"There's no need to "assert no god" any more than there's a need to "believe in no Santa Claus, underpants gnomes, Tooth Fairy, or Zeus". Reducing things to the level of claiming "believe in the lack of" incorrectly cedes the validity of the question *in the first place* to the crazy people who demand that you talk to their invisible friend."
The problem I see with that position is that a couple hundred years ago "There's no need to assert the belief that the earth is not round. After all, it's obviously flat" in there. Or "there's no need to assert that illness aren't caused by little tiny living particles that infest our blood. Obviously it's caused by bad humours." Or so forth.
What's considered silly enough to fit into that default category of belief or non-belief depends to a huge extent on what the default belief structure of the society itself is. In a society which takes the belief in a god for granted, there would be no need to assert your belief in that god, any more than you're asked on a daily basis to assert your belief in gravity. In a society where the belief that there is no god is the default, the reverse would be true. When the society doesn't have a default belief, things get a bit messier.
There's a lot in my daily life that I'm told is science that I take on faith. For instance, I'm told that the earth and the moon revolve around the sun in an interweaving orbit, and that there are similar interactions throughout the surrounding universe. I'm told that there are various calculations about this that prove it as such. But I've never done those calculations or taken those measurements myself, so for all I know it could be a grand conspiracy. But since I don't have the time to investigate every tenet of what my society tells me is true, I haven't investigated that one. I take it on faith that, given the consistency of what I've been told by people who should know, that they probably have it just about right. But if everyone took such things on faith, then new paradigms would never be created, as no one bothers to look for new information.
And I've wandered a bit off track there - I had a point originally, I swear! I can't remember what it was. I guess I'll just close with the reminder that what might seem obviously silly to believe in (or disbelieve in) to your view might not seem that way to another society, past or present. So I guess we consider people to be asserting a believe, or asserting a disbelief, in a theory when that theory is either controversial enough to not have a default acceptance one way or the other in a society, or when the belief or disbelief they are asserting runs contrary to that of the world view of the society they live in.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2007-12-04 12:57 am (UTC)The problem I see with that position is that a couple hundred years ago "There's no need to assert the belief that the earth is not round. After all, it's obviously flat" in there. Or "there's no need to assert that illness aren't caused by little tiny living particles that infest our blood. Obviously it's caused by bad humours." Or so forth.
What's considered silly enough to fit into that default category of belief or non-belief depends to a huge extent on what the default belief structure of the society itself is. In a society which takes the belief in a god for granted, there would be no need to assert your belief in that god, any more than you're asked on a daily basis to assert your belief in gravity. In a society where the belief that there is no god is the default, the reverse would be true. When the society doesn't have a default belief, things get a bit messier.
There's a lot in my daily life that I'm told is science that I take on faith. For instance, I'm told that the earth and the moon revolve around the sun in an interweaving orbit, and that there are similar interactions throughout the surrounding universe. I'm told that there are various calculations about this that prove it as such. But I've never done those calculations or taken those measurements myself, so for all I know it could be a grand conspiracy. But since I don't have the time to investigate every tenet of what my society tells me is true, I haven't investigated that one. I take it on faith that, given the consistency of what I've been told by people who should know, that they probably have it just about right. But if everyone took such things on faith, then new paradigms would never be created, as no one bothers to look for new information.
And I've wandered a bit off track there - I had a point originally, I swear! I can't remember what it was. I guess I'll just close with the reminder that what might seem obviously silly to believe in (or disbelieve in) to your view might not seem that way to another society, past or present. So I guess we consider people to be asserting a believe, or asserting a disbelief, in a theory when that theory is either controversial enough to not have a default acceptance one way or the other in a society, or when the belief or disbelief they are asserting runs contrary to that of the world view of the society they live in.