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Forums - General - To the Atheist members of vgchartz

DanneSandin said:
Andrespetmonkey said:
DanneSandin said:

How can anybody be a DEVOUT atheist? that sounds pretty stupid... atheism is all but devoution

Well, to be fair it's very possible to be a devout atheist, in a sense.

Adjective
  1. Having or showing deep religious feeling or commitment.
  2. Totally committed to a cause or belief.

but the phrase "devout atheist" gets thrown around very liberally by some people. I've never encountered anyone IRL or otherwise that I would describe as a "devout atheist". I would describe hardly any religious people as "devout" in their religious beliefs either... it's a very strong word.

Yeah, come to think about it I guess Richard Dawkins and Cristopher Hitchen is/was devouted atheists...

Even those guys aren't. I know Dawkins for sure isn't, I remember listeting to him say every atheist should still be doubtful, and there's no certainty in atheism. I don't mean to keep contradicting you lol



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WereKitten said:
Jay520 said:
People aren't born with any philosophical beliefs.
Belief in God is a philosophical belief.
People are born without a belief in God.
Atheism is the lack of belief in God.
Thus, people are born atheists.
Atheism is the default position for everyone.


That might not be necessarily true, even from a strictly logical and scientific point of view.

In some sense we are born with "beliefs" ingrained in our brain, because having some basic tool for knowledge proved useful and was selected in Darwinian terms. For example we basically are all born empiricists, and we basically by default believe that tomorrow the world will work by the same basic rules as today.

But since atheism is the lack of belief in a god, we're all born atheists - even if we have other beliefs/understandings from the day we are born. And the question could be asked if we believe from our first breaths that the sun will rise tomorrow, or if that is an observation we make for years on end and therefore come to the conclusion that it'll rise tomorrow as well.



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

Andrespetmonkey said:
DanneSandin said:
Andrespetmonkey said:
DanneSandin said:

How can anybody be a DEVOUT atheist? that sounds pretty stupid... atheism is all but devoution

Well, to be fair it's very possible to be a devout atheist, in a sense.

Adjective
  1. Having or showing deep religious feeling or commitment.
  2. Totally committed to a cause or belief.

but the phrase "devout atheist" gets thrown around very liberally by some people. I've never encountered anyone IRL or otherwise that I would describe as a "devout atheist". I would describe hardly any religious people as "devout" in their religious beliefs either... it's a very strong word.

Yeah, come to think about it I guess Richard Dawkins and Cristopher Hitchen is/was devouted atheists...

Even those guys aren't. I know Dawkins for sure isn't, I remember listeting to him say every atheist should still be doubtful, and there's no certainty in atheism. I don't mean to keep contradicting you lol

haha, no, you're probably right! But they do seem to come across as devout atheists, in the sense that they mean to spread knowledge about atheism, and encourage other atheists to step forward so that it won't be taboo anymore.



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

TheLastStarFighter said:
Jay, what is ironic?  As you said, theism, atheism is about what a person believes.  American Atheists can right whatever they want on their website, but atheism is by definition a belief that their is no God. 

Well, that's just wrong actually. Atheists don't believe in a god, they don't believe there is NO god... see the difference? I don't believe there IS a god, but I don't believe there is NO god...



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

WereKitten said:
Jay520 said:
People aren't born with any philosophical beliefs.
Belief in God is a philosophical belief.
People are born without a belief in God.
Atheism is the lack of belief in God.
Thus, people are born atheists.
Atheism is the default position for everyone.


That might not be necessarily true, even from a strictly logical and scientific point of view.

In some sense we are born with "beliefs" ingrained in our brain, because having some basic tool for knowledge proved useful and was selected in Darwinian terms. For example we basically are all born empiricists, and we basically by default believe that tomorrow the world will work by the same basic rules as today.

On the subject, see Dennet's "Breaking the spell: religion as a natural phenomenon". Basic idea: we evolved with brains that are finally attuned to understanding the intentions of conscious agents, as it is greatly useful to have predictive capacities about their future behavior. Just as our great innate ability in reading facial expressions leads us to mistakingly see faces in the patterns of clouds, rock shapes and wood knots, so this ability of ours to infer conscious intentions might have been misused, and led us to see agents in inanimate natural phenomena. A thunderstorm becomes an expression of anger, the sun loves us if it useful for our needs and so on... We populate the world with spirits, and then with gods.

It's a really great book, check it out. Point being, though, that it's not true that we are born as tabula rasa... We actually have to work and educate ourselves to logical, abstract and scientific reasoning.



Interesting. But still, based off what you're sayong, it seems like you're saying we are born with the ability to form philosophical beliefs. But we don't actually form the philosophical beliefs until we learn them sometime after birth. Which means we still aren't born with any philosophical beliefs.

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DanneSandin said:

haha, no, you're probably right! But they do seem to come across as devout atheists, in the sense that they mean to spread knowledge about atheism, and encourage other atheists to step forward so that it won't be taboo anymore.

Yeah, in that sense I guess so. Maybe a more suited term would be "fervent" instead of "devout"? Though now maybe I'm getting into dumb semantics which I hate, so I won't do anymore lol.



As a child you're told by your parents about two fictional characters based around the 25th of December, One to make kids feel happier about their time in the magic of childhood and the other to make older people feel better about being older and how there is life after death.

It just feels nice growing up to not have imaginary friends, I don't think what I do is considered atheism I think agnostic means you just don't waste any time on the matter? it's kinda like the leader of a foreign country do I know who it is? nope, did I vote for him? nope, do I care if others do? nope. Is not caring about religion a religion?



Why not check me out on youtube and help me on the way to 2k subs over at www.youtube.com/stormcloudlive


Definition of a·the·ism
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA

noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.



1ag·nos·tic
noun ag-ˈnäs-tik, əg-


Definition of AGNOSTIC


1: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly: one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god



Dane, you are agnostic.

Andrespetmonkey said:
DanneSandin said:

haha, no, you're probably right! But they do seem to come across as devout atheists, in the sense that they mean to spread knowledge about atheism, and encourage other atheists to step forward so that it won't be taboo anymore.

Yeah, in that sense I guess so. Maybe a more suited term would be "fervent" instead of "devout"? Though now maybe I'm getting into dumb semantics which I hate, so I won't do anymore lol.

Well, I wouldn't know about that since English isn't my first language, so you're probably right - yet again ^^



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.

TheLastStarFighter said:

Definition of a·the·ism
[ey-thee-iz-uhm] Show IPA

noun
1. the doctrine or belief that there is no God.

2. disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.



1ag·nos·tic
noun ag-ˈnäs-tik, əg-


Definition of AGNOSTIC


1: a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly: one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god



Dane, you are agnostic.

From Wikipedia: Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.

I actually think Jay520 had a very nice explanation of this - it should just be a few posts back. Check it out =)



I'm on Twitter @DanneSandin!

Furthermore, I think VGChartz should add a "Like"-button.