The struggle to definitively prove or disprove the existence of atheists has puzzled philosophers for centuries. Some have proposed the cosmological argument — “many cosmologists seem to be atheists” — while others have fallen back on the argument from design — “without atheists, who would believers have to argue against?”
But the Catholic Encyclopedia seems unconvinced by these arguments:
The most trenchant form which atheism could take would be the positive and dogmatic denial existence of any spiritual and extra-mundane First Cause. This is sometimes known as dogmatic, or positive theoretic, atheism; though it may be doubted whether such a system has ever been, or could ever possibly be seriously maintained. Certainly Bacon and Dr. Arnold voice the common judgment of thinking men when they express a doubt as to the existence of an atheist belonging to such a school. Still, there are certain advanced phases of materialistic philosophy that, perhaps, should rightly be included under this head. Materialism, which professes to find in matter its own cause and explanation, may go farther, and positively exclude the existence of any spiritual cause. That such a dogmatic assertion is both unreasonable and illogical needs no demonstration, for it is an inference not warranted by the facts nor justified by the laws of thought.
You have to admire the confidence — the fact that “dogmatic atheism” is “both unreasonable and illogical needs no demonstration,” and let’s leave it at that. It’s a little bit different from the tack they take in another entry:
Formal dogmatic Atheism is self-refuting, and has never de facto won the reasoned assent of any considerable number of men.
The Encyclopedia does not dirty its hands by explaining the nature of this self-refutation, any more than it explained the previously-noted unreasonability and illogic. I like it! It’s kind of like arguing on the internet.
omh,
Straw man? Damn. I was shooting for something a little more nuanced than your average straw man. Lemongrass man? Rosemary? Anyone?
Some people feel there is only “so much” good stuff in the world -that they are better than others and therefore they must grab all they can while others feel that there is more than enough for everyone and in the end “god” will provide a sort of pantheism.
Just an idea
What do you call someone who is non-committal about the existence of a god-like entity, but is sure that they don’t believe in religious dogma.
to Matt (the real one)
Yes, I’d agree with omh — that would be straw you constructed. There are a lot phenomena associated with the human mind that we are only now beginning to come to grips with. For example, we can turn off and on the mechanism in the brain that gives the owner a sense of either “self” separate from the rest of the universe or a sense of “being one with the universe” and even the sense of separation from one’s body. The abductions by “devils” or “fairies” or (the list is very long) of previous centuries became abduction by “aliens” only in the past half century or so. The fact that 100s of people claim to have been abducted by aliens says a lot more about the workings of the human brain than it serves as any argument that we should seriously consider these claims. That’s not to say that every such claim was automatically rejected out of hand. They have been investigated, and the evidence for actual alien abduction is found lacking. Later claims sound follow the same patterns and so aren’t considered interesting to most. Of course, if something new and much more interesting comes up, it ought to be investigated.
Matt (the real one),
Damn, I was trying to bait you into a paranoid rant about alien abductions. I’ll go with lavender. Because it is very hot here and I once had some refreshing and delicious lavender-ade.
When asked “As an atheist, why don’t you just go around killing whoever you don’t like,” I answer one of two ways. When sober I reply, “If your belief in God is the only thing keeping you from mass slaughter, by all means do not let me shake your faith.”
When I’m drunk I simply leer and say “How do you know that I don’t?”
What’s with all the word parsing? Belief is just that – belief. Faith is just that — faith. Maybe it’s true, maybe it’s not. We hope it is. The atheists I know believe there is no God. The religious I know believe there is a God. None are willing to admit they might be wrong, even though the nature of belief is exactly that possibility.
Since, as many of you have pointed out, there is no evidence of an interventionist God and there no effect observed in one’s existence derived from such a being, why does it matter if one person ascribes a certain event to a force of nature or if they call it God? Why not allow others the semantic latitude to call it what they will? It seems the whole argument is based on whether one is correct or incorrect and based on the state of the knowledge and rationale presented here, it hardly seems prudent to even enter the debate!! I am not a philosopher and not a scientist and so I can’t cite Occam or Einstein to bolster my assertions. But, since science hardly proves anything, and since science merely “believes” what has not yet been disproved (which may be proven later with more evidence), it seems to me that what attracts people to one side of the argument or the other is more a matter of taste. The deist is attracted to the argument that God exists, perhaps that he even cares or intervenes mostly because he wants to or enjoys or desires believing. The atheist/ agnostic is attracted to proofs and evidence and to the idea that the facts or truth of things can be discerned logically. I somewhat straddle the debate because I like them both. I find both sets of arguments to have a certain inherent beauty. I don’t see anything “wrong” with that. This probably takes some of the fun out of the deal for those that like to win arguments, oh well.
t appears a key point is whether “certainty” is necessarily “dogmatic.” My lack of belief is open to reconsideration upon the presentation of new, convincing, reliable evidence. The failure of believers to come up with such evidence is not proof that my certainty is “dogmatic.”
I suppose the definitions could be shifted, so that “certainty” mean “absolute certainty.” But I would only accept that if believers acknowledged that they are not certain about that the Earth is not flat, etc.
I think that anyone who experiences AWE and WONDER on observing aspects of the physical universe is experiencing respect for a higher reason or cause. They may may well have little or no respect for what organized religions call “God”. Scientists are by nature very spiritual people who reject religion.
HI, (commenter not greeting!)
You’ve got a point, that the FC responsible for this existing (whatever that really means …) is not logically required to be like “God” in other respects. For example, I don’t think It is omnipotent and could turn a prince into a frog in a poof. But it the laws of physics were not finely tuned, there wouldn’t even be a way for frogs to evolve (and, to the chagrin of traditional believers, their descendents to become princes!) That’s why I think the FC does relate to traditional God in some ways at least: Purpose. It clearly is angling to have something “interesting” and to have a life of its own, whatever IT really is. It may not be any more imaginable to us than say, the never-reached Omega infinity of infinite set theory, or ironically, the “true nature” of material particles that QM says we are just getting indirect insights about from measurments, thinking about collapse, etc.
huh?
let’s talk “how do you know?” for a minute.
the sum total of the information re. any deity and its rules that we have in our possession is human in origin. it is not from independent *observations*. it is all from stuff we have been *told*. by *people*, many of whom claim to have observed things. but all *we* get to know, is what they’re telling us. we don’t get to go see what they ‘saw’. many of the people conveying these narratives are well-meaning. but they have their information from *other people*. the thing is, people are sometimes wrong. they frequently have an agenda of some kind. sometimes people are deluded. and in fact, perfectly brilliant, excellent people sometimes get bad information, and pass it along.
based on what i know of the written record of deities, psychicness has never been conferred upon humans, as a group, at any point. so how are we supposed to know which human is right? was it joseph smith? david koresh? cardinal bernardin? the pope? jerry falwell? my next-door neighbor? your very most favoritest professor?
and if even one of those humans from whom we have gotten our information about deities *was* totally correct, 1. we can’t know which of those humans really is correct, because we’re not psychic; 2. the likelihood that there even *is* one untarnished chain of information going back to actual events is infinitesimally small; and 3. we’re not psychic, so if there is such an untarnished chain of information, we will never a. know which one, and/or b. be able to recognize our contemporary living link.
“it’s turtles all the way down.”
so. i am an atheist. i exist. therefore, atheists do exist.
I identify myself as an agnostic – I don’t believe in any of the gods I’ve been introduced to inside of churches, but I do believe in some form of spirituality. I’m not sure what exactly a ‘spirit’ is, but I identify it as the source of strength that I tap into to remain calm, to stay true to what I value, to be truthful when dishonesty seems easier, and so on. That strength, whatever it may be called, can have powerful and far-reaching (even if mundanely-explainable) effects.
I am personally convinced, however, that *if* any gods exist, their scope is limited to our little planet, or at best our solar system. In the vastness of space, anything greater seems absurd to me. (Unless worshipping the entire universe and its physical laws, but I don’t think any society could really do that one justice.) The Sun is actually my #1 candidate for known entities deserving of worship – it really is the giver of light and life (and nearly all forms of energy) to us. Many ancient religions had a strong sun-worshipping core, and many more may be indirect sun-worshippers – one book I read made a fairly strong case for the New Testament being an allegorical account of the constellations moving across the sky over the course of a year. (Not that I’m promoting or claiming sun-worship, of course – just noting that it seems the most sensible if forced to pass judgement on that sort of thing.)
On a close-but-not-quite-related note, since we’re also talking about “What is God?”:
A friend and I came up with our own “theologically crackpotted” theory/story about gods actually being beings of emotion – that is, their main influence is to try and affect peoples’ thoughts/emotions, and in turn “feed” off of the most intense emotions of their believers. It elegantly explained why the Christian God proclaimed Himself to be the only god (a tactical gamble to try and win believers, and thus power, from other gods), why many deities demand sacrifices (fear and pain? Yum!), and why worshippers of the One God are so divided (Not just Catholic/Protestant, but Judaism/Christianity/Islam – if fear/pain/suffering are easy sustenance, but there aren’t any other gods left to declare war on, get your worshippers to fight each other! Feed off both sides of the carnage!) This “theory” is also quite compatible with the classic theistic position that has existed since at least the time of the ancient Greeks: “Gods are bastards.”
Sorry for the tangential asides – we now return you to the more traditional forms of theology-thumping. 🙂
I believe in god(s) as much as I believe in Santa Claus/tooth fairy.
All these discussions again seem to be about how many angels can fit on the head of a pin…
I like the way Jim K (#60) put it: “Scientists are by nature very spiritual people who reject religion”.
Nope. There are no atheists.
No one who professes to be an atheist could live consistently with that claim. By their actions, all professing atheists show that deep down they have some knowledge of God. They rely on that knowledge as the basis for all their knowledge.
Sorry, sorry, sorry. I shouldn’t have brought up epsitemology in this group.
To answer the question “Do Atheists Exist”, I will answer: Yes. We do.
John Knight on Jun 26th, 2008 at 4:55 pm
By their actions, all professing atheists show that deep down they have some knowledge of God.
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The God-meme exists, well to the extent that memes exist. I not only believe but know that the God concept exists. This of course is not the same as a belief in God. I don’t know that God does not exist, but the conjecture concerning a deity is to my mind highly problematic, for if nothing else it is a completely ineffective hypothesis.
Lawrence B. Crowell
Lawrence B. Crowell writes: “Without going into great depth here I do think that there are behavioral programs in our brains which predispose us to believe in Gods or supernatural entities.” (#32) “I think that our propensity to believe in gods, along with ghosts, spirits, and the like might stem from our evolutionary past.” (#39)
Let us suppose that the above assertion is correct. Then, unless Gods or supernatural entities actually exist, we must conclude that evolution has programmed humans to believe things that are false. If humans (including Lawrence) are programmed to have false beliefs, then why should I believe Lawrence’s assertion? Indeed, why should anyone rely on human “rational” thought as a means for determining the truth?
Lawrence’s assertion is self-defeating.
No they don’t, and I don’t believe in any assertions to the contrary 😉
Otis said:
Huh? Do I understand you to mean that it’s impossible for delusions or even misunderstandings to exist if evolution is true? You seem to have one of those misconceptions of biological evolution – that evolution exclusively passes along beneficial traits and that such have a single “purpose”. Not so. More to the point, as our brains evolved pattern recognition to survive our changing environments, etc, there are 4 different possibilities that come to mind, so to speak, when seeking such patterns.
1) Something true is believed.
2) Something false is not believed.
3) Something true is not believed.
4) Something false is believed.
The fact that we have “hits” (first 2) as well as “misses” (second 2) along for the ride has served us well evolutionarily. The trick is to maximize the first two and minimize the second two. But we too often lack sufficient information (and possess other deficiencies) to guarantee that we only “hit” – and so we also “miss”. I suppose that should be obvious by now….
Otis on Jun 26th, 2008 at 8:42 pm
we must conclude that evolution has programmed humans to believe things that are false. If humans (including Lawrence) are programmed to have false beliefs, then why should I believe Lawrence’s assertion?
——————-
Forget the idea the human brain evolved to solve differential equations or to invent electronics. It evolved to adapt our species to a wide range of environments, where this adaptation came about in its later stages through language. Of course this is a conjecture or hypothesis on my part, but I suspect that our linguistic abilities were selected for because it permitted our species to communicate things about the world in novel ways. I further think this was done through our ability to tell stories and to project what I call anthrotypes onto the world, or into other people’s minds. The anthrotypes we project onto the world are spirits or gods. Consider that fiction is largely about projecting characters into the minds of readers. By projecting anthrotypes onto the patterns of nature, seasons, animal migrations, periods of rain, drought etc, this was a way of delivering vital information needed for survival from one generation to the next. That this evolution of the brain also permitted reasoning is maybe in part a byproduct, or an accidental emergence.
Evolution operates from one generation to the next. There is no game plan or goal in how life evolves. A species may evolve perfectly well along some path of selection, only to be later delivered into an evolutionary cul de sac. Human beings lived for 100,000 years perfectly well with what might be called nature religions. It has only been in the last 5000 years that religions become abstractions about larger gods and then eventually God. It has only been in the last few centuries where all of this has been found to be incongruent with what we understand by reason and observation. So a pattern of behavior or neuro-psychology that worked perfectly for many thousands of years has only recently lead to a President of a nuclear armed state who believes in a final battle between Jesus and Satan. Maybe we are entering an evolutionary cul de sac.
Science is not about determining the truth. It is about building model systems which are commensurate with what we measure or observe in the world. There are a whole lot of things in physics which people really should not take as literal IMO. Things such as Newton’s lines of force, or quantum wave functions, strings cavorting around, or even visual ideas of curved spacetime are model constructions. Nobody should fall into the trap of thinking these things are somehow real. They are useful logico-algebraic systems of abstracted objects or models we use to benchmark what we observe.
Lawrence B. Crowell
Lawrence Crowell —
But these things you mention in your last paragraph — quantum wave functions, infinitesimal strings — aren’t they as “real” as anything else, if they somehow work? If they permit successful predictions? Isn’t all of human life more or less building model systems — my heritage, my country, my career, my family — that facilitate survival? With varying levels of observational palpability. Then should we consider religion just another model system that helps struggling, fearful mankind survive, feel good about itself? Or does it somehow differ from quantum mechanics?
BTW, your contributions to this thread IMHO have been singularly refreshing and pertinent.
Jim K
This is a generalisation; there are some scientists who, being very spiritual by nature, do not reject religion.
Garth
Cultures previous to globalized industrialism defined themselves by the narratives of their environment and their existence in it. These stories were their social glue, the gossip and the wisdom that defined the people as an amorphic mass. Now we have… what? Money? Certainly the majority can’t say happiness. The things that bring us together are, for the most part, the same things that always have – food, family, holidays, recreation. When this kind of social collectivism extends to include our whole community and even the environment, it’s inevitable that the poets and scientists words juxtapose. And why shouldn’t they? In the end, science provides no answers. Nor does materialism. Spiritual answers are not empirical or physical. Unless you deny the existence of anything beyond your perception, which is simply illogical, God or god(s) are working through you.
The very structure of human civilization today is based on the ideas of our forefathers. It is impossible to deconstruct any aspect of modern culture and find it without resemblance to its predecessors, be it the Bible or the Vedas or the Quran or the Iliad or the Constitution.
To say the tooth fairy doesn’t exist is to refute a story via logic, while to reject god(s) or God is to reject the power these ideas have in our modern day culture. In the end, it’s equally meaningless to argue that God or god(s) are any more real than the tooth fairy. They are as real as our power of imagination. Until the world becomes too bland to be made into fanciful dialog, such entities will always exist. I pray they always will.
The assumption is that a god would be a platonic ideal form from which we fell and seek to return, but the absolute, the universal state, is elemental, so the source of consciousness would be the raw essence of awareness from which intellect is an emergent ordering phenomena. If one were to impose a fractal progression onto the process of evolution of which we are part, then the next stage for human civilization is to transcend from being top predator in the planetary eco-system to central nervous system of the planetary organism. Which would posit a certain Gaia type entity.
Since top predators are early victims of collapsing eco-systems, the alternative is not pretty.