Tag Archives: Apologetics

God is Not an Apologist! (Except Maybe on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 8:30 to 9:45am)

16 Friday May 2014

Posted by in Philosophy, Religion

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006

Yes, the Holy Bible comes in an Arctic Edition

Somewhere in the movie, God is Not Dead, the main character proclaims that the burden both theists and atheists must face is the question of how the universe was created. In this moment, I think it’s fair to suggest Wheaton speaks for the movie makers themselves; his voice is the one we are meant to believe, and in this respect I think he is also voicing the views of many Christian apologists. From this standpoint, the debate over the existence of God is essentially a debate over alternative explanations of the universe. And fair enough, I suppose, one can certainly approach the subject in this manner, but I wonder sometimes if people realize just how much baggage this leaves unpacked?

We could start with the use of deictic markers to reference one of the key points of that debate. The word ‘God’ isn’t a descriptive term, much less a scientific one. It is a label which points at someone without doing much to tell us anything about Him, thus bringing God (along with His presumed attributes) into the debate by way of presupposition rather than demonstration. Raising questions about the existence of god in this way has the effect of setting a lot of interesting questions about His nature aside. The typical manner in which we have become accustomed to talk about God thus grants a strong presupposition in his favor and in favor of a number of assumptions about who He is and what role He plays in the universe. By ‘we’ here I mean pretty much any of us who talk about the subject, including non-believers like me. We Godless bastards doubt the existence of the Lord, and yet in doing so we happily fall into a manner of speech that practically puts him in the room.

That’s a bad habit.

It would be nice if we could put this habit down to twitter-apologetics or something, but as I recall the approach was already strong in the work of Thomas Aquinas, and with him, in philosophy seminars throughout the world. But seriously, how often do we talk about alternative explanations for anything using personal pronouns for key terms? We don’t explain falling Objects with reference to Mr. Gravity. Meteorologists don’t tell us about storms by warning us that Mother Earth is in a bad mood today. And we certainly don’t expect our doctors to enter into dialogue with the causes of our aches and pains. “…the cause of your sore throat is a guy named Fred. I’ve asked him to leave, and he said he would if only you would gift him these blue pills twice a day for the next two weeks.” Anyway, the point is that this is one respect in which the very vocabulary of God-talk is damned tricky. In using it, we may start with interesting questions, but we end up discussing it in personal terms.

…literally.

The point here is that folks rarely examine the implications of that transition. But they should. Some of us may have qualms about using such sloppy rhetoric to try and explain anything, much less the entire universe (which is itself an odd almost-notion that could bear a little reflection), but you have to wonder about the proprieties of the matter? It isn’t really all that nice to talk about someone as though they aren’t in the room. It has to be a little rude to sit there and tell people about God making this and god making that when folks assure us he hears the whole conversation. We non-believers can at least plead ignorance if we turn out wrong, but I have to wonder about the theists among us. What’s your excuse?

Okay, tongue in cheek remarks aside, my point is that this whole fashion of reference to God throws every explanation sideways and it makes every theoretical explanation using God just a little conky-wobble, more than a little actually. The sheer awkwardness of that transition, seemingly naturalized by countless centuries of habitus touches on an interesting question about the history of this God. When did he become an explanation? It might have been the same time that he dispensed with all his companions and decided to become the only deity in town.

Most of your deities in classic polytheism just don’t play the same kind of role in the intellectual life of their believers. Sure they create (often by accident, …ahem, Coyote!), but they do not create out of nothing. More importantly, it isn’t clear that they are really there to serve as explanations for anything. A god of lightning may seem a poor explanation for lightning in this day and age, but one shouldn’t be too quick to assume he is really there to explain lightning. It is at least as plausible that those speaking of such gods may simply want us to think of them whenever we see lightning, in effect making the physical world (or at least its storms) a reminder of the stories told about them. This isn’t the logic of scientific (or even unscientific) explanation; it is a narrative style of its own. And the God of Abraham has his early days in those conventions. One searches in vain for anything like the rigor of Thomas Aquinas in the Book of Genesis, or even the rest of the Bible.

The God of Abraham was a god of war long before he was a First Cause. He was a god of agriculture long before he was a being than which nothing greater can be conceived. And he was a god of shepherds long before he was the supreme watch-maker. He was a god of many other things too, one of the being creation, but the conventions of that creation are not those of philosophical explanation. The account of creation we find in the Old Testament is the sort of loose-ended story-telling that one finds in the Iliad, the Mahabharata, or even the stories of elders in various native communities. The moral lessons of such stories and the ethos they facilitate are simply not those of the great philosophical arguments. We may use the same name to reference Him in each of these instances, but there is little reason to believe he is really the same person.

Truth be told, I suspect this is true of much of Christianity. The God who appears in the great philosophical arguments has little to do with the God spoken of in churches every Sunday. Small wonder that it is often the believers in the room who don’t really want to discuss the arguments for God’s existence. At least that was my experience when I taught Introduction to Philosophy. Each time I seemed to find myself, the only atheist in the room, trying to convince my students that the cosmological argument was worth thinking about, that the Ontological Argument wasn’t entirely insane, and that even Pascal’s Wager had its merits. Time and again, my students would simply proclaim that you couldn’t prove that God exists, all the while clearly insisting that he does. For me at least, the exchange was always fascinating and frustrating at the same time. I can’t help but think that my students were right about one thing though, that sort of intellectual exchange had little to do with their own approach to the subject. The God of the First Cause argument wasn’t really the God of their prayers, and it bothered them to speak of Him as though He was.

It isn’t really all that clear to me that anyone has to figure out where it all came from, so to speak, and it certainly isn’t clear that we must accept Christian accounts in the absence of an alternative. More to the point of this post, it isn’t clear that belief in God or gods has always been about answering such questions.

…or even that it is so today.

 

Silencing the Base Villains and Sending us Back to the Old Narratives: Yep ‘Atheism’ Again

03 Friday Jan 2014

Posted by in atheism, Philosophy

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"Who should I swear by? thou believest no god: That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?"

“Who should I swear by? thou believest no god: That granted, how canst thou believe an oath?” – Titus Andronicus

It isn’t often that the villains of a narrative grow up to lead lives of their own. Such a thing seems beyond improbably; the mere suggestion flirts with magical realism. And yet, such a thing has happened, ironically enough in the growth of modern atheism.

For many centuries, atheists lived in churches and temples, so to speak, or rather, they lived in the stories told in such places. For those equating belief in a god with moral values, unbelievers have long provides a ready source of villainy, a bad counter-example to the moral of many a pious story. One really doesn’t find people proudly claiming the name of atheism until the modern era. It is only then that stories about atheists as an other come to compete with narratives told by those of us who claim the label for ourselves.

One can see readily enough that the existence of self-proclaimed atheists is perplexing to some believers. The resulting confrontations can be a rather telling moment, as some believers adjust and alter their messages to engage in real dialogue. Others seem only to find it deeply offensive that characters who should be under their control have shown up in person and refused the roles assigned to them. It isn’t really all that surprising then that a good portion of the popular dialogue over unbelief should focus on the meaning of ‘atheism’ and questions about just who gets to claim the term. It is also a question about whether ‘atheism’ will remain the province of characters known primarily in the third person, or will it now remain a label that lives in first person?

You might think that the matter has been settled in fact if not in principle, but one often finds folks trying to put the genii back in the bottle. One of the most common stratagems is a simple evidence press. “How can you be sure?” I’ve been asked that question directly a few times, and I find variations of it in a broad range of apologetics. In some of the more telling variations, atheists appear once again as the villains of a religious narrative, one in which we are presumed to be arrogant since only an omniscient being could possibly be sure that no gods exist. Those rejecting claims to omniscience may soon find themselves told they aren’t really ‘atheists’.

…they probably aren’t really Scottsmen either!

I often marvel at the double standard behind this approach; but of course it’s not just a double standard, it’s also a double bind. On the one hand people proclaiming all manner of faiths can stake out their stance on the existence or nature of God(s), and few would think to infer anything about their sense of certainty from this alone. We don’t typically assume someone has claimed omniscience simply by choosing which church they will attend on Sunday. On the other hand, that sense of certainty seems uniquely objectionable when it is projected into the mind of an atheist. Time and again, I hear (or read) believers claiming that they know with absolute certainty that God exists, and few would think they were bragging up their own abilities in so doing. Yet many of these same believers seem quite aghast at the possibility that anyone could be so certain as to the existence of God(s) as to take up the mantle of atheism. To be an atheist is, many would assume, to assert with absolutely certainty that which cannot be known at all.

Perhaps the believers are right. Perhaps there is something about the nature of the question that ties the no gods stance to some unique scale of uber-gnosticism. You can believe in Mormon-Jesus, Krishna, or even the Virgin Mary with or without certitude, but to say ‘no’ to the lot of them one must be omniscient.

Meh, ….I don’t think so.

This is somewhat of a sticking point, however, and those of us proclaiming our god-free lives must deal with the problem in one manner or another. Somewhere in the process of breathing life into the stale villain’s role of atheism, a non-believer must arrive at an answer to the question of what to do about all the possible gods, not merely the one that this or that believer is urging on you at this particular moment. If this sweeping negation of gods seems implausible, at least to the believers, then it seems a fitting enough cause to cancel the improbably narrative turn, …sufficient reason so to speak to return ‘atheism’ to the province of believers, to grant them once again the exclusive right to use that notion as they see fit.

The consolation prize is invariably ‘agnosticism’.

Old Berti!

Old Berti!

Take for example, an essay written by Clare Carlisle, a Lecturer at King’s College in London. This is part of a series on Bertrand Russell, focusing on his views on religion and spirituality in general. Russell is of course one the great figures of freethought, and many atheists (myself among them) would count him as a strong and positive influence. Carlisle insists that Russell was an agnostic who rejected atheism. She explains:

However, the same intellectual integrity that made Russell unable to accept religious beliefs also prevented him from embracing atheism. Rather like the 18th-century Scottish philosopher David Hume, Russell maintained a sceptical attitude to metaphysical questions. He explains this position very clearly in a 1953 essay on his agnosticism, where he states that, ‘it is impossible, or at least impossible at the present time, to know the truth in matters such as God and the future life with which Christianity and other religions are concerned.’ Theoretically, agnosticism is very different from atheism, for atheists and theists share the conviction that knowledge about such matters is attainable – and, indeed, that they have attained it while their opponents have failed to do so. However, from a practical point of view Russell admits that agnosticism can come very close to atheism, for many agnostics claim that the existence of God is so improbable that it is not worth serious consideration.

Carlisle goes on to recount some of Russell’s criticism of religion and ends this particular piece by telling us that there is something spiritual about Russell’s agnosticism, that it is in fact analogous to Christian proclamations that one should not pass judgement upon other people. She has an interesting take on the subject, and I do not see clear factual errors, but I do think their is something misleading about her narrative. Far from an admission, I think Russell’s claim that agnosticism is often in practice equivalent to atheism is rather precisely the direction he wanted to take his point to begin with.

A few years back, John Wilkins of the Science Blogs used this same essay from 1953 to suggest that many who now call themselves ‘atheist’ are simply mistaken, and I sense at least a trace of that implication in some of those now shopping Carlisle’s piece around. It wasn’t that long ago that giddy believers were reminding us at every turn about rumors of Anthony Flew‘s conversion to belief (which proved true-ish). Details matter, and they often matter more in the philosophical discussions than they do in popular discussion about the great icons of any philosophical position. So, we are left with a twofold question (this seems to be a morning of homologous reasoning); was Russell in any sense an atheist? And what is the best way to deal with the problem mentioned above, nameless the impossibility of knowing whether or not God exists.

Happily Russell himself outlined the beginnings of an answer to both questions in another essay, entitled Am I an Atheist or an Agnostic, published in 1947. Russell explains:

Here there comes a practical question which has often troubled me. Whenever I go into a foreign country or a prison or any similar place they always ask me what is my religion.

I never know whether I should say “Agnostic” or whether I should say “Atheist”. It is a very difficult question and I daresay that some of you have been troubled by it. As a philosopher, if I were speaking to a purely philosophic audience I should say that I ought to describe myself as an Agnostic, because I do not think that there is a conclusive argument by which one prove (sic) that there is not a God.

On the other hand, if I am to convey the right impression to the ordinary man in the street I think I ought to say that I am an Atheist, because when I say that I cannot prove that there is not a God, I ought to add equally that I cannot prove that there are not the Homeric gods.

None of us would seriously consider the possibility that all the gods of homer really exist, and yet if you were to set to work to give a logical demonstration that Zeus, Hera, Poseidon, and the rest of them did not exist you would find it an awful job. You could not get such proof.

Therefore, in regard to the Olympic gods, speaking to a purely philosophical audience, I would say that I am an Agnostic. But speaking popularly, I think that all of us would say in regard to those gods that we were Atheists. In regard to the Christian God, I should, I think, take exactly the same line.

Significantly, the passage above addresses the issue in terms quite similar to those of the latter article. Here is the passage Carlisle referenced, as quoted in Wilkin’s own piece:

Are agnostics atheists? No. An atheist, like a Christian, holds that we can know whether or not there is a God. The Christian holds that we can know there is a God; the atheist, that we can know there is not. The Agnostic suspends judgment, saying that there are not sufficient grounds either for affirmation or for denial. At the same time, an Agnostic may hold that the existence of God, though not impossible, is very improbable; he may even hold it so improbable that it is not worth considering in practice. In that case, he is not far removed from atheism. His attitude may be that which a careful philosopher would have towards the gods of ancient Greece. If I were asked to prove that Zeus and Poseidon and Hera and the rest of the Olympians do not exist, I should be at a loss to find conclusive arguments. An Agnostic may think the Christian God as improbable as the Olympians; in that case, he is, for practical purposes, at one with the atheists.

Perhaps the latter essay reflects Russell’s final take on the matter, but what seems most interesting about the two passages above is just how closely the mirror each other. The only difference is that in 1946, Russell was claiming to be an agnostic in one sense and an atheist in another. In 1953, he was distinguishing atheism from agnosticism on the basis of the claim that atheism necessarily believe they can know whether or not God exists.

The problem with this hard and fast distinction between atheism and agnosticism is illustrated in both passages. Russell is aware of that problem, and he is commenting on it directly in both essays. On the one hand, Russell’s earlier text shows us clearly what is lost in the narrower use of the term ‘atheism’, a sense of the active rejection, a sense of someone who has considered the prospect of God’s existence and in effect decided against it. This atheism doesn’t reside in epistemology, but it is worth noting just the same. Ironically, this atheism comes close to some of the more archaic uses of atheism as if it were a synonym for immorality, those informing the character of Aaron the Moor for example in Titus Andronicus. Labels such as this one are not merely descriptions of theoretical positions in technical discussion; they are also descriptions of the way one lives one’s life. Believers have been commenting on that larger question of godlessness for millennia, and I don’t believe unbelievers gain much by restricting our self-representation to the more theoretical questions about what can and cannot prove with absolute certainty

Which brings us to a second points…

Both passages above proceed immediately from a comparison of atheism and agnosticism to present a more subtle approach to the question of belief. Russell seems to be suggesting that the possibilities at hand are not sufficient to resolve the problem. One could perhaps recognize hints of Russell’s Teapot in both passages, but more to the point, in both of these essays Russell moves on to suggest that we need a more finely grained approach to the question of knowledge to deal with this question. He raises the prospect of degrees of certainty in the essay of 1946 whereas he speaks of probability in 1953, ending the quote above by telling us that for practical purposes an agnostic might as well be an atheist. In both cases, Russell suggests grounds for rejecting belief in God even as he concedes his inability to present a categorical solution to the question of his existence.

Russell’s position is little different from that of many atheists today; it is his use of vocabulary which seems different, and he is clearly uncomfortable with that vocabulary.

This is far and away from a rejection of atheism; it is at best a qualification as to what atheism means. Russell is effectively locating his atheism in the practical sphere of life, distinguishing it in some sense from a philosophical claim. Significantly, he appears to assume (as many do today) that philosophical atheism must take the form of a strong assertion backed by something greater than considerations of probability. But of course there is little reason to restrict use of the word ‘atheism’ to such narrow grounds, and still less precedent for that approach in the vocabulary used for other people’s beliefs and religious orientations.

I don’t particularly know if Carlisle or anyone else is hoping to inspire others to reject atheism through this argument as she believes Russell does, but she does seem intent on working a wedge into the difference between agnosticism and atheism. In point of practice, this denies to atheists a range of considerations quite available to believers, and it provides yet another spurious reason to restrict use of ‘atheism’ to an exceedingly narrow range of acceptable applications. Suffice to say that I do not find the argument convincing.

A Hyponym Walks into a Bar…

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by in atheism, Philosophy

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Here is how I would spend that money!

I could believe in a God of Korean BBQ, yes I could!

I Grumble: I wish I had a nickel for every time a Christian told me that my take on the existence of God isn’t really atheism; it’s agnosticism. No, those nickels wouldn’t make me rich, but they would add up to a nice meal at a decent restaurant, and with enough change to leave a damned good tip.

On one level, this is  interpersonal aggression. If someone can take your identity away (or at least that part of your identity most salient to the topic at hand), then the rest of the discussion is going to suck no matter how well you handle the particulars. It’s the sort of argument that is really about who is in charge.

…and I mean in a right-here-and-now kinda way.

Just like a husband and wife engaged in a two-day spat over which brand of butter would have been a better purchase, atheists and theists (mostly Christians) will tap away on our keyboards well into the wee hours of the morning, all over the question of just what atheism really is and who gets to call themselves an ‘atheist’. It’s almost as though we have that agreement, you know the one about never going to bed with unresolved issues, only we never do get to the make-up sex on this particular topic. We just keep jabbering at each other until the sun rises and it’s time to go to work tired. (Thanks honey!) The bottom line is what ought to be the opening stages of a larger dialogue becomes the overwhelming focus of an exhausting (and often pointless) pseudo-discussion.

On another level, the subject is certainly worth some time. The semantics are tricky here, and one will need to sort the meaningful possibilities out before proceeding to any substantive issues. And Hell, I figure I’ve encountered a genuine concern or three amidst all the bunk believers have thrown at me on this issue over the years. I know I have a few truth-in-advertizing concerns for those calling themselves Christians as well. Plus, I think I’m actually adjusting my views on this one a bit lately. So, I’m going to have a go at this all-too familiar old topic and hope that the results won’t lead to any incidents of self-mutilation.

So, please take a deep breath!

***

The Basics: The problem is this, among the group of people calling themselves atheists, some of us will happily do so without presenting any reason to believe that there are no gods. If pressed on the issue, we will often claim that the burden of proof lies with the believer. Atheism thus represents a stance we will take in the absence of positive reason to believe in God. This approach to atheism is sometimes known as “weak atheism,” as opposed to “strong atheism,” which is generally taken to refer to the stance of someone prepared to argue that no gods exist at all. Some might say that a weak atheist simply doesn’t believe in any gods whereas a strong atheist says there are no gods.

And here is where Theists often cry foul. Isn’t the neutral position really that of agnosticism, they will say, and how can it be that atheists (weak or otherwise) have no burden of proof? Isn’t that unfair?

But of course atheists have a number of arguments in favor of these terms, not the least of them being an analogy to legal reasoning and/or the structure of formal debate organization wherein an affirmative position is often given the burden of proof. If someone is accused of a crime, we do not expect the defense to prove them innocent; we expect the prosecutors to prove them guilty. The problem, as weak atheists often phrase it is that you cannot prove a negative. This isn’t quite true, or even close really; but it does touch on a real problem. Many negatives can be proven true, but many cannot. If for example the original claim to be disproved is too vague, it will be difficult to formulate grounds for proving it false. Making someone responsible for proving a negative thus creates a double-bind of sorts, making the critic responsible for any ambiguities in the position he seeks to criticize.

The weak atheist position construes this debate in terms of a proof that at least one God exists. If the theist can make his case, then great he wins, but if he fails, then we go back to our default judgement that no gods exist.

Theists typically reject these terms of debate, often by suggesting its proponents have mislabeled themselves. ‘Atheism’, they will suggest should be reserved for those prepared to prove god doesn’t exist and those who merely assume he doesn’t in the absence of evidence are better described as ‘agnostics’.

It is actually a rather soft version of agnosticism that theists keep advancing as the proper alternative to the weak atheist position; effectively telling us; “if you don’t know, then leave it at that.” The shoulder-shrug version of agnosticism is not to be confused with hard agnosticism (i.e. the notion that questions about the existence of God are inherently unknowable, in short; “I don’t know, and neither do you”).

Of course soft agnosticism could be a perfectly reasonable description of the absence of affirmative belief, but so would weak atheism. In fact, the two categories could well apply at the same time. …hence the common practice of referring to oneself as an agnostic atheist.

Many do just that.

***

Holy Holistics Batman!  It’s worth considering that such labels go well beyond the stance one takes in a particular debate and extend to questions about behavior, values, etc. Life is full of decisions one has to make in the absence of perfect information, and this is one of them. Sooner or later we have to make decisions predicated on our answer to questions about whether or not God does exist. I will either keep the Sabbath or not; I will either say the Sinner’s Prayer with conviction, or not. I will either covet my neighbor’s hot wife or not. …you get the idea. If the debate over whether or not God exists ends in a stalemate the actual pace of real life decisions does NOT respect that stalemate (and from what I hear, neither will the God of Abraham). Whatever the balance of evidence, one has to make a decision. This is exactly what burdens of proof are about. Assigning a default judgement is a process of deciding what you will do if you do not know the answer to a given question.

The weak atheist position may be frustrating as Hell to theists, but it has the virtue of addressing this question of how one will actually live.

***

Let’s Take a Step Back: There is just one thing about that last twist in the argument above; it isn’t quite a function of logic or reason, …not entirely so anyway. Rather, it is a question of how the merits of a reasoned position will map onto the practical judgements of actual life.

Default judgements lie at the intersection between reason and social interaction, and the question of who has the burden of proof in this debate is just one of the moments when the politics of religion intrudes on the intellectual exercise of reasoning about it. However much the participants may want to imagine themselves capable of resolving the issue on the merits of the case, the prospect looms large that it will still be an open case long after any particular discussion (or even years of study and centuries of dialogue). It would be nice if someone could produce end-game proof one way or another, but the reality is that most of us will end up making our decisions about a range of relevant issues in the wake of a stalemate shaded by a little other than a sense that one side or another has a good point here and a slight advantage there. In short, the debate may never end, but sooner or later we have to declare our own take on the issue. At that moment, when we have to decide in the absence of a clear accounting, the burden of proof may well prove to be the decisive consideration.

And so we haggle about the terms of the debate even to the point of never getting to the debate itself, partly because we know this little technicality is likely to make a difference on down the road a bit.

Whatever else weak atheists are saying, they are also saying “let’s handle this issue one God at a time. You give me one sound case for one God as you define Her, and I’ll give up my position and go with that one God.” This position offers real advantages for both parties, not the least of them being that it bundles all the tricky semantic questions about what one means by ‘God’ into the same package and lets the Theist have first crack at resolving them. The details of the discussion will then be on her terms (or at least about her terms).

This has the advantage of providing for a pretty direct test of that God, at least for those willing to approach the subject by means of reason (which is admittedly a diminishing portion of the population …it having become an article of faith that religion is about faith). In short, this approach to the conversation maximizes the relevance of any conclusions drawn to the actual beliefs of the Theist involved in any particular discussion.

But what about the atheist? For him, this way of modelling the issue really tests a pretty narrow aspect of his professed stance; his ability to present a reasonable objection to one particular approach to belief in one particular god, …at least as argued by one particular person. It leaves his take on any other gods pretty much off the table altogether. And (here is where I am cutting against years of habit) I think there is some justice to the claim that this is something of a dodge.

If someone has concluded that there are no gods, or even that he sees no reason to believe in any, then even this latter version of his stance necessarily goes well beyond the subject of one debate with one believer. It’s a fair question; what about the others? How do you deal with them?

Those professing weak atheism are generally unwilling to enter onto that turf, not the least of reasons being that any attempt to produce an end-game argument on the subject will effectively make them responsible for resolving all he tricky semantic questions while theists stand-by with an easy out. If an atheist attempts to prove that all gods don’t exist; he has to settle on a definition, and he has to do it without a claim that that definition fits the real thing (since he doesn’t think there is a real thing). The mistakes of believers thus become the responsibility of the atheist, and the liar’s paradox then mocks his every move.

And yet, there remains some trace of a legitimate question here. Does the stance of even a weak atheist not go beyond the particular gods of the particular theists with whom he is talking at any given moment? Clearly, he expects to reject any given god with whom he he is confronted at any given time. If that expectation does not yield a direct argument on the topic, is there no accounting for it whatsoever? None?

At the very least we could frame the conclusion that there are no gods as an induction of sorts, derived from our past experiences debating the existence of particular gods with particular people in a variety of different conversations. At some point, one begins to form an expectation, even a tentative conclusion. The judgement is there, and one can even find ways of framing it for purposes of discussion. It’s just that the conversation gets kind of messy if you go this route.

But maybe that’s a mess more of us ought to consider getting into.

***

Let’s Wrap it Up (and it’s About Time!): The issue here isn’t really what kind of atheist are you; it’s what kind of conversation do you want to have? How do you prefer to frame the debate? And the truth is that most of those professing weak atheism do in fact cultivate a number of alternative approaches to the subject; they just don’t recognize them as appropriate answers to questions about the existence of God or gods. This happens precisely because the conversation must at some point cease to be a question of metaphysics and become a question about social practice.

Ultimately, the judgement that there are no gods has less to do with the nature of the universe than the value of certain ways of talking about it. It is a judgement that god-talk never has nor ever will produce a description of a superntural entity that is literally true. On a good day, god-talk might produce inspiring poetry, amazing architecture,  profound moral thoughts, or even deeply moving personal narratives, but it will not produce a plausible case for a supernatural entity. Even the assertion of a weak atheist stance means at least this much; that one does not expect to hear talk of gods produce a believable claim about the existence of such a being. One may prefer to test that one god at a time with the Theist on the hot seat, but those of us claiming the label are certainly communicating something about our expectations regarding the subject at hand.

We can do more than that, and we actually do more than that every time we comment on the realities of religious practice; every time we describe the horrors committed in god’s name or link any poor judgement to the vagaries of religious thought. This sort of talk doesn’t always rise far above the level of gossip (or even outright idiocy), but it often calls attention to real problems. At least part of the rationale for rejecting belief in God is a sense that talk about him is unlikely to produce a claim worth affirming, at least not in its most literal sense. (Some of us may find Martin Luther King Jr.’s words inspiring or even turn the radio up for a religious tune or two, but there is always some sense in which we are not quite down with the whole message.) And herein lies the moment when even a ‘weak atheist’ goes a little beyond the confrontation with any one case for God; he is pronouncing a verdict on a vast range of discourse about gods, and he is telling us that all of it (in his estimation) fails to produce a compelling case for belief in that God. In some instances the God is too vague, in others She is a contradiction, and when a clear and coherent concept does make an appearance it just doesn’t have the ring of truth to it. This is a judgement that goes beyond the test of one particular god belief, and weak atheists make these sorts of judgements on a pretty regular basis.

So, it isn’t really that we have two types of atheists here so much as two (or more) different ways of setting up a discussion with theists over the subject. One typically uses the deductive models of metaphysical reasoning to test one God at a time (preferably that of the particular believer we happen to be talking to). The other typically uses probabalistic reasoning to pass judgement on a range of loosely connected ideas sailing under the rubric of god-talk. In effect, the second approach deals not with God Herself so much as the language in which she is typically presented, and it deals with that subject in terms of summary judgements. There is nothing inherently wrong with this approach, but it’s a bit less rhetorically satisfying, especially when squaring off over the subject with someone who insists that some version of God is real after all.

Most of us are uncomfortable with generalizations, and I think even atheists are oddly attached to the sense of absolute truth that one expects from metaphysical discussion. When we approach the topic that way, we can often say ‘no’ with something approaching certainty. It is the certainty of deductive reasoning and all-or-nothing proofs. Theoretically those are the stakes, the theist too could win one for the Gipper, …or Jesus, I suppose. If these are the stakes, then yes, I think I am still inclined to opt for the weak atheist position. But I do think it is reasonable to expect some accounting for the rejection that goes beyond the god of one particular conversation; that account will of necessity turn into a form of social commentary. And thus my rejection of god turns out to be a rejection of what men say about Her, and on that score perhaps there are sufficient grounds to field an affirmative argument.

About the hyponym? Turns out he’s kinda hyper.

Preaching to the Non-Choir and Slouching Towards an Apologetic Tradition

05 Tuesday Mar 2013

Posted by in atheism, Philosophy

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What is the difference between a Christian philosopher and a Christian apologist?

Quite simply, marketing.

When I think of a Christian philosopher, I think of someone genuinely engaged in thinking through the issues, someone who makes his bread and butter by addressing alternative viewpoints in a direct and reasonable manner. His career depends on his ability to challenge others with cogent arguments to the topic at hand. He writes and he speaks with an audience in mind that includes non-believers, even dedicated opponents of his own position. Good Christian philosophers give me pause; they make me think twice, and I enjoy reading or listening to their thoughts.

When I think of a Christian apologist, I think of someone whose real audience is already sitting in the church, and they have no intention of going anywhere else on a Sunday. That audience is happy to take in some argument fresh out of a can, telling them why the other guys (people like me) are wrong. They don’t really need convincing, just reassurance, and they certainly won’t be asking any tough questions, at least not without accepting any token answers that may come along. When I think of apologists I think of endless circular arguments and enough straw men to earn a visit from the fire marshal. Apologists can do this, precisely because they are not really making an effort to engage non-believers, they are just making a show of it for the benefit of the faithful.

The philosopher has a potentially hostile audience, and he knows it; the apologist is preaching to the choir, and he knows it too.

When I think of Christian philosophers I think of Alvin Plantinga. When I think of apologists I think of Ray Comfort and his damned banana. (Then I think of Dunning and Kruger, but that’s a rant for a different day.) Don’t get me wrong, there is no hard and fast dividing line between these practices, but one cannott help noticing the differences at the far ends of the continuum. Some folks are making an honest effort to engage people with different views, and some folks are just going through the motions.

An entire industry falls on the less-than-worthy side of that distinction, producing stock arguments for the benefit of believers everywhere. Diehard consumers of this literature often become adept at identifying the issues, naming the conventional arguments, and applying the necessary responses, or at least the labels thereof. Being tone-deaf to the particulars of any given conversation, such folks are happy to point you to a book or even supply a link to some guy who answered your argument (or at least another argument that would fall under the same label). “Just go there and read it and you’ll see…”

Damned irritating is the nicest thing I can say about such people.

But all of this is just background material. What has me thinking about this is the possibility of an emergent apologetics tradition within atheism. Now some might take it for granted that everything I just said about arguments for Christianity would be true of non-believers as well; if one side of a debate is doing it, so a kind of popular wisdom goes, you can sure bet the other side is doing it too. But that just isn’t always the case. (Allow us please the possibility of a different set of vices.) In this instance the difference lies in the relative absence of a viable market for such messages.

…until recently.

For most of my life being an atheist has been a rather lonely experience. Oh sure, I could find lots of people happy to bitch about religion, and plenty more who could tell me (their faces beaming) about the time their minister got mad at them for asking too many questions. But with few exceptions, these same folks stop well short of  denying the existence of God altogether. Most have little better tom say about atheists than they do the preachers of those stories.

Perhaps, my experiences have been atypical, but I don’t think so. Near as I can tell, unbelievers haven’t generally run in crowds all that much, not in the western world at any rate, not the least of reasons being that we have a hard time finding each other.

Had, that is! …had.

The Friendly Atheist, Hemant Mehta, once suggested that the invention of the internet has served to empower atheism in important ways, perhaps even given us an edge over believers in public discourse. I have my reservations over Mehta’s full take on the subject, but there is something about his observations that ring true for me. I do think the net is a bit of a game changer even if the outlook of this new game may be less than clear at this point.

The whole issue reminds me of an evening spent surfing the Apologetics page at Christianforums.com only to find the only other people on there were atheists like me. I challenged one of my fellow heathen to debate me anyway, suggesting we flip a coin to decide who would play the part of a believer, but he just wrote ‘lol’. The internet had no love for an argumentative guy that night. Anyway, that was my first taste of the power of the net to draw the unbelievers out into the open, or at least the virtual equivalent thereof.

I live and work in a remote village in the Bible hat of the country. I’ve met three self-professed atheists (that I know of) since moving here, and that’s three more than I met the dozen or so years I worked on the Navajo Nation. In this respect my experience is clearly not typical, but here is my point, I still count dozens of atheists as my friends, and I can interact with them as often as I want to. I have only to go online. That, for me anyway, is the difference between unbelief with the net and unbelief without it.

And yes, that strikes me as a good thing.

What worries me is the possibility that with this form of empowerment, some of us have picked up a few vices, not the east of them being a penchant for crafting arguments with less probative value than inflammatory potential. You can often do both at the same time, and maybe there is good reason to rally the troops on occasion, but sometimes people do make a choice, even without realizing it. There is something deeply inauthentic about fielding an argument that just doesn’t confront the other side in a meaningful way.

It is concerns about this that have me looking sideways at some of the memes circulating through the unbelieving corners of the net. Don’t get me wrong, I laugh at (and hit the ‘like’ button) on lots of these, but some are just genuinely foolish or outright deceptive. I did find it a little disturbing one day when I realized the front page of the atheist reddit consisted of nothing but memes, and I shudder to think at the 140-bit mindset developing on twitter. One can hope that people are learning and developing more complex messages in other contexts, but the medium of expression does shape content. And I can’t help thinking the sound-bite quality of some internet media will have an impact on the sorts of messages circulating about in them.

But of course I am not simply talking about a non-believing net. Recent years have seen the rise of countless conferences for skepticism, secularism, and non belief. Numerous unbelieving organizations, including a range of student groups have come into being, each pursuing a range of closely related agendas. Once again, there is tremendous potential in this. But at least part of that potential is a capacity for group-think and a chance to build a reputation (perhaps even a career) out of interactions with mostly like-minded people. In itself, that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it doesn’t hep if one’s goals are at least partly to engage with others.

The recent Palin-Billboard debacle over at American Atheists would be a nice case-in-point. Everyone makes mistakes, but not everyone puts them on a billboard, or doubles down on the subject when questioned about it (or brags about high standards when finally correcting the mistake). No, not everyone does that, and David Barton is NOT good company folks. But of course the point here is hardly that someone made a mistake and was slow to correct it. The problem is that such behavior becomes much more likely when your bread&butter does not rest so much on your ability to issue a credible challenge to believers as it does on your ability to comfort those already in your own camp.

No, this post is not about being nice, and it’s not about compromise. It’s about taking the time and effort to do more than tell dirty stories about the stupidity of believers, and to field arguments that will do more than make other non-believers feel good. We are all hit or miss on the topic, even with the best of intentions, but some folks may not even be making that effort.

When your intended audience is in your camp, it is amazing how easy it is to field a compelling argument.

But that is a path that leads to Comfort and bananas.

The point here is that those of us who just say ‘no’ to gods can communicate our views more effectively now than ever. We can reach more people and we can insert our views into more conversations than previously possible. It would be a damned shame if these new possibilities were wasted on the production of in-jokes and arguments appealing only to confirmation bias.

I’m not against Schadenfreude either; I don’t much care what people laugh about three beers into a night out with the guys. But one ought to know the difference between a cheap shot and cogent argument. And one ought to be able to sober up when the time comes and field a case for one’s own position, a case that actually moves the conversation with others forward in some meaningful way.

I do think a few folks could work on that a bit.