21% of self-described Atheists say they believe in God.
Also of interest in the survey are non-zero rates of nonbelievers among those who identify with specific religions, although that I find understandable because for many people religious affiliation is driven by factors other than theology — agreement with the moral message of the church, membership in a shared culture, or just identifying with the church you went to as a child even though you’ve come to doubt the faith.
{ 1 trackback }
{ 22 comments }
I think a lot of people are unfamiliar with the term "agnostic" so maybe the atheist label gets misapplied. Or, as in this case, they’re called atheists that believe in the possibility of a god.
Which, honestly, I find more intellectually honest than atheism.
I prefer Agnosticism to Atheism (although I am neither), but I’ve recently come around to the view that Atheism can be just as intellectually honest as Agnosticism, the same way it can be intellectually honest for a Christian to believe in the nonexistance of Zeus, Cthulhu, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
On brief reflection, my analogy doesn’t quite hold. A Christian takes the existence of the Trinity on faith, and it logically follows from that belief that Zeus et al must be figments of the imagination.
A better analogy would be an Agnostic who believe that YHWH very well might exist, but Zeus et al are almost definitely (beyond reasonable doubt) fictional.
"A better analogy would be an Agnostic who believe that YHWH very well might exist, but Zeus et al are almost definitely (beyond reasonable doubt) fictional."
Why is an agnostic that specifically and exceptionally leaves open the possibility of the Judeo-Christian god more "intellectually honest" than any other agnostic?
Also, "Zeus, Cthulhu, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster" is a gratuitous non sequitur. Cthulu was imagined by Lovecraft in the 1920′s, while the FSM was created in 2005 to lampoon intelligent design. Zeus, on the other hand, was actually believed in, and indeed represented a archetype that was prevalent in many (most?) polytheistic pantheons, and which remains recognizable in modern religions: male, often cruel to mankind, identified with the sky, etc.
Why is an agnostic that specifically and exceptionally leaves open the possibility of the Judeo-Christian god more "intellectually honest" than any other agnostic?
I didn’t say they were. I said they may be no less intellectually honest than an Agnostic who assigns equal likelyhood to the existence of YHWH and the existence of Zeus.
My list was not a non sequitor in so far as I consider the likelyhood of existence of each of those three to be vanishingly close to zero, and I think most people reading the comment thread would share that assessment. Yes, the Ancient Greeks did believe Zeus existed, but they also believed a great many things which are now widely considered discredited, such as the geocentric model of the solar system and the belief that a thrown object would travel in a straight line until it ran out of "impetus", and then would fall straight down.
To affirmatively believe that there is no God, is, in my mind, a fairly indefensible position.
You would have to read Aristotle and refute him.
You would have to read Aquinas and refute him.
You would have to read Maimonides and refute him.
You would have to read the teachings of Jesus and refute him.
It would be much better to simply say, I am not convinced there is a God, but I don’t really know one way or the other.
On the flip side (my side), it’s much better to say, Yes, I think there is something super-natural out there, bigger than just mindless matter, but I am not exactly sure what. I don’t understand the duties He imposes on us, what his scope of morality is, etc, etc, but I’m willing to learn.
Then, you’re in the game, without all the angst and argument. We’re all simply trying to figure the cosmic stuff out.
HB
"Yes, the Ancient Greeks did believe Zeus existed, but they also believed a great many things which are now widely considered discredited, such as the geocentric model of the solar system and the belief that a thrown object would travel in a straight line until it ran out of "impetus", and then would fall straight down."
Yes, the Ancient Christians did believe God existed, but they also believed a great many things which are now widely considered discredited, such as the geocentric model of the solar system and the belief that a thrown object would travel in a straight line until it ran out of "impetus", and then would fall straight down.
Great fun, but the point I was trying to make is that “Zeus” represented a concept that ancient people developed over generations of belief and increasingly critical thought. Eventually the polytheistic concept was discarded (sometimes voluntarily!), but that doesn’t make it irrelevant to consider the nature of “Zeus” (including his cultural analogues and prototypes) and what they might tell us about human nature, religion, and belief. To an agnostic in particular, such contemplation can be thought of as very intriguing, even useful.
Not to mention that if you are already at the point of saying you are unsure of the existence of god, to then hedge with “Well I’m unsure, but if there is one, it’s that one” doesn’t strikes me as necessarily more intellectually honest. One is no more able to prove or disprove Zeus than the Judeo-Christian God, or the Zoroastrian Gods, or the Mayan Gods etc.
Yes, the Ancient Communists did believe Historical Inevitability existed, but they also believed a great may things which are now widely considered discredited, such as Stalin’s ape-man breeding program and that killing millions of people would result in an improved society.
(This game is fun.)
Elisha Feger’s last blog post..Level 1
Maybe it’s sort of like those people who call themselves vegetarians but still eat meat sometimes, or people who deny they’re gay or bisexual but still sometimes voluntarily have sex with same-sex partners.
I’m right there with Hank ;)
I’m atheist, and I do consider it a defensible position; it’s no more or less defensible, I think, then, to borrow from a commenter upstream, belief in a holy trinity, a burning bush, a personal God, Wotan, Zeus, or Huitzilopochtli.
But as time has passed, I’ve grown less interested in defending my position or into tangling with theists over supernatural existence. Those sorts of discussions, I’ve found, are great for chest-thumping and windbaggery, but do little for the cause of civility or (quite frankly) intellectual pursuits.*
These days, I’m most interested in a society in which theists and atheists reach a reasonable accommodation that is unfair to neither group.Â
–|PW|–
* That said, the whole Kirk Cameron/evolution/banana punch/counterpunch is kind of funny.
I’m an atheist who wishes he could believe in God. What does that make me?
Am I certain a sort of God does not exist? No. But I am very nearly positive that "YHWH" is about as real as Santa Claus. Just like Zeus. There is so much contradictory myth ascribed to the Judeo-Christian God to make it almost nonsensical; like a poorly designed fantasy world.
That said, I wish I could believe. I desperately desire some proof of something paranormal beyond what we know. But that need, I imagine, is precisely what got humans to conjure up these stories in the first place. We’re cursed by the knowledge of death, and need to find some comfort in that.
Sadly simple.
Do I believe the religious are stupid? Absolutely not. They’re human. No better or worse than I.
the same way it can be intellectually honest for a Christian to believe in the nonexistance of Zeus, Cthulhu, and the Flying Spaghetti Monster.
I’m not sure that being Christian precludes belief in any of the latter. "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" is not a refutation, just a mandating of priorities.
Time to get strange…
I believe in the existence of Objective Reality and Aggregate Subjective Reality (the sum of all individual experiences/worldviews). There are differences between them (things we don’t know, things we "know" incorrectly). I believe that some of the differences are things we’d find very strange (inherently, otherwise we’d adjust our worldviews to match reality, see ref. Quantum Mechanics).
In the divergence between the two realities above, I see room for the existence of a multitude of Gods. Their existence within Objective Reality may not resemble their existence in Aggregate Subjective Reality. For example, one God could "perform miracles" in the latter, while in the former such things were actually "confirmation bias" and "placebo effect" or some variant thereof.
The "placebo effect" is particularly interesting to me. In Objective Reality, it is a very real effect. It produces scientifically measureable results. In this case, God fills the role of the placebo. To this extent, God can be said to exist and be quantified…
… as can Zeus, Cthulu, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, Gaia, the Invisible Pink Unicorn, Karl Marx or whatever. They all exist as spectres within our Aggregate Subjective Reality, with a real existence in the underlying Objective Reality.
Now, if anyone could translate that into English…
capital L,
I’ll admit that I was being flippant by listing Cthulhu and FSM in with Zeus, and I’ll concede that Zeus does have anthropological significance that Cthulhu and FSM lack.
The point that I was trying to make was that there’s a very large number of imaginable deities, and it is not indefensible to conclude that many of those imaginable deities do not exist. Nobody seriously believes Cthulhu or FSM exists, and while many people once believed in Zeus and Odin, hardly anyone believes in them now.
Not to mention that if you are already at the point of saying you are unsure of the existence of god, to then hedge with “Well I’m unsure, but if there is one, it’s that one†doesn’t strikes me as necessarily more intellectually honest. One is no more able to prove or disprove Zeus than the Judeo-Christian God, or the Zoroastrian Gods, or the Mayan Gods etc.
I didn’t say it was more intellectually honest. In fact, I said almost exactly what you went on to say — that concluding that Zeus doesn’t exist is no more intellectually dishonest than concluding that YHWH doesn’t exist. Look at the context of what I said — I was disagreeing with Kevin’s assertion that it is intellectually dishonest to conclude that no god exists.
I enjoy a good argument, but please make sure you actually disagree with me before arguing :)
Now for the not-so-smart people to comment.
As I understand the whole problem starts with the inablity of any language to be able to discribe god. Try as we might we fall short. As did the well intending ancients. If we can not discribe what is the central tenent of our argument/discription ect. then how can we discribe how we personally relate to it?
Now I am lazy. I was raised Catholic. Luck of the draw! So be it. Yet I find it easier to hold that Jesus was the product of a greater being ( see weak discription, bear with me ) as I would hate for him to have been "just" a man. For then all that he did. The suffering. The strenght of spirit could then be held up as not goals to attempt to accieve, but examples. Now we would be expected to be as noble. No more excuses. Do you see my point. This is one tough act to follow, but we are given an out. "He was the son of god". Like, you can cut me some slack now, kind of thing.
Yes , he was the son of man. So he had faults, how could you expect to do better. if your faith follows a different way, a non-christian belief, fear not. I belive that all religions are trying to reach the same goal. To discribe to us how to get life right. If you don’t belive in something beyond… if you are following and participating in this dialogue then you are proving what I am so failing, attempting to say. It is a human condition to seek to improve, to help our fellow man. All the golden rules.
 So. Celibrate what you find in common with beliefs other then your own. If you are strong in your faith ( which can be a delicate thing, be careful out there ) then celibrate the differences.Â
 A little doubt is humbling. Humble is good.Â
Maybe they are deists and don’t realize it?
Inv A. DeSoda’s last blog post..The Assassination Smear 2
"To affirmatively believe that there is no God, is, in my mind, a fairly indefensible position."
I agree. Which is why, I suppose, you would pretend to deal with that, and then imply that you’ve dealt with atheism.
Most atheists do not believe there is a God. Either actively or passively, they see no justification for this belief. This is perfectly intellectually honest, and rather a bother for most theists, which is why they pretend that it does not exist: that you must either believe in God, or affirmatively believe there is no God, or throw up your hands and say "who knows" (agnosticism)… all without acknowledging that being skeptical of God claims, while simply not believing, is a real and common option.
Strong agnosticism, I wold argue, is another indefensible position: it is the position of certainty that we cannot know something of which we do not know anything (which leads me to ask: how do you know that you cannot know it?)
Bad’s last blog post..NRO’s Mary Eberstadt Pouts in the General Direction of Atheism
Now that I’m awake..
The title of this discussion? Has someone been watching "The Princess Bride"?  Inconcievable!
Bad – what you said. Total agreement, I think.
How can one define their belief on what doesn’t exist. If the base of your belief doesn’t exist then where does your belief start. No, not there. For that would then be a base. It would exist, and you think it doesn’t. All nature abhors a vacume.
Are we reaching a point where we don’t care in what you believe. Except that you must believe. Is it possable to not believe in anything? I expect the answer "yes", would be as difficult to prove,as to acieve, as to define.
 I think. Therefor I am confused.
Hah! Great discussion.
My humble suggestion: Rather than funny remarks about Zeus or Flying Spaghetti Monsters, why not go and read Aristotle, Aquinas, Maimonides, C.S. Lewis, Chesterton et al.
Again, I ain’t tryin’ to proselytize — I’m a very flawed Catholic. But……..
If one wishes to believe in something, you gotta start with employing some intellectual sweat equity to flesh it out. Remember, life is short, those wondrous dorm room rap sessions fade quickly as you grow up and face a tough, sometimes cruel and indifferent world.
And, as General Yitzhak Rabin once said, as he developed deep depression during the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, fearing that he had made terrible errors of judgment — the higher you climb, the higher the wall.
HankB
but faith is something different than the certainty most people seek. and so this unified realm exploded in the seventeenth century, unleashing violently competing truth claims. a new framework, beyond all dispute, was sought — and declared found: reason, combined with empirical science. reality was now limited to that which was measurable and quantifiable. for awhile, this framework seemed to work: "objectivity" launched a revolution of discoveries and wonders.
to which the realists countered: "Get a life!"
and, as St. Augustine points out, "food in dreams is exactly like real food, yet what we eat in our dreams does not nourish: for we are dreaming."
or, to use another latin phrase, an Imago Dei: the idea of the incalculable worth of each individual is rooted in the Judeo-Christian concept of humankind created in the image of God — an image and worth retained despite that human dark side.
Imago Dei confers an intrinsic dignity to every human being, including those aged, infirm, socially useless, hopelessly ill, criminal, even those still in the womb. This is why in an ultimate sense, the free choice of humans is not to be transgressed, even by God, even if those humans reject the divine pattern. but also why rejecting Imago Dei releases monsters.
humankind has always been drawn to boundlessness: to celebrate infinite diversities and possibilities. yet man has an equal need for boundaries: frontiers — in the sense of borders, limits — something final. space without boundaries is mere nothingness, and nothingness swallows all possibilities of self. fear of the bottomless pit, the abyss, drives us to push until we find ultimate edges, absolutes, foundations: of ethics, of self, of reality. yet the human quest for such certainty is tragic tale, a story akin to answering a phony distress call and getting trapped in a classic no-win scenario.
for it is not our mortality that defines us, but our morality.
And in this need to define we touch upon the the real mission: the search among the cosmos for the answer to the question
"what does it mean to be human?"
h/t Mike Hertenstein
A truer definition of agnositc – one who says that they are certain it is impossible to answer the question.Â
Someone who isn’t sure what he thinks or believes, that person is better termed "undecided", not agnostic.
For Jesse_Hill – there is some evidence in your own perceptions, if you trust them. If you can’t concieve of a meaningful world without some concept of a Higher Power, and you trust your perception that the world is, indeed, meaningful, you have then begun a relationship with He Who Spoke And The World Came Into Being.
Two things: Zoroastrians do not have "Gods," they are monotheists. Some suggest that they were the first monotheists; in any case, their religion is about the same age as Judaism, despite having developed in a very different place and culture, and despite persecution and intolerance they continue to survive today as a people and a faith.
Also, the Christian doctrine of the Trinity–and you cannot get more Trinitarian than the Catholics, although the Lutherans, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, and the Orthodox would give them a run for their money–holds that Jesus is not a created being subordinate to God the Father. God is one being who exists simultaneously and eternally as three and only three persons: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Some anti-Trinitarians and/or what I think of as semi-Trinitarians (i.e. people whose understanding of the issue is so fuzzy they think they believe in the Trinity even though they don’t) will occasionally spout this or that out-of-context Bible verse which seems superficially to refute that, but that’s not how the vast majority of the world’s Christians have ever read those verses.
Just trying to eliminate confusion. :-)
A side diversion: I am often amused by people who say the doctrine of the Trinity–one God in three persons, which is intellectually mildly difficult and a bit of a mystery–nevertheless seem to have no difficulty believing we live in a universe in which individual units of light can be both a particle and a wave simultaneously (and not waves of particles or particles shaped like waves), and in which individual light particles and other particles may travel along two completely independent paths simultaneously, and in which the laws of thermodynamics state that matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed and yet particles of matter and anti-matter are being constantly created and destroyed anyway, which coincidentally also causes black holes (from with nothing can ever escape) to emit a constant stream of Hawking radiation and eventually dissipate. Oh yeah, but the Trinity’s obviously silly. ;-)
Comments on this entry are closed.