Source
r/atheism•
TheGopher

Is faith irrational? Do you need proof against something not to believe in it?

I am an atheist and my parents and brother are all hardcore catholics. So much so they make me go to church every Sunday with them despite my voiced disbelief.

Today we had a debate. After about 20 minutes, I finally got them to admit there was no proof for or against the existence of a god. I then brought up the point that they were irrational because belief in something for which there is no proof is by definition irrational. Instead of trying to prove me wrong, they kept bringing up the fact that it would be just as irrational to believe there is no god when there isn't proof. (next paragraph) What do you think about this argument? Is it irrational to believe in something for which there is no proof?

I would be just as irrational as them if I believed that there couldn't possibly be a god. This leaves us with which argument is more rational, the belief in a god or non-belief. They kept bringing up the argument that me not believing in something because there is no proof for it is just as rational as believing in something for which there is no proof. What they meant was that their belief in God and the bible was just as rational of a belief as my 6.9/7 on Dawkins' atheism scale position (that being the thought that you have to be open to the idea that there could be a god because there is no proof against). My argument was that because the burden of proof is on the person making the claim, it's irrational to believe in something until it's proven true and that not believing in it, but knowing that it's possible that it could exist is the most rational position.

What do you think? Which one of us is thinking irrationally? I want logical, rational responses that either strengthen my argument, or prove it wrong.

(By the way. I'll post this in the Christian reddit so I don't just get one side of the argument)

Posted Aug 10, 2009, 1:10 AM UTC · edited

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monesy•

Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.

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[deleted]•

Ne Jupiter quidem omnibus placet.

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monesy•

Errare humanum est, in errore perservare stultum.

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moehamid69•

Hic

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monesy•

This? What do you mean?

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moehamid69•

Occam's Razor as applied to his problem has been asked since Thomas De Aquinas Answered the damn thing in the 13th century. 8 centuries later and still unfounded myths are heralded as truth through hearsay and testimonials. Aquinas at the time was ok with that though 8 centuries later we're not! Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet

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monesy•

Sheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet, I'm down with St. Tom!

Except for the crap about god being the principle agent. Clearly, Tommy uses the razor to shave the unneeded beard, but then subsequently glues the hair back on. Who can blame him though....if only he knew what we know now......8 centuries later.....

Now how do we use that razor again?

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[deleted]•

If you are old enough to be posting this, then by what right do they take you/force you to church?

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TheGopherOP•

I'm 16... I still live in their house. I have to go.

It's part of a deal we made so that I don't have to get confirmed. I don't get confirmed but I have to go to church with them every week.

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[deleted]•

If I am not mistaken, confirmation is like official acceptance of church's dogma. The age of reason seems to be a good theme in the wikipedia article.

Just sounds like they are trying to make things difficult for you.

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TheGopherOP•

Yeah they were actually going to make me go through with it regardless of my non-belief but there was a required meeting that I would have had to go to all day at church where they would just have gone over the bible and brag about how much they love Jesus and how great it is to have god in their hearts. I just walked home from it and since I didn't go, I couldn't be confirmed until six months later. I guess they knew I would walk home again and again if they forced me to do it so they gave in.

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[deleted]•

Sorry to say, but your family sounds like a bunch of self righteous bigot.

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Nougat•

Faith is believing that the probability of an assertion being true is higher than reason provides support for.

Reason is more valuable than faith in assessing truthfulness of assertions, even for people who rely on faith as an explanation for religious beliefs. Ask anyone in which compass direction the sun rises. The answer, obviously, is "in the east," or some variation on that theme. Now ask them why they believe the sun rises in the east. Their answer should be reasonable: the Earth is a generally spherical planet rotating in space as it revolves around the sun, and the direction in which it rotates causes us, as Earthbound observers, to see the sun rise in our sky from the east every morning. Now ask them why they don't employ faith as an explanation for why they believe the sun rises in the east. The real answer to that question is because reason is a better predictor of future events than faith is. Reason is a more useful tool.

Ask them what non-deity beliefs they hold on the basis of faith instead of reason. I'd be curious to know if there are any at all.

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smcameron•

You can neither prove nor disprove that unicorns exist. Therefore it is just as (ir)rational to believe in unicorns as disbelieve in unicorns.

You can neither prove nor disprove that bigfoot exists. Therefore, it is just as rational to believe that bigfoot exists as to disbelieve that bigfoot exists.

You can neither prove nor disprove that Zeus exists. Therefore it is just as irrational to believe that Zeus exists as it is to believe that Zeus does not exist.

You can neither prove nor disprove that the tooth fairy exists. Therefore it is just as irrational to believe the tooth fairy exists as to disbelieve.

You can neither prove nor disprove that the Easter bunny exitsts. Therefore it is just as rational to believe that the Easter bunny exitss as to disbelieve.

Do you see the problem with this line of thought?

It is not rational to believe that something is true just because it cannot be disproven.

Most atheists do not "believe that no gods exist," rather they "do not believe that any gods exist." The distinction between the two is clear to anybody that understands the problem with the litany of facetious claims I've made above.

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blackstar9000•

Most atheists do not "believe that no gods exist," rather they "do not believe that any gods exist."

I see that claim a lot, but not a lot of evidence to back it. How do we know that most atheists are weak rather than strong atheists? We might prefer that they simply don't believe in gods rather than believe that no gods exist, but it isn't really conclusive to suppose that, since the former is more rational, more atheists really take that position.

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blackstar9000•

I then brought up the point that they were irrational because belief in something for which there is no proof is by definition irrational.

It isn't necessarily irrational to believe in something without proof -- particular if by "irrational" you mean something like "illogical". It would certainly be irrational to believe something against proof to the contrary, but lack of proof is logically inconclusive.

Any number of examples could illustrate this point. Imagine that your brother is going on a trip to Belgium and asks if there's anything he can bring back for you. You ask for a bottle of Maredsous 6, a Belgian beer that isn't readily available in your state. You drop him off at the airport, and just as he's about to pass through security, you remember that Westvleteren is even harder to get in the U.S. You call out to him that you'd rather have that instead, but the security terminal is noisy. Your brother waves back to you, but it's a totally ambiguous wave, and might just mean "Goodbye". Next thing you know, he's gone down the terminal to board his plane, and you're not at all sure he heard your new request.

So... is it irrational to believe that your brother will bring Westvleteren? Is it more rational to believe that he'll bring Maredsous 6? It's neither. The entire question hinges on whether or not he heard you, and since the evidence (his wave) is totally inclusive, your belief is not rationally tied to either conclusion.

Mmm. Beer.

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TheGopherOP•

I'm 16.

Either way that's a good point but I'm not going wholeheartedly against one beer. I'm taking a stance more like, since he probably didn't hear me and he would have waved goodbye anyway, I can't be sure he will bring back the Westvleteren. I can't logically rule it out, but odds are he will bring back the Maredsous 6 since he would have waved goodbye anyway and I can't use that as evidence that he might have heard me although it is possible that he might have.

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mutatron•

I avoid the whole existence question by asking what does God do? In the end there's really nothing that could or would do that's distinguishable from God not existing. So the question of God's existence is moot.

From Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose:

"It's hard to accept the idea that there cannot be an order in the universe because it would offend the free will of God and His omnipotence. So the freedom of God is our condemnation, or at least the condemnation of our pride."

I dared, for the first and last time in my life, to express a theological conclusion: "But how can a necessary being exist totally polluted with the possible? What difference is there, then, between God and primigenial chaos? Isn't affirming God's absolute omnipotence and His absolute freedom with regard to His own choices tantamount to demonstrating that God does not exist?"

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HoppyMcScragg•

There are a couple things I'd point out.

  1. The problem of evil. If God exists, is all-powerful, created the universe, and loves humanity... how come there's so much suffering in the world? Why do people die from floods and hurricanes? Why do people suffer and die from cancer and other diseases? If God loves us and is so powerful, he wouldn't let us suffer like this. It doesn't make any sense.

  2. If they claim you're irrational for disbelieving in God without proof than ask them if they're irrational for not believing in Buddha, dragons, unicorns, Zeus, Santa Claus or leprechauns. Do they have proof that these things don't exist? If they claim you're irrational, than they'd also be irrational for not believing in these fairy tales.

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TheGopherOP•

I brought up the first point but they said "Just because god can do something doesn't mean he will do it." Then of course I brought up the argument that if he really does love us, he would be saving people in bad conditions like third world countries, but they kept just saying the same thing.

Thanks for the second point. I'll bring it up next time I get into a debate with them.

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45bur•

Ask them if you are also irrational for not believing in unicorns (assuming you don't), as there is no proof that they do or don't exist either.

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omis•

The unicorns/santa/leprechauns analogy is quite ridiculous.

Would a rational atheist ever say there is probably no Santa? Or would they simply say there is no Santa?

They do however they do say there is probably no God.

The same reasons why atheists reject Santa outright are the same reasons theists do. There simply isn't any justification for it.

However with God, we simply do not know enough about the universe to reject God outright, regardless of how small the probability, unless you want to use some element of faith.

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mutatron•

I agree. The unicorn thing only works for very shallow concepts of god. Many theists have much deeper and more sophisticated ideas concerning what god is, because the idea of god is a concept that encompasses origins, morality, the purpose of life, our connection to the universe, etc.

5
45bur•

I respectively disagree with basically everything you just said.

2
omis•

I respect your right to disagree, but on what basis?

  1. That there is a probability of leprechauns/santa/unicorns on earth?

  2. That we know exactly what happened before singularity decided to expand creating matter and energy. That there is a 100% proof of this model?

If you disagree with me on 1. I'm sorry, but if anyone on the street told me this, I'd give a slightly less queer look to you as I would to anyone who told me they actually existed.

If you disagree with me on 2, then you're overestimating exactly how much knowledge we do have at this time.

I'm a non-believer, but I despise slogan arguments and irrational counter arguments from anyone, regardless of what they believe.

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[deleted]•

I believe that on #2, we can say that the 'big bang' is the best fit for the data we do have. I cannot say the same about god.

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Nougat•

  1. There is a probability of leprechauns/Santa/unicorns on Earth. The probability is excruciatingly low. There is also a probability that god exists. That probability is also excruciatingly low.

  2. Time came into existence at the big bang. There is no "before singularity."

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[deleted]•

before singularity

bzzt

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spitzKnight of /new•

That's not true. Santa is rejected in the same way as most theists reject all of the other gods of religions they don't follow.

"There is probably no god" is a polite acknowledgment in discussion. One of the simplest philosophical lessons is that there is no absolute certainty, and that understanding has simply become a part of some atheists' arguments, tied to the attempt to present atheism as the lack of belief in something.

Santa is interesting only because it's an unjustifiable character who is genuinely believed in by millions of kids around the world, and with a few switches in his treatment, could be as highly regarded as any major religious figure. Start with saying Santa's visited his creator in a vision, finish with Santa offering immaterial rewards/taking credit for gifts knowingly bought by humans/taking credit for the misfortunes that befall people you dislike.

Also you can't talk about the probability of god existing in the universe because god "the unknowable force from the unknown realm which operates in mysterious ways" provides no data to be judged by, so the level of probability that one should regard its existence with right now is the same polite probability given to unicorns and trees falling in the woods. And that will be the case until someone can replace those unknowables with actual godly data.

1
GeneralFailure0•

I'm completely with you on principle, but there are certain differences between the no Santa and no God arguments.

Santa is well-defined and to an extent can be proven not to exist. We can, for example, scope out the North pole or wait up all night Christmas Eve to see how the presents really get under the tree. God, on the other hand, is not well-defined. You can of course provide a very sound case against the existence of any particular god (Yahweh, Jehovah, Allah...), but in the course of debate with theists you're likely to be challenged to dispute the existence of a god in a more abstract form. When god is simplified to 'an entity which created the universe' it gets a lot more difficult to provide a sound argument which disproves its existence simply because you aren't given much to go on.

Once again, I'm with you, just trying to come up with possible responses to your argument.

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TheGopherOP•

I did and they completely cast the argument aside... Typical am I right?

You can usually tell that you've won a point when they refuse to refute it.

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Grinyarg•

Yep. The way to get around that one is to bring it up a second time, later in the conversation, in a cocky and accusatory manner. "You didn't answer this question before, and I think you were deliberately avoiding answering it because it demonstrates my point so well: Am I irrational for not believing in unicorns?". There is nowhere to go from there but answering, or it being known that the question was deliberately avoided.

Avoidance only works when the questioner lets them get away with it. (See Jeremy Paxman and Michael Howard :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BklT7Qy07Is)

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45bur•

Yup.

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panfist•

Pascal's Wager. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pascal%27s_Wager

A French philosopher/scientist reasoned thus:

If there is no God, and I believe in and worship God, then I only lose a small amount of my time on earth and gain an eternity of salvation.

If there is a God, and I don't believe in God, then I lose my eternal soul.

Therefore, I should believe in God.

--

Many people have argued that if Pascal were alive today, then he would have leaned the other way, considering how far our knowledge of physics and cosmology has come.

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mothereffingteresa•

Yes, belief is irrational. But man is not rational. I can easily get you to "believe" an expensive pill is better than a cheap one, or that a Ferrari makes your dick bigger, or trick you into paying more by "anchoring" your price expectations.

Believing in a religion is part of how your brain is put together, just like all the other ways you are easily misled. Big scary world. Little food. Lots of predators eating you. There must be some higher purpose and a place where the dead go, or it would just be too shitty to live.

Just like others of our baser instincts, religion can be left behind.

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[deleted]•

hmm. shocking atheism is filled with a bunch of children with mommy and daddy issues. Telling.. very telling

-1
monesy•

Yeah, we're a bit insecure. You see, we don't have any invisible sky gods watching out for us.

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