Stephen Law

Just found another example of "atheism is a faith position too". This one is a classic from The Australian Scout Handbook , 1973 repr. 1985. There are many questions that arise out of the normal and natural experiences of life — plain human questions. The answers are always of faith. Nobody knows what the correct answers really are. They can only be given on the basis of a man’s belief — answers of faith. To say, ‘I believe there is no meaning in life’ is a belief, as surely as the one which says, ‘I believe in God who made me and loves me.’ But you can never find proof of either statement ... Scouting embraces all faiths. Every religious faith has its own particular discipline. Know what it is and practise it well, for beneath the outward sign of religion can be a great depth of meaning. Source: James Franklin's excellent book Corrupting The Youth .

Thanks for all the entries to the "Atheism is a faith position too" competition. I have thought long and hard, and come up with the following decision. The winner is: Austin Cline , for this example from Rowan Williams and Cormac Murphy-O'Connor: Many secularist commentators argue that the growing role of faith in society represents a dangerous development. However, they fail to recognise that public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position. This is from the foreword of a report called "Doing God" available here . I went to the original source to check and I could not find a single argument in the entire document to support the contention that "public atheism is itself an intolerant faith position." As part of a public joint statement by the heads of the Catholic and Anglican churches in the UK, offered without any justification whatsoever, it scores very highly for being irritating, and gains some extra points for being slightly sinister! Austin...

I am looking for the most irritating, sinister or downright funny example of the ever-popular "but atheism is a faith position too" move. Any more entries...?

There are various ways to respond to the argument set out in my previous blog, some of which have already been mentioned. I suspect the most obvious objection (already touched on) is this. If we take (ii) there is a (good) God to provide grounds for (i) our senses are a reliable guide to reality, what our senses then strongly confirm is that (ii) is false (the problem of evil). Therefore, it is far more reasonable to start with (i) than (ii). You might still call (i) a faith position, but it does not involve nearly as much faith as (ii). In addition, as has also been mentioned, it is controversial whether (i) must be accepted on "faith". Arguably, there are good grounds for accepting it over, say, the evil demon hypothesis. For example, we might suggest this: that it is a real world we experience rather than an illusion provides the best explanation of what we experience; therefore it is more likely to be true. The two hypotheses (a real world vs. a demon-conjured illusory w...

Let’s look at the second of the two arguments I sketched out for science (and any atheism dependent on it) being a “faith position” too. It went like this: The sceptic about the external world shows that our belief that our senses are a reliable guide to reality cannot be justified. But then, as science and indeed all our beliefs about the external world are based on the assumption that our senses are a reliable guide to reality, they too are rooted in "faith". So belief in God is no more a "faith position" than is empirical science. One response would be to say that while: (i) our senses are a reliable guide to reality and (ii) there is a God are both equally unjustifiable, and so, if you like, “faith positions”, the fact is we all assume (i). By contrast, (ii) is an additional assumption we don’t need to make. So the principle of economy says that if we can get away with assuming just (i), we should do so. Adding (ii) as a second assumption requires considerably m...

Here's a classic example of the "they are both equally faith positions" view, taken from a review on amazon.co.uk of the book God: The Failed Hypothesis . For my treatment of this sort of move see here , where we get the same old mantra from Alister McGrath and others. Anyway, here we go... After considering this book for a time I realise that this has nothing new to add to a debate which is greatly misunderstood. To use an example: To say that "the Galaxy Andromeda has life in it" would be an incorrect statement - to say "the Galaxy Andromeda has no life in it" would also be incorrect. The statement "the Galaxy Andromeda DEFINITELY MAYBE has life in it" - is the way to express the situation. This logic is the way answer the question "is there an all-powerful, all-knowing and in all-places controlling influence or entity?" - DEFINITELY MAYBE is the only logical answer. One can have 'faith' that there - is - or - is not - thi...

While we run the "atheism is a faith position too" competition, perhaps we should also, to be fair, try and see what the strongest argument for this claim might be. We looked at some really terrible ones back here ( The Dawkin's Delusion 's author Alister McGrath 's version is pretty awful [well, it's an assertion, not an argument], despite his Oxford don credentials). But perhaps the theists can do better. Here's an opening suggestion or two from me. (1) Science is dependent on inductive reasoning. It is based on the assumption that what has happened up till now provides us with a good, if not a fool-proof, indication of what will happen in the future. Unfortunately, as Hume points out, this assumption cannot be justified. But then inductive reasoning cannot be justified. In which case science cannot be justified. It too ultimately rests on "faith" - faith in that background assumption. And if atheism is based on science, then it too rests on a...

Yes, it's the old mantra, "atheism is a faith position too". In “On a Mission”, Education Guardian , Tues May 8th, Joanna Moorhead quotes head teacher Terry Boatwright (head of a religious school) as saying "Even people who don't believe in God have a faith - they have faith that God doesn't exist. People say: How dare you push your faith at young people? But a head who doesn't believe is still a head with faith." So that's why it's ok for Boatwright to "push" his faith at kids. Jeez, "atheism is a faith position too" has really entered the zeitgeist. It seems to crop up almost weekly in the press now. Where's it coming from? See here , here and here for earlier discussion. The idea that science is also based on "faith" seems to be behind a lot of it (Juliana recently suggested this, I note). I think we should discuss that shortly... Who can find the most irritating, sinister or downright funny use of this...

Here's Dawkins talking to Fox News' right-wing Catholic Bill O'Reilly. Interestingly, O'Reilly plays the relativist card, "Well, it's true for me that Jesus is God", as well as aiming a blunderbus-full of crap [typical Fox style] in Dawkins' direction, including atheism is just as much a faith position , and (paraphrasing) "Well, how do you explain why the universe exists, then? Until you come up with an answer, I'm sticking with Jesus!" Not surprisingly, Dawkins struggles a bit to cope with it all. My question is, what would have been the best responses to O'Reilly?

One of the thoughts lying behind the often-made claim that “atheism is a faith position” is that there is a great mystery about life, the universe and everything. Why, for example, is there something, rather than nothing? Personally, I haven’t a clue (we'll maybe I have - but let's put that off to another day). Noting this mystery, the theist/agnostic may then argue like this: Either (i) the atheist refuses to recognize this question. But this is just a "faith in science" position - it just assumes the only legitimate questions are questions science can settle. Bang - the scientific atheist's position is a "faith position" too! Or (ii) the atheist admits they haven’t a clue how to answer the question. But once the atheist admits they are in the dark how to answer it, they must admit there’s no more reason to suppose God didn’t create the universe than there is to suppose He did. So you see? Theism and atheism are equally (un)reasonable! This is a p...

Reasonableness is a matter of degree. Beliefs can be very reasonable (Japan exists), fairly reasonable (quarks exist), not unreasonable (there's intelligent life on other planets) or downright unreasonable (fairies exist). There's a scale of reasonableness, if you like, with very reasonable beliefs near the top and deeply unreasonable ones towards the bottom. Notice a belief can be very high up the scale, yet still be open to some doubt. And even when a belief is low down, we can still acknowledge the remote possibility it might be true. How reasonable is the belief that God exists? Atheists typically think it very unreasonable. Very low on the scale. But most religious people say it is at least not un reasonable (have you ever met a Christian who said "Hey, belief in God is no more reasonable than belief in fairies, but I believe it anyway!"?) They think their belief is at least halfway up the scale of reasonableness. Now, that their belief is downright unreasonabl...

Give a theist a good argument against their belief, and often they'll play the "faith" card. "Ah, well, theism is ultimately a faith position", they say. And then, very often, they add, "But of course atheism is a faith position too - you can't scientifically prove either , can you?" Here are a few examples. First, Alister McGrath in The Dawkins Delusion : There can be no question of scientific 'proof' of ultimate questions. Either we cannot answer them. or we must answer them on grounds other than the sciences. (p14) (I concede McGrath doesn't use the word "faith", but I think it's clear where he's going). Here's another example (not McGrath) I found on the internet (link now dead): (God’s) existence cannot be proved by physical means. However, neither can it be disproved. What does this mean? It means it takes complete and utter faith to believe there is a god (or gods) and complete and utter faith to believe t...