their position as "gnostic theist" because, even though they uttered the word "know" what they meant by that is not what we mean by knowledge?

Agreed?

I think you are mixing the two things up here.

I'm simply summarizing what you yourself have said.

If someone just has a feeling that God exists, I wouldn't necessarily categorise that as "knowing."

Right. So, again, if someone says they "know" that God exists because "they just feel it must be true," you would not classify their position as "gnostic theist" because, even though they uttered the word "know" what they meant by that is not what you mean by knowledge?

Agreed?

Again, I'm just summarizing the point you made in your very first post, quoted above. You said people often use the word "know" to mean "be really sure of because they feel that it just must be true," but that is not what you mean by knowing.

Okay, but keep in mind you are the one making this comparison. You said you are as certain that God doesn't exist as you are that there are no elephants in your front yard.

So, if you are as certain that God doesn't exist as you are about something for which you can have "objective proof," then that is very certain indeed, right? More than enough to affirm a proposition.

At the moment, I do NOT have sufficient objective evidence to claim there is a 100% chance that there is no elephant in my front yard. I haven't been out to check, after all. I just believe that it is extraordinarily unlikely that there is a elephant in my front yard.

Right, so you believe there is no elephant in your front yard.

You can't be 100% certain of that, of course. But, as Sean Carroll reminded us above, we can never be 100% certain. Everything we believe (outside of logical and mathematical axioms) we hold with less than 100% certainty. Right?

Yes, I believe that the chances of me being wrong are extremely small, but I will not ever treat such small chances as being the same thing as zero chance.

And nobody is asking you to. There is always a non-zero chance we are wrong about everything we believe -- we could all be plugged into the Matrix and the world around us is just an illusion, for example. Yet you and I believe all kinds of things despite that.

So they don't get assigned one of the four labels and your scheme can't describe them at all, then?

If you are so bothered by it, please feel free to assign numbers for the horizontal and vertical axes.

A person in the exact center would be 0,0, for example.

I'm not bothered. I'm simply pointing out that your claim that your scheme "describes this position easily" turned out to be false, since it doesn't even have a label for it.

*sigh*

The position of such a person on the graph is easily plottable. Do you think things don't exist unless we have a specific name for them?

Here, as elsewhere in our discussion, you appear to have lost track of the original point you were making, so let me remind you. You said:

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.

And then offered this claim:

And your system does not actual describe the difference between the two people I spoke of, it just lumps them together under the same umbrella, despite the fact that the difference between their positions is, I'd say, fairly important. Yet my system describes this easily.

So, again, on the old scheme, both positions are described as "agnostic," but people have historically extended the scheme to use the labels "hard agnostic" and "soft agnostic" to distinguish between these two position.

Now, you think your scheme describes these two positions better because we can refer to them as "0,0" and "0,50" or some such thing. But would anyone in their right mind think that is better than "soft agnostic" and "hard agnostic," or even just "agnostic"? Have you ever met someone who describes themselves as "0,0"?

The entire point of a scheme -- the very reason it exists -- is to assign labels to positions. If a scheme has no label for a position that is a deficiency in the scheme.

We can, of course, put down some kind of numerical spectrum on any scheme, assigning numbers to positions. We can do that with my scheme or Dawkin's scheme -- it's not like this is somehow unique to your scheme. But assigning numbers instead of labels is, to use your own words, "kooky."

Are you going to demand that I create completely unique names for every single possible position on the graph?

Again, you are the one saying these positions are important and that your scheme is better at describing them. As we just saw, it isn't. In fact, it's worse, and obviously so.

[oldbadger]

.................................................. You don't seem able to understand the concept of a spectrum.

ATHEIST...9...8...7...6...5...4...3...2...1...0...1...2...3...4...5...6...7...8...9...THEIST

The person who holds that the existence of God is unknowable would be at position ZERO. They do not think it is more likely than not that God exists, nor do they think that it is more likely than not that God DOESN'T exist.

.....................................

This isn't easy enough. Poor minds like mine would decide where we are on your spectrum and nominate (say) number 6, but since you haven't used the +/- or A/T gradients nobody is going to have a clue about me.

Where I live I sometimes receive documents from our health service, local and national government, etc, that include a questionnaire about my age, nationality, gender orientation and more..... including religion if any. Thus:-

Document:- Please enter your position on the atheism-theism spectrum.
Normal Brit (fick, see?) :- Ummmm, errr... 5

Now, how is the department office going to have a clue about me?
The other thing is: Is an atheist (number 0) in certitude about this, and if so, how?
...and is the Theist (number 0) in certitude about this and how?

Please keep any answer to me within the ABC code of info delivery. (accurate, brief and clear).

[brunumb]

Who'd a thunk that not believing in gods would be so complicated.

[TRANSPONDER]

Who'd a thunk that not believing in gods would be so complicated.

Indeed. The problem seems to be that people will confuse all the peripheral stuff about why they don't believe and how sure they are about that, or what they do about it and whether not believing also means they believe not with that simple one thing definition.

Do not believe in any gods.

It can be done with Theism, too.

I we or they believe in a god, or gods.

Which god, and how many? Does that mean that you believe the other gods don't exist or they do exist but you hate them? And how sure are you that this god exists and do you claim to know for sure or you just like, Want to believe it? Isn't there a sliding scale of how sure you are about the evidence for this God or gods? And what does 'God' mean to you anyway, a Creator of everything or someone who watches over you and ensures you come to no harm or, if you do, will ensure you have it even better after the terminal Event? And do you just believe, or do you engage in acts of worship? And how do you feel about those who don't believe? Would you want your son to marry someone who didn't believe? And should what you believe be taught in school or just left up to the family and the state governor...?

That can get complicated, too.

[brunumb]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #488]

I just got a sudden craving for pretzels.

[TRANSPONDER]

[Replying to TRANSPONDER in post #488]

I just got a sudden craving for pretzels.

I can make you some.