Theism and atheism as 'brute facts'?

Question

Can we be presented with the absence of God as a brute fact, one with no need of explanation or analysis etc.? How does this compare with what theism alleges to report?

This wasn't meant to be an implicit presentation of reasons for atheism. But it certainly seems we can - and should - question God in a way we perhaps even cannot do to His - supposed - absence from the world.

So atheism not because people make false claims for Him, anything of that sort, but I suppose just because it is indeed more parsimonious: atheism - how it describes the world - needs no explanation, or the inverse of the first cause argument (I didn't think of that denouement very hard).

Answer 1

Neither theism nor atheism are 'brute facts'. You see, in philosophy, a 'brute fact' is something that simply is, without any dependence on anything else for its existence or explanation. But theism and atheism? They're both products of human interpretation and understanding of the world.

Let's talk about atheism for a moment. It's not a 'brute fact', but rather a rational conclusion. We look at the world, we look at the universe, and we just don't see any compelling evidence for a god or gods.

Let's remember Occam's Razor, the idea that the simplest explanation is usually the best one. And atheism, in my view, is the epitome of simplicity. It doesn't require us to make any unfounded assumptions about a divine entity – it just asks us to look at the world as it is.

Now, as for theism, it's also not a 'brute fact'. Theistic beliefs are rooted in faith, and faith, by definition, isn't something that can be proven or disproven with empirical evidence. Theistic beliefs are human inventions. They're stories we tell ourselves to answer the big questions, to give structure to our world, to instill a sense of morality.