(June 28, 2021 at 6:43 am)vulcanlogician Wrote:(June 28, 2021 at 6:36 am)Frank Apisa Wrote: New born infants and toddlers who do not "believe" in any gods are not atheists by default.
Yeah. We don't call newborns "atheists." But neither do we call them "illiterate"... even though (technically) both terms apply.
edit: we need to be more careful trying to draw essential definitions from etymology, too. It's a good guidepost, but no good for precise conversation. For instance, "antonym" derives from "anti" (Greek for against) and "onuma" (Greek for name). But we should say that the essential definition of antonym is "against the name."
I agree, Vulcan, that we have to be careful with our use of etymology.
However, we can easily call people who do not "believe" gods exist...PEOPLE WHO DO NOT BELIEVE GODS EXIST. No problem there at all.
But to invent a descriptor like "atheist" and then insist that IT applies to all PEOPLE WHO DO NOT "BELIEVE" ANY GODS EXIST...is an absurdity to logic and reason. (Your Vulcan logic should be flashing alarm buttons because of that!)
I am saying that atheists should stop that bullshit. It is not necessary to try to make this a binary issue between theism and atheism. It is unnecessary, and an insult to many agnostics, to insist that they be deemed atheists.
(By the way, in several atheist sites I have visited for a short while, MANY ATHEISTS in those places DO insist that infants and toddlers and mentally challenged individuals ARE atheist, because they do not "believe" in any gods. They insist we are all born atheists...and that theists must be hoodwinked into becoming theists.
In any case, I doubt any atheist here really wants me to be one of them. Why do you supose so many are insisting that I must be deemed to be one of them?
