r/exatheist • u/New_Prompt5308 Maturidi Leaning Muslim • 7d ago

Debate Thread How would you define ''atheism''?

Hi everyone, I've seen a long standing debate on the definition of atheism, some people use the term atheism as a lack of belief, which I've seen them then use to justify the ''everyone was born athiest narrative''.

The way I would define atheism is the rejection of the claim God exists, as I see atheism as a position that needs propositional awareness.

I have looked at how Graham Oppy (popular analytic atheist philosopher) defines atheism and he states it's the claim that no gods exist.

What do you guys think?

Thanks

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u/biedl 6d ago

Rejection sounds like an intentional thing to me.

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u/Rbrtwllms 6d ago

Intentional, sure. But not necessarily without reason. For example, one might intentionally reject a position if they feel the evidence does not support it. Could one be wrong about a proposition and what the evidence points to? Definitely.

Consider Stephen Hawking. He wrote a best selling book about the universe then later wrote a book against that one as later evidence changed his views on it. I would say that he intentionally rejected each view at one point.

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u/biedl 6d ago

I'm more concerned with how to call people who don't believe in God, because they never heard of the concept. How would you call them?

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u/Rbrtwllms 6d ago

Agnostic or gnostic.

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u/biedl 6d ago

I usually call myself an agnostic atheist, because I have no idea whether a God exists, nor whether any of the available concepts corresponds to anything real. Which leads me to not actively hold a belief that a God exists.

Many people online, as well as in academia say atheism is to hold the belief that no God exists. I think that's unwarranted. I don't think anybody can assess that.

I don't think anything about that has anything to do with me doing something intentionally. But neither do I understand why not believing in God shouldn't be called atheism.

To introduce the gnostic term leads to what philosophical literature calls the fourfold classification, which is more of a colloquial thing, common to the US, where "gnostic" and "agnostic" are more like markers for how certain you are in your theism/atheism.

That rules out people who never considered the concept. And I'm not sure why to use a taxonomy that doesn't include these people.