Poll for atheists on the meaning of the word

[dmallind]

Poll question: Poll for atheists on the meaning of the word

I know people choose different labels for themselves, and I know there are different types of atheists (strong or weak) but I have a specific question that came from R/T

Of course I know that I cannot expect only atheists to answer, but please id yourself if other. Thanks!

Here the question relates to the ACTUAL meaning of the words nonbelievers and atheists, rather than your preferred label or those of others. The qualifier "in gods" is assumed when referring to nonbelievers.

[realisticphish]

1. For me, theism is just the belief in one or more gods

therefore, an atheist is someone who does not believe in one or more gods. Which would seem to include all non-believers :shrug:

Everything else that people debate about is either semantics, "framing," or small degrees of attitude. Not to say they aren't important, but atheism at its core is a very simple concept

[dmallind]

2. I doubt I am important enough to sway the poll so I will say I agree

The basis for the question BTW was a poll that made "atheists" and "nonbelievers" separate classes and then was used to tell us there are only 0.7% atheists in the US.

[PassingFair]

5. I didn't trust myself to even post in that thread.

What an ASSHAT.

[realisticphish]

6. the one major reason for that, I think

is the amount of poison heaped onto the term "atheist." If a Christian hears "agnostic" or "non-believer," they think, "someone I can convert!" When they hear "atheist," they think "HEATHEN CRIMINALS AND SERVANTS OF THE DEVIL WHO HATE CHILDREN AND AMERICA."

it's much more socially acceptable to say you're something other than atheist

[rrneck]

3. "atheists" includes all "nonbelievers"

I don't consider myself an atheist, although almost any theist and my posting history my seem to indicate such.

[lazarus]

4. I would be very interested

to see the results of this poll in R/T.

[laconicsax]

7. It includes all nonbelievers whether they like it or not.

Especially if they like to hide behind agnostic because they think it's 'nicer.'

If you don't believe you're an atheist. If you do, you're not. It's one of those few cut-and-dried things out there.

[enlightenment]

13. 'Hide behind' is a bit strong, isn't it?

I really do perceive a difference between 'I do not believe' and 'I do not know' - and for me that is the difference between atheist - 'without god' and agnostic 'without knowing'.

I'm an atheist when it comes to gods - don't have them, don't want them, can't imagine they exist and frankly don't care.
I'm pretty agnostic for the rest of it, though - ETs, Tinkerbell, dragons, whatever. I neither believe nor disbelieve. I simply don't know. Rationally, of course I lean toward disbelief . . . but I suppose there is still enough wistfulness in my character that I retain a tiny bit of 'but what if?' when it comes to things like that.

All written with a grain of salt, but the basic premise is something I do accept. That there is a difference between not believing and not knowing. The first requires my taking a position (something that always reminds me of a college professor who was incensed because I refused to pick a side in my essay on the Investiture Controversy, instead writing that taking a side was historically irrelevant and would be the equivalent of a coffeehouse debate) and the second requires that I be comfortable perched on the fence.

The god thing? I have no problem with taking a position there. Fairies and dragons and ETs? They seem a lot more interesting - so I'll sit on the fence. Just in case.

I don't consider it 'hiding' - there actually is a place between believing and not believing, imo. I know this is debated to death by people who consider themselves much better informed than I. I've read the whole weak/strong argument - it seems very strained to me. As if it was created by people who are so uncomfortable with fence-sitting that they just can't fathom anyone else being able to do it without their heads exploding. Kind of amusing, actually, to have other people tell me that I don't know what I'm thinking. It's okay though - if it makes people feel better to only have two boxes to check, it's no skin off my nose!
;)

[dmallind]

15. The difference however is the point

Atheism refers to belief as you say. Agnosticism refers to knowledge and more precisely how we can know.

The hiding behind bit (I'm not the OP of that comment so take this for what it's worth) is when people use agnosticism as the answer to whether they believe or not. It's an answer to a different question that has been grafted onto the continuum of belief options by long but incorrect usage.

You (generic usage of you here) can either believe or not believe. Theism or atheism. Whether you think we can ever know, or how, is irrelevant to whether you personally believe or not.

In reality people can be agnostic theists or agnostic atheists (or gnostic theists and even but far rarer gnostic atheists).

I am 100% agnostic - I do not see for one instant how we can know whether gods exist or not in the sense of a deductive and valid proof, unless a god chooses to reveal themselves objectively and verifiably. We can NEVER have valid proof that gods do not exist, because to imagine that would posit universal knowledge.

I am also 100% atheistic. I have no belief that any god exists. I lack belief in every single god idea that has ever been expressed to me.

So when asked "do you believe in God/Allah/whatever?" my only correct answer is "No - I am an atheist". If I use the term agnostic it would only be to soften the anticipated offense or shock of the correct response - which would be hiding behind it.

The only way it's NOT hiding behind it is if someone does not understand or has not even heard of all the above.

[laconicsax]

16. Atheism and agnosticism are answers to different questions.

"Do you believe in a god?" is a question with two valid answers, neither of which are "I don't know." There are people who will answer with "I don't know," but that isn't an answer any more than "orange" is an answer to the question "what time is it?"

Since this is a premise which you accept, it should follow that you wouldn't accept "I don't believe in a god" as an answer to "do you think it's possible to know whether a god exists?" nor "I don't think it's possible to know if a god exists" as an answer to "do you believe in a god?"

As far as I know, the former situation rarely (if ever) comes up while the latter is commonplace. That is what I mean by "hiding behind agnosticism." People hide behind agnosticism as a dodge to avoid stating their beliefs (or lack thereof).

Bill Maher is a great example of this. He makes it clear that he doesn't believe that the Abrahamic god exists, but hides behind agnosticism when the question is asked.

People should be able to check whatever box they like in these surveys. During my work for the Census, I told people, truthfully, that they could check up to 13 boxes for the 'race' question, but like the question of "what is your race" in the Census, there are more boxes than valid answers when the question is "do you believe in a god."

[EvolveOrConvolve]

8. I think 100% of people are atheists

Unless someone believes in every possible combination/variable of deity, even those never articulated, then everyone is an atheist regarding at least 1 deity.

I obviously voted that all non-believers are atheists.

[iris27]

9. I consider the "ACTUAL meaning" of the word atheist to have a similar construction

to the "actual meaning" of the word aseptic. The first describes a person as being free of a belief in a god or gods. The second describes a object/surface as being free of pathogenic microorganisms.

[BlueJazz]

10. I've never thought of anybody who believes in any god as an Atheist.

Atheists believe in what they can see or prove in some way...which leaves out any so-called god.

[yellerpup]

11. Freedom from belief.

[Lisa0825]

12. My thoughts about atheist vs agnostic are kind of hard to explain....

To me, it's an active vs passive thing. In my view, atheist meant they were certain there was no god. They firmly believe in the lack of existence of a god. To me, agnostic meant more like they didn't have a belief in a god, but weren't really sure if one existed.

The way I have felt for a few years now was that I wasn't sure if I believed in anything, and that if there was a creator, it didn't meddle in our lives or care if we worshipped it. It was just the force that set things in motion, not some egomaniac that needed a fan club. I would call that agnostic.

But as I came to believe that there was really nothing "out there," I started calling myself atheist.

[dmallind]

14. Your opinion is noted and of course you are free to have it.

However if I may say I believe you have fallen into one of the problems - that by natture of their overwhelming numbers and their concomitant control of almost all media, wehave allowed believers to redefine atheism so that even many atheists or their allies believe as you sstae - that atheism is a firm belief in the lack of a god's existence.

That however is only strong atheism (also called explicit atheism) which is a small minority. Most atheists simply lack belief in the existence of a god.

The distinction may be subtle but it's important.

If I claim to be a multimillionaire do you believe me? They certainly exist, and are actually less rare than many think, but it's still a bit boastful to say so for most.

Do you believe it is absolutely impossible that I am one? That's strong atheism in analogue

Do you believe I am one on my word alone? That's theism in analogue.

Do you withhold belief until I offer evidence? That's weak or implicit atehism in analogue.

Agnosticism in analogue would be the claim that there is no way to know for sure whether I am or not.

Atheism is about belief and nothing else. Agnosticism is not a third way but a question of how and if we can ever know. I fully realize dictionaries will confuse these meanings but remember dictionaries list usages not technically accurate terms of art. And of course with almost all usages coming from believers, who have it in their best interests to confuse and minimize atheism, that's what dictionaries will list (although they also list the definitions as I have stated them - just along with other less technically accurate usages).

We know what agnostic means because, rarely for a common Ebnglish word, we have voluminous writings from the man who coined it on what he meant. The word did not exist before the 1860s, whereas of course we have atheism and its translations stretching back as far as Socrates/Plato. What were all those who simply did not believe without evidence prior to 1869? Atheists. They still are.

[vixengrl]

17. If you don't believe in a God--congrats, here's your sign.

I'm an atheist. I don't believe in a god. I think "god" is a weird concept that is pretty much conceived as an ancient catch-all for questions that way exceeded the bandwidth of the primitive attention-span.

(Unnecessary but colorful digression on my imagining of early religions and how we humans came up with this God-thing:


Young Person: Tribal shaman, do you know how we came to be on this land?

Tribal Elder: Um, well, the God put us here.

Young Person: But who is God?

Tribal Elder: Well, He's the guy who put us here? You know? It's his God-thing.

Young Person: But why did he put us here?

Tribal Elder: Because, erm....He made this place just for us to be in, because He likes us very much and thought we should be here.

Young Person: But why does he like us, I mean, are we different from other people? I don't know if our place is necessarily the best....

Tribal Elder: Nonsense! We live in the awesomest of all possible places because we rule, and our God likes us a lot because we have totally figured out the rituals that appease Him. The other people you know don't do all the rituals the right way like we do.

Young Person: But they don't really seem to have it worse than us. They do all the same stuff--they hunt, they fish, they make fires in a pit, and they get sick and die, and we get sick and die--but they don't even worship the same God we do.

Tribal Elder: Well...yeah but, they probably get....damned! That's it. Since they don't have have our God, they probably--no, definitely, don't go to any kind of reward when they die, like we....do? See what I'm saying?

Young Person: After we die--like, something better happens to us than smelling really bad and falling apart and having bugs crawl in all our inside-y-bits?

Tribal Elder: Exactly. All the food you can eat, beautiful girls, and there are houses and roads made of shiny stuff that is really pretty, and nothing ever smells really bad, and wild animals don't ever eat you.

Young person: That totes rules. Yay, God! But wait--are you sure that isn't true for those other folks? I mean, they sometimes hunt in our part of the woods, and they had totally made off with a couple of our women. So, is God okay with that? If we have a neat life after we die--what happens to them?

Tribal Elder: No, um, well, let's see...he roasts them until they pop like chestnuts, and then he makes them whole, and roasts them until they pop again. He's quite p-o'd at them, I'll tell you!

Young person: Wicked awesome.)

So, if the above is not anything you think really plausible and sounds more like what people pulled out of their rears to explain stuff when they couldn't answer deep questions because they were busy mastering the essentials like how to make fire, melt copper and other metals, flake stone into useful shapes, hunt & skin animals, and dodge various natural disasters whilst having no idea whatsoever about medicine, and mostly hit'n'missing it about agriculture, you could very well be an atheist.

[Deep13]

18. The word literally means lack of belief...

...and does not indicate any alternative point of view. In practice, however, the term usually refers to someone who affirmatively accepts that there are no gods.

[PassingFair]

19. Kick.

Because this is the way atheists really define
ourselves.

Because dictionary definitions were apparently
all written from religious perspectives.

Because it was about to fall into the 2nd page.

:)

[laconicsax]

20. Because of your kick here, I accidentally tried to vote a second time.

[realisticphish]

21. haha, me too nt

[onager]

22. Fooled again here too!

But thanks for kicking anyway, and resurrecting (no pun intended) the thread.

I also plead General R/T Related Fatigue/Addlement. Apparently the good ship Human Potential has violently run aground in R/T, and the dazed survivors are unable to find their way to the groups for Seekers On Perfectly Banal Paths etc. So all sorts of wooish flotsam and jetsam is washing up on the beach over there, not really related to Religion/Theology.

I'll be going now, I desperately need to find someone's Inner Child and give it a good kick...

[PassingFair]

23. Sorry....

it just makes me furious when the "atheists are just as bad as fundies"
shit starts flinging.

I used to identify as "agnostic" rather than "atheist" until I realized that there is
really no practical difference between the two. You either "believe"
in a god or you don't. You worship a god or you don't.

"I don't know" is "I don't have that belief".

And that is "a-theism".

However, I still urge my children to use words like "secular"
and "agnostic" and "personal religion" when asked, because
I've seen them ostracized for identifying as "atheist".

[realisticphish]

24. this

on my Facebook, I'm "agnostic." I know I'm atheist, you know I'm atheist, but it just sounds "nicer." It's sad that this is necessary.