Are we all born an Atheist?

Discuss philosophical questions regarding theism (and atheism), and discuss religion as it relates to philosophy. This includes any philosophical discussions that happen to be about god, gods, or a 'higher power' or the belief of them. This also generally includes philosophical topics about organized or ritualistic mysticism or about organized, common or ritualistic beliefs in the existence of supernatural phenomenon.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Sy Borg »

ThomasHobbes wrote: September 18th, 2018, 5:13 am
Eduk wrote: September 18th, 2018, 4:31 am
There is a difference between being religious and saying you are religious.
Not for anything that counts.
There's a difference between being religious and being spiritual.
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Greta wrote: September 18th, 2018, 5:50 pm
ThomasHobbes wrote: September 18th, 2018, 5:13 am

Not for anything that counts.
There's a difference between being religious and being spiritual.
Not for anything that counts.
Most who are religious claim to be spiritual, and the I'd say the essence of so called spirituality is not what people say it is, nor think it is.

I'm also of the view that amongst those that never use the word spiritual, nor claim that quality of themselves are the closest to being something of the sort; truly spiritual whatever that is.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Sy Borg »

ThomasHobbes wrote: September 18th, 2018, 6:29 pm
Greta wrote: September 18th, 2018, 5:50 pm
There's a difference between being religious and being spiritual.
Not for anything that counts.
Most who are religious claim to be spiritual, and the I'd say the essence of so called spirituality is not what people say it is, nor think it is.

I'm also of the view that amongst those that never use the word spiritual, nor claim that quality of themselves are the closest to being something of the sort; truly spiritual whatever that is.
Sure, people claim all sorts of things. I find that many comments made by cosmologists, physicists and astronauts to be most spiritually resonant. That's my claim :)
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Greta wrote: September 18th, 2018, 10:32 pm Sure, people claim all sorts of things. I find that many comments made by cosmologists, physicists and astronauts to be most spiritually resonant. That's my claim :)
Not who you would normally associate with spiritual people, eh.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Sy Borg »

ThomasHobbes wrote: September 19th, 2018, 3:42 am
Greta wrote: September 18th, 2018, 10:32 pm Sure, people claim all sorts of things. I find that many comments made by cosmologists, physicists and astronauts to be most spiritually resonant. That's my claim :)
Not who you would normally associate with spiritual people, eh.
I would but, like many, I have parsed religion and spirituality for a long time.
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Eduk »

Of course it depends how you define spiritual. For example if I say X damaged my soul. I do not mean I literally have a Christian style soul which lives on when I pass away. But we could all understand that X was traumatic with long term consequences.
Unknown means unknown.
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Greta wrote: September 19th, 2018, 5:32 am
ThomasHobbes wrote: September 19th, 2018, 3:42 am

Not who you would normally associate with spiritual people, eh.
I would but, like many, I have parsed religion and spirituality for a long time.
Parsed???
Wot grammatically?
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ThomasHobbes
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by ThomasHobbes »

Eduk wrote: September 19th, 2018, 6:28 am Of course it depends how you define spiritual. For example if I say X damaged my soul. I do not mean I literally have a Christian style soul which lives on when I pass away. But we could all understand that X was traumatic with long term consequences.
The Soul as meant by religions generally and by Christianity specifically is incoherent.

A spirited person is one with enthusiasm and joy of life; able to stop and stare at an interesting tree or cloud formation; love a dog with passion and smile a lot.
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Sy Borg
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Sy Borg »

ThomasHobbes wrote: September 19th, 2018, 5:35 pm
Greta wrote: September 19th, 2018, 5:32 am
I would but, like many, I have parsed religion and spirituality for a long time.
Parsed???
Wot grammatically?
Cheeky hobbitses!

parse: verb (used with object), parsed, pars·ing.

1. t̶o̶ ̶a̶n̶a̶l̶y̶z̶e̶ ̶(̶a̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶t̶e̶n̶c̶e̶)̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶t̶e̶r̶m̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶m̶m̶a̶t̶i̶c̶a̶l̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶s̶t̶i̶t̶u̶e̶n̶t̶s̶,̶ ̶i̶d̶e̶n̶t̶i̶f̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶s̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶e̶c̶h̶,̶ ̶s̶y̶n̶t̶a̶c̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶r̶e̶l̶a̶t̶i̶o̶n̶s̶,̶ ̶e̶t̶c̶.̶
2. t̶o̶ ̶d̶e̶s̶c̶r̶i̶b̶e̶ ̶(̶a̶ ̶w̶o̶r̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶a̶ ̶s̶e̶n̶t̶e̶n̶c̶e̶)̶ ̶g̶r̶a̶m̶m̶a̶t̶i̶c̶a̶l̶l̶y̶,̶ ̶i̶d̶e̶n̶t̶i̶f̶y̶i̶n̶g̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶p̶a̶r̶t̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶s̶p̶e̶e̶c̶h̶,̶ ̶i̶n̶f̶l̶e̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶a̶l̶ ̶f̶o̶r̶m̶,̶ ̶s̶y̶n̶t̶a̶c̶t̶i̶c̶ ̶f̶u̶n̶c̶t̶i̶o̶n̶,̶ ̶e̶t̶c̶.̶
3. to analyze (something, as a speech or behavior) to discover its implications or uncover a deeper meaning: Political columnists were in their glory, parsing the president's speech on the economy in minute detail.
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Mark1955 »

Eduk wrote: September 17th, 2018, 7:54 am In my experience atheist is too wide a bucket to really narrow down what someone might mean by using the term without asking them for clarity. Perhaps you don't like that words have multiple meanings Mark? But do you at least recognise that this happens? For example you declare Scot's definition to be poor but fail to elaborate. Perhaps you could explain what you mean?
If you include agnostics as a sub group of atheists then to me you're being lazy or deliberately duplicitous. The idea that an atheist can be someone who doesn't believe in god, definitive statement of negation there is no god, or someone who thinks there may or may not be a god but they don't know, expression of uncertainty, when there is a perfectly good word - agnostic - for the latter group is to me misusing the language. The purpose of using a word is for the recipients to understand what the transmitter means. To deliberately use a word to mean contradictory things seems to me to be heading towards deliberately misinforming the recipient. I suppose you might argue that to a religious person any form of questioning of religion amounts to the same thing, but I'd respond that would be a simplistic mental approach.

P.S. sorry I took a while to reply I missed the post on previous visits to the thread.
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Eduk »

Mark. Scot didn't say agnostics are atheists. He said the two terms aren't mutually exclusive?
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Karpel Tunnel »

Eduk wrote: September 19th, 2018, 6:28 am Of course it depends how you define spiritual. For example if I say X damaged my soul. I do not mean I literally have a Christian style soul which lives on when I pass away. But we could all understand that X was traumatic with long term consequences.
Though if you do not believe in a dualism or do not believe in what get categorized as supernatural entites, to describe yourself as spiritual would be confused. You might be deep, or ethical, or profound, or philosophical, but not spiritual.

I do realize that the term is used by some atheists in self-description, but this is just confusing,and there are better words to describe what they are. In the end it is as strange as saying they are religious.
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Eduk »

I agree with you up to a point Karpel. But I draw a different conclusion. My conclusion is that it is not useful to identify yourself as being embodied by a single word, whether that word is religious, liberal, spiritual. It's exponentially less useful to identify others in this way. And realistically we should expect single words to have this power. In short we should assume less, ask more questions, and allow what people say to be what they mean. After all the key is to understand what people mean not argue that they mean something else.
But yes spiritual is not the perfect word, I can't think of a better one though. Perhaps philosophical, although you would still need to explain what you meant by that as it is non-normative usage.
Unknown means unknown.
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Eduk »

when I said we should expect single words to have this power, I of course meant should not expect.
Unknown means unknown.
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Joseph47
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Re: Are we all born an Atheist?

Post by Joseph47 »

If there does exist a Divine Realm who cares about humanity, would it not be only natural that many (most?) people would make enough "connection" with the Divine so as to conclude that there is a God? If there is a God, it's not hard to explain why the vast majority of humanity is theist -- of some form or other. Now, if there is no God, then explaining why most people believe in God becomes more problematic.
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