I'm going to respond to Randy and Bernardo's discussion about God in two parts. First, in this post I'm going to largely agree with Bernardo despite coming to the opposite conclusion. In the next post I'll veer off on a tangent and ponder whether or not there is an "intelligence threshold".
So Randy and Bernardo are discussing whether or not it makes sense to believe in God, and Randy argues that there are a lot of things in the world with no other reasonable explanation. Bernardo points out that science has come up with explanations for lots of things that used to be mysterious but aren't anymore. Fine and good; I don't see much point in listing things that are hard to explain, because I think everyone will grant that there are a myriad. Bernardo's position can be summarized by one of his final paragraphs in a long series of comments:
I work pretty hard to understand where my beliefs and preferences come from, what depends on what, rather than taking the whole thing as "true" or "the only reasonable way of looking at it". It's kinda like geometry: I want to try to see how my beliefs are the result of some "axioms", and this allows me to see that if someone starts out with different axioms, they end up with different beliefs by similarly reasonable thinking. We can then compare the validity of the axioms we started out with, if you insist, but that gets real tricky, and in the end it does seem to me that those axioms are fairly arbitrary and a result of personal preference. Either you want to live in a world that has a God or you don't, and depending on that choice, you build a world-view that interprets your observations in one way or the other.
Basically I agree, and I've written a lot about the importance of faith to Christians, atheists, and everyone else. Here are a few of the posts:
- What is "real faith"?
- Can it be proven that God exists?
- Comments on essays by the inestimable Steven Den Beste (an atheist) who explains why atheism requires faith and more.
Everyone with any intellectual curiousity should go read Den Deste's essays on belief in atheism and his response to theists.
So, to summarize my position as I've done many times in the past, coming to God requires faith, and faith is antithetical to proof. Belief that is compelled by force of reason or argument is not faith. Reason and argument can certainly lead an atheist towards faith, but like a horse to water, mere persuasion cannot make him drink.
(As a side note, I find it ironic that atheism ends up losing, even under its own rules. Show me a thriving society full of atheists: there are none. Show me a just, moral, happy, peaceful civilization built on atheism: again, there are none. Show me a country dominated by secularism that even has replacement rate fertility: none. Atheism, right or wrong, is doomed to obscurity by cultural natural selection. What advantage does the atheist have, even if they are right, other than a smug sense of self-satisfaction?)
I find it ironic that a rational and reasonably bright individual such as yourself, MW, would postulate, in effect, that theism is requisite for a thriving, moral, happy, and peaceful civilization based completely on the lack of any current example to the contrary.
I want to follow all these wonderful sounding links and comment on them (that Steven Den Beste guy sounds smart) but unfortunately I do have to get a little bit of work done every now and then... I'll be back!
Mark: There's a historical example?
Bernardo: SDB is brilliant. He was my favorite essayist until he quit blogging because he hated getting emails from people. Now he only writes about anime or something.
Michael, the fact that something has never existed before is not proof that it can never exist.
"Show me a thriving society full of atheists: there are none. Show me a just, moral, happy, peaceful civilization built on atheism: again, there are none."
So what? That proves nothing at all.
SDB: Ahhhhggghh, how did you find me? I'm not worthy!
Anyway though, I'm not saying anything is impossible. The side note wasn't intended to prove anything, it was mostly a jab at atheism as ultimately futile in this world, even if there is no "next world".
I found you in my refers.
You're making an argument from consequences. "If this is true, the result would be horrible. Therefore it must be false."
Atheism may well be futile. That doesn't mean it's wrong.
SDB: No no! I thought I made it clear that my parade of horribles was merely a side note and not a part of my argument.
Bernardo was writing about preferences and how they relate to what we choose to believe. What I find ironic is that most people prefer to make choices with positive outcomes, or at least prefer to believe that positive outcomes are possible.
Bernardo is admitting that his preferences lead him to believe neither: his choice doesn't have a positive outcome, and he believes that no positive outcome is possible. Why would his preferences be thus?
I suppose we could get into meta-preferences, in which we try to influence our preferences to be more to our liking, but even at that level it would appear that Bernardo and other atheists prefer to be miserable. If Truth (in this sense) is unknowable and we merely believe whatever we are "fated" to prefer, I suppose the atheist is pitiable whether he is right or not.
And that's what I meant by the final question in my post: "What advantage does the atheist have, even if they are right, other than a smug sense of self-satisfaction?"
"Bernardo is admitting that ... his choice doesn't have a positive outcome, and he believes that no positive outcome is possible".
Whoa whoa whoa whoa whoa. When did I say THAT?
"Bernardo and other atheists prefer to be miserable"
That is certainly not the case. (I mean, your sentence is contradictory to begin with...)
"What advantage does the atheist have, even if they are right, other than a smug sense of self-satisfaction?"
We get to live in a world that is understandable, predictable, and simple. (Or at least we think in a way that makes us think that a non-theist world is simpler). We get to not worry about divine judgment, karma, ghosts, or a whimsical and often-angry God who sometimes breaks the laws of nature. We get to choose what is right and wrong pragmatically based on our own experiences, on common sense, on discussion, and on the opinions and experiences and reflections of the authors, speakers, and other smart people we trust. We get to not worry about a God who might disapprove of us because we mis-interpreted some piece of scripture. We just don't think that believing in the supernatural is worth all the stress and uncertainty, especially since no one can prove that any of it's true (although I admit no one can prove it's NOT true).
I didn't become an atheist because there was any advantage for doing so. That's another argument from consequences.
I became an atheist because I could not be anything else. It wasn't something that I chose; it was, in a sense, forced on me by what I knew and how I thought. Then, and now, I cannot be anything but an atheist. It has nothing to do with what I want, and nothing to do with advantage or disadvantage.
I tend to look on it this way. Given the incredible size and complexity of the universe, so far it appears that we're alone. Nowhere else have we found anyone even remotely close to us (or other life at all, for that matter). That makes us all extraordinarily rare and extraordinarily precious. What, other than theism and religion, could provide our human society with a sense of morals, values, and a desire to grow? Our rarity in the universe.
Bernardo: The words I put in your mouth were the result of lots of interpolation on my part, I admit, predicated on the post above this one in which I state that I don't think that the absence of a God necessarily makes our universe any more predictable. You may think in a way that makes it seem more understandable... but so what? Are you arguing that you prefer your particular delusion to mine because it's the one you were born with?
SDB: It appears to me that Bernardo is arguing that people are atheists or not due to "preferences" for or against certain consequences and ways of thinking. So, if you're saying that's not the case, you think you were simply "fated"/"genetically programmed"/"nurtured" to be an atheist and that it's something you have no control over?
I guess I find it somewhat strange to consider that a person may not have any influence over what they believe. Even if we are each predisposed in certain ways, it still appears to me that I can choose to go along with my predisposition or not.
Mark: Rarity only causes value if there's a market for the product. If no one cares about us but ourselves, what does rarity have to do with it?
It's interesting to think about how in part I stay an atheist because I prefer the atheist universe (I just like it), and in part I stay an atheist because it just seems to be true, and to me it's so much simpler than the alternative. I don't think I could believe in anything more than a deist god, no matter how hard I tried. It certainly feels like my mind is "shaped" in a way that finds atheism very compelling.
When I went to church and small group with you and Nick, I could sometimes make several leaps of faith in a row, and maybe get a glipmse of how Christians talk about Christianity, but as soon as it occurred to me that "This all sounds made-up" or "This is just ancient mythology being taken too seriously", the whole thing shattered. Maybe I just can't control my doubt as well as you can, which prevents me from fortifying those leaps of faith with "evidence". Maybe how skeptical someone is can be a fundamental trait of their personality.
So, are religion and atheism "acquired tastes", are they something you can train yourself to become comfortable with if you want to? Or is your "orientation" determined prenatally or maybe during early childhood? What could affect it? It's probably different for different people, especially since some people are a lot more flexible than others when it comes to evaluating other points of view. My first impulse would be to say that the world that is described to you when you are a child might be the one that shapes this preference, but many people (like me) can be raised completely inside a religious world view and then break out of it on their own, while many people are raised without much spirituality and then embrace it later. I would be curious to do some kind of survey on these issues but I wouldn't even know what questions to ask. Besides, what initially draws people towards religion/atheism might not be the same factors that keep them there once they settle in. And the way that a structure of belief forms around a few basic axioms/assumptions/preferences/leaps of faith is so intricate and convoluted, many people lose track of their own assumptions and motivations.
It's interesting stuff. A person could spend a lifetime exploring all the turbulent mixes of doubt, faith, certainty, evidence, proof, trust, preferences, beliefs, advantages, struggles, and opinions that form most people's spiritual (or naturalist) identity.
MW: However we came to be, we're rare. In all of the universe, there is only one of each of us. I don't know about you, but I value myself more in light of my own rarity.
So, if you're saying that's not the case, you think you were simply "fated"/"genetically programmed"/"nurtured" to be an atheist and that it's something you have no control over?
I think you are being deliberately perverse in misinterpreting what I said. I don't believe in fate, and I was nurtured to be a Christian.
In my teens and twenties I embarked on what amounted to a quest in search of personal intellectual integrity, where I tried to discover and understand where I got all my attitudes and opinions, and to see if I held them through indoctrination without truly understanding them.
My goal was to find and eliminate all dogma from my body of knowledge, of opinions, of goals, and ethics and religion. At the end of that process, the only religious alternative available to me that was intellectually acceptable was atheism. Any other "choice" would have been dishonest.
I have a choice. I could choose to be dishonest. I could choose to embrace a pleasing falsehood instead of an unpleasant truth. But by that point, and still today, I refuse to do that. I had a choice, and I have one today. My choice is whether I should lie to myself, and I choose not to do so.
It has nothing to do with fate, or genetics, or nurturance. It's a side effect of a larger process of learning about myself and understanding myself. That process did not admit to any other result than embrace of belief in atheism. My choice was to accept that result even though atheism is cold and in some ways unsatisfying.
It remains my choice today. I cannot accept any other alternative because they don't make any sense to me.
You, of course, are free to make your own mind up and decide for yourself what you believe. But don't use one side of your mouth to praise me for my writings and my honesty, and the other side of your mouth to mock me for what I say.
Go screw yourself. This is my last post to this thread. All refers from your site are now blocked by my server.
Wow. Now I'm not so sure I want to go read his stuff anymore. Sheesh.
I wasn't intending to mock him (or you), but sometimes the things I say come across differently than I intend. Huh.
Michael, To a large extent your last comment sums up a lot. The words we use need to mean the same to all involved in the discussion. Then the phrases, sentances, paragraphs, posts, etc.
Having said all that, I still can't figure out why someone would get so bent out of shape over some minor slight. As Bernardo says, it tends to make one question whether he can be wise or insiteful on any issue.
Apparently immersing oneself in anime doesn't compliment one's growth in manners and courtesy.
Here we have yet another example of the blogosphere truism that mutual respect is a prerequisite for an interesting conversation.
SDB apparently hasn't considered the riposte to his "bold intellectual demanding truth" stance: What if truth, as he understands it, is ultimately fatal? First he denies the premise, then he ignores the arguments entirely.
Let's assume that human societies cannot survive for long without religion. And let's assume that atheism is "true" in whatever sense SDB, Bernardo, Mark, and many others say that it's true. Which side should win? Truth or life?
Please resist the temptation to declare as dogma that truth automatically maximizes life. That denies the premise, which doesn't get us anywhere. Let's just assume for argument that homo sapiens is designed with a powerful need to hold beliefs that aren't true, and groups without those beliefs will perish. In that situation, which set of beliefs do you recommend: those that are true, or those that are necessary for survival?
That's an interesting question, Ben.
Naturally, I find your assumption (that religion, or some false belief, is necessary for a stable and long-lived society of humans) quite hard to swallow. I tend to be a little more optimistic about our ability to be good without deceiving ourselves. (Not that I think religious people are necessarily deceiving themselves, but your assumptions are that atheism is "true").
But if holding a false belief is indeed necessary for a successful society, then I suppose this false belief is "good" by almost any meaningful definition of "good" (i.e. "what's best for everyone, minimizes unnecessary suffering", etc). If we had to choose, should we value truth more or less than things like justice and compassion? Good question.
This is related to the reason why I hesitate to join Richard Dawkins' crusade against religion. I see that modern Christianity probably does more good than harm in the world. This is not to say that Christianity is harmless (it certainly causes stress and sometimes actual harm to gay people, people who perform abortions, people who realize that creationism is not science, people who realize that a government should not support theism, etc), and Christianity has caused a lot of deaths and unjust suffering up until the 1800s.. But as it is right now, I think it's far more positive than negative. If it motivates so many people to be better than they otherwise would be, then I see I should not bother them too much about it.
If I may insert my humble opinion B-nado!
I don't think Christianity is the culprit, it is the weakness of the people adhering to it. Every religion or following has its wackos (eco-terrorists, Muslim extremists, etc). Atheism has also caused much harm to people, take into account the atheistic regimes of China and the former USSR where organized religion, specifically Christianity, is/was forbidden/discouraged and persecuted and all people in general are violently oppressed (and get to watch government officials beat their family dogs to death with clubs in "pet regulation"). So, we can conclude that ANY belief system will have human nature to scar it. That's not necessarily a reflection on the ideology of the belief system, only a reflection on our corrupt human nature.
But as I said before, you will find the mess of humanity staining any set of beliefs, Christian or Atheist.
"Be wise as serpents but as harmless of doves."
Matthew 10:16