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

[partiallyclips.livejournal.com]

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.

[ronin-kakuhito.livejournal.com]

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.

[discarn8.livejournal.com]

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