(no subject)

[jack]

One of the thoughts about different aspects of atheist belief is that the natural one is not believing "God exists", but some people do believe something like "If He does exist, He's a bastard."

But it occurred to me, that's basically the point of the Northern Lights trilogy. The central message is "God doesn't exist because he's a bastard". If that sounds confusing, well, exactly, that's why the message the books send seems to be confusing :)

It's not a wrong way to go about it. Narnia could be described as partly carrying the message "God *does* exist because he's nice," and does it very well indeed. Using God's metaphorical absence as a metaphor for his literal absence is a good metaphor -- I can see if the books had clicked for me more, it might be quite exciting, if instead of having no unifying message, atheism was a crusade against an uncaring God and a malicious power-hungry arch-angel. Yay!

For that matter, in some sense, it's a real argument: if you say "If God were running the world, I don't like it," you might get from there to "then He isn't," via "if he's not doing it right, he's not God or not there".

But Pullman's presentation didn't really work for me, and so all the flaws in the presentation continued to bother me.

Contrariwise, sometimes people do over-seize on the second aspect of atheism, especially if they're used to their religion being the default and assume an atheist *is* not someone factually thinking God doesn't exist, but someone morally choosing not to follow Him.

Comments

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

So you're an atheist because you don't want to face the pain of that God being real?

The reasons that one became an atheist in the first place are not necessarily the reasons that one uses to justify ones atheism at a later date.

I became an atheist at the age of nine when I found that no matter how much or hard I prayed, nothing ever happened and my wishes were never granted. So you might well ask, "So you're an atheist out of a petulant sense of entitlement?" Maybe I was aged nine. But now I have a well-worked-out justification for what I believe.

It's just the same as for religion: someone is a member of a religion because their parents were, or because of an emotional conversion experience, but later finds rational ways to justify their beliefs.

[robhu.livejournal.com]

I think you've read too much in to my question.

I happen to be a card carrying, fire breathing, Christian eating, militant atheist.

[nameandnature]

You mean you've got one of these?

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

I think you've read too much in to my question.

Perhaps I have. But let me explain in a bit more detail. aldabra's comment talked about her loss of faith as a teenager. But your question to her was in terms of her current position. This seems like quite a leap to me for the reasons I set out above. For the avoidance of doubt, I don't think your question was illegitimate or rude, but I thought the leap was worth pointing out.

I happen to be a card carrying, fire breathing, Christian eating, militant atheist.

As I understand it, you lost your faith as an adult. That's quite different, I think, from losing one's faith as a child (or never being a religious believer at all). Since your deconversion was recent, it's likely that your current justification is similar to the reasons for your deconversion: you haven't had time to greatly refashion your worldview. So it would make sense to link them in your case but not in mine, and maybe not in aldabra's. (But she's answered this herself: you should read her comments and not my second-guesses.)

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

Although, above, I'm struggling to explain why it makes sense that an emotional commitment to a belief might foster it. Logically, your explanation is the consistent, sane, normal, correct one.

But whenever I find myself holding different justifications for the same belief, it makes me suspicious that the real one is something else, however compelling the justifications are. Is it possible that my atheism really stems more from habit or sympathy with the idea than logical deduction? (I feel my reasons are pretty obvious and right, but then, I would; I know other people have different stances.) And if it does, is that as crazy and inconsistent as it sounds, or normal, and if so, how crazy is humanity generally?

[gareth-rees.livejournal.com]

Is it possible that my atheism really stems more from habit or sympathy with the idea than logical deduction?

Well, logical deduction from what? You have to start somewhere, and that somewhere isn't itself deducible by logical means. So of course your atheism stems from elsewhere. But not just habit and sympathy: you live in a society where you are exposed to atheist ideas and where materialism and science are valued. So you have the opportunity to adopt these viewpoints; an opportunity that you wouldn't have if you had grown up in a different society.

It's nice to believe that you are capable of finding your own way to your religious or political views, but that's not realistic, any more than it's realistic to believe that, because you understand (say) Cantor's diagonal proof of the uncountability of the reals, you could have proved it yourself. We stand on the shoulders of giants and there's no shame in recognizing that.

The other thing to say is that there's a stereotype of atheists as unemotional, humourless and scientistic. But it's only a stereotype and you don't have feel under any pressure to go along with it. So your reasons have an emotional ground? So what? Emotion can sometimes be a good guide to territory where the intellect cannot go.

[cartesiandaemon.livejournal.com]

Logical deduction: I was speaking quickly, I didn't mean pure logical deduction, but observing, making (and stating) necessary assumptions, collating, analysing and concluding in a way that might be seen as rationalist, scientific, logical, etc.

But basically, yes, indeed.

However, it makes me uncomfortable, I think there's something in the process I can't put my finger on. Obviously, without any research, I probably would have no idea if theorem X was true or not -- and may well have incorrectly assumed it was one way or the other. But I feel like in theory I ought to be able to at least tell whether I know or not. Whereas, of course, in fact, I absorb lots of facts and memes from around me without being able to weigh all of them even if I'm inclined to.

The other thing to say is that there's a stereotype of atheists as unemotional, humourless and scientistic.

Oh yes, good point. I actually forget that, as I'm only really exposed to it second hand, in back-scatter from occasional responses to assumptions people I've never made to other people... :)

I think there's a grain of truth, in that atheists (particularly self-defining atheists) are often sceptics (that is, they say they don't believe in god because there's no evidence and so it doesn't make sense to). (And I think rainbows are MORE beautiful when you understand them, but understand how it doesn't seem that way sometimes.)

However, my current gut conception is that belief of *facts* should come from rationality and belief in *morals* should come from emotion/moral sense. But, as previous debates on my livejournal show, it's more complicated than that.

So I naturally feel it's good/necessary that "Thou shalt not X" comes from a moral, not logical stance. (Although supported with logical/observational things like, Xing causes a whole lot of indirect Y, etc.)

But am uncomfortable saying that because I like/dislike X, that has something to do with whether it exists or not. However, one theme this entire discussion seems to have thrown up is that it *does* have something to do with it, though I'm having difficulty putting words to exactly how.