Jesse, George, Stathis, list,
A relevant variable here seems to be the degree to which one is aware of or cares about the question of whether there is a God (or gods). The kind and depth and commitment of the belief-attitude are a variable which makes terms belief, suspicion, disbelief, and doubt, whose collective structure is otherwise like that of logical quantification, take on sufficient variation of shades of connotation in order to generate disputes as to whether, for instance, somebody devoid of belief in God is a disbeliever in God.
If we assume that all the persons in question have reasonably large and equal amounts of awareness and concern about the question, then the structure is like that of Aristotelian quantification. Non-belief (in the sense of non-100% belief, will be equivalent to doubt. Non-disbelief (in the sense of non-100% disbelief) will be equivalent to suspicion. A complete lack of belief, the lack of any significant suspicion, that God exists, will be equivalent to disbelief that God exists.
If we assume that each person either (a) has that same degree or (b) has no awareness at all of the question, then the structure will be like that of Boolean quantification. For instance, the belief that God exists will appear as a compound of suspicion that God exists and non-suspicion that God doesn't exist. Also, we won't need to restrict the range of the terms of belief, suspicion, etc., to persons, beings capable of belief-attitudes about God's existence. But having to regard belief as such a compound rather than as a simpler kind of tranformation ("~suspect that ~...") is, in terms of logical structure, perhaps somewhat inconvenient, and I suppose that that's the reason for the use of a structure more similar to that of Aristotelian logical quantification and for a restriction of range to persons aware of the question of whether God exists.
If we make no assumptions about degrees, motivations, justifications, etc., of the belief-attitudes, then the words terms belief, suspicion, disbelief, and doubt come into relief as a rather coarse-grained way to characterize belief-atttitudes toward God's existence. Clearly, in the absence of clarity and consensus about logical assumptions about the relevant terms, they occasion equivocation and ambiguity about the difference between disbelief and complete lack of belief. But, coarse-grained as they may be, they're still quite convenient.
The word "religious" will certainly compound the ambiguities and vaguenesses. If questions of corroboration/discorrobration by evidence are relevant for characterizing belief, disbelief, etc., as religious, then, depending on how the evidence stands, and depending on how narrowly or widely one construes "religious," the theist, atheist, and agnostic might, each of them, be called religious or be called non-religious.
Some theists like to lump agnostics in with atheists. I guess some atheists like to do so too. For my part, at least, as an agnostic, both suspecting and doubting God's existence, and venturing such suspicion and doubt in any case with only vague notions of what God would be or do, I prefer to be characterized neither as atheist nor as theist, but as agnostic.
Best, Ben Udell
----- Original Message -----
From: "Jesse Mazer" <lasermazer.domain.name.hidden>
To: <glevy.domain.name.hidden>; <everything-list.domain.name.hidden.com>
Sent: Monday, January 09, 2006 2:29 AM
Subject: Re: Paper+Exercises+Naming Issue
George Levy wrote:
>Stathis Papaioannou wrote:
>
>>George Levy writes:
>>
>>>One more point for Stathis: If atheism is not a religion, then zero is
>>>not a number.
>>
>>There is a clear difference between, on the one hand, believing x despite
>>the lack of any supporting evidence and, on the other hand, not believing
>>x because of the lack of any supporting evidence
>
>
>As far as I know atheists believe in no god ( B~G or equivalently B( G=f
>) ) and agnostics do not commit themselves to believing in god. (~BG) . In
>that sense atheists are true believers. You are confusing the instance with
>the class. The fact that zero represents a null value does not mean that
>its status as a number is nil. The fact that atheists believe in zero god
>does not mean they do not believe in anything.
>
>George
>
Atheists do not always define the term "atheism" as believing there is no
God, they often define it simply as lacking any belief in God--see the
quotes from various atheist writers at
http://www.infidels.org/news/atheism/sn-definitions.html
Received on Mon Jan 09 2006 - 10:03:17 PST