When I think about language and linguistics, I often do it through the lens of logic and so I sometimes apply these terms to language. This might not be the ‘normal’ way we use the terminology, but I find it a useful way to discuss the language being used. Language is the way we try…
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Atheism is a word that has quite a rich history going all the way back to ancient Greece and the definition of atheism has changed quite a lot throughout the years. There’s also quite a contentious view pushed by some people who identify as atheists that there is only one definition of atheism. This is…
I’m an atheist, I believe gods do not exist, though atheism is polysemous so not all atheists use it that way and I want to address a term some atheists use known as agnostic atheism. This article is the written form of the video, so, if you prefer to watch, please check the below: Agnostic…
Introduction You are presented with a jar full of gumballs. There are no broken gumballs inside the jar, they are all whole gumballs. Most sceptics and atheists will have heard the Gumball Analogy already. It’s a pretty common analogy used by sceptics and atheists who have discussions on places like Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. Fans…
Confusion is rife on the internet, especially on places like Twitter where people seem more interested in “beating” the last tweet in a discussion than maintaining a coherent thought process. Many of us atheists might think these contradictions might be limited to god claims, holy books, and fundamentalists but that is far from the case….
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The null hypothesis is used in science, and we atheists tend to have a lot of respect for science, the scientific method, scientific and empirical evidence. We think of ourselves as logical and rational people. We feel we know a lot about the topics we discuss, especially when it comes to science. In conversations with…
Read More “Misunderstanding The Null Hypothesis and Knowledge.” »
Introduction The collective moans of all those reading the title of this article can be heard. I wouldn’t blame you for moaning either. After all, who needs another article arguing for what the definition of atheism is? And I would agree with that! There are plenty of arguments out there about what the ‘true’ definition…
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I’ve written many articles about atheism, atheists, theists, gods, logic, rationality, ethics and morality etc. but as this is my 100th published post on Answers in Reason I wanted to do a special post. I wanted to give you an insight into my past and what lead me to my present, as well as how…
The repetitious nature of folks trying to prescribe a singular definition of atheism, and claiming that other definitions are, “talking about something else” or are “wrong”, seems to never die. What’s worse, these folks who take you saying that there are actually multiple uses of atheism claim that YOU are the one being prescriptive and…
On my walk today, I was considering a number of conversations I’ve had recently with folks arguing for default states and atheist rocks and some of the things I’ve said in response. IST and ISM One of the key points I brought up is an IST is a follower of an ISM, which is why…
It’s common to hear folks say things like “there is no atheist community” and “saying atheist community is like saying non-stamp collector community, I don’t see one” and on the surface this is understandable, you generally don’t see a community of non-stamp collectors or non-believers in Bigfoot, but can we say the same for atheists?…
Begging the question is a fallacy in which the premises of an argument assume the truth of the conclusion instead of supporting it. You may have also heard of this being called circular reasoning. The phrase begging the question originated in the 16th century as a mistranslation of the Latin petitio principii, which in turn…
There are some people that like to claim the lack of belief, or absence of belief, definition of atheism is the most common one. I contest that, whilst it is common on social media due to political parties like the American Atheists and American YouTube shows like The Atheist Experience, it isn’t that common outside…
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It’s come to my attention in the last year or so, that many are conflating the classical/philosophical definition of atheism with antitheism (sometimes spelt anti-theism). Regardless of your preferred use of atheism and atheist, over the centuries and still today atheism is the belief/proposition/claim there are no gods, with the atheist accepting (believing) this is…
One of the common objections I hear from both theists and atheists about the distinction of the various ontological positions held by non-theists is that they all live as atheists, so they may as well be regarded as one anyway. In fact, when I was writing Etymology vs Use/Definition: Atheism there were some that used…
Etymology is the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history. The etymology of a word is not exactly the same as the use or definition. Consider how a direct translation of a phrase from French to English might not always make sense, but we would…
