Weak-Sense and Strong-Sense Atheism

In response to a discussion as to whether Atheism is a scientific or a philosophical position, Jerry Coyne says:

I’ll call “weak sense atheism” the position that, I think, most atheists hold. It is this: “There is no convincing evidence for God, so I withhold belief.”...Now I don’t know anyone who is a strong-sense atheist. Even Dawkins, as I recall, is a “70% probability” man — he thinks it pretty improbable that God exists, but adds that he can’t disprove the existence of some kinds of gods. I’m pretty much on board with him. You’d be a fool to say that you know absolutely that there is no being up there at all, including one that doesn’t interfere in the workings of the universe.

So let’s take weak-sense atheism (WSA) as the default stance. In its very weakest, “no-evidence-for-God” sense, WSA is absolutely scientific. After all, what is science but the claim that one needs empirical evidence before accepting something as a reality? When one says, “I see no evidence for a god, and therefore refuse to accept his/her/its reality,” one is saying nothing different from, “I see no evidence for the view that plants have feelings, and therefore I don’t accept the idea that they do.”

Now, I really enjoy this sort of article because it sharpens my thinking about things. Before I read that, I would have said that atheism is a philosophical position. But the distinction between WSA and strong-sense atheism (SSA) is a very good one, and I agree with Coyne that WSA is scientific and SSA is philosophical.

I agree with Coyne to say that you know absolutely that there is no being up there at all (we're looking at you, Hitchens). But that doesn't mean that there aren't SSAs like me out there who believe firmly that there is no being up there.

If you ask me what I believe (and that's the key word in that sentence), I'll say that I believe that there is no God. And I do mean that in a stronger sense than "I have seen no evidence, so I withhold belief."

Recently, the author of Why Does E=MC2 And Why Should I Care? was on the Colbert Report, and he said of Einstein that there's a high likelihood that Einstein was somewhat wrong, somewhere among his theories. He also said that this was okay, because Science was the story of slowly exchanging one model for another, making the models better and better as we go along. This fits nicely in line with the philosopher at the center of my heart, William James. Our world-view is a collection of suppositions based on our experiences and our reasoning faculties.

Do I know absolutely that there is no God? No. Would it be scientific for me to assert so? No. But on a philosophical level, the world-view with which I take a look at the world around me not only doesn't include a God or gods, but doesn't have room for one.

For instance, Coyne invokes the possibility of a "god" who does not interfere with the workings of the universe. From my philosophical perspective, what does "exist" mean if you do not interfere with the workings of the universe? After all, in order to be detected, you have to leave some footprint on the universe (we can't measure existence directly, we only measure existence by effect -- light emitted, heat emitted, spaced occupied). If there's a diffuse "god" that cannot be seen, cannot be felt, and does not affect the world, in what way could he be said to exist?

And then, if you have a god or gods who do affect the world, then not only have I not seen evidence for that (with the brief exception the uncanny choice of music my iPod makes when I put it on shuffle), but there is no room for it in my current philosophical model of the world. If evidence came along, my hope is that I would be open to it, but it would take a severe reconfiguring of the world as I currently see it. I would be, in other words, grievously wrong about my core assumptions of the universe.

This is what makes me a SSA and not a WSA. I recognize that this is a philosophical position and I would never confuse it for science. I would never use it as an opportunity to call other people's philosophical worldviews a dangerous virus threatening to poison our children (I'm looking at you, Dawkins).

And to make my pedantic point that I try to keep making, the more we make these sorts of distinctions, the more fruitful our discussions of the issue become.

Coyne Defends Dawkins; I Dissent

Jeff Coyne on the attempt to reconcile science and religion.

Andrew Sullivan picks Coyne's the money quote:

[S]ome theologians with a deistic bent seem to think that they speak for all the faithful. These were the critics who denounced Dawkins and his colleagues for not grappling with every subtle theological argument for the existence of God, for not steeping themselves in the complex history of theology. Dawkins in particular was attacked for writing The God Delusion as a "middlebrow" book. But that misses the point. He did indeed produce a middlebrow book, but precisely because he was discussing religion as it is lived and practiced by real people. The reason that many liberal theologians see religion and evolution as harmonious is that they espouse a theology not only alien but unrecognizable as religion to most Americans.

Jeff Coyne is correct in stating that Richard Dawkins and other New Athiests write "middle-brow" books because of the common, uncultured religion (if you see Bill Maher's movie Religulous you'll see what sort of religious people are really the target). But those who argue on behalf of a more cultured, philosophical, "high-brow" religion are not arguing in vain. You see, if Dawkins was targeting only fundamentalists, or only the ignorant religious, or only a specific segment of religion, then Coyne's objection would be an adequate defense.

But in my readings of Dawkins (this is actually more true of Hitchens but still seems true of Dawkins) it seems to me that for Dawkins, religion is inherently destructive; that religion is always delusional, that it always fosters hatred and dischord. And if they are trying to argue that all religion is damaging, hateful, etc., then they will have to come to grips with the fact that there are some very smart, reasoned, subtle, liberal traditions of religion as well. Otherwise, what Dawkins is arguing against when he targets religion and religious education is not stupidity, closemindedness, and bigotry inherent in religion, but stupidity, closemindedness, and bigotry that is attached to religion by the human beings who interpret it. The same stupidity, closemindedness, and bigotry that can manifest itself in nationalism (again: Obama's nationalism is not the same as Bush's nationalism) or even economic theory (as Communism/Capitalism proved).

Either Dawkins is targeting religion as a whole, and therefore needs to defend his argument against the intellectual elite of religion, or else he is only targeting ignorant religion, and therefore the burden of proof lies on him to prove that it is religion, and not ignorance.

(I'll quote it again, from Albert Camus:)

The narrator is inclined to think that by attributing overimportance to the praiseworthy actions one may, by implication, be paying indirect but potent homage to the worse side of human nature. For this attitude implies that such actions shine out as rare exceptions, while callousness and apathy and the general rule. The narrator does not share this view. The evil that is in the world always comes of ignorance, and good intentions may do as much harm as malevolence, if they lack understanding. On the whole, men are more good than bad; that, however, isn't the real point. But they are more or less ignorant, and it is this that we call vice or virtue; the most incorrigible vice being that of an ignorance that fancies it knows everything and therefore claims for itself the right to kill. The soul of the murderer is blind; and there can be no true goodness nor true love without the utmost clearsightedness.

Politics: Religious Conversation

In my last two posts, I've written a little about how politicians, journalists, and artists should bring themselves into conversation with the greater community as a whole. In the examples of Sen. Rick Santorum (in that appearance), Jon Stewart, and John Cage, I found positive examples of this conversation occurring. Unfortunately, for my next examination of conversations with culture, I'm going to levy some criticism toward a man who is actually far smarter than me, and who is not undeserving of respect, to illustrate what happens when conversation is not pursued constructively.

There are many, many, many examples of a breakdown in religious conversation in the United States, because of the dislike of moderate religious figures to speak publicly about religion. The moderate position is that religion is a personal belief, and other than speaking to a small congregation of like-minded believers, is not best suited for large public discussion.

Although I can agree with this view to a certain extent, what that creates is a religious power vacuum, where those who are looking for a religious leader find those who are most vocal: those leaders, on a overpowering national scale, can be extremely negative. Fred Phelps, Louis Farrakand, Pat Robertson, Jeremiah Wright, Jerry Falwell, James Dobson, Ted Haggard, etc.; these names are familiar to us because they typically come with extravagant, hate-filled messages of religion attached, whether it be Phelps protesting at Iraq War veterans' funerals because the Iraq War is a punishment for homosexuality or Jeremiah Wright's invective that 9/11 is a punishment for America's hubris.

I think most of us would prefer moderate religious leaders, who are passionate in their beliefs but holding moderate beliefs, would be preferable: religious leaders cut from the mold of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., whose religious beliefs inspired him to take on social problems in a manner that was mostly affirming and positive. Of course, sometimes that leadership comes from a non-religious direction; but specifically in religion I believe there need to be leaders who step forward to show what a compassionate, moderate religion would look like, who could bring the flocks of people readily in.

But my post is not about this religious phenomenon: it's about the mirror effect of that phenomenon. This phenomenon is currently happening in atheism, a movement known as New Athiesm. New Athiesm makes Athiesm aggressive and evangelical in the way that neoconservativism makes conservatism aggressive and evangelical. When one asks for prominent athiests, one is led to think of people for whom athiesm is prominent: people who make athiesm into a strong part of their lives.

This is the position of a select few scientists in the current wave of thinking who believe that it is not enough to not believe in God; the mission of an athiest is to spread his teachings (or lack thereof) to as many religious folk as possible. And I feel myself in a privileged position to criticize this New Athiest movement (led by Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, and Sam Harris): I myself am an Athiest, and I have always been an Athiest and will, likely, always be an Athiest. But this New Athiesm is not serving the greater culture--a culture which has both athiests and religious folk, and agnosts and spiritualists.

To take an example of this effect, I decided to take the most concise work on the subject that I felt still represented a whole argument: the introduction to The Portable Athiest which was written by Christopher Hitchens. Perhaps this is disingenuous, and I should have devoted the time to read God is Not Great or The God Delusion or Letters To A Christian Nation before taking this up, but I have seen all three of the authors speak many times and I have a very strong belief that their conversation is a destructive conversation, rather than being progressive it merely embitters and divides.

Take:

It seems to me that there is what the poet Shelley once called the necessity of athiesm. One cannot avoid taking a position. Either one attributes it to a divine design. (You can tell a lot about friend or foe, depending on how he or she answers this inescapable question, and on how he or she faces its implications.)

Or:

Arguments for athiesm can be divided into two main categories: those that dispute the existence of god and those that demonstrate the ill effects of religion.

Or my favorite:

On the part of civilized people,...the main enemy we face is "faith-based"

The underpinning of both of those passages can be simply states as thus: "you are either with us or against us." This is an extremely divisive sentiment to be held; it pushes aside all of those who disagree with you and closes the door on any sort of a compromise. This isn't to say that there is some sort of a middle ground between believing in a spirit other than existence and not believing in it. People shouldn't compromise their beliefs. But at the same time, in terms of how our culture operates, it needs to have space for both sides to air their views and coexist; in that way, the bad parts of religion can be reformed out and the good parts can be preserved.

Of course, this would overshoot Hitchen's belief about religion: that it is wholly a negative force and has no potential for good.

My own response has been to issue a challenge: name me an ethical statement made or performed by a believer that could not have been performed by a non-believer. As yet, I have no takers. (Whereas, oddly enough, if you ask an audience to name a wicked statement or action directly attributable to religious faith, nobody has any difficulty in finding an example.)

This disingenuous challenge is moot: you cannot prove or disprove anyone's motives. It is possible to be kind because of religion; it is possible to be kind in spite of religion; it is possible to be kind irrespective of religion. And the same moves in the opposite direction. For instance, if I were to say that Mother Theresa did her good deeds because of her religion, he would probably counter with an example of an atheist who did the same thing because of religion, and say that therefore people don't need religion because they can do good things anyways. And then, on the other hand, if he were to say that the Inquisition could have only happened in an environment of religion, I might counter with Stalin's gulags.

This whole argument is moot, because we cannot tell the difference between coincidence and causality. Most of the major non-violence movements have been religious; holy wars are always religious. Most of the major abolitionist movement have been religious; most people who drink are religious. Hitchens sees violence as endemic to mankind. But he also admits that religion is endemic to mankind. So is it a chain (mankind is religious, religion is violent) or is it a parallel statement (mankind is religious, mankind is violent)?

The argument is also moot because, from the tone of Hitchens' work, we can presume that he is going to shoehorn any of his observations into his beliefs about religion. His work is dripping with contempt for religion and the religious:

What nonsense this is.

If religion is innate in us, then so is our doubt of it and our contempt for our own weakness.

The bare and narrow and constipated and fearful world of Augustine, Aquinas, Luther, Calvin and Osama bin Laden

Children (who suffer worse at the hands of the faithful than any other group)

Logic-chopping polemicist

Considering the polemic involved in this text, and the ways in which his correspondence/causality flaw as well as other logical blunders pervade the text, it is ironic that he levy that charge in particular. But at any rate, the question of the book is not, "How can we make religion better?" or "How can we minimize the negative effects of religion," it is, "How can we force people to get over their ridiculous superstition?"

This is not the way that adults talk about grown-up issues, I hope. If I invite Christopher Hitchens over to dinner I won't call him a logic-chopping polemicist, even if I think he chops logic and employs polemic. Frankly, I doubt Christopher Hitchens would like to come over to dinner with me, because I refuse to join his war against religion. I know plenty of people who take positive ammunition from their faith and make the world a better place in spite of or parallel to or because of their faith.