I would fault you for claiming “gods do not exist in this universe” in rational discourse, if you had no argument to back it up other than the lack of evidence that there are gods. “There’s no more evidence for gods than there is for a 1000’ tall fire-breathing ape.” Sure, more or less. But now you’re missing the point. The crucial point is that the mere denial of a claim and the assertion of its negation are not the same thing. If you just want to say “I don’t accept that there are gods,” then scientifically, you don’t need anything but lack of evidence that gods exist. On the other hand, if you want to say “there are no gods,” then scientifically, you need actual evidence contrary to the claim that there are gods.
(By “scientifically” here, I mean for the purposes of rational exchange. I have no problem whatsoever with your believing in God(s) or in their absence with 0 evidence if you aren’t trying to convince other people that you’re right.)
Also, re: 1000’ tall fire-breathing apes: I certainly wouldn’t fault you for saying “there are no 1000’ tall fire-breathing apes.” The difference between this and the god case is that here, there actually is evidence contrary to the existence of 1000’ tall fire-breathing apes. Briefly put, their existence would contradict well-documented and very credible theories about the nature of the world. (For example, if they’re so big, somebody would have seen them by now.) There’s no comparison between this and gods. There is nothing in science that has anything to do with the concept of gods.
There’s a world of difference. If you think there’s no more evidence for general relativity than the mere lack of contradictory evidence, then you need to study 20th century physics history. General relativity has made extremely accurate predictions that admit no other known explanation. It’s by far the best explanation of gravity that we have.
This exact same Thread Title and discussion was held in April, (I don’t know how to link).
Weak Atheism iis very similar to Agnostisim, ie; you’re willing to accept that god(s) could come along and change your mind. The strong atheist knows that no god(s) will show up.
As for evidence of no god(s); Natural selection, evolutionary psychology, and astronomy all demonstrate that every thing exists without resorting to any kind of supernatural creation or meddling.
That’s evidence against various flavors of interventionist gods, but not against the concept of gods itself. There are still many people who believe in gods that do not meddle in mortal affairs.
No, it is rational not to believe in god’s existence unless you have justified reason. It is not raitonal to assume that God doesn’t exist without having some good reason to justify this assumption.
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Believe me, I knopw this is the common wisdom adn I have said all of these same things you have here hundreds of times before in debates with strong atheists (I am still a weak atheist as things stand now).However it has occured to me that perhaps the common wisdom is not entirely correct.I am questioning just how wrong it is to equate denial of a claim with assertion of a claim, given the default status of existential claims which lack empirical or rational support.I think when we say that ANYTHING does NOT exist it si always with the disclaimer that things can change with the availability of new data.
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That is what I am questioning.How much sense does it make to put the burden of proof on a disbeliever to say something does not exist when if such a thing in fact does not exist, therewill be no such evidence to be had in the first place?!
I am not yet convinced of the strong atheist position but I am starting to question just how untennable it really is.
How is this different than the case against God?There are mounds of contrary evidence for the various god-claims as well(less so for deistic adn pantheistic god-concepts but still…)I can get around the evidence for 1000’ fire-breathing apes the same way religionists get around the evidence against God.
“You are relying on human sensory organs and rational;ity which are insufficient to correctly percieve the 1000’ ape”
“The 1000’ ape has spiritual camoflauge.Science cannot penetrate this illusion.”
…and a thousand other bizarre rationalizations.
The default status of any claim is that you shouldn’t assert it unless you have good evidence. But ~BX (not believe X) is not the same thing as B~X (believe not X). The default statues is the former, NOT the latter.
I think you’re putting way too much stock into this default status of existential claims. That default status might be useful if you had no options other than either asserting the claim or its negation. This does happen. For example, in the real world outside of GD, people must make decisions. In these cases, there’s no useful distinction between denying a claim and asserting its negation because no matter what, you must somehow reach some conclusion or other, because a decision needs to be made. It often makes no sense to reject both a claim and its negation because it wouldn’t lead to any meaningful course of action. It’s only because of these cases that there are “default” statuses in the first place. They’re a heuristic, a guideline, not reflective of any higher truth.
“All Christians are wrong” is a claim. It’s making an assertion about the state of Christians. Would you say that it’s obviously a Christian statement?
GodlessSkeptic, Strong atheism is absurd for the same reasons you are an agnostic: the unknowable can’t be known one way or the other. God is almost always claimed to be transcendent, and the transcendent is – by definition – unknowable and imperceptible. Therefore, the strong atheist position, which claims to know what cannot be known (i.e., that God does not exist) in a realm that cannot be investigated or experienced is either illogical or logically meaningless.
Soft/weak/passive atheism and epistemological agnosticism is the only combination that’s logically valid.
I think i agree with The Weak Force who argued with me earlier for saying that we can’t ever prove General Relativity is correct or that God doesn’t exist.
Strictly speaking, the statement you use above is correct, ambushed. However, using some sort of internal “fuzzy” logic i would say God is more likely not to exist than to exist. In fact i would say that i am 98% confident that God doesn’t exist.
Although when i think about it, this is just based on assessment of reputation/reliability. I have never experienced God, and i don’t regard people who claim god exists as reliable. I’ve never experienced/seen black holes either, but i do believe they exist, simply because i regard the people telling me they exist as reliable and knowledgable.
Using the sort of logic you have espoused above ambushed would mean that only that which we have directly experienced would be proven, unless i have misunderstood you.
In my experience, the difference between a “strong” atheist and a “weak” atheist isn’t in their (dis)beliefs so much as it is in the experiences that led to their (dis) beliefs. That is, a “weak” atheist is just as convinced as the “strong” atheist that God does not exist. It’s just that…
He doesn’t spend a lot of time thinking about the God he doesn’t believe in.
He doesn’t spend a lot of time frothing at the mouth or fuming about people who DO believe in God.
He didn’t have any one earth-shattering moment of clarity in which he realized God doesn’t exist. He just spent much of his life in a non-religious or tepidly religious state, spent a while as a tepid agnostic, then finally concluded there was no God.
The “strong” (that is, aggressive, “in your face”) atheists I’ve encountered usually grew up in highly religious communities. Some resented their religious families and neighbors all along, while others embraced the religious values of their communities until some incident (or long series of incidents) led them to break away angrily from all they’d been taught.
So, I think the difference is primarily a matter of HOW the atheist came to his disbelief. The “weak” atheist typically spent some years saying, “Maybe there’s a God, I don’t know,” drifted to “There’s probably no God, but who knows,” then to “You know… I just don’t think there is.” The “strong” atheist went from “Yes, there definitely is a God” to “No, there’s absolutely no God, and the very concept is repugnant.”
astorian, I think it’s pretty obvious that you’re using different definitions of weak and strong atheism than the rest of us, and certainly as intended in the OP. We’ve been taking weak atheism to mean a simple disbelief in god(s). It’s no matter of contention that there are both weak and strong atheists by this definition. There definitely are people who believe that no god exists, and there are also people who, while not going so far, do not believe that any god exists, either.
I personally find astorian’s analyses more or less on the mark.
One could have a rational argument over whether or not the earth was created in 6 days a few thousand years ago. That’s a falsifiable claim.
Whether or not there is a burden of proof for something for which there probably wouldn’t be any proof of anyway is a little like arguing over the number angels on the head of a pin. God (as commonly imagined) is immaterial, supernatural and, in within Christianity at least, proof denies faith.
It’s just a matter of preference. Applying rationality to irrational matters hardly makes sense.
Actually, it isn’t so much certainty as simple belief. I believe many things, but I’m certain of very few.
It’s not even that. What would it take to make me think that there is no god? What would it take to make me believe it, without necessarily being certain of it?
errata.
Exactly! There’s nothing in science that has anything to do with gods, and I don’t see that changing in the future. Some atheists seem to think that (strong) atheism is mandated by scientific knowledge, but it simply isn’t. Sure, there’s evidence against particular (historical) versions of gods (for example, there’s considerable evidence that Mt. Olympus is just a regular mountain), but not against the idea itself. It is, and ever will be, impossible to make a scientific argument for or against the general existence of god(s). (Barring, of course, that an enormous thumb descends from the sky and flattens me.)
I in no way mean to imply, however, that weak atheism (as defined in the OP) is the only reasonable stance. In fact, using this kind of thinking as a rationale for weak atheism is extremely pedantic. Beliefs and opinions don’t have to be scientific (i.e., defensible by logical argument and objective, reproducible evidence) to be reasonable beliefs and opinions. However, because the very concept of god is unscientific, it’s impossible to have a rational debate about the existence of god. It’s also unreasonable to expect someone else to be swayed by one’s own opininons and beliefs about the existence of god.
Look, what’s the practical difference? Strong and weak atheists share some crucial things in common: They do not worship or pray to any God, they do not try to find God’s “plan” or “purpose” in the events of their lives or of the wider world, and they do not think or behave as if they expected God to judge their lives at the end.
Not that that predisposes atheists to act less ethically than religious believers – there is absolutely no hard evidence of that, so far as I know. As James Q. Wilson said, “Religion is for many a source of solace and for a few a means of redemption, but if everyday morality had depended on religious conviction, the human race would have destroyed itself eons ago.”
I would call myself an agnostic or weak atheist because I have no hard grounds to rule out the possibility of God’s existence. But until I find some grounds to believe in His existence, something that passes the test of Occam’s razor, I see no reason to pay Him any kind of attention. (And even if His existence were proven to me, I would still have doubts as to whether God really wants human beings to pay Him any attention.) How am I different from a strong atheist?
Well, lots of good posts here.Thanks everyone.I will continue to refer to myself as a weak atheist and agnostic but this question still intrigues me a bit.
I found this enlightening. Some of it was excruciatingly dull , but overall it was enlightening. I sort of think of agnostics more as fitting in to two basic categories:
too busy or just not interested enough to really take the time to put their thoughts in order, or;
too chickenshit to say that god doesn’t exist because they’re afraid that just in case there is a god it will be pissed off at them and then they’ll be in trouble. Oops!
It’s interesting to read about these other ideas, but they don’t change my opinions on my original categories. Are there any Number ones or twos here? What do you think?
, but overall it was enlightening. I sort of think of agnostics more as fitting in to two basic categories: