First, by “100% right”, I take you to mean 100% certain. Many propositions can only be true or false and don’t admit degrees in between. For example, the statment, “my mother’s name is Cathe”, can only be true or false, so it’s not possible to be 90% right whether I believe the statement or not.

On the other hand, I should never be 100% certain, since as a human I am fallible. (There are exceptions, e.g. I am absolutely certain that triangles have three points.) Unsurprisingly, I think theists get this wrong more often than atheists. Theists lay claim to absolute moral authority rather often, and it causes a lot of trouble.

So this would be one thing they could learn from atheists: there is no absolute certainty in this world.

I should also like theists to learn better how to reliably learn about the world, and how to determine certainty. Gnostic methods are demonstrably unreliable in producing useful information, and they should be treated as suspect. Certainty in a theory should rest in confirmed predictions. A theory without confirmed predictions should be treated as mere speculation. (Theories with wrong predictions are false, so you should believe they’re false. This seems self-evident.)

Atheists could learn from theists how to create a meaningful tradition that connects people to one another and to the past. I’m talking about church here. There are lots of secular clubs out there, but church is, at its best, a place to ponder the mysteries of life, one’s achievements and areas for improvement, all in a social environment. Many atheists could surely benefit from something similar.

Posted: April 23rd 2009

See all questions answered by George Locke

It’s weird to talk about 100% right or wrong in this context. Objectively, either the theists are right and god exists, or the atheists are right and god doesn’t exist.

As for what theists could learn? Well, theists tend to claim atheists are arrogant, but it is the theists who are arrogant.

I can describe – and have, many times – what evidence would lead me to conclude that god exists (at least under some definition of “god”). Or, to put it another way, I have thought about what would show that my position is wrong.

I’ve asked many theists what evidence would lead them to conclude that god did not exist, and never gotten a single answer. There is no test, no way to, “aha, god does not exist”.

Stubborn adherence to a belief where you can’t find out if it’s wrong is arrogant. Going beyond that, and making a virtue out of continual belief without evidence or even in the existence of counter-evidence (ie “faith”) is the height of arrogance.

As for the opposite – what can atheists llearn from theists – the one thing is the importance of community and connectiveness that can come from a congregation of people.

Posted: April 23rd 2009

See all questions answered by Eric_PK

People in general can teach me anything I’m interested in. I’m at university at the moment, and all my lecturers could be theists, for all I know about them personally. I don’t care, as long as they keep their personal beliefs out of the lecture theatres. I know there some subjects where a lecturer’s opinion is useful, but I’m studying Engineering, where the core topics are not based on opinions or any other “-isms” or “-ologies”.

A theist could teach me theology, if I was inclined to listen. That would not make the theology true, however, any more than learning from a Tolkien expert would mean that Middle Earth exists. The Tolkienology might be fun to study, but it’s not a religious theology, since it places no demands on you to change your core personal beliefs, or discriminate against people who don’t accept your view of the world as the truth.

If I have anything to teach theists, it’s not about religion, but more general principles such as how to be scientific when faced with an objective reality. There are things about this physical world that are solid and may be unpleasant, things that do not negotiate with you or change over time as opinions and religions change. Earth, steel and concrete do not work by prayer, they are physically real and understandable down to the atomic level.

Another word for what’s happening in the question is triangulation – something that may have cost Hillary Clinton the Democratic nomination in 2008. She also made the mistake of always looking for a middle ground between two opposing ideas, even when such middle ground did not necessarily exist.

Posted: April 22nd 2009

See all questions answered by brian thomson

Most of my friends are theists. I learn all kinds of things from them, and in turn teach them all kinds of things I know. Very few have anything to do with religion. I do, occasionally, learn about some theistic doctrine I was unfamiliar with, because religion continues to fascinate me. They, in turn, learn about my POV if the subject comes up. But as long as we both share the opinion that a person’s religious beliefs, or lack of them, is fairly trivial compared to the real issue of what kind of person someone is, we can continue to enjoy each other’s company and learn lots of things from each other.

Posted: April 22nd 2009

See all questions answered by Dave Hitt

The premise on which your question is based is faulty.

I am 100 percent certain I do not believe in the existence of any god. Since atheism is the absence of god-belief, it is essentially an either/or proposition. One either believes in the existence of a deity or one does not. The proposition “god exists” cannot be partially true.

I learn lots of things from lots of people. Whether they believe in gods or not usually doesn’t enter into it.

Posted: April 22nd 2009

See all questions answered by George Ricker

I’m not offended by the idea that atheists might be mistaken in their conclusion that gods don’t exist, but I’m puzzled by the implication that non-belief in gods can be partially correct. For any given definition of 'gods’ that we choose, the statement of strong atheism, 'no gods exist’, is either entirely true or entirely false. To suggest anything else is like saying that a woman is a bit pregnant.

There’s nothing about a person’s status as a theist or an atheist, on its own, that should lead us to conclusions about whether they have something interesting or important to tell or show us.

I think that a mention of the fallacy of moderation might be relevant here; that’s the mistaken idea that the best place to look for truth is in the area between opposing viewpoints. A moment’s thought reveals that in fact one side can just be right and the other wrong.

Posted: April 22nd 2009

See all questions answered by bitbutter

No idea why you are splitting people and the potential that they have in terms of teaching others either by example or by explicit instruction into atheists and theists. Such an approach seems contrived and silly.

The biggest thing that people teach me is how they do things differently. Once I identify that they are doing something/or thinking differently than I do, I then analyze and research the topic until I decide that I will keep on doing it my way or modify it or completely change to their way, or the best, synthesize a new way.

For example, if a person believes in an entity without evidence of its existence, I will conclude, that until they provide enough indication that this entity even exists, they are welcome to continue to believe in their non-evidential beliefs as a consenting adult in their private lives, but I will not accept their belief to be based on reality.

However, that same person could have an excellent way of propagating daffodil bulbs (I am an avid gardener). I will then check out this approach and see if I will abandon/modify my approach, adopt theirs, or as I said, the best result will be if I can come up with an even better alternative. In other words, live, learn, grow.

Another example is that Ken Miller, a biology professor who also happens to be a devout Catholic (Catholicism is a popular, zombie, death, misery, superstitious cult that I particularly find disgusting) has given me several handles on teaching others evolution.

Posted: April 22nd 2009

See all questions answered by logicel