Hello Tarski,
First let me say I quite enjoy reading your posts, I have my favorites from each side of things and I am drawn to your respectful and insightful posts for sure as one of my favorites.
Second, let me repeat my position on atheism as already stated previously in this thread, i.e. Atheism is reasonable. It is intellectually challenging and thrilling - it is hardly boring and hardly lacking in existential candor and depth. Atheism is possible, there does not exist a rational irrefutable argument against the possibility of atheism. I am well read in current atheistic literature as well as historical. I try to present and engage atheism with its best and most sophisticated arguments. This is not one of them. You say,
If you were asked if you believe in BigFoot enough times and told you were uninformed by believers because you weren't versed in their lore, you might think about it a while and have some evidence and reason based answers ready when BigFoot nuts pester you next time. But would you be "actively" disbelieving in Bigfoot in this sense? Would you be bothered by the fact that you can't really "prove" there is no BigFoot?
When discussing doxastic positions or our belief forming faculties, particularly in views that include (not exhaustive of) sociological reasons, moral reasons, psychological reasons, historical judgment reasons, desire reasons, attitudinal reasons, some empirical observations and views that require judgment and/or discernment the word 'prove' is misplaced, deeply so. So, no I wouldn't be bothered in your analogy which is a strictly empirical question (unless one believes the famous tapes to be a hoax and uses their judgment otherwise). I don't accept your analogy as anything more than trivially interesting and reductive to a merely already agreed upon by all parties logical fact.
The fact is that even atheists usually just say that there is no sufficient rational basis for belief. They don't say that they know in any absolute sense.
That isn't the issue.
I don't know in any absolute sense but rest assured I am a believer and when you engage me you can have confidence I will not attempt to fail to realize a burden that is doxastically presented to me with that belief. I simply respectfully request atheists that are engaging the question and to who I already offer my respect for their position do me the same service.
You and I will probably agree quite readily (it is quite possibly the only point your attempting to make to me, I don't know) that there is an important logical difference between believing that there is no God and not believing that there is a God. There’s a difference between - I do not believe (G) and I believe (not-G). If you are confused on whether I "get" that logical difference please have confidence I do.
With that said, I am not aware of any epistemological view that does not ask for justification (whether foundational or coherentist) for assertions. “There is no God”, particularly when placed in its concrete doxastic position (in our heads in this present time and society with all of its concrete implications and issues) is just as much a claim to knowledge (whether understood as proof, probability or subjective opinion) as is the assertion that “There is a God.” Therefore, the former assertion requires justification just as the latter does. The grand tradition of Atheism (that I am interested in engaging) involves more than reductionist and merely trivial logical differences of merely states of mind, namely it involves not merely only not believing that there is a God rather than believing that there is no God. My dog is an atheist if all we concern ourselves with is the G not G distinction in the abstract, as Buffalo proudly proclaims earlier in the thread, babies are atheists. To which I can only reply I am not interested and gain no intellectual satisfaction or fulfillment from engaging animals and babies on what I consider important existential, metaphysical, psychological etc.. point of view.
There’s a clear history behind this as well. Anthony Flew and other contemporary (to him) atheists began promoting the “presumption of atheism.” This is the claim that in the absence of evidence for the existence of God, we should presume that God does not exist. It attempted to argue that Atheism is a default position giving the theist not only a proper burden of proof but a special one, like bigfoot, fairies and unicorns (we all see the historical manifestations of that today in dialogue). This line of thought had to confuse the logical order of existence with conception as well. But this was admittedly "non-standard", non-historical and unusual. The atheist (at that time) Anthony Flew admitted as such:
the word ‘atheist’ has in the present context to be construed in an unusual way. Nowadays it is normally taken to mean someone who explicitly denies the existence . . . of God . . . But here it has to be understood not positively but negatively, with the originally Greek prefix ‘a-’ being read in this same way in ‘atheist’ as it customarily is in . . . words as ‘amoral’ . . . . In this interpretation an atheist becomes not someone who positively asserts the non-existence of God, but someone who is simply not a theist. (A Companion to Philosophy of Religion, ed. Philip Quinn and Charles Taliaferro [Oxford: Blackwell, 1997], s.v. “The Presumption of Atheism,” by Antony Flew)
Under this definition atheism isn't a view. It is merely a psychological state which is shared by people who hold no view at all (babies and animals).
For myself, and for the grand history of atheism that I have read for many years; I appreciate acknowledging that the real interest is to know either that God exists or that he does not exist. This is why I reject your analogy, I would simply say good day sir! to the believer in bigfoot and not think another precious idea on the matter for the rest of my day. I
prefer to do the same with those that proclaim "I am without belief in God" but they most often seem to have so much more to say. So, when I form an opinion that those "atheists" are not actually without belief, but rather that they are clearly of the opinion that there is no God, an opinion I can only assume and warrant for me has been warranted for them by various other beliefs such as the problem of evil, or the problem of hiddenness or whatever else they boldly argue, then I don't think I would be offending that rational person with those views by forming a proper belief that
they believe there is no God. In fact I find it quite easy to not pester or offend those benign individuals (that I rarely actually meet) that simply are "without belief" altogether.
I don't accuse you or Buffalo of playing a game, but the "without belief" slogan has become a badge of honor to realize the trivial difference for most atheists in dialgoue, and to zinger a believer with its revelatory powers and insight. But, historically it is pretty readily seen as an attempt to avoid shouldering a further burden of proof that was being defined post verificationism. It is no accident this occurred after the "meaningless" debate that also had no burden was debunked. It is nearly empirically seen in the philosophical journals.
If someone insists that their psychological condition is one of non-belief in the pure sense, then we really don't have anything to discuss. I am interested in discussion with parties that actually have a view and own it particularly on this grand of a question. Because is there a God or is there not a God truly fascinates me, I really seek the answer to that question without apology and take that question seriously. I also respect atheism enough to say a "lack of belief" insistence is unnecessary, an intellectually satisfied atheist doesn't need it or should not bother themselves about it.
my regards, mikwut
All communication relies, to a noticeable extent on evoking knowledge that we cannot tell, all our knowledge of mental processes, like feelings or conscious intellectual activities, is based on a knowledge which we cannot tell.
-Michael Polanyi
"Why are you afraid, have you still no faith?" Mark 4:40