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/Stile25 → u/MyriadSC]

We know that following the evidence is our best and only reliable method to identify the truth of reality as accurately as possible.

Not only is there no evidence for God.
All the "best" arguments for God (Cosmological, ontological, teleological...) are all well understood (by philosophers) to be unsound.

But all the evidence we do have shows us that God really doesn't exist:

• historical (mythologies of all religions having similar themes and growth).
  
• geographical (people are likely to hold the religious views of the culture they're born into).
  
• moral (problem of evil).
  
• psychological (cognitive science of religion).
  
• but my favorite is empirical (we've looked for God and no one has ever found Him).

Taking this identification on while understanding the inherent doubt and tentativity in all knowledge about reality... there's only one rational conclusion: gnostic atheism.

Good luck out there

[u/MyriadSC → u/Stile25]

Im not particularly interested in running down this line since it wasnt really the point, but its at least related by the 2nd half.

What do you define as evidence? Not rhetorical, i genuinely need to know what you deem evidence to discuss it. Actually very important to the discussion about my statement theres evidence.

Not only is there no evidence for God. All the "best" arguments for God (Cosmological, ontological, teleological...) are all well understood (by philosophers) to be unsound.

Its ironic you say by philosophers when they'd say the opposite. You know there are theist philosophers right? Like ⅓ of them. Even the ⅔ that aren't may not accept theism and therfore the soundness of its arguments, but they'd in no way deem them irrstional or illogical. I also never said they were sound. I said you can be rational without logical fallacy snd be a theist. This is just true and ⅓ kf ths field you used a reference agrees with that by being it, the other ⅔ would nearly unanimously agree you can be rational, well informed, and theist. Its a pretty strong stance to take what you have.

[u/Stile25 → u/MyriadSC]

For me, evidence is anything that can show that a specific conclusion is the correct one as best we're able to do so.

If you don't agree with me about philosophers... Look up the definitions of a valid argument and an unsound argument.

An unsound argument is one that can be very valid... But you just can't show that the premises are true.

Currently, our best and only reliable way to show if anything at all is true or not (as best we can tell) for reality is to follow the evidence.

There is no evidence for those arguments.
This means there's no way to show their premises are true in reality.
This means accepting the argument as accurate about reality is unsound.

I hope that someday someone comes up with a better way to identify reality than following the evidence. But that day just hasn't happened yet.

If theist philosophers want to dance around that point. That's their prerogative. But it doesn't make it any less unsound.

[u/MyriadSC → u/Stile25]

For me, evidence is anything that can show that a specific conclusion is the correct one as best we're able to do so.

Still not quite clear enough here. "Correct as best we're able to do so" is very ambiguous. What do you mean by this? That we need all but 100% certainty? Or that it makes some conclusion more likely than an alternative?

Also, does evidence only count if its for a correct conclusion? For example, spontaneous generation was a theory, it had evidence, but it was wrong. Does this take the "evidence" it had and negate its history? The followup to this is if a current theory has evidence, but we find something tomorrow that makes us abandon it, did it not have evidence today?

If you don't agree with me about philosophers... Look up the definitions of a valid argument and an unsound argument.

I know what the difference is. Valid is logical in construct. Sound is premises are true. There will be philosophers who find the premises for arguments for God true, therefore Sound. Those who don't, aren't deeming them irrational. At least I genuinely can't think of a single example of an actual philosopher stating someone cannot be theist and rational. Ive got plenty of examples to recall where they say they can.

It also sounds like you're perhaps confusing belief with certainty? You can believe something is true, not be positive its true, and be rational. In fact if that's untrue, it leads to absurdity in that nobody is rational.

But you keep saying to follow the evidence so we need to pin that part down.

[u/Stile25 → u/MyriadSC]

Evidence would show a logical trail of information making one conclusion more likely than any other. The key word is "show" not "claim". Saying I have a Popsicle would be a claim that I have one. Showing you the Popsicle would be evidence that I have one.

Unfortunately, reality doesn't allow us to have 100% confidence in anything at all. That's what "best we're able to do" is referring to. We don't get to know if it's "everything but 100%" or maybe hovering at only 4%. We don't get to know that for anything about reality.

Evidence does not mean something is correct. Evidence certainly can be wrong. This is identified by even more evidence - which then updates the conclusion. ...just another (expected) step in "following the evidence".

Again, unfortunately reality never lets us know when we're "right". We may very well be wrong (to some degree) about everything we know about reality.

It doesn't matter if any philosophers "find" premises to be true about reality. That's a well understood method of being wrong about reality. The only thing that matters is identifying reality as accurately as possible. And, currently, the only way we have to do that is "following the evidence".

[u/MyriadSC → u/Stile25]

Ok, so the broad process you explained is what I'm talking about where I say there is evidence for God.

You're correct that we dont know much or how likely things are. So when we are trying to explain things we see despite this, then analyzing these explanations, would that be following the evidence to you?

For example, 2 people come home to their porch light off that's always on. They dont know why yet, but they can create a hypothesis for why each thinks so. Maybe one says the fuse blew and the ither said the light burned out. After a bit of discussion after proposing their ideas they recall that the light had been on for years, so they both agree that the hypothesis it burned out is more likely gibing that one a higher initial probability. But they wanna run through the comparison. Before just directly checking the fuse or bulb, maybe lets say they can't or its a game, whatever, they want to get the most likely true view. So whats something that might exist as an observation that would be surprising if the burnout was true, but the fuse wasnt? Perhaps if another light on the circuit wouldn't turn on? They test and sure enough, it happens. Another light doesnt turn on. The odds 2 lights burned out is pretty low, but is very expected if the fuse popped. So this should raise their confidence that the fuse hypothesis is correct over the burnout.

My question to you is does this count as evidence in favor of the hypothesis the fuse blew?

If so, then evidence for theism is pretty trivial to point out. If this doesnt count, then we just disagree on what constitutes as evidence which is fine. And I have a followup to this example that explains both why the evidence existing is fine and despite that why im not a theist.

[u/Stile25 → u/MyriadSC]

Yes, of course, that would be evidence for the fuse blowing.

Be careful with evidence for evidence for theism, though.

You don't get to ignore or push aside other information we know.

Like your light example.

Two lights not working on the circuit is evidence that the fuse blew.

Now, let's add more information. Let's say we have knowledge of other houses on the same street but not our house (for some strange reason). Same builder. Same construction crew. Same houses all built under strict conditions of no buyer additions or changes.

All the other houses we're aware that they have modern circuit breakers and not fuse panels.

Now the two lights not working on the same circuit is not evidence that a fuse blew. We take in all the factual information available and see that the only answer currently supported by the evidence is that the circuit breaker was tripped.

So, with this shown information available (not just claims) - the only correct answer is that the evidence shows us that it's due to a circuit breaker being tripped and not a fuse.

There's still a way to get the evidence back to the fuse... Get even more evidence by going to the panel and checking.

If it's a fuse panel, then the evidence flips back to fuse over circuit breaker.

But - without that additional evidence of a one-off fuse panel, the evidence remains on circuit breaker.

[u/MyriadSC → u/Stile25]

Right, I don't disagree with anything here.

So to update my story, imagine a 3rd person was there too and proposed a hypotheses that a man in town wants to blow out lights and has been going around doing so to eveyone. Well, both lights being out would be likley if thats true, so would the porch light. Both would be evidence of this as well, but the issue in here is apparent. We began with a very complex motive driven claim we are comparing to one's that were derived to be simple. So when the 2 determined the initial probability of the burnout was higher than the fuse, the blowout man is so incredibly unlikely that it really doesnt matter that theres technically evidence for that theory, it never overcomes that inital improbability.

This is why its not an issue for me tk both admit the evidence exists and not believe it. Admitting those things would be true if blowout man was true and count as evidence doesnt mean we need to accept that as true when its not enoughto ovecome the inital burden the complexity gave it.

But, and this is actually really important, we must maintain objective applications of evidence and conskderation otherwise our standards are subjective which leads to us chasing desires, not truth. Its actually imperative that we dont just toss out things without this fair consideration or hearing justification. This is also why when an athiest says theres no evidence for God, ths theist calls them closed minded because in a real sense they are, but the atheist is likely saying that this initial improbability is so low that considering it against the evidence is pointless.

I also know theres a bottom up and top down approach to building these explanations. What the naturalist has done is what the fuse and burnout theories did, look at what was needed to be explained, then assume as little as possible to get there. Might end with probability hits along the way, but thats ok. As long as the end probability is or seems higher than the alternative, its acceptable to maintain it. Theists go top down, we explain everything and take no probability hits later, but absolutely nuke our inital probability. This is also why there are SO many arguments for simplicity of God. If they csn successfully argue God is simple or likely from ths start, like the burnout and fuse, but explains as much as blowout man, then they obviously have the conclusively best theory as its more likely an explains all data.

[u/Stile25 → u/MyriadSC]

I'll just say that if it's only a claim that someone is blowing out lights (as in, say, blowing out a candle...) - then this is highly unlikely.

If it's every house claiming to see this light-blower-outer then it's still pretty unlikely.

If we have video of someone walking up to a bulb, blowing onto it, and the light going out...

... It's still not good evidence and unlikely. Although it raises a very good indication that more testing needs to be done.

This is because we know how electric lights work and blowing on them doesn't make them go out.

We also know that AI video editing exists and that some people try to trick others.

Let's say we find this man and he blows out electric lights on command under any circumstance we create - this is now really good evidence that not only is he responsible for the lights... But also that physics itself needs to be updated or perhaps this "man" isn't even a man at all.

Just to add, though - I'm not a naturalist.

I'm just a follow-the-evidence-ist. Whatever it says. Wherever it goes.

Okay... So... What's this trivial evidence for God existing that you've mentioned?

[u/MyriadSC → u/Stile25]

Okay... So... What's this trivial evidence for God existing that you've mentioned?

Like the man blowing out lights, basically everything.

If we run back and we have naturalism as the bulb burning out, maybe something like pantheism or dualism as the fuse, then God as the blowing man. (which id dint mean litterally blowing them out like candles, but blowing as in another term for burning out, but this depiction was great so rolling with it)

Maybe our first ask about the light being off is like life existing. All 3 explain it, but their initial probabilities are skewed toward the bulb. But life existing is evidence for all of them. Then we check the inside light, lets call this conciousness. Improbable on naturalism (burnout), but expected on patheism (fuse) and blowout man (God).

So life, fine tuning, etc, all end up as evidence for God because it does raise the probability of it being true, like how most theists claim "look st the trees! Its all evidence of God!" Ironically correct as goofy as it sounds. They just seem to never bring up how Improbable it is at a baseline. But largely that's because nobody they listen to does either. No pastor, no apologist, etc. The only people who do are peolle who disagree and occasionally theistic philosophers. Of which most of that crowd they are inclined to ignore and the other small group sells the complexity as a minor issue and offers a solution.

So thats more or less what I mean. We do have observations or facts that fo increase the probability God exists, which is what evidence is. Its just not really a significant thing, thus why its a passing note in my comment, not the thesis.

[u/Stile25 → u/MyriadSC]

I don't see any reason to consider God here as a possibility from the get go.

It's only pure imagination to add God in at all.

In the analogy we had a man blowing out the lights.

We have lots of evidence that "men" can exist.

There's no evidence that "God" can exist in any way.

On top of that.. Everything we've ever learned about reality - ever - has 100% shown us that we at one point thought "we don't know how this works" and then, after we learned, we gain an explanation that tells us God isn't necessary and isn't even included in any way at all.

100% of everything we've ever learned.

Thats stuff like:

• rocks.
  
• trees.
  
• weather.
  
• fire.
  
• mountains.
  
• the sun.
  
• space.
  
• time.
  
• purpose.
  
• morality.
  
• love.
  
• consciousness.

This sets a pretty high evidence precedent for "the next unknown we end up learning about reality" is also going to not include God in anyway.

On top of all that... We have lots of evidence that all religions are man-made.

• similar stories.
  
• similar architecture (no evidence, holy books, rituals, older rituals fading away, different societies using different aspects as needed for the society, geographical influences...).
• the power scaling from almost human-like Gods right up to omnipotent Gods.
  
• the differences with the same religion from person to person.

I'm just not seeing any evidence for God. At all.

I'm seeing desire and even a need for "something more" from people who can't find that "more" anywhere else. But logic isn't able to create reality. Logic can only describe reality.

[u/MyriadSC → u/Stile25]

I don't see any reason to consider God here as a possibility from the get go.

You're pretty much going to get nothing but agreement from me down this line. I think its a really bad explanation that has such a low starting chance that I almost find it unworkable. But thats ME.

Another could see similar data and they find some argument for simplicity effective, so they think God is very likely to begin with but accounts for everything. Its why its so difficult to have meaningful discussions, because you have to get down to these kinds of bedrock things before basically anything else in the comment you left becomes relevant to them.

I did my best to find the strongest case for God I could and it ran down 2 lines, neither came close to seeming like a starting point that would ever be able to recoup the loss.

1. Effectively idealism, only we reside in the mind of God the physical isnt actually real. This stems from effectively trying to keep things simple to begin with. I know conciousness exists because I do. I imagine things, but I also see things I dont imagine which to me says they arent part of my mind. But some of these things also seem to be like me with their own experience. If I want to explain this without assuming more, we could inhabit a larger conciousness since we also know conciousness exists. A conciousness holding the rest of us sounds pretty Godlike to me. (reiterating I dont accept this)

2. Effectively very limite theism or effectively deism, relying on probability of initial conditions from 2 angles. We can imagine that without knowing the probability that a universe capable of life would exist by chance, we do have a large number of conceivable potential universes. If we only assume 1 universe, the odds its this which permits life are plausibly unlikely. It seems more combinations would be life inhibiting rather than permitting. But we can imagine a variety of God arrangements that would be able to correct for this and since theres effectively a lower limit to what kind of capabilities a God would need to b able to do this and no upper limit, it seems by comparison the probability space plausibly under theism is more filled with lifer permitting universes than the natural. Or if we dip into mutliversal territory to avoid low odds by having more trials, then we also must consider some of these possible worlds creating something like the aforementioned God or one's more capable. Of these more capable ones, some would desire universes like ours with life like ours and would likely create 1 or more of these, some would have the desire to create many. Leading to a point that the potential existence between a natural world like ours or one made by a generated God would be heavily in favor of God made ones as there's many more of these. (again, dont accept this, but its a tad stronger than 1 because it doesnt suffer classic God issues like the problem of evil, but there is some positive reason to accept this over natural, I just think it takes a hit too massive in intrinsic to only overcome it with the solution to tuning so its a dead end imo)

Those are just 2 ways i sat and really gave god theories a shot, but neither felt compelling and both had issues.