One argument I’ve been hearing about with increasing frequency from the atheist community is that “everyone is born atheist” with the implication that religion is some unwitting indoctrination forced upon children too young to object. To me, such an argument represents a shockingly naive tabula rasa view of human development and, what’s more, invalidates the significant intellectual achievements of atheism as an intellectual stance.

A far more accurate view of human development would reveal that “everyone is born animist”, that is, ascribing human like traits to naturalistic phenomena. Our propensity to find and explain patterns of behavior is a product of our deep evolutionary background and even in modern, technological society, we curse our computers as malicious and believe that we can influence the timing of traffic lights. All religion does is impose an organizational framework upon our original animist intuitions. It provides a ready explanation for what we were already pre-programmed to believe.

Only atheism seeks to directly challenge the validity of our animist intuition and promote a wholly naturalistic view of the world. As a result, atheism is a deeply counter intuitive claim and one which can only be justified by deep intellectual inquiry into rationalism, skepticism and the scientific method. The argument that “everyone is born atheist” wholly discredits the significant intellectual effort that atheists must take to reach an intellectually defensible point of view.

So let’s retire this tired old canard that “everyone is born atheist”. It’s intellectually embarrassing and gives a grossly inaccurate viewpoint to outsiders on what atheism actually is.

Related Posts

  1. What atheism isn’t
  2. Oct 30th (day 18): Further thoughts on the existance of god
  3. Religulous
  4. Oct 16th (Day 4): Skills you didn’t know you needed
  5. Nov 2nd (day 21): Obviously wrong truths
  • flyndaran
    What about me? I was never animistic or superstitious even as a child. I always assumed those stories told by adults at sunday school and parents were part of some unspoken game. I was six when I realized they actually believed them. It really creeped me out. After long talk with my father he allowed me to stay home. Both parents were non-denominational christians, so I must have taken them by suprise.
  • millinniummany3k
    Children are born without the knowledge of there being a god, they do not judge that there is catagorically no god, as atheism does, nor do they have the capeability to know whether or not there is god. At best children are born agnostic, but they are not born thinking god does not exist.
  • Hi Zaki,

    I've responded to your comments here: http://blog.figuringshitout.com/what-atheism-isnt
  • It's all semantics really--which is why this topic has caused so much confusion--but purely based on definition, we are all born without the belief in god which makes us atheists technically. We're also aunicornists, atoothfairyists, etc.

    But this is exactly why I don't like labels anyway. They don't accomplish much in the end.
  • Good post.

    I think you're assigning more meaning to the word 'atheism' than you should though. Atheism is simply the lack of belief in a deity, nothing more. This includes anyone from a guy like Dawkins, to a newborn baby, since both don't have a belief in a god. You can't imply that atheism is some sort of intellectual exercise that rids the individual of theism and allows them to think clearly, since the person's ability to do this has nothing to do with their atheism.

    I don't think it's anyone's 'atheism' that challenges our animist intuition, but rather our desire for knowledge. Just as we evolved to interpret our world through animism, maybe we're taking the 'next step' through scientific inquiry and intellectual discourse to find out more about our world.

    I just don't see how we can ascribe atheism to someone's reason for doing anything, since it's nothing more than a lack of belief in god. If you're dealing with the term solely based on its definition, everyone is born without belief in god, as you have to be introduced to a god to believe in one.
  • David Thompson
    Saying that everyone's born an atheist suggests that everyone starts with the concept of what a god is, and believes they don't exist. That's patently silly. "No-one is born a theist" would be less so, though.

    I like the idea that everyone is born a storyteller. A good part of human learning is coming up with ideas (by induction or deduction) and casting them out into the world we perceive to see if they stick. Regardless of whether our theories have gods or spirits in them or not, we're essentially trying to tell ourselves and each other stories about the world that help it make sense to us. Both science and religion do that - albeit in different ways, at different levels and to different intentions.
  • Well put. I agree.

    I took me until a significant number of years into my life before I even began to think about religion and then not until within the last several years that come to any sort of a conclusion as to what I believe.

    Considering the alternate argument and effort required to explain an alternate "default" such as animist intuition, it is all too easy and understandable why in many cases arguing "everyone is born atheist" is an more likely assumption to come to consensus on.
blog comments powered by Disqus