Anyone?
Two friends are self-declared agnostics. One claims atheism is ridiculous; the other claims atheism is a form of faith.
I'm going on vacation until Monday. Feel free to discuss. Please keep it civil.
I'm going on vacation until Monday. Feel free to discuss. Please keep it civil.
Labels: randomness
posted by Adam at 1:01 AM
12 Comments:
I think they're both right. I am in awe of man's intellectual capacity, our achievements in science, and the understanding we have of the natural world. However, it is the very structure and order of the world, and our ability to discern it, that compels me to belief.
I find Einstein's observations on the roles of science & religion interesting reading along this topic.
It would help to know what reasoning both individuals used to arrive at their conclusions. Why is atheism ridiculous? How is atheism a form a faith?
(1) Re: "Atheism is Ridiculous"
Why? There's nothing to talk about until there is a substantial statement to explain why atheism is ridiculous.
(2) Re: "Atheism is a Form of Faith"
No, it's not. Nobody has any credible proof that any God or gods exist. Nevertheless, some people choose to live as though God or gods exist, which is an act of "faith." Similarly, other people choose to live as though God or gods do not, which is the definition of "atheism."
(3) Re: "It is the very structure and order of the world, and our ability to discern it, that compels me to belief."
Please be more specific. First, how exactly do structure and order, together with human perception of them, compel belief. Second, belief in what?
You describe an enormous logical and analytical leap with no explanation whatsoever. If your statement is put into the form of a syllogism, it looks like this:
(1) The world is ordered and structured.
(2) Humans can discern that order and structure.
(3) Therefore, I believe [in something].
The biggest problem with that statement is that you fail to account for the interdependence of (1) and (2).
In other words:
(1) can only be true if (2) is true (because otherwise you, a human, would not be able to discern order and structure); and
(2) can only be true if (1) is true (because otherwise, there would be no order and structure for humans to discern).
The only thing those statements can do is get you running in circles; they cannot explain how you get to the ultimate conclusion of "belief." If you cannot explain how to get from order, structure, and human perception on one side to "belief" on the other side, then no one can follow you and your position appears to lack validity.
The better explanation for your conclusion is that, despite the lack of credible proof for the existence of God or gods, you nevertheless choose to live your life as though God or gods exist. The failure of your attempt at a rational explanation for belief betrays it as merely a post hoc rationalization. Which is to say that it only looks like an explanation, without actually being one.
(1) Re: "Atheism is Ridiculous"
Why? There's nothing to talk about until there is a substantial statement to explain why atheism is ridiculous.
It is ridiculous because it is an empirical assertion about a non-empirical concept, based on a lack of empirical evidence. To unequivocally state that there is and can be no God or gods, when by their definition God/gods are supernatural and beyond our complete comprehension/definition/perception, based upon a lack of empirical evidence, is ridiculous. How does one disprove something that by definition defies the limits of our perception? The agnostic at least acknowledges that he doesn’t know if there is or is not a deity, something I find to be a much more rational position.
(2) Re: "Atheism is a Form of Faith"
No, it's not. Nobody has any credible proof that any God or gods exist. Nevertheless, some people choose to live as though God or gods exist, which is an act of "faith." Similarly, other people choose to live as though God or gods do not, which is the definition of "atheism."
Exactly. Well, everything you said after “No, it’s not.” Webster’s defines faith as “firm belief in something for which there is no proof” and, “something that is believed especially with strong conviction.” As in response to #1 above, the lack of empirical proof works both ways. Science has neither proven, nor can it disprove, the existence of a deity (by most definitions). The atheist has placed their faith in the belief that there is no higher power at work in the universe, just as the religious have placed their faith in the idea that there is.
(3) Re: "It is the very structure and order of the world, and our ability to discern it, that compels me to belief."
Please be more specific. First, how exactly do structure and order, together with human perception of them, compel belief. Second, belief in what?
Here is where we digress from the specifics of the statements Adam proposed, but seeing as how I segued into it… It should also be prefaced that these are my beliefs, and part of the rationale by which I come to them. They are not, nor are they intended to be the result of scientific method or analysis. As one can deduce from the discussion above, I do not find religion to fall within the scope of science, nor vice-versa. It should not be the intent of one to eliminate the other, but rather to compliment it. As Einstein said, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.” And so, in response to the first part, it should be simple for someone scientifically minded as yourself to consider for a moment the ways in which human knowledge has expanded over the relatively short time we’ve been around. From barely comprehending much more than seeking food and shelter, to learning navigation and cultivation, to observing the cosmos and putting a man on the moon, to unlocking the intricacies of sub-atomic particles and the unique forces that rule them, our ability to perceive and comprehension of that which we perceive has grown tremendously. Everything that is created, ultimately deteriorates. On man’s scale, buildings crumble and cars rust. It takes creative thought and energy to create order out of what is otherwise random. There is order on such a magnificent scale in everything from the incalculable expanses of the cosmos down to the minute particles from which matter is formed, that I reject the presupposition that this order came to be as a result of random happenstance without creative thought. Further, I find the gift that humankind has been given to observe, comprehend, and apply our understanding of this order to be compelling as well. Not that either of these are empirical evidence, but rather more compelling than any alternative I have considered.
In response to the second part, the specifics of what I believe are not germane to the discussion; suffice to say that I don’t presume to assert that there is no higher being than man.
You describe an enormous logical and analytical leap with no explanation whatsoever. If your statement is put into the form of a syllogism, it looks like this:
(1) The world is ordered and structured.
(2) Humans can discern that order and structure.
(3) Therefore, I believe [in something].
The biggest problem with that statement is that you fail to account for the interdependence of (1) and (2).
In other words:
(1) can only be true if (2) is true (because otherwise you, a human, would not be able to discern order and structure); and
(2) can only be true if (1) is true (because otherwise, there would be no order and structure for humans to discern).
The only thing those statements can do is get you running in circles; they cannot explain how you get to the ultimate conclusion of "belief." If you cannot explain how to get from order, structure, and human perception on one side to "belief" on the other side, then no one can follow you and your position appears to lack validity.
The better explanation for your conclusion is that, despite the lack of credible proof for the existence of God or gods, you nevertheless choose to live your life as though God or gods exist. The failure of your attempt at a rational explanation for belief betrays it as merely a post hoc rationalization. Which is to say that it only looks like an explanation, without actually being one.
You’ve taken a statement that was not intended to be a logical argument (in the scientific sense) and tried to argue against it as one. It is simply a statement of belief, as I’ve elaborated on above. Back to the topic of atheism, its proposed ridiculousness, and whether or not one can consider it a faith. Belief in God/gods is not even really relevant. What would you consider an assertion based on a lack of empirical evidence, about an entity that is not empirically defined? Ridiculous? An assertion of faith?
I'm here from Ales Rarus http://alesrarus.funkydung.com/archives/2963 :
Real quick:
Since we exist, Atheists need faith to prove that nothing made us (by whatever means) whereas Theists have themselves to prove that something ultimately did?
In order for the natural world to exist, something supernatural must have made it.
As a Theist, more specifically Christian, I believe that in order for the supernatural entity to be made manifest (or made known) to the natural, a representative from the supernatural must have been sent to the natural. Hence, the theological theory of the "incarnation" made this possible. (Otherwise, no person would ultimately know anything about the Creator except from His/It's creation.)
Unfortunately, from the Christian understanding, the only ultimate "proof" for this fact was taken from the natural world. Therefore, it takes "faith" to believe that said "proof" actually existed.
Contrary to positivism, evidence such as historical, logical, theological, and others must be taken into account to make said "faith" more credible. Hence, as for the details of any Theistic belief, "faith" is ultimately needed (even though reason itself leads many (even Atheist Darwinists) to Theism, esp. Christianity.)
As for the general concept of the divine (supernatural entity), I discussed that first above. (It must exist since we exist.)
As for a scientific understanding thereof (of the origin of the universe), you might want to review this work put out by a Physicist on non-commutative geometric theory in view of quantum mechanics as it relates to the "origin" of the universe (yes Templeton Prize, but actually very interesting). http://www.templetonprize.org/bios.html and http://www.templetonprize.org/pdfs/93-113.pdf (M. Heller)
Samuel Skinner
Your first argument is a huge argument from ignoreance-
"since we don't know how the universe came to be, it must have been made by a super special awesome force that can ignore the rules of logic. Let's call him "God". Isn't he cute? Can I take him home mom?"
See Hinduism- their avatar system works better than incarnation.
The only two options CANNOT require faith. One is always better supported by the evidence.
As for how the universe started- read Hawkins. The current theory? It is unbounded- it had no begining, but is finite... Don't blame me! I didn't creaate or design the universe- no one did. It makes my head hurt thinking about it.
JD said:
"[Atheism] is an empirical assertion about a non-empirical concept, based on a lack of empirical evidence."
No, atheism, like faith, is a pragmatic assertion about a non-empirical concept, i.e., God or gods.
Agnosticism, while it is certainly honest in itself, only works in an abstract, philosophical sense. No honest person can claim to know, provably, whether God or gods exist. People who nevertheless live as though God exists are exhibiting what can only be called "faith." People who nevertheless live as though God does not exist are atheists.
Here is another way to put it: As to the existence of God, every honest person is agnostic at heart. But once a person decide to act, he or she either "believes" in God or doesn't. The former has "faith," the latter is an "atheist."
This appears to conform with your own assertion that the existence of God is a "non-empirical concept" and your further elaboration that "by their definition God/gods are supernatural and beyond our complete comprehension/definition/perception, based upon a lack of empirical evidence." In short, like every other person, you do not and cannot know whether your God is.
(As an aside, I find it a curious oddity that some highly-developed theological approaches to this question are undergirded by the idea that "God" somehow transcends "existence" itself, so that the question "Does God exist?" is meaningless. You seem to hold such a position. Since human knowledge is then by definition incapable of succeeding to the truth of the "existence" or "being-ness" or "reality" of God (choose the word you want to attach there), it would appear that such theology is little more than a coy admission that, in fact, the best anyone can hope to be is agnostic—without true knowledge. This then leads to the interesting question, which I think should be at least a little uncomfortable for religious people, of how humans would even know to posit (and then argue about the existence of) a God they are incapable of knowing. Shouldn't it then make absolutely no difference whether some people are atheists, such that it's not even worth calling them "ridiculous" or trying to play re-definition games so that atheism becomes "faith"? But I digress. Maybe.)
Atheism is not a positive assertion, so I do not know why you say things like:
"The atheist has placed their faith in the belief that there is no higher power at work in the universe[.]"
An atheist does not "believe" there is "no higher power at work in the universe." Rather, the atheist observes that, of all the "higher" powers that define and constrain our existence, none evinces the characteristics that religious people attribute to God or gods.
The old saw that atheists believe themselves to be supreme, or that "man is the measure of all things," is not some posited tenet of "atheism." It is an idea made up by religious people who fail to understand what atheism is; it is false.
Similarly, I have no idea why you are talking about "science." The question is not whether science is religion, but whether atheism is "faith" or "ridiculous." The only explanation that I can imagine for your discussion of science is that you are, again erroneously, conflating "atheism" with "science." That, too, is false.
Science is an investigative method. It has nothing to do with atheism, which, as I noted above—twice now—is simply an approach to life. Atheism has no tenets, no rules, no methods, no nothing. That atheists tend to champion the scientific method is no more remarkable than the fact that religious people tend to drive cars: it's useful. Other than that, there is no meaningful connection.
Specifically, one does not come to the conclusion of atheism via science. There is no experimental apparatus that proves or disproves the existence of God or gods. (Although it may be possible, once such existence is assumed, to investigate the characteristics of such God or gods.)
The pairing of science and atheism is probably just a historical coincidence of Western culture. Until the scientific method was sufficiently developed, people who desired an explanation of their world were limited to hypotheses that could not be tested: religious beliefs. Once people devised ways to test their hypotheses about the world through systematic experimentation, it became possible to entertain hypotheses other than the religious ones and recourse to God or gods as the ultimate explanatory device was, for many people, no longer necessary.
In other words, the testing of explanatory hypotheses by systematic experimentation has neither proved nor disproved the existence or non-existence of God or gods, but the method itself (and not carefully that I am not referring to either the bases or the conclusions of science) has become so intellectually satisfying for many people that they no longer feel the need to engage the religious hypotheses.
I am not referring to any positive truths about reality or existence or meaning, but simply to the way people live. People who choose to live as though God exists and affects their lives have "faith"; people who choose to live as though God does not exist are "atheists." The words refer not to any conceptual content, but to the conduct of the people they describe, relative to the question asked: Does God exist?
The balance of your response consists of backpedaling (e.g., these are just my beliefs), appealing to authority (e.g., quoting Einstein), and non-responsive expressions of apparent wonderment.
It is clear that you do not in fact "believe" because you have discerned from the phenomena comprising the universe that an entity with distinct characteristics tending to match with those attributed to God or gods by any or all of the religious traditions has communicated to you or anyone else.
Rather, as I noted above, you "believe" because, in the absence of definitive proof, you prefer to. Which is fine. I don't think it's "ridiculous" that you believe but if you want to demonstrate that your belief confers upon you some virtues that are unavailable to others, then you should avoid referring to those who do not believe as "ridiculous."
It has been my experience that the difference between an agnostic and an atheist is a question of temperament.
If we're going to "quote Einstein," we have be sure of which Einstein we're quoting: the warm and fuzzy pantheist, or the acerbic antireligionist?
"The word God is for me nothing more than the expression and product of human weaknesses, the Bible a collection of honourable, but still primitive legends which are nevertheless pretty childish."
ok, adam... i'll take ownership for the "ridiculous" comment. i'm going to back off it a bit though because i said it after a few drinks and was just trying to have fun. i'm sorry if i offended anyone. now sober (and reduced to blogging out of extreme boredom because my friends have been out of town for 5 whole days!), i'll explain my feelings on the subject: it's not the atheist's belief that there is no god or gods that bothers me, it is the zeal that some have in arguing against religion or faith. it turns me off just the same as hearing a christian say that a muslim will go to hell (or vice versa) because they don't believe the same things. there is value in religious beliefs (for one good example, read the writings of abolitionists). and there is value in logic. i don't see the need for one to triumph over the other. leave some room to question.
and for the record, i guess you could call me an agnostic in the context of these discussions, but i don't identity myself that way. i don't need a label here. in my view, what's important is that i'm trying to understand life and seeking to be a better person
I linked to this post from the Ales Rarus blog... I cannot resist a (polite) debate between theists and atheists.
It is first necessary to define precisely what constitutes "atheism:" I would suggest that atheism is simply a lack of belief in a deity. The atheist takes the idea of God as a theory; being unconvinced by the theist's arguments, he does not accept his theory.
As to whether or not atheism, according to the definition above, is "ridiculous," I would argue that, for empiricists, it is entirely logical. If one is a real and true empiricist, as some are, atheism is not ridiculous, as the idea of God is not subject to empirical criticism. If one believes that sensible, empirical evidence is the only solidly reliable basis upon which to make conclusions, it doesn't make sense to believe in something which cannot be apprehended by the senses -- the pragmatic conclusion of atheism is the only rational conclusion.
On the other hand, if one is not entirely convinced by the empiricist project, and admits that rational arguments without empirical backing may suffice to demonstrate the truth of abstract (a la Descartes), unobservable concepts (such as God), atheism is a more difficult path to go down, as one must refute many, many arguments for God's existence (at least to oneself).
What I'm saying is, more or less, that if one is an empiricist, atheism is not ridiculous. If one is not, and has rationalist tendencies, it is only a possibility that atheism is a ridiculous conclusion.
The second question, as to whether or not atheism represents a sort of faith, is interesting. I do not believe that atheism is a faith, and this is why: As a Catholic, I deny the truth of the "arguments" laid down by fundamentalist street preachers. It does take a certain element of "faith" to do this. But it is not the same type of faith as is meant in the phrase "religious faith" or "Jewish faith" or "Islamic faith." It is a faith in the veracity of my own conclusions, not a faith in an unobservable deity. Similarly, the atheist only shows faith in his own conclusions, not in the existence of an unobservable entity. I feel as though I haven't explained this particularly well, but maybe that's because Jim Beam has paid me a visit.
Peter:
"No honest person can claim to know, provably, whether God or gods exist."
I think you ought to realize the assumptions you carry. (I mean in NO way to be presumptuous -- if I come off that way, I apologize.) You seem to assume that the only way to know the truth of something is observe it. Your attitude is similar to that of the person who doesn't believe in Africa because he doesn't know anyone who has seen it. Is it not possible that an argument akin to, let's say, a geometric proof, may be made for the existence of something that is unobservable? Is it not possible that things unable to be sensed, observed, and measured, might still exist?
Reading over my comment, I realize that some of what I've said (particularly towards Peter), might come off as a bit snarky. I didn't mean it that way at all.
Basically, in the last paragraph, the point I'm trying to get at is that you, Peter, seem to assume that nothing outside the observable realm exists. You proceed from this belief to the logical conclusion that no one who is intellectually honest an hold to a belief in something unobservable. This conclusion is unwarranted, as it is dismissive of any rational, non-empirical argument.
If I have misinterpreted you, you have my apologies.
Lastly, I don't have a home internet connexion. I have to take my laptop to a place with free wireless access to view this website, so if my replies are very slow, I apologize.
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