The
essential difference between atheism and a strong theism such as Christianity is
that one makes specific, positive claims about the material universe that
are untestable and for which there is no good evidence, and the other does not.
It's quite true that a hypothetical atheist who was absolutely certain that
"there's nothing out there" would be holding an indefensible position; but in
practice, virtually no atheist--not even Dawkins or PZ Myers--feels that way. As
a nonbeliever, I don't ever "feel a twinge of doubt" that I might be wrong;
I'm pretty sure that I'm wrong, about many things.
And like you,
I doubt that what is "right" on this subject is intellectually
comprehensible by the human mind. The difference is that, given these
limitations and the absence of evidence, I am unwilling to hold a positive,
specific belief on poor evidence. Remember: atheism as it is normally found
in the real world says, "There is no evidence to support (for example)
the Christian God, so until such evidence is presented, I maintain no
belief in such a god and live under the assumption that he is not
there." The doubt that Douthat is talking about is not only built into
atheism, it essentially is atheism.
Douthat doesn't seem to get this, so he leaps
from his fictitious 100%-certain atheist to a false comparison between the
Christian God and the FSM. Of course the two are not "equally ridiculous
hypotheses." That's the whole point. The Flying Spaghetti Monster is a
deliberately ridiculous idea; so was Bertrand Russell's teapot. The point of
these examples is that, however ridiculous they are, they are just as
non-disprovable as the Christian God. The idea is to put the burden of proof on
the one making a specific, positive claim. "The universe is
mysterious, and you can't disprove X completely, so you can't argue if I
say that X is true" is a bad, content-free argument. Substituting the FSM
for X instead of God or Jesus is just a way of making this point.
Another reader adds:
Having now read Ross'
post, he makes several good points. I think most atheists I know would
admit to having had doubts at some time. My dad always said, "If everyone else is telling you you're drunk, you should at least consider sitting down."
But he
sidestepped the central point of Russell’s Teapot, which is that there
is exactly as much empirical evidence for the existence of God as there
is for the Teapot or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. Now certainly
there’s more to the world than just empirical evidence. But even if one
accepts that religious beliefs developed out of (forgive the pun) good
faith rather than malice, that still says more about the human need to
believe than it does about the actual existence of god. The fact that lots of people believe a thing doesn’t make it any more likely to be true.
And again, the closing quote that "the
atheist who perceives the Christian God and the flying spaghetti
monster as equally ridiculous hypotheses really needs to get out more
often" also completely misses the point. The Flying Spaghetti
Monster is INTENDED to be ridiculous - aggressively absurd, even.
That's the whole idea. The more interesting question, to me, is why
people who find the Hindu or Buddhist or even Islamic version of God to
be so ridiculous and improbable view the Christian version as not only
True, but self-evidently so. Mark Twain put it best: “The easy confidence with which I know another man’s religion is folly teaches me to suspect that my own is also.”
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