Talk:Atheism/Archive 48

Ontological arguments sub-section

I was reading through the article and came across the following sentences that don't appear grammatically correct. Found at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Theoretical_atheism

"The italian philosopher Carlo Tamagnone i.e. is one of atheist thinkers which assume as basis of their thought the ontological arguments in many his books. In 2010 he issued his last essay titled "God don't exists" (Dio non esiste) just based on ontological reasons concerning physics and biology."

Not being familiar with the details of the information trying to be conveyed I am hesitant to make a change. I would rewrite trying to retain it as I understand it as:

Some theoretical atheists thinkers assume the ontological arguments as basis of their thought. Among such thinkers is Italian philosopher Carlo Tamagnone who presents these ideas in many of his books and an essay based on ontological reasons concerning physics and biology, titled "God don't exists" (Dio non esiste)

Although, having no specific reference currently I am not sure of the validity of the statements. Thoughts? --Ralajer (talk) 14:13, 7 November 2010 (UTC)

Rationale

I don't think the arguments under theoretical atheism cover all reasons for atheisms, i don't know what it would technically be called but what seems an obvious reason to reject religion is the contradictions between many holy texts and the realities of the physical world. Im not talking about contradictions in the definition of a god like omniscience etc, im talking about how the likeliness of any god as described by any religion could possibly exist is very low. Once all world religions can be discredited then wether or not god exists seems redundant. This is a terrible explanation sorry, but i thought the rationale at the moment was incomplete. 114.76.63.231 (talk) 09:43, 8 November 2010 (UTC)

Bias?

Why does every religion article have a criticism link under See also but this Atheism page does not? Is it ironic? I'll assume good faith and add in the link myself. 98.176.12.43 (talk) 05:02, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

There are several links to Criticism of Atheism in the article, so there is no need to duplicate the link in the "See also" section. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:17, 19 November 2010 (UTC)

Britannica quote fails verification verified

The definition of atheism used here is sourced in part to Britannica. I tried to verify the second part of the quote in the reference but searching the entry comes up with nothing. The text in question is the following - "...Instead of saying that an atheist is someone who believes that it is false or probably false that there is a God, a more adequate characterization of atheism consists in the more complex claim that to be an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons (which reason is stressed depends on how God is being conceived)...". I was trying to find the reasons listed at first, but could not find this line in the entry at all. Can someone fix this or help me find from where the quote comes please. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 18:16, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

It's near the end of the article, in the section labelled Comprehensive definition of atheism--JimWae (talk) 18:39, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Thanks Jim. I've changed the subject heading.Griswaldo (talk) 18:50, 22 November 2010 (UTC)

Atheism ≠ "None"

Hey, perhaps I'm late to the discussion on this topic and your convention is already based on substantial consensus... but I noticed a biographical listing of a famous person that lists their religion as "None (Atheist)" which doesn't make logical sense.

If someone has no religion then they would logically be listed as "None" but if they espouse Atheism, then that is their religion. Having no religion means you have no beliefs either way about the existence of any conscious beings of a higher order than mankind. An Atheist, by contrast, has very specific beliefs about the existence of any conscious beings of a higher order than man.

Wabwab (talk) 03:30, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

That's nonsensical-- like insisting that "not building model airplanes" is a kind of aviation-related hobby. Beastiepaws (talk) 03:50, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

You just have a misunderstanding of the term. Theist: believes in a god, atheist: not a theist. Don't hold a belief? Then you don't believe in a god, and are therefore not a theist. (An atheist.)

There are many reasons why people can be labeled atheist, and so the above term is in the broadest sense. It would be helpful for yourself if you familiarized yourself with all the different reasons an atheist might have. Some don't have any and just don't care, some have logical objections, others cite a lack of evidence, etc. GManNickG (talk) 04:09, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

but if they espouse Atheism, then that is their religion.

No, it's not. Atheism isn't in accordance with any definition of religion. In the case of Wikipedia infoboxes, it is just an additional label showing that the person w/o a religion doesn't believe in a god.

An Atheist, by contrast, has very specific beliefs about the existence of any conscious beings of a higher order than man.

What you mean to say is he 'lacks' very specific beliefs. Lacking beliefs doesn't make someone religious. Even if you were to interpret an atheist's lack of belief as specific it certainly can't be any more specific than the label Theist which I'm sure you'll agree tells you absolutely nothing about a person nor its beliefs (since you can't determine what religion they're part of). Tty29a (talk) 09:17, 30 November 2010 (UTC)

Sam Harris' quote

under the etymology section, there is an uncited quote by Sam Harris: "In fact, "atheism" is a term that should not even exist. No one ever needs to identify himself as a "non-astrologer" or a "non-alchemist." We do not have words for people who doubt that Elvis is still alive or that aliens have traversed the galaxy only to molest ranchers and their cattle. Atheism is nothing more than the noises reasonable people make in the presence of unjustified religious beliefs."

i wanted to point out that the quote is from his book "Letter to a Christian Nation", and is found on page 51. i do not know how to cite it properly, so perhaps someone else could add it? thanks. Pluemaster (talk) 21:28, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks for that! I've added it. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:46, 4 December 2010 (UTC)

Atheism and Morality

No citation(s) for The bulleted section of Atheism and Morality. The section could very well be accurate, but the lack of citation(s) throw it into question. Also, I apologize about the NPOV boiler for the proceeding text; I couldn't find the "in need of citation" link code:

• In the U.S. states with the highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average. In the most religious U.S. states, the murder rate is higher than average.
• Only 0.2% of U.S. prisoners are atheists.
• Atheists are more tolerant towards women's and homosexuals' rights.
• Atheism and secularism correlate with high levels of education, and low levels of racial prejudice.
• Atheists physically abuse their children less often than others, and more often encourage them to think independently.
• In Sweden, the most secular country in the world according to Zuckerman, the charitable aid given is the highest as a proportion of GDP. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lusitanic rīvālis azure (talk • contribs) 08:16, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

2 sources (#120 and #121) are cited via the opening sentence. The template is {{citation needed}} (or abbreviated {{cn}}). --Cybercobra (talk) 11:25, 21 November 2010 (UTC)

Taking in mind that bullying is caused in a high degree by home violence and lack of attention, esteem, there´s no connection between bullying and religion. Denmark (80% atheism), Germany and UK shows more or less high levels, while Finland and Portugal are lower.(www.bullying-in-school.info) Rape is normally very high in Scandinavia (wiki) and the situation of the woman has never been specially good, this is changing now (see Amnesty.org report) —Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.94.211.57 (talk) 03:04, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

You can't take the figures given in Rape statistics and extrapolate that rape occur more frequently in Scandinavia. The figures given in that article refers to reported rapes, so the only thing you can extrapolate from them is that rapes are more frequently reported in countries with higher figures. Sociologists and criminologists usually ascribe this to the fact that there are less societal taboos concerning rape in those countries, and again in countries with low figures there are a higher sense of taboo concerning rape, which means that most rapes are simply not reported in those countries, as it would entail a social stigmatisation. I have no idea what you refer to with your claim that "the situation of the woman has never been specially good" in Scandinavia. However all this is completely OR and SYNTH and should not be added to the article unless it can be cited with a source that explicitly tries to make a connection between these crimes and religion. --Saddhiyama (talk) 14:47, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Stalinism?

"After the Russian Revolution of 1917, increased religious freedom for minority religions lasted for a few years, before the policies of Stalinism turned towards repression of religion. "

Surely this should be Leninism rather than Stalinism? --Webbie1234 (talk) 00:35, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

I'm not sure. My reading is that it is describing the period after the Revolution (Lenin) and before the new policies (Stalin). What do other editors think? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:39, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Based solely on the text in the article I would agree with Tryptofish. I am not overly familiar with the period in reference to the specifics being addressed. I would read the Religion in the Soviet Union article for more context. It makes mention of the policies in the early 20's. Though it not specific to minority religions and doesn't read as "increased religion freedoms." the quote used is

"the Soviet law and administrative practice through most of the 1920's extended some tolerance to religion and forbade the arbitrary closing or destruction of some functioning churches"

However, The article might better be served by generalizing the paragraph or changing it to reflect why the Soviet Union tends towards atheism. Being more reflective of the bulk of Soviet history rather than a 6-10 year period. Ralajer (talk) 22:30, 20 December 2010 (UTC)

Worldwide Population

A worldwide population of 2.3%?

The only "first-world" country with any sizeable theistic population is the US. The last census I looked at capriciously (or maybe deceitfully) split atheists, agnostics, and "none" into three separate groups.

Europe and Russia is 80+% atheist.

China has 1 billion atheists.

The source for the numbers used in the article was the Encyclopedia Brittanica. Maybe you need to check some other sources. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Sbrundle (talk • contribs) 20:06, 9 November 2010 (UTC)

Citation please? ldvhl (talk) 11:33, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

There is no evidence to support "China has 1 billion atheists" whatsoever. While it is true that the Chinese communist government endorses (and has often enforced) atheism, the reality is that a majority of Chinese people are religious. See Religion in China for more details. The statistics quoted by User:Sbrundle are basically nonsense. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:34, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

There is a difference between religion and theism. Buddhism and Daoism are often non-theist - depends on the variant. Formal Daoism is completely atheist, folk Daoism and folk Buddhism is often theist. OmarKhayyam (talk) 16:51, 11 November 2010 (UTC)

The word "religion" in this context DENOTATIVELY means organized practice of theistic beliefs. I agree that it is quite silly to think one billion people are atheist because their government outlaws public expression of religious belief. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 74.142.203.6 (talk) 04:20, 24 November 2010 (UTC)

If we are questioning chinese atheism, shouldn't we also question Islam's 100% population in Iran? Atheism is the default by birth. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.37.87.108 (talk) 02:57, 23 December 2010 (UTC)

I think that 2.3% figure must be low as well. It's the "none" I wonder about. If your religion is "none" what are you? At most a deist and from my perspective that's just a lazy atheist. Doing a google search I can't find a source that refutes the stat, outdated or not good sources I can find.Atheistman666 (talk) 05:17, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Most "nones" are not atheists. A lot of scholars use phrases like "spiritual but not religious" to describe many of them. People who self-identify as "atheists" are no more than 2.3%, possibly less in fact.Griswaldo (talk) 17:18, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Dangers of religions

I just undo this edit, by 47SweetBirdofYouth85. The text removed was ... prejudice--not to say militant bigotry. I assumed that many others like myself would have no reason to read prejudice so severely as to require a caveat.

Also added was the list item persecution of ethnic minorities in reference to historic events that prominent atheists use as a basis of arguing the dangers of religion. The list is referring to historical events and persecution of ethnic minorities is probably too general to be considered an event. I am also unsure if that is a topic that atheist polemicist use when arguing the danger of religion.

Feedback? Thanks Ralajer (talk) 06:18, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Yes, I basically think that what you did was reasonable. I agree with you fully about the "militant bigotry" part, as it seems to have been added polemic. The second point is more in the category of there being arguments on both sides. The sources cited do refer to incidences of such persecutions, but obviously do not refer to all such persecution, since ethnic, as opposed to religious, minorities, are persecuted for all kinds of reasons. So, on balance, it didn't add much. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:47, 31 December 2010 (UTC)

Belief System

The article should point out that Atheism is, in fact, a belief system like any other religion. A formal objective proof of the existence (or nonexistence) of any supernatural being or realm cannot be written. Atheism is therefore purely subjective. Atheists can only cite belief as a basis for their philosphical positions and atheism is no different from a theistic belief system. Without this caveat, the article is, in my opinion, biased.Virgil H. Soule (talk) 08:30, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

That's incorrect. Atheism is "not theism", by definition; that's what the prefix a- means. If you lack a belief in a god, you're an atheist. This requires no proof, evidence, or argument, and is not a belief system. Case in point: where's the atheist Bible? What's the atheist world-view? Does atheism mandate any morals, practices, or rituals? What does an atheist necessarily believe? (If you respond "that there is no god", you're wrong. That's sufficient, but not necessary, for atheism. Read the article, it provides the proper definition of atheism.)

"A formal objective proof of the existence (or nonexistence) of any supernatural being or realm cannot be written." This is a completely separate issue, has nothing to do with what theism or atheism is (which is based on beliefs or lack thereof, not the basis for those beliefs, which is what a proof would be), and requires a citation on its own.

Is not collecting stamps a hobby? GManNickG (talk) 09:55, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Atheism is not a religion, nor is it a "belief system" as such, though many atheists do partake in shared beliefs about the nature of the world just as much as many co-religionists do. The issue is that being an atheist does not presuppose sharing those beliefs to the degree that being a Muslim, Christian, etc. presupposes sharing a system of beliefs. Consider, as GManNickG writes, the fact that there are no official texts in atheism codifying a belief system or a tradition of practice. That said, the empirical reality is that those who self-identify as "atheists" do indeed share beliefs of a more unofficial nature. There is another thing I'd like to quibble with, and that is the fact that being an atheist, almost exclusively means believing that there is no god, and not simply "lacking a belief in god(s)". In the latter category you may also find all kinds of other nontheists, often people who would not like to be called "atheists". Atheists often make claims that amount to the idea that all nontheists are atheists, and it becomes impossible to argue with them about the issue, but rest assured that most of the people who lack belief are not actually "atheists". Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 15:47, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

"often people who would not like to be called "atheists""' As much as this might be the case, for whatever reason, it's incorrect and a common misconception to fail to understand the theism/atheism dichotomy. The broad definition makes sense logically and etymologically, and (in my experience) is becoming far more understood in recent years. Granted 'atheism' and 'agnosticism' are all just words and can mean whatever you'd like, but that doesn't mean all words have equal grounds or equal sensibility.

There's nothing to "rest assure". It's just a word, there's nothing to be afraid of. GManNickG (talk) 17:06, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

It is much more than "just a word" my friend. Words don't exist in vacuums nor do they have objective meanings fixed in time. Any word, especially those which become markers of identity will be shaped over time by various socio-cultural forces. "Atheist" has gone through various mutations in usage, and the meaning you propose is no more pure than the one I'm suggesting is currently more common - more common outside of atheist subcultures that is. I apologize if you think I was suggesting that my meaning was somehow more correct, because I do not wish to make that claim. I'm pointing out observable differences between the beliefs of those who accept the identification and those who do not. My argument has nothing to do with the true meaning of the word, but with how it is interpreted and expressed in contemporary Western culture. For the most part those who insist on your definition being true, and mine being a misconception, are self-identified atheists, who believe with certainty that there is no god. The more ambiguously non-theistic members of Western societies usually don't agree. Why? I'm not entirely sure there is one answer to that, but certainly the nature of various more public discourses involving contemporary critics of religion play a role ... for instance. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 19:37, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Note that only a fraction of those who say they don't believe in God self-identify as atheists. Encyclopædia Britannica lists "Atheists. Persons professing atheism, skepticism, disbelief, or irreligion, including the militantly antireligious (opposed to all religion). A flurry of recent books have outlined the Western philosophical and scientific basis for atheism. Ironically, the vast majority of atheists today are found in Asia (primarily Chinese communists)." separately from "Nonreligious (agnostics). Persons professing no religion, nonbelievers, agnostics, freethinkers, uninterested, or dereligionized secularists indifferent to all religion but not militantly so." --JN466 22:10, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Hey guys. Provide some sources instead of arguing for your own opinion. Some well-known atheists consider their opinion a belif system, others not. This is an important issue in debates, so it should be mentioned in the article. Mange01 (talk) 14:06, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Find some significant reliable sources that say atheism is a "belief system" and it will be considered. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:03, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Today the most famous atheism proponent in Sweden is Christer Sturmark, who often describes his view as a beleif system in debates and books, as a polite gesture towards his opponents. He also says that David Hume described atheism as a beleif system, while Richard Dawkins does not. I currently have no sources in English, and none of you would be interested in some Swedish author.

Atheism is not a religious belief system, but fulfills the definition given in belief system. Most -isms do. Is that definition wrong? Mange01 (talk) 23:50, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Atheism is not a life stance, it's non-theism. Many atheists have many different non-binding life stances, atheism doesn't entail any life stances, because it's a lack of a belief in a god. Non-belief in X cannot entail belief in Y.

Atheism is not a religion, it's non-theism. Atheism, by definition, is not a religion; atheism doesn't entail any beliefs, because it's a lack of a belief in a god. Non-belief in X cannot entail belief in Y.

Atheism is not a world view, it's non-theism. Many atheists have many different world views, atheism doesn't entail any world views, because it's a lack of a belief in a god. Non-belief in X cannot entail belief in Y.

Atheism is not a philosophy (school of thought), it's non-theism. Many atheists have many different schools of thoughts, atheism doesn't entail any philosophies, because it's a lack of a belief in a god. Non-belief in X cannot entail belief in Y.

Atheism is not an ideology, it's non-theism. Many atheists have many different ideologies, atheism doesn't entail any ideologies, because it's a lack of a belief in a god. Non-belief in X cannot entail belief in Y.

Do you understand the theme here? Atheism doesn't entail anything. Non-belief doesn't entail anything. GManNickG (talk) 00:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Ok, I'll answer you allthough you didn't discuss the article. I don't get it. Being religious is not a hobby, no beleif system is. Secularism is like not collecting stamps, at least not publically; Scepticism and Agnosticism is like saying "I don't know if stamps will have any value". THose are not beleif systems. Atheism is like saying "I am convinced that stamps will have no value". Which is a beleif system.

You didn't answer my question above. (I am still searching for sources. Are you?) /Agnostic. Mange01 (talk) 00:24, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

@GMan. On whose authority do you assert what atheism is or is not? There is very little scholarship about atheism, but the scholars that have touched the subject (from historical or sociological perspectives) would hardly agree with your claims about what atheism is. For instance, here's a snippit from the Cambridge Companion to Atheism chapter, "Atheism in Modern History" (by Gavin Hyman) -- "... atheism defines itself in terms of that which it is denying. From this it follows that if definitions and understandings of God change and vary, so too our definitions and understandings of atheism will change and vary. This further means that there will be as many varieties of atheism as there are varieties of theism." Interestingly enough, the basic definition he first posits is the one I've been trying to tell you is most accepted today, at least by most non-atheist social actors - "the belief that God does not exist." Now are you going to tell me that you are more of an authority than a scholar of religion who does historical research on atheism and who is published by Cambridge University Press? Apparently. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 00:52, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

The general introduction states:

If you look up “atheism” in a dictionary, you will find it defined as the belief that there is no God. Certainly, many people understand “atheism” in this way. Yet this is not what the term means if one considers it from the point of view of its Greek roots. In Greek “a” means “without” or “not,” and “theos” means “god.” From this standpoint, an atheist is someone without a belief in God; he or she need not be someone who believes that God does not exist. Still, there is a popular dictionary meaning of “atheism” according to which an atheist is not simply one who holds no belief in the existence of a God or gods but is one who believes that there is no God or gods. This dictionary use of the term should not be overlooked. To avoid confusion, let us call it positive atheism and let us call the type of atheism derived from the original Greek roots negative atheism.

Logically and etymologically, together, give the theism/atheism dichotomy, which, with a definition of theism, gives a full definition of atheism: not theism. GManNickG (talk) 01:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps it would be helpful to editors who are new to this talk page for me to point out something that is a perennial in discussions here. Forum-like discussions of editors' opinions tend to be a waste of time, whereas any changes that would actually be made to the article will have to be well-sourced, and based on those sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:10, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

"Atheism is like saying "I am convinced that stamps will have no value" Nope, read the article. Atheism just means "I don't collect these stamps." Agnosticism, as it's commonly stated, is just negative (weak) atheism. Actual agnosticism has to do with whether or not you claim to know if your beliefs are true, not what those beliefs are. I'm with Tryptofish, though: this is a dead discussion, beaten to death, and I don't feel like replying to it for the millionth time. Find a good source that argues that atheism is a belief system, and you'll have something to work with. GManNickG (talk) 00:39, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I won't argue that it "is a belief system", but please see the source I quoted above, because it is usually considered to be a "belief" at the very least.Griswaldo (talk) 00:55, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I'll grant that, pragmatically, we can call it a "belief". (And in the case of positive atheism, it is.) But we do this with the understanding that we really mean "belief" in a non-binding manner. That is, it's a "stance" or "position", where the position is that not of theism. GManNickG (talk) 01:04, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

You keep on thinking that the word has some static meaning that can be arrived at through a simple semantic deconstruction of its parts. That's simply not the case. Even in the early 19th Century atheist usually meant "heretic" or "deviant" with no particular reference to any stance concerning God or theism. It also took on a revolutionary tinge, and "agnosticism" was popularized precisely because of all the negative connotations surrounding atheism back then. Also keep in mind that from within, the developing atheist tradition in Western though was formed mostly around various rejections of "God", and the denial of Christian theism. The idea of weak atheism would have been almost completely unheard of until recent decades, even if some atheist philosophers claim an older etymological origin. The sociological reality is also that outside of atheist circles things like weak, soft or implicit atheism are still unheard of, and that was part of my original point.Griswaldo (talk) 01:27, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Almost all of what I wrote above can be sourced to the afore mentioned essay in Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 01:27, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think it has a static meaning; I've already stated this. It's just a word, and you can define it to whatever you'd like. That said, it does have a definition that can be derived in a straightforward fashion, with respect to logic and etymology. And this is the definition that's arising all around recent religious discussion.

"and "agnosticism" was popularized precisely because of all the negative connotations surrounding atheism back then." I agree, but that doesn't change what it's understood to mean now. And I'll grant you, again, that these terms are not understood widely (that is, "agnosticism" as "weak atheism" is a general misconception, not a definition). You clearly have more experience than me (and thank you for being the first person to respectfully and informatively reply to me on Wikipedia), so I'll ask: should the article use the newer understandings of the word, the 'correct' (etymological) understandings, or the popular understandings of the word? (And I don't claim these any of these are mutually exclusive.) Thanks. GManNickG (talk) 01:42, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm a bit unsure of what my opinion on that is. Part of the problem is precisely that very little scholarship has been conducted on atheism, or on atheists. This means that most atheist writings are philosophical, polemical or a mixture of both. These writings will tend towards the more clear cut definitions of the term and do so in a way that is skewed towards the atheist's perspective (and I'm not being critical of that ... it's the natural course of things). I don't necessarily have a problem with that, especially since most of our entries on various religions are populated by information that stems from within the various traditions as well. The only thing that bothers me is when definitions of atheism which would necessarily encompass those who reject the identification are treated as objective. In other words, the notion that atheism is this or that, and then by extension that would mean that most non-theists who reject the term are actually atheists. That is something we don't let religionists do. (Disclosure, I'm a non-theist who personally dislikes the "atheist" label ... but I do also have a scholarly background that touches upon this subject as well.) Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 01:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Okay, thanks. You've helped correct my perspective on the subject. GManNickG (talk) 05:58, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

• Editors here need to bring sources to the table if this discussion is going to lead anywhere. Here is one: [1], by Ravi Zacharias --JN466 01:11, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

A book by "a leading Christian apologist" is hardly a neutral source for the question about atheism being a belief system. --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:18, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Sources don't have to be neutral; the article has to be. An WP:NPOV article results from presenting points of view in proportion to their published prevalence. The Christian apologetic point of view is a significant point of view. --JN466 19:02, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Why are facts being cherry-picked and censored?

Here's the current morality section:

Atheism and morality Sociologist Phil Zuckerman analyzed previous research on atheists and morality, and concluded that the more atheists and agnostics there are in a society, the more moral it is. Such findings included the following:[121][122]

• In the U.S. states with the highest percentages of atheists, the murder rate is lower than average. In the most religious U.S. states, the murder rate is higher than average.
• Only 0.2% of U.S. prisoners are atheists.
• Atheists are more tolerant towards women's and homosexuals' rights.
• Atheism and secularism correlate with high levels of education, and low levels of racial prejudice.
• Atheists physically abuse their children less often than others, and more often encourage them to think independently.
• In Sweden, the most secular country in the world according to Zuckerman, the charitable aid given is the highest as a proportion of GDP.

The very same source also mentions that atheists are more likely to engage in underage alcohol consumption and underage drinking, and that Americans not attending church have higher rates of suicide, but these facts are kept out of the section. DataSmart (talk) 03:38, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

If that is the case then you are welcome to add them, just make sure it is properly sourced from the book. It could be added beneath the text you quoted above with a "However, Zuckermans paper also showed, etc ..." for example. By the way, what is the difference between "underage alcohol consumption" and "underage drinking"? --Saddhiyama (talk) 09:13, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Please don't delete sourced text without previous discussion. After the sixths point in the above list, I once again added the following text, which was deleted yesterday:

In Sweden, the most secular country in the world according to Zuckerman, the charitable aid given is the highest as a proportion of GDP. This is however not true in terms of private charitable giving, but true if the high Swedish tax funded aid also is considered.

Mange01 (talk) 11:51, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

As far as I can see the deletion was done on account of violation of WP:SYNTH. Your correlations to Zuckerman was based on synthesis of primary sources which is not acceptable on Wikipedia. Unless you can come up with some reliable sources that contains this correlation and explicitly mentions Zuckerman, it should be deleted again. --Saddhiyama (talk) 12:01, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

So we know Zukkerman is wrong, or at least the summary of his text, but we should keep it anyway and delete any facts contradicting him? I did not do high-level synthesis of new knowledge, but presented supplementary facts. Any other suggestions on how and where to present information that contradicts him? The "Atheism and morality" section should not be only about Zukkerman. I think there should be a section in some Wikipedia article on Religion and charity, Religion and suicide rate, etc. These might be subsections of the Atheism and morality section. (Actually, I don't find where Zukkerman mentions Swedish charity?)Mange01 (talk) 12:33, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

When information is contested people need to go back to the sources to see what they actually say. Mange01 is right to question the current wording, since it isn't even in the original source. Here is what Zuckerman actually writes about altruism:

• "What about altruism? Although studies report that secular Americans donate less of their income to charitable causes than the religious (Regnerus et al. 1998), it should be noted that it is the most secular democracies on earth – such as Scandinavia – that donate the most money and supportive aid, per capita, to poorer nations (Center for Global Development, 2008). Furthermore, secular people are much more likely than religious people to vote for candidates and programs that redistribute wealth from the richer segments of society to the poorer segments through progressive taxation."

The current wording was completely misleading. I'm going to fix it. However, please note that I'm not even sure how relevant the actual information above is to this article in the first place since it is about secular democracies and not "atheists".Griswaldo (talk) 12:44, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Good job on the rewording of the misleading representation of Zuckermann (and the removal of the synthesised material as well). Considering the fact that secularism is not the same as atheism, I do agree with your on your doubts about how relevant the last part of Zuckermanns conclusions are in this article. --Saddhiyama (talk) 13:40, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Part of the problem is that Zuckerman is not focussed only on "atheism" strictly speaking.

• "This article offers a thorough presentation and discussion of the latest social scientific research concerning the identities, values, and behaviors of people who don’t believe in God or are non-religious, and addresses the ways in which atheism and secularity are positively correlated with societal well-being." (emphasis added)

His lit review may be better suited for a more general article on secularity or irreligion than the one on "atheism" where it generalizes like this. Where it specifically addresses "atheism", and does so clearly, it might be useful, but overall I think it isn't all that useful here ... and in fact is a bit misleading.Griswaldo (talk) 13:51, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Griswaldo, thanks for those edits tightening the section up. Mange01, I was one of the editors who reverted you, and yes, the concern was about WP:SYNTH. Please read and understand what synthesis means, with respect to Wikipedia editing. The issue in this case was not whether or not a particular source was correct, but was, instead, that you were making connections between sources that do not arise from the sources themselves, but arise from your own interpretations of those sources. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:22, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I understand the nature of the objection but ironically, the original source was actually discussing governmental aid and not charitable giving in the first place. It just amazed me that both sides of this failed to see that fact. In other words the OR didn't even need to be introduced here. Anyway, I'm glad it has been dealt with. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 17:20, 8 January 2011 (UTC)

Possibly misleading facts

Some of the facts from Zuckerman are a bit misleading in other ways as well. He states that 0.2% of prisoners are atheists. OK that is an interesting statistic, but notably prisoners often "find religion" in prison. A more meaningful statistic in terms of religious belief and crime would consider only the religion of criminals at the time of imprisonment, or at the time of committing the crime. Given other confounding variables I would assume even that figure would still be lower for atheists, but I can't say for sure, and the statistics Zuckerman quotes don't tell us at all in fact.Griswaldo (talk) 14:00, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

If the study were real,and done well, we would have to assume the information was good. Because the researchers would know that jail-birds "find Jesus!" when incarcerated, and they would account for that in their findings. But, as far as I know, this effect is not real. That prison inmates who are atheistic convert when imprisoned is probably pure myth or speculation. Similar to the insulting one-liner about no atheists in fox holes. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheThomas (talk • contribs) 22:48, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't follow. Religious conversion in prison is a documented phenomena. Zuckerman did not perform a study, he's just pulling statistics from other places and discussing them in his paper. In this case he did it in a misleading way, especially given the high prison conversion rates. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:54, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a difference between a lapsed catholic who believes in, but doesn't care about, god becoming a born-again and a self-described atheist finding religion. --King Öomie 14:32, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

however, the path is usually the same: heavy drug abuse. Kevin Baas^talk 14:49, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

Atheism and education

There are statistics in a couple of different places right now about atheism and levels of education. We should consolidate them all in one new subsection. Thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 00:02, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Seems too specific for its own subsection. We would also have sections for "atheism and crime", "atheism and suicide", "atheism and political views" etc. Having those sections would clutter up the page. DataSmart (talk) 03:36, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with DataSmart it's too specific, especially given that the Demographics of atheism article exists. It's also a correlation, based on the language in the article, which to me doesn't make it important enough to highlight in the general atheism article.

Educational attainment rates and atheism should all fall under Demographics Section. The data outside that section should be moved there with a general paragraph commenting on the correlation and referencing the specifics of the sources. — Rɑːlɑːjər ^talk 07:09, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

OK I can see the point to that. However, I think we need a better way to organize that section of the page. Perhaps I'll think on it some more and make other suggestions. I might also just go WP:BOLD, and if I do and you don't like it just revert and we can discuss. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:44, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Atheism, religion, and morality section Bias

Why does the section lists only one study concerning atheism? Other studies show that atheists are more likely to commit suicide and use illegal drugs.

Furthermore, why does the section contain a "Criticism of religion" section but doesn't have a section on "Criticism of atheism"? The article is about atheism, after all. DataSmart (talk) 00:52, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree. Step 1 is to find objective sources. Any suggestions? Mange01 (talk) 01:12, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a study done by the APA. http://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/cgi/content/abstract/161/12/2303 DataSmart (talk) 01:36, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Interesting!

Thw following study came to another conclusion: "Protective effects of religious affiliation were, in the present study, most pronounced on first onset suicidality. However, they were no longer apparent once other socio-economic variables had been taken into account suggesting that religious affiliation has no independent effects on suicidality". (Source: Jan Neeleman, Ron de Graaf and Wilma Vollebergh, The suicidal process; prospective comparison between early and later stages Journal of Affective Disorders] Volume 82, Issue 1, 1 October 2004.)

Mange01 (talk) 05:40, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

It seems that both studies agree on correlation but not on causation. DataSmart (talk) 15:13, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, and in this article correlation and causation is often confused. Socio-economic factors are much more important than religion on "morality". However, I don't know where this should be placed in the article. Mange01 (talk) 14:02, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it should be placed along the Zuckerman study in "Atheism and morality". DataSmart (talk) 20:20, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

Hello DataSmart. Unfortunately I had to revert your edits to the article. The main reason is that your assertions do not fit in with the list of findings that 'the more atheists and agnostics there are in a society, the more moral it is'. While it is true that the sources already cited do mention that there is evidence '[a]theists are more likely to engage in underage alcohol consumption and illegal drug use', this statement is taken out of context. The full quote from the Guardian, in context, is:

True, there is some evidence to suggest that atheists and agnostics are more likely to engage in underage drinking and illicit drug use. But the wider conclusion on the links between crime and religious belief holds good: if you want safe streets, move to a godless neighbourhood (from The Guardian)

Furthermore, the error in your second assertion that 'Americans not attending church have higher rates of suicide', supported by the APA study cited above (not cited in the article though, but don't worry about that), has been explained by Mange01 above. As to your original enquiry, that there is not a 'criticism of atheism' section is probably a purely editorial concern, mainly that it may degenerate into a section of undue weight being given to beliefs not widely held and non-neutral points-of-view (from this perspective, there should not exist a 'criticism of religion' section either). There are user-written essays about this (cf. Wikipedia:Criticism, Wikipedia:Criticism sections), though there is also disagreement among editors about whether they should exist. If you have any further questions, feel free to ask. Intelligentsium 03:40, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

It makes no sense to exclude certain facts from a study because it disagrees with a particular thesis. The Zuckerman study references several other studies when talking about this fact. These facts are a part of the study and are very relevant. Excluding them from the article because it runs contrary to a particular point of view greatly misleads the reader.

As for the suicide statistic, the fact I entered just mentions correlation, it speaks absolutely nothing of causation, and none of the existing facts in the section mentions causation either. DataSmart (talk) 03:59, 7 January 2011 (UTC) DataSmart (talk) 03:57, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

I am not proposing that the facts be removed because they disagree with a particular thesis, I am proposing that they be removed because they do not make sense in the context of where they were inserted. The list they were added to was a list of findings suggesting that 'the more atheists and agnostics there are in a society, the more moral it is', which the facts added certainly are not. If these facts can be sourced, they should be added to a separate, more appropriate paragraph in the Atheism and morality section (or its current equivalent, as I see that an editor has restructured that part of the page). The suicide statistic is not out of place because it implies causation (nor was I trying to say it was) but for the same reason: because it does not fit with where it was placed. A smaller issue is also present in the phrase 'not attending church'. People who do not attend church are not necessarily atheists; they may subscribe to a more private conception of religion, or they may simply not be Christian. Intelligentsium 23:09, 7 January 2011 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying, I added the statistic to the end of the paragraph. DataSmart (talk) 02:06, 9 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps what is really needed is a "sociology of atheism" section. Sociologists are paying much more attention to atheists these days. --Dannyno (talk) 18:49, 16 January 2011 (UTC)

The 4th edition of Psychology of Religion has a section dedicated to the sociology of religion. Perhaps a section on the psychology of atheism would be interesting too. Aaronwayneodonahue (talk) 22:20, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Morality, Zuckerman, Golumbaski

So, the statistic about .2 percent of prisoners in the U.S. are atheists comes from a quote in an online newspaper which doesn't cite a paper at all and Zuckerman's article. Zuckerman's article, in turn, then cites Golumbaski (1997) as its source for that statistic. Ms. Golumbaski's one paper that year doesn't seem to be on the topic of atheism, and has a sample size of 85. The information may be buried in there, but I don't think it is, and if it is: 1) it's not the goal of the study to test for atheism, 2) the number .2 percent can't be trusted because it was be a weak guess at best. What is .2 percent of 85 people? 85 x .002 = .17 people? Might not be good information. We need a source linking to the original data, both our sources are second-hand at best.TheThomas (talk) 14:07, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Any objections to just deleting it? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:23, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

ya, the .2 percent of 85 and the sample size of 85 leads me to believe that if that's the sample size it's not in units of people. without some adequate verifiable clarification that makes it a significant statistic, i'd say go ahead and delete it. it's interesting, sure, but that doesn't count for anything if it's not true. (or at least verified.) Kevin Baas^talk 20:33, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

It's a meaningless statistic anyway, and I deleted it once already but apparently it was put back in. Prisoners tend to "find religion" in prison. Measuring the current religious affiliation of the current prison population doesn't really say much of anything about the religious beliefs of criminals as they commit crimes. It hardly says anything about morality and social behavior in other words. I'm a bit surprised that Zuckerman mentioned the statistic in that section of his paper. Even if the sample size were 1000+ the statistic is quite misleading.Griswaldo (talk) 20:36, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Delete.TheThomas (talk) 22:18, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

My understanding, from reading atheism blogs, is that this statistic (or a similar .4 percent) has been bouncing around the internet, but each person that attempts to find the original source fails. The .4 percent was quoted as a Federal Prison Bureau statistic, but the study simply doesn't exist. I would like to see it really done though, since people obviously think it is an interesting or relevant piece of info.TheThomas (talk) 22:22, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Most prisons do not keep detailed information on religious affiliations. For example, Stanley Prison in Wisconsin, the closest prison to me, only has 5 categories for religious affiliation for people to check when they come in. If they are a member of a different religious affiliation than what's provided, there's one big "other" box to check. Aaronwayneodonahue (talk) 22:24, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

Epicurus quote

I was going to edit it after I noticed that the capitalisation is a little non-standard, but it struck me that it seems to follow a pattern. Can anyone clear this up? It could just be oversight on my part. 90.201.91.77 (talk) 17:25, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Atheism#Logical arguments, the image caption. Yes, it does look that way. The link in the reference does not actually show the original quote, so I'm reluctant to change it yet. Does anyone know: was it originally written that way? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:38, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Verbatim, courtesy of Project Gutenberg, seems a bit light on caps to our eyes:

EPICURUS's old questions are yet unanswered. Is he willing to prevent evil, but not able? then is he impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then is he malevolent. Is he both able and willing? whence then is evil?

Checked this with a facsimile of page 186 (second edition) on Google Books[2]: it's accurate. --Old Moonraker (talk) 23:01, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

Good, and thanks! No change needed, then. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:05, 15 January 2011 (UTC)

"Between 64% and 65% of Japanese are atheists, agnostics, or do not believe in God."

This is a literally correct translation of the information in the link which follows that sentence in the article. But, I doubt that the reader of wikipedia translates it to mean what the researcher meant when using the word "God." There is probably a section at the beginning of the book in the citation that gives his meaning when he says "God." And the readers of wikipedia would be better served if we put that definition in the article instead of the researchers simple wording. Examples: deities, divine beings, god or gods. I'm sure he wasn't polling the Japanese population of their belief in big G "God" of the Judeo-Christian faith. Though it is a little thing, and maybe not worth bothering with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by TheThomas (talk • contribs) 22:42, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Any objections to changing "God" to "a god"? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:46, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I object? The author didn't write "a god" he wrote "God". So, unless we know exactly what he meant by it, I don't want to put words into his mouth. But, I do think "a god" is probably closer to what he meant. I just haven't read the book.TheThomas (talk) 22:51, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I guess I was asking everyone in general. Personally, I don't care, as I think it's a very small thing. We don't need to quote the source verbatim—paraphrasing is just fine—but paraphrasing in such as way as to alter the meaning is not OK. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:56, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Previous talk: Talk:Atheism/Archive 43#Number of atheists in Japan. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:00, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment - The stats in the lead should be seriously reconsidered. This article is not "irreligion", it is "atheism" specifically. We should not report figures about "atheists, agnostics and other nonbelievers" in the entry at all. The above mentioned demographic stats should be removed, along with the rest of them that ambiguously refer to all religious "nones".Griswaldo (talk) 23:14, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not so sure. One can become too much of a fundamentalist, as it were, about that. Consider the lengthy archived talk here about the "weak" or whatever forms of atheism. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:19, 11 January 2011 (UTC)

I would prefer to leave in the information about agnostics, and the irreligious for a few reasons. Most studies are done by grouping these three. These three have much overlap, atheism is a spectrum of beliefs. The information is informative, well-cited, and not misrepresenting the cited articles. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.187.99.79 (talk) 01:14, 12 January 2011 (UTC) TheThomas (talk) 01:17, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

By "I object?" I was trying to convey that I am objecting...sort of. I weakly object, but I wouldn't stop you from making the change, as it is likely to be closer to the truth. But, I would like to verify it is closer to the truth.TheThomas (talk) 01:27, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I strongly object to the edit for the reasons you gave. This article is not only about explicit/strong atheism. --Born2cycle (talk) 19:16, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

It doesn't matter because I removed the text. Zuckerman groups, "atheists, agnostics and other nonbelievers" together in reporting these statistics. In other words he distinguishes between the groups with different labels. We have to follow him. We cannot determine that "agnostics and other nonbelievers" qualify as atheists if that is not what the source says. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 19:27, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

(ec) Well, it matters to me, Born2cycle, and TheThomas, so at a minimum, let's discuss it a bit more, OK? You are basing your argument on the quoted phrase "atheists, agnostics and other nonbelievers", which, it seems to me, the source is treating as an inclusive group with overlaps between its constituents. I think it would be a misuse of sources if we reported Zuckerman's numbers and attributed them only to "atheists", but that's not what we do here. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:38, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The stats are unusable here. For all we know atheists are 1% of each group, or 99% of each. The actual studies he's using might have stats that differentiate, and if so we should use those. The Harris poll does differentiate. Those stats are actually relevant to this entry. Would you add a statistic to the Christianity entry that said, "Christianity, Islam and Judaism comprise 55% of the World's population"? In the entry on Abrahamic faiths sure, but not in any of the individual entries.Griswaldo (talk) 19:44, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

The Australia and New Zealand figures in the main body of the article are also problematic. They are only reporting the people who declare "no religion" when asked. This is even more problematic than the Zuckerman material, because people who report "none" on religion questions are often actually "spiritual" in some way or another. Consider that in the United States we have a figure of 4% or less atheists but we have "nones" at about 14-16%. When asked if they believe in God or not, a surprisingly high number of "nones" say yes. Others say no but don't consider themselves "atheists" ... and so on. But with "nones", as I stated, the problem is even more pronounces because a certain percentage of them may not be atheists by even the most generous definitional boundaries. Those stats should certainly not be included here.Griswaldo (talk) 20:00, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

What do other editors think? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:30, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I just want to be cleat that I would be happy to help others develop a real entry out of irreligion or something synonymous where stats like these would be significant. I have no objection to the material being included in the Wiki but not in this entry. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 20:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

I've been thinking about that, and something occurs to me in that regard. As a general way of thinking about deleting "irreligion" data from this page, my inclination would be to create new and better information first, before deleting the existing information. More specifically, I'd suggest starting by creating that expansion of the irreligion page first. Then, we can look at that, and make a thoughtful decision about what material is no longer needed on this page. Doing it in the other order makes it harder to make a good decision: do we delete long-standing content here, without knowing exactly where we are going with it?

That said, I'm still not sold on equating "irreligion" with "not atheism", and I still hope that other editors will offer opinions about that. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:04, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

It isn't that "irreligion" is "not atheism", it's that irreligion is a much broader concept that contains most forms of atheism (note that atheistic buddhism is not "irreligious") and other phenomena. I don't see why we should keep misleading information in this entry until we fix the other entry, especially the statistics on religious "nones" which I mentioned already. Can we agree to remove these statistics please?Griswaldo (talk) 23:55, 13 January 2011 (UTC)

No. As far as I can tell, you are the only one here who believes that it is misleading. It's clear that at least a few editors disagree with you, and I suggest that you not decide this issue unilaterally. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:04, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I should also clarify that. When I say that "irreligion" does not equal "not atheism", what I mean is that we have to be careful about treating the "weak" forms of atheism as if they are not within the scope of a page about atheism, when, in fact, they are. I'm concerned that you are misreading (reading too literally a particular choice of words, taken in isolation) the sources, to interpret a source as discussing atheism and "something else", when the source was actually just indicating that the source considers, for purposes of data collection, "atheism" to include "strong" atheism as well as other forms of atheism. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Tryptofish, I'm a bit perplexed here. The entry is about "atheism" isn't it? How do statistics about a group of people who aren't religious, but who are a mix of theistic types, from atheists, to unaffiliated Christians, to new agers, etc. fit into a "demographics of atheism" section of this entry? BTW there is little to no discussion going on here. You are the only one answering my concerns and usually not in any definitive fashion either. Should I utilize our noticeboards to get more input here? Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 00:07, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

You've stated very sincerely what you believe, and I've disagreed (actually, only in part). Neither one of us has convinced the other. This happens all the time in disagreements about content. You are right that what we really need is for more editors to weigh in. This talk page is usually very active, so I'm cautiously optimistic that they will in due time. And, WP:There is no deadline. You don't need my permission to post on noticeboards, but my hunch is that just giving it a couple of days will be good enough, without going to that additional effort. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:32, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Suggestion

I suggest adding the following demographic statistics instead of the Zuckerman statistics being discussed above. The Zuckerman statistics are not about atheists only. If Zuckerman distinguishes so must we. We can, however use the Harris poll (in the bullet below) since it reports "atheist" specific figures.

• Rates of atheism are higher in Western nations, like the United States (4%), Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Great Britain (17%), Germany (20%), and France (32%).

I was about to add this when Tryptofish reverted me again. I will not revert, but I stand by my assessment above.Griswaldo (talk) 19:35, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

(after ec) Thanks, I'm open to discussing this, for sure. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:40, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Why was this reverted?

Tryptofish why did you revert this? The Harris poll also differentiates between "atheists" and other nontheist identifications. We have exact numbers of atheists in all the surveyed countries. I rewrote the text to reflect those stats instead of the OR about how many people believe in god in those nations. Please explain what was wrong about presenting the poll accurately. Thanks.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Griswaldo (talk • contribs) 19:39, 12 January 2011

Not because I disagreed with the content or sourcing of what you added, but, as described above, I wanted further discussion of what you deleted. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:43, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

That was a separate edit and had nothing to do with the Zuckerman material. I added stats about "atheists" and removed stats about how many people believed in a personal God, all of which is referenced to Harris. What was wrong with that?Griswaldo (talk) 19:46, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, I didn't realize that. Perhaps collateral damage from making too many edits too fast while there was ongoing disagreement on talk. Let me suggest looking at all of this together. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:58, 12 January 2011 (UTC)

OR/N

I've started a discussion at the original research noticeboard about the demographic stats. See here - Wikipedia:No_original_research/Noticeboard#Atheism_entry_and_the_inclusion_of_demographics_on_other_groups.Griswaldo (talk) 13:59, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Another suggestion

The ongoing discussion at the OR/N has given me another idea. How about we change the lead to read:

• Since conceptions of atheism vary, determining how many atheists exist in the world is no easy task. However, according to one estimate about 2.3% of the world's population describes itself as atheist, while a further 11.9% is described as nonreligious. According to another, rates of self-reported atheism are among the highest in Western nations, although also to quite varying degrees - United States (4%), Italy (7%), Spain (11%), Great Britain (17%), Germany (20%), and France (32%).

Then we introduce Zuckerman's wider figures in the demographics section. We can do a better job there explaining what the difficulties are with the demographics of atheism and be clear about the fact that Zuckerman is reporting figures on a much wider group because of those difficulties. Thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 19:57, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

On first look, I think I like that idea a lot! I'm getting uncomfortable about feeling like I'm the only editor replying to you, so I'd very much like to hear from other editors, but I do want to say that I have a favorable reaction to this idea. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:11, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

I know that I must sound really pushy, and I apologize for that. Sometimes I think that if I don't push through something I'll forget about it. I am probably a lot more open to counter suggestions than I sound as well. Anyway I can handle waiting a bit to see the reaction of other's. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 21:13, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Please don't worry about that. You've always been perfectly civil and open minded throughout this discussion, and I appreciate that. Believe me, in my editing experience, I've run up against some real unpleasant cases, and the discussion here has never been a problem. Happy editing! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:18, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

That looks like an improvement to me. I would also suggest moving that shorter paragraph down one paragraph. Note also that "nonbelievers in a personal God" would also include many (religious) deists JimWae (talk) 22:10, 14 January 2011 (UTC)

Any objections if we move ahead on this then?Griswaldo (talk) 14:59, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd get rid of "however" (because it makes the text a bit SYNthy). Other than that, I have no objection. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:10, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I think it's a definite improvement, no objections. As for the "However" SYNthy issue, I see Scjessey's point. Although, it reads better with a conjunction and maybe "Nevertheless" is a better fit? — Rɑːlɑːjər ^talk 18:52, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

I think we could make do just deleting the "however". Also, I'd change that hyphen to the all-important m-dash (no, trivial). Then, I'd say go ahead with all that. I might want to look at tweaking a few things after I see what it looks like then, but I don't expect any real problems. Thanks! --Tryptofish (talk) 21:19, 18 January 2011 (UTC)

With this change, I wonder whether the now-deleted data showing some high-end and low-end percentages should be put in the Demographics section. Should it? I really don't know, just asking. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:52, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I think this question may have been overlooked in the other discussions going on, but I would really like an answer. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:13, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Sorry. I think we can put it into the demographics section.Griswaldo (talk) 19:13, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Adding some discussion on pantheism and panentheism

I think some points on pantheism and panentheism would be useful. Spinozism is the clear link between the three. pantheism can be thought of as a class of atheism because there are no gods unless you define god to be everything. Additionally there are versions of pantheism which have stronger claims than atheism ie Naturalistic pantheism. Although, the other forms allow for supernatural things it should be said that atheism makes no claims about consciousness and the spiritual. In short if you are an atheist and you know your opinion on the Mind–body problem then you can be defined as some sort of pantheist. As for panetheism it should at lest be mentioned in the context that Baruch Spinoza really started a lot of the atheism in the west with his ideas. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 134.93.128.12 (talk) 12:07, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

134.93.128.12 (talk) 12:09, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Continued discussion of "most inclusive" definition=

For anyone interested in continuing the discussion related to the lede definition, here are a few more thoughts...

"Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist"

For some additional context, consider these comparable (and arguably problematic) statements;

"Most inclusively, Islam is simply a collection of beliefs and good practices." or

"Most inclusively, Christianity is simply the practice of forgiveness, honesty, and compassion."

It would be very easy to support both those vague and controversial statements with many references. But inclusivity can obscure meaningful distinctions. There are collections of good beliefs and practices that are not associated with Islam (and practices and beliefs associated with Islam that non-Muslims find objectionable, as well). There are people who practice forgiveness, honesty, and compassion who do not call themselves Christian (e.g. many Buddhists), and people who call themselves Christians, but do not practice forgiveness, honesty, and compassion.

Likewise, there are agnostics who lack belief (absence of belief) in God or gods, but do not disbelieve, do not hold the position that there are no deities, and do not call themselves atheists. This is a time honored and extremely prevalent distinction, and, perhaps more importantly, it is informative.Jj1236 (talk) 04:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Is the "most inclusive" definition intended to include or exclude those that hold that statements concerning deities are meaningless? (cf in article Other arguments for atheism that can be classified as epistemological or ontological, including logical positivism and ignosticism, assert the meaninglessness or unintelligibility of basic terms such as "God" and statements such as "God is all-powerful.") Philogo (talk) 19:32, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Removal of OR

With this edit I removed some original research. Stating that "negative atheism" and "positive atheism" have been in use since at least 1813, and then adding two primary sources as reference is a WP:NOR violation. Neither source is using the terminology in the manner described by the section, but even if they were we would need at least a secondary source identifying the usage. Using primary sources like this is not acceptable.Griswaldo (talk) 21:48, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Is your objection that the sources do not, in fact, use the term as was claimed on this page, or that it was WP:SYNTH to conclude, from primary sources using the terms at those dates, that the terms were in use at those dates? Just asking. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:11, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Actually the first source (for positive atheism) coincides very well with present day usage. JimWae (talk) 22:38, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Taken out of context, the sentence containing the phrase seems to do so. Taken in context I'm having a very hard time agreeing with that claim for a number of reasons. However, as I stated above, that's not quite the point. The more basic problem is that the section is not about a series of words, but a series of ideas. Those ideas are of recent invention. To add two different ideas nearly two centuries older, suggesting that they are related because they sort of share a terminology, is OR. We need secondary sources for that. If someone, writing about the contemporary notion of negative/positive atheism were to suggest the likeness we could include the information from that source, if not it is OR for us to add the information from the primary sources as if it is related. Alternately, we could start new sections on the ideas of the authors of those two sources attributing them to those authors, but I doubt that they are notable enough for inclusion.Griswaldo (talk) 03:51, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Definition Too Broad?

The opening paragraph to this article includes the problematically vacuous definition, "Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist."

According to this definition, dogs, circus peanuts, and mountains are all atheists, because they all lack beliefs. Lacking belief in something is nearly meaningless. I don't see how that statement can be tacked on as part of the definition, especially given that the preceding definition is adequate and accurately captures common use of the term "atheism".

Although a source is cited (e.g. Blackburn) for the "most inclusive" add on, no source can justify a vacuous and misleading definition. Will anyone who favors the "most inclusive" part of the definition please reply with some reasons?

According to the talk page, the definition was debated earlier, but I don't see that debate now. I have no ideological axe to grind one way or the other, but an empty definition is problematic, and there seems to be ample room for improvement.

Thanks in advance for any replies (including help locating the earlier debate for my edification)!

Jj1236 (talk) 04:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

The suffix -ist in 'atheist' denotes a person, as does the suffix -ism in 'atheism'. GManNickG (talk) 04:58, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I am somewhat new to this article so I don't know specifically how many times your concerns were brought up previously but upon searching for "most inclusive" in the Archive I came across a talk section called In a broad sense. I don't have the time to read it all now but a quick skim through it suggest it discusses your concerns. — Rɑːlɑːjər ^talk 05:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, this is a recurring issue that has never been resolved. there is quite a large archive to look through regarding it. i suggest you read through it thoroughly. (see the upper right of this page for the talk page archives) you might find yourself more informed about the arguments made then some of the people who were _in_ the discussion! Kevin Baas^talk 14:33, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Comment - I've read through some of the archived discussions and I think that it would be helpful to be more explicit in the lead about the relative weight that these conceptualizations have, or to in some other way contextualize them in the lead. The inclusive definition is, as far as I know, only championed by some atheists. I have yet to see it pop up in any dictionary, and it is utterly rejected by those who are not atheists (and also by other atheists). In other words I believe it is a fringe view of "atheism". I wonder if WP:FRINGE might apply to the situation. I'm not sure if anyone has discussed the possibility before, but I did not encounter it in the last few archives. Thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 16:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Oh, oh, oh, the archives are long about this! Please go back to Archive 40, and read from there (and read, and read, and read). Anyone who wants to reopen this can of worms is asking for a Wiki-headache. Please, let's not go there. Anyone get the feeling I don't want to reopen this? :-) --Tryptofish (talk) 17:40, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

like it or not, as more people read the article more new people are going to come to this talk page and bringing up this issue. just as it has in the past, it will continue to get reopened and reopened and reopened until it is satisfactorily resolved. it has never really been closed. people just got tired of talking to a proverbial wall. Kevin Baas^talk 17:59, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Kevin, I'm not disagreeing with that. I'm just saying that it's unrealistic to expect that the situation you describe will suddenly fix itself. Nor is the current state of this page all that bad. People just have a tendency to obsess about the wording of the lead, and then get unpleasantly surprised when they find that other editors obsess about it too, but come to different conclusions. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:09, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Anyway, it's just good advice to go, please, to Archive 40, and read from there on (through Archive 47, inclusive), if you are new to this page and want to propose something new. If nothing else, investing that time may allow you to think of something that really will work, rather than propose something that already went down in flames a year or two ago. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:12, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Or repeating arguments that have fallen on deaf ears too many times to count. (it is one thing to obsess, quite another to be deaf.) Kevin Baas^talk 19:19, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

(also, you make it sound there are two equal sides. there is not. there are a few obstinate editors, and then a whole bunch of random distinct people who come to this talk page with the same gripes independently and quite without knowledge of each other. something to think about.) ((added after ec w/below:) on second thought, don't waste your time like so many others who have come before you. it's a walled garden.) Kevin Baas^talk 19:12, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Agree w/ Kevin Baas. Consensus for this lead has never been strong. Arguments are just going to get continually rehashed until finally there is a change.

You'll recall I proposed an RfC to try to settle this debate. No one offered any support.... :-(

NickCT (talk) 19:17, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

re "there are a few obstinate editors, and then a whole bunch of random distinct people" - Totally agree. This really fits the definition of a cabal, and you Trypto are a member.. So there! J'accuse! NickCT (talk) 19:24, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

There's a difference between disagreeing, and having deaf ears. And there's a difference between making a proposal that convinces other editors, and feeling sorry for yourself because they didn't agree with you. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

noone's disputing that. Kevin Baas^talk 19:56, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

oh and while what i've said in past discussion probably was convincing to some editors while less so to others (it's really always somewhere in between), though i am not happy with the intro, i don't particularly "feel sorry for myself". if i feel sorry for anyone, it's the general reader. after all, that is who we are writing for. Kevin Baas^talk 21:18, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Is there anyone who will tackle the original question? I do not support the inclusive definition, and I wonder myself if it isn't a fringe definition. WP:FRINGE states - "We use the term fringe theory in a very broad sense to describe ideas that depart significantly from the prevailing or mainstream view in its particular field." While the original poster doesn't think a source can justify the definition, I do. However, I'm having a hard time seeing the sources that would justify it beyond fringe status. If someone could answer that query I'd be very appreciative.Griswaldo (talk) 20:06, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I see no problem with the current intro & we must assume that non-humans can't read. GoodDay (talk) 20:08, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

At Griswaldo. I think we did find RS that supported the inclusive definition. Have you read Atheism#cite_note-2? NickCT (talk) 20:10, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Fringe theories have plenty of sourcing. I'm not convinced that it is "fringe", by the way, but it clearly is way out of the mainstream to conceptualize atheism in that manner. If we collect the reliable sources that do those that don't, and even better those that discuss this conceptualization in context, we can make an effort at understanding how mainstream or not-mainstream it is. Then we can consider WP:UNDUE if it applies. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 20:13, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Again, it is probably useful to read Archives 40–47, where that "third definition" has been discussed at very great length, to see what has been said in the past about sourcing. Please note that I am not telling anyone what to do, just suggesting that it would be useful to do that. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:23, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

@[[User:Griswaldo|Griswaldo] - I believe something mainstream, high-quality RS supporting an assertion means it's not WP:FRINGE. Don't we have that in this case? NickCT (talk) 20:27, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I read a deal of those. In one of those discussions somebody (possibly JimWae) stated that this third definition is not actually very common at all and that is what my experience is telling me as well. It is currently sourced, and I don't dispute that at all, but most things can be sourced. The question is how common is it, and in what context does it belong. I'm not particularly sold on the idea that it should be presented next to the other two definitions, both of which show up regularly in dictionaries btw. I have yet to find a dictionary that includes the third.Griswaldo (talk) 20:31, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

In Archive 42 i'm finding other interesting comments by JimWae -"There is still the problem that we are REQUIRED to point out in the lede any major controversies - and the broadest def is one such. This can best be handled in 2 sentences. One for the 2 explicit forms; the second to handle the broadest." Not only uncommon but "controversial". That is the type of thing that we need to contextualize appropriately. Right now these three definitions appear together as if they are simply equal alternatives.Griswaldo (talk) 20:49, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't mean to be disparaging, but these examples are precisely the type of thing i'm talking about when i talk about deaf ears. as you can see the arguments have been made and there's been no rebuttle to them but the situation nonetheless remains unchanged. you can see some people have already been quite eloquent on the subject and nothing came of it. (i've already tried my own phrasing of those two points you've found in the archive. a lot of people have.) perhaps this time will be different. i sure hope so. Kevin Baas^talk 20:56, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

Kevin, are you referring to Nick disagreeing with Griswaldo's suggestion? --Tryptofish (talk) 21:28, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

No, no. just a general comment. kind of a clarification of where my frustration (as intoned in my earlier comment) comes from. it's not in response to anybody. just a clarification. Kevin Baas^talk 21:32, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict)As a note, in a good deal of these discussions I've been a part, we've had strong support for placing the most inclusive definition first, even if not enough to conclusively say consensus had formed. Similarly, most of the complaints I've seen have centered around it being placed last. Removing the inclusive definition entirely will not solve this problem; It will aggravate it. That's not necessarily a reason to not fix a problem (if, indeed, it is a problem), but it will be a hard struggle, and only serve to make the lead more contentious. Additionally, I'm not convinced the inclusive definition is fringe, and I think we have some quality RS saying otherwise. Jess_talk|_edits 20:59, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

I noticed what you're talking about in those discussions but I have to say that I'm a bit perplexed. The most inclusive definition is not found in any dictionary I'm aware of. As far as I can tell, it is based upon the arguments of a handful of atheist philosophers who have coined terms like "weak atheism" and "implicit atheism" to describe somewhat similar things. Why on earth would someone suggest that such a definition go first, before the two well established definitions? I'm not sure removing it altogether is the answer either, but it is rather obviously not on par with the other two when it comes to reliable sources and common use. What I'm asking now is for some evidence to the contrary.Griswaldo (talk) 21:05, 19 January 2011 (UTC)

(start)Jj1236 (talk) 06:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)Thanks all for the direction and comments! I just read through the majority of the relevant discussion in the archive.

(To keep the discussion chronological, I'll reply here, at the end of the thread, in the order that points appeared above. Also, fyi, to help any reader parse the discussion I'll sign at the beginning and end of my post... If this is confusing please let me know, and I won't do it in the future)

Re: -ist / -ism refer to people. Good point, and useful. In practice, people do say things like, "my dog is an optimist" or "my cat is a narcissist," though I appreciate that this might be mistaken anthropomorphizing. We can set aside those examples from my earlier post, and proceed with discussion.

Re: Archive. In the archive, I was unable to find any strong defense of the broad definition, and ask again for its advocates to list their reasons for inclusion, or to quote from the archive if some reasons formerly listed are found to be compelling. The only reason yet given aligning with the broad definition is RS. However, if Griswaldo is correct that all or nearly all dictionaries have the narrow definition, but not the broad definition, that would favor the narrow definition as supported by stronger RS. A brief sample of dictionaries confirms Griswaldo's point.

Given that the broad definition is quite clearly controversial, as evidenced by the lengthy debate and discussion, it seems mistaken to include it in the opening paragraph.

Proposal: Move the broad definition into its own section, perhaps titled, "Broad and Narrow Atheism"

In this proposed section, the controversy could be raised by listing open questions like, "Are all agnostics necessarily atheists?" "Are newborn infants innately atheists, theists, agnostic, or none of the above?" Of critical importance, the broad definition of atheism asserts one specific and controversial answer to the first question: namely, all agnostics are atheists.

Reason 1 for narrow definition alone; RS. RS supports the narrow definition by an overwhelming majority, in line with all general dictionaries (while one specialized philosophy dictionary is documented as supporting the broad definition).

Reason 2 for narrow; Controversy. The broad definition is controversial, perhaps fringe or POV. See reason 2b for an elaboration of one such controversy.

Reason 2b for narrow; Broad is Political. One overlooked and inappropriate reason that some atheists might wish to have the broader definition employed, despite the many reasonable objections, concerns political implications. More people falling into a certain category within a democracy means more political influence for that group. I'm strongly in favor of full and equal atheist rights and political representation, but I also think we should promote these rights honestly, not by manipulating the dictionary or encyclopedia.

Reason 3 for narrow; Choice. The broad definition glosses over an essential factor that distinguishes absence of belief in God or gods from most other absent beliefs: atheism is a reasoned choice. For example, I have no beliefs about an uncountable number of trivial things, and no beliefs about some important things. The absence of belief for almost all of these things is that I've never thought about them at all. Atheism, as commonly defined and used, is different from other absent beliefs in this respect.

Again, your thoughts and replies are much appreciated! (end)Jj1236 (talk) 06:36, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

This article is about all forms of atheism, not a dictionary definition of atheism. Atheism has been around longer than dictionaries, folks. It is important that the article explores all forms of atheism, and it is important that the introduction of the article broadly represents what follows. It is because of this that the lede seems somewhat verbose to many readers. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:06, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

It is important for the article to cover all forms of atheism, but is important for us not to violate WP:UNDUE as we do it. I'm not suggesting the removal of the inclusive definition, simply the proper contextualization of it. At present it is not so contextualized, it appears simply as an alternative among three, when there is more to the story.Griswaldo (talk) 22:09, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Griswaldo on this. The article is inclusive, and should be. We're not objecting to verbosity in the opening, we're objecting to the promotion of a controversial extra phrase, a broad and contested definition being given equal status and prominence next to well accepted and precise definitions. See proposal above.

About archives

In what I guess is a reflection of differing perspectives coming from different experiences, my gut reaction to learning that editors new to the page did not see the archives as really addressing the inclusive definition was one of being surprised. To me, it honestly feels like it's been discussed gazillions (that's a scientifically exact number) of times. Since it's my doing that I've been pointing you all to the archives, I figure it's my obligation to go back, take a second look, and try to clarify. So here is my list of past talk:

• Talk:Atheism/Archive 40#Agnosticism can be seen as a form of weak atheism
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 40#"God" or "gods" in lead
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 40#absence of belief in deities, or in existence of deities?
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 40#Absolute versus Relative Atheism
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 40#First sentence
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 41#...affirmation of the nonexistence of ...
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 41#Another arbitrary break(3)
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 41#Yet Another Intro Suggestion
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 41#Another arbitrary break(4)
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 41#Simple first sentence
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 41#Where do we stand with the lead?
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 41#Two sentences still better
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 41#What is the topic of this article?
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 41#Back to the first sentence
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#Lead: trying to sum up
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#Refs for defs
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#Distinction without a difference
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#Who objected to "view"?
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#The real FA version
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#Discussion
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#atheism - belief system that lacks belief
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#Agnosticism is often contrasted with atheism
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#What is a "positive belief"?
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#"Philosophical position" or "belief"?
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#Proposed change to 2nd sentence
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#Agnosticism & absence
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 42#Issues with FA version(s)
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 43#What an article on "atheism" written by adults looks like
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 43#Atheism definition.
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 43#reversing sentences in intro paragraph so broad/weak definition is first
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 43#article / source discrepancies
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 43#Objections to leading paragraph
• Talk:Atheism/Archive 44#New lede

That takes us up to early 2010, and I'm going to stop there, although discussion (involving many of the current editors in this talk) continues through Archive 47. Yeah, that's TL;DR, and I don't really expect anyone to read it. But if you find it all to be a lot of ignorable past talk that looks like a waste of time in retrospect, and ridiculously long, please consider how current talk here may look a year from now.

Now don't get me wrong. It's not like you look at those talk threads and find someone saying, "here are the reliable sources for the inclusive definition". That's not there, and my guess is that's the reason why editors new to this talk looked at all that, and saw it differently than I see it. But please see that these talk threads included discussion of how the inclusive definition fit with the rest of the lead, and there were plenty of cases where the suggestion of removing that definition from the lead elicited strong objections, and plenty of cases where the inclusion of that definition was not the source of controversy. And please note that a lead that included the inclusive definition was in the version that was declared a Featured Article.

But, having said that, I have to say that I now realize that editors here are quite right that there was little past talk about sources justifying that definition! As a general observation, I guess I'd say that applying WP:UNDUE to that issue is going to be subjective and something where we'll have to be very thoughtful and careful, and, given adequate sourcing, I'd kind of lean towards providing our readers with more information rather than less. But I'm all in favor of thinking rigorously about sourcing. So, even though I've just said all that, I'm reserving judgment about the sourcing inquiry below, and I'm going to be watching that with a very open mind. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:38, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Tryptofish, much of what you're gathering about new editors is correct for me. I did look through many, if not all of those topics listed above. What I found were little things here and there, and nothing that settled WP:UNDUE issues, or provided reliable sourcing for the current state of affairs. There were many comments, here and there, often by JimWae that struck me as quite to the point, but I noticed that they were ignored or rejected without any real proof to the contrary. I think taking the discussion down this road would be productive personally, and since I'm new to the page I'm not myself tired of the mess ... yet. Anyway I truly think that even though others have tried to get us on this road in the past, I think we're now firmly on it and I think we ought to sort it out. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:47, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

What sources justify the inclusive definition?

Can someone please list the sources that justify the inclusive definition? I'm still having a problem with this because it is not found in dictionaries and appears to be controversial. We should re-evaluate how we are presenting it. Someone who wants to keep it in the lede can you please provide some sourcing for that. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 19:49, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

• "Inclusive definition" = Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.

Sure.

http://oxforddictionaries.com/view/entry/m_en_us1413920#m_en_us1413920 ("a person who does not believe in the existence of God or gods")

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/atheism 2a (" a disbelief [disbelieve, "not believe"] in the existence of deity ").

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/atheist ("One who disbelieves [disbelieve vb, "to have no faith (in)"] or denies the existence of God or gods.")

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheist ("a person who denies or disbelieves ["to have no belief in"] the existence of a supreme being or beings.")

This page also cites some definitions: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/sn-definitions.html.

Also, dictionaries define the prefix a- quite well, it's not exactly difficult to derive the most inclusive definition from this. (Which is done in authoritative text, too, such as in the General Introduction of The Cambridge Companion To Atheism - Michael Martin (2006).) GManNickG (talk) 21:01, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

if i may... you seem to be implying that, for example if you asked me if i believed in santa claus, and i said, no, i don't believe in santa claus. you'd still be confused as to whether or not i think santa claus exists? that, to me, seems a bit absurd. Kevin Baas^talk 21:49, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Is that directed to me, Kevin? I don't follow what you're saying it, or what implications you're replying to. GManNickG (talk) 21:55, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Kevin I'm not entirely sure I follow you there. GMan, your quotes do not source the inclusive definition. I added it above to be extra clear. Your quoted entries source the first and/or second definition(s).

• [1]Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. [2]In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.

"Disbelief" =/ "absence (or lack) of belief". Look up "disbelief" in the same dictionaries that you're finding it in. For instance from Merriam-Webster: Disbelief - "the act of disbelieving: mental rejection of something as untrue". Those definitions support #1 in the entry, and not #3, which is the one I'm asking about.Griswaldo (talk) 22:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I did, that's what the brackets are. Granted, I did disbelieve instead of disbelief by mistake on one, my falt. Though I find it strange the dictionary contradicts itself in that regard. Also, atheism versus atheist shouldn't really make a difference, the two are trivially convertible. But for the sake of correctness, I've redone them more explicitly below. (It's also interesting to note some dictionaries fail to correctly convert the two.) GManNickG (talk) 23:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

that was my point. about what it means to say you don't believe in something. the common, conventional definition used in the real world. (as an aside: now watch where the discussion goes next, griswaldo. you'll get a kick out of this. the numbers 15-18 say i called it.) Kevin Baas^talk 22:13, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

I honestly have no idea what you're trying to say. GManNickG (talk) 23:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

eh well my 15-18 thing was intentionally cryptic, like writting something down on paper and turning it upside down to prove i predicted it, whithout running the risk of affecting the outcome. so far that hasn't materialized though. if you still don't understand the other part, though, well i don't know how i can possibly be any more clear. so there's nothing more i can do. but griswaldo seems to be doing a pretty good job explaining it . so i'll just let him do the talking. Kevin Baas^talk 16:05, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, as an aside, you're looking up "atheist" and not "atheism" in most of the above mentioned. Can we please be consistent and stick to "atheism" since that is the entry topic more specifically.Griswaldo (talk) 22:02, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

Follow up from discussion above, in a clearer fashion:

Atheism

"atheism - disbelief in the existence of God or gods."

"disbelief - lack of faith in something"

"atheism - a disbelief in the existence of deity"

"disbelief - the act of disbelieving"

"disbelieve - not believe"

"atheism - disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods."

"disbelieve - to withhold or reject belief." (note, not disbelief; the dictionary is inconsistent here)

"atheism - disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings."

"disbelieve - to have no belief in" (note, not disbelief; the dictionary is inconsistent here)

Atheist

"atheist - a person who does not believe in the existence of God or gods"

"atheist - a person who denies or disbelieves the existence of a supreme being or beings."

"disbelieve - to have no belief in"

This page also cites some definitions: http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/sn-definitions.html. The General Introduction of The Cambridge Companion To Atheism - Michael Martin (2006) also recognizes that given the meaning of the suffix a-, atheism can be understood to mean the most inclusive definition.

Hopefully that clears things up. GManNickG (talk) 23:00, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

GManNickG, Thanks for posting all these definitions. Did you also read them? Not a single one uses the broad definition. Arriving at the broad definition requires creative and unjustified word substitution. Definitions are often holistic, and substitution of words can change the meaning of a phrase. (Note: perfect synonyms would make at least one of the words obsolete, so perfect synonyms are rare and substitution thus changes meaning.) It is good to get specific RS into discussion, and these references directly support only the narrow definition. If the dictionary consensus is "disbelief" or "rejection of belief" that is what we should use in the opening definition here. Additional discussion is fine, see proposal above, but doesn't belong in the opening paragraph. If someone wants to make a controversial word substitution (exchanging "disbelief" for "absence of belief"), he or she should provide references or justification to the effect that this substitution does not change the meaning of the phrase. I maintain that it does change the meaning. Do you agree? If not, please explain. Jj1236 (talk) 23:38, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

"Thanks for posting all these definitions. Did you also read them?" You can stop the childish rhetoric. Either bring up a point of discussion or don't say it, please.

"Not a single one uses the broad definition." The first one in each section says exactly the inclusive definition, those are even from Oxford. Please don't exaggerate your response to try to make a point, it'll stand on it's own if it's reasonable.

"Arriving at the broad definition requires creative and unjustified word substitution." I'd hardly say looking up a word and replacing it in a sentence is "creative" or "unjustified". No, it doesn't change the meaning. Words are defined to mean exactly the same as a collection of other words. I could say "not sexual", or I could understand the prefix a- means "not" and use the word "asexual". They mean the exact same thing, does this mean "a-", "sexual", "asexual", "not, or "sexual" are obsolete? Of course not. We create words so we can speak of ideas in a more concise manner, but that doesn't remove the elaborated representation of that idea from being valid.

I could define the word "athetalfroggaj" to mean "everything said in the 'What sources justify the inclusive definition?' section". Then if I said "Please read athetalfroggaj", is it suddenly "creative" and "unjustified" to replace that with "Please read everything said in the 'What sources justify the inclusive definition?' section"? Of course not. It's you that needs to argue for my inability to substitute a word in a sentence, like dictionaries intend. GManNickG (talk) 23:53, 20 January 2011 (UTC)

GManNick, we were likely talking past each other, my fault. Now I see that your most recent edit to the article, accurately corrects "lack of belief" to "disbelief" and this indeed is perfectly in line with the definitions that you posted. I agree with this, and want to clear up the confusion (it was sincere confusion on my behalf, not rhetoric). To clarify, I have been concerned with the phrase, "Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist." The definitions you posted do not support this particular phrase, but they do support the phrase, "Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities." Do we agree now?

Here is a critical distinction. Disbelief is active. Absence of belief is passive.

In part because atheism is a label of identity, it seems right and appropriate to restrict it to the active sense. Groups of people being labeled by others has a problematic history. Many people who lack belief in God or gods have nuanced views, and very many have chosen the label Agnostic to identify their particular absent beliefs, consciously shunning the label of Atheist as inappropriate and misleading. Others active disbelievers have embraced the label Atheist to characterize their views, and some wish to apply it to as many people as possible, stretching the definition to be "most inclusive".

Although I am convinced that substitution of similar words typically changes the meaning of phrases, often in subtle ways, let's take your argument seriously. From the current opening...

Statement 1: Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.

Statement 2: Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.

If substitution of near synonyms preserves meaning, as you say, then Statement 1 and 2 are the same, and we should delete redundancy (Statement 2) in the entry. Although I think that there are important differences between 1 & 2, and that 2 is problematic for the reasons listed above, you provide a different reason to discard Statement 2; redundancy. Speaking of redundancy: We all agree (I think) that Statement 1 is supported by RS, and appropriate. To the extent that this same RS supports Statement 2, Statement 2 is redundant and needs to be deleted. To the extent that Statement 1 & 2 are different, Statement 2 is not supported by RS. Which is it? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jj1236 (talk • contribs) 04:46, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

@GMan. I'm a bit speechless regarding your exercise, since you are not reproducing the entirety of the dictionary entries here, instead cherry picking parts of them that suit your purposes (though still they do not) and in half of them even rejecting "disbelief", the word actually used in the entry, for the word "disbelieve" in order to suit your purposes. I'm going to avoid "atheist" altogether since the entry is about "atheism, but let's look at the full definitions of disbelief found in the four dictionaries you quote above, in the order you quote them. I'll throw in "disbelieve" as well.

• "inability or refusal to accept that something is true or real: lack of faith in something" -- note here that "lack of faith" is not synonymous with "lack of belief" as the two objects are not synonyms of each other

• disbelieve - "be unable to believe (someone or something)"

• "the act of disbelieving: mental rejection of something as untrue"

• disbelieve - "to hold not worthy of belief: not believe"

• "Refusal or reluctance to believe."

• disbelieve - "To refuse to believe in; reject".

• "1) the inability or refusal to believe or to accept something as true. 2) amazement; astonishment"

• disbelieve - "To have no belief in; refuse or reject belief in"

Note that I did not reproduce the intransitive verb definitions of "disbelieve". Intransitive verbs are used when there is not object, but in all of these instances there is one. I point this out because in #3, you not only went for "disbelieve" instead of "disbelief" but you picked the (faulty) intransitive definition of "disbelieve " and not the transitive one. I do not see "lack or absence" of belief in any of those definitions, especially in the correct and full representations of them seen above. You are indeed going through all kinds of steps and asking us to swap out words that are not synonymous in your attempt to make "disbelief in god(s)" into "lack of belief in god(s)". In my view this discussion is closed until you find a definition that actually uses language with the correct meaning. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:13, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Also, as Jj1236 has already pointed out, the problem here is that "disbelief" is active, while "lack of belief" is not. That sits at the crux of where the inclusive definition becomes controversial. Monkeys and babies cannot actively "disbelieve in god(s)" though they do in fact "lack belief in god(s)". Do you see the problem there?Griswaldo (talk) 13:19, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Break

Please see an extensive list of sources that are archived here. --Modocc (talk) 00:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Good catch! I'm relieved to find there's someone whose memory goes back farther than mine. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:20, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Modocc that is a odd list of sources and I'm not entirely sure it actually addresses the current "inclusive" definition (but another similar "permissive" one). I hope no one looks at it and decides, because of appearances, that there are more sources for the inclusive definition than for others. There are a variety of problems with this list.

• The "permissive" definition has sources of dubious reliability like - Ultralingua Online, RhymeZone, LookWayUpLookWayUp, Kyoto Notre Dame University English Vocabulary Assistant
• It has very old sources, even up to a century old - 1911 Britannica, 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia
• It has sources that do not address the current "inclusive" definition at all - Dictionary of Philosophy - Peter A Angeles, 1981, Dictionary of Philosophy - Dagobert D. Runes, 1962 edition, A Dictionary of Non-Christian Religions (1971), University of Calgary Professor of Religious Studies, Irving Hexham, again 1911 Britannica, again 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia

The third point here bares special attention. Those sources are not addressing the current inclusive definition. The closest they get are with statements like: "Some philosophers have been called "atheistic" because they have not held to a belief in a personal God" (emphasis added); "the lack of belief in a particular God" (emphasis added). What we are left with here are two sources, one of which is questionable at best. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy (2nd edition), defines atheism as "the view that there are no gods. A widely used sense denotes merely not believing in God and is consistent with agnosticism." At first I thought this was adequate but upon reflection I don't think it is so clear cut. To me it is clear that the author means that "not believing in God" is a conscious choice. I do not see babies and monkeys fitting this description in other words. Either way we have, from that seemingly long list, at most 2 viable sources. Are there others? I think finding them and looking at them is best prior to continuing the discussion.Griswaldo (talk) 13:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

On the subject of deceptive looks, anyone who follows the link should also be aware that hundreds of other reliable sources can be produced for the other two definitions, although they were not on that list for some odd reason.Griswaldo (talk) 13:52, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Since editors have deemed it necessary to rationalize what makes for a good definition, I'd point out that its not all that relevant. Does anyone really believe there is microscopic life on Mars? Are not most people a-martianists... even those with an uninformed view (which is perhaps most people)? Choice requires one to be reasonably informed to make a choice, ie to be a martianist, which is fine perhaps for any narrower definition one might have in mind of being an amartianist especially if most people are already martianists, but barring that, most people are in fact not martianists, with the norm being a-martianists. Its reasonable to hold that an informed choice is not prerequisite and thus to allow "atheism" to have a broader meaning, and thus it is therefore utterly pointless to be dismissive of the broadest view based on what is clearly a POV argument. Martin's Encarta piece is an additional source for the lack of belief definition and we already cite more prominent sources. This minority view is not prevalent by any means in the sources, but its a stretch to claim its dysfunctional when there are notable advocates. --Modocc (talk) 16:49, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, the initial argument above is OR that I find unconvincing personally, but the real point is that it isn't sourced. We need reliable sources to discuss the definition, and we do have some. I want to be clear though that I'm not asking to purge the minority view, but to contextualize it appropriately in the lead. I'm asking for sources so that we can get a better grasp of how to do so. I'm not happy with how the three are presented, as if they are simply all equal alternatives, when they are clearly not. Do you agree with my aims or not? Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 17:01, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure how this part of the lede could be contextualized or improved on. Without strong sourcing, it may be difficult to avoid wp:weasel words, POVish spin and getting consensus wording. Of course, its helpful to examine the available sources closely when doing this. --Modocc (talk) 19:22, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Well we need to work on the sourcing, and indeed to look at the sources, but to give you a sense of my understanding of the situation right now, something like "Some philosophers have also argued for a more inclusive view of atheism as the absence of belief that any deities exist, although this definition is not without controversy." In my view, even at our present state of research into this, the first part of the sentence is justified. The controversy part needs sourcing though, and indeed the entire thing could use more sourcing, but I believe it to be much more accurate and informative than what we have presently.Griswaldo (talk) 19:43, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

"Some philosophers" is a bit narrow. For instance The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy contrasts what is "sometimes thought itself to be more dogmatic than mere agnosticism..." with atheists [not philosophers] that "retort that everyone is an atheist about most gods, so they merely advance one step further.". --Modocc (talk) 20:17, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

OK this is the entire entry in that source:

• "Either the lack of belief that there exists a god, or the belief that there exists none. Sometimes thought itself to be more dogmatic than mere agnosticism, although atheists retort that everyone is an atheist about most gods, so they merely advance one step further."

First of all this is by no means even remotely clear on who these atheists are. That said, it is also not clear here at all that what those atheists mean by "everyone is an atheist about most gods" in terms of these three definitions we have. The dictionary introduces two of our three definitions then does not specify which meaning those supposed atheists are advancing. How this negates the notion of "some philosophers" is beyond me.Griswaldo (talk) 20:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

On the other hand, looking at Oxford's reference series in total is interesting. Let's compare the reference works in their online series that have entries for atheism (these are available through my academic library).

• The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy - "Either the lack of belief that there exists a god, or the belief that there exists none."
• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions - "Disbelief in the existence of God; to be distinguished from agnosticism, which professes uncertainty on the question."
• World Encyclopedia - "Philosophical denial of the existence of God or any supernatural or spiritual being."
• A Dictionary of Psychology - "Rejection of belief in God."
• Concise Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church - "[Atheism] now normally means disbelief in God."
• A Concise Companion to the Jewish Religion - "The attitude that affirms there is no God."
• The Oxford Dictionary of Phrase and Fable - "[T]he theory or belief that God does not exist."
• The Oxford Companion to British History - "[Atheism] is a philosophical term derived from the Greek [...], meaning the absence of a god, but is usually translated as disbelief in or denial of the existence of God."

Notice how only the dictionary of philosophy includes the inclusive definition. Apparently the inclusive definition is not on the radar in the studies of British history, World Religions, Psychology, the histories of Christianity and Judaism, or in the "World Encyclopedia". That it is a "philosophical" POV is clear. You may quibble with "some" philosophers, but clearly its not all, so do you have a better way of narrowing it down?Griswaldo (talk) 20:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

You say "only the dictionary of philosophy includes the inclusive definition". I dispute that. The Oxford Companion to British History clearly states that the terms comes from the Greek meaning "absence", and mentions "disbelief in or denial". The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church has "disbelief". The World Encyclopedia has "philosophical denial". And so on and so forth. "Disbelief" and "denial". What, tell me, does "disbelief" mean? And what, please, does "denial" mean? The OED defines "denial" as "refusal to acknowledge". "Disbelief" is defined by the OED as either "inability or refusal to accept" or "lack of faith". I think you will have trouble establishing, on the basis of those very ambiguous definitions, that the inclusive definition is being excluded. "Disbelief or denial" is a common formulation, and it permits a very broad and inclusive understanding. There appears to be an assumption here that "disbelief or denial" are implicitly labels for active and reasoned rejection. This is a mistake. --Dannyno (talk) 21:55, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

We went over this already by looking at several definitions of "disbelief". We didn't discuss denial of belief because it quite obviously could not ever be direct synonym of "lack" or "absence of belief." Denial is active, while absences if passive. Yes, someone who denies belief in the existence of deities also lacks such belief, but the inverse is quite obviously not true. Can we drop that one? Regarding disbelief, it is also active. The closest to "lack or absence of belief" you get is the second definition from Oxford, which is "lack of faith in something". "Faith" is not synonymous with "belief". Anyway you slice it, disbelief describes action - the "act of ...".Griswaldo (talk) 22:39, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Yeah, and you went over it I think inadequately. Disbelief need not be active, it is ambiguous, if you actually read the definitions. As for your characterisation of the OED's second definition of disbelief, let me drag you back to the text, which says: "lack of faith: I'll burn in hell for disbelief." Faith, by the way, is defined by the OED in a couple of different ways, one of which is "strong belief in the doctrines of religion". So a lack of faith, would be the lack of strong belief in the doctrines of religion, wouldn't it? And finally, you say "anyway you slice it, disbelief describes action - the "act of..." Incorrect. The OED entry for "disbelief" defines it as a noun, not as a verb. The verb, of course, is "disbelieve". And "disbelieve" is defined by the OED as either "be unable to believe" or "have no religious faith".

Please, could we stick the facts of what the dictionaries say, rather than... not. I would find that helpful. --Dannyno (talk) 23:51, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I pointed to "atheists" in the source about the different definitional stances, because I don't think the view about mere absence of belief, in say something like "the pillar of all things", is just a philosophers POV, as you seem to be inferring from comparing the sources, rather its largely a more widely held atheist POV. Again, strong sourcing is needed to make any such assertions. --Modocc (talk) 21:02, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

you seem to be saying that one needs strong sources in order to say that we should follow the non-negotiable WP:NPOV guideline. or you might be saying we need strong sources to treat something in the article as a "POV" rather than a cold hard fact. from my experience that is not the general treatment and the general treatment in fact is more like treating _everything_ as a pov and then just attributing it weight and placement consistent with its notability and so forth, on the basis of empirical evidence and common sense assessment. or you could be saying that we shouldn't say explicitely in the article e.g. "x is considered a POV", in which case that is not what he is suggesting doing. (and even then, as a practical matter, we do tend to use words like "controversial" and so forth without actually demanding sources to explicitely back up that they are controversial or what not. though i don't know what the specific policy on things like that is, if there is one, or how well it's really practiced. but again that's all irrelevant because that's not what he's suggesting.) Kevin Baas^talk 21:25, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Modocc, what I'm saying is that the only academic context that recognizes it is philosophical, quite clearly. The only philosophers who recognize the inclusive definition are no doubt atheists themselves, but not even all atheist philosophers seem particularly keen on it. For the record I never claimed that some non-philosopher atheists don't hold this view as well. Clearly they do. How about "Yet, some atheists hold the even more inclusive and controversial philosophical position that atheism is ..."?Griswaldo (talk) 21:32, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Here are a couple of philosophers defining atheism with no mention of the inclusive definition:

• Julian Baggini, Atheism: A Very Short Introduction - Oxford University Press, 2003 - "Atheism is in fact very simple to define: it is the belief that there is no God or gods."
• J. J. C. Smart, (2004-03-09). "Atheism and Agnosticism". Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. - "‘Atheism’ means the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God."

I'm sure there are plenty more. Does anyone know of a secondary description of the different definitions? Something that treats them based on their commonality?Griswaldo (talk) 21:34, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I think you're cherry picking Baggini. Baggini's conceptualisation of atheism, if you read his book rather than passages taken out of context, is not narrow but about as broad and wide ranging as you can get. He holds that atheism is "a positive world view" (p.2). Although he claims it is "simple to define", this is only true if you are Baggini and choose to ignore all the literature problematising the definition of atheism. As he then goes on to say, departing somewhat from his "simple" definition, not only is atheism "simply" "the belief that there is no God or gods" (while also being, according to him, a "positive world view"), atheism is also "usually accompanied by a broader rejection of any supernatural or transcendent reality" (p.3). On p.4 he asks, "whether people who have no positive belief in God should be agnostics or atheists". He goes on to say that atheism is in fact a form of naturalism (p.5). He says, "Atheists subscribe to a certain world view that includes numerous beliefs about the world and what is in it." It's only historical accident that the word "atheism" came to be applied to this world view, according to Baggini. He goes on to say that "we might think that the evidence for atheism comprises the evidence against the existence of God. However... atheism is essentially a form of naturalism and so its main evidential base is the evidence for naturalism. This is only evidence against God's existence in a negative sense: that is to say, evidence for God's existence will be found to be lacking and so we will be left with no reason to suppose he exists." The positive case for naturalism "and hence for atheism" is what he then goes on to talk about. In his concluding remarks he equates atheism with humanism, he regards them as synonymous: "The kind of positive atheism I have been arguing for in this book is sometimes called humanism", and "the atheism which has been described in this book really is a form of humanism". Simple? Not so very. If you want to use Baggini, then to characterise his position properly you will have to include a very broad definition of atheism as "a form of naturalism" or "humanism", because that is really how Baggini defines atheism, not your quote-mined line. --Dannyno (talk) 22:42, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Huh? I never said that his one line definition was the only thing he wrote about atheism. Clearly he goes on to explore the complexity of the matter. My point was to give examples of two philosophers who define "atheism with no mention of the inclusive definition". You have not proved otherwise so your reply makes no sense to me. "Humanism" is not the "absence of belief in God". Humanism is an even more specific and active set of beliefs than "atheism". In no way does that support an argument against my point there. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:58, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I'm making a wider point, happy to clarify. I'm not saying that Baggini upholds an absensist typology, because obviously he doesn't. What he does is define atheism as naturalism/humanism. To pick out the quote of his about his supposedly "simple" definition is quote mining: his definition is actually anything but simple. Baggini is fringe on this if anyone is. --Dannyno (talk) 23:58, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree the Runes/Ferm entry does not clearly support the absence def for ALL deities, but only the absence def for "God". Even the "not theistic" is not clear enough -- because of the Runes def for theism, which distinguishes theism from pantheism & deism. The Rowe inclusion of absence (via "nonbelief") is also only clearly for "God". It is looking like the only non-bloggy sources are Martin, Smith, d'Holbach, & a couple of dictionaries. Even Flew wrote only about "God". To source a controversy, one needs more than defs that do not include "absence". One source for the controversy is Nagel (already included in the explicit/implicit section) -- however Nagel (also an atheist) wrote that BEFORE Martin ever wrote anything. "Absence" has been proposed as a sufficient condition for defining "atheism" at least since d'Holbach, however. Nagel also wrote about "God", but if he says a child who has never heard of "God" is not properly an atheist, his argument also applies to a child who has never heard of any "gods" at all, since it centers not on what the child has not heard about but that he has not heard anything.

“Atheism is not to be identified with sheer unbelief, or with disbelief in some particular creed of a religious group. Thus a child who has received no religious instruction and has never heard of God, is not an atheist -- for he is not denying any theistic claims."

Nor would a child who had never heard of any deities at all be denying any claims at all. --JimWae (talk) 21:40, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Jim, that is very helpful, thanks for chiming in. How likely do you think it is for us to be able to adequately source a replacement for the current inclusive definition with something like - "Yet, some atheists hold the even more inclusive and controversial philosophical position that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist." Also do you think this would be an improvement or not? Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 21:48, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

(i know you're asking jim but if i may chime in and i hope this is at least a little helpfull - the general policy for source requirements in the lede is much looser than that for the body under the presumption that everything in the lede is further explained in the body and everything in the body is well sourced so by extension... Kevin Baas^talk 21:55, 21 January 2011 (UTC))

(edit conflict) You know, I was about to suggest that you provide an example of what you would want to change, and you beat me to it. I'm not comfortable with starting the lead off with a statement that this is "controversial", as opposed to simply not being widely held (for example). Given that we only say that atheism is this among other things, might it be better to leave the kinds of nuance discussed here for lower on the page? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:00, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

More inclusive than which? Maybe: The most inclusive definition, about which even atheist writers disagree[3], is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that there are any deities.--JimWae (talk) 22:14, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, that's better than "controversial". I'd be inclined to put "some" before "atheist writers", and we probably need to do some more word-tweaking, but I think some formulation along those lines might actually be a very good improvement. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:18, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

A variation on that, which adheres more closely to our existing language (just adding a phrase at the end of the sentence) is: "Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist,[3] a definition about which even some atheist writers disagree.[4]" --Tryptofish (talk) 22:21, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm. To me that doesn't tell the full story. Outside of "some atheist writers" or at least "some atheists" no one agrees with this definition. That fact does not come through here. This is a contested position even within a very minority population. How do we express that? Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:31, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Maybe I'm wrong about "some". Maybe delete "even some". --Tryptofish (talk) 22:39, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I know that my suggestion was clunky and too long, and I can see the point of not having "controversy" in there. But the difference I'd like to retain is that if we say "Yet, some atheists hold ..." we are correctly implying that people other than "some atheists" do not hold that position. That point is lost when you state the position and then say that "even some atheists disagree". In the latter you only get the sense that "some atheists disagree" and not that everyone else does as well. Does that make sense?Griswaldo (talk) 22:44, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

At this point, I have to admit to getting lost! I guess I'd like to know what other editors think. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:04, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Griswaldo, are you proposing here simply to modify the lead in this way, or are you also going to want to modify content lower on the page? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

I think content already leads in this direction, but if the content sections can be strengthened in this sense I'm of course all for that too. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:45, 21 January 2011 (UTC)

Then I'd suggest that we treat this discussion as not involving any big rewrite of the lower parts of the page. The reason that I raised the question is that I think it would be a lot more controversial amongst editors if we were considering deletion of the material on weak-etc. atheism throughout the page. If we agree that that's not the issue at the moment, then we can focus on the lead paragraph without being concerned about unintended consequences. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:04, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

It isn't an issue I've raised nor do I intend to. Those are notable ideas and they ought to stay.Griswaldo (talk) 00:09, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

"Yet, some atheists hold X" does NOT correctly *logically* imply that "non-atheists do not hold X", it *suggests* or *colloquially implies* (or even insinuates) it. "Yet" is also a bit contentious. "Even atheist writers disagree" also strongly *suggests* or *colloquially implies* that at least some non-atheists would also disagree. We cannot determine that ALL non-atheist sources do not hold to that definition nor that "outside of some atheists *no one* agrees with..." the absence def. (In fact, some of the dictionaries quite likely are not "atheist" ones.) "Yet, some atheists hold X" *suggests* that ALL non-atheists would oppose that def; "even atheist writers disagree" does not suggest ALL non-atheists would oppose. --JimWae (talk) 00:13, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Fair enough.Griswaldo (talk) 15:39, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I think i'm going to get a graduate degree in philosophy just so i can write a book that gives a different opinion of what an atheist is just so you guys will have to figure out how to fit that into the intro too. Kevin Baas^talk 00:58, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

:-D --Tryptofish (talk) 01:02, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Absence of belief in the big G

There are some sources that support absence of belief in the big G god as sufficient for atheism, that do not mention the little g's. If someone has an absence of belief in ALL g's (i.e. all deities), then one "has" an absence of belief in the big G. What the guys who allow atheism as absence of belief a big G exists are saying is that even if one believes in little gs, (or is a pantheist or deist) one can still be called an atheist. I think Runes & Rowe still work as sources (though as lesser ones now) for the absence def. A reason to keep Runes/Ferm is that both were theists. Note that Ferm remarks it is a less rigorous use of the term, and note that deists and pantheists are not *without* any idea of "the divine".--JimWae (talk) 02:16, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

Rune/Ferm probably did not mean "have not held" as "absence" the way Smith, Martin & Flew do. It is unlikely Ferm meant to classify his grandkids as atheists. Though he also gives it, Rowe promptly ignores "nonbelief" as a definition of atheism. Smith, Martin &/or Flew should be the source for the absence def. Nagel will do for the disagreement with the absence def--JimWae (talk) 04:36, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think Rune/Ferm works for the absence definition for the reasons Jim states above. On the other hand, something similar to the Rune/Ferm definition appears to be more common historically than the current "inclusive" definition is. That is atheism as "disbelief in a particular god". Many of the references for the "permissive" definition in the old list that Modocc linked to above treat that usage of "atheism/atheist" and not the current inclusive definition.Griswaldo (talk) 15:48, 22 January 2011 (UTC)

This is useful. We have sources for both sides of the controversy, and we can put them in a section on the controversy. But we don't have any justification for placing the "most inclusive" and controversial definition in the lede. Here is a proposal for the lede:

Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Atheism is often contrasted with theism [4][5][6] and agnosticism [4][6][36]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jj1236 (talk • contribs) 03:57, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

I disagree with Jj1236's conclusion, and was a little surprised to read some of the responses far above. I'm late to the party (and frankly it's unlikely I'll have time to continually contribute in the future), so you'll all have to forgive my brief hit-and-run approach... I would just prefer to do more productive things than spend another month participating in yet another of these discussions! ;) With that said: It seems abundantly clear to me that to define atheism as "not having belief" is equivalent to "a lack of belief", not to "a rejection of belief"; Both "not having belief" and "lacking belief" are passive. Conversely, I agree that "disbelief in" is equivalent to "rejection", in that it is active. Even so, there are more than a few sources above which indeed support the lack of belief definition, and given its prominence in the media (admittedly being promoted by atheist-speakers), this seems to be justification enough for inclusion in the lead, in order to sum up all prominent views of the topic.

Regarding the recent discussion, I disagree with placing "controversial" before the def, but I don't vehemently oppose some of the alternative suggestions. My preference tends toward "Some [group] hold a more inclusive definition, that atheism is simply the absence of belief..." where [group] is either "atheists" or "philosophers", whichever more closely fits our sources. If we can make that wording flow with the current intro, I think it would be ok. However, I would shy away from stating the 3rd def is rare, except within the body, as it seems to get enough attention in various forums to warrant being included as a non-fringe view. Discussing it in detail in the body seems appropriate, where it can be treated fully and contextualized appropriately. Jess_talk|_edits 07:41, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

That's still WP:UNDUE weight, and also per policy we're supposed to include all notable controversies in the intro (as such), and if you're arguing it's notable enough to put in the intro, well then that makes it a notable controversy. Also, it is quite clear that there are only a few supporting sources. (and questionable ones, at that.) Kevin Baas^talk 15:57, 24 January 2011 (UTC)

Jess, I think your proposal is a step in the right direction, toward neutrality and accuracy. While I don't think it makes it all the way there, it's a compromise I'm willing to endorse for the sake of improving the content incrementally. Tryptofish, you seem to be the definition gatekeeper. Do you approve? Jj1236 (talk) 04:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2] Some philosophers hold a more inclusive definition, that atheism is simply the absence of belief in deities[4]. Atheism is often contrasted with theism [4][5][6] and agnosticism [4][6][36].Jj1236 (talk) 04:39, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

I prefer Jj's earlier recommendation, above, for reasons i (and others) have already stated. Kevin Baas^talk 14:31, 25 January 2011 (UTC)

If I sound like a "gatekeeper", I think I had best step back and not offer an opinion, at least for now. But it's not clear to me that Jess was actually making a proposal. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:12, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

I'd like to see the sources to support "Atheism is often contrasted with... agnosticism." There are, of course, sources that indicate atheism & agnosticism overlap -- & it could be misleading to state only one side in the lede. We also have this possible wording for the 3rd sentence:--JimWae (talk) 03:32, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The most inclusive definition, about which even atheist writers disagree,[3] is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[4]

It's important to recognise that the three definitions are typologies. The "inclusive"/absensist typology regards anyone who doesn't have a belief in God as atheist, regardless of whether that is because of a conscious decision or not. The rejectionist typology regards anyone who consciously rejects belief in God as atheist, regardless of the reasons for the rejection. The strong atheist typology characterises atheism as a particular type of rejection. This is important because it is misleading to label the absensist typology as "passive", when an absensist would regard a strong atheism as just as much an atheist as a lack-of-beliefist. Also "lack of belief" covers non-decisional nonbelief and a particular stance on burden of proof taken by people who are otherwise rejectionist. Please let's not lose sight of the fact that we are dealing here with typological traditions. --Dannyno (talk) 21:41, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Distinguished from agnosticism

Jim, I agree that the atheism contrasted with agnosticism issue is a bit muddy. That said, there are references that are both old and recent, and I'll list a couple here. It is my understanding that Huxley coined the phrase in order to distinguish his own views from both Christian theism and atheism. Robert Flint's 1903, Agnosticism, contains a section on the issue in which he writes, in summary of "Dr. Bithell's position":

• "It follows, even from what has just been said, that agnosticism is not atheism. Agnosticism is sometimes spoken of as only another name for atheism, or as a kind of atheism. This should never be done."
• but also ... "While, then it is erroneous to identify agnosticism and atheism, it is equally erroneous to separate them as if one were exclusive of the other: that they are frequently combined is an unquestionable fact."

The suggestion made there, 100 years ago, was that agnosticism is both distinct from atheism and amenable to combination. In other words it cannot be contrasted with atheism on the same plane that "theism" can, but contrasted nonetheless. Here are some contemporary sources which also draw a line.

• Encyclopedia Britannica - "Atheism is also distinguished from agnosticism, which leaves open the question whether there is a god or not, professing to find the questions unanswered or unanswerable."
• The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions - "Atheism. Disbelief in the existence of God; to be distinguished from agnosticism, which professes uncertainty on the question."
• Atheism (Julian Baggini) - "Atheism contrasts not only with theism and other forms of belief in God, but also with agnosticism--the suspension of belief or disbelief in God."
• The Rationality of Theism (Paul Moser) - "Atheism differs from agnosticism. Atheism entails disbelief; agnosticism, unbelief."
• The Agnostic Reader (S. T. Joshi) - "Agnosticism must be distinguished both from skepticism and from atheism."
• [Oxford's] A Dictionary of Psychology - "atheism n. Rejection of belief in God. atheist n. One who rejects belief in God. Compare agnosticism, deism, pantheism, theism." (Here it is notable that all of the "compare" entries suggest comparison with each other)

I threw in the Dictionary of Psychology entry even though it doesn't clearly state that the two are "contrasted" for a reason. "Atheism", and "theism" are contrasted with each other in a way that is rather unique and absolute. However, both atheism and theism can be compared (and contrasted) to not only agnosticism, but also deism and pantheism. This doesn't mean, however that theism and atheism are not often contrasted to agnosticism, deism and pantheism (as you can see atheism and agnosticism clearly are). The five concepts are distinct even if you can find overlap in certain ways between most of them. My suggestion is to separate the contrasts as to not suggest that theism and atheism are contrasted in the same manner that atheism and agnosticism are. Also bare in mind that self pro-claimed "agnostics", throughout history, have pretty much always contrasted their beliefs to those of "atheists".Griswaldo (talk) 14:22, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

On one hand, that agnosticism is contrasted or distinct from atheism is well-sourced. But on the other hand, agnosticism is not distinguished in such a manner, when atheism is used in its broadest sense. The distinction as it exists is also muddiest with the common disbelief definition of atheism, because its questionable that agnostics are not actively disbelieving any less than atheists of the same persuasion for the agnostic is not willing to accept belief or faith based on their present knowledge. They may be willing to believe, but are yet unable to believe nevertheless. Of course, the distinction between agnosticism and atheism is most sound with the very narrowest atheism definition. In any case, each of these three definitions describe atheism in a different way that depends simply on the writers' perspective, which is, not surprisingly varied. For clarity, if agnosticism is to be addressed in the lede as suggested, it would help if it is stated that the broadest definition is consistent with agnosticism. Maybe something along these lines:

Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists. Atheism is also often contrasted with agnosticism, the view that suspends belief in a deity. However, for writers that define atheism in its most inclusive sense, as simply the absence of belief that any deities exist, atheism is compatible with agnosticism [source: Martin's Encarta piece].

--Modocc (talk) 19:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

We can also either preserve the current text or add Jim's suggested revision, and add the following: "Atheism is also often contrasted with agnosticism, the view that suspends belief in a deity. However, for writers that define atheism in its most inclusive sense, atheism is compatible with agnosticism [source: Martin's Encarta piece]--Modocc (talk) 19:49, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

The "broadest definition" is represented here by three sources total (Smith, Flew and Martin) -- all atheist thinkers. Outside of these sources I don't see this definition used anywhere reliable. Agnosticism is almost always differentiated from atheism because most sources don't utilize the "broadest definition". Putting the "broadest definition" in the lead at all verges on WP:UNDUE, though I'm not against it if it is properly contextualized since we spend so much time in the entry on that issue. However, to spell out in the lead that if you adopt this completely minority position then agnosticism would not be differentiated from atheism would clearly be WP:UNDUE IMO.Griswaldo (talk) 21:21, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

OK, as for appropriate weight, given that agnosticism gets scant attention in this article as it is (this article is about atheism after all), its probably undue weight to be introducing it in the first paragraph anyway. Furthermore, its not that informative, because when introducing terms that are presumed to be unfamiliar, such as theism and agnosticism it is best give them explicit meaning, which would add even more undue weight to its inclusion, not to mention that agnosticism has multiple meanings too. --Modocc (talk) 21:55, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

That sounds like sophistry to me, no offense. We have wikilinks for that very reason. If something is commonly differentiated from something else, mentioning that with a wikilink is perfectly sensible and adequate. And I disagree about it not being informative. It is in fact quite informative to differentiate the two. It would also be informative to mention it again in the body of the entry where we discuss the broader definitions.Griswaldo (talk) 22:00, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Lots of things are common in the sources, such as always referring to God. That does not mean we ought to follow suit here. Informative sure, if one follows the link, but that leads the uninformed reader to another article. I said it gets scant attention, because it is mentioned in the body of the article. --Modocc (talk) 22:19, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Agnosticism is compatible with atheism under other defs as well. Agnosticism (defined as position about absence of knowledge) is also compatible with the rejection def of atheism. Under that def, agnosticism is also compatible with theism. Personally, I would like to see more comparison & contrast between ag- & ath- in the article, but it is very complicated. Btw, I also think we need not to remove the def of theism from the 1st prgrph. If we are going to distinguish ath- from ag- in the lede, we would also have to spell out which defs of ag- would be compatible with which defs of ath-. This actually sounds like an article unto itself. --JimWae (talk) 23:08, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

Unless we have reliable sources to do it for us it actually sounds like OR to me. Reliable sources do pose the basic atheism v. agnosticism distinction. I don't see why we shouldn't. There is some amount of compatibility between even atheism and theism as long as we're on the topic. One prominent historical definition of atheism, which isn't featured in the lead, is simply the disbelief in a god. By that definition a Hindu might be an atheist when it comes to the Christian God, while a (poly)"theist" when it comes to whatever deities s/he does recognize. But that's not the point. The point is to follow the reliable sources. Jim you asked for sources, but you're being completely silent about what the sources I produced do say. Can you please deal with them now that I produced them? Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 03:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Indeed. I imagine someone could write an article about the editing of this article. (joke) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:14, 26 January 2011 (UTC)

(outdent)So far, I see the least contentious additions are as follows: "Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist,[3] a definition about which even some atheist writers disagree." and "Atheism is also often contrasted with agnosticism, the view that suspends belief in a deity." Its unclear whatever the disagreement is about, the sentence is just too vague for me. Saying something is controversial is also too vague. It would help if more context could be added, otherwise I'm inclined not to support it (though I would not oppose). --Modocc (talk) 23:12, 26 January 2011 (UTC) On further consideration, Jj1236 suggestion is OK even if its wp:weaselly, "Some philosophers hold a more inclusive definition, that atheism is simply the absence of belief in deities[4].", but if its added I think this should be tweaked to "Some philosophers and writers define atheism more inclusively as simply the absence of belief in deities." Its tighter language and includes not only atheist writers, but other advocates of this definition such as the BBC[3]. However, a problem with all these suggestions is what is left out is the "who" holds the minority view and which atheists and authors are in disagreement with it (if this matters) and why. In short, if possible, instead of saying who either holds or contests the minority view, I'd prefer instead that we simply add something specific about why its considered controversial. --Modocc (talk) 01:15, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm amenable to the idea of adding something specific about why the definition is controversial.Griswaldo (talk) 03:42, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

So am I, if the "something specific" is sourced and not OR. --Dannyno (talk) 21:30, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Specific context?

An older article version here is more contextualized with references. The Harvard template reference is missing though. --Modocc (talk) 02:13, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I like that version much better than what we currently have. It contextualizes the inclusive definition, and even explains the extent of it. I could see the phrase, "atheism is usually contrasted with agnosticism" worked into a lead like that, prior to the presenting of the inclusive definition, since it then goes on to point out that the inclusive def. includes "agnostics" within it.Griswaldo (talk) 04:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

BTW I recognize that I'm flip-flopping here on what I said above about UNDUE, but it didn't make sense to me until read the older version you just linked. Sorry about the 180 but I stand by my current view on the matter.Griswaldo (talk) 05:11, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

An even earlier version with references is here. It did not have strong references initially, but I think these were revised somewhat. There was some limited discussion which led to its removal, but I'm amenable to putting some of it back. --Modocc (talk) 06:20, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

That version is incorrect in parts. For example claiming that the inclusive definition is utilized by "several dictionaries, encyclopedia, and atheistic philosophers." Try one dictionary of philosophy and one version of one encyclopedia.Griswaldo (talk) 17:30, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Wow, those versions go back even farther than I do! :-) Given the intervening discussions, I'd like to clearly understand, before putting anything back, whether there were previously good reasons for changing away from those earlier versions. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:39, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

I've been digging and I'm not sure there is one answer to this. It appears that much of it was changed piecemeal in 2007. March 2007 appears to be an important month for those changes. Modocc and JimWae were both active then so maybe they know.Griswaldo (talk) 14:40, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

No Distinction?

Here is another source that explicitly denies the distinction between (implicit) atheism and agnosticism - Atheism and Secularity: Volume 1: Issues, Concepts, and Definitions By Phil Zuckerman. The chapter in question is Chapter 1, written by Jack David Eller.Griswaldo (talk) 04:44, 27 January 2011 (UTC)

Edit request from 138.86.176.173, 10 February 2011

{{edit semi-protected}} All I request is that the picture representing Atheism is changed. From an outsider's perspective, it looks like some sort of ominous cryptic script. I feel as though this has a negative connotation added to it, which will make sure readers of this article begin their research with a subconscious bias - and that is not what any Atheist wants. Maybe a picture of Earth, or some other natural beauty would be better suitable. Please take this into consideration, thank you.

138.86.176.173 (talk) 18:08, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Hmmm.... well it doesn't strike me as ominous, but obviously that's going to be a subjective call. Does anyone else feel the same way? NickCT (talk) 18:20, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

It's hard to find any representative image of a diverse and unorganized group like atheists. I doubt there's a much better image to be found. The "Etymology" section includes an informative caption with the image. I think you're specifically referring to the sidebar navbox, in which case the right venue would be Template talk:Atheism Sidebar, not here. --Cybercobra (talk) 18:35, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

I do not see anything ominous or negative about greek script. It seems offensive to greek people to say it is.--Charles (talk) 19:10, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Marking as not done because the edit request has been contested. If consensus forms, any established editor can make the change. (I've always preferred the Scarlet A.) -Atmoz (talk) 19:42, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Please see Template talk:Atheism Sidebar#Replace image?, where this question was already discussed (and where the edit would have to be made anyway, not here). The consensus, and sourcing, is clearly against such a change. --Tryptofish (talk) 23:27, 10 February 2011 (UTC)

Atheists and charity

Anupam has repeatedly inserted statements about atheists and charitable giving. The sources he gives compare 1>those who attend religious services regularly with those who do no and 2> religious people with some undefined "secular" people. Even if we were to grant that atheists give less to charity than those who attend often and/or describe themselves as religious, it would still be possible that atheists give more than theists on average, because theists includes many who rarely attend & many who do not describe themselves as religious. Subgroups within a comparison group cannot be compared to a contrasting group unless the study has identified the subgroup. Neither report is about atheists, and neither (according to the sources Anupam cited) even mentions them as a group JimWae (talk) 08:32, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I understand your point and have found references further delineating the study which I will add at a later time. However, your removal of the European Survey statement (which was in the article before I touched it) without an edit summary was unwarranted. I have readded the statement from this survey. Cheers, Anupam^Talk 08:38, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Jim here and will remind people that when it comes to social science surveys we do not have liberty to stretch the definition of atheism in order to add data about "secular" people and certainly not those who do not attend church. We need to respect the parameters of those surveys. If they provide data on atheists great, if they do not then they're out.Griswaldo (talk) 13:55, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

I have again removed the Putnam material. Anupam, please stop readding it.Griswaldo (talk) 16:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

"Rationale" section

This is not a forum
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
Why is the section titled "rationale"? Doesn't it describe types of atheism? Having a section on "arguments for atheism" seems POV to me; the Christianity article doesn't feature a section on Christian apologetics, neither does the Judaism article. DataSmart (talk) 23:06, 21 February 2011 (UTC) Part of the problem is that a majority of the literature on atheism isn't analytically about atheism but polemically arguing for atheism, or against theism. In the introduction to his recent edited volume(s), Atheism and Secularity: Volume 2: Global Expansions, Phil Zuckerman calls most of this literature "polemical" and writes: "And as stated above, when it comes to the advocacy of atheism and secularity, one finds a rich, diverse, and undeniably copious corpus of work. But when it comes to the study and analysis of atheism and secularity, one doesn’t find much.” Zuckerman is a sociologist, who, by the way, is no detractor of atheism or secularity. Quite the opposite. In other words that's not some snide opinion by a theist scholar, its a pretty well founded reality.Griswaldo (talk) 23:19, 21 February 2011 (UTC) There's a lot of literature which argues against atheism as well, but you are right in that most of the sources regarding atheism argue in one way or the other. The only exception I can think of is tertiary sources. Most major religions have polemic sources as well, although there are also extensive other sources which do not argue for the religion. The main issue I have with this article is that it presents one side of arguments, while no other major religion or religious concept gets the same treatment. DataSmart (talk) 00:26, 22 February 2011 (UTC) There is nothing at all rationale about religion, by design, in fact. They eschew rationality in deference to irrationality. They're shockingly explicit about it, in fact. So to put such section like that in religious articles would be absurd -- even heretical! Kevin Baastalk 18:44, 23 February 2011 (UTC) (ec)That's not accurate. What do you think Theology is? The difference is that above and beyond the insider rationalizations of religious beliefs we also have outside perspectives on religions through the lenses of history and the social sciences. These are glaringly missing from the study of irreligion and atheism perhaps especially. Instead we have a lot of polemics, sometimes very erudite polemics, but polemics nonetheless. In other words, we are left writing an entry based mostly on the secular equivalent of theology, as opposed to outside scholarship.Griswaldo (talk) 18:56, 23 February 2011 (UTC) What do i think theology is? A debacle, for one. And above all, certainly not rational! I would venture so far as to say that studying theology probably lowers your I.Q. It certainly hinders your ability to reason about the world. Kevin Baastalk 19:00, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Well personally I have little use for theology myself, but I wouldn't call it anti-rational. Let's not confuse materialism and rationality. When people take a certain set of assumptions as given, they can reason within those assumptions. What you and I don't agree with them about are the assumptions and not the rationality of the system created on them. Also, religious thought was integral to the historical development of philosophy, and rational thought. That some of us find little use for it presently does not change that fact. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 19:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC) There are a few things wrong with that, though: for one, it is not given that people can reason about assumptions they take as given. and in fact, most people are very bad at it! and they don't even teach these kinds of things with any real degree of rigor in theology. they don't give courses on propositional logic, critical thinking, etc. furthermore, evaluating the soundness of one's assumptions is an integral part of logic and certainly rationality! something which they are taught not to do! Kevin Baastalk 19:16, 23 February 2011 (UTC) On the other hand, there really isn't much to say about atheists, besides perhaps that they don't believe in the tooth fairy or unicorns. Which is all pretty un-interesting, anyways. Now that there are theists -- people who believe in that sort of crap -- and a lot of them -- now that's unusual! And I imagine there have been volumes written on that, investigating every aspect of it, from psychology, to sociology, to mythology, to evolutionary developmental biology. Of course, none of any of that is in any of the articles on religion. Including such sensible, interesting, and relevant material would cause quite an uproar! Kevin Baastalk 18:50, 23 February 2011 (UTC) The real problem is that it's wrong to try and analogize atheism with religion in this sense. Atheism is unique in that it HAS a logical rationale; religion does not, and all rational arguments in favor of religion eventually fail in either being wrong or just falling to Occam's Razor. We should not expect that the article on atheism take the same form as an article on any religion, as it's a fundamentally false analogy. siafu (talk) 18:54, 23 February 2011 (UTC) @Kevin. This is actually changing, thankfully. Phil Zuckerman is one of the academics at the forefront of actually looking at atheism and irreligion from a social science perspective. Recent volumes include the one I mentioned above, but also a whole monograph on secularity in Scandinavia, Society Without God. I can assure you that more work in this area is forthcoming from others as well.Griswaldo (talk) 19:01, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Well i'm happy to hear that. good luck getting anything that scientifically looks at religion in an article about any given religion thou. I imagine'd there'd quite a lot of resistance to that, to put it lightly. Kevin Baastalk 19:05, 23 February 2011 (UTC) I'm not sure what you mean by that. The social sciences are at the for front of the study of religion. Their approaches are scientific.Griswaldo (talk) 19:06, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Look at the articles on religion, e.g. christianity. do you see anything in there that even tries to explain why we have some of the very strange beliefs that we do? I don't. Kevin Baastalk 19:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC) It's POV to say that atheism has rationale behind it but major religions do not. There is a massive amount of sources defending the beliefs of major religions. It's inaccurate to characterize atheism as "rational" and religion as "irrational". DataSmart (talk) 19:14, 23 February 2011 (UTC) It's utterly trivial. Also, that is not at all related to my most recent comment here. Kevin Baastalk 19:17, 23 February 2011 (UTC) I suggest you study logic, then. Faith is, by definition, belief without rationale (sometimes exemplified by belief DESPITE rationale), and this is categorically necessary for religious belief, as any rational argument in favor of religion invariably must resort to faith. That doesn't mean that people don't choose faith over atheism all the time, and that they don't have their own personal reasons for doing so, but those are invariably just reasons for making the choice, not a rationale proving or even genuinely supporting the existence of any deities or supernatural forces. There's not anything POV about that, I'm afraid. Also, @Kevin, could you try to post your responses all at once instead of breaking it into multiple edits? I just got edit conflicted twice trying to post this.siafu (talk) 19:22, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Actually, faith just means trust or in the religious context, belief. Its definition does not include "belief without rationale or evidence". DataSmart (talk) 19:27, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Wiktionary: Mental acceptance of and confidence in a claim as truth without evidence supporting the claim (e.g. a superstition) or disregarding all evidence to the contrary (e.g. a delusion). OED: a. Belief in the truths of religion; belief in the authenticity of divine revelation (whether viewed as contained in Holy Scripture or in the teaching of the Church), and acceptance of the revealed doctrines. [...] c. The spiritual apprehension of divine truths, or of realities beyond the reach of sensible experience or logical proof. By Christian writers often identified with the preceding; but not exclusively confined to Christian use. Often viewed as the exercise of a special faculty in the soul of man, or as the result of supernatural illumination. Clearly, it is included. siafu (talk) 19:31, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Aw, man! You beat me to it! Kevin Baastalk 19:35, 23 February 2011 (UTC) @saifi: sorry. i think i'm done, so i hit save. then i read over it and think of something else or notice something i missed. i'll try. (but i failed here, ironically!) Kevin Baastalk 19:38, 23 February 2011 (UTC) You only posted the 7th definition of the wiktionary entry, even though it doesn't mention religion. (http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/faith) Here are the definition entries relevant to religion: 4. A religious belief system. 5. Belief and trust in the Christian God's promises revealed through Christ in the New Testament. Cherry picking parts of a dictionary entry is misleading. DataSmart (talk) 19:43, 23 February 2011 (UTC) (undent) You said: "Its definition does not include "belief without rationale or evidence"." I simply proved that to be nonsense. The real problem, though, is that any belief system that includes some supernatural element ispo facto fails in the sense of having a rational backing because it just creates an additional "level" as it were, leaving open the question, e.g., "if God created the universe, who created God?" This violates Occam's Razor, which, originally stated, was "Do not multiply entities beyond necessity"-- there is no necessity to appeal to God, and doing so double the entities. Accepting the additional complications is what is meant when religious people use the word "faith". I'm not trying to write a polemic about the evils of religion here, but there is a fundamental difference between atheism and religion in this sense; one is based on personal feeling, and the other on cold reason. It would be entirely off for us to suggest that the structure of this article should mirror that of articles on religions as a result. siafu (talk) 19:47, 23 February 2011 (UTC) (unindent) (ec) Let's just post the whole link then, shall we?: [4] In truth, they are all relevant to religion. it seems that by some mental trick one wants to get both ends of the stick they jsut replace it with a circular definition or one that doesn't even mean anything. quite a common practice in religious stuff, i might say. how about you look up the words "belief" and "trust" for us, then, too? maybe that could help to elaborate on these particular definitions of "faith" that you deem worthy. Kevin Baastalk 19:49, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Your reasoning is that just because wiktionary mentions it as the seventh definition, it must be the right definition? As I've said, cherry picking entries, especially when the parts you quoted does not directly relate to religion, is misleading. I have never advocated that the articles on major religions and atheism be identical, I said that it is POV to say that atheism is based on rationality whereas major religions are not. It is also presumptuous to say that atheism is based on "cold reason" and religion on "personal feelings". If you recall from the article, atheism is a part of some religions which do not believe in a God, and atheism originated thousands of years ago, before the rationales mentioned in this article had been written. Furthermore, you've assumed that there is no other reason than "personal feelings" for believing in a religion. DataSmart (talk) 20:24, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Yes, that is my reasoning, exactly. There are divine and magical powers in the number 7, and in fact dictionaries are arranged in such away that only the 7th definition is only really correct. Actually, that's for odd numbered pages. For even numbered pages you have to take 11 modulo 3 then multiply that by 6 and add 2. There's a long history of how dictionaries came to be set up that way and i'm sure you will find it all very sensible after you hear it, but it would be too much of a digression so i won't get into it. Any case, I'm glad you've made such an honest effort to understand me and have done such a good job! Kevin Baastalk 20:32, 23 February 2011 (UTC) On a more serious note, it is a matter of record what you said and there is really no need to go on saying that you in fact, said what we can all clearly see that you've said. It's a little redundant and certainly doesn't get us anywhere in the conversation. Kevin Baastalk 20:36, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Also, religion came about long ago, too. Much before any words were put into this encyclopedia at all. In fact, long before the internet was invented. (or the printing press, for that matter.) Also, that there is no other reason than "personal feelings" for believing in a religion is not an assumption, it's a cold hard fact, esp. in contrast to the cold hard rationalism of atheism, which seems to be the point that you missed entirely. Which is odd, because it was pretty much entire point, so that really means that you missed everything. Kevin Baastalk 21:11, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Let me make it more clear, if i can: a theist chooses religion, not of necessity, but as a personal choice. An atheist, however, does not choose to be an atheist. They have no choice. Logic and empiricism simply don't give them any other option. They are forced into it by rationality. It is entirely necessary. There is no choice available to them at all, not to mention a "personal" one. This may be hard to understand or believe. But it is the way things are. You have to understand they think entirely differently from how a religious person does. There's a completely different order of precedence in the way their minds work. Kevin Baastalk 21:16, 23 February 2011 (UTC) Not a forum, folks. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:12, 23 February 2011 (UTC)

Second chance at a content discussion

Why is the section titled "rationale"? Doesn't it describe types of atheism?

Having a section on "arguments for atheism" seems POV to me; the Christianity article doesn't feature a section on Christian apologetics, neither does the Judaism article. Major religions also have extensive amount of works defending their respective beliefs, yet atheism is the only religious philosophy with an entire section devoted to arguments for it. DataSmart (talk) 02:41, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Religions don't make actual empirical, rational arguments. Their entire philosophy is that beliefs don't need evidence or logical support. The irony aside, there wouldn't even be any content to put in such a section. "Apologetics", maybe, but that's something entirely different. It's like you're equating poetry with math. Kevin Baas^talk 14:45, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

Kevin, lets not go back to the forum discussions about this again please. Stick to this entry and how it should be organized. Your point might have relevance to religion entries but not this one. We don't need more general discussions about atheism vs. religion. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 15:13, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

See wp:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. In addition, setting aside that for a moment, for comparison, the articles on the existence of god and deities, which we link to in the first paragraph, are more germane here than the more general religious articles.--Modocc (talk) 12:43, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't agree. Atheism is not simply a collection of philosophical positions on the existence of deities. That's how we treat it here, for the most part, and I tried above to point out why, but that's not all that atheism entails. I know atheists hate the comparisons with religions, but humor me for a second. This would be like claiming that Christianity boils down to Theology alone. As I stated above, it is understandable that, given the available literature, the entry would be so strongly weighted in this direction. However, there is an increasing amount of literature that treats atheism as a subject of study, as opposed to a philosophy to follow. A good place to start is very recent two edited volumes by sociologist Phil Zuckerman, titled Atheism and Secularity. I don't entirely agree with DataSmart but I think there is a fair point in there about bringing in some perspective from outside scholarship on atheism, like the social scientific work collected by Zuckerman. Another book worth looking at is Atheists: A Groundbreaking Study of America's Nonbelievers by Hunsberger and Altemeyer. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:00, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that there are two relevant parts to DataSmart's question: (1) Should the section be deleted? (2) Should the section be called something else? To question (1), I see no reason to get rid of it. It's well-sourced, and it isn't apologetics so much as what reliable sources have said about the subject. But question (2) is a good one. "Rationale" isn't really what the section is about. I'm not sure, though, what a better title would be. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:55, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

I think the question about the section title becomes relevant because the first subsection is not really about any rationale except "don't care" and then goes on to list subtypes of this typology. The rationales for not believing in deities comes further down in later subsections. The section might be better split into "Further Typologies" and "Rationales"--JimWae (talk) 22:00, 24 February 2011 (UTC)

"Rationale" is not apt, since atheism has no thesis, atheism is the rejection of a thesis. Perhaps simply "Subtypes of Atheism" would be better. — Robin Lionheart (talk) 04:43, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Atheism has no thesis, but it rejects the "thesis of theism". Various rationales are given often for rejecting that thesis, and an encyclopedia article on atheism that did not discuss those rationales would be incomplete, just as an article on Xty that did not present some of its positions/beliefs would too.--JimWae (talk) 10:17, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

Of course atheism usually (and arguably always) has its own thesis. Indeed active disbelief requires a thesis, just as much as active belief does. I'm always shocked by how far people championing atheism are willing to take this idea that rejecting a thesis means being free of having any thesis of one's own. The only atheists who truly have no thesis are the implicit atheists, and the idea that they are atheists at all is disputed. Certainly, any rationalization of why there is no God, or why believing in a god is not worthwhile, or illogical, or what have you means one is presenting a thesis of some kind. Surely we all agree on that. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 15:28, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

“The only atheists who truly have no thesis are the implicit atheists...” If some atheists have no thesis, that makes my point. Atheism, by itself, has no thesis, though I agree there are theses which can lead one to atheism. — Robin Lionheart (talk) 21:41, 27 February 2011 (UTC)

As I said, the notion that implicit atheists are atheists at all is disputed, and I for one don't consider so called "implicit atheism" to be atheism. Indeed I consider only those who do have a distinct thesis on the question to be atheists, and I'm not alone in that by any means. I also don't follow the rest of the argument as it implies that religions are monolithic while atheism is not. No religion, or theistic belief system, is any more monolithic than atheism. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 05:23, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

One could say rejecting a thesis is a thesis in itself, but atheism does not have a *single* agreed-upon thesis as to why the thesis of theism is to be rejected. Rather there are several proposed anti-theses. In any case, the title rationale is still apt - though the section needs restructuring. Trypto's proposed heading of "Philosophical concepts" does not apply to "Practical atheism" & does not resolve the need to split the section. The "Practical atheism" subsection should be a separate topic from either heading.--JimWae (talk) 21:07, 26 February 2011 (UTC)

If anything atheism is more akin to science, which relies on theories and evidence to support those theories. Hence, rationale is central to how the various forms of atheism manifest.Ninahexan (talk) 08:43, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Relevance of Eurobarometer 2005 on strict/non-strict

The only non-raw data on strict non-strict included in the report is: "...those who declare that their upbringing was strict (54%) are more likely to believe in a God than those brought up in a household without rules (39%)." The raw data shows that what they mean here is that of those who said they were raised "strictly" 54% indicated they believed in a (personal) God (whereas 52% of ALL respondents said they so believed) and that only 39% of those raised "non-strictly" said they believed in such a God. Any other conclusions about strict/non-strict are extractions from raw data about which we have no indication of statistical significance nor any comment in the report. There are also THREE categorizations of belief in the Eurbarometer, not two, (it also includes those who believe in a "spiritual/life force") so conclusions about theists cannot be directly turned around to be about atheists. The data that is commented on in the report is about Theists, not about atheists, and comments about the characteristics of Theists are less relevant to this article, irrelevant to this section, and inconclusive regarding atheists. I therefore support again removing it.--JimWae (talk) 23:26, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Per your statement, I have also removed a statement attributed to the EU reference discussing education levels, because the EU surevy uses three categorizations. For this survey, the lack of belief in God does not make them atheist; rather the individual could believe in a spiritual force. Since you suggested that we remove data concerning general irreligion from other parts of the article, I have removed this piece of information as well. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 00:37, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

It's not using 3 categories that invalidates those interpretations - It is not specifying figures for the subgroups, such that statements about theists cannot be transformed into statements about atheists. The EU study specifies the early drop-out rates for theists & the Zuckerman study specifies the rates of education for atheists & agnostics as greater than average --JimWae (talk) 02:05, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

No, that's not the case - the table specifies the rates for those who "believe in God," not for all theists. You only looked at the "believe in God" category, but did not include the "spiritual/life force" category in your assessment, which is considered to be theist. This is the same situation as you discussed above. That section focused on "belief in God," not atheism, and failed to account for the third category. In light of WP:SYNTH, we cannot conclude, cased on the EU reference, that atheists are more educated than theists because the EU reference does not specify that. I hope this helps. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 02:31, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Which is why I did not put it that way--JimWae (talk) 02:34, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Well if that's acceptable, why not reinsert the statement on "rules" and "belief in God"? We should use the same standard for both pieces of information in light of WP:NPOV. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 02:36, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

What conclusions are there about atheists & "rules"? There are conclusions on education level of atheists & there are complementary conclusions on education level of those who believe in God (which is why I reversed the order)--JimWae (talk) 02:44, 11 March 2011 (UTC)

Neutrality

I noticed that the article begins by stating that atheism is a REJECTION of the existance of dieties. The word rejection kind of implies that there is some sort of diety, but atheists reject it's exsitance. Wouldn't it be more neutral to say that atheism is a LACK of belief in dieties. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.15.58.237 (talk) 16:08, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

If you are rejecting the belief in the existence of something it does not imply that this thing exists (which is what you said). If you reject a deity, perhaps that implies that the deity exists and you are rejecting it in favor of another, or in favor of none, but that's not what it says. It says rejects the belief in the existence of deity. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 20:28, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Rejection means a claim about god is rejected, of which the claim may be true or not. In any case, 'atheism' is just a word and has different meanings to different people. We should try to, then, properly handle the definition of atheism with care, placing the correct weight on certain definitions. This is not a trivial task: right now, in fact, there's a notably large discussion on the issue. The first half has been archived and can be found here, and the second half is just above us! You may want to read both discussions, and comment on them instead. (Warning: avoid original research, as you've done here. Instead, find reliable sources that support your claim, and talk with the other editors to reach a consensus on its inclusion.) GManNickG (talk) 17:29, 13 March 2011 (UTC)

Barna Research Group study

Discussion prior to starting the RfC:

The new Barna study info added by Anupam suffers from some of the same issues we've been discussing here. It isn't only about atheists but a larger "no-faith" group. On top of this there are also several confounding variables in the study, some of which the study recognizes, but there doesn't appear to have been any adjustments made to counteract the effect of those variables. Three glaring confounding variables are age, sex, and marital status (no-faith being significantly younger, predominantly male and unmarried). I know it is OR for me to reject this study based on my personal assessment, but I only point this out because it seems pretty shoddy. I'm also not entirely sure what The Barna Group's reliability is here. Of note is the fact that Anupam links to a self-published document of theirs and not to any peer-reviewed publications of the research study. Thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 16:52, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Considering the Barna Group is apparently primarily affiliated with the Christian church, I would indeed question their credibility. At the very least, some sort of peer-review or at least independent review is called for when including documents from an organization with such an unabashed affiliation. siafu (talk) 17:37, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

To quote from our own article on the Barna Group, quoting the Barna Group themselves:

"The ultimate aim of the firm is to partner with Christian ministries and individuals to be a catalyst in moral and spiritual transformation in the United States. It accomplishes these outcomes by providing vision, information, evaluation and resources through a network of intimate partnerships."

Obviously, the mission statement of this group could be considered specificaly hostile to atheists, and that is in itself more than enough reason to throw skepticism on their research on such. siafu (talk) 17:44, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Zuckerman's article, which promotes atheism, itself quotes the Barna Group for statistics, indicating that it is reliable. For example, the Barna Group has also found that atheists and agnostics have lower divorce rates than Christian believers. As you can see from this information, as well as the references in Zuckerman's article, it is neutral in its assessment. Therefore, I have restored it in the article. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 07:00, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

You should only use this study as it is reported in other reliable secondary and tertiary sources. I'm not sure that reporting findings from their website as they present them meets the reliability threshold because they have not been published in either a peer reviewed journal or an academic publication. I'm going to remove it again. Find some reliable sources that interpret the findings and then we'll talk.Griswaldo (talk) 12:17, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure why you didn't address the fact that even Zuckerman references heavily on the Barna Group in his article, which supports atheism. This group is a mainstream source that is used as a reference by many academicians among others. You can simply input their name in a Google Scholar search and see the results. I've added a reference by the reputable Los Angeles Times which references the study as well as an academic book on the subject published by HarperCollins, which also references the study. There is no reason for you to remove this information. If you still object to it, rather than remove the paragraph that two editors have collaborated on, please discuss the issue here further. Thanks, Anupam^Talk 17:20, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Anupam, stop adding the material and continue the discussion here. The sources you added are not reliable in this case at all. Scientific surveys need to be published in peer reviewed publications or in academic publications that have an editorial process that reviews the interpretations and conclusions drawn from them. You have not provided such sources. The book you write is a polemical work by a conservative Rabbi, and the LA Times, unsurprisingly gets a number of basic things wrong in their reportage. Whatever Zuckerman, or another sociologist says is fine if it is published in the manner I described. But we cannot use his source simply because he has used it. That would be like saying that academic historians validate WP:OR because they synthesize primary sources themselves. That's not how it works. We rely on their expertise to interpret primary data, and to editorial processes to validate their interpretations. That simply has not happened in this case. Also, please note, that the Barna study is not about atheism anyway but about a broader irreligious category of their own devising.Griswaldo (talk) 17:25, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

If you would like to discuss the reliability of the Los Angeles Times for this information, then simply see the Wikipedia policy on it, which states "Mainstream news sources are generally considered to be reliable." The Los Angeles Times is the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in this country. Moreover, in another part of the Wikipedia policy, it is written that "Several newspapers host columns that they call blogs. These are acceptable as sources, so long as the writers are professionals and the blog is subject to the newspaper's full editorial control." The article presented by the Los Angeles Times is not even a blog but is written by a Times Staff Writer. It is evident that being peer reviewed is not a requirement of WP:RS. In addition, I don't understand why you are trying to discredit the individual who wrote the book because he is a rabbi. This individual is a UCLA professor who engages in the academic study of religion and contrary to how you portrayed him, he is not a conservative, but a a member of the Jewish religious denomination of Conservative Judaism, which is a moderate denomination of the religion when compared to its other two main branches, Orthodox Judaism and Reform Judaism. There is a difference. Nevertheless, as you stated in another edit, why should his personal religion matter? Zuckerman is an atheist by his own admission and I never removed that information from the article. Furthermore, the Barna Group study is about atheists. Did you read the abstract of the study? It states that "A new study by The Barna Group examines the numbers, lifestyles and self-perceptions of America’s atheists and agnostics, contrasting the no-faith audience with those who actively participate in the Christian faith." Besides the secondary sources I cited in the article, another factor supporting this data is the study performed by Harvard sociologist Robert D. Putnam which revealed the same results for irreligious people in general. I'm not really sure why you wish to remove the paragraph. It provides good balance for what would otherwise be a one sided view on the subject. I've made it very clear that the Barna Research Group is a scholarly source as it is used by referenced by many academicians, included Zuckerman, who heavily referenced this organization in his own article. If you have still not changed your view in light of the above information, I suggest that we use the Wikipedia process for Request for comment to allow the Wikipedia community to voice their view on this topic. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 17:58, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

I said a "conservative rabbi", by which I meant Conservative Judaism, as opposed to Reform or Orthodox. I thought that would be obvious given the context. The issue isn't that he's a rabbi per se, it's that the book is explicitly polemical, and he's not a social scientist. You say Zuckerman is an atheist, and the reason I've been saying that it isn't relevant is quite different from this. It isn't relevant because Zuckerman's publications are written as a sociologist, and not as polemics in favor or atheism, which is what the book in question by the rabbi is. The Barna study is not simply "about atheists". I'm going to bold the description they make themselves of the "no faith" group so that it is clear to you. "In the study, the no-faith segment was defined as anyone who openly identified themselves as an atheist, an agnostic, or who specifically said they have 'no faith.'" Most of the people who are unaffiliated with a religion are not atheists or even agnostics. The fact that elsewhere they, and the LA Times continue to refer to the group as simply "atheists and agnostics" is absurd. Putnam's study likewise deals with a broader group than just atheists, or even "atheists and agnostics". Regarding the reliability of the LA Times ... they are not qualified to interpret scientific studies. If you claim that the Barna study has been referenced and used in various peer-reviewed publications and academic publications in the social sciences then please use those and not the study itself, a polemical religious book, or a newspaper. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 18:52, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

You have incorrect assertions regarding Prof. Wolpe's book which is even classified by Amazon as being in the "Sociology" category. As I mentioned to you before, Wolpe teaches religion at UCLA and is an expert on the subject. One does not necessarily have to be a sociologist to be an expert in this area, mind you; a professor in religious studies qualifies as well. And yes, the Barna Research Group study is alright as long as the article mentions that it mentions the fact that its results discussed anyone who openly identified themselves as an atheist, an agnostic, or who specifically said they have "no faith". User:JimWae has kindly helped clarify this in the article. It also must be mentioned that Phil Zuckerman's data mentioned in the Wikipedia article is also being included on the same standard; his data was presented on "atheists and secular people," not solely atheists, and this is likewise mentioned in the article. To provide you with peer reviewed journals who reference the Barna Research Group, see the Sociology Compass Journal, Sociology of Religion (Oxford), Journal of Adult Development, among many others. Most of the peer reviewed journals I found reference slightly older studies on atheism. Since the study in the article is relatively new, many journals incorporating this data are probably being written as we speak. You are more than welcome to find some of them and incorporate them in the article if you would like. However, as I stated before, one does not have to be peer-reviewed in order to be reliable; the references in the article meet WP:RS and it is unlikely that any of the several journals which refer to the Barna Research Group would have used it if it was unreliable. The same is the case for Prof. Wolpe's book, the Los Angeles Times, and Zuckerman's article. Also, Harvard Profesor Robert Putnam's study is in deed relelvant here because contrary to what you stated, many individuals who classify themselves as irreligious do fall under the atheist category; this is especially the case in his study which explicitly cites examples of the actions of those who have "nonbelief in God." If you have still not changed your view in light of the above information, I suggest that we use the Wikipedia process for Request for comment to allow the Wikipedia community to voice their view on this topic. I hope this helps. With regards, Anupam^Talk 21:04, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

It seems to me that, given the concerns about this source, we are better off omitting it. If we are to include any of it, we will need more objective context from secondary sources, to put the POV of the Barna group in context. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

End of discussion prior to starting the RfC.

Atheism isn't a rejection of belief

This is not a forum.
The following discussion has been closed. Please do not modify it.
"Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities" Although the opening statement was said by some dutch guy that was most likely a theist himself doesn't make it true. Atheism is a personal lack of belief in the claims theists have made, because theists haven't convinced the nonbeliever they remain nonbelievers. it's not a blind rejection of the theists claims, it's a rejection because they have been offered no proof. They could likewise state that theists have failed to produce evidence for their claims of God(s). It's not a debate but it makes it sound like Atheists are something other than people rejecting failed arguments that claim God(s). My argument is that the definition given is incorrect and fallacious, because it's a personal assumption made by some unknown dutch guy, and should be removed because it's wrong. I'm sure I'm not the first one to say something. Thanks. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xlioilx (talk • contribs) 16:42, 14 March 2011 (UTC) Who said anything about a "blind" rejection? A reasoned rejection is still a rejection. But that's besides the point. We don't write articles based on our own arguments, that is original research. We base them on arguments found in reliable sources. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 16:47, 14 March 2011 (UTC) First of all Mr. Xlioilx I would appreciate that you clarify the term "some dutch guy" with a either a wikipedia user name or the external reference that was used. Secondly in the same sentence you attack an unknown person (that you refer to as "some dutch guy") with a unsubstantiated allegation that he "was most likely a theist" in an ad hominem style. You might well be attacking an atheist philosopher.--DerekvG (talk) 14:40, 16 March 2011 (UTC) secondly Modern XXth and XXIst century Atheism is indeed characterised as the quote says : "Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities" ; however your definition that "Atheism is a personal lack of belief in the claims theists have made, because theists haven't convinced the nonbeliever they remain nonbelievers. it's not a blind rejection of the theists claims, it's a rejection because they have been offered no proof." Is an agnoctic view of the matter. Within Atheist thinking in Europe there is a tendency that actually takes an even broader approach and that can be described by the senctence : "Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief." Linguisticaly speaking the last definition could be interpreted in 2 ways : "Atheist reject belief" which is the way believers (of a monotheistic faith) tend to fill in the statement, which is aggressive (evangelistic view) towards other believers, in other words because believers think they should by any means spread "God's word" they view atheist in the same way and they think atheism attacks the notions of "belief" or the fundamentals upon which their faith is based. "Atheists do not engage in the act of "believing" : in other words the atheist's (personal) view of the world is not based on faith and believing other people's stories about how the world around them operates, how nature works; atheists don't believe that there is an authority that imposes ethical rules, atheist come to ethical behaviour by making their own choices. The sentence could worded : "Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief as a basis for their view of the world, and for their ethics." --DerekvG (talk) 15:06, 16 March 2011 (UTC) Folks, I've chimed in on this issue before to no avail. However, I feel it is my duty to inform you all that atheism is in fact a belief. Denying this is pretty silly. I have done a substantial amount of study in logic and critical thinking, and I wrote most of the article doxastic logic which is about reasoning about beliefs. If you read that article and get a sense of how to properly deal with beliefs, you will realize that "I don't have a belief in god." necessarily implies a belief that "There is no god." It is itself a belief and there is no rational way around that, nor is it preferable to try to get around that. I find that whole issue very unfortunate, as there are some on this talk page who have prevailed in the article with the religious belief that atheism is not a belief because it is the "the absence of a particular belief." That doesn't change the fact that it is the particular belief that there is no god. Greg Bard (talk) 15:37, 16 March 2011 (UTC) Guys, this isn't a forum for you to espouse original research. Get sources or stop polluting the talk page. GManNickG (talk) 16:07, 16 March 2011 (UTC) That's a funny idea of belief. I have so many beliefs by that logic. I believe with my hand on my heart that there are no pink unicorns. I believe that no matter how well I paint a bird it will not fly out of the canvas. I believe if I tried lifting a lorry in the air with one hand I would fail. Really saying 'I believe' for any of those is elevating them far too high, I'd just have a screw loose if I thought otherwise. Dmcq (talk) 19:54, 16 March 2011 (UTC) It's not really a funny idea about belief, it's in line with the primary definition of the term in pretty much any dictionary. For instance: "something believed; an opinion or conviction," or "a principle, proposition, idea, etc, accepted as true." Based on the most common idea of what a belief is you do indeed believe those things--unless you're lying of course :). In the context of irreligious belief some people (more commonly atheists but not all atheists and not only atheists) for some odd reason think that a more specific notion of belief is in effect. For instance you seem to be invoking at least this sense of belief, "confidence; faith; trust: a child's belief in his parents, which indeed is more intense than regular belief, or perhaps you're going straight for this sense of belief, "a religious tenet or tenets; religious creed or faith: the Christian belief." Part of the confusion is that critics of atheism often also invoke the latter notion of belief in comparison, claiming that irreligious belief is a creed of some kind. Well it might not be a creed but it certainly is a belief. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 20:39, 16 March 2011 (UTC) In a religion context like this rejecting a belief certainly sounds better to me even if it might be some sort of belief in dictionary terms. I would go with what sources say even if they eventually turn out in the main to say otherwise, but using 'logic' to reach conclusions and then phrase to suit the logic rather than sources sounds in Wikipedia terms like WP:Original research to me. Dmcq (talk) 14:50, 17 March 2011 (UTC) You have to go to another language like Irish to see that the argument about 'believe' is because the word is used for multiple things. In Irish there are three different words for 'know', whether you know something from direct experience, by being told it by a person, or by learning it from a book (you'd have much less problem explaining reliable sources!) and there is yet another word for believe as is used for the apostolic creed and there is another for thinking something because you have worked it out for yourself. Dmcq (talk) 11:27, 18 March 2011 (UTC) Oh, it would be nice if the english lanugage made such distinctions! :) Kevin Baastalk 13:04, 18 March 2011 (UTC) Ahem: WP:NOR, WP:RS, WP:NOTAFORUM. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:45, 18 March 2011 (UTC) Greetings folks, My apologies in advance to my fellow atheists whom I think are generally very brilliant. My apology is because I have, in the past, dealt with wikipedians who are quite pedantic, prima donnaish, arrogant, etcetera and I find it distasteful as anyone would. However it will appear I am currently doing the same thing, however please let me point out that with a degree in logic it really is my proper role to tell people "don't think that way". Rejection of a belief is itself necessarily a belief. That's how it works. I hope I can make this clear with an example. Fred says to Bob, "Bob, I have a firm belief that grass is not blue." This is to say that for Fred, he assigns a truth-value of "true" to the sentence "Grass is not blue." Bob says to Fred, "Well Fred, I guess you also believe that it's NOT the case that grass is NOT NOT blue." At this point Fred says to Bob, "Hold on a minute there! I never said ANYTHING about NOT believing that grass is NOT NOT blue. All I said was that I believe that grass is not blue. IT'S TOTALLY DIFFERENT. In fact, I have an absence of the belief that it is not the case that grass is not not blue." I think some of us see immediately that this is completely unreasonable. If you believe p, then you necessarily believe not-not-p. It doesn't matter if you ever thought it, or said it, because that just means that it is a dispositional belief (which also obviously is a belief). In conclusion, we are responsible for our beliefs, but we are also responsible for all of the logical consequences of our beliefs. If person says they believe p, when they say they don't have a belief that not-not-p, we say that that person just isn't reasonable. If you state that you do not hold the belief in god, it necessarily means you hold the belief that there does not exist a god. This is because of a principle called Salva veritate. If you believe p, you believe not-not-p, and you believe not-not-not-not-p, etcetera. Otherwise, you just are not a reasonable person (which I think most atheists are). I also believe that some are conflating "belief" with "faith" or "religious belief." There does exist a thing called "reasonable belief" which is what atheism is. Greg Bard (talk) 20:40, 18 March 2011 (UTC) Ahem: WP:NOR, WP:RS, WP:NOTAFORUM. And please do not assume that editors who agree with the philosophy described on a page ("my fellow atheists") are the only one who edit the page, or should edit the page. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:44, 18 March 2011 (UTC) Well, you are absolutely correct. However, I am particularly dismayed that my fellow atheists are so wrong about the proper logical analysis of our shared belief system.Greg Bard (talk) 20:48, 18 March 2011 (UTC) Please let it die. Greg, I'll be happy to discuss it, but not on a talk page. Make a private subpage of your userspace and link to it, and we can talk about it there. But not here. That is, make your last reply be a link to it (really do, I want to talk about it), so we can close this discussion. GManNickG (talk) 21:10, 18 March 2011 (UTC) With respect, the issues being discussed are, in fact, relevant to the content to this article. I have not gone in and heavy-handedly edited the article so as to address these issues, but rather have chosen to work it out here. There is a discussion worth noting on my talk page currently too. Interestingly and also with all due respect, this response to just "let it die" is exactly the type of response that religious believers use to avoid the logical analysis of their beliefs. Please do relent. Atheism is certainly and obviously a belief. At the very least it is a dispositional belief. It is also certainly a theory on a metaphysical issue. Greg Bard (talk) 03:58, 19 March 2011 (UTC) Publish it somewhere reliable, then link to it. This isn't the place. GManNickG (talk) 09:49, 19 March 2011 (UTC)

New proposal ... just a starting point

Based on the older version of the lead that Modocc linked above I would like to suggest a new opening paragraph like the the one I'm posting below. Please keep in mind that I do not think it is perfectly written at all. In fact it may be problematic for a number of reasons. However, I think it is worth discussing whether or not we should replace what we currently have with something like this:

• Atheism is the rejection of theism or the disbelief in the existence of a deity or deities. It may be the positive belief that deities do not exist, or the deliberate refusal to believe in the existence of deities. As such it is often contrasted with agnosticism, which entails the suspension of both belief and disbelief. However, others, following the lead of several atheistic philosophers, adopt a broader view of atheism as the simple absence of belief in deities. In this view many agnostics, and people who have never heard of gods, such as the unchurched or newborn children, are considered atheists as well.

I did not add any of the references in, but it can be sourced and I'll do it if asked. Improvement? Step backwards? Let's discuss.Griswaldo (talk) 14:05, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I find it useful to see the original and the proposal together, for easier comparison. So here is a paste of what we have now:

• Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Most inclusively, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

--Tryptofish (talk) 20:15, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

My critique of the proposal is as follows.

Strengths:

1. Gives some nuance to where the ideas come from.
2. Points to the distinction with agnosticism.

Weaknesses:

1. Tends to be a little essay-like. The comparison with agnosticism seems to me to be overly long and disproportionate.
2. "Rejection of theism" has been debated to death in the past.
3. So has the use of the word "positive" to describe the word "belief", on the grounds that it sounds here like a value judgment. The same objection could be raised about "deliberate refusal".

Can we make use of the strengths without the weaknesses? --Tryptofish (talk) 20:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

While I do favour greater coverage of agnosticism in the article, it is not an easy task. I do not think we should sacrifice info in the definition of atheism in an attempt to cover agnosticism more fully in the first paragraph. The use of "or" is not clear as to whether it is presenting synonymous or alternative meanings. The meaning of "theism" is also multi-faceted & disputed. If we are going to add anything about agnosticism to the lede, we should try to do it without removing info already in the existing first prgrph. I REPEAT: It is not JUST under the absence def that there is an overlap of ath- & agn-. Under the rejection def, there ALSO is an overlap between atheism & agnosticism. Under neither def is agnosticism subsumed under atheism (as there are agnostic theists). Instead of completely reworking the lede, I think we are better off discussing what could be added to it. We could add to present 1st prgrph "Some writers contrast agnosticism and atheism[7], while others allow that one could be both an atheist and an agnostic.[8]" (We would have to leave a discussion of what agnosticism is to the body.) --JimWae (talk) 20:32, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

Additionally: "which entails the suspension of both belief and disbelief" is just one of 2 or 3 competing defs for agnosticism. Also it will probably be hard to find reliable sources that agree "suspension of disbelief" is a def of agnosticism. I am not even sure it makes sense. --JimWae (talk) 21:20, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

"disbelief" has the problem of ambiguity, covering "belief in the opposite of X", and "difficulty in believing X", and "rejection of belief in X" (making the proposed 1st sentence contain a redundancy or synonymy) - and, for some (mistakenly, I agree), "absence of belief (non-belief) in X". We should not make the def of the topic of the actual article less clear just to mention agnosticism more fully in the 1st prgrph. JimWae (talk) 21:42, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that this is essentially an impossible task. Atheism is an extremely broad "umbrella" term for a number of related philosophies that have the common properties of either not believing in, or dismissing the existence of, one or more deities. Trying to encapsulate this entire philosophy group in a single introductory paragraph probably isn't doing the topic justice. We should focus on trying to get the body of the article correct (including matters of weight). Hopefully, it will make it easier to produce a summary for the opening paragraph afterward. -- Scjessey (talk) 22:16, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with that very much. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:55, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

:-) It seems impossible perhaps, but heck, in the next few weeks, I'm going to be saving the world from global warming, thus I can't stick with improving this article as much as I would like. But that's another topic. I agree here with Jim about the ambiguity problem. The suspension of belief and disbelief statement only makes sense with disbelief's narrowest connotation. The frequent usage of disbelief in the literature allows for varied interpretations, and some confusion too and thus I see the current lede as a good starting point on which to add or integrate material into from the proposal. Since agnosticism is most clearly contrasted with the more common narrow definition of belief in no god, we can contrast that with agnosticism as follows. "In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism, in this narrower sense, is distinguished from agnosticism, the view that suspends belief in the existence or nonexistence of the divine because of lack of knowledge." This followed of course with something about the broadest def., but I think the proposed text needs to be substantially trimmed, in part, to avoid UNDUE. --Modocc (talk) 23:24, 28 January 2011 (UTC)

I would agree that it is an impossible task, but that doesn't mean that some definitions aren't better than others. Personally, I really dislike this whole 'rejection' thing; there's no word in the English language to describe someone who 'rejects' the existence of fairies, or unicorns, or anything else for that matter. To me, atheism describes the absence of belief, and there are plenty of references available to support that view, but I have to live with the fact that some people see it as meaning something else. We need a definition that acknowledges all these viewpoints, without giving precedence to any. Obscurasky (talk) 00:05, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

We just about have that universal definition here although it is not explicit about the narrowest definition since the denial of belief in God's existence is not the same as denial of God's existence. I have advocated for this, since we can paraphrase this definition, but the problem is that its the only encyclopedic source for it and it is defunct and it does not have the prestige of the Britannica. Therefore, other reliable sources will likely need to adopt this definition before it can be incorporated without significant objections from editors involving wp:SYN and wp:NPOV. --Modocc (talk) 00:47, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Fair enough, working with that, but still keeping the present overall shape of it, how about:

• Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. In this narrower sense, it is distinguished from agnosticism, the view that suspends belief in the existence or nonexistence of the divine because of lack of knowledge. Several atheistic philosophers adopt a broader view of atheism, as simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

I used a bit of Griswaldo's language for the "broad" version, and Modocc's language for agnosticism, although I'm not confident that the latter addresses some of the points that JimWae raised. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:13, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Thinking about what JimWae said, and looking at the lead of agnosticism, I'd like to modify the suggestion above, as follows:

• Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. In this narrower sense, it is distinguished from agnosticism, the view that the existence or nonexistence of the divine is unknowable. Several atheistic philosophers adopt a broader view of atheism, as simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

--Tryptofish (talk) 00:21, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

You may have missed my revision. Also I would revise your version with the phrase "is either unknown or unknowable". I'm still thinking on your proposed absence def text... I think that it could be a bit more elaborate, but I'm not sure yet how to word it. --Modocc (talk) 01:12, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I have no doubt that I've missed stuff! :-) Anyone, please feel free to take a whack at it, and modify what I wrote. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:42, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps:

Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities and is distinct from agnosticism. Most inclusively, many atheists, including several atheist philosophers, view atheism to be simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. In this view, those who have never heard of gods, such as some unchurched people and young children, are also considered to be atheists. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

I know I am doing an about face reversal on my earlier stance on defining agnosticism here, but this version seems more balanced. --Modocc (talk) 05:00, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Alternatively:

Atheism, in a broad sense, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities and is distinct from agnosticism. In a broader view, atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. In this view, those who have never heard of gods, such as some unchurched people and young children, are also considered to be atheists. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

I prefer this trimmer version because I'm not sure its proper to point out in vague terms who holds the view regarding the absence definition. --Modocc (talk) 15:32, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't understand the need for "unchurched" sentence at all. That level of detail seems out of place in the lede and better suited for the article body. In fact, it seems like we are making too much effort to explain everything. We don't even need to explain what theism is because the blue link takes care of that. How about something like this?

Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities, the position that there are no deities, or simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. It contrasts with theism.

Leave the nuance to the article body. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:44, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Well, I have to admit that Scjessey's version does indeed leave the nuance to the article body! But, for my taste, it leaves way too much. As for Modocc's versions, I agree with Scjessey about not seeing the need for the "unchurched" sentence. I also find the statement about being distinct from agnosticism too abrupt, too lacking in an indication of why it is distinct. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:41, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

I think the most important thing is that after reading the 1st paragraph, it is clear to the reader that he has read 3 definitions of atheism. Part of definition is distinguishing it from related or somewhat opposite concepts. It is not enough to just link to theism, for theism has different defs -- yet it is still quite simple to identify which def is most important to a def of atheism. It is NOT so clear which def of agnosticism to use. (Indeed, our agnosticism article gives only one def [maybe 1 1/2 ] of agnosticism]). For clarity's sake, the definitions are better presented before we try to distinguish any of them from anything else (unless each def were to get its own paragraph). Because the definition of agnosticism is so unsettled, it is too complicated to try to define agnosticism in the 1st paragraph. Also, it is unbalanced to contrast agnosticism withjust one def of atheism & not mention how it relates to the others. It is also unbalanced to give so much attention to scope of just 2 defs (denial def & the absence def) in the lede (beside which, doing that "inline" also makes it harder to be sure after reading that one has read 3 defs of atheism). I do think it is important to mention agnosticism in the lede, but this needs to be done in as general a way as possible.

Atheism, broadly defined, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1 Encyclopedia Britannica (Nielsen), Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Edwards)] Under a narrower definition, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[2 Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Rowe), (Baggini)] The most inclusive definition, disputed even by atheist writers,[3 (Nagel)] is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist.[4 Flew, Martin, Smith, perhaps d'Holbach] Atheism is contrasted with theism,[4][5] which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[5][6] Some writers contrast agnosticism and atheism,[7 Baginni] while others allow that one could be both an atheist and an agnostic.[8 Nielsen, Edwards, Flint, Russell, perhaps Dawkins]

The scopes in relation to agnostics & babies & unchurched can come later. --JimWae (talk) 20:24, 29 January 2011 (UTC)

Overall that is an improvement, especially the agnosticism addition. It does not say though what the dispute is and it is unclear on what proportion of atheists object (many, some, or a few?). And should it even matter what the writers' beliefs are (potential biases by writers are always important when filtering information on a case-by-case basis, but should we be pointing out these biases with such broad brushes in the lede?). I like starting off with "broadly defined", and suggest "The most inclusive definition, adopted by some writers, but disputed as too inclusive by others, is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist." --Modocc (talk) 14:04, 30 January 2011 (UTC) ER, now that I think on it, ALL the definitions are disputed. Thus a conservative edit giving the appropriate weight sought would be simply "The most inclusive definition, adopted by some writers, is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist." --Modocc (talk) 14:53, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

It is not an improvement at all. The introduction of an article is supposed to be a concise summary of the body, ideally without references (because they will be in the body). This proposal is far too long-winded and detailed, and not at all in the spirit of WP:LEAD ("The lead should define the topic and summarize the body of the article with appropriate weight."). While atheism is clearly a range of related philosophies, it is better to say that rather than trying to elucidate all of them in one paragraph. -- Scjessey (talk) 15:11, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

The entire lead is what summarizes the article and it is the first paragraph which defines the subject and it can be more than two sentences. The first sentence in this suggestion is long-winded too, relatively speaking of course. Showing how these are different definitions with some context regarding how the topic is defined seems reasonable to me. --Modocc (talk) 16:41, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

New proposal break

We can work on the wordiness of the proposal. For instance, I suggest replacing "Under a narrower definition" with "More narrowly defined". Here then is my amended version of Jim's suggestion minus the references he gave (to make this easier to read):

Atheism, broadly defined, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. More narrowly defined, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. The most inclusive definition, adopted by some writers, is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists. Some writers contrast agnosticism and atheism, while others allow that one could be both an atheist and an agnostic.

Additional thoughts? --Modocc (talk) 17:33, 30 January 2011 (UTC)

Why do we need to state how widely or narrowly defined a particular subset of atheism is at all? Why can't it be something less elaborate? This is still a bit wordy, but more in the general direction I think we should be going:

Atheism is an umbrella term for a number of related philosophies that include the rejection of belief in the existence of deities, the position that there are no deities, or the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism. Some writers contrast it with agnosticism, while others allow that one could be both an atheist and an agnostic.

-- Scjessey (talk) 00:42, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I would meet the above proposal halfway. The first definition should be given as more general, but we needn't be so explicit about the broadness. How about?

Atheism is a broad category of philosophy characterized by disbelief in the existence of deities. Such philosophies may include the affirmative position that no deities exist, or merely the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism. Some writers contrast it with agnosticism, while others allow that one could be both an atheist and an agnostic.

Noisalt (talk) 01:47, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Noisalt I like the form of your proposed lead but based on a lot of good arguments made in earlier discussions, I think there should be three definitions.

1. The affirmative position that no deities exist.
2. The rejection of belief based on knowledge of purported deities.
3. The absence of belief, with or without knowledge of purported deities. (With the caveat, that this is not as widely held a viewpoint.)

To Scjessey point about the need for narrow, wide and most inclusive language. I agree, if this is the point being made, that labeling the definition explicitly is not needed if the language used is clear enough for a new reader to parse out the relationships between each definition. Which may not be the case but I can't judge that as I have read it too many times. — Rɑːlɑːjər ^talk 04:17, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Absence of belief is not a philosophy, nor is atheism for that matter. Since this is an encyclopedia & not a dictionary, and since there are 3 defs not one, it is entirely appropriate to do more than bang out the 3 defs without touching on how they relate. Again, simply stating "atheism is contrasted with theism" is too terse & borders on laconic, especially given the fact that theism also has more than one def. It is not a matter of what we NEED to do at a minimum, but of what we can do & of what helps the reader by giving some context to the definitions. I separately realized that it is not just the absence def that is disputed by reliable sources; the denial def is even more widely disputed by sources (for being too narrow). I am not aware of any specific objection being raised by reliable sources to the rejection def, but it could become unwieldy to give even the 2 disputes & still keep the readers' attention clearly focussed on there being 3 defs of atheism. As such, I think Modocc's version is the proposal that we should now focus on. --JimWae (talk) 07:34, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree on what you say about philosophy - chalk that up to a failure on my part to come up with an appropriate descriptor, but I still think we are going down a path which is overly complicated. For some atheists, atheism is a philosophy (perhaps "position" is a better word), but for others it is not. The point I was trying to make is that atheism is an umbrella term without a specific definition. The different flavors of atheism are related, but they don't necessarily have anything in common. This contrasts with the various flavors of theism, since all theists believe in one or more gods. One thing we definitely don't want to do is waste time trying to define theism beyond that obvious point. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:40, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Jim, though objections to the narrowest definition, IMO, come from those who espouse the broadest or a version of it. There may be quite a few prominent examples of this from atheist writers, but none in mainstream tertiary sources (as far as I am aware). In other words objection to the narrow definition is a minority view, just as holding the broad definition is. Scjessey, different understandings of what atheism is are not simply like the available flavors of ice-cream at the local supermarket. They differ in important ways that go beyond their mere definitions, and contextualizing the matter is very informative to our readers. I also agree that Modocc has made some good suggestions and that we're better off trying to work with those.Griswaldo (talk) 12:56, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Just to be clear, I have no objections to any of the definitions; furthermore, I fully understand their meaning and do not think of them like "flavors of ice-cream" as you appear to suggest. I agree that being as expository as possible is important, but I disagree with the notion that we need all that exposition in the article introduction. We must not scare off readers with a complex game of verbal Twister, but instead we must draw them in with a summary written in clear, concise language. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:29, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Clarity is of course very important. I doubt anyone will disagree. WP:UNDUE is the issue. Proper contextualization is important, from the outset so we don't present minority POVs next to majority POVs as if they are different in substance alone. For the record, I would support Modocc's latest version instead of the current one.Griswaldo (talk) 13:41, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Please clarify: to what "minority POV" are you referring? -- Scjessey (talk) 13:44, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

The most inclusive definition is held by a distinct minority. A minority of Reliable sources (we can count them on one hand practically) and a minority of English speakers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:47, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

This is why it needs qualification, like "adopted by some writers" in Modocc's version. I would lean towards an even harder stance on this, but on this page my perspective seems to be in the minority regarding that, so I'm happy with Modocc's language as a compromise.Griswaldo (talk) 13:50, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

(after ec) - Reliable sources of any kind are few and far between in this topic, and it is clear that with the rise of "activist atheism" (and "activist anti-atheism") the very meaning of the term is evolving again (it used to refer to people who didn't believe in many gods, so it has evolved before). This reinforces my earlier point that the introduction is not the best place to try to resolve all these differences. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:58, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you meant by "it used to refer to people who didn't believe in many gods". The meaning of the term has changed quite a bit over the years, but we ought to present the full contemporary situation. If it changes we can change what we write, but currently the inclusive definition is very much so a minority POV. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 14:38, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

That's exactly the point. The meaning is evolving again, and what you refer to as a "minority POV" is gaining traction with contemporary scholars and influential figures. The lack of reliable sources you refer to may be because this more inclusive definition is a more recent development; however, if we attribute greater weight to more recent reliable sources (as is usually the case), the "minority POV" begins to look far more mainstream. Besides, as long as we aren't talking about a fringe view, it deserves to be fully explored in the article. That being said, I still think we don't need to go into such exposition in the introduction. -- Scjessey (talk) 18:49, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

Gaining traction with scholars and influential figures? Who exactly is it "gaining traction" with? The only "scholars" who support it are a handful of atheist philosophers. I don't see any evidence from religious studies or the social sciences that this definition has gained any traction. I also don't see any non-atheist philosophers supporting it either. The minority POV does not, in any way, begin to look more mainstream from any angle I can see. Can you provide some evidence of what you're describing. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 20:43, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

1. Lumping them under an umbrella puts all 3 defs on one level, instead of pointing to the issue that they are actually competing defs with different scopes. 2. There's no source for "umbrella term". 3. Talking about the "term" is violation of WP:NOTDIC. 4. The narrowest def is also disputed by Nielsen & Edwards & Nagel. 5. There's no source that "the meaning [of atheism] is evolving", and it is not our job to attempt to move any evolution along. 6. Just to be clear, my view is that the absence def fails as a definition. Infants and rocks are not atheists and mathematics & biology are not forms of atheism. 7. The absence def has enough currency that we cannot dismiss it, but it is a minority position disputed by both atheists & theists. It has only gained currency because people find the denial def too narrow & are unaware of or have not investigated the rejection def. The absence def does not describe how the term atheism is actually used, it is a stipulative definition about how the authors wish the term to be defined because they do not like the implications of the denial def and want it to become antiquated -- but its proponents do not clearly confront the question of how their stipulative def would deal with infants & rocks & math. 8. Scope has been included in the 1st paragraph for more than 5 years & it does not detract from comprehending the prgrph. The scope a> provides a context of comparison for the 3 defs, b> helps the reader realize some differences between the defs, & c> makes it clearer that there are 3 separate defs, each with a different range of application. There is no dispute over which of the 3 defs is narrowest nor which is broadest, so we are not trying to "resolve all these differences". 9. Modocc's latest version is the one to focus on now.--JimWae (talk) 20:52, 31 January 2011 (UTC)

I've removed the extremely rude {{who}} tag placed in my comment, in clear violation of talk page etiquette. I take a very dim view of having my comments edited. I think all the definitions presented are valid, and I don't think an article introduction should be used to indicate a preference other than the order in which they are presented. You guys need to relax and let everyone present their comments without all this acerbic crap that's being flung around. I recommend perusing WP:OWN as well. -- Scjessey (talk) 00:54, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I had no idea adding that tag was considered poor talk page etiquette and did not mean to offend you (I only meant to be clear). My sincere apologies for doing that. However, I fail to see where these other accusations stem from. WP:OWN? Many of us are contributing to a discussion here. Do you feel like you're not being taken seriously? I think this discussion has been progressing rather well, again with input form multiple parties, and I don't see any WP:OWN violations here. I have not agreed with much of what you've argued specifically because I do not think it reflects reality. That is why I have asked for sources, why I questioned "who" you think backs the inclusive definition. Not agreeing with you, and failing to see how you are substantiating your arguments does not amount to bullying or ownership. Sorry it simply doesn't. Everyone who watches this page has the opportunity to chime in whenever they want. I personally welcome more voices here. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 02:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

To my previous comment in favor shorter form lead paragraph, that decision was largely aesthetic but having read JimWae and other points I think that for clarity each of the definitions should be differentiated. To Modocc's latest suggested revision. I think the definitions are good as is but the latter half of the paragraph contrasting atheism with theism and agnosticism is where I feel some changes might be made. I know this has been discussed above but the inclusion of a theism definition and not a agnosticism definition seems backwards. Theism in my experience is better understood than agnosticism. However, I appreciate that theism is more to the subject matter of the article. I know that the argument for agnosticisms inclusion results from the desire not to conflate it with atheism as a result of the inclusive definition, which as has been pointed out can be absurdly inclusive. In Modocc's version agnosticism is address as follows:

Some writers contrast agnosticism and atheism, while others allow that one could be both an atheist and an agnostic.

From MOS:LEAD "...the lead nonetheless should not "tease" the reader by hinting at—but not explaining—important facts that will appear later in the article." To what degree the contrast or compatibility of atheism and agnosticism is an important is questionable; however, I think by presenting two very different viewpoints without a little context is a tease. Perhaps an addition explaining that agnosticism is a position on knowledge. — Rɑːlɑːjər^talk² 03:02, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Near Consensus

To return our focus, here is Modocc's proposed lede from above, which seems to be approaching consensus.

Atheism, broadly defined, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. More narrowly defined, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. The most inclusive definition, adopted by some writers, is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists. Some writers contrast agnosticism and atheism, while others allow that one could be both an atheist and an agnostic.

I'm much happier with this proposal than the current lede.

Still, I'll offer minor alterations for improvement.

In reply to several points above, I think terms which link directly to their own pages can, in the interest of clarity and focus, be sparsely defined in the lede. Do others agree with this?

We currently have 3 definitions. The first two, broad and narrow, are canonical and precise. The third, "most inclusive" has been the subject of much debate. As long as we give the first two appropriate central weight, including the third definition with context seems fine (read: less objectionable than giving it equal weight). Here is a proposal that attempts to provide a little more context and appropriate weight:

Atheism, broadly defined, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. More narrowly defined, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. Atheism is often contrasted with theism (belief in one or more deities) and agnosticism (belief that the existence or absence of deities is unknowable). Some varieties of agnosticism can be grouped with atheism, yielding a most inclusive definition; the absence of belief in deities.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Jj1236 (talk • contribs) 06:50, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The most inclusive definition includes all agnostics except agnostic theists but also everyone/everything that doesn't believe in deities. (A brief aside on the most inclusive definition, not really meant for consideration for the article. I would hope the writers who formulated this definition intended for people to assume the absence of belief was limited to entities capable of belief.) In Jj1236 version the inclusive definition is limited to varieties of agnosticism being called atheism too. The "...adopted by some writers..." qualification is sufficient to highlight it as a minority view. Thinking more about agnosticism in the lead I think it should be more explicitly tied to the inclusive definition. Something along the lines of

Atheism, broadly defined, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. More narrowly defined, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities. The most inclusive definition, adopted by some writers, is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. This inclusiveness extends atheism to those without knowledge of theistic claims and to agnosticism which the question of existence of deities as considered unknown or unknowable. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists. .

I am not exactly sure that it will work as written but it as close I can get this late (GMT -8). Reading it again I think the inclusive definition is getting too much weight. Leaving it for now. — Rɑːlɑːjər^talk² 09:49, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

I do not think we should lose the contrast with agnosticism, especially since it is more common to contrast than to compare. How about?

Atheism, broadly defined, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. More narrowly defined, atheism is the position that there are no deities. The most inclusive definition, adopted by some writers, is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. This inclusiveness extends atheism to those without knowledge of theistic claims and to agnosticism, which is the question of existence of deities as considered unknown or unknowable and is usually distinguished from atheism. Atheism is always contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.

Here, I've taken Ralajer's version and added something about the distinction between agnosticism and atheism, while keeping that distinction weaker than the one with theism. Thoughts?Griswaldo (talk) 14:13, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The phrase "More narrowly defined, atheism is specifically the position" sounds clumsy to me. "Narrowly defined" and "specifically" are synonyms. —Noisalt (talk) 15:48, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

OK done. What about the rest?Griswaldo (talk) 16:16, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

The issue is not just agnosticism & the 3rd def (which is not well done in the above). As I have already said twice, agnosticism & atheism also overlap under the rejection def. It looks like we will need a section in the body on this. One issue will be how to define agnosticism. I have to rush off right now - back in about 10 hrs. --JimWae (talk) 18:00, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Jim, you keep on saying that agnosticism also overlaps with the rejection definition. Can you please explain how it overlaps and, more importantly can you provide references for this. In terms of defining other terms, I do not see a problem with either 1) only blue linking both agnosticism and theism or 2) using the most common definitions for both terms. We ought not to haggle over how to define agnosticism in this lead, we simply ought to go with what is most common, or link to our entry and be done with it.Griswaldo (talk) 19:14, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

1. I think we should blue link both theism and agnosticism, and also (as the page currently does) blue link deities.
2. In addition to blue linking theism and agnosticism, we should also provide very succinct definitions of both of them, to make clear how they are differentiated from atheism. And I agree with Griswaldo that it is not necessary to haggle over the definition of agnosticism. Just paraphrase the lead of that page.
3. There are some overly wordy formulations in some of the most recent versions that I think are much too wordy: This inclusiveness extends atheism to those without knowledge of theistic claims. I would leave all of that out.
4. I also don't like saying atheism is "always" contrasted with theism, as it ends up inviting the question "Really always?" even though we all know what it means here.

--Tryptofish (talk) 19:46, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

@Tryptofish. You're right about always, it shouldn't be there. I was trying to make one contrast stronger than the other, but that was a bad way to do it. I do think its getting a bit wordy as well. Let's see what we can do about that.Griswaldo (talk) 19:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

@Jim. I really think we need to see some sources for the "overlap" between the rejection definition and agnosticism. Here's a good example of what I'm finding instead. Kai Nielsen writes the Britannica entry on atheism. He defines atheism in the introduction in the narrowest sense, and contrasts it directly with agnosticism. Further down into the entry he brings in the rejection definition as a broader understanding of atheism. There he discusses agnosticism as well, and touches upon areas of inter-relation in a nuanced discussion of the two, but the whole while he treats them as separate concepts. In fact he takes an entire paragraph to explain how they are still divergent. I don't see why we can't make the same differentiation that Nielsen does in the lead, and then discuss the matter in more nuance later in the entry by using good sources. I have yet to see any sources that introduce the concept of atheism as possibly overlapping with agnosticism, even if they discuss the relationship between the two in more detail later on. It should also be noted that, like in most reference works the "broadest" definition we use here is non-existent.Griswaldo (talk) 19:56, 1 February 2011 (UTC)

Atheism & Agnosticism

Here is the definition of agnosticism given by our wikipedia article:

"Agnosticism is the view that the truth value of certain claims—especially claims about the existence or non-existence of any deity, but also other religious and metaphysical claims—is unknown or unknowable."

Nielsen & Edwards never specifically define agnosticism, but both, at least, describe it.

• Nielsen partially likens the agnostic and the atheist, saying "An agnostic, like an atheist, asserts either that he does not know that God exists—or, more typically, that he cannot know or have sound reasons for believing that God exists—..."
• Edwards says "...an agnostic maintains that it is not known or cannot be known whether there is a God, that is, whether the sentence “God exists” expresses a true proposition." He too allows a similarity between agnostics and at least some atheists by continuing "On our definition, an “atheist” is a person who rejects belief in God, regardless of whether or not his reason for the rejection is the claim that “God exists” expresses a false proposition.

Both Edwards and Nielsen differentiate agnostics from atheists by referring to a personal attitude.

• Nielsen distinguishes agnostics from atheists by noting the agnostic attitude in response to the situation is to suspend belief (rather than rejecting it). "It is not that such a fallibilistic atheist is really an agnostic who believes that he is not justified in either asserting that God exists or denying that he exists and that what he must reasonably do is suspend belief."
• Edwards says "A person will be an agnostic if he does not accept any of these three claims [belief in a metaphysical God, in an infinite anthropomorphic God, and in a finite anthropomorphic God] - but at the same time suspends judgment concerning at least one of them. It will be observed that on our way of drawing the lines, agnosticism and atheism remain distinct positions, since suspension of judgment and rejection are different attitudes.

In order to distinguish atheists from agnostics, both add conditions beyond those in the definition given in our agnosticism article, and by using an attitude to distinguish them, they are mostly distinguishing atheISTS from agnostICS - not atheISM from agnosticISM. (It is for this reason that I have withdrawn their works as SOURCES for an overlap between atheists and agnostics. Other sources will have to do. [Flint, Russell, perhaps Dawkins, Flew, Martin, Smith])

If we define agnosticism without including the attitude of suspending belief (as our agnosticism article does) we are left with the claim that it is not known whether there are any deities or not. Even being a "positive" atheist (claiming that there are no deities) is not incompatible with agreeing one does not know "At least one deity exists" is false. (Both Nielsen and Edwards agree that there are atheists [nowhere defined by them as absence atheists] who do not claim knowledge that "A deity exists" is false.) If denial atheism is not incompatible with agnosticism, certainly rejection atheism need not be.

It is also entirely possible under our wiki-def of agnosticism for someone to agree that it is unknown whether deities exist or not, yet still believe at least one does exist (i.e. be a theist). Both Kierkegaard & Kant qualify as agnostic theists. Thus the absence def of atheism cannot include ALL agnostics, nor include agnosticism. Thus it is not true (or is misleading, besides being unbalanced) that "the inclusiveness extends atheism to... agnosticism".

So where do we go from here? I think either we rewrite the agnosticism article or we go with something very general about agnosticism, such as Modocc's version. The main conceptual distinction is that atheism is about (rejecting) belief whereas agnosticism is about (lack of) knowledge). I will try to add a def of agnosticism thusly:

Atheism, broadly defined, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1] More narrowly defined, atheism is the (assertive) position that there are no deities.[2] The most inclusive definition, adopted by some writers,[3][4*Nagel opposes] is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[4][5] Some writers contrast atheism with agnosticism,[6] which is the view that we do not know whether there are any deities or not;[7][8] other writers allow that one could be both an atheist and an agnostic.[9]

--JimWae (talk) 06:06, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

---

• Jim, Nielsen and Edwards did not only distinguishing between atheists and agnostics, nor am I at all convinced that they are focusing on human actors, as opposed to the cognitive stances taken by those actors. In his Britannica entry, Nielsen writes explicitly in the introduction that, "[a]theism is also distinguished from agnosticism, which leaves open the question whether there is a god or not, professing to find the questions unanswered or unanswerable" (emphasis added). As you quote yourself, Edwards writes that, "[i]t will be observed that on our way of drawing the lines, agnosticism and atheism remain distinct positions, since suspension of judgment and rejection are different attitudes" (emphasis added). The further claim that when Edwards and Nielsen use the terms "atheist" and "agnostic" to discuss "attitudes" that they are not equivocating with "atheism" and "agnosticism" is plain and simply WP:OR. It is in fact as an attitude, or cognitive stance that the "atheist" becomes the exemplar of "atheism". That the authors agree with this is also rather obvious in the texts you are quoting. Of course hairsplitting aside, they also clearly differentiate the two -isms, as we've seen, so I simply cannot agree with your argument on its face. Can you please present sources that actually support the claim that the rejection definition allows for overlap between agnosticism and atheism in unequivocal terms, and not through presumptions and original analysis that may not be agreeable to others, such as myself. Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 15:29, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I will point out that Nielsen also states he is beginning with some inadequate notions, and though he says they are CONCEPTUALLY different, nowhere does he give a cognitive criteria to differentiate atheISM from agnostISM, he gives an attitude to differentiate agnosTICS from atheISTS. However, that does not matter for the article, for I am not arguing that we say in the article that the rejection def allows one to be both an atheist and an agnostic (and I have already said we cannot use Nielsen not Edwards to support that). You have been arguing that we single out the absence def as one that allows one to be both. It is quite clear that on the present def in agnosticism (which now has good refs), there is no incompatibility between agnosticism & theism --nor even with denial atheism. I am proposing that we make a generic statement about atheists and agnostics, support for which can be found in Flint, Russell, Dawkins, Flew, Martin, & Smith. --JimWae (talk) 16:32, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Where does Neilsen say anything about "attitudes"? I only see Edwards doing so. That said, an attitude is cognitive. From The Oxford Companion to Philosophy - "attitude. In a broad sense, any mental state with propositional content." Agnosticism, and atheism are abstractions when we discuss them conceptually. When these abstractions are embodied in human actors, especially ideal typical human actors such as those discussed by philosophers, we all of a sudden have "mental state[s] with [different] propositional content." Atheism, and agnosticism, in other words, are the differing propositional contents of the mental states held by atheists and agnostics separately. Where does the idea that attitudes are not cognitive come from?Griswaldo (talk) 17:10, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Jim, we use sources here to back our claims. You continue to say that such and such is "obvious" or "clear", while I continue to ask for sources and you don't provide them. That doesn't cut it. It is not "clear" that even "denial atheism" is compatible with agnosticism. It will remain unclear until such time that you provide sources that actually make this assertion. I do not deny that there can be overlap between certain conceptualizations of atheism and agnosticism (even perhaps atheisms other than the one of the inclusive def.). However, sources that we actually have make it clear that there is overlap if one accepts the inclusive definition. No sources have yet made it clear that there is significant overlap if one adopts another definition. That said, I don't want to lose my actual point, which perhaps I have not stated clearly yet. Atheism and agnosticism, when mentioned together, are usually differentiated in reliable sources. To say, that some writers differentiate and some other writers don't, is to mislead our readers rather drastically. I suggested above that we follow Nielsen's way of presenting the matter in Britannica. He differentiates the two in his introduction. He then discusses further down in the entry, and in a nuanced way, how the two are related (though again still separate). Now, Nielsen does not cover the most inclusive definition at all, but we do. If we are to have the most inclusive definition in the lead, and if we are to explain that it would include agnostics, then we have no choice but to present the matter in a certain way - 1) Agnosticism and atheism are usually distinguished from one another 2) but in the inclusive definition they are not. You seem to object because you think this implies that there can never be any amount of overlap between the two in the first two definitions. But "usually" does not mean always, it means "usually". From what I see, "usually (or perhaps "commonly") is also accurate. If we then touch upon how some writers see a manner of similarity or overlap in the main body we are, as Nielsen is, covering the subject adequately and with DUE weight. Why do you insist on making it seem like they are not "usually" differentiated, and again what is the evidence from the sources for this?Griswaldo (talk) 16:50, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

By the way, I think even writers who themselves would not differentiate agnosticism and atheism, or would insist that they cannot be clearly differentiated, or that it is fallacious to differentiate them, would agree that the two are usually or commonly distinguished from one another.Griswaldo (talk) 17:46, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Just to throw in my two cents here; after glancing at the discussion above, I think this conversation is not approaching the right outcome. We've got to try and get away from this "Broadly defined" nonsense. It's poor writing, and it lacks concision. Frankly, I liked where SJ was going with -

Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities, the position that there are no deities, or simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. It contrasts with theism.

Simple, concise, accurate. Can we setup some can of straw poll with all the proposals to try to get some sense of which options can achieve the greatest consensus? NickCT (talk) 18:01, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Nick, I sympathize with this in theory, and if the inclusive definition were not part of the first paragraph in the lead I would be happy with something similar. For instance:

• Atheism is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities or the position that there are no deities. It is usually contrasted with theism and agnosticism.

IMO, it is the addition of the very uncommon, "inclusive" definition that causes problems here. A handful (literally) of atheist philosophers have put this forth as a viable definition of atheism. It is WP:UNDUE in the first few sentences, but people insist that it must be there. IMO, the suggestions above have been compromises - ways to be more accurate in the presentation of these definitions, because the inclusive one is so uncommon, and because it clearly includes agnostics.Griswaldo (talk) 19:17, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

I agree with Griswaldo's concise formulation of the definition; it gets my vote 100%, no qualms. Jj1236 (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

Why? Because all the problems of qualifying, contextualizing, and elaborate awkward phrasing are direct results of attempting to bludgeon the "most inclusive" definition into undue prominence. It doesn't belong in the opening paragraph. It can't be made into an unobjectionable true statement without extensive qualification and bulky context. There's space for all of this in the body of the article, and that's where it belongs. No one in favor of putting the "most inclusive" definition in the opening has even attempted to reply to Jim's extensive and highly informed reasons and critique. Unless someone can do that adequately, the case should be closed. Jj1236 (talk) 22:28, 2 February 2011 (UTC)

@Griswaldo & Jj1236 - Agreed. That wording works for me. I think we can probably assume SJ's support for the wording. That's four editors backing the wording. I might suggest that that might be enough to simply be WP:BOLD and go ahead and change it.... NickCT (talk) 01:47, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

I disagree. First of all, whether or not "most inclusive" is given "undue weight" is not merely a question of adding up sources. It's a question of evaluating the significance of those sources in the literature of atheism: it is indisputable that prominent writers have adopted the inclusive typology. Secondly, it is simply false as a matter of fact to say that the inclusive typology is marginal, when it is explicit in the most authoritative dictionary definitions. Thirdly, it should be pointed out that this is not a subject where the literature is alive with controversy. Very few sources criticise other typologies of atheism, instead they ignore other views, and either develop or adopt their own. Thus Julian Baggini offers no substantive analysis of other typologies of atheism, and does not provide any substantive discussion of the issue. --Dannyno (talk) 21:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Dannyno, can you please provide the necessary sources for your claims? I was about to reply to them but I realized that we should be clear on what we are discussing first.

1) What "prominent writers have adopted the inclusive typology"?

2) What are you considering "the most authoritative dictionary definitions"?

The problem is that a majority of sources ignore the inclusive definition. The handful of sources that do not ignore it, do not themselves ignore the other definitions. That is a hallmark of a significant minority, or even possibly fringe, POV. I'm not saying this is "fringe" exactly, but consider that most mainstream scholarship in a given field flat out ignores fringe perspectives, and does not spend time refuting them. Please do provide sources for the two claims above so we can discuss them. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 22:14, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Feels like we have to rehearse this every few years.

George H. Smith, of course, I assume he's canonical on this. Antony Flew everyone knows about. Michael Martin I see has already been mentioned. But then also pretty much everyone in the British freethought/secularist movement; GJ Holyoake, Charles Bradlaugh, Chapman Cohen ("The Theist is one who believes in a personal God. The Atheist is one who is without belief in a personal God." Theism or atheism: the great alternative, London: Pioneer Press, 1921). Then historians of rationalism like Jim Herrick ("Atheist is quite clear in its meaning of 'somebody without a belief in God'." (Against the Faith, 1985, p.17). Then you have sources like the New Catholic Encyclopedia (1967), where the entry for atheism says "An atheist is a man who lives without God." None of these sources regard rejection as the necessary element, and would be casting the atheist net wider than Edwards. Thus, while numerically other definitions may (or may not) have the edge, it cannot be ignored that proponents of "absence" are and have been prominent and nor remotely "fringe". They are people who wrote bestselling books, led organisations, and wrote dictionaries and histories published by core publishers in the field.

I refer to the "big four": OED, Webster's, Collins, and Chambers. Those are the gold standard, with some academic authority behind them. The OED defines atheism as "disbelief", and disbelief as either "inability or refusal to accept" or "lack of faith". Webster's likewise says "disbelief", as does Chambers Dictionary. Collins English Dictionary (10th edition) defines atheism as "a person who does not believe in God or gods." The ambiguity is quite clear, and "absensism" is comfortably within their scope. These are the most important four dictionaries in the English language. They do not marginalise the absence typology.

--Dannyno (talk) 23:33, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

It may be worth pointing out that for me the most adequate typology would be a rejectionist one, because I think atheism is a position. If someone, a child, a group of isolated tribespeople, whatever, has/have not taken a position, for whatever reason, then that is no doubt of polemical or (anti-) theological interest, but it wouldn't be part of my typology of the range of atheism. Nevertheless, the "absence" typology is widespread and is there in the literature. It would be a mistake to marginalise it. --Dannyno (talk) 23:40, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

*Regarding the dictionaries. "Disbelief" =/ "absence of belief". Absence of belief indicates a passive state of being, "disbelief" is the "act of disbelieving". No need to go into that further as I've already done so too many times already above. Collins English Dictionary most certainly does not define "atheism" as "a person ..." of any kind. Can you please reproduce their definition of "atheism" as opposed to "atheist".Griswaldo (talk) 23:44, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Absence of belief is a typological characterisation, which may be passive, but may be a way of conceptualising rejection. That's point one. Point two is that "disbelief" is not the "act of" anything, because disbelief is a noun, not a verb.

Point three, look up "disbelieve". Point four, ah yes, quite right, they define atheist as "a person who does not believe in God or gods" and atheism as "rejection of belief in God or gods." That is peculiar, though, isn't it? Mind you, their fourth defintion of reject refers to "failure to accept" (alright, so it's transplants, but still :-). Actually, I think they've changed that definition of atheism relatively recently, I have notes elsewhere from an earlier edition. But so, still, three of the four core dictionaries leave the door open to absence, and the fourth is ambiguous. It's the ambiguity that is important here, there is no clear exclusion, that's the point. --Dannyno (talk) 00:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

"Act of ..." always refers to a noun. See disbelief defined in Merriam-Webster. The noun form of the verb disbelieve, is the "act of disbelieving". Why should I look up "disbelieve", when "disbelief" is used in relation to "atheism"? But I have looked it up ... in fact above I discussed this with GMan and produced definitions for both the verb and the noun. I'm well aware of what those words mean.Griswaldo (talk) 00:18, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

• Regarding your other sources there are some problems there too. 1) For some you are only namedropping with verification. 2) There is not uniformity of context between the sources you are actually quoting. This is particularly true of the quote from the Catholic Encyclopedia, which in 1967 was apparently defining an atheist as a sinner, someone "living" without God. You can believe in the existence of God and "live" without God at the same time. 3) The biggest problem here though, is that like Flew, Smith and Martin, the British freethinkers you mention were all atheists, writing about atheism from an atheist POV. That POV, is by definition, one of a very small minority. It turns out that not even everyone who is part of that small minority agrees with the inclusive definition. I've said repeatedly that only a handful of atheist philosophers agree with this definition, and I've yet to see evidence to the contrary. Where, by the way, is the writing from the social sciences or religious studies that supports the definition? Or non-atheist philosophers? Or major reference works? Or university texts? Or any number of other reliable sources that surely cover atheism in some manner but do not include that definition.Griswaldo (talk) 00:11, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

t

This is perhaps the real nub of the argument, isn't it. No matter how many sources I could come up with - and I note you've not commented on the ambiguous dictionary definitions - you'd be making the same case. For most of the word's history, "atheism" has been used to label people who did in fact believe in God, just a different God to whoever was doing the labelling. Why is that not the lead definition? Hence the quote from the New Catholic Encyclopedia, it makes this issue explicit. For most people in the world, and there will be sources saying this, atheism is indeed sin. So why not rip up the lede and just say "atheism is the sin of godlessness." And then mention philosophers, atheist philosophers, and atheist activists as tiny social and historical minorities? Why not do that? After all, religious sources are much more numerous than the academic or atheist movement sources. Why, after all, does the wikipedia entry on inferiority complex not define the concept as it is popularly understood rather than as it is technically understood in the psychological literature? It is entirely true that the "absence" typology is not the majority one in the literature, that isn't what I'm arguing, but then interest in atheist typologies is itself a minority interest. But its advocates are prominent within atheism, and I think it is unjustifiable to say that atheists and only atheists have a POV on this. Do only non-Christians get to define Christianity? This is a key issue to sort out. Were we dealing with factual questions, there might be a different argument, but we're not. The issue, surely, is precisely how to characterise atheism - and it would seem strange to do that without regard to how atheists have characterised their own position, and a core, longstanding - if not majority - tradition - adopted by prominent atheists - characterises it very broadly. I am comfortable with discussing typology in the article, I am comfortable with noting that "absence" is not a majority position in the literature. But it is a popular position in the world at large, among atheists, and if you exclude it entirely that would be unnecessarily disputatious. As it stands you are in danger of relegating atheists as a group to a minority POV who should be excluded from consideration in the atheism article. I would find it odd if we were unable to cite atheists in the atheism article because of the extreme minority status of atheists. --Dannyno (talk) 07:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Someone like George H Smith is, as an atheist, a minority. Within the tiny subset of writing on atheism that makes any attempt to conceptualise atheism seriously, he is in a smaller minority. But he is a significant and influential figure, who wrote some of the best selling works on atheism, published by the biggest publisher of atheist books in the world. As the subject is not straightforwardly factual, and as lots of atheists have taken up "absence" as their understanding of atheism, it deserves to be mentioned. Doing so resolves a conflict by compromising. Not doing so causes one, by refusing to compromise. --Dannyno (talk) 07:56, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

It's pointless, given the argument, but Jack Eller discusses the "absence" position in Zuckerman (ed), Atheism and secularity, vol 1. The chapter is previously cited here.--Dannyno (talk) 08:03, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Dannyo, this is a rather epic army of straw men you have errected.

• What "ambiguous dictionary definitions"? I've commented extensively on dictionary definitions. None are ambiguous to any extent that would include the inclusive definition. I'm sorry if that is not to your liking but it has been done.
• A majority of mainstream sources, absolutely do not discuss atheism as "the sin of godlessness". They discuss atheism as the rejection of belief in deities or the belief that no deities exist. Total red herring.
• No one is suggestion that we don't use the most common definitions in the relevant technical literature. The analogy to inferiority complex is completely off base. You do realize that a handful of atheist philosophers do not represent the sum total of "the relevant technical literature". As many or more philosophers do not include the inclusive definition. Absolutely no one in the social sciences or religious studies does either as far as I can tell. And once again, no one who does promote the inclusive definition today ignores the other definitions.
• If interest in atheist typologies is a minority interest then why are we letting "atheist typologies" define our introductory sentences in the lead? That makes no sense whatsoever. I have been arguing all along that the inclusive definition has a place in the lead. It needs to be an appropriate place however. Currently we are focusing on the first couple of sentences only', the primary summation of the topic.
• The manner in which various atheists have characterized atheism (which is as diverse itself as the manner in which others have characterized atheists) surely belongs in the entry. Where on earth have I or anyone else argued otherwise? That one particular characterization not shared by all atheists, most non-atheists, most reliable sources, should get equal billing in the first few sentences of the lead is the issue at stake. No one has suggested censoring the article. There is no "danger of relegating atheists as a group to a minority POV who should be excluded from consideration in the atheism article." That's the king of straw me right there.
• As a minor note, Eller does not adopt the inclusive definition. His argument about agnosticism is that it is not a third position in the athiesm/theism spectrum because it is outside of it. I am the one who added the reference above, because it does not support the traditional distinction between atheism and agnosticism, and not because it backs the "inclusive definition".

Can we get back to discussing how to write the first couple of sentences please? Would you be amenable to leaving the inclusive definition out of the first paragraph while mentioning it later in the lead? Thanks.Griswaldo (talk) 13:57, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Per MOS guidelines/ the first paragraph is the correct placement for the definition and the other paragraphs don't appear to be as appropriate (if anything the lead's paragraphs need to be consolidated so that there are only four (the recommended limit)). Although a few editors might agree to move the broadest without god definition, numerous editors (which have watched these pages or have contributed in the past) would probably not, thus an RFC, if sought, is unlikely to radically change the longstanding consensus. In addition, I think incorporating the minority view, even a small minority with respect to the other two views, is inline with wp:NPOV policy, therefore we should be moving this discussion, as best we can, forward towards a consensus edit. There seems to be disagreement above as to what weight to give the competing agnosticism views. Perhaps "Atheism is also contrasted with agnosticism, the view...[add here whatever definition we give it], although some writers allow that one could be both an atheist and an agnostic."? --Modocc (talk) 23:01, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

MOS does not specify that every possibly way of defining a word ought to go into the first paragraph. The most common definition of something ought to go there. Keep in mind that there are other (currently) minority definitions of atheism as well, such as "not believing in a god" (meaning relative to a specific god one is an atheist), or "living without God" (which was the Christian view for centuries). Should we pile those into the first few sentences as well? That there is opposition to dropping it from the first paragraph I do not doubt. I've seen it already. But that doesn't make it correct.Griswaldo (talk) 20:32, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Griswaldo, in your edit summary you wrote "You're twisting MOS.". No I don't think I have, as I do not need to, as I am just pointing out, for the second time in this discussion, that the first paragraph is the place for defining the topic, which is what definitions tend to do, and therefore its an appropriate place for it. In addition, please address how the move is to be made (which I oppose, obviously), because I currently have a hard time seeing how it would fit well further down in the lead as you are suggesting. And,there is really no need for the red fish and slippery slopes. --Modocc (talk) 22:19, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

Alright, so I get where Griswaldo is coming from now. Still think the comments about dictionaries are plainly wrong. But let's leave that aside. I guess I don't have strong feelings about moving the most inclusive definition to a different sentence, per se, though I fundamentally disagree with the way you construct "minority view" as equivalent to "not a notable view", given the status of the people who have adopted it or treated it. The history of this article demonstrates that there are lots of strong feelings on the issue, and it is not unreasonable to take that into account when writing the lede. --Dannyno (talk) 20:45, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Near Consensus Break

I agree that my proposed rewrite allows for removal of "specifically", as Noisalt suggested above. Incorporating some of Jim's agnosticism text again, I suggest:

Atheism, broadly defined, is the rejection of belief in the existence of deities. More narrowly defined, atheism is the position that there are no deities. The most inclusive definition, adopted by some writers, is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, the belief in at least one deity, and with agnosticism, which is the view that it is unknown or unknowable whether or not there are any deities; although some writers allow that one can be both an atheist and an agnostic.

I shortened the theism part (I think the general form or sense I give is the most used) and combined it with the agnosticism part (to cut down on the repetitious long-windiness of the earlier versions). --Modocc (talk) 00:42, 5 February 2011 (UTC)

I've checked back to see if this point has been discussed, and it seems not. I appreciate the purpose of the formulation "some writers", although I don't think it succeeds in meeting the purpose, but is it not in any case rather close to weasel words? --Dannyno (talk) 20:53, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

It's not weasel words if it can be sourced, as it is with Flint, Russell, Martin, Smith, (perhaps) Flew, & Dawkins (though he is also being sarcastic). I think it could be important to point out that distinguishing concepts does not mean they cannot co-exist. Red & shirt are distinguished because red is about colour & shirt is about clothing. Agnosticism, according to all defs in the agnosticism article, is about knowledge (absence of); while atheism is about belief (actively not having it or [according to a few] passiviely not having it). Only Martin connects the overlap to the absence def JimWae (talk) 22:11, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

"The term “agnostic” does not, in itself, indicate whether or not one believes in a god. Agnosticism can be either theistic or atheistic.... It [agnosticism] is not a third alternative or a halfway house between theism and atheism. Instead, it is a variation of either theism or atheism. The self-proclaimed agnostic must still designate whether he does or does not believe in a god—and, in so doing, he commits himself to theism or he commits himself to atheism" -Smith, ATHEISM:The Case Against God Section 3

"Agnosticism, the position of neither believing nor disbelieving that God exists, is often contrasted with atheism. However, this common opposition of agnosticism to atheism is misleading. Agnosticism and positive atheism are indeed incompatible: if atheism is true, agnosticism is false and conversely. But agnosticism is compatible with negative atheism in that agnosticism entails negative atheism. Since agnostics do not believe in God, they are by definition negative atheists. This is not to say that negative atheism entails agnosticism. A negative atheist might disbelieve in God but need not." -Martin, Cambridge Companion to Atheism, p2

"I never know whether I should say "Agnostic" or whether I should say "Atheist". It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof.

Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line." - Am I An Atheist Or An Agnostic? A Plea For Tolerance In The Face Of New Dogmas by Bertrand Russell (1947)

Also see Agnostic atheism for sources JimWae (talk) 22:11, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

By the way, on a strictly logical point, the word "deities" is ambiguously quantified in most proposals above, disregarding monotheists' "rejection of belief in the existence of deitieS". The first sentence needs an "any" as in "Atheism, broadly defined, is the rejection of belief that there are any deities." JimWae (talk) 22:20, 6 February 2011 (UTC)

Analogue of Russell's argument, "With regards to Bigfoot, I don't believe in mammals"

Bertrand Russell's quote is interesting, and it raises a second issue relevant to the current discussion. Standard understanding is that an atheist is someone who doesn't believe in ANY deities. Russell's logical flaw is evident in the simple statement, "With regards to some subset, I don't believe in the superset." An honest revision of his statement would be, "with regards to those gods we are disbelievers." However, Russell was engaged in an attempt to promote and subtly redefine atheism, to make the label of atheist more general, to sound more reasonable and appealing. He was a master of rhetoric and logic, and admittedly biased. We should prefer to not mix meanings and muddy the water. An atheist is someone who disbelieves in all proposed and all possible deities. This is a clearly defined position. It is the anchor and limit of a broad space of viewpoints. Anything more qualified is agnosticism, and that's fine. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jj1236 (talk • contribs) 03:43, 12 February 2011 (UTC)

1>We are not here to debate whether Russell is a reliable source. 2>I cannot see how what you have said applies to Russell's argument either. 3>It seems to me that nontheistic agnostics actively withhold belief in deities. How that differs from rejection of belief is minimal at most, for though perhaps temporary, it is at least a gentle rejection. JimWae (talk) 08:45, 14 February 2011 (UTC)

This discussion really seems like it is without end. Could someone please just startup an RfC? We can put together all the proposals and let everyone have their say on which one is best? Atheism isn't changing guys. I don't understand why our definition of it constantly has to. NickCT (talk) 22:48, 18 February 2011 (UTC)

There is a reason why characterising atheists is said to be like herding cats. I don't see why it is at all inappropriate for the lead to contain a definition which is broad and is subject to debate- it is not our place to omit information just because people disagree with it, if it is sourced and supported then so be it. The reference to Russell in the preceding comments perfectly exemplify how people often perceive through the prism of their own conceptions- Russell was explaining his position and why he held it as explicitly as he could. I fail to see how explaining your position can be a matter of bias. The most explicit explanation of Russell's position was that he did not believe in the supernatural because he did not have evidence for it. If a deity is defined as being supernatural then it is naturally not believed in, on that principle alone, unless there is evidence. This is the basis of his teapot analogy. He suggested that if evidence was presented it would require further consideration, which means that he did not hold the position that there were no deities, but rather possessed a lack of belief due to a lack of evidence. On another note, if the definition of atheism relies on a disbelief in specific deities then there would technically be no atheists, since no-one is familiar with all deities ever conceived. Ignorance about a particular deity in Papua New Guinea would mean you are in the same position as a baby (in a manner of speaking), and thus would not be able to adequately describe yourself as an atheist. Rant overNinahexan (talk) 09:30, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

One can articulate disbelief in deities generally speaking, as kinds of beings, without having full knowledge of all the specific deities imagined by all peoples throughout history and across the globe. There is no problem there at all, and indeed that is exactly what most self-proclaimed atheists do. We need to cover the topic as fully as possible, within various polices and guidelines, including WP:UNDUE. It is therefore not inappropriate therefore to weigh various pieces of information in the lead or in the main content areas of the entry. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 16:26, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

Earlier you suggested that a definition as a lack of belief in deities was a fringe definition, which I presume means that you think atheists must possess a disbelief in deities or at least a disbelief in a certain "kind of being". I'm trying to get a handle on your views though, since a few comments later you said that you did not think the inclusive definition was fringe, but moved on to attack it as being given undue weight. Since the concept of implicit atheism has been around and in print since 1772 I find it difficult to see how you support this contention. Each of the three definitions could be followed by a disclaimer suggesting that the definition is contested, it really doesn't bring much to the article to unduly weight one definition with criticism, especially considering that the concepts of implicit and explicit atheism are explained in detail in the body of the page. A dimension to this discussion relates strongly with self-identification. Is it that people who identify as atheists because they have found no supporting evidence are wrong, or just a minority?Ninahexan (talk) 06:34, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

Earlier I wondered if it might be fringe, the entire time saying that I wasn't sure, and surely wasn't suggesting that it was. I'm still not sure entirely. What I am sure about is that it is an extreme minority position. That fact is not changed even if the definition was first penned in 1772 -- though I'd like to know exactly what you're referring to there. Can you elaborate please?Griswaldo (talk) 15:53, 21 February 2011 (UTC)

"In other words I believe it is a fringe view of "atheism"- I am just trying to follow your points, so pardon me if my copy and paste appears like I am merely being contrary. The reference to 1772 is on the page, explaining about the first use of the term atheist to refer to babies, having no idea of god. Ignoring that the word atheism is constructed to denote an absence of a particular state of mind or being, rather than the presence of one, the uses of the word relates to how it is applied to others, and to oneself. The lack of specificity on census forms inhibits people from being more explicit about what form of atheism they identify with, so I really don't see how you can claim to be sure that it is an extreme minority position. There is enough detail on the page relating to the concept of atheism as being a lack of belief that if you want to suggest it is given undue weight you might need to delete two other pages that specifically deal with the distinctions between this form of atheism and others.Ninahexan (talk) 07:10, 22 February 2011 (UTC)

Ugh. Yes I wrote - "In other words I believe it is a fringe view of "atheism". I wonder if WP:FRINGE might apply to the situation." But then further down in the thread I also wrote, "I'm not convinced that it is 'fringe', by the way, but it clearly is way out of the mainstream to conceptualize atheism in that manner." I admit that the first statement was more emphatic but who cares? Do you want me to apologize for not being 100% consistent? Surely pointing this out doesn't aid in any discussion we are having now. I stand by the notion that is an extreme minority position and that is evidenced by the fact that it is only mentioned by a very small minority of sources. Do you dispute the fact that it is mentioned only in a small minority of reliable sources? Can you list all the reliable sources that utilize this very broad understanding of atheism? The fact that a similar idea was espoused by Baron d'Holbach in 1772 does not make it any more mainstream today.Griswaldo (talk) 03:14, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

So, not seeing any standing objections, do we have agreement that we have the sources needed to state that atheism is often contrasted with agnosticism[6] -- which is the view that we do not know whether there are any deities or not[7][8] -- with some writers allowing that one can be both an <! - even an explicit - > atheist and an agnostic.[9]  ? --JimWae (talk) 01:03, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Are you proposing to add the "even an explicit" bit as well? I do not support that addition. I am willing to compromise by not tying the conflation only to "implicit atheism", but in that case we ought to not specify either category in any manner (in other words remove that bit and I'm fine). FYI, outside of the contentious philosophical wrangling, this conflation rarely ever happens. Sociologists who research irreligion, for instance, separate the two and usually reserve "atheist" for explicit atheists only. Here's but one example - "Atheists make a definitive claim that God does not exist, while agnostics assert that such knowledge is beyond the realm of human capacity; they do not affirm or deny the existence of God." (Joseph Baker and Buster Smith, 2009 "None Too Simple: Examining Issues of Religious Nonbelief and Nonbelonging in the United States". Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion. 48(4):719–733). I mention this because atheist philsophers are not the only academics to write on the subject.Griswaldo (talk) 05:16, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

Well we can all have changing opinions about what is and is not fringe, but opinion isn't generally the source of edits. It is not a conflation for the page to suggest that there are various types of atheism which at times overlap with other definitions. An overlap does not mean that they are either one or the other, they can be both, which is the case in agnostic atheism. However, when you start from a position that states that atheism must be a belief that there is no god then it is merely a matter of tautology that an atheist is not an agnostic. Consider a hypothetical- someone holds the opinion that there is probably no god, and bases this on the lack of evidence for deities. They are open to changing their opinion, if convincing evidence were presented. Would you suggest they are not an atheist because they don't possess a belief that deities don't exist? Would you suggest that they are not agnostic because they use their knowledge to form a probabilistic opinion? This is the problem with trying to define atheism as being merely a contrast with agnosticism, since the concepts involved in agnosticism also often apply in atheism. While it might be a neat little box to put atheists into to suggest they must believe (and thereby suggest that it is a belief-system), this is seldom the case. Huxley invented the word agnosticism to further specify his position and partly explain the rationale, not merely to relieve himself of the burden of making a judgement. This is why if any justice is to be done with defining atheism and agnosticism the rationale behind the positions must be expressed.Ninahexan (talk) 08:43, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

First of all could you weigh in on the question Jim posed, which is the most practical concern here. Yay or nay? Do you agree with including this or not?Griswaldo (talk) 14:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

IMO would be more accurate to say that there are various conceptualizations of atheism ... various ways to understand what atheism is. From a social science perspective there are slew of problems with treating the breakdown of these conceptualizations as a typology, because they are simply not in a comparable ballpark when it comes to social practice. Social scientists tend to utilize only explicit definitions of atheism, because those who self-identify as atheists almost always adhere to such positions. They also tend to discuss agnosticism and atheism as distinct outlooks, again because when nontheists talk about their beliefs, and their self-identity, this separation is usually made by the respondents themselves. Now you might protest that there are plenty of atheists who claim that other nontheists are actually just atheists who don't know any better (e.g. the implicit/weak atheism position), but we don't define social boundaries and categorize groups of people who don't self-identify in a certain way based on insider claims of inclusion or exclusion. And we don't do so just because there are complex philosophical rationales behind these claims (consider what would happen if we treated religious groups and subgroups in that manner). The philosophical claims are of course of great interest, but my point here is that their mere existence has no bearing on the commonality of positions they espouse. Now, we can measure what is mainstream in academic literature when it comes to conceptualizations of atheism, and we can measure what is common in practice. Both have a bearing on WP:UNDUE and how we present the material in the entry. I'm not suggesting to remove any material, but I do suggest that we need to contextualize it properly and to apply due weight standards. If you want to get into a sourcing discussion I'd be happy to do so. I have sources, many of them, that back the claims I've made about the social sciences, and the same can be applied, to a slightly lesser degree to religious studies. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 14:48, 28 February 2011 (UTC)

I am in favour of the inclusion, and the reasons are detailed in my previous comment. The suggestion that atheist philosophers are not objective sources (usually people strike-through redacted comments) is an opinion which shouldn't inform the editing of the page. We have academic sources outlining the various forms and rationales of atheism, including areas that overlap with other definitions. Sources going back hundreds of years discuss the concept of implicit atheism, and accordingly other sources relate to the relationship some forms of atheism has with agnosticism (explicit atheism). In fact implicit atheism would implicitly be agnosticism in one sense, and specifically not agnosticism in another (there being no ability to make a judgement of ignorance or inability to know). The link between explicit atheism and agnosticism is outlined quite specifically on various pages, which draw from various reputable sources. When we are talking about common practice we can't make inferences one way or another when there is a lack of data. When collecting data social scientists rarely allow for atheists to clearly elucidate their positions. This means you can't say that a belief that there is no god is more or less pervasive than the absence of belief. Accordingly, when asked to tick a box where atheism and agnosticism are in two separate boxes it goes against the instructions to tick both unless incorporated in the directions. This is an explanation of why the data from social science is unable to allow for any real inferences to be drawn relating to what is due weighting. However, the existing references relating to the overlap between explicit atheism and agnosticism furnish the page with information that is both relevant and reputable. I don't need to agree with everything on the page to see the usefulness of including it. Ninahexan (talk) 02:51, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

People often edit their own comments minutes after making them and before others reply. The fact that you've chosen to reply to something I clearly chose not to include in my final comment is rather odd (especially given how long after my comment you are replying). Do you want to have an honest conversation? If you do then stick to what was on the page before you replied and not what I wrote just before editing it and before anyone else responded to me. Regarding the rest I have already stated, clearly, that I am not suggesting that we remove material from the entry -- so please understand that there is no disagreement over the usefulness of including the material in question. This discussion has been, for the past few weeks, about context and weighting in the lead. From what you have written I'm not sure how much of the current social science literature on irreligion you are aware of. Yes, for years there was little to no attention paid to atheists and other non-religious people but that is changing. For instance, the current norm is to include a scale of belief questions that distinguishes various levels of religious belief and disbelief, and does so separately from religious self-identification. Both of the large scale surveys from recent years most commonly cited for stats on non-religious Americans, the General Social Survey and the American Religious Identification Survey included such questions. These broad surveys are, of course, not perfect and more detailed attempts to tease out these issues have shown that some people do have different ideas of what "atheism" and "agnosticism" entail, and that a small but significant amount of people even display and overlap between categories (theist - agnostic - atheist) in their self-reporting (see for instance Bullivant, Stephen. 2008. "Research Note: Sociology and the Study of Atheism". Journal of Contemporary Religion 23(3):363–368). Yet this doesn't change what I wrote before. When it comes to what people believe things always get fuzzy. The same can be said for people's perceptions of political positions, or what it means to be a Christian. Social scientists still find it meaningful to classify people as atheists when they are explicit atheists, and to separate them from agnostics. The measurements they report on these groups are also meaningful, and I clearly, when published in academic presses and peer reviewed journals they are the most reliable information we have on the demographics of unbelief. By the way, the idea that explicit atheism is more pervasive than implicit atheism is not what I was arguing (because it is framed wrong). I was trying to suggest two things. 1) The understanding that "atheism" means explicit atheism is more pervasive than the alternative understanding that anyone who lacks faith is an atheist (see Bullivant who actually tested this directly in his survey). 2) Additionally, amongst self-professed atheists, the most pervasive personal position taken on god(s) is explicit atheism (every study that has tested this shows it, take your pick). Indeed, implicit atheism, even as it is conceived philosophically, is by its nature not a position someone would actively profess because according to these claims an implicit atheist usually doesn't realize what they are.Griswaldo (talk) 04:06, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Excuse me if my commenting on your edits was inappropriate, I tend to immediately click on the discussion history so as to see the recent additions, and yours appeared to give an insight into your views. I apologise for making reference to your redactions. The American religious Identification Survey (not surprisingly limited to the United States) lumped atheists and agnostics together in the 1990 round, incidentally, and for most of their cited statistics in the following surveys continue to do so. Only in the raw data can you see that atheist/agnostic ratio is not so uneven. What they don't do is break down the different forms of atheism, so that survey really is of no use to this discussion. Though, considering that 15% of respondents stated "none" we are left to ponder whether the tone of the questions left a number of people defensive about giving any response, or whether people are just specifically reluctant to tell anyone else about the nature of their unbelief. Either way, a lack of information leaves us with an inability to make inferences about what is common practice. As far as the General Social Survey is concerned, the data is in a form that seems only to be able to be read with statistical packages, so I will have a look at it when I get to work tomorrow (I'm not that much of a nerd to have spss on my personal computer (though I am approaching it)). I've read one of Bullivant's articles, though it mostly related to his response to what he described as the "godless jamboree" of an atheists convention. I suppose objectivity is not something we can expect from any academic these days.Ninahexan (talk) 11:17, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

Answered on your talk page to give others a break from this conversation. I'd be happy to move it back here though should you not agree with my move. Cheers.Griswaldo (talk) 13:28, 1 March 2011 (UTC)

• Edit inserted to avoid archiving. So is there any opposition left to inserting a sentence about agnosticism? I think we pretty much had agreement on something like this:--JimWae (talk) 08:30, 31 March 2011 (UTC)

Atheism, broadly defined, is the rejection of belief in the existence of any deities.[1] More narrowly defined, atheism is the position that there are no deities.[2] The most inclusive definition, adopted by some writers,[3] is that atheism is simply the absence of belief that any deities exist. Atheism is contrasted with theism, which in its most general form is the belief that at least one deity exists.[4][5] Atheism has also been contrasted with agnosticism,[6] which is the view that it is unknown (or unknowable) whether any deities exist or not;[7][8] although some writers allow that one can be both an atheist and an agnostic.[9]

Thanks for the reminder, Jim. Personally, I'd be fine with adding that last sentence. I'd prefer it if you not change the sentences before it. (The change in those sentences seems to be that old "defined" thing, which I think would be better not to reopen.) --Tryptofish (talk) 23:33, 31 March 2011 (UTC)