Skepticism vs. Atheism

I know for me personally it was skepticism about “everything else” that eventually led me to question and reject my religion. Questioning the nonsense of God was a lot easier when I was comfortable questioning the nonsense of other woo-woo.

I don’t really see God as the head of the Monster, I’d reserve a lack of critical thinking for that spot. God-belief is just the most obvious and pervasive symptom.

Gods and governments, priests and politicians; Why not apply the same religious skepticism to claims about the correct way to govern/control people?

With all due respect, I think your question has a false premise.

Skepticism is the idea that you can’t buy into a belief unless there is some evidence supporting it. When it comes to Bigfoot, ghosts, and UFO’s, there is a physical phenomenon which can be measured. However, when applying it to a diety, these dieties, while they can have physical effects, they are controlled by an intelligence. As psychology has pointed out, you can study groups, and say that any given individual has a certain chance of doing X, but that by no means is conclusive. If a diety existed, we would have a sample size of one. Human behavior changes alot based on various things. So, while a person may react predicitable once, a second time, perhaps not.

applying this to a diety, and since we only have a sample size of one, there’s no reason to believe the actions of this diety would be predictable.

Skepticism and atheism are, IMHO, two different phenomena. While they are often intertwined, they are distict, and someone can be one without being the other.

Is it intellectually honest to call yourself a skeptic if you still believe in a god? I say no.

I gather, then, that you don’t consider Martin Gardner a True Scotsman Skeptic(TM)?

I could make a stronger claim that skepticism without materialism is incomplete, and yet there are many skeptics who are not materialists.

To me, it has to do with testable vs. untestable claims. The existence of God is an untestable claim, therefore it falls outside the realm of skepticism (personally, the fact that it is untestable is why I’m an atheist, but I can see how opinions differ). Miracles, apparitions, faith healing, and so on, are all testable claims, and are under the purview of skeptical inquiry. In other words, some religious beliefs are fair game – that doesn’t mean that all skeptics must be atheists.

@JJ

And a pacifist who kills people isn’t a true pacifist. Sure someone who claims to be something CAN do the opposite, but it doesn’t make them consistent with the definition of the word.

Scepticism is a woolly term, anyone can be sceptical of anything at all. Most Christians are sceptical of Krishna and not all faith healers are fully convinced that Santa Claus exists. Atheism is again very woolly, like the posters in New Zealand say; “We are all atheists about most gods, some of us just go one god further!” (A paraphrased Dawkins quote!).

If only the term “Scientologist” wasn’t already taken by a crackpot cult! We should just use the word Scientist or something more positive that a statement of unbelief.

But if the problem is like a Necromorph then the limbs are the better target. Sometimes head shots aren’t best. 😀

And I think they all go hand in hand. I don’t think we can really prioritize irrational behaviors. Pretty much every irrational belief has a negative consequences to it so it’s good to have different organizations focus on different things.

Even those of us who would call oursleves skeptics are not skeptical about all things.

How many people who are atheists and good critical thinkers about the supernatural and pseudo-science also tend ot buy uncritically into a political ideology (the large number of hard-core Libertarians in the skeptic movement comes to mind, as do those who got caught up in the “Obamamania” of 2008, and I’ve even met self-proclaimed Marxists who were otherwise skeptical people)?

How many have some personal practice that they are convinced is special, despite all evidence to the contrary (I know many skeptics who are also convinced that Yoga is more than it actually is)?

For that matter, how many skeptics failt o practice skepticism in their personal relationships – thinking that their partner is faithful despite evidence to the contrary, that their friends view them in a way very different from reality, that their relationship with their parents or siblings is better than it is, etc.?

The fact of the matter is that nobody is skeptical about all things. Even if we try, the best that we can do is to try to be open to disconfirming evidence, but know that we will sometimes (perhaps frequently) fail. While there are some claims that need to be opposed because they are astoundingly harmful (anti-vaxxers come to mind), even people that hold those beliefs might show decent critical thinking on other matters.

So, the idea that we can single out one realm of thought and say “a TRUE skeptic can not believe in poposition X” ignores the reality of how humans, including skeptics, think, and is therefore an example of poor critical thinking.

Skepticism is more about the general trajectory of a person’s thinking, and the tools that they generally apply to propositions. It’s not about having every conclusion line up perfectly with a platonic ideal of a “skeptic”

I am skeptical of atheism. Atheism is a conspiracy theory.

Atheism and materialism are both untestable claims.

Sure, you can say that nothing testable has contradicted either of them…but the same applies to many forms of Theism and substance dualism.

I advise fellow Atheists to stick to defensively justifying an Atheistic position. Attempts to rule out the possibility Theism is true are usually (always?) just as fallacious as the Theistic arguments we criticize. …and many Atheists are every bit as blind to these problems as Theists are to the faults of their apologists.

If you can convince people they’re wrong about their religious claims, that thinking will eventually extend into psychics, horoscopes, and Deepak Chopra. (At least, I would hope so.)

That hope would be misplaced, for a lot of the reasons Anthroslug gave. In some ways, giving up god belief is much easier than adopting an overall attitude of skepticism. Religion makes so many absurd claims that, if one isn’t too emotionally and culturally indoctrinated, it’s not that terribly hard to see through the mythology. But so many varieties of woo are cloaked in pseudoscientific babble, or are pushed by well-meaning individuals with real humanistic goals, that it’s difficult to sort it all out unless you applied tough criteria to everything. My wife gave up a lifetime of Catholicism with relatively little pain, but it’s tough for me to convince her that her favorite physical therapist can’t “move energy” around in her body. And my wife’s a very smart cookie.

A lot is made out of the idea that skepticism without atheism is incomplete. But much less is made out of the more obvious fact that atheism doesn’t need skepticism to be complete. If Bill Maher doesn’t believe in germ theory, that doesn’t make him any less of an atheist.

Atheists who oppose skeptical values are not my allies. I may sympathize for their fight for social liberties, but they aren’t getting much more respect than that. I have far more respect for the skeptical theist than the non-skeptical atheist.

But if your goal is to fight for both skepticism and atheism, doesn’t it make a whole lot more sense to argue for skepticism first and let atheism follow? We were just talking about how easy it is to imagine a non-skeptical atheist, and how hard it is to imagine a skeptical theist.

I really don’t understand why we would conclude that fighting religion would hurt Deepak Chopra (especially when Chopra’s fans are mostly people disillusioned with organized religion, or weren’t you aware?).

Skepticism should come first, no question. People need to learn to think critically, and to apply those skills to paranormal claims.

And as far as I’m concerned, the problematic aspects of god-belief are precisely those making supernatural claims. (If you want to be a deist or an existentialist Christian with belief in some abstract apophatic god, have at it.) Besides, a true skeptic doesn’t prescribe (or proscribe) a given belief. S/he just wants to see people using their heads.

Brice, Martin Gardner was the frakkin’ original skeptic. If he wasn’t a skeptic, nobody is.

Of course scepticism leads to atheism, that is we do not know that a god exists, and a god isn’t a simple or competent explanation. A god is an answer, even if it isn’t a very good one, and it’s certainly not justified by evidence or reasoned argument. It’s absolutely counter to scepticism in the absence of evidence to pick a creator as an explanation in favour of others due to irrational arguments. Yet that’s just the beginning because theists don’t just assume a creator as the deists do, they assume a hell of a lot more about their god, again in the absence of evidence and good argument.

Sceptical organisations already ignore religion for political and pragmatic reasons. This theist wants even more concessions, a special exception, as religion feels it is entitled to in every realm. What if someone was brought up to believe in untestable claims about ghosts but they’re sceptical about everything else including religion? A claim should be treated different due to its popularity. Non-sceptics have something to add to sceptical discourse in specific areas, as alchemists and numerologists had something to add to science. Scepticism should be open to input from non-sceptics, although I think it’s good to have mostly sceptics running sceptic organisations.

I’m of the mind that “graceful degradation” is the way to go. Going after the head one ignores the vitality of the rest of a persons belief structure. If one can show that their castle rests on a foundation of sand and not the bedrock they assert you can overcome their automatic defenses and allow them to see the emptiness of their delusional beliefs. Excellent question I must say…peace be with 🙂

“Is it intellectually honest to call yourself a skeptic if you still believe in a god?”

If you’ve honestly come to the conclusion that there is evidence for your god, then yes.

This does not, of course, mean that you have applied your intellect well, it just means that you have applied it honestly.

My skepticism led me to be an atheist, not the other way around. I think the JREF is correct in their stance on the subject.

then you might as well think that being a adult male born and living in Scotland isn’t enough to make one a Scotsman.

A Scotsman, ay, bot not a true Scotsman.

I’ve had many back-and-forths with others on this issue. Here’s a sample of my position, as a skeptic, on the issue of skepticism and atheism. http://tinyurl.com/yau4kus

I’ve written other entries on the issue too, and most links to my othere entries can be found here: http://tinyurl.com/yayanqm

I think skepticism and atheism go hand in hand, but I think people’s religious beliefs are too deeply ingrained to start there. Other woo can be like this, but religion is more likely to be indoctrinated from childhood. Can one be a skeptic and not be an atheist? I would like to think not. But I think believers also draw a line between god/religion, and everything else.

Teach people to think critically, understand the process of science. Start with real, testable arguments. If you can get through to someone that mega-dosing on vitamin C is useless, you can get them to start thinking critically and questioning everything.

Since god is essentially untestable, that might not be a good place to start because all you have are verbal arguments. No actual evidence. And you can’t prove a negative. Vitamin C mega-dosing might someone’s personal woo, but their religion might be their social framework and their source of comfort when grandma died.

I consider myself an atheist and a skeptic and I personally can not understand, how one can believe in a god without evidence for its existence. But I came to be skeptic (or rather: realizing that i am one) through my interest for atheism. In Fact, i learned through the Richard Dawkins website that there is a group of people that is regarded as Skeptics. But i realize that altough most of the Skeptics i have met are atheists, there is a significant number of Skeptics that are still religous. On the other hand while I met a whole lot of wonderful Skeptics on the AAI International Conference, not all atheists are Skeptics. I think both go well together, but both are equally important. From a practical point of view – at least in Germany where i come from – Skeptizism may be more practical – debunking Astrology or Woo-Treatments, that endanger peoples wellbeing – than promoting the idea that there is no god (most probably), which has little impact on peoples everydaylife in a mostly secular society. You can be Secular and religious, too, altough Humanism may fit better. So why ask the question what is more important? Both topics need to be adressed.

Like Nardo, I was a skeptic for some time before eventually becoming an atheist. I was actually skeptical of many doctrinal positions within my own religion, more or less buying into some subset on faith while rejecting the more patently absurd parts. The process of doing that eventually broadened what I considered patently absurd until there wasn’t anything left of my religion.

It is possible for a religious person to pretty much agree with the rest of us Skeptics on everything including the age of the universe, the non-occurrence of miracles in day to day life, evolution, homeopathy, dowsing, bigfoot, etc., and yet consciously hold an ultimate “god” belief of some form in such a way that it doesn’t undermine the other things in the mind of the religious skeptic.

I would most definitely hate to alienate this person, who may eventually even become skeptical of that last bit of religion to which he or she is clinging, and even if not, they’re not the sort who is working to promote their religious views and is more probably combating those who are promoting their religious views.

My favorite example is that of astronomer Pamela Gay, who if you’ve heard her speak, you KNOW that she’s dedicated to the Skeptical movement and you’d never even know that she’s religious in any sense until she mentions it. She is very clear in acknowledging that her religious views are completely unprovable and unsupported by any evidence, but on the other hand, without having heard her expand upon exactly what those religious beliefs are, I’d guess she’s also safely within that range of beliefs that also can never be disproven. Is it rational to hold a belief such as that? Probably not. But am I going to ostracize her for it? Absolutely not. She is crystal clear on where her beliefs enter the realm of speculation, unlike those who “KNOW” that a god is real and is micromanaging the universe. I’d probably peg her as an agnostic Christian, even if she doesn’t subscribe to the label. I’ve met some who do outwardly use that label, and they sounded much like her.

While I haven’t yet heard of any wars/homicides/rioting because of claims crop circles were made by green ETs and other claims that they were made by blue ETs, I still refuse to discard my belief in UFOs. Maybe, I will concede, not in this part of the spiral arm.

But somewhere out there, maybe nearer the centre, there are definitely intelligent creatures – with their version of Frisbee.

UFOs are real!

I too think you’re comparing apples and oranges. Skeptics and Atheists are two entirely different things. Sure one often leads to the other but, as has already been pointed out, not always. And asking which came first when a person is both is like asking which came first, the chicken or the egg. Depends on the person and their life experiences.

I lived in a haunted house for five years and saw several ghosts but I’m making no assertions because I have no means of proving such an extraordinary claim to those who weren’t there to see them with me. I doubt I’d believe in them if I hadn’t seen them so I surely don’t expect anyone who hasn’t to. That would be damned unreasonable of me. Just making a point.

If you say

“There is no god”

you are making a claim that you can’t defend. It is a point of dogma.

If you say

“I haven’t seen enough evidence to believe in god”

you are making a defensible claim. You’ve left open the possibility that new evidence could change your position.

The latter point is the skeptical point, and while one could call both of those speakers atheists, there is a crucial difference between the two statements. And it seems to me that’s what this growing schism between skeptics and atheists is about.

One other point… I don’t think the analogy that “god is the head of the monster” is apt. Belief in god isn’t dangerous or not… it’s neutral. It’s the associated beliefs that can cause harm. There’s a world of difference between Martin Gardner and Jim Jones, and yet they both “believed in God.”

With all due respect, to think one typically leads to the other is a fundamental misunderstanding of psychology. Neither leads to the other. Each individual may get to one by the other, others may not. There are a mountain of other factors involved with each individual why they can or cannot practice skepticism and be an atheist.

As for the fact of the matter, though, you cannot say you practice skepticism 100% of the time (like many of us do) if you believe in God or any kind of woo. But you can still say you are a skeptic, no one can stop you.

I’d love to use the term skeptic to include atheist, esp. since “atheist” presupposes a religion-centric context. However, I have known some people who are solidly skeptical expect where it comes to religion.
So I refer to myself as a methodological skeptic: I put all my candidate beliefs through various skeptical tests of soundness before graduating them to full-fledged beliefs–as opposed to a cafeteria skeptic who lets emotion pick and choose what to be skeptical about.