How to Be a Very Friendly Atheist Indeed

Francis Jonbäck

doi:10.35765/forphil.2015.2001.05

Abstract

Friendly atheists hold atheism to be true, and believe that theists may be rational when holding theism to be true. Theists may be rational, they claim, either because they lack the evidence for atheism, or because they are mistaken regarding the evidential force of the arguments for theism. Both these reasons can be interpreted as suggesting that theists are making a mistake, and perhaps even that they are blameworthy for having made that mistake. In this paper, I argue that friendly atheists might even say that the most intellectually oriented theists are rational and blameless for holding theism to be true. I give two reasons for this. The first reason is based on the denial of doxastic voluntarism regarding at least some of our beliefs. Theists might not have voluntary control with respect to their belief that God exists. The second reason is based on a meta-epistemological consideration. Often, we choose our epistemology by looking at paradigm examples of knowledge. Growing up in a theistic context might lead one to regard the belief that God exists as a paradigm example of knowledge, and a theist could be considered perfectly rational and blameless for doing so, even though they may be aware of reasonable arguments for atheism. With these modifications, I suggest that Friendly Atheism is very friendly indeed.

Highlights

Much has been said about William Rowe’s evidential argument from evil, but not so much has been said about his position known as Friendly Atheism
It is worth mentioning that one of the motivations for this paper is to argue for an atheistic position contrary to New Atheism
Rowe argues that a theist (a) may be rational in believing in God because he lacks evidence for atheism, and (b) may be rational because he or she is mistaken regarding the evidential force of the arguments for theism

Summary

Introduction

Much has been said about William Rowe’s evidential argument from evil, but not so much has been said about his position known as Friendly Atheism. I argue that my version makes it possible for an atheist to think of both non-reflective and reflective theists as rational and blameless for believing that God exists.

Results

Conclusion