Objectivists are atheists but not really crusaders for atheism, as they are radicals for capitalism and egoism or crusaders against altruism and collectivism. Ayn Rand did say some eloquent things, through her character John Galt, against the concept of Original Sin, and we know she rejected mysticism. Although she made it clear that subjugation to God is as bad as subjugation to a collective or anything which keeps man from living for himself or herself, she didn’t spend a lot of time on the traditional arguments for or against the existence of God
Leonard Peikoff strongly denounces any form of supernaturalism as an abandonment of reason and reality, and he characterizes theists as saying “To Hell with argument, I have faith.†Yes, some theists, like Rousseau, say this, but not all. Some theists do have rational arguments which need to be challenged and refuted, not simply dismissed and ignored.
Peikoff is very shallow and biased in his straw man definition of agnosticism, in “The Philosophy of Objectivism†lecture series 1976, Lecture 6. He says the agnostic view point poses as fair, impartial, and balanced, but then treats arbitrary claims as ideas proper to consider and then regretfully says, “I don’t know,†instead of dismissing them out of hand. (Peikoff and Binswanger are good at simply dismissing things out of hand, like some people dismiss Objectivism.) Also, on the burden-of-proof issue, the agnostic demands proof of a negative where there is no evidence for the positive. Peikoff, already way off base, ends strongly by saying, “The agnostic thinks that he is not taking any stand at all and therefore that he is safe, secure, invulnerable to attack. The fact is that his view is one of the falsest—and most cowardly—stands there can be.â€
Well, Thomas Henry Huxley, you don’t need to roll in your grave. Just be glad you are dead and don’t have to listen to this obvious, self-evident, demonstration of ignorance.
Peikoff is not distinguishing knowledge claims from belief. He is not distinguishing strong atheism and theism from weak atheism and theism, and he is getting all mixed up about burden-of-proof.
Let’s define some terms:
A theist believes in God. An atheist rejects a belief in God.
There is a difference between knowledge and belief. Plato said that one can believe something that isn’t true. This is not the case with knowledge. If one claims to know something and it turns out to be not true, then it wasn’t really knowledge, was it?
On the other hand, some say knowledge is just justified belief, belief that has high degree of certainty. We can stipulate that this is what we mean by knowledge. We have a high degree of certainty that the floor will not collapse under us when we take a step. It is a leap of faith, but not unsupported faith. We have a high degree of certainty that the Pythagorean Theorem will hold up in Asia as it does in Spokane. We can demonstrate it. This kind of knowledge is objective, not personal nor subject to our wishes and beliefs. Yes, it is possible to have personal knowledge which can’t be proven to others. We are concerned here with the kind of knowledge which can be demonstrated and agreed on by rational people in any culture.
To make a knowledge claim for God’s existence is stronger than saying one believes God exists. The knowledge claim needs support of evidence and reasoning. Many theists claim faith but not knowledge. If knowledge, then no need for faith.
(As a side issue, is it good to have a lot of faith? We take little leaps of faith all the time, even when we take a step and have faith the floor will not collapse under us. When I step on an airplane, I don’t know much about aerodynamics but have faith that someone else does. However, is it good to have faith that my brakes will be okay even when they haven’t been checked for a long time and I hear scraping noises when I use them? If I loan my car to someone who gets in an accident when the brakes failed while the car went down a hill, would it be my fault?)
Some theists claim knowledge. Burden is on them to prove. They don’t prove the existence of God by saying if we can’t prove He doesn’t exist, then He does.
If no knowledge, than agnostic.
An agnostic, in this sense, can be either theist or atheist.
An atheist also can be agnostic with regard to knowledge. If one rejects a belief in God but makes no knowledge claim, then weak atheist. A weak atheist has an advantage over a strong theist. He has no burden to prove anything.
If an atheist makes a knowledge claim that no God exists, that is a stronger position. It needs to meet a burden of proof.
(These terms, weak and strong, apply only to the kind of position it is. They are misleading. A weak theist may have strong commitment to his or her faith. It is just considered weak because it is not an objective knowledge claim. This is true also of the weak atheist. The weak atheist may have a perfectly rational position that one cannot know certain things. It does not mean the atheist is weak in his or her beliefs.)
We can only argue if reason for belief or knowledge claims can be supported. All things being equal, the theist has the burden of proof. If one believes in ghosts, a non-believer doesn’t have to prove there are no ghosts, only that reasons for believing in ghosts are inadequate. However, once the non-believer claims as objective truth that ghosts do not exist, then he or she has a burden.
I think I am a strong atheist when it comes to definitions of god which are contradictory and we are using logic as a standard. If it is meaningful to say square circles do not exist, then it is meaningful to say the greatest conceivable being doesn’t exist. Also the all good and all powerful God who co-exists with evil cannot logically exist. There may be things I do not yet know about how the universe got started or how life came to be, but I don’t fill the gaps with God. In that case, I am a weak atheist, an agnostic. And, I’m honest, not a fence sitter or, as Leonard Peikoff calls me, a coward.
bis bald,
Nick