# Does a non believer express as much faith as a believer? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [October 3, 2003, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431 "2003-10-03T20:56:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![panache45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/panache45/32/64_2.png) [@panache45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/panache45)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 2003, 9:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/21 "2003-10-05T21:56:08Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ellis Dee \* > \*\*This got me to thinking…is the argument that atheists have a kind of faith really just a veiled attempt at calling an atheist a satan-worshipper? (Mixing up “no god” with “anti-god”?) \*\* No, it’s usually a not-so-veiled attempt to invalidate reason, to put it on a par with faith. You don’t hear many atheists saying that thesits have just a different kind of reason. ---
**Author:** ![Rashak\_Mani](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ea666f/32.png) [@Rashak\_Mani](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rashak_Mani)\ **Post date:** [October 6, 2003, 7:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/22 "2003-10-06T07:27:03Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by panache45 \* > \*\*No, it’s usually a not-so-veiled attempt to invalidate reason, to put it on a par with faith. You don’t hear many atheists saying that thesits have just a different kind of reason. \*\* We atheists think theists are moved by faith… and the theists think we are moved by faith ? At least we dont attempt to label theists as thinking the same way we think (reason), since reason isnt part of believing in gods. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 3:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/23 "2003-10-07T03:32:14Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Noone Special \* > Now, substitute God (or the Invisible Pink Unicorn) for Santa Claus above. repeat excercise. Come on, play nice. That’s an uncalled for attack on people’s faith. Unless you know of a sect that _actually_ worships an IPU, you’re only going to piss off the theists, many of which are fine and upstanding people. This may be a reasonable tactic in some threads, but this thread seemed to be pretty civil and level-headed. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 3:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/24 "2003-10-07T15:14:45Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Ellis Dee \* > Come on, play nice. That’s an uncalled for attack on people’s faith. Unless you know of a sect that _actually_ worships an IPU, you’re only going to piss off the theists, many of which are fine and upstanding people. To an atheist (I consider positive atheists to be a subset of negative atheists), there’s as much evidence for YHWH as a Giant Dancing Banana. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/25 "2003-10-07T18:13:06Z")
I guess I’m the only person on this entire board who has had formal study of logic and of philosophical skepticism. Not-A is not identical to anti-A Lack of evidence is not identical to evidence of lack. The true skeptic will not take the extra step of stating that something for which there is no positive nor negative evidence does not exist. The true skeptic will say that he neither accepts nor rejects the existence. The dogmatic and the narrowminded will not be able to understand the difference between “not accepting” and “rejecting”. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2003, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/26 "2003-10-07T22:00:47Z")
There are as many kinds of atheists as there are atheists. (Maybe more!) (“Not only was everyone alone, but incomplete.”) Some atheists reject religion out of anger or other emotions; for instance, someone who, as a youth, might have been beaten by an overzealous “spare-the-rod” type minister, might extrapolate his rejection of that minister into a rejection of God. Is that an exhibition of faith? I see it as a different thing entirely… Some atheists reason from first principles. Do we have faith in, say, axioms such as “cause and effect” or “non-self-contradiction?” What exactly is the nature of our acceptance of such fundamentals? Trinopus ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/27 "2003-10-08T10:51:06Z")
[A similar thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=198025). The conclusion was that “taking a position” is not necessarily “expressing faith”, although I never did get to the bottom of how one can happily believe there are _no_ faeries in your garden yet shy away from believing there is _no_ God, when the evidence for the nonexistence of both is similarly scarce. ---
**Author:** ![Dogface](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/9d8465/32.png) [@Dogface](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dogface)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 2:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/28 "2003-10-08T14:28:03Z")
There was no “conclusion”, just a lot of weasel-wording. Dogmatics like to lie and claim to be “skeptics”, but they are still dogmatics as soon as they “take a position”. As soon as a “position” is “taken”, skepticism has been abandoned. The weasel-worders can’t handle that, since they are so tied up in self-identification with being “skeptics” even though their acts belie their words. ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 3:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/29 "2003-10-08T15:51:54Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dogface \* > I guess I’m the only person on this entire board who has had formal study of logic and of philosophical skepticism. > > Not-A is not identical to anti-A Did you say you had formal study of logic? :dubious: 😕 :rolleyes: There is no such thing as “anti-A” in logic. Not A is the negation of A. > [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dogface \* > Lack of evidence is not identical to evidence of lack. :rolleyes: How do you have “evidence of lack?” When there is no evidence of something, it means that something isn’t here. What on earth happened with your study of logic? ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/30 "2003-10-08T16:26:40Z")
**Dogface** , we are dealing with modal belief logic operators - there is no such term as “anti-A” that I know of. I gues you’re trying to say that belief that something is not the case is different to merely not believing that something is the case, _ie._ B(¬A) does not equal ¬B(A). > [@](#): > > When there is no evidence of something, it means that something isn’t here. Were atoms not there in the 19th century? ---
**Author:** ![Urban\_Ranger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/e9c0ed/32.png) [@Urban\_Ranger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Urban_Ranger)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 4:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/31 "2003-10-08T16:47:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SentientMeat \* > Were atoms not there in the 19th century? We knew about atoms in the 19th century, at least in the later parts of it. ---
**Author:** ![CurtC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ce73a5/32.png) [@CurtC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CurtC)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/32 "2003-10-08T17:14:20Z")
Was the OP asking a question about semantics, or trying to understand what goes on in the mind of an atheist? If it’s about semantics, then you have the dictionary definition. If you’re wondering how an atheist views belief in god, then the Santa Claus example is apt. It’s not meant to be insulting, just an explanation of how we view it. The Invisible Pink Unicorn that you sometimes see referred to is another good example. So I ask you, the theist: let’s say there is a cult out there who worships the IPU, and they believe that he lives on the far side of the Moon and controls all events down here on Earth. You probably disbelieve that. Would you call your disbelief “faith”? Or reason? After all, it’s an unproved belief in something that seems wacky to you. That’s how an atheist views belief in god. ---
**Author:** ![YourOldBuddy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/bc79bd/32.png) [@YourOldBuddy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YourOldBuddy)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2003, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/33 "2003-10-08T17:35:02Z")
Sorry to be a little bit off topic, but IF I personally knew God and hated him and lacked all fear of him and retribution, what would I be called? Atheist? ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 5:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/34 "2003-10-09T05:12:08Z")
No, you’d be called an idiot. If you truly believe in god, that is. Or maybe a psychopath. ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 5:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/35 "2003-10-09T05:36:09Z")
> [@](#): > > What you describe are logical assumptions based on past experiences, not faith. Assumptions are not logical, in the sense of valid. They can be true, false, or unintelligible, but an assertion like “God doesn’t exist” is neither logical nor illogical, because there is no logic being used (except perhaps in interpreting the meaning of the statement, but that’s a different matter). Logic is what you do when you figure out what properly follows from your assumptions. And how can you have a past experience with something that doesn’t exist? If no god exists, then it follows, logically, that you can’t have had any experience with God, including any experience OF it’s non-existense. Non-existence cannot be experienced: only, if anything, deduced. > [@](#): > > Sorry to be a little bit off topic, but IF I personally knew God and hated him and lacked all fear of him and retribution, what would I be called? Atheist? Satan. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![MEBuckner](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mebuckner/32/2896_2.png) [@MEBuckner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MEBuckner)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 7:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/36 "2003-10-09T07:54:26Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Dogface \* > There was no “conclusion”, just a lot of weasel-wording. Dogmatics like to lie and claim to be “skeptics”, but they are still dogmatics as soon as they “take a position”. As soon as a “position” is “taken”, skepticism has been abandoned. The weasel-worders can’t handle that, since they are so tied up in self-identification with being “skeptics” even though their acts belie their words. Are you saying that disbelieving in something is _always_ “dogmatic” and unworthy of a true “skeptic”? What evidence is there that there is no large (planet-sized) body in the same orbit as Earth but on the opposite side of the Sun (“Counter-Earth”)? There is a vast _lack_ of evidence–no gravitational perturbations of the orbits of other bodies in the inner Solar System have been detected, and we’ve now sent out enough probes to various regions of the Solar System that one of them would have spotted such a body if it existed. So, am I being “dogmatic” if I say “There is no ‘Counter-Earth’”? As I pointed out, my beliefs about “God” vary from lack of belief in to positive disbelief in, depending on which “God” we’re talking about. Some definitions of God have not been proved. And some have not been _dis_proved. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 8:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/37 "2003-10-09T08:02:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by MEBuckner \* > There is a vast _lack_ of evidence–no gravitational perturbations of the orbits of other bodies in the inner Solar System have been detected… I’m confused. That sounds like _actual_ evidence to me. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/38 "2003-10-09T08:17:41Z")
> [@](#): > > We knew about atoms in the 19th century, at least in the later parts of it. I disagree, but very well - I shall rephrase my question thus: Were atoms not there in the 18th century? [quote] ---
**Author:** ![The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/the_great_unwashed/32/4791_2.png) [@The\_Great\_Unwashed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Great_Unwashed)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 1:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/39 "2003-10-09T13:37:57Z")
One could argue that atheism, even if it is a faith position, is radically different from a theist’s faith positions because it is _falsifiable_ – a god could reveal itself to an atheist, that would be pretty convincing, surely? But then again, maybe not – god’s manifestation could be an illusion, so do we conclude it isn’t strictly falsifiable? But thinking like this just opens the _Pandora’s Box of Acceptance Of All Things “Possible”_: George W. Bush is a lizard person We may live in the Matrix The IPU is the one true god _I_ am the one true god Allah is the one true god, belief in anything else damns you to hell Krshna is the one true god, belief in anything else damns you to an endless cycle of reincarnation, until you see sense God wants you to kill the non-believers It doesn’t matter what you do, you’re going to hell anyway I am the only human being, the rest of you are characters in a VR game I am playing Ghosts and fairies exist Santa Claus exists Santa Claus exists and he has a malign purpose – to turn our children away from spiritual things to material things, bad Santa Claus ESP exists but is just immeasurable under laboratory conditions The world, and oneself, was created 30 seconds ago, oneself replete with false memories _ad infinitum_… A truly endless list of equally “possible” non-falsifiable phenomena. (If you are strong enough I encourage you to spend some time viewing the world this way, let me know how you get on.) Rather than except this lunacy of stoic agnosticism in the face of the impossibility of rejecting anything, the atheist makes the non-verifiable assumption that things are as they seem – when we close our eyes the world does not cease to exist only to pop back into being when we open them again;, what appears to exist, exists;what appears to not exist, does not exist; etc. ---
**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\ **Post date:** [October 9, 2003, 1:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431/40 "2003-10-09T13:55:40Z")
> [@](#): > > the atheist makes the non-verifiable assumption that things are as they seem Unfortunately, this gets us no further since “as it seems” and “appears to exist” are judgements just as arbitrary as those in history whose “as it seems” descriptions included some pretty whacky elements. One cannot appeal to _evidence_ in this particular matter since no evidence **distinguishes** one model from another. Which particular _evidence_ shows that we are not in a Matrix? > [@](#): > > this lunacy of stoic agnosticism in the face of the impossibility of rejecting anything Impossibility to reject anything _absolutley_ perhaps, but I have no qualms about rejecting the existence of God, faeries or the Matrix even though such is still logically possible. My “beliefometer needle” simply points away from God/faeries/Matrix, not all the way to ascribing _zero_ chance of their existence. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/does-a-non-believer-express-as-much-faith-as-a-believer/205431.md?page=3)