Talk:Atheism

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Contents 1 Atheism definition. 2 Number of atheists in Japan 3 "Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit" 4 2.3% of World Atheist Statistic

[edit] Atheism definition.

The current lead claims "Atheism can be either the rejection of theism,[1] or the assertion that deities do not exist.[2] In the broadest sense, it is the absence of belief in the existence of deities.[3]". Why start off with three, somewhat complicated definitions? Why not simply use the broad term, stemming directly from the etymology, the lack of a belief in deities? That's the definition preferred by the oxford, cambridge, webster dictionaries, Encyclopædia Britannica, and The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, which all go off the basis of (using the concise oed) " — ORIGIN from Greek a- ‘without’ + theos ‘god’". Looking at how most prominent modern atheists describe themselves, whether Hitchens or Dawkins, the term always seems to signify the lack of a belief in god. I'd like to propose that we simply start the head off with "Atheism can broadly be defined as the absence of belief in the existence of deities.", including citations to the 5 sources I have listed above. --kittyKAY4 (talk) 22:03, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Please see very extensive earlier talk about this subject, starting in talk archive 40, and continuing through several subsequent archives. This issue really has been discussed very extensively in the past, and you will find it very hard to get agreement for the change you propose. --Tryptofish (talk) 13:43, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I was involved in those talks and I agree with KittyKAY4. What atheism used to mean, and what it might mean to some anti-atheists today is not relevant to what should be prominently stated in the opening sentence, which is what people who call themselves atheists today usually mean. The current convoluted multi-definition does not accurately reflect that.

Regardless of what you believe others believe, Trypto, what is your personal opinion about this? --Born2cycle (talk) 17:22, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Please provide quotes from those encyclopedias which you said prefer broad definition. Britannica at least prefers "denial" definition. And, using "how most prominent modern atheists describe themselves" is not correct because their POV may be biased. --windyhead (talk) 17:54, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

(ec)Well, since you ask, I guess I would put it as follows, which may be an answer less intelligent than practical. On the one hand, I suggested early in that archived talk, that we pare it down to "Atheism is the lack of belief in any god, or the belief that there is no god." If we keep all the existing references (in a bunch, at the end of the sentence, for readers who want to go deeper), it would still work for me, personally. But, having said that, I'm not going to endorse making that change, or KittyKAY's, or anything like that now. That's because I've learned through past experience that it's just a matter of time until this talk moves from us liking the idea, to other editors, many of them very thoughtful and committed, expressing intense outrage at such a change, and then, another torturous discussion of about a hundred other versions-du-jour, many of which will be much worse that what we have now, only to end up with no agreement for a short version, ending finally in another longish written-by-committee version that will be little different, and no better, than what we have now. I know as well as anyone what the shortcomings are of what is now on the page, but I also really don't think it's all that bad. So, bottom line, I'm game to hear what others suggest (but best if they read the archives first), but my vote for now is to let sleeping atheists lie. (And finding an edit conflict as I try to save my edit, that just proves my point!) --Tryptofish (talk) 17:59, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Of course my good sir! I'll elaborate..

• The OED, the world's formost linguistic reference has but one definition: "Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God. Also, Disregard of duty to God, godlessness (practical atheism)." with citations from the 1500s to today.
• Britannica, in it's section on a "comprehensive definition", goes on to say "an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons..." and continues with "... atheist rejection is not the assertion that it is false that there is a God but instead the rejection of belief in God", which seems to support the notion of "without a belief in god" or "absence of belief" as was originally phrased.
• Stanford Philosophy Encyclopedia says "‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism", holding true to the etymology.
• Cambridge says "someone who believes that God or gods do not exist".
• Webster says "a disbelief in the existence of deity".
• American Heritage says "Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods".
• We can even go back to 1828 or 1913 Webster which include the definition of "The disbelief of the existence of a God".
• The 1911 Britannica is a bit mixed on the subject but says there are three possible definitions, dogmatic, skeptical, and critical. Dogmatic being the assertion that there is no god, skeptical being the absence of belief as defined above, and critical being a purely ontological one. It then concedes that "But dogmatic atheism is rare compared with the sceptical type", which perhaps requires a qualification, but still leans towards the proposed, broad, simple definition.
• WordNet says "a lack of belief in the existence of God".
• Russell clearly uses, when "speaking popularly", atheism to mean "without a belief".
• Lastly, I think the etymology is the best place to start and the oldest version of this page actually does a really good job laying out the use of the term.

The existing article text has additional citations for source [3]. Either way, it seems "disbelief in god" or "absent a belief in god" is the widest definition, and dare I say, only well-established one in popular usage through the ages, aside from the POV positions of many; finding home in all the above sources: from the 1828 Webster to the modern OED.--kittyKAY4 (talk) 09:03, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

As a quick little addition, in case someone tries to hijack the SPE quote of "negation of theism", I suggest you read the article further. It explores the term and says one should use atheism to describe an inability to accept theistic beliefs, a lack of belief. Here is the key part, "estimate the various plausibilities [of] the probability of theism ... and if it comes out near zero he should call himself an atheist". --kittyKAY4 (talk) 09:20, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with Tryptofish here; the current lead sentence is awkward but it is at least stable. Powers ^T 13:32, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I got a message at my talk from Kitty about my revert of the change to the first sentence, and I'm going to answer at my talk, so please feel free to look there. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:56, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

In what way does Cambridge's "someone who believes that God or gods do not exist" equate to "absence of belief"? That's very clearly the 2nd definition we give, not 3rd. Furthermore, Britannica gives the "rejection" definition, which we list 1st. Also it's unclear that disbelief is a simple absence, I would argue implies a conscious decision to explicitly not believe - i.e., a rejection. (We probably wouldn't say that babies disbelieved?) And yes, please see endless discussion on this - there is overwhelming concensus to list the three main definitions, and we shouldn't pick one over the others. Mdwh (talk) 22:41, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] Number of atheists in Japan

In the beginning of this article it reads that 65% of people in Japan describe them self as atheists. But in the article religion in Japan it reads that only up to 16% are possibly atheist. I don't know where the CIA World Factbook have their numbers from, or where P. Zuckerman have his numbers from. Pyramide (talk) 19:21, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] "Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit"

Proposed change:

"Atheism tends towards skepticism regarding supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence. Common rationales include the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, the argument from nonbelief, and the counter-argument from design. Other arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to the social to the historical."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Argument_from_design#Contradictory_premises_lead_to_an_infinite_regress)

or, preferably:

"Atheism tends towards skepticism regarding supernatural claims, citing a lack of empirical evidence. Common rationales include the problem of evil, the argument from inconsistent revelations, the argument from nonbelief, and the Ultimate Boeing 747 gambit. Other arguments for atheism range from the philosophical to the social to the historical."

(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Ultimate_Boeing_747_gambit)

It's one of the more powerful arguments.

Thank you, 12.4.213.147 (talk) 14:25, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

IMO, the best argument against the complexity argument is that complexity is not an intrinsic property of a system, but a function of the relationship between two systems. Thus, for example, two randomly chosen probability distributions would, on average, have a moderate Kullback–Leibler divergence, and thus either way, one system would look "complex" to the other. In other words, a relatively high complexity is the NORM.

In and of themselves, in fact, each component of the world is really simple. lightning takes the path of least resistance, opposites attract, etc. It's when you put them all together in a big space that you get nonlinear interactions, reaction-diffusion systems, turbulence, and all the things we associate with "complexity". But this is not a consequence of the particular rules ("laws of physics") chosen, or even how they're put together / arranged. This would happen w/almost ANY set of rules. Complexity is by far the most likely outcome of a randomly selected set of rules and arrangements. In fact, if the universe didn't exhibit complexity, that would be an extraordinary event, and that would require an extraordinary explanation, such as an "intelligent designer".

In sum, the complexity argument is based on two false assumptions: 1. complexity is intrinsic. 2. complexity is unlikely. Kevin Baas^talk 14:58, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Since this is an article talk page and not a forum, it's not clear to me where this discussion is going, in terms of possible edits to the page. Please, let's focus on that, thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:09, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

I suppose my point is that Dawkin's argument isn't necessarily the best argument, and therefore we must be wary lest we give it undue weight. Kevin Baas^talk 15:32, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Undue weight isn't about being 'best' or we'd have no articles on Scientology. It's about coverage in sources, whether those sources say it's 'best' or not, and whether we agree with them or not. Olaf Davis (talk) 19:02, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

[edit] 2.3% of World Atheist Statistic

This is the current text at the beginning of the article:

"Today, about 2.3% of the world's population describes itself as atheist, while a further 11.9% is described as nontheist."

This statistic is not consistent with the map of percentage of the world that is atheist, toward the bottom of the article, where we see China is somewhere from 90%-100% atheist, and China contains around 20% of the world's entire population.

Is China not counted because it is not a state where people are allowed to freely express their views? If this is the case, I think there needs to be a rather large margin of error around the 2.3% statistic.

Druszaj (talk) 18:55, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Good point, I think. It looks like it was sourced to Encyclopedia Britanica (perhaps eurocentric??). It would be good for someone to check more sources, for this, and for the point about Japan, above. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:54, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

The reference given, [1], lists China as being 8-14%. I have no idea why China is coloured so darkly - what does the other Japanese source [2] say? Mdwh (talk) 22:49, 10 July 2009 (UTC)