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.

Brian Shanahan

Saipanne wrote: »

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

You've just linked to Andrew Brown, whose articles consist mainly of the assertion "I'm an atheist, but religion, its all true its all great, ITS THE BEST!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!111oneoneoneoen11111eleven!" and the rest consist of denigrating those who want evidence for assertions as Daleks, as per the link in my sig.

To be honest, I've never seen a single thing from him worth spending my time over, much as I've tried to find value in his articles over the years.

silverharp

its all relative , for instance the term " settled community " has no meaning for me but put me in a field with a hundred travellers and suddenly you might have to use the phrase. atheism only has meaning because people are slow to drop cultural programming. if half the population believed in leprechauns youd have to invent a term to define those that didnt.

TheLurker

Liamario wrote: »

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.

I imagine most children left completely alone and not educated in modern notions of critical thinking and scientific explanations will invent their own gods. Human history would seem to very much support this, as religion seems to be pervasive across human cultures.

As such one could argue that human children have a natural tendency towards imagining deities exist. So if by "born atheist" you mean belief in deities is against our nature, I would say no.

PopePalpatine

Somehow this thread reminds me of the Mughal Emperor Akbar's language deprivation experiment to find the natural voice of humans.

Peregrinus

A newborn is an atheist in the sense that, say, a carrot is an atheist. They both lack any belief in god, which is pretty much the definition of atheism.

But I don't think it's particulary meaningful to say that a newborn (or, for that matter, a carrot) is an atheist. There is no significance to anybody's atheism unless they have the capacity to be a theist.

Turtwig

I'd like to think that someday there'll be no significance attached to atheism in the same vein of the over used example non stamp collecting.

Peregrinus

Turtwig wrote: »

I'd like to think that someday there'll be no significance attached to atheism in the same vein of the over used example non stamp collecting.

It would make the A&A Board a bit pointless, though, wouldn't it?

Turtwig

Peregrinus wrote: »

It would make the A&A Board a bit pointless, though, wouldn't it?

Yep but it'd be worth the loss. I'll miss the well wishes and gifts.

obplayer

Turtwig wrote: »

I'd like to think that someday there'll be no significance attached to atheism in the same vein of the over used example non stamp collecting.

Or indeed theism.

Turtwig

obplayer wrote: »

Or indeed theism.

Well that would negate the non stamp collecting comparison. I don't mind theism I just wish we didn't need a word for not being theistic.

smacl

seventeen sheep wrote: »

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.

I'm not sure that holds. I was raised atheist by atheist parents, and raise my kids atheist. Being aware that other people believe in gods, and continuing to declare you do not share these beliefs is enough to make one an atheist. My take on non-religious people are those who simply take no interest in religion whatsoever, regardless of whether they're nominally religious or not.

As for the opening question, I would consider I was born atheist, as I was born to atheist parents. Similarly, I would say someone born to Catholic parents who intended to raise the child Catholic was born Catholic. i.e. you are can be reasonably described as born into a tradition, much the same was as you can a place.

robindch

Turtwig wrote: »

I'd like to think that someday there'll be no significance attached to atheism in the same vein of the over used example non stamp collecting.

Off-topic question, but who collects stamps these days? Is it growing as a hobby, or is it declining to the status of collecting mail-headers?

Akrasia

From my experience of my own kids, here is the comprehensive breakdown of the beliefs of all children

0-3 months
Nihilist
What is everything and does it really matter anyway?

3-6 months
Epicureanist
(Feed ME!!!)

6-12 months
Communist
(no I don't want to eat your butternut squash that you're trying to shove in my mouth but thanks for sharing)

12-24 months
Ayn Randian style individualist
(It's mine and you can't have it me me me me me me me)

2-5 years old
Egoist/ human alchemist
I am everything that matters and I am also able to transform into anything I like at a split seconds notice

5 +
Beginning to form opinions about the nature of reality.. Still thinks he/she is 'the flash' sometimes


Young children are capable of believing in anything that they are told is real. Adults have a responsibility to make sure that these beliefs enhance their lives and do not have long term harmful effects. Eg, it's lovely that they believe in santa and the bfg and unicorns, and it would be horrible if they were convinced that the bogeyman really did live in their bedroom and was waiting for the opportunity to snatch them away to a universe of eternal torture and anguish.

Akrasia

robindch wrote: »

Off-topic question, but who collects stamps these days? Is it growing as a hobby, or is it declining to the status of collecting mail-headers?

Stamp collecting is both a hobby, and an investment strategy. Rare stamps are similar to art and gold as methods to hedge against the volitility of stock and currency markets

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/why-stamps-are-bond-king-bill-grosss-favorite-investment-2014-06-19

robindch

Akrasia wrote: »

[...] it's lovely that they believe in santa and the bfg and unicorns, and it would be horrible if they were convinced that the bogeyman really did live in their bedroom and was waiting for the opportunity to snatch them away to a universe of eternal torture and anguish.

Call me a fun-squashing helicopter parent, but I don't really see what's lovely about kids believing in Santa. Yes, it's easy enough to see it as "cutesy", but I don't find that any more pleasant than luminous-pink Barbie dresses. With my own kid, I never said explicitly that Santa was there and didn't say he wasn't there either. We just talked about it as a nice story that people liked and she was fine with that.

jank

Humans are innately spiritual and in previously atheist countries religion is growing. This would mean that for whatever reason humans still look to religion for a truth, whatever that may be. In fact the fact that religion exists at all would indicate that we are not born atheist as religion had to come from somewhere.

Akrasia

robindch wrote: »

Call me a fun-squashing helicopter parent, but I don't really see what's lovely about kids believing in Santa. Yes, it's easy enough to see it as "cutesy", but I don't find that any more pleasant than luminous-pink Barbie dresses. With my own kid, I never said explicitly that Santa was there and didn't say he wasn't there either. We just talked about it as a nice story that people liked and she was fine with that.

Each to their own, I just think that reality is a harsh place and children are only innocent for a few short years so let them believe in magic and super heroes and fantasy when they're young. I don't go around telling them that magic is real, but I don't explicitly tell them it's not real either. I go along with their imagination most of the time and let them work it out for themselves.

If they ask me 'is this real' I often reflect it back onto them 'do you think it's real?'.
When they have bad dreams or are scared about something, I tell them that monsters aren't real and they can't hurt them, but it's fun to pretend sometimes and thats a balance I'm happy with.

Right now, my 5 year old son is more worried about supernovas than vampires because he knows that vampires are pretend, but supernovas are real. I just have to keep re-assuring him that the earth is safe from supernovas because our star is too small (but that our planet will eventually be engulfed by our star as it turns into a red giant before collapsing down to a white dwarf... maybe I should leave the bedtime stories to my wife)

Akrasia

jank wrote: »

Humans are innately spiritual curious and in previously atheist countries religion is growing. This would mean that for whatever reason humans still look to religion for a truth, whatever that may be. In fact the fact that religion exists at all would indicate that we are not born atheist as religion had to come from somewhere.

I edited your post there. I think the reason people have latched onto religion has always been that there were gaps in our knowledge that we filled with god(s).

People and nations with the highest quality education are more likely to reject the god hypothesis in favour of empiricism and science.

When people find religion in answer to a question, the problem is almost always that it was a poorly formed question to begin with.


"What is the meaning of life?" The reason nobody has ever answered this question is because it's not a fully formed question.

It's like asking "What is the difference between an orange?"

People can be tricked into thinking something is profound through tricks and wordplay. One of the silliest aspects of religion is that people often say it's a quest for 'truth' but never a quest for 'the truth'
Leaving 'the' out changes the meaning of 'truth' rendering it meaningless

Brian Shanahan

Turtwig wrote: »

Yep but it'd be worth the loss. I'll miss the well wishes and gifts.

We'll just turn it into the Jaffa Cakes and Hawai'ian Pizza forum. Problem sorted.

Shrap

Akrasia wrote: »

Right now, my 5 year old son is more worried about supernovas than vampires because he knows that vampires are pretend, but supernovas are real. I just have to keep re-assuring him that the earth is safe from supernovas because our star is too small (but that our planet will eventually be engulfed by our star as it turns into a red giant before collapsing down to a white dwarf... maybe I should leave the bedtime stories to my wife)

Oh dear, yes. Both my kids were scared of comet strikes at about age 5. Also got a bit panicked about CERN producing microscopic black holes in their large hadron collider experiments (stupid internet)! Currently are a bit concerned about ebola and anti-vaxers putting people at risk. A little information goes a long way with kids.

I hated them believing in Santa tbh. If I had been able to (and I wasn't, knowing that my youngest especially wouldn't have held back in telling his peers the TRUTH) I'd have handled it like robin. I was seriously unimpressed by being caught in the lie of my own making when little Thomás got the xbox, Pádraig got the PS3 and my kid "only" got the camera and the makey makey kit.....sigh.