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I recently learned the philosophy community defines an atheist more broadly than any definition that I’d ever seen. A common definition of atheist is simply one who does not believe. Under that definition, I label myself an atheist to Christians, Jews, and Muslims. I label myself an agnostic to everyone else.

In philosophy, atheism is defined broadly as an affirmation that no god of any type exists. Under that definition, an atheist is required to prove his/her case as much as the deist or believer does. However, there is an exception for western religions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam) where the dominant idea of God is of a purely spiritual, supernatural being, all-powerful and all knowing. According to the Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy: “…in the narrow sense of the term an atheist is anyone who disbelieves in the existence of this being…”

The two separate definitions have led to considerable confusion in recent posts. I think it would behoove those using the philosopher’s definition to note it as such. I often insert the term “scientific theory” since “theory” does not carry much weight in the common vernacular. Similarly, any discussion of atheism in western civilization should add philosopher’s atheism to avoid confusion with atheism as understood by people outside of the philosophy community.

TheAstroChuck 8 Mar 22
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8 comments

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All that I can affirm is that the processes of science can be established at any stage or age of life . Basically one has to re-establish the instinctual processes that were present at birth and squashed out of most people. One does NOT have to have science done for you, which does not mean that you cannot repeat it so as to improve it. Whereas for philosophy one has to plow through not only countless philosophers, their followers and dissenters, their quotable quotes and their theses. There is hardly any "testing point" during philosophy.The public has no hope of catching up so end up with only the quotable quotes or memes.

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That's because you can't say you accept the null, you can only say you failed to reject the null. Athiests are making a type 2 error.

@TheAstroChuck
Type 1 is a false positive
Type 2 Is a false negative
Without an absolute answer and only a sample declaring an abselote certainty is committing one of these errors.
It's a stats thing.

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doesn't this eventually become an exercise in navel-gazing in search of some lint?

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"Under that definition, an atheist is required to prove his/her case as much as the deist or believer does" No . . one is required to prove that something exists and until they do . . it doesn't exist

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"In philosophy, atheism is defined broadly as an affirmation that no god of any type exists. Under that definition, an atheist is required to prove his/her case as much as the deist or believer does"

Professor, who in philosophy asserts this, which area of philosophy, and on what basis is this claim made? The "Philosophy Community", with respect, doesn't mean much.

It's an extraordinary assertion, in my view -- that a negative has to be proven.

Without specific citation it's not an assertion I could take seriously, honestly. At best it could only be an opinion.

@TheAstroChuck I'm surprised. This is usually the debate that theists and agnostics like to have with atheists. I never expected this kind of post from you, but that's fine, even as philosophical contemplation. I find the assertion a waste of time, whatever philosophical definition might exist in some places. These definitions are debated at length anyway. The notion of empirically disproving a metaphysical construct is absurd to me. Logically an atheist would have to individually disprove each and every God invented, all thousands of them. All just silly. Next task: proving that the universe is not a cosmic egg laid by a cosmic duck. And now on to fairies...

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I've always held the position that the labeled individual is the one who defines the label. I mean, if someone is trying to define my labels and label me how they believe, they better be ok with me labelling them how I see fit. How I see fit would probably be something like "douche".

Within reason though. I mean, based on one photo, I don't think "beardless" would work.

@CallMeDave "This is not the beard you're looking for." Jedi hand wave

What beard?

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People are going to use whatever labels they want anyway. Using terms like ‘philosophical atheist’ or ‘non-philosophical athiest’ will cause confusion as well, unless every member reads this post.

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I'm a Spinozist so I label myself an atheist to Christians, Muslims and some Jews and it's too much to explain to almost everybody else.

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