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23 comments from readers

Chris
04 November 2009 at 16:07

There is a big difference between fact (i.e. something that can be proved by repeatable experiments) and a well-honed hypothesis. Climate change is a well-honed hypothesis and is therefore not a fact. In that respect, supporting that hypothesis is akin to a belief, even if it is one borne out by observation and multiple facts. You can't prove that God doesn't exist and therefore atheism is also a well-honed hypothesis (just as theism is also a well-honed hypothesis). However, I can prove that putting a flame next to water in a conductive container makes the water hotter. This is a fact and does not require belief.

Jesus, has science really been taken over by lunatics and politicians?

Daniele
04 November 2009 at 19:26

Sure science can get its facts wrong. The most obvious example is eugenics which presented the hierarchy of races, the white race being the superior one of course, as scientifically proven. So it was bad science.

What is important in the distinction between science and religion is the fundamental difference that religion is based on the belief in the supernatural which by its very nature, cannot be proven, while science is based on provable facts, even if in some cases those facts turn out to be wrong later.In other words, instead of blind faith based on nothing but somebody's fertile imagination, you have a recognition of certain provable facts as valid.

That does not mean that science never makes mistakes on what it is trying to establish. Scientists are human and make mistakes which sometimes are caused by their own prejudices, like the racist scientists who came out with eugenics.

That does not mean that believing in science is the same as believing in religion, far from it.

The intention of the atheist who only believes in scientific facts is the establishment of some provable truths which he can hopefully demonstrate to others as truths through arguments based on the use of reason.

A religious person does not use reason to convert someone to their faith, he only uses brainwashing in the case of children (or sometimes adults), or he attempts to convince vulnerable people of the attraction in believing in supernatural beings and an after-life. After all, everybody loves a fairy tale.

I am dubious as to the benefits this judgement will bring to people who insist in living a Green life-style.

But at least the belief in creationism is no longer MORE protected than the belief in Evolution which was a ludicrous situation.

Simon Gardner
04 November 2009 at 23:25

I think you’re asking the wrong question.

Why on earth are religious “views” protected in law at all? They are by their nature irrational. They certainly don’t deserve protection. It leads to all sorts of unwanted consequences.

If people want deliberately to be irrational, let them do it on their own time and not on their employer’s.

Tom
05 November 2009 at 09:55

Oh I don't mind being called a militant fundamentalist atheist. Otherwise people tend to think your agnostic.

I might aspire to rational and critical thinking. That's hardly the same as "faith in science" as if science sat in the clouds handing out comandments.

The ruling is a nonsense.

Greg
05 November 2009 at 14:47

Atheism is the belief there is no god. I am an atheist solely because I believe there is no god, no other criteria renders an atheist. What Ms Benson defined is nontheist, not atheist. She calls this "atheist" due to a serious error in basic logic, saying that something IS what it IS NOT. I call them notters (those who say they are an atheist and that atheism is a lack of belief in god).

I consider notters to be out to lunch on logic.

It is true I am not Sholto, and that says what I am not, not what I am. I do not believe in god, I lack belief etc... does not say a thing about me as I am not the subject of the statement; what I am not/do not do, is.

No-one can prove they believe there is a god or prove they believe there is no god. Either stance is asking the listener to believe that is their position. Lacking belief is not anything at all, it is not something, anymore than not Sholto is something. (Greg is not) (Sholto) does not read (Greg is) (not Sholto), as not Sholto is not something that exists or can. Sholto is. So those that define atheism as lacking belief in god are not only wrong and illogical, they refer to atheism by way of something that does not exist. Clueless.

So you are having disagreements with a notter, not an atheist firstly. Secondly, it should be amply obvious that all thought requires belief to some degree. Belief is not the 4 letter word that notters will tell you it is. Try not to misrepresent your own argument by declaring a notter is an atheist, they don't have any idea of what atheism even is.

I am gklr at youtube.

Marilyn LaCourt
05 November 2009 at 15:00

Come on people. Get your terms straight.

Faith is belief without evidence.

Trust is belief based on evidence and probabilities.

Religion requires faith.

Science requires trust.

These are two different ways of believing something.

Please do keep them straight.

AlfredMarshall
05 November 2009 at 15:09

To understand the world we need to use our objective and subjective competencies. Science is essentially objective, but it only gives part of the picture. Subjectivity -- our intuition, our feelings, even our irrationality -- completes it.

Greg
05 November 2009 at 16:21

"Faith is belief without evidence" = utter nonsense. Faith is any strongly held belief. I have faith in science, that the world will exist tommorow and that there is no god. We all require faith to say things like "1 second from now 1+1=2 will be true" or "you are a theist".

We cannot read minds and cannot tell the future. Truth about an object proves an object exists and there is not 1 truth for any god, which doesn't prove they do not exist... that is done via a logical contradiction (P and not P at the same time where P is a proposition)

Only opinions are subjective, mythical beliefs and inductive logic (assumption) are objective beliefs.

People spout nonsense as if they know what they are talking about.

Evidence is another one. There is plenty of evidence for a god, if you use a courtroom definition of evidence where lies and falsehoods are evidence. Bad logic is still logic, poor evidence is still evidence. Atheism is not a science, so don't apply scientific argument to atheism such as scientific proof. As an atheist I am appalled at the logic applied by dummies calling themselves atheists.

Again, I am gklr at youtube.

Faithless Atheist
06 November 2009 at 05:13

Greg,

"Faith is any strongly held belief."

I have a strong belief in evolution, strong in order to match the strength of evidence support.

Do I also have faith in evolution? What would be the point? It is a fact- it has been observed in both birds and bacteria, never mind the geological and biological evidence that supports it.

I deny that I have faith, nor need it, to believe the world will exist tomorrow, because my belief that it will disappear is weak to match the weakness of the evidence that it will disappear and the probability of a freak event causing it.

I think faith entails a deliberate mismatch- strong belief as you put it, but with weak evidence and low probability,

I'm not sure that your definition of atheist is practicable or logical. Beliefs are always positive, are they not? The closest you could believe to his non-existence, is that the universe exists without his intervention, nor needed him to get started. But there are lots of systems with redundancies and in nature things are rarely eliminated unless they hinder survival.

God is also such a vague term, which bothers me. What if we are in a universe born of quantum fluctuations within a larger universe where their are aliens that had no hand in the eventual evolution of the human species. Belief that these aliens do not exist would have no basis. Belief that they are unnecessary, would.

I think all atheists, in light of this, are logically constrained to agnosticism and cannot claim negative belief.

jonjermey
06 November 2009 at 08:35

There are lots of contrasts between science and religion, We know that people are very good at self-delusion: science provides an antidote to this, whereas religion relies on it. Scientists gain credibility from proving each other wrong; theologians gain credibility from parroting each other. Scientists agree on the fundamentals of their disciplines; theologians don't. And so on and so forth. But the best response is a quote:

"Science lets people fly rockets to the moon. Religion makes people fly planes into buildings."

And I agree that faith in global warming is very religion-like in its passionate adherence to authority and its adamant refusal to consider contrary evidence. How long now before the AGW crew start flying their planes into OUR economy?

Jen
06 November 2009 at 12:25

The problem is really one of semantics. The English language is not specific enough to encompass both religion and science. What I mean is this: the word 'believe' applies to everything, but it is not specific enough. I can 'believe' (based on faith) that Jesus walked on water, and I can 'believe' (based on facts) that gravity is what holds us to the ground. What we need is a a different/new word that connotes 'belief based on fact' as distinct from 'belief based on faith.' I am not fluent in another language, but I imagine that in some languages, there is a distinction. One's language defines and limits one's thoughts. (In the Lakota Sioux language, there is no word for 'faith,' no word for 'mercy, and no word for 'should.')

Madame Arcati
06 November 2009 at 12:40

I have argued this for a long time now, it's perfect sense. Any faith in anything is a belief; and science has now evolved into a moral way of looking at the world just as any other religion. Your average atheist freely dismisses anything mystical or "godly" because of faith in scientific methodology. Paradoxically this faith runs contra to the point of science.

GW Crawford
06 November 2009 at 13:08

Madame Arcati;

I do not have 'faith' in science. Faith is belief in absence of or in contradiction to evidence. I have faith in friends.

I know that there is no god because of the absolute contrdiction between the multiplicity of stories and the absolute lack of verifiable evidence. I don't 'not believe in god' because there is no god to believe in - not yahweh, not allah, not ishtar, odin, zeus, tezcatlipoca or even a loa or two.

It does not require faith to believe in science. I believe in it because it has provided evidence, it is falsifiable and peer reviewed. Also, I am too damn lazy to do all the work myself

Pilot22A
06 November 2009 at 16:17

Which begs the question, why is this one judge right? And also, what does it mean if a higher court overturns his ruling.

SteveG
06 November 2009 at 16:40

The problem is simple.

Theists merely want to frame the argument by making an equivalence between acceptance of Scientific facts based on observable evidence the same as belief in a deity without evidence.

By purposely trying to frame the argument in this way they cast the spotlight of proof from being on themselves as the claimants and try to say 'hey we're all in the same boat.'

It's apples and oranges and the theists who bring up this argument know it but foist it out there anyway.

Another major problem is the definition of the so-called 'God'. There are about a billion equally plausible definitions and descriptions that are equally fitting and true based on the evidence.

Ask a question or two about who this so-called 'God' is and it almost invariably goes back to a Biblical description. There are a bunch of other legitimate contenders (The Flying Spaghetti Monster notwithstanding - sarcasm ftw!) which don't involve the Bible at all.

RobS
06 November 2009 at 19:37

Religiots can throw out phrases like "faith in Science" because they have a nebulous concept of what science is, equivalent to their nebulous idea of what "God" is.

SteveG... spot on. I am going to steal your third paragraph to incorporate into a document on this topic. I call their argument the "Oh yeah, we'll you're one too!" red herring, which allows the religious believer to ignore legitimate criticisms by trying to claim the opponent is living in a glass house and shouldn't throw any stones.

Look, semantics aside, the burden is on the claimant. No matter how you define atheism, the fact of the matter is that there are people in the world who say, "You have not provided sufficient support for your hypothesis of God." That is all an atheist is. No one can prove the NON-existence of an entity, and that is not the responsibility of an atheist. If you can't give evidence for this being you claim exists, why should I then allow you to use that support to push legislation, or tell me how I might live my sex life?"

Faithless Atheist
06 November 2009 at 20:41

RobS,

"Look, semantics aside, the burden is on the claimant. No matter how you define atheism, the fact of the matter is that there are people in the world who say, "You have not provided sufficient support for your hypothesis of God." That is all an atheist is. No one can prove the NON-existence of an entity, and that is not the responsibility of an atheist."

I think you put that very well. My objection to Greg is really encapsulated well by you when you point out that the burden is on the claimant to provide support for their views, and that it is impossible to prove the non-existence of something.

I think an atheist has a right to laugh in believer's face, frankly, when the latter suggests they most prove non-existence.

Richard Dawkins makes a very good point about the labelling of childen- Muslim child, Christian child...

Atheism is not a worldview- one cannot be indoctrinated with it- and so I don't feel bad in stating that every child born is an atheist, as that is the default, and hopefully they remain, with a rejection of superstition and the contrary dogmas of the world's countless religions.

Greg
07 November 2009 at 15:29

1. The burden of proof does not lie on the "claimant". A burden of proof lies solely with anyone claiming anything is true. Beliefs are never proven true, they cease being beliefs if proven true. Truth belief.

2. It is easy to prove a being does not exist. This is accomplished by showing the object in question as the subject of a proposition (P) where P and not P at the same time is asserted. eg: God is green and god is not green at the same time, this is impossible, a logical contradiction and proof there is no such thing. Certain gods fall under this but not all proposed gods do. The christian god never repents according to the bible in many quotes, and there are also many quotes saying how god repents. The biblical god cannot exist, as demonstrated by the biblical description of that god. No belief required. Likewise Allah can do anything says the Koran that also says Allah cannot have a son. Which is it? It cannot be both. Those gods are proven to not exist. No belief required except in the axioms of logic itself.

What is god? The word god is something I use to address theists on any god they propose from Allah to Zeus. Since I believe there is no god, I believe it refers to nothing at all, only the proposals suggested by theists.

No child is born an atheist. At birth no child believes there is no god, they believe nothing at all. Children are nontheists and nonatheists, they neither believe that god exists or believe that god does not exist.

Not believing in god does not make you an atheist, it doesn't even speak of you. An argument of the form X is not Y can be valid when X and Y both do not exist. The present King of France, who we know does not exist, is not Mickey Mouse. For things that do not exist, we can say they are not Y, no matter what Y is. It is illogical to say we are what we are not, and I do not believe in a god is true about what I do not do, am not.

X is not a truck. What is X? X may not exist. I was not a truck and did not believe in a god 2 million years ago when I did not exist. I was not an atheist 2 million years ago or a nontheist for that matter. Non is a set theory term that requires the object exist (it must to be a member of any set). Not is a propositional logic term and applies when X does not exist.

My red car is not green does not read (My red car is) (not green). Not green (not believing) is not something, there is no such thing. Not green is not a property of my red car, it isn't anything at all. It says (My red car is not) (green). Green is something, and something a car can be.

To say atheism is (not believing in god) is to say "atheism is something that does not exist, and attempts to define atheism by what atheists are not. Foolish in the extreme, a major error in basic logic, and quite comedic considering these same "notters" (from nutter) wish to show the illogical nature of theism.

Moreso, all of logic (and hence science) resolves on the axioms of logic, which without logic could not exist. Not a single axiom of logic is or can be proven true. All of them are believed to be true or logic cannot make any sense. Thus all of science and logic are belief based, although justified belief, often called self-evident. To say you have no faith in science is to say you think science is rubbish. Without faith in the axioms of logic, there can be no "logic" at all.

Atheism is a worldview, it is the view that no god exists, a belief, has no burden of proof and neither does the belief there is a god. The assertion "God exists" holds a burden of proof only if claimed as a truth.

Saying X is not Y does not use X as the subject, the subject is what X is not. Saying atheists do not believe in a god is true, but not true about what atheists are, it is true about what atheists are not. What we are is not what we are not. This is the error in logic by those defining atheism by what atheists are not. And it is as silly as believing in a god that is proven to not exist. If we could show all proposed gods as P and not P at the same time, then no belief would be required to accept that it is proven that no god exists, except the axioms of logic itself.

For theists saying "we are all in the same boat, I have my beliefs and you have yours", what they miss is that better arguments show why it makes more sense to believe no god exists than to believe one does. Ultimately it is a private concern anyway, the best any of this talk can lead to is our own decisions on how to grasp a very strange world.

We prove what exists by stating a truth about an object. That is what existence is and means. 1 truth about something and it must exist. We cannot prove truths for that which does not exist. There is not even 1 truth about a god, or it would be proven to exist as much as the earth is proven to exist. Nonexistence is shown by demonstrating the subject in P, for P and not P at the same. That cannot exist.

It aches me to see such ignorance on these matters, especially perpetuated by alleged "atheists" who don't know what that even is and call it by what atheists are not. It is a misrepresentation of atheism to which I take offense.

gklr at youtube for more...

Greg
07 November 2009 at 15:32

The first paragraph ends with "belief truth" where the greater than and less than sign do not show. It should read "belief is not truth". The issue is in the burden of proof, where no belief ever is proven true and if so it ceases being a belief instantly. Belief is not truth.

If you do not believe there is no god, you are not an atheist and you misrepesent atheism and atheists.

Marilyn LaCourt
07 November 2009 at 16:33

Sometimes words appear to take on a life of their own, and let me tell you, we have a bully on the block. The word ‘faith’ is shoving the word ‘trust’ out of the neighborhood. There are no shots fired, and there are no broken bones. The bullying is subtle, coercive, political, subversive, and insidious.

Faith and trust used to share equal status in our language. Older dictionaries clearly differentiate between these words. The word faith was used to describe how a belief is accepted without evidence, and the word trust was used to describe how a belief is accepted based on probabilities and evidence. Newer dictionaries blur these distinctions and today’s thesaurus suggests that the words mean essentially the same thing.

As faith gained status as a good buzzword used by politicians, mainstream Americans began rolling it off their tongues as automatically as they say under god in the pledge. Unfortunately, the faith and trust words are used interchangeably by nearly everyone, even by atheists.

‘Faith’ is a powerful bully that theists use to discredit atheists. A seemingly harmless little word is used to deceive and control. School board members accuse scientists of having faith in evolution. In one step, with one little word, they position evolution and creationism/intelligent design in the same science classroom, each having equal status.

Of course atheists have beliefs. What atheists don’t have is faith.

How do we hold some beliefs without knowing? First we must carefully separate the Siamese twin words named believing and knowing.

I know and I believe the cars have stopped at the red light and allowed me to cross the street safely only after I have reached the other side of the street unharmed. I believe without knowing the cars will stop and allow me to cross safely based on probabilities. It’s trust, not faith that gets me from one side of the street to the other. Faith requires neither probabilities nor evidence.

I trust certain people based on their track record or on their reputation. I don’t know that my husband will never cheat on me. I believe that he won’t because experience tells me he is a person who honors his commitments, a person who understands the risks of STD’s, and he has a 30-year track record for being true to his marriage vows. I do not have faith in my husband, I trust him.

For an atheist, belief is the acceptance that a statement is probably true. We cannot know that a statement is actually true without concrete evidence or until after the event.

There’s a difference between believing something exists and believing something is valuable, something to be achieved. Of course we good atheists believe in all the good moral stuff good people of faith believe in, freedom, love, loyalty, justice, charity, etc. These are values we embrace, something positive to be achieved. We do not believe in God, gods, fairies, ghosts, heaven, hell, or being coerced into good behavior out of fear.

I like to think an atheist is a person who believes in telling the truth and taking responsibility for our deeds, both the good and the bad.

Sometimes we make mistakes by believing something because we reason there will be a positive outcome based on evidence and probabilities. Sometimes we call the shots wrong and we lose. Cars sometimes hit people, even when they cross with the light. However, acting on faith (without evidence) is always a mistake even when we get lucky and the outcome is the one we were seeking.

Alister McGrath states in “The Twilight of Atheism: The Rise and Fall of Disbelief in the Modern World”, “The belief that there is no God is just as much a matter of faith as the belief that there is a God.” McGrath reasons, “If “faith” is defined as “belief lying beyond proof”, both Christianity and atheism are faiths.” Therefore atheism is a religion.

Atheists would do well to take a lesson from scientists and engineers who would not think of communicating with each other about a theory or a bridge without coming as close as possible to a precise definition of terms that is agreed upon by all who participate in the conversation.

Trust is a good word. We should use it. Agnostic is a useless word. We should dump it. Knowing and believing are not Siamese twins. Believing something exists or something is true is different from believing in something valuable, something to be achieved. Reasoning, the verb, should begin with premises that are probably true based on evidence.

However muffled, muted and mocking they are, words are still the best tools we posses if we want to understand and be understood, to live and let live in some measure of harmony with other human beings. Let’s hope we can come close enough for all practical purposes.

Notagod
08 November 2009 at 01:47

"This is not intended as a call to resume hostilities"

Which is of coarse a religious inspired statement, not the least because it is obviously disingenuous, given the remark that followed. As opposed to scientific processes which are designed to weed out disingenuous or incorrect ideas.

I guarantee that the structure you live in was produced not through the guidance of one of the christian god-ideas but through the application of scientific processes. Christianity is built on the back of fear, it would be sad if you also fear your home.

Ophelia Benson
08 November 2009 at 19:56

Sholto, I don't recall having any "brushes" with you...but as for your review of the book, it went beyond strong criticism into outright misrepresentation, such as "Benson and Stangroom show no desire to go beyond name-calling and distortion."

This piece has the same problem - it's packed with absurd generalizations about what "they say" which are simply incorrect. It's futile trying to engage with that kind of thing, so thanks but no thanks.

R.S.H. Tryster
08 November 2009 at 21:05

"most militant atheists are characterised not just by an absence of belief in a god, but by a trust in science so certain and ardent that it is entirely akin to religious belief"

I can't prove that you're wrong, but this rings typical of an outsider writing about what goes on inside atheists. I feel I'm just as entitled to hold a stereotype (true or not) regarding what goes on inside non-atheists who write about what goes on inside atheists.

As an atheist, I'd put it differently. Believers in the Christian god feel he must be perfect. Atheists do not believe that kind of perfection exists (I'm not opening the Pandora's Box of whether the deity of either the Old or the New Testament shows a character worth desiring or emulating; suffice it to say that "perfection," in this case, seems a misnomer). The body of knowledge resulting from the scientific method is that which has so far passed all tests that could be applied to it. It is considered superior to anything contained in anyone's scriptures, because the method used to obtain it is superior (and so radically different that comparison of "methods" would be essentially an exercise in nonsense). Atheists accord science only the trust it has earned; there is nothing about belief in a god with which to compare that.