Thanks to New Humanist for informing me about this article by AC Grayling.
I summarise his article (at the end i have many examples of comments made by readers of this article):-
Prof. Grayling rebuts the notion that "Atheism is itself a faith position". It is not possible to be a "Fundamentalist" Atheist or Secularist or Humanist. Those who do not share a religious outlook should repudiate the label "atheist" unless those who wish to use it are prepared to say "atheist and afairyist and agoblinist and aghostist" to mark the rational rejection of belief in supernatural entities of any kind.
Rationality is the key. If a person gets wet every time he is in the rain without an umbrella, yet persists in hoping that the next time he is umbrella-less in the rain he will stay dry, then he is seriously irrational. To believe in the existence of (say) a benevolent and omnipotent deity in the face of childhood cancers and mass deaths in tsunamis and earthquakes, is exactly the same kind of serious irrationality. If there is a deity, does the evidence suggest that it is benevolent or malevolent? The answer is - malevolent!
Children should be taught how NOT to put up barriers between themselves and their classmates on the basis of gender, ethnicity and their parents' choice of superstition.
Gotta have faith? - Professor AC Grayling writes in the Guardian - November 10, 2006. Plus hundreds of comments by readers.
The repetition this week of the weary old canard that atheism is 'a faith proposition' shows that our archbishops need a lesson in semantics.
In the foreword to the confused document produced by the religious thinktank Theos this week the Archbishops of Canterbury and Westminster, in a joint statement iterate the claim that "atheism is itself a faith position". This is a weary old canard to be set alongside the efforts of the faithful to characterise those who robustly express their attitude towards religious belief as "fundamentalist atheists".
This is classified in logic as an "informal fallacy" known as a "tu quoque" argument ... a simple lesson in semantics might help to clear the air for them on the meanings of "secular", "humanist" and "atheist". Once they have succeeded in understanding these terms they will grasp that none of them imply "faith" in anything, and that it is not possible to be a "fundamentalist" with respect to any of them.
Secularism is the view that church and state (religion and national government) should be kept separate.
Religious organisations should embrace secularism as their best chance of survival, because a secular dispensation keeps the public domain neutral with respect to all interest groups within it, including the different religions and their internally-competing denominations, allowing them all to survive - which they would not do if one became dominant and had the ear, or the levers, of government. As this shows, it is possible (and even wise) for religious people to be secularists too.
Humanism is the view that whatever your ethical system, it derives from your best understanding of human nature and the human condition in the real world. This means that it does not, in its thinking about the good and about our responsibilities to ourselves and one another, premise putative data from astrology, fairy tales, supernaturalistic beliefs, animism, polytheism, or any other inheritances from the ages of humankind's remote and more ignorant past.
"Atheism" is a word used by religious people to refer to those who do not share their belief in the existence of supernatural entities or agencies. Presumably .... believers in fairies would call those who do not share their views "a-fairyists", hence trying to keep the debate on fairy turf, as if it had some sensible content; as if there were something whose existence could be a subject of discussion worth the time.
People who do not believe in supernatural entities do not have a "faith" in "the non-existence of X" (where X is "fairies" or "goblins" or "gods"); what they have is a reliance on reason and observation, and a concomitant preparedness to accept the judgment of both on the principles and theories that premise their actions. The views they take about things are proportional to the evidence supporting them, and are always subject to change in the light of new or better evidence.
"Faith" - specifically and precisely: the commitment to a belief in the absence of evidence supporting that belief, or even (to the greater merit of the believer) in the very teeth of evidence contrary to that belief - is a far different thing, which is why the phrase "religious thinktank" has a certain comic quality to it: for faith at its quickly-reached limit is the negation of thought.
So despite the best efforts of religious folk to keep the discussion on their turf, those who do not share their outlook should repudiate the label "atheist" unless those who wish to use it are prepared to say "atheist and afairyist and agoblinist and aghostist" and so on at considerable length, to mark the rational rejection of belief in supernatural entities of any kind.
As Richard Dawkins has pointed out, since Christians and Muslims do not believe in Thor and Wotan, or Zeus and Ares and Hermes, or Shiva and Vishnu, or the Japanese Emperor, and so endlessly on, they too are "atheists" about almost all the gods ever imagined.
Without the commonplace and dispiriting facts of history which show how religious organisations are in truth political, military and economic ones that exist for the sake of their all-too-human beneficiaries, it would not be easy to see why, eg Christians believe in the volcano god of the Jews (the pillar of smoke by day, the burning bush on the mountain top), and why they choose the Jesus story out of all the many in which a god (Zeus and Jaweh are hardly alone in this) makes a mortal woman pregnant, who gives birth to a son, who engages in heroic endeavours, often involving suffering (think of Hercules and his labours), and therefore goes to heaven. For this tale is a commonplace of the old Middle Eastern religions, and it is arbitrary to pick this one rather than that one to kill and die for.
And on that subject: the sufferings attributed to Jesus, involving torture and an unpleasant death, all (so the putative records say) within less than 24 hours, are horrible enough to contemplate, but every day of the week millions of women suffer more and for longer in childbirth. Longer and worse suffering is also experienced by torture victims in the gaols of tyrannical regimes - and in the gaols of some democratic ones too, alas. Why then does Christianity's founding figure have a special claim in this regard? Flagellation followed by crucifixion was the form of Roman punishment particularly reserved for terrorists and insurgents in their Empire, and many thousands died that way: after the Spartacist revolt one of the approach roads to Rome was lined on both sides for miles with crucified rebels. Should we "worship" Spartacus? After all, he sought to liberate Rome's slaves, a high and noble cause, and put his life on the line to do it.
GK Chesterton, one of the Catholic faithful, sought to discomfort non-religious folk by saying "there are only two kinds of people; those who accept dogmas and know it, and those who accept dogmas and don't know it." He is wrong; there are three kinds of people: these two, and those who know a dogma when it barks, when it bites, and when it should be put down.
Even some on my own side of the argument here make the mistake of thinking that the dispute about supernaturalistic beliefs is whether they are true or false. Epistemology teaches us that the key point is about rationality. If a person gets wet every time he is in the rain without an umbrella, yet persists in hoping that the next time he is umbrella-less in the rain he will stay dry, then he is seriously irrational. To believe in the existence of (say) a benevolent and omnipotent deity in the face of childhood cancers and mass deaths in tsunamis and earthquakes, is exactly the same kind of serious irrationality.
The best one could think is that if there is a deity (itself an overwhelmingly irrational proposition for a million other reasons), it is not benevolent. That's a chilling thought; and as it happens, a quick look around the world and history would encourage the reply "the latter" if someone asked: "If there is a deity, does the evidence suggest that it is benevolent or malevolent?"
Some theologians - those master-wrigglers when skewered by logic - try to get out of the problem by saying that the deity is not omnipotent; this is what Keith Ward attempted when debating "God and the tsunami" in Prospect magazine. A non-omnipotent deity, eh? Well: if the theologians keep going with their denials of the traditional attributes of deity, they will eventually get to where common sense has already got the rest of us: to the simple rational realisation that the notions of deities, fairies and goblins belong in the same bin. Let us hope, in the interest of limiting religion-inspired conflict around the world, that they hurry up on their journey hither.
And then perhaps we can have a proper discussion about the ethical principles of mutual concern, imaginative sympathy and courageous tolerance on which the chances for individual and social flourishing rest. We need to meet one another as human individuals, person to person, in a public domain hospitable to us all, independently of the Babel of divisive labels people impose on others or adopt for themselves. Look at children in nursery school: a real effort has to be made to teach them, later on, how to put up barriers between themselves and their classmates on the basis of gender, ethnicity and their parents' choice of superstition. That is how our tragedy as a species is kept going: in the systematic perversion of our first innocence by falsehood and factionalism.
********
Some comments by readers:
Comment No. 290124
GBRThe term "fundamentalist atheist" is, as far as I can tell, usually used to denote someone who positively denies the existence of a god(s) and who seeks to convert others to their way of thinking.
The definition of atheist needs revising, in my humble opinion. I'm an atheist, yet I can't say that there absolutely is no god: that would be a faith position. I'm, in addition to being atheist, also an agnostic. But, logically, so are the two archbishops, so it's meaningless (not to mention absurd) for me to describe myself firstly and foremost as being an agnostic. (Which is the common refrain from religious persons, "actually, you're not an atheist, you're an agnostic.")
Comment No. 290127
GBRExcellent stuff.
I liked "Calling atheism a faith is like calling 'bald' a hair colour". Can't remember who came up with it though.
I like the concept of "fundamentalist atheism". When accused of this, I normally admit to it explaining that the god I don't believe in is a vengeful interventionist (probably a PNAC member) rather than a namby-pamby "benevolent spirit" sort of god.
Comment No. 290159
GBRPeople who do not believe in supernatural entities do not have a "faith" in "the non-existence of X" (where X is "fairies" or "goblins" or "gods"); what they have is a reliance on reason and observation.
That really is not true. What they have is reliance on OTHER PEOPLE's oberservation, which is a form of faith. For example, how many of those who accept the basis for evolution have studied fossil records for themselves and done some sums to find out of the timescales are realistic? Not many, I suspect. They assume that the books they have read are well edited and peer-reviewed, but that is a kind of faith. To find out even the simplest facts about our world, including whether the Earth goes round the sun, are extremely difficult. If science ever build a good model for the big bang, it will be extremely complicated, understandable to as many people now who understand quantum mechanics (let's say 1%, at a push). What does everyone else do? Take it on faith.Comment No. 290182
MYSWhen the religious talk about atheism being a faith, they are mixing up two different senses of the word, to score a rhetorical point.
In its religious sense, faith means a deliberate choice to believe in some proposition (such as the existence of God) despite a lack of evidence. It is defiant. It's used to silence doubt and to end arguments. "You just have to have faith, that's all."
In this sense, it's ridiculous to call atheism based on a rational scientific process "faith", since this choice to ignore evidence is explicitly outlawed by the scientific method.
In it's more normal sense, faith is a synonym for trust. Of course, we all have to trust things that people tell us of events outside our direct experience. We also have to trust our own perceptions and judgements. This is trust on the basis of evidence, and it's rational.
Every judgement involves this kind of trust, eventually. It's a tenet of quantum physics that we can never obtain comprehensive information on any phenomenon we might try to measure. At some point we have to stop gathering evidence, and reach a conclusion, based on what is reliable. In this sense, a rational scientific conclusion regarding the existence of God does involve faith, just like a conclusion that the Republicans lost the mid-term elections involves faith.
The first means deliberately ignoring evidence, while the second acknowledges the primacy of evidence. It's very disingenous to conflate the two meanings, but it's apparently a convincing argument for many people.
While the second type of faith does acknowledge that there can be no such thing as exhaustive evidence, this is really just a technical point about the nature of information, and in no way implies that we are free to *choose* which evidence to accept and which to ignore, based on emotional convictions. Probability is very real, and it matters.
Of course it shouldn't be necessary to assert that probability matters: the most religious person in the world makes use of it every time they cross the road. The selective ignoring of probability when it comes to arguments about religious matters just shows how dishonest this particular argument about the "faith of atheism" is.
Posters here have already started talking about the limits of science. This is an important topic, and shouldn't be dismissed out of hand. Not every aspect of human life reduces to the scientific assessment of the truth value of various beliefs and concepts.
However, the existence of God is inescapably a scientific question. If you want to say that there is no way to prove God's existence, but you still believe it nonetheless, then you have the *first* kind of faith. Your belief is not scientific but more like poetry or something, and you should not expect anyone to be rationally convinced by it, nor should you expect it to be taken as a basis for public policy.
It is perfectly possible to argue ethics in a non-relativist, scientific way, provided we take the time to convincingly explain some basis of morality in a rational moral calculus of happiness, or a related concept such as freedom.
Hope Ann Coulter is reading this page.
Comment No. 290216
GBRI believe a lot of things. But I try to avoid having faith in anything - by which I mean having beliefs that I'd be unwilling to change if the evidence pointed the other way.
When I say "I believe that...", some people tell me that because I say that I am taking up a faith position. But in fact I mean the reverse. I say "I believe that..." rather than "I know that" because I admit the possibility that I could be wrong - the complete opposite of faith.
Some of my beliefs are supported by much more evidence than others. Sometimes there's so little evidence that you have to go with the best guess. If I'm honest, there probably _are_ things that I have faith in - hey, I'm human. But I try to open up these areas of faith to rational argument based on the evidence - because I don't regard faith as a valuable attitude for someone who wants to understand the world.
The scientific method isn't flawless, but one of the things I like about it is that it doesn't claim to be... it requires constant cross-checking with the world and with your peers, and there are incentives for challenging the existing model which have resulted in several paradigm shifts.
On the other hand, the religious "method" includes strong disincentives for challenging the existing model, rarely if ever goes through paradigm shifts. Oh, and the main evidence is historical secondary sources many centuries old.
For these reasons I believe that the scientific method is more reliable than the religious method. This is not a faith position - I am willing to change it. But I have yet to see an alternative that is anything like as coherent.
Comment No. 290223
GBRThe point you seem to miss about science, andrewthomas100, is that it will happily put up its hand and say "we don't actually know" when it reaches a point beyond which we are as yet unable to travel. What it DOESN'T do is then go on to say "since we don't know, we'll stop trying to find out and we'll assume that some beardy guy up in the sky did it all but would rather we didn't probe his motivation or existence too closely..."
As history shows anyone who cares to look, we really don't know what might be possible next week, next year, next decade... imagine the equivalent of somebody inventing the telescope or microscope today...imagine the information about the universe which, though as yet unknown, might become known? Your problem is you're not interested in knowing - you've closed your mind to these possibilities (apparently we should "leave behind our rigid devotion to the scientific experimental method - it's been useful up to know, but it can be useful no more")
Good for you, and I hope you are happy, but don't criticize those who are interested in knowing more...
Comment No. 290232
GBRThank you for another great article AC Grayling. Keep up the good work in lighting up the darkness. I myself am agnostic (we annoy both aethists and the 'faithful' tee-hee), but leaning heavily towards aethist - I leave open the possibility that there could be a god, but I doubt it v.much indeed.
I can't remember which particularly bright ancient Greek came up with the following, and apologies for paraphrasing;
There is unimaginable suffering and pain on earth.
If there is a god, he would know about said suffering.
Said god neither can not nor will not do anything to alleviate the suffering, which leaves us with two possibilities:
1. If he can not stop the suffering he is not omnipotent, therefore not a god - or at the very least a very crap one.
2. If he will not stop it then he is a vengeful, spiteful, nasty god - in which case he can just f*** right off back to the metaphysical hole he crawled out from.
Oh, and if anyone says that he allows suffering because he moves in mysterious ways - then you get minus 10 points for fatuousness.
Comment No. 290257
GBRthe point can easily be missed here, and frequently is being.
andrew thomas presents a fairly abstract theory about us being a big brother experiement. Well, maybe, it is certainly impossible to disprove, but does that mean you believe it?
This piece is about the atheist belief, based on reason and evidence, that there is no good. No atheist can ever tell you that that is an absolute truth (though some will try admittedly), which is what AC Grayling is clearly saying. That is the fundamental difference between atheists and theists, and why there is no such thing as a 'fundamental atheist'.
Science can never explain all the answers, of course - i have never heard anyone claim it can, but it does inform and help us to rationally understand, instead of relying on fanciful stories.
I personally don't think it is right for an atheist to claim some kind of moral superiority (though i would check your facts before labelling stalin and hitler as atheists), and i know our local churches do a lot of great work for the vulnerable groups in our society.
But, this argument will never end because it consists of one person taking a position that says, look, rationally, and in all probabality there is no god and the other saying, ah yes, but we don't need proof and rationality because we have faith, and that is equal to reason.
The latter position seems absurd to me, but we shouldn't deny the right of people to have faith in something, as has been mentioned some of us need a narrative to explain things (in all walks of life, not just faith, some people need stories to understand, some people need facts).
Surely the important thing is how we use our relative positions and what our moralities are. the frustrating thing for me here is that people of faith are more likely (ie. not all people of faith), to take a bigoted, irrational, vengeful etc opinion and explain it with their religion, and hold that this is as valid as an argument on, say, the morality and efficacy of the death penalty.
Comment No. 290259
GBR"There is unimaginable suffering and pain on earth."
Related to this, there's a good dialogue, can't remember who by:
"I am in pain. There can be no God. God created so much pain in the world."
"But God created all the love in the world as well, do not forget that."
"But love is the reason I am in pain".
I like that. The point being people just seem to detract from a "God" when there is any pain, but give no credit when there is any joy. Doesn't seem fair, somehow! It's like you like a fabulous happy life until you're 40, then you get cancer and die. And people say: "There can't be a God, what a terrible thing to happen", but they've forgotten about the 40 fabulous years they had. Seems like a thankless attitude.
You've got to have "bad" and "evil". Without it there can be no "good" or "love". You need the two flip sides. You need to create that distinction. It's like you need positive and negative in electricity to create a current. It's impossible to define one if the other does not exist.
Comment No. 290262
MYSreaderj: "For these reasons I believe that the scientific method is more reliable than the religious method. This is not a faith position - I am willing to change it. But I have yet to see an alternative that is anything like as coherent."
You don't need to worry about this paradox of someone potentially using the scientific method to show that the scientific method doesn't work. It kind of seems like it leaves science open to a charge that it's unfalsifiable, which is a characteristic of pseudoscience. It's a mind bender.
This paradox shows that there are boundaries to science, but it can't reach within those boundaries to discredit science itself. The ultimate basis for its validity is found in the nature of consciousness, and statistical physics, but there's no room to go into that here.
But just try to imagine how life could be possible if there was no such thing as evidence or probability! Not only can one not imagine it, the thought-experiment itself can't be posed without using the things it's trying to question.
Comment No. 290265
GBR
Very good article, well argued. HAving said that, it is fascinating to see how many of the religious out there (in the ecumenical spirit, i will refrain from describing them as 'credulous arseholes') wilfully ignore and twist the arguments as they go along.
Chrish, you are a classic example! Grayling points out that it is a good thing that the cofE has been emasculated by temporal government, and you thank him for 'accepting the positive role that the CoE plays in our society'. He said nothing of the sort.
AndrewThomas: so because science cannot tell us everything immediately about the universe, we should just make up stuff to believe in? You believe what you like mate, if it makes you happy, but don't try and impose it on more honest people than yourself, and don't expect any respect for your beliefs.
catswhiskers: thought you'd gone off in hissy fit? For your information, I have not 'swapped a Buddha for a Grayling', although if i had it would be agood swap. No. I simply hold beliefs in proportion to the evidence. I do not believe in God. I do not believe in pixies. How many gods do you disbelieve in? On what grounds? The sound of high horses being saddled appears to be coming for your direction, if anywhere.
Consider this: if i told you your spouse was having an affair, what would your reaction be? I think everyone, religious or atheist, would demand to see an awful lot of evidence before believing me. Or if i told you that gravity had been switched off, and it was now safe to jump from the London Eye? Again, a certain amount of evidence would be demanded. The difference between religious folk and atheists, is that atheists are consistent in their demands for evidence, and religious people are not.
Let's test that theory. JohnR, gravity has been switched off. You may jump from the highest building in your town and not be hurt, in fact, it will be fun! Let us know how you get on, won't you?
diotavelli
Comment No. 290268
November 10 11:24
GBRCatswhiskers, "The sad truth behind it all is that atheists just swap Buddhas for Graylings",
Wrong. Plain wrong. Buddhists accept the teaching of Buddha because of who he is and his purported divine wisdom. Christians believe there is a place for them in heaven because Jesus is supposed to have confirmed that. Muslims fast at Ramadan because Mohammed instructed them to. Moses gave the law to the Jews and so they follow it.
The followers of religions do not follow the tenets of their religion because they're convinced that there's reliable evidence and sound reasoning to back-up the commandments. They do so because they have faith.
Non-believers do not accept arguments based upon the authority of the speaker/writer. Anyone making a claim that they hope to have accepted by rational thinkers needs to supply evidence to support their claim and then demonstrate the reasoning they have used to arrive at their conclusion. If they don't do that or if their evidence or reasoning are found wanting, then their claims are discredited immediately - no matter who they are.
Atheists don't 'believe' that god doesn't exist - they simply don't accept that there is evidence that he does.
It's not a question of lack of humility. Believers are humble before their gods - because they believe those gods exist. Non-believers are humble in the face of evidence and reason - not because they 'believe' in them but because they are the best tools we have to interpret the world around us.
andrewthomas100
Comment No. 290306
November 10 11:53
GBRdiotavelli: "Atheists don't 'believe' that god doesn't exist - they simply don't accept that there is evidence that he does."
Not true - atheism is a belief in the non-existence of god. Don't get it mixed-up with agnosticism. Atheism is a hard-core belief in the non-existence of God (despite the fact that science cannot disprove such a thing). As such, atheism could be considered "unscientific".
PoliticalUmpire
Comment No. 290309
November 10 11:54
GBRThe author is correct that whereas science is always prepared to adjust or abandon existing theories (beliefs, if you will) when presented with new arguments and evidence, the essence of religion is that it is not. Biblical or Koranic or whatever inerrancy is the foundation of their faith.
Of course, in practice various religious ideas are indeed modified, when the evidence is overwhelming (such as the earth orbiting the sun rather than vice versa), though it can take a while. Even those in the source material are quietly ignored if they conflict too strongly with modern morals (the bits about stoning people to death in the Bible (of which there are a lot), for example). But the fiction of Biblical inerrancy remains.
I don't object to people holding any beliefs so long as they don't impose them on others or use them to justify harm on others. And I acknowledge that much of modern morality was derived from Christian teaching. But here I have a problem with those continually trying to source morality in religion. Suppose we, at long last, do find the one, true religion. Suppose that it requires us to devour every third born children and says that all men are entitled to choose three wives under the age of 12, and so on. We would, I hope, disdain such a religion as a source of ethics. If you agree, then it follows that our ethical beliefs are not, contrary to so much of what religious adherents say, dependent on religious authority. If only we would abandon trying to find ethical standards in ancient texts and concentrate on debating them in a modern context, then perhaps we'd have a better chance of agreeing on universal standards of behaviour.
In any event, I don't know why religious sorts so fear a separation of church and state. America, for example, has a rigidly applied doctrine of church/state separation yet a far higher church attendance (at least in some states) than, say, the UK.
Two4Tea
Comment No. 290312
November 10 11:57
DavidOHilbert
There is more than one usage of the word "faith". These are not different "Kinds of faith" but the same word used to describe quite separate things.
My dictionary shows the following definitions
1. Trust
2. Belief without proof
3. Religion
3. Promise
4. Loyalty
The "kind of faith" involved in the scientific process is the first. I.E. If I wanted to I could spend the time and effort to reproduce any scientific result, reproducibility is a key scientific concept, I could. But I trust (have faith) that someone has already done this and there is no conspiracy to falsify results.
This is distinctly different from the usage of �faith� in the religious context - belief without proof.
Five pounds of potatoes is not the same as five pounds of potatoes.
�5 of potatoes is not the same as 5 lbs of potatoes