“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
-Stephen Roberts
The above quote is my attempt to get any religious visitors to understand atheism. Recently, I've seen a few theist commenters, at this and other sites, claim that they "understand" atheism, but then they follow it with one or more statements that show that they truly do not understand. So, this is my attempt at helping them to get a real understanding of atheism.
The reasons for a person being an atheist varying and numerous, as is believing in a deity of choice. What I am going to explain are my reasons, and shouldn't be construed as being the reasons for all atheists. I'm also going to cover a few other misunderstandings (fallacies?) that seem to be common.
My main reason for being an atheist is one of the reasons that a number of people use for believing in God. I hadn't even heard of Pascal's Wager, until fairly recently. That was after I'd figured out that I didn't believe. It was ironic that, without knowing it, I'd used Pascal's wager to its logical conclusion to realize I was an atheist. Pascal argues that the rewards and/or benefits of believing far outweigh the repercusions and/or punishments of not believing. However, the wager leaves out all of the other religions. It strikes me as unabashedly arrogant to dismiss all the others so easily. The followers for each of those just as fervently believe(d) that their deity was real. Some are even so similar that dismissing them might dismiss your own. Eventually, I realized that I could find no reason to believe in any deity, including the one I was raised to believe in.
Another common issue is believers telling me that I'm going to suffer in the afterlife for not believing, and even some saying that I know that is true. Here's a clue for the clueless. Atheist means "no deity". Therefore, I do not believe in anything associated with your deity of choice. That includes the supposed sins and punishments of your deity. Saying such is an empty threat. Similar to the playground taunt of "My dad can beat up your dad" except that you're saying your "father" is going to beat me up. Since I don't believe in your father, don't be surprised if I consider (and possibly call) you a bastard.
Some also seem to think that "no god" equals "no morals". That an atheist considers morals subjective, or that they are flexible to the point that they don't exist. For that, I will give an unequivocable and emphatic "NO!" Even believing in a deity does not make actions moral. Some sexual abusers, scam artists, and hatemongers attend church, also. In an earlier post, I explained a little about my morals and I'm going to expand on that here. In that post I used theft as an immoral action, but I've since realized that it is too limiting. In the comments, Techskeptic said:
Make your actions and reactions such that their effect is to decrease suffering and increase happiness while maintaining or promoting free will.He goes on to explain how this applies to the smoking bans, homosexuality and abortion. Following his explanations and clarifications, I agree with him. However, my personal definition of moral is:
Actions by a person that enhance or have a neutral effect on other lives, or prevent another person from having a negative affect on another life.That is the best way I can currently think of to say it, because what makes some people happy I don't agree with.
Now, there's a question that I never see but is more important than the ones I've seen asked. Many visiting believers will ask, "What would it take for you believe in [insert deity of choice here]?" However, they don't seem to realize that if we found an ironclad reason to believe in any deity that does not necessarily mean we would follow that deity. Since most of those questions come from followers of the Bible, I'll answer it using that book as an example. I might be willing to follow that deity if he/she said that the Bible was wrong, because there is no way I could follow a deity that required me to put to death so many people for some reasons that I find innanely trivial. So, just proving they were to exist would not make a deity worth following. As with humans, even those with great power can have faults, but in them it makes the faults even worse.
Finally, there's the "famous atheists" that seem to paint me in such a bad light. I say "seem to" for several reasons. The foremost being that even if Hitler, Stalin, Mao, etc. were atheists, they were insane. If you're that batshit bonkers, it doesn't matter if you believe in a deity or not. Even if some of the evidence was true, and Hitler was Catholic, it doesn't matter. Saying that my unbelief is wrong because you think they were non-believers is as stupid as saying I must be a biologist who loves tentacled creature because there's another atheist who does.
For any believers visiting, I hope this clears things up. If not, or if there are some questions you have that I didn't cover, feel free to ask and I'll answer as well as I can. Also, if you're one of those who insist on telling me that I'm heading to whatever punishment in the afterlife that you believe in, be sure to check my commenting policy before you comment.
6 comments:
Strange that you wrote this today, I just finished this post answering exactly what it would take for me to believe in a god.
You bring up a good point in separating "belief in god" from "Following a god". I never really considered that aspect before.
Another little aspect is, if we find evidence of one god, would we not look for evidence of more gods? Why would we stop at one? when have we found a single incidence of something and then stopped and said "Well there can't be any more of them!"
The show Stargate SG-1 is addressing a lot of this, believe it or not. Fun to watch.
Good point, TS. If you were to find proof of one, that would make the others more likely to exist. There would also be the issue of proving which one you'd found. How would you prove that one who claimed to be the God of Abraham wasn't actually Loki being his impish self?
Even funnier would be if God announced himself by saying:
"I had to show myself. Fred Phelps and all these idiots are giving me a bad rap, and I want to set the record straight!"
Hi Berlzebub,
I know this is an older post, but you pointed it out as a statement of your basis for morality.
Now, I didn't ask for just any basis for morality. Atheists, just like everyone else, have a moral system, whatever it may be. The point about atheism is twofold:
1) It does not allow for nor can it account for an objective, unchanging, non-arbitrary moral system. All it allows for is "I like it/I don't like it", whether it is a question of white lies or of torturing and murdering 7 yr old girls for the sheer fun of it.
2) It is not existentially satisfying to atheists in general. Rare is the atheist who will (a) embrace full consistency and say that there is no morality at all, and (b) not display a moral system that borrows heavily on the Judeo-Christian ethic, the central authority of which his worldview denies, since he's an atheist.
In this post, you beg the question badly, but maybe that's b/c it is short.
Here's how.
Your statement:
Actions by a person that enhance or have a neutral effect on other lives, or prevent another person from having a negative affect on another life.
"Enhance", "neutral", and "negative" are all part of the question. I'm asking how you know what it is to enhance another's life. How you know what it is to be good and bad.
You might (or might not, you tell me, please) answer: Whatever makes people happy is good.
I ask: How do you know that? In possummomma's words, Who died and made you God?
So I'll look forward to seeing you flesh this out. You have some work to do.
A brief aside: This sophomoric "I just believe in one less god than you" is dealt with ably by my friend Vox Veritatis here.
There are numerous other bad arguments here, but I don't have time right now.
Peace,
Rhology
@ Rhology:
Judging by our conversation over at P-Momma's, I'm not interested in having a debate with you on my morality. You somehow twisted things in your head to make them mean the exact opposite of what I said. So, having any sort of debate with you is pointless.
Your multiple fallacies regarding atheism, along with your arrogance, implies that you have no interest in actually learning about the finer points of my moral code. Only that you want to bash atheists. Like you said over there, we'll let the readers decide.
Hope you're having a good weekend.
Fine by me.
You apparently believe your basis for morality doesn't need to be argued for. That's a fine way to try to convince others of your position.
I'm noticing sthg about p-momma's crowd - virtually all you do is insult people who disagree and whine about how they don't WANT to understand you. You never point out how that is the case, but we should all just trust you. You're like a mini-god unto yourself. How pitiful. You've become the very thing you like to say is unproven.
But yeah, I've had a fine weekend, thanks.
@ Rhology:
Perhaps if you had been more serious with your arguments, we could have had an interesting conversation. As it is, I honestly don't have to justify my philosophies to you.
Anyone who can honsetly think:
"Atheistic worldview
We haven't seen a justification yet for saying that, say, raping little girls is definitely, always morally wrong."
has no clue, and doesn't want to. So, this conversation is over.
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