...Continued

<<However, I see no reason why I should change [my label] or that it should be changed for me.>>

Again, though, the label says nothing about who you are as a person. So it seems a little neurotic to be worrying about it when all it says is what you would proudly say about yourself: that you are not a theist. What is wrong with having a label applied to you that makes no attempt to describe who you as an individual? Your claim of “intellectual tyranny“ is misplaced; atheism says nothing about what you do believe, only about what you don’t (and this is what you seem to be trying desperately to avoid acknowledging). If you consider this to be intellectually tyranny, then there may be a way to remedy it: figure out how you could be both at the same time while simultaneously being neither. You seem to think this is possible.

<<I oppose my free will and intelligence to what I consider to be the false dichotomy of theism and atheism. I suggest that “normality and theism” or, perhaps, “realism and delusion” would be more appropriate.>>

The irony here is painful. You have claimed that a legitimate dichotomy (i.e. theism and atheism) is false, and then present two (and later a third) that are false, as being legitimate dichotomies:

1) Normality and theism
This is a false dichotomy because an individual could be both not-a-theist and abnormal.

2) Realism and delusion
This is a false dichotomy because an individual could be both not-delusional and not-a-realist.

3) Realism and theism
This is a false dichotomy because an individual could be both not-delusional and not-a-realist.

In addition to the above, each one is heavily loaded with assumptions about what constitutes delusion, realism and normality, and as you would point out: everything is relative. Furthermore, the adjectives ‘normal’ and ‘realist’ make positive assumptions about who an individual is, whereas atheism only describes what an individual isn’t. So again, your concern about the “intellectual tyranny” of atheism as a label comes across as either disingenuous or intellectually inconsistent.

Sorry to bombard you with a third post, BP, but I need to nip this in the bud and l have a spare moment now.

There was a lot of text in my last response, so I'll sum things up in case my point gets lost in it all.

You claim that having the label of atheism applied to you is "intellectual tyranny" and feel that it places limits on your free will, yet you offer substitutes such as 'normal' and 'realist'.

Let's be clear here, there are an infinite amount of things that you are not, and only a finite amount of things that you are. Atheism adds an infinitesimally small amount to who you are as an individual and only prevents you from being one thing: a theist. Attributes such as 'normal' and 'realist', on the other hand, add a measurable amount to who you are and prevent you from being an infinite amount of other things. ‘Atheist’ is, therefore, a label that describes infinitely less about you than 'normal' or 'realist' does.

Yet despite the above, you claim that it is atheism that is the intellectually tyrannical descriptor that would place limits on your free will, were you to acknowledge it?! I’m sorry, but no matter which angle you approach it from, this is simply false on every possible level.

There is a reason that you have a problem with ‘atheism’ as label, and I don’t think even you know what that is. One thing is for sure, though, and that is that is isn’t, nay, cannot be for the reasons that you have stated.

On a final note, I'd just like to say that I don't mean to force a label on you. If you're just not comfortable with the term, then that's fine. But you are making claims about the term that are demonstrably false, and that's what I'm arguing against.

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Dear AJ Philips,
 
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Thank you for your patience. I too shall try to take another bite at the apple.

You are right: the problem is one of identity.

I agree that some form of identity (label) is necessary for practical reasons, which is why I accept to be considered “a very ordinary person”. However I am averse to identity because I see it as inversely proportional to freedom. Hence my reference to “intellectual tyranny” as an attempt to fence me in or out of something. A label is a label whether it is negative or positive. I see it as a menace to what little “existentialist” freedom I might possibly have.

"Normal" and "realist" are simply less worse than the rest.

If the “laws” of logic impose an infinity of negative labels, as you suggest, then logic has gone mad. It makes no sense. If everything has a label, that should be sufficient to distinguish it from everything else. If we define a frog as a frog and a horse as a horse, I see no sense in labelling a frog a [not-“horse”] and a horse a [not-“frog”].

If we define a theist as a theist and a very ordinary person as a very ordinary person, I see no sense in labelling a theist a [not-“very ordinary person”] and a very ordinary person a [not-“theist”] or an “atheist”. At most, all we need is greater precision in defining the terms we employ in order to respect the “law of excluded middle” ("that a statement is either true or false but it cannot be both").

There is no theism in nature. Theism is not a law of nature. None of the 7.3 billion people on earth were born as theists but as “very ordinary people”. Theism is a human concept which is spoon-fed to the offspring of successive generations by society. It derives from nurture, not nature It is a deviation from nature. Theists should probably be defined as “out of the ordinary”.

It may not be logic but I hope it makes sense.

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Dear Banjo Paterson,

<<However I am averse to identity because I see it as inversely proportional to freedom.>>

This could be argued both ways. I suspect people in North Korea would find an identity very liberating.

<<If the “laws” of logic impose an infinity of negative labels, as you suggest, then logic has gone mad.>>

I don’t think the laws of logic suggest that. I was simply trying to illustrate the absurdity of classing the label of ‘atheist’ (a negative attribute) as intellectually tyrannical while happily accepting the label of ‘realist’ (a positive attribute). Whether or not the amount of things that we are ‘not’ is infinite, there can be no denying that it’s immensely greater than the number of things that we ‘are’. In either case, my point remains the same.

You are erroneously conflating explicit labelling with implicit labelling. See the following, for example...

<<If everything has a label, that should be sufficient to distinguish it from everything else. If we define a frog as a frog and a horse as a horse, I see no sense in labelling a frog a [not-“horse”] and a horse a [not-“frog”].>>

But there’s a difference between an atheist not actively labelling themselves an atheist (or not wishing to), and insisting that they’re not an atheist. While we don’t label a horse a “not-frog”, it would be absurd to suggest that a horse isn’t ‘not a frog’. You seem to be doing the latter.

You initially said, “Happily, the qualities you mention are not just limited to theists and atheists.” This implies that there is a third option. Had you instead said, “I prefer not to identify as either”, then there’d be nothing argue.

<<If we define a theist as a theist and a very ordinary person as a very ordinary person …>>

You’re starting with a false dichotomy by assuming that a theist and a ”very ordinary person” are mutually exclusive. Why is it that a theist cannot also be a ”very ordinary person”? “Ordinary person” is a fluid concept.

Continued…

...Continued

You even said earlier that, “[c]oncepts can prove erroneous and be replaced by new concepts”, yet here you are trying to substitute a concept that is immune to such fluidity (i.e. atheism) with a term that is utterly vulnerable to it and even dependent on it for its very meaning!

<<... I see no sense in labelling a theist a [not-“very ordinary person”] …>>

That’s because we already have a term for it: theist.

<<... and a very ordinary person a [not-“theist”] or an “atheist”.>>

This, on the other hand, is different because we wouldn’t have a term for, what you are referring to as a “very ordinary person”, without “atheist”. You even agreed earlier that “some form of identity (label) is necessary for practical reasons”. Now you’re arguing that it’s not by using the highly subjective claim that those who aren’t theists are “very ordinary people”.

<<[Theism] derives from nurture, not nature It is a deviation from nature. Theists should probably be defined as “out of the ordinary”.>>

As someone who has studied a couple of subjects on evolutionary psychology, I can assure you that religion is arguably a very natural phenomenon. Nothing that humans do is purely a result of nature or nurture. The nature/nurture debate is over. What *is* debated is exactly how these two interact with each other to produce the behaviours that they do.

I should probably also point out, BP, that you are switching back and forth between labelling and defining. You say that “[t]heists should probably be defined as “out of the ordinary””, but we’re not talking about definitions, only labels. This, and your conflating of implicit and explicit labels, is how you have given your argument the appearance of still being alive, despite the fact that it really is dead in the water.