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In the previous article, we talked about the ontological parsimony [קמצנות אונטולגית] at the base of atheism, according to which nothing should be included in the picture of reality that is not absolutely necessary. This begs the question, how exactly do we determine which things are necessary enough to be included in the picture of reality? This brings us to the second cornerstone of atheism – scientific skepticism.
Unlike philosophical skepticism, which questions the very possibility of knowing anything, scientific skepticism is a method used to obtain scientific knowledge about the world. It does not automatically doubt everything, but rather assumes certain assumptions, and accepts the conclusions to which they lead. Scientific skepticism places certain demands on any claim about the existence of a particular entity or phenomenon, foremost among them the requirement for empirical examination of the subject. To believe that X exists, it must be verified through an experiment that can be repeated independently. There are also additional criteria for claims that are supposed to be scientific, such as falsifiability, predictions for the future, and so on. Supporters of this approach believe that the scientific method is the best way to obtain information about the world, and to filter the truth from errors and lies of all kinds. Not everyone who supports scientific skepticism is an atheist, and not all atheists support scientific skepticism, but there is a great deal of overlap between the two. It is no coincidence that many atheists present science as an opponent of religion and as an alternative to it.
Scientific skepticism is indeed an important tool for clarifying facts about reality, but the attempt to derive atheistic conclusions from it is nothing more than begging the question. After all, God, by definition, is not part of the natural world, and is not supposed to be captured in any empirical examination. He is not the snowman hiding somewhere in the Himalayas, nor a particle spinning in subatomic space. God is not a factor in scientific equations – He is the equations themselves, or more precisely the creator of the equations. Whoever assumes that only the empirical exists, and then concludes from this that God does not exist, since He is not empirical – simply assumed the desired conclusion against the existence of God. It is possible, of course, to believe that only the empirical exists, but this is an arbitrary assumption, a kind of ontological parsimony that we talked about above – or in other words, it is a belief, not scientific knowledge, and not any logical argument. And as we have seen, it is also not a particularly reasonable belief.
The mistake is created when moving from methodological skepticism to ontological negation. As a scientific method, skepticism is a blessed tool. But it must know its limits. Its role is to determine what exists with certainty, not to negate the possibility of the existence of things outside its domain. The moment you determine that everything that does not stand up to scientific scrutiny does not actually exist – you are deviating from the methodological field to the field of ontological claims, and these, as mentioned, have no basis whatsoever. A person can decide that he relies only on his sense of sight to determine what exists with certainty, but the moment he determines that everything he does not see – does not exist, his conclusion is not supported by his assumptions. Especially if it was initially a factor that was not supposed to be captured by the sense of sight, such as sounds or smells.
The conclusion is that scientific skepticism can indeed determine what is considered "scientific" and what is not, but it has nothing to say on the subject of what exists and what does not. The honor of science is in its place, but there is no particular reason to assume that it covers all dimensions of reality (in fact, there are good reasons to assume that it does not). So such skepticism can negate claims for specific appearances of aliens or ghosts, but not the very existence of these creatures – and certainly not the existence of God.
An interesting question is, what came first: was it the ontological parsimony that led to the adoption of scientific skepticism as a method for studying reality, assuming that there is nothing in reality beyond what science knows; or did scientific skepticism lead to the conclusion of ontological parsimony, when it forgot itself and turned from methodology to ontology. In any case, the connection between these two approaches is very clear.
A third cornerstone of atheism, which is related to the first two, is contempt for man. This may sound strange, given the fact that many atheists define themselves as humanists, but this is indeed the reality, as I wrote at length in the article "Why Don't You Believe in Man." From the point of view of atheists, the fact that religion is a universal human phenomenon, and that the vast majority of people are believers, is meaningless. They see it as nothing more than a psychological-evolutionary complex, or a kind of mental illness. They despise any report and testimony about a spiritual or mystical experience that someone has experienced, or about any religious revelation, and attribute them to hallucinations and fantasies. No matter how many people experience such experiences, and how deep and meaningful they may be for them; the atheist does not believe in man, but in science, and what cannot be shared with all people, is nothing more than a subjective feeling. Even if great, educated and profound people describe such experiences that changed their lives (such as Blaise Pascal, or Carl Jung, among many others), from the point of view of the atheist these are nothing more than the delusions of the subconscious. In other words, if you want to convince an atheist, you will have to bring him God on a petri dish under a microscope in a laboratory. Tradition is for him old wives' tales, prophecy is schizophrenia, and the Bible is the fairy tales of the Brothers Grimm; the spirit of man, the experience, the faith – from his point of view they are all vanity of vanities.
This approach is not surprising, given the general perception of atheism of the nature of man, according to which man is nothing more than a lump of proteins that has crystallized in a blind process from the cosmic soup and natural selection. If man is nothing more than a walking cesspool, without a soul, spirit or spirit, and his consciousness is nothing more than a collection of bubbles bubbling from the secretions he secretes – it is clear that his experiences and intuitions cannot be trusted. Of course, there is a certain disregard here for the fact that the atheist himself is nothing more than a human being, and therefore his own thoughts have no advantage over the thoughts of others; there is no "science" versus "man" here, but certain people versus other people. And here, too, the question arises of what came first – did the contempt for man lead to the denial of religious experience, and from there to atheism, or did atheism and its perception of nature lead to contempt for man.
Well, there is no doubt that man has many shortcomings, and it is difficult to trust him. But this pessimism and suspicion, which is not willing to give any weight to existential and internal experiences, as long as they do not stand up to scientific scrutiny – is definitely not the only logical approach. In the same way, it is possible to come with a more optimistic approach, to trust the spirit of man, and to assume that just as his senses perceive a real reality, and do not simply mislead him – so also the internal senses, intuitions and beliefs, are not simply subjective feelings, but are directed to some real reality. Naturally, that reality is more difficult to achieve, so there are many disagreements about it. But that does not mean that it does not exist. If people existentially experience the presence of God, or describe mystical experiences in which upper worlds were revealed to their eyes, or pass on a detailed tradition about such revelations, there is no particular reason to doubt that these experiences express a real reality. The only reason for this doubt is related to the first cornerstones we saw – to ontological parsimony and scientific skepticism. And here we see again how the three fit together.
In summary, we have seen that atheism rests on at least three cornerstones, which are related to each other: ontological parsimony, scientific skepticism, and contempt for man. We have also seen that each of these pillars is questionable, and there is no particular justification for adopting them over the alternatives. Therefore, the obvious conclusion is that atheism is just another belief among many. It is definitely not the obvious conclusion from rational and logical thinking, as they sometimes try to present it.
