It’s Not JUST Because of a Lack of Evidence

 

It’s Not JUST Because of a Lack of Evidence

When asked why atheists don’t believe in “God” (whichever one the person asking the question personally believes in, of course), a standard response is that it’s because of a lack of any good or objective evidence that such a “God” actually exists. And, while that may certainly be true in the sense that most atheists would have no trouble believing if presented with any good or objective evidence for the existence of any particular deity, in most cases it’s not just because of a lack of evidence. And this is something which I feel doesn’t get mentioned nearly as often as it should.

You see, there are many things in life I’m willing to believe without “good” or “objective” evidence. If my son tells me he had pizza for lunch at school today, for example, I’m perfectly willing to take him at his word despite the fact that all I have is his word. He could be lying and perhaps my belief is therefore unfounded, but I have no trouble believing him nevertheless. Similarly, if a co-worker tells me she was late to work because there was an accident on the road she travels to the office, I’m willing to believe her without demanding that she show me pictures of the accident. Or if my next-door neighbor tells me that she finally saw a hummingbird in her garden after years of planting flowers specifically designed to attract them to no avail, I’m happy to accept her at her word even though I know that she could possibly be lying or mistaken.

And that’s because all these things are ordinary things that are firmly within the realm of possibility. And it would be perverse to go through life refusing to believe anything that anybody claimed unless they could back up their claims with clear and convincing evidence.

If my son were to tell me that he had roast unicorn for lunch instead of pizza, however, the sheer ridiculousness of his claim would prevent me from believing him unless he provided very strong evidence. Similarly, if my co-worker claims that she was late because Godzilla rose from the sea and knocked over a building in her home town, there’s no way I would be willing to believe her unless she could prove it somehow. And if my next-door neighbor tells me that space aliens finally responded to the “Land Here” sign on her roof and gave her a ride on their spaceship, it’s hard to imagine what sort of evidence she could produce that would convince me she wasn’t either lying or completely mental. When dealing with ludicrous and outrageous claims, in other words, my lack of belief is due to much more than a simple lack of any evidence to support those claims. Instead, my lack of belief is due primarily to just how extraordinary and ludicrous the claims are in the first place.

And thus we get to why most atheists lack a belief in any gods. If we’re talking about any of the gods actually worshiped by anybody throughout history, whether it be Zeus or Odin or Amun-Ra or Jehovah/Allah or any other supreme being described in some ancient book written by people who were so ignorant about the universe and our place in it that they didn’t even realize that our day/night cycle was caused by the Earth’s rotation on its axis, it’s clear that those gods are nothing more than the product of ignorant superstition and any claims that any of these gods actually exist can be dismissed out of hand even without considering whether or not any evidence is available. And if that seems harsh, consider how easy it is for most theists to dismiss out of hand all gods other than the one they were most likely personally indoctrinated from a young age to believe in.

Seriously, we know that humans have always had a burning desire to know the answer to life’s so-called “big questions” such as “Where did we come from,” “Why are we here” and “What happens to us after we die” and when those answers can’t be found, we just make something up. Which is why, of course, just about every culture or society in recorded history has come up with its own, mostly unique, story populated by its own, mostly unique, supernatural beings. For example:[1]

Africa

Americas

Mesoamerica

Mid North America

South America

Asia

Central Asia

East Asia

Indian subcontinent

Europe

Middle East

Pacific Islands/Oceanic

And not just gods, mind you — consider the fact that humans have been making up imaginary creatures throughout all of recorded history and nobody today really needs to claim “lack of evidence” for why they don’t believe in alicorns and androsphinxes, banshees and bugbears, centaurs and chimeras, dragons and dryads, elementals and elves, fairies and fauns, ghouls and goblins, harpies and hippogriffs, imps and incubi, jinns and jötnar, kelpies and kobolds, lamias and leprechans, mandrakes and manticores, nāgas and naiads, ogres and orks, pegasi and pixies, qliphoths and quinotaurs, revenants and rocs, satyrs and selkies, thunderbirds and trolls, unicorns and umi-nyōbō, valkyrie and vampires, werewolves and wyverns, xanas and xecotcovachs, yacurunas and yazhis, zâne and zombies, etc., etc., etc.

On the other hand, if you’re talking about the “God” that gets trotted out by apologists to explain why it’s impossible for them to ever provide any good evidence of its existence, you still end up with something too ludicrous to merit any serious consideration. Some sort of immaterial “pure spirit” (whatever the heck that actually means) that exists “outside of time and space” (whatever the heck that actually means), that is mysterious, unknowable, undetectable and otherwise “ineffable” (except for the fact, of course, that they somehow know all about what this unknowable being has said and done and promised to do and what it wants us to do with our lives), that created this insanely vast universe filled with countless billions of galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars, and that still somehow cares very deeply about individual members of one particular species on one particular planet orbiting one particular star in all of that vast, vast space? I’m sorry, but claims seriously do not get any more outrageous, ludicrous and ridiculous than that. Lack of evidence to support claims that such a being exists is not really the problem here, trust me.

To summarize, there are actually multiple reasons why most atheists do not believe in any gods, including the following:

  1. The claim that gods exist is a truly extraordinary claim completely divorced from normal human experience.

    As such, the default position     should be to reject such a claim unless and until some evidence is provided to support that claim, as with any other extraordinary claims such as the existence of magic, alien abductions, fairies, etc. In addition, the extraordinary nature of these claims means that extraordinary evidence should be required to overcome that default position, beyond such ambiguous things like anecdotal stories, personal feelings, unverified “miracles” or claims that science cannot currently explain some aspects of the natural world and therefore “God did it” must be the only possible explanation.
  2. The evidence that should be there if gods really existed is not there.

    Yes, you can argue the possibility of some sort of “hidden” or ”undetectable” deity of some sort that we can never know anything about because it either exists “outside of time and space” or resides in some far corner of the universe we can never explore or is some sort of immaterial “pure spirit” that cannot be detected by any scientific means or whatever. But, aside from the fact that there is literally no justifiable reason to believe in any such “hidden” deity in the first place apart from wishful thinking, the various gods actually worshiped by anybody throughout history (including the “God” of the various Abrahamic religions) have all been described as interacting with humanity and saying and doing and promising to do very specific things for which there should be plenty of very obvious evidence. Despite whatever aphorisms you may have read or heard on the subject, absence of evidence really     is evidence of absence when there should be evidence.
  3. We know the origin of beliefs in gods.

    The belief in just about every deity actually worshiped throughout human history can be traced to very specific origins in ancient books filled with superstition and obviously the product of ignorant people who were trying to invent explanations for life’s so-called “big questions” such as “Where did we come from,” “Why are we here” and “What happens to us after we die.” Just about every culture we know about has come up with its own [mostly] unique “creation story” populated by one or more supernatural beings to answer these questions. And, as a result, there is no good reason to suspect that one of those many stories invented by one small (at the time) section of the world’s population is actually the truth.

Sure, if any theists could ever actually provide good and objective evidence to support their claim that a god exists, we atheists might be willing to consider the evidence and, if the evidence were strong enough, perhaps even change our minds. But the reason we don’t believe such claims in the first place is because they are so, well, unbelievable. The lack of any evidence is just a bonus reason.

Footnotes

[1] List of creation myths - Wikipedia

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