‘Atheist’: a definition

February 9, 2010 — xanthippa

Before I get started on defining ‘atheism’ or ‘what  makes someone an atheist’, it is important to say some things about what ‘atheism’ is not.

‘Atheism’ is not a formal or codified doctrine, like, say, Christianity, or even Humanism, is.

There is no set of ‘beliefs’ or ‘values’ which ‘atheists’ share or subscribe to.

That is because in order to have a shared ‘doctrine’ or ‘dogma’,  a label must describe some types of ‘held’ beliefs or convictions of the people being thus labeled.  ’Atheism’ does not describe a set of ‘held’ beliefs – or even just one belief.

Instead, it describes ‘absence of belief’:  a very specific absence of one specific belief – the belief in the existence of deities.

Atheist:

An atheist is a person who does not ‘hold the belief’ that God(s) and/or Goddess(es) exist.

Nothing more, nothing less.

Some people refer to monotheism (not believing in the existence Gods or Goddesses – except one) as ’selective atheism’:  people who believe in just one deity necessarily disbelieve in the existence of all deities but one.

Atheists may still belong to a religion:  not every religion has deities in it!  From ‘the big 5′, Buddhism is a religion which does not address the question of deities.  And, no, Buddha is not a God – not in any way, shape or form – and never was.  And – Buddhism is not the only atheistic religion.

Communism, for example, is another example of a religion which does not have any deities:  it requires the ‘belief in’/’submission to’/'acceptance of’ certain principles (of collectivism, in this case) instead.  And, there are countless more!

Describing something as ‘atheistic’ means that it does not address the question of the existence of God or Gods or Goddesses.  Therefore, any and every thing, conversation, organization and so on, which does not specifically proclaim the ‘belief in the existence of deities’ is, by definition, atheistic.

To lump all ‘atheists’ together as if they all subscribed to a common doctrine or school of thought would be even less accurate than lumping all ‘theists’ together:  while all ‘theists’ actually have a positive belief in the existence of one or more deities, defining someone as an ‘atheist’ does not define any actual belief.  It just says what these people do not believe.  It’s like identifying a group of people by saying ‘people who do not die their hair’…this can include anyone from people that have no hair to die, to people who like their ‘natural’ haircolour…all the way to people who would change their hair colour, if only they could (or, if it were easier).

OK – this is getting muddled. Let me try another approach.

Though there are ’shades in-between’, these are several distinct ‘types’ or ‘major classes’ of atheists.  In order to describe them, please, indulge me and play a little thought experiment with me:

Let’s say that I tell you I have a neighbour. Let’s say that I now show you a picture of a woman with blond hair and say this is my neighbour..  Do you believe my neighbour is a natural blond?

***

Having never thought about my neighbour – much less a blond one – before now, it it not likely that you

  • believe my neighbour is a natural blond
  • believe my neighbour is not a natural blond

Therefore, you are ‘apart from belief’ whether my neighbour is a ‘natural blonde’.

This roughly approximates what I think of as the ‘what are gods and why should I believe in them’ atheists.  Not only do they not hold a belief either way, they don’t see the point of even thinking about it.  They simply do not care – and most of them don’t want to care.

***

Having looked at the picture, you may find there simply isn’t enough information there to make you

  • believe my neighbour is a natural blond
  • believe my neighbour is not a natural blond

Therefore, even though you have taken the time to investigate (you looked at the picture) and to think about it, yet, you don’t ‘believe’ one way or the  other.  You may think it is likely – say, 80% likely – that she might be a natural blonde.  Or not.  Who could tell?

This roughly approximates what I think of as ‘considered atheists’.  They have considered the question of the existence of deities, looked at the religions ‘out there’, thought about it, and did not become convinced enough to hold a belief one way or the other.  They may still be searching for ‘belief’, hoping to find it.  Or, they may not be.

***

Or, having looked at the picture, you may have noticed that the woman in the picture has blond hair with black roots… Therefore, you

  • believe my neighbour is not a natural blond

This is actually REALLY substantially different from the above two types of ‘apart from belief’ groups:  you actually believe in the truthfulness of one of the choices!  You just happen to believe in the ‘not’ option…

While you still ‘do not believe’ that my neighbour is a natural blond, but, in addition to ‘disbelieving’ that her blond-ness is natural, you actively believe that it is not.  Therefore, you have ‘an absence of belief’ in  the first proposition, and active/positive ‘belief’ in the second one.

Many people today refer to this group as ’strong atheists’.  Frankly, that is not just wrong, it is silly.

The ‘atheist’ label refers to ‘absence of belief’ – and associating it with a belief (the belief in the ‘non-existence’) is inaccurate and misleading.  Unfortunately, the term ‘atheist’ became used in this very sense from very shortly after it was created, because many people find it difficult to understand that ‘absence of belief in Gods’ does not imply ‘belief of absence of Gods’…

…which does not mean that continuing to misuse the term is a good idea.

Plus, it seems to me that holding ANY ‘belief’ is a weakness – NOT a strength.

Therefore, referring to a ‘purist’ non-beliver as a ‘weak atheist’ and to a person who actually holds ANY form of a belief as a ’strong atheist’ seems, to me, stupid at best. (OK – I’m not being particularly eloquent:  but I am being honest!)

***

Of course, there are many people whose reactions – given this thought experiment – would be quite different.  Like…

  • I believe the woman in this picture is a ‘natural blonde’ – but I don’t believe she is your neighbour!
  • What woman?  You are showing me a picture of a car!
  • Whatever her hair colour is, how natural it is – that is irrelevant.  She should cover her hair!
  • Hey!  This is a crayon drawing!  You drew this yourself!  You are trying to trick me!

….plus about a hundred other possible responses.  But, this post is NOT about THEM.  It is about showing that ‘disbelief’ is different that ‘belief’ – even different from ‘belief in  not’….

Of course, there are people – even self-identified as ‘atheists’ – who just don’t get this.

They did not do their homework.

They are  confusing any and all discussions on this issue.

And, that is too bad…

Posted in atheism, debate, language. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

At a loss for words…

February 4, 2010 — xanthippa

A bit ago, I wrote a post ‘Winning back our liberty: the ‘religious right’ threat’.

This was one post in a ‘Winning back our liberty’ series based on a ‘freedom of speech’ seminar I went to in December.  Earlier posts included ‘Winning back our liberty: the ‘commercial’ threat’ and its afterthought and ‘Winning back our liberty: the ‘international’ threat’ .

It took me a long time to write this post – the ‘religious right’ one – because I was afraid that people on ‘the religious right’ would either not take it seriously – so I had to strongly support my point – or that they would focus solely on the ’supporting evidence’ and miss my actual point completely.

Well, it seems that my fears were not misplaced.   Please, just scroll down past the LEAF bit to get to where ‘Binks, the Webelf’ goes medieval on my post.

To say that I was disappointed would be an understatement.

And, ever since he posted it – a bunch of days now…hence no posts from me – I have been trying to compose a response to his criticisms.

However, I am having trouble with this.  In my typical Aspie fashion, I get lost in the details:  I wish to pick apart the fallacies in his reasoning, the errors or incomplete comprehension of the historical facts, or the misunderstanding/misrepresentation of some of the key concepts in the debate.

Either I get caught up in the minutiae.

Or I get sidetracked into correcting some serious errors in his statements.

Or I explain myself, but, I don’t think I support my arguments sufficiently.

Or – I accomplish all of the above….and my post is at over 10K words…so I delete the draft and start again.

I’ll have to work on this some more.  In the meantime – any help would be appreciated!

P.S.   I wonder if his remark about the ‘buzzing of a bee’ was an allusion to Gnostic Christian dogma, with which Binks, the Webelf knows I have been familiar with since early childhood.  Because, if it is, it means at least another 10K-words-worth of a response will be required!

Posted in debate, politics, religion. Tags: , , . 2 Comments »

How many polar bears have to die?

February 1, 2010 — xanthippa

Posted in Humour, scientific fraud. Tags: , , , . Leave a Comment »

Small-brested women are banned in Australia

January 30, 2010 — xanthippa

Well, at least from the ‘naughty screen’.

Why?

Apparently, the wise tyrants in Australia have ruled that women with a mere cup A breasts are not feminine enough.

Therefore, any naughty scenes in shows or movies which include women who are either not naturally ‘well endowed’ or who don’t get breast implants are ‘promoting pedophilia’.

Images of even women in their late twenties are being banned…  It seems that, in these censor’s eyes, a woman’s femininity is defined by her bra size!

Shame on them!

Oh, and watching cartoon characters ‘do-it’ – well, in Ipswitch, that is ‘kiddie-porn’, too!  It will earn you a place on the ’sex-offenders list’ for life.

Don’t these people understand how this frivolence diminishes the horrible crime of pedophilia?

Of course, it is a useful pretext for increased censorship, more surveillance, less privacy….  It will not save any children, but it will certainly help crooked politicians control the citizens!

All this makes me so sick…

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics. Tags: , , , . 9 Comments »

Laura Rosen Cohen: Freedom will set us free

January 28, 2010 — xanthippa

Blazing Catfur has a guest-post by Laura Rosen Cohen:  Freedom will set us free.  This is a response to the ‘official Jewry’ calls for increased censorship as they fight a war long won, instead of facing an enemy ready for a new and bloody battle:

…

“Time after time, when Jewish “leaders” resort to their default position on hate speech and fatuous accusations of anti-Semitism, I am called upon by my exasperated pro-Israel gentile friends to explain why these “leaders” seem so hell bent on alienating them with their knee-jerk anti-Christian biases and their frankly completely un-Jewish moral support of censorship-such as the Canadian Jewish Congress’s support of the CHRC “Hate Speech” and other “Hate Crime” legislation.”

…

“The real danger facing the Jewish people, and the civilized world is not Nazi words-it is deeds; beheadings, suicide bombings and highjackings with the umbrella name of “jihad”. Furthermore, it is morally and intellectually dishonest to point to insulting words as the root cause of the Nazi dehumanization of Jews.

It was the disassembling of Jewish civil liberties and civil rights that began the downward spin toward hell on earth. The descent began when Jews were stripped by the state of their rights to own property and businesses. Their physical property and humanity were legally expropriated. When the state took away the Jews’ freedom to marry whom they chose, and when the state legally defined the Jews as less than human, the descent was unstoppable.”

…

“The Nazi state and its laws enabled the dehumanization of Jews-not words and insults. Concentrated, dictatorial legislative powers were Hitler’s best weapon and were among the Nazis most profoundly and rapidly absorbed anti-Jewish functions within German society.

Read the full post here.

And – Ms. Rosen Cohen – well said!

Posted in freedoms, opression, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , . 1 Comment »

Winning back our liberty: the ‘religious right’ threat

January 28, 2010 — xanthippa

Just read Ezra Levant’s ‘Christmas column’.  It sums up the problem rather well…

It has taken me a long time to write this post, because I just can’t seem to get the proper wording.

But, there is no easy way of saying this…

The ‘conservative movement’ or ‘right wing’ includes what is referred to as ‘the religious right’.

I am not referring to people who are conservative, but just happen to be religious.  Not at all.  Rather, I am referring to the people who see themselves as ‘conservatives’ because they have what they consider to be ‘conservative social values’.  But, their social values are not so much ‘conservative’ as ‘old-fashioned’, or, even better description would be ‘religiously motivated’.

There is no problem with holding these views – even though they mistakenly think them to be ‘conservative’.  Where the problem comes is that many of these people wish to impose these so-called ‘conservative’ values on all of our society:  they think that in order to be a ‘conservative’ a person must subscribe to their brand of religious ‘morality’.

To much of this  ’religious right’, ‘freedom of religion’ appears to mean replacing the religious oppression of every member of the society by another religious faction by the religious oppression of every member of the society according to their own religious dogma.   All else they call ‘moral relativism’…

And, they say this as if it were a bad thing!

Legislating one religious group’s morality to rule everybody is not freedom!

Which, I rather thought, is the whole point of separating the State from the Church (or Synagogue, or Mosque, or whatever other temple may wish to influence the State).

In a free society, the citizens must not permit anyone to legislate morality or to turn religious prejudices into laws which rule the land!

Most of you have doubtlessly heard a variation of this statement:

“Our Western values of freedom of speech and religion are deeply rooted in the Judeo-Christian tradition and it was time we became true to our roots!”

This statement is so ludicrous, I do not know where to start…or even if I need to…to debunk it!

It is in the scientific revolution that our society has its roots!

It is through the rejection of Judeo-Christian principles that we have gained freedom of speech and freedom of religion!

In ancient Greece, thinkers and philosophers (‘yellow horses’ included) reasoned out that so much of what was happening around them – and which was attributed to deities – was no more and no less than natural phenomena.  This freed their thinking of the blind desire to be servants to invisible, intangible deities.  Their now unfettered minds were free to reason – truly reason – about their surroundings.  This led to new advances in science and technology, raising everyone’s standard of living.

The beginning of the end of this era of free thought was ‘the conversion of Constantine’ to Christianity.  The event that marked the final end, the ‘death blow’ to the religious tolerance which people then took for granted, the demise of the very ancient Greek civilization, was the brutal murder of Hypatia of Alexandria.

Hypatia grew up in the famed Library of Alexandria, as her father, Theon, the astronomer and mathematician,was the second last curator of the library.  She became the last (if one is to take Carl Sagan’s word for it).

Famous for her breadth and depth of knowledge and wisdom beyond her years, Hypatia was a much sought after teacher, astronomer, philosopher and mathematician in her own right. Historical records indisputably demonstrate that she headed up the Neoplatonic school of Philosophy at the main site of the Alexandrian Library, the Museum (named for the Muses).  She was highly respected – even by Christians, many of whom attended her lectures.

St. Cyril, the Christian Bishop of Alexandria at that time, was attempting to fuse the power of the state with religion – with himself in full charge of ruling Alexandria.  Famously – and illegally – his mob of ‘monks’ leveled all the synagogues of Alexandria and expelled the Jews.  He destroyed the churches of Christian sects he deemed too moderate.  But, he did not forget the ‘pagans’!

Cyril declared that ‘learning and intellectual pursuits’ kept people form ‘religious fervor’ and therefore had to be destroyed.  His predecessor (and uncle) had started, by burning thousands of scrolls which recorded scientific knowledge.  Cyril continued.

And, he could not suffer the popular symbol of Greek learning and wisdom, Hypatia, to live.

A mob of Christians, led by St. Cyril’s right-hand henchman, Peter,  dragged Hypatia from her carriage/chariot and stripped her naked, dragged her through the streets, into a Christian Church, placed her on the altar and scraped her flesh off her bones with sharp oyster shells.  They then set her on fire, in an attempt to disguise the crime…

The end of the ancient Greek period of enlightenment ended when Christians took the reigns of secular power in the Roman empire, burned and destroyed libraries, and imposed ‘Christian morality’ on all the land!

Yes, this ascension of Christianity into a position of power brought us – what was it?  Ah, yes, the Dark Ages.

And when science began to re-emerge in our society, when Copernicus made his observations, what did the Christian culture respond with?   What was the most widely printed and circulated (aside from the Bible) book Christiandom produced then?  Ah, that wonderful treatise on religious tolerance and love between all humans:  Malleus Maleficarum!

It had excellent instructions on opening inter-faith dialogues!

Are these the Judeo-Christian principles in which our modern freedoms are rooted?

Is this what we want to return to?

Because that is what theocracies inevitably degenerate into!

If you listen to the ‘religious right’, that would seem to be the plan….except that they truly seem to think this is ‘freedom’.

That is why I think that so many people do not wish to be associated with ‘the right wing’:  very few people wish to be lumped together with the people who wish to impose their religious ‘morals’ onto the whole society.

The worst thing is that our society is, slowly but incrementally, submitting to Islamic religious ‘morals’ – and this push is coming from the ‘left’, under the guise of ‘tolerance’.  Which it is not.  Again, I do not understand how so many people can have such a large blind spot.

Fighting imposition of Islamic ‘morals’ on our society by attempting to impose Christian ‘morals’ on us instead is not the way to win back our freedom!

If we do not recognize that, we are doomed…

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, religion, society. Tags: , , , , , , . 12 Comments »

Listen – and weep…

January 26, 2010 — xanthippa

Haiti was hit by a horrible earthquake.  This created a tragedy the proportions of which most of us have a hard time wrapping our brains about.

The good part of this is that so many people, all over the world, have done their best to send help to the people of Haiti.  Good on each and every one of you!

Still, when bad stuff like this happens, even when other people try to help, there will be snags.  These are unfortunate, but – they WILL happen!  After all, this place has had so much of its infrastructure destroyed that it is a credit to all those truly ‘trying’ that so much of what needs to be done has been done!

Which is just sad when one looks at what the Clintons are doing….

Hillary Clinton owns a bunch of land in Haiti.  She has planned to put up some extremely fancy hotels there….

Bill Clinton is in charge of a charity through which much of the US aid to Haiti is being channeled…help, like creating tourist jobs in swanky hotels…. You know – like using the `reconstruction`money to put up them hotels your wife always wanted!

Like I said, listen and weep….  (you might want to skip the first few minutes) as John C. Dvorak & Co. `follow the money’.

Posted in education, perceptions, politics. Tags: , , . 2 Comments »

Seismic Shock: criticizing a clergyman opens a ‘police file’

January 25, 2010 — xanthippa

What should happen to somebody who accuses another person of anti-Semitism and associating with terrorists?

Well, in a ‘Western’ country, the person who was accused of these nasty things has the recourse of suing the accuser for defamation:  we have courts that resolve exactly this!

Ezra Levant is being sued for something exactly like this.  And, Mr. Levant reports the process:  first, he was served with libel notice, and later (6 months later, in this case) his lawyer was served with the lawsuit itself.

While I do not support lawfare – the use of the legal system to financially exhaust a person and shut them up this way – this is how we handle things when one person does not like what another person says about them and considers him/herself defamed by such statements.

…like being accused of being an anti-Semite and associating with terrorists.

That is what we do in ‘civilized countries’!

It seems that the United Kingdom of (Formerly) Great Britain and Northern Ireland can no longer be considered one of these!

What the [insert expletive of your choice here] is happening in the UK?

People there now have surveillance cameras in their homes, to make sure they feed their kids the ‘properly’ and out them to bed ‘on time’.

A 71-year old disabled immigrant widow, whose house was pelted with rocks by young punks, was charged with assault for telling them off while poking one of the punks in the chest with her finger. She was given a 6-month suspended sentence and a 50 pound fine…

A 9-year old got busted for playing in a park, a 2-year old got an ‘Anti-Social Behaviour Order’ for playing with a ball in his own back-yard….and parents are banned from council play-grounds.

Now, a blogger who criticized a clergyman gets a visit from the police!

In what kind of a country does slandering or defaming a person launch a police investigation?

In what kind of a country does slandering or defaming a person earn you a police visit to your school or place of employment, where your ‘misdeeds’ are brought to the attention of your educators/superiors?

In what kind of a country does slandering or defaming a person gets the police to ‘open a file’ on you?

As Seismic Shock has learned – the hard way – this will happen in a country like the UK…

At 10am on Sunday 29th November 2009, I received a visit from two policemen regarding my activities in running the Seismic Shock blog. (Does exposing a vicar’s associations with extremists make me a criminal?, I wondered initially). A sergeant from the Horsforth Police related to me that he had received complaints via Surrey Police from Rev Sizer and from Dr Anthony McRoy – a lecturer at the Wales Evangelical School of Theology – who both objected to being associated with terrorists and Holocaust deniers.

(Context: Sizer has associated with some very nasty terrorists and Holocaust deniers; McRoy has delivered a paper at a Khomeinist theological conference in Iran comparing Hezbollah’s struggle against Israel via suicide bombing with the Christian’s struggle against sin via the atoning death of Jesus, and describes the world’s most prominent Holocaust denier as an “intelligent, humble, charismatic, and charming” man who “gives quick, extensive and intelligent answers to any question, mixed with genial humour”).

The sergeant made clear that this was merely an informal chat, in which I agreed to delete my original blog (http://seismicshock.blogspot.com/) but maintain my current one (http://seismicshock.wordpress.com). The policeman related to me that his police force had been in contact with the ICT department my previous place of study, and had looked through my files, and that the head of ICT at my university would like to remind me that I should not be using university property in order to associate individuals with terrorists and Holocaust deniers (I am sure other people use university property to make political comments, but nevermind).

With my research on Reverend Sizer’s associations with terrorists and Holocaust deniers making its way into a publication of the Society of Biblical Literature, I was quite content to hold my peace. However, now that Reverend Sizer is now misrepresenting what has happened in my case in order to intimidate others, now is the time to speak up.

This is just wrong.  And – indeed, the vicar attempted to intimidate an Australian blogger who carried the story, threatening him with police…

So, I say:  WE ARE ALL SEISMIC SHOCK!

H/T: BCF

Posted in freedoms, opression, politics, religion. Tags: , , , , . 3 Comments »

AlpineKat: Black Hole Rap

January 21, 2010 — xanthippa

Here is AlpineKat with her newest video, Black Hole Rap:

Some people wonder why should we do ‘research for the point of research’:  can the cost be justified?

In my never-humble-opinion, yes!

My hubby phrased it well:  if you only do research on how to improve candles, you will develop the best candles ever….but you’ll never invent the light-bulb!

Posted in Humour, education, science, technology. Tags: , , , , . 1 Comment »

Thank you for all your excellent comments!

January 20, 2010 — xanthippa

First, I would like to thank all of you who come here, read and comment.

Some of the comment-threads that develop are very interesting and I usually not just enjoy them, but I also learn from them.  A lot.  Thank you.

The comments on my recent post ‘Are Canadian cops following illegal orders?’ are a good example of the comments I mean.  CodeSlinger even went out and researched the laws, and, using specific references answered that in one of the instances I raised, the cops were indeed upholding the laws, and acting correctly.

Then, Lieutenant Calculus and CodeSlinger got into an excellent discussion on the nature and origin of human rights.  Now, I know I have posted this video before, but, I think it is relevant to this thread and I like it, and this is an excellent excuse to re-post it.

From STOPandLOOK,  here is ‘The Nature and Origin of Human Rights’:

(The video is part 1 of a series.  Here are part 2 – ‘Group Supremacy‘, part 3 – ‘Coercion vs Freedom’, part 4 – Equality and Inequality under law and part 5 – ‘Proper Role of Government’ …  That last part is having trouble with the audio, therefore I recommend two longer videos which contain all that ‘part 5′ does, but in greater detail: ‘The Truth About Big Government part 1′ and ‘The Truth About Big Government part 2′. )

While I have mentioned only CodeSlinger and Lieutenant Calculus by name here – and I do thank them for their comments, this is because I was responding to their specific comment thread and it does not mean I do not appreciate all the other most excellent comments from each and every one of you.  I do!  And, I thank you all!

Posted in debate, freedoms, society. Tags: , , . 1 Comment »
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