Why Scott Adams is Wrong about Atheism

By Daniel Miessler on August 12th, 2007: Tagged as Atheism | Philosophy

Scott Adams of Dilbert fame has come out and challenged the intellectual merits of atheism. In a recent blog post he argues that the only intellectually honest option for a non-believer is agnosticism. Here’s his argument:

  1. It is common for humans to be 100% certain of a particular fact, and later find out it is wrong.
  2. Therefore, it is irrational for you, a human, to be 100% certain on any particular topic.
  3. Agnostics believe humans are not equipped to be certain about truth. That is rational, and backed by all the peer reviewed science.
  4. Atheists come in two flavors.
  5. One type of atheist is 100% sure there is no God. That is not rational because humans can sometimes be mistaken, and things can exist for which no evidence has yet been found.
  6. The other type of atheist, the so-called weak form, believes that the lack of good evidence for God provides no reason for belief. That is rational. Agnostics who understand science believe the same thing.
  7. Therefore, there is no meaningful difference between an agnostic who understands science and a weak atheist who understands science. Neither believes the case for God has been made, and both accept the peer reviewed science showing the fragility of the human mind for knowing “truth.”

He’s basically saying that humans can never know anything 100%, therefore atheism is never an intelligent option.

I think Scott is awesome. He’s one of the best writers out there as far as consistently good material is concerned, and of course his comic is legendary. But in the realm of philosophy and religion he seems hopelessly lost. Actually he might not be lost (he might know some of his arguments have no merit), but he’s leading scary numbers of fans off an intellectual cliff.

He’s attempting a very precarious balancing act, i.e. debating solidly supported philosophy using weak arguments that are hundreds of years old, and then when he gets shot down he can claim it was “philosophy entertainment”. Win-win.

He’s trying to game the system. He wins if people believe his arguments are true (which TONS of his fanboys apparently do), yet he also wins if he’s shown to be putting forth amateur arguments (which has already happened) because he can just claim it was all in fun, and that the responders are immature for getting upset.

He and his fans seem to enjoy the fact that atheists get bothered by his claims that atheism is foolish. I don’t think it’s a poor response for us to do so. He’s considered to be a REAL philosopher by the uneducated, yet claiming NOT to be one openly. It’s important that his arguments are shown to be firmly on the side of “tainment” rather than “philoso”.

So here’s my response that discusses the Dawkins approach to agnosticism vs. atheism:

You’re not disagreeing with Dawkins here, Scott. This is a semantics issue. The Dawkins Atheist is still skeptical of everything — including the notion that there is no God — but he does so with the benefit of perspective. He simply chooses to call things that fall into a certain realm of incredulity — untrue.

It’s an intellectual courage issue.

Dawkins and others like him are 100% sure there is no God in only the same way that they are 100% sure there are no unicorns, no leprechauns, and no Gods of Olympus. This is not absolute certainty; this is certainty graded on a curve. We take the most preposterous notions in the world (magic horses, fairies, etc.) and use that as the standard for 100% since there really is no such thing.

To an atheist, theism is simply one absurdity among many that reached that threshold of *curved* 100%. It’s the same with any other silly notion that we can come up with — like Russell’s Teapot or any number of ancient superstitions. They’re equally absurd for the purposes of practicality, meaning they’re non-issues. Hence atheism.

Agnosticism on matters of such absurdity is nothing less than intellectual cowardice. One is essentially saying, “It’s never been proven that there aren’t any invisible pink unicorns, therefore I’m not going to say there aren’t any. I want to be absolutely sure before I call myself an anti-unicornist.”

That’s ridiculous. This means you also can’t in good conscience tell your children there are no monsters under their beds. After all, you can’t be certain.

The distinction between atheism and agnosticism comes down to one thing — having the intellectual courage to say, “If you think that Zeus still rules from Olympus, that a giant teapot orbits the Sun, or that the Bible is the word of an omnipotent, sentient God who created our universe — you’re delusional.” Not maybe wrong. Not partially right. Delusional.

Atheists are just agnostics with the balls to recognize that there ARE certain things that are too ludicrous to discuss seriously. The primitive, superstitious belief systems found in ancient texts are simply one such class of silliness. It’s time to mature past the silly notion of everything being “possibly true on some level, therefore defensible.”

If that were the case then the words “false” and “incorrect” would lose most of their meaning. Any logical person knows we can safely rule out the Gods of Olympus without checking every place in the universe.

It’s the 21st century; let’s have the courage to call the absurd what it is.:

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Comments

  • Carl M
    I'm not convinced that Scott Adams ever gave his personal beliefs on the matter. Certainly he never claimed to.

    As you know, he discussed Pascal's Wager recently. But, as I read it, it was merely a statement of the idea. I don't think (though I may be misremembering) that he ever said "I believe that this shows that it is best to believe in God .. just in case." He may have said (in the context of the discussion) that it is better to believe in God because ... but I took that to be a statement of the sort "given the premises we have been discussing, it follows that ..."

    In any case, calculation of expected value breaks down (or at least becomes more complicated) when infinite quantities are involved.
  • He most certainly did.

    "The phrase “weak atheist” is apparently nothing but a weasel self-label for agnostics who have picked a side and don’t want to be seen as giving any opening to religion. It is politics disguised as philosophy."

    He's very clearly making claims about the distinctions between atheism and agnosticism.
  • Daniel Ketamine
    I've always seen being a "100% atheist", or a religious extremist as unintelligent. I don't mean that every person who believes in a religion is stupid; I have major respect for those who keep their minds open. Those who learn - from non-bias sources - about many different belief systems and then choose the one that's right for them. These people are intelligent (or are making an intelligent decision in that respect), no matter what they believe in (if any). Simply accepting the religion you're born into and only viewing other belief systems through that religion's (often very bias) lens shows me that you're not intelligent.

    When asked what I believe in, I usually explain that I don't believe in Gods and I don't follow any particular religion; That I am too inexperienced to come up with a conclusion on whether God exists or not, and that self-transcendence is a lifelong process, not something you attain by praying five times a day or going to Church every Sunday. I keep my mind open to new ideas and experiences.

    Remain cautious not to use words like agnostic or atheist, which simply place a generic label on your belief system. It's like being 100% democratic or republican. Extremes are impractical in practice.
  • Hey Daniel,

    Don't worry about Scott Adams. He has already half admitted to write all of it as a satire and because he enjoys getting people all riled up about it.

    -- Arik
  • Scott Adams is the worlds biggest, and most successful, troll. The people who get all worked up and spend inordinate amounts of time writing reasoned responses to jokes he takes half an hour to write (which completely contradict the joke he made the week before) are what makes him amusing.

    Thanks :)
  • Carl M
    You're getting bent out of shape about a semantic argument (which would delight Scott Adams). You're defining 100% certainty in one way and Adams is defining it CORRECTLY. You don't get to say things like "When I say 100%, I really mean anything over 99.99%" -- not in a semantic argument (which is all this is). The whole point of the Adams post (other than the bit about antagonizing those whose buttons are easily pushed) relies on the fact that 100% MEANS 100%. It's the basis of Pascal's wager too. It uses the same sort of calculation that you routinely give (for example when you calculate risk as a product of two quantities). The key is that one of the quantities in Pascal's wager is INFINITE (which, as I said in an earlier reply, needs to be dealt with rather carefully). A tiny risk of an ETERNITY IN HELL .. what does that product come to? THAT is the point. It's an intellectual game! As long as that tiny risk is NON-ZERO (even if it is VERY VERY close to zero), that infinite factor makes the product VERY NON-ZERO.
  • I think the idea that agnosticism is stupid is as good of a judgement as the idea that atheism is stupid. The idea that one can say, "There probably is a supernatural context to this existance, but I don't have a concrete idea of how this works." is any more or less crazy than, "There is no supernatural context to this existance."
    This is just more throwing stones for the purpose of throwing stones at people who disagree with us. We should let people have their own opinions in peace as long as those opinions are not designed with the intent of hurting others (racism, bigotry, etc.)
  • Carl M
    To summarize an offline discussion (my point of view):

    The original Pascal's Wager consisted of a choice between two possibilities:
    Possibility ONE: There is no God (or at least not one who will punish non-believers)
    Possibility TWO: There is a God who punishes nonbelievers with eternal agony (and rewards believers with the lack thereof)

    Choosing to believe in Possibility ONE __might__ result in eternal agony (something we want to avoid) while choosing to believe in Possibility TWO has no such possibility. In this case, one can eliminate the possibility of eternal agony by choosing to believe in Possibility TWO. In the language of "expected value", choosing to believe in Possibility TWO results in an expected amount of AGONY that is NON-infinite while choosing to believe in Possibility ONE results in an expected amount of AGONY that is infinite (if we grant only that the possibility of the truth of Possibility TWO is non-zero).

    But things get funny as soon as more choices are included in the mix. If two or more possibilities exist which promise eternal agony for the non-believer, then there is NO WAY TO AVOID the dire result that the expected amount of agony is INFINITE. This doesn't mean that there's nothing to say in this case, it simply means that the game has changed from avoiding eternal agony to decreasing the probability that one is subject to it. The way to minimize the probability of suffering eternal agony is to choose to believe in the option that promises infinite agony that is most likely to be true. How one decides which is most likely to be true is another question entirely, but (at the very least) one decreases ones probability of suffering eternal agony by choosing to believe ANY possibility (that promises eternal agony to non-believers).

    That is the end of it ONLY IF the only goal of the game is to avoid eternal agony. I maintain that there is more to life than that. Imagine that you could seal yourself in an underground bunker safely in a bubble .. protected from accidents, lightning strikes, bacteria, etc. Others would bring you food and take care of your every need. Your own risks are minimized to the fullest possible extent. You could perhaps increase your life expectancy by 10 years or more (a pretty substantial percentage of your life). Would you do it? At what cost do those extra years of life come? I would maintain that it is NOT irrational to opt not to take this option with ones life (even if not doing so results in a shorter life).

    In the same way, it may not be irrational to NOT believe in a religion that promises eternal agony if one judges that the probability of that religion being true is sufficiently small. Remember, we can't avoid the result of having an expected amount of agony that is infinite (if two or more religions promising eternal agony have non-zero probability of being true). So, the game becomes that of minimizing the probability of suffering eternal agony. I am not sure that it is irrational to conclude that the (perhaps miniscule) decrease in this probability is worth all that would go into adhering to that particular religion.

    I'm going to risk posting this without proofreading it. I hope that it is clear. If not, please feel free to ask for clarification. (And, of course, feel free to tell me that I'm an idiot.)
  • kundi
    well, you can say by his own principle scott adams cannot make his claim; because he cannot be 100% sure. In fact, by his reasoning, nobody can make a statement on anything.
  • I think Scott Adams's response to this would be a one-liner along the lines of; "Thanks for that hallucination of what I said."

    Seriously now - being worked up over anything Adams writes has the same effect as farting during a tonardo. I think Scott Adams calls it the 'Dance, monkey, dance' effect.
  • CandyShopGirl

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