Bumblebee Labs Blog - Latest Comments in Noone is born atheist

Re: Noone is born atheist

Reuben — Sun, 17 May 2015 10:23:52 -0000

Humans are born animals.

Re: Noone is born atheist

Freethinker — Wed, 26 Nov 2014 02:52:52 -0000

My thought on "A child is an atheist." http://helloworldnamaste.bl...

Re: Noone is born atheist

Paul Hannah — Sun, 13 Apr 2014 22:58:30 -0000

Anyone, irrespective of their age, who has no belief in god, is an atheist.
Atheism isn't an active disbelief, it is passive. Until one understands the nature of a god claim, one cannot oppose or support it.

We have no belief or disbelief. when we are born.
We are therefore without belief, therefore we are atheists.

Which particular animist claim do you imagine babies to hold?
How can we test this claim of yours?
What predictions flow from your claim that we can measure?

Negative answers to the above questions, illustrate my point. If you have a positive answer, I'd love to hear it.

Re: Noone is born atheist

Rita — Tue, 26 Mar 2013 21:48:18 -0000

I had no clue of God or religion til the age 8 when I had to go for religious classes. And I know many people like me, who were atheists, we did not believe in God because no one told us about God. Then someone started telling us about God and that is when I formally became an atheist. It is true, we are all born atheist. The concept of God is man made and man teaches man about God. If no one had taught me about God I would have lived my whole life without the knowledge of such a character.

Re: Noone is born atheist

Gerry — Sat, 05 Mar 2011 15:00:13 -0000

This is a biased post - obviously. The truth is, every IS born atheist. No one comes up with a god, (let alone a common god such as a judeao-christian one) without deviating from the natural world. The point isn't so much that theism is indoctrination (which I don't see why it's a problem to admit that it is and go from there), but that one cannot find evidence of any god in reality except through deviation from the senses to pre-suppose a superstitious cause to reality. No young child has evidence for God...only the parents do. Moreover, the point is that if one cannot come up with the same tenant of the same god, from the same sources (i.e. reality) , then this too is evidence of the gross lack of evidence for the existence of a single, judeao-christian god. (or any other for that matter). There is a reason America is mostly Christian, Middle-east is mostly Islamic, and rational thinkers are neither. Learn to ask "Why?" and reject anything that makes non-supportive claims in leu of that question.

Re: Noone is born atheist

Buddy Lee — Wed, 10 Nov 2010 22:15:40 -0000

A whole book is dedicated to the alternate argument that everyone is, in fact, born atheist. See http://bornatheist.com/cont...

Re: Noone is born atheist

flyndaran — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 14:40:58 -0000

What about me? I was never animistic or superstitious even as a child. I always assumed those stories told by adults at sunday school and parents were part of some unspoken game. I was six when I realized they actually believed them. It really creeped me out. After long talk with my father he allowed me to stay home. Both parents were non-denominational christians, so I must have taken them by suprise.

Re: Noone is born atheist

millinniummany3k — Wed, 25 Feb 2009 06:52:58 -0000

Children are born without the knowledge of there being a god, they do not judge that there is catagorically no god, as atheism does, nor do they have the capeability to know whether or not there is god. At best children are born agnostic, but they are not born thinking god does not exist.

Re: Noone is born atheist

Hang — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 03:52:44 -0000

Hi Zaki,

I've responded to your comments here: http://blog.figuringshitout...

Re: Noone is born atheist

Zaki — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:29:24 -0000

It's all semantics really--which is why this topic has caused so much confusion--but purely based on definition, we are all born without the belief in god which makes us atheists technically. We're also aunicornists, atoothfairyists, etc.

But this is exactly why I don't like labels anyway. They don't accomplish much in the end.

Re: Noone is born atheist

Zzki — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 18:09:04 -0000

Good post.

I think you're assigning more meaning to the word 'atheism' than you should though. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a deity, nothing more. This includes anyone from a guy like Dawkins, to a newborn baby, since both don't have a belief in a god. You can't imply that atheism is some sort of intellectual exercise that rids the individual of theism and allows them to think clearly, since the person's ability to do this has nothing to do with their atheism.

I don't think it's anyone's 'atheism' that challenges our animist intuition, but rather our desire for knowledge. Just as we evolved to interpret our world through animism, maybe we're taking the 'next step' through scientific inquiry and intellectual discourse to find out more about our world.

I just don't see how we can ascribe atheism to someone's reason for doing anything, since it's nothing more than a lack of belief in god. If you're dealing with the term solely based on its definition, everyone is born without belief in god, as you have to be introduced to a god to believe in one.

Re: Noone is born atheist

David Thompson — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 12:09:44 -0000

Saying that everyone's born an atheist suggests that everyone starts with the concept of what a god is, and believes they don't exist. That's patently silly. "No-one is born a theist" would be less so, though.

I like the idea that everyone is born a storyteller. A good part of human learning is coming up with ideas (by induction or deduction) and casting them out into the world we perceive to see if they stick. Regardless of whether our theories have gods or spirits in them or not, we're essentially trying to tell ourselves and each other stories about the world that help it make sense to us. Both science and religion do that - albeit in different ways, at different levels and to different intentions.

Re: Noone is born atheist

Zach Hale — Sat, 20 Dec 2008 04:40:08 -0000

Well put. I agree.

I took me until a significant number of years into my life before I even began to think about religion and then not until within the last several years that come to any sort of a conclusion as to what I believe.

Considering the alternate argument and effort required to explain an alternate "default" such as animist intuition, it is all too easy and understandable why in many cases arguing "everyone is born atheist" is an more likely assumption to come to consensus on.