Is Lack of Belief the Best You Can Do?

[Neo-Scholastic]

...doesn't one's justified lack of belief, in and of its self, imply that anyone who does hold that belief is being unreasonable?  I mean, are we not saying that loud enough?

That is not the take of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, to name three. Their standard is that people are obligated not to believe things for which they have not yet justified with supporting evidence. That notion implies that there was a time in each person’s life when they believed nothing at all. It holds people culpable for untrue beliefs they haven’t yet pondered and even irrational for holding true beliefs if they are insufficiently or wrongfully supported.

[robvalue]

Why do you care so much that people don't believe?

[Neo-Scholastic]

I noticed recently that there are a lot more arguments that attack the justifiability of believing rather than assert the position of knowing....Should we be claiming that a) I lack belief and b) that those who profess belief are being unreasonable, instead of just claiming a lack of belief?   Is the relative obscurity of proofs of the impossibility of god a problem for atheism?

Indeed. Some people think that if belief is shown to be unjustifiable then that leaves atheism the best explanation. I actually agree, but those people are usually right for the wrong reason. Atheism is not the default position, i.e. a Rousseauian natural state. The default position is personal, the familial and cultural context out of which people grow. Once people attain the age of reason, they start to wonder why things are as they seem to be and question the adequacy of the beliefs they already have. For example in 15th century Italy, Roman Catholicism was the default belief system. That notion seems to be a logical extension of the blog post referenced in my OP. In human society there is no unqualified lack of belief in God any more than there is an unqualified belief in Him. Disbelief is always lack of belief because…don’t care, insufficient evidence, logical incoherence, theodicy, etc. These are too are justifications.

[drfuzzy]

Belief is almost always due to indoctrination, usually by parents. Most of the folks here who were raised with no religious indoctrination post that belief in any god was simply a non-issue for them.  

Gods were created by crafty witch-doctors who wanted to find a way to gain power over others.

[LadyForCamus]

...doesn't one's justified lack of belief, in and of its self, imply that anyone who does hold that belief is being unreasonable?  I mean, are we not saying that loud enough?

That is not the take of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, to name three. Their standard is that people are obligated not to believe things for which they have not yet justified with supporting evidence. That notion implies that there was a time in each person’s life when they believed nothing at all. It holds people culpable for untrue beliefs they haven’t yet pondered and even irrational for holding true beliefs if they are insufficiently or wrongfully supported.

I don't think you understood what I meant, or I wasn't clear. What you just said above is exactly what I was trying to say.

But, pushing forward; I have a comment/question: I think one reason many atheists stop before gnostic atheism is because declaring knowledge that an unfalsifiable claim is false, is logically fallacious.

From your article:

It is possible to prove a negative by demonstrating a logical contradiction: there are no married bachelors, or square circles. Those paired concepts are mutually incompatible, and rule each other out. If the concept of god is incoherent, then the thing it points to can’t exist. And that’s the end of the story.

Furthermore, it’s possible to argue for a negative with an ‘absence of evidence’ argument. If X exists, I should expect to find evidence Z. If evidence Z isn’t found, X is not likely to exist. While not irrefutable, we don’t need it to be to say with a high probability that X doesn’t exist. If you think we do need it to be irrefutable to say X doesn’t exist, then you’re an infallibilist about knowledge, and I’ve already written about why that’s not a desirable position. Other arguments against the existence of a theistic god like the Argument from Hiddeness, Problem of Evil, and Argument of Divine Lies also deal significant blows to the probability of such a being existing."

So, if it can be argued that the existence of God is in fact falsifiable, might atheists feel more comfortable placing themselves in the "gnostic" category? What does everyone think?

Chad, what do you think? Is the author's reasoning satisfactory to consider God falsifiable?

[LadyForCamus]

Why do you care so much that people don't believe?

I ask this of almost every theist I come across here. I've never gotten a straight forward answer...

[Neo-Scholastic]

That is not the take of Dawkins, Harris, and Hitchens, to name three. Their standard is that people are obligated not to believe things for which they have not yet justified with supporting evidence. That notion implies that there was a time in each person’s life when they believed nothing at all. It holds people culpable for untrue beliefs they haven’t yet pondered and even irrational for holding true beliefs if they are insufficiently or wrongfully supported.

I don't think you understood what I meant, or I wasn't clear. What you just said above is exactly what I was trying to say.

But, pushing forward; I have a comment/question: I think one reason many atheists stop before gnostic atheism is because declaring knowledge that an unfalsifiable claim is false, is logically fallacious.

From your article:

It is possible to prove a negative by demonstrating a logical contradiction: there are no married bachelors, or square circles. Those paired concepts are mutually incompatible, and rule each other out. If the concept of god is incoherent, then the thing it points to can’t exist. And that’s the end of the story.

Furthermore, it’s possible to argue for a negative with an ‘absence of evidence’ argument. If X exists, I should expect to find evidence Z. If evidence Z isn’t found, X is not likely to exist. While not irrefutable, we don’t need it to be to say with a high probability that X doesn’t exist. If you think we do need it to be irrefutable to say X doesn’t exist, then you’re an infallibilist about knowledge, and I’ve already written about why that’s not a desirable position. Other arguments against the existence of a theistic god like the Argument from Hiddeness, Problem of Evil, and Argument of Divine Lies also deal significant blows to the probability of such a being existing."

So, if it can be argued that the existence of God is in fact falsifiable, might atheists feel more comfortable placing themselves in the "gnostic" category? What does everyone think?

Chad, what do you think? Is the author's reasoning satisfactory to consider God falsifiable?

"God exists" is not falsifiable in the sense of finding a tangible disqualifying object or physical circumstance but it is to the extent that properties attributed to God can be shown to be incoherent.

The question is whether falsifiability is a necessarily feature of all the propositions someone can justifiably believe. A self-evident fundamental principle cannot be falsified because no one can conceive of its contrary. Does that mean that belief in a fundamental principle cannot be justified or rather that it requires no justification?

[robvalue]

Why do you care so much that people don't believe?

I ask this of almost every theist I come across here.  I've never gotten a straight forward answer...

Hmm. Or any answer at all.

Seriously, what does it matter to them? Is it hurting anyone? Does it affect them in any way? Are they worried for our souls because their boss is going to torture us? I would guess the real answer is that it makes them uncomfortable.

The existence of God is far less obvious than the existence of gravitational forces. I hope even theists would agree with that much. You'd be hard pressed to find a single person in their right mind who doesn't believe in gravitational forces. Yet you can easily find a large percentage of people that don't believe in God. This isn't to say that our lack of belief is justified by numbers, of course not. But it's not consistent with how apparent many theists seem to think God is.

[Felasco]

Even before reading this article, I adopted a signature mocking the idea that atheism is simply a lack of belief.

1) I admit to having tried the mocking technique on this subject, and have concluded that such activity is mostly just an advertisement for my own emotional immaturity, and a practice which typically generates far more heat than light. Not mocking your mocking :-) just doubting it will accomplish much.

2) I agree the "lack of belief" definition is less than useful. I prefer to see atheism as a belief that the rules of human reason are binding upon all of reality, and thus any gods that may be contained within. Reason is to the atheist what holy books are to the theist, a chosen authority which is referenced because it is assumed qualified.

As best I can tell, the "lack of belief" definition of atheism persists because many or most atheists sincerely consider the infinite power of human reason to be an obvious given. Their faith in that power is typically so strong that they don't recognize it as faith, and thus they don't define themselves in relation to their own beliefs, but in relation to the theist's belief.

As example, the label "reasonist" would reframe the atheist position more accurately, as the positive assertion that it is. The "reasonist" could then proceed to argue for the infinite power of their chosen authority in the same way the theist argues for his chosen authority.

The person who concludes that neither the reasonist nor the theist has proven their most fundamental assertion, the qualifications of their chosen authority, can still be called an agnostic.

The person who rejects the premise the god debate is built upon, a widely shared belief that knowing is preferable to ignorance on such subjects, might be called a fundamentalist agnostic.

[Thumpalumpacus]

I lack belief not because I credit humanity with extraordinary powers of reason, but simply because I see no evidence and I ain't built with faith.