Definitions

[BurtWorm]

Theist: Someone who has decided belief in God is necessary.

Atheist: Someone who has decided belief in God is not necessary.

Agnostic: Someone who has not decided one way or the other about the necessity of belief in God.

For the sake of these definitions, a decision about belief can occur at any moment a person is conscious of the question: "What do I believe about God?"

God: A hypothetical supernatural entity or type of entity, hypothesized to be necessary (ultimately responsible) for all natural existence.

[BeFree]

1. G O D

G eneration and the
O rganization of
D irt

There is a GOD.

[MineralMan]

2. I can't agree with your use of the word "necessary."

Atheists don't believe in the existence of such supernatural entities in the first place. Necessity doesn't enter into it.

[BurtWorm]

9. I agree with you, but these definitions are meant to clarify a disagreement between

self-identified agnostics and self-identified atheists about which is a more rational point of view to hold. Why should one be more rational than the other? Yet many people on both sides view those on the other as not using all the tools in their box.

[MineralMan]

10. I'm afraid that the intent is not clear, nor your definitions.

The definitions are open-ended, which is never a good idea when defining something.

Necessity simply doesn't enter into the belief or disbelieve about deities and other such entities. As a long-time atheist, I simply CANNOT believe in the existence of any such thing. It is impossible for me.

[BurtWorm]

12. I see what you're saying.

And, again, you're absolutely right in one sense. And yet, someone might say you can't believe because you see no reason to *need* to believe.

Why are you an atheist? Why *can't* you believe? (What's the matter with you? ;-) )

[MineralMan]

13. Why am I an atheist?

Because I can be nothing else. I went through the Christian church experience as a kid. Once I turned about 20, and after having read the entire Bible front to back, I started looking at other religious beliefs. At the end of those studies, it became clear to me that humans were very good at creating deities to support their preconceptions. So many deities; so many beliefs. All aimed at answering questions that couldn't be answered with the state of human knowledge. All aimed at enforcing societal structures.

I could no longer believe in deities, so I am an atheist. I don't care what others believe...not a bit. As long as they behave well, they're welcome to any superstitions they may have. If they try to tell me that I must share them, I either laugh or tell them to bugger off, depending on their level of persistence.

I'm quite contend with my nonbelief. It causes me no issues whatsoever. Nonbelief in supernatural stuff makes everything make a lot of sense, where belief seem to confuse things. I live. I die. There it is. Just like every other living thing.

[BurtWorm]

14. Did you consider yourself a believer before age 20?

[MineralMan]

15. Before I was 20, I was a child. Children believe all sorts of things.

Then, I educated myself, rather than simply accepting what others told me. That's what adults do. A child's beliefs are what they are.

"When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."

Whoever wrote and translated Paul's letters understood humanity pretty well. I hope that is a satisfactory answer for you.

[BurtWorm]

18. Not fully satisfactory, no. Sorry.

It's a little too pat for my purposes. But I don't mind if you don't want to answer the questions.

I'm trying to understand if a light went on at some point. For me, I experienced a fairly rapid erosion of belief when my parents stopped taking us to church when I was 8. They weren't discouraging my belief. In fact, I think they continued to believe more or less for some time after that. They were just turned off by the church. As for me, without Sunday school teachers and ministers to push ideas like hell and damnation on me, I began to experiment with blasphemy. Why? Because I didn't like the idea of hell. It wasn't a sophisticated critique, I just hated the idea of it. I guess I was starting to think less of a god who'd allow that kind of shit. I thought he must be a wienie if he allowed his adversary to win souls away from him for eternity. And my disrespect progressed from there.

Childish things, as you say. But as someone else said, the child is the father of the man. I eventually concluded that it was really not necessary to worry about pointless things like God anymore. (And this was even after a period in my 20s when I fancied myself a mystic who had actually come in contact with god's spirit! In retrospect, I'm confident the "contact" illusion was purely due to a physiological phenomenon--or epiphenomenon as the case may be.) I was approaching 40. My daughter was born. I was thinking about what I would teach her about all this stupid shit. That's when I decided it was really not necessary to teach her to believe. In fact, it seemed more necessary to teach her to think about what she believed.

[trotsky]

3. Your definitions of atheist and agnostic are the same thing.

If someone hasn't decided whether belief in god is necessary, then at least for that moment they have decided it's not necessary.

[BurtWorm]

4. Well I guess the question is necessary for what or whom?

You're right if we're talking about necessity for the person in question, and necessary at all times. But it's possible, I think, that a person could be undecided about whether belief in God is a kind of necessity for human being, as food or water is a necessity.

I mean we don't always need food. We can go hours or sometimes days without it. But eventually, there's no getting around it: we need food to exist.

A theist is someone who believes that we need God to exist. An atheist believes God is not necessary for us to exist. An agnostic is someone who hasn't decided whether God is or isn't necessary for existence.

Does that make it clearer, or am I stuck in a definition that isn't useful?

(This thread is an experiment, by the way, and an invitation for discussion.)

[damntexdem]

7. I think your views are closer to mine, but ...

a belief or nonbelief in god (or gods) does not necessarily entail a belief that either the existence or nonexistence of a god (or gods) is necessary, for existence nor for the believer.

One can believe in a god but not believe that the god's existence is necessary.
One can disbelieve in gods but not believe that the nonexistence of gods is necessary.
And one can be unsure about the necessity of any of this.

[BurtWorm]

8. I guess my definitions are meant to entail more or less rational belief.

Someone who believes in god/s but believes their existence is not necessary does not have rational beliefs. Similarly one who disbelieves in gods but thinks gods might be necessary. Scratch people who believe those a little and you're bound to find someone who doesn't know what they think or what they're talking about.

[trotsky]

16. Yeah now I'm leaning towards them not being useful definitions.

I can easily imagine an atheist who thinks god IS necessary - at least for other people. Heck, I know there are a couple of atheists just like that right in this forum, who personally don't believe but quickly defend belief in god because they think the riff-raff would be uncontrollable without religion.

[damntexdem]

6. No, for any moment they WE are unsure about the necessity, we have no belief in the necessity.

Neither the necessity of a god nor a belief in a god, nor a belief in the necessity of either.

I just dunno'.

[trotsky]

17. That just shifts the definitions one step.

Theism/atheism - do you believe in god or not
Gnosticism/agnosticism - do you think the existence of gods can be determined or not

If you're an agnostic - you don't think the existence of gods can be determined - then you lack belief in god and are therefore an atheist.

[BurtWorm]

19. I like those better than my definitions

Much simpler.

:toast:

[GliderGuider]

20. Almost. IMO much depends on the definition of "God"

Your average Zen Buddhist or follower of Advaita believes that everything is one, and that there is a "oneness" principle that underlies all of existence. That can be called religious, but is it theistic? Is it possible to be religious and atheistic? As a follower of Zen and Advaita I self-identify as a religious (though I prefer the word "spiritual") atheist.

[damntexdem]

5. I reject your definitions.

Believer, or theist: someone who believes that there is a god or supernatural, whether or not this is seen as necessary.

Atheist: someone with the stated disbelief in any god or supernatural, or with a belief that the existence of such an entity is such a remote possibility as to ignore it.

Agnostic: someone who doesn't know whether there is any god or supernatural.
Hard agnostic: someone who believes that humans cannot know whether or not there is a god or supernatural.

god: a hypothetical supernatural entity (or set of entities), whether or not hypothesized to be necessary for the existence of the universe.


As to my "What do I believe about God?," I don't know and suspect that humans cannot know.

[BurtWorm]

11. 'Hard agnostic: someone who believes that humans cannot know whether or not there is a god ...'

Here's the whole reason I thought about these definitions!

Most atheists are hard agnostics as you call them. We don't believe there's anyway to know if there is or isn't really a god, but we find that in itself this is an excellent reason to presume there isn't one. If god is so unknowable, there's no good reason to waste energy trying to know it.

It boils down to this: God, the hypothesized necessity for all things (including us who don't believe), is--because some of us don't find it at all necessary to believe in it--absolutely unnecessary. That's what separates the atheists from the agnostics.

I'm thinking out loud here and appreciate your input.

[Meshuga]

24. I am also thinking out loud

I am a theist because considering a God idea is part of my religion but I would be considered a hard atheist (as opposed to a hard agnostic) if we were talking about a personal God. Perhaps, sometimes (for a few seconds at a time) I believe that there is a personal God but it goes away pretty quick. In the same way that I also sometimes sit on the same spot of the couch if my team is winning the game. But then I am able to realize that my superstition is bullshit and that I am doing that for some comfort or whatever.

My idea of God is considered theism in Judaism so I consider myself a theist based on the need to make a god relevant. Jewish tradition has God saying something like "I don't mind if my children abandon me as long as they follow my mitzvot because through good deeds they will eventually find me..." So I am fine with this approach.

[beam me up scottie]

21. How can I have decided belief in God isn't necessary when God cannot be defined?

I'm still waiting for someone to show me the money. :)

[BurtWorm]

22. I was just thinking out loud.

Not too well, actually.

:hi:

[beam me up scottie]

23. I'm with John,

I like to Imagine: