Redundant
Nigel Warburton interviews Richard Norman and asks why he rejects the idea that God exists. Norman gives a good clear succinct answer that would cut through a lot of the disputes that keep turning up like clumps of dust under beds.
I believe that the onus is on those who believe in the existence of a god to provide reasons for that belief. (This is a point which the philosopher Antony Flew has well made.) I can’t prove that there is no god, but in the absence of good reasons for believing that a god exists, I live my life without belief in a god. In particular, the success of scientific explanations of the natural world makes religious explanations redundant. It’s in that sense that there is a tension between science and religion. The two are not logically incompatible, but the more we succeed in discovering well-founded scientific explanations of the origins of the cosmos, the origins of living species, and so on, the more the explanations in terms of a divine creator become redundant. They add nothing.
There. Quite simple really. We can’t prove there is no god, but in the absence of good reasons for believing there is one, we don’t. There are good explanations of the natural world, so the religious ones are redundant. They add nothing. So – we do without them. That’s all.
A pretty concise description of my views that one. I’ve always described my atheism as an application of Occam’s razor. That Bill was a crafty chap, for a Franciscan.
Sorry OB, but that’s too simple.
First of all, I think dispute is possible over what is a good reason. Someone like Francis Collins would raise that his personal religious experiences are perfectly good reasons for him to believe that God exists. You or anyone else would have no reason to be convinced by those experiences – since by definition, they are personal, subjective and impossible to evaluate. Yet, this does not pose any reason for Collins to disbelieve his own experiences. And the proposition you would disbelieve in, and Collins would believe in, is the same.
Second, there are good explanations for natural phenomena within the natural world – the origin and development of species, the development (though probably not the ultimate origin of) the Cosmos (in the widestmost sense), and so forth. The skeptical argument alluded to is perfectly applicable to, say, something unexplained but in principle explainable within naturalism. The origin of life, or the DNA code, is a good example. Currently (as far as I know) unexplained – but there it is not inconceivable, to say the least, that it eventually will be scientifically explained. Slightly more dubiously, the same would go for the anthropic coincidences which brought Anthony Flew to Deism (sorry, had to rub that in ;-)).
However, the picture of the world which we can establish on the basis of science and a “minimal metaphysics” including such working assumptions as external realism necessarily ends with brute facts. Theistic world-pictures do too (unless the concept of a necessary being can be succesfully defended). But this means the “no good reasons” argument for atheism cannot hold in an a priori fashion, at least not the way it was presented in your post. Because it would leave some brute facts unexplained which theism endeavours to explain (succesfully or not), while theism may leave some other brute fact(s) unexplained.
And that brings us back full circle. As theism has provided reasons to back up its claimed superiority over a non-theist world-view – but in as far as these are philosophical rather empirical, Norman’s objection would not apply to them. And whereas these are open to challenge, I think that neither challenge nor defense will ultimately be decisive. Because they tend to be qualitatively different than the teapot-around-Saturnus or the God-of-the-Gaps argument.
Merlijn,
That was great. I love reading your comments, although sometimes they’re a little over my head. For example, the part where you demonstrated that ‘theism has provided reasons to back up its claimed superiority…’
Was that paragraph 3? Could you expand?
“The two are not logically incompatible, but the more we succeed in discovering well-founded scientific explanations of the origins of the cosmos, the origins of living species, and so on, the more the explanations in terms of a divine creator become redundant.”
I’m afraid this is much too charitable. Darwin and creationism *are* logically incompatible, and in general, whenever we discover something new about the world, relevant religous beliefs become not merely redundant, but downright incompatible with them.
Sure.
Suppose we are dealing with the Argument from Reason, which was put forth perhaps most explicitly by Lewis, but which goes back a very long time. Basically:
1) Reason/logic cannot be explained with recourse to the natural, causal world – as such an explanation would relativize reason but would itself be buttressed by reason. General problem with reducing a normative “ought” system to an “is” system. This argument is pretty widely shared (Popper in “The Open Universe”, Nagel in “The Last Word”. Plantinga’s argument against naturalism is closely related).
2) We might, then, suppose that reason is metaphysically an elementary part of our world (Popper does not dwell on this issue – Nagel considers it).
3) (2) would make sense within a theistic world-picture, as the universe would be created by a rational being: rather than explaining reason on the basis of nature, we might explain nature on the basis of reason. It would, however, run counter to a physicalist world-picture. It could conceivably fit within an atheistic world-picture which holds to some kind of dualism. But at the very least, if valid, it does provide some support for theism, albeit probably no decisive support.
Anyway, the obvious counter-argument to the above is challenging (2) – arguing that reason/logic are wholly based on physics even if we may not be able to ultimately scientifically show that they are. I think Thomas Nagel leans towards such a view.
But doing so, whether it works or not, means counterposing a metaphysics with another metaphysics. Reason and logic may well be parts of a wholly physical, causal world, and simply be outside of our scientific purview. The point is, however, that the scientific explanations such as we have for the origin of species and conceivably for the origin of life are unavailable. So the atheistic worldview would in this sense have to be measured against the theistic one by other means (i.e. are there inconsistencies in the theistic one which the atheistic one solves, etc.).
This kind of argument, however, would be quite different from the one Norman holds.
“I’m afraid this is much too charitable. Darwin and creationism *are* logically incompatible, and in general, whenever we discover something new about the world, relevant religous beliefs become not merely redundant, but downright incompatible with them.”
Darwinism and Creationism are incompatible only in as far as Creationism/ID posits itself as a scientific theory. But we could perhaps conceive of some kind of causal overdetermination: some kind of evolutionary event might be caused by, at the same time, an act of God and random mutation+natural selection. It’s a somewhat daft idea, putting it mildly. But I see no logical problem with it.
In any event, the incompatibility remark related to science and religion, rather than to creationism.
Sorry Merlijn, but that’s too complicated.
For one thing I think you’re misreading what Norman says. You’re attributing more to him than he said. He didn’t say there are good reasons for someone like Francis Collins not to believe, he referred to “the absence of good reasons for believing that a god exists” – that’s a different thing. Nigel had asked him why he rejected belief in god, not why Francis Collins ought to. Further, the fact that Francis Collins would say that his personal religious experiences are perfectly good reasons for him to believe that God exists seems to me to be profoundly beside the point, since (as you say) they don’t constitute good reasons for Norman to believe that.
And even though dispute is of course possible over what is a good reason, I don’t think it’s true that “this does not pose any reason for Collins to disbelieve his own experiences”. It seems to me that one good criterion for a good reason to believe that god exists is that it is wide open, unambiguous, public, sharable, communicable, commensurable, non-subjective, external. I think that would be one criterion that would make it a good reason as opposed to a bad one. There are reasons why pure inner experience is not considered evidence and is not considered a good reason to believe something. Those reasons are as accessible to Francis Collins as they are to anyone else – so I think the fact that Francis Collins’s experience is far from universal, let alone replicable or testable, is a good reason for him to have considerable skepticism about his own experiences. The one word ‘hallucination’ would be a place to start.
Sure, science ends with brute facts, but it does it a very very long time later than theism does, and there is a great deal of evidence and investigation and inference before that. Theism skips that whole phase; it just starts with the brute facts, or the brute assertions, from the beginning. So the two are not, as you seem to be trying to claim, equivalent.
Hmmmm… You’re right about hallucinations – I’ve had them, and very quickly decided that they were not representative of anything outside of my own mind – though more comes into play here than the inability to justify their reality to others (notably, internal consistency and the like). But on second thought, I did read Norman’s point too widely there.
Sticking to my guns on the second question, though. Because here we move beyond what Norman personally believes or disbelieves (of course, if Norman or you or I have not heard any convincing reason that God exists, we don’t believe he exists – absent pure faith but let’s not go there. That is simple). The question here is whether there are, in general, reasons to believe God exists.
I think the skeptical argument here is valid *only* if we can conceive having scientific explanations for all the explananda involved. And I don’t think we can. I think there are some areas principally outside of the “God-of-the-gaps” domain.
Putting it in another way, in the areas that the old cosmological argument, the argument from reason, etcetera, deal with, science in principle has not and will not have anything to say. As opposed to the origin of life, the prospect of uniting relativity and quantum, etc. Which means that the argument “We should reject theistic explanations here because it is conceivable that science will come up with better explanations” fails here. The rules of the game are different.
I actually accept Norman’s argument when dealing with such areas as the origin of life. Meaning I tend to reject theistic explanations a priori in those areas. But one cannot reject, say, the cosmological arguments in a similar a priori fashion. One has to attack them. So the game goes on.
Sure, Collins apparently has had experiences he has interpreted as revelatory of God. I may have had experiences I interpret as revelatory of the Spaghetti Monster. (Reading Dr. Myers often provides them to me, for example.) So what? We’re just left with our own self-indulgent interpretations of our individual experiences. That’s nothing that could be called “reason.”
And anyway, what is meant by “explanation of reason/logic”? Before I took up the question of whether such an explanation could be furnished by the “natural, causal world” I would need to know what such an explanation would look like, and to know that I would need to know just what we are talking about with the words “reason” and “logic.” Without further narrowing down, terms like “reason” and “logic” are far too ambiguous to be used in searches for causal explanations. Do you mean the traditional laws of deductive logic, for example? What would it mean for them to have “causes”? What “causes” modus ponens? I wouldn’t have the faintest idea. But maybe others are less dense than I.
“I think the skeptical argument here is valid *only* if we can conceive having scientific explanations for all the explananda involved.”
But doesn’t that just assume there are only two possibilities – that we can conceive having scientific explanations for all the explananda involved, or that the absence of such an explanation constitutes a reason to believe – not, that there is Something, X, that might explain it, but that God exists. I could see the first a lot more easily than the second. I don’t see why ‘science can’t in principle explain this’ leads ineluctably to a reason for believing, specifically, that God exists. Why that? Why not something else? A cause, or a motor, or a string of code, or something we can’t even label. Why God?
If it’s always God that you insist there are good reasons for believing in the existence of which, then it looks a little like special pleading.
JonJ: Suppose it’s raining outside. Before opening the door, I get my umbrella. Someone asks me why I take an umbrella. I say that it’s raining. Now, we can try and reconstruct the whole reasoning that went into me taking my umbrella (“If I have an umbrella while it’s raining, I won’t get wet” “I don’t want to get wet” “Let’s take an umbrella”) etc. Suffice to say that the thought processes would follow generally valid logical lines, the action taken is conductive to a certain purpose, etc. Which is what I would mean with “reason”.
Now assume thatwe have achieved a total, complete reduction of the mental to the physical. We know how thought relates to complexes of neurons firing, etc. We can deduce a certain definite mental act from a certain brain processes.
Then, when asked why I take my umbrella, I could point to the specific neurochemical make-up of my brain, rather than bolster it with some kind of logical reasoning.
The crux of the issue is that the same thing would go for all the reasoning and argument that went into the scientific reduction mentioned above. It, too, would be explained by neurochemistry rather than logic. Which if correct (and I think it is) would mean the whole idea would be self-refuting: by reducing logic to neurochemical processes, the very notions on which science *must* rest are explained away.
So when you say: “What would it mean for them to have “causes”? What “causes” modus ponens? I wouldn’t have the faintest idea.” I actually agree. The whole notion of physical causes for arguments is highly problematic. Because the former is an “is” (typically, we may observe something in the physical realm – say a chemical reaction – but the whole method is predicated on us being able to _conceive_ that the reaction doesn’t take place, that whatever theory we have to account for it is falsified, etc.), the latter an “ought” (we cannot really _conceive_ of a world where modus ponens is invalid, because logic puts constraints on our thinking. We could easily conceive of a world where, say, gravity is a bit more powerful).
The above does not mean that our logical thought-processes *aren’t* ultimately physically caused. The argument also works mainly against reductionist physicalism: what it would do to ’emergentist’ materialism I don’t know.
(Now I need to sleep)
“Which if correct (and I think it is) would mean the whole idea would be self-refuting: by reducing logic to neurochemical processes, the very notions on which science *must* rest are explained away.”
Are you suggesting that a world in which there was no non-material mind would be a world without logical principles? I don’t see that at all. Logical truths (Wittgenstein’s tautologies) would be logically true whether there were non-material minds or no non-material minds, no?
And at any rate, what does this have to do with proving the existence of God, which was the original subject of the discussion. How one gets from logical truth to God “causing” logical truths to be logically true loses me completely.
It’s meant to.
I have no problem with understanding my ‘reason’ to be an emergent phenomenon of brain-chemistry, evolved under pressure of resolving highly-complex social situations. I think it’s a wonderful thing, but I really do have no problem with that explanation of its existence. It is the people who *do* have a problem with that who, evidently, have the problem, not us…
Merlijn, are you playing silly buggers?
Yes, Merlijn IS playing silly buggers.
he also said: “As theism has provided reasons to back up its claimed superiority over a non-theist world-view …”
No, it hasn’t.
Theism has produced vast amounts of hot air, and a lot of threats and bullying and sophistry.
But no reasons.
None that will stand up to a practical test, at any rate.
“The argument also works mainly against reductionist physicalism”
The ability to reduce metaphysical assumptions to physical phenomena works against reductionist physicalism?
Anyway:
Faith clearly exists and is a gift from God so this proves God’s existence. But proof of God’s existence would render faith null. Therefore the existence of faith destroys the only mode of confirming the existence God that the religious accept. Faith therefore compels the religious to be atheists, that is people who canot accept the existence of God based on the evidence from any available way of knowing. QED.
Merlijn,
If you can’t follow Ophelia’s sound advice to start off with evidence, investigation and inference instead of unsubstantiated assertions, then at least you should stick to theodicy (vindicating the ways of God to man). That’s where the shit hits the proverbial for the second time (the first time is when you start placing the burden of proof on the non-believer).
Forget the rest until you’ve solved that one — which you won’t be able to do, because it is based on a logical contradiction.
Everything else is just icing on an unpalatable cake, hardly worth the mental effort unless it’s your day job and you’re paid for it.
And think of the opportunity costs. All those billions of hours wasted by intelligent men debating whether or not the Holy Ghost ‘proceeded’ through the Father alone, or through the Father and the Son (the filioque doctrine). The ID ‘debate’ is at much the same intellectual level, with a smattering of science fiction to boot.
OB: I think I partially agree with you there. But I am certainly not implying that the absence of a scientific explanation in some area automatically constitutes a reason to believe. Just that such reasons, if they are argued, cannot be rejected in an a priori fashion.
But suppose that you would be convinced by some form of the cosmological argument: that all (contingent) existence is somehow (constantly) caused by something necessarily existing. You would be quite right to hold that you then believe in something necessarily existing, not God. And that someone who raises the argument in support of, say, the loving and merciful God of liberal Christianity is engaging in an unsupported leap. One thing s/he might do is raise that the whole loving merciful God thing is based on faith, and that the argument merely establishes the existence of something which might be God. But then we’re back to square one: you have no compelling reason to share that faith.
However, the arguments do establish properties associated with the God of monotheism – transcendence, necessary existence, reason in the case of the argument from reason, etc. They’re not entirely irrelevant to whether it is God either. Something unnamable, maybe – but a teapot around Saturnus, no.
I don’t think they can amount to a decisive case though, as I’ve stated before. But all the pieces put together, they could create an argumentation for theism which falls or stands on its own philosophical ground, rather than on the presence or absence of scientific evidence. Which is the main point I’m making here.
JonJ: “Are you suggesting that a world in which there was no non-material mind would be a world without logical principles? I don’t see that at all.”
No – I explicitly stated the contrary! I’m stating the impossibility of a world in which logical principles are succesfully reduced to matter. But that in itself has no bearing on mind-matter relationships at all.
“And at any rate, what does this have to do with proving the existence of God, which was the original subject of the discussion.”
One would get there by proceeding from the *practical* irreducibility of reason to physics to arguing for its *metaphysical* irreducilibility: i.e. reason would be an elementary part of our world in the same way matter is. Perhaps in some kind of Platonic world-of-ideas fashion, but nonetheless existing independently from people. This is probably the weak link in the chain: if you want to demolish the argument, here is where you should try to hit.
Dirigible: “The ability to reduce metaphysical assumptions to physical phenomena works against reductionist physicalism?”
The *conceivability* of reducing a particular phenomenon to physics would work against physical reductionism, *if* conceiving said reduction would lead us into a contradiction (namely, physical reductionism becoming self-refuting).
I mentioned the argument from reason as a general example of an argument, because it relatively easy to understand. But I’m not playing “silly buggers” or trying to pull your leg here (I was, a little, with my ID+Darwinism overdetermination remark). I’m happy to defend it ;-)
Cathal: I’d be happy to follow your advice if you point me to an unsubstantiated assertion I’ve been making. I wish I could get away with making unsubstantiated assertions around here – but I don’t think I can.
“… we could perhaps conceive of some kind of causal overdetermination: some kind of evolutionary event might be caused by, at the same time, an act of God and random mutation+natural selection. It’s a somewhat daft idea, putting it mildly. But I see no logical problem with it.”
On the one hand you admit it’s daft (I agree), but then you see no logical problem with it. Maybe not with it, but how about with coming up with it?
A more general comment on the Note that occasioned the thread: We have lots and lots of arguments and discussions about this god business. Some of them have to do with evidence for such a being’s existence, or lack of it. Others deal with philosophical, ethical, moral, physical, biological and other questions that god’s existence might raise. But to deal with any of those others, it is required for us to pretend to ignore the fact that there’s no evidence. If we, say, ask about god in relation to the tsunami, it’s a bit hard to talk about “his” motivations or inscrutability or whatever without somehow artificially getting past the fact of the absence of positive evidence for “his” existence. What I’m getting at is that pretending there isn’t no evidence in order to facilitate discussing the more advanced matters seems to require a conception (maybe even sub-consciously) of the kind of evidence whose non-existence we’re temporarily ignoring and my question is: what is it?
Merlijn writes:
I’d be happy to follow your advice if you point me to an unsubstantiated assertion I’ve been making.
Well, here’s one. You wrote (posting #2):
“Someone like Francis Collins would raise that his personal religious experiences are perfectly good reasons for him to believe that God exists. You or anyone else would have no reason to be convinced by those experiences – since by definition, they are personal, subjective and impossible to evaluate. Yet, this does not pose any reason for Collins to disbelieve his own experiences.” [my italics]
That final sentence alone disqualifies your reasoning. It’s not only unsubstantiated – it’s erroneous as well. For example, if I see something very unusual and unexpected (such as an appearance of the Blessed Virgin at my workplace or similar ‘personal religious experience’), the very FIRST thing I would do is have a peek and check whether my colleagues are seeing the same thing as I am. In other words I would want to ascertain whether my own experiences were hallucinations or not. If nobody else sees what I am seeing, then at least there is SOME reason for me to disbelieve my own experiences. A ‘vision’ is more likely to be a hallucination if seen by only one person rather than by a crowd. Testimony can hardly do any harm, even if you’re religious.
Or perhaps the reasoning is that if I am the only person to have had such a vision it is transmuted from a potentially collective religious experience into one of those ‘personal’ ones that ‘by definition are impossible to evaluate’. Naturally it would be nicer to have a few witnesses, like they used to have way back at the time of the Resurrection (lucky them!), but if witnesses are in short supply (as happens to be the case these days, doubting Thomases with PhDs all over the place, snooping about with Geiger counters etc), one has to resort to desperate, non-evidentiary measures.
Such as talking bullshit about ‘personal religious experiences’.
Damn good point, Cathal. I would also like to know why Merlijn wishes he “could get away with making unsubstantiated assertions…” I never wish I could do that.
Seriously, though, I get the point and I’m almost hesitant to say more because it might look like ganging up, which is the last thing I want, but I keep on not getting why discussion of god should precede the production of positive evidence for “his” existence. OB said it was like “special pleading.” There are all manner of things one can do with a god hypothesis when one has an agile mind. But what is the reason to do them?
Actually, I already mentioned in my reply to OB that I had put the matter too strongly here. On the other hand, I would imagine a personal religious experience concerning the presence of God being slightly different in this regard than a hallucination concerning translucent people walking through walls. As it is pretty much part of my basic experience of the world that you can’t walk through walls. Belief in a visual experience of people walking through walls would cause a radical break with such a belief, and the conclusion that it was a hallucination is clearly preferable. I don’t think we can draw such a conclusion with a Collins-like religious experience quite so easily, though. As the possibility of the existence of God is not necessarily inconsistent with my basic experiential knowledge about the world.
Stewart: “On the one hand you admit it’s daft (I agree), but then you see no logical problem with it. Maybe not with it, but how about with coming up with it?”
I’d say the problem with the idea is perhaps rational rather than logical. That I think there’s no logical problem with it just means that I don’t think it’s internally contradictory, etc. But “all things being equal, choose simple explanations over extravagantly complicated ones” seems to me a principle of rational thought in general.
“What I’m getting at is that pretending there isn’t no evidence in order to facilitate discussing the more advanced matters seems to require a conception (maybe even sub-consciously) of the kind of evidence whose non-existence we’re temporarily ignoring and my question is: what is it?”
Ah, but surely the lack of positive, empirical evidence is not entirely relevant here, as scientific method puts radical constraints on the kind of explanations we can raise for such evidence? Even a miracle would be evidence only to those who witnessed it – and even then, unsupportable by science. Your other remark, though, relates to the problem of evil OB has been raising every now and then. Tsunamis, cholera, the human capacity for evil, and so forth may be raised as arguments against a *good* God. And I think they’re very serious arguments. But they are strictly taken not relevant to the *existence* of a God.
Suppose we were living in a world which, by all accounts, would be much better. Humans would be much less inclined to do nasty things than they are now (even if they would still have free will). Somehow evolution wouldn’t have resulted in carnivorous creatures, nor parasites. There would be no earthquakes, tsunamis, and the world would be a pleasant 20C all year around.
Would such a thing be positive evidence for the existence of a God? Of course not. On the other hand, if the existence of a God could be defended with other arguments, would such a world be more compatible with a *good* God? I’m inclined to say yes.
“Damn good point, Cathal. I would also like to know why Merlijn wishes he “could get away with making unsubstantiated assertions…” I never wish I could do that.”
I was speaking in jest, of course! There’s a reason why I like N&C.
Your point about hallucinations being different from feeling the presence of god seems rather subjective. What really happens if we grant the idea of god no privileges to start with? When you refer to a Collins-like religious experience, are you referring to the three frozen waterfalls and the Trinity? I trust not, but if so, surely there is a point where one must say there is a limit to the silliness upon which one may be expected to expend serious thought or consideration.
“… surely the lack of positive, empirical evidence is not entirely relevant here, as scientific method puts radical constraints on the kind of explanations we can raise for such evidence?”
But why are we talking about constraints on explanations for evidence of which there is none? That’s precisely what I don’t get. And I’m not talking about problems that make a good god unlikely, in fact I’m not talking about any arguments against any kind of god. I’m talking about the complete absence of the opposite. You do say IF “the existence of a God could be defended with other arguments.” Can it, that’s the relevant question, not what might be the case if it could be. Or, it might be the relevant question if the question of the existence of a god merited all the time spent on it. Does it, that’s the relevant question.
“… the more we succeed in discovering well-founded scientific explanations of the origins of the cosmos, the origins of living species, and so on, the more the explanations in terms of a divine creator become redundant.”
Redundant means we don’t need them, not that there was a good (positive) reason for them to be considered true when our species was utterly scientifically illiterate. The only reason belief in god(s) becomes more plausible as we travel backwards along our development is that ignorance increases, not because there was something there that was later better explained by science.
“I was speaking in jest, of course! There’s a reason why I like N&C.”
That we appreciate, of course. And N&C and B&W exist because the world is full of people making unsubstantiated assertions who never get called on it.
Stewart: On your first argument, I think that the analogy between hallucinations and a religious, mystical experience fails but that the very reason for which it fails means that religious experiences do not provide a compelling reason for others to believe. It was that where I went wrong, but not at the point where Cathal challenged me. I have had no religious experiences, but my impression is that they would be intangible, extremely subjective and probably incommunicable. In a way that hallucinations of elves or giant centipedes are not. My impression is also that they are subjectively extremely forceful. So I don’t think that the same reason for Collins to reject such experiences exists as would exist for hallucinations.
(and yes, the three waterfalls thing is exactly what I am referring to. I think we would need to suspend judgement on the silliness of it – as it is impossible for us to determine what exactly went on in Collins’ mind at the time. At the same time, I agree with OB that whatever it was provides no reason for us to draw the conclusions Collins drew or even spend serious thought on them).
As for your second argument, I’ve been arguing quite literally that it can. Meaning, I think the case for the existence for a God can be *defended* by argument. Not conclusively *proven*. But defended to the extent that there would be a prima facie rational argument for the existence of God which the opposing side would have to show to be faulty or supplant with a better argument of its own.
“I think we would need to suspend judgement on the silliness of it – as it is impossible for us to determine what exactly went on in Collins’ mind at the time.”
But we can’t suspend judgment on it and Collins can’t reasonably expect us to, because he uses it as an argument. That’s just the problem. That’s what people do – and to the extent that they do that, to that extent they place their subjective experiences squarely in the public domain where we all get to and even have to judge them (have to if the alternative is to acquiesce in the argument-from-inner-experience). It is not legitimate to claim ‘I have had this incommunicable internal mystical experience therefore I believe god exists and have good reasons for so believing and you have to agree that my reasons are good but you may not judge or question or doubt my internal experience because it is internal and mine.’ That’s bait and switch, that’s prestidigitation.
“That we appreciate, of course. And N&C and B&W exist because the world is full of people making unsubstantiated assertions who never get called on it.”
Yeah, and while I disagree with the general line on the existence of God, I agree on most other issues, including the need for intellectual hygiene as well as some astonishingly bad defenses of religion (hello there, Mr. Swinburne!).
OB: Agreed.
“I have had this and this religious experience, which made me believe in God, but I realize they provide no reason for anyone else” = fine.
“I have had this and this religious experience, which made me believe in God, but I can defend his existence by this and this tangible, criticizable argument” = fine too, if put carefully.
“I have had this and this religious experience, which made me believe in God, and so should you.” = bad.
“I have had this and this religious experience and demand RESPECT” = bad, too.
Yeah, but you’re omitting one, and it’s the one that follows from your own claim.
“I have had this and this religious experience, which made me believe in God, and so you have to suspend judgment on my religious experience, because that’s the kind of experience it is.”
I want to get at, here, not the –>you must believe claim but the –>this is a good reason claim and the –>you can’t judge my experience claim and the way the two combine and make trouble.
One thing that’s interesting about that (she added) is that precisely the feature that makes internal experience inadmissable as valid evidence also funtions to wall it off and protect it from external judgment. Well, of course it’s true enough that we can’t judge Collins’s experience, on account of we don’t know anything about it; but that’s also why he doesn’t get to use it as an argument, and why it is not a good reason to believe.
Yes, I do believe that purely subjectively, one cannot really judge whether Collins’ personal experience provides good reason for him to hold to a certain belief; at the same time, the very subjectivity (and incommunicability) of the reason makes it inadmissable as grounds for an argument if one wants to convince someone else.
The very subtle point on which we may be disagreeing is that I hold it possible that Collins’ experience may be subjectively a good reason. I think (and correct me if I’m wrong) that you would regard reasons as by definition intersubjectively arguable.
The problem is, of course that (Collins may have a good subjective reason to believe in God’s existence) may easily get illegitimately translated as (there are good reasons to believe in God’s existence) and of course the former does not entail the latter (though I think both may be independently true). This is kind of the move that Prager made in the discussion Stewart referred to through some threads back, using some kind of argument to authority.
But all in all, this is the reason why I like to defend some kind of philosophical theism – even though it is all very abstract, and very much removed from what people actually believe in. Because what they believe in may have these irreducibly subjective elements – the philosophical arguments, weird as they may seem, at least can be argued for and against.
Up to a point, I think Collins’s experience may be subjectively a good reason, but I also think (but I think you have agreed) that at least a person with scientific training and thus one hopes with some idea of skepticism and caution would realize that even her own inner experience is questionable.
Well, actually, maybe I don’t really think Collins’s experience may be subjectively a good reason, not for Collins. For people with no training in skepticism or systematic caution, it could be, but for people who’ve had such training? Hmm. I have grave doubts. I think he has to do some ignoring of what he knows, to make the experience lead to belief; and if that’s right, then it’s a reason but not a good reason. The denial cancels out the ‘good’ – so it seems to me.
Hmmmm… On second thought, it would seem to me that if we regard reasons as part of some kind of normative system of thought and means-end connections (and I think we should), then your definition would automatically follow. Whatever went on in Collins’ mind would, subjectively compelling as it may have been, not be a reason. Collins’ belief would be a-rationally or irrationally held on the basis of a very forceful personal experience, but it would not be a reason.
Snerk!
Talk about a harmonic convergence. We talked ourselves into the same thing at the same moment.
Sorry, F. Collins.
Two points:
1) What’s the difference between a “good subjective reason” and a personal conviction? Collins has his personal convictions, but that has no effect on me, unless he tries to push them on me (which he doesn’t, of course).
I think this has to do with the claim he makes that academic circles are hostile to religious discussions. (I haven’t read his book, but I am going by the interview with him in Salon (Aug. 7 issue).) I’m not sure that’s generally true (what about Catholic or other religious universities, for example?), but it’s certainly true in circles where it is assumed that respectable arguments are intersubjective.
2) How can a brilliant scientist like Collins have religious convictions, when it seems that his scientific training should make him sceptical enough to inoculate him against them? A lot of atheists have much trouble with this question, but I think Collins’ personal story shows how. (Again, I’m going by the Salon interview.) His “conversion” from atheism started with his meeting a dying patient whose religious faith impressed him, and continued when a pastor suggested he read “Mere Christianity,” where he encountered the “moral argument for God.”
He says that the encounter with the patient profoundly disturbed him, because she said, “What do you believe in?” and he stammered out, “Nothing, I suppose.” I think that at that moment he strongly envied her her faith, and decided to acquire one himself. That’s what made Lewis’ “argument” so impressive to him; to many of us, who don’t feel we need a religion, it’s not at all impressive. Then the “three waterfalls” experience was simply a cue that brought this unconscious process of convincing himself into his conscious awareness.
Basically, I think that most, if not nearly all, cases of “atheist conversions to faith” are like that: the person envies religious people their certainty, especially with respect to life after death, and decides to persuade him/herself that he/she has faith, too. It’s a personal decision, not based on any kind of empirical evidence, and the person involved doesn’t think that it needs any evidence. That’s why it’s not convincing to those of us who think that beliefs need evidence.
Lots I’d like to react to, but insufficient time, but a gut reaction to JonJ’s last comment about envying faith: Being atheist somehow means you’re on your own, you are going to have to call the fact of your existence the way you see it. I can see how it could be tempting, if one is capable of believing it, that something/one else has the ultimate responsibility. Even if we have been granted free will, to do evil or good to and/or for ourselves and others, what most religions promise is some kind of justice or reckoning which will not be meted out by us. It’s the difference between the underlying feeling that I could make a silly mistake that could cause my life or someone else’s to be snuffed out and that’s really the end of any kind of existence for me/them and the feeling that whatever happens, the good will be rewarded and the evil punished and there will be an existence of some sort that will experience that. In that sense, one might perhaps say that atheism is more rigorous where religion can offer comfort.
I think that’s a bit too simplistic. Atheist convictions are not always the result of a rigorous, articulate skepticism. They are just as prone to intellectual laziness and lack of imagination as religious convictions may be. Also, atheist convictions may harbour a strong emotional, a-rational attachment as well. This is discussed very frankly by Thomas Nagel in his “The Last Word”.
Look, there are brilliant, inquisitive and imaginative atheists. But there are also those whose understanding does not reach beyond a wafer-thin grasp of literal questions (see the Skeptic’s Annotated Bible) and there are whole armies of smug, self-satisfied Derrida-reading atheists crowding the humanities departments who have rejected both religion and science as obsolete grand narratives.
Religionists come in roughly the same varieties.
JonJ: “It’s a personal decision, not based on any kind of empirical evidence, and the person involved doesn’t think that it needs any evidence. That’s why it’s not convincing to those of us who think that beliefs need evidence.”
I think that is extremely doubtful – but I risk repeating myself here. But it rests on the assumption that *empirical* evidence is the only sure guide to knowledge. Religion is not the only field of knowledge-claims thus thrown out. Philosophy goes too, leaving the epistemological foundations on which empirical evidence is seen as such unsupported. It seems to me that many atheists (though by no means all) harbour this assumption – but in as far as it is confused with scientific method and left unexamined, it’s a dangerous one.
This said, I agree with JonJ and Stewart about the afterlife and particularly the promise of divine justice as a motivator. The evil in the world is in my opinion one of the strongest arguments against the existence of a Deity – and at the same time, it drives people to religion as the “heart of a heartless world” as Marx called it. But Stewart put his finger on a very tender spot by saying:
“It’s the difference between the underlying feeling that I could make a silly mistake that could cause my life or someone else’s to be snuffed out and that’s really the end of any kind of existence for me/them and the feeling that whatever happens, the good will be rewarded and the evil punished and there will be an existence of some sort that will experience that.”
I agree, and it is a point on which religious convictions can easily lead to evil actions. If ending a life is not ending a whole, subjectively experienced universe, and if we are convinced that we are doing God’s will – well…? One of the other commenters pointed out some threads back that a view in which there is no afterlife is the only sure foundation of morality. Perhaps that is putting it too strongly, but personally, I agree that life becomes essentially meaningless if it is by definition eternal. Which is one of my reasons for rejecting a personally experienced afterlife.
This said, not all religious traditions assert a personally experienced afterlife. The Buddhist view on reincarnation rules out any continuity of the subjective “self”. More liberal Jewish traditions are agnostic towards the afterlife – and the afterlife is not really mentioned at all in the five books of Moses. Jehovah’s Witnesses famously believe that only the good (that is, Jehovah’s Witnesses) will enjoy an afterlife.
And religious traditions are full of metaphors for a non-afterlife view:
Remember that my life is like the wind; I shall not see happiness again. The eye that now sees me shall no more behold me; as you look at me, I shall be gone. As a cloud dissolves and vanishes, so he who goes down to the nether world shall come up no more (Job 7:7)
Seppo said to Gensha, “Monk Shinso asked me where a certain dead monk has gone, and I told him it was like ice becoming water.” Gensha said, “That was all right, but I myself would not have answered like that.” “What would you have said?” asked Seppo. Gensha replied, “It’s like water returning to water.”
For me, it is only on the condition of lack of an afterlife that I can accept religion. Not only because it is, to me, its temporality which makes human life so valuable – but also for a purely emotional, irrational reason. I am terribly, hideously afraid of death, the great nothingness, non-being. And I at least have enjoyed almost thirty years of life (and intend to enjoy quite a few more, thank you) – there are thousands of thousands of people who have died after a few miserable years filled with suffering. A religion that promises eternity to them, and to me when my time has come? It’s too good to be true. I must reject it.
“Religion is not the only field of knowledge-claims thus thrown out. Philosophy goes too, leaving the epistemological foundations on which empirical evidence is seen as such unsupported.”
Philosophy as I understand it is basically a concept-analyzing activity; it doesn’t make “knowledge claims” in the empirical sense. Religion, on the other hand, does; God spoke to Moses in the burning bush, Jesus was resurrected, etc., are all claimed to be facts, but there is precious little if any evidence to back up these claims.
OTOH, one can always back down, of course, and say that these religious “fact” claims are just metaphors, and shouldn’t be taken seriously as garden-variety facts. Many religious people these days do take that position. In that case, the atheist quarrel with religion evaporates. Either you find those particular metaphors illuminating of the human condition in some fashion or you don’t.
Philosophy *does* make knowledge-claims. Mind-matter theories such as varieties of materialism, dualism etc. *are* claims about what the universe is like. Epistemological theories such as nominalism vs. (Platonic) realism etc. also make substantial claims about the relationship between reality and our knowledge of it.
What these are not are empirically testable knowledge claims. And what I think you may answer is that, in your view, these are not knowledge claims in the empirical sense, these are claims concerning “merely” our concepts of the universe and all that there is. But that, it seems to me, already assumes a certain philosophical viewpoint concerning the mind and the world.
(just as an aside, I’m not so sure anymore whether I agree with the proposition “we can’t prove there is no God” as OB mentioned. We can’t *empirically* prove that there is no God – but if a concept which has some of the essential properties associated with Godhood can be analyzed to be incoherent or self-contradictory or some such, then that *would* constitute a definite disproof of God. Findlay believed that the concept of necessary existence, and with that, God, was meaningless – and that this constituted a disproof).
“but if a concept which has some of the essential properties associated with Godhood can be analyzed to be incoherent or self-contradictory or some such, then that *would* constitute a definite disproof of God.”
But there are no such properties. That is, precisely, one reason these discussions can get so futile and irritating – because ‘Godhood’ is a (deliberately?) slippery shifting chameleon-like protean notion that it seems to be systematically forbidden to pin down. That’s one reason I’ve gotten frustrated with some of your arguments at times! The stuff about the compatibility of various properties that seem to me to be pretty dang incompatible, not to mention the combination of claims of abstraction and assignment of personal pronoun. In short, lots of luck with finding some incoherent properties that any interested parties would agree to!
I think there are such properties, though. And I have in past discussions agreed with you that *some* of the properties associated with God probably are contradictory. Timelessness/changelessness and loving nature, for example. On the other hand, I do not believe all of those are essential properties. What I would regard as such would be omnipresence, constrained (by indeterminism, free will, etc.) omniscience, necessary existence, subjectivity/agency/personhood and loving nature. Now, it is possible to attack each of these on their own ground (as has been done with necessary existence, etc.) or indeed the combination of these. On the other hand, it is simply true that I see no a priori problem with something that is both omnipresent, transcendent and loving. You have asserted in discussions with me and Dsquared that you find a combination of these extremely hard to believe. I replied at the time that I was unconvinced by your reasoning. That does not imply that I would be unconvinced by *any* reasoning.
Another argument you raised is of a different kind. You’ve often pointed out the problem of evil, suffering and so on, and mentioned that this creates a problem for a good God. Thing is, however, that the problem of suffering and evil is an empirical one. It would not convince anyone ready to appeal to a “mysterious ways” defense. The contradiction involved is not a logical one. At the same time, I would be with you in rejecting such a defense. To the extent that I am not confident in asserting the existence of a *good* God. And I would grant you that the existence of a neutral or evil God would be interesting from a philosophical point of view, it would kind of draw the rug from under the whole religion thing.
So I’m in serious doubt on that question. At the same time, I need to train my mind a bit more before I can grapple with questions such as transcendence and necessary existence to my own satisfaction – which if they fail as concepts would make the question of evil redundant.
In other words, I may be slippery – it’s my nature – but I’m definitely not impossible to pin down. And that goes for the questions and concepts with which we are dealing with here. They’re slippery – but not (I think) beyond argument or refutation.
Quite another thing is whether *any* interesting parties would agree to properties on whose coherence the God question would stand or fail. And I think that’s pretty much hopeless. There’ll always be a possibility for someone to claim faith in the existence of God despite the philosophical incoherence of the concept. But I wouldn’t, and I can speak only for myself.
“On the other hand, I do not believe all of those are essential properties. What I would regard as such would be omnipresence, constrained (by indeterminism, free will, etc.) omniscience, necessary existence, subjectivity/agency/personhood and loving nature.”
(I could be accused of arbitrariness here, but I think this would be irrelevant to the subject at hand. Someone might claim that the above is not “God”, but there would be little to stop me from saying: “Let’s call it “Dog” and debate its existence”. There’s a line where the debated existent moves simply too far beyond the theistic/deistic conceptions of God. Something that is necessarily existent and omnipresent – but only that, for example. But I don’t think the line is crossed here.)
“I replied at the time that I was unconvinced by your reasoning. That does not imply that I would be unconvinced by *any* reasoning.”
:- )
No, I quite see that!
[rolling about]
“There’s a line where the debated existent moves simply too far beyond the theistic/deistic conceptions of God.”
Well I was just about to address that whole area, before I was distracted by mirth at sly retort.
But I do think that, though I agree with you about the line, one can observe theists skipping gaily over it whenever the mood takes them, or whenever tiresome skeptics and atheists ask difficult questions. In fact this whole area is more or less why I asked you a couple of days ago why ‘God’ was the issue, why not something else.
“And I would grant you that the existence of a neutral or evil God would be interesting from a philosophical point of view, it would kind of draw the rug from under the whole religion thing.”
Well, and something that interests me about that is that theists (leaving Gnostics aside for the present) never ever simply assume that, but they’re perfectly happy to assume the opposite. It seems to be that basic assumption infects the whole idea, quite radically. The idea that ‘God’ is at least as likely to be a cruel hating god as it is to be a kind loving one is just…off the table. But why? If the problem of suffering and evil is an empirical one (as it is) so is the opposite. It’s not as if happiness and good are self-evident and unproblematic and only suffering and evil are problematic and empirical. But the starting assumption (and the finishing one too) is not neutral, it’s a god that’s our friend in some way.
“Well, and something that interests me about that is that theists (leaving Gnostics aside for the present) never ever simply assume that, but they’re perfectly happy to assume the opposite. It seems to be that basic assumption infects the whole idea, quite radically.”
Or the Satanists. Then again, Satanists as I understand it don’t literally believe in Satan – they’re basically Randian libertarians with rituals, with a few Norwegian pyromaniac metalheads thrown in for good measure.
I think the whole problem lies in the strange fusion of Hellenism and Judaism which Christianity basically is. With the one side giving Christianity the abstract, philosophically sophisticated but remote Deity of Hellenism and on the other hand the very present, intervening (for good or bad) God of Judaism. Which leaves theists quite a bit of wiggle-room to argue for either – I cannot disagree with that.
Yes? I think most of the problem lies in the fact that most people are theists because they want a deity, and if that’s right, obviously it’s not a cruel deity that they want. I think most theism nowadays is a product of upbringing and/or wishful thinking more than of genuine reasoned conviction. That doesn’t apply to the sophisticated theists we keep hearing about (let alone the suave smooth sophisticated ones, giggle) but those theists are a pretty small minority, as far as I can ever tell.
Norwegian pyromaniac Randian libertarian metalheads with rituals – what fun they do sound.
Once again, I get a few minutes at the computer after too much has been going on to react to – but:
“… life becomes essentially meaningless if it is by definition eternal.”
Here Merlijn says something I’ve often felt. And when I hear people say life couldn’t have meaning without god and what goes with it, I think they couldn’t have thought about it seriously. Existing for boring eternity at god’s right hand with a few paltry years of physical existence preceding it sounds like the absolute epitome of meaninglessness.
“… most people are theists because they want a deity, and if that’s right, obviously it’s not a cruel deity that they want.”
If man invented god rather than vice versa, that’s one of the signs of it. It’s always god being perfect and evil and suffering still existing that requires sophisticated explanations (contortions, rather). But why should it be like that? If both good and evil and apparently just and unjust reward and puníshment exist in the world, why isn’t it just as likely that the creator of it all is a complete sadist who is incompetent enough not to be able to prevent us having some happiness now and again? Of course, neither are as Occam’s razorish as the explanation that it’s random, with no guiding “hand” in charge. Without a being in charge of everything, we don’t have to keep on investing that being with the strange attributes that would satisfactorily account for what happens on its watch.
“Without a being in charge of everything, we don’t have to keep on investing that being with the strange attributes that would satisfactorily account for what happens on its watch.”
That’s a rather compelling point.
“That doesn’t apply to the sophisticated theists we keep hearing about (let alone the suave smooth sophisticated ones, giggle) but those theists are a pretty small minority, as far as I can ever tell.”
Of course, the confusing part is that the “sophisticated” theists still claim to be members of the various organized religions even after they’ve stripped out all the attributes of the gods of religion that make them worth worshipping–the “sophisticated” gods are indistinguishable from natural processes when they aren’t entirely impotent.
This question of the real nature of “God” i.e. good or evil, is dealt with brilliantly in the latter part of Philip Pullman’s ‘Dark Materials’ trilogy – and, of course, in one of its sources, Milton’s ‘Paradise Lost’ and even more subtly in Mike Carey’s ‘Lucifer’ comics.
“That’s a rather compelling point.”
Thank you. To sharpen the same point still further: There seems to be an endless supply of good reasons both for why humankind needs “god” and could come to believe that it and the universe needs “god.” I have yet to hear any explanation that could account for the “god” needed by humankind and the universe needing either the universe or humankind. It’s practically the reverse of the thinking that holds that our existence is in itself evidence of god’s. There is a case to be made for the mere fact that we exist ruling out the possibility that god does, too.
Stewart, you seem to pose the “human origin” of God, and the objective existence of God, as incompatible alternatives. But they may not be. There is, obviously, very little human-made in the basic tenets of empirical science – but once you move beyond that, things get more and more anthropocentric. Biological evolution has been (ab)used as providing an alternative story about human destiny, the human condition, and so forth – but that doesn’t make biological evolution untrue. Similarly, the way Marxism gave to very human needs is very clear but this has no bearing on the validity of the central knowledge-claims of Marxism.
I’m not at all sure that Occam’s razor has any validity regarding the existence of Evil and the possibility of God. Because as I understand it Occam’s razor requires at least two alternative hypothesis covering the same state of affairs to be explained. I am not sure if the state of affairs to be explained is strictly taken the same comparing the atheist and the theist view – the atheist view at least taken as a skeptical basic attitude (which seems to me to be OB’s and yours) moves beyond that. In other words, the existence of evil is not as much explained more simply within an atheist worldview – it is left unexplained, justifiedly or not, as something we cannot explain.
‘In other words, the existence of evil is not as much explained more simply within an atheist worldview – it is left unexplained, justifiedly or not, as something we cannot explain.’
Is ‘Evil’ even a useful concept outside a deist framework? Do we share a working definition? ‘That which is displeasing to god’?
I’m an atheist.
And yes, there is such a thing as evil.
Deliberately setting out to hurt or harm people, or, for that matter, animals, for no other reason thatn your own selfish gratification. Is evil.
Doing the above, because you “believe” it is your religious duty is NOT an exucse.
As a very good and thoroughly horrible example of evil, read THIS:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article2023831.ece
WARNING: Not for the weak-Stomached.
I do have a bit of a weak stomach at the moment, so thanks for the warning. I’m sure it would make my flesh creep.
But I wasn’t wondering whether or not there were some bad bastards around who would be greatly improved by death. I have an adequate vocabulary for that; I was wondering whether ‘Evil’ has any place in that vocabulary, other than colloquially or figuratively.
If it means ‘that which outrages my personal moral code’ then it doesn’t need explanation. If it means something that can be said to exist and therefore requires an explanation, then I am really stuck for a non-deist definition.
Tricky word. I hate it (suprise surprise) in the Bushian usage, but it can also be (and is) used much more broadly in discussions of theodicy to include all the sources of human (and maybe animal) misery – so that it covers droughts, floods, etc. Then it tends to creep back into human moral discourse…and one finds oneself using it in the Bushian way.
I think “evil” is quite a useful concept outside of a Deist or Theist framework. Even if it gets abused a lot. But it seems to me that morality (on which the concepts of “good” and “evil” rest) can be regarded as a kind of normative system of rules which cannot be reduced to anything non-normative (biological evolution, brain chemistry, etc.) but which is nonetheless not necessarily metaphysically basic. Similar to reason, in that regard. We could argue that it evolved without necessarily assuming that moral reasoning can be reduced to or supplanted by reasoning based on survival of genes and the like. To me, this seems to be the most obvious way to regard moral rules as somehow objectively, universally valid (i.e. no moral relativism) without necessitating the existence of a Deity.
A very interesting and thought provoking thread.
Quite why I visit N&C/B&W as often as I do. And without any intemperate comments from (cough, cough) the likes of me. For which I’m very sorry.
For instance, most if not all commenters here would agree that women and men should be treated equally, and that there is nothing morally repugnant about consensual same-sex relationships. Suppose we are discussing with a Taliban who holds to the proverb that ‘a woman’s place is at home or in the grave’ and whose opinion on gays may be rather less enlightened. We can’t show the superiority of our moral views by anything else than some kind of moral first principle (‘women are equal to men’/’people are free to do what they want if it doesn’t harm others’ or something like that – perhaps some kind of utilitarian goal of maximizing joy and minimizing suffering). At the same time, we (I suppose) would believe those principles to be universally valid, in Afghanistan or in Stoke-on-Trent. And, aside from trying to poke holes in our Talib interlocutor’s views by attacking their consistency, coherence, etc. – that’s simply it.
That’s okay, Jeffrey. Consider it forgotten!
“perhaps some kind of utilitarian goal of maximizing joy and minimizing suffering”
Well I think there’s a little more traction with that approach. Sen-Nussbaum capabilities, for example. One can tell stories of people who have been obliterated all their lives and then get some education and some ability to be of use, and how they feel about that – like the one that woman told who was part of Wangari Maathai’s movement. Very few Talibs will be open to that line, but waverers and people in between might be.
But you still have to start from the moral intuition that what people like that want or feel is what matters, rather than what the fathers or husbands or owners of such people want. The moral intuition that what matters is what fathers and owners want is what matters, is a powerful one. So it goes.
“… the existence of evil is not as much explained more simply within an atheist worldview – it is left unexplained, justifiedly or not, as something we cannot explain.”
Well, I didn’t intend to use “evil” in the explanation-demanding way Merlijn suggests. Don’s comment says some of what I meant. Don’t mean to harp on the tsunami, but it’s an easy one with which to make certain points. Almost everyone was asking why it happened, but it was two groups asking completely different questions. An explanation involving plate tectonics, in which hundreds of thousands of human deaths really are a mere by-product of something which isn’t about human beings at all, is considered a non-explanation by many. If humans could have been shown to be directly behind it, they would no doubt have been considered evil. Fred Phelps, as we know, has his own take on that. I don’t think ignorance of plate tectonics justifies wondering why god did it, but knowledge of plate tectonics makes thinking in that direction even less justifiable. This is one of the things religion has in common with off-the-wall conspiracy theory: there is no coincidence. Having to explain evil or suffering seems to require active acceptance of that premise; an unwillingness to believe that the random, the unintended-by-any-being-whatsoever, can (not just does) exist.
And of course, while we debate whether god requires evidence or can be given a philosophical chance for existence, this is going on: http://www.livescience.com/othernews/061203_richard_leakey.html
BUT … oddly enough, Melijn, of all people has pointed out the problem …
He said: “Suppose we are discussing with a Taliban who holds to the proverb …”etc.
Now I’m going to point to THIS again, and suggest that, even given the Taliban’s “principles, what he and his revolting colleagues are doing is still evil.
In the same way that the burning of heretics was evil.
Doesn’t the claim of a trump card of divine authority radically change the nature of any argument? And isn’t that what would hold if it were the Taliban one were trying to talk to? Even if there were a point in trying to claim moral superiority for my view that women are equal to men and should be treated thus (and I’m not sure that that is what the point is), if one wants to have a discussion of that nature at all, isn’t some kind of equal footing between the sides a prerequisite? Can believers and non-believers talk as equals? If they’re not equals, can one make them so? To do so, one would have to somehow “change” one to the status of the other. Only the believer relinquishing the trump card of divine authority could make sense in such a situation, because the idea of the non-believer suddenly coming to rely upon a different divine authority, or the same one, as an “equalizer” is farcically absurd.
And let’s not forget the number of female testimonies it takes to equal one male testimony under Islamic law. I suppose we have a theoretical situation (though not an actual one, I hasten to add) in which women can do nothing to change their status under Islam, because only men have the power to improve the lot of women.
I assume Tingey’s already seen this, but here’s Dawkins on what he posted:
“Now the Taliban are coming back to power, because Bush and Blair took their eye off Afghanistan and charged into Iraq instead. You know, horrible as Saddam Hussein was, I believe I’d rather have him than the Taliban. Last week in Afghanistan, a teacher was disembowelled and torn to pieces by four motorbikes pulling in opposite directions, for the religious crime of teaching girls algebra. I don’t think even Saddam Hussein executed people for teaching girls algebra.”
GT: Of course the scenario was highly hypothetical. But I am not sure whether the acts of the Taliban were evil on their own moral principles. Just as the atrocities of medieval Europe were seen in a very different light by the people carrying them out. Of course, they were evil, in an objective moral fashion.
Stewart: I’m not at all saying one has to explain evil within an atheist framework. But unless one wants to embrace moral relativism, one has to regard good and evil as nevertheless existing, in some objective fashion, as basic. This is not by itself a bad thing at all. And a lot of theological work on evil does in fact regard it as “unintended by any being whatsoever” – a byproduct of the evolutionary processes by which life developed, of human free will, etc.
Aside from this, your theoretical “equalizer” won’t help you. We could introduce a moral relativist to the discussion, and you wouldn’t have a common ground anymore. Which is exactly the point. There is no ultimate common ground. There are the moral first principles an atheist would hold to, the divine authority our hypothetical Talib would hold – and the only thing either can do is to challenge the other on some kind of agreed-upon principles of rationality such as consistency (unlikely to be succesful, in this case). And that’s it. It certainly doesn’t make the non-theist morality inferior, and in need of equalizing, ad you seem to imply. It means that the moral systems involved are incommensurable.
“Of course, they were evil, in an objective moral fashion.”
Hang on – where do you get your objective moral fashion from? (Just don’t answer “the catwalks of Paris.”)
It certainly would seem strange if someone were unable to make a distinction between things he/she thought were good or bad.
I was by no means implying that I thought a non-theistic morality inferior and I hope you didn’t misunderstand me there. I wasn’t even implying, though I’m pretty sure it’s the case, that the Taliban would think that. Anyway, I didn’t really think a moral equalizer would help, I was just outlining some of the difficulties that can crop up when two people think they can talk to each other, unless they already realise they can’t. The thing about the “moral first principles an atheist would hold to” is that they’re not really codified, are they? Whole damn thing’s pretty lopsided, isn’t it?
Hang on – where do you get your objective moral fashion from? (Just don’t answer “the catwalks of Paris.”)
Actually, I might as well say that ;-) – because I don’t think I or anyone else “get” them from anywhere at all. I don’t believe morality can be deduced from anything non-normative at least. On the other hand, we cannot (and should not) be consistent moral relativists, or indeed pretend to be a-moral. So in as far as we are concerned, I think morality *is* something objective, outside of ourselves (though *intersubjective* would be a more appropriate non-theist term).