Why do atheists insist that atheism is a 'non-belief'?

Great Debates
161

I really like the way ataraxy22 put it in a previous poll / thread about belief:

I’ve tended away from identifying as agnostic only because people seem so keen to argue that I *really *mean weak-atheist, or that agnostic mean apathetist.

Since agnostic was a term coined by a particular person to mean a particular philosophy it puzzles me that the term seems fuzzy to others. :slight_smile:

But perhaps it’s a case of the technical use of a word differing from the casual use (rather like the meaning of “theory”). One of Bertrand Russel’s quotes sum it up well:

162

From an outside POV? Are you seen going to church?

People would view you as neither a believer or a denier. Yet atheism is based upon a series of denials.

163

Jeez you have nailed it, people who don’t understand jump to conclusions. You are so right, when I say I am a Christian people who don’t know me or my beliefs think I am something I am not.

You are so smart.
You can be an Christian communist or an Christian capitalist, even an Christian socialist or an Christian libertarian. You can be an Christian monarchist or anarchist. You can be an Christian Democrat or Christian Republican. Whereas communist, capitalist, athiest, or Muslim comes with other possible assumptions (state control of capital, market control of capital, Jesus is savior or just a prophet), the Christian label doesn’t convey any further information. You can even be an Christian and believe in astrology, spiritualism, even souls I suppose. You can reject evolution and be an Christian. You can be agnostic and be Christian (one doesn’t think you can really know, but you don’t believe – for that matter, you can be Christian and be a theist).

164

Marjoe Gortner, at the end, went around promoting Christianity and did not believe. He was a salesman at that point, doing it because he hadn’t been able to break away. Belief or lack of belief is internal, actions may or may not reflect belief.

Anyone thinking so has never been to a sales meeting where it is decided how to spin the latest piece of crap product as something good.

165

No if you believe, you believe.

166

One question, though, is:
Why do some people who examine the evidence conclude that God/god/gods don’t exist and other people who examine the same evidence conclude that God/god/gods exist? (To keep it short, I’ll use “God” to refer to the ultimate supernatural entity.)

It seems to me that the different conclusions are related to a person’s “beliefs”.

Sometimes atheists say that not believing in God is the same as not believing in various imaginary creatures. But, the comparison is missing a key point about the belief in God, namely, that God created everything, or is the Prime Mover, or the Source of All Life. (I’m talking about the *belief *in God and not about the validity of that belief.) Whether a unicorn exists or not, there’s little relevance to a person’s thoughts and behavior. But, a belief in God can have a profound impact on a person’s life.

Some theists “believe in God” because … that’s what they believe. IOW, they haven’t examined their beliefs and just accept what they’ve heard their entire lives. If some of those theists stop believing in God, there’s little else that they need to explain. Perhaps they are more interested in distancing themselves from religious ideas and customs than they are in the deeper ontological and epistemological issues.

But some theists have examined their beliefs and they feel that their beliefs are justified by the evidence and by logic. (Again, whether there arguments are valid is not the point here.) If some of those theists stop believing in God, they need compelling arguments to dismiss beliefs that appeared to be rational, and they need alternative explanations for the existence of the universe, of consciousness, and of humanity – explanations that don’t require the existence of God. Of course, those explanations exist, but not everyone who hears those explanations accepts them as valid reasons for not believing in God. Why not? And why do some people accept those explanations as being adequate, and that, therefore, the existence of God is not necessary?

I think that it’s naive to say that atheism is simply a “non-belief”. Yes, it is a “non-belief”, but, for anyone who examines the universe and humanity’s place in the universe, it is more than that. By not believing in the existence of God, atheists have formulated interpretations and explanations of the world that are satisfactory to them, but deeply unsatisfactory to theists.

Yes, the word “belief” has various meanings and yes, some theists conflate those meanings to argue against atheists. But it seems to me that atheists have many beliefs, and some of those beliefs are related to their lack of belief in the existence of God. It seems to me that, ultimately, the belief is: God is not necessary. God is not necessary because I have another *better * way of explaining the world and my role in the world. Better how? Who decides, and how? Conscientious self-examining atheists have answered those questions to their own satisfaction. I believe I have. :wink:

167

Sure, unicorns don’t matter much in the grand scheme of things, but what about the trolls who will destroy the universe if we don’t light candles every day? Since our continued existence hangs in the balance, don’t you think that belief in the universe-destroying trolls is profoundly important? Simple lack of evidence may be enough to dismiss a trivial notion like unicorns. But the universe-destroying trolls demand a much higher degree of proof for disbelief. Really, since you can’t be absolutely certain that the universe-destroying trolls don’t exist, the only rational course of action is to remain agnostic on the matter. And make sure you light a candle every day just to be safe.

(Of course, there are those who believe that the trolls have other criteria for destroying the universe besides the candles. Or that the trolls may destroy the universe for no reason at all. Still, I think we can all agree that the question of the existence or nonexistence of the universe-destroying trolls is of vital importance to mankind and deserves serious debate and consideration.)

168

It has a whole forum!

169

I think your post is an example of how all-pervasive the “god” meme is.

It seems like you think that the universe has to have a meaning and a purpose. Why?
If you start from the default that there is no reason behind it then atheism is the logical default position to take.

Atheism doesn’t necessarily lead to alternative explanations it is merely that we aren’t convinced by the theist explanation.

It isn’t for me to show that god is unnecessary, it for theists to show that he is.

170

I couldn’t have stated my case better. And for the hard of understanding, the point is that any silly idea can be thought up which might be of prime importance if it were true, but the fact that it might the most important thing ever if true does not in itself grant it more than a cursory dismissal if there is no evidence in favor of it (and if it’s not falsifiable, then the evidence in favor doesn’t even count).

171

http://www.break.com/index/door_to_door_atheists_bother_mormons.html

granted it was with some provocation from some door to door religulous types

(yeah I spelled it that way on purpose, no I have no idea what that purpose was)

172

I’m not sure the comparison is so far off.

Simple belief in the existence of a creator god still doesn’t say anything about the nature of that being does it?

It’s the fact that other believers claim to have insight into the nature of god that makes a difference; that they claim to have a line of communication through which they can divine what god wants / hates / rewards / punishes.

Would the provable existence of a prime source creator deity who was otherwise completely “hands-off” (e.g. a god who had kicked off the big-bang and put universal constants in place and then let the universe unfurl naturally) have any more effect on your thoughts and behaviour than a unicorn?

Or is there only a difference once there are believers who claim that god hates decapod crustaceans and will punish those mortals that incur his displeasure?

173

It’s my hunch that whatever caused the universe to come into existence was not an intelligent being, though it might not be just random chance as far as the fine tuning argument goes as we understand it, because we just don’t really understand enough about the fundamental rules of physics. Does that make me even a deist? Of course not. But I don’t have any more evidence for this than even a hard core theist with regard to the origin of the universe. I’m not a theoretical physicist.

Right. And there is NO EVIDENCE FOR THIS AT ALL, even though THERE SHOULD BE PLENTY IF IT WAS TRUE. Excuse my shouting, but I think it is important.

174

Am I incorrect in my understanding of the distinction between weak and strong atheism?

Weak atheism is the abscence of belief in the gods.

Strong atheism makes the postive claim that the gods do not exist.

While the former may or may not be considered a belief, the latter is a belief. As far as calling atheism a belief-system or religion, I would say that it is not. My reason for that is because accurately labeling someone an atheist conveys amazingly little relevant information. The atheist doesn’t believe in the gods. But, they may “know” that the gods are non-existent or merely be unconvinced that they do exist. Their personality may be mellow or frenetic, hostile or friendly. They may be moral, amoral or a right bastard. They may have no specific political beliefs or be stridently for any of a number of disparate factions.

175

I do make the positive claim that gods do not exist - purely for lack of evidence, and I’d really be willing to reverse my view given good evidence (and the question of a “good god” is by no means settled by then especially not if it turns out to be an Abrahamic god). But I’m also willing to accept that some definitions of gods might be realized (even though I’d consider them 1. pretty unlikely and definitely unsupported by evidence, or 2. not particularly god-like). As far as any god approaching the Christian god is concerned, I’m a strong atheist - I’d even go as far as stating those kinds of gods to be demonstrably non-existent. But who knows, maybe god just took a few millenia of vacation.

176

The strong vs. weak distinction is meaningless. Do we make such a distinction in types of disbelief for other hypothetical entities? Is there any meaningful difference between lacking a belief in ghosts and claiming that ghosts do not exist?

Such logic-parsing is usually the opening move of an argument that uses the absence of *absolute proof *to attack the strong atheist position. Such arguments conveniently overlook a similar lack of absolute proof for common, everyday knowledge such as the existence of giraffes. (Granted, there is a great deal of evidence for the existence of giraffes. But we can never be absolutely sure, can we? Maybe we’ve just hallucinated them.)

I disbelieve in God to the same degree I believe in giraffes. I guess that makes me a soft giraffist as well as a soft atheist.

177

Not a claim that gods do not exist, just a statement of belief that gods do not exist.

Since there have been so many gods posited by various human societies, most of which we’ve never heard of, and plenty off possible gods in the universe who wouldn’t care diddly squat about us, any claim of knowledge that no gods exist seem extreme.
But here is how I classify the types of gods, and why a statement of belief that they do not exist is reasonable.

  1. Some gods have logically incoherent definitions, like tri or even bi-omni gods. They don’t exist because they are logically impossible.

  2. Some gods are associated with specific scientific or historical claims. God caused a flood - evidence shows that no flood ever happened, so that God can be ruled out. You have to distinguish this God from the God of the same name who never caused any floods, but whose adherents wrote down legends of floods.

  3. Some gods supposedly made claims, like coming back before those listening tasted death. Didn’t happen, scratch that god. Claims of “that’s not what he really meant” are no more believable than from a politician who just stuck his foot in his mouth.

  4. Then we have the god who admittedly never left a shred of evidence for ever communicating with people, but somehow has left a complete set of rules to follow. Since I can’t distinguish this case from some guy sitting down and writing the rules, and the rules, or the interpretation of them, change with the ethical development of mankind, I don’t think so. This also covers the gods who keep retreating from us as we find out more about history. If someone says god interacted with us in situations A, B and C, and evidence shows that the claims for A and B are totally wrong, I’ll not believe C either without some very good evidence. The complete lack of support for these claims is very telling.

  5. Then there is the god unfalsifiable on principle, who created the universe and then never interacted with us, or who is the universe in some way. If this god never interacted with, how do you know about him again?

  6. Finally there is the nearly infinite set of gods I’ve never heard of. Perhaps it would be safer to say I just lack belief in these, but, given the poor record of the gods I have heard of, I think believing none of these exist is reasonable. It is a provisional belief - if one of them wants to visit and do some tricks I’ll change my mind.

I think that covers everything.

178

I never liked the weak/strong distinction either. It’s extremely nitpicky for one thing, and it feels vaguely insulting. I’d like to see someone try to tell a christian; if he doesn’t know for absolute fact there is a god, then he should be labelled a “weak christian”. I don’t think he’d be flattered…

179

The big difference between gods and ghosts is that ghosts are better defined. I’m not aware of people claiming the existence of a ghost who is invisible, does not interact with us at all, and whose existence is indistinguishable from his absence. But some people believe in this type of god. While we can’t prove that giraffes exist absolutely, we can do so to any desired level of probability. We can prove that some gods don’t exist to the same level, but we’ll still get believers who can’t tell us why they think any words in the Bible are divinely inspired, but who believe in it anyway. Plenty of good reasons to believe gods don’t exist, but not the the same level as the existence of giraffes. That is not a weakness in our position, more that the theists can’t get their acts together.

180

I’m Jewish, and my great-grandfather was a Talmudic scholar, so I have nitpicking in my blood.