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WHY DO ATHEISTS EVEN BOTHER?

7/30/2014

Not that I want to spend too much time on Ken Ham and his statements, but, in response to the launch of Atheist TV this week, he said, “It is incredible that atheists spend so much time, effort, and money arguing against Someone that they don’t even believe exists! Where are all their books, websites, and magazines that argue against the mythical Easter Bunny?”

This is a fairly common sentiment, and therefore one that merits a brief reply – brief because the answer is really very simple. No one argues against the Easter Bunny because otherwise educated and intelligent adults don’t believe in the Easter Bunny (much less base their social and political views on what the Easter Bunny demands of them).

At any rate, atheists are arguing about something they believe exists, namely, belief in God. And plenty of skeptics – both atheist and not – do argue against other beliefs which they regard as erroneous, including that in ghosts, ESP, flying saucers, mermaids, and so on. Ken Ham may be surprised to learn that there are even books, websites and magazines devoted to such topics!

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ATHEISM AND AGNOSTICISM

7/27/2014

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There appears to be a lot of confusion over the difference between agnosticism and atheism. In part, this is because both terms have more than one meaning. However, many also appear to be unclear over some related terms, such as “knowledge” and “belief,” and that adds to the problem.

The most common impression people seem to have is that agnosticism is a middle-ground position between theism and atheism, and even though in practice this pretty much does turn out to be true, strictly speaking it’s not correct. That is, agnostics do almost always fall in between theists and atheists (at least on the traditional, narrow meaning of “atheist”) but agnosticism is not defined as this middle-ground position. As a result, there are other possibilities.

Usually, agnostics claim that no one knows whether there are any gods – or even that knowledge in this area is impossible for human beings. Agnostics also typically argue that, because no one really knows, everyone should suspend judgment on the question of God’s existence. Thus, they usually neither believe nor disbelieve, and in this sense, they do occupy the middle position between theism and traditional atheism.

However, it is certainly possible for someone who believes in God to hold that no one really knows whether there is such a being. Conversely, it is also possible for someone who believes that there is no God – someone who positively disbelieves – to say that no one really knows. In both cases, even though these individuals may not apply the term to themselves, they in fact are agnostics: the first is an agnostic theist, the second an agnostic atheist.

Theism and atheism are about what we believe rather than about what we claim to know. A theist believes there is at least one god. The definition of atheist is a bit trickier. Traditionally, an atheist was thought of as someone who positively disbelieves, but in recent times it has become more common for people to consider anyone who lacks belief to be an atheist. (See “Broad vs. Narrow Atheism” below for more on this.) Rather than there being only some agnostic atheists (as described above), on the broad definition just about anyone who calls himself an agnostic is also an atheist. To put it another way, on this broad view atheism is equivalent to nontheism, so that anyone who is not a theist (and hardly any agnostics are) is an atheist.

Another source of confusion, as already mentioned, has to do with the meanings of such words as “knowledge” and “belief.” Now, even though the meaning of the former, in particular, is somewhat controversial (at least among philosophers), we all use it in perfectly non-controversial ways all the time. For instance, we all would claim to know who the current president of the United States is. In discussions over atheism and agnosticism, however, people tend to use the term in a much stricter sense. Often, they claim that if you aren’t one-hundred percent certain there is no God, or even that if you can’t disprove the existence of God, then you cannot claim to know God does not exist. But why claim that knowledge requires certainty? You know that Obama is president, but can you be 100% certain? Maybe he was assassinated five minutes ago and you haven’t heard about it yet. (And if, by some amazing coincidence, such a thing does happen right before I post this, the Secret Service will probably be knocking on my door sometime over the next few days.) The point is that knowledge does not mean absolute certainty. One can claim to know that God does not exist, just as one can claim to know that unicorns and the Loch Ness monster do not exist, without implying that one cannot possibly be wrong.

Finally, belief is not – as some atheists appear to suppose – equivalent to faith. There are both justified and unjustified beliefs, and there is nothing irrational about holding the former type. In fact, everything that one knows is also something that one believes.

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KEN HAM VERSUS E.T.

7/25/2014

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Ken Ham, the young-earth creationist who recently debated Bill Nye (and the principal figure behind the Creation Museum in Petersburg, Ky.), is now arguing that the search for extra-terrestrial intelligence is misguided and a big waste of money. The reason? Because only earthlings can be saved, of course! “God’s Son,” Ham pointed out, “stepped into history to be… the ‘Godman’”… not “the ‘GodKlingon’ or the ‘GodMartian’!” Thus, it is highly unlikely that there is intelligent life out there.

The search for ET’s, Ham thinks, is a misguided attempt by secularists to find answers to “the deepest questions of life.” We secularists are apparently “desperate to find life in outer space” in order to “supposedly prove evolution!” The whole thing is of course “driven by man’s rebellion against God…” (Only this time, God can’t simply confound our language in order to spoil our plans – for we now have translators!)

It’s hard to imagine a parody about creationists more outlandish than this. But then again, we are talking about a man whose views are so backward that even Pat Robertson thinks he’s ridiculous.

Ham’s blog post can be found here.

Pat Robertson’s criticism of Ham (regarding the debate with Nye) is here.

And the best reply to Ham I've heard so far is here.

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BROAD VS. NARROW ATHEISM

7/25/2014

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It has become common for nonbelievers to define atheism broadly, as the lack of belief in God or gods. In this broad sense, almost all agnostics are also atheists. But in a narrower sense atheism is the positive disbelief in a God or gods. Merely lacking belief is not enough: an atheist is someone who believes that God does not exist.

Many nonbelievers appear reluctant to espouse the narrower, stronger version of atheism. Their basic view is simply that there is no evidence for the existence of God and therefore no reason to believe. Now, it's fine if they want to argue only for this weaker claim; it puts the onus of proof squarely on the theist (which is probably why the move is so popular). Nevertheless, there are good reasons for returning to the traditional, narrower meaning of the word.

For one thing, a broader definition is a less specific one, which means that it contains less information. If someone says they are an atheist in the broad sense, it remains unclear whether they merely lack belief or positively disbelieve, as both positions fall under the scope of the definition. The new usage has also led to the introduction of new terms, like “positive atheism” and “weak atheism,” which often cause confusion since different people mean different things by them. And anyway there already is a word for the broader concept: nontheism (a word that, incidentally, has much less stigma associated with it).

But more important than any of the above is that there isn’t merely lack of evidence for gods, just as there isn’t merely lack of evidence for leprechauns or for Russell’s teapot; there are reasons for positively disbelieving in all of these things. And why shouldn’t those reasons be part of the discussion between believers and nonbelievers?

This is why, when I describe myself as an atheist, I mean that I believe there is no God. And I wish more atheists would say that.

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ARE THERE ANY EX-CHRISTIANS?

7/2/2014

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The title of this post may strike some as ridiculous: of course there are ex-Christians! There’s even a pretty good chance you yourself know some of them. Millions of people have given up on the religion of their parents, and ex-preachers like Dan Barker and John Loftus have written books on how they lost their faith. Nevertheless, there are those who claim Christian apostates do not really exist. Why? Because, they say, anyone who claims to have abandoned Christianity wasn’t a true Christian in the first place. Genuinely accepting Jesus means never going back.

There’s even biblical support for this claim. First John 2:19 implies that those who are true believers will not change their minds: “They went out from us,” it begins, “but they were not of us; for if they had been of us, they would no doubt have continued with us…” (Of course, as with just about anything, the Bible can also be used in support of the opposing view. Thus, I Timothy 4:1 states that “…in the latter times some shall depart from the faith…” – in part, no doubt, because the faith contradicts itself.)

Now, if these people who claim they were once believers were never real Christians, then either they are mistaken or they are lying. But it’s unlikely that they are all lying – that’s quite a large number of people, after all, and you’d expect some of them at least to have admitted the deception by now. What the deniers of Christian apostasy appear to suppose, then, is that most or all of these people are mistaken: they thought they were Christians, but they were fooling themselves. They had perhaps nominally adopted the religion of their parents, but hadn’t really accepted Jesus as their savior – even if, like Barker and Loftus, they thought they had.

But now here’s the problem. If all this is true, then how can anyone who currently calls himself a Christian be sure that he really is? If someone can be wrong about their beliefs this way, then it seems that those who at present regard themselves as believers may also be confused. So how can anyone know that they are among the saved? It appears that denying the existence of ex-Christians comes at a heavy price.

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WHY DO ATHEISTS EVEN BOTHER?

ATHEISM AND AGNOSTICISM

KEN HAM VERSUS E.T.

BROAD VS. NARROW ATHEISM

ARE THERE ANY EX-CHRISTIANS?

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