Before Darwin, was deism or atheism the most reasonable position?

[Tammuz]

"An atheist before Darwin could have said, following Hume: ‘I have no explanation for complex biological design. All I know is that God isn’t a good explanation, so we must wait and hope that somebody comes up with a better one.’ I can’t help feeling that such a position, though logically sound, would have left one feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although atheism might have been logically tenable before Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist." - Richard Dawkins

I think most of who post here agree that in our day and age, given what we know, atheism is the most reasonable position to hold on the god question. No evidence for any gods, evolution explains the many diverse life forms, physics explain many other things, there are psychological and neurological reasons for why supernatural beliefs arise and persist, etc, etc.

However, back in the 18th and 19th centuries, and actually a lot earlier, educated people knew of the fallacious nature of religious beliefs, but they lacked all the modern knowledge we have, some of which I listed above. Many of these people were deists, for example Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine.

Do you think that a deistic position was the most reasonable position back then? Or should atheism have been preferred, because, well, there was still no evidence for any gods, even though there were no alternatives either. There are examples of pre-Darwinian atheists, but they are rare. Deism seems to have been much more common.

 

[skepticalbip]

There are still a lot that we know we don't know plus we know that there are a lot that we don't know yet that we don't know. However, there is no reasonable reason to assume that our lack of knowledge is evidence of a god. It was the same in the past but there was much more social and cultural pressure (not reasoning) to accept some sort of god as the explanation for what we knew that we didn't know.

 

[Keith&Co.]

Well, my atheism has nothing to do with evolution. I grew up without much heartache expressed about church/evolution incompatability.

I just got tired of getting platitudes instead of answers for my questions. Or getting blamed for even asking them. Or IOUs for some day in the future when i was going to be an adult, and i would THEN understand. 'But, you're an adult, and you still can't answer the question...?'

I did not turn to science for an alternate setting for the Q&As, but to other religions. They offer pretty much the same program.

 

[abaddon]

Well, my atheism has nothing to do with evolution.

Same here. My atheism isn't much about science. I got no answers to prayers, and going to church gatherings to have my faith "renewed" stopped having that ugly effect. It was a lot of work for me to stay theist for as long as I did (about 20 months). People told me God is there, then God demonstrated he isn't. To be atheist, I just needed a culture that made theism optional.

Maybe that's the cultural shift roughly around Darwin's time. God made intuitive sense in all ages before secular societies to try to relate with nature by talking to it and asking "please don't squish me", or asking what makes nature do what it does? In the 18th-19th centuries, it was perhaps as much political freedoms as science that finally made God optional. I think he was always optional, it was just hard to see in traditional societies.

 

[Lion IRC]

Do you think that a deistic position was the most reasonable position back then? Or should atheism have been preferred, because, well, there was still no evidence for any gods, even though there were no alternatives either. There are examples of pre-Darwinian atheists, but they are rare. Deism seems to have been much more common.

We see this contrast in Leibniz versus Newton on the question of whether the laws of nature (God's laws) required an ongoing perpetual miracle to sustain the universe.

 

[abaddon]

Do you think that a deistic position was the most reasonable position back then? Or should atheism have been preferred, because, well, there was still no evidence for any gods, even though there were no alternatives either. There are examples of pre-Darwinian atheists, but they are rare. Deism seems to have been much more common.

We see this contrast in Leibniz versus Newton on the question of whether the laws of nature (God's laws) required an ongoing perpetual miracle to sustain the universe.

Yeah, people of long ago discussed such things. Now we're wondering if there will be a Big Freeze/Heat Death which rather indicates no "ongoing perpetual miracle".

Being a theist or a deist made sense back in the day. People want explanations and will accept super-vague ones if there's nothing else. Especially after all that tradition from ancient times lending its weight to the word "God" (the only weight it's got).

"I solved the universe with words". Haha.

 

[rousseau]

The most reasonable position is the correct one (secularism), but before the Scientific Revolution there was no tangible evidence of materialism so most societies went through reasoning like this:

1) I exist
2) Something must have caused me to exist
3) Therefore God

Realistically, the logic should have looked something like this:

1) I exist
2) I have no evidence for why I exist
3) Therefore I don't know why I exist

But people are suckers for a compelling story, and throughout history religion was as much a psychological elixir as it was about 'reason'. Basically, the premise that there is anything 'reasonable' about belief or lack thereof is faulty. People who believe don't come to belief through reason, they come to it through emotion and psychological need.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

Do you think that a deistic position was the most reasonable position back then? Or should atheism have been preferred, because, well, there was still no evidence for any gods, even though there were no alternatives either. There are examples of pre-Darwinian atheists, but they are rare. Deism seems to have been much more common.

We see this contrast in Leibniz versus Newton on the question of whether the laws of nature (God's laws) required an ongoing perpetual miracle to sustain the universe.

Actually both made that claim. In Leibnez's case, he championed occasionalism. Newton thought God intervened to correct planets' orbits from time to time.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

The most reasonable position is the correct one (secularism), but before the Scientific Revolution there was no tangible evidence of materialism so most societies went through reasoning like this:

1) I exist
2) Something must have caused me to exist
3) Therefore God

Realistically, the logic should have looked something like this:

1) I exist
2) I have no evidence for why I exist
3) Therefore I don't know why I exist

But people are suckers for a compelling story, and throughout history religion was as much a psychological elixir as it was about 'reason'. Basically, the premise that there is anything 'reasonable' about belief or lack thereof is faulty. People who believe don't come to belief through reason, they come to it through emotion and psychological need.

Hesiod - "Theogony" Primal chaos emanated Gaia. From Gaia we got the Titan Gods. Then the Olympian Gods and everything else.

Primal Chaos seems more like what modern science tells us. And may well have influenced the thinking of the first Greek philosophers who were mostly naturalists. Early Egyptian cosmologies started with not God, but a primal sea, that gave rise to Gods and then the Earth.

"The world, an entity out of everything, was created by neither gods nor men, but was, is and will be eternally living fire, regularly becoming ignited and regularly becoming extinguished.
This world . . . ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measure going out."
- Heraclitus

 

[James Brown]

It all comes down to how comfortable you are with "I don't know."

For some people, it's an impossible position.

 

[Lion IRC]

No, it's more like...
Why does your self-professed ignorance give you the right to presume everyone else is equally ignorant?

 

[Kharakov]

Well, before I knew about evolution, I argued against God. I thought it was made up shit that rich spoiled kids used as an excuse to rip off poor kids like me.

It is, of course, just that. But rich spoiled pieces of shit evolved better defense, and they get the goods in this life, and believe they get them in the "next" too.

I remember this one guy, Brophy, total Christian, hustles, does coke all the time, bangs hot strippers, and believes in God. Enjoys the good life, while using the poor to live it. Doesn't do hard work- just hustles, talks, etc. while others do the shit work for less income.

Focused on developing deception skills. He's a smart guy, but people who get pushed out of using the deception skillset because they hate the way the rip off artists rip them off... like me? End up doing the shit work, getting little in return for it, and watch the pieces of shit like Brophy (who is really fun to be around) get all the good stuff.

Hell, if I attacked the fucker, I'd feel bad. He's that good of a hustler. And I'd go to jail, because hustlers rule the nation. Right? So I get very little, I don't rip off people, and I get screwed again and again my whole life. Just a demonstration that ripping someone off enough will make them stay on the bottom, because they hate you fucking lying piece of shit hustlers... but can't do anything about it because you have all the power. Sigh.

 

[Opoponax]

I didn't need science either. My first true steps toward atheism came from reading history with respect to when the Bible was written, who wrote it, how it was put together, and how it resembled older stories from earlier cultures. Then came logic and philosophy, which addressed questions I'd had, but couldn't define on my own well enough to decide with any certainty about the whole god thing. Combine that with the history factor and I've never looked back.

Science actually came last. To me, as it applies to religious claims, it's just an ongoing, "Actually, no. This why X happens. It has nothing to do with an angry guy in the clouds."

With so much good information available nowadays, it's shocking that people hold onto such antiquated beliefs.

 

[skepticalbip]

I didn't need science either. My first true steps toward atheism came from reading history with respect to when the Bible was written, who wrote it, how it was put together, and how it resembled older stories from earlier cultures. Then came logic and philosophy, which addressed questions I'd had, but couldn't define on my own well enough to decide with any certainty about the whole god thing. Combine that with the history factor and I've never looked back.

Science actually came last. To me, as it applies to religious claims, it's just an ongoing, "Actually, no. This why X happens. It has nothing to do with an angry guy in the clouds."

With so much good information available nowadays, it's shocking that people hold onto such antiquated beliefs.

My grandfather was a Methodist minister and the founder of the First Methodist Church in my home town so I grew up being spoon fed 'the truth'. However, even as a kid I was always curious and needed to understand rather than accept and believe. It was the descriptions of events in the Bible that were contrary to how I understood the world worked and the blatant self inconsistencies in the Bible that set me on the road to atheism by my early teens. If there were such a thing as a saint then I think my grandfather would qualify... he always gently tried to keep me on his path, trying to answer my continuing questions, but gracefully allowed me to follow my own path.

 

[Tom Sawyer]

No, it's more like...
Why does your self-professed ignorance give you the right to presume everyone else is equally ignorant?

Well, it's not a default presumption, it has to do with the basis they provide in order to profess their lack of ignorance. When they can't back that up, then the assumption that they are equally ignorant becomes warranted.

 

[Keith&Co.]

No, it's more like...
Why does your self-professed ignorance give you the right to presume everyone else is equally ignorant?

Well, it's not a default presumption, it has to do with the basis they provide in order to profess their lack of ignorance. When they can't back that up, then the assumption that they are equally ignorant becomes warranted.

Yeah, it's really not based on my self-professed ignorance.
It's when they're supporting their argument pretty much by saying, "You should believe me because it's what I believe."

 

[steve_bank]

I think the problem is defining atheism. Rejecting god is not necessarily rejecting supernatural. I believe Aristotle was a kind of animist.

Conservative Christians view evolution as an atheist attack on the creation myth. Theory of evolution makes people atheist.

There was an ancient Greek who theorized all life began in the sea.

 

[Cheerful Charlie]

I think the problem is defining atheism. Rejecting god is not necessarily rejecting supernatural. I believe Aristotle was a kind of animist.

Conservative Christians view evolution as an atheist attack on the creation myth. Theory of evolution makes people atheist.

There was an ancient Greek who theorized all life began in the sea.

Anaximander

 

[T.G.G. Moogly]

It all comes down to how comfortable you are with "I don't know."

For some people, it's an impossible position.

Gods are like sugar. Most people grow up liking sugar, but too much sugar is bad so learned folk start using less and less sugar. They think they've eliminated the sugar but when reading labels find that sugar is in almost everything. So they start using only the things that don't have added sugar. They end up being healthier than their former selves and also healthier than their fellow sugar-eaters.

 

[Rhea]

This is an interesting question. Prior to having an explanation supported by actual data, we still had observational data. We saw that things were born from things. We saw that things looked like their parents somewhat, but not exactly - changing over time. We saw that sometimes the things looked nothing like their parents, through mutation. People had been preferentially saving seeds for a very long time before understanding evolution scientifically.

So the question here, "in the absence of understanding the mechanism, would people have preferentially made one up that looked practically nothing like what they saw, and been more comfortable with that?"

I'm not sure that would be true for people who were not steeped in lore, as these 19th century people certainly were. So maybe deist was a more "reasonable" position as one leaves behind the crumbling lore of Christianity. By "crumbling lore" I mean what was obviously no longer reasonable to them as they left Christianity in droves. Perhaps deism was only "more reasonable" in the context of being steps away rather than a full departure. But in hindsight? No it's not more reasonable to continue to assume half of what you used to assume when you've just calved yet another berg off your religious shelf. It makes better sense to step back and re-evaluate the foundations.