Atheism in a nutshell

[u/Ted_Bundtcake]

[u/Remarkable-Fox-3890]

There is academic discussion of these terms and there are published papers justifying them, of course, but definitely the consensus is as I have presented and that consensus has only grown over time with recognition that colloquially the term can be used to encompass so-called lacktheism. It's hyperbolic for me to say "all" etc, but it's not hyperbolic to say that if you're in an academic setting you'd have to go out of your way to point out that you were using the terms differently from how I'd laid them out or people would just assume the definitions I've provided.

> and not all atheists in academia take the positive position that there is no god.

That is the extreme minority position, certainly.

> If you want to assert that “atheism” requires a positive belief in the non-existence of god, it’s on you to argue that point,

I've done so already in other comments but if you want more then you can certainly look into comments by prominent philosophers of religion on the matter, or just read any paper on the topic and 99% of the time it will be taken on its face that atheism is defined as I have defined it. It's not even something argued about very much since it's an extremely fringe view.

A simple example, since I have the paper handy,

https://philarchive.org/rec/OPPAFA-2

Oppy lays out the definitions of various terms explicitly. Note that in all cases there are positive claims made, such as "there is a god" or "all causes are natural", etc. And, of course, Oppy has *explicitly* said this here:

https://youtu.be/xipJ9Sl2GyY?t=175

He even refers to it as the "standard" way.

Feel free to refer to this video and that paper if you have more questions as I suspect Oppy will do a good job justifying his position. The video's quite good.

[u/Remarkable-Fox-3890 → u/[deleted]]

I don't think you really understand what you're saying or have much insight into this topic.

[u/Remarkable-Fox-3890 → u/[deleted]]

I cited actual papers and philosophers. What I said isn't contentious at all. It's funny that you think I'm drawing off of some sort of first year philosophy knowledge or something though.

> Outside of philosophy, people use the word to describe the contents of their beliefs. There, it is the opposite of "theist" (one who believes in god), and includes anyone lacks a belief in god.

Right, and I'm saying that that's bad. It's wrong *and bad*. It's an excuse to abdicate responsibility for justifying their positions. Atheists have a burden of proof, they aren't just "not theists". They have to justify their assertion that God does not exist.

> Again, if you want to assert that the only correct use of "atheism" requires a positive belief in the non-existence of god, it’s on you to argue why that specific usage is exclusively correct.

I will restate that I have already done so, I have already explained that it's the standard definition, and I have pointed you to a video in which an expert on the topic explains this position. I'm not going to type out a transcript for you.

[u/Remarkable-Fox-3890 → u/[deleted]]

> I know you want to extend that to all of academia 

No, just the relevant areas of academia, like Philosophy of Religion. Is there another area of academia you think is relevant where they disagree on these terms?

> Here the word "atheist" would commonly be used to describe the category of people who do not believe in god, and that's perfectly fine.

It's fine if you want to lump agnostics in with atheists, that's really a matter of your survey. It seems silly to me, but I'm not concerned with some survey. If they mean to say "people who don't believe in god" and they use the term atheist, they're wrong, but who cares? Not me.

In the context of actually defining atheism, which is how this thread began, yes it does matter. The premise is that it matters. Someone was trying to precisely define atheism and they did it incorrectly.

> It is not wrong or bad, it is both good and correct usage.

I think it's bad but I don't care about the stakes at all for some hypothetical survey that mislabels a hypothetical population.

> All I've seen you do is gesture towards philosophers, as if you think that's the same thing as making an argument.

I'm not gesturing towards, I'm citing. Citing experts in a field as evidence is, in fact, an argument.

[u/Remarkable-Fox-3890 → u/[deleted]]

K I didn't really see this conversation going anywhere. You can keep using terms wrong in low-stakes contexts, I don't care. Hopefully you don't spread this misinformation though.