Blogsnark: Atheists are Pig-Ignorant Lying Bigots

Atheists are popular targets of personal attacks not just among theists, but also among self-professed agnostics as well. There are quite a few agnostics out there who appear to have adopted the position not because of any serious reflection on the issues, but rather because it allows them to pretend that they are better than everyone else.

You can usually spot this particular class of agnostics because they spend more time puffing themselves up, insisting that everyone else is an idiot compared to them, and less time engaged in a serious conversation about the nature and limitations of human knowledge. A case in point is Gerry at Diogeneseian Discourse:

I argue that there can only be three philosophical positions (as defined by me) which a person can adopt:

1. Theism: The belief that it is true that there is a god (or gods).
2. Agnosticism: The belief that we do not know, in any scientifically or logically acceptable way, whether or not there is a god (or gods).
3. Atheism: The belief that it is true that there is no god (or gods).

This post makes several errors. The two most significant are that it misdefines atheism and that it assume that atheism and agnosticism are mutually exclusive.

Atheists steadfastly refuse to acknowledge that they are really agnostics.

I’ve encountered few theists who are willing to acknowledge also being agnostics, which means that by Gerry’s definitions they are also “pig-ignorant lying bigots.” Gerry provide no particular reason to focus only on atheists, though, which suggests that his real motive lies not in a disinterested, serious examination of the issues but, rather, a person animus against atheists. A person doesn’t usually engage in such an extended series of personal attacks unless there is something personal involved — unless it’s become an emotional issue for them, not simply an intellectual exercise.The fact that Gerry pretends that he’s engaged in a serious intellectual exercise, though, could leave him open to the label of “sophist” which he seems to like to throw around at others.

Calling a class of people “pig-ignorant lying bigots” when one doesn’t appear to have done much research into what the definition of the class is probably makes Gerry a pig-ignorant lying bigot. It does his case no good to attribute positions to people (“They claim to have a problem with True Believers whilst using all of the above tricks of the trade to confuse their interlocutors into believing that they (the atheists) know that there is no god (or gods)”) without evidence that this is in fact a position held by all of them. What we have here is a hasty generalization and a straw man - two logical fallacies, by the way.

And please don’t blur the boundary between atheism and agnosticism, that’s another pet obfuscation atheists peddle.

Again, a claim is made without supporting evidence and citations. Indeed, his entire post is a series of assertions made without support. He asserts particular definitions for “knowledge” and “belief” without justifying them. If there are only three philosophical positions “as defined by” him, then he is obligated to justify his definitions. He denigrates “True Believers” without justifying why agnosticism is more reasonable.

I’ll bet Gerry didn’t even notice that he left open the door for agnosticism to be compatible with both atheism and theism. Go back and look again - neither of his definitions for theism or atheism include the word “knowledge.” Both of those definitions are compatible with agnosticism. If a person doesn’t know, scientifically or logically, that there is a god but believes it is true anyway, then they are an agnostic theist. If a person doesn’t know, scientifically or logically, that there is no god and doesn’t bother believing in any (we’ll use the accurate definition of atheism here), then they are an agnostic atheist.

Gerry suggests at the end that we should choose — but only among the choices he offers. As we can see, though, he bases those choices on definitions which he doesn’t justify, describes the positions in inflammatory language designed to puff up his personal favorite (a logical fallacy known as poisoning the well in this case, since the attacks are against people), and doesn’t support any of his assertions. At the end, then, the only serious response is to dismiss Gerry and his pseudo-philosophical pandering and move on to something more interesting.

It should be noted that at the top Gerry’s blog it states that nothing he writes can be believed. I suspect that that’s the only true statement he’s written.

 

Update: Arthur Vandelay has been writing about Gerry's post — and Gerry has been responding there in comments. It's a particularly sad demonstration of what happens to someone who has become disconnected to reality. I understand how and why most people can develop mistaken ideas about what atheism and theism are — it's quite common, after all. Gerry goes well beyond this, however:

I'm only prepared to debate the issue within the terms as defined in my original post on my blog.

Gerry is only prepared to discuss the definition of atheism within the boundaries of how he originally defined atheism — which means, of course, that he's only prepared to discuss the definitions of atheism, theism, and agnosticism under the assumption that his original definitions are the only correct ones. He's simply not prepared to even concede the possibility that he could be wrong — much less seriously consider it.

This is made evident in just about every one of his comments. He barely acknowledges that others are using different definitions, much less try to analyze those definitions to determine their strengths or weaknesses are. Of course, this allows him to avoid doing the same with his own definitions — he simply assumes that they are right and so he can simply assume that everyone else is wrong. In such a context, he can't be said to be having a dialogue or discussion. All he's doing is finding new (and not very different) ways of repeating his original assertions. Why say something new when you are always right in the first place and, therefore, never have anything new to learn from others?

 

Update: Gerry continues to defend his nonsense:

They've neatly killed agnosticism as a distinct third category. You can be an "agnostic atheist" or an "agnostic theist" (by their definitions) and lo and behold, they relegate pure agnosticsm [sic] to virtual irrelevancy as a distinct third category.

I'm not sure if Gerry simply can't comprehend what is going on, or is simply too dishonest to admit error, but it doesn't take much mental effort to understand that far from an "irrelevant" third category, agnosticism is on a completely separate and orthogonal line of inquiry. It's very relevant, but it's not a mutually exclusive choice. Agnosticism is about knowledge; atheism and theism are about belief. Those are related issues, but they are also separate issues.

This brings me back to Occam's Razor and the assertion that for the purpose of this debate it is not necessary to create more than these three categories:

[1] the assertion that there is a god

[2] the assertion that there is no god

[3] no assertion one way or the other

Those are indeed three possible ways to categorize things. There's a flaw in them, however, in that they fail to incorporate questions of knowledge. The first presumes that the speaker believes that there is a god, but doesn't tell if they think they know for sure or not. The second presumes that the speaker believes that there is no god, but doesn't tell us if they think they know for sure or not. The third doesn't presume any belief one way or the other and knowledge is probably irrelevant — there may be not assertion because the speaker is unfamiliar with the issue.

It is interesting to note that Gerry doesn't actually deny the existence of all four of these categories:

• believes and claims to know for sure
• believes and doesn't claim to know for sure
• doesn't believe and claims to know for sure
• doesn't believe and doesn't claim to know for sure

Instead, all Gerry does is engage in ad hominems against those who disagree while insisting that "Occam's Razor" requires no more than three. If that were true, however, then he would be able to demonstrate how everything communicated in these four groups is communicated in the three he offers. If any two were collapsed into one, he'd be grouping together either people who both believe and don't believe, or people who both claim to know and who don't claim to know. Why do that?

Notice also how the set Gerry provides above differs from the original set of categories which he offered:

I argue that there can only be three philosophical positions (as defined by me) which a person can adopt:

1. Theism: The belief that it is true that there is a god (or gods).
2. Agnosticism: The belief that we do not know, in any scientifically or logically acceptable way, whether or not there is a god (or gods).
3. Atheism: The belief that it is true that there is no god (or gods).

Here, the first and third options include belief overtly and knowledge covertly (he defined "belief" in part as not knowing, so it's assumed in #1 and #3). The fact the Gerry changed his options is a serious inconsistency which suggests that he either doesn't really understand what he's talking about or that he recognizes that there is flaw but can't or won't acknowledge what it is.

most atheists go nuts at this proposition, and I think I know why: That definition would leave atheists wide open to the assertion that their belief system is just that - a belief system. And they hate belief systems with a vengeance. Belief systems are unscientific.

Atheism is a belief system? I see this sort of assertion quite often and it always baffles me. I can't imagine what "belief system" is shared in common by all atheists — atheists who are also Secular Humanists, Objectivists, Communists, Raelians, Buddhists, members of Ethical Culture, Religious Humanists, and so forth. Some are religious, some are not. Some are materialists, some are not. Some are liberal, some are conservative.

Not only do I say that atheism is in every sense of the word a religion, but I argue that it is the most devious and fundamentalist one of the lot. It seeks to eradicate every religion or spiritual belief on earth.

This is even more bizarre. What "religion" could be shared by Buddhists, Religious Humanists, Raelians, and Secular Humanists? How could Buddhists, Raelians, and Religious Humanists being trying to eradicate every religion when they are members of religions? Of course, if atheism is a religion like Gerry says, and if atheism seeks to eradicate every religion as Gerry says, then Gerry is saying that atheism seeks to eradicate atheism. That's nonsense, of course, but I already stated that Gerry said this so adding "this is nonsense" would be redundant, wouldn’t it?

 

Understanding Atheism & Atheists:

• Atheism 101
• What is Atheism?
• Defining Atheism
• Is Atheism a Religion?
• Who Are Atheists?
• Why Don't Atheists Believe in God?
• Questions About Atheism
• Atheism Myths
• Polls on Atheism

 

Agnosticism & Agnostics:

• Agnosticism 101
• Agnosticism Polls
• Strong Agnosticism vs. Weak Agnosticism
• Are Agnostics Just Sitting On the Fence?
• Atheism vs. Agnosticism: What's the Difference?
• Agnosticism & Robert Green Ingersoll
• Agnosticism & Thomas Henry Huxley