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

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