demiurgent | A brief conversation

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A brief conversation

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.

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I believe Eric means this when he says it:

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.

I believe that assertion to be patently false--ludicrous, in fact. I also find it deeply and personally offensive. As Eric seems to be dressing down one religious bigot who is defining another person's belief system in a false way which buoys up their own, so is he doing the same to me.

I'll assume (if only for argument's sake) that Eric specifically believes that there are no such things as leprechauns, and that there never have been. I'll assume that he believes it would be a waste of time to look for evidence of tiny magical Irishmen with the power to grant wishes, and pots of gold they keep at the end of rainbows (that last bit being provably untrue). Because, you know, there aren't any leprechauns.

I will then classify his belief as a religion. I will tell him he specifically believes in the non-existence of leprechauns in the absence of (!) evidence for the non-existence of leprechauns.

I will then, hopefully, watch him remember that the burden of proof is not on the person who asserts that there never have been leprechauns. Or demons. Or angels. Or body thetans. Or a monster in your closet. Or CIA agents instructing the homeless guy through an implanted chip in his head. Or a creator god.

I will, hopefully, hear him admit that it is not irrational to positively disbelieve a sufficiently outlandish and unsupported claim--that it does not require an act of faith, and certainly does not constitute a religion to do so.

He and I may (and clearly do) disagree on the plausibility of the claim. But hopefully he will realize that the fact that he rates the plausibility of "creator god" something closer to "an unproven scientific hypothesis like string theory," and I rate it something closer to "the story of the shoe-making elves" does not make the disbelief in gods (or elves) into my religion.

Faith is antithetical to atheism. Calling atheism a religion is the equivalent of saying to an evangelical Christian that "Jesus is really Satan, you know. It's obvious." Hopefully, Eric will understand the insult in those terms, and why I am completely appalled at his level of gall, especially in the context of someone having just insulted his beliefs.

I say "hopefully" because I'd sure like to have a friendly conversation with him again someday.

You will note, in the other comments, that I have already acknowledged that the word 'religion' was a mistake.

As for your offense? I can only offer my apologies, which I certainly do.

As, it is worth noting, my coworker did to me, and I was happy enough to accept them. What you choose to do is of course up to you.

I do need to respond, however, to one statement:

I will, hopefully, hear him admit that it is not irrational to positively disbelieve a sufficiently outlandish and unsupported claim--that it does not require an act of faith

As we stated elsewhere, there is a qualitative difference between disbelieving a single claim -- be it any of your examples -- and asserting that there is and was no intelligence involved in the creation of the universe. The former does not require an act of faith, no. Nor does it require an act of faith to passively disbelieve in gods of any stripe.

However, the active declaration that there was no motive force behind the creation of the universe, of some form we do not understand -- that does require an act of faith. Because the simple truth is we don't know what created the universe. Some here have posited it was never actually created. Some (not here, admittedly) have posited intelligent design. Some have posited random events and factors. But at this stage, we're nowhere near anything close to a hypothesis on any of these things.

That is the statement of faith we're discussing. It does not apply to everyone here. And as the debate has unfurled, an increasingly sophisticated understanding of what others -- most particularly Atheists -- mean by atheism has been coming out. I hope some of those definitions are ones you could agree with. If not, I hope you contribute your own.

It does, however, apply to the school of thought that says that agnosticism is just atheism without a spine -- that is a school of thought defined largely by dogma.

And that's faith.

You're absolutely right that it's not a religion, and the word should not have been used. But it is an expression of belief -- and it is accepted on faith, by those who espouse it.

I'm more than happy to acknowledge you are not one who espouses that on faith, and I apologize if my initial rant, admittedly written in anger, caused you discomfort.

As long as you are willing to attribute the outright impossible features of leprechauns to the growth of a story in the telling, I'd be willing to consider their current or past existence. I'd still think it was a distinct waste of time to go looking for them, and if I were to look for them, I wouldn't expect to find something identical to the mythical creature or the popular icon, but any statement of mine about the non-existence of leprechauns absent a disclaimer would be a statement of faith and thus religious in nature. A religious belief can be completely absent gods or the supernatural. It is merely any belief taken upon faith. We each hold many religious beliefs in our lives, many through laziness, many others because we are wired to come to conclusions in absence of evidence, it is a demonstrable survival trait. Eric's wording was poor, and in the end, he may well not agree with my analysis, but that is how intention (both in the initial post and in his follow up postings.)

Oh also, just for the record, I am not a strong Cartesian skeptic. My personal criteria for Justified True Belief are not insurmountably high, and while I do not believe that there are leprechauns, I also do not specifically believe that there are not leprechauns, or entities that might as well be called such, even if they would end up lacking in some of the mythic features of that particular beastie.

Eric, I think there is a profitable distinction to be made between religion and religious. A belief held without justification can be, I suspect, justly called religious without it forming a religion.

"If it's not scientific, it's not a theory. If it's not scientific, it's not even a hypothesis. "

Note that I did not say 'scientific theory'. Theory, the word, has different meanings. One of them is 'belief'. If you would prefer, I will use that instead.

"Phlogiston and aether weren't rejected because a better theory came along. They were rejected because hypotheses about phlogiston and aether made testable predictions that were tested, and disproven."

The process of disproving a theory and the process of building a different one are distinctly different and often not made by the same person or in the same time period. This has been repeated often, but phlogiston is a good example from Wikipedia: The theory was found flawed, some attempts were made to revise it and it remained the main theory. About twenty years later, the oxygen requirement for combustion was discovered and the theory was finally thrown away when the caloric theory was put in its place. There's no point in rejecting something if you don't have something better to fill its place. The point after all isn't to have something absolutely correct but to have something that explains phenomena and measurements as reliably as possible.

"Science already has you covered regarding the improbability of God existing: What testable predictions does theism make?"

That's why theism is NOT a scientific theory, it utterly fails as one. In a scientific context, it is much more reasonable to immediately reject it as extremely improbable (like you've already stated).

BUT, Science has failed so far to provide any answer to "where did the universe come from" that is any less improbable; if theism was that ridiculous, then any mediocre scientist could come up with theory that is at least a little less improbable. If there is such a theory, I'm not educated about it and would appreciate any and all enlightenment.

Apology accepted, as far as it went.

Continuing to assert that atheism requires faith continues to irritate me. But I understand better the rhetorical splinter that you seem to be caught on. You are equating something "disbelieved" with something "disproved." If you want a definition of my own atheism which helps remove that splinter, at least where my beliefs are concerned, then I will try to file it down.

I believe we are thinking beings with a finite amount of time to seek truth and meaning, should we choose to do so. We must balance the claims that we hear, the possibilities that we imagine, and the evidence that we experience, and reach the best approximation of the truth that we can before we die. The purpose of this quest may be personal, or it may be as big as humanity, or bigger than that. Most of what we seek will remain unknowable to us, but we strive to understand as much as we can.

Because we will die without fully understanding all, we must try to utilize fruitful methods. We can't spend our entire lives compiling evidence against the existence of, say, "trolls who live under bridges." It is reasonable to assume that no trolls exist, until we are presented some evidence to the contrary.

Now you would say, "Aha! Faith! Or at least 'troll agnosticism!' At least you admit the possibility of trolls!" No, not really. I firmly believe no trolls live under bridges. I consider it a rational belief, and a positive one.

Have I disproved trolls? No. But I believe there are none, and believe further that thinking there are none is the only sane and useful thing to think, in the absence of anything like valid evidence that they exist.

It is worth considering the possibility of trolls under bridges exactly this far:

1. Human beings have imaginations and make up stories. (previously proved)
2. Is there any evidence which suggests or proves that "trolls live under bridges" could not be one of those stories? (no)
3. Is there any evidence for the existence of trolls, or anything like trolls, besides human stories? (no)
4. Further consideration of the troll story is a gigantic honking waste of time, and for all practical purposes, we believe trolls do not live under bridges.

It is practicality, not faith, which leads the atheist to disbelieve the existence a creator god, a leprechaun, or any other unsupportable claim.

Saying that we disbelieve in the existence of a creator god is not the same as saying we would discount valid evidence for one, if it were observable. That would be faith, man. That is the part you are missing when you throw that word at me.

See, having beliefs in the absence of evidence is how you're defining faith. But faith as I know it involves ignoring contravening evidence. True faith is blindness. "Faith" is the opposite of "truth-seeking," in my view. I don't take kindly to being accused of it.

And if you think being open to future evidence of a creator god makes us closet agnostics or something, you're wrong. We disbelieve what is practical to disbelieve, and you do it too.

If a four year old told you his teddy bear flew to the Moon yesterday, it's in that class of disbelief. You'd maybe subsequently believe it if the news said NORAD tracked a teddy bear on re-entry. But until something far beyond the scope of all you have observed or learned so far in your life was shown to you, you're going to (rationally, normally, logically and rightly) believe that the kid imagined it. And you don't need faith to hold that belief.

In our short lives, our beliefs will be shaped the best way we can, with the evidence and the time that we have to examine and consider them. Most unsupportable claims are worth classifying in the very big pile of "things I do not believe are true" where they will stay for the rest of my life, unless rescued by some utterly extraordinary evidence.

That's not hubris, it's practical rational analysis.

Faith does not require belief in the face of evidence, only in the absence of evidence. Now some people maintain their faith in things in the face of evidence against those things, but it is not required. One can lose faith in something in the presence of evidence to the contrary.

"That's pretty much exactly right: If there's absolutely no reason to believe a hypothesis *might* be true, there's absolutely no reason to behave as if it *was* true. And before you come back with first-year philosophy sophistry, there *is* such a thing as testing a hypothesis by assuming it is true and seeing if the expected results appear.

They don't.

Ever."

In which case you're arguing that there is evidence against the hypothesis, not that there isn't any evidence one way or another. I've got no problem with that!

"If there's absolutely no reason to believe a hypothesis *might* be true, there's absolutely no reason to behave as if it *was* true. "

And I think I've said this a few times nowm, that I DON'T argue that.

I think the point where you and I are disagreeing is on the difference between improbable and impossible. If you want to say that based on lack of any positive or negative evidence, it is highly improbable that there isn't a flying spaghetti monster controlling our lives and therefor act as if there isn't one, then I have no problem with that, and would agree with you. If you say that it's impossible for there to be one, then I say you are acting on a belief. Or if you'd prefer to avoid semi-religous language, a "base assumption".

There's no problem with acting on base assumptions. We all have to operate on them. Scientific method operates on several base assumptions, including that the world is measurable and knowable. You have to have some base assumptions to be able to make any sort of decisions about anything. But there's always a possiblility (note, I didn't say probable, just possible) that the base assumption is wrong. That doesn't mean you should operate as if it is.

In an infinite world, it is possible that there's a flying spaghetti monster someplace exhibiting godlike powers. Not probable, and the possibility may be just this side of 0, but I don't say that I know it's not true, because I don't have any evidence that it does or does not exist. That doesn't mean I'm going to live my life as if it does. There's also a possibility that I could win the lottery. An actual measurable possibility. I don't buy lottery tickets either.

I know people who say that they are able to recieve telepathic communication with their cats. I don't say that's impossible. I don't think it's likely, and I think that it's probable that what they attribute to psychic communication is really subconcious interpretation of body language. But in the absence of meaningful evidence one way or the other, I'm not going to say it's impossible. Neither am I waiting for my cats to start communicating with me psychically though.

The possible presence or absence of a god doesn't really influence my life any more than the possible presence or absence of monitarium. The underlying philosophical causes of the way the world works don't really matter - they're fun to speculate on, but I live my life the way I do because I think it's the right way to do so. If tomorrow I were to experience something that convinced me of the presence or absence of a god, I wouldn't look back on my life and go "If only I'd known that, I'd have done this differently."

I'm just not arrogant enough to believe that I can definitively say that a given thing isn't possible in the lack of strong evidence that it isn't possible.

I think this is one of the other points of contention that's coming from a lack of clear definition. Some people ake agnostic to mean "I don't know" (or possibly even "I don't know yet", some take it to mean "I CAN'T know", and some take it to mean "It's impossible for anyone to know."

The definition Eric is using is the first one. And from that definition, science is indeed agnostic about anything for which there isn't strong evidence for or against.

But I'd agree with you that using the third definition, science is not agnostic about anything.

Yeah, I'd say we've got finer gradations within each of the terms.

Atheist could mean:
I don't believe there is a god
I believe there is NOT a god.
It is impossible for there to be a god.

Agnostic could cover the three positons in my other comment:
I don't know
I can't know
It's impossible to know.

Theist could cover the same range of gradations:
I belive that there is a god
I know that there is a god
There MUST be a god for X to work the way it does.

So, what you're fundamentally saying is that since no proposition can ever be disproven, you maintain a state of "neutrality" with regards to all propositions.

You know, watching this debate there are two things that I've found amusing. One is that the point which is generating the most argument here (whether atheism is a "belief" or not) is the one that your friend was taking as a default position. At least to me, saying that atheist have "courage of their conviction" implies a certain degree of belief beyond simple factual information.

The second is how many people have gotten up in arms over the idea that certain flavors of atheism may be operating on an unsupported base asumption (aka a belief). I think part of that is because many people who view themselves as atheists view themselves as being extremely logical, and reaching that position through strict logic, so the statement that they are operating on a belief is disturbing to them.

I don't necessarially agree that all those who call themselves atheist are operating on a belief. I think there are different flavors, and some who may call themselves atheists may be more "agnostic with atheist leanings" or "it doesn't matter anyway." But I definitely know some who do seem to be operating just as much on belief as some of the theists I know.

That is what he's calling active and passive atheism.

There are whole categories of propositions that can be disproven: x●~x is not always trivially obvious.
There are also propositions that are provable, unless you buy the strong Cartesian skeptic's position.

The rest fall into three broad categories:
With weak evidence against a proposition:
Provisionally against

With no compelling evidence for or against a proposition:
Provisionally neutral
and
With weak evidence for a proposition:
Provisionally for

If it turns out that the evidence in any case above is false, belief in the proposition should probably shift toward the center.

To which, again, I ask why it is you're not "keeping the question open" about Thor and the Space Werewolves (which, incidentally, is now my band's new name)

No evidence of any sort for a proposition, and proposition is not testable = proposition is useless crap.

Note that I did not say 'scientific theory'.

I did note that. The implication that there is any type of theory other than a "scientific theory" is exactly what prompted my comment.

Theory, the word, has different meanings. One of them is 'belief'. If you would prefer, I will use that instead.

In the context of a discussion of science, theory has only one meaning. "Belief" describes theism with far more accuracy and precision -- without muddying the difference between theistic belief and, say, the theory of gravitation.

There's no point in rejecting something if you don't have something better to fill its place. The point after all isn't to have something absolutely correct but to have something that explains phenomena and measurements as reliably as possible.

If a hypothesis makes predictions that are falsified by observational data, that is sufficient reason to alter or reject it, even if a better hypothesis has not yet been established. If something claiming to be a hypothesis doesn't even make predictions that can be confirmed or falsified by observational data, it is indistinguishable from shrugging and saying "I don't know."

BUT, Science has failed so far to provide any answer to "where did the universe come from" that is any less improbable; ; if theism was that ridiculous, then any mediocre scientist could come up with theory that is at least a little less improbable. If there is such a theory, I'm not educated about it and would appreciate any and all enlightenment.

Google "Big Bang."

Unlike any theistic assertion ever made, Big Bang theory makes quantifiable predictions borne out by observational data accurately and precisely. As such, it is infinitely more probable than theism -- or any other assertion that makes no quantifiable predictions. What's more, theism requires a belief in the existence of something that is neither observed nor observable and Big Bang theory does not. That, too, makes Big Bang theory infinitely more probable than any theistic assertion ever made.

The fact that most people have trouble understanding the math around why "before the Big Bang" is a meaningless concept does not alter the strength of Big Bang theory, it just means we do a shitty job of teaching people math in this society.

I'm almost positive that I hit post on the entry about being willing to provisionally accept the Space Werewolves as a possibility. And the question is at least as open on Thor as any other god. Hell, given the way that myth grows from generation to generation, Thor could very well fall into the Naturalistic Deity camp (as opposed to supernatural deity, which the J-C-M god distinctly does.)

Faith cannot be belief without evidence, as the faithful will hold up a bible as 'evidence' (or insert your favored source of religious Truth).

I would suggest instead that 'knowledge' is information that has been tested via rigorous peer review via the scientific method. Anything else is varying shades of 'belief' or 'fantasy', depending on how polite/political you choose to be.

There's a big gotcha here. If you follow these definitions, the great majority of what is commonly considered to be 'fact' would actually be 'belief', as you are unable to show your work, nor who validated your work and preconceptions via THEIR work.

*grin* Philosophy is FUN brain-fry.

-John

No, your failure mode there is simply in not sufficiently defining "evidence", and that failure means you're accepting The Sum Of All Fears as valid historical fact.

Rob, I've appreciated your work for many a moon. You've got a good eye and a wicked insight into human nature. That being said, I still have to disagree with you here.

IMO, there's fact, and there's belief. The two are not the same, still IMO, except perhaps the fact that someone believes something at such-and-such a time.

If you choose to state that your beliefs are rational, fair enough. No worries, that's your choice. I agree wholeheartedly that "we will die without fully understanding all" even were we to become functionally immortal tomorrow. However, this does not (STILL in my opinion) mean that belief meets the category of truth - except if you're lucky. *wry grin*

Sorry if that's offensive, not my intent. Simply a statement of personal belief that is not the same as yours.

-John

Calling something evidence and it being evidence are two different things.

Also,
I would suggest instead that 'knowledge' is information that has been tested via rigorous peer review via the scientific method.

is describing one of the manners of developing a justification for and verifying the truth of a belief, and thus yielding knowledge. There are other ways to develop knowledge. Formal scientific method yields good results in cases where inductive reasoning is needed, but it is unneeded in cases where direct experience is needed. Also there are many sorts of things that you can not apply the scientific method to that you can still have knowledge of. (I've said this before in this thread: setting aside strong Cartesian skepticism) You can know your internal states in the absence of the SM, you can know things from your past in the absence of SM, and you can know the existence of external objects without having to apply the scientific method (though you do have to answer the Cartesian skeptic for both the past and the existence of outside objects.)

As a side note? I would totally buy a "Thor and the Space Werewolves" album.

(As a second side-note, a non-trivial number of my friends actively believe in Thor, so as an example it's either perfect or all wrong. On Thor, I personally remain neutral, beyond having seen one a very large, powerful friend of mine scream in rage and get a thunderclap accompaniment once. But then, I have a terrible tendency to write stories that include the pathetic fallacy, too.)

But yeah. Why do you "withhold judgement" about the existence of God, and not about the existence of The Great And Powerful Space Werewolf?

Thousands of years of human tradition have created a false legitimacy?

I've never received a satisfactory answer to that question.

Actually, it's closer to not accepting ANYthing as a fact, more as a belief. Very few pieces of information warrent 'fact', IMO, and as such we're mostly belief-based processors.

What would you say to ruggedize that definition of 'evidence'?

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