There are reasons why some people would rather call themselves skeptics or freethinkers instead of atheists, and one is to avoid the not uncommon misconception that atheism automatically means the positive claim that there is no god. While I thought this issue had already been resolved a long time ago considering the multitude of articles and videos posted online explaining that it isn’t necessarily the case, it seems that it hasn’t been explained often enough. People continue not only to assert that that is the only definition of atheism but even to imply that the New Atheists are deliberately trying to redefine the word to suit their purposes when their true position is just play-safe agnosticism.
To settle the issue, let’s look at the definition of atheist in the 1979 edition of The Grolier International Dictionary, of which I happen to have a copy:
atheist – one who denies the existence of God.
The operative word here is denies. Using the same dictionary, let’s see what that word really means:
deny
1. to declare untrue; assert the contrary of; contradict.
2. to refuse to believe; reject.
3. to refuse to recognize or acknowledge; disavow; disown.
If we add “the existence of God” to each of the above definitions, the first one seems to be the most presumed by theists while the atheists usually mean the second and third – that they do not take this particular claim as truth, that they simply do not believe.
And what does it mean to not believe? If a friend told me that last night he dated and slept with a famous actress, say, Angel Locsin or Christine Reyes – or both – but he didn’t even have a scandal video on his phone, I would simply say that I don’t believe him. However, I wouldn’t accuse him of lying because I wasn’t with him or either girl last night and I didn’t have 24-hour surveillance on any of them. No, I could not be certain that he’s not telling the truth. But I just wouldn’t believe him because his story is too incredible that I would provisionally conclude that he did not sleep with either actress – until I see some evidence that he really did. Then and only then would I reassess and perhaps even reformulate my conclusion. Heck, I might even worship him for banging those goddesses.
Going back to the God question, in The Agora, a Facebook group created by our very own John Paraiso, I saw this very amusing comment:
Wow. They demand proof against something that has not been proven in the first place. “Universality of belief” does not necessarily mean that such belief had undergone and passed through skeptical scrutiny.
But sometimes the problem lies with some atheists who, in their passion to express their new-found freedom from religion, go a bit too far not only by saying something inflammatory but by indirectly making assertions that they would have to defend, like this one:
The poster is indirectly saying that Jesus, Allah and Yahweh are imaginary, hence, they do not exist. That is a positive statement that supposedly carries the burden of proof. However, when asked to prove such statement, some atheists would simply say that it is the theist’s job to prove that his particular god exists. That is wrong. A comment posted in Friendly Atheist says it best:
If you say, “There is no god”, you are making a claim that you can’t defend. It is a point of dogma.
The first one clearly refers to the strong atheist, but the second refers to atheists in general and includes agnostics and skeptics. Unfortunately, to many people the word atheist is associated more closely with the “there is no god” position than with healthy skepticism, no thanks to the overeagerness of some atheists (and no thanks as well to those who say that agnostics are atheists without balls).
Atheists, agnostics, skeptics. The first two are defined by their positions on a certain truth claim; the third focuses more on the method of arriving at either position. All three are the same in one sense: They do not believe.
Good article. I hope everyone reads this.
Just to be clear, the question I posed is not to mock or ridicule your beliefs. I'm just curious how you explain something that we attribute to something divine or supernatural…
A sincere question for the atheists out here:
How do you guys explain fate, destiny or luck? A case in point is a man, who was down and out all his life, suddenly beats astronomical odds (1 in 29million) by winning the lotto with a single bet (whereas science tells us the more numbers, the better the odds)?
I'm not an atheist so I don't know if I should be one to answer this but I couldn't help but to speak out on this matter. But the example you used can simply be explained by random chance or coincidence. See, when it comes to winning the lottery, It is randomly picked. So there will always be a winner. The chance just so happens that you were the one holding your own lottery number/ticket or destiny.
Whatever his economical status was. It has no relevance or significance to his winning the lottery.
In other words, you attribute it to sheer luck? Even if the odds for hitting the right combination with just a single number are mind-boggling?
Yes. Well just because you can't explain something doesn't mean it attributes to something divine or supernatural already. It's simply the lack of capability to reason. If we're talking about something unexplainable that is.
But like I said, the example you used can easily be explained.
And I explained it to you. lottery is a contest. There will always be winners. Whether he is poor or rich, or whatever he might be going through, it has no relevance or significance to him winning.
Thanks for your replies…
Welcome. 🙂
Hope to see more exchanges like this in the future. Civil and all parties maintain an open mind.
Cheers ^^
You can say that again. Not agreeing with each other does not mean we should drop f-bombs.
About the lottery man, I'd have to say he won because he bought a ticket. Having one gave him a chance; no matter how unlikely.
Yup, we can always civilly agree to disagree! As for the guy who won, I'd prefer to call it fate or destiny. Like if something is not for you, nature will conspire against it…
But the word atheist as it was originally concieved:
“…the view that there is no divine being, no God.” Penguin dictionary of Philosophy. Edited by Thomas Mautner. Penguin Books (1996)
“Atheism is ostensibly the doctrine that there is no God.” The Oxford Companion to Philosophy. Edited by Ted Honderich. Oxford University press (1995)
“The belief that God – especially a personal, omniscient, omnipotent, benevolent God – does not exist.” The Blackwell Dictionary of Western Philosophy. BUNNIN, NICHOLAS and JIYUAN YU (eds). Blackwell Publishing, 2004.
“Atheism is the position that affirms the nonexistence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief.” William Rowe (1998). Atheism. In E. Craig (Ed.), Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy. London: Routledge.
Yes, 'atheist' could also mean those things. However, most of the atheists in Filipino Freethinkers are actually agnostic atheists.
Atheism as Antony Flew, once the world's foremost atheist intellectual, defines it.
And I quote:
“…the word ‘atheist’ has in the present context to be construed in an unusual way. Nowadays it is normally taken to mean someone who explicitly denies the existence . . . of God . . . But here it has to be understood not positively but negatively, with the originally Greek prefix ‘a-’ being read in this same way in ‘atheist’ as it customarily is in . . . words as ‘amoral’ . . . . In this interpretation an atheist becomes not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God, but someone who is simply not a theist.”
– A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, ed. Philip Quinn and Charles Taliaferro (Oxford: Blackwell, 1997), s.v. “The Presumption of Atheism,” by Antony Flew.
belief is far different from imagining, belief is acceptance by the mind that something is true or real, while imagining is forming an idea or image of somebody or something in the mind.
Better study psychology and sociology is order for you to understand, why people making imaginary friends. Reasoning with these people, would made you more stupid than them.
Actually, not all people are MAKING imaginary friends; many people have imaginary friends not because they are making them but because organized religion has done a very good job instilling to people's minds that these "friends" are not imaginary. Now, would you like everyone to stop reasoning with these people (the victims of religion) and just let them spread their dangerous ignorance throughout our society?
"I totally agree that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. "
As long as we agree on this, I'm good. 🙂 Proof is for math, evidence is for the real world. The "proof" in "burden of proof" just means real-world evidence, not an airtight mathematical proof.
I found these at wordreference.com:
“In the context of a court case.
An exhibit is something, some object, produced in evidence.
Evidence is something that contributes to knowledge of what happened.
Proof is evidence that is sufficient to demonstrate the certainty of something.”
“Fingerprints are proof that a person touched something. If I find your jacket in my car, it is evidence that you were there, but not proof. If the police find lots of money in my house, it might be evidence that I robbed a bank. A videotape showing me at the bank holding the gun would prove that I robbed a bank.”
So which definition are you using, the scientific one or the legal one. The former is more accurate.
Also, fingerprints are evidence that something that can transfer my fingerprints touched that object, not necessarily my fingers.
I think the definition "evidence is something that contributes to knowledge of what happened; proof is evidence that is sufficient to demonstrate the certainty of something" applies to both science and the law.
As for fingerprints, I agree with you that we now have the technology to "steal" someone's fingerprints and transfer them to an object. Perhaps the one who wrote that never watched Charlie's Angels. 🙂
Hi Missingpoints. I have an older post that addresses your comments. You might want to check it out and continue the thread from there. 🙂
https://filipinofreethinkers.org/2010/01/15/can-yo…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/victor-stenger/the-…
There you go. To quote Stenger: "I can think of many cases where absence of evidence provides robust evidence of absence. The key question is whether evidence should exist but does not."
No evidence of gods exist, they are imaginary.
I totally agree that absence of evidence is evidence of absence. But that is different from saying that absence of PROOF is PROOF of absence, to which I don't agree.
"The poster is indirectly saying that Jesus, Allah and Yahweh are imaginary, hence, they do not exist. That is a positive statement that supposedly carries the burden of proof."
I don't think so. The fact that they have no evidence of existence means they are imaginary. The only "proof" you need that they are imaginary is the "lack of proof" of their existence.