On Atheism vs Theism vs Agnosticism (or Why Only Agnosticism is Really Based on Science)
So, I’ve been thinking about this for a long time and just really decided to sit down and hash out my thoughts on this. I want to start by saying that I’m not saying that anyone’s opinions on the matters are necessarily “wrong,” but I do want to point out how each school of thought actually works scientifically. I should start by defining the terms of which I am going to talk so we all are working under the same definitions, since I am expecting some arguments, here are those:
God - A being, inside or outside our universe, that has the power to affect the universe in which we reside.
Atheism - The specific belief that there is not a god of any sort, and that the existence of one can never be proven. (Please understand I know the literal meaning is the lack of a belief in a god, but I am using this definition because agnosticism is a sub-sect of it and I am using atheism as a stand in for “The part of atheism that specifically doesn’t believe there is a god of any sort,” which I do believe is technically different than agnosticism)
Agnosticism - The specific belief that there could or could not be a god, but there is no evidence to specifically prove a god exists, but still feel it could be a possible explanation of where the universe originated. (This is, of course, my position and I will elaborate more on the specifics of it further in, but a better definition will come later).
Creator - a god that intentionally or unintentionally created the universe in which we exist (it has to be a god, because creating the universe is of course a demonstration of the power to affect it).
Theism - The specific belief in a god or gods. (I will again further elaborate on this, but right now this general definition is good for a reference to start).
The scientific method - a direct quote from wikipedia:
“ 1. Use your experience: Consider the problem and try to make sense of it. Look for previous explanations. If this is a new problem to you, then move to step 2.
2. Form a conjecture: When nothing else is yet known, try to state an explanation, to someone else, or to your notebook.
3. Deduce a prediction from that explanation: If you assume 2 is true, what consequences follow?
4. Test: Look for the opposite of each consequence in order to disprove 2. It is a logical error to seek 3 directly as proof of 2. This error is called affirming the consequent.
This model underlies the scientific revolution. One thousand years ago, Alhazen demonstrated the importance of steps 1 and 4. Galileo (1638) also showed the importance of step 4 (also called Experiment) in Two New Sciences. One possible sequence in this model would be 1, 2, 3, 4. If the outcome of 4 holds, and 3 is not yet disproven, you may continue with 3, 4, 1, and so forth; but if the outcome of 4 shows 3 to be false, you will have go back to 2 and try to invent a new 2, deduce a new 3, look for 4, and so forth.
Note that this method can never absolutely verify (prove the truth of) 2. It can only falsify 2.[7] (This is what Einstein meant when he said "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."[8])”
The scientific method is the basis of most of my argument, so please refer to it if you believe some of my logic is off and please feel free to correct me if it is, the point of making this post is about finding truth in the end. However, I don’t plan to get too science-y so as to go over anyone’s head, I hope to make this an approachable assertion.
So, let me start with science, more specifically string theory. String theory has been a very popular arm of physics since the 1980’s and is still studied by very smart people at very prestigious universities. String theory is a theory that’s base idea is that every fundamental particle in the universe (electrons, protons, quarks, etc) are each made up of single strings that are vibrating in a specific way that gives them their unique characteristics, sort of how the vibration of a violin string can produce an “A” note and another vibration produces a “C” note. So, if step 1 of the scientific method is “What makes up all of these fundamental particles?” Then we can move to step 2, which is of course that tiny strings make up the particles. Great! We’re moving right along. Of course the strings also make up step 3. Awesome! Now for step 4.
Step 4 is where it gets tricky, how the hell do we look for these strings? We have electron microscopes which can zoom in up to 2 million times what we can normally see, but since they use electrons to picture things, they of course cannot zoom in on anything smaller than an electron (actually can’t even get down to just an electron, but don’t worry about that). So, we have to move back to step 3 to make another prediction that might prove this theory is actually correct. Well, another part of string theory is a pretty amazing idea, so let’s use that. Let’s go with the idea that there are actually 10 space dimensions + 1 time dimension. So beyond, up/down, left/right, in/out we have some 7 other forms of dimensions we either can’t observe with any current technology or they might technically be outside of our universe, but inside a universe that we are a part of (which is hard to understand without further detail, but that would make this much more science heavy and I’m really trying to avoid that).
You may have noticed though, that we can’t really verify or prove wrong that this new assertion is fact, so we have to go back again. You may be asking yourself now why anyone gives a shit about string theory. The fact is, the formulas that have been derived from this idea, exactly match both Einstein’s formulas on gravity and quantum mechanics and all the other forces that exist in the world (electricity, magnetism, etc.). These things have never been brought into the same picture before, because using them together gives nonsense, but string theory naturally comes out with them. But, the math is really difficult to work with and the parts where relativity and quantum mechanics don’t work together outside of string theory, is very difficult to work through inside of it. So, this is where I get to the point of the story, what do we do with a theory that is not provable today, but could still hold some answers we hope to one day understand?
Now, you might say that the existence of a creationary being (which is the only form of a god I am going to talk about, so I will just refer to a creator for the most part) is not on the same level as a scientific theory that is based on some sort of observable evidence. However, you would be wrong, all of the things that string theory predicts and are provable, are the same things that other theories have predicted and proven, this just means that it does not contradict accepted understanding, not that it itself proves anything. As an example of this I will use Einstein, for people to accept general relativity, they had to see that light was indeed bent by large masses. His formulas were more precise than Newton’s for describing the motion of planets, but the equipment was not available to observe the differences in the early 1900’s, and so he had to come up with another prediction that was provable at the time. Luckily, light from stars behind the sun would bend around the sun and during a solar eclipse the sun’s light would be blocked out and we would be able to observe these stars, and he was able to get some pictures taken during an eclipse that showed that light was indeed being bent by the sun. If we had not had the ability to photograph an eclipse, we might still not have accepted relativity and most likely wouldn’t have had much space exploration beyond the moon.
So, how does a belief in a creator relate to this? I will start with a fundamental question, where did the universe and everything in it come from? This gives us step 1 of the scientific method. Okay, now I need to form a conjecture. I might argue that everything always just was, the universe has always been here. Then I need to make a prediction based on this, how do I make a prediction from this? Since, we know that the universe is expanding we might think that perhaps the universe was once a tiny little speck, and that it at one point exploded and everything in existence came from that. This actually works out very nicely when we look to other, proven, scientific theories. The second law of thermodynamics states that any system works toward becoming more and more ordered. So, it was pretty crazy during the big bang, and we are a result of the universe becoming more and more ordered, this is why matter combines to form planets and stars and such. The laws of thermodynamics are a huge part of mechanical engineering, and the fact that your car operates at all, is evidence of their power to explain reality as it is observed. This is great, but it doesn’t actually give us any explanation of where the matter in the universe came from. So, although it’s great to have as information, there is actual information that is more basic than this, and is not inherent to the universe always just existing, a creator could have caused the big bang and it could have been exactly the same. We are looking for what happened before the big bang, and what caused it.
So, I can look again at the idea that the universe always just was, but when you look at it, you realize that it’s not actually an explanation that is testable. Even if we assumed this idea, the laws of thermodynamics state that a system never gets less ordered (without outside forces) so either somebody collapsed all that mass, or that was literally the dawn of existence of matter and it appeared in a vacuum out of nowhere. This isn’t actually something I can prove or disprove, so I find it hard to completely believe when I look at it with a scientific eye. Now, if string theory is right about our universe being a 3 dimensional blob inside of a 10 dimensional universe, this very well could have been the cause of creation of our universe and could prove that, everything in our universe just came into existence during the big bang because of something in the 10 dimensional universe. It still gives us the further question of where that universe came from, so it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. But, we already know that we can never observe anything outside of our universe directly, so we may just be done looking for answers to our universe if we find this to be true. Plus, there still could be some being in the 10 dimensional universe that collapsed a bunch of mass in on itself and created the big bang.
Since this solution doesn’t really answer the question scientifically today, we are forced to come up with more hypotheses until we find one that fits. Since, a big problem with the first hypothesis is that it doesn’t really explain where the matter in the universe came from, we’ll propose that perhaps there was a creator who started everything. After all, there has never been anything we have observed that was not created by something, the planets were created by thermodynamics and then gravity taking hold, islands created by volcanoes, etc. Okay, now we have our conjecture, what predictions can we make with this assumption? Well, this creator would be able to do whatever they wanted and we might not have any control over it. But, we have never observed anything that can be reproduced to prove that there is anything outside of the fundamental laws of science guiding our universe, beyond, possibly, the creation. Yes, people say they have spoken to a multitude of different gods, but have never been able to reproduce such things in a way that it could be confirmed scientifically. Unfortunately, that again sounds much like our situation with “the universe always just was.” We are left either to assume that it is right, or assume it is wrong with no way of actually attempting to falsify it. So, let’s go back and perhaps assume that they created the universe and has no part in it now. That doesn’t really give us anything to predict then. That’s just a statement, with nothing that we can use to falsify it.
So, we are still left with a fundamental question unanswered. Who does this prove is right or wrong? No one. There is no scientific evidence to prove anything about the beginning of existence. Any postulation that does not go against the proven laws of the universe, must then be rigorously tested via the scientific method. This is a question that must be answered at some point because it does underpin our entire existence. Unfortunately right now, no one has any idea how to even approach it beyond something like string theory, which again doesn’t answer this fundamental question, it just takes us one step further into it. So does this prove atheists to be correct? Not entirely, especially when you take agnosticism out of that group. Because, there is no way to scientifically prove anything about the beginning of existence, there is literally no assertion that can be made in any direction.
My belief of agnosticism is that it is currently impossible to understand the origins of the universe, and to postulate anything that doesn’t actually stand up to the scientific method is just a philosophy and not scientific fact at all. Just as most theists propose that god/s work on their behalf or in their lives, it just isn’t scientific. And, it is unscientific to act as though you can assume anything that has not been scientifically proven. So, although logically it makes more sense to not believe in any god, due to a lack of proof beyond the thing that it is trying to explain, it is not at all scientific and cannot be utilized in any scientific conversation as a fact. Thus, telling someone there is no creator, is just as scientifically valid, as telling them there is a creator. Since, there is literally no scientific explanation and there has yet to be anything that begins to stand up to the scientific method, any assertion about the beginning of the universe is invalid. This is why agnosticism is the only ideal that can stand up to science because it specifically states that we literally have no idea right now and cannot make any statements about what is, or is not true until we have some predictions that are falsifiable.
Now, you can argue against people who believe that something acts on their behalf, because it is a specific idea that can be invalidated or not. But, once you specifically state that there is no way that a creator can exist, you are making an assumption that is scientifically unsound.
God - A being, inside or outside our universe, that has the power to affect the universe in which we reside.
Atheism - The specific belief that there is not a god of any sort, and that the existence of one can never be proven. (Please understand I know the literal meaning is the lack of a belief in a god, but I am using this definition because agnosticism is a sub-sect of it and I am using atheism as a stand in for “The part of atheism that specifically doesn’t believe there is a god of any sort,” which I do believe is technically different than agnosticism)
Agnosticism - The specific belief that there could or could not be a god, but there is no evidence to specifically prove a god exists, but still feel it could be a possible explanation of where the universe originated. (This is, of course, my position and I will elaborate more on the specifics of it further in, but a better definition will come later).
Creator - a god that intentionally or unintentionally created the universe in which we exist (it has to be a god, because creating the universe is of course a demonstration of the power to affect it).
Theism - The specific belief in a god or gods. (I will again further elaborate on this, but right now this general definition is good for a reference to start).
The scientific method - a direct quote from wikipedia:
“ 1. Use your experience: Consider the problem and try to make sense of it. Look for previous explanations. If this is a new problem to you, then move to step 2.
2. Form a conjecture: When nothing else is yet known, try to state an explanation, to someone else, or to your notebook.
3. Deduce a prediction from that explanation: If you assume 2 is true, what consequences follow?
4. Test: Look for the opposite of each consequence in order to disprove 2. It is a logical error to seek 3 directly as proof of 2. This error is called affirming the consequent.
This model underlies the scientific revolution. One thousand years ago, Alhazen demonstrated the importance of steps 1 and 4. Galileo (1638) also showed the importance of step 4 (also called Experiment) in Two New Sciences. One possible sequence in this model would be 1, 2, 3, 4. If the outcome of 4 holds, and 3 is not yet disproven, you may continue with 3, 4, 1, and so forth; but if the outcome of 4 shows 3 to be false, you will have go back to 2 and try to invent a new 2, deduce a new 3, look for 4, and so forth.
Note that this method can never absolutely verify (prove the truth of) 2. It can only falsify 2.[7] (This is what Einstein meant when he said "No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong."[8])”
The scientific method is the basis of most of my argument, so please refer to it if you believe some of my logic is off and please feel free to correct me if it is, the point of making this post is about finding truth in the end. However, I don’t plan to get too science-y so as to go over anyone’s head, I hope to make this an approachable assertion.
So, let me start with science, more specifically string theory. String theory has been a very popular arm of physics since the 1980’s and is still studied by very smart people at very prestigious universities. String theory is a theory that’s base idea is that every fundamental particle in the universe (electrons, protons, quarks, etc) are each made up of single strings that are vibrating in a specific way that gives them their unique characteristics, sort of how the vibration of a violin string can produce an “A” note and another vibration produces a “C” note. So, if step 1 of the scientific method is “What makes up all of these fundamental particles?” Then we can move to step 2, which is of course that tiny strings make up the particles. Great! We’re moving right along. Of course the strings also make up step 3. Awesome! Now for step 4.
Step 4 is where it gets tricky, how the hell do we look for these strings? We have electron microscopes which can zoom in up to 2 million times what we can normally see, but since they use electrons to picture things, they of course cannot zoom in on anything smaller than an electron (actually can’t even get down to just an electron, but don’t worry about that). So, we have to move back to step 3 to make another prediction that might prove this theory is actually correct. Well, another part of string theory is a pretty amazing idea, so let’s use that. Let’s go with the idea that there are actually 10 space dimensions + 1 time dimension. So beyond, up/down, left/right, in/out we have some 7 other forms of dimensions we either can’t observe with any current technology or they might technically be outside of our universe, but inside a universe that we are a part of (which is hard to understand without further detail, but that would make this much more science heavy and I’m really trying to avoid that).
You may have noticed though, that we can’t really verify or prove wrong that this new assertion is fact, so we have to go back again. You may be asking yourself now why anyone gives a shit about string theory. The fact is, the formulas that have been derived from this idea, exactly match both Einstein’s formulas on gravity and quantum mechanics and all the other forces that exist in the world (electricity, magnetism, etc.). These things have never been brought into the same picture before, because using them together gives nonsense, but string theory naturally comes out with them. But, the math is really difficult to work with and the parts where relativity and quantum mechanics don’t work together outside of string theory, is very difficult to work through inside of it. So, this is where I get to the point of the story, what do we do with a theory that is not provable today, but could still hold some answers we hope to one day understand?
Now, you might say that the existence of a creationary being (which is the only form of a god I am going to talk about, so I will just refer to a creator for the most part) is not on the same level as a scientific theory that is based on some sort of observable evidence. However, you would be wrong, all of the things that string theory predicts and are provable, are the same things that other theories have predicted and proven, this just means that it does not contradict accepted understanding, not that it itself proves anything. As an example of this I will use Einstein, for people to accept general relativity, they had to see that light was indeed bent by large masses. His formulas were more precise than Newton’s for describing the motion of planets, but the equipment was not available to observe the differences in the early 1900’s, and so he had to come up with another prediction that was provable at the time. Luckily, light from stars behind the sun would bend around the sun and during a solar eclipse the sun’s light would be blocked out and we would be able to observe these stars, and he was able to get some pictures taken during an eclipse that showed that light was indeed being bent by the sun. If we had not had the ability to photograph an eclipse, we might still not have accepted relativity and most likely wouldn’t have had much space exploration beyond the moon.
So, how does a belief in a creator relate to this? I will start with a fundamental question, where did the universe and everything in it come from? This gives us step 1 of the scientific method. Okay, now I need to form a conjecture. I might argue that everything always just was, the universe has always been here. Then I need to make a prediction based on this, how do I make a prediction from this? Since, we know that the universe is expanding we might think that perhaps the universe was once a tiny little speck, and that it at one point exploded and everything in existence came from that. This actually works out very nicely when we look to other, proven, scientific theories. The second law of thermodynamics states that any system works toward becoming more and more ordered. So, it was pretty crazy during the big bang, and we are a result of the universe becoming more and more ordered, this is why matter combines to form planets and stars and such. The laws of thermodynamics are a huge part of mechanical engineering, and the fact that your car operates at all, is evidence of their power to explain reality as it is observed. This is great, but it doesn’t actually give us any explanation of where the matter in the universe came from. So, although it’s great to have as information, there is actual information that is more basic than this, and is not inherent to the universe always just existing, a creator could have caused the big bang and it could have been exactly the same. We are looking for what happened before the big bang, and what caused it.
So, I can look again at the idea that the universe always just was, but when you look at it, you realize that it’s not actually an explanation that is testable. Even if we assumed this idea, the laws of thermodynamics state that a system never gets less ordered (without outside forces) so either somebody collapsed all that mass, or that was literally the dawn of existence of matter and it appeared in a vacuum out of nowhere. This isn’t actually something I can prove or disprove, so I find it hard to completely believe when I look at it with a scientific eye. Now, if string theory is right about our universe being a 3 dimensional blob inside of a 10 dimensional universe, this very well could have been the cause of creation of our universe and could prove that, everything in our universe just came into existence during the big bang because of something in the 10 dimensional universe. It still gives us the further question of where that universe came from, so it’s a bit of a chicken and egg situation. But, we already know that we can never observe anything outside of our universe directly, so we may just be done looking for answers to our universe if we find this to be true. Plus, there still could be some being in the 10 dimensional universe that collapsed a bunch of mass in on itself and created the big bang.
Since this solution doesn’t really answer the question scientifically today, we are forced to come up with more hypotheses until we find one that fits. Since, a big problem with the first hypothesis is that it doesn’t really explain where the matter in the universe came from, we’ll propose that perhaps there was a creator who started everything. After all, there has never been anything we have observed that was not created by something, the planets were created by thermodynamics and then gravity taking hold, islands created by volcanoes, etc. Okay, now we have our conjecture, what predictions can we make with this assumption? Well, this creator would be able to do whatever they wanted and we might not have any control over it. But, we have never observed anything that can be reproduced to prove that there is anything outside of the fundamental laws of science guiding our universe, beyond, possibly, the creation. Yes, people say they have spoken to a multitude of different gods, but have never been able to reproduce such things in a way that it could be confirmed scientifically. Unfortunately, that again sounds much like our situation with “the universe always just was.” We are left either to assume that it is right, or assume it is wrong with no way of actually attempting to falsify it. So, let’s go back and perhaps assume that they created the universe and has no part in it now. That doesn’t really give us anything to predict then. That’s just a statement, with nothing that we can use to falsify it.
So, we are still left with a fundamental question unanswered. Who does this prove is right or wrong? No one. There is no scientific evidence to prove anything about the beginning of existence. Any postulation that does not go against the proven laws of the universe, must then be rigorously tested via the scientific method. This is a question that must be answered at some point because it does underpin our entire existence. Unfortunately right now, no one has any idea how to even approach it beyond something like string theory, which again doesn’t answer this fundamental question, it just takes us one step further into it. So does this prove atheists to be correct? Not entirely, especially when you take agnosticism out of that group. Because, there is no way to scientifically prove anything about the beginning of existence, there is literally no assertion that can be made in any direction.
My belief of agnosticism is that it is currently impossible to understand the origins of the universe, and to postulate anything that doesn’t actually stand up to the scientific method is just a philosophy and not scientific fact at all. Just as most theists propose that god/s work on their behalf or in their lives, it just isn’t scientific. And, it is unscientific to act as though you can assume anything that has not been scientifically proven. So, although logically it makes more sense to not believe in any god, due to a lack of proof beyond the thing that it is trying to explain, it is not at all scientific and cannot be utilized in any scientific conversation as a fact. Thus, telling someone there is no creator, is just as scientifically valid, as telling them there is a creator. Since, there is literally no scientific explanation and there has yet to be anything that begins to stand up to the scientific method, any assertion about the beginning of the universe is invalid. This is why agnosticism is the only ideal that can stand up to science because it specifically states that we literally have no idea right now and cannot make any statements about what is, or is not true until we have some predictions that are falsifiable.
Now, you can argue against people who believe that something acts on their behalf, because it is a specific idea that can be invalidated or not. But, once you specifically state that there is no way that a creator can exist, you are making an assumption that is scientifically unsound.