Definitions, Atheism and Fire Hydrants

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”
— often paraphrased from Aristotle, but likely popularised by Will Durant

I am an Atheist.. or am I?

If I were say I was a Fire Hydrant would that make it so? What is meant by Fire Hydrant? Without going to deep into semantics, language and social construction it is not, I think, unreasonable to say that the label Fire Hydrant is applied to something that has certain properties; in this case a connection point to a water supply system used by firefighters providing quickly access water sufficient for extinguishing fires. That which has such properties can reasonable be describe as a Fire Hydrant, and when we approach a thing described as a Fire Hydrant we might reasonable assume it has those properties. Many people might suggest that such a thing should also be bright red; but I think if we were to paint the Fire Hydrant a different colour, it would remain a Fire Hydrant. Indeed, despite red being more frequently associated with Fire Hydrants they also come in Yellow, green and blue: used for distinguishing different flow rates. I think no matter how loudly I protested that I was a Fire Hydrant, firefighters would be reasonably disappointed in my capacity to provide access to high volumes of water, and that is only after they overcome the alarming matter of finding a place to attaching their hoses.

If a Fire Hydrant is broken, is it still a Fire Hydrant? I think not. It is now a new category of thing called a Broken Fire Hydrant. The name would be used to describe an object that is intended to have the properties of a Fire Hydrant but for some reason is no longer able to deliver up those expectations. To that end I could not even be described as a Broken Fire Hydrant as I was not even intended to have the properties we associate with a Fire Hydrant.

So, I think it is reasonable to assume that I am not a Fire Hydrant, even If I were to say I was. Which is I think sufficient to conclude that we can claim to be something we are not, and the claim is insufficient to make it so.

So what if I were to say I was a Fireman? I have most of the basic properties we might expect of a Fireman, legs, liver, heart, toenails etc. I will pretend that for a moment if I were to stand next to a fireman that the respective differences in our lifestyles was not unfortunately as visually apparent as it no doubt is. Let's say we have a Fireman and an Army Soldier, both fine examples of humanity.