A brief conversation

[demiurgent]

A brief conversation with a coworker, fortunately where no students could hear:

Him: Well, agnostics are just atheists without the courage of their convictions.

Me: Wow. That was both a lie and offensive. That's a neat trick.

He looked confused. I went on to tell him what I'm going to tell you, right now.

Atheism is not the lack of religion, despite the roots of the word. Atheism is a religion. It is the specific belief, without evidence, that the universe lacked intelligent or motive force behind its creation.

Many atheists refute this, mind. They say that they stand for science, and skepticism, and that any divine presence would need to be proven, and without that proof one must assume there is no divine presence. That, they often say, is simple science and stark reason.

And that's utter bullshit.

Science is agnostic.

Science says "I do not know, until I see. When I see, I can gather evidence and hypothesize. After I hypothesize I gather more evidence. I experiment. I test my hypothesis. I revise my hypothesis. If I and many other scientists perform these experiments and verify and reproduce my results, we might -- might -- upgrade my hypothesis to a theory, but that takes a lot of doing."

Atheism doesn't do any of that. Atheism takes it on faith that there is no god in any form, comprehensible or not. And the evidence for that is just as prevalent as the evidence for Yaweh, Allah, Aphrodite or Manannán mac Lir: absolutely none.

Guys? We don't know. We don't know who or what if anything started the cosmic ball rolling. We don't know if there's something beyond the edge of human perception. We just don't fucking know, okay?

Now, you can be convinced the Christians have it wrong. Or that the Greeks were full of shit. Or that the Wiccans are fooling themselves. You can be personally convinced that the universe is a cold place where everything is essentially chaotic and all things happened because of chance. That's fine.

But don't pretend you have an inside understanding that the religious nuts don't. You have a belief. Nothing more, nothing less. And that's fine. If it makes you happy, power to you.

And if you believe in a god, gods, goddesses, or whatever? Fine by me. Whatever helps you get to sleep, man.

Me? I'm agnostic. I don't have the hubris to think I've got the final answer. I'm still watching and waiting, and I'm keeping an open mind -- to all sides of the question.

And for the record? Don't you fucking dare say I don't have the courage of my convictions. It takes a hell of a lot more courage to admit what you don't know than assert what you believe to be true.

Sadly, it means I don't get to be nearly as smug as certain theists or atheists. But don't worry about me. I usually find something else to be smug about.

Comments

[adders.livejournal.com]

No, but you're rapidly proving to me that you are slightly lacking in humour as well as irony.

Sorry, humor.

:-P

[flemco.livejournal.com]

AHEM:

Engineering is the discipline of acquiring and applying scientific and technical knowledge to the design, analysis, and/or construction of works for practical purposes.

And it wouldn't be a proper flemco Response™ if I didn't include:

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Well, as a cartoonist, a sense of humor isn't necessary.

[adders.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I've read Garfield.

In future do stop stealing our territory. Remember, us believers are meant to be the humorless ones.

I mean, really.

[scarfman]

Isaac Asimov once wrote on this topic that the scientific method is his religion, because it's the view of the universe he accepts on faith as being true. It's in the introduction he wrote to a collection of horror/fantasy stories he and Martin Greenberg edited.

[ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com]

Yes, which is an explanation of why engineering remains sound while science moves along.

[chaobell]

THANK YOU.

Unless you, yourself, have been physically, completely, totally dead and come back to life (and I don't mean "whoops heart stopped for a sec lol" I mean "Elvis has left the morgue and is en route to the funeral home") you do not know that there is or isn't some omnipotent invisble thing waiting for you after you croak. You believe that there is or isn't some omnipotent invisible thing.

Unless you have personally seen every inch of this universe, you do not know that there is or isn't some omnipotent invisible thing living out there somewhere. You believe that there is or isn't etc.

Atheists and theists alike: you do not "know" anything. You believe it. You can yell and scream about how you "know" you're right all you want, but it doesn't change the fact that neither one of you has any more hard proof than the other as to what the fuck is or isn't really out there.

You believe you're right. You don't know shit. This is not my opinion. This is a fact.

My opinion is that stomping your feet and foaming at the mouth and going "I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE WRONG AND STUPID AND CRAZY" because you believe there is no omnipotent invisible thing makes you just as much of a socially retarded asshole as the ones that stamp their feet and foam at the mouth going "I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE WRONG AND STUPID AND GOING TO HELL."

[ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com]

He did some original work, stuff that has changed how biologists approach several sub-fields, but most of his books are popularizing science, at least the ones that are more concerned with biology than gods.

Selfish Gene is particularly useful, and if it sounds old hat, it is akin to the director (producer?) of Starship Troopers statement that he didn't use power armor because it was used everywhere in SF. (Elsewhere he has some extended work and clarification for the first half of that book. I've not read the newer edition to see if he has updated it to include the new stuff or not.)

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

As a complete side note? You two are perhaps the two people on my friends list I'd most like to be drinking in the presence of at the same time. Just because I think the discussion -- while... spirited at times -- would be awesome.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Astounding.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Hah hah!

Wait... I don't get pie for that?

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

No, Science is founded on the search to describe the universe in rational terms.

Penicillin, the electric circuit, skin care, the combustion engine and flight have all been developed based upon current scientific opinion on how things work. And indeed the fact that they all work is continued supporting evidence that the scientific hypotheses and theories they're based upon work the way that we expect.

There is nothing that says we will not find some underlying principle (in micro- or macrocosm) that will redefine our understanding of just what the hell electricity is. Our understanding of electromagnetism is simply our current best understanding, not proof positive of what it is or is not. That doesn't mean the electric circuit will stop working if we have a sudden significant shift in our understanding of electricity. It means that we'll be able to apply the new understanding to make the electric circuit or whatever replaces it better.

Nothing you've listed is proven. Science doesn't prove. It can disprove, but it can't prove, and it's not trying to.

[darthparadox.livejournal.com]

I don't think that the word "belief" requires that you continue to maintain it even if actual, solid evidence to the contrary appears. The whole point of "belief" is that it is performed in the absence of actual evidence.

I believe that the law of gravity applies universally. The fact that I would reverse that belief if presented with evidence to the contrary does not make me agnostic in my belief in gravity; it just makes me non-dogmatic in that I'll change my belief if the old one is provably wrong. After all, it would be unreasonable to continue believing something in the face of contradictory evidence.

But it's not unreasonable to believe something for which no evidence exists either way. And the fact that I would decide to start believing in a god should one be proven to me does not make my current beliefs in the lack of a god "agnostic"; it just means I'd act reasonably in modifying my opinions as needed.

"Atheism" does not require that I hold those beliefs forever and ever, no matter what evidence comes along later. It just means that, right now, I disbelieve in any god. And flemco's admittal that he'd believe in a god if evidence of one were presented to him does not change his current beliefs from "atheism" to "agnosticism".

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

This is, incidentally, why several years ago I finally tipped from Agnostic to straight-up Atheist, mind you: Agnosticism is silly. The idea:

- There is an invisible, unproven and intangible deity that invented the universe.

...Is just as silly as these other ideas.

Then, and please understand this is acting as the... er... devil's advocate... are you saying that the universe simply always was? That it had no logical beginning?

Not the big bang, by the way. Something had to exist before the big bang.

Where did it come from?

Do you know? Does anyone?

Can anyone?

You don't believe there is an invisible, unproven and intangible deity that invented the universe. I accept that. But are you right? Then where the fuck did it come from? What's the start point, and how did it get to that start point in the first place?

Is it silly to say an intelligent force was involved? I don't know. It makes about as much sense (though not more sense) as saying it all happened purely spontaneously, from nothing, with no initial cause.

If your position is "there was no intelligent force involved," then you're an atheist, it seems to me. If your position is "I don't know what was involved," you're an agnostic.

[ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com]

Eric, actually it isn't clear that there has to be a before. Before and after are, quite possibly, concepts dependent on the existence of a universe. This does not lend itself to human scale analogies, but then neither does most modern cosmology/physics. A claim that there has to be a before the universe treats the universe like a normal every day object, when we know that even normal every day objects are really statistical constructs of things that don't behave in normal every day object scale manners. (I am not actually claiming that there is no matrix in which the universe is embedded, only that the a priori claim that there must be one is based on reasoning from experience that has been shown not to scale endlessly larger or smaller.)

[flemco.livejournal.com]

Then, and please understand this is acting as the... er... devil's advocate... are you saying that the universe simply always was? That it had no logical beginning?

I was going to quote your whole post, but this is enough to quote and my response is to the whole thing. Furthermore, this is not in defense of Atheism, per se, but my personal take on your question:



One thing that was liberating as hell was when I realized just how much energy all of humankind expends on these idiotic questions. Where did it all come from? Was it made, or did it just happen? Where do we go when we die? Is there an afterlife? Were we here for a purpose?

These questions take away time and energy that you could spend getting other shit done. Everyone has an idea of where it all began. Everyone has an idea of where it all ends. None of this shit has anything to do with what I'm doing right this minute. In fact, it doesn't have anything to do with anything I will do in my finite and precious life.

Many think that atheists are humorless, dry bastards with no magic, wonder or mystery in their lives. I am living proof that this is not the case. Many are the mysteries that I think we will never be able to answer. I don't give a damn if it all started with the motherfucker of all bangs, or if some weirdo invisible bathrobe god farted it all out. It happened so long ago that the point is completely moot. Sitting around with your thumb up your ass, staring at other people's ideas of where it all came from in the beginning isn't going to help you one iota in life.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

As long as you're buying.

[flemco.livejournal.com]

[ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com]

Who Cares?
Dude, it is all about spin-off applications. Even false trails can yield useful applications. Magnifying impractically tiny results until they yield every day applications is a major part of what engineering does for us.

Pure research has always asked questions that almost no one cared about, and it has always been the big source of new useful things. Now a lot of paths down to the big cosmology questions don't seem likely to yield applications, but that doesn't mean that no route of exploration in that direction will.

[shortpacked.livejournal.com]

Does this mean that you merely believe that people can't know things?

Because right now it sounds like you're saying "I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE WRONG AND STUPID AND CRAZY" against everyone else saying "I'M RIGHT AND YOU'RE WRONG AND STUPID AND CRAZY."

[flemco.livejournal.com]

GET GLASSES.

As stated: this is MY TAKE ON IT. I am not defending Atheism. As I am not an engineer, and have no use in my life for an explanation of the source of it all beyond "hey, nifty, that's where the universe came from," I DON'T CARE.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

My God I love philosophy.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Jesus. I better start the loan paperwork now.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

God damn Sid Caeser stole all my best material!

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

As Jay's already pointed out, you're badly misusing the word.

But let's leave that aside.

Since you've radically redefined "non-theist" to itself be a theistic position, the question you're begging jumps right out, to me:

What do you call someone who lacks belief in gods?

Not someone who believes that all unknown things are totally impossible (I call that person an "idiot", not an "atheist" as you do), but someone who thinks Jesus and Thor and L Ron Hubbard all have equal credibility, which is to say "none"? Someone who says "there's not one single bit of credible positive evidence for any assertion of the existence of any culturally postulated supernatural being, therefor I believe in no culturally postulated supernatural beings"

Someone who considers that entities whose existence cannot be perceived nor subsidiary effects of their existence noticed are, obviously, totally irrelevant entities, and considering whether or not completely irrelevant things exist is a waste of time and effort?

You've said you're an agnostic because you think there really might be something that can't be seen and can't be interacted with in any way out there, and that thing might be God. Good for you. What does that make someone who shares your complete lack of belief in any and all gods, and who simply goes one step further to saying "if it doesn't affect existence, it obviously doesn't matter".

What are they?