User:Xenophrenic/sandbox2

@S Marshall:

Howdy! Yes, I am definitely interested in hearing your thoughts in greater detail on the subjects we've been discussing. I've created this new, uncluttered sandbox, as my User Talk page tends to be a bit of a mess ... but I'm fine with holding discussions just about anywhere, if you prefer another location. At least here, however, you are welcome to speak your mind freely, unfettered by decorum, etc.

I also drafted a reply to your remarks about whether atheism really does make some people persecute, which I found very interesting, but I have decided not to post it because it isn't central to my point in this particular debate. I'd welcome a conversation in user talk about that if you have a mind?

You've definitely piqued my interest with that statement. Kind regards, Xenophrenic (talk) 22:28, 17 August 2017 (UTC)

• Thank you for this. Yes, I'd like to discuss this further and I'm in the course of composing an orderly disquisition. All the best—S Marshall T/C 19:01, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

• A little more self-introduction is in order so you can see where I'm coming from. I'm an Englishman. Although I'm neither a social worker nor a police officer, I am a government employee, and a key facet of my profession is to participate in and support safeguarding investigations into allegations of abuse, domestic violence or neglect. I've been involved in ten of these since 1st January 2017. In my spare time I also volunteer for the local Youth Offending Team as a referral order panel member. The relevance of this is that I've been trained to understand hate crimes, and religiously-motivated violence would certainly qualify, in terms of the law of England and Wales.

On what a hate crime is, and who decides whether a given crime is a hate crime

I've been trained that the definition of a hate crime is:

... any incident which the victim, or anyone else, thinks is based on someones prejudice towards them because of their race, religion, sexual orientation, disability or because they are transgender. (emphasis mine)

In other words, it is not the perpetrator who gets to decide whether their crime was a hate crime. The victim, any witnesses, or the investigating officers all get the opportunity to say this, and if any one of them has a good faith belief that it was, then it's a hate crime. In practice, the victim's view is almost always accepted, if they're able to speak for themselves.

Before I go any further I should pause and give you the opportunity to respond. Does your jurisdiction work differently? Do you think my working definition of a hate crime is wrong?—S Marshall T/C 19:40, 18 August 2017 (UTC)

References

That sounds like very laudable employment, although I suspect it may be emotionally taxing at times. My one word answer to your question would be "No." I do not think your definition of "hate crime", nor the definition you linked, is wrong. In fact, in contested matters, I can even see legitimate reason to give deference to the perceptions of "the victim". That being said, I can see where definitions contingent only on the "belief" of the victim, to the exclusion of common sense, reason and mitigating facts, could be problematic. Especially when the violence and hate is frequent and routine, an absolutely innocuous event could be misconstrued through that lens.

Would you agree that the victims of Soviet state antitheism would see themselves as persecuted because of their faith?—S Marshall T/C 17:01, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

On what an atheist isn't

Since we're defining terms, my operating understanding of atheism is "the absence of belief in gods". It is also the state in which everyone is born. You've stated that you are an atheist, but that further, you "actively have faith that there is no God." That's fine, and I would never begrudge another person's right to have faith in anything, but that is a belief, similar to religious belief, not predicated on evidence - and is something that is outside of the common definition of atheism. Is "faith" the word you wanted to use? Xenophrenic (talk) 23:01, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Ooh, let's detour into the different flavours of non-belief in God. I propose the following working definitions:-

• Faith -- belief without evidence.
• Atheist -- one who sees no evidence for a God, and in the absence of evidence, declines to believe.
• Strong atheist -- one who actively has faith in the non-existence of God.
• Antitheist -- one who sees belief in God as destructive and inimical.
• Agnostic -- one who does not know whether there is a God.
• Apatheist -- one who does not care whether there is a God.
• Ignostic -- one who thinks the question is unanswerable because "God" is insufficiently defined.

On those definitions, I'd be "strong atheist". I wrote and intended to write that I have faith in God's non-existence. I realise that unlike regular atheism, mine is a religious position. It's not the result of a rational exercise in analysis: I'm a secular man from a humanist family and I have the faith I was brought up in.

I've never uttered a prayer. I'm culturally Christian, in that I know when Easter is and I give presents at Christmas and write Christmas cards and usually burn a Yule log; and I occasionally go to church, for weddings and funerals of believers, in which event I stand quietly and respectfully while others pray. (But I don't bow my head.) I've also been to a pagan handfasting, which was interesting. Never been to a mosque, synagogue or equivalent place for any other religion.

Some high profile atheists such as Richard Dawkins are famously antitheist and go about trying to convert Christians to atheism, but I'm not. In almost all cases I see Christianity as, at worst, harmless, and at best, quite pro-social. I take a more negative view on a very few things ---- some Popes' attempts to prevent the shipping of condoms to Africa; scientology; Fred Phelps and his little gang; people who use Christianity as a licence for homophobia; those who try to prevent the teaching of evolution in schools ---- but I see those things as problems with people rather than problems with Christianity.—S Marshall T/C 23:39, 19 August 2017 (UTC)

Your definitions of Faith & Antitheist are spot on. Some of the other wordings, not so much; and there are numerous variations omitted: nontheism, ietsism, etc. This is based on my admittedly imperfect understanding, of course, only from what I've read. Your proposed narrow definition of "atheism" doesn't agree with the description used by over a billion atheists, nor with etymology (a-theism, without gods/godless). The "absence of a belief in gods" is the clearest and non-wishy-washy definition of the term, as it is the core meaning without any additional baggage like the need to justify it, or qualify it, or explain it. It is a simple binary definition: a person either believes in deities or the person is atheist. Now beyond that, you can add any number of adjectives to increase specificity or to create new meanings (strong, weak, explicit, convinced, positive, implicit, hard, negative, apathetic, soft, etc.) as different situations warrant. A newborn child is atheist because they haven't (yet) been indoctrinated/taught to believe in gods by parents/teachers/society into which they were born. Likewise, members of tribes and societies secluded from the theistic world are atheist because the concept of gods haven't been introduced to them. People in theistic societies who have (as you have defined) "seen no evidence for a God, and in the absence of evidence, decline to believe" are atheist. Still other atheists, similarly, but in a significantly different manner, have seen (or been presented with) evidence, such as "miracles", or the "complexity" of the cosmos, but have rejected such evidence as insufficient or unpersuasive. Even the "wishy-washy" agnostic who says the existence of gods is unknown or unknowable, still either does or doesn't "lack a belief in gods", and if that belief is absent, then that agnostic is also an atheist.

With this clear definition of atheism as "the absence of belief in gods", one must then look at verbal constructs such as "trying to convert Christians to atheism" as convoluted, if not nonsensical. Perhaps "deconvert" or apostasy or deprogram would be more accurate, but it sounds like what you are trying to convey is simply that Dawkins "goes about trying to get people to reexamine their beliefs and superstitions rationally and scientifically". Those efforts by Dawkins, by the way, are in addition to and separate from his atheism - and are not part of it. It is very common for proponents of religious belief, when defending those beliefs, to attempt to characterize atheism as just another belief system (instead of an absence of belief). This mischaracterization of atheism allows them to deflect criticism of their "belief without evidence" as applying equally to an atheist's "beliefs" that there is no god. That is why you will commonly see apologists for religious belief creating language and terminology to perpetuate the misconception of atheism as just another, competing belief system: "evangelical atheists", "teaching atheism", "state atheism", "militant atheism", and yes, even "convert to atheism". Of course one cannot "teach" a lack of belief in gods, one can only present logical arguments against such beliefs and hope the believer arrives at a rational conclusion. One can not "evangelize" nonbelief, one can only criticize belief without evidence. States (i.e., "governments"), can't have or lack beliefs, so "state atheism" is a confused phrase having no relation to "lack of belief in gods"; it was coined in the Russian language to mean anti-religion, which "atheism" is not. "Militant absence of belief" is as nonsensical as "militant pregnancy". Ask yourself what the difference is between an atheist and a "militant atheist"? One lacks a belief in gods, while the other really, really, really, really, lacks a belief in gods? Nonsensical. If a person who doesn't believe in gods (i.e., an atheist) also happens to also be a person who actively questions other people's belief in gods, that penchant for questioning is not part of the definition of atheism. While one can convert to a belief system, one cannot "convert to" an absence of that belief system - that is wording that makes absolutely no sense in the English language. It makes no sense unless you define atheism as just another belief system. When you claim to "have faith" that God doesn't exist, you've just left the authority of reason and stepped back into the realm of belief. (And the proponents of belief based on faith are cheering for you.) Remember that the believer-nonbeliever debate has long taken place in a believer-dominated world, and has been heavily influenced, if not outright controlled, from that perspective. That includes defining the language used: In ancient times when Romans and early Christians each called the other "atheist", each was convinced the other group believed in the wrong god/gods. Some people long ago, regardless of their belief in gods, were called "atheist" after committing criminal, immoral acts, because surely they have been forsaken by the gods. Religionists have long tried to assign actions, motivations and additional attributes to atheism - a person's absence of belief in gods. But while religions try to guide and influence a person's actions, and how they treat people, and how they respond to situations, "atheism" is just an absence of belief, and comes with no tenets, doctrines or commandments. Fun stuff.

To my understanding, developed from extensive reading, there are two facts about mankind which weigh heavily in the discussion of gods. Mankind is a "reasoning" animal, and mankind is a "social" animal. When man is confronted with circumstances outside of his current ability to explain with reason, he will - if I may be blunt - make shit up. It makes us uncomfortable (or even fearful) when confronted with what we can not explain or understand through reason, so we fill that scary void with manufactured explanations to increase our comfort and reduce our fear. Then as "social" creatures, we seek connectivity, togetherness, conformity and agreement with others, and that is how our manufactured explanations are propagated and disseminated - as an integral part of community. When we develop an effective coping mechanism, we share and propagate it. Parents teach their kids. Teachers teach the kids. Our peers and the society we live in reinforce these teachings. It's all very efficiently self-perpetuating. I must run for a bit - the evil Satan has caused the moon to swallow the sun, and if I don't join this prayer circle, we may never see the light of day again. (In the States here, west coast...) Xenophrenic (talk) 00:13, 22 August 2017 (UTC)

• I certainly agree that the natural meaning of "atheist" is "one who doesn't believe in gods". In debates about this I tend to look for terminology that doesn't overlap, so I was proposing definitions that would distinguish atheism from agnosticism. But if that does too much violence to natural language then I'm content to withdraw the suggestion.

My atheism is faith-based. I can't pretend that I've explored the possibility that God exists and, after due consideration, rejected it ---- because I haven't. The truth is that I've never seriously entertained that hypothesis at all.

I disagree with Dawkins insofar as he thinks it's worthwhile to try to, err, atheize, the Christian community. To coin a phrase. Most Christians do little harm and some good.

Where I agree with Dawkins is that evolutionary processes are sufficient to explain almost everything. I'm conscious that at the moment they aren't sufficient to explain everything. I trust (and here's my "faith" again) that a complete and replicable explanation of abiogenesis will emerge, and that in the rather more distant future, someone will be able to explain the basic mystery of existence. (I mean that before atheism is complete and consistent, it will be necessary to explain existence itself. How come there's something when Occam's Razor says there should be nothing? Theism has an easy answer -- God did it. God's outside cause and effect and can be eternal, self-creating, or both. Atheism doesn't have that, so atheism needs a plausible explanation of how come there's a universe/multiverse at all.)

Fun stuff to think about.—S Marshall T/C 16:58, 22 August 2017 (UTC)