Well?
“Yet I refuse to say that I believe the following to be false: “There is at least one god.” If you don’t think think that that statement is false, that means you believe that there is at least one god. That means you DO believe that deities exist.”
This sentence makes my brain sad. I am having difficulty working out what it is trying to say.
“I don’t believe that deities exist, but I do believe in at least one deity”?
That’s not weak atheism, it’s just being daft.
According to “weak atheism,” you meet the following conditions:
1.) You do not believe that deities exist.
2.) You would NOT say that this sentence is false: “There is at least one god.”
Exactly. It’s making my brain melt, too.
This is incorrect. Weak atheism means you believe that sentence is false merely because there is no evidence that it is true.
It makes sense just fine if you do not believe you do have (or can have) the information to answer the question definitively in the negative.
Put another way, to know there definitely is NOT a deity, requires information humans either don’t have, or cannot currently comprehend. To say that there appears no evidence of a deity, is not the same as saying there appears evidence of no deity.
Imagine the question is “is there intelligent life on another planet?” With the information we have so far, we cannot say there definitely isn’t. It is true, however, that we haven’t found it yet. It wouldn’t be beyond rationality to say “I don’t think its out there” but isn’t it premature to say there is no extraterrestrial intelligent life for sure?
But that’s no different than “Tooth Fairy Agnosticism.” I can’t prove that the tooth fairy doesn’t exist, either. I don’t believe there is a tangible difference between someone who says “I can’t say that the tooth fairy doesn’t exist, but I don’t believe that she does” and “I don’t believe the tooth fairy exists.”
I’ve always believed that “atheism” merely describes what a person doesn’t believe; it says nothing whatsoever about what he does believe. It’s not just a quantitative difference, but a qualitative one. There’s a huge difference between
“I do not believe that deities exist, because there’s no rational evidence.”
and
“I do not believe that deities exist, because my ouija board says they don’t.”
“I don’t believe the tooth fairy exists, but it is possible there is something I don’t know. Therefore, neither do I believe the tooth fairy doesn’t exist. Ultimately, however, the existence of the toothfairy (or not) is not important.”
I agree that “weak” atheism and agnosticism appear to be pretty much the same thing. I just don’t think agnosticism is irrational or in any way hard to understand.
I once saw a bumper sticker reading “Militant Agnostic: I Don’t Know and You Don’t Either”.
If you admit the possibility of a deity, you’re an agnostic, not an atheist. An atheist is sure.
But we’re forced to make determinations every day. I can’t know that there isn’t a bear in my bed when I get home, but if you were to ask me if there is a bear in my bed I’d still say “no.”
Edit: Holy shit there’s a bear in my bed!!!111!
I am an atheist, by which I mean that the concept of a deity or deities is not part of my conception of the world. I do not believe in the existence of them, and in fact I can go further and say that I believe that the kind of deity most major monotheistic faiths believe in, that is, a personal God possessing a will, does not exist.
I am also an agnostic, by which I mean that I believe it is impossible to prove the existence or the non-existence of deities. They exist (or most likely don’t ;)) outside of the physical world, and humans can interact with them only through faith. Some have faith, and others do not. I don’t.
This said, I also recognize that spirituality and the desire for faith is hard-coded in the human brain. I don’t consider it a mental illness or a sign of stupidity like some do, I see it as an essential part of human experience. I feel it too myself. But at the same time, this only reinforces my atheism, because it shows to me that the spiritual urge is something coming from the inside, not from the outside.
Richard Dawkins describes the following scale:
1.00: Strong theist. 100 percent possibility of God. In the words of C.G. Jung, ‘I do not believe, I know.’
2.00: Very high probability but short of 100 per cent. De facto theist. 'I cannot know for certain, but I strongly believe in God and live my life on the assumption that he is there
3.00: Higher than 50 per cent but not very high. Technically agnostic but leaning towards theism. ‘I am very uncertain, but I am inclined to believe in God.’
4.00: Exactly 50 per cent. Completely impartial agnostic. ‘God’s existence and non-existence are exactly equiprobable.’
5.00: Lower than 50 per cent but not very low. Technically agnostic but leaning towards atheism. ‘I don’t know whether God exists but I’m inclined to be skeptical.’
6.00: Very low probability, but short of zero. De facto atheist. ‘I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.’
7:00: Strong atheist. ‘I know there is no God, with the same conviction as Jung ‘knows’ there is one.’
He then goes on to describe a particular position on the scale as, I think, 6.99. The idea is, as I read him, that one is practically certain that there is and can be no god, but also acknowledges as a point of logic that it is impossible to prove there’s no god, and so impossible to know with complete confidence there is no god.
I find it hard to support a position other than this 6.99.
But, then, there are logical problems anyway. If one is wrong about disbelieving in a biblical god who will send one to hell for all eternity, then one incurs infinite suffering. So, multiplying any nonzero doubt by an infinite penalty seems to make religious fanaticism the optimal and, really, only plausible choice. Acting like an atheist as I do, with less than complete logical certainty, gets hard to like with this kind of logic. And yet I do, I do.
How about the analogy of an elephant in the basement? That is, there could be an elephant in your basement, right? How do you really know? You go down and look, sure, but he could be hiding, or jumping around behind you as you look. You really don’t know with complete certainty that there are no undiscovered secret elephant stalls in your basement, not even if you built it yourself. Quantitatively, you can’t draw a line anyplace through the possibility space with total confidence.
What do we say about people who are practically confident to the point that they risk eternal damnation and whatever else all the unrealized and nonexistant gods might have held in punishment for their doubters?
The same amount of proof exists for the existence of Easter Bunny and god. The same amount of proof exists that they are fabrications. The whole concept is a big void not worthy of spending thought and time on.
I guess I don’t really see that point of all this. What CAN’T you turn into a 3/7/10/whatever-point scale if you’re so inclined? It’s a given that not everyone is equally commited or convinced by an idea. Just make up whatever scale you prefer.
Call yourself a weak atheist, an above average atheist, a 70% atheist, a 5.5 atheist, give yourself 4 atheism-stars, whatever you feel is sufficiently accurate.
I think it important to make a distinction between atheists who actively object to religion and atheists who are indifferent to other peoples religious beliefs.
I’m an atheist myself, but I don’t object to other peoples religion as long as they don’t try to impose their beliefs on others by force. Indeed, I can actually approve of religious beliefs when it drives actions that I approve of.
Theodore wrote a good essay on this in City Journal.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/17_4_oh_to_be.html
You could say there are two positions that I think a strong atheist would support:
-
I don’t believe in divine supernatural beings because of the lack of evidence or logical argument supporting their existence (and there is a whole epistemological point of view behind that); and
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The very concept of supernatural beings (divine or otherwise) is illogical on the face of it. Strictly speaking, as far as I can parse the word, “supernatural” means existing outside of existence, which is a logical impossibility. At the very least, it means something that violates significant laws of nature, which are in fact merely (our best) descriptions of how the universe works. So the evidence or argument referred to in #1 would have to be extremely persuasive to overcome this obstacle. In effect it means that the laws of nature would have to be radically re-defined.
A sub-set of #2, for me, is that the nature of the judeo-christian god as described in religious literature is so self-contradictory as to be completely meaningless.
It seems to me most of the arguments about atheism on this board concentrate on the first one. The second one is rarely referenced in a serious vein, more as a game of “gotcha” by people trying to make an anti-religion point. But I think it is a much more serious obstacle for religions to overcome to bring rational people into the fold. Our entire experience of the world, at least that experience that can be verified, is anathema to belief in god(s). I don’t only mean science, but each person’s everyday experience of the world contains strong evidence against the supernatural.
Roddy
1 is a statement of belief, and 2 is a statement of knowledge. A weak atheist would say “I don’t believe that the statement ‘there is at least one god’ is true.” The strong atheist would say “I believer that the statement is not true.” Claims to knowledge are hard to make considering how slippery the concept of god is.
Unfortunately many theists think that objecting to teaching creationism, or objecting to teacher led prayers makes you hostile to religion. Hell, they even say that putting up Happy Holidays signs in stores is hostile to Christianity. Look at the people upset about the new atheism books. For some, not staying in the atheism closet is considered as hostility.
Of course there is no way of knowing for sure that there isn’t some sort of supernatural being, somewhere in the universe. A little imp maybe, or a magical fairy or a goat that grants wishes.
I wish we hard a word for those of us who are just tired of hearing about other people’s completely made up beliefs. “I know you don’t believe in God, have you looked into [fill in the blank]?” gets old after a few decades.
I want a word that means: I’ve turned over every single rock anyone has every shown to me; I’ve looked into many religions and they are all not just obviously made up, they are hopelessly silly. I don’t want to play that game anymore and I shouldn’t have to disprove every single belief I encounter in order be be left in peace. When a supernatural being wants to make contact with me it will, with or without your help.
Sorry, I can still taste the evidence of the Easter Bunny’s visit yesterday. Tangible, tasty evidence that the rabbit exists. So I guess I’ve a 7 for belief in God, but maybe a 3 or 4 for belief in the Easter Bunny, just to hedge my bet.