Confidence
Chris Mooney wonders something.
Wilkins’ post stirs up something that, especially as a journalist, has always made me wonder about the New Atheists–how are they so confident?…I met a lot of moderate religious people, in the course of my life, who were anything but irrational or fundamentalist. And they changed me…[T]hey certainly made me less of an absolutist. They made me less confident that I had all the answers, that my way was the only way–not just for finding out the truth, but for getting through life.
How are ‘the New Atheists’ so confident of what? What is it that Mooney takes ‘the New Atheists’ to be so confident of? Apparently that they have all the answers and that their way is the only way. Well that is (to use a good word that he also likes) a canard. I simply don’t know of any atheists who are confident that they have all the answers. In fact one thing the atheists I know are confident of is that they don’t have all the answers. Is that what Mooney means? How can ‘the New Atheists’ be so confident that they don’t have all the answers? Well…because it is so obvious that there are so many answers to be had and that life is short and the human mind is limited. But Mooney implies that the atheists he knows are confident that they have all the answers. I wonder if he could quote any of them saying anything that would back that up.
I suspect that what Mooney means, but didn’t manage to pin down accurately, is ‘how are they so confident that the epistemology of religion gets things wrong?’ I would put the confidence I have in this way: I am confident that I know of no good reason to believe that a god exists. I think that’s what atheists in general are confident of. Not that they can be certain that no god exists, but that there is no good reason for most of us to think so. I say most of us because it may be that for people who have had really powerful experiences of god, it is reasonable to say that there is a good reason for them to think so. A goodish reason anyway. Well, not really a good reason, but a reason of sorts. But for most people, there isn’t. I think we are and can be confident of that simply because if there were such a good reason, everyone would know about it. As it is – we don’t! We ask for a good reason, and we are handed a stone.
Now…is that ‘so confident’? Is it so confident that it is too confident, deplorably confident, strangely confident, unreasonably confident? No, I don’t think so. I think it’s just the commonplace kind of confident like the confident in ‘I am confident that there is no good reason to think Will Shakespeare is sitting across the room writing a new sonnet.’ It’s just vulgar everyday empiricism. I have good reason to think there are oranges in the glass bowl, I don’t have good reason to think there are elephants in it. There could of course be a kind of expertise or scholarship or instrumentation such that if I were properly trained I would be able to detect elephants in the bowl or Shakespeare across the room or a god – but I have no good reason to think there is. No one has any good reason to think there is.
That’s the kind of confidence I have. I think it’s not an over-reaching or arrogant kind of confidence because it does leave room for being wrong, and for learning better. It could be (in principle) that there is such a reason and that nobody has found it yet. It’s a temporal claim. So far, nobody has any good reason to think there is a god. (Well I suppose I can’t be confident that there are no secretive or isolated people who do have such a good reason and simply haven’t made it known yet. But other than that – if there were such a good reason it would be common knowledge in a heartbeat. It would knock Michael Jackson right off the front page.)
So that’s how we are ‘so confident.’ We are confident that we shouldn’t be expected to believe things if there is no good reason to believe them. That’s not quite the same as thinking our way is the only way, as Mooney hinted. It’s just thinking we should match important beliefs to good reasons, by way of caution, you see.
Thanks for that post, OB. It really encapsulates the change in attitude and confidence brought about by the ‘New Atheists’ (TM) to this old atheist (40+ years), from grudging deference to religion (hmmm, maybe there’s something in it, more things in heaven and earth, etc) to put up your evidence or shut up.
One small turning point for me was hearing Hitchens casually dismiss a religious claim with the remark, ‘That which is asserted without evidence may be rejected without evidence.’
The new atheists’ public assertiveness and resulting discussions made possible by the internet have so extensively exposed the epistemic inadequacies of religion that believers now seem somewhat defensive and reduced to defending the supernatural as possible rather than probable.
As far as I can see, the acceptance of relativism over the last few decades have given religion a holiday from justifying itself. As far as I can see, its relatively new for the current generation to have to defend anything on evidence, in the debate between religious propositions and scientific ones.
Why “confident” ?
Because, I think, a lot of us have come to it gradually, with a growing certainty that the claims of the religious are spurious and based on nothing.
Point-by-point, their assertions have been shown to be false, and sometimes (all too often) deliberately so.
Of course, a much greater man than any of us also followed this route, someone whose 200/150th we are celebrating this year.
Could be another example of Brownism, i.e. atheists who believe the rhetorical devices used by anti-atheist writers. Their opinion on recently well-known atheists seems to be based entirely on hostile reviews of their books rather than on the books themselves. Given that the hostile comments can be a bit extreme (atheists being unable to appreciate music is my favourite) this can lead to bizzaro world arguments, like that odd disconnect between what Anthony McCarthy says atheists think and things that actual atheists actually think.
Mooney declares himself to be both an atheist and a philisophical naturalist (the latter being a label that many, erm, Old? Atheists shy away from), so surely he’s pretty much nailed his colours to the mast as agreeing with all ‘New Atheists’ in terms of actual beliefs.
I actually think Mooney sets out his personal views quite clearly in his latest post, and I’m willing to take his statement as to what he believes at face value (I certainly think it’s more useful than insisting that some supposed inference drawn from something else he wrote is a better encapsulation of his views).
Equally, though, it’s very clear that he’s substantially misrepresenting the ‘exclusionist’ or ‘new atheist’ position (if there’s a ‘new atheist’ position other than philosophical naturalism to start with, that is…). That Wilkins quote which Mooney endorses particularly startled me – a black-and-white straw man if ever I’ve seen one.
“Their opinion on recently well-known atheists seems to be based entirely on hostile reviews of their books rather than on the books themselves.”
Tell me about it! That’s how it’s going to go with Does God Hate Women?, too, and the hostile reviews so far are packed with absolutely gross falsehoods. What fun.
“That Wilkins quote which Mooney endorses particularly startled me – a black-and-white straw man if ever I’ve seen one.”
Yeah. I wanted to say that yesterday, too, but ran out of time – too busy with the dear Independent.
“Tell me about it! That’s how it’s going to go with Does God Hate Women?, too, and the hostile reviews so far are packed with absolutely gross falsehoods. What fun.”
Have no fear, Ophelia. You may want to start counting your ‘fleas’, as Richard Dawkins has. Make regular posts of people reviewing your book who completely get your argument wrong. Call them out on it. I think you will find that their negative reviews will, over time, backfire, and with your rebuttals unanswered, your book will grow in popularity among discerning readers and followers of your blog.
Wonderist, yeh, I plan to.
Still, at the moment…until more than about six people have read the book, the factual claims will naturally not be recognized for the falsehoods they are. It’s pretty irksome having a reviewer say things that are just not true.
It’s going to be very interesting seeing how the reviewers handle 50 Voices of Disbelief. I guess we’ll encounter the same hostility as you guys are talking about above. But the reviewers will have to come to terms with the essays by Frieder Otto Wolf (the longest in the book), Philip Kitcher, Julian Baggini, and a number of others who cannot possibly be characterised as strident. I suppose Udo and Schuklenk and I will cop flak for putting such a book together, but the diversity of the content must have some impact in making people pause. Or maybe not.
Hm. I don’t think you’ll (we’ll?) encounter that much hostility. At least, I’m not aware of a peep out of anyone about Philosophers Without Gods, and some of the essays in there are quite blunt.
I think we’ll be seen more as part of the New Atheism than that book, though. And some of the essays, among them Anthony Grayling’s, are … er … very blunt. :)
Besides, we have notorious strident, shrill contributors such as Ophelia Benson. ;)
But I’m still hopeful that we’ll get positive responses for assembling people with such a diversity of approaches. Pity we don’t have Chris Mooney, eh? I’m not being entirely sarcastic; since he tells us he’s a hardline philosophical naturalist, it would be interesting to see him expand on the reasons.
Anyway, sorry to sidetrack your thread.
Yup, plenty of strident shrills! And I was pretty blunt, I think. I’m a bit mournful to learn that Anthony outdid me.
:- )
Don’t be silly, it’s not a sidetrack.