David5

First, let me clarify that I'm an atheist. This thread is about a nagging problem that I've been unable to resolve in debates with agnostics and theists. I repeat, I am an atheist.

Atheists frequently deploy the science, scientific knowledge, and the scientific method when attacking theistic beliefs about the existence of God. Theistic beliefs are often criticized for being grounded in a lack of evidence. Scientific method has won the epistemological day when we look to verify knowledge about the material world and, by extension, God's existence.

In debate with theists and agnostics, I often present a simple argument along these lines (and perhaps my problem lies in oversimplification, a common mistake). I suggest that the theistic hypotheis is that God exists. "God exists" is their hypothesis which must then be supported by scientific evidence. Since we know that there is none, I then point out that the hypothesis is unsupported and can be reasonably disregarded.

This is where the problems comes up. Some people try to turn the argument around. They suggest that the argument can be turned around on the atheist. Their argument runs as follows. The atheist is criticizing the theist for backing a hypothesis unsupported by evidence. The atheist, however, is also supporting an unsupported hypothesis: "God does not exist." They argue that the atheist's hypothesis impermissibly strays beyond the scientific limits that were previously established to contain the theists: the absence of evidence. The atheist has no evidence to support his conclusion that God does not exist. They (frustratingly) conclude that both atheists and theists are faith-based positions. This comparison grates on me slightly, since it attempts to equate the atheist's epistemological position (my position) with the theist's. The comparison also carries an undercurrent of equality in how both positions should be treated, a viewpoint I strongly reject.

Where am I going wrong with the battle against these folks?

Dante Alighieri

First of all, the argument in question simply confuses the weak atheist and strong atheist positions. A weak atheist is anyone who believes it to be rational to disbelieve in God. This does not entail a commitment to strong atheism: the belief that God does not exist. So, there is no such epistemic hypocrisy here. The weak atheist simply has the burden of showing that theism does not enjoy sufficient epistemic support; the strong atheist bears the burden of the weak atheist and bears the burden of providing evidence against God's existence. And there is evidence against God's existence: the logical problem of evil, the evidential problem of evil, the argument from divine hiddenness, and so on, and so forth. This isn't exactly rocket science: variants of these arguments have been around for centuries, so I express wonder at any theist who argues the argument you present, as if such arguments didn't exist in the first place.

Pavlov's Dog

Tell them about Russell's Teapot, and if they still don't get why the burden is on them, beat them mercilessly on and about the head with a tack hammer.

kennethamy

Yes, I agree. The discussion in the thread, "The presumption of atheism" is important here. Most believers nowadays would, I think, tend to reject the notion that the existence of God in an hypothesis. David Hume made fashionable by his notion that the existence of God is an hypothesis, that the question should be approached as if it were a quasi-scientific subject. But few theologians accept that now (and if you are cynical you might explain that easily). Within most theological positions (even before Hume) God's existence is taken as an item of faith (or sometimes on the basis of a priori arguments). For most believers, the existence of God is accepted prior to any rational consideration. As a given. And discussion, if any, takes place within that paradigm.

Dante Alighieri

Actually, I would agree with such theists. But, it would not be an agreement that has anything to do with accepting theism, but that I think that theism does not act as a true explanation: it functions vacuously. For, what follows from the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient, good entity? Why, for instance, would such an entity have the desire to create this universe as opposed to some other? Theistic "explanations" function tautologously: they begin with some fact of the world, attribute it to God, and leave (as a brute fact) that God would have such and such desire, much less that God exists at all. This grows even worse on the hypothesis of skeptical theism (invented purely to address the evidential problem of evil) wherein we cannot know God's purposes or reasons. But, that's a bit off-topic I suppose.

That's understandable. God's existence is taken, by theists, to be a sort of basic fact of the world, something almost undeniable.

LuisGarcia

Hi David5,

Take two buckets.

Label them bucket A and bucket B.

Bucket A will contain "all things that exist".

Bucket B will contain "all things that do not exist".

How do we tell which bucket to put item i in?

By evidence.

Evidence of existence is bounded at zero. Things that do not exist do not give us evidence of their non existence. Because they do not exist to do so.

Things that exist give us evidence of their existence.

Therefore, in the absence of any evidence for the existence of Geoffrey the chocolate orange gorilla who lives on the rings of Saturn, it is reasonable, logical, and coherent to put Geoffrey in bucket B, always with the understanding that we can switch buckets later if evidence turns up. As with Geoffrey, so with god(s).

Therefore, as far as I am concerned, weak atheism with regards to generic god concepts is perfectly valid, and not a "belief" at all.

Given that evidence of existence is bounded at zero for non existent entities, the burden of evidence is always on the one making the positive claim.

However, we can go further; if, as Dante Alighieri says, your theist opponent is foolish enough to overspecify their god, by, for example, claiming it is omnimax, then it becomes simple to shoot down that specific god concept.

Therefore, as far as I am concerned, strong atheism with regards to specific god concepts is perfectly valid, and not a "belief" at all.

But, forgive me for asking, but haven't we been here before?

You've asked this question a few times in the last couple of months, and I may be missing something, but you don't seem to have moved your question on much. Can you be more specific about where you're getting stuck, in light of previous answers you've received?

kennethamy

I imagine you mean by "true explanation" a "real" explanation, not an explanation that is true as opposed to one that is false. You mean it is a kind of pseudo-explanation. Well, it may be a pseudo-scientific explanation for the reasons you give, but then, again, as we (I think) agreed, theists don't consider that they are engaged in science. So, we are back to that.

As for the problem of evil, the original issue is whether the existence of evil shows that it is logically impossible that an all-good, all-powerful God exists, and I think that Leibniz's discussion pretty well disposes of that. And, that should be enough for the believer. The issue of whether the existence of evil is decisive evidence against the existence of such a God, again brings up the issue of whether to treat God as an hypothesis. The believer worries that the existence of evil shows God to be impossible. With that out of the way, whether it shows God to be improbable merely leaves room for faith.

Dante Alighieri

I understand that, but what I take issue with is to say, for instance, that God explains the order in the world, or that God explains the existence of the universe is, in my opinion, a vacuous explanation since we have replaced one brute fact for another, and a speculative brute fact at that. Moreover, nothing seems to follow from the existence of an omnisicent, omnipotent, good entity (especially if we accept libertarian free will or skeptical theism), so, at the very least, I take issue with, say, the intellectually sophisticated theist (such as natural theologians) who says that God somehow explains a body of facts.

I personally disagree with that. If there is no logical impossibility in the world coming about such that it has good and yet not evil (it should be noted that Leibniz's "necessary goods" are goods in response to evil; why does Leibniz think that there could not be a world with other goods, even goods greater than the one's he cites?) as I attempt to address here, then plainly it was within God's power to do as such, and therefore, I'm personally not convinced that Leibniz (or more modernly, Plantinga) has refuted the logical problem of evil.

Actually, Plantinga for instance seems to take something like this approach, since He takes God's existence to be a properly basic belief, and he basically takes the position that no evidential arguments can refute that; for every such argument is subject to the theist's noetic structure or evidential set, and that set includes God's existence.

But, of course, Plantinga's weird epistemology aside, that too is understandable, and while Plantinga may not have gotten the philosophy right, his epistemology seems to reflect the way that many people hold beliefs that they've been brought up with or firmly accepted.

ThorsHammer

Excellent !:notworthy: :notworthy: :notworthy:

David5

I've a terrible memory for keeping track of anonymous people on the Internet, so I'm always surprised (pleasantly, in this case) when others do. Honestly, I'm not sure why I can't properly redeploy the arguments I've found here that support my position. I've certainly found support here.

I suspect that my problem has two components. The first is that I've been trapped by my own language into defending a strong atheist's position, when I suspect that I'm more sympathetic to weak atheism. I worry that I will be unable to recast myself as a weak atheist in subsequent discussions. Atheism is considered a hot button topic in the other community, with battle lines, participants, and "talking points" that are well-established in the minds of most participants. Should I worry about this? Perhaps not and my continual worry about these questions is really frustration with the other community? I'm getting very bloggish, I think.

The second might be that I feel that I can only argue for a reduction in religion/theism's influence from a strong atheist's position. This isn't a strong proposition by any means. Again, maybe my continued questioning is symptomatic of a larger issue I can't grapple with yet.

Ultimately, I'm frustrated in my other discussions in part because I don't seem to be convincing my friends. I generally hold theists and agnostics in lower intellectual esteem. I don't consider them to be raging idiots, but I do view them as making an elementary and significant intellectual blunder. I like to think of my friends as smart people, so I get conflicted when my affection for my friends grinds against my response to them as theists and agnostics. This admission is also a bit bloggish, but it's probably fair disclosure.