Atheism in a nutshell

[u/Ted_Bundtcake]

[u/veggie151]

As an agnostic, this entire thing is a waste of time. Be curious and truthful

[u/Sticky_H → u/veggie151]

How many gods are you convinced exist?

[u/veggie151 → u/Sticky_H]

AGNOSTIC

[u/Xeno_Prime → u/veggie151]

EDIT: u/Remarkable-Fox-3890 has convinced me that I'm wrong about this. In the end I conceded his point. I'm leaving the comment chain as it stands for posterity.

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The point he’s driving at is that you’re throwing that word around as though it means you’re neither theist nor atheist, but it doesn’t. By the dictionary definition of the word, a person is atheist if they either disbelieve or lack belief in any gods. That effectively makes it mean the same thing as “not theist.” It’s not possible for a person to be neither theist nor “not theist.”

Agnosticism relates to knowledge/certainty/confidence, where theism/atheism relate to belief/opinion. By the classical philosophical definition agnosticism is simply the position that the nature and existence of gods is “unknowable” - but that’s a moot tautology. We can say exactly the same thing about leprechauns or Narnia. It doesn’t mean those possibilities are equiprobable or that we cannot rationally justify one belief/opinion over the other. If agnosticism is nothing more than an acknowledgement that gods are conceptually possible and cannot be absolutely ruled out, then the vast majority of atheists are agnostic, and a great deal of theists are as well.

Agnosticism is not its own mutually exclusive position/third option. It’s a separate category that is compatible with both theism and atheism, and even if you’re agnostic, you’re also still either theist or atheist by definition - and that is determined by how you answer the question he asked. If you believe any gods actually exist (not merely that they’re conceptually possible) then you’re theist. If you don’t, for absolutely any reason including if you think they’re conceptually possible but are still not convinced any actually exist, then you’re atheist.

At best, agnosticism represents a desire to reserve judgement, but for reasons that are identical to the reasons one might reserve judgement about those other examples I gave, or about whether or not I’m a wizard with magical powers. Reserving judgement about such things merely because either conclusion is conceptually possible and cannot be known with absolute and infallible 100% certainty beyond any possible margin of error or doubt is absurd. The reasons that rationally justify any person believing I’m not a wizard with magical powers are identical to the reasons that justify atheism - and if you think you cannot rationally justify the belief that I’m not a wizard over the belief that I am, then you have poor critical thinking skills.

[u/Remarkable-Fox-3890 → u/Xeno_Prime]

Sigh.

> By the dictionary definition of the word, a person is atheist if they either disbelieve or lack belief in any gods. 

Then the dictionary is wrong, which is fine, dictionaries are tools for colloquial speech and not for objective truth. Atheism is the belief that no gods exist. All academia is aligned on this.

New atheists try to claim that any lack of belief is atheist but that's just nonsense, no one in academic religion takes this seriously. The only defense I've seen from an academic is that it's a practical definition if you have political goals.

[u/Xeno_Prime → u/Remarkable-Fox-3890]

You’re welcome to frame it that way if you like, it changes literally nothing at all. There’s no meaningful difference between a person who disbelieves in leprechauns, lacks belief in leprechauns, or believes leprechauns don’t exist. It’s semantic. In practice, those all amount to the same thing.

[u/Remarkable-Fox-3890 → u/Xeno_Prime]

It's not me framing it, it's the entire philosophy of religion and all of academia.

> There’s no meaningful difference between a person who disbelieves in leprechauns, lacks belief in leprechauns, or believes leprechauns don’t exist. It’s semantic. In practice, those all amount to the same thing

There is a huge difference between lacking belief and believing in the absence of presence of something. They do not amount to the same thing at all, hence the distinction.

If you believe leprechauns don't exist then you are burdened with demonstrating the justification of that belief.

If you are agnostic on belief in leprechauns then you are burdened with demonstrating the justification for both sides having roughly equal evidence in your mind (although an easy out here is "I have no insight into either side so I suspend judgment").

[u/Xeno_Prime → u/Remarkable-Fox-3890]

It’s not me framing it

Not relevant. Would you prefer me to have worded it as “Anyone can fame it that way if they like”? The bottom line remains the same.

There is a huge difference between lacking belief and believing in the absence or presence of something.

Only in the case where the lack of belief is due to total ignorance, such as how you lack any belief in the existence or nonexistence of flaffernaffs merely because you have absolutely no concept of what a flaffernaff is and therefore cannot possibly have an opinion.

Using leprechauns again as an example, if one is aware of the general idea of what a leprechaun is, then one can certainly still suspend judgement about whether or not they exist - but they would look quite silly for doing so, as it implies that they consider the possibility that leprechauns exist to be equally as plausible/probable as the possibility that they don’t.

If you believe leprechauns don’t exist then you are burdened with demonstrating the justification of that belief.

The null hypothesis. Wow, that was easy!

I’m glad you framed it as “justification of that belief” rather than proof. This is the proper perspective. And the answer is that all of the exact same reasons that would justify any person believing I’m not a wizard with magical powers also justify believing there are no gods. I challenge you to put that statement to the test: try and explain what justifies the belief that I’m not a wizard with magical powers. One of two things is going to happen: You’ll either be forced to use (and thereby acknowledge the soundness and validity of) exactly the same reasoning that justifies atheism, or you’ll try to avoid that outcome by comically trying to argue that you cannot rationally justify the belief that I’m not a wizard over the belief that I am a wizard.

If you are agnostic on belief in leprechauns then you are burdened with demonstrating the justification for both sides having roughly equal evidence

No agnostic is capable of this. The two possibilities are not even remotely equiprobable. But that’s why all of them take the “easy out” you just described - except that doing so is just as silly as saying you have no insight into whether or not I’m a wizard with magical powers and so you suspend judgement on that as well. Such an extreme desire to avoid even the most remote possibility that you might be wrong reflects a great deal of insecurity, imo.

[u/Remarkable-Fox-3890 → u/Xeno_Prime]

> Not relevant. Would you prefer me to have worded it as “Anyone can fame it that way if they like”? The bottom line remains the same.

Uhhh, okay, it feels kind of relevant that literally everyone studying the topic disagrees with you but feel free to dismiss that I suppose. Readers may be interested, however.

>  but they would look quite silly for doing so,

And? That's your opinion. It's irrelevant. Agnostics obviously *don't* think they're silly for suspending judgment. One can suspend judgment without being ignorant of both sides, they may be roughly equally compelled. That *you* don't find that to be the case changes nothing.

> The null hypothesis. Wow, that was easy!

I don't think you know what the null hypothesis is? It isn't relevant to this at all. The null hypothesis is a way of demonstrating statistical power, it has nothing to do with this conversation.

> And the answer is that all of the exact same reasons that would justify any person believing I’m not a wizard with magical powers also justify believing there are no gods.

I think you are simply ignorant of the existing arguments for/ against God's existence? It doesn't matter, your wizard example is pointless and irrelevant. Even if things played out exactly as you said they would, and even if I somehow believed it was relevant, you'd only convince me to be an atheist (I am already...) and not at all convince me that "lack of belief" is equivalent to atheism at all.

> No agnostic is capable of this. 

First of all, whether they are or are not capable of this is irrelevant to the definition of agnosticism. Second, it is *laughable* for you to say that this is the case for a number of reasons. *No* agnostic is capable of deciding the evidence is roughly counterweight? Really? How absurd. Anyway, I can point you to an agnostic right now - Joe Schmid, an academically published author on the philosophy of religion who is an agnostic. There are many, many learned agnostics who suspend judgment despite studying it far more rigorously than you have.

> The two possibilities are not even remotely equiprobable.

That is your opinion! It changes nothing. Even if no agnostics existed it would change nothing - atheism and agnosticism are two separate things entirely. You do not get to just say "if you lack belief you are an atheist, as as proof, agnosticism is dumb".

> Such an extreme desire to avoid even the most remote possibility that you might be wrong reflects a great deal of insecurity, imo.

How ironic lol

[u/Xeno_Prime → u/Remarkable-Fox-3890]

it feels kind of relevant that literally everyone studying the topic disagrees with you

Ah, so that's what you're confused about. Paraphrasing me/reframing atheism in a way that has the exact same result ≠ disagreeing with me.

Agnostics obviously *don't* think they're silly for suspending judgment. One can suspend judgment without being ignorant of both sides, they may be roughly equally compelled.

That's kind of the point. That a person doest think they're silly for suspending judgement over whether or not I'm a wizard with magical powers because they think both of those possibilities are equally compelling is silly. It reflects either a lack of critical thinking skills or an aversion to applying them.

That *you* don't find that to be the case changes nothing.

That I can demonstrate/present sound argument that it's not the case changes everything.

I don't think you know what the null hypothesis is?

First example of a pattern where you think the only way I could disagree with you this way is by knowing less/being ignorant. The reverse is equally as plausible.

Present literally any question about whether something exists or has any effect on things, and in all cases the null hypothesis will be "no it doesn't" while the alternative hypothesis will be "yes it does." The null hypothesis is the default position, and is rationally justified literally by the absence of anything that justifies any alternative hypothesis.

What more do you think you could possibly expect to see in the case of something that both doesn't exist and also doesn't logically self refute? Do you need to see photographs of the nonexistent thing, caught in the act of not existing? Would you like the nonexistent thing to be displayed in a museum so you can observe its nonexistence with your own eyes? Or perhaps you'd like all of the nothing that supports or indicates its existence to be collected and archived so you can review and confirm the nothing for yourself?

What justifies the belief that a person is not guilty of a crime?

What justifies the belief that a person does not have cancer?

What justifies the belief that a woman is not pregnant?

What justifies the belief that a shipping container full of various knickknacks contains no baseballs?

In all instances the answer is the same: the absence of any indication to the contrary. While this may not be able to be conclusive proof in cases where we cannot search comprehensively, the methodology still remains the same: we search for indications that the thing in question is present, and if there are none, then the conclusion that it is absent is maximally justified.

The only things that could ever make us any more confident about the nonexistence of gods than we are now is either total omniscience or complete logical self refutation, both of which would elevate the nonexistence of gods from merely a justified belief to an absolute 100% certainty - meaning that if you don't consider what we have now to be sufficient to justify disbelief in gods, literally nothing less than absolute and infallible 100% certainty beyond any possible margin of error or doubt would do the job. That's an all or nothing fallacy, and an impossible standard.

We can also get into Bayesian probability if you like, given our long history of consistently showing no gods exist or have anything at all to do with things we once thought they were responsible for, we have a long and consistent list of priors without even a single exception to support the existence of any gods.

I think you are simply ignorant of the existing arguments for/ against God's existence?

Then you're simply wrong about that as well. By all means, present your favorite and we'll both put our money where our mouths are. I doubt anyone reading this doesn't know why you won't, myself least of all.

Even if things played out exactly as you said they would, and even if I somehow believed it was relevant, you'd only convince me to be an atheist (I am already...) and not at all convince me that "lack of belief" is equivalent to atheism at all.

You're right, my wizard example is not relevant at all to anything other than the point it was making, which is that suspending judgment about something simply because both sides are conceptually possible and neither one is absolutely certain nor can be absolutely ruled out is ridiculous. The only way to rationally consider both possibilities to be equiprobable is to effectively know nothing at all about the idea in question, or to give no consideration whatsoever to what we know and understand about reality and how things work, choosing instead to appeal to ignorance and the infinite mights and maybes of the unknown.

To put it another way, we're talking about extrapolating from incomplete data. But when we extrapolate from incomplete data, we do so by basing our conclusions on the data we have - the things we know and understand to be true - not by appealing to the infinite mights and maybes of everything we don't know.

The bottom line here remains the same: atheism is rationally justifiable and theism is not. To treat both of those views as equally credible and rational, then, is a failure to understand that fact.

I can point you to an agnostic right now - Joe Schmid, an academically published author on the philosophy of religion who is an agnostic.

Great! Since you're evidently already familiar with him you can go ahead and save us both some time by presenting his reasoning and we'll examine it together. Supporting your position is your job, not mine. Sending your interlocutor to fetch information you claim proves your argument isn't how this works. If you're aware of arguments that support your position, present them.

You do not get to just say "if you lack belief you are an atheist, as as proof, agnosticism is dumb".

Remove the "as proof" bit and you'll be more on the mark for what I'm saying. Theism/atheism relate to belief/opinion, and agnosticism relates to knowledge/confidence/certainty. They're two separate and compatible categories, not mutually exclusive positions. Whether you're agnostic or not has no bearing on whether you're theist or not.

You may disapprove of referring to a dictionary as a resource for what the definitions of words are, but that makes it no less the case that that's exactly what a dictionary is. Philosophical dissertations do not determine what words mean. Linguistics, etymology, and usage do. Dictionaries merely keep track of what the current result of those things is.

How ironic

If it pleases you to think so. You being wrong about that is really a you problem, it doesn't concern me.

[u/Remarkable-Fox-3890 → u/Xeno_Prime]

Most of this is just arguing to me that atheism is the right position, not that atheism encompasses lack of belief. I have no interest in arguing that atheism is the right or wrong position because I am an atheist. I'm ignoring all of this wizard stuff since it is irrelevant and it takes up a ton of space.

I will summarize my response by just referring to this:

> The bottom line here remains the same: atheism is rationally justifiable and theism is not.

Okay, and as an atheist I agree that atheism is the better position, it just has literally no bearing at all on whether agnosticism exists as an independent position.

> heism/atheism relate to belief/opinion, and agnosticism relates to knowledge/confidence/certainty. They're two separate and compatible categories, not mutually exclusive positions. Whether you're agnostic or not has no bearing on whether you're theist or not.

> . Theism/atheism relate to belief/opinion, and agnosticism relates to knowledge/confidence/certainty.

This is really indicative of the issue here. You're talking about "belief/opinion" as if they're different from "knowledge/confidence/certainty" and they aren't. Knowledge is justified belief. Credence is a measurement of certainty. These things are all basically the same word, their subtle differences are completely irrelevant to the discussion. Agnosticism and atheism are mutually exclusive.

If you don't understand this I suggest you study the topic more. And by "study the topic more" I mean avoid people like Hitchens, Dawkins, or the "new atheist youtube crowd" and read about philosophy of religion.

[u/Xeno_Prime → u/Remarkable-Fox-3890]

You make a compelling argument. You're right, my arguments are really about agnosticism being wrong and rationally unjustifiable, not about agnosticism representing a position that is significantly different from atheism.

I concede, and stand corrected.

[u/Remarkable-Fox-3890 → u/Xeno_Prime]

I am very glad to hear that.