(November 5, 2014 at 7:52 am)robvalue Wrote: It's a good point, I think that if you have not even heard the claim, it doesn't make sense that you have rejected it. So I guess babies are neither atheist nor theist. Bless 'em! Don't fuck them up, people.Well, the strictest definition of atheism is 'an absence (a) of belief in god/s (theism)'. It's this definition which sets atheism as the default position regarding belief in god/s. In principle, this can apply to anything which has such an absence; what I refer to as 'the atheism of a stone'. Consequently, babies are born atheist. Now this shouldn't be confused with the predominantly useful application of the strict definition which concerns the addition of cognition to the principle; only those who are cognisant of theism can be usefully described as atheist. If there's no cognisance, the term is effectively redundant e.g. it would be pointless to call a stone 'atheist'.
But yeah, don't fuck up your kids, folks.
Sum ergo sum
