Is Atheism Rational?

Is atheism rational? That's the question a religious friend asked me recently. He did it by emailing me a rather long and dreary document which purported to demonstrate that atheism actually isn't rational. He asked me to post it here on my blog. My blog is intended for my own thoughts and commentary, not religious propaganda, but I will post it here (at least parts of it) but will also provide commentary on why most of it isn't true or is at least misleading.

The document started with some quotes. The first one was this: "When a man ceases to believe in God he does not believe in nothing, he believes almost in anything. - G.K. Chesterton".

Many quotes are very clever and often even true, but a quote by itself is worthless when trying to establish the truth of anything. I cannot imagine any way that this one could be justified. There is a strong link between atheism and skepticism and in my experience atheists tend to have far less belief in controversial topics than religious people. So the truth is the exact opposite of what the quote implies.

So that wasn't a good start and the other quotes included weren't much better, but lets move on to the real content of the document.

It started with this: "If there is a God, why are there atheists? Why do people call themselves atheists? What makes atheism so fashionable these days? There was a time when the numbers of atheists were few and fleeting but today atheism is massively popular in terms of media attention and book sales."

Is this the most blatant case of "begging the question" ever? This treatise claims to show atheism is irrational and it's first statement is that god exists. Yeah sure, if god exists I guess atheism is irrational but that's just the point: does god exist? The evidence indicates the answer is "no".

So starting with such a ridiculously obvious case of a logical fallacy did not bode well for the rest of the document but I did persist (as much to see what other fallacies would be forthcoming as anything else).

The next significant point was made like this: "Atheism is an interesting subject for study. Why are the atheists so passionate and obsessed with the non-being of God? Why do many of them devote a lifetime of religious zeal and commitment to the ideals of atheism?".

I agree that atheists have become far more prominent recently but many of the passionate arguments are simply as a result of attacks by believers. Look at what I am writing now as an example. I didn't start the debate, I simply responded to an ill considered attack by my religious opponent. Another point is that religious belief causes a huge amount of trouble in the modern world so many people (me included) feel it's our obligation to fight against it. When I see the evil and stupidity that religion causes I feel quite justified in becoming passionate about opposing it.

So moving on, the next point was this: "Atheism does not rest on a proven belief but rather on the unsupported assumption that there is no God..."

It seems to me that this is a straw man argument (I knew I'd see more logical fallacies). There may be some atheists who just assume there is no god but I don't know any. All the atheists I know and all those I have read about don't think that at all. Instead, they require objective evidence to believe anything and see insufficient evidence to support god. There's no objection to the actual idea of god, just the rejection of his existence based on current evidence.

Just to reinforce the incorrect assumption there is this: "Who is an atheist? An atheist is one who rejects any belief in God."

If you are going to get something wrong I guess you might as well get it wrong over and over. It doesn't seem to matter how many times believers' false ideas are corrected they continue to use them. One characteristic I have noted in believers is the failure to learn from their mistakes. That is very evident here.

Next there's a quote from Robert Blatchford, a British atheist: "I claim that the heavenly Father is a myth; that in the face of a knowledge of life and the world, we cannot reasonably believe in Him. There is no heavenly Father watching tenderly over us, His children. He is the baseless shadow of a wistful human dream. I do not believe in a God. The belief in a God is still generally accepted. ... But, in the light of scientific discoveries and demonstrations, such a belief is unfounded and utterly untenable today."

I think that statement actually sums up many atheists' thoughts quite well. But notice that it doesn't say the idea of god is rejected a priori, it says that the evidence isn't there so the god story should be rejected. Implied but not stated is the additional idea that, should the evidence change in future, then the conclusion that god doesn't exist might also change.

The next statement is also interesting: "Atheism as we know it in the West is not merely lack of belief in, but rather an attack on God; only where God has been seen as real and personal can much energy be generated in the cause of rebellion against Him." (attributed to an American theologian).

Notice the disingenuous trick here where lack of belief is used as evidence for the existence of god? I'm afraid this is the level of debate many theologians resort to. The fact is that atheists don't believe in a god but their rebellion is against religion, not god. Religion exists whether god does or not so again this line of reasoning is totally bogus.

Next comes this: "Another way of putting it is: an atheist is someone who, after studying Philosophy, Theology, History, Religion, Psychology, Biology, Archaeology, Anthropology, Sociology, etc., and searching every space of the universe, thinks he has found conclusive evidence that God does not exist. He has inspected the heavenly throne and found it to be empty!"

I'm sorry to have to have to say it again but this is a straw man argument. Atheists don't think they have conclusive proof there is no god, they think there is insufficient evidence to believe that one exists. If a religious person didn't believe in the tooth fairy would we criticise them because haven't looked for her in every possible location? No. It's up to the person making the claim of the existence of something to show the evidence, not for non-believers to prove the negative.

While we are on the subject of straw man arguments, what about the next section which tries to present the "dogma" of atheism...

The first claimed point of dogma is that "There is no God." This is no more a point of dogma than claiming that there is no Loch Ness monster is a point of dogma. If I was shown evidence for either a god or the monster I would then believe. It's not dogma, it's just common sense.

The next is more interesting. It's that "There is no objective Truth." At this point we get into philosophical musings about the nature of reality and (importantly) the meanings of the words used in the question. What exactly is an objective Truth? (note the upper case letter on that word, usually a sign they mean anything but the truth!). I'm not going to attempt to answer the question here but it's a separate philosophical point from the existence of god anyway.

The same criticism applies to the next point: "There is no ground for Reason." What this means would depend on individual interpretations of the question in a similar way to the question above so further discussion is rather pointless.

The next three are more interesting: "There is no absolute Morals." and "There is no ultimate Value." and "There is no ultimate Meaning."

Obviously the author is implying that a supernatural entity is required to provide these absolutes. That depends partly on your definitions but it's also possible for them to arise through natural means. Humans do have common moral beliefs because these naturally arise in a social species. They aren't technically absolute but they are universal (except in exceptional, generally psychologically disturbed individuals). A similar argument can apply to value and meaning.

But even if you don't accept the argument about absolute morals it still doesn't affect the validity of atheism because the possible lack of absolute morals in atheism is a value judgement and cannot be used as an argument for or against it's inherent truth. Also it should be noted that absolute morals arising from god can only be supported if you think god exists. So an argument which requires a god to exist can hardly be used as an argument that a god exists. That's real circular logic!

I have a bit more acceptance of the next point: "There is no eternal Hope." (again note the use of capitals implying a particular variant of the word "hope").

Sure, I agree, there is no eternal hope. I assume here that eternal hope means the wish for a permanent state of life after death. Atheists think we die and that's the end. They also think the Universe itself will eventually run out of energy. There is no eternal hope and that's a fact which arises from modern physics. But should we believe in a myth which does provide eternal hope when it's clearly untrue?

Unfortunately after agreeing on that point I disagree with the next. It's that: "Every religion has its apostles and prophets, and atheism is no exception. Its high priests, preachers, and prophets are all actively preaching the faith of atheism in every country around the world." It then goes on to talk about the person every religious fanatic loves to hate: Richard Dawkins!

Since a religion (by the most widely accepted definition) is belief in a supernatural entity and atheism is the lack of belief in that same thing it's bizarre that atheism should be labelled a religion. Still, it doesn't matter how often you point this out, they still keep making the claim. It's also odd that, since these people are religious themselves, they should use the idea of atheism as being a religion as a point against it!

There's pages of more irrelevant philosophical discussion which really adds nothing to the argument so I'll skip it here. Maybe the next interesting point is criticism of Richard Dawkins (again) because he criticises religion without (allegedly) understanding the subject. I think there is some validity in this argument but why not say specifically what Dawkins has said which they disagree with? That rarely seems to happen, maybe because, despite his lack of formal expertise in the area, Dawkins makes some very good points which are hard to refute.

The next points I want to discuss are where the author picks out some arguments which he attributes to atheists in general...

First: "The existence of God is incompatible with the existence of evil". I don't think this is a commonly held belief. It's true that it's difficult to reconcile an omnipotent, omniscient, good god with the existence of evil but the argument probably shouldn't be taken any further. If any atheist has stated that it should then I think he's wrong, but that doesn't make atheism wrong.

Next: "God is a projection of man’s imagination (Feuerbach)." I would tend to agree, except I would change it to "the concept of god" because god himself probably doesn't exist.

Then: "Since God cannot be scientifically demonstrated, God cannot exist (Flew)." This is an interesting one. In many ways I would agree because there's really nothing else we claim the existence of yet cannot demonstrate scientifically. But the word "cannot" is probably ill advised. Maybe I would re-word this as "if god cannot be proven scientifically then its reasonable to conclude that he doesn't exist."

And: "People believe in God because they are culturally conditioned (Freud)." There's no doubt that this is part of the explanation. After all, people believe in specific gods depending on the country they were born in. But I dont think it's the whole story because there does seem to be a more innate tendency to believe in supernatural entities.

And: "The idea of God is nonsensical like the idea of square-circles (Matson)." This seems like a rather weak argument and I don't know anyone who currently believes it. As I have said many times: the objection is that there is no credible evidence supporting god, not that god can't exist based on any logical or philosophical argument.

And: "If God made the world who made God? (Russell)". This does seem like a good point to me. The usual excuse is that god has existed forever. If he did then what was he doing before he created the universe? Another excuse is that god exists "outside time" but no one seems to be able to explain exactly what this means and most theologies seem to involve god acting in a way where he is constrained by time (7 day creation, etc).

Finally: "Since there is no evidence of God’s existence, God does not exist (Kaufmann)." I don't know anyone who would put it quite like that. What I (and every other atheist I know) would say is that there is no evidence for god's existence therefore we conclude that he doesn't exists unless further evidence becomes available. Note that there's nothing absolute about that but it's the way almost all atheists think. Saying that atheism involves absolute rejection of god is a straw man.

The final section claims that atheism is an unsatisfying or even a painful belief. For some people that's possibly true but all indicators of happiness and other factors indicate little difference between believers and non-believers. So even this last objection can be consigned to the rubbish bin along with all the rest.

So there is no case against atheism. If believers want to discredit atheism all they need to do is find evidence that their god exists. But that evidence doesn't exist yet and I suspect it never will.