I’m not an atheist, but this concept just seems self-defeating. I get that society as a whole is still sort of getting used to the idea of atheism being more mainstream and that many religious folks have trouble thinking of atheists as being moral, upstanding people. I just don’t see how trying to tie various social issues to atheism does anything but muddy the waters. For better or for worse, religious people will often get involved in various social issues either because of ideals in their religious scripture or tradition. Atheism doesn’t have any scripture or doctrine, so it just seems to me like an attempt to more or less mimic how they perceive that religions operate.
Nothing new here. It wasn’t new even when Bertrand Russell wrote about it.
It strikes me as a move that feminism took, sort of.
You start with a core belief - “Men and women are equal”, “There is no God”. Then you add other qualifications that have very little to do with the core belief. “The fetus is not a separate human life”, “Vote for Obama”.
I should add that this is not unique to feminists or atheists. I have heard the idea that Christians (for instance) are more or less obligated to vote Democratic (or Republican - I have heard both), not because there is any necessary connection between theism and either party, but just because all the speaker’s friends voted that way. So naturally it seemed obvious.
The thing is, certain flavors of theism, like the Abrahamic religions, do have a necessary connection between their brand of theism, and certain forms of behavior. That’s not from the bare statement that “God exists”, but from the specific beliefs about His nature that go along with the religion.
But God didn’t exist, then you don’t have any specific beliefs about His nature. So you aren’t driven to anything in particular.
Regards,
Shodan
IMO you got this wrong right off the bat. It is not my “core belief” that there is no God. My core belief is that I believe in evidence-based truths, and I have’t seen any for God. If I am ever presented with irrefutable evidence of a God (I’m not really sure what that would be), I expect I would start to believe in God.
I didn’t say it was your core belief - “There is no God” is the core belief of atheism, by definition.
Regards,
Shodan
I believe Boyo Jim is making the point to distinguish it from an ab initio axiom - thus, he is a nonbeliever because he believes in truth being evidence-based and he has found no evidence that points to gods or a God.
No, it is the lack of belief in god(s).
“I believe there aren’t invisible teapots in orbit around the Sun” doesn’t make any sense. I also would have to prove my belief.
“I don’t believe there are invisible teapots in orbit around the Sun” makes sense and leaves it up to you to prove why you say it is so.
I have no ‘belief’ one way or the other until you mention invisible teapots that only you can see or interact with.
You don’t have to prove beliefs - you just have to justify them. If an inherent property of the invisible teapots was that every ten years they dive-bombed the earth and poured tea all over us, then believing they don’t exist is perfectly reasonable. Not that this is a good comparison with the average view of God - it is much more believable.
Atheism is now an institution, with dogma? I didn’t get the memo.
Don’t be so defensive. “Atheism” is a word, with a specific meaning. If you want to call that a dogma, knock yourself out.
Regards,
Shodan
Don’t be so defensive. “Atheism” is a word, with a specific meaning. If you want to call that a dogma, knock yourself out.
Regards,
Shodan
The term is used both ways: one who does not believe in God, or one who believes there is no God.
There’s a huge difference between the two, regarding first principles. But after acknowledging that, it’s a semantic issue.
Unfortunately, we’re stuck with one word, two definitions. However, Uzi’s definition is the more inclusive one, and is really the better one to use here.
Note that by the broader definition, agnostics are also atheists.
Sorry to add to the pile-on, but I too have an issue with your definition (and apparently everyone else’s, for that matter). It’s not “God”, it’s “god(s)”. An important difference.
Right, but I kept it simple for clarity, and I capitalize out of respect for the beliefs of others (as well as to follow convention).
In any case, these nits don’t undermine Shodan’s original point.
I don’t see any difference between “there are no gods” and “there is no God”.
Regards,
Shodan
I don’t see how it’s respecting the beliefs of others. I’ll certainly refer to the Christian God as, well, God. But when it comes to defining atheism, it’s inaccurate. Atheism is about *all *gods, God included, and it’s not clarifying when the terms are used incorrectly.
That’s not to say that I think that you (or Shodan) actually think that atheism is purely about God. It’s just my particular bugbear that lots of people seem to make this error and while the meaning is understood I think it’s a potentially damaging one, both for poster and reader.
Atheism, at its core, is purely about God, or gods, or however you want to phrase it. That’s what I objected to in the idea of the OP. All the stuff about being anti-racist or whatever is all well and good, but it has no necessary connection with atheism.
“I don’t believe in God, therefore I am against racism” is not a valid syllogism. The conclusion does not follow.
Regards,
Shodan
“God” implies the god of the Abrahamic religions, and on this board a form of the Christian one simply due to the demographics. Hence why it’s capitalised; it’s not referring to a class of being or a general being, but a particular one whose name (or a name) is God. It also disincludes multitudes; both because it refers only to a singular where the other phrasing refers to a plural, but also because leading from the first point the Abrahamic God stands alone.
So, for example, a Hindu might very well agree with your second phrasing (as there is no Christian God) yet disagree with your first (as there are mutiple gods who exist).
“There are no gods” and “There is a God” may both include the same word, but that does not mean that both those uses have the same meaning behind them. There’s important difference between the two. It’s not merely a matter of phrasing.
I’m not so sure. At least for me, I don’t believe in God, so I don’t think there will be an afterlife.
This means that there are no balancing forces after we’re dead, as some theists believe. The Christian idea that the poor will have riches in heaven, for instance.
If all we have is a short window of consciousness and then oblivion, I want to have as good a life as possible during that window. I also, because I’m a social mammal, want others to have as good a life as possible during that window.
Being a racist is counter to that. It is needlessly heaping suffering on others, for no good reason. That runs counter to the idea that this is all there is, and it is laudable to make the most of it. If there is no universal justice dispenser, basic empathy makes a reasonable argument for atheists being against racism and other types of oppression.
In fact, if you go to atheist forums, they tend to believe just that. Of course no group is truly homogeneous, but the ones I see online and in person atheist meetings are largely in agreement.
One “plus” is improved distribution of memos.