Not All Nonbelievers Call Themselves Atheists

[xSilverPhinx]

What does surprise me is that 14% are people who affiliate with being Christian and 4% who are Jewish. Is it possible to have this world view but not believe in god? Or would this indicate an issue with the survey?

This is what really interests me.

I can see how someone might still identify with being Jewish since it's more than simply a belief-system.

But as Catholic or Christian?  Seems strange that they'd still identify as such...

Maybe there is a sort of "cultural" christian, like one who self identifies as such for other reasons other than belief. For the community, religion of their parents, etc.

Yep.  That's pretty much what I am.  If you have any questions just ask.

Do you believe in a "living god"?

In 'a' living God or 'the' living God?  I'm not trying to be a prick but I don't know if you're using a general phrase for God that I've never heard before or if you're using a phrase commonly used to refer to the Christian God.  Anyway, not really.  I'm not militant about it and I sometimes entertain the idea that there could be a God but that's about it.  Intellectually I haven't bought an argument for since my junior year of high school and I gave up on faith in general about two or so years ago.  

Either one I guess (I wouldn't even have made a distinction between the two ???)

[Will37]

What does surprise me is that 14% are people who affiliate with being Christian and 4% who are Jewish. Is it possible to have this world view but not believe in god? Or would this indicate an issue with the survey?

This is what really interests me.

I can see how someone might still identify with being Jewish since it's more than simply a belief-system.

But as Catholic or Christian?  Seems strange that they'd still identify as such...

Maybe there is a sort of "cultural" christian, like one who self identifies as such for other reasons other than belief. For the community, religion of their parents, etc.

Yep.  That's pretty much what I am.  If you have any questions just ask.

Do you believe in a "living god"?

In 'a' living God or 'the' living God?  I'm not trying to be a prick but I don't know if you're using a general phrase for God that I've never heard before or if you're using a phrase commonly used to refer to the Christian God.  Anyway, not really.  I'm not militant about it and I sometimes entertain the idea that there could be a God but that's about it.  Intellectually I haven't bought an argument for since my junior year of high school and I gave up on faith in general about two or so years ago.  

Either one I guess (I wouldn't even have made a distinction between the two ???)

Ha.  Sorry.  Too much scholastic philosophy too early left a mark on me.

I don't believe in God.  I don't believe Christ is present in the Eucharist.  Intellectually I'm an atheist.  But emotionally, Catholicism is still an important part of my life and it's not something I want to loose.  I still approach a lot of issues from a Catholic mindset.  I still read the Bible.  I still pray sometimes.  I don't expect those prayers to reach anyone but it helps me focus and calms my mind if I'm upset about something.  When I first lost my faith I tried to just divorce myself from my religion.  But I remember helping a girl with an Aquinas reading for her medeval history class.  I realized while talking to her that I forgot the words for a common Catholic prayer.  That night I actually had a nightmare about not being able to recall the words to my prayers.  I actually ended up pacing around Franklin St. in my Pajamas and socks recalling how to pray in Latin and English. 

So I decided to stop fighting it.  I will always in some sense be Catholic.  If I have kids I'll teach them Church ritual and philsophy (along with other religious traditions).  Even when intellectually I find some elements of the religion stupid and immoral.  Also, I don't like militant social atheism.  I think religion serves an important social function. 

[iSok]

Ha.  Sorry.  Too much scholastic philosophy too early left a mark on me.

I don't believe in God.  I don't believe Christ is present in the Eucharist.  Intellectually I'm an atheist.  But emotionally, Catholicism is still an important part of my life and it's not something I want to loose.  I still approach a lot of issues from a Catholic mindset.  I still read the Bible.  I still pray sometimes.  I don't expect those prayers to reach anyone but it helps me focus and calms my mind if I'm upset about something.  When I first lost my faith I tried to just divorce myself from my religion.  But I remember helping a girl with an Aquinas reading for her medeval history class.  I realized while talking to her that I forgot the words for a common Catholic prayer.  That night I actually had a nightmare about not being able to recall the words to my prayers.  I actually ended up pacing around Franklin St. in my Pajamas and socks recalling how to pray in Latin and English. 

So I decided to stop fighting it.  I will always in some sense be Catholic.  If I have kids I'll teach them Church ritual and philsophy (along with other religious traditions).  Even when intellectually I find some elements of the religion stupid and immoral.  Also, I don't like militant social atheism.  I think religion serves an important social function. 

Sorry to bump in, but I update myself every now and then regarding this forum.

But the above quote is a very rare example of the phenomenon of Al-Fitrah within Islam.
Al Fitrah = part of the soul = innate belief in a Creator

Even if Will has lost his belief, he's still troubled by this concept, since the soul does not want to give up.
Cases like these are quite rare...

Either Will must be a very pure (no ego, anger or arrogance issues) and good person if he can maintain this without actually believing.
Or I'm very wrong. This will however decrease with time, since the bond is lost.

Regards,
Isok


EDIT: What happened to the old forum style? I found it personally more appealing.

[Melmoth]

You can call yourself Thursday for all I care, but if you don't believe in god/gods, regardless of the reason, you're an atheist.

I had a classic discussion with a friend of mine the other day. She asked me,

"Are you a feminist?"
I said "No."
She then asked, "Do you think that men and women should have equal rights, equal opportunities, and be equally respected in society?"
I said "Yes. At least, I see no reason why they should be treated unequally."
She concluded, "Then you are a feminist."

I think there's something slightly over-simplistic about this reasoning. If someone were to ask me what my worldview was, and I were to respond "feminist," it would say a lot more about me than that I take an egalitarian attitude towards gender. It would suggest that I was in some way active in that capacity, for starters. It would give an indication of what my priorities were, the sort of subject-matter that I enjoyed reading, the angle I might approach from when, say, looking at a piece of art, what kinds of historical figures are likely to have inspired me, and so on.

The same can be said about the self-application of a term like 'atheist.' Simply translating the greek does not give you the entire length and breadth of the term. There's a whole landscape of connotations, some glaringly obvious, some very subtle, that you ignore by doing that.

Edit: couple of typos.

[Whitney]

EDIT: What happened to the old forum style? I found it personally more appealing.

Yes, I did too...the old forum software basically was dying a slow death so I had to move the whole forum over to a different system so we are on a default install.  This forum will look good aesthetically again; just will take some time.

[Davin]

@Melmoth: I have a problem with the term "feminist" because it doesn't appear to be consistent (is "masculinist" the same thing?). Because of my issues with the term, I don't find that line of reasoning very effective.

The problem I see in your example is promotional vs. definitional. I understand that one who goes around wearing a badge of atheism is probably doing so for specific reasons and is a supporter of such (even if it's simply the promotion that they're publicly an atheist). I don't go around calling myself a gender equalitist, even though I do think both genders should be treated equally, but if someone asked me what I thought about gender equality, I'd tell them.

So I think the problems you're seeing are merely the difference between what one chooses to promote about themselves and what one definitially is.

[Davin]

I'm a little confused, personally.  Some places I see that 95% of Americans believe in god (Fox News likes to point this out around Christmas time).  Other places, I see that about 15% of Americans do not believe in god.  Does this depend on what kinds of questions were asked in the surveys, or on what sample of people were surveyed, or do 10% of Americans change their mind every other year?

The questions asked are very important, which is why I don't trust/use any study that doesn't release the questions asked in the survey.

[Stevil]

The problem I see in your example is promotional vs. definitional.

But still,
Even heavy promotion of gender equality does not a feminist make.
I could understand how someone could have that perception given that most of the gender equality fight would be to raise the rights of females as most infringements go that way.

Does anyone agree with "positive bias" (Affirmative action)
When I was in my final year there was an award for top student, there was also an award for top female student and also an award for top maori student.
I was aghast at such open racism and sexism coming from my school. I only got one oppourtunity to get an award where-as a maori female student got three chances. No-one seemed bothered to fight for male equality in that instance.

[Davin]

@Stevil: I agree with you. Which is why I have problems with the term "feminist".

What I was trying to explain was the difference between a person promoting that they are a thing against a person merely being that thing.

[Melmoth]

@Devin and Stevil:

I see what you're saying, and that is indeed one of the problems I saw.

However, a more obvious one is that there's no such thing as an objective definition, and so it's difficult to argue that there is a difference between what someone 'is' and how they merely choose to describe themselves.  There are two approaches you could take to defining a word: prescriptive and descriptive.

A prescribed definition is like the one that Will used. You simply decide what the word means, and that you're only going to use it in that sense, which is handy if you need to be technical. The trouble is, this method depends entirely on mutual agreement. If someone disagrees, and believes that the term atheist does not simply mean 'a lack of belief in God', and refuses to use it in that sense either on themselves or on other people, then there's diddly-squat you can do about it. You can't say they're "wrong" because you'd just be bashing one arbitrary definition against another, without even a majority opinion to back it up. So you'd have to turn to the second type:

A descriptive definition would be where you simply look at the way the word naturally gets used, how people apply it to themselves, and how they apply it to each other, and try to pinpoint its meaning from there. And I'm afraid, again, that isn't going to give you the pared down, technical definition that you might desire, as the pie chart clearly shows. Since this is all you can rely on to dictate what an 'atheist', objectively, is, those people who don't apply the term to themselves are probably going to turn out to be correct.

[thedport]

I like the qoute, "We are all athiest's, I just beleive in one less god than you." I can't remember where I heard this, but it is kind of true. Christians reject all other god's atheist just happen to reject all those gods plus one.