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Chris OConnor wrote:As Murmur said it depends on how you define the word "atheist."


Newborn babies are implicit atheists just like they are implicit aRepublicans, aDemocrats, and aRacists. A baby cannot believe in a God, believe in Democratic values or Republican values, or be a racist. Calling a newborn baby an implied atheist isn't an attempt by atheists to build their ranks. It's just a way of driving home the point that belief in a God is learned. Before you learned about God you lacked the belief in a God. The very nature of a baby implies they cannot hold beliefs about religion, politics, etc...

This type of reasoning is problematic from the word go. Atheism is a concept just as theism is a concept. Being ignorant of that concept doesn't place you automatically in opposition to it. That's creating a false dichotomy. Being ignorant of the concept of theism is simply that: ignorance of the concept of theism. Nothing can be said of that person's belief in that concept because he or she has not yet been introduced to it. There is no way to get around the fact that atheism and theism are choices that have to be made. Until they are made, nothing can be said of that person's state of belief in those concepts.

We should also be careful about putting racism in the same set with being a republican or a democrat. The latter two are intellectual stances, racism is an emotional reaction. If I am 3 years old and I see a black person for the first time in my life and my thought is: "That person is repulsive to me. Anyone who looks like that is repulsive!" Clearly, that is not an intellectual stance. I don't care why I feel that way, I only know that that is how I feel. So to lump in racial feelings with political leanings is a false equivalency.

DB Roy wrote:Atheism is a concept just as theism is a concept. Being ignorant of that concept doesn't place you automatically in opposition to it.

An implied atheist is not opposed to theism. They are an atheist and don't even know it. This really is a matter of semantics. The term implied atheist was created for a very narrow subset of atheists but this subset exists and deserves to be labeled just so that we can have a proper conversation.

Would you agree that a newborn baby is not a Democrat or Republican yet? We don't have terms for people that have never been exposed to politics and therefore are not politically affiliated. Why not? Because Democrats and Republicans don't play games and try to call newborn babies Democrats or Republicans. Religious people do this all the time. A child born into a Hindu family or Muslim family is a new Hindu or Muslim. They haven't yet been exposed to the religions of Hinduism or Islam so they are actually implied atheists up until the point they have been exposed and have made a decision as to what they wish to believe in.

Chris OConnor wrote:This really is a matter of semantics. The term implied atheist was created for a very narrow subset of atheists but this subset exists and deserves to be labeled just so that we can have a proper conversation.

We seem to have an innate sense of a higher intelligence that we usually call "God." But as Chris says, we struggle with what "atheist" means because the word "God" is so nebulous. You would have to come up with a specific definition of "God" before we can really know what "atheist" means. Though typically an atheist refers to the "God" described in the Bible or the Torah or the Koran.

I'm reading a book about the Middle East that goes into a lot of detail about Islam. There's one passage in particular that struck me as absurd. Apparently Muslims believe an angel came to Ishmael, while Jews believe the angel came to Isaac instead. This is only one of many thousands of discrepancies in the holy texts that make up the Koran and the Bible. So no one disputes that an angel came to earth and talked to a person (prophet). The dispute focuses on which prophet the angel talked to.

Also, did you know that Muhammad declared himself to be the very last prophet of Islam. And so Muslims believe to this day that Muhammad was the last prophet. There can be no more prophets until Judgment Day, which was supposed to happen a couple of thousand years ago. Meanwhile Christians are still waiting for the Second Coming of Christ (which also was supposed to happen a couple thousand years ago). And so it goes.

And that's why a person's religion is mostly culture-dependent. If you're born in the Middle East, you are very likely going to be a Muslim or Jew. If you're born in Europe or the United States, you're going to be a Christian. Except for those who don't have a very strong innate "God" sense and are more impervious to religious indoctrination.

So are we born atheist? It's a complicated question. But just as we are not born Republican or Democrat, per se, we are probably born with a certain inclinations towards being liberal or conservative. Unfortunately our society is fairly binary and once we start a path, one way or the other, we become more entrenched in political ideology.

Geo wrote:So are we born atheist? It's a complicated question. But just as we are not born Republican or Democrat, per se, we are probably born with a certain inclinations towards being liberal or conservative. Unfortunately our society is fairly binary and once we start a path, one way or the other, we become more entrenched in political ideology.

Most of us seem to gravitate towards binary thinking. It's good or bad, black or white, right or wrong, etc... Life is often more nuanced and requires deep consideration. Our binary bias probably had a survival benefit long ago in our evolutionary past, but today it seems to be more of a hindrance to critical thinking.

You're probably right that we all pop out of the birth canal leaning to the left or right. Someone needs to run a study on this!

Chris OConnor wrote: You're probably right that we all pop out of the birth canal leaning to the left or right. Someone needs to run a study on this!

Jonathan Haidt discusses this in his book, The Righteous Mind. Also check out this TedTalk video. Pay particular attention to the segment starting at 4:49.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vs41JrnGaxc

Disclaimer: I'm a big fan of Haidt's work.

I don't think Athiests are born, I think bullies are born. It's easy to point and laugh at religion, and say; ''you actually believe in all that crap?'' I don't believe in it either, but over the years I've seen a few people turn to the church when they were at their lowest. At the time I thought they were hypocrites, using the church as a crutch when it suited them. But know I think it was better they turned to the church than to drink, drugs, or suicide. But more to the point; If it wasn't Atheism it'd be something else, the born whinger would still be whinging and attacking something or somebody else like an internet troll, ie that's what they were born to do, it's a personality trait. Most of us can catch ourselves doing it, and make an effort to control ourselves. As the saying goes: ''Any fool can criticize, condemn, and complain. And most fools do''.

First answer was right the first time: born clean slate, anything else is pushed in and learned. Sorry, kids are not born Christians, or any other religion. Religion is an invention of man.

Sorry, it has to be said: how can people who read be so ignorant? I mean, have you heard yourselves? I just got here and I'm amazed... Haha, good luck with literature!

People need to bake complexity into the elegant to support their preferred beliefs.

carolinedelussey wrote:First answer was right the first time: born clean slate, anything else is pushed in and learned. Sorry, kids are not born Christians, or any other religion. Religion is an invention of man.

You might want to read through the posts here more carefully. What many of us have said is that while religion is a human invention, the minds of humans have evolved over eons of time to believe in "God" or higher being(s). Likewise, we are cognitively wired for language and social interaction and countless other traits as well, so that the concept of "blank slate"—Tabula rasas—has been shown to be more or less a myth. Stephen Pinker wrote a pretty good book on this subject: The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.

There's also been much said about the words "theism" and "atheism" and what those words actually mean. It's important to discuss such semantics to avoid talking past one another or coming to snap judgments. Good luck and welcome to BookTalk!