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When and where did atheism first start ?
#51
RE: When and where did atheism first start ?
No offense, Bel, but you seem to be back to arguing the question of applying normative judgements to the acquisition of religion because it's unnatural, despite your explicit denial that you were making any such suggestion. The most charitable I can be is to interpret your comments as simply reducing to "religion, being a learned thing, isn't necessarily evil." Exactly what point you are making besides that something being unnatural isn't necessarily evil is still unclear to me. The fact that a child is born without language has no impact on this discussion at all. We aren't born with genitalia hair either, that doesn't make it unnatural. I don't have the time or any inclination to further explore this at the moment, because I, like you, and every other human in existence, have a natural, untaught tendency to a certain degree of laziness, if you want to call it that, in terms of making my decisions about how to engage others, how to spend my time, what to focus on, and how to do so. Another way of saying the same thing is that I prioritize things according to various factors and at any given time, some thing or another just may not make the cut. You, for whatever reason, seem to be quickly descending from the already low rank in my priorities that you already enjoyed from prior encounters with you. I will see if I can explore your response more fully at another time. For now you get a less than adequate treatment of your reply because you have a history of demonstrating that any investment in a discussion with you is likely to go unrewarded.



(June 25, 2019 at 8:56 am)Losty Wrote: If language does not have to be taught, then why doesn’t everyone speak every language?

Language does not have to be taught. Exposure to the stimulus of actual language use does appear to be required for the natural ability to develop into actual skill and practice in using a specific language. Offhand the best example is probably neglected children in orphanages such as those which existed in eastern Europe at one time. Despite the poverty of stimulation and neglect of attention, these children still developed linguistic skills in specific languages. The answer here is two-fold. First, exposure to a specific language appears to be necessary for acquisition of that language, and because children aren't routinely exposed to all languages, they do not develop skill in all languages. The second has to do with language itself in that the instinct is natural, but that instinct requires particularization toward one or more specific instances of language to express itself. Particularization is necessarily exclusive to a particular language and therefore is not a general thing which would transfer from one ability in one language to a similar ability in another language, without specific intentional work, or without some shared inherent similarity in the particularization of the languages involved. (For example, a child who learns French will have some native ability which can be transferred to Italian, as the languages, being in the same language family, share many structural and particular aspects that they, say, do not share with Japanese or Chinese.)
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#52
RE: When and where did atheism first start ?
How is exposure to language not teaching? It may not be the same as in a classroom but we are physically showing our kids how to talk. If we never showed them, they wouldn’t learn. Also, some actual instruction is necessary. Like you have to correct young children when they speak because they often say the words wrong.
(August 21, 2017 at 11:31 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: "I'm not a troll"
Religious Views: He gay

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Hammy Wrote:and we also have a sheep on our bed underneath as well
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#53
RE: When and where did atheism first start ?
If I watch a video with no sound of a guy building a model airplane, can I then claim to have naturally learned to build a model airplane without being taught?
(August 21, 2017 at 11:31 pm)KevinM1 Wrote: "I'm not a troll"
Religious Views: He gay

0/10

Hammy Wrote:and we also have a sheep on our bed underneath as well
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#54
RE: When and where did atheism first start ?
I'll get back to you when I'm in a different mood, Losty, but a child could learn a language by listening to a tape recording of it being spoken. Indeed, many anime fans claim to have learned Japanese by this very method. And the existence of creoles and private languages is also relevant. I think you are stretching the point beyond where it will bear the weight of the argument. Val's point was that religion wasn't something we would naturally develop without intentional training in the subject. I haven't commented upon it, but she may have been wrong in that, as I just last night came across a slide I had saved from a talk given by the psychiatrist J. Anderson Thompson, Jr., that claimed that there was evidence that religion and religious concepts can develop absent any exposure to such by a child. Regardless, I was addressing Bel's complaint that the examples of language, math, and how to behave in a group made some point regarding Val's point, something that I have yet to achieve clarity on. Language does not require explicit and intentional teaching, but then, it's not clear that religion does either. What is clear is that we have evolved capacities which, even in the absence of explicit and intentional teaching, will express themselves. And specifically to your counter, that examples of language use are needed to enable the expression of linguistic skill, what you in this case are labeling as "teaching," that kind of teaching is uninformative as to whether something is natural or not. One could readily drag the line one way or the other: in one sense, most of teaching involves or depends upon teaching by example and exposure to the subject; on the other hand the expression of mathematical intuitions that in its most developed form seems to require extensive and explicit teaching would not exist at all if we didn't have a natural capacity to form useful intuitions about number, quantity, the geometry of space and so on. So in one sense, you are arguably correct that in as far as teaching by example is a form of teaching you have some slender point. However in as much as it addresses whether teaching religious concepts, language, and so on is natural, it seems to miss the mark somewhat.
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#55
RE: When and where did atheism first start ?
(June 25, 2019 at 1:27 am)Fake Messiah Wrote:
(June 24, 2019 at 7:06 pm)Belaqua Wrote: Like language. Or math. Or how to behave in a group.

No it's not like language or math because atheism is free thinking and imposing religion on a child is transforming that child from a natural question-poser to a socialized question-rejecter. It is attack on human mind and its capacity to ask and know altogether.

Any belief, or conclusion, you make about something by default limits your question posing, because you take it as fact that does not need to be questioned any further. There are many conclusions and beliefs people have about things aside from the question of whether God exists, which they then teach their children... what makes religion different? You have plenty of beliefs like that; we all do.

I see where you're coming from, but I guess I find it difficult to believe that just because a child is raised to believe a certain religion that they are some zombie with no critical thinking skills. In some cases maybe, but it's hyperbole IMO.
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#56
RE: When and where did atheism first start ?
(June 25, 2019 at 2:28 pm)Aegon Wrote:
(June 25, 2019 at 1:27 am)Fake Messiah Wrote: No it's not like language or math because atheism is free thinking and imposing religion on a child is transforming that child from a natural question-poser to a socialized question-rejecter. It is attack on human mind and its capacity to ask and know altogether.

Any belief, or conclusion, you make about something by default limits your question posing, because you take it as fact that does not need to be questioned any further. There are many conclusions and beliefs people have about things aside from the question of whether God exists, which they then teach their children... what makes religion different? You have plenty of beliefs like that; we all do.

I see where you're coming from, but I guess I find it difficult to believe that just because a child is raised to believe a certain religion that they are some zombie with no critical thinking skills. In some cases maybe, but it's hyperbole IMO.

You'd be surprised. As they say look: at the numbers, follow the money. Someone is making these guys rich and it ain't few people.

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#57
RE: When and where did atheism first start ?
(June 25, 2019 at 2:56 pm)Fake Messiah Wrote:
(June 25, 2019 at 2:28 pm)Aegon Wrote: Any belief, or conclusion, you make about something by default limits your question posing, because you take it as fact that does not need to be questioned any further. There are many conclusions and beliefs people have about things aside from the question of whether God exists, which they then teach their children... what makes religion different? You have plenty of beliefs like that; we all do.

I see where you're coming from, but I guess I find it difficult to believe that just because a child is raised to believe a certain religion that they are some zombie with no critical thinking skills. In some cases maybe, but it's hyperbole IMO.

You'd be surprised. As they say look: at the numbers, follow the money. Someone is making these guys rich and it ain't few people.

[Image: stupid-preacher-money.jpg]

It's possible to use a good tool to a bad end, or likewise use a bad tool to a good end.
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#58
RE: When and where did atheism first start ?
Religion is the opposite of learning - would you not agree with that? It trains you to take stupid fairytales for real as a dogma and not to question them and even feel horrible if you think about them skeptically.
Now, some may go through that relatively unscathed, but for the majority of people it is really debilitating for making sane rationalizations in life. Just recently, and unexpectedly, I had conversations with people who still believe in alchemy and they were convinced I am stupid because I don't take alchemy for granted. I mean did you know there were still people who are into alchemy?
Now, alchemists today may be a minority but you can't say the same about UFO people, alternative medicine, astrology enthusiasts, pyramid freaks - topics which will look like a nonsense if they just think little bit about it skeptically.
So do you not think that it is religious upbringing to blame?
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#59
RE: When and where did atheism first start ?
(June 25, 2019 at 9:06 am)Losty Wrote: If that were correct it would be unnatural for humans to know anything beyond basic human instinct.

Yes, it would be unnatural for anyone to learn nothing. I am saying that it is natural for people to learn things. 

Maybe language has been studied the most. It appears that the mind is structured to be pre-disposed to language learning. Which language it learns depends on local conditions, but it is natural to learn one. 

Likewise, it seems reasonable to say, we are disposed to pick up social rules, ideas about how the world works, etc. So it is natural to lack knowledge as a baby, and natural to get it later.

(June 25, 2019 at 9:15 am)Jörmungandr Wrote: you seem to be back to arguing the question of applying normative judgements to the acquisition of religion because it's unnatural
No, I am not arguing that.

(June 25, 2019 at 9:56 am)Losty Wrote: How is exposure to language not teaching? It may not be the same as in a classroom but we are physically showing our kids how to talk. If we never showed them, they wouldn’t learn. Also, some actual instruction is necessary. Like you have to correct young children when they speak because they often say the words wrong.

Yeah, I think we shouldn't be too strict about the word "learn." It needn't be in a classroom.

If somebody can't speak Japanese, and then he watches enough anime and he becomes able to speak some Japanese, then he has learned it. 

And believe me, people who learn Japanese from anime DO require correction to speak it in a normal everyday sense. I speak more Japanese than English in a week, and I can spot an anime-learner immediately. That is not how normal people speak.
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#60
RE: When and where did atheism first start ?
(June 25, 2019 at 3:02 am)Losty Wrote: I’m not sure I agree with you here.
Atheism doesn’t mandate that you disbelieve something.
Only that you don’t believe it. Which I don’t think is actually the same.
You may not actively disbelieve every future scientific theory, but
you certainly don’t believe them either.

IDK about you guys, but I disbelieve religious doctrines. That doesn't mean "I believe they aren't true." But it DOES mean, that I've examined them, come to a conclusion about their plausibility and "actively" decided not to believe them. I assume that anyone who categorizes themselves as an atheist has done something similar. We don't generally refer to people as atheists because they have no knowledge of religious doctrines.

I suppose also that we have some ideas about "active" disbelief and "passive" nonbelief. The distinction between these two categories is unclear. Who is a "passive nonbeliever"? I consider myself an agnostic atheist because I have no knowledge of any gods that exist. But I've looked at religious claims, and I DO NOT believe them (what I call "disbelief"). Am I rather a passive "nonbeliever" because of my agnosticism?
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