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

[jinwicked.livejournal.com]

I honestly don't want to be offensive here, but why do you feel you have to call yourself an atheist here, as opposed to an agnostic? I accept you don't believe in any gods, but it sounds like you're not just keeping an open mind on the subject, but aggressively pursuing it.

Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines agnostic as

a person who holds the view that any ultimate reality (as God) is unknown and probably unknowable; broadly : one who is not committed to believing in either the existence or the nonexistence of God or a god

I don't believe the existence of god(s) are unknowable. I believe, based on my own personal analysis of history, politics, and psychology, that god(s) are a human product of wishful thinking and a coping mechanism to grapple with our own mortality. These conclusions combined with the complete lack of scientific evidence for god(s) brings me to my current position. I am not an agnostic. I am an atheist. I am an atheist who would desperately like to be proven wrong, but I am still an atheist.

To be agnostic, you must assert that because something is unknowable, neither party can be correct or have superiority over the other. But that is an intellectually dishonest position. We are all born atheists. We seek out faith when we realize we don't want to die. We seek out faith when we feel life should have a greater meaning or purpose. We are indoctrinated to faith when it is taught to us by our family and our society.

If the person who claims the existence of god(s) is ultimately unknowable is honest with him or herself, he or she must admit that the atheist position is the more logical and more likely choice. Most people do not believe in most of the gods worshipped over the course of human history. The atheist simply takes it one step further. Why would someone who admits there is no evidence for the existence of god(s) continue to sit on the fence? You don't believe in the Tooth Fairy or Santa Claus, but you can't prove they don't exist any more than ghosts, UFOs, or god(s).

This is at the root of the atheist's comment from your original post.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

To be agnostic, you must assert that because something is unknowable, neither party can be correct or have superiority over the other.

I would tend to add to this definition the possibility that the agnostic doesn't believe the answer is unknowable, but only that he does not know it.

M-W supports that, as well, as much as I hate going to a dictionary in a *technical* discussion, as dictionaries reflect common usage, not technical usage. See also: "It's just a theory!"

[mazlynn.livejournal.com]

"We are all born atheists. We seek out faith when...."

Reading through this thread, I think this nails the one underlying difference between atheist, theists, and agnostics that everyone is arguing around without defining.

People who consider themselves atheist consider "There is no god" to be the default position. If given proof otherwise, they will change their mind, but lacking proof of his/her/its/their existence, the atheist will assume that the god(s) do(es) not exist.

People who consider themselves to be theist consider "there is a god/gods" to be the default position. They may be willing to reconsider that position if proof that a god does not exist is presented, but in the absence of any proof they will assume that a god does exist.

People who consider themselves to be agnostic consider "there is no default position" to be the default position. In the absence of any proof that there is a god, and in the absence of any proof that there is not a god, they will withhold judgment on whether there is a god or not until some conclusive evidence has been reached one way or another.

At least that's my take on the issue, for the centrist portions of the argument. Of course there are also people on both sides of the argument who feel that they HAVE had proof that a god does or does not exist. You've conducted your tests, and concluded on a level that satisfies you that there is no god. Others have had experiences that satisfy them that there is indeed a god. Obviously, you would consider yourself an atheist, and they would consider themselves theists. And there are yet others on both sides of the fence who would cling to their theist or atheist positions even in the face of proof otherwise.

But for those who start the statements with "Well, there's no proof one way or the other, but...", I'd define them as atheist, agnostic, or theist based on what their default position is.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

They may be willing to reconsider that position if proof that a god does not exist is presented

Which is a trick, because
1) proof of nonexistence is impossible. Logically, factually, take your pick. You can't prove nonexistence. You can only disprove existence of a specific thing in a specific testable form.
2) "proof" of anything at all outside of abstracts like mathematics is impossible. There's specifically no such thing as proof in science.

[mazlynn.livejournal.com]

Yes, I misspoke there. Technically it should have read "strong evidence in support of" instead of "proof of". It's a common shorthand that even I tend to slip up and use, no matter how often I scold my students for doing the same thing. Doing that edit doesn't change the underlying meaning of my definitions though.

[demiurgent.livejournal.com]

Despite that, you seemed to hit the nail I've been flailing around all day.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Yeah, but how many things are you going to "withhold judgment" on? And what's your criteria to distinguish between "has no evidence in favour and no reason to believe, discard" and "has no evidence in favour and no reason to believe, withhold judgment"?

What is it about belief in God that makes it special in ways that belief in Space Werewolves isn't?

And if you're going to go with the God Of The Gaps "we don't know what's there, so it might be God" argument, I'm okay with that. I can also present you with a dozen explanations as to why it's logically indefensible.

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

[jinwicked.livejournal.com]

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.