"Is Atheism a Belief or a Lack of Belief?"
02 Jun '16 15:40Originally posted by KellyJay
I've argued my position on this topic more times than I care to count as well.
From my perspective we are talking about 1 God, 2 gods, and 3 no gods.
This means our views of everything is colored by the acceptance or rejection of any of the
3 above. To accept, reject, or deny any of those stances no matter how you word it the
universe will either:
1. ...[text shortened]... is discussion has any meaning is if the answer to God being real carries
with it a consequence.
I've argued my position on this topic more times than I care to count as well.
Yes, this is because you have been consistently wrong all of those times.
From my perspective we are talking about 1 God, 2 gods, and 3 no gods.
This means our views of everything is coloured by the acceptance or rejection of any of the
3 above. To accept, reject, or deny any of those stances no matter how you word it the
universe will either:
1. Have God who has done, doing, and will do what God will in the universe.
2. Have gods who have done, doing, and will do what they want in the universe.
3. No God or gods have done, doing, are about to do anything in the universe.
And here you are making the same mistake that you always make.
I will try to explain again why you are wrong.
The question is about the direction of causation.
For event B to be effected by event A, event A must come first and be causally linked to event B.
If event A comes before and is a cause of event B, then event B cannot be a cause of event A.
Causality only goes one way.
You are arguing that a persons belief, or lack thereof, in the existence of a god or gods is the CAUSE
of the rest of their world view. That ALL peoples world-views are 'coloured' by whether or not they believe
in a god or gods, and must necessarily be so.
However that is not the case and easily demonstrated as such. To which end, here is a repeat of a post from
a current thread where I explained this in detail... [And while it was not written to you in that thread, I had
you very much in mind as to me you are the very embodiment of the error I was describing]
I have a hypothesis that a significant factor in theists not understanding atheists and
atheism [specifically irreligious atheists] stems from exactly the error you have just made.
We all have foundational beliefs, things we in the normal course essentially just accept as true,
as being axiomatic... And these foundational beliefs are what we build our worldview upon.
To change one of these beliefs will typically radically change a persons outlook and other
beliefs. They are also typically some of the most personal and vehemently held beliefs we have.
Also included with these tends to be core beliefs about our identities, who we believe ourselves
to be. We tend to be protective of these and get upset when they get challenged, which is why
religion and politics generate such emotional and fierce battles.
We also have all kinds of lesser beliefs, beliefs that spring from those central core beliefs or
just beliefs about the world that exist in semi-isolation not really resting on anything else.
We tend to be less bothered about these, and they are consequently easier to change and
have less repercussions when this occurs.
You, as a religious theist, likely have your religion and it's foundational beliefs at the very core of
your worldview and your identity. Your religion contains the most fundamental beliefs [you believe]
that you have. And everything else flows from that or is interpreted in it's light.
This is common with many/most religious people and so when you are looking at other religious
people you look to their religious beliefs to get a feel for what their morality and worldview is.
Naturally you then try to do the same thing with non-religious atheists... And that is where you
come unstuck, because atheism is not a belief system. And is almost always the product of,
and not the foundation of, whatever belief system [or systems] that that person holds.
I will use myself as an example here because I know what my beliefs are, but be aware I am
speaking for my beliefs and not those of all other atheists.
My worldview, my foundational beliefs, are based on a belief in the power, virtue, and utility, of
rationality and scientific skepticism and in objective wellbeing based morality.
So a foundational belief for me might be something like "Only true beliefs are useful, and thus
I should believe as few false things and as many true things as possible".
Another might be something like "Scientific skepticism and methodology are the best known ways
of determining the truth or falsity of a claim."
Another might be something like "Morality is about the promotion of wellbeing amongst a society
of sentient beings [humans]".
Now, because we live in a world where we have no evidence for the existence of gods or afterlives or
anything supernatural, my foundational beliefs and worldview naturally lead to me not believing that
the supernatural exists, or that there are any gods, and thus I am a non-religious atheist.
But, I could equally imagine being in a universe where there is clear evidence for the supernatural
and/or gods etc, [A D&D universe where magic is common and gods show up and do stuff for example]
and holding the same worldview. Except that now I am a theist, because the evidence has led me to believe
that these gods exist [although I am still not religious because I don't worship any god or gods].
My worldview hasn't changed, I have the same foundational beliefs, but other non-foundational beliefs
are different.
Now you mention morality in particular, so I will too...
making clear that this is a major simplification because this is not the topic of this thread
As I said I believe in a "objective wellbeing based morality", which means that I believe in using
'wellbeing' [a term analogous to health] as the yardstick for objectively comparing different moral
systems/choices with the choices that produce the best outcomes [highest wellbeing] to determine
what the 'right' or most moral choice is. As such, it doesn't really matter if a god or gods exist or not.
While the humans [or other sentient species] are still the same, the same things will promote wellbeing
regardless.So it doesn't matter for my morality if I live in a universe with no god, the Christian god, or the
D&D universe with many gods.
Similarly it makes no difference to my morality if the universe started entirely naturally with no intelligent
intervention ~13.8 billion years ago and we evolved from primitive life forms over the last ~4.5 billion years
OR if we were created by a god is a splurge of supernatural creation 10,000 years ago, 6,000 years ago,
or last Thursday. Because the metric I believe in using for making moral determinations is unaffected by
such concerns.
Now for a person that believes in a morality that stems from a god and divine authority, whether you
continue to believe that that god exists absolutely has a barring on your moral compass.
However just because those issues are important for you, and many other religious theists, does not mean that
those issues are important for determining the morality of all others, especially non-religious atheists.
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