Talk:Atheism/Archive 6

I used diety whereever it was possible without being innaccurate (i.e. against the information cited). I also moved this portion: "In Europe's Middle Ages, atheism was regarded as amoral, often criminal; atheists could be sentenced to death by burning, especially in countries where the Inquisition was active. While Protestantism suffered from discrimination and persecution by the then dominant Roman Catholic Church, Calvin was also in favor of burning atheists and heretics."

Until someone can show me an example of an atheist being burned, or otherwise mistreated. Jack 05:11, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Fairly easy. In Paris, 1766, Jean-François de La Barre was tortured into confessing, then sentenced to be burned. His crimes: an atheist, he did not salute a Christian procession, and he owned a book by Voltaire. David.Monniaux 16:13, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

Avowed atheists were few and far between at the time when burnings, hangings torture, etc. were carried out. However for an example of someone who, while probably not an atheist, was hanged for statements which implied disbelief in Scripture see the case of Thomas Aitkenhead. This makes you realise why atheists, by-and-large, tended to keep their opinions to themselves before the scientific revolution made their views more acceptable, believing, no doubt, that discretion was the better part of valour. -- Derek Ross

Your comment interests me, but I don't see you saying that this passage can be verified. Indeed, I don't hear you disagreeing with me that their essentially were no atheists at that time. IMO Neitzche was the father of atheism, along w others in the 19th century (deism was a yet another culprit). I would like to have the origins of atheism explored in this article, a section relating to criticism, and really an over all fleshing out of this article (I think I'll focus on my strength, helping provide the criticism section). With so many of you guys around, I would think you'd have more to say about your faith (or lack thereof ;). How about mentions of atheist charitable organizations, or think tanks, or whatever it is you guys do as a ... group? Jack 05:43, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I doubt that the passage can be directly verified. The reasons being that the majority of atheists, myself included, will quite happily pretend to be devout believers if it keeps us out of jail, off the rack, etc. Thus atheist lack of interest in God tends to protect us by making us invisible. But the maltreatment of heretics, who can't generally hide to the same extent, because they care too much about God and their beliefs, clearly shows how severely even non-believers in minor points of doctrine were punished for their beliefs. That can certainly be verified. It's difficult to imagine that someone who did not believe in a major point of doctrine like the existence of God would be treated more leniently.

I doubt that many atheists have read Neitsche so I'm not sure why you think of him as the father of atheism. Most of us have probably come to our own conclusions without any help from mad, misunderstood Germans and as for us as a group -- well -- er -- probably most of us don't care enough to form a group. Of course as always there are exceptions, and no doubt that's why various Rational Humanist and Secular Humanist groups have been formed. If you're looking for atheist think tanks, you should be able to find rightwing and leftwing flavours since I suppose both Objectivist and Socialist think tanks should count.

Finally I agree with you about the development of the article. There's certainly room for more of the things that you mention. -- Derek Ross

well, I ment in terms of a founding father, but then I had no idea there were atheists so long before him, in the 1600's and so forth as Snoyes links show. Anyways, he should be mentioned here, as his "God is dead" statement certainly influenced modern atheistic thought (if not inspiring all of atheism, as I had previously suspected). p.s. I would be quite happy to see you help in fleshing this article out! Jack 06:32, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The "God is dead" statement is a partial quote. The full quote is "Men live as if God is dead." DavidR 20:19, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

That's not true at all. Nietzsche says it more than once in "The Gay Science." Book III, 108 says "New Struggles. After Buddha was dead people showed his shadow for centuries afterwards in a cave - an immense frightful shadow. God is dead: but as the human race is constituted, there will perhaps be caves for millenniums yet, in which people will show his shadow. And we - we have still to overcome his shadow!" 125 is probably the more common citation, where the madman is speaking: "God is dead! God remains dead! And we have killed him! ... Is not the magnitude of this deed too great for us? Shall we not ourselves have to become Gods, merely to seem worthy of it? There never was a greater event - and on account of it, all who are born after us belong to a higher history than any history hitherto!" Source (http://www.publicappeal.org/library/nietzsche/Nietzsche_the_gay_science/the_gay_science.htm) The idea is that the shared belief in god was fading, and that something was needed to replace it; Nietzsche sought to do just that. I really have no idea where your purported quote comes from, but I could find nothing of it online, and I wonder what your motive might be in listing it here. My guess would be that it has something to do with your faith, but such speculation is not fair to you, just as your erroneous quote is unfair to Nietzsche and those interested in learning about his philosophies. Davin 22:34, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

My interest is always in The Truth. I was attempting to correct what I thought was a mistake someone else made. I'll have to check my research, and I appreciate you helping set me right. DavidR 23:48, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Yup, atheism has been around longer than Buddhism, Christianity or Islam. Some of the Greek philosophers were atheist in 300BC and before, Diagoras, Democritus and Anaxagoras to name but three. But then it was relatively safe to be atheist and show it at that time. -- Derek Ross

You really seem to know your sources, I think this article can use as much as you have time (and interest) to write :D Jack 07:17, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I challange all to read the article as it is, and add to it where needed, rather than wasting everyones time over arguments which can easilly be solved by proper sourcing, compromise, and wikiquette. Jack 05:16, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thomas Aitkenhead

Capital-g god is impermissible, period. I am astonished at the disingenuity of claiming that this is not a reference to a specific deity - and one whose worshippers currently exhibit a great deal of intolerance towards atheists in the Western world.

The only objector in evidence to the distinguishing of strong vs weak atheism is one particular person who has been going to great lengths to edit this article so as to marginalize atheism and atheists, and to shove their particular brand of theism down throats.

For persecution of atheists, see the murder of Aitkenhead. For a modern example, look at the treatment Madalyn Murray O'Hair got.

Salsa Shark 05:50, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Um.. he wasn't atheist. And she was protested against and so forth... where are these burnings at the stake, or other such fearful persecutions? Jack 05:54, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I can't find much on this aitkenhead at all. And by US legal terms, since his death was legally carried out it wasn't murder. That was the law at that time and place. I thought you atheists were moral/cultural relativists? Jack 05:59, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

And I thought that you believers in God were Muslims. Looks like we were both wrong :-) For information on Aitkenhead's case see How the Scots Invented the Modern World (ISBN 0-609-80999-7). As for Burnings at the Stake, they were legally carried out too. So they weren't murder either by US legal standards, merely legal penalties for crimes. Most people would still think of them as persecution though. -- Derek Ross

Calvin's Geneva was indeed rather repressive. It is true that Calvin and his followers burned far more theists that had rather different views from theirs than they did atheists. But they certainly did persecute atheists:

"Calvin strongly squelched religious objections, too. The magistrates executed Jacques Gruet in 1547 for blasphemy and atheism. Gruet owned "immoral books" and often showed indiscretion in his speech. He often expressed his opinions openlyj and often criticized Calvin and the magistrates. Pierre Amio refused to attend church or adopt prevailing standards of dress. Calvin imprisoned him for his rebellion." [1] (http://www.christianchronicler.com/history1/reform_in_french_switzerland.html) (section 3)

"Two manuscripts by John Calvin bear witness to the dramatic story of the Protestant Reform in the State of Geneva during the 16th century. In one of them, Calvin justifies, eloquently and at considerable length, the first death sentence that he ordered and obtained in 1547 for Jacques Gruet, the author of a famous breviary of atheism Des trois imposteurs (estimated 50, 000/80, 000 euros). No autograph manuscript by Calvin of such importance has been sold at auction in the last 25 years." [2] (http://www.shareholder.com/bid/news/20030603-110529.cfm) (section: "John Calvin")

So not only did atheists exist, but they were persecuted even by reformers like Calvin. - snoyes 06:17, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Excellent. Lets place a link to that within the article. Thats just what I've been asking for, citations. In case you guys ever think I'm being unreasonable, just give me a citation, and I'll smile :) Jack 06:20, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I know its POV, but saying "Calvinism" and "reformer" in the same sentance makes my mouth taste bad ;) If atheism is the opposite of theism, calvinism is the opposite of me ;) Jack 06:33, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Our goal is NPOV, and our tool is sources!

The article is littered with capital-G God references again! Didn't we just come to a compromise agreement a few hours ago to use "deity" instead of "god" so the issue wouldn't be a problem any more? I don't have time to deal with yet another edit war right now, but come tomorrow unless there's some good reason why that compromise is suddenly unacceptable I'm going to implement it myself. Bryan 06:37, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Read the above. I placed deity instead of God wherever it didn't outright contridict available sources. Remember this: our goal is NPOV, and our tool is sources Cite any edits you dubious edits you make, I am ever watchful :) Jack 07:05, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Not even slightly good enough. After weeks of arguing against using capital-G god, we finally come to some semblance of an agreement on a compromise, and then you immediately go and blank the talk: page off to Archive 5: January 2004 and stick capital-G God all over the article again. I am quite convinced at this point that you are hopelessly POV on this subject (much evidence is present in the archived talk I linked to), and so I'm taking those capital G's out; I see no need to repeat the entire argument over again. Bryan 23:48, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I've also removed those external links you put in the definition. No other Wikipedia article I've come across has seen fit to include dictionary links in the definition like that; instead, use wiki links when you want to refer to the definition of a term, and save the external links for the external links section. Bryan 23:52, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Your opposition to citation ... angers me. If you cannot accept the facts when they are presented to you (rant deleted by author) you are incapable of editing an encyclopedia. Jack 03:24, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It's not an opposition to citation, but rather to the format. External links should go in the external links section, by and large, and when there's a term within the article itself that needs clarification you should link to a Wikipedia article to do that. How many other Wikipedia articles are there that have external dictionary links in their definition? Anyway, your citations are not particularly good, especially not in terms of supporting your particular argument here. For example, take a look at your theism definition link [3] (http://dictionary.reference.com/search?q=theism); the very first line is "Belief in the existence of a god or gods, especially belief in a personal God as creator and ruler of the world." Doesn't that contradict your previous assertions that God is not a god? You have a history of not judging citations very well. Bryan 04:33, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

This is going nowhere. ad hominem's have no place here. Jack 04:51, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

It's not an ad hominem if it's actually relevant to what you're doing to the article. Back in Archive 5: January 2004 you brought up many external URLs to support your arguments that turned out to be very poor citations, and I just showed in the paragraph above how I don't think your theism citation doesn't say what you thought it did either. I don't think it's at all unreasonable to question the validity of your citations based on that. Bryan 05:09, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Any interested parties can review the references or whatever. Jack 05:14, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Well, that's what I did. I reviewed, and then I edited. Bryan 05:53, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Marx's papa

Marx's father was a lawyer, not a rabbi. --Jose Ramos 11:42, 29 Jan 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

The NPOV header ends the edit war for me. Its not right, but at least our reader has an advisory so that he knows what he is reading is biased. Jack 06:10, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Thank you. We can now at least get on with the rest of our Wikilives, and leave it to others to deal with this mess. Bryan 06:17, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Great, yet another dispute header. Thanks for creating a mess and not cleaning it up.—Eloquence

I also strongly dislike dispute headers, and will be perfectly happy to see the necessary changes made in order for it to be removed. Jack 19:26, 30 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Well, for me it seems to be a choice of this or a resumption of the edit war that started the past few weeks of arguing in the first place. I don't actually think the article as it stands is NPOV myself, but obviously Jack does so there it is. What's the procedure for resolving such situations other than simply waiting for one party to get tired of reverting the other's edits and storm off in a huff? I've already added an entry on this article to Wikipedia:Current disputes over articles. Bryan 01:34, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Um.. the guidelines are pretty simple Bryan. Check out wikipedia:revert. It says to make improvements, rather than simply undoing imrpovements made by others. Your ment to be a writer and an editor here, not a saboteur. Jack 02:23, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I was talking to Eloquence, not you. We've had this argument about whether a reversion can be an improvement many times before, and it is not relevant here. Bryan 03:33, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Jack: Criticising others for things you do yourself (reverting) is trolling. Please stop it. - snoyes 03:42, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

The normal thing to do in situations like this is to try to find a compromise. For example: We can use the capitalized God in quotations and the lower case god in our text. We can elaborate on the problem by phrasing it differently, e.g. "one absolute God, a god, or many gods". We can try to substitute the remaining God/god uses with a different term. Please experiment with these solutions, and try to accommodate each other's viewpoint. If you both leave this article, I will simply remove the NPOV dispute header as I consider this a minor issue.—Eloquence 08:20, Jan 31, 2004 (UTC)

All of those sound like good options to me. My main complaint has always been the singling out of God as the primary entity that atheists don't believe in, when atheism is much more general than that. Shall I try making the changes, or leave it up to someone who wasn't directly involved in the previous edit wars? Bryan 19:28, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Oh, I should also mention that as soon as Jack indicated he'd leave this article as-is with the NPOV header he went over to agnosticism and resumed the reversion war there. It's now in the same state as this article with an NPOV header, so perhaps the same solution can be applied there. Bryan 19:30, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Yes, the same soloution should be applied consistantly thruout. And I am VERY dubious of either Bryan or myself making necessary changes, but I guess we'll see. I must say I am rather unhappy with the removal of the NPOV dispute header before any changes were made, but I don't feel like quarrelling w eloquence, so I suppose I'll back up off that for now. Jack 21:49, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Comment moved here from article

User:170.35.224.64 wrote

(XXX: Poor example; though Jewish rabbis symbolicly equate Amalekites with atheism, the actual story of Amalek in the Jewish and Christian Bible does not make this connection.)

I moved this here. Bmills 13:09, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

and this

(XXX: somebody needs to edit this, if you read the Jewish and Christian scriptures you'll see Amalek is not connected with atheism. This is a misrepresentation.)

Bmills 16:25, 6 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I came here by following the link on Wikipedia: requests for comment asking for comments on capitalization of god. There was no date, so forgive me if this has been dealt with already.

I looked over the archives and have this to add:

the Greek word theos does, as someone posted, mean a god (any god). However, O Theos (o means something like "the" or "he") means God (the god of Christianity).
god, uncapitalised, means any god -- the god of the wind, the god of fire, etc. God, capitalised, refers to the Christian god.
When trying to decide a definition for atheism, it's useful to look up its opposite: theism. Merriam Webster defines theism as

"belief in the existence of a god or gods; specifically : belief in the existence of one God viewed as the creative source of man and the world who transcends yet is immanent in the world." Interstingly, it defines atheism as "1 archaic : UNGODLINESS, WICKEDNESS 2 a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity."

really, the definition of atheist seems to rely on context. In discussions of Christianity, to profess atheism is to deny belief in God. Generally, to be an atheist is to not believe in gods.

Dunno if that helps or says anything new...

Exploding Boy 12:27, Feb 8, 2004 (UTC)

Conventions in capitalization

Santa Claus would be capitalized even though it describes a fictional character. Of course the spanish (latin?) santa would not be capitalized unless used in the context of a proper name of a real or imagined person. The name of the Christian deity would be capitalized because they believe in the personal agency of their god. Christians beleive there is only one god, and they call him God. To write about the one God would be to affirm the Christian belief that their God is the only god, unless in the context of saying the one God of Christian faith. There is an abundance of ways around this conflict, including use of the term "deity" (already done) and coupling reference to Christian faith with any reference to the proper noun God. If parties can't work this out along those lines, maybe I'll come back and sort through the article's references to dieties, but i'd rather not need to bother. Then I would have to go see what articles have developed about monotheism, and the history of monotheistic religion such as Egyptian worship of Ra, etc., Soul kitch 23:20, 8 Feb 2004 (UTC)

dispute header

I am not going to have a revert war (as User:Bryan Derksen appears to be attempting), but this article either needs to be NPOV, or have a dispute header. Either it is disputed (thus needing the header) or not. It is unaccptable option for it to be disputed without the header. Sam Spade 06:31, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This dispute is the exact same one that we spent the last few weeks of January working over. The situation won't change just because you've changed your user name and left the article alone for a while. Bryan 06:35, 10 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Charities

All this stuff about charities is a complete red herring unless someone cares to add a balanced discussion on the morality of giving/dependence/etc. Bmills 16:33, 12 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Poll

Talk:Atheism/Godvrs.god poll

Ethics of atheism

Cut from "definition" section:

Some advocates assert that atheism is synonymous with irreligion; other advocates object to this assertion, arguing that members of deity-embracing religious organisations could secretly hold atheist beliefs. Additionally, a number of atheistic "churches" have sprung up, as well as religious organizations which allow atheists as members. Naturalistic Pantheism is such an example, Brianism is another.

After reading this and several of the following paragraphs, I realized that the entire beginning of the article reads like a defense of atheism against charges leveled by various believers, that being an atheist is somehow "bad".

Before I altered the cut paragraph, it asserted that it's not necessarily "irreligious" to be an atheist! :-)

But no such defense is necessary, so let's not confuse our readers with tricky rhetoric. No one's accusing anyone here.

If there are people out there in the real world beyond the pages of Wikipedia who say that atheism is bad, let's quote them. It's the best way of de-fanging the tiger. Reduce the power of their accusation to "That's your opinion!"

Now, let's explain why various advocates despise atheism. Is it because these advocates believe everyone should be "religious" and that in their opinion it's wrong to be "irreligious"? Then the article should say that these advocates think this way. Etc. --Uncle Ed 22:21, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I placed a link to amalek in this regard, to express the severity of sentiment against atheism, and some explanation/articulation of it. This was roundly disaproved of, and so I have since refrained from seeking sources citing persons objecting to atheism, but rather focus on promoting factual accuracy (which has gone profoundly badly as anyone with time or interest can easilly asess. Sam Spade 02:59, 19 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I replaced the link to Amalek with a reference to II Thessalonians in the Bible, which talks about destruction of those who persecute Christians. Actually this isn't strictly a denunciation of unbelievers, but it was the best I could find. The story of Amalek in the Bible (the way you had it worded) is not given in any sense as a denunciation of an unbeliever, although Jewish commentators have interpreted it that way. Thus it was factually incorrect to state that the story of Amalek in the Bible was an example of the Scripture of a particular faith denouncing an unbeliever. (The Jewish Rabbi writings might contain such denunciations, but the Scripture itself does not. Amalek isn't even identified as an unbeliever, per se. As a person, he's barely mentioned at all; most of what the Bible says about Amalek is about the nation of Amalek descended from him, and they are condemned because of actions they took as a nation, not because of the actions of Amalek.) It's actually surprisingly difficult to find a "denunciation of unbelievers" in Scripture; I'd like to find a better example than the one I used, but I can't think of one yet.

Here's a quote from a page: "Why am I making these accusations? How can I call these celebrities anti-American and atheists?" Since being called an atheist is called an accusation, and lumped in with being "anti-American" (which is a whole other topic, I admit), I would say the linked page is using "atheist" in a negative way. Would anyone care to analyze this? (first link from google search "liberal atheists") link: [4] (http://www.diversautograph.com/Main%20Web%20Pages/ACLU.html) --User:C. McNeil 18 Feb 2004

This is just some dumb rant against celebrities who are not christian. But how is this relevant here? - snoyes 23:20, 18 Feb 2004 (UTC)

this is almost acceptable

the article as it stands (after my last two edits, and the many reasonable edits by others) is about an inch from being great. I think very little else needs done. In fact, it is so good, that if my recent clarifications are not reverted w/o discussion by some troll, I'm not sure I need to be a part of the process of making it any better. Sam Spade 02:42, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I am glad that we pass your high standards. Nevertheless I have reworded your intro as it didn't pass mine.—Eloquence 03:04, Feb 21, 2004 (UTC)

Now were back where we started. Goodbye quality article, hello atheist POV. Sam Spade 03:09, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I for one feel like we are moving forward.—Eloquence

Same here. Considering that on Talk:Atheism/Godvrs.god poll Sam just indicated that he prefers the definition of atheism to be "the rejection of God, Blaspheme of the Holy Spirit, the unforgivable sin," I don't think he's much of a useful authority on NPOV. Bryan 03:18, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I like your optomism. What do you think of this edit? Sam Spade 03:14, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Cheers to Eloquence

You have honestly suprised me with your reasonable nature, believe it or not. Rather than sacrificing article quality based on personalities or POV, you seem to have the interests of the reader at heart. Good recent edits. Sam Spade 03:45, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

I think the article is now satisfactory. I no longer find it to be offensive, nor particularly innaccurate. Because I dislike this subject, and because there have been so many troubles great and small for me on this page, I will be leaving it for now. I think that everyone here can stand to take a minute to thank Eloquence for his fine abilities as both an editor, and negotiator. It is finially clear to me how he has earned his status here. Thanks once again Eloquence, and goodbye all. Sam Spade 04:51, 21 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Relationship between communism and atheism

I feel that the relationship you made between communism and atheism is related to the cultural and historial context of the U.S.A. during the 20th century. I think it was built by several presidents that both rejected communism and held strong theistic beliefs, and it is (at least partially) artificial. I think you should look at this issue in a more international perspective, atheism existed long before communism and trascends it. It is like filling half of the roman catholicism article with references to facism. My opinion: for this article we should include more about philosophy and thought. -- 25 Feb 2004 ChaTo

I disagree. One of the prime tenants of Communism is that there is no authority higher than that of The State. One of the first things new Communist regimes do is "offer" mandatory classes in evolution (taught as fact, not theory) so that the people will believe they "just happened" rather than they were created. And since they were not created there is no creator. - David 04:24, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

This is incorrect. Many Communists contend that in a Communist society, there would be no state! (Note how none of the former Eastern Bloc countries called themselves "Communist", but only "Socialist".) David.Monniaux 16:15, 23 Apr 2004 (UTC)

I agree, the current article is quite incomplete in those areas. I'll try to come up with some new stuff to add on the weekend, feel free to create some headers and section-stubs to suggest good areas to fill in and I'll see if I can do it. Bryan 02:11, 26 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Done, I based on the article on Christianity to order the headers :); I also added data from the BBC survey mentioned below. I am not 100% satisfied with the headers but it will depend on how much information we can gather for each topic in the future. -- 27 Feb 2004 ChaTo

BBC survey

There's an interesting survey on the BBC.CO.UK site today, showing global belief in god. Mark Richards 01:07, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

Could you provide a more specific URL? I didn't look very hard, but it wasn't obvious where on the page I might find this survey. Bryan 01:32, 27 Feb 2004 (UTC)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/wtwtgod/3518375.stm.—Eloquence 04:31, Feb 27, 2004 (UTC)

Added to the article -- 27 Feb 2004 ChaTo

An observation

Consider what a user who, for whatever reason, is unfamiliar with the term “atheist”, might type into a search engine. “God does not exist”, perhaps, or “disbelief in god”. Would you expect to find atheism at the top of such a search? Try a Google search in Wikipedia for these terms, and your expectation will be disappointed. God knows were such a search on the whole of Google would put this page – certainly not in the top 100 sites.

My point is that removing the word “god” (capitalised or otherwise) has had the result of effectively marginalising this article. Atheists are of interest because they do not believe in God, not because they do not believe in deities.

That statement is an assumption about the background of the reader, that has no evidence. Certainly your statement is true in America, perhaps even in a good portion of the Western world, but I disagree that it is true everywhere. Regardless, is it the point of Wikipedia articles to attract all reasonable keywords, or is it the point to explain a specifically selected concept? KeithTyler 00:21, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

I am aware that this has been a difficult issue for the authors, and one you may have hoped had been laid to rest. At one stage I supported the use of “deities”. But the effect of adopting “deities” has been to assign the article to cybernetic limbo.Banno 19:24, 10 Mar 2004 (UTC)

I agree, the only reason I suggested switching to "deities" in the first place was because I thought it might end the edit war without leaving the article in a state where it was actually misleading; suboptimal, but acceptable for the short term. Not sure how to go about improving things from here, at least not without reigniting the edit war. Maybe tinkering will become less risky once that 3-revert rule is finally enacted. Bryan 02:51, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Be wary of falsifying information in the midst of your tinkering, young jedi ;) The "god" denied by every atheist I know is the one true God, not some Zeus or other such lesser straw man. Sam Spade 02:55, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps this is because your own background is so strongly associated with that particular god? After all, you admit your only sample group is the athiests that you know. It's not clear to me that you have done any sort of assessment of athiests around the world. Certainly atheists in India are known for not believing in Krishna, and atheists in Egypt are known for not believing in Allah, etc. Fact is, though, even those athiests whom you define in the terms of your own religious beliefs do also reject the existence of any other alleged deity you can reference. (In fact, it seems clear to me, that you would agree with athiests on the status of 99% of the world's declared deities -- all except for one!) KeithTyler 00:21, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

You're only referring to a subset of atheists with this description. This is the exact same dispute that we've had from the very beginning. Bryan 03:25, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Your right, and thats the prob. w specifying any one diety. But if you want to get alot of links (like banno seems to want) you'll have to focus on that subset (IMO the clear majority) of atheists. Sam Spade 05:10, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

And now we're right back to the issue of whether "god" with a small G refers to all the things atheists lack belief in rather than one specific subset, as discussed on Talk:Atheism/Godvrs.god poll. Bryan 05:14, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Well, you know my view, and that of those that agree with me, that the wiki should be compatible w other reference sources on this issue, and must be scrupulously accurate in its usage of capitalization on this most controversial of all issues, the matter of God. As banno himself has said, it isn't Zeus most atheists are focusing their denial on ;) Sam Spade 05:20, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

As I have repeatedly tried to explain to you in the past atheism does not necessarily require denial. And Zeus is significant because someone who believed in Zeus wouldn't be an atheist. I'm not going to bother going over it all again, though, since it apparently doesn't make a difference. Bryan 05:29, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

You are quite right that repetition is likely not the answer to this particular comprehension conundrum. Anyhow, keep in mind you'll have no conflict with me here so long as you maintain NPOV, verifiability, citations and factual accuracy. Cheers, Sam Spade 05:37, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

It just occurred to me to actually reread the article and do an actual count. "God" appears 8 times, "god" appears 6 times, "deity" appears 8 times, and "deities" appears 1 time. Perhaps the akward wording isn't as bad as I'd feared, I can't find anything to point to and say "this sounds rough due to poor word choice" right now. Bryan 06:36, 11 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the word counts. Are you guys aware that this article was featured in Metawiki ? It had the honor of being featured as an article that undergo one of the lamest edit wars ever. It is true that the "deities" and "deity" usage sounds really weird, and it's also true that people are free to say "god", "God", or "invisible pink unicorn", but let's move on ! There is still plenty of work to do with this article. -- ChaTo Thu Mar 11 20:30:36 UTC 2004

Bah, I can beat that record easily; I recently got into a brief edit war over whether or not Mosaic (disambiguation) should have {{msg:disambig}} at the bottom. Much lamer than this. At least in the case of this capitalization issue the underlying cause of the conflict was meaningful. :) Bryan 00:52, 12 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Alll

Atheism is a disbelief in alll deities. (only lasted a few minutes)

I like alll. It is like Iff. JWSchmidt 23:04, 18 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Do you think it means "all and only all"? :-)Banno

Yes. For example, one possible way you could have "a disbelief in all deities" would be to not believe ANYTHING. Some times when we say "I do not believe that" other people say, "Oh, you dont believe ANYTHING [that I tell you]!"

It seems that saying "disbelief in alll deities" would mean dieties are the ONLY things that you are sure do not exist. You are willing to entertain the possible existence of anything else, just not dieties. Saying "alll" prevents the possible reply "you dont believe anything."

I think "alll" should go in the Wiktionary. JWSchmidt 03:18, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

But this is more restrictive than what atheism actually implies. Why can't an atheist disbelieve dieties, and also disbelieve unicorns, or Sasquatch, or flying saucers? Also, note that "lack of belief" is not equivalent to "is sure it does not exist" - that's been argued over at length here in the past. Bryan 04:39, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

If your not sure, your not an atheist. Your an agnostic. Atheism requires faith :P Sam Spade 04:54, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Please let's not get into this argument again. :) Bryan 05:13, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

No, athiesm only refers to disbelief in deities. It does not refer to a disbelief in anything else. (Well... I was under the impression it also included disbelief in any cosmic forces, personified or otherwise [e.g. astrology], but that doesn't seem to be represented.) It is irrelevant to have to state, for example, that atheists do not believe in deities but may believe in unicorns, aliens, supply-side economics, etc. KeithTyler 00:28, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

Yes, that was my point. "Disbelief in all and only all deities" is not a correct definition of atheism specifically because it brings non-deities into the picture as well, when non-deities are actually irrelevant to atheism. Atheists don't have to disbelieve "only all deities." Bryan 00:36, 20 May 2004 (UTC)

New animals are still found on Earth, so it might make sense to wait and see if Sasquatch is found. There might be reasons why aliens try to hide from us and can do so because of advanced technology. It would not be very hard to use genetic engineering to make a unicorn. Anyhow, I think the real point is that some people may feel that deities are among the set of things least likely to exist and such atheists may prefer a stronger version of atheism that makes this clear. JWSchmidt 05:36, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

The article strong atheism would seem appropriate in that case. Bryan 05:51, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

"The difference between "strong" and "weak" atheism might be summed up as follows: strong atheism is the belief in the lack of any god, while weak atheism is the lack of belief in any god." is the relevent quote. Sam Spade 06:12, 19 Mar 2004 (UTC)

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