Soft Atheism vs. Hard Atheism

[MiniSiets]

In January of 2008, I first began to finally recognize myself as an atheist. Since then, I have to say that I've learned a great deal about religion and philosophy, as well as the term "atheism" itself and its many variations. It's been a long road for me; starting out as a Christian, then slowly over the years becoming a deist, then "agnostic", and finally accepting the atheist label. But even now, I still feel as if my beliefs are constantly evolving, and it can often be frustrating trying to sort out what I really do and don't believe. Now as my second full year since becoming an atheist approaches, I've been gradually shifting from soft atheism toward hard atheism.

For those who are not familiar with the terms, soft atheism is typically described as a simple lack of belief in god, while hard atheism is a more active position of belief in no god.

Now, at first I used to never even consider becoming a hard atheist. I felt as though the position was untenable in that it seemed to be irrationally taking on a belief without sufficient justification. However, lately it has been irritating me how much soft atheism seems to give leverage to absolutely absurd ideas as if they are actually seriously considerable positions.

For example, the fact of the matter is, everything we have ever observed about physics and the world around us tells us that there are no such beings that possess the capability to create and destroy matter itself. Buoyancy does not allow for any organisms with a mammalian biological makeup to walk across water at the heels of their feet. Yet, soft atheism seems to treat these claims far too leniently--almost with excessive neutrality. These claims blatantly contradict what we have observed about our universe, so why should we treat them with such indifference as if they are even remotely reasonable possibilities to consider? I'm not trying to say that if empirical evidence is presented for such claims that we should still reject them, but rather, until that evidence is actually presented, the evidence currently stacks much more greatly in the favor of nonexistence for the Judeo-Christian God, and thus we should treat it with a much greater degree of skepticism instead of going, "Well, I don't know, it could be possible, but I'm just going to disbelieve these claims for now," as if to say it's really like a 50-50 possibility.

It just seems to me that this opens the door to a slew of absurd rationalizations we would have to start making just to help those with religious beliefs feel more secure about themselves. IE, consider the boogyman. No one disputes the clear nonexistence of the boogyman despite that it is true that we haven't actually checked under every bed and in every closet of the United States to find him. Yet, under the soft atheist approach to such a claim, it seems as if you couldn't just say, "There is no boogyman." Instead you have to say, "Well, I don't know. I haven't seen any evidence for the boogyman, so I'm just going to lack belief for now," just so some boogymanist doesn't get offended. It's far too neutral a response to what should be an obviously bogus belief.

The fact is, every claim a child has ever made about the boogyman hiding in his closet has unanimously been attributed to nightmares and poor critical thinking skills due to an underdeveloped brain time and time again. Therefore, the evidence is clearly stacked against the claim, so I just don't find it unreasonable that given the consistent trend with claims of boogymen hiding in closets over many centuries, we should just be able to conclude that there is indeed no such thing as the boogyman.

Are there such things as fairies? I dunno; I'll just lack belief for now. Are there such things as leprechauns? I dunno; I'll just lack belief for now. Are there such things as flying spaghetti monsters? I dunno, I'll just lack belief for now. Do you see how absurd this is getting? This is all obviously bullshit. There are no leprechauns, there are no fairies, there certainly aren't any flying spaghetti monsters, and we shouldn't have to pussyfoot around pointing this out.

Nonetheless, even with hard atheism it is important to note that you are not sacrificing all ability to be reasoned with regarding claims toward deities. It does not mean closing the doors to open-mindedness. You can still be willing to admit that you could be wrong, and if sufficient evidence can be presented, you will gladly leave your atheism behind in favor of theism. The way I'm beginning to see it, hard atheism isn't so much about stubbornly insisting complete opposition to theism anymore; it's simply about having a more practical consideration of extraordinary claims until evidence comes along to point out otherwise.

But enough of my ranting; I want to know what you guys think. Do you consider yourself a soft atheist or hard atheist? Why? Feel free to comment on my thoughts as well.  

[Raticiel]

I'll use a metaphor.
We have soft hentai and hard hentai. Soft hentai is ecchi. So not really hentai.  

[[-Erik-]]

The reason why I choose soft atheism is because I'm not sure of ANYTHING.

Trying to prove or disapprove a certain god is impossible. Why? Because there's a piece of evidence missing, somewhere, I don't know.

That's why some atheists like to say "Well, it could be, but then again, it could not".

 

[The Argonauts]

Raticiel

I'll use a metaphor.
We have soft hentai and hard hentai. Soft hentai is ecchi. So not really hentai.

Interesting metaphor. I'm filing that under the "lol" section of my memory. It even makes sense!

I choose hard atheism simply because the concept of religion goes against my very nature. I cannot accept something as it is. I need evidence and arguements, not "go with the flow". Logic and reason are my ways. I guess that makes me a posterchild of Western philosophy.  

[LimeIzMyFaveColor]

I would classify myself as a soft atheist
EDIT: well because I'm not really sure.  

[Lethkhar]

I am a weak atheist. (For some reason, the terms "soft" and "hard" atheism bug me. Probably because they make analogies to hentai far too easy to make. sweatdrop )

The reason for this is because to make any statement concerning the existence or nonexistence of anything other than myself is actually a leap in faith. To be sure, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that there is no deity requires a small amount of faith in your senses. Small, yes, but it is faith nonetheless.

To me, it goes something like this: Are there such things as fairies? As far as I can tell; no. Do Leprechauns exist? As far as I can tell, no. Do flying spaghetti monsters exist? Why, of course they do! mrgreen

The point is that I'm not agnostic; I find the idea of a deity laughable and think it's totally ridiculous to believe in sky-demons. No one's ever given me evidence of their existence. But in all honesty, no evidence would ever suffice to completely convince me of their existence, and no evidence would ever be enough to completely disprove them, simply because evidence in itself is unreliable. I'm unreliable.

Your last paragraph makes me think that you might actually be a weak atheist, as well. You're open to the possibility that there could be a deity, no matter how small. That's a disqualifier for strong atheism.  

[brainnsoup]

First of all, there are no such thing as Flying Spaghetti Monsters.
Only THE Flying Spaghetti Monster Himself.
His noodliness be praised. RAmen.

But I guess if I had to fit myself into one of those two categories, I would say that I am a hard atheist.
I am very sure in my mind that no gods exits, and very, very sure that YHWH can not exist as He is described in the bible.

But I think most atheists do not fit in either category, but somewhere in between.
There's a lot of logic and reasoning that goes in to deciding what God is, and everyone goes through it differently.
I think you should not worry so much about categorizing yourself with one group or the other and simply focus on your own beliefs.

 

[Zambimaru]

I guess I'm more of a hard atheist. I just find the idea or a guy in the clouds who knows everything, see's everything, can do anything, and created the hole universe highly unlikely. The universe seems to complex to be something that was made by a being.  

[Falhalterra]

I am a Hard Atheist, as it is impossible for our human minds to perceive God, and I will not be wasting time trying to think it's possible or even keep the concept that it could be.  

[dl1371]

Distorted_Image

I am a Hard Atheist, as it is impossible for our human minds to perceive God, and I will not be wasting time trying to think it's possible or even keep the concept that it could be.

aye
i second that  

[Lethkhar]

Zambimaru

I guess I'm more of a hard atheist. I just find the idea or a guy in the clouds who knows everything, see's everything, can do anything, and created the hole universe highly unlikely. The universe seems to complex to be something that was made a being.

When you say "unlikely" instead of "impossible", that immediately disqualifies you as a strong atheist.  

[Raticiel]

Lethkhar

Zambimaru

I guess I'm more of a hard atheist. I just find the idea or a guy in the clouds who knows everything, see's everything, can do anything, and created the hole universe highly unlikely. The universe seems to complex to be something that was made a being.

When you say "unlikely" instead of "impossible", that immediately disqualifies you as a strong atheist.

And I would say Zambimaru is much closer to atheism than those who are doubting our ability to perceive god or god's ability to be perceived... As he's simply against a possibility of god's to *exist*.  

[Lethkhar]

Raticiel

Lethkhar

Zambimaru

I guess I'm more of a hard atheist. I just find the idea or a guy in the clouds who knows everything, see's everything, can do anything, and created the hole universe highly unlikely. The universe seems to complex to be something that was made a being.

When you say "unlikely" instead of "impossible", that immediately disqualifies you as a strong atheist.

And I would say Zambimaru is much closer to atheism than those who are doubting our ability to perceive god or god's ability to be perceived... As he's simply against a possibility of god's to *exist*.

I agree with him. I don't think God should be any harder to perceive than anything else, which is why I think his existence is highly unlikely.

But as long as I allow that possibility, I am a weak atheist. Which I honestly think is the more skeptical and intellectually honest of the two.  

[MiniSiets]

Lethkhar

Zambimaru

I guess I'm more of a hard atheist. I just find the idea or a guy in the clouds who knows everything, see's everything, can do anything, and created the hole universe highly unlikely. The universe seems to complex to be something that was made a being.

When you say "unlikely" instead of "impossible", that immediately disqualifies you as a strong atheist.

Not really. I admit there being a possibility that the Loch Ness monster exists, but that doesn't stop me from happening to believe for the time being that such a creature does not exist. In much the same way, this is how someone could view hard atheism. Saying that it is impossible that something could exist is pretty much making a claim that deals in absolute certainty, which is not what hard atheism is. It is the belief in the nonexistence of gods, not the absolute certainty of the nonexistence of gods. This is something I tried to emphasize in my original post. Don't confuse gnostic atheism with hard atheism. They are not the same thing.

I disagree with your notion that soft atheism is the more skeptical and honest point of view. In my opinion, hard atheism is because it treats the claims of deities much more realistically considering that many of them contradict our current understanding of how our universe functions. If someone were to tell you that they can walk on water without the aid of any special technology, in any other context than religion you would dismiss such a claim as false since it is vastly inconsistent with our current understanding of physics, but soft atheism seems to treat such a claim far too leniently, suggesting that it is a reasonable possibility to consider given the current evidence. I say it isn't. Not only is the claim not even worth considering without evidence to back it up, given the current evidence I think it is reasonable to conclude that it is false. And of course, I would like to point this out once again that this conclusion is not made on any grounds of absolute certainty. As a hard atheist, one can still admit that the conclusion could later be overturned and proved false, but until then it is the most reasonable conclusion given the available evidence.  

[MiniSiets]

Lethkhar

The reason for this is because to make any statement concerning the existence or nonexistence of anything other than myself is actually a leap in faith. To be sure, beyond any doubt whatsoever, that there is no deity requires a small amount of faith in your senses. Small, yes, but it is faith nonetheless.

But you see, going by this approach isn't really following science and skepticism, because if you aren't allowed to have any beliefs or make any conclusions whatsoever, then science couldn't operate. I recognize that every belief, excluding those that deal with conceptual knowledge, requires some level of faith. However, it isn't really practical to try and assess the world through the eye of absolute certainty and 100% probabilities when you lack omniscience, because you will never be able to obtain absolute knowledge in order to claim 100% probability that something is true. If you require 100% certainty in order to operate, then you would never be able to make any decisions during your life because you're just not going to get it. That said, it also isn't practical to dismiss empirical observations altogether in order to assess the approximate likeliness of events, as religion seems to often do. We know this because simply believing that a rock won't fall when you drop it isn't going to stop it from actually dropping. Empirical observation has demonstrated this time and time again, so you need to take it into consideration if you want to make any attempt to reasonably determine the likeliness of an event.

So basically, we find ourselves in the unenviable position of trying to constantly assess probabilities of outcomes based on very limited knowledge and observations. There is no such thing as "proofs" or "absolute certainty" in science, but that doesn't mean that it can't make reasonable conclusions about the universe altogether. There is a difference between "beyond all doubt" and "beyond all reasonable doubt". Personally, I choose the latter approach in assessing claims. wink

brainnsoup

But I think most atheists do not fit in either category, but somewhere in between.
There's a lot of logic and reasoning that goes in to deciding what God is, and everyone goes through it differently.
I think you should not worry so much about categorizing yourself with one group or the other and simply focus on your own beliefs.

But you see that's just it; I'm not so much concerned about the labels but rather whether or not it is a reasonable position to have a belief in no gods. That is the part I am struggling with, because I don't want to end up in a conversation with a theist that gets away with the argument, "See, you're just as irrational as me because you believe there is no god just the same as I believe that there is a god!" even though I don't think the two stances are comparable that way considering that the current evidence favors one stance much more than the other.