Religious Debate and Discussions
Atheism as an Argument from Ignorance
Posted by diabolicomix • 6/06/09 • Subscribe to this Discussion [RSS]
Topics: atheism, illogic, logic
An argument from ignorance is a fallacious line of reasoning, that goes like this: Something is currently unexplained or insufficiently understood or explained, so it is not (or must not be) true. Because there appears to be a lack of evidence for one hypothesis, another chosen hypothesis is therefore considered proven.
So it would seem that the hypothesis that nothing divine exists readily meets the criteria for this fallacy, insofar as there is a lack of evidence for both the theistic and atheistic hypothesis. An atheist might argue that there is lack of evidence of religious hypotheses, but to conclude from this lack of evidence that nothing divine exists is, in fact, an argument from ignorance and therefore a logical fallacy.
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Another form of the argument from ignorance goes like this: Something is not currently disproven, so it is (or must be) true.
[Because there appears to be a lack of evidence for one hypothesis, another chosen hypothesis is therefore considered proven.]
Or, in the realm of science, another hypothesis is considered, not necessarily accepted. This leads to problems until the evidence arrives, such as trivial speculative debates over how many different universes there are.-
Agreed, but that is unrelated to the essential fallacy of affirmative atheism, which is the reserve sort of argument from ignorance.
[This leads to problems until the evidence arrives, such as trivial speculative debates over how many different universes there are.]
Also agreed, however I'm not sure I would call that sort of speculative thinking science. It can certainly be useful though, in an intuitive way. -
In that regard, I somewhat agree. Most people reach the level of affirmation because they have given up on the evidence ever showing up. It's like people who don't believe in a fifth fundamental interaction just because there's no evidence for it. I don't believe in the fifth force, but I'm aware that we might just not have discovered one yet. However, most physicists would say, "There are four fundamental forces: Gravity, electromagnetism, the strong force, and the weak force," in an affirmative tone.
Are they ignorant of the possibility of a fifth force? You bet. Is this an ignorance deserving of the connotation of the word? Not quite. It's more of a pragmatic dismissal of unproven possibilities than ignorance, but that's just semantics.
[I'm not sure I would call that sort of speculative thinking science.]
In the sense that these ideas have completed their way through the scientific method? No, they're not. They're only in the beginning stages of the SciMeth, after all. -
Wouldn't the fifth fundamental interaction be a misnomer, since it would tie all the other forces together? Essentially, if the four forces are explicable in terms of fifth, isn't that fifth force the only force?
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www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/05/090508190416.htm
I don't know what fifth force theories you've been reading.
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Actually I know less than nothing about physics, and I couldn't tell you the difference between a field and a particle:) But I thought we were talking about something like the higgs boson. I will read that link soon...
But since I'm stepping out the door right now, let me now, my thoughts on this before reading that article (which looks fascinating), is that the the four forces are called such because you cannot describe one in terms of the other, ie you can't talk about gravity in terms of electromagnetism in a way that makes sense. but if you discover a fifth unifying force it would be such that you can talk about gravity in terms of the fifth force, and electromagnetism in term of the fifth force, etc. So the fifth force would really be the only force. -
A fifth force would not necessarily be a unifying force. It might be the repulsion created by virtual particles that counteracts gravity. It could very well be something completely different. If might not exist at all.
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An Interesting Paradox.
I just asked William Jackson professor of comparative religion at IUPUI, his thoughts on atheism. He had some pretty harsh criticism on authors like Dawkins and Hitchens. I thought this group might enjoy that post.
kevin-goodman.com/?p=586 -
There is a great deal to the universe that is seemingly miraculous or mystifying. just sayin' -
Schrodingers Cat:
Put a cat in a sealed container, with a flask of an aerosol poison in small quantity. The cat is either alive or dead and you have no way of knowing. Is the cat alive or dead?
Established Physics would say it is both.
Am I the first person to post a picture in the Religious Discussions Forum?-
That's not really how Schroedinger's cat paradox works. First of all, it isn't a question of whether or not the cat is dead, its supposed to be both at once, thus the "paradox" part.
Second, you left out the first and most important part of the thought experiment, you have to begin with a radioactive isotope that has a 50/50 chance of decaying, and the flask of poison is attached to a geiger counter that will break if the radiation from the decaying istope sets off the needle on the geiger counter, thus causing the cat to die.
Now, the third point you missed, is it's an analogy to what is happening on a sub -atomic level according to quantum theory. What's happening on a quantum level is the equivalent of the isotope being in a state of decayed and not decayed at once, thus the needle of the geiger counter is both up and down, and the poison is both released and contained and the cat is both dead and alive at once. You don't really need the cat to make the point, it just makes it more visceral.
Long and short of it is, it isn't actually what would happen to a cat in a box with poison. That cat will either live or die, not both, and likewise quantums manifest one state or another, not both. The paradox is that according to quantum theory both states are supposed to manifest at once. The interesting thing is that in real life, they don't! Quantum states are only one way or another when observed, not "both." This has given rise to interesting interpretations, essentially concluding that the act of observation has an effect on the state of the quantum, and has led to the Many-World view of quantum physics, that every possible quantum state is manifest in different universes. But there is no evidence for this. -
I understand that - in fact that's the crux of my argument. But to clarify, I'm saying that from the perspective OF SCIENCE, it must be treated as both, and even if the probability is not 50/50, you still have to weight in the random case if the argument is consistent and the random case is significant (though that is arbitrary and varies depending upon situation.)
So in other words, IN YOUR REASONING, God both does and doesn't exist. Obviously, God has to either exist or not. But if it is unprovable, and two probabilities exist, it must "be" both for the sake of reasoning. -
That's precisely wrong. "From the perspective OF SCIENCE" the cat in Schroedinger's thought experiment is, in reality, only one thing, alive or dead. The purpose of the thought experiment is to illustrate a paradox in quantum theory, i.e. the existence of two states superimposed on one another (and I must stress, this only applies at a quantum level, nobody is saying it could ever happen to a real cat, it is merely an analogy). Furthermore, this paradoxical outcome is predicted by quantum theory, but never observed in actuality. Two things cannot exist superimposed on one another in the experiential world, even when it comes to quantums, but on a sub-atomic (quantum) level the math indicates otherwise.
The probability of 50/50 is irrelevant, so I'm not really sure what sure what you are talking about there.
But all this really has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the OP.
On my reasoning I said nothing about God either existing or not existing, I don't make those kind of claims. You say "But if it is unprovable, and two probabilities exist, it must "be" both for the sake of reasoning." This is fallacious reasoning, you cannot draw the conclusion that if two possibilities exist that both must be true. This odd assertion of yours has nothing to do with Schroedinger's cat. If something is unprovable one way or the other that does not mean it is "both." The purpose of the Schroedinger's cat thought experiment is to play on precisely this intuition that something cannot be "both." It has nothing to do with verifiability. -
"This is fallacious reasoning, you cannot draw the conclusion that if two possibilities exist that both must be true"
This is what makes this paraBox so much fun. I'm not saying that both must be true. I'm saying that you have to graph both functions, like y^2 = x when you don't know the sign of the original y. Science's perspective is fundamentally flawed and Schrodingers Cat is an admission of that. I love it how some people like to pretend all truth is Science when in point of fact Science is whatever comes from the Scientific Method, true or not. The fact that the result usually is true but we can't prove it will always be true (and in fact can spout something like Schrodingers Cat) doesn't affect that, and neither do adding fancy vocab words for a simple topic. "50/50" is irrelevant, which is why I pointed out its irrelevance when you claimed it was relevant and told you the proper procedure. The paradox is that it can't be true but for the sake of further exploration we must hedge our imponderables.
"Atheism as an Argument from Ignorance" is entirely about proving or not proving God exists as Atheism is the belief that God does not exist and thus an acceptable hypothesis for said exploration. -
Schrodinger's Cat is a thought experiment. It's meant to demonstrate the counter-intuitive nature of low-energy physics.
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Unfortunately VK, any good methodology must be consistent. Regardless of what the original intention of Schrodingers Cat was, similar logic can be applied to the existence or nonexistence of God.
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Hugh Everett’s ‘many world’s’ interpretation of quantum mechanics does say that the cat is both dead and alive – but these contradictory states of existence take place in different worlds.
This is probably where Jeremy is coming from. -
@kg: Close. You have to construct many worlds, regardless of whether they exist or not, and keep them around until you know they are no longer needed as they do not exist. It's sort of how the sheriff, after a murder in a smalltown, has to tell everyone not to leave town until more evidence is collected, and once evidence is collected people are slowly written off the suspects list.
From many worlds, one.
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A paradox?? Wait i'm thinking about it :)))-
No, a paraBox!
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But most atheists don't claim "there is no god." They don't claim to "know" there is no god. One cannot prove something doesn't exist, it is not falsifiable. The atheist position is a position of disbelief. Particularly, disbelief in the theist claim that, "there is a god." Atheists justification for their disbelief is definitely influenced by the lack of evidence to support the theist claim. But atheists position isn't "there is no evidence of god, therefore there is no god." No, it is, "there is no evidence to support the theist claim that there is a god, therefore, they have no justification to believe the claim. They are left in disbelief.-
Strictly speaking, not knowing is agnosticism. Atheism is the actual belief that there is no God and all you have is all you see.
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No, atheism is not a belief. It is an absence of belief, particularly, an absence of belief in the theist claim that a god exist.
An atheist doesn't have to "know" there is no god. They simply need not believe the theist positive claim that there is a god. -
Let's look at the dictionary.
American Heritage Dictionary, 4th Edition:
a·the·ism (ā'thē-ĭz'əm)
n.
1. Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods.
2. The doctrine that there is no God or gods.
[French athéisme, from athée, atheist, from Greek atheos, godless : a-, without; see a-1 + theos, god; see dhēs- in Indo-European roots.]
From dictionary.com
EDIT: On second thought I guess you would fit definition (1). Still, that's an odd use of the word "atheism" and one that I would not normally utilize. I would consider that simple disbelief not really requiring any description. -
The definition you have shared supports what I have said.
"Disbelief in or denial of the existence of God or gods."
Disbelief: doubt about the truth of something
I doubt the truth of the theist claim that a god exist. -
Yes, you are correct that simple disbelief shouldn't really require any description. That is why atheism is a relatively empty and unnecessary term. It is not something that defines me. It is simply a label applied by theist to others that don't believe their claim that a god exist.
Yet, funny how we don't have terms for other things we don't believe. Like unicorns for example. We don't have a unique term for those that don't believe in unicorns. Yet we do for those that don't believe in the theist claim that a god exist. Curious. -
I think we're primarily talking about (2) though in this thread.
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Talking about atheists that claim (2) is equivalent to talking about theists that claim to "know" god exist. People that claim to "know" a god exist don't need faith, they "know." But how many theists claim to "know" a god exist while maintaining their intellectual integrity? Not many. These people are rare. Most theists will only go so far to say they "believe" and have faith, not that they "know." The is parallel to any possible atheists that claim to "know" a god doesn't exist rather then just not "believe" a god exist due to the low probability of it being true.
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I would say Saint Augustine kept his intellectual integrity, as did Saint Paul. It comes down to the idea of reasonable doubt. When you get right down to it, no one can ABSOLUTELY know anything. I don't even, for sure, know that morgantj exists, and wouldn't even if I met you, but from my life, experiences, reason, miracles I've seen, consistency of the world I've looked at, prayers answered et cetera (ask and ye shall receive), and the mere fact that this universe is here, an impossible feat for anything science knows about, I've come to the conclusion that God exists beyond reasonable doubt.
And yes, this is subjective. -
Well there you go. Your reasoning must apply the other way than too. Atheist that claim (2) can do so while maintaining their intellectual integrity because as you say, they come their conclusion, in this case, that God does not exists, beyond reasonable doubt.
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Sure. But the point is the equivalence. Any attack you make on Christianity for holding a reasonable doubt must also be made on Atheism (2) and Atheism (1) can be referred to as a kind of indecisiveness or inconclusiveness that warrants no practical use.
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I don't subscribe to Atheism (2) nor do I know any atheists that do. Most subscribe to atheism (1). It seems rather disingenuous to falsely characterize atheists and build an argument off of that false characterization.
Also, no "attack" is being made on Christianity. Unless you call questioning their beliefs an "attack." It seems reasonable to question theists claim that a god exist. And if all theists have is faith because they don't have any evidence, the response of disbelief to the theists claim is quite reasonable.
Atheism (1) can be referred to as a response to the theist claim, particularly a practical response of disbelief. -
We have evidence.
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If you have evidence, then what do you need "faith" for?
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Faith is good-will towards and trust in God, exactly like having faith in Morgan or faith in Jeremy; it has nothing to do with our "argument."
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So when somebody says they don't need to prove god exist and they don't need tp provide evidence, because they have faith, that is not part of their argument?
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@morgan: For starters, you have to define your level of proof. You have to be willing to take a level of reasonable doubt, and one can define that level at ANY point they wish.
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So faith IS part of their argument.
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No, reasonability, at least if they're being honest with themselves.
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