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[Flying Dice]

Mandated definitions help eliminate the cause of semantic arguments, so I think they're helpful.

That would probably reduce some of the semantics wankery, and (I don't think?) that anyone seriously disputes those

As we've seen many times before that first definition is very problematic as it doesn't line up with actual everyday usage (eg: Richard Dawkins is not an atheist under it, same applies to almost every prominent atheist you care to name).

As I said, they're not necessarily ideal. We do, however, need some sort of starting point from which to work towards mutually acceptable definitions of terms. It would certainly represent more progress than another dozen pages or so of people arguing without a common basis of understanding.

[Leafsnail]

OED's for atheism sounds good: "disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods."

[Micro102]

"It's been over a decade, now. Can we just flipping move on, please?" My mostly canned response to anything 9/11 related at this point. I tone it down a lil' for folks that actually lost people. A little. It's still been over a decade. Most sympathy dries up at that point, and becomes concern you're still grieving about it.

Was there some sort of controversy involved or something? Why are you bringing it up?

Sorry I thought it was more commonly known. Basically an atheist organization is trying (or still is, as I haven't seen any news on it) to pass a lawsuit on the museum about the incident because they want to put the cross in and since it is funded by the government, to either remove the cross, or allow other symbols of belief to be allowed in the museum, as it was not a christian event, and Christians weren't the only ones to die there. Otherwise it's against the separation of church and state.

[Osmosis Jones]

Maybe also clarify the difference between active and passive atheism?

Active atheism being the specific belief that there is no god, passive atheism being the absence of a belief in god.

Thus while a rock is a passive atheist (as it is unable to believe in anything at all), someone like Dawkins would be an active atheist. Note also that active atheism does not require you to believe that a god is impossible, merely that on balance it's unlikely enough to consider non-existence of gods the more sensible option.

Another definition that will probably help is Agnostic; someone who holds that the question of the existence of god is unsolved and ultimately unsolvable, at least in our current existence.

Finally, I'm not sure I'd agree with the religious definition; you don't have to *worship* a given supernatural power, for starters. Given wikipedia also lists at least one religion that is basically "aliens made us", even the supernatural requirement is a bit iffy. Of course, damned if I can come up with a good alternative...

[MaximumZero]

Penn Jillette would be a better example of the Hard Atheist in the Hard/Soft dichotomy. Dawkins has gone on record several times to say that he only follows the evidence for there being no gods, but Penn has said (repeatedly and loudly,) "I believe that there are no gods."

[Muz]

Doesn't have to be complicated.

Atheism = doesn't believe in gods
Theism = believes in > 0 gods

Hard or soft doesn't really matter; those are lines many people will cross several times a year.
Active or passive doesn't really matter either. Many atheists insist that 'passive atheism' is in people's nature, so by classifying people as 'active atheists', you're insulting a lot of them

[Hiiri]

Doesn't have to be complicated.

Atheism = doesn't believe in gods
Theism = believes in > 0 gods

Hard or soft doesn't really matter; those are lines many people will cross several times a year.
Active or passive doesn't really matter either. Many atheists insist that 'passive atheism' is in people's nature, so by classifying people as 'active atheists', you're insulting a lot of them

Thank you! It's redundant (and frustrating) to try to put people into smaller and smaller boxes. All atheists are in "don't believe in god(s)"-box, and that's all that's relevant. If it's relevant at all.

- So you don't believe in Santa? Which type of asantaclausist are you, soft or hard? Do you claim there is no Santa or do you withhold belief until evidence presents itself?
- Oh I'm agnostic soft asantaclausist.

[Frumple]

You can have pretty significant conceptual differences in those "smaller boxes," though, and depending on how they fall it can have a notable relevance to a particular discussion. It's kinda' like how there can be a pretty tremendous difference between a Christian theist and a Hindu theist, ferex, or a monotheist and someone like Spinoza. All theists? Sure. Same sort of belief system? Only very remotely.

That's kinda' why it can cause such circular tail chasing trying to nail down comfortable definitions for a lot of this stuff. Devil's in the details and all that rot, and painting with too wide a brush makes for a messy, too inaccurate picture.

[Osmosis Jones]

You can have pretty significant conceptual differences in those "smaller boxes," though, and depending on how they fall it can have a notable relevance to a particular discussion. It's kinda' like how there can be a pretty tremendous difference between a Christian theist and a Hindu theist, ferex, or a monotheist and someone like Spinoza. All theists? Sure. Same sort of belief system? Only very remotely.

That's kinda' why it can cause such circular tail chasing trying to nail down comfortable definitions for a lot of this stuff. Devil's in the details and all that rot, and painting with too wide a brush makes for a messy, too inaccurate picture.

Precisely. It's why, for example, a lot of agnostics hate getting called atheists. They are, but they're so used to atheism being associated with the strong atheist subset that they assume that's what is being implied. Hell, that one distinction is actually the most common problem I encounter when I'm talking about atheism in general.

Well, that and the conflation with misotheism 


Edit; How the hell do I keep spelling every form of -theist right except for atheist?!

[Muz]

I'm ok with categorizing people in smaller boxes, but only if the borders between those boxes are clear cut. An agnostic is not a 'weak atheist', they're people who stand on the fence, actually avoiding leaning one way or another.

There are a lot of people who identify weakly with religious lines. By some definitions, a Muslim who does not pray 5 times a day or doesn't fast during Ramadan is not a Muslim. Some like to call themselves 'secular', as they believe in the teachings and existence of a God, but don't practice them. Some simply like the associated morality (I know a few who converted simply because they hated alcohol/pork), but don't care much for the rituals.

Most of them go from being "secular" to having stronger faith or an atheist who claims to be culturally Muslim (e.g. he will fast during Ramadan, pray, but not believe in any God). I don't see how you could categorize people as hard or soft Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Satanists, etc.

[Micro102]

Well, you can be an agnostic atheist, or a gnostic one. Agnosticism is simply the belief that a god's existence cannot be proven. A gnostic atheist would not believe ina  god, but think that one day, god will be disproved.

[inteuniso]

That is all.

[Leafsnail]

Yeah you're pretty high.

[Owlbread]

I would like a religious person to tell me why they believe in their chosen god.

[Starver]

(Assuming this hasn't been covered already.)

A creator of the universe/deity/whatever could exist. He could also not exist. Why then would I automatically assume that he does exist, and not only that, he is the god of the bible or qu'ran or torah or guru granth sahib? Why not something else entirely?

The classic counter-argument is that the universe exits, that everything that exists had a cause, so there must be a cause and (in the opinion of one subscribing to this POV) that cause is a divine creator (who might be assumed, when the positor of this concept is asked, to be through His/Her/Its divinity not in themselves requiring a cause).  And thus why then would one automatically assume that he does not exist?

Occam's Razor held in the other hand, as it were.


Personally, I find the greatest rationalisation of the universal model to be through the universe as a whole (including its width in time) to be a static construct outside of time.  Cause and effect are merely the way that us carrot-shaped creatures[1] view the arrow of time at play.

Not that I can justify that, it just answers my aesthetic (rather than 'spiritual') needs more than a Creator does, and gives a nice (higher-dimensional) model of the universe.  But I've explained that one before in other threads, and you don't need it here.

[1] Look at us lengthways (in the time dimension) and we start off small and get bigger.  If you make a cross-section, you'll find a (very cross?) 3D human as the face of each now separated segment.