Let;s just tighten this up to say that a theist believes in a god (or gods) with the proviso that any defintion of “god” necessarily includes a personality (unless you can provide an example of a god without a personality/consciousness, whatever you want to call it.
Agnosticism is the position that it’s impossible to know whether gods exist. It doesn’t necessarily involve actively “questioning” anything.
No. If I’ve given that impression, then that’s my mistake. Deism is belief in a God who created. but no longer intervenes in, the universe. It does not deny that such a god has a personality/consciousness.
Close enough. An atheist lacks belief in gods. Your qualification of “a god with a personality” is redundant, though.
Not necessarily “question” it in an active sense, just would not allege that his belief is the same as knowledge or that such a thing was knowable for sure.
We can call it a subset of theism (just to make things easier) and the answer would essentially be the same as for a theistic agnostic. A theistic deist would believe in the existence of a creator god who no longer intervenes in the universe, but woul not allege that his belief was the same as knowledge, or that such a thing was knowable for sure.
An agnostic theistic does not have a belief in gods but also believes that the non-exisence of gods cannot be knowable for sure.
The word has evolved over time, and I think we can assume that it’s first use was to mean someone who did not believe in the Judeo-Christian God (also per that wikipedia article).
To my mind, if one defines “atheism” as simply a lack of belief in a transcendent deity with personality, it is a term meaningful only in relation to those religious traditions which have a transcendent deity with personality.
Otherwise, one has the absurd position of being able to say, “I’m an Atheist. But I believe in Taoism, Pantheism, Buddhism, Shamanism and Deism” - the latter either having an immanent deity, a supernatural state of existence, a belief in supernatural sppirit-worlds, or a transendant diety without personality.
This strikes me as very limited to a Judeo-Christian context. Much more useful, and generally accurate, is to hold “atheism” as a philosophical position of skepticism vs. any unfalsifiable supernatural or deity-claims.
Yes, but when Einstein says, “From the viewpoint of a Jesuit priest I am, of course, and have always been an atheist.”, clearly that leaves some wiggle room for interpretation. Why qualify his atheism? May be meant, “I’m not an athiest, but my beliefs are far enough outside what a Jesuit would define as theism that from his viewpoint, I’m an athiest.”
Kind of like a Mormon saying, “From the viewpoint of a born-again religious right person, I’m not a Christian.” It’s not that the Mormon does not believe he’s a Christian, but that he believes that the other person thinks he is not.
That said, I don’t think Einstein can simply be called ‘agnostic’, either. At least not in the pop sense of an agnostic not being willig to take any sides of the religion debate. Clearly, Einstein thought typical theist beliefs were ‘childish’, so he was totally willing to call out some religious beliefs as being wrong.
Here’s what I get from Einstein’s statements - He thought that the universe was awe-inspiring and beautiful, and had deep emotions regarding it and the insignificance of his place in it. However, he saw no reason to invoke a God to describe it or its creation or existence. He wasn’t an athiest in the sense that he was ready to confront people for their religious beliefs and carry the mantle of athiesm, because he felt that the whole issue was so far beyond our comprehension that it was silly to make hard declarative statements about anything. Thus, people who claimed that our universe must have been created by a supernatural being were being childish and silly.
He might have also described the claim of knowledge of God as arrogance. The universe was vast and we should be humble when we claim to understand it.
The term you’re looking for is “skeptic”. Atheists can believe in an afterlife, spirits, ghosts, fairies, leprachauns, unicorns, aliens, honest politicians - anything except gods. By definition. If you don’t like the definition, find another word.
Now, athests do tend not to believe in several of the aforementioned things, but that’s just a side effect of the sorts of thinking processes that tend to lead to atheism. It’s not part of atheism itself, regardless of any correlations. You don’t have to be black to be a professional basketball player, and you don’t have to be a general skeptic to be an atheist.
(PS: Small detail: by my understanding, deism is a belief in a god, by definition. Ergo, by my thinking atheists are not deists - if you manage to define yourself a critter such that it satisfies atheism, I think it stops satisfying deism, since it can’t be a deity. I think.)
Actually, going by oroginal definitions, the term “atheist” inwas in English a perjorative term (no-one called themselves an “atheist”), and later in the 18th century it meant very specifically “lack of belief in the Abrahamic God” and was used for self-description by some.
Point is, that use is somewhat outdated these days; it is too specific to Western culture. In its broader sense, nowadays it means lack of belief in any particular deity - in which category I’d add various Eastern religions which propose immanent deities, as well as supernatural beings with deity-like characteristics (such as Buddhas in some varieties of Buddhism):
Lack of belief in Pure Land Buddhism, for example, strikes me as “atheistic”, even though Buddhism lacks anything like an Abrahamic creator deity.
I personally think it is still more useful to extend its meaning still further to embrace a consistent lack of belief in any unfalsifiable supernatural phenomina, since as you note the same thought process is generally involved in not believing in ghosts as in not believing in the Holy Ghost. But I concede that this latter is not part of the generally accepted definition.
You can be an atheistic Buddhist. Some varieties of Buddhism recognize deities (and those varieties would be theistic), but those deities are non-authoritative and non-essential to the religion as a whole. The core goals and tenets of Buddhism are essentially nontheistic – not in a sense that deities are necessarily rejected or denied, but that they are irrelevant.
Buddhism doesn’t even have to encompass any supernatural beliefs at all.
You’re correct that the archaic definitions are outdated - so much so, in fact, that they’re irrelevent to the discussion. The only two meanings of the word that matter are its modern meaning, and the meaning it had in Einstein’s time (to make sure we interpret his statements about it correctly).
The question of whether Buddha counts as a god (or rather, whether any specific version and state of Buddha counts as a god) is relevent to the question of whether believing in Buddha disqualifies you from the atheist label - and it’s something I’m not qualified to answer, which my ignorance of Buddhism in general. However I don’t believe in any supernatural or abnormal incarnation of any Buddha, so I’m still good regardless.
I think that using words in ways that are inconsistent with their common meaning is not useful at all. If you don’t like the meaning of the word ‘atheism’, don’t use the word. Heck, I don’t even think this is a good “extension of meaning”, since it doesn’t add anything constructive - it just modifies the set of things disbelieved in from one moderately clear set to an even less clearly defined set, which unlike the original has no relation whatsoever to the root or historical meanings of the word. Ick.
The language will evolve quickly enough without deliberate misuse - just use other words that actually mean what you want to say. When you do use “atheism”, use it only to refer to disbelief in gods, all gods, and only gods. Please.
My point is that it can be awfully difficult to determine, in a non-Western context, what qualifies as a “god” for the purpose of disbelief and what doesn’t; as the Buddhist example demonstrates.
The issue with Buddhism is that, while it contains within it a purely non-theistic philosophy of personal liberation (no gods or supernatural elements are strictly necessary for the Four Noble Truths or following the Eightfold Path), some mainstream varieties of Buddhism early developed into religion in which buddha-figures are seen as presiding over heavens, and Arhats act much as saints do in Catholicism; and in which figures recognizable as priests tend to temples in which statues and relics are venerated, and incense burned.
According to some (see Diogenes above) Buddhism is still in essence “non-theistic”, and thus a Buddhist is an atheist. But this to my mind makes no sense. Person A goes forth to a temple, woships a giant seated idol of the Pure Land Buddha, burns incense, offers prayers in the hopes of gaining a happy afterlife - to call that person an “atheist” seems to me to stretch the meaning of the word to the breaking-point.
Now, I suppose some may argue that this isn’t the original concept of Buddhism; but it, or some variant of it, is the form of Buddhism that most actual Buddhists actually practice. Buddhists themselves traditionally have not been terribly concerned about the distinction between theism and atheism - early Buddhism accepted the existence of the Hindu gods no problem (just felt sorry for 'em as they were bound to the wheel of samsara). It wasn’t the sort of big wrench for Buddhists to accept Buddhas as essentially gods, as it would be for modern Westerners (who tend in consequence to be attracted to the more esoteric varieties of Buddhism such as Zen).
The point? That outside the easy dichotomies we are used to - philosophy/religion, or Abrahamic God/Atheism, the familiar categories of label aren’t terribly useful. The Einstein case is illustrative of this.
So the definition of “god” is a little fuzzy, and that fuzziness carries over to the defintion of atheist. This is a common condition of categorization words; even simple color words like “red” and 'blue" have it. I think most people don’t see this as a problem. For example, in the atheist case, either the person doesn’t believe in any thing that’s even close to being a god, or (as you mention) they don’t worry about the question at all.
And, how is the Einstein case illustrative of this? It takes tortured wordplay to even begin to classify him as a pantheist. He himself, reluctantly, classified himself as an atheist, -and his reluctance pretty clearly seems to be because he didn’t like the company that the classification put him in.
So he was in awe at the workings of the universe. Myself, I’m in awe of the awesome range and scope of gameplay available in the Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas computer game. But that doesn’t mean I worship the game, it certainly doesn’t make the game a god (and wouldn’t even if I did worship it), and it’s beyond doubt that my awe of the game doesn’t make me a theist. And from what I can see the same applies to Einstein and his awe of the workings of the universe.
