Is it true that we're all born atheists?

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I've seen it said before. I'd say that it is not true. How can you be an atheist if you don't know what God is? An infant doesn't know what God is, and so can't be an atheist.

It's tricky, because there are two definitions of "atheist". One is a person who does not believe in a god, the other is a person who believes no gods exist. An infant would be considered an atheist by the first definition, but not by the second.

I absolutely disagree. When you're young, you tend to think about things that you are interested in, while learning about things that happen on front of you while growing up, but you still feel confused about stuff that you don't understand. Personally, what we believe in and how we believe is all depending on how people and experiences teach us and how they affect our lives to give us our knowledge and choice what we want to believe in. So, in conclusion, we are not born atheists, we just are what we are.

Nobody is born a theist. That much is certain.
If "atheist" is defined as a person who is not a theist (theist/atheist being a binary dichotomy), which is technically the literal meaning of the word as constructed, then yes, everyone is born an atheist, just like everyone is born alingual (not fluent in any language). However, some would say that it's more useful to define an atheist as a person who has been introduced to the concept of theism and not accepted it as fact, and by that usage, no, we're all born not having heard the question. Certainly, nobody is born a "hard atheist", which would be a person who has heard of theism and not only rejected it but deemed it false, but one doesn't have to be a hard atheist to be called an atheist.

In short, sort of, technically, unless you're going for a definition that implies having considered it.

i think that whoever is saying that "we're all born atheists" is probably saying that religion and mysticism are strictly cultural impositions

my not-so-humble opinion is that it's bs. the exact flavor of religion and mysticism will be determined by culture, but magical thinking (attaching abstract and human-like powers and attributes to elements and entities of nature and society, with no objective connection) is an integral part of the way how the human brain works

I agree, the default position is no knowledge, not instinctual rejection of the notion of a god, which is how I have always understood atheism. If you want see a dictionary war between myself and adifferentname (a 33rd degree secret handshake agnostic atheist with parking privileges ) see here:

viewtopic.php?t=327348

I agree with anagram and disagree with the Vince.

As logical as it may sound it is far from "certain" that we are not born theists.

Psychologists have done studies on children, and found that children spontaneously believe things like "the moon watches me" , and have other forms of magical thinking. Humans seemed to be wired to generate theistic and animistic (spirit worship) type notions even as children even before culture closes in and teaches us the specific theology your parents want you to believe in.

Well if we were all born atheists then where did all the theists come from then? Like having a chicken before the egg!

I think religion and the idea of a god is something inherent in our DNA, it is how peoples made sense of the world and this is universal.

Why try to label and analyze infant thought / behaviour in the context of adult thought / behaviour at all ? That seems incredibly neurotypical to me.

Magical thinking is not theism. Pagans have magical thinking. Atheism is lack of a belief in God. You can't have a belief in God until you get at least a rudimentary idea of what it is. So babies are indeed atheists.

let the dictionary wars begin! may the god(s) have mercy on us all

Well, I'd agree that we're not born atheists, but that's not the best question to ask to argue against it. It's kind of like asking, If we're all born without language, where did all the language come from? A better question would be, "how can an infant believe there's no God if an infant doesn't know what God is?"

I have seen alot of near death experiances online in videos and I can say, that in most cases it didnt matter if you believed or not in an afterlife, or some existence after this one. Thats the question and its open for debate. My view is something definitely is going on after we die, a mass hallucination is hard to contain. There would be at some point an undeniable truth to counteract all these NDEs

Personally, I think you go on. I believe that whatever you believe in here mostly shapes what you will see there, So if you believe in nothing then you find yourself in a place of no gravity going on and on forever, infinity and nothingness which could be a good or bad thing, but then again 'good and bad' are made up human terms to describe a situation. There really is only nature and the prder of things seen and unseen

I'm really looking forward to die. This life was defiantly an experiance and I'm happy I came here even with all the BS, but Home is where I belong and here I am mearly a traveler.

I would contend otherwise. What people believe and think is not merely a what of environment or what one is taught. Human beings have a capacity for individual ideas, imagination, reasoning, and independent thinking, which helps form what one thinks and believes. While culture may influence thinking, it does not wholly effect it. It is because of this individual capacity to think and produce ideas, symbols, and notions of meaning and value, that culture exists in the first place. If it weren't for people thinking up things, the society would have nothing with which to create common ideas and nothing with which to furnish a culture.

I may just be my general misanthropy flaring up again...

... but I lack the sanguineness relating to the intellectual sophistication of neonates necessary to sincerely consider them capable of engaging in complex philosophical belief systems...

... regardless, it might be interesting to consider the following thought experiment:

Imagine if no one was exposed to any religious thought until their 18th birthday, and only then were they asked to choose if they would (or would not ) join a religious faith...

I wouldn't be surprised to see not only (1) a much greater prevalence of atheism, but also (2) a vastly different choice of religion for those who *did* choose to join a faith.

Get 'em while they are young, and all that...

Anyway, Pew did a study back in 2015 where they tracked the people entering and leaving various religious traditions in the US:



Source: http://www.pewforum.org/2015/05/12/chap ... rmarriage/

But an infant doesn't believe one way or the other, whereas atheists specifically believe gods don't exist.