Talk:Atheism/Archive 29

message: why is there a picture of Thomas Edison at the very top of the article? What is he... "King of the Atheists" or something? Jdw052 07:13, 13 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Because American Atheists, which has only existed for a few decades and only in one country, is not even close to representative of atheism as a whole, which has existed in various forms for hundreds of years all over the world. People have made attempts at creating more universal symbols for atheism - I have created one myself even - but there are none that are universally recognised or accepted. ~Switch t c g 08:24, 11 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Main Picture

message: I removed this sentence from the section on "Criticism of Atheism"
"This view has fallen into disfavor among most philosophers of religion."
It refers to the belief that there are few or no true atheists.  i read through the source and while agree the source denies the claim i didn't see where it says that "most" philosophers of religion agree with the source.  in addition i didn't see where the source sited its sources.  i would like you all to decide if the below source is acceptable and if the above sentence should be left in the article in its current forum.
:
:J.L.Main 00:54, 12 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: questionable source

message: There is a mediation request here that is still listed as "open".  Is mediation still required here or can I close this case?  --Ideogram 07:36, 7 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mediation still active? 

message: On Nov 5 2006, JimWae posted an minor essay on talk Talk:Atheism/Archive_28#Problems_with_Intro_as_of_Nov_4. There is no support thus far for any of his ideas. JimWae, rather than write a mini-essay which rambles and does not make clear any of your proposed changes, please list a few changes below for discussion, and gain consensus before completely rewriting the article. Your essay had no suggested edits that I saw at all; it seemed to be a bit of a ramble and a rant. That few responded is not surprising. the three responses all used the word "problem" or "problematic". This is far from support. One puppy's opinion. KillerChihuahua?!? 10:13, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewrite

message: Atheism is the opposite of theism, and thus the opposite of belief that at least one deity exists. Atheism has been defined both narrowly and broadly, and most dictionaries use the word disbelief, which has meanings ranging from "lack of belief" to "doubt", "withholding of belief", "rejection of belief", "refusal to believe", and "denial". The narrowest definition of atheism includes as atheists only those who actively deny the existence of deities, and who would be willing to assert "There are no gods at all."
A wider definition, explicitly included
 and included by implication in dictionaries that define atheism as disbelief in deities by several encyclopedia and dictionaries,
The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (2nd edition), 1999, Robert Audi editor: "the view that there are no gods. A widely used sense denotes merely not believing in God and is consistent with agnosticism..." entry by Louis P Pojman
Dictionary of Philosophy - Peter A Angeles, 1981: 1. the belief that gods do not, or God does not, exist; 2. The disbelief in any kind of supernatural existence that is supposed to affect the universe; 3. the lack of belief in a particular God
Dictionary of Philosophy - Dagobert D. Runes, 1962 edition: (a) the belief that there is no God; (b) Some philosophers have been called "atheistic" because they have not held to a belief in a personal God. Atheism in this sense means "not theistic". The former meaning of the term is a literal rendering. The latter meaning is a less rigorous use of the term though widely current in the history of thought - entry by Vergilius Ferm
http://www.ultralingua.com/onlinedictionary/index.html?action=define&ignoreaccents=on&wholewords=on&searchtype=stemming&text=atheism&service=english2english atheism: 1. A lack of belief in the existence of God or gods. 2. The doctrine or belief that there is no God
 http://www.rhymezone.com/r/rhyme.cgi?Word=atheism atheism: a lack of belief in the existence of God or gods; the doctrine or belief that there is no God
 http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Atheism 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica ATHEISM: literally a system of belief which denies the existence of God. The term as generally used, however, is highly ambiguous... dogmatic atheism is rare compared with the sceptical type, which is identical with agnosticism in so far as it denies the capacity of the mind of man to form any conception of God, but is different from it in so far as the agnostic merely holds his judgment in suspense, though, in practice, agnosticism is apt to result in an attitude towards religion which is hardly distinguishable from a passive and unaggressive atheism. 
 http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02040a.htm Catholic Encyclopedia Volume II, 1907 ...Thus, defined as a doctrine, or theory, or philosophy formally opposed to theism, atheism can only signify the teaching of those schools, whether cosmological or moral, which do not include God either as a principle or as a conclusion of their reasoning.
includes as atheists all those without a belief in any deity, though not all would necessarily deny every possibility of the existence of some deity. Though few would describe themselves as such, many agnostics would be included under this wider definition of atheism. Also included would be any belief system (such as some forms of Buddhism) that does not maintain a belief in some god. Some usages exclude from this wider definition, those, such as small children and people in isolated tribes, who have simply never considered the existence of deities.
--JimWae 15:47, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Is "not stamp collecting" the opposite of "stamp collecting"? If anything is the opposite of theism, it is antitheism.  It may be more workable without your first sentence, but your conclusions about agnostics are worded poorly and unsubstantiated POV.  The opening paragraph in the current article is better than your rewrite. *Spark* 16:16, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Sentence one: Inaccurate, per Spark. Sentence two: rambling and incoherent. Sentence three: poorly phrased, and leaves out the distinction of strong vs. weak atheism, positive and negative atheism, which needs to be clearly delineated. Following that, a mess of dicdefs including a highly inaccurate one from the 1911 Enc. Brit, and one from the 1907 Catholic Enc. - not that I think they might be just a weeeee tad biased on the subject of non-belief in deities, mind you! Must I go on? Rhymezone, you actually used Rhymezone for yet another dicdef. KillerChihuahua?!? 22:08, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: For the reasons stated above, I don't consider this a good alternative for the current opening paragraph. Something similar to your last sentence should be included in the article though, if not already.Tuesday42 22:50, 15 November 2006 (UTC)

text: I agree about the first sentence - but we could simply remove it. Sentence two could be simlified to be less rambly, but I think it is a good thing to give the various definitions rather than jumping to conclusions about what they mean. I don't see why strong / weak definitions (or explicit / implicit, for that matter) needs to be in the introduction. In fact, I'd argue they should be left to the later section. On that note, as a result of recent edits, the current version has strong and weak defined incorrectly, since "former" now refers to disbelief, and gets labelled "strong", whilst weak is defined as "absence of belief". That's actually the definitions of explicit/implicit. I disbelieve, but I'm certainly not a strong atheist! Mdwh 22:51, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: It seems the strong/weak misdefinitions were due to a broken edit - I've fixed that now. But I still say that I'm not sure we need to, or should, define strong/weak in the intro. In particular, the entire rest of the paragraph from "The former, narrower usage..." onwards seems to just repeat what's already said using different labels, making the introduction unnecessarily lengthy. I'd be much more willing to favour this version over JimWae's if we simply got rid of that. Mdwh 22:57, 15 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Rewrite by JimWae

message: In citation 11, Martin shows the flaw of his definition of Atheism. First, he admits that the root word is A-Theos. He then removes the A- (no, or without) prefix, adds the -Ism (belief in), suffix, then re-adds the A- prefix, to get his definition, of the word. His definition then equates to A-Theism (Without belief in God), when it should be Athe-ism (Belief in No God). Martin's definition of "weak" Atheism, is weak. No reliable dictionary supports his definition, at all. 
3DJay 21:20, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Footnotes and citations

message: I am looking for support to the idea that religion should not be listed on the biographical entries for every American politician. In federal politicians. To me it's personal information that is irrelevant to our elected officials. There seem to be some users here who have taken it upon themselves to identify the religion of most federal office holders. One place this is evident is on the infoboxes, for example
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_Congressmanelect
and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Infobox_Congressman
Don't know what your opinion on this might be, but looking for some support to try to take religion out of politics.--Utahredrock 21:28, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I don't see how doing that will have the effect you want. I think any sort of information will help voters make a more informed decision, as religious affiliation is sometimes a good label to know what policies the candidate supports, among those even Separation of Church and State itself. This is specially relevant seeing as how the U.S. seems to consistently put "family values" issues on the ballot. Some people might be willing to vote on a candidate if they find out he comes from a more moderate sect, as opposed to some evangelical fundamentalist. I'm guessing some people on this discussion page might share those sentiments. Starghost (talk | contribs) 22:21, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Despite separation of church and state, religious beliefs are relevant to biographical articles, including political biographies. -- Ec5618 22:23, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Which congress web site is it listed ? If it is a variable listed for all members of congress (though it may be optional to fill in) then the template should reflect that. Weird how just that field would be asked for and yet sexual orientation is not an option yet !. I guess one prejudice at a time for such a nation. It would obviously be a brave congressperson who wrote in secular humanist or something like that - but it would probably be the first truthful entry in that field. Ttiotsw 22:59, 20 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Looking for support

message: Should neoatheism (or New Atheism) be mentioned? This article use the term New Atheism, I was just wondering wether this is an unexplored branch within atheism that should be mentioned? --Jambalaya 13:26, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Seems like a neologism to me. Are there any books on the subject? Nick Graves 15:20, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  It's just a rhetorical term used by the author of the article to describe Dawkins, Dennett, Harris etc who have recently published stuff and been generally "outspoken".  It's not a "branch", it's just a word used to denote some new books. --Dannyno 16:17, 22 November 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Anyway it fails notability. If you search google for the term and exclude the 800 or so results that are pointing to a website called neoatheism.com you are left with 24 results, and it seems they aren't talking about the same thing or are in chinese. One article written on wired is not enough to make the term worth of mention. Starghost (talk | contribs) 03:49, 23 November 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Neoatheism 

message: The last sentence of "Types and typologies of atheism" is "This definition is used by some atheists, however; philosopher and atheist Theodore Drange uses the narrow definition."
Maybe this would be better and shorter if reworded to: "This definition is used by some atheists for example philosopher Theodore Drange."
As non-native Englisch speaker I would like to have someone else's opinion before changing it.
Pukkie 07:48, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: The current wording is clumsy, yes. I would suggest a change to "However, this definition is used by some atheists, such as philosopher Theodore Drange". -Switch t 11:58, 1 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  a bit slow but: done. Used wording of Switch. Pukkie 06:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Rewording of sentence 

message: I deleted the word "erroneously". If some people actually believe this, then I don't think it is up to Wikipedia to say they are wrong. Of course, the whole sentence is unreferenced - if someone wants to resolve the point by deleting the sentence in its entirely on the basis that it is original research or fails to describe a significant viewpoint, then I'm fine with that. Metamagician3000 07:09, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Actually I think this is a simple factual question, and I don't have a problem with the article stating that atheism does not, in fact, imply anti-theism or anti-religion. Unfortunately, if it's stated without context or a reference, the choice to include this fact could be considered POV. MFNickster 18:12, 2 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Some people erroneously believe...

message: What does this sentence mean, specifically the last clause?- "Similarly, the transcendental argument for the non-existence of God (TANG) is a rebuttal to the transcendental argument for the existence of God, which argues that logic, science and morality can only be justified by appealing to the theistic worldview, that argues that the reverse is true." johnpseudo 19:14, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title: Weird sentence under "reasons for atheism

message: * References in the middle of the sentence in the lead.
* At the end of the sentence the quotation mark is after the full stop ." it should be inside ".
* Lead has too many references, it should have none or very little. Remember that it is a summary where information will be referenced in the body (if you want to get this featured)
* Atheism has received much criticism from theists. Reference needed and remove 'much'
* Personal, social, and ethical reasons section has no references
* Too many external links
* empirical evidence for Crossed out, it shouldn't be and why?
* don't wikilink solo years
* Other prominent atheists in recent times, wikipedia might be read in 50 years, it wont be 'recent' then. Put early twenty first century or something
* The broader, negative has become increasingly popular in recent decades, per above
* Reasons for atheism, first paragraph is one sentence, expand
* However, because of the relative, remove however
* Additionally, some, remove both of them
* There is more then one space between sections leaving a big white space
* # Arab Infidels Forum [3]
* # Arab Atheists Network [4] remove these two
* V.T.V Atheists, remove red link
* Brackets are overused to explain thingsTony1's redundancy exercises to help improve the quality of the article and make changes where necessary. Good luck M3tal H3ad 02:05, 22 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: what is the difference between GA and FA these days? GA was intended to be an uncomplicated way of tagging, well, good articles in terms of content without haggling over nonsense like full stop ." it should be inside ".. I am happy to see this article has shaped up over the months, and it is easily GA material in my book. dab (𒁳) 13:53, 10 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: GA on hold

message: Any particular reason why the URL of the full article is spelled 'Athiesm' rather than 'Atheism', as appears for this page? 86.129.166.128 20:39, 23 December 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  URL spelling? 

message: This section is totally one-sided. In addition, intelligence cannot be directly quantified, using IQ as a measure is inaccurate, since there are many different aspects to intelligence. People can have a high IQ and lack common sense, and vice versa. Check the Bible: Psalms 10:4; 14:1 and 1 Corinthians 3:19; can I have that view incorporated in this section? If not, then either the section needs to go or some countermanding evidence needs to be added. --Frank Lofaro Jr. 18:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure the problems in defining intelligence are really appropriately addressed here in this article, although I don't disagree.  But I'm curious what, exactly, kind of scholarly "countermanding evidence" you would suggest could go here?  Are there studies that show correlation between higher education and religious faith? Information shouldn't be excluded just because there's not equal information in opposition. --lquilter 18:29, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Using the Bible as a source is likely to get you ignored by other editors, especially in an article such as this. The Bible is not a RS on intelligence (or most things, for that matter). As for IQ not being a good measure - yes and no. IQ correlates very well with expected measures of intelligence; people with high IQ are more successful, do better in school, are more educated, are more likely to read, have more money, ect. Moreover, countries with populations with higher average IQs are more successful than countries with lower average IQs. It is not a perfect measure of intelligence, but it is certainly a strong indicator of it, and there's nothing wrong with using it so long as it is noted that it is being used. Titanium Dragon 20:25, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

text: Titanium, are you suggesting that the fact that IQ correlates with better educated, richer, people who come, on average, from more prosperous societies shows it is a good indicator of intelligence? Surely this could be said to show quite the opposite. I.e. that it mistakes for natural intelligence factors arising from having a good education, being articulate, and au fait with western standards. On Frank's point, I think the section should mention, rather than intelligence, the precise measure the study used (e.g. IQ tests, level of education or whatever. That will let people draw their own conclusions. Dast 23:12, 29 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, I am, because it does. It is well known that intelligence can increase or decrease depending on your actions; educating someone actually makes them more intelligent, and demonstrably so - they do better on intellectual activities. This doesn't mean that all college graduates are more intelligent than all high school graduates, but what it does mean is that the median college graduate is more intelligent than the median high school graduate. Likewise, increased resources also increases intelligence to a point - chronic malnourishment, particularly as a young child, stunts intelligence. If the study says that atheists are more intelligent than others, then it should be reported that way - if it says atheists have higher IQs, it should be reported that way. The conclusions should be reported accurately, NOT politicized, and remember that Wikipedia is not politically correct or censored. Titanium Dragon 23:33, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  Titanium, the original idea of an IQ test was to test natural intellectual ability, which is only a portion of our intellectual abilities. The claim is that we have certain natural intellectual abilities that remain the same throughout our adult life (your point about malnourishment in childhood etc. are quite correct) , with minimal effect from education etc. (see IQ) This is what IQ tests attempt to measure. Thus they do not attempt to measure, for example, our arguing skills - even though it may be seen as a mark of intelligence it is clearly something a university education could enhance. Dast 19:09, 21 January 2007 (UTC)

text:  Well, the section cites the author of the study as drawing the conclusion that the higher one's intelligence or education level, the less one is likely to be religious or hold 'beliefs' of any kind., so I don't think it is unfair to use the word intelligence to describe the study. But I haven't seen the study, and I suspect this has been taken from Dawkins's God Delusion, page 103. For balance, one could add some other study, and the Religiosity and intelligence contains some information. However, in the end, there probably just simply is a correlation, and this isn't necessarily just an atheist POV. As Jesus said, "I thank You, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and prudent and have revealed them unto babes." (Matthew 11:25) I think most religions would agree that at least intellectual "arrogance" prevents you from seeing spiritual truth. --Merzul 18:42, 30 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The EU study (that gave us the religious belief map beside discussed section) correlates lack of religious belief with education (Page 10 of http://europa.eu.int/comm/public_opinion/archives/ebs/ebs_225_report_en.pdf): 65% of people who left school by 15 'believe there is a  God' as compared with only 45% who were educated 20+. I'll add the reference to the article when I get a moment. The study has plenty of other interesting statistics. Dast 14:38, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  On the other hand, I'm thinking that making controversial and offensive claims are maybe not good for the credibility of the article, and controversial issues just diverts focus from more important parts of the article. The practical concern is that drawing conclusions from statistical data is difficult (and maybe constitutes original research), so are you sure the facts you are using (that can be sourced) do support the conclusion that there is a correlation (which is probably not in the original source)?  --Merzul 15:29, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The controversial doesn't bother me, but I'm beginning to think that this is undue weight -- having the whole section in there does, in fact, create a POV.  (One I'm in agreement with, but still ....)  I think the education/atheism correlation is interesting but I think it's about one sentence in the "personal, social and ethical reasons" category.  Something like, "At least one study has shown that lack of religious faith, and, correspondeningly, atheism, increases as level of education increases."  An accurate & useful point in the right place, but without the distraction of an entire section. --lquilter 18:23, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I disagree. It is certainly notable. Atheists use this argument all the time as a reason why disbelief is superior; Dawkins has used it, and I've heard numerous other atheists use it as well, both famous and normal (myself included). I don't think it should be given undue weight, though - it is a minor point, and should have no more than a paragraph, if that, given to it, and probably more like a sentence or two at most. Titanium Dragon 23:35, 31 December 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  I don't see how what you said is in disagreement with what I said. I never said it was not-notable. I said it was interesting, accurate & useful, and it deserved a sentence.  ?? --lquilter 00:47, 1 January 2007 (UTC)

text:  Whether claims are offensive or not is subjective to the reader. I don't think any of those claims are offensive. Some people might believe questioning god is inherently offensive and therefore find the whole article offensive. "Political correctness" will get you nowhere. Facts, if properly presented as such, are not points of view. If in fact atheists tend to have higher IQs than the faithful, people can draw their own conclusions, but it's nevertheless a factual and neutral assertion if it's backed up by reliable studies (as opposed to someone's opinions). Starghost (talk | contribs) 20:22, 31 December 2006 (UTC)

text: I dropped out the section head and consolidated the information into one paragraph. I haven't touched the description of the research, because I haven't read those particular papers. --lquilter 00:51, 1 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Atheism and intelligence 

message: I think the above discussion about Stalin can easily be postponed until the "personal reasons" section is improved. I'm not sure though what can be exactly done about it. I really need to take a short wikibreak, so I will just brainstorm here, about each paragraph of the current article:
# Some people believe atheism is more conducive to a good life, and so on, while religion is based on fear...
#* One possible citation might be the statistical approach taken by Zuckerman in the Cambridge companion, where he with some reservations argues that countries with prevalent atheism are also countries with higher rates of happiness (I don't have it here, but there was something like that in it... I hope!)
#* Russell's ending of his Why I'm Not speech might even be quoted, the point about atheism being the brave facing of the world as it is and trying to improve it. 
#* The latter part of the paragraph talks about "threats of punishment" and this also draws on Russell's criticism of religion basing morality on fear, so Russell's speech might be a good source for the first paragraph.
# Then some people object to limitations to personal freedom, religion is immoral and leads to war, etc
#* Sound like Dawkins & Co, basically the 2006 attack on religion
# Some people don't like that faith is more important than good deeds, then about hell as cruel and unusual punishment.
#* This is hard to support, especially cruel and unusual punishment, this phrase is more used by theists when writing Hell theodicies than actual (academic) atheists.
#* Maybe this should be phrased as the "proportionality objection to hell", I think it dates back to at least Nikolai Berdyaev's "The Destiny of Man", for a more modern treatment, see Himma's evaluation of the infinite-sin response, the abstract might be enough for what we need here.
# Lack of religious experience...
#* This is essentially the personal aspects of divine hiddenness. I have read a very good account of this, the argument went by citing many historical figures, who have received religious experiences more or less without deserving it. Very loaded question: why aren't people who do not persecute the church blessed with religious experiences? It is highly likely that it is from one of Drange's online articles, but I was not able to find it :(
# Some people grew up atheist. Other people didn't.
#* Maybe a brief list of atheist who grew up in a religious households would be more interesting...
I know this is very lazy of me, but I hope this will at least start the process of substantiating the personal reasons section.  --Merzul 02:42, 6 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Ok, let me put it another way, would anybody object if I would add sources and slightly rewrite as need this section according to the above plan? But surely, there are better sources, if anybody can post some URLs or refs to important material, please do so here. --Merzul 00:35, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Personal, social, ethical, and other uncited reasons for belief 

message: why the hell does it say "jesus is god?" f-ing christians trying to re write history —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 69.243.156.120 (talk) 03:50, 10 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Congratulations! You stumbled across this article during the single minute it was in its vandalized state. :) Take a look at the edit history, here: . The version you saw was put in by an anonymous editor at 17:14, 9 January 2007, and was reverted by Persian Poet Gal at 17:15, 9 January 2007. So it's no biggie, this is how things work around here. Next time you come across an article in such an obviously flawed state take a look at the article's edit history and you may find that the most recent edit vandalized it. Bryan 04:28, 10 January 2007 (UTC)

text: It's a sad state of affairs that insecure, narrow-minded Christians feel the need to vandalize this page on a near-daily basis. Take a look at the history. You'll see edits like these every couple days. The current protected status is long overdue, but unfortunately it is not a long-term solution.Ceran 17:26, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm not sure why the page was protected, I assumed it was the edit-war, and nothing to do with the one-off vandalism. Agreed protection isn't anything other than short-term (by that I mean on the scale of hours), it just leaves us with an article no one can work on. Mdwh 18:03, 17 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Protect this page 

message: What's with that Pac-Man-piture? Does that picture have any link to atheism or the sentence below the picture?
:I have removed the picture.  As a note, since Wikipedia is written collaboratively, you can boldly edit articles yourself. Dave Runger(t)⁄(c) 04:31, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: (Looking at the older edit) I gotta admit, that was a cool picture though. Kinda reminded me of Buddy Christ from the movie Dogma. That analogy may have been the intent of the person who posted the Pac-Man picture. =Axlq 22:37, 14 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Pac-Man? 

message: Editors of this page may be interested in Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Historical persecution by atheism. Your comments are welcome.-Andrew c 16:06, 16 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  AfD of interest 

message: I am amazed at the amount of vandalism here by self-deluded and intemperate religionists! (Can't even spell "Christ!") I guess those who think freely have to be constantly vigilant. Jeff dean 04:47, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I, for one, completely deny the divinity and historicity of Jesus Chirst. There is no evidence of such a man. :) MFNickster 05:49, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: True.  And the same goes for Jesus "Christ." Jeff dean 14:24, 18 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Still, some atheists also vandalize with "atheists are teh roxors," or something like that.Tuesday42 03:03, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I get a chuckle when editors spell it 'athiest.' As in, "I'm athy; you're athier; he's athiest." MFNickster 03:29, 21 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wow! 

message: I'm speaking, of course, of this one: "It is commonly defined as the denial of theism, amounting to the positive assertion that deities do not exist, or as the deliberate rejection of theism."
This statement is logically nonsense.  First of all, it's ambigious. "denial of theism" could be read as either "denying having any theism" OR "denying the claims of theists."  The former is, clearly, weak atheism, not any positive assertion.  But even the latter interpretation is still flawed insofar as it supposedly "amounts to" a positive assertion.  The denial of a claim or system of claims is not same thing as, and does not "amount to" the affirmation of the negation of their conclusions: this is basic confusion between belief claims and their object conclusions, and the idea that denial of the warrant of claims equals the reverse of their conclusions.  If you claim that a certain box contains a spoon, and I see no sufficient reason to believe you have any idea of the contents of the box, then I can deny your claim.  But the logic of the sentence in question insists that to deny the validity of your "spoonism," I MUST be simultaneously asserting that there is no spoon in the box: something that is likewise unwarranted and silly.  Clearly, denying theism is not necessarily the same thing as asserting any position on the existence of gods: it is a position on the CLAIMS made about the existence of gods.  
In conclusion: the rejection, deliberate or not, of theism or the denial of theism does not "amount" to any positive statement at all, much less a specific positive statement about the lack of gods.  I have deleted the supposed "logic" so that the definition simply reads "It is commonly defined as the positive assertion that deities do not exist."  This is far less ambigiuous, confusing, and original researchy, in my opinion.
:I agree that "denial" is ambiguous, but note that "deliberate rejection" wasn't being referred to as positive (it's meant to be the "explicit weak atheist" position), only "denial" was. Though perhaps the sentence could be read that way, I don't know if the wording can be made clearer. Mdwh 00:38, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is that the weak atheist position is introduced as an alternative later.  The fact that a clumsy version of it that most would take to be a strong atheist was already introduced only adds to the confusion.Plunge 22:49, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Incoherent sentence right at the start

message: I removed the following section from the introduction because I feel that the introduction should describe atheism as a whole, and in particular not wander into such subjective ideas as how atheists view others, especially seeing how the section did not cite any sources.  It seems rather unneutral POV, too.   
"Many atheists feel that religious believers indulge in self-delusion and superstition. This can result from parental and religious indoctrination that begins during a child's earliest years, well before a child has the capability to think critically and independently regarding his or her belief system."
AliaGemma 06:34, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I confess I added the above paragraph, perhaps inartfully. I think it would be worthwhile to discuss the why of how people come to believe in a god or gods — that is, the psychology of religious belief. Clearly, early indoctrination is one, perhaps the most common, way god-believers are developed. Some psychological incident might be another. Is this article the wrong place for this?  Jeff dean 21:29, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Jeff, I agree this is a very interesting question (my answer is that we humans are gullible suckers for a false promise) but I don't think it belongs in this article. Perhaps a separate article on the psychology of religion?Poujeaux 17:22, 8 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Just while we're on the subject - and this is a little incongruous - does anyone else think a link to Tolstoy syndrome is appropriate in a relevant section? ~Switch t c g 18:55, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: View of Theists

message: An IP editor added a  nav box to the top of the article, without explanation. Possibly as some sort of commentary on atheism being a state of certainty, as opposed to doubt? Anyway, it was ambiguous and didn't add anything so far as I could tell, so I reverted. I invite discussion here if useful. --lquilter 00:10, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: It's off-topic, so good revert. --Yath 01:48, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I made the same revert only a couple of days ago, yet the template was re-added without any discussion. That's rather trouble editor conduct. -Silence 01:51, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Me too. The only certainty here is that it is annoying when such things aren't given the appropriate discussion. -- Scjessey 17:57, 11 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  "certainty" nav box?  

message: is there any support for the edit (in the lead paragraph)that I (cinnamon colbert) made ? It seems to me to be fully npov and all that: (1) wikipedia is based on verifiable facts; (2) there is not one verifiable fact showing the existence of any supernatural phenomena, let alone a god; (3) therefore, my edit is the natural logical conclusion. I think people are scared of the religious nuts (and with good reason, look at salman rushie). To put it another way: why is it that Atheism is not considered the natural, default, logical state, and religiousness a wierd aberration ? Can anyone answer that ?
:Yes, Wikipedia is based on verifiable facts, but Wikipedia defines a "fact" as an undisputed proposition. From Wikipedia:Neutral point of view#A simple formulation:
We sometimes give an alternative formulation of the non-bias policy: assert facts, including facts about opinions — but do not assert the opinions themselves. There is a difference between facts and opinions. By "fact" we mean "a piece of information about which there is no serious dispute." For example, that a survey produced a certain published result would be a fact. That there is a planet called Mars is a fact. That Plato was a philosopher is a fact. No one seriously disputes any of these things. So we can feel free to assert as many of them as we can. By value or opinion, on the other hand, we mean "a piece of information about which there is some dispute."
:In other words, something is not a fact because it's true, but rather because it is not seriously disputed. (Of course, in the case of scientific articles, a "serious dispute" is one which has scientific support, rather than just whatever laypeople believe. But atheism is clearly more of a philosophical than a scientific article.) Although it is a fact that there is no undisputed evidence for anything supernatural, it is not a fact (at least by Wikipedia's standards) that "atheism is a natural logical state". "Natural" and "logical", as used here, are either untrue or dubious (not all atheists base their views on logical grounds, or even have any grasp on logic; and whether atheism is "natural" depends on how one defines "atheism") or, at best, plausible but non-factual opinions. Moreover, it's not even very useful to our readers, because it asserts that atheism is natural and logical rather than explaining why it's natural and logical (which our article does a nice job of already in the "Reasons for atheism" section). Rather than telling our readers what to think about atheism, we should just give them the undisputed facts and the noteworthy arguments on both sides, and let readers decide what to think for themselves. We'll be both more useful and more credible as a resource as a result; no philosophy textbook would say "atheism is a natural logical state"; it's just too polemic. -Silence 23:36, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, one of the consequences of the WP:V and WP:NPOV policies is that here in the Wikiverse a "fact" is a proposition in the form "X published that Y claims that Z is true (ref to X)". Propositions purely of the form "Z is true", particularly where Z involves controversial matters such as religion, are generally regarded not as facts but as opinions. Facts begin with "X published that Y says..." because only this can be verified with the tools available to Wikipedia editors, Wikipedia editors cannot verify claims and statements themselves. "X published" is rarely in the main article body, but it still has to be present in the article's references and it's considered part of a verified statement. Hope this helps. Best, --Shirahadasha 23:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Hello, please see Wikipedia's WP:CIVIL and WP:Assume Good Faith polices regarding approaches to situations where you disagree with the opinions/editorial judgment of others. Thank you for your adherence to these policies. Best --Shirahadasha 01:38, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text:  Don't worry, he wasn't addressing you personally, he is talking about Wikipedia making a Goedelian fallacy, not you... :) --Merzul 01:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: In that case I'll just mention that Wikipedia editors are just ordinary folks, anyone can edit, and hence have no basis to claim greater knowledge or better judgment than anyone else. All we can do is present information from reliable sources and let people make up their own minds. Best, --Shirahadasha 01:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Any support ?

message: Is there a section for this? Currently athiests can't run for election in some States in the USA apparently, which is outrageous of course. What would happen if a black man or woman was prevented from running for office? Exactly.-A101
: Yes, there is a place for that: Discrimination against atheists#United States. --Merzul 11:07, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I think there should be a mention of public attitudes in this article, with a link to the other one. Citicat 13:36, 13 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Political discrimination and persectuion section 

message: What is needed are pointers to reference material that use the broader definition - rather than just Internet columns & TV/radio programs. I provided several back in November but was quickly & rudely reverted. I do not think we can safely say either is more common anymore.  --JimWae 16:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm sorry to hear you were rudely reverted, did you post your sources on the talk page? What is needed is probably more than a few sources, but I don't know why exactly you were reverted; I'm sure it wasn't intended to be rude. --Merzul 17:06, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

text: Ok, I need to learn to read, it's not even in the archive... #Rewrite by JimWae contains a number of sources; I will look at the discussion. --Merzul 17:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sources needed for the broader definition 

message: Please edit the above list by adding sources, and we can discuss things down here. But currently, it doesn't seem like the situation has changed. --Merzul 18:24, 26 February 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Discussion