What is the name for a non-religious person?

Imagine that a remote island with a native population is discovered, this island has had no contact with the rest of the world ever. The people on this island have no concept of religion at all, it simply has never existed there. Thus, religiously, these people have nothing to believe AND nothing to dis-believe. This cannot make them theists or atheists, so what are they?

The actual probability of this scenario is irrelevant, it's simply to make a point. Both atheists and theists make a point of stating "You must either believe or disbelieve, there is no other option", when there clearly is, the third option is simple ignorance (either by design or by circumstance). This is because belief or disbelief is an active decision, someone unwilling or unable to give the decision any active thought cannot be placed in either camp.

2011-02-08T17:17:13Z

You just invalided you own reply. You are an atheist of you do not BELIEVE in God, but these people have nothing TO disbelieve. If you asked these people "Do you believe in god?", they wouldn't understand what you are talking about. You would have to introduce them to the concept of God before they could make the decision to believe or disbelieve, so they cannot BE athiests without being able to make the decision to disbelieve, SO WHAT ARE THEY? This isn;t rocket science to understand either.

2011-02-08T17:19:17Z

Lu, you are making claims you cannot substantiate.

2011-02-08T17:20:08Z

Alex, to be agnostic you would have to have knowledge of the concept of religion.

2011-02-08T17:22:18Z

No Chance and Ceiling, you have to make a decision to "Not-Believe" belief or non-belief must be decision based. You cannot be a non-believer in something you are ignorant of.

2011-02-08T17:27:49Z

The whole thing boils down to lack of belief. And I see two variations

non-belief and dis-belief. These are DIFFERENT. And I say that it is dis-belief that makes you an atheist. Non-belief makes you something else, and that needs a name because atheist is inaccurate and misleading.

2011-02-08T17:30:01Z

Anthony, well well done on getting 2 points for iterating the disclaimer I put in the question about its probability. You should only answer a question if you have a valid reply, not simply putting the question into different words.

blue_lagoon2011-02-08T17:10:08Z

Favorite Answer

AWESOME!

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Ceiling Catte2011-02-09T01:10:45Z

If they don't believe in a god, they're atheists. It's really not rocket science.

Edit - the only active action is belief. Disbelief is passive. One does not choose to disbelieve something.

Atheism is not believing in a god regardless of the reason for that lack of belief.

You're trying to assert that atheists actively disbelieve in a god as if it's a choice. It isn't. You can actively choose to believe, but disbelief is the default state. As I said, it's actually very simple. You're deliberately choosing to obfuscate the issue, which I find to be intellectually dishonest and sophistic.

ReEdit - nope. If someone preaches to me about the putative existence of god and fails to convince me, they have failed to make me believe. I'm not "choosing to disbelieve". I'm "not choosing to believe".

In other words, the choice is whether or not to believe. Disbelief is the null hypothesis, the default state. It cannot be made any plainer.

72

I love everyone2011-02-09T01:13:39Z

That's called implicit atheism, someone who does not believe in any deities due to ignorance of the concept. Small children are considered to be implicit atheists, as are animals.

And Ceiling Catte is correct. Implicit atheism is still atheism. If you don't believe in deities you are an atheist. Whether it is due to ignorance or explicit rejection, it's still atheism.

Edit: Your premise is false. You do not have to consciously reject a concept in order to not believe in it. How can you be said to believe in something you don't even have any concept of in the first place? The word "atheist" fits because if you are ignorant of a concept then you cannot and don't believe in it. Besides this argument is getting into mere semantics and I find semantics to be a very pointless conversation. If you don't like the term implicit atheism then invent a new one and spread it around. Create a new meme.

Edit: Another false premise. Atheism includes both disbelief and nonbelief. You do not have to disbelieve in order to be called atheist. Disbelief = explicit atheism, nonbelief = implicit atheism

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Mark2011-02-09T01:14:47Z

Atheist, Agnostic, Irreligious, Non-theist.

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?2011-02-09T01:16:15Z

An atheist is someone who don't believe in God or religion even though he/she know there is.

A theist is someone who know there's God and believe it.

In this case,
1. The native people might not know that there's God, so atheist is not the correct word. Since they didn't know religions yet, religious terms cannot apply here.
2. The native people have a God that you didn't believe, then it doesn't mean they don't have any religion.

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