Are we born atheist?

Liamario

Personally, I think not. My 2.5 year old boy has no concept of a god either way, so to call him an atheist would be inaccurate.

KeithTS

Stupid question!

Are we born with an inherent knowledge of the notion of deities and predisposed to the idea that they do/do not exist? Of course not!

looksee

I'd say on balance kids do tend to look for/accept a magical solution to anything they don't understand, which they grow out of provided it isn't reinforced by teaching. Not born with it though, bit of a daft question really :-)

irish_goat

Atheism is the absence of a belief in god(s), so yes, your son is born an atheist.

Liamario

It's not a stupid question for some. Some people see atheism as someone without belief in a god, instead of someone who has consciously taken a position in the question.

eviltwin

I suppose it depends on how you see atheism. Is it an absence of belief in God which would apply to your child or the belief God doesn't exist which wouldn't apply to him.

Liamario

Apparently the question isn't as stupid as the first two replies would suggest. So, perhaps a better question to ask would be, what the definition of atheism is...

Penn

Liamario wrote: »

It's not a stupid question for some. Some people see atheism as someone without belief in a god, instead of someone who has consciously taken a position in the question.

That's because atheist is someone without a belief in a god.

Everyone is born atheist. People might be born more inclined to follow a religion, but no-one is born with an actual belief in a god or gods. That's completely down to societal and familial factors.

looksee

I was thinking more from the point of view that a small baby doesn't have views or opinions on much at all other than being fed and warm.

If a child grows up with no influence or knowledge either way then the child is neither theist nor atheist, unless you interpret atheist as being 'without' god, approaching it from the angle that god exists in order for it to be relevant to consider that god is absent.

Michael OBrien

looksee wrote: »

I was thinking more from the point of view that a small baby doesn't have views or opinions on much at all other than being fed and warm.

If a child grows up with no influence or knowledge either way then the child is neither theist nor atheist, unless you interpret atheist as being 'without' god, approaching it from the angle that god exists in order for it to be relevant to consider that god is absent.

The 'A' in atheism mean without but the theism part deals with belief in a god, so atheists are people that are without belief in a god, not that they are without god in the sense you mean. The belief in a god obviously exists, so some people are without that belief.

All babies are atheists, depending on how you view atheism. However they are implicit atheists at best. Once you hear about gods but don't accept those claims you become an explicit atheist. Frankly the explicit ones are the only ones that really matter in debates EXCEPT for rebutting the claim that everyone is born with some kind of belief in god.

looksee

Michael OBrien wrote: »

The 'A' in atheism mean without but the theism part deals with belief in a god, so atheists are people that are without belief in a god, not that they are without god in the sense you mean. The belief in a god obviously exists, so some people are without that belief.

All babies are atheists, depending on how you view atheism. However they are implicit atheists at best. Once you hear about gods but don't accept those claims you become an explicit atheist. Frankly the explicit ones are the only ones that really matter in debates EXCEPT for rebutting the claim that everyone is born with some kind of belief in god.

I think that is what I was saying? But I don't agree with your argument, you have to be aware of the possibility of a god before you can be without belief in it. You say 'the belief in a god obviously exists', a baby is not aware of this belief, therefore cannot be an atheist.

magicbastarder

irish_goat wrote: »

Atheism is the absence of a belief in god(s), so yes, your son is born an atheist.

your son is also born without a belief in gravity, so does that make him agravitarian?

Boskowski

I always thought atheist means there is a conscious rejection of gods existence in play. Agnostic is similar in that respect. For both you would at least have to know that there are people out there swinging either way and you would need to know of the concept as such.
Is there a word for being totally oblivious to god and religion?

If there is a word for that then that's what kids are. They are a blank canvas.

Shrap

Boskowski wrote: »

If there is a word for that then that's what kids are. They are a blank canvas.

Tabula rasa? Something something John Locke egalitarianism something something. End of knowledge on the subject.

Defender OF Faith

I think a more appropriate question would be what is the natural deposition of a child? as Babies have no developed cognitive faculties or reasoning capacities to even think or contemplate such issue. The question instead should address the natural state, the innate nature, or the innate disposition of a Child.

Would a child believe in God is he was left alone? not-indoctrinated and uninfluenced by the ideology of his parents whether they are religious or atheist, assuming a Child is left alone in a jungle to grow and survive would he grow up to be a believer in God or an atheist?

Shrap

Defender OF Faith wrote: »

Would a child believe in God is he was left alone? not-indoctrinated and uninfluenced by the ideology of his parents whether they are religious or atheist, assuming a Child is left alone in a jungle to grown and survive would he grow up to be a believer in God or an atheist?

Who knows? But if the concept of neither atheism or theism has occurred to him, then he'd still be atheist by virtue of having no belief in god. I think. But he wouldn't know he was atheist.

lazygal

I don't want to put any labels on my children. They're children. They don't anything more descriptive than that.

seamus

There are some people who tend to consider there to be 3 positions - atheism, theism and <undefined> - the latter being the category into which you put babies and animals. This is on the basis that assigning an "atheist" tag to being incapable of metaphysical/philosophical understanding somewhat diminishes the whole notion, especially given that traditionally atheism has always described the rejection of belief as opposed to the absence of it.

I personally don't subscribe to that idea, considering that the above definition of atheism implies that the default position is theism. Which is clearly nonsense. I feel that for the purposes of "what is atheism" debate, clarifying it as the lack of belief - intentional or otherwise - is more honest and doesn't require any "special cases".
Being asexual, for example, doesn't require sex to be rejected, it's a state of being. Same too with atheism.

Boskowski

Shrap wrote: »

Tabula rasa? Something something John Locke egalitarianism something something. End of knowledge on the subject.

huh?

qt3.14

Are they "without a belief in God"? Yes.
Is this in anyway useful to state? No

Brian Shanahan

irish_goat wrote: »

Atheism is the absence of a belief in god(s), so yes, your son is born an atheist.

What Irish Goat of the Beoir group says.

Skrynesaver

We are born with a number of instincts,from simple instincts like reflexive suckling through to the complex instincts, (hard though literate inhabitants of internet boards may find it to believe),like that for grammar revealed by Chompsky's research, up to mental processes for causation analysis which try to ascribe a cause to observed phenomena.

It is this latter instinct which, while essential to our development as a rational being, leads to the need for the divine in order to explain what is beyond understanding, (the god of the gaps). That is to say we're born with a need to explain what we observe, our culture is gradually equipping us with the knowledge required to dispense with superstition.

So we're born without a position on the subject but with the potential to adopt either position depending on how well our culture informs us.

Shrap

Boskowski wrote: »

huh?

That was all I remembered about "tabula rasa" - or the blank slate you were talking about babies being. John Locke (1600's sometime) was big into the idea of not prejudicing children with religion, etc. and he called it that. Vague memories from 2nd year social care HNDip.

Panrich

A child somehow raised in isolation from birth to any known god or religion could not 'believe' in any of these gods. However, there is no knowing whether this child would end up worshiping a stone or the sun or a ball on a stick. This worshiping would have to be reasoned at a stage long after birth and therefore the child could be said to be born an atheist. Therefore, as has been pointed out, it is not useful to ask whether he was born an atheist. A more interesting question is whether he was born with a pre-disposition to be one. If 100 such children were born, how many would turn to their own religion of some sort?

Dades

IMO, defining an infant as an atheist serves no useful purpose. No more than describing a chimp or a fern the same. The definition is only relevant when applied to someone capable of vocalising their own belief.

Besides, if everyone were born atheists that would seriously skew the statistics that suggest that the number of people who leave religion is exponentially higher than the number who join a new religion. :pac:

seventeen sheep

I think perhaps there's a distinction between being atheist and being non-religious?

I consider myself atheist. I was baptised Catholic, I was brought up as a Catholic. As I got older, I learned more about Christianity and about other religions. And I realised that I had no reason or desire to believe in any of the gods out there. It was (and is) a concious and continuous thought process, based on education and experience.

My child won't be baptised, although of course I'm happy for him to learn about every religion, from an academic point of view. But I think that I consider him to be non-religious, for now. He's not atheist (nor is he religious), because he doesn't realise what religion is, and it'll be quite a few years before he does.

branie2

Some are, until their believing parents choose to have them baptised

smcgiff

branie2 wrote: »

Some are, until their believing parents choose to have them baptised

Do you think babies know they are being baptised or that it has any impact on them?

branie2

I don't think they know

Saipanne

Boskowski wrote: »

I always thought atheist means there is a conscious rejection of gods existence in play.

I thought that too. I think "absence of belief" is a cop out, personally.


I did a quick Google on the op, and saw this:

To imply that babies have a default theological position of atheism is as silly as assuming that they have a default language or nationality (not sure about nationality).

I've never heard of the author. But I "believe" ad hominem posts are imminent.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jun/12/atheist-baby-richard-dawkins-babies-atheism

smcgiff

branie2 wrote: »

I don't think they know

So nothing has changed, unless they get a chest infection from being exposed.