Why?
My education is in theoretical mathematics. I have patents in neural networks and adaptive signal processing. I spent much of my early career as a research scientist. I also go to church every week*. What's the big deal? What am I missing? Not only am I confused, but I would bet our scientific forefathers would be mystified as well. Kepler was quite religious and Mendel was a monk. Were they not scientists? Maybe they were stupid, but I doubt it.
I suspect that the scientists' atheism has less to do with science and more to do with their objection to having anyone place any moral limits on their behavior. In Dinesh's quotes from various pro-atheism books, the rejection of any moral authority is a continuing theme.
* - OK, so I missed last week, but that was understandable. My daughter had a soccer tournament. I'm hoping He will forgive me this transgression.
37 comments:
I suspect that the scientists' atheism has less to do with science and more to do with their objection to having anyone place any moral limits on their behavior.
I always see theists promote this idea, but I've never seen an atheist use it.
Plus, it's par for the course for a theist like yourself to try and spuriously connect atheism to murder; do you have any evidence that anyone involved was an atheist, or did you merely assume it to defame atheists?
See, evidence is what's lacking for theism; regardless of all the contradictory god-stories out there, there just isn't any convincing evidence that any gods actually exist. Morals don't enter into it.
Scratching Post is asserting that atheists have no moral basis for their actions. He is not asserting that atheists always behave immorally. It is an old argument - that atheists must abandon objective morality along with a belief in God. You may disagree, but please don't confuse the argument.
With respect to the question, which came first, the atheism or the antinomianism, I love this quote from Huxley (who some will argue was not an atheist):
I had motives for not wanting the world to have a meaning; consequently I assumed that it had none and was able without any difficulty to find satisfying reasons for this assumption.... For myself as, no doubt, for most of my contemporaries, the philosophy of meaninglessness was essentially an instrument of liberation ... liberation from a certain system of morality. We objected to the morality because it interfered with our sexual freedom.... There was one admirably simple method in our political and erotic revolt: We could deny that the world had any meaning whatsoever.
A close study of Darwin's biography will also raise similar questions.
He is not asserting that atheists always behave immorally.
So what's the point in including the link to a fatal shooting, with absolutely no evidence that atheists were involved?
I'd say it was a dishonest attempt to paint atheists as immoral.
Sorry, you can't point to possibly dishonest arguments by Hitchens to support your own dishonesty.
Bye, you're simply not worth arguing with. That's one of the problems with dishonest people like yourself.
@K T Cat,
It never ceases to amaze me when I see a member of the theist camp trot out this utterly ridiculous argument. An argument which baldly asserts that those who say they don't believe in supernatural gods don't really mean it, they're just saying they don't because it gives them a cover for their true intentions: utter moral depravity in the face of a god who they've known exists all along.
And it never ceases to amaze me that rational, thinking adults can believe that this is actually a valid argument.
Sooner or later, theists such as yourself are simply going to have to come to grips with the fact that there are vast numbers of people in this world who are simply unconvinced by the same old arguments made time and time again for the existence of supernatural gods.
I try to believe as many true things as I can, and as few false things as I can. I've read countless books and articles, listened to numerous debates and lectures, and generally tried to consume as much content as possible in the areas of science and theism. I've been exposed to a vast number of arguments in favor of the theistic world view, and I have yet to encounter a single argument of that kind which has given me pause. I have yet to hear an argument for the existence of any god which is even remotely convincing.
If you'd care to share with me what convinced you, I'd be happy to hear it. I'm open to a convincing argument. Just be aware that if you can actually provide one, you will be the first.
Speaking for myself, my disbelief in God doesn't have anything to do with morality - I try to follow the same moral standards that I was raised with, and I recognize that certain moral standards are necessary in order to have a functioning civilization[1].
For me, the whole problem is that all of the "knowledge" about God that I have ever seen is not coming from any source that I can replicate, even in principle. The only source is "divine inspiration". I've never received any, and the only evidence I have that anybody else received any is that they assert that it is true [2]. I don't think that God has been scientifically disproven, but I am pretty sure that knowledge of God was not arrived at by anything resembling the scientific method.
I think that's the main reason why a lot of scientists are atheists: they don't trust the source of the information, because they can't check it[3].
--
[1] My approach to morality is basically "if a behavior has been shown to lead to bad results and social breakdown, don't do it. If it increases social cohesion and helps people live healthier lives, encourage it". I grant that this is unsophisticated and would be sneered at by philosophers as not leading to a bulletproof, unambiguous moral code, but I think that in spite of what people may *say*, it is actually pretty close to what just about everybody *does*.
[2] I only know one person directly who claims to have had a divine inspiration. It's my brother. Unfortunately, the inspiration he got was to become a Mormon. Having read the Book of Mormon, I think I have ample grounds for deciding that his inspiration was incorrect.
[3] I'd feel a lot better about accepting what religious people tell me about the nature and desires of God if they were more consistent about it. But, other than a few pretty obvious moral principles (don't murder people, don't have sex unless you are prepared to properly look after any resulting children, and try to get along with your neighbors) there's not a lot of agreement. If the information was coming from a real source, then all religions should be converging on one over time, not diverging and schisming into so many little sects that nobody can possibly keep track of them all.
"I've always been uncomforable with people who claim to have had experienced mystical things. Recently, I had one such experience."
Quick question: If you had never had this experience, what would your current religious beliefs be like? This isn't intended as a "gotcha", I just wonder how you arrived at your current beliefs.
Brian, I've never been a mystic. Being the analytical sort, I've always been uncomforable with people who claim to have had experienced mystical, religious things. Recently, I had one such experience.
This leaves you with saying either that I'm a liar or that I was mistaken, proof of which you do not have. That leaves me with the evidence and you with the faith.
As for the murders, these seem to follow Hitchens' logic. He uses examples of poor behavior by Christians to claim religion is bad. I'm doing the same. Dittos for your logic equating all "god-stories". If all theists are the same, then all atheists are the same, right?
In the end, I'm struck by the thought that atheists don't want God to exist. I'm concluding that this is because you want to draw your own moral limits, ones probably based on your own personal ability to resist any given temptation.
@Jeff Burton
I think you meant tired old argument. The claim that the only possible source of our morality is the supernatural is simply absurd. If you're going to make such a claim, you first need to demonstrate that such a supernatural being exists. Second, you need to demonstrate that said being is the only possible source of human morality. Since the first has yet to be done despite thousands of years of human endeavors to, and since the second is demonstrably false, I'd say your argument is on shaky soil.
I think there's a simple explanation for why this argument seems to be at the forefront of the theists claims of relevancy: because it's all you have left. Scientific progress has shown us time and again that the attempts of religion to describe the nature of reality are based on little more than wish-thinking, superstition, and sleight of hand. Divine wrath has been cast down in favor of plate tectonics. The mysteries of the heavens have been charted with mathematical precision by the laws of physics. Demonic possession has been discarded by the science of the mind. Supernatural morality seems to be the last toehold that religion has on the nature of reality, and this too will be discarded in time.
In short, I don't need divine revelation to tell me that it's wrong to shoot my neighbor in the face, or that it's wrong to just go out and rape someone simply because I feel like it. Science is perfectly capable of illustrating just how spectacularly rare, wonderful, and brutally short our time is as conscious beings. I recoil in horror at the thought of someone ruining the microscopic glimmer of existence which I am so fortunate to have, and would never dream of doing such a thing to someone else. To say that we should instead be driven to goodness out of fear of divine retribution is as laughably ridiculous as it is tragically sad.
"Bye, you're simply not worth arguing with. That's one of the problems with dishonest people like yourself."
Jackpot.
@ K T Cat,
"This leaves you with saying either that I'm a liar or that I was mistaken, proof of which you do not have. That leaves me with the evidence and you with the faith."
Not quite. I have no reason to call you a liar, and do not doubt that you did indeed experience something. However, the evidence you have is, at best, anecdotal evidence, which you are claiming is evidence for the existence of the supernatural. I am neither calling you a liar or taking on faith when I say that I am unconvinced by your claim, and that the burden of proof remains on you to demonstrate that your claim is indeed true.
I'd like to see the breakdown by discipline. I've noted that there is a tendency for physicists to be religious, while biologists tend toward atheism.
I grew up in the Diocese of Philadelphia when John Cardinal Krol didn't recognize Saturday evening mass to meet your obligation. Fortunately we had New Jersey, which did. Perhaps Mexico can meet your spiritual needs during soccer season :)
My note about morality was meant only to clarify the argument, not to assert an argument for the existence of God. This type of argument is not an affirmative proof of God's existence. It is simply a way of confronting atheists with all the implications of their belief system. Your proffered moral sentiments are not objective morals - they are completely subjective and assuming your belief system, have exactly zero claim on me. My main intent here is not to convince you. By the nature of these comments, it's clear the atheists here do not understand the argument.
Anon, I believe that you would not shoot your neighbors in the face. However, if they embrace atheism, why shouldn't they shoot you in the face?
Kelly, that would be an interesting analysis. Still, the statistics are wildly different from the general population and I don't get it. As a Catholic, I don't see the conflict between science and religion.
@K T Cat,
Anon, I believe that you would not shoot your neighbors in the face. However, if they embrace atheism, why shouldn't they shoot you in the face?
Because atheists (of which I am one, just to be clear) are just as capable of seeing the value of human life despite their lack of belief in the supernatural, which I thought I made clear in my comment @JeffBurton. In short, mysticism is not a prerequisite for morality.
Your comment, however, does have a rather disturbing implication, because you seem to be suggesting that the only rational reason someone could have for not visiting horrible violence upon their fellow man is because of their fear of divine retribution... That we would have no way of knowing that murder, rape, torture, etc. is wrong without a divine sky father to threaten us with punishment for such deeds. A rather pitiable world view, to say the least.
http://gilbertmagazine.com/page_02.html
All - thanks for the great comments. You've given me a lot to think about. This post and my comments here have been an intellectual hodgepodge and your feedback will do a great deal to clarify my thinking. I'll be posting a follow up soon.
Chesterton, that was a great link. I've heard others talk about how much they loved G K Chesterton's writings, but now I udnerstand. He's got a great conversational style. I'll see if I can find him on Audible.
Jeff, that was an outstanding quote from Huxley. Thanks.
Tim, "If you had never had this experience, what would your current religious beliefs be like?"
Unchanged. It was startling, but not amazingly life changing. It was like one more data point that helped clarify things, but it hasn't led me to any great improvements in my behavior.
I wish it had, but life is not so easy.
:-)
"The claim that the only possible source of our morality is the supernatural is simply absurd. If you're going to make such a claim, you first need to demonstrate that such a supernatural being exists."
Quite to the contrary, all you need is the belief that God exists. If you're a thief and you want to rob a house and you think the cops are nearby, but don't know it, you still skip the caper.
The existence of God is not required for faith to have good effects.
Anon,
"Not quite. I have no reason to call you a liar, and do not doubt that you did indeed experience something. However, the evidence you have is, at best, anecdotal evidence, which you are claiming is evidence for the existence of the supernatural. I am neither calling you a liar or taking on faith when I say that I am unconvinced by your claim, and that the burden of proof remains on you to demonstrate that your claim is indeed true."
This is a cop-out. In the end, you make mental choices based on whether you take my story as a fact or not. You are choosing not to and are doing so on faith.
This is a cop-out. In the end, you make mental choices based on whether you take my story as a fact or not. You are choosing not to and are doing so on faith.
Wait, what? Let's say I go around claiming that there is an invisible magic unicorn in my yard. That's a pretty extraordinary claim, and as such requires some pretty extraordinary evidence. Unfortunately for me, I am unable to provide any extraordinary unicorn evidence. Nothing about my unicorn claim is at all independently verifiable, repeatable, measurable, or falsifiable. Needless to say, there are plenty who remain unconvinced that my suburban unicorn really exists. Now are you really suggesting that, despite my inability to prove that my unicorn claim is an accurate depiction of reality, those who remain unconvinced of said claim are doing so on faith???
In the words of Professor Joad, 'It depends what you mean by God'. Seems to me that a lot of the argument on this subject is from different premises which makes it kind of pointless.
Atheists work from their assumption that the religious believe in a Supernatural Being and in their scientific/reality grounded mindset this is of course nonsense. In that sense they are right but in their certainty they abandon curiosity which is supposed to be their hallmark.
The religious come in many stripes so why not go back to the root, Judaism, in which there isn't even a name for God, so if they have to write it they write G-d, it's the great unknowable, it needs an open-ness of mind to have faith in such a concept. Funny how atheists accuse the religious of being closed minded, pot meet kettle.
The closest physicists come to the great unknowable is to ask the question, 'Why is there something rather than nothing?'
Talking of physicists, the great Niels Bohr noticed a horseshoe above a colleague's desk.
He said, 'I didn't know you were superstitious'.
Oh, I'm not, but I've been told it works whether you believe in it or not'.
Regarding Professor Joad,you might find this account of his life very interesting vis a vis this post and comments.
Anon, if there's more than a billion people with invisible, magical unicorns and I don't have one of my own, I'm gonna wonder why I'm such a loser not to have one for myself.
;-)
Ah, well met, my good sir, well met. The finely honed edge of your rapier wit has indeed found purchase.
You didn't actually answer my question though, and now I have another.
First, are you saying that it is a cop-out and a matter of faith for someone to be unconvinced that an extraordinary claim is true? Perhaps I should peel some of the subtlety off of my previous statement and just get down to the point. Based on your other content, I'm assuming that you're Catholic. Am I to also assume that you take it on faith that Vishnu doesn't actually exist? What about Allah? Zeus? Krishna? Mormon? Xenu? I'm assuming that you don't believe in these entities. Why not?
Second, do you believe that there are truths concerning the nature of reality that remain true regardless of how many human beings believe or disbelieve them? For example, I don't think it's a stretch to say that there were times in antiquity when the majority of human beings believed that the Earth was flat. Now, I don't think for one second that either of us believe that the actual shape of this planet was at all affected by the flat-earthers, just because they had numbers on their side. However, you seem to be implying that a majority opinion in your favor is acceptable evidence that your claim is true. I assert that it is not acceptable evidence, that merely believing something to be true does not make it true, regardless of the head count.
KT, I'm on your side in this, but unfortunately you could have a billion clocks showing one o' clock and one showing five past one, and the latter could be right.
I think the unicorn is not a good analogy, it comes down to human psychology and the mystery of life. The atheists, like the Marxists, don't get it because they don't understand human nature. Science is fine in the limited field it investigates, they just try to apply it where where it isn't applicable and thence comes the unresolvable argument over the 'existence' of G-d. Existence in quotes because it too is an inapplicable word to use.
I was just joining in the mockery. I knew the magical unicorns would show up eventually. If not them, then the Tooth Fairy or Easter Bunny.
Or the Flying Spaghetti Monster. The absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Not that there is no evidence, just none that is acceptable to atheists.
On the morality issue. Atheist protest that they are just as moral as Christians or anybody else. And then they say they base that on outcomes. But how do you choose one morality over another. I think that is why Christians get frustrated with atheists. If you claim to have morality, where did it come from? Evolution? Then we certainly can chuck it like the other leftovers our society has thrown out. Majority rule? Why does that work? Raw power? The minority in many times and places dominated the majority, why is that wrong? Survival instinct? According to Darwin all that matters is them my genes get propagated.
So I cannot accept the answers given by atheists about the origins of their morality and more than the accept my evidence of the Resurrection. Kind of an impasse.
Great comment, Buster. Here's another on the same lines. While I can use Catholic teaching to tell you why Torquemada was not a good Catholic, you cannot use anything to show me why Nietzsche was not a good atheist, nor why the guards at Kolyma were not good atheists, too.
So much to counter! Ok...
Science is fine in the limited field it investigates, they just try to apply it where where it isn't applicable and thence comes the unresolvable argument over the 'existence' of G-d.
If there is a supernatural god, then this being is either capable of interacting with the universe or isn't. If he is capable, then these interactions can be observed, measured, understood, and properly attributed to a supernatural deity. If he isn't capable of such interactions, then how can you possibly know that he exists in the first place?
Not that there is no evidence, just none that is acceptable to atheists.
Well, yeah, actually you're right about this one, and that's because 'evidence' for the existence of a supernatural god always seems to fall into one of two categories:
1) Arguments from personal experience. E.g. "I know that God exists because he is real to me", "God spoke to me in a dream", etc. If I were to tell you that I know, I just know that Zeus is the one true god, the creator of the universe, that he speaks to me on a daily basis, protects me from evil, and listens to my prayers, would that argument do anything to convince you that Zeus actually exists?
2) Arguments from sacred texts. E.g. "the Bible says this", "the Bible says that". Let me tell you something about the Bible. The Bible says a lot of horrific, disgusting things which have no place in the Twenty First Century. The Bible was written by men, edited by men, and translated by men. You'll have to forgive me if I don't consider its claims of the supernatural to be compelling, ironclad evidence.
To sum up, I find it very suspicious that the words of god always seem to be spoken by the mouths of man.
I've been carrying on my end of this conversation on my Droid while on vacation. I want to thank you for the effort you've made to educate me. I'll let you have the last word here. I'll blog more about this in the future and I hope you come back. Please feel free to comment any time. If you want to add more, feel free. I won't be replying, but I will be reading.
God bless.
"2) Arguments from sacred texts."
If the same skepticism that is applied the New Testament as a historical document were applied to other documents we would know next to nothing about the ancient world. These are historical documents by eyewitnesses. The resurrection being by definition a one time event, cannot have a probability attached.
So, you disbelieve because you do not want to believe and not because of a lack of evidence. I doubt you would do it, but read C. S. Lewis' book on miracles. It shows the irrationality of a priori ruling out miracles and then doubting an ancient text because it includes miracles.
So, you disbelieve because you do not want to believe and not because of a lack of evidence.
No. You have it precisely wrong, and you are putting words in my mouth. Again, sooner or later you're going to have to realize that there are people who simply are not convinced by the supernatural claims of your holy book. I imagine that it reinforces your world view and helps you sleep at night to believe that all of us nonbelievers are just faking it because we really just hate god and want to sin all the time, but it's simply not true.
And why on earth would one want to simply disbelieve that resurrection and eternal life in heaven is possible? Of course I would want my consciousness to live on forever in eternal bliss alongside all of my friends and loved ones. If I thought for one second that such a thing was possible, nothing, literally nothing would be more important. But claims from personal experience and stories from antiquity just aren't convincing evidence.
Now, as for miracles, I'm certainly not ruling them out a priori. But a miracle is by definition an extraordinary claim, a violation of natural law, and as such requires some extraordinary evidence. So once again: personal experiences, ancient stories, not convincing.
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