Scott Adams is the guy who writes the Dilbert cartoons. He also has a very entertaining (and sometimes thought-provoking) blog and has written some very funny and interesting books (which I’ll write about some other time). This is just a random collection of some of his soundbites that I enjoy the most:

“If you have any trouble sounding condescending, find a Unix user to show you how it’s done.”

It’s called a "concept car" because that sounds better than "something we pulled out of our ass and hope to someday shove up yours."
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There was a very interesting reader comment today on Andrew Sullivan’s blog about Atheism & Mystery.  My interpretation of the situation is the exact opposite.  (Go read the comment now, I’ll wait).

The reader says that this (atheist) obsession with "good answers" is central to the frustration with faith.  They explain that non-believers cannot tolerate ‘mystery’ and must always have an answer, whereas believers are content with not knowing and therefore better attuned to reality.

I think the reader has it right when they say the obsession with ‘good answers’ is central, but it seems to me that believers place the emphasis on the word ‘answers’, and non-believers place the emphasis on the word ‘good’.

My experience of atheists (being one myself) is that most are very ready to admit things they do not know. I do not know what happens when we die (neither does Sam Harris, as he states).  I don’t know why the Big Bang happened, I don’t know why the universe has the properties it does.  There is a lot I don’t know.  I would like to know, which I think is a basic human trait, and so I’m glad science is working on it.  But right now, I just don’t know.

It has always seemed to me that it is believers who cannot abide not knowing and who insist on there being an answer.  Believers have erected this edifice of religion to provide answers to all the unknowns.  This generally includes belief in the existence of an creator, in an afterlife, and that the universe was created specifically to support us and with a purpose in mind as well as filling in lots of other gaps in our knoweldge.  To an atheist mind, the certainty with which these things are believed is just not supported by evidence.  It would be more honest to simply acknowledge that we don’t know the answers about these matters.

For atheists, it is very important that our answers be ‘good’ – that they be properly justified with evidence.  That is precisely why atheists do not accept Christianity, Islam or any other religion – we find the evidence to be insufficient.  To us it appears that theists are so desperate to have an answer (any answer) that they are willing to completely disregard whether the answer has any truth to it.

Although atheists prefer ‘good answers’, we would rather not have an answer at all than to have the false certainty of an answer that is not based on any good reason or evidence. 

The one sin that the Christian God apparently cannot ever forgive is blasphemy against the Holy Spirit.

Verily I say unto you, All sins shall be forgiven unto the sons of men, and blasphemies wherewith soever they shall blaspheme: But he that shall blaspheme against the Holy Ghost hath never forgiveness, but is in danger of eternal damnation. — John 3:28-29

The website Blasphemy Challenge is asking people to create videos of themselves committing the unpardonable sin and uploading it to YouTube.   They get a free DVD of ‘The God Who Wasn’t There’ (only if they live in the US).  I’ve already downloaded the movie (although I haven’t watched it yet), but I’d still take the challenge.  Sadly, I don’t have any means to video myself.

So, for the record, I would like to state the following:

I completely and utterly deny the existence of God, Jesus & the Holy Spirit.

Imagine someone tells you that there is a magic giant radish in deep space that demands you hop on one foot for 10 minutes every Thursday morning or you will lose one sock out of every load of washing.

You have no evidence of this whatsoever, so you probably wouldn’t believe it.  Equally though, you cannot absolutely prove that it does not exist.  And given the impossibility of examining all of deep space, you have to conclude that there is no way we can determine for sure the existence or non-existence of the radish.   So, with respect to the magic giant deep-space radish, you are philosophically an agnostic atheist.

In everyday life though, you probably agree that the whole idea is completely stupid. You certainly wouldn’t hop on one foot for 10 minutes every Thursday morning just in case.  You wouldn’t bother to carefully state that you lack belief in the radish’s existence rather than say that you just don’t believe in the radish.    You would live your life exactly as if you knew there was no giant magic space radish.   Practically speaking, you would probably act as a gnostic strong atheist towards the radish.

In practice, you would do this with many other deities or supernatural entities.  You would be perfectly comfortable stating categorically that there are no fairies at the bottom of anyone’s garden, there are no pots of gold at the end of rainbows, the hub of the universe is not a giant ash tree called yggdrasil and that the cosmos does not rest upon Atlas’s shoulders.  You probably can’t prove these things aren’t true but you believe they aren’t regardless.   Philosophically, you might have to be an agnostic atheist, but practically speaking, you are a strong atheist when it comes to these things.

This is how I feel about Yahweh/Jehovah/Allah, for instance.   I know they can’t be proven, so philosophically speaking, a strong atheist position is not logically defensible.   But I see literally no more evidence to believe in the Abrahamic god(s) than I do in Papatuanuku, Atlas, Yggdrasil or the Giant Magic Space Radish that I just made up.

Philosophically, I am an agnostic atheist.  Practically, I am a strong atheist. 

Definitionally speaking, someone who believes in at least one theistic deity is a theist.  An atheist is someone who lacks belief in any theistic deities.

However, in ordinary conversation, we often limit our discussion to just one or several deities at a time.   For instance, if we are just considering belief in the Christian god, Yahweh.  Christians are clearly theist when it comes to that god.  Muslims however do not believe in the existence of Yahweh, and so with respect to Yahweh, Muslims can be said to be atheists (perhaps even strong atheists).

With respect to Thor, both Christians and Muslims are atheist.  They lack belief in the Thor deity.  In fact, both Christians and Muslims are atheists with respect to Vishnu, Ra, Thor, Zeus, Venus, the Flying Spaghetti Monster and the thousands of other deity concepts that men have dreamed up.  Humanity has an extremely fertile imagination.

Some of these deities can be disproved.  It is frequently stated that it is not possible to prove a negative, but this isn’t quite true.  It is generally not possible to prove a universal negative (e.g. there are no fairies in the universe), but it is sometimes possible to disprove particular concepts.  This could be because their described properties are logically impossible or because they are someone bounded in space and time (e.g. I can prove there are no six inch tall blue unicorns in my sock drawer at the moment by opening my sock drawer and looking in it).

Most deities and supernatural entities cannot be conclusively disproved.   But it is not a rational stance to assume (and act as though) they are all true until someone conclusively disproves them.    You don’t find people believing in and worshipping Yahweh and Allah and Brahma and Akka, Vishnu, Baiame, Ra, Thor, Coatlicue, Zeus, Balor, Venus and all the others just because "you can’t prove they aren’t real".

No, if someone makes a claim about a deity, we don’t believe them unless and until we see some sort of evidence. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim. No evidence, no belief.  As simple as that.

"We are all atheists about most of the gods that humanity has ever believed in. Some of us just go one god further." — Richard Dawkins

"I contend we are both atheists, I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours." — Stephen F Roberts

An atheist lacks belief in a god or gods.  That’s it.  Lack of belief.

Anyone who has never heard of the idea of a god is automatically an atheist.  The term implicit atheist is used for this, though, to distinguish them from people who have at least thought about the idea of a god first.  All children are implicit atheists. 

People who adhere to non theistic religions are also technically atheist, although the term nontheist is more commonly used for this.  This can include religions like Buddhism which don’t have a deity, or world views like Deism and Pantheism.

Deists believe in an intelligent supernatural creator of the universe, but believe that this deity does not observe or intervene in the world.  They do not believe in miracles or revelation, but instead hold that the Creator reveals itself in the natural world, and can possibly be known through human reason.  Pantheists believe that god is essentially a synonym for the universe and reveals itself through nature.

Theists believe in a theistic deity, a personal god (or gods).  A theistic deity is commonly held to be an intelligent supernatural being that created the world/universe and which has a personality.  A theistic deity directly observes and intervenes in the world.  This is usually manifested as watching over people, listening to their prayers, providing revelations, performing miracles and having a "personal relationship" with people.

Atheist is the lack of belief in a theistic god or gods.

Atheists don’t (necessarily) believe that no theistic gods exist anywhere.  A minority of atheists believe that and it is known as positive atheism or strong atheism.  The term weak atheism or negative atheism is often used as a contrast.

An atheist says "I do not believe there is a god".
A strong atheist says "I believe there is no god". 

Some people use the term agnostic to mean atheist and use atheist to mean only positive atheist, which makes things a bit confusing.  I don’t like this scheme, since theism/atheism is an ontological position and gnosticism/agnosticism is an epistemological postion.   Ontology deals with the true underlying nature of reality, wheras epistemology deals with our means to know it.

An agnostic says that we cannot know for sure whether or not there is a god.  It’s to do with whether we have knowledge/proof and how and whether we are able to obtain such knowledge, not the underlying reality of whether there is a god or not.  To complicate matters further, there are actually different types of agnostic.  There are those who believe we can know but we don’t know right now (weak agnostic), and others who believe that in principle we cannot ever know for sure about a deity (strong agnostic).

Many (possibly most) atheists are agnostic.  Many theists are also agnostic, in that they are not certain about the existence of their deity, but they believe it exists nonetheless (i.e. they have faith in their deity).

I’ve tried to put the two dimensions together in the table below:

I’m the first to admit that this is a simplification.  I have used agnostic in the strong agnostic sense of not being able to know the existence of a deity in principle.  I have also phrased the description with god in the singular (presumably in reference to any monotheistic deity) but it applies equally to polytheistic beliefs.

Atheism is not a dogma, nor is it a religion.  Atheists just think that it is not sensible to believe in things for which no good evidence exists.  An atheist could become either a strong atheist or a theist if there was evidence to warrant either belief.

I’ve seen a few Christian arguments for (proof of) the resurrection of Jesus.  As I’ve mentioned previously, most of the evidence they use comes from the bible itself.  One of the articles on apologetics.com had a very interesting argument that the very existence of Christianity is proof of the resurrection of Jesus.   I’ll quote the whole section below before I comment on it:

<quote> 

The Fact of the Origin of the Christian Faith

Even the most skeptical NT scholars admit that the earliest disciples at least believed that Jesus had been raised from the dead. In fact, they pinned nearly everything on it. To take just one example: the belief that Jesus was the Messiah. The Jews had no conception of a dying, much less a rising, Messiah. The idea that the Messiah would be killed was utterly foreign to them. We find this attitude expressed in John 12:34 "The multitude therefore answered him, ‘We have heard out of the Law that the Christ is to remain forever; and how can You say "The Son of man must be lifted up?" Who is this Son of Man?’"<

Here Jesus predicts his crucifixion, and the people are utterly mystified. The Messiah would reign forever-so how could he be "lifted up"? It is difficult to overemphasize what a disaster the crucifixion was, therefore, for the disciples’ faith. Jesus’ death on the cross spelled the humiliating end for any hopes they had entertained that he was the Messiah.

But the belief in the resurrection of Jesus reversed the catastrophe of the crucifixion. Because God had raised Jesus from the dead, he was seen to be Messiah after all. Thus, Peter proclaims in Acts 2:23,36: "This Man… God raised… again… let all the house of Israel know for certain that God has made Him both Lord and Christ-this Jesus whom you crucified." It was on the basis of belief in the resurrection that the disciples could believe that Jesus was the Messiah.

Thus, without this belief in the resurrection, early Christianity could not have come into being. The origin of Christianity hinges on the belief of the early disciples that God had raised Jesus from the dead.  But the question is: How does one explain the origin of that belief? As R.H. Fuller says, even the most skeptical critic must posit some mysterious X to get the movement going.16 But what was that X?

</quote>

The author goes on to speculate about where the idea of resurrection could have come from, dismissing pagan sources, despite the fact that many legends commonly known at the time centred around the death and resurrection of the primary hero.

But what I find very interesting is this line:  "Thus, without this belief in the resurrection, early Christianity could not have come into being."  The author of this article obviously believes that this constitutes an argument for the fact of the resurrection.  I think its an argument for exactly the opposite.

As he explains, the disciples were basically screwed when Jesus was killed.  If you believe the gospels, they’d followed him around for years and proclaimed him as the messiah.  (Against many competing claims – there were apparently lots of Jewish Rabbis claiming to be the messiah back then.)  Then suddently, their messiah was dead, and messiahs aren’t supposed to die. 

So, they are faced with accepting that they were wrong, they’ve wasted their time and effort. And anything they’d given up to wander around with Jesus was all in vain. Next, there are a few possible things that could’ve happened:

1. Jesus really does come back from the dead, because he really is the son of god.
2. The disciples, unable to accept his death, convince themselves that he must have come back to life, and so they were right after all to follow him.  You really only need one person to say they saw him in a vision to start the whole thing – urban legends are nothing new.
3. The disciples, unable to believe that all their efforts to establish a church based on Jesus as messiah are down the toilet decide they can maintain their constituency and perhaps even get more followers by telling people that Jesus was resurrected (borrowing from pagan stories).
4. Nothing.  Jesus stays dead.  Maybe 50 years later someone, maybe a disciple of one of the disciples, decides to revive Jesus’s ministry.  He (through either misunderstanding or deception) starts telling his followers that Jesus rose from the dead, in order to attract more followers.

I just don’t see option 1 as being the most plausible.   Personally, I’d vote for a combination of 2 and 3.  One or two disciples hide the body and start the story, the others are only too willing to believe it, because, as the guy argues above, their budding church is literally fucked if they don’t.

The article I cited does somewhere consider the fact that the disciples may have deceived but dismisses it as impossible because the gospels say how good and devout they are.  But an organisation doesn’t usually confess its lies in its own propaganda, does it?

As House says, everybody lies.

I wrote the other day about my tension between wanting to respect the beliefs of others, whilst not agreeing with those beliefs and not condoning the actions that arise from those beliefs (although, I’m not sure I explained it so succinctly).  Today I came across ReligiousTolerance.org, which has some very well thought out ideas on this.

Specifically, religious tolerance includes:

• Accepting that followers of various religions consider their own beliefs to be true.
• Allowing others to hold religious beliefs that are different from yours.
• Allowing others to practice their religious faith, within reasonable limits.
• Refusing to discriminate in employment, accommodation etc. on religious grounds.

And significantly, religious tolerance does not include

• Believing that all sets of religious beliefs are equally true.
• Believing that all faiths are equally beneficial and equally harmless to society.
• Believing that all religious groups are equally beneficial and equally harmless to their followers.
• Refraining from criticizing religious practices of others. 

I like this much better than the concept of according ‘respect’ with the definitional implications of having to agree.    I especially like the distinction drawn between allowing others to hold beliefs that maybe harmful, while being opposed to the harmful actions that may have been motivated by those beliefs.

I guess its similar to the free speech idea of defending someone’s right to say whatever they want even if you are completely opposed to what they are saying.