Wiploc

So how do you define "atheist"?

crc

EssEff

I'm the kind that doesn't believe there's a god and doesn't feel a need to prove it. I think the burden of proof should be on God to prove himself.

(sorry for the late entry into the thread)

Steven Mading

The set of all people who are weak atheists, regardless of whether or not they are also strong atheists too. They aren't a dichotomy. One is a further defined subset of the other.

Steven Mading

Please restate your question in a way that does not dismiss the existence of me.
I am a strong atheist only with regards to a few well defined gods where I know quite a few things about their definition. To the myriad of other god descriptions I haven't encountered yet, but which surely are mentioned in cultures I haven't spent much time studying, I am only a weak atheist. "strong vs weak" atheism is not a property of a person. It's a property of a person's stance with regard to ONE of the many god definitions out there - one person can be different stances toward different gods. It's not a uniform property of a person because "god" is not a consistently defined term.

Your question doesn't take that into account. It acts like I must be uniform in response to everything people have ever hung the label "god" onto.

That's why strong atheism cannot contain "person who believes god does not exist" as part of the definition - because it's split up - "Believes gods A,B,C, and D do not exist, but does not make that claim about gods E, F, and G" is not representable in your definition.

In general, I'm a weak atheist. In regards to some specific gods I've heard of, I'm a strong atheist. And by your definition every strong atheist would have to be that way too, since you can't hold a belief about something you've never even heard of, and I doubt anyone exists who has heard of every single proposed god out there.

JurgenBM

Thanks for your comments on my statement about "experiencing" God.

I have a few notes about my own world view.

Absolute relativism is of course problematic (a paradox). I do think that there is an absolute reality, only it's endlessly small (it has a logical reason but right now I'm unable to dispense it). If I'd reason from that idea only it would make me a nihilist, but I don't; I don't find this frame of mind necessary nor practical. I rather being a consequentialist and a supporter of the scientific method. On the background there's always relativism though, which keeps me open-mined. And I'm open to my emotions as well. I don't need a scientific explanation for why I like such and such music, why I fell in love with this chick, why I can't get enough of picasso's works, etc etc :Cheeky: I don't think a person's experience can be fully rational.

So what makes you skeptical about relativism wordy?

Witt

Originally Posted by Witt
For me...
A weak atheist is one who does not believe 'God exists' is true.
A strong atheist is one who believes 'God exists' is false.

Agreed.

crc[/QUOTE]

I don't agree here.
Atheism is a deliberate understanding.

Babies and those that do not understand the statement that 'God exists' cannot be considered atheists. They are non-theists and they are non-atheists, indeed, they are also non-agnostics etc.

Witt

Originally Posted by Witt
A christian atheist is clearly a contradiction in terms!
There cannot be any such things in any theology.

To believe that the physical person Jesus Christ, is God, and to believe that there is no God, is clearly stupid thinking.

None of my remarks refer to you.

It is cleary silly to say that: atheists are those who self-describe.

Self-description requires an understanding of language, at least.

How do newborns self-describe??

That you are wrong or/and stupid depends on what you say.

It cannot be the case that: (God exists) is possible, and, (God exists) is not possible.

There is no condemnation going on here at all.
That you are called 'silly' does not require psychiatry at all.

Why are you offeded by ordinary discussion?

Give yourself a shake!

fast

I'll try not to do that. If I did do that (and I'm unclear on exactly what that might mean), I apologize for doing such a thing. It's not my intention to "dismiss the existence of [you]."

If you hate a specific dog yet love dogs in general, you're still a dog lover despite the fact there may be a specific dog (or multiple dogs) that you hate.

I believe that it is a misuse of the term "strong atheist" to say that you are a strong atheist for one God yet a weak atheist for another.

Let me give you another example. If I believe that one particular God exists yet believe that another particular God does not exist, then I am not a theist in regards to one God and an atheist in regards to another God. The terms are not used in such a manner.

What I would be is a theist, for a theist is one who believes that there is a God. The fact that I believe that another God does not exist is irrelevant. Remember, a strong atheist isn't just a person that believes that a God doesn't exist. A strong atheist is also one that lacks belief that there is a God.

Also, (and it goes without saying) that one cannot be both a theist and an atheist, for to be both one thing and not that thing is a contradiction.

Likewise, it is not the case that I can be both a weak atheist and a strong atheist at the same time, for it cannot be the case that I can lack belief that there is not a God and have a belief that there is not a God; therefore, even if you lack belief that there is a specific God yet believe that there is not another specific God, one group is still not a subset of the other.

If we call a dogs tail a leg, how many legs does a dog have? The answer is four (not five), for how many legs a dog has isn't changed just because we are able to reference the object by another name, so I'd be very cautious and highly leery before accepting (or even entertaining) the legitimacy of many of these proposed (and so-called) definitions.

In other words, if one proposes an idiosyncratic definition of God, then that proposed definition changes the definition of God (as used by Fluent users of the given language) not one bit.

joedad

Could you be more specific? What exactly did they say that made their argument irrational?

Steven Mading

But that's just what your argument does by trying to claim that one MUST use the same label for all possible gods - that one is either always a weak atheist or always a strong one, no matter what god you're talking about.

If you believe that, then the same argument would work the other way around, for saying that such a person should also not be called a weak atheist either, given that you have insisted that the terms weak and strong must be a exclusive dichotomy (one is not a subset of the other). So - what the hell do you call someone in that position? It's an extremely common one.

Again, your error is in hanging the label on the entire person rather than on that person's viewpoint toward one god. There is no need for uniformity just because the language uses the same word for different things.
Even the definition that fluent speakers of english use for "God" is extremely vague and inlcudes many different variations. It's a large category of things, rather than a single coherent thing. It's like the word "Vehicle", or "Object", or "Artwork" - it's intentionally vague to cover many things - it's not a case of being poor at the language to realize that it covers many things. It's a case of being MORE fluent with the language to realize that the word covers many things.