That’s your belief, I guess.
As terribly paraphrased from Lawrence Krauss :An atheist knows that it is impossible to prove that there is no god, however, to be an atheist does require the conviction that it can be proved that a god is not necessary to explain anything and everything about the universe.
I remember what you said:
(emphasis mine).
The thing is, the term “atheism” defines what you don’t believe, not what you do believe. The fact that a person doesn’t believe in a supreme being says absolutely nothing about what he does believe in. A materialist and a nihilist alike can be atheists.
I’m wondering whether a “true” theist would have to believe in all gods. Is someone who believes in the Christian god, Zeus, Mahabrahma and Mulungu more of a theist than someone who is merely Christian? Is a Jew closer to being an atheist because he believes in only one god and rejects all others? If it’s realistic to reject all other gods, why isn’t it realistic to reject all gods?
I don’t believe in a god, in exactly the same sense in which I don’t believe in the Tooth Fairy. And I have the same opinion of other people’s belief in god as in other people’s belief in the Tooth Fairy. Except that the latter outgrow that belief by the age of 5 or 6.
A general note as I made in the other thread that spawned this one.
Some of the great questions of our time will continue to struggle to find answers regardless of how many times they are asked. Let’s not question the motives of an OP as the reason for the thread is stated. If you wish to participate in the topic of the thread, feel free.
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perhaps, but the first and most prevalent definition I find online is
And that’s all you need. That’s certainly how I’d describe myself. I just do not have any belief. I am a-theist. I don’t make any claims about whether gods definitely exist, I do think that there is no evidence for them.
Now that alone does not help you know anything about my worldview just as knowing that someone is “theist” tells you bugger-all about them.
So do me the favour of sticking to my own preferred definition, it is merely a lack of belief and if you wan’t to know more about how I or any other “atheist” see the world then please feel free to ask.
Surely the answer to “what is a true atheist” is simple - holding the view that there is no God or no gods?
I think I would omit the “no God” part. Iit seems to imply that there are two catagories-The Judeo-Christian “God”, and all the other ones. I put them all on equal footing.
You should get out more. Hippy drippy “spiritual” woo-agers throw pretty fun parties. 
There is no such thing really as an agnostic. That’s a term recently religious people use to avoid offending their parents too much. After a lifetime of hearing the word “atheist” as one of the worst insults imaginable, sometimes people sticking their toe out into the secular world don’t want to go all the way and claim to be atheists, so they settle for the “halfway to atheism” term, “agnostic”.
But nobody is agnostic about the Flying Spaghetti Monster, or the Washington Nationals’ World Series Championship, or the fact that Obama was born in Kenya. You either believe in something or you don’t. There’s no middle ground. Sure, you might come upon evidence later that makes you change your mind. But until then, you don’t believe. Trying to distinguish between two different kinds of disbelief is a fool’s game. And nobody is ever certain about anything.
No, no, fuck no.
This isn’t that hard. An atheist doesn’t believe in any god. Period. Some atheists go further and positively assert that there are no gods, but that isn’t a requirement.
I don’t understand what’s so hard about that, but it seems to defeat many, many people, including the OP, and anyone else who says “It’s a form of Faith or Belief.” That is true only for the minority of atheists who positively assert that there is no god. Most atheists I know or have read, including very famous ones like Dawkins, do not make such an assertion. They just say that there is no convincing evidence.
This.
“So tell me, what defines a True Atheist?”
A few random related thoughts:
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No one is in charge of Atheism, so there’s no authority to make such a determination.
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A “True Atheist” (assuming the capitalization of the word True isn’t purposeful) is someone who is actually an atheist. A non-true atheist, would be someone who claims to be so, but proves they are not.
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Anything about a person can be connected to almost anything else, when it comes to beliefs and behaviors, anyway. A person can be both an atheist AND a jerk, or an atheist AND a caring, supportive, and non-judgmental person, etc.
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A person can think they believe in (a) god, but be mistaken.
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Agnostic actually means “not a Gnostic.” And a Gnostic was a particular KIND of theist. That was a long time ago though, and nowadays, Agnostic has become mostly a way of saying something like “I haven’t taken a side.” I prefer the term “undecided” myself.
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I think it’s worth differentiating between Atheists and Antitheists, since, in addition to there commonly being a difference in how well they get along with others, there is a fundamental difference in their definition of atheism.
No, not really. From Wikipedia:
I think the issue is that these people believe everyone has a religion, or at least a religious bone, and are unable to visualize the absence thereof. So our “religion” is a belief system based on no-god and must have equivalent components to godism.
Which is nonsense, making discussions based on it… nonsense.
That is an ill-informed opinion, so you’re in the right thread.
But in more technical discussions, there are clear distinctions between agnostics, hard atheists, and soft atheists.
A soft atheist is essentially the same as the popular (and wrong) definition of agnostic: he doesn’t believe in a god, but he doesn’t say that none exist.
A hard atheist is what the OP seems to think all atheists are: he positively asserts that there are no gods.
An agnostic believes that the existence or nonexistence of gods is beyond human knowledge, i.e. that there is no conceivable evidence that would either prove or disprove their existence. Agnosticism is therefore a subset of soft atheism, and is incompatible with hard atheism.
Of course, for these definitions to make sense, you have to define “god.” A common complaint is that many people, including published philosphers, define “god” so loosely that there is nothing to confirm or contradict.
But if you restrict the definition to, say, the god of the Christians, you can see how the agnostic point of view makes perfect sense: suppose that during the next Superbowl, a hole opened up in the stadium roof, and a 50-foot tall man in a white robe came down out of the clouds and landed on the 50-yard line. He then waved his hands, and all instruments of violence — guns, bombs, grenades, etc. — immediately disappeared, all over the world. He waved his hands again, and everyone all over the world who was sick or injured was immediately cured, notably including amputees. He waved his arms again, and a fiery pit opened, and evil-doers were yanked into the air from all over the world, and flew at great speed straight into the pit. Then he spoke, and everybody watching, in person and on TV, heard in his own language, “I am God.”
You might be persuaded that he was Yahweh, or Jesus, or Allah. But how could you know he wasn’t just an alien with very advanced technology? No matter how many miracles he performed, they wouldn’t tell you anything about whether he created the universe, or what his ultimate plans were for you.
Indeed. Dawkins proposes a 1 to 7 scale of theistic probability (where 7 is total conviction in the absence of gods) and places himself at 6 or 6.9 (later interview) because evidence can always change a thinking person’s mind, but I would certainly expect most people to agree he’s a “true atheist”.
Thank you. For me, it depends on the god. I would rate myself a 6.99 with regard to the god of the Bible, but more like a 5 for the Greek gods, because there is much more evidence that there are a bunch of petty, capricious gods with very limited powers, who mostly ignore humans, but sometimes favor or torment a specific person, than that there is an omnipotent, omniscient being who loves everybody and takes a personal interest in their well-being.
Actually I asked what was “True Atheism”, I never gave my own definitions, but yes, it would appear* True* Atheists are more or less Hard Atheists.
Obviously the line between some forms of theism and Agnostics is blurred, as is the line between Agnostics and Deism- and indeed some Deists consider themselves a type of Christian.
There are few hard lines.
But those that seem to spend all their time mocking faith would go more into hard atheist.
I thought you were asking us instead of telling us.
Please give your complete definition of what you call a “True Atheist” so we know what you are talking about.
Utter crap. There is no such thing as a “hard atheist”, it is a bullshit term. There are atheists who are pissed off at religious institutions fucking with them, now or earlier. They are not any “harder” into atheism than that live-&-let-live guy over there who just does not give a shit. They are mere people, who happen to be atheists, who have a hair up their ass about some church or another. Most of them would also be axenuists, but that is another story.