Can America trust atheists?

[cosmosdan]

@Voyager

They’d be fiction even if elves did exist - historical fiction, dealing with real people after all, goes in the fiction section also.

The real point about fairies is that most people would be happy to express lack of belief, and active disbelief, if someone asked. If someone proposed a tax in order to fund putting milk out for the fairies, you’d get more active disbelief expressed. Almost all of the atheistic activism has been to keep religion out of the public sector, not against religion per se. Often other religious people initiate or support these actions. Some religious people use the distrust of atheists expressed in the OP to accuse those trying to limit intrusion of religion of being atheists. I think many don’t feel that atheists have the right to be protected from enforced exposure to religion in the public sector - they probably think it would be good for us.

I love historical fiction. I recommend Kenneth Roberts. Many people might enjoy reading fictional accounts of things they believe in. Speaking of that, what section are the Left Behind books in?

I just read an article about a minister who is noted for campaigning for separation of church and state. He also works to make our environmental issues a moral/religious issue instead of focusing on gay marriage and abortion. It sheds a ray of hope.

The question for me is balance. We must simultaneously work to separate church and state while working to defend people’s rights to worship and express themselves. I agree a teacher led pledge that includes “Under God” is off limits. If Christian teachers and students decide to say grace over lunch that should also be defended. Drawing the line isn’t as easy as it appears but certainly worth the effort.

[Gary_Robson]

@MEBuckner

An agnostic, by definition, is someone “who believes that it is impossible to know whether there is a God”.

You chose definition 1a, which supports your point of view. I choose definition 1b, (“One who is skeptical about the existence of God but does not profess true atheism”), which supports my point of view that agnostics are doubters and atheists are nonbelievers. Your link confirms that we’re arguing semantics rather than philosophy.

@SentientMeat

(ie. different positions of a Belief-O-Meter needle)

I like your “Belief-O-Meter” concept better than the black-and-white definitions of theists and atheists. Most of my disagreements in this thread evaporate if we just consider ourselves all agnostic, except for the very few people whose meters are pegged at the “0%” end and the “100%” end.

@Diogenes the Cynic

To take a page from Carl Sagan, it’s like claiming there’s an invisible dragon in the woods.

To simultaneously address your issue and CurtC’s, let’s take the bear (or invisible dragon) out of the woods and put it on another planet out in space somewhere. According to you and CurtC, if Bob claims that there are definitely aliens out there and Sue claims that there definitely are not, then the burden of proof lies entirely upon Bob. I feel that both of them are making definitive unprovable (with current technology) statements, and that anyone professing other than an agnostic (“I don’t know if there are aliens”) position must carry a burden of proof.

The “default condition” in an argument of this sort lies somewhere along SentientMeat’s “Belief-O-Meter,” between “I think there probably are aliens (or gods or bears or whatever),” and “I think there probably aren’t.” The adamant insistent atheist has no more ground to stand on than the adamant insistent theist. Both are taking unsupportable positions.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

No. Gods are not an inherently plausible proposition. When a hypothetical entity necessarily violates natural law (i.e. when their existence is a prima facie impossibililty), then the logical default is that it doesn’t exist. There is nothing about the hypothetical existence of bears in the woods or aliens on another planet which violates the laws of physics. The assertion that sky gods exist is not only hampered by a complete lack of evidence or demonstrated necessity but by the fact that they are physical impossibilities. It is irrational to do anything else other than to presume the impossibile is impossible until proven otherwise.

[SentientMeat]

@Voyager

Saying “I believe aliens live there” would be okay, but not supported by evidence. Saying “I believe aliens don’t live there” is also not supported by evidence. Saying “I have no belief that aliens live there” seems the most supportable thing, since you are saying that you have nothing to induce you to believe one way or another.

ie. You have no reason to move off the precisely 50-50 default of considering something just as likely to be true as false. Yes, one could do this with god, but in what way is such a person an atheist?

Make the chunk small enough, say including only some red giants, and you can reasonably believe there are no aliens there (like believing the God of the Bible does not exist).

ie. You consider it less likely that there are no alines there (=there are not any aliens there).

Make it big enough, like the whole galaxy, and it might be reasonable to believe they do. It all boils down to what makes someone comfortable to believe against.

This is still not addressing the question: To believe in no is equivalent to not believing in any, REGUARDLESS of the subject matter, yes?

Atheism fundamentally is exactly a lack of belief. Some go further into an active belief against, but since lack of belief is included in this position, there is no issue with them being atheists also.

Again, what’s the difference between a lack of belief and a belief (active or not) in an absence thereof?

Another take on the difference. Say Atheist A has a high threshold for believing something. Believing Zeus does not exist, or that the god of the fundamentalist position does not exist falls within it. Believing a god he’s never heard of does not exist does not. So, he may just lack belief in this god, while not doing the work to convince himself this god doesn’t exist. If you believe in things at the drop of a hat, as some Dopers seem to, I can see why the distinction is confusing.

OK, let’s call the threshold exactly 50%: if infinitessimally greater, I beliieve god exists, if infinitessimally lesser, I believe god doesn’t. In what way am I doing work in one case but not the other? Does this change if we move the threshold?

[SentientMeat]

@Wombat

I like your “Belief-O-Meter” concept better than the black-and-white definitions of theists and atheists.

Ah, but I’m suggesting the 50-50 threshold is effectively a black-and-white filter: anyone who thinks any gods are more likely than not is “theist”, anyone who considers a complete absence more likely an “atheist”. Anyone whose needle is at literally 0% or 100& is an “idiot”. And every non-idiot is an “agnostic”.

[cosmosdan]

@Diogenes the Cynic

No. Gods are not an inherently plausible proposition. When a hypothetical entity necessarily violates natural law (i.e. when their existence is a prima facie impossibililty), then the logical default is that it doesn’t exist. There is nothing about the hypothetical existence of bears in the woods or aliens on another planet which violates the laws of physics. The assertion that sky gods exist is not only hampered by a complete lack of evidence or demonstrated necessity but by the fact that they are physical impossibilities. It is irrational to do anything else other than to presume the impossibile is impossible until proven otherwise.

What about a recognitioon of the limits of our knowledge?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@cosmosdan

What about a recognitioon of the limits of our knowledge?

What about it? We know enough to know if a hypothesis is inherently plausible or not.

Do you think the possibility that leprechauns exist deserves just as much consideration as the possibility that they don’t?

If you’re investigating a crime, should you leave yourself open to the possibility that it was committed by werewolves or ghosts? Can anything be ruled out a priori or should you give every hypothesis equal consideration. I can make up brand new imaginary entities all day long. Should they each be granted the same default possibility of existence as “God?” If not, why not? The evidence is exactly the same.

[cosmosdan]

@Diogenes the Cynic

What about it? We know enough to know if a hypothesis is inherently plausible or not.

Do you think the possibility that leprechauns exist deserves just as much consideration as the possibility that they don’t?

If you’re investigating a crime, should you leave yourself open to the possibility that it was committed by werewolves or ghosts? Can anything be ruled out a priori or should you give every hypothesis equal consideration. I can make up brand new imaginary entities all day long. Should they each be granted the same default possibility of existence as “God?” If not, why not? The evidence is exactly the same.

Not all of we seem to think so. You’re free to evaluate the evidence and draw your own conclusion. You’re not free to draw mine or anyone else’s.

My point was that our knowledge of physics is incomplete. We have no way of gauging what we have yet to understand. IMHO that means that we may weed out certain concepts of God {such as the angry vengeful God of the OT} but the possibility of a God that we have only begun to comprehend remains open.

[David_Simmons]

@cosmosdan

IMHO that means that we may weed out certain concepts of God {such as the angry vengeful God of the OT}

Weeded out on what grounds?

[cosmosdan]

@David Simmons

Weeded out on what grounds?

As various branches of science and scholarly pursuits conflict with certain religious myth then our concept of what God can be, can’t be, and might be, begins to change. I actually think over the next few generations you’ll see the fundamentalist type Christian shrink in number.

[JustAnotherGeek]

@cosmosdan

As various branches of science and scholarly pursuits conflict with certain religious myth then our concept of what God can be, can’t be, and might be, begins to change. I actually think over the next few generations you’ll see the fundamentalist type Christian shrink in number.

I don’t know about that.

We are currently the most scientifically well informed population that America has ever seen. And we are currently the most religious population ever seen.

Upon what trends are you basing your conclusion?

[Thudlow_Boink]

@Diogenes the Cynic

No. Gods are not an inherently plausible proposition. When a hypothetical entity necessarily violates natural law (i.e. when their existence is a prima facie impossibililty), then the logical default is that it doesn’t exist. There is nothing about the hypothetical existence of bears in the woods or aliens on another planet which violates the laws of physics. The assertion that sky gods exist is not only hampered by a complete lack of evidence or demonstrated necessity but by the fact that they are physical impossibilities. It is irrational to do anything else other than to presume the impossibile is impossible until proven otherwise.

Since you keep mentioning “sky gods,” I’m inclined to ask what you mean by the term. What makes a god a “sky god,” and what other kinds of gods are there?

Here’s how I see it. People use the word “god” to refer to two completely different kinds of entity. One sort would be a supernatural being who is, nevertheless, part of the created or naturally existing order, a creature within the universe. Such a creature would be subject to natural law of some sort (though not necessarily our current understanding). This is the sort of “god” that the Greek gods, Norse gods, etc. are. It does not apply to the God of Christians, Jews, Moslems, etc. (i.e. Yahweh, or Allah, or whatever you want to call Him/Her/It), though it might apply to angels. Such a god would, indeed, be comparable to fairies, elves, and other mythological creatures (about whose existence my own personal Belief-o-meter is close to, but not quite at, zero, and could go higher if I ever were to see some good evidence).

The (singular, capital-G) God of monotheists is not, however, one more thing purportedly existing within the universe, like unicorns or aliens or the Loch Ness monster. God is, rather, transcendent/outside/beyond the universe and the creator of it. This is why it sounds so jarring to me to refer to God as a “creature”; it would be like discussing Hamlet and referring to William Shakespeare as a character. To expect such a God to conform to natural law would be as ridiculous as expecting a computer programmer (not the software he writes, but he himself) to conform to limitations of processor speed or screen resolution.

If such a God never interfered with or influenced the universe in which we live, he’d be the God of the Deists, who set everything up and then let it play out by itself with no further action. I don’t think there would be any evidence for or against such a God. But then, it wouldn’t matter whether we believed in such a God or not, since such a God’s existence would be irrelevent to our lives. It would be like speculating on whether there are alternate universes totally separate from the one we live in.

On the other hand, if God did play an active role, if God did step in (either today or in the past) and do something to affect the world, there would be presumably evidence of that action (though God could control how much of that evidence we would be allowed to find). Such evidence might include (but not be limited to) miracles such as those recorded in the Bible, things happening in answer to prayer, or an individual’s feeling a sense of God’s presence or communication from/with God. Of course, we don’t have any such evidence that’s conclusive—to an atheist, not even any that’s persuasive. If you personally experienced such “evidence,” how would you know whether it was God or coincidence, your imagination, an unexplained but natural phenomenon, etc.? And if it was somebody else who experienced it and told you about it, you could add to the above list the possibility that the person was mistaken or deliberately lying.

But it is in regards to such “evidence” that I think many of the differences between theists and atheists lie: things like what kind of evidence they’re looking for or willing to consider, what they personally have or have not experienced, how much they trust the reports of such evidence they’ve heard or read, etc.

[cosmosdan]

@JustAnotherGeek

I don’t know about that.

We are currently the most scientifically well informed population that America has ever seen. And we are currently the most religious population ever seen.

Upon what trends are you basing your conclusion?

I didn’t say we’d be less religious. I’m thinking that religion in general will be more liberal.

Maybe a few generations is too optimistic. I see a trend toward less dogmatic religion. Better informed religion. I think there are more people now who accept evolution and reject a literal Genesis creation story. It takes generations for things to become accepted and common knowledge. A few generations ago we argued over woman or African Americans should have the right to vote. Even though we’re far from perfect progress has been made and will continue.

[David_Simmons]

@cosmosdan

As various branches of science and scholarly pursuits conflict with certain religious myth then our concept of what God can be, can’t be, and might be, begins to change. I actually think over the next few generations you’ll see the fundamentalist type Christian shrink in number.

Why do advancements in the physical sciences rule out an angry, vengeful God?

[cosmosdan]

@David Simmons

Why do advancements in the physical sciences rule out an angry, vengeful God?

As science shows more and more of the events of the OT to be built on myth rather than history then believers call other aspects of the OT into question. It’s not so much that an angry God is ruled out but rather that certain concepts of God are called into question, examined and discarded voluntarily.

[MaxTheVool]

I’ve been wanting to post something on this thread for days, but it’s been moving so fast, I haven’t been able to keep up with it. I primarily have some comments about magellan01’s position, and various responses to it, particularly those from Diogenes.

My first comment is that (as others have pointed out), the distinction that magellan keeps trying to make about atheists being opposed to theists is a fairly irrelevant one. Not because there’s necessarily anything wrong with it, but because it has noting to do with the issue in most actual cases in the actual world. In the actual world, people who mistrust atheists aren’t theists, they’re Christians. And in the actual world, atheists who are arrogant and dismissive towards people aren’t usually arrogant and dismissive towards theists, they’re arrogant and dismissive towards Christians. (Side note: The Vast Vast Vast majority of atheists aren’t arrogant and dismissive. They just never talk about the issue at all. Why would they? Why would they go up to a group of Christians and say “I’d just like you to know that while I personally don’t believe in your God, I in no way judge you for having spiritual beliefs that I do not share, and I respect those aspects of your church-life which enhance our community as a whole”? They wouldn’t. Only an asshole would barge up to a group of Christians and announce himself as an atheist. Thus, asshole atheists are far more visible, and more memorable, than their far-more-numerous non-asshole counterparts.)

My point is, magellan, back on topic, this conversation, to a certain extent, isn’t one about you or about your beliefs. If you’ve ever said to someone (not in the context of a thread which is already debating atheism) “well, I don’t believe in any supernatural force actively interfering with the universe. I don’t believe any religion’s book is divinely inspired. I don’t believe God wants me to judge people based on sexual orientation or whatever. I don’t believe any conscious presence is listening to prayers. I don’t believe in Angels. I believe that science is right about evolution and the big bang, and if it’s not, it will figure it out and get righter. BUT, I don’t understand how the universe could exist without having been created, and I choose to use the word ‘God’ to describe the ‘force’ behind that creation, but I ascribe no humanized qualities or emotions or motivations to that god, nor do I base my morals and ethics on my interpretation of what that god wants me to do”, and the response you got was “you believe in GOD? hahahaha! You are an idiot. You might as well believe in an flying spaghetti monster”, well, then the hostility and paranoia you seem to have towards Asshole Atheists would be justified. But I think what more often happens is that someone is arguing for the Christian God, an atheist is arguing against them, and you hop into the argument and point out that some of the arguments made against the Christian God don’t apply to YOUR God and thus all atheists are stubborn and condescending and blah blah blah blah.
That said, I also think that Diogenes and others are being a bit unfair towards magellan’s position. There is a real and important difference between magellan’s god and (for instance) the Christian God, particularly when it comes to invisible-dragon type arguments. The difference is that invisible dragons are totally unneeded, and magellan’s god isn’t. And even when invisible dragons are useful, they’re still overencumbered with detail, which magellan’s god isn’t. Let me attempt to explain what I’m saying. Suppose tomorrow it is discovered that a mysterious and replicatable force DOES in fact cause bread to land buttered-side-down, one that definitely and provably is NOT just something aerodynamic with the toast and the butter. If we were to take the old-school primitive religion approach, we might say “aha! There are toast fairies at work here! They must be small invisible creatures with 6 arms and wings, who most likely wish to cause the butter to land on the ground to taunt Uma the earth mother, who is lactose intolerant”. If we were to take the purely scientific (atheist, in this analogy) view, we would say “there is some force that causes bread to land butter side down. We don’t understand it. Let’s study it, and use the scientific method to discover stuff about it”. If we were to take the magellan view, we would say “there is some Force which causes bread to land butter side down, but, let’s face it, we know nothing about it. It sure isn’t fairies, that’s just silly”.

So while magellan’s view may be theistic in name, it’s actually extraordinarily close to atheistic in practice. The spaghetti monster argument works against the Christian God (not conclusively, necessarily, but it’s at least valid) because the Christian God is almost completely unnecessary. The only thing the christian god even arguably does is explain why the universe exists, which (one could argue) is a question that currently has no comprehensive scientific answer. But the Christian God has gobs of extra detail there, and thus is strongly argued against by occam’s razor. Magellan’s god, on the other hand, explains why the universe exists, and, by definition, does absolutely nothing else. Magellan is not asking us to act a certain way or believe in anything that influences our day-to-day life in any way. His answer to the question of why the universe exists is almost as simple as possible.

A few further comments:
-To those who believe that atheists are arrogant and certain of themselves and think everyone else is idiots, can you point to some examples of that in this thread? Can you point to some examples of the opposite in this thread?

-I just thought I’d toss in my own Actual Opinion, although it’s not going to help us define weak vs. strong atheism. Mine is almost identical to someone else’s several pages back, but now I don’t remember who that was. Anyhow, I see no evidence for God. Therefore, I see no reason to believe in God. So I live my life assuming there is no God. When I speak informally, I say that I don’t believe in God. And I also find most of the fully-fleshed-out fundamental-religion gods to be self-contradictory. So I’m SURE that they don’t exist as described (with a pretty high degree of certainty). A totally meaningless and vague god like magellan’s? Well, I still don’t believe, but don’t really care. A somewhere-in-between God who has something akin to consciousness, created the universe, and might influence things from time to time in vague and not-overtly-supernatural ways? Well, I can’t disprove that, but you know what they say about extraordinary claims…

-If someone says that they believe in God for personal and subjective reasons, then that’s that, and I have no problem with that, and no argument with that. As long as they don’t try to impose it on me.

-It drives me batty when people try to present religious people and atheists as being somehow equivalent but just on opposite sides of an issue. That’s like saying that people who play football and people who don’t play football are somehow equivalent groups. Religious people are people who actively have faith in something and engage in the associated social rituals, blah blah blah. Atheists (used loosely here) are people who don’t. They’re not flip sides of the same coin. They’re not donuts vs. danishes, they’re donuts vs. the donut hole.

[Latro]

@cosmosdan

As science shows more and more of the events of the OT to be built on myth rather than history then believers call other aspects of the OT into question. It’s not so much that an angry God is ruled out but rather that certain concepts of God are called into question, examined and discarded voluntarily.

Or the concept of God entirely, of course…

[Gorsnak]

@MaxTheVool

…they’re donuts vs. the donut hole.

I’m not sure you recognize the implications of this analogy. One of the most compelling arguments for there being a benevolent God is the existence of Timbits.

[cosmosdan]

@Latro

Or the concept of God entirely, of course…

Sure…That’s one available option for any individual.

[cosmosdan]

@Der Trihs

They may or may not be valid. Just because, say, I remember something happening a certain way thirty years ago doesn’t mean that it did.

Exactness is not the measure of validity. My point is that all humans use subjective experience to form their own belief system and make decisions. We must. By belief system I mean our own moral, ethical code. The things both conscious and subconscious that move us. The things rational and irrational. Neither theist or atheist is immune.