What he said. I’m bookmarking this to refer to whenever this topic comes up for the rest of my life.
Especially:
Why don’t I believe in God? No, no no, why do YOU believe in God? Surely the burden of proof is on the believer. You started all this. If I came up to you and said, “Why don’t you believe I can fly?” You’d say, “Why would I?” I’d reply, “Because it’s a matter of faith”. If I then said, “Prove I can’t fly. Prove I can’t fly see, see, you can’t prove it can you?” You’d probably either walk away, call security or throw me out of the window and shout, ‘’F—ing fly then you lunatic.”
And his conclusion sums it all up perfectly:
“Do unto others…” is a good rule of thumb. I live by that. Forgiveness is probably the greatest virtue there is. Buts that’s exactly what it is – a virtue. Not just a Christian virtue. No one owns being good. I’m good. I just don’t believe I’ll be rewarded for it in heaven. My reward is here and now. It’s knowing that I try to do the right thing. That I lived a good life. And that’s where spirituality really lost its way. When it became a stick to beat people with. “Do this or you’ll burn in hell.”
You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway.
What’s interesting to me is how “smug” has become a general insult for anyone who can describe a reason for what they do. You look at blog comments and liberals are always described as “smug.” So are bicyclists, Prius drivers, and vegetarians. Its part of America’s ongoing drive to avoid reality based thought. Yes, I have reasons for doing what I do and believing what I believe, I guess that makes me smug, and yes, I don’t have an interest in talking to people who don’t have reasons for what they believe so I guess I’m supercillious (the other blog insult) too.
As a nontheistic agnostic (not quite atheist), I concede that many atheists do come off as smug and superior, and even are. But I would argue that this comes from the sense that so much of our current discussions as a society and world community are dominated (not just inclusive of, but dominated) by religious discourse, and that people use their religious beliefs as a way of externalizing a sense of authority to whatever position they are arguing for (basically, “It’s not me saying that gays are evil, it’s God” in discussions of same-sex marriage, DADT, etc.), and feeling totally frustrated by how accepted the objectivity of those assertions of authority as objective are. Folks like Hitchens and Dawkins and lots of other atheists can come off as knee-jerk self-righteous, but I think the true solution is for us as a society/world/whatever to sort out how to make policies and practices while questioning religious premises for certain positions a bit more. When injustice (queer folks, women, people of color, poor folks) is being legitimized based on peoples’ faith, I find some level of anger or indignation at those faiths as understandable.
I never really initiate religious discussions with folks (including folks in my family); they always tend to do it with me. My questioning and skepticism is always perceived to be an arrogant attack on what they believe, but the reverse is never accepted as equally valid, meaning I can’t be as offended by their lack of acceptance for my belief as they can of my lack of acceptance for theirs.
Interesting book on question of how morality developed: MIcheal Shermer’s The Science of Good and Evil.
OC, you remind me of the old, old story (probably as old as mankind) of the blind man trying to convince someone that there’s no such thing as the color green. No matter how much you protest, you’ll never be right. And you’ll certainly never convince someone who’s actually seen the color green that you’re right.
@53: Seems like a pointless metaphor since you can simply reverse it to make either side sound stupid.
Why not just say: proselytizing of all sorts is annoying, therefore don’t do it or risk being annoying.
Gnosticism is what is illogical. I don’t have a whole lot of respect for anyone, theist or atheist, who insists that they know whether there is a god. I cannot draw any conclusions, based on the available evidence, as to whether or not there is a god. The natural world works as it is, but I have seen many things that I cannot explain by natural mechanisms. I choose to believe that there is a God. Why? Why not?
@mozzie Surely you blanket-stereotype all atheists. We’re not all modern-day Crusaders aggressively using logic to convert believers into ‘seeing the light’. Of course atheism is being discussed here, because that’s the subject of this slog. What pisses me off about the religious in this country is that they’re always busy in Washington trying to ram their belief system down everyone’s throats, separation of church and state nonwithstanding. The nonreligious people who fight on the side of pro-choice and gay marriage are the ones who keep it up to the individual to decide based on his or her individual belief system.
Venomlash, a lot of Atheists believe just that. It’s other people who assume that Atheists claim to KNOW whether there’s a god or not.
I don’t know whether there’s is a god or not, but I assume there isn’t, based on my own personal experience and logic, just like I assume everything else I believe to be true is so.
Yes, we atheists are so horribly arrogant, what with our pointing out the absolute lack of empirical evidence in favor of the theistic position.
We should really learn humility from those who believe that this incomprehensibly massive, old and complex universe was made especially for a species that has been around less than a cosmic interest by a deity who thinks we are soooo special.
Sorry, I just happen to think reality is more than enough:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ujUQn0HhG…
@33, the concept of “souls” is hilarious.
Indeed, Fnarf. I doubt many people who even believe they exist can accurately describe what one is and how it’s any different from the physical/mental body.
@ 5280/ 53,
Maybe you can explain this to us? I’ve not heard it explained yet. We’ll stick with your metaphorical story of the color “green”. You say you have seen “green” and therefore it is real. Do you have any reproducible evidence to prove that you have seen “green”? Can you prove to us that your seeing “green” can be proved and verified by a third party? Was the moment you saw “green”, specific to only you and experienced only by you? Do you have any witnesses to verify? Can you prove that seeing “green” was more than some vision with a fascinating neuronal correlate in the medial temporal lobe of your brain that should be studied? Could it be that your seeing “green” was specific to only you and therefore is only applicable and meaningful to you?
I have no wish to dismiss your statement that you have seen “green”. I have no wish to deny your experience of seeing “green”. I do not wish to to deny the possibility of seeing “green”. So, I’m will to accept at face value that you say that you have seen “green”, and that seeing “green” was meaningful to you. Having said that, and without your having yet provided scientific evidence that you have seen “green”, do you think that your having seen “green” allows you to make statements and judgments (as I see it) about others who haven’t seen “green”? Are we to accept your having seen “green” purely on face value and follow blindly behind you? Is that the reasoning behind your statement @ 36, that because you say you have experienced something the rest of us are to submit our critical thinking capabilities to the dustbin and follow? I for one, find it difficult to grasp how your experience of seeing “green” says anything about the actual existence of “green” as it stands presently.
I really am fascinated to hear your answer, because this isn’t the first time that you have chimed in about knowing the truth or made a statement that sounds an awful lot like a pronouncement of “judgement”.
Like I said before, I have no desire to deny your seeing “green” experience. I hope that you found it nourishing, encouraging, inspiring, and affirming. I wish you all the joy your heart can hold and peace. I’m just exceedingly curious.
@ 45, the reason why atheists come across as “smug and superior” is because, like any “saved evangelical,” you’re certain of your unprovable hypothesis.
You can’t prove a negative, you know.
@ 59, as soon as someone can explain what it is that makes us alive, a soul is as good an explanation as any.
@54 nails it pretty well, I think. Ultimately, atheists who try to convince believers – what ever they may believe in – that they are wrong are proselytizing for non-belief, the same way that annoying guy or woman at work who keeps asking you if you have accepted Jesus Christ as your Lord and Personal Savior is.
I’m a believer in the Christian understanding of God. I don’t hide that, and I’ll talk about my belief with anyone who asks me to, though if they are asking me to provide a logical basis for belief, they are probably out of luck – faith is simply not logical. But I don’t hand out tracks to my atheist or agnostic friends (and the majority of my friends are atheist or agnostics), I don’t tell the the lovely, elderly Muslim couple I see in my favorite coffee house every weekend that they are going to burn in hell, and I don’t question the spiritual practices of my Buddhist boss. If I did any of those things, all I would succeed in doing would be proving how annoyingly narrow-minded Christians are. And, speaking as someone who is firmly, “Not all Christians are like that” camp, I would be doing my own self a disservice.
The great thing about this country is that we are free to believe or not believe whatever we choose, and to do so publically. Whether or not we annoy everyone around us with that belief or lack there of is also a choice. I personally wish more people would choose not to.
BTW, Kim, I noticed your birthday remark, so let me wish you a happy one. Assuming it’s today (since it could have been a day or two earlier, if your whiskey is leftover), you share it with my favorite aunt.
# 51, you’re only “smug” about something if you act in a manner that shows you believe yourself superior to others who don’t share your beliefs and practices. You can do any of the things you mention without being superior about it; and smugness is a bad thing, because if you believe your actions are right and that the world would be better if more people did as you do, those people will be turned off by your attitude and will adopt a hard stance opposite you. That’s not a recipe for success. (You may not care, of course, and that’s your choice, but you’re going to be judged either way.)
It is today, Matt. Thank you for the kind wishes.
@53: I was raised a good christian kid, and genuinely believed. By your very definition I “saw” green.
At around 13 I had a crisis of faith. I could not reconcile the faith I was raised in with what I observed in the world around me. I was very depressed. When I came to the realisation that it was all hokum, suddenly all the pieces fell into place. The world made sense.
I would say that your argument is correct … the other way round. The “blind” are the faithful, denying the evidence of their own eyes every day.
@36 – Desmond Tutu has me covered (and I’m an atheist)
when an atheist once said to him “I don’t believe in god” Tutu very cheerfully replied “don’t worry, he believes in you” I’d prefer “hell” to any “god” that didn’t have the values what Tutu expressed.
@59 Well, I agree. I’m just arguing people who proselytize for atheism should start with souls and not God. Convince people the soul doesn’t exist and they won’t have use for gods anymore.
@60 Sure, but you could say the same about plenty of vaguely-defined scientific concepts (e.g. what exactly is a gene or the quark-gluon plasma?). The difference is how one goes about resolving what the poorly-defined stuff really means; faith or science.
@55 – I used to think this too—that it was just as illogical to not believe in a god as to believe in one—but if you’re someone who follows the laws of science, this just isn’t true.
Nothing is provable beyond all doubt. That doesn’t mean that all hypotheses are equally valid, or that it’s as logical to believe something that has zero evidence as it is to disbelieve it.
Using Gervais’ example, your logic suggests that the only rational position on whether or not I can fly is “I don’t know” when really it’s “of course not.” I can never prove 100% that I can’t fly given the right conditions, but it’s still infinitely more logical to conclude that I can’t.
So, based on the available evidence (none), I can easily draw a conclusion on the existence of god, in the same way that I can draw a conclusion on the existence of gravity.
@7- “Not sure what you sloggers think about Deepak Chopra…”
He’s a con artist with a mellow pitch. He mixes a lot of good sense in with his bullshit and so keeps his books sales strong.
Most modern popular religions are “revelatory.” In other words, there was a moment of inspiration or a cosmic occurrence in which the truth of that particular belief was revealed. For Muslims, it is the special circumstances surrounding the authoring of the Qu’ran (Mohammed was illiterate and dictated the Qu’ran to his followers; could an illiterate man produce without God’s help a work such as the Qu’ran?). Mormons have their golden plates. Christians have the resurrection.
So, for example, the latter case: the bible was almost certainly written entirely within the first century (considering we contain much text from the last composed gospel dating to 125). This attests to direct eyewitnesses to Jesus’ return, including by skeptical people (from Thomas to Saul of Tarsus). The inspiration for the apostles and their actions seem to flow more convincingly out of personally seeing a resurrected Jesus than out of conspiracy or lunacy.
In other words, there is evidence and it’s not particularly bad. It’s silly that people pretend their isn’t evidence. You may disagree with the conclusions or find another explanation more convenient, but if not for the factual resurrection, you’d have to be an idiot to be a Christian (according to 1 Corinthians, dated between 53-57 AD).
If you think there’s no evidence for the resurrection, you’re on the level of those who think our current President (PBUH) was born in Kenya.
@36- Fear of god is very silly. How do you know which god to be afraid of?
@72- Heavily edited second-hand accounts of events 2000 years ago is TERRIBLE evidence.
@70- Actually, the only really logical response to “I can fly. is not “of course not” but “almost certainly not.” No need to jump to conclusions, just state the absolute truth.
@75 – Okay sure, I agree with that, but practically speaking they’re the same thing, and my main point is that we count countless things as “true” every day without adding the “almost certainly” caveat, because it’s not needed. Since there is no absolute truth, the grain of doubt can be assumed.
@62- I can’t prove a negative. That’s why I’m agnostic. And I that is the only reasonable thing to be.
Basic biology shows us what makes us alive. Our thoughts and memories are electo-chemical activities in our very complex brains. This is all very simple, it just doesn’t make us seem extra-super-special and so people don’t want to accept it.
@70 You CAN fly: with an Airplane.
But let’s say, you hadn’t seen an airplane but I had. I walked to an airport, saw people get in, saw it take off the ground up into the air. I came to you and told you about it. You could say, “Duh, logically, people can’t fly.” Or you could gather evidence as to whether this is plausible, if I’m lying to you or not.
By the way, empiricism is not strictly logical. The only evidence we have that empiricism is worked is that it’s generally worked in the past (i.e. empiricism). Outside of circular reasoning, the only foundation for empiricism is the general hope and faith that the universe is an orderly and rational place. Don’t say “logic” if you don’t mean it.
By that I mean, “know your implied axiomatic premises, bitch!”
@ 70, you actually highlighted what’s wrong with Gervais’ comparison – he was comparing something that’s easily explained (can humans fly under their own physical abilities) with something that’s not (Where does life come from? – which is the whole essence of religion).
Gervais is right in that the religious bear the burden of proof for their viewpoint, which is always dogmatic and certain; on that level his comparison is spot on. But since there is the question of what is life, and since science can’t answer, saying that there is an answer is not logical either.
@ 77, I agree completely (if it’s not clear, I’m agnostic too), but the question of the origin of life remains. If it IS all electro-chemical reactions and processes, we’ll eventually be able to create these in a laboratory. Until then, what we can observe is that all life comes from something else that’s alive, so the question of how it all began is, at this point, just as easy to hypothesize that it was created at some long-ago point.
@80- No, it’s not just as easy to hypothesize it was created. That involve hypothesizing a creator, which is a whole ‘nother can of worms. On the other hand, we can easily create conditions in which amino acids form other components , which shows that the building blocks of life can arise in conditions we know existed in the past.
@78- What is illogical about using a technique that proves itself correct a billion times a day? And what is logical about substituting “faith” for that technique, even though “faith” by definition offers no proof?
we find athiets to be sadly lacking in imagination.
it is a very large very old universe.
it is inconceivable that there are not intellegences greater and older than our own.
it does not require much imagination to suppose that they might be aware of and take an interest in us.
only believing what one can personally see is an empty shallow dull existence.
@ 81, unless these enzymes and amino acids were self aware and able to reproduce on their own, they weren’t “alive.”
It’s one thing to duplicate a few of the chemical processes which occur in organisms, but it’s another to synthetically create something that we can say is alive. If atheists are correct, and it really all just is chemistry, then scientists will be able to synthesize life. Until then…
Stop being so smug with your science and knowledge and stuff.
@79, I think a lot of people, theistic and otherwise, would disagree with you that the issue of where life came from is the “whole essence of religion.”
Science can’t answer where life came from *currently,* though it may sometime in the future. Religion does not merely suggest that there is an answer, but that it knows what the answer is– without any evidence. That’s the problem. The fact that science hasn’t yet explained something does not give anyone license to make up an explanation, nor require any of the rest of us to respect that explanation in the slightest.
SO MANY WORDS… must get back to work…
but happy birthday, Kim!
@81
until last year… oh wait, this year
sorry, previous was @84
@28 & 71…Oh. I don’t know much about him, have read a couple of books, which I thought had interesting points, but I didn’t realize he was “selling” anything, I just thought the books presented some complex ideas in layman’s terms, which I found helpful.
@ 86, not sure what your point is, at least as in answer to anything I said. I’m not excusing people for running to religion in absence of firm answers elsewhere, but supposing some kind of creator, one we know nothing about, is as logical as saying that none exists. It’s only when you start building up the mythology and dogma and saying “These are the facts” is when people have left logic behind.
@ 88/89, from your first link:
From your second link:
Close only counts in horseshoes. You’re still leaping to conclusions if you’re declaring that we’ve synthesized life when he haven’t.
Religion is a ‘necessary evil.’
What else is there to tell the masses what they should/shouldn’t do, the consequences if you don’t live a ‘righteous’ life, and all that trivial shit.
I’m an atheist. I used to think religion was a crutch for weak-minded people who couldn’t make sense of their world or looking for a reason for existence.
Now, I see it as a necessity to keep the general population in control.
Seriously, you can’t really trust people to do the right thing, especially if they think no one is watching.
@83- I believe it is almost certain there is intelligent life elsewhere in the universe.
That has nothing to do with theism.
Correction: “when WE haven’t,” not “when HE haven’t.”
@82 Circular arguments are illogical. Saying: “things are consistent, therefore they are consistent” isn’t logical.
@84- Even so (and I think you’re wrong) you still haven’t presented any reason for hypothesizing a creator. It’s a needless leap, a whole level of existence which we can not observe yet for some reason creates our universe? Why, how, when? It’s completely unnecessary and completely useless to theorize about.
@93= “A equals A” is completely logical. Saying A does not equal A is actually nuts.
@91
You know it’ll be just a matter of time, though…unless those tiny microorganisms have souls in which case we’d have to science up some souls to be implanted.
I think Xenu has got some souls lying around somewhere…
@97:
Using A as a means to prove A is not logical. That’s what I meant by “therefore.”
A. If the laws of physics do not change, phenomena measured today will behave the same way tomorrow.
B. We have not measured any changes in the laws of physics.
Therefore: phenomena measured today will behave the same way tomorrow.
Obviously, that’s a circular argument. There is no means to *prove* empiricism logically (make me aware of one if I’m wrong). Outside of that, we don’t mean “logically”, we mean “axiomatically” as in, we take as a given that empiricism works because thats “rational” or at least “reasonable” but certainly not “logical.”
Just saying.
@91 Try out your argument with regard to some other entity without evidence: “I’m not excusing people for running to belief in unicorns in absence of firm answers elsewhere, but supposing some kind of unicorn, one we know nothing about, is as logical as saying that none exists.”
No, sorry. It is never as logical to assert the existence of something without evidence as to assert for the time being that, absent evidence, that thing does not exist.