say what? (The atheist delusion)

by dhw, Monday, January 30, 2012, 09:17 (4464 days ago) @ scoobypoo

SCOOBYPOO: To posit that "believing" is just as rational as "not believing" is, IMHO, just silly.-First of all, I'm delighted that you have responded. Your first post made me suspect that you were not interested in rational discussion but only in ridiculing opposition to Dawkins. This second post suggests a rather more balanced approach, but it would be helpful if you would quote the arguments you disagree with. The above quote and the one below are both misrepresentations of what I said:-SCOOBYPOO: You mention, among other things, that the complexity of the universe might reasonably lead one to "believe".-I did not. My various statements were: "Here are three good reasons for not disbelieving", and "don't kid yourself that atheists have any more reason for belief in chance than theists have for belief in a designer." And I stated categorically that "I neither believe nor disbelieve in a supreme being." Like many committed theists and atheists you have fallen into the philosophical trap of assuming that if someone argues against one side he is advocating the other. No, I am advocating open-mindedness. I find the materialist faith in chance as impossible to swallow as the theist belief in a supreme being, the latter for the reasons you have summed up very neatly in your post ... the complexity and provenance of a creator. That is a point on which I disagree with David. I do not give "equal credulity to both sides of the fence". I give them both equal incredulity, and you are indeed wrong if you think credulity is the point of the forum. The point is simply to discuss the issues from all angles, in the hope that we shall be able to gain a deeper understanding of them. Some of our correspondents are committed one way or the other, and apart from the utterly wacky or the insultingly fundamentalist, I have respect for their views even if I don't share them. After all, one of these polar opposites (chance v. design) must be more or less true and one more or less false, so one aspect of my scepticism is bound to be wrong! It might perhaps also be worth mentioning that design doesn't necessarily involve a conventional father figure, as posited by the major monotheistic religions. David, for instance, is a panentheist, and we have had many theists who are scathing about conventional religion. -SCOOBYPOO: I think atheists likely have it right, but I refer to myself as agnostic simply because I don't claim I can prove that no god exists, but I see no "reason" for believing that one does.-As you pointed out in your first post, no-one can prove that no god exists, but if that were my only reason, I would probably jump down on the atheist side of the fence. What stops me from doing so, as I explained in my first response to you, is the various mysteries that humans with their extraordinary intelligence have so far completely failed to solve: origin of life and of the mechanisms for evolution, nature of consciousness, experiences inexplicable in terms of the material realities we know. Some atheists attempt to make light of these problems (Dawkins actually doesn't), but the deeper you delve, the more puzzling they become. Over the four years or so that this forum has been in existence, there have been many extremely well-informed posts on all these subjects, and correspondents like David, George, Matt (xeno) and others have constantly kept us up to date with all the new scientific discoveries ... but we are no nearer to finding the answers. I agree emphatically that not knowing the answers does not give us "reason" to believe either way; nor does it give us "reason" to disbelieve either way. That is my brand of agnosticism.