[Serious] Atheist Dogma

[Prof.Lunaphiles]

Atheists will usually claim that they have no dogma - that they do not believe in things that are not supported by valid evidence.
We begin this discussion with the recent argument:

Secular Humanism is simply NOT a religion and you are muddying the waters unnecessarily.

Maybe it would clarify things to be stricter about the word "secular." 

I can guarantee you that it would be extremely beneficial to atheists to get a bit stricter about several words that are significant to the atheists - including the definition of atheism. You have all heard of the relative degrees of atheism, "weak," and "strong," which are absolutely absurd; and only prove that there is a problem with the definition of atheism.

The problem starts with the incorrect definition of "theism" - belief in gods. Atheists unwittingly dispute this definition when they argue that theists have to be indoctrinated to believe in gods. But then they falsify their correction by claiming that a child is born an atheist and has to be indoctrinated, or that atheists have no doctrine or dogma. A person cannot be an atheist, if they are unaware of the theist doctrine. Atheism is not a disbelief, or non-belief, or what ever other convoluted descriptions atheists generate to avoid the correct description that atheism is a doctrine that opposes theist doctrine as the basis for public policy.

Atheism is not the proper opposite of theism. Humanism is the proper opposite.

• Theism is the ontological doctrine that suggests that there is a supernatural dimension of human existence that causes and defines reality.
  Humanism is the ontological doctrine that suggests that humans define reality.
  Atheism is the political doctrine that opposes theist doctrine for the basis of public policy.
  Secularism is the ontological doctrine of no bias.
  Religion is the practice of exercises for the maintenance of dignity.
  

A child is born secular - not atheist.

[no one]

When I am king, you will be first against the wall.

Thank you very much.

Have a nice day.

[Nay_Sayer]

I see you whizzed passed the intro section. Odd that.

[arewethereyet]

This is just what we needed on the forum...an expert on all things atheist.

Thank goodness he finally showed up. Whew!

[brewer]

I was so confused until this thread. No more rocking in the fetal position for me!

[Gawdzilla Sama]

"Somebody" left out the part where atheists kill and eat preachers. Seen any around lately?

[Belacqua]

The problem starts with the incorrect definition of "theism" - belief in gods. Atheists unwittingly dispute this definition when they argue that theists have to be indoctrinated to believe in gods. But then they falsify their correction by claiming that a child is born an atheist and has to be indoctrinated, or that atheists have no doctrine or dogma. 

This is one of those topics we run through every few months. But maybe it's time for another try.

In my view, all babies are taught how the world works. They figure out some things on their own (like, maybe, things tend to fall down rather than up) but any sort of conceptual explanation comes from their parents and other teachers. These concepts are woven into their understanding of the world from their earliest understandings. 

For most people in human history, kids learn about gods or other concepts which we categorize as "religious" merely as part of conceptualizing the world. We can call it "indoctrination" if we disapprove of it, but everybody learns something or other. 

People who are raised around atheists will learn different ways to explain the world. We don't call this "indoctrination" because we approve of it.

The part of the discussion where people flip out is when we talk about grown-ups. Adults who hear the claims made by religious people may or may not accept those claims as true. Unlike infants, we have standards of judgment by which we evaluate claims. These can be very simple -- to the point where we don't even know we have them. So if someone claims to an adult that he dropped a bowling ball and it fell up, that adult would reasonably reject the claim. And he could do so based purely on experience even if he had never studied gravity or any kind of physics. Likewise, if you hear as an adult that St. Peter could cure sick people with his shadow, it would be reasonable to reject that claim based on everything we've experienced before. 

Therefore, adults who hear and reject claims made by religious people are atheists for reasons. They are not atheists in the way that babies are atheists. And adult atheists have very good reasons to be atheists. They hear claims and evaluate them, and are therefore thinking adult atheists. If they heard the claims and accepted them, they would not be atheists any more.  

I don't think it's proper, in most cases, to call the set of standards by which atheists evaluate claims "dogma." Dogma involves something that isn't questioned, and we hope, anyway, that atheist standards of evaluation are derived from better sources.

Strangely, I have had atheists deny the above claim. They are positive that their minds are exactly like the minds of infants. 

A child is born secular - not atheist.

I can't agree with this. As I wrote before, I don't think we should use the word "secular" simply to mean "without religion," in the way that a baby is without religion. 

Secularity is a policy or position we take in relation to religion. So for a long time schools were mixed up with the dominant religion of the city, and after a long time people found reasons to make them independent of religious thinking. This is when secularity became a thing. Likewise hospitals, governments, etc. 

Before there was religion, there was no secularity. Because it doesn't sense to talk about, say, secular ferns that existed in the Devonian period, before humans evolved. Nor does it make sense to talk about secular ferns now, simply because there are no religious ferns. 

A similar word would be "libertarian," I think. Libertarianism is a policy or position in relation to government control of the economy. There was no libertarianism before there were governments or economies -- again, ferns in the Devonian weren't libertarian because they existed without government control -- they were merely without government, which is different. 

I think that using "secular" identically to "non-religious" is a bad idea because it takes away its special meaning and impoverishes our vocabulary. But I realize I'm probably fighting a losing battle.

[Prof.Lunaphiles]

When I am king, you will be first against the wall.

I can guarantee you that I am right.

[brewer]

When I am king, you will be first against the wall.

I can guarantee you that I am right.

Nope, you're not what you believe yourself to be.

[Nay_Sayer]

When I am king, you will be first against the wall.

I can guarantee you that I am right.

I can guarantee you'll be gone before next weekend.

Thoughts and prayers. RAmen.