Monday, March 10, 2014

My Atheism Explained and Defended: Part 1


Recently I've become aware of how dismissive many people are of my metaphysical views. There are so many assumptions that are made about atheism, and I think it's time for me to explain my own. Like Christianity, there isn't just one form of atheism. There isn't a giant book that says what makes a person an atheist and what doesn't. Of course, atheism is predicated on the belief that there is no god, but its practitioner's corollaries to that belief are very nuanced and often contradictory.

Explained:

The explanation of my atheism is quite concise. There is nothing that I have seen or experienced in my life that suggests the existence of a god. That's it. The burden of proof is not on me to disprove the existence of god. The burden is on the Christian, and until someone shows me substantial proof, I will not believe. My Atheism is a result of my epistemology. I cannot base my worldview on mere faith.

Defended:

Now, when examining any of our knowledge claims, we must apply rigorous questions to every claim that we make. As Hume observed, we cannot continue our reasonings ad infinitum, but that does not mean that we cannot make knowledge claims. No, at some point, we will have to use the information that we have obtained and apply it to meaningful actions. With this in mind, understand that skepticism only functions as a motivator to obtain more knowledge (before making knowledge claims) and a promoter of humility. This brings me to the faith argument that many of my Christian friends have used to try to shoot down my atheism.

Faith Argument

Recently, two of my friends said that it took just as much faith to be an atheist as it did to be a Christian. This argument rested on the observation made above: that we must stop our reasonings at some point and commit actions using the information we have obtained (regardless of how inadequate it seems). My friends posit that everyone must live their lives with an element of faith. One common metaphor that they use is the chair metaphor, that when you sit in a chair, you have "faith" that it will hold your weight.

I find their position absurd for two reasons. Firstly because the context and degree of faith is entirely different between Christians and Atheists, and secondly because of something that I like to call absolute faith (I will explain this later).

As for context, my friends are correct in saying that we all must have faith at some point in our lives (like when we sit in a chair), but that doesn't mean that all faith is equivalent or refers to the same things. Though the atheist has faith in the sturdiness of the inanimate objects around him, he does not have faith in the infallibility of an ancient book, he does not have faith that there is an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent, god who existed before time, and he does not have faith that this ancient ego is loving and entirely separated from sin or (more pointedly) moral judgement. Christians have faith in all of these things, and an atheist does not. Clearly there are contextual differences between the two belief systems. The degrees of both should be apparent. Obviously, there is a huge difference between having faith in the above mentioned claims of Christianity and in the sturdiness of inanimate objects such as chairs.

As for absolute faith, I think that there are claims that Christians make solely on the basis of faith that an atheist would never make. Most of these claims refer to claims made in the Bible. They are innumerable, but here are some examples: god loves ME, he loves ME so much he helped me get the promotion I wanted, he loves ME so much he helped me find a cheap insurance policy for my new car, he loves ME so much he allowed the (republican :-) ) candidate I liked to win the election. Christians believe in God and then base literally everything that they don't understand or can't explain off of faith- absolute faith. An atheist would never do this. This is absurd.

So in summation, the faiths of Atheists and Christians are not equivocal, and I hope that this analysis shows that Christians need FAR more faith than atheists do.

Tenability and Causation

Yesterday, a church leader told me that atheism is not tenable because I cannot know if there is not a god and I cannot explain the existence of the universe without him. This goes back to the burden of proof that I mentioned above. It is not my burden to disprove god, it is the Christian's burden to prove his existence to me.

As far as causation goes, god is not the only explanation for the universe. Consider the following except from my critique of Christianity (which will be made available on the Kindle store in a 3-8 months depending on how much time I can find to complete it):

"It should be noted that neither argument (Creationism or Big Bang Theory) really grasps the concept of 'creation' in a complete way. Both models attempt to answer the question 'How does something (the Earth in this instance) come from nothing?'. The Big Bang explains this by positing that heat created sub-atomic particles during a 'big bang' and these particles eventually assembled creating the world. Though it explains causation to an extent, there are still objects associated with this cause. These being the parameters of the universe and the physical property heat. Neither of these are nothing. They are just the absence of particles- of matter.  

Creationism, on the other hand, attributes causation to God. God has always existed and created the universe as we know it. Obviously, this has no scientific basis. Aside from that obvious flaw, creationism in many ways raises more questions than it answers. Was God created? Has he always existed?  Does he habitat our universe or is he separate from it? And if he is separate from it, what sort of metaphysical properties are contained within God’s habitat? These sorts of questions are the basis of Hitchen’s Razor, which builds off of Occam’s Razor, which admonishes the philosopher to discard unnecessary assumptions. Ergo, since creationism creates unnecessary assumptions and raises more questions than need to be answered, it seems that big bang is the most logical conclusion in the debate.

As for creationism's inability to  grasp the concept of creation in a complete way, the theory’s shortcoming is similar to that of Big-Bang. Though it defines our world’s cause, there are still things that precede creation. We know for certain (from a creationist perspective) that God preceded creation; therefore, how something can come from nothing is still unanswered. In both models, it seems that everything has a cause. This is likely because human being are unable to judge things in any other way."

When we reason, cause and effect is a vital consideration, and when we consider a cause, we cannot conceive of it being nothing. Therefore, in a sense, all explanations of the origins of our universe are lacking. So, regarding causation, all metaphysics are somewhat untenable. 

This does not mean that atheism fails, it is simply a testament to the limitations of the human mind. Furthermore, as I mentioned in that passage, scientific theories (like Big Bang) should be preferred over religion because they do not create unnecessary assumptions. Physics really does have a lot to say about the nature of our universe and I'm inclined to think that at some point it will explain many of the things that we currently cannot regarding the creation of the universe. Who knows what farther study of things like dark matter, String Theory, multiple dimensions to the universe, and the like will someday tell us. 

So Yeah...

These two defenses were the freshest in my mind because of recent occurrences. If you feel inclined to attack my beliefs or call them untenable, please do and I shall edit this post and add more defenses. I have given my beliefs a lot of thought, and can defend them well. I'm also open to questions or comments on this blog or on Facebook.


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