The simplicity of atheism

Atheism appears to be a simpler hypothesis than theism, and therefore, it is more reasonable (after Ockham’s razor).

• Atheism needs only one world, the natural one. It needs not add a supernatural world, beyond the reach of the senses, a world which is more mysterious than this one (what is God?)

• So atheism does not have to explain how the two worlds interact.

• Atheism does not have to justify the existence of evil with sophisticated but shaky theodicies. For atheism, evil is just a natural phenomenon produced by the indifferent and blind laws of nature.

• Atheism does not have to explain the absence of God.

• Atheism does not have to defend old sacred texts in spite of scientific advances. All atheists know that an atheist is a man, and therefore can be mistaken. Therefore, an atheist does not have to cling to the Word of some Great Atheist Book or Writer or Prophet. Atheist ethics can freely evolve with the progress of mankind without having to show that Scriptures do not run counter to progress.

When Atheism can explain to me the source of material vibration then it will become meaningful for me.

I define objective progress probably differently than you do. I’m more in agreement with simone Weil.

From this perspective, evolutionary progress would be in the direction of knowledge of the Creator.

Atheism can never explain the coherence of the universe as perceived by human beings – at least, not in a way that satisfies my heart. The universe is a complex, interconnected whole of amazing beauty. It strongly suggests a creator.

Sâm would have in mind, probably, some form of natural science to explain phenomena/facts. Either way, a skeptic would have us arguing in a circle anyway. So, question: is circularity at some point unavoidable?

The main problem people seem to have with atheism is not what it tries to explain, but what it doesn’t explain. It’s the same thing as people who try to discredit evolution because of what it doesn’t explain.
Atheism is merely living without religion, no belief in deities. It doesn’t make any atempt to explain unknown mysteries. In my mind, that is a lot more honest than pretending to have explained them, and sticking with those explainations because they are comfortable.

if you are ‘dissatisfied’ with athiestic explanations, then perhaps you should reconsider the assumptions in your questions rather than accepting answers that are made up to make you feel comfortable.

yes, oh wise one…

Ah, but if there is evidence of a supernatural or spiritual side to things, then a naturalistic (which is what you are really talking about, not just atheistic) has to account for that evidence in purely natural terms. So there could be some added complexity there.

The naturalistic explanation for certain types of good can be just as shaky. If there’s a God, why is there evil? If there’s not a God, why is there any good?

This is true so far as it goes, but what you’re really observing here is that atheism isn’t a theory, it’s an absence of a theory. Certainly someone with no theory to defend can change their claims and views to fit whatever new evidence or trends come along. Certainly, someone with any creed at all will find that creed in need of defending from time to time.

I have found a website which makes approximately the same point as me:

««« What is Occam’s Razor?
“People keep talking about Occam’s Razor. What is it?”

William of Occam formulated a principle which has become known as Occam’s Razor. In its original form, it said “Do not multiply entities unnecessarily.” That is, if you can explain something without supposing the existence of some entity, then do so.

Nowadays when people refer to Occam’s Razor, they often express it more generally, for example as “Take the simplest solution”.

The relevance to atheism is that we can look at two possible explanations for what we see around us:

There is an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there, which came into being as a result of natural processes.
There is an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there, and there is also a God who created the universe. Clearly this God must be of non-zero complexity.
Given that both explanations fit the facts, Occam’s Razor might suggest that we should take the simpler of the two – solution number one. Unfortunately, some argue that there is a third even more simple solution:

There isn’t an incredibly intricate and complex universe out there. We just imagine that there is.
This third option leads us logically towards solipsism, which many people find unacceptable. »»»

infidels.org/news/atheism/ar … html#occam

good argument. i am revoked!

dies

This doesn't work, because the 'natural processes' must be of non-zero complexity as well.

Your sarcasm suggests you believe you made a point to which I should have responded with a cogent argument. On the contrary, you made an unsupported, undeveloped point to which no one could respond. Why would you expect me to respond with an argument?

I made a proposition (tentatively even) which i expected to be attacked and which i could then defend. Much the same as:

“Atheism can never explain the coherence of the universe as perceived by human beings – at least, not in a way that satisfies my heart. The universe is a complex, interconnected whole of amazing beauty. It strongly suggests a creator.”

Wildly categorical and unsupported statements arent the meat and veg of debate to be sure, but its a good starter so people know how and who to attack.

You just need to lighten up, and if you’re gonna reply to folk, make sure its useful.

Now, what about my statement did you find so particularly offensive? Do you not think that “satisfying your heart” is a kinda silly benchmark for explanations of the universe?

Don’t mean to get in between you two, aporia and oreso, but:

It may sound a sarcasm, Aporia, but this is a philosophical and logical suggestion on how to go about making adjustments to a claim. Reconsidering assumptions is one of the rational philosophical approaches. “accepting answers that are made up to make you feel comfortable” is one of epistemic irresponsibility that we should avoid when making rational claims.

Fair enough arendt. Sorry oreso, I initially interpreted your comment as patronizing – telling us that we “should” do something without explaining what exactly it was or why we should do it. My response was meant to puncture an arrogance which apparently was not really there. Let’s just say, then, that my sarcasm wasn’t intended for you.

I understand, but without further development the proposition is devoid of material to attack or defend. What assumptions should be reconsidered? Why should we not accept an answer that makes us feel “comfortable” (whether or not those answers are “made up” is obviously a matter of dispute)?

By contrast, my initial statement apparently had something to attack. Am I being silly? I would suggest not.

William James proposed that two desires guide man when he makes judgments: the desire to find truth and the desire to avoid error. In my heart (by which I mean merely the seat of desires) I seek to strike a balance between these two desires when I consider the question of god. If it is true that there is a god, intelligent and loving like us, who created the universe, I see that as a good and beautiful thing. My desire to believe it is therefore high. If there is no such god and the universe simply is the way it is without explanation, I don’t think I’ve lost much by believing. So my fear of error is low. My desire for truth outweighs my fear of error in this case, so I believe.

In short, I stand to gain an important truth (and perhaps more) if I believe, while I stand to lose little to nothing if I’m wrong. So I believe.

NOTE: This sounds like Pascal’s wager, but it isn’t. Pascal’s wager is about getting people to believe in the Christian god. My wager is just about believing in an intelligent loving creator. Pascal’s wager weighs bliss in heaven against suffering in hell. My wager merely weighs the possibility of discovering a god behind the universe against the possibility of making such a search in vain. My wager seeks to establish much less than Pascal’s but I feel that philosophically it is on stronger ground.

Now that I’ve explained what I mean by “satisfying my heart” in more detail, you may still feel that it’s silly to seek truth by weighing desires. I submit, however, that you do this every moment of your life. For example, suppose I were to tell you that there is a man eating tiger behind you right now, and your only chance is to run for your life right this moment. You would not believe me, right? But why not?

Certainly the tiger attack is possible, so you can’t discount it on logical grounds. Perhaps you’d discount it on probabilistic grounds – since man eating tigers have never attacked you before, it’s “unlikely” to happen now, so you won’t worry about it. If you make this argument, I first ask: what do you mean by “unlikely”? and what gives you the knowledge that said event is in fact unlikely? Second, why does unlikelihood imply that you shouldn’t worry about something? I submit that in general that implication does not hold, and here is a counterexample.

Suppose that you are shopping in a store and a store employee stops to talk to you. She says that she thought she saw you leaving a car with a baby inside. It’s a hot summer day and recently you’ve heard terrible stories of parents who accidentally leave their children in their cars where they die of heat stroke (note: this really does happen). But you’re quite confident you did not leave your child in the car, because you always drop your baby off at home before you go grocery shopping. At least you’re pretty sure – it was a few hours ago and you’ve been very busy with errands in the mean time. You ask the employee if she’s sure and she says no, but she saw someone do this and is very concerned. Clearly here the probability of you breaking your routine here and not remembering is pretty low. In addition, the frequency of such deaths is probably very low relative to the number of parents who accidentally leave children in the car, so overall from both considerations the probability that your child is dying in the car right now is very low. But I submit that, regardless of probability, you will probably call home on the cellphone, abandoning your shopping cart and quickly making your way out of the store to check. Why? Because your desire for truth and fear of error in this situation overwhelm all cool objective considerations of probability. Therefore you tentatively judge, for practical purposes, that your baby is in danger and act accordingly.

This is how humans operate: not under cool considerations of logic and probability, but continually guided in their judgments by the desire for truth and the fear of error. You may object that such considerations apply only to what we will act (for example, whether or not we will run out of the supermarket in the above example) and not to what we will believe. But if you “believe” one thing and continually act in a way contrary to that belief, I submit that you do not really believe what you say you believe. Action is the measure of a man. A man may say he believes he is a chicken, but if he goes about his daily business like an ordinary man, he does not (in any practical sense) believe he is a chicken.

In summary: action is the measure of a man’s beliefs and judgments, not what he says he believes and judges true and false. But we act on the basis of weighing the desire for truth against the fear of error, wagering against ourselves and the universe in the hopes of coming out ultimately happy and satisfied with the life we’ve led. Therefore, we SHOULD decide the question of a god’s existence by weighing the desires to “satisfy one’s heart”; in fact we are incapable of doing otherwise.

Eh? Your own of course! My post wasnt made in vacuum, though yours wasnt the only one it was aimed at.

Because comfortableness is not a indication of truthfulness, and only true beliefs are helpful.

For your argument:
You have answered my counter argument in the next paragraph every time, highly commendable!

To answer though:
Your argument is still Pascal’s wager, just applied to normal life rather than the afterlife. Ie. it is more beneficial to believe than not believe, regardless of likelihood.

I still hold a distinction between a belief and ‘action’, and further, between ‘action’ and ‘enquiry’. The tiger warrants no consideration because the chances are too low. The baby warrants consideration because the chances are not that low and the consequences are still high, thus i would enquire further, and depending on the overall evidence i would form a belief based on likelihood alone. If i was in a situation where i cannot enquire further and must make a decision quickly they i would, as you say, try and avoid error and would act as if the belief were true until i can enquire further. However, this is still not a belief, but simply preparing for the worst.

With god, this is not the case. I am free to enquire for all of my life, and based on the evidence thus far I must conclude against. I cannot choose my beliefs and nor do i act as if my beliefs were different, and i dont have to prepare for the worst (indeed, it is random whether my preparations would be sufficient making any preparation seem futile).

Attempting to destroy the difference between ‘preparing for the worst’ and ‘acting out of belief’ is rubbish. How people act is not the direct manifestation of their beliefs, only a pretty vague byproduct, and cannot be used to determine them with any hope of accuracy.

Acting contrary to your beliefs obviously entails that you hold a different belief. However, with the examples you give I have not formed any belief to be contradicted.

This is the crux of the counter-argument:
With god of course, i cannot act and not believe, like i do with the baby and other examples of preparing for the worst, because the beneficial act is belief itself. This i cannot do. If i was warned that my baby was at risk until i believed my baby was actually at risk, and no other good evidence were available, i would dismiss the warning as lunacy at best (and at worst, an attempt at manipulation).

Ah. Good meat and veg!

Fresh cheese and onion pasties

Completely empty. We are suposed to accept the existance of ‘soul’ and furthermore that it must be somehow ‘nourished’ and furthermore how to nourish it, all on this guys word alone?
LoL.

What I intend to advocate here is not a fixed, irrevocable belief in a god. On the contrary, I think it probably best that no one have fixed, irrevocable beliefs about anything. If I advocate any belief at all it is a tentative belief, always open to criticism and reversing. Furthermore I’m not advocating a purely mental belief in god. Purely mental beliefs have zero importance to me. Any belief in god, however tentative, should involve some action towards knowing more about the god. So what I’m really proposing here is that we attempt to know more about this god. This attempt should involve at the very least openness to religious claims, and perhaps some prayer that god would grant one eyes to see him.

I think we all want to believe that this world was made for a reason, and for a good and loving purpose. There’s a desire for that truth. But we also fear that if we err, we may waste our lives studying or following religion when we could have been doing something else. But I don’t think you need to put your life on hold to search for god, or that the effort expended in a search was horribly wasted if the search was in vain. We can look for information and perhaps a relationship with this god through religion and by looking for him in our daily lives. If the search doesn’t yield anything, perhaps we put it on the back burner and wait for life to bring us something new (which is where I am with it).

My main point here is that the beneficial act I want to consider is not just belief. Beliefs by themselves are of no importance. The beneficial act is openness and willingness to listen to religious claims, and openness to interpreting aspects of life as revealing something about god. Furthermore, if we come across something interesting during this ‘openness’, we actively pursue it to see what it tells us about god. We do this because of the wager-like considerations I outlined earlier; just like we “prepare for the worst” by checking on the baby, we prepare for the best by seeking out god. We do not lose much of anything by looking for him, and stand to gain much more.

I truly dont. The world is good enough as is, without there being a purpose to it. A purpose would relegate it to a tool, rather than the accidental art it is as i perceive it.

Im not going to ‘search for god’, this is the wrong attitude. The default belief about an entity must always be non-belief, and then only if evidence or some argument is presented do you need to consider the entity’s possibility at all.

I have considered all the arguments and evidence that i can find, but so far, nothing substantial.

‘Openness’ is a vague concept. I am not going to consider the individual claims of specific religions if my grounds for non-belief already undermine the assumptions of those claims. However, any approach that addresses these more fundamental concerns will be considered.

if you look hard enough for something you want to see, of course you will find it. This is not a sound way of doing things however, instead you should be suspicious of all claims and demand good reasoning before a belief of this magnitude is formed.