[Serious] Atheist Dogma

[Belacqua]

OK, if it were true that atheism in a thinking person is a lack and nothing but a lack, then what you say would be true.

So you have persuaded me that atheism in thinking adults is not merely a lack.

Atheism in thinking adults consists of beliefs. These beliefs will vary based on the contingencies of what they've heard, but they will include things like:

~ The claims made by religious people are not persuasive.

~ The holy texts are not true.

These beliefs may or not be provable, depending on which religious claims we're talking about, but they are beliefs, in that they are things we hold to be true.

Atheism in thinking adults is comprised of beliefs.

Let’s try a hypothetical.

Joe is an engineer. He got very good marks at university, and was able to secure an entry-level job. After ten years or so, Joe has risen to become a project supervisor. He is widely respected by his colleagues for his intelligence, practicality and efficiency.

While not creating marvels of modern engineering, Joe enjoys literature and history, among other subjects. He is well enough read to be able to talk intelligently on a wide range of topics - art, music, The Seven Years’ War, South African politics and many others. He is, by any reasonable definition, a ‘thinking person’.

However, through some wildly improbable series of events, Joe is thoroughly ignorant of arguments pertaining to religion. He’s never studied or considered them, never argued on behalf of atheism, and never even looked up at the night sky and wondered, ‘What’s it all about?’

Joe has no belief in gods, nor does he believe that arguments for gods are fallacious. He hasn’t rejected these arguments because he hasn’t HEARD of these arguments.

It is therefore possible that atheism is just the lack of a specific belief, no?

Boru

I suppose that if such a person existed, we could say he is an atheist in the same trivial sense that a baby is an atheist.

However such a person does not and could not exist in human society. So if we want to limit ourselves to the real world, all thinking people have heard religious claims.