Kieran Bennett: Why Atheist And NOT Agnostic?

Atheist blogger Kieran Bennett was asked the question “Why are you atheist and not agnostic?” and replies in essay format. He argues that whilst I am correct in saying that agnosticism has nothing to do with gods, I am wrong in thinking that “gnostic atheism” is irrational, and it is in fact the agnostic atheists who are the irrational ones.

I find this a bit incredulous, but I think his argument stems from the semantics of the word “god”. Kieran says that every god that exists today can ben traced back through history to it’s human origin, and we can also explain why such gods have so much power over people (fear, comfort, etc). However, I do not think that any of these gods are gods that the agnostic atheist would claim are unknowable.

In essence, the agnostic atheist is as certain as the gnostic atheist about most gods humanity has ever come up with. What we are really agnostic about is a god that humanity has not just dreamt up, the god of deism. Ok, so perhaps this god was dreamt up by a human, but it very different from it’s brothers and sisters. The god of deism is an attempt at explaining the reasons for the origins of the universe. Instead of an all-powerful being, we have a semi-powerful being, able to create but not to interfere, thus letting science do all the explaining of existence and the universe.

The idea of agnostic atheism is that science has yet to come up with a complete explanation for why and how everything is here. Deism is an attempted explanation of that.

Of course nobody can ever prove it, so I can see why people like Bennet would see it as irrational. However the further we go back through science we see cause and effect; everything that has ever been has a cause. Even if we find something that caused the Big Bang, we need something that caused the cause. Either this results in an infinitely long chain that has no end, there was a cause that caused itself, or something other that the natural laws of physics were at work.

The gnostic atheist subscribes to the first two, and the agnostic atheist subscribes to all three, reasoning that we do not yet have an explanation, so surely all factors should be up for debate.

Read the article and decide for yourself.

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Written by Adrian Hayter

May 28th, 2008 at 10:45 am

Posted in agnosticism, atheism, god

Tagged with agnostic, agnosticism, atheism, atheist, belief, big bang, god, physics, science

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Comments to “Kieran Bennett: Why Atheist And NOT Agnostic?”

Kieran Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 11:48 am (GMT)

Adrian,

I think you’ve actually illustrated my point well. The god you claim is unknowable is not the god of any religion, for all intents and purposes the god of “perhaps something mystical occured” is no god at all.

When we deal with a god so vague, what is the difference between a self causing(?) big bang and god?

Adrian Hayter Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 12:52 pm (GMT)

“When we deal with a god so vague, what is the difference between a self causing(?) big bang and god?”

When you put it like that, I kind of agree with you. However I think the point I am trying to make is that when you reach the realm of the unknown, anything is possible. Thus any position that claims true knowledge of something is irrational when you have no evidence to support the claim.

“Gods” are often thought of as beings of such great power we are tiny in comparison. It has been theorised that if we ever met extraterrestrial life, they would have the ability to travel across the universe, and by all accounts would be “as gods” to us.

The same thing I believe would apply to an event that caused the universe to come into being. Such a display of power, even if it were not intelligent or self-aware, would be “as God” to anyone who discovered it.

As I said though, it all comes down to semantics. If we define rational as separate from the unknown, then in all accounts I am a gnostic atheist, likewise if we define “God” as a omnipotent being.

However, if we go by the definitions of “god-like power” and the philosophy of deism, I am an agnostic atheist.

Like so many arguments, both are correct depending on which way you look at them.

The Barefoot Bum Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 1:39 pm (GMT)

Deism is an attempted explanation of that.

Occam’s razor decisively fails Deism as an explanation. Deism is more complicated than which it purports to explain (the explanandum). All supernatural explanations must fail on Occam’s razor, because supernatural explanations are, as you note, not provable. In other words, supernatural explanations are not susceptible to independent examination and confirmation.

Independent confirmation makes an explanation simpler than the explanandum. The explanation explains both the original explanandum as well as the independent confirmation, which is also an explanandum.

Causality fails as a justification for even Deism. Causality is a scientific theory to explain observable relationships between events. In the absence of an observable relationship between the universe and something else (and how could there be? the universe is, by definition, everything that exists) there is nothing to explain.

[W]hen you reach the realm of the unknown, anything is possible.

This is incorrect. Even if the evidence is insufficient to compel any particular explanation, all evidence by definition rules out at least some candidate explanations. If an observation doesn’t rule out something, however trivial, it is by definition not evidentiary.

All we can say positively about any purported deity is that it is the sort of deity that would create this particular universe. But that is to say no more of substance than that this particular universe actually exists.

Even without a compelling positive explanation for the origin of the universe, the internal evidence already available decisively rules out any non-trivial teleological or intelligent origin of the universe, at least as we understand teleology and intelligence in human terms. Unless you can be specific, talking about non-human-like teleology and intelligence is vacuous.

“Gnostic” and “agnostic” are epistemic terms, relating to knowledge. Scientific knowledge is by definition lacking certainty. For example it is possible, although highly unlikely, that all of our observations confirming gravitation are nothing but a statistical fluke, and it is certainly the case that for any given theory, an different alternative theory might better explain new evidence.

However, no one is “agnostic” in principle in any serious way about gravitation. Why should we take seriously quibbles and marginal uncertainty about deities when we do not take them seriously about ordinary scientific theories.

It should be noted that any serious god, deistic or interventionist, is not going to cut you any slack in the afterlife just because you sat on the fence.

Chris Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 1:40 pm (GMT)

The reason most people of science find the concept of deism irrational is that it supposes something that has no evidence (although no evidence against it). It defies Occam’s razor. It’s similar with those people who believe that fossils are the work of the devil and that evolution education is a ploy by the devil to trick them - it’s not impossible that some malevolent ridiculously powerful entity is trying to trick us and everything we’ve ever read about evolution stems from his deception. The theory would FIT all of our data because we would assume the devil was responsible for all of our data. But it would be an extraordinarily and unnecessarily complex answer (scientifically, though not psychologically, unfortunately) to the question of our creation.

As far as the creation of the universe goes - I think it was Dawkins who asked the question that I usually ask people who talk about this, which is something like “Why is nothing a more natural state than something?”. If you DO believe that nothing is a more natural state of reality, then why does god exist from nothing? Was he created too? At some point, it seems that SOMETHING had to exist forever. Why would we suppose that it is a god instead of our own universe? Like I said, it defies Occam’s razor.

I don’t think that any even that caused the universe to come into being could be described as “God”. Gods in religion are never natural courses of events but BEINGS, that act willfullly to do such things as create the universe. Aliens could be seen as gods, because they are actual living things - but I don’t see how a natural chain of events that causes the universe to come into being is like that at all.

Chris Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 1:42 pm (GMT)

Way to steal my thunder, Barefoot bum, I thought I was soo cool whipping out Occam’s razor and you just had to beat me by one minute. :)

Adrian Hayter Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 1:58 pm (GMT)

“It should be noted that any serious god, deistic or interventionist, is not going to cut you any slack in the afterlife just because you sat on the fence.”

I object to that statement because it implies I am “sitting on the fence”. I have made it very clear that I am an atheist. I reject gods, I oppose gods. I am no way “sitting on the fence” about gods. Agnosticism isn’t sitting on the fence, it is an admission of humanity never being able to know the ultimate truth about things.

Back to Occam’s razor, I think that Chris put it best:

“At some point, it seems that SOMETHING had to exist forever. Why would we suppose that it is a god instead of our own universe?”

Observation has led us to conclude that our own universe didn’t exist forever. At some point in time there was the Big Bang. Before that, who knows? The universe doesn’t defy Occam’s razor, but your argument that it might have existed forever is flawed sue to scientific observations.

Again, I fear this entire discussion is open to the semantics of the definitions of “god”, “universe” etc. I already said my definition of a “god” was some event that started everything off. Surely this, if anything, is the simplest explanation, and therefore doesn’t defy Occam’s razor.

The whole point of Deism is that the “god” isn’t defined at all. It isn’t said to be anything, simply the starting point. Like Chris said, at some point there must be something that existed forever, and this is exactly what Deists believe. They call that something a “god”, others would call it some form of energy, or a natural force.

Chris Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 2:15 pm (GMT)

“Observation has led us to conclude that our own universe didn’t exist forever. At some point in time there was the Big Bang. Before that, who knows? The universe doesn’t defy Occam’s razor, but your argument that it might have existed forever is flawed sue to scientific observations.”

I don’t think anything in the big bang model defies the first law of thermodynamics and actually creates matter and energy. I actually don’t think anything, ever, has violated this law, which is exactly what creation proposes.

Currently our observations tell us that our universe (as in all matter and energy) existed as an infinitely dense point before the big bang, and we just don’t know what happened before that. That doesnt mean the universe DIDN’T EXIST before the big bang, it’s just that we don’t know what form it was in (and really we can’t without extrapolation). For instance, one of the popular theories was that the universe expanded for a while, then contracted to a single point, then had another big bang, repeat forever. Now recently we have found that it probably won’t happen again - our current data suggests that our universe will never have enough gravitational force to contract fully into a state similar to what it was before the big bang.

But I don’t and have never heard of anything that suggests that all the matter and energy in the universe simply did not exist before the big bang and I don’t see how one could know something like that. I see the simplest explanation as being that all matter and energy has existed forever.

As always, correct me if i’m mistaken in any of this.

Chris Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 2:35 pm (GMT)

“The whole point of Deism is that the “god” isn’t defined at all. It isn’t said to be anything, simply the starting point. Like Chris said, at some point there must be something that existed forever, and this is exactly what Deists believe. They call that something a “god”, others would call it some form of energy, or a natural force”

And really we’re back to what Kieran said in her first post - why call this “god”? It varies so much from the common definition. The only common attribute it shares with most “gods” is that it is responsible for creation. You’re correct in that it’s semantics, but it seems so inaccurate and unnecessary to put the name “God” on this.

The Barefoot Bum Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 2:45 pm (GMT)

Adrian Hayter:

I object to that statement because it implies I am “sitting on the fence”.

Then just take it as a general statement. You don’t have to wear the shoe if it doesn’t fit.

Chris:

It varies so much from the common definition.

That’s not a strong enough exception. It doesn’t just vary from the common definition, Hayter asserts that it has no definition at all: “The whole point of Deism is that the “god” isn’t defined at all.” There’s a technical term in philosophy for this sort of non-definition: vacuous bullshit. ;)

At some point, it seems that SOMETHING had to exist forever.

This is not quite correct. Our conceptions of time, like our conceptions of reality, are scientific theories: they exist to explain experiments, observations and experiences. Time is most definitely not a necessary truth. And our notion of time is inherently relational: events stand in a temporal relationship to each other. Again, there is by definition nothing for the universe to stand in any relation to, much less a specifically temporal relationship.

It is more correct to say that something has to just exist.

The Barefoot Bum Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 2:45 pm (GMT)

Oops: “That’s not a strong enough exception.” should read “That’s not a strong enough objection.”

Chris Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 3:00 pm (GMT)

“It is more correct to say that something has to just exist.”

Haha, nice. Good point :) The concept that time is not a universal truth is a pretty tough one for me to wrap my head around.

“It doesn’t just vary from the common definition, Hayter asserts that it has no definition at all: “The whole point of Deism is that the “god” isn’t defined at all.” ”

But he also stated this god was responsible for creation, which is why I think he really meant “The whole point of Deism is that the “god” isn’t defined at all except by being the force behind the creation of the universe”. So it at least has SOMETHING of a definition. Still pretty vacuous :)

Adrian Hayter Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 4:00 pm (GMT)

I’ll admit that I don’t know enough about the Big Bang theory as I should, but as Chris says, there are theories that say the universe has been expanding and collapsing. However the standard Big Bang theory as I understand it is that the universe was an infinitely small point which suddenly expanded very very quickly. Since science can’t explain why this happened, the event is an unknown.

Perhaps my definition of “god” is inaccurate and far too personalised. For me, a god would be some force that started everything off. For others, it is an intelligent being sat in the clouds. My view of god is far more naturalistic than others since I do not think any form of spiritualism is correct.

By that account, I’m probably a gnostic atheist after all, seeing as the gods I don’t believe in have all been disproven over the ages. Strange how it only takes a few people to change one’s mind :)

Luis Dias Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 4:54 pm (GMT)

Didn’t change mine, though, Adrian. Agnosticism is the only correct and logical stance on God. Agnosticism is the only correct stance on practically anything. Some people in here have claimed that it would be ridiculous to be agnostic about “Gravity”. Well, is it really? Because, after all, gravity is a word that refers to a theory. And Newton’s “Gravity” has been debunked by Einstein, as far as I know. Who are we to state that Einstein is absolutely correct and therefore “Gravity” exists per se and is not a subproduct of something else entirely?

Therefore, we HAVE to be agnostic about every goddamn theory. Even Dawkins aknowledges this, for chrissakes (pun intended)! Of course, that’s an Achilles heel against creationists who are eager to tell us they Know The Truth. But to claim otherwise is not to strengthen the heel, it is to blatantly lie about our knowledge limits, it is the end of rationalism.

Barefoot,

I agree with most that you say. Still, when you say:

“Occam’s razor decisively fails Deism as an explanation.”

…you fail to understand, or simply dismiss the fact that Occam’s razor is not an Ultimate Decider of Things. Occam’s razor is a simple method which scientists use in order to dismiss theories, but it doesn’t mean it is infallible. So it doesn’t prove anything but the fact that it is a more complex answer than other answers.

Adrian Hayter Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 5:21 pm (GMT)

Luis,

I think the point Kieran was trying to make was that all mainstream gods have been disproven by simply tracing them back through history to their human origin. Most agnostic atheists are gnostic atheists in reference to the god of the Bible, of the Koran, etc.

In fact pretty much the only god the agnostic atheist would even consider would be that of the deist god. Given that I’ve just read up on occam’s razor, I’d say that the number of assumptions currently given by science in respect of the “creation” of the universe is around the same number needed to justify a deist god.

I don’t know why it didn’t come to my mind before, but thinking about it, how can one even think about applying a post-big bang human invented principle to something pre-big bang? That logic assumes that physics existed before the big bang, and like Luis said, Occam’s razor isn’t the ultimate decider of things.

I’m now officially declaring myself a “donotcaric atheist”, a person who doesn’t believe in gods and doesn’t care if he is right or wrong. Agnosticism causes too many semantic arguments.

The Barefoot Bum Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 6:41 pm (GMT)

Chris:

The concept that time is not a universal truth is a pretty tough one for me to wrap my head around.

You’re getting closer but you’re not quite there. Time is indeed a universal truth: all events in our universe have a time relationship. Time is not, however, a logically necessary truth: a hypothetical universe without a relation between events that looks like our universe’s time would not be logically contradictory.

Adrian:

For me, a god would be some force that started everything off.

This is not a definition of “god”. You specify here a relation (presumably some sort of causal relation), but you are relating the universe to an undefined entity. You are defining this entity entirely in terms of one side of the relation: all you can say about your sort of god is that it is the sort of being that starts this particular universe, which is to say only that this universe actually exists, which is not typically a contentious assertion.

I’m now officially declaring myself a “donotcaric atheist”, a person who doesn’t believe in gods and doesn’t care if he is right or wrong. Agnosticism causes too many semantic arguments.

Another term, perhaps more euphonic, is “apatheist”, a portmanteau of “apathetic” and “atheist”.

The Barefoot Bum Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 6:48 pm (GMT)

Luis Dias:

…you fail to understand, or simply dismiss the fact that Occam’s razor is not an Ultimate Decider of Things. Occam’s razor is a simple method which scientists use in order to dismiss theories, but it doesn’t mean it is infallible. So it doesn’t prove anything but the fact that it is a more complex answer than other answers.

Occam’s razor is a decider. Depending on how you look at it, however, it might not be the “ultimate” decider; I’m not sure that the concept of “ultimate” decider is coherent.

But Occam’s razor must be an epistemic decider for scientific epistemology; without it the scientific method fails completely. Note that in the case of deism, Occam’s razor is not just differentiating between two falsifiable theories, it’s distinguishing between one falsifiable theory (the universe exists) and the exact same theory with an “invisible elf” (i.e. an unfalsifiable entity) tacked onto it. Without this use of Occam’s razor, the scientific method not only fails to give singular answers, it fails catastrophically and does not give any answers at all.

Adrian Hayter Says:
May 28th, 2008 at 6:55 pm (GMT)

I don’t think “apatheism” really works for me since it concerns disregard or “lack of interest” in belief and I’m very interested in belief.

I’ve checked wikipedia (I know, shoot me) but I think this might work out:

“Apathetic agnosticism - the view that there is no proof of either the existence or nonexistence of God or gods, but since any God or gods that may exist appear unconcerned for the universe or the welfare of its inhabitants, the question is largely academic anyway.”

So, I’m technically speaking an Apathetic Agnostic Atheist. How’s that for alliteration?

Luis Dias Says:
May 29th, 2008 at 10:09 am (GMT)

Occam?s razor is a decider.

Well, really! Are we beginning to be irrational here? Occam is a simplifying method, yes, and people really use it as a criterium, but its authority stops there. It doesn’t say anything about the veracity of the theory itself. Only that some theories are more complicated than others, and that we should spend better our time and money researching the simpler ones rather than the complex ones first.

I like that triple A, Adrian. That’s exactly where I stand too.

The Barefoot Bum Says:
May 29th, 2008 at 12:46 pm (GMT)

Luis Dias:

Are we beginning to be irrational here?

Well, as I offer an actual argument for my position (disposing of Occam’s razor allows infinitely many “invisible elf” alternatives), I might be mistaken but I am not “irrational”.

It doesn’t say anything about the veracity of the theory itself.

Occam’s razor is both a criterion of meaning and of knowledge, not of truth.

It would be helpful if you a) read my comments carefully; I typically mean what I actually say, not what you want me to say, b) introduce actual arguments for your positions and b) refrain from insulting language.

Luis Dias Says:
May 29th, 2008 at 5:41 pm (GMT)

Nowhere did I wrote “insulting language”, nor did I make an argument. I was only disagreeing with yours. Bum, I read your posts carefully. You said and I quote:

Occam?s razor decisively fails Deism as an explanation. Deism is more complicated than which it purports to explain (the explanandum). All supernatural explanations must fail on Occam?s razor, because supernatural explanations are, as you note, not provable. In other words, supernatural explanations are not susceptible to independent examination and confirmation.

Well, it is rather difficult to debate these things, when theists excel at contradicting between themselves, with some pointing out that supernatural is unable to be “tested”, and others who see that possibility, namely the christian church, who makes a supposedly “rational” test before sanctifying someone. It doesn’t matter if it is a completely stupid study or not, if they test it, they assume it is testable and that’s my point.

But what I pointed out is that Occam’s razor is not a “decider” on the very point you named precisely because it is untestable at least until science figures out how to watch back before the singularity, if “before” even existed, or if “causation” is even a necessity. The fact that Occam’s razor fails to test God doesn’t mean God does not exist, but rather that the method is unable to test the hypothesis. Merely saying that Occam is also unable to test fairy tales does not solve the problem.

Please help me with this sentence:

Occam?s razor is both a criterion of meaning and of knowledge, not of truth

I think I know where you are going here, but it is very ambiguous. It’s like you’re saying the truth doesn’t matter, only “meaning” and “knowledge”. What the (restraining from insulting language)?!?

Gene C. Sproul Says:
October 15th, 2008 at 10:58 pm (GMT)

The statement that deism tries to explain the reasons for the origins of the universe is specious, because it makes unwarranted and unprovable assumptions that the universe actually had origins and that those origins had reasons.

I heard a scientist recite an incident where, after he had given his lecture on the life of the sun, a questioner asked, “Did you say the sun would burn out in three million years or three billion years?” When the scientist assured him that he had said three billion years, the questioner sat down sighing, “Boy, that’s a relief.”

To be concerned about whether an undefined deity exists somewhere, in some form with some sort of supernatural powers is, to this atheist’s mind, inane. The evidence is both overwhelming and compelling that there is no supernatural causation and that all thoughts and mental processes are the exclusive product of the physical brain. Thus, there is no after-life and all gods are nothing more than figments.