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Strong is obviously better than weak. Who would claim with pride that they held a weak position? It is a simple mistake to allow the sound or flavour of words affect your judgement. How can you be in favour of “regressive measures” or the “compromise position” or majoritarianism (sounds so like authoritarianism, which is a bad word for strong government). Allowing yourself to be swayed by the flavour of a word is very childish (a bad word meaning childlike).

I remember hearing a Tory once tell me that he had found that some Tories prefer to accuse people of being RACIALISTS because the word sounded like socialist, whereas those on the left accused their enemies of being RACISTS because it sounded like Fascist. Words do come with baggage, we do ourselves a favour by acknowledging these flavours and being aware how they can adversely affect our judgement.

Once I stripped away the flavoured labels I was able to weigh up the concepts neutrally. There are two positions, call them one and two.

Position One

We know there is no god. We know it, totally know it, absolutely, there is no god. We can see through all the explanations and the stories but besides, we know there is no god. We may even think we can prove it, but even so, we know it.

Position Two

We don't know god. We can see through the stories and the explanations, they don't convince us. We do not know god and all the "evidence" offered in favour of the god hypotheses seems unconvincing. Whether or not we want there to be a god or not is irrelevant. We don't believe in god and we don't know god.

That is how I see the distinction. I used to like to call myself a strong atheist because it sounded a cooler label, but I agree with position two, not position one. Position One is the pig headed atheist, the prejudiced atheist, the closed minded atheist: the strong atheist. It isn't me, it never was. I just liked the label Strong Atheist better. I liked the sound of the phrase, it made me feel better to proclaim myself to be a strong atheist, but it did not reflect the true nature of my beliefs.

I am the rational atheist, the open minded atheist, the liberal atheist: the weak atheist. Position Two. To claim that I know there is no god would be to rely on faith. I have no faith. I am not afraid that there might be a god, the concept of such a fear seems absurd. I don't believe in god. I can no more be afraid that there might be a god than I can be afraid there might be a Freddy Kreuger or Count Dracula hiding behind my bedroom door. The concept does sometimes flit through my mind but it is not rational and so it is quickly dispelled, just as I dispel the fear that walking near a vertical drop might cause me to make an irrational suicidal lunge or thinking about impotence will bring it on. There is nothing to fear except fear itself.

I know what I believe and I know what I know. I do not know there is no god. I cannot know such a thing. I do not believe there is a god, I do not believe there are any supernatural entities. But I cannot express that as a knowledge, it is a working hypothesis that I have been working with for nearly thirty years. Some people might say that such a belief is the same as being a strong atheist, that all I am doing is expressing my openness to the possibility of error and incomplete knowledge. Perhaps they are right. I am not sure. That about sums up my position. I believe there is no god, but I believe I could never be sure either way.

I reject the idea of faith as being a cardinal virtue. Doubt - for want of a better word - is good. Doubt works. Science relies on doubt. If a scientist knew he was right he would not experiment. Doubt drives science, certainty belittles it. I wear my doubt with pride, but I also do not fear to make bold claims and hypotheses. This is what I believe, correct me if I'm wrong.

© 1999 - 2008 by Martin Willett.

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