Atheism is Simple - Why Can't People Deal With That?
Mark Lapierre disagrees that atheism is simply the absence of belief in gods:
Yet survey a group of atheists and you’ll find that we do have some common beliefs. The obvious rebuttal is that atheism doesn’t require that people hold all those beliefs. And yet of all the arguments against atheism as an ideology I’ve seen, none have accounted for the beliefs atheists actually do share.
Sure, atheism doesn’t require anything other than that you don’t believe in god or gods. Or that you believe gods don’t exist. The problem with this is that when we hold so tightly to a pure definition of atheism and ideology, we ignore the influence atheism has on our lives. We behave like a group of people with a common, social identity. That wouldn’t be possible if we didn’t have something more than a lack of a belief to tie us together. No group of people has ever come together because of nothing more than a lack of a particular belief. We do have other common beliefs, as Sam Harris’ survey shows.
Just to be clear, Mark Lapierre ultimately wants to get a PhD in psychology, but here he expects people to believe that a casual, unscientific, online survey of unknown people is a genuine indicator that atheists broadly share a bunch of beliefs in common and, therefore, atheism itself must be some sort of ideology or world view. Just how many things can you find wrong with that?
I'm flabbergasted that Lapierre couldn’t come up with anything other than atheism that might account for the common beliefs revealed in the survey. Just for starters, let's consider the fact that the only people even responding to the survey will be made up largely of a narrow, self-selected group of atheists with the time, education, and interest to be online, to visit the sites where the survey was promoted, and to invest the time to answer the questions. Oh, and they also have to be good enough with English to take the survey.
You know, there's a reason why organizations like Gallup don't just do all their polls online like this. Meaningful surveys have strict controls on them in order to ensure that they only test a representative sample of whatever population is being surveyed. There is no way Sam Harris' survey is truly representative, which means that his results can't be treated as especially meaningful about atheists generally. It tells us something, perhaps, about the atheists who found and bothered to fill out the survey, but how representative of atheists generally are those atheists in particular? I don't know and Mark Lapierre certainly doesn't know, so why does he immediately assume that it does tell us something about atheists generally?
And who is this "we" that Lapierre talks about having a "common identity?" There are certainly atheists who share a lot of beliefs and values in common and who can act in concert, but there are lots of other atheists who don't share those beliefs and who therefore don't share that common identity. It's a gross error to assume that all the atheists one happens to meet and deal with are representative of all atheists generally.
How can a person not recognize that they keep meeting atheists with particular beliefs not because that's how atheists necessarily are, but rather because that's the sort of atheist they unconsciously seek out or attract? Scientific, humanistic atheists like Lapierre keep encountering other sscientific, humanistic atheists not becuase they are the only which exists, but rather because they don't have enough in common with communist atheists or Raelian atheists to meet and spend time together.
What "ideology" is shared in common by all atheists who are Objectivists, Secular Humanists, Buddhists, Religious Humanists, Raelians, Communists, Socialists, Monarchists, Conservatives, Liberals, Anarchists, Authoritarians, Nihilists, Existentialists, and so forth? The answer is simple: there is none. Doesn't exist. I've asked this question of many Christians who insist that atheism is an ideology and every one of them disappears without answering. I don’t share any sort of "common social identity" with atheist monarchists, atheist Raelians, and every other atheist out there simply because they happen to not believe in any gods. Disbelief in gods doesn't automatically unite me with anyone because it doesn't automatically entail any particular belief, opinions, or values.
I can't be confident that a person shares any beliefs or values with me simply because they are an atheist. It's not that atheism has no influence on my life, but my beliefs and values are shaped far more by my culture, my socioeconomic status, my education, my values, the sorts of ideas I expose myself to, science, and so forth. It would be supremely arrogant for me to presume that all of that can be set aside and that I share "a significant number of values and beliefs" with an atheist from China, Turkey, or India merely because they don't believe in any more gods than I do. Maybe we share a little, maybe we share a lot — but it would be silly for me to imagine that "atheism" is somehow uniting us despite all the differences.
This is because atheism, by itself, really doesn't mean very much. I have far more in common with a Christian of similar background, education, and socioeconomic status in America than with an atheist in China. Why? Because the atheism doesn't and can't count for very much. I would much rather spend time with a liberal, skeptical theist than a gullible atheist who believes fervently in astrology, ghosts, or alien abductions. Why? Because the atheism doesn’t and can't count for very much.
Comments
Thanks for your response Austin. But it seems something about the way I presented my point made you miss it completely. You said you can understand the need for identification with something, but not that that something is atheism as opposed to a more substantive philosophy. And yet you’re “flabbergasted that Lapierre couldn’t come up with anything other than atheism that might account for the common beliefs revealed in the survey.” This reflects poorly on me since the entire thing was intended to point out that people, such as those atheists who took the survey, bring other beliefs to the table when they’re proclaiming their atheism. It seems to me that you understand this so clearly I wasn’t able to communicate the same point.
Despite my distant goal of attaining a PhD in Psychology, as your disparaging comment pointed out, my post wasn’t intended to be a thoroughly researched critique, as I hoped anyone reading would see. I’d expected my readers to understand that by giving an example of a survey of a group of people who identify as atheists, and by referring to those who produce manifestos about atheism, I was talking about atheism in respect to that group. I hope I wasn’t asking too much for people to understand that when referring to people who write expressively about what atheism means to them, I intended to highlight the complexity they’re bringing to the concept.
You’re right, atheism alone doesn’t mean much. But atheism is not alone when people wave it as a banner. And I agree with Sam Harris when he said, “atheism is a term that should not even exist.” But it does. People say the only thing it means is that they lack a belief in God(s), but they bandy it about in a way that demonstrates it truly means a lot more to them, whether or not it should. Whether or not those associations are justified.
Given all that I have to ask. Was my point really that unclear? If so I could summarise it for you as: To those who identify with atheism, you make the concept more complicated than just a lack of belief in gods when you associate other beliefs with it. But you know what? That’s the way humans work. It’s better to understand what you and others associate with atheism than to get hung up on how it’s defined.
Is that any clearer? Might it help if I update my post and put something like that as an introduction?
If that’s true, then you completely undermined your entire point by trying to argue that atheism is anything more than disbelief in gods. You cannot argue simultaneous that “atheism is more” and also “because atheism is so little, people bring a lot with them to go alongside it.”
By saying this, you admit the falsehood of your primary argument.
It’s true that there is always “something” with atheism. What that “something” is can vary greatly and only exists precisely because atheism doesn’t mean anything more than the absence of belief in gods. By the same token, there are inevitably a lot of beliefs alongside theism. Why? Because it alone means so little as well.
It’s still unclear, because you have yet to retract your original argument in favor of the argument that is actually valid: atheism is only disbelief in gods and, because of this, atheists have lots of other beliefs besides atheism which make up coherent philosophies, ideologies, or religions. These vary and there is no ideology or philosophy which all atheists share in common.
You linked to several things I’ve written to disagree, so if you want to be clear perhaps you should quote me on exactly what you think I’ve written that is mistaken.
Ummm…. most (maybe all) beliefs people have are, in various ways, associated with many or most of their other beliefs. Theism, for example, is simply belief in at least one god of some sort, but it’s typically associated with loads of other beliefs. This doesn’t make theism complicated, it just makes the ideology theism is part of complicated (also, the reasons for holding theism become more complicated).
It was because of this that the coherence theory of truth was developed in the first place. Individual beliefs exist in a context of other beliefs we hold. That context may be very complicated, but the individual elements can remain simple.
Absolutely anything can be associated with atheism except belief in gods. Conservatism, liberalism, communism, objectivism, Buddhism, Realian beliefs, and so forth.
Actually, atheism IS simple.
There’s absolutely no evidence of any gods…NEVER WAS…ergo…No ‘belief’ in gods…PERIOD.
What makes everything complicated, is a world literally FILLED with a huge multitude of myriad religious beliefs; based on nothing more than anecdotal (at best!) story telling. AND…the fabricated stories themselves don’t even make any rational sense. As we atheists know, the Old Testicle…erm…Testament…is filled with obvious nonsense and outrageous tales of cruelty etc.
As for the four New Testament, Christian Gospels, leaving aside a myriad of rejected, lesser known versions (Gospel of Thomas, etc.), they’re filled with internal contradictions; even outright silliness, like Jesus cursing a fig tree…out of season, no less!
My point is that atheists, because atheism is NOT a religion, or even an actual organization of any kind, are only loosely in contact with each other; mainly, these days, via the Internet. Indeed, without the Internet, we’re pretty much, all, loners!
Further…in reality, it’s a defensive mode against a culture which attempts to totally dominate the literal and figurative landscape; even to the point of having a built-in agenda of actively seeking legislative power over the whole society…and ultimately…the whole World!
A good example for Americans, is this election with the obvious pick of Palin for Rethuglican VP due to her extreme Right Wing Christian beliefs;aimed at consolidating the “Fundie” base. I maintain that she has absolutely no “realistic” (or even sane) qualifications for being Vice President, let alone President! It’s really, for the “Fundies”, all about the future of the Supreme Court…the completion of a 30+ years Christian Nationalist agenda.
If her extreme beliefs, which anyone can check on the Internet, if ever implemented, aren’t a significant threat to a secular Democracy, I’ll eat my shorts!
(considers checking google for edible shorts)
I was raised Catholic Xtian; and was most certainly only a believer in a deity because of childhood brainwashing. In my 68 years, I’ve seen absolutely NO evidence of any god, whatsoever! And any god that I’ve ever even HEARD of, wouldn’t remotely qualify for any kind of actual worship. Any Almighty deity who would allow the obvious evils of this ‘predatory world’, including the perpetration of all the natural disasters like Katrina, Tsunamis, Ike…yada, yada..would be evil, WAY beyond anyone’s comprehension.
[Or totally incompetent!]
Add to that, the man-made notion (Fear tactics!) of Eternal Damnation, Angels, Satan, devils, etc.; and one is teetering on the very brink of insanity!
Yeah…in my long evolved opinion, the addiction.of Religion…and I maintain that it IS a psychological addiction…CAUSES further neuroses, other addictions…and ultimately, in some cases…total insanity!
I claim that the evidence for that conclusion is obvious to anyone whose truly “aware”; and in actuality…
rather hard to ignore!
Lately, like Sam Harris, I’m more inclined to consider myself an “anti-religionist” rather than atheist. But that label, I’m guessing, angers even more people than the term atheist.
It may be a more, active sounding, more threatening, “agenda loaded” label…?
As Pat Condell would say:
“Peace!”
Julian Baggini’s “Atheism: A Very Short Introduction” suffers from a similar problem. It tries to present atheism as a way of life or a worldview, and atheism, which is just lack of belief in any interventionist gods, is too slight to carry such a heavy burden.
However, he does offer a wonderful thought experiment that, to my mind, totally pins down what atheism is.
Imagine a thriving community living on the shores of Loch Ness. There is a small group of people, a cult, who believe there is a monster beneath the water, so we can call them Nessieists. Not only do they believe there is a monster, but they have an entire worldview and catholic life philosophy based around what the monster wants, so we can call them Nessieans. Nessie is vitally important to the Nessieans, but the majority of the population goes about their business without giving Nessie a second thought.
Now imagine that, over time, the number of Nessieans grows, to the point that over 90% of the population are Nessieans. Now the remaining
Continued:
Now the remaining
Continued (sorry):
Now the remaining less than 10% of the population are given a name. They are “anessieists”, they lack belief in Nessie.
Nessieanity is a catholic belief system that totally dominates the lives and thinking of Nessieans.
As Nessieans only behave well because of promised of rewards and threats of punishment delivered to them by Nessie’s well-compensated human spokesmen, Nessieists cannot imagine anyone acting morally without such blackmail, and so view anessieism as a philosophy of nihilism and immorality and anessieists as immoral nihilists.
This is useful, because in order for religions to bring communities together (as priests often boast religions can) they need 2 things; unifying beliefs and an enemy to unite against, who represents a transcendent concept of Evil. If Nessie is the source of all morality then who could be more evil (or Evil) than those who deny Nessie?
In reality, however, the anessieists simply go about their business in the exact same way as anessieists did before Nessieanity became prominent. Some anessieists may criticise Nessieanity and Nessieans(because it’s false, it’s divisive, because Nessieists claim certainty about things nobody could possibly know and hypocritically accuse doubters of arrogance, etc) but that’s purely a response to the behaviour of real Nessieans in the political and public arenas.
They may even write strongly-worded books to condemn the witch-burning, warmongering and oppression of women and non-believers that Nessieans routinely get involved in. Ooh, those nasty, shrill, ranting Fundamentalist Anessieists that they are!
The views of an individual anessieist cannot be deduced from her anessieism and must be investigated. Any common beliefs that an anessieist shares with another must be investigated and cannot be assumed simply as they are both anessieists.
Crucially, and this is a point that should be repeated again and again, IF NESSIEANITY DISAPPEARED OVERNIGHT THE ACTUAL BELIEFS OF ANESSIEISTS WOULD NOT CHANGE ONE IOTA. The behaviour of Nessieans would no longer be an issue, so no anessieist would ever feel the need to comment on the existence of Nessie or to “attack” Nessieans.
But as long as people claim to speak with authority about Nessie’s views, and to claim special privilege because of that, then people will and SHOULD oppose them.
I didn’t argue the latter point. People do implicitly associate many beliefs with atheism, but I didn’t argue that it was because atheism is so little. That’s your argument.
You haven’t yet understood my primary argument. There is a difference between atheism as a strictly defined concept (which is the only way in which you seem able to understand the term atheism), and atheism as the amorphous construct which people varyingly speak of, or associate with their behaviour. “Atheism alone doesn’t mean much” applies to the former, “atheism is not alone when people wave it as a banner” applies to the latter. Of course that would be confusing but it would be much clearer if you attempted to understand what I’m saying rather than focusing on picking holes in an argument you’ve manufactured on my behalf.
If I did that I would not be clarifying my point, but changing it. I was not attempting to argue why atheists associate other beliefs with atheism, just highlighting the fact that they do. A fact that many people deny.
You will not be able to understand that if you insist on projecting an imaginary perspective onto me. I’m happy to accept your argument as an accurate, technical description of beliefs and their boundaries in relation to atheism, but not as a description of the nature of the beliefs many atheists display through their behaviour (including their words).
The individual elements can change. They can also be misunderstood or misrepresented. Ultimately it seems we’re saying similar things; you that people shouldn’t confuse atheism with other beliefs, and me that people are doing so but denying it. I don’t suggest that it’s ok, but I think it’s impossible to clear up such confusion amidst denial of it’s occurrence.
I should also note that I’m not accusing you of such denial. Your post was just an accessible and succinct prototype of the kind of argument atheists have used to support why their set of beliefs isn’t a set of beliefs.
Hopefully by now you’ve realised that I don’t think what you’ve written is mistaken. I think it simply doesn’t acknowledge the fuzzy nature of beliefs. I think what you’ve written is spot on as a theoretical definition of atheism but it doesn’t help in a practical understanding of how people implicitly conceive of it, or explicitly express it.
That thought experiment is incomplete. What about the Anessiests who had developed pride in the fact that they lacked belief in Nessie? They’d formed groups, designed a banner, arranged discussions and meetings, all ostensibly around their lack of belief.
If Nessieanity disappeared then the beliefs and behaviour of those Anessiests would also have to change, otherwise they’d still be gathering under a now meaningless banner. And they’d probably be happy to change, but it would be a necessary change.
ChuckA wrote:
That’s only true if read literally. There are other ways to read those books, some of which make some sense.
For example, if JC represents the sun and the gospels are the story of the sun’s journey through the zodiac, cursing the fig tree can be interpreted as anger at losing his power.
The fig tree episode comes after the fall equinox, when the sun is declining in power. Previously, JC had no problem feeding thousands with a few loaves and fishes. Now he can’t even feed himself when he is hungry! No wonder he’s pissed!
Mark Lapierre wrote:
If Nessieanity disappeared then the beliefs and behaviour of those Anessiests would also have to change, otherwise they’d still be gathering under a now meaningless banner. And they’d probably be happy to change, but it would be a necessary change.
I sense we’re just nit-picking here, but I like to nit-pick.
I covered that in my description. The behaviour of anessieists who have banded together under the banner of anessieism is nothing but a response to the behaviour of Nessieans. Anessieism is only an issue if there are Nessieists, specifically Nessieans, who are trying to gain control of education or civic policy and routinely making ridiculously disparaging remarks about anessieists as a matter of course.
Under such conditions it’s appropriate for anessieists to band together under the banner of anessieism to combat irrationality and Nessiean hatred.
If Nessieanity disappeared then the reason for uniting under one banner would no longer be there.
You correctly point out that the behaviour of anessieists would have to change, but that’s only because there’d be no obnoxious Nessieans to respond to. It’s not a reflection on anessieism itself.
As anessieism is not a belief system, or even a belief, there is no guarantee that anessieists who had previously united under the banner of anessieism would have anything else to unite under.
You seem to be considering atheism in a vacuum, without mentioning that any kind of vocal atheism or atheist group is solely a response to the behaviour of the religious.
Atheists don’t band together because of their atheism, they’re forced to band together because of the ludicrous anti-atheist bigotry of religious theists, bigotry that just seems to be accepted as a matter of course.
Lack of belief in gods in and of itself is as irrelevant to the lives of nonbelievers as lack of belief in dragons. However, when people start saying that you can’t be a good person without believing in dragons adragonists need to band together, if only to shout, with utter bemusement, “WHAT THE **** ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT??? I NEED TO BELIEVE IN DRAGONS TO BE ABLE TO LOVE?? HOW DID YOU WORK THAT ONE OUT????!!”
I myself am proud of my atheism, but only to the extent that I’m proud of my aleprechism, my ahobbitism or my aXenuism. A theistic god is one of the many ludicrous fantasy figures that I don’t believe in, and I’m proud that I don’t believe in them. Anything above that is not determined by atheism, it’s determined by believers saying that atheists are all necessarily immoral, nihilistic sociopaths. Which they do, often and with aparrent social support.
Nope, I still don’t understand your primary argument.
If people keep associating various other beliefs and behavior with atheism, why is that if not because atheism itself means so little? You say that’s “my” argument, but then you keep repeating it with new words. And then denying that that’s your argument. So I don’t understand what your argument is.
Depends on what you mean by “associate with.” If you mean “include under the definition of,” then people should deny it. If you mean “bundle with as part of some larger system,” then I’ve yet to see anyone deny that.
I’ve yet to figure out what that perspective is because first you seemed to be making one argument, then you seemed to be making another argument but insisted that was really my argument, and so forth.
Paul Buchman^ : “For example, if JC represents the sun and the gospels are the story of the sun’s journey through the zodiac, cursing the fig tree can be interpreted as anger at losing his power.”
[kidding]: And of course, in a totally different context, there’s the more Hindu “transmigrational”, evolutionary possibility of the fig tree having failed in its incarnation, functionally, thus angering the higher evolved “avatar” and creating “bad Karma” by not fulfilling it’s life destiny!
Doomed…at least till its next incarnation? Yada, yada…
Seriously…
Paul…I get, and actually can agree with your point; but aside from the Internet “Zeitgeist style Hipsters”, how many people do you know that read the NT that way; or are even AWARE of the ancient “Sun Mythology” interpretation. Due to the work of Acharya S and others, the increasing awareness of more ancient, “universal”, astrologically oriented, and heavily metaphorical views of the Solar system are “brought to light” (exposed?) in the Bible…both Old and New Testaments.
One of the first books that actually awakened my definite atheism was Lloyd M. Graham’s very interesting “Deceptions and Myths of the Bible”; which brings up, he claims, another ancient, implied, interpretation of, not just the local Solar deity theme, but the “whole Universal evolution” theme, including the Big Bang. That would be the “Involution/Evolution” scheme; which Graham claims goes back beyond the usual accepted academic, historical time line. An example tidbit of that little known ancient metaphysical “theory” would be that Earth, like all ‘planets’, is actually a former sun…a cooled down “Prodigal Son” no less…which, in the case of Earth, wandered in the Universe until being “adopted” by our current…literal sun. I highly recommend the book for anyone into ancient mythologies.
[And Joseph Campbell’s work…of course!]
Back to my original point…practically speaking; the overwhelming number of brainwashed sheeple DO read the “Scriptures” literally…and even IF some occasionally do read it…cherry-picked or patchwork style, symbolically or metaphorically…their awareness certainly has little, if anything, to do with the more occult (hidden) or esoteric methodologies.
After all, the three Western Abrahamic (from Brahma?) traditions pretty much condemned, certainly by the Middle Ages, anything smacking of those oh-so-evil, and “Satanic”, pagan trickster lies!
I spent a lot of years as a “New Ager” involved with the more occult, esoteric, style concepts…reincarnation, etc…and even some of the UFO mythology. Even now, as an atheist, I still maintain a (guardedly) open mind about all things “Universal”.
After all, we’re like a bunch of (bratty?) kindergarteners, Scientifically speaking…ie…there’s a WHOLE lot we don’t know. We’ve just begun, especially in the last hundred years or so, to really scratch the surface about ourselves and the history of our “Little Pale Blue Dot” planet.
“And isn’t that SPECIAL?”
Mark Barratt wrote:
And you seem to consider that the only influence on atheists behaviour is their response to theists. What about those of us who are responding to atheists? Or who are simply associating with like-minded people and couldn’t care less about theists? Or are following their friends without considering the issues at any depth?
No, I acknowledge the inspiration for atheists reactions, but I also acknowledge the persistence of behaviour even in the absence of that inspiration. Once any behaviour becomes routine, it is no longer necessary for it to be undertaken in response to the thing that initially prompted it. It might continue because the behaviour itself seems worthwhile, for example. Of course the behaviour would tend to be extinguished if it was solely a reaction and provided no benefit of its own, but that’s not always the case. I also acknowledge the many influences on behaviour beyond the seemingly most salient. The anessiests might decide to keep doing what they were doing but under a different banner, perhaps because they got something out of it beyond shared disdain of the Nessieans. They might gather and discuss, but focus on topics other than what the obnoxious Nessieans were doing. In the case of atheists we often do discuss things other than theists, and I have no doubt that we would continue do to so if theism somehow vanished. My point is that as it stands we tend to associate those discussions and other behaviour with atheism even when they have nothing to do with our lack of belief in gods.
It’s precisely because I don’t consider atheism to exist in a vacuum that I wrote my post.
Austin Cline wrote:
In that section of my reply which you quoted I made a distinction between two ways of conceptualising atheism. At any point where I’ve mentioned atheism as “so little”, using whatever words, I have been contrasting it with atheism as conflated with other beliefs.
Why else might people associate various other beliefs and behaviour with atheism? Perhaps because the context in which they encounter atheism involves other beliefs and behaviours. Even if atheism itself meant a lot, other influences would not be ignored. If those other influences are consistent then they will become associated with atheism, regardless of whether or not that’s a valid association. And my point is not that it’s a valid association, but that people’s behaviour shows that they believe it’s a valid association, despite statements otherwise.
It reflects the inadequacy of the term ‘atheist’ as label for an individual, and the pointlessness of using the term as an identifier while simultaneously denying that it is associated with anything more than a lack of belief in gods.
This is what I mean. Why should they deny when they do it? That would be hypocritical.
No, the denial is of the implicit conflation of those larger systems with atheism.
Atheism is not simple in a society ruled by unconscious and unknown religious notions. Most atheists are only as powerful as the religious tradition which they object to.
They shouldn’t do it, either. Including anything under atheism beyond its basic definition simply because one happens to believe those other things alongside atheism is…. well, silly. It’s like including characteristics of Christianity under the definition of “theism” simply because all the theists one meets happens to be Christians of various sorts.
Fortunately, few actually go so far as to do it.
Why else might people associate various other beliefs and behaviour with atheism? Mark Lapierre on October 3, 2008 at 8:04 pm
Because people believe all sorts of silly things for all sorts of silly reasons. I would think that a budding psychologist ought to know this better than most of us.
Sometimes a cigar is only a cigar, Mark. Accept it and move forward.
After reading this and all related posts, links and the above comments I find myself sincerely confused and would appreciate feedback from any of you as I attempt to better understand.
I’m having trouble understanding the desire or value in adhering to such a literal definition of the word atheism outside of a strictly academic discussion (which this doesn’t appear to be).
I accept the definition of atheism as an absence of belief in either gods or a singular god but don’t understand the vehemence (or really the argument) against also using it as an umbrella term to refer to much more. In my experience many words aren’t used or understood (solely) in the literal manner of their dictionary definitions and yet people are generally able to understand one another even when they speak different languages, have different socio-economic backgrounds and so on if motivated to do so.
As I was trying to pull apart both Austin and Mark Lapierre’s arguments I tried to find a word that is equally black/white in a dictionary but not necessarily so in day-to-day life. One that came fairly easily was woman defined as an adult female human being. So following Austin’s argument (see this is where I’m not sure I’m actually following Austin’s argument the way he is intending) any nuanced use of the word woman outside the definition of an adult female human being is referring to something more than merely a woman. So someone saying something like “she’s all woman” means nothing but she all adult female human being… Okay, I guess that is literally true but that isn’t what they meant by the phrase. Nor does the dictionary definition touch on the nuances of language that have led some feminists to feel woman should be spelled womyn.
Again, if I am understanding correctly, Mark’s argument in the use of the word/concept atheism would better lend itself towards understanding the word woman as being literally defined as an adult female human being while still allowing a statement such as “she’s all woman” to have meaning in addition to the literal dictionary definition and provide a frame of reference for the male or female who spells the word as womyn.
Feel free to pick apart my thinking here as I do find the discussion interesting.
As soon as atheism is defined as “disbelief in gods + X,” no matter what X is, there will be people who disbelieve in gods who aren’t characterized by X. Suddenly, they aren’t atheists? Are they theists? Now “atheism” is a dogma or ideology with atheists arguing over who is a “real” atheist and who isn’t — just like Christians.
It’s far more sensible and reasonable to keep atheist where it is, like theist, and then let atheists split up into atheists who are humanists, Buddhists, Raelians, objectivists, etc. Then, if Buddhists or humanists want to argue amongst themselves over what constitutes “real” Buddhism or “real” humanism, they are free to do so.
Would it really make sense to add Christian dogmas to the definition of “theism,” suddenly rendering Muslims atheists? Well, that’s what they’d be if they weren’t “theists” under this new “belief in at least one god + X” definition of theism.
So someone saying something like “she’s all woman” means nothing but she all adult female human being… — Jenny on October 4, 2008 at 7:35 pm
Dictionaries support a broader meaning for “woman” than the one you employ here.
Also, poets, songwriters, and others may use words in novel ways to serve their specific purposes, but we recognize that such usages are idiosyncratic.
Billy Joel is free to write, “the most she will do is throw shadows at you, but she’s always a woman to me.” The rest of us are not oblidged to amend our dictionaries to read “woman: throws shadows.”
Okay, I guess that is literally true but that isn’t what they meant by the phrase. — Jenny on October 4, 2008 at 7:35 pm
What did they mean, then? How do you know?