# The Arguments for Atheism **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 15, 2009, 2:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428 "2009-01-15T14:34:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/61 "2009-01-16T19:36:05Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > Of course there is “knowing”! That’s the point. These things you mention are ALL objective points of data: systems, available, observable to any reasoning species. Our table of elements, our mathematical constructs, these are all DESCRIPTIONS of what we observe in our universe. We do not “believe” in 92 elements. We observe 92 elements in the universe and thus describe them. Any species that came to use the scientific method would find the exact same phenomena and would thus describe it. I simply can’t grok why you have such total confidence in that belief for any _imaginable_ life form when the conclusion plainly is not true even for human cultures. When there’s variation in human cultures, it stands to reason that other life forms would produce even greater variation. I can easily imagine an intelligent species that doesn’t see in the visible spectrum, or that doesn’t see in any portion of the visible spectrum, or that doesn’t hear sound waves, or that has no senses for contacting the outside world at all, or that is sessile and thus can’t move around to gather data, or that has no memory, or whose emotions completely prevent any objective observation of the physical world, or any number of other possibilities, any one of which would prevent them from finding the physical phenomena that the human race has found. Everybody has problems with exaggerating how universal their particular beliefs are, but scientific materialists often have a particularly severe case of it. It’s worth remembering how often scientists have been utterly certain of conclusions that turned out to be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 7:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/62 "2009-01-16T19:42:55Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > It’s worth remembering how often scientists have been utterly certain of conclusions that turned out to be wrong. The same could be said of religious believers. Copernicus and Darwin, anyone? ---
**Author:** ![Duhkecco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Duhkecco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duhkecco)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/63 "2009-01-16T19:49:41Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Yeah, forgive me the snark, but that’s kinda why I spend the few paragraphs in between trying to come up with some justification for those statements. 😉 Yeah, I realize that, and I did read the rest of the OP. But, the statements are still strange, almost to the point of being nonsensical. > [@](#): > > Well, the absence of something means a great many things – the absence of excess body fat means you’re slim, the absence of noise means it’s silent, the absence of light means it’s dark, and the absence of faith means that you have to build your world view on reasonable assumptions. I don’t see anything inherently strange in that. I didn’t say that the absence of something means nothing. I asked “How does the absence of anything do anything, or how is it anything?” Silence isn’t a thing, nor does it do anything. Nor does darkness, or lack of fat. You said that atheism “holds explanatory, or at the very least descriptive, power”. What does atheism explain or what does it describe? ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/64 "2009-01-16T20:09:45Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > There are even further consequences of this regarding the nature of knowledge in faith based and atheist world views: the atheist can always be wrong, with everything he knows, but he can at least be certain of the existence of logical truth (like Pythagoras’ theorem – independently, I should add, of the fact that it is only true in a specific geometry); for the believer, such truth cannot exist. > > Any faith based knowledge exists only subject to that faith; for instance, the belief in the existence of an omnipotent god implies that every logical inference may be wrong if god wills it so. Thus, any form of logical reasoning is strictly invalid, or valid only under deferral to the tenets of faith. That, however, means that any increase in knowledge is strictly impossible within a faith based system; the believer cannot, strictly speaking, know that the sum of the squares of the sides of a right angled triangle equals the square of the hypotenuse, since god could will it otherwise. Of course, I am by no means insinuating that believers are idiots that can’t do math, but in principle, in a faith based system, any rule is subject to exceptions and can have no absolute validity; in atheism, rules are at best not valid everywhere and in every case (as Pythagoras’ theorem does not apply in hyperbolic geometry, for instance), but absolutely valid, fundamental rules may exist (and if they do, describe the world fully). Let’s consider logic for a minute. What does logic mean? Plainly a logical one is not one that every person on earth agrees to be logical. Even the Pythagorean theorem is too complicated for some people. So if you therefore believe there is a set of “absolutely valid, fundamental rules”, then you also believe any given person may not be capable of understanding the logic that underlies those rules. Thus, from where I stand in the universe, there is a set of logical conclusions that I can be certain of. Let’s call that set P. P contains a certain number of conclusions that I can classify as true by my own logic. (2+2=4, the Pythagorean theorem, the sky is blue, kittens are cute, etc…) Now suppose someone makes to me an assertion from outside of P; let’s call it A. My logic alone is not sufficient to firmly accept or reject A. What can I do in such a case? I can either give up and not consider the question of A any further. If I always make that choice, then my total knowledge is forever limited to just P; in other words, it’s limited by my own natural limits. That would lead to a greatly impoverished existence. The other possibility is that I can evaluate A according to the source of the information. If I find the source to be trustworthy then I accept A even though the reasoning behind A is beyond my understanding. But how do I evaluate the source? I judge the source according to whether or not the source is typically correct about other things that are within my understanding. If the source meets that criteria then I accept A as worthy of being considered true, even if I don’t understand it. Or in other words, I have faith in A. I trust that A is true, not because I understand the reasoning that leads to it, but because I have found the source worthy of trust. That is the way that any intellectual person has to operate, because the total sum of knowledge available to the human race is larger than what any one mind can hold. If I believe that Fermat’s Last Theorem is true or that _Finnegan’s Wake_ is a valuable work of literature, it’s only because trustworthy sources have said so, or in other words it’s because of faith. Any honest person will have to admit that much of what they believe, they believe for that reason. Hence logic leads inevitably to faith. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 8:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/65 "2009-01-16T20:23:43Z")
> [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Just for the record, I just re-read the OP and some of my responses in here, and I realize I tend to sound a bit like a twat the more… exact, or precise, I guess, I try to be. It’s a tendency of mine, perhaps because of wanting to be extra-careful when writing in a foreign language. So, sorry to anybody that’s been bugged by this, I don’t mean to be aloof or condescending. Be reassured - to this English speaker, you do not in the least sound like a twat. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/66 "2009-01-16T20:25:47Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > I simply can’t grok why you have such total confidence in that belief for any _imaginable_ life form when the conclusion plainly is not true even for human cultures. When there’s variation in human cultures, it stands to reason that other life forms would produce even greater variation. I can easily imagine an intelligent species that doesn’t see in the visible spectrum, or that doesn’t see in any portion of the visible spectrum, or that doesn’t hear sound waves, or that has no senses for contacting the outside world at all, or that is sessile and thus can’t move around to gather data, or that has no memory, or whose emotions completely prevent any objective observation of the physical world, or any number of other possibilities, any one of which would prevent them from finding the physical phenomena that the human race has found. > > Everybody has problems with exaggerating how universal their particular beliefs are, but scientific materialists often have a particularly severe case of it. It’s worth remembering how often scientists have been utterly certain of conclusions that turned out to be wrong. Ok, you are starting to get a little bit ridiculous here. How is a sedementary life form without memory able to “reason”? Any intelligent species, capable of making measurements, of collecting data, and able to follow the scientific method WILL arrive at the same mathematical conclusions, the same models of the universe that we have. Now, I’m assuming the species is at least as technologically advanced as our own or more so. But, please explain to me, why wouldn’t a species, not capable of perceiving the narrow band of EM we call the visible light spectrum be unable to know it exists? Can we perceive x-rays? Are you able to detect radio waves with your body? Has that stopped us from understanding these manifestations of electromagnetism? Let me help you out here: the answer is no. This is, again, because EM radiation is an OBJECTIVE phenomena. ANY species sentient and advanced enough, and capable of reasoning CAN (and likely will) describe the phenomena, in much the same way we do. This is NOT the same for Jesus dying for our sins, or Bacchus granting the knowledge of wine. You keep referring to differences within our own culture which are supposed to prove your point. Care to elaborate? ---
**Author:** ![Duhkecco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Duhkecco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duhkecco)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 9:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/67 "2009-01-16T21:07:07Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > Any intelligent species, capable of making measurements, of collecting data, and able to follow the scientific method WILL arrive at the same mathematical conclusions, the same models of the universe that we have. > … > ANY species sentient and advanced enough, and capable of reasoning CAN (and likely will) describe the phenomena, in much the same way we do. Uh, I’ll just butt in here for a moment. They WILL? ANY species CAN? What is this, proof by UPPER CASE? How did you arrive at your definite conclusion? Did you examine the evidence using the scientific method? How many non-human intelligent species did you examine? Is there anything in your post that you (I mean you, **Kinthalis** ) determined using the scientific method? If not, then how did you determine the validity of your conclusions? That’s it for now. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/68 "2009-01-16T21:15:31Z")
By what authority are you claiming to know what conclusions every single hypothetical species is going to reach? How do you know these things about future species that don’t exist and probably never will? How do you know what technology they’re going to have? How do you know they’re going to take measurements? What makes you think they’ll collect data? Why would they follow the scientific method, which most human beings readily acknowledge as a fiction? Aren’t you simply projecting human characteristics onto other species? Aren’t you basically saying, “As long as they think like humans, they’ll think like humans?” You’re making a positive statement about scientific findings being objective, meaning not dependent on the subjective mentality of human beings. What evidence from a non-human perspective can you offer to support this? ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/69 "2009-01-16T21:27:18Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Everybody has problems with exaggerating how universal their particular beliefs are, but scientific materialists often have a particularly severe case of it. It’s worth remembering how often scientists have been utterly certain of conclusions that turned out to be wrong. Here’s a core difference between science and religion: Science _allows_ itself the possibility of being wrong. Science adjusts to new information. Religion… not so much. I doubt that any evidence we show you could sway you from your faith in Jesus raising from the dead. Even if we dug up his bones in a tomb carbon dated to 33 AD that said “Jesus of Nazareth”, you’d simply ignore it because it doesn’t fit with what you _want_ to be true. You won’t admit to the possibility of being wrong. ---
**Author:** ![Duhkecco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Duhkecco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duhkecco)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/70 "2009-01-16T21:36:31Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > Science _allows_ itself the possibility of being wrong. Science adjusts to new information. Perhaps “Science” does. Scientists … not so much. 😉 Also, it amazing, given **Half Man Half Wit** ’s conclusions in this thread, that so much science has been done by theists. I just don’t get how a person as “non-reasonable” as Isaac Newton could have formulated anything of value. ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/71 "2009-01-16T23:14:19Z")
> [@Duhkecco](#): > > How did you arrive at your definite conclusion? Did you examine the evidence using the scientific method? How many non-human intelligent species did you examine? > > Is there anything in your post that you (I mean you, **Kinthalis** ) determined using the scientific method? If not, then how did you determine the validity of your conclusions? > > That’s it for now. The reason why I state flatly that any other sentient, reasoning species would agree with our scientific findings is that they are objective realities abotu our universe. How many times must I repeat this? That EM radiation propagates in a certain way at a certain velocity, that quanta have certain levels of energy and frequency, how light interacts with the universe: these things are not taken on faith. They ARE. The facts are there to be discovered and studied. Maybe I’m not understanding your argument. It seems like you might be positing some species that refuses to study the universe around it in a reasonable, logical way. For that would be the only way they wouldn’t eventually arrive at the same conclusions we have. Are you positing some species that ONLY believes in fairies and dragons or their equivalent and relies purely on superstition and ignorance? What exactly are you trying to say, that mathematical proofs, that our understanding of elements, that this only exists in the human mind? That atoms and EM radiation do not exist outside the context of our own particular scientific language? ---
**Author:** ![Kinthalis](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kinthalis/32/16084_2.png) [@Kinthalis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kinthalis)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/72 "2009-01-16T23:20:38Z")
> [@Duhkecco](#): > > Perhaps “Science” does. Scientists … not so much. 😉 > > Also, it amazing, given **Half Man Half Wit** ’s conclusions in this thread, that so much science has been done by theists. > > I just don’t get how a person as “non-reasonable” as Isaac Newton could have formulated anything of value. It is only when he allowed himself to let go of superstition and ignorance, when he instead applied the scientific method to the universe around him, that his brilliant mind opened an entire new world, not just to him but to all humanity. It is then, and only then, that he was able to describe something as complex as gravity in very simple, mathematical terms, and knowledge, useful knowledge was gifted to our species. If only he applied the same reasoned, logical examinations to other fields of study, who knows what eh would have accomplished? But those were different times and superstition and ignorance were part of daily life. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 16, 2009, 11:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/73 "2009-01-16T23:56:25Z")
I apologize for the late reply - real world stuff gets in the way. > [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](#): > > Well, that’s because it’s a rather reasonable statement, with no root in religion at all. I disagree. The notion of empathy certainly exists outside of religion, but it is not based primarily on _reason_. There is nothing _unreasonable_ about being a cold-hearted psychopath. What religion does is, quite simply, systemitize the intuitive knowledge (as opposed to reasoned knowledge) about how the world works. For example, I feel that empathy _does_ say something very basic about conciousness - that concious beings everywhere are more likely, by their nature, to have empathy with other concious beings (however badly this is expressed) - but I cannot _know_ that through reason, without the slightest shred of evidence. > [@](#): > > I stand by the statement I outlined some posts back – if you have faith, you have faith in something, which admits the possibility of infinitely many other faiths in some other thing, which means that, in all likelihood, non of these faiths can be re-invented. I’m really not sure where people have a problem with that notion. Is it religion you are attacking, or faith? The latter is often used to _refer_ to religion, but it is not IMO a necessary or sufficient criterion for a religion. Religions place more or less emphasis on faith. Some (for example Judaism) do not particularly require “faith”, since their emphasis is more on the ritual or social code - which they themselves state is only applicable to Jews. It is highly unlikely that any (hypothetical) aliens would ever re-invent Judaism, which is historical and quirky in the extreme - but under Judaism, our hypothetical aliens would not be out of luck, they could easily qualify for Noahide status: [Seven Laws of Noah - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seven_Laws_of_Noah) > [@](#): > > However, we seem to have already come quite far, since so far everybody seems to agree that no specific faith, no specific tenet is ever likely to be re-discovered (barring divine intervention, of course, which doesn’t seem to happen as there’s no case I’d know of where some isolated Amazonean tribe has discovered Christianity), so even with those asserting that some non-specific faith might be re-developed, there seems to be a tacit admission that no specific religion is on par with an atheistic world view in that regard, which I find quite remarkable. I’m not sure what an “atheistic world view” is. Individual athiests have many different world views (as do religious people). There is no evidence that any paricular world view held by a particular atheist is any more basic or correct than any other, as far as I can see. The problem I think is that you appear to hold that atheism is some sort of “world view”, which implies it is a counter-part or on par with a positive philosophy. What are the characteristics of this point of view? > [@](#): > > But you’d need faith that your intuitive knowledge is correct (and you’re no just making stuff up), wouldn’t you? Like any other sort of knowledge, this “faith” is more in the nature of a working hypothesis. I have “faith” that my eyes and ears relate real impressions to my brain - I’m not just a disembodied intelligence floating in a vat connected to a computer, for example. I would evaluate this knowledge against other sources to test it, etc. > [@](#): > > Well, I didn’t actually want to concern myself much with religion, but this has piqued my interest – how is religion a process, much less one ‘complimentary’ to science? I can’t claim very thorough knowledge, but in my experience, religion tends to assert its creed in a static fashion, as a divine, unchangeable truth, which is pretty much the opposite of science. Depends on what one means by “religion”. Certainly there exist static, established “religions”, which is what most people mean when discussing the term - Roman Catholicism, Orthodox Judaism, etc. These religions, as you say, are static. To my mind that is their problem - being static isn’t doing it _right_. It is as if a scientist decided that Aristotle was the last word in science, having described everything worth describing, and adamantly rejected all evidence which pointed to his deficiencies. That person may call themselves a “scientist”, but they are not doing science _right_. This does not mean that Aristotle was a fool or a fraud. Aristotle _was_ a great scientist in his day. But humanity must _build_ on his achievements, not fossilize them as unchangeable dogma. Similarly, religion when done “right” is a process of moral and spiritual discovery. It should not be a mere repetition of past acheivements, but an attempt (however imperfect) of having one’s own, of discovering meaning for oneself. Science is not inimical to that process, but is rather necessary for it, to keep it grounded and sane - just as religion (properly understood) is necessary, in awe and wonder, to keep science grounded and sane. One needs, I think, both the rational _and_ the intuitive, to keep a check on each other. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 12:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/74 "2009-01-17T00:28:52Z")
> [@ITR\_champion](#): > > Or in other words, I have faith in A. I trust that A is true, not because I understand the reasoning that leads to it, but because I have found the source worthy of trust. That is the way that any intellectual person has to operate, because the total sum of knowledge available to the human race is larger than what any one mind can hold. If I believe that Fermat’s Last Theorem is true or that _Finnegan’s Wake_ is a valuable work of literature, it’s only because trustworthy sources have said so, or in other words it’s because of faith. Any honest person will have to admit that much of what they believe, they believe for that reason. Hence logic leads inevitably to faith. Well, you could also adopt the – entirely reasonable – stance of being undecided on those issues; there’s certainly no necessity for you to believe that _Finnegan’s Wake_ is either great or garbage. It’s completely consistent to say ‘I don’t know’. Alternatively, you can always make statements of the form ‘the predominant view among literary scholars is that _Finnegan’s Wake_ is a work of great literature’, which you can certainly come to using only your own powers of reason. Would you accept, though, that Fermat’s Last Theorem either is true, or it isn’t (let’s not get into the question of what constitutes great literature right now)? And that knowledge of its truth value can be arrived at by mathematical reasoning, though perhaps not your, or my, own? If so, then you don’t need faith to believe it to be right or wrong, since you know of the existence of its truth value; that learned people claim it to be true is then evidence favouring one of two possible cases over the other, and you can reasonably assume they’re right. The supernatural, on the other hand, is not even obviously possible, and thus needs to be taken entirely on faith. Another way to look at this is that your belief regarding the truth value of Fermat’s Last Theorem is absolutely and determinably true or false, while there’s no objective way to establish whether or not your belief in the supernatural is indeed true. ---
**Author:** ![woodstockbirdybird](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/woodstockbirdybird/32/7905_2.png) [@woodstockbirdybird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/woodstockbirdybird)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/75 "2009-01-17T00:33:19Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I disagree. The notion of empathy certainly exists outside of religion, but it is not based primarily on _reason_. There is nothing _unreasonable_ about being a cold-hearted psychopath. I don’t know - it seems to me empathy could be arrived at through reason alone. If someone hits me for no reason, it hurts, and I have negative feelings toward that person. It’s only logical to assume if I hit somebody else for no reason, they’ll feel the same way (especially after witnessing other victims of violence and their reactions, which it is impossible to miss unless you’re living in a cave). I can see how many such small instances could make one empathetic, just by thinking logically about it. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/76 "2009-01-17T00:42:07Z")
> [@woodstockbirdybird](#): > > I don’t know - it seems to me empathy could be arrived at through reason alone. If someone hits me for no reason, it hurts, and I have negative feelings toward that person. It’s only logical to assume if I hit somebody else for no reason, they’ll feel the same way (especially after witnessing other victims of violence and their reactions, which it is impossible to miss unless you’re living in a cave). I can see how many such small instances could make one empathetic, just by thinking logically about it. Certainly one could know that, logically, if I can be hurt then so can other thinking beings. What reason cannot provide is a “reason” to _care_, other than fear of retaliation. After all, a sociopath “knows” that other people hurt - but either doesn’t care, or positively enjoys inflicting pain. If one knew logically that retaliation for one’s actions was not possible, or better that one would be _rewarded_ for harming others, what “reason”, based entirely on reason alone and discounting intuition and emotion entirely, would there be not to do that harm? An unconcious animal would not hesitate to do harm under those circumstances. Nor, sadly, would many people. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/77 "2009-01-17T00:43:46Z")
> [@Duhkecco](#): > > You said that atheism “holds explanatory, or at the very least descriptive, power”. What does atheism explain or what does it describe? Well yeah, I’m a bit guilty of using shorthand in my bullet points, but it’s actually in the post where I attempt to reason those things out – atheism, in and of itself, doesn’t explain anything, however, it allows for valid reasoning essentially because of the absence of faith. It allows for a description of the world that doesn’t include the caveat of supernatural non-interference; I’ve argued in the OP that in a faith based world view, all knowledge and all reasoning is essentially subject to the whims of the supernatural, and thus a logical inference is strictly invalid – for instance, if you’ve inferred the law of gravity from planetary motion, if there is a god, he could simply change them according to his will, and if you have faith in a god, you have to accept that possibility; if there is no god, the law of gravity you have inferred may still be wrong, however, if you have no faith, the underlying rule still exists and you can work to discover it with logically valid deductions, since you don’t have to worry about supernatural interference. ---
**Author:** ![Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/half_man_half_wit/32/21766_2.png) [@Half\_Man\_Half\_Wit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Half_Man_Half_Wit)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 12:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/78 "2009-01-17T00:59:31Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I disagree. The notion of empathy certainly exists outside of religion, but it is not based primarily on _reason_. There is nothing _unreasonable_ about being a cold-hearted psychopath. Don’t quote me on this, but I remember reading that being a cold-hearted psychopath is actually a winning strategy in a game theoretical way for a limited number of individuals in a society; however, the majority still need to ‘play by the rules’, i.e. be moral beings (morality, by the way, I think is best viewed as a selector for the survival fitness of a society – if a great many members of a society experience negative treatment – due to unfairness and injustice, which here have merely the meaning of 'being treated more negatively more often than other members of society – that society will eventually become unstable and collapse, for instance in a revolution.) > [@](#): > > What religion does is, quite simply, systemitize the intuitive knowledge (as opposed to reasoned knowledge) about how the world works. For example, I feel that empathy _does_ say something very basic about conciousness - that concious beings everywhere are more likely, by their nature, to have empathy with other concious beings (however badly this is expressed) - but I cannot _know_ that through reason, without the slightest shred of evidence. One reasonable argument for conscious beings showing empathy towards each other would be the golden rule – there’s no great leap in the realization that however I treat others, I am likely to be treated by them, thus I ought to treat them well if I want to be treated well. Empathy is a good way of achieving that, and is selected for even in animals that form social groups. However, I have a sneaking suspicion that with ‘intuitive knowledge’, you actually mean the same thing I mean with ‘faith’. > [@](#): > > Is it religion you are attacking, or faith? The latter is often used to _refer_ to religion, but it is not IMO a necessary or sufficient criterion for a religion. I’ve tried to be clear from the beginning that I am arguing against having faith, I’m sorry if there was any confusion. Also, what’s a religion without faith? A religion that does not rely on any supernatural element? > [@](#): > > I’m not sure what an “atheistic world view” is. Individual athiests have many different world views (as do religious people). There is no evidence that any paricular world view held by a particular atheist is any more basic or correct than any other, as far as I can see. An atheistic world view is, at least in the way I use the term, one lacking faith. Whether or not people agree with that definition is not of all that much consequence to me; I have stated my definition, and I’ve given the arguments that brought me to the thus-defined stance, I don’t presume to speak for anybody else. We can as well call it ‘Half-Witticism’ as far as I’m concerned. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Duhkecco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Duhkecco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duhkecco)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/79 "2009-01-17T01:19:44Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > The reason why I state flatly that any other sentient, reasoning species would agree with our scientific findings is that they are objective realities about our universe. But, this is what you said: > [@](#): > > Any intelligent species, capable of making measurements, of collecting data, and able to follow the scientific method WILL arrive at the same mathematical conclusions, the same models of the universe that we have. Did you mean “objective realities” instead of “models”? When did our models become the way the world really is? > [@](#): > > It seems like you might be positing some species that refuses to study the universe around it in a reasonable, logical way. For that would be the only way they wouldn’t eventually arrive at the same conclusions we have. You mean that they will conclude that pholgiston and the ether exist? Or that there are only four elements, or only 92? There’s a question that you didn’t answer: > [@](#): > > Is there anything in your post that you (I mean you, Kinthalis) determined using the scientific method? If not, then how did you determine the validity of your conclusions? Please let me know. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Duhkecco](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8491ac/32.png) [@Duhkecco](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Duhkecco)\ **Post date:** [January 17, 2009, 1:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428/80 "2009-01-17T01:43:41Z")
> [@Kinthalis](#): > > It is only when he allowed himself to let go of superstition and ignorance, when he instead applied the scientific method to the universe around him, that his brilliant mind opened an entire new world, not just to him but to all humanity. It is then, and only then, that he was able to describe something as complex as gravity in very simple, mathematical terms, and knowledge, useful knowledge was gifted to our species. So, you think that Newton formulated Universal Gravitation by using the scientific method? Is that what you’re saying? But Newton believed in the supernatural, which according to **Half Man Half Wit** is not a “reasonable assumption.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-arguments-for-atheism/481428.md?page=5)