[This Book Note refers to]
Atheism: The Case Against God [by George H. Smith.]
[God, I love
Delicious Library!]
(I got sick of
Art of War)
• P. 10: I disagree strongly with his presumption that agnosticism necessarily indicates that god or the existence of God is unknowable. I think that many agnostics (myself included, in the past) would disagree with this presumption, and say that it can only mean that it is unknown—by anyone, or merely by them. His definition of atheism as including most agnostics is good, but there is no reason for everyone to accept it. I see no reason why three divisions work any less well than two.
• P. 11: How odd—I understand completely what Huxley is saying. he believes that the truth in this matter is unknown, not unknowable, but that the problem may just be beyond human capacity to solve. But this does
not equate to the truth being theoretically unknowable; merely that we may not have the ability, as humans, to find and understand it. The concept focuses on the limitations of humans, not of the Universe.
In fact, I cannot argue with Huxley's position. Do I, can I, know
for sure that there is no god or God? no. Neither can I know with certainty that fairies do not exist, or that alien abductions do not regularly take place, or that white mice don't secretly run the world. I merely know that there is insufficient evidence to indicate that these things are real, and that there
is significant evidence
against these ideas. In fact, the only real evidence for Christianity is that so many people believe in it. If not for that, it could easily be dismissed as foolishness.
• He is (p. 11, e.g.) being
'way too pedantic and repetitive. I've
got it already. This is a trap I could easily fall into in my writing, as I do in my speaking.
Be careful! Have others read it to make sure.
• Rule: Don't fuck with other people's definitions unless you have a damned good reason. On page 13, he divides atheism into implicit and explicit.
Implicit atheism is identical to traditional agnosticism! He'd better have a damned good reason for changing the splits around like this.
• P. 14: I'm really not sure I agree with all this. These are all definitions, and therefore arbitrary, but 1) it could be equally argued that atheism requires knowledge of theism to have something to not believe in. Lack of knowledge about theism would make you an agnostic, one who "doesn't know." By the same logic, lack of knowledge about gnosis, or lack of knowledge about knowledge, would create a fourth category, "None of the above," which would include rocks, trees, stars and babies, which I would think appropriate, as it seems silly to call a rock an atheist, which you would have to by his definition. And 2) you can't get away with calling all babies atheists—that is entirely the point of baptism right after birth—to bring these unthinking creatures into the arms of God and to make them theists, not atheists, by default.
• P. 21: "From the mere fact that a person is an atheist, one cannot infer that this person subscribes to any particular positive beliefs." This, in my view, is the major inherent flaw of atheism. It takes away beliefs, but offers nothing to fill the void. It is simple negation. This is a horrible thing to do to a person: to remove their beliefs and then to leave them empty, with no purpose or meaning or direction. I've been there; it's not fun.
I had to go through it, being the philosopher himself. Most people don't need it, nor would they be likely to find their own way out. Theism, by itself,
does imply a set of morals and values and reasons and answers, which vary according to which branch or sect you subscribe to. There is no such thing as simple theism. Atheism isn't even an "-ism"—it's the negation of others' beliefs. Simple negation is not enough. Atheism must be only one facet of a new belief system.
• Can we honestly analyze atheism without a deep analysis of why people believe in God? And yet he seems unwilling to do so, instead focusing on the reasons why they're wrong. P. 24-25: Let us all now cry at the unfairness of the world. Bah. Let's ask why, with an uncritical eye, these people behave this way. We know they're wrong; let's discover why they insist on this wrongness. "…these are the issues to which a theist must address himself if he wishes to confront the challenge of atheism." And yet this is not true! These are the questions that the theist knows must not be raised, or confronted directly, for he fears the answers. This sentence of his presumes that his opponents are rational, and yet "…the average believer…was persuaded to believe for emotional, not intellectual reasons," and "is impervious to arguments against the existence of a supernatural being, regardless of how meticulous and carefully reasoned these arguments may be." Not the picture of a rational person who would respond to a challenge of this nature.
• P. 26: He seems to believe that the simple absence of religion—the absence of any beliefs at all, in fact—would be better than the existence of theistic religion; that theism is inherently almost completely evil. [I say that] it is not enough to merely deny God; one must consider why theism exists, how it is used, how it is useful, and what its good
as well as bad points are. To deny that religion has any good points is to call humanity as a whole incredibly stupid. I'm sorry, but we've lasted too long and done too well to be so stupid. There must be reasons.
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