Posted on 06/04/2005 3:57:12 AM PDT by MississippiMasterpiece
BILL: By my definition, yes.
So a baby is an atheist? A dog is an atheist? A rock is an atheist? They all have an absence of belief in any gods.
This is supposed to be a wise retort, I guess...?
"So a baby is an atheist? A dog is an atheist? A rock is an atheist? They all have an absence of belief in any gods."
We are all born atheists until someone teaches us to believe in a particular God. A rock cannot be an atheist because it has no consciousness, no beliefs at all. A dog has consciousness, but I doubt it is capable of forming the concept of a god. The question is beyond them, and quite meaningless to their existence.
Don't be idiotic. We were obviously discussing human beings with the mental capacity to think about htemselves and the world. One might as easily describe rocks as unemployed, since they don't have a job.
My new-years resolution was to avoid discussions with juveniles. Goodbye.
The 'only' is yours, not mine. Putting words in my mouth is obnoxious.
I said we decompose. Do you deny that?
A reasonable view I think. It distinguishes "atheist" from "antitheist".
A rock cannot be an atheist because it has no consciousness, no beliefs at all.
Seems here to be a matter of semantics rather than principle. You stipulate, "Let's only apply the term 'atheist' to things with consciousness or beliefs". But, the principle of being without something is unchanged whether you are a thinking person, or a rock.
For example: you are without a belief in the "Rungu-Witau transmutation inception". In every way that matters, your absence of that belief is equivalent to a rock's absence of that belief.
Just illustrating the significance of being without some belief.
Say it like you mean it, Chuckles!
We were obviously discussing human beings with the mental capacity to think about htemselves and the world. One might as easily describe rocks as unemployed, since they don't have a job.
Don't be so frustrated at your thoughtlessness. You're not the first pigheaded "professor" I've run into.
The point of being without a belief, is that it is devoid of any use of those human faculties you describe. Your lack of belief, say 10 minutes ago, in the Schory-Rubenstein hypothesis, is a fact. It also was completely devoid and irrelevent of your mental capacity, small as it is. Absence of belief has NOTHING to do with consciousness. It is presence of belief that makes use of consciousness.
So the illustration of the rock, which was lost on you, was to make precisely this point. The specific point of not having a belief is same in every way that matters whether it be a person who doesn't have it, or a rock.
Our bodies most certainly do, but are we our bodies?
Most of us value a person much more for the things he has done than for his biology. Surely, then, a person's history makes up a big part of how we define that person.
I like CS Lewis's approach to this question:
"I am Ramandu. But I see that you stare at one another and have not heard this name. And no wonder, for the days when I was a star had ceased long before any of you knew this world, and all the constellations have changed."..."Aren't you a star any longer?" asked Lucy..."I am a star at rest my daughter," answered Ramandu...
"In our world," said Eustace, "a star is huge ball of flaming gas."
"Even in your world my son, that is not what a star is, but only what it is made of...."
Very nice.
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