…and this is a 
Get ready to become a christian
Category: Religion
Posted on: August 26, 2007 5:35 PM, by PZ Myers
Goodbye, everyone: I'm about to destroy your brain. After reading the following, you will all convert to christianity and find no further use for my godless ravings. Sorry, people. When someone tells me not to push the big red button, I just can't help myself.
This is the first chapter of C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity.
THE LAW OF HUMAN NATURE
Everyone has heard people quarrelling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kind of things they say. they say things like this: "How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?" - "That's my seat, I was there first" - "Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm" - "Why should you shove in first?" - "Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine" - "Come on, you promised." People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.
Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man's behaviour does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behaviour which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: "To hell with your standard." Nearly always he tries to make out that what he was doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that something has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behaviour or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarrelling means trying to show that the other man in in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.
Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the "laws of nature" we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong "the Law of Nature," they really meant the law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law - with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obe the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it.
We may put this another way. Each man is at every moment subjected to several different sets of law but there is only one of these which he is free to disobey. As a body, he is subjected to gravitation and cannot disobey it; if you leave him unsupported in mid-air, he has no more choice about falling than a stone has. As an organism, he is subjected to various biological laws which he cannot disobey any more than an animal can. That is, he cannot disobey those laws which he shares with other things; but the law which is peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things, is the one he can disobey if he chooses.
This law was called the Law of Nature because people thought that everyone knew it by nature and did not need to be taught it. They did not mean, of course, that you might not find an odd individual here and there who did not know it, just as you find a few people who are colorblind or have no ear for a tune. But taking the race as a whole, they thought that the human idea of decent behaviour was obvious to every one. And I believe they were right. If they were not, then all the things we said about the war were nonsense. What was the sense in saying the enemy were in the wrong unless Right is a real thing which the Nazis at bottom knew as well as we did and ought to have practised? If they had no notion of what we mean by right, then, though we might still have had to fight them, we could no more have blamed them for that than for the colour of their hair. I know that some people say the idea of a Law of Nature or decent behaviour known to all men is unsound, because different civilisations and different ages have had quite different moralities.
But this is not true. There have been differences between their moralities, but these have never amounted to anything like a total difference. If anyone will take the trouble to compare the moral teaching of, say, the ancient Egyptians, Babylonians, Hindus, Chinese, Greeks and Romans, what will really strike him will be how very like they are to each other and to our own. Some of the evidence I have put together in the appendix of another book called The Abolition of Man; but for our present purpose I need only ask the reader to think what a totally different morality would mean. Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. You might as well try to imagine a country where two and two made five. Men have differed as regards what people you ought to be unselfish to - whether it was only your own family, or your fellow countrymen, or everyone. But they have always agreed that you ought not to put yourself first. Selfishness has never been admired. Men have differed as to whether you should have one wife or four. But they have always agreed that you must not simply have any woman you liked.
But the most remarkable thing is this. Whenever you find a man who says he does not believe in a real Right and Wrong, you will find him going back on this a moment later. He may break his promise to you, but if you try breaking one to him he will be complaining "It's not fair" before you can say Jack Robinson. A nation may say treaties do not matter; but then, next minute, they spoil their case by saying that the particular treaty they want to break was an unfair one. But if treaties do not matter, and if there is no such thing as Right and Wrong - in other words, if there is no Law of Nature - what is the difference between a fair treaty and an unfair one? Have they not let the cat out of the bag and shown that, whatever they say, they really know the Law of Nature just like anyone else?
It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may sometimes be mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table. Now if we are agreed about that, I go on to my next point, which is this. None of us are really keeping the Law of Nature. If there are any exceptions among you, I apologize to them. They had much better read some other work, for nothing I am going to say concerns them. And now turning to the ordinary human beings who are left:
I hope you will not misunderstand what I am going to say. I am not preaching, and Heaven knows I do not pretend to be better than anyone else. I am only trying to call attention to a fact; the fact that this year, or this month, or, more likely, this very day, we have failed to practise ourselves the kind of behaviour we expect from other people. There may be all sorts of excuses for us. that time you were so unfair to the children was when you were very tired. That slightly shady business about the money - the one you have almost forgotten - came when you were very hard up. And what you promised to do for old So-and-so and have never done - well, you never would have promised if you had known how frightfully busy you were going to be. As as for your behaviour to your wife (or husband) or sister (or brother) if I knew how irritating they could be, I would not wonder at it - and who the dickens am I, anyway? I am just the same. That is to say, I do not succeed in keeping the Law of Nature very well, and the moment anyone tells me I am not keeping it, there starts up in my mind a string of excuses as long as your arm. The question at the moment is not whether they are good excuses. The point is that they are one more proof of how deeply, whether we like it or not, we believe in the Law of Nature. If we do not believe in decent behaviour, why should we be so anxious to make excuses for not having behaved decently? The truth is, we believe in decency so much - we feel the Rule or Law pressing on us so - that we cannot bear to face the fact that we are breaking it, and consequently we try to shift the responsibility. For you notice that it is only for our bad behaviour that we find all these explanations. It is only our bad temper that we put down to being tired or worried or hungry; we put our good temper down to ourselves.
These, then, are the two points I wanted to make. First, that human beings, all over the earth, have this curious idea that they ought to behave in a certain way, and cannot really get rid of it. Secondly, that they do not in fact behave in that way. They know the Law of Nature; they break it. These two facts are the foundation of all clear thinking about the universe we live in.
There's little point in saying anything more, since I imagine that if you've gotten this far you're all off stampeding to the nearest church, or at least you're on your knees with tears running down your cheeks, praying to your savior. Right?
What? You're still here?
But I just listened to this ghastly fawning interview with Francis Collins, and he claimed about 11 minutes into it that he used to be an obnoxious atheist, and after reading three pages of Mere Christianity, his "arguments against faith lay in ruins."
Whoa, I thought, this must be powerful stuff. I read it. You've just read it. I'm afraid, though, that the only thing in ruins is Collins' reputation. What kind of weak-minded, uncritical dink would find anything in that pablum at all persuasive?
The rest of the interview is pretty worthless, too. Collins has finally heard of observations and experiments in non-humans that demonstrate empathy and altruism, but he's unconvinced by them — he still thinks that humans are somehow special, and is now arguing that altruism in evolution is all about self-interest, and that because sometimes humans do things against their own self-interest, selection (which he equates with evolution) could not have caused them. He's blatantly panadaptationist.
Oh, and he makes a claim I've heard somewhere else before: guess who is to blame for creationism? Not religion, oh no. It's the fault of the "extreme wing" of the scientific community, those annoying atheists, and creationism is a backlash in response to "atheist voices". Gah. What an awful nitwit.
If Lewis converted you, give thanks and blessings to the Canadian Cynic, who inflicted this dreadful interview on me. It didn't seem to work on me, but maybe I'm just too steeped in narrow-minded evil.
Comments
The logic is air-tight, isn't it? We cannot avoid acknowledgment of the Law of Nature. It's obvious that we must therefore acknowledge the Lawgiver, because Laws (especially uppercase ones) do not give themselves. Tight! From there I assume it's just a baby-step to Christianity. Except...
I read Mere Christianity thirty years ago when I was in college, just before I lapsed completely in religious practice and belief.
Better check the label for serious side-effects: "May cause unbelief in those who are already full to up here."
Posted by: Zeno | August 26, 2007 5:44 PM
Indian movies have elaborate dance numbers... Therefore, Hinduism is the one true faith. QED (Well it makes about as much sense and Mere Christianity.)
Posted by: K. Engels | August 26, 2007 5:51 PM
Mr Lewis should have stuck to writing children's books, and not philosophy.
The smushed corpse-smudge of Stensioella heintzi makes more sense than this passage.
Posted by: Stanton | August 26, 2007 5:56 PM
All I know PZ is that when I was in a really bad spot in my life God was there for me. Barring that type of occurrence for you, and seeing that reasoning fails on you, I don't know if you would ever believe until you pass away and see Him face to face or face to His overwhelming light. And that may be to late for you PZ. I hope it isn't but the sad fact is that you are taking a huge gamble with your soul.
Posted by: Bond, James Bond | August 26, 2007 5:58 PM
This is funny. I just read an article this morning on Mother Theresa. It seems like even she doubted the existence of God. Of course the article says that makes her sound more human. It's interesting how many people profess belief that they don't have.
Posted by: Unstable Isotope | August 26, 2007 6:03 PM
Don't welch on Pascal's Wager. I'm going to have to have that check, Mr. Bond...
James Bond: What are you going to do to me?
Le Chiffre: Physically, nothing, Mr. Bond.
James Bond: Ah, so you're going to nothing me to death.
Posted by: Le Chiffre | August 26, 2007 6:04 PM
ZZZZZ
ROOOOO
ZZZROwhat? There was an argument in there? I must have missed it.
To be fair, though, Collins didn't say he read the first three pages, did he?
Ooh, Pascal's Wager.
Dude, Pascal's Wager doesn't work. Firstly, there are way too many religions to choose from, and their requirements often contradict each other; Pascal's Wager offers no way whatsoever on how to choose. Secondly, listen to the wise words of Terry Pratchett (from Hogfather):
Who is it again on whom reasoning fails?
Posted by: David Marjanović | August 26, 2007 6:11 PM
Bond, James Bond is our new troll?
Welcome, Mr. Bond, to our lair. Prepare to have your arguments eviscerated and burnt to a crisp by our sharks with frikkin' laser beams on their foreheads.
One real question for you:
Would you be the person you are today is god hadn't been there for you during that bad spot in your life?
Posted by: Jeb, FCD | August 26, 2007 6:15 PM
Funny. I always have thought this was a really good argument for the existence of people.
I. There seems to be a general sort of agreement about what the broad principles of morality are;
II. There cannot be an "agreement" without "agree-ers";
III. Therefore, the agree-ers (people) exist.
I see that one as pretty iron-clad. Don't see what it has to do with Zeus and such-like, though. It never seemed to me that we needed Zeus to exist for us to have the capacity to agree with one another.
I would point out, too, that even the extreme theists like Lewis do not deny the actual existence of people, even though the existence of people solves the "where does morality come from" problem and thus undermines his whole approach. In fact, the people who deny the existence of people are few and far between. Is there even a word for them? Apopulists?
Posted by: Kurt Denke | August 26, 2007 6:19 PM
He's jesus' secret agent.
WWJD?
Apparently Jesus drives an Aston Martin.
I'll take one Octopussy over Jesus any day.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 26, 2007 6:20 PM
::raises hand:: Mere Christianity did indeed convert me. In fact, it was thanks to Francis Collins--I was interested in biology, and my father took me to hear a talk by him on the Human Genome Project and Christianity. Collins of course mentioned the book, my dad bought it for me, I read it and was convinced.
This was because I was thirteen years old, and Mere Christianity was the first logical (cough!) argument for religion I had ever encountered in my new life as an abstract thinker. (I had never encountered an argument against Christianity.)
It took only my first year of university to disenchant me, not only with Lewis's arguments but with arguments 'proving' the existence of a deity at all. I became a mystic because I figured that was the only way to retain my faith. Around the same time, I lost interest in biology.
Now, in my last year of university, I've finally come to the stunning realization that no, I don't need religion for anything. Part of my letting-go process involved Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion--in which he exposes the arguments Lewis makes (and a number of others) as the rhetorical fluff they really are.
I've taken up biology again, and am wondering how Francis Collins manages to juggle it all.
Posted by: Susan R. | August 26, 2007 6:23 PM
Posted by: Steve LaBonne | August 26, 2007 6:26 PM
Anyone need further proof that there is no god?
Don't go in the water.
http://www.joe-ks.com/archives_aug2007/PiranhaOnSteroids.htm
Posted by: Steve_C | August 26, 2007 6:28 PM
Gee, humans are social creatures and depend on treating each other in some fudamentally decent manner in order for all of us to survive. Therefore, it is proof that some higher power installed this "Law Of Nature" in all of us.
No, all this means is that our species would be long dead if we turned towards being complete antisocial.
Yet an other book I never have any reason to read. Thanks to PZ for saving that bit of time.
Posted by: Janine | August 26, 2007 6:34 PM
I'm currently reading Mark D. Hausers' MORAL MINDS and it takes up the very question of whether or not we have an inate foundation for building our morals. But unlike Lewis who already had his answer before he thought of his question, Hauser looks to find a natural answer that can be tested. Much like our capability for language, he argues that our morality evolved as well.
It makes for good reading, no matter what your opinion is. If only Mere Christianity could be the same way...
Posted by: Michael | August 26, 2007 6:40 PM
Ah, Lewis... funny thing, a Law of Nature that we all must follow, unless we don't. "The Code is more what you'd call 'guidelines' than actual rules..."
Posted by: Aaron | August 26, 2007 6:54 PM
Well, thanks. As said above, another book I won't be reading.
Steve, that is an awesome fish. Any idea what it really is and where it's from?
Posted by: True Bob | August 26, 2007 6:55 PM
I'm too new to being an evil intolerant narrow minded atheist to make it through that. I haven't found my balance yet and just end up sputtering in shock at the sheer stupidity of that many people or falling asleep.
I just can't seem to get past how small and constrained the theists seem to want to make the universe, like their creation myth is actually more impressive that what is really out there. Their great god just comes across as this petty ignorant bully doing bad slight of hand, and I just can't see the great part. They seem to think if they tell me often enough it might some how be true. How does any of that compare favorably to trillions of stars, billions of years, billions of interlocking evolving life forms, resulting in a being capable of appreciating the irony of just how pathetic religion is? I just don't get it.
Posted by: Venger | August 26, 2007 6:55 PM
One wonders what C.S. Lewis would have done if confronted by the phrase "social contract," and the knowledge to make sense of it.
Jesus built my hotrod social contract. Riiight...
Posted by: Interrobang | August 26, 2007 6:57 PM
*sigh*
I rather have a soft spot for C.S. Lewis although I had to wrestle with it for decades. Lewis seems a bit "odd" to me in that being a devout and literal Christian he never behaves the way I expect devout and literal Christians to behave. (Namely idiotically, closed-minded, and very stupid.)
In this argument he is trying to strip away labels and baggage associated with what we debaters may may have with the concept of "Christianity" and with "Atheism" and get to a general common sense idea of how we all deep down "know" the world is regardless of whatever labels and rules we may have added upon it. There is some merit to this approach. How often have we heard morality can't exist without a belief in God. We can counter this be questioning whether a morality based on a belief of personal reward, or in an ultimate authority figure is moral, and what is the nature of morality, and rehash Ethics 101, but when you get down to it, we all have a sense of morality because, darn it, it's the right thing to do. End of discussion.
Basically, he's trying to argue against what we would today call "relativism". Look, he says, you might academically argue there are no absolutes but deep down you know there are.
Except I don't. I really *do* believe in relativism. Yes, it's vague and is hard and I don't always have all the answers and some opinions are more widely held than others ("killing is bad"), but that doesn't mean giving into an absolute is an acceptable, much less the *only* acceptable, alternative.
I feel that Lewis' world view is just too narrow and niave, though. He's never really explored any other anthropological culture or even cultures separated by periods of time. Perhaps this is his point; we are European and Europe has a universal code based on Christianity. He seems to not believe we should be Christians because Christianity is right, but rather to believe we should be Christians because we *want* to be Christians and being Christians will make us happy.
Actually, I don't really understand him.
Lot's of folks *do* like him. I think he makes people feel comfortable. Much as patrotism makes folks feel comfortable. I dunno, I figure relativism and "everything being a matter of degree" and "relying on what I can deduce" to be *more* comfortable. But then again I was born in California in 1961 and not England before the first world war.
Posted by: woozy | August 26, 2007 6:59 PM
Must...resist...urge...to...convert...*kchkgh!*
Seriously, though. People have pretty much the same moral inclinations, therefore there is absolute morality and god exists? Ugh. When will people learn that the golden rule came before modern christianity, not after?
Posted by: Shnakepup | August 26, 2007 7:01 PM
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6964564.stm
http://catholicshopper.com/products/media/DE_3977.jpg
Posted by: Hank Roberts | August 26, 2007 7:02 PM
I fell asleep 3 or 4 paragraphs into Lewis, hence my failure to see the light. Did he always write for the primary grades or did he pen books for adults too?
Posted by: tourettist | August 26, 2007 7:03 PM
No idea what that fish is... it looks like some crazy african river fish.
Posted by: Steve_C | August 26, 2007 7:07 PM
Mr Bond makes me think it's time for the greatest of all Simpsons quotes:
But what if we picked the wrong God? Every week we're just making Him madder and madder.
Also:
Bont: Scorpio, you're mad. Do you expect me to talk?
Hank Scorpio: I don't expect you to anything but die and be a very cheap funeral. You're going to die now!
Posted by: Stogoe | August 26, 2007 7:12 PM
Ah, what a trifecta of crap. Lewis, Collins and Bond.
But what good is there trying to reason with those who ignore evidence and logic itself. There is none.
Therefore, we must sometimes satisfy ourselves with the simple statement to the people that they are full of it. That they are, as Harry Houdini would have said, "mental degenerates." That they express eloquently the most dismal of idiocies.
There is nothing else to say to these unfortunate defectives who throw away the whole world to chase after fairy tales, all the while burbling warning about things they have never experienced and cannot evidence except to repeat the fairy tale itself.
It is, in the end, a mental illness that, even though there may be functional intelligence in other areas, reduces people to the state of children in this one. Such is this religion.
Posted by: Mike O'Risal | August 26, 2007 7:14 PM
Wow, Lewis Godwined himself...
Posted by: B. Dewhirst | August 26, 2007 7:16 PM
Still laughing at our Christian troll, who takes the screen name of a killer and womanizer... but at least it woke me up after reading Lewis.
Look, I have to agree with certain degrees of relativism. At the same time, there are SOME absolutes: absolutes which allow us to function as social animals. Geez, I've been subjected to Meerkat Manor with the kids all this week... even THEY have behaviors that are and are not tolerated. Evidence of "morals"? But wouldn't "morals" require a soul?
hmmm... I wonder if Lewis ever considered invisible magic guys to be against the Laws of Nature...
Posted by: dorid | August 26, 2007 7:18 PM
The extract of Lewis that PZ quotes is - as far as it goes - simply saying what Dawkins and others have been saying: morality is within us.
Lewis may go on to say that the morality within us comes from God (I don't know - I haven't read Mere Christianity. But I agree, what's quoted wouldn't have convinced me of anything. In fact I find the style rather simplistic and condescending. Was Lewis writing it for children? Or did he find it impossible to switch out of his 'children's fiction' mode?
Posted by: PaulJ | August 26, 2007 7:19 PM
I think I need another dose, PZ.
I've absorbed the three pages and I'm pretty sure I'm still a raving atheist.
Posted by: CalGeorge | August 26, 2007 7:20 PM
#19One wonders what C.S. Lewis would have done if confronted by the phrase "social contract," and the knowledge to make sense of it.
Jesus built my hotrod social contract. Riiight...
Posted by: Interrobang | August 26, 2007 06:57 PM
I loves me some Ministry reference.
Soon I discovered that this rock thing was true
Jerry lee lewis was the devil
Jesus was an architect previous to his career as a prophet
All of a sudden, I found myself in love with the world
So there was only one thing that I could do
Was ding a ding dang my dang a long ling long
Damn, now I need to dig out my old single.
Posted by: Janine | August 26, 2007 7:21 PM
It looks like I have to recant that last already.
Meerkats are obviously souless killing machines.
Posted by: dorid | August 26, 2007 7:21 PM
Lewis said:
What I completely fail to understand is why he insists on characterizing these commonplace situations as evidence for existence of a higher standard arbitrarily imposed by some higher power!
I see it as: "How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?" (empathy); "That's my seat, I was there first" (competition, goal-oriented behaviour, accomplishment); "Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm" (tolerance); "Why should you shove in first?" (restraint); "Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine" (barter, trade); "Come on, you promised." (sincerity, adherence to a contract, truthfulness).
Are these not the basic behavioural guidelines that human beings started adhering to during the first days of forming a herd or group with a common purpose, survival and propagation? Are these not the most logical choices available to the early man in order to maximize efficiency as a group? Aren't some variants of these behavioural choices commonly observed among non-human primates, as well as other herd mammals, such as elephants?
I think that the overwhelming urge to conflate these natural observations with religious overtures, as experienced by Lewis and Collins, comes from being steeped in religious dogma and bias, and therefore, cannot be used as arguments in support of religion and god. I can understand the motivations of the apologist Lewis; Collins, as a biologist, should have known better, but his eyes are of course blinded by Rapture!!
Posted by: Kausik Datta | August 26, 2007 7:29 PM
At this point I think that Francis Collins has a much better libel suit against you than Stuart Pivar.
Posted by: Stuart Coleman | August 26, 2007 7:32 PM
Hey, I believed the stuff C.S. Lewis wrote about the talking lion, too.
But then I had a talking lion as a kid - Larry the Lion. I pulled his string and he talked. Loved that lion....
Posted by: donna | August 26, 2007 7:33 PM
Uh, 'Christian' is capitalized. Thank-you.
Posted by: Christian Burnham | August 26, 2007 7:38 PM
That fish is the African Tigerfish, one of any species of the genus Hydrocynus. It is a relative of the Congo tetra, as well as the neon tetra and piranha.
Posted by: Stanton | August 26, 2007 7:47 PM
Aaaaaaaaaaaagh....(scream cuts off abruptly)
...We are the Christian Borg. Lower your brain and surrender your reason. We will add your testimony to our already vast collection of propaganda. Resistance is futile.
(This is all your fault, Dr. Myers!)
Posted by: Citizen | August 26, 2007 7:49 PM
I don't even see where CS Lewis argues for christianity in that piece. He's laying the groundwork, reaching a conclusion I agree with (that people have consciences but don't always obey them) in order to springboard from it towards Christianity, using convoluted, almost imperceptibly flawed, logic. But he hasn't reached that point in the excerpt; and one thing I've got to admit about CS Lewis is he was generally a good judge of humanity.
His religion clouded his judgement occasionally, but when it is not mentioned, he often makes honest points.
Posted by: Kingreaper | August 26, 2007 7:50 PM
Posted by: Stanton | August 26, 2007 7:52 PM
"Think of a country where people were admired for running away in battle, or where a man felt proud of double-crossing all the people who had been kindest to him. "
Ha! The guy has never heard of the U.S. of A!
I blame Tolkien, he did convert Lewis after all.
Posted by: IM | August 26, 2007 7:54 PM
(Not related to steve_h, with the other email address who won't be winning the 500,000th post.)
Posted by: steve_h2 | August 26, 2007 7:55 PM
I'm a Narnia fan, but this excerpt discourages me from ever reading his apologias. He is just a warmed over Chesterton after all.
Has anybody here read his science fiction books? Readable or to preachy?
Posted by: IM | August 26, 2007 7:57 PM
Or for turning the other cheek? Or for beating their swords into ploughshares? So which is the unchangeable Moral Law, to love your enemies, or to bravely try and kill them?
Christians arguing against moral relativism, always as wacky!
Posted by: windy | August 26, 2007 7:59 PM
#7
Dude, Pascal's Wager doesn't work.
Sigh. One of my pet peeves is the persistant belief that "Pascal's Wager" was a theological argument using mathematics. It wasn't. It was a mathematical argument using a theology as an example. Probability and gaming theory were new concepts as was the idea of making concrete calculations on indeterminable results (which must be done to calculate insurance). Much as a gambler, or an insurance broker, can calculate "expected returns" by examining odds and consequential returns (example, if a ship has a 1 in a 100 chance of capsizing, and insurance policy paying of 1 to 100 its a reasonable investment), Pascal possitted taking it to extremes with "infinite rewards" against exceedingly small long odds. In other words, if anything were the offer *infinite* returns it will *always* be a desirable return no matter how small the actual odds are. (He actually made a mistake in that although he could imagine an infinite number, he didn't correctly percieve "the infintesimal" number as distinct from zero.) Mathematically, infinite returns, make betting on anything with any probability at all no matter how small the odds a "sure thing". This is a counter-intuitive idea and he needed an illustration to show it. What, in practicality, could represent "infinite reward". Well, he decided the concept of "religious salvation" could be seen as such. Thus he argued, even though the odds that God may exist might be a thousand to one, a million to one, a billion to one, as long as it is finite offering infinite rewards means it's a "good bet". That's *all* Pascal's wager was: A mathematical illustration. It works as theoretical argument about as much as putting a tortoise in my walkway works as burglary alarm. (Using Zeno's paradox the burglar can not reach my house without reaching the tortoise first but by the time the burglar can't reach the tortoise without first reaching where the tortoise was and by that time...)
If anything, Pascals Wager tacitly assumes the probability of God existing is really very small (though possible). If God existing was large (say 50%) he wouldn't have to offer eternal salvation to win us over. Just $20 on a $10 bet would be enough.
Posted by: woozy (but if the odds of God are zero or "infintesimal"...) | August 26, 2007 7:59 PM
TLDNR...
Posted by: Matt the heathen | August 26, 2007 8:01 PM
What a complete tool. I read that portion of Mere Christianity when I was thirteen and I didn't find it at all convincing. If I could figure that much out two years ago, then I can't see what's so great about Collins.
Coincidentally, I read that portion of Mere Christianity again a few days ago, since it's at the very beginning of the book and I was talking with someone about it online. I was even less convinced by it now and Lewis' arguments are incredibly weak. If Collins can become convinced of God's existence from such weak arguments, he's either stupid or cares more about what he wants to be true than what is true.
From Wikipedia: "...dealing with dying patients led him to question his religious views, and he investigated various faiths. He became a believer after observing the faith of his critically ill patients and reading Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis."
Seems like a logical way to come to a valid conclusion to me.
Posted by: Alex | August 26, 2007 8:01 PM
Most go off and edit Lewis' wikipedia entry, credit him with the invention the random incomprehensible Christian bullshit prose generator.
Posted by: lunartalks | August 26, 2007 8:09 PM
"How'd you like it if anyone did the same to you?" - "That's my seat, I was there first" - "Leave him alone, he isn't doing you any harm" - "Why should you shove in first?" - "Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine" - "Come on, you promised...People say things like that every day..."
Ok, I get it. He has some job where he spends WAY too much time with toddlers, right? He should try getting out and mingling with grown-ups for a while. Perhaps he wouldn't be so quick to believe in a sky-daddy if he socialized with people his own age?
Posted by: K | August 26, 2007 8:12 PM
I read Lewis's absurdly puerile garbage back when I was still absurdly puerile, and yet it still made me snort with derision. It's interesting seeing some of it here again for the first time in something like 36 years. It hasn't gotten any smarter.
My god... the faith heads actually hold this desiccated old berk and his simple-minded ideas up as some sort of definitive, clinching statement on christian belief. Astounding. This is really still the best they can do?
Posted by: Jack Rawlinson | August 26, 2007 8:16 PM
I think that was his point. Because there are universal laws all humans share they are a "natural law" because everyone knows them without a culture ever teaching them. They had to have come from somewhere and that was from another "universal law" the belief in a God that gave these laws.
I always figured a counter argument would be all the "indecent" common laws that everyone knows but which keep us apart. "Here hold on to this; is better you have it than some stranger" "Don't talk about family business to outsiders" "It's us or them" "Family first" "Our race is superior to others" "Honor among thieves" etc.
In some other essay he argued it was impossible to imagine a society where cowardice was admired or where breaking promises was considered honorable. When I read that I had two and a half immediate thoughts: 1) Cowardice and dishonesty don't help a society so any society with such values wouldn't last 1 1/2) Cowardice and dishonesty are personally easier so thus not uniquely notable nor are they definable except in contrast to bravery and honesty so although I can't imagine a society where cowardice and dishonesty are considered virtues I can easily imaginee societies where bravery and honesty aren't given any consideration as virtues at all and in fact anthropologists know of many such cultures and 2) Hold on; in anti-vietnam anti-draft groups "cowardice/refusing to die for a greater cause" *is* considered virtuous and in gangster movies double-crossing a rat or a weak patsie or making a power grab *is* considered admirable as a sign of strength or cleverness.
It alway seemed to me that he was being pretty limited in his outlook and that his "natural laws" were either not natural at all. e.g.. a culture with strong family ties and limited resources will value supporting a family member over helping a stranger or "being fair" whereas a culture with many but disparate resources will value helping others and empathy "being fair" as a practical way to share resources while others will have none at all. Or other "natural laws" are only natural in that all humans have the same sense of self-perservation.
Posted by: woozy | August 26, 2007 8:31 PM
I just have no respect for a person who lives his life an atheist and gets religion just before death; sort of a hedge play,no?
Posted by: david | August 26, 2007 8:40 PM
Well, all of his sci-fi that I ever read was Perelandra, which didn't make much sense. He really does fairy-tales much better than preaching, but he seems to have liked preaching better. Pity.
Posted by: octopod | August 26, 2007 8:41 PM
If Collins can become convinced of God's existence from such weak arguments, he's either stupid or cares more about what he wants to be true than what is true.
Uh-oh. You've done it now! You've used the "S" word!
Ten or fifteen people are going to come onto this thread and tell you to stop with the name calling.
Brace yourself!
Posted by: CalGeorge | August 26, 2007 8:45 PM
Yeah... Lewis says that "pride is the worse sin of all"--
I kinda thought pedophilia, torture, and warmongering was worse, but what do I know? --I'm a "mere" atheist.
Oh-- and "thinking is as bad as doing". Really? If you don't mind, I'd prefer you think of maiming me than actually doing so, and I suspect the justice system would agree.
C.S. Lewis also says "all men love to drink beer and hate". So how 'bout it guys-- is that true?
Reading C.S. Lewis made me learn that people can read the most inane crap and find supposed "deep truths" in most anything --and then convince themselves that they are in on special secrets of the universe.
Posted by: articulett-- the ungodly goddess | August 26, 2007 8:47 PM
David Mills wrote a marvellous explanation of why Lewis and Collins are wrong in Atheist Universe. Lewis is assuming that the law of gravity causes objects to fall, but that isn't the case. What we call the laws of nature are physical descriptions of how science observes the universe to work; such laws no more cause their observed outcome than a sports writer causes the outcome of the football game on which he reports. Lewis and Collins are putting the cart before the horse.
Which is appropriate, given that their writings are full of manure.
Posted by: Kimpatsu | August 26, 2007 8:50 PM
Um. Lewis' conversion experience (in some ways oddly similar to Collins', possibly both instances of temporal lobe seizure) was probably tangentally related to his relationship with Tolkien. Also, Lewis became an Anglican, which made Tolkien, a staunch Catholic, a bit unhappy.
There's a scene in The Last Battle (I think I was rereading it because of Neil Gaiman's "The Problem of Susan") where it seemed very likely, to me, that Lewis was deliberately mocking Catholicism (it's the description of Shift, the Ape, wearing a paper crown and demanding tribute, and all like that). I sometimes wonder what Lewis really intended with that — and how Tolkien actually reacted to it.
Regarding Lewis' SF: If you don't find the Narnia books to be too preachy, you might be OK with the Space Trilogy. Just keep in mind, that as with Narnia, Lewis is writing with the specific premise that Christianity is absolutely true, and the conflicts in the books mirror specifically Christian and religious motifs — just as many of the themes in the Narnia books do.
That being said, I vaguely recall the first and third to be OK, and the middle one, Perelandra, to be somewhat dull. But it's been a while.
Posted by: Owlmirror | August 26, 2007 8:53 PM
Lewis doesn't realize that he is arguing for evolution through natural selection. A country where people were admired for running away in battle wouldn't survive very long; therefore, the countries remaining are those where such people were despised.
Posted by: Ilya | August 26, 2007 8:57 PM
I read Lewis's "Space Trilogy" back in college, so it's been many years. The three novels were quite peculiar, an odd blend of Arthurian legend, Christian mythos, and horror show. In Out of the Silent Planet, the Earth is isolated from the other worlds of the solar system because of the Fall of Adam. The protagonist Ransom learns about the Earth's fallen state and the battle over whether it can be restored to the greater community or abandoned to evil. He falls in with scientists who travel to Mars in pursuit of wealth and power, taking Ransom with them. Ransom meets wise Martians who lecture at him. The bad scientists go gold hunting. Some problems are resolved before the return to Earth and some are left open for the sequels.
I enjoyed it enough to continue on with Perelandra and That Hideous Strength. The second volume takes place mostly on Venus and the third mostly on Earth (as I recall). Secular scientists are the bad guys (one clearly in league with the devil -- an avatar of Satan? -- and one a lesbian caricature) and Lewis visits various atrocities on the bad guys. That's okay, though, because they're bad and deserve hideous deaths. Merlin has a bit part and one of the characters turns out to be "the Pendragon."
Mostly readable, often bizarre, occasionally preachy -- altogether strange. But I think you get to meet Jesus on Venus, which sounds catchy.
Posted by: Zeno | August 26, 2007 8:58 PM
"It seems, then, we are forced to believe in a real Right and Wrong. People may sometimes be mistaken about them, just as people sometimes get their sums wrong; but they are not a matter of mere taste and opinion any more than the multiplication table. Now if we are agreed about that, I go on to my next point, which is this. None of us are really keeping the Law of Nature."
It can't be "a real Right and Wrong" if each society has a different code of conduct regardless of the fact that they are similar. Did God issue many different versions of morality?
Also, this would mean that the multiplication table analogy would be false if each society came up with slightly different answers to their math problems. "2 x 2 = 5. Wow, what a coincidence. We think 2 x 2 = 4. That's almost the same. There must be a God who designed it all."
It makes more sense that we are moral animals because we are social animals. Morals differ because they are transmitted to the young and not innate. That is, the particulars are not absolute but the tendency to be moral is. Lewis says, "none of us are really keeping the Law of Nature" and I say it's because we balance the need to get along with the desire to better our standing or situation. If it were a law from God then we would no more break the code than defy gravity. It would be part of our nature and not a matter in our control.
I remember a nature program on TV. A young male was "dating" a young female from behind a bush. They were both looking over the bush at the alpha male acting nonchalant while doing their business. Every time the dominant male would look their way they would stop and act innocent until he looked away and then it was back to boinking again. If monkeys can know "right and wrong" and can break the rules for their own benefit, why does Lewis feel the need to ascribe to God the same sort of behavior in humans?
Posted by: Rick T | August 26, 2007 9:06 PM
Snort! I am more likely to be converted to belief in Elves from Mercedes Lackey's books than Christianity by Lewis. At least she tries to provide some semblance of an explanation for all the supernatural baggage that collects under the car seats of faith. lol
Her latest book (Music To My Sorrow), which I read last night, has an evangelical nut who is trying to regain his daughter, so he can use her powers to drive people the direction he wants. He has, since 9/11 changed his message from a message of money (or sorry, I mean love and peace) to one of money (though also hate of everything not white or that smells of Islam). Add to the mix two idiot parents mucking around in the lives of another character, who want a trophy son (graduate of some big music college that will be the next Mozart), but also want him to be docile, and do everything they want. The news church of the evangelical is a mix of casino, dominionist conspiracy theory hot house, and now also white supremicist, which also sidelines in helping parents with kids who are "troubled". So far, not hard to imagine in our world.
The woo bits are that its dark elves pushing the ministry that direction, some other nut also showing up with tech toys designed to *hunt* spookies (elves, etc.) and starts working for the same fool, which of course pisses off the spookies already there, and the "help" being given to the troubled kids involves sticking them in a room and having their brains (or at least ambition, innate skill and creativity) sucked out of them, leaving them as happy, easily controlled zombie, useless for anything but a stint asking people, "Do you want fries with that?"
Seriously, **any** of the supernatural BS some/most Christians think exists did, I would rather get shot at by people in a war zone than live near any of it, even if there where also Bards, Guardians, etc. trying to protect the world from it. But, her "urban fantasy" novels are always a good read, once you get into a sort of Buffy the Vampire Slayer mind set. ;) And, while she is probably one of the, "lets be nice to the less nuts people", types, she is **absolutely** on our side when it comes to the general perception of the number, type and extent of the con artists, liars and nuts around.
Posted by: Kagehi | August 26, 2007 9:15 PM
Whenever I hear a christian apologist claim to have once been an atheist I know from that point on that he is a liar or at the very least mistaken. I do not believe that such a transition can be made.
Mostly I chalk it up to some sort of debating tactic intended to lead people to believe that he is in possession of some great truth of which you know nothing because you have not returned from atheism into the light.
I know I may be employing a form of the no true Scotsman fallacy but I just can't wrap my mind around the idea that someone sane and rational enough to escape the delusion of religious belief could then regress back into the delusion, that is unless and until god chooses to appear before us all and proclaim himself lord (yeah, right).
-Mark
Posted by: Mark | August 26, 2007 9:19 PM
I have to imagine that "real right and wrong" are somehow accessible in principle to logical insight. If there wasn't an objective reality to ethics, then if God exists, He/she/it could just as easily pick anything to say was the right thing to do; i.e. it would be good because God wills it. Whether God exists or not, that is grotesque to me and I must therefore imagine that: God wills it if h/s/i exists, whether h/s/i can do anything about it or not, and it just "is so" in any case. Therefore the subject can be formulated independent of God.
Posted by: Neil B. | August 26, 2007 9:36 PM
"I used to be..." It is one of the oldest tricks in the Christian missionary play book. Part of my job is developing a library collection related to Middle East studies/Islamic Studies... There are numerous books written by Christians who are 'former Muslims' who seem to know absolutely nothing about Islam, not even the most basic facts (dates, names of members of Muhammad's family, etc.). The jackets of the book play up the authority of these 'former Muslims', but I'm sure a good number of these books are frauds. Same thing goes for any other "I used to be an [atheist|buddhist|hindu|jew|wiccan]" stories.
Posted by: K. Engels | August 26, 2007 9:41 PM
I think everyone here believes there is a "law" of human nature (although we might have a different name for it). But how much of the law is one born with and how much is learned? Do we have a "law module" into which we will insert rules we learn within an appropriate developmental window?
Do we know stealing is wrong because someone told us so? Do we apply that feeling of guilt when we steal something because we were taught a special thing about stealing? Or did the guilt feeling emerge because at some time early in life we had something of our own stolen and we could transfer that earlier emotion onto the would be victim of our own thievery?
Is morality an artifact of our ability to model the thoughts of others?
Posted by: Mark | August 26, 2007 9:46 PM
Up there here and there about Pascal's wager: aside from what Pascal was trying to do (a separate issue anyway from the independent "life of the idea" once broached...) I don't see any true case for what makes the P'sW not relevant. Unless you could really explain why the chance of something taking your disbelief (of just what exactly, but I digress) out on you was indeed zero, then it does make sense crudley and simply to believe in "something" at no real cost to head that off, more or less.
PS: To scare the readers, I note that the idea of afterlife is not as absurd as you think: if you can believe that a computer program does not "die" just because the machine it ran on is gone, then your mind maybe could "run" again somewhere else. That likely needs a multiverse etc., but such ideas are prevalent in physics in limited form (string theory Landscape) and in more eye-popping omnifarious form in modal realism. Hey, you can't really deny the argument in MR that there really is no logically rigorous way to define "existing" in a material sense versus logical description of so-called platonic model worlds. Cackle.
tyrannogenius
Posted by: Neil B. | August 26, 2007 9:48 PM
... so-called platonic model worlds. Cackle.
Platonists.
The only circle of hell lower is reserved for Randroids.
Posted by: Ken Cope | August 26, 2007 10:05 PM
Rationality is difficult and complicated. Credulity is simple and easy. Difficult and complicated can always revert to simple and easy.
Posted by: Caledonian | August 26, 2007 10:09 PM
Woozy you stated:
If anything, Pascals Wager tacitly assumes the probability of God existing is really very small (though possible). If God existing was large (say 50%) he wouldn't have to offer eternal salvation to win us over. Just $20 on a $10 bet would be enough.
The fine tuning of the universe found in the anthropic principle requires material