Study in Fallacious Reasoning and Intellectual Dishonesty Concerning Atheism: Sacerdotus Sacerdotvs - Part II

This post is a continuation of a presentation about fallacious assertions often made by class II apologists concerning atheism.  While the discussion of the particular article used for this post stands on its own, the background of the article, and why I chose it are contained in part I, as are various statements directed to its author concerning comments and my use of the article for this critique.

With that out of the way, lets continue.

For this part of the discussion I am referencing an article written by  +Sacerdotus Sacerdotvs  (SaSa) entitled Atheism as Default Fails. (first published on 10 April 2013 in SaSa's blog, then posted to the Theists vs Atheists Discussion, Google + community on 10 December 2014)

SaSa's premise for this article is quite obvious: atheism as the default position in a discussion about the existence of a god or gods fails. SaSa backs up this assertion with the following statements:

Statement 1:"However, no human being is born with an infused intellect or conceptual knowledge.  No person is born having acquired knowledge from stimuli outside of the womb."

Statement 2:"Even after birth, the brain still does not have experience and needs those around [sic] in order to learn."

Statement 3:"Atheism is a social script, not a default of the human condition at birth.  No one is born atheist [sic]or possesses [sic]  an absence in [sic] belief of God.  In order for one to not believe something, one must be first [sic] aware of that something."

(The rest of the article contains various explanations about how babies are formed and semi-correct statements on how they react with their environment following birth.  These explanations don't really add anything to the premise and seem to be attempts to offer some sort of validity to SaSa as someone to listen to on the subject. A thinly veiled appeal to authority, if you will.)

While these statements obviously contradict each other, and refute SaSa's assertion by themselves, I will address them individually, and then together, to make this even more clear.

I basically agree with the first statement in that humans are not born with any particular beliefs, or innate knowledge as we generally understand such things.  They don't have a specific moral code or belief system, and, as statement two implies, these things have to be taught.

In order to place these assertions into context with SaSa's premise, I offer the following definition of atheism from the Oxford Dictionary of the English Language:

"Disbelief or lack of belief in the existence of God or gods"

So, atheism can be a refusal to believe, or a lack of belief in a god or gods.  Since babies don't yet have an opinion on the subject, or even a concept of the subject, they can't very well "refuse" to believe it.  However, for the same reasons, they do posses a lack of belief, and are therefore atheists.  Since they are born with this lack of belief, they are born with the default position of a lack of belief.  Clearly a refutation of SaSa's original assertion.

SaSa then goes on to make a series of rather fallacious baseless statements in defense of the position, he himself, has already accidentally refuted.

He starts with:

"Atheism is a social script, not a default of the human condition at birth."

This is obviously a misrepresentation of what atheism is, as shown in the definition above.  That aside, he gives no explanation of what he means by "social script", but I assume that he means that a lack of belief has to be taught.  This would imply an innate belief to have been present for there to be something to be taught not to believe in.  As, SaSa has correctly pointed out, no belief exists upon birth, so there is nothing to be taught not to believe in. There is merely a lack of belief. See how self-defeating the whole idea becomes?

He follows this with:

"No one is born atheist or possesses an absence in belief of God."

Here SaSa is at least giving an accurate definition of atheism "an absence of belief in god."  However, by inference he is saying that babies are born with a belief in god, thus contradicting an earlier correct assertion that babies are born without beliefs.  If a baby is not born with an absence of a belief, then it is born with said belief.  You can't have it both ways, either a baby has no beliefs i.e. an absence of belief, or it has beliefs.  As SaSa, and more reliably, actual science, has already established, it is the former.  So, again he has affirmed that babies are born with an absence of belief in gods, and are therefore atheists.

But he isn't quite finished:

"In order for one to not believe something, one must be first aware of that something."

This statement would (to some) seem to make sense, but it is illogical and factually incorrect.  There are any number of things which many people don't believe in without being aware that they don't believe in them. 

For instance: A purple unicorn named Fred living on the dark side of the moon whose feces taste like strawberries.  Did anyone reading this believe in such a being before I made you aware of its possible existence?  I hope not, because I made it up.

Of course, now that you are aware of my asserted creature, you have a few obvious choices:

• You can ask for evidence to support Fredism (the belief in Fred the unicorn)
• You can assert that Fred is not real, and be faced with my reply of: "prove it, you non-believer!"
• Or, you can stick with the default position of Afredism,(the lack of belief in Fred the unicorn) that you and everyone else was born with.

So there you have it. Another in a long line of failed assertions that atheism is some sort of "truth statement", "belief affirmation", or some other assertion.  Atheism is merely a lack of belief in a god or gods.  Even those who believe in a god or a set of gods are atheists when it comes to gods they don't believe in.  The problem most theists have with this concept is an unconscious manifestation of cognitive dissonance:  They have to believe that atheism is a statement of belief so they can deny it without having to supply evidence for their own belief.  It is far easier to say someone is wrong than it is to have to prove one's self right.

I would never say that there aren't atheists who make the claim that gods (or a particular god) do not exist, or that such a person would not assume the burden of proving his or her assertion.  But such an assertion is not atheism (a lack of belief), it is in itself a belief:  the belief that gods do not exist.  Sure, an atheist can hold this belief, just as he or she can hold a belief in UFO abductions, Bigfoot, or the Loch Ness monster.  But such beliefs assume a degree of the burden of proof, whereas a lack of belief in such things does not, as it is merely the default position we are all born with.


To read SaSa's original article in full you can find it here:

http://www.sacerdotus.com/2013/04/atheism-as-default-fails.html