Positive Atheism?

Why do atheists need to have any reason at all?

Does 'no evidence for the existence of any deity' easily reduce to 'religion is stupid?'

I think the problem is that "stupid" is a poor word choice in this instance. Certain religions might be considered stupid - mostly involving alien comet ships or crystal energies - but for the most part its less about stupid or intelligent and more about evidence and the requirement of faith.

"Religion is stupid" is the conclusion (and not a conclusion I agree with), not the reason.

Are there reasons for being an atheist that don't easily reduce to "Religion is stupid"?

I suggest that the answer is obviously "yes." This little corner of the universe is overpopulated with "religion is stupid" atheists. I have no idea what % of atheists would agree with them, but I'd guess that it's lower than the "religion is stupid" crowd would guess.

Observation + logic.
Ockham.
That razor of his.

The stupidity of most religions is an entirely separate issue.

What is the point of this post? Baiting? Picking a fight?

The point of being an atheist is one of adherence to truth, reason, and evidence.
I suppose if you take "stupid" to mean "blind to the scientific method" than the question becomes harder to answer, but if you take it to mean "full of dumb ideas" then I think there are plenty of other reasons to be an atheist.

How about the reason that your parents neglected to indoctrinate you in their particular religion?
Aren't we all born de facto atheists and remain so until we are taught that one particular religion is the TRUTH?
And that all the rest are just bronze age superstitions.
By the way, I don't really like the term 'atheism'. It is negative, not in the sense that all atheists are nihilistic murderers, but in the sense that it simply denotes the absense of something rather than the positivity that many atheist actually feel. Stalin and Pol Pot were probably atheists but they were not atheists in the positive sense of the word - the rational, secular, humanistic, reason based philosophical outlook that many of us uppities think of when we hear the word 'atheist'.

Are you asking for reasons why people are atheists or why people should be atheists?

I'm an atheist because I lack belief.

This is neither generalizable nor prescriptive.

Religion is not stupid. It is a tool, and a very effective one, created by humans to control other humans.

Does 'no evidence for the existence of any deity' easily reduce to 'religion is stupid?'

In my opinion, yes.

I suggest that the answer is obviously "yes." This little corner of the universe is overpopulated with "religion is stupid" atheists.

What are the other arguments, though?

Are you asking for reasons why people are atheists or why people should be atheists?

The latter is closer to what I had in mind.

Atheism isn't something that requires a reason, it's simply the default state. You need a reason to believe there's a god - until evidence is presented there is no reason to do so. The arguments presented in favour of theism are utterly lacking, therefore I remain an atheist.

I do, however, believe that atheism is a Good Thing as it entails respect for rationality and a refusal to accept extraordinary claims without extraordinary evidence (mind you, even 'ordinary' evidence for a deity is conspicuous by its absence). It leaves you less open to gullibility, manipulation, etc. (remember, those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities) and requires that you are always and completely responsible for your own actions and can never blame your evil deeds on the will of some superbeing.

Religious people require reasons for their faith. Not us for our lack thereof.

And in any case isn't 'religion is stupid', or in other words that it makes no sense to be other than an atheist, a good enough reason in the first place?

Okay, then:

People should be atheists if they have examined the arguments put forth for believing in the existence of a deity or deities and are not convinced.

I really don't think there's any other reason.

(Note that "the existence of a deity or deities" != "religion".)

(And when is ScienceBlogs going to bring back comment cookies, darn it? There have been a couple of MT releases since this problem was discovered; I know because I've installed them on my own blog.)

The question seems intentionally inflammatory, as if you're trying to claim that all atheists think religion is stupid. I don't believe---I was brought up in a nonbelieving family and I never even met a strong believer until I got to college---but I don't think religion is necessarily stupid. It just has no appeal to me. Grapefruits also don't appeal to me, but I don't think they're stupid, or that anyone who likes them is stupid.

Sorry, just had to say that comparing following a religion to having a taste for grapefruit is the funniest thing I've read in ages!

I for one don't believe that all people who believe in religion are stupid - some are and some are not, as with atheists. However I would say that they are, to some extent, irrational as there are no rational reasons to back up their beliefs - at least none that hold any water. I have never heard anything to convince me that belief in, say, Vishnu is substantively different from belief in FSM, invisible pink unicorns, etc. This is usually the start of a whole different argument so I'll leave it there.

My previous answers to the request for positive reasons still stand - rationality, incredulity, responsibility, accountability, etc. Are those the sort of answers you were looking for Chad?

Does "religion doesn't make sense" or "the concept of a god doesn't make sense" or "there's no evidence for any of these propositions" count as reducing to that? I don't quite think so, but the argument could be made.

Atheists are a-theists only when confronted with a concept of God held by theists. By definition, they are constrained to say "God does not exist".

Now, when not in that setting, I am sure they carry on their things without any regard of God whatsoever.

The consensus seems to be, "Could you please restate the question?" (:

I took your "religion is stupid" to have roughly the same meaning as "boys are dumb" -- that is, a flippant disregard for any who disagree with the speaker. Certainly, many atheists have arrived at their positions through careful thought and soul-searching. Anyone who has is likely to think that religion doesn't make sense, at least for them (and possibly, by extension, for anyone.)

The question is sort of meaningless, though. You seem to be asking, "Is there any reason for not believing in any religion other than disagreeing with all of them?" Well, sure. Emotive and social reasons abound, for instance... but your question has already excluded any objective, rational reason.

"Are there reasons for being an atheist that don't easily reduce to 'Religion is stupid'?"

Yes. They all reduce to "Religion is incorrect," but that is not necessarily the same as "Religion is stupid."

This feels like a blogger-troll moment, but I'll bite.

Atheism is about who has the burden of proof.

No.

And your [number of words in post, including title] to [number of comments] ratio is now greater than one. Congratulations.

The ethics of atheism-- my ethics of atheism, at least-- lead me to try to make the world a better place. Most if not all religions will claim that their ethics do the same.

But my ethics of atheism force me to do so in terms of the world itself and in terms of the people within it, rather than the dictates of a being that probably doesn't exist, focussing on rewards, punishments, or other results in an afterlife that probably doesn't exist either.

Hope, for instance, is a powerful Christian virtue and arguably one of the best three philosophical traditions to come out of the Christian tradition. But as an atheist, when someone dies, I cannot allow myself to rationalize or hope that someone has gone to a better place; on the flip side, I cannot allow myself to think that horrible men committing horrible actions will be sufficiently punished after their deaths.

Atheism keeps me focussed on this world, and permits no excuses for bad behaviour, except legitimate error (and thus exhorts me to improve myself, again, in this world, to make fewer errors.)

There are other reasons, but after I wrote them out, I realized that they're less a-theist than a-religious, so I cut them.

Religion is exasperating. It is astounding that we are really debating the existence of invisible beings with magic powers.

There are various arguments for the existence of god, almost all of which are easy for the empiricist to dismiss out of hand. There are also a couple which are tricky to understand, containing murky concepts and words, which are compelling to those who cannot be content with the answer "we don't know" to the big questions about the universe.

Most of these arguments are trivial, but it is the other few that prevent us from reducing the argument to "religion is stupid." I believe the central question of atheism reduces to: why do very smart people believe in god?

Atheism keeps me focussed on this world, and permits no excuses for bad behaviour, except legitimate error (and thus exhorts me to improve myself, again, in this world, to make fewer errors.)

That's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Thank you.

You might also consider the fact that, for many of the faithless, it's not really a matter of choice. We're very much "show me" types, and since we lack any experience with or apprehension of what the faithful might call the numinous, we're simply devoid of any spiritual convictions. Given that the empirical approach gives us what the spiritual approach cannot, which is evidence that we can perceive and is verifiable by any honest observer, we feel rather justified in suspecting what others interpret as spiritual experiences, religious epiphanies, and what-have-you, are spurious interpretations of the action of their somehow different neurology. Stupid needn't come into it, though it's true that to this non-believer, the behavior of at least some of the faithful can and does seem pretty stupid, even insane, at times.

And, yeah, you seem to be trolling pretty hard here.

The use of "stupid" is deliberately provocative ("irrational" might be fairer), but I wouldn't say I'm just trolling. I do have a bigger point, that you can probably figure out from the category archive, but I'll expand on it later, when typing is less likely to trigger crippling muscle spasms in my neck.

Off to do some stretching...

Q: Are there reasons for being an atheist that don't easily reduce to "Religion is stupid"?

A: Respect for natural law. Faith in its completeness and consistency.

Positive atheism probably depends on faith---rejecting the idea of an alien life-form able to over-ride physical law and intervene in natural events and in our lives on behalf of its interests.

Positive atheist ethics probably depends on a sense of human-species honor. That our self-respect as a species requires that we have a decent community life and don't screw up our planet too much, and maybe try to spread earth life to other systems. And we should be ashamed if we don't accomplish these things even if nobody's looking.

And ethics is needed for any community to work well. It is probably based on other kinds of sens of honor too, besides the species-wide kind.

In Positive Atheism you believe stuff, just like in god-driven religions, but it should be the kind of stuff that is not a STRETCH to believe.

that's how it looks to me.

Well, if the point is that calling all religious people stupid is, well, pretty stupid, and that the argument could be (here comes that dreaded word) framed more appropriately, I'd agree wholeheartedly. I would agree completely that the harsh critique some level at the religious seems a lot less like insightful commentary, and a lot more like hate-filled invective as potentially bigoted as many the anti-religious target. I'm not much of a fan of those fora for precisely that reason. I'm personally not very happy that the most vituperative appear to be the poster-children of atheism. They make excellent points, but paint with simply too broad a brush.

That said, many of us are probably united by the suspicion that religion may be a lot more trouble than it's worth, and it's tough to be completely agreeable to all participants in the debate when that concern is expressed.

That's the sort of thing I'm looking for. Thank you.

There are certainly positive things that fall out of atheism, such as a focus on this world and on people as intrinsically valuable (not valuable because of any God's decree). The morality many people derive from atheism is very positive and puts emphasis on helping people rather than the condemning of pleasures.

But these aren't reasons to be an atheist. You become an atheist because you're looking for truth and you think that a belief in God is not the truth. There's not much of an atheist community and there aren't fun rituals and traditions. Atheism isn't a religion; it's just a belief. What you take from it is personal.

Well, there's no reason for being an atheist per se other than a lack of belief in God, since that is the definition of the term. However, most people who describe themselves as "atheist" are actually talking about something broader like "having a naturalistic worldview". In particular, this entails having a particular view on ethics and morality, just as a religious person would, and can be regarded as the positive side of atheism. Most atheists would say that ethics and morality have to be established by rational argument rather than authority, and this means that one should take an active interest in the relevant areas of philosophy, science, etc. in order to make an informed judgment on these issues. I would say that this provides the atheist with an appropriate substitute for what people usually call "spirituality".

Well, you could try posing that question to some religious atheists. Most of them are called Buddhists.

Atheism is a term which is very broad.

I personally see no need for atheism to have a value attached to it, and I certainly am not atheistic because I followed some search for "truth", or was looking for a substitute for spirituality that better satisfied my sensibilies. Kudos to those who somehow reasoned themselves into that position, but I'd assert the paths to faith, or lack thereof, are diverse. Whether or not belief or lack thereof supports my personal morality, which I have no reason whatsoever to assume has any greater cosmic significance than my preference for chocolate or vanilla, seems quite apart from the matter.

Most of the atheist activists out there have very good reason to be atheists: there is no evidence for god, any god, any gods. And when there's no evidence, you don't believe. That simple. We like to talk about how stupid religion is after the fact, cuz hey, religionists say the most stupid things in defense of it.

"Atheism isn't a religion; it's just a belief. What you take from it is personal."

I think you forgot to add IMHO to that comment. A belief? In what?

"You become an atheist because you're looking for truth and you think that a belief in God is not the truth."

Again this is just your bullshit opinion. I was born an atheist. So was my wife. I wasn't searching for anything. You have to be heavily indoctrinated to start to believe that atheism is just another form of belief and a path towards some nebulous "truth".

For me ultimately life is such a short lived impossibly hard to attain state that to waste any of it contemplating fabricated fairy tales as a guide, (this begs the question of course) borders on the insane. But that is just me.

How about, I can't believe that anyone who doesn't believe in the proper religion (and accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior) is going to hell. And, you can't all be right about everyone else going to hell (although this may still boil down to religion is stupid).

Mondo--

I guess I was using some loaded words there (namely 'belief' and 'truth'), but I don't think they're inaccurate. Atheism is the belief that there is no God. Is that really a poor definition? You could say it's "a disbelief in God," but that's not especially different. I use believe in a broad-ish sense here...like, "I believe gravity keeps me on the ground."

And when I say "looking for truth" I don't mean it's a vast quest for higher knowledge or anything...I just mean you want to know what's correct. When you read the newspaper, you're looking for truth. You want to know what happened yesterday. Same thing with atheism. If you thought there were good reason to believe in a God, you would, right? You think there's no reason to believe in a God, so you don't. At some point you learned that a bunch of people believe in God, and you probably thought, "well, that's a bunch of crap" (or something), reaffirming that you believe God does not exist. Is this really all that out there?

"Atheism is the belief that there is no God. Is that really a poor definition?"

Yes.

How about, I can't believe that anyone who doesn't believe in the proper religion (and accept Jesus Christ as your personal lord and savior) is going to hell.

That falls in the class of things I considered as a-religious rather than a-theist. I know many religious people, of multiple faiths, who do not assume that everyone else is going to Hell. (Although many still believe that their way provides a mytical, practical, or incidental boost in the right direction.)

Well, you could try posing that question to some religious atheists. Most of them are called Buddhists.

I think that statement requires a fairly strained reading of both Buddhism (of which there are many sects) and atheism. But that's beyond the scope of the current discussion, so let's not pursue it.

I *think* I see what this question is getting at.

Personally, I think atheism (narrowly defined) does pretty much boil down to "religion is stupid/irrational/unnecessary." You can have all the positive things that people refer to here without actually being an atheist. I believe that you can be the most rational, intellectually honest and inquisitive person on the planet and still believe that it is more likely than not that God exists. Rationality is expensive. Vast tracts of what you and I believe are believed without real examination.

Someone becomes an atheist when they are prompted to critically examine religious beliefs which are not strong enough to stand up to that examination. It's not necessarily an intellectual crime to never receive that prompting, or to believe in some god that requires more work to falsify than you want to put in. I wouldn't even necessarily hold it against someone if they deliberately refrained from thinking too carefully about their religious beliefs because they valued them for some reason and were afraid of losing them.

I have all sorts of beliefs about what is true and what is possible that encourage and motivate me. Not all of them are rational, and some of them I deliberately avoid thinking about too much. Would it be better if they were all on a firm rational foundation? Almost certainly. Would a lot of them collapse if I tried to do that? Almost certainly. Would I be able to replace them? Maybe, maybe not. Is it a better use of my time to think about how to succeed and not worry about whether it is possible? In many cases, yes.

This is all contingent, of course. Some gods and religious beliefs are a lot easier to falsify than others. Sometimes a person really should sit down and question their religious beliefs if they want to avoid making a serious mistake (or committing a serious evil), or wasting their lives. But often it doesn't really matter. The difference between me and someone like Dawkins is that I think critical thinking skills are far more important than whether someone is an atheist or not. I don't believe they are the same thing at all, regardless of how correlated they are (probably not as much as many atheists would like to think).

I also disagree with those who say atheism is the default (non)religious condition. The default religious condition is the one you are socialized into, anything before that is irrelevant. There are plenty of people who *will* spontaneously decide that God exists, even if they grow up in an atheistic setting; how do you think religion got started in the first place? How do you think it continues to be so popular? Big deal, get over it. Atheism is a reaction against a popular belief. It's OK. Just because many people define themselves by their religion doesn't mean you have to define yourself by your reaction against it. I am an atheist, but I don't make it an important part of my identity, because I don't think it *is* an important part of my identity.

Geez, trolling your own blog?

Possible reasons to be an atheist, if we leave aside the whole "requires theories that purport to explain the functioning of the universe to be falisifiable" (i.e. "religion is stupid") thing:

1. You marry into an atheist family, and want to fit in. (Hey, if it's a good enough reason for my sister to become Catholic...)

2. It gives you warm fuzzy feelings of superiority over religious people.

3. It encourages you to behave in a moral fashion.

4. Get to sleep in on Sundays (substitute other required times of worship as appropriate).

5. Get to eat whatever you want, wear whatever you want, be friends with whoever you want, do whatever job you want, without the worry of being condemned to eternal torture and suffering.

None of these are necessarily *unique* to atheism, but that wasn't a requirement.

(Note, I tried to work in some sort of modified Pascal's Wager, but it required too much typing.)

"that statement requires a fairly strained reading of both Buddhism and atheism."

For some reason, this reminded me of a certain science blogger who made a series of posts giving a rather strained reading of Christianity.

For some reason, this reminded me of a certain science blogger who made a series of posts giving a rather strained reading of Christianity.

That may be. However, that issue is also beyond the scope of the current discussion.

Pam: I would say that reasons #2, 4, and 5 all count as "religion is stupid" arguments, or the functional equivalent thereof. They're anti-theism arguments, more than pro-atheism arguments.

Atheism is far more parsimonious and elegant than theism.

"I think that statement requires a fairly strained reading of both Buddhism (of which there are many sects) and atheism. But that's beyond the scope of the current discussion, so let's not pursue it."

If you want to place it outside of this discussion, then, hey, it's your blog. But to say that calling Buddhism a religion is 'fairly strained' is, in my mind, a fairly strained objection. Saying that I have a 'fairly strained reading' of atheism is, in my mind, ridiculous.

Atheism means not acknowledging the existence of deities. Period. Nothing more, nothing less. It has nothing to do with skepticism, science, rationality, magic, religion.
You can think that wizards, the tooth fairy, ghosts, the Happy Hunting Grounds, and reincarnation are all real, and still be an atheist.
You can think that religion is all pure crap, utter nonsense, and a plague upon mankind, and still not be an atheist. Deists are not atheists. People who believe in some sort of nebulous god, but follow no religion, are not atheists.

Outside the scope it may be, but the one thing atheists shouldn't be doing is conflating atheism and rational skepticism. It's the same error that theists make when they say that atheism is just another religion, and it plays into the hands of those who suppport their arguments with that line.

I'm willing to admit I'm being sloppy in my use of terminology. I think it could be argued, however, that in common parlance, "atheist" and something more-or-less fitting the definition of a "rational skeptic" are pretty much synonymous, and a whole bunch of other things get conflated with "atheist" besides. For myself, I kind of prefer the term "apatheist", but if I use that, most people don't know what I'm talking about. Even "pragmatic atheism", which consists of words you can look up in the dictionary, draws blank stares. It's tough to keep our philosophical taxonomy straight.

I think one of the reasons that it's difficult to keep philosophical terms straight regarding atheism is that atheism is not a philosophy. Conflating something as broad as atheism with a philosophy is what lets people bash atheism via Stalin, which is of course, flat-out wrong, because atheism is not only not the philosophy used to justify Stalin's actions, it's not even a philosophy. We atheists are guilty of the same conflation too often, and, as I said, it plays into the hands of those who use the Stalin / Hitler / Mao line of argument.

If it's true that Dog tortures all theists for an eternity post death and lets all atheists go to Nirvana or someplace else nice when we've died, we obviously win out big time; and if it's not true, and there is no afterlife, it doesn't really matter what we believed, but at least we were right and didn't have to fear Dog all our lives. So, whether Dog is real or not, the atheists win.

IMNTHO, the only good reason not to believe X is that believing in X is stupid. Anything else is basically just bad epistemology.

If you want to place it outside of this discussion, then, hey, it's your blog. But to say that calling Buddhism a religion is 'fairly strained' is, in my mind, a fairly strained objection.

I'm not Chad, and therefore cannot know exactly what he meant, but I think that calling Buddhism an atheist religion is a very strained reading. I would call it a religion of psychic suicide, in its purest form, but for the purposes of this duscussion, I'd say more precisely that it's usually a non-theist religion-- that God (or gods) are not its central focus.

Let's also remember that Buddhism has a history thousands of years long. Any statement that says "Buddhists believe this," is probably gong to be inaccurate. The Buddha's own teachings, for instance, refer rather positiviely to gods, it's just that they are not the focus of the religion. The focus of Buddhist religion is not to get the gods to like you, or even to get them to kill you, it's to escape unavoidable suffering by ceasing to exist.

Now, there are some branches of Buddhism that go rather atheist in interpretation, but at that point it reduces itslf more to a philosophy than a religion. And there are a lot more Buddhists whose practice has gone entirely the other way, effectively turning the Buddha into a god

Sure, but within the "athiest" catagory are different philosophical positions. I agree it would be better if people understood that "atheism" tells you as much about a person's philosophy as "human" does about his zip code, but it'll be tough to get the rest of the world to shape up.

I'm personally not a fan of philosophizing at all, if I can help it. I'm told by those with a philosophical bent that attempting to be aphilosophical is to adopt a particular philosophy. Bloody clever at asserting relevance, those philosophers.

I'm not Chad, and therefore cannot know exactly what he meant, but I think that calling Buddhism an atheist religion is a very strained reading.

That was the origin of my comment, yes.
There are a bunch of different sects of Buddhism, some of which do tend much more toward "philosophy" than "religion," but a great deal of Buddhism is pretty far from any meaningful definition of "atheist."

But again, this is not the place for definitional discussions about Buddhist practice.

I don't think one chooses to be an atheist. I didn't. One day I woke up and realized I did not believe in God any more.

That said, there are positive things about being an atheist. But not reasons for being an atheist. At least not for me. It was not a choice.

I can think of several reasons, here are two:

* I can only respect myself if I take responsibility for my own moral choices. If I follow someone else's moral dictates (even if that someone is very very powerful) then I've abdicated my responsibility. Thus even if someone was powerful enough to create the universe, I'm not willing to treat them as God.

* I find the universe far richer, more complex and more surprising than anything put together by some designer (at least any "person like" designer). All the putative Gods of religions I've encountered are far too "person like" to create the rich universe I live in. I won't limit my perceptions to the kind of world they could create.

They're anti-theism arguments, more than pro-atheism arguments.

Any anti-theism argument is a pro-atheism argument, by definition.

Are there reasons for being an atheist that don't easily reduce to "Religion is stupid"?

Religion is not useful.

If you can weigh advantages or disadvantages to decide what is true, then I think ice cream is free and doesn't make you fat.

I never made a decision to be an atheist; I fought it, tooth and nail. In the end religion didn't hold up; it was like swiping the card and having credit declined - you walk out without the purchase. The little piece of plastic is still shiny, but...

I can say why I think religion is not true. Let believers decide if it makes them "stupid" or just members of their culture. Or (most likely) reject what I say and go on believing.

My observation of this thread is that people are not all using the same definition of atheism. My definition is (not just "reduces to"): All (theistic) religions are incorrect. (Going the second step to "....are stupid" is a judgement call which I prefer to apply case-by-case.)

So, atheism to me implies no commitments beyond unbelief, nor does it specify whether that position was reached rationally or just adopted uncritically from wherever -- an atheist could additionally eg. believe in all sorts of woo, hold politics ranging from egalitarian to totalitarian-elitist, or advocate abhorrent racial theories. The statements of "positive" atheism I prefer to see subsumed under titles like "skepticism" and "secular humanism". But I don't insist that my definitions are the "correct" ones.

For me, atheism is a natural conclusion from what I see around me. Everything in the world is limited in some way: trees aren't a mile tall; people don't live 200 years; ants can't lift refrigerators; light can't travel instantaneously. I can't know for sure that there aren't omnipotent immortal beings out there, but they sure would seem out of place.

My atheism involves faith that emergent order can happen on a truly grand scale, built from inherently limited, finite pieces, without universal intelligent planning. I can't prove that that's how things really work. But if it's true, it's a beautiful and remarkable thing. I don't think theists are at all "stupid" for being skeptical of that.