Atheism

In his recent talk at the American Atheist convention on skepticism and atheism, Matt Dillahunty states (at about five minutes in) that skepticism does tell us what to believe in the case of untestable claims–that the default position is disbelief. But no, the default position has to be nonbelief, not disbelief. To disbelieve in a proposition is to believe in the negation of the proposition, to believe that the original proposition is false. And Dillahunty already said that (a) we should proportion our belief to the evidence and that (b) the proposition in question is untestable, meaning there is no evidence for or against it. The position he describes is logically inconsistent. We know that there are untestable propositions that are true. We shouldn’t believe that they are false simply because they are untestable. We should only believe they are false if we have good reasons to believe they are false; in the absence of that we should be agnostic. (Added 5:36 p.m.: What are the implications for the above argument if it is the case that untestability does not entail lack of evidence or reasons? What about if we distinguish evidential from non-evidential reasons? And if we take the latter course, what does that say about proposition (a), above? Left as an exercise for commenters.) ...

A group of Tucson atheists and skeptics have started the Desert Air podcast, available via iTunes. Three episodes available so far. Anonymous (2011-07-12): I know it's unrelated, but I just wanted to compliment you as a great source of atheist resources. It's not easy finding any- the internet is dominated by apologists and theologians. It's easy to accidently run into sites. like, say, this one: http://akma.disseminary.org/?s=theology ...

While listening to a recent Token Skeptic podcast of a Dragon*Con panel on Skepticism and Education moderated by D.J. Grothe of the James Randi Educational Foundation, I was struck by his repeated references to Skepticism as a worldview (which I put in uppercase to distinguish it from skepticism as a set of methods of inquiry, an attitude or approach). I wrote the following email to the podcast: I am sufficiently irritated by D.J. Grothe's repeated reference to skepticism as a "worldview" that I will probably be motivated to write a blog post about it.There is a growing ambiguity caused by overloading of the term "skepticism" on different things--attitudes, methods and processes, accumulated bodies of knowledge, a movement.  To date, there hasn't really been a capital-S Skepticism as a worldview since the Pyrrhonean philosophical variety.  A worldview is an all-encompassing view of the world which addresses how one should believe, how one should act, what kinds of things exist, and so forth.  It includes presuppositions not only about factual matters, but about values. The skepticisms worth promoting are attitudes, methods and processes, and accumulated bodies of knowledge that are consistent with a wide variety of world views.  The methods are contextual, applied against a background of social institutions and relationships that are based on trust.  There is room in the broader skeptical movement for pluralism, a diversity of approaches that set the skepticisms in different contexts for different purposes--educational, political, philosophical, religious.  An unrestricted skepticism is corrosive and undermines all knowledge, for there is no good epistemological response to philosophical skepticism that doesn't make some assumptions.Trying to turn skepticism into a capital-S Skeptical worldview strikes me as misguided.To my mind, what's most important and useful about skepticism is that it drives the adoption of the best available tools for answering questions, providing more guidance on how to think than on what to think, and on how to recognize trustworthy sources and people to rely upon.  There's not a completely sharp line between these--knowledge about methods and their accuracy is dependent upon factual knowledge, of course. I think the recent exchanges about the Missouri Skepticon conference really being an atheist conference may partly have this issue behind them, though I think there are further issues there as well about the traditional scope of "scientific skepticism" being restricted to "testable claims" and the notion of methodological naturalism that I don't entirely agree with.  Skepticism is about critical thinking, inquiry, investigation, and using the best methods available to find reliable answers to questions (and promoting broader use of those tools), while atheism is about holding a particular position on a particular issue, that no gods exist.  The broader skeptical movement produces greater social benefits by promoting more critical thinking in the general public than does the narrower group of skeptical atheists who primarily argue against religion and especially the smaller subset who are so obsessed that they are immediately dismissed by the broader public as monomaniacal cranks.  The organized skeptical groups with decades of history have mainly taken pains to avoid being represented by or identified with the latter, and as a result have been represented by skeptics of a variety of religious views in events of lasting consequence. Think, for example, of the audience for Carl Sagan's "Cosmos" and his subsequent works, or of the outcome of the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial. In my opinion, the distinction between skepticism and atheism is an important one, and I think Skepticon does blur and confuse that distinction by using the "skeptic" name and having a single focus on religion. This doesn't mean that most of the atheists participating in that conference don't qualify as skeptics, or even that atheist groups promoting rationality on religious subjects don't count as part of the broader skeptical movement.  It just means that there is a genuine distinction to be drawn. (BTW, I don't think atheism is a worldview, either--it's a single feature of a worldview, and one that is less important to my mind than skepticism.) Previous posts on related subjects: "A few comments on the nature and scope of skepticism" "Skepticism, belief revision, and science" "Massimo Pigliucci on the scope of skeptical inquiry" Also related, a 1999 letter to the editor of Skeptical Inquirer from the leaders of many local skeptical groups (Daniel Barnett, North Texas Skeptics, Dallas, TX; David Bloomberg, Rational Examination Association of Lincoln Land, Springfield, IL; Tim Holmes, Taiwan Skeptics, Tanzu, Taiwan; Peter Huston, Inquiring Skeptics of Upper New York, Schenectady, NY; Paul Jaffe, National Capitol Area Skeptics, Washington, D.C.; Eric Krieg, Philadelphia Association for Critical Thinking, Philadelphia, PA; Scott Lilienfeld, Georgia Skeptics, Atlanta, GA; Jim Lippard, Phoenix Skeptics and Tucson Skeptical Society, Tucson, AZ; Rebecca Long, Georgia Skeptics, Atlanta, GA; Lori Marino, Georgia Skeptics, Atlanta, GA; Rick Moen, Bay Area Skeptics, Menlo Park, CA; Steven Novella, New England Skeptical Society, New Haven, CT; Bela Scheiber, Rocky Mountain Skeptics, Denver, CO; and Michael Sofka, Inquiring Skeptics of Upper New York, Troy, NY). UPDATE (December 1, 2010): D.J. Grothe states in the most recent (Nov. 26) Point of Inquiry podcast (Karen Stollznow interviews James Randi and D.J. Grothe), at about 36:50, that he has been misunderstood in his references to skepticism as a "worldview."  This suggests to me that he has in mind a narrower meaning, as Barbara Drescher has interpreted him in the comments below.  My apologies to D.J. for misconstruing his meaning. Michael C. Rush (2010-11-20): You make some good points, but ultimately I am unconvinced, I think. It seems to me perfectly reasonable to use "skeptic" in a manner analogous to how we would use "cynic," "idealist," or "epicure" in the modern sense, as general categories expressing one's dominant tendencies in approaching and assessing the world without requiring absolute fidelity to some ancient philosophy or formulation. Being open to questioning everything does not, it seems to me, imply rejection of everything. As for the skepticism/atheism issue, I think a person could be an atheist without being a skeptic, but I think it would be pretty silly. A "faith-based" atheism isn't of much interest or use. Can a person, conversely, be a skeptic without being an atheist? Clearly, but not, I would argue, a very good one. ...

After a multi-month hiatus, the ApostAZ podcast returns: Episode 019 Atheism and Spooky Bullshite in Phoenix! Go to meetup.com/phoenix-atheists for group events! Intro- Joe Rogan “Noah’s Ark (George Carlin Remix)”. Paranormal Activity, Chick Tracts and Ugandan Love.The guy whose name you couldn’t think of around 16:22-16:30–of the Stop Sylvia Brown website–is Robert Lancaster. Historical Comments M! (2010-02-04): Around the 25 minute-mark Brad brought up our recent cross-blogging dialogue and gave some commentary on our discussion. I take great exception to his gross mischaracterization of my arguments. Here is a partial transcript of the pertinent comments: Brad - Vocab will read a certain amount of texts from one of his apologists and he’ll copy pasta … he’ll attribute it and put quotes around it but he’ll put that as an argument to something Jim that broke down himself and examined the truth value of and Vocab says, “Yeah, but this apologist says this.” ...

I recently posted this at the Phoenix Atheists Meetup group’s discussion forum in a thread titled “atheism v. agnosticism,” and thought it might be worth reposting here: There are lots of ways to define these terms, to the extent that you can’t be sure how people are using them unless you ask. The general population of English speakers understands atheism to be equivalent to what Michael Martin calls “positive atheism” and what used to be commonly known among Internet atheists as “strong atheism”–an active disbelief in the existence of gods. That’s a position which does have a burden of proof over mere nonbelief, also known as weak atheism or negative atheism. George H. Smith made the same distinction using the terms explicit vs. implicit atheism. Richard Dawkins complicated matters by redefining “strong atheism” as absolute certainty that there is no God (position 7 on his scale). I wish he had chosen a different term, as I think it’s a mistake to associate positive atheism/strong atheism with certainty, proof, or even knowledge. I used to like this distinction, but am less enamored with it because “weak atheism” or “negative atheism” or atheism as mere lack of belief in gods has a few logical problems as a basis for anything. A lack of belief is not a position, it cannot be used to motivate action or to infer conclusions from. Those who say that they are only atheists in the weak sense, however, do join groups and appear to draw inferences and conclusions as though they are using the nonexistence of gods as a premise, which means either that they are really implicitly using strong atheism as a position, or they are drawing those inferences based on other meta-beliefs. The advantage of equating atheism with weak atheism is that theism and atheism then become contradictories which cover the entire space of logical possibilities–you either have a belief in one or more gods, or you don’t. Under that definition, there’s no space for agnosticism except as a subset of one or both of atheism and theism. The definition of “agnosticism” that was given earlier in this thread as pertaining to the possibility of knowledge about the existence or nonexistence of gods then gives you two dimensions, on which you can have agnostic atheists (I don’t believe there are gods, and it’s not possible to know), agnostic theists (I believe in at least one god, but it’s not possible to know), gnostic atheists (I don’t believe there are gods, and it is possible to know there aren’t), and gnostic theists (I believe there’s at least one god, and it’s possible to know). Of those positions, I think agnostic theism is difficult to make a case for with respect to most conceptions of God, except for deism and other forms of uninvolved gods. But most people who call themselves agnostics aren’t using that definition, they’re using a notion that is a particular form of weak atheism, that holds to something like there is a parity between arguments for and against the existence of gods, or that there is no way to effectively compare their evidential weight, or similar. They might agree with agnosticism regarding the possibility of knowledge for the existence or nonexistence of gods, but they go further and say that there is some parity on the case for mere belief in either direction, as well. I’m generally in favor of allowing people to choose their own self-identifying terms and defining them as they see fit, so long as they can give a legitimate reason for their classification and it’s not completely at odds with ordinary usage. One example that goes beyond ordinary usage and I think just indicates some kind of confusion is that 21% of self-identified atheists in a Pew survey reported last October said that they believe in God. Sorry, but that’s not a definition of atheist that I think can get off the ground. My own position is strong atheism/positive atheism with respect to most traditional conceptions of God, and weak atheism/agnosticism (or igtheism) with respect to certain rarefied/unempirical notions of God. I’m comfortable calling myself an atheist in general, and dispute claims that it’s impossible have knowledge that at least most gods do not exist. “You can’t prove a negative” is a widely expressed canard, which I argue against here: http://www.discord.org/~lippard/debiak.html That also contains links to a few other essays which make the same point in a way that is probably more clear, including one by Jeff Lowder which argues for the possibility of disproofs of God’s existence. UPDATE (November 22, 2010): Also see the Internet Infidels’ Atheist Web definition page. I now suspect that “empirical agnosticism” and “weak atheism” are indistinguishable. UPDATE (November 24, 2011): Also see Jeff Lowder’s January 4, 2006 post at Naturalistic Atheism, “Disagreement Among Self-Described Atheists about the Meaning of ‘Atheism’" and Ted Drange’s 1998 article at the Secular Web, “Atheism, Agnosticism, and Noncognitivism." Drange’s distinctions seem to me to be well worth using. Maverick Philosopher’s “Against Terminological Mischief: ‘Negative Atheism’ and ‘Negative Nominalism’" is also good. UPDATE (January 20, 2012): Jeff Lowder has written further on this subject at the Secular Outpost, in “The Definition of Atheism, the Anal-Retentive Defense of Etymological Purism, and Linguistic Relativism." ...

While past studies have shown religious believers to be happier than nonbelievers, some new analysis shows that it’s not quite so simple. Luke Galen has found that the convinced non-religious are also quite happy, but people who are uncertain are the ones who are dissatisfied. Adam Okulicz-Kozaryn has analyzed data from the World Values Survey and found some more interesting details: Religious people are both happier and unhappier. While a higher percentage of religious people report themselves as extremely happy than convinced nonbelievers, a higher percentage of religious people also report themselves as extremely unhappy.Those who attend religious services and belong to religious organizations tend to be happier. And that’s whether or not they believe–in fact among that group, those with the stronger belief tend to be unhappier. So it’s the social aspect, not the doctrine, that promotes happiness. And this is further supported by:The more religious a country is, the happier believers are, and vice versa. In religious countries, believers are happier; in nonreligious countries, nonbelievers are happier. See more at the Epiphenom blog. (Cross-posted to the Secular Outpost.)

Daniel Dennett’s talk from the 2009 Atheist Alliance International convention (link is to my summary) is now online:

ASU’s State Press columnist Catherine Smith authored an op-ed piece promoting last night’s appearance of Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias. This was at least her second such op-ed; a prior one was published on September 17. My letter to the editor, below, didn’t get published, but another critic’s letter did get published. Here’s mine: Catherine Smith quotes Ravi Zacharias as stating that "irreligion and atheism have killed infinitely more than all religious wars of any kind cumulatively put together." This statement not only demonstrates Zacharias' innumeracy, it shows that he continues to make the mistake of attributing killing in the name of political ideologies like Stalinism and communism to atheism. I agree that Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot killed more than religious wars, but it wasn't their atheism that caused that killing. Those killed by religious wars, the Inquisition, and witch trials, however, were killed in the name of religion. Out of fairness, there were no doubt political issues involved in many wars over religion as well, but if you take claims of religiously motivated killing at face value, the death tolls for those killed in the name of religion far exceed the death tolls for those killed in the name of irreligion. Zacharias has a history of attacking atheism with misrepresentations in his books, as documented in Jeff Lowder's "An Emotional Tirade Against Atheism" and Doug Krueger's "That Colossal Wreck," both of which may be found on the Internet as part of the Secular Web (http://www.infidels.org/). I first heard of Zacharias back around 1991, when I sat behind someone on an airplane flight who was reading his book (reviewed by Krueger, linked above), A Shattered Visage. The parts I read were truly awful, about the quality of M. Scott Huse arguments against evolution (a step below Kent Hovind and Ken Ham). I didn't bother to attend, but would be interested in hearing any reports of how it went. UPDATE (November 24, 2017): Steve Baughman has published an exposure of Zacharias' claims to have credentials he does not possess, and to have had academic appointments that did not exist. UPDATE (September 26, 2020): Ravi Zacharias died of cancer earlier this year, but not before being caught in an online relationship scandal. UPDATE (February 11, 2021): Ravi Zacharias International Ministries has publicly released a report on an investigation into abuse charges against Ravi Zacharias, and it found a significant pattern of predatory sexual abuse and a rape allegation. The woman googled “Ravi Zacharias sex scandal” and found the blog RaviWatch, run by Steve Baughman, an atheist who had been tracking and reporting on Zacharias’s “fishy claims” since 2015. Baughman blogged on Zacharias’s false statements about academic credentials, the sexting allegations, and the subsequent lawsuit. When the woman read about what happened to Lori Anne Thompson, she recognized what had happened to that woman was what had happened to her. ...

Richard Carrier will be speaking to the Humanist Society of Greater Phoenix on Sunday, November 8 at around 10 a.m.–it will likely be packed, so showing up for breakfast or just to get a seat at 9 a.m. is advised. Richard will be speaking about Christianity and science, ancient and modern, and you can get a bit more information about his talk at his blog.

The Arab Atheists Network has begun posting an Arabic translation of my summary of the AAI convention here. Thanks to Alpharabius and the Arab Atheists Network for doing that, and for their promotion of atheism in the Arab world!