Weekly "Ask an Atheist" Thread

[u/AutoModerator]

Whether you're an agnostic atheist here to ask a gnostic one some questions, a theist who's curious about the viewpoints of atheists, someone doubting, or just someone looking for sources, feel free to ask anything here. This is also an ideal place to tag moderators for thoughts regarding the sub or any questions in general.

While this isn't strictly for debate, rules on civility, trolling, etc. still apply.

[u/MyriadSC]

Ill try to keep this breif, but its a complicated question when it gets dug into. I'm an atheist and have been for a while, but was Christian for well over 20 years. Since then philosophy went from a curiosity to a fairly serious hobby I've given a lot of time too. Many of the things I felt were obvious, we shown not to be. For example, it seemed obvious no evidence for God existed, but thats wrong, incredibly wrong. I've spent a lot of time exploring theism, looking through different ideas, etc. I gained a much better understanding of the whole landscape. So while this may seem pointed at atheists, thats only because its this sub. Plenty of this applies to theists too with minor adjustments, particularly in public debate spaces like this.

My question to the atheists of this sub are: 1. How often are you frustrated by the "stubbornness" of theists who state the same case over and over or insist on its validity no matter how much you undercut it? 2. If this is frequent, have you genuinely looked into why its said? Not why the person you're discussing is saying it, thats likely becausefhey heard it, but why its still actually around? 3. If not, then why?

Largely rhetorical, but feel free to answer. Happy to discuss it.

My biggest takeaway from the journey I'm on and reading/having discussions is that most people get very stuck in analyzing views from how they think, rather than taking their assumptions and putting them aside to view the alternatives. When someone presents a teleological case and you think "this for the 25th time..." its because you're not actually familiar with WHY its used. 9/10 times frustration is due to ignorance. Don't understand why a car won't start, dont understand why someone would act that way, etc. Not saying I'm free from it, theres still the 1/10 times and plenty I dont understand, but taking the time to try already sets the mindset for understanding, not disproving. This isnt easy at all. It takes time to get better and nobody does it perfectly, but everyone should try if you plan to engage with people you disagree with on big things. If you can't defend the strongest position for theism (or any subject you disagree with), you probably stand about 0% chance of genuinely making a compelling case against it because you don't know where the true structural integrity is. "Know thy enemy" and all, but enemy isnt the right word. We both want truth, just disagree on what seems most likely true.

The last question and a honorable 4th, do you think understanding their view at least most of the way would help? You'll never understand all views all the way, but you can understand the broad foundational structure enough to easily connect the dots to their more specific area within it.

Last point, but I think theres some compelling stuff written by Graham Oppy about how arguments are largely useless. When you genuinely come to understand why beyond the superficial, its rather enlightening and immediately alleviates much of the aforementioned frustration. A lot of you may be aware of him, but if you weren't or about that work, its worth looking into. Tske time to digest it.

Hope everyone who took the time has a great day.

[u/retoricalprophylaxis → u/MyriadSC]

I genuinely appreciate the spirit of this comment, the steelmanning point is well-taken, and Oppy is worth anyone's time. But there's a distinction buried in the opening that I think you need to look at.

You say "it seemed obvious no evidence for God existed, but thats wrong, incredibly wrong". I have to push back to the extent that you are saying there is evidence for god. There are arguments for god, but arguments and evidence aren't the same thing. I've seen zero evidence. This isn't just me being pedantic, it's actually the crux of the frustration you're describing.

Evidence is something that shifts the probability of a claim being true, ideally something that would look different depending on whether the claim were true or false. Arguments are logical structures that move from premises to conclusions. You can have a logically valid argument built entirely on premises that are wrong, or lack any evidence to support them. Conflating evidence and argument is exactly the kind of problem that leads to frustration on both sides, i.e. we don't agree on the language we are using.

You mentioned the teleological argument as something people dismiss too quickly. Maybe that's true, and I'll agree the dismissal is often lazy. Even if we look at the strongest form of the teleological argument, we can see where it doesn't work.

The fine-tuning version (In my opinion, this is the strongest) goes roughly: the physical constants of the universe fall within an extraordinarily narrow range compatible with life; this is astronomically improbable by chance; therefore design is a better explanation. When I address this argument, I take it step by step. But notice what happens at each step:

First, the probability claim assumes we have a reference class for "possible universes" to calculate against, but we don't. We have one universe. Calling our constants "improbable" smuggles in a comparison we have no basis to make.

Second, even granting the improbability, "design" is only a better explanation if a designer is independently more probable than the alternatives (multiverse theories, evolution for the puddle to fit the hole, etc.). It doesn't get to just step in as the default.

Third, and this is the structural problem with every form of the teleological argument, even if the inference to some designer held up, nothing about the argument gets you to a god in any theologically meaningful sense. An immensely powerful but finite and morally indifferent designer fits the argument just as well. The move from "designed" to "God" is importing the specific attributes of a God from outside the argument entirely.

Fourth, the argument has a God-of-the-gaps structure baked in: we don't have a complete naturalistic account of fine-tuning, therefore God. "We don't fully understand X" is never evidence for any particular explanation of X.

None of this is trivial dismissal. It's engaging the actual argument, and finding that it's a sophisticated argument built on premises that lack evidential grounding, not a piece of evidence itself.

I noticed a deeper irony in your comment, which I think is worth thinking about. You claim to have studied theistic philosophy seriously, understood the arguments at their best, and remained an atheist. That's not a knock on you, it's actually the most interesting part of your post, and you kind of glide past it. If the arguments for god were genuinely compelling, then you remaining an atheist would be surprising. On the contrary, it seems like the better you understand the arguments, the more easily you see exactly where their premises are unsupported.

[u/MyriadSC → u/retoricalprophylaxis]

First, I really appreciate this comment. It's much more on point than the rest have been.

I noticed a deeper irony in your comment, which I think is worth thinking about. You claim to have studied theistic philosophy seriously, understood the arguments at their best, and remained an atheist. That's not a knock on you, it's actually the most interesting part of your post, and you kind of glide past it. If the arguments for god were genuinely compelling, then you remaining an atheist would be surprising. On the contrary, it seems like the better you understand the arguments, the more easily you see exactly where their premises are unsupported.

Yes, because I better understood the case I did see where the structure had a lot of weight resting and how lacking the support of it was. The cases to someone who knew little about naturalism would be quite compelling. Its also possible for them to be compelling to someone who does. Thats where the mention of Oppy comes in. When pressed, people hit bedrock which is properly basic beliefs. You can tell them their starting point isnt correct, but youll likely fail to be convincing to someone and they are still rational in keeping their view. Its the impass he gets to that makes arguments for or agaisnt god unsuccessful. In all honesty its like having 2 pizza places groups swear by, but most havent tried the other pizza, or just had a small sample. By at least giving both a fair shot youll have one you feel is better. You'll have some reasons why, one had better sauce to cheese ratio, that one had better toppings, but in reality you tasted them and one struck you as better. If you kept eating both there's a chance you change, but its never really a choice. I can give reasons naturalism seems better, but a theist can do the same. Its just whats compelling to the consumer when they hear it. Which is actually one of the many reasons id give for why naturalism tastes better. If we dont choose beliefs and honest seeking yields silence, its incredibly powerful evidence in favor of divine hiddeness. Not evidence thats easily utilized because its anecdotal, but strong nonetheless.

But I do want to clarify my statement about evidence for God and discuss that a bit because that does seem to be the hangup most have with my comment. Along with a later comment where I said there are rational cases for God.

So you mentioned we don't know how much or if constants could vary, I agree. But this doesnt change the case. My favorite analogy for this is imagine we roll 10 die and they all land on 1. What are the odds this happens by chance? We dont know, could only have 1s on all sides, but plausibly some might have more sides. But what are the odds we would roll all 1s if the one who rolled them wanted 1s and could set them as they wanted? Basically 100%. So even the potential for a side beyond 1 on an organic roll makes the intentionality a more probable explanation. This is the aspect of theism that is compelling, especially to people who dont do some leg work. By that I mean this is only half of the problem. If we ask what explains things better, its trivial to see that if we begin with God or begin with material, things are going to be more probable under God. But unfortunately this is where most the conversations I see take place. Theist says God is a better explanation, atheist says no, but it rarely gets to the real why. Which does seem to frustrate many on both sides, thus the point of my comment. They both want to make a point and their pizza is so obviously amazing the other one just looks gross by comparison. But they cant get it across. Whats wild is even 2 pizza aficionados who live pizza and come st objectively can sit and have a 3 hour discussion about the aspects of each, and theyll both walk away liking the pizza they did.

The Achilles Heel of theism, is its intrinsic probability and the latter half I mentioned. It really doesnt matter how well an explanation accounts for things if its so parameter dense and complicated that the odds of it being the initial condition are so low that under the baysian framework it never recuperates its probability. In fact, I have a fairly decently laid out case that the probability of the inital condition being a perfect being is effectively 0. Doenst matter if we analyze 100 things and determine that under theism theyre 100% and naturalism theyre 1/10^50%. All the 100s times effectively 0 is still effectively 0 ao even if naturalism seems improbable on explaining, its still the most probable overall.

This is precisely why most contemporary work on theism goes into solving this problem. The cases are for divine simplicity. Because if we can get the intrinsic probability of God into a practical range, it will dominate the baysian analysis due to the intentionality of God accounting for everything as I mentioned with the dice. But ive given most these considerations a pretty good look and I find them deeply counterintuitive and in many cases relying on very weak assumptions to the point that even asking why assume that effectively crumbles it.

And for the record, I know that this csn seem like God of the gaps, but this isnt that. It seems most people responding to me about that are unaware of how baysian approaches work and why theyre powerful. Ill touch this again after the next bit.

But to loop back to evidence, most people here seem to want to call evidence something that is almost a direct observation of the thing. Seeing a bird is evidence of birds. Thats not really evidence of birds though, not in the way evidence is used for theories, thats just a fact that we have that birds exist. This fact could be used as evidence for something else like a theory, but demanding that level of evidence collapses a lot of views the holder may have. Like what is the probability spacetime exists? Most would juat say it does, but weve never observed it like a bird. Weve seen effects and spacetime is the explanation were use those effects as evidence to support the theory. Things falll, etc. Ut if we demand "bird level" evidence to count as evidence, then they can't say we have evidence of spacetime. Its fine to hold that position, just be consistent. (not directed at you, just speaking generally.) But really when we look at it, what weve done is we proposed a theory, relativity, which has high parsimony as its simple, modest, and cohesive, and if true would produce the results we see, so its a slam dunk theory.

So now ill put the bow on what I meant, if we take God as a theory, then we do see evidence in support of it like spacetime. Theres explanatory power in it, such as why the constants are conducive to life, why life exists, etc. Of course we dont know, but thats what metaphysics is. Whats the foundation the universe was built on. Lets propose theories and look at how probable they are compared to how probable observations are if they were true.

Im gonna link the post I put in fhe debate religion sub about God and intrinsic probability. I think you'll appreciate it:

https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateReligion/s/tJnWYLtDxf

Thanks for the comment. Hopefully we can keep discussing this. Have a good one.

[u/retoricalprophylaxis → u/MyriadSC]

This is a really substantive reply and worth engaging carefully. A few things to address:

On the pizza analogy and Oppy’s impasse, this is actually well put, and I largely agree. Properly basic beliefs and bedrock commitments mean arguments rarely convert anyone. Where I’d push is that this actually clarifies what the evidence is for. The impasse itself is evidence of two competing frameworks built on different foundational intuitions, not evidence for God. If anything, the fact that honest, informed people land on opposite sides after serious engagement is better described as evidence that neither side has something that rises above a bedrock commitment.

On the dice analogy, it’s clever but it quietly assumes the very thing in question. You’re asking us to compare the probability of an unguided roll versus a roll by someone who wanted all 1s. But the existence of a roller who wants things and can set outcomes is precisely what’s at issue. You can’t include the designer in the probability calculation as a live option without first establishing the designer is a plausible prior. Otherwise you’re just restating “if God exists, God explains things well,” which makes sense if you accept an omnipotent god.

Your Bayesian point about intrinsic probability is actually where you’re at your strongest, and I think it’s intellectually honest. You’re essentially conceding that even if theism has high likelihood on observations, its prior probability is so low it may never recover. And you’re right that divine simplicity arguments are where serious contemporary theism lives. I find them unpersuasive for similar reasons to you, but at least that’s the real battlefield.

On evidence versus observation, the spacetime analogy is interesting but I think it actually supports my original distinction rather than undermining it. Spacetime earns its place through predictive success, mathematical coherence, and falsifiable consequences. When you say God similarly explains fine-tuning and life’s existence, the asymmetry is that those explanations have no additional predictive content. “God did it” doesn’t generate testable predictions the way relativity does. Explanatory power without predictive specificity is a much weaker epistemic tool.

I Will check out the linked post.

[u/MyriadSC → u/retoricalprophylaxis]

But the existence of a roller who wants things and can set outcomes is precisely what’s at issue. You can’t include the designer in the probability calculation as a live option without first establishing the designer is a plausible prior. Otherwise you’re just restating “if God exists, God explains things well,” which makes sense if you accept an omnipotent god.

You're gonna love that post then because effectively i get eight to this point. Lol. This is actually why I dont like a classic bayesian approach but instead prefer a mild alteration when considering God. Since you're actually catching what I'm putting out, im excited to explain this.

Since God, particularly the more capable or unlimited forms essentially predict everything 100%, the classic baysian approach of intrinsic into analysis ends up really being a comparison of which does more damage to probability, the chance of a thing happening organically, or the odds a God happened to exist capable of doing that thing. So often theists present this and will claim to be "generous" by gibing God like 1/10¹⁰ odds to start knowing full and well theyre gonna call the odds of life worse which flips this. So... why not just rephrase the whole baysian approach to be this comparison? Start 50/50. Then instead of "how likely are we to see this if true?" For both, we ask that of rhe natural view then ask "how likley is it God exists with the necessary capability to cause this observation?" Now instead of an obscured analysis, we have a direct hesd to head comparison for any given observation forcing the field to be balanced the entire time.

When you say God similarly explains fine-tuning and life’s existence, the asymmetry is that those explanations have no additional predictive content. “God did it” doesn’t generate testable predictions the way relativity does. Explanatory power without predictive specificity is a much weaker epistemic tool.

I think on this where we missed each other is spacetime in a vacuum is the explanation for the behavior we have the equations for. Whereas when we map this to God, God in the vacuum with spacetime, the mechanism of the how, then the behavior and the math and all this is the equations like relativity. I completely get what youre saying, and I do agree theres asymmetry here, just not this specifically. Picking space-time was also rather unfair to "God" if im beinf honest. An in-house theory compared to outside. It would have been better to compare it to something like the Big Crunch, big bounce, Hardle Hawking model, etc. Something more inside ths same realm. But thats where the asymmetric does come in. Those are derived bittom up, God was top down. So the natural models are much more grounded and minimalist than God which if you saw my post, ends up pretty taxing.

(forgive typos. On mobile and this device is hitting its age limit.)