Seems fairly unobjectionable, for the most part. I might disagree about the parsimony argument (as I’ve previously stated, tongue only partially in cheek, I find polytheism more likely than monotheism) – there are many phenomena described by science that do not seem so very parsimonious to me (our own intelligence among them), but for the most part, this is a well-reasoned argument.

Except for this statement: “if there were immensely powerful incorporeal consciousnesses out there, they would be a hot research topic in any number of scientific disciplines”. Because that is one of the most unscientific remarks I have ever heard.

If every scientist felt like that, we would not today have the sciences of micro-biology or particle physics, to name but two. And conversely, if the existence of scientific study into a thing is all it takes to prove that it is true, then alchemy and astrology were apparently true during the Middle Ages.

Fortunately, a truly scientific attitude begins with an admission of ignorance, and seeks to correct it. This is why, unlike the author of Aardvarkaeology, I am an agnostic.

But there’s a limit to that. The differences between atheist fundamentalism and theist fundamentalism are somewhat more significant than the differences between, for example facist totalitarianism and communist totalitarianism. For instance, of these four ideologies, atheist fundamentalism has by far the best human rights record.

That’s worth considering.

At no point in history have atheists burned people at the stake for not following the same dogma as them. At no point have they mounted crusades, jihads or any such state of war. At no point have they used what they believe as a justification for rape, murder, theft or anything else that is generally explicitly forbidden by the dogma of most theist religions. (Not that they’re incapable of hypocrisy, just that they tend toward more socially acceptable forms of hypocrisy.)

Most atheists are generally as moral and decent as anyone else. Sometimes moreso, although those tend to be the ones who are deliberately setting out to disprove the common theist assertion that without religion to teach moral behaviour, there wouldn’t be any. (Theists are, for the most part, woefully ignorant of both philosophy and game theory, each of which manage to provide non-religious justifications for moral behaviour. But I digress.)

But you know what?

So are most agnostics. And we’re a lot less dogmatic about it.

As if standing up to this pressure from both sides to make a decision – any decision being better than none, apparently – did not require considerable backbone.

We’re all familiar with managers and politicians who need to be seen to be making decisions, leading to an endless and pointless stream of changed decisions. The usual cure proposed is that they should make up their minds once and for all. (The idea that persisting in an error might well be worse than not making a decision – Iraq, anyone? – seems just a foreign.)

Let me ask you something: Why?

Why is it so important to make a decision, now, today, before all the facts are in? Generally speaking, in this life, anyone who wants you to do that is selling something – and hiding some nasty surprises in the small print. That’s what I would assume about any salesman or politician who tried to it on – why should I assume any differently just ‘cos it’s a preacher talking?

But let’s assume good faith (so to speak) on the part of those pushing us to make this decision.

I think they suffer from a failure of the imagination.

They don’t seem able to see that there might be more information on which to base decisions later on. They don’t want to admit that there will probably be more options to choose among if the decision is delayed (despite the fact that even the most cursory glance at religious history will show that there will most likely be some new splinter faith formed in the next five minutes or so).

Most insultingly, they don’t seem willing to acknowledge that choosing not to choose is a valid (or in extreme cases of this narrow-mindedness, a possible) choice.

And there is a logic to that position, but it still leads to an inaccuracy in their naming of themselves. It’s true that God is supernatural in nature, but God is not all that is supernatural.

God is not, for example, a vampire. He’s not astrology or tarot cards. He does not turn into a wolf each full moon, nor appear in a half-fish form to lure sailors to their doom.

If your version of atheism includes a disbelief in the supernatural, as well as in God, then you are not an atheist, or rather,, you are not just an atheist.

You’re something more than that – an athaumatist (from the Greek thaumato, meaning wonder or wonders). Atheism is a sub-section of Athaumatism, and the vast majority of self-proclaimed atheists should probably use language more carefully.

Or maybe that’s just me. I’m pedantic like that. Which is why I’m an agnostic in the first place.

(I’d say I was a terrible snob, but that’s not true – I’m really very good at it   )

The key point that I’m leading up to here is that the general atheist statement regarding God:

I do not believe there is a God

seems to me to be functionally equivalent to the statement:

I believe there is no God

Indeed, if I were construct these two sentences in formal logic, there would be a difference only in where the negation was placed, and not at all in the meaning.

Now, this may seem like hair-splitting, but it seems to me that an atheist does believe – they believe in the non-existence of a thing in the absence of conclusive proof in its non-existence.

That’s still a belief, as I see it.  As I’ve said before here, absence of proof does not constitute a disproof.  That’s why an agnostic (or at least, this agnostic) would phrase the statement as I do not know if there is a God.  (One could add  or not at the end, but there’s no need to – it means the same thing either way.)

Atheism often presents itself as a fearless search for truth – Greta Christina, much as I love her writing, often falls into this trap in her writings on the subject (as here, for example) – but it’s not truly fearless or searching if the truth you’re looking for is pre-determined at the outset.

To say that God cannot possibly exist, since we cannot find any proof of his existence using all the instruments of modern science is ludicrous.  Science never stands still – tomorrow’s instrument will detect something that is theory today and was unsuspected yesterday.  If some newly invented instrument did detect God, today’s atheists would find themselves in the position of those who denied the existence of microscopic life before the microscope proved it existed.

Of course, I don’t think it is at all likely that God will suddenly be detected tomorrow – but I cannot rule out the possibility without committing that cardinal sin of science, speculating in advance of the data. If only atheists brought the rigour of their science to their faith…

But I feel it misses the point of its own arguments.

McGrath argues quite convincingly that modern atheism is very much a product of its Enlightenment roots.  He reaches from this to say that now that the project of the Enlightenment either has been achieved or has failed (he does try it both ways), atheism has lost its way and serves no further purpose.

He goes on to propose that there is a cyclical movement from belief to atheism and back to belief again, without stopping to consider what his own choice of metaphor implies, i.e. that the cycle will only continue.  Interestingly, he does note in an offhanded remark that there will be some people who will choose agnosticism as a means of breaking free of this cycle – but the idea that as the cycle continues throughout history, those people will only grow in number (as each iteration of the cycle makes the pointlessness of the whole thing ever more obvious) is also one he cannot reach for.

Ultimately, this is a book that makes some very interesting points about the origins of atheism – points I have yet to see any atheist address, I might add – but which is a little too willing to engage in wishful thinking in drawing its conclusions, or indeed, in thinking that the argument between belief and disbelief will ever be concluded.