Thoughts on Atheism and Faith

I can speak, you know. I just choose not to.
-- The Rabbit

I have often heard the claim that someone who is atheist or anti-theist is essentially committing the same error as a religionist, akin to the recent assertion of a good friend of mine, from a quasi-religious viewpoint of his own informed by a sort of postmodern skepticism, that atheism is "just another kind of faith" -- the belief in something that cannot be proved.

At first, he had me at a loss to explain the difference. After all, one can't prove a negative, and therefore to believe there is no God (or god, or god-figure, or Shiva, or Athena, or Pan, or what-have-you) is to believe in a proposition that cannot be proved. But surely one cannot consign the principled skepticism of atheism to the dustbin of presumptuous faith-based belief, can we? (And, I might add, to the solipsistic skepticism of postmodern thought.)

I thought about it for the next few days, and I came to what I believe is the answer, or, more accurately, a decent answer that gets at the root of the issue.

I believe that the key to the riddle is patterns.

The nature of all learning comes from the fact that we perceive patterns in life. Everything we "know" is based on patterns taken either from the assertions of others (hearsay) or our own observation. For example, we don't know exactly what causes gravitation, but we all can see that gravity exists as a pattern of matter being attracted to the earth, and, in space, to other matter based upon relative mass. From our observation of the physical effects of it, we can believe that it, and similar phenomena, are at least reasonable and believable suppositions. Indeed, we would be hard-pressed, indeed backed into the corner of irrational fantasy, to attempt to disbelieve it.

But that's too dull. Let's take a more, well, exciting example. It is perhaps obvious, but I shall name it anyway: talking rabbits.

You see, I not only do not believe in rabbits that can speak Swahili, or any of various pre-revolutionary French dialects, but I affirmatively believe that they do not exist. That is something of a leap. How can I be sure? How can I be so arrogant?

The problem is that we are not at liberty to responsibly believe everything. Everything we accept as real must somehow suggest itself in some sort of pattern. No evidence exists, nor has any ever been recorded or even alluded to, that rabbits have spoken. Indeed, none exists of any non-human animal ever having picked up on a human language. There just is simply no recorded pattern whatever in existence of non-human animals speaking human language, despite the fact that people have been rather inclined to induce and record such things.

On the other hand, there are plainly measurable and consistent patterned reasons why they cannot -- lack of sufficient brain development and lack of vocal apparatus being chief among these. Indeed, researchers have spent years trying to teach the most intellectually-capable species of monkeys and dolphins language, without success. Even where basic concepts are taught (e.g., "hungry," "food," and "come here"), complex ideational linguistic development is well beyond their reach. (Although, from what I understand, dolphins have come closest, and are just simply amazing creatures who have their own rather complex form of aural communication that allows them to coordinate complex aerobatic maneuvers and to cooperatively herd large schools of fish with great precision and timing. But, even if they do have the intellectual capability to understand language in some form, one won't say, 'allo there!, to you. They are just not physically capable.)

Thus, there does not exist a pattern of any non-human animal speaking human language, other than rote-memorized repetitions of small phrases without true comprehension (parrots) or sub-linguistic communications (dolphins, monkeys).

But, you say, my child just told me that Dog spoke to him, as a man speaks to a man! And, indeed, there have been numerous animated films starring talking rabbits. Here is evidence!

Okay. Let's rephrase this. No evidence from reliable witnesses that ought to be taken as evidence of the occurrence of real phenomena. The human imagination is amazing, and can mix existing, real patterns into new imagined patterns that have no counterpart in what we call reality. Thus, this very second, I am envisioning rabbits with a species-specific form of gravity that makes any two rabbits coming within 20 feet of each other slide toward each other and stick together like two little fuzzy magnets. I'll call it, say, Rabbitation.

And note that, in my mind, those rabbits are chatting quite amiably with each other over tea as it happens.

As I noted, however, human imaginings are noteworthy in this ability to synthesize new, impossible patterns from perceived existing patterns. I might be able to submit my Theory of Rabbitation to the nearest university physics department, but your average first-year student will see right through it, and indeed might find my submission of the theory to constitute evidence of propositions quite different from those I've asserted. For example, my lack of sanity, or at least my lack of sincerity.

So, to rein this back in, human imaginings are not valid evidence constituting "patterns" upon which belief ought to be formed. When we speak of "reality," we speak of observable patterns beyond the realms of our own fancy. I understand that post-Modernist modes of thought currently fashionable posit no distinction between the inner and outer world, between perception and reality, but I disagree rather strongly, and think they've disappeared down the rabbit-hole of solipsistic contemplation. (To be fair, not all are so bold, but there are some that boldly follow themselves to that logical conclusion.) I invite any of them who imagine no distinction between physical reality and perspective to abandon food and just imagine they do not need it anymore.

Of course, is it truly physically impossible for a French-speaking, tea-drinking rabbit to be born tomorrow somewhere in Marseilles? No, not strictly so. There could be a series of simultaneous, viable mutations that spontaneously do what millions of years of evolution took with the hominids, producing a rabbit with human-approximate intelligence, motivations and vocal characteristics, that happens to be born in the right place and time to be noticed for what it is and appropriately educated in the French countryside. However, given that the probability of even two or three minor simultaneous mutations to be both viable and improvement-bearing is almost impossibly remote, and given the overwhelming likeliness that any given mutation will be nonviable, we can handily classify this rabbiteering possibility as "impossible" in the same way that we may so conclude with Douglas Adams's postulate that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the collected works of Shakespeare.

Thus, coming back to the god conundrum, how do I "know" that there is no god?

Well, it's not strictly, technically impossible that some sort of metaphysical uber-being approximate to the forms envisioned by the self-ordained prophets of the world could in reality exist somewhere, somehow. But we might assign it the same probability as our simian Hamlet. Tielhard de Chardin be damned.

The idea of deity as envisioned by the creators of human religions throughout the preceding millenia matches no existing observable patterns. It's not just that we can't see these guys; it's that there is no fact, no evidence, no phenomenon, nothing, that even suggests that such patterns exist. Indeed, most such superstition has had its starting points in wonder, ignorance and fear; why did a big mountain explode out of the earth and pour fire on the neighboring village? They must have pissed off someone.

On the other hand, there is overwhelming evidence to support the conclusion that, for every religious utterance; for every assertion of divinity or communication with divinity; for every sighting of a ghost, a god, a demon, or the sudden collision of two teacups shattering and spilling their contents as the rabbits holding them were violently thrust together by an unknown force; for every assertion of human superstitious imaginings, there is a far more simple, consistent and reasonable explanation, producing far less inconsistency. Or, in other words, we can cut them all with Occam's Razor.

Of course, enumerating these is beyond the scope of my argument here, but I imagine anyone who would care to read this probably needs little enlargement upon this proposition.

But what is more damning to assertions of the existence of deity is a third factor: the countless examples supporting a pattern of the invention of deities, demons and other metaphysical bugaboos for reasons psychological and sociological. Indeed, there is a rather strong and consistent pattern of certain groups of humans, who we'll collectively call "the priests," using religion as a tool to control those beneath them and to "consume the grass belonging to their flock," to roughly quote the recorded statement of a victim of the Catholic Inquisition. We have much evidence of patterns of self-serving motivations and creative ignorance behind the creation of many of these people's gods, of which Mormonism is but one excellent case study. In law, we call it conflict of interest.

To render it in terms familiar to the Western courtroom, we have ample evidence of these declarants being unreliable, self-interested witnesses whose answer to questioning is hostility, derision and condemnation, rather than honest answers. Would you believe a witness whose only answer was to damn opposing counsel to eternal flames, or to the depths of Hades, or to "outer darkness"?

To conclude: given the utter absence of supporting evidence for, or patterns suggestive of, the possibility of deity (outside the rather anything-goes realm of human imaginings), combined with the utter banality of self-serving or ignorant-superstition-induced creation of spiritual or deific beings, we can safely conclude that these assertions of gods and demons are indeed the self-serving imaginings that what evidence does exist shows them to be. Kinda like our fuzzy pink talking rabbits, and like any of the sundry tribal gods and demons our modern religionists themselves facilely dismiss as ignorant, superstitious paganism (even as they assert their own invisible gods and demons) in their selective critical inquiry.

Yes, I imagine it's not outside the realms of possibility and probability so aptly explored in Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, but I'm rather comfortable sticking to observable patterns and probabilities and therefore actively disbelieving in gods, demons, spirits, and little, pink, unusually-adhesive bunnies chatting with each other over broken dishware. To do otherwise is to disappear down that rabbit-hole of subjectivity and remain in the darkness of superstition, confusing imaginings with reality.

(For the record, I understand that gravity is not adhesion, per se, but I claim poetic license.)

Does this mean that I, and others who likewise so disbelieve in things without example in reliably observable reality, are closed-minded and assume we have seen all patterns in existence? No. But neither are we gullible, taking the self-interested word of suspect individuals or groups without scrutiny. Furthermore, religion is a special case, because of the massive evidence against every instance of it, the total lack of any supporting patterns elsewhere, and the emotion-based nature of such faith. Indeed, I am far more apt to be open to the possibility that rabbitologists and rabbosophers might be able to show my rabbit example wrong. I am open to new patterns and to the possibility that patterns in which I had believed were incorrect (or incorrectly perceived). But show me evidence and do not try to persuade me through emotion and histrionics.

Note: By the way, I had not read of "Russell's Teapot" or the "Flying Spaghetti Monster" when I wrote this. But, except for the "patterns" bit, it is the same sort of approach. In other words, take away the special dignity given to one's religion of choice, and apply the same standard to all propositions, and the absurdity becomes manifest. In the end, it's just institutionally-backed special pleading. Not all propositions are equal.