Remember a few posts back, when we saw Michael Ruse lecturing Richard Dawkins as follows:
More seriously, Dawkins is entirely ignorant of the fact that no believer-with the possible exception of some English clerics in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries-has ever thought that arguments are the best support for belief. Saint Augustine, one of the greatest thinkers of Western civilization, devoted but one paragraph in the City of God to the proofs. Saint Thomas was categorical that the proofs are second to faith.
In light of that it is with some amusement that I direct you to the current issue of Christianity Today. It's cover story, which bears the headline, “God is Not Dead Yet,” discusses all the spiffy, sophisticated arguments philosophers have devised in support of God's existence. It's author is William Lane Craig. Looks like someone thinks rational arguments are central to an informed religious faith.
The article begins with the usual bravado of the genre:
You might think from the recent spate of atheist best-sellers that belief in God has become intellectually indefensible for thinking people today. But a look at these books by Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, among others, quickly reveals that the so-called New Atheism lacks intellectual muscle. It is blissfully ignorant of the revolution that has taken place in Anglo-American philosophy. It reflects the scientism of a bygone generation rather than the contemporary intellectual scene.
With that opening you might be expecting to read something novel. What is this revolution of which Craig speaks?
As he tells the story, the collapse of verificationism in the forties and fifties reawakened the discussion of arguments for God among philosophers. Led by Alvin Plantinga, this led to a new wave of Christian philosophers reviving the subject.
Well, that's fascinating, But have these folks come up with any new or convincing arguments for God?
Apparenlty not. Here is the list of arguments Craig provides as representing the cutting edge of apologetics, together with my brief precis to remind you what the argument says:
- The Cosmological Argument. (Everything that exists has an explanation, either within itself or from an external cause, the universe can not be its own explanation, therefore it has an external cause which we call God.)
- The Kalam Cosmological Argument. (Everything that began to exist had a cause, the universe began to exist, therefore the universe had a cause.)
- The Teleological Argument. (Intelligent Design in biology, and the fine-tuning of the constants in physics.)
- The Moral Argument. (Objective moral values exists, which is not possible without God.)
- The Ontological Argument. (Spare me)
That's it! Notice what those arguments have in common? Except for the fine-tuning argument (whose history is dated in mere decades) the rest of those arguments are virtually as old as Christian apologetics itself. Plantinga may have slapped a fresh coat of paint on the ontological argument, but the fact remains that these are all very old arguments.
I won't stop here to refute them. What I find remarkable, though, is Craig's description of them:
The renaissance of Christian philosophy has been accompanied by a resurgence of interest in natural theology, that branch of theology that seeks to prove God's existence apart from divine revelation. The goal of natural theology is to justify a broadly theistic worldview, one that is common among Christians, Jews, Muslims, and deists. While few would call them compelling proofs, all of the traditional arguments for God's existence, not to mention some creative new arguments, find articulate defenders today. (Emphasis Added)
What an odd choice of words. It's one thing to concede that the arguments are not logically definitive, but here's Craig saying they're not even compelling. One wonders, then, what role they play for the philosophers defending them.
Craig is kind enough to express the items on our list in the form of deductive arguments. In each case there is some one or two premises that are, to put it kindly, not obviously true. In fact, they usually amount to assuming what you are trying to prove. You may as well assume that God exists directly and be done with it. One example: a crucial premise in the cosmological argument as presented by Craig is, “If the universe has an explanation of its existence, that explanation is God.”
Doesn't that strike you as quite a leap? Craig tries valiantly to defend it, but the fact remains that the universe might not have an explanation, or, even if it has one, there is no reason why that explanation can not by natural. Assuming that the universe has a non-natural explanation for its existence is no improvement over assuming that God exists in the first place.
All of these arguments suffer from similar defects. That notwithstanding, Craig regards them as terribly important:
Seen in this light, tailoring our gospel to a postmodern culture is self-defeating. By laying aside our best apologetic weapons of logic and evidence, we ensure modernism's triumph over us. If the church adopts this course of action, the consequences in the next generation will be catastrophic. Christianity will be reduced to but another voice in a cacophony of competing voices, each sharing its own narrative and none commending itself as the objective truth about reality. Meanwhile, scientific naturalism will continue to shape our culture's view of how the world really is.
So here's the situation. The arguments of natural theology are not compelling, but they nonetheless constitute the best apologetic weapon Christians have. Sounds about right.
Humanities & Social Science
Comments
Aren't #1 and #2 just a rehash of Thomas Aquinas' First Mover and First Cause? Is that the best they've got?
Posted by: df | July 7, 2008 6:26 PM
I read this article and was frankly shocked at how little hope it offered a believer seeking a cogent argument for his faith. I've started to feel a little bad for theists. It used to be fun tweaking their beaks and getting them all het up and whatnot, but now, it's just gotten embarrassing. The thing is, I know and even love some theists, and I don't wish to be condescending or glib or patronizing, but this sort of stuff just makes it so very hard. I mean, it fails so spectacularly that one wonders what the author actually thinks it says. They must think it says more than it actually does, don't they? Maybe the key is, the arguments don't really have to be compelling. After all, what the apologist is really going for here is some way to prop up the faith of people on the inside, to reassure them that they are neither stupid nor crazy for holding their faith traditions. And on that vanishingly modest level, perhaps this material can be judged a success. But it really raises in my mind the dangerous question, If people can believe things on the basis of arguments as thin as these, what would it be possible for them NOT to believe?
Posted by: Greg Peterson | July 7, 2008 6:34 PM
As bad as these arguments are, they've been this bad for my entire lifetime. Religion always seems to be ready to fall, yet it doesn't.
Is it like the coyote and the roadrunner? The coyote has run himself all the way off the cliff, but will not fall until he looks down.
Posted by: Siamang | July 7, 2008 7:01 PM
I started reading the article just for a laugh, but had to stop when I got to this little gem:
If the universe never had a beginning, then the number of past events in the history of the universe is infinite. Not only is this a very paradoxical idea, but it also raises the problem: How could the present event ever arrive if an infinite number of prior events had to elapse first?
My head then exploded from the amount of stupid it was trying to absorb.
Posted by: SiMPel MYnd | July 7, 2008 7:39 PM
A very good friend of mine mentioned Craig's arguments to me as the reason that he has the evidence he needs to fend off my request that he finally admit that his belief rests solely on faith. The exchange is here, and unfortunately he closed off the comments:
Posted by: Mike Haubrich, FCD | July 7, 2008 7:47 PM
EvolutionBlog in short:
"I'm an atheist, look how stupid and silly those religious people are. I feel bad for them for being so stupid and silly and not as smart as I am, 'cause I'm an enlightened atheist."
Posted by: anon | July 7, 2008 8:02 PM
Feel free to engage the ideas on the table here, anon.
If you had any good arguments, I'm assuming you'd post them instead of snarking from behind the anon bushes.
Posted by: Siamang | July 7, 2008 8:12 PM
So what's your point?
Posted by: temizlik | July 7, 2008 8:19 PM
Anon in brief:
"Atheists are arrogant. I'm not; I'm just right."
Posted by: Kapitano | July 7, 2008 8:20 PM
William Lane Craig is an Old-Earth Creationist. Just look at page 3:
I unwind with my Cosmos videos, now and then, and I think it's fair to say that Carl Sagan would never have called someone a demented fuckwit who needs to be smacked upside the head with a biology textbook. However, you all know me, and I am no Carl Sagan.
William Lane Craig lacks knowledge, intellectual integrity, or both. Either he is blissfully ignorant of science, or he knows the facts but does not care to present them properly. Perhaps he presumes on the stupefaction of his audience?
He goes on to drivel about cosmological fine-tuning, repeating the same hash that has been weighed and found wanting before.
(His treatment of "the moral argument" is equally insipid, and his attempted refutation of the Euthyphro Dilemma is one of the most mindless I have ever seen. To coin a phrase, har har, it should not be turned aside lightly, but rather hurled against the nearest wall with great force.)
If the man has any worthwhile ideas, he fails to express them. Great ideas being communicated poorly is not, alas, unknown in the legitimate sciences; however, William Lane Craig presumes to justify beliefs which already exist among his audience. He is not expounding an esoteric corner of string theory or the application of n-categories to quantum mechanics, but instead writing about truths supposedly fundamental to the human experience. If theology is too abstruse to be explained in a six-page article, it is irrelevant to the mainstream of religious belief, a firefly against the raging conflagration of faith; if, on the other hand, he is explaining it well, then it is utterly without value.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 7, 2008 8:20 PM
"...the revolution that has taken place in Anglo-American philosophy..."
There's been a revolution in advanced navel-gazing? Philosophers have no testable ideas, and have no useful ideas, and exist for no good reason other than to ...
well, can't think of anything. No good reason. Period.
Posted by: different_anon | July 7, 2008 8:21 PM
This is where the essay hit the wall, metaphorically speaking, the first time I tried to read it:
Let's try a point-by-point breakdown.
0. For starters, try replacing "God" with "Amon-Re" or "Cronos" every time it occurs in Craig's essay. It's an illuminating experiment: a convenient and memorable way to point out the breathtaking vanity of using cosmological arguments to prop up, not a Watchmaker deism or a vague pan-spiritualism, but a specific sub-species of theism.
1. Where did that word "personal" slip in?
2. How does Craig presume to know so much about things which exist entirely outside and beyond the Universe, confidently reducing them to only two kinds?
3. The materialist conception of mind — against which no empirical evidence stands — is that it is the behavior of matter. Mind is related to brain in much the same way that Ubuntu Linux is related to the laptop before me right now: its effects are constrained by physical law, but thanks to vast degrees of historical contingency and intrinsic complexity, they are not directly predictable from physical law. Many configurations of atoms in my brain map to the same mental state (indeed, mental states persist longer than the firing of an individual synapse), just as many distinct flows of electrons map to the same state of computer software. Seeking the explanation of psychology within physics is a little daft, but mental cogitation does not create physics.
4. No mind has been observed to directly move anything more substantial than a body (let's say a whale's body, to be generous). Rearranging the surface of one planet is difficult enough, creation of mass-energy ex nihilo is beyond our capabilities, and creating Universes with new physical laws at play is almost beyond our comprehension.
5. Craig is willing to attribute to "mind" qualities which are, to put it mildly, unsupported by evidence. Really, he defines "mind" to have the properties he wants, and equivocates between that definition-by-fiat and the familiar conception of thought. As long as we're making shit up, Craig, why don't we invent a new kind of number which is causally potent? All hail the hyper-Cosmic number π — it's transcendental!
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 7, 2008 8:49 PM
The "revolution that has taken place in Anglo-American philosophy" is the discovery that ... verificationism is no good? And that this means we can ... go back to good old full-on pre-modern metaphysics in good methodological conscience? Somewhere, in the great beyond, W.V.O. Quine is punching himself repeatedly in the face.
Posted by: Dave M | July 7, 2008 10:09 PM
Greg Peterson asks, "They must think it says more than it actually does, don't they?"
The answer is yes, they do. A sacred promise from above has the refined essence of the numinous about it and tenuous as that may at first appear, it is an unusually fine mist that conceals behind its folds and wisps an even greater magic. And the faithful are repeatedly hammered with the claim that they are central to the o'er whelming holy plan. Presto! Another happy acolyte.
Did I mention that it is so easy? No fuss, no muss? Just (only, simply, merely, casually, without in depth consideration, nevermind it won't cost you nuthin') believe.
Blake Stacey, thank you for a clear expression of the mind-brain relationship in your point #3 above. I've always suspected that consciousness is something that falls naturally out of the constraints under which stuff and force interact.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | July 7, 2008 10:17 PM
Idiot said: "There's been a revolution in advanced navel-gazing? Philosophers have no testable ideas, and have no useful ideas, and exist for no good reason other than to ..."
All scientific hypotheses are philosophical ideas that are eminently testable. There would arguably be no science at all without the philosophical propositions that fuel its operations.
Posted by: baboo | July 7, 2008 10:29 PM
Christianity Today or no Christianity Today, I still agree with Michael Ruse with qualifications.
The trouble with philosophy is that it's actually quite hard to make a definitive statement about what people believe. It's kind of like Poe's Law. No matter how discredited some position is, you can always find someone who still agrees with it. In this case, in so-called "evangelical" US Christianity.
Quite frankly, this says more about William Lane Craig, Christanity Today and what generally passes for "thought" in US evangelicalism than "the best apologetic weapon Christians have". Indeed, anyone still talking in terms of "weapons" is clearly missing something.
Posted by: Pseudonym | July 7, 2008 10:33 PM
Again at Blake. Check out Sean at Cosmic Variance--Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Quantum Mechanics But Were Afraid to Ask.
There's rules; there's limits; and then there is possibility.
Posted by: Crudely Wrott | July 7, 2008 11:13 PM
I've always imagined that sophisticated theology was way more complex than the "popular" discourse. You know, in the same way that cosmology is way more complicated than its popularizations. But nothing more successfully shattered this impression of "sophisticated" theology than the time I actually bothered to briefly look Plantinga up.
I mean, seriously, the Ontological argument? I love playing with the modal logic, but I'd place the argument in the same category as Curry's Paradox ("If this statement is true, then God exists"). The other major views on Wikipedia are the free-will defense of God (oh, please), a reformed epistemology (of the we-don't-need-apologetics variety of apologetics), and an evolutionary argument against naturalism. That last one is especially ridiculous, since it argues that naturalistic evolution cannot evolve a mind that will produce true beliefs. What kind of BS theory of evolution did he learn? It also doesn't sit too well with the arguments that religion is imprinted upon human nature.
I now think apologetics is simply a tool to assist confirmation bias.
Posted by: miller | July 7, 2008 11:17 PM
Crudely Wrott:
After two years of QM classes, all told, I have a technical understanding of a good many of the questions posed in that comment thread, and I think I know when to deploy the old robot saying, "Insufficient data for meaningful response". (At some point, I'll have to write a book on the subject in order to figure out what I know and don't know. The problem is that before getting to supersymmetric quantum mechanics, I'd have to cover the basic principles and formalism, and before getting there I'd have to talk about calculus and complex numbers. . . Knowing me, I'd try to cover all of high-school mathematics in order to get things just the way I want them.) I'll be looking forward to the explanations Sean and company can come up with, particularly in the decoherence area — being a newer thing, it doesn't have as many off-the-shelf vulgarizations as other subjects.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 7, 2008 11:24 PM
different_anon:
The best brief defense of philosophy I have encountered comes from Dan Dennett.
While it's tempting to read that as an admission that the whole enterprise is fruitless, it's also possible to take it as a warning: these are the ways in which smart brains can screw up badly!
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 7, 2008 11:36 PM
If this is really the best they've got, we may be looking at the last generation of "scholarly" religionists. God may indeed be dead after all, at least as far as the arguments for him go.
The only arguments they've got left are Jack and shit, and Jack's left town.
Will the last serious philosopher with a "proof for God" remember to turn the light out when they retire?
Time for a new headline: "Well, That Just About Wraps it Up for God".
Posted by: Siamang | July 7, 2008 11:39 PM
If he wants to talk about Plantinga and new insights, I'm surprised Craig didn't bring up Plantinga's evolutionary argument against naturalism. No, it's not a particularly good argument. In fact, I'm being quite generous when I say it's piss-poor, but nevertheless, it is a unique argument that isn't simply a differently decorated cookie cut from the same ontological/cosmological/teleological/presuppositionalist/Pascal's Wager/Argument from Morality cookie-cutter templates of theistic apologetics.
Posted by: AL | July 7, 2008 11:52 PM
The arguments put forth in the article all speak to the inherent order of the universe, and calling this "God." As a nontheist, I guess I'm okay with this delineation of theology. This is not dissimilar from "Spinoza's God" which Einstein found so enticing.
My problem with theism is the eventual denouement into fairy tale beliefs in sky wizards and ghouls. Even that would be tolerable if they would just not equate it with rationalism, and more importantly, not try to enact civil laws based on their on their Sacred writings.
Posted by: Tony | July 7, 2008 11:59 PM
AL:
Would that sit well with his acceptance of Intelligent Design? Yeah, I know, asking whether Pseudoscience X conflicts with Bad Philosophy Y is a little like writing fanfic where the Enterprise fights an Imperial Star Destroyer. . . except without the cool explosions. . . .
Ah, who am I kidding: if it was mud he could have thrown at science, he would have done so, logic and consistency be buggered. He probably just ran out of space.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 8, 2008 12:04 AM
Kirk or Picard?
I like the meme currently going around labeling theological arguments as "Kirk vs Picard" type arguments.
Good framing.
Posted by: Siamang | July 8, 2008 12:10 AM
Philosophy may be the ultimate broody hen, more useful for its offspring than for itself.
Science hived off from philosophy in the 18th & 19th centuries. Among present company, that would be considered a Good Thing, no?
In the 19th & 20th centuries, theology became a separate discipline - not so useful in itself, but it's good to get the slow learners in their own room for the sake of the rest.
The last century saw the study of ethics begin to come into its own - something we need more of, particularly as explicit components of various curricula. Again, the (very long) gestation occurred within the body of philosophy.
My personal (and admittedly tenuous) hope is that the 21st will see a lot more attention paid to epistemology, the core of the "critical thinking" skills that both sides of the evo-creo debate are purportedly demanding. This particular egg is still being warmed under the belly of the philosophical hen, but discussions such as this thread may constitute the sounds of early shell-pecks emerging from the old bird's dirty nest.
Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | July 8, 2008 12:50 AM
Well, the evolutionary argument for naturalism is presented as a reductio ad absurdum. IOW, Plantinga (or Craig, or anyone who invokes the argument) doesn't necessarily have to believe the premise that evolution occurs. They assume, for argument's sake, that it occurs, and use it to show that a naturalistic view of both evolution and the emergence of conscious intelligence is incompatible. So it wouldn't be inconsistent with Craig's sympathetic view of ID to bring up Plantinga's argument.
The argument is of course very bad, and it contains implicit dualistic assumptions about the nature of intelligence and what it means for something to be intelligent that are untenable at best, flat out wrong at worst. As a trivial example, Plantinga speaks of "true beliefs" being somehow independent of minds, which makes no sense unless you are a dualist. Well, OK, even then it still makes no sense because dualism itself makes no sense.
Also, the question should be kept in mind that if the emergence of "true beliefs" is somehow a problem for naturalism, does invoking the supernatural solve it? Theists are fond of bringing up seemingly intractable philosophical problems for atheism and/or naturalism, then pretending theism solves those problems when it never does. How does a god guarantee "true beliefs" or reliable cognition? It doesn't. We are simply to accept the false dichotomy that if a problem is alleged to be intractable for naturalism, God is real.
Posted by: AL | July 8, 2008 1:03 AM
Theological arguments all have one thing in common: observations are not allowed as premises. All premises must be things that have never been observed, things that, in principle, would be unobservable even if true, and things that directly contradict observations. Not only that, but we're not allowed to try to verify conclusions by making further observations, because that would be Putting God To The Test, a most grievous sin.
Posted by: OrneryPest | July 8, 2008 5:31 AM
I enjoy reading this blog and its comments. Sometimes I am amazed at the naivete expressed here about the demise of religion. This is a science blog. Show me the evidence. The USA is as religious as ever and the actual evidence suggests a rise in religious activity in western Europe among young people. The news out of Africa and the countries surrounding the fertile crescent regarding religion speaks for itself.
I am the pastor of a liberal church in MN. Personally, I am a non-theist. I use God-language metaphorically. My congregation ranges from outright atheists to liberal Christians (and others) who know they don't believe in a supernatural deity anymore but are still trying to figure out what they do believe.
But among all these people - and me - the religious impulse is there. The urge to see and find meaning in life, an openness to awe and wonder and beauty, and an appreciation for a sense of the mystery of life.
Science can, and should, seek to understand and explain everything. That includes why we believe the way we do and why it is that we have a sense of awe at the beauty of a sunrise or at the birth of one of our children.
But understanding how things work doesn't make them go away. The religious impulse seems to be hard-wired into us. Hence, it is not surprising to me that belief in god came about as a way to make sense of this. It is highly unlikely this is going to change.
And, quite frankly, while I have no belief in an afterlife, there is no denying that there are some things that science simply can't prove or disprove, like what happens to us when we die. This is one "gap" that has always been, and I suspect, always will be, filled by some kind of religious response.
Finally, a word about the value of religious community. While it is unfair to generalize from anecdotal evidence, the word I hear from the atheists in my congregation is that the atheist gatherings they have attended in the twin cities are pretty uninteresting events with lots of condescending jokes about ignorant religious people and not much purposeful activity. Religious people may very well be ignorant. But if someone in a religious community gets sick or dies, or if there is a tornado strike in the state or a call for aid in Darfur, there will be an organized response. And, at least in my community, where we regularly have speakers from other faith perspectives, and meals and conversations where the Christians and Jews and Pagans and atheists in my congregation come together to talk about their beliefs, there is an effort to ratchet down the culture wars and make the world a little better place to live. There is value in religious community.
And, of course, all of this can happen in other kinds of community too. But does it? It is difficult for me to know from following the commenting on these kinds of blogs where there is lots of snark.
Posted by: Jay Steele | July 8, 2008 9:26 AM
The Christianity Today piece is rather similar to the chapter in The Cambridge Companion to Atheism in which Craig summarizes current theistic philosophical arguments.
In May 2008 Jeffrey Shallit discussed WLC's ideas on time and infinity, as channeled through Kirk Dunston: Reply to William Lane Craig
WLC finds the logical "proofs" to be convincing evidence of God, he finds his poor understanding of mathematics to be convincing evidence of God, he finds his poor understanding of physics to be convincing evidence of God; it appears that there is no theistic argument too lame for him to endorse.
Posted by: Bayesian Bouffant, FCD | July 8, 2008 9:29 AM
Let me try this game: I define "breathing" to be a religious activity. Then I note that an overwhelming majority of people alive today engage in religious activity!
Posted by: Bayesian Bouffant, FCD | July 8, 2008 9:37 AM
These arguments from God always crack me up. They aren't bad if you are trying to argue for a pantheistic "God", but just because you use the word "God" doesn't get you where you want to be.
Let's put in the Christian conception of God.
-Every effect has a cause
-There must have been a first effect without an cause, or else the universe would be infinite
-This first cause is the Almighty Father, who gave his only begotten son to cleanse us of sin.
It just doesn't follow quite as well, does it? So I think the arguments aren't terrible, but there is an extreme equivocation in their use. They argue for a thing called "God" and then assume that God is their God.
Posted by: Chris Bell | July 8, 2008 10:00 AM
What Bayesian Bouffant, FCD said. Short-circuiting "awe and wonder" with "religion" presumes the conclusion of the argument. To a person raised in an agnostic, non-observant household (like me) it comes across as unbearably condescending.
The only "atheist meetings" I attend — indeed, the only ones I know about — are Skeptics in the Pub and suchlike gatherings. Godlessness ain't in the name, but you can be sure the infidels will be strongly represented. Such meetings have several advantages, I think, and not just that they are lubricated with ethanol. Skepticism is a method, perhaps a lifestyle if you're being grandiose, while atheism is a conclusion; I can't help but think that meetings organized on the former basis are more likely to avoid stultification.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 8, 2008 10:46 AM
Posted by: Jay Steele | July 8, 2008 10:46 AM
SiMPel Mynd
Your head shouldn't have exploded, because an infinitely old universe has precisely that unanswered paradox, one that cannot be addressed by the mathematics of infinite series. If the universe is infinitely old, there really is no explanation of how we got, temporally speaking to here. If you have one, I'm all ears. Please explain how you can start at -infinity, add an infinite number of terms in a non-alternating sequence, where the terms do not converge to zero, and end up in 2008.
If there is a mathematical explanation, it would have to, I suspect, be rooted in the singularities present and the end of one universe and the start of the next, but I have never seen it worked out. Maybe you have, you know, given that it made your head explode. The point is it would be a non-trivial resolution and not, as your head exploding implies, sort of manifestly obvious.
Posted by: heddle | July 8, 2008 11:42 AM
You can't. There's no such place. A past-eternal Universe no more implies that the Universe started at -infinity than a future-eternal Universe implies that we can eventually reach +infinity. An eternal Universe neither starts nor stops anywhere; that's the whole point.
Posted by: MartinM | July 8, 2008 12:04 PM
Here, heddle, let me clean that up for you:
Posted by: Tulse | July 8, 2008 12:08 PM
Jay Steele : I find it very difficult to believe that there is some kind of common human religious impulse, given that in all cultures the religious beliefs and practices of the people seem to be geared towards achieving very prosaic goals (pray to this god to stay healthy, pray to God to get rich, meditate in this way to gain psychic powers and eventually become a god.)
Now this is not to say that there isn't a more "mystical" / philosophical strand within most religions. There clearly is and it's very interesting that it seems to be rather similar across the world. However I think it's rather naive to think that the average Joe believer believers because he's looking to express his sense of wonder or beauty at the world. The average Joe believer believes because his parents did and his beliefs largely concern his own wellbeing. Now there's nothing wishy-washy about that.
Posted by: Woobegone | July 8, 2008 12:14 PM
The universe, or cosmos, always was, always will be, had no beginning, will have no ending.
Life in some form will have always existed and will always exist. "Gods" have always been invented by some as causes and always will be. Forms will continue to believe they are at the center of a universe which has no center. There will always be forms that believe that the universe around them is purposeful. There will occasionally be forms that evolve well and long enough to realize they are in fact the only purposeful elements.
Get used to it.
Posted by: shortie | July 8, 2008 12:36 PM
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | July 8, 2008 12:38 PM
Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD
Precisely. You can't get there from here. And anyone who doesn't see an infinite chain of cause-and-effect a legitimate philosophical (and mathematical) puzzle, independent of theology, has their head in the sand. But since it smacks of a theological plank, which it needn't be, I suspect many will just conveniently and unthinkingly dismiss it as a non-problem when it certainly is (a problem).
Posted by: heddle | July 8, 2008 12:57 PM
Mr. Steele:
While I applaud your version of "religious community", I'm unclear on your definition of "religious".
Others have pointed out that the second and third of these are widely experienced independent of the "religious" views of the experiencer (although "life" appears to be suffering some serious demystification these days). But I consider the first requires elaboration, specifically, the envisioned scope. One may have in mind meaning within the bounds of this life - the effects one has on family, friends, colleagues, et al - or alternatively what I call "cosmic meaning", ie, something beyond those bounds. The latter is what I assume "religious" is intended to convey. If this is wrong, I'd appreciate elaboration.
Many of the non-religious don't require the latter but are content with the former even when the bounds seem to be rather tight, ie, when one's sphere of influence seems rather narrow. The despair and pointlessness that some people seem to assume necessarily accompanies this bounded sense of meaning simply isn't there, at least in the numerous people I know who explicitly reject the existence of cosmic meaning without suffering obvious ill-effects.
Given the qualification that meaning need not be "cosmic", the assertion that "the religious impulse seems to be hard-wired into us" might be arguable (although in that case the label "religious" seems to be unnecessary). But if "religious" is intended to suggest a "cosmic" component, counterexamples abound. And, of course, at the other end of the spectrum there are plenty for whom life appears not to have much meaning, even in the bounded sense. Yet, they persevere - suggesting either wishful thinking (for "cosmic meaning") or some motivation beyond "meaning in life". Biological imperative, perhaps?
Some nits:
This blog and other similar ones are motivated to address religion not by prospects of its demise but by the "evidence" you suggest of the growth of some of its worst manifestations (I would have thought this obvious). I think you are mistaking statements of hope for counterfactual assertions. Widespread growth in the kind of religious activity you seem to espouse would be a redirection welcomed by many of the non-religious.
Let's make a personal deal: don't characterize "the non-religious" by their worst exemplars and I won't characterize "the religious" by theirs.
And one not-so-nit:
These evidence the importance of the epistemology studies championed by Pierce Butler in a previous comment. I'm not qualified to address this in detail (I managed to get through my first 65 years without even knowing the meaning of the word), but it's my impression that one should be very careful with assertions of this sort. (Eg, the second is an example of what Simon Blackburn calls "Ramsey's ladder". A phrase like that is equivalent to nothing more than an exclamation point at the end of an assertion and affects the "truth" of the assertion not in the least.)
- Charles
Posted by: ctw | July 8, 2008 1:00 PM
This post was about the demise of religion as an intellectual exercise, not a social activity. The evidence is right there in the post.
Really? No one in your congregation believes in a supernatural God? How do you know?
Posted by: windy | July 8, 2008 1:00 PM
Because there isn't a there! Do you also object to a spatially infinite Universe on the basis that nothing could travel from here to the (non-existent) edge?
Posted by: MartinM | July 8, 2008 1:02 PM
MartinM,
Yes I would object to an infinite, open universe. The present universe is probably much, much larger than the observable universe (which is about 40 billion light years) but it is not infinite. Unless you mean "effectively" infinite due to the accelerating expansion.
But that's not the issue--the question is how to resolve the conundrum mathematically--which nobody has answered. People are just saying: "Oh, there's no problem."
Posted by: heddle | July 8, 2008 1:13 PM
BTW, if you were attempting a Reductio ad absurdum, you failed. For a Raa, you start with a legal proposition, follow rules of the system, and show that you end up with a position which contradicts your original one. It is clear that you have not done that, since the steps you advise do not follow the rules of the system. You have only produced an argument from incredulity.
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | July 8, 2008 1:20 PM
Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD
I have not made any argument per se. I have stated that there is a long standing puzzle regarding an infinite chain of cause-and-effect. That is my assertion--and it is either true or false. If it is true, then it seem that it is reasonable that one cannot dismiss the puzzle as "so stupid it makes my head explode." Maybe so, but the onus would be on such a person to explain why it is so stupid, and why those who pondered it, including Aristotle, missed the obvious.
Posted by: heddle | July 8, 2008 1:27 PM
If true, this would suggest nothing more than that anthropologists are blinkered by a worldview in which awe and wonder are habitually conjoined with mysticism. Must the making of music now be a religious activity, because supernaturalism has often inspired it, godless musicians be damned?
Posted by: Blake Stacey | July 8, 2008 1:30 PM
heddle:
I note that you've avoiding commenting on the fact that this is also a problem for an "infinite" god.
Posted by: Tulse | July 8, 2008 1:52 PM
Shortie pontificates thusly:
***
The universe, or cosmos, always was, always will be, had no beginning, will have no ending. Life in some form will have always existed and will always exist. "Gods" have always been invented by some as causes and always will be. Forms will continue to believe they are at the center of a universe which has no center. There will always be forms that believe that the universe around them is purposeful. There will occasionally be forms that evolve well and long enough to realize they are in fact the only purposeful elements. Get used to it.
***
Talk about simple minded. He can't answer Heddle's question about first cause, so simply asserts that there wasn't any. Even the atheists here have dismissed such absurdity.
Posted by: earnestlee | July 8, 2008 1:58 PM
Tulse,
Note that I do not consider any of these as proofs for God, and so I will not defend them as such. However, there is no problem in this schema, in principle, for an infinite deity as long as said deity is not an infinite chain of cause and effect. The proponents argue that the impossibility of an infinite chain of cause and effect proves God (as the first cause). That's too strong for my taste, but I would concede that an infinitely old universe is problematic, a finite universe is suggestive, and while none of this proves an infinite deity, nor does it preclude one.
Posted by: heddle | July 8, 2008 2:02 PM
"Please explain how you can start at -infinity, add an infinite number of terms in a non-alternating sequence, where the terms do not converge to zero, and end up in 2008."
Could you elaborate on what you see as the problem, specifically what actual occurences you mean to model by "add an infinite number of terms" and why you see a need to "start at -infinity"?
Imagine the infinite real line, put two separated dots on it, then with a pencil draw a line between them. The pencil tranverses an uncountable infinity of points but gets from from one dot to the next without problem. Similarly, if one interprets an infinite number of "events" as meaning that an infinite number of discrete times "occur" (whatever that might mean), then getting from any time in the past to the present seems analogous.
I infer that you see this as being analogous to a problem in convergence of infinite series, but I don't see why.
- Charles
Posted by: ctw | July 8, 2008 2:06 PM
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | July 8, 2008 2:09 PM
"The argument that the world must have had a beginning in time is set forth with great clearness by Kant, who, however, supplements it by an equally powerful argument to prove that the world had no beginning in time."
Posted by: Tegumai Bopsulai, FCD | July 8, 2008 2:14 PM
In other words, if one defines the problem away.
How is this in principle different from saying that "everything but the beginning of the universe has a cause"?
Posted by: Tulse | July 8, 2008 2:20 PM
Oh well, I cry uncle. You guys have clearly demonstrated that Aristotle was a fool to puzzle over such obvious matters. Once again I did not foresee the raw power of the argument by "summarily dismissing as trivial with extreme prejudice and with no explanation." That one always stumps me--I should really be ready for it by now.
Posted by: heddle | July 8, 2008 2:27 PM
Hey, Jay. I enjoy a thoughtful discussion.
You wrote: "I enjoy reading this blog and its comments. Sometimes I am amazed at the naivete expressed here about the demise of religion. "
I don't think anyone here said that religious practice is doing anything but thriving. That does not speak to the truth value of the various supernatural claims core to religious belief. What we're saying is that the apologists have seem to run out of logical arguments for these claims... not that that stops them from making the same old and broken arguments again and again.
"This is a science blog. Show me the evidence. "
It is a post about rational arguments for the existence of god. We are discussing the logical flaws in those arguments. Are we not allowed to do this? By whom?
"The urge to see and find meaning in life, an openness to awe and wonder and beauty, and an appreciation for a sense of the mystery of life."
I have that too. I call it curiosity rather than a religious feeling. But when I get that feeling, I go to a science museum and ask questions of people who either know the answer or are working on it, and see if they've thought of the question that I've thought about. I don't sit around in a stained-glass cloister and chant and mumble about mystery. When I have a question, I try to go find out the answer. What I see in religion is that it's become complacent with mystery. It worships the mystery instead of taking mystery as a challenge. Indeed in many places in this culture, it's gone on the attack against anyone who would puncture their precious mystery with some facts about modern biology.
"Finally, a word about the value of religious community. While it is unfair to generalize from anecdotal evidence, the word I hear from the atheists in my congregation is that the atheist gatherings they have attended in the twin cities are pretty uninteresting events with lots of condescending jokes about ignorant religious people and not much purposeful activity."
That's why I don't go to atheist meetings. I've been to thousands of church services in my lifetime. A lot of them sucked too. I have had the distinct pleasure of hearing loved ones be damned from the pulpit. I bet it all comes down around the same: nice people and SOBs in both camps.
But then here's a question for you. You describe yourself a nontheist. You describe your ability to gather in a congregation of purposeful individuals. Have you ever thought that the reason atheist meetings suck is that you, and people like you who are good at bringing a community together, are all at church talking about a god that neither you nor I think is paying any attention?
Have you thought about holding a nontheist group? If you're in Los Angeles, I'd like to check it out!
"Religious people may very well be ignorant. But if someone in a religious community gets sick or dies, or if there is a tornado strike in the state or a call for aid in Darfur, there will be an organized response."
But now you're grouping us either by religion or by nothing. I'm an artist by trade, a parent by choice, a member of the community as well. A member of the PTA. If there's a problem in my parent group, there is an organized response. Collections are taken, meals are brought around, child care and shuttle services are mobilized. When there have been disasters in the past, groups of artists from organizations I've belonged to have held auctions and benefits. We pitch in. I've organized school supply drives for children displaced from Katrina. I've swung a hammer at Habitat build sites. To say that "atheists" have no community organization is like saying cat owners have no community organization. It's beside the point.
You're treating atheism like a church and complaining that we don't have all the trappings. Don't worry, we get our bread and grape juice and Bach music in other ways.
"And, at least in my community, where we regularly have speakers from other faith perspectives, and meals and conversations where the Christians and Jews and Pagans and atheists in my congregation come together to talk about their beliefs, there is an effort to ratchet down the culture wars and make the world a little better place to live. "
I'm pleased you're doing this. But for myself I could only stomach so much of these Kirk vs Picard type discussions where people discuss whether the Buddha has 1000 invisible arms or 1001. I have only a finite number of minutes on this earth, arguments over Issac vs Ishmael are best left to people who believe in them.
"There is value in religious community."
I would argue that it's only because there's value in *community*. I might further argue that *religious* community takes away value because it specifically excludes me and my family because we don't believe the ghost stories. I'd rather belong to a community that welcomes all people of good faith, instead of only people of faith.
"But does it? It is difficult for me to know from following the commenting on these kinds of blogs where there is lots of snark."
I'm a member of my community. Don't worry.
You know, as a liberal and a nontheist, you must know that we're coming off a bad patch of history. I remember 8 and 4 years ago in the presidential election cycle that people in the Democratic party were telling atheists to sit down and shut up, lest the Dems lose the election. I remember quite clearly that the voices were that John Kerry had to speak authentically about faith (whatever that means)... and all democrats too.
I remember quite clearly the call that "secular progressives" needed, for the good of the party, to either stop being publicly progressive, or stop being publicly nontheist, lest the dems get tarred with the atheist word.
I mean, we hear on the news stations how atheists should just shut up if they're being persecuted, that we don't know how good we've got it. Well, we tried that, and it didn't work. I've been an atheist for about 20 years now. My mother just got told last month. I'm done shutting up about how this country has gone off the complete deep end with this religion business. Every city block has one or two or three churches it seems. What has it gotten us? Are our poor fed? Do our children have health care? Are our schools better than our prisons? Is our planet cleaner and healthier? Is the United States a model for equality, justice and peace?
No, no and no. In every way, the political arms of organized religion have made this country worse over the last decade. It's long past time to disempower those who claim to speak for God, but only speak words of division, fear, hate, greed, scientific ignorance, bigotry, and hypocritical self-righteousness.
You also said, in response to someone else:
"Perhaps it is possible to get some kind of science degree without ever taking a course in history, sociology, anthropology, etc."
I think you're making a specific point about a specific poster. But I'd like to address the point more broadly...
Perhaps the assumption is made here that if one is a scientist then one lives in the sterile reductionist world of test-tubes and supercomputers. Devoid of the squishier stuff of life, like that liberal-artsy stuff.
I'm not a scientist by trade or by training. I'm an artist. But I've met a lot of people in the online atheist community. They do study world religions. They quite often have a wider and deeper understanding of the religious texts and traditions and history than adherents of one or another sect who often merely focus inward.
I've met people online who are tremendously thoughtful, tremendously learned and in every way renaissance people. Artists, poets, musicians, dancers, historians and scientists. People who drink deep from the wellspring of life. Humanitarians not just in the charity sense, but in the sense of fully living the human existence. I'm talking about world-travellers... pilgrims on this planet. People who suck the marrow out of this life, because you and I both know, it's probably the only one we're likely to get.
And there is a numinous quality to a life like ours. Merely because you've got a church and we don't, you don't get to stake an exclusive claim to "mystery" or "awe" or "wonder".
I have attended religious services in grandiose cathedrals and in people's humble homes. I've attended seances, visited trance-channellers and fortune-tellers. I've met with people who claimed to be in contact with aliens and have been told I have a crystal in my brain. I've chanted Soto sutras to bring enlightenment to the deceased at a funeral service. I've attended communion at St. Paul's Cathedral in London, lit candles at Notre Dame in Paris and traveled the Mission roads in California. I've attended Catholic weddings and Mormon funerals. I've prayed at the Toshogu shrine in Nikko, the Meji Shrine in Tokyo and walked the Philosopher's Path in Kyoto. I've attended a lecture by Stephen Hawking, punted the Cam in Cambridge and visited the graves of Newton, Darwin and Halley in Westminster Abbey. I've touched a moon rock, seen the Rosetta Stone and witnessed the birth of my child and the death of too many of my loved ones.
Do not think I toil in spiritual poverty or ignorance.
I know the Buddha. The Buddha is a friend of mine. Don't assume I don't know the Buddha just because I don't go to a church and you do.
I just don't believe the Buddha has any existence outside the mind of man.
I also think that the people who claim to know things they cannot are gaining too much power and influence, and have shown that we cannot trust their visions when our society and our planet is at stake.
Posted by: Siamang | July 8, 2008 2:31 PM
Posted by: Bayesian Bouffant, FCD | July 8, 2008 2:39 PM
Just to defend philosophy for a moment (admittedly speaking as a student of both philosophy and physics):
I agree that the whole theological side is a complete waste of effort, but philosophy of science is certainly a useful (albeit not a required) accessory to science itself. Ethics is also, arguably, useful (you dont need to be religious to have concerns over things like cloning). Philosophy also contains very useful applications like Logic and Game Theory (also part of mathematics, in fairness). And of course, philosophy is the subject that spawns sciences.
I'm just saying, dont despise philosophy just because the theocrats have hijacked parts of it to defend their lunacy.
Posted by: Jason | July 8, 2008 2:42 PM
With Jason on this one. The list from Craig are the ones that atheists (well, this atheist for sure) hear over and over and over and... They are convincing to people already convinced or listening to them casually. But they are in no way sophisticated or even new (taking fine tuning as a sub set of Paley). Considering that we do hear them repeatedly I'd say they carry some currency amongst believers (which is too bad considering their weaknesses). But it also seems sort of like a dodge. I doubt that many believers are genuinely compelled to belief by these arguments. If I showed clearly that Kalam was fallacious, would that really cause someone to lose faith?
Wish I remembered the numbers off the top of my head, but in Shermer's book on faith he quotes statistic that show that (overwhelmingly) people report that their personal beliefs are based on reason and that they suspect others are held for emotional reasons. So my belief is rational, yours is irrational. Little paradox there? Dare one call it projection? ;-)
The accusation that atheist writers aren't engaging the real theistic arguments always seems code for "they don't address my personal conceptions of God" or, more like Ruse, "they don't address the issues the way I want them addressed". Sort of a redux of the my belief/your belief schism.
Posted by: Barron | July 8, 2008 2:50 PM
Seen in this light, tailoring our gospel to a postmodern culture is self-defeating.
Of course it is. Look how stupid it is:
What a pile of idiotic crap. And some people think it's supposed to be "wise"! Okay!
Posted by: 386sx | July 8, 2008 2:54 PM
Arguments from authority are usually considered rather weak tea. Or should we also be debating whether the natural tendency of sublunary matter is to be at rest, and whether fleas actually arise from mud, since Aristotle held those views as well?
Give the arguments if you have them, but don't retreat behind the coattails of a famous name.
Posted by: Tulse | July 8, 2008 2:57 PM
Tulse,
I am not saying Aristotle was right because he was Aristotle. (That would argument from authority.) However, as bad as the argument from authority is, no better is the argument that says you can simply dismiss an inconvenient argument referencing an authority by cavalierly referring to the reference to said expert as "an argument from authority." I am saying that it takes cajones to dismiss his argument as so trivially wrong and to cause one's head to explode. After all, it took centuries to understand why his mechanics was wrong, and even now I wouldn't dismiss his arguments as idiotic and trivial. I know this for a fact, because many students in an introductory physics class pre-test will default to the Aristotelian mechanics--suggesting he was not trivially wrong.
Posted by: heddle | July 8, 2008 3:10 PM
So what you're saying, heddle, is that you don't understand Aristotle's arguments yourself, but we shouldn't dismiss them because he was smart.
Again, I'd suggest that a better foundation for discussion would be to actually debate the arguments themselves, rather than whether someone thought they were unassailable.
Posted by: Tulse | July 8, 2008 3:21 PM
Woobegone, you say:
I would respond by saying that there are two pretty basic religious impulses shared by all humans. Wonder/awe/beauty on the one side and fear on the other. They are called religious impulses because they typically manifest themselves in forms of concrete religious expression. Some faith traditions emphasize one more, some the other.
I would also say that while it is true that the average Joe believer is heavily influenced in religious persuasion by his upbringing, that is not the only factor. I am one of 4 siblings raised in a religious home and we range from atheist to evangelical Christian. Something more than socialization is involved.
Posted by: Jay Steele | July 8, 2008 3:45 PM
Steele: "I am one of 4 siblings raised in a religious home and we range from atheist to evangelical Christian. Something more than socialization is involved."
Probably has a lot to do with the family pecking order, and the corresponding need for assistance felt when dealing with the rest of the world. Evangelicals in particular