The Resonance Of Understanding

Scott Adams
of
Dilbert
fame has come out and challenged the intellectual merits of atheism. In
a recent blog post
he argues that the only intellectually honest option for a non-believer is
agnosticism. Here’s his argument:

1. It is common for humans to be 100% certain of a particular fact, and
   later find out it is wrong.

2. Therefore, it is irrational for you, a human, to be 100% certain on any
   particular topic.

3. Agnostics believe humans are not equipped to be certain about truth.
   That is rational, and backed by all the peer reviewed science.

4. Atheists come in two flavors.

5. One type of atheist is 100% sure there is no God. That is not rational
   because humans can sometimes be mistaken, and things can exist for which
   no evidence has yet been found.

6. The other type of atheist, the so-called weak form, believes that the
   lack of good evidence for God provides no reason for belief. That is
   rational. Agnostics who understand science believe the same thing.

7. Therefore, there is no meaningful difference between an agnostic who
   understands science and a weak atheist who understands science. Neither
   believes the case for God has been made, and both accept the peer
   reviewed science showing the fragility of the human mind for knowing
   “truth.”

He’s basically saying that humans can never know anything 100%, therefore
atheism is never an intelligent option.

I think Scott is awesome. He’s one of the best writers out there as far as
consistently good material is concerned, and of course his comic is
legendary. But in the realm of philosophy and religion he seems hopelessly
lost. Actually he might not be lost (he might know some of his
arguments have no merit), but he’s leading scary numbers of fans off an
intellectual cliff.

He’s attempting a very precarious balancing act, i.e. debating solidly
supported philosophy using weak arguments that are hundreds of years old,
and then when he gets shot down he can claim it was “philosophy
entertainment”. Win-win.

He’s trying to game the system. He wins if people believe his arguments are
true (which TONS of his fanboys apparently do), yet he also wins if he’s
shown to be putting forth amateur arguments (which has already happened) because he can just claim it was all in fun, and that the responders are
immature for getting upset.

He and his fans seem to enjoy the fact that atheists get bothered by his
claims that atheism is foolish. I don’t think it’s a poor response for us to
do so. He’s considered to be a REAL philosopher by the uneducated, yet
claiming NOT to be one openly. It’s important that his arguments are shown
to be firmly on the side of “tainment” rather than “philoso”.

So here’s my response that discusses the Dawkins approach to agnosticism vs.
atheism:

You’re not disagreeing with Dawkins here, Scott. This is a semantics issue.
The Dawkins Atheist is still skeptical of everything — including the notion
that there is no God — but he does so with the benefit of perspective. He
simply chooses to call things that fall into a certain realm of incredulity
— untrue.

It’s an intellectual courage issue.

Dawkins and others like him are 100% sure there is no God in only the same
way that they are 100% sure there are no unicorns, no leprechauns, and no
Gods of Olympus. This is not absolute certainty; this is certainty graded on a curve. We take the most
preposterous notions in the world (magic horses, fairies, etc.) and use that
as the standard for 100% since there really is no such thing.

To an atheist, theism is simply one absurdity among many that reached that
threshold of curved 100%. It’s the same with any other silly notion
that we can come up with — like Russell’s Teapot or any number of ancient
superstitions. They’re equally absurd for the purposes of practicality,
meaning they’re non-issues. Hence atheism.Agnosticism on matters of such
absurdity is nothing less than intellectual cowardice. One is essentially
saying, “It’s never been proven that there aren’t any invisible pink
unicorns, therefore I’m not going to say there aren’t any. I want to be
absolutely sure before I call myself an anti-unicornist.”

That’s ridiculous. This means you also can’t in good conscience tell your
children there are no monsters under their beds. After all, you can’t be
certain.

The distinction between atheism and agnosticism comes down to one thing —
having the intellectual courage to say, “If you think that Zeus still rules
from Olympus, that a giant teapot orbits the Sun, or that the Bible is the
word of an omnipotent, sentient God who created our universe — you’re
delusional.” Not maybe wrong. Not partially right. Delusional.

Atheists are just agnostics with the balls to recognize that there
ARE certain things that are too ludicrous to discuss seriously. The
primitive, superstitious belief systems found in ancient texts are simply
one such class of silliness. It’s time to mature past the silly notion of
everything being “possibly true on some level, therefore defensible.”If that
were the case then the words “false” and “incorrect” would lose most of
their meaning. Any logical person knows we can safely rule out the Gods of
Olympus without checking every place in the universe.

It’s the 21st century; let’s have the courage to call the absurd what it is.