Iapetus
I have no instrinsic need to defend Dawkins.
No; I did not think so. Nor are my remarks particular to Dawkins, except that he presents belief in a scale which I think is a misleading idea.
What I was trying to discern was why he might have been accused of ‘misappropriating’ atheism, which I have still not discovered. You refer to his description of a range of attitudes towards God, though he refers to it as a way of categorizing belief regarding the probability of the existence of a deity. I have indicated myself that the idea ‘may or may not be helpful’, though I happen to think it is. He seems to treat it as a hypothesis to be tested but he does not fall into the trap of trying to assign probabilities.
I do not see how a description of people's attitudes can be described as a hypothesis:
He assigns a scale of criterion statements which refer to degrees of conviction about the theistic claim. You mention two points on this scale; believers believe, disbelievers don't. It seems to me that we need at least one other point; those who neither believe nor disbelieve. Can you please elaborate on your statement, “But this seems to me to miss the point. We are not interested in what people's attitudes are, because that is simply a fact about them”.
I'm saying in that sentence that this is simply an observation. I might equally observe '
Fred believes the earth is flat' and this would be true if it correctly described '
Fred', the actual shape of the earth isn't relevant. Hence it tends to lead us off-topic; aren't we interested in what it makes sense to believe, rather than make sociological observations about what people do believe?
I'm not sure it is a good observation either!
I have already explained that I think reasons for belief are extremely complex and are not always linked clearly to what might be discussed in a philosophy forum. Moreover, recent scientific research suggests that the reasons we give for belief may not always correlate with observations of what might be expected in brain activity. It may be the case that none of us has thought adequately about why we may think a particular way. We may be genetically predisposed to theism or atheism. I am not in a position to say.
We can never have certain knowledge of anything, because our knowledge is always subjective. This includes science; we cannot know that our scientific observations are not the product of our biology; we see what our brains are configured to see, we are prejudiced to favour certain types of explanation. Thus philosophers, including scientists, would deny we can have total belief in anything.
But what we can do is say that if we make certain assumptions then those assumptions entail other things. If we assume a Euclidean triangle then certain facts about its angles will follow. That if we deal only with the measureable and assume our senses are a guide to an external reality and that repeated observations of the same event are significant, then we can make propositions in science.
Within such systems, then we can know something to be true or false, because otherwise it would be self-contradictory. A particular truth or otherwise may not be known to us now, but we know what we could do to find out.
But with God, we have the peculiar situation of not only being unsure whether we believe, but not even knowing how we might provide certainty. I would suggest this is because we don't know, or agree, what we mean by 'God'.
For example, if God is a scientific proposition then I can know for a fact he does not exist because God is not measureable. But if God isn't a scientific proposition, for example if he is an abstraction or a subjective experience, then the fact that God does not exist in science is entirely irrelevant.
We could see this clearly enough the other way round. If we are doing science, then our subjective feelings should not be taken into account at all. That I might be uncomfortable with 'evolution' does not make evolution even the slightest bit less likely to be true. Similarly, if God is an object of subjective experience, then the fact he is not an object in science has no bearing at all.
So surely it makes no sense to have a single scale for belief in God. There are various possible meanings for God; if we were clear about what those meanings are then, in each case, we would have only one rational response.
I am not sure what you are getting at here. His argument was about the God claim. His approach to this is to be to be skeptical and to make a judgement based on the available evidence. He has drawn plenty of parallels, including belief in unicorns or a flying spaghetti monster. Why should he be a “de facto disbeliever”, particularly if he is not a ‘de facto’ believer’? I don’t really understand what you intend by ‘de facto’ in this context. Do you mean that this should be his default position, ‘before the fact’? In which case, we may need to define ‘disbeliever’ more precisely. I take it from what you said previously that it is the opposite pole from ‘believer’ and indicates a belief that something does not exist. Why should the default belief not be ‘I neither believe nor disbelieve?’. The justification for this position would be, ‘I have insufficient knowledge/information/evidence’. From what I know about Dawkins, and I am by no means an ardent follower, this is what he would argue. His default position on belief would be non-belief, not disbelief. What is it about him that makes you think his position with regard to the God proposition is inconsistent with his approach to other claims?
I do not think it ever makes sense to talk of
'available evidence' until we have answered; '
Evidence for what?'
As I suggest above, if the '
flying spaghetti monster' is proposed as an object in science, then certain evidence applies. But if it is some other sort of idea, then the evidence appropriate to an object in science is not evidence at all.
The phrase 'de facto' is taken from Dawkins, who talks of a 'de facto theist' and 'de facto atheist' and describes himself as the second.
What I find inconsistent is that he treats God as a scientific proposition, any doubt about his disbelief being only that ultimate doubt that attends all propositions, including scientific ones. But when he criticises theists he applies subjective moral norms he does not attempt to justify scientifically.
If he can do this, we might equally respond that we do not believe in Dawkins' moral views because they are not based on science, but say we do believe in God as our belief is justified by our subjective feelings! If Dawkins can 'mix and match', so can anyone!
