Is Atheism "arrogant"?

Great Debates
141

I actually had some posts to respond to, but got so overwhemled on page 3, til I just gave up.

Thanks to everyone for responding. I’m glad I asked the question.

Personally, I consider the issue decided now. Here’s my illogic:

  1. So far, the theists have agreed with the atheists that there’s no objective/external evidence for god, that all the evidence is internal/psychological.

  2. The theists have also avoided the issue of why it should be the case that the existence of god is somehow inherently unprovable. (Certain words have been thrown around, but they have not been used with any precision, and in any case these arguments do not address the issue of why such remoteness should be a necessary trait of god.)

  3. It follows, therefore, that the claim “god exists” qualifies as an extraordinary claim.

  4. No one has asserted that it is arrogant to believe that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

  5. Hence, it is not arrogant to believe that there is no god, just as it is not arrogant to believe that there is no undetectable dog in my office.

Of course, as I’ve stated previously, I’d go a step further and assert that enough evidence exists to definitively reject the notion of god.

Which, naturally, brings us to the question of defining god in the first place. Frankly, I was surprised that the moderator had to step in before this issue was placed squarely on the table.

Perhaps another day, another thread.

Now, I’ll probably immediately go back on my word and cherry-pick a few posts to reply to.

It was good for me.

Anyone got a smoke?

142

Sigh, getting back to this so late. Stupid emplyment and its allowing me to pay for food and rent!

Ahem. As to the agnosticism/atheism/etc thing: I am well aware that people use all sorts of terms interchangeably. That does not mean those words do not have specific meanings, but I am not one to get caught up on dictionary-ism. However, problems do arise when someone is using the terms interchangeably to draw a false (judging by what I had seen posted at that point) dichotomy.

Saying “I don’t know if there’s a god, thus I am agnostic” is fine. Saying “I don’t know if there’s a god, thus I am an atheist” is fine. Saying “We both don’t know if there’s a god and come to the same conclusions, but I choose to call myself an agnostic and you call yourself an atheist which makes my position entirely more defensible than the position I’ve decided to assign to your word choice” doesn’t really cut it. Agreement on definitions is a necessary precondition to logical argumentation.

143

Btw, a “catch 22” is a circular dilemma.

Classic example: You can’t get published unless you have an agent; you can’t get an agent until you’re published.

It’s not just any sort of hitch.

Demanding evidence that one knows cannot be produced, for instance, does not constitute a catch 22.

I’d hate for that expression to get watered down (though perhaps it’s inevitable) just b/c I think Heller’s book is a work of genius.

144

Hang on a moment, I have to take issue with the “fundies on both sides” comments, which implies that there are extreme whack jobs on both sides of the issue who kind of cancel each other out.

Fundamentalist Christians are a reasonably large, politically influential group at least some of whom frequently attempt to force their morality on others by enacting it into law. They call people sinful. They attempt to meddle into people’s lives. They want the 10 commandments in courtrooms, prayer in school, “under God” in the pledge, and homosexuals de-conditioned. Certainly they do not represent all Christians, or even all Very Serious Christians. There are plenty of Christians who oppose them. But they are a real group with power and an agenda.

By comparison, who are the Atheist fundies? I suppose it’s possible that somewhere in the US is someone who wants the pledge of allegiance to include the phrase “and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, acknowledging that there is no God, with liberty and justice for all” or something of that sort. But if so, it’s a scattered fringe of individual lunatics, not an organized movement of any sort. In short, there are no “Fundie” atheists, at least none who are in any way comparable to “Fundie” Christians.
And even the concept of “fundamentalism” doesn’t make sense when applied to Atheism, as Atheism isn’t really a religion. It would make sense to state that someone was an orthodox Jew, an orthodox Christian, or an orthodox Muslim. What would an orthodox Atheist be?

To change the topic slightly, I’d like to address the question of the indetectable dog (or the IPU, if you prefer). I claim that there’s an indetectable dog in the room right now, but it can not ever be detected, nor does it ever influence the world in the slightest fashion. Am I wrong?

It’s a more intricate question than some of you have been giving it credit for. Normally, when I ask “is X in the room”, I’m asking about something which I’ve learnd to detect or fail to detect. If I want to find out if there’s a stapler in the room, I look through the room until I find a stapler, and either find one or convince myself that I’ve looked everywhere and there is no stapler. So there are only two possibilities: there is a stapler, or there is no stapler. But I can’t apply a comparable method to the indetectable dog, because I don’t now what the rules are for dealing with indetectable dogs.

The rules I learned for dealing with staplers can also apply to other, stapler-esque, things like telephones, apples, or people. But at no point in my life have I ever observed an indetectable dog, or the indisputable absence of an indetectable dog.
Therefore, I don’t feel that I can comment about the “existence” of an indetectable dog. Human experience and logic and all the things I’ve learned to use to judge the world around me are of no more benefit in analyzing the indetectable dog than calculus would be of use while trying to describe the smell of a flower. The language and intellectual foundation just don’t exist.
So how does that apply to God? Well, if someone claims to believe in a God which is similar to the indetectable dog, and claims to gain benefits from that belief (and I can believe that there are benefits, albeit ones that I would claim are placebo-esque), who am I to criticize that belief? On the other hand, if someone believes in a much more active God whose literal words of truth can be found in the Bible, who created the universe 4000 years ago, and who smites down Pharisees left and right, then I believe that observation and argument can disprove the existence of said God, and I thus believe that that person’s belief is flat out wrong. And if someone believes something in the middle (ie, they pray every evening, and claim that they feel a connection to God, but when their kids get sick they take them to the hospital), then my reaction is somewhere in the middle.

(Note: just because I might believe that certain beliefs are flat out wrong or even stupid and absurd doesn’t mean that I believe that that person holding those beliefs is stupid, evil, or worthy of contempt in any way.)

What evidence would that be? I definitely don’t believe in God, but the only “evidence” I have for that basically boils down to Occam’s Razor.

145

shrugs If you want to apply physical science laws to a philisophical discussion, that is entirely up to you, and I can’t stop you. You defined the evidence as presented by theists persent as “psychological,” which is a misuse of all terms used.

Your statement:

“The theists have also avoided the issue of why it should be the case that the existence of god is somehow inherently unprovable.”

is a misconstruction of terms. I personally certainly never avoided the issue of why god is somehow inherently unprovable - I merely stated that such a proof would be philisophical, not physical, as god is not a physical entity.

Your next statement:

“It follows, therefore, that the claim “god exists” qualifies as an extraordinary claim.”

is similarly illogical. The claim that “god exists” qualifies as a metaphysical claim, which was never discussed at any length by any atheist. Instead, the red herring of the IPU was thrown up and people quit replying.

Lastly, I believe that no one even argued that all of atheism is arrogant, and your conclusion has nothing to do with the arrogancy (or lack thereof) of atheism.

I submit that the judgement passed down by the OP was biased towards atheism, as was the question of debate, on the grounds that the submitter and judge is an atheist.

Therefore, atheists define a three page thread with minimal debate as “proof” that god can not exist, despite lack of any evidence other than “we don’t think he does” - a statement so ironic in its subjective arrogance as to boggle the mind. :wink:

146

Thingol,

so what is your point exactly? The extraordinary claims need extraordinary proof statement has been atheist canon for awhile and could have been stated at the beginning of the debate. In fact if that’s the topic you wanted to discuss you should have brought it up.

The question was if atheists are arrogant. I think the general censuses is that some are. Some aren’t. Same as any group. The question if atheism itself is an arrogant philosophy seems to be undecided. (Needless to say I think it’s not)

147

Given that it’s not a philosophy at all, I’d say the possibility that it could be an arrogant philosophy is about 0.

148

Sorry, Dob. I wasn’t aware you were refering to your own ideas.

In any case, I gave two options here – willfully ignoring an issue, or failing to be critical of implausible ideas. I do not assume that you, in particular, have made the former choice.

As I have stated before, I don’t consider it “stupid” to be uncritical of religious thinking. I consider it an evolutionary adaptation, a kind of necessary fiction. As I have also mentioned before, many people I deeply admire, and who I consider much more intelligent than myself, do believe in god.

I will admit, though, that your belief in god is irrational. That does not make everything you do irrational. I also hold certain irrational beliefs – some of them are among my favorite beliefs. But they are probably total bullshit.

149

Oh, I’ve meet a few fundie atheists, who insist so vehemently that there is no god that they spend time convincing others that there is no god, or at the very least that people who believe in a god are somehow mentally inferior. Fundamental atheism may not have the same “depth” as fundamental Christianity, but it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist (if you’ll excuse the term).

This is a straw man. No one ever claimed that god is in the room, nor that he does not influence the world in the slightest fashion. That is a misunderstanding of the concept. First of all, god isn’t necessarily an object. Think of it like a force. Now, can you say “there is a force in the room that affects emotional state”?

Can anyone, in any way, detect said force, other than their subjective opinion?
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150

sigh and how exactly is it characterized then? I’m sorry I don’t know the correct terminology for my own…belief system? No…school of thought? No…Darn it I’ll call it my philosophy if I want to.

However I am willing to be enlightened. Please what’s the correct term.

151

You might well have a philosophy of your own, but it no doubt goes far beyond what atheism: simply being someone who doesn’t believe in gods. (not even necessarily knowing of their lack or caring)

A lack of belief in something is not a philosophy. It’s pretty much just a description of the lack of something.

Secular Humanism is a philosophy. Realism is a philosophy.

152

I’m a big fan of Secular Humanism. Anyway
“The question was if atheists are arrogant. I think the general censuses is that some are. Some aren’t. Same as any group. The question if atheism itself is an arrogant lack of belief in god seems to be undecided.” Doesn’t quite roll as well but I’ll gladly make that concession if it will get past the semantics. :smiley:

153

It was (stated at the beginning), and I did (bring it up) – see post #15. And this is not simply “atheist canon”, it’s a widely accepted principle of logical thought. It is not the topic I wanted to discuss – if it were, I would have made it the topic. However, it is relevant.

I also said at the beginning that I am an arrogant prick. So let me indulge myself here at the end of all things:

People who believe in god are victims of evolution, their position is irrational, without basis in reality, and delusional. That doesn’t make them stupid, or cowards, or anything of the sort. It does, however, make them wrong about this particular point.

I shall now execute my own act of cowardice, and leave this thread never to return. I leave it to you to kill the beast.

All my love, Thingol

154

Eh, I guess there aren’t many atheits who want to talk about the concept of a god on a metaphysical level. Remember kiddies, with every religion, including atheists, as long as it doesn’t fit into their beliefs, it doesn’t count.

Off to the Bush-bashing threads, I guess. I’ll keep poking my head in, though. Frankly, I have a headache from all this, “no, god is an invisible person using my bathroom” or whatever talk.

155

What’s the point of discussing god on a metaphysical level with an atheist? It’s a fairly meaningless subject to us it’s unvarified and unproven so how would it merit discussion? Seems like you’d have to accept god’s existance on some level first before you could discuss it that way.

Wasn’t it something Carl Sagan said about proof of alien existance that was adopted by atheists? I certainly haven’t come across that in my logic class…of course we have another month left. :wink:

156

Damn, sucked in again! Well, since I said I was done before laigle was able to return and respond, I guess I’ll bite.

Now what precisely did I say that led you to believe I said agnosticism is more defensible than atheism? This argument has developed out of a disagreement on semantics. You can find various definitions of agnosticism and they don’t all agree. In fact, they appear to evolve over time even within the same publication. There are varying degrees of agnosticism as well. I was just pointing out that your cookie-cutter approach doesn’t cover all the bases. But I didn’t label anyone anything! I was not the one who said:

That was you in response to a self-described agnostic who said her agnosticism was based on her own professed lack of knowledge of God. How many sources do you want me to cite to help you understand that personal lack of knowledge is one accepted definition of agnosticism?

Since this is clearly not on topic, I suggest we agree to disagree. Even better let’s try to do it without labeling one another.

157

You’ll admit that someone else’s belief is irrational? Are you kidding or did you not realize what you’ve just said?! Since you’re making admissions for other people, will please tell my mother that I did have sex before marriage? It would be so much easier if I didn’t have to tell her myself.

That arrogant statement just needs taken out back and flogged. :::sigh::: If the OP needed any evidence whatsoever, here it is in black and white.

158

Shortly after making my last post in this thread, I blinked and felt a stabbing pain in my eye. For the last 10 minutes, my eye has felt like it is on fire, and I can barely see enough to type.

Is this not proof enough that there is a god, and he is pissed at me leaving this thread?

Shessh, you atheists!

I think we’d better call the Atheist Police to make sure you don’t misuse a term that isn’t a philosophy or a group and means belief in nothing. “They” get pissed about that for some reason O_o

159

From someone who has (justiably, I might add) complained about people mischaracterizing believers, this statement is pretty two-faced.

160

I was being sarcastic. :wink: No need to be alarmed.