There is a chasm that separates the belief systems of the atheist and the theist. A devout believer makes God (or gods) the central focus of their life, while an atheist argues that such a being does not even exist. There has recently been an increasing interest in the subject of disbelief, led by atheist writers like Richard Dawkins , Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens. How is it that millions of people can be deeply certain of something, and that millions of people can be deeply certain of the opposite?

(The quick answer, of course, is that one group is right, while the other group is a bunch of idiots who fail to see the obvious- and people will immediately disagree on which is which).

New York Times columnist Stanley Fish has written a series of articles in which he criticizes the “standard” atheist arguments, particularly the contention that religion is a product of faith, and atheism is a product of reason.

Some respondents have raised the issue of falsification. Is there something that would falsify a religious faith in the same way that some physical discoveries would falsify natural selection for Dawkins and Harris? As it is usually posed, the question imagines disconfirming evidence coming from outside the faith, be it science or religion. But a system of assumptions and protocols (and that is what a faith is) will recognize only evidence internal to its basic presuppositions. Asking that religious faith consider itself falsified by empirical evidence is as foolish as asking that natural selection tremble before the assertion of deity and design. Falsification, if it occurs, always occurs from the inside.

It follows then that the distinction informing so many of the atheists’ arguments, the distinction between a discourse supported by reason and a discourse supported by faith, will not hold up because any form of thought is an inextricable mix of both; faith and reasons come together in an indissoluble package.

(These paragraphs confounded me for a while. Most of what follows is an attempt to make sense of Fish’s arguments.)

Fish makes two separate points here. First, that religious faith and scientific proof require different kinds of evidence, and that what may constitute proof in one area does not qualify in the other. Secondly, that both theism and atheism are mixtures of reason and faith.

What Fish is trying to explain is the following phenomena: Suppose you had a skeleton of a creature conclusively known to have lived on earth 65 million years ago. If you brought a creationist to view this skeleton (at, say, any natural history museum in the country) what would happen?

For many people, the kind of collections found in a natural history museum presents strong evidence that the earth is older than 6000 years, that it has been inhabited by an incredible variety of creatures, and those creatures have evolved into different forms to meet the needs of their environments.

For a creationist, however, this evidence does nothing to weaken their faith. In some cases it may strengthen it. There are a couple of factors at work here, some psychological, some philosophical.

In one sense, this is an example of precisely what Fish is referring to above when he talks about “. . . a system of assumptions and protocols (and that is what a faith is) will recognize only evidence internal to its basic presuppositions.” The creationist places truth based on revelation, both personal and Biblical, above physical evidence.

There are further psychological reasons to bolster one’s belief in the face of contradictory evidence. Cognitive dissonance is the psychological term for the tension one feels when holding two contradictory views, as well as the driving need to relieve that tension. In this case, the creationist feels a tension between their beliefs regarding the creation of the Earth as described in Genesis and the presentation of archaeological evidence that contradicts this view. The fascinating (and disturbing) thing about cognitive dissonance is that instead of working to reconcile the two disparate beliefs, the opposing evidence will actually make the original belief stronger–because that relieves the tension.

As Carol Tarvis of the Center for Skeptical Inquiry notes:

The more important a particular belief is to us the more strongly we will ignore or reject evidence suggesting we are wrong. Religion is central to what gives many people meaning and purpose in life. This type of belief will be defended at all costs. Examples of dis-confirming evidence creating Cognitive Dissonance are Evolution, the Holocaust and disasters.

In addition to the forces of cognitive dissonance, there are other psychological factors. In particular, studies of confirmation bias show that people give greater credence to evidence that confirms their view, while ignoring or discrediting evidence that contradicts it. Or, Brehm, Kassin and Fein note in Social Psychology, “[e]vents that are ambiguous enough to support contrasting interpretations are like inkblots: We see in them what we want or expect to see.”

Of course, the effects of cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias are just as true for the atheist as the theist. We can reverse the scenario of the first example and ask ourselves this: What would happen if an atheist saw an angel?

What, for Dawkins, would constitute evidence of God’s existence? Suppose an angel of the Lord were to appear before Dawkins, even as he was delivering another lecture on the delusion that God exists. Would such an experience change Dawkins’ views?

Fish has spent his whole career pointing out why it wouldn’t: not because of the nature of angels, but because of the nature of interpretation. As long as Dawkins remains who he is now, he will remain incapable of seeing an angel of the Lord.

After all, a genuine atheist must interpret such an event as a temporarily inexplicable hallucination, or a sudden psychotic break, or a clever technological trick - in short, as anything but evidence that atheism is false.

Now it is the theist’s turn to accuse the atheist of cognitive dissonance and ignoring contradictory evidence (or it would be if angels started appearing at speeches). For a believer, there can be no more obvious confirmation of their faith than having an angel appear. How could an atheist deny the evidence right in front of him?

For an atheist, a single event cannot qualify as conclusive. In order for something to be true, it must be rigorously demonstrated under repeatable conditions. If there was a ceremony that could be conducted, under precise controls, that would summon an angel, and that ceremony was tested by people all across the country and confirmed, that would qualify as evidence of angels.

It is not that the atheist demands evidence and the theist does not; it is that the kinds of acceptable evidence are different.

Thus the gap between theism and atheism is not only over the existence of God- it is a further step back. It is an epistemic disagreement over fundamental assumptions about the world, and the rules that constitute evidence and proof.

For the theist, revelation trumps the physical world. For the atheist, evidence from the physical world trumps revelation.

This was Fish’s first point, that science and religion require different kinds of proof. His points is made best here: “No believer will find his faith shaken by evidence that is evidence only in the light of assumptions he does not share and considers flatly wrong.”

Here is how I understand Fish’s point about a mixture of faith and reason. At some point, according to Fish, the advocate of pure reason must hold some assumption, something like: The world is run by physical laws, and those laws are accessible to human reason.

Whether you choose to describe this as a statement of faith, or a belief, or a philosophical tenet, it is still something that cannot be demonstrated, but must be believed (as a side note, I do happen to believe this, since every time I drop something, it falls, and I can describe this mathematically- which is not to say we couldn’t all be living in the Matrix or be a dream in the sleeping mind of Brahman).

To state it more simply, the idea that science, as “a system of assumptions and protocols” trumps revelation (or vice versa) is a belief that requires faith.

I tend to agree with Fish’s first point, that religion and science require different evidence (and sometimes speak entirely different languages), but I think he overstates his second point. While I can see that both theism and atheism contain some measure of reason and faith, there is a clear difference in emphasis. The careful rationalist tries to minimize assumptions (articles of faith) and maximize what can be proven through the use of logic and the scientific method. The believer, on the other hand, emphasizes the importance of faith as central to their lives.

So the next time you are locked in an argument over the existence of God, ask these questions first: What do we count as evidence? And what are we taking on faith?