Explain
George Johnson in SciAm offers some welcome clarity.
…there has been a resurgence in recent years of “natural theology”–the attempt to justify religious teachings not through faith and scripture but through rational argument, astronomical observations and even experiments on the healing effects of prayer….Owen Gingerich, a Harvard University astronomer and science historian, tells how in the 1980s he was part of an effort to produce a kind of anti-Cosmos, a television series called Space, Time, and God that was to counter Sagan’s “conspicuously materialist approach to the universe.” The program never got off the ground, but its premise survives: that there are two ways to think about science. You can be a theist, believing that behind the veil of randomness lurks an active, loving, manipulative God, or you can be a materialist, for whom everything is matter and energy interacting within space and time. Whichever metaphysical club you belong to, the science comes out the same…But what sounds like a harmless metaphor can restrict the intellectual bravado that is essential to science. “In my view,” Collins goes on to say, “DNA sequence alone, even if accompanied by a vast trove of data on biological function, will never explain certain special human attributes, such as the knowledge of the Moral Law and the universal search for God.” Evolutionary explanations have been proffered for both these phenomena. Whether they are right or wrong is not a matter of belief but a question to be approached scientifically. The idea of an apartheid of two separate but equal metaphysics may work as a psychological coping mechanism, a way for a believer to get through a day at the lab. But theism and materialism don’t stand on equal footings. The assumption of materialism is fundamental to science.
Furthermore, Collins’s claim depends heavily on what he means and what other people understand by words like ‘explain’ and ‘special’ not to mention ‘the Moral Law’ and ‘God.’ What he seems to mean there is that DNA sequence will never explain in a way that he (in common with many others) finds satisfying, convincing, psychologically and emotionally complete and adequate. He probably means, approximately, if I may interpret, that the human capacity to have a moral sense seems special in a different kind of way from a string of information. Well, yes. It does. Even an ‘Enlightenment fundamentalist’ (thank you Timothy Garton Ash) like me has that feeling. Human consciousness, complexity, awareness, aesthetic sense, imagination, empathy, hope, memory, anticipation, creativity, elaboration – all do seem special, and unlike (in some ways, though not others) the rest of nature. But the thing is, they would. That is to say that feeling is probably just a by-product of the complexity in question, and inevitable in any being with an elaborated information processing system. We feel special to ourselves because, to ourselves, we are special, and because a complex brain gives us the capacity to have thoughts about what our thoughts are like and how they are different from the thoughts of our cat or that spider or this rock. It would be difficult to have a brain of that kind without also having the thought that there is something special about it.
And then, if you think further about the other end of this discrepancy, this unexplanatory explanation, this explanation that doesn’t satisfy, things get difficult right away, because if the idea is that materialism can’t explain our minds and moral sense but God can, then one thinks about that god who created the universe with its hundreds of billions of galaxies each with hundreds of billions of stars, and one realizes that there’s precious little reason to think it’s Like Us or that we’re like it; little reason to think we’re the same kind of thing as that god only smaller and weaker. It seems to make much more sense to think that our ideas about the Moral Law and in fact our search for God would be of considerably less interest to this god than the ideas about the Moral Law of a flake of pepper would be to us. So, sure, to humans there does seem to be a strange and permanently puzzling gap between our consciousness and a material universe, but saying that God bridges that gap also does seem to be, as Johnson says, a coping mechanism rather than a genuinely convincing explanation.
Richard Dawkins, in The God Delusion, tells of his exasperation with colleagues who try to play both sides of the street: looking to science for justification of their religious convictions while evading the most difficult implications–the existence of a prime mover sophisticated enough to create and run the universe, “to say nothing of mind reading millions of humans simultaneously.” Such an entity, he argues, would have to be extremely complex, raising the question of how it came into existence, how it communicates–through spiritons!–and where it resides.
Well exactly – ‘while evading the most difficult implications.’ That’s just it. Answering ‘God’ isn’t an answer, because it just raises the same question all over again, but magnified exponentially. If it seems strange that we’re here, why would it not seem even stranger that God is here? Why is it that we’re mysterious but ‘God’ is quite enough? The God answer doesn’t answer the questions, it opens a whole universe of new ones. It seems to me a bit lazy and a bit dishonest to pretend that materialistic explanations are inadequate while the God one is just right.
Dawkins is frequently dismissed as a bully, but he is only putting theological doctrines to the same kind of scrutiny that any scientific theory must withstand. No one who has witnessed the merciless dissection of a new paper in physics would describe the atmosphere as overly polite.
But of course that’s just what one is not supposed to do – to put theological doctrines to the same kind of scrutiny that any scientific theory must withstand. No no. No no no no. That’s insensitive, that’s offensive, that’s impermissible. People who do that are bullies and Enlightenment fundamentalists. People who give inadequate one-word answers that always consist of the same three letters, on the other hand, are not bullies at all but spiritual questers.
But (and I’m sorry, but here’s a “but” again) not every scientific or rational inquiry-based idea is subject to the same _kind_ of scrutiny. A metaphysical doctrine such as materialism or idealism, a grammar of a language, a matemathical theorem or a theory of physics are subject to very different (yet in some ways similar) kinds of tests and inquiries. I’m sure that you won’t necessarily disagree with this – I recall you using Susan Haack’s term “rational inquiry” as a more widely applicable term than “science” – but I am not sure whether all scientific critics of theology do.
Or all scientific fans of theology, for that matter. Because Collins makes that very mistake in the text you quoted. I don’t disagree that many aspects of specific human behaviour are unlikely to be explained by biology – but philosophy and the humanities have studied these for ages without taking recourse to a mysterious explanation.
I agree, about kinds of scrutiny. The problem with the new-paper-in-physics analogy is that Dawkins isn’t standing up before a peer-review panel of theologians. (And why would he, given that he dismisses theology out of hand as a pseudo-discipline.)
Evading difficult implications is never fair play. But Dawkins’s colleagues in science are not leading thinkers about religion–they are not even typical practitioners of religion, necessarily.
But the particular point that Johnson was making there (via Dawkins) was that the exasperating colleagues evade the most difficult implications. Not that they scrutinize them in different ways, but that they evade them.
Yes, but at least some of the implications cited are open to criticism. E.g. the “where does God reside” one, the “mind-reading” one, and the one that God would have to be exceedingly complex to create the Universe (I never understood that objection, really). I’d say questions such as the problem of a good deity in what seems to be a rather indifferent universe, or the puny size of us and our planet within the universe, as you mentioned, are more fruitful avenues. But these have been subjects in philosophy and theology from the writer of the book of Job onwards. And Dawkins has dismissed theology out of hand as nonsense.
As an aside, the non-collegial atmosphere within physics may also have something to do with the sheer size of the discipline, internationally. Which also creates a situation with few peer-reviewed journals, lots of graduate students eager to get published, etc. My own field is tiny enough so that peer review is often not very anonymous (everyone knows almost everyone). This also leads to a situation where there may be too much collegiality, instead of too little.
Merlijn de Smit: “I’d say questions such as the problem of a good deity in what seems to be a rather indifferent universe, or the puny size of us and our planet within the universe, as you mentioned, are more fruitful avenues.”
More “fruitful avenues” for what?
I’m not really sure what you are trying to suggest or argue.
The problem of a “good deity in what seems to be a rather indifferent universe” is only a problem if the existence of a deity is possible.
If there is no evidence that a deity exists, then this is a non-problem.
Theologians do address a lot of these questions of natural theology, in discussions in theological journals. They don’t discuss them with Dawkins, because they think (for good reason) that he’s not asking questions out of a desire to learn the answer, and that he doesn’t listen properly to what people are saying.
I mean really:
[Such an entity, he argues, would have to be extremely complex, raising the question of how it came into existence, how it communicates–through spiritons!–and where it resides.]
The attributes of omnipresence and omniscience have only had about a gazillion words written about them, more maybe no more than a thousand years, and Dawkins acts like theologians have never even considered the issues that he just thought of. You do the same thing yourself when you say:
[It seems to make much more sense to think that our ideas about the Moral Law and in fact our search for God would be of considerably less interest to this god than the ideas about the Moral Law of a flake of pepper would be to us.]
this is a question which has the most astonishingly voluminous literature on it, and the answer would be that if you take the Thomist attributes of God seriously, the idea that things might be more or less important to him doesn’t make sense; if you are omnipotent then you don’t have to prioritise.
This isn’t to say that the theological literature is any good, but the reason why Dawkins’ colleagues don’t like talking to him about religion is that he is a fearful bore on the subject and not terribly intellectually honest. I believe Nick Cohen has an analogous theory about how he doesn’t get invited to dinner parties any more because the liberal left has been enslaved by Islamofascism.
Is it too simplistic to see an obvious evolutionary reason for feeling special? After all if we didn’t it would presumably lower our commitment to self/species preservation and the onward spread of our splendid genes.
Might I recommend Hume’s “Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion” (pub. 1779) for anyone still seriously considering this kind of “rational deism”…where he gives it a sound thrashing and sends it to bed without any supper.
Not that he ever espoused absolutistic atheism, of course…
But as he said:
“The wise man proportions his belief according to the evidence”
& “Generally speaking the errors in religion are dangerous; those in philosophy only ridiculous.”
Last small thing – the fact that millions of words have been written about any subject proves exactly…what? That people cared enough to write about it, not that it (or the eager scribblers) can lay any claim to some great mystical “truth”.
Hah! Bumhug!
Yours in skepticism, etc…
:-)
dsquared, if the theological literature isn’t any good, why do people have to waste their time with it? What deference do we owe to the lovely but mistaken people who have written it, and why?
Well, nobody asked Dawkins to write a big book about religion and nobody has to waste their time on the theological literature. But it’s daft to complain that people won’t engage with your arguments while simultaneously refusing to study the voluminous literature in which they were discussed in depth a hundred years ago. In fact it’s specifically the behaviour of a crank, which is what I consider Dawkins to be on a lot of subjects.
See, if you just want to say “this whole God thing is frankly implausible” then that’s one thing. But if you’re going to make the stronger claim that the theists are actually wrong *in their own terms*, then you need to do the hard yards. Dawkins is trying to claim that his colleagues can’t answer his brilliant “how does it communicate – through spiritons” argument (and that this is why they won’t argue with him), when actually this argument is clearly a version of the one dismissed in the Summa Theologicae five hundred years ago (and that is why nobody’s interested in discussing it today with Dawkins; there is nothing more frustrating than running a remedial education program for someone who doesn’t want to learn).
I swear that Dawkins is to rationalism what George Galloway is to anti-imperialism.
At risk of side-tracking the discussion, I’d like to take slight issue with OB’s aparent dismissal of TGA’s line about ‘enlightenment fundamentalists’. Having read the whole of that piece, I think that he, alas, has a point. As a private citizen, I would count myself in the ranks of ‘enlightenment fundamentalists’, and defend my right to gob off about religion’s stupidity and futility whenever I feel like it. However, I know damn well that if I had the misfortune to be a public official, or in some way charged with policy, I would think not twice but a million times before I dismissed any of the major world religions as a pile of steaming sh*te, even in much more polite terms. As TGA is, I think, pointing out, it’s easy to dismiss ideas when you don’t actually have to deal with the reality of their adherents. We in the blogosphere don’t, per se, have to deal with the reality of anything, except to exercise our liberty to slag it off when we don’t like it. Sometimes we should remember the privilege of that irresponsibility.
Keith McGuinness:
Questions of theodicy and the like _are_ relevant as to whether a (good) Deity is possible. The reasons I think questions like “If there’s a God, where is he?” are not is that I think they are relevant only to a very very specific and unsophisticated kind of theism.
As for “evidence” of whether a Deity exists – we’ve been through that in the other thread. I think both demands or assertions of empirical evidence for a Deity are a result of applying the wrong kind of scientific methodology on the wrong kind of subject.
Erm … “dsquared”?
What ARE the arguments “dismissed in the Summa Theologicae five hundred years ago” ? Just to keep us amused.
Also I don’t think Dawkins is actuallly dismissing the thologians on their own ground (I may be wrong) I think he is saying their underlying assumptions are false. Or, another way of putting it is he is re-stating the Tipler argument I quoted in my earlier mis-typed comment.
Come on, if any “god” is around, or has been around, then he/she/it/they will have left some detectable traces. Where are they?
Therfore, I say (again) …
No “god” is detectable – and therefore should be ignored.
Unless and until someone can produce evidence of a detectable god, why should I beleive in it, or take any account of it?
Answers on a postcard, please.
[What ARE the arguments “dismissed in the Summa Theologicae five hundred years ago” ?]
Basically and from half-memory, in the quoted excerpt, Dawkins says that God “would have to be complex”, which is not compatible with the Unity of Divinity. God doesn’t have parts, and so the complexity of their relationship is not an issue. The “how it communicates” question is also ill-posed; God is present in entirety at every point in space and time, and thus has no need to communicate between different points in space and time. The omnipresence attribute of divinity also means that the question of “how it came into existence” is also ill posed; note that physicists actually borrow this argument from the Summa Theologicae when they want to answer questions about “what was before the Big Bang”.
In general I can heartily recommend the medieval scholastics as reading for anyone who wants to get really good at logical argument; they’re fantastic at it.
[Come on, if any “god” is around, or has been around, then he/she/it/they will have left some detectable traces. Where are they?]
All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small …
[Unless and until someone can produce evidence of a detectable god, why should I beleive in it, or take any account of it?]
fair enough; believe what you like. But until you can produce a non-question-begging definition of what you mean by “evidence”, then why should people who do believe in God take any account of your views either?
G. Tingey –
You misunderstand the Tipler quote. Tipler _does_ take theology seriously (a bit too seriously, in fact), unlike Dawkins. Otherwise it wouldn’t be worth reducing to physics, would it? You can’t have something being vacuous nonsense _and_ being reducible to physics at the same time.
Mind you, I think Tipler has a way too literal reading of the Bible (actually taking what the burning bush said to Moses as proof of his speculations) and he also doesn’t give poor old Teilhard his due: his whole Omega Point physics/theology basically only turns Teilhard’s vitalistic concepts on a physicalist footing. Personally I think Teilhard deserves better than that.
DSquared: you point to one good answer to Dawkins’ rhetorical “Science produced airplanes – what has theology done?” question. Arguably, Aristotelian logic only survived through the mediation of theology.
Well, clearly no danger of anyone getting sidetracked into contemporary politics when there’s theology to be discussed. Ho-hum, I’ll get me coat.
GT: On second thought, it was I who misunderstood your point (I am a bit jumpy when anyone mentions Tipler). But you’re still wrong.
Tipler’s point is that basically everything is reducible to physics. That’s (IMO) a metaphysical claim. It can’t be used as an argument against claims which start from different metaphysical starting-points (e.g. most God claims). I.e. it’s perfectly respectable to claim: “In my view of the world, everything can be ultimately reduced to physics, which leaves no room for a non-physical God to exist”. But using it as an argument against the specific claims of theology, or as support for the claim that theology is vacuous, would be begging the question.
On Dawkins scanting the study of theology – it depends what Johnson meant by ‘colleagues’. I took him (perhaps incorrectly) to mean Dawkins’s scientific colleagues ‘who try to play both sides of the street’ – in the manner of Gould’s non-overlapping magisteria. Gould evaded or ignored mountains of questions in that book.
Dave,
“it’s easy to dismiss ideas when you don’t actually have to deal with the reality of their adherents”
True. And always worth remembering.
Still – I took TGA to be talking about opinionators rather than legislators. Don’t you think that’s what he meant? Or don’t you.
dsquared – I happen to know that the universe was actually created by the invisible and immaterial cat god, Marmalade. Marmalade is divine, omnipresent, has no parts, is omnipotent, omniscient, omnibenevolent, morally perfect, and is particularly concerned with cats – whom he created in his image.
How do I know that He created the universe? Well, look around you. The universe exists doesn’t it!
After all, the universe had a beginning (in the big bang). We know that everything that begins to exist has a cause, and that the universe began to exist. Therefore, it had a cause, and that cause was Marmalade!
Further, the universe exhibits complexity and order at all levels. It is impossible to conceive that this complexity and order could have arisen by chance alone. This shows that the universe was in fact designed – by Marmalade!
Even more convincing it is the fact that the universe is incredibly fine-tuned for the existence of cats. For life as we know it to evolve, there must be an unlikely combination of just the right initial conditions and just the right values of a wide variety of physical constants (so-called anthropic coincidences). If any one of the values of several dozen physical constants weren’t “set” to a value extremely close to the actual value we find, then life would not be possible in our universe. This shows conclusively that the universe was created by Marmalade to be perfectly suited for cats.
How do I know that it was Marmalade who did all of this? Well, He appeared to me in visions and told me so! He is in the process of dictating a book to me in which He explains all of his motivations, as well as the rules that we are to obey. Watch this space!
Do you see the problem here dsquared? I can invent an infinite number of possible theories that explain the existence and form of the universe. If I am allowed to introduce any number of ad-hoc assumptions (as theists do), then I can explain away any apparent inconsistency or contradiction.
I can’t disprove the Christian version of events, but then can anybody disprove my Marmalade theory – or any of the infinite number of other theories that I could invent? Not being able to disprove it is really just a red herring. The salient point is whether the Christian (or any other theory) is actually at all likely to be true. Other than the existence of the universe (which can be used to support any other creation myth too), you are left with the Bible, apparent miracles, and personal revelation. Very flimsy evidence, I would say.
Where is your evidence (other than the aforementioned) for the existence of the Christian god? Where is your evidence that we have souls? Where is your evidence for the existence of Heaven or Hell, or that we go to one or other of these place after death? Where is your evidence that Jesus was divine? Come to that, other than the Bible, where is your evidence that he existed at all?
Rationality dictates that one should apportion our degree of belief according to the amount of evidence – extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. The major theistic explanations make numerous extraordinary claims, but don’t back these up with much evidence. The Christian hypothesis contradicts a mountain of evidence, makes numerous failed predictions, is not the best explanation of the our universe, and fails to find much evidence in its own support.
In re the Marmalade theory: I’ve had more than a couple arguments with Christians who insisted that Marmalade is no good because you just made it up, whereas their made-up theory has been around for 2000 years. So it’s popularity and longevity that determines whether they’ll take a theistic theory seriously.
Right, so in 2000 years, the Marmalade theory will be true. Mustn’t rush these things.
“more than a couple arguments”
Is this some more of that “logical argumentation” that you all are so famous for?
What is the plural of anecdote, again?
“The Christian hypothesis contradicts a mountain of evidence, makes numerous failed predictions, is not the best explanation of the our universe, and fails to find much evidence in its own support.”
Thank you, Nick.
Nick –
Just substituting “God” with “Marmelade” or “Flying Spaghetti Monster” or anything is a bit childish, really. It might work with sixteen year-old highschool students, but it’s a poor substitute for an argument.
I’m not a Christian, and I don’t believe we have souls. Based on the little I know about DSquared, I’m willing to bet he isn’t either. But that does not invalidate his criticism against Dawkins. I’m getting somewhat uneasy in that most of what I’ve been cheering Dawkins on in are his attacks against subjects I know little to nothing about. His attack on a subject I do happen to know a little bit about, however, fails completely, to me. Perhaps I’ve been wrong about a lot of things.
I think TGA was saying that there’s nothing wrong with being an enlightenment fundamentalist, except that it’s not a practicable position from which to conduct democratic politics in the current global scene, unfortunately. I don’t think he was using ‘fundamentalist’ as a Bad Word, except to make a point.
To “dsquared” and others.
The scholastics may have had very good arguments, but they did not have the (at least) tripartite basis of science, each feeding back into the others, to give a consistent stable structure, of theory/observation/experiment.
… “In general I can heartily recommend the medieval scholastics as reading for anyone who wants to get really good at logical argument; they’re fantastic at it.”
AND
[Come on, if any “god” is around, or has been around, then he/she/it/they will have left some detectable traces. Where are they?]
“All things bright and beautiful, all creatures great and small …”
I assume this is trolling or coat-trailing.
I do not believe you are an Id-iot or a Cretinist. The origin of all the species is well-known, and nothing to do with any god. A certain Mr Darwin and a Mr Wallace explained that one, 147 years ago……
[Unless and until someone can produce evidence of a detectable god, why should I beleive in it, or take any account of it?]
fair enough; believe what you like. But until you can produce a non-question-begging definition of what you mean by “evidence”, then why should people who do believe in God take any account of your views either?
Oh grow up!
Evidence means what it usually does.
Something that will stand up to normal, naturalistic scientific enquiry, and/or in a court of law.
In neither place are you allowed to say “goddidit!” – you must produce evidence, in the usual manner.
Incidentally the “God is everywhere and omnipresent” argument from “Summa T” that you put forward is a theological version of what used to be called the “Luminiferous Aether” which was supposed to permeate all of space, so that e-m radiation could travel through it.
That idea was trashed comprehensively by the Michelson-Morley experiment, and also by uncle Albert. – Who famously stated “The Aether is not detectable”.
(Where do you think I got the idea from?)
Similarly, and in exactly the same case, “god” is not detectable.
For what it’s worth, I am not a Christian, and I regard the question of the existence of souls as undecided – if materialism is true, in my opinion it has to be something like John Searle’s materialism in which it is a material property of some substances that they can generate a first person perspective.
I am no more inclined than Dawkins’ colleagues to get into shouting matches with people who are transparently not interested in the answers to questions, so I will simply repeat my point that the argument from time and space in Summa Theologicae[1] is in fact the theory of the Big Bang.
I’d also note that there are lots and lots of cases recorded of direct divine revelation, and these cannot be ruled out of court as “empirical evidence” unless this term is to be defined in an entirely question-begging way.
[1] this is, btw, a departure from my usual policy of quoting only English names of works that I have read in English; the translation I read was called “Summa Theologicae” or some such on the cover and I don’t know what the English title would be.
Chief Rabbi Says Jews ‘Dissapointed’ at Third Place in Recent Bone-headed Medievalist Contest – Reuters
DS – would Searle’s view be characterized as property dualism? I’ve been partial to such a view myself.
As it is, there is a difference between the luminiferous aether and a supposed immanent or omnipresent God. The luminiferous aether was postulated to explain certain scientific observations and thereby part and parcel of the whole model of the universe that the enterprise of empirical science is building. Assumably, the luminiferous aether would be subject to the same ultimate laws of nature as everything else. _This_ is why the hypothesis can be abandoned if it turns out to be unnecessary.
However, a transcendent Deity cannot be subject to the laws of nature – which by the way doesn’t mean he can break them at will. And that’s why demands for empirical evidence of its existence are question-begging: by definition, transcendent categories such as God cannot be part of the scientific model of the world.
Which does not mean that there aren’t possible philosophical arguments for the existence of God. Or against, for that matter. But these arguments should be argued for and against in the area where they properly belong: philosophy, and indeed, theology. The anthropic question, for example (which by the way would go for cats just fine, if cats were intelligent), is not one that is solvable by science (though it could be informed by science in that what we currently regard as coincidences may in the future be reduced to the workings of only a few principles, etc.). The nature of mathematics, or indeed that of natural laws itself is also not an empirical, not a scientific question.
It’s perfectly valid to reason that things not provable by science can be metaphysically taken not to exist. I have my reasons to personally reject such reasoning – but these are more aesthetical than anything else. But please, please, please realize that such reasoning does involve a metaphysical “leap”. You’re not going to escape ultimately non-scientific views of life, the universe, and everything. And hidden metaphysics may turn out to be bad metaphysics ;-)
“I’d also note that there are lots and lots of cases recorded of direct divine revelation, “….
Oh yeah?
Where, who, when, and proof.
Mystical loonies claiming god spoke to me (like Mahmud) don’t count, since they are or were plainly insane, and need the nice men in white coats.
I’m not really sure what is dsquared’s motivation when he refers to Aquinas’ Summa Theologica. Is it that he finds Aquinas’ ‘first cause’ argument (in Part I of the Summa) to be a persuasive one for the existence of God? Or, is it that he feels that Aquinas showed remarkable prescience, in that his argument seems to predict the Big Bang theory?
If it is the latter, then I see little in the way of prescience. Aquinas writes:
“In the world of sensible things, we find there is an order of efficient causes. There is no case known … in which a thing is found to be the efficient cause of itself; for so it would be prior to itself, which is impossible. Now in efficient causes it is not possible to go to infinity, because . . . the first is the cause of the intermediate cause, and the intermediate is the cause of the ultimate cause…. Now to take away the cause is to take away the effect. Therefore, if there be no first cause among efficient causes, there will be no ultimate, nor any intermediate, cause . . . therefore it is necessary to admit a first efficient cause, to which everyone gives the name god.”
This can be written as follows:
1. Everything is caused by something other than itself
2. Therefore the universe was caused by something other than itself.
3. The string of causes cannot be infinitely long.
4. If the string of causes cannot be infinitely long, there must be a first cause.
5. Therefore, there must be a first cause, namely god.
This does assume that the universe had a beginning, and to this extent is in agreement with the Big Bang theory. However, many cultures have (or have had) a creation myth of one sort or another, in which the world came into existence at some point in time (usually by supernatural means) – so all of these might be said to show equal prescience. The Summa is by no means unique in this regard, and deserves no special mention.
Now, let’s move on to the argument itself.
According to this argument, the things that we see around us now are the products of a series of previous causes. But that series cannot go back in time forever. Thus, there must be some first cause, which was not itself caused by anything else. Moreover, that first uncaused cause is God.
The most telling criticism of this argument is that it is self-refuting. If everything has a cause other than itself, then god must have a cause other than himself. But if god has a cause other than himself, he cannot be the first cause. So if the first premise is true, the conclusion must be false.
To save the argument, the first premise could be amended to read:
1. Everything except god has a cause other than itself.
But if we’re willing to admit the existence of uncaused things, why not just admit that the universe is uncaused and cut out the middleman? David Hume wondered the same thing:
“But if we stop, and go no farther, why go so far? Why not stop at the material world? … By supposing it to contain the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to be god; and the sooner we arrive at that Divine Being, so much the better. When you go one step beyond the mundane system, you only excite an inquisitive humor, which it is impossible ever to satisfy.”
The simplest way to avoid an infinite regress is to stop it before it starts. If we assume that the universe has always existed, we don’t need to identify its cause.
The traditional cosmological arguments offered by Aquinas and others have largely been supplanted by contemporary versions of the argument, such as the Kalam cosmological argument.
Today, cosmologists almost universally confirm that our observable universe began at a Big Bang that brought into existence not only matter and energy, but space and time as well. Building on this, Christian philosophers such as William Lane Craig are promoting an up-to-date version of the cosmological argument that they think avoids the problems of earlier attempts, i.e.:
1. Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
2. The universe began to exist.
3. Therefore, the universe has a cause.
Rebuttal
Now, in order for the conclusion to be valid, the premises are required to be true. So, let’s examine each one in turn.
Everything that begins to exist has a cause.
• What reason is there to believe this causal principle is true, as it’s not self-evident, nor can it be deduced from any self-evident proposition. Therefore, there’s no reason to think it’s true. It is either false or it has the status of a statement we do not know if it’s true or false.
• All of the observations upon which this statement is based are changes in things — of something changing from one state to another. Things move, come to a rest, get larger, get smaller, combine with other things, divide in half, and so on. But we have no observation of things coming into existence. For example, we have no observations of people coming into existence. Here again, you merely have a change of things. An egg cell and a sperm cell change their state by combining. The combination divides, enlarges, and eventually evolves into an adult human being. Therefore, I conclude that we have no evidence at all that the empirical version of the statement, “Everything that begins to exist has a cause,” is true. All of the causes we are aware of are changes in pre-existing materials.
• We only observe what the norm within our universe is, and only know that the universe is in a particular state. We have no knowledge of what might hold outside the controls of the known universe, and physicists are agreed that the conditions realized during and shortly after the Big Bang were categorically different from conditions at present, with many physical laws operating quite differently than we are used to. Therefore, we have no evidence that “Everything that begins to exist has a cause” in every possible circumstance, especially the circumstances relevant to the origin of the universe, which we know for a fact to be categorically different from circumstances now. And since we only know of causes in time, we have no reason to believe causes can exist outside time.
The universe began to exist
• Whilst cosmologists are in general agreement that the current expansion of the observable universe began in the Big Bang, there is no such consensus that this event constitutes the beginning of the entire universe. Scientists have abandoned the certainty of that conviction, and philosophers can reach no agreement on it (and should defer to cosmological scientists on this question anyway). Stephen Hawking is one of few left who still think it likely, and even he is no longer certain.
• Even ‘Big Bang’ cosmology, which notoriously gives the universe a finite past, says that time itself has a beginning in the Big Bang, or at least can be interpreted this way. On that interpretation, the universe did not begin to exist, because there is no time at which it did not exist.
• Further, current cosmological theories – such as Andre Linde’s Chaotic Inflation theory and Lee Smolin’s fecund universes theory – allow for an infinitely old multiverse. This is the hypothetical set of multiple possible universes (including our universe) that together comprise all of physical reality.
• Proponents of the Kalam cosmological argument also attempt to formulate “logical” arguments against an eternal universe by mathematical means, but these arguments contradict the sound analysis of experts in transfinite mathematics. I won’t expand upon these any further in this presentation.
• Even if the conclusion could be shown to be true – which it can’t – then this argument would not prove that the creator is the Christian God. It could be a malevolent being, an impersonal force, a plurality of gods, or a finite God.
Therefore, since the truth of neither of the premises of the Kalam argument can be demonstrated, the argument’s conclusion cannot be demonstrated either.
Merlijn:
[would Searle’s view be characterized as property dualism? ]
yes by everyone else except Searle, no by Searle himself and he gets really angry over this for reasons that are AFAICT quite difficult to understand.
G. Tingely:
I am not going to put together a list for you of people who experienced divine revelations, because you clearly intend to dismiss them all as “loonies”. This is what I mean by a “non-question-begging definition of evidence”; materialists define evidence as “material evidence” and then demonstrate that there is no evidence for the existence of non-material things. It wouldn’t bother me except that they then pretend that they’ve proved it using “empirical evidence”, which is not at all the same thing.
Nick: No, I don’t mean the argument from first cause, sorry. I mean that the entire concept of time beginning at the big bang is at its heart based in scholastic argument.
A couple of questions for Merlijn:
1) “And that’s why demands for empirical evidence of its existence are question-begging: by definition, transcendent categories such as God cannot be part of the scientific model of the world.”
And how would you suggest (in principle) that the existence of such a transcendent entity be verified or falsified?
2) Also, “The anthropic question, for example (which by the way would go for cats just fine, if cats were intelligent), is not one that is solvable by science (though it could be informed by science in that what we currently regard as coincidences may in the future be reduced to the workings of only a few principles, etc.).”
This is not really true, is it? If some variety of multiverse theory is actually true (in which the fundamental constants are different in each ‘universe’), then it ceases to be an argument for the existence of god, as it becomes trivial.
In any such picture, in which the universe contains many parts with different values for what we call the constants of nature, there would be no difficulty in understanding why these constants take values favourable to intelligent life in our universe. There would be a vast number of big bangs in which the constants of nature take values unfavourable for life, and many fewer where life is possible. You don’t have to invoke a benevolent designer to explain why we are in one of the parts of the universe where life is possible: in all the other parts of the universe there is no one to raise the question. Science may, in principle, be able to answer this question one day.
A question for dsquared:
“I’d also note that there are lots and lots of cases recorded of direct divine revelation, and these cannot be ruled out of court as “empirical evidence” unless this term is to be defined in an entirely question-begging way.”
Since we know that human beings are prone to lying and to fantasy, how would you suggest (in principle) that we discriminate between those cases that are false, and those that may be true?
Nick:
“And how would you suggest (in principle) that the existence of such a transcendent entity be verified or falsified?”
It cannot be verified or falsified in the sense hypotheses about natural science can be. In this sense, by the way, theological hypotheses are in the good company of other subjects such as history, etc. Hypotheses about the existence of a transcendent entity can, however, be more or less coherent, more or less logically consistent, more or less all-encompassing (in for example subsuming a theory about the mind-matter relationship). So you’re moving in the realm of “pattern explanations” or “coherence explanations” rather than empirical explanations.
On antropic reasoning, you mentioned:
“This is not really true, is it? If some variety of multiverse theory is actually true (in which the fundamental constants are different in each ‘universe’), then it ceases to be an argument for the existence of god, as it becomes trivial.”
This is of course true, but I think it is besides the point. As even if the multiverse theory is rejected, and the current many “coincidences” cannot be reduced to much fewer (and therefore much less surprising) coincidences, moving from here to theism is still quite a leap, and theistic hypotheses still require the same kind of justification. In other words, I believe science is silent here either way – it can _inform_ but neither affirm nor reject theistic antropic reasoning (at least the theistic part of such).
[And how would you suggest (in principle) that the existence of such a transcendent entity be verified or falsified?]
transcendentally; through direct religious experience. Again, this is pretty orthodox theology, the doctrine that one discovers God personally and through faith. It is the “natural theology” school which believes that it’s possible to prove God exists by argument or evidence who are the oddballs. That’s why most Christian argument on the subject refers to itself as “apologetics”; it’s not aimed at proving the point because that’s fundamentally impossible, it’s aimed at breaking down the intellectual barriers that some people put up between themselves and the religious experience.
My personal opinion is that I don’t think I have any of these mental barriers and I haven’t ever had a religious experience so I don’t believe God exists, but I am under no illusions as to the value of this opinion to anyone else.
[Since we know that human beings are prone to lying and to fantasy, how would you suggest (in principle) that we discriminate between those cases that are false, and those that may be true?]
however you like or not at all; you were only asking for a way in which the question could be answered “in principle”.
Regarding “divine revelations”:
Muslims say Jesus was merely a prophet, albeit an important one. But Jesus is God, so their “divine revelation” is obviously wrong. Or perhaps God is confused, or can’t make up his mind, or was lying to Muhammed. Or something else.
Anyway, it’s a bit hard to take all that praise of logical argumentation in theology in the same debate as a defence of something as prone to self-contradiction as so-called divine so-called revelation.
“so I don’t believe God exists, but I am under no illusions as to the value of this opinion to anyone else.”
But so what? What follows from that? That it is futile (or cruel or destructive or wrongheaded or elitist or disrespectful or timewasting or some other bad thing or all those) to dispute the general relevance of personal religious experiences? And if so, does that apply only to the personal religious experiences that are in harmony with The World’s Major Religions, or one of The Three Great Monotheisms, or does it apply to any and all personal religious experiences, so that Heaven’s Gate and Jonestown and the Branch Davidians and Om Shin Rikyo and the local incarnation of god are equally owed the polite silence of unbelievers? Not only in personal relations, at the dinner table and so on, but in public discourse? Or does something else follow? If so, what?
I think dsquared’s identity has been taken over by a troll……
Come on, Who, what, where, when has divine intervention/revelation been seen.
This would, after all, be a detection of god, if proven.
Don’t be shy….
And of course one could say the same thing about any other disputed subject. “but I am under no illusions as to the value of this opinion to anyone else.” Well of course – few of us are under any illusions about the value of our opinions to people who don’t already share them. That’s true pretty much by definition. But (again) it doesn’t follow that we therefore just shrug and agree to differ and talk about something else. Sometimes we do, other times we don’t. The lawyers who defended Elif Shafak were probably under no illusions about the value of their opinions to the “nationalist lawyers who brought the case” (BBC) but that didn’t cause them to refuse the case or give up before arguing it. People who defend gay rights are under no illusions about the value of their opinions to Fred Phelps, but that doesn’t cause them to think they ought not to oppose his line of thinking.
Humility is a fine thing, but 1. you can have too much of it and 2. sometimes it is a mere pose.
I’ll take a stab at explaining the reasoning behind my own provisional “Dheism” (as I’m not sure whether it’s Deism or Theism) just so that Nick or G. Tingey can’t accuse me of dodging the issue. I see that DSquared and I disagree on one issue: I don’t really believe in personal revelation and faith and would therefore be closer to “natural theology”. I’ll probably continue refining, attacking and perhaps rejecting the outlines of arguments below for the next few decades or so.
1. I’m rather impressed by the lawfulness of the universe, and the fact that we seem to be rationally capable of making sense of it. It seems to me that the understandability of the universe and hence science’s success aren’t necessary components of it: we might imagine a universe where say gravity varies randomly – though we wouldn’t be able to live in it: I would believe that induction does uncover some very real properties of the universe. On the other hand, I would argue that mathematics and the laws of nature are abstract and _ideal_, rather than material things.
2. I would be dishonest if I were to deny that the antropic principle plays no role at all in my reasoning. But at the same time I am not very confident in it: either an empirical verification of a multiverse theory, or the reduction of many “coincidences” to a few, would shatter it. But if neither of these materialize, the antropic principle remains interesting (though anything but conclusive).
3. I do not believe mind can be reduced to matter. Briefly, it seems to me that any putative physical law put forward to explain the behaviour of for example humans in a deductive fashion would be so specific and particular as to be unrepeatable. Aside from that, any attempts to cover human behaviour, history and the like within deterministic, deductive schemes have failed miserably. The three positions I am veering between are emergent materialism/property dualism, some kind of panpsychism, and perhaps some kind of Platonic idealism which point 1) does seem to point towards. But even if I accept (emergentist) materialism, the study of human action (in history, linguistic change, etc.) does seem to point rather strongly to teleological explanations which are neither deterministic nor random and hence some kind of concept of free will.
4. If I take 1) seriously, then it does seem to me to lead to a position where ideal and abstract concepts seem to have reality as founding and governing principles of the phenomenal world. Combine this with 3), namely that mind is either an emergent or a fundamental property of matter, and it leads me to consider whether the universe does not only _seem_ rational and understandable and sensible, but whether it literally _is_ rational and sensible and understandable. And the latter is only a very small step away from a panentheist conception of Deity.
Merlijn,
One thing that always puzzles me about the Deist deity (as well as the IDist designer) is what kind of thing deists take it to be. So what kind of thing do you take it to be (if it exists etc)?
In other words there seems to me often to be a two-step in this chain of reasoning: one, that some sort of mind or intelligence or intentional agent is the cause of everything, and two, that that X is…the god everyone recognizes, the nice man who looks after us and heeds our prayers. It always seems to me that even if one buys one, the gulf between one and two is unbridgeable. It seems to me that even if there is an X – it’s not a person, it’s not nice, it’s not like us, it’s not something it makes much sense to pray to or venerate (except in a very abstract way, as one might venerate the stars above us), it’s not something to love, it’s not consoling. In fact it’s actually quite forbidding and repellent – worse than the god of traditional religion and in many ways worse (in terms of consolation etc) than atheism. So…what kind of thing do you think it’s likely to be?
I understand your objection, OB. I’m not at all ready myself to make the second step you mention – and indeed I see no sense in prayer, and the like. Of all the predicates traditionally associated with Deities, I’m quite OK with “rational”, halfway there with “beautiful” but very much wrestling with “good”. If one buys into anthropic reasoning (and I am hesitant to), we might make the case that there is a rational Deity that is interested, for some reason, in seeing life evolve at its own terms (as I think anthropic reasoning and ID are fundamentally incompatible). But even that is very cold comfort, because the evolution of life necessarily involves the death of “unfit” individuals, and whole species.
So without some serious leaps of faith (of which I have little), I don’t think my version of “Dheism” is very consoling. Except, perhaps, I could speculate that an immanent and omniscient Deity might “remember” all our individual memories and experiences when we are food for the worms. But even that would involve some measure of faith on my part, and I’m not sure if that’s very consoling, either ;-)
There’s suffering and suffering. The suffering of being dumped by your partner or accidentally smashing your thumb with a hammer is one thing. The suffering of having say cystic fibrosis and knowing you’re not going to make it past thirty, or being born in some famine-stricken hell-hole and not even getting that far, is quite another, and (as I hinted earlier)I think these are the most serious issues anyone proposing a _good_ Deity will have to face.
It’s perhaps indicative of my own rather worry-free life that I can spend so much time pondering the more “technical” issues instead. So I can’t answer your challenge, OB. Not at this time at least. Perhaps sometime I will. Though I would encourage you not to hold your breath.
I was thinking of animal suffering though. Also items like not being dumped by your partner but losing your partner or mother or child or best friend to illness or war or murder. Or, hell, why mess around, of seeing your whole family wiped out in a bout of ethnic cleansing while you hide in the closet.
But that deity needs to face animal suffering too. And just think how much of it there is, and how entirely inconsolable it is. They don’t have fairy tales or hopes of the future to help them. Just think of all the animals that die slow painful deaths of injury and starvation. The world reeks of suffering, it howls with it. If there is a deity, I always think, it’s a monster. I can see no way to think otherwise, other than by simple denial. And of course that doesn’t cut it – because if there is a deity, it really is a deity that allows all this suffering, whether we ignore the fact or not.
You know…it strikes me that’s an odd thing. Atheists are always accused of being shallow and unspiritual. But it occurs to me that people who believe in a kind god have to be pretty damn shallow and unspiritual themselves, to either ignore or be unworried by all that suffering. It should worry them!
I think many believers – especially the ones who really think things through – are worried, though. And religiosity, at least to a big extent, is a reaction against the injustice and cruelty of the world as much as it is a product of it (and at worst, also a catalyst of it). Marx had that one right – “Religious suffering is, at one and the same time, the expression of real suffering and a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world, and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
A God who could change things for the better but does not would be indeed a monster. The only way to reconcile the existence of a non-malevolent Deity with the horrors of the world would be to assume that he cannot intervene to assuade the suffering of humans and animals, or to change the mechanisms which produce it (which I think is the position Harold Kushner ends up in his reflection on theodicy).
Hmmmm. I’m not convinced. The ones who think it through and are worried are not all that evident. Even (or perhaps especially) liberal believers (I’m thinking of the late William Sloane Coffin for example) think God is good – but they involve themselves in difficulties by thinking so.
Sure, religiosity is a reaction to the cruelty of the world, but it can only be that by closing its eyes to the nature of the god it worships.
‘Basically and from half-memory, in the quoted excerpt, Dawkins says that God “would have to be complex”, which is not compatible with the Unity of Divinity. God doesn’t have parts, and so the complexity of their relationship is not an issue. The “how it communicates” question is also ill-posed; God is present in entirety at every point in space and time, and thus has no need to communicate between different points in space and time. The omnipresence attribute of divinity also means that the question of “how it came into existence” is also ill posed; note that physicists actually borrow this argument from the Summa Theologicae when they want to answer questions about “what was before the Big Bang”.’
I think this is just pure drivel, a form of mental masturbation. Where Dawkins is most brilliant and most on topic is making the usual things people of religion do and put them under the scope so to speak.
If you are communicating with a deity your doing it in this world and he/she must receive it in the only world we have. Tap dancing around with theological mumbo jumbo simply doesn’t cut it.
To say Dawkins needs to read theology(as if he hasn’t) and debate on those terms is silly. Theology is a vacant enterprise based on the assumptions of whatever religion spews it forth. The answers have been entirely unsatisfactory for, well, ever.
To call the first cause argument ill posed is simply baffling. It is much different to ask what came before the big band than to presuppose a super intelligence for which no evidence exists behind it all.
“Sure, religiosity is a reaction to the cruelty of the world, but it can only be that by closing its eyes to the nature of the god it worships.”
Except that Christianity posits quite a different God – one who will set things right and give everyone their due after the Final Judgement. Which was a belief absolutely permeating Christianity in its early centuries, when it was still the religion of slaves and the common man in the Roman Empire.
Uber:
“If you are communicating with a deity your doing it in this world and he/she must receive it in the only world we have. Tap dancing around with theological mumbo jumbo simply doesn’t cut it.”
But DSquared was arguing (rightly IMO) that Dawkins was departing from a false analogy. Communicating between people requires a sender, a receiver, and a medium through which a signal is transmitted. If God is omnipresent, and omniscient, there is no distance between the sender and receiver, and no “communication” in the way we understand the term. That does not necessarily mean a omnipresent God makes any sense, mind you. It just means that Dawkins’ particular lampooning of it doesn’t.
Again, if you want to take a more-or-less empiricist, materialist view of the world as basic, in which more or less knowable things move around against a background of space and time, and argue the existence of God makes no sense within that view – fair enough. But theistic views of the world may be a whole different ball game, may depart from wholly different philosophical backgrounds – and these need to be acknowledged for any criticism of theology to make sense.
[That it is futile (or cruel or destructive or wrongheaded or elitist or disrespectful or timewasting or some other bad thing or all those) to dispute the general relevance of personal religious experiences? ]
No, just that there is this whole mountain of first-hand testimony out there and it is surely wrong to pretend it doesn’t exist when having opinions about the universe.
If you look at my argument for not believing in God, it’s laughably weak. It’s based on an important premis (my belief that I have removed all intellectual barriers to having a religious experience) which is incredibly contestable. I’m not at all an infallible judge of whether I’ve reached that state of open-mindedness (some would say, can’t imagine why, that I am perhaps a touch arrogant and that this is an obstacle to achieving divine grace).
So my not having had a religious experience is a piece of data, but it doesn’t actually distinguish between the twin hypotheses that a) I am enlightened but there is no God, and b) there is a God but I am not enlightened.
(in passing, the fact that different religions disagree is nothing like as good an argument as Hume thought it was; the under-determination of theory by data is always the case in philosophy of science and the religious problem is entirely parallel).
I don’t think anyone’s entitled to “polite silence” and unquestioning respect for my beliefs – I don’t think anything in my behaviour anywhere has ever given this impression – but I do think it’s wrong of atheists to claim logical support for their position of a kind which is not actually there.
It just occurred to me, reading this interminable discussion, that it is all very like *Lost* [the TV show] — at first you think you know what the rules are, but as it goes on it all becomes more and more impenetrably insane, until the only logical explanation becomes that what is happening is the result of a consciously sadistic plan to have it *not* make sense, and for the inhabitants to suffer as much as possible along the way. Or am I just tired of pretentious TV shows?
Ah yes, “Why does God permit suffering”
The title of an unctuous leaflet in the church I can see from my front windows – I was there last night for a concert of 18th Century music – the place has quite a good acoustic for small(ish) bands.
Well, the answer(s) are quite simple.
1. God doesn’t exist, and suffering happens.
2. He/she/it or they are cruel vindictive bastards, playing a particularly elaborate practicaljoke.
“A certainty that evil develops in the footprints of people who are morally certain they are right(and pure and holy)”
I saw that recently, but I can’t remember where.
I note dsquared hasn’t come up with any examples, or was it thatPaul Power’s comment about “Well Mahmud had divine revelation, but Jesus didn’t or not so much – or the other way around, according to preference” bit that has squased that.
For example, was the unbelievably unpleasant Albanian nun “Mother Theresa” divinely inspired/revelated – or was it “the devil” – oops!
[I note dsquared hasn’t come up with any examples]
Sorry: I thought I had made it clear that I didn’t think you were arguing in good faith and had therefore stopped responding to you. Glad to clear this up, and hope it doesn’t seem too rude.
Dave. Your description of Lost actually reminds me of trying to follow 9 years of New Labour ‘NHS reforms’.
No, just that there is this whole mountain of first-hand testimony out there and it is surely wrong to pretend it doesn’t exist when having opinions about the universe.
Nobody is pretending the testimony doesn’t exist. There is plenty of testimony about UFO abduction, many people believe in satanic abuse, and I’ve even met people who claim that communism is a workable form of government.
Which means that of course those people are all correct. Air traffic control in the US struggles to route airliners around all the flying saucers. The graveyards overflow with headstones bewailing the ritual killing of a child. And North Korea will soon be the world’s only remaining superpower.
How can we ignore all that testimony when considering what might be true?
If you have any friends suffering from schizophrenia then you will know how real their haullucinations seem, and to the people they tell them to, not just to themselves. You have to remind yourself that what they are saying is not real.
Now you can complain that I am dismissing people as loonies all you like. I am not. I am not dismissing and I am not calling them loonies. Their testimony is of an actually lived experience, they are not liars, and they are certainly not fools.
But either you apply your argument to all testimony of experience (including UFO abduction and faerie encounters), which creates great problems for religion, or you have to explain why we should listen to those who see The Blessed Virgin but not those who see Little Grey Men.
A minor contribution to this important debate but surely in Nick’s universe it can’t be the anthropic principle because the root of that is anthro which relates to human. So pussopic maybe?
[But either you apply your argument to all testimony of experience (including UFO abduction and faerie encounters), which creates great problems for religion, or you have to explain why we should listen to those who see The Blessed Virgin but not those who see Little Grey Men. ]
because in general, people who have had religious experiences do not present any other symptoms of mental illness, and there are much more of them.
In case anyone is still following this thread (which I came to late…
Merlijn wrote:
>I understand your objection, OB. I’m not at all ready myself to make the second step you mention – and indeed I see no sense in prayer, and the like.< May I humbly suggest that if unbelievers (like myself) want to go beyond scientific/theological debate into the world inhabited by legions of believers of great variety we need to try to appreciate the likelihood (I would say “fact” in most cases) that they are not (at heart) particularly interested in truth-content in any scientific sense, but in the meaning that their beliefs give to their lives. For example, however one may denigrate prayer from a rational point of view, what is important to the believer is the experience of praying. Here’s an analogy (it may not be a good one, so I put it forward to be shot at): Certain kinds of music produce in receptive listeners a powerful sense of meaning which cannot be spelled out in intellectual terms (perhaps meaning is the wrong word – let’s say an experience that is valued for its own sake, and needs no intellectual justification). For such listeners there is no (obvious) rational explanation for spending time listening to a group of people using various implements to make sounds that happen to cohere in particular ways. They don’t feel it necessary to find rational grounds for partaking in such experiences – the experiences are themselves the justification. I think that for a great many people religious rituals (whether partaken individually or in groups) play such a role, and no amount of critical analysis of the truth-content of the beliefs that encompass the religious practices is going to influence the great majority of such people to subject their beliefs to rational enquiry of the kind valued by people who inhabit the world of B&W. I’m not saying that it is a waste of time to discuss religious beliefs in rational/scientific terms, only that one should appreciate that for many people their religious beliefs and/or practices (primitive or sophisticated) inhabit a different experiential world that is not amenable to the kind of logical arguments to be found, e.g., on this thread.
Though it pains me to say so, I think dsquared is right in his criticisms of Dawkins’s religion stuff.
The trouble is just that he goes after easy targets; the stuff that sophisticated religious believers don’t actually believe anyway (and yes, that is an argument by defintion).
And, as far as personal experience is concerned, Phillipa Foot tells this story about the Michael Dummett:
“I once asked Michael, ‘What happens when your argument goes one way and your religious belief goes the other?’ And he said, ‘How would it be if you knew that something was true? Other things would have to fit with it.’ That I take it is the clue, that they think they know that and could as little deny it as that I am talking to someone now.”
Sorry to lower the bar on this perhaps, but Allan – “that they are not (at heart) particularly interested in truth-content in any scientific sense, but in the meaning that their beliefs give to their lives.”
Yes. Fine. But why don’t they admit just that and stop telling me stuff like as an atheist that I can’t appreciate the beauty of the universe properly ? Stop asserting that my life is arid and rudderless ? That it’s in their realm that all the great works of art and music were created ? That they were right to invade/rob/bomb x country ? It’s not all in response to Dawkins is it, this eternal YouNeedGod message that’s all over the media these days? And why don’t they stop nicking the tools of rationality when it suits them and then chuck them back blunted by certainty in Einstein’s dusty garage when they find the need to feel loftier than their neighbour about something ? Don’t get me wrong – I really LIKE my local CofE vicar, and the Bishop who’s a family friend of an old friend. The Muslim family of my friend in Cairo. My own Methodist preacher grandfather, rest in peace. Lovely sane thoughtful people all.
But the casual effrontery dished out publicly – deliberately – by organised religions, well, it really does bring out the intellectual yobbo in me who perhaps likes Dawkins a little too much. Should I just wear a thicker skin because they choose to walk to the beat of a different drum ? No. I want my rights like anyone else.
That said maybe it’s time people (present elevated company excepted perhaps) just got off the subject and talked about golf instead, or kite-making, or gardening tips… what was it Bill Hicks said about CNN News….
For Merlijn, dsquared, and others. In case anybody is interested, I am posting a few pertinent comments on a blog that I have just started. I had far too much to say to just keep posting here.
I will make all longer posts to that blog from now one.
See – http://freethinkingblog.blogspot.com/
“Except that Christianity posits quite a different God – one who will set things right and give everyone their due after the Final Judgement.”
Well I know that – but is it Christianity we were talking about? I thought we were talking about the deity as first cause or intelligent agent. In fact I’m sure we were: I said: “One thing that always puzzles me about the Deist deity (as well as the IDist designer) is what kind of thing deists take it to be. So what kind of thing do you take it to be (if it exists etc)?” We weren’t talking about Christianity.
“No, just that there is this whole mountain of first-hand testimony out there and it is surely wrong to pretend it doesn’t exist when having opinions about the universe.”
I’m not pretending it doesn’t exist, but I am treating personal experience with skepticism. If the deity in question is one that reveals itself to some people but not others and refuses ever to reveal itself to all six billion plus of us in unmistakable terms – then it’s a tiresome trickster, and I say the hell with it.
“So my not having had a religious experience is a piece of data, but it doesn’t actually distinguish between the twin hypotheses that a) I am enlightened but there is no God, and b) there is a God but I am not enlightened.”
Sure. But I nevertheless think the default position should be that there is no god, not that there is one. A god that needs all this special pleading and special (enlightened) techniques and special mental states is not one that deserves the benefit of the doubt.
Allen,
Sure; agreed about belief. I haven’t always been this aggressive about religious belief, actually. But believers have gotten so aggressive recently – especially over here – that I (along with a good many other people) feel a need to point out that however comforting etc religious belief may be, it’s not actually very well warranted, so non-believers should not be forever put on the defensive. What Nick S said, in other words. (So Nick isn’t Nick S? My, how confusing…)
“the stuff that sophisticated religious believers don’t actually believe anyway”
So what is it that sophisticated religious believers believe? What kind of thing do they take this universe-creator deity to be?
dasquared:
No I am not arguing in good FAITH (my emphasis)
Given that faith is defined as belief without evidence.
I am arguing with and from reason.
Lets’ see some real, practical, demonstrable examples.
Oh and: … “because in general, people who have had religious experiences do not present any other symptoms of mental illness, and there are much more of them.”
I would, unfortunately, agree with that.
I have got this branch of a US-based church “The Potter’s House” in the next
street. There are lots of them, they’ve all had religious/hysterical/brainwashing experiences, and every single one of them is off their head.
The ONLY reponse I can get from the is “Jesus loves you” on,and on and on and on and on and on and ……..
It is quite impossible to try to talk to them.
This is in spite of (because of?) the fact that 99% of the local population hate them, because of the disruption they cause locally.
I used to be a very quiet agnostic.
Then this lot turned up, and the muslims started demanding “respect” (in the usual gangster terms).
Now I’m still theoretically an agnostic, because of my engineering/physics training – I want evidence.
But I see no need to be polite or nice to people like the above-mentioned.
Nor do I see any need to accomodate dquared’s deliberate and dishonest evasions.
Nick S. wrote:
>But why don’t they admit just that and stop telling me stuff like as an atheist that I can’t appreciate the beauty of the universe properly ? Stop asserting that my life is arid and rudderless ? That it’s in their realm that all the great works of art and music were created?< etc, etc. Who is the “they” here? Since you make the above statement immediately following my use of “they”, it implies the same “they”. But there are huge numbers of people who hold religious beliefs who don’t spend time telling atheists these things, who (certainly in Western Europe) really don’t care what other people believe or don’t believe (and, as in the UK, have little time for organised religion, even if when questioned they own up to adherence to specific creeds such as wishy-washy CoE). By all means speak out in this way – but I suggest you direct your fire less indiscriminately (as, I acknowledge, you did after your initial burst!). The religious believer who holds to their beliefs in the sense I outlined above might equally well object that atheists shouldn’t keep telling them what they should or should not believe – and would be equally unjustified in making such a blanket complaint.
because in general, people who have had religious experiences do not present any other symptoms of mental illness, and there are much more of them
Nor do abductees, satanic abuse believers or commited communists. At least study what you wish to dismiss.
But let’s assume that we are talking at cross purposes and that I’m discussing burning bushes where you are discussing songs of praise.
Everyday religiosity can be reproduced medically or electrically. Even non-believing control groups can summon made-up spirits under seance conditions. There is very little in the experience of religion that not only has non-theistic explanations but can actually be reproduced. I don’t want to go all James Randi here, but the idea of a God debated into existence by theologists is not very compelling compared to this.
“The religious believer who holds to their beliefs in the sense I outlined above might equally well object that atheists shouldn’t keep telling them what they should or should not believe”
That’s one reason secularism is a good default position for the public sphere. It’s perfectly possible to be a believer and secular; it is perfectly possible to keep beliefs as a private, personal matter, and thus avoid public wrangles about what to believe. But arguments like Stephen Carter’s that keeping religion private “trivializes” it have been all too effective.
“It’s perfectly possible to be a believer and secular…”
Exactly – and that’s what Dawkins can’t see. Just as he can’t see that it’s possible to be an atheist without being anti-religious.
My response to Stephen Carter is that if his values and thinking are shaped by his particular brand of Christianity, he shouldn’t have to pretend otherwise. Hell, if he was shaped by Star Wars movies, he can be up front about that too. But we do not have establishment of religion in the U.S. He can propose policies that agree with his religious faith, but he needs to be prepared to justify them in religiously neutral terms as well. It doesn’t suffice to say this is what Jesus (or Yoda) would want.
“He can propose policies that agree with his religious faith, but he needs to be prepared to justify them in religiously neutral terms as well.”
Exactly. And that would function to put theists and atheists on an equal footing, and that would probably make aggressive atheists like me less aggressive. I could go be aggressive about Shakespeare or something. Or ice cream – that’s it – “why don’t you like Larry’s brownie thunder ice cream?!”
OB – we weren’t talking about Christianity as such but in your response to your comment that “Sure, religiosity is a reaction to the cruelty of the world, but it can only be that by closing its eyes to the nature of the god it worships.”, I thought it pertinent to point out that at least Christianity, and in some ways Judaism and Islam as well I think, have a concept of Divine justice in spite of all this.
In response to your later comments – I can of course understand why the particular kind of boneheaded stupidity-glorifying fundamentalism so popular on your side of the pond would make American atheists a little aggressive. But don’t lose that aggression – it makes for some damn good writing on your part ;-)
Allan Esterson – I think I agree with your comment. I personally like to distinguish theism or deism as a philosophical position from religion as a social activity, a force for social cohesion (for good or bad – and quite often for bad) and the “heart of a heartless world”. I also think I agree with DSquared that for many people, religiosity is built on personal religious experience more than anything else, and that the mainstream position within theology is probably some kind of version of the seperate magisteria argument.
“Johnaton” said …
“”It’s perfectly possible to be a believer and secular…”
Exactly – and that’s what Dawkins can’t see. Just as he can’t see that it’s possible to be an atheist without being anti-religious.”
Erm, perhaps.
But, if like Salman R., you found out that the religious came calling for YOU.
Or, like me, was perpared to let them get on with it, UNTIL they invaded your street, made every Sunday (and most Wendnesdays, and at least two other days of the week) unpleasant, and had muslims blowing up the train next to the one in which your wife was, you would perhaps think that a slightly more aggressive (philosophically speaking) stance might be a good idea.
No, I’m afraid Dawkins is right, I wish it was not so, but that is the way the world is.
‘because in general, people who have had religious experiences do not present any other symptoms of mental illness, and there are much more of them.’
Oh really? Thats just baloney. And it is no more or less so for people who believe in alien abduction.
‘The trouble is just that he goes after easy targets; the stuff that sophisticated religious believers don’t actually believe anyway (and yes, that is an argument by defintion’
Sophisticated religious believers if there is such a thing only obscure the same questions/answers under many more big words and much more baloney.
The end result is the same. It’s funny how people presume Dawkins as learned as he is must be unaware of these arguments.
Allen Esterson – I wasn’t specific, you rightly point this out. I meant a certain influencial gang of churches’ punditry, the religious commentariat, preachers on Radio 4’s Thought for the Day Programme, Madders Bunting, people like that. There’s been a lot of reactive comment right here at B&W ocver the last few years. It’s on the ascendency, and has been since the tail end of the velvet revolution/ big bang economics segued into the islamist attacks on foreign soil. (Religion has become an easily located rallying point in international relations since the bi-polar simplicity of the cold war.)
That said -non-broadcasting ordinary people who don’t write columns almost invariably leave me alone, whatever their beliefs, or how their beliefs contradict mine, and I almost always leave them alone, unless questioning them in a condition of polite bemusement… no point being rude to ornery folk.