why we shouldn't care if we can be "certain" or not

Tilberian's picture

I'm a little bit proud of this post I made in a discussion thread, so I'm going to throw it on here. I was answering Textom's point that we can't support the following statements deductively:

-There is no evidence that God exists, therefore he does not.

-The only possible rational conclusion is that God does not exist.

-God cannot be described, therefore he does not exist.

Here's my response:

This frustrates me, and it's arguments along this line that have kept atheists dancing to the theist tune for a long time. Whenever we water down our rhetoric and kowtow to these niggling philosophical word games we accomplish nothing politically except to give theists hope that they have some loophole and to confuse fence-sitters into thinking we're losing the argument.

I think there is a difference between philosophical speech and political speech and this, being an activist website, tends to have a lot of political speech. Philosophical speech may be about what is strictly true, and therefore needs to be very precise and careful and technical  — similar to scientific speech. But political speech is supposed to address that which motivates us to action. And the fact of the matter, from the perspective of behaviour and real, living beliefs, is that all of those statements are true. No one can deny the truth of those statements by advocating their opposite and claim intellectual honesty.

Things for which we have no evidence should not be deemed to exist. There should be no quibble about this and no need to qualify the statement. The technical point that we can't know is just that — a technical point born of endless, pointless navel-gazing. Not one single person out of the nuthouse actually lives as if there are real things around that we just can't sense, theists included. Oh, they say they do and they pretend to talk to invisible beings, but all these observances are carefully limited to areas of their lives where their "faith" can't really make any difference. They sure as hell don't rely on God when it comes time to punish sinners. They seem quite clear about the need to rely on their own, evidence-based, materialistically justified hands and eyes and tongues when it is time to do that.

The only possible rational conclusion is that God does not exist. Anyone who claims to harbour a rational belief in God is lying to themselves and others. Their belief in this regard is not held on the same rational grounds that they hold every other belief in their lives. They cannot explain why the God idea merits this special treatment, and when you really analyze their responses it always comes down to a set of irrational, wish-fulfillment motivations. I have not yet seen a rational argument for the existence of God that holds water, only appeals to faith and ignorance. Therefore, as far as I'm concerned, it is irrational to conclude that God exists.

If part of our definition of what it means to exist is that the object can be described, and if God fails this test, then God does not exist, pure and simple. If God is really an incoherent concept that can be shown to actually mean nothing, then God = nothing. Why would we back away from this stance, which is true every time we apply it to anything? Where is the value in noting that we have somehow fallen short of pure deductive truth, when we can use this truth every day and never be steered wrong? 

Don't get me wrong, I think it's great for philosophers to continue to try to wrestle with these questions, but an activist website needs to take the philosophy and turn it into language that will motivate action. You and I and everyone here knows that if you live your life as if those three points are true, you will not be in error. For political speech, that is the test and that is enough.

Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown

Wonderist's picture

Bravo. Totally agree.

Bravo. Totally agree.

HeyZeusCreaseToe's picture

"Whenever we water down our

"Whenever we water down our rhetoric and kowtow to these niggling philosophical word games we accomplish nothing politically except to give theists hope that they have some loophole and to confuse fence-sitters into thinking we're losing the argument."

Yes, we can't disprove God using philosophical constructs, and all of the posts regarding this devolve into definitions of smaller and smaller words to denote what each one means. Living on the basis of reality the way it is, not the way some wish it to be...makes sense. That is all, put God in the same category as fairies and leprechauns. Everyone can have a different idea of God with his own philosophical proof, but no evidence for this belief exists, and until such evidence presents itself, we will live in accordance with the rational idea that GOD does not exist.

“Fear is the path to the dark side. Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” Yoda

HisWillness's picture

 In political speech, a

 In political speech, a reasonable adult person wouldn't actually suggest a belief in the Easter Bunny. I mean, it's just a kind of traditional game for kids. It would be nice to get to the point where we could be the same kind of "reasonable" about any of the other supernatural things.

In normal conversation, it's pretty easy to be a "strong" atheist. The supernatural is consistently and reliably non-existent. The reasonable conclusion is that religion was created to deal with frightening uncertainty. It's even understandable in a compassionate sense. Now that we're all grown-ups, we can probably drop it, but it turns out that it really has a hold on those who like authority and tradition.

Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence

Hambydammit's picture

Quote:Don't get me wrong, I

Quote:
Don't get me wrong, I think it's great for philosophers to continue to try to wrestle with these questions, but an activist website needs to take the philosophy and turn it into language that will motivate action. You and I and everyone here knows that if you live your life as if those three points are true, you will not be in error. For political speech, that is the test and that is enough.

I've always tried to explain it as an error of composition.*  It is an error to say that since we can never know for certain where an individual electron is located at a precise moment, that we never know exactly where we are,  and it is improper to say that the Incompleteness Theorem or the problem of induction are justifications for giving any real world weight to an unsupported claim.

The fact that we put up with such arguments, I think, is because only a very few atheists can actually explain it to a philosophy geek in a convincing manner.  Philosophy, as Tilberian mentioned, is very precise, and if you're just winging it, anyone who knows anything about it will be able to tell.

Quote:
If part of our definition of what it means to exist is that the object can be described, and if God fails this test, then God does not exist, pure and simple. If God is really an incoherent concept that can be shown to actually mean nothing, then God = nothing. Why would we back away from this stance, which is true every time we apply it to anything? Where is the value in noting that we have somehow fallen short of pure deductive truth, when we can use this truth every day and never be steered wrong?

Just to be philosophically precise, I always say, "If God fails this test, then it does not exist as defined."  Usually, dullards and theists will smirk, confident that they've caught me in a point of weakness, but I follow it up immediately.  "And, since every known definition of god has failed, then the only rational thing to do is not believe in any god."

 

 

* The Fallacy of Composition is to conclude that a property shared by a number of individual items, is also shared by a collection of those items; or that a property of the parts of an object, must also be a property of the whole thing.

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism

Hey Yeah, BINGO; I AM a, not

Hey Yeah, BINGO; I AM a, not so talented, atheist "political"/  preacher ! 

    You guys rock .... and damn most them politicians and preachers .....

Tilberian's picture

Thanks for all the

Thanks for all the supportive comments. I think it is important that we don't get drawn into this endless, fruitless wrangle about what it is possible to know.

Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown

HisWillness's picture

Tilberian wrote:Thanks for

Tilberian wrote:

Thanks for all the supportive comments. I think it is important that we don't get drawn into this endless, fruitless wrangle about what it is possible to know.

On the other hand, it might still be useful to go down that road every once and a while with someone who thinks that they've found the big "dead end" sign that will squash their doubt in ... whatever. Some people really think, for instance, that "Gödel's theorem" means "You can't prove God doesn't exist." The more of that kind of nonsense gets kicked in the face the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Eventually we should have a shorthand for that kind of poorly researched argument, and I hope it does end up being as simple as possible, so that not on the burden of proof, but the burden of work can be placed squarely upon the shoulders of those making half-assed statements posing as arguments.

Saint Will: no gyration without funkstification.
fabulae! nil satis firmi video quam ob rem accipere hunc mi expediat metum. - Terence

Tilberian's picture

HisWillness wrote:On the

HisWillness wrote:

On the other hand, it might still be useful to go down that road every once and a while with someone who thinks that they've found the big "dead end" sign that will squash their doubt in ... whatever. Some people really think, for instance, that "Gödel's theorem" means "You can't prove God doesn't exist." The more of that kind of nonsense gets kicked in the face the better, as far as I'm concerned.

Eventually we should have a shorthand for that kind of poorly researched argument, and I hope it does end up being as simple as possible, so that not on the burden of proof, but the burden of work can be placed squarely upon the shoulders of those making half-assed statements posing as arguments.

I ask them this: why do you use a different method of belief formation when it comes to the question of God than you use in every other aspect of your life?

I rarely get an answer, and I have only ever gotten one that made any kind of sense. One theist told me point blank that she derived satisfaction from the belief that God was watching over her and therefore had made a deliberate decision to hold a belief in God on faith. Her reasoning was that the good feelings she got from her belief were available immediately and within her present frame of reference, whereas moving to a rationalist viewpoint would be a great deal of work and was not guaranteed to pay off with the same positive feelings. I had to admit that her approach was rational given her fundamental lack of curiosity and desire to only feel good about the world rather than feel confident that she really knew anything about it. I wished her well and we ended the conversation on good terms.

I would hope that most people would feel a little more motivated to possess truth.

Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown

Hambydammit's picture

Quote:Her reasoning was that

Quote:
Her reasoning was that the good feelings she got from her belief were available immediately and within her present frame of reference, whereas moving to a rationalist viewpoint would be a great deal of work and was not guaranteed to pay off with the same positive feelings. I had to admit that her approach was rational given her fundamental lack of curiosity and desire to only feel good about the world rather than feel confident that she really knew anything about it.

I've encountered this several times, and I admit that it stumps me every time.  When someone looks me in the eye and tells me they choose to be irrational because it makes them feel good, I can't really dispute their logic.  Once, when I was feeling particularly cranky, I told a girl that it was her right to propagate a dangerous lie to make herself feel better, but I thought she was a very self absorbed and thoughtless person for doing so.

 

Atheism isn't a lot like religion at all. Unless by "religion" you mean "not religion". --Ciarin

http://hambydammit.wordpress.com/
Books about atheism

Tilberian's picture

Hambydammit wrote:I've

Hambydammit wrote:

I've encountered this several times, and I admit that it stumps me every time.  When someone looks me in the eye and tells me they choose to be irrational because it makes them feel good, I can't really dispute their logic.  Once, when I was feeling particularly cranky, I told a girl that it was her right to propagate a dangerous lie to make herself feel better, but I thought she was a very self absorbed and thoughtless person for doing so.

While we might feel constrained to acknowledge someone's right as a free person to choose irrationality in some private belief, the equation changes when those beliefs enter the public sphere. Sam Harris uses the hypothetical example of the belief that he has a diamond the size of a refrigerator buried in his back yard. Sure it makes him feel good, and sure it isn't hurting anyone for him to believe this, but, knowing that he has this baseless belief, would you trust him with a lit match?

We rightly make the assumption that a person who can be irrational in one part of their life can be irrational in another part, and we generally meet irrational positions with suspicion and treat them as character flaws. But, yet again, religion has managed to get itself a pass. It is a little scary when the sanest theist we ever encounter is someone who has made up their mind to be stark raving delusional about something...on purpose. If the topic were, say, the color of the sky, we would be much less forgiving when someone said they like pink better than blue, and therefore they had decided to believe that the sky is pink.

Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown

Geezz Tiberian,  you is so

Geezz Tiberian,  you is so fun read. I don't know what else to say ..... you get me giggling,  feels good. Thanks > YOU ....   

Tilberian's picture

I AM GOD AS YOU wrote:Geezz

I AM GOD AS YOU wrote:

Geezz Tiberian,  you is so fun read. I don't know what else to say ..... you get me giggling,  feels good. Thanks > YOU ....   

Thanks IAGAO. Your posts make me giggle, too, though sometimes my head hurts for a while after I read them.

Lazy is a word we use when someone isn't doing what we want them to do.
- Dr. Joy Brown

I need a "CAUTION" warning

I need a "CAUTION" warning badge, hurts my head too !