By Will GreenA lot of atheists make a distinction between 'strong' and 'weak' atheism. 'Strong' atheism is where you claim there is no God. 'Weak' atheism is where there is no evidence for or against a God's existence, so the 'default position' is you go about life without any belief in God, with the help of
Occam's razor (note that specific ideas of God may have lots of evidence against them, but the general idea of a God is neutral).
Atheist thinkers have given us a number of analogies to support weak atheism. A famous one is that we all assume there is no teapot flying around the Sun because there is no evidence for any such teapot. Not thinking there is a teapot flying around the Sun is the default position. Some argue it's the same with God.
But I don't think this analogy is appropriate because the claim, 'There is a teapot flying around the Sun', is not a 'no evidence for, no evidence against' 'default-position' issue. In addition to no evidence in favour of a teapot, there is a lot of evidence against it.
One piece of evidence against the teapot claim is that there seems to be no way for a teapot to get out into space unless some astronaut has put it there. But it seems unlikely that an astronaut has ever thrown a teapot into space which has found a stable orbit around the sun.
This means the teapot analogy is not really a good analogy to express weak atheism, because it doesn't express well the situation of something having no evidence for or against it. The teapot analogy is a situation where there is overwhelming evidence against something (the teapot's existence). But God's existence, in weak atheism, is a claim where there is no evidence for or against, and then Occam's razor gives you a bit of evidence against and that's it (although specific ideas of God may have more problems).
So the 'teapot' analogy only works if the idea of God has a lot of evidence against it and no evidence for it.
But if the idea of God's existence receives little evidence either way, then an analogy which is supposed to show what belief in God is like needs to be the same.
But it's actually quite hard to find such analogies, because most claims with no evidence for them also have evidence against them. Such as the fairies at the bottom of the well analogy (how could fairies come to exist except by divine intervention?) and the flying spaghetti monster analogy.
I think an appropriate one would be that believing in God if there's no evidence either way is like someone believing that there exists a place in Melbourne where an standard sized cappuccino cup of coffee costs $6. On the one hand, that is extremely expensive for an ordinary cup of coffee, but, on the other hand, Melbourne is a large city and maybe there's a place somewhere that charges that much. So perhaps this is an example of a claim with no real evidence for or against it.
Do I believe that such a place doesn't exist? Well, I don't really know. I wouldn't say that I believe no such place exists, because the truth is I just don't know. I wouldn't tell anyone that no such place exists in Melbourne because I don't have enough information either way to judge. I must be very agnostic about whether that place exists.
Another example would be someone believing there is an ocean-going cruise ship currently docked in Melbourne's harbour right now without having consulted any information. According to the
Port of Melbourne website it is a common occurrence but there are more days without an ocean going cruise ship docked than with one (although the website can actually answer my question, but let's imagine it can't). But if someone forced me to give an opinion, although I would say there probably isn't one docked, my confidence about it would be very low.
I think this shows that if we are really careful to use an analogy where there is little evidence for or against the existence of something, then we are pushed towards a very agnostic view. Our confidence will not be great.
Also, we can see that many analogies used to support weak atheism often involve a fair amount of evidence against and not just a lack of evidence for, and that these analogies indicate a less agnostic, more confident position than more evidence neutral analogies would.
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Comments (10)
The big difference between theists and atheists is what each considers to be evidence or non evidence for God's existence. The main example is usually the complexities in life. Theists believe that is evidence for God, and atheists believe it's a result of natural selection, and not God. The bottom line is that neither side can prove whether God exists or doesn't.
“'Weak' atheism …'default position' is … the general idea of a God is neutral”.
In what way is your definition of “weak atheism” any different from agnosticism, which is that the existence of God is unknown and probable unknowable.?
“One piece of evidence against the teapot claim is that there seems to be no way for a teapot to get out into space unless some astronaut has put it there. But it seems unlikely that an astronaut has ever thrown a teapot into space which has found a stable orbit around the sun.”
That there “seems to be” or that something is “unlikely” is not evidence either way for an occurrence.
Indeed, the terms used allow possibilities, especially as you say “unless” it was put there. A cosmonaut could have taken a teapot on a trip and ejected it from the craft and it settled into a stable orbit.
Therefore, their may be a teapot merrily orbiting in space. There may be a God or gods in existence, on the same level as there maybe an orbiting teapot.
Fairies could have evolved down the well.
Are you asserting the agnostic position regarding God or gods via the expensive Melbourne coffee shop?
Maybe I missed something, but it seems that your post is merely arguing for the agnostic position versus the weak atheistic position. Is that it or are you saying something else as well?
You're failing to grasp the point of the teapot analogy and instead are splitting hairs of the example itself. It is a demonstration of how unfalsifiable claims are utterly useless for arguing a position, and if your strongest case for your position is the lack of contrary evidence against it, then you have no case at all.
Carl Sagan explained this very well with his Pink Dragon in my Garage narrative. If you cover up all of your tracks in order to make your argument unfalsifiable, your unfalsifiable God is utterly indeterminable from a non-existent one.
Furthermore, you can't disprove the celestial teapot, beyond the notion of being unable to conceive of how it got there. That isn't disproof, just an argument from incredulity fallacy. You can't disprove it. Yet I don't think it's reasonable to demand everyone be agnostic about the matter. It's safe to say that we can be ateapotists in confidence.
Claims without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.
@Lovegrove@xanga - @When_We_Were_Both_Cats@xanga - I think the main point is that something is quite different between the two statements, e.g. 'There is an invisible fire breathing dragon in my garage' and 'There is a coffee shop in Melbourne where an ordinary sized cup of coffee is $6.' What is the difference? It may not be the evidence for the position, because I didn't see any evidence that an ordinary cup of coffee in Melbourne can reach $6 (and actually read an article saying the most expensive is $5.50) and I can't see any evidence of an invisible fire breathing dragon in my garage. And yet I can come really close to accepting the coffee one but I simply won't accept the garage-dragon one. But why? They both have no evidence for them and are both cut by Occam's razor.
@willgreen -"They both have no evidence for them and are both cut by Occam's razor."
And the same with God. That's the point.
@willgreen - The dragon in the garage analogy matches the god in the heavens analogy and both differ from the expensive coffee shop in Melbourne analogy; because the two former have no evidential substance, ignoring the fact that your garage may exist, while one can indeed get a coffee in a Melbourne coffee shop. The two former can be said to be fantastic while the latter at least reflects reality.
I'm going to have agree with @Lovegrove@xanga - on the idea of weak atheism being agnostic. And I'm going to blame Richard Dawkins for the confusion. In his book "The God Delusion" he ranked himself a 6.99 on a scale of 1 (100% belief there is a god) to 7 (100% certain there is no god). Most logical, reasonable atheists would put themselves at the same point as Dawkins because we will admit that it is possible for a god to exist, but *extremely* improbable that a god does exist and live our lives accordingly.
As to the analogy, it doesn't work. We can quite easily prove that Australia, Melbourne, coffee shops and coffee exist. We have evidence of that and if we foolishly choose to believe it does not exist we can just get on a plane and see the evidence for ourselves. As for finding a $6 cup of coffee there, well you could spend a few days scouring all the coffee shops in Melbourne and get an answer one way or the other.
We cannot get on a plane and go to "heaven" or wherever god is supposed to reside and find god. All we have for "evidence" of god is a bunch of books written by men, that contradict each other as well themselves, and personal testimonials - none of which is actually evidence to the existence of a god.
@Melissa___Dawn@xanga - Would you say that the Deist, or non-specific idea of God or a creator has no evidence for it and is very fantastical? Or are you applying that to specific conceptions of God with e.g. holy books like the Bible, Quran, Bhagavad Gita, etc?
Yes. I think the position is slightly more reasonable because they reject the idea of a god intervening in human affairs and don't believe in supernatural miracles, etc. but as far as evidence supplied it amounts to the same as theists, none.
@Melissa___Dawn@xanga - I guess part of the disagreement relates to two assumptions, the first being that there's a huge variety of things with no evidence for them, and that the difference in believability between one claim and another relates not to the lack of evidence for them but to the various levels of evidence against them (in addition to no evidence for). And the second assumption is that the Deist or generalist conception of a creator or God is fairly neutral. I guess my background in religious philosophy would make me tend to rate that more highly as being at least on the more plausible end of the 'no evidence for' scale (but actually I would say there is the usual bevy of evidence for it).