
Why strict atheism is unscientific - bradleysmith
http://www.realclearscience.com/articles/2012/11/27/why_strict_atheism_is_unscientific_106413.html
======
maaarghk
Nonsense. The scientific method says that the burden of proof lies on those
who make extraordinary claims, not those who do not believe said claims. And
that is all.

To clarify a bit further, see quote: "You can't prove that God exists!" they
accuse (correctly). Yet, hypocritically, strict atheists are guilty of the
exact same crime: belief without evidence. This is nonsense. It is not belief
without evidence, it is disbelief due to the lack of evidence. An
embarrassingly basic strawman argument.

~~~
Zikes
See also: the strict unbelievers of the invisible, ethereal, and completely
silent unicorn I keep in my garage.

~~~
onion2k
I let that out months ago. I'm surprised you didn't notice.

~~~
Zikes
I don't believe you!

------
vezzy-fnord
This entire article is an argument to moderation, which is a well-known
fallacy. The truth must always be in the middle ground, right? No.

" _Should array indices start at 0 or 1? My compromise of 0.5 was rejected
without, I thought, proper consideration._ "

\-- Stan Kelly-Bootle

Second: "belief in a higher power" is a very vague statement and in no way
implies worship of a creator deity, and even less: religion. Lumping in
religion with theism (a mere component of religion, not even a necessary one)
is grossly wrong. We are all subject to higher powers every day that we
exercise little control over, be they forces of nature or what have you. That
does not mean they are divine, sapient or anything of the sort.

Thirdly, atheism comes in various degrees: strong/weak, explicit/implicit,
gnostic/agnostic. The article presents a false trinity: "There's only two
extremes and a middle ground!" No.

Finally, I despise when theists try to incorporate Einstein as one of their
own. The Einsteinian God has absolutely nothing to do with theistic notions of
a creator God. Rather, Einstein was a pantheist whose God was a metaphor for
nature, reality and knowledge. He was not a believer in creation or divinity.
This article tries to equivocate his statements, as many other religious
demagogues have done before.

Sharpen your arguments.

~~~
bradleysmith
Firstly, is moderation in your belief of your understanding of the origins of
the universe a well-known fallacy? Also the focus on moderation in the article
was in describing 'possibilianism', a middle-of-the-road example belief.

Second: belief in a higher power, as answered on a Pew Research poll, seems to
directly imply deism as a belief. I agree that it isn't 'religion' which has a
set of dogmas & behaviors, or even deism worship, but I don't think someone
that believes gravity is a higher power would answer yes to this question on a
poll. It has a fair bit of connotation that implies a particular belief.

Thirdly, I agree, it's an unfair comparison, and a bit of a ham-fisted
article. I submitted because it was the most clearly written on the topic I
could find.

Fourthly, If Einstein was a pantheist, he was theist. Theism is the belief
that at least one deity exists.

he was also a known apologist for religion, oft quoted for writing in the NYT
Magazine "science without religion is lame, religion without science is
blind". Why would a scientifically minded religious ilk NOT try to incorporate
such rhetoric as their own? and, why does that upset you?

Einstein seemed to have a respect for religion's acceptance that human
understanding is flawed. a quote from Isaacson's biography:

 _" You may call me an agnostic, but I do not share the crusading spirit of
the professional atheist whose fervor is mostly due to a painful act of
liberation from the fetters of religious indoctrination received in youth. I
prefer an attitude of humility corresponding to the weakness of our
intellectual understanding of nature and of our own being"_

I am not religious, nor particularly spiritual, but I do believe that a
respect for religion is a positive thing. I find wisdom in attitudes that try
to include the value that religion brings to the human condition as opposed to
damning it for 'making shit up' scientifically. I'm well acquainted with
religion's uglier and more ignorant sides (grew up in Saudi Arabia, family in
West Texas), but I agree with Einstein (Nassim Taleb also writes some
interesting stuff on this) that I would prefer an attitude that accepts the
weakness of our understanding.

I appreciate your comment, I submitted the article for discussion and I got
it.

------
jdietrich
This line of argument wasn't very interesting 50 years ago and it certainly
isn't of interest today. Frankly, I have no idea why this link is on the front
page of HN.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell's_teapot)

------
cristianpascu
Atheism is a matter of ontology/metaphysics and not science. Science, too, is
a matter of ontology, in that it says that there are electrons and they have
such and such properties.

But atheism, while accepting the results of science (what science says there
is), it goes a bit further. And the keyword in understanding how and why and
where does atheism goes further is the word 'evidence'.

Many times you'll here people saying "There is no evidence!" for that or that
matter. However, in understanding what kind of evidence do we expect to see
(etymologically, evidence holds the reference to what is seen), we need to
have a clear idea of what is there to be seen.

Atheism expects and denies that there is evidence of a God. A super-natural
being, a person, conscious, free, and able to do whatever they may wish to do.
And this is where atheism CAN NOT apply any of the methods available in
science. Science has been able to understand nature (its laws and ontology)
because what happens in nature, happens in virtue of law. That is, all the
time. Repeatedly. Experimentally verifiable.

The actions of a person are not like that. Be it a God, a bird, a fish or a
bug. The intentional behavior of a conscious being can not fall under the
umbrella of exact, objective science. Unless there is some sort of
determination which resembles a (statistical) law. Which, by definition, it's
not the case for God.

So, yes, atheism and religions are not scientific. Which is not to say they
may not be true. One of them all.

------
onion2k
Hard atheism, believing that god definitely doesn't exist, is different to the
rational position because it's a belief in the lack of evidence. It's stating
that there definitely isn't a god. Rationally, you can't prove a negative. You
can't prove there is no god because an absence of evidence is not evidence of
absence. The fact there isn't any evidence of gods might be because we've not
found it yet. Rationally, in scientific terms, you should lean towards
agnosticism (with a large pinch of skepticism).

However... the politically sensible position to take in these sorts of
discussions is ignosticism - the idea that you can't know because you're
ignorant of what the terms are. Unless you can define what god is you can't
state whether or not there is evidence for his/she/its existence. Most
religious people don't like defining their god, so they leave you alone. :)

~~~
dionidium
I will say strongly that I do not believe there is an invisible, 70-foot-tall,
green monster standing right behind me right now. I can't prove a negative,
you're right about that, but since I have exactly zero evidence for this
thing's existence, I'm going to take a shortcut and say it doesn't exist.

One can be forgiven for not having stumbled across these arguments before. We
all had to read them for the first time at some point. But I'll just say that
this is well-travelled territory.

~~~
onion2k
That shortcut is why, for thousands of years, humans believed in things like
the 4 elements, a flat earth, geocentricism, and so on. Taking the path that
"feels right" despite a lack of evidence is wholly unscientific, and,
occasionally, will prove wrong. So beware of that monster. :)

The fact is there is no reason to state god does or doesn't exist. There are
more important things to think about. Things that actually make a difference.

~~~
bryanlarsen
"The fact is there is no reason to state god does or doesn't exist. There are
more important things to think about. Things that actually make a difference."

According to the bible, the consequences for non-believers are very dire. If
the bible is true, then this is a very important thing to think about.

Weak agnostic or strong atheist, we're all going to hell.

I contend that there's little difference between a weak agnostic or a strong
atheist. If you're not scared of hell, then you're living your life as if you
believe that God doesn't exist.

As in most things in life, it's what you do that matters, not what you say.

~~~
sbenfsck
There are many religions now and in the past that have dire consequences for
non believers and doom to those who do not follow the religious laws dictated
by the particular god of that religion. My question to you is which one should
we follow? To be safe should we follow all of them? and what about the many
religions that forbid other gods? what do we do at that avenue? In case you
reply "Christian, of course!" Which sect? Which version of the bible? From
what I can see, we will have to cycle through all the hells, or possibly none.
Can someone tell me the best hell to shoot for?

------
glenra
Yhe simplest definition of "atheist" is one who lacks a belief in God. If you
don't actively possess a belief that god exists, you're an atheist. Atheists
confidently disbelieve in god in exactly the same way that they disbelieve in
Santa Claus - the mere fact that humans tell stories about some mythical
creature doesn't mean that creature exists.

But the bigger problem is the definition of God. Without defining it, the
question "does it exist" is of course unanswerable. But if you mean "the
Judeo-Christian God, the guy described in the bible" then one potentially
_can_ prove that it doesn't exist. Maybe you can't disprove the existence of
ALL gods or rather all definitions of god, since the full set includes
Spinoza's version. (If you choose to define god as being the same the universe
and allow that the universe exists, then "god" exists.) But you CAN disprove
the existence of THAT ONE particular god, because it is defined in self-
contradictory ways. The "God" that religious people seem to be talking about
most of the time is logically incoherent. So believing it doesn't exist is
like believing something that's simultaneously green and invisible doesn't
exist.

God is what you get when you start with Santa Claus and turn all the absurdity
knobs up to 11. Omnipotent and omniscient, yet somehow allows us all free will
even though he knows everything we'll ever do. "existed before the universe",
even though the universe is defined as "everything that exists". And so on.

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badman_ting
Beware, this hole goes deep. I'm currently traveling and spending my nights
listening to Zizek talk about the ideology represented by our actions, since
we all think we're a bunch of hard-reality-observing scientist-minded
smartypantses who disavow anything unfalsifiable. I mean, I've known this
about atheists and atheism for a long time, but as I say, the hole is deep.

------
dionidium
I'm tempted to address some of the points in the article individually, but,
really, the whole thing misses the mark. I'm an atheist in the same way that I
try not to make claims about _anything_ without evidence and this is such a
common misunderstanding that we have invisible pink unicorns and orbiting
teapots on standby to rebut it.

------
circlefavshape
Could there actually be someone in the world who cares that their atheism is
not "scientific"? If there were, would that person also worry that their taste
in music, their love for their wife, their hatred for roasted peanuts and
their sexual quirks were similarly unscientific?

Who wrote this stupid article? Mr. Spock?

------
cbhl
I feel like I've seen this somewhere before...

[http://xkcd.com/900/](http://xkcd.com/900/)

