Types of Atheists

Usually when someone thinks of an atheist they conceive of only one facet of the position. An atheist doesn’t believe in God/gods. Full stop. But that position is limiting. It doesn’t say anything about living, about what is valuable, etc. And not all atheists are atheists for the same reasons. There are many ways to be an atheist, or to hold non-theistic beliefs. I’ll touch on three broad categories I attribute to one of my philosophy TAs from college. The categories are metaphysically atheistic, morally atheistic, and existentially atheistic.

The category that most atheists seem to fall into (or are perceived to fall into) is metaphysical atheism that is they will unequivocally say that God/gods do not exist. There is no reality above the physical reality under the domain of the sciences (there may be qualifications, but this is the broad gloss). This kind of atheism is a denial of the supernatural reality of theistic views. Think of this as a sort of first step, basic atheism.

Being morally atheistic may seem ambiguous, but here is how I think of it. Another common argument is that without God there is no morality. It is an argument commonly misattributed to Dostoyevsky. If there is no God, then everything is permitted (this is actually Ivan Karamozov, a character in The Brothers Karamozov). To be morally atheistic is to believe that God is not required for morality. One can be moral and ethical without a theistic worldview. There are many philosophers who have written on this subject, starting with Aristotle and continuing through Singer, and still more. Naturalistic ethics is harder to ground, but many atheists have deeply moral worldviews that have nothing to do with a supernatural reality. Sometimes this is the reason they leave their churches in the first place.

The last category I will outline is existential atheism. As I understand this, to be existentially atheistic is to find no value in the existence of God. Even if God does exist, it wouldn’t change how I construe value and meaning in life. Value in life can come from a variety of places on this view. For many it stems from interaction with friends and family, experiences in the world, their work, etc.

In this way it is not so simple to just be an atheist. For example, I am a metaphysical agnostic. I am perfectly willing to accept that God might exist. Based on the evidence, inferences can go one-way or the other. Morally I am an atheist. I believe that one can lead a perfectly moral life without being a Christian. Existentially, I am an atheist as well. Regardless of the existence of God I don’t believe that God, if it exists, is worthy of worship.

As I have said before, atheism in the classical sense is limited. I’ve mentioned secular humanism many times, but I find it to be an answer to the moral and value questions that follow from leaving a religious organization. Christianity, Islam, Judaism, they all have answers to what we should find valuable and what our moral worldview should be. Non-theists should have answers to those questions as well, because it is with regards to those questions that many of us left the churches, mosques, and synagogues in the first place.

More Pictures

More pictures today. I hope to be back to something slightly more substantive tomorrow.

The above is a picture from Donnattor Castle near Stone Haven, Scotland. Below is a picture of the inside of Cafe Royale, a coffeeshop near where I work that I enjoy reading at. The bottom picture is of bright orange flowers from the University of Dundee Botanical Garden.

Photos of the Area

I'm not quite sure what I want this blog to be about. The name implies reflections and retooling thoughts in everyday things. However, I cannot do that everyday. So I'll intersperse some of that reflection with some photos.

The photo above is a doctored photo of wind turbines behind a farm in Benton County. I wanted to create an antiquated photo of a farm juxtaposed with modern tech.
This photo I took one night in January at Purdue. I like the orange light in winter, one surprising benefit of sodium lamps. The last photo is of a park bench near the top of Slayter Hill.

Secular Humanism: A Religion for Atheists?

http://business.in.com/article/ideas-to-change-the-world/alain-de-botton-a-religion-for-atheists/13532/1

I came across this article and was intrigued by the idea of a religion for atheists, written by Alain de Botton. He says a secular religion will do three things. One, it will put a person in context by making him/her feel small against the world. This would happen through art, architecture, landscaping, and so on. Second, the purpose of art would return to a kind of propaganda for virtues instead of shock and surprise. Art would elevate what we should aspire to be. And thirdly, it would remind us to be pessimistic and have feast days (analogous to Catholic feast days) to despair and disappointment.

I'm not sure if I agree with his picture of what a secular religion would look like, especially the third premise, or even if one could call it a religion. While interesting, I don't see why de Botton claims secular religion should be pessimistic. If anything, why not create motivation to improve one's self and the world? That, at least, is a facet of classical religion I wouldn't mind seeing kept.

I recommend looking into, as I have said before, secular humanism (http://www.secularhumanism.org/). I feel this gives us a framework for a secular religion that incorporates some of what de Botton recommends, but also is more hopeful and uplifting.

A New Culture of Learning

I'm taking an information architectures class this semester. The book we are currently reading (one of ten), is "A New Culture of Learning" by Douglas Thomas and John Seely Brown. I'm struck by the fluidity of the 21st century learning process. Appeals to authority are down played in favor of collective learning. It reminds me of being a physics undergraduate. We used to teach ourselves the material when classes were large, 150 students, and the professor didn't have time to spend on individual questions.

What the internet has allowed us to do is create a constantly changing data base of knowledge. Much of it is, well, junk (the internet is largely adult themed space). But projects like Wikipedia, Kiva, etc, are civic goods that grow out of this space.

In terms of information architecture, I am reminded of Alain de Botton's book "The Architecture of Happiness". He has a passage in which he says "as we write, so we build; to keep a record of what matters to us". While information architecture is not physical architecture, we are creating a heirarchy of information. We are playing with the design of websites just as architects play with buildings. In what way, if any way, does information design reflect what is important to us?

Just some thoughts for now. I'll expand on them later.

London at Night

I keep going through my pictures from this summer. Here is another from London, I believe this is Cromer street at night

Secular Moral Motivation

How can we argue about the answer to a problem when we do not even agree on the basic elements?

Watching a fundamentalist preacher on a college campus is like watching a burning car wreck. I gain nothing useful from the experience, but I cannot look away. Engaging is often an empty and hollow gesture because even the most level discussions dissolve into shouting matches.

I have seen many of these instances. I’ve also been involved in a couple. Invariably one person will ask the preacher this question: “Who would get into Heaven? A good atheist (and by good atheist we mean a person who lived a moral, decent life) or a bad Christian (and by bad we mean a person who professes to believe in God but leads a life of ‘sin’)?” And always, many times without hesitation, the answer is the Christian goes to Heaven, the atheist to Hell.

Of course, the atheists in the crowd are generally pissed because, well, that does not seem fair.

One way the preachers justify their answer is that the atheist has committed the worst sin, and that is by denying God. By refusing to acknowledge God nothing else they do matches up, or ever could. The answer can be summed up as; it isn’t enough to be good, you have to believe. Our (atheist’s) reactions are often shouts, anger, consternation, or laughter because we knew this answer was coming.

But why? What about the belief itself is so important? Well, the Bible tells us so. Why is that important? Because the Bible is given to us by God and it contains His laws. How do you know? It was revealed by revelation. We still don’t see why this is important. Then you don’t get it and are not open to God’s love. Once this point has been reached, both sides are talking past each other. Most of the time, nontheistic people are ok with that answer.

At the heart of this discussion and argument is a belief in what is valuable. While this may seem obvious, it is a nuanced distinction that requires some reflection. Arbitrariness aside (and honestly, both atheists and theists have moments of dogmatism, it is not just on the theistic side) there is a serious disagreement over the rules of the game, or what matters anyway.

Action versus faith is an old argument in the Christian tradition. One way to consider this issue is the Catholic v Protestant stance. Protestant denominations typically emphasize a personal relationship with God. Faith and belief are the most important aspects. Historically, the Catholic Church placed an emphasis on good works in addition to faith. In the nontheistic view, the action (or work) is valued for what it was.

My personal take on this is as a virtue ethicist. There is a certain mix of action and intention, as well as impact that helps to define moral behavior. Positive and moral behavior is a practice to be fostered. People who engage in these behaviors are behaving morally (loosely speaking, if you want my nuanced view please don’t hesitate to ask). There is no single school of thought in the nontheistic community, but we do feel we have obligations and duties to each other often in virtue of just being human (Here is the Secular Humanism Manifesto http://www.americanhumanist.org/who_we_are/about_humanism/Humanist_Manifesto_I ).

Theistic belief is an arbitrary second layer. To say that since atheists do not believe in God they are deficient regardless of behavior returns to the action versus faith debate, only this time with different players. If religious actions result in good works (ex. Catholic Charities, church run soup kitchens, all of these are good things) then we can say it was a good or ethical action. The same can be said of nontheistic people.

But without God, how do we assure that someone will behave without fear of punishment? If there is no Heaven or Hell why doesn’t everyone just do what they want? This is a slippery slope fallacy. The assumption is that people do terrible things without the threat of something afterlife. This can be addressed in two ways:

1) If belief in God is somehow supposed to solidify or assure moral action, then it often fails to do so. People will be good or bad regardless of religious affiliation (not to take cheap shots, but leaders of religious groups, those supposed to be the models for the members of the organization, have been seen committing transgressions they preach against). I, personally, fail to see how the giving of one’s self over to Christ or God in anyway helps in that regard.

2) Simply dismiss the claim. Obviously, there are individuals who do not believe that God exists. Many of these individuals are like Christians in behavior, look, demeanor, in their dedication to their families and loyalty to friends. Something other than God is responsible for moral and ethical action.

So God is not enough for moral action itself. Responsibility for the action lies on the individual. Sure, in some cases God may be a motivating factor. But for atheists that motivation has to, and does, come from somewhere else. I recommend reading “Free Inquiry”, the publication of secular humanism. It contains concerns and views that many atheists and agnostics share as well as articles from scientists, philosophers, and others. There is a many thousand-year-old literature on moral actions that have nothing to do with religious motivation. Even Kant, a Christian who was a philosopher, had ethics that could be construed as secular in principle, and did not require a supernatural being.

If we agree on what moral action is, and in a western country such as ours while we have differing views we tend to agree in the larger areas moral and ethical life, then why claim that one group is immoral when they act in accordance with the same moral code, just without the belief? And if the answer is still “because you have to believe full stop” then it is arbitrary in a way that doesn’t deserve endorsement.

Philosophical Engineering

To start, I want to layout a quick distinction before I jump into what I mean by philosophical engineering.

In freshman physics (yes I used to major in physics), the physics majors took their intro class with the honors engineering students. The honors engineers, as the title would suggest, are brilliant people (so were the physics students. Well, we hoped we were). However, we often sneered at their insistence to just know the equation. A homework session of physics and engineering students represented and ideological divide between how the problems in a physics assignment should be approached. We, the physics majors, insisted at starting at first principles (we had two to work with, the momentum and energy principles) while the engineers looked at the problem, the variables, and said “what equation do we use here?”

This is not to say the engineers did not have a grasp of the intricate subtleties of physics, that they were not inquisitive people. They were brilliant individuals who had a very different focus. They understood how to derive the equations they wanted to use, they could do what the physics majors did, they just didn’t see themselves as needing to reinvent the wheel for every problem. “Yes, I get it, and I’ve demonstrated I know the basics. Now, where’s my d*** equation?”

I bring this up to frame a similar divide in the current field of philosophy. I’ve discussed with classmates the relative merits of different fields of philosophy. We’ve decided I’m like a philosophical engineer. My view of philosophy is that it can (and should) be able to engage with real world problems and situations. Ethical and moral theories in particular have been brought up and discussed in many disciplines outside of philosophy (see Joshua Greene’s experiments http://www.pon.harvard.edu/faculty/joshua-greene/ , discussion of norms in sociology, biology, etc http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~stich/Publications/Papers/Framework_for_the_Psychology_of_Norms_7-23-05.pdf).

So why philosophical engineering? A metaphysician on this analogy is like the physicist. They want to know the deeper truth about the makeup of the world and traditionally this work has been done via thought problems, intuition, and traditional armchair philosophy. And (much to the frustration of my metaphysics professor) I’ve made the naturalistic assumption, meaning I’m willing to accept the structure of the world is as the natural sciences describes it (maybe with some qualifications). So I have my first principles in a sense.

And now I want to work on finding answers to more pressing problems. Like the engineers in physics classes, I’m the ethicist in metaphysics. “Thank you, this is all well and good, but do we really have to start from here?”

Have I committed a gross philosophical injustice? Or like in the physical sciences, do we have room for those of us more application minded over theory?

How Should We Approach Hate Speech?

I am often torn by the best way to approach hate speech. I suppose I should try to pin down what I mean by hate speech. In this case I take it to mean talk that is intentionally meant to incite violence and harm against a particular group of people or person (and maybe someone can make better sense of this than I can http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/constitution/amendment01/18.html).

I find, admittedly, groups like the KKK or the Westboro Baptist Church (WBC) enthralling in a sick and disturbing kind of way. I just cannot fathom the mindset. The first time I recall having that kind of sick fascination with a group was when in fifth grade we were studying World War II history and the teacher had to explain to the students what the Holocaust was. As children, we couldn’t understand what feelings could possibly drive the attempted extermination of a group of people.

That feeling comes around again when I see those who preach hatred (and possibly violence, but those claims never hold up in court) against any group of people. Recently my two contacts with this have been the visit to campus by a southern preacher who does a circuit of the Midwest (we’ll call him Brother M) and, of course, the WBC.

I’m curious about what the proper response is to these individuals. In both cases, Brother M and WBC, there have been counter protests and I even took part in one against Brother M. It felt good to voice our own thoughts against his and his family’s. In the case of the WBC watching footage of counter protests is often gratifying, at least to see that people are willing to drown them out, shout them down.

But here’s the kicker:

WBC and Brother M both have rights to their opinions. Living in a free society with protected freedom of speech, they do have the right to say the things they do. Does it mean they should? Probably not, but they have that right. We also have the right to counter protest, to occupy the same spaces they do, and to have our own signs. However, is this ultimately helpful?

What is it we want out of these counter demonstrations? I think we want them to stop. We want them to leave. When Brother M couldn’t say a word without all of us laughing at or questioning everything he said it was satisfying. When he left at the end of the day it wasn’t because of us though. So did we accomplish anything except stroking our own egos?

I’ve often read—and been told—that the best way to approach people like this is to ignore it. They love the attention, even if they won’t admit it. That’s why they demonstrate the way they do. It gets attention. When the crowd gathers it fuels the flames. More people show up to places where people are. Boom ba da bing, and audience. Creating a space where no one reacts or cares is probably, logically speaking, the best way to deal with those individuals. In a space where their voices get lost because no one is shouting back they can’t affirm their place. When no one pays attention or cares, what would they do then?

So please, fill me in. This is where I’m torn: I want to say something because to do nothing, though it may logically be the best response, seems like sanctioning this behavior. By not doing anything to stop it or protest, the immediate reaction is that I have dropped the ball in some way, that I wasn’t brave enough to make my voice heard. Why should that person with the megaphone and the posters be able to stand there uninterrupted? (I know, they have a right to, and they should have that right, because I also have a right to my voice and I wouldn’t want that taken away at any price).

Is there a right way to go about engaging people like this? Are my immediate feelings misguided? (NOTE: they probably are, I’m willing to admit this). Does anyone else feel the same way?

Responses are welcome. Cheers.