(June 23, 2019 at 5:02 pm)BrianSoddingBoru4 Wrote:(June 23, 2019 at 2:35 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: This question is, sadly, found in google autofill... well... "who started atheism"... a much worse, much more ignorant version of the question. I'm hoping it's mostly children who return from Sunday school with this sort of question. But I bet the sad truth is, it's asked by adults for the most part... adults with really skewed visions of the world.
As an interesting aside, this brings up the question if disbelief can predate the proposal that said thing exists. If it can, that would mean that you categorize nonbelief as a kind of "default." But doing this creates all kinds of problems.
It would mean that you "disbelieve" every future scientific theory that will be proposed. Who would assess their attitude concerning future scientific theories and come to this conclusion? Not me. I think that some future scientific theories will be correct, others will be incorrect. I'd have to hear/read about the theory first before I determine a potential belief status. Taking this way of thinking about it into mind, the "first" atheist would be the first caveman who disbelieved a "God story" after having heard it.
Actually, that only works if atheism is defined as 'disbelief' instead of 'nonbelief'. I cannot believe in theories that haven't been invented or plants that haven't been discovered - it isn't possible to believe or not believe in them. My position regarding these has to be one of nonbelief, as the word indicates a lack of belief. 'Disbelief', on the other hand, implies a refusal to believe or an outright rejection of some proposition. It isn't possible to reject a scientific theory that hasn't been formulated.
Boru
Ah. I was ninjad.
