What does it mean to be an atheist? Let’s plunge into the Deeper Waters and find out.
Recently, I had someone give me the old saying that atheism is just a lack of belief in God. I had heard it several times. Fortunately, I decided I would bring up an article I had written on that which I found….
Wait! What’s this?! I didn’t have one!
Time to take care of that oversight!
Many a times, an atheist will say they are just someone who lacks God belief. I find this to be a cowardly move as it is a way to avoid dealing with the arguments more often and put the onus on the believer entirely. After all, how can you refute it if someone says they believe or don’t believe something. Even if I met the most staunch and intellectual atheist in the world, how could he argue against the fact that I do believe in God? He could say “I 100% agree that you believe, but I just don’t think your belief is well-founded.”
So a question that arises then is “Who has the burden of proof?” The answer is simple. Whoever makes the claim has the burden. Suppose the atheist says to me “There is no God.” I ask “What’s your evidence God does not exist?” He then says to me “Well if He does, demonstrate that He does.”
Now let us suppose that I am incapable of doing that. What does that prove? It does not prove atheism. It just proves that I did not have sufficient reasons for belief. He still has asserted a belief and he still has to demonstrate it. We could easily leave with agnosticism. We do not know if He does or does not exist.
Now if I enter the debate and originally say that God does exist, I do indeed have the burden of proving my claim. If I am unable to do that, that still does not show atheism is false. It just shows my reasons were insufficient. At best, we are left with agnosticism.
So now let’s look at what atheism is. Is it the lack of belief? One of the first places I turn to is the Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on the topic. You can find that here.
A relevant section is this part:
It has come to be widely accepted that to be an atheist is to affirm the non-existence of God. Anthony Flew (1984) called this positive atheism, whereas to lack a belief that God or gods exist is to be a negative atheist. Parallels for this use of the term would be terms such as “amoral,” “atypical,” or “asymmetrical.” So negative atheism would includes someone who has never reflected on the question of whether or not God exists and has no opinion about the matter and someone who had thought about the matter a great deal and has concluded either that she has insufficient evidence to decide the question, or that the question cannot be resolved in principle. Agnosticism is traditionally characterized as neither believing that God exists nor believing that God does not exist.
Unfortunately, I do not really think this part is well-written. (Would includes?) On this, I do not see any real difference between what it calls negative atheism and agnosticism. Are there any other authorities we can go to? As it turns out, yes.
“Atheism is the position that affirms the non-existence of God. It proposes positive disbelief rather than mere suspension of belief.”
William Rowe The Concise Routledge Encyclopedia of Philosophy p.62
“Atheism, as presented in this book, is a definite doctrine, and defending it requires one to engage with religious ideas. An atheist is one who denies the existence of a personal, transcendent creator of the universe, rather than one who simply lives life without reference to such a being.”
Robin Le Poidevin Arguing for Atheism: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion p.xvii
And
But is there anything beyond what scholars of atheism say?
An atheist should hypothetically imagine a world where God exists. In this world, the claim of theism, God exists, is true. I understand atheists do not believe that, but Aristotle is said to have said that the mark of an educated man is to be able to entertain an idea without believing in it.
Now in this same world, imagine if you are an atheist, that you are still an atheist. That is pretty easy to do. In this case, atheism is true, in the sense that you lack God belief. However, that would also mean that its opposite, theism, is also true, since the a in front of the word theism is a negation. This would mean that two contradictory statements were true, which is impossible.
Okay. So maybe you want to change theism to mean just that someone has God belief. The problem with that then is, “What are we even debating?” The terms become simply statements about personal psychology and nothing more. You can go see a therapist and talk about what you feel about something, but a therapist will likely not try to argue that you do not feel it.
Now if an atheist wants to come and debate their feelings with me, well, okay. I don’t see the point. I’d rather talk about external reality. If you’re saying atheism is just a lack of belief, you’re really saying you are not informed enough to take a stand on the issue and if that is the case, why should I even bother debating you and why should you even try to argue me out of my position?
Be real instead. Atheism is saying that God does not exist. I think it’s a wrong position, but at least we can debate it.
In Christ,
Nick Peters
(And I affirm the virgin birth)
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