![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
Is it correct to assume that only explicit atheists will be listed here, that no implicit atheists will be listed. So everyone listed will have explicitly stated either 1>they do not believe in any deities, or 2>they believe no deities exist. (Thus they are covered by the first two defs in the atheism article, and those nontheists who qualify only under the "absence" def -- because they never thought about deities much -- are not included). Perhaps this could be explicitly stated in the lede JimWae ( talk) 06:16, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I just petitioned to get the two sub articles (surnames E-G and H-K) undeleted. Can we please rally any interested editors and try and get some content into those articles within a reasonable amount of time? Nefariousski ( talk) 21:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
This csme up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nontheism. We simply can't call people who identify as atheists nontheists. At the AfD a distinction is being argued between the terms but in any case WP:NAME means that an article listing people who call themselves atheists is going to be called a List of atheists. Dougweller ( talk) 08:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
I looked at the table of contents to see if there had been a name change discussion before I made the move. I still don't see any section heading that gives any clue that it's the one for a name change discussion. I wouldn't have wasted my time doing it if I'd seen such a discussion, and I'm a bit annoyed about that, but never mind. The hyphen issue is discussed at the AfD. Evidently the OED spells it both ways, but I'm not convinced it's a big deal. The big deals for me are the BLP/verification issues.
As for maintainers of the list, (besides not liking the phrase) I don't know who are the most active editors, it isn't easy to tell, and again, this is the page for such a discussion, I assume they read it. Again, I wish I hadn't spent time on this instead of doing other editing, and wouldn't have if I'd seen the name change discussion. I hope someone else deals with any subsequent changes. :-) Dougweller ( talk) 04:22, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't know that it is necessary to list Buddhists, if all Buddhists are ex officio nontheists. The question of nontheism arises only in contexts where theism exists.
All atheists (and perhaps agnostics) are nontheists, but not all nontheists choose to call themselves atheists, due to the pejorative associations that commonly attach to the expression. It is unlikely, however, that an atheist would object strenuously at being described as a nontheist. Nihil novi ( talk) 06:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
List of Nontheists : List of Atheists :: List of Musicians : List of guitar players
Therefore, in my opinion, a "List of Nontheists" isn't necessary. If we have "List of Atheists", "List of Agnostics", "List of Buddhists", etc.; then a "List of Nontheists" would simply repeat that information and, thus, be needless. Anyone who doesn't directly identify as *BLANK* shouldn't be labeled as *BLANK*, no matter what *BLANK* is. Just because all Atheists are technically Nontheists (and they are), that doesn't mean we can label them as something they haven't previously labeled themselves -- especially in something as touchy as religion. If someone hasn't self-identified as being with any religion (or absent of one), we should not say anything about their religion (or lack of one). Chicken monkey 07:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Nihil Novi; that argument is somewhat dangerous. Firstly it is unclear what the precedent of nontheism is, or even how synonymous it is with "little a" atheism. Secondly assuming atheist does === nontheist does not mean we can call self-described atheists nontheists. The only exception there is if nontheist was a widely accepted term interchangeable with atheist - which it is not. Finally; nontheist is a little used word in comparison to atheist; so in the context of the encyclopaedia the latter is more useful to the reader. Where a person specifically identifies as nontheist then they should be on this list. --Errant Tmorton166( Talk) 09:50, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm. Coming a bit late here it seems. Ho hum. Well to 'skip to the end', in the previous (and exhausting if not exhaustive) discussions, we alighted on 'nontheist' because it is a better term for encompassing these people's explicit position. We regarded that as far less problematic than constant arguing over what the persons have called or considered themselves: a label for their stance, rather than whatever label they may or may not pick from the almost-cognate plethora of terms.
Thus, we could sensibly and unambiguously include persons whose stances are near identical but who for various reasons choose different labels and even reject some in favour of others -- Michael Shermer is the classic example. To go the route of self-identification means splitting the list into separate ones for atheist, non-believing agnostic, sceptic, rationalist, on and on. Shermer is worth quoting on this:
Given that this list -- all such lists -- are deliberate pigeonholing, how can it be achieved (if we consider it a worthwhile exercise at all)? Surely by using an unambiguous catch-all term, and use sourced quotes to indicate the deeper probing of what the includee actually thinks and says. Does anyone seriously think Shermer and Sagan were more than a hair's breadth apart? Yet Shermer Shermer will (reluctantly) call himself an atheist, while Sagan denied it.
To have a non-inclusive term is to eject (say) Sagan, despite his avowed non-belief. His position was identical to others who have happily called themselves 'atheist'. To include 'happy' atheists but not 'reluctant' ones is to make a mockery of the point (if there is one) of the list. More pragmatically, it means leaving the list(s) open to constant (and to my mind, pointless and redundant) arguments over people's precise positions. Do we have explicit 'weak' atheists because they call themselves atheists, but not 'strong' atheists who reject the precise term? What of those who call themselves 'atheist' but who do not clarify it; those who make clearly 'atheistic' statements but do not use the term (eg Clarence Darrow); those who are only 'caught on camera' talking about the Christian God, yet whose position clearly would apply to gods in general if only they'd been asked (eg Einstein); those who mean it in the more American sense ('strongly') and those who use it in the more European 'weaker' sense… those who reject the label because it means 'strong' to them but who fit the broader definition perfectly…?
We've been there, done that. To paraphrase Dawkins: Splitting non-believers by splitting hairs, such has ever been the way of Wikipedia (at least, until we decided on 'nontheist').
The underlying position, as Shermer makes clear, is simple non-belief in a deity or deities. The rest can be argued by the person more or less strongly, with different emphases or not actually argued (in a reliable source anyway) at all. But to split -- as we'd have to -- a Sagan from a Shermer seems to me to undermine the rationale for collecting these folks together at all. It'd be like a collector of British stamps who only collects simple Queen's head stamps and never pictoral ones, not because it's just his preference but because he does not consider pictoral ones to be proper stamps at all. Well maybe, like 'atheists', they aren't; but most people wanting to find a list of either is -- I submit -- more interested in 'things put on envelopes to pay for postage' / 'people to whom the label in a general sense applies'.
There will always be POV problems here. But it seems to me to be just as POV to separate people on the basis of their preferred labels as anything else -- and means that any identification that's not the person's own is rendered immediately problematic if not ludicrous (witness the British press's happy -- and correct in their own terms -- identification of Sagan as an atheist… they were not wrong, just using the term a little differently… as indeed do the self-identifiers).
Which is why, way back when, we decided on the descriptive category of 'nontheist'. All the includees are that, no matter what subtribe they also are (if we can even tell).
So then. Just a few other bits. Back on 21 July, Noleander said:
False. (Well unless you consider the OED unreliable.) To wit:
So someone who does not believe in a deity or deities is a non-theist. Simple when you know how.
Then perhaps they might consult a reliable dictionary. Or even try learning English: sticking 'non' on the front of a word is hardly linguistic esoterica.
Irrelevant. Nontheist (or non-theist) is a well-attested and hardly indecipherable adjective, chosen for its accuracy and inclusiveness (and euphemism, given the often perjorative sense of 'atheist'). Would you reject from a list of refuse collection operatives all those who 'merely' call themselves dustmen? "Can't include him, he's never called himself a refuse collector." A 'strong' dustman, proud and Dawkinsian about his job, is a shoo-in, while a more reserved chap who only refers to working in household waste removal gets rejected or consigned to a separate list… and a passing reference to "well I suppose you might call me a dustman, but I've always felt that's too limiting a term" will cause no end of argument.
I'm struck by something I heard Stephen Fry say recently, that we are verbs, not nouns. He writes, he acts, he presents; as soon as you use the nouns, you limit the description. The idea behind using 'nontheist' is to collect those with nontheism, whose verb-like position is non-belief. They do not 'believe in god(s)', the rest is splitting hairs and (given what sources are like) counting angels on pinheads. More practically, we can catch non-believers in the act ('verbally' as it were) with far more certainty than we can by looking for nouns of multiple, overlapping and equivocal meanings, especially when attribution of those terms by (suitably qualified or relevant) others is regarded as a valid form of idfentification.
TTFN, Oolon ( talk) 10:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
':'Then perhaps they might consult a reliable dictionary; this, to my mind, is not acceptable practice for an encyclopedia. It should explain concepts with reasonable clarity using accepted & widespread terminology.
It may help to have an Wikipedia:Editnotice on this page. That may eliminate some wasted time in the future. Perhaps the editnotice could say something like: "Please review the Talk page for prior discsussions on the definition of atheist, and for whether or not buddhists, humanists, agnostics and self-identified non-theists should be included in this list". If this is a good idea, some admin will have to add the editnotice. -- Noleander ( talk) 13:42, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to propose changing the lead to:
This is a list of atheists. Some atheists actively reject the existence of deities but it has also become a wider term for individuals with an absence of theistic belief. The list contains people who have either specifically identified as atheist or where they hold beliefs that are strongly classified as atheist (for example rejecting the idea of a deity). Individuals who identify as non-theists instead can be found in the List of nontheists.
Atheism is contrasted with agnosticism, where an individual believes the existence of a deity is currently unknowable (see List of agnostics).
Thoughts? --Errant Tmorton166( Talk) 14:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I've been following (without much interest, since I didn't have a strong opinion on it) the naming discussion, and waiting for that to be resolved before raising an issue that I think is much more important.
My concern is that this list (or should I say 'these lists' since we have it broken up into a bunch of lists by category and surname) is much too inclusive.
For example, we include Bill Gates and yet quote him directly as saying "I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid."
We have some like Julia Sweeney included quite correctly, I think, due to the notability of her one-woman show "Letting Go of God". But then we have Jan Hein Donner listed on the basis of what is clearly an enigmatic joke: "Well actually, I'm an atheist - but not a practising one."
This issue was raised to my attention when it was pointed out to me that I was on the list, something that I think is quite silly. Not silly based on anything about my personal beliefs, but silly based on what ought to be the purpose of a list like this: not to show how many people are atheists but to guide interested readers to people who have written or spoken extensively on the subject. If an author has written an entire book explaining their lack of faith, that's one thing. But if an author has merely responded to a question in an interview, but never written anything about it, then adding them to the list is merely clutter and not that interesting.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 15:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Chickenmonkey old chap: so a bloke who says "Well it's true that I've had a string of same-sex relationships, and this is my boyfriend Eric", but who does not call himself gay and nobody else specifically does either (perhaps because no sourced commentator found it relevant, as might be true for a scientist), could not be included in a list of gay people?
Do you seriously believe that ascribing
to someone who says
... counts as Original Research?
Well I suppose you may be right. But it makes the list, to my mind, completely pointless. We'd have a criterion for inclusion that amounts to 'say the magic word'.
If that is the route of the consensus, for the sake of accuracy I'd have insist the list be retitled List of people identifying themselves with the term, or identified as, atheist. It would not be a list of people who are atheists, just a list of those who've been called atheists.
Indeed, if you throw out, as you effectively are, the simple definition and rely instead on nothing but others' attribution, you'll have to include no end of pre-1900-ish people who have been called atheists, such as Tom Paine. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, 'atheist' was thrown around at anyone a bit heretical. But atheist they were called by a reliable source, so atheist they were, and into the list they go. Right?
And before you say 'oh but the meaning of the word has changed'… retrospectively applying that to exclude someone would be using only one definition. And that would be Original Research on your part, wouldn't it?
Suppose someone -- a school kid with a summer holiday project, perhaps -- is looking to find out about famous atheists. She goes to a dictionary first, so she knows what to look for: "people who do not believe in gods, or who say gods don't exist", she keeps repeating to herself to be clear in her mind.
Then, on her father's recommendation that Wikipedia is reliable, she comes here. Then she opens another browser window, goes to Facebook, and chats with a friend about the project.
"I've got one here, Clarence Darrow" says the friend. "American lawyer."
"He's not on the Wikipedia list,", says our intrepid investigatrix.
"He said he didn't believe in God because he didn't believe in Mother Goose," says the friend. "And that he believed in neither future life or God."
Our heroine is now confused. "But he's not on the Wikipedia list, which Dad says is the best and most reliable because it's well referenced. Your other list must be wrong."
"But he's quoted the New York Times and everything!"
If, at this stage, they were not to become bored and start talking about R-Patz, they might wonder why someone perfectly meeting the defintion is not included. That is, why an encyclopedia purporting (by having such a page) to list the buggers didn't list a notable one. Surely people wanting such a list want it to contain people who are, not what they've been labelled (or not).
By the same token, Quentin Crisp (oft-quoted as an atheist, by the way, but I can't find a solid source darn it), the self-identified 'Stately Homo of England', probably didn't call himself gay. (Flamboyant, probably, but not gay as in, well, queer.) Is he on the list of gays (etc) though? Surely
Crisp is to Gay
as
Darrow is to Atheist.
Seems to me that one can be as much of a screaming queen or ardent anti-god-ite as one likes, but unless you say the magic word (or someone else calls you it), under this proposal you'll never get on a list with your sexual or philosophical peers. It can look like a duck, walk like a duck, quack like a duck, swim like a duck... but unless it calls itself a duck, some people would not even consider the possibility that we have a member of the Anatidae on our hands. That'd be an OR too far.
(I wanted to put "walk like a ducky, talk like a ducky…" but thought that'd be pushing the word-play beyond endurance, even allowing for it being a Douglas Adams / Blackadder II mashup.)
So the question for all of us is, is our own application of a dictionary definition to something, and including it if it clearly fits, really Original Research, or is it just common sense? And would such a strict (I'd say OCD) application of the OR principle not actually diminish the list's value as a WP entry? The by-the-dictionary method is at best secondary-level OR. A Darrow entry (for instance) would not say anything that is incorrect, ambiguous or unreferenced, and the reason for including him as a nontheist / atheist (etc) is plain from the meaning of those words.
Interestingly, my wife works in the jewellery trade. She tells me that Faberge do not make watches, they make exclusive timepieces. They don't call them watches, nobody in the trade would dare call them watches, and the fact that these items have a flat dial with hands that indicate the hour and minute of the day and are worn on the forearm by means of a strap around the wrist is clearly neither here nor there. So don't go including Faberge in a list of companies that make watches… or if you have a list of timepiece manufacturers, ditch the likes of Rolex, Casio and Rotary, cos they only make watches.
TTFN, Oolon ( talk) 12:05, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
"so a bloke who says "Well it's true that I've had a string of same-sex relationships, and this is my boyfriend Eric", but who does not call himself gay and nobody else specifically does either (perhaps because no sourced commentator found it relevant, as might be true for a scientist), could not be included in a list of gay people?"
"However, Wikipedia cannot, on its own accord, interpret "I don't believe in god" to mean "I am an atheist". That's original research."
"You're making this much more complicated than it actually is."
"Nobody should be on this list (or any list) unless inclusion can be justified […] we should include that in our article on them but not include them in a list."
"if we cannot clearly discern if a person is this or that, we should not list them."
[outdent cos I'm losing track of all the colons]
Sorry, I don't follow you. 'Ambiguous' means 'open to more than one interpretation'. I'm really struggling to think what other meaning it has apart from than that the person disbelieves the existence of a God.
Like what, for goodness' sakes?!
I fully agree that as editors we can't go around interpreting stuff willy-nilly. But does that mean we have to be mere reporting automata? In order to do this WP thingy at all, we need to read and understand stuff. Every page here has 'interpretation' of this sort every time it is not directly quoting. Even rephrasing is interpreting, because you can't do it without understanding. Of course we don't rephrase if it alters the meaning. But given that
'atheist' = One who denies or disbelieves the existence of a God (OED)
and that
"I don't believe gods exist" = [I] disbelieve the existence of a God
... I still fail to see how it is original research to use the word that specifically means someone who holds that position, for someone who, well, says he holds that position.
Would it be similarly wrong to call someone who says "I make my living coming up with new chairs for Ikea" a 'furniture designer'?
And I maintain that it is no more an interpretation than calling someone who says he plays in a band a 'musician'.
We already have a reliable source that very clearly interprets 'atheist' to mean 'not believing gods exist'. It's called the OED. The fact that one version of the idea is contained in one word and the other in a few does not make them any the less interchangeable, any more than 'makes living doing woodwork' and 'carpenter'.
Please, please can you come up with an 'interpretation' of 'he is an atheist' that even vaguely suggests anything less than what our quotee says, for I've racked my brains and cannot. Not believing in [the existence of] gods is what makes someone an atheist by definition. By definition.
Let's try it this way: Suppose someone comes along to here. Sees someone labelled as an atheist. Looks up 'atheist', and looks at the quote. Does anyone think they could derive any other 'inference' than the one we have?
Joe Twitter (he no longer merely bloggs): "He's an atheist?"
WP: "Here's what 'atheist' means, and here's what he said."
Joe: "Oh okay."
Now, we may fairly argue about interpretations if a quote is less clear-cut. What I'm finding incredible is your denying the obvious when the quote is a dictionary definition, practically verbatim. Oolon ( talk) 11:50, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami described in Chaitanya-charitamrita Adi 6.38:
‘chaitanya-mangala’ shune yadi pashandi, yavana
seha maha-vaishnava haya tatakshana
If even a great atheist hears Shri Chaitanya-mangala (previous name for Shri Chaitanya-bhagavata), he immediately becomes a great devotee.
So all the great atheists which comprise of 99.99% of the world’s population can become maha-vaishnavas if they get the supreme good fortune of reading this book. Thus in my personal opinion, when this book is published and distributed in mass quantities all over the world, it will break open the gates of the flood of the love of Godhead brought by Lord Chaitanya and His associates and will hasten the advent of the predicted Golden Age in all its glory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.133.26.30 ( talk) 01:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
BLP concerns were cited as a reason for renaming this list. Specifically, it was thought that identifying living people as "nontheists" when they might not use that label for themselves was a problem. I'm not convinced that's an issue, and I don't believe anyone offered an adequate case that it was. Nontheist, unlike atheist, does not have a pejorative sense. Furthermore, nontheist, unlike atheist, unequivocally applies to all who do not believe in deities, no matter which definition is used.
However, we know of people who have steadfastly refused to refer to themselves as atheists, despite their unbelief in deities, either because they viewed the label as pejorative in some way, or because they accepted a narrow definition of the word, believing that only those who assert the nonexistence of deities are truly atheists. Carl Sagan is perhaps the best example of such refusal to accept the label atheist. We know from reliable sources that he did not believe in deities, and yet he explicitly denied being an atheist.
This example is why I am concerned about others listed here who are still living. Many are listed not because they called themselves atheists, but because a secondary source labeled them as such. Many are listed for having expressed unbelief in deities, but we do not know their preferred label. How many such people would, like Sagan, adamantly deny being atheists? We do not know. If they were to deny being atheists, it would certainly be prudent to remove them from this list as currently named, even if we can confirm with their own words that they do not believe in deities. But in the absence of a documented denial, it is still a presumption to list them here, and a potential BLP violation.
A renaming to something like what Noleander suggested earlier (List of atheists and nontheists) could address this. Nontheist has no pejorative sense, and although it is not as well-known a label as atheist, it is uncontroversially defined. Or should we return to the stated inclusion criterion for this list from years ago, when only people who self-identified specifically as atheists were included? Nick Graves ( talk) 16:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Tell ya what: I'd be satisfied with this list as currently named if we restored the introductory info more or less to what it was prior to the move to List of nontheists. If we're going to use the most inclusive definition for the term atheist, let's go ahead and let the reader know up front, acknowledge that some listed would not be regarded as atheists according to more restrictive understandings of the term, and that not all listed use the term to identify themselves. We've nothing to lose, and much to gain in terms of clarity. Nick Graves ( talk) 18:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
The information about "living persons" in the article lead paragraph is a bid odd. That seems to be directed at editors, not readers. Do other List article have similar sentences? If the goal is to give guidance to editors, a better solution is a "Edit Notice" or "Page notice". This is a message that pops-up whenever any editor edits the article (it is a block of text that appears at the top while the editor is editing). I would create one, but an admin has to do that: the page to create is:
And in that page we'd add the guidance about "Persons need to be ... blah, blah". See WP:Page notice for details. -- Noleander ( talk) 02:32, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 5 | ← | Archive 7 | Archive 8 | Archive 9 | Archive 10 |
Is it correct to assume that only explicit atheists will be listed here, that no implicit atheists will be listed. So everyone listed will have explicitly stated either 1>they do not believe in any deities, or 2>they believe no deities exist. (Thus they are covered by the first two defs in the atheism article, and those nontheists who qualify only under the "absence" def -- because they never thought about deities much -- are not included). Perhaps this could be explicitly stated in the lede JimWae ( talk) 06:16, 23 October 2009 (UTC)
I just petitioned to get the two sub articles (surnames E-G and H-K) undeleted. Can we please rally any interested editors and try and get some content into those articles within a reasonable amount of time? Nefariousski ( talk) 21:12, 2 March 2010 (UTC)
This csme up at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Nontheism. We simply can't call people who identify as atheists nontheists. At the AfD a distinction is being argued between the terms but in any case WP:NAME means that an article listing people who call themselves atheists is going to be called a List of atheists. Dougweller ( talk) 08:34, 21 July 2010 (UTC)
I looked at the table of contents to see if there had been a name change discussion before I made the move. I still don't see any section heading that gives any clue that it's the one for a name change discussion. I wouldn't have wasted my time doing it if I'd seen such a discussion, and I'm a bit annoyed about that, but never mind. The hyphen issue is discussed at the AfD. Evidently the OED spells it both ways, but I'm not convinced it's a big deal. The big deals for me are the BLP/verification issues.
As for maintainers of the list, (besides not liking the phrase) I don't know who are the most active editors, it isn't easy to tell, and again, this is the page for such a discussion, I assume they read it. Again, I wish I hadn't spent time on this instead of doing other editing, and wouldn't have if I'd seen the name change discussion. I hope someone else deals with any subsequent changes. :-) Dougweller ( talk) 04:22, 22 July 2010 (UTC)
I don't know that it is necessary to list Buddhists, if all Buddhists are ex officio nontheists. The question of nontheism arises only in contexts where theism exists.
All atheists (and perhaps agnostics) are nontheists, but not all nontheists choose to call themselves atheists, due to the pejorative associations that commonly attach to the expression. It is unlikely, however, that an atheist would object strenuously at being described as a nontheist. Nihil novi ( talk) 06:20, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
List of Nontheists : List of Atheists :: List of Musicians : List of guitar players
Therefore, in my opinion, a "List of Nontheists" isn't necessary. If we have "List of Atheists", "List of Agnostics", "List of Buddhists", etc.; then a "List of Nontheists" would simply repeat that information and, thus, be needless. Anyone who doesn't directly identify as *BLANK* shouldn't be labeled as *BLANK*, no matter what *BLANK* is. Just because all Atheists are technically Nontheists (and they are), that doesn't mean we can label them as something they haven't previously labeled themselves -- especially in something as touchy as religion. If someone hasn't self-identified as being with any religion (or absent of one), we should not say anything about their religion (or lack of one). Chicken monkey 07:44, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Nihil Novi; that argument is somewhat dangerous. Firstly it is unclear what the precedent of nontheism is, or even how synonymous it is with "little a" atheism. Secondly assuming atheist does === nontheist does not mean we can call self-described atheists nontheists. The only exception there is if nontheist was a widely accepted term interchangeable with atheist - which it is not. Finally; nontheist is a little used word in comparison to atheist; so in the context of the encyclopaedia the latter is more useful to the reader. Where a person specifically identifies as nontheist then they should be on this list. --Errant Tmorton166( Talk) 09:50, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Hmmm. Coming a bit late here it seems. Ho hum. Well to 'skip to the end', in the previous (and exhausting if not exhaustive) discussions, we alighted on 'nontheist' because it is a better term for encompassing these people's explicit position. We regarded that as far less problematic than constant arguing over what the persons have called or considered themselves: a label for their stance, rather than whatever label they may or may not pick from the almost-cognate plethora of terms.
Thus, we could sensibly and unambiguously include persons whose stances are near identical but who for various reasons choose different labels and even reject some in favour of others -- Michael Shermer is the classic example. To go the route of self-identification means splitting the list into separate ones for atheist, non-believing agnostic, sceptic, rationalist, on and on. Shermer is worth quoting on this:
Given that this list -- all such lists -- are deliberate pigeonholing, how can it be achieved (if we consider it a worthwhile exercise at all)? Surely by using an unambiguous catch-all term, and use sourced quotes to indicate the deeper probing of what the includee actually thinks and says. Does anyone seriously think Shermer and Sagan were more than a hair's breadth apart? Yet Shermer Shermer will (reluctantly) call himself an atheist, while Sagan denied it.
To have a non-inclusive term is to eject (say) Sagan, despite his avowed non-belief. His position was identical to others who have happily called themselves 'atheist'. To include 'happy' atheists but not 'reluctant' ones is to make a mockery of the point (if there is one) of the list. More pragmatically, it means leaving the list(s) open to constant (and to my mind, pointless and redundant) arguments over people's precise positions. Do we have explicit 'weak' atheists because they call themselves atheists, but not 'strong' atheists who reject the precise term? What of those who call themselves 'atheist' but who do not clarify it; those who make clearly 'atheistic' statements but do not use the term (eg Clarence Darrow); those who are only 'caught on camera' talking about the Christian God, yet whose position clearly would apply to gods in general if only they'd been asked (eg Einstein); those who mean it in the more American sense ('strongly') and those who use it in the more European 'weaker' sense… those who reject the label because it means 'strong' to them but who fit the broader definition perfectly…?
We've been there, done that. To paraphrase Dawkins: Splitting non-believers by splitting hairs, such has ever been the way of Wikipedia (at least, until we decided on 'nontheist').
The underlying position, as Shermer makes clear, is simple non-belief in a deity or deities. The rest can be argued by the person more or less strongly, with different emphases or not actually argued (in a reliable source anyway) at all. But to split -- as we'd have to -- a Sagan from a Shermer seems to me to undermine the rationale for collecting these folks together at all. It'd be like a collector of British stamps who only collects simple Queen's head stamps and never pictoral ones, not because it's just his preference but because he does not consider pictoral ones to be proper stamps at all. Well maybe, like 'atheists', they aren't; but most people wanting to find a list of either is -- I submit -- more interested in 'things put on envelopes to pay for postage' / 'people to whom the label in a general sense applies'.
There will always be POV problems here. But it seems to me to be just as POV to separate people on the basis of their preferred labels as anything else -- and means that any identification that's not the person's own is rendered immediately problematic if not ludicrous (witness the British press's happy -- and correct in their own terms -- identification of Sagan as an atheist… they were not wrong, just using the term a little differently… as indeed do the self-identifiers).
Which is why, way back when, we decided on the descriptive category of 'nontheist'. All the includees are that, no matter what subtribe they also are (if we can even tell).
So then. Just a few other bits. Back on 21 July, Noleander said:
False. (Well unless you consider the OED unreliable.) To wit:
So someone who does not believe in a deity or deities is a non-theist. Simple when you know how.
Then perhaps they might consult a reliable dictionary. Or even try learning English: sticking 'non' on the front of a word is hardly linguistic esoterica.
Irrelevant. Nontheist (or non-theist) is a well-attested and hardly indecipherable adjective, chosen for its accuracy and inclusiveness (and euphemism, given the often perjorative sense of 'atheist'). Would you reject from a list of refuse collection operatives all those who 'merely' call themselves dustmen? "Can't include him, he's never called himself a refuse collector." A 'strong' dustman, proud and Dawkinsian about his job, is a shoo-in, while a more reserved chap who only refers to working in household waste removal gets rejected or consigned to a separate list… and a passing reference to "well I suppose you might call me a dustman, but I've always felt that's too limiting a term" will cause no end of argument.
I'm struck by something I heard Stephen Fry say recently, that we are verbs, not nouns. He writes, he acts, he presents; as soon as you use the nouns, you limit the description. The idea behind using 'nontheist' is to collect those with nontheism, whose verb-like position is non-belief. They do not 'believe in god(s)', the rest is splitting hairs and (given what sources are like) counting angels on pinheads. More practically, we can catch non-believers in the act ('verbally' as it were) with far more certainty than we can by looking for nouns of multiple, overlapping and equivocal meanings, especially when attribution of those terms by (suitably qualified or relevant) others is regarded as a valid form of idfentification.
TTFN, Oolon ( talk) 10:01, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
':'Then perhaps they might consult a reliable dictionary; this, to my mind, is not acceptable practice for an encyclopedia. It should explain concepts with reasonable clarity using accepted & widespread terminology.
It may help to have an Wikipedia:Editnotice on this page. That may eliminate some wasted time in the future. Perhaps the editnotice could say something like: "Please review the Talk page for prior discsussions on the definition of atheist, and for whether or not buddhists, humanists, agnostics and self-identified non-theists should be included in this list". If this is a good idea, some admin will have to add the editnotice. -- Noleander ( talk) 13:42, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I'd like to propose changing the lead to:
This is a list of atheists. Some atheists actively reject the existence of deities but it has also become a wider term for individuals with an absence of theistic belief. The list contains people who have either specifically identified as atheist or where they hold beliefs that are strongly classified as atheist (for example rejecting the idea of a deity). Individuals who identify as non-theists instead can be found in the List of nontheists.
Atheism is contrasted with agnosticism, where an individual believes the existence of a deity is currently unknowable (see List of agnostics).
Thoughts? --Errant Tmorton166( Talk) 14:04, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
I've been following (without much interest, since I didn't have a strong opinion on it) the naming discussion, and waiting for that to be resolved before raising an issue that I think is much more important.
My concern is that this list (or should I say 'these lists' since we have it broken up into a bunch of lists by category and surname) is much too inclusive.
For example, we include Bill Gates and yet quote him directly as saying "I don't know if there's a god or not, but I think religious principles are quite valid."
We have some like Julia Sweeney included quite correctly, I think, due to the notability of her one-woman show "Letting Go of God". But then we have Jan Hein Donner listed on the basis of what is clearly an enigmatic joke: "Well actually, I'm an atheist - but not a practising one."
This issue was raised to my attention when it was pointed out to me that I was on the list, something that I think is quite silly. Not silly based on anything about my personal beliefs, but silly based on what ought to be the purpose of a list like this: not to show how many people are atheists but to guide interested readers to people who have written or spoken extensively on the subject. If an author has written an entire book explaining their lack of faith, that's one thing. But if an author has merely responded to a question in an interview, but never written anything about it, then adding them to the list is merely clutter and not that interesting.-- Jimbo Wales ( talk) 15:55, 25 July 2010 (UTC)
Chickenmonkey old chap: so a bloke who says "Well it's true that I've had a string of same-sex relationships, and this is my boyfriend Eric", but who does not call himself gay and nobody else specifically does either (perhaps because no sourced commentator found it relevant, as might be true for a scientist), could not be included in a list of gay people?
Do you seriously believe that ascribing
to someone who says
... counts as Original Research?
Well I suppose you may be right. But it makes the list, to my mind, completely pointless. We'd have a criterion for inclusion that amounts to 'say the magic word'.
If that is the route of the consensus, for the sake of accuracy I'd have insist the list be retitled List of people identifying themselves with the term, or identified as, atheist. It would not be a list of people who are atheists, just a list of those who've been called atheists.
Indeed, if you throw out, as you effectively are, the simple definition and rely instead on nothing but others' attribution, you'll have to include no end of pre-1900-ish people who have been called atheists, such as Tom Paine. Back in the 17th and 18th centuries, 'atheist' was thrown around at anyone a bit heretical. But atheist they were called by a reliable source, so atheist they were, and into the list they go. Right?
And before you say 'oh but the meaning of the word has changed'… retrospectively applying that to exclude someone would be using only one definition. And that would be Original Research on your part, wouldn't it?
Suppose someone -- a school kid with a summer holiday project, perhaps -- is looking to find out about famous atheists. She goes to a dictionary first, so she knows what to look for: "people who do not believe in gods, or who say gods don't exist", she keeps repeating to herself to be clear in her mind.
Then, on her father's recommendation that Wikipedia is reliable, she comes here. Then she opens another browser window, goes to Facebook, and chats with a friend about the project.
"I've got one here, Clarence Darrow" says the friend. "American lawyer."
"He's not on the Wikipedia list,", says our intrepid investigatrix.
"He said he didn't believe in God because he didn't believe in Mother Goose," says the friend. "And that he believed in neither future life or God."
Our heroine is now confused. "But he's not on the Wikipedia list, which Dad says is the best and most reliable because it's well referenced. Your other list must be wrong."
"But he's quoted the New York Times and everything!"
If, at this stage, they were not to become bored and start talking about R-Patz, they might wonder why someone perfectly meeting the defintion is not included. That is, why an encyclopedia purporting (by having such a page) to list the buggers didn't list a notable one. Surely people wanting such a list want it to contain people who are, not what they've been labelled (or not).
By the same token, Quentin Crisp (oft-quoted as an atheist, by the way, but I can't find a solid source darn it), the self-identified 'Stately Homo of England', probably didn't call himself gay. (Flamboyant, probably, but not gay as in, well, queer.) Is he on the list of gays (etc) though? Surely
Crisp is to Gay
as
Darrow is to Atheist.
Seems to me that one can be as much of a screaming queen or ardent anti-god-ite as one likes, but unless you say the magic word (or someone else calls you it), under this proposal you'll never get on a list with your sexual or philosophical peers. It can look like a duck, walk like a duck, quack like a duck, swim like a duck... but unless it calls itself a duck, some people would not even consider the possibility that we have a member of the Anatidae on our hands. That'd be an OR too far.
(I wanted to put "walk like a ducky, talk like a ducky…" but thought that'd be pushing the word-play beyond endurance, even allowing for it being a Douglas Adams / Blackadder II mashup.)
So the question for all of us is, is our own application of a dictionary definition to something, and including it if it clearly fits, really Original Research, or is it just common sense? And would such a strict (I'd say OCD) application of the OR principle not actually diminish the list's value as a WP entry? The by-the-dictionary method is at best secondary-level OR. A Darrow entry (for instance) would not say anything that is incorrect, ambiguous or unreferenced, and the reason for including him as a nontheist / atheist (etc) is plain from the meaning of those words.
Interestingly, my wife works in the jewellery trade. She tells me that Faberge do not make watches, they make exclusive timepieces. They don't call them watches, nobody in the trade would dare call them watches, and the fact that these items have a flat dial with hands that indicate the hour and minute of the day and are worn on the forearm by means of a strap around the wrist is clearly neither here nor there. So don't go including Faberge in a list of companies that make watches… or if you have a list of timepiece manufacturers, ditch the likes of Rolex, Casio and Rotary, cos they only make watches.
TTFN, Oolon ( talk) 12:05, 26 July 2010 (UTC)
"so a bloke who says "Well it's true that I've had a string of same-sex relationships, and this is my boyfriend Eric", but who does not call himself gay and nobody else specifically does either (perhaps because no sourced commentator found it relevant, as might be true for a scientist), could not be included in a list of gay people?"
"However, Wikipedia cannot, on its own accord, interpret "I don't believe in god" to mean "I am an atheist". That's original research."
"You're making this much more complicated than it actually is."
"Nobody should be on this list (or any list) unless inclusion can be justified […] we should include that in our article on them but not include them in a list."
"if we cannot clearly discern if a person is this or that, we should not list them."
[outdent cos I'm losing track of all the colons]
Sorry, I don't follow you. 'Ambiguous' means 'open to more than one interpretation'. I'm really struggling to think what other meaning it has apart from than that the person disbelieves the existence of a God.
Like what, for goodness' sakes?!
I fully agree that as editors we can't go around interpreting stuff willy-nilly. But does that mean we have to be mere reporting automata? In order to do this WP thingy at all, we need to read and understand stuff. Every page here has 'interpretation' of this sort every time it is not directly quoting. Even rephrasing is interpreting, because you can't do it without understanding. Of course we don't rephrase if it alters the meaning. But given that
'atheist' = One who denies or disbelieves the existence of a God (OED)
and that
"I don't believe gods exist" = [I] disbelieve the existence of a God
... I still fail to see how it is original research to use the word that specifically means someone who holds that position, for someone who, well, says he holds that position.
Would it be similarly wrong to call someone who says "I make my living coming up with new chairs for Ikea" a 'furniture designer'?
And I maintain that it is no more an interpretation than calling someone who says he plays in a band a 'musician'.
We already have a reliable source that very clearly interprets 'atheist' to mean 'not believing gods exist'. It's called the OED. The fact that one version of the idea is contained in one word and the other in a few does not make them any the less interchangeable, any more than 'makes living doing woodwork' and 'carpenter'.
Please, please can you come up with an 'interpretation' of 'he is an atheist' that even vaguely suggests anything less than what our quotee says, for I've racked my brains and cannot. Not believing in [the existence of] gods is what makes someone an atheist by definition. By definition.
Let's try it this way: Suppose someone comes along to here. Sees someone labelled as an atheist. Looks up 'atheist', and looks at the quote. Does anyone think they could derive any other 'inference' than the one we have?
Joe Twitter (he no longer merely bloggs): "He's an atheist?"
WP: "Here's what 'atheist' means, and here's what he said."
Joe: "Oh okay."
Now, we may fairly argue about interpretations if a quote is less clear-cut. What I'm finding incredible is your denying the obvious when the quote is a dictionary definition, practically verbatim. Oolon ( talk) 11:50, 29 July 2010 (UTC)
Krishnadas Kaviraja Goswami described in Chaitanya-charitamrita Adi 6.38:
‘chaitanya-mangala’ shune yadi pashandi, yavana
seha maha-vaishnava haya tatakshana
If even a great atheist hears Shri Chaitanya-mangala (previous name for Shri Chaitanya-bhagavata), he immediately becomes a great devotee.
So all the great atheists which comprise of 99.99% of the world’s population can become maha-vaishnavas if they get the supreme good fortune of reading this book. Thus in my personal opinion, when this book is published and distributed in mass quantities all over the world, it will break open the gates of the flood of the love of Godhead brought by Lord Chaitanya and His associates and will hasten the advent of the predicted Golden Age in all its glory. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.133.26.30 ( talk) 01:14, 9 August 2010 (UTC)
BLP concerns were cited as a reason for renaming this list. Specifically, it was thought that identifying living people as "nontheists" when they might not use that label for themselves was a problem. I'm not convinced that's an issue, and I don't believe anyone offered an adequate case that it was. Nontheist, unlike atheist, does not have a pejorative sense. Furthermore, nontheist, unlike atheist, unequivocally applies to all who do not believe in deities, no matter which definition is used.
However, we know of people who have steadfastly refused to refer to themselves as atheists, despite their unbelief in deities, either because they viewed the label as pejorative in some way, or because they accepted a narrow definition of the word, believing that only those who assert the nonexistence of deities are truly atheists. Carl Sagan is perhaps the best example of such refusal to accept the label atheist. We know from reliable sources that he did not believe in deities, and yet he explicitly denied being an atheist.
This example is why I am concerned about others listed here who are still living. Many are listed not because they called themselves atheists, but because a secondary source labeled them as such. Many are listed for having expressed unbelief in deities, but we do not know their preferred label. How many such people would, like Sagan, adamantly deny being atheists? We do not know. If they were to deny being atheists, it would certainly be prudent to remove them from this list as currently named, even if we can confirm with their own words that they do not believe in deities. But in the absence of a documented denial, it is still a presumption to list them here, and a potential BLP violation.
A renaming to something like what Noleander suggested earlier (List of atheists and nontheists) could address this. Nontheist has no pejorative sense, and although it is not as well-known a label as atheist, it is uncontroversially defined. Or should we return to the stated inclusion criterion for this list from years ago, when only people who self-identified specifically as atheists were included? Nick Graves ( talk) 16:35, 25 October 2010 (UTC)
Tell ya what: I'd be satisfied with this list as currently named if we restored the introductory info more or less to what it was prior to the move to List of nontheists. If we're going to use the most inclusive definition for the term atheist, let's go ahead and let the reader know up front, acknowledge that some listed would not be regarded as atheists according to more restrictive understandings of the term, and that not all listed use the term to identify themselves. We've nothing to lose, and much to gain in terms of clarity. Nick Graves ( talk) 18:19, 27 October 2010 (UTC)
The information about "living persons" in the article lead paragraph is a bid odd. That seems to be directed at editors, not readers. Do other List article have similar sentences? If the goal is to give guidance to editors, a better solution is a "Edit Notice" or "Page notice". This is a message that pops-up whenever any editor edits the article (it is a block of text that appears at the top while the editor is editing). I would create one, but an admin has to do that: the page to create is:
And in that page we'd add the guidance about "Persons need to be ... blah, blah". See WP:Page notice for details. -- Noleander ( talk) 02:32, 29 November 2010 (UTC)