Defining your terms.
Feb. 18th, 2009 11:30 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
philosoraptor42Just looked at an interesting post where someone was claiming not to be a liberal. (I'm not interested in going into that since it's quite irrelevant to this post.) I've always had a problem with the term 'liberal' myself, especially in online conversations with more politically right-wing Americans who seem to use it as a term equivalent to 'scum'. The kinds of things they claim to be 'liberal' are often things which all three political parties in the UK would accept as common sense. Anyway, the point is that you need to know what you a term like 'liberal' means before you can affirm or deny holding to it.
This made me think about the whole atheism/agnosticism thingy.
There's one argument some have for holding to agnosticism instead of atheism. I often like to think of myself as both atheist AND agnostic since I don't know if there's a God, I don't think it's possible to know if there's a God (since the term is unfalsifiable) and I also don't believe in a God. (Some might question the second of those three since God might reveal Himself in a way that was obvious and then we'd KNOW that there was a God. The problem is, even if we heard a bellowing voice from the sky, lots of people turned up with wings, everyone on the earth got down on bended knee in reaction to it and the earth opened up so that certain people could be chucked into a fiery pit, this still wouldn't necessarily be evidence of a God. It's difficult to know what would count as evidence of God really, especially if we are avoiding heavily literalist understandings like the one I just posed.)
Anyway, the argument for agnosticism instead of atheism goes as follows: The concept of God is too poorly stated by believers to be dismissed so believers will need to better formulate their beliefs before we can claim to be dismissing them. This is best summed up by Charles Bradlaugh:
"Atheism is without God. It does not assert no God. The atheist does not say that there is no God, but he says "I know not what you mean by God. I am without the idea of God. The word God to me is a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which by its affirmer is so imperfect that he is unable to define it for me."
I wouldn't go with this view because I think we can gain some understanding of what religious concepts like 'God' mean. I think Bradlaugh felt this way too really, but he was making an important point nonetheless. The religious often take for granted that the meaning of 'God' is obvious when it can all sorts of meanings. The problems with defining terms like God become especially obvious when we move outside of a culture where Christianity has historically been dominant. Someone from India with a Hindu background can find themselves in an awkward position self-identifying as atheist without leaving considerable ambiguity. The user 'Hinduwoman' from freeratio (previously iidb.org) had the following to say:
About the atheism thing --- I am an atheist. But the thing is, 'atheism' in the monotheistic West has several implications which is not present in India. Within Hinduism there are several creeds that deny existence of gods of any kind but believe in the supernatural still. So calling myself an atheist does not really cover my worldview. So I like to call myself scientific materialist in English and Lokayatas in the vernacular.
For disbelievers a la Dawkins and Hitchens look up Carvakas/Lokayatas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carvaka
I have long had an issue with the label of 'weak atheism'. This term is often defined as a 'lacking a belief in God' by contrast to 'believing there is no God'. I have trouble seeing much difference between these two definitions and I find it important that being an atheist involve recognising what it is you are dismissing. If you don't have any idea what you are dismissing then you aren't an atheist. - Then again perhaps Stephen Hawking would count as a weak atheist. Hawking very clearly understands what the term 'God' means and, while he dislikes the term 'atheist', he can't really be said to believe in a God.
In conclusion.... meh.
This made me think about the whole atheism/agnosticism thingy.
There's one argument some have for holding to agnosticism instead of atheism. I often like to think of myself as both atheist AND agnostic since I don't know if there's a God, I don't think it's possible to know if there's a God (since the term is unfalsifiable) and I also don't believe in a God. (Some might question the second of those three since God might reveal Himself in a way that was obvious and then we'd KNOW that there was a God. The problem is, even if we heard a bellowing voice from the sky, lots of people turned up with wings, everyone on the earth got down on bended knee in reaction to it and the earth opened up so that certain people could be chucked into a fiery pit, this still wouldn't necessarily be evidence of a God. It's difficult to know what would count as evidence of God really, especially if we are avoiding heavily literalist understandings like the one I just posed.)
Anyway, the argument for agnosticism instead of atheism goes as follows: The concept of God is too poorly stated by believers to be dismissed so believers will need to better formulate their beliefs before we can claim to be dismissing them. This is best summed up by Charles Bradlaugh:
"Atheism is without God. It does not assert no God. The atheist does not say that there is no God, but he says "I know not what you mean by God. I am without the idea of God. The word God to me is a sound conveying no clear or distinct affirmation. I do not deny God, because I cannot deny that of which I have no conception, and the conception of which by its affirmer is so imperfect that he is unable to define it for me."
I wouldn't go with this view because I think we can gain some understanding of what religious concepts like 'God' mean. I think Bradlaugh felt this way too really, but he was making an important point nonetheless. The religious often take for granted that the meaning of 'God' is obvious when it can all sorts of meanings. The problems with defining terms like God become especially obvious when we move outside of a culture where Christianity has historically been dominant. Someone from India with a Hindu background can find themselves in an awkward position self-identifying as atheist without leaving considerable ambiguity. The user 'Hinduwoman' from freeratio (previously iidb.org) had the following to say:
About the atheism thing --- I am an atheist. But the thing is, 'atheism' in the monotheistic West has several implications which is not present in India. Within Hinduism there are several creeds that deny existence of gods of any kind but believe in the supernatural still. So calling myself an atheist does not really cover my worldview. So I like to call myself scientific materialist in English and Lokayatas in the vernacular.
For disbelievers a la Dawkins and Hitchens look up Carvakas/Lokayatas:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carvaka
I have long had an issue with the label of 'weak atheism'. This term is often defined as a 'lacking a belief in God' by contrast to 'believing there is no God'. I have trouble seeing much difference between these two definitions and I find it important that being an atheist involve recognising what it is you are dismissing. If you don't have any idea what you are dismissing then you aren't an atheist. - Then again perhaps Stephen Hawking would count as a weak atheist. Hawking very clearly understands what the term 'God' means and, while he dislikes the term 'atheist', he can't really be said to believe in a God.
In conclusion.... meh.
