Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Atheism/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

January-February

Wikipedia:WikiProject Religion

The group indicated above was recently revitalized for, among other things, the purpose of working on those articles whose content is such that the article does not fall within the scope of any particular denomination. To most effectively do this, however, we would benefit greatly if there were at least one member from this Project working on those articles. On that basis, I would encourage and welcome any member of this Project willing to work on those articles to join the Religion WikiProject. Thank you. Badbilltucker 22:40, 3 January 2007 (UTC)

Contradictory definitions: God or gods?

Is atheism disbelief in the existence of God, as Existence of God and dozens of other articles claim, or is it disbelief in the existence of deities, as Atheism and dozens of other articles claim? There seems to be an enormous inconsistency in this aspect of defining atheism, probably in large part because of the influence of Western religions here, with their focus on the Abrahamic, monotheistic God. In fact, I added a section to atheism to try to address this issue (Atheism#Scope of atheism), but that doesn't alleviate this major problem of consistency in Wikipedia itself. -Silence 09:07, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

You're right. Not only this, but most articles contradict each other, as some define atheism as "lack of belief in deities", and other as denial "of the existence of deities". This is even worse, because it confuses weak atheism with strong atheism.--Orthologist 21:48, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

• Atheism would be the disbelief in all forms of deities or god, the use of God is just an influence of monotheism, as atheism litterally means anti-theist or against theisms, the lack of belief in the existance of deities, but not the outright disbelief of is Agnosticism 68.227.84.134 01:09, 28 February 2007 (UTC)

I dispute the claim that Atheism "literally means anti-theist or against theisms", it derives from the Greek prefix 'a'- without, and 'theos' - god. Also there is a difference between disbelief and non-belief. Barfbagger 17:06, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

Many atheists say that they have a positive belief that the god of the bible does not exist, but that they don't know enough about all the other gods to have that belief for all potential deities. How would you classify them if not as atheists? What unites all atheists is the lack of belief in deities, not the outspoken disbelief. Agnosticism is just a term that confuses thing. It is quite possible no not know (i.e. being an agnostic) and at the same time not believe in deities (i.e. being an atheist). /Benzocaine 20:49, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Religious satire article

Could somebody tell me why the Religious satire article is part of the atheist project? Are all who satirise religion atheists? I think not...In history different religions or sects have satirised each other. For instance the Marprelate Tracts were a satire of the Church of England by Nonconformist believers. Colin4C 17:15, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

I would imagine that very few satirists are actually "atheists". Perhaps some considered themselves as secular, agnostic, etc. to some capacity or another, but atheism signifies a rather specific relationship to the idea that a (or multiple) deities do not exist. Atheism is not an umbrella term for that which is critical of religion and it seems all to frequently to be tacitly used in this capacity.PelleSmith 17:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

It is the fact that the entry is tagged as "related to atheism" that I personally find problematic. There is nothing inherently relating the two, despite the fact that many atheists may enjoy religious satire and take interest in it. Anyway, my objection is not to the involvement of this wikiproject in the entry but to how the page gets categorized--just to make my point clear.PelleSmith 19:25, 7 February 2007 (UTC)

Reminder

Badbilltucker said:

“ I have noted that this project does not yet engage in assessment. I am a member of WikiProject Religion, which does engage in assessments. I was wondering if this project would have any objections to the Religion project setting up its banner in a way similar to WikiProject Australia, WikiProject Military history, and others, which have the "parent" banner on top with the assessment criteria and a section below indicating which particular projects have specific interest in the article. I could set up the Religion banner in a way to accomplish this. However, given the complexity involved, I would not want to do so and have things changed back later. Please inform me if this arrangement would be to your satisfaction or not, so I can know how to proceed. Thank you. Badbilltucker 14:55, 19 December 2006 (UTC) ”

Any responses? Eyu100^{(t|fr|Version 1.0 Editorial Team)} 05:00, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

Is WikiProject Religion going to do the same thing for all the other religion-related WikiProjects, like WikiProject Christianity? If so, then I'd be fine with this; atheism isn't a religion, but it's certainly relevant to religion-related articles, and therefore to a Project which deals in such articles. If not, then I don't see the need. In the time since Badbilltucker made that comment, I took the time to personally evaluate every site under this project's perusal (though we should set up a more formal method to evaluate and improve articles as soon as possible), and to greatly increase (from about 50 to about 100) the number of tagged articles. Compare with the current version. -Silence 05:40, 9 February 2007 (UTC)

creation of new articles

To be consistent with the other religions, there needs to be a list of converts to Athiesm article. --Sefringle 03:37, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Atheism is not a religion. -Silence 04:04, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

True, but many athiests were once part of some religion. I think it would be informative for people to see a notable list of athiests by former religion.--Sefringle 04:11, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

I recommend simply adding such information to List of atheists. So many atheists are "converts" in this sense (as contrasted with Christianity, which has vastly more members raised in that belief) that making a distinct article for them would be redundant and pointless. It would be like making a List of converts to Scientology page. -Silence 07:09, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

Which just happens to exist now.--Sefringle 00:44, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

A person who joins a religion is a "convert". A person who leaves a religion, you might be interested to know, is a "pervert". Not a sense the word is often used in these days, but it makes me smile. --Nicknack009 23:53, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

So all I need now is a mini-banner for my user page where I can proclaim, "This user is a Christian pervert." --RenniePet 13:19, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Non-religion and "irreligion"

There is currently no article on non-religous people. I think that's a very good topic to have an article on.

Some material for such an article can be found on the irreligion page. The material shouldn't be on that page in the first place since that article defines a much broader (and unclearly bounded) topic, but then talks about non-religous people. So it seems logical that someone should start an article on non-religion and move much of the data from irreligion into the new article. Then add a link to the new article from the irreligion article, and fix some of the redirects which should point to "non-religion", not to "irreligion".

At that point, it may be worth reviewing if there should be an "irreligion" article at all. Being a word earns "irreligion" a place in a few big dictionaries, but not every word in the biggest of dictionaries earns a place in an encyclopedia. Gronky 03:52, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

(I've now also raised this on Talk:Irreligion#.22nonreligion.22) Gronky 04:09, 21 February 2007 (UTC)

What to do...

I think there has been an increase in the number of active editors recently, perhaps we can be told what to do? :) The project page isn't exactly up to date. --Merzul 16:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

• Well, if we're looking for new articles to "adopt" or collaborate on, I think some excellent candidates would be Theism and Existence of God, two essential articles for understanding atheism. Adding reliably-sourced information to expand articles, and copyediting or revising ones that are already decent-sized, would also probably be welcome. Note that I've updated our listing of atheism-related articles. -Silence 18:57, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Nice! Yes, I was looking for something to collaborate on, and maybe "theism" would be something! Anyone else interested? It hasn't had any serious edits in a long time. The first idea was to source it a bit better, do we have any convention for citation standards? The atheism article is a brilliant piece of ref rocket science. I think I can work with it, but is that recommended? Now, regarding "existence of God", why isn't God within the scope of this project, I think it is currently in a worse state than the Existence of God. --Merzul 19:38, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

The refs style used at Atheism is essentially the standard, though shorter articles probably wouldn't separate the "citations" and "references" sections. As for God, that article can be added to the project, though if so deity, and perhaps even supernatural and religion, should be added too. The main reason it wasn't is because (1) that article is only about the monotheistic God, which is only a small part of what most atheists reject; and (2) the relevant aspect of God to atheism is his existence, whereas the rest of God (his mythology, conceptions, etc.) is of lesser importance. But feel free to add a project banner if you wish. -Silence 19:45, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

No, I was just wondering, I can still edit God without having to add it to this project :) --Merzul 20:24, 22 February 2007 (UTC)

Positivism, Faith, Belief, and Atheism

It seems to me that many of the articles regarding atheism (weak/strong, implicit/explicit) have mistaken atheism for positivism. God not existing does not necessarily preclude the supernatural. Articles about atheism or theism are about God, not the supernatural. Seven years of bad luck from breaking a mirror is not an idea that involves any deities. For that matter, being non-religious is not the same as being an atheist, and I think some people make that mistake too.

Furthermore, the articles are confusing because they inconsistently use the word "belief" to mean "a conviction that is held" (the epistemological definition of belief) and "religious faith" or "reglious tenets." For instance "Atheism is a lack of belief." Another confusing inconsistency is the often used verb phrase "believe in" as in "Atheists do not believe in God." The verb phrase means faith in a certain property of a thing.

Lack of faith in a proposition is not a counter to the proposition. By definition atheism is a counter proposition to the proposition of theism: that the statement "God exists" is true. Faith does not enter into it.

Compare the meaning of the words belief and believe in these phrases:

• "Atheists lack belief."
• "Atheists lack belief in the existence of God."
• "Atheists do not have beliefs."
• "Atheists do not believe God exists."
• "Atheists believe in the non-existence of God."
• "Atheists believe God does not exist."

If you are having trouble understanding the point, look up the words in a dictionary and select the definitions of belief or believe which best fit the meaning in the above sentences. Do this before you complain please.--24.57.157.81 20:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

edited 21:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC) Also, antitheism is being used incorrectly. People are using and writing about "antitheism" when they in fact mean antireligion and this problem should be addressed as well. Consider, from the antitheist article:

"Atheism is the disbelief in one or more gods, whereas antitheism is against theistic beliefs."

This is nonsensical. There is only one theistic belief: that God exists. What the editor must mean by "theistic beliefs" is in fact religion. (note the inconsistent use of the word "belief" too) --24.57.157.81 21:07, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

• You seem to be a tad confused, and I don't know exactly what you are referring to, since all the notes you made are already explicated in the atheism articles I'm familiar with. You are correct that atheism is properly disbelief in God, not rejection of the supernatural altogether, as it is sometimes used to mean (e.g., by the BBC's atheism website, and by Julian Baggini). However, rejection of the supernatural is not positivism, but rather naturalism. The two have some overlap, but postivism goes further than naturalism in rejecting all non-scientific knowledge. Our Atheism article acknowledges all of these facts, including the idea that someone can be both religious or spiritual and an atheist. "Atheists do not believe in God." means "Atheists do not believe that God exists."; it may be a bit colloquial, but it's not inaccurate or misleading.

You do not understand the point. If I may quote myself:

"If you are having trouble understanding the point, look up the words in a dictionary and select the definitions of belief or believe which best fit the meaning in the above sentences. Do this before you complain please.--24.57.157.81 20:51, 23 February 2007 (UTC)"

Quoting yourself is both pointless and arrogant. I am the one who first added dictionary.com's definitions to the atheism article, and I've been to its articles on belief, faith, etc. hundreds of times in the past. It is neither the only dictionary, nor are you correctly understanding it, nor is your understanding of it objectively superior to everyone else's understanding of it, nor is it self-evident or uncontested. Please review Wikipedia's content policies. Wikipedia reports on controversies; it does not weigh in on them. And in this case, aspects of the definitions themselves are controversial. -Silence 23:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm not calling you names, so how about you don't call me names? I provided an alternative way to understand my point, you didn't understand it, but you didn't try the alternative way to do it. You didn't make any effort. The instructions are simple. If you still do not understand after you try it out (you might as well post your findings so I know you did try it, since I can't apparently trust you), then I'll see what I can do to express myself more clearly. --24.57.157.81 00:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

I didn't call you any names. You did not provide an "alternative way" to understand your point, you simply quoted yourself (as though the obvious fact that the above sentences use different meanings of "belief" matters), then complained when I didn't psychically discern your meaning from the repetition. Neither is of any use in clarifying your point here. What would be of use, on the other hand, would be simply stating it. If your only purpose here is to play games and antagonize users ("since I can't apparently trust you"?), then you should probably find someplace other than Wikipedia to stage this discussion. We are here to make an encyclopedia, not to go on scavenger hunts to satisfy the whims of anonymous users who refuse to "express themselves more clearly" until their laundry list of demands are met. If you have something to say, say it. If you don't, then go find something productive to do. -Silence 16:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

• "By definition atheism is a counter proposition to the proposition of theism" - Many, many atheists would disagree with you. They would argue that atheism is the negation of theism's proposition, not the opposite or countrary proposition. It is against Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy for us to weigh in on the matter by definitively saying that one side is right and the other is wrong, when there is a genuine and substantive controversy over this issue.

That is what negation means. To turn a positive into a negative. Apples are blue vs. Apples are not blue? Atheism is a single specific proposition. The proposition cannot be changed, otherwise it is a different proposition and so gets a different name. It is simply a label for people who believe that proposition is true. That's essentially what all isms are. If you change the proposition you are no longer referring to the same thing, and so one uses a different label. Thus the definition of atheism is not open for debate.--24.57.157.81 21:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Theism is "believing that God exists". The negation of theism is therefore "not believing that God exists"; it is not "believing that God does not exist". I personally disagree with the etymological argument for defining atheism in this way, but it is a clear fact that the argument leads to defining atheism as nontheism, not as antitheism or anything of the sort. In a perfect world, yes, people would use different labels for every different concept. But we do not live in a perfect world. Consequently, words regularly have multiple meanings, and an encyclopedia's job is to report on these different meanings, not to say that one common meaning is objectively "true" and another is objectively "false". Only if meaning is uncontroversial (or uncontroversial in the relevant field, at least) is it appropriate to be so absolutist. Decreeing that "the definition of atheism is not open for debate" (i.e., "my view is correct and everyone else is not permitted to disagree") is, again, both pointless and arrogant. You are not the King of English. No one is. Usage, not authoritarian decrees (even perfectly rational and reasonable ones—any English-speaker knows that English, even "correct English", is frequently irrational and unreasonable, featuring many counterproductive and ambiguous semantic features), are what determine meaning. -Silence 23:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Atheism is a label for those who believe the proposition "God does not exist" is true. It is not a lifestyle choice. It is not a state of mind. It is a label for one proposition--like all isms--and it is not a label for a collection of similar propositions. If someone uses it a different way they are not being formal. Portraying any other definition as a formal philosophical definition is a misrepresentation of philosophy, which deals in propositions. I think you will be able to see the problem more clearly once you understand the initial focus of my post, which was about the definition of the word belief. --24.57.157.81 00:49, 24 February 2007 (UTC)

"Atheism is a label for those who believe the proposition "God does not exist" is true." - That's one POV. Another POV is that atheism is a label for those who do not believe that the proposition "God exists" is true. It is not Wikipedia's job to say that one POV is right and another is wrong.

"It is not a lifestyle choice. It is not a state of mind." - I agree that it's certainly not a lifestyle choice, but it is, in fact, a "state of mind", at least in a sense—it is the state of not believing in Gods, of having a worldview without deities. It is not necessarily a "state of mind" in the sense of a temporary psychological state, however.

"It is a label for one proposition--like all isms" - What proposition is affirmed, then, by activism, commercialism, feudalism, impressionism, Kantianism, liberalism, Nazism, Taoism, or voyeurism? You are either overgeneralizing or defining -ism in a very strange way. If the former, then you are simply in error; if the latter, then you are defining -ism so narrowly that atheism may not even be an "-ism", by such standards.

"Portraying any other definition as a formal philosophical definition is a misrepresentation of philosophy," - The overwhelming majority of atheist philosophers would disagree with you. In fact, even most theist philosophers would agree that your point here is absurd; favoring one common definition of a word over another is not "misrepresenting philosophy". In fact, it's one of the most common activities in philosophy, since clarity of terminology is important, but almost all philosophers rely on different terminology, in various ways. Obviously, it is important to minimize such divergence for the sake of practicality, but it is not Wikipedia's job to enforce arbitrary standards on exactly where and when a common, widely-accepted definition in philosophical circles (such as the definition of atheism as the absence of belief in deities) is "wrong".

Also, atheism and its brood are not solely philosophy articles. They are also sociological articles. (In fact, there is a strong argument to be made that they are primarily only sociological articles, and their significance as philosophical articles is secondary.) It is therefore appropriate to report on people's beliefs and views on these issues, regardless of whether they're right or wrong. All they have to be is noteworthy.

"I think you will be able to see the problem more clearly once you understand the initial focus of my post, which was about the definition of the word belief." - If you have no interest in stating your points explicitly, then you are wasting both my time and yours. I'm already familiar with the various meanings of belief; as long as we do not equivocate and are not unduly ambiguous in our usage, it hardly matters which formal definition we choose in a certain situation, since words can (and do) have multiple valid meanings. -Silence 16:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

• You are also simply mistaken about antitheism. Anti- means "against" or "opposition to", a- means "not" or "without". They are neither etymologically nor semantically synonymous. I am also amazed that you would conflate opposition to God with opposition to religion; you are making the exact same error that you criticized others for making only a few lines above, by conflating belief in God with belief in the supernatural in general. -Silence 21:15, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, I got confused and was editing that to fix it when I lost my connection. It's changed now.--24.57.157.81 21:38, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

OK, fair enough. -Silence 23:28, 23 February 2007 (UTC)

Alright, perhaps I am focusing way too much on the "believes God does not exist" part. Let's just say I'll agree that your definition is right. I still have my original problem though, that has to do with the use of the word "belief." It's not limited to the definition, but instead of "absence of belief" why not say "absence of ______." --24.57.157.81 06:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

You're being ambiguous. What definition is "my definition", which you're arguendo conceding is right? I've mentioned lots of different definitions above. I'm not saying that my definition (which I haven't even brought up) is right, I'm just saying that WP:NPOV prevents us from saying that either of ours is absolutely "right". Additionally, what do you mean by "absence of ______."? -Silence 16:12, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

The ones in the article are "right." I just have trouble understanding what they mean. So I was wondering if you could reword "absence of belief" into "absence of __?___." You could use the dictionary definition of belief and replace __?___ with an equivalent definition, (or whatever you can come up with that will mean the same thing.)--24.57.157.81 19:31, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Could you please be much clearer in what you exactly want. Absence of belief is clear enough, please, again before Silence spends more of his time answering you, what is that you want? Could you point out, which article what sentence, what change, and why? Many apologies, but I really don't understand what you want. --Merzul 19:39, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Discussion continues on Talk:Atheism

Arbitrary section break

24.57.157.81, since you're fond of wording things propositionally, "Absence of belief in God" is equivalent to "Absence of sincere affirmation of the proposition 'God exists'". In other words, "Absence of belief in God" essentially means "Not having belief (i.e., not believing) in God", in the same way that "Absence of water" can indicate "Not having water". Our refrigerator has an absence of water; therefore the refrigerator has no water. I have an absence of belief in God; therefore I have no belief in God; therefore I don't believe in God. (Note that this is not necessarily the same as saying "I believe there is no God".) -Silence 19:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is my understanding of your explanation: For this meaning of atheism, it could be said that atheists do not affirm that the proposition God exists is true (right?). Nor do they affirm that the proposition God does not exist is true (right?). I would say there is already a word to describe people like that: agnostic. Now, you're going to say I'm wrong, I'm sure. What is it that I'm missing? --24.57.157.81 20:32, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

No you are not wrong, the only thing you are missing is that these terms don't mean a single thing, and that there is some overlap between say weak atheism and weak agnosticism. At least I'm starting to understand what you are concerned with. --Merzul 20:58, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

You're not "wrong", you're just using very specific meanings for those words, and not everyone uses those meanings. For you, atheism means "affirming the truth of the proposition 'God does not exist'". (Incidentally, it means the same thing for me. But your view and my view are not relevant to the articles on the matter.) For many other people, including a variety of noted scholars and philosophers (although their view is probably still a minority view in academia, and certainly a minority view in the general public), atheism means "not affirming the truth of the proposition 'God exists'". This other definition of atheism includes, but is not limited to, your own definition. That is, someone you consider an atheist would still be an atheist under this broader definition, but some people you wouldn't consider atheists (e.g., agnostics) would also be considered atheists under the broader definition. Personally, I prefer using the word nontheism to denote "not affirming the truth of the proposition 'God exists'"; however, there is a strong, growing, and very vocal group of philosophers (and atheists in general) who equate atheism with nontheism, and their view can neither be ignored (because it is a noteworthy view) nor dismissed out-of-hand as patently false (because doing so would violate WP:NPOV). It might be a mistake on their part, but it's our job, as a neutral encyclopedia, to report on their mistakes, not to correct or criticize them.

Adding to the complexity of the situation is the fact that the word agnosticism, like atheism, has a variety of different, contradictory meanings. The meaning you yourself are using is the more colloquial, recent one—a very crude, but popular conception of agnosticism as simply a "middle ground" between theism and atheism. This definition is neither historically nor etymologically supported, and many dictionaries simply ignore it in favor of the more philosophically-supported definition "The doctrine that certainty about first principles or absolute truth is unattainable and that only perceptual phenomena are objects of exact knowledge."—or, in a specifically theological context, "The belief that there can be no proof either that God exists or that God does not exist." It is this latter definition that gives rise to terms like agnostic theism and agnostic atheism, which would be nonsensical under your own conception of agnosticism as essentially meaning "neither a theist nor an atheist". (And, of course, the very phrase "neither a theist nor an atheist" is nonsensical if we don't use your specific definition of "atheist", since not being a theist makes one an atheist under the broader definition.)

So, the problem here is, essentially, that you're rejecting the original meaning of the word agnosticism, while rejecting the new meaning of the word atheism; your choice to do this seems so arbitrary that obviously Wikipedia cannot simply say that you are right and everyone else is wrong, even if everyone else's definitions are just as arbitrary as your own. If you were more consistent and only used the original definitions of atheism ("affirming that God doesn't exist") and agnosticism ("affirming that God's existence cannot be proven or disproven"), then you'd have no term for "someone who's neither a theist or an atheist" (which is the problem that various people have tried to resolve either by coining the new term nontheism or by trying to redefine atheism through a rather weak etymological argument). If, on the other hand, you accept the newer definition of atheism, the issue of "someone who's neither a theist or an atheist" becomes a moot one; but on the other hand, you're likely to cause a lot of confusion because it's such a new definition of a pre-existing word.

So, the solution I personally prefer is to stick with the more accepted definitions of atheism and agnosticism (as "affirming that God doesn't exist" and "affirming that God's existence cannot be proven or disproven"), and use the word nontheism for people who are not theists in general (thus, a "nontheist who's not an atheist" would be the person in the middle); but that's just my personal preference, and I have no desire to try to force it on everyone else by over-emphasizing it in the atheism articles. Instead, Wikipedia policy is clear in saying that we should present all the noteworthy views on the issue and let readers decide what they want to do with that information. -Silence 21:19, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Out of curiosity who are the prominent contemporary philosophers who prefer or promote "atheism", by that label, in the weak sense?PelleSmith 02:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Isn't Austine Cline, who has all the About.com pages, one such promoter? [1] --Merzul 02:55, 26 February 2007 (UTC) -- Except, I wouldn't call him "prominent contemporary philosopher" :) --Merzul 02:57, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thanks, but this is exactly what I'm trying to understand--who champions the nontheist=atheist conflation. I'm following this discussion with great interest and Silence has made some rather strong claims about prominent people, and about popular appeal. I'd like to get a better grip on this. Silence?PelleSmith 03:02, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

August Cline isn't a prominent philosopher, except on the Internet (by virtue of about.com). Some better examples would be Michael Martin, George H. Smith, and Anthony Flew, three of the most prominent atheist (or former atheist, in Flew's case) philosophers out there. -Silence 04:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Thank you greatly. Is there anyway to know how many of your average Joe self-identifying atheists hold to the weak version as opposed to the strong? Are there any figures out there? Thanks again.PelleSmith 12:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Completely wrong. The problem has absolutely nothing to do with the definition of agnosticism. If I had meant agnosticISM, I would have said agnosticISM. I meant theologically agnostic. As in "Joe is agnostic when it comes to the question of whether or not God exists." This, I already know, is different than "Joe believes the question of whether or not God exists is unanswerable." If you would stop assuming I'm an idiot, then perhaps you wouldn't go off on tangents. I already said I concede that the Atheism article should include others' definitions. I simply do not understand their definitions, in particular "lack of belief" or "absence of belief in God." The reason I have a hard to understanding your explanation edit: (Your explanation of the meaning of the phrase "absence of belief" in your post dated 19:53, 25 February 2007 (UTC)) is because I cannot distinguish it from being theologically agnostic, even though you've told me it is different.--24.57.157.81 23:34, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

An agnostic is someone who adheres to agnosticism. There's no difference between theological agnosticism and a theological agnostic. Saying "Joe is agnostic when it comes to the question of whether or not God exists" means, properly, that Joe lacks knowledge or certainty on the issue; it doesn't mean that he lacks belief. Many theists and atheists are quite open about lacking certainty or knowledge (and thus being a-gnostic), yet remain theists and atheists nevertheless, at least if they themselves are to be believed. The difference between theological agnosticism and the "absence of belief" definition of atheism is that theological agnosticism, properly defined, refers to "absence of knowledge/proof/certainty", not absence of belief. That isn't the only definition of theological agnosticism that people use (the whole "neither theist nor atheist" thing is a common colloquial definition), but it's the one used by dictionary.com, the dictionary you've been touting. -Silence 04:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

No, an agnosticIST is someone who adheres to agnositicISM.

Theological agnosticism: The belief that the existence of God is unknowable.

Theological agnostic: Not knowing whether or not God exists.

--24.57.157.81 05:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

p.s. I did not tout a dictionary, you could have used any dictionary you want. You have invented many misconceptions about me. And you have just used this misconception to strike at me, to brand me a hypocrite. Please do not do this anymore. --24.57.157.81 05:34, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

• There is no such thing as an agnosticist. The correct word is agnostic. It works in the same way as "Stoic" works for "Stoicism"; there is no such thing as a "Stoicist". Whether you define theological agnosticism as "the belief that the existence of God is unknowable" or as "lacking knowledge that God exists", defining "agnostic" differently is simply inconsistent. It would be like me defining "atheism" as "the lack of belief in deities" and "atheist" as "believing that no deities exist", and using some other, arcane form (like "atheous" or "athean") as the personalized form of atheism. It's both absurd and a clear example of original research. If you want to make up or popularize a new word for your own private use, that's fine, but don't expect Wikipedia to adopt a malformed protologism or neologism. -Silence 06:45, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I say there is a difference. The "ism" is the difference. "Ism" has meaning.--24.57.157.81 20:47, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Sure, it has meaning. But you are misunderstanding that meaning. Ism is derived from a Greek suffix that forms active nouns from verbs ending in -izein, such as baptism from baptize. It has "meaning" in the sense that it has grammatical meaning and denotes words of a certain type, but it doesn't have meaning in that it distinguishes semantic content by itself. As you are using ism, you are trying to denote a specific subgroup of ism-bearing words that refer to doctrines, theories, systems, etc. (e.g., pacifism and agnosticism, but not heroism or plagiarism, although they use the same suffix).

Your error here is in assuming that every -ism word that has a personal counterpart (i.e., a word for adherents to the doctrine, distinct from the word for the doctrine itself) must have that counterpart ending in -ist. Reality is very different, and much less simple. The philosophy of Stoicism, for example, does not use the word *Stoicist for its adherents; rather, it uses Stoic. Likewise, the philosophy of agnosticism does not use the word *agnosticist for its adherents; rather, it uses agnostic. This is because it was unnecessary to derive a person-word from agnosticism and Stoicism when they originated because one already existed, in the form of the nominalized adjectives agnostic and Stoic. It would be redundant to appeal to an -ist for a brand-new word, when perfectly good ones already exist. In contrast, -ist is formed when a new word is needed that doesn't already exist, such as Darwinist from Darwinism, or dramatist from drama. And, in the same way that -ism doesn't always come with an -ist partner, but sometimes with other forms (like -ic), -ist, in fact, doesn't always come with an -ism: apologist, for example, was derived directly from apology without appealing to an (unnecessary) new word like *apologism.

So there is not necessarily any semantic difference between words with and without -ism, and not all -ism words need an -ist to form their personalized counterparts. -ism is of more historical importance than semantic relevance, and assuming that it has substantial meaning for all the words it is affixed to is misunderstanding both its history and its function. The reason agnosticism doesn't have a counterpart *agnosticist is because the word agnostic historically predates agnosticism; agnosticism was formed based on agnostic when a generalized word was needed for the philosophy, whereas if the opposite had happened (with agnosticism being first) then there probably would indeed have been a word *agnosticist. But there wasn't. So there isn't. The fact that there wasn't is just a historical quirk, and doesn't say anything about the specific meaning of the words involved, nor does it demand that we invent a brand-new word like *agnosticist, for the same reason that there's no need for us to coin new words like *apologism or *Stoicist. -Silence 21:46, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

What to do about this...

So can anything be done to clarify the usage? I think Silence's last two paragraphs explains this whole issue a bit better than in our current articles; atheism mentions this problem in a number of places, most notably in the footnote on Drange. But the etymology section only say "Additionally, in recent decades there has increasingly been a push in certain philosophical circles to redefine atheism negatively, as "absence of belief in deities" rather than as a belief in its own right; this definition is sometimes contested by theists." It doesn't say why this term is being redefined. However, the best place to cover this is maybe nontheism. What do you think? --Merzul 21:50, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, the reason this hasn't been included, I think, is because we need reliable sources before we can make such assertions. My brief, simplistic analysis above is obviously not the be-all and end-all of explaining why these distinctions have arisen. If anything, I'd say that there is a largely ideological basis for the increasing popularity of defining atheism as nontheism. It serves a specific, useful purpose in debates with theists: to unambiguously shift the burden of proof onto the theist alone, and to forever silence the agnostic's argument that "theists and atheists both rely on faith". It also serves to artificially "swell the ranks" of atheists by increasing the term's broadness (thus diffusing the common caricatures and strawmen of atheists; it's hard to say that atheists hate God, for example, if all babies are atheists), while at the same time blurring the distinction between different types of nontheists and thus making their diverse views seem more monolithic and unified. Some of these motivations are valid ones, and certainly they're an improvement over pejorative definitions of the past. But they don't rationally justify making such a transition (at least, in any way that a theist would be prone to accept), which is why other (albeit still weak) arguments, like the argument from etymology, have been forwarded instead. Most vocal theists and atheists, you see, have a vested interest in how the word atheist is defined, because it affects how all debates between them are are framed; assuming that either group is entirely pure of heart is naive. But, while this is also an important backdrop to understanding the motivation behind various factions in the debate over defining atheism, it, too, hasn't been added because all of this needs to be well-referenced. -Silence 23:46, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Yes, all of this makes very much sense; and I can imagine that it is quite hard to find an honest and neutral analysis of the issue published in a reliable source. Thank you for you own analysis though, I think I have understood the issue a lot better now; sadly I noticed the IP seems to be confused again. Good luck in the above discussion, I admire your patience! :) --Merzul 00:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

ARGH. No, I'm not "confused again." What am I confused about? How the definitions work? How many times do I have to say that I am fine with having more than one definition before you guys listen?! --24.57.157.81 02:31, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Well, you were confused if you thought Silence's careful explanation was "assuming you are an idiot"; he assumed no such thing. Maybe I did in the beginning, but he never did, so it was unfair; I'm glad you already apologize below. Now, I'm really going to sleep. Good night! --Merzul 02:51, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

He did assume I did not know what agnostic meant. That might be because I wikilinked agnostic which I just noticed, to my surprise, redirects to agnosticism. --24.57.157.81 03:26, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Why does that surprise you? Atheist redirects to Atheism; Theist redirects to Theism; Agnostic redirects to Agnosticism. There isn't usually a difference in meaning between the person and his -ism. -Silence 04:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Persons? --24.57.157.81 07:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

What? -Silence 07:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I apologize for being snappy Silence, I find this very frustrating. I am glad you recognize these things. If you are wondering if I am perhaps a vocal theist or vocal atheist, I am neither. I lean towards agnosticism, and I'd say I am theologically agnostic--no dogma, no scripture. If you want disclosure of my "vested interest" as you put it, part of the reason I'm so "vocal" is what you said above. The other part is because this "lack of belief" definition I find disturbingly cult-like in its meaninglessness to me, and I find other idiosyncracies of the "lack of belief" atheists only serve to reaffirm rather than temper my wild theories. This is a complementary reason to why I insist it is the "wrong" definition: because I also think it is a "bad" or "dangerous" definition. However, I would really like to give them the benefit of the doubt and focus instead on clear explanations of their ideas. --24.57.157.81 01:54, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I could have guessed that you self-identify as an agnostic. But what's important to recognize is that there are thousands of people out there who hold the exact same theological beliefs that you do, and consider themselves atheists. It's really just semantics; people's beliefs have little to do with what terms they prefer to use, in my experience.

Even most people who self-identify as "strong atheists" and "weak atheists", I've found, have precisely the same beliefs. Both, by and large, are willing to say "I don't believe in God, because there's too little evidence for God's existence." The only difference is that the strong atheists will say "This lack of evidence is sufficient grounds to affirm that God probably doesn't exist"; whereas weak atheists will say "God probably doesn't exist, but the lack of evidence is only grounds to reject the proposition that God exists, not to affirm anything". This is really mostly word games; there is as little real distinction here as there is between "I believe that Santa Claus doesn't exist" and "I don't believe that Santa Claus exists", which anyone could agree amounts to essentially the same thing. So the positive/negative distinction is fairly trivial. (There is, on the other hand, a very strong distinction between explicit and implicit atheism; but that's a different story.)

What really distinguishes the two is what the atheist is trying to place rhetorical emphasis on. A strong atheist wants to emphasize that it is reasonable to deny something's existence so long as there is absolutely no evidence for that thing. Strong atheists are out to dispel the illusion that we should be agnostic and uncertain and indecisive about any proposition for which there isn't absolute proof; to do so, they have as their strongest weapons analogical arguments like "are you agnostic about unicorns?" and Russell's teapot and the like.

In contrast, weak atheists don't generally care as much about going on the offensive against agnostic and theistic arguments; although they often care just as much about demonstrating how reasonable atheism is as strong atheists do, their "battle tactics" are different. Rather than aggressively promoting atheism by proclaiming that we should reject anything for which there is absolutely no evidence (which is, indeed, what most people would do for less popular beliefs, like belief in leprechauns or unicorns or space teapots), weak atheists defensively fortify atheism by placing the emphasis on the fact that the burden of proof is on the theists to provide support for their claim. They simply wait for theists to conclusively prove their case, picking at the weak spots in their arguments, and when theists can't prove that God exists, weak atheists retreat to their "middle ground" (much like agnostics) and resume the wait for evidence. Weak atheists aren't as hostile to common agnostic arguments (like "there's no proof either way, so we should refrain from deciding one way or the other"—something most strong atheists would cringe at), and, in fact, many self-described weak atheists are also agnostics just like 24.57.157.81.

That doesn't necessarily mean, however, that there's any substantial theological difference between these two groups. A strong atheist can believe that it's less than 1% likely that God exists, but a weak atheist can believe exactly the same thing (though there are, for obvious reasons, many more weak than strong atheists who believe that God's probability is higher). The real difference is that strong atheists don't care as much as weak atheists about emphasizing that theirs is the default position in lieu of evidence (although certainly strong atheists believe that just as much as weak atheists); and that weak atheists don't care as much as strong atheists about emphasizing that disbelief is merited whenever any proposition lacks evidence, and that the God proposition isn't "special" in that respect (though, again, many weak atheists feel that way just as strongly as strong atheists). It's not a matter of types of atheism so much as a matter of aspects or perspectives of atheism.

Although this applies less and less when you're dealing with less vocal or argument-prone atheists, most people who even bother to call themselves weak atheists or strong atheists are interested enough in the issue that they will indeed self-identify themselves based on a strategy (whether conscious or unconscious) to combat certain theistic (and/or agnostic) assumptions. So, an atheist who repeatedly deals with arguments like "We should be agnostic about propositions that haven't been proved" and wants to more effectively combat them, will be more likely to self-identify as "strong"; while an atheist who repeatedly deals with arguments like "Atheism is a faith position just like theism" and wants to more effectively combat them, will be more likely to self-identify as "weak".

And, beyond that, simple temperament comes into play: people who believe really strongly that God doesn't exist, even if their views entirely, 100% correspond to weak atheist views, will tend to favor strong atheism simply because its name sounds stronger, and they don't want to seem equivocal or unsure of themselves. In contrast, even someone who agrees with every aspect of strong atheism, may identify as a weak atheist if he or she wants to carefully avoid being accused of aggression or dogmatism or closed-mindedness of any kind. Attitudes and past experiences with theistic arguments play a much stronger role on how atheists (and agnostics) self-identify than actual metaphysical views do, by far. Especially when we're dealing with largely semantic distinctions like "weak" v. "strong", and sometimes "atheist" v. "agnostic". -Silence 04:29, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Wait, are you talking about flamewars?--24.57.157.81 07:09, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Uh, no... Not even close. -Silence 07:13, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

Then what is this nonsense about combat? --24.57.157.81 07:18, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

It's a metaphor for the ongoing debate between theists and atheists. A discussion is not a "flame war", but it can certainly involve "battle tactics", i.e., strategies for "winning" (proving the case for or against theism). -Silence 15:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

So, you are analyzing the arguments from a social perspective though, right? And then from that you determine what athiesm means. See, I assign labels to propositions, not to social activities. Otherwise it would be too difficult to discuss because you'd have to define everything every time. I don't see the labels as dynamic at all. They're all propositions. Fine, you can add to the label, but you can only add similar propositions--you increase the scope. And "rhetorical emphasis" and people using a percentage to describe how much they believe in God--seems to me to be not only an insult to those arguments, but an insult to philosophy itself. --24.57.157.81 08:11, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't determine what atheism means from social analysis, I determine what people think atheism means from social analysis. And then we report on what people think atheism means in the Atheism article. Since words have no meaning outside of the context in which they are used (i.e., no word has an inherent meaning), the meaning you use is just as arbitrary as the meaning anyone else uses. It just might not be as useful; but that's not Wikipedia's job to analyze. Also, both you and I, and everyone else, assigns labels to propositions and social activities. For example, you assign the label "theism" to a certain proposition, and the label "party" to a certain social activity. It's impossible to effectively communicate without a vocabulary more diverse than just propositions. Also, labels are dynamic because language is dynamic; words change meaning all the time. The current meanings may not be the meanings 100 years from now. That doesn't mean that we can't use our current meanings now, but it does make it foolish to cling to one arbitrary meaning forever without even considering the rest. Also, your last statement just amuses me. How are people "insulting philosophy" by having motives and agendas? Everyone has a motive and an agenda. It's an unavoidable aspect of human nature. How are people "insulting philosophy" by considering truth-claims probabilistically? If anything, the opposite is the case; absolutist reasoning is a deep insult to philosophy. -Silence 15:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

If everyone thought tomatoes were vegetables would you put them in the vegetable category? Would you redefine the meaning of vegetable to include tomatoes? Is vegetable a dynamic label? I frankly, would not respect their wishes, and I would call tomatoes a fruit. You, it seems, would do a poll, determine that, since so many people say tomatoes are vegetables, they must in fact be vegetables, then you would go and redefine "vegetable" to include tomatoes. I think this would be stupid.

I don't care about motives and agendas, I just think it is ridiculous that, as your statements seem to imply to me, people are saying things like "I believe in God 50% because I believe 50% of the arguments." That's an insult to those arguments, and to philosophy. Weighting the arguments with numbers is similarly ridiculous. Philosophy is not a math equation. You either believe in God 100% or 0%. Propositions are not continuums--or this is a new fuzzy logic form of philosophy that I'm not aware of?--24.57.157.81 20:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

If everyone defined the word "vegetable" as "fruit" and "fruit" as "vegetable", then we would indeed be right to put tomatoes in the vegetable category. Word definitions are consequences of their usage. They are not inherent, or eternal, or anything silly like that. If a word is used in different, contradictory ways, then Wikipedia should simply report on that. Also, the biological characteristics of tomatoes are a scientific issue, not a philosophical one, and therefore are determined by scientific consensus. If you called tomatoes a fruit even when the word "fruit" means what we mean by "vegetable", you'd be (rightly) mocked as a fool.

Also, "I believe in God 50% because I believe 50% of the arguments." is a straw man fallacy. Your problem seems to be that you willfully ignore the views of people you disagree with; as long as you are ignorant about the actual thought processes, motivations, and views of people you disagree with, you'll be consistently unsuccessful at changing anyone's mind or giving insight into the root cause of such disagreements. You also demonstrate an astonishing ignorance of probabilistic logic (describing it as "a new fuzzy logic form of philosophy that I'm not aware of"), and an astonishing arrogance in dismissing such logic (which forms the foundation of all of science, for starters). People do indeed either believe in God (100%) or not believe in God (0%), but that is completely unrelated to anything I was discussing above with regards to probabilities; the issue is not "how much do you believe God exists?" (which is nonsensical because such belief is either/or), but rather "how likely do you think it is that God exists?". You can believe in God 100% while nevertheless believing that it's possible that God doesn't exist; and you can believe in God 0% while nevertheless believing that it's possible that God exists. Conflating the either/or aspect of the simple question "do you believe in God?" with the much more nuanced question of "how likely do you think God is to exist?" is sheer intellectual laziness. -Silence 21:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

And did you just say "Strong atheists are out to dispel the illusion that we should be agnostic"? I think we should be agnostic. --24.57.157.81 07:17, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I'm aware of that. -Silence 15:35, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

So I'm deluded? My opinion is an illusion? Your bias is showing. Have some respect.--24.57.157.81 20:28, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

What on earth are you talking about? I said Strong atheists. I was describing the goals and intentions of strong atheists, not my own personal goals and intentions. Did you even bother to read any of what I wrote above, much less read Atheism, which quite clearly explains the distinctions I was psychoanalyzing above? -Silence 21:58, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

I think we are talking about this on entirely different levels. --24.57.157.81 07:27, 26 February 2007 (UTC)

The Trouble With Atheism

By click on random article button I found this: The Trouble With Atheism; can someone check this up? Antonio Carlos Porto 20:04, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

I don't think it is notable; I nominated it for deletion.--Sefringle 20:18, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

This is the latest creation of Chsbcgs (talk · contribs), my arch-rival and nemesis. Just kidding, just a user with an absolutely mysterious contribution pattern and a serious obsession with dubious categories. --Merzul 21:03, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Tanks for the quick response. Antonio Carlos Porto 03:27, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Discrimination against atheists

This article could really use some work to add more info. I would but I really don't know enough. --168.7.241.83 23:01, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Here is the full list of articles that really could use some work... in particular:

• High importance stubs: irreligion, State atheism
• Top importance starts quality: Agnosticism, Existence of God, Theism

but most of all, I would really like to have God in much better shape. I mean he is omniscient after all, and I think quite upset about our article about Him. --Merzul 23:31, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

Kareem Amer

According to wikinews, Kareem Amer was sentenced to four years in Egyptian prison, partly for suggesting there is no god. The sources in the Kareem Amer article do not make this obvious, though, so I have not yet added the WikiProject banner to the talk page. I'll leave it open for discussion whether he's within this Project's scope. — coelacan talk — 23:21, 27 February 2007 (UTC)

March-June

Lazarus and Dives RFC

An RFC has been filed to determine whether or not the position of the Jesus Seminar should be included in Lazarus and Dives. Your comments would be most welcome. --Joopercoopers 23:03, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Douglas Adams

There's a minor dispute on the Douglas Adams article. Under the heading "Personal beliefs", the discussion of Adams' atheism has been retitled "Religion", on the grounds that "Atheism is arguably a type of religion" and "it is what took the place of religion in Adams' life", and that the subsection needs a more "generic" title than "Atheism". I have argued on the talk:Douglas Adams that atheism is in no sense a religion, and that the higher header, "Personal beliefs", is already generic enough. Perhaps someone could lend some support to my argument? --Nicknack009 23:50, 1 March 2007 (UTC)

Atheistic evangelism

This article needs NPOV work, and may be a candidate for merging or simply deletion. Have a look. — coelacan — 17:56, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

Fair Use image on the project's user box template

By the user page policy, Fair Use images are not allowed to be used on user pages. Some new scripts and a new report have been developed that are now showing where these Fair Use images are being improperly used. And that is how I have ended up here. This group is showing up on the report. The image that this group uses on it's user box template is fair use. I'm sorry to have to hit you all with this, but you folks are going to need to find a replacement image for your user box. - TexasAndroid 18:05, 28 March 2007 (UTC)

I believe the license permits the usage here, and I've replied at User talk:TexasAndroid. — coelacan — 02:26, 29 March 2007 (UTC)

Question-begging arguments: original research?

Could some of our philosophy-savvy editors have a look at this debate on the formalizations of certain arguments for the existence of God. I suspect they are both unpublished synthesis, and I doubt if one can use bayesian reasoning in this way. This question involves the articles:

• argument from love
• argument from beauty

They conclude "theism is more plausible than materialism", but I think this is question-begging. Compare to argument from consciousness, which is at least formally valid. Also, if anyone knows anything about these arguments, much help is needed in bringing them to encyclopedic quality. Thank you! --Merzul 15:46, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

New atheism articles

There are a number of terms that are essentially covering the same issue:

• antitheism
• militant atheism
• atheist evangelism
• new atheism
• atheist fundamentalism

These are all used in various news commentaries, but what is the best Wikipedian way to cover this all. I have suggested to merge all these kind of terms into antitheism. What do you people think, please comment here! --Merzul 14:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Atheism FAC!!

After some massive improvements (in my opinion) by BRIAN0918 the atheism article is now going through a FA candidacy! And it seems to be going quite well so far... --Merzul 14:34, 11 April 2007 (UTC)

Strictness

Why is Atheism lumped into the Religion category? And why are so many non-atheistic articles in this category? They belong in an article linking to related entries, but not in the category itself. I know the laity tend to think of atheism as a "religion", but that doesn't mean we ought to perpetuate such non-sense. Affiliation with humanism, etc. goes in the same vein. You wouldn't place an article about a Protestant subject in a Catholic category, nor (probably) a Jewish article in a category for Christian topics. --Belg4mit 03:50, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

Could you specify what you are talking about. Do you mean this WikiProject, or are you talking about Category:Atheism? I can't see any immediate problem. --Merzul 18:46, 17 April 2007 (UTC)

"Some Wikipedians have formed a project to better organize information in articles related to atheism. This page and its subpages contain their suggestions;" so what exactly is the distinction you're trying to make? I think I'm being pretty clear: atheism is atheism, not Unitarianism, humanism, etc. etc. and it is definitely not a religion. --Belg4mit 17:21, 19 April 2007 (UTC)

Look What I just made

Hey there, I made this user box the other day...

This user is a secular humanist.

Should I make others like it? Maybe one for "Humanists" and one for "people who are interested in Humanism? Would anyone use them?--Dr who1975 23:25, 1 May 2007 (UTC)

Great box! I'd love to use it! I'm a rather inexperienced Wikipedia user, so please show me how. /Benzocaine 20:20, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Creating a guideline that applies to all religous articles

Please discuss this in a discussion here--Sefringle 03:25, 10 May 2007 (UTC)

New project proposal

There is a new WikiProject task force proposal at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Proposals#Inter-religious content that is being proposed to deal specifically with articles whose content relates to several religious traditions. Any editors interested in joining such a group would be more than welcome to indicate their interest there. John Carter 15:08, 17 May 2007 (UTC)

New article request

We are now working on creating and improving lists of individuals who have converted to a specific type of religious belief. At present, however, there is no List of notable converts to atheism. I think the "a" in "atheism" isn't capitalized, but, if it is, please feel free to do so. If the members of this project would be interested in helping produce such a list, I would be greatly appreciative. Thank you. John Carter 15:49, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

See #creation of new articles, where this is briefly discussed. The main objection was that almost all notable atheists are converts, and so this list would be rather redundant. I'm not opposed to creating a separate list, but I agree that a better solution is to add the previous beliefs to the list of atheists article, and perhaps redirect the list of converts. --Merzul 16:04, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

Actually, the individual "conversion" of almost all atheists was one of the questions I didn't ask. I will however post a link to this discussion on the page where the list was requested. Thank you very much for the very rapid response. :) John Carter 16:13, 22 May 2007 (UTC)

FAR

Isaac Asimov has been nominated for a featured article review. Articles are typically reviewed for two weeks. Please leave your comments and help us to return the article to featured quality. If concerns are not addressed during the review period, articles are moved onto the Featured Article Removal Candidates list for a further period, where editors may declare "Keep" or "Remove" the article from featured status. The instructions for the review process are here. Reviewers' concerns are here.

creation of an atheism template

A sidebar template for atheism articles should be created.--sefringle^Talk 06:20, 15 June 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Claimed Messianic prophecies of Jesus

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Claimed Messianic prophecies of Jesus vote now --Java7837 19:46, 26 June 2007 (UTC)

July-December

Clark Adams

I only knew Clark Adams for his quote "If atheism is a religion, then health is a disease". I was looking for information on the man behind this quote and found out that unfortunately, he committed suicide not long ago. Because Wikipedia was lacking an article about Clark Adams, I wrote one myself. Now, some administrators want to delete the article because of "lack of notability". From reading about Clark Adams a couple of hours now, I've learned that he was a very popular person among atheists. Some of you probably knew him yourselves. Please help adding to the article about Clark Adams. Among other things, for many years he was Public Relations of Internet Infidels and for two years, I think, he was their president. He was also co-founder of the Secular Coalition for America. Please contribute by adding information and, most important, references. /Benzocaine 20:18, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

And by the way, googling for "Clark Adams" atheism generates 15,000+ articles. That's pretty notable if you ask me, but then again perhaps atheism doesn't count. If he was a christian minister having co-founded an important christian right lobby organization and being president for an important christian web-based project I suppose his notability would not have been questioned. /Benzocaine 20:22, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Positivism, Faith, Belief, and Atheism Revisited

I think the person who started the section "Positivism, Faith, Belief, and Atheism" is confusing positivism with naturalism. Positivism is simply the stance that one should dismiss all metaphysical propositions as meaningless. It is not equal to saying that there is only one world, the natural world, which is what naturalism means. One may hold the belief that the world is supernatural and still think that metaphysical arguments are meaningless because the supernatural is not bound by logic, or one may hold the view that everything that exists is natural but still think that metaphysical arguments are meaningful. Thus you can have positivism without naturalism and vice versa so they are not equivalent. (I'd rather say that positivism and agnosticism are the same). /Benzocaine 21:00, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

Why is Illuminati under this project?

There's nothing in the article that would indicate a relation. MSJapan 21:01, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Just a guess, here. Many of the founders of the Bavarian illuminati were adherents of freethought, and that is categorized under Atheism. But, like I said, just a guess. John Carter 22:00, 12 July 2007 (UTC)

Reading the Illuminati articles though there does seem to be relevant mentions of atheists e.g. "As a result, atheists having only the former organization open to them, congregated disproportionately in it; this over-representation, taken along with the Illuminati's largely humanist and anti-clerical bent, likely accounts for many of the claims of atheism leveled at the alleged world conspiracy of which the Illuminati supposedly remain a part."

The problem is it's not referenced and probably also OR (i.e. "I read it on the Internet somewhere") given the Illuminati don't actually exist as far as I can see. So the thing to do is work on the references on that article. Personally I suspect finding any reference that makes any sense will be comparable in obfuscation as trying to identify the science in ID. Ttiotsw 10:27, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

The bavarian illuminati is the only section of that article, historicaly relevant to atheism. maybe it deserves seperating the illuminati (legend) (inclusive of modern spin off groups) from a bavarian illluminati article. The Enlightenment, Freemasonry, and The Illuminati by Conrad Goeringer Some thing 17:40, 13 July 2007 (UTC)

Spoken Article of 'Atheism'

Being the keystone article of the Atheism Wikiproject, I thought it'd be a good idea to have a spoken version of it. To that, I thought I'd be bold and do one myself - unless anyone has any major objections? -UK-Logician-2006 19:51, 27 July 2007 (UTC)

Go ahead! Sounds like a great idea! -Icewedge 07:57, 16 August 2007 (UTC)

Why atheism template on Buddhism talkpage?

You're welcome to help improve on the Buddhism article, but be warned that Buddhism is not an atheist religion....Greetings, Sacca 05:58, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

That's debatable, and I'm sure they're already aware. – Mike.lifeguard | ^talk 15:52, 5 August 2007 (UTC)

While Buddhisms could be considered to be atheistic due to the lack of a god, that does not mean it falls in the scope of the WikiProject Atheism. The project is for things openly atheist. Many belief systems do are "godless" such as political parties but not atheistic. Memetic Plague 05:38, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

Indeed, and many Buddhists have been openly atheist and Buddhist atheist polemic is discussed in academic literature. Perhaps our role is to improve the article by ensuring that this is reflected appropriately in the Buddhism article. --Dannyno 13:03, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

I think I was the one who placed the banner there. The reasons were as follows:

• (1) Buddhism is included in the Category:Atheism, which means that it is technically within the scope of this project
• (2) There are several technical terms used to describe various "atheistic" beliefs. It is more likely that members of this project would be able to use the most specific terms than members of the Buddhism project, because of their greater familiarity with them. They thus might be the more likely people to be able to improve the article in that way.
• (3) That article is included in the (slowly) developing Wikipedia:WikiProject Atheism/Articles page, which allows members of this project to review it for changes, including vandalism. Generally, the more eyes looking out for such things, the better.
• (4) There are also sources of information used by atheists which describe Buddhism, which might, depending on circumstances, be able to supply information directly relevant to that article without violation of undue weight rules that might not be in most Buddhist sources.
• (5) Lastly, to more or less rephrase an earlier point, the more copy editors an article has, the more likely it is that the stumbling blocks to GA and/or FA status can be conquered.

Lastly, I do want it to be known that the Category:Buddhism, despite being a subcat of the Category:Atheism, will not have the banner added to the articles within it (that aren't included in any of the other categories that this project does cover). Clearly, the Buddhism project, of which I am a member as well, is best able to directly deal with those articles in the religion or philosophy aspects. Of course, other banners, biographical, national, or whatever, may also be added as well, depending on whether those projects decide to "tag" them or not. I hope that is sufficient answer. John Carter 15:07, 23 August 2007 (UTC)

New template

What does everyone think, useful or not? Also I noticed that some busy body merged the agnosticism and atheism templates into the belief system template, and another is now trying to excise most of the links from it. ornis (t) 09:05, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

AfD

Several articles related to atheism have been nominated for deletion: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Atheist Universe: Why God Didn't Have A Thing To Do With It, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Free Inquiry (magazine), Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Alt.atheism, Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Danish Atheist Society and even Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Why I Am Not a Christian. Skarioffszky 16:42, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

An AFD is not a vote, bringing in your friends will not help. --Hornet35 16:55, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

They are not my friends, they are wikipedians who work on articles related to atheism and may want to join the discussion. You must have a truly warped view of wikipedia to say something like this. Skarioffszky 17:02, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

I agree - there shouldn't be anything wrong in raising awareness of AfDs on other Wikipedia articles, and thank you for doing so. In my opinion, one of the general problems of the deletion process is when they are decided by too small a number of editors, often leading to inconsistencies. The "vote" problem is only an issue when people advertise elsewhere, where people are likely to know little on how Wikipedia works, and where the people are far more likely to be biased in supporting an article. Viewers of this page on the other hand are going to be regular Wikipedia editors, and there's no reason to assume they will blindly vote in favour of any atheist article (personally, if I saw a non-notable article, I'd be voting Delete whether the topic relates to me or not). Mdwh 22:21, 27 August 2007 (UTC)

Is it me BUT why would Hornet35 even know to reply here with his thinly veiled characterisation of editors. Given Hornet35 started this tranche of AfDs by picking a Bertrand Russell essay Why I Am Not a Christian and calling it a "Non-notable essay, no assertion of notability. The only reference is a link to the essay." which obviously got keep with WP:SNOW !. The article was also updated with reviews etc and now looks better. Anyone sensible seeing Bertrand Russell should sit back and think - "Is AfD correct here for an article related to one of the worlds most famous Philosophers and Mathematicians ?, am I missing something ?, what is my intent ?"

If the intent is that editors should simply polish the articles then say-so instead of drive-by tagging whatever "Atheist" article you can hit with an AfD. There are many other tags to use asking for articles to be improved as well as listing them on this page too. Ttiotsw 07:19, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/FreethoughtMedia The crusade continues. ornis (t) 08:53, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

The nominator is a sock, I would get an admin to close the debates as they are all bad faith noms, and if any of those opposed wish to start proper AfDs then they could be welcomed to do so. Darrenhusted 14:32, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

DO NOT TAKE THAT ACTION PLEASE. Whether or not the nominator is a sock has no baring on the AfD process. Where this editor's nominations are bad the AfD process will bare out exactly that. For instance as it already has done with the Russell essay. If you ask to have the AfDs thrown out you will be in inadvertently gaming the system, because we are supposed to judge content and not the behavior of editors. If an editor is opening bad faith AfDs then his/her behavior should be judged in the appropriate venues like ANI.PelleSmith 14:43, 28 August 2007 (UTC)

Given the efforts of this editor are obviously agenda driven, and it appears that he has driven too far in several areas (several AFD noms which failed, sock puppetry, etc). I think at the very least this account should be closely monitored. That's work, but he's making more work for others otherwise. If we can do something about this guy we should. Gregbard 01:15, 6 September 2007 (UTC)

Ibn Warraq

I was not quite sure where to put this, so I shall leave it here.

The Ibn Warraq article is included in this project, but I am quite sure that he is an agnostic rather than an atheist. It says "Agnostic" on http://www.apostatesofislam.com/apostates.htm - one of his many website causes - and I have never heard him call himself an atheist. He compares religions and tends to like polytheisms better than monotheism, but he never seems to comment on the possible existence of a god much. I just thought that I would raise it here to see if anyone had any evidence on the other side, and to suggest that he be removed from the project. Epa101 19:22, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

List of atheist organizations

I created a new article, List of atheist organizations, and added a lot of groups to it. I might have added too many groups (or maybe not), but it'd be good to get some extra input on this. Many of those groups have been deleted as being non-notable, but there is some debate on that. Everybody's input (regardless of whether you agree with me or not) is appreciated. Regardless of whether those deleted groups (you'll probably need to look at the history to see which ones they are) are notable, there are also a few groups of obvious notability (such as American Association for the Advancement of Atheism) that deserve article pages that currently don't exist. Ben Hocking ^{(talk|contribs)} 22:39, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Dawkinism

Hi, I thought I’d share a userbox I just created. For those of you who can’t stand the sight of them, I apologies. User:S.dedalus/Richard Dawkins (God)



Needles to say this is meant ironically. :-) Suggestions would be welcomed. --S.dedalus 04:51, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

My suggestion would be a colour scheme other than black on red. On that note you can use <font> tags inside links to colour them.  – ornis⚙ 05:20, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

This user knows that
Richard Dawkins is the
one and only God.

Something like this.  – ornis⚙ 06:01, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! I was wondering if there was a way to color the links. I’ll make the appropriate changes. --S.dedalus 21:36, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

This user knows that
Richard Dawkins is the
one and only God.

Now, see, I'd be more inclined to recommend something like this as everyone knows that red and black are the colors of the devil and old gold and white are the colors of perfection. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Benhocking (talk • contribs) 13:07, 20 October 2007 (UTC)

Hehe, nice links. . . --S.dedalus 21:37, 21 October 2007 (UTC)

Atheist related user categories up for deletion

If you don’t already know about it some of you may be interested in the discussion concerning a proposed deletion of Category:Atheist Wikipedians and all related categories. The discussion can be found at WP:UCFD#Wikipedians by philosophy and subcats. Be sure to scroll down the page there are at least a dozen related deletion discussion bellow. --S.dedalus 06:28, 23 October 2007 (UTC)

Vandalized

By the way someone vandalized the project Userbox {{Template:UserWPA}} to say Wikiproject Idiotism [2] and it went unnoticed for 2 days. Does nobody have the templates on their watchlist? --S.dedalus (talk) 05:24, 12 December 2007 (UTC)

Now I do. Thanks for the heads-up. TechBear (talk) 17:11, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Christianity in China

Hi, can you help me with this issue? --Esimal (talk) 14:14, 14 December 2007 (UTC)

Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami described in Chaitanya-charitamrita Adi 6.38:

‘chaitanya-mangala’ shune yadi pashandi, yavana

seha maha-vaishnava haya tatakshana

If even a great atheist hears Shri Chaitanya-mangala (previous name for Shri Chaitanya-bhagavata), he immediately becomes a great devotee.

So all the great atheists which comprise of 99.99% of the world’s population can become maha-vaishnavas if they get the supreme good fortune of reading this book. Thus in my personal opinion, when this book is published and distributed in mass quantities all over the world, it will break open the gates of the flood of the love of Godhead brought by Lord Chaitanya and His associates and will hasten the advent of the predicted Golden Age in all its glory.