I am specifically referring to the a-political person who has no knowledge of politics. They do not have to 'take a position' to be unaware because of the lack of information or knowledge. At birth the position is they have no knowledge of politics like it or not. Nothing to do with taking a position, or whether politics exist or not. The persons ignorance - ipso facto - is a basis for them being a-political. Ignorant of politics as in born without knowledge of politics , is being without politics ie: a-political. Same then for atheist. Born ignorant of theism is one basis to be without theism, unaware of it, without information or knowledge. ie: a-thestic. All are born in those circumstances as indeed they are in a condition of being a-political.
Yes, the person who has no knowledge of politics is ignorant of politics, and in a technical sense, he is therefore apolitical. So is a turnip apolitical given this definition, which renders the definition pretty useless in a practical sense. I suspect that in poly sci 101 if you said a turnip was apolitical, the professor would think you are either a smart ass or completely daft... This apolitical analogy is not a good analogy to use when discussing practicing atheists, as all the atheists who post here have a concept of God, that they have rejected. Their belief in non God is a practice, not a condition of ignorance or lack of capacity for theism. That rejection then becomes a faith, a belief in non God. Once an understanding of something or a concept is known and understood to the mind, the virginity ends right there, and a choice is made to have faith, suspend all faith, or not have faith in the concept. So theists have faith in God, atheists have faith in non God, and agnostics claim to be unable to form an opinion on God either way, and are neutral. The agnostics plead a brand of educated ignorance when it comes to God. They offer that they are smart enough to say that it is impossible for them to be theist or atheist. You are hardly neutral...so you are not an agnostic, and obviously not a theist, so you are among those typical atheists born of failed theism. Unless you wish to classify yourself as a turnip brained human being... Why fight the truth of your situation and the condition of others here with silly non applicable silly little definitions?
There's a problem with this analogy. There is also "hard-wiring" in humans for the need of politics. We are after all... social creatures. So what is politics but the addressing of social and personal issues? And there is that drive in humans to address those issues. So while a baby might be specifically ignorant of say, democracy, or a monarchy, or communism, etc, the underpinings of all these political systems are innate. Much like the propensity for religion or believing in things greater than self is innate. At a minimum, religion addresses a seemingly innate desire to answer the ultimate questions. So again, no one is born atheist. They are simply born ignorant of the specifics of religion. The the propensity to gravitate towards religion and other fanciful thoughts is quite strong in humans and will probably remain so for many hundreds if not thousands of years to come. As a paranthetical: There is no known atheist culture in antiquity. We see far too much evidence that religion was widespread even in isolated areas. To look at Buddhism or other non-diety religions or dogmas as atheist is not wholly correct because they believe in things they cannot prove and are at many turns fanciful. And atheism is not simply about "disbelieving" in Gods(theism) but about not subscribing to things that are not evident or irrational.
It is often difficult to find the right words to describe the unbelievable sophistry that comes out of your mouth. So you are drawing a parallel between someone who has knowledge of politics but is apolitical himself, with someone who has knowledge of a concept called 'God' but does not believe in God? Sigh... It's not that the analogy is nonsensical. That is obvious on the face of it. The worst part is that this individual may have had or may yet have an opportunity to teach this kind of garbage to a child.
How exactly does one choose to have faith or not when one cannot even choose to believe something they know to be false? For instance, can you make yourself ("choose to") believe that 2+2=5?
One way, evidently, is to become a priest. On second thought, maybe it's not the church that they're f*ing.
God is not known by any method of empiricism to be false, God may be believed to be false by the empiricists, but now known to be false. That is why it is an active practice of faith to hold God as true or non God as true once the concept of God has been understood. We are talking about matters of faith in this thread, not mathematics...right? Oh, and people can make themselves believe whatever they want, we witness that every day...
Lack of empirical data doesn't prove something to be false. All it proves is a lack of empirical data. If lack of empirical data by itself produced truth then X-Rays would have been viewed as false for millenniums due to lack of empirical data...and X-Rays have always been true for quite some time, according to science. Therefore, anyone who claims to know that God is false due to lack of empirical data, is deeply confused as to what constitutes true and false. In addition, there is no logical argument that has been accepted universally by logicians and philosophers that demonstrates God is necessarily false. Consequently, atheists (not the turnip brain variety) practice an active faith in non God, and theists practice an active faith in God.