Atheism: Belief or Position?

[Jac3510]

Well I hardly think that's necessary, Hana . . . I believe I seen you rather effectively defend your faith a time or two.

I was mostly just commenting on Paul's argument that we can only believe, but now KNOW, that God exists, and expanding on my reasoning as per Neo's request. I don't want people to get the idea that they can't defend their faith without study philosophy (although I do think it would make them much better at it!) or that the only people who really KNOW that God exists are the philosophers.

[1over137]

Well I hardly think that's necessary, Hana . . . I believe I seen you rather effectively defend your faith a time or two.

I was mostly just commenting on Paul's argument that we can only believe, but now KNOW, that God exists, and expanding on my reasoning as per Neo's request. I don't want people to get the idea that they can't defend their faith without study philosophy (although I do think it would make them much better at it!) or that the only people who really KNOW that God exists are the philosophers.

Well, thanks. My defense approach is kind of scientific one through observations. And some more knowledge from philosophy cannot harm me.

[PaulSacramento]

Everything we believe is a belief and everything we know is knowledge.
We can NOT say that we KNOW that God exists other then by saying we believe God exists ( for arguments sake since proof of God's existence would make God a "fact") and the same goes for those denying that God exists. No one can say that they KNOW that God doesn't exist, like they can say that they KNOW liquid is not a solid, they can only say the believe that God doesn't exist.

This is very debatable at best and terribly wrong at worst. I have absolutely no problem saying I KNOW that God exists, and I have absolutely no problem saying that I KNOW that Hindu concept of God doesn't. I KNOW God exists because it is a philosophically demonstrable fact, and I KNOW Brahman does not because it is logically incoherent (which, by the way, is one of the reasons Hindus tend to deny that logic has any real validity when discussing spiritual matters). So if atheists could show that the very concept of God is self-contradictory, they would be justified in their claim that they KNOW that God does not exist. They can't do that, of course, because the concept is not self-contradictory, and, in fact, is so imminently reasonable that reason itself finds its existence in expression in Him.

The only way for you to make these claims is to assume a type of scientism or epistemological empiricism whereby we can only know for sure what our senses tell us (or what science tells us based on an analysis of what our senses tell us). But the problem there, of course, is that scientism or epistemological empiricism can't even know its own self to be true, so the whole project ends up refuting itself.

Sorry, I know God exists. It isn't a mere belief. It's a fact that I am aware of.

You believe that you know.

IF You KNOW that God exists then by the same token the atheist knows that God doesn't.
Not getting into the realm of how subjective reality is, there are things we can say we know because they are demonstrable to all and can be known by all: 1+1 is 2, water is wet, ice is cold, etc.
Things that can't be demonstrated to BE, are things that we can only at best believe.

The intangibles are the tricky parts and lets take the greatest intangible of all, LOVE:

I can say that I KNOW I love my wife.
I can say that I know my wife loves me.

Now, do I KNOW that or believe that?

[Jac3510]

You believe that you know.

Do you know that, or do you just believe that? That is, do you KNOW that I believe that I know, or do you believe that I believe that I know?

IF You KNOW that God exists then by the same token the atheist knows that God doesn't.
Not getting into the realm of how subjective reality is, there are things we can say we know because they are demonstrable to all and can be known by all: 1+1 is 2, water is wet, ice is cold, etc.
Things that can't be demonstrated to BE, are things that we can only at best believe.

And you are already doing philosophy here. Look at the part I put in bold. That's where you are lost. The existence of God is demonstrable. Just because you can't do it doesn't mean that it can't be done, and just because some people don't have the intellectual capacity or the training to follow the demonstration doesn't mean that it can't be done. Perhaps you would say that we KNOW that E=MC². I'll be the first to say that I believe that. I only "know" it insofar as I know the people who say it are believable. And frankly, you could try to explain it to me, and I would not be capable of following it because I don't have the mathematical training to comprehend the proof. Am I, then, to say to people like Hana, who do have the necessary training, "You believe that you know"? That would take a great deal of hubris on my part!

And so it is with the existence of God. Maybe you believe it. There's nothing wrong with that. But I know it, because I have taken the time to learn the demonstration.

The intangibles are the tricky parts and lets take the greatest intangible of all, LOVE:

I can say that I KNOW I love my wife.
I can say that I know my wife loves me.

Now, do I KNOW that or believe that?

You believe it--that is, you take it on faith. And you believe it precisely because love is an intangible. It is not something than can be demonstrated. It is not something you can discover. You can have good reason for thinking she loves you, not the least of which is that she tells you so. You can have no reason to deny it, and the case can be so strong that it would be irrational for you to deny it. But she cannot demonstrate it in a logical or philosophical sense. You can only believe it.

In some ways, it is the same with God's love us (I have to hedge here, because language about God because tricky--in philosophical parlance, all language about God is analogical). We can know by demonstration that He exists, but we can only know by faith that He loves us. That is, I can gave good reason to think that God probably loves me, but in the end, I only "know" it when I believe it when He tells me so. And, the beautiful thing, is that in THAT, I actually am more sure of God's love for me than I am water is wet or that ice is cold, to use your examples. Because the knowledge of faith is knowledge to the degree that its object is trustworthy. And I KNOW (by demonstration) that nothing is or in principle can be more trustworthy than God. Therefore, that which God says MUST be true, and if God says He loves me, then while I believe that on faith, I thereby know it more surely than I know anything else.

As for atheists, no, they don't "know" God exists. They're just ignorant of elementary facts, and most of them (as K pointed out in his two previous threads in this forum) are so ignorant willingly.

[PaulSacramento]

Demonstrate to me how you KNOW that God exists.

[Jac3510]

Okay. Read pages 8-31, which is a basic explanation of the First Way, which can be schematized as:

• 1. Some things in the world are in motion.
  2. Anything in motion is being put in motion by something else.
  3. But this something else, if it is in motion, is also being put in motion by something else, and so on.
  4. This series of things being put in motion by something else cannot be endless.
  5. Therefore, there must be a first cause of motion which is itself unmoved; this we understand to be God.

That should get you started. All it gets you to, so far anyway, is an Unmoved First Mover. But if you read the rest of it, you'll come to a much more robust view of God. Beyond that, I would recommend that you read Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide and The Last Superstition for more help on this.

[PaulSacramento]

Okay. Read pages 8-31, which is a basic explanation of the First Way, which can be schematized as:

• 1. Some things in the world are in motion.
  2. Anything in motion is being put in motion by something else.
  3. But this something else, if it is in motion, is also being put in motion by something else, and so on.
  4. This series of things being put in motion by something else cannot be endless.
  5. Therefore, there must be a first cause of motion which is itself unmoved; this we understand to be God.

That should get you started. All it gets you to, so far anyway, is an Unmoved First Mover. But if you read the rest of it, you'll come to a much more robust view of God. Beyond that, I would recommend that you read Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide and The Last Superstition for more help on this.

As a skeptic, I would be unconvinced since none of that is beyond the simple belief that "God" is your answer to those issues.
You believe the first cause to be God, but that doesn't = KNOWING that first cause to be God.
That first cause could be a cosmic singularity that has the same "prime mover" characteristics that you believe are present only in your view of "God".

There is no way around the fact that theism, like atheism is a belief.
This isn't a critique, it just is a fact.
We can see we know God, that we know there is a God, even say that we know it as much as we know that water is wet and fire is hot BUT none of that changes that this "knowledge" is based on believing that what we KNOW to be God IS God.

[Jac3510]

Since when does YOUR being a skeptic mean that I don't know something? If I am a flat earther, does my skepticism of "your science" mean you don't know the earth is round after all (or that astronauts who have been to space and have seen it first hand don't)?

I would simply say your skepticism points to your ignorance and inability or disinterest in truth, not in whether or not truth is or can be known. I would further point out that you own response not only indicates a gross misunderstanding of the terms of the argument (which means you haven't rejected the argument but only a sad, twisted version of it--thus, those who do KNOW the argument can KNOW its conclusion) but proves that you either failed to read or failed to comprehend the material presented in support of it.

So I go back to my original reply. Atheism may or may not be a belief. You're saying "there is no way around the fact" doesn't make it so. I tell my writing students all the time to avoid words and phrases like that their papers. It betrays a shallowness of thought. If something is clearly the case and if there is no way around a fact, then it likely doesn't need to be stated. And if it does need to be stating, then saying it is "clearly" the case or that it "cannot be avoided" doesn't make it any clearer or harder to avoid. It just clutters your writing.

But usually, students who use those phrases are just trying to substitute assertion for argument.

[PaulSacramento]

Since when does YOUR being a skeptic mean that I don't know something? If I am a flat earther, does my skepticism of "your science" mean you don't know the earth is round after all (or that astronauts who have been to space and have seen it first hand don't)?

Since when does your knowing something means its isn't a belief?

I would simply say your skepticism points to your ignorance and inability or disinterest in truth, not in whether or not truth is or can be known. I would further point out that you own response not only indicates a gross misunderstanding of the terms of the argument (which means you haven't rejected the argument but only a sad, twisted version of it--thus, those who do KNOW the argument can KNOW its conclusion) but proves that you either failed to read or failed to comprehend the material presented in support of it.

I would say that you decided to attack me by calling me ignorant, or disinterested in the truth. My disagreement with your argument means just that, I disagree with your conclusions ( which I don't mend you since I agree with it) and by how you just worded the above, it seems to me that you are implying that ANYONE that disagrees with your conclusions doesn't understand the argument.
Sounds like what evolutionists do...

So I go back to my original reply. Atheism may or may not be a belief. You're saying "there is no way around the fact" doesn't make it so. I tell my writing students all the time to avoid words and phrases like that their papers. It betrays a shallowness of thought. If something is clearly the case and if there is no way around a fact, then it likely doesn't need to be stated. And if it does need to be stating, then saying it is "clearly" the case or that it "cannot be avoided" doesn't make it any clearer or harder to avoid. It just clutters your writing.

Ok, I'll give you that my wording could be better.

But usually, students who use those phrases are just trying to substitute assertion for argument.

Fair enough.

How's this then:
You say you know God and that it is simply not just a belief, it is knowledge.
I ask if it is a knowledge on par with physical reality ( like we know that fire is hot) or is it on par with a knowledge like, " I know my kids love me" ?

[Jac3510]

Since when does your knowing something means its isn't a belief?

All knowledge is a belief (if you don't believe something, you can't say you know it). But this whole discussion, insofar as I have understood it, is whether or not all beliefs are matters of knowledge. That is, I can believe something but not know it; I cannot know something without believing it. So do I know (and thus believe) God exists, or do I merely believe (but not know) that God exists.

Obviously, atheists will not deny that I believe it, but they will deny my knowledge of it. They will say that they are not persuaded by my arguments, which is fine (although more on that below, because it really isn't fine), but the problem comes up when the say, "And because I don't know it--because I doubt your conclusion--therefore, I claim you don't know it, and all you have is a belief." It simply does not follow that because one person is skeptical of some given fact that another person cannot know that they know the same fact.

I would say that you decided to attack me by calling me ignorant, or disinterested in the truth. My disagreement with your argument means just that, I disagree with your conclusions ( which I don't mend you since I agree with it) and by how you just worded the above, it seems to me that you are implying that ANYONE that disagrees with your conclusions doesn't understand the argument.
Sounds like what evolutionists do...

It doesn't matter if that's what evolutionists do. It matters if it's right or not. To try to discount a line of reasoning because someone who is wrong about a different issue employs the same approach is to commit a genetic fallacy.

Second, referring to your ignorance and disinterest in truth is not an attack. It's an observation to account for your failure to grasp the conclusion of the argument (and I realize that you personally don't disagree with any of this. We're playing devil's advocate, and I get that; I hope you get that I get that! ). You are right here that I do charge that anyone who disagrees with my conclusion doesn't understand the argument. That's the more charitable option, since the only other logical possibility is that they understand it but willfully refuse to reject it, which is to say in this context, willfully choose to be irrational.

This isn't just a matter of people disagreeing with me. Consider the following conversation:

• You: All triangles have three sides, right?
  Me: Yup.
  You: And this is a triangle, right?
  Me: Sure is!
  You: So you agree that this has three sides then, don't you?
  Me: No, I do not.
  You: What? How can you disagree?
  Me: I just do. It's nothing personal We can just agree to disagree on this.

In this argument, I would be being extremely irrational. You would have to either conclude that I didn't understand the argument or that I was just being an idiot on purpose. The key here is that no one is allowed to "just disagree" with a demonstration. That's what makes them demonstrations! What we can "just disagree" on is different interpretations of evidence given different possible assumptions through which we can interpret that same evidence. For instance:

• You: You acknowledge that Jesus really died, right?
  Me: Yup.
  You: And that His tomb was empty three days later?
  Me: I do.
  You: And that the disciples really believed they saw Him three days later?
  Me: Absolutely.
  You: So do you agree with me that the best historical explanation of these facts is that Jesus really did raise from the dead?
  Me: No.
  You: Why not? What do you think happened?
  Me: Aliens did it. They stole the body and then impersonated Jesus. It was all a big practical joke.

Now, here, I'm making a completely unwarranted jump, but we can just agree to disagree here. Why? Because I accept certain assumptions (that I should not, which you would have to work to show if you wanted to continue the conversation) that you don't. In short, you haven't demonstrated that Jesus rose from the dead. You've just given a very good historical argument that any sane, rational person would be forced to accept (if by "sane" and "rational" we agree that stupid things like aliens impersonating Jesus are off the list of possible explanations).

So bringing this back full circle. I KNOW that God exists, because the argument I provided above DEMONSTRATES His existence. The only way for you to fail to conclude with me that God exists is for you to either misunderstand the argument (which is very easy to do) or to be willfully ignorant, that is, to just choose to be irrational.

How's this then:
You say you know God and that it is simply not just a belief, it is knowledge.
I ask if it is a knowledge on par with physical reality ( like we know that fire is hot) or is it on par with a knowledge like, " I know my kids love me" ?

My knowledge that God exists is on par with those aspects of physical reality I can directly experience (e.g., the fire is hot) and is superior to my knowledge that my kids or my wife or anyone else (save God) loves me.

[PaulSacramento]

So bringing this back full circle. I KNOW that God exists, because the argument I provided above DEMONSTRATES His existence. The only way for you to fail to conclude with me that God exists is for you to either misunderstand the argument (which is very easy to do) or to be willfully ignorant, that is, to just choose to be irrational.

How's this then:
You say you know God and that it is simply not just a belief, it is knowledge.
I ask if it is a knowledge on par with physical reality ( like we know that fire is hot) or is it on par with a knowledge like, " I know my kids love me" ?

My knowledge that God exists is on par with those aspects of physical reality I can directly experience (e.g., the fire is hot) and is superior to my knowledge that my kids or my wife or anyone else (save God) loves me.

Ok, since I agree with most of what you said above I wanted to focus on this part ( and thank you for your patience with me AND for helping me understand your position by the way, I love these little "exchanges with you my friend).
You argument seems to be that since their MUST be a first cause, that first cause must be God, but is that a statement of KNOWING or believing?

In regards to you know God as well as being able to know any other aspect of this physical reality ( fire is hot, water is wet):
How so?
You know that fire is hot based on not only the physical attributes of fire and your ability to understand them BUT because the existence of fire is undeniable and it's attributes are obvious to all.

[Jac3510]

Ok, since I agree with most of what you said above I wanted to focus on this part ( and thank you for your patience with me AND for helping me understand your position by the way, I love these little "exchanges with you my friend).

They're helpful for both of us! It helps me learn to communicate more clearly, something I'm afraid I'm not very good at much of the time. It also helps me consider various nuances in my own position, which is good, too. Iron sharpens iron and all that!

You argument seems to be that since their MUST be a first cause, that first cause must be God, but is that a statement of KNOWING or believing?

It's something you discover must be the case upon further analysis of what it means to be the First Cause. The whole argument is built on a distinction between what is called actuality and potentiality. Change itself is defined as the reduction of potentiality to actuality (I would submit to you, by the way, that that is the only coherent way that we have to even conceptualize change--in other words, no matter how you describe change, whatever verbiage you want to use, you will always employ the concepts of actuality and potentiality, whether you know you are doing so or not), but only things that are actual can cause any changes of any kind. That means that no potentiality can actualize itself, which means, eventually, if you want to account for all change, you have to posit something that is pure actuality, that is, that has no potential for change of any kind. It just is what it is by virtue of its existence.

When you start looking at that, you'll see that a being/thing/whatever that is pure actuality can only be God. It can't, for instance, be the Big Bang singularity, since the singularity had the potentiality to become the universe as we know it now. By definition, then, the first cause is both unchanging and unchangeable. When you really start to unpack that, it becomes very apparent that we are talking about God.

In regards to you know God as well as being able to know any other aspect of this physical reality ( fire is hot, water is wet):
How so?
You know that fire is hot based on not only the physical attributes of fire and your ability to understand them BUT because the existence of fire is undeniable and it's attributes are obvious to all.

Strictly speaking, you can argue that fire's attributes are not obvious to all. What about people who have no sense of touch? They can only trust you that it's hot. They have no concept of that. It's not hard to imagine scenarios of people who have never seen fire or don't have the mental capacity to understand the notion of hot.

I only say that to highlight what I said before--whether or not something is obvious to all doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is whether or not a thing can be known by a person of sufficient intellect and training. I readily admit that children can't grasp the arguments for God's existence. Many adults can't, but for a different reason--not because they don't have the intellectual capacity, but because they haven't learned the prerequisite information, much in the same way that I am not capable of understanding certain scientific proofs since I have not learned the prerequisite mathematics.

As far as how I now God's existence as well as I know the existence of fire and its attributes, I know them both equally well because it turns out that the First Way, properly understood, means that the existence of fire entails the existence of God. To know fire exists is to know God exists. Again, in philosophical parlance, fire turns out to be a natural sign of God (much like smoke is a natural sign of fire--where there is smoke, there MUST be fire; where there is fire, there MUST be God).

Again, the short form of the reasoning is that fire is, by its nature, change in action. All change requires a changer, however, and that change entails a First Changer that is itself not subject to change (for if it were, then it would have to have something to account for it's changing, ad infinitum, until we come to the Changer not subject to change (being pure actuality, no potentiality whatsoever)). Thus, I know that if any physical thing exists (and is changing), then I know that God exists. And, since my coming to know something exists by my physical sensation constitutes a change in myself, my coming to know anything entails the existence of God. To emphasize, we are talking logical entailment here. If A entails B, then were A, necessarily B. Here, change entails God. There is change, so necessarily, there is God.

I'm sure, though, you can see how that doesn't apply to my wife loving me. Her saying or even acting like she loves me does not logically entail that she actually does love me. I may have no reason to doubt her and so have sufficient warrant to accept her claim, but that's not the same thing as showing logical entailment and therefore falls short of a demonstration.

[PaulSacramento]

Thanks Jac.
So, if by using reason and rational thinking we conclude that we KNOW there is a God because the first cause of everything must be a being/force that is himself/itself unchanging ( hence he/it must be God) then that means to "disbelief" in that view of God, to be atheist about that God, is not based on reason and rational and as such, atheism ( at least in regards to that God) is simply a belief based on either a desire NOT to believe or a lack of understanding about that God, yes?
My question is this though:
Realistically how can separate belief and knowing in something intangible?

[Jac3510]

Right, Paul. In theory, atheism is always a matter of an emotional or spiritual (which are usually the same thing) rejection of of God and/or an ignorance of the arguments for God. There are no atheists who understand the arguments and who are willing to bow to truth. I say that is in theory, only because I choose to adopt a more charitable position in practice that the atheist I'm talking to may be telling the truth when she says that she would believe if the evidence were made available to her. Now, I've talked to a LOT of atheists, and in all cases--there have been no exceptions--it turns out they've not been so honest in either their self-assessment or about their position to me. That is, after conversation, it becomes evident very quickly that the problems are just what they theoretically are--emotional, spiritual, or (willful) ignorance.

I'll give you one example. I spent some extended time with an atheist last year walking him through the First Way. I warned him at the outset that it wouldn't be easy because it required quite a bit of philosophical background, but he insisted that he was really interested in the truth more than anything else, and that he really was open minded, and so he was willing to put in the work. Over the course of several weeks, we worked through the argument, step by step. He got as far as the conclusion and accepted everything up until that point, but then refused to concede the final point. His argument was that there was a special pleading fallacy. He argued that since the First Way insists that all changers must be changed, it is special pleading to mark out one Changer as not needing a change.

I pointed out to him that, were that the argument, he would be correct. But I showed him that the FW does not require ALL changers to be changed, but only that all changees require a changer. At that point, he simply shut down. He said, "I just don't accept that. That's special pleading." I showed him the definition of special pleading in a logic textbook, showed him how what I was saying was by definition not special pleading, and even went so far as to ask him what he would take the argument to prove if we didn't stop at an unchanged changer (trying to get him to see that he was logically required to say that there was an infinite regress of instrumental causes, which is, itself, a self-contradictory statement). Rather than debate, he simply said, "It doesn't matter. I don't accept that. It's special pleading," and he just refused to even offer an answer to my question as to what his own view implied about the infinite regress.

Now, there is nothing rational about that discourse. The fact is, he didn't want to believe in God. This was not a matter of simple disagreement. He was asserted that A was B when B definitionally ruled out A. Moreover, he refused to defend his argument that for assigning the logical fallacy. For him, he had found a way "out" of the argument, and that was that. At that point, my inner chaplain kicked in, and I realized that his desire to seek an "out" said much more about his position than his position. Something entirely arational (rebellion, emotions, whatever) was driving him to simply refuse to follow simple logic. He understood it. He just rejected it (much like in my silly little conversations above).

I've had a LOT of experiences like that. I'm sure you've had similar ones yourself. The point is always the same. Atheism is simply not about what is rational. It's about emotional and spiritual issues, always, in every case. We know that going into the discussion. We should choose to be charitable and take people at their word that they are open minded, but we should not be surprised when the person we are talking to is no different from the rest of them.

As far as your question about knowing vs. believing with reference to the intangible, I would say we do it all the time. Let's take the statement, "You can know what is tangible but only believe the intangible." Okay, is that statement a tangible fact? No. It's an intangible thing--it's a philosophical statement. So do you KNOW that statement is true, or do you just BELIEVE that statement is true? If the person says they know it, then they have contradicted their own position. If they say they believe it, then you can just shrug your shoulders and say, "So what? Why should your beliefs have any bearing on what I believe? I mean, I believe in God. Does that mean you should, too? Of course not. So I tell you what: do you have any evidence that the statement is true? In other words, so you have any way that I can know it's true?" And this is a nice trap, because if they have no evidence, then their belief has absolutely no bearing on the conversation whatsoever. And if they try to argue that their position is true, then they are contradicting themselves, because now they are trying to show that something intangible can be known.

The real issue here is that there are a LOT of things we know that are intangible. All of math is intangible. The rules of grammar are intangible. History is entirely intangible. All philosophical facts are intangible. Our own thoughts and beliefs are intangible, and yet we know them. In fact, the whole question is based on a bias towards a particular type of knowledge, which is "scientific" knowledge. The problem here is that scientific knowledge, while important, is actually the weakest of all types of knowledge because, by its very nature, it can only be known with a very high degree of probability. And the funny thing about this is that when you start arguing about the value of scientific knowledge and someone starts insisting that they know that scientific knowledge is the best kind or the only kind or WHATEVER, then they've already refuted their case, because that debate is entirely intangible.

So in all of that, while what we know about God is based on the intangible, that makes it no more or less knowable than anything else we know. And, as I said before, the knowledge that God exists is actually among the things we can be most certain of. If I can assume that my senses are even remotely close to trustworthy, then I can know God exists. And even if they aren't trustworthy, I am directly aware of changes within myself, and that is enough to demonstrate that God exists. So far from being an insecure idea that I hold by a virtue of faith, the existence of God lies at the bedrock of virtually all knowledge of any kind, more secure than even the most proven law of science.

[PaulSacramento]

If I understand your First way argument:

All things that change, need a changer.
In other words, all things that COME into existence need something to cause their existence, yes?
There for there must be a first cause.
The first cause because it is the first cause does NOT need to change or need something to change it or act upon it because it is the first cause and there is no reason to believe that it needs a cause.
Everything else needs a cause or mover because everything has has been shown to have/need a cause.
Yes?