I know the title of this post is going to annoy a lot of atheists out there and maybe surprise a lot of theists considering I’m agnostic (but agnostic≠atheist). Theists have it wrong because their view has no evidence or, in some cases, logic to support it. That’s why their view is often referred to as a “faith.” They cannot prove or even test their hypothesis that there is a god. However, atheists cannot prove or test theirs, either.
“Now wait a minute, Lee,” I can hear some atheists say. “The burden of proof is on the positive (theists) not on the negative (atheists).” And, they are exactly right–the burden of proof is indeed on the theists. Some might even point out that it is not even possible to prove a negative, but that simply proves my point that atheism is an untenable position. But, atheists have the right idea, they just go wrong when they go too far and stray outside rational thought. Here’s what I mean…
Most atheists start their belief with a foundation in science; a good place to start. Science, and more specifically the scientific method, has a process that many are familiar with but I’ll briefly go through them now. First, you create an hypothesis, in this case “there is a god.” Second, you devise an experiment, experiments or observations that will either add positive evidence for the hypothesis to be true or contradicts the hypothesis proving it to be false. Then, there is a step that many are not familiar with: you assume the “null” hypothesis. I’ll explain what that means in a bit. Finally, you perform the experiment(s) and/or make the observations, collect the data and try to determine if the hypothesis is contradicted or that you have collected enough positive evidence to now reject the null hypothesis and assume the positive hypothesis.
Now, what is a null hypothesis? Many will assume that it is the negation of the positive hypothesis; in our case “there is no god” or, to be pedantic, “it is not true there is a god.” But, that is where the atheists are mistaken. More properly it should be, “there is no proof (yet) there is a god.”
You see, there is a basic tenet of rational thought that says, “Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence,” which simply means just because there’s no evidence for something doesn’t mean that something doesn’t exist or isn’t true. Let me give you an example. For centuries (millennia really) we didn’t have evidence that atoms existed. The ancient Greeks believed they did, but had no evidence. Yet, we now know that atoms do indeed exist. They also existed in ancient Greece. So, the absence of evidence (at that time) was not evidence of (the) absence (of atoms).
What’s even more disturbing about the atheist position is that they employ that same type of bad thinking that creationist theists use when attacking evolution. When creationists attack evolution, most assume that if they can prove that evolution is false, creationism, by default, is true. Nothing could be further from the truth. Even if evolution could be proved false (and that’s highly unlikely), that fact says nothing about the “truth” of creationism. Likewise, it seems that many atheists want to believe that, because the theists cannot produce any evidence that a god exists, therefore a god doesn’t exist. And that is a non sequitur; it does not follow (from a logical, rational standpoint).
Now, don’t get me wrong, there are some very specific ideas in certain specific religions that are demonstrably false. Some of their basic axioms are logical contradictions (e.g. omnipotence) and some are contradicted by physical evidence (e.g. the Earth and the (observable) Universe are without a doubt older than 6000-7000 years). So, those things, among others, at the very least should call into question the veracity of those religious views that espouse them if not out and out prove them false. But, just because their particular version of a god does not exist does not preclude the existence of some other god, goddess, gods or other type of supreme being. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.
Many atheists will bristle when they are told by someone, especially a theist, that it takes as much faith to be an atheist as it does to be a theist. But, they are right. The idea that there is no god is as much lacking of evidence and proof as the idea that there is. The best, most scientific point of view, in my opinion therefore, is one of agnosticism. In the absence of evidence either way, it is better to say, “I don’t know” than to stand on an unsupported position.
And, “I don’t know” has always been a very important scientific idea to me. For decades, if have always said that the three most important words a scientist can say are “I don’t know.” But, as time went on, I decided that it needed a little addition.
Now I believe the most important words a scientist can say are,
“I don’t know. But I aim to find out.”
Be well and think well.