Atheism FAQ - first draft

[ChrisV]

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It's outside my realm of expertise, but I'm pretty sure agnosticism is "supposed" to include the impossibility of knowing (even a-gnostic seems reminiscent of anti-knowledge...?)

1. a person who holds that the existence of the ultimate cause, as God, and the essential nature of things are unknown and unknowable, or that human knowledge is limited to experience.

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Most definitions have "unknown or unknowable". And it's not a question of area of expertise - we're looking for a definition of the word as commonly used. It's one of those situations like "anti-Semite" meaning anti-Jew, not anti- all Semitic peoples.

[TimM]

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Also, there is the problem of which religion to pick.

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Pick the one with the worst hell and the best heaven?

[bluesbassman]

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Pascal's wager is the most convincing argument for religion I have heard. Can you really refute it any other way than saying


It's not really true that you lose nothing and gain nothing if God does not exist. You lose part of your life to silly dogma and worshipping. This point works in a symbiosis with the other point:

Pascal's wager can also be used to prove that you should believe in Islam, in Hinduism and so on and so on. If I invent a religion right now, you should believe in it.

I'm not sure that this refutes Pascal's argument, and I think I'm willingly taking the route of lower EV by being an atheist.

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Atheism is not a lower EV "wager" than theism. Since the set of mutually exclusive belief systems which claim to be required to avoid a version of "hell" is arbitrarily large, and there is no independent reason to believe a particular one, then there is no EV gain by choosing a particular one (assuming that's even possible to do sincerely).

Moreover, atheism can be included in the set of beliefs required to avoid hell, since it can be cogently argued that a just God will reward (or at least not punish) the atheist for honestly applying the capacity to reason which God presumably gave him (or her).

I find Pascal's wager to be the least convincing argument for theism. It's a sucker bet.

[wtfsvi]

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and there is no independent reason to believe a particular one,

[/ QUOTE ] This can't just be stated as fact like that. For religious people that is far from true.

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Moreover, atheism can be included in the set of beliefs required to avoid hell, since it can be cogently argued that a just God will reward (or at least not punish) the atheist for honestly applying the capacity to reason which God presumably gave him (or her).

[/ QUOTE ] While I deem the existence of a Christian God to be very, very, very unlikely, I think that scenario is much more unlikely. (The part about rewarding atheists, I mean. Not the part about not punishing them.) Do you disagree? If you do I suspect you are not able to distance yourself properly from the need to justify your own beliefs.

Maybe Pascal's wager doesn't have much to do in a FAQ about atheism. I find it a decent defence for religion, but not so much for converting people to religion.

[PantsOnFire]

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Fundamentally unknowable? If the stars spontaneously reformed themselves overnight to spell out "I IS GOD LOLZ" then I might be inclined to rethink my atheism. How would you describe someone who simply doesn't have an opinion on whether God exists?

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I consider myself to be agnostic so maybe I can help here.

It seems irrational to state that there is no God or other supreme being or intelligent designer or whatever you want to call it. To do that you would have to disprove an existance of something. That is very hard to do for even basic questions let alone the ultimate question.

As an agnotic, that is probably the only difference between me and an atheist. And in everyday life, this would not be an issue unless the atheist was insisting I drop my belief that there may be something out there (or in here or somewhere).

[bluesbassman]

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and there is no independent reason to believe a particular one,

[/ QUOTE ] This can't just be stated as fact like that. For religious people that is far from true.

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Obviously. But Pascal's wager *is* being claimed as the reason to believe in X religion. If there is a valid independent reason(s) to accept X as true, then we don't need Pascal's wager!

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Moreover, atheism can be included in the set of beliefs required to avoid hell, since it can be cogently argued that a just God will reward (or at least not punish) the atheist for honestly applying the capacity to reason which God presumably gave him (or her).

[/ QUOTE ] While I deem the existence of a Christian God to be very, very, very unlikely, I think that scenario is much more unlikely. (The part about rewarding atheists, I mean. Not the part about not punishing them.) Do you disagree? If you do I suspect you are not able to distance yourself properly from the need to justify your own beliefs.

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Yes, I disagree. Again, if there exists an independent reason to accept the likelihood that, say, Christianity is true, then Pascal's wager is trivial and not needed. If not (as I claim), then Pascal's wager doesn't gain you anything.

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Maybe Pascal's wager doesn't have much to do in a FAQ about atheism. I find it a decent defence for religion, but not so much for converting people to religion.

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If an atheism FAQ is to cover common arguments for theism, then Pascal's wager deserves a place, since it is common. However, I just don't think it is a very good argument, even among the set of other invalid theistic arguments.

[wtfsvi]

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Obviously. But Pascal's wager *is* being claimed as the reason to believe in X religion. If there is a valid independent reason(s) to accept X as true, then we don't need Pascal's wager!

[/ QUOTE ] You don't need a reason to believe in X religion. Just a reason to believe X religion is more likely to be true than Y religion.


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Yes, I disagree. Again, if there exists an independent reason to accept the likelihood that, say, Christianity is true, then Pascal's wager is trivial and not needed. If not (as I claim), then Pascal's wager doesn't gain you anything.

[/ QUOTE ] There doesn't have to be a reason to accept that Christianity is true. You just have to think it is more likely than God rewarding people for not believing in him. You can still believe both scenarios are tremendously unlikely.

[Subfallen]

bluebass -

Most Christians who endlessly quote Pascal's Wager are misrepresenting it. In the same passage of Pensees where the Wager appears, Pascal says, "Il faut s'abetir"---that is, "One must make oneself stupid."

The Wager was not really meant as an "argument" for Christianity. It was more of a post hoc rationalization for committing intellectual suicide. A typical artifact of the glorious Protestant tradition.

[luckyme]

An FAQ could be helpful.
Atheist – does not have the belief that a god exists.

We are born atheists and we may remain atheists all our lives without ever having to refute any theist claims ( luck of birthplace). The refutation/rejection of various theist claims that some atheists have experienced doesn’t really have anything to do with atheism, it’s mere flyswatting. Perhaps along the way Sam Harris comments ( haven’t read his book.)

Anything added to that tends to confuse the route with the destination. The goal to “accurately represent the views of atheists” is unattainable, the best one could hope for is to represent some typical views of some atheists. Atheism doesn’t come with a view.

It may be useful to have a generic list of some typical rejections of theist claims but caveated as “ some counters that some atheists may use when facing a theist claim.” Although likely some can be generalized enough to at least act as a framework.

The issue of the bible being useless as a source of morals has nothing to do with atheism, for example.

The idea of an FAQ has merit, but the scope needs some consideration.

luckyme

[TimM]

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There doesn't have to be a reason to accept that Christianity is true. You just have to think it is more likely than God rewarding people for not believing in him.

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I can certainly conceive of an instance where this would be the case.

Perhaps god, being a very advanced being but not omniscient and omnipotent, decides to create the universe in such a way as to allow conscious with reason and logic to evolve. As a test, he makes sure there is no reliable evidence of his existence in the universe. Since this highly advanced being strongly values logic and reason, this is a kind of test, and those who believe in him on insufficient evidence have failed it.

You may say this is unlikely, but you have absolutely no objective frame of reference to judge the probability of your view over this one. All you have is parental and societal indoctrination from an early age, and that skews your judgement.