Thursday 23 January 2014

Response to CARM's Questions for atheists Q1 to 10.

I sometimes like to browse sites like CARM to see what they are posting. They have a page that asks a series of questions to atheists and I decided to write a response here.
This response is aimed to be as truthful as possible in regard to my stance on atheism, and I am not trying to represent anyone else in these answers.

1. How would you define atheism?

A good question. A lack of belief in a god or gods is the broadest and best answer to this, although disbelief in gods also works for explicit atheism, which is what I would think is my stance.

2. Do you act according to what you believe (there is no God) in or what you don't believe in (lack belief in God)?

This is a bit of a leading question or two separate questions. Using the CARM definition of God, rather than all possible gods, then I suppose I do act according to that statement as I believe the abrahamic god does not exist that has the characteristics attributed to it by CARM's definition.
I am not sure what they mean by acting according to a lack of belief in a god. If I don't hold the belief in the first place, how do I act in lacking it. Its not a well formed question. I don't pray, or accept the concepts of a God and it's threats or powers.
I suppose those that lack belief in Santa claus don't go to sleep expecting magical visitations by a fat man with a beard either, or expect to find reindeer hoofprints on their roof in the morning.

Unfortunately CARM also has an article on what they think a lack of belief is, which they manage to mangle. I am not using their view of a lack of belief. My view is simply not holding a positive belief in the claim that a god or gods exist. This can include a range of positions, all of which fall into the lack of belief category.

3. Do you think it is inconsistent for someone who "lacks belief" in God to work against God's existence by attempting to show that God doesn't exist?

Once again the previous corruption of a lack of belief (which they think means having no opinion at all on the topic) is used here, but since I don't recognise that definition I will stick to mine which is more accurate.
The question is poorly phrased, as those that lack belief can be completely consistant in demonstrating or attempting to demonstrate why CARM's version of God doesn't exist. Not all bother doing so of course, as CARM later admits and atheism does not require one to do so to be philosophically sound in having a lack of belief in God. If you believe that CARM's God does not exist, they also lack belief in that God. How could it be otherwise. It is a strawman to attempt to oversimplify the idea of having a lack of belief and thus make it seemingly narrower than it actually is.
Also the idea of working against God's existence does not make sense. Either your God exists or it does not. You cannot work against anything's existence. You can only dispute the CLAIM that such a thing exists or make a claim that such a thing does not exist. The claim about a thing is separate from the fact of existence or non existence of a thing. Existence is not contingent on belief in a thing.

4. How sure are you that your atheism properly represents reality?

This question seems to be assuming atheism equals a claim that there is no God, since I am not sure how a lack of belief in something represents anything outside not accepting the claim. It is not a claim ABOUT reality, only a rejection or ignorance of a claim.
For me, my atheism is 100% matching reality, as I do not see any reason to accept CARM's definition of God existing. That does not mean that I know for 100% that their God cannot exist. But a discussion on the nature of their God is a big topic and would derail this post.

5. How sure are you that your atheism is correct?

Oh I am getting a flashback of Shockofgod. This question is also poorly phrased in it's intention. Once again it seems to be aiming for the idea that atheism means that there is no God. This is not how I defined it.

Atheism is correct by this logical argument:
a. atheism means a lack of belief in gods.
b. a lack of belief can be held as a valid position on a topic if not given sufficent evidence to accept a claim.
c. atheists are not convinced by the evidence provided by theists on the existence of gods.
d. therefore atheism is the correct position to hold in that circumstance.

6. How would you define what truth is?

Heck, that question has dogged philosophers since the dawn of time, and depends on the context it is referring to and the perspective of the questioner too.
If CARM means descriptive truth about reality, like what the diameter of the Earth is, then Truth would mean the closest answer that can be verified with empirical observation and testing. However I do not necessarily mean an absolute value of truth, but more a pragmatic value, in that it is something contingent on our current knowledge and technology and subject to possible revision in the future.
If CARM is referring to some philosophical 'truths' about morality or ultimate meaning then I am not sure truth is even a valid term to use in that circumstance as the questions themselves may not be even coherent.
Not every question has a truth behind it. Just because a person can ask it, does not mean there is any meaningful answer. "why do the clouds always try to drench my new suite when I go on a date? Do they hate me?" Is there any truth in these examples? The questions have lots of presuppositional errors and assumptions that corrupt the validity of the questions.

7. Why do you believe your atheism is a justifiable position to hold?

This seems like a rehash of Q.5 and perhaps Q.4.

8. Are you a materialist, or a physicalist, or what?

These seem a bit off topic, and require an understanding of what CARM thinks these labels represent.
"A materialist atheist is someone who assumes that the physical universe and its properties are all that exist, that nothing exists outside of the material world, and this necessarily means that a transcendent God cannot exist."
OK, I am not sure the phrasing of this is really accurate. We do not know if anything exists outside of the materal universe, as once we discover something new, it becomes automatically part of the universe. We don't have any example of something we know exits NOT being part of a material universe. I don't accept the way materialism is defined as being entirely coherent, but I would consider that everything we do understand is material, including thoughts and dreams.
If something comes from another dimension, or even another universe, it would also be material, if we detected it. I am not sure what a non material thing is. We have no examples of it.
I also support the concept of methodological naturalism in regard to how science operates.

9. Do you affirm or deny that atheism is a worldview?  Why or why not?

Using CARM's own definition of worldview it seems obvious that atheism is NOT a worldview. It can be part of one, just as any stance can be, but it has no tenants, guidance, rules or dogma outside of it's definition.


10. Not all atheists are antagonistic to Christianity, but for those of you who are, why the antagonism?

Well just to clarify, it is not JUST christianity that some atheists can be hostile to. Christianity is nothing special in regard to it's claims. However the influence and power of Christianity does make it a larger target for some atheist antagonism, especially if that atheist lives within a predominantly christian populace. Christianity has a long history of persecution of non-believers and heretics too.
Plus it teaches what we preceive as hateful doctrine to our friends, family and children. Living in a society that proclaims atheists are going to hell, are sinful, work for Satan, are evil or fools, blind or ignorant of the 'truth', deserve torture and a whole host of other unpleasant concepts hardly endears christians to atheists, although, thankfully, most christians playdown the worst parts, at least in the more educated areas of the world, excluding parts of the South of the USA.

A lot of the annoyance is also derived from anti-science movements and outright irrational bigotry that has it's roots in a theistic interpretation of a holy book. This is not exclusive to christianity as other religions have their fundamentalists too. Also these movements do not represent all of christianity either. There are thousands of versions.

However the antagonism usually aims to protect atheists from the harm such beliefs can inflict on societies that the atheists live in. We generally think this life is the only one we know we have and don't want it ruined by a barbaric adoption of ancient beliefs that we see impact and undermine our lives. This also can apply to non religious concepts that cause harm too, including psychics and certain new age 'medicines'. However none of that comes directly from atheism.

Anyway that is enough for now. I will come back on more of the questions in future.

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