While talking about religion with some acquaintances, I brought up the Russel’s teapot argument, to point out that there’s no reason to believe in something that can’t be proven to exist nor to not exist. I said then that the 'default state’ for something should be 'does not exist’ until proven otherwise. They argued then that assuming that is faith, I 'have faith’ that the teapot doesn’t exist, since I can’t prove it does or doesn’t. I was really bothered by the comparison, since 'faith’ has a religious connotation. There’s something in my mind that screams that this comparison is unfair and really wrong, but I can’t point out exactly why. What should I have said?
Posted: June 10th 2010
Mike the Infidel www
If we base our worldview on their response, then we must say that for ANYTHING we claim doesn’t exist, we are making that claim based on faith. Unicorns? Magic? Leprechauns? Flying whales? You only have FAITH they don’t exist!
Of course, it takes no faith to disbelieve that for which there is no evidence. They do it every day.
Posted: July 17th 2010
SmartLX www
That’s not faith, it’s confidence.
Something everyone can agree on about Russell’s teapot is that it is extremely likely that it doesn’t exist. Therefore one could accurately say something like, “I am more than 99% confident that there is no teapot in orbit around the sun.” Similarly, atheists have a high level of confidence that there aren’t any gods based on the conspicuous lack of evidence for beings which supposedly affect everything and want our belief.
If someone wants to call this faith because you aren’t 100% certain, then according to that definition we all have “faith” in almost everything, but most of our “faith” is far more justifiable than religious faith.
Posted: June 11th 2010
logicel
My stance is that something for which there is no evidence is highly improbable and is not worth the bother. Once evidence is presented, then I can accept its existence, whether it is Big Foot, the Lock Ness Monster, or any flavor of god.
With non-evidential beliefs, where do you draw the line? There are zillions of them. To be consistent you would need to bother with all of them.
The finer nuance that you want to present is not lack of existence (you can’t prove that, you can only rely on the believers to present solid evidence), but a high degree of improbability. It is best to shy away from saying that something does not exist. If you do that, then, technically, your friends are correct. It is faith, and some atheists like Carolyn Porco, the astronomer, do take that faith-based position, that there is no god. Here is a clear article on weak/strong atheism.
Of course, since most theists are strong atheists (believe that god(s) don’t exist) regarding Zeus, Thor, etc., you can say that you just go one god further than them. In other words, you beat them at their faith game. You have much more faith then they do! Lol.
Posted: June 11th 2010