Category : Atheism
So it has been a while since I've (metaphorically speaking) spat into the ocean of opinion that is the internet blogosphere and I thought the best way to remedy this would be, rather than wait for inspiration to hit me or to stumble across something that hasn't already been pounced upon by PZ Myers, to start a little series of posts that I can churn out fairly quickly that deal with popular and/or commonly accepted myths about Atheism. Without further ado, lets look at myth #1!
"Atheism Requires Faith!"
Now I'm sure that any atheist who happens to be, or is in close proximity to an atheist, involved in a debate with a theist then the above sentiment is almost bound to come up at some point. Usually right around the time when the whole unfortunate (for the theist) reality of "You have no evidence for any of your God claims" rears its, frankly, beautiful head. Perhaps you've heard it expressed in a different way, possibly with more expletives, possibly said in a tone dripping with condescension. Rest assured, it is said with exactly zero understanding of atheism and from a position of complete ignorance.
Atheism, in and of itself, is not a claim. Atheism, in and of itself, is nothing more than lacking belief in theism; A- (without) -theism (a belief in God). You would think, considering the clue is in the word itself, that people would not make this aggressively stupid mistake over and over again.
But, as we will go into in subsequent 'Atheism Myths' posts, this is but one of the many tactics that apologists use to smear atheism as being "No different than us". A tactic that only works in the minds of theists.
In terms of faith, Atheism cannot be described as being a position of "Having faith in the claim that there is no God" because that asserts that atheism is, falsely, making a positive claim rather than rejecting/not accepting a positive claim. Atheism, therefore, could be more accurately described as lacking faith in the claim that there is a God. From this we can deduce that anyone claiming that Atheism requires faith is essentially claiming that you need faith to lack faith; A notion that truly is a stupid as it sounds.
Atheism does NOT require faith - QED
Stay tuned for more
PS. If you'd like to see posts more often e-mail me with topics/stories/articles/discoveries you'd like me to cover! You can reach me at splittingoftheadam@hotmail.co.uk
Being an atheist this is actually one of the things i disagree on. Maybe you can clarify it more for me.
ReplyDeleteI see the claim that faith is not applicable to atheism as reactionary to theism. I can understand why, as to distance atheism out of a 'belief' amongst any old nonsense; e.g religion. However I think it is incorrect that atheism does not require faith. The importance of this is also that by saying atheism is not applicable to 'faith' you effectively categorise faith as something belonging to the realm of mysticism and magic aka religion exclusively. We all, of course, rely on faith e.g; faith in reason, mathematical logic as method to understand conceptually beyond mere appearance etc. And of course these things could be if not totally off cue, at least misguided. To say after this that we know that reason, mathematics and rationality is on the right path because it is self consistent with the universe and our interpretation this is self contained , which is an expression in belief.
In claiming that there is no god atheism as a negative rejection of a belief is correct. compared to theism as a positive 'there is a god'. However you leave atheism as a neutral. In this sense you quite rightly dogmatise atheism as the level ground on which things should be seen. However by doing so exactly, you posit a belief in atheism as things can never be left on a neutral basis. As human beings we have to believe in something on some structure. For example language is a belief.
An agnostic can say to a theist 'i believe that you are wrong'
An atheist can say to a theist 'i know that you are wrong' ....exactly because he believes E.g in rationality, in empiricism etc etc
First, you're confusing two different types of faith, and second, as i've already pointed out, Atheism is NOT a stance of claiming There is no gods OR knowing that there are no Gods. Third, you make a distinction that atheism and agnosticism and theism and agnosticism are mutually exclusive when they're not.
ReplyDeleteFirst, the 'faith' thing. Unfortunately the limits of language mean that I can say "I have faith that the earth will continue to orbit the sun" and I can say "I have faith that Jesus will hold my hand as I enter the gates of heaven" and in both cases I am not incorrectly using "Faith". However, to claim that these are the same kinds of "Faith" would be a gross misrepresentation. Faith 'B' is the kind of faith under scrutiny in this blog post, it is this kind of faith that theists attempt to lump atheists with. The notion that not accepting Gods exist takes as much blind, unreasoned faith as accepting that gods exist. It doesn't.
I already dealt with the second point in the post. Atheism doesn't make any positive claims, it simply rejects a positive claim. Atheism, in and of itself, is not the position of "Knowing that there are no Gods". The only people who tend to use that definition of atheism are Theists who which to make us look like we're as bad as them, or Agnostics for the same reason. It is straw man atheism and is incorrect.
third. Agnosticism deals with a persons position on knowledge, Atheism deals with a persons position on God. Though Agnosticism is almost exclusively used in discussions of God it is not technically exclusive to God. You can be agnostic about fairies or unicorns or Russel's teapot. Agnosticism just means "Without knowledge". So technically, all an agnostic can say to a theist without a qualifier is "I don't have certain knowledge either way" and it is in fact the atheist who says "I believe you are wrong"
To get someone who claims to know that there are no Gods you have to find a Gnostic Atheist.
You don't need blind, religious-esque faith to not be convinced by something.
cheers, for clearing up agnosticism,
ReplyDeletewould you then say that there is faith of two types, reasoned faith and unreasoned faith?
.....If for example the gnostic atheist is positive in knowledge that there is no god and so he believes there is no existent god. And similar to an agnostic atheist who would claim that without knowledge of god but believes there is no god. .....There is still belief and faith in atheism here. If atheism is a position on god and not a fact statement then atheism is a matter of belief.
In saying that we reject the positive of theism we can't reject belief as a whole. Only a system of belief perhaps, the blind unreasoned.
"in fact the atheist who says "I believe you are wrong"...".why is this not a matter of faith as it deviates from that of knowledge coming from agnostic-atheism. In similarity to Dawkins who has said he something like 99.9% sure that there is no god inst this dealing with the agnostic/gnostic aspect of the concept of god...in which faith in reason and science would lead to atheism in your position of there being a god.
Basically; knowledge can only give you gnostic/agnostic it takes faith & belief for atheism. (im possibly simplifying the similarities between belief and faith)
Yes there are two types of faith and those labels fit well enough.
ReplyDeleteBut in Discussions of religion, "Faith" specifically refers to religious, blind faith. To use both versions of faith interchangeably is manipulative and exploitative of semantics.
For example
A theist could say "I know there's a God because of reason and logic; it says so in the bible, which is the word of God." And if you play the semantics game, they're right! That is reason, and that is logic. HOWEVER, what they're missing out is the fact that it is poor reasoning and circular, faulty logic. So to call it "Reason and logic" is misrepresentation.
In very much the same way, claiming that an atheist has "Faith" in the belief there is no God is equally a misrepresentation. First and foremost, as i've already said twice now, An atheist doesn't have to believe there are no Gods, they only have to reject the claim that there are Gods.
As i've already said. Having faith in not-having-faith is a contradiction of terms, as is believing in dis-belief.
Also, by reducing "Faith" to the point where it can be applied to any belief or any taking any position renders it useless as a term. "Faith" in the context of religion and religious/supernatural beliefs describes something specific - To believe in something despite the lack of evidence, despite evidence to the contrary and despite there being no valid reason to posit it in the first place.
For example, I tell you that there is a three headed dog currently orbiting Jupiter. To say that it requires "faith" to reject my claim would be ridiculous. You don't have to have faith to reject my claim, but you would need faith to accept it.