Talk:Atheism and File:EllaWishesYouaSwingingChristmas.jpg: Difference between pages

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== Licensing ==

<center><div style="background-color: #f0f0ff; border: none; padding: 5px; width: 220px;">For older discussion, see '''archives: [[/Archive 1|1]], [[/Archive 2|2]], [[/Archive 3|3]], [[/Archive 4|4]], [[/Archive 5|5]], [[/Archive 6|6]], [[/Archive 7|7]], [[/Archive 8|8]], [[/Archive 9|9]], [[/Archive 10|10]], [[/Archive 11|11]], [[/Archive 12|12]], [[/Archive 13|13]], [[/Archive 14|14]], [[/Archive 15|15]], [[/Archive 16|16]] [[/Archive 17|17]], [[/Archive 18|18]], [[/Archive 19|19]], [[/Archive 20|20]], [[/Archive 21|21]], [[/Archive 22|22]], [[/Archive 23|23]], [[/Archive 24|24]], [[/Archive 25|25]]</div></center>

{{Non-free album cover}}

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== Inconsitency? ==

Under the Ignosticism article critical atheism is defined as a type of positive atheism. This seems blatantly wrong to me, and it is (correctly, in my opinion) identified earlier as merely a form of explicit atheism. However, the author felt ignosticism falls under positive atheism due to erroneously identify critical atheism as positive, and classifying ignosticism as a type of critical atheism. It is then said that some ignosticist, through some pointless semantic battle I see as being worthy as label "meaningless" or "nonsense", prefer to think of ignosticism as instead weak atheism. I reccomend completely removing this section or simply stating that it is an example of weak atheism. Apologies in advance for mistakes I probably made posting this, first time editing.

[[User:C0h3n|C0h3n]] 21:24, 2 December 2005 (UTC)

The trouble is, different writers use different terminology, and it's difficult to get the different uses to map onto each other. Which writers have used "critical atheism" as a category? And which have used "positive atheism"? Are they the same people? If so, you can fairly straightforwardly explain how they are treated by those writers. If not, you have to do a bit more work. A lot of these articles suffer through disconnection to the literature. Maybe you can resolve your problem by connecting the article to the literature? --[[User:Dannyno|Dannyno]] 20:44, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

== Atheism leads to poor morals and ethics ==

The section "Atheism leads to poor morals and ethics" needs some citations to research literature showing that crime rates et al for atheists are no higher (and in some cases lower) than those for theists. The whole "atheists are immoral and commit more crimes" line is not only misleading, it is patently untrue. --Cyde Weys <small>[[User:Cyde|[u]]] [[User talk:Cyde | [t]]] [[Special:Contributions/Cyde | [c]]]</small> 21:52, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

:Ok, but keep in mind that Christians proselytize in prisons, which distorts the issue by increasing the proportion of prisoners who are Christians. [[User:Alienus|Alienus]] 13:49, 4 December 2005 (UTC)

::Is there any evidence as to how successful this proselytism really is? --[[User:Dannyno|Dannyno]] 20:46, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

:::Yes, actually. Christians are overrepresented in the prison population. Either it's because of the success of this proselytization or perhaps Christians are simply more likely to become convincted criminals. I suspect the former. [[User:Alienus|Alienus]] 23:31, 13 December 2005 (UTC)

:[http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_dira.htm Here's] a page with divorce statistics for various religions (atheists 21%; born-again Christians 27%). - [[User:68.33.120.32|68.33.120.32]] 21:57, 3 December 2005 (UTC)

== % or percent? ==

We just had an anonymous user edit the article to change "%" to "percent". I can't say I understand the justification. "%" is a lot more succinct and goes better with numerals. I suppose "percent" would go better with written out numbers, i.e. "And sales increased one hundred and fifty-seven percent." But who would ever want to write that way. --'''[[User:Cyde|Cyde Weys]]''' _{[[User_talk:Cyde|talk]]}^{<span style="position: relative; left: -16px; margin-right: -16px;">[[Special:Contributions/Cyde|contribs]]</span>} 19:22, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

:See [[Wikipedia talk:Manual of Style %28dates and numbers%29/archive17#Per cent .28.25.29]] for a discussion of this issue. Looks like the best practice is to spell percent when the number is also spelled out, but to use a % sign when the number is a number. For example: "seven percent" and "25%" --[[User:Quasipalm|Quasipalm]] 19:27, 14 December 2005 (UTC)

==Religioustolerance.org==

This article uses the religioustolerance.org website as either a reference or a link. Please see the discussion on [[Wikipedia talk:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org]] and [[Wikipedia:Verifiability/Religioustolerance.org]] as to whether Wikipedia should cite the religioustolerance.org website, [[User:Jguk|jguk]] 14:09, 17 December 2005 (UTC)

*It sounds like Wikipedia should allow the use of Religioustolerance as a source. The talk page you linked is really, really pathetic. Some of the objections are lame to the extreme. The only good thing on there is the guy who said Wikipedia should not have a blanket ban on any particular source and it should be considered on a case-by-case basis. --'''[[User:Cyde|Cyde Weys]]''' _{[[User_talk:Cyde|talk]]}^{<span style="position: relative; left: -16px; margin-right: -16px;">[[Special:Contributions/Cyde|contribs]]</span>} 10:41, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

==Quibbles==

In the "Types and typologies of atheism" section, here:(http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Atheism&action=edit&section=2)

The following paragraph appears:

"Opponents of atheism have frequently associated atheism with immorality and evil, often characterizing it as a willful and malicious rejection of gods. This, in fact, is the original definition and sense of the word, but changing sensibilities and the normalization of nonreligious viewpoints have caused the term to lose its negative connotations in general parlance."

This immediately follows a section on etymology, which does not describe the word "atheism" as having this original connotation. Certainly a analysis of the word's form does not comport with this definition. If this is true, the scope of "original definition and sense of the word" should be defined. Does this mean that when the word in its present spelling was first placed in a some dictionary, only a derogatory definition was listed? Does it mean that when a close spelling first arose, this was the sense in the vernacular? Farther back? I think the language of the cited paragraph needs some clarification.

At the end of the very next paragraph, strong and weak atheism are introduced, followed by the sentence: " Antony Flew, George H. Smith and Michael Martin fall into this tradition, though they do not use the same terminology."

I cannot tell from the terminal sentence what "tradition" the cited people are purportedly members of--my best guess is weak atheism, but the the meaning is clear as mud.

Next: There was a bit of a flap in the atheist community recently when Antony Flew apparently issued a statment that he was no longer an atheist. See, e.g., here: http://www.pandasthumb.org/pt-archives/000687.html and here: http://atheism.about.com/b/a/119216.htm and here

I don't think he's a proper example to use given these recent developments.

--[[User:Fuhghettaboutit|Fuhghettaboutit]] 20:36, 18 December 2005 (UTC)

:On Flew, his contribution to atheist philosophy is not somehow disappeared by more recent events. It was distinctive and influential. Maybe we'd want to note, and just note, that his views may have changed (it's all terribly unclear), but it's still reasonable to use his published work to illustrate the point.

:The "tradition" referred to is that of defining atheism in terms of a classification into "strong/weak" or "positive/negative". There is no stand-alone "weak atheist" definitional tradition, which seems to be your confusion. But may be it could be tightened up, as the use of "tradition" there was I think originally part of a paragraph talking about definitional traditions.

:On your query about "original connotations", it is explicitly referred to in the quote from Drachmann under etymology. You appear to have unaccountably missed that.

--[[User:Dannyno|Dannyno]] 10:32, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

== We need to shorten the article. ==

The article is now 80kB long (was 84 until I removed the "Three Famous Atheists" essay, which I found did not contribute enough to the article to justify keeping it - assuming for the sake of argument that it wasn't original research). I'm thinking that's a bit large and it's time to start being more concise with what we say here and forking topics into more separate articles, with only stubs here for those topics (as we did a while back with [[antitheism]]). [[User:The Literate Engineer|The Literate Engineer]] 00:06, 24 December 2005 (UTC)

== "includes, as atheists," ==

:copied from user talkpage --[[User:JimWae|JimWae]] 14:53, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Before we get into a real revert war over that [[appositive]] in [[atheism]], I'll go ahead and explain why it's so important to me that it be left out: readability. I think that because it says "all nontheists", it's clear that the sentence defines atheists and not atheism. Thus, "as atheists" is unnecessary. Additionally, I feel that "includes, as atheists," is clumsy phrasing that not only reads as awkward, unnatural prose but has the potential to confuse some readers. Since I think it has cons with no pros, I think it ought to go.

And I realize that those two words are a trivial issue compared to the whole of the article; however, I think they're emblematic of one of the article's two big problems. The first problem is that it covers too many topics in too much detail and needs forking desperately. Once that's completed, the second problem (which this is an example of) needs to be dealt with: convoluted, baroque, and excessively wordy prose. [[User:The Literate Engineer|The Literate Engineer]] 06:46, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

*While nobody would be confused, it is not accurately stated. I think you are exaggerating when you say the wording is awkward - it is more words, yes, but precise use of language is the opposite of awkwardness. Are we defining atheism or atheists? So, it does have cons. --[[User:JimWae|JimWae]] 07:00, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

I'm all for the precise use of language, but I'm also for avoiding redundancy (which is something I consider awkward). Are we defining atheism or atheists? I don't think it matters (because I don't think it's a meaningful distinction), but the rest of the sentence talks about people, which means the sentence only works if it's talking about atheists - therefore "as atheists" is redundant, and I do believe that following up the word "identifies" with a comma-separated appositive is awkward to begin with. And I don't understand what you mean by "it is not accurately stated". What is inaccurate about it? [[User:The Literate Engineer|The Literate Engineer]] 07:11, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

*It is inaccurate because no transition is explicitly made from defining ATHEISm to defining ATHEISTS - while "this definition covers all nontheists" makes it hard to be mistaken that a switch has been made, the "this definition" part refers to atheism, not atheists. Furthermore, "nontheists" introduces another (fairly new) term & is jargonese as far as Joe Public is concerned - which I thought you objected to --[[User:JimWae|JimWae]] 07:32, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

== Perc. of atheists in world countries ==

See: remark accompanying last change

See: http://adherents.com/largecom/com_atheist.html

China/Vietnam are in the top atheist countries (relative and absolute). Are Buddhist de facto considered to be atheists? And ancestor-worshippers? Surely by syntactical definition of 'atheist', but shouldn't atheist be defined as someone who does not believe in a higher/supreme being (gross over simplification)?

== Hitler not a christian???? ==

"I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so."

"... I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews. I am doing the Lord's work."

"And the founder of Christianity made no secret indeed of his estimation of the Jewish people. When He found it necessary, He drove those enemies of the human race out of the Temple of God. "

"My feelings as a Christian points me to my Lord and Savior as a fighter. It points me to the man who once in loneliness, surrounded by a few followers, recognized these Jews for what they were and summoned men to fight against them and who, God's truth! was greatest not as a sufferer but as a fighter. In boundless love as a Christian and as a man I read through the passage which tells us how the Lord at last rose in His might and seized the scourge to drive out of the Temple the brood of vipers and adders. How terrific was his fight against the Jewish poison. Today, after two thousand years, with deepest emotion I recognize more profoundly than ever before the fact that it was for this that He had to shed his blood upon the Cross. As a Christian I have no duty to allow myself to be cheated, but I have the duty to be a fighter for truth and justice... And if there is anything which could demonstrate that we are acting rightly, it is the distress that daily grows. For as a Christian I have also a duty to my own people. And when I look on my people I see them work and work and toil and labor, and at the end of the week they have only for their wages wretchedness and misery. When I go out in the morning and see these men standing in their queues and look into their pinched faces, then I believe I would be no Christian, but a very devil, if I felt no pity for them, if I did not, as did our Lord two thousand years ago, turn against those by whom today this poor people are plundered and exposed. "

All words of Adolf Hitler, and you're trying to tell me he wasn't a Christian? Hitler may not have been moral, Hitler may not have adhered to biblical law, but he certainly thought of himself as a christian and not "Just a theist."

If you're trying to tell me that Hitler wasn't a christian because he was a catholic, keep in mind that catholicism was the first branch of organized christianity.

http://atheism.about.com/library/quotes/bl_q_AHitler.htm

http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/john_murphy/religionofhitler.html

:I cannot find any references to Hitler in the article. Perhaps it has been removed since your post. Of course, you are right - Hitler was a deeply spiritial and theistic man. He was also certainly a Christian based on documentary evidence. --[[User:OldakQuill|Oldak]] [[User_talk:OldakQuill|Quill]] 20:31, 9 January 2006 (UTC)

I Apologize for any confusion. I was refering to (or rather complaining about) comment twelve's decision to delete hitler's religious beliefs from a previous article on atheism.

Sorry...

== Freud, Marx and Nietzsche ==

I'm fairly new so maybe I missed this discussion. Could someone fill me in on why these three get a whole section in the article? [[User:Alienus|Alienus]] (belatedly signed)

:I agree with query above (by Alienus who forgot to sign)--this insertion seems out of place and out of focus with general treatment of atheism in article, I vote that it be removed entirely. Anyone else want to comment/vote to reach a concensus?--[[User:Fuhghettaboutit|Fuhghettaboutit]] 23:53, 10 January 2006 (UTC)

::The section as currently written sucks, but Marx, Nietzsche and Freud are the philosophical fathers of modern atheism and deserve a short section. &mdash; [[User:Goethean|goethean]] [[User_talk:Goethean|&#2384;]] 00:03, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

:::Actually, I think this whole section belongs on the [[History of Atheism]] article, not here. [[User:MFNickster|MFNickster]] 00:24, 11 January 2006 (UTC)

::::I'd second that. I know it doesn't belong here in [[atheism]], but it might fit into [[History of Atheism]]. <small>&mdash;''The preceding [[Wikipedia:Sign your posts on talk pages|unsigned]] comment was added by'' [[User:Alienus|Alienus]] ([[User talk:Alienus|talk]]&nbsp;&bull;&nbsp;[[Special:Contributions/Alienus|contribs]]) {{{2|}}}.</small><!--Inserted with Template:Unsigned-->

Although the section (And much of the entire article) is quite large and messy and could do with some tidying up, I think a section titled as such is warranted within the article. Atheism is a modern philosophical concept and these three people are probably the three most cited modern philosophers around. Their writings on the subject of Atheism and how it fits into wider philosophical theory should therefore, in my opinion, be atleast stated in the article. Although like with many sections in this article it should probably be reduced in length. [[User:Canderra|Canderra]] 16:31, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

:Atheism is ancient. There have been atheists with regard to each and every version of God from the first moment there were theists for it. [[User:Alienus|Alienus]] 19:20, 22 January 2006 (UTC)

== Logos/Tao and atheism ==

I'm having a hard time figuring out if someone who's beliefs are somewhat related to the Stoic concept of the Logos is conisdered an athiest or not. Admiting that the Logos is simply the "moving force" of the universe, that it is neither inherently good nor evil, nor is it sentient (in the generally accepted sense), can we conclude that it as an "athiest belief"?

Mind you that even though I speak of the Logos, the philosophical concept of the Tao could also be used in this question, as there seems to be a significant parallelism between the two.

== [[Judaeo-Christian]] Religion and Atheism ==

<Comment on the following sentence in [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atheism#Atheism_as_immorality Atheism as immorality]--''The first attempts to define or develop a typology of atheism were in religious [[apologetic]]s. These attempts were expressed in terminologies and in contexts which, unsurprisingly, reflected the religious assumptions and prejudices of the writers''.>

From Matthew Stewart's ''The Courtier and the Heretic'' 2006; [http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393058980/qid=1137433873/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-8232826-7293530?s=books&v=glance&n=283155 0393058980], p. 73:

:According to the seventeenth-century way of thinking, an atheist was by definition a decadent. If there is no God (or, at least, no providential, rewarding-and-punishing [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:God#Evolution_of_the_Concept_of_God God] of the sort worshipped in all the [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Baruch_Spinoza#Spinoza.27s_G-D traditional] [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Religion#Definition_of_Religion religions]), the reasoning went, then everything is permitted. So a non-believer would be expected to indulge in all manner of sensual stimulation, to fornicate regularly with the most inappropriate partners, to lie, cheat, and steal with abandon, and then to suffer an agonizing death once the Almighty caught up with him, but not before mawkishly recanting his heresies in the presence of a clucking man of the cloth.

I believe that the more important reason is that the atheist undermines the believer's Peace-of-Mind, i.e. the believer's [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Religion#Definition_of_Religion Religion]. Kindly see Mark Twain's ''[http://www.yesselman.com/TwainSpn.htm#LittleStory Little Story]''.

[[User:Yesselman|Yesselman]] 17:52, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

== Rewriting History ==

Why has someone deleted the discussion concerning the accuracy of the following statement: "There are more atheists in the U.S. than members of any religion other than Christianity." Not only is that irresponsible, it is unethical as well. Disagreements should be recorded rather than hidden and deleted.

:On that note, whoever deleted my comment also took the time to put up a source for that quote...which is good. After examining the source, it is even MORE apparent that the above statement is misleading. The source you provided shows that there are more self-identified nonreligious/secular people than any other religion other than Christianity. Notice that self-identified "atheist" are a distant #7 down the list below Christianity, Nonreligious/Secular, Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, and Agnostic. The fact that "agnostic" appears on this list is evidence alone that "self-identification" is not the best way to count how many "atheists" exist in the US. At a minimum, you should qualify the statement in some way. Something like this: "there are more nonreligious/secular people (who qualify under the title 'weak atheist')...."

:The point is that your statement is misleading in the sense that people reading it will automatically assume that you mean hard atheist (since that is how most of the population uses the word, as evidenced by your source). Since there is ambiguity on what we mean by atheist, you need to be perfectly clear and state what "atheist" means.

::This is ALSO discussed in the "Atheism studies and statistics" where is _should_ be discussed. This is crazy. I am removing that quote again. Let me be perfectly clear. That statement does not add ANYTHING to the substance of that section and it CAN be removed. Further, it is discussed in a later section where the proper details can be discussed.