(August 28, 2008 at 3:45 am)KRW1612 Wrote: When white man arrived in Australia 230 years ago they had never heard of the Christian god or Jesus Christ or Allah or Mohammed. Why? because they had never been taught about these entities. Entities that have been man made by other peoples.

While that statement is true, it does not infer the following:

(August 28, 2008 at 3:45 am)KRW1612 Wrote: Therefore we are all born non-believers until such time as some of us are indoctrinated by the teachers of religion, whether they be familly, school teachers, clergy, etc.

Because the aboriginals had, and still have their own religion.
But you rescued yourself with:

(August 28, 2008 at 3:45 am)KRW1612 Wrote: If you started a community on a remote island without any knowledge of the current crop of gods and religions, and they had no contact with the rest of the world for 6 generations they would never know the Christian god, or any of the others. However they may have created their own by then, or remained without any.

I'm sure however, that societies will naturally rend towards the development of a religion and a priest caste until better understanding of the nature of the world makes that no longer necessary.

Individual atheists and philosphers may crop up ahead of their time but the move towards secular societies requires a security and level of science education.

I can provide no data for this assertion.

(August 27, 2008 at 7:33 am)Tiberius Wrote: If religion didn't exist I am sure some people would still believe in gods. If there were no atheists then yes there would be only theists. Whether they would still refer to themselves by that name might be a more worthy topic.

I've always thought it strange to give someone a particular name because they don't believe in something.

(August 28, 2008 at 4:53 am)Darwinian Wrote: I've always thought it strange to give someone a particular name because they don't believe in something.

I'm sure we can find other examples if we think long enough. It's not the same thing but we have the word "bald" to describe people with no hair . . .

We call people who don't believe in lots of stuff "skeptics"

A conservative doesn't believe in change.

OK I'm reaching here, but there has GOT to be another example of a word in English that describes a disbelief in something.

But with baldness their really is such a thing as hair.

If you can come up with 10 words to describe someone who doesn't believe something you win a prize..

I'll start you off.

1) Atheist

bloody hell, I'm just looking for a second one - 10!

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2) Unbeliever - (includes non-believer and disbeliever)

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3) skeptic

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4) Heathen
5) Heretic
6) iconoclast
7) Dissenter
8) Doubter
9) Cynic
10) Empiricist

These are all arguable and should perhaps be in the symantics thread!

Thesarus often gave "agnostic" as synonymous with "atheist" but I didn't buy it.

Again the whole concept of disbelief comes into play. Any disbelief is a belief in its own right. Evolutionists disbelieve Creationism because they believe Evolution. It is a very rationalized belief of course, but still a belief.

Creationists disbelieve in the Big Bang as well.

There are an infinite of ways you can address the subject of disbelief.

(August 28, 2008 at 6:27 am)Tiberius Wrote: Again the whole concept of disbelief comes into play. Any disbelief is a belief in its own right. Evolutionists disbelieve Creationism because they believe Evolution. It is a very rationalized belief of course, but still a belief.

Creationists disbelieve in the Big Bang as well.

There are an infinite of ways you can address the subject of disbelief.

But what if those things didn't exist would there still be definitions and labels for them?

Also, saying evolutionist? Tisk tisk tisk bad Adrian!

(August 28, 2008 at 6:12 am)StewartP Wrote: bloody hell, I'm just looking for a second one - 10!

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2) Unbeliever - (includes non-believer and disbeliever)

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3) skeptic

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4) Heathen
5) Heretic
6) iconoclast
7) Dissenter
8) Doubter
9) Cynic
10) Empiricist

These are all arguable and should perhaps be in the symantics thread!

Thesarus often gave "agnostic" as synonymous with "atheist" but I didn't buy it.

Very good, but I really meant 10 words to describe a disbelief in something specific in the same way that atheist describes a disbelief in a god or gods.

For example, is there a word for the disbelief in ghosts, or aliens or salmons orbiting Jupiter etc?

But as you've put in so much work I think you deserve a little prize

Well any political opinion I suppose can count such as a Communist perhaps?

(August 28, 2008 at 9:05 am)Darwinian Wrote: For example, is there a word for the disbelief in ghosts, or aliens or salmons orbiting Jupiter etc?

If there were a word specific to such a believer I suppose there would be a word for someone who disbelieves it. In each case though, you only have the "belief" of such things. So if you called someone who believed in salmons orbiting Jupiter a "Salmonite" then you would have the people who call themselves the opposite (whatever it may be).