Of all the arguments for an against atheism, the most ill-informed is surely
It takes just as much faith to be an atheist as a theist.
This, of course, is patently ridiculous. Â Being an atheist requires no faith, not even a little bit. Â I have to respond to this argument point so regularly I thought I’d come up with a handy chart for future reference.
Click the image to enlarge.
It’s so easy when you put it out in Matrix Form. Â But just to make it that little bit easier I thought I’d add some helpful labels, so let’s explore those briefly.
Christians – The majority of modern Christians are fairly easy to pigeon hole on this matrix. Â They believe in their God, yet there is no evidence for it. Â There is no evidence against it, but there is no evidence supporting their position. Â It’s all faith.
Creationists – Creationists occupy a place in this matrix I’ve labelled “Extreme Faith Required”. Â Unlike your run of the mill Christian, creationists choose not to believe in something despite the fact there is a mountain of evidence supporting it. Â Evolutionary theory, the big bang, the origin of the species, all have supporting evidence, all of which is dismissed. Â This isn’t choosing to believe in something which is questionable, this is wantonly ignoring evidence and embracing ignorance.
Atheists – Atheists, or at least true atheists, have no need for faith. Â If there is evidence for something, we believe it. Â If there is no evidence for something, then we treat it with a healthy degree of scepticism to the point of not believing until evidence presents itself. Â To see how I fit in to this, you can read what would make me believe in a a God.
I hope this clears some things up. Â The take away, quite simply, is that it requires no faith to not believe in something for which there is absolutely no evidence.
Do you believe that the univers / matter arose from natural causes? Do you have proof or faith?
Do you believe that matter / universe is eternal? Do you have proof or faith?
Do you believe that there can be an infinite regress of cause? Do you have proof or faith?
Do you believe that the supernatural does not exist? Do you have proof or faith?
Do I believe that the universe arose from natural causes? As opposed to unnatural? Well we know that we can get matter from energy, so it’s likely that this is what happened during the big bang. Of course, that’s judging probability based on knowns. Ultimately, I don’t know.
Eternal in what sense?
Regress of cause is a logical issue that only exists within the constraints of our known universe. As you mentioned, the universe has not always been around so those constraints may not have existed. But again, I don’t know, but you can see my thoughts on the matter here: The Question of Origin.
I have seen absolutely no evidence of anything paranormal, so much like any form of deity, I do not believe it exists. And surely, if there were evidence for something you would consider paranormal, would not be just “normal”?
The difference between an atheist and a theist is that we are open to the fact that we don’t know things. By being comfortable with this, it allows us to go out and explore, to seek the truth. We do not expect an ancient holy book or an invisible sky monster to provide the answers.
It has been some time since I visited this site, and it is interesting to revisit it and see that there is only one real point that Atheist continues to make without (seemingly) tiring of it: that there is no evidence (and therefore no good reason) for belief in God.
I do think it quite interesting that Atheist wants to have things both ways, however. It appears that some atheists have evidence (for no God) and some do not and this is perfectly acceptable.
There is another flaw in the chart that is more serious, and highlights the real problem here. Let us imagine that a particular group of theists did think that they had some evidence for God’s existence. Surely they should tick the “believe” box and therefore locate themselves in the top left corner?
But the description on that corner is: “No faith required.” And it is very important to understand that this would be quite right. If you have evidence you don’t need faith: you have proof, or at least good reason. Thus, the bottom left hand box is inaccurate. If you accept that there is sufficient evidence against a theory to prove it wrong, it is actually impossible to “believe” it. Try it: try to make yourself “believe” that “3+2=4”. The point, of course, is that if you have decided that it is not possible for something to be true, you can not also decide to “believe” that it is true.
Faith, then, has nothing to do with the left side of the chart. If you have evidence, you don’t need faith. On the contrary, it appears to be a choice in the dark: if you have no evidence (either way) then you simply make a choice whether you believe or not. It is in this sense that believers can say that atheists (at least the ones in the bottom right hand corner of the diagram) have faith. Faced with what they perceive to be a lack of evidence either way, they make a choice for atheism as opposed to, say, agnosticism, which simply accepts the truly logical consequence of lack of evidence: to be open-minded about the issue until evidence turns up to settle the issue. Agnostics argue that they are simply refusing to leap to conclusions without good reason as both theists and atheists do. In short, this definition of “belief” is what you do if you conclude without enough warrant: in other words, the right side of the chart.
Blind choice, however, is not what faith means in the traditional Christian sense (though I am sure that there are some curious sects which think it is). The novelty that Christianity introduced to the Judaic religion from which it sprang, is the claim of a man that he was also God, and it is precisely this (and not the existence of God per se) that is proposed for belief. Belief is therefore more akin to “trust in a person” than “theory not yet proved”. And this is also what it means in every day language, and is the main source of all our knowledge. Most of us simply accepted from our teachers that Alpha Centauri exists (or even that Mars does). Thus we “believed” our teachers, and accepted that the star and planet both exist. On the other hand, we do not “believe” that the moon exists… we can see it for ourselves.
The take away (sorry I couldn’t resist) is that belief is relational: it is not about whether God exists, but whether Jesus/Moses/Muhammed/Buddha are trustworthy witnesses. Actually this list illustrates the precise reason that Christianity puts such a premium on faith (unlike any other religion): it’s central tenet is precisely Jesus’ claim to divinity. Similarly, to decide whether you believe in Christianity, you need to read the New Testament and ask yourself if you believe the claims of its chief protagonist, and not argue about whether the cosmological argument for the existence of God is valid (which it is by the way).
To say that you, Atheist, don’t need faith is ridiculous. And to say that faith is believing in something despite the evidence is also absurd. I don’t know any Christian who describes faith that way and you can also read throughout 2,000 years of history what the Church Fathers thought about faith. None of them believed in “blind” faith.
On to my first statement. Atheist need faith. Now, first lets define faith, according to Webster’s Dictionary.
Pronunciation: \ˈfÄth\
Function: noun
Inflected Form(s): plural faiths \ˈfÄths, sometimes ˈfÄthz\
Etymology: Middle English feith, from Anglo-French feid, fei, from Latin fides; akin to Latin fidere TO TRUST — more at bide
Date: 13th century
1 a : allegiance to duty or a person : loyalty b (1) : fidelity to one’s promises (2) : sincerity of intentions
2 a (1) : belief and trust in and loyalty to God (2) : belief in the traditional doctrines of a religion b (1) : firm belief in something for which there is no proof (2) : complete trust
3 : something that is believed especially with strong conviction; especially : a system of religious beliefs
synonyms SEE BELIEF.
So, according the the definition of faith it is a belief and trust in something. When you drive over a bridge, you have faith that it will hold your car and not crumble. So, even though you have evidence that bridges don’t normally crumble, you still need faith to know that the bridge you are about to cross won’t, in fact, fall to the ground. And this is important to keep in mind because there have been bridges that have collapsed with cars on it.
Another form of faith is in an atheist believing that their beliefs are justifiably true and rational. You have no absolute proof that your beliefs or even rationality are true, especially in context to naturalism because there is no basis for true beliefs. So you have faith in that you believe that the you know truth and that you are able to rationally understand the universe.
Again, you have faith that your friends or family love you. You can’t know with certainty that they do in fact love you. The evidence itself doesn’t say they love you. The evidence doesn’t say anything. It’s the interpretation of the evidence that says something. So they could say they love you and be kind towards you but inside they could actually not love you (and i am definately not saying this is the case with any of you, i am just using it as an illustration) and you would not know.
There is so much of everyday reality, including science itself, that is taken on faith. Science presupposes that we are able to rationally discern true aspects of the universe. But that takes faith because there is no way to actually know, in a naturalistic worldview, that we are truly rational beings. And we can take the theory of evolution as an example of faith. We don’t have certainty that evolution is true because we weren’t there to see life-forms come into existence from non-life or even simple cells evolving into more complex life-forms. Now, science uses evidence from different areas (i.e., paleontology, geology, biology, etc..)to form a theory (or belief). Now that needs faith, because, as we see faith is described as belief.
So, i really wish atheists would stop saying that they don’t have or need faith. It’s just plain false. (You even have to use faith that a real person wrote this post and it wasn’t just random chance that words appeared on the screen!).
I am interested in your comment that atheist have no need for faith. I find in my discussions with atheists who rely on science for their arguments, depend on faith. Inevitably, at some point in the discourse on how we evolved, a series of “chance†or “random events†are mentioned. These are always glossed over as we have to accept if we are to believe in science. But, how random? What are the chances?
I have never heard an atheist, or even a scientist quantify the probability. Why is this? Could it be because the numbers are so huge? Perhaps it should be expressed in terms of chances of winning the UK National Lottery (1:14,000,000).
So for example the probability of earth being in the optimum location in our solar system to sustain life, for there to be the right balance of liquid water, climate and chemicals for life to start, might be described as “you are more likely to win the lottery every week for 6 months†or whatever the probability is. Obviously that is a bit of a mouthful so perhaps it could be reduced to a unit of measurement. Something like, a LWQ or LQ standing for Lottery Win Quotient or for Lottery Quotient. So, Richard Dawkins’ explanation of how the eye evolved might be described as having an LQ of 36, meaning it is equivalent to 36 straight wins. Then we would know the probability and the plausibility of the theory.
It seems to me that if you are going to argue for evolution from an atheistic point of view, the whole edifice of your argument has its foundations in chance. So is it fair to say, “Atheists, or at least true atheists, have no need for faith†when actually what you are saying is “In Chance we trustâ€.
Reagrds,
Matt