"Aggressive" atheism versus "gentle" atheism...

I don't know how anyone could claim that there weren't atheists in ancient cultures. Of course there were. First of all, if there's someone who's never heard of a deity or invented one, that already makes them an atheist. Second, there must've been skeptics. I simply can't imagine a situation where literally everyone accepts whatever stories they're being told. That doesn't mean such a society didn't in fact exist, but I would still suggest that it's next to impossible to have such a society.

Every religious group I've ever heard of has had to deal with people who attempt to leave, or who try not to participate in religious activity at all. "Dealing" with these people hasn't always been done the way I wish it had, but at least we know that at all times there are people trying to leave their religion - and since it's very likely that there are also people who don't believe but who don't want to try to leave, I'm led to conclude that there must have always been atheists in every society.

Well, I used to believe that. I've been raised in a society where atheists, like homosexuals and witches and changelings, were Urban Legend-like mythological creatures whom everyone feared and hated, but whom nobody seemed to have ever met.

I remember reading a very poignant story by a Bible-Belt girl who became disillusioned with religion and eventually atheistic. One day, she read the Pledge of Allegiance on her high school speakers without the God part. The consternation! The shame! The unthinkable! But, afterwards, she was approached by fellow, closeted atheists, who gave her heartfelt thanks, for, before her intervention, they used to believe they were all by themselves, some even doubting that there was something wrong with them.

This reminds me of the Asch Conformity Experiments; if you're The Only Sane Man surrounded by people who say Two Plus Two Equals Five, you will, in the overwhelming majority of cases, doubt your own judgment, and say the same as everyone else. But it is enough to let you see one other sane person for that conformity rate to drop dramatically. Just one other, is all it takes to start. But, in a world of silence, how can you find each other?

That's similar to what Dawkins and Hitchens always said about touring parts of the US that their publishers didn't think worth covering. The events are always sold-out, and the most common type of feedback is "I thought I was the only nonreligious person in the area, so seeing all of these people was as important as your talk." Hitchens predicted this, which is why he insisted that his tour after God is Not Great should focus on the Bible Belt.

Unfortunately, that can't be done just anywhere. In Morocco, for instance, apostasy iself is not a crime, but "shaking the faith", which includes proselytism of any kind, but also things like eating in public parks in Ramadan without being struck down by thunder, is punishable getting struck down by the police, with fifteen years of jail. Moroccan jail. That's where the US subcontract the interrogations of the dudes they can't or won't bring all the way to Guantanamo.

x4

Bare in mind that atheists today can still be atheists while also believing that aliens built the Great Pyramids. I expect that ancient atheists had a similar thing going on - the Jains, for example. Remember, non-deistic thought isn't automatically the same as non-supernatural thought, especially before the later 18th century or so.

I think there's a word for people who don't believe in anything supernatural (who of course are all atheists by definition) but I don't remember what it is. I'm fairly sure it's kinda clunky though.

Materialist? Empiricist?

I guess those fit, but they need a very strict definition of supernatural (ie "anything that literally can't happen") rather than the looser definition most people use (ie "magic shit").

Isn't "anything metaphysical" enough? I mean, you can't know it can't happen; you can only know it ain't ever happened yet, and is very unlikely to happen now, given what you know. But empirical evidence always wins. There's no such thing as Beyond the Impossible in Real Life, only Beyond what was THOUGHT to be impossible.

Eh, maybe. Honestly this whole "label" business is kinda fuzzy anyway.

I mean, what if someone believes that the entire ecosystem of earth forms one big brain with all the interactions between creature acting like neural impulses? And that said creature is sapient? Would that thing count as a deity? Is it supernatural even though it would be entirely material?

Well, that would rather depend, Professor, on what one would consider to be a god. It would also be predicated on whether that sentience is empirically meaningful, observable, and observed. But, sure, if they can come up with a model and test it and the tests come out and it reasonably fits a definition of "god", why not?

edited 7th Dec '13 1:23:22 PM by TheHandle

Elfive: The term you're looking for, and that I self-define as, is "empirical rationalist".

Ah, thank you.