Is the Atheism/Theism belief/disbelief a false dichotomy? are there other options?

[Pyrrho]

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@Pyrrho, how does one conceptualize degrees of certainty properly in a philosophical argument? Does one always have to have an opinion on something or can't one be legitimately undecided between the logical alternatives theist and  (not theist), and withhold judgment? Is that what you call not knowing what one is?

Being confused and withholding judgment are not necessarily the same thing.  I withhold judgment on whether I have undetected cancer or not.  I am not confused about my opinion on the question.

One can completely withhold judgment on a question, and in the case of the issue of the existence of god, this is something that has been widely discussed.  If you completely withhold judgment, you do not believe that there is a god, and you do not believe that there is no god.  That position is "weak atheism."  If one has decided the question, and decided that there is a god, that is the position of theism, and if one has decided that there is no god, that is the position of "strong atheism."

In the case of the term "atheism,"  strong atheism and something like weak atheism are very common meanings of the term.  It is "something like weak atheism" because it is the lack of belief in a god that is one of the two common meanings of the term "atheism."  That would include both weak atheists and strong atheists (that is, strong atheists who do not have contradictory beliefs about it).  If one means strong atheism, then there is middle ground between theism and atheism.  If one means the lack of a belief in a god, then there is no middle ground, as that covers absolutely everything that isn't theism.

For more on the common two definitions of "atheism" I made a thread a while back:

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There seems to be quite a lot of time wasted on the question of the meaning of the term "atheism."  I think I can explain why people talk past each other on this.  Quite simply, there is more than one standard meaning of the English term "atheism."

Take a look at:

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/atheism?s=t

There you will see (unless, of course, they change it between when I quote it and when you look at it):

atheism
noun
1.  the doctrine or belief that there is no God.
2.  disbelief in the existence of a supreme being or beings.


Notice, the two common and proper definitions are not the same.  They are, as is common with words, related in their meaning, but they are not the same.

People commonly insist that the word "atheism" means one of these, but the simple fact is, in English, either meaning is right and proper.  Notice, one of these is a lack of belief, and the other is a belief.


So, when someone uses the term with one of these meanings, and you want to use the other, the best thing to do is to explain which of the standard meanings you intend.  It is of no use to tell people that they are wrong to use a term in accordance with a standard meaning of the term; being a standard meaning, they are right to use it in accordance with that meaning, but one is wrong to insist it must mean only one of the standard meanings of the term.

The same idea applies to other words.  Most words have more than one meaning in a dictionary, and it is ridiculous to believe that everyone else uses one and only one of the meanings contained therein.  If there were only one right meaning of the term, there would only be one definition in standard dictionaries.

Sometimes, with the word "atheism," both senses are given as if they were one definition in a dictionary.  As in this case:

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/atheism

a·the·ism

  (ā′thē-ĭz′əm)
n.
Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.


Notice, in this case, two different ideas are presented as if they were one definition, and not two separate and distinct ideas.  Still, if you pay attention, "disbelief" and "denial" are not the same thing.  One is not believing something, and the other is believing that something is false.  One is a lack of belief, and the other is a belief.

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Now, one can be more or less certain about one's opinion on the question, but the degree of certainty does not alter what the position is. That is, if one is a strong atheist, but feels the evidence is weak (no pun intended), that can contrast with a strong atheist who feels that the evidence is strong for there being no god.  They are different in the firmness of their beliefs, but the belief in question ("there is no god") is the same.


As for the issue of whether one knows whether one has a particular belief or not, that is likely going to get us into the realm of psychology.  And, of course, one may have contradictory beliefs (which would mean that one is necessarily wrong about something).  That, again, is getting us into psychology, and how people are fucking crazy and not rational.

My impression is that whether one calls oneself atheist or theist may be more a matter of self-image and habit than is usually admitted, and that yes/no beliefs are generally not so much unique binary flags in the brain and rather situation dependent. I may act as if there was a God in some instances, and as if there was none in others. If I am fairly certain, it can go one way so often that one can get the impression of a binary opinion. The more I think about it, the less the "yes/no belief" as an well defined state of mind seems real to me, as opposed to individual decisions to act in certain situations. What you say when asked may be just one of many decisions one makes to position oneself.

Maybe this is just sleep deprived me talking here...

There are a few ways to approach what you are saying.  One is, many times people act like they believe something because they wish to hide their true beliefs.  In the case of Epicurus and David Hume, both explicitly claimed to believe in a god (or gods in the case of Epicurus).  Now, did they believe that, or did they say that because they both lived in societies in which it was illegal to be an atheist?  For both, the consequences of stating that they were atheists would have been severe, and both have been accused of atheism at one time or another.  One might also pretend (and "pretend" is the right word for this) to believe because one does not want to upset one's grandmother.  But I suspect that this is not the sort of case you have in mind.

If we consider someone who is truly a weak atheist and not a strong atheist (see above for definitions), that person might behave in some instances as if there is a god, and in some as if there is not.  This is likely because the person does not know if there is a god or not, and so does not act particularly as if there is a god, nor particularly as if there is not a god, because the person does not have either of those beliefs.

There is another sort of possibility, touched on above, in that a person may have conflicting beliefs.  This will be sometimes caused by someone trying to compartmentalize their beliefs, so that they pretend that beliefs in one subject have nothing to do with their beliefs in another subject, but the world is not cleanly divided such that everything fits in one subject and not in any other subject.  For example, the theory of evolution pertains to biology, and it is also something relevant to certain forms of religion.  We might also say (and you probably say something like this all the time, or at least think it), that it also is relevant to physics, in that everything must conform to the laws of physics (so whatever is posited in evolutionary theory cannot violate a law of physics).  (We can expect that you have a more sophisticated way you would express this idea, but we need not worry too much about that at present.)

Further with the idea of conflicting beliefs, one may be a proper subject for psychological study, and have incoherent beliefs, or an incoherent tangle of beliefs.


But none of that contradicts my statement that one is either a theist or not a theist.  Whether someone can know whether a particular individual is a theist or not is irrelevant.  Just like you probably cannot know what I had for breakfast this morning.  That does not mean that I did not have whatever I had.

If whatever the tangle of mangled and incoherent mess of beliefs someone has includes a belief in a god, then the person is a theist (as commonly defined), and if that tangle of mangled and incoherent mess of beliefs that someone has does not include a belief in a god, then the person is not a theist.  Whether anyone can determine which applies, including the person themselves, is irrelevant to that fact.