Aynrandlover,
I agree with you that scientific endeavor lies with in the realm of evidence and logical argument, while divine beings do not. Therefore the existence or non-existence of divine beings must boil down to a matter of faith - unlike scientific theories. I have great faith in the non-existence of any and all divine beings. I take issue with anyone who claims that this requires less faith than belief in their existence. And since this is a thread about whether all people - including atheists - have faith in something, I challenge the rest of you atheists to prove me wrong. All you agnostics are off the hook for now.
I was under the impression that Atheists believe there is no God and Agnostics believe there is not enough information to prove the existence of God.
Well, all those reference books referring to Earth as an “oblate spheroid” constitute evidence, yes. The testimony of other people certainly constitutes evidence. It may not be “proof” in some Pythagorean Theorem sense, but it’s evidence for a “beyond reasonable doubt” conclusion.
Well, everyone believes things “without proof”. What’s “proof”? All we have is “evidence”. (Except maybe for “cogito, ergo sum”, and even there, you could get into a great big debate about it.)
But does accepting things without some Platonic ideal of absolute truth boil down to “faith”? I gave a definition earlier of faith as “belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence”. Now, I’m perfectly open to the idea that many if not most theists do rest their beliefs on logical proofs or material evidences, even if I think their logic is faulty or their evidence is misinterpreted. However, this “blind faith” idea isn’t a complete strawman, because it does seem that theists will sometimes end arguments by saying “well you just have to have faith” or “I just have faith”. I realize that Arguments from the Dictionary aren’t the strongest of arguments, philosophically speaking, but it is true that I’m not the one who made up the “belief that does not rest on logical proof or material evidence” line–I got it from my dictionary. I don’t–or try not to–have that sort of faith.
I don’t think saying “I haven’t been convinced yet of the existence of a deity” requires a “leap of faith”. We also need to maintain a distinction between “some sort of generic Creator(s) or Designer(s) or Governor(s) of the Universe” and various specific gods–Yahweh, Jesus, Zeus, Quetzalcoatl, etc. I think very few people are more than “I haven’t yet been convinced” style agnostics with respect to any deity, but lots of people are considerably more certain in rejecting various specific deities, on a variety of logical or evidential grounds. (I.e., the Protestant Fundamentalist Deity, defined as having created the world in six days about 6,000 years ago, and then flooding it some centuries later, doesn’t jibe with historical evidence; the God of Christian Theologians seems to have various logical contradictions with respect to omniscience, omnipotence, and so on.)
You also seem to be saying “there can be no proof or even evidence” for a deity. I’m curious about that. Saying there isn’t any evidence is not that same thing as saying that in principle there can’t be any evidence.
C’mon, my existence doesn’t prove anything to me other than that I exist. It might make me question your existence, tho. Solipsism, anyone?
Pointing at me and saying, “You exist; therefore, God exists,” isn’t going to sit well, probably not even among most christians. I know a great many people who consider themselves christians, and have taken god out of creation of man and put Him in creation of the universe. As in, he lit the fuse for the Big Bang and sat around for a few billion years until mankind was there. Gods always have been pretty exciting, haven’t they? Lightning, explosions, floods…I digress.
You put forth a nice argument in one respect, but that argument can be used against you. For example, why is Christianity true and not Islam? Or how about the many polytheisms that were around much earlier than Christianity? I mean, shouldn’t Sumerians have got it right? After all, they merely looked around and said, “Something more powerful than us made all this!”
I would be happy to discuss this, but first I need to know which chrisitanity is right and why? Are Catholics truly worshipping a different God than Jews? Surely you can see that by pointing at me and saying “You exist!” you haven’t accomplished anything in that respect.
I offer a quote:
From, “Principia Discordia, or, How I found the Goddess and What I Did to Her When I found Her” by Malaclypse the Younger.
So the distinction between supported belief and faith is that supported belief is always preliminary and open to modification if new evidence (or hypotheses) arises. Faith, in contrast, is unchanging in the face of updated facts or interpretations. Hmm. Perhaps you might label that “contingent belief”. No matter, the distinction seems valid.
Still, I wonder whether there are any who profess to have faith, but won’t rule out the possibility of being in error and shifting their point of view in the face of better information. I once met a guy who maintained that the best hypothesis to explain the moved rock and missing body in the Gospels was that JC was the son of God. I don’t recall him saying specifically that he had faith in JC though.
Also, I think you may have misinterpreted Bystander’s point. But I’ll leave that to her…
You not only completely misinterpret me, but you quote me out of context - my remark above followed one about the non-existence of divine entities and so “their existence” referred the the existence of devine entities, not of particular human believers.
As I have stated clearly in every one of my postings here I am an atheist - I do not beleive in any divine being. And I do not fall into the category of “I have not yet been convinced” I am not waiting for any evidence as I do not expect any to arrive. I believe whole-heartedly that the universe is a cold and inherently meaningless place, but that in order to enjoy my time here I had better impose some meaning of my own on it.
My point, which nobody seems able to comprehend, except dear old Andros, is that I do not take the arrogant view that non-existence of all deities is the default position. I recognize my atheistic worldview as the faith-dependent view it is. I can have no evidence for or against it, but I hold it dearly nonetheless.
As you point out there are an infinite number of imaginable dieties and many world religions each proposing a different view. My faith rejects all of them and any others you could come up with as well. This is a strong faith - but as I have said above I think it is necessary for everyone to have a consistent (and now I will add: as complete as possible) working model of the universe.
Are we still completely not communicating?
Right, I sure did interpret that wrong. Seems like it is the same faith to believe in no god as it is to believe in god. Indeed. I proffer this:
I came to my conclusions about God in a wholly mundane manner. I started from the assumption God exists. Where would He exist? Well, He would have to exist, if anywhere, at least partly outside of our universe (else he couldn’t create it, see?). Anything that can create an entire universe is definitely out of the scope of human knowledge. Therefore, we cannot know God unless he stoops to our level.
Here we come to the bible. The bible, then, can be seen as God coming down to our level. So if this is true I must concede that God does exist in the manner described above. Now, a little science called paleontology shows that the bible is at least wrong about how long the earth has been around. If they haven’t, then the bible lied to us both by the genesis records and by the obvious, glaring omission of the years and years of life on this planet before we were here. Thus, the bible is not telling me the truth one way or the other.
Add to this the multiple “interpretations” of the bible, and what that spells to me is a poorly written historical novel, not an affirmation of an all-powerful being.
HOWEVER, the possibility still remains: An all powerful being could have created the earth exactly as creationists imply, falsified the evidence of dinosaurs, and so on. That leaves me wondering, if the bible really is true, then, and He could do such a thing, why would He? And this returns me to the start of everything: I cannot know God. Since I cannot know God, and the attempt of God to come down to our level was clearly less-than-clear, it seems to me to not be an unreasonable assumption that God is unknowable. It is based on evidence of:
- No tangible proof that directly shows God exists.
- No knowledge of anything that exists outside our universe.
- Those who do believe in God don’t even agree on who He really is.
It goes on from here, bringing in other religions who also believe they are correct. Starting to see a pattern here, I find my thought to be:
Man creates ideas about his own existence. [man in the general sense, of course, I’m not PC]
Now, I haven’t supported my belief that no god exists, just that if one did we couldn’t know it.
How do I go about gathering evidence to support an assumption that no god exists? Obviously: you can’t. It is impossible to prove something that does not exist. Let me restate this:
If something doesn’t exist, there isn’t ever going to be any proof of it not existing for there is no proof for it to give. If something doesn’t exist, there will be no evidence to support even an assumption that it doesn’t exist because it isn’t there to leave any evidence of its non-existence. This is the core of my “supported belief.” Soemthing that isn’t there can’t leave evidence of it not being there. See? It isn’t that I can’t prove it so I believe it on an act of faith, its that I can’t prove it because if its not there there is also no evidence. I hope this is clear. The evidence for my supported belief is lack of evidence itself. Some call it being skeptical
OK? If not, I can try again.
I was hoping to get that post done before you noticed…
ugh
Before I head home to bed (it’s 1:30 am in my time zone and I’m still at work), I will wrap this up by saying that I think we are finally seeing pretty much eye-to-eye. Though I di not start from the assumption that god exists - I’ve never really felt any pull towards that view - must be my United Church upbringing (A Canadian hybrid church).
I understand your point that since there is no evidence that seems to be evidence in support of God’s non-existence. But I would sya that any really supernatural being would have to be well, outside nature and therefore outside the laws of casue and effect, and if they were to be religiously significant they would have to be so far beyond our comprehension that we would never be able to recognize any evidence for them if it did exist. So I see the lack of evidence as inevitable whether there is a divine being or not, so it can not be evidence for either side of the argument.
So I feel again that my position is just as much a matter of faith as the belief in any particular deity. It’s easy to dismiss the existence of any particular deity - but to dismiss all conceivable entities is a very strong statement. Nonetheless it is my worldview and I try to act accordingly. I.e. No hoping for divine intervention or a better time in the next life and no hope of being absolved by anyone other than the person I may have wronged)
Well, it sounds as if bystander does represent an example of someone with an atheistic faith. This does not mean, however, that all atheists necessarily share that particular form of atheism, or that faith.
What is wrong with you people?
The answer is no.
Next question?
I have as much “faith” that there is no God, as you have that there is no Easter Bunny.
Or Superman.
Or Pippi Longstocking.
Or Bugs Bunny
This is what happens when the purpose of your conversation is to win “converts” at any cost. Any dissenting arguments are reexamined and redefined so that they fit your side of the argument. Any statement that cannot be changed is ignored. This is the reason I am an atheist. I refuse to play mind-games with myself and others just to make my worldview a nice, safe place. I’ll live in the real world, than you very much.
I’ll start out by quoting slythe:
Just catching up on this thread… I think I have to agree with bystander on how it is a bit arrogant to believe the default or null case of the faith question is inherently atheism.
The logic of this about as faulty as the following, or, The Parable of the Big FaithBox:
I have a big pretty box in front of me with a bow. On the box is a big stamp, “Fragile: Faith Inside”. I wonder what is inside this box. Some people come up to me and say that what is inside this box has talked to them, and that the think inside the box is X. Someone else comes by and gives me a book, he tells me that this book, was written by the thing in the faithbox. I reject the idea that Superman, Pippi Longstocking, the Easter Bunny, or Bugs Bunny are in the box. Why should I think they are. I reject all these opinions, because none of these can make me sure of what is in the box and therefore are by definition hopelessly flawed hypotheses about what is in the box.
So, I conclude that since we cannot conclusively prove the contents of the box, then the box must be empty. My logic is so stunningly and intellectually brilliant. I, having found out the secret of the box, skip over to a friend who is reading the book from the box, enjoying it too, that he’s wasting his time, because obviously since the contents of the box are unknown, and we since it is a hard coded logical precept that all unknown variables default are equal to null or nothing (learned that in Algebra you know), well, then logically it follows that the box is empty.
You smile at your buddy’s skepticism. How foolish of him to not see the clarity of my faith, oops, i mean my logical proof, in the emptiness of the box. Your buddy looks at you and he’s thinking, “Well, he might think my beliefs are foolish, but I’ve got foolishness and this here wonderful book to rely upon, which has a lot of good practical stuff too, and I kinda like the idea that pretty boxes have stuff in them. I have all that, and he’s just got some crummy logic, of which he has complete faith is the default belief, and an empty box to boot. Poor lad.”
Ok, enough with the weird stories, another little formulation… Call this the “Faith of the Uneducated vis a vis the Defaultness of Atheism Paradox”.
If atheism is indeed the default belief, then we must posit that exigent circumstances shift people of faith from this default position to faith in something. We’ll call this, “religion, society, etc”. Meanwhile, I have remained true to the default value and have not been corrupted by the ideological pressures like those with weaker constitutions.
Now if this is the case, why do less educated tend to have higher percentages of non-atheists and educated ones. One would assume that a more educated person would be exposed to MORE social, historical, and ideological pressures than a less educated one. One could argue against this “paradox” by saying that the less educated are more SUSCEPTIBLE to social pressure so therein lies the difference. Oops, if you say this you’ve shown your hand. Because now you are taking the haughty attitude that those who don’t agree with you are by nature not as bright, when we know that lack of education does not necessarily mean you are dumb, there are plenty of people who have the hardware, but were never given the appropriate software. Anyways, it still begs the question, if atheism is indeed the default true, untainted definition of faith, then why is it that as you get exposed to more and more (scientific methodology, Western viewpoints, etc) education you become MORE likely to become an atheist than if you hadn’t in the first place. It doesn’t make sense.
So maybe, it makes more sense if we agree that atheism is no less, no more, a leap of faith than theism is. You are just positing the the item in the box is nothing. You have no more conclusive supporting proof than anyone else who tells you what is, or isn’t, in the box. I’m not counting as “proof” the laundry list of things you’ve decided can’t be in the box because THEY have no conclusive supporting proof… I think slythe called this “Any dissenting arguments (that) are reexamined and redefined so that they fit your side of the argument.”. The only reason atheism FEELS like its the default mode is because Western educational and scientific culture tends to bias towards that worldview. There are other cultures where I’m sure, theism would be a more comfortable, and thus more “default” (in an Orwellian sense) basis for faith.
Well, what is the default view of faith? Well, back to the box story… what’s the default answer if someone came up and asked. “Hey! Nice box! What’s in it.”
Default: “I dunno”. Oops! Looks like its agnosticism, NOT atheism.
Someone above defined agnosticism as “Agnostic: Faith that we cannot know whether a deity exists”. Which can be translated as, “Faith in the fact that we cannot have faith.” Which is a paradox! Crummy definition. I think a better definition is “Someone who doesn’t have faith (as far as diety(ies) are concerned)”. Or rather, “Someone who doesn’t know the answer or the One True Way, and are modest enough to admit this.” If we tried to define atheism as a default it would be “Someone who doesn’t know the answer, and that answer is no.”
But is agnosticism really the default made for faith? “The default method of having faith is not having faith.” Hmm… doesn’t make sense either. Maybe perhaps there IS no “default” setting for faith and we should just accept that.
Meanwhile, I’m happy being a Christian, it enriches my life immeasurrably, the God of my faith treats me well and he helps me live a good, kind, happy life free from the control of money, power, or material wishes. I can enjoy myself, enjoy helping those less fortunate than me, and be humble when others offer to share my burdens. For all that the God of my faith has given me, I am thankful, and I am greatful. For all that He has taken from me, I am also thankful, because I was able to enjoy it while it lasted. Who cannot but blame a Christian who shares such happiness with others? Sure, I have no “conclusive” or “definative” things to back up my faith, at least as far as would satisfy any reproducible scientific experiment or general Western ideology. However, thats not a stumbling block for myself, I have proof enough, if nothing but the freedom that faith gives (some may laugh at that last line but its true… remember what I said about money, power, etc, supra). I like the idea that there is Something greater than myself, that that Something cares very deeply about little old me, and that everything I do isn’t ultimately, and cosmically, meaningless. I am existentially happy (some would say foolish, gullible, or ignorant… neither of which I am, there are such things as educated people of faith, you know) or that I am simply “play(ing) mind-games with myself and others just to make my worldview a nice, safe place (and not living in the real world).” Well, if I am (and I’m not hee hee), well then, oh well, if the truth is merely that life is existentially meaningless and is just a race to hoard as much stuff and satisfy as many desires before its meaningless is finally made complete, well then, thank God (literally) that I’m “deluding” myself. But at least I am not arrogant enough to think that Christianity is the “default” or that those who don’t agree with my faith are less intellectually, spiritually, or socially capable than myself.
–M
To do list:
Go in peace. Argue with respect. Open your mind. Hug someone! Pet a cat. Smile.
Yeah, and if Santa Claus not existing is the default position, why is it that young children beleive in him, but as you grow up and learn more you decide he does not exist? If the non-existence of monsters under the bed is the default position, why is it that young children believe in them, but as you grow up and learn more you decide they does not exist? If the non-existence of psychic powers in the default belief, why is it that the uneducated are more likely to believe in them?
I think you are in error with your definition of “default position”. The default position on God, Santa Claus and psychic powers, if you define it as “the one you’re born with”, is “I have no idea”…babies have never heard about God. Now, if their mommies and daddies tell them God exists, they will believe God exists. Just as they believed in Santa Claus. Now, as they grow up, they may question Santa, and decide he is not real. Perhaps they question God, too. Now, nearly everybody doubts Santa, but not that many doubt God, so there’s still a lot of pressure to beleive. Those with inquiring minds will likely enjoy learning and questioning a lot; some of these will think it through and decide their doubt about God are adequately answered and still believe in God, but many question so much they no longer believe.
*My Father Christmas passed away
When I was barely seven.
At twenty-one, alack-a-day,
I lost my hope of heaven.
Yet not in either lies the curse:
The hell of it’s because
I don’t know which loss hurt the worse –
My God or Santa Claus.* --Robert Service
Statements about the default position of atheism are likely not saying “without lots of learning, everyone would be an atheist!”; it is generally a logical argument, one you make reference to with your unopened box. Given that you have no idea what’s in the box, if someone asks you, “is God is the box?” you’ll likely say no. Disbelief in any particular thing being in the box is the logical default position. I mean, think how silly it would be if someone asked “Do you think there’s a imperceptible faerie in the box,” and you said “yes” without any evidence of that! Wouldn’t you be far more likely to say “I really don’t think so!”
Yes, but if someone asks “is there a three-horned purple people eater in the box”, would you still say, “I dunno”? For “soft atheists” like myself, the analogy would be that there is no good evidence of a a three-horned purple people eater anywhere, so if someone asks me if there’s one in the box, I would say “I lack belief that there is a a three-horned purple people eater in the box.” Could there be one? Sure, but I think it remarkably unlikely. But you don’t have to be absolutely certain of the non-existence of something to be able to say “I lack belief in this”. There may be invisible dragons, or imperceptible faeries, or monsters under the bed, or Gods…but without evidence, the default position seems to be lacking belief in such things. When people ask you if there are imperceptible faeries, do you just say “I dunno”?
I suggest you read a bit more about the currently accepted definitions of “atheism”, “hard atheism”, “soft atheism” and “agnosticism”, before you start putting me in a box. I suspect you’ll find we atheists aren’t at all who you think we are. Please check it out: News Wire – Internet Infidels
Encyclopedia Britannica also has some good stuff, but it’s rather “deep” for someone new to it.
*Mithras the Sun-God
Was a jolly happy soul,
And he slew a bull
On solstice day
So the world would not get cold. *
That was nice, the box story. But I’d like to remind you that many atheists, especially myself, were raised under some form of religion. It is hardly the default stance. Neither is agnosticism. Truly, I would say faith is he default stance since it requires no external confirmation/evidence/support.
You came to know God. Congratulations. I and many others found nothing there when we opened the box, and so came to our own conclusion.
bystander
Welcome to the SDMB.
I have no problem with your argument that atheism is not a “default” position, but it is dependent upon your particular view of atheism. I agree that you have a faith that no gods exist. I do not.
I also do not have a faith in any particular god. That is a “default” position, as near as I can determine from history, psychology, theology, studies of neural development, etc.
Lacking belief in the existence of any particular supernatural being of arbitrary qualities and unproveable existence does not compel me to decide that no such being could possibly exist. Nor does it compel me to decide that the question of whether a supernatural being of arbitrary qualities might exist is unknowable. It is certainly withing the realm of possibility that some god or another could make its presence in the Universe evident. The negative hypothesis, of course, cannot be proven.
I lack any ability to fully induce all possible god-conditions for testing. I also lack (not sharing your faith) any ability to deduce from axiom that no gods exist.
Nevertheless, I am an atheist. I do not believe in gods. I do not believe the question in unanswerable. I have seen no good evidence to suport that hypothesis. I am confident that the null hypothesis is correct, though as with all such tests we can never verify it absolutely.
emjaycue
Your analogy is not apt.
there is no box.
thanks, Spiritus.
MJQ, I think you are starting from a position that most “true believers” start from. You feel that if you did not have your faith, there would be a void in you, yes? Therefore, anyone who does not have faith must live all the time with a void. Ain’t necessarily so. From a non-believer’s perspective, you have not only created the box for yourself, you have created the need for the box as well.
iampunha:
Atheism means what I just said it means. Do not open this thread up to a protracted semantics debate, please. I just got out of a few of those around here.
andros and bystander:
Evidence does not mean personal experience. Evidence means getting input from the outside world. I have heard the evidence for Earth being an oblate spheroid. It accurately predicts what I observe. Namely, the earth looks flat from ground level, but the tops of things show up first, the Earth casts a round shadow, etc. I have heard no persuasive evidence against that stance, and nothing I have observed goes against it, either. Therefore, I think Earth is an oblate spheroid. That pretty much describes how I come to conclusions. I use this method because I have not found a better one.
While you’re bandying definitions:
Diagnostic: Someone who is unsure if there are two gods
: D&R :
So you’re using one definition for the purposes of agreement?
Not disagreeing with you here, just wanting to set things straight so’s I understand what you mean.