- NEW!
by iwnit on February 10th, 2010
1) There is no name for this position. Do we really need a name for everything?
I think that such people exist. But they could have this position for multiple reasons:
- being naive: they find the existence of God evident. They just cannot imagine that someone does not believe in God,
- refusal: even if they hear of the existence of atheists, they cannot accept that those people are really atheists, because it does not pass inside their conception of the world. So they just deny the existence of real atheists,
- being a liar: they are just pretending that they do not believe in the existence of atheists. Actually, they know pretty well that they exist, but they misrepresent their position,
- appeal to ridicule: they try to demonstrate that it is ridiculous to maintain atheism. They usually don't see the ridicule of their own position.
Of course, you could call them naive, or idiots, or ridiculous, or liars, or apologists, according to the case. Or you could invent a word, like a-atheists, but does this make sense? There is not a specific word for people who don't believe in polytheism for instance (this would be monotheists and atheists). Or for people who do not believe in the invisible pink unicorn.
2) "When David Hume, an 18th century British empiricist, paid a visit to Baron d’Holbach’s (the first self-proclaimed atheist in Europe, with his book The System of Nature) famous salon in Paris in 1762, where the most prestigious gatherings of the time were held with mind-bogglingly esteemed guests like, say, pretty much every contributor of the Encyclopédie which was a significant precursor to the Revolution, he reportedly (reported by Diderot, no less) told d’Holbach that he did not believe in the existence of atheists and had never seen one with his own eyes before (to which d’Holbach replied: “Well, here you see 18 of them at one glance, although to be sure, 3 of them didn’t quite make up their minds”). That denial of their ontological status must have caught the diners off guard (I can dimly see the ‘Are we sure this is the Hume?’ expression on their faces) but indeed the first out-and-out atheist work in Britain, presumed to belong to a Matthew Turner, was published some 20 years after that encounter at the salon and was destined to be a low profile one at that, so there is a good chance that Hume was sincere, if not prudent and seemly, in his observation. This anecdote has also an ironic ring to it because Hume himself came pretty close to being an atheist by professing, mainly via his characters in his dialogues, a vigorous scepticism towards Christianity and assaulted a head on criticism to its many aspects like problem with miracles and flaws in argument from design."
Source and further information:
http://nodrylight.wordpress.com/2009/01/02/change-you-better-believe-in/
3) "Texas's own Madalyn Murray O'Hare is still missing, and rumors continue to circulate that she is in failing health and has gone into hiding to prevent Christians from praying for her. Do you have to know where someone is in order to pray for them? Is she hiding from God? If she really is an atheist and thinks praying is a waste of breath, why should she care that her mortal enemies are wasting their breath? If this sort of irrational, superstitious behavior keeps up, I shall have no other choice than to declare that I no longer believe in the existence of atheists."
Source and further information:
http://www.ntskeptics.org/1996/1996may/may1996.htm
4) "I'd have to trust that someone who claims to be an atheist truly feels that way, and lives their life that way- I don't think it's wise to assume that all people who claim to be atheist are just wishing there wasn't a God. If you do believe in God and study the bible you must come across passages that say something like .. beware of non-believers?"
"The idea that atheists don't "exist" because those who claim to be atheist simply don't want God to exist is really a very weak argument. It can be turned around just as easily to question whether true believers "exist" only because they want a God to exist."
"Personally, I do believe a God exists, but I have come to that conclusion based on a logical explanation that makes sense to me. I do not believe in many of the rituals of religion, but I do believe there was some higher force that created all of this for one reason or another.
But, again it is driven by what makes sense to one. Everyone does not have that same feeling of a connection between your conscious and a God. As for your thought experiment on atheists calling out to God- let me turn that around to ask you how many people also lose faith in God during crisis."
Source and further information:
http://www.politicalfray.com/showthread.php?t=1082
5) "Frank does not make clear why Dostoevsky felt guilty only about his hatred of Jews, and not about his hatred of French, Germans and Poles. I would explain this difference by the fact that he admired the Jews for the same reason that he hated them: unlike the degenerate Europeans, the [Jews] were not atheists. In his essay on "The Jewish Question" Dostoevsky wrote: "It is impossible to conceive a Jew without God. I do not believe in the existence of atheists even among educated Jews." And he added: the fact that the Jewish people have existed "in such a close and indestructible unity for forty centuries, virtually the entire historical period of mankind" (proves that they are) "a people of such vitality, of such unusual strength and energy that they are without precedent among nations.""
Source and further information:
http://www.utoronto.ca/tsq/DS/03/193.shtml
6) Further information:
that just blew my mind that somebody could not believe in the Lord
I wrote a book called God Doesn't Believe in Atheists: Proof the Atheist Doesn't Exist.
Atheists Don’t Exist
Do you believe in the existence of atheists?
by FevoIsGod on February 9th, 2010
delusional:a fixed false belief that is resistant to reason or confrontation with actual fact
by anonymous on February 10th, 2010
Christian.
by anonymous on February 10th, 2010
Christian.
by 0 on February 10th, 2010
Someone who believe in religion = Theist
Someone who doesn't believe in religion = A-theist
Someone who doesn't believe in the existence of atheist = A-atheist
or perhaps more closer to the truth: an ICMAS (ignorant, close-minded, arrogant someone).
by Marky Mark on February 10th, 2010
An "Atheist-Denialist"?
by Gingerminx on February 9th, 2010
Blind?
by thatsJustme on February 9th, 2010
aliens from another planet?
by Moongrim on February 10th, 2010
A-realist.
by robertini on February 10th, 2010
Silly Willy?
by Prunesquallor on February 10th, 2010
An aatheist
by canbfrisky on February 10th, 2010
Maybe an agnostic?
by anonymous on February 10th, 2010
fool in denial. or you could make it into some religious belief for the idiot. foolindenialistic? or more commonly known as. Come on children we all know the word. dumb fucks. good you get a blue star sticker.
by SIR_Anony is now SIR_Anthony on February 9th, 2010
A person such as I. You can say there is no God but I know better and those that insist there isn't are just lying to themselves.
by JakobA I^_^I the alooney on March 5th, 2010
I guess that would be aatheists :-))
But I rather do not believe there are any such people, that makes me an aaatheist,
As well as an atheist.
by Bloed... on stand-by on February 10th, 2010
An idiot.
Or at least someone who is totally unaware of the world. If you've been locked up all your life, surrounded by only religious people, ok, you have a good excuse. Otherwise... yep, an idiot.
by lizvelrene on February 10th, 2010
Christians - the ones who insist that everyone believes in their form of god, and people like me just go around saying they don't. Because the devil makes us, or something.
by Twisted Taco on February 10th, 2010
The fool says in his heart: there are no Atheists
by LarryH54 on February 9th, 2010
Prophetic?
by breakstress on February 9th, 2010
Athe-atheist?
by King Arthur Pendragon on May 20th, 2010
Alier
by Brawl on October 21st, 2011
A brick.
by 23Skidoo on October 21st, 2011
An idiot.
by (^_^) on October 21st, 2011
non atheist
by Nightwatchdog on March 13th, 2010
Not very attentive.
by AnonymousGirl on October 21st, 2011
Ignorant on that issue.
by 23Skidoo on February 19th, 2010
An idiot.
by Davidsays on February 19th, 2010
a religious non-believer
by VanCityKid on February 23rd, 2010
An idiot.
by The Anonymous Witch on February 23rd, 2010
sheltered
by argonaut2010 on February 28th, 2010
If you mean to say it doesn't exist because you don't believe in them, I can handle that type of short-sighted approach. Meaning that I've seen similar outlooks before. But I can assure you they do exist for I used to be a pretty good atheist myself with teflon arguments for the believers.
No, nothing dramatic happened to me that made me change my views. I didn't have to become a hardcore alcoholic, a born again whoever, nor did I go thru a near death experience either.
It has far more to do with the invisible and inner potential. An intense natural mirror crashing journey is the best I can describe it for now. But here I am practically proving your point?!
Believe me, I have friends that are lifetime atheists and won't budge from there either, for that is where they are comfortable. And there is no reason to deny these people and that way of perceiving life as they please. And these people I have known for years, are very civilised, caring, compassionate people who could teach a thing or two to some religious people I see insult God directly in their self-important ways...
by purplecows on March 9th, 2010
"I did not know there was a man alive who did not believe in God."
-An American judge
How many of you once believed in a god, before you realized that he did not really exist? If so, how did you come to that realization?
by DoMeGood on December 16th, 2011
| 1 person likes this
Theists take their kids to church to learn about and believe in God; where do atheists take their kids to learn that there is no God?
by aldonoir on December 27th, 2011
| 5 people like this
I (atheist) sometimes reason with myself that God DOES exist; result is always inconclusive; is there no supernatural force to help me out?
by aldonoir on December 15th, 2011
| 5 people like this
WHAT is the trouble with ATHEISTS?
by aldonoir on January 1st, 2012
| 2 people like this
Have anyou, who once believed in god, lost your faith because he abandoned you, and you realized that he really did not exist after all?
by DoMeGood on December 16th, 2011
| 1 person likes this
You're reading What do you call someone who doesn't believe in the existence of Atheists?
Your favorite Q&A site is on Facebook! Become a fan to connect with the ever-growing community of Answerbaggers, share your thoughts and find out what Answerbag's up to next!
Comments
Quite interesting. But I'm thinking more along the lines of self proclaimed atheists believing in some other sort of deity(s), such as pantheism, nature, or the spinzoan god. Belief in the supernatural doesn't necessarily have to take the form of a faith in a anthropomorphic god. If evolution has given all humans an instinct for belief in some kind of higher power (and there are many good reasons to suppose this is so), whether or not they exist, then a true atheist should be quite rare. It would be about as common as a person who didn't have a fear of heights.
Every single atheist I've ever spoken with has had some sort of substitute religion, typically enviromentalism. This amounts to little more than Mother Earth worship. Sure, the deity is very abstract, but a deity nonetheless.
I'm not saying an atheist can't exist. Only that I've never met one.
by Anonymous on February 10th, 2010
Anonymous: thank you for your feedback.
There are certainly a lot of such people. They are addressed in the full text of the third reference that I give:
News and Commentary from the Weird World of the Media
Many also call themselves atheists because they don't believe in a personal God professed by Christians.
Some doubt or deny the possibility of the supernatural or of life after death, but still accept ("believe in" ?) things like humanist ethics.
I don't think that in the moment where a person believes in something, we can deify this something and call them a theist.
Even the "nothing" of the nihilists could be deified that way.
Some environmentalists could use such concepts like "Mother Earth", but a great part of the environmental movement bases more on very rational ideas about the preservation of natural resources than on some old pagan myths.
by iwnit on February 10th, 2010
nice to see a short explanation for once , how did you get so much in in that short space . can`t wait to see the other half of it . ps i`m not an athiest honest just a lesser known spotted christian
by hong kong phooey on February 10th, 2010
I'm sorry, but I read your links and couldn't find anything that addressed the issue very well. One argument, however, caught my attention. A poster said that we are all born atheists. I'll disagree. I would submit that we are all born with an innate desire to believe in a god(s). Otherwise, how can the persistence of religion be explained? If it is nothing more than superstitious ignorance then it should have been weeded out by natural selection a long time ago. Yet its influence is only increasing in more recent times, the last 50 years or so.
"Many also call themselves atheists because they don't believe in a personal God professed by Christians."
Is a Christian who does not believe in Zeus an atheist also?
"I don't think that in the moment where a person believes in something, we can deify this something and call them a theist."
That depends. What is the basis for their belief? One cannot, in my opinion, accept humanistic ethics, for instance, soley on rational grounds. If you dig deep enough you'll find some kind of spiritual justification for it from even the most hardcore atheist.
Maybe my definition of theist is a little broad but I would like to think that a Buddhist who does not believe in any god is still one. Their deity just is more amorphous. A belief in the "goodness" in man or nature is a belief in something that cannot be seen or touched. That's supernatural, as far as I'm concerned.
It is a common tactic of magicians to dismiss others of their kind as not using 'real' magic. That the other gods are not real but their's are. I get the impression that many so-called atheists are using the same strategy. They will go on about how God does not exist but then turn around and talk about how we should be the stewards of our earth. What deity, I might ask, gave us those instructions? Is this person really an atheist? Call me a skeptic of skeptics.
by Anonymous on February 10th, 2010
A poster said that we are all born atheists was that on my site ....no , i am a CHRISTIAN not a very good one but trying to get rid of my earthly ways .
by hong kong phooey on February 10th, 2010
Anonymous: I think that we are born with a huge need to be protected and taken care of and a 100% reliance on our caregiver (generally the mother is the main one). Later, we start to develop an interest for explanations. The first explanations that we develop are magic ones.
Everything that we don't understand is magic. With this state of mind we are very receptive for the myths that our parents tell us, and that includes religion, Father Christmas, the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny and all possible further fairy tales.
But I am sure that nobody is born Christian or Muslim or whatever.
We just become this because of our environment (mainly our parents).
Nobody has as a little child such a developed concept of God.
It is in this sense that I understand the proclamation that children are born atheists.
"Many also call themselves atheists because they don't believe in a personal God professed by Christians." Yes, what I mean here is that in face of some evangelical Christians or other fundamentalists with their fixed view on God, the position of many people is just to tell them that they are atheists because anything else would be too complicated to explain.
As to what atheists of any kind believe, it could be very different, but I think that it is often something like reliance on regularities in nature, on some nature laws that we can follow and that let us avoid to do stupid things. Also, we see the advantage that we could have in specific situations to cooperate with our fellow humans instead of fighting them. But those intuitions are not in-born, they are the result of a healthy and balanced personality development (of course, some also follow less healthy paths).
As said, this has certainly also to do with intuition, for instance, so it has not just a mechanical-deductive-rational justification.
It has also to do with fantasy and dreams.
by iwnit on March 17th, 2010