Posted by Unknown on 4:23 AM
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Just quickly--Rae at Subversive Muse has written a seriesofposts "from a critical left-wing perspective" on atheism, science and religion. I've expressed my objections to Rae's arguments--I think they basically misrepresent science (it is taken as axiomatic in this series of posts that science is "an ideology," whereas I think this needs to be argued for/demonstrated) and critique a strawman definition of atheism--and I know Bruce (who is more well-versed on this topic than I am) is preparing a response at his blog. Brian at Primordial Blog has written a thoughtful response as well.
Just to make it worth your while (and Rae, I'm not lumping you in with these guys!), here are some Youtube dispatches from the war on science:
Posted by Unknown on 4:40 AM
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I understand that there are historical reasons why when the Pope holds forth on a given topic, the world's media bends over backwards to report it. After all, his predecessors were once upon a time the most powerful leaders in the world. And yet it still bothers me that his banal brand of magical thinking is deemed newsworthy.
His latest encyclical, Spe Salvi, is being represented by many media outlets as a scathing attack on atheism, in response to the success of recent atheism-themed books by Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett and Richard Dawkins. Talk about being hit with a wet newspaper . . .
The atheism of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries is—in its origins and aims—a type of moralism: a protest against the injustices of the world and of world history. A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering, and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God. A God with responsibility for such a world would not be a just God, much less a good God. It is for the sake of morality that this God has to be contested.
Do we not hear in these words the echo of a thousand online "concern troll" theists? "I understand: you're an atheist because you're angry at God. It can't possibly be because of the lack of evidence that a God exists. So it must be the anger thing."
Since there is no God to create justice, it seems man himself is now called to establish justice. If in the face of this world's suffering, protest against God is understandable, the claim that humanity can and must do what no God actually does or is able to do is both presumptuous and intrinsically false. It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice; rather, it is grounded in the intrinsic falsity of the claim. A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope.
No, Benedict: a world which has to create its own justice--and is aware of that fact--is a world that has finally weaned itself off the teat of religious dogma, cast aside the security blanket, and grown up. The cruelty and violations of which you speak--namely those caused by totalitarian regimes in the twentieth century--are simply the fruits of one set of dogmas being replaced with another. I'll say that again so that it might sink in. The cruelty and violations of which you speak are the fruits of dogma, not atheism. Your mistake is in your severe tunnel-vision, which is such that you cannot begin to countenance the thought that we might cast aside dogmatic thought altogether.
Posted by Unknown on 12:35 PM
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Sad news on the atheism/freethought podcasting front: Dogma Free America is no more. It celebrated its fiftieth and final episode on November 22nd, with producer and host Rich Orman claiming that the podcast was taking up too much of his time. DFA's shows weren't theme-based or guest-based like Freethought Radio and The Non-Prophets, and mainly consisted on commentary on the latest news concerning magical thinking and theocracy. DFA also canvassed more international (read: non-US) news than other podcasts, and often ran stories on religious violence in sub-Saharan Africa (usually perpetrated against individuals suspected of "witchcraft"), as well as atrocities perpetrated by theocracies in the Islamic world. Hence, Christian listeners might (I imagine) have found it more even-handed than other non-theist podcasts.
For mine, however, the pick of the podcasts is still The Atheist Experience, which is actually a live cable access TV program screening in Austin, Texas. The Atheist Experience, as the site indicates, is "geared at a non-atheist audience," with a view to clearing up misconceptions about atheism as well as countering religious apologetics (current host Matt Dillahunty is an ex-fundie and his Biblical knowledge is very effective in this regard), addressing church-state separation issues and commenting on the latest in fundamentalist idiocy. Very entertaining--especially when the presenters engage with religious callers.
The demons of Satan's army will soon physically manifest themselves as Aliens, arriving in armadas of space ships which we have heretofore called UFO's. The plan calls for them to suddenly appear at many places on Earth simultaneously.Some will appear at the White House to confer with the President; some will appear at the United Nations; other aliens will appear at key governmental buildings all over the globe. Aliens will appear in some people's homes or on their front yards. The world's peoples will literally be shocked out of their minds. This is the Plan. This may occur before the worldwide Rapture of the Church; we must be prepared to deal wisely with this planned phenomenon.
I just had a look at the Australian Christian Lobby's list of what it considers are the strengths and weaknesses of the Australian Greens' policies. Among the "weaknesses" the Lobby identifies are the Greens' support for a Bill of Rights, and their support for the extension of anti-discrimination legislation to (partially-taxpayer-funded) private schools as well as public schools--a reminder, if any were required, of how the ACL and the Religious Right in Australia generally are no friends of liberal democracy.
Posted by Unknown on 5:51 AM
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The week in fundie . . .
David Attenborough on God
A US Federal judge has ordered an anti-abortionist to remove Web site postings that "exhorted readers to kill an abortion provider by shooting her in the head" and featured the provider's name, photo and address. (via Fundies Say the Darndest Things)
Who would Jesus child-traffick?: A UK-based Christian evangelical preacher, who promised infertile Kenyan couples "miracle babies," convinced them that they were pregnant when they were not, and led them to believe that they had given birth in backstreet clinics, will be extradited back to Kenya to face five counts of child stealing. (via Fundies Say the Darndest Things)
The AP has a report on the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Maldives, which in late September culminated in a nailbomb attack in a park in the capital of Male popular with tourists.
A school board in California has approved a plan to put posters declaring "In God We Trust" in every classroom. Why? Because "we need to promote patriotism and promote it in our schools. We can't just assume that the younger generations are going to have that strong love for God and their country the way the older generations do." The $12,000 that it will cost to purchase the posters will come out of that portion of the school's budget reserved for the purchase of instructional materials. Why? Because Christian proselytism and flag-waving patriotism are far more important than education. (Via Dispatches from the Culture Wars)
A schoolgirl in Illinois was given detention for hugging two of her friends. Hugging is verboten in her school because, according to school policy, it "is in poor taste, reflects poor judgment, and brings discredit to the school and to the persons involved." (via Morons.org )
Posted by Unknown on 6:14 AM
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(With sincere apologies to Chris)
Chris from A Churchless Faith has a great post wherein he reflects upon the debate between atheism and theism (and his own fatigue with it).
Most people don't have a problem with people who believe that aliens landed in area 51 or that the moon landing was staged because it doesn't actually impact on the way they treat other people. The big problems with religious people, as I see it, is when religious people do evil things because they believe it is what God wants. That evil stretches the spectrum from genocide to indoctrinating children in their own faith with out giving them a choice about it or denying the rights of scientists to do science.
Quite. The atheism vs. theism debate can be enlightening philosophically, but I think the struggle between critical and magical thinking is more pressing, and the struggle between theocracy and democracy more urgent still.
I did wonder about this passage, however:
I also think it is worth Xns conceding that science has more to say to faith than faith has to say to science. Faith is about a general whole of life perspective, science is about specific measurable things. Faith is like a big blanket and Science is like a knife, hitting only specific areas of the blanket. It may cut a hole in the creationism part of the blanket, but the blanket is still there, it may cut so many holes that many people consider the blanket is no longer a blanket.
This seems to me to be a rather unfortunate metaphor. If faith is like a big blanket, what purpose is the blanket supposed to serve? Is it a security blanket?
Speaking of theocracy versus democracy, Wednesday's Religion Report ran a show (which I haven't listened to yet) on "Australia's Christian Vote," featuring Jim Wallace of the Australian Christian Lobby, Fred Nile of the Christian Democrats, and Christine Milne of the Australian Greens. And this Sunday, The Spirit of Things will feature Ian Bryce, Senate candidate for the Secular Party, who will join a discussion on the societal benefits of secularism.
Posted by Unknown on 1:27 AM
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This week's Religion Report featured an interview with Christian apologist Alister McGrath on Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion. McGrath has debated Dawkins on several occasions, as well as Christopher Hitchens, and on such occasions has always had his arse handed to him. So it was with great disappointment that I listened to presenter Stephen Crittenden treat McGrath's arguments with kid gloves in this interview.
The format of the programme was ridiculously one-sided, for starters:
Crittenden elicits from McGrath a long-winded criticism of Dawkins--invariably prefaced by his signature phrase "I think what I'd want to say . . ."--and then eagerly joins in,
Crittenden fails to submit McGrath's claims to the same level of scrutiny.
Crittenden was positively testy with Sam Harris when he appeared on TRR in December last year, and on an earlier show had opined that "people like Dawkins are just as fundamentalist as any southern Baptist, just as ignorant about religion as your southern Baptist is about science, and perhaps guilty of promoting, fuelling movements like Intelligent Design, because of their fundamentalism." But he could at least, in his capacity as a journalist, have tried to play the Devil's Advocate with McGrath.
Instead--having himself remarked that "Dawkins makes so little of Islam, even when he's writing about religious violence. He's really focusing much of this book on Christianity, isn't he?"--he allows McGrath to get away with pearlers like these:
Well he is, and I think that in many ways Dawkins finds that he can't criticise Islam directly because that would be politically really quite dangerous, and therefore he prefers to concentrate on soft targets, and there's no softer target than Christianity, so he and these other writers seem to be focusing on Christianity as being the easy target. It's really been very well received in certain parts of the public, because there is this very deep sense of alienation from what the Christian church has been saying.
Dawkins doesn't criticise Islam? Did McGrath really just say that? On pages 24-27 of The God Delusion Dawkins attacks the "incitement to mayhem" throughout the Muslim world (which he also describes as "hysterical") arising from the Danish cartoon controversy--he notes that "if you don't take [Islam] seriously and accord it proper respect you are physically threatened, on a scale that no other religion has aspired to since the Middle Ages." Elsewhere in the book he attacks blasphemy and apostasy laws in Muslim countries (he cites the case of Abdul Rahman, sentenced to death in Afghanistan in 2006 for converting to Christianity, and who is now in hiding in Italy), and the Taliban's destruction of the Buddhas of Bamiyan. He suggests Ibn Warraq's Why I Am Not a Muslim could be retitled The Myth of Moderate Islam. Regarding the London bombings, he approvingly cites another author's suggestion "that the young men who committed suicide were neither on the fringes of Muslim society in Britain, nor following an eccentric and extremist interpretation of their faith, but rather that they came from the very core of the Muslim community and were motivated by a mainstream interpretation of Islam." Shall I go on? In 2001, four days after Sept. 11, he remarked: "testosterone-sodden young men too unattractive to get a woman in this world might be desperate enough to go for 72 private virgins in the next."
Why might Dawkins pay more attention to Christianity than to Islam in The God Delusion? "Unless otherwise stated, I shall have Christianity mostly in mind, but only because it is the version with which I happen to be most familiar. For my purposes the differences [between the Abrahamic religions] matter less than the similarities." Simple as that.
Next, Crittenden and McGrath tackle Dawkins' claim that there is a real conflict between science and religion:
Stephen Crittenden: Indeed, is that one of the biggest weaknesses in Dawkins' book, that he doesn't acknowledge the role of the churches and religious believers in the history of science: the Jesuits in astronomy and seismology, and medicine, for instance; or the fact that the Big Bang theory was first proposed by a Belgian priest. And of course the general public doesn't know all that much about this history either.
Alister E. McGrath: Well that's right. I mean Dawkins has this very simplistic idea that science and religion have always been at war with each other, and he says only one can win, and let's face it, it's going to be science. But the history just doesn't take into that place. The history suggests that at times there has been conflict, but at times there has been great synergy between science and religion and many would say that at this moment, there are some very exciting things happening in the dialogue between science and religion. What Dawkins is offering is a very simplistic, slick spin on a very complex phenomenon. It's one that clearly he expects to appeal to his readers, but the reality is simply not like that at all.
I'm not sure that there is too much to get excited about in the dialogue between science and religion. Endeavours to demonstrate the efficacy of prayer in the science lab have invariably led up blind alleys. On the other hand, the emerging science of neurotheology suggests that the capacity for religious belief may be hardwired into our brains.
While it is possible to oversimplify the historical relationship between religion and science, the role played by religion in suppressing science is undeniable. But McGrath misses Dawkins' point, as articulated in a 1997 article:
Science is based upon verifiable evidence. Religious faith not only lacks evidence, its independence from evidence is its pride and joy, shouted from the rooftops. Why else would Christians wax critical of doubting Thomas? The other apostles are held up to us as exemplars of virtue because faith was enough for them. Doubting Thomas, on the other hand, required evidence. Perhaps he should be the patron saint of scientists.
That is the crux of the issue between science and religion.
Crittenden continues:
Stephen Crittenden: There's one particularly outrageous moment in his book where he talks about the great scientist Gregor Mendel, and suggests that he became an Augustinian monk in order to support his scientific research. I'm not sure how he could know that.
Alister E. McGrath: I think this is Dawkins' rewriting of history to suit his own agendas, to be frank.
Rewriting history--really? Dawkins actually says (on p.99): "Mendel, of course, was a religious man, an Augustinian monk; but that was in the nineteenth century, when becoming a monk was the easiest way for the young Mendel to pursue his science. For him, it was the equivalent of a research grant." Which is true: Mendel, the second son of peasant farmers, was a brilliant student in his youth, but his parents lacked the means to pay for his higher education. So he entered an Augustinian monastery. Dawkins isn't "rewriting" anything here.
Stephen Crittenden: It seems obvious, on the other hand, that religion - I mean this is almost too obvious to say - that religion has indeed been in retreat before science, as science has answered more and more questions about the physical world.
Alister E. McGrath: Well I would certainly agree with that. And I think one of the issues we have here is that in the past, religious people have very often overplayed their hand, and said in effect, 'Look, we can tell you everything'. And then science has begun to encroach on that, and they had to retreat. What I'd want to say is - and I think many would agree with this - that science is wonderful when it comes to explaining the relationships we observe in the material world. But there are bigger questions of meaning and value. In other words, why are we here? What's the purpose of life? And I'd want to say very clearly that science actually can't answer those questions, and in fact if science does answer those questions, it's gone way beyond its legitimate sphere of authority.
The implication here is that if such questions do not fall within the "legitimate sphere of authority" of science, then they must be assumed to fall within the "legitimate sphere of authority" of religion. I'll let Dawkins speak for himself on this one:
It is a tedious cliche (and, unlike many cliches, it isn't even true) that science concerns itself with how questions, but only theology is equipped to answer why questions. What on Earth is a why question? Not every English sentence beginning with the word 'why' is a legitimate question. Why are unicorns hollow? Some questions simply do not deserve an answer. What is the colour of abstraction? What is the smell of hope? The fact that a question can be phrased in a grammatically correct English sentence doesn't make it meaningful, or entitle it to our serious attention. Nor, even if the question is a real one, does the fact that science cannot answer it imply that religion can. (p.56)
But it is, as I said, rather disappointing that Crittenden didn't challenge McGrath on this point.
We then hear a grab of what is perhaps the most well-known argument advanced in The God Delusion: "There's a chapter on children, and what I regard as the abuse of children, which is the assumption, without the child's consent, that the child inherits the religion of its parents, and I've described that as a form of child abuse." Rather than address this argument directly, Crittenden suggests that Dawkins lacks "a theory of culture," and thus
Dawkins doesn't really understand the ethical and sociological dimension of religion. I'm talking about his idea that belief in God arises from a meme. That's a sort of anti-culture idea, a sort of biological theory of culture. I'm also thinking of his view that bringing up children in a religious tradition is a form of child abuse. That almost sounds like culture is something alien.
Alister E. McGrath: Well that's certainly a very fair point, and indeed one of the major criticisms I'd make of 'The God Delusion' is that he doesn't seem to be able to distinguish between belief in God, religion, world views and culture. These are very important distinctions to make, and certainly you mentioned this idea of the meme, which plays a very significant role in Dawkins' book The God Delusion, and really the key point here is that Dawkins seems to think that his idea of the meme explains away belief in God, that somehow you can give a biological explanation of why people believe in God and that shows it is wrong, it can be disposed of. And of course the point you've made is a good one. Actually there are very important cultural reasons why people believe in God, because there's a cultural mandate to think about these things, to begin to evaluate the evidence for belief in God and then if there is a God to begin to express that belief in certain cultural ways. For example, ways of behaviour, rituals, actions and so forth. And again, I don't see Dawkins really engaging with that, which gives I think his critique of religion a real vulnerability at that point
Of course there are sociological explanations, cultural explanations, for why people not only believe in God but choose to raise their children with such a belief. That doesn't go anywhere near addressing the idea that children ought not to be labelled and coerced in this way, and that they ought instead be allowed to develop their own ideas regarding religion--just as they are permitted to do when it comes to political ideologies or political parties. McGrath makes no attempt to justify, to say why it is right that children be referred to as "Catholic children" or "Protestant children;" he is either stupidly confusing an "is" with an "ought," or arrogantly doing so.
Stephen Crittenden: Now one of the most interesting areas in his book I think is the section in his book that deals with the links between religion and violence. Because after all, if you're right, and 9/11 was the trigger for the book in the first place, this really gets to the heart of the matter.
Alister E. McGrath: Yes, there's no doubt that the most persuasive part of the book is where Dawkins argues that religion seems to have this innate propensity to lead to violence. In other words, if you believe in God, you are much more likely to be a violent person than if you don't believe in God. And I think personally, that's one of the reasons why the book has had such an impact in Australia because you are nervous about violence, nervous about extremism, and Dawkins offers an extremely simplistic answer to those concerns: it's caused by religion, get rid of religion and these things go away.
Actually, Dawkins acknowledges (p. 259) that "Religion is a label of in-group/out-group enmity and vendetta, not necessarily worse than other labels such as skin colour, language or preferred football team, but often available when other labels are not." For Dawkins, though, religion is particularly problematic for three reasons:
Labelling of children. Children are described as 'Catholic children' or 'Protestant children' etc. from an early age, and certainly far too early for them to have made up their own minds on what they think about religion
Segregated schools. Children are educated, again often from a very early age, with members of a religious in-group and separately from children whose families adhere to other religions. It is not an exaggeration to say that the troubles in Northern Ireland would disappear in a generation if segregated schooling were abolished.
Taboos against 'marrying out'. This perpetuates hereditary feuds and vendettas by preventing the mingling of feuding groups. Intermarriage, if it were permitted, would naturally tend to mollify enmities.
Dawkins is only claiming that religious labelling exacerbates our propensity to violence; he is not claiming that if you get rid of religion, violence will disappear.
Stephen Crittenden: It's interesting that in Dawkins' book The Selfish Gene from the mid-1970s which is the book where he coins the term 'meme', we get Dawkins the social Darwinist, who suggests that selfishness and violence comes from our biology, and yet here he is in this book blaming it all on religion. It seems like an interesting contradiction.
Except he's not "blaming it all on religion." Shoddy journalism, Stephen. And here's where Alister McGrath makes one of his most outrageous statements:
Alister E. McGrath: Well it's an intriguing transition and certainly in the book The Selfish Gene he seems to say all these things are genetically programmed. But then right at the end of the book he says, 'Well somehow we can rise above this'. But I'd want to challenge him at this point I think and say Look, I have no doubt that some people who are religious, have done some very bad things, but I'd want to make a counterpoint very forcibly. And that is, this is not typical of religion. This is the fringes being presented as though they're the mainstream. And we saw that in his television program, The Root of All Evil, which many of your listeners may have seen, where he presented some extremists as if they were mainliners, and I think that's a very serious misrepresentation. I want to make it clear, I have no doubt there are some very weird religious people who might well be dangerous, but those of us who believe in God, know that, and we're doing all we can to try and minimise their influence. The centre needs to be reaffirmed, and Dawkins does not help us do that at all.
What an astonishing ignorance of history this man has, if he thinks the Crusades or the Inquisition were the work of "fringe" elements and not mainstream Christianity. What an astonishing ignorance of current events this man has, if in the wake of countless sexual abuse scandals in the Church--not least of which has been the Church's complicity in attempting to sweep it all under the carpet--he can talk about "fringes being presented as the mainstream" and keep a straight face. You can't get more mainstream than the Catholic Church, a denomination comprising one sixth of the world's population.
Stephen Crittenden: No. On the other hand, it's true isn't it, that there's a very strong powerful view in popular culture about the churches, and their history. It may be a caricatured view that starts with the Inquisition and includes the Crusades and so on, it's a very one-sided view of course, but it's very, very deep in the culture.
Alister E. McGrath: That's right. And Dawkins is able to point to this narrative of violence, the Crusades, the Inquisition.
Stephen Crittenden: What can the churches do about that?
Alister E. McGrath: Well I think there are two things they can do. One is they can make sure the other side of the story is told. They can talk about the narrative of violence in atheism in the 20th century, for example in the Soviet Union, where there were a whole series of absolutely abominable events, which again reflected the imposition of atheism on a fundamentally religious people, and that needs to be said.
Tu quoque. And wrong: Stalin's purges were not a logical consequence of the official atheist stance of the Soviet state. The prevailing dogma in the Soviet Union was not atheism--it was Stalinism. Christopher Hitchens has a great answer to the kind of canard being peddled by McGrath:
Wiener: The final killer argument of your critics is that Hitler and Stalin were not religious. The worst crimes of the 20th century did not have a religious basis. They came from political ideology.
Hitchens: That’s easy. Hitler never abandoned Christianity and recommends Catholicism quite highly in “Mein Kampf.” Fascism, as distinct from National Socialism, was in effect a Catholic movement.
Wiener: What about Stalin? He wasn’t religious.
Hitchens: Stalin—easier still. For hundreds of years, millions of Russians had been told the head of state should be a man close to God, the czar, who was head of the Russian Orthodox Church as well as absolute despot. If you’re Stalin, you shouldn’t be in the dictatorship business if you can’t exploit the pool of servility and docility that’s ready-made for you. The task of atheists is to raise people above that level of servility and credulity. No society has gone the way of gulags or concentration camps by following the path of Spinoza and Einstein and Jefferson and Thomas Paine.
In short, for McGrath's Stalin analogy to work, he would need to show how the atheism mapped out in The God Delusion--an agnostic atheism grounded in the virtues of critical thinking, skepticism, and free inquiry--leads inexorably to the atrocities perpetrated under Mao and Stalin.
McGrath continues:
But against that, we need to make this point, that does not mean that all atheists are evil, it certainly doesn't. Just as the fact that some religious people do violent things, does not mean that all people who believe in God do these things.
Strawman: nobody is suggesting that all people believe in God do violent things.
We finally come to the end of the interview, where the following excerpt from Dawkins is played . . .
Given that right and wrong is a very difficult question anyway, once again what on earth makes you trust religion to tell you what's right and wrong? I mean if you do trust religion, where are you going to get it from? For goodness' sake don't get it from the Bible, at least not from the Old Testament, and certainly aspects of the New Testament have very agreeable vibes for us today, but how do we decide which of those are agreeable and which are not? It is the case that since we are all 21st century people, we all subscribe to a pretty widespread consensus of what's right and what's wrong. Nowadays we don't believe in slavery any more, we don't believe in child labour, we don't believe in physical violence in the home, there are all sorts of things that people used to believe in and no longer do, and that is a general consensus which we all share to a greater or lesser extent, whether or not we are religious.
Now if you look at the Bible, either the Old or New Testament, you can pick and choose verses of the Bible which chime in with that decent moral consensus that we all share, and you can say Oh well, this comes from the Bible; this comes from the Bible. But of course you'll find plenty of other bits in the Bible which are simply horrendous by today's standards. So something other than religion is giving us this general moral consensus, and I haven't time to go into what I think it is, but whatever else it is, it's not religion. And if you try to cherrypick your Bible or your Qu'ran, your Holy Book, whatever it is, you can find good bits and you can throw out bad bits, but the criterion by which you do that cherrypicking has nothing to do with religion.
. . . which is studiously ignored by Crittenden and McGrath. The obvious question to put to McGrath would be: do you think we get our morals from the Bible, and if so, why? Crittenden, however, prefers to ask:
Alister the church seems more on the back foot than ever on this point of where values comes from. It sometimes seems to me that part of what's going on is that this is a very vibrant time for biology in particular, and we're seeing the kind of youthful exuberance of a new biological paradigm, as the biotech revolution gets under way. And religion creates a lot of problems for science at this particular time. It seems to me that one of the things that perhaps we've allowed scientists to get away with is the idea that science creates value.
Alister E. McGrath: I think that's a very important point. And actually Dawkins and I, I think, agree at one point on this. Because Dawkins is very, very clear that rightly, science cannot tell us what is right or wrong. In other words, that those who science creates a system of values are misunderstanding what science is all about. And I think we do need to challenge science at this point and say Look, the fact that something can be done, doesn't make that good in itself, that by doing something new, we very often open the door to possibilities that cannot be changed, that might actually be destructive. There's a real concern there. And certainly I want to affirm that science offers us many very good things. For example, better medical procedures. But we all know the dark side, that science is able to make available new methods of mass destruction that really can be enormously dangerous for humanity. So I think we need to be deadly realistic about what we're talking about here.
That's nice, but Dawkins was making a specific point which you have failed to address: wherever we get our morals from, it can't be from the Bible. He's not saying we get them from science--you acknowledge this yourself. So why not address his actual point?
Stephen Crittenden: Are the churches also perhaps on the back foot here? We've been through a period where there's been so much debate particularly about sexual politics and sexual morality, people are less inclined than ever to take their values from what the churches say.
Alister E. McGrath: I think the real difficulty is that we need values at this time more than ever. And the churches perhaps are feeling discouraged about trying to get their values heard in this secular culture. And very often the problem for the churches is that their values are simply heard to be No, to this, No, to that. That we need to really present Christian values in a positive, engaging way and say Look, it's not about negation, don't do that, it's trying to say Look, here is an understanding of who we are as human beings, but what our role is here on earth and in the light of that there are certain things we should be doing, and certain other things we need to be much more critical of. And we need to sell this big picture, not just individual Nos to this, that and the other, but rather a powerful, persuasive, compelling view of human identity, which enables us to show that there are certain things we should be doing, and certain things also that we should not.
Based on what evidence? What evidence is there to support this "powerful, compelling view of human identity" that you refuse to sketch out? What is our "role" here on Earth, and how do you know that it is our role, or that we indeed have a "role?" At some point McGrath needs to peel himself out of his comfortable armchair, desist with the hand-waving, and actually explain why he thinks Christianity is a good source of morality, rather than assume that it is.
Well, it all goes pear-shaped from here, I'm afraid, because even after McGrath has acknowledged Dawkins affirmation that science cannot tell us what is right and what is wrong, Crittenden introduces the dread strawman TEH DARWINIAN WORLDVIEW, upon which McGrath seizes with gusto:
Look, Darwinism presents us with a narrative which is about the strongest winning out. Can we transfer that to society as a whole, and say Look, let's let the strong win. And you can see that Darwinism does pose a challenge, not simply to some Christian values, but to some values that are deeply embedded in civilisation as a whole. And the real question is this. Do we just say Well Darwinism may help us understand what's happening in nature, but that does not have an impact on the way we ought to behave, either as Christians or simply as good citizens. And that certainly to me is a very important point. Darwinism is articulating a value system which if it were to be applied rigorously, would I think lead to the weak being marginalised, set to one side, so that the strong can simply overwhelm everyone else.
Strawman. Strawman. Strawman. (Or perhaps Projection, projection, projection.) There really is no better way of putting it. Who's articulating this "Darwinist value system," and advocating that the weak be marginalised, and the strong overwhelm everyone else? Certainly not Dawkins. And it is not a belief--as you yourself acknowledge--that follows from the acceptance of Darwinian evolutionary biology. So why introduce this red herring into the discussion at all?
Stephen Crittenden: A last question, Professor McGrath, is there a sense perhaps in which you and Dawkins share the same premises? You both come out of an English empirical philosophical tradition. Perhaps you as an Evangelical are just as caught up with propositions and proof as he is?
Alister E. McGrath: Well Dawkins and I are both men of faith. We both believe certain things to be true, and we know we can't prove them. Dawkins I think has perhaps an exaggerated sense of what he can show, but certainly when you look at him rigorously, he is a man of faith who believes certain things, that cannot actually be demonstrably so. And he and I both believe that we are telling the truth, and we both believe also that if we are right, this has a major implication for the way people live their lives.
Except that Dawkins is able to offer evidence in support of what he believes is true, while you, McGrath, refuse to do so, and Crittenden refuses to challenge you on this. That's poor journalism on Crittenden's part, and poor apologetics* on yours.
(*This is especially so considering that McGrath is currently in Australia, so the Religion Report tells us, to help evangelicals counter Dawkins arguments. Given that McGrath's brand of apologetics consists largely of obfuscations, misrepresentations, and logical fallacies galore, my advice to Australian evangelicals is: ask someone else.
And would someone please pin McGrath down on why he became a Christian? McGrath tells us "First, Christianity made a lot of sense. It gave me a new way of seeing and understanding the world, above all, the natural sciences." You can get the same effect from any number of exotic substances, not all of them legal. So what? Why does McGrath think Christianity--not just theism, but Christianity--make more sense than atheism? "Second, I discovered Christianity actually worked: it brought purpose and dignity to life." There's a lump in my throat. Really. So Christianity makes you feel better about yourself: you once woz lost but now iz found. Are you suggesting that atheists in general lack purpose and dignity in their lives, just because you feel you did when you were an atheist? Hasty generalisation fallacy.
You're an evangelical, McGrath. Who could you possibly hope to convert with such feeble reasoning?)
UPDATE: When he has been pressed on his reasons for believing in God (as he is in the Oxford University debate referred to in The Religion Report, his answers are not surprising. Fallacious, certainly, but not surprising:
. . . the very strong sense that this world is ordered, and that this ordering is something both excellent and beautiful in itself, but also that it needs to be accounted for. [Argument from design.] And again it seemed to me that one of the strong points of the Christian faith was this postulation of an ordered universe created by God, which we could begin to investigate and uncover. [Begging the question.] Second, there is a whole range of things to do with human experience, experience with our own lives, of culture, which very often involves, for example, this very unusual sensation of a longing for transcendence [wishful thinking]: in other words, an idea you find in writers like Iris Murdoch, or even John Dewey [little Johnnyism], that there's something beyond us, which somehow brings legitimacy to some of our core notions both of morality and general philosophical ideas [argument from ignorance].
It's so tempting to transcribe the discussion as it proceeds from here. Dawkins presses McGrath on whether he--as a man of science--believes in miracles such as the Virgin Birth, and McGrath waffles on about ". . . different levels of explanation." It's beautiful.
Still in Enlightenment Central, a maid has been arrested by religious police (religious police, people) for allegedly casting a spell on her employer, after a complaint by his wife. The wife had noticed that her husband always "fiercely defended the maid from criticism every time she neglected her work," and reached the parsimonious conclusion that witchcraft was involved. (via Dogma Free America)
WingNutDaily releases its "Christmas-defense kit." Now you too can vanquish the heathen atheist commie pinko evilutionist homersexual grinches with magnets and bumper stickers, and then make like a whiny fundie with a persecution complex.
Chris Hedges, Part 2
Here's Joan Bokaer of Cornell University's TheocracyWatch. (Ignore the blatant turtleneck.)
Surely, for the secularist, there can be no question regarding who not to vote for on November 24th. But how secular-friendly--and therefore how democracy-friendly--are some of the other parties?
Labor: On various issues--most notably the 2004 Federal ban on same-sex marriage--Labor has marched in lockstep with the Howard Government, and has been--probably for reasons of political expediency (though Labor still got its arse handed to it on a plate in the 2004 election)--equally keen to kowtow to Christian fundamentalists. Kevin Rudd, however, has sought to reposition, or perhaps re-emphasise Labor as a party of the religious left: his Monthly article "Faith and Politics", besides marking his own entrance onto the main stage of the Australian political scene, brilliantly undermined the dominance of conservative voices in Australian Christianity by reminding Christians of the social-justice traditions of their faith. (And in retrospect, his appearance at the Australian Christian Lobby's Fundython in August probably needs to be seen in that light.) If The Australian'sPaul Kelly is to be believed, a Rudd Labour government--given the willingness of its leader to wear his Christianity on his sleeve--does not bode well for secularism in Australia. But I don't know. I daresay that, on the whole, the religious left is certainly more secular-friendly than the religious right--despite the boneheaded remarks of Jim Wallis--and Rudd's brand of religio-politics would surely be an improvement over the Howard model (and a damn sight more cerebral).
The Greens . . . well, it is difficult to find much on the Greens wrt secularism, and that is probably a good sign. They are strongly in favour of abortion rights, stem cell research, and LGBT rights, for starters, and as a consequence have found themselves the subject of attacks by the Christian Democratic Party, Family First , the Catholic magazine AD2000, Sydney Anglicans and the Exclusive Brethren. Their education policies in particular are--on the whole--sensible and fair, but I'm especially impressed by their call to "extend to private schools the anti-discrimination measures that apply in public schools." Two thumbs up.
The Australian Democrats: Of the "major" minor parties, the Australian Democrats stand alone in openly advocating the separation of church and state. They have also called for a Bill of Rights. Therefore: three thumbs up, since on many other issues that have some bearing on secularism or the relationship between religion and politics, their policies are very similar to the Greens'.
Family First: Erm . . . how did they get in there?
One Nation: What the hey?
I should also give a shout-out to the Secular Party of Australia, which will be running for Senate election in the upcoming election.
Fun fact: A 2006 study found that "Less than half Australia’s young people say they believe in a god, and many believe there is little truth in religion."
Posted by Unknown on 5:26 AM
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This post has been inspired by recent events involving an acquaintance of mine whose contract as a teacher at a religious private school was terminated when it was discovered (I assume via that most cherished of pastimes in John Howard's Australia: dobbing) that said teacher operated a blog containing views contrary to the religious doctrines of the school. The teacher had not made any reference to the school on the blog, nor had students or teachers been made aware of the blog's existence by its author. (Truth be told: I'm not even aware of the sacked teacher's religious affiliation.)
The OUT Campaign, drawing inspiration from gay and lesbian liberation movements, urges atheists to "come out of the closet"--to demonstrate to a theistic world that we are not the horned and scaly demons we are imagined to be. We are your fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters. We are your local firefighters or policemen, or doctors, or community workers. We may even be your teachers. & c. & c. Therein lies a slight problem (one doubtless recognised by OUT Campaign organisers): there are some careers in which it is more difficult and dangerous to be an "out" atheist or non-theist than others.
For example, I am an English teacher by trade and an atheist. But given the proportion of private to public schools in Australia, it is clearly against my professional interests to be an "out" atheist, because it would significantly decrease my employment opportunities. This is despite the fact that (a) being an atheist makes no difference whatsoever to my ability to teach English well, any more than if I were a teacher of mathematics, science, economics or history (Christians--apart from a select few who hold that pi=3--don't do mathematics differently than non-Christians, for instance); and (b) being an atheist makes no difference whatsoever to my ability to support the "ethos" of the school--unless, that is, someone wishes to meet Christopher Hitchens' challenge and point to a moral action that a believer could perform but which could not possibly be performed by a non-believer. Should I secure employment with such a school, it would also be against my professional interests to discuss my atheism with my colleagues--even in private over a few beers--because, as my friend's experience demonstrates, it is the kind of thing that could be used against me.
This isn't paranoia--it happened. It is curiously ironic that, in a supposedly modern, enlightened mature liberal democracy such as Australia, one is best advised to adopt a pseudonym if one wishes to speak one's mind freely--particularly on matters religious or political. But there it is: if you are a non-theist, have a blog, teach in a religious private school and wish to keep your job, anonymity is the best policy. That, and being extremely careful about who you share your blog address with.
It may be objected that private schools are just that--private--and therefore have the right to determine their own hiring policies. Furthermore, nobody is forced to seek employment there. Private schools, however, comprise a significant proportion of the education sector, and one of the main reasons for this is that for many years they have received federal funding. Lamentably, private schools overall tend also to provide better teaching and learning environments (e.g. facilities, behaviour management, etc.) than public schools. In other words, money which might have been directed to public schools, and which might have helped improve conditions there, has instead been used to promote the growth of private education. And given that private schools are permitted to discriminate on the basis of religious belief or non-belief, whereas public schools are not, the federal government is effectively endorsing discrimination against non-theists with taxpayer's money by funding private schools. That's not to say that I oppose federal funding of private schools. But I do think certain conditions should apply, and one of these is that schools receiving taxpayer funds in a secular liberal democracy should not have hiring policies that discriminate on the basis of religious belief or non-belief. Does that sound so unreasonable? Furthermore, is it really fair or just that teachers are locked out of a substantial proportion of schools merely by virtue of the fact that they are non-believers?
But I digress. I think much of the systemic discrimination against non-theists in private schools stems largely from their invisibility--were it to be more generally acknowledged that non-believers are just as "normal" and moral as any believer, such discrimination might not be so much of a problem. And this can most effectively be achieved if atheists are prepared to "out" themselves. Even if attitudes don't shift so quickly at the level of the schools themselves, there might develop greater legal and governmental advocacy and support for atheists if they were more visible. On the other hand, atheists who "out" themselves do so at potentially great personal, or at least financial risk. That alone is enough to discourage me from outing myself, and I think there would be many atheists in the same boat.
Kudos, however, to those atheists who do have the courage to stand up and be counted, both here and and in the US.
Posted by Unknown on 6:27 PM
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The week in fundie . . .
An article in the Washington Post surveys McCarthyism across the Islamic world. In one example, three Saudi Arabian democracy activists were thrown into prison on charges of using such "unIslamic terminology" as 'democracy' and 'human rights'.
"But I think the number one issue people should make [in the] selection of the President of the United States is, 'Will this person carry on in the Judeo Christian principled tradition that has made this nation the greatest experiment in the history of mankind?'"
Posted by Unknown on 6:15 PM
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Actually, this is more of an extension of #1 and #2 from the existing list, but the argument runs thus: The Gospels constitute eyewitness accounts of the events they describe (the Virgin Birth, miracles, the Resurrection, etc.), and just as juries are able give credence to eyewitness testimony in a modern court of law, so we ought to give credence to the "eyewitness testimonies" of the writers of Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.
The answer to this argument, of course, is that it presents a false analogy. Eyewitness testimony is never (or should never be) taken at face value in a court of law until the credibility of the eyewitness has been satisfactorily established. This is far easier to accomplish with eyewitnesses who are still alive, and whose existence is itself a demonstrable matter of record, than with those who are either millennia-dead or who may not have existed at all. Moreover, the reliability of the Gospels themselves as documents of historical fact is dubiousin the extreme.
Another problem with the argument is that it gives undue credence to what is actually a very weak standard of evidence. As Austin Cline points out, "Juries place a lot of weight on eyewitness testimony, but this is because people place a lot more emphasis on personal stories than impersonal scientific data as a general rule. It’s unfortunate that people can be convicted solely on the basis of eyewitness testimony and without any corroborating evidence, but it has happened." Carl Sagan is famous for the maxim, Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence--a kind of corollary to Ockham's Razor and Hume's argument against miracles --and eyewitness testimony just doesn't cut the mustard. It can't, otherwise we would have to accept as fact a myriad of claims based on personal testimony, including alien abductions, UFO sightings, astral travelling, ghost sightings, tarot reading and so forth.
How did I miss this? (I know: it's because I wasn't reading Friendly Atheist when he posted it.) The following, generated by August Berkshire of Minnesota Atheists and Atheist Alliance International, is a list of 18 unconvincing arguments for theism, along with their refutations.
(1) Holy Books - Just because something is written down does not make it true. This goes for the Bible, the Qu’ran, and any other holy book. People who believe the holy book of their religion usually disbelieve the holy books of other religions.
(2) “Revelations” - All religions claim to be revealed, usually to people called “prophets.” But a revelation is a personal experience. Even if the revelations really did come from a god, there is no way we could prove it. As Thomas Paine said, it is a revelation only to the first person, after that it is hearsay. People of one religion usually disbelieve the revelations of other religions.
(3) Personal Testimony / Feelings - This is when you are personally having the revelation or feeling that a god exists. Though you may be sincere, and even if a god really does exist, a feeling is not proof, either for you or for someone else.
(4) The “God Part” of the Brain - Some religious people argue that a god must exist, or why else would we have a part of our brain that can “recognize” a god? What use would that part of our brain be otherwise?
However, imagination is important for us to be able to predict the future, and thus aids our survival. We can imagine all kinds of things that aren’t true. It is a byproduct of being able to imagine things that might be true.
As a matter of fact, scientists have begun to study why some people have religious beliefs and others don’t, from a biological perspective. They have identified certain naturally occurring chemicals in our brains that can give us religious experiences.
In studies of religion and the brain, a new field called neurotheology, they have identified the temporal lobe as a place in the brain that can generate religious experiences.
Another part of the brain that regulates a person’s sense of “self” can be consciously shut down during meditation, giving the meditator (who loses his or her sense of personal boundaries) a feeling of “oneness” with the universe.
(5) “Open Heart” - It will do no good to ask atheists to “open our hearts and accept Jesus” (or any other deity). If we were to set aside our skepticism, we might indeed have an inspirational experience. But this would be an emotional experience and, like a revelation, we’d have no way to verify if a god was really speaking to us or if we were just hallucinating.
(6) Unverifiable “Miracles” / Resurrection Stories - Many religions have miracle stories. And just as people who believe in one religion are usually skeptical towards miracle stories of other religions, atheists are skeptical toward all miracle stories.
Good magicians can perform acts that seem like miracles. Things can be mismeasured and misinterpreted. A “medical miracle” can simply be attributed to our lack of knowledge of how the human body works. Why are there never any indisputable miracles, such as an amputated arm regenerating?
Regarding resurrections, atheists will not find a story of someone resurrecting from the dead to be convincing. There are many such legends in ancient literature and, again, most religious people reject the resurrection stories of other religions.
Modern resurrection stories always seem to occur in Third World countries under unscientific conditions. However, there have been thousands of people in modern hospitals hooked up to machines that verified their deaths when they died. Why didn’t any of them ever resurrect?
(7) Fear of Death / “Heaven” - Atheists don’t like the fact that we’re all going to die any more than religious people do. However, this fear does not prove there is an afterlife – only that we wish there was an afterlife. But wishing doesn’t make it so.
There is no reason to believe our consciousness survives the death of our brains. The mind is not something separate from the body. Chemical alteration and physical damage to our brains can change our thoughts.
Some people get Alzheimer’s disease at the end of their lives. The irreversible damage to their brains can be detected by brain scans. These people lose their ability to think, yet they are still alive. How, one second after these people die, does their thinking return (in a “soul”)?
(8) Fear of Hell - The idea of hell strikes atheists as a scam – an attempt to get people to believe through fear what they cannot believe through reason and evidence.
The only way to approach this “logically” is to find the religion that punishes you the worst for disbelief, and then believe that religion. Okay, you will have saved yourself from the worst punishment that exists – if that religion is the “true” religion.
But if that religion (with its punishment) is not the true religion – if the religion that has the second or third worst punishment for disbelief is the true religion – then you have saved yourself nothing.
So, which religion’s hell is the true hell. Without evidence, we can never know.
(9) “Pascal’s Wager” / Faith - In short, Pascal’s Wager states that we have everything to gain (an eternity in heaven) and nothing to lose by believing in a god. On the other hand, disbelief can lead to a loss of heaven (i.e. hell).
We’ve already noted that heaven is wishful thinking and that hell is a scam, so let’s address the issue of faith.
Pascal’s Wager assumes a person can will himself or herself into having faith. This is simply not the case, at least not for an atheist. So atheists would have to pretend to believe. But according to most definitions of God, wouldn’t God know we were lying to hedge our bets? Would a god reward this?
Part of Pascal’s Wager states that you “lose nothing” by believing. But an atheist would disagree. By believing under these conditions, you’re acknowledging that you’re willing to accept some things on faith. In other words, you’re saying you’re willing to abandon evidence as your standard for judging reality. Faith doesn’t sound so appealing when it’s phrased that way, does it?
(10) Blaming the Victim - Many religions punish people for disbelief. However, belief requires faith, and some people, such as atheists, are incapable of faith. Their minds are only receptive to evidence. Therefore, are atheists to be blamed for not believing when “God” provides insufficient evidence?
(11) The End of the World - Like the concept of hell, this strikes atheists as a scare tactic to get people to believe through fear what they can’t believe through reason and evidence. There have been predictions that the world was going to end for centuries now. The question you might want to ask yourselves, if you’re basing your religious beliefs on this, is how long you’re willing to wait – what amount of time will convince you that the world is not going to end?
(12) Meaning in Life - This is the idea that, without belief in a god, life would be meaningless. Even if this were true, it would only prove we wanted a god to exist to give meaning to our lives, not that a god actually does exist. But the very fact that atheists can find meaning in their lives without a belief in a god shows that god belief is not necessary.
(13) “God is Intangible, Like Love” - Love is not intangible. We can define love both as a type of feeling and as demonstrated by certain types of actions.
Unlike “God,” love is a physical thing. We know the chemicals responsible for the feeling of love.
Also, love depends upon brain structure – a person with a lobotomy or other type of brain damage cannot feel love.
Furthermore, if love were not physical, it would not be confined to our physical brains. We would expect to be able to detect an entity or force called “love” floating around in the air.
(14) Morality/Ethics - This is the idea that without a god we’d have no basis for morality. However, a secular moral code existed before the Bible: the Code of Hammurabi.
In Plato’s dialogue called Euthyphro, Socrates asks a man named Euthyphro whether something is good because God says it is, or does God announce something to be good because it has intrinsic goodness?
If something is good because God says it is, then God might change his mind about what is good. Thus, there would be no absolute morality.
If God merely announces something to be good because it has intrinsic goodness, then we might be able to discover this intrinsic goodness ourselves, without the need for god belief.
Christians can’t even agree among themselves what’s moral when it comes to things like masturbation, premarital sex, homosexuality, divorce, contraception, abortion, embryonic stem cell research, euthanasia, and the death penalty.
Christians reject some of the moral laws found in the Bible, such as killing disobedient children or people who work on the sabbath. Therefore, Christians must be applying their own ethical standards from outside the Bible to be able to recognize that these commandments in the Bible are unethical.
Other animals exhibit kindness toward one another and a sense of justice. Morality is something that evolved from us being social beings. It’s based on the selfish advantage we get from cooperation, and on consequences.
(15) Altruism - People sometimes say that without a god there would be no altruism, that evolution only rewards selfish behavior.
However, it can be argued that there is no such thing as altruism, that people always do what they want to do. If they are only faced with bad choices, then people choose the thing they hate the least.
Our choices are based on what gives us (our genes) the best advantage for survival, including raising our reputation in society.
“Altruism” towards family members benefits people who share our genes. “Altruism” towards friends benefits people who may someday return the favor.
Even “altruism” towards strangers has a basis in evolution. This behavior first evolved in small tribes, where everyone knew each other and a good reputation enhanced one’s survival. It is now hard-wired in our brains as a general mode of conduct.
(16) Free Will - Some people argue that without a god there would be no free will, that we would live in a deterministic universe of cause and effect and that we would be mere “robots.”
Actually, there is far less free will than most people think there is. Our conditioning (our biological desire to survive and prosper, combined with our experiences) make certain “choices” far more likely than others. How else can we explain our ability, in many cases, to predict human behavior?
Experiments have shown that our brain makes a “decision” to take action before we become conscious of it!
Some believe that the only free will we have is to exercise a conscious veto over actions suggested by our thoughts.
Most atheists have no problem admitting that free will may be an illusion.
This issue also brings up a conundrum: If a god who created us knows the future, how can we have free will?
In the end, if we are enjoying our lives, does it matter if free will is real or an illusion? Isn’t it only our ego – our healthy self-esteem that is beneficial for survival – that has been conditioned to believe that real free will is somehow better than imaginary free will?
(17) Difficulties of Religion - It has sometimes been argued that because certain religious practices are difficult to follow, nobody would do them if a god didn’t exist. However, it is the belief in the existence of a god that is motivating people. A god doesn’t really have to exist for this to happen.
Difficulties can serve as an initiation rite of passage into being counted one of the “select few.” After all, if just anybody could be “saved,” there might be no point in having a religion.
Finally, the reward for obedience promised by most religions – a heaven – far outweighs any difficulties religion imposes.
(18) False Dichotomies - This is being presented with a false “either/or” proposition, where you’re only given two alternatives when, in fact, there are more possibilities.
Here’s one that many Christians are familiar with: “Either Jesus was insane or he was god. Since Jesus said some wise things, he wasn’t insane. Therefore, he must be God, like he said he was.” But those are not the only two possibilities.
A third option is that, yes, it is possible to say some wise things and be deluded that you are a god.
A fourth possibility is that Jesus didn’t say everything that is attributed to him in the Bible. Maybe he didn’t actually say all those wise things, but the writers of the Bible said he did. Or maybe he never claimed to be God, but the writers turned him into a god after he died.
A fifth possibility is that Jesus is a fictional character and so everything was invented by the authors.
Here’s another example of a false dichotomy: “No one would die for a lie. The early Christians died for Christianity. Therefore, Christianity must be true.”
What’s left out of this is that there is no evidence that anyone who ever personally knew Jesus (if he even existed) was ever martyred. We only have stories of martyrdom.
Another explanation is that the followers had been fooled, intentionally or unintentionally, into thinking Jesus was God, and so they were willing to die for a lie (that they thought was true.)
Another point is that if you believe you’ll end up in a heaven after to die, then martyrdom is no big deal.
Finally, does the fact that the 9/11 bombers were willing to die for their faith make Islam true?
(19) God-of-the-Gaps (Medicine, Life, Universe, etc.) - The god-of-the-gaps argument says that if we don’t currently know the scientific answer to something, then “God did it.”
God-of-the-gaps is used in many areas, but I’ll focus on the three main ones: medicine, life, and the universe. You’ll notice that God never has to prove himself in these arguments. It is always assumed that he gets to win by default.
Here’s a medical example: A person experiences a cure for a disease that science can’t explain. Therefore, “God did it.”
But this assumes we know everything about the human body, so that a natural explanation is impossible. But the fact is, we don’t have complete medical knowledge. Why don’t we ever see something that would be a true miracle, like an amputated arm instantaneously regenerating?
Several studies of prayer, where the patients didn’t know whether or not they were being prayed for, including a study by the Mayo Clinic, have shown prayer to have no effect on healing.
(This raises the question of why we would have to beg an all-powerful, all-loving god to be healed in the first place. It seems ironic, to say the least, to pray to a god to be cured from diseases and the effects of natural disasters that he himself created. It also raises the Problem of Evil: If God is all-powerful and all-loving, why does evil exist in the first place?)
An example of god-of-the-gaps as it applies to life is creationism and “intelligent design.” It says we don’t know everything about evolution, therefore “God did it.” This ignores the fossil and genetic evidence and also fails to explain the many poor and sub-optimal “designs” we find in nature. Is “God” an incompetent or sloppy designer?
The final and most popular example of god-of-the-gaps is the universe. But to say we don’t know the origins of the universe – if the universe even had an ultimate beginning – does not mean that “God did it.”
And, of course, it begs the question: Who created God? If complex things need a creator to explain their existence, then “God,” who by the traditional definition is far more complex than the universe, and is even more in need of a creator.
(20) “Fine-tuning” of the Earth - Some religious people argue that the Earth is positioned “just right” in the solar system (not too hot, not too cold, etc.) for life to exist. Furthermore, the elements on Earth (carbon, oxygen, etc.) are also “just right.” These people claim that this couldn’t have happened “by accident,” so a god must exist to have done the positioning and chemistry.
We should be able to recognize a god-of-the-gaps argument here. But an even better rebuttal exists. If Earth was the only planet in the universe, then it would indeed be remarkable that our conditions turned out to be “just right.”
But most religious people acknowledge that there are probably thousands, if not millions, of other planets in the universe. (Our own solar system has eight planets.) Therefore, by chance, at least one of those planets will have conditions that will produce some kind of life.
We can imagine religious purple creatures with four eyes and breathing carbon dioxide on another planet also falsely believing that their planet is “fine-tuned” and that a creator god exists in their image.
(21) "Fine-tuning” of the Universe - Some religious people argue that the six physical constants of the universe (which control such things as the strength of gravity) can only exist within a very narrow range to produce a universe capable of sustaining life. Therefore, since this couldn’t have happened “by accident,” a god must have done it.
Again, this is a god-of-the-gaps argument. But beyond that, this argument assumes that we know everything about astrophysics – a field in which new discoveries are made on almost a daily basis. We may discover that our universe is not so “fine tuned” after all.
However, the best rebuttal is that there may exist multiple universes – either separately or as “bubble universes” within a single universe. Each of these universes could have its own set of constants. Given enough universes, by chance it is likely that at least one will produce and sustain life.
We know it is possible for at least one universe to exist – we are in it. If one can exist, why not many? On the other hand, we have no evidence that it is possible for even one god to exist.
Conclusion - Religious people have a tough, if not impossible task to try to prove a god exists, let alone that their particular religion is true. If any religion had objective standards, wouldn’t everyone be flocking to the same “true” religion? Instead we find that people tend to believe, to varying degrees, the religion in which they were indoctrinated. Or they are atheists.
Posted by Unknown on 4:22 PM
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1. An atheist US soldier serving in Iraq organises the first ever meeting of that country's chapter of the Military Association of Atheists and Freethinkers, having dotted all the necessary 'i's and crossed all the necessary 't's. Of the four soldiers who attend this meeting, one turns out to be a Fundamentalist Christian army major, posing as a "freethinker." Said fundie proceeds to verbally harangue the other attendees--after he has ordered them to stand to attention--for "plotting against Christians" and "being disrespectful to other soldiers," and then shuts the meeting down. This actually happened.
2. A Muslim dentist in Britain has been accused of demanding that a female patient cover her head with a scarf in traditional Muslim fashion before he would treat her. (Austin Cline)
I don't know if there has been any coercion on the part of officers in the military. It may have occurred on occasion - I just don't know. However, if only one soul were saved as a result of the activities in the military, wouldn't it be worth it? All the wealth in the world isn't worth the value of a single soul. My point to Mr. Weinstein was this: Is he actually doing what God wants Him to do? Maybe the persons involved in the military are doing what God has asked them to do.
Browbeating and threatening non-theists: it is what Jesus would do!
