<p>@oldmom4896 - No, I don’t think they said it to portray a positive attribute, but to even mention it as something that would be acceptable or even an expected reaction to people talking about their faith shows a condescension that, IMO, is clearly a negative trait. That isn’t a negative trait about atheists, it is a negative trait of people that do that, some of whom happen to be atheists. It would be just as negative as a person of faith doing it while an atheistic explained why they believe as they do. IMO of course.</p>
<p>@fallenchemist: no, atheism is not a position of faith. It exist from a position of doubt. Atheists are skeptics. They want proof that god exist not the mere belief that god exist. Just as atheism isn’t a religion. But I realize that those of faith and those of religion find that hard to understand since they live their lives with faith and religion. Atheists don’t have proof that god doesn’t exist (that would be faith); they don’t have evidence that god exists. Asking for proof, doesn’t equal existence of faith. If I ask you for proof of your identity, that doesn’t mean I have faith you aren’t who you say you are.</p>
<p>@badgerstate: It isn’t rude to say that those of faith do not think critically on issues of their religion. That doesn’t mean that this extends to other situations in their lives. But as it pertains to their religion, their faith inevitably involves believing in magic, invisible beings, and stories that from a position of evidence falls apart. Nevertheless, they really believe these things despite a lack of physical or experimental or historical evidence. They use emotional sensations, experience, and occurrences as their proof. That is faith. I’ve been there myself. If we conducted thousands of experiments and combed through all of the billions of births through the years to conclude that virgin births can not exist, it would not matter to a Christian because they will contend that one did, in fact, occur. That was what I meant!</p>
<p>Eye-rolling is not a reaction to profession of faith; I am from a family of ministers who travel the globe providing medical missionary work. I respect what they do and what they believe in as long as they don’t try to impose it on me. The eye-rolling comes from the proselytism that an atheist will endure when it is discovered that they lack faith. It includes the reaction to the injection of faith or religion into conversations that clearly are not related. Example: After discussing a surgical plan with my patient, the family member looks at me and says, “do you accept Jesus as the son of god, your lord, and savior?” That’s when the eye-rolling occurs. Eye-rolling is not a position of superiority, it is a reaction of frustration (I am not here to discuss this).</p>
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<p>Well, now I am confused, or you are. Definitions are from dictionary.com</p>
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<p>Your description of an atheist clearly falls under the definition of an agnostic, who simply says “I don’t know if there is a God or not, because I see no proof”. An atheist is certain there is no God, and so essentially has faith that evidence of His existence will never be found. Since no one can really know the future, it is by definition an act of faith to be certain no evidence or proof will be found, ever. You appear to have not learned these definitions correctly, so when I said what I said about atheists, you couldn’t correctly determine what I was talking about.</p>
<p>FWIW, I think to most people eye-rolling is a dismissive and disparaging gesture about what someone is saying, indicating that you know better than the speaker. In other words, superior, as opposed to simple frustration.</p>
<p>Another FWIW, it sounds like you grew up around a small slice of people with a certain attitude towards their faith, or you just didn’t understand very deeply. Almost all people of faith that I know have doubts from time to time. Being religious doesn’t mean turning your brain off to how difficult sustaining your faith can be sometimes. Some of the greatest thinkers and philosophers to ever exist were deeply religious, and explored from positions of great doubt the alternatives to their religion. So yes, it is rather rude to say that people of faith don’t think critically about same. Many great scientists and exceedingly intelligent people have been and are people of faith. In fact, many scientists say it is their very detailed understanding of the enormous complexity of the world that reaffirms their religion, or even caused them to become religious after growing up in an atheistic or agnostic home. And not all people take the Bible stories literally, yet they are still deeply religious. You really grossly overgeneralize.</p>
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Denies or disbelieves. Lacking a belief in God is not the same as being sure there isn’t one. A lot of people will call themselves both atheist and agnostic. </p>
<p>We tend to put “other” and no one asks questions. My friend is Hindi and her son goes to a Catholic school, and has no problem doing whatever he is asked such as going to church and so on. It is not hypocritical if you aren’t sure, or there is a cultural connection.</p>
<p>If you are an atheist, doesn’t matter where you live in the US, it is best to stay in the closet. </p>
<p>Oh, and anyone against “big government” and for libertarianism should be a social liberal, because judging other folks because they don’t follow your belief system and regulating them is big government and against libertarianism.</p>
<p>Live free or die means for ALL of us.</p>
<p>@halcyonheather - No, disbelieves means does not believe, not might not believe. Again, going to the dictionary:
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<p>Not much wiggle room there. People that claim to be both agnostic and atheistic just don’t know what those words mean. There is a reason those two words exist. One describes a doubter that can’t get off the fence one way or the other (and I don’t mean that pejoratively) and the other describes a person that is certain in their disbelief. It is very handy to have such clear descriptions of those two states of being, but it does little good if people don’t understand the actual definitions. Then there is no comprehension, or at least not accurate comprehension.</p>
<p>Again, having no belief in something isn’t the same as believing that it doesn’t exist. The second is an active stance and the first is not. </p>
<p>“The eye-rolling comes from the proselytism that an atheist will endure when it is discovered that they lack faith.”</p>
<p>Actually, most of my eye rolling comes from listening to atheists I know justifying their views to me and I have never once given any indication as to my belief system.</p>
<p>Way OT now but I’d be surprised if anyone in this silly definition debate has actually read Huxley, Stephens et al and is familiar with the messy history of these words.</p>
<p>The words may have a messy history, as many words do. But those definitions as used today seem quite clear. Very little room for interpretation. But to each their own I suppose. However, just repeating something isn’t a very good argument in the face of clear facts. The definition as given in the dictionary is rejecting belief. Seems pretty active to me. Besides, religion and the existence of God isn’t something the typical person spent no time thinking about in their life. Having no belief in God certainly has to be an active decision by a person.</p>
<p>I would also contend that since this entire discussion is based on the word “atheist”, it is anything but a “silly definition debate”. If you cannot agree on the definition of the very term being discussed, then there is no meaningful debate that can take place. Sorry you feel it is so trivial and beneath discussion.</p>
<p>Alright let’s head down the off-topic road. I don’t say it’s “silly” because it’s worthless; I think it’s worth debating. However, there’s the issue that this typically gets nowhere as people just tend to pull up dictionaries they believe to be authoritative (without recognizing the limitations of dictionaries and their inability to really provide more than a vague introduction to what certain words- especially hotly-contested ones- mean) or just go on claiming that something’s an “actual definitions.” I believe time and stress is generally saved by using alternative words (like “unbeliever” or “nullifidian”) for the sake of communication- because, again, there’s no such thing as an “actual definition,” just one that all parties involved can agree upon and understand.</p>
<p>@fallenchemist It’s actually not very clear at all, especially since there’s so much identity politics going around the terms atheist and agnostic, not to mention the constant redefinition of the words for the purpose of propaganda.</p>
<p>In fact, Thomas Henry “Darwin’s Bulldog” Huxley (if I read his papers right) initially coined the term “Agnostic” to avoid that issue (yes, that’s a capital A; Agnosticism as Huxley envisioned it was a much broader stance grounded around discovery and the acceptance of the limits of human knowledge). In both his papers and “An Agnostic’s Apology” (by Leslie “Better Known as That Guy Who’s Virginia Woolf’s Dad” Stephens), there’s a constant rejection of what certain apologists at the time were doing- asking unbelievers of the time for proof, demanding how they’re so sure, and rejecting their views on the basis that they didn’t know everything and didn’t present a comprehensive worldview as an alternative to theirs.</p>
<p>Huxley was basically saying, “It’s okay to not know- and we don’t claim to know everything. We’re just searching for answers instead of making them up just to fill the void in our knowledge.” Part of it, I’d like to note, was in response to the argument you’re throwing around- the false equivalence that “they have faith too.” (Which, I must note, is also silly because- assuming your definition of faith- there are many people who’re convinced of the existence of God based on arguments they believe to be sound or evidence that they may or may not be able to provide to others; and of course because not everyone has the same degree of “faith” in the sense that they might find event X more probable than event Y and then choose to be “100% certain” about event X). </p>
<p>But right now there’s multiple definition systems; there’s no such thing as an “actual definition”- you might notice that the dictionaries themselves are pretty ambiguous as to whether atheism and agnosticism are mutually exclusive (defining “atheism” as either a negative “lack of belief” or a positive “belief in the lack of”). Rather, words are just tools used to communicate ideas- and their validity is determined by how well they perform that job. In some communities- which, in my reasonably extensive experience, appear to encompass the majority of Americans who seriously consider “atheism” to be a part of their identity- there’s a definition system that doesn’t treat the positions as mutually exclusive:</p>
<p>An “atheist” is someone who simply doesn’t that there is a deity. (An “ignostic” is someone who chimes in right here demanding to know what “deity” means).</p>
<p>An “agnostic” is someone who doesn’t claim certainty in their beliefs.</p>
<p>Therefore four positions arise that work pretty well to differentiate people meaningfull- there are “agnostic atheists” or “negative atheists,” “gnostic atheists” or “positive atheists,” “agnostic theists” (who find the existence of a deity to be probable and behave according to that assumption), and “gnostic theists” (who are certain that there is a deity). There’s an obvious argument from utility in favor of this system- in the alternative system, there’s a sliding scale of positions from atheist to theist with agnosticism taking up all but those two positions- the label becomes extremely broad and meaningless since it would include those who are 99% sure that there is no god as well as those 99% sure that there is a god- after all, believers can be uncertain too (unless you define belief as certainty, in which case your system just becomes super-confusing and kind of breaks down in terms of usefulness).</p>
<p>Further evidence that this definition is widely accepted comes from the prevalence of “burden of proof” arguments (like Russell’s Teapot) to justify “atheism” instead of just “agnosticism.” And there’s the etymological argument (“a” means without) but I personally think it’s sily because the word’s been redefined, even since the Golden Age of Freethought, and has meant things ranging from "bad person’ to “heretic” to “unbeliever” to “someone who breaks the laws of God” to “person who doesn’t believe there’s a God.” It’s tough to argue that any one of these is more “valid.”</p>
<p>Of course, that makes the “you have faith too” argument fall apart. Guess what definition apologists prefer? I’ve found it funny that William Lane Craig et al. like to force the burden of proof on counterapologists as soon as a debate begins.</p>
<p>Also, I think you’re misunderstanding “active” and “passive” here- an “active” stance isn’t one that you “think about”- it means a positive claim; for example, “apples are disgusting” is an active stance while “I don’t think apples are delicious” is a passive stance. Positive/negative are also useful here in place of active/passive. Additionally, you don’t necessarily have to think about religion to “decide” you don’t believe in a deity (in quotes because belief doesn’t appear to be a decision, at least not a conscious one- since I can’t just believe I’m typing this with my eyeballs)- after all, it takes active thought to believe in a deity in the first place- hence the silly “babies and cats are atheists” argument.</p>
<p>Anyhow, the issue with your statement is that you’re using “atheists have faith too” to specifically challenge the behavior of one person who you presumed identifies as atheist; however, clearly this assumes that you and they share the same definition of “atheism” or it doesn’t function as a challenge to their behavior because the logic of “<em>you</em> have faith too” falls apart.</p>
<p>Either way, as far as definitions go, it has to vary by community because different people promote different definitions based on their interests- a Southern apologist/pastor will probably define “atheist” your way to make his job easier (so he can just fall back on “what proof do you have?”/“your universe doesn’t make sense”/“you have faith too”- which is sadly useful because most counterapologists get paid to repeat arguments in formulations that have been thoroughly challenged and arguably destroyed decades ago; very few people seem to really go past the cosmological argument into the territory of well-formulated versions of Aquinas’ First Way, and most of them are actual scholars who do so in writing rather than in front of groups) and online and IRL atheist communities (at least since the definition system became widespread through usenet) usually tend toward the non-mutually-exclusive one for the sake of utility and meaningful identification (so that the “atheist” label encompasses more people with similar situations).</p>
<p>Just to go back to it all, though- yes it’s insanely immature to just dismiss others’ belief systems when it’s not even in discussion (at least when those systems don’t directly call for deterioration of others’ quality of life or deny their rights) but keep in mind that any stance inherently requires one to reject all mutually exclusive stances so it’s impossible for people to (at least internally) avoid finding other stances invalid (at least not without some cognitive dissonance). I’d suggest grounding expectations of maturity in behavior rather than belief, for that reason.</p>
<p>@dividerofzero - Well, we will obviously not agree on multiple points here, possibly the least of which is that this is off topic. I believe it is central to the topic. But oh well.</p>
<p>Just in combing through various quotes and analysis of Huxley, who I have read many years ago and more recently I have read Dawkins and others, here is an interesting quote I found.
So at least by that, you can’t disclaim something and be it at the same time, I wouldn’t think. Which does truly contradict the statement made by halcyonheather, if we are taking Huxley as the authority. Which I think is reasonable since he invented the word.</p>
<p>But where you and I certainly agree is that without everyone in the discussion having agreed upon the definitions to be used for these words, further discussion is useless. If nothing else, very deep and fascinating points have been brought up for people to digest and hopefully read about further. I know I will. Thanks for that.</p>
<p>@fallenchemist I’m new to CC so I’m not sure what’s considered OT here; just saying that because the OP’s asked to let this thread die and because it doesn’t have to do as much with the thread as a whole as it does with one poster’s somewhat rude characterization of Baylor’s atmosphere as “close-minded” instead of “not very friendly to people who don’t align with the SBC’s beliefs.”</p>
<p>Yes, notice the “(“strong”)” in there. Even that except’s ambiguous as to whether all “atheism” is inherently positive atheism. Huxley definitely didn’t identify with the gnostic atheists, just like Carl Sagan and Neil deGrasse Tyson (although NDT’s a little bit tougher to fit in here because his reasoning is different than the others).</p>
<p>I disagree with the idea of giving Huxley authority- words evolve based on usage (there are plenty of examples out there- autoantonyms come to mind) and the creator doesn’t get to decide how future societies will interpret a word. I mean, if you gave the creator authority, I would no longer be able to “compile” code (which is already annoying enough when things go wrong).</p>
<p>Yes; we could have further discussion by agreeing to use “unbeliever” or something, but even that’s sketchy since the initial comment references the word “atheist” and since the original commenter’s kind of destroyed the basis for this criticism. Have fun reading; I’m not that familiar with the debate anymore (I’ve avoided apologetics and counterapologetics for a while since I couldn’t find many people to discuss Ed Feser with) so I’ll brush up on Huxley. No problem- and thanks for raising your points as well.</p>
<p>Frankly I didn’t notice the OP asking the discussion to close. What she actually said was
I have a little issue with the idea that discussing the definition of a word that is central to the title of the thread can be off topic, but if the OP has lost interest then I agree that this discussion could be had at any of a hundred sites devoted to these deeper questions. So the thread is now closed.</p>