Welcome to the third in the Atheist Digest series. The point of this series is to give a moderately comprehensive overview of Atheism from the perspective of Atheist Kossacks. XNeoCon is the originator of this idea and kicked the series off with the Introduction. Chicagoa took the ball and ran with it on Semantics. You can find their contributions at the links below.
Introduction
Semantics
The Dog has been given the task of talking about the idea that being an Atheist requires as much belief as any religious adherent. Before the Dog gets into that, he would like to ask for open minds here, from all and sundry who might read this diary. This series has the potential to ruffle a lot of feathers. It is not intended to be directly insulting or an attack on anyone’s particular belief, but rather a chance to present a segment of the arch of Atheist experience and thought. If you want to throw bombs, no one can stop you, but does that bring anyone any closer to understanding? The Dog does not think so, which is why he asks everyone to be respectful of everyone else.
Now, on to today’s topic! As with so much in life if we are to talk to each other instead of past each other there are some terms which have to be given an operational definition if we are to have meaningful understanding. The first term is Believe. This is a commonly used word, so of course it is fairly slippery. For the purposes of this diary and how the Dog has always defined it we are going to say that:
Belief – Confidence in an idea or subject without supporting evidence.
The next operational definition is Evidence. This will require a little more explanation. When an issue is in contention there is what is called the burden of proof. The person or groups making a prediction or assertion are often under the burden of proof. The other person or group is generally has the benefit of presumption. Once this is settled there is a need to use the evidence to fulfill the burden of proof by supporting the contention and negating the any evidence from the opposition.
Given this evidence could reasonably be defined by saying
Evidence is a set of facts, which themselves have been tested, which either support or negate an assumption.
The Dog knows this is deep water, but stick with him we are done with the heavy lifting and will now use that as our basis for conversation.
When a believer asserts atheists are the same in that they are relying on belief for their position they are often coming from a point of view which states nothing can be known for sure and thus any evidence the atheist presents is on its face unreliable. This could only be true if the believer also recognized their assertions were built on the same pillars of sand they claim the atheists are. Since this is a tail chasing argument we will set it aside, as the Dog has never found any group of people who were actually willing to live by the concept they know nothing on any subject.
One point the believers tend to miss is atheists are open to new evidence. In general people who believe in a deity of a particular religion are not open to evidence which tends to contradict the tenets of their belief. They often find this openness to be the point when they say the atheist is founding his contention on faith. "If you are unsure if what you know might change, then it is faith, no?" goes the argument.
This would be true, if it would not for the fact atheists, in general, are basing their lack of belief on a preponderance of evidence which points away from the assumption there is a creator deity. The Dog is going to list a few facts which are dispositive for him in this regard.
- There are a multitude of religions practiced today on this planet. We, Homo sapiens, have had many many religions in our history. All of them have the common need for certain facts to be believed in. One of these facts is that the religion is the one true set of facts about the universe.
- None of the creation stories of any major religion in any way hold up to the scientifically supported facts about the universe. Not a single one comes close to explaining the size and age of the universe in its writings. This is important as science, unlike religion, constantly tests and retests its knowledge to assure the elimination of errors. All ideas about the size and age of the universe asserted by believers are just that, assertions, unsupported by their own religious texts.
- The stunning dichotomy between the very active and assertive deities of our early history and the silence of them today. In most religions texts (Buddhism excluded) there are active conversations and acts by the deities and their helpers. The one which claims the most recent intervention the Mormon faith, has only the production of its holy books to point to, there is no major miracle or smiting of ungodly for them to show us. If there is a deity, who is very interested in humanity, why did it stop intervening? Where is the announcement it would do so? Catholics will say Jesus gave us the rule and died for us, but even he never said there would be no more godly interference.
These issues are very problematic in terms of being willing to have faith. When a person is consistently wrong in any area but religion, in general they are branded to be untrustworthy. For atheists presented with the large body of interlocking and supporting scientific evidence which is contrary to every belief on the planet in some degree larger or smaller it does not require we place believe there is no deity. We are not faced with having to believe a negative as it is often posed. No, instead we are accepting a positive assertion, there is not even close to an equal amount of evidence for a deity as there is for there being none.
This is the Null Hypothesis; the idea that the evidence offered is not strong enough to support the contention of a deity. We are failing to reject the Null Hypothesis, as the overwhelming evidence is there is no deity of any stripe. This does not preclude the possibility of new evidence changing this state of affairs, but again this does not require believe, it requires the opposite of belief, evidence.
There may be some believers who have evidence they would present. That is fine, but the fact is scientific evidence must be presumed strongest as it testable over and over. There is no requirement for anyone to accept a scientific fact, given enough time and training, they can test it for themselves and get the same outcome. Religious evidence rarely stands up to this standard. However, one or two points would not be enough to overturn the Null Hypothesis on deities. There is a great body of scientific work which would have to be negated by Religious evidence for a balance in this issue to come close .
There you have it, the long form explanation of why Atheists bristle when we are accused of believing when we state there are no deities. It is the very basis of the argument between believers and atheists, we do not believe. We test and take the path of the preponderance of the testable evidence as the one most likely to be true. It is the same path which has allowed humans to go from living in castles and dying young to flying above the world and being able to communicate with others of their species all over the world through the internet.
The floor is yours.