Theism, Atheism, and Communication -- From the perspective of an "atheist."

Theism, Atheism, and Communication -- From the perspective of an "atheist."
by Ed Thompson

In an RoR article from 9 years ago, George Cordero mentioned that atheism is the first refuge of the scoundrel. What he meant by that is that there are right and wrong ways to be an atheist. A right way, for instance, might include some honest questioning of religious tenets or whatever. A wrong way might include extolling atheism in order to self-justify some kind of personal evil for which you do not want to believe that you will ever have to be held accountable. This begs the rhetorical question, however: Is there a right and a wrong way to be a believer?

The upshot is that it is not enough to say that you believe or that you do not believe in something -- as this would be like stating conclusions without any justificatory reasoning. The process can be more important than the result. With the right process, you can correct former errors. With the wrong process, even the right result can be fleeting. This is akin to the precarious success of the utilitarian argument for capitalism, which often gives way to encroaching altruism -- just as Rand forewarned it would. Witness current America for a concrete example of this.

At an Objectivist conference in Florida, Ed Hudgins gave a talk about holding context. He said that if you are at a funeral of a dear loved one and everyone's heart is filled with deep sorrow, then it is not a good time to start up a heated debate about life after death -- and especially so if you are arguing against it. It might actually be mean-spirited to do something like that. So, not only is it not necessarily right or wrong to hold a belief, it is not necessarily right to even argue for one or the other side of a belief (in a given context).

Add to this the fact that beliefs are limited to opinions and to what it is that we do not fully understand -- you don't merely believe facts, you know them -- and you have got a situation more complex than it originally seemed. I state all this because I was recently queried by a potential trading partner: "Do you believe in God?" and my answer was not a simple: "No."

Questions are attempts of humans to communicate with one another and before you can get into the position to be able to answer a question from someone, you have got to either know or proceed to learn what it is that they are asking. It is ideal if the questioner, himself, understands what he is asking. This is how human communication is made meaningful. This leads to the kicker: Do questioners asking: "Do you believe in God?" understand what they are asking?
My answer to this easier question is: "No, they do not."

In a recent interview on the Glenn Beck show [42-minute YouTube video], Penn Jillette said the ideal Protestant vision of America would be one where there are 300 million unique and individual "Gods." The reason this is true is because Protestant theology stresses at least a quasi-personal relationship with at least a quasi-personal God. Taking this into account, I included in part of my answer to my interlocuter that I do not believe in the God of various, organized religions. If God is 300 million different things, then I had just denied a personal belief in any of the 300 milllion things that God is currently supposed to be.

A more straightforward way to tackle this issue would have been for me to restate the questioner's question into various questions that are much more answerable -- e.g., Do you believe in organized religion?

This question is very easy to answer and the truth of your answer can be verified/falsified via empirical investigation. For instance, if it is true that you believe in Catholicism, then you will be witnessed taking Communion at some point in your life -- or saying a "Holy Mary" prayer, or getting absolved of sins in a confession to a priest, or all of the above. Also, if it is true that you believe in Islam, then you will be observed praying 5 times a day in the direction of Mecca and going for a month without eating food during daylight, or whatever. This is because organized religions, while primarily abstract, are concrete enough to be submitted to testing. But what about the question: "Do you believe in God?"

Can it ever be empirically verified/falsified?

Only within a tight, philosophic framework could this question ever be verified/falsified. And only on this tight, philosophic framework can the actual meaning of those 5 words ever be truly worked out. If you stray away from the proper frame of reference, you enter into subjectivism and away from truth. There are inherently-dishonest ways to talk about God or about belief. If you accidentally utilize such ways, you are not necessarily being intentionally dishonest, as you may merely be under the transient spell of an "error of knowledge."

The correct way for humans to use the word "belief" is -- as stated above -- when the subject matter is a matter of opinion or when the subject matter is not fully understood. That is when it is appropriate for humans to use the word "belief." But what about the word "God?" Is there a correct way to use that word? The word "God" does not refer to a concept (2 or more things sharing an essential characteristic in some measure or degree) but rather most often refers to a proper noun -- e.g., an elderly, caucasian, bearded male who fathered all of humanity.

For crude illustration, let's substitute this reference back into the question: Do you believe in an old, bearded, white guy who fathered all of humanity?

The question is now rendered absurd. Even many (if not most) people of faith would disagree with this reformulation of the question. Why? Why does making the matter more concrete go awry in this way? What was lost in the reformulation? Well, what was lost is crucial vagueness and ambiguity. When we were trying to pin down what the word "God" refers to, we ended up contradicting some of the subjective opinions of God which some of the people of the earth happen to hold dear. Some people, for instance, say he is black, not white. Some even say that God is a female, or even heterogenous.

Even assuming, purely for the sake of example, that one particular opinion of God is correct, is it something that could ever be humanly known? No.

So, what do you say if someone ever asks you if you believe in God? A correct way to answer is to communicate to your interlocuter that they haven't given you enough information to be able to answer the question -- as you would have to first uncover/discover what it is they mean by "God." You could say you don't believe in a given religion, because that would be something about which you can be certain, and it is something amenable to empirical investigation. A less correct but more expedient way to proceed is to incorporate the context, make some assumptions** and, incorporating them, to attempt an immediate answer. Sometimes immediacy (being able to provide an answer on the spot) matters.

When someone pops this question right before a business deal involving trust, a logical assumption is that he is asking if he can trust you -- i.e., he is asking if you are guided by some kind of a natural law whereby it can be shown that humans who would cheat other humans are terribly misguided and will tend to fail to maximize expected returns. In his mind at that moment, believers deserve more trust -- because they are morally guided. That is the assumption I was under when I answered the question. In very crude terms, I am a "believer" in natural law.

What is crude about that turn-of-phrase is that I do not actually "believe" that natural law is true, I know it. I know that: nature, to be commanded, must first be obeyed. I know that being something means something (as opposed to the existentialist notion that being something doesn't necessarily mean anything). I know that it is not correct to assume or predict or prescribe the disposition or behavior or moral code of, say, a leaf to a stone, or an insect to a human, or vice versa. I know that existence is identity and that identity for humans is prescriptive rather than being merely descriptive -- because we're volitional creatures facing the fundamental alternative of life vs. death (or of happiness vs. despair).

If we were not volitional, or if we did not face a fundamental alternative, then the identity of humans might merely be descriptive. But that is not the case. For me this is all straightforward, but what about for people not as well-versed in abstract philosophy and able to envision how it is that abstract ideas fit together so seamlessly? In the personal case I mentioned, my assumption is that my interlocuter was using the word "God" as a short-cut or stand-in term for something which -- if fully fleshed-out philosophically -- would approach the refined view of natural law which I am personally able to conceptualize and communicate here at least in written form.

I therefore communicated to him that I "believe" in a natural law, adding that I do not "believe" in the "God(s)" of organized religions, hoping that this indirect answer would provide the actual information that I assumed he was seeking to obtain from me by asking me his question at that precise time. Speaking more personally, I felt uncomfortable receiving the question in the manner that it was presented. I felt like I was being put on trial in a kangaroo court, and that I had something to lose no matter which way I answered.

I hope that my retrospective analysis of the matter helps others to deal with similar situations in the future -- as I know it is going to help me: An examined life is worth living.

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**A better way to frame the question

In a perfect world, I would redirect the conversation to one involving philosophic principles. I would ask my interlocuter to hold off on his curiosity about my potential "belief in God" and to entertain a different set of questions altogether. As George Cordero's article made clear, people can choose belief/unbelief in God for the wrong reasons, and the actual reasons may involve whether someone is trying to illegitimately justify either idealist or existentialist positions. In my case, the alternate set of questions to ask such a person -- or, actually, to provide answers to in order to communicate effectively the answer that your questioner is (assumably) seeking -- would be:

1) Do you choose/decide what's right or good, or is that something that you have to discover?
2) If it is something that you have to discover, did someone else choose/decide it for you?

Note how different worldviews (philosophies) affect your answers. As an exercise for the reader, who would answer "yes" to (1)? Who would answer "no" to (1) but answer "yes" to (2)? Who would answer "no" to both questions? When people use the word "God" as a stand-in term for morality, it is terribly likely that the information that they are trying to obtain from you is whether you are a lawless existentialist or not (i.e., whether they should trust you, or not). I'm not saying that this is good, merely that it is the case.

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