# Atheists have more faith **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [September 20, 2006, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406 "2006-09-20T13:08:35Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 7
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/121 "2006-09-24T00:14:14Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] You’re just playing a game here: defining things such that there is no creation of the universe to observe. Such objections are pointless. You don’t know that the portals I describe are actually impossible, or whether the definitions even make sense (certainly, if anything is outside the universe, then the singularity is NOT “everything” at all). We don’t know how universes begin, or what’s outside of them or what we can can observe about them via means we have yet to even imagine. You are acting like a scientist in the realm of philosophy and possibility, which is far far broader. To claim that something is unknowable is a far far stronger claim than the claim that it is not known, or even that in a practical sense, there is no reason to think you or I in particular have the means to know it. [/quote] Thinking further, the unknowability of god is a second order characteristic, that depends on the first. If they peepholes you describe do exist, god is knowable (though you may not see anything when you look through them.) If they don’t, God is unknowable. But in neither case does assigning a value to this lead to a contradiction. > [@](#): > > If the universe has no beginning or creation, then there is nothing to know, and hence it isn’t “unknowable” (and God is impossible). If there is, then you, who admit that you know nothing about it, have no grounds to insist that nothing can ever be known about it. How can you? You don’t know its nature or its implications. They could be manifold. There could be an entire dimension of information streams as yet undiscovered, or a million other unlikely possibilities. There could be an entire epistemology of knowledge as yet undiscovered. You can object that all of that is farfetched, but unfortunately, all are perfectly valid counter-examples to the claims of a strong agnostic. It was the strong agnostic, after all, that raised the issue of fundamental certain unknowability. Here I agree with you. These are perfectly valid reasons to doubt the claim of strong agnosticism. They are not a proof, but have the advantage of being valid. Smith has this nasty habit of feeling he has to prove a lot of things where proofs are either not called for or where the thing being proven is incorrect. > [@](#): > > Smith’s assumption is that to know that something: whether it be God, or even a characteristic of God, is unknowable, you would first have to know it, thus being able to see that it is outside the scope of what can be known (which, remember, you keep forgetting is itself NOT FULLY KNOWN). You can’t do that: it’s incoherent. > > Again, he seems quite straightforwardly correct on this. This can’t be right. As a trivial case, the solution to the halting problem is provably unknowable. All we have to be able do do is define the problem to know this. I don’t believe strong agnostics are claiming that they can prove god is unknowable, just that he is. I don’t think they even claim they know he is unknowable. So, not being able to prove god is unknowable in no way means that he isn’t. Anyhow, in my example, the unknowability of god from not being able see to the creation has nothing to do with god, but has to do with the universe. We weren’t arguing about the characteristics of god, remember. If we posit a god who only operates beyond our event horizon (a pointless god indeed) that god is provably unknowable, though we know nothing about it except this one fact. Of course we don’t know if this god exists or not, but agnostics don’t claim it does. Now one disproof of strong agnosticism that makes sense to me: if you define god as all powerful, but unknowable, then he cannot make himself known. A god who could make himself know must be more powerful than this god, contradicting the claim of an unknowable god. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 12:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/122 "2006-09-24T00:16:13Z")
[QUOTE=Loopydude] Technically speaking, a singularity of any sort is undefined, for example the way the value of 1/0 is undefined. Discussing the “beginning” of the universe at a singularity (which General Relativity predicts if you extrapolate backwards) is paradoxical, because any expression of a moment in time presupposes time. Changes in zero dimension give you rates equalling something over zero, which, again, is undefined. It’s meaningless. [/QUOTE] True for non-supernatural entities, but since god is supposedly outside of time, not true for him. But since we’d have to observe this god outside of time using non-supernatural means, we wouldn’t be able to do it. So we can’t say if there is a god there, but we can say we couldn’t observe it. ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/123 "2006-09-24T01:12:04Z")
26 angels can dance on the head of a pin. True?? Or no?? ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 1:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/124 "2006-09-24T01:58:58Z")
And for a moment of comic relief, a bit from [The Onion](http://www.theonion.com/content/node/52983) weekly horoscope! > [@](#): > > Cancer June 22 - July 22 > Unwavering faith in a supreme, all-knowing being that controls the universe will help you to overcome a series of rational and seemingly insurmountable arguments this week. ---
**Author:** ![David\_Simmons](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9de053/32.png) [@David\_Simmons](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/David_Simmons)\ **Post date:** [September 24, 2006, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/125 "2006-09-24T03:43:39Z")
[QUOTE=newcrasher] Can you prove that? I know, maybe I am putting words inyour mouth and asking you to defend them, but you see where I am going with this. If you disagre with my premise, then give me a positive statement about the atheist view of the afterlife, then defend it. [/QUOTE] Things like that are not proved in the logical sense of a series of sylogisms. It is postulated that the electrical and chemical activities in our brains constitute our thoughts, dreams, etc. and result in our walking, talking etc. So we can hook up electrical apparatus so as to record our brain activity. If we stimulate a person in a certain way, such as having them read, the activity in certain parts of the brain increase and it’s repeatable. If we speak a different part of the brain springs to life, if we walk another, etc. Furthermore, if certain parts of the brain are electrically stimulated dreams and thoughts arise from that stimulation. There is a lot of evidence that our minds are not some disembodied spiritual entity but are the result of physical activity in our brain and that activity takes the form of electrical and chemical effects. I think it is a well supported conclusion that when the brain stops exchanging oxygen and CO[sub]2[/sub] with the blood and an EEG shows absolutely no electrical activity that our mind ceases to exist and that’s the end. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 6:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/126 "2006-09-25T06:23:17Z")
[QUOTE=newcrasher] The atheist says there is not a God. Not only is the atheist burdened with the difficult task of wrestling with the existance/absence of God, but they are further stymied by the fact that you cannot prove a negative. By nature, the atheist has more faith than the religious person. [/QUOTE] As others have already pointed out, almost everything you’ve said is mistaken. Only “strong” or “hard” atheists have a positive, active belief that there is no God, but such hard atheists are very rare (I have never encountered one, and I know an awful lot of atheists). The overwhelming majority of us are “soft” atheists. A soft atheist can only be defined as someone who has neither an active belief in God OR an active _disbelief_ in God. We simply lack such beliefs entirely. Therefore, we **DO NOT** have faith! So you are dead wrong in your premise. Also, although not all that relevant here, you _can_ prove a negative. It’s an enormously popular but false belief that you can’t. It depends on the specifics. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 7:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/127 "2006-09-25T07:31:39Z")
> [@](#): > > This can’t be right. As a trivial case, the solution to the halting problem is provably unknowable. ??? As I understand it, there IS no solution to it: the whole point of the proof (which can be known) is demonstrating that a general algorithm cannot exist. That’s not the same thing as it being unknowable. There is nothing TO know. > [@](#): > > I don’t believe strong agnostics are claiming that they can prove god is unknowable, just that he is. I don’t think they even claim they know he is unknowable. So, not being able to prove god is unknowable in no way means that he isn’t. The presumptive idea behind agnosticism in the first place is that we’re dealing with elements of knowledge, not belief. Of course it’s possible to believe that god is unknowalbe on faith, but then it’s possible to believe anything at all that way. ---
**Author:** ![newcrasher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/b3f665/32.png) [@newcrasher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/newcrasher)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/128 "2006-09-25T12:28:58Z")
[QUOTE=ambushed] As others have already pointed out, almost everything you’ve said is mistaken. Only “strong” or “hard” atheists have a positive, active belief that there is no God, but such hard atheists are very rare (I have never encountered one, and I know an awful lot of atheists). The overwhelming majority of us are “soft” atheists. A soft atheist can only be defined as someone who has neither an active belief in God OR an active _disbelief_ in God. We simply lack such beliefs entirely. Therefore, we **DO NOT** have faith! So you are dead wrong in your premise. Also, although not all that relevant here, you _can_ prove a negative. It’s an enormously popular but false belief that you can’t. It depends on the specifics. [/QUOTE] Thanks for showing up and restating so much that has already been said. You could have cut and pasted your whole poste. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [September 25, 2006, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/129 "2006-09-25T22:40:08Z")
[QUOTE=Apos] ??? As I understand it, there IS no solution to it: the whole point of the proof (which can be known) is demonstrating that a general algorithm cannot exist. That’s not the same thing as it being unknowable. There is nothing TO know. [/quote] Let me restate that. What is unknowable is whether any given Turing machine will halt. You can prove that some will, and that some will not, but it is unknowable in the general case. This implies that there is no algorithm to determine this. The non-existence of the algorithm is know, the halting property of a machine may not be. > [@](#): > > The presumptive idea behind agnosticism in the first place is that we’re dealing with elements of knowledge, not belief. Of course it’s possible to believe that god is unknowalbe on faith, but then it’s possible to believe anything at all that way. I agree, but I suppose an agnostic would say that we can’t know if god is knowable, therefore one must either believe or lack belief in it. It’s too bad that no one has stepped up to defend the strong agnostic position - I’m getting the impression that neither of us may be doing it justice since neither of us accept it. ---
**Author:** ![ambushed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3bc359/32.png) [@ambushed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ambushed)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 7:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/130 "2006-09-28T07:34:42Z")
[QUOTE=newcrasher] Thanks for showing up and restating so much that has already been said. You could have cut and pasted your whole poste. :rolleyes: [/QUOTE] I didn’t know you had been anointed the most high originality dictator! :dubious: Why didn’t I get the memo? I notice that you suck at your job, though. I’ve seen thousands of posts that restate earlier posts in threads, some even right here in this one. I wonder why you let them pass, your supreme omniscience? Oh, and at least I can spell! Finally, I have to commend you not only for your brilliant originality, but for the _extreme_ importance and worthiness of _your_ post. _You_ certainly didn’t waste any time and efforts! ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [September 28, 2006, 11:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406/131 "2006-09-28T11:30:20Z")
C’mon, **Ambushed** , ratchet down the hostility. You will note that over a week ago, **newcrasher** had [already retracted the points you were attacking](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7794508&postcount=86). In fact, [I even repeated his post explicitly to avoid the sort of thing you did in post #126](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=7794596&postcount=89), so “As others have already pointed out, almost everything you’ve said is” a day late and a dollar short. I think his exasperation is understandable. Now back off with the personal stuff. **newcrasher** , you can let it go, as well, unless you two want to take it to the **Pit**. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/atheists-have-more-faith/373406.md?page=6)