The Logical Atheist

I've heard at least one skeptical atheist say -- and I'm sure many others also believe it -- that one cannot be too much of a skeptic. But they don't really mean it. How do I know? I know because they regularly mock people who express skepticism about things they apparently believe in: evolution, vaccination, the roundness and old age of the earth, catastrophic climate change, the legitimacy of the state, and so on. (I'm doubtful of only the last two.) Why are some skeptics more equal than others? "No," the skeptical atheists are likely to reply. "We good skeptics have sound reasons for our doubt, while the bad skeptics have none for theirs." But both kinds of skeptics think they have good reasons for their doubts. Evolution-skeptics are aware of what evolution-believers regard as evidence, but the former think it is bad and possibly even fabricated. I'm not saying they are right, only that they have their reasons too. We can resolve this disagr...

A popular skeptical atheist celebrity often cites Carl Sagan's maxim that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence." I think that's right. But our skeptical atheist goes on to show that he's far from a true skeptic. (No true skeptic....) So this person offers this example: if someone tells him that he owns a dog, he's willing to believe this ordinary claim because the skeptic knows that people and dogs exist; he knows that people own dogs; and so on. The purported dog owner might show his interlocutor a dog collar and some doggie treats, which our skeptic is willing to accept as evidence. That's fine, of course. But it shouldn't be fine for a true skeptic. A true skeptic would challenge every piece of evidence for the person's owning a dog. Why? Maybe the person is a liar. Maybe the person is a hologram. Maybe the skeptic is hallucinating. Maybe the skeptic is just a brain in a vat. As W. S. Gilbert has a character sing in H.M.S. Pinafo...

Theist: I believe God exists. Wrong atheist response: What's your evidence? Right atheist response: What are you talking about?

By free-thinking I mean the use of the understanding in endeavoring to find out the meaning of any proposition whatsoever, in considering the nature of the evidence for or against it, and in judging of it according to the seeming force or weakness of the evidence.  --Anthony Collins, Discourse of Free-Thinking , 1713 

I have no problem with someone who says he is "skeptical" of some proposition or theory. In everyday talk, that just means the person has doubts about a claim. It may not mean that he doubts  it, just that he has doubts about it, which seems different. The first seems to imply a rejection or a near-rejection of the claim; the second seems softer. "I doubt it" differs from "I have doubts about it." Be that as it may, I am dubious about using the term skepticism to mean mere doubt. Making doubt into a ism  is an entirely different ballgame. An ism  suggests a doctrine, and a doctrine based on doubt strikes me as strange. (For the same reason, the term  atheism  is weird because no doctrine flows merely from not believing in God.) In philosophy skepticism is the position that knowledge in general or knowledge of a particular kind is impossible . It does not mean a particular doubt about something. One cannot doubt everything, as Wittgenstein pointed out. Thi...

It's a mainstay of the New Atheists to pose as open-minded scientists simply awaiting evidence for a theist hypothesis that in principle could be proved. Ron Reagan speaks for the lot when he says, “You show me evidence, I’ll reconsider, but in the absence of evidence I do not believe.” But is that what's really going on behind the scenes? I don't think so. It's hard to believe that any of those atheist talk-show hosts actually expect someone to phone up with a never-before-heard proof of the God of Abraham, Jesus, and Mohammad. I know I don't expect it -- but then I'm a logical, not an evidentialist or skeptical, atheist. That means I know no evidence is forthcoming -- ever -- for the existence of a logically impossible "being." So I'm not waiting for it. (I just learned that the late  Sherwin Wine , a key figure in secular humanistic Judaism,  called this position ignosticism . Who knew?) By the same token, the New Atheists aren't expe...

Contrary to what many people think, the intellectuals known as the New Atheists pull their punches in their case against theism. Indeed, because they promote a philosophically watered-down version of atheism, they are way too easy on religious believers. While engaged in a worthwhile cause, they go about it in a weak and self-subverting way. How so? By giving undeserved credit to their religious opponents. They could pull the rug right out from under them, but they don’t do it. Too bad. Here’s a typical example: in an interview with the Freedom from Religion Foundation, Ron Reagan said this about his lack of belief in God: “You show me evidence, I’ll reconsider, but in the absence of evidence I do not believe.” You can find similar statements from the late Christopher Hitchens, Richard Dawkins , Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris, Matt Dillahunty,* Aron Ra,** and many others, all of whom I respect. Dawkins, a biologist, for example, writes, in The God Delusion , “The existence of God is a sc...

Evidentialist atheists often conflate the concepts evidence and good evidence. But I see a world of difference between saying, "You offer no evidence for your belief" and "You offer no good evidence for your belief."It's an important distinction. First off, is it really true that theists offer no evidence whatever? In "Defensor Fidei," Roderick T. Long, an Aristotle and Wittgenstein scholar at Auburn University, says this not usually the case. Theists and atheists clearly use the word faith in different senses, which impedes the conversation. Long writes: It seems to me that what the word [ faith ] means in ordinary language is not belief that goes beyond the evidence, but rather belief that goes beyond one’s personal experience. To someone of skeptical tendencies these might of course come to the same thing, but for most of us they do not. My belief that Stonehenge exists is not based on personal experience (nor on demonstrative deduction therefrom),...

Watch this space for thoughts on atheism from a logicist's perspective. I will only say here that I depart from the Urban Dictionary definition of  logical atheist  as a person who "states there is insufficient evidence to state that no god(s) exist or that they do not believe a god(s) exist. Instead the Logical Atheist simply says, 'There isn't enough evidence to support or deny the existence of a god(s).'" That sort of atheist would better be termed an evidentialist  atheist , that is, an atheist whose lack of belief is evidence-based, but who thinks that the absence of evidence is not in itself evidence of absence. (I agree with that, by the way.) In contrast, I use logical atheist  for an atheist (like myself) who says: "On the basis of logic (identity, non-contradiction, and excluded middle), I affirmatively believe that no supernatural realm or being exists or could possibly exist . Therefore, we never reach the point where the theist would be ask...