Trixy
The religious bad-argument-purveyors are out in force. Lloyd Eby at World Peace Herald for instance. He says an earlier article of his got a lot of ‘responses and comments from atheists who claim that this article misrepresents what atheism is and what atheists actually believe.’ Now there’s a surprise – religious people generally do such a good job of representing what atheism is and what atheists actually believe. No strawmen there! Hardly ever.
So Eby answers the answers.
If we accept the usual or most prevalent definition of religion, a definition in which religion is explicitly tied to belief in and/or service of a supernatural god or supreme being, then atheism could not be a religion because active atheism can be defined or described as the positive rejection of the existence of any supernatural god or supreme being. Atheism is the active belief that there is no god. As one atheist put it, “Atheism is the rejection of supernatural belief. As an atheist, I do not believe in the reality of any supernatural being, and as a result of this, reject religion.”
Well there’s a bad start. That’s his first paragraph, apart from the exposition, and already he’s done exactly what he’s accused of doing. Furthermore he’s done it in the space of one sentence, in full view of the readers, and apparently without awareness that he’s done it. That’s what I call sloppy. Behold the translation – the atheist he quotes says ‘I do not believe in the reality of any supernatural being’ but Eby cites that as illustration of his version, ‘Atheism is the active belief that there is no god’ – and he apparently doesn’t see (or else he’s being tricksy) that the two are different – that he’s translated. Theists are always doing this! It’s highly irritating, and it’s dirty pool. Not believing something is not identical to believing that something not. Some atheists of course do ‘actively’ believe there is no god, but a great many don’t. A great many atheists are just, what the word implies, not theists. That’s all. Theists don’t get to redefine the word to make their case – except they do, because they do it all the time, and get away with it.
Oddly, farther down in the article, he makes that very distinction himself, and then says that the mere non-theists are not the atheists he’s talking about. Well that’s fair enough, but then he should have worded the opening gambit differently. More people will read the first two paragraphs than read the whole article (few people, I would guess, read a middle paragraph and nothing else, but lots read beginnings and nothing else).
I do indeed hold that theism and atheism are both religious. The atheist who thinks otherwise is mistaken because he is using a tendentious or incorrect definition of religion, a definition that attempts to privilege atheism and give it a logical, legal, and evidential status over the usual notions of religion. But that is unwarranted. The theist cannot prove that his belief is true; his belief is metaphysical and a statement of faith that goes beyond the observable evidence for it. And the atheist cannot prove that his view is true either; his belief is also metaphysical and a statement of unbelief that goes beyond the observable evidence for it.
Wait – stop right there. More dirty pool. How did ‘prove’ get in there? More tricksiness? This guy is a philosopher! He knows beliefs can be warranted without being provable. So he’s playing games. It’s a very familiar game, to pretend there is nothing between proof and belief in the sense of faith. Of course atheists can’t prove that atheism is true, but there is plenty of evidence that makes a deity seem pretty improbable. It’s reasonable to point out that there are some metaphysical beliefs or assumptions underlying the belief that evidence is evidential – that the world is orderly, and so on – but that’s not the same thing as the claim that atheism and theism are on exactly equal footing with regard to logical and evidential status.
More later.
It doesn’t surprise that people do this, but it is extremely annoying when it keeps on coming from those who make their living from their supposed ability to express lucid thought clearly and precisely.
What a sloppy world we live in…
Last para
“The courts thus have to tread very cautiously here. They should be especially wary of attempts by atheists to privilege the atheist position at the expense of their theistic opponents. The so-called naked public square with respect to religion – religion now understood in the usual theistic sense — is not really so naked after all; it is instead a public square that has a high probability of having given undue regard and privilege to atheism.”
Can ANYONE tell me exactly what this is supposed to apply to ?
Well, it’s parochial US stuff of course – I assume it’s meant to apply to things like the goddy-mention in the ‘Pledge’ and Ten Commandments displays along with public money going to ‘faith-based’ schools and other entities. Also court cases over what qualifies as conscientious objection, and whether parents can deny their children medical treatment on religious grounds, and whether the Amish can have dispensation from truancy laws. That kind of thing. But I don’t know for sure what he has in mind.
I believe the fact of the stupendous development of science and technology over the last several thousand years, e.g. that humans have figured out what’s happening at the center of our sun, is sufficient proof that “evidence is evidential – that the world is orderly.” Of course people have proposed metaphysical ideas which they believe underly reliance on evidence, but I see no reason to agree with those ideas.
The fact that human beings have been deliberately and creatively transforming the conditions of their existence for many millennia — and with
anticipation, to boot, tells me that they do correctly cognize the real world by relying on evidence which is evidential, or it just wouldn’t have been effective in allowing them to achieve their aims, such as making millions of computers identical to the one I’m using at this moment.
I believe the fact of the stupendous development of science and technology over the last several thousand years, e.g. that humans have figured out what’s happening at the center of our sun, is sufficient proof that “evidence is evidential – that the world is orderly.” Of course people have proposed metaphysical ideas which they believe underly reliance on evidence, but I see no reason to agree with those ideas.
The fact that human beings have been deliberately and creatively transforming the conditions of their existence for many millennia — and with
anticipation, to boot, tells me that they do correctly cognize the real world by relying on evidence which is evidential, or it just wouldn’t have been effective in allowing them to achieve their aims, such as making millions of computers identical to the one I’m using at this moment.
Please excuse the duplication. Oops.
Did you see the bash at self-righteous atheism in the wsj.com opinion journal ‘best of the web today’?
Anyway, the comment about the courts havign to be careful about privileging atheism somehow presumes that atheism and religion are equivalents. I think that is itself a bait/switch.
The courts ‘privilege’ statute law, precedent, evidence and sound argument grounded thereon. Pretending that they must also balance a political allocation of ‘Privilege’ between the grounding on evidence and the acceptance without evidence has to be bollocks.
As OB said in her last paragraph, I see.
This superficially reminds me of a discussion over at ‘theravingatheist.com’
In a thread about whether the jews go to hell for not believing in Jesus there is a woman named Lily who uses strange logic to try and say there is some factual manner to determine religious belief.
She leans on tradition apparently not understanding she is simply submitting to anothers translation.
It’s the same basic bait and switch.
I followed GH’s comment to Raving Atheist (too frustrating to read all the way through) and then another link from the main piece that inspired it to the reaction from Newsday’s “God Squad.” Their previous answer was to a reader’s complaint (he suffered from eight years in special education classes after being misdiagnosed as retarded): “Where is God’s love for me?”
They reply:
“We’re in sales, not management, but this question comes up a lot. You have a legitimate gripe – but it’s not with God. God does not do intake testing for special education classes. The fact that you were misdiagnosed was a terrible mistake but not a theological problem.”
No “bait and switch” there, huh? It’s a good thing it wasn’t a phone-in show, otherwise the guy would still be waiting on the line listening to a recorded message saying “We will connect you as soon as we have located the responsible deity. Thank you for calling.”
Yeah, really, where the hell is Karl? I have an utterly venomous theory. The Rapture was a few weeks ago and Karl’s the only one they took.
Stewart
‘The Rapture was a few weeks ago and Karl’s the only one they took.’
Bastard. You just made me blow coffee through my nose.
How did this guy get to have a Phd in philosophy and become a university professor?
The business about “privileging atheism” is just silly – how is not printing ‘in God we Trust’ on a banknote privileging anyone? Printing “there is no god’ on banknotes, now that would be privileging atheism, but I don’t see anyone campaigning for that (although, you could go back to the old system of every town printing their own bank notes and have a whole variety of notes ‘in Krishna we trust’, ‘We obey Allah’, ‘we worship Odin’, ‘we’re not really bothered’ etc…).
But my guess the more serious point he is after is about Intelligent Design. That old tricksy bit of word play in the middle where he says every big explanatory idea is a religion (capitalism, nazism, scientific naturalism…) lets him say that I.D. is science without having to make the case that I.D. does the things you normally expect of science (like explain the observable evidence and make testable predictions). No see, because science is a religion…I.D. is based on religion therefore I.D. is science…ta da! Why bother with logic or evidence or any of that difficult stuff when you can simply redefine things until they come out with the answer you want!?
Don,
You caused quite a fit of cackling on this end by telling me about it. Fortunately, I wasn’t drinking anything as I visualised it (hey, these laptops cost money and liquids don’t agree with them).
That’s just the kind of obliging bastard I am.
Maybe Tim LaHaye’s next “Left Behind” novel will be called “The Rapture Fucks Up.”
How about ‘The Rapture; Thank Fuck Those Twats Have Gone’?