An Atheist's Response

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Quoted text is from the magazine article. The response is posted in parts.

Part I

Atheism, like chastity, is defined purely in terms of what it is not. To state that you do not believe in God means – what exactly?

Firstly, chastity is more than a passive action defined by what doesn't happen. Chastity requires an investment and active participation on behalf of the chaste, just as dieting requires lifestyle change or quitting smoking demands decision making and education.

Atheism, you are correct, is passive in that it is a lack of belief, and does not require extensive proof, but it also requires the ability to assess evidence laid down for the existence of a God. That assessment is not passive by default. It is based on logic and understanding, as much logic and understanding as a believer may use and probably more (because a believer also utilises faith).

I am now going to inject a little (perhaps pawky) humour into this article. People, at least over a certain age, state confidently ‘Father Christmas/Santa Claus does not exist.’

On what basis do they make this claim? The impossibility of one man travelling around the world from Lapland on Christmas Eve? The fact that parents and others give presents on Christmas Day?

Let us consider the evidence. Even a cursory examination will show many men with white beards, red robes and other accoutrements handing out presents in public. Each one claims to be Father Christmas/Santa Claus.

Empirically, those who doubt the existence of Father Christmas stand refuted by the overwhelming presence and visibility of these men claiming to be Father Christmas.
To deny the existence of these men is to enter a delusional universe in which even abundant concrete proof cannot shift the delusion.

The rational conclusion to an unprejudiced mind is obvious. There are many Father Christmases and not simply one. Their multiplicity may refute the ‘monotheistic’ view of deniers but the denial that any Father Christmases exist is counter-factual, irrational and superstitious. An ‘atheist’ approach to the existence of Father Christmas is, quite simply, false to the facts and nothing more than superstition!

Enjoyable as this humor is, this seems to me to be a flawed example.

Let's say a million Santas exist, all different people, tall, short, black, white, heck some are even women, but what one thing do we know about all of them? We know that each one of those million are pretend Santas, by their own admission, and by all available objective evidence. No sane Santa claims to be the real Father Christmas except in jest or as part of the illusion. They are all imposters or helpers or modern representatives of the spirit, but not a single one is real.

This is in no way controversial, it is fact-based logic. You can trace and follow every single Santa to discover their actual identity. 


 

I accept the facetious playful element of this but lest we get carried away with it, despite opening the magazine article with definitions of truth, we seem to have forgotten what real means? The claim that denying Santa exists is "counter factual" is in fact...er...counter factual.

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Part II

I hope though that my frivolous example will show atheists why they, like theists, need to be less dogmatic. Neither believers nor disbelievers have a sufficient basis to assert that their opinions constitute facts about the world

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It does not.

Atheists and theists have different burdens of proof. Theists make truth claims that atheists do not make. Theists claim not only the existence of god/s but the involvement and interference of god/gods in human life. 

Atheists merely ask where the objective/irrefutable evidence of this is and, having seen the purported evidence, find it failing the objective-irrefutability  credibility test.

Theists claim a universal truth without objective evidence. Atheists claim no such truth but make a logical observation that there is no proof of any God, past or present, of any description, and the most logical conclusion is therefore that there is no god/s, or at least any reason to think there is. 

(The article includes mention of a universal force but such an undefined idea is not included in atheism.)

It is no more a fact to say that God – or Gods – do not exist than it is to say that God or Gods do exist. Both statements go beyond the available evidence and are equally expressions of opinion – acts of faith.

This is, in my very humble but atheist opinion, a common error in these discussions, often made by both sides.

A fact is defined as something that is known to be true (slight tautology there, thanks dictionary!) Or proven to be true. 

It is a fact that there is no objective evidence for gods, therefore they are not proven to be true, or known to be true (although people believe subjective feelings that their own gods are true). 

An atheist states that the lack of any fact to the contrary means gods are not a fact. 

The history of the human race has provided us with examples of now dismissed and defunct gods (Zeus, Jupiter, etc) implying they are an error or perhaps a success, but an invention of the human mind and culture, and do not exist beyond imaginings or tradition.

Therefore atheists have proof of false evidence, proof of lack of evidence, plus proof of mistaken beliefs. This can allow someone to state confidently that there is no God in the factual sense, in the same way we state confidently that there are no fairies, no vampires, and no Father Christmas.

The existence of god/s is not a fact. And that's a fact.

Atheists eagerly await more proof. We give you eternity to provide it. But until it arrives, we must go with Occam's Razor.

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Part III

Atheists are overwhelmingly as wedded as theists to the notion of a privileged place for humans on Earth and indeed the universe as a whole.

Are they? I think this is untrue as a description of atheism. 

Humans suffer this in general, I agree, some much more severely than others, but I have not seen proof that it is innately found in atheism in the way it is innately found in christianity. I would say religion has by far the biggest history ot any such claims. 

Atheists, in a huge general sweeping statement, I admit, tend to see science as a major plank in their disbelief system, and no one can follow science breakthroughs with any seriousness without seeing the diminishing status of humans in the greater scheme of the universe. We are at once amazing and insignificant. I believe many Christians get this too, but perhaps not nearly as clearly as the godless Buddhists do. Gods tend to over emphasize the importance of humans in the same way humans over emphasize gods.

....most atheists [...] believe in the myths of free choice, the reduction of everything to concepts and terms that humans are able to understand, the myth of ‘salvation’ either through technology or (in the case of ‘Green’ humanists) a neo-Luddite reversion to a subsistence level. All these dreams are nothing more than futile illusions.

I think this paragraph veers away from the fallacy argument and deserves its own debate, rather than a place here, because it's not just atheists who believe in concepts of free will or zealous green policies. That humans can get "religious" about topics other than gods is a fact that may speak more to how gods get invented than how atheists choose the wrong gods.

And as a matter of fact, free will is a concept quite central to theism, and lately the existence of "Free Will" is a concept mostly denied by leading atheists such as Sam Harris,

or Jerry Coyne, 

and others who describe it as mere illusion.

We humans know next to nothing about the world we inhabit. It is far too presumptuous of us to make assertions of knowledge on matters which we neither do nor, probably, can know.

Perhaps so.

Then again, perhaps atheists have the least hubris of all, because we know enough about what we don't know to clear the slate and start thinking afresh.

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Disclaimer

This response was not posted to persuade anyone that they should or should not agree with theists or with atheists, it is merely a reply to points made in the article. To be upfront about my position, I am an atheist. Any pushback or discussion on any of my points is very welcome in the spirit of healthy debate.

[mikemarshall3]

Thank you for your long and thoughtful post. I hope you will forgive it if I take some time to respond as I wish to do justice to your post and my health is poor so it takes me longer these days to draw up an adequate rejoinder.

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Hi Mike,

Thank you for your gracious reply. 

I'm sorry to hear you are in poor health, please do take your time and respond only how you want to, in whole or bits and pieces as I have done, that's fine. It is good of you to accept my talkback.

Thanks for starting an interesting conversation on an interesting topic. 

Sláinte!