Talk:Atheism/Archive 19

Article requires alignment with editing guidelines

Per Wikipedia guidelines we should repair the "what people believe"-flaws in the Types of atheism section. That is, what people believe should not be discussed in the sense of "a this person believes that"; instead, we should write "atheism as this and that does this and that." In addition, we need to cite sources using inline citation or superscript. Adraeus 17:17, 14 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure we can actually do that, though, since the issue is that people dispute what the statement "atheism as this and that does this and that" should be. Since there isn't really an objective final authority one can go to to find out what the proper statement of "atheism as this and that" is, all we can do is describe what various people believe about it. Bryan 05:50, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

redundant and incorrect paragraph deletion

Some define atheism broadly as "lack or absence of theistic beliefs" and regard atheism as encompassing nonbelief, disbelief, doubt, and denial of the existence of deities. Others define atheism narrowly as the "denial of the existence of deities", and do not use the term 'atheist' to refer to those who simply lack theistic beliefs (the weak atheists described above), using other terms such as agnostic.

1. This paragraph begins with an ambiguous, uncredited and redundant sentence. "Some define atheism..." Which some? Define "some". Be specific.

2. This paragraph's initial claim attributes "denial of the existence of deities" to weak atheism, which is factually incorrect. Denial is positive.

3. This paragraph's second claim begins with an ambiguous, uncredited and redundant sentence. "Others define atheism..." Which others? Define "others". Be specific.

4. This paragraph's second claim is poorly worded and claims that strong atheists do not refer to weak atheists as atheists but only by other names. Says who? That's POV and non-compliant with Wikipedia editing guidelines regarding not describing what people believe or don't believe.

5. 1 & 3 are redundant given the definitions provided in both the introduction and in the types of atheism sections.

6. Acknowledging that "not everyone accepts these definitions" using this paragraph is also redundant given the first sentence of the types of atheism section.

Adraeus 03:54, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Looks to me like the paragraph's initial claim isn't saying what you think it is, but rather is saying that "atheism is a lack of belief in gods, and these are the following positions that include a lack of belief in gods: nonbelief, disbelief, doubt, and denial of the existence of deities". The second claim looks to me like it's saying "atheism only means what's described here as 'strong atheism', and what's described here as 'weak atheism' is called by something other than the word 'atheism'." I'm not sure where the redundancy in pointing out these two different views lies, since the two preceeding bulleted paragraphs simply define strong and weak atheism without describing how some people don't include weak atheism as a valid type of "atheism." This is a bit different from saying the definitions of weak and strong atheism are themselves in dispute. As for defining who it is that holds these views, how would you suggest going about that? I can't think of any distinguishing characteristic to describe them with other than actually holding those views. Bryan 05:48, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

1. The broad definition of atheism is the definition of weak atheism. Repeating that is redundant.

2. The narrow definition of atheism is the definition of strong atheism. Repeating that is redundant.

3. The first claim is factually flawed and redundant. Weak atheism does not involve denial of deific existence. "Denial" is assertive, a positive, and is a component of the position of strong atheism. "Lack" implies a need for fulfillment. We went over this again and again perhaps a year ago. This should be a dead issue.

4. The second claim is untrue, a generalization and POV. How you interpreted the claim is dramatically different from how it is written.

5. Per Wikipedia guidelines, editors should not "define who holds particular views." Perception is independent and dynamic. Editors should describe the views and not the people the editors think should or do hold them.

Adraeus 07:01, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

You're just repeating the assertions that I questioned above. I don't see the redundancies you're claiming, since it looks like the bulleted "weak atheism" and "strong atheism" paragraphs aren't addressing the issue of whether those two variants are considered to be properly part of atheism as a whole. And again, I really don't see those factual errors you claim in points 3 and 4. Could you please make some suggestions about how this paragraph could be rewritten to satisfy you, rather than just reverting over and over? You're edging right up against the 3RR here. Bryan 08:10, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'd have to agree with BD. I'm especially puzzled as to how Adraeus would like the attribution of the different definitions to be addressed, given the challenge first to 'Define "others"' -- and then that we should not define who believes what. Granted we want to avoid sounding 'weaselly', but this should be generally accepted, surely. We could rephrase into the Dread Passive Voice, of course... Might have a go at that myself. Alai 09:01, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

• "Some define atheism broadly as 'lack or absence of theistic beliefs'..."

The noun "lack" is defined as "the state of needing something that is absent or unavailable". The broad definition of atheism is "the condition of being without theistic beliefs", which describes weak atheism. The broad definition neither implies nor refers to a state of needing something; thus, the first claim is factually flawed. Moreover, the first claim is purposely redundant because the broad definition is already stated twice: once in the introduction and once in the types of atheism section. "Redundant" is defined as "repetition of same sense in different words" and "more than is needed, desired, or required".

• "...and regard atheism as encompassing nonbelief, disbelief, doubt, and denial of the existence of deities."

"Denial" is defined as "the act of asserting that something alleged is not true". Denial is a positive assertion that some value is not true. Denial of the existence of deities is neither a component of weak atheism nor was it ever. This makes the first claim factually false.

• "Others define atheism narrowly as the 'denial of the existence of deities', and do not use the term 'atheist' to refer to those who simply lack theistic beliefs (the weak atheists described above), using other terms such as agnostic."

You posit that this redundant and incorrect paragraph somehow addresses a non-verifiable dispute about the aforementioned types of atheism being properties of atheism. Yes, somehow it does address such a dispute; however, it does so while introducing factual errors and redundancies.

I will not suggest a rewrite of this paragraph because it does not belong in the article. The deleted paragraph contains no new information and adds nothing to the article except redundancies, contradictions and non-falsifiable conjecture.

Adraeus 09:25, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

This seems clear enough to me; the sentence is not equating 'denial of existence' and 'lack of belief', it's enumerating different (and indeed explicitly different) possibilities within atheism as a whole. Alai 09:59, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

While agreeing broadly with the claim that the paragraph is unnecessary, if it stays it shouldn't include Adraeus' unsubstantiated claims about what strong atheists say about weak atheists.

Aside from reverting to the earlier version, I've tried to bring some consistency to the article (in terms, for example, of how books are referred to), and I've removed the final paragraph. Aside from being almost impenetrably ungrammatical, it made reference to 'other disciplines' as though atheism is itself a discipline, and in general didn't seem to be doing anything useful. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:34, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We have had this discussion before at great length. Adraeus is confusing the definitions with the positions themselves. There is disagreement, not only about the positions, but also about which terminology -- which definitions -- should be used. The positions are as we define them, strong and weak atheism, and each has a characteristic definition of the word "atheism". Weak atheism, however, has not always been termed "atheism", and its "lack of belief" definition has not always been as common as it is now. As far as I have been able to determine, the definition of atheism as "lack of belief" started being emphasized between 1975 and 1980. Before that the "denial" definition was much more prevalent. Prior to the emergence of "weak atheism", the "lack of belief" position was commonly called "agnosticism". After around 1980, the broad definition, according to which lack of belief is atheism, started increasing in popularity, in particular on Internet sites in the 1990's. ON the internet, the broad/weak definition seems now to be by far the most prevalent. However, there are many strong atheists, including myself, who would dispute the weak definition as a useful one, regret its growth in popularity during the last 30 years, and would prefer the older usage according to which atheists are people who deny the existence of gods or God. Adraeus, Felonious, and others don't agree with any of this. They argue that the broad/weak definition has always been the dominant, or even the only, definition and that Sam Spade, I and others are just making it all up -- that atheism has never meant anything else than what they say it means, except to a few of their antagonists editing this article, and those antagonists can be dismissed. It took a great deal of arguing back and forth to have "disbelief" mentioned in the first sentence as a definition of atheism along with "without theistic belief". Adraeus insists on this sentence, and won't let "denial" into it. It is a poor compromise, in my opinion, because "disbelief" is vague and some people just read "disbelief" as redundant with "without theistic belief", but that is as far as we have been able to compromise with Adraeus. I also managed to get in the disputed paragraph about three months ago, briefly describing the dispute concerning the definitions. Now Adraeus is trying to remove this paragraph. I think it is important for NPOV that it to be maintained. --BM 11:53, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mel, concerning your replacing 'God' with 'god', the style in the article has been to use 'god' or 'gods' to refer to deities in general, and 'God' as the name in English of the monotheistic god. In some places, this distinction is important, especially so to certain editors. --BM 11:53, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My own research and experience regarding terminology has been rather different, and I assume then that we've been looking in different places? With the exception of Usenet and related forums, my reading suggests that, far from beoming weaker in its usage, 'atheist' has become stronger — moving from merely non-standard belief (from ancient Greece to the early-modern period), through what the article calls 'weak atheism', to a more standard 'strong atheism' version. Mind you, I think that the latter distinction is at least as much to do with a misunderstanding about the nature of belief than anything else, and where it marks a genuine differnce, it's one between different ways of acting on lack of belief (and different approaches to that lack) than between different sorts of lack. But I'm a philosopher of religion, and my reading has been in that area and in the more philosophical (and some less philosophical) parts of theology.

As for the capitalisation, the difference isn't between believers and non-believers, but between a certain sort of believer (and a certain linguistic convention) and the rest. For example, many Jews (and admittedly their reasons are confused) would no more write 'God' than they'd write 'god', and I know Christians who decline to capitalise 'god' because they hold that it's not a name but something like a job description (not my term). The use of the capital is, it seems to me, inherently if weakly PoV (especially when, as in the article if I remember correctly, it leads to sentences referring to pagan gods and the Christian God).

(I should have said also that I'd looked at the archived debate, and found it impossible to discover any conclusion, or even broad consensus.) Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:38, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Are we agreed on the quondam last paragraph, though?Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:21, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mel, we can agree that there was no real consensus in the archived Talk pages; only consensus by the exhaustion of both sides. Adraeus has had a bit of breather for a month or so, and seems ready to go at it again, a prospect which I must say I don't relish. Concerning your characterization of the evolution of the word "atheist", I don't think you and I are in disagreement about the main points at all. If the debate starts up again, I will consider you an ally. I do think you probably are missing the extraordinary extent to which the "weak" definition has taken over in Internet forums and sites where atheism is discussed, and this is reflected somewhat also in books and articles written after about 1978. However, I take your word for it (and am glad to hear) that the strong definition is still more prevalent in books and articles by professional philosophers. Concerning "God", you could be correct on that, but Sam Spade, who has had a fair amount of influence on this article would probably disagree with you. --BM 14:53, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

To BM, "consensus" means agreeing with him. You don't own this article, BM. Adraeus 20:03, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Protection

I protected the page because Adraeus asked me to, citing an edit war. I don't really have an opinion either way on the current dispute involving this so-called redundant paragraph, other than my previously expressed views on this page involving weak atheism and the use of God vs. god. I didn't read the current talk page discussion in its entirety, but it clearly hasn't developed a consensus. So, here's a brief cooldown protection. Andre (talk) 21:08, Mar 15, 2005 (UTC)

Well, just as a matter of form, it seems a little incorrect to protect the page at the request of one editor, right after that editor (Adraeus) has made an edit. If there were really an edit war, one might have noticed that it started after Adraeus deleted a paragraph that has been in the article for about three months and considered a previous state as the one that should be protected. All that aside, I don't think this is much of an edit war. Nobody has reverted more than once, except for Adraeus. And I'm not faulting him for his two reverts, which were spread over more than 24 hours. Anyway, his last two edits were not reverts, and while I don't like his last little comment on the Talk page, there hasn't been any of the real acrimony that has characterized Talk page discussions here in the past. So, I don't think there is any real cooling off needed. I don't think anyone is hot. For one thing, I don't have any substantive objections to Adraeus latest version of the disputed paragraph, although I don't really see it as much different from what was there originally. I would like to smooth out the text a little, but that is just normal editing. So, now that I have windbagged on a bit, what I'm trying to say is: you can unprotect the article, Andre. --BM 21:38, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

How about: let's discuss the intent of the paragraph? What was being interpreted from the paragraph did not reflect what was written. What was written were factual falsehoods and ambiguous generalizations based on insignificant conjecture rather than falsifiable truths. Let's not be so hasty to unprotect the article so that any edits I make can be reverted without due consideration. I've spent far too much time on this article to be trampled and run out of the ring like a Sam Spade sockpuppet.

Now, what are the objectives of the paragraph in question? Once we determine this, we can write something clear and concise and truthful. Rremember: we also need to cite sources. Adraeus 21:57, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The purpose of that paragraph, which I originally wrote, is to communicate to readers of the article that there is disagreement between atheists (and theists, for that matter), as to definitions -- that while weak atheists, using the broad definition, view both themselves, strong atheists, and so-called atheistic agnostics as "atheists", there are others, including strong atheists, theists, and agnostics, who are critical of the "lack of belief" definition and who prefer a narrower definition of atheism which would not include weak atheists and agnostics. By the way, I think the article can be unprotected if your last edit was acceptable to you, which I assume it was, since I have only what amounts to copy-edits that I would want to do on it. --BM 22:16, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

And although it seems I'm on the "opposing" side of the issue from BM ideologically (I'm a weak atheist who believes he should be categorized under "atheism" rather than "agnosticism" or other such IMO less-appropriate labels), I fully agree that a paragraph mentioning that this is a debateable interpretation should be in there. It's quite clear both from external sources and from the seemingly endless arguments that have been had here that people differ on this matter and the proper NPOV thing to do is to describe this disagreement rather than trying to support one side or the other. The current version of the paragraph does need some work since it's now claiming that only strong atheists are among those that disagree with the inclusion of weak atheism in atheism as a whole (I know of at least one theist editor whom I suspect would strongly disagree with that :), but other than that I don't see a big problem here. Bryan 00:38, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Well, the article atheism is about atheism. Moreover, the current paragraph makes no mention of "only" strong atheists may dismiss weak atheism as a type of atheism. I don't think your complaint is valid considering the context of the paragraph is within Types of atheism. If you want to discuss theism, theism. Adraeus 01:07, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The paragraph currently reads: "Strong atheists may refer to weak atheists as agnostics or agnostic atheists instead of "atheists"; and occasionally, strong atheists may dismiss weak atheism as a type of atheism altogether." Although the word "only" isn't in there, it implies it by specifically mentioning strong atheists and no other. As for your other point, I'm afraid I don't understand; I'm not proposing to discuss theism. I'm only saying that we should mention that theists are among those who dispute what the term "atheism" should encompass. That's information regarding the subject of atheism. Bryan 02:27, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Using your proposed logic — that lack of mention of an alternative socially identified group "strongly implies" restriction of applicability — we should, in order to reduce implication of application restrictions, mention every existing and extinct socially identified group. No, Mr. Derksen, the paragraph neither implies nor claims that "only" strong atheists may dismiss weak atheism as a type of atheism. You may interpret the statement in that manner if you desire; however, that's your choice and your mistake. By the way, I don't appreciate you deleting my responses. Adraeus 02:57, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Firstly, sorry about that response-deletion; I have no idea how it happened, it certainly wasn't intentional and I didn't even notice it until you pointed it out just now or I would have restored it. Secondly, I don't understand this adversarial attitude you're taking with me here. This isn't a debate society, trying to catch me in logical "traps" is pointless. I'm just pointing out that non-strong-atheists also dispute the inclusion of weak atheism in atheism as a whole, so I see no reason to artificially limit the paragraph to refer to just them and good reason not to since it's misleading. As it was originally written it didn't explicitly categorize the weak-atheism-objectors at all, which is IMO perfectly fine since the dispute's dividing lines probably don't clearly follow the boundaries of most groups of people like that. I'm obviously not arguing that we should mention every existing and extinct socially identified group, you're being silly trying to suggest that I am. Bryan 06:39, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Apology accepted. Now, look at what you claimed: "Although the word 'only' isn't in there, it implies it by specifically mentioning strong atheists and no other." (Italics added.) Using your statement, restrictive attribution is implied by not specifically mentioning others, which includes every existing and extinct socially identified group that disputes the validity of weak atheism as a type of atheism. Since the subject of the section within which the paragraph resides concerns Types of atheism, discussion of weak atheists and strong atheists is pertinent whereas discussion of other groups is not. Like I said, the paragraph neither implies nor claims that "only strong atheists may dismiss weak atheism as a type of atheism" if you read the paragraph, as well as the article, objectively. As Jimbo Wales would say, "I think you're simply mistaken" with your interpretation of the paragraph's implications. Learn to differentiate inferences from facts and we'll get along nicely. Adraeus 07:13, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As I said above, I am discussing types of atheism. Atheists aren't the only groups that can hold opinions on what "atheism" means, the fact that non-strong-atheists sometimes also dispute the inclusion of weak atheists under the "atheist" label seems perfectly relevant here and I simply can't understand what your objection to mentioning it is. Or even to not explicitly mentioning strong atheists alone, as the original version of that paragraph had it. Since we seem to be running in circles here I'm not sure what will break this impasse, perhaps some sort of vote or input from the other participants will help. Bryan 07:28, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On 00:38, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC), you wrote that you knew of one theist editor that would strongly disagree that "only strong atheists dismiss weak atheism as a type of atheism". [OT: If you were referring to Sam Spade, understand that he would strongly disagree that atheists are human and that atheists exist at all. Many quotes by him in his archive which demonstrate his intelligence.] I thought you were arguing for inclusion of theists as a group that may dismiss weak atheism as atheism. If you now consider my comments regarding discussing theism in theism, it should now make sense to you. Still, the section concerns strong atheists and weak atheists. Referencing any other groups would require significant evidence, which I don't think you (or anyone) can muster. The dispute primarily (and most significantly) originates with strong atheists, like BM, who think weak atheists, like me, aren't atheists at all. Personally, I think that's a ridiculous fallacy often committed by religious groups (e.g., Christians often claim other Christians aren't "true" Christians), but strong atheism is governed by belief in the nonexistence of deities so it's unsurprising that strong atheists would think like religionists. Now that I understand you, I don't think we'll need a vote. What other group would you reference? Adraeus 08:47, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yeah, Sam Spade was indeed the first weak-atheism-disputing theist to come to mind. :) I see nothing odd about including theists as a group that may dismiss weak atheism as atheism, atheists aren't the only people who debate the meaning of atheism. Whether it's a fallacy or not, it's a dispute that comes up a lot and so IMO it should be mentioned. I don't see why it's necessary to specify a group at all, though, since the only group that's consistent on this matter is "the group of people who don't think weak atheism is a type of atheism" (which cuts across the groups "strong atheists", "theists", and probably even "weak atheists" as well who prefer to use the term 'agnostic' even thought they match the definition given here for weak atheism). Since this is a relatively simple description of the dispute I think mentioning specific groups is more trouble than it's worth, IMO. Bryan 05:25, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I agree with your suggestion to remove the mention of specific groups regarding this particular issue, but I'm worried that such a removal will result in an even more incredible claim. We need referenceable information, not original research! Adraeus 07:36, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

BM-> Despite the paragraph being redundant, except for the mention that strong atheists may claim weak atheism isn't atheism at all, my last edit, being acceptable to me, was my attempt to compromise by removing the factual flaws of the paragraph's predecessor. Unfortunately, Mel Etitis decided to disregard requests for discussion and attempts to compromise and "replaced the earlier version of the debated paragraph," which made a positive case for page protection until this issue is resolved. Adraeus 01:18, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I am willing to start editing from your version, Adraeus. I don't promise that you will like every one of my edits to it, just as I don't imagine that every one of your subsequent edits will thrill me. But I think we will get to something acceptable to everybody in the end, as we have in the past. I suggest that we just proceed through normal editing plus discussion on the Talk page, with the main article unprotected. --BM 01:45, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On reverting: Adraeus's edit immediately before the protection was applied, granted wasn't a revert technically (in dare I say the narrow, strong sense?), nor was it a re-deletion as per his first two, but was a revert of the paragraph in question barring a link or two. But this is largely academic, is it's "in bounds" by any definition. (Though I'd concur that the protection seems over-hasty -- regardless of whose version got protected -- but I may be somewhat over-sensitised to this given recent page protection shenanigans by 172...)

The trouble with the current version is that it says that "the broad definition" is equivalent to "weak atheism", whereas clearly it includes both strong and weak. (In a sense strong also entails weak, of course, but I don't think that's the best way of making this clear.) That's what I was trying to make explicit in my rewrite, sleepiness-induced grammar errors and all, and what's been subsequently lost. Alai 01:39, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The broad definition is the definition of weak atheism, not strong atheism. What strong atheism shares with weak atheism is the being without theistic beliefs, and nothing more or less. The sharing of properties doesn't make the broad definition equivalent to strong atheism in any respect because strong atheism is weak atheism with a twist — the positive claim of deific nonexistence. Adraeus 02:16, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think Alai's just suggesting that the article should make this explicit. Bryan 06:39, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We already made this difference explicit with the introductory acknowledgement of separate definitions and the bulleted listing of two separate and dominant forms of atheistic thought. Adraeus 07:15, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The paragraph in question isn't just about what the two definitions are, though, but about the dispute over whether "weak atheism" should be considered part of "atheism as a whole" at all. What would be made explicit here is that one position holds that atheism is "weak atheism + strong atheism" and the other position holds that atheism is "only strong atheism". Bryan 07:31, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Isn't that obvious? Adraeus 08:47, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

More obvious in my edit (or the original paragraph) than in the current, in my judgement.

Are we collectively any nearer agreement on this point (which is why the page is protected, after all), or just side-tracked onto other issues? Alai 04:37, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I get the impression this discussion is side-tracked, the debate over the placement of commas and the cromulence of the word "amongst" seems of fairly minor significance compared to the deletions and changes in semantic content that Adraeus originally brought onto the table. I can wait, though. Bryan 05:34, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think the article can be reasonably unprotected provided the primary editors of atheism agree to cite their sources per Wikipedia guidelines. Adraeus 07:39, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Good - then unless anyone disagrees, I will unprotect the page within 24 hours. I hope I'm pretty impartial on this, and I also believe that, as soon as possible, most protected pages should be put back to being a usual page Tompagenet 18:13, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mel Etitis' revert to so-called "correct English"

Mel Etitis, I regret to inform you that your revert on 09:09, 14 Mar 2005 reverted to poor and conversational English, and not "correct English" as you claim.

1. (Adraeus) "communism-governed countries, and" -> (Mel Etitis) "countries governed by communism, as well as"

a) There are 10 less characters in my edit which means there are ten more characters in yours.

b) My edit is concise whereas your edit is verbose.

c) The Columbia Guide to Standard American English describes your usage of "as well as" as "clumsy". My usage of "and" makes sense and is less to read.

2. (Adraeus) "of natural scientists, rationalists and humanists." -> (Mel Etitis) "amongst scientists, rationalists, and humanists."

a) "amongst" means exactly the same thing as "among". In fact, in the Oxford English Dictionary, every definition of "amongst" links to "among". Officially, "amongst" is considered less usual. Unofficially, "amongst" is obsolete being replaced by the dynamic "among" in every sense. I learned this the hard way via grading of a thesis I submitted to a university.

b) There are fourteen more characters in my edit which means are fourteen less characters in yours;

c) however, attributing "natural" to "scientists" to form "natural scientists" clarifies what type of scientists are generally atheists. "Scientists" are simply "people with advanced knowledge of a particular branch of scientific knowledge" or "people who are capable of producing solutions in some problem domain". "Natural scientists" are "people involved in the study of the physical world and its phenomena" (see natural science). My edit disambiguated the term "scientist" while yours made it ambiguous.

d) Using a comma before "and" in a relative list is poor English grammar. That may be acceptable in elementary schools, but it's poor and improper in Wikipedia. At Wikipedia, one learns the proper methods of editing! Unfortunately, sometimes people do not.

Adraeus 09:19, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Correcting grammar is fine. Counting characters and judging on what is and is not "proper editing" is not constructive, however. Stick to what is relevant and useful, please. JRM 10:11, 2005 Mar 16 (UTC)

Each character, including spaces, is equivalent to 1 byte. A responsible editor's duty is to decrease the size of an article while retaining clarity. I've done that. Adraeus 07:56, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

In that sentence, yes; in general, no, since a good many characters require more than 1 byte to represent—but that's neither here nor there: if you measure the size of the article in bytes (or characters), it's a sure sign you're working on the wrong level, responsibility or no. If you take pride in reducing an article this way, good. I advise against mentioning it explicitly, because it looks like indulgent pedantry. Making sentences shorter while retaining clarity is laudable. Reducing the byte count of an article is ludicrous—size recommendations on articles notwithstanding, the fact that all such reductions can be expressed in bytes notwithstanding. But let's not waste even more "bytes" on this matter and agree that we have different attitudes to this. JRM 18:56, 2005 Mar 17 (UTC)

Shortening sentences while retaining clarity effectively reduces the byte count of article in a positive manner. I don't see how you can rationally call the former "laudable" and the latter "ludicrous" when length reduction is tightly entwined with byte reduction. In addition, measurement of the byte sizes of articles is inherent to the Wikipedia software. Surely you're not suggesting that Wikipedia operates on the "wrong level"? Oh yes, I've said it before and I'll say it again: Wikipedia is a pedant's dreamworld as MediaWiki is a scholastic enterprise. Adraeus 20:07, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Effect, not cause. Wikipedia doesn't operate on the wrong level—you do. My drawing software operates on pixels, does it make me a good artist if I do too? Perhaps if everything else is made just right—but then it probably pays off more to go improve it radically anyway, instead of tinkering at the atomic level. This debate is too silly to continue, however. Let's not keep spamming this talk page with off-topic material. :-) Take it up in private mail if you feel like it. :-) JRM 21:49, 2005 Mar 17 (UTC)

1. "Wikipedia doesn't operate on the wrong level—you do."

That really didn't make any sense, JRM. Listen to flamenco guitar.

2. "My drawing software operates on pixels, does it make me a good artist if I do too?"

That analogy sucked. :) A digital artist manipulates (operates) pixels to produce digital artwork. Graphics software are tools for facilitating artwork production, and sometimes are creative mediums. Language is a tool for facilitating communication of ideas to message recipients. Concision is more effective than verbosity because humans understand and abstract terse language more quickly and efficiently. Factual and verbal accuracy, definitiveness, and concision are key to effective communication.

3. Perhaps if everything else is made just right—but then it probably pays off more to go improve it radically anyway, instead of tinkering at the atomic level.

Designing for improvement often produces more accurate, more definitive, more concise results more than attempts to "improve [something] radically". Interesting that you use the term "radical" with "atom". See free radical: in the body, free radicals are high-energy particles that ricochet wildly and damage cells.^WordNet

Adraeus 23:55, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It's all your fault. We'll just have to move this to its own subpage, then.

1. Yes, "listen to flamenco guitar" has less bytes. I vote to replace my sentence.

2. Of course it sucked. Analogies are meant to be used as rhetorical wiffle bats; sullying them with logic cheapens the concept. :-D That said: "Factual and verbal accuracy, definitiveness, and concision are key to effective communication." Yes. Byte counts aren't. It feels like you've been trying to convince me a debt of $10,000 is better than a debt of $100,000 because it has one less zero (do you like that analogy better?) You're right in one way, but completely miss the point in another. Don't count characters, just say "my version is more concise". You don't strengthen the argument any by going down a level. That's what I meant with my flamenco guitar.

3. I'm aware of all meanings of both words, and I assure you it was a completely unconscious confluence of symbols. :-) JRM 01:35, 2005 Mar 18 (UTC)

I understand your complaint now. Thanks for clarifying. I would agree that byte counts aren't necessarily key to effective communication; however, since concision does result in a lesser byte count, by effect byte count is key to successful communication. That's most likely a fallacious relational attribution but a worthy rationalization attempt to evade admission of guilt. :) By the way, I did say my version is more concise and his verbose. His version is like writing "the sword of steel" instead of "the steel sword". Of course, "of" could mean "originating from" or something poetic, but "communism-governed countries" means the exact same thing as "countries governed by communism". My version is simply less wordy. Adraeus 07:06, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Moreover Adraeus is wrong in a number of other ways (as well as applying flexible rules inflexibly). In particular, he should note that the serial comma is Wikipedia Style according to the style manual, and that it's not only common in the U.S., but also preferred in many circles in the U.K., including the University of Oxford. As this isn't France, I don't need to comment on his peculiar use of 'official'; it's possible that he's taking the rules of a particular university as being universally prescriptive. His apparent reliance on the dictionary for his understanding of 'scientist' also leads him astray. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 11:21, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The serial comma is also known as the Oxford Comma. I won't argue the comma issue any further since after reading plenty regarding serial comma usage I've realized my error; however, you are certainly incorrect about "scientist" not being ambiguous, and "amongst" being acceptable in formal, modern academic prose. Adraeus 07:56, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

It looks like Adraeus is correct about "amongst" at least in American English (I learned something), and he is wrong about the serial comma. As for "scientist": notwithstanding Adraeus' dictionary, scientist does not generally mean someone with "advanced knowledge". "Scientist" does not equate to "expert". Someone with advanced knowledge of Shakespeare is a Shakespeare expert, not a scientist. But "scientist" does extend beyond "natural" scientists, including for example "social scientists". The statement in the article might still be true if you include "social scientists"; but I don't know whether the source we are using for this statement included social scientists in the survey. Therefore I am willing to leave it at "natural scientists". --BM 14:40, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"Scientist" does generally mean "a person with advanced knowledge of one of more sciences". In fact, the first definition of "scientist" provided in the Oxford English Dictionary is "a person with expert knowledge of a science; a person using scientific methods". The second definition is "a Christian Scientist" (see Christian Science). "Scientist" is ambiguous as is the common definition of the term. Adraeus 07:56, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I don't know for certain about American English, though I've seen the word used in fairly recent U.S. academic texts; 'amongst' is certainly neither archaic nor obsolete, though, and Adraeus' original editwas tendentious and pointless at best. The problem seems to be that he's using reference works instead of genuine knowledge, and writing good English can't be done like that. It doesn't help that he's so dogmatic and aggressive, even when he's most (and most provably) wrong.

As for 'scientists' — I'd be astonished if social scientists were significantly less likely to be atheists than natural scientists, but I'd be interested to see the evidence. If we don't know the reason for the original usage, then what is the ground for narrowing its meaning? (Adraeus is wrong about ambiguity, too; the unqualified 'scientist' isn't ambiguous, it's general; he seems to be finding ambiguity because he's bringing to the notion a theoretical (i.e., PoV) distinction between the social and the natural sciences). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 14:50, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

According to Princeton University scholars, "ambiguous" is defined as "open to two or more interpretations" and "scientist" as what I've previously described. It's quite obvious that the term "scientist" is "open to two or more interpretations"; therefore, "scientist" is indeed "ambiguous" and I am not "most provably wrong". Adraeus 07:56, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

By that last comment I meant the question of the serial comma. I've no idea why you need to appeal to 'Princeton University scholars' to establish the meaning of 'ambiguous; some of us just know what words mean (strictly speaking, ambiguity involves only two meanings, though its recent usage has tended to looseness). Your comments, however, leave my point untouched. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:18, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you've no idea why such an appeal is necessary, then perhaps you should more closely attend to the ad hominem coments you've made about me. Don't think of it as lecturing as you most obviously do. Think of it as referencing for that's what it is. You claimed that "scientist" is not "ambiguous", however, using various dictionaries "scientist" is demonstrably aligned with the definition of "ambiguous"; thus, your so-called "point" is "wrong". Adraeus 17:25, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

My comments on "amongst" were based on a couple of usage guides that I checked. They say it is archaic, and that "among" is preferable, except where the meaning is "in the middle of a crowd". The enemy is amongst us. "Amongst" is certainly in use. I've been using it myself, although I must admit, almost every time I wonder whether it should be 'among'. Thanks to Adraeus, count me among the 'among' guys from here on. --BM 15:09, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm bemused, BM; here's a word that you say that you yourself use, yet you take the word of a couple of writers that it's archaic? Surely, the fact that people like you and I use it (not to mention countless others) shows that the writers are wrong? (I can just imagine them, when challenged, demanding: 'Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?) Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:18, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

The mere fact that you behave a certain way does not make your behavior correct or "right". You are not incapable of doing "wrong". Adraeus 17:25, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I just noticed that "God" has been changed to "god" throughout, even when used as a name. Perhaps you've all agreed on this, in which I won't interfere, but I just wondered whether it's gramatically correct to cite those who use the word as a name, but then to lower-case it. SlimVirgin 09:29, Mar 17, 2005 (UTC)

That was me. I'm afraid, in the course of a fairly extensive scopy-edit. The reasons are discussed above (near the end of redundant and incorrect paragraph deletion). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 09:34, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

"God" should remain a name in certain sections of the article. For example, when referring to the Christian God. Adraeus 17:25, 17 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Am I to take it that you didn't read the discussion above, or that you read it, disagreed, but just haven't said why? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:15, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Diffusion of responsibility. Adraeus 22:22, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Off-topic: concision not necessarily good

Concision is more effective than verbosity because humans understand and abstract terse language more quickly and efficiently.

I just want to point out that quickness and efficiency of understanding is not the goal here. Disseminating knowledge to as many people as possible is, and maintaining absolute concision as a strategy for writing is contrary to that goal. Verbosity or redundancy is more effective than concision because it helps ensure the message gets across even if some of the message is not perfectly understood. If you reduce a message to just the minimum words required to convey a message you risk people misunderstanding or not understanding if they don't know or completely understand the words you choose. By restating things in different ways, you can ensure that everyone understands you. Note that I am not advocating writing bloated, pleonastic prose, but just pointing out that arguments about smaller word counts being prima facia better are not necessarily valid. Nohat 02:17, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As someone whose successful career and business centers on effective communication, I disagree. Concision, defined as "terseness and economy in writing and speaking achieved by expressing a great deal in just a few word"^WordNet, does not imply or require using lesser known terms. In fact, a great deal of concision, especially in advertising, is demonstrably layman-oriented. Nike's "just do it" slogan wouldn't be effective if it were written "maintain situational neglect during ambitious progress." My writing philosophy is: "don't write two words where one word will suffice." That attitude has garnered me much praise and recognition as both a writer and as the professional in the field within which I roam. The fact is: if you design your communications to achieve a specific objective^WordNet, you communicate more effectively and your message's recipient(s) understand your message more efficiently. If you disagree now, I understand: sometimes these concepts necessitate experiential education. Adraeus 07:28, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

If you look in the scientific literature on language and understanding, you find that there is redundancy at all levels of language, from the acoustic level to the level of pragmatics of discourse. For example, in English, the distinction between voiced and voiceless consonants is made not just by a simple dichotomy of voicing of the consants, but also there is aspiration of voiceless consonants and there is compensatory lengthening of vowels before voiced consonants. This is redundancy in the acoustic signal. At the morphological level, in many languages certain affixes are not strictly necessary to convey meaning, but are required by the grammar for "agreement". This is particularly noticeable in for example Romance languages like Spanish, where adjectives are inflected for gender and number in addition to nouns, but it also occurs in English, with the -s inflection required for third person singular present indicative forms (he walks). Redundancy also plays an important role at the syntactic and pragmatic level, too, which is kind of redundancy you are pooh-poohing (reduplication here is another example of a kind of redundancy). There have been studies that show that people are more likely to have understood something if it was explained in two different ways than if it was only explained in one way. There are other examples of evidence for the importance of redundancy in the body of linguistic research on the topic. You haven't really provided any reason why terseness is more effective other than stating that it is, and that you use it and have been praised. I must confess I don't find those kinds of arguments to be particularly persuasive. As I explained before, I'm not advocating unnecessary bloat—just that concision as a goal unto itself has not been proven effective as a practical method to increase the effectiveness of conveying information, and in fact there is a large body of evidence that redundancy plays an important role in communication. Nohat 08:52, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Successful communication (or persuasion) requires manifest consistency throughout the communication (or persuasion) cycle. I think you simply misunderstand what I mean by "concision" and "redundancy" and how manifest consistency (abstract: redundancy) applies to literary works. Verbal concision is the act of designing communication for the purpose of effectively transmitting an objectively crafted message to a prospective recipient, and for the purpose of increasing the accuracy of a prospective recipient's cognitive abstraction capabilities. Language is a horrible format for communication; unfortunately, language is a necessary evil so we have to make do. Language is often misinterpreted, reinterpreted, translated, misused, and abused. Verbal concision enables humans, especially those of a scientific orientation, to use language optimally while minimizing the risks of cognitive manipulation (to the extent that the message's initial meaning isn't understood.) "Just the facts, ma'am", in a manner of speaking. All traditional sciences operate using verbal concision. If that's not sufficient evidence of verbal concision's effectiveness as a practical method for increasing the effectiveness of information conveyance and the efficiency of information abstraction, I don't know what is. (By the way, it's nice to find someone knowledgeable and presumably interested in the communication sciences. If you haven't already, discover memetics [1].) Adraeus 09:22, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Assuming that what's being referred to here is 'conciseness' (don't tell me; Yale University scholars have pronounced that 'conciseness' is archaic...), did it really take so many words to argue for it — and so many polysyllables to boot? (By the way, it's not 'centres around' but 'centres on'.) Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 18:22, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Thank you for the correction. Adraeus 22:19, 18 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Mel Etitis' copy-editing, etc.

1. As I pointed out above, unless someone has grounds for limiting the predominacne (sorry, 'predominance'; 'predominacne' sounds like a particularly extensive skin problem) of atheism to natural scientists, then the term 'scientists' should be retained.
2. The normal locution is 'communist-governed', not 'communism-governed'; communism doesn't govern countries, communists do. Perhaps 'communist countries' would in any case be better (unless Adraeus prefers 'communism countries').
3. In-article comments are commonly used in Wikipedia; Adraeus's decision that they're not acceptable is at best rather high-handed. That's especially true when he deletes an editor's reminder (to himself and others) of where he's reached in a long copy-editing session.
4. Does anyone have evidence for the claim (which I've now completely removed from the article, as Adraeus disapproves of comments) that atheism is still against the blasphemy laws in several countries, icluding the U.K.?
5. I've also removed the last clause from “Weak atheism, also known as implicit atheism or negative atheism, is the absence of belief in the existence of deities without the assertion that deities are physically nonexistent.” That's largely because we're not usually concerned with physical existence, but partly because the clause adds nothing very useful to the paragraph.
6. I've changed 'God' to 'god' in places where it's clearly not being used as the name of an anthropomorphic being (in fact, see above for more general arguments). Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:35, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

1. "Scientists" is ambiguous. That's a fact. You don't like it? I don't care what you like. The term "scientists" can refer to anyone who thinks scientifically, like businesspeople and political scientists. By using "scientists", you introduce a baseless generalization. By arguing for using a baseless generalization, you are not acting in the best interests of the article.

2. "communism-governed" is correct. Countries are governed by ideas, principles, values, morality, and laws. Communism happens to be a political theory, which in certain countries is the governing ideal.

3. In-article comments are RARELY used in Wikipedia, and when they are used, they're actually important. That is, they're not just reminders and attempts at deletions.

4. Define "useful" in the context you use the term. By the way, to doubt or deny "the existence of deities" is irrational. Why? It's quite obvious that deities do exist in literary form. "Physical existence" was simply meant to specify the type of existence doubted or denied. If you can come up with a better word, do so. But I doubt your ability to specify.

5. Okay. That's good. Congratualations. You've done something right for a change. Adraeus 23:28, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Adraeus, these personal comments are not helpful. Mel, here's a link describing the UK blasphemy law [2]. Strictly speaking, action could be taken against someone who questioned a religious belief, at least according to the British Humanist Association's description of the law. But it's a murky point we probably shouldn't get into, unless an authoritative legal source can be found. SlimVirgin 23:40, Mar 19, 2005 (UTC)

SlimVirgin, you weren't complaining about the helpfulness of ad hominem comments about me when Mel Etitis made them. So, please, don't start with me. Adraeus 23:46, 19 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Adraeus. I really don't want to be uncivil, but I don't know how to say this any other way. I find most of your comments on Mel's edits to be pedantic, and worse, wrong. Many people think "scientifically", but they aren't scientists. I hope I think "scientifically", but I am not a scientist. Natural scientists include physicists, biologists, geologists, etc. Social scientists include sociologists, anthropologists, etc. When the article speaks of scientists, it is talking about physicists, chemists, etc, and perhaps about sociologists, etc. Nobody would understand many business managers, or even philosophy professors to be included under the label "scientists". Some business managers may be scientists, but most of them are not, however "scientifically" they may think. "Communism-governed" is an awkward phrase. It is like saying "liberalism-governed" or "conservatism-governed". Yes, people will know what you mean, but it is awkward diction, and far from the norm. "Communist-governed" is more usual. Or, when applied to a state, just "Communist" will do, since people understand a "Communist state" to be one that is governed by a Communist party and to have certain characteristic features. You are the one who supposedly prizes "concision", so lets get rid of "Commuism-governed". I don't like in-article comments, but I don't imagine that Mel was planning to keep them indefinitely. They are intended to be helpful while editing is going on, and it seems uncooperative to remove them. Your point about "existence in fictional form" is pedantic and silly. Nobody except you thinks it is irrational to deny the existence of deities because deities "exist in fictional form". Saying that something exists only in "fictional form" is another way of saying it does not exist. Is English a second language for you, by any chance? --BM 00:30, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

BM: The fact that you lack sufficient knowledge to understand why "scientist" is ambiguous does not mean "scientist" is not ambiguous. Your comments on business not being a science and your comments on "awkward diction" are incorrect and ignorant at best. Business is the science of commerce which additionally combines the science of management, the science of strategy, the science of finance, the science of economics, the science of psychology, the science of sociology, the science of marketing, the science of communication, "etc." One can determine a science if the prospective science uses the scientific method, which resembles this:

01. Pose a question about nature. (Observation isn't necessary.)

02. Collect pertinent, observable evidence.

03. Formulate an explanatory hypothesis, defining relevant assumptions.

04. Deduce the implications.

05. Test all implications experimentally.

06. Accept, reject, or modify the hypothesis based upon experimental results.

07. Define the range of application.

08. Peer review.

09. Publish the findings (including methodology, data and analysis.)

10. Evaluation, and continuation of peer testing, extension, and challenging of the hypothesis.

• You claim that "when the articles speaks of scientists, it is talking about physicists, chemists, etc., and perhaps sociologists, etc." That is your INTERPRETATION. That is not what is written. What is written is a reference to all scientists of all categories, including pseudosciences like Creation Science and Scientology. Remember: atheists are not the only readers of this article.
• You claim that "communism-governed" is "awkward diction" and "far from the norm". If that were true, we'd write "governed by the self" instead of "self-governed". By the way, do you have any basis for the "far from the norm" claim? Speaking of being "far from the norm", you consistently add two to three spaces after periods, which is quite obnoxious, especially when published in the article. That is improper formatting which I assume, considering your age, you carried over from the ancient typewriter era.
• Most editors of atheism would agree that your so-called "summary" of atheism in the introduction is explicitly historical, and therefore should be either removed or rewritten, but we tolerate its existence. That means you are not in a position to argue about how your "summary" is written.
• You claim my comments about "existence in literary form" is "pedantic" and "silly"; yet, you've provided no basis for such claims, which is most likely due to the nonexistence of such a basis. Believe it or not, gods do exist in literary (and imaginary) form. To deny deities their existence outright without specification of their type of existence is irrational, ignorant, and mentally ill. That's like saying "the lost city of Atlantis does not exist" without recognition of its existence in legend and in Plato's work(s). Pedantic and silly? Hardly. Specific and considerate? Indeed.

With regards to your last question, are... are... are you retarded? Oh, my apologies, I didn't mean to be uncivil either. Adraeus 01:33, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Actually, I didn't think the question was uncivil. The part I thought might be uncivil was the "pedantic" comment. The question was actually quite sincere: is English your mother tongue? --BM 02:14, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Yes, I'm sure you meant no offense with that "question". Incidentally, I support your recent edits, and upon review, I have found no error; although, "the most common position" instead of "the dominant position" is likely debatable, and you continue to have problems with pressing the spacebar more than once after the end of a statement. Adraeus 03:49, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Leaving aside almost everything Adraeus said above, which is mostly plain wrong, and depends upon an appeal to (his own) authority, I note that he's still avoiding the question. I take it that English is his second language, which would account for a great deal (though not for his insufferable tone of superiority when dealing with other editors, especially on matters concerning their own language). In defending his mistakes he's being forced into sillier and sillier claims (apparently we can't say that Atlantis or Sherlock Holmes don't exist!). As for accusing BM of being mentally ill because he disagrees — this is getting perilously close to the point where an RfC is called for. Oh, incidentally, I don't know about Adraeus' culture, but in English it's typographically correct to add two spaces after full stops (including exclamation and question marks), one after other punctuation such as commas, semi-colons, etc. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:23, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

1. All symbolic languages are learned as second or tertiary or quaternary methods of communication.

2. I presume that BM, being a smart individual, understands that I did not accuse or intend to accuse him of being mentally ill. Apparently, you prefer to obfuscate issues in order to redirect attention from your ad hominem abuses to some idiotic claim that I described BM as mentally ill. Keep it up, and you'll find yourself with an RfC against you.

3. You don't know the history of post-punctuation spacing so I wouldn't expect you to understand. In fact, I don't expect you to understand much, if anything at all. I'm a professional typographer. You're clearly not. Using more than a single space after punctuation was a typographically correct convention that originated with monospaced type due to visual clarity (or lack thereof.) Today, post-punctuation spacing is limited to single spaces because modern type families are proportionally spaced. Other things you probably don't know: hyphens are not subsitutes for em and en dashes, which are for text and numbers, respectively. Straight quotes, "", are improper for quotation unless used specifically for distance and time. Instead of straight quotes, use typographer's quotes (a.k.a. smart quotes), which are curly. Underlining is improper for times when italics are possible. Adraeus 11:56, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

However, the so-called "smart quotes" are not part of ASCII, so using them requires various contortions of character sets, character encodings, and keyboard input, and a large fraction of the time that people attempt to use them in Web pages, e-mail, etc., they do it in a manner that violates standards (most often by the use of the nonstandard Microsoftism range of characters from #128 through #159 when a document is allegedly in an encoding such as ISO-8859-1 in which those characters are actually control characters, not printable ones). As a result, the "computer geek" community often has an instinctive dislike of those characters and considers it "safer" to use the plain-ASCII, typewriter-style quotes. (I'm also used to typing two spaces after a period, but that doesn't really matter one way or the other in HTML.) Dtobias 12:16, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

We do what we can with technology and its limits. *sigh* Adraeus 23:40, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

As Adraeus guesses, I learned to type around 1970 or so on an actual typewriter. I didn't realize at the time that I would be spending my life at a computer keyboard, and I just thought that touch-typing would be useful for typing term papers, etc. So I took a summer school course. In those days, we learned to type two spaces at the ends of sentences. I still tend to type the two spaces with fixed fonts, as in an HTML form. But, you know, it does not matter one whit when typing HTML (or Wiki markup) because the text is formatted later for output, and the computer does the right thing. Whether you type one space or ten after a period, it looks the same on output. If the multiple spaces bothers Adraeus in the wiki text, I don't mind if he fixes it. --BM 11:14, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

People, this talk page is not a warzone. If your comments have reached the point of being about nothing more than whether what editor X said about punctuation was wrong or not and whether Y is using ad hominem attacks or not, it's time to step away and think about what you're doing. I also encourage you to take such issues to personal talk pages. This talk page is only for discussions on how to improve Atheism. If punctuation issues are already marginal to that (and, as BM rightly pointed out, whitespace issues are entirely orthogonal) discussion on behavior of individual editors toward each other is entirely irrelevant.
Less prosaically: you're not being productive as far as Wikipedia's goals are concerned. Stay cool. JRM 12:06, 2005 Mar 20 (UTC)

How can we improve the introduction?

I understand that previously there was a general agreement that the introductory paragraph should summarize important points from each section of the article. Currently, the paragraph only summarizes the definitions, the history, and the state of atheism today. The paragraph lacks coverage of etymology, statistics, the various views, and morality. I think we should summarize the article using no more than two sentences per section or using two paragraphs for the introduction. Adraeus 23:33, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Go for it. I would say the views are captured by the first sentence to some degree, and that etymology, which is the very next section, doesn't need summarizing. --BM 23:54, 20 Mar 2005 (UTC)

On the state of the discussion

I'm a rather small figure in the Wiki, I've not done much editing, though I've lurked around for a long time. Generally I find myself most fascinated and drawn to articles on subjects that interest me, and subsequently their Talk pages to gain insight into the work previously put in to make the generally fine articles what they are today. I just wanted to state my own view on some of the debated point above, but first I can't help but mention that having not even looked at the Wikipedia in months, I am disheartened by how many Talk pages I visit are full of incredibly acidic and uncivil exchanges between people who don't even disagree on all that much, but their egos or past grudges make them lash out at one another. For instance, reading this Talk thread, I find myself agreeing with Adraeus on a number of issues, but I find his tone and approach to other editors absolutely horrifying.

Adraeus, you make a number of good points, I believe you are right that the "natural scientist" clarification is necessary, as it eliminates any ambiguity about the sort of personalities being surveyed, and their field of study. Likewise I think your versions of the two sentences you dissected were better, but I don't think your condescending and mocking attitude against Mel were called for at all, or the slightly pompous character-counting. The change to "communism-ruled" was a good one, but I think most people would find "communist-ruled" or just "communist" even clearer. It just seems to me, reading through this, that while you've got a good grip on where this article is going, you're being incredibly defensive and uncooperative at others' critiques. At the same time, I'm not blaming you entirely either, it's just that your tone has struck me as the most inflammatory even when other have attempted to diffuse the argument somewhat. I believe that at the beginning of the whole thing, you were actually the one put on the defensive by the rudeness of others.

I don't know, maybe I'm just too passive a person, but it seems that this whole discussion could easily be more productive and civil, except that people are letting their egos, and their desire to get in the last word, get in the way.

Anyway, sorry that rant was so long, I just felt kind of saddened by the whole thing, since all I've seen in the last few days of browsing is Talk pages full of these sorts of petty arguments, and I don't remember it being quite so bad when I was here last. I remember quite a bit more courtesy and regard for the opinions of fellow editors.

As far as the actual issues are concerned, add me to the list of people in support of the "natural" qualifier. Also, in regards to what BM said about the "strong" atheism being the standard in the past, I'd like to state that as I personally have always understood it, atheism was fundamentally the lack of belief in a God or gods, in other words, the "weak" version, and the strong version (active disbelief) is just an outgrowth of that, not the other way around. Agnosticism, on the other hand, I have always understood to be either the uncertainty about the existence of god, or the assertion that it is impossible to know whether god exits.

Again, just letting you know what my understanding (and the understand of a number of atheists I've known) has always been, perhaps it is not the way most people have looked at it. I do believe, however, that the ancient views on atheism are in line with this, as Socrates was allegedly accused of "atheism," for instance, due to his lack of faith in the traditional Greek mythology, not so much a complete disbelief in gods (this would be an even wearer form of atheism than we understand it to be now).

That's all really. I hope this discussion is back to a more courteous point now, as reading the constant snide remarks, and veiled or obvious insults between Adreaus and Mel, for instance, was really kind of a bummer >8(.--Lord Shitzu 12:39, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

You're doubtless right on some points (though I think that a closer examination of the debate, while tedious and unpleasant, would lead to a slightly different understanding of the right and wrongs — but let that pass); I still don't understand this business about 'scientists' being ambiguous, though. Yes, there are many different kinds of scientists (as there are different kinds of dog, teacher, politician, etc.); one specifies which kind when there's a reason to do so (when what one says refers to one kind rather than to another). What is the ground for limiting the claim to natural scientists here? Is there any reason to suppose that social scientists shouldn't be included? Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 13:01, 23 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I can give you a convincing argument, at its most basic it just seems like "the right thing to do" in terms of clearing up ambiguity. While I would agree that a significant percentage of social scientists, or people who simply think scientifically will be predisposed toward atheism, I believe, at least the way the article is worded, that natural scientists are the crowd where a worldview based entirely on the idea of "science-vs-religion" is the likeliest. Generally, it's the people who deal with the nature of the physical world (physics, chemistry, etc.) who are the most centered in rationality over faith. That said, I think a more important question to ask in regards to this article in particular is exactly what sort of scientists the surveys mentioned interviewed, otherwise we're not basing the article on the survey as a source, but rather making our own speculations. If you look at the source cited, it is called "Nature," but I don't see it specifically mention the type of scientist the statistic is based on. It says something like "greater" scientists, which doesn't mean much to me. Still, the tone of the source (and its name) definitely gives me a feel like "natural scientists" are the ones being interviewed, and if that is indeed the case (if someone can confirm, either in the source or elsewhere), then I think that's a pretty good justification of the "natural" qualifier right there.--Lord Shitzu 14:02, Mar 23, 2005 (UTC)

[LS] I appreciate and agree with your comments regarding the current state of the discussion; however, you should understand that Mel Etitis initiated incivil conduct. I've maintained an aggressive non-abusive stance towards Mel Etitis particularly due to his/her "believer"-nature. Mel Etitis believes that he/she is incapable of err. This article and discussion greatly suffered in the past from likeminded people, such as Sam Spade, and I try — although not too seriously anymore — to prevent the real dogmatists from radically manipulating the article to promote their subjective points-of-view. (Note: I'm in New York right now for my grandfather's funeral so I have not signed in.) Adraeus 10:24 AM GMT-5 ~

Well, the record is there above for anyone with the time and patience to go through it. I agree, though, that Adraeus has maintained an aggressive stance towards me — and indeed to all those others who have disagreed with his self-proclaimed mastery of English. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 16:35, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

I think you're going a little overboard there, Adraeus, verging on the realm of personal attack. And you're being pretty dogmatic yourself with lines like ""Scientists" is ambiguous. That's a fact. You don't like it? I don't care what you like." I suspect that an aggressive stance like this is only going to make disagreements worse by removing the possibility of any compromise solutions and discouraging attempts to convince or explain. I also note that you've overreacted and percieved "threats" where there weren't any in the past, this might also potentially be causing some of this current clash too. I can't seem to find the ad hominems you've accused Mel of using, for example, perhaps you could point one out for me? Bryan 18:35, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Sarcasm is often lost in translation. Apparently, Russell was right about those who repeat what others say.

Regarding your judgmental criteria for effective cooperation, Bryan, I think you've already left the ship with Mel Etitis to a remote island where you've crowned yourselves kings, incapable of error. Refer to Mel Etitis' pseudointelligent psychoanalysis of me on 14:50, 16 Mar 2005 (UTC) in the Mel Etitis' revert to so-called "correct English" section.

Interestingly, if Lord Shitzu hadn't continued this "discussion", more editors would have paid closer attention to the section titled How can we improve the introduction? Try not to fixate your eyes on irrelevant squabbling. How about trying to improve the article for a change? Adraeus 08:50, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Scientists

I've argued for a while that the summary should refer to scientists, not merely natural scientists, as there is no reason to suppose that atheism is the dominant position only among the latter. This has been rejected by a couple of people, one for no good reason, the other because of a mention later in the article of a specific piece of research (research that was not explicitly confined to natural scientists, but which might have been...).

Very well, after some searching I've found evidence, not only that social scientists are as likely to profess themselves atheists as natural scientists, but that they are more likely to do so. At first I thought that I was going to have to rely on anecdotal evidence (though from anti-atheists), as for example here. Then I found False Conflict by Rodney Stark (provided by The American Enterprise.

The most extensive evidence on the religious views of scientists comes from a massive survey of more than 60,000 professors (approximately one fourth of all the college faculty in America) conducted in 1969 by the Carnegie Commission. The survey centered on academic issues and political-social attitudes, but also included questions like: “How religious do you consider yourself?” “How often do you attend religious services?” “What is your present religion?” and “Do you consider yourself religiously conservative?”

The table above [this was missing from the on-line version] summarizes responses from scientists in various fields. Two rather striking findings challenge claims about the incompatibility of religion and science. First, levels of religiosity are relatively high. A majority of hard scientists think of themselves as deeply or moderately religious--only among social scientists (45 percent) is this a minority response. Nor do scientists restrict themselves to tepid faiths--close to four out of ten faculty members in the hard sciences characterized themselves as “religiously conservative.” Moreover, scientists attend church at the same level of regularity as the general population--47 percent of mathematicians and statisticians reported attending services two or three times a month or more, as did 43 percent of physical scientists and 42 percent of professors in the life sciences.

The second striking finding is that social scientists are substantially less religious than those in harder sciences. This sheds a great deal of light on why it is so widely believed that religion and science are incompatible--after all, most of twentieth-century literature on this topic was written by social scientists.

I'll now return 'natural scientists' to the more correct 'scientists'. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 19:05, 26 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Again, you fail to recognize that there are more categories of scientists than social and natural scientists. Again, I'll disambiguate "scientists" with specification. Adraeus 08:24, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Your claim is unsubstantiated, and amounts to little more than a vague wave towards so-called 'business science' or something of the sort. It's of course true that the term 'science' can ben used metaphorically, loosely, and plain wrongly, as can just about any term; that's no reason to claim that it's ambiguous. Also, the link should be left alone; the article to which it points starts with a capital letter, and the piping means that the capital doesn't show in the article — there's thus no point changing the capitalisation. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 10:52, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Our Science article makes the distinction between Exact science, and social science. In English, "science" without additional adjective is usually referring to the Natural sciences, a subset of the 'exact' ones. Anything outside the fields mentioned would, once again, fall under semantic doctoring and splitting of hairs outside common language use, and I would suggest you first attempt to impose your definition on the Science article, and return here once the change has been accepted there. dab (ᛏ) 11:23, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Unsubstantiated? My definition? Get a load of this: the definitions of 'science' according to the Oxford English Dictionary. A noun as broad as 'science' requires an adjective to specify its meaning. In English, dab, 'science' without the adjective refers to any of the seven definitions. I'll let this one go as your limited usage complies with 'science' definitions 5b and 6; however, I maintain that the term science is ambiguous, which is a definitionally substantiated fact. Mel Etitis, read the the definitions of 'ambiguous' because apparently you don't know what 'ambiguous' actually means. Also, the MediaWiki software automatically capitalizes every document, such as dog. That doesn't mean link capitalization is correct since experienced Wikipedia editors have acknowledged such automatic capitalization as a flaw in MediaWiki's design. "Atheism", for instance, isn't capitalized unless the term is referring to the atheistic philosophy (religion) of the American Atheists or to the often Christian view of atheism. We don't link to Atheism. We link to atheism. Adraeus 21:03, 28 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Damn it, I had a nice big reply a few days ago to Mel's comments about the survey he found and somehow it didn't get saved. Maybe I was brain dead and forgot to save after previewing. Anyway, the gist of my point was this:

If you want, write a section with statistics about Social Scientists, but the part in the article where the word scientist was being argued, it cites statistics from a study that, when I looked at it a second time, specifically said that it had interviewed "natural scientists" specifically, biologists, chemists, physicists, and mathematicians. I argued that the link there should be to natural science because the study specifically concerned these people, and gave a number of good statistics. I also had an excerpt here showing all that. Now, the link to the study no longer seems to even work, so I no longer really know what to do, and if another link to that study can't be found, I think it would be a shame since, it was more recent (1994) than the social science study you cited Mel, and seemed quite comprehensive as regards Natural Scientists and their beliefs in gods or an afterlife. I thought the best solution was to mention statistics relating to both groups seperately, and therefore have no ambiguity. I'm not sure what to do now though...--Lord Shitzu 23:23, Mar 30, 2005 (UTC)

Sentence 'Atheism had become dominant in Communist states'

This sentence of Intro is misleading.

I recommend to replace it with Communist countries used term atheism to describe their position to traditional religions or something like that.

The communism was intolerant religion of its own (with prophets, icons, martyrs and heretics, dogmas, with complete explanation of the past and future, with solution to problem of evil, etc). God was replaced by forces of history. Only individual afterlife was missing. Questioning of dogma was risky or unwelcomed, depending on date and place.

The word atheism was used by prophets so it conveniently stuck in. Its association with science and reason was also plus for propaganda.

Communism (commonly called socialism) in Czechoslovakia fell down when I was 20 so I can give some insight about this country.

Initially, after takeover, the new religion was very active, trying to push itself everywhere all the time (e.g. with journals for small children being completely filled with propaganda of new order etc). In last decades before fall its influence disappeared - practically no one had believed in dogma, ideals of communism were (unofficially) ridiculed, its leaders seen as idiots, with no hope of anything getting better or different.

This was possibly time when the country become dominantly atheistic - old gods were forgotten or destroyed, new gods failed miserably. But I think this is not what current sentence wants to say.

I guess this was similar for most of European countries under rule of socialism (don't know much about Poland, no idea about China and like).

Pavel Vozenilek 13:53, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Even if we were talking about religion, this would be at best highly controversial. The use of 'religion' as applied to state-communism is usually regarded as metaphorical. In fact, though, we're talking about god, and as you claim yourself, god was replaced in state-communism. Therefore state-communism was atheist. Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:34, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

During 20 years of Czechoslovakia officially preached atheims, socialism, communism, whatever became empty words that people ignored as noise. Population was secular (for various historical reasons) and state simply stopped to care - it gave up (most of) its own semi-religious propaganda, it stopped (most of) active anti-church propaganda and it concentrated only on survival. I think attributing such state as atheist is misleading. (Communism as pure ideology is different but there were no communists anymore.) Pavel Vozenilek 00:30, 1 Apr 2005 (UTC)