NOTE: Today we share a guest post from one of our non-theist commenters, Paul Rimmer.
 

 
Does the world need another article on how to define atheism? Does Strange Notions? These questions had to open the article, in part because there have already been several different Strange Notions articles on how to define atheists, including the most recent article about self-identified atheists who believe in God.

Yet here I am, talking about how to define the terms “atheist”, “theist”, and “agnostic”, in an article that may look at the end like a religiously oriented Cosmopolitan quiz. I write this article anyway, because I believe that there is a good reason for so many articles on this topic.

I don’t think the lines that divide Catholics and atheists are the same lines for every Catholic and every atheist, because Catholicism and atheism are very diverse perspectives, and because it’s not all about belief. If you disagree, if you think the dividing line is all about belief, then read only the next section of this article ("If It’s All About Belief..."). Please skip the rest of the article.

If, however, you agree with me that there are more dimensions to the dividing lines between Catholicism and atheism, you are encouraged read the entire article. You are also encouraged to leave comments. I promise to read them and to adjust my views based on reasonable and convincing argument. As far as this article is concerned, charity is for people, not for ideas. Don’t insult my parentage, but please be as harsh as you will to my ideas. If my ideas are any good, they will stand the heat.

Why should you listen to me? After all, I’m a scientist and not a theologian. I suspect, though, that scientists, rather than theologians, would succeed with this sort of task. A large part of science is categorizing things. The judgment of the reader will determine whether this scientist is any good at categorizing people.

For the purposes of this article, there will be only one deity to consider: The Christian God as described by the Nicene Creed. This is admittedly a vast over-simplification. I will offer some concluding remarks about how the labels introduced here can be broadened in order to account for alternative religions and belief-systems, such as Islam or Buddhism.

If It’s All About Belief...

 
If you think that atheism vs. theism is completely and simply about belief, I won’t fight you on that. Such a fight would likely fail to advance the discussion, even if I were to successfully convince you that there are more dimensions to the question of God’s existence than simply believing or not. What I will do is provide what I think to be the best ways to define atheism, theism, and agnosticism, if the discussion is all about belief. This system has the advantage of being accepted by most atheists and several theists.

In this system, there are two dimensions regarding belief. First is the presence of the belief itself. If I ask you whether you believe that God exists, do you say “yes” or “no”? If you say “yes” then you are a theist. If you say “no” then you are an atheist. That’s it. If you can’t say either “yes” or “no”, then you can come up with a new colorful term for your position, such as igtheist.

The second dimension is the level of confidence in that belief. If you are certain that your belief is correct, then you are a gnostic. If you are uncertain about whether your belief is correct, then you are an agnostic. Thus there are four options:

1. Gnostic Theist: You believe that God exists and are certain in your belief.
2. Agnostic Theist: You believe that God exists but are uncertain in your belief.
3. Agnostic Atheist: You believe that God does not exist but are uncertain in your belief.
4. Gnostic Atheist: You believe that God does not exist and are certain in your belief.

If you think that the only or at least the key division between theism and atheism is along the lines of belief, then this is the system for you. Even if you agree with me that there are more (and maybe more important) dimensions to the issue, you should still find out where you fit in this system, because one of the big advantages of labels is convenience, and as I said, most atheists and several theists know and use this convention for applying the labels atheist, theist, and agnostic.

But Maybe It's Not All About Belief

 
I am going to propose to you now that belief isn’t the only issue, and, even more, that it isn’t the most important. Certainly belief is one important dividing issue between atheists and theists, and it may be the most obvious, but as I listen to various atheists and theists talk about their beliefs, I see signs of other dimensions, other divisions between atheists and theists, and also interesting similarities between the two groups. Most theists I know and count as friends would have more in common with Richard Dawkins than with Bill O’Reilly on the question of truth (see this video, for example). The important dimensions to the question of God’s existence are three, as I count them:

1. Do you believe that God exists?
This is an obvious point of division.

2. Do you want God to exist?
In other words, would you prefer to live in a world where there was an all-powerful, fatherly God who loves us unconditionally and who sent his son to die for us? Do you want to live in a world where you may be held accountable, even eternally accountable, for your beliefs and actions?

3. Do you live as though God existed?
The knowledge that God loves and cares for you, and wants you to enjoy his presence for all eternity, and expects you to live a life in obedience to his authority will entail a way of life that is noticeably and radically distinct from the way many people in the world, including many people who would be theists under the beliefs-only definition, presently live their lives. Now, maybe a die-hard atheist will live a life consistent with the existence of the Christian God. Why not? Maybe she lives this life because of a self-consistent ethics that has nothing to do with God. It just so happens to involve actions that are more-or-less aligned to actions performed by practicing theists. That’s all that’s required. I will say that most atheists I know live lives that closely approximate the ideal Christian life.

These three dimensions leave us eight options, for which I apply various labels already in existence, although I may be using these terms in a manner that somewhat departs from convention. Where possible, I will also provide the name of a prominent philosopher or theologian who seems to fit the particular label. This is the Cosmo Quiz portion of the article, and when you the reader disagree with my assessment, either of the terms used or philosophers assigned, please let me know in the comments.

Satisfied Theist: This is someone who believes that God exists, wishes that God existed, and lives as though God exists. This is the simple Catholic life, portrayed well by many common parishioners and by the present Pope Francis.

Apatheist: Someone who believes that God exists and wishes that God existed, but doesn’t live as though God exists—what the Catechism of the Catholic Church labels “practical atheists” (CCC 2128). These are people for whom religion has no real affect on their public life or on their activity outside of maybe some ritual observance. God is like a sports mascot and religion their sports team. I won’t dare to name anyone who fits this label, although I imagine many Christians do. This is, however, the ideal form of religion as envisioned by Daniel Dennett.

Reluctant Theist: This is someone who believes God exists and lives as though God exists, but she wishes God didn’t exist. Maybe she wishes God were different. She may struggle with divine hiddenness and the problem of evil, not as evidence against God’s existence but as strong arguments against God’s goodness and loving-kindness. A good and loving God would not allow for childhood leukemia and would reveal Himself to those whom He loves, like any kind father. I would tentatively assign Oscar Wilde this label.

Agnostic: Someone who wants God to exist and lives as though God exists, but doesn’t think God exists. People who don’t think God exists may want God to exist and live pretty-much the same way whether God exists or not. Massimo Pigliucci seems to be an agnostic in this sense.

Misotheist: This rare position includes someone who believes God exists but wishes He didn’t, and who doesn’t live as though God existed. This is someone who is opposed to God. The easiest example would be Lucifer. An example closer to home would be Arthur Schopenhauer.

Pessimist: Someone who doesn’t believe in God and doesn’t live as though God existed, but wishes He did. The pessimist tends to live out in the bitter cold winds of truth instead of the enclosed and suffocating warmth provided by pious illusion. I would think Bertrand Russell to be a pessimist in this sense.

Atheist: Someone who lives as though God exists, although she doesn’t believe in God and hopes that she’s right. Many people who hold this view can seem God-intoxicated, and anti-theistic, opposed not to God but to theism itself, because theism supports an immoral God. This apparent obsession is often, as I discern, a result of strong moral intuition. It is in fact the atheist’s right moral sense that leads her to deny God’s existence. Christopher Hitchens and Richard Dawkins are prime examples of atheists.

Nihilist: This person doesn’t believe in God, doesn’t want God, and doesn’t live like God exists. In my opinion, this is at its very heart a hopeless position, but maybe I lack the imagination to see how it would work out. My strong opinion may be due to the fact that I have no friends and know of no philosophers who actually hold to this position. Nietzsche is thought to deserve this label, although I suspect this is a misunderstanding of his philosophy. The closest actual example might be Ayn Rand, a hopeless philosopher if ever there was one.

I speculate that the former way of labeling positions on God, based only on belief, seems a very Protestant way of doing things. Protestants traditionally emphasize faith alone above the other cardinal virtues of hope and love. Giving a place for hope and love seems to be a more universal, or Catholic, approach to the question of theism and atheism. Also, no one is bound to use my terms, although I think that the traditional usage of most of these labels is at least reasonably well approximated by my new descriptions

As promised, I will now show by a single example how these labels can be generalized in order to encapsulate other religions, or at least other theistic religions. Someone might, for example, be a theist with respect to the Christian God, but a nihilist with respect to the Muslim God. She would, in other words, derive her hope and purpose of life from her Christian beliefs, and derive no hope or guidance from Islamic beliefs, except where the two beliefs overlap.

A strong note of warning: Whatever system of labels you accept, respect what other people want to be called. If someone wants to be called an atheist or an agnostic, or doesn’t want labels altogether, respect their choice and abide by it, at least when talking to them.

I will end this article by emphasizing the great overlap between many theists and many atheists, and it is on the most important of all the virtues, that of love. I was a member of the Christian Graduate Student Alliance at Ohio State University, and was also closely involved with the Secular Student Alliance there, a group of atheists and agnostics that had among their number not a few who denied the historicity of Jesus. The Secular Student Alliance at OSU became involved with a Lutheran Church on a trip to New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and worked alongside Christians of various denominations to provide relief to fellow humans. This is in my mind a rich picture of the Kingdom of Heaven. Jesus said that his true disciples would be known by their love. How interesting, how strangely beautiful, that maybe some of Christ’s truest disciples alive today are not convinced that he even existed.
 
 
(Image credit: Kill ADJ)

A new Pew study has found that a majority of Americans (53%) say they would be less likely to vote for a presidential candidate if that candidate self-identified as an atheist. Only 5% say that self-identified atheism would make them more likely to vote for a candidate. Perhaps Americans would think a bit differently if they knew about a secret that was hidden (until now) in the data for Pew's U.S. Religious Knowledge Survey. Recall what the media focused on when this was data was released:

• Los Angeles Times: “If you want to know about God, you might want to talk to an atheist. Heresy? Perhaps. But a survey that measured Americans' knowledge of religion found that atheists and agnostics knew more, on average, than followers of most major faiths.”
• Reuters: “They may not believe in God or gods but they know a thing or two about them. Atheists and agnostics topped a survey of religious knowledge among Americans released on Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.”
• New York Times: “Americans are by all measures a deeply religious people, but they are also deeply ignorant about religion. … Researchers from the independent Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life phoned more than 3,400 Americans and asked them 32 questions… Those who scored the highest were atheists and agnostics.”

However, digging a bit deeper into the data (available here) you’ll find that only 47% of adult atheists and agnostics in the United States are aware that an atheist is “someone who does not believe in God” and do not believe in God themselves. Additionally, the “knowledgeable” agnostics presumably appear in the 13% who are aware of the atheist definition and don’t know if God exists. Thus, six in ten answer in a manner that one might expect. Would Americans be more likely to vote for the 5% who are unaware that an atheist is someone who does not believe in God or of the even larger 35% of atheists and agnostics who are aware of the definition but who also say they believe in God?

Overall, 37% of self-identified atheists and agnostics in America believe in God regardless of awareness of the definition. This seems like a remarkably interesting finding that was not mentioned in the widely cited study of religious knowledge (...belief in God among atheists is something Pew has documented elsewhere as, for example, on page 5 of this report).
 

 
The Pew report compared average religious knowledge scores across different religious affiliation sub-groups. Self-identified atheists and agnostics did indeed outscore those of other religious affiliations. But there are indications—perhaps glimpses is a better term given sample sizes—that atheists and agnostics who don’t believe in God and/or never go to religious services are slightly less knowledgeable than other atheists and agnostics who are either open to believing in God or who go to religious services with some frequency.

The figure below isolates the 201 atheists and agnostics surveyed who know that an atheist is someone who “does not believe in God.” It shows the average total score on the religious knowledge quiz for those who 1) personally do not believe in God, 2) who are unsure of a belief in God, and 3) who believe in God. The non-believers score an impressive average of 20.6 out of 32 but those unsure of a belief in God (24.2) and those who believe in God (21.0) score even higher, on average.
 

 
Among the broader population of atheists and agnostics surveyed (independent of their knowledge of what an atheist is or their belief in God), those who go to religious services with some frequency get more correct answers on the religious knowledge quiz than those who never attend these services.
 

 
It makes sense that atheists and agnostics who go to religious services might be more knowledgeable about religion because they hear religious content there. But should those open to belief in God or those attending religious services also be more informed about science? The survey included a series of questions that measured scientific knowledge. As shown in the figures below, 97% of atheists and agnostics who claim not to believe in God know that Charles Darwin developed the theory of evolution, while other self-identified atheist and agnostic respondents were less likely to get this correct. Yet for all other scientific questions, those self-identified atheists and agnostics open to belief in God, or who believe in God, were more likely than non-believers to correctly answer. The second figure shows that those with some religious service attendance were more likely than those who never attend to answer each of the scientific questions correctly.
 

 

 
In the past, I've noted how atheists have among the lowest retention rates in the United States (defined as children raised as atheists self-identify as such as adults.) This generated a lot of discussion and a follow-up post detailing the many differences between the much larger and growing group of “Nones” (14% of U.S. adults with a “nothing in particular” religious affiliation) from those self-identifying specifically as atheists or agnostics (2% and 3% of U.S. adults, respectively).

I assume the above analysis may lead to some questions as well:

Q: Is this statistically valid? Just more than 200 atheists and agnostics were interviewed.
A: I did not create the sample nor conduct the survey. Pew did. Yet that didn't stop many in the news media from making much out of the conclusion, “If you want to know about God, you might want to talk to an atheist.” Those headlines were based on this very same, small sample. If the results above regarding the percentages of atheists and agnostics who know the definition of an atheist or who believe in God are “invalid,” then so is the finding that atheists and agnostics are the most religiously knowledgeable.

Recall that Pew also included even smaller sub-groups in its analysis that made news (e.g., 117 Hispanic Catholics were interviewed and reported on.) Small sub-groups are generally not uncommon in survey reports and can be found in other recent Pew research). The margins of error are, in my opinion, quite high. But then again I am just pointing to a source that made a lot of news, and noting that there is another story in the data which I think deserves exploration in future studies with larger sample sizes.

Q: If Pew didn’t mention any of this it must not be important. Why should I trust any of this?
A: Pew doesn’t mention many results in reports that one can find in their data. No one can completely describe all the possible relationships in a data set—especially when one is under a deadline to produce a summary report when the data are fresh. Greg Smith, who worked on this study, is, in my opinion, one of the leading religious researchers in the country. Yet, it would be unrealistic to expect even the best researchers to uncover every interesting finding in their data. Often they spend years examining and publishing out of the same data set before it is fully explored. It is also the case that Pew seems to have a very direct reporting style. They present topline and sub-group results in reports and do not venture extensively into other aspects or connections in their data. Thankfully, Pew provides their data to researchers to study and publish with the data further.

Q: I don’t trust CARA as a Catholic research center. What do you know about atheists?
A: When we noted the low retention rate for atheists someone replied:

"These were apparently culled from raw data supplied to CARA. They should perhaps then be taken with a grain of salt, as CARA is religiously affiliated, but we'll accept them as is."

There is always the fallback of CARA or Georgetown being Catholic institutions, but that has nothing to do with whether the date had "too small an N” or “Pew didn’t report it”. It’s nice to see we still get the benefit of the doubt by the commenter quoted above. The Catholic Church certainly listens to and learns from atheists. I would hope atheists could fathom accurate and unbiased research coming from an academic, religiously-affiliated center staffed by social scientists. In the end, math works the same for anyone, regardless of religious affiliation (and again the data are available for anyone to download and examine themselves).

Q: Should Pew include atheists who believe in God as "real atheists" in its studies?
A: This is the standard in both academic and non-academic survey research. Self-identity is always used. Survey researchers find all kinds of oddities in polls such as “very liberal” Republicans, Catholics who do not believe in God, or "Nones" who are born-again Evangelicals. The world is complex and no one has a monopoly on defining membership in the “atheist” community.

Q: Why blame reporters for misconceptions when all they have are the research reports?
A: Reporters should make a greater effort to skeptically depart from the press releases. Increasingly the news people follow, discuss, and trust is data-driven (see for example FiveThirtyEight, Vox, The NY Times Upshot). Good reporters of the future will be those who can engage the data.

In my own discussions with journalists I have really appreciated Jerry Filteau and Fr. Thomas Reese, SJ (also a social scientist). On a number of occasions, interviews with them have led me to go back and re-examine some facet of the data. Both look for more than what is in the report and start with a skeptical or questioning point-of-view. They are the types of journalists that I can say have made me a better social scientist.

Researchers should do more to ensure misconceptions are not being made by omissions in their reports. Too often religious research for media and public consumption seems to be more of an impressionist painting than a high-definition photograph. I think it is our responsibility to note all the quirks we find—even when these may detract from the headline narratives. Reality is complex, important, and beautiful (most of the time). Thanks to Pew, I am now confident that there really are knowledgeable atheists who know what an atheist is but who also believe in God and go to Church a few times a year (although few people are aware of this group). The world is a big place and there is room enough for everyone in the portraits we paint with data.
 
 
Originally posted on the CARA Blog. Used with permission.
(Image credit: North Country Libraries)

Before he was elected Pope Francis, Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio spent fourteen years as archbishop of Buenos Aires, Argentina. During that time he built a strong friendship with Abraham Skorka, an Argentinian rabbi and biophysicist. Together they promoted interreligious dialogue on faith and reason, seeking to build bridges among Catholicism, Judaism, and the world at large.

Last month, Image Books released the English translation of On Heaven and Earth, originally published in Argentina in 2010. The book contains several conversations between both men where they discuss various theological and worldly issues, including God, fundamentalism, abortion, homosexuality, euthanasia, same-sex marriage, and globalization. From these personal and accessible talks comes a first-hand view of the man who would become pope to 1.2 billion Catholics around the world in March 2013. In the excerpt below, the two men share their thoughts on modern atheism and agnosticism.
 

Cardinal Bergoglio (Pope Francis):

When I speak with atheists, I will sometimes discuss social concerns, but I do not propose the problem of God as a starting point, except in the case that they propose it to me. If this occurs, I tell them why I believe. But that which is human is so rich to share and to work at that very easily we can mutually complement our richness. As I am a believer, I know that these riches are a gift from God. I also know that the other person, the atheist, does not know that. I do not approach the relationship in order to proselytize, or convert the atheist; I respect him and I show myself as I am. Where there is knowledge, there begins to appear esteem, affection, and friendship. I do not have any type of reluctance, nor would I say that his life is condemned, because I am convinced that I do not have the right to make a judgment about the honesty of that person; even less, if he shows me those human virtues that exalt others and do me good.

At any rate, I know more agnostic people than atheists; the first are more uncertain, the second are more convinced. We have to be coherent with the message that we receive from the Bible: every man is the image of God, whether he is a believer or not. For that reason alone everyone has a series of virtues, qualities, and a greatness of his own. If he has some vileness, as I do, we can share that in order to mutually help one another and overcome it.
 

Rabbi Abraham Skorka:

I agree with what you have said; the first step is respecting your fellow man. But I would add one more point of view. When a person says, “I am an atheist,” I believe he or she is taking an arrogant position. He who doubts has a more nuanced position. An agnostic thinks that he or she has not yet found the answer, but an atheist is 100 percent convinced that G-d does not exist. It is the same arrogance that leads some to assert that G-d definitely exists, just like the chair I am sitting on.

Religious people are believers, but we do not know for certain that He exists. We can perceive Him in an extremely profound sense, but we never see Him. We receive subtle replies from Him. According to the Torah, Moses was the only person to have spoken directly, face to face, with G-d. As for everyone else—Jacob, Isaac, etc.—the presence of G-d appeared to them in dreams or by some messenger. Even though I personally believe that G-d exists, it is arrogant to say that He exists as if it were just another certainty in life. I would not casually affirm His existence because I need to live the same humility that I demand of the atheist. The right thing to do would be to point out—as Maimonides did in his thirteen principals of faith—that “I believe with complete faith that G-d is the creator.”

Following Maimonides’ line of thought, we can say what G-d is not, but we can never be sure of what G-d is. We can talk about His qualities and attributes, but in no way can we describe His form. I would remind the atheist that the perfection of the natural world is sending us a message. We can gain an understanding of how it works, but not its essence.
 

Cardinal Bergoglio (Pope Francis):

The spiritual experience of encounter with God is not controllable. One feels that God is there, one has the certainty, but he cannot control God. We are made to subdue nature; that is what God commands. We cannot, however, subdue our creator. As a result, in the experience of God there is always an unanswered question, an opportunity to be submerged in faith.

Rabbi, you said one thing, which in part, is certain: we can say what God is not, we can speak of His attributes, but we cannot say what He is. That apophatic¹ dimension, which reveals how I speak about God, is critical to our theology. The English mystics speak a lot about this theme. There is a book by one of them, from the thirteenth century, The Cloud of Unknowing, that attempts again and again to describe God and always finishes pointing to what He is not. The mission of theology is to reflect and explain religious facts, and among them, God.

I would also classify as arrogant those theologies that not only attempted to define with certainty and exactness God’s attributes, but also had the pretense of saying who He was. The book of Job is a continuous discussion about the definition of God. There are four wise men that elaborate this theological search and everything ends with Job’s expression: “By hearsay I had heard of you, but now my eye has seen you.” (Job 42:5) Job’s final image of God is different from his vision of God in the beginning. The intention of this story is that the notion that the four theologians have is not true, because God always is being sought and found. We are presented with this paradox: we seek Him to find Him and because we find Him, we seek Him. It is a very Augustinian game.
 

Rabbi Abraham Skorka:

I believe with complete faith that G-d exists. As opposed to the atheist who is sure that He does not exist and does not entertain any doubts, I implicitly reveal a margin of uncertainty by using the word “faith.” At a minimum, I have to acknowledge what Sigmund Freud wrote: that we need the idea of G-d to temper our existential angst. Nevertheless, after having done an in-depth analysis of positions that negate the existence of G-d, I still believe. When my work was done, I still felt G-d’s presence. I retain a certain amount of doubt in any case since this is an existential problem and not a mathematical theory, although there is some room for doubt in mathematical theories as well.

That said, when we think about G-d we have to do so with special terminology. Everyday logic does not apply. Maimonides put forth that idea long ago. Agnostics will continue to create their famous paradoxes. For example, if G-d is omnipotent, surely He could create a rock that He Himself could not lift; but if He created such a rock, that would mean He is not omnipotent. G-d is above and beyond any logic and its paradoxes. Maimonides explains that He knows everything in its complete form. We have only limited knowledge. if we had the same understanding that G-d has, we would be Gods ourselves.
 
 
Excerpted from On Heaven and Earth by Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka. Copyright © 2013 by Jorge Mario Bergoglio and Abraham Skorka. Excerpted by permission of Image, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
(Image credit: The Telegraph)