From: simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk (Simon Clippingdale)
Subject: Re: Strong vs. Weak atheism
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
Date: Tue, 15 Dec 1992 21:15:03 GMT

In article <1gldkqINN91f@MINERVA.CIS.YALE.EDU> starr-daniel@yale.edu (Daniel Starr) writes:
>
> OK, here are MY definitions.  :)  I hereby challenge anyone to come up
> with more useful ones:
>
> Atheist--  anyone who will say:  "I do not believe that a God exists."
> Strong atheist--  anyone who will say: "I am sure that no God exists, at
> least as sure as religious people are sure that their God does exist."

Ack! Gotta jump on this one. People of this ilk are *religious*, whatever the
beliefs in question. It is perfectly possible to hold the strong atheist
position -- to believe that no gods exist -- without doing so religiously,
i.e. through faith. I hold exactly this position as a result purely of
reasoning based on evidence, and I will be swayed from it by contrary
evidence without having a `crisis of faith' in the process. Although I
have to say that I would at least raise an eyebrow in mild surprise and
might very well die of shock.

> [Agnostics deleted, and quite right too]
>
> Meanwhile, instead of trying to distinguish between "I believe" and "I know",
> we can make the clearer statement that a "strong atheist" has a _positive_
> belief in the absence of gods,  and "believes" in that to the same degree
> as religious folks believe in their God(s).

Not the same thing. Positive belief (in the sense of opinion, not of faith)
in the absence of gods, yes. Religious-style, faith-based belief, no.

> Note that this still leaves some flexibility... you can have 'quietly
> devout' strong ahteists and 'fundamentalist' strong atheists... :).  

Actually, it's exactly the constant aspiration and exhortation to greater
devoutness (and thus less inquiry) and its effect on the host brain that
I find one of the most scary things about religions. "We must become more
devout, grow in our faith, become more sure and certain in the knowledge
of <insert crock_of_obvious_wank here>". Santa forbid that we get devout
atheists popping up to embarrass us just when we don't need 'em.

> And a "weak atheist" is just that -- any old atheist, in the literal sense
> of the word.  A-theist:  a non-theist, someone who does not believe in a
> God.  This includes most people out there with 'no religion' and the like.
> I think we do need, to keep the original sense of the word, to include all
> absence of belief under atheism, not just that absence of belief that is
> willing to stand up and fight about it.  To put it another way:  I'm not
> comfortable with a definition of 'atheism' that doesn't include people who
> just say 'I don't believe that there is a God.'  Are you?

I don't think there's a better, or indeed another, definition of `atheism'
per se, but a few subdivisions *as well* never hurt anyone. Ask any taxonomist.
(Perhaps someone on talk.origins will confess to being one so you can, but
I doubt it. Taxonomy's out, it's all comparative molecular biology now.
More protein, so it must be better for you.)

> The only category this leaves out are those who will say:  "You know, I've
> never thought about it."  These are the only people who really have no beliefs
> of any kind on the subject.  

One half of me says yeah, good for these hypothetical folks who never thought
about it; after all, why the hell *should* they ever have thought about it?
Minds pure as the driven snow, as it were.

The other half of me remembers how much I venerate virginity anyhow, and
wonders where they spent their entire lives, the poor sad f***s. Then again,
I think that about all sorts of people who manifestly *have* thought about
it, in their inimitable way. They know who they are, and so do we.

Expect no smileys. Right mathew? Right.

Christmas Cheer / Bah Humbug

Simon
-- 
Simon Clippingdale                simon@dcs.warwick.ac.uk
Department of Computer Science    Tel (+44) 203 523296
University of Warwick             FAX (+44) 203 525714
Coventry CV4 7AL, U.K.