Default State of Belief

Sail

I decided to make this a new topic because I still want to discuss it but it would just be bogged down in that other thread. Please note that this is not a flamewar and if anyone turns this into an argument about the existence of a god, I'll request the thread to be permanently locked. You guys already ruined discussion about the original topic in the other thread, don't do it again.

SailPosted By: lackofcheeseIt isn't a belief system. It's a single belief, or in fact the absence of a belief.

It's actually more of a default. A single person, out in nature, with no more knowledge than what he can identify with it's five senses, is an atheist.

AndrewI've thought about this for quite some time. Honestly, I disagree with this idea. Humans are innately irrational and have a tendency to create false positive associations. We are pattern making machines, but horrible at making accurate predictions. Personally, I have no doubt that a human raised in isolation would eventually come up with some sort of spiritual/supernatural belief system to explain the world around them. It is only through the discipline of the mind that we can become rational beings.

Andrew is completely right. But what unsettles me about this is, if that's true, then I really don't want to call myself an atheist any more. I'm sick of hearing religious people calling my lack of belief a belief. I want to really know no god, not know an absence of a god. The late and great Perry DeAngelis once said that the only intellectually honest stand to take is agnosticism, but I don't like that either. It implies too much that there is real evidence of any specific god of any religion existing. I want to truly identify myself as a person who can look at the world at face-value and not have to even entertain the idea of something supernatural superimposed over it. If not atheism and not agnosticism, what do you call this?

Funfetus

The late and great Perry DeAngelis once said that the only intellectually honest stand to take is agnosticism, but I don't like that either. It implies too much that there is real evidence of any specific god of any religion existing.

The problem there is the connotation of "agnosticism" compared with its denotation. Many people take agnosticism to mean a person who is "on the fence" about whether or not a god exists. All it really means is that you don't claim to KNOW whether or not a god exists, which I suspect covers most of us here, even though we may consider ourselves atheists.

As to what to call yourself, in discussions with people who don't know much about these things, I generally don't label myself as anything -- I just say "I don't believe in god". That says it as plainly as it can be said. Of course, you could call yourself a Bright...but that's kinda douchey.

Nuri

I call it happy with your life. You don't feel the need to know or care about a greater being or purpose. That's exactly how I feel. I just tell people I'm not religious, instead of self-identifying as an atheist. It seems much more genuine to me.

bunnikun

Don't forget about agnostic atheism and agnostic theism. Just to make things a little more confusing.

Axel

Contentists? I dunno.

Apreche

We've explained this a million times before. Atheist and agnostic are the answers to two different questions. It's like nobody listens.

bunnikun

We've explained this a million times before. Atheist and agnostic are the answers to two different questions. It's like nobody listens.

I believe he's more so asking what it's called when you have had no exposure to religion. What would the "default" be?

Sail

I just say "I don't believe in god". That says it as plainly as it can be said.

The problem that I am personally having with something like this is that I would still be relating my views in terms of "God". It implies that my outlook on life still has relativity and relevancy to a god.

I call it happy with your life. You don't feel the need to know or care about a greater being or purpose. That's exactly how I feel. I just tell people I'm not religious, instead of self-identifying as an atheist. It seems much more genuine to me.

I like this one.

We've explained this a million times before. Atheist and agnostic are the answers to two different questions. It's like nobody listens.

You're not hearing me here. Describing yourself as an atheist or agnostic still puts your views in terms of the supernatural. I want to be able to completely separate my views from the idea of the existence or non-existence of God. A "default".

Funfetus

The problem that I am personally having with something like this is that I would still be relating my views in terms of "God". It implies that my outlook on life still has relativity and relevancy to a god.

Maybe I'm not understanding what context you're talking about. Are you talking about how you would respond to a question such as "What religion are you?" Do you want something to call yourself that asserts some kind of positive quality, rather than defines you by a negative?

Andrew

Think about it this way. You don't call people who don't believe in astrology a-astrologers or those who don't believe that Elvis is still alive aelvisians. You call them nothing because those positions are rationally unfounded.

Cremlian

And this is why I call myself a Agnostic Atheist Humanist Unitarian

Agnostic: Can anything be known 100% No.
Atheist: Is there a personal god or anything beyond the circle of life or something.. No
Humanist: There is no supernatural help, Humanity will solve it's own problems and rise to the occasion.
Unitarian: As long as you don't go around telling everyone they are going to your personal hell and you should live a certain way, I have no problem with you and some religions actually have some good advice on how to deal with situations and tell some great stories (or make great music), take the good from all the religions and learn from them but don't take them seriously :-p

Usually I just get punched in the face.

Sail

The problem I have with all these terms people are throwing out here is that they all require the use of the idea of "God" to explain them. You can't explain to someone what an atheist is if they know nothing of the idea of god. Someone who has no need for the idea of the supernatural shouldn't have to explain themselves in terms of what they don't believe in.

[Edit]

Think about it this way. You don't call people who don't believe in astrology a-astrologers or those who don't believe that Elvis is still alive aelvisians. You call them nothing because those positions are rationally unfounded.

Precisely.

Σπεκωσποκ

Agnostic: Can anything be known 100% No.

I know, 100%, that there is no such thing as a four-sided triangle. But that's beside the point.

I tend to agree with Locke's Tabula Rasa theories. In my experience, there is no real "default belief", and that once a person reaches the age of rational thinking (past the Boogey-man stage, in other words), their beliefs are determined almost entirely by their parents' beliefs. I was raised in a fairly open-minded, secular household, and as a result, I am a secular atheist, despite my going through a series of fairly religious schools. The friends of mine who were raised in religious households, tend to be only slightly more open than their parents.

There are exceptions, of course, as I know of people who were raised in intensely religious households who are now intensely atheist/secular (oddly enough, not the reverse case), and I have convinced a fair number of my religious friends of the follies of religion. Ultimately, though, one's beliefs tend to depend on their childhood environments, and if there is a "default belief" in the case of one who was raised entirely on his or her own in seclusion from society, it would tend to be some form of animism or agnosticism/atheism.

TheWhaleShark

The problem that I am personally having with something like this is that I would still be relating my views in terms of "God". It implies that my outlook on life still has relativity and relevancy to a god.

The problem really is that humans developed the idea of gods a long time ago, so the concept is pretty ingrained into all of us. There's really no way to ignore the whole "god" aspect of it, because so many people are aware of that notion.

The very idea of supernatural things is, at least as far as I can tell, fundamental to humans. So, it doesn't seem to really be something we can ignore. It'd be nice, but you can't really get around it. I mean, we as humans invented all of these various ideas about supernatural things a long, long time ago. Nothing in any theism is really "new," which tells me that the ideas have been pondered since man could think. I honestly challenge the idea that you could raise a human in such a way that they would have no notions about anything supernatural. I don't believe it's possible.

Nuri has an interesting point, though. It's funny how much differently people react to the term "non-religious" as opposed to the term "atheist."

Loganator456

I call it happy with your life. You don't feel the need to know or care about a greater being or purpose. That's exactly how I feel. I just tell people I'm not religious, instead of self-identifying as an atheist. It seems much more genuine to me.

Exactly how I believe.

Kate Monster

I always called it apathy or acceptance. The unknowable is unknowable. That which is unproven is false until proven.
The idea of God or gods is just that to me, an idea. I live my life as best as I can serving those I love, myself, and my values.
I do not care if someone has a religious belief. Only when they attempt to pass it off as fact, shove it down other people's throat, or decry other religions as being less valid than theirs do religious people irk me.
Both of my Grandmothers identify themselves as Christian. I know this to be more a product of social programming than a natural born belief. This doesn't make their pies any less tasty or their love any truer. This only means that they experience a feeling that I do not. They do not lecture me or attempt to convert me or others. They also approach their religion with care, knowing the "rules" to be largely distorted based on the message being filtered by Man. They allow their logic to guide them in most concerns and look to faith only on a personal spiritual level, not to tell them who to vote for and who deserves what rights. If believing in an afterlife and a compassionate God makes them happy and does not enter into my relationship with them, then what problem could I possibly have with that?

Bronzdragon

Agnostic: Can anything be known 100% No.

I know, 100%, that there is no such thing as a four-sided triangle. But that's beside the point.

This is wrong. Take for example a photograph of a pyramid. from the side it looks like a triangle, even though it is not. it has more sides, but those cannot be observed in the photo.

It is true that observing a triangle with more than 3 sided is impossible, because then it wouldn't be called a triangle. but that doesn't mean there aren't any.

Funfetus

This is wrong. Take for example a photograph of a pyramid. from the side it looks like a triangle, even though it is not. it has more sides, but those cannot be observed in the photo.

If it's a photograph, it's a 2-dimensional image of a 3-dimensional object, and thus, still a 3-sided triangle.

sK0pe

I think this is more of general society's demand to categorise everybody.
It happens excessively and unnecessarily with race. In this situation I seem to have to categorise myself as more than just Australian but get down to my heritage which makes no impact on the relationship I have with that person. Similarly religion shouldn't either however the majority of people still try to discern these qualities during conversation.

Bronzdragon

This is wrong. Take for example a photograph of a pyramid. from the side it looks like a triangle, even though it is not. it has more sides, but those cannot be observed in the photo.

If it's a photograph, it's a 2-dimensional image of a 3-dimensional object, and thus, still a 3-sided triangle.

Fine, instead of a photograph, you're looking through a window.

lackofcheese

It doesn't matter if it "looks like a triangle" - that doesn't make it one. Mathematics can have 100% true & false statements only because it's disconnected from the real world. In the real world, there is no such thing as a 2D shape - everything has a thickness. The fact that matter is made of a finite number of particles, whereas any geometric object has an infinite number of points, means that we can only get approximations of them in the real world.

TheWhaleShark

It's very easy to have 100% confidence about a thing that you have defined. "Triangle" is the word we use to denote a geometric shape with 3 sides. If we called a "huzzafump," it'd still be the same thing.

Defining something is not the same as knowing something.

lackofcheese

Defining something is not the same as knowing something.

I never said it was. Mathematics is all about using those definitions (and axioms) as starting points to get to the really interesting stuff. Only in mathematics (and logic, though I'm wont to group them) do you have true "proofs."

The interesting thing is that even in maths there are things that can be neither proven true nor false. Kurt Gödel's first incompleteness theorem states that:

Any effectively generated theory capable of expressing elementary arithmetic cannot be both consistent and complete. In particular, for any consistent, effectively generated formal theory that proves certain basic arithmetic truths, there is an arithmetical statement that is true, but not provable in the theory.

TheWhaleShark

Sorry, I was directing that more at speckospock.