Intellectual Honesty


I love the above picture simply because it represent the most common misconception of atheism--namely that atheism is a philosophy in and of itself, such a misrepresentation amounts to little more than religious polemic against atheism and a thinly veiled straw-man. Which begs the question--who is more honest--atheists or believers?

In a conversation over at another blog, I had mentioned that Christian apologists bend the truth in their favor every chance they get. We can guess the reason for this is because they want to validate their "truth" claim about God's existence. Although, this only amounts to theological arguments designed to 'sound' convincing because their is no readily available evidence which could easily prove, in a second, what apologists try so desperately hard to. This is why it is call "Apologestics" after all.

Following my statements that apologists bend the truth, I offered that, in the religious discourse involving all forms of rhetoric, it would be an unfair double standard not to allow atheists to do the same. Granted, bending the truth here is in reference to making one's rhetoric persuasive, making the "truth claim" all the more believable, but ultimately has no impact on the truth of the matter.

A Christian friend offered that I was simply being unfair by implying Christians were dishonest, and reversed my questioning, offering:

"Atheist apologists bend the truth in their favor every chance they get. To expect Christians not to be allowed to do the same is a double standard."


Oh, I agree. I wasn't saying that atheists never lie. But I was making a distinction... atheists aren't the one's claiming God exists. We're not saying there is all this evidence which, to our dismay, nobody rightly sees... but ignore this small set back... God is real--just take it from us. That's exactly the opposite of what atheists are saying. So atheists aren't at fault--since it's not up to us to qualify the theist statement about God's existence.  

In fact, I think we could agree that Christians, being theists, make the truth claim "God exists" their core defense for faith. Because if God wasn't real, then faith would be unjustified. So a lot hinges on the claim. The question "Does God exist?" arises, however, due to a lack of convincing support. 

So the question remains unanswered. Nobody knows either way, for 100% certainty, if God exists. I mean, if somebody did know for sure that "God exists" then they would win the Nobel Prize for Theology for proving God's existence beyond a reason of a doubt. This has not occurred.

Basically my point amounted to this: when it comes to the truth claim that "God exists" atheists are being truthful in stating that such isn't so. It simply hasn't been proved.


Because the claim to know God exists is not yet proved, we know that, yes, it is an insincere statement whenever a Christian espouses God is real.


Atheists who say a deity is 100% non-existent may be jumping the gun too, since we can't know if some nebulous deity, some form of a god, exists or not... but we can cite how improbable and far-fetched it is. We would still be justified in not believing in it.


But let's not fall back onto citing that vague perception of a deity and then force it into the framework of our faith--if the deist concept of god turns out to be real then this is distinctly NOT the Christian God. 

What I think most atheists are saying is that your *specific God (e.g. the Christian God of the Bible) does not exist. I think this claim, that the Christian God is erroneous, has an abundance of support. And more importantly, is in no danger of being refuted.


So I see no problem with atheist integrity on this point. Whereas I find most Christians are putting all their faith in the hope that it's true--and then claiming ad hoc that because they feel it's true, it is. This is simply circular reasoning--and doesn't suffice when making blatant truth claims.


Either God exists or he doesn't. Since there is no tangible evidence, and anything which Christians tout as evidence is spurious at best, I think we can safely assume atheists aren't the ones who have to worry about the "truth" of the matter. Furthermore, you can't assume to be proved correct when you have absolutely no trustworthy evidence, no proof to speak of, and say it is the truth. This simply amounts to a falsehood and wishful thinking. A noted delusion.


When it comes to the question of God, the atheist has *nothing to lose.


I predict the Christian rebuttal might be, "Unless God turns out to be real... then atheists are in heaps of trouble!" But then that's assuming, A) that God is real (more useless conjecture at this point), and B) it presumes too much since you're claiming to know God's mind is made up about concerning all atheists--and that's dishonest to the core.


And I've already mentioned how the Bible can't be trusted... so to say the "Bible told me so..." is just begging the question.


Yet when the atheist points out that the Bible is faulty, that the Christians concept of God is flawed, and that Christians presume to know to much, and by sheer observation is doesn't seem like God exists... this is being honest with what reality depicts.

I'm not saying atheists never lie. Nor am I saying that Christians don't have an honest bone in their body. These are simply unfounded stereotypes. Besides this, I was once a Christian and my integrity, my desire to know the truth, lead me to atheism simply for the sheer fact that it was the only position which didn't leave me with any cognitive dissonance. Whereas Christian apologetics depends on one's ability to constantly suspend their disbelief. 

Honesty is vital if we're ever going to discover the unadulterated truth, and that's all I'm saying.

Comments

  1. Ive heard theist argue that lots of things that cant be seen with the naked eye,cant be seen, but yet still can exist.Like gravity and blackholes and suchlike.

    And i do understand that notion.Most/everything is thought not to exist at first,atleast until the first discovery of some evidence.Or the first thought of the idea/theory

    But to me the very telling difference is,everyone can still observe the positive! evidence of gravity,or blackholes,picture can be taken etc.Positive claims, tend to have (more and more evidence) that becomes collected/available, if fact is! its whats is most probable.

    For instance.If global warming is actually a honest fact that is honestly a real problem we should be worried about ,most likely! (more and more) postive evidence! that it is a real honest problem, will surely most likely! soon arrive over more time.

    That how things that honestly postively exist,tend to prove themselves correctly so.

    Yet evidence of God-/s seem to stagnate! stuck in the mere "idea" zone .A faith.A theory.

    Evidence doesnt gather any momemtum! ,as more and more positive evidentual proof keeps arriving.

    No with faith ,evidence most often seems stuck! more in the negative zone .Relying more and more on "faith" in the idea,More and more on faith in the original theory,as evidence is diminished more and more.

    When it is finally realized by modern man that most likely Gods dont actually "personally" create any killer earthquake ,or throw killer lightning bolts,like ancient folk once thought....Evidentual proof of God-/s is moving more into the negative zone, and as such is becoming diminished.

    Because we learn tectonic plates and atmospheric conditions cause these things.

    Thats what got most telling for me over time.The more i questioned about the indoctrination!,the more i realized nobody could ever provide me (any) real "positive" evidence, that would suffice to actually keep the theory looking like it was really most probably positive.

    The more i asked for evidence!,the more i was told how i actually needed to rely more on faith! first and try to simply "believe"!.

    If God-/s honestly existed.Why shouldnt we be?,most likely observing more and more evidence all the time.

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  2. I cannot believe I have never ran across your blog before now. I have so many people asking me why I am no longer a believer, and I often have a hard time putting how I feel into words. Thanks to your writings, I can now point people over here for a look-see. I only hope I can be right next to those people when they start reading.

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  3. One of my lecturers wrote that it's impossible to be 100 per cent certain that God doesn't exist. The only way you could be sure is to be present everywhere in the universe at once. The Judaeo Christian understanding is that God is the only omnipresent being in the universe, so in effect you'd need to be God to know that God does not exist.

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  4. Gandolf- Nice to hear from you, as always. A true pleasure to have you grace my humble blog.

    Amy- I'm glad you like it. I've worked hard trying to keep a critical and comprehensive outlook on the religious debate.

    Please feel free to "follow" me by clicking on the -follow- tab. Gaining subscribers helps my hits on Google so that my site can get more traffic.

    And feel free to send me any questions or comments any time!

    Ross- I agree with the logic behind the statement, since obviously Christians demand absolute answers.

    My problem is that absolutes are nearly impossible to achieve, and so to demand an absolute truth, or an definitive answer, on God's existence in the first place is an impractical claim.

    As mere primates its simply not feasible to answer the question as to the existence of a deity somewhere in the great beyond.

    But as I state in the article, we can cite how improbable it is.

    As for the Christian God, which is described as having specific characteristics and features to identify him with, I think there is enough evidence to suggest that such a being does not exist.

    Thanks for all your comments!

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  5. It's important to note, also, that the burden of proof lies on the believer, Ross. Even if I can't prove beyond the shadow of a doubt (100% certainty) that god does not exist, I don't have to. It is up to the believer to convince me that god does exist, not the other way round. We should all be atheists absent evidence of the divine, and no evidence has yet been presented.

    Gandolf,
    "Yet evidence of God-/s seem to stagnate! stuck in the mere "idea" zone .A faith.A theory."

    Not even close to a theory.

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