Do you have to believe?
The topic for the second installment in Atheist Week also comes via Friendly Atheist. Hemant Mehta posts a reader’s query about answering the question, “If you don’t believe in God, what do you believe in?” and explains the issue like this:
There are also a lot of similar [answers] most of us tend to give: I believe in the goodness of people, I believe in nature, I believe we all find different ways to answer that question, I believe in the Golden Rule, etc.
It’s really just a bad question. Just because we don’t believe in a God doesn’t mean we don’t believe in anything. And just because someone says they do believe in God doesn’t mean we know anything else about them.
Yes, those are reasons why it’s a bad question. But my revulsion toward it is a lot deeper. I reject the premise of the question entirely.
Imagine saying to a person on a diet: You don’t eat chocolate cake? Well then, what desserts do you eat? Or, imagine saying to a person born blind: You don’t know Picasso’s work? Well then, who is your favorite painter? It would be absurd to demand these answers. It’s completely possible not to eat desserts or not to have a favorite painter, particularly if you’re a person with any sort of inclination against doing those things. I think belief is similar. When someone says, “What do you believe in?” they are saying, surely everyone must have groundless faith in something. As an atheist, I’m not the sort of person who tends to do that stuff.
In the same way that “bananas” isn’t an answer to “What time is it?”, I don’t see how you can answer this question with things like the Golden Rule, humanity, or scientific inquiry. It’s just playing a semantics game — I don’t “believe” in those things the same way someone else believes in God. I value humanity and I value science. I believe in doing good things and refraining from and/or stopping others from doing bad things, but that follows from a sort of axiomatic definition of goodness as a quality of which there ought to be more. Good things are good. There’s no faith there. If I found out that one of the moral precepts I try to follow actually does more harm than good, I would shed it and figure out a new one.
No, I think that valid answers to “What do you believe in?” (instead of the Christian God) would be things like deities of other religions, unicorns, leprechauns, the Tooth Fairy, supernatural powers. Those are things you have to “believe” in… but I don’t think anyone really has to believe in at least one thing in that set. My answer, assuming I’m brave enough to say it out loud to the person who asked, would be: “I don’t believe in anything. I look for proof, and I make my best educated guess when no perfect proof exists. Why do you think I need to believe in something in order to be complete?”
And honestly, if you asked me what I believed in, and I told you that instead of God I believed in Santa Claus, or Ouija boards, or invisible flying grapefruits… would you find any of those answers satisfying or even acceptable?
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It’s a leading question, like “Which one of these guys is the killer?” And I am repulsed by it, too, but most of the faithful don’t understand what’s wrong with it even when you explain it. They don’t seem to get that one can refrain from imagining a super-being. It’s baffling, really.