On Atheism

Atheism is in my view a meaningless word as is theism. You might more correctly ask: what are atheisms? but even with that we have definitional problems. I don’t think we can evaluate the proposition that God exists. I’m doubtful if it is even possible to define “God” or “exists” without having to define into an infinite regress all words that constitute the definitions. We see this in that strange term atheism. The word atheism (French athéisme, from athée, meaning atheist, from Greek 'Αθεος, atheos, meaning godless : a-, without; + Θεός, theos, meaning god; it has Indo-European roots) is formed of the Greek prefix α- (a-), meaning "without" or "not," and the Greek-derived theism (from Θεϊσμός, theismos), meaning a belief in a god. The literal meaning of the term is therefore "lack of belief in a god.” The problem is that we are claiming to deny a belief in “something”. What is that “something”? It is a thing of some kind that must therefore exist in some way for us to disclaim a belief in it. Furthermore, isn’t a lack of a belief in itself a kind of belief? By the stridancy in which some hold to that particular label of self-description sometimes approaching fanaticism, it would seem to be sometimes so. If I say I don’t believe in unicorns, you may disagree with my belief of “aunicornism”. But my aunicornism and your unicornism are coherent beliefs as we both know that a unicorn is an “animal, with the head, neck and body of a horse, a beard like that of a goat, the legs of a buck, the tail of a lion, and a long tapering horn, spirally twisted, in the middle of the forehead.” No such common definition exists for God. What people who call themselves atheists reject is a particular conception that they believe that others believe. For example, I don’t believe in Zeus, so I am therefore an atheist as regards to Zeus. Atheism comes in many guises, from the metaphysical atheism of Ludwig Feuerback, the mythological atheism of Friedrich Nietzsche, the dialectical atheism of Thomas Altizer, the sementical atheism of Paul Van Buren, the communistic atheism of Marx, the capitalist atheism of Ayn Rand, the psychological atheism of Sigmund Freud, and the behaviorist atheism of B.F. Skinner.

I have a real problem with this. Both atheism and theism appear in any dictionary. If the words are defined, how can they be meaningless?

Definition isn't meaning, existence, or truth. The words theism and atheism appears in the dictionary only as a superficial manifestation of common usage. The question is whether than common usage is meaningful, especially if the underlying words in questions are undefined.

Maybe you can't, but others have. Richard Dawkins wrote an entire book on the subject.

The trinity Dawkins, Hitchens, and Harris have indeed written books on that subject, and I've read them all. However, without exception, they are arguing against a certain conception of the Judeo-Christian God which they then call atheism. This doesn't strike me as much of a disproof.

When you look up the words in a dictionary, do you see an infinite regression there?

If you try. Consider for example two statements: "What is time?" and "What is the time?" We use the latter in everyday conversation. The former however is an immensely complex subject that cannot be even definitely defined by the most eminent astrophysicists.

When I say that I disbelieve in the tooth fairy, everybody knows exactly what I mean without ambiguity. Where is the problem?

There is plenty of ambiguity so long as the term tooth fairy remains undefined.

Of course, but the point is trivial. If either A or B is true, and if I don't believe in A, by implication I believe in B. As I say--trivial.

Incorrect. Your belief or disbelief doesn't negate the existence of either A or B. In fact, both A and B may be true in some sense or both A and B may be false in some sense. I use the phrase "in some sense" because the concept of existence is fuzzy. Tooth fairies certainly exist when I type the word into google images. ;) Theism/atheism isn't necesserily an either/or proposition. There is a middle ground in which the question itself is meaningless. (Nod to Ludwig Wittgenstein.)

Whose stridency? If you're talking about atheists, the ones I know would gladly surrender their disbelief if they were ever presented with convincing evidence of God's existence.

I'm not talking about people who culturally are brought up as atheists. Based on my experience as a poster of some five years on the atheist/agnostic forum on about.com, I can assure you that there is an impressive amount of stridancy. There are of course some people who logic their way into atheism, but many others become atheists not out of a platonic disbelief in the existence of gods but because they are either reacting against the abuses of theists, usually (as they put it) Xtianity, or in response to hurtful childhood or family dynamics.

What you mean "we"? Not I. I know that a unicorn is an imaginary animal (like a tooth fairy).

But your definition introduces a premise that a unicorn coesn't exist as part of the definition. If my definition of God is: "An imaginery omnipotent being", I would have to conclude that God doesn't exist on that basis. The fallacy is that you build the conclusion into the premise.

And that's a good reason for defining "God" before discussing his existence or nonexistence. But that's true of many discussions. Whenever there is uncertainty in the use of terms, the terms must be defined before a rational discussion can take place.

Hey, we agree on something! :)

What Happens At An Atheist Convention?

Do they worship Satan? Run around naked? Try to outlaw apple pie?

http://www.atheists.org/convention/

Naw, we don't have a problem with apple pie. Anchovies, though, are an abomination in the sight of Darwin. Come the revolution, it will be a hanging offense to put them on pizzas.

"Atheist convention" strikes me as a somewhat oxymoronic phrase such as "moral Christian Republican" or "military intelligence." A gathering of people defined in their individualism as not being like minded could make for interesting field anthropology and brings to mind the herding of cats. I wonder if the hard-core naysayers are those who are incapable of membership in this or any club and thusly would take a pass on this convention. As Groucho Marx said: "I don't want to be a member of a club that would have me as a member."

We're not that way by definition. It's just a contingent fact owing to the narrowness of the definition. The set of all atheists is just the set of all people who don't believe in a god. It could have happened that we lacked that belief because of something else we have in common, but it didn't happen.

Similarly, you have the set of all left-handed people. Their diversity is equal to that of atheists, and for the same reason.

There are subsets of atheists (and left-handers) who do have something in common besides their definitive characteristic and who are not so individualistic as the others. Members of American Atheists, I assume, have a little more in common with each other than with atheists like me who prefer not to join. Analogously, there is an organization of left-handed golfers. I doubt that I'd want to join even if I played golf, though I am left-handed, but it's there for those who do think they have something to gain through their membership.

Conservapedia's Atheism

There is an article on Conservapedia on atheism located here:

http://www.conservapedia.com/Atheism

The reason I mention this article is that often articles that are popular at Conservapedia climb up the Google rankings quite fast and currently this article has been featured on Conservapedia's main page. Accordingly, I was wondering if anyone was interested in attempting a rebuttal of this article or at least hitting upon various points of it and posting it somewhere prominently on the internet.

I don't have a beef with this kind of a contrary voice. In the dialectical market place of ideas, truth will always shake out dishonesty.

You may want to compare conservapedia's account with Wikpedia's.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism

Conservapedia is frank about its point of view, and its seems to be oriented primarily to religious fundamentalist home schoolers. Although it tries to appear scholarly and objective, the effect is to undermine its own presumption of a commitment to integrity, not unlike the methodology promoted by holocaust revisionists and tobacco lobbyists-- an appearance of the search for truth rather than the substance of the search for truth.

It's editors will reject any kind of rebuttal within its own pages, and I'm not sure that a rebuttal outside its pages will do much good.

I note that atheists according to this article are often the product of bad fathers + good times + depravity.

According to the Conservapedia entry on Copernicus:

"The reception to his work was initially positive within the Catholic Church (contrary to popular belief, Galileo was not persecuted for supporting the Copernican theory, but because he was disrespectful to the Pope). However, the reaction was negative among Protestants who felt it conflicted with some literal interpretations of the Bible, such as the account of how Joshua benefited from the sun standing still as it passed over the earth. "And the sun stood still, and the moon stayed, until the people had avenged themselves upon their enemies. Is not this written in the book of Jasher? So the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day." Joshua 10:13. But there were few Protestants in Poland then (or now), and Copernicus died without much controversy. To this day, most Protestant countries reject the Copernican theory."

What is Conservapedia?

"Conservapedia is a much-needed alternative to Wikipedia, which is increasingly anti-Christian and anti-American. On Wikipedia, many of the dates are provided in the anti-Christian "C.E." instead of "A.D.", which Conservapedia uses. Christianity receives no credit for the great advances and discoveries it inspired, such as those of the Renaissance. Read a list of many Examples of Bias in Wikipedia."

There you have it, folks. Galileo was persecuted for dissing the Pope, but now everything's hunky-dory (btw, the entry on Galileo says the exact opposite). If you are Catholic it's now kosher (pun intended) to believe the earth revolves around the sun, but not if you are Protestant.