From: crawford@boole.mitre.org (Randy Crawford)
Subject: Re: Atheism and Intelligence
Organization: The MITRE Corporation, McLean, VA
Distribution: na
Date: Sat, 12 Dec 1992 05:40:31 GMT

In article <schnitzi.724107586@eola.cs.ucf.edu> schnitzi@cs.ucf.edu (Mark Schnitzius) writes:
>crawford@boole.mitre.org (Randy Crawford) writes:
>>(this quoted without attribution):
>>>In other words, atheism seems to be the "in" thing among the intellectual
>>>elites, so those who wish to seem intelligent frequently adopt atheism
>>>so that they may scorn those "stupid" enough to believe in God.  
>
>>Agreed.  For right or wrong, it's fashionable among intelligensia.
>
>Hogwash.  This smacks of a blatant attempt to explain away a trait of
>your peer group that you do not share.  It is my suggestion that you engage
>some atheists in conversation to find out why they became that way before
>you make sweeping generalizations of this sort.  I think you will find
>that most of them became atheists through quiet introspection of their
>beliefs, rather than any kind of social pressure.

No.  This "smacks" of an attempt to understand those in "my peer group" who 
have decided that sufficient evidence exists to conclude with certainty
that a god does NOT exist.  I infer that because intelligent people are 
logical people, their beliefs ARE founded on more than whimsy.  That most 
atheists of my acquaintance are bright and yet are willing to state with 
certainty that a god cannot exist is tantamount to stating equally myopic 
convictions: extraterrestrial life does not exist, time travel is impossible, 
space is necessarily 3 dimensional and linear in composition.  I attribute 
such irrational or simplistic attitudes to fashion and not to the alternative, 
a disregard for facts, the logical/scientific method, and the history of 
technology in shaping our beliefs.

>
>>It is inherently illogical to conclude with confidence in the 
>>existence of a god based on the evidence available to us.  A purely rational 
>>being would _not_ decide with finality that a god does or does not exist.
>
>Hmmm... Has anyone seen my Occam's Razor around?

I thought that was my point -- religion isn't logical.  When sensible people
behave counterintuitively to what you would expect of sensible people, the
simplest explanation for their motiviations will not fit with the facts.  A
logical person believes only in what s/he has observed to exist.  This should
limit logicians to being atheists if that were all there were to it.  But any
student of history will tell you that much of the world which is unobservable
today may be observable tomorrow once technology opens our eyes.  Because of
this, a sensible person cannot say with certainty that ANYTHING cannot exist.

The difference between a christian believing in God and a scientist believing
in gravity is that the christian will NEVER admit the possibility that God 
does not exist, while under the right conditions, the scientist WILL admit 
that gravity might not.  For the christian, to admit indecision would reduce
him/her to being an agnostic who believes that God is _likely_.  Religion 
is certainty, nothing else.

I'd bet that most good scientists will be willing to admit that we humans can 
know NOTHING with certainty about the physical world.  Not that this is mere 
sophistry, but science will keep changing our views of what is true and what 
is real.  As such, the beliefs of the sensible person are a balancing act 
on the boundary between those things which are likely to exist and those 
which are unlikely.  To eliminate the possible, however unlikely, is to 
close your mind to the parts of the world you do not yet understand.  I 
charge that this is not the act of a sensible (intelligent) person, and I 
attribute such beliefs not to a simplistic inability to reason or to a 
blindness to the facts, but to an overwhelming attraction among the young
to be fashionable.

>
>>Therefore, to be an atheist OR a christian is an equally illogical leap of
>>faith.  The truly rational individual is an agnostic; they conclude that
>>insufficient data is available to decide that a god is or is not.
>
>Let me ask -- are you an agnostic about Santa Claus, or do you flat out
>not believe in him?

Yup.  I'm an extreme agnostic when it comes to Santa.  All proof of his 
existence is so mired in cultural history that his existence is impossible 
for practical purposes.  The concept of a god has nowhere near the specific 
literary ontology and readily refutable baggage that a Santa has.  I'm 
an agnostic when it comes to a god too, but not quite as certain in my 
disbelief.

And you?  What do you disbelieve?
-- 

| Randy Crawford        crawford@mitre.org        The MITRE Corporation
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