While I agree with most of the post (that religion is to blame for the Crusades, the Inquisition, 9/11, Hitler’s anti-semitism, and so on), I have to disagree with this part:

The way I look at it to know there is no god requires the same amount of faith as it does to know that there is a God. Since I have yet to see convincing proof either way I can’t fall on one side of the argument or the other.

Non-belief in gods requires as much “faith” as non-belief in unicorns, and the default position should be “where’s the evidence?”, not “I can’t tell one way or another”.

Can one prove there is no god? Of course not, much like the aforementioned unicorns, or Russell’s Teapot, or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But all those are extraordinary claims, and, as Carl Sagan said, they require (and everyone should demand) extraordinary evidence. There is absolutely none, so non-belief is the only logical, rational position, and it requires no “faith” at all.

Incidentally, while it’s impossible to prove the non-existence of any gods at all, one can certainly prove the non-existence of most particular gods, in several ways:

1- self-contradictory, logically impossible claims (such as omnipotence)

2- divergence from reality (e.g. holy books whose factual claims are contradicted by historical research, or contradictions such as the Problem of Evil)

3- tracing the religion’s origins and discovering / proving that the religion’s creator was lying, deluded, or didn’t even exist.

Fundamentalists: believe 2+2 =5 because It Is Written. Somewhere. They have a lot of trouble on their tax returns.

“Moderate” believers: live their lives on the basis that 2+2=4. but go regularly to church to be told that 2+2 once made 5, or will one day make 5, or in a very real and spiritual sense should make 5.

“Moderate” atheists: know that 2+2 =4 but think it impolite to say so too loudly as people who think 2+2=5 might be offended.

“Militant” atheists: “Oh for pity’s sake. HERE. Two pebbles. Two more pebbles. FOUR pebbles. What is WRONG with you people?”

And, of course, it’s absolutely correct.

But I’d add another one in the middle:

Agnostics: 2+2 may be 4, or may be 5. Yes, it LOOKS like it’s 4, but I don’t have perfect knowledge, and I want to keep an open mind. Who’s to say the religionists aren’t correct? Who am I to know?

Yes, as long time readers of WotM are probably aware of, I really don’t like agnostics. Sorry if you’re one, but, to me, agnosticism is pure intellectual cowardice.

A fundamentalist theist believes “truth” is separate from reality, and, if they conflict, then reality is wrong. An atheist believes reality IS truth. An agnostic, on the other hand, believes reality is unknowable, and therefore evades the responsibility of trying to understand it. Anything goes. Reality is fluid, ever-changing, unpredictable. We can never truly know anything for certain, since everything we know, every law we take as true, may change tomorrow.

An agnostic — much like a New Age mystic — distorts the concept of “open mindedness” to an absurd level, where there are no laws, no rules, no hard facts, no reality — at least none that can be ever understood. To an agnostic, everything is possible, so nothing is ever certain. Taken to the extreme, nothing is ever even more likely than anything else.

Sorry, but, to me, this is no more rational than believing in an invisible bearded man in the sky, invented by primitive Bronze Age nomads, who, somehow, hates all the same people you do.

1. General atheism- “there is no god.” This includes me, and anyone who describes him or herself as “atheist”.
2. Specific atheism- “this particular god doesn’t exist.” Most theists are, actually, specific atheists about every god but theirs.
3. General agnosticism- “it’s impossible to know whether a god exists.” Self-described “agnostics” should, in theory, be here. However…
4. Specific agnosticism- “it’s impossible to know whether this particular god exists.”

You probably know examples of each.

As I said, “true” atheists are general atheists. To them, it makes no sense to discriminate between one god and the other; they’re all fictional.

It would seem that the same would apply to agnostics, right? An agnostic should be one who can’t say whether there’s a god – any god at all – or not.

But, in fact, most self-described “agnostics” are really specific agnostics about one or more gods (usually, the most popular one where they live, which is, in most cases, the Christian god), and specific atheists about the rest. Which is a strange, hard to understand double standard, if you ask me.

In other words, most “agnostics” are agnostic about some form of monotheistic, all-powerful god, but they reject gods from extinct mythologies, such as the Greek, Roman, or Norse gods. They also, usually, reject gods from polytheistic religions, such as Hinduism or Native American Animism. They may not explicitly say so, but they don’t think that the chance of Yahweh existing (which is a question they’ve washed their hands of) is the same as the chance of Thor existing.

Why is that? I’d say it’s some form of cultural pressure, added to the fact that agnostics often are agnostic because they don’t care to think much about the subject (as someone said, “an atheist is an agnostic who’s thought about it.”).

I’m not saying that true, general agnostics don’t exist; however, most of the ones I talked to ended up showing themselves to be as I described above: agnostic about one god (or “type” of god), atheistic about the rest of them. A true agnostic, to me, would believe the Flying Spaghetti Monster to be as likely to exist as Yahweh or Allah. “But,” you say, “the FSM was invented just last year…” However, is the age of a myth a deciding factor? If so, there are much older mythologies than Christianity or even Judaism… Wouldn’t that make them even more likely to be true?

Another reply is “this god makes some sense, and could therefore exist, while those other gods are clearly absurd and man-made”. But… if you say that, you are judging. How dare you? Seriously, what makes you qualified to judge some gods as “absurd” and others as “plausible”? Could it be the same power of reason that you, yourself, admit is too weak and fallible to judge whether there is a god or not (otherwise, you wouldn’t be an agnostic, right?)?

In conclusion: looking at the list above, atheists are 1. Theists are 2 about every god but theirs. Agnostics should, theoretically, be 3, but in reality most of them are a mix of 4 about one or two gods, and 2 about every other deity.

Any thoughts?

His metaphor is, in my opinion, brilliant:

It seems a theist might be equated to someone who was told there is an elephant in his garage and this elephant is the most important thing in his life, but don’t bother looking in the garage; you won’t be able to see him. The theist accepts the elephant and his importance, never even tries to look in the garage and dutifully goes to church and worships his invisible elephant every Sunday.

The agnostic is told the same thing as the theist. He goes and looks in the garage and does not see anything. Since he cannot see the elephant he states he does not believe in it, but at the same time, he does not disbelieve. After all he might not be very good at elephant spotting. The elephant, being gray might blend into the gray walls of the garage; he just can’t sure about this elephant in the garage, and oh by the way, he had heard there were reports of elephants in Africa, so he imagined elephants in garages are at least theoretically possible, so he would not want to rule out this possibility.

The atheist is told the same thing as the theist and agnostic. He goes and looks in the garage and does not see any elephants. He states flatly that there is no elephant in the garage. He has heard about the elephants in Africa, but feels certain one would not be hanging around in his garage and would certainly not be the most important thing in his life, if it were.

Sometimes, you try to get your point across in some way, with mixed results, and then, later, you read something which was exactly what you wanted to have said in the first place.

One such example was this page. Near the beginning, the author says what he believes is wrong about agnosticism, and does it more succinctly and clearly than I did before:

[...] agnosticism is defined as being unable to know if God exists. However, this concept is intellectually dishonest in that while maintaining there is no evidence of God or the supernatural, it refuses to make the intellectually honest conclusion that therefore God most likely does not exist. Agnosticism suggests that the existence and non-existence of God are equally likely. Without evidence of God’s existence, the non-existence hypothesis is heavily favored, but agnosticism ignores this.

Touché.

First, I have to say that I stand by what I said in that post. I warned readers that they might be offended, though that wasn’t my goal, and, sure enough, some were. Agnosticism is not really caring about the matter enough to think about it – or, to some (not any of you, apparently, but it is to some people), it’s a “get out of jail card”: just in case God happens to exist, best not offend him too much.

A lot of people also called me “arrogant” because I am certain about something that nobody can truly, ever, be 100% certain about: that there is no God. I don’t have mind/time/space powers to be absolutely sure. Why be an atheist, then, instead of an agnostic?

Because, as someone said in the Reddit discussion, that would also mean that you’d have to be Zeus-agnostic, Shiva-agnostic, Odin-agnostic, Invisible Pink Unicorn-agnostic and Flying Spaghetti Monster-agnostic. That is, you can’t be 100% certain that each one of them doesn’t exist.

If you’re not a sheep who follows the crowd, if you accept that many people believing in something doesn’t make it true, then you have no more reason to believe in Jehovah than in Odin. Is this so hard to grasp? Is Odin less “real” – or less likely to exist – than the Christian god, simply because virtually no one believes in him today?

(A Christian, here, will say “the difference is that God is real and Odin is not”. Circular logic, anyone? The reason to believe God is real is that you believe God is real?!?)

An agnostic, then, will say that he has no way of really knowing that God doesn’t exist. But neither can he prove that the Flying Spaghetti Monster doesn’t exist. Nobody can prove it. So, in order for it to make any bit of sense, he has to call himself an FSM-agnostic.

And why restrict himself to gods? He’s never seen a goblin or a fairy, but, then again, he hasn’t been in every single place in the world. If he really has an open mind, he can’t say that fairies or goblins don’t exist. He must, therefore, be a fairy-agnostic and a goblin-agnostic. In fact, he can’t be certain about the non-existence of the Easter Bunny either.

See the problem?

Agnosticism, like I said in the other post, is like calculating 2 + 2, and the result is 4 every time… and, yet, you refuse to say that “2 + 2 = 4″, because that’s “arrogant” – it may no longer be 4 the next time you calculate it. (*) If that isn’t intellectually lazy – and crippling -, then I don’t know what it is.

(*) please, no semantic games, like redefining the meaning of “2″ or “+”, or using base 3.

In this world, there are probably more agnostics than atheists. And I’m betting that most of you won’t see that as a problem, as a sign that there’s something wrong with people. Yet…

Why am I an atheist? Because I am convinced that there is no such thing as a “god”. Much like I am convinced that there is no Easter Bunny or Santa Claus, or that there are no monsters under my bed – even though I am not looking under it now. No, I don’t have some magical time-space powers which enable me to instantly look through the entire universe, not to mention any supposed “spiritual” realms, to know that there is no “god” out there. What I do know is that there’s not the slightest indication of there being one, other than a great number of people irrationally believing in some fairy tale without proof. Unlike theists, I don’t hate or distrust my mind, and I can use it to deduce things. There’s absolutely no sign of a “god” or “gods” in the universe, so, even if somehow they existed, 1) all human religions would be wrong about them, and 2) they wouldn’t affect our lives in any way.

Why is anyone an agnostic? Two possibilities: either because they don’t give a damn about reality (intellectual cowardice and laziness), or because they want a way out in case there actually is a god.

Let’s expand the two possibilities:

1- while an atheist has thought about the existing facts and came up to the logical conclusion, an agnostic has either refused to think about them – “I don’t want to know!” – or did think, but was too cowardly to come to a conclusion, as in “2 plus 2… let’s see, one, two, three four, it happened every time I counted, but, still, I can’t be sure that it’ll happen next time, so I can’t say, for sure, that 2 + 2 = 4. After all, who am I to know?”. A man, a rational being, who refuses to think is like a bird who refuses to use its wings: suicidal. Only, in this case, it’s a suicide of the mind, instead of a physical one.

2- here, it’s a case of “I don’t want to be bothered with worship, services, rules and so on, but, just in case, let’s not deny God altogether, just in case he exists.”. It’s like trying to fool God – if he happens to exist – in a “legalese” way. Like an even more cowardly and dishonest version of Pascal’s Wager. As Douglas Adams said,

People will then often say “But surely it’s better to remain an Agnostic just in case?” This, to me, suggests such a level of silliness and muddle that I usually edge out of the conversation rather than get sucked into it. (If it turns out that I’ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would chose not to worship him anyway.)

 
EDIT: I’ve written a followup to this post, The problem of Agnosticism, part 2. Some bits are better explained there, and it’s also likely to be less offensive than this one.

“I’m an agnostic; not arrogant enough to be an atheist”

Whatever your beliefs, or lack of them, it’s quite likely that you’ve heard or read similar phrases. But is atheism really “arrogant”?

I don’t think so, for several reasons. But let’s consider, first, why people say being an atheist is arrogant.

First, many theists believe that the existence of God, of a creator of the universe, is so obvious, so “just a plain fact”, that, to them, an atheist is someone who still, deep inside, realizes that there is a God, but arrogantly refuses to acknowledge, at least to the outside, a being superior to himself. It’s almost as if he was in denial.

If it was so, then surely, there would be some kind of arrogance (or, more precisely, pride) in there. But that theory is wrong. Partly because the existence of God is only “obvious” if you’ve been indoctrinated to it since birth, which the theist may not realize doesn’t happen to everyone. And partly because, shocking as it may be to a theist, true atheists really (no, really!) don’t believe in any sort of god or supernatural being. Yes, they’re sincere. No, they’re not in denial. Really. Get over it.

Second: a lot of people (both theists and agnostics) believe atheism is arrogant because there’s no way you can surely know. Even if there’s absolutely no proof to the existence of God, even if there’s nothing to even suggest that God exists, even if everything you see around you can have a natural explanation (and it can), that doesn’t prove God doesn’t exist, right? He could have created the universe and “gone into hiding” afterwards, and be completely undetectable to any scientific means. If there is no way to really know for sure, isn’t it arrogant to be sure about it?

There are several problems with that, though. One of them is that it could be applied in reverse: isn’t it arrogant to be certain that there is a God, when you can’t know for sure? Furthermore, if everything in the world suggests that there isn’t one, isn’t believing, for sure, without a shred of doubt, in what is least likely, even more arrogant (not to mention weird)?

In other words, if it’s arrogant to be sure of something that is likely, isn’t it more arrogant to be sure of something that is unlikely?

Another problem with that way of thinking is that it can be applied to anything in life: “it’s arrogant to be sure about something”. In other words, it’s arrogant to observe and then choose the most likely explanation or conclusion. It’s arrogant to deduce from experience. It’s arrogant to apply logic. It’s arrogant to expect the laws of nature to remain active in the next minute. Isn’t that what those people are saying?

What’s wrong about that mentality is that it rejects reality, or it thinks of it as “fluid” and unknowable. If there’s a wall in front of me, and then I close my eyes, I can be reasonably sure that the wall is still there, that reality hasn’t “shifted” in some unpredictable way. Am I arrogant for stating that the wall is still in front of me, even without opening my eyes? I don’t think so. There’s every reason to believe it’s still there. The “being sure is arrogant” people would probably tell me that the wall being there is as likely as it not being there anymore, and that I can’t know for sure until I open my eyes again.

Or, to give you another example: one of my cats loves to rip toilet paper to shreds, so I have to keep my bathroom door closed. If one day I forget to close it, and when I return home the floor is full of toilet paper shreds, I can be sure it was my cat. I’m not “arrogant” or “closed-minded” because I don’t give equal time to ideas like “it was an act of God” or “the toilet paper did it on its own”. There’s such a thing as reason, and using it is not arrogant. Not using it, however, is quite stupid.

Finally, some people believe that being an agnostic is “safer”, because, in the event that God does exist, it’s best not to offend him. Just in case. But, as Douglas Adams said,

If it turns out that I’ve been wrong all along, and there is in fact a god, and if it further turned out that this kind of legalistic, cross-your-fingers-behind-your-back, Clintonian hair-splitting impressed him, then I think I would chose not to worship him anyway.

I am quite convinced that there is no such thing as a “God”, from observing the world, and thinking about the most logical, reasonable explanation. If that makes me “arrogant” (which I don’t believe it does), so be it. It’s better than refusing to think, to whine that “who are we to know?”.