Why I am an atheist

Posted on January 21, 2011 by Michael

Why I am an atheist:

  • The burden of proof lies on the one making a positive claim.

Atheism is not the claim that there is no god. That is a common misconception. And I can understand why people might think atheists are saying that. First, it’s a common tactic of believers to try and create this strawman. It forces atheists to defend a position they don’t hold, and if the atheist is aware enough to say, “No, no, I am not making that claim”, then the believer is going to have the upper hand in the rhetorical department; at this point, the believer can accuse the atheist of moving the goal posts. That isn’t what is really happening, but to explain as much would start to burden the atheist with too many arguments. They can all be successfully made, but most people aren’t too interested in hearing anything beyond some hollow talking points. Second, for all practical purposes, it makes sense to say there is no god. It’s convention to speak in such concrete terms. It’s exactly like when everyone says unicorns don’t exist. If we got down to the nitty-gritty, of course (I hope) we’ll all say unicorns could exist. But then we’re practically inviting people to misinterpret our position. “Oh, so you think maybe there are unicorns out there? Ha!” And when once again it becomes necessary to explain a nuanced position against such short rhetoric, the explanation is left in the dust; people are susceptible to talking points. See: The number of articles about ‘Climategate’ when the ‘story’ first broke versus the number of articles when the lengthier explanation of exoneration and confirmation of scientists was released.

  • Science has been consistently filling holes in our knowledge.

Since humanity began to emerge from the science-killing grip of the Church, discoveries have  routinely been made which eliminate the need for gods as explanations. Motion of the planets? It’s a product of gravity. Lightning? It’s a product of how our atmosphere works. Life? It’s a product of evolution. At no point do we need to invoke any god. There is no reason to think science will not continue to do this; its power is only limited by our imagination.

  • God is not an explanation.

I accept that God is a possible explanation for the Universe, but I reject that he is a plausible explanation. If we’re going to use principles of the Universe in order to posit a God – every force requires an equal and opposite force – then we need to apply all the principles of the Universe. God therefore requires a force. That brings us to an infinite regress. One solution would be to say God is eternal, but why claim that? Because we need to claim it? That is no reason at all. And how about all the other principles? We know complex things only come from simpler processes. Everything eventually breaks down into simplicity, so to propose something that is necessarily complex (he had to create a Universe, after all) is to explain nothing. And finally, why are we inserting intention into all of this? We have no evidence of it. Why not propose an exo-verse sort of Nature, a Nature which always existed? If we’re going to just start making it up, let’s at least keep it simple.

  • Humans attribute cause where it does not belong.

Humans have the unique ability to understand causality on a deep level. We evolved the ability probably for tool use and social purposes mostly (Lewis Wolpert would be a better source on that than I). From its original use, we have used a perception of causality to believe a lot of ridiculous thing. That’s why we have such problems with separating our anecdotal experiences (‘My 95 year old uncle smoked all his life and never got cancer! Cigarettes aren’t so bad!’) from real sources of cause (Cigarettes kill). We used to do it with the weather (and some of us still do). We constantly do it with mundane everyday events (‘I was late getting to work, so I avoided the pile up accident. It was fate.’) We even see it on those Facebook profiles that say everything happens for a reason. We see cause everywhere; we don’t always attribute it correctly. I think that’s the case with belief in God. See: Paley’s Watchmaker.

  • People lie.

I find it more believable that someone would lie about talking to a god than the claim that a god actually exists and talks to humans. And sometimes people are delusional. And sometimes they are mistaken. And sometimes they tell stories with good intentions, and one huge game of Telephone later, we have all these holy texts. And as Bart D. Ehrman taught us, sometimes even the most well intentioned of scribes mess up. (Other times they have their own agendas.)

  • The purpose of Life.

Simply stated, the purpose of Life is to reproduce for the sake of replicators – that is, genes. That isn’t the purpose of human life. We create our own purpose. And maybe a few other unique species create their own purpose in a sense. But I’m not talking about life. I’m talking about Life. We are machines driven by the genes within us. Those genes are there to exist. They aren’t consciously concerned with anything. They are just chemically engineered by nature to replicate. And they do it damn well. In fact, most of the best ones to ever be able to do it are gracing the Earth right this moment. That is the why to Life: genes replicate. That’s their story in a nutshell. How they replicate is a pretty interesting tale, too, but that’s a different chapter. It’s the part of the story that says gene replicate because that’s what genes do that is one of the reasons I am an atheist.

This list is not exhaustive.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism | Tagged: , | 1 Comment »

Just an awful response

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Michael

Someone wrote a terrible letter to the editor a few days ago.

We have seen a lot hatred in this decade, and it is increasing by the minute. The problem is that people have completely lost faith in the Lord.

One of these sick people showed his true colors during the Christmas season by actually throwing eggs at my lovely manger. I pray that he sees the light.

Marie-Anne Jacques

Augusta

I’m not going to respond to Jacques’ comments here because I have already written a response letter to the paper. (I will, of course, publish that here once it gets printed.) But to what I will respond is one of the comments to this letter.

People will deny God at all costs in order to not have to face themselves. You can believe that there is no God but it takes more to not believe than it takes to beileve as more than 80% of Americans do believe.

The prophecies in the Bible clearly show that there is a God. There is no other way so many prophecies could be fulfilled unless there is a God. These prophecies that were written thousands of years ago are being fulfilled right before our eyes. Israel wasn’t a nation for close to 2000 years and now it is a nation as prophesied. A one world cuurency leading up to the mark of the beast, a one world religion, a one world government, a one world military, Israel performing sacrifices in the temple again; these are all things being planned right now all over the world fulfilling prophecy. The Bible talks about the sun getting so hot that it will burn people’s skin and on NASA’s website it tells of solar flare ups that are to start in about a year that will scortch the earth and all of our government leaders have built underground dwellings to hide from this onslaught from the sun. All this is foretold by the Bilbe and much more and it could never be foretold unless there is a God who knows the beginning from the end like it says.

Just awful.

That first line is the exact reason I wrote about Christians deep down. It amounts to calling atheists liars. “Why, you just deny God at all costs for your own sake!” No, no, no. Don’t you get it? I don’t believe in your god. In fact, I don’t believe in any god. Please don’t claim that I am just lying to you right now and I really do believe. I don’t. Deal.

And that second line? Aside from ending in a point of gibberish, it is a profound misunderstanding of atheism. I am NOT claiming that I know there is no God. There very well could be. There could also be a teapot in an elliptical orbit around the Sun. But I see no evidence for it. Just the same, you have no evidence for your god.

Oh, but wait. There’s that whole paragraph about how so many prophecies have been fulfilled. Like a global currency. Or a global religion. Or a global government. Or a global military. Right? I mean, right? I think my favorite is the claim of a global religion, if only because the commenter just got done citing that nearly 20% of Americans do not believe in God (the number is lower, but I don’t expect this guy to deal in facts).

Filed under: Religions | Tagged: , , , , , | 2 Comments »

A challenge to theists

Posted on January 15, 2011 by Michael

Or anyone, really:

Demonstrate how atheism inherently leads to any particular philosophy.

Does atheism lead to libertarianism? If so, how? Nihilism? How? Utilitarianism? Humanism? Pragmatism? How, how, how?

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism | Tagged: , | 17 Comments »

2010: FTSOS in review, July to September

Posted on December 30, 2010 by Michael

This is the third installment of the 2010 review of FTSOS. See the first two here and here.

July:
Some of the smaller posts I’ve made that I think deserve a little more attention are the ones where I emphasize that biology is all about shape. The article I wrote about the fight against HIV is one of those posts. Research earlier this year found at least one location on HIV molecules that remains a consistent shape between individual viruses. This is important because HIV’s ability to be differently shaped in different parts of a single body makes it difficult to combat.

I also wrote about the difference between atheists, new atheists, and anti-theists. One of the public relation problems for atheism is that it is viewed as a dirty word. People assume it means absolute certainty, and that is seen as arrogant. It’s ironic because belief in God usually comes with certainty and that isn’t seen as being so arrogant, but I digress. Atheism is not certainty. Furthermore, where it is involved in new atheism and anti-theism, atheism acts as a descriptive base; new atheism and anti-theism are normative positions.

One of my all-time favorite posts is the one about photolyase and cancer. Photolyase is a protein that captures light and uses two of its constituents (a single proton and single electron) to force contorted nucleotides back into place. It is not present in humans, but is common in plants and other animals, helping to keep their genes functioning properly. This may be one reason we’re more susceptible to cancer than many of our fellow organisms.

August:
This was a skimpy month for FTSOS. I was away on a couple vacations for the bulk of the month, so the majority of the posts were either from my “Thought of the day” series or they were pictures/YouTube videos. But for what was there, I couldn’t resist pointing out and expanding on a fantastic quote from the judge who said Prop 8 in California is unconstitutional. In his quote he said a ban on gays getting married fails to advance any rational cause. I compared that sentiment to the idea that the majority cannot be allowed to discriminate simply because it is the majority.

I also made a post about a website devoted to philosophical thought experiments. The thought experiment I chose to highlight was Judith Jarvis Thompson’s Trolley Problem. My big motivator was a recent discussion with another blogger who laughably claimed that the trolley experiment was merely a logistical exercise, not an exercise about morality. To date he is still the only person in the world to believe that.

I also went through a few theistic arguments that are obviously failures. The most notable in my mind is the argument that says everything has a cause, therefore the Universe had a cause. There are two major problems with this. First, then why not just say a sort of ‘exo-nature’ caused the Universe? There is no need for consciousness – in fact, that only makes the theistic argument less probable. Second, the whole basis for this argument rests in the idea that forces result in reactions. For instance, if I push a chair, that chair moves; I applied a force. This is basic physics. But the whole shebang of forces and equal and opposite reactions? We’re talking about the science of what we know that happens within the Universe. And all we know necessarily breaks down prior to the Big Bang. The First Cause argument cannot be used because it rests about an unwarranted extension of science. Religion abusing science? Crazy, I know.

September:
The beginning of September was just as skimpy as the end of August because I was still on vacation. But while I never gave a huge post on the subject, the defining moment of the month (and year and decade and…) for me was my hike of Kilimanjaro. I have started writing about it at this point – just not for FTSOS. But in lieu of that you can read the account of the journey from my fellow group member and current Facebook buddy Jim Hodgson.

I also gave a very lengthy post on why prostitution ought to be legal. No one seemed to care, but I put a lot of effort into, so I thought I would mention it here. Basically, we make the practice illegal because of our own discomfort with sex as a society. We also draw false correlations between it and other illegal activities: of course one illegal thing will bring with it other illegal things if it’s something people want. Finally, for the safety and health of all involved, it would be better to legalize and regulate prostitution than keep the old system we have now.

One of the most popular posts on FTSOS that people found via search engines was the one where I lamented low science and math scores in the United States. A lack of funding relative to other areas, hostility towards science, and a general anti-intellectual trend in the U.S. all contribute to the decline of America on the world stage in education.

Another lament was my post about the anti-vax crowd causing deaths. The fact is, people who advocate against vaccines or for made-up alternatives to vaccines are making the world a more dangerous place, making people sick and even causing deaths. Get vaccinated – and, if you have them, especially get your children vaccinated.

Once again I really want to highlight a fourth post here. In this case, it is the one I made about the Problem of Evil. This has forever been an issue that no Christian (or other relevant believer) has been able to resolve. If God is good and evil exists, then we need to answer why. Appealing to free will fails because while God is necessarily good, free will does not need to necessarily exist. In other words, God is required to be good; he is not required to create free will.

Expect October to December tomorrow.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment »

2010: FTSOS in review, April to June

Posted on December 29, 2010 by Michael

Here is the second installment of the 2010 FTSOS review. See the first installment here.

April:
Easily the top post of the month (in fact, it is number 5 all time) was the one about the topless march in Farmington. It resulted in a lot of people clicking the Photography tab on FTSOS in search of all the topless women who were marching through the small town of Farmington up here in Maine. Because I guess topless women are rare.

When I set up this blog, I never had the intention of giving a good focus to quacks and charlatans. But I just had to write about the scumbag Lawrence Stowe. The guy was caught on a CBS special stealing from the sick and desperate. He was ought ruining lives and families, laughing all the way to the bank. The guy is easily one of the biggest pieces of shit about whom I have ever read.

There was also the issue of FTSOS commenter Jack Hudson chiding a family member of mine through texts. I made mention of the issue on his blog, but he very quickly edited my comment so as not to reflect his misdeed. As a result – and being someone who hates dishonesty – I had to make a post on FTSOS explaining what had happened. This caused Jack to first deny his actions and then vow never to return to this blog. I later granted the small possibility that he was not guilty, but that did nothing to dampen the hissy-fit. Of course, since the texts came from Minnesota (which is where Jack lives) and since they all referenced a specific Facebook interaction he had with my family member, I had to remain unwilling to retract anything. I stand by that.

May:
The big science news of the month was that Craig Venter created synthetic DNA that worked when put in a cell. It is a phenomenal technical achievement that opens up the door to a whole world of synthetic creations. We can now, at least in theory, go into a computer program, change a few amino acids and come up with new genes and gene products. I suspect this will prove invaluable to cancer research.

About midway through the month I decided to tackle, for the nth time, the idea of objective morality. The truth is, even if theists are right that there is an objective morality, they do not arrive at their conclusions objectively. People are always picking and choosing what they want to believe, how to interpret the things they use for their beliefs, and how those things fit into what they already believe. As I said back in May, even a claim of objective morality is a subjective position.

I also talked about the fact that atheism has never been responsible for an act of evil. Two things arise from this. First, people often go back to that old chestnut, “Ideas don’t hurt people! People hurt people!” Of course, this just ignores the fact that people are composed of ideas. If we are not willing to say that ideas lead to actions, then it is no longer clear that we can even say ideas are good or bad. And what does it even mean to say people – explicitly not ideas – are responsible for actions? If people are not just packages of ideas, then what are they? What does it mean to say “Joe punched Suzy” if we deny that underlying that statement is that Joe had the idea to move his fist towards Suzy? Second, people will point to Stalin, Hitler, etc and say “What about those atheists?” This is silly first because Hitler was an evolution-denying, Christian creationist. The silliness then continues when we look at Stalin (and any other leader who was an atheist) because atheism is not a normative position. Since it is purely descriptive, it does not result in any “ought” or “ought not”; it says nothing of what we should or should not do. Stalin and co never acted out of atheism. It is not logically possible.

June:
The most popular post of the month had to be the one where I told people not to talk to the cops. If the police suspect a person of something, it serves the interests of the police, not the suspect, to get a discussion going. The job of the police is to find out information they can use against people. And even innocent people are at risk. The best way to avoid the whole mess? Don’t talk to the cops. Seriously.

In the race for governor of Maine, we learned that the eventual winner of the election, Republican Paul LePage, is a creationist. He later danced, obfuscated, and dodged the issue. The fact is, the guy is not going to object one bit when some Maine school board thinks it will be a good idea to teach creationism to students.

In skin cancer news, researchers found a certain drug, ipilimumab, which allows the immune system to run free and more effectively fight cancer. Responses to the drug were impressive for those with late stage skin cancers and it is hoped that the treatments can be improved. It was thought the FDA might approve the drug for use this year, but it looks like the decision date is going to be March 26, 2011.

Expect July to September tomorrow.

Filed under: Misc | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment »

“Surely the burden of proof is on the believer.”

Posted on December 19, 2010 by Michael

A Holiday Message from Ricky Gervais.

Arrogance is another accusation. Which seems particularly unfair. Science seeks the truth. And it does not discriminate. For better or worse it finds things out. Science is humble. It knows what it knows and it knows what it doesn’t know. It bases its conclusions and beliefs on hard evidence -­‐ evidence that is constantly updated and upgraded. It doesn’t get offended when new facts come along. It embraces the body of knowledge. It doesn’t hold on to medieval practices because they are tradition. If it did, you wouldn’t get a shot of penicillin, you’d pop a leach down your trousers and pray. Whatever you “believe”, this is not as effective as medicine. Again you can say, “It works for me”, but so do placebos. My point being, I’m saying God doesn’t exist. I’m not saying faith doesn’t exist. I know faith exists. I see it all the time. But believing in something doesn’t make it true. Hoping that something is true doesn’t make it true. The existence of God is not subjective. He either exists or he doesn’t. It’s not a matter of opinion. You can have your own opinions. But you can’t have your own facts.

But to get to the point:

Why don’t I believe in God? No, no no, why do YOU believe in God? Surely the burden of proof is on the believer. You started all this. If I came up to you and said, “Why don’t you believe I can fly?” You’d say, “Why would I?” I’d reply, “Because it’s a matter of faith”. If I then said, “Prove I can’t fly. Prove I can’t fly see, see, you can’t prove it can you?” You’d probably either walk away, call security or throw me out of the window and shout, ‘’F—ing fly then you lunatic.”

There are no great responses to this from theists, but there are half-way decent ones. Those are the ones that seek to offer evidence. Of course, they fail and that’s why they aren’t great. But at least they recognize where the onus lies. The bad ones are the ones that try to argue the above argument is somehow flawed. That’s ignorant, stupid, or disingenuous.

And finally:

You won’t burn in hell. But be nice anyway.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism | Tagged: , | Leave a comment »

Re: Dembski-Hitchens debate

Posted on November 24, 2010 by Michael

I’m currently watching the Dembski-Hitchens debate now that it’s back up. I’m embarrassed. And in two ways. First, you know that feeling you get when you watch someone doing something incredibly awkward and you actually feel embarrassed for that person? That’s how I feel about Dembski right now. He keeps repeating the same creationist canards. They have all been addressed. He needs to find something new (and maybe something factually true? I’m not sure if that touches on any of his personal interests, though). And second, I’m embarrassed that I had some initial surprise when he started going over all this garbage. I should have known better.

Update: Holy crap. I can’t believe he just implied that for something to be vestigial that it must be useless.

Update: Most of Dembski’s end is just a series of personal attacks on Hitchens.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Creationism | Tagged: , , , , , | 5 Comments »

The Invention of Lying

Posted on November 20, 2010 by Michael

I know, I know. I’m way behind on seeing The Invention of Lying, but I did finally manage to see it the other night. As a Ricky Gervais fan, I loved it. The romance in the plot came across as contrived from time to time, but that really wasn’t the point of the movie. To understand that, one only needs to watch this scene. (Sorry, embedding has been disabled.)

But for those too lazy to click, this scene from another Ricky Gervais movie gives the jist of the idea.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism | Tagged: , , | Leave a comment »

Atheists, new atheists, and anti-theists

Posted on July 16, 2010 by Michael

There’s confusion afoot. A lot of people aren’t sure what the difference is between atheists, new atheists, and anti-theists. Thank Zeus I’m here to clarify everything.

An atheist is someone without theism. This applies to those who actively reject all theologies but it can also apply to those ignorant of all theologies. The former point is clear enough (and includes deists), but the latter point begs for expansion.

Someone who is ignorant of all theologies is a bit of a rarity in one sense but then ever so common – in fact, they become commoner every day. In the first sense, few adults are without any form of theism. Anyone who amalgamates belief in a creator with normative statements has some theism. For instance, if someone says there is a creator of the Universe and that creator has commanded that people ought to act, behave, or believe in a particular way, that is a form of theism. (It isn’t necessary that an organized religion be the basis, but it does happen that even those who reject all religion tend to incorporate pieces of predominant cultural religious beliefs in their own personal theism.) On the other hand, someone who is a pure deist does not incorporate any statements of value into his belief (‘An entity started the Universe and that is it’) and is therefore an atheist, though connotations cause us to hesitate to such a label for a deist.

In the second sense, a baby is an atheist. This point draws the ire of a lot of theists who desire ever so deeply to incorrectly label their children things like “a Catholic child” or “a Baptist boy”, but this is part of the confusion. Remember, an atheist is simply someone without theism. A baby has no concept of God, except maybe in the sense that mommy and daddy are all-knowing and all-powerful. Until the child develops the ability to comprehend values, no theism can be said to exist.

A consequence of this definition is that all non-human things can be said to be atheists. A rock, a tree, speakers, spaghetti, metal, waterfalls. They’re all without theism. This is utterly correct, even if generally useless. Definitions are not required to acquiesce to popular connotations. A possibly helpful, if complicating, distinction can be made with the terms active atheism and passive atheism. An active atheist is aware of theologies, but rejects them. A passive atheist has no idea of any theology. An adult atheist would be an active atheist while a baby, tree, or spaghetti would be a passive atheist.

A new atheist is someone who rejects the existence of all gods, takes a strong stance against religion, and utilizes a strong tone. It originated in 2006 as a result of books written by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, and Victor Stenger. It does not refer to the novelty of any particular arguments, but rather the type of presentation of arguments. All the listed authors criticize religion, invariably making the statement or implication that religion is bad. This is a normative statement and it offers insight to a key difference between atheists and new atheists.

New atheists make value statements. Atheism is a descriptive position. To take a recent post, “Many people think bugs are gross” is descriptive. No judgement on the grossness or non-grossness of bugs has been passed. All that has been said is a statement of what many people think. On the other hand, “Bugs are gross” is a normative statement because it passes judgement on bugs. (It is necessary to qualify that atheism is “mostly” a descriptive position because this applies to active atheism. Passive atheism is a lack of description but gives the same result.)

New atheists aren’t merely rejecting the existence of all gods; they’re also saying religion, especially its component of faith, is bad. They’re saying something more about religion than that it isn’t true. They’re saying it’s a negative force in the world and we ought to find better alternatives such as reason, rationality, and science. Atheism, passive or active, does not make any of these claims.

An anti-theist is similar to a new atheist. Normative claims are made and belief in God is rejected. There are essential differences, however. One is that an active crusade against faith is not necessarily encouraged. Whereas a new atheist is considered out-spoken, an anti-theist may be as quiet as a mouse. In addition to this, tone is also not an inherent point. An anti-theist may take a gentle approach, offering respect towards religion and faith. New atheism, on the other hand, is partially defined by the vigor and forthrightness of its tone, as especially exemplified by the argument that says most religious claims have not earned anyone’s respect. In other words, new atheism is somewhat of a strategy (though that strategy is largely defined externally rather than internally by those who bear the label) while anti-theism may encompass a wide swath of individuals who believe in a wide swath of different ways to best attack the veracity of religion; new atheism takes one general path towards beating back religion (though it does not adhere solely to any individual path) while anti-theism makes no inherent claims of best strategy or approach.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Philosophy | Tagged: , , , , , , , | 11 Comments »

Gillard is against gay marriage

Posted on June 30, 2010 by Michael

If it was ever true that anything followed from atheism, then it’s odd that there are a number of atheists like myself who favor equal treatment of gays, while at the same time there are other atheists who think just the opposite. The Prime Minister of Australia is one example.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard says she does not support legalising gay marriage in Australia.

Labor policy on gay marriage will remain the same under her prime ministership, Ms Gillard told Austereo show today.

“We believe the marriage act is appropriate in its current form, that is recognising that marriage is between a man and a woman, but we have as a government taken steps to equalise treatment for gay couples,” Ms Gillard said.

Asked if that was also her personal view, Ms Gillard said it was.

I suppose she did only say she was atheistic, not anti-theistic.

Filed under: Atheism/Humanism, Same-sex marriage | Tagged: , , , , , | 13 Comments »

« Previous Page — Next Page »