

Are we Really Born Atheists?
We atheists have a number of things in our toolbelts, and one of those is memes.
Many of these memes are oversimplifications or just flat out wrong, so I thought I would create a series to address some of our worst memes and explain why they are so bad.
Something that shows a lack of epistemological understanding is the claim we are all born atheists.
An atheist is one who ascribes to atheism.
Atheism is polysemous, which means it has many definitions.
With the way language works there is no “wrong” definition, except for specific context (think of the use of theory in science vs the colloquial), but there are more logical or useful definitions than others. This podcast examines the most common ones used to see how the claim that “we are all born atheists” holds up to scrutiny.
Article Mentioned in the Podcast: Are we Born Atheist?
“We Are All Born Atheist!” – SciPhi Shortz: BAM! – The Video
- 00:00 – Intro
- 00:49 – Bad Atheism Memes PPT Starts
- 00:57 – Hello and Welcome
- 01:13 – We are all Born Atheists
- 01:55 – What is an Atheist?
- 02:25 – Definitions of Atheism
- 02:53 – The Proposition Gods Do Not Exist
- 03:15 – Not Believing in Gods
- 03:57 – Lacking Belief in Gods
- 04:51 – Not Being a Theist
- 05:29 – Utility
- 06:06 – Summary
- 06:35 – Closing Thoughts
Posts About Atheism
- Rockin’ Atheism Part 3: Atheism in Greek Antiquity
- Rockin’ Atheism Pt 2: Defining Atheism
- Etymology vs Use/Definition: Atheism
- The Problem With ‘Atheism is the Default Position’ Arguments
- The Null Hypothesis: How it Relates to Atheism and God – SciPhi Shortz
- “Atheism is a Conclusion, Not a Belief” – SciPhi Shortz: BAM!
- Agnostic Atheism
- Is The ‘lack of belief’ Definition of Atheism The Most Common One Used?
- New Atheism and New Atheists w/ Ozymandias Ramses II [Video]
- New Atheism and New Atheists w/ Ozymandias Ramses II [Podcast]
- “If atheism is true…”
- Atheists, Atheism, and Ambiguity
- In response to Ra’s ‘What is Atheism?’
- Pitfalls of ‘New Atheism’
- Has Atheism Become an Ideology?
- Theism, Atheism, Agnosticism
- Do we Atheists have a Burden of Proof?
- Are we Born Atheist?
- Ontology and the things we lack… (lacktheism or rocktheism?)
- Philosophy in The Atheist Community – SciPhi
- Do Non-Theists Live as Atheists?
- Atheism | Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy
- Atheism and Agnosticism (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)
- Defining Atheism and the Burden of Proof (Acedemia.edu)
- Normatively Atheist
- On the definition of atheism (By Philip Müller)
- Rockin’ Atheism Pt. 1: The Wrongness of Aron Ra
If you have any questions, want us to go into more detail about something, corrections, critique etc. feel free to leave us a message either under the article/video/podcast on the site, on YouTube, or feel free to DM us on one of our social media accounts.
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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtOUOfJi7vrNuuLRMzGlJAvY6yiJChPub
SciPhi Shortz!
We’ve just started a new project called SciPhi Shortz! Essentially 5-15 minute videos going over the basics of a topic in a way that might be more digestible to people that would like to watch the streams, but don’t have 2 hours, so they can dip in and out to the bits that interest them!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtOUOfJi7vrPDpxlWWC8iDv8y4jVZHWwM
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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtOUOfJi7vrPP0x9DjFU2Jpr27m1TftKn
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For the full experience, we suggest the website: https://www.answers-in-reason.com/series/fresh-air/ as we provide a number of links to various resources discussed in the article, however, can be seen on a number of podcast outlets such as: iTunes | Stitcher | Google Play | Spotify | Podplayer – and we are not limited to these either, just search for Answers in Reason or Fresh AiR in your favourite podcast syndication.
Fresh AiR Videos!
Whilst the SciPhi show is quick live videos discussing relevant and current topics, with Season 3 we tried a few different things with Fresh AiR, inclusive of videos taking people through concepts.
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https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtOUOfJi7vrMESjrmr2tZzHyGF_Jjutit
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