I understand there's something like an argument out there along the lines of "atheists claim they disbelieve but disbelief in God is still a belief, so they're incoherent" (or something). Our associate pastor made a similar argument the opening night of our RCIA course when he declared that atheists' disbelief in God is incoherent because disbelief requires an existent object. (Being Filipino and, evidently, a Fregean, he phrased it less coherently than that).
This is a bad argument. That's all. What is objectionable about atheism is not whether it constitues faith or doubt but the object of its faith or doubt -- not its fervency but its falsity. A weakly-defined or weakly-held atheism is no less objectionable than a militant one.* Who cares whether it's better to say that atheists don't believe in God or to say they believe there's no God? Is there any interesting implication regarding the outcome of such a linguistic squabble?
It's one of those silly and completely inane bits of BS, which I'm baffled anyone thinks sophisticated. It's similar to the typical Christian-turned-atheist conversion story they all feel the need to share, along the lines of "something bad happened to me once so God must not exist!" No one cares, yuppie. Let it go.
The reason I bring this up is that it appears to be a main theme in an atheist video advanced by a YouTuber named QualiaSoup. Pretty well done video, by all accounts, and an able presentation of (what passes for) the rationale for atheism, although initially it seems he might bristle at being called such. Nor, however, does he permit himself to be called an agnostic, and here he ceases to be terribly engaging: agnosticism, he says, is a specific epistemic attitude, and his belief (or lack of belief, he insists on saying) does not even go so far as to encompass that. Well, we'll see about that.
The reason I say this isn't an engaging argument is because it relies on a linguistic malformation common to the vulgar use of the English language today: the presumption of distinction between "knowledge" and "belief." There is, of course, a distinction in the loose sense that they refer to different things; but they refer to different things in the also-loose sense that my throwing brick at a window is different from the window shattering. Knowledge and belief are not untethered from one another, an argument I made earlier. Belief is simply the assent of the will to something apprehended by reason. I believe the sky is blue because I know the sky is blue. I believe I have ten fingers because I know I have ten fingers. And agnostics withhold belief because they regard the question as simply unanswerable -- because their reasons apprehend (albeit improperly) that the question is unanswerable. A person who says "I believe in UFOs" isn't expressing a belief he thinks is irrational: he's generally convinced by (what he sees as) the evidence that UFOs exist. And a person who refuses to assent to something he knows to be true, such as the battered woman who insists that it'll be different from now on, is not doing anything noble: they're simply delusional.
Anyway, QualiaSoup gets to what he actually believes at around three minutes into the video, when he declares that the theistic assertion of God's existence is "irresolvable" because "no procedure available to us could reliably establish the existence or non-existence of such an unscientific entity." What he means here, of course, is that no scientific procedure exists (he doesn't ever acknowledge that there are plenty of metaphysical procedures available to us to reveal this truth, namely syllogistic logic, so it's reasonable to question if he's even aware of them). And he believes this because he's a positivist. Which he means he does, in fact, approach the question with a particular epistemology -- one that is so fundamental to his worldview he does not even acknowledge it by name and, presumably, never bothers to ask whether it's actually true.
The problem with positivism, I've said before, is that it's incoherent. The denial of nonscientific knowledge leads invariably also to a denial of scientific knowledge for two reasons. One, science cannot establish its own validity: there's no scientific experiment you can conduct that would validate the scientific method. Two, that means the only other method available to you of establishing the validity of scientific knowledge is a metaphysical axiom which is itself unscientific. So positivism winds up refuting itself -- and that which refute itself cannot be possibly true. You can get around this if you make an unpricipled exception to your own belief system, and you may be content with that, but why should anyone else be satisfied with the incoherent patchwork mess you've concocted?
So this strange breed of confused, hybrid agnostoatheism is, evidently, all atheism and no agnosticism. He proves this immediately afterward, when he declares that "God (the being said to exist in biblical times) exists" is "demonstrably false." He declares there are "many problematic qualities" we're asked to accept about this God that proves its falseness, but then provides perhaps the stupidest sample of what those "problematic qualities" are: "No being can be regarded as perfect," he says, "if it needs to be worshipped."
Agreed! Such would be a contradiction in terms. God, being perfect, has no imperfections in need of realization and therefore no "needs." So we should not presume to worship God because we think He needs to be worshipped. We should worship Him because he deserves to be worshipped, and moreover, because it is good -- that is, consistent with our natures as created beings who owe their creator a debt of gratitude and obedience -- to worship Him. The argument as expressed by QS is stupid and he is right to call it such. But he is wrong to call it a "problem" for theism because no one, to my knowledge, has aksed anyone to accept that argument. Anyone who did, I'd regard as ignorant. This is quite remarkable since we're evidently supposed to believe that this belief no one believes is not only a problem for theism but is representative of all the kinds of problems theism faces. Well, if that's the worst we have to deal with, then I suppose we're well-off!
It doesn't seem to occur to QS to question this argument. If "God is perfect" and "God needs worship" are irreconcilable, isn't that just as likely to be proof that one of the two statements has been improperly formulated than that the whole idea of "God" is bogus? Indeed, he doesn't seem to be aware what theists actually believe, nor does his ignorance so much as trouble him. It's as if he's never really encountered any theism more sophisticated than the postings of his silly pseudo-Baptist friends on Facebook.
QS goes on to claim that "a lack of belief in gods is the default position." Let's ignore for a moment the historical evidence that this is not, in fact, true, and simply grant him the benefit of the doubt that he's trying to establish some sort of epistemic norm: that one should not assent to something not known to be rational. That's a perfectly defensible position. But it's not as if there are no arguments for theism -- there are only arguments one might refuse to accept because of unquestioned and basically irrational nominalist and positivist presuppositions. That doesn't make him a neutral or disinterested party, nor is proper for him to pretend as much, because nominalism and positivism are themselves the assertion of a particular metaphysical worldview. When one says, then, that I must provide scientific evidence for the existence of God, one is essentially asking me to do the legwork for them of inserting God into a preexisting existential paradigm that denies there is anything knowable that cannot be known through the scientific endeavor. In fact, such a task is impossible, not because God doesn't exist but because that paradigm is false and irrational.
Around 8 minutes in, QS loses me entirely. He proceeds to complain (with a grating, plaintive whine) that atheist fervency is a response to Christian name-calling provocation. To this, I say: eh. Take a look at the last century's treatment of Christians, especially Catholics and the Orthodox, at the hands of atheists and then have the temerity to complain that they regard atheists with suspicion and contempt.
A full treatment for the case for theism is beyond the scope of this post. You can find a simple one in Bonald's "Finite and Unlimited Being" -- and atheists, be warned that the man's an astrophysicist and very likely smarter and better-versed in matters scientific than you. Suffice it to say that there is no really good reason to treat QS' breed of bland and thoughtless scientism as even a respectable position to hold, much less the default one.
*Except where militancy causes one to, say, go nuts and start killing people.
EDIT: An anonymous commenter e-mailed me to suggest that the belief that God "needs" prayer may actually derive from too heavy an investment in science fiction and fantasy, where the meme appears to be common, especially in the writings of Terry Pratchett. Given the non-zero correlation between atheism and literary escapism, it sounds plausible to me.
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