Analogies and weak atheism

A lot of atheists make a distinction between 'strong' and 'weak' atheism. 'Strong' atheism is where you claim there is no God. 'Weak' atheism is where there is no evidence for or against a God's existence, so the 'default position' is you go about life without any belief in God, with the help of Occam's razor (note that specific ideas of God may have lots of evidence against them, but the general idea of a God is neutral).

Atheist thinkers have given us a number of analogies to support weak atheism. A famous one is that we all assume there is no teapot flying around the Sun because there is no evidence for any such teapot. Not thinking there is a teapot flying around the Sun is the default position. Some argue it's the same with God.

But I don't think this analogy is appropriate because the claim, 'There is a teapot flying around the Sun', is not a 'no evidence for, no evidence against' 'default-position' issue. In addition to no evidence in favour of a teapot, there is a lot of evidence against it.

One piece of evidence against the teapot claim is that there seems to be no way for a teapot to get out into space unless some astronaut has put it there. But it seems unlikely that an astronaut has ever thrown a teapot into space which has found a stable orbit around the sun.

This means the teapot analogy is not really a good analogy to express weak atheism, because it doesn't express well the situation of something having no evidence for or against it. The teapot analogy is a situation where there is overwhelming evidence against something (the teapot's existence). But God's existence, in weak atheism, is a claim where there is no evidence for or against, and then Occam's razor gives you a bit of evidence against and that's it (although specific ideas of God may have more problems).

So the 'teapot' analogy only works if the idea of God has a lot of evidence against it and no evidence for it.

But if the idea of God's existence receives little evidence either way, then an analogy which is supposed to show what belief in God is like needs to be the same.

But it's actually quite hard to find such analogies, because most claims with no evidence for them also have evidence against them. Such as the fairies at the bottom of the well analogy (how could fairies come to exist except by divine intervention?) and the flying spaghetti monster analogy.

I think an appropriate one would be that believing in God if there's no evidence either way is like someone believing that there exists a place in Melbourne where an standard sized cappuccino cup of coffee costs $6. On the one hand, that is extremely expensive for an ordinary cup of coffee, but, on the other hand, Melbourne is a large city and maybe there's a place somewhere that charges that much. So perhaps this is an example of a claim with no real evidence for or against it.

Do I believe that such a place doesn't exist? Well, I don't really know. I wouldn't say that I believe no such place exists, because the truth is I just don't know. I wouldn't tell anyone that no such place exists in Melbourne because I don't have enough information either way to judge. I must be very agnostic about whether that place exists.

Another example would be someone believing there is an ocean-going cruise ship currently docked in Melbourne's harbour right now without having consulted any information. According to the Port of Melbourne website it is a common occurrence but there are more days without an ocean going cruise ship docked than with one (although the website can actually answer my question, but let's imagine it can't). But if someone forced me to give an opinion, although I would say there probably isn't one docked, my confidence about it would be very low.

I think this shows that if we are really careful to use an analogy where there is little evidence for or against the existence of something, then we are pushed towards a very agnostic view. Our confidence will not be great.

Also, we can see that many analogies used to support weak atheism often involve a fair amount of evidence against and not just a lack of evidence for, and that these analogies indicate a less agnostic, more confident position than more evidence neutral analogies would.

Where skeptics often go wrong on the concept of God

It seems like one of the frequent divides between religious people of various faiths and atheists/agnostics is that religious people tend to have the idea that there are two 'levels' of reality, whereas atheists/agnostics only accept the idea of one 'level' of reality.

For the atheist/agnostic, there is only level of reality, which is the 'Universe/Multiverse' and everything in it can be understood if you're a) smart enough, and b) scientifically advanced enough.

Whereas for the religious person, there's two levels of reality: there's 'creator' and 'creation'.

Creator (infinite)
______
Created reality (finite)

Everything in created reality can be understood if you're smart enough and scientifically advanced enough, but the 'creator' level of reality is a completely different matter.

As a being in 'created reality' you simply can't understand 'creator' reality on an intellectual level. It can't be done. It's not a matter of needing more IQ points, or more scientific knowledge, the problem is that 'created reality' is on a lower 'level' of reality. People on the 'created' level of reality are intrinsically unable to understand the infinite intellectually (our name for the 'higher level' of reality).

Ergo, to relate to God you have do it on a person-to-person basis (based on the idea that our personalities are made in God's image) or use some kind of 'faith' to jump over your 'creaturely' limitations.

So why do religious people think this way? What is the theoretical justification for two 'levels' of reality, especially when everything seems to make sense on one 'level'?

On reflection, I think that the reason for the separation between creator and created comes from God being a distinction-less object. I think this is what the idea of an 'infinite' person must mean. See my argument for this view here and here (podcast).

This causes the creator/creation divide because our reasoning operates through distinctions. The difference between a really clever smart and an average person is that the clever person is capable of ordering and categorising numerous distinctions in a useful way at a much faster rate. E.g. a good philosopher thinks of many useful distinctions between various things, and orders and categorises them under various theories in an enlightening way.

That's why our reasoning just gets it hopelessly wrong about God: God is a distinction-less object. Yet we can't think except in distinctions. And it can never be any different, unless we abandon trying to figure God out as an intellectual concept and approach Him/Her/It through faith. This either requires some form of philosophising about God or a shot in the metaphysical dark via joining a spirituality that appeals to oneself.

I would add to the creator/created divide that human consciousness draws on, or make use of, the 'creator' level of reality in some mysterious way. So we shouldn't have to understand how the mental world works. People are not from the 'creator' level of reality, what I'm saying is that consciousness somehow makes 'use' of it. This could be how humans in 'created' reality can be made in the image of the 'creator'.

(Picture of this process below, click to enlarge).

Why is religious thinking so common to people? Why God isn't going away

(above picture gives a summary, click on it to see it normal size)

There's a common idea out there that 'reasoning' and 'rationality' means something like 'secular reasoning,' or reasoning that excludes religious ideas. I don't really think that's the case. I would say that there are two kinds of reasoning that people engage in: 'inanimate object' based reasoning and 'Mind' based reasoning. The difference is like between working out where a ball is going to land, versus working out whether my friend would be offended if I said a particular thing. What people regard as the 'secular' view comes from looking at reality through 'inanimate object' based reasoning, and what people regard as 'spirituality' and 'religious thinking' comes from looking at reality through 'Mind' based' reasoning. Neither is inherently superior or inferior to the other.

If no mind is behind the universe, then inanimate matter must go 'all the way down' (like the turtles). That's why any consistent atheism-agnosticism position must put inanimate matter at the foundation of reality, from which you get everything else (universe, multiverse, people, etc.) Materialism doesn't just follow from atheism, it IS atheism in any really long explanation of what atheism must mean (otherwise some kind of 'super mind' would exist behind the universe in some sense). So atheism-agnosticism comes from viewing reality through 'inanimate object' based reasoning.

Religious thinking comes from viewing reality through 'mind-based' reasoning. It assumes that the foundations of reality are fundamentally mental - a mind like us. Not necessarily like us in our limitations, but 'something like consciousness.'

Either of these positions is an assumption. While atheist/materialists often accuse religious people of exploiting folk intuitive ideas of consciousness, a spiritualist/religious person could accuse an atheist of overemphasising 'inanimate object' based reasoning when they work out their view of reality.

This is why the religious instinct, religion, and religious forms of reasoning will never go away. Being conscious ensures that 'mind-based' explanations for reality will always make sense. The religious instinct is inseparable from consciousness and people viewing reality through 'consciousness' language over and above 'inanimate object' language. This means that although traditional religions may fade, spiritualism can never go away, or even probably, lessen much.

Is atheism the default position? (Short version)

...From a forum post

Doug, leaving aside the whole 'existence of God' question, you do believe that at the most basic level, reality is basically material, composed of inanimate matter, right? I'd imagine that all atheists would think that is probably the case, if they studied the issue. That seems like something really important to atheism. But it can't be said to be automatically the right position... wouldn't you have to say?

Longer article on this.

What is atheism? Is atheism the default position?

Podcast of this article.

According to a common view, belief in God is kind of like belief in a giant teapot circling the sun. Just like we would assume that the teapot doesn't exist if there's no evidence for a teapot flying around the sun, so if there is no evidence for a god then we should assume that a god does not exist.

But there's one more thing left to talk about when we think about the teapot. Say there's no teapot around the sun, then what *is* there? I'd assume empty space.

So the a-teapotist (as in a-theist) believes that there's empty space around the sun, and the teapotist assumes that there is a teapot.

If we carry the analogy to atheism, then an atheist believes that there's just the natural universe, rather than the natural universe plus a god, when people revert to atheism as the default position.

But there's something wrong with the above analysis. Atheism can't be the view that 'there is only the natural universe', because a lot of atheists maintain that there could be billions, trillions, even *infinite* numbers of other universes. These universes, some very different, some similar to our own, could explain the characteristics of our universe (see the multiverse theory). In other words, you can believe in many universes and definitely be an atheist.

So atheism has to include the possibility that there is *more* than just the natural universe. OK, then so what is atheism, exactly? Is it the view that there is just the universe and, possibly, a multiverse? In a sense yes, but there must be a better, more concise way of putting it...

Is atheism the view that a mind didn't create our universe?

Not necessarily, because we could be brains in a vat experiencing a virtual world, or computer programs like in the movie The Thirteenth Floor, and so technically our 'universe' is the product of a mind, and yet there is nothing that we would call a 'god'.

To be sure, the creators of such artificial realities would seem like 'gods' to us, but they aren't gods in any greater sense than we would be if we created our own artificial realities.

OK, so what is atheism? It has to include the possibility of a multiverse, and that the universe is the product of a mind, but not a 'god' mind (whatever that is).

What we are left with is that atheism is the view that no mind is behind *all* universes, behind every conceivable universe; behind every physical thing.

Another way of phrasing this is that atheism is the view that at the foundations of reality, at the most basic level, there is inanimate matter rather than 'conscious stuff'. A theist says that at the most basic level there is 'conscious stuff' (like our inner awareness, whatever that is) rather than matter.

So that's what atheism can be rephrased to without losing any of its meaning: the view that the foundations of existence are inanimate matter rather than conscious stuff.

So to go back to our original example, the teapotist says that there's a teapot around the sun, and the a-teapotist says that there's not. So what does the a-teapotist believe is there? They believe that there's just empty space of course!

So the theist says that there's a mysterious 'god', and the atheist says that there's not. So what does the atheist say is there? They believe that the foundations of existence are inanimate matter rather than conscious stuff. Otherwise a god exists in some sense (even if pantheistically).

I agree that the default position should be 'no god exists' in the absence of evidence for a god. That seems to be sound... but I don't see why the default position should be 'the foundations of existence are inanimate matter rather than conscious stuff'. Why should the foundations of reality be automatically assumed to be inanimate matter? Because that's all we can see? But we see ourselves and others as conscious beings... and we're pretty sure consciousness is quite different to matter. So to assume that there must be inanimate matter at the foundation of existence 'by default' seems a bit unwarranted.

So paradoxically, atheism both is and isn't the default position. The idea that there's no god is a default position, but the view that there's inanimate matter rather than consciousness at the foundation of reality seems unwarranted as a 'default position'.

It's likely that any argument to the 'existence is built upon matter' view could be doubted because of the experience of consciousness, which seems different to matter. Likewise, consciousness can't settle the question in favour of the 'existence is built upon mind' view, because it may just be that the universe was destined to create 'animate'/conscious matter.

What's worse for atheism is that in some ways it's hard to see the view of consciousness at the foundation of reality as anything less than the view that there is a god. Why? Because such a consciousness would probably have many god-like characteristics...

In the end, maybe there's no requirement that anyone be an atheist or a theist if there's no evidence for a god. It doesn't seem like we have an obligation to believe that the foundation of reality should be characterised a certain way, if what I've written has made sense.

So when viewed in an alternative way, that atheism is positively saying that there's inanimate stuff at the foundation of reality, it seems that neither atheism nor theism is the default position. We must simply assume that either there's inanimate stuff or consciousness at the foundations of reality based on what feels right to us. That could be what the religious instinct is all about: the feeling that there must be consciousness at the most basic level rather than 'empty' matter. And it's not clear that this view is basically silly. Actually, it seems like a pretty reasonable (50/50) guess at the nature of reality.

Podcast: What is atheism? Is atheism the default position?

Podcast Notes:

-Atheism isn't the position that there's only the universe, or that a mind didn't create the universe. It's the view that at a basic level the foundations of reality are made of matter rather than 'conscious stuff'. Christianity is a variant of the view that the foundations of reality are 'conscious stuff' rather than matter.
-Is God-belief totally unreasonable? It's often argued that the best argument for atheism is that there's no evidence for a god. But it may be more of a 50/50 thing rather than a slum-dunk for atheism if there's no evidence for a god. There possibly isn't a 'default position' on the issue.

Title: What is atheism?
Time: 13:43 minutes
Size: 6.3 MB mp3

Direct link to the audio file (Right click and 'Save As')
Link to the audio file page

Further Reading:

-An article on this.