[quote=“SiXSwordS, post:4, topic:604851”]
…Cecil seems to be saying that atheism is based on some simplistic concept like: “If there’s a God, why doesn’t he give me a pony.”
I had a pony growing up, and there’s still no God.
Occam’s Razor.
I can think of two good arguments for why atheism is the default position and why it shouldn’t be considered a belief. The first is an empirical one. We do not witness beliefs in non-cognitive phenomenon. A star is an atheist, for example. Likewise, we do not see communication of religious belief in animals that cannot communicate (though there has been some argument over what may be some form of rituals by other great apes0. The second is the principle of parsimony, which I explain a bit more here.
Seriously? Atheism is the default position because stars are atheists?
If you really want to argue that way, how do you know stars are atheists?
[QUOTE=Job 38:4-7]
Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth? declare, if thou hast understanding.
Who hath laid the measures thereof, if thou knowest? or who hath stretched the line upon it?
Whereupon are the foundations thereof fastened? or who laid the corner stone thereof;
When the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?
[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=Psalm 148:1-3]
Praise ye the LORD. Praise ye the LORD from the heavens: praise him in the heights.
Praise ye him, all his angels: praise ye him, all his hosts.
Praise ye him, sun and moon: praise him, all ye stars of light.
[/QUOTE]
If “default” and “theism” have any meaning, then yes. Something has to demonstrate intelligence in order to be a theist and stars do not possess that quality. I’m afraid scripture has no bearing on empirical questions.
Yes, I know. But the “knee-jerk atheists” I was referring to can’t even come up with that.
I think, perhaps, you are reading too much into his comment. Rather than being “knuckleheads” for arguing God doesn’t exist (and being atheists), perhaps he was just calling them knuckleheads for not being the great, divine Cecil, the world’s smartest human. And I think the “knee-jerk” was aimed at the response of automatically going to the atheist arguments, rather than the chosen approach of coming at it from the other direction.
I don’t think there as any slur against atheists as a whole intended.
Stars also do not think, and so we learn that stark unreason is the default.
Most atheists, in the US at least, started off as theists. I did. Thus, we are open minded enough to have re-examined our views, and understand the theist point of view from the inside. Which is something most theists do not.
Saying that old scientists were theists does not say much. First, they lived in a time where not being a theist was a life-limiting move. Second, they lived in a time when many of the questions we have about the universe had no reasonable answer but god. They were mostly creationists also, which does not mean the position is one to be respected today. In fact, if you read the writing of these scientist, you will find that mention of God decreases with increased understanding of the natural world, to pretty much vanish by the beginning of the 19th century, where, Laplace, I believe, told Napoleon that he saw no need for that hypothesis. (Quoted from memory.)
Interestingly, awhile ago when I proposed a similar argument (something like, “is a sweet potato atheist?”) many of my fellow atheists thought I was being ridiculous. In common currency, we only use the word “atheist” to refer to entities capable of forming opinions/beliefs/conclusions/conjectures who lack a belief in a god.
Otherwise, we get to the odd situation that atheists must consider Thomas Aquinas also to be an atheist.
I don’t think that’s any great shakes. Most Neo-Nazis also started off as non-neo-Nazis, but if we’re therefore to describe Neo-Nazis as open-minded, we’ve pretty much trashed the word open-minded beyond all recognition.
I think his point is that they can understand why people would believe in God since they did so themselves. Of course, to say that because they no longer believe in God then God must no longer exist would be an appeal to novelty. Nor does it necessitate that they deconverted for logical reasons (most likely there were several factors over a period of time rather than an “aha!” moment). Of course, they could still be arrogant and claim that before deconversion they were irrational and now they are rational.
Personally two things in my religious studies class made me disillusioned with religion. The first was learning about God’s three claimed properties, omniscience, omnipotence and benevolence. I independently arrived at a version of Epicurus’s paradox/theodicy, namely: “if God can interfere in the world to answer the prayers of people that want to pass exams and get a parking space, then wouldn’t it be at best amoral of him to ignore the suffering of starving children?”… The real kicker was learning that in Catholicism one is not reunited with one’s family in heaven. My father already told me that one sings praises to God for all eternity, which sounded intolerable to me, but at least I’d have good company. But apparently the phrase “no marriage in heaven” meant no reuinification either. So I no longer felt committed to the desire for eternal life. I cede the latter isn’t a logical reason.
Well, I’m fairly sure the composite materials of Thomas Aquinas now lack the constitution to be called Thomas Aquinas. Unless you mean that all the particles that comprise Thomas Aquinas were atheistic particles, but it’d be a fallacy of composition to say that particles that make up something need to have each quality of the whole.
Disregarding inanimate things, thinking is a requirement of theism. If an animal is no longer capable of even unconscious thought, it cannot believe and thus must be an atheist, unless one defines “atheism” as a belief in the non-existence of God, which is an inherently non-scientific proposition. A belief in the existence of something is a scientific proposition and if evidence is found to support that claim, it becomes a theory. So a positive disbelief is an even more of a scientific affront than believing based on faulty premises (for example, that a lack of explanation for the complexity of the eye (despite Darwin devoting a chapter to it) is equivalent to a theoretical explanation for an infinitely more complex being).
If you don’t define atheism as as a reasoned position (as “a belief”) doesn’t your argument boil down to it being ignorance instead, and that it’s the default because you just don’t/can’t know differently?
No, because one can be aware of a position and not believe in it. Thus we’re born aaetherists, learn about the theory of the aether and ultimately reject it - or at least most of us do. We don’t need to have any competing hypotheses that explain everything that the aether theory attempted to explain in order to demonstrate that it is false. So I don’t think it is necessarily a position of ignorance despite not being a belief. Of course, those that are ignorant of religion are necessarily atheists.
Animate atheists that have been informed of religion can know differently (though Pascal wrote his religious proofs for those who were made so that they could not believe and the Quran says “woe unto those whose hearts are hardened against remembrance of Allah.”). Those that I know just reject fallacious reasons for believing (such as the appeal to popularity or tradition) and seek logical or empirical reasons for believing (if they bother to search at al).
The universe is entirely reasonable. It’s just not very nice.
When you think about it, if you ever DO think about it, while you can’t prove there are no gods, it’s pretty much the sensible assumption.
One easy question is which is the true religion? They all contradict each other as to theology, cosmogeny, and how their deity thinks you ought to live your life. Therefore any religious person must agree, most religions are wrong.
If they’re wrong, why do they exist? If there really isn’t a pantheon of Indian gods, or a pantheon of Greek ones, then where did all those beliefs come from? Surely they weren’t just… MADE UP!?
So to accept that all religions are made-up and not true, apart from just this particular one, without ANY proof of that, is surely incredibly stupid.
I’m not surprised, because people aren’t rational. But religious people are stupid. And the casual, non-church-going ones are just lazy for not giving it 5 minutes’ thought.
FWIW any harrassed American atheists might want to move to Europe. We’ve all been living like atheists here for decades. The typical European may or may not believe in a god, but really doesn’t give a shit about it either way. It’s not something that bothers us, because we don’t have fundies going on and on about it all the time. Unfortunately we sent them all over to populate your country in the 1600s. Sorry!
Come to Europe! Let the idiots have America, and without anyone remotely sensible there to keep a check on them, the place will sink beneath the waves, whereupon we can replace it with something better.
I tried to add this as an edit, but…
Europeans see religion as a cute tradition, something that gave us nice architecture and songs, from when our primitive ancestors lived in unsophisticated societies. Births, deaths and marriages are the only times most Britons see the inside of a church. I think most of us think of American Christianity as something to be scared of, something that inspires loonies to blow up abortion clinics. The quiet, otherwise-normal religious folk don’t really pop up on the radar much, but it’s something we find strange that they’d take it so seriously, be so dutiful about.
Wrong in what sense? Many people of faith find that their practices bring meaning to their lives.
My impression has been that Islam in Europe is becoming a focal issue. If people feel that laws need to be passed that curtail religious behavior that would seem to indicate that they do, in fact, give a shit.
Wrong as in incorrect. Christians believe that the Hindu religion is not the correct religion. They do not believe in it’s various gods and practices. Similarly Jews don’t believe Buddhism is the correct explanation for god and the Universe. As I said, all religious people (well, except maybe Buddhists) believe in their religion exclusively, so therefore they think the other religions are incorrect. Or wrong.
Well, don’t believe what you read in the papers. The first reason people are bothered is mostly because people are ignorant and the media love a scare story. Muslims are the new Communists for us all to be worried about.
The second reason, is because people are racists. Lots of skinheads marching through my town the other month, on a march against the government imposing Sharia law in Britain, apparently. While I’m no more a fan of Sharia law than anybody, I’d at least wait until I thought there might be the faintest chance of it happening, before I went out shouting and causing trouble, doubtlessly causing yet more poor immigrant families to have their windows put through.
But this is not what I’m talking about. It’s not Islam the religion that is bothering some of Europe. It’s Islamic PEOPLE. They see them as invaders, and it’s not their religion that’s the problem, as much as their general foreign-ness. When I referred to Europeans not taking religion seriously, I meant their own, native religion, and I meant not taking it seriously in the sense of not believing in it themselves, or taking it seriously.
To put it another way, it’s like the difference between foreign and domestic policy.
Hear, hear! In my secular World atheist and agnostic both mean taking a religious standpoint and I just don’t think in religious terms, so neither of them can be applied to me.
To be fair in many respects the US is more secular than the UK: they have no religious education in public schools compared to the 1980 act that requires public schools in the UK to have collective worship “of a broadly Christian character”. Not to mention that their head of state is not also the head of their official church as they have no official church.
If one is committed to bringing about secularism in the UK, I’d recommend signing this petition and sending off a letter on the subject to one’s Member of Parliament.