Do Atheists Have Faith?
In brief
Atheism is a methodology. It means you ignore the supernatural in order to learn
about the universe and how it works. It is a method for learning. You cannot
learn if you think that you need to assume there is a God who gives you the
power to reason and think and learn. This God would need to be pure truth and
honesty. But the fact is that the universe and our programming and perception
are prone to tricking us. And religion reasons that God does programme many
people that way for he has mysterious ways and his motives and reasons are known
only to him. To argue that you need God to reason is to argue, "I need God to
reason and that is what I do - I reason." The argument is arrogant and
narcissistic.
The ignoring of the supernatural seems unfair but it is not for the simple
reason that even if blood comes from a communion wafer you cannot know what did
it or how. Real supernatural refers to the power to create from nothing. But you
cannot see if the blood was specially created or if some force was able to
invisibly transport it from somewhere. There is no point in God doing a miracle
if the paranormal did it. The paranormal differs from the supernatural in that
it seems to be a force that uses odd or unknown laws of nature - but its
existence is doubtful. It is within nature and supernatural is beyond and
outside nature. The supernatural does not care about laws of anything never mind
nature.
And if there is a God then why are we not more rational and better lovers of
reason?
If atheism is a methodology is it also a faith? It does not need to be but it
can be. But it is still basically a methodology. The methodology is what has to
be kept if you have a gun to your head and something has to be sacrificed. Faith
has to go.
faith and belief
Believing a person is not the same as believing in a person. The difference is
that believing a person does not require that you have a relationship or
friendship. Believing in a person is saying you have a relationship with the
person.
Faith is believing in a person.
Belief is believing a claim.
Thus belief in God is not the same as faith in him.
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do atheists have faith while they condemn faith?
Believers try to make out that atheists condemn faith in God when they have
faith themselves though not in God. The insinuation is that atheists are
hypocrites.
If atheists think all faith is equally bad then this insinuation is correct. If
we cannot avoid having faith, then surely if atheism is faith and faith is bad
then atheism is a necessary evil and any other kind of faith is not. In fact the
more faith that is asked for the worse it is.
Something that is not very well verified should get less faith if any, not more.
Something that could be dangerous to believe should get less faith if any, not
more.
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atheism a religion?
There can be no religion unless there is belief of some sort. Atheism is not at
root a belief so nobody should say atheism is a religion. The notion that there
is no reason to bend the knee to any God for there is no evidence for God is the
common denominator of all atheists and the sole foundation of atheism.
Some believers claim that faith is always religious so if atheists have faith in
atheism that makes them a religion. But each person on earth has faith in
different people and organisations and things. His faith in his religion may be
the weakest in the list. He may have more faith in other religions - many people
dabble in different religions these days. Does it follow then that each person
belongs to different religions at the one time?
Many atheists say that only religious people have faith and that atheists do
not. Faith is belief combined with trust and confidence. You can believe
somebody but refuse to trust them so faith is trust and confidence together. If
you believe your doctor that you have flu, you still may not be confident in
him. You may believe that you have the flu not because he says it but for other
reasons.
A faith position is trust and personal confidence in a superior being. It
necessarily involves the acceptance of some kind of God. Atheism even if it is
faith is not a faith position.
What about the claim that you need faith in some authorities to have a lack of
belief in God as you do to deny his existence? But there is no authority in
atheism. The atheist urges you to think for yourself.
What about the argument, “To deny God’s existence either
intellectually or spiritually by living as if there is no God is only possible
if you think you are God yourself. Only one who acts as God can deny God."
The assumption is that there is a God and by defying him you put yourself in his
place. But that only works if there is in fact a God. The wording
should then be: "To deny God’s existence either intellectually or spiritually by
living as if there is no God is only possible if you think you are as good an
authority as a God would be yourself. Only one who acts as God can deny
God." It is not about God as an entity but God as an authority.
Obviously no atheist thinks he can create universes or raise the dead. The
believer in fact is the one who is steeped in idolatry: "I judge that this God
is good and I command myself to obey him. It is really about what I think
- see?"
Atheism is not a religion for atheism is not spiritual. Spiritual is a very
vague term but everybody agrees that it involves prayer in some form or another.
The atheists encourage themselves to feel that they want a person in trouble to
get through it and do well. That is what they prioritise. That is why even if
they thought of trying prayer out they will not do it. Why? Somebody is very
ill. What matters? Is it wishing and hoping they will get well? Or is it praying
for them? Praying for them is pointless if you don’t want them to get well. So
your good wishes are what matters. If a choice is forced on you - good wishes or
prayer what do you choose? The good wishes. To say that God alone matters or
even comes first is simply to implicitly insult the sick people.
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is atheism belief or lack of belief or both?
Is atheism belief or faith in the absence of God? This is the question asked by
Francis Spufford who unfortunately got so much attention in the Humanist and the
Christian world.
Or is atheism a lack of belief in the presence of God?
It is said that if atheists believed there is no God or believed in the absence
of God then that would be a faith position. No it would be a belief position. If
they were taking some person as an infallible authority on the non-existence of
God it would be a faith position.
The notion that atheism is a lack of belief in the presence of God is means that
it is not a faith position. Nobody says that your lack of belief in the unicorn
is a faith position.
It is said that mere belief in the absence of God is not atheism. That is
correct if atheism is the denial of the existence of God. But sometimes belief
in the absence of God is atheism and sometimes it is not. God could exist and
still be absent.
We must remember that atheism could be both faith in the absence of God and the
belief that there is no reason to believe. The two are not mutually exclusive.
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not a belief and so not to blame?
Atheists say that the wrong things done in the name of secularism and atheism
cannot be blamed on secularism or atheism because neither stance is a belief.
Both stances involve acting without religious influence. Believing in atheism
does not mean you necessarily are open to going out and killing people in its
name. But believing in religion means you are in principle going to kill if your
god, the master of life and death who has the right to kill, commands it.
Suppose atheism and secularism are beliefs. Secularism and atheism ask you to
avoid depending on others to work out what you should think but to learn from
them how to think for yourself. Thus secularism and atheism are primarily
individual and each person is responsible for how he or she acts. You cannot
blame atheism as a belief if some atheist does bad for each atheist differs from
the other and each one has made up his own mind. Their belief is not really
shared but arises independently in each person. A belief in a supernatural being
shared by people is to blame for the bad they do in its name because it unifies
them in faith and in the God who exists in their heads.
If atheists kill, it is down to beliefs that they have that may have nothing at
all to do with their atheism. Perhaps they are racists for example.
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why religion argues atheism is a faith position
Atheism is not a faith position though it may be based on faith in people and in
science. Such faith is provisional and meant to be outgrown. A person who
believes others that there is no God is not a proper atheist. He is exercising
faith in those people.
The religious retort that atheists have faith that the universe came into being
without God or that it came out of energy or power that always existed. But the
atheists have no choice for divine creation is absurd. All the possible
explanations for how the universe came to be are odd but that one is the worst.
A rational explanation could still turn up.
The religious retort that atheists have faith that life came out of matter
spontaneously. But God though said to be alive is unlike life as we know it.
Both atheists and believers have this problem where life emerged from something
that cannot be described as alive.
The religious retort that atheists have faith that the world is better off
without religion. But they know deep down that superstition and the bad thinking
habits it ingrains is dangerous. If religion is so safe then why does religion
feel the need to keep it regulated so carefully?
The religious retort that atheists have faith that death is the end.
The religious retort that atheists have faith in the statements of scientists.
We have to have faith in some people so we just see that it is best to have
faith in science for it is self-correcting unlike religion which ignores all
refutations.
The religious retort that atheists have faith that miracles are not really
supernatural but there must be a natural explanation even if it cannot be
discovered. The natural is strange so there is no need for guessing that
something might be magical. This is not about faith but about commonsense.
The religious retort that atheists believe in 'scientism' the doctrine that
science can and will explain it all without God or magic. (The fact that
scientism only says that it can be done in principle not in practice is
ignored.) Atheists know that science cannot explain everything.
It is not faith the believers in God have but belief. Religious people do not
claim that if they believe Napoleon existed then that is a religious faith
position. They know faith and belief are related but that belief is not
necessarily faith.
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is faith about mystery?
Religious believers say that though science may explain many things there is a
lot of mystery. The God Particle is an example. Explanations stop with it. So
religion argues that God is a mystery and atheists should not be so confident
that he is disproved or improbable. But atheists stop at mystery. Mystery
entitles you to say you don't know or don't have an explanation. It does not
entitle you to say that a God of mystery exists or may exist. The proper stance
is to hold that mystery in principle can be explained. The problem is that we
don't know how to go about it. Maybe we will never be smart enough. Thus mystery
is an argument AGAINST God not an argument for it. It is true one is assuming
mystery can be explained but that is a working assumption we absolutely need. We
need to assume that all mysteries can be explained in principle. We would never
have investigated lightning if we thought, "It cannot be explained therefore
there is no possibility it ever will be". That is not logical. And it is
dangerous. And it promotes deliberate ignorance.
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atheism needs more faith than religion?
Christians argue that the Big Bang was not a mess but a fine-tuned occurrence.
They say the design being caused by chance would be assuming a worse and zanier
miracle and a bigger one than any religion ever came up with.
But a vast intelligence need not be an infinite God like the Christian one. And
the fine tuning stuff is full of fantasy and lies. It is controversial.
The pure chance involved in creating the founder of your religion, one sperm out
of countless sperms made that person possible, shows that the universe is not
fine-tuned for religion or faith in God! And it was luck that person lived long
enough to start the religion as well!
The Christians think the whole vast infinite universe exists just for some good
purpose and for their sake. That explains what they think the universe was
fine-tuned for- to produce them!
To say that we know how chance can start evolution off and how evolution is
unplanned and still able to produce such wonderful complex entities as humans
seems to be blind incalculable faith. To argue that it all happened because we
are here is said to be a terrible argument. Dawkins uses the argument but is it
really bad? The fact remains that our being here says something. I would prefer
to argue that because we are here that evolution probably made us. It is best
not to be too specific or narrow.
Atheists and opponents of the Christian version of God are supposedly demanding
or exercising far more faith than Christians do.
The Christians have a problem with that as if they think too much faith is a bad
thing after all! They can talk!
If it takes as much faith to believe in God as in atheism religion says that you
would need to know all the universe and outside of it to see if God does not
exist. It does not care that the argument could be turned around, "To say God is
true means you would need to know all the universe and outside of it to see if
God exists or probably exists." If it is an equal contest it proves that there
is no need for faith in God thus the atheist is the wise one. A God that is not
needed is not a God anyway.
Is Good God?
If atheists say that they do good because good is good in
itself some believers say that they are saying they believe in God after all for
all they mean by God is that which is good in itself. That is reductionist
liberal tosh. It is redefining God as being simply one of his
characteristics. it eliminates the concept of a personal relationship with
God. What next? Redefining Satan as malice as if the person of Satan
is not Satan? If there is a choice between doing good for a dying baby for
its own sake or doing it for God as a person then do the first. God is not the
same as good even if God is good. God is fact a hindrance for a being that
has it all should be the last thing on your mind when you encounter the baby.
