I thought I would post an interesting email I received from my Unlce John.. he’s an editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer, he writes on religion for that same newspaper, and also contributes to Scientific American. So, when I got this email, in the light of our many conversations on this topic, I thought I’d post it.
It’s the end of absolutes for both for religion and materialistic unbelief Oct 23, 2005
BY JOHN TIMPANE It’s the end of absolutes for both religion and materialist unbelief. Neither has the knockout card, the open-and-shut, slam-dunk, airtight case. And that should knock both of them back a step. Each has something to say to the other, indeed the same thing: “Give up your fundamentalism – it’s toxic, and it’s hurting you. ” Healthful words now, when evolution and intelligent design are being debated in Dover, Pa. Both belief and unbelief may be much qualified in the coming decades. In a trend already 50 years old, belief increasingly may get hauled out of church, as believers feel less and less need for an institutional lens through which to believe.
Materialism (sometimes called “naturalism,” sometimes “rationalism”) is the belief that all that exists is the visible, concrete universe of matter. That’s it – nothing else, no spirit realm, no divinities, no afterlife. There is a fine, august tradition behind materialist unbelief. But – especially in the minds of some who believe they are representing or defending science – it has taken on a dismissive energy. In years to come, materialism may actually benefit from admitting it’s just a guess, more like other beliefs than most materialists admit.
At least, such are my conclusions after participating in the Templeton-Cambridge Journalism Fellowships in Science and Religion. This summer, 10 journalists attended seminars for two weeks at Cambridge University in England, went home for five weeks to prepare presentations, and returned for a last week of seminars, presentations, debate, English ale, and amazement at our chance to study God and science in 15th-century splendor.
Many stars joined us: evolutionary biologists Richard Dawkins and Simon Conway Morris; cosmologists John D. Barrow, Owen Gingerich, and Paul Davies; theologians Russell Stannard, Nancey Murphy, and Ronald Cole-Turner. They gave brilliant talks, argued with one another, with us, and with the cosmos; challenged us to stretch our minds and write better about science, religion, and the interface (if there is one!) between the two.
All my friends want to know: So who won?
Nobody. And that should temper all those who think their team already has. Despite the trial in over, the current American conflict is not between “science” and “religion. ” It is, to quote Karen Armstrong, author of A History of God and other books, a conflict between tightly defined subsets: “those who adhere to the scientific theory of evolution and those who believe that the biblical story of the six-day creation is literally true. “As she points out, this boils down to “a struggle between two religions. “The culprit on both sides in this American standoff is the mental habit of fundamentalism itself. And it could well hobble both sides. Book-based religious fundamentalism will, I suspect, gravely wound the cause of religion. It holds sway today among about 20 percent of Americans, but that’s only now. In many minds, the underhandedness and the coercive truculence of religious fundamentalist rhetoric confirm that religion is bad. It gives individuals no choice, nowhere to go, no way to grow. That’s why, when science enlarges our view of the cosmos, one often hears fundamentalist yelps.
The current uprising may be a harbinger of the death of religion for many people. We’ll continue to be a believing people, but more and more of us will do our believing out of doors. Religious fundamentalism got beat up good at the Templetons, especially by religious people. Fraser Watts, who teaches theology and science at Cambridge and is co-director of the fellowship program, said: “I am a follower of Christ, not the Bible, and if I’m forced to make a choice, which I hope I am not, I will choose Christ. “But religion is not the only fundamentalism in the room. Let us now turn to the other bad boys: the fundamentalist materialists.
Some say, “I believe in science. Evidence. Empirical demonstration. What I can see. And that’s it. “But many materialists don’t stop there. Fighting hard, against religion and other forms of “ignorance,” they claim their view is scientific. When, strictly speaking, it is not. It strains the proper bounds of science to enlist it for these purposes, and most honest scientists will say so. Rightly does biologist Kenneth R. Miller (who testified against intelligent design in the Dover trial) complain of materialists who go “well beyond any reasonable scientific conclusions that might emerge from evolutionary biology. ”
Miller cites biologist William Provine, who wrote: “Modern science directly implies that there are no inherent moral or ethical laws, no absolute guiding principles for human society. . . . We must conclude that when we die, we die, and that is the end of us. ”
Science doesn’t imply anything about morality, ethics, or afterlifes. It just doesn’t go there. But Provine sure wants it to, and then vaults to “must conclude. ” Materialists often idealize science. They speak of science, not as it is, but as they wish it were. They pretend science is a unitary practice with a stable, complete, sufficient view of the cosmos. They pretend – beyond the capacity of logic – that you can draw hard and fast definitions between what is science and what is not.
I heard many such pretenses at the Templetons, and you cannot know how irritating that is. Scientific practice bypasses what can be seen, tested, or demonstrated all the time. The structure of the benzene ring came to August Kekulé not through an experiment, but through a dream. No one has ever seen such a string, but many physicists now have high hopes for “string theory” (in which the structure of the universe is made up of resonating submicroscopic strings). Cosmology relies on arguments based on what cannot be seen (dark matter) to explain what can.
Sometimes that works, sometimes not. Science is a search for what works -and sometimes that’s empirical, and often it’s not. It often proceeds through undirected play. Thank you, Yale eurobiologist Robert Wyman, for saying so: “You get curious about something and you mess around. That’s what science is in the beginning; you mess around. ”
It’s amazing how angry people get when you say such things. That doesn’t make science any more wonderful, its triumphs any less spectacular. Some people just insist on a purity that science does not have and never did. Such insistence hurts them, their babes-in-the-woods politics, and any chance of discussion. They should drop it, acknowledge the humanity of their endeavor, and listen. Materialism is a good guess. A very intelligent good guess. It was none other than zoologist Richard Dawkins, an eminent nonbeliever, who told us that materialism can’t really close the argument against God. So even he knows it. I wonder how many other materialists would admit the same.
The high point of the Templetons, for me, came after a stellar presentation by cosmologist John D. Barrow, including an explanation of multiverse theory, which argues that our universe is not alone but is only one of about 10 550 universes. Dawkins raised his hand and, after praising what he had just heard, asked why anyone would want to look for divine characteristics in the universe. To which Barrow replied: “For the same reason that somebody might not want to. ”
A throwaway line? No: the single most honest, most incisive thing I heard at Cambridge. Barrow spoke the thing neither institutionalized belief nor institutionalized unbelief will admit – the great scandal – that neither side can close the deal, leaving it to you and me. There are wonderful reasons to believe – and not to believe. Go out, look around, keep your mind and senses wide open, and decide for yourself; for nothing – no book, no experiment, no theory, no minister in his smoke and vestments – can make up your mind for you. It’s just you and the cosmos within and without. And throughout this lifelong quest, if ever you feel your mind hardening – don’t let it happen.
That’s how belief and unbelief got into this mess in the first place.
Interesting
As always, the beauty is in the gray area between “this way” and “that way”.
— Ben
Very Nice Essay
I’m one of the people in the “Believer” camp. I’ve got a ton of evidence over here on my side which has never been reasonably rationalized away, but I am at a loss to adequately explain evidence on the materialist side. I suspect the truth is out there, but involves truths that are not yet known to science and haven’t been revealed by divinity.
This is essentially true, but…
I think one must take care to remember that even though one cannot arrive at an absolute knowledge of the existence or non-existence of God, one can evaluate the individual claims made by believers or non-believers and arrive at some estimate of their accuracy.
One of my main beefs with religious critiques of science is that they wrongly assume that anything not fully explained in scientific terms is therefore automatically taken as proof positive of their religious inclinations.
The ID “debate” is a perfect example of this. The ID community points out that there are many unanswered questions in Evolutionary Theory. This is true. They then use that lack of explanation – that ignorance – as evidence for their religious proposition that an Intelligent Designer exists and fills the gap.
But the proposition that an Intelligent Designer exists is a separate claim that needs to be evaluated based upon its own merits – not merely as a default assumption..
This applies to a great many of the so-called areas of conflict between religion and science. Religion doesn’t – and should not – get a free ride for its claims simply because science has not sufficiently explained this or that observation.
Anymore than science should.
Same old logical flaws, however elegantly they’re put.
It’s tiring to see these comparisons really, although I know it’s how 95% of the world frames the discussion. There’s a better view of this though, which is that rationalism is a world-view that strives to know things through reason and adherence to existence, and spiritualism is an amalgamation of arbitrary assertions.
The irony of the whole God v. Science thing is that only one of those concepts is defined. People may be sloppy about their use of the term, but ultimately science is a process of gaining knowledge about the universe. (And rationalism is about using logic, in conjunction with your sensory input, as the fundamental mechanism for knowing.) God, on the other hand, is defined more by the absence of knowledge. A lot of people will try to assert that God is less arbitrary than, say, aliens poking your brain in a jar (or the FSM), simply because a lot (92% of Americans) of people believe in Him. Oh, whoops, Her. Or is it It? And that brings me to my point–God is a moniker that is very poorly defined, so that really only a small number of people actually believe in any given specific definition of God. (Even within a given religious group, individuals will have pretty different ideas about God.) To top it off, you’re usually dealing with meaningless words like “omnipotence” and “omnipresence.”
It’s not that Science can never “win” because it can’t disprove God exists; it’s that there isn’t even a game, because spiritualism has not submitted a logical, testable notion of God! It’s like playing croquet with the Queen of Hearts.
While I really liked the writing in the above piece, I found some statements I just couldn’t let lie…
I don’t see anything unempirical about undirected play. He’s still talking about interacting with the world, not waiting for subjective enlightenment.
First, he didn’t write a paper on the ring based solely on a dream, that’s for sure. Once he had the idea he proved it through observation. Otherwise we wouldn’t be talking about it. Second, he may have figured it out in a dream (which is simply your brain running on half its cylinders), but do you really think he would have dreamed it if he hadn’t been thinking about it day-in and day-out? Are we to assume that because he figured this out in a dream it was beamed there from God?
Again, these are positive, testable assertions. Is it just me, or does no one else see the huge difference between a “dark matter” theory and saying “God does it.” We don’t really know how gravity works, to be honest. But we have scientists coming up with subatomic theories that can be challenged and (equipment permitting) tested, and we have the kind of people who advocate Intelligent Falling. Take your pick.
Science vs. Logic
One of the things I always found potentially mind-bending was the fact that the Scientific Process, which I will swear by in so many areas of life and discovery, is founded entirely on a logical flaw. To say it again: The Scientific Process of Empirical Observation is not a logically sound philosophical concept.
Before everyone starts shouting ‘intellectual blasphemer’ (you know who you are) hear me out.
First assertion: That the empirical process, or the process of repeated observation which drives the scientific process, is based on the concept of predictable cause and effect: “Situation X happens and Y results. If you were to recreate situation X and all the variables involved down to the last minutest detail, then Y would occur again.” The exact same cause in the exact same environment will produce the exact same effect. It’s the basis of scientific discovery.
Example: We know that if we hurl an object in an absolute vaccum then that object will not stop moving EVER unless acted upon by some outside force. Furthermore, we can confidently say that if the object DOES stop moving or even changes its vector, then it was not hurled in an absolute vaccum. It’s a Law of Motion, a scientific truth so concrete that I’d stake the life of my family on it with never a qualm. Why? Because every time we’ve hurled an object in vaccuum, the same thing has happened. So we can safely infer that anytime in the future we hurl an object in vaccuum, the same thing will happen.
If we are in agreement on Assertion 1, then continue to Assertion 2:
This Law is still based upon a process of observation that essentially says “This is the way it’s ALWAYS happened before under the same conditions, ergo this is the way it will ALWAYS happen in the future under the same conditions.”
I’m not saying that isn’t true. But I don’t believe it’s logical. How do you logically prove the principle that past results are indicative of future ones without it becoming circular logic? “Things always work the same way under similar circumstances because, well… thats the way it’s always worked.”
This is a concept that I’m sure I’m doing no justice to in this meager explanation. For a better one, see David Hume’s Dialogues on Natural Religion (Hume, incidentally, was an advocate of the empirical process and an opponent to Intelligent Design).
But the gist I’m trying to get at is this: The Principle of Similar Causes Producing Similar Effects, while it may be very TRUE, is not LOGICAL. Doesn’t mean we can’t make great use of it. But it may even mean (horror of horrors) that science is based on an assertion that, philosophically speaking, must be taken on faith.
—————————- “You of all people should know that plastic surgery can do wonders.” –Amber Fitzgerald “And you’re living proof that mistakes are sometimes made.” — Charisma Weaver
DC After Dark — http://www.buffydc.com
Arthur Rowan
TRUE, but not LOGICAL???
I don’t think something can be true but not logical. Such a statement is, in itself, illogical. Logician I am not, but I think it all rests down to two rules: A=A and A is not B. “True” is another way of saying something conforms to A=A.
At any rate, the idea that the future is unknowable because it hasn’t happened is in true to a certain extent (e.g. I don’t know who will win the ND-TN game). However, it is a false analogy to apply that to physical laws. To assert that an object will not fall the next time I drop it is arbitrary. It’s not that it cannot be disproven; it’s that it has no standing upon which it can even be discussed. To assert that natural laws will change willy-nilly is the same as asserting that God decides whether it will rain in Toledo, OH, today.
Just because you can imagine something (God, FSM, aliens with anal probes, suddenly changing universes) doesn’t mean it’s on the same footing as reality. These assertions are arbitrary. They stand outside of logical debate and reason, and are usually designed in such a way that they can never be brought in. Therefore, they are dismissed from a rational being’s mind as harmless fancies (like superheros or fairies).
Here’s a fun experiment to see why this is such a problem for people. Please read the following:
Love breathes white.
See that? Did your brain try and make some sense of that? Try to image what that means? It’s perfectly natural to want to force arbitrary concepts into reality, but it’s still an incorrect thing to do. (If your brain didn’t do that, kudos. Mine does, even though I’m the one who picked the random words.)
Wow… love breathes white.
Wow… love breathes white. My mind DID try to cram it into some kind of sense, and what a joyful experience it was, actually. Playful phrases like “catch a cat’s footstep,” or “weep fire,” or “the long dark teatime of the soul…” how boring they’d be if they made perfect logical sense! I think you’ve just illustrated something quite wonderful without realizing it. I didn’t even realize it until I read your post:
What a sad, sad life it would be if our minds were just rational. Love breathes white… it makes no sense, but God, there’s some *poetry* there.
It may be arbitrary, but arbitrary’s beautiful. If your brain didn’t try to wrap itself around ‘love breathes white,’ I’m truly sorry.
—————————– “You of all people should know that plastic surgery can do wonders.” –Amber Fitzgerald “And you’re living proof that mistakes are sometimes made.” — Charisma Weaver [a hlink=”htpp://buffydc.com”]DC After Dark[/a]
Arth
Poetry’s fine and all…
but it doesn’t make metaphors literal. You illustrate my point though–people like arbitrary things. They’re fun. They’re engaging. They can lead to important insights (which are not arbitrary themselves, otherwise they wouldn’t be important per se).
But they’re irrelevant when it comes to existence. (i.e. they exist in our minds, but should not be assumed to have a counterpart in physical reality.) Love breaths white is fun to play with, but you’re not going to tell someone who disagrees that they have to prove that love doesn’t breath white. Unless God is love, and his breath is the Spirit that gives all things, including Whiteness, form; in that case we’ll need to relabel it ID and teach it in Pennsylvania. Don’t agree with us? Then prove that ID is false!
Illogical..
Umm.. did you just say that any rational being would dismiss God as a harmless fancy?
I’ve noticed a tendency in the anti-faith people on this site and it represents a closed mindedness that I’m surprised at.
You don’t have to agree with me, and I have not proven that God exists. All I have ever asked is that the possibility be respected.
I have cited a number of times the cicumstantial evidence for the existence of God (a lot of which is directly ripped off from “The Case for Christ” and “The case for Fatih”.) I’ve cited my own personal experiences, but those of course are dismissable since I can’t prove to you that they happened. I’ve cited to you the power of Faith as a foce for good in people’s lives, which is negated as “those things would likely have happened anyway”. I’ve cited testimonies of others who I know who have had spiritual experiences, but it is written off as “mass hysteria” or emotionalism. I’ve cited the theories for intelligent design, which are written off as “unprovable”.
I’ve cited the history of the world, believing in spirituality, but it is written off as “illogical” because you can’t appeal to the masses. I’ve cited the wise men and the leaders and the great thinkers who believed in God, but it is written off as “illogical” because you can’t make an appeal to authority. I’ve cited the people who claim to have been healed miraculously through faith, and it has been written off as “unprovable” because there is not clear evidence that God was involved.
Still, even with all that, Barnsonian atheists call belief in God fanciful. There is an assumption that Faith and religion are evil purporters of a lie, and that something must be provable to be true. There is an assumption that people who have a faith based it on emotion or fear or authority. There is not consideration that these people may have indeed experienced revelation or the presence of God, or found the evidence of God’s footprints, or that God provided a Miracle. There must be another explanation..
Why? Because, of course, you begin with an assumption that God does not exist, and therefore reject anything short of a burning bush, anything other than scientifically provable, “let’s see his face and do a blood test.” You begin with your conclusion and therefore refuse to consider the possibility that evidence may exist that prove God, because that would be impossible.. because, of course.. God doesn’t exist.
I submit that there may be a God who has placed just enough evidence to suggest his existence, who uses science as the framework of his creation, who has used prophecy and miracles and yes, has even left enough of a trail that an investigator could say “you know, there may be something there”. I submit that this God has chosen not to make himself scientifically provable, because if we could prove his existence, then we would not need faith.
I submit that intelligent, questioning, second guessing, investigative study shows some evidence so that it need not be completely blind, and that it is illogical and unscientific to say that because you lack the ability to test for the existence of God that it must follow that he does not exist. I submit that the burden falls equally on Believers and Unbelievers to prove their side is right, and that it cannot be assumed that if Believers cannot prove it it must be wrong, any more than it can be assumed that if you cannot disprove God, he must exist.
R-E-S-P-E-C-T
Hey, I respect you, just not your ideas ;)! (If that seems incompatible, just think of it in the “hate the sin, not the sinner” framework that is so popular in Christianity.) I like your debunking of your own arguments, although I think there are some even better counter-arguments out there…
I should clarify that I think a lot of faith-adherents are otherwise rational people. Completely irrational people are locked in asylums. But people who are generally rational are not rational all of the time or in every situation (myself included). Compartmentalization is clearly a skill of humankind.
Moving on…
Accusing rationalists of being close-minded is completely backwards. A rationalist does not have a pre-existing assumption about anything other than “that which exists, exists” and “that which does not exist, does not.” When someone else approaches a rationalist with an assertion, particularly an arbitrary one, the rationalist says, “great, if it exists, it can be demonstrated to exist.” That sounds pretty open-minded to me. The spiritualist then says, “It exists, but I have no logical, objective proof that it exists–only my own subjective feelings on the matter. In fact, it exists in such a way that it can never be shown to exist, but you must believe it (or at least hold it’s existence on par with your own experience of things that clearly exist). If you don’t, you are close-minded.” Now, who’s at fault here?
The fact is, I know very well of the powerful experiences of which you speak. But my experiences, as a Mormon, involve a God who is very different from the God that your experiences revolve around (unless you’re Mormon, of course, which I guess could be the case). And others, as I have mentioned before, have had experiences of a similar nature around things such as Mao Tse-Tung. (And presumably Jim Jones and David Koresh.) I know a man who has met the Virgin Mary, has been healed by her, and has since joined the Mormon church, where such an experience is basically considered blasphemous. (I suppose it goes without saying that he had been party to another powerful experience which led him to become Mormon.) I recently heard the recording of Louis Farrakhan recounting his trip in a UFO. Do I dismiss it as not worth my time, or do I try and prove the truth of his story? I dismiss it, of course, as it is his duty, not mine, to demonstrate that UFO’s exist. God is no different.
As for each “side” proving who’s right, rationalists have never had anything to prove. We simply state the obvious: we know what we know from our sensory interaction with that which exists. We have not seen any logically sound demonstration that God exists, nor will we ever, because God hasn’t even been clearly defined! If we receive a description of what we are looking for, we may or may not choose to look for it, but only if that description allows for the somehow proving of God’s existence (a really big telescope, maybe). If it doesn’t, then you’re back at fairies and UFO’s. In the meantime, we’ll sit smugly back and watch every man, woman, and child who isn’t in an asylum make 90% of their day-to-day decisions based on empiricism and reason. (Spiritualism may be popular, but it doesn’t hold a candle to rational decision-making–did you pray for manna the last time you felt hungry, or did you make a sandwich?)
Let me share a secret with you. The young boy in Mystery Men was actually based on me–I can, in fact, turn invisible when no one, including myself, is looking. I have not, obviously, seen this myself, but I know I can become invisible because I can feel it. Unlike the MM boy, however, my power is also limited by video equipment, etc–if anything observes me, I become visible. My questions to you are:
I eagerly await your answers…
A few quick
A few quick touches…
—->I should clarify that I think a lot of faith-adherents are otherwise rational people.
How are you defining “rational?” It’s a word I’ve seen you use a lot, and I want to make sure that what I think it means is what you think it means (to twistedly paraphrase Inigo Montoya).
Because at first glance the above statment seems to be heavily loaded. By saying faith-adherents are *otherwise* rational, there’s a strong implication that faith in any form is not rational at all. So again I ask: how do you define rational? Right now, bluntly, it sounds like you’re insulting the intelligence of anyone who’s ever made a decision based on faith, or gut instinct, etc… but I genuinely could be reading it wrong.
—->When someone else approaches a rationalist with an assertion, particularly an arbitrary one, the rationalist says, “great, if it exists, it can be demonstrated to exist.”
Please prove that assertion: that something must be demonstrated to exist in order to exist. Because if you’re basing your whole philosophy on it, you’ve got to back it up. And who decides what is an adequate demonstration?
—–>The spiritualist then says, “It exists, but I have no logical, objective proof that it exists–only my own subjective feelings on the matter. In fact, it exists in such a way that it can never be shown to exist, but you must believe it (or at least hold it’s existence on par with your own experience of things that clearly exist). If you don’t, you are close-minded.” Now, who’s at fault here?
OK, people, for the last time, Justin is *not* telling you all that you *have* to believe in God. All he is asking — in a long, well-cited, respectful post — is that you simply give the *possibility* that there *might* be a God, an unprovable entity, a second thought. He’s not being forceful, he’s not saying “you must believe it based purely on my experience.” He’s supplying evidence which, while he himself admits is purely circumstancial, is of a large enough quantity that it at least warrants a real discussion. (Here I define “real discussion” as a discussion that both parties enter into acknowledging the possibility that, wonder of wonders, they might change their minds by the end of it.)
Finally, in my own, sadly limited and frequently warped opinion, to not respect someone’s ideas is the same as holding someone’s ideas in contempt: completely without legitimate value and worthy of mockery. That might not be what you truly feel, but that’s what I think when one says disrespect. Consequently, you really can’t disrespect someone’s ideas without disrespecting them.
You can, however, simply *disagree* with them.
A rose by any other name
Rational: related to, based on, or agreeable to reason Reason: the capability to think in a logically coherent fashion
Yes, it may offend some people, but faith (see 2.b (1)) exists in the absence of proof. This makes it arbitrary, which makes it irrational. You shouldn’t take it as an insult to hear that some of your choices are irrational–you are in the company of every human.
You cannot, logically, switch the antecedent and the consequent and claim that’s what I said. (“Every dog has hair.” “How can you say everything with hair is a dog?”) If something exists it must be within the realm of existence, and therefore can interact with other things that exist. Thus it will be (if not today, someday) observable. That observation must be logically sound–feelings are obviously not a logically sound method of observation because people have: 1) the same “knowledge” feelings about mutually exclusive things, and 2) different “knowledge” feeling about the same thing. God, which I have yet to hear defined in this thread, is clearly not considered within logical frameworks since he is frequently refered to as having illogical traits (like omnipotence). The demonstration must be internally consistent (logical) and objective (repeatable across different subjects with the same results.)
Are you not a “hate the sin” type? I never thought that made much sense either, which is why I used the last post to make fun of it. I mean, seriously, if we didn’t respect Justin we would just write silly little flames.
Respect..
God, we will assume in this thread is the God as outlined in the Christian Bible, excluding the book of Mormon, since it is there that my teching lies. I am willing to broaden that definition for this argument to Allah, God Minus Jesus (Judaism), Jesus plus Joseph Smith (Mormonism), if we need to, but I’d prefer to keep a single definition…
That being said, I want to recap, for any just joining us.
DANIEL: Its silly to believe in God based just on your feelings, which is all believers do.
JUSTIN: I’m tired of people being closed minded.. Sure, feelings are important, but there are lots of reasons other than feelings to believe. There are arguments beyond “I feel it”. I don’t believe just because I feel it.
DANIEL: I’m not closed Minded, but why do you believe just because you feel it?
Logical support
Sorry, I thought you had pointed out the logical flaws behind all of your “evidence” yourself. Or did you point them out, but decide that evidence doesn’t have to be logical?
God of the Bible. Funny thing is, Mormon’s, Jews, Muslims, etc. all believe their idea of God is perfectly aligned with the Bible (OT, at least). Mormon’s may have added some insights through additional scripture, but they don’t see that as contradictory to the Bible God. And we posit that the “God” of the OT is actually Jesus without seeing any inconsistencies. (Don’t ask me why, I don’t really know the details of how that came to be.) Where does the apocrypha fit into all of this? More to the point, I don’t think you’ve gotten specific enough. There is no “outline” of God’s nature in the Bible, only lots of stories and some explicit teachings on a broad range of topics. Some of these stories lead people who are more inflammatory than me to call God a “baby-killer.” I think that’s a dumb thing to say, but it illustrates the point that the Bible is not always internally consistent with popular ideas of God.
To quote a favorite movie, “Explain to him again, as you would a child.” Maybe start with where, in existence, he is. Lest you try and duck this one (as you did my last 4 questions, I guess?) I assert that this is a valid question because God is either infinite, in which case there’s no room for you and me, or discrete, in which case he’s somewhere relative to everything else. (Later we’ll get to the toughies, like, “if he was perfect before he created the world, why did he create it?”)
Philadelphia?
If so, props for using two movies I really like.
I want’s ducking, I thought they were rhetorical questions. But if I must answer.. congrats on the powers.. 1) Am I lying? It is likely that you are lying, although, if some other people come to your defense and have reasons other than emotion to believe in you then I should give the matter more thought.
2) Will you admit that you cannot prove that I am lying? I guess I could look for some evidence that suggests you are telling the truth. Perhaps there are videos you haven’t seen. Perhaps there is evidence you have not yet considered. Perhaps empirical evidence exists. But you’re right, just as scientists could not at one time prove the existence of the atom or that machines could fly, I cannot prove outright that you are lying. I also cannot prove the existence of beauty, love, thought, time, or how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie pop.
3) Will you then admit, as you are asking rationalists to do, that you are being illogical and unscientific if you say that I am lying? I am not asking rationalists to consider you, friend. I am asking rationalists to give equal weight to the arument that God exists, and for my purposes God (and in honesty, Christ), has a list of attributes that differ from yours.
4) Will you allow my capabilities to be given equal time in public schools when discussing the theoretical behavior of light in a physics class? No. No one should be asking that. However, if 92% of the population believes you, and thinks that you are a bona fide phenomenon.. and that your existence could have an unquantifiable effect on the way we look at light, I might spend half an hour out of 190 saying “There’s this guy and a lot of people think he alters the rules of what we’re teaching, so in the interest of conveying a fuller picture of light I’ll mention him this one and only time, and state that I have no official position on whether or not his claims or true. ” and after that half hour defer any further questions about you to be asked to someone who believes in you or to presented to me outside of class.
Finally, I guess God (the father and Holy spirit, who exist in a non-physical but more psychic *stupid word* state) could be infinite or discrete. He is wherever he wants to be. He can be infinite, he can coexist throughout matter (inside people), he can exist ouside of space and time, I guess. He doesn’t live on another planet (I won’t use the “K” word). He makes his base (as far as I can guess) in a place called Heaven that seems to be apart from reality as we know it, but I’ve never been to his house and I don’t know, and, just as I can’t tell you how we should get from here to another Galaxy, I don’t know how to get to God’s crib in a definable way. He comes to us as he sees fit.
Christ (Who is in my belief the only physical manifestation of God) I think does hang out in Heaven (which is unreachable by any means we have, but access can be given back and forth by God), but is afforded the knowledge of all that occurs and is granted influence over it. My buddy Steve who went to Seminary will probably tell me I’m all wrong.
Truth be told, I’m postulating most of this, making a good bit of it up, jumbling together ideas on little sleep, but there it is. God’s a mystery. He has decided to remain so. He’s just too big for me to properly grasp, and I don’t get it sometimes. Of course, I feel the same way about other galaxies. I don’t get how we know what our galaxy looks like, how we know we’re seeing other ones, or how big the Universe is. I’m sure there’s an answer, and I’m sure other people smarter than me (or people who Google them) know it.
Size of my church
Okay, well, I’m never going to get 92% of people to believe I can turn invisible in the dark, but I’m not all that charismatic. Let’s turn to another entity–one that has probably a bigger believer base than the Mormon Church, even if they’re all five and under.
Welcome, Santa Claus.
Yes, when I was a child I’m pretty sure I believed in him. (My mom still won’t let me deny he exists without chiding me for it, so I’m pretty sure I got fed the party line when I was a baby.) I had lots of concrete evidence that he existed: the cookies got eaten, the presents arrived. Not only that, my friends all had the exact same experience! As I grew older, and began to rationally approach Santa, I realized that there were some troubling inconsistencies. How did he get into houses without chimneys? How did he get to every child’s house in one night? How did he fit all that stuff in a sleigh? I supposed there were alternative explanations for the cookies and presents, but why wouldn’t my parents just tell me they were eating the cookies? Now, I don’t remember losing faith in Santa, but I know that by my earliest memories I kind of knew it was all fake. One night I finally heard my parents handing out the loot.
But, here’s the thing–I never disproved Santa’s existence. The fact that he didn’t come to my house didn’t mean he didn’t come to other kids’ houses. And Santa isn’t a fringe thing–he’s known across all of Western Civilization! And I can imagine a fat old man moving faster than time, so I guess there must be something worth considering there, right?
Now, if you can type with a straight face that Santa should be given equal consideration with Buddhism, Christianity, and Logic (I shuddered to add that last one to the list–sing it now: “One of these things is not like the other…”), then hats off to you–at least you’re being consistent in that respect.
Now that you’ve gotten a definition of God out there, let’s think about it.
1. God can be infinite. Infinity means subject to no limitation. This means that God and I cannot both exist if God is infinite. Even if “I” am only my spirit entity (whatever that means), I am crowding God out of wherever I am. Ergo, God (along with anything that exists) cannot be infinite without violating logic.
2. God can coexist with matter. That means that God and matter are the same. It’s the law of identity. It’s why, if I point to a dog and say “that is a dog”, and the person next to me says “areha inu” (it’s a Japanese person, by the way), we know that “dog” and “inu” are the same thing. So if you say God is coexistent with the dog, God is a dog or the dog is God–same thing. It’s these kinds of inconsistencies in definition that make God an illogical (or arbitrary) assertion. If you say “God used to be a regular Joe, he did good, and now he’s got his women up on Kolob,” at least that’s a logically coherent (but still arbitrary) definition. (Not that Mormon’s don’t tack a bunch of illogical concepts on top of this, which they do.)
3. I guess, from the post below, that you like the idea of omnipotence, too. That is similarly internally inconsistent. An all-powerful entity cannot do something that would ultimately constrain itself, so it is not all-powerful. Omniscience? Then he must be interacting with all matter at all times. Knowledge is gained by interference (I see the computer; ergo, the person directly behind me cannot–this is why invisible people are blind (and I should know)). It follows then that God is perpetually disturbing every quark in existence. And the location of every quark must be stored somewhere in his brain, which must therefore be the size of all matter.
4. Steve doesn’t agree. That comes back to something I said earlier, which is that although you say 92% of people believe in God, “God” doesn’t really mean one thing to 92% of people. It’s like asking every American what “florp” is and if they believe in it. If 40% of them say they do, what does that really mean about the commonality of belief? Nothing.
So, if you concede that God’s definition does not meet the constraints of logic, I’ll leave you alone. But you, like every other spritualist I know, ultimately admit the superiority of reason over random assertion through your attempts to “prove” the existence of God using quasi-scientific principles. (e.g. I prayed and got what I wanted–>cause and effect–>God exists! I prayed again and didn’t get what I wanted, but something else good happened–>cause and effect–>God exists!) As I pointed out to my wife once, trying to prove God’s existence undermines the very principle of faith. A believer shouldn’t even bother citing objective events in discussing God–their faith should suffice.
Never worry about my feelings–I am what I like to call hyper-rational. I consider this somewhat of a character flaw, in that I miss the emotional aspects of situations sometimes. But it does mean that I never get offended by intellectual debates!
Suppositions..
Santa Claus You can infer that Santa is not real because the most cursory examination of 100% of children who recieve gifts from santa will reveal that the gifts were from parents. Santa, unlike God, can be disproven. If you interview a million families, if they tell the truth, you will get a million people saying its a hoax.
That being said, I would have to accept the possibility of Santa as being a real supernatural being if enough people believed in him, and those beliefs could not be debunked. In fact, I guess i did believe that until I caught my parents, and then investigated, and found out everyone else caught theirs too.
okay, your numbers: (keep in mind, I made guesses and am not asserting that i am totally right)
1 and 2) If we assume that spirit and matter can occupy the same space at the same time, then an infinite God certainly can coexist with matter. If we assume that God can be any size he chooses to be, then there is no spiritual crowding.. but this is all beside the point. You’re thinking too 3 dimensionally. I nterms of Physical Attributes, God may have more in common with “The Force” than with the dude on Kolob, I think.. but then again, I’m not sure. I guess he’s whatever he wants to be.
3) Omnipotence. He did indeed do something to constrain himself when he became jesus. He also continued to exist as God. Now, I don’t believe that god fathered jesus, but that, essentially, Jesus was God, yet God continued to exist.. And yes, its confusing to me too. Excluding that, if there was something that could ultimately constrain God, I guess he could do it. He certainly willfully constrains himself by promising to be true to his word, and then keeping it, I guess. Omniscience is easier.. he doesn’t (I think) have a brain that is made up of neurons and gray matter.. and if he can exist outsid eof time, he can know everything as having already happened if he chooses. If I can know about History without interfering with it, so can he. And yes, it is also possible he knows becaus ehe is constantly interfering with everything.
As for florp, I’m not saying 92% are right.. I’m saying 92% agree that there is a supernatural force ruled by a higher power that has sentience. I think that bears investigation, and maybe you’ll just discover you’re part of the “enlightened 8%”, and thats cool. The popularity is only brought out to debunk the idea that, as Matt said “Atheism is assumed as Default”. I believe that rational debate must assert that one side cannot begin with a default unless it is a wildly out of left field or new idea. Neither of ours are.
I agree faith SHOULD suffice. I wish it did for me. Those people who truly believe God has spoken to them may be right, and maybe I just don’t have the faith, or maybe I’ve rejected it.. but I’m not totally sure. So yes, I seek logic and evidence, and its there.. its not hard proof, but its there. I cannot prove God’s existence.
But you cannot prove he does not exist. If I assert that science and God can both be true, and If god is in such disastrous conflict with science, then I could assert that (The Protestant Christian) God must be disprovable. Now, I don’t assert that. God is neither provable nor unprovable.. so it can be fun to ask me questions and have me flop around and say “I’m not sure” and then say “See, its all arbitrary you silly goose”.. but if these things were defined, it wouldn’t change anything for me.Whatever answer I come up with (and it could be a number of them) it doesn’t fundamentally alter the relationship of God and Christ with me, so no biggie. (Oh, and the “I prayed, got what i wanted.. not enough.” If stuff was out there that said “People who pray overwhelmngly tend to live longer” or “People who were prayed for in a study were better in this way”, sure I would take it as a questionable sign, but again, would not consider it proof, just another thing that made me go “Hmm..”)
Mass makes right
But it would change everything for a rationalist. The problem with God is he is so poorly and illogically defined. (Outside of time? How does he stop one action and start another?) Thus his existence, as defined, is illogical. If spiritualists could define the idea, then a mechanism for testing would be obvious (or at least theoretically obvious). But they can’t (or at least, they haven’t). I’m not picking on you, per se–I’ve never seen it done in a logically consistent way. Even Kolobites have omniscience (and you know history, by the way, because someone else interacted with it and wrote it down. It is impossible to know, for example, the temperature at the North Pole on May 18th, 1021 BCE.)
You seem to come back to the popularity of an idea again and again. I came across this article this morning which will hopefully help you see why just because lots of humans can imagine things doesn’t mean rationalists feel the need to give them equal footing with objective existence.
It’s from the WSJ Online, which is subscription only. I am including the text here under fair use so that everyone can read it. That makes for a mega-post–sorry. It reminds me of my own psuedomiracles–like the time I couldn’t get the car to start with a bunch of friends. Nobody could get the key to turn. Somebody said, “let’s pray,” and during the prayer I noticed I had the WRONG Toyota key stuck in the slot. I switched it while everyone’s eyes were closed, and voila–miracle! Of course, I wasn’t going to volunteer that I was an idiot (being in high school and all), so everyone thought the physical reality of the key had been succesfully modified when really I had just taken a moment to think harder about what was happening. (Were you there Matt?) Or there was the time I sat down at a phone booth in an airport and it rang. I mean, what are the odds?
I agree with Matt that Atheism is the default–your senses, when examined logically, reveal only what actually exists, and it is the lack of knowledge that points to God. But the attached suggests that within the human brain, with all its messy irrationalities, spirituality may reign supreme.
Our Brains Strive To See Only the Good, Leading Some to God October 28, 2005; Page B1
Life is full of surprises, but it’s rare to reach for a carafe of wine and find your hand clutching a bottle of milk — and even rarer, you’d think, to react by deciding the milk was actually what you wanted all along.
Yet something like that happened when scientists in Sweden asked people to choose which of two women’s photos they found most attractive. After the subject made his choice, whom we’ll call Beth, the experimenter turned the chosen photo face down. Sliding it across the table, he asked the subject the reasons he chose the photo he did. But the experimenter was a sleight-of-hand artist. A copy of the unchosen photo, “Grizelda,” was tucked behind Beth’s, so what he actually slid was the duplicate of Grizelda, palming Beth.
Few subjects batted an eye. Looking at the unchosen Grizelda, they smoothly explained why they had chosen her (“She was smiling,” “she looks hot”), even though they hadn’t.
In 1966, Time magazine asked, “Is God Dead?” Even then, the answer was no, and with the rise of religion in the public square, the question now seems ludicrous. In one of those strange-bedfellows things, it is science that is shedding light on why belief in God will never die, at least until humans evolve very different brains, brains that don’t (as they did with Beth and Grizelda) interpret unexpected and even unwanted outcomes as being for the best.
“Belief in God,” says Daniel Gilbert, professor of psychology at Harvard University, “is compelled by the way our brains work.”
As shown in the Grizelda-and-Beth study, by scientists at Lund University and published this month in Science, brains have a remarkable talent for reframing suboptimal outcomes to see setbacks in the best possible light. You can see it when high-school seniors decide that colleges that rejected them really weren’t much good, come to think of it.
You can see it, too, in experiments where Prof. Gilbert and colleagues told female volunteers they would be working on a task that required them to have a likeable, trustworthy partner. They would get a partner randomly, by blindly choosing one of four folders, each containing a biography of a potential teammate. Unknown to the volunteers, each folder contained the same bio, describing an unlikable, untrustworthy person.
The volunteers were unfazed. Reading the randomly chosen bio, they interpreted even negatives as positives. “She doesn’t like people” made them think of her as “exceptionally discerning.” And when they read different bios, they concluded their partner was hands-down superior. “Their brains found the most rewarding view of their circumstances,” says Prof. Gilbert.
The experimenter then told the volunteer that although she thought she was choosing a folder at random, in fact the experimenter had given her a subliminal message so she would pick the best possible partner. The volunteers later said they believed this lie, agreeing that the subliminal message had led them to the best folder. Having thought themselves into believing they had chosen the best teammate, they needed an explanation for their good fortune and experienced what Prof. Gilbert calls the illusion of external agency.
“People don’t know how good they are at finding something desirable in almost any outcome,” he says. “So when there is a good outcome, they’re surprised, and they conclude that someone else has engineered their fate” — a lab’s subliminal message or, in real life, God.
Religion used to be ascribed to a wish to escape mortality by invoking an afterlife or to feel less alone in the world. Now, some anthropologists and psychologists suspect that religious belief is what Pascal Boyer of Washington University, St. Louis, calls in a 2003 paper “a predictable by-product of ordinary cognitive function.”
One of those functions is the ability to imagine what Prof. Boyer calls “nonphysically present agents.” We do this all the time when we recall the past or project the future, or imagine “what if” scenarios involving others. It’s not a big leap for those same brain mechanisms to imagine spirits and gods as real.
Another God-producing brain quirk is that although many things can be viewed in multiple ways, the mind settles on the most rewarding. Take the Necker cube, the line drawing that shifts orientation as you stare at it. (A cool version is at dogfeathers.com/java/necker.html.) If you reward someone for seeing the cube one way, however, his brain starts seeing it that way only. The cube stops flipping.
There are only two ways to see a Necker cube, but loads of ways to see a hurricane or a recovery from illness. The brain “tends to search for and hold onto the most rewarding view of events, much as it does of objects,” Prof. Gilbert writes on the Web site Edge. It is much more rewarding to attribute death to God’s will, and to see in disasters hints of the hand of God.
Prof. Gilbert once asked a religious colleague how he felt about helping to discover that people can misattribute the products of their own minds to acts of God. The reply: “I feel fine. God doesn’t want us to confuse our miracles with his.”
Truce
God and science are mutually exclusive. One requires evidence and proofs for belief. One requires belief in the absence of evidence and proofs.
Now let’s all eat some pie.
My $.02 Weed
—-> You cannot, logically,
—-> You cannot, logically, switch the antecedent and the consequent and claim that’s what I said. (“Every dog has hair.” “How can you say everything with hair is a dog?”)
You are quite right, of course. I withdraw, reword, and represent: Please prove that all that exists has the potential to be proven to exist.
Existence exists.
If something exists, it must have a particular identity. In other words, it must exist as something. If it is something, than it is not something else, and its existence precludes the existence of something else whereever it is existing.
For example, a book is not a cat, and the two cannot be in the same place at the same time. The cat can eat the book, but then the cat is not where the book is in its stomach. Is that clear? Let me know if it isn’t.) This is axiomatic.
Therefore, if something exists, it necessarily impacts other existing entities. (I should point out here that no spiritualist I’ve ever met has suggested that God does not impact other entities, or that heaven is kept at absolute zero.) Therefore, it’s existence can be demonstrated in accordance with the law of identity, or logic. I may not know “how” you would demonstrate it, but intrinsically I know it is possible. (In the case of God, he supposedly interacts pretty regularly, so it shouldn’t be too hard to objectively demonstrate his existence. Do prayers work less effectively when said in a Faraday cage, for instance? What alternative to relativity has been proposed to allow God to know things faster than the speed of light? Couldn’t we prove that, at least?)
I’m kind of amazed at the question really, given that everything you know, even “knowledge” you claim you know from subjective experiences, is based on sensory interaction with existence. I would really like to hear you propose a kind of existence which intrinsically cannot be proven.
In case anyone is getting worn out from the serious back-and-forth on this, here’s a nice diversion. (Warning: Spiritualists should not follow the link unless they can laugh at themselves, which I think most of the people here have the self-confidence to do.)
to Daniel : Mormon or Ex mormon..
Just curious. It helps me to know what you actually believe. It seems a lot like Ex-Mormon, because it seems you are saying you Don’t believe in God.
What I did over the weekend…
I am not hiding what I actually think about this topic. I used to be more like you (or like you appear to be from your posts, which is but the tiniest sliver of your life, I realize). Then I met someone like me, and we exchanged 10-20 page essays for months. Then I thought long and hard about the inconsistencies of my world-view and the incompatiblility of my “evidence” with others’ “evidence” for contradictory notions. Then I reached enlightenment.
Church affiliation is really more of a distraction. If I say I’m Mormon, do you assume that I believe blacks were existentially inferior until the 1970’s, or that God has a harem? If I say I’m ex-Mormon, do you assume that I have an agenda to my comments? Better to clarify my philosophy by discussing it directly, as we have so enjoyably been doing.
Ex-mormon..
I guess I can assume that you have chosen to reject the notion that there might be a supernatural force or God. (See what Matt calls “Brights”).
Specifically I know that a big part of the Mormon evangelism process is to say “if you feel a warm feeling in your chest”, and to focus very heavily on sensory and emotional factors.. “feel God pulling you”.. I want to clearly say, I think that relies a bit on the power of suggestion, and that it would never be enough for me.
I was thrown by earlier posts stating you were Mormon, and I guess I wanted clarification that you did indeed believe that there is no God, and I think by your “enlightenment” you believe there is none, which makes me les spissed off, because for a sec I thought “Is this guy just playing Devil’s Advocate to “F” with me?”
Secondarily, I guess I wanted to understand why you seem to feel so strongly that believers kind of go irrationally into their faiths and don’t seek logical or empirical evidence for their faith, and if you went to the MTC and learned the warm chest thing, and you think that’s how most of us make our decisions, then I understand why you would think that.
You’re right, at some point I do have to say “I just have to have faith” and make a leap, and its scary, but I do it. I cannot prove God to you. It cannot be done.
Despite that, like I did the first time I did a “trust fall” in Theatre school, I made sure I wouldn’t fall..
I’ve examined testimonies of others (My life was “X”, then I believed in Jesus, then it became “Y”), I reasoned out what I could (ex…prophecy fulfillment, lots of religions had martyrs, but these guys went to their deaths preaching they saw this guy after he died on a cross, and it doesn’t follow they would Martyr for something they believe is a lie, and other stuff, but I dont want to go too Apologetic)..
I examined the text of the Bible (Which contained so much good stuff about how to live your life, and very little I morally disagreed with, it seemed like a good book – also, it has multiple authorship), I checked out the transperency of the Church (which led me away from Mormonism and Catholicism – there is no revelation to older believers, or things you can’t talk about because its too Sacred, no Temple or whammies to be found later in other non Biblical texts), I asked a lot of questions (but what about x, y, or z)..
I considered atheism, but I couldn’t take that step out of faith without cause, and no one had really anything to say about it except, “Religion is lie and you can’t prove God, its obviously made up”, and so I could never get further than saying “i’m not sure there’s a god”. Being not sure, I had to examine the possibilities..I rejected a lot of other faiths I checked out around the same time (Jehovah’s Witnesses, Hinduism, Judaism, like I said, mormonism – all for one reason that seemed too “made up” or another, or based on things that didn’t seem to jibe internally), I checked out opposing arguments (which I still do – i.e., here we are – but others too), ..
I adjusted my beliefs to include the notion that God may have used evolution as a tool, that science must be accepted, and that creation theory must be true as well. I have adjusted my thinking to include what I call “posisbilities” of how the two match up, those “possibilities” are constantly changing the more I learn about science..
Finally I said, okay god, Christianity as outlined in th eBible, with no Dogmatic affiliation to any Church seems right.. and I made the leap. I have sense had emotional experiences that i call spiritual, but I’ve seen the power for good a Bible believing church can have. i’ve seen people’s lives transformed from within as the testimonies said. i’ve studied the bible further and it still holds up, I’ve discovered no weird secrets down the road, I’ve discovered an intellectual honesty that accompanies my faith, which must be at some point a leap.
I’m not sure, I don’t think god has revealed himself in a Grand way to me, but that he works in nudges because he’s into free will. I don’t see a church with any quest for power of dominance, I am never told not to ask questions or cause trouble but instead to keep questioning, as it is the intellectually honest thing to do. And I’m told all this by a Pastor who says “Yeah, of course I doubt God sometimes, of course I wonder if its all bunk sometimes, and I always get a reason to come back, and that doubt fades for a while”.
So, Thats the deal.. Mormonism is more than just Church Affiliation. It is a very different animal than most of Christianity. I applaud your decision to clarify your philosophy by discussing it in this manner (much as they did in The Republic), and I look forward to further discourse.
“Barnsonian Atheists”?
A few clarifications are in order, I think:
I object to the term “anti-faith”. People prefer to be identified in the manner in which they choose to identify themselves. “Skeptic”, “rationalist”, “secularist”, “nonbeliever”, “agnostic”, and “atheist” are some of the terms that have been used by those without faith here to refer to themselves. Use of anti as a prefix serves primarily as a prejudicial argument-framing method.
I don’t think anybody here is opposed to faith, per se; some simply object to the application of certain types of faith to certain types of questions.
What does “respect” entail? This is an important question. The basic problem with this “respect” is that the guidelines of respectfulness are set by the person requiring such respect. A reasonable person will try not to offend others, but there’s a limit to reasonable accomodation, as well, particularly when the subject of discussion is the thing for which it is implied one should have respect.
I don’t think it’s a question with an easy answer. The best answer may be to assume that people are not trying to be offensive, even though they may be. This goes both ways.
Who, specifically, are you referring to? It’s a funny term, “Barnsonian Atheist”… I kind of like it. But I don’t think I’ve ever called belief in gods “fanciful”. I think we’ve come to a lot of common ground. I also think you understand that, although I’m a nonbeliever, I understand where believers are coming from and can sympathize–yet strongly disagree–with the position.
I think that’s an incorrect statement of assumption. A correct statement would probably be that “atheism is understood to be the default position”. Most atheists think that humans need to be taught religion in order to be religious, and that it’s no more appropriate to refer to a “Moslem child” or a “Christian child” than it is to call them a “Republican child” or a “Communist child”.
I don’t know that any of those three words quite capture it. A religious experience isn’t considered “emotion”. It is, however, a powerfully moving experience that, nonetheless, is not usually based on logic or analysis of evidence. This kind of conversion experience is the underpinning of most modern religious thought. It’s the process of “giving in to God”, or acknowledging “There is no God but God, and Mohammed is his prophet”.
I think language serves as a barrier to understanding in this case. Talking about spiritual experiences is like dancing about food. Sure, you can convey some of the ideas, but it’s an inadequate medium of expression.
That said, I think Michael Shermer says it best. “Smart people believe weird things because they are skilled at defending beliefs they arrived at for nonsmart reasons.”
This cuts both ways. Very rarely do people ever make a decision based purely on reason. I look back at my religious de-conversion, and although I have very good, rational reasons for my decision today, at the time it boiled down to one thing: I didn’t believe in God. Despite years of trying and humble prayer, fasting, giving myself to Christ in the Christian way, too, I’d never had that kind of religious experience people spoke about.
I figured twelve years was long enough to give that a shot.
So the knife cuts both ways, there. I think I’m right even though I know I’ve been wrong before. However, at this point, I think I’ve come to a good level of understanding regarding society, religious history, philosophy, and other disciplines to make an informed choice in the future.
That’s a false assertion. I try to begin with the assumption that I know nothing. From that, I can work towards knowing something. The chief problem with supernatural claims is that there’s very little to work with as far as concrete knowledge; the only thing I’ve been given are other’s unprovable assertions as to the nature of their particular god. Even those, though, don’t seem to come to a satisfactory definition.
I don’t think anybody here is saying that. Because we lack the ability to test for the existence of various gods and other mythical creatures, it is not reasonable to assert that they do not exist. It is, however, reasonable to assume that, in the absence of further evidence, such creatures probably don’t exist.
The unbeliever is making no claim regarding the existence of gods. The believer is. Saying “I don’t really think such thing exist” isn’t making a positive assertion that “such things do not exist”, which is a claim requiring proof.
Your statement there is like saying that those who don’t believe in alien abductions have to prove that alien abductions don’t happen. Or, to put it somewhere outside of the realm of belief, it’s similar to asking someone who was not a witness or in any way involved in a crime to provide proof that the crime didn’t happen. It’s the responsibility of the person making a claim to provide evidence, and the absence of a claim requires no proof.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Barnsonian Atheists..
Your site has grown to the point where I was pointing to you less than others. So if I have unfairly grouped you in, I apologize. You are reasonable, and by far one of the most respectful people not only on the site, but also that I’ve ever known.
I use “anti-faith” because quite frankly, there are people here who seem anti-faith. In responses to a well written letter about keeping an open mind and considering all points of view.. here are some asserions I’ve heard..
– Omnipotence and Omnipresence are meaningless words
– God is something arbitrarily imagined (like aliens with Anal probes), that is not in line with reality, and should be dismissed from a rational person’s mind (like fairies or superheroes) *this isn’t anti faith?*
-I am respected, my ideas aren’t
-My faith is based on no “no logical, objective proof that it exists–only my own subjective feelings on the matter.” *this is after me clearly saying that it is based on MORE than my feelings*
-“(Atheists) have not seen any logically sound demonstration that God exists, nor will we ever” *this is VERY different than, “we have not seen evidence yet, so it is reasonable to assert God doesn’t exist.”
– “faith exists in the absence of proof. This makes it arbitrary, which makes it irrational.” *this is ALSO after my saying that I believed based on deduction as well as feelings, on reason as well as spirituality.*
These quotes (and others like them on previous topics) do not indicate an “I don’t really think such thing exist” (as opposed to a “these nonexistent things are silly and emotional” – fairies, superheroes and anal probes), attitude. You yourself say you “strongly disagree” with the position of anyone who believes in god. That is not an “I make no claim” position.
That being said, you (most of the time) respect the claim of the existence of God by giving it enough credence to be considered alongside the assertion that such things do not exist. You “understand-yet strongly disagree” the believer’s position. It is in that understanding that you differ from some.
Atheism cannot be the default assumption. Nothing can. That is my point. That is what I’ve been arguing against for a long time. I want equal footing. The belief is popular enough to not be out of left field. The Circumstantial evidence is present enough thatthe idea MUST be considered. It doesn’t have to be accepted. I am not pushing the idea on you , and if you reject it for whatever reasons, thats fine. If you consider and reject, that is open minded. If you refuse to consider because “well that is just silly” (especially about a widely held belief that a lot of people have NON-EMOTIONAL reasons to believe), then that is closed minded.
Let me put it another way. I do believe in God. I do believe in Jesus Christ. that being said, I am contantly considering other points of view. I don’t believe in Mormonism. As you know, Matt, I came very close to accepting it (form you) because I was willing to consider a completely different possiblity. I believe what i do because I considered a different interpretation of the Bible than my parents. I incorporate everything I can that makes sense into my belief structure.
I accept the argument that god may not exist is Valid. Evolutionary theory has valid points, and it must be considered. Mormonism had valid points and had to therefore be considered. Cathlolicism and the Anglican church had valid points theologically and had to be considered. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, all must be considered simply because so many have believed.
To make a default assumption is to make a claim, and I submit that there must be more to a philosophical argument (which, face it, its what we’re doing here) than “Atheism is assumed. Can’t produce or scientifically prove God? Well, then we win.”
Finally let me say this. Matt, your friendship goes beyond respect, and I don’t need to discuss it here. Daniel and Troylus, with whom I am often clashing on these topics.. You are both well thought out, well read, and well written, and please do not mistake my arguments as personal. We’ve not known each other as long or as well as I’ve known most on this site (many here are long time friends, a couple here are among best friends.. heck, I even have one of my groomsmen on the site) – so I hope you will not judge the intensity of my arguments as being representative of a personal vehemence. You are both strong contributors, and I’m glad you’re here. End of love fest, Mo#@$#*&$%#rs. 🙂
Am I a Barnsonian Atheist?
In looking over your catalog of greivances, I don’t think that I fit the profile of a “Barnsonian Ahteist” very well – but I think you may be including me in that group.
Is that true?
In my view, your criticisms of a “Barnsonian Atheist” seem like they are apt for many who have positioned themselves as anti-god. This sort of atheism seems to me to be characterized by a sort of juvenile sniping at all things religious irrespective of any thought as to why someone might be religious or what value there might be in religion.
I hope I don’t come across that way.
Good lord..
Or lack thereof.
Troylus, Daniel, Matthew, I hereby retract the Barnsonian atheist categorization. It was ill thought out.
Juvenile sniping is not something I would attribute to someone easily.. and I may have created a whirlwind when really I was just trying to save time on typing. Troylus, your posts tend to be well researched and respectful..
My foul, not yours.
Bah!
I would like to state for the record that I consider ill-thought out, over-the top juvenile sniping to be a valid and socially acceptable form of debate, but only for real men. Common ground discourse is for wusses.
Daniel would agree with me if he weren’t off in the backwoods of West Virginia training to be a “Freedom Loving Minuteman for the True America,” where he’s presenting a lecture on why tax shelters are more moral than homeless shelters. 😛
Justin would agree with me if he weren’t busy watching Star Wars Episode III, AGAIN, desperately hoping that the movie gets good on the 16th viewing. Maybe he’s searching intently for concrete, provable evidence of talent in Hayden Christiansen, because this would be taken as such a mircale that even the hardest rationalist would then HAVE to believe in God. 😛
(Ten to one Daniel just read that last sentence and STILL thought “No I wouldn’t!” 😛 )
Matthew would agree with me if he weren’t busy settling for flying tiny little planes because he doesn’t have the cajones to try flying a real one.
Wait, that last one was a little weak, you say? Perhaps, but thankfully I know a particular sore spot common to all those of Matt’s ilk:
UNIX IS FOR LOSERS! MICROSOFT RULES!
Rowan out.
P.S. And you all have stupid hair.
Cojones… or Dinero?
I wish that were the case. The real issue is that a flight-training regimen with the local academy here in Salt Lake City costs $6800. Then add to that the costs of buying a time-share on a plane at my local airport for around $8,000 plus several hundred yearly maintenance.
Also, the weather has gotten colder, and I’m flying less (and playing computer more)…
So the better, biting, closer-to-the-truth insult would be something like this, I think:
“Matthew would agree with me if he weren’t busy flying tiny little planes or goofing off on his computer trying to avoid that sad reality that is his welfare-queen, can’t-hold-a-job life.”
Yeah. That one’s close enough to the mark that I feel uncomfortable typing it!
As for the UNIX thing…. them’s fightin’ words.
“Marcus, this is the kind of conversation that can only end in a gunshot.” — Babylon 5
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Holy crap..
Thats the funniest thing I’ve heard in a long time.
Making claims, etc.
Actually, it is an “I make no claim” position. Though I’ve been caught doing it before, I try to avoid making claims regarding stuff for which I have no evidence. My disagreement is with various policies and conventions arising from god-belief. In many cases, there is no helping the conflation of an observance of a religious belief, and the religious belief itself, because the required observance results in the disputed behavior.
For example, as some are aware, I’m strongly opposed to the actions of some polygamous religious sects in southern Utah. I don’t oppose polygamy per se: if consenting adults want to be polyandrous, I really don’t care. My opposition is due to the documented social ills of heirarchical, male-dominated, institutionalized polygamous relationships:
There are other reasons, but those are the highlights of my disagreements with these believers. My concerns are less philosophical and more pragmatic. If someone wants to believe in a particular god, good for them. If they implement coercive, dishonest practices in order to further belief in that particular god, I become concerned. Thus my opposition to the practices of these sects appears to be synonymous with opposition to the sects themselves, or to the individals involved in them, where I harbor no such ill will myself.
You substituted the word “assumption” for the word “position”, which I used. Atheism makes no assumptions which are not backed by evidence. To not have a particular religious position is to be atheistic. This is and must be the position of government in the US, for if the government favored any particular religious belief, our salad-bowl society would have a really difficult time getting along. (See “Note 2” below; this is a disputed interpretation)
Now, let’s be careful not to conflate the generic term “atheism” with the more specific terms of “strong atheism” or “positive atheism”. (See Note 3) Those latter terms assume that there is no supernatural. The term “atheism”, today, implies a position of neutrality regarding religion. I strongly suspect widespread opposition to atheism is predicated on the assumption that atheism implies hostility towards religious claims, which isn’t the case: it’s neutrality towards religious claims. (See “Note 1” below) Atheism also provides a convenient scapegoat for society’s ills.
I am neutral towards the various religious claims; I don’t have a position, other than to be skeptical and ignore most of them. I am, however, very hostile to the institutionalized abuse of various religious institutions. This is a subtle distinction, but one which I value.
Note 1: I am aware that the etymology of “atheist” preceeds “theist” by some thirteen centuries. Like other words, though, meanings shift over time. The modern usage of the word “atheist” describes a position of nonbelief, not a position of antagonism towards belief. I think the word “secularism” or “secularist” may possibly be substituted for “atheism” in most of my statements. See this Wikipedia paragraph for an adequate explanation. The obsolete word atheous may better catch this distinction, but nobody uses or recognizes it today.
Note 2: Some have said I should call myself an ‘agnostic’, rather than an atheist. The problem I have with identifying myself by that term is that it implies that I cannot decide whether there is a God or not, specifically the Christian god. This implies a degree of uncertainty which I am not willing to grant. I try to make no claims regarding the supernatural, but I operate as if no such things exist. “Skeptic” works, but some Christians have gotten upset at me for using the term, since they believe that good Christianity requires a healthy dose of skepticism. I can’t win! (See Note 1’s description of “atheous”.)
Note 3: Trotting out a dictionary definition on a word with a disputed meaning is generally useless and flame-inciting.
— Matthew P. Barnson – – – – Thought for the moment: “I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.” — Richard Dawkins
Concerning Hume’s view, a better choice would be…
An Enquiry Concerning Human Understanding.
I believe you are making a mistake in concluding that an understanding of Nature based upon empiricism is outright illogical. At least, I’m quite confident that Hume would want to qualify your characterization.
After all, Hume said, “when one particular species of event has always, in all instances, been conjoined with another, we make no longer any scruple of foretelling one upon the appearance of the other, and of employing that reasoning, which can alone assure us of any matter of fact or existence.”
Or, in other words, that experience – rather than reason – has led us to believe that causes are linked to effects.
But, when looking at the sum total of evidence throughout history, it is a reasonable inference to accept that this is the case. Hume isn’t saying that this inference must be taken on “faith” in the religious sense of believing it without evidence. Instead, he is saying that it is reasonable to infer that causes and effects are related because of the evidence of history.
But such an inference cannot be proven because we are limited by our human experiences. This is the root of Hume’s “Problem of Induction”. It is that empiricism cannot arrive at anything greater than an approximation of truth because we cannot demonstrate genuine causation – we can only infer that via correlation.
However, having an approximation of truth that is consistent with all the known evidence to date (which is what science tries to achieve), is much different than believing in something that either lacks evidence or is inconsistent with the known evidence.
That kind of belief without evidence is usually what is meant by the term “faith”. At least, according to the Book of Hebrews it is. (HEB 11:1).
I just remembered an illustration.
James Randi, that tenacious investigator and skeptic of all things Paranormal, once made an analogy that I think is apt here.
Suppose someone reads ‘Twas the Night before Christmas and now wants to find out if reindeer can fly.
A scientific approach to this question might involve climbing up on top of a building and then throwing off reindeer one by one – taking careful notes of what we observe. Reindeer #1: appeared to fall. Reindeer #2: Whoop! there he goes. Reindeer #3: Same as #2. Reindeer #4: Cowabunga! Reindeer #5: …
And so on. Eventually, say around Reindeer #1000 (depending upon our tolerance for this sort of thing), we might tentatively conclude that under these conditions reindeer do not fly.
Now then, that doesn’t mean that we’ve proven that Reindeer absolutely cannot fly. Maybe Reindeer #1001 would take off like a rocket. Or maybe all the Reindeer are tricking us to hide their great secret. Or maybe Reindeer don’t fly unless you feed them Halloween Candy first. Or maybe …
And so on.
This doesn’t mean that this approach to understanding the world is illogical (well, maybe it’s a little silly in this case). Nor do you take things on “faith” when you tentatively conclude that Reindeer don’t fly. Instead, you simply acknowledge that your experiments were based upon empiricism and are therefore limited to approximating truth and drawing conclusions based upon the evidence you drew from your experience and observation.
If you wanted to find out if Reindeer can fly using an epistemology based upon religious faith, I’m not quite sure how you would go about it. I suppose it would depend upon your particular tenets of faith. I imagine it might involve some introspection, some prayer, and maybe an assessment of how you “feel” about Reindeer.
You have taken what I meant
You have taken what I meant to say and said it in a much clearer, more accurate way. 🙂 Thank you.
Correlation, there’s the magic word I was looking for…
I suppose all I meant by something based on faith was something that didn’t follow absolute logic. And never did I mean to say that being 99.9% sure of something isn’t good enough to work with.
Actually, I think from here on out I’m just going to stop using the word faith… like “love,” it has taken on so many definitions as to become almost meaningless.
—————————– “You of all people should know that plastic surgery can do wonders.” –Amber Fitzgerald “And you’re living proof that mistakes are sometimes made.” — Charisma Weaver [a hlink=”htpp://buffydc.com”]DC After Dark[/a]
Arth
Faith…
Since it is so often redefined for me during conversations, I’ve taken to asking people repeatedly “what type of faith are you referring to?” if we get into religious discussions. It forces them to think about the definition they are using at the moment, helping to avoid the all-too-common misunderstandings that occur when a word is redefined mid-conversation.
It tends to make me look like a jerk, though, insisting on a pedantic meaning. So I just avoid the religious discussions as much as is convenient, and go flying 🙂
—
Matthew P. Barnson
This page…
This page has now reached 15,701 words. Thus, according to The Scriptorium, we have surpassed the required length for a short story, are well into being a novella or novellette, and are about 30,000 words shy of being a novel.
I am cutting it off at 50 comments, or, say, end of this week. Whichever strikes my fancy first, or whichever comes first.
—
Matthew P. Barnson
Okay.. i say it second..
Weed has declared Pie. I second Pie.
Rowan has giant boulder sized…