This is often asked out of exasperation. From the religious person's point of view, the atheist is stubbornly refusing to believe the obvious truth. How dare he? The only explanation must be closed-mindedness.
The problem is, what seems self-evident to the believer is actually not self-evident at all.
The bottom line for sceptical thinkers, a term which describes most atheists, is evidence. If an idea has no evidence to back it up, then it is not worth believing. This is the main criterion that most people, theist and atheist alike, apply in most areas of life. Theists just seem to think it's not necessary to apply the same logic to God.
What is open-mindedness? To me, it is the willingness and humility to change one's mind or one's position based on evidence, and to follow the evidence wherever it may lead. Accepting any old thing that someone else believes is not being open-minded; it is being naive and sheep-like. Requiring a good reason, i.e. evidence, before one changes one's mind is not being closed-minded. It is being sensible.
Personally, I have already demonstrated that I am open-minded by changing my views based on the evidence. I was a believer for well over 30 years, and "born again" for 20 of those years. I never wanted to be an atheist. However, I was willing to follow the evidence wherever it led, and because of that I ended up changing my mind and becoming an atheist. That shows I'm willing to change my mind if necessary, but I'm not going to change my mind about something just because someone else happens to believe it strongly.
If you want me to believe what you believe, there is only one thing that will do it: actual evidence. Provide me with real evidence and I may well change my mind. However, if all you have to offer is a mixture of hearsay, personal feelings and groundless philosophical arguments then you'll find I stubbornly cling to reality - not because I'm closed-minded, but because I have not been given a good reason to change my mind.
To the religious person who accuses me of being closed-minded, then, then, I say this: if I am willing to change my mind based on evidence, while you ignore any evidence that contradicts your beliefs, which of us is really closed-minded?
4 comments:
So what exactly is the evidence that a material universe can come into being out of literally nothing material (matter cannot be infinite)?
Atheists must of necessity believe this yet what is the evidence? Nothing except the blind faith believe that only the material exists.
What is the evidence that 1,000's of "just so" constants and quantities could accidentally be in place at Planck time? Not one of them could be off by the smallest of degree or life, no this universe would not exist.
Scientists themselves have calculated that just one, the cosmological constant being Fine Tuned to 10^1,2000 is like a 100,000 ton Aircraft Carrier not being off by 1 trillionth billionth of the mass of an electron or it would capsize.
What is the evidence that keeps you from believing this on blind faith?
Great post, Barry. I totally agree. I have also been accused of being closed-minded - which is ironic considering the accuser is usually the closed-minded one (about their belief in God).
To anonymous - I can't speak for Barry, but I see it from another perspective: the universe came about simply because the conditions happened to be exactly right. The way I hear your argument/view is that conditions were exactly right just SO THAT the universe could come into existence. The fact that conditions were exactly right isn't evidence of a creator, it is just evidence that a particular process took place because that's what the conditions dictated. The existence of the universe is simply a product of the conditions that were.
As far as matter -- isn't that what the LHC is working on right now?
Hi Anonymous
just to add on Erin's point and a little rebuttal to yours.
You talk about the universe being 'fine tuned'. To which i would like you to point out another universe where life doesn't exist? We have 1 universe, which means 1 sample set. So that makes it 100% percent likely that life should exist. That's probability for you.
Atheist also don't have to necessarily believe anything, we have a lack of belief in something. I don't believe in your god, just like i don't believe in the tooth fairy or Thor. Why should i believe in any of this?
Just to add to what's already been said, Anon:
I'm not a physicist. I'm nothing more than an educated layman when it comes to how the universe came into being.
That being the case, I have to say that I don't know how it came into being. I would also contend that you don't know either, so we're in the same situation. However, unlike you, I see no reason to assume that a god did it on the basis of no evidence whatsoever.
If you want me to believe that a god did it, show me the evidence to support that view. Otherwise there is no reason for me to believe it. Evidence, as I have already said, is my bottom line as a sceptic.
All the physics models of how the universe came into being could be proven false, and that still wouldn't constitute evidence that a god created it.
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