Theism and Atheism

[richardf8]

A small thought that I had today.

When I reflect on the difference between the theist and the atheist I find the fulcrum to be occam's razor.

For the atheist the idea of a God creating the universe by an act of will is an unverifiable hypothesis, and improbable on that account.  The burden of proof therefore rests with the Theist to demonstrate the existence of God.

For the theist, the order in which the universe finds itself seems the articulation of a will, and this possibility that it could have come together without some kind of guidance and first cause seems likewise altogether improbable.  The burden of proof is therefore on the Atheist to demonstrate the absence of God.

And therein lies the issue - the question of God is either unprovable or indisputable depending on your hypothesis - this moves the question beyond the realm of ontology.  And because of that, either position demands a certain amount of faith.

The first act of faith any human being takes makes ontology possible: it is the decision we must make early on in our lives to believe that our senses are delivering us an adequate model of the world outside our mind.  Without this leap of faith, one may not interact with the world.

Comments

[ziabandito555.livejournal.com]

That sir was one of the most incisive and reasoned thoughts on the topic I have ever heard.

thank you!

well-deduced!

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

"And because of that, either position demands a certain amount of faith."

The main difference in the semantics though, is that one side doesn't call it faith (even though, as you say, essentially it is).

Re: well-deduced!

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Ah, but why use the expression "either position"?

Let's consider what seems to me more like the real world: There are approximately 8,000 religions on the face of the planet in dozens of broad categories, each of whom have practitioners who believe that their particular religion (or variant, at least) is the one true representation of the state of the Universe, and that all the others are false or at least badly flawed. They do this, in general, based upon holy writings or stories, which they consider to be active compelling evidence.

The atheist position is that the evidence is not compelling for any of them. He reasons that there's (so far) nothing about the way the world works that seems to require a supreme being or beings.

He can also observe that people tend to follow the religions of the particular traditions they were born into -- and very few religions hold with the notion that each culture has its own separate supreme deities, thus (at least) almost all of these cannot be correct.

As nearly as I can tell, we are born without a belief in God or gods. We generally learn this belief, among other things, as children. And we can learn new beliefs even when older.

And most of us have at least some degree of wonder at the universe, at the intricate and marvelous mechanics of the world that we inhabit. But it is not, it seems to me, an act of "faith" to say that "I don't know everything about how the world works, but I'm going to explore and try to learn what I can."

Nor is it an act of faith to note that the conflicts between different religions don't seem to have been satisfactorily resolved.

The lack of a theology is not, itself, a theology, any more than the lack of a car is a type of car.

For my own part, I hold no grudge against people who have a theology ... but as for me, I am content to walk.

===|==============/ Level Head

Re: well-deduced!

[richardf8]

The points you bring up have been duly noted by deeper thinkers on the subject that I. Aquinas, in his proof of the existence of God, does not undertake to prove anything about his theology. It is not a case for Catholicism that he makes but merely the case for a creator, which most religions regardless of their theologies, include. I therefore stand by my dichotomy as the first vertex of ontological thought - those who believe in a creator and those who don't - those who do may, from that point be broken apart into their particular theologies. Those who, don't, I imagine may be categorized by differences in their approaches to ontology.

I don't know if we are born, necessarily, without belief in God. I do think there may be a biological predisposition toward belief, or non-belief, and that disposition towards belief is more common. I do not think religion could have risen at all without such a disposition.

Note too that I am not trying to persuade you of anything. I'm simply noting that the dichotomy exists because each side of it regards the other's ontology as being the "more complex" proof.

Re: well-deduced!

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Neither of us expects to persuade the other -- but at least we can discuss it in a civil fashion and not feel threatened. This is a valuable luxury, and a good vehicle for learning. Thanks!

It seems to me that "almost everybody believes that there must be something" adds apparent power to a sort of "generic theism" position -- but it's not particularly compelling to me, given the differences in the conception. Many cultures have said "gee, this is all pretty complex; I wonder who put it together". But that question has received so many different answers as to hardly form a consensus other than "must have been something".

To me, religion is divided between "origin stories" and "rules for living" -- the latter is important and valuable, the former is (in my view) often something of a distraction.

Religions are most powerful, it seems to me, when talking about sweeping concepts and principles. They are often most useful and beneficial in this mode as well.

But when a religion attempts to project such principles into a physical impact such as "God made the Earth six thousand years ago" then it lends itself to having testable predictions made, and conflicts with evidence arise immediately.

Gould's two domains seemed to me an attempt to preserve the good aspects of religion by keeping it out of a "bad neighborhood" -- in this case, the evidentiary nature of empirical science.

I apologize for stating things that have already been said by others, and meant no slight. My reading is much more into sciences than philosophy, so I am less familiar with the "standard arguments" made by others. Gould, above, was encountered in the science context for example.

And since I'm not motivated to attack religion per se, I don't read specifically for that purpose. Religion hatred, like religion-worship, is baggage -- unfortunate, heavy baggage -- in the creationism discussions.

===|==============/ Level Head

Re: well-deduced!

[richardf8]

Gould - Stephen Jay? Author of "The Flamingo's Smile?" Fascinating Stuff.

To me, religion is divided between "origin stories" and "rules for living" -- the latter is important and valuable, the former is (in my view) often something of a distraction.

An origin myth without rules for living is a fable.
Rules for living without an origin myth is good counsel.

But it takes both to comprise a religion. Here I must limit myself to Judaism because it is in Judaism that I really understand how the coupling works.

The fact that the Jew understands the God he worships to be the Creator of all is what gives the mitzvot, the rules for living, an absolute, unshakable moral authority. The timeline or mechanics of creation matters little to most of us. The important thing in Judaism is that it is through our God's role as Creator of all that we can claim for the mitzvot the moral authority that makes it possible to observe them even in the face of earthly authorities that would have us transgress them, for there can be no higher authority than the Creator of the world.

There are moral dilemmas that can thus be solved. If an earthly king tells me I must eat pork, I may do so, because it is written "choose life, that you and your offspring may live," but if an earthly king tells me I must kill so-and-so or be killed myself, I may not kill so-and-so because I cannot know "whose blood is redder."

also well-put. touché.

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

You notably exert (factually so) that there are jillions of other options along the scale in between the two extremes (and 'either' indicates two choices), and also in all directions.... but I think for the purposes of this point, Richard is clearly talking only of two extremes along a scale, and in the judeo-christian department. Anywhere along the middle or off the fringes or completely separate, might be a topic(s) for another example.

Re: also well-put. touché.

[level-head.livejournal.com]

Hmm. In a sense, there aren't two extremes. Theists generally assert that a God or gods created the universe, generally for the purpose of humans, and remain interested in the doing of humans, interacting with humans from time to time, directly or indirectly, at some combination of whim or request.

There are myriad details, all different and largely mutually exclusive! But by the time the variations have shown each other to be Not the One True Story, atheism isn't a leap of faith, it's simply a reasonable (at least, to me) default position. The starting point that theists were at once.

(There's a lot of negative baggage with that "atheist" word too, and a lot of negative people who declare themselves that way. Both are unfortunate, and the situations are connected.)

An atheist, or non-theist, can look at the results of literally millions of experiments that explore whether "things could happen by themselves". And rather than being "improbable," it turns out that self-assembly of molecules is pretty common. Life isn't trivial -- but I do expect that it's fairly common in the universe.

Intelligence, however, may not be -- as multi-cellular life seems to be much harder to do[1] than just bacteria, and you sort of need two brain cells to rub together to be called intelligent. ];-)

===|==============/ Level Head

[1] By harder to do, I mean that bacteria seem to have developed almost as soon as the Earth cooled enough to have a land-and-water surface -- but cells and multi-cellular life took another billion years each. For about five-sixths of all life's history on Earth, it was apparently nothing more than primitive matted growth on the sea bottom. Whatever chance occasion that took three billion years to happen might have taken ten, it seems to me.

mwaha..

[c-eagle.livejournal.com]

Indeed again sir... though.. reiterating, since I have sometimes have a failure of highlighting crucial information in hopes it will stand on its own, when I said "and also in all directions..." above, that was in direct agreement to your previous illustration of "why use the expression 'either position'?", and successively, preemptively, to your restatement of this, via "In a sense, there aren't two extremes."

I agree. We could look at the entire picture fully in all dimensional directions and convolutions, on a grid of X, Y, and Z... not just linear, but planar or even those fully three dimensions.

I think that Richard is focusing on a linear scale in this particular individually isolated example.

Man.. I gotta go dig up my Logic and Semantics book :D

[hilleviw.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think you have misused the word atheist. What you have described sounds more like agnostics: no faith either way and without proof they lean to disbelief. Most of the atheists I know find the notion of the existence of G_d to be impossible, not improbable.

[richardf8]

It's actually the word "improbable" that I'm using in a special way.

In each case I am using it not of the people who hold a given view, but rather, of those who oppose it. And I'm not suggesting that either side is likely to be swayed. But I am hesitant to use the word impossible, because I don't think it can be said where any uncertainty exists on either side of the debate.

[hilleviw.livejournal.com]

But for the atheists I know - and I am a Unitarian Universalist so there are many - G-d is an impossibility. They have no doubt, no uncertainty. It is impossible because if there was G-d the world could not manifest as it does.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

I have a slight problem with relegating the term "atheist" to the most certain of disbelievers. My most honest answer to whether God exists is "Probably." Does that mean I'm not a theist?

[hilleviw.livejournal.com]

No, it means you are an agnostic: you aren't sure.

[deckardcanine.livejournal.com]

I don't like that. It's misleading to call me an agnostic when I pray and go to church for reasons other than routine.

[hilleviw.livejournal.com]

You may not like it, but it is accurate.

[ceruleanst.livejournal.com]

Not quite. There is a difference between what you know and what you believe. I believe my car's still parked outside, but I haven't looked since yesterday. To acknowledge that you don't certainly know is but half of it, and you can do this while still believing there is a God (thus being theist) or believing there is no God (thus being atheist). To be truly agnostic is to see no reason to believe either at all, because the lack of evidence is so complete that you don't know and can't even really guess.

[richardf8]

No. For the purposes of this discussion, if you have not entirely ruled out the possibility of God's existence you are a theist. If you say "probably," that implies reasons for assigning a non-zero probability to the existence of God. The atheist, for my purposes, is not a "doubter." He has a certainty that is founded on what he considers to possible.