Most large cities in the U.S. have a magazine named after that city, highlighting the local events, restaurants, concerts, and so on. Milwaukee, about 1.5 hours north of Chicago, is no exception (Chicago has its magazine, too). Milwaukee is known as a conservative, hard-working and largely blue collar town, which makes it even more surprising that, in its August issue, there’s a nice piece called “Faith no more” by writer Mario Quadracci. I like to think that the publication of a “strident” piece like this in a big-city magazine is a heartening sign of the times. Here’s a short excerpt:
But these aren’t the reasons I abandoned my belief in God. The reason has nothing to do with the substantial evidence for the nonexistence of a deity. They have only solidified my position. The reason I’m an atheist has everything to do with the entire lack of evidence for a god. [JAC: I’m not quite clear about the distinction between “the substantial evidence for the nonexistence of a deity”, which may refer to things like the existence of moral evils, and “the entire lack of evidence for a god.”]
Theism makes a positive claim about the nature of reality: “God exists.” Atheism is simply the lack of that belief. Atheism makes no claims. Therefore, the burden of proof falls exclusively on the theist. Yet, the fact that we continue to debate the topic of God’s existence proves theism has thus far failed its probative responsibility. Certainly, if God manifests himself in reality, we should be able to detect him in some way. If he doesn’t, then he would be indistinguishable from nonexistent and should be treated accordingly. Yet, no one, ever, not even once, has been able to demonstrate anything supernatural. And so we are told to take it on “faith.”
And this is the kind of thing that you rarely see in a mainstream magazine:
Faith means belief without – and, increasingly these days, against – evidence. Faith, therefore, is intellectually dishonest. Faith creates a false certainty, which subjugates rationality. It makes good people do evil things and it makes otherwise intelligent people say and do senseless things. It forces its influence where it has no business. It flies airplanes into buildings.
. . . And as science continues to squeeze gods from the gaps of our understanding and people move away from religion’s narrow-minded worldview, us nonbelievers stand ready to have a new conversation about humanity’s place in the universe. One based on 21st-century philosophy, science and rationality, not first-century literature.
It’s time to leave the mythology behind. It’s time to stop thinking about the hereafter and focus on the here and now.
What’s even more heartening is that nearly all of the 48 reader comments are positive, thanking Quadracci for speaking out. There is, of course, some pushback. I’ll give a few comments from each genre:
And there are these. The first mistakes a lack of evidence for an assertion of truths based on faith:
While this person can apparently take anything as evidence for God. I wonder where Mr. Bryan sees the evidence for a “benevolent Creator.”
Evidence for a benevolent creator is just what I don’t see in the natural world. I could accept an image of a pantheistic god who transcends categories of good and evil. But good? Loving? Of the god who presumably created Eleanora’s Falcon to disable small birds and store them for future meals?
Of course, believers can blame the bad on the devil, or on humans making a bad choice, but if there’s an omnipotent god, who created that devil or those defective humans?
The messiness of the world, the things we call evil completely mixed with the things we call good, gradually drove me away from the Christian idea of god. Lack of evidence then led me to decide that either there’s no god of any kind or it doesn’t care whether I think there is or not.
Williams College must be so proud of “Chris Bryan”. He overlooks the messiness of the world and insists that the beauty of life is the best evidence for the almighty.
I would ask him this – If this world is so phenomenal that you have to believe in god, why did god have to create an even more phenomenal place for us to go after we die.
Eleanora’s Falcon is a good example, but for some reason my go-to’s are parasites, rather than predators. Probably because human beings are predators ourselves, so we tend to overlook the dark side of that – while parasites are disgusting as well as cruel.
“Atheism makes no claims.”
Someone needs to make a T-shirt with that sentence.
Very good idea.
Evidence is what Atheists are after.
Agnostics are more wishy-washy.
A-gnostic simply means without knowledge. To me Agnostics sit on that fence, but give the benefit-of-the-doubt they give to the Believers. Something that smells of Pascal’s Wager (which leaves out all the other deities in how it works.)
Atheists say there is no need for a fifth wheel and no evidence there is a need for one.
However the bulk of humanity needs it to survive following Evolutionary Theory seems to be true—for now. Behavior is as important as any other adaption.
Perhaps Agnostics are trying to avoid confrontation.
I would agreed, but it doesn’t work with those hard line believers who see neutrality as being against them.
Agnosticism
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Not to be confused with Gnosticism.
Part of a series on
God
General conceptions
[hide]
Agnosticism Apatheism Atheism Deism Henotheism Ignosticism Monotheism Omnism Panentheism Pantheism Polytheism Theism Transtheism
Experiences Practices
Part of a series on
Irreligion
“αθεοι” (atheoi), Greek for “those without god”, as it appears in the Epistle to the Ephesians on the third-century papyrus known as “Papyrus 46”
Irreligion
[show]
Atheism
[show]
Agnosticism
[hide]
Strong Weak Atheistic Theistic Apatheism Secular Buddhism
List of agnostics
Nontheism
[show]
Naturalism
[show]
People
[show]
Books
[show]
Secularist organizations
[show]
Related topics
[show]
Irreligion by country
v t e
Part of a series on
Certainty
Agnosticism Approximation Belief Certainty Doubt Determinism Epistemology Fallibilism Fatalism Hypothesis Justification Nihilism Probability Scientific theory Skepticism Solipsism Theory Truth Uncertainty
v t e
Agnosticism is the view that the truth values of certain claims – especially metaphysical and religious claims such as whether or not God, the divine or the supernatural exist – are unknown and perhaps unknowable.[1][2][3] According to the philosopher William L. Rowe: “In the popular sense of the term, an agnostic is someone who neither believes nor disbelieves in the existence of God, while a theist believes that God exists, +an atheist disbelieves in God”.+ [2] Agnosticism is a doctrine or set of tenets[4] rather than a religion as such.
Thomas Henry Huxley, an English biologist, coined the word “agnostic” in 1869. Earlier thinkers, however, had written works that promoted agnostic points of view, such as Sanjaya Belatthaputta, a 5th-century BCE Indian philosopher who expressed agnosticism about any afterlife;[5][6][7] and Protagoras, a 5th-century BCE Greek philosopher who expressed agnosticism about “the gods”.[8] The Nasadiya Sukta in the Rigveda is agnostic about the origin of the universe.[9][10][11]
In the time since Huxley coined the term, many other thinkers have written extensively about agnosticism.
The problem with agnosticism in this day and age is that it’s morphed beyond a simple declaration that one does not know to an absolute assertion that nobody can even in theory know. And that assertion is pure bullshit.
Worse, the basic premise — that there’s no way to rule out the existence of the gods — is false, and trivially demonstrated such. Epicurus observed the evidential non-existence of powerful moral agents centuries before the invention of Christianity, and his observations are trivial to independently reverify. When was the last time a deity — any deity — called 9-1-1 in a situation where an human observer with a similar perspective would have?
b&
Even that is an extremely low bar to set for a super-powered deity, never mind an omnipowerful one? Why call 9-1-1 when it is also trivially easy to show, based on the statistics of people who pray, that people call out for help to deities and yet the help never comes? An omnipowerful God should be a bit more adept at handling the situation than the local police and supposedly isn’t limited by Physics from getting there on time…
But that’s why I use the example. All the miracle magicking is a distraction, especially since a miracle isn’t needed — just a simple phone call. A phone call that you or any other human would make in exactly that same situation. Yet there’s nobody making the call — no humans, no gods…nobody. Doing anything.
A perfect god would have created a perfect world without all these imperfections. A less-than-ultimate god would still lend an helping hand whenever and wherever possible. That no gods do anything tell us that, even if any gods exist, they’re unaware of our existence at best. And if they do know about us, they’re either powerless to help us or are happy to see all the suffering.
Now, imagine what we would think of you if you just saw a car crash in the middle of nowhere, and you just stood by without calling 9-1-1 while everybody screamed in agony and died. And now imagine that you did this at every car crash — just like Jesus, taking time out of his watching over falling sparrows. You’d have to be one seriously evil sick fuck to even contemplate doing something so horrific, wouldn’t you?
b&
You might have edited that copy-paste before posting!
/@
I decided to leave it just-in-case any elements might spark more talk. Next time I will trim it.
Sorry
“Theism makes a positive claim about the nature of reality: ‘God exists.’ Atheism is simply the lack of that belief.”
To be valid, any definition must rely on precision. Is “atheism” properly defined as a “lack of belief in gods”? Probably not. That definition is prejudicial. Many dictionaries offer such a definition, it’s true; but dictionaries are largely written by theists who fail to recognize their implicit bias.
The word “lack” connotes deficiency. Something that is lacking is something to be desired. By definition, to *lack* something is to be *in want* of whatever one lacks. Atheists are not in want of theistic belief. To hold no belief in gods is not a deficiency. Small point to be sure, but a significant one. More precisely, atheism is the absence of theistic belief, not its lack.
I wouldn’t worry about it too much. You can also reasonably state that you’re glad that your hot dog lacks rodent feces without implying that rodent feces have any place in German-inspired sausages.
And even if you’re going to eschew the word, “lack,” the next obvious definition is that an atheist is a person who has no gods, or has no belief in any gods, or some other variation on that theme. Again, the non-prejudicial definition of “lack” can be seen: a freshwater lake is one that lacks salt, just as an atheist is a person that lacks gods.
Cheers,
b&
Hmmm, I feel (after another busy day, so I’m not analysing this in detail), that there is some squishiness in your analogy. From many people’s point of view, the important characteristic of “water” is whether it can be drunk or not. so the “fresh” or salt dichotomy is important. But there are other ways than salinity by which water can be unfit to drink. you rodent’s faeces, for example, can render water undrinkable just as well as it can make that frankfurter inedible. Indeed, I remember one book in which a man overwintering in central Alaska found pure snow melt undrinkable, until poured several times from one jug into another (when the air bubbles introduced improved the palatability).
The muddy margins of a watering hole may be a wonderful place for watching the lion chow down upon the lamb, but it may not be good for Sophisticated Theology (&tm;) analogies.
Ughh. “Your rodent’s faeces”. And I’ve forgotten the entity for TM. At least.
&38;trade;
™
* Ha! Hoist &c. ™
Yes, that.
You may be right. ‘Twas an off-the-cuff analogy, and likely a better one could be found with some thought.
b&
Not just deities but anything so called supernatural either in all cases. Unless it is proven then moves from supernatural to natural. But then we are accused of naturalism by the theosophists and theonomists.
Following the scientific method, not the hallucinogenic experiences of others.
Good point!
“The word “lack” connotes deficiency. ”
So does absence. You’re overthinking this, IMO.
It’s great this is starting to happen in the US. A couple of days ago I commented on a Catholic website to an article entitled ‘Militant Atheists on the March’. I checked back the next day to see if it made it through moderation, but the site seems to have been down ever since.
It called outspoken people like the four horsemen high priests, and other such inanity. It was shocked, shocked I say, at the temerity of Hitchens in criticizing Mother Teresa! It used the stupid argument about all the people atheists murdered in the 20th century. After more of the same it concluded atheists have a big yearning in them for something spiritual etc etc blah blah blah.
So I’m particularly pleased to see this piece in the Milwaukee magazine. It’s a shame though that an atheist in the comments has bought into the idea that mentioning our lack of belief is disrespectful and an attack on theists.
However you do have to remember that some of us do mention our disbelief out of disrespect for the beliefs of others, and as a line in an attack and humiliation upon those others for their belief in the, frankly, unevidenced and incredible (sense : unbelievable).
There are nasty atheists out there too. Not just you nice ones. I’m almost tempted to get up early tomorrow and go and shout and laugh and point fingers at the people going to church. Always assuming that I could find a church with a congregation, that is. Rare things.
Sure. Rub it in. Some of us live in places where there’re almost as many churches as there are gas (petrol) stations….
b&
Please. Here in god love ya Iowa we have roughly 15 churches and 3 gas stations. Very progressive with three funeral homes, 3 old age homes but you have to find someplace else to have a baby.
…but, let me guess: if you want to find someplace to not have a baby, you have to go even farther still?
b&
Almost completely off-topic, what do Americans call gas stations where they serve gas (methane/ ethane/propane mix) instead of petrol (mixed heptanes through to decanes, an isomeric minefield)? Is there time to start to call them petrol stations, just to confuse tourists. And to provide some new methods of achieving a Darwin Award.
If I understand your question properly it would still simply be gas station. The ethanol pumps are also at the gas station. It gets a little complicated here in the Midwest because we have 15% ethanol & petrol or gas, also 30% 50% 85%. The high percent are for flex vehicles only. The 15% would be for all cars with gas engines. Then there are usually diesel pumps as well. No propane cars here. If they handle propane it is only for the tanks on your outdoor cooker or BBQ. Propane is also used to heat houses in rural areas but that would be another story.
Sorry to confuse you further but you would damn near need a tour guide to figure out what is really being done here at the gas station at the COOP.
I’d forgotten about “gas-o-hol”. More complications. you’ll need a PhD in chemistry to fuel up before long … which may be part of the idea.
We call them “gas stations” and we don’t have tourists.
“Gas” here is used either as a short form of “gasoline” (your “petrol”) or for any substance in a gaseous phase.
“Gas station,” “filling station,” and “fuel station” are all used interchangeably, without much care for the substance being dispensed. A bureaucrat in an official capacity is more likely to use, “filling station.”
The overwhelming majority of passenger vehicles on the road run on gasoline. The next most significant fraction run on diesel, as do most heavy vehicles.
Gasoline here comes in a variety of blends. Every station will have three octane ratings you can choose from, drawn from two tanks with the middle octane mixed at the pump when you dispense it. Each region has its own specifications for required and prohibited additives, with the most visible labeling having to do with oxygenation (for pollution control). For some time, MTBE was the favored oxygenator, but that’s been phased out in favor of ethanol in various percentages.
After that, there’re all sorts of niches.
It’s not unusual to see a vehicle with a “FlexFuel” badge, meaning you can fill the car with 100% ethanol or any blend of ethanol and gasoline. Mostly, that means the fuel delivery system isn’t going to disintegrate when it comes in contact with ethanol, but it also means that the fuel injection system is smart enough to keep a proper stoichiometric ratio regardless of what you throw at it. But there are damned few, if any, stations with a 100% or even 85% ethanol pump.
Diesel has been the fuel of choice for busses for forever, but a significant number of fleets, including all busses in Maricopa County, are now running on either cryogenic liquid or compressed gaseous natural gas (methane; designated LNG or CNG). An organization with such a fleet is likely to also run its passenger vehicles on CNG. I think there are a few privately-owned CNG vehicles on the road, but there are few, if any, stations that cater to the public…the owners either have made arrangements with one of the commercial filling stations or have their own CNG storage tank at home and get deliveries of some sort.
Beyond that, you start to get into exotic and hobbyist territory. Race tracks will often have a 100 (or even 110) octane pump — keeping in mind that the typical offerings at the corner gas station might be 87/89/91 octane (the standard in Arizona). Aviation fuel is its own beast. I think somebody in Tucson has converted a generic gasoline pickup truck to run on compressed hydrogen.
…and, then, of course, there’re the electrics….
b&
You can do lots of things at a gas station besides filling a vehicle with fuel.
Taking a pee is popular.
Also… purchasing a refreshment that is sort-of like human food is common.
I guess what I really meant by the comment is that while atheists are constantly inundated by religious buildings, clothes, imagery, jewelry etc, atheists are called “strident” if they just mention their lack of belief when someone comes proselytizing at their door. We’re just expected to sit quietly in the corner – anything more is a War on Christianity.
While their (the god-squaddies) carry on un-interrupted in their War on Rationality … Yeah, right, I think I’ll get my defence in first. with a BFG-9000, oh yeah!
If you did find a church with a congregation, they’d all be over 70, so you’d feel a bit of louse for raining on their parade.
The oldies are probably old enough to ignore dissent. It’s the youngsters who already hate the un-coolness of being seen in public with them (the parents, and other, like, old people) and for who further public ridicule might just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
We’re these militants atheists in full military wear carrying automatic weapons?
Could they coherently describe the differences that make this atheist march militant but a Catholic march for life not militant?
“Militant” they say? What are they calling for revolution? Maybe they are calling for a return to following the Bill of Rights.That wall is so perforated and breeched it isn’t much of a wall at all anymore.
I do not see someone like Jeff Norman as an Atheist but simply an apologist pretending to be without religion. Mario states nothing but true statement such as: faith is arrogant and then makes the point to show this. No one with an open mind or reason, apologizes for making true statements.
It’s good to see the home of FFRF and Atheist HQ get some good coverage and forget who the governor is for awhile.
We are arrogant by simply not being believers. So as I have been told time-and-again. I don’t mean to be but to them it is. Arrogant and foolish for not being on the winning team to glory, slavery and mass murder and eternal torture for the losers. It is so quaint it hurts.
As Peter Atkins said, “It’s not arrogant if you’re right!”
No-one was ever called arrogant by saying that 2 + 2 = 4. (Were they?)
/@
No-one was ever called arrogant by saying that 2 + 2 = 4. (Were they?)
Not that, but that the Earth revolves around the Sun it led to either burning, Giordano Bruno or permanent house arrest, Leonard da Vinci.
So yes it can get you in trouble if science or mathematics violates one of the Deity’s laws.
We are called that because we dare to “deny” that a certain deity exists. Regardless of mere human facts in evidence from observation and analysis still doesn’t measure up to their conception of an all powerful deity above us as we are “above” microbes.
The author of the article implies that the reason he became an atheist is intellectual, yet people like Jonathan Haidt and others are saying that research shows that people first have intuitions, then the rationalization begins.
My own road to atheism began with the intuitions: 1) that Church was boring, 2) Christian theology was horrific, 3) worshiping anything was humiliating.
Developing the reasoning that justified those intuitions took many years. Based on previous “Why I became an atheist” threads, this pattern is more common than not, so I wonder if articles focusing solely on the intellectual justification for atheism fail to resonate with people?
I am loving this comment!
Great,short comment that I believe resonates with many atheists. I added the comment to my phone notes section. How many fell to sleep during boring church services? My mother kept elbowing dad to try to keep him awake. Christian theology as Mark Twain said; “Why would anyone even want this to be true?” Actually I have had a answer for that and it is that people were convinced that people were not being punished for things that people believed that they had done in this life and a Hell and a Devil inflicting punishment in an afterlife plus the hope for a Heaven for a variety of reasons combined meet these desires!
And again the one who comment about how complex things appear to be! I think for those who have not and will not study and try to learn-the majority-that this could be to them as sufficient to claim that it had to be a God that did it. I realize that most people have not and will not take them time and effort to check their beliefs based on what we call evidence! So they will latch on to any number of views that are satisfying to them and to heck with what we would like people to do! I think of the nurses in the hospitals my wife was in and how many claimed to believe in reincarnation. Or a woman I helped who believed that sleep on a metal frame bed would draw energy from your body. I grew up on one in the 1940’s and 1950″s and I played tennis, ran for 40 years or more and played lots of volleyball plus worked a job and went through college. I have always had lots of energy!
3) worshiping anything was humiliating.
Hitchens was the first person I remember who introduced this position to me…I think in the introduction to The Portable Atheist. Maybe not, but either way, so damn true!
screwed up the italics…such easy coding, but I fail at it often.
Atheism and Atheist deserve to be capitalized. A devil or minor fallen angel doesn’t.
I can relate to all that. I’d add a number 4: Nothing ever seemed to change whether I prayed or not. That opens the door to wondering whether God gives a shit, then whether maybe he’s not as powerful as is claimed, and finally a rational investigation into whether his existence makes any sense at all.
Yes! I remember starting off as a child praying on my knees, then I progressed to praying while I lay down to sleep, then I shortened it to “thanks, bye”, then finally nothing. They all seemed to work equally well. 🙂
The most effective billboard for atheism I ever saw said something like “Prayers not working? We know why.” That has got to hit many people in the nuts.
I got to go to Catholic school for the first two years. Not the best memories. Praying was just something mom said I must do. Even in second grade I was beginning questioning the whole thing by then.
I was never a believer. I seemed to be biologically immune to it. Even now. In Evolution outliers exist in a species if it wants to remain ready for changes in environment. I came to the conclusion that I was one of them. Some only get half-and-half like Ms C.C. Cupp is wants to be a Believer but can’t. Rare yet I think important.
“Even in second grade I was beginning questioning the whole thing by then. ”
What year was that?
I’m not sure I knew that non-belief was possible. I remember a 6th grade teacher asking me once if I was Saved, and I responded with something like “I’d like to think so,” which is curiously circumspect. Makes me think now that I didn’t take it too seriously back then.
I was born in 1957 so it could be 1963. I did find the sculptures creepy. Didn’t like their eyes. It was also made worse by my itchy nose that the nuns thought I was making faces at them instead of blaming the pollen.
But we do have evidence the gods are bullshit — overwhelming, irrefutable, unquestionable evidence, and the evidence was widely acknowledged centuries before the invention of Christianity.
There are no powerful moral agents within the realm of human influence with our best interests at heart.
Every time a young child with a cellphone calls 9-1-1 in some sort of emergency, she demonstrates infinitely more awareness, compassion, and ability than any god of any religion ever has. If little Suzie can call 9-1-1 when Grandma falls down in the park and nobody else is there to help, what’s Jesus’s excuse for failing to call 9-1-1 for all the Grandmas who didn’t have a little Suzie accompanying them? Never mind magicking some miracle to heal Grandma; just get the goddamned EMT crew on the scene in a timely fashion. Is that really too much to ask?
And the evidence becomes insufferable when it comes to the priesthood. One can maybe (not really but we’ll pretend) reasonably accept an hierarchical structure set up by a deity that delegates all day-to-day operations to his human staff. But how can he absolve himself from policing his own? At the very least, the very first time a priest (minister, imam, rabbi, whatever) ever raped a child, the governing deity should have held a press conference condemning the action, handed the offender over to the local authorities with all relevant evidence, and provided for more-than-adequate care and recompense to the injured child. Even most corporations these days have figured that much out…but the gods? Clearly don’t give a flying fuck how much their official agents tarnish their brand.
So, unless your idea of a god can reasonably encompass an entity either perfectly absent or perfectly powerless or perfectly ignorant or perfectly evil or come combination thereof, all of recorded history is ironclad evidence that there are no gods, period, full stop.
Cheers,
b&
Ben:
You and others have developed and presented this argument many times in the past. But, I don’t think it has ever been stated with such lapidary style and crystalline clarity. Absolutely superb. Saved for future use. Thank you!
Thanks! Not sure what it was different about this one that helped clarify things, but I’ll try to remember whatever it was….
Really gets my goat, though. Here the god-botherers are blathering about perfect this and ultimate that and infinite the other…yet, here in the real world, gross incompetence would represent an infinite improvement over the actual state of divine affairs.
I mean, here we are arguing about what it means to say that Jesus is all-knowing and all-wise and all-loving, and yet he can’t even come up with a convincing argument for his own priests as to why raping children isn’t such a good idea? And it’s these same priests telling us that Jesus is the supreme moral authority, when they themselves are so incompetent at the moral authority thing?
…talk about chutzpah….
b&
The sad thing is that it dates from the 1960s at the latest, courtesy of Michael Scriven. Amazing how long it takes for things to “sink in”.
The oldest mention of this I’m aware of is the famous Epicurean Riddle, which dates to a few centuries before the invention of Christianity.
b&
Yes, but Scriven spells out the consequences and how you *don’t* need the hypothesis of omni*, just mininal amounts of each. I think that’s the innovation there.
The Greek gods in 300 BCE weren’t omni-anything.
b&
Ben has a lot of apologizing to do, although I cannot think for what. Good show.
I may be suffering from faulty reasoning, but at what point do refuted claims about gods qualify as evidence against them. Thunder is Thor throwing lightning bolts… nope. The earth is the center of the universe… nope. There once was a single man, and single woman… nope. Prayers are answered… nope.
Or another “evidence against gods” I like is based on Douglas Adams puddle story. Presumably gods were invented either to explain the unexplainable as I mentioned above, or as he points out because the Wooly Mammoth appears to have been put there for us to get a nice worm coat out of. Now that we know this puddle wasn’t made to fit us, doesn’t the fact that the reasons for inventing gods initially were erroneous amount to evidence gods don’t exist.
The short answer is that absence of evidence is evidence of absence, in cases where evidence is to be expected.
Yes I’m aware of that, and if you believe in a god that answers prayers then the fact prayers aren’t answered would be evidence against a god that answers prayers, but my comment goes beyond that.
Lets say someone finds a a fossil horse with a horn and says Unicorn. Later it’s determined that the horn was a rock that happened to be buried with the horse. I would say that is evidence against Unicorns. Now if the reasons (“evidence”) for inventing gods are refuted wouldn’t that amount to evidence against the existence of gods?
In and of itself? Not ironclad proof, though it would certainly be strong, even overwhelming, evidence.
For example, the origins of the Loch Ness Monster are very well documented by now. But it’s entirely conceivable that, just by chance, there could have actually been a plesiosaur-like animal living in that lake that nobody, including the pranksters, had previously suspected.
That we’ve uncovered the fraud behind the original reports gives us great confidence in doubting the existence of such a critter in that lake, but it’s the fact that we’ve looked everywhere in the lake and found nothing that demonstrates that Nessie is, alas, merely a figment of the imagination.
b&
…and that absence of evidence becomes proof of absence when you’ve exhausted the search.
There are no living gorillas at the Phoenix Zoo, even though there once was and despite the fact that they have a family of black swans.
There are no manmade structures on Earth taller than the Burj Khalifa, even if someday in the future there might be.
There are no unknown subatomic particles with a mass less than 125 GeV/c^2.
That last one is especially important, because it also means that there are no unaccounted forces that could influence or otherwise interact with human-scale phenomenon. That is, if the gods want to do anything on Earth to humans, including plant thoughts in their heads or whisk them away to paradise or answer their prayers, they’ll have to do it the old-fashioned way through electromagnetism and gravity.
You can propose all sorts of conspiracy theories to explain away any of those facts…but, once you do, you cut yourself adrift from reality. At that point, you don’t have any way of picking any particular conspiracy theory as being more or less valid than any other. Are you in the Matrix, or has your tinfoil hat just slipped and the FBI is controlling your thoughts with their mind rays? Maybe both at the same time?
There’s another entirely distinct class, too: when the entity being proposed is incoherent. There’s no need to even search for a married bachelor in the first place. Even if somebody presented to you a person claimed to be a married bachelor, would you accept that that person is, indeed, a married bachelor?
…and every god ever proposed has some defining feature exactly like that — and for a very good reason. The true nature of the gods is that they’re a certain class of fictional character whose sole purpose is to give authority to the authors. And the gods establish their own authority by doing that which is truly impossible. Merely impressive won’t cut it, else somebody could come along and do the impressive and claim the authority of the gods for themselves, so it’s vital to the scam that the gods really must do that which really can’t ever even in principle be demonstrated in reality. Which is why you have to have faith that the reports of their deeds (or other qualities) are trustworthy, because they’re the only evidence you’ll ever get.
…and it’s no coincidence, either, that the gods bestow their authority upon those who describe them and speak on their behalf….
b&
“There are no unknown subatomic particles with a mass less than 125 GeV/c^2.”
Care to clarify that? If they’re unknown then we wouldn’t know about them, would we?
cr
I’m sure somebody like Sean Carroll (or, perhaps, our own Ant or Torbjorn) could come up with a suitable analogy. But the simple answer is that the processes by which the LHC and other colliders create particles are such that the search is exhaustive. Every physically possible particle eventually gets created if you run the experiment long enough, and they run the experiments for insane amounts of overkill just to rule out even fleeting possibilities of error.
b&
Tardy, but …
I can’t think of a good analogy, but I’d defer to Sean. Invest some time in Higgs Boson and the Fundamental Nature of Reality – Sean Carroll – Skepticon 5; you’ll feel a lot smarter afterwards.
/@
I watched that a few months ago (for I think the 2nd time). I did feel smarter and now feel stupider as most of it has now probably exited my memory bank for much for useless information such as maps depicting Juneau, Alaska as a cat’s asshole. But if I remember this part correctly, we know there’s no unknown particles of that size because they would have been detected and the Standard Model would not be nearly so robust were there gaps in this area. The Higgs was the final piece of the jigsaw puzzle so to speak.
That’s a fair summary.
/@
OK thanks, people. I suspected the answer would be something like that.
cr
When I first found WEIT (sometime in 2013 iirc) I remember reading your ‘argument against g*d from 9-1-1’. It really struck a chord, and I always welcome your reiterations on the theme. I’ve actually used this analogy a number of times, and it always gets people’s attention; it is very hard to counter. So I’m adding to others here by saying Thanks for this elegant, common-sense argument!
Good to know that it’s making its way out into the real world! Here’s hoping some of those who heard of it from you see fit to spread it even further.
People hear ivory tower types discourse about theodicy and “the problem of evil” and incoherent treatises on the juxtaposition between free will and divine plan and, by design, I’m sure, come away with the impression that it’s all some big complicated mystery that’s been settled by those who know about these things or that the answers are otherwise irrelevant to them.
But to cut to the chase, to ask why Jesus wouldn’t call 9-1-1 when he spies an ordained priest in good standing raping his umpteenth child in Jesus’s own name…well, no. There isn’t a good excuse — and especially not when anybody who’s not in the church hierarchy would practically instinctively do at least that much.
Even “the Devil made the priest do it” and “the priest wasn’t a true Christian because that sect isn’t a true church” doesn’t cut it. Humans would still be able to call 9-1-1 to bring the cops down on the devil-worshipping child raping cultists masquerading as real Christians, no? And who better than Jesus to drop the dime in such a case? Did the Devil steal Jesus’s mobile, and Jesus can’t be arsed to find one of the last remaining pay phones to make the call?
So if everybody, even the least amongst us, is more observant, knowledgeable, powerful, and compassionate than Jesus…well, why even bother pretending that Jesus is somebody we should respect and look up to?
b&
A Gothic universe have room for Deities, not a Quantum one as we have.
“Every time a young child with a cellphone calls 9-1-1 in some sort of emergency, she demonstrates infinitely more awareness, compassion”
Mumble, mumble, free will.
Yeah…freedom willies don’t cut it. If it’s evil for Jesus to make an anonymous call to 9-1-1 whenever he spies one of his official spokesmen raping yet another child for the umpteenth time because it’ll deny the priest the free will to deprive the child of hers, then the entire emergency response system is evil for the exact same reasons. We should none of us interact in anybody else’s life in any way, shape, or form.
I mean, seriously? The priest can bodily conjure Jesus on demand to manifest in cheap wine and stale crackers, but Jesus can’t drop a dime on the priest when he gets fiddly? Those priests must have some seriously damning blackmail they’re holding over Jesus’s head to keep him quiet — assuming, of course, that Jesus isn’t the one who came up with the idea of suffering the little children in the first place.
b&
I wish I could remember the pithy quote I read….something about “No deity exists that has even as much compassion as a child who rights a beetle stuck on its back.” Except it was better than that.
“We have not yet encountered any god who is as merciful as a man who flicks a beetle over on its feet.” Annie Dillard , _Pilgrim at Tinker Creek _ (1974)
http://antallan.tumblr.com/post/45366791752/we-have-not-yet-encountered-any-god-who-is-as
/@
Ah, thank you! I’ve Googled on it a number of times, but could not find it.
Note that I heard it here (on WIET)!
/@
*WEIT
I was tickled pink to see this appear in Mil Mag. I posted it on my Facebook page, only to draw the ire of a Believing Sophisticate™ (aka “BSer™”) who complained about how naive atheists are, how little we understand religion, etc. He supplied many words but it all boiled down to name calling and the courtier’s reply.
That one bounces off me. Leaving aside the fairly high probability that I understand religion pretty well, I still say “So what?”
I have a working understanding of maths, physics and chemistry, up to and including being able to cook up home-made explosives without needing to reference the death-trap that is the “Anarchist’s Cookbook”; “these eyes” (points at eyes) “have seen the wave-particle duality of the universe with apparatus constructed by these hands” (wiggles fingers) “and interpreted by this brain cell.” These are a damned sight more useful for dealing with the physical universe which both [god-squaddy] and I inhabit than all my disinterested understanding of religion.”
sub
“as science continues to squeeze gods from the gaps of our understanding”
That sounds like remaining religious belief is like that last bit of toothpaste you’re trying to get out of an empty tube. Time to start using baking soda instead, I guess.
More like squeezing zits, I should think.
b&
I am trying to think of a religious parallel for the reprehensible change a decade or so ago, from aluminium foil toothpaste tubes (which could be effectively squeezed to the last smidgin), to plastic tubes which are hard to empty below 90%.
I’m still trying to think of an analogy … you can take the Mormonism out of a mormon, but you can’t get the Mormon out of his (or her) Magic Underwear? No, that’s not an analogy – that’s a challenge!
Cut them open with scissors to get the last paste out.
/@
I prefer to not resort to violence where wit should suffice.
Make sure the cap is securely screwed on. Hold the tube firmly by both ends, cap pointing up. Press the edge of the other end against the countertop. Whilst holding the tube taut, draw it down across the countertop.
b&
I do something similar with the handle of the toothbrush. (Before I resort to cutting.)
/@
Fascists and others who believer that “might makes right” go after comedy and comedians almost from the beginning. That and they have very long liquidation lists. Some will just be killed under “odd” circumstances, others ill disappear, still more will be openly taken and herded away to some labor camp or dangerous clean up zone without the proper protection.
Depends on if they do finally take over and the USA as a facade is over.
Chris Bryan, who apparently owns a very expensive pair of rose-colored glasses, states:
You’re referring to Allah, is that not correct, Mr. Bryan?
Or, as I wanted to cite in numerous places in the comment thread at the original article, “Even if you do establish the existence of a god, you still have all of your work ahead of you.”
how funny! “ed adams”, c’est moi. i always take the time to affirm coming-out stories with a brief comment.
Has anyone ever commented that you look a lot like Richard Dawkins?
/@
I grew up in Milwaukee and it is a real surprise to see this. Milwaukee is indeed very conservative. I came out as an atheist in high school there (I gave a presentation on the Scope trial for History class, made my English class listen to an hour of tapes of Madalyn Murray O’Hair’s atheist radio programs, etc) and was very much alone in that position. I hope this means current high schoolers are getting more exposure to skeptical thinking.
I tend not to say I am an Atheist unless asked. And I just try to stay away from it. Popular alienation I already know, I don’t need to make it worse.
There is a multi-million (billion?) dollar printing company based in Sussex, Wisconsin called Quad Graphics. ‘Quad’ stands for CMYK (the four colors used in printing) but also stands for “Quadracci” the family that owns the company.
I wonder if Mario is related to this family. If so, that would make his ‘coming out’ even more influential as the family is highly regarded and respected.
sub
I think I can see the distinction he is trying to make between lack of evidence for God and evidence that there is no God. The former would be the typical stance defined as agnostic atheism whereas the latter would be gnostic atheism.
The trouble comes in when theists don’t provide enough specifics about what the attributes of God are to possibly have positive evidence against its existence. The David Bentley Hart types who build unfalsifiable definitions of God or define him by apophatic theology are Gods who lack evidence (to the extent that there can be no evidence for or against these claims). The bearded man in the sky who results from a literal reading of the Bible, on the other hand, has plenty of positive evidence showing he does not exist; e.g. “Again I say to you, that if two of you agree on earth about anything that they may ask, it shall be done for them by My Father who is in heaven.” Well, clearly we have evidence that that God doesn’t exist, despite religious people’s exercising extreme forms of mental masturbation to prove that this statement is true…
Thank you note sent to Milwaukee Magazine:
Many thanks to those of you at Milwaukee Magazine who made the decision to publish Mr. Quadracci’s article, “Faith No More”. I don’t know the gentleman, but I appreciate what he has done and what you have done. For those of us who are unable to believe the grand theories of western mythology based on “faith” alone, it is refreshing to know that there are other reasonable, articulate people who have the same problem… if it is a ‘problem’. That his thoughts were presented in a publication whose mission is not primarily dedicated to criticism of convention makes it all that more meaningful.
With best regards,
Steve Kern
Indianapolis, Indiana
Milwaukee is known as a conservative, hard-working and largely blue collar town, which makes it even more surprising that, in its August issue, there’s a nice piece called “Faith no more” by writer Mario Quadracci.
This is false.
Milwaukee has had a Democratic Mayor since they last had a Socialist Mayor. They have had no Republican Mayors. The last Socialist Mayor survived a lot longer than Henry Maier, who was his replacement, in fact he survived into the 21st century.
Milwaukee is a hard-working, blue collar town, but it is NOT conservative.
We aren’t politically conservative but one might make the case that we’re a bit socially conservative, at least compared to someplace like Madison.
We have a police union that endorsed Scott Walker twice.
And if you consider Milwaukee County (not just the City) we have a conservative lean… Again… we had Walker as our County Executive and now have a rather conservative Democrat in charge. (Many of us liberals feel betrayed by him.)
Many of you “liberals” must be referring to the County Exec, because you “liberals” elected Tom Barrett as Mayor, and he IS a liberal.
As someone who lives in Wauwatosa, Scotty’s hometown, I can certainly say he’s less than popular around here… This city used to be the local home of the John Birch Society (down on North Avenue), it’s now 60 percent Democrat.
Milwaukee is even more liberal than it used to be, as opposed to the County or the 4 county metro area.
Tom Barrett is reasonably liberal, yes. But having lived in Madison and (much longer) in Milwaukee, we are much more culturally conservative here.
And let us not forget our odious County Sheriff Clark. He’s as liberal as Sarah Palin.
Great to see such an article published in Milwaukee. Won’t bore you with recollections of my years there, 61-65. Was slightly taken aback by:
“And as science continues to squeeze gods from the gaps of our understanding and people move away from religion’s narrow-minded worldview, us nonbelievers stand ready to have a new conversation”.
Us stand ready to have…?
“It’s not just that I have a lot of reasons to believe that your God doesn’t exist, you can’t even give me one reason why I should!” My translation.