Talk:Atheism/Archive 53

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Eurobarometer

I removed the percentages of atheism in the EU based on the Eurobarometer due that according the Eurobarometer itself, they are wrong. Mi revision was undid by user War and he/she said "I double checked. These percentage are correct. They are concerning question QB32 choice #1."

But as you can see in the page 381 of the PDF, they are not correct. First of all, they are original research, because the article combines different answers of the poll to show the percentages of the population did not agree with the stand "I believe there is a God". For example, the article shows 49% of people who don't agree with the stand "I believe there is a God", but the Eurobarometer doesn't say that. Instead, the Eurobarometer says:

• 51% - "You believe there is a God"
• 26% - "You believe there is some sort of spirit or life force"
• 20% - "You don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force"
• 3% - "Don't know"

So… Where that 49% comes from? From adding the people who answered "I believe there is some sort of spirit or life force", the people who answered "I don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force" and even the people who said "I don't know". This is misleading at all and an original research, it can't be said that people who "don't know" are atheists or people who doesn't agree with the stand "I believe there is a God". It happens the same with all the percentages of the EU Member States.

This doesn't corresponds the source, which explicitly says (see page 206): "On average, one respondent in two believes in God (51%) while around a quarter believe there is some sort of spirit or life force (26%) and one in five is an atheist". --Robert Laymont (talk) 15:01, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

You've raised a good point. I don't have an answer for it. Is subtraction "original research"? I, personally don't think so. I'm very interested in what others have to say about this. The question though has nothing to do with "...some sort of life force". The question on the survey for GB32 was "You believe there is a God". and 51% picked this number answer. Therefore simple subtraction give you 49% "did not agree with the stand "I believe there is a God". Now, perhaps the wording is worth discussing, "...large percentages of the population did not agree...". I could see some people arguing that 49% is not a "large percentage". However, I still don't think subtraction constitutes original research. War (talk) 16:12, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

Original research or not, I think it's misleading information since those who answered "Don't know" were added to the percentage too. Anyway, this article is about Atheism, and the survey clearly explains that "one in five is an atheist". If a source is being used, the text must follow what this source says. The source must not be used to reach other conclusions. --Robert Laymont (talk) 16:25, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I haven't (yet) gone back to the source, so I'm commenting just on the preceding comments here. It seems that the numbers quoted come from adding together "You believe there is some sort of spirit or life force", "You don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force", and "Don't know". The page currently characterizes that sum as the "percentages of the population [that] did not agree with the stand 'I believe there is a God'". Furthermore, in context, the sentence as currently written equates that sum (implicitly) with the percentage of the population that is atheist. If I understand that correctly, then I think that it clearly does violate WP:NOR. It is both WP:SYNTH and just plain inaccurate to equate people who say they "believe there is some sort of spirit or life force" and people who "don't know" with actually being atheists, or even with being people who disagree with "You believe there is a God". Not knowing could potentially equate to agnosticism, and believing in some sort of spirit could reflect any number of belief systems other than atheism. Choosing one response may mean preferring that response, without necessarily disagreeing outright with the other responses. I wouldn't delete the passage altogether, but I'd change the information to report only the respondents who selected "You don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force", and describe them that way, not as disagreeing with the first option. Thus, 49% would become 20%. --Tryptofish (talk) 17:00, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

I have done a check of the numbers myself, and it is indeed not correct how its portrait here on Wikipedia. While I am an atheist myself I do not want to mus-construct a survey to look like there are much more then there actually are. I would suggest that the numbers are changed to the actually percentage of atheist in the case of the mention in the lead and also in the actually demographic section. As the demographic section is also implying that the other two options are auto-atheist. NathanWubs (talk) 17:35, 21 July 2014 (UTC)

If as Tryptofish said, we change the information to report only the respondents who selected "You don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force", the text would be as follows:

According to the Eurobarometer Poll 2010, some percentages of the population agreed with the stand "You don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force": Italy (6%), Spain (19%), United Kingdom (25%), Denmark (24%), Germany (27%), Netherlands (30%), Sweden (34%), Estonia (29%), Czech Republic (37%), France (40%), and the European Union as a whole (20%).

But note that the original text tried to show the highest percentages of atheism. Selecting the 10 most atheistic EU member states, the text would be:

According to the Eurobarometer Poll 2010, some percentages of the population agreed with the stand "You don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force": Denmark (24%), United Kingdom (25%), Slovenia (26%), Germany (27%), Belgium (27%), Estonia (29%), Netherlands (30%), Sweden (34%), Czech Republic (37%), France (40%), and the European Union as a whole (20%).

But I think that showing only the most atheistic countries might be partial information. I think the most appropriate —at least at this part of the article— is to reflect the european percentage, rather than show only certain countries. --Robert Laymont (talk) 16:00, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

You raise a good point. I have a couple of suggestions about it. First, I would instead word it as: "According to the Eurobarometer Poll 2010, the percentages of the population that agreed with the stand "You don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force" were:..." (I think it reads more smoothly that way.) Second, it is reasonable to list, first, the five countries with the highest percentages, and then, the five with the lowest, all in descending order of percentages, followed by 20% for the entire EU. That way, we describe the range of findings, without skewing our description in either direction. --Tryptofish (talk) 19:02, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

That would be a good option. Then, the percentages would be: France (40%), Czech Republic (37%), Sweden (34%), Netherlands (30%), Estonia (29%), Poland (5%), Greece (4%), Cyprus (3%), Malta (2%), Romania (1%) and the European Union as a whole (20%). --Robert Laymont (talk) 19:42, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Good! On second thought, I'll slightly revise my previous suggestion about the opening wording, and suggest that we go with this:

According to the 2010 Eurobarometer Poll, the percentages of the population that agreed with the stand "You don’t believe there is any sort of spirit, God or life force" ranged from: France (40%), Czech Republic (37%), Sweden (34%), Netherlands (30%), and Estonia (29%), down to Poland (5%), Greece (4%), Cyprus (3%), Malta (2%), and Romania (1%), with the European Union as a whole at 20%.

--Tryptofish (talk) 22:25, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I like it.War (talk) 01:21, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

Well written. Jim1138 (talk) 01:42, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

I like it. The cite should link to the original source [2] instead the current intermediate document. --Robert Laymont (talk) 06:22, 23 July 2014 (UTC)

 Done. Thank you everyone for the kind comments and productive discussion. --Tryptofish (talk) 15:04, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

I changed the demographics section to reflect the lead section. I also removed a statement that the source did not say. If anyone wants to check in the source where it was suppose to say this claim. Then you can check it on page 204. NathanWubs (talk) 15:47, 24 July 2014 (UTC)

An explicit question for atheism is actually missing: "You do belief that no God exists." 3 and four would cover agnosticism and atheists would most likely pick statement 3 --197.228.33.53 (talk) 21:27, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

The comment above was made originally in response to the opening post, but, because it interrupted that post, I moved it here. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:33, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

I am sorry I dis-agree that the question your purpose is a question that needs to be asked to an atheist. If you read our article you will surely understand why. Statement 4 is I do not know, it does not automatically cover agnosticism. As you could also just have no opinion and not care to know. Or you honestly do not know and have not made up your mind yet. But either way that is not up to wikipedia to decide, we only report sources and not original research. NathanWubs (talk) 21:40, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

(edit conflict) I realize that, of course, this is something that depends very much upon how one defines atheism versus agnosticism, itself a perennial topic of disagreement in this talk. But I would argue that 3, as the source gives it to us, really is atheism and not agnosticism, because agnosticism would involve more uncertainty than "You don't believe there is any sort of..." permits. That's a pretty clear articulation of "don't believe". In any case, we can only work with what the source material gives us, and the page presents the source material verbatim, which allows readers to evaluate it for themselves, and I think that's the best we can do. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:48, 25 July 2014 (UTC)

• • A few points

1. the article now has more details in the lead than the actual article itself. A lead is expected to summarise the article.
2. WP:CALC allows basic subtraction.
3. The original sentence did not misconstrue the source, and clearly stated the numbers that viewed themselves as "convinced atheists" (whatever that means, what's an unconvinced atheist?), but also included the other figure because a convinced atheist isn't the same thing as an atheist (for example, it's not clear to me that someone who believes in a "life force" can not be an atheist unless one equates atheism with naturalism specifically). Second Quantization (talk) 21:51, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

• • Be bold if you find that the lead has to many details, then shorten it where it can be shortenend.
  • CALC does not apply when the source is not basic substraction.
  • There source was being put in a false light as it was implying that all people that did not tick the box. "You believe there is a God" are atheist. Which is in-correct. For several reasons which are explained above. Which I can add one more too. If I was a pantheist and, I would see God as in the christian God I would certainly not tick that box. It did not clearly state the numbers that viewed themselves as atheist, else there would be no percentage that ticked the Do not know box. It was Life Force and Spirit. Yes, these people can as well be atheist, but the thing is that is not what the source is saying. They could be pantheist, or Hindi offended by the word God. The source does not tell so we do not imply. NathanWubs (talk) 22:19, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

Second Quantization, the problem with your subtraction is that it wasn't a simple subtraction. You were lumping groups together that were different kinds of groups. I suppose we do devote a rather large amount of the lead to demographics, but I'm not sure what we would delete. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:35, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

"There source was being put in a false light as it was implying that all people that did not tick the box. "You believe there is a God" are atheist." No it didn't, my calc highlighted the percentage that did not believe in a personal god and carefully highlighted what they did claim to believe broken into the two groups. Considering it highlighted the specific numbers for atheists afterwards and the wishy washy spiritual group, there is no way someone who read it would make that mistake. "CALC does not apply when the source is not basic substraction." it was basic addition. Second Quantization (talk) 18:44, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

I think this whole argument stems from a mistake Second. The original wording that you added was a little bit more specific. but the wording was changed, changing the meaning. Which made it seemed like it implied something which it did not give the figures for. If there was no problem with the new meaning then this section on this talk page would have not existed. A new consensus was reached and the change was made. NathanWubs (talk) 22:10, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

And I think that the consensus here is correct. It's not that difficult: there were several survey options for the respondents in the source, and not all of them corresponded to the subject of this page. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:42, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Vietnam

Under "Demographics" Vietnam--according to a 2012 Gallup Global Index of Religiosity and Atheism--is the first one of the "bottom ten countries" "all with 0% atheists". In the Phil Zuckerman map below it has the darkest shade, in other words: Vietnam is the number one atheist (or agnostic) country in the world. That's quite interesting indeed: Visit Vietnam, the number one atheist country on the planet [above 70%] with absolutely no atheists [0%]! Rolf-Peter Wille (talk) 09:55, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

You are right: we have a serious contradiction there. I looked at the Gallup source, and I see a list of the "top ten countries" that is accurately represented on the page, but I cannot find a corresponding "bottom ten" list. I think whoever wrote the material got the list from where the source lists countries by reluctance to admit to being an atheist. Vietnam is named elsewhere in the source as having the highest rate of declining religiosity. I've rewritten the sentence, based on a list that is in the source, of the "top ten countries" for religiosity. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:39, 30 July 2014 (UTC)

pg.10 of the reference used, last 10 entries. Second Quantization (talk) 21:34, 2 August 2014 (UTC)

That's what I thought. That isn't a table of what you are saying it is, but rather, of willingness or reluctance to admit to being atheists. Other pages in the same source indicate clearly that Vietnam has a high level of actual atheism, but p. 10 seems to be about cultural willingness to talk about it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:31, 3 August 2014 (UTC)

"Vietnam has a high level of actual atheism, but p. 10 seems to be about cultural willingness to talk about it" How do you work this out from the source? They use the same data for pg.12 "TRENDS IN ATHEISM INDEX", Second Quantization (talk) 18:32, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

That's my reading of the source. I'd welcome having more editors look at the source, and say here how they read it. As Rolf-Peter pointed out at the beginning of this discussion, it is obviously a mistake to conclude that Vietnam has, simultaneously, both the highest and the lowest proportions of atheists. What do other editors think? --Tryptofish (talk) 22:45, 8 August 2014 (UTC)

Blainey paragraph in Atheism#Since 1900

Please see User talk:Tryptofish#Content ~and~ 'Rules', please., where another editor argues for deleting that paragraph, and I disagree. I'm not looking to continue the discussion there, but I would like to hear from editors here about the content issue. I'm receptive to shortening that paragraph, but probably not to deleting it entirely. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:38, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Here is the specific edit in dispute: [3]. And earlier discussion of this section of the page is now at Talk:Atheism/Archive 52#Hitler was not an atheist.. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:42, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

Frankly, I think Blainey is a very poor source for the topic. It would be nice if we could supply the reader with something other than the same old "communists are mass murders.... and atheists" bit of "we report, you decide" tomfoolery. And that's about all you can get from the few throwaway paragraphs where Blainey mentions atheism. Surely there are sources that actually cover atheism in a historical context. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 23:18, 10 August 2014 (UTC)

That's a good point, thanks. I'd be happy to see the paragraph revised to rely on another source. Does anyone have a suggestion about such a source? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:23, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

You do understand that it's more than the sources that has to change, but the context, too; I also disdain the presence of little-popular "communists are mass murders.... and atheists" POV (presented as fact) in this article. THEPROMENADER 04:37, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

The context is that this is the section where the subject of militant atheism in the 20th century is addressed. It should not be misunderstood as making general comments about atheism. Blainey's essential points are a) atheists in general became more active and some militant in the 20th century b) atheists often blamed religion for violence c) militant atheists themselves perpetrated violence d) some scientists argued that religion would be superseded. These points are historically accurate. Blainey is ok as a source examining atheism in an historical context, and is used several times in earlier sections. The comments shouldn't be controversial, but in any case are not presented as other than one historian's version of events: they are in quotation marks and clearly attributed. I could also be potentially persuaded of a shortening (but not a deleting) provided this is not done simply because some editors "do not like" it being acknowledged that there has ever been such a thing as militant atheism. I suggest perhaps that the addition of another source with a different emphasis to Blainey to create of spread of views could be a way forward - but I am not sure that an historian is really going to dispute the crux of what he says. Ozhistory (talk) 09:52, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Blainey might be ok as a source on atheism in a historical context if it actually contained such information. It does not contain any text "examining atheism in an historical context." It contains a few paragraphs with some decontextualised "facts" and the author's unsupported opinion on those "facts." Both of which are worthless in this context. It would be best to use mainstream sources that actually examine the relationship between communism and atheism in a historical context (preferably by authors without a political axe to grind). Also, I fail to see how the text could be understood as anything other than "general comments about atheism." What else would it be? And like it or not; "militant atheism" is not a thing. — ArtifexMayhem (talk) 11:51, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Another problem with making this book look like an authourative source is that, not only is it not widely known (outside of certain theistic spheres, at least), its views (communism/despotism == atheism) is one little shared by any outside (very!) militant theists and revisionists. Since this article is supposed to present a consensual view on atheism (it is not titled 'bad things some theists would attribute to atheism'), if a point of view is a fringe one, it should be indicated as one, if it is to be mentioned at all; one wouldn't put an entire paragraph on 'chemtrail' conspiracies in the Contrail article and make it look as though it is a widespread POV from a commonly-known authorative source. THEPROMENADER 17:21, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

It looks to me like there are a variety of views, ranging from wanting to eliminate this content entirely to defending Blainey as a valid source, so long as Blainey's opinions are presented with attribution. It seems to me that the way we should go is to: (1) still cover this material in some form, but (2) try to present the material based upon other sources instead of Blainey. I'd like to replace the existing paragraph with a rewritten paragraph that could be summarized from State atheism#Communist states, focusing on the states that Blainey talks about while leaving out the states that we already cover in other paragraphs of that section here. I think in particular the sections at the state atheism page about China and North Korea have sources that we can appropriately make use of. I'd like editors here to evaluate that suggestion, and if there is interest, I'll try to create a draft paragraph here on the talk page for further discussion and revision. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:47, 11 August 2014 (UTC)

Well, on a positive note, I can say that a search for other sources will be informative for anyone not understanding that "any despot/dictator eliminating religion competition == 'atheism'" is an unpopular radical fringe POV. THEPROMENADER 05:27, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Some sources that may be of value....

• Madsen, R. (2014). "Religion Under Communism". In Smith, S. A. (ed.). The Oxford Handbook of the History of Communism. Oxford University Press. pp. 585–598. ISBN 9780199602056. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Thompson, P. (2013). "Marxism". In Bullivant, S.; Ruse, M. (eds.). The Oxford Handbook of Atheism. Oxford University Press. pp. 293–305. ISBN 9780199644650. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Blackford, R.; Schüklenk, U. (2013). "Myth 27 Many Atrocities Have Been Committed in the Name of Atheism". 50 great myths about atheism. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN 9780470674048. {{cite book}}: External link in |chapterurl= (help); Unknown parameter |chapterurl= ignored (|chapter-url= suggested) (help)
• Herzog, J. (2011). The Spiritual-Industrial Complex: America's Religious Battle against Communism in the Early Cold War. Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195393460.

— ArtifexMayhem (talk) 13:55, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks for the sources! --Tryptofish (talk) 20:59, 12 August 2014 (UTC)

Thanks everyone for being patient with me. I'm going to propose a draft here shortly, but first, I feel that I should comment on the list of sources just above, now that I have had some time to examine them. The Madsen source has a small amount of information about Stalin that is relevant here, but that's about all that I could find. The Thompson source is an excellent resource with respect to Karl Marx and atheism, but unfortunately does not really have anything about the material we are dealing with here. The Blackford source is an opinion piece that serves as a nice rebuttal to Blainey, but it is, at best, on an equal footing with Blainey insofar as WP:RS. Finally, the Hezog source is mostly about attitudes in the US, and I wasn't able to find content about communist states except in terms of what some Americans have said about them. I'm pointing these things out in case, as is entirely possible, I'm just missing some important information, and other editors can set me straight. Thanks. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:04, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

First draft

The proposal is to delete the second paragraph at Atheism#Since 1900, and to replace it with the following paragraph:

While Geoffrey Blainey has written that "the most ruthless leaders in the Second World War were atheists and secularists who were intensely hostile to both Judaism and Christianity", Richard Madsen has pointed out that Hitler and Stalin each opened and closed churches as a matter of political expedience, and Stalin softened his opposition to Christianity in order to improve public acceptance of his regime during the war. Blackford and Schüklenk have written that "the Soviet Union was undeniably an atheist state, and the same applies to Maoist China and Pol Pot's fanatical Khmer Rouge regime in Cambodia in the 1970s. That does not, however, show that the atrocities committed by these totalitarian dictatorships were the result of atheist beliefs, carried out in the name of atheism, or caused primarily by the atheistic aspects of the relevant forms of communism." In China, although atheism is the official position of the government, Buddhism, Taoism, Islam, and Christianity are allowed to exist openly.

References

(The last two sources are from State atheism.) --Tryptofish (talk) 20:48, 24 August 2014 (UTC)

If I don't see an objection here in the next couple of days, I'm going to go ahead and implement this version. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:02, 2 September 2014 (UTC)

 Done. If anyone shows up and wants to discuss this further, that would of course be fine. --Tryptofish (talk) 21:07, 6 September 2014 (UTC)

New Atheism word choice: "secularism" as opposed to "atheism".

"In best selling books, the religiously motivated terrorist events of 9/11 and the partially successful attempts of the Discovery Institute to change the American science curriculum to include creationist ideas, together with support for those ideas from George W. Bush in 2005, have been cited by authors such as Harris, Dennett, Dawkins, Stenger, and Hitchens as evidence of a need to move society towards atheism.[201]"

Change the last word to "secularism".

While the gang-of-four do promote atheism and Hitchens specifically was a polemic, the agenda for society is better stated as secularism and not atheism. I've never heard any of them argue for abolishing religion in society as a program, which is the impression I was left with reading this sentence. Very bad word choice. I do hear them quite voriferously arguing for secularism. Most of them argue that people need to come to the decision of atheism of their own free will. There is no organization these gentlemen promote or belong too that lobbies to remove religion from society. This is because these gentlemen promote atheism as personal choice. This is why the word "secularism" is a better choice when it comes to their agenda for society. Indeed, Hitchens often called foul when labeling Hitler, Mao, Pol Pot and Stalin as atheist societies. Hitchen's view was that when Christians can point to a society established on the princilpes of Bertrand Russell and Spitzer and then that society has murdered millions then Christians might have an argument against atheist societies. However, Hitchen's never promoted establishing such a society, which is the impression given of the word choice of "atheism". All of them promote secularism for society and so "secularism" is better.

Secularism is the new Atheist social agenda and not atheism. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mybrid (talk • contribs) 04:25, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

Atheism within religions.

We have to be careful to clarify that some religions are atheist with regards to a creator but very well may have demi-gods, celestial buddhas, demons, devas, brahma, spiritual leader that has attained godhood, or maybe consider the universe itself self-aware. This is not an all-encompassing atheistic view. I reworded a paragraph to indicate this. Alatari (talk) 12:22, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

I went and addressed Hinduism, Jainism and Buddhism by reading the sources that were used and painting a contextual picture from those sources. Added a couple sources about Jainism from other articles that clearly show beliefs in demi-god/god-like beings. I wanted to add text about the Hinduism school of Cārvāka but all Wikipedia articles say it's a dead religion. If it makes a comeback and has some millions of adherents maybe it can be mentioned as it was truly an atheistic religion which even denied the afterlife matching it to the original meaning of nāstika. Alatari (talk) 05:57, 16 July 2014 (UTC)

Other editors should also please see User talk:Tryptofish#Atheism in religions, where there is a discussion about this in parallel. I think that this material ought to be covered in sufficient detail to reflect its complexity, and that it is clearly a noteworthy aspect of the topic of this page. Right now, in my opinion, we have a paragraph in the lead that is becoming too detailed for the lead, and covers material that isn't adequately covered in the main text of the page (where it needs to be if it's also in the lead). I'm going to boldly create a new section of the page, moving the material out of the lead section. I suggest that we keep the lead brief, but I think it would be fine to expand the section lower on the page, and I hope that editors will expand it. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:36, 17 July 2014 (UTC)

Shouldn't a single sentence in the lead summarize that section? Alatari (talk) 21:04, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

I think that would be fine, so long as it is a single, simple sentence, without lots of detail. (I tried to think of such a sentence myself, and could not think of how to do it, but that's probably just me.) --Tryptofish (talk) 22:13, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Proposed sentence:

A very few ancient and modern religions have developed with no concepts of deities while others deny a creator deity yet still revere other god-like entities.

Problem with the new section. It overlaps in scope with this other section Atheism and irreligion . The part about atheist Jews and Christians. Alatari (talk) 23:27, 22 July 2014 (UTC)

Religion, by it's very nature, is the lack of religion and/or a deity of any kind. "Celestial buddhas, demons, devas, brahma, spiritual leader that has attained godhood, or maybe consider the universe itself self-aware" contradict the very definition of atheism. To say that the previous things exist as part of an atheist world view is inaccurate and should not be included on this page. --Jimv1983 (talk) 06:58, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

New Atheism

I think the section titled "New Atheism" should be either removed or renamed. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a god. The quote "religion should not simply be tolerated but should be countered, criticized, and exposed by rational argument wherever its influence arises." would be better described by the title "Anti-theism". Although, anti-theism and atheism are related and usually go together, they are two different ideas.

http://atheism.about.com/od/atheismatheiststheism/a/AntiTheism.htm

--Jimv1983 (talk) 07:04, 21 September 2014 (UTC)

WP:BRD -- criticism section

My two bits' worth: The recently added/removed "Criticism" section seems pretty level-headed and even-handed. While Plantinga looks like someone who dedicates much of his efforts to Christian apologetics, Voltaire, Locke, Burke, and C.S. Lewis spent a lot of their time on other subjects. All of those thinkers are notable in their own way, as is Pius XI. What they had to say is relevant to this article.

I believe it makes sense to mention the logical, social, or psychological arguments which claim atheism to be somehow deficient. For example, arguments such as the one from fine tuning are made and published. Whatever one's views of their validity, these kinds of argument will not disappear soon.

Given the high visibility of this article, with the level of editors' participation that entails, I believe there is no significant risk of religious apologetics overwhelming the rest of the text. If it were a less contentious topic, I would not hesitate to put the disputed section back in the article, but I will wait to see what others have to say. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 14:01, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Well, criticism sections suck donkey balls. Criticism, if it exists, should be woven into the general prose in relevant places. Also, a criticism section is a shit magnet that will attract religious apologetics like flies to the proverbial steaming pile. The example offered up by Ruwdaman also has a shocking lack of references, with only a quote from a former pope having a citation. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:12, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Nay, nay, criticism sections are like unto the rays of sunshine beaming out from where contrarian Wikipedia editors sit. More seriously, in this case I suspect the lack of references is not unremediable. Unsourced is not necessarily unsourceable. Likewise, any slipperiness freshly laid upon this slope can be rolled back by the ever-vigilant godless horde at the click of a mouse or the stroke of a key. __ Just plain Bill (talk) 14:26, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

You are a poet, sir. A fine response. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:30, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Problem with much of the content is that is already dealt with elsewhere or is not neutral. E.g. the argument "inferior world view" is clearly biased. The argument that science could evolve in a world believing in laws of a higher power is in itself an interesting notion, but hardly a reason against atheism after the evolution of science. The argument that morality and belief are related are a perennial argument used by opponents of atheism but there is no evidence for this claim, and many atheists are as moral as believers (or arguably even more as their morality is out of personal values rather than fear of retribution (hell) later on); and this side should be mentioned too to avoid bias. But then a again it already is in chapter 4 of this article. So except lack of references, and the almost unavoidable POV fork from any criticism section, this specific proposal introduces redundancies into the article and is non neutral. I really do not see this going anywhere. Arnoutf (talk) 14:36, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

One problem I see with the reverted material is that it was very Western-centric, and largely from a Christian perspective, as opposed to the many other religions that exist. I'm open to a brief section on the page, per WP:Summary style, but I think it needs to be brief, since the page is already rather lengthy. I would suggest that a draft version be proposed on this talk page before actually putting it on the page itself. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:07, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

I would prefer if this type of issues are dealt with in the body text, for example the moral issue is discussed in its own section where both the criticism and the rebuttal are both discussed. If we can do that for the rest of the relevant content we probably don't need a separate criticism section. Arnoutf (talk) 20:01, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

I agree with you. It is almost always better to deal with criticisms of subjects in this way, especially because separate sections frequently end up becoming the sites of editing disputes. --Tryptofish (talk) 20:05, 20 October 2014 (UTC)

Sourcing "atheists in foxholes"

About this: [4]. It seems to me that WP:SELFPUB is not applicable in this case. SELFPUB allows such sources for what people say about themselves. Here, we are sourcing the fact that some people say that there are no atheists in foxholes. We are not making a claim that there actually are no atheists in foxholes. What do other editors think? --Tryptofish (talk) 00:30, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

There is no way to properly verify if what the anon author/editor(s) at that site are quoting actually accurately representing the words of the original sources, without going back to the original sources being quoted; if we have to do that in order to verify, we should just cite to the original sources, provided that they can be confirmed, and are individually wp:RS themselves. ^—Asterisk*^Splat→ 00:45, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

The source is about someone saying the thing about "no atheists in foxholes" and other people objecting to what was said. I would agree with you if the page here were talking about that person having said that there are no atheists in foxholes, that is, attributing the statement to a particular person or persons. But that is not what we are dealing with here. We are simply sourcing the fact that some (unspecified) people do claim that there are no atheists in foxholes. It's verifiable that the source says that some people say it. The source is presented as an example, but is not used to attribute what was said to anybody in particular. --Tryptofish (talk) 00:55, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Actually, I just found it in The Washington Post, so I'll add that as a source, which hopefully makes this discussion moot. --Tryptofish (talk) 01:00, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

That sounds good, and I agree that the Post is most definitely a RS. ^—Asterisk*^Splat→ 01:05, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Slight rearrangement of first sentence.

I have no problem with what the first sentence says, or the citations that support it. But some of the terms I think it could be rearranged a little to make it clearer. Here is the current sentence:

Atheism is, in a broad sense, the rejection of belief in the existence of deities.[1][2] In a narrower sense, atheism is specifically the position that there are no deities.[3][4][5] Most inclusively, atheism is the absence of belief that any deities exist.[4][5][6][7]

The three definitions go from broad, to narrow, to broadest ("most inclusively.") It would be clearer to go from broad to narrow. For example:

Atheism is, in the broadest sense, the absence of belief that any deities exist,[4][5][6][7] in a narrower sense, the explicit rejection of belief in the existence of deities,[1][2] and, in the narrowest sense, the position that there are no deities.[3][4][5]

Note the use of qualifying terms: implicit, explicit, and position. These mesh well with the citations, and the reality that all atheists have an "absence of belief", some atheists explicitly reject belief, and some of these actually take position that there are no gods. Discussion please? I won't make a WP:Bold change to the article until there is some sense of consensus. Fearofreprisal (talk) 01:20, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

Sounds good to me, though I would prefer "lack" to "absence". Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 02:55, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

That opening sentence is the result of literally years of consensus-building discussion, which you can find in the talk page archive. Change it at your peril. -- Scjessey (talk) 12:47, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

"Lack" connotes a deficiency. "Absence" is more neutral. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 09:24, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

Seems like an improvement to me. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 09:22, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

The change would almost certainly be rejected by regular editors for several reasons. As I mentioned earlier, the current version is the result of years of discussion and debate about which definition should come first, whether or not there should be a definition at all, whether or not the three separate definitions should be in independent sentences or a compound sentence... Seriously, this is a minefield. -- Scjessey (talk) 14:02, 19 October 2014 (UTC)

'Atheism' has many meanings, but I notice that your description doesn't include anything about those who are atheist as in 'theist' and 'theism', that is to say: "those living without (or: not accepting the evidenceless claims of) theists". THEPROMENADER 08:00, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

The description includes the most common definitions according to a preponderance of reliable sources. -- Scjessey (talk) 17:13, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

True that I don't see that one quite often. THEPROMENADER ✎ ✓ 17:33, 23 October 2014 (UTC)

Page is really badly written

Especially in places like the sub-section "atheism within religions" where the page argues aginst itself when discussing Buddhism for example. If I were new to the concept of atheism I would not be able to understand this very well in quite a few areas.--MJH92^talk 19:38, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

An issue such as whether or in what sense Buddhism could be said to be theistic or nontheistic is not so simple that it can be explained adequately in a few simple sentences to someone who has no background on the matter. Your charge that the article "is really badly written" is very sweeping, and is not helpful as it stands. Please give examples of the really bad writing you are seeing. --Epipelagic (talk) 20:16, 15 November 2014 (UTC)

There are recently different atheists rejecting scientific facts (evolution primarily), which has nothing to do with deities, so that should also be included that atheists doubt everything, facts, science, religious deities, and evidence. Here's one such page that doubts the proven scientific fact of evolution by on atheist http://epsociety.org/library/articles.asp?pid=66 As you will see in reading, atheism doubts Darwin, so it's not just deities they doubt, it's pretty much science, history, and every religious deity. Go figure, atheists doubt everything! 2602:304:CFD3:2EE0:30A0:F2D6:A2D3:9987 (talk) 05:04, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Instead of arguing over the subject try help fixing problems in this article. It'd be better if you can point out what parts of the article is badly written.--Chamith (talk) 05:47, 13 December 2014 (UTC)

Lack of religion is real

Is the “definition as impossible” of more than historical interest? Anyone using that definition today can’t know much about his or her fellow beings. A considerable part of humanity is actually incapable of believing in any gods. Denying their honesty is principle no different from denying the honesty of anyone which disagrees with you.

2015-01-03 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.114.158.174 (talk) 20:01, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Atheist vs Antimagist, the jargon issue

Atheism and atheist are terms of denial of god. Non magical thinking, non magical thinker, antimagism, antimagist are way more atheistic-antimagical terms, even they maintain their negative character, but via immediate reference on the scientific method, and psychopathic disorders. To use as an atheist-antimagist the term god, it means that your notions are against religious terms, a deep nonmagical person [atheist] does not accept magical thinking as a basis of his/her's analysis. The term "magical thinking" is a jargon revealved by the scientific method. The therm "theism" refers to magical thinking. Antimagical, or non-magical people prefer to reveal their rational reasoning, and not simply their negation on religion, therefore a true atheist is an antimagist [or non-magical]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.84.219.128 (talk) 19:17, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Lack of religion is real

Is the “definition as impossible” of more than historical interest? Anyone using that definition today can’t know much about his or her fellow beings. A considerable part of humanity is actually incapable of believing in any gods. Denying their honesty is principle no different from denying the honesty of anyone which disagrees with you.

2015-01-03 Lena Synnerholm, Märsta, Sweden. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.114.158.174 (talk) 20:01, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

Off-topic chat

Extended content

Atheist vs Antimagist, the jargon issue Atheism and atheist are terms of denial of god. Non magical thinking, non magical thinker, antimagism, antimagist are way more atheistic-antimagical terms, even they maintain their negative character, but via immediate reference on the scientific method, and psychopathic disorders. To use as an atheist-antimagist the term god, it means that your notions are against religious terms, a deep nonmagical person [atheist] does not accept magical thinking as a basis of his/her's analysis. The term "magical thinking" is a jargon revealved by the scientific method. The therm "theism" refers to magical thinking. Antimagical, or non-magical people prefer to reveal their rational reasoning, and not simply their negation on religion, therefore a true atheist is an antimagist [or non-magical]. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.84.219.128 (talk) 19:17, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

Criticism of religion category

Does this really belong in the category? Isn't that a little biased? It is atheism not antitheism. Atheism is not really about criticising religion. Jackninja5 (talk) 13:15, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

The article does indeed contain criticisms of religion. Moreover, antitheism (which also features in the article) is a subset of atheism. To my mind, the categorization is appropriate. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:19, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

That is really just saying it should be in it because it says information on it. It really doesn't convince me that the article should stay in the category. I mean Terrorism contains state terrorism and we don't add that to the category. Jackninja5 (talk) 13:27, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Hi. Categories are hierarchical so before I reverted I took a look at the kinds of articles included in Category:Criticism of religion and it looks like a good fit. For instance, not all antiCatholics are irreligious, but their criticisms of that particular faith, within the subject of Anti-Catholicism, are relevant. --Modocc (talk) 14:03, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Now that part does convince me. Jackninja5 (talk) 14:12, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

It sounds like there is already agreement, but I'll add another reason for keeping the category, anyway. A category does not have to be the definition of a page, only something that is an important component of the content of the page. We do require categories to be what is called "defining characteristics", but that is not the same thing as the definition. Opposition to religion, and the criticism that expresses that opposition, is not identical to atheism, but it is such a prominent feature of it that the categorization is appropriate. --Tryptofish (talk) 18:42, 28 January 2015 (UTC)

Christians in the Roman Empire

"During the Roman Empire, Christians were executed for their rejection of the Roman gods in general" what tag should I use to have this expanded upon? Not all pre-Christian Roman Emperors were hostile towards Christians.JanderVK (talk) 22:51, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

Actually, posting here can be as good as a tag. If you can point me to some way to make the sentence more precise, such as specifying certain Emperors or certain time periods, or just provide a good source, I'll be happy to make the edit. --Tryptofish (talk) 22:58, 29 January 2015 (UTC)

I'm currently reading a few different Oxford published books on Roman history, once I have time I'll try to compile some resources so that it can be properly cited. JanderVK (talk) 16:33, 2 February 2015 (UTC)

Wikilink for Religion for Atheists

Where Religion for Atheists is cited, please provide a wikilink to the article Religion for Atheists. --110.20.234.69 (talk) 21:40, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Done Have wikilinked it in the citation Cannolis (talk) 21:57, 5 March 2015 (UTC)

Etymology - Citation 136 is Incorrect

In the Etymology section of this article, the statement is made that, "Atheism was first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe, specifically denoting disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god.[135][136]"

This may indeed be true. However, the source cited for this statement in citation 136 is "'Atheonism'. Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). 1911."

There are two problems here. First, the article in question does not exist. According to the transcription available through The Gutenberg Project, there is no entry for "Atheonism" in the 11th edition of Encyclopædia Britannica. Instead, there is an entry entitled "Atheism" (note the spelling difference).

The second problem is that this article makes no claim whatsoever that the term "Atheism" originally denoted "disbelief in the monotheistic Abrahamic god," nor is there any reference to the term being "first used to describe a self-avowed belief in late 18th-century Europe." Instead, the article states, "The term as generally used, however, is highly ambiguous. Its meaning varies (a) according to the various definitions of deity . . ." And, later, "In its most scientific and serious usage the term is applied to that state of mind which does not find deity (i.e. either one or many gods) in or above the physical universe." This is in direct opposition to the article's implication that the application of the term "atheism" to disbelief in any form of god or gods was a later development, made after the publication of this volume.

As yet, I can find no "Atheonism" article in any edition of Encyclopædia Britannica. But, admittedly, I have not searched very thoroughly.

This citation is particularly troubling, as it has been copied unquestioningly in several online articles. KCNeece (talk) 20:57, 18 March 2015 (UTC)

References

"Atheonism", properly sourced as an obsolete word, appears elsewhere in the article. What you've uncovered here should just be deleted. In fact, the wrongly sourced claim is misleading, since the word "atheism" was used for purposes other than to denote disbelief in monotheism when it was first introduced into the language. Dannyno (talk) 10:48, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

I've removed the false reference. However, that leaves us with an inadequately sourced claim about when atheism came to have its modern meaning (I got a bit confused in my note above, since the claim isn't about the word when first introduced, but what it came to represent when overt anti-monotheism started to appear), which still needs fixing really. Dannyno (talk) 10:55, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

This revision, edited by Silence seems to be the first time the "atheonism" reference appears with Britannica as source: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Atheism&direction=next&oldid=84201670 . Tracking back a few revisions from there, it seems that actually the citation is supposed to be the EB's paragraph on "adevism", which does exist. See this: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Atheism&direction=prev&oldid=85128502#cite_note-19 Dannyno (talk) 11:28, 30 March 2015 (UTC)

Rejection?

The first line defining atheism describes it as a rejection of certain beliefs. Every single dictionary definition I can find describes it as a lack of belief or disbelief in a god or gods. I believe the word "rejection" adds a non-neutral twist to the definition. By "rejecting" something you give it false credibility. New born babies don't "reject" a belief in a god or gods, they are atheists in the sense that they "lack" a belief in a god or gods. Wikipedia is supposed to be a neutral place and this definition adds a non-neutral spin to the word that is not seen in any other modern credible dictionary. --CanadianChemEng (talk) 23:43, 26 November 2014 (UTC)

Keep in mind that Wikipedia isn't a dictionary. Please see wikt:atheism. New-borns could (with sources) be classified as atheist in some senses but not others, but I don't see how the current wording implies otherwise. The past consensus has been to include three different definitions of the word in the lead. Since this is an encyclopedia, and not a dictionary, we have the luxury of using multiple, comprehensive definitions of the word in parallel. As per the note at the top of this page, as well as the hidden comment on the page itself, it might be helpful to review some of the many, many past discussions of this issue to understand why it is phrased the way it is. This isn't to say that it can never be changed, but repeatedly re-hashing old arguments should be avoided. Grayfell (talk) 02:08, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

Fair enough. --CanadianChemEng (talk) 02:42, 27 November 2014 (UTC)

It's worth noting that your belief about the connotations of "rejection" is not necessarily shared by others, and is not a consensus in the literature. It would also be a good idea to look again at the dictionaries. For example, the Oxford Dictionary of English defines atheism as "Disbelief in, or denial of, the existence of a God." and it defines "disbelief" as: " The action or an act of disbelieving; mental rejection of a statement or assertion; positive unbelief.". So contrary to your assertion that "rejection" is "not seen in any... modern credible dictionary", I found it in the first such dictionary I looked at. Dannyno (talk) 18:10, 30 November 2014 (UTC)

Citing the "Oxford Dictionary of English" on the definition of atheism doesn't make it a neutral let alone an authoritive source. It might be a linguistic tool of authority on matters pertaining to religion the Oxford Dictionary of English is biased. you could just as wel ask any archbishop to give a definition. which is why it starts with "disbelief"--DerekvG (talk) 07:35, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

The problem is, this page is using the definition of atheism that the theists, who are both in the majority and in control of almost all sources, propagate at the expense of atheism. Theism is a base state, belief in a god or gods. Atheism is the base of the opposite state: lack of belief in a god or gods. That's all it is. It has no dogma, no canon, no preconceptions. It is the set of no theist beliefs. It doesn't speak to what you might or might not believe, it simply says that the atheist lacks belief. Now, certainly you can go further than that, as the diagram on the page amply and correctly demonstrates, but to tar every atheist with the brush of the disbeliever is going way, way too far. Doing so absolutely *reeks* of theist bias, both direct and culturally assimilated. Most theists cannot conceive of a position that is not based upon an act of belief, and they are constantly trying to cast everyone else in the same circumstance. It simply isn't so. This page, as it stands now, does a huge disservice to the atheist community from the very first paragraph. It has been much better in the past. In its current shape, it misleads every naive reader directly into theist bias. Further, declared agnostics are either theist (they hold some belief in a god or gods) or they are atheist (they do not hold such a belief.) The whole theist / atheist dichotomy is about belief. Agnosticism attempts to shoehorn knowledge into the issue as a proposed third state. But if you simply consider it honestly, that isn't what belief is about in any way, shape or form. Quite the contrary: as any theist can tell you, theism is about faith. The base position of atheist incorporates no comparable faith. Oh, and by the way... my source? Me. An atheist. Someone this page describes entirely incorrectly. fyngyrz — Preceding undated comment added 01:00, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Just to add my input. I am fine with rejection, lack of and even disbelief. What I don't want to see is atheism being defined as “a belief that there is no god(s)“ it isn't a belief. Even more important I don't want to see it defined as a religion which many people seem to do. I have seen several wiki pages of famous people with atheism listed as their religion. As an atheist myself I think the current description is correct. For me personally I include the lack of belief in anything supernatural under atheism but that is just me. Also, I absolutely agree with the comment of newborns being atheists since they don't have any knowledge of the belief in a god. --Jimv1983 (talk) 21:10, 14 December 2014 (UTC)

Though all people who do not believe in anything supernatural are atheists, atheists may believe in any number of supernatural things besides gods. I personally know an atheist who believes in psychics. The Brights movement promoted the term "bright" for the sense you want, but it is not very popular. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 01:20, 15 December 2014 (UTC)

I agree that same atheists believe in supernatural stuff. That is why I wouldn't push to get that on this page. It does kind of surprise me though. People tend to be atheists because of a lack of evidence to support the existence of god. It would be logical to apply that demand for evidence to other things like psychics.--Jimv1983 (talk) 17:17, 16 December 2014 (UTC)

On the contrary, many people are atheists because they've been disillusioned or abused by religion, or have witnessed religious people behaving abominably. That doesn't mean they're any more logical than anyone else. People who leave religion but all still emotionally dependent on it may search for something else to fill the void, and end up believing all sorts of stuff. — kwami (talk) 20:10, 24 January 2015 (UTC)

What evidence from reliable sources is there about why people are atheists? --Dannyno (talk) 08:29, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

As an atheist that knows many other atheists it is pretty clear to me that lack of evidence is the reason people are atheists. I don't have a source to cite (what source would even work for that) but I'm also not pushing to have it added to the page. Although something like “a lack of evidence for the existence of god is a major factor in atheism“ wouldn't be a bad idea.

UPDATE: It appears that similar wording to what I said already exists.

--Jimv1983 (talk) 09:30, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

I'm not aware of any formal surveys asking atheists why they are atheists, but if you find any, its results might make a good addition to this article. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 23:43, 16 January 2015 (UTC)

Indeed people who believe in the supernatural, without acknowledging or doubting the existence of god are not atheists, at best they are pagans or agnostics. the lack of formal philosophical definition of atheist (a manifesto, constitution) which would be rejected anyway AND the lack of knowlegde of matters philosophical and of the lack of education in the basic philosphical definitions cause many people to adopt the wrong wording for their philosophy, moreover the fact that there is overlap between the atheist, pagan and agnostic communities make it difficult. --DerekvG (talk) 07:47, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Actually atheism is very much the opposite of theism, the belief that God(s) do not exist. Any other definition is simply agnosticism. If you lack belief, you are an agnostic, someone who doesn't think it possible to have knowledge of God(s) either way.Equivocasmannus (talk) 15:01, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

No. See Negative and positive atheism (summarized in this article). In any case, this page is for discussing improvements to the article, not for discussing the subject. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 15:29, 11 April 2015 (UTC)

I was joining in on a discussion about the definition, which is how to change the article. Don't lecture people when you don't know what you are talking about either, atheism is the belief that God does not exist see: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/atheism-agnosticism/#1.Equivocasmannus (talk) 14:05, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

The Stanford article defines atheism "...as the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God". The "negation of theism" meaning "not theism" depends on what is meant by "theism" (belief in God or deity) and whether it's intentional or incidental, however the entire definition is narrow enough to exclude the type of agnosticism you speak of for "denial" of God in its broadest sense is to reject God rather than to suspend belief as an agnostic would. In addition, "denial" has the narrower meaning which we cover in the lede as well. --Modocc (talk) 21:01, 12 April 2015 (UTC)

Equivocasmannus where did you read in the article [5] the citation "atheism is the belief that God does not exist " or is that your own interpretation of what the learned author of the article actually wrote. Please adhere to your own admonition whoever it was intended for " Don't lecture people when you don't know what you are talking about " it's presumpteous and might retrun like a boomerang.

Many atheists with some degree of formal education on philosophy (to which i account myself) migth be utterly offended by your statement : atheism is NOT a BELIEF, its the very absence of belief. The Stanford article defines atheism "...as the negation of theism, the denial of the existence of God", iun other words what the article is saying is that atheists cannot believe when there is nothing to believe in. The very construct of qualifting atheism as a "belief" is theist, becasue theists want to reduce atheism and agnosticism as being based on assumptions like their theist beliefs, as if it were a mere error of taught on the part of the misguided atheist or agnost. In other words their unproven assumption of the existance of (any) God shoudl be considered as fact (which is their belief) whereas they consider the "fact of total lack of any evidence of the existence of God" as a figment of the atheist imagination. Your statement is an erroneous theist definition of atheism and let me use your admonition the other way around and address theists : " Don't lecture people when you don't know what you are talking about ", we don't lecture them about their God, and don't lecture us on "belief". --DerekvG (talk) 08:17, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Don't go OT, but it Stanford clearly shows atheism to be not believing in God, it is denial of God. The "absence of belief" criteria is stupid considering you also say God does not exist. Atheism= believing god does not exist. That is all. The word is aposite to theism. Also you haven't cited ANY source that says atheism is absence of belief.Equivocasmannus (talk) 08:37, 26 April 2015 (UTC)

Here's a couple:

• Holyoake, George Jacob (1858). "21". The Trial of Theism. p. 114. OL 23418675M.

  Atheism expresses, not the denial, but the absence of God—i.e., the absence of him from our knowledge—or the absence of belief in God.

• Smith, George H. (1975). Atheism: The Case Against God. Buffalo, New York: Prometheus. p. 7. ISBN 978-0840211156. LCCN 79002726. OL 8224855M. LCC BL2747.3.S6 1979.

  Atheism, in its basic form, is not a belief; it is the absence of belief. An atheist is not primarily a person who believes that a god does not exist; rather, he does not believe in the existence of a god.

• Stein, Gordon, ed. (1980). An Anthology of Atheism and Rationalism. Buffalo: Prometheus. p. 3. ISBN 978-0879751364. LCCN 80081326. OCLC 6686464. LCC BL2747.3.A68.

  Atheism is not a belief as such. It is the lack of belief.

~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 07:38, 27 April 2015 (UTC)

}} Atheism, as a category, would include people who were never exposed to the idea of God(s) and who therefore cannot believe or disbelieve in that/those God(s). This condition could exist because those people were never exposed to the idea of God(s), such as a Native American prior to 1492 regarding the Judeo-Christian God and people who used Shamanism (believing in animals spirits) more than 12,000 years ago and before the invention of polytheistic gods and then monotheistic gods. Atheism, as a category, also includes people who were exposed to the idea of God(s), who therefore have an option to believe or disbelieve in that/those God(s), and who thereafter disbelieve in that/those God(s). The following definition for atheism is from "The Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy", by Simon Blackburn, page 27, published by Oxford University Press in 2008: . "atheism Either the lack of belief that there exists a god, or the belief that there exists none. Sometimes thought itself to be more dogmatic than mere agnosticism, although atheists retort that everyone is an atheist about most gods, so they merely advance one step further." . There are two reasons why that dictionary does not mention "the rejection of belief" in its definition for 'atheism': (1) Atheism is not a rejection in belief; it is either a non-belief or a dis-belief. (2) And atheism is a belief that gods are unreal, imaginary, and metaphysical constructions serving humans' innate psychological needs for security, a stable attachment figure, and more; in this context, atheists dis-believe in God(s); and atheists do not reject others' beliefs in God(s) or that others do believe in God(s). Atheists do not reject the principle of belief or reject the belief that other people exhibit belief. The person making the comment earlier about 'rejection' could have simply quoted the definition of atheism and stopped. They, instead, found a word in that definition and then looked that word up and then found the root-form "reject", so they could then maintain their (his or her) argument and claim that atheism is a "rejection of belief". If that previous phrase was the phrase used by Oxford to define 'atheism', then why not just provide that phrase in Wikipedia's definition of atheism instead of researching the definitions of atheism's defining terms' definitions? The answer to this rhetorical question is that the person and the editors here want to define atheism as a "rejection of belief", which is not how the dictionaries define the term. Even that person's cited source didn't define atheism as 'the rejection in belief of ...'. I could say those editors have a point of view about this and that the evidence of their bias is laid bare for all to see. But, instead, I only want to propose that the definition for 'atheism' should align more closely with at least one dictionary's definition. I propose the previous cited source's definition should be included in the main article at the front. And if senior editors, middle-ranked editors, lower ranked editors, sock-puppets, or whoever don't like that particular definition, then maybe the best way to find the best definition is to compare and contrast the various definitions people provide here in the talk page. Does Wikipedia have an established process for defining terms that is similar to this proposed method? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 202.28.7.135 (talk) 02:03, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

No, we do not - instead we have policies which require that if reliable sources differ on a subject, we report their differing opinions with due regard to weight. We do not ever decide for ourselves which of the sources is 'correct', under any circumstances. AndyTheGrump (talk) 02:08, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

The rejection definition doesn't imply rejection of others' prerogative to believe. For instance: "atheism 1. (Philosophy) rejection of belief in God or gods" Collins English Dictionary – Complete and Unabridged © HarperCollins Publishers 1991, 1994, 1998, 2000, 2003, and can be found online here. So it is in print and, more importantly, this particular definition is supported by this article's first two citations from two scholarly encyclopedias. From the Encyclopædia Britannica, Nielson writes "...to be an atheist is to be someone who rejects belief in God for the following reasons ...". Furthermore, from The Encyclopedia of Philosophy MacMillan Reference USA (Gale) Edwards is more specific "On our definition, an 'atheist' is a person who rejects belief in God, regardless of whether or not his reason for the rejection is the claim that 'God exists' expresses a false proposition." -Modocc (talk) 04:59, 18 May 2015 (UTC)

The actual definitions of atheism/anti-theism/theism

Most people don't understand the fundamentals of prefix's and suffix's, they usually just look it up in the dictionary and assume that the dictionary is correct. Anti-theism is not to be against religion, it's the opposite of theism because if it were to be against religion then it would be called anti-religion. you can't throw out the most important part of the term (the word itself) unless you change the definition of the word. Most people think that atheism and anti-theism are some sort of difference in strength on the same position and they aren't. There is no strong or weak atheism. The prefix "A" is to not be something, the prefix "Anti" is to be in opposition to it, so to understand what these terms actually mean, we need to take a look at what theism means and does not mean. Theism means to believe in a deity and to believe in some attributes that this deity actually does, it has nothing to do with religion even though the cause of the belief could have come from religion. I am an atheist with regard to both theism and anti-theism because both have a burden of proof that I cannot provide, and since anti-theism is the dichotomies opposite to theism, it is the assertion that no deity exists. It's crazy how wrong most dictionary websites get these terms. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.188.67.52 (talk) 02:46, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

There are actually several definitions of these terms, and the content of our articles on theism, antitheism, atheism and strong and weak atheism can be verified if you click on the inline citations which are included. Modocc (talk) 03:04, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

They are incorrect as stated in one of my premises and i'll say it again, if you assert that atheism can be defined by the position that gods don't exist whether singular or plural you are misusing the term. The only definition that the prefix can justify is to not be something and that doesn't imply that you are asserting anything else. If you claim that god or gods don't exist, you are taking the anti-theistic position only. you cannot make a prefix mean something other than it's intended purpose because then it would have to be changed. The fact that different definitions exist for these terms does not mean that they were created logically, most of these bad interpretations are from people who didn't understand the terminology correctly. That doesn't mean that these definitions aren't real and they should be in the database, they should also be stated as incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.188.67.52 (talk) 04:45, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

72.188.67.52: Modocc is not asserting that definition. Modocc is saying that is what the wp:reliable sources (RS) state. What Mordocc and I believe "atheist" means is irrelevant. What is relevant, is what RS state. The meaning of a word in English is usually what the population of its language speakers make it to be. Take wikt:awful for instance. Awful no longer means (to most English speakers) what it once did. Presumably, most definitions of words are gathered by experts who poll many people and/or other experts as to what they take the word to mean. Their assessment then becomes the RS for that word. My option does not matter here. Ping me with {{u|Jim1138}} and sign "~~~~" or message me on my talk page. 05:13, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Exactly - words mean they are understood to mean - and 'logic' has next to nothing to do with it. And Wikipedia isn't in the business of redefining the English language... AndyTheGrump (talk) 05:21, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

You are correct in everything that was stated here, I was trying to point out that there is a clear difference between what we believe the word means and what the actual structure of the word implies, if these two absolutes are in conflict then the english language cannot be consistent, conflicts arise in conversations and there should be some notoriety of this in the database. In other words, any subjective opinion of what a word means should not take precidence over how the actual structure of the word was formed to mean. Now I know wikipedia is not a dictionary, wikipedia has included that these words have been used to mean many different things and even though that's true, I believe there should be a notion on the page that includes the real structural definition which I have tried to provide and while words don't have structural meaning, prefixes do. Thank you for your time wikipedia. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.188.67.52 (talk) 05:41, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

72.188.67.52 ...then the english language cannot be consistent, conflicts arise in conversations... Gee, that sounds an awful lot like the English language. "Atheist" has picked up considerable baggage and means vastly different things to different people. For some, its neutral, for others, the ultimate evil, etc. BTW: the root of the word atheist or ἄθεος is stated in the article. Would you suggest another? Cheers Ping me with {{u|Jim1138}} and sign "~~~~" or message me on my talk page. 06:25, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Wikipedia bases article content on material verifiable in published reliable sources. Your personal opinion as to what you think words ought to mean is of no relevance. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:27, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Then why have a dictionary... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.188.67.52 (talk) 06:29, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

This is not a forum, and as I have previously explained, Wikipedia bases content on material directly verifiable published sources - accordingly, your personal opinions as to what you think the word 'atheism' ought to mean is of no relevance here. I suggest you consider this discussion closed, and find another outlet for your musings on the illogicality of the English language. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:34, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Wow, there's a section for that? Thank you, I will find my way there. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.188.67.52 (talk) 06:36, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

No, not on Wikipedia there isn't. AndyTheGrump (talk) 06:40, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

I found it at the non-existent section of wikipedia, it's called "awikipedia" — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.188.67.52 (talk) 06:42, 28 May 2015 (UTC)

Why have three definitions

Okay I am not taking issue with the definition of atheism, but why are there three definitions in the lead of this article? Doesn't that just make it confusing? Why not have one definition? Most people do not want to read about complex philosophical discourses on atheism when they look up atheism on google. They just want to know the epistemic views of atheism. Something like "atheism is the rejection of theism, or belief in at least one God" reads much better and is in agreement with all the sources used for the definition of atheism, as far as I can tell.--InterPersonalAutomaton (talk) 15:52, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Why not have one definition? Because atheism has more than one definition. And your formulation omits absence of belief without conscious rejection. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 21:40, 31 May 2015 (UTC)

Having absence of belief implies not really expressing a belief, which is not what atheism is, atheism is the negation of theism.InterPersonalAutomaton (talk) 01:48, 1 June 2015 (UTC)

Theism is having a belief in a deity or deities. Its negation is not having a belief in a deity or deities. That's absence of belief. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 21:06, 2 June 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 June 2015

The image in "etymology" (The Greek word αθεοι (atheoi), as it appears in the Epistle to the Ephesians (2:12) on the early 3rd-century Papyrus 46.) is a fake! Papyrus 46 does NOT contain this! Seems to be "photoshopped"...

84.157.0.76 (talk) 08:08, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Our image [6] has apparently been uploaded from this source: [7] It isn't that easy to see from the reduced-resolution image shown on the web page, but downloading the full-scale image of the sheet confirms that our image is a true copy of a section - the tenth line down, on the extreme right. Accordingly, I would have to suggest that if anything has been 'photoshopped', you need to take it up with the University of Michigan. AndyTheGrump (talk) 08:27, 8 June 2015 (UTC)

Deism replaced by atheism

This article ignores the fact that the most of the individuals originally critical of religion were deists, not atheists. It says that the French Revolution was atheist, ignoring the fact that even Robespierre believed in God.

The article should explain why deism got replaced by atheism among elites.

CJK (talk) 00:13, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

That reason of course putting priests back in charge of things. The Enlightenment had the world pretty much figured out, and people were starting to think for themselves. So Hegel, Marx and their acolytes put the priests back in charge with their impenetrable pseudo-intellectual gibberish and nonsense. That's why atheism replaced deism, atheism is explicitly materialistic and implies a materialist world view while deism does not. This article does not make that clear at all.

CJK (talk) 11:42, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

The last edition of Ramos 1990

I can not agree with this edition of User Ramos1990. According to the mentioned edition, the number of atheists declined. However, the Pew research center says another thing - [8]. Please your comments. M.Karelin (talk) 13:26, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

PEW seems to be about the US only. The other sources claims to give a global overview. Hence I do not see these contradict eachother necessarily. Arnoutf (talk) 18:15, 19 July 2015 (UTC)

Atheism DOES NOT need a symbol

That stylized 'a' should be deleted. Atheism isn't a religion. It doesn't need a corporate logo to spread its brand. Leave the proselytizing to the theists! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 208.73.102.174 (talk) 00:05, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

We're not proselytizing in this article, we're just illustrating it with a public domain symbol. It isn't a corporate logo (perhaps you're thinking of American Atheists's A-in-an-atom symbol?). Personally, I prefer it to the Out Campaign's scarlet A. But if you don't like it, don't wear it. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 05:41, 10 July 2015 (UTC)

I was a bit surprised about the logo, but after googling it, it does appear to be a logo recognized by the Atheist Alliance International so if we want any image this one should do. Arnoutf (talk) 20:01, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Lack of Empirical Evidence

The statement "Rationales for not believing in any supernatural deity include the lack of empirical evidence" should read "Rationales for not believing in any supernatural deity include a perceived lack of empirical evidence". The current wording implies that empirical evidence is indeed lacking (an assertion heavily contested by opponents of Atheism) and thus affirms the atheist worldview. This affirmation deviates from Wikipedia's neutrality requirement. Ormr2014 | Talk  13:53, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Adding "perceived" would make it less neutral i.m.o. It subtly suggests that there actually is empirical evidence, but atheists somehow don't manage to perceive it. The rationale is of course that there is such a lack, otherwise it wouldn't be called a rationale. - DVdm (talk) 14:10, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Agree with DVdm. Any available evidence for a supernatural deity is indirect (e.g. mystical experience of an individual, holy books, logical reasoning) there is no straightforward empirical evidence that deities exist. Arnoutf (talk) 14:32, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

By stating the atheist rationale "for not believing in any supernatural deity include the lack of empirical evidence", the article is taking a non-neutral position on the issue and affirming there is indeed no "empirical evidence". Calling this a "perceived lack of empirical evidence" in no way implies that such evidence actually exists, it simply puts things in perspective because the purpose of the article is not to argue in favor of atheism but to delineate what atheists believe. This is their belief and calling this a belief instead of affirming it as a fact allows the article to maintain neutrality. Ormr2014 | Talk  20:06, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

By putting in the word "perceived" in front of lack, you suggest there is indeed empirical evidence, only not as such perceived by atheists. That in itself is a non neutral position. Can you provide examples of empirical evidence of deities?

Mind you, no-one is claiming that people believing in deities lack anecdotal or logical evidence (although the validity of such evidence is challenged by atheists, but that is another debate). Arnoutf (talk) 21:03, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) A real, not merely perceived lack of empirical evidence, is precisely one of the rationales for not believing. Everyone agrees that there is no empirical evidence, which is one of the reasons why, based on non-empirical evidence, theists end up believing, perhaps as opposed to knowing. Actually, "a perceived lack of empirical evidence" would be—in tone—synonym to "an alleged lack of empirical evidence", which i.m.o. is far from neutral—see WP:ALLEGED. - DVdm (talk) 21:26, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

Are you serious? Putting the word "perceived" in front of lack, suggests no such thing. Furthermore, there are many respected scholars who believe there is empirical evidence for God, so saying "Everyone agrees that there is no empirical evidence" is both inaccurate and presumptuous. Consider the following sources:

• Empirical Evidence of God
• God, Values, and Empiricism: Issues in Philosophical Theology
• Intelligent Design

The first and last source are simply assertions that there is "empirical evidence" for God's existence, which I cited to illustrate that everyone does not agree. The second is a well-known book on Philosophy written by Creighton Peden, wherein he discusses quite a few philosophers and scholars who believe there is empirical evidence for God.

The main problem with this whole "lack of empirical evidence" phrase is that it totally discounts other views about God. For instance, if God is, as many Hindus believe, simply the entire cosmos as a whole, there would certainly be empirical evidence for that, as the cosmos is a physical reality we can clearly see. If, as many modern New Agers assert, we are all gods in our own right, there would also be empirical evidence for this. If we assert that the lightening, ocean or anything physical is a god, there would likewise be empirical evidence.

This is not an argument in favor of the existence of God, simply an appeal for neutrality in an article that is supposed to maintain absolute neutrality. In any event, it wasn't my intention to drag this on or turn it into some sort of crusade. I was just reading random articles, came across this one and felt the wording reflected a bias. Not that big of a deal to me.... Ormr2014 | Talk  23:16, 16 May 2015 (UTC)

The first letter simply claims there is empirical evidence, not what it is. The chapter from the book is talking about the problems with "pure empirical" evidence for God, and as far as I understand it comes to the conclusion that pure empirical evidence without logical assumptions about the nature of God does not suffice/is not convincing. While the movieclip is funny of course the intelligent design movement is problematic on many fronts. Mainly, they scrutinize weaknesses in the mainstream theories, and then conclude that because these theories are not perfect there must be a God. That is deus ex machine reasoning not empirical evidence.

The Hindu believe (which if I follow your description is somewhat comparable to Spinozism) defines the whole problem away to some extent. But following that line of reasoning God becomes identical to the cosmos (or nature) and a thinking and aware deity is no longer needed.

Another point, the word perceived user carelessly can be added to almost everything. Belief in God for example, can be stated to be only perceived belief in God as we will never know whether people truly believe or just claim to do, or even perceive themselves as believer but deep down aren't. Arnoutf (talk) 08:05, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

DvDM is missing the point in the op which is that saying there is a lack of empirical evidence for god is making a point which is pov. The person posting's opinions about whether or not there is such evidence is a different topic altogether.--Equivocasmannus (talk) 04:39, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Euhm no you perceive the position of DvDM as pov, which in itself is pov (as perceived by me). The word "perceive" really should be used carefully. Arnoutf (talk) 08:07, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I have reverted your addition. There is no wp:CONSENSUS for this. See also wp:BRD. - DVdm (talk) 09:10, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

And i am reverting the page back. As it stands the article endorses a stance of atheism and violates the neutrality policy.--Equivocasmannus (talk) 10:20, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Am I missing something, or is all this an argument without any basis whatever? The sentence ""Rationales for not believing in any supernatural deity include the lack of empirical evidence" says that lack of empirical evidence is adduced as a rationale for not believing in any supernatural deity: evidently people who say that lack of empirical evidence is a reason for not believing in a god are giving that as a rationale. If someone uses that as a reason, then that is a rationale used by that person, whether other people agree that there is no empirical evidence or not. A "rationale", in this context, is an argument put forward by someone to support a position, and saying that it is a rationale simply means that: it does not in any way imply acceptance of the premise behind the rationale. In exactly the same way, I could say that one of Hitler's rationales for murdering Jews was that they were an inferior race; that would not in any way indicate that I accept that they are indeed an inferior race: it would simply mean that that was a reason that Hitler put forward. The editor who uses the pseudonym "JamesBWatson" (talk) 10:35, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

It's not that big of a deal and certainly doesn't warrant a long drawn out argument. As opinions (we're all just spouting opinions here), there's some merit in everything said. But JamesBWatson probably made the best argument in this whole discussion. I admit that my perception of the article may have been unintentionally tainted by my personal belief in God... Ormr2014 | Talk  12:36, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Indeed, that is more or less how I perceived it too^{(pun intended too)}, hence my referral to wp:ALLEGED. Cheers - DVdm (talk) 13:17, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

I'm 100% in agreement with JamesBWatson. The article does not say there is no empirical evidence for deities, so there is no need for "perceived". -- Scjessey (talk) 13:19, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Rationale means explanation, it is a clear contravention of wikipedia policies to state there is a lack of it, saying it's a "rationale" makes the article worse/ However it's obvious from how some users are behaving towards me now that if I revert to a correct version of this page and abide by wikipedia's rules I'll probably be banned because I don't follow their ideology. Sieg heil everyone...Equivocasmannus (talk) 13:43, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

See Godwin's law. - DVdm (talk) 13:46, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Clever use of a meme there. Did you think any of that response up by yourself?Equivocasmannus (talk) 13:54, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

This is just about ordinary English usage. If I may use a less emotive example, suppose I wash my hands a hundred times a day. We can describe that by saying I do it because of a perceived lack of cleanliness, or we can say that my rationale is a lack of cleanliness. We don't mash the two phrasings together. NebY (talk) 14:45, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

After considering some of the conversation here, I propose: "Rationales for scepticism(3) of any deity(2) include the lack of current(1) empirical evidence[...]"

(1) Our current ability to gather empirical data is limited by modern experimental controls, which is to say our current empirical data reflects our current technological capabilities. Perhaps this suits a neutral stance more effectively?

(2) The wikipedia page on deity already describes the supernatural aspect to the topic. More than that, there are some theistic arguments from naturalism (e.g. variants of Gaia Hypothesis).

(3) A lack of evidence isn't in itself a rationale for nonbelief (see ambivalence). There's a mix of philosophical scepticism mixed in there. To phrase it as scepticism is more accurate and differentiates itself more readily from argument from nonbelief (which is listed later in the sentence). Ephemerance (talk) 17:47, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

"Skepticism of any deity" is not appropriate phrasing, and I'm not sure what "current empirical evidence" is adding; it implies there used to be evidence, or there will be evidence in the future, neither of which make much sense. And yes, a lack of evidence is certainly a "rationale for nonbelief". This does not seem like an improvement to me.   — Jess· Δ♥ 18:34, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

The scepticism phrasing can be tweaked. "Current" is adding a context of time. This is to say there may or may not be empirical evidence available in the future which supports the existence of deities. It makes perfect sense when you understand what empirical data is. An absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It does not follow that a lack of evidence is a rationale for nonbelief unless you have a philosophic preference to scepticism.Ephemerance (talk) 18:48, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Yes, there may or may not be empirical evidence available in the future, but it is not our job to suggest that. That is precisely the point. - DVdm (talk) 19:00, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

It's giving an important context as to our current scientific paradigm. New empirical data is collected all the time (such as with CERN's LHC). The fact is there will be new empirical data produced as technology progresses, but we cannot say one way or the other whether new empirical data will support or reject the concept of deities. Nor can we say whether or not we will experience another paradigm shift (such as Newtonian to quantum physics) which invalidates our current speculations based on current empirical data. I believe there is an important distinction to be made here.Ephemerance (talk) 19:26, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Again, making important distinctions is not our job. This is an encyclopedia, remember? - DVdm (talk) 19:45, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

(edit conflict) The addition of such qualifiers (like scepticism) are neither needed, nor helpful; and again the number of places where we should add it would be endless. For example, do you think we should call people who do not believe in the Flying Spaghetti Monster sceptics?

You don't need to call nonbelievers of FSM sceptics, but the rationale for a nonbeliever may be scepticism + no evidence.Ephemerance (talk) 19:26, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

No the world view may be skepticism and within that worldview "no evidence" may be the only rationale. Arnoutf (talk) 19:40, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

If their worldview is scepticism, they are categorically sceptics; that doesn't change the fact that their rationale is still scepticism + no evidence, as may be the case. "No evidence" by itself isn't a rationale. Ephemerance (talk) 22:15, 24 June 2015 (UTC)

The addition of the term current is, again, neither needed nor useful. Of course if there is lack of evidence that reflects to the current situation. We also do not say there is currently no evidence for the existence of Superman, although in some (far fetched) future that may be found. Arnoutf (talk) 19:08, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Superman isn't a metaphysical concept. It's a completely different category. There are two approaches to a lack of evidence: ambivalence and scepticism. Being ambivalent does not make you an atheist.Ephemerance (talk) 19:26, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Ambivalence? (=Having two opposing reactions at the same time). How has that to do with lack of evidence? I can imagine agnosticism is an alternative to skepticism. But still the phrase skepticism is not needed in the context of the discussed line.Arnoutf (talk) 19:40, 17 May 2015 (UTC)

Continuation of discussion

I'd like to re-open this discussion. When I read the sentence in question, I, like Ormr2014, take it to mean that there is indeed a lack of empirical evidence. Perhaps there are contexts where I wouldn't read such constructions in this way, as in JamesBWatson's example, but in this example it really does come across as siding with the view that there is no empirical evidence.

A number of comments above seem to suggest the current phrasing is OK because there really isn't any empirical evidence. Well, maybe there is, and maybe there isn't. But the fact that some editors agree with that point of view does not strike me as a reason for enshrining it in the article. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 06:56, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't get your point. In the discussion above nobody has presented any links to empirical evidence. So if there is any empirical evidence it is probably very obscure; and at best it is not available (to the larger community and therefore for all practical purposes absent). The problem with adding a phrase like "perceived" to this, is that it immediately would transfer to invisible pink unicorns, Russell's teapot and flying spaghetti monsters (for all of which there maybe empirical evidence and maybe there isn't). So what is it exactly that you suggest here? Arnoutf (talk) 07:18, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

There is a great deal of purported empirical evidence for the existence of God. For example, fine-tuning arguments contend that certain features of the universe which permit life are evidence for the existence of God. The Kalaam cosmological argument contends that the beginning of the universe is evidence for the existence of God. Other cosmological arguments contend that change in the natural world is evidence for the existence of God.

Whether any of this is actually evidence for the existence of God is beside the point. So long as there's no expert consensus on these arguments, it would be inappropriate for the Wikipedia article to promote one point of view. (Similarly, even if God doesn't exist, it would be inappropriate to write the article on God to promote the point of view that God does not exist.)

As far as I know, there are no similar disputes about evidence for invisible pink unicorns and the like. But, at any rate, this line of argument strikes me as a prime example of someone inserting their personal religious/anti-religious views as a reason for promoting a POV on the article.

I would like for the sentence in question to refer to a perceived or alleged lack of empirical evidence, since it is a contentious issue whether there is in fact a lack of empirical evidence. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 07:43, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

But all the purported empirical evidence you describe is not, in actual fact, evidence of God. Shouldn't we just report what reliable sources say, not the views of people who don't know what empirical evidence is? ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 09:03, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Per WP:ASSERT, we should not report as fact matters which are subject to serious dispute. That this matter is subject to serious dispute can be readily seen from the articles on fine-tuning arguments and cosmological arguments in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, the paragon of a reliable source in the field of philosophy. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 09:37, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Huh. If we do have a couple reliable sources with sufficiently lax ideas of what constitutes empirical evidence, that does support your case that experts do not have a consensus about a lack of empirical evidence. Perhaps the weasel words were warranted after all. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 10:37, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Wait a second. The Stanford source (indeed a very reliable source) reports that the fine tuning (empirical) issue is not well understood by modern science; it does not state this lack of scientific understanding is empirical evidence for the existence of God. The cosmological argument is not even claimed to be related to empirical evidence. It is not the source (or it authors) that is lax in construing what empirical evidence is, but the perceiver of that source. (Also we should consider whether any philosophy source has the relevant authority on this specific topic. While philosophy is an important and much undervalued science, empirical it ain't.) Arnoutf (talk) 11:01, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Could you leave the personal comments aside? Thanks.

The SEP does not say that fine-tuning is evidence for the existence of God, but that's again not what's at stake. What is at stake is whether this is a closed question in philosophy. The SEP article points to various contemporary discussions of the fine-tuning argument. The bibliography cites some specific papers defending the argument - there are many others besides those in the bibliography. Since this isn't a closed question, we shouldn't write as if it is.

There are two main types of cosmological argument discussed in that article, and each makes reference to an empirical fact. In the first case, the fact that the universe exists, and in the second case, the fact that the universe began to exist. That the latter argument involves a posteriori reasoning is specifically discussed in section 5.3.

Philosophy is generally the discipline that deals with arguments for the existence of God, so it seems to me that philosophers are the relevant authorities. In addition, I would dispute that philosophy does not deal with empirical facts. In fact, I have just referred to three different philosophical arguments with empirical premises. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 12:15, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Yes philosophy is a discipline involved in arguments for existence of God. However philosophical arguments for God tend to be metaphysical or logic and not based on direct empirical evidence. This specific discussion is not about all possible arguments in favour of the existence of God, merely a subset of all possible arguments those based on empirical evidence. (PS WP:KETTLE). Arnoutf (talk) 13:44, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Arguments based on empirical "evidence".

@Mondegreen What is at stake is merely the statement "Rationales for not believing in any supernatural deity include the lack of empirical evidence..." in this article. Would you be less opposed to it if we just dropped the "the"? ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 13:56, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Removing "the" does makes some sense in my opinion. It takes some of the emphasis and the absoluteness from the claim without changing the contents. Arnoutf (talk) 19:56, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Well, I would like to change the contents, since I think the present content of the claim is POV. I think dropping the "the" is an improvement, and might do the job. But I do think switching it to "an alleged" is more clear. It says that some atheists allege a lack of empirical evidence - which they do - without endorsing the claim. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 20:57, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Can you please give an indication how the empirical evidence for the existence of God would look like. Without shared understanding what we consider sufficient empirical evidence this discussion is moot.

In my view (strong) empirical evidence for any phenomenon (including God) should be collected through immediate sensory observation of the claimed phenomenon (i.e. not by spiritual insight, logic or metaphysical reasoning) and should be observable to anyone (not only prophets) who follows the protocol. In other words we would need the actual physical appearance of God to fulfill this demand.

A weaker form of empirical evidence would be a similar observation that can best be explained by assuming the phenomenon, in which the phenomenon is clearly, falsifiably and most parsimoniously defined.

I know of no empirical evidence in favor of God that fulfills even this weaker criterion for empirical evidence (e.g. omnipotence is neither falsifiable nor parsimonious; and more modern ideas like that of a first mover are neither clear nor falsifiable). (note that these requirement are requirement of empirical arguments, not of metaphysical arguments - but since we are only talking about empirical evidence these are the requirements we have to follow). Arnoutf (talk) 21:26, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't see how this line of discussion can lead to anything but original research. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 21:27, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

The conclusion seems fairly clear to me. Modern empiricism requires controlled observations and if not the non-existence of the phenomenon should be assumed. Since we have no direct controlled observations of God there is no empirical evidence for God. The only way you can disagree to that is by using a completely different definition of empirical evidence. But instead of trying to come to a working definition of empirical evidence to use on this talk page, you put in a conversation stopper. That is indeed not helpful. But feel free to try pushing your POV. Arnoutf (talk) 21:34, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Again, I have to ask you not to insert personal barbs into the discussion, not to mention the edit summaries.

Empirical evidence is simply evidence that comes from sensory experience, rather than from reason alone. That's what the article that you linked says, and it seems to be well sourced. The arguments I linked above all have empirical premises. For example, the fine-tuning argument depends upon our knowledge of the laws of physics, which in turn depends on empirical observation of the physical world. Philosophers who regard the laws of physics as evidence for God are thus relying on alleged empirical evidence.

The question of what counts as good empirical evidence, or under what conditions we should assume the non-existence of something, is irrelevant. There is no need for the Wikipedia article to pass judgment on whether the arguments in question are good arguments. But there is a need to avoid speaking as if it is settled that there is no empirical evidence for God.

Here are two more articles that discuss the role of empirical evidence in arguments for the existence of God. First, here is the IEP's discussion of the design argument. It begins "Design arguments are empirical arguments for the existence of God."

And here is their discussion of natural theology. Relevant excerpts: "[Natural theologians] engage in the perennial questions about God using the sources of evidence that they share by virtue of their common humanity, for example, sensation, reason, science, and history." Then, later: "Natural theology appeals to empirical data and the deliverances of reason to search out, verify, justify, and organize as much truth about God as can be figured out when one limits oneself to just these sources of evidence." Lord Mondegreen (talk) 23:08, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Sunsets are predicted by both heliocentrism and geocentrism. So the empirical fact that sunsets happen is not empirical evidence for either helio- or geo-. Likewise, if the laws of physics are equally consistent with both the god hypothesis and the no god hypothesis, they provide evidential support to neither and are not "evidence". ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 06:26, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Let's do a few steps back. Adding the word alleged or any other to the statement puts emphasis on the fact that the claim made by atheists (lack of empirical evidence) is contested. The main questions in that context would be (1) Does that matter to this article? (2) If so, does the addition of a word like "alleged" solve the problem? and (3) Can we make sure that adding such qualifier does not introduce POV (or at least equal type of POV across the project? My five cents on this are

(1) No it does not matter for this article, as from the context it is sufficiently clear this is an argument made by atheists themselves.

(2) No, adding the word alleged indicates that this is the opinion of atheists (which should already be sufficiently from the context). However adding a qualifier adds associations to this opinion being minority, less valuable or even fringe. To defuse the potential misunderstanding and POV this requires an in depth discussion in the article itself what is exactly meant. That in turn would make the article harder to read and less concise and for that matter introduce (in my opinion) a larger problem than it solves.

(3) No we cannot makes this does not introduce POV in the broader project. If we want to make this neutral we should add similar qualifier to all contested assumptions in similar articles. For example the 2nd line of the Christian article holds the segment " based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth". However there is doubt whether the bible on which Christianity is based is indeed a fair reflection of the life and teachings of Christ (see e.g. the dead seas scrolls and the gospel of Judas). So to avoid POV across the project we must add alleged before "life" and rephrase the fragment as "based on the alleged life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth". To make sure this happens consistently across the project will make many articles harder to read, will raise a lot of protest, and will be almost impossible.

In short, in my view adding the word alleged would not improve the article (question 1), but make it worse in two ways (harder to read, adding a POV which is not similarly applied in other articles making it unbalanced - questions 2 and 3). Therefore in my view such a word should not be added.

PS Much of the arguments provided above start with empirical observations (something not understood by modern science) but from there on follows a logic that tends to end up in reductio ad absurdum. The Stanford source mentioned above debunks a numbers of those type of arguments.

PPS Again Lord Mondegreen read WP:Kettle. From your second post in this thread onwards you have more or less systematically been making personal remarks about my arguments, but have now repeatedly accused me of making personal remarks. Arnoutf (talk) 07:29, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

You say it is sufficiently clear that Wikipedia is not endorsing the argument. But I don't find it clear, and Ormr2014 didn't find it clear. At some point, if a number of people don't find the wording clear, I think we should conclude that it isn't actually that clear.

I don't think the word "alleged" carries the connotation of being minority, less valuable, or fringe. It just carries the connotation of not being a consensus among experts. Since there isn't a consensus among experts, this is a good connotation to have. You also say that such a word would emphasize that the claim is contested. I do not think it would emphasize it. It would simply acknowledge it, which is something that we aren't doing right now.

You worry that my proposal would require us to add similar wording to other articles. To some extent, this is of course true. I take my proposal to be a direct application of WP:YESPOV. Since that is Wikipedia policy, it's going to apply elsewhere; I'm not sure why your concern wouldn't amount to a general concern with Wikipedia's policy. On the other hand, I don't think it's true that it would be necessary to run around adding the word "alleged" willy-nilly to other articles. For example, you are concerned that we would have to say that Christianity is based on "the alleged life ... of Jesus" since many contend that Christianity does not accurately reflect Jesus' life. But that is just to say that Christianity is poorly based on Jesus' life, not that it isn't based on his life at all. And, again, if you have a general concern with having to acknowledge disputes, then that problem comes from Wikipedia policy, not from one particular concern I have with one particular article.

In your postscript, you criticize the arguments that I mentioned as examples of empirical arguments for the existence of God. So does Robin Lionheart. This is exactly what I mean when I talk about original research. The standard for acknowledging a position on Wikipedia, as I understand it, is not whether Wikipedia editors like that position. It's whether that position is defended in reliable sources. Since it is, our assessments of the arguments is irrelevant. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 09:15, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

If we accept the Oxford dictionary as a source for associations with alleged (rather than our personal construal of the word), the negative associations are abundantly clear [9]

Following from your WP:YESPOV argument. The fact in this case is that atheists claim lack of evidence. Not whether there is truly lack of evidence. This is in fact fairly similar to Christian claiming to base their belief on the life of Christ. Not whether this was the true life of Christ.

That there is some discussion indicates something is going on that may fall within the scope of WP:YESPOV (although I argue the proposed solution here adds rather than removes a non neutral POV). In any case, other policies also applyWP:WEASEL abd WP:UNDUE. These would not favour including of the word alleged. In addition, WP:CONSENSUS makes it clear that the editor proposing a change has the burden of achieving consensus, and as long as that is not achieved the change should not be made. So far I am not convinced the arguments for inclusion are any better than the ones in favour of retaining the status quo, so I see no consensus emerging for this change.

Re my postscript. There are literally tons of sources supporting those arguments. Arguments refuting cosmological and fine-tuning reasoning have been made by people like Bertrand Russell Daniel Dennett Steven Weinberg Richard Dawkins and many, many others. Hardly original research on my side therefore. In any case the point is irrelevant as on talk pages original arguments (not meant for direct inclusion in main space) are fine (see Wikipedia:No original research). Arnoutf (talk) 10:50, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Lord Mondegreen, my point wasn't to say the cosmological argument is a bad argument (although it is). My point was it's an error to say it's based on "empirical evidence". ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 11:41, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

I agree with Lord Mondegreen - if multiple sources claim that there is empirical evidence and its a widespread belief that there is such, it makes little sense to just pretend that's not the case in the article. 98.185.18.251 (talk) 16:24, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Please note that Lord Mondegreen has not provided a single source that claims there is direct empirical evidence. Nor has anyone in this discussion even suggested it is a widespread belief that there is such. Finally, even if it were the case that such belief is widespread, that would still not matter; there was once widespread belief the world is flat. That did not make it so. Arnoutf (talk) 16:52, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

Arnoutf, I agree when you say that "The fact in this case is that atheists claim lack of evidence. Not whether there is truly lack of evidence." That's why I think that the wording of the article should be changed. As it stands, I think that the article comes across as saying that there is truly a lack of evidence. Since, as you say, that isn't the point, the article should be phrased to make this clear.

You say that WP:WEASEL and WP:UNDUE support your position, but you do not say how they support your position. Regarding WP:WEASEL, I think the proposed phrasing makes it clear that the claim is being made by the atheists who offer the rationale in question. Regarding WP:UNDUE, you do not say why the proposed wording would give undue weight to the theistic POV. I have cited a number of sources which indicate that empirical arguments for the existence of God are taken seriously by philosophers. I don't think I've seen a single source in this discussion, or in the article itself, that says otherwise.

Regarding original research, I understand that comments here can use original arguments. However, the content of the article itself needs to be backed up by sources. And it needs to reflect the state of discussion in the field, not the state of discussion on the Wikipedia talk page. Several unsourced comments here have addressed, not things like whether my sources are reliable, or whether they are a minority view, but whether the sources themselves are correct. That's what I'm calling original research.

If I say that some reliable sources hold that there is empirical evidence for the existence of God, you're free to argue that the source doesn't meet the standards of WP:RS, or that it's a fringe view that shouldn't be given weight, or whatever. And you don't need sources for that. But if you instead argue that those sources are wrong, and you're using that as grounds for deciding what goes in the article, then you're engaging in original research. (If you aren't using it as a grounds for what goes in the article, then such comments are off-topic.) Note also the "Stay objective" line at WP:TALK#USE: "Talk pages are not a place for editors to argue their personal point of view about a controversial issue. They are a place to discuss how the points of view of reliable sources should be included in the article[.]"

Regarding direct evidence, the article doesn't say anything about direct empirical evidence, and I haven't proposed making it say anything about direct empirical evidence. Not all empirical evidence is direct. So, there's no need to set the goalposts there.

Regarding your claim that widespread belief does not entail truth, I agree. But it is not Wikipedia's policy only to acknowledge views that absolutely must be true. The policy is to acknowledge significant views among the relevant experts. Your objection seems more an objection to Wikipedia's policies about NPOV and sources than to anything unique to what I'm saying here. For example, I could say "It doesn't matter if there widespread belief in God! That doesn't mean that God exists!" But, by Wikipedia's policies, this is not a reason for refusing to acknowledge that some people believe in God. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 23:32, 25 July 2015 (UTC)

I largely agree with your summary above. However I do not agree that adding the word "alleged" would be a solution. It is a vague word (alleged by whom, contested by whom, on what grounds) and that should be avoided (per WP:WEASEL). It has clear negative associations (per the Oxford dictionary) and should therefore be avoided per WP:NPOV. The argument (fact) that people believe in God is not very relevant here, as belief has little to do with empirical evidence; and if it would have a place it would be in another article than this one.

More content wise (at the risk of soap boxing ;-). The empirical approaches to find evidence for God adopt a scientific approach. This means the starting point has to be the non-existence of God (Null hypothesis) and this has to be rejected beyond reasonable doubt. In the case of God the distinction direct versus indirect empirical evidence is important. I think we all agree there is no direct empirical evidence. That means that empirical evidence for God is based on indirect empirical evidence (mind you, much empirical evidence is indirect. E.g. the evidence for the Higgs boson is indirect). The problem with indirect evidence is that you will have to use background assumptions and logic to link observations to a hypothesized explanation. Consensus about the assumptions and applied logic is essential. Critics of empirical approaches to prove God point out (in their view) fatal flaws in both assumptions and the applied logic (e.g. replace infinite regress by introducing a God - without explaining where that God comes from). Therefore there is no consensus on the assumptions and logic. Therefor the empirical arguments in favour of God do not meet a central requirement of scientific evidence (George Kenneth Stone, "Evidence in Science"(1966)). Therefore there is no empirical "evidence". (please note that absence of evidence is not evidence of absence - also note that this line of reasoning only applies to empirical evidence; which is the specific topic here) Arnoutf (talk) 09:57, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Do you think there is some word beside "alleged" that lacks the negative connotations and would do the job? How about "purported" or "perceived"?

WP:WEASEL refers to "vague attribution, where a statement is dressed with authority, yet has no substantial basis." But the point in question is not supposed to be dressed with authority, since the point is to convey that some atheists have said something, not to convey that they're correct. Anyway, the answer to "alleged by whom" is "The people who have that rationale." Again, if there's a problem with saying that some people have contended etc etc, but not saying who those people are, then there's equally a problem with saying "Rationales include..." and not saying whose rationales those are. My proposal isn't going to introduce any new problem along those lines. But, I think, there isn't actually a WP:WEASEL problem with either version of the article. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 10:14, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

You are right "Rationales include" is also vague. Perhaps the solution to both lies there. Would it help to rephrase as (bolded for discussion only) "Rationales of atheists for not believing in deities include the lack of empirical evidence;[15][16] the problem of evil; the argument from inconsistent revelations; the rejection of concepts that cannot be falsified; and the argument from nonbelief.[15][17] ". That would make it clear that the lack of empirical evidence is an atheist argument (and not a general Truth). Could that be a way out? Arnoutf (talk) 10:23, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

I don't think that makes a difference. As WP#WEASEL says, "The examples given above are not automatically weasel words, as they may also be used in the lead section of an article or in a topic sentence of a paragraph, where the article body or the rest of the paragraph supplies attribution." Since the rest of the article goes into more depth on the arguments and supplies specific attribution, it doesn't need to be in the lead.

But I don't think it solves my problem, either. To me, saying "Jim's rationale for not believing in God is the lack of evidence" implies that there is indeed a lack of evidence. In general, people tend not to make references to "the X" unless they think there really is an X, even if they're describing other people's thoughts. For example, I wouldn't say "Sue thought Joe was ugly because of the scar on his face" unless I mean to say that there really is a scar on Joe's face. If there isn't a scar on Joe's face, but Sue thinks there is, then I would find some other way of saying it. Similarly, if we don't mean to say that there really is a lack of empirical evidence, then I don't think we should make references to "the lack of empirical evidence." Lord Mondegreen (talk) 10:39, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

What if we changed it to "Rationales include ... claims of a lack of empirical evidence"? Or "Rationales include ... arguments that there is a lack of empirical evidence"? Lord Mondegreen (talk) 10:43, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

That would be problematic, as that suggests that there currently may actually be empirical evidence that should be accepted by atheists. The problem is that the atheist rationales do not deny there are currently arguments based on empirical observation, but they do argue that because of assumptions and logical flaws the inferences leading to the conclusions are flawed. Showing these fallacies provide evidence (or at least shed reasonable doubt) using broadly accepted assumptions and logic that the empirical arguments for God do not constitute evidence in the scientific empirical tradition (the tradition raised by those aiming to give evidence for God). Therefore there is no empirical evidence (in the scientific sense - no claim needed). Arnoutf (talk) 14:54, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

All it suggests is that the question of empirical evidence is a disputed matter. I don't see why your objection wouldn't equally apply to any situation where we try to comply with WP:YESPOV by acknowledging disagreement. If you think there is some relevant difference, could you please explain what it is? Lord Mondegreen (talk) 22:13, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

The problem is that, following the principles of the scientific methods, a claim only becomes evidence if all parties agree to the observations, assumptions and used logic. In direct evidence observations are so dominant that assumptions and logic (almost) necessarily follow. In this case the dispute is about the assumptions and logic. The people aiming to provide proof for the existence of God claim to adopt the scientific method (at least in the empirical approaches) so we should assume there is no evidence until there is consensus it is there. Hence in this case there is a disputed claim of evidence, but following the scientific method the assumption of no evidence should be taken for truth until the dispute is solved. The people looking for evidence for the existence of God cannot have it both way, claiming to provide empirical evidence, while not following the generally accepted rules for what constitutes empirical evidence. Arnoutf (talk) 22:23, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

And we're back to WP:TALK#OBJECTIVE.

Why don't we make an RfC? Proposed wording: "Should the sentence that begins 'Rationales for not believing in deities include the lack of empirical evidence' be changed to begin 'Rationales for not believing in deities include arguments that there is a lack of empirical evidence'?" Lord Mondegreen (talk) 22:54, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Mmmm I may have been to hasty in discarding your second suggestion (arguments). I do oppose the phrasing "claims" for much the same reasons as I oppose the wording "alleged". But I can live with the phrase 'Rationales for not believing in deities include arguments that there is a lack of empirical evidence'. Arnoutf (talk) 23:04, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

OK. Would you be OK with me changing it? Lord Mondegreen (talk) 23:07, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Fine with me. Perhaps let it wait one or two days (as you did with your other suggestion) to allow others to pitch in, if there are still objection. Arnoutf (talk) 23:11, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Will do. Thanks for bearing with a long and involved discussion. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 23:11, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 24 July 2015

The sentence

The French Revolution, noted for its "unprecedented atheism," witnessed the first major political movement in history to establish the foundations of society on human reason, not divine authority.

should, I think, be removed entirely. The source cited in support of it simply does not defend the claim in this sentence. The closest sentence in the source appears to be

This was the first revolution to be founded on the idea that there is no power in the human mind superior to human reason or human will.

But there are a number of discrepancies between this sentence and the sentence currently in the Wikipedia article. Most importantly, the source says nothing about divine authority. At most, it attributes to the revolutionaries the view that human reason is the most important thing power in the human mind. Since God isn't generally thought thought to be a power of the human mind, the claim in the Wiki article goes well beyond what's in the source. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 07:11, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I tend to agree on this. Strong claims (especially presented as quotes like "unprecedented atheism" need to align extremely closely to the source. This also goes for extreme black and white claims like "first major political movement in history" as that does not limit itself to modern western history but included all recorded history (Asian, Western Antiquity, Early medieval, etc. etc.). Perhaps we may want to change the line a little to fit the article better though,

This was the first revolution to be founded on the idea that there is no power [either divine or otherwise] in the human mind superior to human reason or human will.

Arnoutf (talk) 20:08, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

Actually, the "unprecedented atheism" phrase is the one thing that does show up in the source - mea culpa for not catching that. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 21:13, 24 July 2015 (UTC)

I've gone ahead and removed it. It would be nice to add a couple sentences at the end of that paragraph expanding on the history of atheism, but I'm not exactly sure what those sentences should be. I just know that this poorly-sourced sentence wasn't it. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 10:22, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

Oops, I hadn't seen this section. I can agree, so I undid my revert. Sorry about this. - DVdm (talk) 15:10, 26 July 2015 (UTC)

The original removal of this sentence was based on a false assumption. The very quote is in the source itself, and the source makes clear the importance of disbelief as a method of political activism and influence in the French Revolution. Instead of removing the sentence, how about just modifying it to better reflect the source? After all, atheism gets tossed into the political ring during the French Revolution for the first time ever. That should definitely be mentioned in one form or another.UBER ^(talk) 02:46, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

I have modified the sentence as follows:

The French Revolution, noted for its "unprecedented atheism," witnessed the first major political movement in history to advocate for the supremacy of human reason.UBER ^(talk) 02:50, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

What does the sentence, so modified, have to do with atheism? I'm totally down with a mention of the French Revolution, which does seem like an important political moment for atheism, but I wonder if there's a better way of putting it, possibly with a better source.

I also think the current phrasing is somewhat vague, and doesn't exactly convey the nuance of the original quote. What, exactly, was human reason supposed to be supreme over? In the original source, there's a clear qualification: reason was supposed to be supreme over other powers of the human mind. Without the qualification, it's less clear what the sentence is saying, and less clear that it's saying the same thing as the source. Lord Mondegreen (talk) 03:12, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

It is not stated explicitly in the source, but the implication from the first paragraph in page 22 is that belief in the power of reason is a rejection of the supposition that our ideas and thoughts (and all of their consequences, ie. societies) come directly from God or some other supernatural source. So that's how it relates to atheism: the author's basically saying belief in the supremacy of human reason is a feature of atheism.UBER ^(talk) 03:21, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

The new phrasing is fine with me. - DVdm (talk) 08:15, 27 July 2015 (UTC)

Mid 19th century situation - positivism is missing here, German situation need differentiation

moved from User talk:DVdm

Hi DVdm, I just saw your revert of my edit at Atheism - on what happened in France, Brazil, Turkey and Germany bwetween 1830 and 1920. Perhaps I can demand a bit of argumentation beyond the simple revert and claim of lack of sources (gave some and can easily give more - read the articles into which I linked...) - as a trained philospher and historian. Reverting is just so easy. Best regards --Olaf Simons (talk) 13:01, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

tell me where you need sources and we get that done if it really is the sources you are missing. --Olaf Simons (talk) 13:06, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Hi Olaf. I checked the source that you gave and could not find any basis for your claims, like "The strongest force of the mid 19th century... etc". I think that we need sources for such statements. Obviously further discussion does not belong here, but on the article talk page Talk:Atheism. Cheers. - DVdm (talk) 15:15, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

here my edit:

Baron d'Holbach was a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment who is best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being The System of Nature (1770) but also Christianity Unveiled. One goal of the French Revolution was a restructuring and subordination of the clergy with respect to the state through the Civil Constitution of the Clergy. Attempts to enforce it led to anti-clerical violence and the expulsion of many clergy from France, lasting until the Thermidorian Reaction. The radical Jacobins seized power in 1793, ushering in the Reign of Terror. The Jacobins were deists and introduced the Cult of the Supreme Being as a new French state religion. Some atheists surrounding Jacques Hébert instead sought to establish a Cult of Reason, a form of atheistic pseudo-religion with a goddess personifying reason. The strongest force of the mid 19th century was the positivist movement formulated and propagated by Auguste Comte that led to the establishment of influential positivist societies in France, Britain and Brazil. Positivism was strictly anti-metaphysical - God would not appear in scientific problems so the premise - but by 1848 ready to step beyond atheism. The question whether God existed was, so Comte's deconstruction of the debate, a theological question. Positivism would have to leave this debate and to find out how religion and theology could actually be replaced - by a new Religion of Humanity, a system in which humanity would be the godless supreme being. The establishment of positivist churches eventually divided the movement Comte had founded into a branch interested in positivism strictly as an anti-metaphysical paradigm of the modern sciences and proponents of a world religion of Comtean positivism that influenced the Brazilian and later under Kemal Atatürk the Turkish nation-building process.

The rivaling force of the atheist movement rose in the latter half of the 19th century in a post Hegelian move in Germany with philosophers in the wide range from Arthur Schopenhauer, Ludwig Feuerbach, Max Stirner, Karl Marx, and Friedrich Nietzsche. Feuerbach was particularily influential with his deconstruction of Christianity and, in his Heidelberg Lectures of 1848, of Religion in the broader spectrum. Marx and Engels formulated a new form of political materialism as the philosophy of Communism, a philosophy that would be most interested in the material base of all living conditions.

I inserted Comte and I slightly revised the statements on the German situation. (Plus: I deleted a statement about the scularisation of Italy that was rather out of place and lacking citation, so the note that was already there). The footnote you objected refers specifically to Comte's position towards atheism. He is a de facto atheist, but not ready to stay in this debate because he considers it to be a theological debate designed to prolong the revolutionary state... You, however, want a footnote for the statement that Positivism is the most influential atheist doctrine of the mid 19th century. I am not quite sure whether books on positivism make this statement. It's cheap and they are not concerned with the general history of atheism. We just do not have a second global movement of that sort in the area. Britain, Brazil, Turkey are interesting candidates of the experiment. You can have secondary literature on each case. The general shift in the sciences towards Positivism - read the Wikipedia articles on this, that will not find any rival anywhere. Marxism becomes politically more important with the Russian Revolution (and stagnates in the sciences); and whom would Lenin attack? the present brand of Austrian German positivists around Ernst Mach with his 1908 book against them. Mach leads to Einstein, and Hawkings but also to the Vienna Circle (this is credited later) - so somehow we have a gap in the 19th century part. Things that are known in the 20th century part do not have their base in the 19th century part. By the way: "Early modern era" - ends around 1800, the section which I revised leads it to the 20th century and I would strongly promote a 19th century headline. If you want a book that says explicity that positivism was the most important mover before Marxism had its political breakthrough - well then I'd recommend: find a more subtle wording. To simply delete - is the simple thing that does not solve the problem I am hinting at. Besides: you deleted more - also my reconfiguration of the German part... It's cheap editing to undo with a click (my view as an administrator on de.wp) --Olaf Simons (talk) 19:36, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

Ancient meaning

A friend once told me that the original word "Atheos" was used in ancient Greece to describe Christians, on account of the fact that they refused to worship the Greeks' gods. Is this true? It does make sense, since that one meaning of rejecting deities "sanctioned" and supported by the government or society fits quite well with much of the history of both Christianity and Judaism. Even to this day many who practice these religions adamantly refuse to accept anything that suggests some other "God", as supreme being or as the source of creation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.32.145.62 (talk) 22:15, 1 September 2015 (UTC)

I do not know the answer to your question without investigating myself but wiktionary:atheism and wiktionary:ἄθεος#Ancient Greek may be of help to you. Jason Quinn (talk) 19:25, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Criticism of atheism section needed

This page needs a "Criticism of atheism" section, just as the Wiki article on any religion has a "Criticism of said religion" section. — Preceding unsigned comment added by MagicatthemovieS (talk • contribs) 19:13, 10 October 2015‎ (UTC)

Your claim is not true. Just a few examples of religion articles that do not have any criticism section: Hinduism Judaism Shinto. If you make grandiose claims like the one above, please check your facts. Arnoutf (talk) 19:32, 10 October 2015 (UTC)

Please put new talk page messages at the bottom of talk pages and sign your messages with four tildes (~~~~). Thanks.

Also note that atheism is not a religion, so comparing this article with articles about religions is not very convincing. And even if it were, see also wp:OTHERSTUFFEXISTS. - DVdm (talk) 08:43, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Second this. The argument presented for the section is logically flawed. MagicatthemovieS, you should revise your argument and flesh it out with some details, otherwise your proposal just feels incomplete. Jason Quinn (talk) 09:59, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Back in 2007 (when I first started editing), a criticism section was integrated into the article, see this discussion, and criticism sections are discouraged, see this essay. --Modocc (talk) 11:46, 11 October 2015 (UTC)

Riddle me this - if it's alright that Hinduism, Judaism and Shinto don't have a "Criticism" section of their Wiki article, than why must Christianity and Islam?— Preceding unsigned comment added by MagicatthemovieS (talk • contribs) 20:07, 13 October 2015‎ (UTC)

I have no idea why Christianity or Islam have criticism sections, and to be honest, since this is neither the Christianity nor the Islam article it is an irrelevant issue here. It is a question for the talk page of those religions, not here. Arnoutf (talk) 20:48, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

MagicatthemovieS, please sign your talk messages with four tildes (~~~~). Thanks.

Off topic here - Perhaps because some religions attract more notable criticism than others. Who knows? Who cares? - DVdm (talk) 20:51, 13 October 2015 (UTC)

Very fresh research - U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious

Dear friends, have you seen this very fresh research - [10] U.S. Public Becoming Less Religious, especially young people !!!! I think the new figures must be reflected in the article. What you think? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Миша Карелин (talk • contribs) 16:08, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

Why? This article is about the global phenomenon and is not limited to the US. Perhaps better suited in a US specific article. Arnoutf (talk) 19:10, 4 November 2015 (UTC)

But we have Demographics section in this article (with separate description of USA Demographics). M.Karelin (talk) 05:31, 5 November 2015 (UTC)

Atheism ? or a god of Retribution ??  :-( ...  :-)

Does one of the contributors suggest that atheism is a rejection of the assumption of a vengeful god ?!  :-) https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/AtheismImplicitExplicit3.svg/977px-AtheismImplicitExplicit3.svg.png — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.117.230.47 (talk) 23:59, 21 November 2015 (UTC)

Does this diagram represent different varieties of atheism or breast cancer in general ?

Atheism has no logo?

Atheism is no organized belief, so why is there a logo on the page — Preceding unsigned comment added by Antfred (talk • contribs) 03:20, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Added a caption, see this archived webpage. Vsmith (talk) 12:41, 8 December 2015 (UTC)

Demographics section

This edit by Graham11 draws attention to a problem with the structure of the demographics section of this article. There's nothing essentially wrong with the content of the section (although it is a wee bit US-centric), but there seems to be a bit of a mishmash of subheadings and things don't seem to be placed correctly. The subheadings within the section are Europe, Socio-economics and Atheism and education. It seems to me the structure needs a bit of a rethink and the section should be reorganized a bit. -- Scjessey (talk) 16:43, 30 December 2015 (UTC)

Who versus Whom (implicit v. explicit atheism section) [Resolved]

Whole sentence: "Implicit weak/negative atheists (in blue on the left) would include people (such as young children and some agnostics) who do not believe in a deity, but have not explicitly rejected such belief."

Sentence structure: Implicit weak/negative atheists (in blue on the left) would include people (such as young children and some agnostics) who do not believe in a deity, but have not explicitly rejected such belief."

Let's ignore the dependent clauses for the sake of illustration.

Independent clause: Implicit weak/negative atheists would include people who do not believe in a deity."

Green = Subject of sentence; Purple = Object of the sentence

Correct phrasing: "Implicit weak/negative atheists (in blue on the left) would include people (such as young children and some agnostics) whom do not believe in a deity, but have not explicitly rejected such belief."

Similar example in literature: Race and the Politics of Solidarity, by Juliet Hooker: "But in communities that include people whom we think of as being "not like us" in some fundamental way, there obviously has to be some other basis of solidarity" Ephemerance (talk) 00:49, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

No. 'Whom we think of' is correct because we is the subject of the clause, whom the object. 'people who do not believe' is correct because 'people who' is subject of the clause. PepperBeast (talk) 01:43, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

And now, hopefully, this WP:LAME edit war will end. Thanks Pepper. Dbrodbeck (talk) 01:45, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Correct. Separate the sentence and it becomes clearer: "People whom believe" is incorrect, because "people" is the subject of the action. Glad we got that all sorted out... Ephemerance, thanks for the contribution, but in the future, when you make a change and it is reverted (even if it's reverted for a bad reason), it's probably best to go to the talk page and not revert back. Thanks.   — Jess· Δ♥ 01:55, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Incorrect. 'Who' would be correct if the sentence had been "People who do not believe in a diety are atheists" because "people" would be the subject. The sentence starts with "Implicit atheist (subject) include people (object) who (referral to object) [...]." Please read the material thoroughly. Ephemerance (talk) 02:02, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I did, and you are still wrong. Whom is never the subject of any verb, full stop PepperBeast (talk) 02:08, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Er.... surely the subject of the sentence is the first group, the "implicit weak/negative atheists"? The verb is "include" and the object being included is the second group. They (who) include them (whom). -- Scjessey (talk) 02:27, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Hmm, my understanding, whom is an indirect object of the verb and the subject. Equating two thing, as in "would include" is not an action that has an object, so who is still the subject of the clause, "who believe". It's been decades since I was instructed on such stuff. Isambard Kingdom (talk) 02:33, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Pepperbeast et al., please take time to look up whom versus who (here's an example link). Or, at the very least, look at the sentence breakdown I provided above. Who/whom is a pronoun. Who refers to the subject of the sentence. Whom refers to an object of the sentence. Very important: "Whom" is never the subject. It is impossible for "whom/who" to refer to a verb. I have no idea where you are pulling those points from. Who/Whom has nothing to do with verbs. Please look into the topic sincerely. Ephemerance (talk) 02:31, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Reorganizing the sentence often makes identification easier. "My friends include people who hike." => "People who hike are included in my friends." Clearly, "people whom hike" would be incorrect.   — Jess· Δ♥ 03:08, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Yeah, but... "My friends include people whom I like or love." => People whom I like or love are included in my friends. Does this seem wrong to you? -- Scjessey (talk) 03:28, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

But you added an additional pronoun to the end: "I". When reorganizing the sentence to find the subject/object, we can't add additional subjects or objects. In your example, I is the subject, people is the object, as in "I like people." In the original sentence, what fills the place of that "I"? Your "people whom I like" matches with "deities whom people believe." I, the subject, matches with people, the subject.   — Jess· Δ♥ 03:46, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Okay, I agree my example sucked. Nevertheless, I am still not convinced the subject and object of the sentence in question are not being confused. I can understand why Ephemerance is adamant the "people" are the object, since they are the objects being "included". Anyway, my head hurts and I'm going to retire for the evening! -- Scjessey (talk) 03:54, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm quite sure. Try a grammar check for "Atheists include people whom believe" (from [11]) Automatic grammar checkers are not great, and I'd expect the occasional bad result, but they pick this up in simple sentences.

Basically, "who do not believe" is a relative clause.

• This link gives an appropriate example: "Do you know the girl who is talking to Tom?"
• Here's another example: "Isn’t that the woman who lives across the road from you?"
• And another: "They should give the money to somebody who they think needs the treatment most."

Our relative clause modifies "people". The word "who" is an anaphor which refers back to its antecedent, "people". We can assess the relative clause like a sentence fragment, and substitute the antecedent for our anaphor: "People who believe in a deity" => "People believe in a deity" Yes, "people" is the object of "includes", but "who" is not. "Who" is an anaphor in a relative clause, and in that relative clause, "people" is the subject. It is absolutely "people who believe."

I hope that makes some sense.   — Jess· Δ♥ 04:44, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

It does, thank you. I definitely think this has been a worthwhile discussion, albeit an odd place to do it. -- Scjessey (talk) 13:21, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the meaningful contribution, Jess. My original position does seem to be incorrect based on the material you provided. Cheers.Ephemerance (talk) 02:03, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Metacognition and how it applies to the mixed feelings and defaults

Implicit weak/negative atheists (in blue on the left), from the perspective of disbelief as a default, would include people such as unopinionated children and skeptical agnostics whom do not believe in a deity but have not explicitly rejected such belief. However, modern cognitive science indicates that unopinionated children and ambivalent agnostics do not categorically lack or reject belief and therefore are not atheist.

Unless you are anti-science, it ought be recognized that ambivalence is neither a lack of belief nor a categorical rejection of a proposition. (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/doi/10.1111/comt.12050) An ambivalent person is not an atheist under this context. Some oversimplistic or outdated models of thought such as Tabula Rasa speak contrary to this which is why it is listed in the edit.

[1] From the article: "Psychological approaches to ambivalence implicitly treat ambivalence as an a priori given [...]" [2] From the article: "[A]mbivalence is conceptually and empirically distinct from many other attitude-related constructs such as attitude importance, elaboration, extremity, intensity, and the absence of attitude."

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Ephemerance (talk • contribs)

Since Tabula Rasa is not modern it is not relevant to the current literature, and the source says nothing about nurture being assumed, especially with regard to weak atheism. Furthermore, there is more than one definition of atheism such that with the broadest definition, one need not reject belief, but are simply not theists. Hence, the assertion that agnostics are also not atheists is much too strong in this context. And more importantly, the distinction is irrelevant with respect to the definitions of weak/strong and implicit/explicit atheism which is what is being described with the diagram. --Modocc (talk) 03:25, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Thank you. Now this is an actual discussion. (I've added green text to the proposed edit to adjust for the points you have brought up).

R1 "Tabula Rasa is not modern/relevant" Incorrect: any reference to a blank slate default is a form of tabula rasa (I have changed the phrasing to focus on "blank slate")

R2 "the source says nothing about nurture" Incorrect: passage [1] ambivalence is considered the default (a priori) by psychologists.

R3 "broadest definition, one need not reject belief" Incorrect: the atheism article as it reads currently states atheism in its broadest sense is a rejection of belief. Your criticism isn't consistent with the current article. Furthermore, from a lexicographical sense, many dictionaries including Microsoft Encarta define atheism as a "disbelief in God" and define disbelief in two contexts as 'a rejection/lack of belief or belief in the opposite.' When you bring it into terms of metacognition, this describes indifference (mutual low valence) or negative univalence. When we are applying a label onto someone and their mental content is unknown, it is appropriate to reserve judgement and refrain from labelling them (lest we make an argument from ignorance like an unevidenced blanket statement about the mental content of a mute or a young child).

R4 "the assertion that agnostics are also not atheists" That was never stated in the edit. _Ambivalent_ agnostics are not categorically atheist and they are not categorically theist (conversely, you could say they are both at the same time); ambivalent individuals do not a) lack belief (have low valence for belief in God) and do not b) have a univalent preference for the belief that God does not exist. You can be agnostic atheist, and you can be agnostic theist, but you can also be agnostic with mixed feelings about whether you are categorically theist or atheist (i.e. the mental content can't be neatly categorized). There are four states of mental attitude toward ideas; personal belief is not binary according to the science.

R5 " The distinction is irrelevant with respect to [...] what is being described with the diagram." The science disagrees. It is completely relevant. The venn diagram would still be appropriate if you were to draw someone's beliefs/ mental content as a circle overtop of the diagram (white would represent theism). A person's mental content can be very concentrated in one spot or overlapping multiple spots. The Venn diagram could use an update too. Ephemerance (talk) 05:02, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

You seem to be missing my points. Implicit atheism can exist without Tabula Rasa which is a philosophy that has little bearing on whether or not there is or isn't a God gene or a prior knowledge of God. Please read or reread this article's first paragraph with regards to the "absence of belief" definition. You wrote "... and therefore are not atheist." Which, I'll repeat, is a distinction that is true unless one defines atheism more broadly so that it includes all nonbelievers within the diagram. I'll add that "ambivalence" is pretty much ill-defined here for many people may or may not hold a complete lack of belief... ambivalence is well, just that.. --Modocc (talk) 05:25, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

This has nothing to do with a God gene or arguments for default knowledge. The tabula rasa comment is relevant but isn't necessary (I rephrased the section above). I brought up the blank slate because that is the typical argument for why children or 'ignostic' types would be considered implicit atheists; in the article I cited it's described as indifference or mutual low valence. Psychologists by default will consider someone ambivalent toward mental content (passage [1] from cited source). Please take the time to look up what ambivalence means. A young child or confused agnostic is considered to have an ambivalent state until otherwise demonstrated (ergo not an absence of belief). If atheism or theism is a measure of belief or mental content, atheism would be defined as apathy/indifference/low valence (weak implicit atheism) or the belief that God does not exist (strong explicit atheism). You can have someone that both believes God exists and believes God does not exist. Cognitive dissonance and ambivalence demonstrate that an individual can have contradictory beliefs in their mind at the same time (or interchangeably switching in the case of double think). George H. Smith's statement as quoted in the article is scientifically inaccurate unless we are redefining theism as a vocal affirmation of a belief in God (which it isn't defined as) as opposed to "belief that God exists".

"[An absence of belief in God] includes everyone within the diagram." Incorrect: your statement completely disregards everything in the cited article. Please look into ambivalence. My edits aren't going to be perfect, and that's the point of talking about it, but the article in its current state does throw science out the window. I hope everyone would agree that the science (at the very least) should be noted.

Like I said before, where you fit on the Venn diagram isn't going to be a single point in space, when we consider the random contradictory beliefs in your head, it will be a circle sitting on one or more areas of the Venn.

1) Are we disagreeing with how belief is being defined and considered? 2) Are you disagreeing with the science? 3) Are you disagreeing with the concept that "lack of belief" refers to low valence belief?

'"I'll add that "ambivalence" is pretty much ill-defined here for many people may or may not hold a complete lack of belief... ambivalence is well, just that.." There is an entire wiki page dedicated to ambivalence. The most basic concept of ambivalence is "mixed belief" or "contradictory beliefs held at the same time." It is in no way difficult to understand in basic terms nor is it ill-defined. Ambivalence is not a lack of belief - by definition.

Ephemerance (talk) 06:38, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Theists are, by definition, believers, so yes, I'm disagreeing with your uncited wp:synthesis of these sources. --Modocc (talk) 06:51, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Ambivalent individuals are simultaneously believers and disbelievers. If we're arguing synthesis, the article should say "Implicit weak/negative atheists (in blue on the left), according to George H. Smith, includes people [...]" Ephemerance (talk) 18:35, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I am not sure where all of this is going. The difference between ambivalence (holding opposing views at the same time) and a neutral attitude (holding no strong views at all) is often a subtle one (and one I have discussed in some details with colleagues when writing my scientific papers on ambivalence). In both cases the outcomes is that there is not strong position on one of the extremes and that is why for many purposes the difference does not seem very relevant here. So what problem is that we are actually solving here? Arnoutf (talk) 12:53, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback Arnoutf. According to the article I cited (which references many other relevant studies) there is a significant difference between ambivalence and a lack of attitude. One example is that a truly skeptical person (lack of attitude/low valence) will likely have a consistent lack of trust toward either concept (God exists v. God does not exist), while someone with an ambivalent attitude may flip erratically back and forth depending on external stimuli (depending on the type of ambivalence). From a linguistic sense, there is a lot of utility to be had by encouraging descriptive distinctions between the four mental attitudes (mutual low valence, +/- univalence, and ambivalence). I'm not sure what studies you are bringing to the table, but feel free to share. Words are supposed to instruct a useful interpretation of things in world. If we defining atheism as "not having a positive univalent attitude toward the idea that God exists," We are not only completely disregarding work done by professional lexicographers (the definitions which roundly describe how people are using the term) but needlessly discarding important distinctions that help us accurately categorize mental states.

This wiki article defines atheism as 1) "lack of belief," 2) skepticism / "rejection of belief," and 3) believing no Gods exist. An ambivalent person never fits the first two definitions, and in some types of ambivalence you could qualify them an atheist under the third definition - but then they would be theist under the definition of theism too making that ambivalent person a theist-atheist. Seemingly nonsensical? Yes, because the old definitions aren't up to speed with the science. If we suppose that 3) implies negative univalence, that ambivalent person does not fall under that definition either.

There is a different type of ambivalent individual that is ambivalent as to whether their beliefs qualify as a type of God belief. Someone who believes in "the Force" might be confused as to whether they want to qualify the Force as a God ("the will of the Force" etc), and this person can not be readily categorized into atheist or theist because of the reservation in judgment to qualify whether their belief definitely constitutes a God or not. A epistemological pluralist in this sense may even be satisfied in saying that God is a term that can freely apply or not apply.

A third type of ambivalent would be the 1984 style "double think" where a person moment by moment might change their position based on the influence of external stimuli. Describing ambivalent atttitudes is a very indepth topic but it returns to the basics that when someone says they "don't know" how they feel, it isn't accurate to simply brush it off into the category of "not theism." Ephemerance (talk) 18:35, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I agree there are basically 4 four mental attitudes: mutual low valence (which is basically a neutral attitude), +/- univalence, and ambivalence. I don't think there is any discussion about the univalent ones (either strong atheist or strong deist)

The introduction of multiple types of ambivalence is less straightforward though. What I do know is that potential ambivalence (having information about both alternatives in mind) is not the same as felt ambivalence (I have to give an opinion, but I am in 2 minds). The latter feels annoying and will either be resolved definitively (cognitive dissonance resolution - and the attitude will not longer be ambivalent in the future) or may lead to seemingly erratically flipping of attitude (I would say it may be the flipping of expressed attitude, not necessarily of the mental construct).

To come back to the atheism issue. Someone who has thought about the existence of God and, after weighing all evidence, cannot arrive at a conclusion can reasonably be labelled ambiguous. But this, in fact, also the philosophical definition of an agnostic; so no need to bring up the whole ambivalence issue.

So back to my original question. What is exactly the proposal here? To add a reference to ambivalence to the article - This does not seem very necessary and raises complications as indeed "ambivalent atttitudes is a very indepth topic" so we need sources that explicitly link this.; and as I said above, this is probably not necessary. Or is the proposal to remove the term ambivalence (but since I could not find it, that cannot be it). Arnoutf (talk) 21:24, 2 January 2016 (UTC)

I think I would happily compromise for now by rephrasing the section to say "Implicit weak/negative atheists (in blue on the left), according to George H. Smith, includes people [...]" to qualify the diagram and explanation as George H. Smith's interpretation instead of implying it to be an objective truth or definite interpretation.

I don't feel it is scientific, in lieu of evidence, to label or categorize infants and people that respond with "I don't know." It is improper (or fundamentally, an argument from ignorance) to state that someone that lacks a vocal confirmation of a belief in God is not a theist. Did wolf-boy believe in God? Was wolf-boy an atheist? These seem to be meaningless questions that don't have meaningful answers (until you can gain neurological evidence one way or another).

"I would say it may be the flipping of expressed attitude, not necessarily of the mental construct" I disagree, you can have a form of epistemological pluralism where there is a stable mental construct that 'swings both ways' for lack of a better term. When the attitude is unstable, the cited article describes how expressed attitudes are taken from smaller snippets of someone's overall mentality, which would suggest that the mental construct itself is ambivalent if the expressed attitude frequently alternates.

"Someone who has thought about the existence of God and, after weighing all evidence, cannot arrive at a conclusion can reasonably be labelled ambiguous. But this, in fact, also the philosophical definition of an agnostic" I think we're on the same page here. Do you say 'ambiguous' to refer to 'not having a definite label of atheist or theist?' If that is the case, I would like to see that incorporated into the wiki article. That would mean someone like a child or self-proclaimed agnostic (that claims "I don't know what I am") is ambiguous and not necessarily categorized as implicit atheist.

"we need sources that explicitly link this" This is true insofar as most pertinent articles don't specifically say "atheism," but they do refer to attitudes/beliefs relative to generic 'attitude objects' which includes concepts such as atheism or theism. A publication can be hunted down to bridge some of the language (e.g. "lack of belief" to "low valence") but for now I hope it is agreeable to include the "according to George H. Smith" segment instead. Ephemerance (talk) 01:20, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

It's not relevant whether categorizing infants is scientific. Infants were categorized as implicit atheists by people doing philosophy, not science, and we're writing about a philosophy topic. I think the best way to have this article incorporate mental states that don't fit neatly into philosophers' orderly pigeonholes would be to hunt down philosophy publications discussing them.

Qualifiers like "according to this or that philosopher" seem an unobjectionable way for Wikipedia to avoid taking a position on philosophical matters, though an "according to" list for this usage of "implicit atheist" could get considerably longer than merely George H. Smith. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 03:45, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Röbin Liönheart In my view the difference between science and philosophy should not be overstated. In fact, physics started out as "natural philosophy" and to date philosophy is considered the mother of all sciences. I do, however agree that the cited sources are philosophers and that may be part of the problem.

Ephemerance Ambivalence and attitudes are predominantly studied within social cognition and is a highly technical topic in that field. I have seen some philosophers (and other scientists) using these terms, but in general they merely scratch the surface of the complexities, and even worse, they tend to cherry-pick the interpretation that suits their argument best. In my view this is a case where the cobbler should stick with his last. We have perfectly fine philosophical jargon for someone with mixed opinions about belief in God and it is agnosticism. If we want to expand this into the psychological domain, we need references from ranking psychological journals. In more detail to your comments. [unsigned from Arnoutf]

"If we want to expand this into the psychological domain, we need references from ranking psychological journals. In more detail to your comments." Arnoutf, that is absolutely a reasonable request and with some searching hopefully a new citation to bridge some of the language will pop up. Ephemerance (talk) 22:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

"I would say it may be the flipping of expressed attitude, not necessarily of the mental construct"' I disagree, you can have a form of epistemological pluralism where there is a stable mental construct that 'swings both ways' for lack of a better term. When the attitude is unstable, the cited article describes how expressed attitudes are taken from smaller snippets of someone's overall mentality, which would suggest that the mental construct itself is ambivalent if the expressed attitude frequently alternates." - This follow a definition of attitude as a construct that consists of snippets of information that can be combined depending on situation. While this is consistent with the ideas of Norbert Schwartz, and similar consequences may to some extent stem from the attitude formation part of the MODE model by Russell Fazio, or the metacognitive model of Petty and colleagues. Other theories and do however pose that there may be multiple attitudes and that the context determines which attitude will be expressed (e.g. Gawronski and others). This is indeed the activation of a different mental construct; but than we are not talking about ambivalence, since only a single, valenced attitude is active. And this is, again, just scrating at the surface of the complexities. [unsigned from Arnoutf]

"not talking about ambivalence, since only a single, valenced attitude is active." If we measure the expressed attitude moment by moment, what you say is very true. On the long term or without external stimuli present, I would think we could still call that ambivalence. But it's true, we're getting into nitpicking complexities at that point that aren't entirely relevant to the proposed change in the atheism article.Ephemerance (talk) 22:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

"Someone who has thought about the existence of God and, after weighing all evidence, cannot arrive at a conclusion can reasonably be labelled ambiguous. But this, in fact, also the philosophical definition of an agnostic"' I think we're on the same page here. Do you say 'ambiguous' to refer to 'not having a definite label of atheist or theist?' If that is the case, I would like to see that incorporated into the wiki article. That would mean someone like a child or self-proclaimed agnostic (that claims "I don't know what I am") is ambiguous and not necessarily categorized as implicit atheist." It is ambiguous whether a "do not know" claim comes from a well thought through ambivalent attitude, or a weak neutral position. Now the question becomes what the status quo position is. If the status quo is that there is no God, than I would agree with you that allowing the possibility that there is no God, is no deviation from status quo, and hence no position (implicit or explicit). However, if the status quo is that there is a God, merely allowing the option there might not be a God is already a deviation from the status quo Deistic position and can, therefore, arguably be labelled as implicit atheism. [unsigned from Arnoutf]

Belief tends to be more about feeling than language based thought (belief's etymology comes from "trust"). As an external viewer trying to categorize someone as 'weak atheist' or 'ambivalent' based from an "I don't know" response, it isn't reasonable to categorize them either way without evidence. It is an argument from ignorance to categorize them one way or the other without evidence. You can have a philosophy that presumes a default of yes or no instead of reserving judgment, but each philosophy should be traced back to a proponent and noted (perhaps implicitly) that it isn't objectively true. It doesn't matter whether the status quo of the day says X, Y, or Z. We aren't talking about whether God exists, we're talking about the mental attitude surrounding the question of God's existence. What matters is that the wiki ought give an objective description of the topic and tip the hat when something is subjective or personally opined (as is the case with claiming that "childhood implicit atheism is true." If you're talking about status quo in terms of what we consider the default state of belief, the same guideline applies I would think. Ephemerance (talk) 22:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

"we need sources that explicitly link this" This is true insofar as most pertinent articles don't specifically say "atheism," but they do refer to attitudes/beliefs relative to generic 'attitude objects' which includes concepts such as atheism or theism. A publication can be hunted down to bridge some of the language (e.g. "lack of belief" to "low valence") but for now I hope it is agreeable to include the "according to George H. Smith" segment instead. This is exactly where we run into the with my argument above. George H. Smith has been most influential in the US-1970's context. Both a country and a era in which the default position that there is a God was dominant. But is that still today, and at a global scale, the default? If yes, than the source may work, if no (and I am fairly certain that is not the case) than probably not. Arnoutf (talk) 08:52, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

I think the fact that there is a shift in the popularity of the default view over time is important to note. In order to produce an objective description of implicit atheism, it is important to specify that: "this is true from perspective X; that is true from perspective Y" And to not ignore the fact that "childhood implicit atheism" is not objectively true. Even if we aren't at the point of citing a paper or document that specifically states the opposite science/perspective yet, it would still be scholarly and proper to note "as suggested by George H. Smith" (it fits in with the main body of the wiki article anyway). Ephemerance (talk) 22:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

"It's not relevant whether categorizing infants is scientific." Thank you for adding your thoughts to the conversation, Röbin Liönheart. I think to maintain an objective representation of atheism, it is relevant to note that young children and ambivalent agnostics are not necessarily implicit atheists as the wiki article suggests. There is the well written scientific paper, that I cited, to suggest this alternative view (albeit not explicitly mentioning 'atheism'). I'm not saying we should write the article to say that youth are 'definitely not' implicit atheists but I think it is relevant and objective to note that it is a contended point and the counterpoint can be substantiated by the science of today.

"Infants were categorized as implicit atheists by people doing philosophy, not science, and we're writing about a philosophy topic." Ernestine Rose from 1861 said, “It is an interesting and demonstrable fact, that all children are Atheists, and were religion not inculcated into their minds they would remain so.” This suggests childhood implicit atheism is a scientific (testable) fact rather than a philosophy (unverifiable conjecture). Much of the conjecture for childhood implicit atheism is treated as scientific fact when it isn't. Even as a philosophy, there are disagreements (which is why it's important to specify that an espoused perspective is from 'person a' or 'document x' etc. and not objectively true). When I think of the topic of atheism, I think of the lexicographic value of the word and how people predominantly use and apply the word. While it's true that there is a significant group of people that use the word to apply to children, there are other significant groups that don't (e.g. some Christians and some users of the three category "theist-agnostic-atheist" as seen in Richard Dawkins' God Delusion).

"[It's unobjectionable but the] list for this usage of "implicit atheist" could get considerably longer than merely George H. Smith." It is very true that the list could be lengthy, but the reason I would suggest "according to George H. Smith" is because it is mentioned in the main passage about implicit v. explicit atheism and the diagram plus side description seems to be expanding on that point. I'm not sure if this feels more fitting but "according to authors such as George H. Smith" could be a better choice? Ephemerance (talk) 22:17, 3 January 2016 (UTC)

Since Dawkins characterizes himself both as an atheist and a Temporary Agnostic in Practice, The God Delusion does not seem like an example of "three category 'theist-agnostic-atheist'". ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 13:13, 4 January 2016 (UTC)

Unless if I'm forgetting something about the God Delusion in particular (granted, it has been 10 years since I read it) Dawkins did break down the argument into three different camps (theist, atheist, & agnostic). Even if this were not the case, there are a broad number of people that do use the terms in that way; it wouldn't take much effort to find a wiki-valid citation to satisfy that. From a descriptive sense of the language usage, there is a discrepancy between how people are applying the terms (irrespective of the original, coined meaning of the words). I will make a new section in Talk for the sole consideration of the "according to authors such as George H. Smith" addition without most of what is discussed above (without the cognitive science aspect, etc.). Ephemerance (talk) 02:02, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Much of the preceding appears to be Original Research. The Song and Ewoldsen article may or may not be applicable to atheism (it's about political ambivalence, not theological ambivalence), but it's certainly not notable in the context of atheism. According to the Wiley page, the article has not been cited by anybody since publication. Google Scholar has it cited by two publications, one by Song. It may or may not be correct to think that ambivalence cannot be captured by any of the widely held conceptualisations of atheism, but the point for wikipedia is not whether it is correct, but whether reliable sources have said that it is correct. Which they haven't. It is also worth noting that Song & Ewoldsen themselves acknowledge that, "a coherent theoretical understanding, explaining various ambivalence phenomena, has yet to be established". So it is unclear, from the literature - or from this one apparently non-notable article - how we are to understand theological/religious ambivalence. The whole point of the article is to propose a model to fill a putative gap in the literature. I note that the article focuses on psychology and social science, but it seems to me that there is a difference between the philosophical conceptualisation of atheism, and the psychology of atheism, which again makes it unclear how ambivalence maps onto the existing definitions.

Ephemerance, you tell us above that "ambivalence is considered the default (a priori) by psychologists.", but that is not what the article says. You quote: "Psychological approaches to ambivalence implicitly treat ambivalence as an a priori given.." You seem to interpret this as meaning that ambivalence is the default or state of nature position. But that isn't what that passage means. "A priori" just means "theoretical" as opposed to "empirical" and "given" just means that it is accepted as it is stated. All Song and Ewoldsen mean is that psychologists have not been much interested in where ambivalence comes from, they've just accepted that it's there without digging any further.

You also make some observations about what it is "appropriate" to do with regard to applying labels. This is your opinion, of course, but sadly your opinion is not relevant - what is important is what the literature says, regardless of whether we consider it "appropriate or not".

You say "There are four states of mental attitude toward ideas; personal belief is not binary according to the science". This is original research or synthesis - or something, whatever. You're applying theories found in one area of science to concepts found in philosophy and theology. I mean: you're doing this, not anybody in any published reliable source. What does the literature on atheism say, that's what we're interested in here. The literature of atheism may be entirely inadequate or insufficiently grounded in "science", but that's not our fault. It's not wikipedia's job to improve the philosophical conceptualisation of atheism, but to tell people what it is.

You say, "Psychologists by default will consider someone ambivalent toward mental content (passage [1] from cited source). Please take the time to look up what ambivalence means. A young child or confused agnostic is considered to have an ambivalent state until otherwise demonstrated." Incorrect. Song and Ewoldsen's article is explicitly about how ambivalence is produced, and does not anywhere say that ambivalence is to be considered the default in this sense. Psychology does not hold, like Schroedinger's cat, that ambivalence prevails at least until belief is tested. Song and Ewoldsen distinguish clearly between ambivalence and uncertainty, by the way.

You say, "the old definitions aren't up to speed with the science." Perhaps. Perhaps not. But so what? It's not wikipedia's job to update the "old" definitions. It's the job of somebody in the literature to do that, and get noticed, so that we can cite it here if appropriate. Otherwise we're just debating our own opinions, and that is not what wikipedia is for.

--Dannyno (talk) 09:27, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

References

Edit Proposal for Definitions and Distinctions Section

"Implicit weak/negative atheists (in blue on the left), according to authors such as George H. Smith, would include people (such as young children and some agnostics) who do not believe in a deity, but have not explicitly rejected such belief."

Hopefully this can progress in baby-steps without stepping on anyone's toes.

What is the edit? The idea that 'children and some agnostics are implicit atheists' is an opinion of George H. Smith and the like (there is also a lack of consensus that the statement is true). Why the edit? The current section presents a synthesis conflict; "children are atheists" is not true by definition therefore it is important to cite/reference a source of the idea. What's the drawback? Slightly more wording. What are the benefits? None of the content will be changed (nothing will explicitly suggest that the statement is false) but the phrasing will be more objective and neutral. The edit is unobtrusive and does not break the flow of the sentence. The side description (where the proposed edit is) will refer back to the main article body's paragraph on George H. Smith. The synthesis problem will be resolved.

I will wait about a week for feedback to give a fair period of time to gain consensus (or discuss objections and compromises leading to consensus). After that time, if there are no ongoing objections (successful consensus), I will introduce the edit to the main article.

Thank you for your time. Please 'chip in' if you feel the edit is unacceptable. Ephemerance (talk) 02:02, 11 January 2016 (UTC)

Where did you get the idea that the definition of 'atheist' excludes children? How do you account for children like Damon Fowler, whose parents kicked him out of the house and threw all his belongings on the porch over his atheism?

I'm guessing your objection is actually to the implicit atheism of infants? The idea that infants are atheists has been around for centuries:

• Paul-Henri Thiry baron d'Holbach (1772). "§30". Good Sense without God: Or Freethoughts Opposed to Supernatural Ideas. London: W. Stewart. "All children are born Atheists; they have no idea of God. Are they then criminal on account of their ignorance?"
• Bradlaugh, Charles (1874). "A Plea for Atheism". A few words about the devil: and other biographical sketches and essays. New York: A. K. Butts. p. 28. "Every child is born into the world an Atheist; and if he grows into a Theist, his Deity differs with the country in which the believer may happen to be born, or the people amongst whom he may happen to be educated."
• Eller, David (2004). Natural Atheism. Parsippany: American Atheist Press. ISBN 978-1578849208. LCCN 2004005574. LCC BL2747.3.E55 2004. "I was born an Atheist. All humans are born Atheists. No baby born into the world arrives with specific religious beliefs or knowledge. Such beliefs and knowledge must be acquired, ..."

The atheism of infants is a lot less interesting to talk about than conscious rejection, but the idea certainly isn't specific to George Smith. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 00:07, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

1) The edit is not specific to Smith. 2) This edit has nothing to do with personal objections. 3) This edit does not explicitly challenge the childhood atheism statement.

The purpose of this edit is to link the concept to a source (i.e. "authors," including Smith). Just because authors x, y, &z treat implicit childhood atheism as a fact does not make it a fact (hence the synthesis issue). This is more or less a type of citation issue.

To find the opposite opinion from academics, we can look at APA articles: http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/12/believe.aspx ; Cambridge University lectures: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ltB0WOVE444 ; the God gene wiki page; etc. Who is correct? It doesn't matter. To have better neutrality and objective journalism in the article, a citation or attribution for the statement is a good move. Ephemerance (talk) 04:36, 13 January 2016 (UTC)

Seems to me you're not talking about a question of "fact" nor a matter of "opinion", but a matter of word usage. Some writers use a broad meaning of 'atheist', other writers use a more narrow one. As we say in our lede, atheism has more than one sense. ~ Röbin Liönheart (talk) 00:30, 15 January 2016 (UTC)

Proposed move: Genesis creation narrative-->Genesis creation myth

For those who are interested, there is a proposal to move Genesis creation narrative to Genesis creation myth. See Talk:Genesis_creation_narrative#Requested_move_22_January_2016. Keahapana (talk) 22:05, 22 January 2016 (UTC)

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Where Are The Contemporary Atheist Philosophers?

Surely this article should showcase the most prominent philosophical thinkers of our time who specialize in the subject? There are only four mentions of "Dennett" (none of which detail his views) and I didn't find any mentions of Richard Carrier. I'm not sure who else should be included, those are just the top two that I know about. BrianPansky (talk) 21:37, 12 January 2016 (UTC)

But Richard Carrier is not really a prominent philosopher, let alone of atheism, and Dennett has not written any books or journal articles about the existence of God (as distinct from the origins of religion) that I'm aware of. I wouldn't say Dennett was a prominent atheist philosopher either, as opposed to a prominent philosopher who is an atheist. --Dannyno (talk) 07:36, 19 January 2016 (UTC)

If Dennet has published about the origins of religion, that fits perfectly in the section titled "Reductionary accounts of religion". BrianPansky (talk) 20:56, 25 January 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure "Breaking the Spell" fits into the "reductionary" category, particularly, although it does discuss naturalistic explanations of religion. Even if it is characterisable as "reductionary", it's not particularly significant in that company, in my opinion. How influential has it been? --Dannyno (talk) 08:00, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

A majority of philosophers of religion (those who have extensively studied the issue of the existence of God) are theists (72 percent).[12] The last prominent philosopher in this area on the atheist side of the aisle was the late Michael Martin (philosopher).

Michael Martin said there was a general absence of an atheistic response to current work in the philosophy of religion and he quipped that it was his "cross to bear" to respond to theistic arguments (Open Questions: Diverse Thinkers Discuss God, Religion, and Faith by Luís F. Rodrigues, page 201).

Martin did a 11th hour cancellation of his debate with the Christian philosopher Dr. Greg Bahnsen after the atheist Gordon Stein badly lost a debate to Martin.

The past 15 years the spotlight has been on atheist authors like Dawkins and Hitchens. Atheist philosophy, as Martin conceded, is pretty inactive. Knox490 (talk) 21:19, 15 April 2016 (UTC)

"Advocate for"

Merriam-Webster defines "to advocate ..." as "to support, or argue for ..." which makes "to advocate for .. human reason" a solipsism. It would be equivalent to "to argue for for ... human reason" or "To support for .. human reason" It grates upon my, possibly pedantic, linguistic sensitivities. But I love Wikipedia, and prefer to think it perfect.
DaveyHume (talk) 20:43, 9 June 2016 (UTC)

It would more closely reflect the cited source if you changed the end of that sentence to read: witnessed the first major political movement in history founded on the superiority of human reason. Xenophrenic (talk) 20:56, 9 June 2016 (UTC)