[Serious] Atheist Dogma

[downbeatplumb]

It occurs to me that part of the problem here may be the misleading nature of the word "have."

We say that neither I, the lizard, nor the bicycle have a particular belief. In what sense can we say "have" in such a case?

Neither I, the lizard, nor the bicycle have I-phones. Perhaps this means there is a common characteristic that we share. But I doubt that a lizard or a bicycle can "have" something in this sense, which I take to mean something like "claim ownership of," "have personal rights to," or something similar. Neither bicycles nor lizards can claim ownership of things.

Maybe "have" means that the thing is a part of our nature or constitution. So we can say that neither the lizard nor I have wheels, while the bicycle does. This gives me and the lizard something in common. But I doubt that we have ideas in this same way. "Having" an idea is not the same as saying that the idea is a part of my nature or constitution. And I think that's clear because a person can get different ideas, and jettison the old ones, and still remain himself.

A belief is not an object or a characteristic that one has in the above senses. It is a mental state. Specifically, it is the mental state of affirming a proposition. So when one affirms the proposition "God exists," then one has the belief that God exists.

An adult who has heard and rejected the idea "God exists" has declined to affirm a proposition. The lack of belief is not the same as lacking an I-phone or lacking wheels. It is the option of not affirming a proposition that has been offered.

Neither lizards nor bicycles have the capacity to affirm propositions -- or to decline to affirm them. This is not something they can do. An adult human atheist, therefore, is a person who is mentally capable of affirming the proposition "God exists," but has not done so. Since the same cannot be said for lizards and bicycles, I think it's fair to say that my atheism is completely unlike that of lizards and bicycles.

You're over complicating things needlessly.

positive belief in a god is theist. 
Not having a positive belief in a god atheist.

You are saying that something needs to have a thorough grasp of the god concept before it can weigh it up and either reject or accept it.

But that isn't right its binary either people believe or they don't, if they haven't heard the concept they don't believe by default so atheist. Of course there are some of us who have been exposed to the concept and reject it.  find it childish myself. 

So if you take atheism as the default then anything that doesn't have a positive belief is atheist.