A Question for Atheists

Great Debates
201

THEN THEY ARE OBVIOUSLY NOT HARD ATHEISTS!!

Good grief, man! Do you see why I don’t think you read my posts carefully? Let me repeat the relevant portion of my previous post:

Not satisfied? See http://se1.com/ft/ftorg/aaaa/literature/atheism101.html

From Atheism 101
**There are two definitions of “atheism” or “atheist”, and they are enough unalike that a lot of misunderstanding can result when this label is used…

[One type of atheist is:] without a belief in God… Michael Martin… calls this position “negative atheism;” I [the web page author] would call it “soft atheism.”

[Another type of atheist is one:] who denies the existence of God. That is, a person who assents to the statements: “There is no God” and “God doesn’t exist.” Michael Martin calls this position “positive atheism,” and I call it “hard atheism.” Frederick Edwords, Executive Director of the American Humanist Association, who labels himself an agnostic, believes that this is the correct definition, and, indeed, the term “atheist” is used this way by most people.**

STILL not satisfied? Here’s another…

**a “Hard” atheist believes there is no god. A “soft” atheist does not believe in god. A subtle, but at times, not too subtle difference…

Hard atheists often “knows for sure” that there is no god in the same way that a fundamentalist Christian “knows for sure” that there is.**

Even now STILL unsatisfied? Here’s a quotation from http://www.abarnett.demon.co.uk/atheism/intro_page.htm

**Atheists do not always assert that God does not exist. There are two broad categories of atheism -

“Positive” (or “strong” or “hard”) atheism and “Negative” (or “weak” or “soft”) atheism.

A “Positive atheist” will say “God X does not exist”, whereas a “Negative atheist” will say “I do not believe God X does exist” - there is a subtle but important difference.

Some agnostics may also be considered “negative atheists”, as they are not theists (there is an overlap between agnosticism and weak atheism).**

On the off chance that you’re STILL not convinced, here’s an excerpt from http://www.eskimo.com/~cwj2/atheism/athgloss.html

**Weak atheism, also known as soft or skeptical atheism, is a skeptical disbelief in deities. This is based on the principle of onus probandi, or burden of proof. Weak atheists put gods in the same class as Unicorns, Leprechauns, and the Great Beige Hroogledrorf from the planet Ixnay in the galaxy Drizzlefump: although not impossible, unsubstantiated and thus not believed in. A weak atheist would respond to “GOD exists!” with, “Prove it.”

Strong atheism, also known as hard or positive atheism, is a positive belief that no gods exist. [emphasis added] This is usually based on a perceived logical disproof, absurdity, or meaninglessness of god concepts. It should be noted that, although atheism in and of itself is often confused with strong atheism, strong atheists are generally in the minority of the atheist community. A strong atheist would respond to “GOD exists!” with, “No he doesn’t,” or, “That’s impossible.”**

Thus, we see that Hard / Strong / Theoretical / Positive Atheism is a BELIEF, an act of faith, a secular religion. How much more evidence do you need???

Now I believe it’s your turn for a concession, MrO…

202

I can see your point, but I have serious doubts if it is actually valid. It seems to me that someone who isn’t dogmatic about laissez faire economics is no longer a libertarian, which I’ve seen defined as the view that laissez faire, free markets are always the best solution to any economic problem.

Someone who thinks that a free market is the right solution in some cases and market limitations or regulations are appropriate in others cannot be considered a true libertarian, and is instead a liberal or conservative.

No, the hallmark of libertarianism is its deplorable dogmatism, regardless of how “rationally” one thinks they came to accept that dogma.

Allow me to quote from: http://www.spectacle.org/897/finkel.html

**…Libertarianism [is] a kind of business-worshiping cultish religion, which churns out annoying flamers who resemble nothing so much as street-preachers on the Information Sidewalk.

In order to understand how one gets from the “moral principles”… to the sort of fanatical proselytizing seen everyday on discussion lists, it’s important to grasp how the ideology actually works out, from theory to practice.

To start off, Libertarianism is highly axiomatic… There’s a set of rules to be applied to evaluate what is proper, and the outcome given is the answer which is correct in terms of the moral principle of the theory. Are the religious thinking connections starting to become evident? This doesn’t mean there can’t be religious-type schisms in applying the axioms (for example, there’s one regarding abortion). But in practice, the rules are simple and tight enough to produce surprisingly uniform positions compared to common political philosophies.**

I agree wholeheartedly with the views expressed on that page. Libertarianism is indeed a secular religion, stoked by dogmatic ideology.

203

Getting a little tiresome. I read your posts fairly carefully (more on that is coming in another thread), and I also remember the Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy from my undergrad Survey of Philosophy course. Nothing in the portion you quoted was new to me, nor did I disagree with any of it.

This was in response to my statement that the hard atheists I know do not have faith that there is no god. They are hard atheists, however. Faith, in the religious sense, is not the same as simple belief. I believe in gravity because I see evidence of it, not because of faith. (Yes, I have some limited faith in my own perceptions, even knowing that they are flawed. But it isn’t a religious faith.) Following your logic, believing (as I do) that I am not surrounded by invisible pink unicorns is an act of faith and therefore constitutes a religion, albeit a “secular” one. I am relatively certain that there are no invisible pink unicorns, but I don’t regard that certainty as religious in any way. It isn’t an act of faith.

Faith and belief are not the same thing, except perhaps in the conversational sense. Faith, in the sense I am using it, refers to something chosen, whereas belief refers to something that occurs spontaneously. I do not exert faith in there being no gods. It is a spontaneous belief. Certain? No, nothing is certain.

I can’t agree. Again, I have no faith that there is no god, but the proposition of god is so absurd that I belieive that there is no god as strongly as I believe that there are no invisible pink unicorns. If you want to say that the lack of empirical evidence for the non-existence of gods and invisible pink unicorns renders my belief a religion, all I can say is that we use the language in very different ways.

I think you conflate the words belief, faith, and secular religion. You seem to believe they are one and the same. I do not share this belief. I have not seen any evidence that I should, and I don’t think the Penguin Dictionary is going to have any.

I believe, quite firmly, that this bass guitar I’m looking at has four strings. I’m not aware of any faith in action here. I’m certainly not aware of any “secular religion” based on this belief. I am aware that you have addressed my claim that the term is oxymoronic. I trust that you are aware that your addressing the issue does not necessarily compel me to accept your view on it.

I’ll concede that you seem to have more time to spend on this than I do, and that I’m not infallible (see other thread, but give me a few minutes). Actually, I think that we are pretty much in agreement, except for some minor semantic quibbles.

204

While I agree with most of what you’re saying here, wouldn’t those hard atheists who disbelieve in the existence of God due to ‘logical disproof’ not be engaging in an act of faith but rather in one of reason? This is not to say that this group of hard atheists isn’t a minority among a minority, or that some of them may have faith that a logical proof for God cannot exist or that their proof may be logically flawed, but rather to show that some hard atheists are not engaging in religion.

205

My dictionary gives the word “religion” as a synonym for “faith”, and vice-versa. This is the key point: Hard atheists must have faith that there is no God (whether they admit it to themselves or not), since there is no way they can know or establish that God does not exist! Soft atheists, like myself, merely doubt that there is a God; we lack a belief in the existence of God. The distinction was made clear in all the citations I listed. Anyone is free to disagree, of course, but to do so is to deny the clear meanings of the terms involved.

I don’t see how, frankly. Note that the actual quote said “perceived logical disproof”. No logical proof or disproof can have anything to say about the real world. Logic is an analytic a priori formal system which can never be used to prove or disprove anything in the actual physical universe, let alone any theoretically metaphysical or transcendent sphere of existence.

No, there is no such thing as a logical disproof of the existence of God or anything else. There must always be a grounding in empirical data regarding existence. There’s the old logical saw about the inability to prove or disprove the statement “all crows are black”. The only way to determine the truth or falsity of that statement is to examine empirically each and every crow in the universe. This has obvious implications for the hard atheist position; i.e., it shows it is absurd.

What the author of the illogical phrase you mentioned most probably was referring to is the acknowledged logical truth that all the PROOFS of the existence of God are flawed. However, the absence or failure of any number of proofs is NOT the same as the existence of a disproof, as I’m sure you understand. Furthermore, as I said above, even if such a logical disproof existed, it would be meaningless since reality need not conform to logic.

Hard atheists, to my mind, remain irrational and unscientific people of faith (at least on this one question), and hence are in my view religious, since they believe something for which they cannot possibly have any evidence, reason, or knowledge. Just like those who have faith in God. Why else would there be a distinction between soft and hard atheists if they both mean the same thing?

206

While I agree that support for free market economics is a lithmus test for libertarianism, I don’t view this fact as being necessarily ‘dogmatic’.

How can dogmatism result from rational thought unless the process surrenders to irrational thought at some point? As long as a libertarian looks at the facts of each situation and decides from those facts that the free market is the ‘best’ solution, I think that that libertarian is still acting as a rational being and not submitting to dogmatism. That the libertarian always finds it to be the ‘best’ solution doesn’t affect this, as its the process not the results that are important.

I read the article, and while I understand its point I believe that its argument was fairly weak. The article works better as a description of the tactics used by some libertarians on-line than as a description or refutation of libertarianism itself. The author engages in the same tactics that he accuses those arguing in favor of libertarianism of. He builds up straw men and then knocks them down and also uses manipulative language. On the whole I believe that the author is relying upon the fact that the reader will most likely have only a cursory familiarity with libertarianism.

That having been said, his descriptions do apply to a number of libertarians on-line. But serious libertarians don’t take them seriously or appreciate their support, anymore than anti-gun control advocates appreciate rednecks who stand up and shout ‘Guns don’t kill people… I do!’.

I guess that my point is that as the author contends libertarianism generally flows from a single axiom held (although this axiom can have more variety and complexity than he implies). This flow can be both rational and irrational depending on the individual. So can the process through which the individual came to accept the axiom. It may or may not be for pragmatic reasons or for reasons of faith. Most libertarians I have met are intelligent and well-spoken rational people. It is my opinion that they try to use rational thought to move from one position to the next. Their arguments may be flawed (as the article contends), but I think that this reliance on reason precludes libertarianism’s classification as a religion rather than as a philosophy.

207

Mine too, damn it. And I have never found much support from any authority to corroborate my insistence that there is a distinction. Or there should be. I irritated a lot of professors about this in the past.

I still insist that there must be a word for the kind of faith put forth by those who are not overwhelmingly convinced, aren’t absolutely certain, and yet choose to believe–to exert faith, as I would put it. Something different from the word that we use for the kind of belief I have about whether my pencil will fall if I drop it. I can’t conceive of choosing to believe that it might not fall; the belief that it will fall is utterly spontaneous and beyond doubt to me. More like knowledge or certainty than belief, but I know how hard it is to prove in philosophical terms that anything is certain, so I stop short of calling it that.

At any rate, my belief that the pencil will fall is motivated by what I think of as reason, as cckerberos mentioned. Those believers who claim to have chosen to believe, I think, are motivated by something else. It must be something else, because what I think of as reason makes it impossible to choose to believe in religious stories as literally true.

Does anyone get the distinction I’m trying to make, and can anyone put words on the two concepts?

208

The Webster’s dictionary I just pulled off of my shelf differentiates between ‘faith’ as it means ‘belief’ or ‘trust’ and ‘faith’ as it means ‘religion’ or ‘creed’. I think it’s clear from these two sentences that they aren’t interchangeable:

  1. I have faith that my girlfriend will pick me up.
  2. I belong to the Jewish faith.
209

My dictionary (not the final authority on philosophical subtleties, I know) gives a couple of explanations that make faith and belief pretty darn close. There is definition 2b(1), which is “firm belief in something for which there is no proof.” By that definition, I suppose hard atheists have faith that there is no god. I don’t suppose any of us have proven that there is no god.

But there must be a way to express a different kind of faith: firm belief in something for which there is no real evidence. To me, it seems that religious faith is of this type. The “faith” of atheists seems fundamentally different to me.

210

I just had one thing to add to the libertarian thing. I always thought that the primary tenet of libertarianism was not necessarily laissez faire but the insistence (or whatever word) on complete and total individual freedom. Obviously what would follow from this economically is laissez faire. I thought this was the case because some libertarians (I don’t know if its the definitive ones or not) argue that the government should not be able to restrict our ability to drive drunk or own biological weapons (this thread and this thread, as well as some gun control ones). So what does this mean? While perhaps somebody could observe the global economy and come to the opinion that laissez faire is a better option, I think it takes a good deal of “faith” to assert that we will be better off if we all have complete and total personal freedom, and that THIS is the defining characteristic of a true libertarian.

If I’m mistaken then I appologize, I really don’t know too many libertarians, this was just the general feeling I got about the basic ideology.

211

Using that kind of simplistic, self-serving logic, I postulate that:

  1. If you believe that the Earth is not hollow because of evidence presented so far, but you cannot provide proof that it is not, then you have faith.

  2. This faith is a religion.
    If you wish, substitute Superman, the Easter Bunny, telepathy, Odin or any other concept you believe not to be real. Unless you wish to state that the hard disbelief in each of these concepts is a religion, I suggest that this silly idea of “hard atheism” being a religion be dropped.

212

It’s all a question of values, really, in terms of what “better off” means. I’ve never heard a libertarian promote absolute freedom (though it can certainly seem that way at times). The most common tenant would only put restrictions on the initiation of force or fraud against another person (I believe this is the one mentioned in the article that was linked to earlier) although I’ve also heard arguments based more along politically theoretical lines (i.e., not really “I should be able to do this because it doesn’t involve force or fraud” but instead “I should be able to do this because the government has no legitimacy to stop me”). I think that most libertarians would think that someone was better off if he was poor and free than if he was rich and had his rights routinely violated. I don’t really see how ‘faith’ enters into this other than that perhaps it strikes you as insane that someone could use reason as a basis for libertarianism or could rationally attempt to apply it to reality?

213

One description of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result.

No matter what economic issue or problem is under discussion, libertarians always insist that the best solution is a free (or more free) market. This is the very hallmark of irrationality, of faith, of dogma. Sometimes that answer is best, sometimes it’s not (which is the view of conservatives and liberals alike). Rational people do not have the same solution for every economic situation. Libertarians are like a man with a hammer who sees every problem as a nail.

The philosophical roots of libertarianism (if you can use the word “philosophical” to describe it) come from crackpots like Ayn Rand and her ilk. If one were to read Rand carefully (as I very regretfully did), you will see that her views are absurd, counter-rational dogmatism. A great many (probably a large majority) of libertarians hold Randian opinions. Adam Smith, an undeniable genius in economic philosophy and strong promoter of capitalism and free enterprise (whom I greatly admire), could certainly not be confused with a libertarian “philosopher”!

By no means did I offer that link up as a refutation of libertarianism (which in my view hardly needs to be refuted, any more than voodoo or Jerry Springer does). I offered it as an observation (and a highly accurate one, in my experience) of the irrational style of argumentation libertarians usually engage in, as well as the description of the dogmatic and axiomatic basis of the libertarian faith.

Now if I seem dogmatic to you here in turn, what you are really seeing is an aversion to debating libertarianism acquired over many years of bashing my head against the wall with them. It’s far more worthwhile trying to convert Christian fundamentalists to paganism.

I find libertarians to be intelligent and well-spoken rational people on just about every subject but economics, where they become the equivalent of Moonies. On that topic, they sound like mystics discussing the Holy Grail!

I will drop the word “religion” to describe their views (since it was causing too much controversy for too minor a point), but I remain convinced that they are proponents of a fundamentally irrational faith. Just because something is irrational at root doesn’t mean that one cannot exercise reason while advancing it! I find the same kind of compartmentalization in nearly all people of faith, whether they be libertarians or Marxists or Baptists. Consider, for example, the Mormons. The vast majority of them are quite intelligent, rational, happy, healthy-minded people who just happen to dogmatically believe that Joseph Smith transcribed a sacred text from golden plates of Egyptian hieroglyphics that were later taken up into heaven. Are these people thus irrational? Not really, they’re just irrational on the subject of their faith, just like libertarians.

214

When I was a Christian believer – a man of faith – I certainly wasn’t convinced, overwhelmingly or otherwise, of the truth of my faith. I just chose to believe it. What made my belief an act of faith is that I believed it in the complete absence of evidence! This is why I continue to insist that hard atheism is an act of faith, for hard atheists believe there is no God, without any evidence, exactly the way I believed in God.

I submit that the only reason you are unable to believe that your pencil might not fall is due to life in the empirical world. You have acquired a lifetime of experience with gravity and the forces of nature. Compare your pencil scenario with a chemistry experiment for which the outcome is completely unknown and unpredictable to you (I hope you’re not a chemist!). In such a situation, you might well find it easy to believe the resulting mixture might turn blue if someone insisted it would. You would then be surprised if it turned red.

I might call the pencil scenario “empirical or a posteriori belief”, the chemistry experiment “conditional belief”, and hard atheism “non-empirical, a priori belief”, which is another way of saying “faith”.

215

“Calling atheism a religion is like calling baldness a hair color”

– Modern atheist proverb.

:smiley:

216

Talk about an argument from authority! :wink:

“simplistic, self-serving logic”? Are you talking to me?? Let me guess: you’re a hard atheist. Nothing self-serving about a partisan establishing the rules of debate, is there?

For the record, Oh Great One, I am a soft atheist and an agnostic, so don’t go attributing to me ulterior motives! We have been doing fine without your intervention thus far, though far be it for me to question your wisdom and impartiality.

Since you insist, I will obsequiously drop the word “religion”, since to do otherwise is to risk your wrath.

But it remains clear that hard atheism is a faith, as adherents believe something that is completely closed to empirical evaluation and scientific investigation. Their faith is NOTHING at all like the belief that the Earth is not hollow, since that is an empirical question and open to scientific investigation.

Mr. Moderator, you may wish to read my response to MrO immediately above (07-26-2001 02:09 AM). Unless you consider it too “simplistic and self-serving”, of course.

217

My dear GIGObuster: “Calling hard atheism a religion is like calling a tomato a fruit. Some people don’t recognize the truth, but that doesn’t make it any less true.”

– Extremely modern agnostic proverb

:wink:

218

For the record, the partisan I was referring to was the Moderator, Czarcasm. This is the first time I’ve ever seen a moderator take sides in a debate. Perhaps that because I don’t post that often?

219

Well I was like that until I read this essay of Judith Weeks:

http://www.thehappyheretic.com/06-01.htm

it finishes with this:

“So, fellow atheists, I encourage you to drop any pretense of knowing there is no God. You have no way of knowing. Nor do I. I have no theistic belief - therefore I am an a-theist. A so-called agnostic has no theistic belief - and is therefore an a-theist.
When Thomas Huxley coined the word “agnosticism” in 1869 he almost certainly had his tongue in his cheek when he did it. Believing, quite incorrectly, that being an atheist meant asserting that no God does or could exist, he wasn’t sure what to call himself, since he wasn’t sure about God’s existence. (Join the rest of the world, Thomas!) So he made up this meaningless word, agnostic, and it has bedeviled us ever since. Let’s be done with it!”

– Judith Hayes.

220

Thank you for not reading my post thoroughly, Ambushed. Have you nothing to say about my argument that disbelief in a “god” is no more a religion than disbelief in Superman or the Easter Bunny is a religion? Using your specious logic, why don’t we list all of the new “religions” you’ve created:

Disbelief in Superman
Disbelief in Santa Claus
Disbelief in telepathy
Disbelief in Howard the Duck
Disbelief in the Invisible Pink Unicorn
Disbelief in the Hollow Earth Theory
Disbelief in fairies
Disbelief in time travel
Disbelief in talking frogs that are in reality princes
Disbelief in magic beans
Etc. ad infinitum

You can no more disprove these absolutely than you can the existance of “gods”, can you? I’m sorry, but the non-belief in a religion cannot be called a religion. You believe in a magic called religion, and I do not.

BTW, I didn’t put on a “Moderator Cap” when I posted previously-I was speaking with no more authority than anyone else.