Positivism - Interacting with Atheists

See if you can spot the problem with this picture

I was perusing Debunking Christianity - John Loftus' blog - the other day and got caught up in a discussion about whether this quote by Christopher Hitchens above is valid or not.  You can read the discussion here. 

I pointed out that the principle quoted in that picture above is contradictory, since Hitchens asserted without evidence that we can dismiss anything asserted without evidence.  I also pointed out that it would invalidate metaphysics of all kinds (thus rendering even atheism false), moral reasoning, science, and more.  It was pretty similar to the case I laid out here.

I figured it would be pretty open and shut, but I guess nothing is ever that easy.  Since I'm one of the few Christians posting on an atheist's blog, things kind of got away from me quicker than I expected.  Some atheists defended Hitchens' statement, and for simplicity's sake, I figured I would respond here instead of responding one by one on the blog.


Here's what I wrote that got the whole controversy started:

That statement itself is contradictory because it can't be proven to be true or even meaningful by evidence.  This is a form of positivism, and I'm actually kind of surprised that atheists still hold on to this philosophy considering it went out of favor several decades ago. 

Not only is it self contradictory, but it would render invalid all sorts of fields of study.  Metaphysics (including the metaphysical naturalism you folks rely on to conflate science with atheism), aesthetics (which means we would have no way of really knowing, as Hawking says, whether a simpler mathematical cosmological model actually reflects reality...for all we know the sun really does revolve around the earth so long as the mathematical model of that assumption is consistent), the ontology of many things including morality simply can't be talked about (we can just dismiss subjective morality without further review because it has no evidence) and so on.  Basically all of our philosophical endeavors would be rendered useless.  Including atheist philosophy, so I wouldn't be too quick to jump on this bandwagon. 

Worst of all?  It's anti-science.  This so-called "axiom" that Hitchens' lays out here would render the philosophical underpinnings of science to be useless at best.  We can't prove the basic assumptions of science to be true, such as the consistency of nature, our ability to cognitively grasp nature and its laws, the ability of language to properly encapsulate nature, and many many more.  Science would be dead in the water, because it would be free game for anyone to reject it at a whim.  After all, anything without evidence can be rejected without evidence. 

Atheists should be more careful about the outdated epistemologies they cling to, if they claim to love science.  I find it hilariously ironic that atheists can claim to be so pro-science while holding to a philosophy that is so anti-science.

And then the mental gymnastics began.

I was seriously surprised that atheists are trying so hard to defend Hitchens' quote, because the absurd thing is that Hitchens' quote renders most atheists' beliefs false.  When atheists say that nature is all there is, ever was, or ever will be (metaphysical naturalism), they have no proof.  So...reject that.  When they say that morality is subjective, they have no proof.  Reject that.  When they say that logic and reason are some of the highest virtues humanity can seek to attain, they have no proof.  Reject that.  Atheists are shooting themselves in the foot.  It's almost too good to be true, but yes this is what atheists actually believe.

Here's Dale's response:

No.  Science relies on the evidence provided by observation and reason.  You can't get any deeper in demanding evidence for the reliability of our senses because then you're into Solipsism Land and the conversation is over.  The "unevidenced assertions" Mr. Hitchens is referring to are religious claims, which generally aren't treated with the critical inquiry and evidentiary standards that scientific claims are subjected to. 

Plenty of evidence for science; no evidence for religion.  Hitchens' statement still stands.

First, logically Hitchens' statement cannot stand.  It fails to live up to its own standards of evidence.  No amount of thought, reasoning, or otherwise will make what Hitchens said valid. You can try and twist and struggle your way out of this, but you might as well tell me that it's possible for a square circle to exist.  Ain't gonna happen. 

Second, as to "evidence for science" see my original response above.  There's no such thing.  Simply asserting that such evidence exists isn't convincing. That doesn't mean science is invalid, it just means that you can't use evidence to prove that using evidence is a valid way of going about things.  Philosophy, not evidence, is the cornerstone of science.  Evidence is the result of science. 

Third, what does it mean to say, "No evidence for religion"?  Are you talking about miracles?  About belief in God?  Belief in objective morality?  Belief in creation of the universe or life by God? Let's be specific because the criteria for each will be different.

Science is neither religious nor atheistic.  The validity of science does nothing to justify atheism.  Justifying atheism requires added layers of philosophical reasoning, like what Hitchens said above. 

Finally, I would contend that Hitchens is the one being a solipsist.  If you freely reject all beliefs which have no evidence, the only thing you can really be certain of is that your mind exists (the only thing you can truly say you have evidence of).  So you're stuck being skeptical of pretty much everything.

Where atheists seem to get hung up is that they think, by rejecting Hitchens' statement, I'm advocating that we then go to the other extreme and just believe anything that's asserted without evidence.  No.  Obviously we need to have a systematic way of discriminating between various propositions and beliefs, but Hitchens' principle of rejecting anything that has no evidence is taking it too far.  No amount of hoping and pleading for it to be valid will make it so.

pRinzler says,

The justification for using evidence to judge claims about the objective world is that it works: that is, it allows for dependable, predictable results that anyone, in principle, can reproduce. 

Yes, science works.

xkcd.com

What does that have to do with anything that was said anywhere else?  Myself and Harold criticized your philosophy, not your science.  I am a(n applied) scientist by trade, so far be it from me to undermine my own career.

What Hitchens said, and you are attempting to defend, is a philosophy.  Discarding that philosophy will do nothing to change anything about science. 

It is an axiom, but do you really want to accept the alternative of rejecting that axiom?  You're certainly welcome to, but in that case why should anyone talk to you, much less believe you?

If you really think that Hitchens' statement is an axiom then all I can say is that you have no idea what an axiom is.  An axiom is, to put it simply, one of two things.

1).  Axioms may be self evidently true.  This would include things like the existence of your own mind.  Another way to put this is self-evident axioms are those things which, when you try to prove them false, force you to prove them true.  In order to call the existence of your mind into question, you would have to appeal to your mind.  Another example would be the existence of objective truth.  To claim that objective truth does not exist requires you to make an objectively true claim.

2).  Or an axiom is that which delineates a field of inquiry, even if it isn't self-evidently true.  In this case, the axiom is just the foundation of a systematic field of inquiry.  This would include the axioms of science.  The uniformity of nature is not self-evidently true, but we assume it to be true in order to do science.  However, any axiom for that field of inquiry cannot render that field of inquiry to be invalid or it fails to fulfill its purpose.

Hitchens' quote doesn't fall into either category.  I cannot be be (1) because it isn't self evidently true.  In fact, trying to prove it true demonstrates that it isn't (2) either.  If I apply the axiom to itself, we see that the axiom renders itself, science, and philosophy to be false or meaningless.  So since Hitchens' statement is neither (1) nor (2), it is not a valid axiom. 

Here again pRinzler accuses me of advocating for the extreme opposite conclusion.  He says that I'm saying we should just not be skeptical of anything and we should accept any truth claim that comes along.  No.

Instead of just accepting everything to be true, why wouldn't I just replace your invalid standard of truth with a more valid standard?  One which doesn't invalidate science, philosophy, ethics, metaphysics, and itself?  You're acting as if your belief is the only fork in the drawer, but there are other options here. 

Søren Kongstad writes, 

Actually no [positivism] is not an outdated epistemology. Any epistemology faces the same problem of being based on assertions with no proof or evidence.

Yes, every epistemology faces the same problem of lacking evidence.  Positivism isn't an outdated philosophy because it lacks evidence, but because after a few decades philosophers realized it was too limiting to human inquiry, and it was self-contradictory. 

Positivism asserts that propositions (sentences with a truth value) are only true or meaningful if they can be verified by the senses or some other physical evidence.  Because positivism is a philosophy which we can never prove with our senses or physical evidence, positivism went out of favor in philosophical circles.  In fact, the only people who seem to take it seriously are layperson atheists who seem to be a few decades behind the curve. (Despite being the supermen of logic and reason....go figure.)

Positivism is invalid precisely because one of its axioms practically says, "Positivism is false/meaningless." Positivism is false for the same reason you can't have a square circle, and you can't say things like "this statement is false".  It's logically absurd.  No amount of evidence, or reason or logic will save it from being absurd.  Just let it go.

He continues,

Naturalism is based on the assumption that the past will, to some degree, repeat itself. and that perception is, to some degree, reliable. Som would add a third assertions, the existence of an external world, personally I do not think it is needed.

From these two assertions Hitchins statement follows. You are right that they are baseless and can be dismissed without evidence.

You're jumping from the assumption that our senses are reliable and nature is uniform, to then saying it logically follows that we can freely reject any belief or proposition that has no evidence.  I'm not seeing the connection.

What you're basically saying is that, because we can do science, we therefore have no need for questions of existence, knowledge, morality, metaphysics, and so on.  How does the process of science in any way imply that those fields of inquiry are useless?  You're making an additional unnecessary assumption that science is the only way to know truth.  This is another form of positivism and its just as self-evidently false.

derick_duron said,

The context in which Hitchens' statement is used need to be considered in my opinion. He issued this statement in response to religious claims which are not admitted by religious people to be axioms or assumptions.

Religions encompass a wide variety of beliefs.  There's the somewhat axiomatic belief in God.  There's the philosophical arguments that God created the universe, is necessary for the existence of life, is a necessary foundation for morality, is a necessary agent to explain the specific conditions of the laws of nature, etc.  Then there's the historical and miraculous claims.  Then there's claims to moral imperatives, or the belief not just that there is right and wrong but that you have an objective imperative to do right.  And so on.  Since religions encompass philosophical beliefs as well, then Hitchens principle can be criticized on philosophical grounds if he means it to be a blanket statement refuting religion.

Perhaps the biggest issue it would be applied to are claims to miracles.  However, you can be a Christian and reject nearly all miracles in the Bible save one: Jesus' resurrection.  And many Christians believe that there is evidence for this belief.  In light of these considerations, I fail to see how Hitchens' statement becomes any more valid in a religious context.

He continues,

If claims such as "God is good" or "God exists" are not assumptions then it needs evidence to stand but if you are saying that these claims are axioms then Hitchens' statement does not apply but you must admit that christians like you just assumed this to be true. Don't say or act like you've proven that God exists or is good because those are just assumptions.

There is more than just evidence and axioms to consider when you're looking at the truth of a statement.   Beliefs which are a logical extension of axioms or evidence can still be considered true with some degree of certainty.  God's existence, for instance, has philosophical arguments in its favor.  These arguments are not axiomatic, nor do they have evidence in their favor, in the sense you're thinking of.

And one more,

Next, making an axiom is not without its repercussions. If the axioms that you made does not align to the real world and contradicts your other axioms unless you make more assumptions then your reality is becoming more of an imagination or an abstraction of your mind rather than being verifiable and objective. Hence a system of belief with more assumptions becomes less credible in explaining what it tries to explain than a belief that uses less. Point is, your religious system has more assumptions (and has a lot of contradictions unless you assume more) to explain this world we live in compared to science.

I fail to see how "more axioms" necessarily means something is "less likely to be true".  By your own standards, if axioms align with the real world and they don't contradict each other, then it doesn't matter how many of them there are.

Secondly, as a believer I'm still not sure what extra assumptions religion has that atheism doesn't.  By my reckoning, atheism is right up there with religion.  We have belief in God, you have metaphysical naturalism.  We have objective morality, you have subjective morality (these aren't necessarily axiomatic, but they can be).  And so on.

Atheism is just as philosophical and unprovable as religion.  That's why I think atheists try to come up with axioms like Hitchens' above.  You guys really want your beliefs to be axiomatic because you think that means you're more rational than religious people.  But by trying to defeat religion, you're pulling the rug out from under yourself.  Sorry, that's not working out for you.  :)

Cipher pukes out these words,

The arguments of the Christians in this thread are worthless. Aside from their obvious errors, the subtext is (as it is invariably):

"[Insert some sort of logical statement or expression, either correct or fallacious]... therefore Jesus!"

It always comes down to this. Always. I refuse even to speak to someone whose ultimate goal is to convince me I deserve eternal damnation. Fuck you people. There isn't one of you who isn't beneath my contempt.

Just so that you can be sure that atheism doesn't automatically make you a reasonable, rational person, there's always gotta be one of these guys in a discussion. 

"I don't understand what you're saying, and that makes me unhappy!"

markr1957 says,

On the basis you use we can also dismiss objective morality and all gods for lack of evidence. I can dismiss you as even existing for lack of evidence. I cannot dismiss myself as existing for the simple reason that "Cogito, ergo sum" proves I must exist to be capable of thinking (even if everything I think might be false, if I don't exist I cannot think).

I'm really confused about this.  "On the basis you use"?  The basis I'm using is Hitchens' basis.  I'm not saying any of this myself.  Obviously it's ridiculous, but that's the point.

He continues,

Scientific models do not claim to be 'reality' itself; they are simply models that accurately predict future events and accurately describe past events based on observation, whether by men or by machines. They must present evidence of being accurate or they fail as models and are rightly dismissed.

I agree, but you should try telling that to Stephen Hawking. 

He continues,

On the subject of religious beliefs, however, you expect people to accept hearsay as reliable evidence, yet you provide no evidence that people in ancient times had knowledge we don't have today.

*sigh*  There's always this point in a discussion where someone let's you know that they know what you think better than you do.  Because I'm pretty sure I never even hinted to anyone that hearsay was valid evidence. But, here someone is telling me what I believe so...I guess I can't really argue with that.

He then says,

and you provide no evidence that there weren't as many liars and fools in ancient times as there are today

God forbid.  The world population is currently thousands of times more than it was even just a few thousand years ago.  I think we take the cake on liars and fools. 

Another interesting statement by him,

By comparison there is ample evidence that we modern people do have knowledge not known to ancient people.

I'm almost at a loss for words.  So what if we know more than people a few thousands years ago knew?  Does that mean that everything people believed a few thousand years ago is automatically false?  If so, then there's plenty of reason to think that people a few thousand years from now will know a lot more than we know now.  Does that mean all of our beliefs are false, including the belief that all of our beliefs are false?  How does the supposed quantity of knowledge even begin to qualify as a way to determine truth?  

That's not the only problem.  Wouldn't it follow that we, with our greater quantity of knowledge, are still correct to believe in God and so on?  After all, even with our vast knowledge, the majority of us are still religious, and since we know more than people did a few thousand years ago, that means our beliefs are automatically correct.....right?

The final thing he has to say,

As for Hitchens' statement you are incorrect to say that it cannot be proven - simply by dismissing it you prove it to be true. What you appear to be attempting to say is that you will dismiss assertions made without evidence that is to your liking whether the evidence exists or not. By comparison I say show me the evidence and I'll give your assertions consideration whether I like your evidence or not.

Uh...what?  The statement proves itself false.  I don't have to do anything. 

articulett says,

Oops, I pressed "like"-- I meant to respond. I wish I could "unlike" because I find your posts trite.

Good for you.

I don't think atheists pick their beliefs basted on "popularity"-- rather we prefer to believe and understand that which is TRUE.

Obviously.  If you thought that atheism was false you wouldn't be an atheist, would you?  But then again, everyone who believes anything can say this.  "I think that what I think is true."  Okay, I'm sure you do.

And sorry, but atheists don't prefer to believe that which is true.  Look at how many of your fellow atheists defended Hitchens' obviously self-contradictory statement.  Clearly atheism doesn't magically endow you with rationality.  

Here again is this weird condescension that I don't understand.  Most people understand the limits of their knowledge and the fallibility of their reasoning, but not atheists.  Atheists think that they're so smart, and so rational just by virtue of who they are (narcissism?) that they couldn't possibly hold onto a false belief.

All I've done in this thread is point out that Hitchens' statement is necessarily false.  There's nothing controversial about it, Hitchens just mistakenly said something stupid.  And yet the atheists come out in defense of a belief which defeats itself.  You think it's obvious that atheists could never believe anything that's false, because somehow being an atheist means you're magically transformed into some kind of omniscient supergenius.

It really annoys me that atheists can get their heads stuck so far up their own butts that they can actually tell another person, with a straight face, that unlike most humans, they always know what's true without even having to think about it because they're just so smart.  But everyone else is dumb.

He says,

That's something no believer in magic [a religious person] seems to care about.

I beg to differ.  But if you feel more comfortable in your beliefs by objectifying your opponents, then have at it.  If that's what passes for rationality in the atheist camp, then I'm happy to be irrational. 

We, skeptics, use evidence to determine which things are real and which are imaginary. Real things tend to accumulate evidence in their favor. So far, it's the only method proven to work!

No you don't.  I've watched atheist videos, I've read atheist books and blogs, and I've had numerous discussions with atheists.  There's one common thread holding all atheists together: Their atheism is based on philosophy.  Atheists don't use evidence to justify being an atheist, they use philosophy to justify being an atheist.   You guys will go around pretending like you're just being scientific and following the evidence where it leads, but this is what I like to call a "lie".  I don't think you're intentionally lying, but you're spreading a lie whether you mean to or not.

The evidence just is what it is.  Evidence isn't inherently atheistic or religious.  However, saying things like, "I only believe that which I have evidence to believe" is not itself an evidence based belief.  That's a philosophy. An outdated philosophy, but a philosophy nonetheless.

Give me one piece of evidence in favor of atheism, and I'll show you why you're wrong.  I can tell you with 100% logical certainty that any evidence you think you have in favor of atheism doesn't really exist, because the idea of atheistic evidence is absurd.  Evidence doesn't care what you believe, I promise.

What you're actually doing is interpreting the evidence through an atheistic filter....Well, ok.  But I see no reason to join you in doing so. 

So, Phil, how do YOU determine which assertions are worthy of belief?

Logic, reason, evidence, intuition and so on.  Evidence has its place, but it isn't the be all and end all of knowledge.

You know what I find hilarious?-- the fact that a believer in an invisible 3-in-1 sky savior (who was his own son) thinks that he understands what science is!

I'm sure you do find that hilarious, but maybe that's because you're just a mean-spirited person.  Sounds like something you should work on because it definitely isn't rational.  

You know what else I think is hilarious? That you think you know what "ironic" means when you clearly don't-- even though you are on the internet and could look it up! I also find the invisible penises sticking out of your head to be hilarious!

If people going around thinking they're the champions of science without realizing that they're bad for science isn't irony, then fine...I have no idea what irony is. 

I don't think anyone here considers you to be an example of anything any of us wish to be.

I guess not, but I've seen a lot of wishful thinking from atheists who just want Hitchens' quote to be true so bad that they literally can't stop and think rationally about it even for a moment.  I don't want any part of that myself.  I prefer to have an objective, free thinking view on things.  Which, strangely, is apparently more possible as a religious person with no commitment to invalid and outdated philosophies.

WHAT is it that you think is at the heart of atheist beliefs?

Positivism.  Or objectivism, but moreso positivism.  Sometimes there's just good old fashioned hatred, but again the majority of atheists that I talk to subscribe to some form of positivism. 

(Do you realize you aren't making sense to anyone here?)

I believe that I'm not making sense to you, sure. 

And what are you using to dismiss most myths, superstitions, cults, conflicting faiths, etc? Why don't you believe there are invisible penises growing out of your head? The seem obvious to me.

Is this really a serious question?  Invisible penises?  Remember that you're on a public forum.  There are people who don't know what they think about atheism, and they're going to read your words and that's going to frame for them what atheism is all about.  I would recommend you choose your arguments more carefully next time.

The problem with your question is that you've created a false dilemma.  You think I either have to be a positivist, or I have to believe that anything and everything is true.  I prefer a third option of just having my own philosophy of truth (epistemology) that isn't invalid.  So...I'm going to do that instead. 

How is disbelieving in invisible magical sky fairies damaging to science and why do you think anyone should accept your opinion on the subject?

I didn't say that being an atheist makes you bad for science, I said being a positivist makes you bad for science.

When you jump the gun like this it really makes me think that you're just not committed to thinking these issues out rationally, because in your head everyone who disagrees with you is absolutely stupid and you don't have to take even five seconds to try and understand their point of view.

I'm done responding to you, and I have to wrap this up anyway.