I'm an Atheist - English
I’m an atheist.
The bare minimum to be an atheist is that you aren’t convinced that some kind of god exists. That’s it. You don’t need any more than that. Theism means being convinced there is a god, atheism is the lack of that conviction.
I take it a step further. I believe no god exists. Every religion describes a being that is active, intercessory, involved, participatory. Every action requires a response action. Every act leaves evidence. All changes create history. Any of the gods described by the world religions should be evident, they should all be in some way visible.
And there is no evidence. That’s why we have religionS, and not just a religion.
There’s no Christian Chemistry, Buddhist Biology, Muslim Math, Hindu History. There’s just chemistry, biology, math, and history. In the pursuit of knowledge, we follow where the evidence leads and greater amounts of evidence lead to a single conviction. Our learning always proceeds from mystery to certainty, not the other way around.
Contrast all our fields of knowledge with all of our religions. Christianity began as a crowd of conflicting cults; one cult dominated only because it got lucky in latching on to the mother of an emperor. Even that dominance didn’t last; the church splintered as soon as the empire did. Today there are tens of thousands of branches of Christianity.
If there ever was a historical Muhammad, then his lifetime was the only time Islam was unified. Their own texts tell us that they split as soon as he died.
Judaism was just one of many polytheistic religions among the Canaanite tribes, and one particularly unpleasant cult came to dominate there. Even then, Judaism has never been a single, united religion. From the Maccabees to the orthodox Jews of today, from the Tabiades to the secular Jews of today, Judaism has been as splintered and factionalized as every other.
Showing posts with label theism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label theism. Show all posts
Monday, March 05, 2018
Monday, December 19, 2011
Whence Religion?
If there's no good evidence for the god hypothesis, then where did it come from? What purpose does it serve? Why do people keep believing it?
I'll answer these questions briefly and in order.
Whence religion?
I think religion is a by-product of two different drives. The first is general to all thinking creatures (ie. most animals), the second isn't specific to humans, but has definitely found, I suspect, its greatest expression in humans. The first is that we learn, the second is that we teach.
I don't know that all animals learn; sponges and other brainless animals certainly do not. At least one researcher believes the primary purpose of the brain is movement, and other purposes are all secondary. I'm not sure I agree, though he makes a compelling argument. However, one of the things our brain does is allow us, and many other species, to learn. We are pattern-seeking creatures, we seek to master our environment, we want nummy candies and to win in fights and to get laid and all the other things that will help see to it that we have grandchildren (which the first step to evolutionary success).
To that end, we can become addicted to gambling and coffee.
Actually, that's an unfortunate by-product of the learning process. If you know someone who loves his coffee in the morning, you may notice he has a certain way of doing things. It has to be a certain brand of coffee. A specific flavor, region, roast... He might grind it himself and prepare it in his own little French press. He definitely, no question, has his favorite coffee mug, and probably drinks it at a certain time of day; usually it's part of a larger set of "getting up in the morning" rituals.
One of the things caffeine does is short circuit the part of the brain that lets you know you've won. Whether it's a good grade on a test or solving a puzzle or getting a new iPhone, you know that feeling when part of you lights up and does a little happy dance. Of course, a week later that test is crumpled up on the floor of your locker, the puzzle is in the recycle bin, and your phone is no longer to be carefully placed on its own altar on your dresser, but to be thrown casually onto the bed with all the other crap in your pockets. That feeling goes away because you need to move on to the next challenge, figure out the next thing, master your environment more fully.
Caffeine cuts right to the chase and gives you that happy without having to actually solve, win, or buy anything. Your brain, trying to figure out what it's won at, just randomly attaches importance to whatever's going on when you get your buzz on. Over time, the importance accumulates on things that stay the same: the time of day, the kind of coffee, the coffee mug, the way you prepare it... All of these things become important to you not because they actually make the coffee better, but because your brain has been wired to say WRONG if any of that changes. What was a valuable learning tool has been totally screwed by chemistry.
And gambling? That learning process is meant to find patterns so that we can take advantage of them. Dice don't have patterns, so our system goes completely haywire and, again, starts attaching undeserved importance to meaningless rituals. That is to say, gamblers are superstitious because their brains are on their metaphorical knees, crying their metaphorical brain-hearts out. Okay, that's just why gamblers are superstitious. Addiction is more complex and has to do with the fact that losing feels much more bad than winning feels good. As with any other addiction, you do it not because it feels good but because it feels bad when you don't. How good does it feel? The more certain something is, the easier it is to figure out and the less incentive their is to master it. I'd venture a guess that the most popular games at casinos are very nearly 50/50 odds (played correctly, craps and blackjack are, I'd say that, in the long run, so are competitive games like poker).
Anyway, we aren't the only creatures to develop superstitions in the face of an uncontrollable and somewhat random universe. Psychologist B.F. Skinner discovered that pigeons, given food at regular intervals with no reference to the pigeons' behavior, quickly developed superstitions regarding what causes food to drop. Lest you think, "Well, pigeons, yeah, they're stupid. Terry Pratchett said so." and believe yourself immune, more or less the exact same thing has been observed in humans in Dungeons and Dragons Online. Players rapidly conceived the belief that using a certain skill absolutely improved the loot dropped from treasure chests and could not be dissuaded from that belief (note: they were wrong). When the developers made it impossible to use that skill on treasure chests, there were massive fan complaints that their skill had been rendered useless.
In the face of a large and uncaring world where small mistakes can cause massive dying, superstition was and is inevitable. We are all of us autodidacts to a degree, and we all develop these silly habits. Thus learning can make fools of us all.
What about teaching? Animals teaching their young has been observed in the wild, but nowhere to the degree that it's found in humans. Compared to pretty much any animal you care to name, we are weak, blind, and deaf. We might as well not have noses, and our teeth and claws are a joke. We are completely helpless for several years after birth, and our maturation process is an incredibly protracted part of our lives. How the hell do we manage in a dangerous world? By passing accumulated knowledge from one generation to the next. Far more than any other creature I know of, the human animal passes knowledge from one to another. Long story short, if our children didn't listen to us, credulous to a fault, it would be much, much more difficult for this to happen. And, yes, I mean that literally; children are credulous to a fault. They'll believe any damn thing you say.
What this means is that children, lacking critical thinking skills and, I believe, primed to believe everything they're told, absorb their parents superstitions as readily as their hunting skills, their knowledge of interpersonal relationships, and how not to poop in your food.
This notion has spawned the study of memetics, essentially a branch of information theory that might be considered an analog of biological evolution, where ideas and information travel through their space (inside our heads) and warp and mutate based on a much more loosely governed analog of genetic evolution. Think of it this way: a good idea, how to make a really awesome spear, say, maintains itself because deviations make the spear less effective and its demonstrable efficacy discourage deviations; a bad idea, like repeatedly stabbing yourself in the balls to control the urge to masturbate, weeds itself out because it's demonstrably not effective, and anyway masturbating's not actually a bad thing; a neutral idea, like turning around three times and spitting when you jinx something, can just hang around and mutate and warp because it doesn't have any impact one way or the other. After all, since there's no such thing as a jinx, whether you turn before or after you spit doesn't make much difference. Though the schism and five generations of bloody warfare between the preturners and the posturners were quite hard to watch, and let us not speak of the genocide of the widdershin turners by the sunwisers.
Thus it's quite easy to see religion as another superstition and the result of thousands of years of memetic evolution, an evolution that continues today as sects split and diverge and merge and mutate. Whereas most superstitions hang on just because and we don't necessarily attach much importance to them and really belong just to the individual (like the unfortunate ball-players who neither change nor wash their underpants...), religion is a collection of self-supporting memes. It piggybacks on the morality of sanctity by forbidding the questioning of ideas, on on in-group loyalty by providing visible markers of kinship. It produces an internally consistent structure with little or no external reference, nor much need for one. When it does impinge upon the outside world, it but co-opts other learning (societies that were originally pastoral show it in their myths wherein they hate farmers, see Cain and Abel. Societies in arid countries all hate pigs, which require lots of water. Populations prone to bee allergies learn to despise honey.).
In short, modern religions are crude amalgams, a cobbled together attempt to understand and explain the world consisting mostly of superstitions, the crude xenophobias of the world in which they were born, and occasionally useful rules of thumb from bronze age culture. Useful only in a bronze age culture, mind.
Okay, so much for talking briefly. That's where religion came from. Next, what's it for?
I'll answer these questions briefly and in order.
Whence religion?
I think religion is a by-product of two different drives. The first is general to all thinking creatures (ie. most animals), the second isn't specific to humans, but has definitely found, I suspect, its greatest expression in humans. The first is that we learn, the second is that we teach.
I don't know that all animals learn; sponges and other brainless animals certainly do not. At least one researcher believes the primary purpose of the brain is movement, and other purposes are all secondary. I'm not sure I agree, though he makes a compelling argument. However, one of the things our brain does is allow us, and many other species, to learn. We are pattern-seeking creatures, we seek to master our environment, we want nummy candies and to win in fights and to get laid and all the other things that will help see to it that we have grandchildren (which the first step to evolutionary success).
To that end, we can become addicted to gambling and coffee.
Actually, that's an unfortunate by-product of the learning process. If you know someone who loves his coffee in the morning, you may notice he has a certain way of doing things. It has to be a certain brand of coffee. A specific flavor, region, roast... He might grind it himself and prepare it in his own little French press. He definitely, no question, has his favorite coffee mug, and probably drinks it at a certain time of day; usually it's part of a larger set of "getting up in the morning" rituals.
One of the things caffeine does is short circuit the part of the brain that lets you know you've won. Whether it's a good grade on a test or solving a puzzle or getting a new iPhone, you know that feeling when part of you lights up and does a little happy dance. Of course, a week later that test is crumpled up on the floor of your locker, the puzzle is in the recycle bin, and your phone is no longer to be carefully placed on its own altar on your dresser, but to be thrown casually onto the bed with all the other crap in your pockets. That feeling goes away because you need to move on to the next challenge, figure out the next thing, master your environment more fully.
Caffeine cuts right to the chase and gives you that happy without having to actually solve, win, or buy anything. Your brain, trying to figure out what it's won at, just randomly attaches importance to whatever's going on when you get your buzz on. Over time, the importance accumulates on things that stay the same: the time of day, the kind of coffee, the coffee mug, the way you prepare it... All of these things become important to you not because they actually make the coffee better, but because your brain has been wired to say WRONG if any of that changes. What was a valuable learning tool has been totally screwed by chemistry.
And gambling? That learning process is meant to find patterns so that we can take advantage of them. Dice don't have patterns, so our system goes completely haywire and, again, starts attaching undeserved importance to meaningless rituals. That is to say, gamblers are superstitious because their brains are on their metaphorical knees, crying their metaphorical brain-hearts out. Okay, that's just why gamblers are superstitious. Addiction is more complex and has to do with the fact that losing feels much more bad than winning feels good. As with any other addiction, you do it not because it feels good but because it feels bad when you don't. How good does it feel? The more certain something is, the easier it is to figure out and the less incentive their is to master it. I'd venture a guess that the most popular games at casinos are very nearly 50/50 odds (played correctly, craps and blackjack are, I'd say that, in the long run, so are competitive games like poker).
Anyway, we aren't the only creatures to develop superstitions in the face of an uncontrollable and somewhat random universe. Psychologist B.F. Skinner discovered that pigeons, given food at regular intervals with no reference to the pigeons' behavior, quickly developed superstitions regarding what causes food to drop. Lest you think, "Well, pigeons, yeah, they're stupid. Terry Pratchett said so." and believe yourself immune, more or less the exact same thing has been observed in humans in Dungeons and Dragons Online. Players rapidly conceived the belief that using a certain skill absolutely improved the loot dropped from treasure chests and could not be dissuaded from that belief (note: they were wrong). When the developers made it impossible to use that skill on treasure chests, there were massive fan complaints that their skill had been rendered useless.
In the face of a large and uncaring world where small mistakes can cause massive dying, superstition was and is inevitable. We are all of us autodidacts to a degree, and we all develop these silly habits. Thus learning can make fools of us all.
What about teaching? Animals teaching their young has been observed in the wild, but nowhere to the degree that it's found in humans. Compared to pretty much any animal you care to name, we are weak, blind, and deaf. We might as well not have noses, and our teeth and claws are a joke. We are completely helpless for several years after birth, and our maturation process is an incredibly protracted part of our lives. How the hell do we manage in a dangerous world? By passing accumulated knowledge from one generation to the next. Far more than any other creature I know of, the human animal passes knowledge from one to another. Long story short, if our children didn't listen to us, credulous to a fault, it would be much, much more difficult for this to happen. And, yes, I mean that literally; children are credulous to a fault. They'll believe any damn thing you say.
What this means is that children, lacking critical thinking skills and, I believe, primed to believe everything they're told, absorb their parents superstitions as readily as their hunting skills, their knowledge of interpersonal relationships, and how not to poop in your food.
This notion has spawned the study of memetics, essentially a branch of information theory that might be considered an analog of biological evolution, where ideas and information travel through their space (inside our heads) and warp and mutate based on a much more loosely governed analog of genetic evolution. Think of it this way: a good idea, how to make a really awesome spear, say, maintains itself because deviations make the spear less effective and its demonstrable efficacy discourage deviations; a bad idea, like repeatedly stabbing yourself in the balls to control the urge to masturbate, weeds itself out because it's demonstrably not effective, and anyway masturbating's not actually a bad thing; a neutral idea, like turning around three times and spitting when you jinx something, can just hang around and mutate and warp because it doesn't have any impact one way or the other. After all, since there's no such thing as a jinx, whether you turn before or after you spit doesn't make much difference. Though the schism and five generations of bloody warfare between the preturners and the posturners were quite hard to watch, and let us not speak of the genocide of the widdershin turners by the sunwisers.
Thus it's quite easy to see religion as another superstition and the result of thousands of years of memetic evolution, an evolution that continues today as sects split and diverge and merge and mutate. Whereas most superstitions hang on just because and we don't necessarily attach much importance to them and really belong just to the individual (like the unfortunate ball-players who neither change nor wash their underpants...), religion is a collection of self-supporting memes. It piggybacks on the morality of sanctity by forbidding the questioning of ideas, on on in-group loyalty by providing visible markers of kinship. It produces an internally consistent structure with little or no external reference, nor much need for one. When it does impinge upon the outside world, it but co-opts other learning (societies that were originally pastoral show it in their myths wherein they hate farmers, see Cain and Abel. Societies in arid countries all hate pigs, which require lots of water. Populations prone to bee allergies learn to despise honey.).
In short, modern religions are crude amalgams, a cobbled together attempt to understand and explain the world consisting mostly of superstitions, the crude xenophobias of the world in which they were born, and occasionally useful rules of thumb from bronze age culture. Useful only in a bronze age culture, mind.
Okay, so much for talking briefly. That's where religion came from. Next, what's it for?
Monday, November 07, 2011
Knowledge vs Knowledge
A few comments in reply to my thesis on whether or not we can know that god exists were of the form, "You admitted at the start that you can't know god exists, but then you argue that you can. WTF?"
I should have made this distinction more clear then; I was speaking initially of mathematical certainty and arguing at the end for scientific knowledge.
Some things can be absolutely known within a mathematical framework. "If (if A then B) then (if not B then not A)" is a tautological truth within the framework of mathematical logic. On a different note, beginning with the assumption of "B" then it's trivially simple to prove "If A then B". Within mathematics, some things can be proven with absolute certainty. In that sense, we cannot be absolutely certain on the existence of god because it's not a mathematical question.
Scientific knowledge is a different matter. We begin with facts, build from there to laws, and thence to theories. At any time, a contradictory fact could bring the edifice crashing down. Biologist J.B.S. Haldane said, according to popular myth, that rabbits in the Precambrian would explode the theory of evolution. In a sense, scientific knowledge is a mass of supposition resting precariously on the admission that it hasn't been proven false yet. However, the longer a scientific theory lasts without being proven false, the more certain we can be that it is true.
At this point an English major might be tempted to butt in with, "But everything ends up getting proven false! We used to think the Earth was flat! Einstein proved Newton wrong! Neener neener!" At this point I gleefully crib from a delightful essay by Isaac Asimov. Yes, older models have been proven incorrect, but they weren't entirely incorrect and they weren't equally incorrect. The Flat Earth model breaks down after just a few miles when you disappear under a horizon it simply cannot predict. Nevertheless, I've taken advantage of the Flat Earth model on each of my dozen or so cross-country drives by referring to a book of maps, all of them printed on flat paper without losing my way (at least not because of the maps). It's wrong, yes, but it's not entirely wrong. And the spherical model that replaced the flat model is also wrong! The Earth is an oblate spheroid (flattened at the poles) thanks to Newtonian physics, a fact ably demonstrated by the much more oblate Jupiter. And yet the oblate model is incorrect as well because, thanks to odd internal geography, our planet is slightly larger on the southern hemisphere. However, to say that the oblate spheroid model is as incorrect as the spherical model and as incorrect as the flat model is just wrong. One model is more wrong, and none of them are entirely wrong.
Each model accounts for certain observed facts (the earth is apparently flat) and is replaced by a better model that accounts for those and for others (the shadow on the moon is round and we disappear over the horizon), which is replaced in turn by another that takes further facts into account (the laws of motion). In each case, our knowledge is never scrapped or replaced entire, but upgraded and patched. Einstein didn't replace Newton, for Newton's observations and mechanics are nearly perfect for the observations he was capable of making; rather, Einstein expanded upon Newton by developing a mechanic for observations made in the centuries that followed, and Quantum Mechanics did the same a few decades later in the other direction. In other words, scientific knowledge has never truly been one of scrapping a false system for a true system, but of replacing a system with a more accurate one. Lose the burlap sack and put on a prom dress, lose the prom dress and put on a tailored suit.
So why do I believe there is no god on the basis of scientific evidence? Because, after thousands of years of observation, there is no evidence. The old canard "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" can be discarded because absence of evidence, when one would reasonably expect to find evidence is evidence of absence. The longer we go with nothing more than feelings and hopes to confirm the alleged existence of a deity, the more firmly we can say, "Sorry, you've not only failed to convince me you're right, you've convinced me you're wrong." Yes, evolution could be toppled by a Precambrian bunny, but a century and a half of repeated attacks have failed to disprove it; we can say we know evolution is true, in spite of its precarious "not false yet" scientific status. After millenia of abject failure to provide proof or evidence for the existence of a god, or any supernatural phenomenon, why does religion still get a free pass in the opposite direction?
The alleged deity is such a large phenomenon that I feel safe saying I know there is no god because the evidence of such an overwhelming entity should be equally overwhelming. A natural high underwhelms those who don't experience it.
I should have made this distinction more clear then; I was speaking initially of mathematical certainty and arguing at the end for scientific knowledge.
Some things can be absolutely known within a mathematical framework. "If (if A then B) then (if not B then not A)" is a tautological truth within the framework of mathematical logic. On a different note, beginning with the assumption of "B" then it's trivially simple to prove "If A then B". Within mathematics, some things can be proven with absolute certainty. In that sense, we cannot be absolutely certain on the existence of god because it's not a mathematical question.
Scientific knowledge is a different matter. We begin with facts, build from there to laws, and thence to theories. At any time, a contradictory fact could bring the edifice crashing down. Biologist J.B.S. Haldane said, according to popular myth, that rabbits in the Precambrian would explode the theory of evolution. In a sense, scientific knowledge is a mass of supposition resting precariously on the admission that it hasn't been proven false yet. However, the longer a scientific theory lasts without being proven false, the more certain we can be that it is true.
At this point an English major might be tempted to butt in with, "But everything ends up getting proven false! We used to think the Earth was flat! Einstein proved Newton wrong! Neener neener!" At this point I gleefully crib from a delightful essay by Isaac Asimov. Yes, older models have been proven incorrect, but they weren't entirely incorrect and they weren't equally incorrect. The Flat Earth model breaks down after just a few miles when you disappear under a horizon it simply cannot predict. Nevertheless, I've taken advantage of the Flat Earth model on each of my dozen or so cross-country drives by referring to a book of maps, all of them printed on flat paper without losing my way (at least not because of the maps). It's wrong, yes, but it's not entirely wrong. And the spherical model that replaced the flat model is also wrong! The Earth is an oblate spheroid (flattened at the poles) thanks to Newtonian physics, a fact ably demonstrated by the much more oblate Jupiter. And yet the oblate model is incorrect as well because, thanks to odd internal geography, our planet is slightly larger on the southern hemisphere. However, to say that the oblate spheroid model is as incorrect as the spherical model and as incorrect as the flat model is just wrong. One model is more wrong, and none of them are entirely wrong.
Each model accounts for certain observed facts (the earth is apparently flat) and is replaced by a better model that accounts for those and for others (the shadow on the moon is round and we disappear over the horizon), which is replaced in turn by another that takes further facts into account (the laws of motion). In each case, our knowledge is never scrapped or replaced entire, but upgraded and patched. Einstein didn't replace Newton, for Newton's observations and mechanics are nearly perfect for the observations he was capable of making; rather, Einstein expanded upon Newton by developing a mechanic for observations made in the centuries that followed, and Quantum Mechanics did the same a few decades later in the other direction. In other words, scientific knowledge has never truly been one of scrapping a false system for a true system, but of replacing a system with a more accurate one. Lose the burlap sack and put on a prom dress, lose the prom dress and put on a tailored suit.
So why do I believe there is no god on the basis of scientific evidence? Because, after thousands of years of observation, there is no evidence. The old canard "absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" can be discarded because absence of evidence, when one would reasonably expect to find evidence is evidence of absence. The longer we go with nothing more than feelings and hopes to confirm the alleged existence of a deity, the more firmly we can say, "Sorry, you've not only failed to convince me you're right, you've convinced me you're wrong." Yes, evolution could be toppled by a Precambrian bunny, but a century and a half of repeated attacks have failed to disprove it; we can say we know evolution is true, in spite of its precarious "not false yet" scientific status. After millenia of abject failure to provide proof or evidence for the existence of a god, or any supernatural phenomenon, why does religion still get a free pass in the opposite direction?
The alleged deity is such a large phenomenon that I feel safe saying I know there is no god because the evidence of such an overwhelming entity should be equally overwhelming. A natural high underwhelms those who don't experience it.
Monday, October 03, 2011
Strong vs Weak Theism
My last post covered the agnostic and gnostic positions. It also covered the differences between the two atheist positions. However, there's also a distinction between two theistic positions. Just as there are strong and weak atheist positions, there are also strong and weak theist positions.
The strong theist position is "I believe god exists." It is so common that it is unjustly given the privilege of the default position. The default position should be either weak position, "I do not believe...".
Alternatively, we have the weak position "I do not believe that god does not exist." This seems to be so pathetically weak and negative that no one could ever hold it, but I suspect that many, perhaps even most, theists are in fact weak theists.
I offer into evidence the Biblical verse, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." In context, it's the desperate cry of a father that his son receive miraculous healing, because only believers could get that (*cough*blackmail*cough*). But more generally, many believers wrestle with a lack of faith. They pray for help with their faith and their doubts. The correspondence between Mother Theresa and the Vatican showed that she had her doubts, had wrestled long and hard, and faith had lost. If so venerated a figure (sainted, even) can have doubts, why not Joe the plumber or even Joe the pastor?
More tellingly, some people, when questioned about their faith, reply "I don't want it to not be true", "I don't want to believe their is not heaven." Theirs is not a positive affirmation of belief, but a desperate fear of the unknown. They maintain their faith because they cannot bear the consequences of its falsity.
Of course, when asked if they believe, theists will reply with the affirmative "I do believe that god exists", but how many of them are secretly weak theists? How many of them, plagued by doubt, in fact hold only the position that they don't want to believe in nothing? How many of them fear that the alternative to god is nothing, that without theism, all that is left is nihilism?
In truth, there are many godless alternatives. Creative humanity has built a great many houses of non-worship, ways to find truth and beauty and meaning even in the absence of a creator.
Unfortunately, nihilism gets a bad rap. There are two positions there, as well. More on that later.
The strong theist position is "I believe god exists." It is so common that it is unjustly given the privilege of the default position. The default position should be either weak position, "I do not believe...".
Alternatively, we have the weak position "I do not believe that god does not exist." This seems to be so pathetically weak and negative that no one could ever hold it, but I suspect that many, perhaps even most, theists are in fact weak theists.
I offer into evidence the Biblical verse, "Lord, I believe, help thou my unbelief." In context, it's the desperate cry of a father that his son receive miraculous healing, because only believers could get that (*cough*blackmail*cough*). But more generally, many believers wrestle with a lack of faith. They pray for help with their faith and their doubts. The correspondence between Mother Theresa and the Vatican showed that she had her doubts, had wrestled long and hard, and faith had lost. If so venerated a figure (sainted, even) can have doubts, why not Joe the plumber or even Joe the pastor?
More tellingly, some people, when questioned about their faith, reply "I don't want it to not be true", "I don't want to believe their is not heaven." Theirs is not a positive affirmation of belief, but a desperate fear of the unknown. They maintain their faith because they cannot bear the consequences of its falsity.
Of course, when asked if they believe, theists will reply with the affirmative "I do believe that god exists", but how many of them are secretly weak theists? How many of them, plagued by doubt, in fact hold only the position that they don't want to believe in nothing? How many of them fear that the alternative to god is nothing, that without theism, all that is left is nihilism?
In truth, there are many godless alternatives. Creative humanity has built a great many houses of non-worship, ways to find truth and beauty and meaning even in the absence of a creator.
Unfortunately, nihilism gets a bad rap. There are two positions there, as well. More on that later.
The Eight Positions on God
I was inspired to ponder the eight positions as a result of watching this series of videos by Aron Ra. He talks about belief and knowledge about god, but I think his presentation was incomplete, and this was the cause of some confusion in the Q&A session at the end.
"Does god exist?" I won't be trying to answer that question here. Instead I'm going to talk about answers. Whether we can answer the question is not the focus, but there are two classes of statement that should be addressed. They are the four positions on knowledge, and the four positions on belief.
Knowledge:
I know god exists.
I know god does not exist.
I do not know that god exists.
I do not know that god does not exist.
Whether or not something can be known is the province of epistemology. Stating that something is known is that gnostic position. Stating that something is unknown is the agnostic position. I agree, for the moment, with the agnostic position that nothing can be known about god.
First, what is knowledge? Knowledge is distinct from belief in that we can all agree that a thing can be believed without being true. Many people pay good money for homeopathic potions, content in the belief that they are purchasing genuine cures. They are incorrect; they've purchased expensive water. They will be somewhat better hydrated, but they won't be taking medicine. For all that their belief in the efficacity of their nostrum is sincere, and for all that they believe they have evidence to that end, they are incorrect. Their certain belief does not rise to the level of knowledge.
The position of the strict agnostics, that nothing can be known about the existence of god, should be the default position, only abandoned in the face of evidence, or very good argument, to the contrary. Most theists, when pressed, will admit to agnosticism. "There's a reason it's called faith." Even the most ardent atheists will usually also admit to being agnostics.
So on the question of knowledge, the four positions are divided into two categories: gnoticism and agnosticism. I know, one way or the other, or I do not know, one way or the other. Regardless of what they believe, most people will admit to being agnostic.
Belief:
I believe god exists.
I do not believe god exists.
I believe god does not exist.
I do not believe that god does not exist.
These four positions are divided into two categories: theism and atheism. The split is not the same as that of the gnostic/agnostic divide.
The two atheist positions are "I do not believe god exists." and "I believe that god does not exist." These are called weak and strong atheism respectively. The terms are not intended to be pejorative by definition, though they are sometimes used that way. Rather, weak atheism is so called because the statement is fundamentally negative on the part of the user.
The statement "I do not believe that god exists" places the negative aspect in the belief of the atheist. It is a responsive position. The theists posits that god exists and the atheist responds "I don't believe that". It's not a positive statement about the existence of god one way or another. This is in contrast with the strong position.
"I believe that god does not exist" is a positive, descriptive statement. It's a positive position on the part of the declarer about the existence or non-existence of god. Just as the theist is declarative when he says that he believes that god does exist.
Aron Ra, in his video, stated that the correct position is the weak position. I agree that it should be the default position and absent further argument or evidence, it cannot be abandoned. However, I disagree with him that there is no further argument or evidence. The various gods posited by theistic beliefs are all interventionist, with an impact on the world. Anything that alters the world can be tested by the scientific method. Further, supernatural hypotheses all necessarily suppose either that the deity is deceptive, acting to mask their intervention, or that the deity's intervention can be detected due to the violation of otherwise natural causality. As no evidence exists of supernatural intervention, the deity is deceptive, non-interventive or non-existent.
As for intervention, scientific studies have been performed on the efficacy of prayer. Not only did the studies find no positive benefit, it was determined that, when the patient is aware of the prayer, it has a negative placebo effect; they do worse. In this light, a deity is either non-intervening or non-existent.
We now come to the position that the non-intervening deity is functionally equivalent to the deist's position: the creator who then does nothing. However, our study of the cosmos gives us an alternative hypothesis for the origin of everything. We know the universe is closed, open, or flat; regardless, each one gives us an explanation for the existence of everything (the "problem" of why anything exists rather than nothing is usually advanced as a strong argument for a deity). There is no theory of the cosmos that cannot explain existence. The god hypothesis is superfluous. Worse, it's not even an explanation! The god proposed is even more inexplicable than the thing it's being proposed to explain! It takes the thorny problem of existence up to eleven!
The confusion I mentioned above was over the difference between the strong and weak atheist positions. Because Aron Ra hadn't clearly explicated the difference as the position of the negative. The querent queried, in essence, "Why do you believe their is no god?", mister Ra and, I believe, Matt Dillahunty, replied "I don't believe there is a god" The discussion went back and forth with the querent asking the same question and receiving, essentially, the same reply.
Next: Strong versus Weak Theists.
"Does god exist?" I won't be trying to answer that question here. Instead I'm going to talk about answers. Whether we can answer the question is not the focus, but there are two classes of statement that should be addressed. They are the four positions on knowledge, and the four positions on belief.
Knowledge:
I know god exists.
I know god does not exist.
I do not know that god exists.
I do not know that god does not exist.
Whether or not something can be known is the province of epistemology. Stating that something is known is that gnostic position. Stating that something is unknown is the agnostic position. I agree, for the moment, with the agnostic position that nothing can be known about god.
First, what is knowledge? Knowledge is distinct from belief in that we can all agree that a thing can be believed without being true. Many people pay good money for homeopathic potions, content in the belief that they are purchasing genuine cures. They are incorrect; they've purchased expensive water. They will be somewhat better hydrated, but they won't be taking medicine. For all that their belief in the efficacity of their nostrum is sincere, and for all that they believe they have evidence to that end, they are incorrect. Their certain belief does not rise to the level of knowledge.
The position of the strict agnostics, that nothing can be known about the existence of god, should be the default position, only abandoned in the face of evidence, or very good argument, to the contrary. Most theists, when pressed, will admit to agnosticism. "There's a reason it's called faith." Even the most ardent atheists will usually also admit to being agnostics.
So on the question of knowledge, the four positions are divided into two categories: gnoticism and agnosticism. I know, one way or the other, or I do not know, one way or the other. Regardless of what they believe, most people will admit to being agnostic.
Belief:
I believe god exists.
I do not believe god exists.
I believe god does not exist.
I do not believe that god does not exist.
These four positions are divided into two categories: theism and atheism. The split is not the same as that of the gnostic/agnostic divide.
The two atheist positions are "I do not believe god exists." and "I believe that god does not exist." These are called weak and strong atheism respectively. The terms are not intended to be pejorative by definition, though they are sometimes used that way. Rather, weak atheism is so called because the statement is fundamentally negative on the part of the user.
The statement "I do not believe that god exists" places the negative aspect in the belief of the atheist. It is a responsive position. The theists posits that god exists and the atheist responds "I don't believe that". It's not a positive statement about the existence of god one way or another. This is in contrast with the strong position.
"I believe that god does not exist" is a positive, descriptive statement. It's a positive position on the part of the declarer about the existence or non-existence of god. Just as the theist is declarative when he says that he believes that god does exist.
Aron Ra, in his video, stated that the correct position is the weak position. I agree that it should be the default position and absent further argument or evidence, it cannot be abandoned. However, I disagree with him that there is no further argument or evidence. The various gods posited by theistic beliefs are all interventionist, with an impact on the world. Anything that alters the world can be tested by the scientific method. Further, supernatural hypotheses all necessarily suppose either that the deity is deceptive, acting to mask their intervention, or that the deity's intervention can be detected due to the violation of otherwise natural causality. As no evidence exists of supernatural intervention, the deity is deceptive, non-interventive or non-existent.
As for intervention, scientific studies have been performed on the efficacy of prayer. Not only did the studies find no positive benefit, it was determined that, when the patient is aware of the prayer, it has a negative placebo effect; they do worse. In this light, a deity is either non-intervening or non-existent.
We now come to the position that the non-intervening deity is functionally equivalent to the deist's position: the creator who then does nothing. However, our study of the cosmos gives us an alternative hypothesis for the origin of everything. We know the universe is closed, open, or flat; regardless, each one gives us an explanation for the existence of everything (the "problem" of why anything exists rather than nothing is usually advanced as a strong argument for a deity). There is no theory of the cosmos that cannot explain existence. The god hypothesis is superfluous. Worse, it's not even an explanation! The god proposed is even more inexplicable than the thing it's being proposed to explain! It takes the thorny problem of existence up to eleven!
The confusion I mentioned above was over the difference between the strong and weak atheist positions. Because Aron Ra hadn't clearly explicated the difference as the position of the negative. The querent queried, in essence, "Why do you believe their is no god?", mister Ra and, I believe, Matt Dillahunty, replied "I don't believe there is a god" The discussion went back and forth with the querent asking the same question and receiving, essentially, the same reply.
Next: Strong versus Weak Theists.
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