Try as I might, I can’t dislike Christopher Hitchens as much as I think I should.
At the very end of the following interview, when asked whether any evidence could change his mind about God’s existence, he concedes that, although none has yet, it is not impossible that some could appear that would.
This admission is refreshingly honest and brings him closer to agnosticism than atheism; perhaps we are seeing a mind concentrated by its imminent demise.
He’s an agnostic atheist. You should look up the definitions before you make comments like that.
From the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy:
Hitchens said that it is not impossible that he might encounter new evidence for God’s existence that could change his mind. That is closer to agnosticism than hard atheism.
Sheesh. Just go check the definitions. Atheist means “not theist”. So if you are not a theist, you are an atheist. Agnosticism/gnosticism is in regards to knowledge, atheism/theism is regards to belief. Just wiki “agnostic atheist” and you will understand.
Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive.
I’m glad you corrected yourself by adding on “hard atheism”, though.
Most atheists, in my experience, are atheists precisely because there’s no evidence supporting religious claims, so Hitchen’s remark is nothing unique.
Now, a religious person is more likely to ignore evidence. This dishonesty is pretty appalling; Hitchens’ thinking should be the norm.
So which of the following statements would fit your position:
You disbelieve in God because you have not seen enough evidence to believe in him. You acknowledge that evidence sufficient to convince you could exist even though you have not yet seen it.
or:
You disbelieve in God because you have not seen enough evidence to believe in him and evidence sufficient to convince you does not and cannot exist.
Which?
David, you are using weasely language to load your questions. In both of the options above you ask Korky if “you have not seen ENOUGH evidence to believe in him”. Yet you know perfectly well no believer has ever been able to quote ANY evidence for a god, Christian or otherwise. The phrase ‘ENOUGH evidence’ is entirely inappropriate.
As Korky says, it’s the religious who must ignore the evidence. Don’t buy it? Here’s Dawkins interviewed ten days ago by a Christian. Halfway through the Christian explains how his own experience trumps any evidence… (you will perhaps see what a laughing stock Christianity has become):
http://www.atheistmedia.com/2011/03/richard-dawkins-interview-on-revelation.html#
Mike B,
I really can’t see why you object to the two questions, particularly since Hitchens admitted that there might be evidence that he has not yet seen that could convince him.
Are you afraid to answer them?
As for arguments and evidence for God’s existence, look here:
the ontological argument, the cosmological argument, the teleological argument, the moral argument and the argument from experience.
Atheists don’t have any evidence for the assertion “God does not exist”, an omission that brought Bertrand Russell to admit he was an agnostic rather than an atheist.
David, you keep referring to the ontological argument, etc as “evidence” for the existence of God. These arguments are a way of trying to rationalise the existence of God but that does not amount to evidence.
Seconded. To rely on word games as ‘proof’ of something supposedly so significant is surely rather desperate…
That’s just evidence for a deist god, at best. But it’s not really evidence at all as stated by Chris.
Can you prove that Odin does not exist?
I don’t believe in magical beings for which there has been no good evidence presented. If evidence is presented, or heck, if the Christian god would appear before me and leave enough evidence to show that he wasn’t just a hallucination on my part, then I’d believe in him.
I’m delighted to hear it. Perhaps he will.
Don’t hold your breath; I’m pretty sure suicide is frowned on by Jesus.
I’m with you, David. Hitchens is at least somewhat honest and even honourable. Richard Dawkins, on the other hand, is neither. He is a complete buffoon.
He has also stated that he will change his mind given evidence of your god’s existence.
You Christians have had 2000 years to come up with something good, but what have you accomplished toward that goal? See David’s post above.
“Word games”, as you put it, are the only proof available in philosophy. Did you actually read the arguments, either one of you?
Kate – as the OP was noting
my remark about the ontological argument etc being word games seems appropriate. However, in the interests of civility I’ll take you up on your challenge, use the links in David’s post and see if these arguments have got any better.
Have you read them? None of them is evidence for Yahweh, and that last one can be used to prove that He-man is real (to someone that thinks that argument holds water, at least).
Chris and Mike B,
If you both really think that a logical argument that demonstrates something is true isn’t evidence that it is true, then you would also not believe that for a right angled triangle, the square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the squares of the other two sides until you see some real evidence.
Considering that atheists preen themselves over their rationality, this at least has the virtue of being mildly comical, coming as it does, from squarely within the camp of the half-witted.
When theists are bankrupt of an argument they always resort to insults and ad hominems. I feel rather sorry for them.
The point about the metaphysical arguments, Dave, is that they are flawed. If only they were as demonstrably self evident as the Pythagorean theorem. Alas they are not. They don’t demonstrate the existence of God as you suggest. These arguments have long since been dismantled.
Having checked the links quoted above, I can only concur. The ontological argument is a neat trick riddled with holes (e.g. what is perfection if perfection is entirely devoid of content?) and despite some shoe shuffling the cosmological argument seems never to have recovered from the initial objection (what caused god then?).
I was especially interested to see what would turn up under the heading of ‘argument from experience’, but alas nothing did, apart from a few hallucinations or personal experiences of the sort people (justifiably) wince at, such as in my Dawkins link above.
I think there are anyway two more fundamental objections. One is that an argument for god in no way leads us to the Christian god, born of a virgin, risen from the dead, who paid for our sins etc. To get there you’d somehow need to bolt on to the argument the truth of the bible, something I doubt could survive a quick reading of Bart Ehrman. Even if a ‘god exists’ argument was convincing, it leaves open what form of belief would follow from it.
Another objection is that all religions rely on believers possessing souls, something for which there is no evidence whatsoever. We know from Alzheimer’s that our minds are thoroughly tied to our bodies. If that’s the case, none of the traditional proofs of god matter much in any case.
Seconded. I couldn’t agree more.
Fair enough. But, I have provided evidence and arguments for God’s existence; you may not be convinced by it but you claimed there was none.
You, on the other hand, have produced no evidence or arguments to demonstrate the truth of the statement “God does not exit”.
Therefore, it is a faith statement not a rational one.
If, as it appears, you are saying you don’t believe in God because there isn’t enough evidence – that is what Hitchens said and where we started.
David, you produced arguments for god’s existence but (so far) they haven’t been good ones; so this may only be an debate over terminology. To me, poor arguments count as no arguments, though you will of course differ. For example poor arguments are used to propound 9/11 (or Diana, or JFK) conspiracy theories but the existence of such arguments doesn’t mean there’s any truth behind them.
As for evidence, I haven’t seen any yet (Hitchens’ very point). Personally I’d love to be faced with something that surprises me and sends me to the lab to investigate further but like many atheists I find what’s offered as evidence pretty banal.
To your main point: the statement ‘god does/does not exist’ already makes an assumption that we can in some way define this entity. Of the thousands of gods that people have worshipped over human history, which one are we discussing? – assuming it’s any of the foregoing. We use the ‘does god exist’ formulation as a shorthand but the moment it becomes the subject for extended discussion it’s not hugely helpful outside of a cultural context.
It seems to me that your insistence on atheists proving a negative is simply the last redoubt. First astronomy, then geology and biology, then physics and now neuroscience have taken away any reasonable grounds for belief, and you’re left with is, ‘but you can’t PROVE it!’.
I assume you meant “last resort”. No, not at all. I’m simply holding atheists to the standard they claim for themselves – that their beliefs are entirely rational. As you say, you can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, so your beliefs are not entirely rational.
Science, far from disproving God’s existence, supports it since, without a rational mind behind natural laws there isn’t any reason to suppose they are intelligible – a necessary assumption for science to work.
David, I see how’ve been busy loading the verbal dice again. No atheist I’ve ever read claims that their beliefs are “ENTIRELY rational”. Rational, yes. If you rephrase your paragraph without that loading, it doesn’t look such so compelling.
This idea of ‘rationality’ segues into your point about science. What makes science work is evidence, not any prior assumption of intelligibility. After all, false ideas can be intelligible, what matters is the truth, and that’s down to evidence.
P.S. I’m still in the dark on how you get from this rather cerebral god – a “rational mind behind natural laws” – to Jesus being born of a Virgin and rising from the dead. If you claim natural laws exist, they surely don’t include such exceptions, which I would guess are basic to your religion.
I do my best – not always successfully, I admit – to use words with precision. Like so many atheists – certainly everyone commenting in this thread – because your thinking is sloppy, your language is too.
If you don’t assume that the universe is intelligible, then you can’t assume your evidence is either; if evidence only has the appearance of intelligibility – in a similar way that Dawkins claims the universe only has the appearance of being designed – then you can’t rely on it. If you can’t rely on evidence, you have no science: for science to work, you must assume intelligibility.
David, you forgot to answer his PS.
No, I didn’t forget.
There isn’t much point in getting into the finer details of the nature of God who, as a Christian, I believe revealed himself most fully in Jesus, if we haven’t agreed on whether he exists or not.
I’m not sure how some of you manage to highlight passages from other people’s quotes. I’d be obliged if someone can let me in on the secret.
Anyway, with regard to what you say below Dave.
“I do my best – not always successfully, I admit – to use words with precision. Like so many atheists – certainly everyone commenting in this thread – because your thinking is sloppy, your language is too.”
The pot calling the kettle black immediately comes to mind here. You have been far from precise about what you mean by the term, “faith.” You say that you are a man of faith because you believe. Yet you also say that I have faith because I do not believe. If belief and non-belief both amount to faith, then faith is meaningless. If faith is meaningless I cannot fathom why christians are so eager for everybody to have more of it.
To begin the quote, start it with <blockquote>, and to end it, put </blockquote>. You can then see if it looks right by hitting the “Preview” button.
No, I think you have faith because you do believe in all sorts of things that cannot be demonstrated simply by reason: the intelligibility of the universe; the reliability of logic; the objective reality of everything that isn’t you; that the brain can be relied upon to observe a universe to which it is subject. The list goes on and on.
Your assertion that God does not exist is also a statement of faith whereas, stating that you have insufficient evidence to convince you, isn’t.
So you admit that you can’t provide evidence for your god’s existence? Surely you would have done so by now if that were the case.
Dave,
The human brain is indeed limited in its capacity to understand and human logic is fallible. I have never claimed that logic, reason and human observation is perfect but it the best set of tools the human species has got, following scientific principles. The tradition of the enlightenment is at least testament to that.
Sure, scientists don’t get everything right. The quest for knowledge and understanding is a slow, grinding process and there are paradigm shifts along the way. All atheists that I know of have the humility to acknowledge this. But ultimately, that’s how science progresses and how humans come to a greater understanding of the world and the universe we live in.
The alternative is the conceit of so called “revealed religion” which stifles progress and the quest of truth, for the simple reason that religious people think they already have the truth. Secondly, the easiest thing in the world is to say that we can’t understand the universe with our finite minds therefore lets not bother trying. To this extent, religion also encourages intellectual laziness. There are some exceptions of course.
If I say God does not exist, I do so in the context that there hasn’t been any evidence to support the claim that he does. That’s not faith. If it was faith, I wouldn’t need evidence. Yes, if there is evidence or reason to believe, I will change my view. I don’t have a problem with that. But it’s got to be a damn sight more convincing than what I’ve been presented with so far from the theistic community, which cannot even agree on the nature of God, or what his holy scriptures are or say, or what his relationship is to humanity or the rest of the universe.
PS. Thanks for the computer tip by the way.
Chris,
I wasn’t referring to the limits of the human mind, science or logic, but to the philosophical assumptions that underpin them.
Re. the html tags – you’re welcome.
It’s rational to assume something doesn’t exist unless there is evidence that it does. Since Yahweh’s existence has not yet been proved beyond all reasonable doubt I remain as atheistic towards him/her or it, as you do towards Zeus, Baal, Thor, and Ra.
By contrast it’s totally irrational to ask anyone to prove non-existence. It can’t be done. No-one can prove the non-existence of any of the above mentioned gods including the ones Christians claim not to believe in. Therefore, I am surprised that you are so insistent on defining faith in terms of what one doesn’t believe in. To do so is not only irrational, but from a Christian perspective it also diminishes and devalues faith itself, doesn’t it? Are you a man of faith because you believe in God? Or are you a man of faith because you don’t believe in the tooth fairy?
Mike B,
A rational conclusion is one that starts with a given and uses nothing but reason to prove the conclusion. For you, the given appears to be that God doesn’t exist: you haven’t reasoned your way to that, you assumed it. If, as you say, atheists have “beliefs”, then they are exercising faith, not reason.
Chris,
It may be sensible, but it isn’t rational; if it were, you wouldn’t have to assume it doesn’t exist.
You are right, of course, I can’t prove Zeus, Baal, Thor, and Ra don’t exist – but then, I don’t claim to. If Zeus walks into my study in the next 10 minutes I will revise my view of his non-existence.
The difference is, I admit that what I believe rests ultimately on faith; the same goes for you, but you don’t admit it.
Why is it irrational to assume non-existence until one has proof of existence?
Again you are defining faith in terms of what one does not believe rather than what one does. On that basis virtually anything amounts to faith.
Your criteria for belief in Zeus is an interesting one. It’s a pity you don’t apply the same criteria towards belief in Yahweh.
David, you say
and you assume atheists take this ‘given’ as god not existing. I’m not sure this is correct: most atheists began as believers in god because that was the prevailing ideology when they were too young to have any real choice.
(It’s no surprise that, at least in the UK, the church is so desperate to hang on to compulsory religious indoctrination in school: establishing the religious meme in defenceless minds is essential for their survival).
So the ‘given’ is – even for us – probably the existence of god. Cognitive dissonance sets in when one starts finding out a) the main bible stories simply aren’t true, and b) it’s extremely unlikely that Jesus even existed in history, let alone was divine.
Even if I grant that logic says I can’t actually rule out a god or Jesus’ existence, what sticks in the craw is the way a distant and purely theoretical unlikelihood has such influence and control.
Chris,
My dear fellow, I didn’t call you half-witted, just the location from which the ridiculous assertion emanated – you are not overcome with the uneasy feeling that you are occupying a spot in that vicinity, I trust.
The arguments encompass the metaphysical, logical, empirical, and subjective.
Not only have they not been dismantled, but they were used with some success in the famous 1948 debate between F. C. Copleston and Bertrand Russell. Russell was – and still would be if he were alive – the best atheism had to offer.
I beg to differ.
Incidentally, Russell was a far better mathematician than he was philosopher. In terms of philosophy A J Ayer was far more logically consistent and had better clarity of thought.
Subject: Fwd: Why God Allows Pain
This is one of the best explanations of why God allows pain
and suffering that I have seen…
A man went to a barbershop to have
his hair cut and his beard trimmed.
As the barber began to work, they began to have a good
conversation. They talked about so many things and various
subjects. When they eventually touched on the subject of God,
the barber said: “I don’t believe that God exists.”
“Why do you say that?” asked the customer.
“Well, you just have to go out in the street to realize
that God doesn’t exist.
Tell me, if God exists, would there be so many sick people?
Would there be abandoned children?
If God existed, there would be neither suffering nor pain.
I can’t imagine a loving God who would allow all of these things.”
The customer thought for a moment,
but didn’t respond because he didn’t want to start an argument.
The barber finished his job and the customer left the shop.
Just after he left the barbershop, he saw a man in the street
with long, stringy, dirty hair and an untrimmed beard.
He looked dirty and unkempt. The customer turned back
and entered the barber shop again and he said to the barber:
“You know what? Barbers do not exist.”
“How can you say that?” asked the surprised barber.
“I am here, and I am a barber. And I just worked on you!”
“No!” the customer exclaimed. “Barbers don’t exist because
if they did, there would be no people with dirty long hair and
untrimmed beards, like that man outside.”
“Ah, but barbers DO exist! That’s what happens
when people do not come to me.”
“Exactly!” affirmed the customer.
“That’s the point! God, too, DOES exist!
That’s what happens when people do not go to
Him and don’t look to Him for help.
That’s why there’s so much pain and suffering in the world.”
If you think God exists, send this to other people—
If you think God does not exist, delete it!
BE BLESSED & BE A BLESSING TO OTHERS !!!!!
Because we are all fighting some kind of battle each day.
You forgot to mention the part where barbers are invisible and yanks the toenails out of people that don’t visit them.
This still doesn’t explain why your god doesn’t help suffering children.