Talk:Atheism/Archive 24

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Critcisms

There needs to be more disscusion on attacks on the logical postion of atheism, i.e Alvin's evolutionary arguement against naturalism and presentation of attacks on atheism by agnostics in the criticism section.

POV terms such as "Weak" and "Strong" for Atheism

Rather than slandering certain atheist by calling them "weak" how about we stick to the term implicit? LucaviX

According to the guidelines, "the neutral point of view is not, contrary to the seeming implication of the phrase, some actual point of view that is 'neutral,' or 'intermediate,' among the different positions. That represents a particular understanding of what 'neutral point of view' means. The prevailing Wikipedia understanding is that the neutral point of view is not a point of view at all; according to our understanding, when one writes neutrally, one is very careful not to state (or imply or insinuate or subtly massage the reader into believing) that any particular view at all is correct."
That is to say, you can write about biased terms in a non-biased way. Rather than taking a stand on whether "strong/weak atheist" is a slander, you could instead include information on whatever debate exists over the terms. That would be neutral reporting. Removing the "slanderous" terms would be POV, because it involves a judgment call on your part. MFNickster 17:14, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

So how about we just leave the term "weak atheist" out of the article unless discussing the use of the term, and instead use the correct term in it's pleace? I'm an Atheist myself, and I have a problem with someone implying that I'm a "weak" atheist or that I'm not an atheist simply because I don't take a strong stance on the issue of religion. I'm rather unconcerned with the issue of rather or not any god exist, I don't say "There is no god" but rather I do not believe in any god or gods. I'm still an atheist, because I do not believe in any god or gods. I'm not an agnostic because I hold that whether or not a god exist could easily be determined if a god did indeed exist, and anyone can be a skeptic regardless of religion. LucaviX

Well, my impression of the term was always that it refers to the position being a "weak" one, rather than the person holding the position being weak. I don't know the origin of the terms, but they are in common usage (particularly on alt.atheism), so it would be disingenuous (IMHO) to omit them. I don't see a problem with replacing the "weak atheism" and "strong atheism" articles with "implicit atheism" and "explicit atheism," though I would prefer that they be merged into subsections of this article.
If we can get a consensus among the editors here, that might be a good approach. MFNickster 18:43, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

The term "weak" may be a mismurmer, in any case many implicit atheist take issue with it. LucaviX

Obviously, since you are one of them! It would be great if you could do some research into the origin of the terms, and write up a paragraph on it. MFNickster 21:00, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I too would personally prefer it if people used the term 'implicit'. However, and this is a big however, people don't use the term 'implicit' - at least not nearly as much as they use the term 'weak'. So unfortunately, I think Wikipedia should also use 'weak' - Wikipedia is descriptive, not prescriptive. That's not to say that it shouldn't also mention that some weak atheists take offense at it, and mention that 'implicit' can be used as an alternative. I should note that IIRC at one point a few years back the article did use "implicit" and "explicit" primarily, and that didn't last very long. Bryan 21:07, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

"weak" and "strong" atheism are widely used (and no, not just on the internet) terms to describe a (purported, arguably) difference among atheistic claims. They are not and are not intended to be POV evaluative terms and to think that they are is simply to misunderstand them. Other words have been used (i.e "implicit/explicit"), and are more/less/equally problematic. To refuse to use the terms would be to subvert the value of the entry, but how clear does the entry make it that they are not subjective judgemental terms? --213.122.190.190 21:26, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

The problem with the dichotomy as currently framed is that the entry somewhat obscures the difference between weak and strong atheists who actively reject theism, and "lack of belief" atheists (nontheists? "atheous"?) in the broader sense, who include those who may never have considered theism at all and thus cannot fairly be said to have rejected it (as well as those who have considered it but do not want to be characterised as rejecting it, though they do not accept it i.e. some of those calling themselves agnostic). Although "weak" atheists clearly do "lack" theistic belief, their lack is a philosophically justified rejection of belief, unlike others we can characterise as "lacking" theistic belief (babies, people from totally nontheistic cultures, small furry animals, and so forth). That Flew and others appealed to the privative etymology of atheism in order to reclaim historic atheist positions (Viz Holyoake, d'Holbach, Bradlaugh) that were somewhat forgotten with the rise of the agnostic label, does not mean that all "lack" is the same. I may lack money because I spent it all, or I may lack it because I never had it. Different thing. --213.122.190.190 21:26, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

A common point that we atheist like to make is that the majority isn't always (or even often) correct. Anyway, I suggest that we include the term "weak" among others, but that we stick to using the proper term rather than the common term through the rest of the article. I know the "strong" and "weak" terminology was first coined on radio broadcasts, later picked up by popular atheist who had their own radio shows, and it spread from there because it reached so many people at once (giving it a darwinian advantage over the proper term), however "weak" and "strong" could at best be considered slang, and at worst be considered (at least initially) an attempt to frame a position as being more ideal. Irregardless I have no objection to the inclusion of the terms as terms of common usage, so long as the proper terms are used throughout the rest of the article. LucaviX 21:07, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
By the way, no one to my knowledge is claiming that infants are atheist. I know that A-Theos may apply since they are not theist but it could be argued that in order to be an atheist you must first know of belief in the existence of a god or gods. I don't see why there's such a fuss (by one person) against using the term implicit, as it is much more fitting and the rest of the article stays pretty much the same. The paragraph on implicit atheism is way too long though and does need to be trimmed, I'd suggest making a seperate section dealing with implicit atheism and agnosticism, because they are not one and the same. LucaviX 21:07, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I've never liked the "strong-weak" terminology, and find the "implicit-explicit" terminology more clear and precise both as an adjective contrast and as a two word term ("implicit" as an adjective AND "implicit" as the first word of a two word noun phrase). This also lends itself to the very subtle contrast between an implicit atheist (who lacks theistic beliefs) and an implicit theist (who lacks atheistic beliefs). (I know what you "strong-weak" advocates think when you read that. I SAID it was subtle. Hint: Where is the line seperating what is a deity or a theistic belief with what isn't?) I also think the point should be made that the distinction only makes sense for those who hold belief structures in the first place. WAS 4.250 22:06, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

I would posit that an implicit theist does not lack atheistic beliefs because no such beliefs exist. The beliefs of atheist come to an individual basis as atheism is not a philosophy nor a religion, but rather a state of non-belief and/or disbelief. Implicit theist more often hold theistic beliefs but are mild mannered about them and do not wear their religion on their sleeves, as opposed to explicit theist or fundamentalist (particularly fundamentalist, though not all explicit theist are fundamentalist) who tend to shove their religious views on other people. I'm a professional psychiatrist myself, so I have to be an implicit atheist. Could you imagine if I were an explicit atheist listening and talking to a religious client about what she believes to be "god's plan for her." I have to be very careful in how I deal with people or I could lose my job (or at the very least my clients). LucaviX 22:08, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

The distinction between state of mind and behavior is poorly served in this article. WAS 4.250 22:25, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

There are many states of mind held by many atheist. Heck, some atheist believe in ghosts and such, some like myself carry no belief in the supernatural whatsoever (extending this to gods). I would suggest that in order to be an atheist one should first be aware of belief in a god or gods, though Atheos means "not a theist." LucaviX 22:28, 4 September 2005 (UTC)
I would say that this distinction is one of the markers of implicit/explicit atheism. An implicit atheist may or may not have been made aware of god concepts, but by the standard use of the terms, they are still atheists simply because they are not theists.
For example, if you ask a person "which god(s) do you believe in?" They may answer:
  • "Allah/Jehovah/Zeus/[insert god here]" (explicit theism)
  • "I'm not sure, but I believe in a higher power." (implicit theism)
  • "None at all, they're impossible." (explicit atheism)
  • "None that has been described to me." (implicit atheism with exposure to theism)
  • "What's a god?" (implicit atheism with no exposure to theism)
MFNickster 01:41, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree with MFNickster. WAS 4.250 04:25, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Implicit atheist may also respond "I do not believe in any god or gods" while not saying that "no god or gods exist." I'm what you may consider a strong implicit atheist myself, I do not for a moment hold that a god may exist but I do not discount the possibility that one could conceivably exist in some form or another (it all depends on how you define god). By the same standard I do not discount the minute and infinitesimal improbability that I could be in a Matrix styled reality in which I am being fed chemical and electrical signals to control my thoughts and perceptions, I am instead ultimately unconcerned with such notions considering them of little relevance. LucaviX 01:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

there are epic battles about this very question scattered over the voluminous archives; although I think the terms are useless, I decided not to argue over them any more. I would appreciate an exact delineation between "weak atheism" and "agnosticism" or even "dementia" (absence of thought about the matter). As far as I can see, "weak atheism" is a term touted by atheists so they can inflate their headcount, and claim that atheism is the "default position" (since, even before you had a single thought, you're already an atheist! every tree is an atheist, since I've never seen a tree pray!). Silly, imho, but not worth all the edit wars. So, yes, I'd be glad to have the term explained properly and contained, rather than allowing it to permeate the article. dab (ᛏ) 06:48, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Now I come to research the issue properly, I find that the distinction between weak/strong or implicit/explicit atheism was made clear as early as 1920, by McCabe - who pointed out that dictionaries usually give atheism two meanings: "disbelief" or "denial". Something he further developed in his 1948 Rationalist Encyclopedia. Subsequently, philosophers like Flew, Nielsen, Smith, Martin and others have pointed out the broader privative meaning of "a-theism".

Flew seems to have coined "positive" and "negative" to describe the difference between disbelief and denial when it comes to rejecting theism. He was working from the 1950s. Martin organises one of his books by using the dichotomy. So there is clear justification in the literature for using "positive" and "negative". The notion that insisting that atheism be defined broadly is NOT a device to increase numbers. On the contrary, since atheism became publically confessable, atheists have used a broad definition. d'Holbach does, PB Shelley does (remember, Necessity of atheism is signed "tho' deficiency of proof, an atheist), Holyoake did, Bradlaugh did, and so forth and so on. Rather, the insistence that atheism is *ONLY* the claim that god does not exist, is a repressive tactic (see Berman's work on the history of atheism for back up). Indeed, whoever it was above who said "By the way, no one to my knowledge is claiming that infants are atheist.", is wrong. D'Holbach explicitly says that infants are atheist. Please, whatever goes in the article must be backed up by the literature and the history of atheism. Unfortunately too many people do not know what they are talking about. The job of this entry is surely to put them right. --Dannyno 20:20, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

I throw my support behind Dannyno and disagree strongly with dab. Additionally, I recommend you read the talk page archives, as this has been discussed and consensus was to include both weak and strong atheism in the article. Andre (talk) 20:35, September 5, 2005 (UTC)
Andre is right. WP:RTA. This topic was debated ad nauseum for many months long ago here as the archives attest, and is a settled issue; the article's coverage of strong/weak atheism represents many, many months of hard-won compromise. Claiming they are "pov terms" indicates a lack of understanding that atheism is not a single monolithic position, but is a spectrum of positions, each with it's own shades and subtleties. FeloniousMonk 06:29, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Settled issue?

1. 'A' means an absence of, doesn't it? So then just as the only reasonable thing to say about what characterizes asymmetry is that asymmetry is characterized by an absence of symmetry, the only reasonable thing to say about atheism is that atheism is characterized by an absence of theism.

2. But FeloniousMonk and Andre (see just above here) insist that the issue is settled, and THEIR side has prevailed, so that is the end of discussion, but isn't it true that there are NEVER any settled issues in Wikipedia? Isn't it true that the policy is that any decisions about articles or policies should NEVER be regarded as permanently binding? Following is a quote from the policy:

From Wikipedia:No binding decisions: Wikipedia strives for consensus to build an encyclopedia. Decisions which are made about articles or policies should not be regarded as binding. Later objections to a decision might represent a change in consensus that may need to be taken in account, regardless of whether that earlier decision was made by a poll or other method. In order to reach the best possible decisions, we hold it important to listen carefully to each other's arguments, and to try to find mutually acceptable solutions in conflicts. Polls are the exception and not the rule, and where they do exist they are not binding. It is the nature of the wiki to be ever-changing. New people visit every day, and through new information and new ideas, we may gain insights we didn't have previously. It is important that there is a way to challenge past decisions, whether they have been reached by poll or consensus. Decisions should therefore practically never be "binding" in the sense that the decision cannot be taken back.

3. The important point Andre and FeloniousMonk and others seem to be missing in this case is that even those so-called strong atheists, those who have sound reason to hold a strong conviction that there are no gods in evidence because there are no gods in evidence, they also have an absence of theism just like all other atheists, and that is all that is essential to atheism, just as an absence of symmetry is all that is essential to asymmetry.--Adrigo 17:18, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

The absence of belief is common to positive and negative atheism, but it is not a settled issue (for purposes of this article) as to whether such absence is all that is essential to (or necessary for) atheism. Those who assert that atheism is mere lack of belief insist (like Adrigo) that all that is necessary to atheism is such lack. In contrast, those who assert that atheism is a belief in the nonexistence of deities (including some atheist philosophers, like Ted Drange, for example) insist that atheism consists not just of a lack of belief, but an active denial. According to the latter POV, while lack of belief (in gods) is essential to atheism, it is not all that is essential. Adrigo's recent edit (which I've mostly reverted) takes a position against this POV, giving the impression that the issue is settled in favor of equating atheism with negative atheism, with positive atheism being a mere subset. This runs counter to actual usage of the word by many theologians and atheologians, as well as against the most popular usage among the general public. Wikipedia's role is descriptive, rather than prescriptive. It describes what is--not what should be. My personal usage of the word "atheist," like Adrigo's, assumes that lack of belief in God or gods is all that is necessary, but this does not change the fact that many others use the word differently, and that Wikipedia should represent both usages neutrally. Rohirok 19:15, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I mainly agree with this, and I have something I want to do to the entry to try to make this kind of thing clearer, since it's hopelessly confused at the moment. Atheism has been defined by some atheists in a very broad way since the 18th century, but there are differences between professional/academic philosophers who are mainly interested in reasons for and against belief, and thus generally see positive/negative in terms of types of rejection, and others who see positive/negative in terms of the difference between rejection and simple absence. The concerns are different. As Rohirok correctly says, the entry just needs to document all this. I'm going to have a go shortly :-) --Dannyno 19:31, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree, the part about 'ontological position' must be edited out. Rohorok says, "Wikipedia describes what is." That is correct, and what is is that the only thing all atheists share in common is an absence of theism. Even so-called strong atheists have the same absence of theism that so-called weak atheists do. This is not a point of view as Rohirok says, it is an undeniable fact (a 'what is') that Wikipedia must make clear if it is to be taken seriously.--Adrigo 20:26, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
Adrigo, you claimed that lack of belief in God/gods is all that is essential to atheism. This is a particular point of view that is not shared by all atheists (I gave one counter-example, there are others), let alone others who use the word. True, lack of belief is common to both types of positions, but this is not the same as saying that lack of belief is all that is essential to atheism. There are two main differences in usage of the word: (1) atheism is mere lack of belief in God/gods, and (2) atheism is denial of God/gods (the belief that God/gods don't exist). According to usage (2), an atheist must believe God/gods don't exist. Anyone who doesn't believe this isn't an atheist. In other words, belief that God/gods don't exist is all that is essential, and lack of belief in God/gods is not all that is essential to be an atheist. What you added to the article is consistent with position (1), but inconsistent with position (2), and so fails the NPOV test. The article must not take position (1) over position (2), but simply describe both. Rohirok 04:41, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Rohirok, you argue, "Adrigo, you claimed that lack of belief in God/gods is all that is essential to atheism." That lack of belief in the existence of a god or gods is all that is essential to atheism is not a claim, it is just a simple fact that all that is essential to atheism, and the one thing common concerning ALL atheists, at a bare minimum, is an absence of theism, an absence of the religious belief that there might be a god or gods. Anyone who holds such a belief is theist. Anyone who does not hold such a belief, including all those who are actively agnostic like me and Thomas Huxley, those who actively deny and repudiate the religious belief that there might be a god or gods, is atheist. Any further questions on this simple point sir?--Adrigo 19:06, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

my preference is the same as Adrigos, in other words I understand atheism very inclusively. That has the historical development of atheism in its favour. However, there is a legitimate more restricted or narrower use of the word atheism - especially in academic philosophy, for reasons that should be obvious - that defines atheism in terms of rejection of atheism and explicitly does *not* regard "absence" of theism as a species of atheism, unless that absence is the result of one of many forms of rejection (not just strong forms) This goes back to Paul Edwards at least, but there is also some ambiguity in other writers such as Bradlaugh earlier than that. How, adrigo, do you propose to explain this to readers of the article? Because it does need explaining, otherwise people will get confused if they read Smith and then read Edwards' encyclopedia articles. It's not unusual for technical and informal definitions of words to differ - viz, even more radically, "inferiority complex". --Dannyno 08:54, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
I must still point to an essential distinction: anyone who thinks there might be a god is simply someone who isn't a strong atheist (whether you equate it with "atheist" or not). A theist is someone who holds the religious belief that there is a god or gods. See Talk:Agnosticism for talk about this distinction. Jules LT 17:42, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
For the subject at hand, I think we should first report the two different usages first and then explain where each came from. This is not clear in the article. What would you think of a section at the beginning of the article summing up briefly all the meanings that have been attached to the word and extremely briefly where and when this meaning was used. That would be very informative and direct people to what they want to know inside the article.Jules LT 17:58, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
I'm not unattracted to that suggestion. I'm having a go at working on chapter and verse of all these distinctions, and/but it's not a bad idea to have some bullet points right at the beginning. --Dannyno 22:01, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Concerning the conjecture, 'There might be a god'

Incidentally, on "there might be a god", I have a difficulty with what "might" means there. Does it mean "it's possible" (and thus compatible with negative atheism/agnosticism-as-suspension-of-judgement), or does it mean "fairly likely", or does it mean "might, or might not - the sides are evenly matched"? --Dannyno 22:01, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

What do you mean, 'compatible with atheism'? The conjecture, "There might be a god" is theist conjecture, right? Arguing _ad ignorantiam_ for accepting such conjecture because there is no proof it is false is one of the favorite passtimes of those of the theist persuasion isn't it? --Adrigo 23:19, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
It is "There might (or might not) be a God". Both are possibilities and the likeliness of either depends on one's POV. Whatever the likeliness an individual attributes to the propositions "God exists" and "God does not exist", this translates as "God might (or might not) exist". This is equivalent to "God might exist" since this also encompasses the two possiblities, but "might (or might not)" is less confusing.
I've been confronted to Adrigo on that matter in Talk:Agnosticism for some time now, I'm getting tired and I'd like some other people to give an appreciation of the debate, if they can gather the strength.
Only the subsection "There might be a God because there is no proof that hypothesis is false?" is relevant: before that, I've been accumulating quotes in support of a mention that "[some strands of] agnosticism accept all beliefs as possibilities, albeit of variable likeliness, because those beliefs can't be proved wrong". Please answer on Talk:Agnosticism, not here, This debate is irrelevant on the atheism talk page. I only wanted to correct what looks like nonsense to me, that Adrigo put here as fact (namely: "saying that God might possibly exist is theism"). It might have gone unnoticed and he would have interpreted that as silent consent.

Jules LT 00:17, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

You didn't answer my question: The conjecture, "There might be a god" is theist conjecture, right? Arguing _ad ignorantiam_ for accepting such conjecture because there is no proof it is false is one of the favorite passtimes of those of the theist persuasion isn't it? --Adrigo 17:04, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

  1. It is not.
  2. I answered the question again and again, but my explanations seem to be rejected just because I'm the one formulating them. I still believe that the word conjecture, if theoretically neutral, is commonly used while emphasizing more on the fact that it wasn't proved right, and thus isn't neutral. Proposition is better. I can't see why I shouldn't edit headlines, since they are not supposed to express one person's view but rather the problem at hand, but I'm not going to break the 3 revert rule. Jules LT 19:52, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

Don't be silly, Jules, it is certainly not an atheist thing to do to argue _ad ignorantiam_ that there might be a god because there is no proof that conjecture is false, that is one of the favorite passtimes of those of the theist persuasion.

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Jules, if you believe your point of view, your conjecture that there might be a diety anyway, even though there is no such thing you can point to and say, 'There, that's what I'm talking about', if you believe your point of view is not being fairly represented here, then you are perfectly free to go step by step through the dispute resolution process, see how far you get. --Adrigo 23:00, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

First, please don't insert your answers my comments between my different points, that prevents the Talk page from being easily readable. I changed the presentation to remove any confusion as to the fact that I was the one who posted the "It is not". I thought it was obvious enough as it was, but I may have been wrong on that.
Second: you keep repeating the same thing, but I'd like to see actual references and precise quotes saying that "There might be a god" is a "theist conjecture". I've been sourcing and explaining my point plenty of times. You didn't. Jules LT 23:30, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

"Belief" System vs. "Religion"

"NPOV" flag invoked because it is ludicrous to keep striking out the reference to atheism as a belief system. Based on Wikipedia's definition of "belief", this is absolutely a rational definition of atheism.

BTW, if it is not a belief...what precisely is it?--66.69.219.9 22:21, 5 September 2005 (UTC)

Your edits state that it's only considered a belief. However, the consensus among editors is that it has two important definitions: either a belief that there are no deities, or a lack of belief in any deities. So when you placed your comment in the intro, you made the article inconsistent, as if it were saying "Atheism is A or B" and then "Atheism is B". Do you see how both statements can't be in the article at once? --Yath 22:29, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Refer to the definition of "belief" in Wikipedia. Regardless of "editorial consensus" it's nonsense to say that atheism is a "non-belief"...from an epistemology standpoint, that carries the same merit as a "non-thought." --66.69.219.9 22:32, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Why is it nonsense? --Yath 22:37, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
How can one hold a "non-belief" in terms of judgment? This has no basis in epistemology, the study of human thought and 'knowledge.' Everything that enters one's consciousness goes through internal judgment. Being coy about it doesn't change that one iota. --66.69.219.9 22:45, 5 September 2005 (UTC)
Then what am I if I have never had the proposition of theism enter my consciousness? I'm certainly not a theist if that's the case.
MFNickster 01:30, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
What we have here is the article stating that atheism is, in fact, sometimes defined as a lack of belief. No one can sensibly argue whether it's possible to be in such a state. The argument is whether the term, "atheism", is used that way enough for the article to actually report it. In other words, is it a notable enough use. The consensus, arrived at with much gnashing of teeth, is yes. That is why you have been reverted several times, and will undoubtedly be reverted again soon. --Yath 00:18, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
Again, you're misconstruing the meaning of "belief"...that is the core of the confusion here. Wikipedia has a fine definition of it. There is otherwise a glaring lack of clear thinking here regarding what a "belief" (or ethereal [1] "lack of belief") is. Also, see Merriam-Webster's definition of "belief" [2]. It is otherwise 'dancing on air' to not ground this discussion in commonly accepted definitions of words. --66.69.219.9 00:30, 6 September 2005 (UTC)
No, that's not correct. The opposite of black is not white, it is 'not black', which includes grey of course. The opposite of 'belief in God' is a lack of belief in God, not a disbelief in God. The fact that *you* hold that you either believe in God or believe there is no God, does not mean that other people agree with you. A classic atheist position is that they see no evidence for God. This means if evidence appeared they would reconsider their position. A person that really did not believe in God, would not reconsider their position under any circumstances, since they hold it to be an ultimate truth.WolfKeeper

This 66 guy is violating 3RR & inserting the same POV vandalism in Scepticism and Agnosticism--JimWae 01:51, 2005 September 6 (UTC)

(edit conflicted) While I agree that it is somewhat disingenuous to claim atheism is not a belief system, as the disussion above and in voluminous archives indicates, this is a highly contentious point . And as Yath says above, the article is describing how the term is used, not applying prescriptive (and POV) standards. PS, I've been reduced to using an older broweser and I think I have inadvertently truncated the article (I suspect it is the length). I'd appreciate it if someone could fix it. Thanks. older≠wiser 01:54, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

He is pushing the same agenda in several articles. I have aksed him repeatedly to specify the proposition that atheists, agnostics, &/or sceptics believe. He comes back only unresponsively with ad hominems and claims that his view is the generally accepted one. To say that agnosticism & scepticism are "belief systems" and to insist on that terminology rather than their being a "point of view" is clearly an attempt to push an agenda --JimWae 02:04, 2005 September 6 (UTC)

I blocked him for 3RR violation. Andre (talk) 02:00, September 6, 2005 (UTC)

Belief simply means that you think something is true. Atheism is a belief; it is the belief that there is/are no God/gods. I don't think that it would to be correct to call it a religion, but it is defiently a belief. I believe that the sky is blue, but that is not a religion. Phantom784 20:13, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

  • Read the section on neutral atheism, and it will be apparent that not all atheists agree with your description of atheism--JimWae 20:20, 2005 September 8 (UTC)
[Atheism is not a belief system http://atheism.about.com/b/a/078440.htm] [3] --JPotter 23:21, September 8, 2005 (UTC)

Bright

I made my only edit to the Atheism page and summarized it thusly: To assert that the rejection of 'belief' in anything undemonstrateable is itself a belief is an absurdity.

Over the past twenty years before their murders I had several conversations & visits with Madelyn & Jon Murray both in Texas & in New York. They helped me articulate the Atheist viewpoint and I think that it is useful that the Atheism page at Wikipedia should reflect it. Essentially the idea is that 'belief' is what is accepted as true in spite of having no basis which can be rationally, logically or scientifically demonstrated, tested or proven. Belief is, then, irrational, without logic, untestable, etc.; religions are based upon beliefs.

Atheism is not defined in terms of belief, then, except in the sense that it is a viewpoint which simply rejects any need for any beliefs. It is certainly not a 'belief system' which has no 'beliefs' because such a definition is recursive - meaningless. Even the word Atheism is itself a poor word to describe the viewpoint that no beliefs (in the sense I have explained belief) are necessary or even desireable in life. Religious people like to define things in ways that comfort them, of course, and describing people who acknowledge no need for or value in 'beliefs' as people 'without belief' or 'without faith' is a splendid example of how religious people describe people unlike them in a way that comforts themselves.

There are an awful lot of 'atheists' in the world, to be sure. I'd like to see all people who live without a need for belief, religious or otherwise, simply described as the 'logical, rational people', the people they spend their lives striving to be, and leave it at that. This is my first entry here on the talk page. 207.189.131.233 19:20, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

Just use simple definitions people. Agnostics do not know what to believe. That is not a belief itself, it is confusion. There may be some people who call themselves agnostics and then state their beliefs but those people are not really agnostics. Some atheists do have a "belief." Those are the atheists who specifically do not believe any god exists and will state so. Other atheists simply lack belief. Those people do practice a "belief system." - 24.7.186.18 21:03, 6 September 2005 (UTC)

This has been argued to death many times before, so I'll just counter with a standard defense: if you don't believe in unicorns, leprechauns, or eskimoes, does that make a-unicornism, a-leprechaunism, and aneskimoism "belief systems?" If not, why not?
MFNickster 00:18, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Exactly.207.189.131.233 00:49, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
Well, if it comes to a point where there are coherent "-isms" to talk about regarding such positions, then yes, I'd say they would amount to a belief system of sorts (although a value system might be a less inflamatory description). (PS I'm not trying to defend the POV insertions recently reverted) older≠wiser 01:08, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
Okay, then - but I would then argue that your beliefs about unicorns, leprechauns and eskimoes are not in any kind of special category, separate from (or part of) any other beliefs you hold. Your "belief system" is no more about gods than it is leprechauns, unicorns or anything else you don't believe in. It only has special significance for theists, which is to say that without theism, there is no such thing as "atheism." It can only be a "belief system" in that frame of reference. MFNickster 01:37, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree with MFNickster. And perhaps we "believe in logic", since it is so fundamental, but if some one is using occam's razor to avoid a set of infinite complex and contradictory with one another(Jesus was the messiah/Jesus was specifically not the messaih...ect) explainations, then I would not consider it to be a "believe system". Perhaps some Atheist believe that there definitively is no God, but others simply don't believe in one(assume that there is not one) until sufficient evidence suggest that there is one. Often in mathematics, assumptions are made in proofs which are shown to be false, which asserts the proof's premise be deduction(as long as there is one one alternative left). These assumptions are not definitive assertions, merely rational, temporary assumptions to avoid confusion stemming from infinite possibilities(All of which can not be true at once).Voice of All(MTG) 07:02, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
Atheists don't 'believe' - they don't accept as true things which can't be shown to be true. Atheists have no need for the concept of 'belief' (a.k.a. 'faith'). When you write that Atheists 'believe' you stop making sense. The Atheist page is currently defining Atheism as a belief system with no beliefs again. If it's OK for the Wikipedia 'Jesus' page to be left intact even as it passes for 'fact' that Jesus performed miracles then I wish it would be OK for the Wikipedia 'Atheism' page to do a better job of explaining Atheism than as a belief system with no beliefs.207.189.187.70 13:21, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
I understand what you're saying, but it's obviously not the case, because it implies (through the definition of "believe") that atheists think nothing is true. Atheists in general have many beliefs (as do most people), the only thing in question is the basis for the belief. As many others have pointed out, you can accept as true a proposition that has been "demonstrated to be true" by someone else; you are taking it on faith that the demonstration is valid. I have certainly not performed experiments such as the Miller/Urey synthesis of amino acids, Michelson/Morley, etc., but I accept the results as true until someone claims that they are incorrect and gives evidence to back it up. Can I believe nothing unless I've seen it with my own eyes? MFNickster 05:02, 10 September 2005 (UTC)
Actually the Jesus article does not claim that there is factual evidence that he performed miracles, merely that some people believe he did, others that he didn't. And as for the word "belief" it is not a synonym of faith as you seem to think it is. The common dictionary definition states that to believe is to accept as true or real, to credit with veracity, to have an opinion, etc. although it is also applied to those who have religious faith it is not exclusive to that usage. --TM (talk) 15:22, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
When Wikipedia makes room for discussions about religions it needs to add a few petabytes of storage in an initial attempt to contain all the talk because the talk about religion will be endless and unrestrained by logic or reason. In other words, I'm not going there. I'm not here to talk about the idea of Jesus and I regret bringing it up.
You invoke the authority of the dictionary to reject as my error the association of the words faith and belief as synonyms. I hereby invoke the same authority, without accusing you of intellectual sloppiness, and introduce you to the dictionary's entry for 'faith'. You'll note, I hope, that belief is not only a synonym for faith, but that faith is defined extensively in terms of belief and in the context of religion, to wit
  1. Confident belief in the truth, value, or trustworthiness of a person, idea, or thing.
  2. Belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence. See Synonyms at belief. See Synonyms at trust.
  3. Loyalty to a person or thing; allegiance: keeping faith with one's supporters.
  4. often Faith Christianity. The theological virtue defined as secure belief in God and a trusting acceptance of God's will.
  5. The body of dogma of a religion: the Muslim faith.
  6. A set of principles or beliefs.
We now return you to the previous discussion where I agreed that it is absurd to explain atheism as a belief system without beliefs.207.189.187.70 16:02, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
You're just confirming what I said, that faith incorporates the term belief, but that belief has a platitude of meaning outside of a religious context. Anyway, a belief system is a collection of convictions and stances concerning what one thinks is true, be they religious or not. The stance inherent in atheism is the absence of religious faith, right? So atheism is a belief system defined by an absence of religious faith. Where's the absurdity in that? The big problem with this discussion is that the anon that started it off is working on a definition of belief which strictly applies to religious belief, aka faith. --TM (talk) 17:23, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
To 207: Wow, I must have not worded what I said well...I don't think that atheism is a believe system. That is what I was trying to say. Some Athiest make assumptions, using logic, to avoid infinite, indescrete possibilites of high complexity(unmanagable). They would change their minds if something convincing happened. Other Atheist may beleive that there actually is no God, period; that would be a believe as it is irrational(can't be proven). Since only some Atheist have that belief, then it would not be appropriate to call all of Atheism a belief system.Voice of All(MTG) 18:34, September 7, 2005 (UTC)
To TM above: No, actually what you're saying about what I said is quite false and not at all true. My wording was quite explicitly to the contrary of what you are saying. What I said regarding atheism being a belief was:
"As is the case with similar non-deistic concepts in agnosticism, atheism comprises a belief system rather than a religion."
I'd say that I'm sorry for causing a hyperbolic, hyperspace "Twister" game regarding the definition of "belief," but many, many attempts were made -- and failed -- to ground the discussion in what Wikipedia and the dictionary say about the definition of "belief." It was the atheist community that -- unprovoked -- went running down the path of religious connotations...and quite laughably from my perspective. I even managed to keep my sense of humor when Andre, without any sort of appropriate warning, 'blocked' my IP address out of apparent lack of any intellectual ability to refute what I was saying, but on the tenuous technicality of committing the federal offense of violating the purity of the 3RR rule. In fact, Andre -- who clearly abused his Wiki-administrator privileges -- went on to say that he, too, agreed that it was disingenuous to stake out any sort of claim that Atheism wasn't a belief system. On that point, at least, he was right. And, as his personal page states, Andre is an atheist...and an IP-blocking one at that. --66.69.219.9 22:40, 7 September 2005 (UTC)
No. No. No. You do NOT agree with me when you say 'a belief system is a collection of convictions and stances concerning what one thinks is true, be they religious or not.' What I would agree with is that a belief system is an irrational (as in devoid of logic, of reason and lacking proof or demonstration) conviction about what is true. Atheism CANNOT be a belief system. Atheists DON'T HAVE BELIEFS, PERIOD. Atheiests reject beliefs. Atheists live without (as in free from) beliefs. That's what makes them Atheists! The idea of a belief system without beliefs is as nonsensical as the idea of an igloo at the heart of the sun and the comfort you derive from a feeling that Andre agrees with you won't ever give the idea any meaning at all.
As I stated above, I agree with 207 that not all of Atheism is a belief system. Though I would say that strong Atheism is a belief system, as one cannot prove that God does not exist(and such negative do need proof, as a man in the 1300s can claim that manned spacecraft are impossible to build, and nobody could disprove him, even though since 1969, such craft will actually end up exisiting...).Voice of All(MTG) 02:51, September 8, 2005 (UTC)
And would someone please throw an epistemological life preserver to JimWae...? The poor guy is having a mental breakdown over the meaning of "belief." Sheesh. Maybe the double citizenship has caused him to lose his foundations? --66.69.219.9 03:24, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
To 207: When you say something like "Atheists DON"T HAVE BELIEFS, PERIOD" you're evincing your misunderstanding concerning the word "belief", which is the crux of this entire discussion. If people earlier on in this discussion settled on a definition of "belief" that applied only to religious meaning then we have to correct that mistake. I've referenced a dictionary for the term belief, and shown that it is not restricted to religious belief. To my understanding Atheists do have beliefs (and I don't need a caps lock to say it). They believe the Bible is false, they believe something should be proven before it is adopted as truth. That is the meaning of belief outside of a religious context. You keep going back to your own vague strawman phrase of "a belief system without beliefs" which noone, at least not myself, is proposing. Please provide your sources for what you take as a given that Atheists have no beliefs in the sense I have specified. Most people here are atheists I'm guessing, including myself, so you don't need to be so zealous and defensive with your language. For now I've put the term "system of thought" in the opening since "state" is pretty inappropriate to define a theological/metaphysical outlook. --TM (talk) 07:48, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
I just want to summarize my posts here in 'talk' and leave it at that. I'm not here to impose a vocabulary or a viewpoint, but to simply enter my viewpoint for others to consider. I spent several visits with Jon & Madelyn O'Hair refining it. It is fair to say, honestly, that I'm expressing their viewpoint accurately in my own statements. Madelyn encouraged me to write a book, Jon was a guest in my home and I will always remember both their discussions with me while I remain shocked at the tragedy of their demise (& Robyn). I have to mention this because my conversations with them are very much a part of my sources. Zealous doesn't describe me - I'm not involved in the Atheism page in any substantial way.
I appreciate the dictionary as a reference but it isn't a sacred document that has the power to absolutely define the boundaries of anyone's discussion, including this one. It isn't a satisfactory source to patently supercede our own discussions here, either. I respect it enough to invoke it above. In the context of a discussion of Atheism the word belief has a specific meaning - convictions which are not rational or supported by reason, and this is exactly what Atheists reject. Moreover, it isn't the responsibility of any Atheist anywhere to disprove something that is irrational. It isn't an obligation of an Atheist to disprove the convictions of any belief system as a requirement of rejecting it, either.
Wouldn't it have been nice if the people who compiled the dictionary had been nice enough to provide a definition for a 'belief system'. Then we wouldn't even have to talk about the various meanings of 'belief' and we could have a nice, neat explanation of what a 'belief system' is - convictions which have no rational, testable foundation, and Atheists would be people who reject irrational convictions!
Anyway, I now support not using the term "belief system" on the grounds that Atheism does not have a set of guiding principles which belief systems require (as is stated in the article). But I still think usage of the terms belief/believe should not be restricted to the religious meaning. --TM (talk) 08:37, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

NPOV Template

I've removed the NPOV template, as there are little or no blatant POV issues in the article. FeloniousMonk 06:51, 7 September 2005 (UTC)


And I have restored it, because it is apparent to everyone else that there is a substantial POV issue _regarding_ the article and what constitutes Atheistic beliefs.

It's not what's _in_ the article, Felonius...it's what keeps being POV-deleted from it: specifically an honest, straightforward description that Atheism incorporates beliefs.

Example deletion/POV vandalism: the deletion of the very NPOV comments from Madalyn O'Hair.

Offender in this case: JimWae, who is clearly overwrought on this topic and not being neutral at all.

P.S. Get well soon, Jim. — Unsigned by 66.69.219.9. Please see WP:SIG. Thanks. El_C 06:20, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

I'd say removing it is fine since the current debate seems to be concerning the usage of "belief", which is a pretty minor discussion. 66, maybe you could propose the exact changes you want made in a new discussion thread here, where it can be discussed and modified if necessary? You may also want to get a username since it makes things easier for everyone involved in the discussion and your views will acquire more currency. --TM (talk) 08:49, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
I completely agree with the position that the word "belief" should not be restricted to the subset connotations of it that are religious. It's frankly a bit loonie for some parties here to try and scope the definition of the word to what _they personally_ interpret it to be. What rubbish. Here is the proposed language that I want to see included in the introduction:
Atheism, as stated by one of its modern-age leaders, Madalyn Murray O'Hair, is a "materialistic philosophy." More explicitly, "it believes in experiment as the basis of knowledge, and neglects no sphere of reality." [4] These beliefs remain largely intact today.
Murray O'Hair is certainly free to define what atheism means to her, but the fact is that it's quite possible to be an atheist and not believe in "experiment as the basis of knowledge." What's more, I am an atheist who neglects one or more spheres of reality (whatever those are). MFNickster 00:04, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
And that's it. JimWae, to name names, keeps blowing up whatever I propose rather than discussing it, and it's getting a little annoying. If he has admin privileges, all I can say is 'good luck' to Wikipedia...it can't succeed in the long run if it empowers "difficult people and trolls", as the original editor of Wikipedia so fondly referred to them. --66.69.219.9 13:38, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
P.S. How in the world does having a pseudonym make someone less anonymous than having an IP address? If someone can explain this to me, I'll consider it. But for now, when I look at other people's personal pages and their talk pages, all I'm seeing is an indictment of closed-mindedness (e.g., anti-regligious invective such as "people don't worship Thor anymore" on JimWae's talk page in response to his marking up the 'Jesus' page with secularisms such as "BCE". Jim: It's OK to be an atheist; it's not OK to attack those of religion and to push your personal secular agenda on Wikipedia. Attitudes such as these will kill it in the long run. Watch and see.).--66.69.219.9 13:40, 8 September 2005 (UTC)
P.P.S. Look around at JimWae's wikipedia 'input.' He commonly and intentionally mislabels people's valid input as "vandalism", and then proceeds to revert to what language he likes (and in many cases has provided as his own input). What a sham Wikipedia is going to turn out to be if 'people' who spend their entire day as 'administrators' are in fact going around as the real vandals.

So was someone else using your IP when they vandalized the JFK page too?--JimWae 20:16, 2005 September 8 (UTC)

For goodness sake, there is a simple solution to this whole "belief" thing. The fact is that some atheists regard their stance as a belief of some kind, and other atheists insist that atheism is not a belief but a lack of a belief. The entry should say this, cite some examples and try to draw out what the philosophical and polemical issues at stake are. It doesn't itself need to take a position. --Dannyno 21:22, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

The "Atheism" espoused by American Atheists is more than the bare-bones positions (lack of theistic belief, denial of God's existence, and various permutations) currently described in he article. From skimming their website, I gather that AA views Atheism as a lifestyle, and a worldview that necessarily encorporates materialism and rejects all religion. Perhaps this is another POV that ought to be mentioned in the article. Also, the capitalization of "Atheist" seems to be a pretty distinct usage. This might be something that could be addressed. Rohirok 16:23, 26 October 2005 (UTC)

Strong/weak to explicit/implicit

I've gone through article and have undone User:67.132.243.17's changes of strong/weak to explicit/implicit. Weak and strong are the more commonly used terms by a long shot. User:67.132.243.17 should seek consensus here before making such significant alterations to te article, and take the time to read the article's archived discussions; had he, he'd have seen that this issue was previously discussed and settled long ago. FeloniousMonk 07:19, 7 September 2005 (UTC)

Seperate article for History of Atheism

Since the atheism article has surpassed the desired size maybe the history section should have its own article. This seems to be appropriate considering History of Christianity, History of Islam, History of Judaism, etc. --TM (talk) 09:12, 8 September 2005 (UTC)

Seconded. Be bold. mikka (t) 01:26, 9 September 2005 (UTC)
A good idea. --Dannyno 21:16, 10 September 2005 (UTC)

What I Am Up To

I've been making a lot of edits lately. My intention is to begin to connect this article (and subsequently linked ones) to the actual literature of atheism, which is unaccountably absent from the entry. I'm particularly interested in definitions and I will be trying to draw out the important distinctions in a more understandable and, importantly, supportable way than the entry currently does. We have a riot of strong/weak/explicit/positive blah blah but no actual indication of who uses what terms and why. There are differences, for example, between Martin and Smith. And "implicit/explicit", assuming their use here is drawn from Smith, are not quite as synonymous with weak/strong as seems to be thought, for example. There have been too many pointless battles over labels here. What we need is for the entry to make the distinctions clear, and then give citations for the labelling. This is what I will be doing, and I hope it will make for a better and more coherent article. --Dannyno 21:14, 12 September 2005 (UTC)

You rock. Go crazy. --Quasipalm 20:29, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

Antitheism

Time to create a new page for this section? It's getting rather long :-) --Dannyno 20:08, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't know. Right now, it's just a bunch of conflicting definitions. I'm not sure that could make a strong enough article, even using the "main got long, so we forked this" justification for weak articles. I admit, I'd love to see one, as I identify myself as an antitheist, and regard that as distinct from atheism or agnosticism, but that doesn't count for anything as far as articles goes. The Literate Engineer 03:37, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

philosophical beliefs

In the Statistical Problem section: Some people, though atheist, are also Agnostic, Jewish, Buddhist, or of other philosophical beliefs. The term Jewish is confusing. Is it religious Judaism? can someone be a religious Jewish athiest? cultural Judaism? or just ethnic Judaism? are either of these philosophical beliefs? --Yodakii 03:26, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

i think it mor pertains to people like Woody Allen: intellectually, atheists, but their ancestry is Jewish.
As Woody himself put it, "to you, I'm an atheist. To God, I'm the loyal opposition!" MFNickster
I still fundamentally disagree with that, though. It's highly misleading. You're an atheist or you're not: there are words for situations in which you are 'mixed.' Lockeownzj00 10:11, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

So ancestry is a philosophical belief? Why don't we include Japanese athiests, Swedish athiests and Turkish athiests in the list too? --Yodakii 14:26, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Because the word "Jewish" in the English language refers to both belief and ancestors, while the English word "Japanese" does not refer to "Japanese religions" without the "religion" part. The word "Hispanic" refering to either culture or ancestory is similar. (a Mexican can have 100% European ancestors or 100% Indian ancestory or anything inbetween and still be "Hispanic" if in the USA.) The limitations of language in the self-identification of a specific lack of a belief that is discriminated against has important implications for polling data. WAS 4.250 20:20, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Plainly some atheists who identify with their Jewish ancestry or ethnic background do choose to call themselves "Jewish atheists". See for example S. Levin, Jewish Atheism. New Humanist 110 (2), May 1995, p13-15. Equally plainly some atheists with a Jewish background do not identify like that, maybe, like Chapman Cohen (former President of the National Secular Society in the UK), because they think of Jewishness primarily in terms of Judaism and not as a cultural identity. It's the entry's job to provide information about this, not to make judgements about who is right. I've actually already planned to say something about this, which is why I have the Levin article to hand, so this comment was timely :-) --Dannyno 21:44, 17 September 2005 (UTC)

Country entries - another potential for new pages?

I was thinking about other possibilities for cutting down the size of this entry. Apart from breaking out antitheism, I wondered whether there was scope for starting to create entries for atheism in particular countries. This would allow us to go into more detail on history than the general history entry will presumably be able to, and also to give an account of current atheist issues, organisations, key figures etc, for each country. And also to restrict the international survey section to "Atheism worldwide" and give some general remarks and international statistics - country specific stats could then go with particular countries. I'm thinking maybe an entry to start with for "ATheism in the USA", and "Atheism in Europe", the latter broken down by country until any gets to a size to merit an entry of its own... Maybe even india, China, and Russia/USSR could carry entries of their own? Thoughts? --Dannyno 21:49, 17 September 2005 (UTC)


An ontological position?

I'm sure this has been the subject of innumerable battles in the past, but I'm going to annoy everyone by raising it again.

It seems to me that the very first sentence of the entry must be wrong:

Atheism is the ontological position that contrasts with theism, including both the view of those without belief in the existence of deities, and the view of those who actively deny such entities exist, both of whom are without belief in the existence of deities.

Atheism is not in fact necessarily an ontological position (Some atheists have argued about what exists and what does not, but others have argued about what it is reasonable to believe and what it is not, which is rather different), and it looks to me as though someone has smuggled an unsupportably narrow definition into the entry. What about epistemology?

Perhaps I've misunderstood, in which case I'd say that's another reason to revisit it. Either, to cover the subject of the entry, it should say "the name given to a range of positions which are antithetical to theism", or something along the lines of "absence or rejection".

Thoughts? Brickbats? --Dannyno 19:42, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

I agree. Atheism is not an 'ontological position' as the article says now, it is simply an absence of theism (an absence of belief there might be an invisible deity) just as asymmetry is an absence of symmetry.--Adrigo 20:32, 18 September 2005 (UTC)
some of those changes went too far into unsourced advocacy of a POV. There's a section for sourced information about the belief/non belief controversy. The "are agnostics atheists" question should be addressed with citations in the text (who says they are, who says they aren't, where do they say it, and what are their arguments?) and does not need pronouncing upon ex cathedra in the opening paragraph. --Dannyno 21:14, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Adrigo's reply misses the point (as well as making an inaccurate blanket claim about the nature of atheism). Symmetry is a property of a figure, and so is asymmetry (and each could be defined in terms of the other); theism is an ontological position, and so (often) is atheism (though interdefinition is much more dubious here). Lacking an ontological belief has implications (both ontological and otherwise), and is as much of a position as is holding the belief.

Note also that epistemology and ontology aren't unconnected, but that in any case the person who says that it's impossible to know whether or not there's a god is more commonly called an agnostic than an atheist. There's one aspect of atheism that I can think of which fits Dannyno's worry: I might agree that a certain thing exists (a lump of stone, a constellation, Jesus, etc.) but deny that it is properly treated or described as a god. That might (depending on the nature of the claim and denial) be a non-ontological (though probably still metaphysical) position. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:46, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I think your analogy with asymmetry and symmetry is misleading. Lack of an ontological belief *can* be a position, but it also might not be, depending on *why* there is a lack of that ontological belief. Atheism can legitimately be used very very broadly, so that children are defined as atheist. In comparison I know of no reasonable definition of agnosticism that would allow uninformed children to be described as agnostic. Furthermore, you jump to the conclusion that any non-ontologically based negative stance re: theism must be "agnostic" (in the sense of holding the view that "it's impossible to know"). But this is not the case. What of the classic atheist stance (Bradlaugh being the exemplar often cited) of declining the accept a theistic proposition until it is adequately defined (burden of proof)? --Dannyno 15:43, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

As black contrasts with white, so too does atheism contrast with theism. In this analogy, "grey" is variously represented as agnostic, uncertain, uncaring, or ignorant. Like a bluish grey or a redish grey, some concepts require more dimensions (axis) to find their proper place (e.g. nonminds, logical positivism, and positions that by rejecting logic claim God both exists and does not exist.) WAS 4.250 20:25, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't pretend to understand that. But the important thing is: is it a view you can attribute to anyone citable? --Dannyno 21:28, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, it is not clearly a theistic or theological position, and calling it a philosophical position is too general. I agree that ontological position is not very helpful to most readers & so have not objected to its removal. It served its purpose for a while in the sequence of edits - but it was neither wrong nor POV. Some may claim it was original research & perhaps I understand it might be seen as that. But as I understand ontology - which is a terribly written article btw - since atheists do not count gods among the "entities" of the universe, ontological position is still the best description of what type of position atheism is. Agnosticism, in contrast, is not an ontological position, but an epistemological one (which is the confusion that first led to my introducing ontology). And it seems Adigio (or DotSIX, again!), the very one who deleted the mention of ontology, is messing up both this and the Agnosticism articles because of this confusion --JimWae 00:10, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

a reversion

I reverted Adrigo's removal of a chunk of material - but my rv note didn't seem to come through on the history for some reason. Anyway, adrigo was alleging "not a dictionary", but given what was deleted was perfectly good encyclopedic-style (and such as you'll find in many encyclopedias) discussion of the meanings given to atheism I can only think it was a mistake. --Dannyno 17:28, 19 September 2005 (UTC)

It's happened a couple more times. Given that the characterisation of atheism is so widely debated, and indeed is the subject of a great deal of attention in other encyclopedias and books on atheism, I feel the WINAD guideline does not apply to the section on defining atheism. For a start, that section is a properly referenced discussion of the different ways atheism has been understood, which is fundamentally encyclopedic in scope (and lots of paper encyclopedias do the same thing, because it's necessary to do it). And see the bit on the WINAD page where it says "it's often very, very important in the context of an encyclopedia article to say just how a word is used. E.g., the article on freedom has a long discussion about this.". This absolutely applies here. --Dannyno 10:59, 20 September 2005 (UTC)
Come on, if there's thought to be a problem with the "defining atheism" section, it ought to be discussed here.--Dannyno 17:17, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Introductory sentence

Seems we now have a battle over the first sentence of the article, over whether it should only say "absence", or whether it should acknowledge less inclusive characterisations. I think it should, given the controversy over the issue. But I also think there are more important improvements to the article. --Dannyno 17:17, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

Dannyno's rewrite of the article

As I mentioned earlier, I was going to revert the article to a much earlier version, meaning that many good contributions to the article were lost in the revert and needed to the folded back in. After taking a swack at folding back in those lost additions, it's apparent that just going back to Dannyo's version and working on the intro to get it to comply with the MOS is the path of least effort here, so... I've reverted my revert and gone back to Dannyno's version with the simple change of moving the historical background content into a subsection immediately following the intro. FeloniousMonk 18:43, 20 September 2005 (UTC)

My only worry about that is that now there's a section on "historical background", and section entitled "history" (which redirects to the fuller article). Can the latter be merged into the former, maybe? --Dannyno 08:56, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
Yeah, you're right. I'm not helping it seems, am I? Rolling it into the history section seems to make sense. Would you like to do it, or should I? FeloniousMonk 16:54, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
I've been thinking (see "1.1 Settled issue?" section) that summing up of the various meanings that were asociated with the term "atheism" throughout history would be quite valuable at the beginning of the article. This would most logically be done in a chronological order, and could be worked out from the "Historical Background" section, what do you think? I was thinking about something like:
  • Meaning 1 (explicited) was used in such circumstance
  • Meaning 2 (explicited) was used in such circumstance
  • Meaning 3 (explicited) was used in such circumstance
  • At such time there was a resurgence of Meaning 2
  • Meaning 4 (explicited) was used in such circumstance
  • Now meanings 1 and 3 are the most common. Meaning 1 among such people and Meaning 3 among such other people.
The developped versions stay, but at least when someone comes in he understands the problem near the beginning of the article. Right now we have no early mention of the sense of the word being a heated debate, only that there were different meanings; one could believe that the meaning is now settled. That section could take a lot from the ethymology section or even be merged with it. Jules LT 18:32, 21 September 2005 (UTC)
There's something to be said for a bullet-pointed list early on, certainly. --Dannyno 22:05, 21 September 2005 (UTC)

Danny - I ask a favor, please, STOP editing the article for a while. In the last month you've made over 100 edits, many of them minor. You might consider copying the article text and editing it offline, so you can submit multiple changes at once. What you're doing makes it hard to keep up with revisions - It's going to take a while to assess the changes and see which ones are true improvements. Please take a vacation for a couple weeks! MFNickster 13:22, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

:-) Point taken. I think I might retire for a while and do some other things: bad idea to concentrate on one thing for too long. --Dannyno 11:26, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

More on introductory sentence

I have to take issue with the non-sequitur aspect of the introduction: "It should not be assumed that atheists will be in agreement on anything other than their mutual absence of theism, although atheists will often be found sharing common concerns regarding evidence and the scientific method of investigation." I am removing the second clause because as the first clause correctly states, nothing should be assumed -- yet the latter clause does just that. R 20:19, 22 September 2005 (UTC)

I disagree. The latter clause is demonstrably true, and not an unwarranted assumption. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 143.52.5.183 (talk • contribs) 08:44, 23 September 2005.
It is true that people who consider themselves atheists often have some concern regarding evidence and the scientific method. The thing is, this is not the main thing about atheism. The first phrase should explicitly mention that nowadays there are two conflicting common meanings to the word atheism:
  • Absence of belief in any deity, in the sense that even newborn children are atheists.
  • The positive belief that there is no deity.
Now, if you disagree with that, please re-read the article before posting any objection. There have been innumerable debates here between those who thought that the first meaning was the one true meaning and those who thought the true meaning was the second one. Which is astounding evidence that both meanings are commonly used. Putting that into the introduction will not only be informing the many people who believe only one meaning is the True one, but it will stop a lot of ranting on this very talk page. Jules LT 14:34, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Lead section

I have edited the lead section to include fair representation of the notion that atheism is characterized by a belief there are no gods. Such a conviction is not necessary. All that is essential to atheism is an absence of theism, and even those who are convinced there are no gods have an absence of theism, so an absence of theism is all that is essential to atheism. --Adrigo 18:13, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

The only problem I have with that is that an atheist and an agnostic are not the same thing. Essentially, the way it's worded now would include agnostics as well as strong atheists (those who actively believe there are no gods or God) in the general label "atheists". I'm not quite sure what a better solution would be, though.—chris.lawson (talk) 18:35, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I don't understand your objection. Can't atheist agnostics as well as strong atheists be atheists too? Will you please elaborate on your objection to including atheist agnostics and strong atheists in the category, 'atheist'? --Adrigo 18:48, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

An agnostic does not believe that there is no deity, only that there is no way to empirically prove it. A strong atheist disclaims any theism whatsoever. Agnosticism allows for the individual to hold some sort of theism, whereas "atheism", by definition, does not.
Now, if a person is agnostic and atheist, by all means, they should be considered atheist. But the two are neither mutually inclusive nor mutually exclusive.—chris.lawson (talk) 18:55, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

You say, "Agnosticism allows for the individual to hold some sort of theism ... ." Isn't it true that holding some sort of theism is what characterizes theism?

Now, As T. Huxley explains it in "Agnosticism and Christianity" (1899), agnostics are those who rightfully deny and rediate, "as immoral" he says, any doctrine like Christianity or Islam for example, that there are propositions like the tenets of Christianity or Islam for example, that people ought to believe without logically satisfactory evidence, because it is the essence of agnosticism to point out the principle that it is wrong for anyone to say he believes any proposition unless he can produce logically satisfactory evidence to justify such conviction. That rules out being agnostic and theist at the same time, doesn't it? --Adrigo 19:19, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I've re-worked the intro. Let me know what you think of the new version.—chris.lawson (talk) 19:08, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

That atheism is indeed most often used to refer to an active belief that there are no gods is an assertion that would need to sufficiently and credibly established to stand. FeloniousMonk 19:26, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I'll remove "most", since a quick glance at a dictionary [5] shows both variants granted equal "first definition" status. Our own page on theism, however, agrees more with the dictionary than does this page. We should be self-consistent on this point, and my general feeling is that we should align as closely as possible with a dictionary in the intro, with further expository writing later on in the article.—chris.lawson (talk) 19:39, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
Just to say I thoroughly approve the new lead section. Jules LT 19:50, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
It's an improvement on what went before, definitely. It ought to be pointed out, however, that until the word agnostic was coined, anyone who didn't believe in a god, for whatever reason, was called an atheist. And that meant there were huge struggles between those who adopted the word in preference to atheism either because it was more respectable or because they thought it described their position better. Many of those who stuck with the atheist label considered that there was no difference between their position and the position of at least some of those who came to call themselves agnostic (which, like atheism, has many shades of meaning). I'd also point out that "absence of belief" can refer either to the completely uninformed (like children), who have never encountered theism, AND to those, like weak/negative atheists, who have encountered and rejected theism but do not want to claim that there is no god. It's even more complex than that, in fact, but it does need pointing out. I'm still trying to find ways of improving the section covering weak/strong differences, but I'm confident it can be done without upsetting anyone :-) --Dannyno 20:53, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
You certainly have things to add to the history of the term agnosticism, why not put them in the article? As for the various stances on knowledge of and belief in God's existence, the Archive 2 in Talk:Agnosticism have very interesting tables. Jules LT 21:26, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

definition of theism

Adrigo, you put in the lead: "an absence of theism, an absence of belief that there might be gods"... please do go check Theism in any dictionnary or type in "define: theism" in google. Just because you changed the wording in the theism article doesn't make it the definition. Theism is the belief that "There is/are God(s)". This is very diferent from the wording "There might be gods".

(sorry, I got a "conflicting edit" message for this comment but this had to be said; I fixed theism) Jules LT 19:46, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

Ah, but Adrigo reverted to his version again... and the lead here too. Could someone else change them back, please? Just so as to show that I'm not alone against him. Jules LT 20:27, 23 September 2005 (UTC)

I've reverted with a request that no one continue reverting until consensus is reached here.—chris.lawson (talk) 20:33, 23 September 2005 (UTC)
I've reverted because Adrigo had it right. The intro is supposed to be a general overview, and all that can be said about atheism generally is that is an absence of theism. Asserting that atheism is a belief that there are no gods while deprecating that it is simply the general absence of belief in a god or gods is pure POV. FeloniousMonk 16:20, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
The dictionary [6] begs to differ.--chris.lawson 16:29, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Sorry, but WP:RTA. We already discussed this ad nauseum for months nearly nine months ago and dictionary.com was trumped by more scholarly sources then, just as it is now. Prior discussions on this topic are found in archives 10, 11, and 12. FeloniousMonk 16:46, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Can you explain to me exactly what you have a problem with in the following, please?

Atheism is characterized by an absence of theism, the belief in one or more gods. In its broadest sense, it refers to any general absence of belief in a god or gods, but is also often used to refer to an active belief that there are no gods. Though the term "atheist" necessarily represents people with a wide range of beliefs, many atheists share common concerns regarding evidence and the scientific method of investigation.

I want you to be as specific as possible. I still don't see how this violates what you fought so long for in the Talk archive. I suspect you and I probably agree more than we disagree, but I think there's some fundamental misunderstanding between us as to the meaning of what I've written. Could you please elabourate? Thanks.--chris.lawson 17:37, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

That passage is better. It does not demote the essential definition (the absence of belief) to a mere footnote of the narrow definition (assertion that no God exists), which was my objection all along to the versions I reverted. FeloniousMonk 19:08, 24 September 2005 (UTC)
Then why, when I reworded the intro like that, did you immediately revert it with the edit summary of rv. No, JimWae's version was better. Why do you insist on promoting atheism as a belief while deprecating its broader definition? The above text is copied and pasted directly from my diff.--chris.lawson 19:25, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

What is wrong with latest version by Adrigo (Sep 24)

It reads:

Atheism, in its broadest sense, is characterized by an absence of belief there might be gods, thus contrasting with theism. <!-- Deleting the following because 'There are no gods' is not an assertion, it is the denial of one: "This definition includes both those who assert there are no gods, as well as those who make no assertion regarding the existence of gods.--> Some insist that atheism is characterized by a belief there are no gods, but that ignores the fact that the one thing all atheists have in common is an absence of theism, an absence of belief that there might be gods. It should not be assumed that atheists will be in agreement on anything other than their mutual absence of theism, although atheists will often be found sharing common concerns regarding evidence and the scientific method of investigation.
  1. "absence of belief there might be gods" is NOT part of the literature on the subject & so is original research
  2. Many atheists DO believe "there MIGHT be gods", but just do not believe there ARE any
  3. "Some insist" is argumentative & does not ever mention who any of these "some" are
  4. "ignores the fact that" is editorial comment and so is POV
  5. "absence of theism, an absence of belief that there might be gods" is repetitive
  6. "there are no gods" may be seen as a denial of some previous assertion by someone, but it most certainly is also an assertion, just as saying a room is empty is an assertion. It is clearly within the accepted use of assertion to say "Thomas Jefferson did not write this paragraph is an assertion" - and by saying that, there is no implication that anyone has ever asserted he did (which is what "denying an assertion" usually suggests)
  7. "it should not be assumed" is editorial comment &, as such, POV

In summary, Adrigo's version certainly does NOT follow wikipedia guidelines as its author contended. I think someone who has been editing for just 6 days may not have a very clear idea on what wikipedia policies are --JimWae 23:23, 24 September 2005 (UTC)

Adrigo certainly seems to know how to count to 24 and understands the letter of the three-revert rule. I notice the fourth reversion came just three hours after the 24-hour limit expired.--chris.lawson 00:01, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Typologies

I notice the weak/strong distinction has been broken out and moved up the file. Nothing wrong with that, but I've just developed the definitions section so as to start to try to explain these terms with actual citations - which might cause problems for the notion that weak/strong and positive/negative are synonymous with implict/explicit. Anyway, one thing I've done which I'd like to use to try to illustrate the meaning of all these terms, is a kind of typology of atheism in the broadest sense - what I thought of doing was using it as a way of showing which atheist writers are including what actual position in their typologies. But I wonder if other people think it might be inappropriate or unhelpful or some other bad thing. So I offer it here instead (all the positions can be clearly sourced and then linked to labels):

  1. A. Any activity, institution, theory, or object that does not involve an explicit affirmation or acknowledgement of the existence of god(s).
  2. B. Those who are without theistic belief, but who have either not encountered any concept of God, or who have encountered theism, but have neither accepted it nor positively rejected it.
    1. B1. Anyone who has suspended judgement on the question of the existence of God, for whatever reason, or who would say that they simply "don’t know" or cannot decide or are still investigating. Encompasses all positions of undecided doubt. But not necessarily committed to the view that the question of whether there are gods can never be resolved, or that metaphysical knowledge is impossible.
    2. B2. The apathetic or uninterested. People for whom the issue is not important.
    3. B3. Anyone who has been brought up without knowledge of theism or concepts of god(s). This includes infants, and members of any human cultures that are without any concept of the divine.
  1. C. Those who reject theistic belief in the sense of an omnipotent, omniscient, loving, intelligent, creative and personal God, but who may maintain other, perhaps metaphysical, concepts of the divine.
    1. C1. religions, such as Buddhism and Confucianism, which do not require theistic belief in the traditional sense but which either do not completely exclude theism or uphold some form of non-anthropomorphic divinity. Buddhism for example. atheism(nontheist);
    2. C2. Pantheism;
    3. C3. Non-realists such as Paul Tillich, John Robinson, Don Cupitt –Christian Buddhism; adherents to Death of God Theology (as distinct from Altizer’s more literal Christian Atheism) and post-modern theology. Sea of Faith etc. atheism(post-theist);
  1. D. Rejection of theism as a philosophical position, on the grounds that it is unintelligible, irrational, undesirable, or otherwise philosophically untenable.
    1. D1. Rejection of belief in the existence of God on the grounds that theism is false. The view that it is irrational to believe that God exists because there is compelling reason to think that the existence of God is improbable or impossible. Often summarised as: "I think God does not exist." Based on providing arguments against the existence of God.
    2. D2. Rejection of belief, or the reasons for belief, in the existence of God on the grounds that the theist case is flawed or the evidence insufficient. The view that it is irrational to believe that any God exists because there is no good reason to think that any God exists. Would not say that there is compelling reason to think that the existence of God is improbable or impossible, and so often summarised as: "I don’t think God exists". Based on a critique of theistic arguments, and Flew’s presumption of atheism.
    3. D3. Rejection of belief in the existence of God on the grounds that theism is unintelligible or meaningless. Logical positivism, for example. Contrasts with D1 and D2, which regard theism as meaningful, but may be seen as a subdivision of D2 by writers who are uninterested in the meaningful/meaningless factor.
    4. D4. Those who reject theism for philosophical reasons other than that there are good reasons for thinking that there is no God, or that existence of God is impossible, or that there are good reasons for rejecting belief in God. This would include those who think that theistic belief is morally or socially harmful or that theism is alienating, or take a reductionist approach a la Feuerbach, Marx and Freud (distinct from E). (However, it may also be that such atheists already regard the question as settled ,before embarking on their reductionist programme. Reductionism follows rejection, it’s not a form of rejection.)
  1. E. Rejection of theism on non-philosophical grounds, or for reasons other than that theism is unintelligible, untrue, irrational, or undesirable, perhaps for irrational reasons:
    1. E1: Rejection of the existence, or belief in the existence, of god for personal or psychological reasons. These may be in terms of psychoanalytic concepts, perhaps because of a poor relationship with a father. Or they may be down to personal tragedy (“I can’t believe in god since my wife left me”), depression etc.
    2. E2. Rejection of the existence, or belief in the existence, of god for social or political reasons. Ie. xenophobia ("theism is a foreign import"); tradition ("my father was an atheist and his father before him was an atheist"); fear ("bad things will happen to me" - consequences); obedience ("Enver Hoxha says there is no god" – as distinct from covert theism)
    3. E3. antitheists (compare D4) who hold that theism has harmful social or political consequences, but who would not say that theism is harmful because it is not true, or that it is harmful because people believe it illegitimately. Need not take a view on the rationality or truth of theism. May take the view that theism is subversive. Actual theological position is open.

What you could then do is say "Smith calls position D "Critical atheism", Paul Edwards does not include A or B at all, and so forth.

Go on, shoot me down. --Dannyno 21:26, 25 September 2005 (UTC)

Well, it seems well-suited to dealing with "external" descriptions of atheists, but I'm not so sure it's useful for self-identification, which I think the conversation here's been neglecting. I don't know of anyone who goes around saying "I'm a D1/E3 meld," or anything like that. On that note, a typology like this may work fine for academics' characterization of atheists, but I can't see it as even able to acknowledge the breadth of subtle variations in people's self-identification as agnostics, atheists, or antitheists. The Literate Engineer 13:51, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, you're right, but it's not supposed to do any of that. It's just a way of illustrating how the typologies of Smith, Martin, Edwards etc work and vary. It's quite clear (and could be stated) that the categories are not mutually exclusive or even comprehensive. As lots of atheist writers point out (Nielsen does so explicitly), you can be one sort of atheist with respect to the gods of ancient rome, and another kind with respect to more metaphysical concepts of god. Bertrand Russell, for example, thought that the ordinary anthropomorphic God of christianity could be disproved, but that more modern concepts could not be. --Dannyno 14:49, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

"Is atheism a belief?"

Now that we have the distinction between weak atheism and strong atheism at the beginning of the article, I feel that the "Is atheism a belief?" section is not needed anymore: the matter is settled from the beginning. The "strong atheism" subsection explicitly says that it is a belief. I think the weak atheism" subsection should explicitly say "weak atheism is not a belief" (we all agree on that, don't we?), so as not to leave any doubt. So here is the section I removed; you may want to put back some info in other places:

Is atheism a belief?

Many, if not most, atheists have preferred to say that atheism is a lack of a belief, not a belief in its own right (see for example Krueger (1998, p.22-24); Smith (1979, p.15-16)); This keeps the burden of proof on the theist (see Flew (1984b)), as the only one making any positive assertions. "Belief" also has other connotations that many atheists wish to avoid. To put the issue in less controversial terms, many if not most atheists have also rejected the idea that atheism constitutes a coherent system of thought.

Flint (1877) observes:

Atheists have seldom undertaken to do more than to refute the reasons adduced in favour of belief in God... And the reason is obvious. It is proverbially difficult to prove a negative... (p.8-9)

Nevertheless, some atheist writers identify atheism with the naturalistic world view, and defend it on that basis. The case for naturalism is used as a positive argument for atheism. See for example Thrower (1971), Harbour (2001), Nielsen (2001), and Baggini (2003). See also Everitt's discussion of an anti-atheist argument against naturalism (2004, Chapter 9, p.178-190).

According to Thrower,

Much atheism... can be understood only in the light of the current theism which it was concerned to reject. Such atheism is relative. There is, however, a way of looking at and interpreting events in the world, whose origins... can be seen as early as the beginnings of speculative thought itself, and which I shall call naturalistic, that is atheistic per se, in the sense that it is incompatible with any and every form of supernaturalism... naturalistic or absolute atheism is both fundamentally more important, and more interesting, representing as it does one polarity in the development of the human spirit. (p.3-4)

Baggini argues that, "atheism can be understood not simply as a denial of religion, but as a self-contained belief system, if it is seen as a commitment to the view that there is only one world and this is the world of nature" (p.74). For Baggini, therefore,

the evidence for atheism is to be found in the fact that there is a plethora of evidence for the truth of naturalism and an absence of evidence for anything else. 'Anything else' of course includes God, but it also includes goblins, hobbits, and truly everlasting gobstoppers. There is nothing special about God in this sense. God is just one of the things that atheists don’t believe in, it just happens to be the thing that, for historical reasons, gave them their name. (p.17)

Baggini's position is that "an atheist does not usually believe in the existence of immortal souls, life after death, ghosts, or supernatural powers. Although strictly speaking an atheist could believe in any of these things and still remain an atheist... the arguments and ideas that sustain atheism tend naturally to rule out other beliefs in the supernatural or transcendental" (p.3-4).

Martin (1990, p.470) notes that the view that "naturalism is compatible with nonatheism is true only if 'god' is understood in a most peculiar and misleading way", but he also points out that "atheism does not entail naturalism".

Indeed, some significant atheists have argued in favour of immortality. See for example McTaggart (1927): "I think we may properly say that the self is immortal" (p.185, section 503).

Comments

I disagree, mainly because describing even strong atheism as a belief is contested - for example by George Smith, who argues that there is no positive content to the view that there are no gods. To that extent, the weak/strong section at the beginning is still inadequate and unclear. We certainly need something pointing out that some atheists see their position as a part of a naturalistic philosophical position (Baggini, for example), whereas others are content simply to critique theism. That's an important point to make, I'd argue --Dannyno 08:44, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

George Smith does not talk about strong atheism, he talks about explicit atheism, which he defines as "the absence of theistic belief due to a conscious rejection of it", as opposed to implicit atheism, which is "the absence of theistic belief due to a conscious rejection of it". If this is still the meaning of those words, then assimilating the weak/strong atheism classification to the implicit/explicit one is false and very misleading. The article does somewhat point that out when we have "The terms weak atheism and strong atheism or, alternatively, negative atheism and positive atheism are usually seen as synonymous with Smith's implicit and explicit categories, which are less well known."
To sum it up:
  • You can be an explicit weak atheist: You can consciously reject the active belief in god but still not belief in god's unexistence.
  • Nevertheless, I can't see how one could be an implicit strong atheist, because to actively believe that god does not exist you have to be wary of the concept and have thought about it. So the strong atheists are a sub-ensemble of the explicit atheists.
  • The first section is indeed unclear. In fact, it is erroneous on that point. So we should add a "1.3 Implicit/explicit atheism" in our initial "Common understanding of atheism" section, to explain that.
  • We should have an ensemblistic schematic next to that paragraph, so as to make it more understandable AND make people pay more attention to the paragraph before they come rant in the talk page, saying that there is only one true meaning to the word atheism.

For Baggini, see next section.


Jules LT 21:54, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I think we're saying more or less the same thing. Smith doesn't use weak/strong, but he does subdivide explicit atheism into irrational rejection and rational rejection, which latter he calls "critical atheism", and conventionally subdivides into the usual tripartite classification of rejectionism a la Edwards et al. I'm not convinced the strong/weak usage is clear enough, because I get the impression that for some "strong atheism" means any rejection, as opposed to just not being theist, and for others it means only the disproofers, and weak atheists are the other rejectionists. the "just not theists" would then be called something else, like "nontheist". Hideously complicated, but we have to try and clarify it! --Dannyno 11:51, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Leave this section in. "Is atheism a belief" is a relevant question, because lots of people are of the opinion that atheism is a religious belief when it is not. Just as asymmetry is an absence of symmetry, atheism is simply an absence of theism, that is to say that atheism is characterized by an absence of the religious belief that there might be gods.-Ehrlich 22:01, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
Of course it's a relevant question. The thing is, it shouldn't be answered in a (in my opinion) badly written section at the end. It should be answered clearly in the first section on "Common understandings of atheism". That's what we're working towards. Jules LT 14:59, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Btw, that atheism/theism is like symmetry/asymmetry has already been discussed earlier in "Settled issue?" and nobody really agreed with Adrigo (an injoined user known for his insistence on unconventional, unsourced definitions of essential terms) on that. The comparison may still have some value, but it shouldn't be stated as fact: it is only compatible with weak atheism, not strong atheism. Jules LT 15:24, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

re: the pertinent question, "Is atheism a belief (a religion)?"

1. As to anyone who writes stuff with which you do not agree, isn't the policy here 'comment on content, not the contributor'?

2. When you say it is a settled issue are you taking it for granted that you have consensus already? Wouldn't that be a little presumptuous this early on, long before this article comes anywhere close to being polished enough to think of submitting it for peer review? Shouldn't we keep in mind the policy, no binding decisions?

3. Can you cite any reasonable grounds for taking exception to the statement "Just as asymmetry is characterized by an absence of symmetry, atheism is, in essence, characterized by an absence of theism." You insist that statement is not compatible with strong atheism, but don't strong atheists also have a lack of belief there might be gods too, just like any other atheist? An asymmmetrical stone that is black is still asymmetrical just like all the other asymmetrical stones, isn't it? When this situation is looked at from a neutral point of view, if the religious belief that there might be gods is the one essential characteristic of all theists, then isn't the contrary, an absence of the religious belief there might be gods the one essential characteristic of all atheists? Can I get an amen here? 8^) Thanks in advance for providing an interesting, and hopefully friendly, discussion for a newbie like me, --Ehrlich 17:24, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

  1. The thing isn't wrong just because he said it, but it should still be noted that this is under scrutiny for being a problematic user (follow the link). His past behaviors puts what he said in perspective.
  2. I'm not saying it's a settled issue, I'm pointing you out where this has been discussed before: in the "Settled issue?" subsection. Note the "?". That discussion ended with that comparison being dropped, which is what I call "consensus". Then, it can be discussed again, of course, but the comparison's validity is bound to be put into question.
  3. As we're trying to make clear in the article, there are two common uses of the term atheist, which are generally referred to as weak atheism and strong atheism. The comparison can be applied in some way to weak atheism (arguably) but it is entirely uncompatible with strong atheism because strong atheists not only have lack of belief in God, they also have belief in "there is no God". It should not be implied in any way that lack of belief in God is the entirity of the definition of atheism, lest we find ourselves flooded with comments by people who believe that an atheist's definition is "someone who believes god does not exist". And they'd be right in pointing out that other definition.
  4. The injoined user Adrigo asserted repeatedly that "the belief that there might be gods is the one essential characteristic of all theists". This has been discussed here, on Talk:Agnosticism and on Talk:Theism. This very peculiar definition was supported by nobody else and no dictionnary whatsoever. Which makes me think you're probably a Sockpuppet of Adrigo, considering that you also have been around for very little time but still know how to point out to wikipedia policies. But I may be wrong. I'm going to ask admins to check on your IPs to see if I'm right in suspecting you. If I'm not, I do apologise in advance. Whatever the result, please re-read the discussion on Talk:Theism and give sources if you still believe your definition is right. Jules LT 17:59, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Atheism as analogous to asymmetry is one of two distinct and supportable evidential traditions. It is not the *only* definition. --Dannyno 08:39, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Reshaping "Defining Atheism"

I agree that Baggini's version should be included somewhere. A "naturalistic atheism" section for example. Until my removal of the section, he was entirely in the "Is atheism a belief?" section, which doesn't do him justice. In fact that "naturalistic atheism" section, along with "Antitheism" and "Christian atheism", in my opinion belong in a "Types of atheism" section, following "Typologies of atheism" by order of importance. "God as a philosophical category" belongs there, too, as you realize when you read it. It then needs a more explicit name like "Theits who profess God does not exist", or something like that. (That last bit I'll do right, I think it's less controversial; that section felt really out of place).

I think this should be separate from a "defining atheism" section more focused on the evolution of the definition. "Defining atheism" would be placed after "Types of atheism", and would put the different types formerly exposed in a chronological and sociological perspective.

Antitheism deserves an article of its own, because there is a lot of information that shouldn't be lost here but the length of the section is exagerated: although many atheists qualify, most don't label themselves so and so I think a short paragraph explaining quickly what antitheism is and how important this is (with a link to the main article) would be more informative than that big chunk of text nobody would want to read.

Jules LT 21:54, 26 September 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, I can go with these ideas. I raised article-izing antitheism above. Your move of the god in philosophy section makes perfect sense, and we need to do more to bring out the positions of Tillich, Cupitt and Robinson et al, and why they are considered a species of atheist by some, but not by others. --Dannyno 11:54, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
and the section on logical positivism belongs in the same place. It's part of the Edwards-Nagel-Nielsen etc tripartite typology of rejectionism, and comes under one of Smith's three varieties of explicit critical atheism. And the whole "meaningless" thing was commonly found in 19th century writers like Bradlaugh and before him Holyoake and no doubt others. --Dannyno 18:42, 27 September 2005 (UTC)
And I've had a go at putting some of that "belief" section under definitions. I wonder if the opening "Many, if not most, atheists have preferred" paragraph ought to go too? Although I think it is helpful. I'm tempted to put the McTaggart reference back in, if so, as an example of an atheist of no small stature who was not a naturalist as normally understood (being a 'believer' in immortality). Even George Bernard Shaw might qualify. --Dannyno 18:56, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

Recent reorganization and revision of page

In response to this comment in the edit history: "(rv to last version by Ehrlich. Your preceding edit was reverted, you could have guessed your view wasn't widely accepted. Discussion is indeed needed. First.) "

I apologize if I was too hasty. I was only uploading my revisions quickly because I wanted to have up on Wikipedia a page to discuss. In retrospect that was perhaps a poor decision of mine, as I can just temporarily put it up on User:Silence/Atheism for discussion purposes (though having it in the history has the advantage of allowing us to use the Changes option to compare versions). Regardless, I agree that we should discuss the changes before we make them, if there are any objections to them; since you've reverted, you must obviously have some or know that others will, so, I'd love to start talking about that here. Which parts of my edit do you find unacceptable, and/or which do you find acceptable?

(However, I don't understand what you mean by "view" exactly, and my preceding edit was in fact not reverted, as far as I can tell, considering that it's still there; only my latest one was reverted, by you. I don't understand how I've apparently offended you, but I apologize...) -Silence 15:31, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I'm really sorry, I read the edit summaries too fast... the edit wasn't reverted, you're right (and it's fine where it is). :About the big edit, there are a few things:
  • I mostly agree with your rework of the intro. Put it back in yourself, I wouldn't take the credit; we'll do the fine tuning afterwards.
  • Same with your intro to "Types and typologies of aheism", the new explanation on "atheous" and certainly some other things I didn't notice.
  • We have a discussion above on why the "Common understandings of atheism" should come first, with weak atheism, strong atheism, and a section on implicit/explicit atheism I realize you made, which I thank you very much for. It still deserves some work to make it shorter and clearer, though. Discuss it there.
  • Several sections and paragraphs were moved and edited at the same time. This is not evil, just unpractical: people can't see the differences between the old and the new paragraph when you do that.
  • I would encourage you to make the uncontroversial moves without editing, then in another edit make all the changes you want in paragraphs without moving them, so we can keep working on them. But any better idea you have is welcome...
Sorry if I reverted a bit fast, but from the dismantling of the "common understandings" section without a comment where this reformatting is under discussion and this being simultaneous with multiple edits in the moved paragraphs, preventing anyone to see the changes easily, I felt I had to do it, since the page has a recent history of massive POV editing. Thanks for the heavy work anyway. Jules LT 16:10, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Thank you for the kind words. However, I'm not sure if you're complimenting me too much; my edit was mainly only reorganization and copyediting, as I felt that the page should be easier to navigate before I started worrying about significantly adding to it. My "type and typologies of atheism" intro was just an expansion on the the current introduction to "Defining atheism"; in fact, I renamed it from "Defining atheism" because really, it's the introduction to the article that defines atheism; the section currently under "Defining atheism" is more like an analysis and summary of various forms and typologies of atheism throughout history, not a focused attempt at merely defining a single word. Likewise, my "atheous" was just a rewrite, and I certainly didn't make an "Implicit and explicit atheism" section; I just renamed the old "Type and typologies" section mainly into a section named that because the previous (or current, since my edits aren't on the page anymore) version was misnamed. Also, my renaming of "Common understandings of atheism"/"Defining atheism" into the group section "Types and typologies of atheism" placed that info above everything else except the etymology, too. So is what you object to that etymology is placed near the top? Every page with an etymology section that I've ever seen on Wikipedia has done the same. Or is your problem that I put the "atheism as immorality" section above "atheism as " (with the latter's subsection of "Strong atheism and weak atheism"), rather than the other way around? I only did that because that's the historical order the two go in, and the order they're already in on the page, just without the information organized or consolidated correctly (i.e. both "Weak and strong" and "Implicit and explicit" aren't under "Atheism as lack of theism" even though they're purely a way of subdividing and dealing with that specific definition of atheism).
I'm unsure of what you want me to re-add from my edit now, though. The only problems you seem to have with my edit are (1) that I did it in only one edit rather than doing the section-reorganization in one edit and the copyediting and rewriting in another (you're right that doing both as one Is a mistake because it's hard to see what's been changed; I'll work on cutting it into two edits next), and (2) you want weak/strong and implicit/explicit atheism to be the very first things in the article after the intro paras because there was an earlier consensus on that (though I don't know that that consensus would still apply with the other changes I made to the page...). So, OK... I'll get to work on that too. -Silence 20:29, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
There. Re-added the edits, but with some of the sections moved around ("strong and weak atheism" section is now much nearer to the top of the article, as you requested) and in numerous stages to make it as easily as possible to look over the specific changes I made and say which are good and which aren't. I also want to make a lot more edits to this, copyediting some of the sections that are still severely POV or poorly-worded (the "reasons for atheism" section in particularly bother me, with its severe amounts of quoting; in fact, most of his article is extremely quotation-heavy) and merging and fully wikifying the "Bibliography" and "References" sections; but I'm holding off on all that until I get some sort of confirmation or go-ahead from you guys, since you're obviously been working on the article far longer and have a better idea of what consensuses have already been reached (I couldn't find most of the stuff I was looking for the archives, there are just so many of them...). -Silence 21:34, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
I've been reading and rereading your reorg, and I note that some highly relevent information has been left out in favor of less revelvent new information. In addition, I'm thinking the statement that weak/strong atheism being first used on the usenet may be inaccurate. Maybe I'm dating myself, but I remember seeing both terms used in literature and the underlying concepts discussed in school in the 1970's... long before the usenet. What evidence do you have to support that assertion? I'm not convinced that this version is an improvement over the previous version which was the result of many editors making many small changes for over a year. I'm inclined to revert to the previous version and roll whatever additions you may have into it, but I'd like to hear from other participants first. FeloniousMonk 21:56, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
On my fourth re-read I've found most of the info I thought had been left out. That only leaves the issue of the weak/strong term's first use being the usenet to be settled. FeloniousMonk 22:10, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
The information on weak/strong atheism's origins is not an assertion, it's the lack of the deletion of an assertion; that information was already in the article, just well-hidden and out-of-place in "typologies of atheism," the section that used to primarily discuss explicit/implicit atheism. I simply moved the information to the weak/strong section, where it is certainly more topical (and easier to find, as proven by your noticing it so quickly now that it's moved); whether the information is true or not I couldn't at all say, just as I have done very little removing or adding to the rest of the article. My edit is almost entirely a copyedit and a reorganization, not a trim or an expansion; only a few areas were added to where I could easily do so and where there was an obvious need, and only the most obviously flawed bits were removed. I suppose that's another bonus of large-scale edits like mine; they help us re-examine some flawed passages that were already in the article.
Also, since it's been brought up, I'd like to say that I fully recognize the enormous amount of time and effort and slow, evolutionary revision that has gone into this article, and mean no disrespect or offense with my relatively very quick, large-scale alterations to the article; I am not trying to force my personal wishes for the article on anyone else by doing this, just trying to provoke a restart the discussion of how best to handle the article, and, as my long-term goal, to improve the article's accuracy, readability, and consistency as best I can. I only directly added my edits to the page because it's the easiest way to quickly compare the differences between my version and the previous ones. Feel free to accept whichever edits you think are improvements, and reject the best. -Silence 00:31, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
Indeed, my main problem was that I couldn't understand easily what changes you made, because I don't have that much time and I'd like to be able to go and edit things later with all the informations at hand. From the single edit you had made, there was no way for me to see exactly what you'd done with the time I had. I still contragulate you for all the work you did. I feel it's extremely important that the distinction between the 2 main senses of "atheism" is made as early as possible, because a LOT of people are under the misconception that there is only one acceptable meaning. This talk page and its archives bear witness to that. Having them separated in two subsections made it more evident. I plan on making a schematic which will make this clearer and at the same time attract people's attention before they come complain here, so maybe having a subsection on the distinction will be clear enough. I still feel this is a big chunk of text that people are likely not to read. I'll probably work on it this week-end. I agree that there's still a lot of work to be done here and I will help. Jules LT 22:53, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Again thank you for taking the trouble of making your rework of the article easy to read. Jules LT 22:58, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
Thanks for being so understanding. I don't blame you for the initial confusion; it was my fault for not taking the time to explain the specificities of my edit in the Talk page, and for making it impossible to effectively compare versions by doing it all at once. You'd have had to read through my entire edit to realize that I wasn't just another ambitious vandal. Good luck with your future work on the article, aGod willing. -Silence 00:31, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I saw the reorganised page and was horrified! It's interesting how parental you get to feel over something you've put a lot of work into, even though it's a collaborative thing. Anyway, having actually read the reorganised entry, I think it constitutes a necessary step change. I've been gradually connecting stuff to the literature, but hadn't got onto redoing the weak/strong sections, which meant the page had a weird layout. This reorganisation starts to do the important job of recasting everything into one coherent place. It will take a while to find my way around again, but generally I think this has been a useful change. --Dannyno 08:59, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The main points to correct in the article right now

Not entirely related to your edits, Silence, but I'd like your opinion:

  • The typologies of atheism (types of distinction) are inside "Atheism as lack of theism" i.e the definition that equates atheism to weak atheism. See Agnosticism's "Variations" section for the unattainable ideal I think we should try to approach.
  • I put strong/weak and explicit/implicit atheism under "atheism as lack of theism" because those are distinctions which, especially in strong/weak's case, make absolutely no sense using any definition of atheism except the broadest one. The arguably-more-common definition of atheism, which does not include those who never made a conscious decision to reject theism (i.e., children, dogs, rocks...), would probably classify "strong atheism" as the only true form of atheism, and "weak atheism" as nothing but a fancy way to say nontheism. As such, the terms should be placed under the overarching definition (which can basically be summed up as "atheism = nontheism") that they apply to, to help add much-needed clarity and organization to a usually very disagreed-upon and confusing topic. -Silence 00:36, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
  • The first and main thing to say (after ethymology if you like) is that there are 2 commonly accepted meanings to the word. Only then can you explain who favors which and why.
  • There are two commonly accepted meanings of the word: "atheism is lack of theism" and "atheism is the conscious rejection of theism". These are mentioned as the "two major theories" at the beginning of "types and typologies of atheism"; is that not addressed near enough to the start of the article for you? -Silence 00:36, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I think most pages put ethymology first because that's the most relevant thing to understand the meaning and the history of the meaning of the word. In this case, it is not: Ethymology should be a subsection of the first big section. That first big section should be "defining Atheism. A small bit on Ethymology can be in there, and the elaboration on ethymology can go further down.
  • I don't think that's generally true. In most cases the etymology section isn't as important for understanding the word as other sections; where a word came from and what it used to mean can give one a general idea of what it means today, but often is just a point of historical interest and does little to help understand the word's modern meaning. Really, I think that the convention of putting "etymology" near the top has less to do with how important the section is than with two aspects: (1) chronological order (where a word came from and what it meant in the past precedes where it is now and what it means today); (2) for many words which do not merit an etymology section because their origins are simple, the origin of the word (or how it's spelled in the language it came from, for a lot of Greek words and names for example) is mentioned at the very beginning of the article, typically in parentheses; when the etymology is too detailed to go in the intro section, it should thus be placed as near to the intro as possible, which happens to be the first section. These two explanations are just my best guesses at the reason behind it, but they satisfy me; maybe where etymology goes in an article is mentioned somewhere in Wikipedia article, and if I'm wrong I'd love to see it. It may just be standard use, though. Regardless, the etymology section is short, and doesn't fit well into any of the other sections of the article; if it doesn't go at the very beginning, probably the only place it would fit smoothly would be the very end, and I definitely don't think that's necesary. -Silence 01:09, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
  • I think "Atheism as immorality" (meaning the immorality defining "Atheism") is important historically, but not as to the current meaning. Many people consider atheists immoral, but hardly anyone thinks that defines them anymore. That mostly belongs in History of atheism; we need the version here streamlined drastically. I'd merge the subsections of "Atheism as immorality" into one shorter section titled something like "Pejorative definitions of atheism". It also would give it less importance in the table of contents, which I think is right. Maybe we can add a few things in the History section here, but not too much.
  • I disagree. Millions of people think that atheism is inherently immoral, and atheism continues to be a pejorative word and a synonym for "godless" or "heretical" in many conservative religious areas (and there are a lot of conservative religious areas); just look at the Islam views section, for example, to see some modern-day examples of extreme anti-atheist bigotry and immediately associating atheism with heresy. The belief that atheism is immorality is anything but purely historical.
  • However, while I disagree with that one bit of rationalization for the edits you suggest, I agree entirely with the edits themselves; that sounds like a great way to organize the article, and I agree that ; I just think it also has importance in modern-day definitions of atheism, even if almost no secular observers agree with the definition. Secular observers are, after all, sadly, in the minority. So, I think we agree entirely and I'm just overreacting to one phrase you used because I'm a silly, petty man. It's all good. -Silence 01:09, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
  • Many mistakes here and there... Jules LT 22:53, 28 September 2005 (UTC)
  • .. Right. -Silence 01:09, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I've been thinking for some time about what I feel has been confused about the way the weak/strong distinction is explained. Now I think I've nailed it.

Under atheism as broadly defined, "god does not exist" is counted as strong atheism and "weak atheism" covers three basic positions: a. a rejection of theism on the grounds of insufficient reason/evidence 2. a rejection of theism on the grounds it's all meaningless (i.e positivists and others) and 3. without god for any reason other than rejection of theism inc various agnosticisms and ignorance etc

Under atheism as more narrowly defined, "without god for any reason other than rejection of theism" is not counted as atheism but distinguished as nontheism (ignorance, some nonanthropomorphic god concepts, religions without gods but with some notion of divinity, post-theism etc etc), agnosticism etc. And atheism proper has a tripartite classification. a "god does not exist", b. rejection of theism on grounds of insufficient reason/evidence c. rejection of theism for being meaningless.

So for Nagel, Edwards, Nielsen et al, some of what Flew, Smith and Martin classify as "weak atheism" is also classified as atheism under their narrower tripartite system.

I feel the article rather obscures this point. Or maybe it's the point that's obscure :-) --Dannyno 09:34, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

On reflection, the bit discussing implicit/explicit does make a similar point. --Dannyno 10:07, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Distinction between weak atheism and agnosticism

  • Weak atheism: the lack of belief in any god or gods, without a positive denial of the existence of any god or gods.
  • Agnosticism: the philosophical view that the truth values of certain claims—particularly theological claims regarding the existence of God, gods, or deities—are unknown, inherently unknowable, or incoherent, and therefore, (some agnostics may go as far to say) irrelevant to life (and not only "unknowable, as the article says for the moment).

The last part is not for all agnostics, and "unknown" includes all agnostics even if some are more specific, so we have:

  • Agnosticism: the philosophical view that the truth values of certain claims—particularly theological claims regarding the existence of God, gods, or deities—are unknown.

Now, I'd be inclined to say that all (explicit) weak atheists are agnostics and they'd become such as soon as they would contemplate their stance, right? And an agnostic is a weak atheist except if he holds a belief anyway, despite considering that the truth value of his belief is unknown (agnostic theism/agnostic atheism).

The bit on weak atheism and agnosticism badly needs reworking, but I'm still not sure what it should say. Please comment. Jules LT 22:53, 28 September 2005 (UTC)

I think you meant (implicit) weak atheists, right? FeloniousMonk 02:06, 29 September 2005 (UTC)


I think this is pretty clear, really. Some positions which people call agnostic are considered by proponents of broadly defined atheism to be a form of weak atheism. To proponents of narrowly defined atheism, they constitute a form of "theism is not supported by the evidence" a la Bertrand Russell. Where agnosticism means "suspension of judgement", it constitutes a form of weak atheism to the broadists and to the narrowists they will either call it some form of agnosticism or use the label nontheism. By the way, I take "(explicit) weak atheist" to mean the variety of what Smith calls critical atheism that rejects theism but not because god does not exist. I'm not sure what "implicit weak atheism" would be, unless you're distinguishing between those who have not consciously rejected theism and have never heard of it, and those who have heard of it but not consciously rejected it: but which would be the weak one?!?!?! --Dannyno 09:53, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Weak/strong atheism and the usenet

The article states "Beginning around 1990, the alt.atheism Usenet discussion group was the main vehicle for the popularization of the terms weak atheism and strong atheism—which do not seem to appear in the academic literature, but have considerable currency outside of it."

No credible support has been presented for this assertion and the terms weak atheism and strong atheism were in academic use long before 1990, the date of the usenet post the article links to. I'm removing the passage as original research until such time credible, scholarly support can prove otherwise. FeloniousMonk 02:18, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

If they were in academic use long before 1990, there should be evidence that they were in use before 1990. Is there any? So far you have just asserted that they were used prior to 1990, and on that basis deleted a sourced reference to what so far is the earliest reference anyone has found to weak/strong atheism. On the other hand, there is cited evidence of positive/negative being used in the literature. The way to resolve this is to say something like "weak/strong was used in 1990 on usenet; positive/negative was used back to 1972 and from the 1930s by apologists". That way we make no judgements and if anyone finds an earlier reference they can stick it in there. --Dannyno 08:36, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
And another thing. Credible support for the novelty in the early 1990s of the terminology (remember the distinction itself is an old one) of weak/strong is its absence from Smith, Martin, Flew, Edwards, Nielsen, et al. --Dannyno 10:25, 29 September 2005 (UTC)
I agree with Dannyno. Even if the terms weak atheism and strong atheism were in use long before the 1990s, that has nothing to do with the revision of the statement you recently deleted (being chiefly popularized in the early 1990s by the alt.atheism Usenet discussion group, though they had some earlier use), which only says a significant way that the term was popularized; the term would obviously have to already exist to be popularized rather than invented.
There are hundreds of uncited claims in this article; if there weren't, every single sentence would need three or four citations to ensure that every single bit of information is unoriginal. That something is uncited alone is not reason to delete it, else we'd have to delete the vast majority of articles on Wikipedia which have no citations at all (and in the same way, something being cited alone does not render it immune to deletion, since outside sources can be superfluous or just plain wrong just as often as inside sources); rather, lack of citations renders a passage suspect, and it can certainly be removed if there's reason to doubt it. So, what makes you doubt the notion that Usenet popularized the term in the early 1990s? Unless it was either already just as popular before this event occurred (you merely said that it was in use at all, not the extremely common phrase it is today), or the influence of Usenet on the popularization is negligible compared to other factors that launched the term into the "mainstream", I see no reason to remove this information.
Incidentally, I think I found where that section is from. User:Craig Pennington seems to have first mentioned it near the bottom of Talk:Atheism/Archive_1. -Silence 16:58, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

Does anyone have citations for the academic use of this distinction? I'm asking not so much for the purposes of this article, but for something I'm writing in he real world (well, you know what I mean). My view (as I've explained before) is that the distinction is of little genuine use, and is largely found on Usenet and in similar forums, where it fuels much heat and no light. I've gone through a great many introductions to the philosophy of religion, as well as more advanced philosophical and theological papers and books, and I've yet to find it being made use of (indeed, it's hardly ever mentioned). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 22:10, 1 October 2005 (UTC)

That makes me happy. At least most of the experts are sensible enough to not fall into the positivity/negativity argument trap and to focus on the many real issues which atheists and theists dramatically disagree on. One grows weary after a while of "Do you believe that Santa Claus doesn't exists, or do you not believe that Santa Claus does exist?" -Silence 23:29, 1 October 2005 (UTC)
You're missing the point, or intentionally dodging it. People make the distinction. It's our job to report it. Anything else is original research and has no place in the article.
How am I missing or dodging the point? (If you're responding just to Mel Etitis, disregard this.) I was just voicing my personal opinion on the soft/weak terminology, in response to Mel Etitis voicing his own opinion on them. If I didn't think reporting on the termionlogy was important for these articles, would I have reorganized, expanded on, and clarified all the information on soft and weak atheism on atheism and strong atheism (and soon weak atheism, when I have the time)? No. I don't have to agree with something to consider it encyclopedic. -Silence 03:38, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
The article originally, prior to your rewrite made no assertion as to when or where the distinction came from. You attribute it to the usenet. Either provide support for that assertion or the article will have to remain mute on the topic. FeloniousMonk 03:13, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
False. It's a damned good thing I did my rewrite, if it was that difficult for you to find the text before I reorganized its placement. Here's where the section looked like immediately before my very first edit to Atheism, completely unaltered (only moved because they were in the wrong section, just as I did with all the rest of the page) when I reworked the page:

The terms weak atheism and strong atheism or, alternatively, negative atheism and positive atheism are usually seen as synonymous with Smith's implicit and explicit categories, which are less well known.

The alt.atheism Usenet discussion group was, from 1990, the main vehicle for the popularisation of the terms weak atheism and strong atheism - which do not seem to appear in the academic literature but have considerable currency outside it (first use on alt.atheism).

The terms were new, but the distinctions they were intended to label have a long history.

Negative atheism and positive atheism do appear in philosophical publications. They were apparently coined by Antony Flew in 1972, although Jacques Maritain (1953, Chapter 8, p.104) used the phrases in a similar but strictly Catholic apologist context as early as 1949 [7].

For the whole page prior to my beginning to work on it, see this edit. Attack the passage if you want, but I see no point in your repeatedly accusing me of writing something which has obviously been there for weeks—if you're interested in who actually added the phrase, that would be User:Dannyno, at 21:00 on September 18th, 2005 in the following edit: [8].
Regardless, if the information is wrong, provide at least a little evidence or sourcing or contradictory information to go along with; arguing against a passage based on its not citing a source, without citing a source to show why it doesn't belong, is silly and contradictory. I have no attachment to the text at all, but I am curious as to why you're so dead-set against it, considering that it makes no claims that the term was invented in the 1990s (your original complaint being "the terms weak atheism and strong atheism were in academic use long before 1990", which seems to miss the point of what popularization means) and that you don't seem to have any reason to believe it isn't true. So, please satisfy my curiosity, if you don't mind. -Silence 03:38, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Interesting — Antony Flew? Any idea where? I can't find it in any of the books and papers that I have (it isn't even mentioned in his Dictionary of Philosophy). I also can't find it in the Maritain link (he distinguishes between "positive" and "negative" atheism, but this bears no relation to the weak/strong distinction). --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 12:18, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

It's cited right there in the article: Antony Flew uses the positive/negative terminology in his 1972 piece "the presumption of atheism". It's there in the references. Flew treats the distinction as a novel one, but it wasn't. The distinction was referred to by McCabe at least twenty years earlier (See A Rationalist Encyclopedia), and alluded to by Bradlaugh in the 1860s in distinguishing his position from Holyoake's - though of course they don't use positive/negative or weak/strong to describe it. I suspect Flew knew this, since he was part of the rationalist movement and probably read McCabe's stuff (someone should ask Flew about this. Granted you can't easily map Maritain's usage to Flew's. But I recently found a reference to a French religious apologist using positive/negative in the 1930s; I've not had sight of that though so don't know if it is more straightforward or not. --Dannyno 09:30, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
By the way, Mel will almost certainly be unable to find the positive/negative distinction in academic philosophy, since academic philosophy has generally (apart from Martin and Flew) used the narrower rejectionist tripartite classification and isn't interested in mere "lack of belief", i.e. infants as per d'Holbach. But there is a clear alternative tradition that *does* and always has used the much broader definition. d'Holbach obviously, but a straight line through Carlile in his atheist years, Southwell, Holyoake, Bradlaugh, Cohen, McCabe etc etc. You know, it exists, but it hasn't interested philosophers as opposed to coal face polemicists. --Dannyno 09:41, 3 October 2005 (UTC)
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