…and this is a 
Orr vs. Dennett/Dawkins
Category: Godlessness
Posted on: March 20, 2007 3:18 PM, by PZ Myers
H. Allen Orr and Daniel Dennett are tearing into each other something fierce over at Edge, and it's all over Orr's dismissive review of Dawkins' The God Delusion. It's a bit splintery and sharp, but the core of Orr's complaint, I think, is that he's unimpressed with Dawkins' 'Ultimate 747' argument, which is basically that postulating an immensely complicated being to explain the creation of an immensely complicated universe doesn't actually explain anything and is self-refuting — if you need an intelligent superbeing to create anything complex, then the superbeing itself is an even greater problem for your explanation.
Dawkins clearly believes his argument is much more than this [more than a parody]: it's a demonstration that God almost certainly doesn't exist. Can Dennett really believe that some facile argument about the probability of correctly assembling all of God's parts by chance alone is anything of the kind? Does he really believe that God is (necessarily) complex in the same way as the universe, just more so?
I think Orr is looking at it in the wrong way, and part of his problem is a failure to define the god he is talking about. If we are talking about something that is not necessarily complex like the universe, that is basic and fundamental and that we derive in some way from something as essential as the laws of existence, then we are not addressing the existence of the god worshipped by almost any religion in existence. Sure, we could equate "god" with simplicity, but that's Einstein's or Spinoza's god, which are not a problem. Dawkins clearly lays out his terms and states his position:
Let's remind ourselves of the terminology. A theist believes in a supernatural intelligence who, in addition to his main work of creating the universe in the first place, is still around to oversee and influence the subsequent fate of his initial creation. In many theistic belief systems, the deity is intimately involved in human affairs. He answers prayers; forgives or punishes sins; intervenes in the world by performing miracles; frets about good and bad deeds, and knows when we do them (or even think of doing them). A deist, too, believes in a supernatural intelligence, but one whose activities were confined to setting up the laws that govern the universe in the first place. The deist God never intervenes thereafter, and certainly has no specific interest in human affairs. Pantheists don't believe in a supernatural God at all, but use the word God as a non-supernatural synonym for Nature, or for the Universe, or for the lawfulness that governs its workings. Deists differ from theists in that their God does not answer prayers, is not interested in sins or confessions, does not read our thoughts and does not intervene with capricious miracles. Deists differ from pantheists in that the deist God is some kind of cosmic intelligence, rather than the pantheist's metaphoric or poetic synonym for the laws of the universe. Pantheism is sexed-up atheism. Deism is watered-down theism.
Dawkins explicitly divorces his argument from the idea of god as impersonal primal force, which the 'Ultimate 747' argument does not address, and instead focuses on the kind of god-concept we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis in the real world — not the abstraction of theologians, but the capricious, vindictive, meddling magic man of the churches and the weekly prayer meetings and the televangelists.
The metaphorical or pantheistic God of the physicists is light years away from the interventionist, miracle-wreaking, thought-reading, sin-punishing, prayer-answering God of the Bible, of priests, mullahs and rabbis, and of ordinary language. Deliberately to confuse the two is, in my opinion, an act of intellectual high treason.
I wouldn't go so far as to call it treason, but it certainly is intellectual foolishness. I like Orr's work, I usually greatly enjoy his reviews, but I think in this case he is, perhaps unconsciously rather than deliberately, confusing the pantheistic cosmic force he is unnecessarily defending from Dawkins' argument with the righteous anthropomorphic bastard that is actually refuted.
And yes, I know it is the nature of religion that everyone who believes will automatically state that their god sure isn't the complicated caricature of the Bible or the Torah or the Koran and will retreat to the safety of the Ineffable (but Simple) Cosmic Muffin until the bad ol' atheist is out of sight, and then they will pray to Fickle Magic Man for the new raise or that their favorite football team will win, and they will wonder if Righteous Bastard will torture them for eternity if they masturbate. Until that atheist glances their way again … then once more, God is Love, can't get much simpler than that, man, your arguments against that silly version can't touch my faith. It's familiar territory. Get into an argument with someone over Christianity or Islam or any of these dominant faiths, and you'll see them flicker back and forth between the abstract and the real god of their religion — their only defense is to present a moving target.
I think Orr would be better served by putting up a clear statement of what god he is defending, rather than shuttling back and forth. I suspect that if he did so, he'd either find himself agreeing with Dawkins, or finding his choice of god bedeviled with a very pointed criticism, one he can't dismiss so easily.
Comments
It's time like this I appreciate the good old simplicity of the Flying Spaghetti Monster:)
Posted by: Sarda Sahney | March 20, 2007 3:35 PM
This one's easy, if we're dealing with the Judeo-Christian God.
Christians pose that human beings could not have come to be without intelligent design. That's how complex we are. Right?
Well, we're created in God's image, by God. Therefore, if we're too complex to not have a designer, and our designer modeled us and all our complexity after himself, it stands to reason that God the Designer is at least as complex than the creations he modeled in his image.
Posted by: Fargus | March 20, 2007 3:40 PM
Two comments:
1) On days like this (as opposed to days where I encounter my lack of current info on taxonomy) I feel pretty smart-- I, too, thought up an argument very similar to Dawkins, apparently. I always like to point out that religious folks aren't simplifying anything by adding another element that is tremendously more complex to the situation! Hooray for me.
2) No ad present here! Apparently, my *brightcove* filter for AdBlock is functioning. I also am having no degradation in the elements of Pharyngula I expect. The ethics of automatically blocking a helpful site's revenue stream are a bit wonky, but I'm mostly unruffled.
Posted by: DaveX | March 20, 2007 3:44 PM
PZ wrote:
I don't think most Christians actually believe God lives up in the sky, then came down from his sky-home and smashed the tower of Babel because it was getting too close to Heaven, (except for the really crazy-ignorant fundies). Most treat it as some sort of metaphor -- probably has several dozen meanings and all.
There are many different kinds of religions and Christianities. The liberals aren't secretly sneaking off to be fundies who are afraid to jack off -- they're just enabling the fundies in the way Sam Harris has elaborated on.
A Blog from Hell
Posted by: Norman Doering | March 20, 2007 3:46 PM
I started laughing at "Ineffable (but Simple) Cosmic Muffin" and didn't stop for the rest of the paragraph. :-)
In this connection, see also Jason Rosenhouse's examination of Orr's review of The God Delusion, from last December.
I've said a couple times that we should start pulling out other deities' names when we make Spinozan or Einsteinian statements. Thus: "I cannot believe that Loki plays dice with the Universe." Or, "The good Lady Isis is subtle but not malicious." Yes, Loki was a prankster god, and Isis (a devoted wife and mother) once tortured Ra almost to death in order to learn his secret name and thus gain power over him. The irony of these statements is built-in, and serves to remind us that subtlety and kindness are not the properties of Mr. Yahweh "vengeful unto the fourth generation" Elohim.
Posted by: Blake Stacey, OM | March 20, 2007 3:48 PM
Sheesh, all this time you've been railing against xians and muslims and that's ok, but now you've gone and slandered the Ineffable (but Simple) Cosmic Muffin!!!
[Bugs Bunny] Of Course you know, this means war!![/Bugs]
Worshippers of the Muffin, unite!!!
PZ, you will be smitten...errr..smited... *wanders off looking for a dictionary*
Cheers.
Posted by: FastLane | March 20, 2007 3:50 PM
DaveX:
If they used targeted text ads on the Google model, I would let them pass. I mean, I haven't gone out of my way to block the ads which appear in my GMail pages (which I'm sure is possible, given Greasemonkey and sufficient cleverness). Advertisements should support a site financially, not degrade its usefulness. Until the Seed Overlords get that right, I'm going to follow S. R. Hadden's rationale in Sagan's novel Contact: capitalism is about providing the consumer alternatives, and the absence of advertising is an alternative.
Posted by: Blake Stacey, OM | March 20, 2007 3:55 PM
Re: #5
The proper god (well, goddess) to use for such substitutions, I think, is Ukemochi.
from the relevant Wikipedia article:
Perhaps this is the God(dess) Orr champions?
Posted by: Rick @ shrimp and grits | March 20, 2007 3:58 PM
Smote. (Clang!!!) Ow... happens every time.
~Evil Grin~
Posted by: LanceR | March 20, 2007 3:59 PM
I've found that most theists absolutely refuse to define their god. One even tried to say it was "justice", "truth", "beauty", and that kind of crap (reminded me of Plato's forms). I think that they realize that by not defining what they actually believe in, they become frustratingly impossible to refute (or argue with). Which is why I stopped bothering with them.
I think that if they actually did define what they believed in, they'd see how incredibly stupid it really is.
Posted by: Stuart Coleman | March 20, 2007 3:59 PM
Posted by: Baratos | March 20, 2007 4:06 PM
Here and now seems as good a time and place as any to acknowledge that I've yet to satisfy some of my critics request for greater detail regarding belief.
I'm working on it.
In the meantime, I admit to feeling conflicted myself; I tend to agree that Dawkins' 'ultimate 747' argument, ontology stood on its head, doesn't have the force that the good doctor thinks it does. At the same time, PZ is dead-on when he notes that much of this discussion turns into hand-waving, with advocates for religion using one sense of the word 'God' in one context for the purpose of defusing criticism, but privately defining or visualizing 'God' differently.
Complex? Simple? I don't know. It seems to me any definition of 'God' that is worth arguing about is of a being with the ability to transcend physical law, but then we are left with a fantasy that is almost devoid of content. On the other hand, if we posit a being who is limited by his nature, then one could easily claim that the source of that limit is a well of infinite regress, as with RD's 'ultimate 747.' Like I said, I'm conflicted.
Posted by: Scott Hatfield | March 20, 2007 4:07 PM
Stuart Coleman writes:
For some theists this is because they fundamentally believe that God can't be defined. For example consider Maimonides' notion of negative attributes (i.e. we can only say what God isn't). These aren't new ideas, Maimonides was writing in the 12th century.
Posted by: Jeff Alexander | March 20, 2007 4:10 PM
@Jeff
That's true enough, but one of the reasons I find Dawkins' argument incisive is because he narrows in on those "attributes" which to a believer would seemingly be non-controversial. Does God hear and understand prayers, yes or no? Never mind omnibenevolence, immanency, or ambient temperature, "does God hear prayers?" is about as basic as theology gets, and it mandates an unambiguous yes-or-no answer from the believer. Logically, a being that understands human prayer must be approximately as complex as a person (or at least a fairly smart dog), and at that point Dawkins' trap is sprung.
Posted by: K. Signal Eingang | March 20, 2007 4:27 PM
Sorry, but I can't let this pass without comment.
This is sort of why I can't stand Dawkins. The man seems to be pretty smart about some things, and hopelessly out of his depth with others. Until this comment, he almost had me believing that he actually understood (in a very simple manner) the broader notions of cross-cultural belief systems, and was willing to keep his snideness to himself. I'm sure he's a pretty smart guy, but he needs a few semesters of cultural anthropology before he is ready to make such broad pronouncements on the breadth and variety of human belief expressions.
Until then, his weak and unfounded reductionist comments just serve to remind me how wrong-headed he can be.
Why not accept that fact that human intelligence expresses itself in many ways, rational and non-rationale? It's not like humans will (or should) ever be perfectly rational. We are clever apes with non-linear brains that can coerced thoughts into quite complex configurations. Sometimes this allows for strict and elegant empirical processes. And sometimes we just find things pretty or compelling.
Listen to someone come up with reasons why they bought a particular car, or the pundits report on the latest economic downturn or uptick, for examples of how much all of us rely on existing belief systems at some pretty fundamental levels. We rely on shared beliefs and irrational assumptions every day, and by and large this has served us well. Tempered with tools we created, like rationality, science and empiricism, our raw human intelligence (no matter how you define that particular chimera) is now probably unmatched in our corner of the universe.
But it is the whole thing that gives us our smarts.
The bogus rationale/non-rationale or theist/atheist dichotomy is crushing real discourse on the nature of the mind and belief, and serves to alienate the healthy majority of us who lie somewhere in the middle. To most of us, this dichotomy is the most simplest mirror of that other dichotomy: liberal/conservative. Whatever /those/ particular words mean today.
I say this as an unapologetic atheist, a social democrat with a pretty decent grip on how science works /and/ maintains an interest in the varieties of human belief expression, and one who thinks that both the state and I need to keep our noses out of our neighbour's business. And someone who misses Sagan terribly.
Thanks for the opportunity to rant.
Posted by: clvrmnky | March 20, 2007 4:32 PM
PZ, I take whatever you say very seriously. Were you joking about the masturbation thing? Cuz I have been waiting for the green light here for a while... please tell me if you were joking, is it safe or not?
Posted by: Scholar | March 20, 2007 4:33 PM
And yes, I know it is the nature of religion that everyone who believes will automatically state that their god sure isn't the complicated caricature of the Bible or the Torah or the Koran and will retreat to the safety of the Ineffable (but Simple) Cosmic Muffin until the bad ol' atheist is out of sight, and then they will pray to Fickle Magic Man for the new raise or that their favorite football team will win, and they will wonder if Righteous Bastard will torture them for eternity if they masturbate. Until that atheist glances their way again ... then once more, God is Love, can't get much simpler than that, man, your arguments against that silly version can't touch my faith. It's familiar territory. Get into an argument with someone over Christianity or Islam or any of these dominant faiths, and you'll see them flicker back and forth between the abstract and the real god of their religion -- their only defense is to present a moving target.
Hmm. When put that way, Cthuluism really seems to be the only route worth taking. I mean, you really know where you stand with him... you're part of the buffet.
Posted by: Mike B. | March 20, 2007 4:34 PM
K. Signal Eingang writes:
A good question but it doesn't necessarily mandate an unambiguous yes or no answer. It is possible to answer that "hear" or "understand" are not terms that are meaningful with respect to God. This is more of a Deist or Pantheist (or Panentheist) approach. I can't really comment on Dawkins' argument since I have yet to read the book.
Posted by: Jeff Alexander | March 20, 2007 4:38 PM
The simple cosmic muffin? Heresy. What you need is...
A little green rosetta
A little green rosetta
A little green rosetta
A little green rosetta
You'll make a muffin betta
With a green rosetta
A little green rosetta
A tiny green rosetta
A green rosetta
A little green rosetta
A little green rosetta
A tiny green rosetta
You'll make a muffin really betta
It's betta
It's really getting betta
It's betta, it's betta
With a green rosetta
Setta, setta
And a green rositti, too
Posted by: dzd | March 20, 2007 4:39 PM
"Smote. (Clang!!!) Ow... happens every time."
If it hurts that much LanceR, maybe you should give up smoting.
Posted by: Efogoto | March 20, 2007 4:44 PM
Why not accept that fact that human intelligence expresses itself in many ways, rational and non-rationale? It's not like humans will (or should) ever be perfectly rational.
I don't believe anyone here advocates absolute rationality. However, nonrational is not the same as "irrational." I am not being absolutely rational when I write creatively. I am not being absolutely rational even when I labor over teaching myself calculus or read The Extended Phenotype. There is such a thing as visualization, as "inspiration," although it is not literally a spirit breathing into me; there is such a thing as "intuition," although it is not supernatural. Our brains are associative. We do not process information in terms of binary code.
As a woman I employ the nonrational every day when I'm walking in the dark; I have "eyes on the back of my head," and know when someone place one toe into the "invisible sensory field" that I've "cast," and thus I have lived twenty years in the city walking late at night because I avoid confrontation. People often call me "psychic" but I'm not psychic; I'm observant, a good listener, and a quick learner among increasingly distracted adults. Moreover I know a ticket to nowhere when I see one and that is why I've repeatedly said that even though I may not know how creationists are tricking me, I know that they are and do not get taken in. I pay attention to my gut feelings even if my brain disagrees because I know that the human instrument picks up sounds and other data without it being logically assessed; and yet my gut feelings have been shaped and honed by my mind, too.
Irrationalism is another matter entirely. There is no excuse for employing logical fallacies in an argument, or for lying; coping mechanisms initially utilized by the brain to deal with extreme or abusive situations become maladaptive when out of that situation; irrational fears can take over one's life unless one does something about it.
Irrationality gives the appearance of rationality, when in fact it is pure manipulation of another. Irrationality is employed to trick and to gain power over another. That's not the same as creativity or imagination.
Posted by: Kristine | March 20, 2007 5:13 PM
It's just Orr talking.
Posted by: CalGeorge | March 20, 2007 5:13 PM
I think Dawkins/Dennett and Orr are arguing about two different things. All three make major league mistakes, which has caused (in this particular case) such animosity. I think PZ, however, has pointed this out quite succinctly and helped focus the discussion in a useful way.
Dawkins/Dennett believe they are dealing with a series of religious and/or philosophical arguments for the existence of God, ideas which are demonstrably bogus. I completely agree that the ideas Dawkins and Dennett eviscerate are utterly idiotic.
But what they both fail to realize is that the "religion" they deplore is not so much religion as it is a highly organized political. indeed totalitarian, movement that exploits the symbols and practices of religion. Theocracy is not religion. It is fascism hiding beneath the skirts of priests.
Orr makes a different error. Where Dawkins and Dennett confuse a will to power wrapped up in the robes of priests with religion, Orr chooses to ignore the political and populist dimensions of religious belief - which are ripe for precisely the kind of exploitation they are receiving today - and urges us to concentrate on the more subtle thinkers, such as James, Wittgenstein, if not Augustine (who, Orr notes, rejected biblical literalism).
PZ is right that this is, if not intellectual treason, intellectually muddled. "Spinoza's God" explicitly is not the problem Dawkins is trying to address and Orr has failed to notice that.
But Orr has a point. The issues that concern serious thinkers on religion have nothing to do with the brain-dead idiocies of a Dobson or a bin Laden. And there are such thinkers.
Dennett, rightly disgusted with the garbage that passes for serious contemporary thought on theology, asks for an example of the good stuff, presumably other than Wittgenstein and James. I would suggest Lee Griffith's book, "The War on Terrorism and the Terror of God." I would also suggest a film by Lars von Trier entitled "Breaking the Waves."
Both works are, imo, intelligent meditations on the notion of God today. They do not require belief in God - whatever the hell that means - in order to understand and appreciate (by the way, I don't wholly "love" either work, but I think they are extremely serious and important religious works by contemporaries).
An objection to both of pieces is they are more metaphorical and literary than they are assertions of reality. Therefore they are impossible to argue with on the basis of empirical evidence.
This is true. The metaphorical, poetic notion of God in Griffith and von Trier and the world is not physically accurate. Nor is it intended to be. Religion for them, as it is for many thinkers, is a discourse, a kind of high-falutin' opinion, an engagement with texts and practices and beliefs. It is a more complex discourse than art is, but like art, it is not a description of a physical reality - no sky looks like Van Gogh's. Finally, religious discourse is, in the hands of such thinkers, highly contingent.
This approach to religion is not reducible merely to Spinoza's God or Deism. It is quite possible, as both Griffith and von Trier show, to hold this approach within a Christian (but not "evangelical Christian") discourse. Nor is this approach as dispensable as PZ implies. If push came to shove, it is quite difficult for me to imagine either person collapsing his religious beliefs into the simplistic moral and intellectual idiocies of christianism.
(For those of you who haven't read me before, I am no fan of creationists, IDiots, or fascists that exploit religion. I have, however, great respect for many aspects of religious tradition, for example the music. And I'm appalled by many aspects of that tradition (eg, the Inquisition).
Finally, I never discuss my own possible non-belief or possible belief in God. Not even my wife knows whether I believe, or don't believe, in God. )
Posted by: tristero | March 20, 2007 5:16 PM
The s-a-m-e old argument, just new (shiny) wings. The usual form is the infinite regress of 'yahwehs' addressed by David Hume a few centuries ago. Yahwn.
Posted by: mothra | March 20, 2007 5:23 PM
Serious Wittgensteinian thought on religion:
"The symbolisms of Catholicism are wonderful beyond words. But any attempt to make it into a philosophical system is offensive."
http://www.roangelo.net/logwitt/manner.html
Works for me! Religion is an aesthetic phenomenon. Nothing more. Dawkins is right to dismiss theology. It amounts to nothing more than an effort to gild a pile of crap.
Posted by: CalGeorge | March 20, 2007 5:58 PM
On even days, I'm a deist. On odd days I'm a pantheist. Every day, I believe in science. These arguments seems like wasted energy to me.
PS: For Scott Hatfield, on every third Friday, I'm a theist.
Posted by: rmp | March 20, 2007 6:00 PM
clvrmnky:
What exactly do you mean by 'non-linear brains'?
Posted by: archgoon | March 20, 2007 6:24 PM
Orr has mentioned Wittgenstein more than once. But he has never relayed an argument for the existence of God made by Wittgenstein.
Also, Orr's argument that Dawkins is not up on philosophy doesn't work on Dennett.
Posted by: quork | March 20, 2007 6:25 PM
Heh. Heh.
Welcome to the Universal Church Triumphant of the Apathetic Agnostic!!!
=8-)
Campus Crusade for Cthulhu
"This is not a pro-Satanism page. Why should we settle for the lesser evil?"
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 20, 2007 6:33 PM
Orr: "He rejects my claim that Dawkins failed to grapple seriously with religious thought in The God Delusion in the same way that he grappled with evolutionary thought in The Selfish Gene." [darn it, how do you do the quote/indent thing again?]
Anyway, Orr misses a point Dawkins makes very clearly: unlike the study of genetics, the "study" of theology has no actual subject. It's like people arguing over the specs for the Enterprise, only *less* stringent, since people just make s**t up as they go. Dawkins' example is the Catholic "proof" that prayer is effective and desirable (which of course is a major contradiction if one posits an omnimax god) - it boils down to, "We know prayer is effective and desirable, because we do it, and we wouldn't do it if it didn't work."
When your subject is that intellectually bankrupt, it's hard to provide a reasoned balance of both sides' arguments.
Posted by: Cogito | March 20, 2007 6:34 PM
I can't access Orr's original review but I didn't think he was talking about pantheism. A lot of theologians and philosophers of religion have argued that God is an intelligent interventionist with all the usual trimmings who's also simple. In fact, he's the most simple, basic thing possible. Don't forget that for most of the history of philosophy/theology, intelligence has been considered something basic, rather than the product of neurons firing. Such arguments are ridiculous, of course, but if an argument's been made by someone old and dead and important, for many people that's enough of a reason to take it seriously.
Posted by: poke | March 20, 2007 6:37 PM
What really amazes me is that people go to school for four years to study these questions. What a waste.
There's a Bible College in Rocklin called William Jessup University. I decided to look at their course catalog. Looked up "Calculus". I figure any good university offers a course in calculus. They don't. They have a class called "College Mathematics" that does not cover calculus, though.
Plenty of religion classes, though.
It's just bizarre. Take a look at the majors they offer there.
One of my favorite articles on God is from a children's magazine called "Discovery Magazine." The article is from 1992, and is called "What is God Like?".
http://www.discoverymagazine.com/articles/d1992/d9207a.htm
Such wonderful tidbits as:
"Let us consider the nature of God for a moment. Of what is God made? Actually, God is not "made" of anything, because God was never "made" at all. He never had a beginning. He has always been God. From everlasting to everlasting, He is God (Psalm 90:2)."
So... Didn't God make us in His image? But... He HAS no image.
It's the incredible quantity of shifting, inconsistent explanations that makes me shake my head. All this Deist, Theist, Atheist... Whatever, makes my head spin. And people can study this for years, instead of actually doing something with their lives. What a shame.
Posted by: MikeM | March 20, 2007 6:52 PM
WHO IS MAKING THOSE NEW BROWN CLOUDS?
WHO IS MAKING THOSE CLOUDS THESE DAYS?
HO IS MAKING THOSE NEW BROWN CLOUDS?
BETTER ASK A PHILOSTOPHER 'N SEE WHAT HE SAYS!
Posted by: Great White Wonder | March 20, 2007 6:53 PM
And people can study this for years, instead of actually doing something with their lives. What a shame.
Of course, if the world wasn't full of nimrods and diptwits, those of us with functioning brains wouldn't have anyone to bilk.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | March 20, 2007 6:55 PM
Anyway, Orr misses a point Dawkins makes very clearly: unlike the study of genetics, the "study" of theology has no actual subject.
Cue theology majors: "WWWWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAhhhhhhhh!!!!!!"
My favorite sound ever, next to the wonderful octaplex filter Frank uses on his Strat midway through Return of the Son of Shut Up and Play Yer Guitar.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | March 20, 2007 7:01 PM
I'm sure he's a pretty smart guy, but he needs a few semesters of cultural anthropology before he is ready to make such broad pronouncements on the breadth and variety of human belief expressions.
Oh, spare us the baloney, blowhard.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | March 20, 2007 7:04 PM
Why not accept that fact that human intelligence expresses itself in many ways, rational and non-rationale? (...) Listen to someone come up with reasons why they bought a particular car...
Those reasons are not considered above criticism in the same way religious beliefs are.
Posted by: windy | March 20, 2007 7:11 PM
For you young people who may not be familiar with the phrase "Cosmic Muffin":
--Deteriorata, by Tony Hendra (1972)
Posted by: HP | March 20, 2007 7:14 PM
Pantheism is sexed-up atheism? I'd always called myself an atheist, occasionally adding the addendum that of course I could give no reason to reject pantheism, but I'm pretty much in favor of sexing anything up. I guess I'll have to become a pantheist.
Posted by: Aaron Boyden | March 20, 2007 7:52 PM
"Rational" and "irrational", the way they are often bandied about, constitute a false dichotomy. Just look at the brilliant moments of irrationality which have benefited science down through the years.
Kekule was dozing on a horse-drawn bus when he saw chains of carbon atoms twisting about. In his mind's eye, one suddenly looped upon itself like a snake swallowing its own tail — and thus the world gained the knowledge of how the benzene molecule is shaped. Arguably one of the most important discoveries in organic chemistry, Kekule's insight came from a revelatory process. The revealing agent just happened to be his subconscious, filled with a vast amount of scientific information and making combinations willy-nilly. Einstein set himself on the path to special relativity when he daydreamed of riding on a beam of light. Alfred Russel Wallace struck upon natural selection while suffering from malaria. Fortunately, since his brain was filled with observations of nature, the writings of Malthus and so forth, his feverish sweat was more productive than most. Hamilton discovered the fundamental rule of quaternions when he set his notebooks down and took a stroll with his wife. And so forth, and so on. The bright idea, the sudden inspiration of "chance favoring the prepared mind" is one of the oldest and most enduring legends in science, from Archimedes' bathtub to Feynman's spinning cafeteria plate.
And like the best legends, it's basically true.
It's worth noting that these sudden inspirations — brilliant irrationalities in the service of science — do not always occur at the boundaries of "paradigm shifts". Einstein and Wallace, yes; Archimedes, Kekule, Hamilton and Feynman, not so much. And even in the cases where the inspiration "changed everything", brought about a "new paradigm" like relativity, nobody knew that until the effects of the inspiration had been worked out. Einstein wrote an awful lot of equations after he dreamed of riding on that beam of light. The structure of scientific revolutions is not so clear-cut, and no two of them are alike (to say as much is like saying that all political revolutions require Robespierre). Of course, some degree of philosophical confusion is to be expected when we try to understand a natural world whose imagination is more subtle than our own.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 20, 2007 7:53 PM
This statement is roughly true for pantheism in intellectual circles of the Western persuasion — the tradition of Spinoza and company. (A word which means everything means nothing, etc.) It may become less true if we move into more exotic domains — the machinations of the Jain or Sikh thinkers, say — but then again, those domains are to a first approximation irrelevant to A-Muhrican "culture war".
And, as Meera Nanda has pointed out, sometimes the same types of petty untruths appear even in the most exotic climes.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 20, 2007 8:03 PM
<blockquote>
</blockquote>
Posted by: David Marjanović | March 20, 2007 8:56 PM
Yep, I run into that ultimate cop-out too from the backpedalling devout. I believe this is exactly what Heinlein meant by Lazarus Long's aphorism, "A man's religion is a private joke between himself and his God."
Posted by: melior | March 20, 2007 9:13 PM
But Orr has a point.
It's the kind that most people choose to cover with a hat.
Posted by: Great White Wonder | March 20, 2007 9:21 PM
Falsely assumes a 'revealer' not in evidence.
Kekule's wierd idea in a dream would have remained just that -- a wierd idea -- if his careful practice of science didn't involve testing all the possible arrangements he could imagine, ultimately to confirm one, at which point he quit looking.
Post hoc explications of the process of discovery are ill-served by dressing them in a nice woo sauce.
Posted by: melior | March 20, 2007 9:21 PM
I tried! Honest, I did! I even got the patch, but it just won't stay on! Watch! (lick, stick...) SMOTE *CLANG* OW!
LanceR
Posted by: Lance Rector | March 20, 2007 9:36 PM
melior:
Naturally. That's the "selection" half of the Darwinian competition among hypotheses. The point is that the process requires mutation and variation as well (to continue the analogy). A certain amount of madness is necessary to keep the method working. One can devise a road map and systematically explore possibilities until one of them works, or (it's harder, but more memorable) one can luck onto an explanation which works through the happy accident of, as the saying puts it, chance favoring the prepared mind. Discovering that the explanation works, of course, requires checking the math and comparing to observations, no matter where the explanation originally came from.
The agency behind the "revelations" of Archimedes, Kekule, Hamilton, et al. is just the personification of chance as operating on the not-quite-conscious parts of the human mind. To call such a thing "mystical" would be to stretch that word beyond all applicability, but to call it a "revelation" (from Latin re-velare, to "un-cover") is, I think, apt.
To rework another tired cliche, accidental discovery helps those who help themselves. To say otherwise is foolish, but hardly more so than to diminish the role accident, happenstance and waking up with a cool idea (like Otto Loewi did) have played in advancing the state of rational knowledge.
Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 20, 2007 9:58 PM
On the other hand, if we posit a being who is limited by his nature, then one could easily claim that the source of that limit is a well of infinite regress, as with RD's 'ultimate 747.' Like I said, I'm conflicted.
If people are so determined to "posit a being" from out of thin air then I don't see what the big deal is about going the extra mile and positing a being who is limited by "his" nature. They're already calling an invisible it, an "it" they don't know anything about, a "him" so they might as well just go ahead and posit away and make it whatever they want.
"And I fell unto the ground, and heard a voice saying unto me, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me?" Hrmmm, I wonder if that really happened. Maybe people have a such an easy time positing beings because they have an easy time believing people who make up fake stories? I dunno, maybe there is some correlation there. Better to ask the theologlians that question.
Not!
Posted by: 386sx | March 20, 2007 10:12 PM
Blake Stacey, I am also intrigued by what Pierce called abduction: where does the hypothesis come from, and so forth. I confess admiration for your brief "some degree of philosophical confusion is to be expected when we try to understand a natural world whose imagination is more subtle than our own." I wish I had written that. No wonder your admirers find you Molly-worthy.
Believers, of course, tend to plug this gap in our understanding with another of RD's 747's. I think you make a good case that this move is unwarranted, and I find it amusing that some here seem quick to misinterpret the sense in which you speak of 'revelation.'
In that light, since you're an astronomy guy, I wonder if you would care to comment on Eddington's quip about the universe being queerer than we can suppose. Curiously...SH
Posted by: Scott Hatfield | March 20, 2007 10:45 PM
Norman Doering wrote:
I don't think most Christians actually believe God lives up in the sky, then came down from his sky-home and smashed the tower of Babel because it was getting too close to Heaven, (except for the really crazy-ignorant fundies). Most treat it as some sort of metaphor...
But then, they're being intellectually dishonest, becaue theat Biblical story wasn't written, or intended to be read, as metaphor, but as a literal account of what happened to explain the reason for the disparate world languages.
Posted by: Kimpatsu | March 21, 2007 12:04 AM
Thanks, SH.
As for Eddington's remark, I think it's a good precept to remember, although at the same time, we should keep in mind all the queer things we have managed to understand. Trying to put a pragmatic spin on it, I'd suppose that if it were true — that some big part of it all were just too darn mysterious to fit inside a human brain — then I wouldn't be able to know why I wasn't able to know. Then it's time to go do something useful, like replace the spark plugs in my car.
But then again, where could such ineffable mysteries lie? In fundamental physics, the study of what happens at the smallest scales over the briefest time intervals? How do you pack so much incomprehensibility into such a small volume? There are certainly mathematical theorems whose statement would require more symbols to write than could be remembered by a human brain; perhaps the first googol digits of pi form a beautiful fractal pattern when laid out in a square, but there aren't enough atoms in the Universe to compose that paper. Whether there are any interesting ideas whose expression is so vast and cannot be compressed in any way. . . now that's a puzzle to ponder.
This is where I give up and quote Feynman's Character of Physical Law:
Posted by: Blake Stacey | March 21, 2007 12:42 AM
Kimpatsu, I don't have a clue what the writers of that story meant and I doubt you do either. (Of course, I don't particularly care why they wrote it.)
poke wrote: Don't forget that for most of the history of philosophy/theology, intelligence has been considered something basic, rather than the product of neurons firing. Such arguments are ridiculous, of course, but if an argument's been made by someone old and dead and important, for many people that's enough of a reason to take it seriously.
Actually, the argument as it appears in Plotinus says that God the Intelligence originates or gets inspiration from God the One. The One is as simple as it can possibly be. So simple, in fact, that we can't grasp it at all. Plotinus said it transcends being and not-being. As Aleister Crowley pointed out, you might as well call it Nothing. *puts finger to lips ritualistically*
386sx, I think we have more evidence for Paul's weird-ass vision than we do for the existence of Jesus.
Posted by: hf | March 21, 2007 1:58 AM
Forgot to mention that Christian mysticism in the stricter sense of the word owes a lot to Plotinus.
Posted by: hf | March 21, 2007 2:01 AM
When dealing with religious believers, of any stripe, I think we need to agree on defined terms, so can we go back to my four questions?
Even the islamists claim that "god" is good and merciful (provided, of course, that you do EXACTLY as you are told)...
So, to repeat:
Before we argue the (non) existence of "god", can we define terms as to what this "god" thing is, please?
Also: if "god" exists, and loves EVERYONE ... then why is there such gross and unnecessary suffering around?
To which there are two possible answers, really:
One: "God" doesn't exist, and you are making it up.
or, much, much worse...
Two: "God" does exist, and he/she/it/they is a murderous, sick, torturing bastard, whom I want nothing to do with.
AND/OR
Is "god" in this universe, and real, with direct intervention in human affairs,
OR
Is "god" transcendent/immaterial, and "outside the universe, and hence space and time?
If the former, then why no detection, at all, ever, and if the latter, why bother?
Note that any "theology" becomes irrelevant at this point.
Posted by: G. Tingey | March 21, 2007 4:25 AM
" Where Dawkins and Dennett confuse a will to power wrapped up in the robes of priests with religion, ..."
NO.
WRONG.
That IS religion.
All religions are a combination of moral and physical blackmail, remember?
All religions kill, enslave and torture.
Posted by: G. Tingey | March 21, 2007 4:32 AM
This business of "inspiriation/dreaming/divine spark" is interesting.
The Japanese bhuddists call it Satori , enlightenment.
It usually, if not always comes when disparate pieces of already consious or unconsiously acquired information coalesce in one's brain.
It's happened to me.
I was at the top of the Northern beacon of the Malvern Hills on a hot day, and commented that there was a breeze up here, and wasn't that better?
My friend said, yes, it's said that twelve winds meet here.
Now, below the hills is Malvern, where Edward Elgar lived for a great part of his life.
There is also this gtruly great poem ( loved by the SF writers, I note) ...
XXXII
From far, from eve and morning
And yon twelve-winded sky,
The stuff of life to knit me
Blew hither: here am I.
Now - for a breath I tarry
Nor yet disperse apart -
Take my hand quick and tell me,
What have you in your heart.
Speak, and I will answer;
How shall I help you, say:
Ere to the wind's twelve quarters
I take my endless way.
- from A. E. Houseman's "A Shropshire Lad".
And then I knew the answer to the "Enigma" - the dark underlying secret theme of the famous variations by E.E.
It is the great hill itself, overlooking the town, and many miles of countryside.
There are 12 variations, plus Elgar himself, and his wife.
Interesting?
Perhaps
Posted by: G. Tingey | March 21, 2007 4:50 AM
Melior,
You're right. Religious discourse typically cannot make accurate statements about reality in the sense that science requires. Nor are such accurate statements the point. I don't see where that's a copout any more than saying El Greco's got other things in mind than fidelity to anatomy. I'd say it's an invitation to explore the meaning of deliberately ambiguous texts, rituals, and practices, some of which are thrilling, others disturbing, and still others confusing.
Dawkins is absolutely right that the reified garbage that passes for religious discourse is extremely dangerous. What he has trouble understanding is that these are little more than fascist political tracts that have little to do with the long history of serious religious thought and art in nearly every culture. To confuse theocratic fundamentalist crap with thinkers like the ones mentioned above is just plain wrong.
Orr makes a different error. He fails to recognize the extent and importance of fascistic tendencies in the modern public discourse/undertstanding on religion. To grasp how ominous this is, you must read, like Dawkins did but clearly Orr hasn't, what the loons are saying and doing, and if you do you can't help but be appalled. Wittgenstein and James are essentially irrelevant.
I'm not defending Orr or Dawkins/Dennett. Nor am I dismissing them. I think they both are saying important and useful things. And both are misconstruing important parts of the topic. The animosity comes from the fact they are describing different parts of the giant elephant that is religion while believing they are describing the entire beast.
Posted by: tristero | March 21, 2007 5:42 AM
What he has trouble understanding is that these are little more than fascist political tracts that have little to do with the long history of serious religious thought and art in nearly every culture. To confuse theocratic fundamentalist crap with thinkers like the ones mentioned above is just plain wrong.
I'm still wondering why people think Dawkins is confusing this issue.
seemed pretty clear to me in most of the passages that he indeed is specifically addressing fundamentalist crap.
and he seems to make it clear when he is not, as well.
regardless of what one thinks his position is, or what his background knowledge of the subject matter is, every day I thank him for putting on the flak jacket and taking the debate over religion and faith just that much farther away from "protected" status.
He's the perfect one to play that role.
PZ needs to get busy and write some books; he's still not drawing enough flak himself.
100K emails.
phhht.
;)
Posted by: Ichthyic | March 21, 2007 6:15 AM
It's a bit splintery and sharp, but the core of Orr's complaint, I think, is that he's unimpressed with Dawkins' 'Ultimate 747' argument, which is basically that postulating an immensely complicated being to explain the creation of an immensely complicated universe doesn't actually explain anything and is self-refuting -- if you need an intelligent superbeing to create anything complex, then the superbeing itself is an even greater problem for your explanation.
How come? Lol, you guys have good luck with your "Ultimate 747" thang.
Sure, we could equate "god" with simplicity, but that's Einstein's or Spinoza's god, which are not a problem.
How come? Lol.
Posted by: 386sx | March 21, 2007 6:44 AM
Hi Blake,
I'm not sure I entirely agree, but before we focus on my disagreement let me clarify in what sense I disagree! ;-)
You go on to give an slew of excellent examples, familiar to many I'm sure (you even picked my two favourites: Feynman and Kekule), in which ideas that were scientifically useful came to a "prepared mind" (another fact you note) by what you etymologically wonderfully call "revelation".
I would not call a one of the examples you gave "irrational", I would (tentatively) call them "unconscious". When you or I catch a ball we don't sit down and do the necessary calculus to catch it by hand, consciously if you will, we stretch out an arm and catch the ball. The calculation has been done unconsciously by our brain, otherwise hand and ball would not intersect! We can of course prepare our brains (and indeed our bodies) to catch balls with greater efficiency by training them. The people you mentioned, like you said, had prepared minds, trained minds, minds full of relevant facts and data which had practice in teasing out puzzles of nature by metaphor and sheer hard thought. Simply because some of the ideas these people had that were scientifically productive came about via a mental mechanism that wasn't step by step worked out on a piece of paper (as it were) does not mean they were not worked out rationally at some less conscious level of mental processing. Just like the ball catching.
Our brains must be processing the calculus required for hand to successfully intersect ball trajectory for us to do so. That isn't "irrational" but it is certainly to some degree unconscious. Likewise these ideas (the Kekules the Feynmans etc) don't have to be consciously worked out to intersect with reality, they are however completely rational.
I don't know if you think it's a valid distinction, but it's one I've found from many discussions of this nature, is part of the assumptions that have to be unpacked from words like "irrational" or "rational". So from this I would say that there is no irrational thought that is of scientific validity (by definition), but there are a hell of a lot of unconscious ones, or if you prefer revelatory ones (that has unpleasant religious and irrational overtones for my liking despite the fact that your etymology is sound ;-) ) that turn out to be scientifically valid. To me "irrational" includes logically fallacious, non-evidence based etc, and "revelation" includes those things are are indistinguishable from fantasy and divine in origin.
This isn't just a semantic quibble. I think the problem you identify is not just the "irrational/rational" false dichotomy, but a grouping together of things that are not necessarily related or thoroughly examined and THEN committing the false dichotomy you mention. Someone will undoubtedly accuse me of "reductionism" any minute, but I don't see any evidence based, logically coherent *irrational* ideas. I think the ideas we are discussing differ not in their rationality but a) in the conscious expression or development and b) in perhaps the manner that a master painter's brush stroke differs from that of a beginner's.
CAVEAT: To clarify I am NOT calling Feynman et al beginners! What I mean is that we ALL have a wide range of conscious and unconscious thought processes, the revelatory is the broader, perhaps cruder brush stroke, the carefully painstakingly worked out is the master's precision. I also don't say that in the derogatory sense of "science is superior to art" because in a masterpiece the painter doesn't use (normally, although I am sure there are exceptions) just one technique or brush stroke to accomplish the finished work. I'm not making a value judgement, one technique is not "better" than another, "more appropriate" perhaps, but not "better". The sort of reasoning involved in lit crit for example might do one little service in particle physics and vice versa, but they are both REASONING. Rational, evidence based (or at least data centred) thought processes with a variety of degrees of conscious effort in them. They might differ in their subject matter and to the degree they are consciously effected, and indeed in the "machinery" they use, but the underlying mechanism is reason, rational thought, observation etc.
I also don't think understanding that difference is any more destructive or harmful to beauty, love, etc than was Newton's experiments with prisms and light.
Louis
Posted by: Louis | March 21, 2007 7:46 AM
Dawkins explicitly divorces his argument from the idea of god as impersonal primal force, which the 'Ultimate 747' argument does not address, and instead focuses on the kind of god-concept we have to deal with on a day-to-day basis in the real world -- not the abstraction of theologians, but the capricious, vindictive, meddling magic man of the churches and the weekly prayer meetings and the televangelists.
I think the Ultimate 747 argument addresses the "god hypothesis", the designer god, the god who created the universe, period. But hey whatever.
I can pull out quotes, too, by the way:
"I am not attacking any particular version of God or gods. I am attacking God, all gods, anything and everything supernatural, wherever and whenever they have been or will be invented."
Posted by: 386sx | March 21, 2007 8:29 AM
Actually, Dennett wastes little ink in "Breaking the Spell" demolishing arguments for the existence of God, or other more esotoric points of theological thought. Not because he thinks its "garbage" (although he may), but because, he argues, the theological intricacies of dogma and creed and divine nature have precious little to do with how most people practice religion. Yes, many theists cannot systematically define their god, and many that can have definitions that don't match their denominations but, as Dennett points out, they don't care.
Posted by: Daniel Murphy | March 21, 2007 8:29 AM
I wonder how many people's belief in God is really vulnerable to a good argument.
Most of the people I know who are religious did not select their religion based on a fair and balanced list of doctrines, practices, history, or any of the categories we like to use to break belief systems down. Their personal religion is usually some version of their familial or cultural tradition modified by experience and personal preference.
Even the few converts to new or non-religion I know, do not describe the choice in terms of consistency or logic, but usually in terms personal 'meaningfulness' and 'attraction', suggesting that some institutional label has been abandoned for one with a better fit to some pre-existing set of needs or desires.
The 'plausibility' of a set of religious ideas about God might not really be a reflection of how well-argued a particular god is, but rather how the individual responds to a certain 'idea of god' at that time in their life (that 'idea of god' including the possibility of its non-exis