Posted by Ir (Helen) on: 01.28.2007 /
Scott Adams, author of the Dilbert cartoon, posted the following about Irrational Atheists on his blog yesterday:
Allow me to summarize every discussion of atheism that has ever occurred on the Internet:
Atheist: “Religion is irrational.”
Believer: “Oh yeah? Atheism is a religion too, because it’s a cause that’s believed on faith! See Merriam-Webster’s 4th definition of religion.”
Atheist: “Atheism is religion the same way that NOT collecting stamps is a hobby.”
Believer: “You can’t prove the non-existence of God. And belief without proof is faith. Check Merriam-Webster’s second definition of faith. Therefore, atheists are irrational by definition.”
Atheist: “You can NEVER (or almost never) prove a negative. Besides, some things are so obvious that proof is unnecessary. Do you believe there’s a monster under your bed? You have no proof that it doesn’t exist. Therefore, by your reasoning, it’s only reasonable to believe there MIGHT be a monster under your bed.”
Believer: “Hey, you never know.”
And so it is argued by both believers and agnostics that atheists must be either irrational – believing the non-existence of God without proof for that position – or atheists are really just fence-sitting agnostics and don’t admit it.
My question is this: If you reckon that the existence of God has less than a 1 in a trillion chance of being true, based on all the available evidence, but not proof, can you call yourself an atheist? And if so, would you still be irrational?
Comment by: NCxian
1Here is a comment from Jota on the original post. I thought the atheist/theist and agnostic/gnostic definitions and combinations were an interesting way to the address the question. I thought Adam’s question was kind of hard to get a handle on (so I borrowed somebody else’s thoughts–is that kosher in the blog universe?).
I think the “agnostic theist” definition is a little limited, but I like the way Jota eventually decides I’m rational (despite being bad with numbers!).
Comment by: Mike O
2THe original post ended with this:
I would ask the same thing, only backwards:
We’ve been over this before, but coming from the Christian perspective, but based on what I see, there’s no way (or at least a less than 1 in a trillion chance) that this happened by chance. I’m not talking about evolution here … even if evolution were true, for it to be true without a god is beyond statistically impossible.
I wonder if it comes down to a difference between how likely we think things are. “One in a trillion” to an atheist may be “why not … look around you” to a Christian. And “one in a trillion” to a believer may be “why not … look around you” to an atheist.
Comment by: Mike O
3Oh, I forgot, I would call myself an agnostic theist leaning towards gnostic theist (I believe I have proof, but others don’t see it that way). I mean, if you have proof, but nobody believes you, do you not have proof? Who defines whether or not it is proof?
I do not have proof within the scientific, natural realm. I mean, it’s proof to me, but not to atheists. So I suppose it’s not really proof or the atheists wouldn’t be able to disregard it.
OK, was that muddled enough???
Comment by: Siamang
4I’d like to think this conversation’s gotten quite a ways past THIS point!
Comment by: Mike O
5What do you mean?
Comment by: NCxian
6I’d like to think this conversation’s gotten quite a ways past THIS point!
Me too, Siamang. Although we occasionally circle back around and revisit “my evidence trumps your non-evidence” (”my Truth trumps your truth”?), especially on the DB.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
7Siamang, I agree - what Scott Adams struck me as very familiar because I’ve seen it a lot elsewhere. But as you say, we’ve got beyond it here. And what I love is that a number of people have stuck around to get beyond it, instead of throwing out a few assertions then leaving.
Comment by: Stephan
8I’ll repeat a few things I’ve said elsewhere that seem relevant to this post.
I think the hard atheist position is one of faith because you are making a claim - there is no god. I have encountered very few who claim this position.
I think, though, that while the stated beliefs of a soft atheist and a hard atheist may be different, the outcome is the same. Whether you believe, as a hard atheist does, that there is no god, or you believe, as a soft atheist does, that the case for god cannot be proven, you live your life the same way - as if there is no god.
So the difference is really only semantic.
At least that’s the way I see it. But I could be wrong. As always.
Comment by: Ir (Helen)
9NCxian - maybe the circling is another way of saying, three steps forward and two back…well, as long as it’s not two forwards and three back!
Comment by: NCxian
10Yeah. And partly it’s because somebody new arrives and we necessarily rehash some things, to get them up to speed, I think.
Comment by: MTran
11Stephan said:
One of the biggest difficulties in answering whether is a “god” or not is that there are many different definitions of “god.” Different difinitions for “belief,” too.
There is no reason for me to believe that any of the named gods of mythology (including Judeo Christian) exist. So I have concluded that there are no such gods.
Some people use a pantheistic type of defininition that says “god is the universe / the universe is god.” This basically equates “god” with “nature” and everything in it. I accept as true that the universe exists. So if “god” is “nature” or “the universe” I “believe” in god.
Other people use deistic variation and define god as “whatever started the universe.” That “whatever” could very well be the Big Bang or some unarticulable “force.” Since I accept that “something” started the whole shebang, I guess that means I believe in god.
When scientists say that the chances of something happening is “vanishingly small,” or “maybe one it 500 trillion,” that is just science’s way of saying “ain’t gonna happen.” It doesn’t contain enough leeway for me to entertain the notion that such a dim possibility is worth anything. And although I would give that vanishingly small chance its full due if I were speaking about matters of science, when we get out of the lab, I think it translates into something else.
Comment by: Mike O
12Agreed … but like I said back up in #2,
Comment by: MTran
13Mike O.,
I don’t know if I can really make this understandable to someone who hasn’t had more than enough of crazy science courses ;-) (But I am not a scientist, so take my comments with that in mind.)
Science and statistics usually say “No” through the expression of probabilities. This is not at all the same as saying that the scientific community is just looking at one end of the odds and making a different bet than you might.
There are some languages that do not have a directly corresponding word that translates to “yes” or “no”. I was rather surprised when I learned this in a linguistics class long ago. My first thought was “How can that be possible?”
But there are grammatical constructions that work the same way as “yes” and “no” in those languages. For instance, you might ask, “Would you like a piece of chocolate?” The answer may be something like “That would be nice,” or “Thank you, I would like one” rather than a simple “yes.”
Or they could answer in the negative: “I’ve already had enough,” or “I am allergic to chocolate.”
This is just another instance where the language of science and math or statistics has a very different connotation than may first appear.