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> they mean that people hold atheism in a religious way And how many atheists actually do that? I think what GP meant was more about people who just somehow ca

> they mean that people hold atheism in a religious way And how many atheists actually do that? I think what GP meant was more about people who just somehow can't imagine being religionless (and "the more advanced cases" paragraph hints it very strongly), not about people who point out that some atheists hold their atheism religiously. Anyway, your points seem wrong to me. After Wikipedia - "Atheism, in the broadest sense, is an absence of belief in the existence of deities." Absence of belief does not answer any questions by itself, and considering its provability doesn't even make sense at all. What you said may make sense for the less broad definition ("In an even narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities"), but that's not what "atheism" usually means without any further qualifiers. For me, atheism is a natural consequence of realizing that I have no more reason to believe in existence of any particular god than any other fictitious being - and even if I did assume that a god exists, I would still have a hard time choosing which god is it, as there are many contesters and none of them has any obvious advantage when it comes to believability. There are many believable reasons why religions exist, but none of them implies that any religion is actually true (to the contrary, the history of some well-known religions seems to make it pretty clear that they were products of human culture).

isityouyesitsme 5y ago
the post that is parent to yours explained someone else's psychological and epistemological understanding of atheists, and you answered as "nuh-uh!!" Take off your engineer hat for a minute and read it again with your anthropologist hat on. I think you may come away with a better understanding of some people. And yes, in other discussions, part of that may be an explanation of why some theists cannot fathom that atheists do not believe in a god. much of this is definitional. What atheists call "no god," some thesist call "a god of their own definition." And these two just continue to talk past each other. Perhaps they want it that way, they don't need to think on uncomfortable things, then.
- msla 5y ago
  > What atheists call "no god," some thesist call "a god of their own definition." And that's wrong, just on a basic level, and it's part of those theists being incapable of understanding a worldview without theism. They can't understand my philosophy, so they're compelled to shove me into a box they can understand, and then refuse to listen when I tell them their worldview is making them comprehensively misinterpret what I'm saying. (And, no, a person can't dictate someone else's own philosophy to them. No matter how condescending that dictation is.)
  - isityouyesitsme 5y ago
    Do you recognize that you're doing exactly the same thing in reverse? The thing is, you can stomp your foot and throw a fit all you want about others not using your definitions that flow from your worldview, but it doesn't change reality. You're approaching epistemological and psychological differences as though they're a battle of authority. You can claim authority over a lot of things, even legal authority, but you cannot force someone to "understand differently." This is what I mean by theists and atheists talking past each other. They each employ a form of ethnocentrism that frames every conversation as an argument. They do NOT want to understand each other. They want to WIN.
    - seba_dos1 5y ago
      It's not about "definitions", nor about "winning". It doesn't even matter which meaning of the word "atheism" will we use. When someone seriously suggests that absence of eternal punishment means no incentive to not be evil, it means it's them who fail to notice all the other incentives that may be there. I already understand their point of view - their incentive is very clear to me and would work on me had I believed it; while for some reason they seem incapable of understanding mine that come from elsewhere. Asserting that lack of religion is just another religion seems very similar - if all you know is religionful life, you may have a hard time trying to think about what being religionless actually look like. I know both, so it's easy for me.
      - isityouyesitsme 5y ago

isityouyesitsme 5y ago

the post that is parent to yours explained someone else's psychological and epistemological understanding of atheists, and you answered as "nuh-uh!!" Take off your engineer hat for a minute and read it again with your anthropologist hat on. I think you may come away with a better understanding of some people. And yes, in other discussions, part of that may be an explanation of why some theists cannot fathom that atheists do not believe in a god. much of this is definitional. What atheists call "no god," some thesist call "a god of their own definition." And these two just continue to talk past each other. Perhaps they want it that way, they don't need to think on uncomfortable things, then.

msla 5y ago
> What atheists call "no god," some thesist call "a god of their own definition." And that's wrong, just on a basic level, and it's part of those theists being incapable of understanding a worldview without theism. They can't understand my philosophy, so they're compelled to shove me into a box they can understand, and then refuse to listen when I tell them their worldview is making them comprehensively misinterpret what I'm saying. (And, no, a person can't dictate someone else's own philosophy to them. No matter how condescending that dictation is.)
- isityouyesitsme 5y ago
  Do you recognize that you're doing exactly the same thing in reverse? The thing is, you can stomp your foot and throw a fit all you want about others not using your definitions that flow from your worldview, but it doesn't change reality. You're approaching epistemological and psychological differences as though they're a battle of authority. You can claim authority over a lot of things, even legal authority, but you cannot force someone to "understand differently." This is what I mean by theists and atheists talking past each other. They each employ a form of ethnocentrism that frames every conversation as an argument. They do NOT want to understand each other. They want to WIN.
  - seba_dos1 5y ago
    It's not about "definitions", nor about "winning". It doesn't even matter which meaning of the word "atheism" will we use. When someone seriously suggests that absence of eternal punishment means no incentive to not be evil, it means it's them who fail to notice all the other incentives that may be there. I already understand their point of view - their incentive is very clear to me and would work on me had I believed it; while for some reason they seem incapable of understanding mine that come from elsewhere. Asserting that lack of religion is just another religion seems very similar - if all you know is religionful life, you may have a hard time trying to think about what being religionless actually look like. I know both, so it's easy for me.
    - isityouyesitsme 5y ago