The last post

[merlinofchaos]

My point, by the way, which I was too tired to make is...

In this country (and probably others), it's almost required for politicians to be Christian. For those that truly believe in religious tolerance, it's ok for politicians to be Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist or Hindi.

But atheists? Get out of town. Apparently having some belief is better than having no belief at all.

The problem is, atheism isn't a lack of belief. It is specifically disbelieving in God. And I don't think those are the same thing, not by a long shot. It isn't coming across two paths (or fifty paths) and simply choosing not to pick one. That's agnosticism. That's saying you don't know. Atheism is saying you do know, and you do believe...that God or Gods do not exist.

Comments

[phoenix-heart.livejournal.com]

I think the (faulty) reasoning of most Americans is that they think no religion=no morality. Since most people derive their moral compass from the Bible, whether they realize it or no, they believe that someone that doesn't believe in the Bible will have no moral compass. Which is absolutely wrong, but hard to argue with...primarily because it involves convincing religious people that one can have moralvalues without a God to decree them. And convincing them of THAT is a much bigger argument than just "atheists are people, too."

The funny thing for me is that most of my atheist friends seem have a stronger commitment to actually living their life by moral values, and a more consistent record of actually acting according to what they say (rather than saying they value one thing and doing another), than most of my Christian religious friends. :)

In my experience, most of my atheist friends would get into Heaven faster than most of my religious friends.

[evilmagnus]

Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Try telling a Christian that their Morality is based on fear of reprisal in the afterlife (after they start lecturing you on how you can't possibly be Moral without God in your life, of course) and that an Atheist's morality must be based on 'do unto others' because that's the logical way to do things ... good times, good times.

[evilmagnus]

Well, I think Dawkin's position is that Atheism isn't /disbelief/ in God - it's belief that there is no evidence to support God's existence. Which is an even subtler distinction. :)

Like I believe in Gravity, because it's a testable theory, and empirically proven.

I don't believe in God, because there's no testable proofs and no empirical evidence. If there was testable proofs and evidence, I'd believe. Just like I believe in gravity.

[merlinofchaos]

That makes you an agnostic.

Agnosticism says that you can't know (because it is not proven either way) and therefore, you don't necessarily believe (but you don't necessarily disbelieve). Agnostics can straddle the fence or sit on either side of it (making it easy to mistake agnosticism for atheism).

atheists specifically believe that there is no God or Gods, that thousands of years of lack of proof constitutes evidence that such things do not exist. That, in itself, makes it more of a religion because, as I said, atheists take it on faith that there isn't a God. Agnostics simply say that there is no proof one way or other.

[evilmagnus]

No, I'm an Atheist. That's Richard Dawkin's reasoning, which I am rather familiar with, even if I've imperfectly communicated it here. :)

I *know* God does not exist. I have no doubt that he does not exist because there is no scientific evidence to support his existence. If evidence emerges to support his existence according to established Scientific Method, I'd believe.

Agnosticism says that you can't know (because it is not proven either way) and therefore,

Exactly. The 'either way' bit is crucial to the Agnostic viewpoint. The Dawkin position is that the overbearing weigh of evidence is to non-existence. Allowing that evidence may change that position is not Agnosticism; it's just the Scientific Method at work. Agnosticism is for the intellectually lazy who refuse to follow the logic of Science to the current conclusion: that God does not exist. :)

[branna.livejournal.com]

I'm going to have to take exception to the "intellectually lazy" statement.

I'm not an agnostic because I'm lazy. I'm an agnostic _because_ I'm a scientist, and as such, I feel it is an abuse of the discipline to invoke it as Dawkin does. Talking about "science" or the "weight of scientific evidence" is only really relevant when the question at hand is tractable to the scientific method. That means any theory has to make falsifiable predictions.

I will cheerfully agree that literal biblical creationism can be constructed as a falsifiable scientific theory, because it makes specific predictions that can be and have been falsified. E.g. it predicts the earth is only a few thousand years old, which is at odds with radiocarbon dating and fossils and so forth. It's a failed scientific theory, but it can legitimately be constructed as one, and as such science has something relevant to say about it.

Likewise, if you have a very specific God you'd like to disprove, then maybe science has something to say about. If your particular God's existence forces the logical conclusion that the sky is green, or that the universe is steady state, or so forth, yeah, science can prove that particular God does not exist. If your God is fundamentally deterministic and Newtonian, well, science has something to say about that too.

But as far as the existence of the Numinous in all its possible aspects? Science, given our current observational and experimental abilities, just can't speak to that. You want to posit a Deist prime mover behind the big bang? Go right ahead, the theory's predictions won't change a whit one way or the other. And given the current theories, knowledge, etc. arguing that the values of the universal constants were selected by a supreme being is no sillier than the string theorists invoking the anthropic principle to explain why we exist in the particular universe we do.

Put another way, in scientific language, "I know" is an incredibly strong statement. "I know" equals "I have a successful theory." To say that "I know God does not exist," as a scientist, I have to say "I have a theory of God's non-existence which not only was constructed to fit available data, but also predicted new, not yet observed results. I went out and observed those results and validated the theory." Honestly, I'm not entirely sure how to construct such a theory. God is not required to explain current physical observations, but I don't need to require that God _not_ exist either.

From a scientific perspective, lack of evidence to support God's existence is grounds for doubt, and even for scientific opinion. I.e. "I think God does not exist." But only active evidence for God's non-existence is grounds for "I know."

[evilmagnus]

Well, to be fair, I was repeating Richard Dawkin's contention. Rather than try to argue the point with you I suggest you borrow/buy The God Delusion, wherein Dawkins goes through all this far better than I could hope to.

[merlinofchaos]

I've read a bunch of Dawkins on the net, and I still agree with branna.

branna, thank you very much for that extremely well-written commentry on agnosticism. Before I decided (based largely on faith) that God does not, in fact exist as part of my personal belief system, I considered myself agnostic for the very good reasons you state. Atheism -- or at least my atheism -- is a leap of faith. Or perhaps cynicism. Take your pick. =)

[wildpaletz.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I'm enjoying reading, and agree with, your arguments.

Chris sometimes laughs at me because I believe in God via a redefinition of God. He's said something like, "It's like saying that you believe pigs can fly, and by 'pigs can fly,' you mean "the sky looks blue to me'!" Which is, honestly, a fair critique of my beliefs.

[evilmagnus]

I should cite:
"the existence of God is a scientific hypothesis like any other." p50 The God Delusion Richard Dawkins.

[lurkingowl.livejournal.com]

Agnostic and atheist aren't exclusive terms.

It's certainly possible to be an agnostic theist (I don't think there can be proof of god, but I have faith he exists.)
or an agnostic atheist (I don't think there can be proof of god, and I don't have a positive belief in one.)

One can also be a "gnostic atheist," or strong atheist, which is what you're calling an atheist.

In short, the content of a belief is independent of the epistemological foundation of the belief.

[death-by-monkey.livejournal.com]

Interesting - I hadn't heard the term agnostic theist before. This is similar to the Baha'i view of God which is that God is unknowable (and as a corollary, the Baha'i writings also say that the purpose of humans is to know God).

And being a scientist, one who is religious, I particularly appreciate branna's discussion of agnosticism. Do I believe in creationism or intelligent design? No. Do I believe that God and science aren't exclusive. Yes. But that is where my faith comes in. And as I recognize that faith is what leads me to believe this, if your faith leads you to believe that there is no God - I can appreciate that, too.

But to speak to Earl's original point of whether or not an American politician can be anything other than Christian, it's certainly an uphill battle. If you think about other demographic facets of U.S. politics, though, religion isn't the only aspect like that. We're so far behind most other developed (and many underdeveloped) nations in terms of sexual equality in our politics (how many other countries have had at least one woman head of state by now?) as well as racial equality (how many black senators have we had?)

In general, for our country being the melting pot that it is, politically, the country doesn't stray far from it's leaders being white, male, and Protestant. As white Protestants -do- make up the majority of the U.S. population, though, at least on the national stage, our political system tends to lend itself to these outcomes. On the local or regional level it's easier to get more diversity, of course, but if you're going national and you're not white, male, and Protestant, you've got to find ways to get support across demographic lines in a major way.

[agrimony.livejournal.com]

I suspect a good portion of that 'belief as requirement' and 'atheism is Right Out' is a hold over from the Cold War and all that propaganda about the dirty, atheist commies.

[lurkingowl.livejournal.com]

I wrote up a response ot your previous post, but tossed it, since I didn't want to wander into a semantic debate over religion.

Now that I see why you were trying to put forward the argument, I'll put in part of what I'd said. Namely, that this form of argument is often used to justify banning science in school. Namely, believe in the Big Bang is a religious belief, since it's held to with ardor, and deals with "ultimate reality." And if the Big Bang, or Evolution, are religious beliefs, then the First Amendment says the constitution shouldn't endorse ("establish") one. We have to be very careful about expanding the definition of a word, rather than creating a new word to make the distinction you're trying to make. Namely, it doesn't retroactively change what other people meant when they used that word.

I think what you want to highlight is Atheism != Nihilism. I'd be careful, because Atheism *is* just a lack of belief in God. It's certainly possible to go beyond that to a strong belief (gods are a stupid idea, I actively deny their existence.) Either way, it's not saying you don't believe in being nice to other people, or even that you don't believe in the supernatural (say, you're a Zen Buddhist, or a shinto spirit worshipper.) It's a sticky area, because Atheism isn't a system of beliefs, or even necessarily a positive belief in something, it's an attribute of someone's system of belief.

[merlinofchaos]

I would go so far as to say that atheism is on the same level as monotheism.

Being Jewish and Christian is being monotheist.

Believing that one should "Do unto others as they would do unto you", and creating a code of morality, behavior and belief that includes not believing in a God would easily be a religion. And atheism, especially if it becomes doctrine.