Jesse

The word atheism stems from a combination of the prefix a-, the word -theos-, and the suffix -ismos. The Greeks didn't use the word in such a way, however, because they used atheos, which meant ungodly. It was a moral condemnation and little more. The early Catholics and other religious believers understood it the same way but it also picked up another meaning, "the condition (-ismos) of lacking (a-) the true God (-theos-)," which was, from their perspective, synonymous with calling others ungodly. While it did essentially mean the same thing as ungodly the new definition came to be more commonly accepted, mainly because it could be applied to those the believers would consider godly but didn't have the right god. Through the passage of time I think the Catholics and other religious believers realized the stupidity of calling eachother names so the word's meaning transformed from "the condition of lacking the true God" to "the condition of not having a god at all."

The words still didn't denote the idea of a positive belief that there was no God but only the general condition of not having one. This is attested by the writings of Paul Henri Thiry, better known by his psuedonym Baron d'Holbach. In his book "Good Sense" (or "Common Sense") he wrote that "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God." This shows that during Paul Henri Thiry's lifetime, 1723-1789, the word atheist included noncognitivists and other kinds of disbelievers. Paul Henri Thiry knew what the word atheist entails because he was not only one of the most prominent philosophers of his time (and the estate he inherited came to be a gathering place for many prominent philosophers) but he was also an encyclopedist. You would be hard-pressed to find a more authoritative figure on what atheism meant. The definition of atheism that Paul Henri Thiry used is practically the same definition that is found in most dictionaries and encylopedias today.

The idea that atheism means the positive belief that there is no god is a recent phenomenon and isn't supported historically or by most of today's dictionaries and encylopedias (contrary to what you claimed). This new idea of atheism is an attempt to redefine the words atheist and atheism from the meaning they once had during the 1700s and still have in the 2000s. Words acquire different meanings all the time, and that isn't necessarily bad, but this redefinition of atheism is not motivated by keeping the word inline with what atheists now consider it to be but is motivated by the attempt to shift the burden of proof where it doesn't belong. This can be easily demonstrated. The redefinition of atheism as the positive belief that there is no god requires that the person must think he or she has an idea of how the cosmos came into existence because it is only with this knowledge that someone could say that a god had no part in it. Most atheists don't pretend to know the origin of the cosmos. The redefinition of atheism gives crackpot theologians the ability to shift the burden of proof to the atheist by asking "You say there is no god, as implied by the [newly redefined] definition of atheist, but if that's true then what is the origin of the cosmos?" Atheists, who never pretended to know the origin of the cosmos, are unable to answer the question. This gives the theologian's readers and listeners the idea that atheism is an unsupportable position and the theologian's position wins by default. The redefinition is a complete misrepresentation of the positions that atheists hold. And by insisting on this new definition, 3DJay, you are helping them misrepresent the position I have and helping them misrepresent ~300 years of history, if not more.

The definition of atheism used by Paul Henri Thiry included noncognitivists and what we might now call agnostic-disbelief. Thusly, the definition of atheism has included "Agnosticism's burden of proof position" since at least 1772 when "Good Sense" was published. Considering that the word "agnosticism" didn't even exist until 1889, it can be concluded that atheism has included "Agnosticism's burden of proof position" roughly ~117 years before the word agnosticism even existed. Therefore, it can be concluded that your accusation is not only baseless but also contradicts known history.

It is only "good stuff" if one thinks "good stuff" includes the misrepresentation of millions of people and hundreds of years of history.

JadedVenus

So now I am confused because of this belief vs. faith topic. I once said to someone that I am agnostic, but I have faith in myself and the good of other people. They replied back to me by saying that I am a humanist not agnostic. My thoughts were that I can't possibly agree with the whole theory of humanism, because humanism exclusively rejects the existence of a deity and the supernatural. I myself can't exclude the possiblity of the existence of a god. Also I do not believe that humans are supreme as humanism seems to imply. Does this make me both agnostic and humanist? Is it possible to be agnostic but agree with some of the basic principles of another form of religion or philosophy?

Jesse

Secular Humanism does not charge, "God does not exist." Some secular humanists may hold that position but it's not the general position of the philosophy as a whole. Secular Humanism is compatible with atheism, agnosticism, rationalism, and skepticism in relation to religion and god. Also, human-supremecy is not a tenet of Secular Humanism. The Council for Secular Humanism has gone on record as saying, "We are far too realistic to worship humanity."

You might find these resources helpful:

http://www.secularhumanism.org/index...ge=declaration
http://www.secularhumanism.org/libra...y_18_1.01.html

JadedVenus

Thanks for the article it helped explain a lot of it, but I still think it contradicts what you just said that Humanism does not charge that a god does not exist. From reading the articles, it seems that the non-existence of a god is more black and white in the Humanism views than it would be in agnostic views. Would it be fair then to say that views of agnostics, atheists, rationalists, and skeptics are interchangeable? Or is it interchangeable only to a certain degree? I'm finding a lot of gray areas in the definitions of these philosophies.

Sorry guys if I'm asking a lot of questions. I'm just trying to understand it more. I'm new to this as only a few years ago I devoted my life to Christianity, but that was only because I grew up in it. It wasn't till I was older when i started to question their teachings and started experimenting other religions by going to their church or temple. Even after doing that I still didn't see it logical to put all my faith in a prophet or god that man today can't even prove existed. It was not logical for me to do things just because the bible said so. After all, the bible was written by man. But at the same time I haven't tottaly ruled out the possiblity of their existence. So now here I am...and the only concept that I could find to describe my views was agnosticism.

Jesse

I would say that they are not directly interchangeable but they do overlap eachother in various ways.

An atheist is literally someone who is godless. That's not to say atheists assert, "There is no god," though some of them do, but to say that the general condition of not having a god. There is another way of looking at it. If you accept "god exists" as a true proposition, you are a theist, and if you do not accept it as true, for any reason whatsoever, you are an atheist.

One type of atheist is the "positive atheist." The word "positive" is a reference to having accepted a belief about the truth or falsity of the proposition "god exists." As such, a "positive" atheist is one who thinks "god exists" is a false proposition. Positive atheists make up only a small portion of all atheists. The other subset of atheism is "negative" atheism. The word "negative" only means "not positive."

You could be an agnostic atheist. That is a person who thinks knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of god is unattainable (hence agnosticism) and because it is unattainable they have no evidence that would justify them accepting the proposition "god exists" as true (hence negative atheism).

You could be a noncognitivist atheist. That is a person who thinks the word god has not been adequately defined. This lack of definition makes the term god essentially meaningless to them, which prevents them from forming an intelligible idea of such a concept (i.e., they idea of god has no cognitive substance, hence noncognitivism.) To them, to accept the proposition "God exists" is just as meaningless as you accepting the proposition "Unie exists." (Unie is left undefined. Try to believe a Unie exists and you'll see how they feel about "god.") Thus, they don't accept that proposition as true (hence negative atheism).

One can be a negative atheist who is not agnostic and not noncognitivist. This kind of atheist thinks the word god has been defined well enough to form at least a vague idea of what the word god would refer to. As for agnosticism, it implies that you believe (i.e., have accepted as true the proposition) "knowledge of the existence or nonexistence of god is unattainable." This atheist might believe knowledge is attainable. This atheist might not believe knowledge is attainable but also not believe it's unattainable. Essentially, this kind of person is godless merely because they've been presented no good reason to accept the proposition "god exists" as true.

One can be a skeptic. A skeptic of the proposition "god exists" is someone who doubts the proposition is true. Skepticism applies to all atheists, regardless of whether they are positive or negative. Skepticism also applies to many theists or deists. They might have faith that "god exists" is a true proposition but they are skeptical about whether it really, truly, is true. They are not too different from a negative atheist except they take that one step beyond where there reason took them by having faith but they're reason makes them skeptical about whether they should have taken that extra step. Most atheists who were once theists or deists have probably experienced this.

Rationalism is a system of thought that emphasizes the role of reason in obtaining knowledge, in contrast to empiricism, which emphasizes the role of experience, especially sense perception. Most people combine rationalism and empiricism in their worldview. The combination is the emphasis of the role of reason in obtaining knowledge through logic and empirical evidences. It should be fairly easy to see how the terms rationalism and empiricism can overlap skepticism, agnosticism, noncognitivism, and the various kinds of atheism.

There isn't much grey area in the definitions, presuming they're defined correctly. Many people have become hopelessly confused as to what the terms mean and how they relate to eachother though. This confusion was, in my opinion, mainly caused by apologists and theologians. Apologists and theologians have contorted the definitions in various ways to further their ideological goals.

They misdefine atheism. They make it out as though atheism consisted of only people who believe "god exists" is a false proposition. Most atheists do not hold that position so it misrepresents them. When theologians and apologists portray atheism this way it leads the audience toward the implication: the atheist thinks he or she knows how the universe was created because it's only with this knowledge that one could say god didn't do it. When the atheist is unable to explain the origin of the cosmos the audience is led to think that the atheist is retreating from his or her position. This strengthens the faith of those listening to the apologist or theologian and that helps ensure more conversions and book sales, and advertisement revenue if they debate online. (Many theists simply don't know better and unknowingly spread this false information.) In actual fact, the atheist was misrepresented and didn't change his position at all--the retreat is an illusion.

You might have heard that atheism and nontheism are the different. This is also an illusion. The prefixes "a-" and "non-" do not have different meanings. Whenever someone says to me that atheism and nontheism are different, I challenge them to explain the difference between atypical and nontypical, and once they tried to offer an explanation I ask them whether that explanation was atypical or nontypical. I've found this to be a very effective way of shutting these people up.

Because the apologists and theologians have been misdefining atheism, this causes problems with the word agnosticism. If all atheists think they have knowledge--as the illusion goes--then all agnostics must be those without knowledge. This is partially true but partially untrue. Agnosticism is about the ability to attain knowledge, not about whether it has been obtained. The difference is glaring. Just because it is possible to get something doesn't mean you have it. The negative atheist who is not an agnostic (who thinks it is possible to get knowledge but doesn't have it) is now called an agnostic and not an atheist. This is a complete reversal. The reversal is caused by the misdefinition of atheism.

I hope this helps you understand how the terms relate to eachother and how they have been confused with one another. If I didn't explain clearly enough then let me know which part(s) you didn't understand and I'll try a different way of explaining.

As for the subject of secular humanism, I just noticed that American Humanist Association states, "Humanists recognize nature as self-existing." This is a positive atheist statement, in which case you would not belong. This contradicts the statements of the Council for Secular Humanism. The person who started the Council for Secular Humanism used to work at the American Humanist Association. I think it's safe to say that the guy didn't agree with the American Humanist Association in limiting secular humanism to only positive atheists. I would support the more inclusive definition of secular humanism, but I'm not the arbiter in the conflict. To be honest, I think it would be better to avoid calling yourself a secular humanist.

Jayhawker Soule

Atheism is not a state of being but a choice. The reams of discourse contrasting absence of belief with belief in absence impresses me as sophomoric at best.

Jesse

I see no reason to think atheism is a choice. First, I'm a determinist so I see no reason to entertain the idea of a choice. Second, the majority of dictionary [1] and encyclopedias [2] I'm familiar with saying about choice, either as a product of genuine free-will or the product of a deterministic illusion, as being a qualifier, or requirement, for atheism.

As for the distinction between "absence of belief" and "belief in absence," the distinction is a valid one. The reason is simple. One cannot deduce from someone not accepting the truth of a proposition that the person holds the contrary proposition to be true. This is the "with us or against us," or false dilemma, logical fallacy. They might not accept the proposition as true because they are skeptical--undecided--withholding belief. The conclusion that someone holds the contrary proposition to be true doesn't necessarily follow from the premise. Another way of stating this is that "absence of belief" includes an aspect of neutrality (N) that "belief of absence" does not (Not-N). To argue that N and Not-N are the same is to argue that the law of noncontradiction is false. What would be sophomoric is arguing against the law of noncontradiction.

[1] A Biblical and Theological Dictionary (1856); Webster's International Dictionary of the English Language (1903); Everybody's Dictionary (1912); Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913); The New Century Dictionary (1927); Wester’s 20th Century Dictionary (1933); Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary (1942); Webster's New Twentieth Century Dictionary (1943); The Winston Dictionary (1943); Funk & Wagnalls New Standard Dictionary of the English Language (1947); Webster's Unabridged Encyclopedic Dictionary (1957); Funk & Wagnalls Standard Desk Dictionary (1980); New Dictionary of Religions (1995); The HarperCollins Dictionary of Religion (1995); Canadian Oxford Dictionary (2001); Microsoft Encarta 2008 Dictionary (2007); Oxford English Dictionary (2007); Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged (2007); Yourdictionary.com (2007); Dictionary.com (2007); Dict.org (2007); M-W.com (2007).

[2] The Encyclopedia of Unbelief (1985); Encyclopedia of American Religious History (2001); Encyclopaedia of the Social Sciences (2006); Microsoft Encarta 2008 Encyclopedia (2007).

Jayhawker Soule

I suspect that's true.

Geshtinnanna

So how did I choose something that wasn't a choice?

__________________

SirArthur

There are soooo many things in life you believe to choose when in fact you didn't.
Do never underestimate the power of suggestion.