The question of God's existence is alive and well in contemporary culture, and for this we must heap much praise on the likes of Richard Dawkins. He came along and wrote a little book called The God Delusion which has been a best seller for the past 5 years. Whilst I'm fairly young, the impression I get is that the issue has finally escaped from the halls of University Campuses and found it's way into mainstream newspapers and even onto public buses in various locations around the world!
The question is usually framed in the context of how much evidence there is for God's existence. We see the proponents weighing the reasons there are for thinking that God exists against the reasons for thinking that God is the greatest delusion in the history of humankind. And that's all good and well, away we go to happily assess the weight of evidence, right? Wrong. Before we even consider what evidence there is that God exists, we should ask the question of what evidence we should expect to see in the case that God did exist. This is the first and most foundational question in the whole discussion. Absence of evidence A for thing X is only evidence of X's absence if we should expect to see evidence A in the case that X did exist. Yet unfortunatly, this is rarely discussed. People generally argue that there's plenty of evidence for God, that there's enough evidence for God, or that there's no evidence, or some other position on the continuum.
The issue is more complicated than I've said here. For example, what type of evidence we should expect to see is a kind of subset of the initial question. And another question, which is even more foundational, is What is evidence anyway? However the principle is clear enough that it can help hugely without needing to complicate matters with these other questions. If people simply asked this question before talking about what evidence there is for God, it would solve a whole lot of problems and make the discussion much clearer.
[November 2011]
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
Tuesday, October 23, 2012
The Biggest Bubble?
David Marshall made an interesting comment in the latest Apologetics 315 interview:
"I'm not a real big fan of inerrancy, because it's kind of like blowing up a big balloon and then asking the opponent to pop the Bubble, pop the balloon with a pin. Even if the Bible is without error, I wouldn't be a fan of the doctrine because I think it's bad strategy. The materialist, skeptics and atheists, they've blown up the biggest balloon of all and that balloon is materialism. They're saying that not one single miracle has ever happened in the history of the universe. Well I'm sorry but they do happen. And that's another contribution of missions. Working as a missionary in Asia, I found that God did sometimes answer prayer, sometimes the answers changed lives in amazing ways. Now of course there's all kinds of difficulties about proving that, and we can't use the scientific method to test a historical claim, but it's much more fun to make a positive argument for something than to defend against somebody else's attack".
There's two interesting comments here that are worth expanding on so I've highlighted them. One is the nature of historical events. By definition, Historical events happen once. And by definition, Science looks for repeatable patterns. So by mere definition, we can't expect historical events to meet the standards of scientific evidence. Does this mean that we can never have reliable evidence for Historical events? No, clearly not. Not unless you believe documents, writings, archaological findings, eye witness reports and all manner of historical data are all conceptually incapable of providing evidence for something.
The more interesting comment is the first bolded part where Marshall refers to Materialism as "The Biggest Bubble". Marshall is referring to what I call The Problem of Total Denial. To me, this is the single biggest problem for materialism and for naturalism. The problem is this: If they're consistent, Materialists and Naturalists must deny the many reported events and occurences in the world which do not fit into their paradigm. They must take many reports and then either deny that the event happened as it was described, or find a naturalistic explanation for it. I will write about this more in the future as I really want to develop my thinking on the issue. In the books I've read on Philosophy, Apologetics, the Historicity of Jesus etc, this is an issue that doesn't receive nearly enough coverage. It is truly underrated. I'm glad Marshall reminded me of it!
Friday, September 28, 2012
The Classical Christian View on Sexual Relationships and What it means
The Classical Christian View on Sexual Relationships....and What it means.
That's the title I've given to John Dickson's talk at Storey Hall, Swanston st on 6 September, 2012. Below are my notes from the event. Note that this is also now available on Ridley's website. Have a listen!
(I started typing the below notes straight after the event, and am posting them anyway. If you don't have time to listen to the 35-40 minute talk then these condensed notes will work for you).
____________________________________________________________________
Purpose: Not to convince you that homosexual behaviour is wrong. Not to convince you that Christians should block gay marriage. The purpose is simply this: To demonstrate that the Classical Christian view is not inherently hateful and bigoted.
In our society today, there is a dichotomy fuelled by the media. Either you are a tolerant, loving person or you are a HATEFUL HOMOPHOBE!
The high culture view for at least 10 years, and now increasingly the popular view is that Christians are just hateful bigots. Example, David Marr on Q and A.
1. Is this View- that Homosexual behaviour is wrong- actually what the Bible says, or has the church read it's own conditioned, idiosyncratic view into the text?
- Leviticus 18:20-24.
20 “‘Do not have sexual relations with your neighbor’s wife and defile yourself with her.
- Romans 1:26-27.
26 Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones. 27 In the same way the men also abandoned natural relations with women and were inflamed with lust for one another. Men committed shameful acts with other men, and received in themselves the due penalty for their error.
-( editor: Genesis 2 was performed by a Biblical storyteller before Dickson spoke. This passage also speaks of man becoming one with wife etc, not with man. Strong implicit support for traditional marriage. Dickson mentions this below also but curiously didn't mention it at this point).
On face value, it appears that the Bible is clear.
But, there are powerful minimising arguments being used against this:
2.1 Christians Pick and Choose.
The West Wing:
- However, the writers of the West Wing have conveniently ignored Bible 101, the way the Bible has always been read.
- There are TWO testaments!
- The OT has always been looked at through the prism of Christ.
- Some things are refracted, some things are intensified.
- Classic example: John 8:3-11 woman in adultery. Jesus affirmed the OT ethic but did not affirm the death penalty. Again, some things are affirmed or intensified, others are not affirmed or are refracted.
2.2 Homosexuality is Neurophysiologically predetermined.
- The Biblical authors didn't know this, so we should re interpret the Bible through our modern scientific knowledge.
- Some Christians respond by saying "The evidence is biased". Well, some of it probably is biased. However, I spoke to prominent Christian doctor and sexologist Patricia Weerakoon and I asked her to point me in the direction of the best current research on this topic. There are various neurophysical links with homosexuality. They are not fully understood yet, and there is no "gay gene" but it is becoming increasingly clear that there can be neurophysical factors at play- Gays don't "choose to be gay".
- Does this minimise the Bible's teachings? Yes and No. The church must show grace towards others who have tendencies (influence by biology) that the Bible speaks to. Example: Addictive behaviour is influenced by neurophysiology as well.
- Polyamory is neuro influenced too.
- The discussion does not end here.
- Example: 40 year old single gay man in my congregation in Sydney. The Bible asks him to be celibate, so he does. Others in John's congregation, who are heterosexual, are remaining celibate until they find someone. Does the hope actually make it harder day by day, or easier?
2.3 Jesus didn't forbid it, only Paul.
- Jesus didn't forbid many things. This doesn't mean they're alright.
- Nonetheless, Jesus does implicitly forbid it by his support for Genesis 2.
- There are more sexual practices in the Old Testament than in Playboy. Jesus knew this. The New Testament word "Porneia" doesn't refer to one thing, it refers to what went outside the Jewish norm at the time. ie: Hetero monogamy.
2.4 In Biblical times there were no long term gay r'ships, so the Bible can't speak to this topic
- Untrue. Eg: References: GA Williams Roman Homosexuality and K.J Dover's Greek Homosexuality
- Plutarch's Dialogue on Love
- 1st Century Gay marriage was a reality.
The Biblical view doesn't arise from ignorance. It arises from a view of what is Good.
The Christians are out of step with society because the Bible is.
- If The Bible agreed with every social or sexual practice of every society then this would be proof that the Bible isn't eternal wisdom.
- Thought Experiment: If there was an eternal book with eternal wisdom, what would it contain? It would have to be out of step with every culture at some point or another.
- The Bible isn't out of date, it's out of this date.
- (Edit: What Dickson said above is so so so true. It's worth repeating. It sounds a lot like this from Tim Keller, actually....).
But..are we Christians automatically homophobes? Does this view make us homophobic?
The Bible shouldn't necessarily lead to legislation.
- Classical Christians simply are unable to think of other types of marriage. There is only one kind of marriage.
- Everyone discriminates. Every view of marriage discriminates against another type of marriage. (Edit: For example, if you believe that gay marriage is a legitimate form of marriage, do you believe that marriage is between two consenting adults? ie: One man and one woman or one man with another man or one woman with another woman? If so, then you are discriminating against men who want to have two wives. As Bernard Toutounji says here, "Discrimination is the act of making a distinction and choosing between differences. From choosing chicken over ham on your sandwich, to the government deciding that the aged pension will be given at 67 instead of 65; these are discriminations. Without the ability to discriminate, that is the ability to state that one thing is not another thing, we could not have a democratic society. A musical note only has value because of the silence that exists before and after that note, if we were to label the silence as unfair discrimination against sound and remove it, there would only be an ongoing noise").
- This does not mean the church has the right to block redefinition legislation.
- Democracy. We all vote. This is OK.
- Christianity was never meant to be in power. The tools God gave us were PSP- Prayer, Service and Persuasion! No bullying or backroom deals.
- C.S Lewis on Divorce- may be applicable to Gay Marriage in our modern age.
“Before leaving the question of divorce, I should like to distinguish two things which are very often confused. The Christian conception of marriage is one: the other is the quite different question-how far Christians, if they are voters or Members of Parliament, ought to try to force their views of marriage on the rest of the community by embodying them in the divorce laws. A great many people seem to think that if you are a Christian yourself you should try to make divorce difficult for every one. I do not think that. At least I know I should be very angry if the Mahommedans tried to prevent the rest of us from drinking wine. My own view is that the Churches should frankly recognise that the majority of the British people are not Christians and, therefore, cannot be expected to live Christian lives. There ought to be two distinct kinds of marriage: one governed by the State with rules enforced on all citizens, the other governed by the Church with rules enforced by her on her own members. The distinction ought to be quite sharp, so that a man knows which couples are married in a Christian sense and which are not.”
(Edit: I don't totally agree here. I do agree in theory, to a point, but I think the statement needs a lot of qualification. Maybe a topic for another blog post).
Losing well is a Christian specialty.
So...where does all of this lead?
- An apology. For allowing our Biblical views to lead to Unbiblical behavior. For belittling people and creating a culture of shame. The heart of Christianity is finding our faults and asking for mercy.
- We can't walk away from our Christian view (that homosexual behaviour is not a part of God's plan). But we can serve others.
- Recover the genius of Jesus. He had meals with sinners. He flexed the muscle of moral conviction and the muscle of compassion simultaneously. These days the church only does one at once. There are examples of both- Churches who are big on moral conviction and churches who are good at compassion, but we need to be good at both because that's what Jesus did. Jesus took judgement so seriously that he had to die, and he took compassion so seriously that he died for us.
- Tolerance is not saying "Every view is equally true and valid". (Edit: That doesn't make sense anyway!). Tolerance is deeply disagreeing and yet deeply loving. This is harder. Eg: Koran/Islam. We disagree theologically but we respect the Muslim community. We may disagree with the materialist 21st century Aussie culture, but we love our materialist, hedonistic friends. We may similarly see same sex acts as a departure from God's will, yet still serve the gay community.
I had a conversation with a Ferrari driving atheist at a dinner party. He told me he couldn't entertain Christianity because of it's bigoted and discriminatory attitude towards homosexuality. It's backwards, he said. I paused, and asked him: Is it possible to deeply disagree with someone but profoundly love them? He paused, and then said "Yes, we do that all the time". And then he realised what he'd just said. The blocker to Christianity was removed.
Is it possible to deeply disagree with someone and yet profoundly love them?
Question Time
(Edit: I took some notes here but not detailed notes like the above).
Is the airtime given to certain things and indication of God's view of their importance? Dickson: I'm not sure. But if it is, then we should be focusing more on poverty and helping the least of these.
How do we live out what you've suggested- by loving Gays? Individually-Friendships. Ask questions. Listen. Get head around their views. I'm giving this talk but I don't have so much authority and I'm speaking to myself too as I only have two gay friends. One mentioned earlier (church goer), the other a vocal activist. He has asked me to some gay events but my diary hasn't allowed it. I plan on going soon so I can act out some of the above.
For the church, welfare on a macro level.
Does the Bible ask us to go against our natural inclinations? In all kinds of ways, yes. Christianity asks us to. To find solice and comfort anyway, example the sweet sadness of my churchgoing gay friend.
Guide our leaders towards Christian ways? No.
Persuade, not legislate. PSP= prayer, service and persuasion.
Christians and politics Christians should be public Christians. That is good. We are not meant to be church mice. Make our case- ok. But I object to political tactics. They are sub christian.
If AUS overwhelmingly supported Gay marriage and you had veto powers, would you use them? No! But on the other hand if a journo asks me my view on marriage, I will give it.
Wednesday, June 20, 2012
Natural explanation of religious belief
RJS discusses Natural explanations of religious belief over at Jesus Creed.
This is an interesting topic, and the best discussion I've seen, to date, was by C Stephen Evans in his brilliant book Natural Signs and Knowledge of God.
One alternative angle that Justin Barrett brings to bear on this topic was discussed by RJS:
Theologians offer intellectual ways to reconcile doctrines such as free will and predestination, grace and merit but people will automatically fall into more “natural” ways of thinking. This is true even of many of those theologians when caught off guard. Such natural response can be studied by telling stories with gaps and recording how people fill in the gaps reflexively in real time.
It is fairly common for people to point out that belief is a “natural” phenomenon and to construct ways in which this tendency evolved – and then to assign religious belief as a (fictional) tag-along. My main point it that this conclusion is based on an assumption about the nature of reality. It is not an objective conclusion from the data.
If God is real, and if he created via evolutionary means, we would also expect a “natural” belief for the kind of reason I give in the post.
I would not argue that the naturalness of religion is evidence for the truth of religious belief, but neither is it an argument against the truth of religious belief. A little critical thinking will show that a metaphysical view shapes the choice of conclusion here.
(Boldings mine).
This is an example of how our philosophical presuppositions provide the foundation for how we interpret data. It is imperative to examine not only our own views, but our own presuppositions underlying those very views. In other words, always keeping one eye on the big picture.
This is an interesting topic, and the best discussion I've seen, to date, was by C Stephen Evans in his brilliant book Natural Signs and Knowledge of God.
One alternative angle that Justin Barrett brings to bear on this topic was discussed by RJS:
Theologians offer intellectual ways to reconcile doctrines such as free will and predestination, grace and merit but people will automatically fall into more “natural” ways of thinking. This is true even of many of those theologians when caught off guard. Such natural response can be studied by telling stories with gaps and recording how people fill in the gaps reflexively in real time.
RJS made a comment in response to Scot McKnight which was good:The gap between these two conceptions is theological correctness. Like political correctness, when our intellectual guard is up, we use the ideas we know we are supposed to use; different ideas than those that come naturally. The further ideas deviate from Natural Religion, the harder they are to use reflexively in real-time situations. (p. 326)
It is fairly common for people to point out that belief is a “natural” phenomenon and to construct ways in which this tendency evolved – and then to assign religious belief as a (fictional) tag-along. My main point it that this conclusion is based on an assumption about the nature of reality. It is not an objective conclusion from the data.
If God is real, and if he created via evolutionary means, we would also expect a “natural” belief for the kind of reason I give in the post.
I would not argue that the naturalness of religion is evidence for the truth of religious belief, but neither is it an argument against the truth of religious belief. A little critical thinking will show that a metaphysical view shapes the choice of conclusion here.
(Boldings mine).
This is an example of how our philosophical presuppositions provide the foundation for how we interpret data. It is imperative to examine not only our own views, but our own presuppositions underlying those very views. In other words, always keeping one eye on the big picture.
Tuesday, May 15, 2012
Cosmological Explanation and Occams Razor
Various quotations are taken from here. As usual quotes are in italics and myself in normal font.
So, has our scientific knowledge of the universe, of all that there is, progressed to the point that we can explain all that there is without having to invoke an uncaused causal agency? First, before one proceeds with any scientific account for an explanation, one must notice the metaphysical aspect of the question. This question is a philosophical question, not a scientific question. Can we extrapolate all causes to have the first cause be self-caused? Using something within the system of “all that there is” to explain the system itself (“all that there is”) is circular. The whole notion is self-defeating.
The ancients tended to lean towards the simplest explanations (a tendency still practiced today with Occam’s Razor). The simplest explanation then seemed to be causal agency–attributing complex events to the will of the gods.
The ancients would attribute storms at sea to the god of the sea and volcanic eruptions to that respective god and so on. Perhaps we don’t need many gods to explain complex various events. It seems that if a god is needed to explain anything then we are left with one God.
Is the simplest explanation of all there is one uncaused causal agent or zero?
It seems that if we use Occam’s Razor to trim the causal agencies down to zero then we no longer have any explanation for anything. 1
Using a causal agent as an explanatory hypothesis doesn’t seem to be an arbitrary ad hoc explanation either, it seems to be the only appropriate explanation that sufficiently fits the explanandum. In the end, having one uncaused causal agent is the best answer to why there is something rather than nothing.
[1]Perhaps there simply is no explanation. Or at least, our tiny finite homo sapien brains simply can't know. But I suggest that it is perfectly reasonable to posit that there is an explanation of some sort- this is in line with our experience, and science itself. That is, things require an explanation, both in our experience and as William Lane Craig said in a recent debate, this is a key principle in science. And following the train of thought taken in the quotes here, it's reasonable to posit an unspecified uncaused agent as that explanation.
So, has our scientific knowledge of the universe, of all that there is, progressed to the point that we can explain all that there is without having to invoke an uncaused causal agency? First, before one proceeds with any scientific account for an explanation, one must notice the metaphysical aspect of the question. This question is a philosophical question, not a scientific question. Can we extrapolate all causes to have the first cause be self-caused? Using something within the system of “all that there is” to explain the system itself (“all that there is”) is circular. The whole notion is self-defeating.
The ancients tended to lean towards the simplest explanations (a tendency still practiced today with Occam’s Razor). The simplest explanation then seemed to be causal agency–attributing complex events to the will of the gods.
The ancients would attribute storms at sea to the god of the sea and volcanic eruptions to that respective god and so on. Perhaps we don’t need many gods to explain complex various events. It seems that if a god is needed to explain anything then we are left with one God.
Is the simplest explanation of all there is one uncaused causal agent or zero?
It seems that if we use Occam’s Razor to trim the causal agencies down to zero then we no longer have any explanation for anything. 1
Using a causal agent as an explanatory hypothesis doesn’t seem to be an arbitrary ad hoc explanation either, it seems to be the only appropriate explanation that sufficiently fits the explanandum. In the end, having one uncaused causal agent is the best answer to why there is something rather than nothing.
[1]Perhaps there simply is no explanation. Or at least, our tiny finite homo sapien brains simply can't know. But I suggest that it is perfectly reasonable to posit that there is an explanation of some sort- this is in line with our experience, and science itself. That is, things require an explanation, both in our experience and as William Lane Craig said in a recent debate, this is a key principle in science. And following the train of thought taken in the quotes here, it's reasonable to posit an unspecified uncaused agent as that explanation.
Thursday, May 10, 2012
Secularism or Democracy?
A facebook discussion has piqued my curiousity.
The issue was gay marriage, which is irrelevant to what I'm about to write, but I want to quote the discussion to set the scene:
Person 1:
Sorry but your comment is very disappointing. Should a Christian girl who knows Gods word really have that opinion. Just sayin
Person 2:
To me, faith shouldn't be a part of the conversation - we are talking about a legal, secular institution in a free democratic society. Government shouldn't discriminate, pure and simple. And both bills before parliament guarantee religious freedom for churches to refuse to marry gay couples if they so wish.
Ignoring the question of gay marriage, I'd like to discuss the mentioning of "secularism" and "democracy". Both ideas are highly cherished by most people in first world Western countries like Australia, but my question is: Which takes precedence?
Democracy is based on the idea that ALL people must have an equal opportunity to have their say. Therefore, if so called "secularism" is going to ignore certain views, ANY views, a priori, before the public discussion even gets started, then to agree with that form of secularism is to admit that you're being undemocratic and discriminatory.
I believe people should always have a democratic right to argue on whatever basis they want to! Then let the majority decide if they're convinced or not- this is what democracy demands. It's the fairest way to do things. If secularism says that "faith cannot be part of the conversation" and therefore any faith viewpoints must automatically be ignored (as Person 2 implied), then that form of secularism should get thrown out, because democracy demands that people must be allowed to voice their opinion (1).
Here's another reason why democracy needs to take precedence over that form of "secularism": Otherwise, we'll soon have governments acting as thought police by deciding which people are actually allowed to speak their views, which views are allowed to be spoken and which views are not. Governments are there to serve the people, not the other way around!
I take it as basically self evident that we should all want to be living in fair societies where all people are allowed to voice their views. If so, then we cannot allow ourselves to uncritically accept the idea that certain viewpoints are to be ignored from the outset.
(1) Person 2 could be taken to be implying that, and this was how I interpreted their statement on my first reading. They might not have intended to imply that. Nonetheless, there are many people who do believe that faith should not be a part of bigger public conversations, and this post was addressed at that particular viewpoint and those bigger issues. The facebook comment was merely what got me thinking about these bigger issues.
The issue was gay marriage, which is irrelevant to what I'm about to write, but I want to quote the discussion to set the scene:
Person 1:
Sorry but your comment is very disappointing. Should a Christian girl who knows Gods word really have that opinion. Just sayin
Person 2:
To me, faith shouldn't be a part of the conversation - we are talking about a legal, secular institution in a free democratic society. Government shouldn't discriminate, pure and simple. And both bills before parliament guarantee religious freedom for churches to refuse to marry gay couples if they so wish.
Ignoring the question of gay marriage, I'd like to discuss the mentioning of "secularism" and "democracy". Both ideas are highly cherished by most people in first world Western countries like Australia, but my question is: Which takes precedence?
Democracy is based on the idea that ALL people must have an equal opportunity to have their say. Therefore, if so called "secularism" is going to ignore certain views, ANY views, a priori, before the public discussion even gets started, then to agree with that form of secularism is to admit that you're being undemocratic and discriminatory.
I believe people should always have a democratic right to argue on whatever basis they want to! Then let the majority decide if they're convinced or not- this is what democracy demands. It's the fairest way to do things. If secularism says that "faith cannot be part of the conversation" and therefore any faith viewpoints must automatically be ignored (as Person 2 implied), then that form of secularism should get thrown out, because democracy demands that people must be allowed to voice their opinion (1).
Here's another reason why democracy needs to take precedence over that form of "secularism": Otherwise, we'll soon have governments acting as thought police by deciding which people are actually allowed to speak their views, which views are allowed to be spoken and which views are not. Governments are there to serve the people, not the other way around!
I take it as basically self evident that we should all want to be living in fair societies where all people are allowed to voice their views. If so, then we cannot allow ourselves to uncritically accept the idea that certain viewpoints are to be ignored from the outset.
(1) Person 2 could be taken to be implying that, and this was how I interpreted their statement on my first reading. They might not have intended to imply that. Nonetheless, there are many people who do believe that faith should not be a part of bigger public conversations, and this post was addressed at that particular viewpoint and those bigger issues. The facebook comment was merely what got me thinking about these bigger issues.
Friday, April 20, 2012
My hope for atheists
Last weekend the Global Atheist Convention rolled into Melbourne. Atheism has become, for at least some atheists, a movement. Increasingly atheists are gathering together in public places, as we've seen with the Washington DC Reason Rally and the Global Atheist Convention. To be fair, the Global Atheist Convention attracted 5,000 people which is reportedly a quarter of the [i]weekly[/i] attendance of [i]one[/i] Australian church so we shouldn't get carried away when talking about the levels of gathering. Nonetheless, it is increasing.
But, what to make of this? One thing that's interesting to note is how far the atheist movement is straying from pure atheism.
On the one hand, atheists like to claim that atheism commits them to nothing. They're just committed to denying the existence of God, or so they like to say. And this is entirely true on one level. But by reading about the atheist convention, and glancing over the twitter accounts of internet atheists and atheist groups, and you would get a vastly different impression!
They love talking about gay marriage and child abuse and terrorism and tax exemptions and AIDS in Africa. It's almost like they're really doing their best to muddy the waters and fool everyone into thinking that being an atheist is about joining a reactionary political movement.
Many thinking atheists do realise that terrorism and wars have more to do with politics, sociology and human nature than they do with religion. They realise that you cannot judge a belief system by it's worst proponents who distort the original message. They realise that churches primarily have a social purpose rather than a profit making intention, and thus cannot be labelled businesses in any meaningful sense, and nor should they be paying income tax.
But then the moronic atheists come along screaming "RELIGION IS EVIL! 9/11 shows the problems with irrational thinking and superstition. Ergo, all religion should be wiped out. Duh! Religions are just money making scams anyway. Pass the plate around and watch them all get RICH! Oh and btw, the important issue of Gay marriage is even more evidence of the problems religion is causing society! Jesus probably didn't even exist so why would anyone follow him!" .... and the calm reflection of the thinking atheists is drowned out amidst the ruckus.
Here are all these people claiming to be rational, evidence based thinkers and they come up with nonsense like this- emotional stupidity, reacting to religion with the very same intolerant irrationalism that they accuse religion of being about.
So in the end there's a tension that's caused by all of this. You've got human nature which encourages people to join social groups. The internet has brought the world together and we're seeing atheists come out of their basements and attend reason rallies and atheist conventions and the like. But, there must be some cognitive dissonance happening when some attendees hear the sorts of comments I wrote above - which seriously, are not too far away from the beliefs of many of those who are attending these atheist events- and then realise how utterly stupid they are. "Hang on, I thought we were supposed to be the rational, clear thinking ones! What's going on here!?".
I hope this will help them realise firstly that no single belief/lack of belief, movement or group has a monopoly on thinking. And secondly, that respectful discussion is better than ridicule. But, that might turn out to be a dream. Still, I can dream, can't I?
But, what to make of this? One thing that's interesting to note is how far the atheist movement is straying from pure atheism.
On the one hand, atheists like to claim that atheism commits them to nothing. They're just committed to denying the existence of God, or so they like to say. And this is entirely true on one level. But by reading about the atheist convention, and glancing over the twitter accounts of internet atheists and atheist groups, and you would get a vastly different impression!
They love talking about gay marriage and child abuse and terrorism and tax exemptions and AIDS in Africa. It's almost like they're really doing their best to muddy the waters and fool everyone into thinking that being an atheist is about joining a reactionary political movement.
Many thinking atheists do realise that terrorism and wars have more to do with politics, sociology and human nature than they do with religion. They realise that you cannot judge a belief system by it's worst proponents who distort the original message. They realise that churches primarily have a social purpose rather than a profit making intention, and thus cannot be labelled businesses in any meaningful sense, and nor should they be paying income tax.
But then the moronic atheists come along screaming "RELIGION IS EVIL! 9/11 shows the problems with irrational thinking and superstition. Ergo, all religion should be wiped out. Duh! Religions are just money making scams anyway. Pass the plate around and watch them all get RICH! Oh and btw, the important issue of Gay marriage is even more evidence of the problems religion is causing society! Jesus probably didn't even exist so why would anyone follow him!" .... and the calm reflection of the thinking atheists is drowned out amidst the ruckus.
Here are all these people claiming to be rational, evidence based thinkers and they come up with nonsense like this- emotional stupidity, reacting to religion with the very same intolerant irrationalism that they accuse religion of being about.
So in the end there's a tension that's caused by all of this. You've got human nature which encourages people to join social groups. The internet has brought the world together and we're seeing atheists come out of their basements and attend reason rallies and atheist conventions and the like. But, there must be some cognitive dissonance happening when some attendees hear the sorts of comments I wrote above - which seriously, are not too far away from the beliefs of many of those who are attending these atheist events- and then realise how utterly stupid they are. "Hang on, I thought we were supposed to be the rational, clear thinking ones! What's going on here!?".
I hope this will help them realise firstly that no single belief/lack of belief, movement or group has a monopoly on thinking. And secondly, that respectful discussion is better than ridicule. But, that might turn out to be a dream. Still, I can dream, can't I?
Monday, April 16, 2012
Reason for Faith Festival Q n A Interaction: Resurrection
Tonight I attended a screening of the film Test of Faith, followed by a panel discussion. The event was part of the Reason for Faith festival, a response to the Global Atheist Convention backed by various Christian groups.
After the panel discussion, the audience had an opportunity to ask a question of the panellists. I asked a question which ended up being the most discussed question of the night! My question was responded to, and then I was asked to clarify, then it was discussed again, and finally Jack Scanlan responded to my question again in his closing remarks.
I listen to debates and panel discussions like this regularly, and it is easy to critique the views being expressed from the comfort of my computer, but it is more difficult with a microphone in a room full of people! I keenly await the recording to find out how articulate I was and whether it came out nearly as well as I wanted it to.
My question was asking for Scanlan's thoughts on looking at evidence through a broader lens, and specifically his thoughts on looking at the Resurrection argument accurately, as a Christian might understand it. That was what I was trying to get across. Scanlan is a molecular biology student, and was talking about the Resurrection. He cast the debate as a question of the reliability of historical documents vs the findings of science. His view, if I accurately heard it, was that biology has proven that people do not rise from the dead, and so you would need an unreasonable faith in historical documents to overcome this. On face value this view might appear compelling, but it misses the essence of the Christian claim. What biology tells us is that people don't rise from the dead via natural causes. But here's the issue: Christians aren't making the claim that Jesus was raised from the dead via natural causes. Christians claim that Jesus was raised from the dead by God. So I asked for his thoughts on this.
At first Scanlan fumbled through a response and concluded by saying that he would hope all evidence could be examined neutrally, without having our response impacted by prior beliefs. But this is clearly problematic, primarily because the world just doesn't work like that! Ideas do not exist in a vacuum. If you hear that someone you know has been arrested for a theft, you would be completely surprised....if said person was a well adjusted member of society. If, on the other hand, this person had a violent upbringing, an abusive father, and had a prior record of theft, then you wouldn't be very surprised at hearing about another crime, would you? So the point is this. Background evidence counts. As I wrote about previously, if God exists then miracles are possible. But if, like Graham Oppy, you believe that natural causes are all that exist, then miracles like a resurrection are inconceivably unlikely to you. So it's not as simple as looking at historical evidence on it's own. If you're determining the probability of what happened, you need to look at the big picture and cast your net a little wider. Or at the very least, you need to acknowledge the existence of your own presuppositions and their bearing on your response to the evidence. Scanlan had shown no respect or awareness of this vital issue, hence my question to him.
After clarifying my question (how effectively I'm not sure!) Dr Bruce Yabsley commented about the uniformity of nature. Modern science, going back to Newton, shows that nature is uniform, he said. This puts the sting in the tail of the argument that Resurrections simply do not happen. And this is a fair point. But unfortunatly Dr Yabsley didn't follow up those comments by acknowledging that the resurrection cannot be expected to conform to those regular patterns. If a resurrection did happen, then it happened once and at the command of a God who controls the universe and all the physical laws within it. It is not an event that we should expect would be repeated. The test tubes and telescopes may tell us that in every case ever recorded, Science shows that X, Y or Z happens this way or that way. That's all good and well. But if there is a lawgiver behind those laws then there is no reason why things cannot happen differently on one occasion. So again, the prior philosophical question of whether there is a God will have a direct bearing on how we interpret the historical evidence and the interaction of science with that historical evidence.
In his closing comment, Scanlan said that if there was good evidence for the Resurrection, he'd more easily believe that aliens did it than God. In one sense this response merely supported my argument about the need to understand your own presuppositions! Aliens, if they exist, are presumably natural entities rather than immaterial, supernatural beings, and, if you believe that life on other planets is probable (as Scanlan may or may not), then you might be inclined to believe this. For me, this idea is discounted by the fact that Jesus didn't ever mention "aliens". There is a historical context in which Jesus lived and into which he spoke, such that if there was good evidence, you would need to interpret the good evidence within that context. In short, there is historical evidence that Jesus was a Jew who claimed divinity as the Messiah appointed by God. Thus, if there was good evidence for a resurrection, you'd consider that God might have done it, rather than posulate an entity who has no prior connection with the context or the historical evidence whatsoever.
After the panel discussion, the audience had an opportunity to ask a question of the panellists. I asked a question which ended up being the most discussed question of the night! My question was responded to, and then I was asked to clarify, then it was discussed again, and finally Jack Scanlan responded to my question again in his closing remarks.
I listen to debates and panel discussions like this regularly, and it is easy to critique the views being expressed from the comfort of my computer, but it is more difficult with a microphone in a room full of people! I keenly await the recording to find out how articulate I was and whether it came out nearly as well as I wanted it to.
My question was asking for Scanlan's thoughts on looking at evidence through a broader lens, and specifically his thoughts on looking at the Resurrection argument accurately, as a Christian might understand it. That was what I was trying to get across. Scanlan is a molecular biology student, and was talking about the Resurrection. He cast the debate as a question of the reliability of historical documents vs the findings of science. His view, if I accurately heard it, was that biology has proven that people do not rise from the dead, and so you would need an unreasonable faith in historical documents to overcome this. On face value this view might appear compelling, but it misses the essence of the Christian claim. What biology tells us is that people don't rise from the dead via natural causes. But here's the issue: Christians aren't making the claim that Jesus was raised from the dead via natural causes. Christians claim that Jesus was raised from the dead by God. So I asked for his thoughts on this.
At first Scanlan fumbled through a response and concluded by saying that he would hope all evidence could be examined neutrally, without having our response impacted by prior beliefs. But this is clearly problematic, primarily because the world just doesn't work like that! Ideas do not exist in a vacuum. If you hear that someone you know has been arrested for a theft, you would be completely surprised....if said person was a well adjusted member of society. If, on the other hand, this person had a violent upbringing, an abusive father, and had a prior record of theft, then you wouldn't be very surprised at hearing about another crime, would you? So the point is this. Background evidence counts. As I wrote about previously, if God exists then miracles are possible. But if, like Graham Oppy, you believe that natural causes are all that exist, then miracles like a resurrection are inconceivably unlikely to you. So it's not as simple as looking at historical evidence on it's own. If you're determining the probability of what happened, you need to look at the big picture and cast your net a little wider. Or at the very least, you need to acknowledge the existence of your own presuppositions and their bearing on your response to the evidence. Scanlan had shown no respect or awareness of this vital issue, hence my question to him.
After clarifying my question (how effectively I'm not sure!) Dr Bruce Yabsley commented about the uniformity of nature. Modern science, going back to Newton, shows that nature is uniform, he said. This puts the sting in the tail of the argument that Resurrections simply do not happen. And this is a fair point. But unfortunatly Dr Yabsley didn't follow up those comments by acknowledging that the resurrection cannot be expected to conform to those regular patterns. If a resurrection did happen, then it happened once and at the command of a God who controls the universe and all the physical laws within it. It is not an event that we should expect would be repeated. The test tubes and telescopes may tell us that in every case ever recorded, Science shows that X, Y or Z happens this way or that way. That's all good and well. But if there is a lawgiver behind those laws then there is no reason why things cannot happen differently on one occasion. So again, the prior philosophical question of whether there is a God will have a direct bearing on how we interpret the historical evidence and the interaction of science with that historical evidence.
In his closing comment, Scanlan said that if there was good evidence for the Resurrection, he'd more easily believe that aliens did it than God. In one sense this response merely supported my argument about the need to understand your own presuppositions! Aliens, if they exist, are presumably natural entities rather than immaterial, supernatural beings, and, if you believe that life on other planets is probable (as Scanlan may or may not), then you might be inclined to believe this. For me, this idea is discounted by the fact that Jesus didn't ever mention "aliens". There is a historical context in which Jesus lived and into which he spoke, such that if there was good evidence, you would need to interpret the good evidence within that context. In short, there is historical evidence that Jesus was a Jew who claimed divinity as the Messiah appointed by God. Thus, if there was good evidence for a resurrection, you'd consider that God might have done it, rather than posulate an entity who has no prior connection with the context or the historical evidence whatsoever.
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
How NOT to review a book
I love reading, as I've written about before, and I usually review the books I read on Amazon.
Two recent events have raised the issue of how NOT to criticise or review a book. I will use these two examples to illuminate this common error.
The first occurred on facebook. John Dickson wrote an article criticising Andrew Bolt's attempt at Biblical criticism, and then this article was linked on the Public Christianity facebook page. A guy named Dave Singer responded with this gem:
I note that John offers, as usual, NO evidence whatsoever to support the claim that the Gospels are true.
He may as well call Andrew Bolt an idiot for thinking the Phantom Menace contradicts The Empire Strikes Back.
I responded by pointing out that it's an error to judge an author by a standard that he never intended to meet. John Dickson's purpose wasn't to "provide evidence to support the claim that the Gospels are true", it was to show that the problems raised by Andrew Bolt aren't all that troubling at all. I also referred to Dickson's latest video where he talks about historical reasons to believe that the Resurrection accounts are historically plausible- 1. They're historically very early, 2. The testimony of women and 3. The conviction of knowledge (as opposed to belief) evidenced by the early followers.
Two recent events have raised the issue of how NOT to criticise or review a book. I will use these two examples to illuminate this common error.
The first occurred on facebook. John Dickson wrote an article criticising Andrew Bolt's attempt at Biblical criticism, and then this article was linked on the Public Christianity facebook page. A guy named Dave Singer responded with this gem:
I note that John offers, as usual, NO evidence whatsoever to support the claim that the Gospels are true.
He may as well call Andrew Bolt an idiot for thinking the Phantom Menace contradicts The Empire Strikes Back.
I responded by pointing out that it's an error to judge an author by a standard that he never intended to meet. John Dickson's purpose wasn't to "provide evidence to support the claim that the Gospels are true", it was to show that the problems raised by Andrew Bolt aren't all that troubling at all. I also referred to Dickson's latest video where he talks about historical reasons to believe that the Resurrection accounts are historically plausible- 1. They're historically very early, 2. The testimony of women and 3. The conviction of knowledge (as opposed to belief) evidenced by the early followers.
A second example occurred on Amazon.com. A review of Christian Smith's The Bible Made Impossible was heavily critical of the book, on the basis that Smith's argument was "hoisted on it's own petard". The author of the review, S.D Parker, berated Smith because Smith apparently criticises the Bible for not being definitive enough, but Smith's own conclusions won't reach definitive agreement either! As I pointed out in response to Parker, Smith never intended for his own conclusions to reach definitive agreement! He clearly states that his views are merely some suggestions to get the discussion started on how to better approach the Bible, and not the final word. Further, Smith's argument was not against the Bible for not being definitive enough, it was against a particular view of the Bible (Biblicism) which implies the Bible should reach definitive agreement when it clearly doesn't! Big difference.
Smith devotes the second half of the book to arguing that the theology of the Bible does contain ambiguities (Chapter 6) and even the theological conclusions that we can reach are not entirely based on the Bible but are developed with later reflection and discussion (Chapter 7).
Parker was welcome to argue that Smith's suggestions don't work, but it was a simple error to criticise them for not being capable of reaching definitive conclusions. Smith never said they would! In fact quite the opposite. Not only did Parker misrepresent Smith's argument, but he judged Smith by a standard he never intended to meet.
It's interesting to note that Parker deleted that review the day after my response. The moral of the story here is that you can only judge a book by whether it sets out to do what it intended to achieve- NOT whether it achieved what YOU want it to achieve.
Tuesday, March 27, 2012
The Rally for Nothing in Particular
Larry Taunton wonders what an atheist world would really be like.
But in comparison what is atheism and what is it's history?
It gets worse...
In a tweet he posted a day before the reason rally, Taunton issued a challenge.
The Reason Rally's stated purpose is to "promote secular values." Other than no God, I challenge atheists to name one of these "values."
As I've discussed before, it is reasonable to wonder whether there is even such thing as "secular values" or whether secularists are just hijacking values that were imported into modern day culture by Christianity and then claiming those values as their own.
It's also clear that many atheists have a rosy view of atheism and secularism, such that they fail to confront potential logical inferences arising from their own views, instead choosing to promote a version of secularism that is more in line with Christian thought. Julian Baggini is one such example. John Dickson's comment in his brilliant essay on religious violence, that I have quoted before, is worth repeating. In fact Dickson himself recently re-tweeted it.
Only one way of life is logically compatible with Christianity; any kind of life is logically compatible with atheism.
Christianity, whatever the faults of its adherents, has a rich intellectual tradition that has a comprehensive view of life. It has given rise to the West as we know it. Our laws, arts, governments, and the very framework of our thought find their meaning in Christianity. Take for example the central premise of the Declaration of Independence: “We hold these truths to be self-evident. That all men are created equal.”
As Indian philosopher and social reformer Vishal Mangalwadi points out, there is nothing self-evidential about the equality of men.
But in comparison what is atheism and what is it's history?
Atheism, by contrast, has no creed, no principles, no philosophy, and can give no guidance. It is but to have a settled disposition on a single question: is there a God?
As my friend the late atheist and journalist Christopher Hitchens conceded, “atheism is nothing in itself.”
That not withstanding, atheism does have a history—a bad history. By conservative estimates, the twentieth century, an experiment in secular governance, witnessed the deaths of more than 100 million people. That is more than all the religious wars in all previous centuries combined.
It gets worse...
Proponents of a society free from religious influence can point to no nation or civilization that was founded upon atheism that we might call even remotely good. The story of those regimes is well documented and may be summarized in a word—murderous.
What they can point to are secular societies that are still running off of their accumulated Christian capital. But beware. When the fumes in that tank are spent, tyranny cannot be far away.
In his farewell address, George Washington offered a sober warning: “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” This he deduced without the benefit of seeing the twentieth century. The eighteenth, it seems, was enough.
In his farewell address, George Washington offered a sober warning: “Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” This he deduced without the benefit of seeing the twentieth century. The eighteenth, it seems, was enough.
So as the rally for nothingness meets to celebrate, well, nothing in particular, reflect for a moment on the world they would give us. One need not imagine it. It has been done.
Larry Taunton, well said. In a tweet he posted a day before the reason rally, Taunton issued a challenge.
The Reason Rally's stated purpose is to "promote secular values." Other than no God, I challenge atheists to name one of these "values."
As I've discussed before, it is reasonable to wonder whether there is even such thing as "secular values" or whether secularists are just hijacking values that were imported into modern day culture by Christianity and then claiming those values as their own.
It's also clear that many atheists have a rosy view of atheism and secularism, such that they fail to confront potential logical inferences arising from their own views, instead choosing to promote a version of secularism that is more in line with Christian thought. Julian Baggini is one such example. John Dickson's comment in his brilliant essay on religious violence, that I have quoted before, is worth repeating. In fact Dickson himself recently re-tweeted it.
Only one way of life is logically compatible with Christianity; any kind of life is logically compatible with atheism.
Monday, March 19, 2012
Bolt and Dickson on Biblical contradictions and Historical Errors
Conservative political journalist Andrew Bolt ventures onto writing about the Bible and John Dickson responds.
Thursday, March 15, 2012
Lewis's Trilemma
C.S Lewis's Trilemma is probably the most famous argument in Christian apologetics.
The argument is thus:
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."[5]
The logic appears sound. It is hard to imagine someone going around claiming to be the Son of God, whilst just being a regular human male, unless they were either 1. totally deluded and suffering from seriously bad mental illness or 2. A complete liar.
But as with most arguments, the value of the argument depends on who it is addressed to and the underlying assumptions that are brought to the table.
The "trilemma" on it's own can only be addressed to people who already accept all of Jesus's teachings as being historical words that the historical Jesus actually spoke. In other words, the argument doesn't address the possibility that Jesus did exist but that he didnt say everything that was attributed to him OR that he didn't exist at all. Before you can use it, you need to either 1. assume or prove that Jesus made his various claims of divinity , or 2. you need to know that your audience already accepts this. Having said that, there are good historical reasons to suggest that Jesus did make claims to divinity- therefore once you've done that groundwork, then the argument may be put to use and could be effective to some degree, to a wider range of people than those who Lewis was originally addressing.
The argument is thus:
"I am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people often say about Him: I’m ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don’t accept his claim to be God. That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic — on the level with the man who says he is a poached egg — or else he would be the Devil of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God, or else a madman or something worse. You can shut him up for a fool, you can spit at him and kill him as a demon or you can fall at his feet and call him Lord and God, but let us not come with any patronising nonsense about his being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to. ... Now it seems to me obvious that He was neither a lunatic nor a fiend: and consequently, however strange or terrifying or unlikely it may seem, I have to accept the view that He was and is God."[5]
The logic appears sound. It is hard to imagine someone going around claiming to be the Son of God, whilst just being a regular human male, unless they were either 1. totally deluded and suffering from seriously bad mental illness or 2. A complete liar.
But as with most arguments, the value of the argument depends on who it is addressed to and the underlying assumptions that are brought to the table.
The "trilemma" on it's own can only be addressed to people who already accept all of Jesus's teachings as being historical words that the historical Jesus actually spoke. In other words, the argument doesn't address the possibility that Jesus did exist but that he didnt say everything that was attributed to him OR that he didn't exist at all. Before you can use it, you need to either 1. assume or prove that Jesus made his various claims of divinity , or 2. you need to know that your audience already accepts this. Having said that, there are good historical reasons to suggest that Jesus did make claims to divinity- therefore once you've done that groundwork, then the argument may be put to use and could be effective to some degree, to a wider range of people than those who Lewis was originally addressing.
Lewis claims that people "often" say that Jesus was just a teacher, but his argument still isn't wholly effective even to that target audience. Many people in that category would have the objection that they simply can't accept any supernatural stuff- and that is why they stick to the moral teachings. I think that kind of objection requires philosophical arguments against naturalism per se, in addition to a historical argument such as the Trilemma. For someone who has a strong naturalist outlook that they bring to bear on the Jesus question, and who believes they have good independent reasons for believing naturalism, it is difficult to imagine them being convinced of Jesus's divinity merely by the Trilemma, even if they already accept the historicity of Jesus's claims to divinity. However in this instance, the Trilemma could form a part of an overall argument or set of arguments.
With the above qualifications in place, we can see that the Trilemma can have some value in showing that Christianity is reasonable.
Saturday, February 18, 2012
Results of a survey on natural theological arguments
Results of a survey on natural theological arguments
Respondents were mostly professional philosophers and philosophy students.
Respondents were mostly professional philosophers and philosophy students.
Saturday, January 7, 2012
Trends in Religious Epistemology
Ex-Apologist explains some trends in religious epistemology.
Historical examples of religious epistemology:
- Bayesianism and Inference to the Best Explanation
- Epistemic Externalism
Recent Trends:
- The epistemology of disagreement.
- Contextualism/pragmatic encroachment
- Phenomenal conservatism
- The epistemology of testimony
Historical examples of religious epistemology:
- Bayesianism and Inference to the Best Explanation
- Epistemic Externalism
Recent Trends:
- The epistemology of disagreement.
- Contextualism/pragmatic encroachment
- Phenomenal conservatism
- The epistemology of testimony
Book Review: Atheism: A Very Short Introduction, by Julian Baggini
Well delivered but incomplete and rosy: 2.5 stars.
Julian Baggini's Very Short Intro to Atheism is written with clarity. He states his views clearly and never leaves the reader in any question as to what he's arguing for. This is worth mentioning because it is actually no small feat. Further than this, Baggini structured the book effectively, both in terms of his big picture flow of the book and secondly by always stating his specific points and concluding each chapter with a summary of the arguments. These characteristics made the book easy to read. Secondly, he does an admirable job of making his subject matter accessible, and so he showed his capability of delivering within the spirit of the Very Short Introduction Series.
Baggini begins (Chapter 1) by explaining what atheism is. He paints atheism as a positive belief, and this sets the scene for the next few chapters as it allows him to justify and explain his atheism before completing the more negative task of arguing why religious belief is mistaken, which he doesn't do until Chapter 6. In Chapter 2, Baggini claims that strong evidence supports atheism but only weak evidence can support theism. He argues that human nature and consciousness are completely biological, and that this strongly supports the naturalist, and therefore atheist, view. He argues that naturalist explanations are incredibly successful and that "The class of unexplained phenomena is unlikely to contain anything that will come to be explained in supernatural terms". This is a wide reaching chapter, as Baggini makes further positive arguments before taking on the claim that atheism is a faith position, and arguing against those who would use Pascal's Wager to justify belief.
In Chapter 3, Baggini starts by arguing for the separation of morality and religion, saying that we shouldn't see them as inextricably linked. He explores three frameworks for understanding Godless morality, and draws insights from them all. Meaning and Purpose is the subject of Chapter 4, and it can be summarised by the statement "Life is what you make it". Chapter 5 sees Baggini trace atheism back to naturalists in the 6th century BCE, and then in it's modern form, from the enlightenment forwards as a wholesale belief system in the marketplace of ideas. In Chapter 6 he turns to the deconstruction of the justification for religious belief, as he considers the merits of arguments for God's existence. In Chapter 7 he concludes by discussing humanism and praising the realism of atheism as a means of facing the world.
So, why only 2.5 stars? It's because Baggini's book is both incomplete and overly rosy. He admits at the start of Chapter 7 the fact that it's inevitable that much will be left out, given the brevity of the book (interestingly, this book is much shorter than many of the others in the VSI series- I just received 8 and this was the shortest). I understand this and so admittedly it must be factored in as I pin Baggini down on my charge of incompleteness.
In the earlier chapters, I found myself frustrated that Baggini didn't even mention any of the best anti naturalist arguments. Given his view that naturalism justifies atheism, this was disappointing. I was also dismayed with his lack of discussion on the point that many religious believers and religious belief systems are completely comfortable with naturalist explanations (and the different, but related point that many religious academics and philosophers of science believe God provides a better justification for the entire scientific enterprise than does naturalism), and thus that there's significant disagreement about whether many of Baggini's points provide much support for atheism at all, let alone strong support. It may be fair for Baggini to claim that space contraints kept him from responding to objections, and that he was simply trying to put forward a brief, summarised, positive case. Nonetheless, he could've easily made his entire discussion more well-rounded by mentioning those obvious objections and why he believes they fail. This would've only taken a small amount of space, yet would've made this book much more effective at it's aim of showing why one should be an atheist.
So, in making this criticism I will focus on the one glaring example where the arguments put forward are unequivocally and definitively incomplete. That is, Chapter 6. He refers to "The Cosmological Argument" when in actual fact there is no such thing- there are three broad forms of cosmological argument that together are given the family name "Cosmological Arguments" only because they are similar in their reference point- the cosmos. Baggini presents the design argument as the "watchmaker" argument given by Paley centuries ago, when scientific findings in the past 50 years have completely revolutionised the discussion on this argument. Now, it is true that most religious believers do not base their faith on natural theology, but nonetheless, since he's presenting and critiquing arguments for God's existence, he is at least obliged to mention the ones that modern Christian apologists and philosophers consider the most persuasive, such as modern renderings of the Kalam and Leibnizian Cosmological arguments or the fine tuning argument. I am aware of his statement in Ch 7 that he didn't want to mention sophisticated defences of theistic belief, but I'm not saying that is necessary. (I suspect he had in made some of Plantinga's philosophically dense ideas such as reformed epistemology). I'm asking him to merely lay out a more forceful argument, instead of laying out an ancient strawman.
The second criticism was that he falls prey to the very thing he shows awareness of in the introduction, by painting an overly rosy picture of atheism. Some of the ideas perpetuated by the figures who have paved the way for modern day atheism- Nietzsche, for example- are darker than the picture of atheism that Baggini presents. Atheism is in it's infancy, as Baggini notes, but he pays little attention to dark atheist ideas, or to the fact that atheism has arisen in societies heavily influenced by Christian belief. Baggini would have you believe that atheism is a knight in shining armour, waving the torch of rational thinking alight and ridding us of superstition. But where will atheism really lead people in the future? Caution is required, because as John Dickson observed: Any kind of life is logically compatible with atheism.
Baggini's picture didn't make enough room for the darker side of atheism, and thus he ends up being guilty of the very thing he foresaw in his own introduction. As he admits in Chapter 7, "the atheism described in this book really is a form of humanism". He even says he sees positive atheism and humanism as "coterminous", but the problem is that he simply doesn't give any justification for thinking this! And considering that it's such a huge part of the framework within which he describes and justifies atheism, this is a huge oversight. In other words, given the position of naturalism- nature is all there is- that Baggini subscribes to, many "logical" views of the world and ways of living are possible. And many of them are much bleaker than Baggini's polite and tolerant outlook, so I'm not sure he has a right to commandeer atheism by painting it in such a positive light. Perhaps Baggini is, as we all are, a product of his times.
By balancing out the strong readability and the clarity with which Baggini wrote with the two main criticisms I've levelled at the book, I give it 2.5 stars.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Would We Be Better Off Without Religion?
Notes from.....
Title of the lecture taken from a debate held in 2008.
2. What is wrong or incomplete about the claim
2.1 Retellings of the evils of Christendom frequently involve gross exaggerations.
DB hart. in Atheist Delusions demonstrates how each era retells the story of the previous era in a way which makes itself look really good, by making the past look really bad in comparison. This happened in the 18th century with popularisation of the term “Dark Ages”. Enlightenment vs Dark Ages. The tale told by enlightened popularisers is “false in every identifiable detail”. The tale of the birth of the modern world and deliverance from the age of faith to the age of reason has "disappeared from respected academic journals and now principally survives at the level of folklore, intellectual journalism and vulgar legend". This is true, no one refers to "Dark Ages" in academic journals and nor should they.
2.2 Misses significant point: The violence of Christendom is dwarfed by the bloodshed of non-religious or irreligious conflicts.
World War 1- 8 mil. World War 2- 35 million. Neither in any way religious conflicts. How can anyone say most of the wars or deaths in history were caused by Christianity?
20th century atheist regimes were not improvements on Christendom:
Jesus was relentless in his promotion of humble service and his rejection of the use of power. Luke 6, from the Q Document. Accepted front and centre by all mainstream historical Jesus experts- Love your enemies. Do unto others as you would have others do to you.
At most, the criticisms of the New Atheists could only prove that Christians haven’t been Christian enough. Christians admit this.
Dismissing Christianity due to a violent history is a bit like dismissing Johanna Sebastian Bach afer hearing a 5 year old attempt one of his Cello pieces. You have to distinguish between the original composition and it’s sometimes poor performance.
All historical Jesus experts agree that Jesus preached the love of enemies, hence, he played a beautiful composition. The solution to Christian evil is not less Christianity but more.
Albert Einstein in a letter to German nationalists: “Honour your master Jesus Christ. Not only in word and song but foremost in your deeds”.
Final concern with this issue, an extension of part 2: The arguments given concede nothing of the great good that Christianity has brought into the Western world.
A mass murderer and Mother Theresa can be Christians. But only 1 is logically compatible with Christianity. Only 1 is inspired by Christianity. Only 1 is continuing to sing the tune that Jesus sung.
Movement of 1 vote in the 2008 debate, towards the Christians. A young man told Dickson he’d changed his mind. Think of the one person you know who is really sincere about their faith, and ask if the world would be better off with or without their faith. He thought of his aunty, and the answer persuaded him. Challenge to spectators: Don’t just accept truisms from culture, instead see if it rings true in the lives of those around you. Challenge to Christians: Be the kind of person that changes minds on this question.
John Dickson. Available at Koorong Bookstores
(Points emphasised by Dickson, or considered by me to be worthy of note, are bolded. Headings organised as Dickson laid out his talk. Quotes are in italics and are generally paraphrased) Title of the lecture taken from a debate held in 2008.
Christianity overwhemingly lost both counts- beginning and end of the night. The motion "we would be better off without religion" won convincingly. Christianity was the focus of the debate. Made Dickson realise: Christians used to be criticised as moralistic, self righteous. Now it is becoming just as popular to label Christians as immoral, evil and poisonous. 9/11 played a part, sociologically.
Only 2 groups consider 9/11 to be a purely religious phenomenon:
-Wahabi Islam
- New Atheists
New Atheism makes Christianity their main target. This has affected people and filtered into the common psyche- it has become a far more popular criticism of religion to claim that religion is evil, poisonous and responsible for violence.
1. How Serious this claim isThe religion causes violence argument has shot from top ten, to the number two reason for rejecting Christianity in recent times.
Dickson recounts story from dinner party- successful, self made businessman was convinced that ‘Christianity started most of the wars of history’.
Hitchens quote- Ethical life can be lived without religion. Corollary- Religion has given people permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel keeper/ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. (Paraphrase).
Hitchens Quote- Ireland- Killing and Torturing – simply for membership of another confession. (Paraphrase)This claim is partly right- as a student of history, confronted with primary sources. Christians HAVE done terrible things in the name of Christ .
Protestant problem, not just Catholic:
- Luther: 1543 The Jews and their lies. Vile document.
- Calvin: Pressed for someone’s execution for having wrong view of trinity.
Christians have failed to live up to Christ’s standards. Christians should have no problem admitting this, however, because they are the only ones left who do not hold to the view that we are inherently good, through and through.
2. What is wrong or incomplete about the claim
2.1 Retellings of the evils of Christendom frequently involve gross exaggerations.
DB hart. in Atheist Delusions demonstrates how each era retells the story of the previous era in a way which makes itself look really good, by making the past look really bad in comparison. This happened in the 18th century with popularisation of the term “Dark Ages”. Enlightenment vs Dark Ages. The tale told by enlightened popularisers is “false in every identifiable detail”. The tale of the birth of the modern world and deliverance from the age of faith to the age of reason has "disappeared from respected academic journals and now principally survives at the level of folklore, intellectual journalism and vulgar legend". This is true, no one refers to "Dark Ages" in academic journals and nor should they.
Examples:
- Spanish Inquisition. Elizabeth Farrelly “Millions” of secular martyrs. Fact? 350 years, 6000 deaths. Edward Peters.
- Nth Ireland 30 year conflict. Lets assume this was entirely religious (a debated point), 30 years, 3,500 people dead. Compare to French Revolution- 1793-94 great terror. 3,500. 1 year fighting for secular liberties vs 30 years warring religious parties.
Any death in the name of Christ or over theological belief is blasphemy, but the question is: How did these become viewed as the pinnacle of the ferocity of Christianity?
2.2 Misses significant point: The violence of Christendom is dwarfed by the bloodshed of non-religious or irreligious conflicts.
World War 1- 8 mil. World War 2- 35 million. Neither in any way religious conflicts. How can anyone say most of the wars or deaths in history were caused by Christianity?
20th century atheist regimes were not improvements on Christendom:
- Stalin’s project killed 20 million. 6,000 a week. More in a week than the Spanish Inquisition killed in 350 years. Mao- between 10 and 50 million. Pol Pot was responsible for the deaths of 2 million of the 8 million population.
- Atheists respond to the claim that atheism leads to bloodshed with two objections. 1. Stalins atheism was a grand ideology, therefore religious in nature. This is an ingenius avoidance strategy. 2. Stalin’s violence was unrelated to his atheism. Hitler was a vegetarian, after all, this does not mean vegetarianism is responsible for the holocaust. This is disinegenous. To say that Stalin’s ardent conviction that religion is false and regressive was unrelated to his systematic eradication of religion people is taking things too fr. Stretching credulity.
Not saying that Atheism necessarily leads to violence. Both Atheism and Christianity can AND have led to violence. Religion or irreligion isn’t the problem. Problem is human heart in possession of a passion unrestrained: A passion for land, wealth or honour, amongst other things.
3. Jesus's solution to the ProblemJesus was relentless in his promotion of humble service and his rejection of the use of power. Luke 6, from the Q Document. Accepted front and centre by all mainstream historical Jesus experts- Love your enemies. Do unto others as you would have others do to you.
At most, the criticisms of the New Atheists could only prove that Christians haven’t been Christian enough. Christians admit this.
Dismissing Christianity due to a violent history is a bit like dismissing Johanna Sebastian Bach afer hearing a 5 year old attempt one of his Cello pieces. You have to distinguish between the original composition and it’s sometimes poor performance.
All historical Jesus experts agree that Jesus preached the love of enemies, hence, he played a beautiful composition. The solution to Christian evil is not less Christianity but more.
Albert Einstein in a letter to German nationalists: “Honour your master Jesus Christ. Not only in word and song but foremost in your deeds”.
Final concern with this issue, an extension of part 2: The arguments given concede nothing of the great good that Christianity has brought into the Western world.
- Jerusalem Food Roster in the first year of Christianity.
- Paul’s Ten Year collection in Turkey, for famine ravaged Judea. First recorded international aid project?
- Poverty Roll- 1500 ppl fed every day in an era where the Roman church was still illegal, persecuted and being killed. This made it the largest association in Ancient Rome.
- In time of great persecution during the first decade of 4th century, authorities raided a church, expecting to steal it's treasure (like the banking systems found in Pagan temples). In this small church in Cirta (Libya) they actually found: 16 tunics, 82 dresses, 13 mens shoes, 47 womens shoes, storage room for poor, etc etc.
- Emperior Julian Augustus (AD 331-363) was an opponent of Christianity, was worried they would “take over the world by the stealth of their good deeds”. In a letter to a Pagan priest, he demanded they institute a welfare system imitating the Christians. “Christian deeds have done the most to increase this atheism*”...”Disgraceful that they support not only their own poor but ours as well. All men see that our people lack aid from us”. *ie: Christianity. Atheism from emperor’s perspective.
- Human Rights- Canon Lawyers, working through the New Testament and it’s views on the rights of poor and aliens. This is where our modern HR language first developed.
- Wilberforce- ended slavery out of his Christian evangelical convictions about men being equal and all made in the image of God.
- Lord Shaftesbury.
- Martin Luther King.
- Desmond Tutu Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
- Desmond Tutu Truth and Reconciliation Commission.
- “Research and philanthropy in Australia” report - Department of Families, community services and indigenous affairs, 2004. Found that the more religious a person is, the more giving they are.
- According to 2005 data, 18 of the 22 largest charities in Australia by revenue are Christian.
This does not make Christians better people than atheists. Would not even be going down this path and giving this lecture were it not for the claim that they are worse. CS Lewis: Christians are not better than non Christians, they are just better than they would be without their Christianity. A mass murderer and Mother Theresa can be Christians. But only 1 is logically compatible with Christianity. Only 1 is inspired by Christianity. Only 1 is continuing to sing the tune that Jesus sung.
Movement of 1 vote in the 2008 debate, towards the Christians. A young man told Dickson he’d changed his mind. Think of the one person you know who is really sincere about their faith, and ask if the world would be better off with or without their faith. He thought of his aunty, and the answer persuaded him. Challenge to spectators: Don’t just accept truisms from culture, instead see if it rings true in the lives of those around you. Challenge to Christians: Be the kind of person that changes minds on this question.
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