Atheism is Alogical
Every since I dressed up as a monk for Halloween, my wife has told me I should be a preacher. Sometimes I think about it, but then say no. I wouldn't do a very good job. Mostly because I'm not very good at telling people what they should do or believe. I am good at telling them where they're screwing up, though.
Recently I've seen a couple of places where I see myself screwing up. Yvonne over at nektros.com, for example, had a post on pompous pseudo-intelligence. I fall into that trap. Chris Garrett over at Performancing had comment where he talked about how people like to see things in black and white instead of the shades of grey that go along with actually thinking about things. Maybe that's one of the reasons my blog isn't horribly popular. I put things in shades of grey. I see the desire for black and white as a major problem in most cases.
One of the places I see this is on religious sites. Yes, I read them at times, including the atheist sites. They're more fun than the sites about technotoys. Sometimes they're interesting. Sometimes I shake my head. Recently, on The Post-Bicameral Mind, I saw a post where the author shook down Christian apologists for using logic to defend their beliefs. One of his points was that logic is a science (and my computer uses Boolean Logic so it's scientific), and the use of science to defend a religion against science (Don't ask me, that's what he said. I guess he thinks atheism is scientific) was bizarre to him.
I have to worry about education. I gave up on literacy when I began seeing road signs and box labels with poor spelling. (I can see mis-spelling and poor grammar on a blog, but you would think signs would be proof-read.) I thought logic and common sense had some life left, though. I guess not. Science, as far as I know, deals with things that are falsifiable. You make a hypothesis. Test the hypothesis. Find out if you could predict the test results or not. If you could, test it again. The hypothesis may be right. If you couldn't, the hypothesis was probably wrong.
Logic is a set of rules for reasoning, thinking in certain way. When logic has anything to do with experience, it is only a specific use for a way of thinking starting from a specified set of axioms. It is not science by any stretch of the imagination, even though it can be used in doing science.
The existence or non-existence of God are not falsifiable hypotheses. They have nothing to do with science, everything to do with faith. Taking an atheist position is just as much an act of faith as the belief that Jesus was the incarnation of God or that Mohammed was a prophet of God or that Brahma is the sustainer of the universe. Belief or disbelief in God has nothing to do with logic. All of these beliefs comes down to I believe it because I believe it. There is no logical proof that can be offered for any of these positions.
If you want to fight about these things, okay. That's where you're at. Go for it. Just be honest enough to realize atheism is no more scientific than Christianity or any other religion. Science and religion, or science and spirituality have nothing to do with each other. They're mutually agnostic.
Sorry, Yvonne. I probably sound pompous. But at least I didn't use a thesaurus.:-)
Oh, and The Origin of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind by Julian Jaynes is excellent.
I feel compelled to correct you on one key point concerning atheism.
Atheism is not a belief system. It's a non-belief. The very definition of the word broken down equates to a "disbelief in god."
There are many things that we disbelieve in but that doesn't make the disbelief a positive assertion. It's an acceptance of that absence that fuels an atheist's skepticism.
For clarity, I'm a rationalist. I only make that distinction from atheism because not all atheists are rational. It is still possible to be an atheist, yet believe in the existence of the Easter Bunny and thus, I don't adhere to that term.
I also acknowledge that the "hard or strong atheist" is completely wrong in their assertions regarding the existence of god. You don't have to prove the non-existence of a god. It's called proving a negative and it's a logical fallacy.
In summation, to say that atheism is a "belief" is a complete misunderstanding of the word, and it isn't giving it its due in the ongoing debate between atheism and theism.
Hi Jonathan,
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment on what I said here.
I'm aware that a-theism means 'no god', but to say one is an atheist is a positive expression of that non-belief. Theists say 'There is a god'. Atheists say 'There is no god'. You have your reasons for being an atheist. All I'm saying is they have nothing to do with logic. You can't argue for or against the existence of a deity on the grounds of logic. People have been trying to do so for much longer than I have been around. If this were a question that could be answered in that way, it already would have been so answered.
As you say, logically you cannot prove the non-existence of a god. Nor can you logically prove the existence of a god. From a logical standpoint, at most one can be an agnostic.
All of our knowledge is based on models, frameworks to explain and predict our experience. These models can be effective or ineffective. People who are theists find the concept of deity useful, people who are atheists don't find the concept of a deity useful.
"Theists say 'There is a god'. Atheists say 'There is no god'."
Not so, my friend. Atheists say "I do not believe in God." Are we pretty sure there is no God? Absolutely. Does that mean we say definitively "There is no God."? Absolutely not.
Are we pretty sure there isn't a Loch Ness Monster? Yes, but until we have definite evidence that Nessie does not exist, we will not say "There is no Loch Ness Monster."
I believe Richard Dawkins said it best in this interview - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4tRpbkpNpgw
"You have your reasons for being an atheist. All I'm saying is they have nothing to do with logic."
Again, this is not true. My own personal reasons for being an atheist have everything to do with logic.
The Bible has (ignoring all the racist, sexist, and utterly cruel commands and passages) literally hundreds of direct contradictions that render it totally inaccurate as a book supposedly inspired by God himself. The Torah, Koran, and other texts are no different. I cannot believe in a God that contradicts himself.
"People who are theists find the concept of deity useful, people who are atheists don't find the concept of a deity useful."
Third time doesn't appear to be the charm here, as you are once again wrong.
There have been times when I have wanted - and tried - to believe in God, because people said it would help me through tough times. Obviously, it didn't work. Whether the concept of a deity is "useful" or not has nothing to do with our religious choices.
"Theists say 'There is a god'. Atheists say 'There is no god'."
Careful. This is a common mistake; most atheists don't actually say there is no god. What they say is that there's no reason to believe in god, so they don't. But they do acknowledge that just because they don't believe in one, doesn't mean there isn't one.
"All I'm saying is they have nothing to do with logic. You can't argue for or against the existence of a deity on the grounds of logic."
Indeed you can't. You can, however, argue for or against the prudence of believing in a god in the absence of any empirical evidence or logical proof. That's the approach most atheists take, so to say that atheism is alogical is to ignore one of the main points of atheism.
It would help a lot if people would just stop making up their own meanings for words and use the standard meanings for them as can be easily found in any good dictionary. Then pointless arguments like many of those between theists and atheists would not have any reason for existing. Here are the definitions of a few words that demonstrate my point clearly - taken from Merriam-Webster's online dictionary:
athe·ism
noun \??-th?-?i-z?m\
Definition of ATHEISM
1 archaic : ungodliness, wickedness
2 a : a disbelief in the existence of deity b : the doctrine that there is no deity
1god
noun \?gäd also ?go?d\
Definition of GOD
1 capitalized : the supreme or ultimate reality: as a : the Being perfect in power, wisdom, and goodness who is worshipped as creator and ruler of the universe
Also, proving a negative IS possible according to ANY properly qualified, professional, logician. Here's confirmation of this at this site from Philosophy Professor Stephen D. Hales of Bloomsbury Uninversity: http://www.skeptic.com/eskeptic/07-12-05/.
Finally, when did "pretty sure" and "certain" start to mean two different things?