Every so often we start a discussion somewhere about who is and who isn’t an atheist. PZ Mackers has the poster shown below up on his blog:
I want to look at the term and associated meanings of “atheist” and cognate terms, because the way I taxonomise the world, only two of those guys are possibly atheists. Sagan and Hemingway, maybe. I don’t know much about them; but Jefferson, Franklin, Darwin were all deists; Lincoln a theist (though not an orthodox Christian), and also Clemens (unless that’s Tom Selleck), and Einstein a “Spinozan theist”.
Atheism has a number of conflicting definitions on the web, many from American contexts. There is a “definition” of atheist that I call the American definition: anyone who doesn’t accept orthodox Christianity, Judaism, or Islam is an atheist. Of course this makes Mormons and Hindus atheists, which is just silly.
The problem goes back to the Greeks as well. When Socrates was condemned, one of the charges was atheism, which in the Greek context meant “not accepting the gods as believed by Greeks”. Epicurus was also called an atheist for holding that the gods are real, but that they have no interest in human affairs. In the so-called Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity, and Islam – one is an atheist if one denies the god of that particular religion, and Epicurus and Epicureans were the atheists par excellence (even though they still continued to believe in their distant deities). To call somebody an Epicurean was to assert their atheism, and what is more, that they thought everything depended only on chance (which is a gross mischaracterisation of the Epicurean “swerve“, a chance event that got things going once). Critics of Darwin called his ideas “Epicureanism”.
As I have argued before, atheism wasn’t even possible as a general philosophical claim until the eighteenth century: that is, the claim that there are no gods of any kind anywhere. But widespread atheism began in the nineteenth century, so claiming Franklin or Jefferson as atheists makes as much sense as claiming Newton as a creationist – the terms simply didn’t mean then what they do today, if they meant anything at all.
Let’s look at the term itself. Much is often made of the prefix a-. Many people say something like this: “a-theism” means ‘without gods’ so anyone who lives their life as if there are no gods is an atheist (and this includes agnostics and deists”. But apart from the non sequitur about living one’s life in a particular way (I think there may be a Higgs boson. I don’t think that changes the way I live my life), as if an interventionist god is the defining trait of a deity (again, the American definition in play), there’s a misreading of the prefix. It is what is called the privative a or the alpha privative or worse, a privativum. We’re in technical territory here, so a word about privation.
In Aristotle’s works, he wrote the about privation as the denial of some positive thing (see the Categories here, section 10) and he rejected the idea that privation is a subject for investigation in the Metaphysics (Book IV). What this means in this case is basically this: if you have a class of things, find some positive aspect in that class (say, gods or god-believers) the remainder, or complement as it is called in set theory, is not itself a positive class. So if “belief” is the class, “theism” is a part of that class, “deism” is a part of that class, “Spinozan theism” is a part of that class, and so on. “Atheism” is the rest of that class, with no “positive” property to bind all members together. But Let us suppose there is a positive belief claim being made: that no gods exist anywhere. So now “atheism” is a part of the set “belief”. Agnosticism, being the lack of belief of any kind, is now the privative set.
But if a-theism is the privation of theisms rather than the positive denial of gods, then it, too, has no class, so to speak. So what you count as the positive claims in the set “belief”, as well as the scope of the set “belief” itself, determines what you are going to call “a-theism”. The American definition has it that “theism” only applies to a restricted and historically contingent (in that country no less) set of religions, so that things that do not fall into that set of “permissible religions” is atheism. The new atheists want to claim anyone who fails to fall into a slightly larger set of historical religions is an atheist. Agnostics like me want to claim that atheism is a positive claim, and that the complement of the set once all religions and positive metaphysical claims about gods are excised, and that includes deism, Spinozan theism, pantheism, panentheism, polytheism and animism, what is left is nothing. Agnosticism is not part of the set “belief”, but outside it. Some atheists think that atheism too is outside the set “belief”.
Let’s be clear about one thing – “belief” here doesn’t mean “faith” or “lack of reason”. Reasonable beliefs, like the existence of the real world, are beliefs nonetheless. All knowledge is belief. “Belief” here just means something one wants to claim is true, or warranted, or the best one can think, and so on.
So the outcome of all this? Well I think it is that atheism, properly understood, is a positive belief: that no gods exist. That means that although I think there is no reason to believe in gods, I am not an atheist because I don’t think there’s any reason not to (for suitable deities that make no empirical difference). If atheists want to use a privative conception, however, so as to include all those who do not make a positive declaration of the reality of some deities, this means that “atheism” is not a category as such, but is defined now and forever by what it does not believe, gods. In that case, atheism becomes whatever is not currently considered a mainstream belief, which as I understand it sort of undercuts what most atheists of my acquaintance want to do with their beliefs. They tend to think of it as a positive thing, of being reasonable.
So I think there’s a bit of a conundrum here for atheists. Either they have to make a positive claim and exclude agnostics and soi disant deists, or they have to accept they are defined by the religion du jour. I think they need to separate the positive claims from the mere lack of a belief in deities. Atheism is, in my view (and that of lexicographers and philosophy of religion) a positive belief. It asserts that gods do not exist. Anything else simply isn’t atheism. But that’s my taxonomy…
Not that my philosophy background is incredibly strong or anything, but isn’t the tried-and-failed attempt to put language in set-theory type dichotomies a little Pre-Wittgensteinian? Or was that not a generally accepted conclusion, that language is inherently a matter of “family relations” and such? Granted, it’s practical to draw lines somewhere, but hard lines don’t work that well in common-use language, as far as I was aware.
As far as personal inclinations, if there must be some clear definition, though, I think G Felis perhaps did best. But, of course, there’s always “Well, as what is God defined?” (And please don’t fall into Scholastic arguments from this, as they never stated any sort of nature to this thing that they attached the word “God” to, barring of course later Rationalist attempts which sprang from a few of the arguments.) With a definition resembling Western Theism, then atheism is generally easy to maintain. Have a definition which encompasses the idea, say, of the Tao, and you lose atheists. Then make the definition such that God is/equals Nature (Spinozist) and your pool of atheists becomes very small. At that point, though, if you apply pragmatism to that one, then there is no real boundary anyway, as naturalism and Spinozan Pantheism are indistinct except for a difference of terms.
Not that my philosophy background is incredibly strong or anything, but isn’t the tried-and-failed attempt to put language in set-theory type dichotomies a little Pre-Wittgensteinian? Or was that not a generally accepted conclusion, that language is inherently a matter of “family relations” and such? Granted, it’s practical to draw lines somewhere, but hard lines don’t work that well in common-use language, as far as I was aware.
As far as personal inclinations, if there must be some clear definition, though, I think G Felis perhaps did best. But, of course, there’s always “Well, as what is God defined?” (And please don’t fall into Scholastic arguments from this, as they never stated any sort of nature to this thing that they attached the word “God” to, barring of course later Rationalist attempts which sprang from a few of the arguments.) With a definition resembling Western Theism, then atheism is generally easy to maintain. Have a definition which encompasses the idea, say, of the Tao, and you lose atheists. Then make the definition such that God is/equals Nature (Spinozist) and your pool of atheists becomes very small. At that point, though, if you apply pragmatism to that one, then there is no real boundary anyway, as naturalism and Spinozan Pantheism are indistinct except for a difference of terms.
Not that my philosophy background is incredibly strong or anything, but isn’t the tried-and-failed attempt to put language in set-theory type dichotomies a little Pre-Wittgensteinian? Or was that not a generally accepted conclusion, that language is inherently a matter of “family relations” and such? Granted, it’s practical to draw lines somewhere, but hard lines don’t work that well in common-use language, as far as I was aware.
As far as personal inclinations, if there must be some clear definition, though, I think G Felis perhaps did best. But, of course, there’s always “Well, as what is God defined?” (And please don’t fall into Scholastic arguments from this, as they never stated any sort of nature to this thing that they attached the word “God” to, barring of course later Rationalist attempts which sprang from a few of the arguments.) With a definition resembling Western Theism, then atheism is generally easy to maintain. Have a definition which encompasses the idea, say, of the Tao, and you lose atheists. Then make the definition such that God is/equals Nature (Spinozist) and your pool of atheists becomes very small. At that point, though, if you apply pragmatism to that one, then there is no real boundary anyway, as naturalism and Spinozan Pantheism are indistinct except for a difference of terms.
Not that my philosophy background is incredibly strong or anything, but isn’t the tried-and-failed attempt to put language in set-theory type dichotomies a little Pre-Wittgensteinian? Or was that not a generally accepted conclusion, that language is inherently a matter of “family relations” and such? Granted, it’s practical to draw lines somewhere, but hard lines don’t work that well in common-use language, as far as I was aware.
As far as personal inclinations, if there must be some clear definition, though, I think G Felis perhaps did best. But, of course, there’s always “Well, as what is God defined?” (And please don’t fall into Scholastic arguments from this, as they never stated any sort of nature to this thing that they attached the word “God” to, barring of course later Rationalist attempts which sprang from a few of the arguments.) With a definition resembling Western Theism, then atheism is generally easy to maintain. Have a definition which encompasses the idea, say, of the Tao, and you lose atheists. Then make the definition such that God is/equals Nature (Spinozist) and your pool of atheists becomes very small. At that point, though, if you apply pragmatism to that one, then there is no real boundary anyway, as naturalism and Spinozan Pantheism are indistinct except for a difference of terms.
I’m just curious…
If aliens from a planet that has never invented religion were to to come to Earth, would you describe their de factor atheism as a “positive belief”?
Being British, I didn’t even know what atheism was until I was in my teens, and wasn’t sure how to fill in the “Religious Belief” section on the form.
To describe my atheism as a positive belief is like saying we all have a “Positive belief” against tooth fairies. Yes, in some arty-farty and typically-irrelevent “philosophical way” you might be able to argue that it’s true that all adults have positive belief systems regarding the tooth-fairy, but at that point your description of a “positive belief” becomes so vague and all-encompassing that it becomes meaningless.
I do agree though that there is a branch of atheism that is becoming all too defined by religion.
The agnostic knows that theists know what they believe. But the agnostic also knows they only believe what they think they know.
The agnostic knows that theists know what they believe. But the agnostic also knows they only believe what they think they know.
The agnostic knows that theists know what they believe. But the agnostic also knows they only believe what they think they know.
“The atheist says the theist is wrong; the agnostic is mute about the rightness or wrongness of the theists’ beliefs.”
Not quite, Marc. An agnostic says that that theists cannot know what they believe while many theists believe that they know what they believe.
“The atheist says the theist is wrong; the agnostic is mute about the rightness or wrongness of the theists’ beliefs.”
Not quite, Marc. An agnostic says that that theists cannot know what they believe while many theists believe that they know what they believe.
Sorry, the above description is more akin to panentheism, not pantheism, see:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panentheism
Perhaps atheists have a nonpersonal god, a superphysical onipresent power that affects universe evolution, biological evolution and human affairs, and this goddess is a non personal Fortuna
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fortuna
In this sense, atheists and panentheists are not so distant.
By the way, it is not obvious that there is no superhuman inteligences (limited gods). Collective inteligence, vastly superior than humans in calculating power is by now well accepted by sociologists: one example is the Free Market, a collective inteligence and information processing system (a non personal mind) with huge computational power. Perhaps any religious community, due to the strong interactions between its members, permits the emergence of collective inteligences inside the community (say, the Holy Spirity). Of course, all these are limited gods. So, perhaps I am a (computational) pagan…
John Wilkins writes:
You forgot number zero, which is sufficient in itself:
0) Never having encountered adequate evidence for the existence of god G, and thus lacking belief in G.
John Wilkins writes:
You forgot number zero, which is sufficient in itself:
0) Never having encountered adequate evidence for the existence of god G, and thus lacking belief in G.
John Wilkins writes:
You forgot number zero, which is sufficient in itself:
0) Never having encountered adequate evidence for the existence of god G, and thus lacking belief in G.
@96
Please tell me you’ve actually read some of these texts and somehow (miraculously) managed to get what was written in them 180 degrees wrong. Otherwise you haven’t read them and just are acting like an ass.
Talking to *history* majors about *philosophy* texts? Please. Next thing you’ll want us talking to theologians about biology.
So, reasons to be atheist about belief in a particular god G:
1. It involves illogical claims, such as G is both A and not A (but this is defeasible by the Ineffability move)
This was about what I believe. If someone says god x is both A and not A then I would believe that god x is logically impossible and thus non-existent. If a devotee of god x says that these words are used as a basic description of x but have a meaning that we can’t understand with our non x minds then that’s the devotees problem. If something is ineffable, why are they claiming knowledge? It’s also a nice case of moving the goal posts. They need to find a better description, not me. Anyway, it will only be god x’s theologians who maintain the Fness is ineffable. The average devotee will believe that god x is literally F and not F.
In the end, I probably won’t be convinced.
Let me change a bit the subject, from a point of view of a physicist. You have not discussed about what kind of God or gods you are talking.
It seems that a central issue is the role of chance in the Universe history and our personal lives. “Religious” people (even non personal God believers like some New Age and Buddhist) believe that some chance events (fine tuning in physical constants favorable to emergence of complex systems, and for the lay person, coincidences in personal life like cancer regression, finding a love partner or escaping from an accident) are manifestations of a god or (non personal) spiritual force.
It is interesting that the concept of Chance has a lot of common with the concept of a non personal, non benevolent but powerfull “god”, that is, an onipresent force that has strong influence on human live (most of our lives are fruit of chance events) and the Universe, be it emergence of life, darwinian evolution through chance mutations and selection, emergence of humans etc. Remember that most of non-monotheist religions do not describe their god as benevolent to humans, so the “evil problem” is not a problem for these religions. It is not even clear in the Bible if YWVH is benevolent to Israel.
So, I conjecture that, historically, the concept of God or (fortune) gods emerged from the question of how to think, react emotionally to, manipulate and (reverentially) recognize that Chance is a so powerfull force in human affairs, like earthquakes, tempests, droughts, vulcanos, famines, pests, wars etc. (by the way, all these events follow Pareto power laws instead of Gaussian laws. Perhaps if all physical and human events where Gaussian (normal) the concept of God could not emerge.
It is also interesting that (quantum) random events, if really nondeterministic, are outside physical causation, they are like small miracles occurring everywhere and everytime (some kind of imanence but also transcendence here?). It is also interesting that the laws of probability are mathematical superlaws, valid in any universe, in contrast to physical laws that depend on the specific universe of the Multiverse that you live. So, chance not only create universes but also is the same on all universes, so that it is Supernatural (that is, mathematical and in this sense superphysical).
These parallels are interesting, so I propose to change a bit the philosophical taxonomy:
Atheists: those that believe that Chance is indifferent and mainly detrimental to human lives.
Pantheists: those that believe that Chance has a strong positive role in the emergence of order in the universe life and human life, although the “dark side” (entropy increase) of Chance is also present.
Theists: those that believe in some kind of intentionality associated to chance, but not necessarily some kind of mind.
Personal Theists: those that believe that chance is a manifestation of some kind of universal Mind or Conscience.
Religious people: those that believe that this Mind has some characters described by specific religious tradictions, like love or compassion.
Of course, all are positive believers (about the positive features of chance).
And all are agnostic, because all recognize that true certaint is impossible. Remember, faith = confidence or hope, not absolute knowledgement.
So, the question is if empirical evidence refutes some of these positions.
It seems that I am a Pantheist, although I also doubt that humans have “essential” minds (it seems that mind is a emergent neuronal process, without essential substance). So, the question is: do your neurons believe that You exists or they are atheists? How could individual neurons gain empirical evidence that You exist?
This is why I can’t stand a lot of philosophy.
To call atheism a “positive belief” is as ridiculous as creating a label for not believing in the Easter Bunny – “abunnyism”, and stating that that, too, is a “positive belief”.
This is why I can’t stand a lot of philosophy.
To call atheism a “positive belief” is as ridiculous as creating a label for not believing in the Easter Bunny – “abunnyism”, and stating that that, too, is a “positive belief”.
Stoics at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “In accord with this ontology, the Stoics, like the Epicureans, make God material. But while the Epicureans think the gods are too busy being blessed and happy to be bothered with the governance of the universe (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 123-4), the Stoic God is immanent throughout the whole of creation and directs its development down to the smallest detail.”
The Cynics don’t appear to have a position stated, but I’d be very surprised if they lacked any deity at all. Have you evidence they did? Several Cynics appeal to god.
Plato does believe in a creator god and a supreme god – the gods that are fictions are those of popular Greek religion.
A good book on this is David Sedley’s Creationism and its critics in antiquity which I will review here later.
Perhaps you should spend more time with the original texts rather than parroting first year truisms at philosophers.
Stoics at Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “In accord with this ontology, the Stoics, like the Epicureans, make God material. But while the Epicureans think the gods are too busy being blessed and happy to be bothered with the governance of the universe (Epicurus, Letter to Menoeceus 123-4), the Stoic God is immanent throughout the whole of creation and directs its development down to the smallest detail.”
The Cynics don’t appear to have a position stated, but I’d be very surprised if they lacked any deity at all. Have you evidence they did? Several Cynics appeal to god.
Plato does believe in a creator god and a supreme god – the gods that are fictions are those of popular Greek religion.
A good book on this is David Sedley’s Creationism and its critics in antiquity which I will review here later.
Perhaps you should spend more time with the original texts rather than parroting first year truisms at philosophers.