The Logical Atheist

In this lecture, historian and divinity professor Alec Ryrie shows that in Elizabethan England it was commonly thought, both by theologians and everyday people, that faith and doubt, rather than being opposed, were in fact two sides of the same coin. He quotes William Perkins, whom he calls Elizabethan England's "greatest theology," saying, "True faith, being imperfect, is always accompanied by doubting." Ryrie noted that a common maxim was that if one did not have doubts about the existence of God, then one did not really have faith.

Doubt is not a principle or guide for life. To be taken seriously, doubt has to be specific and grounded. If I wore a badge of self-identity, it wouldn't say Skeptic  but Rationalist .

We know, with the same certainty with which we believe any  mathematical proposition, how the letters A and B are pronounced, what the colour of human blood is called, that other human beings have blood and call it "blood". That is to say, the questions  that we raise and our doubts  depend on the fact that some propositions are exempt from doubt, are as it were like hinges on which those things turn. That is to say, it belongs to the logic of our scientific investigations that certain things are in deed not doubted. But it isn't that the situation is like this: We just can't investigate everything, and for that reason we are forced to rest content with assumption. If I want the door to turn the hinges must stay put. My life  consists in being content to accept many things. --Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty  340-44       

Objective certainty is not tied exclusively to conclusive reasons or self-evidence. It may be grounded in the absence of intelligible doubts .... Grounds for doubt are not as easy to come by as skeptics think. Fairy-tale imaginings (e.g. brains-in-vats) don't count. --Michael Williams, Lecture, "Wittgenstein on Knowledge & Certainty"  (video)

One cannot make experiments if there are not some things that one does not doubt. But that does not mean that one takes certain presuppositions on trust. When I write a letter and post it, I take it for granted that it will arrive--I expect this. If I make an experiment I do not doubt the existence of the apparatus before my eyes. I have plenty of doubt, but not  that . If I do a calculation I believe, without any doubts, that the figures on the paper aren't switching of their own accord, and I also trust my memory the whole time, and trust it without any reservation. The certainty here is the same as that of my never having been on the moon. --Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty  337

From its seeming  to me--or to everyone--to be so, it doesn't follow that it is  so.  What we can ask is whether it can make sense to doubt it. --Ludwig Wittgenstein, On Certainty  2

We must ask if this "principle of universal doubt" is itself certain, or is it open to doubt as well? If it is known with certainty, at least one thing is beyond doubt, which makes the principle false. If, however, the principle is open to doubt --  i.e. , if it is not certain -- then on what grounds can the skeptic claim greater plausibility for his theory than any other other? --George H. Smith,  Atheism: The Case Against God , 1974

If we all are the children of God, then God is the greatest child abuser imaginable. I'm not referring only to the countless atrocities "reported" in the Hebrew Bible or the introduction of hell -- the threat of eternal torment -- in the New Testament. I also have in mind the prohibition of doubt. Since God sees and knows all, even a private, never-uttered micro-speck of doubt about God's existence is known to God -- and God regards that as the most egregious of sins, deserving of no less than the maximum punishment, hell for Christians and Muslims, mere annihilation for Jews.  If that is not the sign of a monster child abuser, what would be? This is what so many people believe is worthy of worship? This is what is said to have created us precisely for the purpose of adoring it? As someone once put it, even if God walked through the door, I'd still be an atheist.

The stuff of college-dorm bull sessions includes questions like: How do I know I'm not just a brain in a vat in some lab? or How do I know the world didn't begin the day I was born? or How do I know that other people aren't really robots? or Could "The Matrix" be true? Contemplating these things can be fun, especially when under the influence of certain chemicals. But don't take them too seriously. Why not? Beyond the fun, such questions can be meant to raise doubts about fundamental beliefs regarding the world we experience every day and see no need to question. The one sowing the doubts feels that he has the advantage: he throws down a challenge, thinking he has put his listeners on the spot. Well, let's see you prove you're not just a brain in a vat! But the doubter, or skeptic, bears a responsibility that he can't escape so easily. As Ludwig Wittgenstein wrote in On Certainty , "What we can ask is whether it can make sense t...