Atheists, counter-arguments?

Question

To summarize the argument:

"Atheists often claim that the only way for theists to justify their belief is to provide evidence that rationally demostrates God's existence. But many of our most basic beliefs can't be 'justified' in this way. The reliability of our memories, our sense perception, the existence of other minds are examples of beliefs that we take for granted. Belief in God fits into this category of reasonable assumptions."

Atheists, how would you respond to this argument?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reformed_epistemology

Just to clarify, the argument doesn't specify any particular god, but suggests an omnipotent and benevolent one...

Also, if it helps you can replace "reasonable assumption" with "properly basic."

Answer 1

Eleventy,

Most are obviously missing the mark on this one because many atheists don't understand the philosophical issues involved. Strickly speaking, the vast majority of atheists are materialist/empiricists so any knowledge which does not come down by these means is automatically suspect or just out of the spectrum of what they deem to be "true". For example the assumption and yes it is an assumption, that all knowledge must be scientific to be true is not itself scientific knowledge (it is not garnored by observation, etc) and therefore cannot be true under that strict exclusion of valid knowledge. To put it differently many atheists are taught to think by strictly scientific means, whereas the whole issue of metaphysics (the inquiry into being, truth, goodness, knowledge) and epistemology (how we know) was, quite appropriately, established to rationalize that which was beyond (In greek beyond = "meta") physics.

The philosophical positions you are bringing up are not typically ones addressed by science at all and I noticed that many aren't even adressing them here. You may find it interesting that christian philosophy in particular established a philosophy in which the objective world is known to us and CAN be known to us, most especially the realism of Thomism. The church has been fighting against the skepticism in philosophy for centuries, adamantly maintaining the philosophical positon of realism (that we can have true knowledge of the objective world) and that we can have reasonable assurance that God exists. It is actually most of the very ardent atheistic philosophers, like Sarte that vehmently argue that we may in fact know nothing at all, including the existence of God, other minds or even our own mind and our own selves, for exactly the postulations you listed above and many others. Bertrand Russel, a notorious atheist, even postulated his infamous 5 minute memory argument (look it up if interested) which is irrefutable but certainly not necessarily true.

One of my favorite writers, G.K. Chesterton states thusly about this issue:

"The peril is that the human intellect is free to destroy itself...one set of thinkers can in some degree prevent further thinking by teaching the next generation that there is no validity in any human thought. It is idle to talk always of the alternative of reason and faith. Reason is itself a matter of faith. It is an act of faith to assert that our thoughts have any relation to reality at all. If you are merely a sceptic, you must sooner or later ask yourself the question, "Why should anything go right; even observation and deduction? Why should not good logic be as misleading as bad logic?..The young sceptic says, "I have a right to think for myself." But the old sceptic, the complete sceptic, says, "I have no right to think at all."- Orthodoxy

Its good to see you stepping out into broader philosophical ways of thinking here as most atheists are trapped in the box of empiricism.

Answer 2

Atheists are often scientific skeptics, and to that extent I agree that we may ask that someone positing a supernatural power provides evidence of such. After all, one cannot prove a negative.

Bertrand Russell's invisible teapot comes to mind... if I said there was a microscopic teapot between the Earth and Mars, and that it should be taught about in schools, and that it influenced a great many lives, most people would call me a loon unless I provided evidence of the teapot. And certainly those who say "I see no reason to believe in that supposed teapot" cannot be expected to provide evidence that it does not exist. That is not how a science works. You make a hypothesis in the positive, not the negative, and test it.

You are correct in that there are many things science cannot yet hope to grasp. It is self-correcting, fortunately, and has proven to be an invaluable tool in the material world. But we can only see a fraction of the billions of galaxies full of billions of stars, and we really don't know where everything came from, or if our ideas of time and space are hopelessly limited at this point. In the microcosm, too, we keep finding smaller and smaller particles. How small is the universe? And how large?

Furthermore, is there such a thing as a spirit? Shared energies? Empaths? There are certainly many things we do not fully understand that ought not be tossed out the window as ideas.

However, even where the concept of a god is concerned, most atheists I know do not completely shut out the possibility... they just see no reason to believe in any such god as there is no objective, or experiential, evidence for them. They are still atheists, not agnostics... they do not believe in a god. They just allow a .0000001 % chance for the possibility... nothing worth wasting one's time thinking about without seeing more evidence.

Agnostics are a bit different, addressing the "knowledge" of a god rather than a belief. They may not think one can know one way or the other in terms of evidence... and so agnostics can be either theists or atheists, leaving "proof" out of the equation as an impossibility.

"Belief in God fits into this category of reasonable assumptions."

That sentence does not follow from the rest of the statement. Memories of an event may vary, but memories themselves are known quantities to most everyone, and the variations can be compared and tested (as they often are in the courts) and sense perception can be measured as well... once you get into the idea of other minds, you are in the realm of solipsism. Solipsism is a good example, since it is not provable one way or the other, like the question of god or of the multiverse. But it is also not very useful. And, for me, the god concept is not either.

I will qualify that by saying that I see value in the symbolism of god concepts. And as a monist, symbolic concepts that bring people together toward a purpose is work towards a unifying goal, bringing one closer to the "all", if you will... so in that sense, I can find some utility in god concepts even if I do not strictly believe in the literal sense.

And where anyone earnestly believes, I respect the belief. If it works, it works. More power to you. What I dislike is the confluence of religion and politics... and if one is going to dictate morality based on a teapot, as it were... then you had best provide proof before my taxes pad the purses of teapot legislators. ;)

Answer 3

The reliability of our perceptions (both of the outside world and of our own memories) is USUALLY a reasonable assumption, but there are cases when what seems to be contradictory evidence must lead to a conclusion that one or the other is fallible. In addition, the existence of other minds is not a basic assumption either. Effectively, ALL logical statements pertaining to the real world (i.e., 'my senses give accurate information' or 'other people can think like I do') are verifiably true or false, just as 1+1=3 is verifiably true or false. NOTHING must be taken for granted.

Of course, the accuracy of our perceptions and memories is consistent enough that usually we don't have to worry about it. Similarly, no one has ever found convincing evidence that other minds do not exist. However, with God, there is quite a large amount of evidence suggesting that he does not exist, so even to conclude that he does is irrational, and making that conclusion an axiomatic assumption is even MORE irrational. To truly be logical, one must be ready to question ANY proposition if the need arises, and the existence of God holds no special immunity to this system.

Answer 4

The Theists would likely use the classic First Cause Argument for the existence of God. It goes like this: 1. Everything has a cause. 2. Nothing can cause itself. 3. There cannot be, however, an infinite chain of causes. 4. Therefore, there must have been a First Cause. 5. The First Cause is God, therefore God exists. The problem with that argument lies in the second premise, that nothing can cause itself. It follows, therefore, that God cannot cause himself. However, when you consider premise 3, that a chain of causation cannot be infinite, then you must consider that there was a First Cause. Theists attribute the role of First Cause to God. However, that is a matter of preference, not fact. If you are going to grant God the ability to break premise 2, then you could also grant that same right to the Universe itself and say that the Universe caused itself. Using Occam's Razor, we negate the need for God.

Answer 5

First, it's comparing apples and oranges.
Second, there IS rational, empirical evidence that our senses work, that our memories are reliable, that other people can think. While it might not be spot on, we can test these things. Just because SOME memories might be false doesn't mean there is no way to test whether at least some memories are true, which places the reliability of memories far higher on the spectrum of phenomena with evidence than God. In the end we must work with probability, for which memories and senses score high and God scores zero.

Answer 6

I think that finding your beliefs should be a personal thing. For myself, I find that I believe the choice I make mold my life not some god. While I do not question your beliefs, it is very difficult to group people who don't identify themselves as monotheists as a complete religion. In fact more so, I would say we don't really care if god is real. If he is I won't change my life, because if I did I would be doing it to be rewarded, where as I do the things I do now because I think they are right. I believe that all religions provide hope to the inevitable fate that we all are going to one day perish from this earth. Belief in god or religion in general provides a promise for an afterlife that may or may not exist. I find it hard to believe that Americans who are mainly against dictatorships would believe they have to serve anyone other than themselves. For me, I serve myself and the people I love. I would not push that belief on you, but I would not expect you to prove your beliefs either.

Answer 7

All of this is true, but we have first hand experience of our own memories, our own sense perceptions, and what seems to be reasonable evidence of other minds. While it is true that all of these things could be mistaken, we at least have evidence of their existence, deceitful or otherwise. What evidence is there that God exists at all?

To be fair, we do have some tests to check the reliability of our memories and our sense perceptions. The problem of other minds is something else, but at least we do see other people. We have no evidence of God whatsoever.

Answer 8

I would respond with the fact that scientists are pouring currency and man-hours into research into the areas described above, as well as many others.
This research is being carried out by people with an open mind to what they find, and if their research proved the existence of God, they would most likely accept it as fact.
Can the same be said of theists if it proved the non-existence of God?

Answer 9

This sounds like the God of the Gaps some theists cling to. That is to say - the God of the gaps in scientific knowledge. When science fills in a gap and creates a new rational justification that God becomes smaller.
Now I believe in a greater world than the physical one. Plato's world of mathematical forms and idealized things like the perfect "colour red" and the perfect "love". I just don't see a place for a God anywhere in my idea of truth.

Answer 10

I'm not sure what a 'reasonable assumption' is. After all, you know what happens when one assumes? Assume= Makes an As* of U and Me.
You can 'reasonably assume' anything at all. I reasonably assume that Purple Snorkelwackers live on the second planet from the star Vega. In other words...its just faith using a different pseudonym.