Talk:Atheism/Archive 37

message: "Theoretical, or contemplative, atheism explicitly posits arguments against belief in gods. These arguments assume various psychological, sociological, metaphysical, and epistemological forms. Theist philosophers have presented arguments that a god exists, such as the argument from design and Blaise Pascal's famous wager. Theoretical atheists find these arguments unconvincing, and may use one or more of the following arguments to support their views:"
I like the idea of putting a mention of Arguments for God here, but the language is just disjointed.  Maybe it could be framed more like "Theoretical, or contemplative, atheism explicitly posits arguments against the existence of gods, responding to common theistic arguments such as the argument from design or Pascal's wager."  Also, not all theoretical atheists have even heard of those arguments, much less can we claim that they "find them unconvincing" without a source. johnpseudo 21:44, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Right, your wording is certainly better, but I don't quite follow why all theoretical atheists must have heard of these arguments. I consider myself a theoretical atheist, but it is not so much that I know exactly how to refute Plantinga's modal ontological argument, I simply know that philosophers of religions find these arguments unconvincing, and this is not hard to source -- almost every atheist book on "arguments" spends more than half of it on refutation. --Merzul 22:46, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You state "Theoretical atheists find these arguments unconvincing".  Do you mean "Some theoretical atheists find these arguments unconvincing"? johnpseudo 22:50, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Well, I see the problem now. I mean "some atheists" and it is specifically those that base their disbelief on logical and evidential arguments, so it might be the case that these things fit better in that section. When it comes to evidential arguments, you evaluate the sum of the evidence by weighing for example evil vs. love, and so on. However, if a person just believes God-talk is meaningless, then he probably doesn't need to bother with arguments for the existence of God. --Merzul 23:17, 30 May 2007 (UTC)

text: Pascal's Wager isn't an argument that God exists, it's an argument that one is better off believing in God than not believing in God.  This is the problem with including "criticisms" of atheism here; they aren't really about atheism, they are about theists and their arguments, and neither the editors nor the readers are generally capable of judging their validity as criticism without a lot of further study.  There are numerous lengthy explanations of why Pascal's Wager is a foolish and fallacious argument even on its own terms of picking one's beliefs for their utilitarian value, let alone as an argument that God exists, which it simply isn't -- no serious modern philosopher, including theistic philosophers, accepts it as an argument against atheism.  The reasons why PW fails as an argument belong on the PW page, where one can find them if one has an interest in the subject (as opposed to an interest in atheism).  If these "criticisms" of atheism are appropriate to the Atheism article, then why not add every single argument -- no matter how shoddy -- ever published against belief in God to every single article about religious belief?  The "criticisms" aren't encyclopedic, they aren't descriptive of atheism, rather their presence on the Atheism page serves as theistic apologetics.  The Atheism page should not consist of, or catalog, arguments for or against the existence of God, it should describe atheism. -- Jibal 02:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

text: The sentence about "theoretical ... atheism explicitly posits arguments ..." would make a lot more sense if it said "presents arguments" or "puts forth arguments";  "posits" is simply the wrong word.  But the language is still confused and muddy (welcome to Wikipedia).  The fact is that "theoretical, or contemplative, atheism addresses pro-theistic arguments, such as the ontological argument, the argument from design, or Pascal's Wager, with logical and theoretical counterargument".  Who is or is familiar with or convinced of the pro-theistic arguments is irrelevant to what theoretical atheism is. -- Jibal 02:02, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Next, the theoretical addition

message: "Axiological, or constructive, atheism rejects the existence of gods in favor of a "higher absolute", such as Humanity. This form of atheism favors humanity as the absolute source of ethics and values, and permits individuals to resolve moral problems without resorting to God. Marx, Nietzsche, Freud, and Sartre all used this argument to convey messages of liberation, full-development, and unfettered happiness.
One of the most common criticisms of atheism has been to the contrary—that denying the existence of a just God leads to moral relativism, leaving one with no moral or ethical foundation, or renders life meaningless and miserable. Blaise Pascal argued this view in 1669. It is also asserted that atheists are quick to believe in God in times of crisis—that atheists make deathbed conversions, or that "there are no atheists in foxholes." Atheistic philosophers such as Joseph McCabe, Paul Kurtz, Antony Flew, and Michael Martin dispute this claim; also, atheist organizations of military personnel have been created in response."
Deathbed conversion has nothing to do with morality- it has to do with belief in an afterlife.  I see no connection with the psychological section either.  Strangely, it doesn't seem like heaven/afterlife is mentioned anywhere else in the article. johnpseudo 21:56, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I can see the problem here. This section did flow a lot better with the idea that atheism is a state of denial, and that true belief surfaces in times of crisis, so it makes sense to keep them together. --Merzul 22:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, gee, that would be fine if atheism were a state of denial, but it would be extremely POV to present it as such.  That sort of language doesn't belong in an article about Atheism, unless it is confined to a section describing theistic characterizations of atheism.  But if we have such a section, then we should also add a section to every article about religion, mentioning that atheists describe religion as superstition, irrational belief for no reason, a state of denial about the finality of death, and so on. -- Jibal 02:09, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  The end-result is the Atheism#Implicit_vs._explicit. Note that the considerable atheist response to this particular issue makes it a very significant piece of criticism. There is even an article about atheists in foxholes. --Merzul 12:03, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Third, the axiological addition

message: This seems to be inherently POV, and doesn't really tell us anything useful.  I realize that this is cited, but can't we say something more concrete and verifiable than "greatest"? johnpseudo 18:41, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: well of course it is POV to say that S.E. was one of the greatest Roman philosophers.  And also this article is not about "skeptical inquiry" but about Atheism.  In theistic societies skeptical inquiry may lead to atheism, but in atheistic societies (such as the former Soviet Union and Communist China, which in the 20th century adopted atheisic ideologies and persecuted theists on an unprecedented scale) skeptical inquiry lead to theism for many people. NBeale 20:39, 3 June 2007 (UTC)

text: actually that whole section was in very bad shape. It gave the impression that Epicurus was a pre-Socratic, referred to the views of philosophers about which there is no remotely reliable evidence, and found it necessary to say "The Greek philosopher Socrates" without mentioning the nationality of many of the others!  I was tempted to leave in that the greeks "explained the world in purely materialistic terms" to make the point of how bogus these explanations always turn out to be, but "attempted to explain" is surely more accurate. NBeale 20:52, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: "One of the greatest Roman philosophers to affirm skeptical inquiry was Sextus Empiricus"

message: .  .  .  Kantianism  .  .  .  utilitarianism  .  .  .  virtue theory  .  .  .  social contract theory  .  .  .
So, instead of merely stating that ethics are possible without religion, let’s DEMONSTRATE this.  I’d love to have a short paragraph on each of the above theories.  Some may resonate with some people, others with other people.  And it’s really more about repertoire than a particular theory.  Yeah, we can go in a formalistic way from axioms to conclusions, but that is not our strength as human beings.  We are pattern recognizers, we recognize context.  A skilled and experienced doctor, social worker, or entrepreneur, or whoever, hits upon a promising idea by a sense of feel as much as anything else.  It’s almost a Zen art!  Another example, a professional poker player, yeah, away from the table, he or she may calculate odds, may study a hand against an estimated range of hands, and study it against another different range, all good, all helpful, but when it’s time to play, it’s overwhelmingly by sense of feel.  So in time, books and articles on ethics may (I hope) evolve primarily to case studies of positive actions in difficult and/or awkward situations, with only tangential discussion of theory.   FriendlyRiverOtter 07:19, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: ethics

message: This is even more important than ethics.  We don’t know our neighbors, most of our jobs, frankly, suck, most of our institutions poorly serve us, at best.  We are emotionally and in every other way evolved to live in small groups as hunter-gatherers.  Well, there’s no going back, the fly in that ointment was occasional famine, so it was no cup of tea.  So what we need to do now is to maturely advance our institutions, transparency is a good step forward, so on and so forth, greater authenticity in our jobs, etc, etc.  Realistic optimism, that’s all we can do (or, optimistic realism if you want to put it that way!).  In fact, this is so important that I think it worth pushing the wikipedia envelope of “no original research.”  Why can’t we speculate further developments and identify it forthrightly as speculation?  I tend to think we can.   FriendlyRiverOtter 07:19, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Finding meanings in life

message: The links to criticism of atheism and list of atheists, should probably feature prominently somewhere in this article. I will try one possibility, which isn't ideal, but much better than creating a see also section. --Merzul 22:14, 7 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Two important links 

message: Brilliant article.  And good luck with the vandals.  This article is going to be attacked like Darwin was. Orangemarlin 00:55, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Unfortunetely thats very true. And wasn't this article featured before?--Surfaced 01:30, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Oh my god...this article's going to get hammered. I'll try to help with vandalism. Zeality 02:46, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  All bets are, he's not listening today. 70.65.101.17 05:21, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think 70.65.101.17 read the article and is beginning to accept atheism. :-D Brilliant article! JHMM13 08:33, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Congrats on FA

message: This article still requires a lot of work, and some very important threads are perhaps lost in all the discussion. If anyone feels like applying their copy-editing skills, please see the list of #Awkward_sentences identified by JohnPseudo. There are some other issues, but fixing those awkward sentences is probably the best place to start.  --Merzul 10:40, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Help is needed, the todo-list 

message: Reading this article briefly, I couldn't help but notice this:
"Skepticism, based on the ideas of Hume, asserts that certainty about anything is impossible, so one can never know the existence of God."
This is hardly an accurate account of skepticism.. sceptics would be entirely incoherent if they maintained that the absence of certainty is universal (as this would include their advocated doctrine of scepticism).
Further, attributing the origin of skeptical thought to Hume is pretty inaccurate - skepticism can be traced back to ancient philosophy; arguably even presocratics. --131.111.228.48 18:41, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This is very valid criticism. I wonder what to do about the sentence, but this reminded me of a certain list of self-refuting ideas. --Merzul 00:05, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Claims as to Skepticism being based on Humean philosophy 

message: I don't know how some people here seem to link atheism with Buddhism. This religion is just this, a religion. The Buddha is treated as a God. Heaven exists once you reach nirvana stage.—Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.76.251.66 (talk • contribs) 
:Not all religions are theistic. Anyone can become a Buddha in Buddhism.  Buddha is anyone who has reached enlightenment. Deities are quite different. johnpseudo 21:44, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: So many flaws in such a short statement. For example, being treated as a god doesn't make you one.--Svetovid 22:14, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Most children in rich countries today would be gods and goddesses if being treated like one made you one. --Safe-Keeper 23:31, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Say again? Anyway, it doesn't make you a god in the sense atheism or theism are about.--Svetovid 01:29, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Theism isn't about actually being a god or not being a god; it is about belief. I don't know about Buddhism, but if Buddhists treat a Buddha as a god to the extent that they actually believe that a Buddha is a god, then that is theism. A glance at the God in Buddhism article shows that this is a rather complicated issue, probably because there is no one clear definition of what makes a god. -- Lilwik 02:17, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: which is why atheists bear no burden of proof at all. Atheism is as simple as saying, could you please make up your mind what it is that we're supposed to believe in before asking us to justify why we don't? dab (⁳) 07:05, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Buddhism & Atheism 

message: "A 2005 survey published in Encyclopædia Britannica found that the non-religious make up about 11.9% of the world's population, and atheists about 2.3%. This figure does not include those who follow atheistic religions, such as some Buddhist"
If we hold that "atheism" is an umbrella term with a single criteria of not believing in a deity (or several). I take this assumption from the opposite meaning of "theism". Where monotheism and polytheism both heralds under theism the way agnostism etc.. heralds under ateism.  Atheism should be 11,9% if 11,9 of the world is non-religious then. 86.52.207.252 20:05, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It all depends how you define atheism. I'm guessing here, but as this is a survey it could be 11,9 define themselves to be nontheist, of which 2,3 define themselves to be atheist. --h2g2bob (talk) 22:35, 8 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I would delete the sentence. "This figure does not include those who follow atheistic religions, such as some Buddhist" --Merzul 22:43, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Demographics sections doesnt make sense 

message: Just wanted to take a moment and congratulate the lot of you on this well=balanced article. It is exactly as it should be for this point in its development. It addresses all of the beliefs, rationale and motivations of atheists without being blind to its weaknesses. Of course avoiding human bias is impossible but I didn't feel any within the article. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.35.252.65 (talk • contribs) 
::Congratulations to all involved who contributed! One more featured article on Wiki! --Safe-Keeper 23:32, 8 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I agree.  This is a hard topic to keep objective about, but you have done an outstanding job.  It truly deserves its featured-article status. 71.36.14.5 00:29, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Great Article With Low Bias Level 

message: Eminent Buddhist scholar Walpola Rahula has the following to say about the Buddhist attitude toward the God concept:
Two ideas are psychologically deep-rooted in man: self-protection and self-preservation. For self-protection man has created God, on whom he depends for his own protection, safety, and security, just as a child depends on its parent. For self-preservation man has conceived the idea of an immortal Soul or Atman, which will live eternally. In his ignorance, fear, weakness, and desire, man needs these two things to console himself. Hence he clings to them deeply and fanatically. The Buddha's teaching does not support this ignorance, fear, weakness, and desire, but aims at making man enlightened by removing them and destroying them, striking at their very root. According to Buddhism, our ideas of God and Soul are false and empty. Though highly developed as theories, they are all the same extremely subtle mental projections, garbed in an intricate metaphysical and philosophical phraseology. These ideas are so deep-rooted in man, and so near and dear to him, that he does not wish to hear, nor does he want to understand, any teaching against them. The Buddha knew this quite well. In fact, he said that his teaching was 'against the current,' against man's selfish desires.Rahula, pages 51-52.
I am going to add a small blurb about this to the psychological arguments section. Rahula is certainly a RS for the Buddhist view. Arrow740 06:56, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  God out of weakness 

message: This article is listed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:God but it's not on the page. Is it not on here for a reason? Leedeth 08:15, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is big, and yet doesn't provide any AdSense revenue, so we didn't feel it was worth messing with the flow of the images. There are some very nice and discrete navigational templates at the bottom of the page though... --Merzul 13:59, 9 June 2007 (UTC)

text: That template isn't very useful; it's extremely large, completely disrupts image flow, and may even be seen as POV in an article like this. Just because the template has this article in it doesn't mean this article should have the template in it. If you reworked the template as a bottom-of-the-page version, then that would be fine. People searching for this article don't want to be hit in the face with a massive list 'o' links. — BRIAN0918 • 2007-06-09 16:27Z
down with template bloat!  is particularly bad: fills half the screen, and provides no value whatsoever over a single list of popes link. Remove such abominations wherever you can. dab (⁳) 07:02, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Template:God

message: Does anyone agree with me that User:Coelacan's refusal to use the common name of "the Buddha" for the founder of Buddhism results in a somewhat distracting and forced presentation? It is not the same as referring to Jesus as "Christ" because most people only know of the Buddha as "the Buddha," while it is the opposite for Jesus. Arrow740 21:45, 9 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Doesn't "Buddha" mean "the enlightened one"? Is it not a form of honorific? Perhaps Coelacan does not view Buddha as the or even an enlightened one. Nick Graves 02:29, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It is a matter of sytle. Most readers have no idea who Siddhartha Gautama was. The current version makes it clear, but I would prefer referring to him the way everyone, Buddhists and non-Buddhists alike, refers to him. Arrow740 04:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Buddhists holds that Siddhartha was the first to attain enlightenment during this time cycle; all others who followed attained enlightenment through his example and teachings. As a result, long-standing tradition has him referred to as the Buddha (capitalized and with a definite article) with others as buddhas (lower case and without a definite article.) Translating from the Mahayana tradition, the Lord Buddha refers to Siddhartha; bodhisattvas and others do not receive that honorific and are, again, just buddhas. Your syntatic comparison between "the Buddha" and "the Christ" is incorrect. TechBear 13:19, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: hm, how did you come to the conclusion that "Most readers have no idea who Siddhartha Gautama was"? In my book, usage of "the Buddha" and "the Christ" is exactly parallel. Both are titles summarizing the respective chap's main claim to fame. Both titles are "in universe" if you like, but using them does not imply you subscribe to them, it means you are referring to the towering figure of a world religion, not just to the historical individual. If this is at all worth arguing over, you can link to Gautama Buddha just like to Jesus Christ (I have no idea why one article title does include the title, while the other redirects to just the given name. Probably misguided scepticism at the Jesus article, while nobody seems to invest much scepticism whether it is npov to say that Gautama was awake). dab (⁳) 06:56, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Agree with every single sentence you wrote. Doesn't happen to me that often... :) --Merzul 13:00, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: alright, there is a minor difference: Buddhists assume there can be any number of Buddhas, and "the Buddha" is taken to refer to the first Buddha as a matter of convention, while Christians obviously would object to the notion of several Christs. But that doesn't change really impinge on anything I say above. dab (⁳) 13:11, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  I agree with this too... ;) --Merzul 14:28, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Obviously, they are both honorifics. That is not the issue. My point is that the name "Siddhartha Gautama" is not sufficient to identify the figure most people think of as "the Buddha." Arrow740 23:01, 11 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "The Buddha" is not like "The Christ" 

message: I'm confused about our section on the French revolution because Robespierre was clearly a deist, but there was also a militant atheist movement at that time. Could someone perhaps check, if our section is accurate enough? And explain to me why I might be confused. Thanks, Merzul 10:49, 10 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a good question, I tried to figure it out but couldn't. Aaron Bowen 22:23, 11 June 2007 (UTC)

text: I'm not sure I understand the problem. The revolution was 100% anti-clerical, but only partially atheist. dab (⁳) 14:13, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, he said there was also a militant atheist movement at the time. I don't think he said the entire movement was athiestic. Aaron Bowen 15:35, 14 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  I'm confused about the French revolution 

message: Given the broader definition, atheism is “the view (or philosophical view) absent theism”.  In this sense,  “as a philosophical view” expression is an unclear distinction, thus I would prefer the following lede:
Atheism, as a view on theism, is the position that either affirms the nonexistence of gods or rejects belief in gods.
It is more specific and distinct (nontheists without such views on theism are excluded). It's also less cryptic. As a bonus, we get the clarity of theism stated upfront and a refinement of the rejection position.   _Modocc 18:05, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: But the primary definition of atheism is not a view on theism- it is a view on the existence of gods.  Also, the broader definition is not a view at all- it is simply a state of absence-of-belief.  johnpseudo 18:48, 13 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Err, I agree with your first point; one need not have an opinion about beliefs of others, so my suggested edit is canned.  The second point however is not clear, since the absence definition is inclusive of all nontheists which have views absent belief,even infantile ones, but not for rocks. "Views absent belief" are implied. Even though "Atheism, as a philosophical view (on the existence of deities), is..." isn't necessary, since the actual topic of distinction is made by the definition, it would be nice if could be made with the clause however.  ;(  _Modocc 20:03, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

text: We do have to find a good way to distinguish between two things: 1. atheism as a philosophical position, ie. the rejection of theism. This might be weak/negative or strong/positive (see Edwards onwards). 2. atheism defined more broadly by writers such as Smith to include "absence". Weak/negative rejectionists might express their position in terms of "absence", but that's not entirely what Smith means. He means to include people for whom atheism is not a philosophical position, because they haven't considered or encountered theism.  Philosophers would, for obvious reasons, only be interested in rejectionism (unless to make a point about the existence of nontheistic cultures), because only rejectionism is an actual stance you can take towards theism.  And then of course "popular" (if that's what it is) opinion thinks of atheism as narrower than either of those approaches.  --Dannyno 20:53, 13 June 2007 (UTC)

text: Who is "they"?  Both words were imported from French, where they could happily cross refer to their hearts' content. Maybe people in English speaking places used the French, italicised as foreign: théisme. --Dannyno 15:59, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Distinguishing the narrow and broad definitions 

message: :You did not mention that you removed the following referenced statement as can be seen by this dif :
::Also in 1998 Frank Sulloway of MIT and Michael Shermer of California State University conducted a study which found in their polling sample of "credentialed" U.S. adults (12% had Ph.Ds and 62% were college graduates) 64% believed in God, and there was a correlation indicating that religious conviction diminished with education level.[94] Dionyseus 05:04, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: That's a separate issue -- as noted above, most studies have shown a positive correlation between religion and educational attainment (albeit measured the other way around), and if I wanted to, I could now list five or six studies in the article that would argue against the Sulloway-Shermer study. But rather than start a citation war and violate both WP:NOR and WP:POINT, I removed the Sulloway-Shermer mention. Let's stick to meta-analyses and literature reviews. -- Mwalcoff 05:10, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  It certainly doesn't violate WP:OR or WP:POINT to cite primary literature rather than reviews or other secondary lit! As I see it, this particular point should be resolved by each side gathering as many peer reviewed primary sources, and then counting each. If it's near 50-50 then say "no consensus exists regarding blah blah blah" if there is a clear bias one way then say "sociological studies favor a trend in which blah blah blah" and if it is unanimous then say "blah blah blah." Debivort 05:21, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: No, but WP:NOR says "most articles should rely predominantly on secondary sources." It also prohibits new syntheses of existing research. This bias in favor of secondary sources (which I would say applies particularly to subjects on which a lot of material exists) presumably exists at least in part avoid just the kind of citation war I fear. -- Mwalcoff 05:35, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: You don't have concensus to remove it, which is why I asked you to discuss this further before making controversial changes to the article.  Dionyseus 05:17, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, put it back pending resolution of this issue if you'd like. Just please don't remove what I've added. -- Mwalcoff 05:37, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: OK, have done, thanks. --Old Moonraker 10:13, 17 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The Sulloway-Shermer sentence

message: The article doesn't discuss the discrimination of Atheists in contemporary societies. Here's a source for the United States: --BMF81 14:37, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Well, why not insert a sentence. There was coverage of this issue on CNN not long ago. It certainly seems notable enough for some sort of brief reference to be made if there's nothing there. Metamagician3000 14:49, 18 June 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There's a short paragraph on this in Demographics of atheism from which we could borrow. It has a  tag leading to Discrimination against atheists. Would that do? Old Moonraker 05:47, 19 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Article hole: discrimination 

message: Scjessey asks with sarcasm, “perhaps a survey to see how many people who watch "American Idol" think atheists are immoral evildoers.”  Actually, that may not be such a bad idea!  That’s really kind of getting to the gist of the matter, the idea that we atheists are lost and adrift.  And it’s not just less educated people, or less intellectually active people, who believe this.  All sorts of people believe this.
: I don't necessarily know that I'd say that; I haven't met many (if any) intellectually active or well educated people who aren't atheists. Your experiences may vary. ElHalo 03:48, 11 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: The perception that atheists don’t have repertoire/skills/passion in morality

message: I have created the List of atheist Nobel laureates. It is important to acknowledge that there are several atheist who have received the Nobel Prize. RS
:Some of that would probably be a good idea to include in our main article, especially the laureates who have been more outspoken about not believing in religion.  But, per the above, there is probably some rule against it!    FriendlyRiverOtter 00:25, 6 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: There is no rule against it but it's a bit of a slippery slope .  Sophia 17:22, 8 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Why is this of note? Is the claim that they are Nobel laureates because they are atheists? Or is it just that they happen to be atheists as well? It seems to me to add nothing to our knowledge of atheism (or Nobel laureates) other than the spectacularly unsurprising fact that atheists can be laureates too (as well as cooks, and office-workers, and engineers, and good people, bad people, and so forth). Dast 09:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think much of the "see also" section is misguided, to be honest. -- Scjessey 14:29, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of atheist Nobel laureates 

message: Why is there no topic about the persecution of atheists??? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.143.104.191 (talk) 15:27, July 8, 2007 (UTC)
:Because it's already mentioned in a couple of places in the article, plus the "Atheism Topics" box has a link to the Persecution of atheists article. -- HiEv 05:19, 9 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atheism and persecution 

message: This section, near the bottom of the article, contains only three links. However, I'm sure most people reading this are aware that Wikipedia has many more pages about or related to atheism. Some of these are listed in the 'Atheism' template, but this is hidden away at the very end of the article, making the links difficult to find (see, for instance, the comment immediately above this one). Why not move some of the links from the 'Atheism' template up to the 'See Also' section? If not all of them, at least the most significant ones.Terraxos 01:06, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Never mind - I followed the advice of WP:BOLD and expanded the See Also section myself. Terraxos 06:55, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Adding "see also" links that are already present in the body of the article is contrary to the advice given in the Manual of Style (see Wikipedia:Guide to layout#See also). They should really be reverted. -- Scjessey 20:00, 10 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  'See also' section 

message: I've been reading the long debates about the definition of atheism in the discussion archives. I thought this reference to the book Natural Atheism by Dr. David Eller might be helpful in supporting the definition that atheism is a lack of belief in dieties. Dr. Eller is a Cultural Anthropologist and the book is a scholarly work on the nature of atheism. I feel it meets the requirements of WP:RS. Dr. Eller says "Atheism is the lack of belief in any god(s)" - Bgplayer 02:56, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: This source may be "reliable", but it doesn't seem notable with respect to defining atheism.  This book is just another book among hundreds of books on atheism.  If it were regarded by a reliable source to be "the final word" or "an important work" on the subject on atheism, then it might belong here.  johnpseudo 15:05, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

text: I am not opposing leaving the definition.  I am opposing using this reference. johnpseudo 19:50, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The existing definition is perfectly adequate, and any further revision is unnecessary. The broad context description we have at the moment (covering the various forms of atheism) is appropriate for a Wikipedia article. Remember that this is supposed to be Wikipedia, not Wiktionary, so a concise (and possibly restrictive) definition is not desired. -- Scjessey 21:23, 21 July 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Just to be clear I didn't change a word of the definition or introduction. I just added a reference to support the definition of "atheism is the absence of belief in deities". I added the reference because I was going through the discussion archives of this article and saw a lot of argument about the definition. Some editors wanted this particular definition of atheism removed because it is not the first definition to appear in the dictionary, and it is not a widely accepted definition. It seems like a reliable source reference in support of this definition could help. I chose this particular reference because it's the one I have access to that best meets WP:RS. It's a scholarly work by an expert in a relevant field. Perhaps the reference is unnecessary, and if so that's fine, I don't mind removing it. After all of the argument the definition was still in the article so maybe no further reference is required. - Bgplayer 03:06, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Added ref. to support definition of atheism