Ask An Atheist

There Is No God.

That’s a pretty powerful statement. To most people this evokes emotions deep to our core. We are so entangled in our beliefs that the idea that a person can live a happy, healthy life with out the need of religion or faith is somehow wrong to us. This is so alien to us that people (in extreme cases) will alienate others for even thinking it. Why? Because the idea of God is very much ingrained in culture. It is taught to us as absolute truth, and those who deviate from that “truth” are deviating from us (ie bad).

Now am I asserting that the statement above is absolute truth? No, I can’t know that, that is beyond my reasonable capabilities as a human, and I accept that. I simply make the statement to illustrate a point. Be honest, did you have an emotional reaction? (defensive if any?) It’s nature, don’t be ashamed. We want to believe in God. It gives us hope, it gives us answers where there are none. And to many it gives peace. But just because we want to believe in God… Doesn’t mean he exists. This is a path of questioning many people now are going to.

I first started seriously questioning the idea of God about a decade ago. Since then I have received a lot of questions about what I believe in, how I could believe in it, where my morals are,ect . There seems to be a trend… Most people do not know what it means to be an atheist. This is a problem, because if we are to cooperate as human beings, we must understand each other, learn from each other, and be willing to challenge our idea against each other with no spite or anger. I present this to you. I will give you commonly asked questions and misconceptions about Atheism and Agnosticism, and reasonable, logical answers in hopes that if you do read this, you will walk away with some better understand of what we believe. Please, feel free to make your own blog, explaining what you believe, I would be more than happy to read it.

First, a background. I am a strong agnostic. I believe that the possibility of the existence a Deity, and the possibility of the the universe working on it’s own according to no intelligent force are equal and valid principles.  In short, I believe that God both exists and does not exist (Or at least I am open to either possibility). I have spent years in informal theological debate, and have seen almost every argument that theists and atheists currently have in their arsenal. I fervently argue either side in the attempts to try to level the issue, and force others to explain their position.

Please remember, as you are reading this, that I (personally) take no sides in this issue. That for sake of argument I assume an atheistic position to explain, to the best of my abilities, the beliefs, the values, and the understanding of a responsible atheist.

So onto the questions.

Why Don’t You Believe In My God? How Can You Not Believe In Any God? Do You Hate God?

1. For the same reason I don’t believe in Santa Claus, or the Tooth Fairy. I see religion as another story, one that may help people, may give morals, but still, when the message digested, the need for the story is over. I ask you, why don’t believe in any other God than yours? When you answer that question, you might be closer to understanding how I feel.
2. The reason I assume there is no higher power is because I don’t see the necessity for a higher power. Ockham’s Razor states, “entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem” (entities must not be multiplied unnecessarily)(Wikipedia, Occam’s Razor). Paraphrased: “In any given situation, the simplest answer is most often the correct one.” Now it may be easier cognitively to assume that there was a designer, instead of the universe forming out of probability. But logically it becomes difficult. In order to test logic one must assign numbers and equations to certain phenomenon. We can give a number to the likelihood of any event. But you can’t give an equation for God. And to put God into any equation would not simplify it, it would complicate the equation needlessly. It is just simpler to assume that the universe formed on it’s own, instead of being formed by a being we cannot cognitively conceive, reasonably prove, or measure it’s parameter’s.
3. Do you hate Ganesha? Do you hate the Buddha? No, you don’t believe in them, what is the reason to hate them? Same principle with use, we aren’t rebelling, we don’t hate God, we don’t believe in him.

How do you have morals outside of God? How do you reference your morals without the bible (or some other holy script)?

1. Essentially the same place you get your morals. The majority of people do not recieve morals from God, rather from their raising. If your parents were very moral people, and it was essential to them that you were moral than it is likely that you would be raised with a certain set of morals and ethics. My morals were taught outside of God (even though I was raised Catholic). They were simply a set of basic human ethics that interweaves to encompass every conceivable moral situation.
2. Most atheists will account The Golden Rule which states “Do unto others, as you would have others do unto you.” This is a good rule to live by, but it doesn’t account for all situations. So I present a model of morals that I call “The Choice and Justice Model” of Moral Behavior. This simply is the idea that one is allowed to choose freely what they do, however one’s freedom to choose ends where another’s begins. Meaning I can choose to do anything as long as my choice does not encroach on another’s choice. The second part of this model is referred to justice. If a person decides to encroach on another person’s choice they should be punished. A man rapes a woman, which is encroaching on her ability to choose who she decides to have sexual relations with. Therefor that man should be punished to discourage the action, or prevent him from performing the action again (like jail time, or salt peter).

What is the need for morals without Heaven or Hell?

• Survival of societal structures, thus the survival of the species hinges on keeping order in society. A common sense of morals insures this structure of order. This tells people what they should accept, and what they shouldn’t. What to do, and what not to do. This moral system will eventually become laws, insuring further that the morals of that society  remain in tact. We need morals in order to prevent chaos. With out these essential morals, people would be permitted to doing anything they please with out consequence. And thus they would, spreading chaos through the system and toppling it.

This sounds like moral relativism. Doesn’t that mean that there is no right or wrong?

• You are correct, this is Moral Relativism. But no, what you are referring to is Moral Nihilism. This is a common mistake. Moral Relativism simply means that moral judgments are situational. There typically is a Right and Wrong choice in any moral situation. Moral Relativism simply sustains what may be the right course of action in one situation, but not in another. For example: We can all agree that killing is essentially wrong. However if you were in a situation in which it was either to kill a man, or let him kill you or others, than it is the morally correct decision to kill him.

If there is no God, Is life just purposeless? If not, what is the purpose?

1. Objectively, yes. There is not objective purpose for life. We just live. We aren’t here for any particular reason, we aren’t here to do anything particular, we are just here to live.
2. Purpose is purpose. In other words, the meaning of life is to live, and to effect the others around you. If you effect the world around you in a positive way, than it can be reasonably determined that you have been a success in your life. Your reward? Simply leaving the world a little bit better than you found it. That should be enough.

How can something come from nothing? What caused the Big Bang?

1. Simple answer? It can’t. Something cannot come from nothing, and cannot appear in a vacuum. That is why most scientists agree that the big bang came from a singularity. Now where did that singularity come from? Depends on who you ask. M-Theory states that it was just the effect of two dimensional membranes clashing and separating from each other. Bubble theory supposes the collision and merge of two universes. And Classic Theory supposes that the singularity was just there.
2. This assumes that outside of time, cause precedes effect. But if there is no time, than an effect can happen before or outside of a cause. We determine that before the singularity expanded (“banged”) there was no time. (According to the Classic Big Bang Theory.) Therefor there was no cause and effect. So nothing caused the big bang.

Are you blind? Can’t you see all the evidence of God around you?

• What evidence? Give me one piece of evidence that God exists that I can test according to the scientific method, that is falsifiable and empirical, and maybe I will consider this evidence. But it stands today there is no evidence to sustain that God exists, therefor I must assume that the possible existence of God is less substantial than the idea that god (in any form) does not exist.

Does absence of evidence imply evidence of absence?

• Certainly not. There have been many things that we could not detect, but later found out were there (case and point neutrinos). But a reasonable person must not make conjectures with out sufficient evidence. Meaning we must assume the negative (God does not exist) is true until we attain evidence of the positive (God does exist). As I have mentioned before there is no evidence sustaining the existence of God. Since theburden of proof is on the side of the Positive in any logical situation, the Negative can be assumed in lieu of the evidence of Positive. Given that it is impossible to prove a negative.

Isn’t Atheism a cowardice belief, just unable to accept God?

• Actually, Atheism is a very difficult emotionally speaking. Many people who begin to lose faith in God will account hopeless depression, anxiety, and loss of identity. Losing faith to many people is losing the foundation in which much of their life is based on. So the initial steps of Non-Belief is often times very disparaging. And it doesn’t get better from there. Then you have to accept your own mortality without the idea of the afterlife (which is very frightening), confront anybody who believes that atheism is wrong, deal with your family, the list goes on. After experiencing many of these things, I cannot imagine how being an atheist is cowardice belief. I think quite the opposite actually. Being an atheist requires a certain amount of bravery. It is much more difficult than many people imagine to be an atheist.

Why is it important to you that everyone is atheist?

• It’s not. I simply ask people to question what they believe because unquestioned belief is inherently dangerous. It can lead to atrocities, and worse yet retardation of knowledge. It matters not to me whether a person is Christian, or Hindu, or Atheist, or what have you. As long as that belief does not disallow knowledge, and does not make general assumptions that allows a person to reject information because it does not follow in their beliefs.

Doesn’t it require faith to assert that God does not exist?

• Certainly. I sustain it requires just as much (if not more) faith to assert 100% that God does not exist (Yes, I know I will get crucified by atheists for mentioning this). Conversely one must understand it is unreasonable to assume he does exist with out evidence. This is why I remain Agnostic. Faith is a logical fallacy, and therefor any assumption of faith is unreasonable and should be cast out. My disbelief is based on materialism. And thus I demand if I am to believe in a positive, than that positive must be proven beyond reasonable doubt.

Is it possible to prove a negative? If it is impossible, how do logically believe in a negative if it is unprovable?

1. Yes, it is impossible to prove a negative event. While I’m not saying you can’t prove that there isn’t a spare tire on your car. I am saying that you can’t prove I didn’t go to the movies last night. You can however prove a positive that makes the negative unlikely. Like saying “You were over a a friends house all night, you couldn’t go to the movies.” This is not proving a negative, this is proving a contradicting positive, which in turn makes the negative more likely than the positive. The idea that God does not exist is a universal negative. Meaning that there is no logical way to give a  contradicting positive that makes the negative more likely.
2. This is much simpler than the former question. The negative is the base assumption in all forms of logic. (The Adversary court system can be used as an example. Assumption of innocence until proof of guilt). We assume the negative (something is not true) until we can receive evidence of the positive (something is true). In lamen’s terms, we don’t believe in fairies because we must logically prove fairies for us to believe they exist. Until proof of fairies comes around, we assume that fairies do not exist.

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Understand, this is not a conversion mechanism. None of this is proof of the non-existence of God. Nor intended as an argument towards God. Rather it is a way to help the logical theist to understand our point of view, just as the logical atheist must attempt to understand the logical theist point of view. As well to quell many myths and misconceptions theists have about atheists. I do this so we may understand each other and accept each other, with out the need to convert, or demean each other. The more we understand, the easier it becomes to coexist

I welcome any theist to give me an “Ask a Theist” blog in the same spirit in which I present this. Not as an argument, just as a way to understand each other. Hopefully we can quell all these myths and stick to the actual argument, with out ad hominems or basic conceptions about each other.

- Paradigm Of Thought.