# So tell me, what defines a True Atheist? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [March 2, 2017, 6:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222 "2017-03-02T18:07:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 15
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/281 "2017-03-09T18:30:01Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I’m wiling to accept that my antipathy toward the NE Pats counts as a religion. I have seen some hard core sports fans, with shrines and the who nine yards, so yes. I will accept it is the super fan, the hard proselytizing atheist, etc who qualify. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/282 "2017-03-09T18:30:05Z")
I’m sure that if you stretch the meanings of both “gods” and “religion” far enough you can say “There are no atheists”…but then the statement will mean nothing. ---
**Author:** ![Hiker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/3be4f8/32.png) [@Hiker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hiker)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/283 "2017-03-09T18:35:37Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I’m sure that if you stretch the meanings of both “gods” and “religion” far enough you can say “There are no atheists”…but then the statement will mean nothing. Agreed. In my mind for a cause or philosophy to be called “religion” it needs to involve an element of faith, i.e. the willingness to believe in something without requiring tangible evidence. That element alone may not be enough to call it a religion, but it needs to be there. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/284 "2017-03-09T18:40:45Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I have seen some hard core sports fans, with shrines and the who nine yards, so yes. > > I will accept it is the super fan, the hard proselytizing atheist, etc who qualify. I’ll never understand what the goal is trying to label atheism a religion. It is to undermine the idea that atheism is “logical” because some believe religion is “illogical”? It is always the religious who keep trying to tell atheists what we are. It’s as rude as those who try to convince Catholics they are polytheists because of the Holy Trinity. I believe in lots of things, including that the anti-vax movement and Lamarckian genetics are wrong. I espouse these beliefs to people who will listen to convicne them to see why these ideas are wrong. That I believe these ideas to be true does not make them a religion, and I’m not proselytizing by trying to encourage people to share my POV. You are loosely applying words where they don’t belong to force a fit to a preconceived idea, which is that atheism is a religion. > [@Hiker](#): > > Agreed. > In my mind for a cause or philosophy to be called “religion” it needs to involve an element of faith, i.e. the willingness to believe in something without requiring tangible evidence. That element alone may not be enough to call it a religion, but it needs to be there. And I’d go one step further, faith can require belief even in the face of contradictory evidence. Beliefs do not. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/285 "2017-03-09T18:47:22Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I have said this multiple times. I have given it thought There’s no need to make this complicated: if you’ve given it thought, you’re different from a turnip, and that’s all I’m saying. > [@](#): > > I’m perplexed by your doubt that my baseline was non-belief. I DO NOT DOUBT THIS. I’m simply saying that the thinking you did about it is was distinguishes you from a playing card, and why I include thinking about and rejecting the idea of god (NOT CONSTANTLY, just once is enough) as part of the definition, so that you’re an atheist and a turnip is not. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/286 "2017-03-09T18:50:49Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > There’s no need to make this complicated: if you’ve given it thought, you’re different from a turnip, and that’s all I’m saying. > > I DO NOT DOUBT THIS. I’m simply saying that the thinking you did about it is was distinguishes you from a playing card, and why I include thinking about and rejecting the idea of god (NOT CONSTANTLY, just once is enough) as part of the definition, so that you’re an atheist and a turnip is not. And I say that I never rejected it. I just never accepted it. To me that is an important distinction. Many people accept g-d without ever questioning their position, unless they have a crisis of faith. Does accepting g-d without consideration make them playing cards or turnips? Is it only atheists who have the burden of considered thought before they have a belief about g-d? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/287 "2017-03-09T18:57:42Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > And I say that I never rejected it. I just never accepted it. To me that is an important distinction. I literally see no difference at all–I think you may be using the word “rejected” in a different manner from me. > [@](#): > > Many people accept g-d without ever questioning their position, unless they have a crisis of faith. Does accepting g-d without consideration make them playing cards or turnips? Is it only atheists who have the burden of considered thought before they have a belief about g-d? That’s impossible. Every infant has no conception of gods. They learn about them and change their understanding of the world to accommodate this new information. What happens when you gain this information creates your schema about the concept of God, especially how you categorize God on the “exists?” spectrum. That categorization is what matters when figuring out whether someone is an atheist or not. It doesn’t require some minimum hours of thought, or ongoing recertification, or a minimum age limit, or a certain weekly purchase. All it requires is 1. Having some schema about “gods”; and 2. Categorizing the schema either in the larger “things that exist” or “things that don’t exist” schema. Put it in the second category, and boom! you’ve rejected the idea of God after some consideration. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/288 "2017-03-09T18:58:28Z")
> [@PlaceboTarget](#): > > […] across the world, an atheist is regarded the same as a non-believer or a non-religious person. Thus, I strongly believe a ‘true’ atheist is a person who rejects any religious belief. And to prove I’m not alone in this, I’m going to quote [encyclopedia britannica](https://www.britannica.com/topic/atheism): “Atheism, however, casts a wider net and rejects all belief in “spiritual beings,” and to the extent that belief in spiritual beings is definitive of what it means for a system to be religious, atheism rejects religion. So atheism is not only a rejection of the central conceptions of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam; it is, as well, a rejection of the religious beliefs of such African religions as that of the Dinka and the Nuer, of the anthropomorphic gods of classical Greece and Rome, and of the transcendental conceptions of Hinduism and Buddhism. Generally atheism is a denial of God or of the gods, and if religion is defined in terms of belief in spiritual beings, then atheism is the rejection of all religious belief.” ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 6:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/289 "2017-03-09T18:59:43Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > Should I have given it deep thought before I dismissed it? > [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > And I say that I never rejected it. What difference are you drawing between “dismissed” and “rejected”? I’m using the words as functionally equivalent here. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/290 "2017-03-09T19:00:21Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I have seen some hard core sports fans, with shrines and the who nine yards, so yes. > > I will accept it is the super fan, the hard proselytizing atheist, etc who qualify. I would like some clarification, please. Are you asking atheists what they personally mean when they say they are atheists, or are you seeking out definitive meanings for the terms “atheist” and/or “True atheist”, or are you wanting us to accept definitions for these terms that you already agree with? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/291 "2017-03-09T19:09:11Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I don’t “have religion”. I have a culture and community I choose to engage with and I have cultural traditions I enjoy participating in and passing along. I derive deep personal meaning and benefit from my culture and my traditions that do not require them being divine in origin. When doing pickle-backs (a shot thing) I often toast with “l’chaim”. Yet, I don’t have religion. And when I stub my toe, I’ll scream, “Jesus fucking Christ!”. Yet, I don’t have religion. Go figure. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/292 "2017-03-09T19:13:53Z")
> [@IvoryTowerDenizen](#): > > I believe in lots of things, including that the anti-vax movement and Lamarckian genetics are wrong. I espouse these beliefs to people who will listen to convicne them to see why these ideas are wrong. That I believe these ideas to be true does not make them a religion, and I’m not proselytizing by trying to encourage people to share my POV. > > You are loosely applying words where they don’t belong to force a fit to a preconceived idea, which is that atheism is a religion. Actually Larmarkism has been unfairly condemned. > **[Lamarckism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lamarckism)** > > Lamarckism, also known as Lamarckian inheritance or neo-Lamarckism, is the notion that an organism can pass on to its offspring physical characteristics that the parent organism acquired through use or disuse during its lifetime. It is also called the inheritance of acquired characteristics or more recently soft inheritance. The idea is named after the French zoologist Jean-Baptiste Lamarck (1744–1829), who incorporated the classical era theory of soft inheritance into his theory of evolution _The classic 'cut the tails off the mice" is bogus: “Science historian Michael Ghiselin also considers the Weismann tail-chopping experiment to have no bearing on the Lamarckian hypothesis: The acquired characteristics that figured in Lamarck’s thinking were changes that resulted from an individual’s own drives and actions, not from the actions of external agents. Lamarck was not concerned with wounds, injuries or mutilations, and nothing that Lamarck had set forth was tested or “disproven” by the Weismann tail-chopping experiment.[19]”_ And altho Larmarkism as the primary driving force is clearly incorrect, Epigenetic Lamarckism is a legit hypothesis with many scientific backers. I am not, I am only used Czarcasms\* very own cite.\* ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/293 "2017-03-09T19:14:55Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > I would like some clarification, please. > Are you asking atheists what they personally mean when they say they are atheists, or are you seeking out definitive meanings for the terms “atheist” and/or “True atheist”, or are you wanting us to accept definitions for these terms that you already agree with? I accepted your cite. ---
**Author:** ![IvoryTowerDenizen](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ivorytowerdenizen/32/17937_2.png) [@IvoryTowerDenizen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/IvoryTowerDenizen)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/294 "2017-03-09T19:16:01Z")
Yes and I lecture on epigenetics. In fact as I stand here this minute I’m proctoring an exam on epigenetics. But that’s not what I’ll talking about here in my reference to Lamarckian genetics. That is different from epigenetics. And bless me, but I’m not going to debate my area of expertise here on this thread. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/295 "2017-03-09T19:19:22Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I accepted your cite. 1. I didn’t give a “cite”, I gave my personal opinion. 2. This does not answer the question I just asked. ---
**Author:** ![DrDeth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/b487fb/32.png) [@DrDeth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrDeth)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/296 "2017-03-09T19:36:04Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > 1. I didn’t give a “cite”, I gave my personal opinion. > 2. This does not answer the question I just asked. Post 271:\*\*Czarcasm \*\*\* Merriam-Webster definition of “Religion”. I can see at least two of the definitions that would allow an atheist to be religious. \* ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/297 "2017-03-09T19:37:14Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > I accepted your cite. If by “cite” you are referring to the dictionary definition_s_ of the word “religion”, I have already pointed out that there is more than one meaning. I told you which one I am using, then you pointed out another that you think means atheists can be religious. When you say that you “accept my cite” are you saying that you accept the definition that I prefer, or are you saying that you accept _all_ the definitions…which would be rather silly, since it would mean that you think that atheism both is and is not a religion at the same time. ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/298 "2017-03-09T19:38:18Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Post 271:\*\*Czarcasm \*\*\* > Merriam-Webster definition of “Religion”. I can see at least two of the definitions that would allow an atheist to be religious. > \* And the second issue, about the reason for this thread? ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/299 "2017-03-09T19:54:14Z")
> [@Czarcasm](#): > > If by “cite” you are referring to the dictionary definition_s_ of the word “religion”, I have already pointed out that there is more than one meaning. I told you which one I am using, then you pointed out another that you think means atheists can be religious. When you say that you “accept my cite” are you saying that you accept the definition that I prefer, or are you saying that you accept _all_ the definitions…which would be rather silly, since it would mean that you think that atheism both is and is not a religion at the same time. If I can call atheism “Schrodinger’s Religion,” this thread will have served its purpose. ---
**Author:** ![SingleMalt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/singlemalt/32/3961_2.png) [@SingleMalt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SingleMalt)\ **Post date:** [March 9, 2017, 8:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222/300 "2017-03-09T20:21:51Z")
> [@DrDeth](#): > > Post 271:\*\*Czarcasm \*\*\* > Merriam-Webster definition of “Religion”. I can see at least two of the definitions that would allow an atheist to be religious. > \* This line of testimony appears to presume that dictionary definitions precede word usage, when the opposite is true. The dictionary has definitions that support a metaphorical use of the word “religion” because the word “religion” is often used this way - much as you are doing. You’ve got the cart before the horse, here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222.md?page=14) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-tell-me-what-defines-a-true-atheist/781222.md?page=16)