Should Atheists Believe in Neptune?
Inaugurating True Freethinker’s guest blogger program is RD Miksa from the new and promising blog Miksa’s Musings.
Following is the guest essay:
Evidence. Evidence. Evidence. As I stood in the shower, this one word kept repeating itself in my mind, for I was thinking most intensely about the constant demand made by atheists to be provided some form of empirical evidence for God’s existence. And then, quite suddenly, the most peculiar question intruded upon my “deep” reflections: should atheists believe in Neptune? Although the shower’s running water may have you thinking that I am referring to the Roman god of the sea-and perhaps that was indeed the catalyst that made me think of Neptune in the first place-this is not the case, for I am speaking of Neptune in terms of the eighth, and furthest, planet in our solar system.
Now, I am also being a little disingenuous with my question, because I am not actually asking if atheists should believe in Neptune, but rather, should blind atheists believe in Neptune? Let me explain. As previously mentioned, when debating the existence of God many atheists continuously demand that theists provide them with some empirical evidence for their belief. Just show me a little empirical evidence, they say; just give me some objective sensory experience and I will believe in a God, they add. In these cases, therefore, it is the sensory evidence that atheists find lacking for God’s existence and it is this demand which is directly related to the question at hand. Should a blind atheist, demanding the same sort of empirical evidence as is so often asked for in the case of God, believe that the planet Neptune exists? The blind atheist will certainly never touch, hear, smell or taste Neptune and, being blind, this empirically minded atheist will obviously never see it either. So, with the blind atheist making a defiant stand against the Neptune delusion-at least until some hard empirical evidence is presented to him-how would a seeing atheist convince the blind atheist of Neptune’s existence?
Would the seeing atheist explain that various scientists have made calculations and predictions to show that Neptune exists-as they did when Neptune was first discovered in 1846 by mathematical prediction rather than direct observation? The blind atheist would simply reply that this is an appeal to authority for which no direct empirical evidence exists. Would the seeing atheist argue that millions of people believe in Neptune and have seen it? The blind atheist would simply retort that these are subjective experiences and are therefore invalid until hard empirical evidence is personally received. Would the seeing atheist simply state that if the blind atheist could see, then he would see that Neptune exists and could believe? Obviously, the blind atheist, seeking hard sensory evidence, would simply scoff at the blatant use of “if” and “could” and “would” and “believe”. In fact, should a blind, empirically-minded atheist even believe in the existence of the moon, the sun or any of the other planets?
Invoking Occam’s Razor, the blind atheist could state that, since he has seen no hard empirical evidence for these heavenly bodies, there is no need to unnecessarily complicate matters; the earth is a self-contained unit and it is all that is needed, required and is the only thing that empirically exists. The heat that the blind atheist feels on his face, which other people claim comes from the “sun”, could easily be postulated by the blind atheist to come from some earthly heat source rather than some floating sky-ball heat-lamp. And here we are only speaking of the sun, let alone such things as other galaxies! “Other galaxies”, the blind atheist would gasp, “what are you, supremely delusional!” Nor would he be off the mark for claiming this; indeed, there would be absolutely no need for the blind atheist to complicate his existence by adding invisible and non-empirically verifiable heavenly bodies that are as likely to him as fairies, unicorns or a flying-spaghetti monster.
To make matters even more bizarre, if the empirically minded seeing atheist has never seen Neptune through a telescope, why should he believe in its existence? At best, should the atheist not remain agnostic about the Neptune delusion until he does empirically verify its existence? At the same time, such an evidence based atheist should also remain agnostic about many other things until he personally experiences them with his own senses. Such events as the earth revolving around the sun should be an agnostic belief until the empirical atheist flies out into space and personally sees it happening-especially since common sensory and empirical experience from earth makes it seem that the sun actually revolves around the earth. Or, to give a specific example relating to Neptune, this time as a sea god, an atheist in a land-locked country should be wholly agnostic on the existence of seas and oceans until he gets some personal empirical evidence concerning them. But if he never does get said evidence, then he should never believe, regardless of how many people bring him cups of salted water from the so-called “sea”. Thus, there must be a vast number of commonly accepted scientific discoveries and occurrences that the evidence demanding, empirically minded atheist must honestly remain agnostic about because he has never personally verified them through empirical means.
With all this in mind, we can finalize by asking all atheists two major questions. First, should a blind atheist, asking for the same type of empirical evidence as is demanded for God’s existence, believe in the existence of the planet Neptune or any other “heavenly” bodies? And if such empirical evidence cannot be produced for the blind atheist, does this mean that only our subjective sensory realities are true for those demanding sensory evidence of God?
For the seeing atheist, the existence of Neptune is empirically true because he can state that he has personally seen it through a telescope. But for the blind atheist, the existence of Neptune is empirically false, because he will never (at least in this lifetime) see it or touch it or taste it or smell it or hear it. Therefore, is the existence of Neptune both true and false depending on an individual’s current, and thus subjective, sensory input? And if this is so-and here we arrive at the second question-then should not the evidence demanding atheist accept that an individual’s subjective sensory experience of God, such a seeing a vision or feeling God’s presence, is a perfectly valid reason, from an purely empirical sense, to justify belief?Yet perhaps even more important then these questions, are the implications that the Neptune delusion raises for atheism itself, for it inherently forces various atheists into different camps, all based on their subjective sensory input. Thus, the camp of blind atheists would claim that seeing atheists are delusional for both believing in God and for believing in such things as heavenly bodies, which to them are no more likely to exist than angels. Indeed, to a blind atheist, the seeing atheist Richard Dawkins is as delusion for believing in Neptune as the God believer is for believing in God. And these blind atheists could righteously chuckle at seeing atheists for their irrational belief in “orbiting space meat-balls”-to coin a term that relates to the so-called “flying spaghetti monster”.
At the same time, seeing atheists could state that blind atheists for delusional for not believing in these heavenly bodies. But the insanity is not finished yet, for deaf atheists could call both seeing and blind atheists delusional for believing in anything as irrational as “sound”. Certainly, it is more parsimonious for the deaf atheist to postulate that all non-deaf people simply use some type of hyper-fast lip-reading skills to communicate rather than believe in the existence of invisible sound waves. Invisible sound waves are just as likely as invisible fairies, these deaf atheists would say. Furthermore, atheists who are color blind could heartily laugh at anyone that could be so deluded as to believe in the existence of “redness” or “greenness”. And we have not even touched on atheists who do not possess any sense of smell or touch or taste.
Clearly, the Neptune delusion implies that there exist a great number of deluded atheists roaming the streets. In fact, the Neptune delusion creates a literal smorgasbord of atheistic delusions, with each different camp of empirically minded atheists positively affirming that the other is delusional in its beliefs; indeed, watching all these different atheist camps try to agree on the existence of anything would be quite interesting. And yet, each group of sensory specific atheists would be fully correct, empirically speaking, in claiming that the other groups of atheists are delusional. But does this, therefore, mean that all atheists are, in some serious ways, delusional? If a blind atheist can claim that Neptune does not exist and a seeing atheist can claim that it does and they are both empirically correct from their own points of view, then each can correctly claim that the other is delusional. Furthermore, does this mean that atheism itself is delusional, as you could never trust an atheist to not be in some way empirically deluded, thus substantially weakening atheism claim of being wholly rational and evidence based? Now, while I certainly do not wish to venture forth and answer this question, I can happily profess that after exploring the Neptune delusion, I am quite glad that I am not an empirical-evidence-only atheist!
So, the next time an atheist asks for personal empirical evidence for the existence of God, ask him if he has ever personally verified the existence of Neptune by empirical means or did he just take its existence on another person’s authority? If he has simply done the latter, then ask him if he should really believe in such a personally unverified-and therefore, from an individual perspective, non-empirical-delusion? Oh, and if the atheist just happens to be blind, then you are really out of luck!