“God” isn’t even a particularly well-defined concept.
Could an unspeakably powerful but finite and limited entity be considered to be a god?
On thinking about it further, I am not sure that that the weak atheist position (under my definition) is very coherent. If you reject X , it’s hard to see any reason to say " I dunno" about not X. It’s not as if there any third possibility.
Question: Will the Sun rise tomorrow?
Question: If I drop this hammer will it fall to the ground?
Question: Can I move my fingers through an act of will?
Answers: Yes, yes, and yes.
So does this make the weak atheist a cynical agnostic: “There’s not enough evidence to know, and if there was I wouldn"t beleive it.”
BTW as a matter of logic is it true that “not believing in X” is not the same as “believing in not-X”? The more I think about it the more it seems that the first implies the second. If you reject X it seems that you pretty much have to accept not-X since there is no third possibility. You can’t fudge the issue and say “I dunno” because that implies some positive probablity of X which means you didn’t really reject it in the first place.
Of course if you are agnostic and say “I dunno” to both questions that is consisent. But you can’t reject one possibility and fudge the other one.
So perhaps the distinction between weak and strong atheists is the process by which they come to their identical conclusions. The strong atheist believes he has positive evidence that God doesn’t exist. The weak atheist reaches the same conclusion but only by default because he hasn’t found any evidence that God exists.
Another possible difference is in terms of probabilities. The strong atheist is 100% sure God doesn’t exist. The weak atheist assigns some small probability to God existing. This isn’t very satisfactory because I doubt there are too many people who are 100% sure God doesn’t exist. Alternatively you could assign some cut-off point in probability beyond which you become a strong atheist though this seems arbitrary.
Of course then there is the whole issue of different definitions of God. It’s possible to be a strong atheist towards one definition and a weak atheist towards other definitions.
No. A weak atheist thinks: “There’s not enough evidence to prove God’s existance, so I will keep my default opinion that God does not exist.”
There is a significant difference between absence of belief and belief of absence. Weak atheists simply have no reason to believe in God, whereas strong atheists have reason to actively disbelieve in God.
Not at all. You’re throwing off your logic a bit by adding “believe” into the mix.
“I don’t believe X” is not the same as “I believe in not X”. Look at Apos’ post above for a more symbolic approach.
Weak atheists don’t reject the existance of God, though. Let me give you an example.
“There is a guy named Zantarax who is actually a time traveller from the future. He visited me yesterday and told me all about what’s going to happen next year.”
Before you read that sentence, did you believe that Zantarax had visited me, or did you believe that Zantarax had not visited me? The answer, of course, is “neither”. You had no belief at all reguarding Zantarax.
That state of lacking both belief and disbelief is the state that weak atheists are in with respect to God.
It’s not about outright rejection for a weak atheist. It’s about suspending any decisions of belief pending more evidence. Until such evidence is presented, the weak atheist maintains a default stance of lack of belief.
“Look at Apos’ post above for a more symbolic approach.”
I don’t think Apos offered a proof; he merely expressed the proposition using symbolic language.
“You had no belief at all reguarding Zantarax.”
The difference is I have never heard of Zantarax. But many weak atheists have heard of God, discussed his existence etc.
“It’s about suspending any decisions of belief pending more evidence.”
Fine but that would seem to indicate that they are agnostics; they neither reject X nor accept not-X. They say “I dunno” to both questions.
What Apos seems to be saying is that you can reject X without having to accept not-X. That is what I am questioning. Can you give a definite answer to X and say “I dunno” to not-X. Seems contradictory to me.
Joe Random,
To clarify the issue I think it’s necessary to distinguish between the conclusion and the process by which that conclusion.
According to you are weak atheists different from strong atheists in both respects or just one? If just one, which one?
Eg.
Someone says “I have evidence that God doesn’t exist but that evidence isn’t perfect. I have 95% belief that God doesn’t exist” Weak or strong?
Someone says “I don’t have evidence that God exists but my default position is non-existence so I have 100% belief that God doesn’t exist” Weak or strong?
That should be “process by which that conclusion is reached”
However, if you’re familiar with symbolic logic, it’s easy to see that B~X is not the same as ~BX, which is most definitely not BX. The addition of “belief” adds a third possibility.
Actually, from what I’ve seen, agnostics don’t say , “I dunno” so much as they say, “I can’t know.” Agnostics believe that God’s existance cannot be determined. Weak atheists believe that God’s existance (or lack thereof) can be determined, and they just don’t have enough evidence to make that determination.
Weak atheists don’t reject X, because that’s the same thing as ~X. They reject BX, which, of course, results in ~BX. The confusion arises because people interpret their statement “I don’t believe that God exists,” as being the same as the strong atheist’s “I believe that God does not exist.” (B~X)
Strong.
Strong.
The weak atheist says “I don’t have evidence that God exists but my default position is non-existence so I have 0% belief that God exists.”
I realize that the difference between what I wrote and your second statement is subtle, and might appear to be nit picking. However, I think that, on the philosophical level, the difference is quite large, as it represents an entirely different mindset.
I am not sure how you can assign 0% to God exists and not assign 100% to God doesn’t exist. The two are mutually exclusive and exhaustive. What is the third possibility?
Or to put it another way: what probability does a weak atheist assign to “God doesn’t exist?” If it’s less than 100% where else does the positive probability go?
The weak atheist assigns no probability at all to “God doesn’t exist.” Symbolically, that would be ~X, and that hasn’t been mentioned at all.
If you focus only on whether or not God exists, you have two possibilities:
X: God exists
~X God doesn’t exist.
However, we’re dealing with belief systems, not absolute facts. So you end up with four different possibilities, one of which makes very little sense:
BX: I believe that God exists.
B~X: I believe that God doesn’t exist.
~BX: I don’t believe that God exists.
~B~X I don’t believe that God doesn’t exist.
The last two are based on lack of belief. ~BX assumes a default belief of non-existance, while ~B~X assumes a default belief of existance. I guess someone who is really gullible could use the last one, since it would imply believing everything that you are told with no evidence (defaulting to “belief” for evey new idea which is presented). However, most people would ignore the last one, and we are left with three different possible belief systems.
My statement:
Yes, I agree that you are simply playing with semantics regarding my first sentence. You conveniently ignored the last sentence quoted above which better defines what I was referring to with the word “certainty”.
CP:
Possibility of what? You can also reject not-X at the same time. You seem to be forgetting that we are speaking not of truth, but of affirmations of truth claims.
The thing with the probabilities is utterly beside the point: these are questions of existential knowledge, not belief in a proposition. We aren’t talking about anyone’s judgements of probability about something, we are simply speaking of whether one will positively affirm a truth claim.
In other words, all that matters is the judgement of the PERSON as to whether they can say that they have or don’t have belief in a god. Either they are willing to affirm this proposition, or they aren’t. Likewise, between atheism in general and anti-theism in specific, the difference is simply whether the person can affirm “no gods exist” or not.
I can’t affirm either proposition.
“Doesn’t believe X/Doesn’t believe not X” is not significantly different from “not sure about X” Everything you say about an agnostic could be said about an atheist as well.
But that difference doesn’t make any difference. The fact that I’ve heard about gods and discussed various claims about gods doesn’t mean I’ve moved from the original position I was in before I even heard those claims. I remain unconvinced that they should be added to my worldview of things I feel justified in affirming are true.
JR:
No, the base assumption about all things is NO ASSUMPTION, not “assume non-existence.”
I am an atheist (“weak” definition). I don’t have any belief about whether or not it is possible to make a definitive statement about God’s existence. I don’t “default” to a claim (like "God doesn’t exist), I default to my lack of the positive claim. But don’t forget that I also, by default, give no creedence to the anti-theist claim either.
No, it wouldn’t. Things like “probably yes, probably not” is utterly irrelevant to the distinction. All that matters is the self-identified prescence or abscence of ones’ belief in a god.
Moe:
Why are you telling Christians what they are or are not interested in? Not all Christians say that they believe on faith: you might disagree with whether their reason for believing is objective and empirical, but it hardly makes sense to say that the lack of empirical objective claims is what defines being Christian.
First off, I am not telling Christians anything. My statement wasn’t directed towards Christians.
Second, I never said that Christians are defined by their lack of empirical, objective claims. (wouldn’t that mean logically that anyone lacking empirical, objective claims is by definition a Christian? I certainly don’t think I was saying that.)
I did say, though admittedly poorly worded, that a Christian’s certainty of god is not based on empirical, objective evidence, but ulimately on belief and faith. (Let me repeat, before the disparity becomes a focus of debate, I realize my original statement was less than clear, and could even be interpreted as contradictory to what I’m saying now. If it bothers you, just replace it with my current statements.)
OK, so you seem to be contesting this claim. I was under the impression that faith is central to Christianity. If this is incorrect than I must admit I made a mistake.
So I ask, is this true? Are there Christians whose beliefs are based not on faith but on empirical, objective evidence? Perhaps there are those who have encountered evidence which strengthens an already present faith, but I’m sure we agree that this is a different scenario. However, if the anwer to the question is “yes” wouldn’t it follow that stronger empirical, objective evidence to the contrary would affect one’s beliefs? Otherwise, aren’t we talking about subjective evidence?
It is certainly central to most Christians, but that doesn’t mean that statements like “a Christian’s certainty of god is not based on empirical, objective evidence” are necessarily true either. It could be based in both along various measures, or at different times.