No, I Don’t Need to Explore the Entire Universe to Be an Atheist

One odd question that occasionally gets asked by theists is how one can possibly be an atheist when science hasn’t yet (or can’t possibly have) explored the entire universe. The presumption being, apparently, that atheists shouldn’t be so confident that God doesn’t exist when there are distant parts of the universe where, what, God could be hiding? Well, let me just say this about that:

First of all, the majority of atheists don’t actually claim to know that God doesn’t exist, only that they don’t believe God exists. This lack of belief could be the result of never being exposed to or raised with a belief in the whole God concept in the first place, it could be a rejection of claims made by theists due to a lack of convincing evidence, or what have you. To be an atheist you don’t need to know or claim to know that God doesn’t exist, just not believe that God exists. But, hey — there are certainly some atheists who are confident enough to say that they have considered the evidence for God’s existence, as well as the evidence against his existence, and are as sure that God doesn’t exist as they are sure about anything else in life (e.g., that they are conscious, that the earth rotates and revolves around the sun, that they only have one head, etc.). I should know, since I am one of these atheists.

Second of all, even if you are only talking about atheists like me who claim to “know” that God doesn’t exist, the God we are talking about is the exact same God that all the various world religions talk about. You know, the God that actually is described in various holy scriptures, the God that supposedly performs miracles, the God that supposedly provides objective morality, the God that answers prayers, the God that rewards us for following his word and punishes us for not doing so, etc. In other words, the God that — regardless of your religion — actually manifests itself right here where we all happen to live in this incredibly vast, vast universe. Whether or not there is some being that could somehow be described as a “God” in some distant corner of the universe, perhaps even wholly outside the observable universe, that “God” could not possibly be the God that we are talking about here.

But what about the so-called “Deist” God that merely created the universe and then left it (and, by extension, us) to its own devices? Shouldn’t we hard-core atheists withhold judgment on that God since it actually might be hiding somewhere out there? And the answer is a resounding “no” for a number of reasons:

• The “Deist” God has it’s origin in the same holy books and religious traditions as all the theist Gods. It’s just that, when Deists realized how untenable it was to assert belief in something for which there was no good evidence (and for which there was plenty of counter evidence), they decided to argue for an impersonal and undetectable creator God rather than abandoning their faith all together [“Deism gained prominence among intellectuals during the Age of Enlightenment, especially in Britain, France, Germany, and the United States. Typically, these had been raised as Christians and believed in one God, but they had become disenchanted with organized religion and orthodox teachings such as the Trinity, Biblical inerrancy, and the supernatural interpretation of events, such as miracles.”].^[1] Which is to say that if we can dismiss all the theist concepts of God as the product of ignorant superstitions, we can dismiss the Deist God for exactly the same reason, despite all the pseudo-intellectual gloss that has been applied to the underlying concept over the years.


• Speaking of pseudo-intellectual gloss, every single argument in favor of there being a Deist God is based in an Argument from Ignorance (or “God of the Gaps”) fallacy. Whether it be the so-called Teleological Argument (a.k.a. the Argument from Design) argument, the Cosmological Argument, the Fine-Tuned Universe Argument, or what have you, they all basically claim that since we [supposedly] cannot explain some facet of the universe, the only possible explanation is a supernatural creator who exists outside of time and space and is somehow able to interact with matter and energy despite not being composed of either. Aside from the fact that we actually can now explain many of the things that used to be inexplicable (the theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, for example, now perfectly explains the apparent design in the natural world), the lack of an explanation cannot, in itself, be evidence of some other explanation for which there is no evidence.


• Aside from being wholly irrelevant and unnecessary, the Deist God is also, by definition, wholly incapable of being detected. Which is to say that, even if there were such a being, it wouldn’t matter if we did explore the entire universe since such a God would not be able to be found.

[1] Deism - Wikipedia

Atheism and Evolution

As evidenced by probably half of the questions posed to atheists in various public forums, many theists seem to think that atheism and the theory of evolution (or “Darwinism” for those who want to imply that evolution is just some sort of cult of personality that atheists belong to based solely on faith) are inextricably linked. Apparently, either all atheists believe in evolution as their religion instead of believing in God, or else a belief in evolution is what caused people to become atheists in the first place.

In this post I want to try and unpack this a bit. First, to explain what atheism really means and what the real relationship between atheism and evolution is. And second, to try and understand why theists keep insisting on a relationship that isn’t there.

First, the facts:

• Atheism is neither a belief system nor a community of like-minded individuals. There is no official atheist doctrine, there are no appointed atheist leaders, and there are no requirements to be an atheist other than simply not believing in God. Or gods.


• Yes, many atheists accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, but not all do and you can certainly be an atheist and not accept it. Just like you can be an atheist and think the world is flat or that aliens are regularly abducting people or that world leaders are being replaced with lizard people. Being an atheist is not the same as being a scientist or a rationalist or a materialist — it simply means that you do not believe in God. Or gods.


• And, while many atheists do accept the Theory of Evolution by Natural Selection, they do so for the same reason they accept, say, the theory of gravity. It’s a coherent, well-established theory that explains observed phenomena that has been supported by observable evidence and is backed up by numerous other fields of study. And, keep in mind, the “theory” of evolution is the current best explanation for the observed fact of evolution, just like the “theory” of gravity is the current best explanation for the the observed fact of gravity.


• It’s important to note that many theists also accept the theory of evolution for the same reasons many atheists do. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that most theists accept it (although some still want to include God as the ultimate driving force behind it). The whole denial of evolution thing is really just limited to a very small number of Christians and Muslims world-wide who take their scriptures extremely literally and feel threatened by anything that could be seen to contradict those scriptures in any way (more on this later).


• Finally, while it’s certainly possible that some atheists lost their faith after learning the details of the theory of evolution (e.g., because their faith was based on an assumption that God was required as an explanation for why life on earth is the way it is), the vast majority of atheists were not looking for an explanation regarding the diversity of life on earth in the first place and didn’t choose to replace their religious beliefs with the “religion” of evolution. They simply lack a belief in God, whether because they were not raised to believe in God in the first place, because they were taught about God and found the notion to be rather silly, because they carefully considered the evidence for God’s existence and found it lacking, or any of a thousand other reasons.

Second, the theories:

• As stated above, many (if not most) theists in the world have no trouble accepting the fact that all species — including man — have evolved over long periods of time to reach their current state. They do not take their scriptures to be 100% literally true and are fine with that, focusing instead on the principles and promises made in those scriptures. A small subset of theists, however, acknowledge the hypocrisy involved in only believing in part of holy scriptures and therefore take an “all or nothing” approach. And, since the holy scriptures clearly state that God created man in His own image and gave him dominion over all other creatures on earth, acknowledging the fact of evolution (and accepting the validity of the current theory of evolution by natural selection) would be to deny the validity of the scriptures and the very foundation of their faith.


• These theists who take their scriptures literally know full well that most of what is written in those scriptures either cannot be verified by modern science or is directly contradicted by modern science, whether it be archaeology, geology, cosmology, anthropology, physics, chemistry, biology, or what have you. But the whole concept of evolution in particular bothers them, since it undermines the whole idea of humans being uniquely special creatures in God’s eyes. OK, so maybe the world wasn’t really created 6000 years ago and maybe Noah didn’t really have an ark full of animals and maybe Moses didn’t really part the Red Sea, but we sure as heck didn’t come from monkeys!


• As a result, for those theists who take their scriptures literally and whose world view revolves around the notion that humans are special, it is only natural to assume that everybody else’s world view revolves around the fundamental question of how humanity got here and what is humanity’s relationship with the rest of the universe. Thus, since their worldview revolves around “God did it,” atheists must have a worldview that revolves around “God didn’t do it.” And, since a belief that “god didn’t do it” requires some alternate explanation, that explanation must be “Evolution”.


• So, in the eyes of these theists, it is incomprehensible that somebody could simply not believe in God (especially their God) without having an alternative belief system in place. And, since these theists acknowledge (whether explicitly or implicitly) that their belief system is fundamentally based on faith (belief without evidence or in spite of evidence to the contrary) and a reliance on the testimony (anecdotal stories) of others, they assume that atheist must also base their belief system on faith and testimony.


• This false equivalence leads to two separate phenomena. First, there is an ongoing attempt to argue that atheism is no better than theism since both “isms” are equally reliant on “faith” and “testimony” and therefore atheists have no right to feel at all superior to theists (and theists are perfectly justified for not feeling at all inferior). Second, there is an ongoing attempt to undermine the theory of evolution in the mistaken belief that doing so will somehow convince atheists that the explanation for how humanity got here must actually be “God did it” after all.

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For more of my musings on the subject of evolution and religion, please see the following:

Accepting Evolution
The “Theory” of Evolution
Evolution and Why Labels Don’t Matter
Another Evolution Analogy
 

For more discussion of what, exactly, it means to be an atheist, please see the following:

What is an Atheist?
No, Atheism Is Not a Belief System
Why “I Don’t Believe God Exists” Really Is the Same as “I Believe God Doesn’t Exist”

No, Atheism Is Not a Belief System

One common claim that some theists like to make is that atheism is some sort of “belief system,” presumably to compare it to their own belief system and to imply that both systems are therefore equally valid. Atheists usually respond by saying this is ridiculous since atheism is a lack of belief and therefore cannot possibly be a belief anything, let alone a belief system. Now, it’s certainly true that calling atheism a belief system is ridiculous, but the reason is slightly more nuanced than simply “a lack of belief can’t be a belief system.”

As mentioned above, most atheists like to claim that atheism is nothing more than a lack of belief in God, while many theists like to claim that it’s actually an affirmative belief that God doesn’t exist. And, depending on the atheist, there’s actually some truth to both views, as I discuss here:

Why “I Don’t Believe God Exists” Really Is the Same as “I Believe God Doesn’t Exist”

and here:

What is an Atheist?

Which is to say that, no matter how much some atheists want to deny it, there are atheists who strongly believe that God doesn’t exist to the point where they are willing to claim that they know — as surely as they know anything — that God doesn’t exist.

However.

HOWEVER!

Whether an atheist lacks a belief in God or whether they believe God does not exist, there is no way at all that this represents any sort of “belief system” whatsoever. There is simply no system involved, and it does not make up any sort of worldview.

Theists tend to have a belief in God as their foundational worldview, the lens through which they view all of life. Where did we come from? From God. Why are we here? God put us here to worship Him. Where are we going after this life? It depends on whether we obey God’s will or not. Where did the universe come from? God did it. Why is there suffering in the world? God has His reasons. Why is nature so amazingly beautiful? Thank God (“How Great Thou Art”)!

As a result, theists naturally assume that atheists must also have some sort of foundational worldview, some sort of lens through which we view all of life. And, since their worldview is based on a belief that God exists, our worldview must be based on a belief that God does not exist.

Except, this just is not the case.

If you ask atheists where did humans come from, they may have an answer based in current scientific theories or they may have no answer at all, but they won’t just say, “We didn’t come from God” as if that explained anything.

If you ask an atheist why we are here on earth, they may or may not have an answer, but they won’t just say, “we weren’t put here by God” as if that explained anything.

If you ask atheists what happens after death, they may or may not have an answer, but they won’t just say, “it depends on whether we disbelieved in God” as if that explained anything.

If you ask atheists where the universe came from, they may or may not have an answer, but they won’t just say, “God didn’t do it” as if that explained anything.

If you ask atheists why there is suffering in the world, they may or may not have an answer, but they won’t just say, “because God doesn’t exist” as if that explained anything.

And if you ask atheists why nature is so amazingly beautiful, once again they may or may not have an answer, but they won’t just say “God didn’t do it” as if that explained anything.

What is an Atheist?

Time and again there seem to be disagreements as to what, exactly, it means to be an atheist. Most atheists usually want to define atheism as nothing more than a lack of belief in any sort of god, while many theists want to define it as an affirmative belief that no gods exist or even some sort of assertion that no gods exist.

Often, the way somebody defines atheism depends on the particular agenda that person has when defining the term. Theists, for example, may be trying to rebut the assertion by many atheists that theists are irrational for believing in something without evidence by claiming that atheists also “believe” in something (i.e., the nonexistence of God) without evidence. Atheists, on the other hand, may be trying to completely avoid providing any justification for why they don’t believe in God.

The minimum requirement to be an atheist, however, really is just to lack a belief in any sort of god or gods or God. Which is to say that, to be an atheist, you don’t need to hold any affirmative beliefs or make any additional claims with regard to God or gods. Now, from a practical standpoint, as I discuss at Why “I Don’t Believe God Exists” Really Is the Same as “I Believe God Doesn’t Exist”, most atheists who engage with theists here on Quora in order to rebut supposed “proofs” of God’s existence do hold an affirmative belief in the non-existence of God instead of just merely “lacking a belief” in God. But such an affirmative belief is not required to be an atheist.

So, what is an atheist? An atheist is any of the following:

• Somebody who simply lacks a belief in any sort of god whatsoever is an atheist.


• Somebody who affirmatively believes there is no sort of god whatsoever is an atheist.


• Somebody who lacks a belief in any sort of god whatsoever, but is willing to admit there’s no way to know for sure whether or not any gods actually exist, is an atheist.


• Somebody who affirmatively believes there is no sort of god whatsoever, but is willing to admit there’s no way to know for sure whether or not any gods actually exist, is an atheist.


• Somebody who lacks a belief in any sort of god whatsoever and also believes that, if any gods actually did exist, there would actually be a way to know for sure that they did, is an atheist.


• Somebody who affirmatively believes there is no sort of god whatsoever and also believes that, if any gods actually did exist, there would actually be a way to know for sure that they did, is an atheist.


• Somebody who believes so strongly that none of the traditional gods worshiped by major world religions exist that he feels it is something he knows as much as he can know anything, but is willing to admit that there could possibly be some sort of totally useless “Deist” god that started the universe rolling and then completely failed to interact with the universe since then, is an atheist.


• Somebody who thinks the whole “Deist” god idea is just as unsupported by evidence as any other concept of God and believes so strongly that there is no sort of god whatsoever that he feels it is something he knows as much as he can know anything, is an atheist.


• And, finally, somebody who just really doesn’t think anything about God or gods one way or another, who neither believes nor disbelieves and honestly just doesn’t care one way or another, is an atheist. It’s like asking people whether they think stamp collecting is the best hobby or not, and for some people it just isn’t a meaningful question since they have never actually spent any time thinking about stamps whatsoever.

Or, to put it another way, a theist is somebody who believes in a god of some sort. If that description does not apply to you, regardless of what you may or may not believe, you are an atheist. Period.

The Note Paper of Barry

1. Behold, this is the Note Paper of Barry.
2. For verily, it was written by Barry.
3. Now, I say unto you that Barry is all-powerful, all-knowing and utterly infallible.
4. Yea, and everything written by Him is completely true.
5. "But," the fool might ask in his heart, "how can I know that Barry is all-powerful, all-knowing and utterly infallible"?
6. Behold! This Note Paper says He is, and everything written on this Note Paper is completely true.
7. "But," the unwise might ask in his heart, "how can I know that everything written on this Note Paper is completely true"?
8. Verily, I say unto you, this Note Paper was written by Barry, who is all-powerful, all-knowing and utterly infallible.

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[Just in case anybody doesn’t get the joke, some Christians claim that the Bible is the infallible, perfect word of God, which we can know is true because it says so right there in the Bible. Oh — and we know that God is infallible and incapable of lying because it says that in the Bible as well. So if we know the Bible is true because it is the word of God, and we know it is the word of God because the Bible says it is…]

The Ontological Argument for the Existence of God

I have previously discussed some of the classic arguments offered to “prove” the existence of God, including The Argument from Design, The Cosmological Argument, The Fine Tuned Universe and Pascal’s Wager, so I figured I should briefly touch on the so-called “Ontological” argument for the sake of completeness. I have avoided talking about this argument in the past because (a) as originally formulated the argument seems so laughably inadequate that it really doesn’t bear much discussion and (b) modern formulations of the argument add so much jargon and technical word-play that it can be very difficult to even understand what the argument actually is by the time you finish reading it. I will admit, however, that the original ontological argument was seen as significant enough in the past that numerous famous philosophers such as Kant, Hume and even Saint Thomas Aquinas took the time to object to it, so perhaps it’s not as laughably inadequate as it appears to me.

As originally formulated by theologian and philosopher Anselm of Canterbury (1033–1109), the ontological argument is as follows:

1. It is a conceptual truth (or, so to speak, true by definition) that God is a being than which none greater can be imagined (that is, the greatest possible being that can be imagined).
2. God exists as an idea in the mind.
3. A being that exists as an idea in the mind and in reality is, other things being equal, greater than a being that exists only as an idea in the mind.
4. Thus, if God exists only as an idea in the mind, then we can imagine something that is greater than God (that is, a greatest possible being that does exist).
5. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God (for it is a contradiction to suppose that we can imagine a being greater than the greatest possible being that can be imagined.)
6. Therefore, God exists.

He later restated this same argument slightly differently:

1. By definition, God is a being than which none greater can be imagined.
2. A being that necessarily exists in reality is greater than a being that does not necessarily exist.
3. Thus, by definition, if God exists as an idea in the mind but does not necessarily exist in reality, then we can imagine something that is greater than God.
4. But we cannot imagine something that is greater than God.
5. Thus, if God exists in the mind as an idea, then God necessarily exists in reality.
6. God exists in the mind as an idea.
7. Therefore, God necessarily exists in reality.

As we all know (or should know by now) an argument is only as good as its premises, and a perfectly valid argument can be completely unsound if the premises are not actually true.

The first premise of the ontological argument is that, by definition, God is the greatest possible being that can be imagined. This sinks the entire argument right from the start, since it is defining God as “the greatest possible thing that can be imagined” without actually providing any empirical evidence that this is the case. It is also setting up a wholly circular argument by arbitrarily defining God as a being that embodies the very characteristic that will later be used to prove His existence. You might as well define “unicorns” as “the beings responsible for the color blue” and then claim that the existence of the color blue is therefore proof that unicorns exist. This is simply defining God into existence, since we don’t actually know what God is like even if He were to exist and it basically amounts to an argument that states, “God, by definition, exists; therefore He exists.”

The second premise that a being that exists (or “necessarily exists,” if you prefer) is more perfect than one that doesn’t exist is yet another assertion without any evidence to support it. How does one even define “perfect” in the first place? If I want to go all Platonic, should I start claiming that the “perfect” concept of a chair, to which all actual chairs are merely compared to in our mind, must somehow actually exist somewhere or else it can’t actually be “perfect”? Of course not. “Perfection” is, in many cases, an ideal that does not actually exist and there is no requirement to think that something must exist in order to be considered perfect. Just asserting that something that exists is “more perfect” than something that is only a concept doesn’t make it so.

Aside from the fact that this entire argument is nothing more than an attempt to define God into existence, however, this argument suffers from the same problem as many of the other arguments I mentioned above. To wit, at most all these arguments can possibly prove is that some sort of supreme being exists and not the actual “God” that is actually worshiped by those who would use these argument to prove their God’s existence. The God supposedly proved by these arguments is not the God that answers prayers, performs miracles, provides revelation, rewards the faithful, punishes sinners, gives us a set of objective morals, tells us the way to live our lives, etc. It is a nebulous description of God that could apply equally to the God worshiped by any religion, and therefore cannot be used to prove the existence of the God worshiped by any specific religion. It’s the ultimate bait and switch.

Which is Easier to Believe, that Life Was created by God or by Chance?

OK, this question gets asked a lot by theists in a lot of different ways. At its core, it’s simply a form of the classic “Argument from Design” that I addressed here:

The Argument from Design

But let’s look at this from a slightly different perspective, shall we?

Time and again, we see theists claiming that it is just too improbable or inconceivable to imagine that life could have originated “by chance” and therefore the most reasonable explanation is that it was created by the omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect God described by the particular religion of which they happen to be a member.

Unfortunately for theists, the life we see on earth is far from what we would actually expect to see if it were actually created by an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect God, the way we would expect to see a finely crafted watch from a master watchmaker. Instead of perfection and fine craftsmanship, we see eyes that have blind spots, vestigial organs that occasionally burst open and kill us, cells that periodically start reproducing uncontrollably (cancer), a propensity for genetic flaws that cause all sorts of diseases such as Downs Syndrome and Tay-Sachs disease, a whole system that gradually breaks down as you get older, etc., etc., etc. So much for “fine craftsmanship,” eh?

And that’s just the human condition! Sure, it’s pretty amazing that plants and animals so closely depend on each other for survival and it’s so cool that bees are attracted to beautiful flowers who need the bees to spread their pollen. What a great design! How perfect! But then you also have the fact that there are parasites that have to lay their eggs in living hosts so their larva can hatch and eat their way out to survive. Not quite so beautiful and perfect. And then there’s the whole predator/pray relationship where some animals have to brutally kill other animals to survive (and the prey animals have to be brutally killed in order to not overpopulate and starve to death). And don’t forget that the rest of the animal kingdom also gets nasty diseases and suffer accidents and experience pain and agony. Oh, look — A Tasmanian Devil with face cancer:

[Where’s the perfect design in all of that?]

As a result, theists find themselves in the position of coming up with a whole bunch of additional justifications and rationalizations as to why life is so flawed when it was supposedly created by a perfect being, including one or more of the following:

• All of nature used to be perfect before Adam sinned and caused the entire universe to enter a fallen state. Which means, what, God is a sadistic bastard who set up a system whereby ALL OF NATURE would need to suffer for the sins of one person instead of just punishing that one person?
• God specifically gave us these flawed bodies to provide us with obstacles in life to be overcome or to test our faith or some other reason known only to him because he works in mysterious ways. And I guess all those cute, furry animals that die horrible agonizing deaths also have important lessons to learn as well, huh?
• It doesn’t matter whether life is flawed right now, since life is but a twinkling of an eye compared to all eternity and we’ll all have perfect bodies in the next life.
• “You are assuming the human body can be better designed under these circumstances. Maybe it can’t. You are also assuming it is not a work in progress. You can probably imagine the first watches were not fine tuned machines.” [An actual response I received from a theist, who apparently thinks an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect being needs theists like him to make excuses for His shoddy workmanship and who doesn’t understand what “omnipotent” actually means.]

It doesn’t matter what your personal favorite justification is. The point is that, despite what theists claim, the evidence of our senses does not automatically give us reason to believe in the sort of God that most theists claim to believe in (omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect) and theists MUST tack on other conditions for which there is no evidence.

Naturalism (or “atheism”, if you insist), on the other hand, requires no such additional caveats and conditions and justifications to be believable. We know from observation that there are natural laws that govern how the universe works. And, although we may not have perfect knowledge of every natural law, there is no reason not to believe that those laws can explain every single observed phenomenon, including the origin of life itself.

So, which is easier to believe? That the natural world evolved to be the way it is — warts and all — due to purely the natural processes that govern the universe, or that the natural world was designed by an omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving and perfect God who, for some reason we can’t quite figure out, decided to make the world look as if it had evolved to be the way it is — warts and all — due to purely the natural processes that govern the universe? My money is on the former.

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One final thought. To many theists, there are only two options — either life was created “by God” or else it happened “by chance.” And “by chance” apparently means completely randomly, entirely by coincidence, etc. This is a false dichotomy, however. “By chance” in this context simply means without being directed by any sort of intelligence, yet still according to natural laws that guide and constrain the outcome.