Why do atheists say, “I simply lack belief in God.”
Part 1
Some statements are often thrown around whenever there is a discussion between a theist and an atheist. One such statement from the atheist’s side is, “I am not saying God doesn’t exist; I simply lack belief in God.” One obvious reason to say that is the burden of proof. Many atheists think that theists have the burden of proof to prove that God exists, as Bertrand Russell said:
If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars, there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is an intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense.
Another reason an atheist might say this is because they want to differentiate Atheism from traditional religions. They don’t like to present Atheism as just another set of dogmatic positive beliefs. So, instead of explaining Atheism in terms of a set of positive beliefs, they explain it in terms of what it is not.
From an atheist perspective, there are no official doctrines. There can be different types of atheists, even religious atheists. For example, an atheist can also be a Buddhist. No matter what set of beliefs you hold, if you don’t believe in God or gods, then you are simply an atheist. That’s just it.
From this perspective, parroting some kind of official arguments for atheism, like apologists, might sound contradictory. Instead of giving reasons why atheism is most likely true, atheists try to approach the discussion by providing reasons why theism is most likely not true. I have seen the following comment many times by atheists:
Saying Atheism is a belief is like suggesting that refusing to collect stamps is a hobby.
As an atheist, I agree with the fundamental points mentioned above. I agree that dismissing a claim without any substantial basis is reasonable.
“That which can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.” ~ Christopher Hitchens.
I also agree that atheism is not like any other religious belief system. But this shift of focus is not helpful in some cases. By focusing on the negative, we forget the positive side of the argument.
Let’s take Russell’s Teapot. Instead of Russell’s Teapot, let’s take another example. What if I tell you that a Tesla Roadster is orbiting the sun instead of Russell’s Teapot? Would you believe me? If you follow general knowledge, then most probably yes, you would believe me. I just changed the object, and suddenly not believing the proposal is irrational.
Why such a drastic difference when the premise is the same? What changed? We have strong reasons to believe that a Tesla Roadster is actually orbiting the sun, unlike Russell’s Teapot. That’s it! In fact, that’s how we believe in anything, whether trivial or big.
Essentially this is what atheists are implying when they say they don’t believe in God. We don’t have good reasons to believe in the existence of God, or there are preferable metaphysical models which do not include God in it. If that’s the case, then why such wordplay from atheists?
After some introspection, I might have a reason. I think it is rooted in religious trauma. Atheists simply do not want to repeat the mistakes they did as a theist. Religious belief is such a thing that haunts a person even after leaving it.
In dogmatic religions, we are conditioned to believe in absolutes, especially regarding the existence of God. The problem is that that’s not how we usually believe anything. I can’t even absolutely prove on its own whether the computer I am typing this in exists or not. What if I am hallucinating this computer in front of me? But it’s very reasonable to say that it does exist.
Watch the following YouTube video to see my point:
The guy in the video thinks atheists are unreasonable in not believing in God because atheists don’t know everything there is to know. The thing is that neither do theists. Conflating 100% certainty with a reasonable belief is not a good approach.
I have seen many apologists complaining about atheists demanding a very high level of evidence. But by making this complaint, they are admitting that the existence of God is just one reasonable belief among many and not an absolute truth.
This is a weird dilemma for apologists. If you think it’s an absolute truth, then atheists are not wrong in asking for a very high level of evidence. If you don’t think it’s an absolute truth, then at best, it’s a reasonable belief. Apologists will not like the second option. I think the problem is both theists and atheists are conflating two different things when thinking about God.
Having such a high level of standard for God is not reasonable. No one can prove such negatives. There are many things in science and philosophy for which we don’t have a satisfactory agreement yet. Especially if it regards something very fundamental in reality. At this level, the question of God is very vague. In a way, everyone is an agnostic.
Since many theists and atheists are conditioned to believe in absolutes regarding the existence of God, some atheists don’t like to commit to the statement that “God does not exist.” From their perspective, it’s humility that they are not unreasonably committing to a philosophical position. They are just doubting.
To be honest, this is one thing I love about atheists. This humility is not possible in theism by definition. Surety in the existence of God is essential for theism. I think we can keep this attitude and still reasonably say, “God does not exist” instead of, “I lack belief in God” and not be dogmatic about it. Even if the answers we find differ from what we expected, what’s the problem? That’s literally how our scientific knowledge evolves. There is no hardline in atheism, unlike some versions of theism, where being wrong might lead you to hell. On the other side, we should always aspire to reduce false positives.
I don’t think there is anything wrong with exploring positive atheism with humility in mind. The thing is that, in instances where the conclusion is not definite, the theory should be at least self-consistent and at least equal in quality or preferable to competing theories. Once that is achieved, we can argue from the perspective of negative atheism.
Let’s say hypothetically that theism is self-consistent, and all competing theories fall short somehow. In that case, only finding issues in theism would not help. In the lack of an equal or better metaphysical model, theism can be restructured based on observed data.
There are two sides to everything. I accept the fact that someone can reasonably reach the conclusion that God exists. Just because a belief cannot be proven or disproven beyond all doubt does not mean that it cannot still be reasonably believed, or established beyond reasonable doubt. And just because two different beliefs are neither proven nor disproven, does not mean that one might not be more reasonable than the other.
Imagine repeatedly using uniform sampling to select an atheist from among the world’s atheists and a theist from among the world’s theists. It is beyond belief that, when you do this, it will always be the atheist who turns out to have the better overall view; and it is equally beyond belief that it will always turn out to be the theist who has the better overall view ~ Graham Oppy.
Before moving further, I should clarify one thing. There are degrees of reasonableness. I agree that one can reasonably conclude that a god or God exists, but that does not mean I find every theistic worldview tenable. There are some specific theistic worldviews that I not only disagree with but dislike. This was a discovery even for me.
A few days back, one of my friends shared a YouTube video about evolution. I checked the link and found it was from the “Answers in Genesis” channel. I closed it immediately and replied to my friend, “I am not watching that nonsense.”
Later, this incident got me thinking. Why did I behave like that? Usually, I try to listen to every argument, no matter how ridiculous it is. It seems that I just don’t like Young Earth creationism. The point I am trying to make here is that there are still some theistic worldviews I would dismiss immediately, giving the example of Russell’s Teapot.
Part 2
This raises the question, what are some of the arguments atheists use? Do they successfully refute theism? I have seen many theists and apologists listing down a number of arguments when asked why belief in God is reasonable.
Atheists usually find issues in those arguments and call it a day. Let’s turn the table. I am going to list down here some popular arguments used by atheists against t-heism. This is not an exhaustive list. Also, each point contains a family of arguments, not just one argument, so I will just briefly highlight each point; otherwise, it would be a book-length article.
1. Cosmological arguments.
I know cosmological arguments are one of the favourite arguments of theists. For example, William Lane Craig, a Christian apologist, is a proponent of a version of a prevalent theistic cosmological argument. But theists don’t have a monopoly on cosmological arguments. There can be non-theistic versions of cosmological arguments. In fact, let’s try to mirror Kalam cosmological argument itself but a non-theistic version.
1. Everything that begins to exist has a material cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a material cause.
Let’s put this in another way. What if someone claims that the universe began from a maximally simple necessarily existing fundamental natural state? Essentially, the goal of the non-theistic cosmological arguments is to show that there are better non-theistic cosmological models available. Let’s try to understand this with an analogy. Try to guess what I am talking about in the next few sentences. What is that which is invisible, yet its presence is virtually everywhere in the universe? This is so powerful, and it dictates the whole universe. Without it, we can’t imagine the universe as it is. I am not talking about God. I am talking about Gravity.
The point here is that even if there is a first cause, it can be something natural. There are still possibilities that the best explanation is neither natural nor theistic God. There is also a possibility that Metaphysical Foundationalism itself is not true.
2. Arguments against particular religious practices, myths, or beliefs
Arguments against any particular religious claims can be put under this category. For example, the exodus, resurrection, splitting of the moon by prophet Muhammad, or any other particular religious claim. This is by nature not a general argument and would not apply to each and every theistic belief. I am putting it here because refuting these claims would significantly hamper many religious beliefs.
For example, let’s take the resurrection of Jesus. Christianity is built in such a way that if resurrection does not make sense to you, then 90% of Christianity would not make sense to you. Hypothetically speaking, let’s say the resurrection gets verified in the future. It’s still a non-sequitur fallacy. Resurrection does not logically follow the existence of God. In fact, for many superstitious beliefs, pseudoscience woo woo, and spirituality, the pieces of evidence are just a non sequitur fallacy.
3. Occam’s Razor/Cumulative arguments
This is my favourite type of argument so far. This type of argument argues that some non-theistic hypotheses are favourable considering all things compared to theism. Theists have their own versions of this, For example, the probability argument for the existence of God by Richard Swinburne. This is not a deductive argument so the conclusion doesn’t necessarily follow the premises. This type of argument is more of an abductive argument where the conclusion is more likely true but may not be necessarily true. But how do we determine which hypothesis is better? In his book “The best argument against” God, Graham Oppy gives four criteria to determine the better hypothesis among competing hypotheses.
- Simplicity: If everything else is equal we should prefer the more simple theory to the less simple theory.
- Goodness of fit: If everything else is equal we should prefer the theory that makes the best fit with the data.
- Explanatory breadth: If everything else is equal, we should prefer the theory that explains more.
- Predictive Fruitfulness: If everything else is equal, we should prefer the theory that makes the most accurate predictions of future data.
These Criteria will be useful in any case in which one theory does better than another on some of these criteria and no worse than the other on all of the remaining criteria.
In the Book, Graham Oppy goes through many pieces of evidence like ontological arguments, cosmological arguments, fine-tuning arguments, historical data, watchmaker arguments, social sciences, a priori knowledge, morality, consciousness, reason, religious experience, and traditions. Finally, all things considered, Graham oppy concludes that naturalism has an advantage over theism. Oppy still keeps the door open for other possibilities at the end of his book. There is no algorithm to fit a theory in the above criteria.
Even if it is true that the evidence does not favour theism over naturalism — there are no clear, immediate, and uncontested consequences that follow concerning the rationality of acceptance of theism. ~ Graham Oppy
4. Divine hiddenness/argument from non-belief.
If there is a God and belief in God is important for humankind, why are we having these discussions in the first place? Why are we not living in a world where the existence of God is more obvious? These arguments try to demonstrate that if God existed, He would (or would likely) make the truth of His existence more obvious to everyone than it is. Since the truth of God’s existence is not as obvious to everyone as it should be if God existed, proponents of arguments from divine hiddenness conclude that God must not (or probably does not) exist.
I think this is a very strong argument. It wouldn’t be fair if theism is true to expect every individual to be able to honestly reach theism through high-level intellectual assessment. It’s simple if theism is true, it should be obvious. I am not saying that if theism was obvious, non-believers would not exist. There are still flat earthers despite heliocentrism becoming an obvious model. But ask yourself this question honestly. Is theism as obvious in religious study as heliocentrism in astronomy? If not, why? If yes, how? It’s not only a question of intellect. We don’t believe in things only based on intellect. There are other factors like personal experience, feelings, how the thing in question affects the world (or does not affect the world), empirical evidence, etc. The existence of God is not obvious by those other factors also.
Alex O Conner summarizes the problem of divine hiddenness in a very good way in the following video:
An important point to note here is that there are versions of god or God against which the problem of divine hiddenness is not a very strong argument. As I stated earlier, in the case where the explanatory power is similar, we should prefer a simpler model, and hence atheism is preferable.
5. Non-Cognitivism
This is one type of argument in the list I am not really a fan of, but I am just listing down different arguments. Also, there can be an intersection between non-cognitivism and atheism. Theological non-cognitivism argues that religious language, specifically words like God, is not cognitively meaningful. When we say, God exists, it’s neither true nor false. It’s meaningless. For example, the following sentence is grammatically correct but does not mean anything. I believe that colourless green ideas sleep furiously.
6. Arguments from religious diversity
If religious experience is an argument for theism, we surely have very contradictory data. Why, if some particular theistic outlook is true, and if it’s urgent that everyone believes that outlook, are there so many competing religions in the first place?
Although, this is probably one data point I feel is better explained by religious pluralism/polytheism than atheism. This is the reason I have a soft spot for eastern religious frameworks. Both naturalism/atheism and pluralism have better explanatory power than Abrahamic theism for this data point, but the difference in explanatory power is not much because there are known false religious experiences. This is also one of the reasons I criticize exclusive monotheistic traditions, as I did in my last article.
“Is not it troubling that your place of birth is a reliable statistical indicator of how likely you are to be saved on Christianity” ~ Alex O Conner
7. Arguments from Incoherence Within/Among the Divine Attribute.
Have you heard the argument that if God is all-powerful, can he make a rock so heavy that even he can’t lift it? This type of argument falls under this category. To answer the previous question, apologists have devised the term maximally powerful. God can’t do what is logically impossible.
For example, God can’t make a square circle or married bachelors. But the arguments do not end here.
There are many more arguments attacking usually associated with divine attributes of God and how well they work together. The goal of this type of argument is that the existence of any being that meets standard divine specifications is impossible, and if it does not meet the standard divine specifications, can we even call it God? How much divine attribute can we strip down and still call it God?
8. Problem of Evil
Am I forgetting something? Yes! The problem of Evil and suffering. This does not require any introduction. There is still a debate if it’s a logical problem or a probabilistic problem. Does the existence of suffering and evil logically disproves the existence of God or make it less likely? Whatever the case is, this is still a very strong argument against traditional theism.
I would like to repeat what I said on the point of divine hiddenness. There are versions of god or God against which the problem of evil is not a very strong argument. Again, in the case where the explanatory power is similar, we should prefer a simpler model, and hence Atheism is preferable.
