Atheism Without Theism?

A while back, I was engaged in a conversation with a theist who kept trying to get me to acknowledge that atheists maintain that the billions of people throughout all of human history who believe in God were all wrong. This was obviously poorly veiled argumentum ad populum and I refused to play his game according to his rules. Instead, I kept pointing out that the majority of theists also maintain that the billions of people throughout all of human history who believe in God were all wrong, since they worship the wrong God, or belong to the wrong religion, sect, denomination, etc. Every time he tried to argue that there must be something to this whole God belief if everybody accepted it except for a small percentage of atheists, I pointed out that every single theist was also part of a small group of people who disagreed with everybody else, so there’s nothing special about atheists rejecting all other beliefs as invalid.

Well, after going back and forth like this for awhile, getting more and more frustrated at my unwillingness to play his game and concede his point, he finally said something that just made my jaw drop in amazement:

What other people believe has nothing to do with the question asked. Deflection to what theists believe is nothing more than a rationalization. You don't base your atheism on what theists believe, do you?

Seriously?

SERIOUSLY???

I mean, I know that theists like to claim that atheism is its own belief system and all, but this is just ridiculous. Of course atheists base their atheism on what theists believe. That’s the whole point! Atheism literally means “not theism” and is nothing more, nor less, than a reaction to and rejection of what theists assert to be true. Theists say, “There is a God” and atheists respond, “I don’t believe you.” If no theist ever talked about God in the first place, there would be no such thing as atheists. How can atheist know what it is that we don’t believe in unless somebody else first tells us about it? Can you disbelieve in Santa Claus or Elves or the Loch Ness Monster if nobody has first told you what they are?

I dunno. I’m used to theists constantly trying to shift the burden of proof to make their arguments seem less irrational (“Atheists can’t prove that God doesn’t exist, so their belief in no God is just as faith-based as our belief in God”). And I’m used to theists constantly trying to portray atheism as some sort of “belief system” instead of simply a lack of belief. But it never occurred to me that somebody would actually complain that atheists dare to define their lack of belief according to what other people believe in.

What a world.

The Incomprehensible and/or Imperceptible God

In a previous post I wrote about the hypocrisy and hubris evidenced by people who claim to be the only ones who “really” understand what the Bible actually says (see The Hypocrisy and Hubris of Biblical Interpretation). The basic point was that it was incredibly arrogant for anybody to think that (a) God actually wants people to know what He wants people to do and (b) throughout all of human history nobody has been able to figure it out until now (meaning, of course, that billions of people in the past got it all wrong and were presumably doomed to go to Hell as a result).

On a related note, I have recently run into a similar group of incredibly arrogant theists. No, they don’t claim to understand the Bible better than anybody else. Instead, they claim to understand the essential nature of God better than anybody else. God, you see, is wholly incomprehensible to the human mind and therefore every single religion throughout history that has ever described God in any particular way just got it wrong.

For example:

As “God”, by the very nature of it’s defined and understood being, exists outside of the physical Universe, there will be no exclusively applicable, scientifically validated or accepted physical or empirical “evidence” of the existence of God.

Or this:

God is an inner experience that no words can explain. The one Creator God created all other gods (small “g”) including the ones you named. None are equal to the Creator God who created them.

The truth of God can be known only by reaching beyond the relativity of the material realm consciousness. It is an inner experience perceived when the human’s consciousness is raised to its higher mind.

Those who meditate know of the higher mind. There are no outer writings or teachings that can explain God for the conscious mind of the human and no religion is necessary for the inner experience of God. When the human is ready the teacher will appear. That teacher is the inner experience of God.

Now, as I mentioned, this appears to be just another example of people who are so full of themselves, who think they are so special, that they honestly believe that they are among the select few in the history of religion to truly understand who and what God “really” is. I’m sure it makes them feel good about themselves, but what type of person can believe in a God who actually cares about us and then thinks that billions of humans throughout history just got it wrong.

However, I think there may be more to it than just sheer arrogance. I suspect that at least part of this has to do with an acknowledgement that there really is no valid evidence to support a belief in the existence of God. And rather than just admit this, these people have decided to redefine God in a way that does not require any evidence. As with the deist notion of a non-interventionist God, however, what’s left is an empty meaningless concept of a god who doesn’t perform miracles, doesn’t promise an afterlife or salvation, doesn’t provide moral guidance, etc. It’s just yet another cop-out to justify why they can’t provide any evidence for God’s existence.

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Of course, one question that never seems to get fully addressed is how, if God is so incomprehensible, do people like this seem to know so much about Him what He wants us to do, what He can do for us, etc. Now that’s the real mystery! For example, somebody recently posed the following question to me:

If the maker of a show is not inside the shoe, why do scientists expect God to be perceivable inside the universe?

The clear implication being, of course, that the reason scientists have never been able to detect God is because He is not actually perceptible within this universe. Oh, really? The thing is, if you’re actually talking about one of the many, many gods actually worshiped by anybody throughout all of recorded human history, its not scientists who expect “God” to be perceivable but believers themselves. After all, the gods that people actually worship have not exactly been shy about showing themselves (or allowing themselves to be perceived, if you prefer) in the past, at least if you believe all the various accounts in the various holy books that provide the only source of knowledge that believers actually have regarding their gods.

It’s rather disingenuous to claim that the particular “God” you worship created the universe, performed a multitude of miracles, talked to various people, sent down representatives to interact with humans, made specific promises, provided moral guidelines for us to follow, etc., etc., etc., and then go on to claim that this “God” cannot be perceived in any way. After all, if your “God” cannot be perceived in any way, how do you even know about it in the first place?

Sure, if you define your “God” as wholly imperceptible, then science has nothing to say on the matter. But then again, neither do you. That’s what imperceptible means. On the other hand, the minute you claim to be able know anything whatsoever about your “God” (what it has said, done, promised, etc.), then you are making testable claims that should be verifiable by scientists.

Sorry, Deists — Your God Doesn’t Exist Either

In most of my discussions about God and whether or not there is any good reason to believe God exists I have focused on the various concepts of God that people actually worship, since those concepts of God are described as having specific characteristics and as having done and promised to do specific things. As such, those concepts of God make testable claims that we should be able to verify and for which there should be an abundance of reliable and objective evidence, so the complete lack of reliable and objective evidence and the fact that the various claims can and have been proven to be false is, in itself, compelling evidence that those concepts of God do not, in fact, exist. See, for example, Absence of Evidence IS Evidence of Absence. 

With such a focus on evidence and counter-evidence, however, I have often more or less given a pass to the concept of the so-called “Deist” God. The Deist God is described as the Creator of the Universe (as with most theistic concepts of God), but with the qualification that this Creator simply set the universe in motion and then let it run on its own ever since with absolutely no further interference whatsoever. This means that the Deist God has never revealed itself to humanity in any way, does not perform miracles, does not provide moral guidance, does not promise salvation, etc. And the reason I have more or less given a pass to this concept of God is basically because it seems to be a wholly irrelevant concept. I have even gone so far as to say that, while I am an atheist with regard to standard concepts of God, I would consider myself to be agnostic with regard to the Deist God, since there’s neither evidence for nor evidence against a God who, by its very nature, does not interact with the universe in any way.

Well, that was then and this is now. After giving the matter a lot of thought, I’m finally ready to assert that I know that the Deist God does not exist to the same extent that I know that all other concepts of God do not exist (which is to say, as much as I can claim to know anything in life, including that I am a conscious being, that I only have one head on my shoulders, that the earth is round and rotates, etc.). Some of the reasons for why I know this are included in another recent post (No, I Don’t Need to Explore the Entire Universe to Be an Atheist), but I thought it would be helpful to put them all into a post of their own and expand a bit on my reasoning. And please keep in mind that the following is not offered as any sort of “proof” that the Deist God does not exist, but simply to explain why I can now feel confident that I know that it does not exist, to the same level of confidence that I claim to be able to know anything.

First of all, many modern Deists like to claim that Deism is wholly separate from the ancient superstitions that produced every other concept of God, whether it be the Sumerian gods, the ancient Greek and Roman gods, the Egyptian gods, the Norse gods, or even the God of the Bible. “Those gods are all based on ignorant superstition,” they like to say, “but our concept of God is derived from wholly logical and rational considerations of the universe.” Except, this claim is not actually supported by the history of modern Deism:

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.

— Deism - Wikipedia

In other words, Deism was clearly a response to the prevailing concepts of God that were rooted in ancient superstitions and not some sort of de novo theology that came up with the idea of God from first principles and careful consideration of the universe. Or, to put it yet another way, 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. As a result, if we can dismiss all the mainstream theist concepts of God as the product of ignorant superstitions, we can also 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.

Second of all, since the Deist God — by definition — does not interact with the universe in any detectable way whatsoever, the only way in which Deists can claim to know that such a God exists in the first place is through various logical and philosophical arguments. And every single one of those arguments is flawed. 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), 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 independent evidence.

There have been many, many refutations of the various Deist arguments for the existence of God over the years, but here are some of my own personal attempts:

• God of the Gaps
• The Argument from Design
• The Cosmological Argument
• The Fine Tuned Universe

To quote the late, great Christopher Hitchens, “That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” Deists acknowledge that there neither is nor can there be any direct observable evidence for the existence of their God, and all of their philosophical arguments are based on flawed premises that by necessity lead to incorrect conclusions.

Finally, even if the Deist God weren’t rooted in the same ignorant superstitions as mainstream theist concepts of God, and even if the various Deist arguments weren’t fatally flawed, the Deist God requires a belief in a logically impossible “supernatural” being of some sort that somehow exists “outside of space and time” and that is made made of neither matter nor energy (yet is somehow able to interact with matter and energy at least with regard to creating both). Can I “prove” that nothing supernatural exists? No, but I assert that the term itself is meaningless (a “one word oxymoron” as some have been known to say) and therefore I know (again, to the same degree that I claim to know anything) that the Deist God does not and cannot possibly exist. For more on this, see:

• Why the Word “Supernatural” Is Meaningless
• The Logical Impossibility of God

Of course, your mileage may vary, but this is what I know to be true and why I feel confident saying that I know it to be true.

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.