Looking For The Wrong Answer

Many times while attempting to come to a conclusion concerning a religious question people seem to want to NOT actually consider what the possible answers are.  For both the theist and anti-theist groups the question seems to be does a god exist or not.  They appear to want to cast the question as a strictly black or white issue.  However like most things in life viewing it as a simply Boolean question is over simplistic at best.  At worst it is a major act of intellectual dishonesty.

If we lived in the 19^th century or before, it would be perfectly reasonable to think that a question of a god’s existence had to be a simple yes or no answer.  There was nothing in logic that indicated that any other kind of answer was possible.  The prevailing thought was that a god had to exist or had to not exist.  There was no middle ground and there could be no middle ground.

This dramatically changed in the 20^th century.  The work of many of the greatest mathematicians showed beyond a reasonable doubt that considering a question to only have a true or false answer was over simplistic.  Before their work it was considered rational to view all questions as ultimately having an answer.  If we didn’t yet have the answer, with enough work and intelligence, we would eventually figure out what the correct answer was.

Unfortunately for people attempting to push that world view, the 20^th century demonstrated just how incorrect they where.  The failure of the 19^th century view can be summed up with the word “undecidability”.  For the first time, people began to create questions that could not be answered and where taking it a step further and proving that the questions were impossible to answer.

This was not just the old view that the problem was so complex that it would take more time to solve.  This was actually showing that there was no solution nor could there ever be a solution.  It was not a matter of what evidence was available or the intelligence level of the researcher.  The questions where formulated in an environment where every single detail that could be used as evidence was available.  In addition, because of the environment of these questions, it was not difficult to try every possible way of solving the problem and show that every approach would fail.

If you don’t think this affects you, consider the question of is it possible for you to predict when your computer will lock up.  The actual answer is no.  In the general case it is not possible to predict that and any claim that it can be is simply wrong.  While in some special cases, it is possible to predict the lock up, attempting to answer the question in general is simply not possible.

Strangely enough, if you could answer that question, it would immediately put into doubt all the previous questions that you had thought you had answered.  But exploring that aspect is another posting all in itself.

For the purposes of this post, the important thing is to get people to realize sometimes the question does not have a simple yes or no answer.  It’s very possible that the question can have a third answer which is that we cannot decide if the answer is yes or no.

Placed in general terms, there are cases where there simply is not enough information in a system for a decision to be reached.  It’s not like we will come across new evidence in the future, there simply is not enough no matter how hard you look for it.  You cannot find it because it simply does not exist.

There has even been work where one of these problems is augmented with some additional information that should make it possible to answer the question.  Unfortunately, when you do this you change the system at a fundamental level and all of a sudden you are back in the same boat and you still cannot answer the question.

My favorite version of these kinds of problems is the recursive language test.  The question is can you design a method to test a language to see if it is recursive.  It’s not important what a recursive language is.  If you want to learn there are numerous sources.

The important thing to understand is that if the language is actually recursive, your test will eventually complete and return a definite positive response.  However, if the language is not recursive, your test will run forever and will never return a definite negative result.

In fact, it’s not hard to show this is actually quite common.  Consider the decimal expansion of PI.  Is there a sequence of seven seven’s in a row in that expansion.  Obviously the ultimate answer is either yes or no.  But how would you go about answering the question?  Given that it is transcendental and has an infinite number of digits, all you could is start generating digits one after another and check to see if you found the seven seven’s as you where doing it.

Once again, obviously if you ever came across the pattern you where looking for, you could stop and return a definite positive response to the question.  But what if that pattern never appears?  You would search forever and never come across a definite negative response.

Until the definite positive response is found, any claim that the pattern exists or doesn’t exist is simply incorrect on a trivial level.  It is nothing more than a guess backed up with no evidence.  While assuming one or the other answer may be useful to some reasoning processes, assuming the validity of that reasoning process can only be one of two cardinal sins of reasoning.  It is either woefully ignorant of the facts, or it’s blatantly dishonest.

The same thing can be said of a question of a god’s existence.  Until there is absolute proof of the existence, any claim that a god exists or doesn’t exist is simply wrong on a fundamental basis.  Choosing to accept either position is belief plain and simple.  This is why there are so many agnostics in the atheist community.

However many atheists actually fail to understand the ramifications of the position they are in and fall into the same childish trap that the worst of the theists fall into.  Simply put, they begin to believe their own bullshit.  Though they cannot prove that their position is correct, they begin to act like the opposing position is wrong.  When in reality, by definition, if they cannot prove they are correct, they surely cannot prove the opposing position is wrong.

What both variations on crazy do is begin to believe a dogma that their position is correct.  They gain a delusion that they are right.  From there they quite commonly begin to think the other side is out to get them.  Whether it’s the evil non-believers corrupting the faithful, or the evil bible thumper’s taking away our human rights, both are vilifying the other group in an attempt to make their flavor of crazy look better.

The worst of the theists will find examples of non-theists doing distasteful things and then claim all the non-believers are evil and the anti-theists will find examples of theists doing distasteful things and then claim all theists are evil.  All you have to do if find examples of people claiming all Muslims are terrorists, or all Christians want to take away abortion rights to find these paranoid delusions of grandeur.

Notice that both groups are doing the same thing.  They are declaring their position is right or good and the opposing position is wrong or evil.  They are both acting moralistically and assigning good and evil labels for various groups of people.

The only possible reason to do this is to try and suppress the position to which you are opposed.  It’s no more or less than an attempt to kill the messenger because you don’t like the message.  It’s why you see so many ad hominem fallacies used by both groups against the other.  If you cannot attack the message, attack the messenger.

So as a round about way of getting at what is different between an atheist and an anti-theist, consider the differences.  Without a definite positive answer to the question of a god’s existence, choosing to believe a god exists or doesn’t exist is simply childishly stupid. It is jumping to a conclusion without the evidence to support the position. Without a belief in either position, claiming one or the other position is wrong is nothing but a demonstration that you hold a belief.

If the theists are wrong for holding unsubstantiated beliefs, the anti-theists are wrong for holding their unsubstantiated beliefs.  Simply put you cannot show the other side is wrong by doing the same thing you claim is wrong.

Get it through your thick heads, the reason there is nothing wrong with atheism is because there is nothing wrong with theism.  There is nothing wrong with theism because there is nothing wrong with atheism.  If you want to find something wrong, all you got to do is find the person that thinks either position is wrong and you will have found the wrong you where looking for.