Talk:Atheism/Archive 15

message: I'm happy how this discussion has moved towards trying for a consensus. 
: I'm happy too! --Neigel von Teighen 23:00, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Voluntary injunction 

message: I don't have one, and they won't let me view it online without an account, but I'd like to see the precise wording of the Oxford quote. Does it say "gods" or does it say "God" or "God or gods" or what? I removed mention of the dictionary both because it is generally innappropriate to cite a dictionary in the first sentance, but mainly because I didn't want to misquote the Oxford dictionary by my edit. Not knowing what the Oxford dictionary precisely says makes me a bit nervous in general w this reference. Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 13:13, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The "anon" who is glad to revert and make accusations of "vandalism", but is unwilling to discuss matters in talk (violating our Voluntary_injunction, sadly enough) is going to earn the article a dispute header if he insists, since I'm not going to continue to revert, nor allow the factual innaccuracy of "gods" to go unchallenged. God is not a god, nor is God uniquely Christian, as a quick review of Deity, God and gods should make clear. Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 17:43, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: "Atheism is defined either as the belief that God or gods exist..." ;)
Lets discuss it, ok? Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 19:13, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: D Hehe... Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 21:30, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Oxford english dictionary 

message: There two problems with the section that need to be addressed:
:Spoon feeding --The section spoon feeds the reader. Spoon feeding is against the wikipedia guidelines as well as being poor scholarship.
::*"Some atheists distinguish between two variants of atheism:" --This implies that only atheists make this distinction. Plenty of others who are not atheists make this same distinction as well, many of them are indeed theists. I'll be rewording this to reflect that this is not just an atheist-only distinction.
::*"Many writers who identify themselves as weak atheists define atheism broadly as "lack or absence of theistic beliefs", and regard atheism as encompassing non-belief, disbelief, doubt, and denial of the existence of God or gods. Others prefer to define atheism narrowly as the "denial of the existence of God or gods", and do not use the term 'atheist' to refer to those who simply lack theistic beliefs, using other terms (for example, agnostic) for them." --Again, this implies that only atheists make this distinction. It spoon feeds the reader into accepting that weak atheists are the only ones who make this assertion and distinction, which indeed, is not the case.
:Generalizations and characterizations --There are several obvious unsupported generalizations and characterizations made in the section:
::*"Some atheists distinguish between two variants of atheism:" --Again, plenty of others who are not atheists make this same distinction as well, many of them are indeed theists. I'll be rewording this to reflect that this is not just an atheist-only distinction.
::*"The strong/weak dichotomy is, in itself, controversial." --That is a is a mis-characterizing, over-generalizing statement. The distinction between weak/strong is controversial only for some people. There is abundant evidence that there is no controversy for a large percentage of writers, theist and atheist alike, and hence it is not even a dichotomy. I'm rewording it to read: "The distinction between strong and weak atheism is for some people controversial."
--FeloniousMonk 21:16, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Thanks for catching and correcting my misspellings on the page.--FeloniousMonk 22:17, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Couple of problems with the [[Atheism#Types_of_atheism|"The Types of atheism"]] section 

message: Sadly, I've found a major error in the intro: theosmos is wrong and should be replaced by theismos. Also, -mos isn't a suffix in greek: -ism- is correct (-os isn't part of the suffix. Is an inflectional ending). The etymology of atheism is: a- + theós (< the-os) + -ism- > a-theism- > atheismós.--Neigel von Teighen 22:44, 13 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: God is not theismos.  God is God.  ConfessedSockPuppetJunior 00:36, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  God is God? What is God? Define "God." There are many gods existing in the imaginations of many people inhabiting Earth and many of those gods are "true gods" too. Whose "God" is real? Or is this declaration of "God being God" simply a POV matter for you, ConfessedSockPuppetJunior? I think your username answers the latter question well. Adraeus 11:37, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Etymological error in intro. 

message: I'm not so sure this page should have been unprotected, and I definitely think we need more admin involvement. Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 12:26, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I think your account needs more admin involvement. Adraeus 12:29, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Then follow the dispute resoloution process, and quit running your mouth about it here. Until you do something substantive thru the proper channels, your constant accusations are nothing but obstructionist ad hominems. Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 12:46, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: It depends on whether Adraeus' edits get any further support, or if he is a minority of one.    If there are still two larg-ish groups that disagree, who are going to carry on an edit war, then the article needs to be protected again.   Yesterday,  there seemed to be a consensus around the text, including Felonious and Nick.   So, if it is just Adraeus, he will be stymied by the 3-revert rule, and the page doesn't need to be protected again. Anyway, he is out of reverts for today, having now reverted 3 times.   In fact, he overstepped the 2-revert limit for which the administrator requested voluntary compliance -- which does not show good faith.   By the way, Adraeus has a good point about agnosticism being not necessarily a weak-atheist position, and that should be made more clear.  However, agnosticism and unwillingness to adopt positions on faith are the mainstays of many a "weak atheist" position so it is not unreasonable to mention agnosticism as long as it is clear that agnosticism is an epistemological position to which theists can subscribe as well.  I've done one revert this morning, and a series of edits which I didn't think of as a revert, but which from Adraeus point of view amount to a revert, apparently.  So, I'll honor the 2-revert rule,  meaning someone else needs to carry the ball now.  If something close to yesterday's text is reinstated, then I will try to make the status of weak/strong agnosticism more clear in the "Types" section.  --BM 12:45, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agnosticism has its own article. Further clarification of agnosticism-related information should be done in the appropriate articles. See also strong agnosticism, weak agnosticism and agnostic atheism. Explaining agnosticism in the atheism article is neither required nor wanted. Adraeus 13:02, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: I tried to incorporate that in my most recent edit. Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 12:50, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

text: I rather prefered Adraeus' version, because it seemed slightly more concise and did not contain some rather poor phrasing (ex. "God or gods" being repeated). However, some aspects of your version should certainly be incorporated. The "merger" didn't seem to be much of one though from my POV and reading of it, and seemed more like a revert, espeically of my minor changes (including the grammatical one of "policies" to "policy"; "has been the policies" is improper grammar, and there is no reason to change it from "has been the policy" to an improper construction. "Have been the policies" doesn't sound right to me.) Titanium Dragon 13:13, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sorry about that. Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 13:35, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Unprotection

message: Hey Sam. Earlier, I asked how you responded to certain references that included a definition of atheism as lack of belief. The question was a bit off-topic in a section about "God vs. god", so I'll reopen the subject in a fresh header.
Here are the references:  , kindly provided by FeloniousMonk. There seem to be at least 20 of them, and in my opinion, many are reputable sources.
With so many sources providing the weak atheism definition, it seems to me that we have no choice but to include weak atheism on a similar footing as the atheism=denial definition.
What do you think, Sam?
--Yath 12:36, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: well, if you look at my most recent edit (reverted by andreas) you'll see thats exactly what I did. I may not agree about the equal footing, but I am clearly willing to compromise as far as this article is concerned. Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 12:42, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I see. I wasn't sure if you had just left it in there from exhaustion, or what. The most relevant comment that I could find was pretty adamantly opposed (). --Yath 12:50, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: I still feel that way, but as I said I am willing to0 compromise, and sway with the flow of consensus (particularly the concensus of reasonable minds, such as yourself). I think the reader would be best served by a greater emphasis on denial of God, w weak atheism relegated to a a section on views within atheism, or types of atheism, or whatever. But I'm not here to enforce this, or any other view, but rather to involve myself with this article in a manner accomadating to progress. At this time, progress seems to involve placing all definitions equally in the inro, and I accept that. Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 13:29, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: It looks like the current header already contains both definitions (I refer to the one unlocked by MGM), though it does not explicitly use the terms "strong" or "weak", it does seem to contain both definitions. Going into minutae in the header (such as defining those terms explicity) would dilute it. The introduction should be clear and concise. "Denial of the existance of gods" is the explicit strong atheist view, while "not believing in gods" (or something similar, I forget the precise wording) encompasses both views but seems (in contrast with the first) to imply the weak atheist viewpoint. As the only difference between the two is the explicit denial, I do not think we really need to change the header much. Titanium Dragon 13:34, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Feel free to work on it, I'm going to hold off for awhile, so as not to appear overly aggressive. Sam Spade Wants you to vote! 13:39, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Weak atheism in the intro, Sam 

message: I call the attention of the administrator monitoring this page to the fact that Adraeus has now reverted 4 times this morning.  Please enforce Wikipedia policy.  --BM 12:59, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: Sure, I could, but it won't be any easier for me. My rollback won't work here. Mgm|(talk) 14:02, Dec 14, 2004 (UTC)
OK, Well, I fixed it by going back a bit, then applying a series of edits.  I hope this doesn't count as a revert.  --BM 14:29, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)
thread_title:  Adraeus' Reverts