Do Atheists Have Faith?

[Magical Wand]

I don't know of any other theist who would define faith in this way, and I don't know of anyone who would say that they have this kind of faith. A person is not going to believe something unless they think they're justified in believing it.

That may be so. But this post is only concerned with those who define faith in this way.

I would wonder how exactly you're using the term "justification."

I’m using the term as the philosopher John DePoe defined it: “Objectively, epistemic justification requires a connection to truth. This means that justification necessarily indicates that a belief enjoys some intrinsic and nonarbitrary link to truth. Believing that the butler’s fingerprints are on the murder weapon (in conjunction with a set of background beliefs), for example, indicates the truth that the butler committed the murder because the butler’s fingerprints are unlikely to be on the murder weapon if he is innocent and they are very likely to be on the weapon if he is guilty. Alternatively, thinking that the butler committed a crime on nothing more than the evidence one gleans in a response from a “magic eight ball” (a gag toy that reveals random answers to yes/no questions) is exceptionally dubious because the random answers of the magic eight ball are in no way connected to the truth of the matter.” (Debating Christian Religious Epistemology, p.18)

 

[Magical Wand]

I am probably some kind of foundherentist.

I wonder what this means. Perhaps it means that you accept non-circular axiomatic foundations, but they must be coherent (consistent with each other). Nevertheless, you may say, while coherence is a necessary condition for knowledge, it is not sufficient, therefore, coherentism alone is not enough. Is that correct?

 

[Meow Mix]

I wonder what this means. Perhaps it means that you accept non-circular axiomatic foundations, but they must be coherent (consistent with each other). Nevertheless, you may say, while coherence is a necessary condition for knowledge, it is not sufficient, therefore, coherentism alone is not enough. Is that correct?

Yes, I don't find anything wrong or immediately lacking with that description.

 

[Magical Wand]

I'm really not interested in presuppositionalist garbage.

So why are you here commenting on this thread?

 

[Magical Wand]

Yes, I don't find anything wrong or immediately lacking with that description.

Great! I agree completely with your view, then.ㅤ:）

 

[Meow Mix]

Great! I agree completely with your view, then.ㅤ:）

I would also throw in some kind of transcendentalism into a description of my epistemology. There are a lot of things that are transcendentally axiomatic to having a discussion at all, so we never have to worry about them (things like "does communication really work or is everyone else a Chinese Room," or the aforementioned "my cognitive faculties are geared towards being able to discern truth from falsity").

Generally I take the position that axioms should be minimized, the properly basic ones are incorrigible (but these are few), many of them are transcendental to being able to discuss philosophy at all so we needn't worry about justifying them: we couldn't have a philosophical debate at all without them, so no one in any conversation can coherently doubt them.

 

[Meow Mix]

I guess this "transcendental to having a philosophical discussion" thing is a form of incorrigibility in itself. To doubt a thing you must use the thing (during a debate*). But I think this is weaker than "normal" incorrigibility where doubting a thing in any context uses the thing (like doubting logical self-identity).

(* -- e.g. saying with the intent to communicate your doubt, "I doubt that words have meaning")

 

[lukethethird]

Do Atheists Have Faith?
Yes, except in God, duh.

 

[Magical Wand]

I guess this "transcendental to having a philosophical discussion" thing is a form of incorrigibility in itself. To doubt a thing you must use the thing (during a debate*). But I think this is weaker than "normal" incorrigibility where doubting a thing in any context uses the thing (like doubting logical self-identity).

(* -- e.g. saying with the intent to communicate your doubt, "I doubt that words have meaning")

Yeah, agree. It is nice to point this out when discussing with radical skeptics (and post-modernist relativists) who may claim to doubt the rules of thought. As philosopher David Kyle stated in one of his lectures:

"Once understood, the laws [of thought] are obviously true. So obvious, in fact, that they need no argument and that's good because, since they're the laws that underlie all arguments, you can't present an argument for these laws without just arguing in a circle. But if anyone ever says they reject these laws, you can simply say what Aristotle would have: "I can't talk to you." It's impossible to communicate with someone who rejects these laws. Imagine a conversation with someone who rejects [the law of] non-contradiction and thinks something can both be true and false [at the same time]: — "Were you at Steve's party?" — "Yeah. I had a great time." — "Was Bob there?" — "How would I know? I wasn't there." — "You just said you were there!" — "No, I didn't!" — "Well, where were you?" — "I was at Steve's party." Clearly, even engaging in discussion with someone who rejects logic's axioms is a waste of time." (How Do We Reason Carefully?)

Philosopher Keith Parsons wrote something similar: "We respect the law of non-contradiction because if we do not we cannot say anything at all. In other words, as Aristotle said long ago, if someone wants to deny the law of non-contradiction, don't say anything. Just wait and let them try to say something."

 

[F1fan]

In a debate with the New Atheist Christopher Hitchens, presuppositionalist Doug Wilson argued that we all have faith in something (many spiritualists have faith in their deities -- or spiritual entities -- while atheists and agnostics have faith in reason). Consequently, it is meaningless to claim (many) spiritualists are irrational for believing in something based on faith instead of reason, since atheists also have faith in something (according to Doug, at least).

Quote: "Someone who bases everything on reason has faith in the reasoning process. What's wrong with saying that? Why can't you say 'I have faith in reason'?"

It's just language tricks by theists which is what they often do. Faith has numerous definitions and applications. In one case you can have faith in your brother Tim being able to kick his drug habit. He's been clean for months, has a job, eating better and working out. But one night an old friend of Tim's invites him out and he's having fun, but gets drunk and gets talked into doing drugs.

George has faith in God, and George's kid is diagnosed with cancer. George prays and has faith in God and the doctors to cure his kid. Alas the treatments fail. George's faith in doctors was good because the kid lived longer than expected. But God failed.

The difference in faith here is that what exactly is faith extended into? Tim is a real person, has is capable of beating drugs. The faith makes little difference in Tim's eventual outcome. Faith in God means what? What is God that faith will achieve anything? Doctors exist, and the faith extended to them is warranted since they have expertise and a history of success. But again faith means nothing to eventual outcomes. Things work or they don't. People beat drugs or they don't. God is what, and what purpose does extending faith into this unknown achieve except as a type of hope?

I've heard people we humans have faith that the floor will be beneath our feet when we get out of bed in the morning. Or like the example above that we have faith is reason and logic. But any faith means nothing except to point out how the human mind can have doubt about what it experiences and observers, and the is largely just a useless mental exercise.

Now, some of you may want to justify the reliability of your reasoning process (in other words, to prove you're not insane). For example, you may wish to provide an argument based on past experience. But notice this very argument will rely on reason in order to work. Therefore, your argument will be based on circular reasoning (begging the question), and this is fallacious. That is, to the question "How do you know reason is reliable?" you may answer "Because reason tells me so." This is clearly circular.

No, because the reliability of logic and reason is not reliant or dependent on faith. These processes can be shown to work objectively, and that means outside the need for human judgment. Saying a thinker has faith that reason works would suggest something about the thinker, not the process being used.

 

[F1fan]

Do Atheists Have Faith?
Yes, except in God, duh.

How devastating an explanation.

 

[Magical Wand]

Do Atheists Have Faith?
Yes, except in God, duh.

Well, you have to appreciate the enormous significance of this. If we all are rationally allowed to believe in a specific thing based on faith (without justification), then isn't it also the case that we can believe whatever we want without justification? That's Doug's claim. If you accept his premise, you will have no objection to any worldview whatsoever since all of them are rationally acceptable.

 

[AlexanderG]

I mean, yes, but this is philosophy: making mountains out of mole hills sometimes is important because later on, those mole hills might be important in a more complex way.

I don't think there's anything wrong with simply noting that there are a few things all worldviews must presuppose, silly things like "my cognitive faculties are capable of discerning truth from falsity."

I think it's important to recognize that we could never justify that because we must presuppose it to attempt to justify it.

In the same way that the response to some skeptics' questions when they ask, "why should I fund this particle accelerator," and the answer is sometimes, "because knowledge is its own benefit, can lead to previously unthought of directions," and so on, I think this is true in philosophy as well.

We shouldn't deny that we make presuppositions just because it sounds unsavory. It might give us better epistemologies and ontologies higher up the reasoning tree.

True. I guess presupposing we can determine truth from falsity is more a matter of definitions, where I can label one distinct category of propositions as "true" and a separate distinct category as "false." I think the deeper presupposition would be that my mind can accurately perceive and categorize thoughts or sensations based on their different properties, but this still seems pretty demonstrably true and not just a presupposition. It's also a given for any worldview I've ever heard of, and so it's not practically useful for telling whether one worldview has a better epistemology than another.

I think "should" questions come down to preferences and values, which is another issue but certainly one worth considering.

 

[F1fan]

How do you know that? Have you used reason to determine this?

This is what I call the "to hell with everything" approach.

For example if you insist that thinkers have faith in reason, and faith is unreliable, then how can we know that reason works? So maybe faith is reliable because reason DOES work.

How can we know the word "god" actually means god and not something else?

See, we can use language to make confusing statements that questions the language itself. To hell with everything.

 

[AlexanderG]

So why are you here commenting on this thread?

Why am I commenting while hoping to avoid presuppositionalist arguments?

Because there's plenty of interesting debate to be had, without resorting to claims that one's own circular argument is "virtuously" circular, while asserting one's unevidenced baseless position is true by definition and responding to anyone's questions with, "but how do you know you're really thinking your thoughts right now? Tell me first or I won't answer your question."

Edit: Also, see the comment by @F1fan rights above this one.

 

[Meow Mix]

True. I guess presupposing we can determine truth from falsity is more a matter of definitions, where I can label one distinct category of propositions as "true" and a separate distinct category as "false." I think the deeper presupposition would be that my mind can accurately perceive and categorize thoughts or sensations based on their different properties, but this still seems pretty demonstrably true and not just a presupposition. It's also a given for any worldview I've ever heard of, and so it's not practically useful for telling whether one worldview has a better epistemology than another.

I think "should" questions come down to preferences and values, which is another issue but certainly one worth considering.

It can't be demonstrably true without using it itself, which I think is the important thing to take away from it. Now I'm not saying it means or amounts to much: as you've said, every worldview must presuppose it (every single one), since it's impossible to justify.

I think all I'm trying to argue is this:

It is inarguably true that each of us has some presuppositions. If we tried to argue that we had none, that would be false. Having any false beliefs in our epistemologies could potentially snowball into bigger false beliefs later, so we should refrain from doing that. We should just admit that we do presuppose things, but that it's not a big deal because everyone must, and move on.

 

[Magical Wand]

Doctors exist, and the faith extended to them is warranted since they have expertise and a history of success.

Sure, and the rational argument you're making now is an inductive one, and inductive arguments are still part of the reasoning process. So, the belief that we can trust doctors is justified by reason. The question now is how you justify reason itself. The problem is (per Agrippa's trilemma), you can't do it since to justify the belief in the reliability of reason, you have to present a rational argument, i.e., to use reason to justify reason. That's circular.

No, because the reliability of logic and reason is not reliant or dependent on faith. These processes can be shown to work objectively, and that means outside the need for human judgment. Saying a thinker has faith that reason works would suggest something about the thinker, not the process being used.

The question is how do you know your cognitive process of reason is reliable. You're the one who will judge it ultimately. Are you going to use reason (for example, the scientific method) to justify this belief?

 

[Meow Mix]

@AlexanderG

Furthermore, we retain the ability to fight off unnecessary presuppositions (such as theistic presuppositionalism). In the case of our cognitive faculties, it's necessary to presuppose it: we have no choice. But in the case of whether God exists, we needn't grant that: so we can point out that the presuppositionalist isn't being parsimonious for instance, or that it isn't useful to presuppose more things than are incorrigibly necessary.

It doesn't help the presup theologian to admit we all have some presuppositions, in other words.

 

[Aupmanyav]

It's important not to try to respond to the presuppositionalist by insisting that you, in fact, never take anything for granted. If you make such a bold and unqualified claim, you're setting yourself up for a fall... as this is almost surely false, and it leaves you very vulnerable.” (Atheism, Reason, and Morality: Responding to Some Popular Christian Apologetics, pp. 5-6, 18)

I do, because I clearly understand the limits. Science never goes beyond what it knows.

 

[Magical Wand]

@AlexanderG

Furthermore, we retain the ability to fight off unnecessary presuppositions (such as theistic presuppositionalism). In the case of our cognitive faculties, it's necessary to presuppose it: we have no choice. But in the case of whether God exists, we needn't grant that: so we can point out that the presuppositionalist isn't being parsimonious for instance, or that it isn't useful to presuppose more things than are incorrigibly necessary.

It doesn't help the presup theologian to admit we all have some presuppositions, in other words.

It is a pity there isn't a "Great!" button. haha