Is Atheism a Belief or a Lack of Belief?

Catholic Answers ^ | September 4, 2013 | Trent Horn

[NYer]

When asked to prove atheism is true, many atheists say that they don’t have to prove anything. They say atheism is not “belief there is no God” but merely “no belief in a God.” Atheism is defined in this context as a “lack of belief” in God, and if Catholics can’t prove God exists, then a person is justified in being an atheist. But the problem with defining atheism as simply “the lack of belief in God” is that there are already another group of people who fall under that definition: agnostics.

The "I Don't Know's"

Agnosticism (from the Greek word for knowledge, gnosis) is the position that a person cannot know if God exists. A strong agnostic is someone like skeptic Michael Shermer, who claims that no one is able to know if God exists. He writes, “I once saw a bumper sticker that read “Militant agnostic: I don’t know and you don’t either.” This is my position on God’s existence: I don’t know and you don’t either.”[i]

A weak agnostic merely claims that while he doesn’t know if God exists, it is possible that someone else may know. Agnosticism and weak atheism are very similar in that both groups claim to be “without belief in God.”[ii] Pope Benedict XVI spoke sympathetically of such people in a 2011 address:

In addition to the two phenomena of religion and anti-religion, a further basic orientation is found in the growing world of agnosticism: people to whom the gift of faith has not been given, but who are nevertheless on the lookout for truth, searching for God. Such people do not simply assert: ‘There is no God.’ They suffer from his absence and yet are inwardly making their way towards him, inasmuch as they seek truth and goodness. They are ‘pilgrims of truth, pilgrims of peace.’

A Difference Without a Distinction

Because agnosticism seems more open-minded than atheism, many atheists are more apt to describe themselves like agnostics, who likewise have “no belief in a God,” even though they call themselves “atheist.” They say that an atheist is just a person who lacks a belief in God but is open to being proven wrong. But saying you lack a belief in God no more answers the question, “Does God exist?” than saying you lack a belief in aliens answers the question, “Do aliens exist?”

This is just agnosticism under a different name.

For example, can we say agnosticism is true? We can’t, because agnostics make no claims about the world; they just describe how they feel about a fact in the world (the existence of God). Likewise, if atheists want us to believe that atheism is true, then they must make a claim about the world and show that what they lack a belief in—God—does not exist.

Belief on Trial

An illustration might help explain the burden of proof both sides share. In a murder trial the prosecution must show beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant committed the murder. But if the prosecution isn’t able to make its case, then the defendant is found “not guilty.” Notice the defendant isn’t found “innocent.”

For all we know, he could have committed the crime, but we just can’t prove it. Certain kinds of evidence, like an air-tight alibi, can show the defendant is innocent. But it is the responsibility of the defense to present that evidence.

Likewise, even if the theist isn’t able to make his case that God exists that doesn’t show God does not exist and therefore that atheism is true. As atheists Austin Dacey and Lewis Vaughn write, “What if these arguments purporting to establish that God exists are failures? That is, what if they offer no justification for theistic belief? Must we then conclude that God does not exist? No. Lack of supporting reasons or evidence for a proposition does not show that the proposition is false.”[iii]

If he wants to demonstrate that atheism is true, an atheist would have to provide additional evidence that there is no God just as a defense attorney would have to provide further evidence to show his client is innocent as opposed to being just “not guilty.” He can’t simply say the arguments for the existence of God are failures and then rest his case.

[Kip Russell]

Rand has been dinged as an atheist because of her disdain of Heaven/afterlife. but seen another way, that is simply the ortodox judaic view.

She was certainly anti-religion. Whether she was an atheist as such I'll have to leave to those more familiar with her work...I've only read a few of her novels.

[Vendome]

I never asserted anyone claiming to be an aethiest is lying. In fact, I take them at their word.

I only discuss God or my beliefs if they want to.

My point was about specific “tells”, as I described. I don’t push God on them, merely inform.

I also don’t proselitize to them anymore than I tell my gay friends they are in error to God. Failed strategy.

BTW, I have a friend who is gay and was raised Catholic. He has contrived a new God that says we are all equal sexually and that morals have a certain relativism.

I asked him to define his new god and he proceeded to manufacture some convoluted new god.

He eventually conceded he was full of crap but, wanted to believe God would accept him.

Of course God accepts him but, rejects his behaviour and the stories he tells himself to feed his sexual desire.

It’s his coping mechanism.

As for your disavowel of God, yeah, you are probably full of it.

If you’re not and care to get off your chest how you came to that decision, fine. But, it seems like a waste if time.

I accept you as you are and seek not change into something I prefer. That’s what wives are for.

[This I Wonder32460]

I thought atheism was the lack of a belief in God and agnosticism was believing in God but not in religion. Is it odd that to have faith in God, yet lack faith in religious dogma?

I went through an atheist phase as a young teen, who would tell God that I don’t believe in you. God saw it different and I feel blessed with the continual presence of God every in moment, even when I am not conscious of it. And though I wouldn’t call myself an agnostic by what I thought was the definition of the word, I do find religious dogma to often be no more then the demand to conform to some other person’s vision of God rather then God’s vision for all and each of us.

I do find atheists are often angry and bitter as well as contrary. The contrary ones won’t believe in God because they will do the opposite, thinking it makes them appear more capable and independent. The angry and bitter ones are miffed that God seems more mythical then magical. They’re angry at God because life is not perfect and all their desires are not met. For this they rage against God and against those who believe in God. Not long ago a started reading a biography of Madalyn Murray O’Hair, and as I suspected she was one of the angry, bitter atheists, who want vengeance on God for the bad things in their life. She set out to destroy God because he didn’t control her life and instead she ended up destroying herself and her loved ones. She didn’t destroy God. God was always there watching over her and telling her to turn back, but she didn’t because she couldn’t let go of her disappointment, her anger and her bitterness. She went where her anger took her rather then where God would have taken her. And where her soul is now, is between her and God.

[Hardraade]

I think it would be more correct to say she was anti some of the effects of some religion, and that she didn’t really concern herself with anything but but a very narrow strip of human existence.

The discussion is certainly interesting, but I think there’s no conclusion to be had using a plain logic framework. Sooner or later you end up with faith, not proof.

[Berlin_Freeper]

The way I phrased it is “will” and not “are”.

Couple the hostility seen from athiests with recent government and foolish people within the church, it is possible.

[Kip Russell]

I never asserted anyone claiming to be an aethiest is lying. In fact, I take them at their word.

Previously, you said:

Man knows there is a greater being

I said: Are you asserting that all atheists actually do believe in God, and just pretend they don't?

You said:

Yep.

I said: I, personally, have no belief in any deity. Do you think I'm lying?

You said:

I never asserted anyone claiming to be an aethiest is lying. In fact, I take them at their word.

And in the very same post, say:

As for your disavowel of God, yeah, you are probably full of it.

Sorry, but you're all over the place on this one. You're contradicting yourself with virtually every post.

[Kip Russell]

The way I phrased it is “will” and not “are”.

You also phrased it "can’t be told no", not "won't be told no"...mixed tenses in the same sentence, hence my confusion.

Couple the hostility seen from athiests with recent government and foolish people within the church, it is possible.

I suppose so, though I think it unlikely. Time will tell.

[Hardraade]

And still you’ll find the atheists organizations being in cahoots with (and sometimes led by) islamists. An example being Lars Gule, the Norwegian convicted islamic terrorist who for many years led the Norwegian atheist union.

[Kip Russell]

I thought atheism was the lack of a belief in God

Correct.

and agnosticism was believing in God but not in religion.

Incorrect. Agnosticism is the view that whether or not a God (or gods) exists is unknown and (possibly) unknowable.

Is it odd that to have faith in God, yet lack faith in religious dogma?

Not in my view...it's certainly no weirder a view than that of any number of religions out there, and less weird than most!

[Berlin_Freeper]

Won’t be told no is very different from can’t be told no.

Traditional Christians will be squeezed out.

[Kip Russell]

And still you’ll find the atheists organizations being in cahoots with (and sometimes led by) islamists.

That's never made the slightest sense to me. As an atheist, the worst I've ever gotten from a Christian is, "Tsk...you're going to burn in Hell if you don't change your ways"...but it's not as if they would do anything about it other than try to persuade me, even if they had power over me.

(Christian Reconstructionism aside, which is a very tiny subset of Christianity as a whole)

Islam, on the other hand...I've actually had an online conversation in which a Muslim, when pressed, admitted that he felt I should be forced to convert at the point of a sword or be executed. His view is all to common in the Muslim world.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Dawkins was recently pushing pedophilia, that’s something the muslims understand.

[Salvation]

Lack of Belief.

[Vendome]

Probably, maybe, well no.

[Viennacon]

No, agnosticism is specifically the “i don’t know” defense.

Weak agnostics state that while they don’t know, its possible that somebody else does, and indeed possible that they might know in the future.

Strong agnostics will assert that nobody can ever know, because it would be beyond us.

Belief is not a great term when you get into discussing the reality of God. It’s like the word ‘average’ in statistics.
What we’re talking about is worldviews. How do you see the world and your place in it?

Ravi Zacharias and others have outlined three logically coherent worldviews in the general.

Nihilism - Life has no meaning. We are all simply biological accidents, the result of chance not will. Our feelings of right and wrong are simply human delusions of moral grandeur. In the end, our existence will cease with our biological death, and within a few generations, we will be cared about by very few. The greatest atheists in history forwarded this view, Nietzsche, Sartre, etc

Pantheism - Life has a meaning. We are all at different stages of a karma cycle, paying off for our past misdeeds with each life, over and over again through reincarnation until we pay off our debt at which point, we shall be absorbed into the impersonal, indistinct fabric of the universe. This is the view of Eastern religions by in large

Classical Theism - Life has a meaning. We have a purpose in this single, finite life. That is to draw as close to God as possible through some means outlined by Him. Muslims must be over 50% good in terms of their works. Christians take this to be a full faith a conviction in Jesus Christ. After death, we remain distinct in a second, infinite life.

Atheists often take their ‘identity’ to mean different things. Some take it to mean they personally lack a belief in God (usually an emotional reason). Others take it to mean that they believe that God is an entity of fiction and can be factually disproved (usually a logical reason).

Of the second kind, you will find the leading figures of atheism, the so called ‘thinkers’. In this, you will have honest atheists (Nietzsche) who accept nihilism, and dishonest atheists (Harris) who spend their time dreaming up convoluted atheistic explanations for the elements of theism that they like, a good example being the concept of contractarianism.
However, of the first kind, the indifferent individuals, who disbelieve in God because of emotional reasons or how their mind immediately perceives the world, are all honest, and usually very hard to bring into the faith, because there’s not much you can say to them.

[elkfersupper]

Dittos.

[SES1066]

Atheism as a philosophy and personal life style is the acceptance of the self-assembling universe and the nothingness at the end of life. So on that basis it is not a religion.

However, atheism as practiced by many of its advocates (not all by any means) is a religion because it actively denies the right of other religions to practice. War Memorials having a cross, city seals having a cross, cities having names derived from a belief, all of these have been taken under fire by atheist-espousing organizations. In this case it is a religion.

[SES1066]

A famously 'generic prayer / final benediction', as in one that tries to cover all bases, was written by a very good SF Author, Roger Zelazny, in his novel "Creatures of Light and Darkness", © 1969. Many have called it the "Agnostic's Prayer";

"Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which may or may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen."

[Kip Russell]

Hah!

[ADSUM]

I can understand someone not knowing who God is.

Man’s natural curiosity to understand should lead one to ask questions and inquire about who created the world and us. There is a natural curiosity about what happens to us after death.

God created us and gave us life, liberty, free will and the right to pursue happiness, among others. God gave us simple rules, the 10 commandments and many instructions in the Bible. Jesus gave us two rules: “To love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, soul, mind and strength. and
To love thy neighbor as thyself.”

God is about love and really wants you to be happy and follow Him. This life is like an internship and life after death is an opportunity to share eternity with God. It is love that conquers evil.

So I hope you reconsider and learn more about God and his love. Reading the Bible and talking with an informed Catholic may answer some of your questions. Read the passage about the Prodigal son.