Atheism for reasons as wrong as theism
Offline Hello all, I'm new to the forums. I thought that I'd join since I find it nice to be able to express myself freely, in a society where atheists are generally silenced.
I thought I'd open with a topic of concern that I've had recently.
I was recently debating atheism with a very devout christian, and much to my pleasant suprise, at the end he began to question his beliefs. But then something devestating occurred to me and I had to express it to him. I told him not to suddenly turn to atheism because of everything I told him, and the evidence that I spoke about to him, since doing so would make his atheism just as unjustified as his theism. He would stop believing in something because somebody told him so.
I told him that he should look into it himself rather than just accept everything that is told to him. Don't just assume that he knows what he'll see if he did, but actually look for himself. Then decide. Religion is built on the backbone of false presumption and conjecture.
Then I realized that many atheists may actually be atheists with this backing their belief, and that worried me. How many atheists are atheist for the wrong reasons. Because someone told them so. Because its "cool". Because they are just rebelling against their parents. Because the person they aspire to be like is an atheist.
My questions are:
- How many atheists are atheists for the wrong reasons?
- How do you identify these atheists?
- How important is someone's justification for atheism? / Is atheism alone, regardless of their justification, enough? / Is there really a wrong reason to be an atheist?
- What's the best way to show these individuals the flaws in their ideas?
Of course, you're comments and opinions are valuable.
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Interesting concept. Before I answer your question, I'd like to caution you against a false dichotomy that could possibly result from this line of thinking. There are two kinds of arguments for atheism: Logical and empirical. The logical arguments really can be taken at face value. Deductive logic is, after all, completely certain. Disbelief in an omnimax god, for instance, is completely justifiable through the use of logic alone. Likewise, belief in the supernatural is logically incoherent, and can be discarded without the need for empirical evidence.
Evidential claims, on the other hand, are subject to the kind of pressure you mention. If I tell you that there is ample evidence to believe that evolution is true, you can believe me and be guilty of an appeal to authority, or you can go to the library and look for yourself. Some claims are very difficult to prove. For instance, I can say that there's no empirical evidence for the existence of a God, but how could you or I prove that? All we can do is tell someone to take as much time as they need to look for any evidence at all. If there is evidence, we ought to be able to find it. If a reasonably exhaustive search turns up nothing, we're justified in saying that it appears as if there is no evidence, and we ought not believe until and unless someone presents us with some.
Anyway, on to your questions:
How many atheists are atheists for the wrong reasons?
I don't know. Then again, I probably wouldn't consider some reasons "wrong" and you might disagree with me. I don't consider it wrong to be an atheist simply because you've never bothered to think about it. If religion was never an important issue for someone, why should we insist that they learn all the reasons they "ought" to be atheist? That's almost like imposing religion on them by forcing them to discard it in the correct way
Of my own life, I can say that I've hardly ever met an atheist who was just "following the crowd" or trying to be cool. In fact, I can't think of one. Not a single one. That isn't to say every atheist I've ever known was a master of philosophy and logic, but that they at least had thought about it, and discounted religion for intellectually sound reasons.
How do you identify these atheists?
Again, since I've never known any, I don't really know what I'd be looking for. I suppose such people would probably show signs of having rather dysfunctional social skills, because in America at least, you'd have to be a little crazy to want to be treated like an atheist. We're the most villified, mistrusted, and disdained group in America.
How important is someone's justification for atheism? / Is atheism alone, regardless of their justification, enough? / Is there really a wrong reason to be an atheist?
I honestly don't think there are too many wrong ways to be on the correct side, but I'm sure it's possible. Have you ever tried to come up with an illogical argument for atheism? I'm not asking that rhetorically. I've never tried, and I'm having a hard time thinking of one, at least not one that would make sense to very many people. The thing about atheism is it's a non-position. Atheism doesn't dictate any particular view about morality, happiness, or alien abductions. All it entails is the lack of belief in a god. Are there atheists who believe wacky shit and do bad things in the world? Of course! But it's not because of atheism. It's because of some other wacky belief.
What's the best way to show these individuals the flaws in their ideas?
The same way you show a theist. Educate them.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
While a massive amount of my atheism comes from deductive logical reasoning, I don't usually make these arguments towards theists since they normally fail to penetrate their faith. Logic seems to escape them even further than empirical evidence.
I'm of the mindset that not only is there no evidence for the existence of God, but there is a massive amount of logical deductive reasoning suggesting that there is in fact, no God. But this escapes theists very easily.
I've never liked that arguments of the appeal to authority are considered fallacious, since this must be pretty subjective. Even wikipedia is a more reliable source of information than a random person such as myself walking down the street. While it's true that just because Stephen Hawking says that Black Holes exist, doesn't make it so, he is definately a far more reliable source than I am on the subject, since my understanding of physics is limited. If the only method a person has to prove anything empirically, is looking at the natural world itself, since appeals to authority are fallacies, then the only way someone could justifiably become an atheist due to evidence in the natural world, is to study the sciences themselves, rather than looking it up in a book that may or may not have been written by a PhD. This of course is not reasonable.
So a person taking my word for scientific evidence over their own research into it, even if that research is something as simple as looking up HowStuffWorks.com, it's still more reliable then I am. Of course it's up to a person to determine how much research is research enough. I'd say, that if someone took my word for something, and turned to atheism for it, that would be stopping pretty short.
At any rate, another reason why I had posed those questions, is that if someone has the capacity to understand logical reasoning, or even empirical reasoning, one would think that would be enough to prevent them from ever going from atheism to theism, yet we see this all the time. For those cases where an atheist turns to theist, I would conclude (though this conclusion may be hasty) that those new found theists were thusly atheist for the wrong reason.
Oh yes, I forgot, to answer your question of whether or not I know of an illogical argument for atheism:
I've never used the moral argument for atheism. The fact that religion has caused so much war and death. While this may denote purpose, it doesn't denote reason. Whether or not theism or atheism is moral is irrelevant as to whether or not its the truth. If someone told me they were atheist because religion has caused so much suffering and pain, it takes away separation of church and state, or that it has suppressed the scientific community since the birth of civilization, I would say that's the wrong reason to be an atheist.
The results of theism is irrelevant to whether or not a God exists. Of course, I'm the type of person that puts truth above morals.
Now, there are many other illogical arguments for atheism that I've seen in debate forums, that I wouldn't remember specifically, but I'd often identify as a terribly illogical reasons to be an atheist. Often times these arguments concern me.
Authority is not always fallacious. Appeal to authority is the name of a particular fallacy, so the question is whether the label is correct or not in any given instance. If I say, "Richard Dawkins says evolution is true, so evolution is true," that's an appeal to authority:
X authority says Y
Therefore Y.
However, if I say, Richard Dawkins, an authority on evolution, explains the arguments compellingly and lucidly in his book, The Blind Watchmaker, I'm not making an appeal to authority. I'm pointing someone to an authority as a credible source of information. In the end, we must always trust some authority or another on nearly everything. The question is whether we believe because the authority said so, or because there is ample evidence that what the authority says is true.
With the notable exception of Anthony Flew, who, in his Alzheimer's riddled old age changed his mind and became a deist (not, by any accounts, a Christian) I'm not aware of many self identifying atheists who became full blown theists. I'm not saying it doesn't happen because people obviously convert to Christianity after being at least non-religious. I suspect that the vast majority of conversions are people who have either never given religion enough thought to have an opinion, or people who were at least partially indoctrinated as children. That is, even if perhaps their parents didn't go to church, they couldn't help but feel the influence of the church in their friends, and were probably witnessed to by adults, etc, etc. In other words, the seeds were already planted. I simply don't believe that very many people born and raised in nontheist settings are swayed by religious arguments as adults.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I have to say that I have encountered people who were atheists simply because it was "cooler" to them than religion was. Because I choose my friends carefully, I tend to quietly dig into their beliefs to see exactly where they go. And I have distressingly found a few people who base it entirely on emotion, without knowing any facts at all. Some of these people believe in magic or astrology or time travel or extreme conspiracy theories or other interesting notions. Amazingly some of them don't believe in evolution or that gravity works the way we understand it to work(a push instead of a pull....huh?
). I pry into their atheism and find no logical basis for it or even much instruction on history regarding it. I have yet to be able to quantify these people properly, but I am aware of their existance.
Enlightened Atheist, Gaming God.
Actually, vastet, you're right. I wasn't counting all the people I know who believe in wacky shit but not god. I've known tons of people who believed in New Age shit or astrology or Feng Shui (or however you spell it) or the Illuminati... but they're atheists because they don't believe in god.
So, let me take back my first answer and say that you identify atheists with bad reasons by the prominence of wacky non-God beliefs. Typically, if someone is able to be a rational materialist, they've gone through enough of the mental exercises to be an atheist for the right reasons.
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
Ah. Your point is well made. I have looked into lists of logical fallacies, but not enough to try and understand them to their fullest extent. I always try to backup my opinions with logic, but I don't generally define how my logic works. But at some point I found it useful to actually look into these common lists of logical fallacies.
http://www.infidels.org/library/modern/mathew/logic.html
Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin
http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism
I think that's a good point. Atheism should not be about giving a conviction to someone through debate and only concludes atheism because someone has made well arguments. How one should at arrive at atheism, more or less, should be the investigation and deduction of what the tenets of his faith imply. I find most of the theists I argue with are so narrow minded it's not even worth arguing with. However, I wouldn't want them to become atheist merely because I said it's the most rational way, for that equates to believing in dogma without any justification. Granted, you can simply say you're an atheist and have no justification for it, but to me that isn't really common.
“I don't believe in an afterlife, so I don't have to spend my whole life fearing hell, or fearing heaven even more. For whatever the tortures of hell, I think the boredom of heaven would be even worse.”
"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored."
I don't want people using the "atheist" label, just to be a rebel, or just because they don't like hypocracy.
I don't want someone to come to the position of being an atheist on "Stockhom" syndrom.
I have run into people who passively dissmiss a deity claim, and I see them as easy pickings for the slick marketing of creative apologists.
There is only one reason to me to claim to be an atheist. EVIDENCE.
That is why I cut to the chase in attacking magical claims. The one universal tool humanity has, beyond my position or that of the theist, is scientific method. Scientific method is not a position, but a process.
Certainly there are moral objections to the claims of "all powerfull" and "all loving". But in the end, in our lives, outside the issue of religion, we know that DNA exists, even if we willfully deny it.
If the people who claim that Ouiji boards work, or that psychics are real, or that Big Foot is real, would come up with the same mountain of evidence that we have for atoms, they would have something.
Atheists can be as educated as Richard Dawkins are as superficial as a gang symbol under a highway underpass.
EVIDENCE is not a symbol, or a claim, or a label, or a gang, or a bias.
"We are a nation of Christians and Muslims, Jews and Hindus -- and nonbelievers."Obama
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