An Argument in Defense of the Serial Comma

Ah, that would be a problem with the copyeditors. AP style doesn’t use serial commas except when the meaning changes when you don’t use it, or if the sentence becomes too hard to follow without it.

Which, being a Chicago style girl who has to follow AP at work, should just lend itself to using the Oxford comma all the damn time. It would clear things up so much, and it makes more aural sense to me.

If you’re stuck with the dogma of one particular style, a simple fix would be to change the order of the items.

Hmmm, funny, I never knew there was such a thing as a “serial comma”. Over here, a “comma and” construction is always wrong and if there’s confusion without the comma, you’ll have to rearrange things.

Also, Don S seems to have never talked to a real life atheist. If you had, you’d find the number of atheists who say “I believe there is no god” is tiny, compared to the number who say “I do not believe there is a god.” If you would like to learn, do post.

Also, Don S seems to have never talked to a real life atheist. If you had, you’d find the number of atheists who say “I believe there is no god” is tiny, compared to the number who say “I do not believe there is a god.” If you would like to learn, do post.

Thank you! I never had thought of the distinction in that way before. You are very wise =D

In the eye of the law, when it comes to child adoption,

Jessica, James, and Leon.

means the three can be adopted out separately.

Jessica, James and Leon.

James and Leon must be adopted together.

I always use serial commas. MLA style requires it anyway and I wrote mostly under the MLA style.

Don’s roundabout argument seems to suggest that people that don’t believe should just shut up.

Suggesting that atheists stop “attacking” non-atheists is a double standard without acknowledging that there are plenty of non-atheists attack atheists.

Besides, the argument that non-believers have to prove their belief is nonsensical. The onus is on those that do believe to prove their belief, proving the negative is an impossible standard.

This has always be a pet peeve of mine. Put the stupid thing in! I feel a little better now.

I’ve always used serial commas. Or tried to at least. Then I started working at one of my old jobs, and serial commas were strictly verboten. I didn’t like it, but I liked getting a paycheque, so I didn’t complain.

I’m so glad I don’t work there anymore.

On a tangentially related note, I find it ironic that verboten is in my spell checker dictionary, but the Canadian spelling of paycheque is not.

@Epistaxis: Aye, arguments pro & contra at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serial_comma#Arguments_for_and_against. Basically, the serial comma is usually redundant. In the UK, we generally don’t use the serial comma, so to me it also just looks all… well, American. And so wrong! 😉

Don S

The most honest atheists are agnostics.

Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive. I am an agnostic atheist because I believe that no gods exist and concede that the question is not provable either way. As far as I can tell and as far as the evidence suggests there is no reason to believe in gods. Present your evidence and I am open to changing my mind.

A true atheist (an oxymoron at best) is one who believes there is no God and that is enough.

If only that were enough. If only Christians would leave non-believers alone and not meddle in a shared society so that we have to defend our position. If only theists would keep their faith as a personal faith and not push it into the public arena all the time.

I believe there are not gods. Theists believe in at least one god. If it stopped there then we could agree to disagree but it never does.

As a big fan of the serial comma myself, I thank you for posting about this. I happen to be a professional proofreader, so this really matters to me.

It’s a simple matter of logic, simplicity, and consistency. Excluding the serial comma (or using it only some of the time) invites the possibility of error in conveying the intended meaning. Including the serial comma always conveys the intended meaning correctly.

I hated having to leave out the serial comma when I worked at a newspaper. AP style really needs to be brought out of the 19th century on this issue.

~David D.G.

Sanity, it amazes me that you are so good with commas but split hairs on the semantics of “belief in no God” or “not believing in God”. If not believing in God leaves open the possibility of God’s existence, that is agnosticism, not atheism. The agnostic says, “I may or may not believe in a God…I really don’t know.” At least that is honest. Maybe you are talking about an atheistic choice within an agsnostic belief system. In other words, unless you deny God’s existence, you cannot be atheistic by definition. Leaving the door open as to whether God exists or not is not atheism. Granted, it may be that there is a type of atheist that acts like the child who doesn’t want to hear, puts her fingers in her ears and screams, “La, la, la…I can’t hear you.” She doesn’t hear by choice. But the atheist who says, “I never said God did not exist” is definitely a puzzle.

Nothing like having a theist come in here to correct us poor misguided atheists about the meaning of atheism.

Thank you, DSimon, for making such a strong case for atheism. While I have neither thought of atheists as being “poor” or “misguided”, I have found many to be intellectually arrogant, which is not the same thing at all. Your presumption that I look at all atheists with pity reeks of immature prejudgment, awful qualities in any belief system. “Misguided” implies that I believe all atheists are somehow being guided. I believe some are followers and some are leaders. They can’t all be misguided. I’ve been criticized for my lack of understanding about atheism, and I will certainly grant you that I don’t hang out in the modern atheistic community enough to know what their latest consensus of the definition of atheism is. What I do see, however, is a lack of honesty in apologetics that reeks of the same intellectual dogmaticism as the priests and fundamentalists you criticize. The very fact that you would lump me in a category with all other “deists” with a deliberate and condescending air, shows how little you have to learn from anyone who doesn’t already agree with you. I entered this blog looking to openly debate and to learn in the process. Already I’ve met atheists who sweep me into broad categories or whose best argument is that I’ve got a comma up my ass. Others allude to their beliefs but either don’t state them or present them inconsistently. While I certainly would be hypocritical to lump all atheists in the category of those I’ve encountered at the friendlyatheist.com, I’ve read enough to know that this is not the place to learn about them.

The linked article made me curious about the concept of Church planting, as I never heard about it. In doing some internet digging I found Vermont termed the “graveyard for new churches” by one church planter. I also find it amazing that the evangelicals are so concerned about New England.

Oh and I’ll weigh in on the God versus plumbers rat hole. If you have a backed up toilet who are you going to call?

Plumbers 1, God 0.

I’m agnostic, atheist, adaakaaist
1. I don’t claim knowledge about the existence of gods (agnostic)
2. based on no positive evidence, I don’t happen to believe that gods exists (atheist).
3. based on propositional logic, if there is a god, then I don’t believe that said god would send non-believers to an everlasting hell.

DonS,
did you really “enter this blog looking to openly debate and to learn in the process.”?
Because if that was your intention as you claim, you should reread your post and ask yourself if that’s any way to approach that task.
Presuming to tell me, as one of the readers here, how I should define myself as an atheist, and that if I have a different perspective I am being dishonest, is no way to openly debate and dialogue.
Also, telling me that to be out as an atheist is somehow despicable, and only proves something about the validity of religion, is offensive and non-sensical. (BTW, that last comma made a big difference!)
Try showing some respect, try reading some posts, try using paragraphs so your posts can be read without getting a headache.

I was an undefined atheist until the last election. By that I mean I didn’t really discuss the subject much, although if pressed, I probably would have identified as an atheist. But during the last election, theists came to my State, donated money to my State, and generally interfered with the elective process in my State, and succeeded in rescinding my civil right to get married.
If you want to blame the recent rise in atheism on someone, I suggest you look at theists who misuse their religious delusions to discriminate and oppress people.
There’s your culprit.

Don S, I think you’re getting mixed up with common statements within a certain context like “There is no God”, “Gods are imaginary”, “God is all in the mind”, “Your sky daddy is a made up story”, etc with the broader idea of atheism. Very simply (again) atheism is a lack of belief in gods. Please note that no positive statements or factual claims are made, only a denial of belief.

Perhaps an example would help? In addition to being an agnostic and an atheist I am also an aunicornist. It isn’t something I advertise or talk about much because unicorn believers aren’t denying their fellow humans civil rights, insisting that I should believe in their magic horse with a horn, or trying to force unicorn related mythology into schools disguised as science. I have not, and probably won’t ever, see all animals on this wonderful planet that we share so I cannot deny categorically the existence of magical horned ponies.

I do not believe that they exist and am even happy to say, in common parlance, that unicorns are nothing more than stories for children or even that they do not exist. If pressed or in more detailed conversation I will take the time to express my lack of belief carefully so as to avoid confusion but in blog comments or in online forums I am happy for the careless “Unicorns aren’t real” statement to shine.

The same applies to gods.

hoverFrog, you obviously haven’t seen the machinima on You Tube about what the Invisible Pink Unicorn does to people who are aunicornists.

A man breaking his journey between one place and another at a third place of no name, character, population or significance, sees a unicorn cross his path and disappear. That in itself is startling, but there are precedents for mystical encounters of various kinds, or to be less extreme, a choice of persuasions to put it down to fancy; until – “My God,” says a second man, “I must be dreaming, I though I saw a unicorn.” At which point, a dimension is added that makes the experience as alarming as it will ever be. A third witness, you understand, adds no further dimension but only spreads it thinner, and a fourth thinner still, and the more witnesses there are the thinner it gets and the more reasonable it becomes until it is as thin as reality, the name we give to the common experience…”Look, look!” recites the crowd. “A horse with an arrow in its forehead! It must have been mistaken for a deer.”

— Tom Stoppard (Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead)

What is your name for those who know God does not exist? Antignostics, maybe?

No, those would also be gnostics. As in a gnostic atheist.

Theres Agnostic Atheists: Those that claim to not know for sure whether gods exist and also do not believe in them.

Gnostic Atheists: Those that claim to know gods do not exist and therefore do not believe in them.

Agnostic Theists: Those that claim to not know for sure if gods exist, but nevertheless believes they do.

and Gnostic Theists: Those that claim to know gods exist and therefore believe in them.

Bring this back to the subject of the OP, it’s all very well a bunch of experienced and practicing writers discussing the ins and outs of the serial comma (and the enlightened path to homosexuality for that matter). However, I work in an engineering environment, where writing is about showing other people how clever you are, by writing as much as possible (I’m working on a solution). Most of those SMEs wouldn’t know if a serial comma altered the meaning of their sentence or not; so in my context, it’s simpler to have a rule they can all understand: put it in.
And thank you to Hemant for spotting this, it’s a far more comprehensible argument for including it than the ‘My parents, God and Ayn Rand’ version.

I disagree with you on this:

I don’t think the lack of a serial comma in the original post is a problem. It does not change the meaning of the quote at all.

As written,

the exclusivity of Christianity as a path to salvation and homosexuality

can be read as being in apposition to

the divinity of Jesus

As in, what makes Jesus divine is that he is the exclusive path to homosexuality. The original may not be as completely ambiguous as “I’d like to thank my parents, Ayn Rand and God” but it’s still has some ambiguity.