Over the centuries hundreds of millions of people have worshipped a god or many gods as their creators. These gods were usually represented in a series of objects in nature and today, only Hinduism remains as a truly polytheistic religion. Other religions have a monotheistic god that created everything and still has influence on human’s life and Earth’s life cycle. This monotheistic God is commonly known by Christians as Yahvé or as Allah by Muslims. Christians and Muslims are the two largest religions on Earth (3.6 billion people) and most of them refuse to acknowledge what science has to say regarding the dogma in which they faithfully (irrationally) believe in. However, a large amount of the population of the world is not a believer, is secular or calls themselves atheists. They amount to more than 1.1 billion people and in the last century, for the first time on history, they started to explain with scientific evidence the reasons why it was illogical to believe in any type of god or gods.
Atheism is the non belief in a personal god or gods such as those of Judaism, Islam, Christianity, Buddhism and Hinduism. Atheists are those who do not believe in the gods of these religions. But also, atheists are also those who do not believe in a deist god who created the universe and afterwards left the world alone. As such, Atheists are not theists, deists or spiritualists.
An atheist views science as the best mean for humans to understand reality. Therefore, it should be noted that it is not Atheist who have to apply the burden of proof principle but those who advocate for the belief in a god or gods. Atheists establish their position as truth because science demonstrates it to be so and because theist’s burden of proof fails to be proven.
Recently, many things have been written about Atheism and some controversies have been raised on the term. As such, some philosophers have proposed a division of the term Atheism in two branches: negative atheism and positive atheism. Michael Martin[1] writes that there’s a division between atheists. There are those negative atheists who are non believers –including agnostics- and there are positive atheists that are those who deny the existence of a theistic God and the belief in an afterlife, in a cosmic destiny, in an immortal soul, in the Bible or Qur’an and in any religious foundation of morality.
Now, let us explore why it is on theists and deists failure at asserting the burden of proof principle that atheists are successful at supporting their claims regarding the non existence of any type of god or gods.
Why the burden of proof principle aids Atheists to establish their position regarding the existence of a god or gods?
The burden of proof principle asserts that whoever has a burden of proof is obligated to provide evidence for their claim. Atheists claim that for God to exist it should be proved or at least, it should be supported by enough evidence to accept the possibility for anything (in this case a god or gods) to exist. Atheists claim that the burden of proof principle applies to those who support the claim of the non existence of god or gods. Again, it is not for atheists to offer any evidence for their statements regarding the existence of god or gods. Therefore, atheists ask for believers in a god or gods to at least give good grounds of belief in their claims. Their claims should be logical and rational and atheists are not obligated to prove them wrong.
What is the strongest objection regarding the existence of a god or gods given by Atheists?
The strongest objection for the existence of a god or gods comes from science. As Victor J. Stenger has written “science is fully capable of detecting the existence of a God who acts in the lives of humans in an important way such as listening to and answering prayers”. As such, science not only makes the assumption about reality being rational, but it applies rational methods in taking and analyzing data. These methods and analysis have all failed to demonstrate any type of supernatural power or gods that could allow some rational explanation that supports their existence.[2]Furthermore, Victor J. Stenger explains in the book God: The Failed Hypothesis – How Science Shows that God Does Not Exist that if there is a God that plays a role in the universe there should also be objective evidence of his existence. As such, that evidence should be sought and if such evidence is found it would demonstrate its existence. However, no such evidence has been found and that we can conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that a God with the properties and abilities acknowledged by theists and deists cannot be demonstrated.
First, if everything is supposed to have a cause, then a god or gods do too. Therefore, there is no first cause. If someone asserts that God is the uncaused first cause we are to question why should not we also ask why cannot the physical world itself be taken to be the uncaused first cause? On this subject has written a lot the mathematician John Allen Paulos in the book Irreligion: A Mathematician Explains Why the Arguments for God Just Don’t Add Up.
What is the solution offered by believers in a god or gods against the previous argument?
Believers in a god or gods have objected to the previous claim by offering a scientific, rather than philosophical, explanation. This explanation is called The Argument from Design and their claims are that A) It is by design that the universe is fine-tunned and as such a designer had to create it. B) That living organisms are too complex and perfect, and as such, are the evidence of an intelligent designer.
The previous argument from design has been demonstrated to be illogical and too weak to be scientifically truth. As such, only those who advocate for an irrational belief on their imaginary gods still try to defend this argument with illiterate masses and non science-savvy minds.
Those who defend the Argument from Design believe and support that there exists only one universe and that the universe was specially created for humans and living species on planet Earth. However, there is not still enough scientific evidence that demonstrates that there has only existed one universe and the studies of String Theory have already suggested that there is a chance of 10500 different set of possible parameters to exist[3]
Therefore, there is no evidence or reasons to assume that there aren’t many universes; and there is a huge chance for a different universe and a huge range of parameters is possible. As such, there could be some other forms of life different from ours and those could be even more complex than us. This position advocated regarding a multiverse is still criticized as unobservable and there is still research undergoing regarding how to detect the presence of other universes. The previous is the job of scientists; and scientists speculate and theorize regarding the unobservable all the time (that is how quarks and dark matter came to be scientifically proved).
Further, the notion that the universe was fine-tunned for life –human life and life on planet Earth- to exist is also nonsense and irrational. First, it would have been illogical for an omnipotent god to design the universe and to make it including an immense list of physiological flaws and weaknesses. If there were actually an omnipotent god he could have made it possible for humans, his most precious creation, to be living in a universe in which the constants of physics kept humans safe and not to be living on the knife-edge of extinction.
As professor Ghate explained; Agnosticism claims that atheists fail to demonstrate by the burden of proof principle that Rational Theology is mistaken. The argument of Agnosticism elaborates that it is not because of the flaws of Rational Theology capabilities to comply with the burden of proof principle that the statements of Atheism should be known as truth or as right. They consider that even though rational theology failed to prove their case there is still a chance for a god or gods to exist. As such, this discourse of uncertainty and skepticism could be used to also believe in themultiverse I mentioned before.
However, it is because of scientific evidence and observations of reality that we understand what exists and what doesn’t exist. As such, the non existence of evidence or enough proof does not allows us to not question or doubt the chance of X or Y to exist. The lack of information just allows us, as it does with scientists and their studies, to seek for more conclusive evidence and valid proofs that will someday demonstrate their and our hypothesis. Until there is enough evidence and valid proof there is no need for humans to believe in a god, in several gods, in fairies or in unicorns.
The best conclusion one can give comes from Dan Barker, a former believer in the Christian Abrahamic God, who said
“I did not lose my faith –I gave it up purposely. The motivation that drove me into the ministry- to know and speak the truth- is the same that drove me out… Opening my eyes to the real world, stripped of dogma, faith and loyalty to tradition, I could finally see clearly that there was no evidence for a god, no coherent definition of a god, no agreement among believers as to the nature or moral principles of “God,” and no good answers to the positive arguments against the existence of a god, such as the problem of evil. And beyond all that, there is no need for a god. Millions of good people live happy, productive, moral lives without believing in a god.”[4]
[1] Martin, Michael (2007). The New Encyclopedia of Unbelief (Amherst, NY. Prometheus Books). Atheism (p. 88).
[2] Victor Stenger2009). The New Atheism (Prometheus Books). P.71. Also, see on this subject an anthology edited by Michael Martin and Ricki Monnier titled The Impossibility of God.
[3] Susskind, Leonard (2005). Cosmic Landscape: String Theory and the Illusion of Intelligent Design (New York). P. 186
[4] Barker, Dan (2008). Godless: How an Evangelical Preacher Became One of America’s Leading Atheists (Ulysses Press) p.40
Globalization & Capitalism 
Hi!
Some time without visiting your blog and I found this interesting post just at the same time I am reading The Blank Slate by Steven Pinker, an atheist that explores what he calls human nature.
That reading, part of the seminaries the Henry Hazlitt center organizes here at UFM, as you may remember, has given me the opportunity to think about atheism and what can be called “scientificism” or the belief that everything can be explained through science. Since not everything has been explained (there would be no science left to be made) that science can explain everything remains a belief not a fact. Don’t misunderstand my point, I do believe that scientific methods are the best tools we have to understand the universe up to now, but I also believe in the human capacity to discover new tools, and impossible as it may sound, we may find something better than that in the future.
Several things appear interesting to me regarding atheists. First, their motivation. Would I become an atheist really convinced that the life I am living right now ends the moment I dye and my existence just vanishes, then the last thing I would be worried about is spreading my own belief. Are all the other humans wrong? So what? Why should I bother trying to convince them about my ideas. Let them think what they want! A few years of living are just too few to spend arguing with people. I have found several atheists that I call “apostolic atheists” (the four knights you just write about may be some of them). Do they really believe that their existence ends when they dye? Then stop wasting time arguing! That would be a better use for the short time they believe they have. Of course I always wonder if behind that apostolic mission of spreading atheism what really lies is a need of reassurance in the form of recognition and acceptance by others but why would that be important if life and existence end in a few years?
Second is their concern about morality. They want to demonstrate that atheists are people with moral principles and there is no need for any sort of faith to support a moral life. The point is if an atheist was sure that he is going to dye in 6 months or 1 year or 5 days (an incurable sickness for example) what reason would prevent him of committing all types of crimes? He would have no motivation in the contrary and richness, pleasure, glory, and all other thinkable rewards would be good reasons to steal, deceive and even kill anyone. We usually don’t know how much we are going to live but when compared to the age of the universe, or the solar system, the earth or even the time the human species has existed, a hundred years or less is just a moment. Of course that is subjective but it also means that it is only a matter of reaching the right amount of perceived time to live for any atheist to turn to “the ends justify the means” type of morality.
Third, their attitude towards faith. Faith and irrationality are not synonyms. I know that there are people that pretend to sustain irrational postures saying that it is “their faith” but that is an incorrect use of the concept. If something is irrational it must be notoriously contradictory in itself no matter how much a person calls it faith. Atheists seem to think that just because something is believed by faith it has to be irrational. Faith is not certainly rational in the sense that it has not been logically deducted from premises, but if someone believes in something for which we don’t have a premise to deduct from then that belief is not irrational either as long as it is not contradictory in itself. That the universe has a cause that is not the universe itself is not irrational in that sense. That that cause has a knowledge and free will is not irrational in that sense. That that cause hears what we say and knows our thinking is not irrational in that sense and the list goes on. I don’t blame atheists for considering faith the same as irrationality if we think of the many irrational acts committed with faith as an excuse, but if they insist in that consideration they are just committing the same type of irrational act.
Fourth, how they seem to be comfortable thinking that the universe has no cause. Rationality is highly appreciated among the atheists I know about, but rationality tells us that the universe is not eternal, it changes, evolves, and it had a starting moment. Why is there a universe when the most obvious would be that nothing exists? There must be a cause! The universe causing itself? That would need some more explanations. The existence of a cause that has no cause itself, that is different from the material universe just makes much more sense. You don’t want to call that cause “god”? That’s ok. That cause would be omnipotent, because it is the primary cause of everything else, and would have a free will, because if it doesn’t then it would not be the primary cause but a necessary effect of something else, but to have a free will it needs to have a knowledge and a will… I could continue but I think the point has been made.
All the best,
There’s definately a great deal to learn about this subject.
I like all the points you made.