..."these are very loose imprecise statements..."
↪EriģcH
They are imprecise if you cross two different concepts: to believe and to affirm.
In the academic world it is understood that an atheist is one who denies that god exists and an agnostic is one who neither denies nor affirms. The theist asserts that god exists.
It seems simple enough and clear enough.

The mess has been made by certain associations of atheists who claim that they have no beliefs and therefore should not justify their position. This is absurd. Believe it or not, affirm it or not, in a rational debate your position must be reasoned. — David Mo

Great post, David.

I have been attempting to make the case that the word "atheist" should be confined to people who "believe" (assert/guess both work) that there are no gods...OR who "believe" that it is more likely that no gods exist than that at least one does.

That would leave room for people who do not "believe", guess, assert...in either direction on the question.

My personal take:

I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...

...so I don't.

I see that as a reasonable position...and I see no reason to use "atheistic" to describe it.

Dingo, and some of the others here, seems to disagree.

They question my intelligence for thinking as I do.

How much a mind can contain is also implied in terms of creation capacity. Why wouldn't the creator be something agile in a group, one mind of many? Why is it super powerful in terms of it's character and not it's agility being good? Something was like 'i know this is enough space, that's too much and then the consequence of a prior injection' if a creator did it and lived, per se.

the academic world it is understood that an atheist is one who denies that god exists and an agnostic is one who neither denies nor affirms. The theist asserts that god exists — David Mo

Except that in academia it's really not that simple:
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#DefiAgno

Well...when I am wrong, I acknowledge that I am wrong...so...

...I thought you were an intelligent person, Dingo.

My bad. — Frank Apisa

Wrong again dummy. You continue to display thoughtless, sloppy thinking. If you thought I was intelligent before, the only thing thats changed is now im insulting you, and dispensing with politeness because you do not deserve it. Neither of those things are indicators of intelligence, so once again you have no basis for what you are saying. You aren’t even smart enough to understand how embarrassed you should be each time you open your stupid mouth to get in the last word because your childish ego compels you to.
See, its not that your stupid, Im not one of those guys that feels good by demeaning others who are less intelligent. No, what provokes me about you is that you are aggressively stupid, arrogantly dumb. If you were just stupid, then I believe you can still be taught, still capable of learning until you might have something interesting to say/contribute, but thats not the case. You are dull, but think your smart, you have a grossly inflated sense of your grasp of logic and reason. You have a chip in your shoulder about being treated as an intelligent person, my guess is due to insecurity. These things make you obnoxious, deserving of ridicule and derisive treatment, and they prevent you from being reached through discourse. These things are whats represented with the expression “having your head up your ass”, but of course your too dim to understand the underlying point in me using that phrase and see only the insult. You really do need to get your head out of your ass, I promise you will notice an immediate improvement in your discourse and ability to understand. A wise man starts with the possibility that they are wrong, they exercise humility.
Plus, you are being dishonest. You are not arguing in good faith. Thats is maybe what most makes you deserving of no respect or civilised treatment. The only thing more pathetic than a dishonest, Disingenuous goon is a dishonest, disingenuous goon whose so dishonest they are even lying to themselves.
Normally im content to let some dummy get in the last word and be done with them but for some reason I have this uncharacteristic idealism that you have a a brain somewhere underneath that thick skull of yours, that its these obnoxious personality traits more than rampant stupidity that prevents you from understanding things my 8 year old has no trouble with. That, and you are best served by being put in your place

Dingo...this is a philosophy forum. You ought really to act more like a philosopher...than a petulant adolescent. We would recognize that you are acting, but we could at least respect the attempt.

“We”?! Holy shit Frank. There is no “we”. Thats just you trying to lend weight to your sad attempt at getting to me by pretending your part of some consensus.
My attitude and tone can be dialled up or dialled back, it can be turned off and turned on. This is not the case with your dullness of mind. Thats a permanent condition, which can only be helped by working on your humility, on your arrogance. You are not smart, accept it so that maybe one day, you might, MIGHT be able to not be accurately assessed as stupid.
Anyway, time to point out your sloppy thinking again. A petulant adolescent and a philosopher are not mutually exclusive, which is how you treated them in context there (not that you are going to understand context but what can you do?). Also, your respect means nothing to me, what a pathetic conceit you have allowed yourself.

Still all triggered, I see. Okay. Some people take longer than others to get their shit together.

Anyway...about my supposed lack of intelligence and reasoning skills:

Back before the Internet, a person who wanted to share an opinion had to write an opinion piece (op ed or letter) to a newspaper or magazine. The competition was fierce, and relatively few pieces were published. Those that were had a real name and city of residence attached.

Certain publications were coveted by those of us who competed for space…The New York Times was always the top prize and Newsweek and Time, were the two most sought-after of the national news magazines.

The submissions had to be thoughtful, logical, and well-constructed. Very few sloppy writers ever made the cut.

I had an op ed sized piece published in the New York Times…an essay that took issue with something A. M. Rosenthal had written. (Abe Rosenthal, portrayed in the Movie The Post, was a very powerful newspaper man…the guy who got the Pentagon Papers published. But I got to debate him on the issue of drugs—in his newspaper—in a piece that was published without so much as a comma being changed.

Newsweek published one of my essays as a MY TURN (an especially sought-after spot) which included a photo and a $1000 honorarium. That also was published exactly as I wrote it.

After the debate between Dan Quayle and Lloyd Bentsen, Newsweek and Time Magazines each received over 800 letter submissions. The debate was huge news. Both magazines published letters from me…two different letters.

Reading those pathetic pieces you write and boast about, Dingo, and hearing the derisive comments you have for someone so much your better…is great for my digestion. Laughter does that for the digestive system.

Grow up a bit…then come back and take your medicine. I’ll take it easy on you. I get no pleasure from picking on someone so markedly inferior in writing and reasoning talent.

:lol: :lol: :lol:

Intelligence is measured by being published?! Its measured by writing talent?!
You are a fucking moron. You cannot even tell the difference between some accomplishment that brings you pride and intelligence.
And still, unable to resist your childish ego. No matter what I say, no matter the petulant adolescence, you will never be able to ignore me, never be able to resist chiming in with some insecure, irrelevant chest puffing drivel no one cares about. Im providing you with a mirror, take a good look. See if your dim, skulking intellect can self reflect.

This observation might not be worth much, but "atheist" appeared in print far more often in the early 1800s than more recently. That from Google Ngram, which charts word-in-print frequency over time, usually not further back than 1800. "The term atheism was derived from the French athéisme, and appears in English about 1587. An earlier work, from about 1534, used the term atheonism. Related words emerged later: deist in 1621, theist in 1662, deism in 1675, and theism in 1678. At that time "deist" and "deism" already carried their modern meaning."

Words like "atheist" are usually brought into English by a word-coining author. The 16th - 17th centuries were an active period of word coinage.

Still triggered. Oh, so, so sad.

You really have to get that childish stuff under control, Dingo...unless, of course, you are a child.

In any case, some people might say that one of the measures of "intelligence"...is the ability to act like a grown up...no matter how tight your panties get.

By that measure, you are still rocking the bassinet...while I am tooling in a Lamborghini.

Thanks, BC. I brought much of that up earlier.

Right now we are not "debating" or "discussing." We are merely dealing with a temper tantrum on the part of Dingo.

I'm just having a bit of fun at his expense.

In any case, some people might say that one of the measures of "intelligence"...is the ability to act like a grown up...no matter how tight your panties get. — Frank Apisa

Acting like a grown up is called maturity. One can be immature, and intelligent. So these people who might say that are wrong.
Another sign of immaturity? Not being able to resist the pull of your childish ego, to always have to get in the last word even to someone whose acting like a petulant adolescent, to someone you think is throwing a tantrum. Pay attention here, I may be acting immature, but you arent. Your childish, egocentric personality is REAL. Look up from your own ass and see your reflection. Just try.

:yawn: Now I'll fuck-off to some other less idiotic OP with this last dropping ...

The etymological root for the word atheism originated before the 5th century BCE from the ancient Greek ἄθεος (atheos), meaning "without god(s)". In antiquity, it had multiple uses as a pejorative term applied to those thought to reject the gods worshiped by the larger society, those who were forsaken by the gods, or those who had no commitment to belief in the gods.The term denoted a social category created by orthodox religionists into which those who did not share their religious beliefs were placed. — wikipedia

"No commitment to belief in the gods", or in other words, Frankie's position in fact (even though he's incorrigibly misinformed about it):

Atheism is a belief...not a lack of "belief."

My personal agnosticism is a true lack of belief:

I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction...

...so I don't. — Frank Apisa

Well, according to the ancient Greeks, Frankie's doxic noncommital - "lack of belief" in g/G - is ἄθεος (atheos), or in contemporary parlance: atheism. :yikes:

Still with all that childish, crass nonsense, Dingo?

C'mon.

Get control.

Anyway...I'm here for ya. Until the sun goes nova...or I shed this moral veil.

I have acknowledged that the debating atheists of the Internet have taken control of the word...and gotten some lexicographers to use a definition of "lack of a belief in any gods."

But that is obviously nonsense.

Listen to the atheists on the Internet...and you can easily tell they are, to a person, people who either "believe" there are no gods...or who "believe" it is more likely that there are no gods than that there is at least one.

Look...I can understand why they are begging others to be identified as atheists. They are interested in increasing the intelligence level of the atheistic DNA.

The article you quote says several times that the term atheism is fine and generally used as Frank and I do. Same for agnosticism. It only discusses some marginal use like Flew - which we know how it ended.

Yes, because your childish ego compels you. You think that because I call you childish that switching it back onto me will bother me? The difference, once again silly Frank, is that you ARE a child, you HAVE a childish ego. I can stop at any time, you cant.
Watch.


Hey, Frank, shut your stupid mouth.

There. Nothing worth responding to. But you will. Your ego compels you and you need to deal with that before you can come up with anything meaningful to say on this or any other issue.

I'm just having a bit of fun at his expense. — Frank Apisa

They also served who were the butt of somebody else's amusement. Carry on.

For me, "atheism" privately means "rejecting the presentation of the God-concept that I grew up with". It isn't that I believe that god(s) can not exist or do not exist or that they may exist but I don't believe it. It is rather that I reject a particular kind of judgmental, picayune meddling deity. I have room to believe in a more distant deity who may be loving, may be all knowing and all that, but who does not intervene on a regular basis. For conventional Christians that is, of course, a heresy. It amounts to rejecting God altogether, from their perspective.

Same for agnosticism — David Mo

Why don't you reread that section over again more carefully. The article clearly explains why agnosticism is NOT just a version of theism/atheism, but strictly speaking in a different kind of epistemological category. That is to say, you can be any combination of gnostic/agnostic and theist/atheist.

I want to revise my statement earlier in this thread re: a/theism in babies. I was thinking about it, and I decided that the entire analogy is nonsensical. Asking whether a baby is a/theistic is about as useful as asking whether a cat or a chair is a/theistic--as in, not at all useful.

Cats, chairs, and babies are not the sort of entities that can think about the basic concepts necessary for such positions. These are just categories for which they lack the prerequisite skills.

Or, put another way, it's about as useful as asking whether a cat/baby/chair is Republican, patriotic, or a Shakespeare fan.

I think the whole discussion has a sort of annoying point. First, if you'd like to know an atheist's personal position on their belief in god, then ask them to answer in accordance to it. There's a few things you're missing:

1. Language changes in accordance to societal definitions of it, you're acting as though definitions are independent of subjective views, and instead rely on their linguistic backgrounds. Weird.

2. If an atheist denotes his/her definition, then use that definition at face value if arguing for religion or getting to the core of their beliefs, or instead create a discussion with the person specifically about where their use of the word atheist is wrong. If you cannot come to a conclusive definition, then the argument is pointless, might be easier for you to just accept their definition.

3. I see quite a bit of arguments from assertion. Especially when defining your own societal rules about what is appropriate use of language or not. Perhaps it's just me, but your viewing of the term as "inappropriate," goes to show that the entire crux of your argument is based on your specific attachment to a negative view of the word, not whether it is a pragmatic use of it or not.

If I'm following correctly, you use the word atheism to refer to any position that does not answer the question of God's existence in the affirmative. I.e., anyone who does not assert some sort of belief and/or knowledge in God is, by definition, an atheist.

You then state that there are many varieties of atheism. I'm aware that there are classification systems to identify different flavors of atheism. Perhaps you stated this somewhere in the back & forth and I missed it (if so, apologies), but what label/classification would you use to identify Frank's position?

I do not know if gods exist or not;
I see no reason to suspect gods CANNOT EXIST...that the existence of gods is impossible;
I see no reason to suspect that gods MUST EXIST...that gods are needed to explain existence;
I do not see enough unambiguous evidence upon which to base a meaningful guess in either direction... — Frank Apisa

Agnostic atheist.

In the academic world it is understood that an atheist is one who denies that god exists — David Mo

Meaning of undefined terms "god" and "exists," please.

If this is too much to ask, or you recognize the task is more than you can handle, then what are you writing about?

Well, according to the ancient Greeks, Frankie's doxic noncommital - "lack of belief" in g/G - is ἄθεος (atheos), or in contemporary parlance: atheism. :yikes: — 180 Proof

:rofl: Sounds about right to me.

Wow...major league triggered.

I don't usually rattle people quite as much or as easily as I rattle you.

Thanks, Buddy.

Thank you for sharing all that.

But the moment and atheist tells me that I, by definition, am an atheist...I want to tell that atheist to store the definition where it is unlikely to get sunshine.

Okay?

As you see, Dingo is so anxious to have me as a partner in philosophy, that even though he thinks I am a cretin, he cannot forsake his overly broad definition...and tell me to get lost.

So...I will continue my sport with him.

Cretin I hadnt used yet, but you just earned it. Only a cretin tries to glom their way into an exchange with someone else and use it to indirectly address...well me in this case.
Also, sport implies a contest. You are no contest. The only thing, ONLY thing you have going on is a skull so thick you dont get tired of being punched in the head.
Do you know the reason you are making short responses now you dishonest stooge? Want me to tell you?

:rofl: killin' me ...