The Atheist Blogger

Ever since I came across Richard Dawkins’ scale of belief in The God Delusion, I disagreed with the way it was set out (I found it a rather too simplistic way of determining positions on an important question) . When I fully understood the true meaning of agnosticism, and how it is not a “on the fence” or “I’m not sure” position, I rejected Dawkins’ scale completely. Any scale concerning the belief in God that puts agnosticism as a dead centre position is completely misunderstanding agnosticism. Agnosticism isn’t concerned with the belief in God; it is concerned with knowledge. Namely, whether or not a god can be proven. Agnosticism and atheism are not mutually exclusive positions, as they are positions on different areas.

In my opinion, when considering the question of God there are three aspects that must be addressed: Belief – Whether or not you believe in God, Knowledge – Whether or not you claim absolute knowledge of the existence of God, or claim God can be proven in some way, Certainty – How certain you are of your beliefs (of disbeliefs). Although the three aspects are closely related, they are exclusive to one another. That is to say, one can believe in God, not claim absolute knowledge, and also be relatively uncertain of their belief.

The difference between knowledge and belief is subtle but explainable. Knowledge can best be seen as a subset of belief, and this can be demonstrated by the fact that someone can believe something that is provably wrong (such as someone claiming they believe 1 + 1 = 3), but they cannot know something and hold a disbelief in it. I cannot disbelieve that 1 + 1 = 2 because I know it to be true. Of course, one could argue that a person might lie, but this doesn’t change the fact that when answering truthfully they would admit belief. This argument also does not allow for people who are willingly ignorant for obvious reasons.

Once the difference between knowledge and belief is fully understood, the difference between knowledge and certainty should be quite easy to see. I have explained this to quite a few people when talking about my position on gods, and the best way I can explain it is with the following problem:

Suppose you are alone in a dark empty room. You can hear the pitter patter of raindrops on the ceiling above you. With this limited observation, (a) could you know that it is raining outside the room?, and (b) could you be certain it was raining outside the room?

Rational people would answer a definite “no” to (a), simply because there are an large number of explanations for the sound other than “it is raining outside”. Friends usually have some fun coming up with alternative explanations, such as a sound system, a mental delusion, a hallucination, etc. The answer to (b) really depends on the person, and answers vary along a large range. Most people come to the conclusion that they would be “pretty certain” it was raining outside, and that this decision is based on previous experience of listening to rain on a roof. If one were to plot a probability distribution of all the possible explanations, “it is raining” would be the highest bar. It is simply the most likely explanation for the sound. They key thing to remember about certainty and knowledge is that you can be 100% certain about something and still be wrong. I am 100% certain that I’ll be alive tomorrow, but that won’t stop a stray car or my heart suddenly having an attack.

The relationship between certainty and belief usually depends on the type of belief. For example, I’m a “believer” (not the best word) in the theory of Evolution, and I’m 100% certain that it is true. I’m also a “believer” in the Higg’s boson, but not as certain about it (although I’m certain enough to have a bet with a friend over it). Believers in God are usually quite certain, if not 100% certain about their beliefs. I’d say most atheists were also quite certain about their beliefs.

So, we have three aspects of a position on God to create a scale out of. Belief, defined through one’s atheism/theism, Knowledge, defined through one’s agnosticism/gnosticism, and Certainty, defined through “Strong”/”Weak”. I’ve used the Strong/Weak terms out of their original definition simply because they are good words to use for the aspect of certainty. To clarify, someone who is “strong atheist” in this scale would say they are 100% certain about their disbelief in gods, and a “weak atheist” would be someone who is not 100% certain.

The Scale

1. Strong Gnostic Theist - Believes in God, holds God as provable (or proven) and is 100% certain about its existence.
2. Strong Agnostic Theist – Believes in God, holds God as unprovable (or unproven) but is still 100% certain about its existence.
3. Weak Agnostic Theist – Believes in God, holds God as unprovable (or unproven) and is uncertain about its existence.
4. Apatheist – Could be described as 100% uncertain about their beliefs. Usually agnostic, and with a distinct sense of apathy on forming any opinion on the existence of God.
5. Weak Agnostic Atheist – Disbelieves in God, holds God as unprovable (and unproven), but is still uncertain about its non-existence.
6. Strong Agnostic Atheist – Disbelieves in God, holds God as unprovable (and unproven), but is 100% certain about its non-existence.
7. Strong Gnostic Atheist – Disbelieves in God, holds God’s non-existence as provable (or provable), and is 100% certain about its non-existence.

Note that there are no places for Weak Gnostic Theism or Weak Gnostic Atheism, since to “know” something immediately nulls any form of uncertainty on it.

In case any of you were wondering, I rank myself a 6 on this scale. Any comments concerning my arguments on the philosophy of knowledge are most welcome. I know (at least in the non-absolute sense) this is a well debated problem amongst philosophers.

Skepdude recently commented on my article outlining the awareness I think needs to be raised over the true meanings of agnosticism. I feel his points deserved slightly more discussion and dissection than a simple comments thread, so here they are:

Ok, first of all I think you’re making an overly broad generalization when you define atheism as a stance which proclaims either to know or believe that there is no God. I consider myself an atheist, among other things, but I don’t use either “know” or “believe”.

I stated in the article “That is a generalization” in respect to my definitions. I also made sure not to mention atheism as a belief, which it isn’t. Atheism is a disbelief, as defined by the dictionaries. Whether or not you use the words “know” or “believe” personally, the definitions of atheism all rely on a disbelief of gods.

I rely on the lack of evidence to come to the conclusion that such lack of evidence makes the probability of God’s existence very, very very tiny, next to zero. Until further convincing evidence is presented the only logical position is to say that very likely there is no God. This is not a matter of belief nor is it knowledge. It’s simple statistics.

Forgetting the fact that statistics is a branch of science, science being a branch of knowledge, knowledge being a branch of belief…oh wait, you are talking about belief and knowledge. In fact, your admittance that the probability of God’s existence is “very, very, very tiny, next to zero” makes you an agnostic atheist whether you like the label or not.

The problem with your statistical analysis of God is you do not have a good basis for describing evidence that counts. There is no direct evidence of God, as he has never appeared before us personally and said “hey, I’m God”. Theists argue that the entire universe (as a whole, not as separate objects) is the evidence of a God. Your statistical analysis, whilst useful from a atheistic philosophical perspective, is bias as such. When we do a statistical analysis of the number and types of car traveling on a road, we know the description of the data we are collecting. We can distinguish between person and car, and different types of car. If a motorbike came along, there might be some arguing over whether it should be included, but overall we have a full data set. With the idea of God being so incomplete as it is, and such a being existing outside observation, we can never be certain of what constitutes relevant data and what doesn’t.

As far as agnosticism is concerned, regardless of how you define it, I find it to be a lazy position.

This is the point of the article. We shouldn’t go along with personal opinions of what words mean, but rather their actual definitions. I could say I find the word “nigger” to be offensive to blacks, but that doesn’t remove it’s historical position as a word to describe blacks. My personal feelings over a word doesn’t change the definition of it.

Why can’t we know about God, given how God is described by the major religions? Why would a God who’s always meddling in this universe and performing miracles and such not be provable? Of course we can know about God, as long as he is supposed to have some sort of direct effect on our reality, he or she is than well within the realms of science. Science and religion are not two separate magisteria ( I think I just butchered that word).

Which is why we should carefully explain the kind of God we are being agnostic about. We are agnostic about the God who supposedly exists outside the realms of the observable universe. Why would a God who is performing miracles not be provable? Well, perhaps such a being made sure that his miracles, however highly unlikely, always had a basis in the natural world? By saying we are agnostic atheists, we are saying that we do not believe in gods, but at the end of the day, we cannot know about something that has been supposedly placed outside our observable universe, even if such a being acts on the observable universe.

Suppose you lived in a 20m by 20m box, without any way of knowing what is outside the box. The box is your observable universe, since you have no knowledge of what lays outside it. Every night, whilst you sleep, someone takes the lid off the box, and places food for you to eat. You never see them because whoever does this makes sure that you are completely unconscious whilst they do it. You could could either deduce that the appearance of the fruit was a natural occurrence to your universe, or that some “God” was doing it. Even if you had no evidence to suggest otherwise, the proposition needs agnosticism to state “perhaps” or “maybe”. Agnosticism acknowledges the possibility, however remote.

Of course you can never prove that something does not exist, but does that justify taking the “we can not know” position? Are we to be agnostic about fairies, unicorns and Santa Claus? I don’t understand what you mean by an agnostic atheist or an agnostic theist. Both sound like oxymoron to me. What those terms imply is that I believe or not, while at the same time knowing that I can’t know if I’m right or wrong. That just doesn’t make sense to me.

Given that we know the origin of fairies, unicorns, and Santa Claus in literature, we do not need to be agnostic about them. They have been proven to be false, at least in the context of their definitions.

Indeed, most gods have also been proved to have their origins in literature only. These are not gods I would say I am agnostic about. What I am agnostic about is the idea of a god, some kind of being, energy, whatever, which is outside the universe. I don’t believe such a thing exists, because for me that would be too easy. However, given the nature of philosophical thinking, I have to admit that the possibility is there, however remote. Even Dawkins admits his agnosticism by saying he is 99.9% certain there is no God.

Whether the terms “agnostic atheist/theist” make sense to you or not isn’t the issue. They make sense to a lot of people, which is the reason for the article. Your definition is wrong though. What the terms imply is that whether we believe in God or not, the proof of such a being is impossible to find. Knowledge is different to belief. A belief does not need evidence to support it, merely ideas. Knowledge is a belief that has facts. You cannot know something if you do not first believe it to be true.

I don’t buy your whole “yes, but I don’t think it can be proven” line of reasoning, simply because it is not useful. It is meaningless. It can be applied to anything. Make up any fancy fantasy you can think of, and you can apply that line of reasoning. Agnosticism is a dialogue stopper. It is giving up, throwing your hands up in the air and saying, we can never know. The implication is that we should stop wasting our time. What if that sort of logic was to be applied to anything that’s just too hard for us to figure out currently?

I firmly believe that we should stop wasting time trying to “prove” or “disprove” God. Give that the very definition of God puts it outside our realm of existence seems obvious to me that you cannot prove it. Yes, Russell’s teapot is a good example of this. If we cannot prove it, we simply say so and move on. There is no point building massive telescopes for the sole purpose of finding Russell’s teapot, when by it’s very definition puts it outside our observation.

Agnosticism isn’t a scientific method, it is a philosophical method. We do not use it on anything that is too hard for us to firgure out for the reasons you have stated. It is simply not useful. Philosophy has never strived to prove anything. Indeed, all it has done is prove the diversity of the human mind. Agnosticism is an approach on philosophical questions, not scientific ones. It should only be used as such. Agnosticism allows discussion of beliefs or disbeliefs, but states that as soon as you try to prove or disprove those beliefs, you are going to reach a dead end, and you really should stop wasting time.

Pick a side. Either you are convinced there is a God, or you’re not, or you’re on the fence. But you can’t have it both ways, and that’s what your agnostic atheist and agnostic theist terms are, having it both ways. That’s not a position any logical person should take.

Here we have the classic misunderstanding of those terms yet again, which again justifies my article and reasoning for the agnostic project. Agnosticism is not an “on the fence” position. An “on the fence” position would be “I honestly do not know” or “I honestly don’t know what I believe”. An agnostic admits the possibility, but says that they cannot know. Not knowing and not being able to know are too very different things. The former is a form of ignorance, the latter is an admitance to a lack of justifiable method.

We can’t prove that Russell’s teapot does not exist. Does that imply that we should be agnostic about it? There’s millions of things we can’t disprove. Does that lend them legitimacy, simply because we can dream of them?

On a technical level, yes. However I doubt very many people are agnostic about absolutely everything. Agnosticism isn’t about making some claim a legitimate claim, but rather saying “the claim is impossible to prove or disprove, therefore we should stop wastimg time trying to do so”. It pushes the claim to the mountain of the possible, and leaves it there. I could claim a million things, each being possible, and each unable to be disproved. Agnosticism does not have a say on whether they are probable, but whether they are possible. Anosticism does not have a say on whether you should believe such things, and many people would probably choose not to; if the possibility is there, however remote that possibility may be, it must be recognised, if only to designate it as such.

Of course, as I have previously stated in regards to the origins of gods, my ideas would probably reach the same scrutiny. If I simply made something up I wouldn’t expect people to be seriously agnostic about it, simply because I pulled it out of thin air.

I wrote this paper for an English class defining the term “atheism” and figured it would be appropriate here.

Atheism: Belief in Nature and Humanity

I don’t know that atheists should be considered as citizens, nor should they be considered patriots. This is one nation under God.

said George H.W. Bush to a reporter in 1998 (O’Hair). Although the veracity of this quote is somewhat in doubt, this quote illustrates the view held by many about atheists and the importance of addressing the issue.  Largely misunderstood, atheists are often happy, joyful people who live fulfilled, moral, humanitarian lives.  Unfortunately however, it seems that few in American society really understand what it means to be atheist.  Some people believe that atheism is actually an anti-religious position, and some would go as far as to say that atheists hate god or even America.  George Smith comments on the situation, noting that

The atheist is pitted against morality itself, and the struggle between belief in a god and godlessness is viewed as a struggle between good and evil.

Others believe that atheism is a misnomer and that atheists should correctly call themselves agnostics.  The truth is that atheism is the absence of a belief in the supernatural or the rejection of the notion of using a deity to explain natural phenomenon.  More specifically, atheism is the belief that all observations ever made by man have a natural cause and will ultimately be explained by scientific principles.  Atheism is not the same as agnosticism and is not an anti-religious persuasion, but rather a belief in humanity and our ability to ultimately understand our universe.  By understanding the real meaning of the terms “atheist” or “atheism,” one is better equipped to engage in meaningful discourse with atheists and to deal with any prejudices one might have toward those of different belief systems.

Read more…