Wall Street Journal Opinion Piece: If You're an Atheist, Lie to Your Kids

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

It depends upon how you define "God."

Let's go with the Judeo-Christian concept.  Perhaps this is a decent starting point:

Quote

We're going to look at four main styles of arguing for the existence of God and one argument against the existence of God. Now "God" has many meanings depending on who you ask. For the purposes of this course, all of our subsequent readings will mean by "God" the God of Judaism and Christianity. We will call this the Judeo-Christian concept of God, or the God of Theism. Key features of this concept are that:

J-C God is:
1. Omnipotent (his omnipotence is also generally thought to imply omniscience, omnipresence, and necessary existence).
2. Morally perfect.
3. Creator of the universe.

The Church refines and expands on this description quite a bit (see, e.g., here), but the foregoing should be sufficient.

Thanks,

-Smac

[pogi]

52 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

Except the problem is bigger than science. It includes everything outside our own conscious experience. We are all pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps. 

Yep, as I stated it boils down to faith as the foundation for all paradigms. 

[pogi]

2 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Aha.

Got the problem I think

REALITY as we know it is inseparable from our senses. I think that is obvious.

Then comes your AKA. If I'm understanding you then I think we disagree on that.

What I think follows from your position is that reality as we know it  IS the self.

Reality = Self

That's what the AKA means to me.

So is that what you are saying?

No, I'm not saying that reality is the self.  I'm saying that life, meaning, and reality as we perceive it, are all conditional upon there even being a self - and the self is conditional upon there being a God creator.

My position:

God -> creation -> self -> meaning 

Therefore: 

No God -> no creation -> no self -> no meaning (it would be as many atheists claim, "the self, agency, and meaning are all illusions")

Edited February 5, 2020 by pogi

[mfbukowski]

21 minutes ago, pogi said:

No, I'm not saying that reality is the self.  I'm saying that life, meaning, and reality as we perceive it, are all conditional upon there even being a self - and the self is conditional upon there being a God creator.

My position:

God -> creation -> self -> meaning 

Therefore: 

No God -> no creation -> no self -> no meaning (it would be as many atheists claim, "the self, agency, and meaning are all illusions")

Ok. 

 

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Let's go with the Judeo-Christian concept.  Perhaps this is a decent starting point:

J-C God is:
1. Omnipotent (his omnipotence is also generally thought to imply omniscience, omnipresence, and necessary existence).
2. Morally perfect.
3. Creator of the universe.

The Church refines and expands on this description quite a bit (see, e.g., here), but the foregoing should be sufficient.

Thanks,

-Smac

That definition of "God" comes across a bunch of medieval gobbledygook, not a cogent definition. Power is measured in watts. Surely you aren't claiming God has an infinite number of terawatts in his fingertips. Or are you claiming that God's "power" is the ability to perform any conceivable magic trick instantaneously with the snap of a finger?

And what is necessary existence? If something exists, how do you tell if it merely exists or if it necessarily exists?

The idea that God is omnipotent, omniscient, and morally perfect introduces the problem of evil. If failing to intervene when evil takes place, despite one's awareness of what is happening and power to stop it is morally perfect when God does it, shouldn't it also be morally perfect for us to follow God's example? If God really exists and is really omniscience and omnipotent, then he is certainly evil.

The universe is everything that exists. If God exists, then He is part of the universe and thus couldn't have created it.

When confronted with a similar description of God and asked if he believed in such a great Being, Adam responded, "I do not. I cannot comprehend such a Being."

Edited February 5, 2020 by Analytics

[mfbukowski]

7 hours ago, Analytics said:

When confronted with a similar description of God and asked if he believed in such a great Being, Adam responded, "I do not. I cannot comprehend such a Being."

Yeah but for some reason he stopped saying that in 1990.

 

[SeekingUnderstanding]

17 hours ago, pogi said:

Yep, as I stated it boils down to faith as the foundation for all paradigms. 

This is true, but it doesn’t mean that all paradigms are equally rational, logical, or even self-coherent. Nor are paradigms equal when it comes to explaining and predicting what we observe.  Some paradigm’s put humans in space, while others lead people to fly airplanes into buildings. 

[pogi]

59 minutes ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

This is true, but it doesn’t mean that all paradigms are equally rational, logical, or even self-coherent. Nor are paradigms equal when it comes to explaining and predicting what we observe.  Some paradigm’s put humans in space, while others lead people to fly airplanes into buildings. 

I don't disagree.  However, is it wrong to place more value on paradigms that might not be the most rational or logical?  If Mormonism was the most rational, logical, and self-coherent paradigm, we would probably be the largest religion in the world.  Yet you still subscribe to it, as far as I can tell. Why?  Isn't it true that religion can provide things for people that other "successful" paradigms can't?  Does accepting one require us to reject the other?  Doesn't each have its place?

[SeekingUnderstanding]

16 minutes ago, pogi said:

I don't disagree.  However, is it wrong to place more value on paradigms that might not be the most rational or logical? 

No. I definitely still embrace the Mormon (Latter-day Saint?) ideal expressed by Lehi that “Men are that they might have joy.” That said, I think that in the long run humankind will be better off by embracing rationality and logic.

16 minutes ago, pogi said:

If Mormonism was the most rational, logical, and self-coherent paradigm, we would probably be the largest religion in the world.  Yet you still subscribe to it, as far as I can tell. Why? 

I no longer do. 

16 minutes ago, pogi said:

Isn't it true that religion can provide things for people that other "successful" paradigms can't? 
 

I think this is obviously true as shown by studies shown in the opening post. That said, a couple of caveats. One, I think that religious thought has significant drawbacks as well. And two, I think there are many ways to derive the same benefits religion provides without the negative baggage. Ultimately for me, however, I just don’t believe any of it is true. It’s probably been over a decade since this was true, but I didn’t own up to it until a couple years ago. The inability to do this and the mental knots I tied myself in were really unhealthy for me in many ways. I disagree with the idea that belief is a choice. I can’t choose to believe the sky is green with Polk-a-dots and I can’t believe there is a personal God up there watching over me. I understand that everyone has their own experience however, and that’s okay. Perhaps God is up there, he just chose not to reveal himself to me. 

[pogi]

6 hours ago, SeekingUnderstanding said:

No. I definitely still embrace the Mormon (Latter-day Saint?) ideal expressed by Lehi that “Men are that they might have joy.” That said, I think that in the long run humankind will be better off by embracing rationality and logic.

I no longer do. 

I think this is obviously true as shown by studies shown in the opening post. That said, a couple of caveats. One, I think that religious thought has significant drawbacks as well. And two, I think there are many ways to derive the same benefits religion provides without the negative baggage. Ultimately for me, however, I just don’t believe any of it is true. It’s probably been over a decade since this was true, but I didn’t own up to it until a couple years ago. The inability to do this and the mental knots I tied myself in were really unhealthy for me in many ways. I disagree with the idea that belief is a choice. I can’t choose to believe the sky is green with Polk-a-dots and I can’t believe there is a personal God up there watching over me. I understand that everyone has their own experience however, and that’s okay. Perhaps God is up there, he just chose not to reveal himself to me. 

I apologize, for some reason I keep thinking that you are still active. 

I agree that we can't directly choose what to believe all the time, but we can indirectly guide our beliefs.

Religion offers much that naturalism cannot offer.   Hope and comfort in an afterlife, being a big one.  But much more too. If survival and reproduction is your end goal, great, naturalism is your paradigm.  But if you truly do accept the theistic teaching that joy is the end goal of being human, look elsewhere. 

For a good explanation, read here:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/ethics-everyone/201109/choosing-believe

and here:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/darwins-subterranean-world/201705/are-we-evolved-happiness

 

Edited February 6, 2020 by pogi

[smac97]

On 2/5/2020 at 3:59 PM, Analytics said:

That definition of "God" comes across a bunch of medieval gobbledygook, not a cogent definition.

If you don't want to have a discussion, just say so.  No need to waste time playing games.

On 2/5/2020 at 3:59 PM, Analytics said:

Power is measured in watts. Surely you aren't claiming God has an infinite number of terawatts in his fingertips.

Right.  No discussion about God unless His power is quantified by wattage.

-Smac

[Analytics]

34 minutes ago, smac97 said:

If you don't want to have a discussion, just say so.  No need to waste time playing games.

Right.  No discussion about God unless His power is quantified by wattage.

-Smac

I think you completely missed the point when I rhetorically said, "it depends upon the definition of God." I wasn't asking for a definition. I was explaining that atheists don't think a good definition even exists; asking whether or not you believe in an ill-defined thing is as meaningless as asking whether you think it is possible to have knowledge about an ill-defined thing.  When you offered a definition, I attempted to briefly illustrate why it is ill-defined. Feel free to reread my long post on the prior page about why your scale doesn't capture the way most atheists think.

In Groundhog Day Phil Connors is basically omnipotent and omniscient. He knows everything except whether or not he is the God. If you were eating blueberry waffles with the God, how would you know?

 

Edited February 6, 2020 by Analytics

[smac97]

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

Quote

If you don't want to have a discussion, just say so.  No need to waste time playing games.

Right.  No discussion about God unless His power is quantified by wattage.

I think you completely missed the point when I rhetorically said, "it depends upon the definition of God." I wasn't asking for a definition.

Got it.  You were speaking rhetorically, and not to have a discussion.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

I was explaining that atheists don't think a good definition even exists; asking whether or not you believe in an ill-defined thing is as meaningless as asking whether you think it is possible to have knowledge about an ill-defined thing. 

So because God cannot be described and defined with mathematical precision, He cannot be described/defined at all?

I'll beg to differ on that.  Seems like a pretty substantial cop-out.

14 hours ago, Analytics said:

When you offered a definition, I attempted to briefly illustrate why it is ill-defined. Feel free to reread my long post on the prior page about why your scale doesn't capture the way most atheists think.

Okay.  

Thanks,

-Smac

[Analytics]

53 minutes ago, smac97 said:

Got it.  You were speaking rhetorically, and not to have a discussion.

No. I was asking a rhetorical question as part of a discussion.

53 minutes ago, smac97 said:

So because God cannot be described and defined with mathematical precision, He cannot be described/defined at all?

When people say, "I believe in God" they can mean vastly different things. Some of these things are well-defined, and others aren't. Whether or not He can be described/defined at all depends upon what we are referring. But I can't answer the question of whether or not I believe in Him, nor can I answer the question about whether or not I think knowledge of Him is possible, until it is clarified what we are talking about. 

Since believers in God can't even agree on whether or not He has a body of flesh and bones, much less on who will be punished and who will be rewarded after they are dead, I hope you can understand my confusion on the matter.

53 minutes ago, smac97 said:

I'll beg to differ on that.  Seems like a pretty substantial cop-out.

I'm just trying to communicate how atheists view the issue.

 

 

[smac97]

3 hours ago, Analytics said:

No. I was asking a rhetorical question as part of a discussion.

Funny how we aren't having a discussion, then.  A position of "We can't talk about God because God can't be defined with mathematical precision and measurement of his power down to the watt" is a cessation, not continuation, of discussion.

Quote

When people say, "I believe in God" they can mean vastly different things.

Hence my invocation of the Judeo-Christian concept.  But since you insist that any further discussion of the subject is impossible because God's power cannot be defined in wattage, I guess we're done.  

Quote

Some of these things are well-defined, and others aren't. Whether or not He can be described/defined at all depends upon what we are referring. But I can't answer the question of whether or not I believe in Him, nor can I answer the question about whether or not I think knowledge of Him is possible, until it is clarified what we are talking about.

"Clarified" down to "number of terawatts in His fingertips."  Right.

And since we can't do that, no discussion is possible.  At all.  

Again, this sounds like a cop-out.  But we're all here willingly.  Nobody is twisting your arm.  If you don't want to even try to have a discussion, fine by me.

Quote

Since believers in God can't even agree on whether or not He has a body of flesh and bones, much less on who will be punished and who will be rewarded after they are dead, I hope you can understand my confusion on the matter.

I'm just trying to communicate how atheists view the issue.

And they "view the issue" as being that belief in God is evidence of a profound mental illness?  Hence the comparison to Don Juan Demarco?

Got it.  You're not here to have a discussion.  Your here to "communicate how atheists view the issue," which is that in the absence of an unequivocal, universally-agreed-upon, mathematically-precise-in-every-respect definition of God, God cannot be defined at all.  And since God can't be defined at all, discussion about Him is impossible.

-Smac

EDIT TO ADD: I'm reminded of the "McNamara Fallacy," which is generally described as "Making a decision based solely on quantitative observations (or metrics) and ignoring all others."

More here:

Quote

Thus, the approach of reducing deeply human processes to a mere figure became known as the McNamara Fallacy, a term coined by the sociologist Daniel Yankelovitch. Yankelovitch described the fallacy in four points:

1. Measure whatever can be easily measured.
2. Disregard that which cannot be measured easily.
3. Presume that which cannot be measured easily is not important.
4. Presume that which cannot be measured easily does not exist.

...
In a nutshell, the McNamara fallacy is when a decision is based solely on numbers (e.g. metrics or statistics) and all qualitative factors are ignored. Doing this makes us blind to what is really going on, and it applies to many more situations...

Yep.

Just because a thing cannot be defined or measured with precision doesn't mean in cannot be defined or measured at all, nor does it justify a conclusion that the thing doesn't exist.

Edited February 7, 2020 by smac97

[mfbukowski]

4 hours ago, smac97 said:

So because God cannot be described and defined with mathematical precision, He cannot be described/defined at all?

This is actually a philosophical position know as "Positivism" which is now considered dead by virtually all of the philosophy community.

In fact they would say that any proposition which cannot be proven by experimental evidence is "nonsense".

This position was pioneered by AJ Ayer, and became a mainstay of 20th century philosophy in the 1950s, and supported by many of the luminaries including Bertrand Russell.

AJ Ayer later rejected his earlier position and pronounce positivism dead. There are still a few proponents but their position is very weak.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language,_Truth,_and_Logic#Ayer's_later_rejection_of_logical_positivism

"" Logical positivism was the philosophical flavour of the day in the 1920s and 1930s, and it was indeed popularized by Ayer in his book Language, Truth and Logic. However, Ayer himself later rejected much of his own work. Fifty years after he wrote his book, he said: 'Logical positivism died a long time ago. I don't think much of Language, Truth and Logic is true ... it is full of mistakes.'^[3]""

Edited February 7, 2020 by mfbukowski

[Meadowchik]

On 2/4/2020 at 8:37 PM, pogi said:

So you are saying that atheists are simply more passive-aggressive, throwing punches when your back is turned rather than addressing issues to your face?  

By the way if you're interested, google The Atheist Experience for its live internet show every Sunday afternoon. They take callers. Also The Thinking Atheist podcast has been running for years. You could search some of them by topic.

[Analytics]

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Funny how we aren't having a discussion, then.  A position of "We can't talk about God because God can't be defined with mathematical precision and measurement of his power down to the watt" is a cessation, not continuation, of discussion.

What you put in quotes here isn't what I said and isn't my point. My point is simply that I don't see myself on the colorful scale you put above, and that that scale doesn't accurately represent the term "atheist" as I understand it. But if you don't want to better understand atheists that is fine. Nobody is twisting your arm. But you can forgive me for thinking you might be interested in the topic. 

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

Hence my invocation of the Judeo-Christian concept.  But since you insist that any further discussion of the subject is impossible because God's power cannot be defined in wattage, I guess we're done.  

You said God was "all powerful." I was simply trying to get clarity what you meant by that, and perhaps illustrate the meaningless of the assertion. Your unwillingness to clarify your terms isn't an indication that I'm unwilling to talk about it. It simply proves my point--such assertions are gobbledygook. If that is part of the mystery of God then that's fine. Just understand that when you ask me if I believe in such a being, my response is a simple and reasonable, "I do not. I cannot comprehend such a being."

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

"Clarified" down to "number of terawatts in His fingertips."  Right.

I don't need to know a precise number of terawatts, but it would be helpful to know if "power" means "power" in the physics sense, and if so, does "omnipotent" literally mean unlimited power.

1 hour ago, smac97 said:

And since we can't do that, no discussion is possible.  At all.  

Again, this sounds like a cop-out.  But we're all here willingly.  Nobody is twisting your arm.  If you don't want to even try to have a discussion, fine by me.

Got it.  You're not nere to have a discussion.  Your here to "communicate how atheists view the issue," which is that in the absence of an unequivocal, universally-agreed-upon, mathematically-precise-in-every-respect definition of God, God cannot be defined at all.  And since God can't be defined at all, discussion about Him is impossible.

Talk about cop-outs. I never said God cannot be defined at all. I simply pointed out that you haven't defined God in a coherent way.  My point is that to the extent that God isn't defined, there is no reason to believe He exists. That doesn't mean we can't talk about it.

[pogi]

55 minutes ago, Meadowchik said:

By the way if you're interested, google The Atheist Experience for its live internet show every Sunday afternoon. They take callers. Also The Thinking Atheist podcast has been running for years. You could search some of them by topic.

Thanks, I'll check them out. 

[Meadowchik]

42 minutes ago, Analytics said:

 My point is that to the extent that God isn't defined, there is no reason to believe He exists. That doesn't mean we can't talk about it.

Right. One has to come to an agreement on terms in order to converse productively.

[Tacenda]

Ha! So many sins in the Bible, that really aren't!

[Analytics]

If anybody is truly interested in where the irreligious find (or can find) meaning, fulfillment, and morality, and incredibly good book is Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress by the Harvard professor Steven Pinker. It's an extremely insightful and optimistic book about the state of the world an what the true forces for good actually are. The book doesn't argue for atheism per se. Rather, it argues that the world is in fact getting better, and that "enlightenment thinking", i.e. reason, science, and humanism, are the reasons why.

If I may offer a quote from the book, here are two passages. One that talks about the morality and happens to (correctly) define atheism, and another one that more closely addresses the topic of this thread: the benefits of religion.  

Quote

The common assertion that the two world wars were set off by the decline of religious morality (as in the former Trump strategist Stephen Bannon’s recent claim that World War II pitted “the Judeo-Christian West versus atheists”) is dunce-cap history. 48 The belligerents on both sides of World War I were devoutly Christian, except for the Ottoman Empire, a Muslim theocracy. The only avowedly atheist power that fought in World War II was the Soviet Union, and for most of the war it fought on our side against the Nazi regime—which (contrary to another myth) was sympathetic to German Christianity and vice versa, the two factions united in their loathing of secular modernity. 49 (Hitler himself was a deist who said, “I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s work.”) 50 Defenders of theism retort that irreligious wars and atrocities, motivated by the secular ideology of communism and by ordinary conquest, have killed even more people. Talk about relativism! It is peculiar to grade religion on this curve: if religion were a source of morality, the number of religious wars and atrocities ought to be zero. And obviously atheism is not a moral system in the first place. It’s just the absence of supernatural belief, like an unwillingness to believe in Zeus or Vishnu. The moral alternative to theism is humanism...

If the positive contributions of religious institutions come from their role as humanistic associations in civil society, then we would expect those benefits not to be tied to theistic belief, and that is indeed the case. It’s long been known that churchgoers are happier and more charitable than stay-at-homes, but Robert Putnam and his fellow political scientist David Campbell have found that these blessings have nothing to do with beliefs in God, creation, heaven, or hell. 56 An atheist who has been pulled into a congregation by an observant spouse is as charitable as the faithful among the flock, whereas a fervent believer who prays alone is not particularly charitable. At the same time, communality and civic virtue can be fostered by membership in secular service communities such as the Shriners (with their children’s hospitals and burn units), Rotary International (which is helping to end polio), and Lions Club (which combats blindness)—even, according to Putnam and Campbell’s research, a bowling league. Just as religious institutions deserve praise when they pursue humanistic ends, they should not be shielded from criticism when they obstruct those ends. Examples include...

(Page 429, 431)

 

 

[smac97]

1 hour ago, Analytics said:

What you put in quotes here isn't what I said and isn't my point. My point is simply that I don't see myself on the colorful scale you put above, and that that scale doesn't accurately represent the term "atheist" as I understand it.

Well, we could talk about it, but since we can't measure the power of God by specified wattage...

Quote

But if you don't want to better understand atheists that is fine. Nobody is twisting your arm. But you can forgive me for thinking you might be interested in the topic. 

I am.  Hence the effort to get the ball rolling by discussing the Judeo-Christian concept of God.  Which for you is a non-starter.

Quote

You said God was "all powerful." I was simply trying to get clarity what you meant by that, and perhaps illustrate the meaningless of the assertion. Your unwillingness to clarify your terms isn't an indication that I'm unwilling to talk about it.

Yes, well.  As soon as you suggested that discussion about God must be predicated on specific amounts of wattage, I figured you weren't interested in a discussion.

And lo, here we are.  No substantive discussion about the topic I presented.  Quelle suprise.

Quote

It simply proves my point--such assertions are gobbledygook. If that is part of the mystery of God then that's fine. Just understand that when you ask me if I believe in such a being, my response is a simple and reasonable, "I do not. I cannot comprehend such a being."

I didn't ask you that.

Quote

I don't need to know a precise number of terawatts, but it would be helpful to know if "power" means "power" in the physics sense, and if so, does "omnipotent" literally mean unlimited power.

Well, a good faith inquiry would've helped.  Flippant sarcasm about a topic I hold sacred doesn't help.

Quote

Talk about cop-outs. I never said God cannot be defined at all. I simply pointed out that you haven't defined God in a coherent way.  

For pete's sake.  You asked: "It depends upon how you define 'God.'"

I responded: 

Quote

Let's go with the Judeo-Christian concept.  Perhaps this is a decent starting point:

Quote

We're going to look at four main styles of arguing for the existence of God and one argument against the existence of God. Now "God" has many meanings depending on who you ask. For the purposes of this course, all of our subsequent readings will mean by "God" the God of Judaism and Christianity. We will call this the Judeo-Christian concept of God, or the God of Theism. Key features of this concept are that:

J-C God is:
1. Omnipotent (his omnipotence is also generally thought to imply omniscience, omnipresence, and necessary existence).
2. Morally perfect.
3. Creator of the universe.

The Church refines and expands on this description quite a bit (see, e.g., here), but the foregoing should be sufficient.

"Should be sufficient" as a decent starting point.  That's what I was trying to do.  Start a conversation.  A discussion.

Instead, you immediately labeled the above "medieval gobbledygook," then asked if I am "claiming God has an infinite number of terawatts in his fingertips," then followed up with something about God performing "any conceivable magic trick instantaneously with the snap of a finger."

This is you trying to initiate a meaningful discussion about God?  With a person whom you know takes such things seriously?

I . . . question that.

Quote

My point is that to the extent that God isn't defined, there is no reason to believe He exists. That doesn't mean we can't talk about it.

There are better ways to commence a discussion about God than to immediately sneer at an attempted "starting point," then immediately resort to sarcasm and ridicule regarding a sacred topic.

Thanks,

-Smac

EDIT TO ADD: An EoM entry, Omnipotent God; Omnipresence of God; Omniscience of God,  has some interesting things to say about this topic.

Edited February 7, 2020 by smac97

[Analytics]

16 minutes ago, smac97 said:

For pete's sake.  You asked: "It depends upon how you define 'God.'"

I responded: 

"Should be sufficient" as a decent starting point.  That's what I was trying to do.  Start a conversation.  A discussion.

Okay. My apologies. Allow me to start over. Putting that question into context, whether or not "gnostic atheism" is possible depends upon how you define God.

With the definition of God you provided, I think gnostic atheism is basically possible, but it depends upon the specific details of the definition. First, the concept of "omnipotence" contradicts the basic laws of physics. Second, the concept of an omnipotent, morally perfect being actually existing can't be reconciled with known reality (i.e. the problem of evil).

 

 

 

[mfbukowski]

30 minutes ago, Analytics said:

One that talks about the morality and happens to (correctly) define atheism, and another one that more closely addresses the topic of this thread: the benefits of religion.  

Who is the arbiter of the "correct" definition of any word?

It's not that I disagree with you. In fact I kind of liked the post.

It's just that the idea that there is some kind of perfect Arbiter that  judges and tells us correct things is odd coming from an atheist.

I think Rorty was very consistent in that.

He believed that an belief in an outside world independent of Human Experience, was exactly what belief God was really all about.

I don't see how anyone who believes that the existence of God must be empirically proven cannot believe that the existence of an outside world need not be proven.

Radical empiricism points out that since all we can observe is what human brains are capable of observing, there is no way to prove anything other than human experience exists.

That is consistent with atheism if one does not believe that there is evidence for the existence of God.

On the other hand if feelings in the Heart count as "evidence" in a holistic way, taking into account all feelings as experience, one can be a radical empiricist as well as a theist.

That was a position of William James, arguably also later Rorty, Ayer and Wittgenstein.

It seems there tends to be a definite drift toward theism as philosophers get older  and more aware of  the worlds complexity