Why I'm Not an Atheist: The Case for Agnosticism

[longship]

4. Silly rhetorical argument.

I call myself an atheist because the preponderance of evidence indicates to a high degree that there are no gods -- at least as described in the various holy texts. The very fact that there are many, mutually contradictory religions throughout the world -- and no, let's not forget the Cargo Cults -- attests to the nearly undeniable conclusion that religion is a cultural construction by humans, not anything to do with reality. It may even be a genetic evolutionary thing. Our brains seem to be constructed to observe precisely the patterns which are extant in all religion.

But if somebody asked me if I thought there were gods, I could not say absolutely not. But that does not make me less an atheist, let alone more an agnostic. To argue otherwise is to be making a silly rhetorical argument, which is all this is, and all it ever was.

I call myself an atheist because I believe very strongly that the case for the existence of gods has not been made. If somebody disagrees with me, I welcome them to provide testable evidence to the contrary. And yes, there is evidence that I would accept. However, I have not seen nor heard of any worth paying attention to.

I call myself an atheist because I consider the prior plausibility of gods' existence to be extremely low, so low in fact that it would take extraordinary evidence for me to change my mind about this. Theists always claim to have such evidence, but it always manages to be quoting from a two thousand year old text, or the report of some more contemporary event which could be more easily explained as a known natural event or possibly a case of pious fraud.

I call myself an atheist because I want people to know what it means to be an atheist. Part of the reasons why we have all these silly rhetorical arguments about atheist/agnostic in the first place is because "atheist" has become culturally laden with so much negative baggage. You so often hear the word preceded by negative modifiers like "strident", "militant", etc. as if to make the word less than what it really means, the lack of belief in deities.

The latter is something I share with almost all of my professed agnostic brethren. So I would prefer that they stop playing rhetorical games, especially those games which have been utilized by believers for centuries. Atheists are just people. We're no more or less strident than any others. When compared to many believers, we're actually quite gentle.

If we seem to be aggressive maybe it's because people have been demonizing those with our lack of beliefs for centuries. Which maybe, quite possibly, explains why there might be a segment of non-believers who don't want to use the word, "atheist". We can trace the word "agnostic" to the first of these people, T. X. Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog", who invented the word in this context. I am sure that he didn't want to be called an atheist either, in Victorian England.

Well, I do. I am not afraid of it. You call yourself what you want, but don't ever tell me I cannot be an atheist because there's no proof that gods don't exist. I never said there was proof of non-existence. That doesn't make me any less an atheist. One cannot prove a negative.

Thanks for your time, and your replies, if you choose.