Thomas Metcalf

This refers to the <a href="http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/bill_cooke/cooke-aijaz/aijaz2.html" target="_blank">the Cooke-Aijaz debate</a> at the Secular Web.

(1) Theism, Atheism & the Appeal to Authority

I must agree with Mr. Aijaz at this point that Dr. Cooke ought to provide more in response to the specific arguments Aijaz has offered. I believe Cooke is correct that the arguments Aijaz has offered have been refuted before, but perhaps Aijaz has a novel way to respond to those refutations.

(2) The Burden of Proof

I'm afraid Aijaz mischaracterizes atheism deeply at this point. To claim that it requires materalism is to commit a serious instance of the strawman fallacy. There are most certainly supernaturalistic atheists, as a cursory examination of world religions will show. It seems as if Aijaz's claim that atheism is a positive statement depends on the thesis that atheism requires materialism, and if this is so, then Aijaz must ultimately retract his claim that atheism is a positive statement.

Most atheists, in my experience, will grant that atheism is a claim, but that it is a claim that there is no good reason to believe in theism. This is much weaker than "God does not exist," and weaker still than "Materialism is true." I do not think Aijaz will have won the debate if Cooke can successfully prove there is no good reason to believe in theism, because it seems to follow from that fact that atheism is true.

Aijaz makes another serious error in the last paragraph of this section. He writes,

(Italics original.)

This is an obvious instance of the fallacy of Converting a Conditional. A proof of atheism will not necessarily be a proof of naturalism. That is, proof of atheism is a necessary but not sufficient condition for proof of naturalism. I'm sure Aijaz wishes Cooke were arguing for naturalism here, but he is not. He is merely arguing that there is no good reason to believe in theism.

(3) Charles Bradlaugh & the Concept of God

Aijaz is correct that Bradlaugh is denying the existence of the God of the apologists, and it is true that Cooke has not provided reasons to believe that this God does not exist. Yet Aijaz must grant that if he did not know what a ghost was, he would not have the belief "There are ghosts in the Clock Tower." He might even go so far as to say that there is no good reason to have that belief. Similarly, there is no good reason to believe in theism, and this fact seems to make atheism -- the suspension of belief -- a preferable position.

In general, however, Bradlaugh as quoted by Cooke is not representative of atheists, so I do not think it will be useful for the debate to consider him.

(4) Religious Pluralism

Cooke ought to do more here to show that some of the possible explanations for the phenomena in question need not posit any God at all. That is, it would be to multiple entities unnecessarily to use a being with the essential properties of a god as an explanation for what we observe.

(5) Atheism, Theism & Values

Once again, Aijaz confuses atheism with materialism. Even so, there are plenty of ethical systems that could survive and flourish under atheism. If Aijaz thinks atheists are unhappy, he should provide some studies to support his demographic claim. (Possibly relevant demographic studies show inverse correlations between theism and both morality and intelligence.) If Aijaz cannot provide this evidence, and I suspect he cannot, his claim that atheism leads to "arrogant, selfish, [and] unhappy" life will not seem very credible.

As for cosmic humility, it is simply more compatible with atheism than it is with theism.

Conclusion

Atheism has never been a claim that materialism is true, and Aijaz will not be very successful in this debate if all the arguments he has mustered attempt to disconfirm materialism. If Cooke can consistently show that there is no good reason to believe in theism, religious philosophers will most likely grant him the victory.

Aerik Von

The proof is in simplicity - God makes no sense - therefore why bother?

mattbballman

Dear Mr. Metcaf,

I am not familiar with this particular debate, so I will only selectively supply commentary on your reflections here.

(2) The Burden of Proof
I am developing an article on this very subject, so I will defer you to it when it is released early next year. On a brief note, atheism is a claim to know something and as such it shoulders as much burden as the theist. If one is superficially defining, as some contemporary atheists do, that atheism is merely the absence of belief in God then it fails to apply to the debate. Atheism, according to the best standard works, is the denial of the existence of God. Just a few of these references include:
Academic American Encyclopedia, Random House Encyclopedia, Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, Oxford Companion to Philosophy, The World Book Encyclopedia, Encyclopedia Americana, The Encyclopedia of Philosophy, Encyclopedia of Religion, Funk and Wagnall's New Encyclopedia, and the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy.

To be on the contrary side of "God exists" is not to say "I lack the belief in God's existence" but, rather, "God does not exist." If Mr. Cooke doesn't want to establish God's non-existence as his thesis, then he will only succeed at proving agnosticism. Your comment about atheism implying naturalism is probably a correct one. Again, I haven't seen the debate myself.

(3) Charles Bradlaugh & the Concept of God
You say, "Aijaz must grant that if he did not know what a ghost was, he would not have the belief "There are ghosts in the Clock Tower."" And neither would he have the belief "There are no ghosts in the Clock Tower." Instead, he would suspend belief and accede "I don't know if there are ghosts there or not." As this applies to theism/atheism, atheist Kai Nielson remarks,

To show that an argument is invalid or unsound is not to show
that the conclusion of the argument is false. . . All the proofs of
God's existence may fail, but it still may be the case that God
exists. In short, to show that the proofs do not work is not enough
by itself. It may still be the case that God exists.
(Reason and Practice (New York: Harper & Row, 1971), pp. 143-4.)

(5) Atheism, Theism & Values
In my own debates, I also establish that atheism implies nihilism. This is affirmed by atheists themselves, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, and other atheist existentialists, who all affirm that without God there is no transcendent foundation by which to ground objective values (moral or otherwise). This is not to say that atheists cannot recognize moral values, but that is an epistemological observation and not an ontological one.

(Conclusion)

To disprove theism, as Kai Nielson observes, is not to prove atheism. Similarly, to disprove the Inflationary Model of the origin of the universe is not to prove its denial. As Carl Sagan used to say, "Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence" (The Dragons of Eden). At best, one is only left with agnosticism.

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by mattbballman:
"On a brief note, atheism is a claim to know something and as such it shoulders as much burden as the theist."

It is a claim that the evidence for theism is inadequate. As such, it is a claim, but it is not a claim that God does not exist. For if this were so, then everyone other than Christians (or Jews, or Muslims...) would be atheists. But it cannot be a claim that all gods do not exist, because I can't think of anyone who claims this, and the conclusion would be that there are no atheists. So you can choose for most people to be atheists (absurd), or for no one to be atheists (even more absurd). I believe it is best to take atheism to be the denial of the existence of God, i.e. the denial of the proposition "God exists," which only requires a demonstration that "God exists" is unsupported. This is supported etymologically as well as in the writings of several atheists.

It is a simple matter to go from no evidence for God to positive evidence against God, however. Let "the creator of the universe" predicate an essential property of God. In terms of our experience, all creators are not God. Therefore, probably, the creator of the universe is not God. Therefore, probably, God does not exist.

"This is affirmed by atheists themselves, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre, Albert Camus, ..."

These are all existentialists, and as such it is not surprising that they accept nihilism. The atheist may consistently believe that objective values are metaphysically a part of the universe, and thus, God is Razored out.

emotional

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That sounds like Greg Bahnsen speaking. Why can't the inverse presupposition be true? Isn't it possible that theism is the denial of God's non-existence?

I don't have to bring evidence in order to prove naturalism true and theism false; there is nothing but evidence for the truth of that proposition. However, for theists the problem is not lack of evidence, but lack of submission: while the evidence of the non-existence of God flies in their face, they simply suppress it. In their heart of hearts they KNOW that God does not exist, but openly they deny it.

There are no theists; there are only those who profess to be theists. Deep down, all people are believers in naturalism.

(and no, this is NOT a spoof. I really am an adherent of <a href="http://www.geocities.com/stmetanat/presuppositional.htm" target="_blank">naturalistic presuppositionalism</a>.)

Thomas Metcalf

Originally posted by devnet:

"(and no, this is NOT a spoof. I really am an adherent of <a href="http://www.geocities.com/stmetanat/presuppositional.htm" target="_blank">naturalistic presuppositionalism</a>.)"

Thanks for the link. You've got a good collection of arguments there; I'll have to read more.

Keith Russell

mattbballman:

When an arbitrary claim is made, a rational person is not 'free' to accept or reject it. To be considered rational, beliefs must be based solely on evidence.

There can, by definition, be no evidence for supernatural claims, thus such claims cannot be supported by evidence; they can be neither proved, nor disproved; they are thus arbitrary.

For this reason (since no evidence can support them) rational persons must reject such claims.

Atheism is thus the only rational option possible, where supernatural claims are concerned.

If there is a 'burden of proof' also on the atheist, the above should provide at least the basic defense of that 'positive' position.

Keith.

mattbballman

Dear Mr. Metcaf,

(i) Atheism is being defined in this new trend in contemporary that it only denies theism. But this is not the standard definition. According to the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy, atheism is "a belief that there is no God . . . this use has become the standard one" ((New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 51-52). It wasn't until popularizers such as George Smith, Antony Flew, and Michael Martin (to name a few) did the weak/strong distinction spread widely.

(ii) Those men became existentialists because they were atheists who worked out the logical conclusions of the death of God and tradition. But to cite more contemporary references, I point you to the late J.L. Mackie and Richard Taylor (just to name two). In fact Dr. Taylor makes this interesting astute observation:
"Contemporary writers in ethics, who blithely discourse upon moral right and wrong
and moral obligation without any reference to religion, are really just weaving intellectual
webs from thin air; which amounts to saying that they discourse without meaning."
(R. Taylor, Ethics, Faith, and Reason (Englewood Cliffs, N. J.: Prentice Hall, 1985), pp. 83–84).
Taylor is absolutely right to to the dismay of the humanistic objectivists who argue otherwise.

matt

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This new presuppositional article just added:

<a href="http://www.geocities.com/stmetanat/selfdeception.htm" target="_blank">The Element of Self-Deception in Theism</a>

Thomas Metcalf

mattbballman:

I hope you will respond to my point that if we define atheism as the belief that God does not exist, a case could easily be made that Jews and Muslims are atheists, and if we define atheism as the belief that no gods exist, almost no one would be an atheist. It makes far more sense by this reasoning (also by etymology, by the usage by several contemporary atheists, and even by "the denial of the existence of God") to call atheism the considered lack of theism.

I also hope you will answer my claim that objective normativity is a metaphysical part of the universe. My claim is more parsimonious than the claim that objective normativity depends upon the existence of God.