[extropy-chat] Atheists launch inquisition...

[Technotranscendence]

On Friday, November 26, 2004 10:03 AM Mike Lorrey mlorrey at yahoo.com
wrote:
>> Another one is belief without justification --
>> "firm belief in something for which there is
>> no proof."  This could even meaning
>> holding a believe that seems logically
>> or evidentially consistent with the rest of
>> one's beliefs, but for which there's no
>> particular decesive proof or evidence for
>> it one way or the other.  (An example could
>> be belief that there's intelligent life on other
>> worlds.  Notice that this isn't really all that
>> radical a claim.)
>>
>> A third and much more radical one is
>> Tertullian's type of faith -- believing
>> something because it goes against proof
>> and evidence -- believing things because
>> they are impossible or illogical, actually
>> contradition logic and the evidence.  To
>> put it bluntly: holding an irrational belief.
>
> Well, in that case I can clearly state that
> atheism is a tertullian form of faith, particularly
> because it is inherently impossible to prove
> a negative, i.e. it is impossible to prove the
> non-existence of God. Ergo, atheists believe
> the impossible.

Wrong!  Again, Mike confuses belief with justification for a particular
belief.  (And, as I've stated before, atheism is merely the lack of
belief in God/gods.)  Merely being an atheist (or a theist) does not
commit one to a particular justification.  Yes, there could be
Tertullian atheists but that doesn't mean atheism is necessarily
Tertullian.  (As I've mentioned earlier, too, not all theists hold their
theism because of a Tertullian fath in God.  Recall, Tertullian faith is
believing _against_ logic and evidence.)

On a very trivial level, a person might not have ever thought of the
idea of God/gods and just never have come to a belief about God/gods.
That person would lack a belief in God/gods.  Let's say there was a
machine called the Belief Detector -- a machine that detects specific
beliefs in people's minds when it's close enough to them:) -- and the
dial was set to "God/gods" and it was place next to this person.  It
would register "No belief."  That would make the person an atheist.  Yet
she would have no particular justification for her atheism because she
merely lacked the belief.  It's not that she had the presence of a
conviction that, "There is/are no God/gods."  She could NOT be, by
definition, a Tertullian atheist.  Why?  Her lack of belief is not
against logic and evidence.  Her lack of belief does not arise in that
fashion.

Now, as for proving the negative, what is to be proved?  As George H.
Smith, Michael Martin, and others have pointed out, the concept of
God/gods is flawed in the conventional and traditional definitions -- 
i.e., a transcendent being that is omnipotent, omniscient, etc.  It's
contradictory and incoherent.  (I'm not using Smith, Martin, etc. as
authorities here, just giving credit where credit is due.  Plus, it'd be
easier on me for you to read their works than for me to either
regurgitate their views or ramify my own on the subject in this venue.:)
Damien Broderick came up with some examples similar to "God/gods:"
"square circle" and "pitch-black light."  One need not prove that square
circles do not exist because there are plainly contradictory and
meaningless -- at least, in the English language as the words are
usually defined.

The proving a negative only works for things that are logically
possible.  The concept of God or gods does not fit that bill.

Regards,

Dan
    See "Family, Social Order, and Government" at:
http://uweb.superlink.net/neptune/FamilySOG.html