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My problem with atheism
(lemmy.world)
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this post was submitted on 31 Aug 2024
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OK, it still seems like taking sides to me when there's no evidence one way or the other. I'd just say "I don't know" and move on. No need to take sides on something that I'm clueless about, like what's reality or its origins.
A human believing that God's don't exist based on reason is totally irrelevant, considering how limited human knowledge and reason is in these matters.
There is no third position here. You have to know whether or not you believe something. Either you believe it or you don't.
Either you believe unicorns exist or you don't. You can't not know whether or not you believe they exist. You can not know whether or not they exist, but that is a different thing.
You have to know what you believe because it's what you believe.
I think you can't say this is a rule for every scenario. "Believe or not believe" seems to be an opinion of yours that I'm personally not bound to. I'm fine just accepting I don't know something that is clearly outside of the grasp of my rational thought or logic.
I'm not sure why you guys keep comparing the existence of a god with unicorns or leprschauns. But ok, I'll play along. Do I believe there are unicorns in earth? No, we have a pretty good understanding of the land of this planet. If you said "they live in another dimension" I'd just dismiss that because whoever said it has no clue about what "another dimension" is.
Bernard Russell used a teapot in space analogy to show that belief in something that may or may not exist and isn't tangible to living doesn't seem to be worth investing the effort of belief in.
Carl Sagan had a quote, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence".
Christopher Hitchens had his own: "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence."
All of these are open-minded observations that can be easily changed with evidence that supports the religious claims. Which are lacking.
I agree with all of them. I feel both sides have the problem of belief. "May or may not exist", as you said.
Whether you believe something or not is not outside the grasp of your rational thought. Just... answer the question. That's all it takes to know if you believe something, you take a moment to introspect and you say whether you believe it or not.
There's also a difference between lacking a belief in a proposition and believing in the negation of that proposition. Lacking a belief in something (for example, any particular god) is not the same thing as believing that that god does not exist. Both are atheism, they're just different kinds of atheism. "Strong atheism" and "weak atheism" are the usual terms to distinguish between them.
I'll play along. When I ask myself that question I immediately answer "I don't believe", just because I've conditioned myself to answer that over the years. The same way I answered "I believe" when I was conditioned during my childhood.
My point is that choosing sides is a fallacy, it's something very human though. Over the past years I've realized that I don't need to take sides and that I'm better off accepting when I just don't know something, just avoid having opinions about matters that I can't understand.
But yes, I still answer "I don't believe" internally. Hopefully I'll learn to turn "I don't know" into my instinctual answer.
You seem to think if you believe something, you have to hold that belief for a length of time before it becomes a belief. That's not how believing things work.
If you don't believe that there is a god for 10 seconds and then start believing again, you are an atheist for 10 seconds.
I honestly didn't understand what you said there. I don't believe a person needs to hold a belief for some time for it to be valid. Not sure how you arrived to that conclusion.
I just said that my instinctual answer isn't one that matches my worldview clearly. When I say "I don't believe" I actually mean "I have no belief/I don't know". I just need to train myself to say "I have no belief" which represents what I feel much better and with less ambiguity.
What you don't "understand," despite multiple people telling you multiple times, is that belief isn't knowledge.
Maybe the text wasn't large enough for you.
BELIEF ISN'T KNOWLEDGE.
"Knowing" and "believing" are two separate things. There are plenty of theists who would say "I don't know that god exists but I believe that it does."
Yeah, in this case believing anything is worthless because we don't understand the origin of reality. That's my point. It's fine to believe something when enough evidence has shown it is likely the case. It is not fine to believe something is true without evidence, or false because of lack of evidence. Specially when gathering evidence about it is nearly impossible with our current understanding.
Maybe the humble thing to do is to wait until we gather more evidence that supports or rejects these ideas.
Of course it's a rule of every scenario. It's a binary. There is no third position just like there is no third position between breathing and not breathing. You either believe something or you don't. If you accept that you don't know something, you can still believe it's true. You can also believe it isn't. You keep confusing belief and knowledge.
Again, not sure where that "it is binary" affirmation comes from. Is that what you believe? Or do you consider that to be an absolute truth?
There are some many things I honestly have no beliefs about. It's like I'm a walking counterargunent to your affirmation.
Do I believe we live in a simulation? I honestly don't know and I don't know what to believe because I have no idea how reality works. Maybe? Maybe not? I honestly have no idea. How can I know if reality is real? I don't know.
Is there a god? I don't know. The question is too deep and if I said yes or no I'd be just guessing because I do not understand reality like that. There are things I do understand... how reality was created isn't one of them.
That would be a lack of belief.
For the hundredth time, knowledge is not belief.
Understanding is also not belief.
There is no end to things that may exist but are not provable. Where do you draw the line? There might be a toaster orbiting the sun.
Based on our understanding of human history, we KNOW that toasters were created on earth and that it is unlikely one is in orbit on the sun... This is based on knowledge. Even if based on knowledge, I could be wrong.
Now, what do you KNOW about the creation of the universe or the nature of reality?
This is my whole point. I'm not saying it is wrong to have solid opinions about some things. I'm saying it is wrong having solid opinions about things we really don't understand.
There is no precedence for the existence of deities.
For belief in deities, yes, but not for their existence.
That is all we need to say if we believe in the existence of deities; prior plausibility.
Staying in the middle ground of "maybe, we don't know" makes no sense, because it puts the plausibility one step further towards "yes" than is warranted based on the evidence we have.
"There is no precedence for the existence of deities"
What makes you think humans have the capacity to perceive or understand deities?
It feels like you guys are really not understanding my point. Please put human existence into perspective and tell me how much we really know. Now, how much is there to know?
It's like a blind person saying color doesn't exist because he can't experience it. You see? Humans will live and die in the relative blink of an eye. Chances are we won't really get to know what's actually going on. Right now we don't really know, so having any opinion about what's happening based on lack of evidence is really pointless. We have no evidence for most things that are actually happening in the universe.
Sorry for my very late response.
In your example of color, there are people who can, and people who can't see colors.
Is there any analogy between that and god belief?
Not just belief, because anyone can believe anything. I mean knowledge, or sensory input.
If no one can sense (detect) deities, then how can anyone say that there is one?
And if we can't say that there is one, why would it be unreasonable to conclude that there probably isn't one?
That is all I as an atheist believe. That, lacking any evidence, it seems reasonable to conclude that there probably aren't any deities.
All this talk about it being beyond our understanding sounds like begging the question if you can't demonstrate it.
Yes, it is unreasonable to conclude anything when the subject is so out of our reach.
My point is that human perception, intelligence and understanding of the universe is comparable to a blind person and colors. Just because a blind person doesn't perceive colors or has evidence of its existence, doesn't mean that colors don't exist. Just because humans aren't intellectually capable of understanding the origin of the universe and the existence of a creator, doesn't mean a creator doesn't exist.
This whole "there's no evidence" isn't an absolute statement, it's more like "humans haven't gathered the evidence". Humans haven't gathered evidence for most of the things that are actually happening in the universe, and they are happening. We're miniscule. We're so small that we're trapped in the observable universe, which is probably miniscule itself.
Yet, we stand tall and say aloud "I firmly believe this doesn't exist because we, humans, haven't experienced it".
I hope you see my point now. An ant has no evidence of black holes, yet, they are. Yes, we have no evidence. No, we shouldn't BELIEVE something based on lack of evidence.
The thing I love about science is that it is a tool, it isn't concerned with questions such as "does God exist". Atheists use science as the basis for a belief that not even scientists are concerned with. Science is a practical tool to increase our knowledge, it doesn't take a stand on matters outside of it's reach. Science doesn't say "there are probably no gods because there's no evidence". That belief is not a direct result of the evidence we have gathered, that's just atheism thinking science and evidence have more power than they do.
So again, yes, it is unreasonable to conclude something besides "I don't know".
I personally never said that I think there definitely is no god, so that part is a straw man argument.
It is also not a requirement of atheism, as has been explained to you multiple times. Insisting that your definition is the correct one doesn't make it so.
Also, why is it not begging the question to say that it is out of our reach?
You say it's like blind people and colors, but that analogy doesn't work, because there are people who have seen colors, and can explain how colors work. Do you have a similar example for gods? Are there people who have "seen" gods, so to speak?
It seemed to me like you "concluded" there is no god. You even asked if it was unreasonable to conclude that. Maybe it's semantics but concluding something seems like there's a degree of certainty. Anyways, I have no issue if you decide to clarify that you don't really believe there isn't a god.
If you read where people said that not all atheists believe there is no god, you probably also read that I said "OK, I didn't know there were different types of atheists, I'm only talking about the ones that believe there is no god". Then, I'm not sure why you'd point that out now. My position is clear, I'm only talking about people who really believe there are no creators. For me, that's just that, a belief. I think we shouldn't believe matters we can't grasp, one way or the other.
An analogy is an analogy, it doesn't have to be a perfect analogy, the idea can be understood. In that analogy all of humanity is the blind person. We may be able to see the colors in the future once we gain more knowledge and understanding... Until then, we're just guessing. I'd prefer if people didn't guess, I'd prefer if people had no issue accepting their ignorance and their relevance in the universe.
"I don't believe there is a God because humans haven't gathered the evidence of it". That just seems too egocentric to me, as if humans had the universe figured out.
"I believe there is no god" and "I believe there is a god" seem just as likely to me based on what humans understand.
"I believe there is a god" seems less likely, given the evidence. It only seems equally likely if you arbitrarily put god above everything else. Something someone only does if they think it is important to keep the idea alive.
Again, we don't really understand the nature of the universe. We barely understand some of its rules, probably in a very incomplete or scoped way. Whatever you choose to believe in this matter is just a guess.
One day we'll probably understand the inner workings, we'll probably be able to simulate the actual origin, we'll be able to figure out all the interactions. Until that day arrives, if it ever does, we should just stop playing this guessing game and accept we just don't know.
Is it really hard to just say "I don't really know, believing anything about matters I don't really understand isn't productive, let's focus on actually gathering knowledge instead of fighting about who's got the best guess"?
Yes, it is.
If we don't see evidence, then clinging onto the concept just because people have believed in it in the past doesn't make sense.
Because if not for that, we wouldn't be having this conversation. Because we wouldn't have a concept of there possibly, maybe being a god in the first place.
You have not seen evidence for most of the things that are happening in the universe.
Does that translate to a 50/50 chance of gods existing?
So there is actually a valid critisism of Russel's teapot, or toaster in this case, that there could be a detectable causality that put the object in orbit even if the object itself cannot be observed (such as a rocket to deliver it). However, this (minor) flaw in a popularized analogy does nothing to reject what the analogy represents: A stupid idea that cannot really be falsified, even though it is false (see what I did there?).
Atheist do not carry any belief in not believing (this even sounds stupid). We simply have come to the conclusion that there is no basis for believing in any particular denomination, nor some unspecific general one for that matter.
Yeah, I guess it really comes down to semantics.
Does "I don't believe" mean "I believe there is no god" or "I don't have a belief"? I think there is a very important distinction here. The first one says "based on my experience, I think it is unlikely there is a god". The second one says "I really don't believe anything about it, one way or the other".
My point targets the first one. The experience and evidence built by humans is just relatively insignificant... This is my problem with this line of thought. "There is no evidence" doesn't give any degree of confidence at all when it comes to this matter. There no evidence for most of the things that make reality exist, and yet here we are.
Atheists mean by the second that they find as little material basis for believing in god as in [insert whack theory here (teapot, spaghettimonster, etc.)]. We do make a judgement one way or the other, we say that our default position is not believing literally incredible things without proof.
The bar for what needs to be proven unless assumed false is higher the more that is claimed. Since god (especially to monotheistic denominations) are by definition the highest being claimed to exist, there is a huge burden of proof required for believing in it. Since there exists none, we choose to assume that the statement is false.
The reason we make all these stupid analogies is to hammer through the point that we, like everyone else, make a lot of assumptions that unproven things are false. The question of god is not really special in this regard, except for the historical and biological conditions that makes people inclined to believe in the fairytale absent of any good objective reason.
You used "not believing" in your explanation. Does that mean "I have no belief" or does it mean "I believe it is false"?
Edit: ah ok, so you choose to believe it is false. Yeah, I can't agree with this. I do agree with having no belief at all. Assuming something is false because there is no evidence seems like a rushed conclusion to me. I understand the burden of proof falls on them, but the fact they don't have evidence doesn't make them wrong.
If you want to make conclusions about matters humans can barely comprehend based on your human comprehension, that would be something very human to do, so it's understandable.
We do not know everything about the universe, sure, but to say it is outside our scope of comprehension is a stretch that I would argue follows from religious dogma: "God works in mysterious ways" and all that. In fact, the developments of the last centuries have shown that most of the things we thought were mysterious, we could actually explain with science.
Most religious people claim to know more about the world than atheists: After all, they are the ones having some sort of relationship with some ethereal/omnipotent being.
It's not about God working in mysterious ways, it's about us having very little understanding of what constitutes reality. Like you know, this thing we're experiencing right now. We don't really understand it, or do you understand what's happening right now?
It is indeed a mystery because we have no idea how reality works. Even if God doesn't exist, reality is a mystery. We understand some things, sure, but we don't really understand the things that would let us answer "is there a creator?".
So saying "I don't believe in a creator because there's no evidence" just sounds so arrogant... As if humans had enough evidence to determine thst lack of evidence is good enough to reject something. The amount of evidence we have gathered about reality is probably extremely small compared to the evidence there is to gather.
I am not claiming to have some deeper knowledge of metaphysical reality than anyone else. On the contrary, this is precisely what religious people do. I base my understanding of reality based on what I can observe and interact with: the material reality.
This does not mean I cannot do imaginative things: I have a background in theoretical mathematics that does not really care about material reality other than the logical predicates that exist within it.
Actually, I am quite dumbfounded by the assumption of any symmetry of typical religious questions such as believing in a creator or not, because in my view any such kind of dichotomy presupposes an original creation in the first place: Why would there be? Because the bible or some other text written by humans says so?
If humanity never developed eyes, everything else remaining the same, we would never imagine seeing colors but we sure as hell would have religions. This is because as a tool for understanding the material world, and in my opinion of philosophy as well, religion is a creative and analytical show stopper.
Atheism is nothing more than a response to the claim that there is a God of some sort.
Specifically, a response that says "I don't believe you".
That's it. That's the minimum position to be considered an atheist.
Yeah, it seems like there's a wider spectrum of atheists than I expected.
I guess I disagree with a subset of the atheist community and people are bringing up the other parts of the community that don't match what I disagree with.
My disagreement is mostly with the atheists that say "there is likely no god because there's no evidence". There's no human evidence for most things in reality, yet reality exists.
I'm aligned with the atheists that say "I don't really know, so I won't waste time setting my mind to a specific belief".