Malachi O'Doherty's Empty Pulpits
Last night, in the Bookshop at Queen's, I helped to launch the new book by my friend and colleague Malachi O'Doherty. Malachi really needs no introduction to viewers and listeners in Northern Ireland: he is one of our best-known journalists and broadcasters, who writes and speaks on politics, religion, art, poetry and culture generally. He does so with characteristic wit and candour, and with the vigour of a natural contrarian. Malachi's new book, Empty Pulpits: Ireland's Retreat from Religion, is an analysis of the recent history of Catholicism in Ireland. My speech from the launch is below the line.
Empty Pulpits: Ireland's Retreat from Religion by Malachi O'Doherty
Thanks for coming tonight to witness this spectacle of a lapsed Protestant launching a book by a lapsed Catholic about collapsed religion.
Religion is big news these days, internationally and locally. Just last night, Labour's Deputy Leader, Harriet Harmon, was answering complaints at the Labour conference about the appointment of one of Britain's best-known evangelicals, Joel Edwards, to the Equality and Human Rights Commission -- prompting some commentators today to ask why a leading Evangelical Christian shouldn't be a member of a body that celebrates diversity. Is our concept of equality robust enough to include evangelical Christians?
Then there was the Michael Reiss debacle last week. A professor of science education, the author of many books on evolutionary biology, and director of education at the Royal Society, the UK's oldest and most respected scientific institution. Reiss, it appears, was forced to resign from his position at the Royal Society because he gave a speech at the Festival of Science in which he suggested that science teachers should be prepared to discuss creationism and intelligent design theory in the classroom - with a view to explaining why those views are non-scientific.
The fact that Michael Reiss is also a non-stipendiary priest in the church of England in his spare time was sufficient for some to suspect that the gamekeeper had turned poacher. Which is nonsense. Reiss has spent much of his career arguing for evolution and challenging the claim that all Christians are creationists.
It's just as well that the Bible Society has just released a new style guide for journalists - 80 pages of basic information on the Bible and Christianity -- aimed at challenging widespread biblical illiteracy across the media. It came too late for Michael Reiss, who was last week subjected to remarkably uninformed analysis from some of my journalistic colleagues, who simply couldn't understand how an Anglican priest could believe in Creation without believing in Creationism.
Then there's the selection of Sarah Palin, the Miss Congeniality of American Politics, which has guaranteed a slew of increasingly bizarre religion stories all the way to the presidential election in November. And - whisper it nervously - possibly even beyond that.
A Marsian media studies professor might reasonably conclude from the Western press that religion is very much a live issue for human beings. Attitudinal studies across the world would support that conclusion, on a massive scale.
In some ways, a more challenging question we might ask today is not why religion appears to be in retreat in some places, but why atheism is not overwhelmingly on the advance. Where once we used to ask whether God is dead, now sociologists are asking whether secularisation theory is dead.
Re-sacralisation is now a hot topic. The re-enchantment of the post-Enlightenment world, the re-discovery of the mystical in the midst of the mundane, the recognition now given to places of secular mystery. The postmodern mind gives significant space to science - but it is not uncritical space, and there is space left over for art, music, theatre, and God.
But here's the difference that Malachi is calling us to notice. That new process of sacralisation is unmediated by church authorities such as bishops, priests, and prayerbooks. The prophets of the new spiritual revolution are more likely to be singer-songwriters, artists, poets, and novelists.
Let's be clear about what Malachi means when he speaks of Ireland's retreat from religion. He doesn't mean a retreat from God necessarily. Nor does he mean that Ireland is abandoning spirituality. He is chronicling, here, a national walk-away from a certain type of institutional Catholicism; one characterised by intellectual control and moral policing, one that was obsessed with sexual purity and conformism.
Today's Catholics are not walking away from God, nor are they walking away from the place of ritual, or tradition. If there is a loss of faith, it is a loss of faith in the institutions of religion - the presumed guru status of the local priest, in particular, and the church's infallible teaching office in general. Malachi regards this transition as a secularising process. Cynics might just call it Protestantism. Church historians would call it more of the same: this is the history of a church that will be here long after the new atheists have gone to their eternal rest. Plus ça change.
Not that Malachi O'Doherty is a 'new atheist'. Far from it. He has been misrepresented as such already in the press by journalists who haven't read his book and haven't yet receieved their copy of the Bible Society's biblical style guide.
Malachi rejects the stridency -- and, from what I can tell, much of the substance -- of the new atheism of Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. I heard him on RTE last week calling Richard Dawkins a prat; that's hardly a sign of comradeship. But if he rejects the new atheism, he also rejects old theism. Here again, there are many theologians who have abandoned old-style, sky-god theism, without rejecting some alternative conception of the divine.
Let's consider a spectrum of possible positions on this. At the new atheism end of the spectrum is Richard Dawkins, dismissing believe in God as a worldview on a par with astrology, scientifically illiterate, a form of intellectual adolescence.
At the other end of the spectrum, someone like John Lennox comes to mind. An Ulster mathematician who is now an Oxford don, like Dawkins. Yet Lennox's new book - God's Undertaker - is an extended argument for traditional belief in God as an intellectually tenable perspective. And for my money, Lennox understands philosophy of science a good deal better than Dawkins.
In between those two positions, we find Richard Holloway, the former bishop of Edinburgh and former head of the Anglican Church in Scotland, who describes himself now as a Christian Agnostic -- which means he doesn't believe in God but still goes to church. Religion, for Holloway, is a kind of language that still makes sense: it comforts us, it encourages heroic moral choices, and it binds us together in communities.
Where is Malachi O'Doherty on my epistemological spectrum? He's not a new atheist. There's not a single argument against belief in God in this book, and, if anything, Malachi thinks most new atheists have simply missed the point about why people are still drawn to religious faith. He's not an old theist. And, from what I can tell, he regards Holloway's in-between stance as tepid and innocuous.
Emperor Joseph II is reputed to have complimented a new work by Mozart moments before offering the composer the helpful criticism that his work contained too many notes. Malachi represents the theological equivalent of that critique: too many doctrines, too many creeds. But he's still drawn to the music, the architecture, the silence, the space, and the people. His is a kind of religionless religion. Or - God forbid - a religionless Christianity.
That phrase -- 'religionless Christianity' -- comes from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian who was executed at the age of thirty-nine for his participation in a plot to assassinate Adolf Hitler. Bonhoeffher's argument against moralistic and pietistic religion was an argument in favour of personal faith and worldly discipleship. I've a sense, and I stand to be corrected any moment now, that Malachi's book amounts to something similar: an invitation to 'hear new voices around us - champions of the subjective life - who evoke truths about the human heart in language that we would recognise as authentic and natural.'
If that sounds like a sermonic ending, be warned: those are his words, not mine.
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~28~RS~)
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Noble Dee, Noble Dee
Quick, stop William! He's introducing Fundamentalism to British Education. It's the beginning of the end!
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Good speech William.
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Excellent speech William.
I've always found both you and Malachi to be some of the most open-minded and well-informed journalists around these parts, and by far the most able to tackle the big issues, as your speech amply illustrates.
I particularly appreciated the Bonhoeffer references, as I'm just now reading a book on his Christology.
Well done William, and Malachi!
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"Ireland's retreat from religion" as a subtitle sounds like a colossal act of discrimination on a quarter of the island's population by the publisher. Where are the Prods? Have they not retreated? Does 'No Surrender' mean exactly what it says on the tin? And, if not, why not? Are they winning the battle for God? How can a book on the decline of religion in Ireland be so one-sided? I blame the BBC!!
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I agree Brian. The Prods can retreat just as well and just as fast as anyone else when it's convenient.
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That's a fitting speech. I haven't read the book, and I approach it as someone who also struggles to fit the mould of a traditional adherent to Christianity. At the same time I find Dawkins' value on empirical truth very agreeable. No preacher today makes an appeal for converts primarily on the basis of the truth of the Christian religion, those appeals are made on the basis of feeling better about life, having God on your side, not going to hell, or some other such factor. You shouldn't believe in God because it's true that God exists, you should believe in God out of desire or fear or social cohesiveness.
And thus Dawkins et al seem to fill a post-Enlightenment gap: he appeals to truth, primarily, rather than other, lesser factors, something which religion doesn't do adequately anymore. Malachi mentions transubstantiation (a topic on this blog not long ago): how many Catholics really believe it? Truth is not of ultimate importance in this regard, but perhaps more a dynamic process of what William describes using the term 'postmodern', finding the 'mystical' etc. etc. I have to say I'm into objective truth and reason, more than subjective 'truth' and mysticism. If Malachi can present this topic in a way that makes it easier to reconcile the two, then I'm very interested.
JW
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It seems to me that Malachi enjoys being controversial for the sake of being controversial!
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FaithfulCatholic- That's the sort of thing people say to me when they (1) disagree with me but (2) don't have the faculty to debate me on the issues. As a 'Faithful Catholic' you already meet the first......
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I found it interesting that William Crawley began his introductory speech by saying:
'Thanks for coming tonight to witness this spectacle of a lapsed Protestant launching a book by a lapsed Catholic about collapsed religion.'
It has been my experience that people who have 'lapsed' in their religion, and I mean any religion, cannot possibly have the full capabilities to discuss current religious topics. If they claim to be able to then they surely cannot claim to be 'lapsed' in their religion.
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FaithfulCatholic says people who describe themselves as lapsed lack the full capacities to even discuss current religious topics. That's a very strange comment. FC do you really believe that only churchgoing catholics and protestants are able to discuss religion? That's a bit bonkers isnt it?
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I read a comment some time ago which went something like this, "losing your faith in church and losing your faith in God are not necessarily the same thing."
I also find the comment, "religionless Christianity" fascinating. There is a very real sense in which Christianity is or should be the opposite of religion. Unfortunately, 'religion' as in moralism, and ritualism is often how christianity is understood and presented.
Brian and Graham also point to the fact that Protestants too can retreat, but it might be interesting to suggest that many Protestants are retreating into multi-million pound building and an ever present, all encompassing programme of events. Of course it doesn't look like retreat, but if it cocoons us from the risk of a 'personal faith' demonstrated in 'worldly discipleship', cosseting us in idiosyncrasies and a language all our own, then maybe it is simply retreat by another name.
This realignment of religion, faith and the practise of Christianity fascinates me, unfortunately I get the impression that much of the church hasn't realised the debate is taking place yet.
Good speech William, and I think I'm going to have to buy Malachi’s book.
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"FaithfulCatholic says people who describe themselves as lapsed lack the full capacities to even discuss current religious topics."
That's the equivalent of saying that people who aren't good at cooking are incapable of discussing agriculture.
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A good speech William
I agree with you when you said:
"this is the history of a church that will be here long after the new atheists have gone to their eternal rest."
I believe that the Church in its true form will still be here long after the latest fads are gone
Jesus built his church founded on Love
and even if you do not believe in God this is a good statement from Jesus:
A new commandment I give unto you, That ye love one another; as I have loved you.
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When will some lapsed Presbyterian write about the emptying of the PCI pews which are losing about 70 parishioners every week?
May be Prof Kirkpatrick could address the reasons behind this issue in depth which he has glanced over in the past on Sunday Sequence.
At sometime somebody within the PCI will have to deal with this problem before the PCI goes bankrupt as empty pews don’t pay wages.
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So Malachi referred to Richard Dawkins on RTE as a 'pratt'. Did he mean 'prank', 'vagina' or 'fool'?
Of course, Malachi's book is not likely to sell 2 million copies, is it, especially with its misleading subtitle?
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Another lapsed Catholic seeks to justify himself by appeals to general trends and what Fr X once did or said to his auntie.
Yawn.
And Kevin Myers's book on being a journalist in the early days of the troubles is much better than Malachi's.
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Personally I don't regard myself as a "lapsed" Christian - I've moved forwards, not backwards.
Will, your speech is interesting, but you can't seriously suggest that John Lennox's "God's Undertaker" is "intellectually tenable"! It is an extended litany of sophistry, straw-mannery, question-begging, quote-mining and sleight of brain. I gave up counting the number of fundamental crooked arguments after the first 5 pages.
You say: "for my money, Lennox understands philosophy of science a good deal better than Dawkins" - I might counter that Lennox talks the talk of po-mo "philosophy of science" rather convincingly, but it is very clear that he has very little appreciation of what science involves and what it actually tells us about the world. His treatment of evolution, the origin of life, and universal "fine tuning" are particularly poor.
You're not the only one to be hoodwinked by Lennox's smoke and mirrors (in that sense, perhaps he deserves some credit for rhetorical trickery). Fooling Alister McGrath is perhaps not difficult, but Alan Emery is a bit bigger game, and he seems to have been suckered too.
I think we need fewer "philosophers of science" and more "scientific philosophers". Then we might see fewer arsed-up efforts like "God's Underpants". Malachi O'Doherty may regard Richard Dawkins as a "prat", but I would rather have an honest prat than the sort of dishonest cheese reeled out by the undoubtedly avuncular Lennox. GU is, in addition, a graceless, smug and tedious book - Lennox speaks much better than he writes. I would heartily recommend it to the readership if they want to know the sorts of arguments theists *think* cut the mustard.
Cheers,
-H
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Heliopolitan:
Thanks for your comments on this. Just a couple of points. I didn't in fact suggest that Lennox's book succeeds in making the case for old theism as an intellectually tenable position; I merely said that his book was an extended argument seeking to establish that case. Secondly, on philosophy of science: perhaps you and I will have to disagree about Dawkins's understanding of philosophy of science (in any case, Dawkins doesn't rate this discipline highly so he won't mind the criticism). My comments on John Lennox in this speech are limited to a summary statement of his book's ambition, and a throw-away comment that he has a better take on Philosophy of Science than Dawkins.
That comment is based on a reading of their works, and on questions I have put to both writers (I have conducted long interviews with both -- Dawkins on a number of occasions). As for creationism, neo-creationism and intelligent design theory -- these are entirely other matters.
I pressed Lennox on those issues (and indeed challenged him on philosophy of science too) in a long radio interview we broadcast some time ago.
Helio: let's not try to build a creation museum on the foundations of a couple of off-the-cuff comments in a book launch speech.
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Hi Will,
No probs - just stirring! I liked your speech, and I think Malachi (whom I admire a great deal) has interesting things to say - the key word is "subjective", of course, and I can identify with that, without compromising science, or letting any pixies in through the door. I'll be buying the book for sure.
I guess I just think that Lennox frequently gets given a bit of a free ride because he's at Oxford, can do sums, and originates from our fair shores.
Have you a link to an mp3 of your interview with him? I think I missed it.
Right - enough Lennox already! (as our American friends might say).
Cheers; keep up the good work,
-H
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Interesting how many commenters have latched onto the word "lapsed" in this speech. How many people here could describe themselves as 'lapsed' in some sense, whether it be specific doctrines of theology or whole religions? I suspect there are quite a few of us who've decided to dissent from religious ideas in the past; in my opinion that derives inherently from free thinking. (Might I take my cheekiness a stage further and suggest that those who have never dissented from any of their religion's precepts are not thinking enough?)
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John
Might I be cheekier and replace the word 'religion' with worldview?
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Peter, I think that's entirely reasonable. On the topic of "lapsed", do any of us consider ourselves "lapsed Santa Claus believers" or "lapsed breast feeders"?
Falling away from churches is not necessarily falling *backwards*. It does concern me (and it concerned Dawkins in "Enemies of Reason", which dealt with the woo-meisters of the "alternative") that some people move on to other forms of mumbo-jumbo, but in some quarters there does seem to be a notion that this points to the external *existence* of mumbo-jumbo, rather than the sheer brute fact that evolved humans make mumbo jumbo up in their heads. It's all high-level brain stuff, and not remotely connected with what's actually going on in the fundamental nooks and crannies of the universe. It is not disbelief in gods that needs to be engendered - it is critical thinking.
Maybe it is a cycle. Maybe the sociologists are right, and atheism can't ultimately defeat the woo. But atheism is now socially acceptable in a way that it never was before, and that can only be a good thing.
-H
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Worked out well in Russia and China.
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It appears that Malachi O'Doherty is
someone who does not practise church-based religion anymore but retains some kind of sentimental allegiance to the aesthetics of Catlolic Christianity. It also appears that he lays claims some sort of "middle ground" by attacking atheists who have given up on religion altogether.
What is meant by the too-clever-by-far term "religionless Christianity"? Is it de-institutionalised Christianity, or simply humanism?
We are told that Richard Holloway, another "middle grounder" doesn't believe in God and is a "Christian Agnostic" who likes church ceremonials etc. Surely he is by definition an atheist who shares O'Doherty's love of the sacred trappings.
A process of secularisation has been going on in Europe for some time, and Catholic Ireland is catching up. William Crawley wonders why
" atheism is not overwhelmingly in the ascendant". Surveys show that the number of God believers in Europe is steadily declining, and many who continue to believe do so weakly. In other places religion is so ascendant that it denies dissent.
New Ageism is barely "religion" at all but it is largely irrational ; fundamentalism is on the march. Thank goodness therefore for the likes of Dawkins and Hitchens. The world needs more of them.
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SamMergee says: "It appears that Malachi O'Doherty is
someone who does not practise church-based religion anymore but retains some kind of sentimental allegiance to the aesthetics of Catlolic Christianity."
If that's the case, is there really much point in Malachi or anybody else pursuing a more intellectual conversation about reconciling parts of religion to a functionally atheist society... it's just an aesthetic, right?
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I wonder what Malachi attributes, the success of the internationally in demand, academically successful, multi million best selling "prat" to, compared with his own small ripples in a tiny pond. Something divine perhaps?
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Ach well, populist pseudo-philosophy that turns out to be balls isn't unheard of, is it?
I must say, I don't share this irritation felt by many theists with Dawkins...I think he genuinely comes across as a nice chap. On his Darwin show he really did give ample time and license to people that he obviously thought were raving lunatics. And some of them may well be.
My only problem with Dawkins is one that's often levelled at him; he is no philosopher.
He doesn't claim to be, but, like it or not, he really really does make some drastic, and far from straightforward, metaphysical and epistemological assumptions.
I'm just not sure he can justify them, in fact he does not even seem to recognise them.
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Bernard, the problem, however, is that "real philosophers" are often no better. Dawkins is a scientist; he is accustomed to plain speaking. That scares some people, who realise that they can't defend their views without eloquent and fallacy-laden circumlocution.
Dawkins, quite reasonably, invites people to cut the cr4p and get to the point. Of course, when one does that, there is less fluff for pixies to hide in, and pixie enthusiasts are less than happy about that. So anyone who points out the vacuity of their position has to be labelled as "shrill" or "strident" or "unpleasant".
It is quite common for Dawkins to be accused of making "some drastic, and far from straightforward, metaphysical and epistemological assumptions", but few people are able to actually point out what they *are*, and unpick them in an honest manner. Indeed, I don't know if there have been *any*...
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H
I think I've picked out some major problems with his argument against Theism on this site. Also, plain speaking isn't an excuse for saying things that are just plain dumb. His take on the Theistic Arguments is atrocious.
Graham
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gosh, gveale you should write a book showing how "dumb" poor Dawkins is.A lot of fleas (thats the term thats used to describe them on the site) have tried. Their efforts have been picked apart by Paula Kirby on the Richard Dawkins website, and pinned up like dead crows in a field of corn.
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Helio- I agree with you, actually. What I - as a theist - appreciate about Dawkins is his complete lack of linguistic frills in general, and his value on empirical truth. He's not interested in weaving an artistic tapestry of language through which various levels of truth can be gleaned; in that respect I find listening to him highly agreeable (and it could be said that he represents a 'modern' rather than a 'postmodern' approach to matters of truth; again, I'm with him).
At the same time, Dawkins is no philosopher. There are issues affecting the human condition which science does not - cannot - address. Philosophy isn't science, and science isn't philosophy, and that's fine.... don't you think?
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Hi nobledeebee
I went for a walk in that corn field, you know the one with all the dead crows in it, and you know what, I found something which looked like one of those crows, and here, it seems, is one of the bullets that killed it, and I have to say, that it's not actually a bad bullet she fires/question she asks, indeed one might say that it demonstrates that as an ex-christian she knows something about christianity.
Anyway here it is:
"...if it was The Fall that brought evil and suffering into the world, and Jesus's death on the cross that saved us from the consequences of The Fall, why is there still evil and suffering in the world? Why are there still earthquakes? Why is there still suffering? Why do some humans still commit evil acts? OK, Christianity may save us from the consequences of our sinfulness in the afterlife, but what about this life? Yet again, the religious treat this life – the one, brief life we know we have – as a disposable item, of secondary importance to the serious business of a totally unproven and exceedingly unlikely afterlife."
There's a lot on the website about her responses to some of the books written in response to The God Delusion and it will take quite some time to read thought them all, but tell me this, does her aim get any better? You see, Malachi might have written a book about it, but Paula's comment isn't really the sort of thing to start me beating the retreat just yet; it's pretty much a standard theological question, and a bit of a leap into the realm of personal opinion in the last sentence.
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Er, Graham, I've heard that sort of thing before... about how Dawkins' arguments are refuted etc etc - I've just never seen anything vaguely approaching a refutation! I would have thought that McGrath and Lennox at least would have put one or two into their dismal books, but no. Are these refutations some sort of arcane wisdom, only shown to the High Initiates, or is there a nugget or two that the Supreme Priests are prepared to toss to the huddled masses, shivering outside in the relentless Dawkinsian rain, trusting that their Massively Intelligent Clergibots really do have the ultimate umbrella?
John, I think if you sort out the science, then philosophy (particularly ethical philosophy) can be a far more hygienic and productive endeavour than the self-referential po-mo horsepants that sometimes gets the label undeservedly. Poor science makes poor philosophy. It's a fact. In that respect, Dawkins is a better philosopher than the likes of Swinburne or McGrath or Plantinga *by definition*. The reason those chaps are given so much credit (by their own fans) is because they are better at using verbage to hide the flaws in their premises. Most people don't spot it - even they don't spot the mistakes themselves, often.
-H
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As what may be the sole convinced post-modern voice posting on this blog (fellow-travellers come out of the wood-work, please) I should state my gratitude for Will's recognition of our existence and admirably succinct statement of our position.
I rather like Dawkins and find him quite amusing - I must say I adored his interview of the Archbishop of Canterbury in his latest series - try replaying it sometime with the sound off, look at the facial expressions and the body language, it's not hard to imagine Rowan's singing 'If I were a wiggly worm I'd thank the Lord that I could squirm...'
I have, too, considerable respect for science as investigator of the mechanics of things, where I part company with the believers though is when they argue for science as the mediator of truth to humanity - that just doesn't wash at all.
I would rather like to think the designer of any aeroplane I am going to fly in acquired his skills from a reputable university rather than a spirit guide but, if I want to understand man's place in world, how to act morally, how to be, how to know the fullness of life, the 'rude mechanical' with his microscope or equations is about as useful as the proverbial chocolate teapot.
There are many limits to science and positing it as the controlling influence in the construction of a world-view is not merely flawed but pernicious. If I understand modern theories of cognition correctly I can see no scientific reason why there should not be abortion on demand, but, beyond that, equally no reason why an infant which is not desired (whether in terms of gender, disability, hair colour, whatever) should not be put down without qualm. One simply cannot elevate science to pre-eminence as source of truth and understanding without dehumanising mankind.
Science, in my opinion, is rather like money - a certain amount facilitates a comfortable existence but thereafter it is subject to the law of diminishing returns. After the invention of, say, electricity and anaesthesia, science could quite probably have more or less shut up shop without major loss to the actual well-being of humanity.
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"they are better at using verbage to hide the flaws in their premises. Most people don't spot it - even they don't spot the mistakes themselves, often."
Well Helio, here's you chance. The thread is about people giving up on religion, so outline the mistakes in the premises of theism. And remember, we're not anti-science, that's not the point being made.
Portwyne
I'll return to the po-mo (I prefer post-evangelical) mind tomorrow, it's late, but for now... and if I were a fuzzy wuzzy (close your ears Helio) bear I'd thank the Lord for my... isn't contemporary worship great!
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LOL Peter - I like it!!
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Helio- Poor science breeds poor philosophy; agreed. Of course philosophy encompasses much more than science, so not all philosophy needs to consult science (it's all a matter of subject). What Portwyne said.
Portwyne- In response to some of what you said (and I agree re. the place of science, btw) can I offer this: it is also true that an atheist need not come to a conclusion of good moral theory before deciding that there is no god - or, another way to put it, the question of whether or not there is a god has no bearing whatsoever on whether or not we can come to a good and moral way of conducting ourselves if we decide he doesn't exist (assuming we can agree on that anyway). I think that's worth pointing out, because sometimes I think having a way to deal with these moral questions is seen as a prerequisite for atheism and I don't think that's the case at all (and I'm a theist!).
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John
I, of-course, am not a Theist but on this point I agree with you. When I meditate in God I become more aware of the connectedness of things and that strengthens my concept of society and social responsibility and weakens my inclination toward selfishness - those who know me would say I've way to go yet!!
In terms of general morality, I agree, God is neither here nor there. I think an atheistic scientific rationalist pursuing the logic of his position would have to say 'What is morality? - you can't fire protons at it.' It is entirely logical therefore for someone to say God does not exist and there is no such thing as a moral or immoral action.
I tend to believe most moral systems are constructed on the basis of compromise between selfish instinct and social need and entirely workable models are derived from that negotiation. Selfishness gives us rights, society brings with it responsibilities. God may add extra dimensions to this model and the atheist may, quite reasonably, reject it out of hand. I myself often wonder if in fact morality functions as anything more than a mind shield which, weak-willed, we use to cloak our essential amorality from ourselves.
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Hi Petermorrow, I think that might be a magpie you have stumbled across not a crow. Read Paula's deconstruction of books by Alistair McGrath et al. Especially "Darwins Angel" for an eg of a particularly mendacious and distorting riposte to Dawkins. Gveale is writing one at the moment called "Dawkins Dumb Delusion".
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Really interesting description of Malachi O'Doherty on religion, William. Any chance that he might respond here for those of us who weren't at the book launch? What does he believe about God?
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ND
I didn't say he was dumb, I said his take on some philosophical arguments was dumb.(Though any guy who does a PhD on the behaviour on chickens may be unbalanced).
But thanks for making me aware of Paula Kirby - I'll check her stuff out.
GV
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Nobledeebee
The simile about the crows I got, but you're going to have to enlighten me about the magpie metaphor.
What is it exactly Paula Kirby pinned up like dead crows in a corn field? Is it the 'twisting' of Richard Dawkin's The God Delusion you are referring to? The parts I read refer to that and Kirby's questions against theism. It was the latter I was referring to.
Maybe I answered a question you didn't ask.
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Portwyne
After saying I'd return to the postmodern mind later, I now don't really know what to say; even trying to define the term postmodern is wooly process, that however does not mean that there is no good in it nor does it mean that uncertainty means knowing nothing.
My practical experience of post-modernity mostly relates to how the thinking manifests itself in the church with either, an abandonment of the idea of scriptural authority (although that idea is not a new one) and/or a reappraisal or deconstruction of one's own tradition doctrine.
It seems to me that this is one of the reasons for the drift away from traditional religion, although given that some Roman Catholics seem to be rejecting Church authority and and it's traditions, while some Protestants are 'rediscovering' liturgy and sacramentalism, it's hard to see any particular pattern. If there is one, it seems to be that 'authority' means whatever the individual experiences and values, or maybe people are just experimenting.
This of course is not all bad, but taken to extremes one wonders if it renders all meaningful communication dead; and while I appreciate the critique offered by many in what is called the emerging church my Christianity is still primarily what might be called creedal rather than experiential. That does not mean no experience, rather it means that any 'experience' is guided by an historical 'authority'.
At a more general level I find I cannot live with the idea that life is a construction of our own minds. For me that merely distances me from my fellow man and would drive this particular person to despair. Anyway no one I know really applies this thinking to their everyday life. At the very least something real seems to be there, that reality seems to be coherent and I take the view that our lives are real and meaningful, and that what is there can be known. As Helio says, the world and the scientific description of it 'works'. Of course the musical, artistic and emotional description of it also often 'works' too.
It is in this context then that I also say that it is reasonable to suggest a living God who defines the reality that we know, and know truly, but not exhaustively.
I do not believe we are constructs of our own minds and I do not believe we are merely 'material'.
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Team, trying to decide moral questions on the basis of science is the naturalistic fallacy. But trying to decide them on the basis of theology is even more stupid. These are questions that we need to resolve, based not on "vertical relationships" to imaginary pixies, or pseudoscientific mumbo jumbo, but on horizontal relationships.
PeterM, you asked about the faults in the premises of theism. The fundamental mistaken premise is that there is a god. That is a wholly-unwarranted assumption. You may *believe* otherwise, but that is irrelevant.
Portwyne, you got all misty-eyed over philosophy, not science, forming our worldviews. It is probably the job of philosophy to find ways of allowing humans to adapt their psychology, by whatever mental devices they can muster, to the way the world actually works (as revealed, of course, by science). Worldviews that explicitly reject science (like creationism, for example) are themselves rendered invalid - poor philosophy.
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Helio
"The fundamental mistaken premise is that there is a god. That is a wholly-unwarranted assumption."
Why?
Your statement is not an outline of the faults in the premises of theism, it is a statement, maybe one might say a premise.
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Helio - I 'got all misty-eyed over philosophy, not science, forming our worldviews'???
I am not sure I recognise myself there. I who question whether there is even such a thing as morality. I who have questioned on this very thread whether philosophy has very much of worth to say about anything of importance. Now if you had pursued your earlier thought and suggested I might get misty eyed about a tribal shaman embodying the interconnectedness of man and nature in an ecstatic vision - then we might be talking...
Peter I've just finished work and some productive dreaming beckons - will reply tomorrow.
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Portwyne-
"Now if you had pursued your earlier thought and suggested I might get misty eyed about a tribal shaman embodying the interconnectedness of man and nature in an ecstatic vision - then we might be talking..."
I'm interested in this thought and what exactly you mean here....
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Hi Petermorrow, I am referring to an article on the RD website by Paula Kirby called Fleabytes in which she deconstructs 4 books which claim to refute the God Delusion. They are Darwins Angel, Dawkins Delusion,Dawkins letters, and Deluded by Dawkins. These are the crows I was referring to. I do not recognise the quote you posted and you do not say which review it is from so I suggested it might be a magpie rather than one of these crows. Thats all.
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NobleDee
I had a look at Kirby's arguments. I think she's a little harsh on Cornwell, but otherwise it seems fine. (But there's nothing I wouldn't expect a good GCSE student to be able to point out).
The problem is that there doesn't seem much in the "New Atheism" worth responding to. There are more rigorous critiques of Theistic epistemology and arguments provided by Elliot Sober, or Adolf Grunbaum. It also seems a bit redundant pointing this out, because I'm not sure that Dawkin's is aiming at a rigorous argument.
In other words, what has the "New Atheism" provided that "Old Atheism" hasn't done better? What exactly is the point?
Graham Veale
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H
Peter asked for arguments. I read a lot of assertions and insults - but I can't even recall an argument tht you've made that showed the flaw in Theism.
Take the Design Argument, the Cosmological Argument, and my discussion with Brian on how we ground rationality and morality. Where have those arguments gone wrong? As I have advanced them on this blog, mind you , not as Dawkin's advances them.
Graham Veale
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NobleDee,
We haven't had a lot of dealings, so just to keep the air clear.
1) I've only encountered Dawkin's as part of the "New Atheism". But from what I can gather there is a universal consensus that his expositions of science are excellent.
2) I don't think Atheism is "dumb", or that Atheistic arguments are facile.
3) Don't take my heckling too seriously - it's just part of the atmosphere on some of these threads. I assume you've picked this up, but I just want to make sure. You've obviously a very good grasp of the issues. If I seem dismissive it's usually because I want to make sure I receive a reply.
Graham
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H
Your world-view becomes more mysterious by the post. Could you illuminate (i) What can we know (ii) How can we know it (iii) Where science fits into this picture (iv) Where morality fits into this picture.
I'm beginning to think that you're a thoroughgoing empiricist - which makes you infinitely more sophisticated that Dawkins (at least in his public posturings).
Graham Veale
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Chaps, the problem is this. You are simply assuming there is a "god" worth doing any theology upon. That is premise number 1 of Theology: There Is A God.
In order to demonstrate the invalidity of the premise, I do not need to disprove it; merely I need to state that the premise is unfounded. You have no evidence that there is a god, much less one you can do any meaningful study upon.
Come back when you've established your premise.
Portwyne: my gripe is that you seem to exclude science from the moral process. Science has a lot to say about what makes us moral; why we *do* morality. We can even inject moral behaviour into our simulations, and treat it as a heritable trait. That all seems very useful, so I think to suggest that there is no input, or that science has nothing to tell us about morality, is incorrect. Maybe that wasn't your point, but it's how it came across to me.
-H
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Helio
Post 53.
Is that your argument?
One what basis do you establish your premise, because from what I have read a good few theists here have given good reasons for holding the view that there is a God. Valid reasons for the premise have been established.
That you don't accept them is a different issue.
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H
Here's how I established my argument for the sake of our discussion
1) Cosmological Argument
2) Design Argument
3) The need to presuppose Theism to trust our rational faculties
4) The need to presuppose Theism as the gound for morality.
I've spelled out versions of these arguments on the blog - click on gveale, and read them ,then tell me were I've gone wrong.
(Then tell me why I should accept the Presumption of Atheism, given that you have not advanced an argument for it).
At the moment you've got your fingers in your ears so you don't have to consider any counter evidence - you're saying I can't prove God exists unless I first prove that God exists.
Sorry, but it really is a silly position.
G Veale
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Helio - I am going to answer you first as some of what I intend to say in response to Peter and John hang on this.
You say I "seem to exclude science from the moral process" and, if you distinguish morality from utility, that is precisely what I do. As I understand science there is no meaning just mechanism. A man (or woman) is simply a variety of 'machine for living': a vessel which facilitates, for a time, a highly complex organisation of energy. There is no strong self, no enduring identity invariably capable of with-standing either swift brain trauma or slow disintegration of the host tissue.
We are part of an evolutionary process, one among many animate species just about every aspect of whose conduct can be paralleled in the animal kingdom and I see little evidence of any significant marked effects of ratiocination on core behaviour.
In certain species of spider the mother feeds herself to her children - is she being altruistic, is there a moral dimension to her actions? In other species the the female attempts to kill and eat the male during copulation (sometimes as willing victim, sometimes despite his attempts to avoid that fate) - is that immoral?
Science tells us what is behaviour according to nature: throughout the animal kingdom killing a member of a different species is natural, killing a member of the same species is natural, every imaginable form of sexual activity from necrophilia through sex toys to rape and coercive intercourse with juveniles is to be found in the world of nature and the species homo sapiens is simply part of that world.
The above is what science teaches me and the above, however, unpalatable it may seem expressed so baldly, is what I think.
I am genuinely interested in your opinion as to whether or not it is bad science and what the fallacies are that you see in it.
I should add that it is not what I feel and, when I have satisfied the animal need for sustenance I may return to that topic in reply to Peter and John.
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Nobledeebee
The quote I gave was taken from the website you referred to and was part of Paula Kirby's response to David Robertson's 'The Dawkins Letters'. It was from the section of her response referring to Letter 8 under subsection (1).
She seemed, in her 'deconstruction' of this/these books, to be doing two things; 1, saying why they were bad responses to Dawkins, and 2, was responding to the theology stated by the writers. I picked out a comment from her in which she sought to critique some of the theology. The one I quoted, was quoted deliberately, because if you are going to have a go a Christianity then why not go pretty much for the heart, Fall, Atonement, Redemption? And, as I said it was a good question, but it has an answer. Kirby, however, despite her previous experience of christianity, appears not know what it is.
Here's another couple of her comments from the same response:
"If Robertson's faith is based on evidence, then his faith is redundant." (it is?) "There is no need for me to have faith that my employer will pay my salary this month if I have evidence that the money is in my account."
No, one wouldn't need faith here - quite correct; but then if the money was in her account already, the employer wouldn't have to pay her because he... already had. Another bad shot, and a poor understanding and explanation of faith. A better way to describe it might be, faith is trusting the employer enough to work for him again in expectation of another paycheck because he has already demonstrated his character, he ability and willingness to pay his employees. In otherwords it is 'faith' based on 'evidence', the evidence of previous payment or the word of other employees.
Another comment
"By the way, have you ever asked a Christian what they actually mean when they say that humans are made in the image of God?" (Yes, actually I have) "And more importantly, have you ever received an answer that made any kind of sense at all?" (Again, yes I have - the ones she suggests are just poor)
Paula Kirby has some good questions and has offered, within her world view, some alternative answers to the Christian ones, but I also have to say, that her comments to betray a limited understanding of Christian theology.
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Portwyne- I'm with you entirely so far.
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Hi team,
Portie first: evolution has equipped us with a brain that lets us ascribe moral labels to certain actions/outcomes/events etc. We're humans; there are things we find funny, sexy, tasty, repellent, etc. Morality is a thing that humans do. It's biology. That is not to say that it does not have value - it clearly does have value *to us*. We also clearly have a choice in morality, and we base our choices on our experiences.
Graham,
1) Cosmological Argument
2) Design Argument
3) The need to presuppose Theism to trust our rational faculties
4) The need to presuppose Theism as the gound for morality.
Yeah, I know you've spelled them out, but they are all pants. The cosmological argument is a straightforward category error (with a nice dose of question-begging lobbed in for good measure). The design argument is merely evidence of selection, with no pretence towards evidence of an "intelligence", much less a "being". Theism as a necessary means to trust our rational faculties?? Please! Theism as a ground for morality?? Double please! These are at best lame excuses for theism; they hardly achieve the status of "arguments".
I do not need to presume anything for atheism. There may be a god; there may not. I think it highly unlikely that if there were a god, it would be so good at hiding that we'd have no way of firing a proton beam up its hiney, or that it would consider the whole Christian religion thing as a Good Plan for rescuing a fallen humanity, but that's just me. If we find that we need to plug a god into our models to get 'em to work, that's dandy. But you're the one proposing the magic space pixie; you're the one that has to have the evidence. Moi, je n'ai pas besoin de cette hypothese (pardon my poor French).
Cheers,
-H
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H
"I do not need to presume anything for atheism"
You appear to have presumed the personal pronoun 'I' as I have presumed the pronoun 'you'.
So, why would you want to do that?
And if morals is biology, then it really isn't morals, you don't seem to have grasped that.
P
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Peter, morals are emergent from biology and interactions between biological organisms. *We* do it - it's how we get along with each other. It's not beamed down from some notional mothership or space pixie.
As for my presumptions on atheism, you are very welcome to challenge 'em, but since your challenges undermine theism as much as anything else, and we seem to be agreed on them, there's little enough point. Let us know when you have anything cogent...
-H
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Helio (and I'm developing the argument which will relate to Peter and John's posts)
You use the word "value" - that word has connotations which are not specifically scientific and which could lead to confusion - if you accept the substitution of the word "utility" I can more or less agree with sentence in which you use it.
You proceed to say "We also clearly have a choice in morality" but to the rational mini-me that is very far from clear and I would suggest that there is absolutely no scientific consensus that it is in fact the case.
You say "evolution has equipped us with a brain that lets us ascribe moral labels to certain actions/outcomes/events etc" and that is the point at which I become very interested indeed. The brain function you describe, the process of classification is a fundamental part of the interpretation of experience which we call reason. The modern (as opposed to post-modern) scientific viewpoint posits that interpretation, the rational, as the sole valid approach to the observed world.
Rationality is, however, the result of a very specific state of brain chemistry. It requires a brain structure with a high degree of conformity to a configuration known to occur with a high degree of frequency, it requires good vascular health, the absence of both traumatic injury and aggressive viral infection, perhaps more importantly it requires a quite specific nutrient mix in the Petri dish which is our flesh. If we look at the history of humanity it is not surprising that rationality developed in settled urban environments with a good and regular supply of well preserved food. Brain chemistry can be adjusted from what is now regarded as its 'normal' state either subtractively or by the introduction of psychotropic chemical agents.
For by far the greater part of human history poor and irregular food supplies, adulteration of food stocks by fungi, ingestion purposefully or unwittingly of psychoactive plants all point to a human brain where rationality, far from being the sole interpreter of experience, was not even a common experience.
I intend to return to this thread after work to discuss non-rational approaches to experience.
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Prepare to tune-in, turn-on, freak-out...
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Helio
Pants to you too. Is that to be the level of discussion?
As expected you produced insults and assertions. I am now working on two assumptions.
(i) You do not understand the arguments for theism, much less know how to criticise them
(ii) You are afraid to confront the arguments, lest they show you are wrong - that there may be some arguments that make Theism a rational position.
Please feel free to falsify my judgment by providing arguments. Insults and assertions don't qualify.
GV
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As an example, H, of your mixed up thinking, you cannot say that morals emerge from biology/social interactions AND affirm the Naturalistic Fallacy.
By the way,how much Plantinga have you read? "God, Freedom and Evil"? "The Nature of Necessity"? Maybe you have consulted the journals?
Graham Veale
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ha, it strikes me that we might as well amalgamte all the topics on this forum, as they seem to always amount to the same argument.
:)
I wonder are we any further on?
Probably not.
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Bernard
Funnily enough, there are times when a consensus can unexpectedly emerge. Though significant disagreements remained, I think Peter and I found a lot of common ground with Brian after Iris Robinson's summer crusade.
Whether that was a triumph of dialogue or secularism I'll leave others to decide.
Graham Veale
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Good grief! Portwyne, yep, that's pretty much it. We are evolved organisms. Our brains have evolved to ascribe pleasure to things that result in the genes that build our brains getting passed on to the next generation. So we ascribe values to certain things. The human propensity to morality would seem to hit that category - we observe certain actions; we see the general effects; we favour ones that lead to desired outcomes in general. We also function within societies, so we program our moralometers with societal cues. This is not (pace, Graham) a naturalistic fallacy. "Is" does not imply "ought", but it does mean that we can (to an extent) forecast the results of a future "maybe", and use that as a weight in our decision-making process.
Graham, what is the point in firing up 4 flawed arguments and wanting me to play on that basis? A quick tour of Google should show you (as if the foregoing discussions were not sufficient) that they are all flawed. Maybe your position would be stronger if you added 5 or 6? The Santa Claus argument, perhaps? The Warm Fuzzy Glow argument? It's irrelevant. This is your argument to convince you yourself that there is a god. Fine - whatever floats your boat. But they remain flawed, and as such, I do not see any need to incorporate your magic space pixie into my worldview. Yeah, there may in actual fact *be* a magic space pixie, but it's up to you to demonstrate that, not for me to prove its non-existence.
Cosmological argument? Falls on the basis of the universe not necessarily being contingent on an antecedent state (indeed, since time itself is a property of the universe, the universe does not need a "cause", but an "explanation" - and even a timeless "personal" designer needs such an explanation too - you replace one Black Box with a bigger one. Short back and sides, Mr Occam?).
Design argument? Retrospective selection. Sorry - doesn't even get off the starting blocks. If a designer spun the dials, then presumably all universes are possible; the only way it would know which ones would work would be to simulate them. In which case, we would have a multiverse anyway. Unless you can demonstrate a designer, there is no way to evidence the designer from the mere fact that we find ourselves in a universe conducive to our existence in one tiny fragment of it.
Morality argument? Morality is all horizontal. You need to demonstrate the vertical. You have not done this.
Rational argument? The converse is self-refuting, but so what if we trust our rational faculties? We can make such trust operational - indeed, we *must*, because we all know that there are multiple philosophical concepts, such as the cosmological argument, the design argument and the morality argument that contain hidden assumptions and begged questions that render them nonsensical, but this is not immediately obvious to some folks who are otherwise fairly intelligent.
I'm not being insulting - I am just pointing out that your arguments don't actually *work*. And IIRC, this has been pointed out several times before on Will's fine blog.
Cheers,
-H
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H
Oh I prefer books to Google. You'd be surprised at how much information and reasoning they can contain.
I'm not sure that your objections to the Cosmological Argument are even coherent. In any case they are formed against the Kalam Cosmological argument, which I've never advocated on this blog. Would you actually read what I've written?
As I've mentioned before Multiverses can explain absolutely anything, or attribute whatever probabilties you like on any event you like. Just postulate the number of universe you need. And Observer Selection Effects do not explain design as (a) they do not even mention a cause for the design (b) there is more design than is m=necessary for the existence of observers (c) the observers are part of the evidence requiring explanation. That is to say, in this case the act of observation depends on a great deal of order and complexity - it is party of the sample. There is nothing that requires that observation of this universe take place.
A google search would have taken you to "Firing Squads and Fine-Tuning: Sober on the Design Argument"
Jonathan Weisberg which argues the last point in detail.
Also read Atheist Elliot Sober, arguing against design arguments in a famous, well cited article("The Design Argument", Blackwell Companion to the Philosophy of Religion). He's a statistician as well as a philosopher of religion, and as I've mentioned before does work on cladistics. If he's impenetrable blame the bilogy department.
"The likelihood version of the design argument consists of two premisses - Pr(O /Chance) is very low and Pr( /Design)is higher. Here o describes some observation of the features of organisms or some feature of the entire cosmos. The first of these claims is sometimes rejected by appeal to a theory that Hume describes under the heading of the Epicurean hypothesis. This is the monkeys-and-typewriters idea that if there are a finite number of particles that have a finite number of possible states, then, if they swarm about at random, they will eventually visit all possible configurations, including configurations of great order.The shorter the time frame, the lower the probability that a given configuration will occur. This means that the estimated age of the universe may entail that it is very improbable that a given configuration will occur.
Thus, the order we see in our universe, and the delicate adaptations we observe in organisms, in fact had a high probability of eventually coming into being, according to the hypothesis of chance. Van Inwagen (1993, p. 144) gives voice to this objection and explains it by way of an analogy: Suppose you toss a coin twenty times and it lands heads every time. You should not be surprised at this outcome if you are one among millions of people who toss a fair coin twenty times. After all, with so many people tossing, it is all but inevitable that some people will get twenty heads. The outcome you obtained, therefore, was not improbable, according to the chance hypothesis. There is a fallacy in this criticism of the design argument, which Hacking (1987) calls "the inverse gambler’s fallacy." He illustrates his idea by describing a gambler who walks into a casino and immediately observes two dice being rolled that land double-6. The gambler considers whether this result favors the hypothesis that the dice had been rolled many times before the roll he just observed or the hypothesis that this was the first roll of the evening. The gambler reasons that the outcome of double-six would be more probable under the first hypothesis: Pr(double-6 on this roll / there were many rolls) >Pr(double-6 on this roll ¦ there was just one roll). In fact, the gambler’s assessment of the likelihoods is erroneous. ...the probability of double-six on this roll is the same (1/36), regardless of what may have happened in the past. What is true is that the probability that a double-six will occur at some time or other increases as the number of trials is increased: Pr(a double-6 occurs sometime ¦ there were many rolls) > Pr(a double-6 occurs sometime ¦ there was just one roll). However, the principle of total evidence says that we should assess hypotheses by considering all the evidence we have. This means that the relevant observation is that this roll landed
double-6; we should not focus on the logically weaker proposition that a double-6 occurred at some time or other. Relative to the stronger description of the observations, the hypotheses have identical likelihoods. If we apply this point to the criticism of the design argument that we are presently considering, we must conclude that the criticism is mistaken. There is a high probability (let us suppose) that a chance process will sooner or later produce order and adaptation. However, the relevant observation is not that these events occur at some time or other, but that they are true here and now – our universe is orderly and the organisms here on earth are well-adapted. These events do have very low probability, according to the chance hypothesis, and the fact that a weaker description of the observations has high probability on the chance hypothesis is not relevant.
A descriptive account of the origin of morality or the function of morality does not give morality any prescriptive force. And prescriptive force is essential to any account of morality.
Furthermore, that moral practice benefits a species or an individual is to reduce morality to pragmatics, and cannot provide me with any reason to be moral in a universe indifferent to morality. This not only removes the prescriptive force from morality, it removes any motivating force from morality.
A simple thought experiment - if in some possible world torturing babies for fun determined the survival of the race/species/individual (or whatever) would that be sufficient to make the action moral? (As Darwinian Michael Ruse has argued "Could Rape be Right on Andromeda?)
I'm assuming your google searches didn't take you as far as the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. They are quite clever at Stanford you know.
Finally reason. Since when was skepticism self-refuting? Who solved the problem of induction? As always, the philosophical world awaits with baited breath.
Why should unguided natural selection provide us with a mind that guides us to the truth and allows us to make large inferences, rather than a mind that simply equips us to survive?
And naturalistic accounts of the brain/mind often strip away the self. This makes BOTH rationality and morality problematic.
A few of the many, many problems with your position. (Well, I'm exaggerating - there are a couple more - but many, many sounds better).
(Don't feel the need to ease up on the insults - I think we know each other well enough by now not to take them seriously).
Sorry for the long post, but I'm not back till Monday, so I like to get my money's worth. Oh, and my theory about your knowledge of the arguments has been falsified - I know how much you love falsification!
Graham Veale
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there should be a close quotation mark after "These events do have very low probability, according to the chance hypothesis, and the fact that a weaker description of the observations has high probability on the chance hypothesis is not relevant"
You'll find it, oh, about a squillion lines down.
When will this blog include a preview post/edit feature. Liscence payers money at work, I ask you...
GV
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Helio
Your take on morality is curious. Basically what you are saying is that morals are constructed. They are, what was it, (I'm looking it up!) post 59, labels ascribed to certain actions. I see. It is a thing we humans do. Mmmmm. The value it has is of value to us. (emphasis yours) Ahhhhh. And post 61, morals are emergent from biology. Oh, and, interactions between biological organisms.
Helio, I know you are using a word that looks like 'morals' is spelt like 'morals' and no doubt if spoken, would sound like 'morals' but what you mean is behaviour.
What you mean is that we construct behaviours which we find acceptable and unacceptable, behaviours and codes of living which help us get along with one another or which might help some of us in not being too antisocial, but what you do not have is anything which might be termed right or wrong.
Let me know where I'm mistaken, (obviously I can't be 'wrong' in any absolute sense of the word), but only if you have something emmmmm, (you said cogent, I'll say) compelling to say!!
And while you're at it maybe you might also explain to me how my pointing out that you had just gone right on ahead and assumed yourself, undermines my theism. You assuming you isn't a problem for my world view, it's a problem for yours. But sure, given the fact that you know you exist, and I'm happy to assume you exist, it should be easy for you to provide me with evidence of your existence.
So, any time you're ready. As Frasier would say, "I'm listening."
And has Graham has said, the little bite in our correspondence with you is for entertainment purposes only. I suppose you could say that it's Ulster's way of doing encouragement! We know we can all take it!
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Hi chaps,
Yes - these aren't insults - they're just a little frisson to make the conversation more fun.
Where do I start with all that? Let's kick off with Peter - WHY do we need to attach some sort of "external objectivity" to right and wrong? PEOPLE do the deciding, in the context of their social and ethical background. Once something is done, it's done; the concepts of "right" and "wrong" are quite clearly things that humans use in their decision-making processes, to help them make *better* decisions. Their entire validity exists within the sphere of human relationships. Now, I'll grant you that we could spend all day jabbering about the philosophical principles involved, but the fact remains that ethics and morality are contained purely within the human sphere. We know which box it fits into, without (at this stage) having to figure out all the inner workings. So it is most certainly not evidence for theism, unless you're going to revert to the vacuous realm of the god of the gaps. Also, factually/logically wrong is not the same as morally wrong, but you should know that.
Graham,
While I'm glad you share my disdain for Craig's Kalamazoo formulation of the cosmological argument, are you not simply falling back on a "first cause=god" malarkey? This solves nothing, and certainly any absence of knowledge of a first cause does not equate to evidence for theism. Are we agreed? Perhaps therefore you would like to show how you get from ??first cause to !!god.
You're right that multiverses can explain anything, and unless we have some specific reason for proposing them, we're better hanging back. However, it all relates to the fundamental issue of "why is there anything at all?" The problem for theism is that that is immediately translatable to "why is there even a god at all?" It is not necessary to have a god, and given that we have a universe, and a god (presumably) is even harder to explain than a universe, this cannot be used as an argument in *favour* of a deity. Indeed, if multiverses can explain anything, in principle a space pixie can explain even *more* anythings! So it's a crap argument. You may disagree.
You say that "Observer Selection Effects do not explain design", which is begging the question. "Design" is not what we observe anyway; what we observe is that conditions are met that need to be satisfied for our own existence. This is not surprising, for obvious reasons, but does need explaining. Gods don't do that, for the simple reason that IF you take that argument, a god capable of such design must itself be "designed". Attempts to excuse gods from this problem (like Craig's efforts) are pure sophistry.
I think you perhaps misunderstand Sober's argument (I hope so, anyway). For one thing, "delicate adaptations of organisms" are predicted effects of evolution, NOT design. Natural selection is highly NON-random. So as long as we have a universe where life can evolve, we have no need to pile this stuff on "design", much less invoke a "designer" (that's just a fallacy).
I think the point Sober is making is that there are bad arguments against the design argument; that is undeniably true. But the design argument is itself flawed.
But there is another more telling problem - our universe is spectacularly *more* over-specified than would be necessary to host life. In principle, any Turing-complete "universe" should be up to the job. So why do we HAVE fine-structure constants, gravitation, speed-of-light, etc etc - sure, they help out a lot in *this* universe, but (like in biology) any half-sensible designer would KISS, instead of adding more complications that would (should) actually make the "fine tuning" a heck of a lot more complicated.
So, yeah, there's serious complexity, but the "design" principally appears to be in order to cope with the complexities of that complexity! The design argument has a major problem here; it strongly suggests that there is something else going on entirely.
A descriptive account of the origin of morality or the function of morality does not give morality any prescriptive force. And prescriptive force is essential to any account of morality.
Indeed - that's why morality is irrelevant outwith the context of a community of beings wot do it. My point entirely. It's nothing to do with "benefiting the species" - it is what the species finds it can cope with.
A simple thought experiment - if in some possible world torturing babies for fun determined the survival of the race/species/individual (or whatever) would that be sufficient to make the action moral?
The action does not have the attribute "moral" or "immoral" - we apply that label. That's the whole point. On this planet, we eat rabbits. Sharks eat us. The whole point of ascribing the labels to actions is to enable us to make (or influence) human decisions. Like I mentioned to Peter, it's all confined within the human box; gods don't help, nor do the philosophical quandaries induced by it justify chickening out by invoking the pixie.
Why should unguided natural selection provide us with a mind that guides us to the truth and allows us to make large inferences, rather than a mind that simply equips us to survive?
Actually, I think you'll find that our mind alone does NOT guide us anywhere near the truth, which was why we invented science. Where's the problem here?
(Don't feel the need to ease up on the insults - I think we know each other well enough by now not to take them seriously).
Like I said, they're not insults - they're all in fun. Ye big jammy jessie, ye!
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"Jammie Jessy!?" And what part of 'The Wee Country' do you come from Helio? Sounds remarkably close to my neck of the woods. "Jammy Jessie!" I could spend the whole of the rest of the post just repeating it! I haven't heard the like of it in years, "Jammy Jessie!", "Jammy Jessie!", "Jammy Jessie!"
I could add "Cat melodian", "Ye big Girl ye!", "Boyz a dear" and "Wind your neck in!", it’s all so very 'Mid-Ulster' isn't it.
But I could be wrong, hopefully not morally wrong. But sure even if I was I could just relabel my mistake.
Seems I was right (factually) about your take on morality, it's not really morality, just labeling behaviour, or what the species can cope with.
You seem to want all the benefits of morals, that it assists with human relationships, that 'right' and 'wrong' help with our decision making process and so on but you have still failed to grasp that what you are arguing for, under the cosy little idea of consensus, is in fact, the rule of the strong, and that's if we're lucky, cos the strong might actually be benevolent. You also can't just go ignoring the question which relates to why human beings demonstrate morality at all. All you seem to be able to say is that 'we do'. Big deal, within your world view I can do pretty much what I decide to do, which is fine if it doesn't affect you but it's a problem if it does. Helio with your take on the subject, nothing is ever 'wrong', indeed nothing is ever 'right', and I don't really think you really live like that.
You ask why we need to attach "external objectivity" by which you mean the kind we leap into when we *believe* (you always emphasis the word!) in a sky pixie. Well, apart from the above, which is a pretty basic comment, the *belief* that we need no reference point for morality is something you can't 'prove'. Why don't you examine that *belief*? And don't give me all this 'I don't have to disprove anything' malarky, your world view is your belief. Prove it, you want proof for everything else. I might as well ask WHY do we need to bother about good (is there a good?) human relations at all, or making them better? Anyway what's better mean in this context?
The direct link to the topic of this thread is that a lot of people say that are walking away from an overt Christian 'authority' while failing to realise that they are only replacing it with some other 'authority', another set of beliefs, which they don't take any time to establish.
There's a bundle of stuff we could say about this and the implications of it, but at the moment you are just saying 'just is', or 'just because' and that may be OK until someone hits us a 'dig in the face' and then we go getting all outraged about what's right and what's fair and what's not.
Trouble is if morality is just what we do then nobody has an answer, it's all just made up. If you are going to offer a credible argument against the Christian idea that all morality is defined by God (the external reality with describable characteristics) then you are going to have to do it against the backdrop of a clear understanding of the limits of your own world view. Helio, there are lots of things you *believe*, you just don't say so.
The weirdest thing of all is that you are sooooo convinced, almost evangelically so, of the facts of science, and I have no gripe with you there, but the very science which gives you confidence in one area of life (and which you desperately seem to need) stands in stark contrast to the most incredible uncertainty you have to have in the realm of human interactions, human identity, human being and right and wrong. And we haven't even discussed why you trust yourself to do it (anything) right, beyond saying "it works." Your view of morals is all the post-modern narrative stuff you say you dislike.
And I'm still waiting for that evidence you have of your own existence, and I've been waiting along time; is it that you don't have any yet and need to run a few more tests, or is it just that that you know you can't actually 'prove' the person behind the pseudonym. But you're real Helio, aren't you?
As for god of the gaps. Vacuous indeed. Knowing stuff does not do away with God, why would it?
Ye big balloon ye. My wife thinks galloot is a better word.
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It appears Helio, rational mini-Por, and, at least in part, JohnW are in broad general agreement as to what science/reason says about life and living. So far so good...
We will almost certainly all agree on such statements as:
the earth orbits the sun;
even, maybe, we will mostly agree on:
we can give operational acceptance as truth to a statement or theory which has been subject to rigorous empirical verification;
what about:
what we call love is a functional distortion of baseline brain chemistry designed to enhance the chance of success of genetic off-spring through the advantages conferred by the pair-bonding of parents
or:
the only real reason (other than the obvious self-interest of staying within the law) that we do not seek to kill our parents when they are no longer required as free babysitters and have begun to reduce rather than augment their heritable estate is fear of the example we thereby set our own children?
Is there still agreement?
Rational mini-Por does actually believe that all of the above could be seen as reasonable statements. Extended-Por, however, feels that they progressively illustrate the limitations of reason based on scientific investigation and its dis-functionality when regarded as sole repository of truth about life, the universe and everything.
Helio rightly points out that there is surplus complexity in the universe. I believe there is a very high degree of apparently surplus complexity in human consciousness and that surplus complexity may account for the deep dissatisfaction we almost all of us feel when our emotions, relationships, motivations and, yes, beliefs are reduced to elements in a single determinant factor: the pursuit of genetic advantage.
Science can account for love but it does not account for how we feel about love; it fails to explain the totality of what filial affection means to a child, of whatever age. Our brains are sufficiently complex to permit and sustain apparently inefficient or otiose drivers and the, undesigned, processes occasioning volition and action are insufficiently precise to exclude those drivers from influence.
Rational mini-Por thinks this and extended-Por knows that I am right.
So, can we gain insights into what Helio in one of his Francophil moments might call 'la condition humaine'? If science fails us are there other sources of knowledge for what it means to be human? I would argue that there are and it is at this moment I say to rational mini-me, Bye-bye, baby, bye-bye...
I have said in a previous post that rationality is fostered by certain variations in the composition of brain chemistry. The diet of modern western civilisation unnaturally sustains a suitable mix in the brains of most of the population for most of the time.
Many tribal societies in the past and even yet (where contact with civilisation has been limited) would find the experience, not just of reason but of the state of brain chemistry which fosters it, as foreign to them as an acid trip would be to the average Presbyterian minister. The life of people in these societies, in what I would argue is the natural state for humans, is the antithesis of that which most of us know. I would not for a moment suggest we return to the jungle (Corton is preferable to coca) but we need to rediscover the sense of connection to be found there and the ability they possess to tune in, not just to that part of the spectrum of reality we call rational, but to the infra-rational and the ultra-rational as well.
(I would really commend Ben Okri's 'The Famished Road' for an outstandingly lyrical account of life lived in the daily presence of spirits in modern Nigeria).
The religious experience is central to extending our reality receptors. Most great religious teachers have practised alteration of brain chemistry to gain insight into life and to experience the divine: the synoptic gospels all record Jesus as practising subtractive adjustment by prolonged fasting. We are not told the mechanism but St Paul 'glories' in knowing a man who had had out of body experiences and himself suffered psychosomatic aphonia after a traumatic visionary encounter with the risen Christ so real was the experience.
I would argue that it is in this realm of ultra-reason we can encounter God and that experience will have a profound effect on our being, our volition and our actions.
Back in post #43 Peter seemed to suggest to me that experience needed to be guided by "historical authority" - but I can't agree. I would only need authority to validate my experience or to guide my actions if, at the back of my mind, there were some small niggling doubt that maybe the God I know is not actually real. I have no (NO) such doubt. When you know the living God what other authority or validation do you need. (Abraham had no Bible).
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Sorry - I think I conflated Paul and Zacharias there!!
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Portwyne.
em? long pause...
I think that's all I want to say at the moment!
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Portwyne- I think the feelings you describe as infra- and ultra-rational can still be explained in purely physical / empirical terms, whether or not we understand them fully. In other words, rationality hasn't really failed us as you suggest. I'd argue that it's our knowledge that limits us most in this regard: we don't know there's a God for sure, we don't know there's not a multiverse, we don't know whether our quantum theories are true or not, we don't even know that Bostrom's simulation theory isn't true!! (and I interviewed Bostrom - he thinks there's a fairly good chance of it being true statistically!....)
So, anyway: what do you make of my assertion that it's our knowledge, not our reason, that most limits our realisation?
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Right chaps - that's a lot to deal with, and Graham will probably not want to read all of it. Peter - let me just say for the record that I like you and Graham a lot, and my "insults" are actually terms of endearment. I'm also pleased that you chaps are up for the argument, even though a/ you're totally wrong and b/ I don't have as much time to devote to a thorough demolition of your arguments as you probably deserve, ye great clart!
I suppose if I were to distil my position, it remains that morality is something purely done by humans (to other humans, mainly). The "rightness" or "wrongness" of an action is something that WE assess, and we take all sorts of things into account in that assessment. I have to say, I really do not understand how you think this very interesting aspect of human behaviour/psychology is assisted by proposing that the rules are somehow beamed down from the mothership. I mean, how does that work?
One aspect that I *think* we are agreed on is that a/ making moral judgements is a thing humans do, and b/ the parameters of "morality" vary from place to place, time to time, sub-group to sub-group. So, for example, some hardline nutters think it is immoral to play football on a Sunday. Most people think it is immoral for some numpties to *prevent* people doing whatever the heck they want on a Sunday.
So we need to separate out the fact that we all have a "moralometer" (for want of a better word) from the precise programming of said moralometer. I would suggest that the explanation of the fact of the moralometer is entirely reasonably contained within evolutionary biology, and the programming is determined by both genetics and society.
I simply do not understand how you get from that to proposing the download from the mothership. In case you think I'm avoiding the question of whether or not I exist, I might just point out that I really don't care about that, and if you're simply wanting to distract the argument, then I think you're being a gulpin. You'll recall that Graham suggested that the morality argument was one of the reasons he accepts theism. I would like (genuinely) to understand why he thinks that, because as I have suggested, I think the argument is fatally flawed (as are the others he mentions).
I do think I need to re-emphasise this point. I used to be an evangelical Christian. I left that behind, not because I wanted to get jiggy with some unclean lassie, or because I couldn't cope with this that or the other. I left because I had heard all these arguments for the existence of god, and I realised that they are all FLAWED. Now, it may just be me, but the question of whether or not there is a god is a rather important one, and it's even more important if he's going to chuck me into a big pit of bubbling sulphur when he does that second coming malarkey. That used to scare the bejaysus out of me when I was a kid (and I agree with Dawkins - that sort of nonsense from some "Christians" is tantamount to child abuse, and should be punishable with a Doctor Marten in the gonads). So if there is a god, I am perfectly happy to believe in it and give it whatever homage it feels it would like me to render, BUT (and this is a big but) I WILL NOT believe in a god or whatever on the basis of a duff argument. If there is a god, but my reason for believing in it is unsound, then I am your proverbial clashing cymbal. I might as well believe in Allah or Zeus or the FSM - they're all in the one pot.
And, frankly, I value truth and honesty much more highly than anything else. If something is false, I actually *cannot* believe it. I *cannot* believe in the resurrection (for reasons I have outlined), and this has nothing to do with some metaphysical presupposition that there is no god. I start from here, and work outwards. I feel no need to find a "foundation" for my thinking before I can even get started. People used to think that the Earth was the centre of the universe; that everything else revolved around it. That is long gone, and we know that we don't even *need* a zero point in space to do our science. I maintain we don't need any zero point in our philosophy at all. To work out relations between ourselves, we *could* start by working out our relations with a fixed point, and taking it from there. I see no need to do that (nor any evidence of such a fixed point anyway). If I'm stuck on a desert island with you guys, then my negotiations and efforts will be with you guys. Don't worry - I'll not eat you!
-H
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JW - I shall attempt a proper answer to your post with its very pertinent point about knowledge and reason when I am in a fit frame of mind to do so (probably this evening) but at the moment I want to give way to a rant!
Scientists, RE teachers and broadcasters have no idea just what hard work post-modernism is - I spent all day yesterday (noon to midnight) thinking about how to hide Red Riding Hood - now I need to explode.
So, preparatory to tonight's answer, here's a general thought on rationality.
I am severely limited in my attempt to convey the totality of what I might want to say by the moderation of this blog. Experience tells me that, when a couple of lines of elementary French cause a post to be pulled, several pages of ecstatic utterance are unlikely scrape by unnoticed - although, if I were to dignify the gibberish with the terms metaphysics, ontology, possibly cosmology, experience also tells me it would pass with flying colours.
While I am on the subject, the biggest piece of sh1*e in the entire mental dung heap is Occam's so-called Razor - did anything ever so fly in the face of knowledge or experience and people accord it superstitious reverence. If anyone uses it with me I shall immediately suspect severe deficiencies in their potty-training - but don't worry, I will blame the parents.
Anyway - here's hoping work will calm me down...
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H
Thankyou for persisting with a long ponderous post.
As you pointed out, at several stages I needed to change the wording - to say OSE's don't explain design is question-begging. I think the Kalam argument is fine, and easier to grasp than Thomistic or Leibnizian arguments, but I'm a little uncomfortable when too much is built on fairly esoteric scientific models.
I'll try to respond to your post as best I can. Be careful where you are waving Occam's razor though. We should not multiply entities beyond necessity. But we shouldn't be afraid to posit an unobservable entity, or a metaphysical theory, if we find it necessary to explain our experiences or the evidence.
If we take Occam's razor as a directive to eliminate entities whenever we logically can, you'll end up with God, you, and a world of images projected by God into your mind. You don't even need God - a dumb powerful Demon will do. Solipsists believe in a simpler universe still. But simplicity is not the only virtue we need in our theories. Explanatory scope and power come into the picture as well.
On the subject of evidence or proof, I would like to know what standard I have to meet. God wouldn't be like an electron or Nessie. We're not (merely) talking about the existence of one more entity in the universe, but rather the nature of the universe itself. Justifying belief in God is rather like justifying belief in Science, or Morality. (That is that moral judgments refer to real sates of affairs, and that science tells the truth about real entities at least some of the time.) Simple proofs are not available for such beliefs.
On the nature of God, God would be maximally perfect. This means that he would have all the properties that make one great. One such property would be "necessary existence" (not existence, which may not be a property). Necessary existence means that the entity depends on nothing else for it's existence. The concept of a Theistic God also includes the properties of unlimited power, and of having a mind.
Mind should not be construed as a collection of ideas. Minds have ideas, minds generate complex ideas, but minds are not themselves complex, but rather the substance that (among other things) produces thought. At least this is the only conception of mind that would fit God, and I don't know of anyone that has shown it to be incoherent.
Parodies of a Maximally Great Person (Maximally Great Islands and Chickens are generally taken to be incoherent, given their physical limitations) but a maximally great person, existing outside space and time does seem to be coherent.
Does a Maximally great person exist? I don't think we can define such a being into existence, via the Ontological Argument. But the Cosmological Argument does provide reason for believing in a Necessary Being. The Principle of Sufficient Reason can be defined as - every fact has an explanation. That seems to be verified by experience, to be self-evident, a presupposition of rational enquiry, and absurdities result if we deny it (for we are conceding anything could happen without reason).
Now it seems unlikely that a physical fact could be necessary - or difficult to explain why it is necessary. So postulating a brute physical fact to explain the universe doesn't help. Whereas the explanation for God is that part of what it means to be a maximally perfect being is to be necessarily existent. If PSR is true, we are led to a Necessary being.
Why God? Why not some other Necessary transcendent fact that isn't a person. I think defenders of the Cosmological argument can offer reasons, and if you like I can go into that. However, let's take the teleological argument. For if it is sound, and you want to go swishing Occam's razor, then a personal God seems plausible.
You have two objections. The first, to say that the designer would need explanation, has been dealt with. A mind is not the same entity as it's thoughts.
The secondobjection, that the abundance of order in the universe counts against design seems immediately dubious. And I think the flaw lies in the fact that we do not need access to a designers goals to detect that an object or event has been designed. The design advocate need not assume that God is more like an engineer than an artist, nor need the design advocate assume that the universe was designed ONLY to sustain human life. (For example, we would not apply KISS to "A View of Delft", or assume that it was only painted for others to view).
It is worth noting that Theism is not compatible with any state of affairs (and in fact you have conceded this by trying to show that our universe doesn't fit the best examples of design). The Problem of Evil is an attempt to show that Theism not only can be, but has been, falsified. I don't think evil does falsify theism, but it does count as evidence against. However I'm not sure what could count against multiple universes.
I think you understood Sober perfectly. I was just using his argument against the Many Universe response to universal order and complexity.
I'll need to come back to morality and reason. However it does sound to me as if you explain morality away, rather tan explain it.
Sorry for the length of the post, and the lack of insults.
Graham Veale
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Helio
What was that about a 'zero point'. Stupid site won't take my posts, might get back later.
All type, zero post!
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JW - you will be relieved, indifferent, or disappointed (depending on your level of empathic response) to learn that I am much calmer now! Nonetheless, let me start by saying that when it comes to human reason the one cosmological concept I have no difficulty taking on-board is that of infinite density.
However; science once followed a path of: observation, the formulation of a testable explanation, experimentation, and consequent falsification or operational acceptance. This model suggests that human knowledge is limited by what a human can observe allowing of-course for the employment of artificial assistance where available. I have no difficulty accepting the formulation: we can speak rationally and knowledgeably about matters that are capable of observation. To that extent rationality and knowledge are in fact inextricably linked: the scope is reason is what is empirically knowable. Some things are not empirically knowable by humans in their current evolutionary state - 'everything that is', God, a singularity...
Modern theoretical physics is neither scientific nor, strictly speaking, rational - people with a scientific background and training do not observe and experiment they use their informed imaginations to speculate and anticipate. Sometimes they get it right, sometimes they get it wrong, often they revise or retract. There is probably a Ph D for somebody in comparing their success rate with that of a range of socially aware and informed seers in antiquity.
Philosophy too is simply meaningless drivel when it attempts to apply reason to the unknowable. The tedium one would be spared if only people took Wittgenstein's maxim to heart "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent" - except, of-course, he was wrong! What he should have said was Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must sing!
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Graham, impressive wordplay, but full of sound and fury (would have been better with insults). I would suggest that unless you have some sort of notion as to what a "mind" or "intelligence" actually involved, going around divorcing it from its own thoughts, or shoving one in as a "necessarily existent" explanation is firstly completely unjustified, and secondly begging the question in a rather blatant fashion.
For example, suppose I was to suggest that the necessary explanation for the universe was nothing other than mathematics, pure and simple. Where would you go from there? In other words, how do you arrive at a "mind"? (Keep it simple - I'm stupid).
As far as morality is concerned, I'm not entirely sure that I *have* either explained it, or explained it away. I have merely explained the scope of the problem - it is purely human.
And as for design, evolution shows loud and clear that apparent design does NOT necessarily imply teleology; you need more evidence to adduce that.
What I would like to know is why you feel that you NEED to believe in a god, rather than keeping an open mind like I do (although I attach a very low probability to the existence of any gods)?
Sorry that wasn't as ponderous as last time, but I think you're starting to follow me down a road that I'm not sure we want to be on...
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OK take 2, no, no, no, take 3!!
Helio
Well, you were right about one thing, post 78 certainly wasn't a thorough demolition of our arguments, in fact it wasn't even a dent. Indeed it strikes me that no matter how much you huff and puff you're still not going to be able to knock it down, cos the house is made of bricks, or, if you prefer, built on a rock, as someone once said.
And if you were right about that then it seems I was definitely right about your view of morality, that it sort of isn't a view on morality at all, just some kind of sophisticated swing-ometer.
I suppose we are agreed on the fact that moral judgments are a thing humans make, and that these are variable from place to place, but if you'll pardon the pun this doesn't mean doing morality this way makes it the 'right' way. You've failed, you see, to establish any reason for doing it this way, opting instead to repeat your mantra, "we just do."
And come on, the Sunday football illustration was a bit limited; there's a perfectly good biblical argument for treating Sunday differently to the old Sabbath idea - read Paul.
I was sort of thinking of more important things like murder and robbery. What makes those things 'wrong', have you any 'authority' or even guidance, for making these decisions?
You say our moralometer is contained within evolutionary biology and genetics and society. Why?... In fact why? why? why? why? why? why? why? or Why?
So murderers aren't guilty, just genetically distorted?
I put it to you Helio that if we are just atoms, well arranged atoms perhaps, but atoms none the less, then there is no reason why we should be 'moral' at all. You say you can't see how morality might suggest theism (which means you haven't read the arguments, and as most churches don't tell us what they are because most churches seem to think that that's being 'intellectual' or something I can sort of understand why your christianity didn't inform you of this but this doesn't mean there isn't, at least, a perfectly logical reason to consider theism)
But it's the same as your take on you existence, you just can't go round saying it doesn't matter, it, DOES matter, it matters very much. If you don't care whether or not you exist, why should you care about knowledge or morality at all? So much for scientific facts, what do they matter if you are going to ignore the basic fact of your existence?
As I said before, it is ironic in the extreme that you are so concerned with proof and the validity of evidence yet are so dismissive when it comes to the reality of yourself and the 'rightness' of morality. Frankly it's a contradiction, yet within a purely material view of the world you actually have no option.
I suggest you know you can't prove your being, your feelings, your sense of morality and so on, yet you know they are real and therefore have no option but to live with a pragmatic yet unsubstantiated view of these things.
Why are arguments from being, morality and knowledge some of the reasons we might accept theism? Well the answer to that begins with the fact that you have no answers to these things!!!
And it continues with the fact that your views on morality and being haven't been tested, that they are 'belief systems' and you have to take them on faith, which is the very thing you criticise Christians for doing. (although I'm not doing the faith/evidence conversation again) And don't give me all that I don't need foundations stuff, that is a foundation, establish it.
So in view of all this, would you reconsider the importance of your own existence, and think about enlightening me on the duff arguments you heard for God, because if they are the ones I heard, then I'll probably agree with you! ;-)
Sorry of the long post. It seems that Graham and I have given up insults in favour of boring you to tears!!
Oh, and that fact that the post failed 3 times means I can comment on this.
You say, "For example, suppose I was to suggest that the necessary explanation for the universe was nothing other than mathematics, pure and simple. Where would you go from there?"
I see, the MUH again. Well here's were I'd go:
How did you get there? Sounds suspiciously like another belief!!
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Portwyne
response one follows the colon:
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Portwyne
Response 2:
And what will one sing?
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Portwyne
Response 3
Yes, I see, it's not so much what will one sing, it's just sing.
Or possibly it is that one must listen to the singing?
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Portwyne
response 4
Could it be that someone else, he that is thoroughly 'other', has spoken, and indeed, has sung?
(I hope I haven't put you in a bad mood again!)
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Far from it!
"And he hath put a new song in my mouth..."
Btw, this is just a sort of mischievous thought but I wonder... What do the practising Christians think Helio would make of the thought: "You can take Christ out of the Christian but you can't take the Christian out of Christ"? Three possibilities are milling around in my mind...
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Peter,
You really should look up some of the literature on the evolution of altruism, because altrusitic behaviour is an expected result of certain types of organism - the "genes" that favour altruism result in an evolutionarily stable state (ESS).
Morality (it could be argued) is part of that adaptation, to enhance altruism. Murder and robbery are things that organisms (if they are at risk of being the victim) will evolve defences against. Morality is very arguably such a defence.
You ask about what is "right" and "wrong", and then you talk about murderers. Well, from the point of view of a rock, it matters not one whit what is "right" and "wrong", but it matters a heck of a lot for society, because societies (collectives of individuals) will react to events like murders, and even for a society to survive, those responses (we're in meme land now) need to try to minimise the number of murders. So we punish murderers, and "rightly" so.
I actually do care that I exist, but my point is that I don't need to base that on the existence of something else. It is not turtles all the way down.
-H
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Presumably you're the turtle at the bottom, is that right?
you say you don't need to base it on the existence of something else, even though every single thing about you and your mind is contingent.
Perhaps "turtles" covers it does it?
I reckon that even were there an infinity of turtles all the way down, they'd still have to have an inner foundation, like a supporting rod keeping them all on top of each other, if I can stretch that analogy beyond breaking point.
:)
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H
I'm pretty sure you can't keep shouting "word-play" evert time you encounter a technical argument. You certainly advanced technical arguments in post 68. So much so that I bluffed, and queried their coherence.
Let's keep the arguments separate. (1) aims at precision more than simplicity, but I'm not bright enough to explain this in down to earth terms. (I need to give that some thought, so thanks for pointing it out).
1) Is the concept of God meaningless word play? I don't think so. It is a coherent concept with explanatory power. God is defined as a maximally great being (MGB)- no greater being can be conceived than a MGB. This definition follows from many statements in the Bible. Now physical beings have limitations by nature, so the concept of a MGB involves transcendence. Moral excellence is a "great-making" property, as is knowledge. So, plausibly, a MGB is something like a person. Also the MGB would be necessarily existent - dependent on nothing else for it's existence. Why? This is due to the lack of limitations on a MGB.
Now on it's own this proves nothing. But a MGB is a rather different concept than, say, a necessarily existent singularity - for nothing in the concept of a singularity contains the idea that it should be necessary. The necessity is merely stipulated.
2) Now we need evidence for a MGB - merely being able to imagine one does not make it real (or even possible).
What is a mind? I don't need a full definition - after all, we don't have one for energy or physicality. I just need to show that a mind is not identical to it's thoughts.
3) Abstract objects like numbers can't cause anything - never mind physical events. Yet minds interact with the physical world all the time - (you may doubt this. Yet unless you want to identify mind with the brain (just a tad implausible), then you believe that the physical world impacts on the mental continually. I can't see any reason why causation must be one-way).
4) There are good reasons for saying that a mind is causally prior to it's thoughts - other than the fact that this is what we directly experience. If the mind is simply a collection of thoughts, then personal identity flies out the window. What gives a unity to all those thoughts?What makes them into a person? How does choice, rationality, and personal identity enter the picture?
We have direct experience of causing thoughts, making choices etc. It seems absurd to take selves as useful fictions. If you don't exist, who am I arguing with?
What you need is an argument that an unembodied mind is impossible. But that is not what Dawkins' advances as his final proof of atheism. And when Hume first advanced the same argument he never made such an audacious claim. I seriously doubt that Dawkins has seen something that Hume missed.
5) Of course the temptation is to argue that Dawkins has Natural Selection. But that does not even answer Paley's Watchmaker argument. Paley actually spends some time considering the implications for finding a naturalistic account for the arrangement of the parts of the watch. In Paley's view you either have an infinite regress of ordered processes, or you eventually arrive at a designer. Given that the infinite regress does not explain how order entered the series of events at all, we need to infer to a designer.
Or to put that another way, Natural Selection doesn't rule out a designer working through natural processes. And many Christians (incorrectly) believed that Paley's design argument implied a very static universe. And they believed this before Darwin arrived on the scene.
It is worth noting that the problem of evil was the critical issue for Darwin - not the lack of a teleological argument. Or so I'm led to believe.
6) Morality - I'll leave that side of the debate to Peter. Which is a shame because it seems more fun.
7) Why do I need to believe in God? That question has been making my head spin since lunch-time. (I typed the rest of this at lunch and break - that's how keen I am to forget I'm a teacher.)
You are right - I need to believe in Him. And the thought of him not existing is absolutely horrific. That's not the only reason I believe in God - I think Theism is a pretty good philosophical theory. And I've had religious experiences that I've no reason to doubt (to be clearer, my moral experience leads me to believe in objective morality - so my religious experiences lead me to believe in God. But both sets of experiences imply that I'm experiencing an objective morality that my beliefs could be judged against. So many of my moral/religious beliefs could be wrong. It would be nice to be infallible.)
I'm also fairly impressed by Pascal's wager, and William James' arguments in "The Will to Believe". So I have pragmatic reasons for believing in God.
Now there are plenty of people who are theists for some or all of the reasons I outlined above. And there are other reasons. So I don't think that what I'll say about my need to believe explains my Theism. I'd probably be a Theist anyway. But that doesn't get to the issue of my need, does it?
I love God, and I love his Son. How can you imagine that someone you love doesn't exist? I love Him because I believe He gave his Son for me.
I need him because there is a gap between what I should be and what I ought to be. And I seem to be at fault for a lot of that gap. So I need pardoned, and I need help with my limitations.
I need to believe that evil and chaos haven't the last laugh - so I need to believe in hope.
I need to believe that morality makes sense in an unrighteous world. I need to believe that righteousness isn't a game that humans play to pass the time before the stars die.
Goodness and righteousness are personal qualities not impersonal forces. So I need God.
I need to express my gratitude to someone, and I need to be accountable.
There are two passages that are important to me. One is
John 6 v
The other is the fisherman's prayer. "Lord your sea is so great and my ship is so small."
I think those reasons sum up my need. Roughly. Sorry to go on, but you did ask.
Graham Veale
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Peter, I liked your response, if I were a preacher man I would say there was a sermon there.
We can encounter God in stillness and silence, in the emptying of the mind from the noise of life.
We can encounter God in the quandaries and dilemmas of life, in our choices and decisions, in the identification of what will be the theme of our brief existence.
We can encounter God in the undifferentiated response of surrender of the totality of our being to him - and, in that harmony, singing and listening will be no different.
We can certainly encounter God in the greatest song ever sung - indeed I can think of no truer tuning fork by which to set the ultimate good vibration for our lives.
I hesitated, but only momentarily, before deciding to add the following aside about morality: sometimes a person can be just too stereotypical.
Howard Marks (makes a change from all those dreary Germans and the like), writing about the Kalasha people of Pakistan, (let's assume he wasn't dreaming about them) notes that they have a very stable form of society but that their lives are governed by ritual concepts of observing difference rather than morality as we would know it.
Helio says societies react to events like murder and punish them - not so with the Kalasha where the Shaman's instructions in response to such infrequent occurrences as a murder or the theft of goats would be, and I quote, "To sacrifice an animal, so the village eats well, and we can all get drunk". Interesting??
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Guys, although I don't have much time to participate in it, I'm enjoying reading this discussion, and honestly I think there are two outcomes of this point about morality.
1) Saying murder is wrong is a substantially different thing than saying that it is going against the evolutionary grain (or some such thing). All the best science in the world will not come up with a reason that some action should be regarded as morally 'wrong', it can only suggest that it's not prudent for the species. And, that this problem exists for the extreme cases like murder only scratches the surface of the extent to which it exists for 'lower' moral issues like theft and abortion and euthanasia or even poverty and equity: none of these are called 'WRONG' by science, they're merely called 'ill-judged' at best, or there's no response at all.
2) On the other hand, Peter, I'm not sure that it's up to someone who asserts "There is no god" to fix the problems caused by society's realisation that that is the case (ie. lack of a moral compass in God's absence). In other words, it doesn't follow that Helio, because he says he's an atheist, should have to replace human morality with something that looks similar but rests on a premise other than a deity, in order to do so. He can simply say, "Hey, there's no god, I don't think there's such a thing as morality per se, and whaddarya gonna do about it?"
That's a perfectly acceptable answer for Helio to give.... unless, of course, he wants to assert that there IS such a thing as 'right' and 'wrong'..... in which case he needs to provide the premise for that assertion.
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Graham
I know not aimed at me but the last part of your post #92, once you get past Pascal's wager, was seriously impressive. Passion and conviction are the stuff of faith as well as of life. More of the same please...
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Hi John
Useful and interesting post. I think it pretty much sums up the differences in Helio's position and mine. A couple of comments. It may well be unreasonable to expect Helio to fix the problem, but it might be important to recognise that the position he proposes raises a problem which it cannot really answer. It seems to me that within this worldview, that not only are moral decisions something of a problem, but that the reasons lying behind the making of one decision over another are, in the end, another a form of *belief*.
I think I would also say that we need to assert that there IS such a thing as 'right' and 'wrong'.
Hi Helio
What do you think of John's comments? (here's another insult - ya glipe ya - but I warn you I'm running out of colloquial terms of endearment)
And so to your response. Post 90. I shall look up some literature on the evolution of altruism - thank you for the reference. However I'm immediately wondering if that means the evolution of altruism, or that altruism is necessary for evolution?
Anyway, I liked the leap to, "Morality (it could be argued)" and "morality is very arguably such a defence".
From the point of view of a rock, you are correct, I doubt very much that anyone is going to be charged with first degree against a rock. You are correct too that it matters for society and that society will react to murder and so on, but again yours, surely, must remain a pragmatic view. Surely too, you have to be equally open to the possibility that some day murder might be 'right'. Yes? No?
As for 'meme land' - meme, schmeme, like Thomas of old, when I see the blighters bleed I'll believe it.
BTW What do you base your existence on? and I'm glad you exist too.
Maybe I should also add, by way of linking this to John's comments, that you asked why issues like morality might cause us to think of 'God'. I have already suggested two, another might be that (to use your words) human beings *are* moral creatures and these moral behaviours simply cannot be explained in terms of 'material' existence alone, indeed if we limit humanity to the 'material', to the impersonal, we don't really have anything to say about morality. Hence, I suppose, memes.
However if you are going to say memes, I'm going to say Messiah!
All we have to do now is argue over the evidence!! Personally I think there's more for a Messiah.
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Sorry, just another tiny rant, though after a good night's work I'm actually in a like totally grounded frame of mind at the moment...
Pascal's Wager!!!
Even writing the words I can feel the blood pressure rising. The author of that sordid and poisonous little formulation deserves to be in a Bosch - take your pick of painting or appliance but I think a microwave is far too good for him.
There have few thoughts so demeaning to both man and God ever set down on paper.
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Portwyne
The Wager gets a hard time - but keep a few things in mind.
1) It assumes that humans cannot be moved to belief by theoretical considerations.
"God is, or He is not.But to which side shall we incline? Reason can decide nothing here. There is an infinite chaos which separated us."
2) It assumes that the eternal fate of an individual human is of some significance - and better yet, it forces humans to take death seriously.
"If you gain, you gain all; if you lose, you lose nothing. Wager, then, without hesitation that He is."
3) It makes an appeal to human nature, and takes human desires and needs seriously - that is to say, it takes humanity seriously. To some extent, our nature and circumstances force us to choose. (And human choice is also taken seriously).
"You have two things to lose: the true and the good; and two things to stake: your reason and your will, your knowledge and your happiness: and your nature has two things to avoid: error and wretchedness."
4) It makes agnosticism impossible - Faith is more than a theoretical commitment
"The right thing is not to wager at all. But you must wager. There is no choice. You are already embarked".
5) The argument is aimed at the person who will not open themselves to Christian experience until they are given rational argument.
6) The proper response to the wager is not assent to Orthodox beliefs and traditions, but worship, prayer and taking the sacraments.
The wager does not treat humans as calculating machines (though it does not neglect the rational aspect of our nature). The wager aims to move a skeptic from from self-interest, to the pursuit of the true and the good, and then to giving their whole self over to God.
Graham
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Graham
Can't agree with pretty much any of it!
First it assumes God is very much the standard Christian version of deity and that he is going to punish sin. If I am right and God is unaware of sin far less excited by it then there is nothing to win in terms of escape from hell fire in exchange for a life of meaningless, passionless pietistic religious observance.
Even if we were to assume a God given to reward and punishment what certainty is there that he would be anything other than seriously annoyed and thinking in terms of brimstone for a person who thought the best he had to offer him was mere acceptance of the divine existence based on a calculation of probabilities succeeded by a life of pietistic observation made comfortable by habit.
A meaningful encounter with God will make us feel that our lives, our souls our alls are inadequate responses to the suffering of the world - one turns to God, not out of self-interest, but because there is no where else to get the strength and sustenance to live the life of Christ in the face of the overwhelming human need which is all around us if we but open our eyes to see it.
I personally find the metaphor of a wager offensive; we do not place a bet on God, we join in the sacrifice of Christ by continuing at once to challenge the world and simultaneously to minister to its unknown needs. The call to the Christian, often unheard, is not for denial but for sacrifice and the two things are very, very different.
I often wonder, and I ask this seriously, how does someone with a high view of scriptural authority argue for intellectual persuasion towards belief - aside from the passage in 1 Corinthians of which I am very fond, the chapter (John 6) from which your own important passage comes contains no less than two assertions that no one can come to Jesus unless prompted by God (v. 44 and v. 65). I might be able to dismiss these easily but I would be genuinely interested in your take.
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Hi chaps,
Sorry for lacks of response - v busy lately. I have however read them, and have a couple of comments.
PM: might murder one day be "right"? Well, yes - sometimes we call it "war". Once again, it is all in the realm of us struggling humans. That is the seat of morality; "rightness" or "wrongness" are not attributes possessed by actions/objects/etc - they are labels applied to them by humans. I think a lot of philosophers get their pants in a knot over this (he says from very recent experience of such).
GV: Pascal's wanger: which god do you choose? Allah? Yahweh? Zeus? Amun? It is a duff wager, and the reason it gets such a hard time is precisely *because* it is duff.
Minds being causally prior to their thoughts? Once again, you're into attribute theory, which (I would suggest, having listened to Swinburne and Leftow on the topic) is a big old category error. What we are really doing in applying "attributes" is recognising a pattern, abstacting that, and giving it a name. A dog does not possess an attribute of "dogness" (Leftow here) - it just is what it is, and we recognise commonality with other doggies, and we give that pattern a name. It isn't intrinsic to Rover. This goes back to the morality thing above of course.
You're horrified by the thought of god's non-existence. Don't be such a big girl's blouse. It's great that god doesn't exist - it opens up all sorts of things, and makes the puzzle of the universe so much more intriguing and exhilarating. Put down the duckie if you want to play the saxophone (Youtube: Sesame street - you won't regret it!)
Natural Selection doesn't rule out a designer working through natural processes.
No, but it does remove the *need* for one - it means that you CANNOT simply infer a designer from the mere appearance of "design". You need other evidence. There is no infinite regress of causes - that is simply an attempt at eliding the "design" argument into the "cosmological" argument, and the cosmological argument falls simply on the basis that stopping the regress at "god" is purely arbitrary. Funny enough, I recently heard Brian Leftow say that god was secondary - that it lives within some sort of deeper reality, and structures its "mind" around mathematics and logic. To my mind, that suggests that we could quite straightforwardly bin the god as redundant, and stick with the maths, but hey.
JW: I don't actually say that there "is no morality" - there clearly is. But it is rooted in humanity, not in some notional deity. There is no need for an "absolute" reference point, any more than there is any need for an absolute co-ordinate reference for the earth in space. Relative does not mean arbitrary.
Cheers,
-H
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Helio:
I see that the theists are still banging on about how morality needs a god etc etc. You refer to communality. Here's an example. The film I'm not Scared was shown on RTE2 the other night (it was also on Channel 4, I think, in July). It's a superb film about a 10-year old boy and his journey to an adult morality. One day out playing in the hot Italian summer of 1978 he finds another boy his own age chained in a pit. He brings the boy water, food and even takes him out to play before returning him. He then learns from the TV about the boy (he has been kidnapped and held to ransom), though the boy's true predicament doesn't at first sink in to his 10-year old brain.
Then he discovers that his father is one of the kidnappers and that his mother knows about it as well. She believes that the money will help them out of their poverty. Next he overhears them talking about killing the boy. What does he do? He realises he has to save the boy and in doing is disobeying his parents and putting his own life at risk.
There is no religion in this film. It is about a boy's growing realisation that another individual has rights, not least the right to live, that the boy is really at heart (despite the differences of class) the same as he is. It is a simple yet profound film and demonstrates that you don't need a monarch of the sky to be good. All you need is a common humanity.
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Not just an issue for the bs Theists.
Would Marcus, for example, just think the boy should have been slightly grumpy that life had left him with choices, moan a bit, hump a bit and do nothing?
Would JW think it was patently obvious - the boy's self-interest lay in the economic advantages to be obtained from the ransom?
Would Helio think that once the boy was able to locate the victim with reference to a known and accepted behavioural paradigm (absorbed from his parents) his attitude would change to conform with the preference for familiarity in the young? Stones and taunts instead of play perhaps? It would be quite natural of him to do so of-course, blame after all is only a label.
Nothing like a spot of reductio after a week of night-shifts, eh? Off to another conference later so no replies for a few days you'll all be glad to hear...
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Portwyne:
Your surmises have nothing to do with the film and are typical of theists ignoring the evidence before them. The film shows us WHY the boy acted as he did. Whatever Marcus or JW might say, his motives are nothing to do with grumpiness or greed. The greed he certainly rejects. The point is that he chooses to do something different from what others have tried to impose on him, such as the prospect of more wealth. The faith he acquires is in himself and he puts his own life at risk because he realises that other people are as important as he is.
It's an essentially humanist film, brilliantly shot and brilliantly acted by Giuseppe Cristiano, who plays the boy - one of the best pieces of child acting I have ever seen.
In fact, he is so good that you don't even think he is acting, even though the whole film is shot through his eyes for nearly 2 hours.
If you want to know about a real hero, forget most of the Hollywood crap and watch this superb film.
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Brian
How many times do I have to tell you I am not a Theist: I do not believe in God, I do not believe a rational case can be made for belief in God, what more can I say! I may well be a lunatic, as Marcus put it, because I would claim to know Him but I AM NOT A THEIST!! I hate despise and detest the very word, you get me??
Now surely too, Brian, you have to take off your own rose-tinteds. It's a very beautiful film about how we might like life to be, how it could be, how occasionally it may even be. I hope you are not going to claim that it is in anyway though a realist work - no sorry, of-course you don't, you did say it's a humanist film.
The film portrays the choices of one fictional child - I think we could seriously ask 'who's ignoring the evidence' of anyone who said '...and yes, life's like that..."
Life isn't like that: it could be, but it also holds open all the possibilities I outlined about. The film is informed by a world-view you find congenial - in an attempt to understand the implications of other philosophies it is a quite legitimate question to ask 'what might the story have been had it been shaped by a different world-view?'
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Portwyne:
It all depends what is meant by theism. A theist is someone who believes in a god or gods.
You claim to 'know' God, though you don't 'believe' in him. To me, this is just playing with words. A theist doesn't have to argue that there is a god; he may merely posit it, which is what you do, surely?
What's your point about the film not being 'realistic'? Are you saying it couldn't happen in reality? This is interesting because I haven't mentioned the ending, which a theist might well see as a Christian redemption. Presumably, that couldn't happen in reality either? Life isn't like the Jesus story, is it?
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I thought Brian you were rather keen on definitions. Theist means something fairly specific. A Theist must surely assert the objective existence of God - I make no such assertion. I do not posit that God exists. The quality of existence or non-existence is meaningless in terms of the God I know.
If by reality in terms of the Jesus story you mean actual historical events - I have no particular beliefs about those whatsoever - whether any of it actually happened as recorded is, to me, neither here nor there but I rather suspect quite a lot of it is at least unlikely.
As I understand what you have said, you suggest Michele as a ten year old boy discovered by experience his connectedness with another human and chose to act in accordance with that connection, recognising Filippo's needs and rights, recognising how those needs and rights required an altruistic response from him, rejecting materialism and personal advantage. How realistic that is in a single instance I honestly just don't know. Generally, however, in terms of your average child if you think that's a realistic portrayal of child behaviour keep your umbrella up - you'll need it to protect you from the s41t of the flying pigs.
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Portwyne:
"A theist must surely assert the objective existence of God". That is exactly what you do. Now, you are only quibbling over the meaning of 'objective' and 'exists' because you are asserting the existence or 'presence' or whatever of a god, even if only to you.
Have you seen the film or are you merely pretending you have by dropping in the names?
If you are saying that self-sacrifice or even risk-taking by children on behalf of other children is as absurd as flying pigs, then you have a very poor view of human nature. As a former teacher, I can say that you are quite wrong. Young people do sometimes take enormous risks to help their friends.
At least, in the film nobody rises from the dead. If you consider the Jesus resurrection story similar to your excremental flying pigs, then I am certainly with you on that one.
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Helio
Natural Selection doesn't help you explain the ordered processes that Natural Selection depends on. You can leave order unexplained, or explain it. Even if your points about simplicity held any weight, if I could explain order, existence, morality and consciousness in one hypothesis, then Theism has explanatory power. Or if I can explain many different instances of complex order with one hypothesis, my hypothesis need not be that simple - explantory power and scope compensates for this deficiency. Contra Dawkins, the Design Argument would still stand.
Or take the Design Argument as Elliott Sober construes it. Any hypothesis that makes the evidence more likely has been confirmed to some degree. His arguments may, justifiably, be causing the Intelligent Design Community some difficulty. Sober believe that Theism cannot predict the bacterial flagellum any better than chance, as we do not have independent knowledge of God's intentions (we cannot know in advance that God would want propellers on bacteria). But his objections to the traditional Design Argument don't seem to hold as much weight (Theism would predict universal order and complexity better than chance). So Sober relies on Observer Selection Effects. But as I've argued, these don't really help the opponent of the Design Argument.
I do not turn the Teleological Argument into the design argument. Many explanations posit causes that explain the evidence without becoming Cosmological Arguments. The Cosmological Argument tries to explain the existence of nature, and the teleological argument wants to explain the nature of existence. I'm not advocating attribute theory at all, and I made it very clear that I did not need a complete theory of mind. I doubt one is possible. (Though natural kinds had better be real, or you can't even do the sort of science you're fond of).
You asked me why a mind could not identical to it's thoughts, and I explained how it could not be. It is not identical the brain - the brain can be measured. Presumably, you'll want to advocate some form of epiphenominalism, but then you are right back to problems of identity (in other words, you leave all common sense behind).
In any case I believe that I've done enough to show that Dawkin's hasn't finished off the Design Argument, never mind Theism.
Pascal's Wager is not necessarily indifferent to the evidence; so I can have evidential reasons for preferring one "bet" to another. If you read James' essay, you'll also see that some choices are "live" and "forced", so my betting options are somewhat limited.
I also mentioned that I had many other reasons for being a Theist than my "need" (your term). But I thought honesty might be the best policy. And I'm not sure how these needs are irrational or weak. Perhaps you've an argument that shows how this is so. Or maybe you've been reading Nietzsche.
I can certainly see the attractions of cheerful nihilism (it worked for Monty Python and Seinfeld). If you could infuse a little of your cheerfulness (and nihilsm) into the New Atheism it might be a little more bearable.
Graham Veale
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Brian
I haven't seen the film, but the story makes for an interesting parable.
Why can't I say that the boy in the film did the right thing? What is it about Christianity that doesn't allow me to attribute goodness to him?
You attack Portwyne for playing wordgames with Theism. Portwyne says that he knows God exists, but doesn't believe that God corresponds to an objective reality. So God is, presumably, a very useful and very powerful fiction.
You say the boy was good. What objective reality does the boy's goodness correspond to? Our common humanity? Now I can say "yes" to that question, as I believe that human's have a nature that they have corroded. The boy's actions "fit" our design plan. But you don't believe that we have a design plan, or anything like it. So you can appeal to subjective taste. Or you can appeal to objective frequency data about human behavior. And that would not show that the boy's actions were in keeping with human behavior. They were decidedly atypical.
Now Portwyne may not believe in God, but I get the impression that he believes that something metaphysical gives us meaning and moral purpose. He just thinks that we do not have, and do not need, knowledge about what that is.
Perhaps he is making a wild leap of faith. But then again, he does seem to have better grounds for affirming the boys goodness than someone who will only appeal to empirical data.
Or are you about to make a metaphysical claim? I live in hope.
Graham
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Talk to y'all Mon
GV
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PS
Is it me , or has business been getting slow around here?
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Portwyne- This is exactly why postmodernist ideas turn me off; I have no idea what you're talking about and either it's because I'm not smart enough or because it's bullshit. Either way, perhaps you could explain to me what you mean by, "The quality of existence or non-existence is meaningless in terms of the God I know." I would have thought that existence is pretty damned pertinent.
Brian McC- I wouldn't expect you to understand self-interest because you aren't an honest student of it. In your example, the little boy plays with the boy initially because of what it does for him: it satisfies his need for companionship, his need to connect on various levels with another human being, etc.
Graham- On your 'need' for God. Honestly it's a horrible argument, because it makes you much more likely to invent rationale for his existence even if it's completely untenable and to ignore reasoning against his existence because it makes you feel better that he exists. I'm a theist myself, but I don't 'need' God to exist, I believe he does for other reasons.
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Seems things have taken something of a semantic twist, maybe we need a fixed reference point, personally I'd prefer 'God' but let's run with 'fixed reference point' so we don't have to keep banging on about "God, and in his son Jesus Christ", as Lt Kendrick might have said. Don't you think the script of A Few Good Men has an answer for just about anything?
Anyway, Helio your illustration of war demonstrates just how difficult making these moral decisions is without reference to an absolute (or something approaching an absolute). For some, war is always murder, for others it is never murder, especially when one's own side is doing the killing. Of course I wasn't thinking of the large grey area we call war, but I guess you know that already.
Then you make this interesting statement, "the seat of morality; 'rightness' or 'wrongness' are not attributes possessed by actions/objects/etc - they are labels applied to them by humans." Well, apart from the fact that this is just another restatement of your previous comments, it all depends on what you meme, sorry, I mean, 'mean'. I mean this, murder is wrong, because murder is an action 'done' by someone to someone, and the wrongness is applied to both the act and the one doing the act, both are said to be wrong. Murder is wrong because someone commits it, and the one who commits it is guilty. Anyway, in my experience, people are happy with 'relatives' until something affects them, then most tend to become more 'absolute' than they previously were.
As for philosophers getting in a twist, I suspect that those being murdered and those related to any victim might also be justified in getting in a twist. And this is not actually about philosophizing, it's real.
In the end though it's hard to think of your comment as anything more than a sidestep. You have yet to address the main issues that within your world view any kind of morality is a *belief* (maybe I should say notion, and that there is no reason which explains WHY we are moral at all, or why even we need to be.
As for being horrified at the thought of God's non-existence? Well if some of you guys had better arguments, then there might be less to be afraid of. Maybe you should also consider the idea that some of us have tried to do away with God, and we still believe.
On Pascal's wager, all I want to say is this; dispense with the 'lollipop' view of heaven and read it again. I didn't read any cynicism in Graham's post 99.
Brian, seems like a good movie, I shall look it up. Of course there is no reason why Christianity should reject the best of humanity.
Portwyne, have a good trip, is your concept of God 'Barthian'?
Graham, yes I thought things were a bit quiet too.
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Hey! Where did my post go?? It was here last night!
Discussion is widening, folks, but I'm going to come back to one of Graham's recent points:
Natural Selection doesn't help you explain the ordered processes that Natural Selection depends on. You can leave order unexplained, or explain it.
You can compartmentalise it. If we have the "order", then we have no need for any explanation for the "order" itself in order to explain the downstream effects of the "order". So let's shift your pixie back a bit - the its black box does not extend as far as natural selection.
Even if your points about simplicity held any weight, if I could explain order, existence, morality and consciousness in one hypothesis, then Theism has explanatory power.
No, because you still haven't explained the god itself, and you have merely assumed powers onto it that were the very things we were trying to explain. It is a purely post hoc "hypothesis".
So, you assume a pixie. It turns out the universes are hard to make. Ah - it must be an *omnipotent* pixie. It turns out that there is no way ot telling in advance how the universe will evolve, or whether the parameters are right for "life" to arise. Ah - it must be an *omniscient* pixie, AND it must have foreseen/planned our form of life in advance. It turns out that people do strange things. Ah, so it must take an interest in our affairs, and where we put our willies (if we have 'em) and what day we play football on, and whether we suck up to it in a certain way, and what we think of the little myths spun by certain prophets etc - Ah, so it must be the *Christian* pixie etc etc etc.
Your hypothesis is purely post hoc ad hoc. Everyone has a god-shaped hole in 'em, and the problem is that if you start out with a god-shaped hole, you unsurprisingly end up with a hole-shaped god, and mirabile dictu! it's a perfect fit! Like a puddle is perfectly designed to fit its depression, your god fits the bill for the conceptual black boxes that scare you so much.
So how can you *really* say that "theism has explanatory power"? It has no more explanatory power than the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and is, if anything, even more ridiculous. You don't see that because you're accustomed/acclimatised to it.
Cheers,
-H
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Peter - it was Graham who was horrified by god's non-existence. Perhaps if you tried a bit harder to see beyond the gods, you would find it not so horrifying at all.
You have not addressed my point - actions do not have moral values as an intrinsic property or attribute - they are assigned by humans. This is not a mere speculation - it is a FACT. For murder, for example, we are very well aware in Northern Ireland that some "killings" are regarded very different morally, depending on what side of the community one comes from. We *know* this happens, and unless you have some proposal for how we can objectively ascertain/measure the "morality" of any specific action, I think you are just blustering. Maybe you are horrified by the fact that morality is a purely human affair, but there are plenty more scary things in the universe, and you should perhaps get out a bit more.
-H
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Helio:
Exactly. Peter says we need a fixed reference point. But why? And who decides it? As he has already admitted elsewhere that the god of the Flood is a cruel sadist, it can't be a sacred text pixie. And since Portwyne's god is purely personal because he doesn’t 'believe' in a 'normal' pixie, it can be him either. It seems like theists delude themselves into imagining that they have some solid basis for their morality when it is obviously a chimera.
Graham/ Peter:
Nowhere did I imply that Christianity rejects the best in humanity or that a Christian cannot see the goodness in Michele. But the boy does the right thing, not because of any religious compulsion, but quite simply because he connected with another human being.
John, if you will insist that all our good acts are ultimately motivated by self-interest, then there is no way to disprove it. Motivation cannot be observed, but whatever the initial motive, Michele helps Filippo despite the fact that it will not do him (Michele) any good. His ultimate altruism overrides any selfishness that may have existed earlier. Moreover, in the end (and here I am giving a bit away if you haven't seen it) Filippo is willing to repay the altruism, and certainly not because it will do him (Filippo) any good at all, for he might die. Perhaps, John, you have lived too long in America, a country enslaved to a poisonous philosophy of self-interest which has got them currently into a right mess.
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Brian
One quick comment.
(with reference to me) "As he has already admitted elsewhere that the god of the Flood is a cruel sadist"
I did?
If you post the quote, I'll explain how you misunderstood it.
Or if you prefer, I'll post the quote myself.
On the other matters, I'll get back later; Helio's right, I should get out more, and today seems like too good a day to miss, I had almost forgotten that the sky is sometime blue.
Oh BTW, 'sacred text pixie'. Your terms for God are becoming ever more creative!!
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Helio
I don't have much time today, but I'd like to kill off the "Flying Pixie Monster" (or whatever) with alonger post. It's a very good rhetorical strategy, as it trivialises the theists position before the arguments are even examined. Of course Hoyle tried the same thing with Big Bang - and now everyone thinks the theory refers to some type of explosion.
If you'd been paying attention you would have noticed that I argued at length that Theism is not an ad hoc hypothesis. Since Anselm (at least) "Perfect Being" Theology has been used to describe God. Properties like moral perfection, and maximal knowledge seem to be "contained" in this idea. And maximally perfect pixies or Spaghetti monsters don't work as counter examples. As you inadvertently shown, these only reach maximal perfection, and thereby Necessary Existence, by stripping them of all the properties that make them Pixies or Spaghetti Monsters.
Of course this sort of argument has been used before - philosophers objected to the Ontological Argument using Necessarily Existent Islands as counter examples. The reply was much the same as I've given above. But the philosphical argument doesn't trivialise the Theist, and that means you are psychologically protected from taking Theism seriously. Or, to put it gently, you are as likely to be suffering from cognitive dissonance as I am.
If you'd been paying attention you also would have noticed that I agree that Theism does not predict details like bacterial flagella, or human gonads (and Atheism doesn't seem to stop you talking the latter). [insert smiley face here, as I don't know how]
Order and complexity are more likely on Theism than on MERE chance. (Of course chance and order can combine to produce ordered results, as in casinos or Natural Selection). There are many more possible chaotic universes than ordered universes - so a hypothesis that predicts order and complexity seems warranted. So the Design Argument would seem to confirm, or raise the likelihood of Theism over Atheism.
But go back to my original point about a maximally pefect being. As I have stated, this flows from the assertions of (pick you religion, and insert here)Scripture. Which means that Theism did not originate as an hypothesis. (A quick glance at the cross cultural data confirms this). In fact it is not hypothetical in nature - I don't know of anyone who has worhipped Quantum Theory, or claimed a personal encounter with General Relativity.
Religions are not about explanation - at least not in the first instance. But that does not mean that they are necessarily false; and in fact if a religious "dogma" has significant explanatory power, or follows from a sound deductive argument, then we can assert it's truth.
Hope the arguments aren't causing a psychological crisis -
Graham
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Brian
I don't claim that Christianity (or any other Religion) is necessary for doing or recognising good.
But don't you need some metaphysical account of human nature to advance the argument made in post 101? Even a vague account, or an admission that empiricism cannot account for goodness?
Graham
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Helio
You sound like a teacher, "Must try harder!"
You say I have not addressed your point, but, it was I who pointed out the difficulties with regard to different points of view on killing. Of course I know that assigning moral value is something done by humans, and what I'm saying is, that it is this, which, without some reference point or other, is what can cause problems in the first place. I'm arguing for a reference point.
I'm also trying to point out that within a purely material world-view, there is no real reason why humans should either display moral action at all, or ascribe values to them, (relative values or not). These two points go together, and are joined with the recognition that this understanding of morality is itself a belief system which cannot be tested in a lab. Something you have not responded to, yet it is something which must inevitably lead to your equivocation with regard to moral relativism.
That humans are moral is a fact, that humans assign moral value to actions is a fact, but, in an impersonal world does that not strike you as odd?
Christianity however, which is my proposal (!), answers all these points. (unlike memes!) Of course you have already dismissed God, (which is, incidentally, another faith position) and it means you don't actually have to consider the argument. Sort of handy, don't you think?
Maybe you could answer this question. Do you think it is ever possible to know whether or not an action is wrong?
I think I also want to make a comment about your response to Graham; you say he assumes a God, and then goes on the make the kind of God he needs. What you conveniently overlook however is that the Christian God is understood, assumed, (whatever) in the context of a God who speaks. I have never said that I can argue my way to God, but I did say that we can say rational things about Him. Remember I take the idea of revelation seriously. And before you go slagging off testimony again, recognise the fact that the view of morality proposed by you requires the concept of testimony just as much, otherwise no one would be trusting anyone. Anyway, within your world view, what's the trouble with constructing 'solutions'?
Brian, "why do we need a fixed reference point?" That's what the discussion above is about. Who decides it? Yes, who indeed? That's one of the points I am making.
Delusion? Yes, I have considered that!
And your basis for morality is... circumstances, consensus? Whose consensus? Local? Global?
And I know I haven't seen the movie yet, but you seem rather taken with the selflessness of the central character, yet you don't appear to like the concept of Christian redemptive history - curious.
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Peter, I've just said that moral attributes are not possessed by things or actions themselves; they are labels applied by humans. That "morality" changes from time to time, person to person, is not exactly controversial - it's observed fact, as I've shown. There is no fixed reference point, and even though you may *think* you have one, you actually don't.
Graham, are you suggesting that Anselm's ontological argument is taken seriously??? By anyone??? Unfortunately you are entirely incorrect - the notions of gods etc came first, then people did their wee darnedest to come up with post hoc rationalisations and silly sophistry.
"Maximally perfect beings" and all that - it's the philosophical equivalent of dividing by infinity or whatever.
There are many more possible chaotic universes than ordered universes - so a hypothesis that predicts order and complexity seems warranted. So the Design Argument would seem to confirm, or raise the likelihood of Theism over Atheism.
Really? How do you know that "chaotic" universes are possible? And if all these are possible, what basis do you have for suggesting that they're not all *actual*, and that we can only retrospectively find ourselves in one of the friendly ones? Theism, moreover, does NOT help you here, because you are simply moving the requirement for an explanation back one level. It's a subprime philosophical mortgage - your debt far outstrips the value of your asset against which it is secured. Welcome to the Credo Crunch!
Also, Peter, revelation is of precisely no value. One man's "revelation" is another's brain-f4rt. Evidence, dear boy, evidence.
-H
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Helio, hi,
I know what you're saying about morality, you don't have to repeat it!
And I know that some people don't find it controversial, but others do (a little!), I happen to be one of them, for some of the reasons stated.
And so to evidence, dear boy, evidence. You need to know I'm stifling a wry smile as I type. Evidence is sort of what I've been going on about. So seeing as you have raised precisely the issue I've been trying to draw your attention to, some evidence please.
Evidence for:
"Morality changes from time to time."
"There is no fixed reference point." (which is a statement of *belief*, you don't appear to have noticed this yet!)
Memes.
Me not having a reference point.
Bear in mind that I'll accept any kind of evidence, even testimony from a skeptic! And remember too that you're not off the hook simply because you said we have observed humans applying labels to morality, that is the point I'm questioning. (and I can question it without mentioning God)
Maybe I ought to finish like this:
Also, Peter (read Helio), revelation (read relative morality) is of precisely no value. One man's "revelation" (relative morality) is another's brain-f4rt. Evidence, dear boy, evidence.
Helio you are simply not consistent with regard to this insistence on evidence.
Morality crunch, anyone? Evidence crunch?
BTW getting out is over-rated. I took your advice and ended up running into a display of, how can I say this nicely (by leaving out the expletives I guess), Christmas trees, in (more expletives left out) October. Haven't even got round to scaring the living daylights out of the children for Hallowe'en yet and we're supposed to be all, "God rest you merry gentlemen"... and all that.
Stuff that for a good idea - new motto, 'Let's keep Jesus OUT of Christmas.'
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Hi Peter,
Evidence for:
"Morality changes from time to time."
Oh - that's an easy one. 1 Samuel 15, for instance. The bible is full of daft things that were regarded as moral back then, but are regarded as immoral now. Or take those nutballs in Saudi, who regard it as "immoral" for women to show more than a slit of their eyes. The point I am making is that WHAT is regarded as morally acceptable changes with time and place. Hardly controversial. Which itself is evidence against a fixed reference point, because surely these could be tested against that, no?
"There is no fixed reference point." (which is a statement of *belief*
No - it is a statement that you are welcome to try and refute. You are proposing that there is a reference point; yet you have no justification for this. There is no teapot in orbit around Jupiter for precisely the same reason.
Memes.
Read the definition.
Me not having a reference point.
You simply say you do; you have yet to demonstrate it. Consider your bluff called.
And remember too that you're not off the hook simply because you said we have observed humans applying labels to morality, that is the point I'm questioning. (and I can question it without mentioning God)
Well, you've sorta "questioned" it; I have the evidence - people call stuff "good" and "bad" - this is obvious. Where do you bring in your goddy thing?
Helio you are simply not consistent with regard to this insistence on evidence.
Oh, but I am. If you have evidence, you can change my mind. Stop running away! Just give us some evidence that "moral attributes" are absolute properties of entities, and show us how you determine whether something is "moral" or "immoral". Should be easy, unless you're wrong...
Stuff that for a good idea - new motto, 'Let's keep Jesus OUT of Christmas.'
He was never in it in the first place! The names have been changed to protect the innocent.
-H
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Helio
First, Christmas - Jesus was never in it in the first place - correct, the festival was actually called Tabernacles.
Second, we just keep saying the same stuff over and over to each other!!
1 Samuel 15 or any reference to God making commands regarding death. Well either deal with it in the context of the God of the bible, or, if he doesn't exist then all we have is an account of more relativism. Nothing is 'proved', only stated. (anyway 'testimony' is such poor evidence, don't you think? Funny how you are happy to use it when you think it suits.)
No fixed reference point is a statement you are welcome to establish. You simply can't go demanding from Christians what you fail to produce yourself. My point is that there is no reason why atoms should demonstrate any kind of morality, all you are saying is 'we do'. There may be no teapot around Jupiter, but you do have reference points for your science, yet are happy to have none for morality.
Memes - as I read the definition there is no evidence, unless you have some I missed. If you are defining it this way, 'an element of a culture or system of behavior that may be considered to be passed from one individual to another by nongenetic means, esp. imitation.' then that's not evidence just more observed behaviour. Meme is meaningless, in other words, just a fancy label.
Demonstrating a reference point. The whole point of this discussion is to suggest that unless we have a fixed reference point then, apart from pragmatism, anything goes. Other than what someone finds distasteful or unpleasant nothing is wrong and can never be wrong. And as I keep saying, most people seem happy with this until they are on the receiving end of injustice.
"Well, you've sorta "questioned" it; I have the evidence - people call stuff "good" and "bad" - this is obvious. Where do you bring in your goddy thing?"
This comment is more of the same. Just because people decide something is good doesn't mean it is, and it's certainly not evidence for what is 'good', just something they do. Just notional lables.
"Stop running away...Just give us some evidence that "moral attributes" are absolute properties of entities".
You won't accept any external evidence, you have already rejected it and will not consider it, yet you fail to acknowledge that within your worldview you have no basis for making decisions, you just make them, but you don't know why. Nor are you prepared to acknowledge that we are more or less absolute in relation to the degree we are affected. Indeed you don't even acknowledge the point that a fixed reference point would be useful. Helio I really don't think that saying people act without one so we don't need one, is an argument.
I guess of course we both going to go round in circles. I presuppose God and you don't. Both, are 'faith' positions, whether you want to acknowledge this or not.
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Peter, it is certainly not a "faith position" - you come up with the evidence, and I'm perfectly happy to accept that there is a god. The problem that you have is that you do not have the evidence, and you know it. Therefore we get this silly sophistry.
Yes, I know you feel like we're going round in circles - that is how I feel too. Why do atoms do morality? Well, I suggest you look up some of the extensive literature on the evolution of altruism like I suggested before. This is not new territory.
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Helio:
Sometimes, or even often, trying to make a point to theists is like trying to nail jelly to the wall. It just slides away and melts into the ether.
Here's an example. Peter says (#120) that the discussion is all about a fixed reference point, by which of course he means God. Thus when we reject his God, he argues that we are still discussing a fixed reference point if only to refute it. I ask you! Talk about getting dizzy!
Peter:
The point is simply, Peter, that if someone argues that human beings need a fixed reference point (which he calls God or the laws of God or whatever), it is entirely up to him to substantiate such a claim. Anyone who thinks there is no fixed reference point doesn't have to prove it. We don't have to give evidence for a negative. The ball is entirely in your court. Come on, convince US!
It should be obvious that 'morality' has changed over time and that it varies from one region of the world to another and one religion to another. In some religions men are permitted more than one wife.
In the past kings and other rules boasted of their cruelties and wrote about them (see the Old Testament, for example, or Assyrian cuneiform tablets).
In the past animals were treated far worse than today. This was partly justified by reference to sacred texts (like the Bible) which argued that a deity had created them just for our use). Now, at least, in some countries there are laws which give them some rights.
There is absolutely no example you can give of one of your deity's fixed reference points and make it stick. It will melt, just like the jelly. But go ahead, anyway. Give us a fixed moral rule which you believe your god wants us to live by.
Just one more thing for the moment. What on earth does this mean?
You don't appear to like the concept of Christian redemptive history - curious ()
You have a habit of making throwaway statements, then letting others 'interpret' them, only to jump in and insist that you meant something quite different. So I will leave you to explain your own cryptic remark.
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Well guys, you have a real handy position, I have to satisfy you of my views, you need not establish yours.
Like it or not, a negative view, is a view, just like the statement, "Anyone who thinks there is no fixed reference point doesn't have to prove it." is a view.
Brian, likewise when you reject the idea of God, you think you have closed down all discussion. And as for 'fixed reference points', it's a pity you haven't the courage to admit that you have them.
Then you repeat all the, God is (at best) ambiguous, comments we've been over endless times before.
I don't think we will ever agree, even when we might want to.
Redemptive history is a standard theological term. Sorry, that's right, you don't do theology.
Helio, 'altruism' is, once again, at best, about observed behaviour. No more. It's, 'how we are', and it's why? is, 'it's how we became how we are'.
You have nothing to say which might stop someone committing a crime. No right, no wrong.
And remember rejecting the evidence is not the same thing as having none.
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Brian
Just to be clear. (You have already misquoted me once on this thread)
You say, "Here's an example. Peter says (#120) that the discussion is all about a fixed reference point, by which of course he means God. Thus when we reject his God, he argues that we are still discussing a fixed reference point if only to refute it. I ask you! Talk about getting dizzy!"
Reject God if you wish, but even if you do, I am still at liberty to argue for a fixed point of reference. I know you say you don't think we need one, but as I said already, like it or not, you have them.
Everybody has their 'no' point.
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Peter:
"Redemptive history is a standard theological term. Sorry, that's right, you don't do theology".
Good grief,man, why not just explain exactly what you meant?!
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Peter, you're starting to lose it a bit here. Let me point out a few areas that you need to fix:
Well guys, you have a real handy position, I have to satisfy you of my views, you need not establish yours.
But "our" views are entirely open. For the sake of argument, there *may* be a fixed reference point, or there may not. It's an open question. As I have said before, I accept or reject things based on evidence. So if Pete the snake oil salesman comes along and says, "hey, there's a fixed moral reference point", I find this somewhat strange, but it's interesting and he's a nice guy, so I say "show me the evidence", and he gets all prissy and defensive and returns with "ah, if you say there is no reference point, that is a faith position, and YOU have to provide the evidence!"
I'm not trying to convince you that there IS NO fixed reference point; I find it an unnecessary hypothesis, and would like to understand why you feel it improves matters.
Like it or not, a negative view, is a view
Of course it is, but it is amenable to reasoned argument. Why don't you give that a shot?
You have nothing to say which might stop someone committing a crime. No right, no wrong.
Now that's just silly. What stops (many if not most) people committing crimes is that crimes have negative knock-on consequences for them, NOT whether something "is" right or wrong. We weigh up our options, and make a decision. A sense of morality helps us make a decision that avoids negative consequences. Therefore we do not commit the crime (perhaps). You will be aware that when circumstances change, people do Bad Things, often because they feel they can get away with it. Looting after Katrina. Massacres in Rwanda. Morality is often at best a weighting in our decision-making process. Personally, I would like to see it strengthened - it is most certainly NOT "anything goes".
-H
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Peter:
The phrase "a fixed reference point' for morality makes three assumptions. One, that there is a reference, two that it is fixed, and three that there is only one of them. You have to justify all three assumptions. I would say that there ARE reference POINTS, but that they are not FIXED. But I will return to that when you have explained why there has to be is 'a fixed reference point'.
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Peter:
BTW:
Your statement that my rejection of Christian redemptive history is curious in the context of my discussion of the film I'm not Scared still hasn't been explained.
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Brian;
I haven't really been following this thread, but I'd imagine the point is that, if there is no fixed reference point, then there is no sense in which any real meaning can be given to terms like "good" or "bad".
I think Helio, at least is consistent...the only that can be said in that case is that those terms are simply convenient labels.
The problem is that that doesn't take into account the basis of that convenience. What is convenient about applying certain labels to certain things? Surely the convenience lies in the fact that they represent notional objects of desire or striving, or of repulsion and loathing.
Just as an aside, rather than "fixed reference point" I would prefer to speak of a "fixed object of progress". It is true that different things are called "good" at different times.
What's also true is the natural drive by humans to posit a "good" or a number of "goods", and the desire to achieve these. Our idea of the good may change (some would say "develop in a linear fashion"), but our idea that there is a good remains constant.
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Bernard:
What is good or bad is determined by a number of criteria, which change over time and place.
There is no objective 'good'. Certainly, no one has discovered it yet!
Moral principles, rules and values do not exist in some abstract realm. Instead, their content and meaning are related to human desires and satisfactions.
The quest for an absolute set of ideal ends is an illusion. It ultimately leads to totalitarianism, whether religious (as in the Middle Ages) or political (as under Stalin or Hitler). You end up with an agenda for repressing the multiplicity of human tastes and interests and imposing a single stamp on human experience.
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Brian;
"What is good or bad is determined by a number of criteria, which change over time and place."
On what are these criteria based?
"Instead, their content and meaning are related to human desires and satisfactions"
Indeed. What are human desires based on though? Are there "good desires" and "bad desires", or is everything we desire a "good". Is everything that satisfies any desire "good"?
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H
A few more points on your previous postings.
1 I am a little confused by your demand that an explanation is of no use unless we have an explanation for the explanation… and presumably an explanation for that explanation. You can see where this is heading. I think you may mean that we need independent knowledge of a fact before it can do any explanatory work. So we can use the Sun in our explanations of weather systems as we have independent knowledge that the sun exists other than weather systems.
Of course making inferences from constant conjunction is a little risky, so you’ll need some causal mechanism that links the sun and the weather. Sooner or later Unobservable Entities or Processes or Laws will enter your explanation. You could borrow these from other theories if you like. And perhaps their function in multiple theories increases their epistemic status. But the fact remains that they entered our field of knowledge when we did not have independent knowledge of their existence.
2 In any case Scientists infer to Unobserved Entities and events on many occasions. Furthermore they often have no explanation for these entities. If atoms explain Brownian motion then we have evidence for atoms. When Einstein tried to publish his paper on Brownian motion should the editors have refused to publish unless he could explain clearly where the atoms came from? Should they have thrown out his work on the Photoelectric effect because he could not explain how light could behave like a particle AND a wave? We do not have a theory that explains the formation of the first Galaxies. Does that mean that every explanation involving events subsequent to the first Galaxies is of no value?
We do not have a clear account of Hitler’s decision to exterminate the Jewish people. Does that mean that we cannot use the Fuhrer in our explanations of the Holocaust? Does David Irving have a point? In the absence of independent evidence that Hitler made a clear decision to enact genocide, should we give Adolf a whitewash? Unless we can explain why Hitler was a genocidal anti-Semite we cannot use his beliefs in explanations of the Holocaust?
I know that you believe that our belief in Quarks and General Relativity is fallible. So is most of our knowledge, especially our interpretations of verbal communication. The intentions of another person are not translucent to me. Even my own motivations are often opaque to me. Yet we can communicate and understand each other to some degree. I’m not sure why unobservables get such a hard time in your philosophy. They seem to be in the same boat with just about every other knowledge claim. Torpedo one and you take down them all.
3 Presumably the relevance to your critique of the Theistic Arguments is clear enough. A few other points should be kept in mind. The Design Argument is not trying to explain all order everywhere, but just the example of order we see in the observable universe. So failing to explain the designers’ thoughts or plans doesn’t undo the Design Hypothesis. Simplicity in explanations is a virtue, but not the only virtue. Explanatory scope and power are also important virtues. So if one hypothesis can account for many instances of order, and if it raises the likelihood of order compared to its competitors, then we have a good explanation.
But we do not have to infer to a designer through the best explanation. We can state the Design argument as a deductive proof. If it is rational to believe the premises and the proof is sound, then the simplicity of the purported designer need not concern us (as we are only accounting for the order in the physical universe).
4 Is theism comparable to a belief in pixies or Spaghetti monsters? Is theism a fairy tale? Why did Plato and Aristotle fall for a tale they hadn’t heard? Once our parents
concede that Santa is really the product of market forces we can do without the belief. Yet Theism continues to have explanatory power. Religious Experiences do not exactly fit into the fairy tale model. Neither does the sociological data. Fairy tales don’t answer existential questions, and they don’t ground morals. Nor is Theism a series of ad hoc answers to all these needs, questions and experiences. If that were so it would be wildly incoherent.
Of course there are other worldviews that do the same work – Pantheism, Gnosticism, Atomism etc. If you look at the worldviews of New Religious Movements, they all fall into a pre-existing template or templates. Mormonism tends to Gnosticism, as does Scientology. There is actually very little room for manoeuvre.
I should like to think I could put together a good case for Atheism, or Buddhism, or Pan-psychism (I draw the line at Scientology). If I couldn’t I would need another job. But while cheerful nihilism has its charms, but with the New Atheism it suffers from a flippancy that prevents it from evaluating opposing views with integrity. Once it drops the cheap insults, and deals with Theism as a world-view rather than an infantile delusion, we might be able to have a serious discussion.
Or at least get back to the cheap personal insults.
Graham Veale
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As for the Ontological Argument- no I wouldn't be a fan. I think there are different readings of Anselm, and there are certainly several versions of the argument.
But I wasn't attempting to reason to a Necessary Being by considering the definition or idea of "God". Rather, I was saying that by examining the evidence of contingent existence (or whatever you want to call it) we can infer that a Necessary Being exists.
(A lot depends on the definition of Necesary Being. Stictly speaking, necessity for Empiricists is a matter of definition, and does not correspond to anything in reality. But there are other robust definitions of Necessity. It all gets a bit abstract, but basically I'm saying that God would exist no matter what other conditions did or did not exist. In the same way, water is essentially H2O in every possible world. That is waters nature.)
Graham Veale
Graham Veale
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Oh, and your asssertions about the history of Theism are unfounded. Evidence, dear boy, evidence.
We consider counter-factuals all the time when searching for explantions. Why do we notice retrograde motion in the paths of the planets and not some other pattern? Why ellipses and not circles? Ad infinitum.
So it is entirely reasonable to consider how the universe could have been. You just want to change the rules about explanation when it comes to Theism. Of course, I'm not saying that you should be a Theist on pain of irrationality. So why are you so hostile to any evidence?
And maximally perfect being is merely a definition. It follows from Theistic worship and doctrine. It is not meaningless. It seems quite coherent.
Does that mean that belief in such a being is justified? Of course not. That would take further argument. But I think I've provided that.
Happy reading
Graham Veale
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I studied an academic article a few years ago which gave a re-interpretation of Anselm's argument, based on the misplacing of a single comma in the standard translation.
I will try and hunt it down, if anyone's interested. I think it may have been Elizabeth Anscombe, although i could be wrong. Or perhaps she had argued against the re-interpretation, I must look it up.
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But it was quite compelling...and suggested that it isn't an "ontological" argument at all, but a flagging up of the neccessity of a notion of the infinite in all human thinking.
I'll find it, and see if i can't get a few salient quotes.
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Graham, Bernard:
Gosh! You guys are incorrigible!
Trying to rekindle an old, discredited 'proof' for the existence of a god in the ontological argument is flogging a very dead horse after its ghost has bolted out of the stable doors.
How can a definition prove an existence? Wealth is the sum of all possessions, but the definition won't make me rich and I suspect that neither of you guys can help much either.
Yes, it was Anscombe, who argues that when you remove the comma in the original Latin (presumably inserted editorially), Anselm's is not an ontological argument at all and therefore is not subject to Kant's dismissal. It is discussed in 'Philosophy for AS and A2'. Of course, Anscombe was Irish by birth which probably explains a lot!
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Yes, I did say it was no longer an ontological argument. "the Ontological Argument", I have little time for, Descartes' is even worse. I completely agree that definition cannot prove an existence.
The point is that Anselm seems to be making a more subtle point. I must hunt down the article....
I didn't realise it was old enough to have made it into any text books, thought it was only in the last cupla years.
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Brian
Erm, I said that I did't like the Ontological Argument and wasn't trying to advance one. And knowing that you were around, I did make it clear that if you take Hume's view of necessity, then God is not a Necessary Being. There are other ways of considering Necessity than Hume's, or Emipricisms. So God could be Necessary in the Kripkean sense.
But even if you could prove he exists through an ontological argument (and like you I'm doubtful about this) who would be able to understand the proof?
Graham
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Helio, don't worry about me loosing it, some might say I 'lost it' years ago, and sometimes I feel that way about myself!
There's potentially a lot to deal with and as I don't want to waste anymore of my life than I already have done, I might do this one in bits. We'll see how it goes.
First Brian - I will begin with my apology! I know this is a sarcastic response and I'm being a cynical bollix but ...
Redemptive history, or Redemptive historical (whatever you wish), is a brand of pixie dust which describes the actions (in history) of the great and glorious Dobhar-chu (may it live forever) which redeems earthlings. I could say a whole pile more but I doubt your interested. BTW if you want a list of mythical creatures which you can use in future posts to describe 'God', you can find one here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures.
I know it's only wick wiki, but sure, why bother much with what isn't real?
Laugh, please!
Helio, more to follow.
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No idea what happened the link. I didn't code it cos I can't, the word processor must have done it automatically and it doesn't actually lead anywhere.
Weird.
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Helio, This is far too long so I've cut it into two posts. I should get out more!
BTW, link weirdness - try removing the full stop at the end.
Maybe a quick summary might help. To my recollection, and I'm getting old faster then I thought, I think this all started with the suggestion, by you, that morality is a label and of relative value only. I said, I didn't think that was morality, only labels. You then assumed I meant God, which I don't actually have to do, in order to call for a fixed reference point (Brian though, somewhere along the line, didn't like this, said I was dizzy or something, when all I was doing was pointing out that I thought that a reference point, fixed, was important in the moral decision making process; after all, if you are going to make decisions, you have to refer to something ) And then all hell broke loose! Well not hell, actually! But talk of pixies and mother ships and such like. You asked why we need reference point, "external objectivity", I said something about 'right' and 'wrong' and you not really being able to use the words, and then we repeated ourselves, lots. So as part of my response, a question, for the sake of clarity; do you think of anything, anything at all as 'right' or 'wrong'? That might help us make sense of the comments about *beliefs*.
You say your views are open. OK. So my saying that we need to have a reference point, makes it 'snake-oil'? You find reference points unnecessary. OK. Can I ask why? Is it reasonable at all to ask why? or how you have come to this conclusion? or what the implications of this view are? that's what I mean about it being a, 'belief', a 'worldview', a 'way of coming at things', an 'outlook on life', a 'premise', a ‘presupposition’ - choose whatever word you wish, and leave God out of it if you wish, but whatever it is you have one. That's all I'm saying and asking you to establish it is just asking you why you hold the view.
Part 2 to follow
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Helio, again! (I need to get out more!)
You ask, 'why not give an argument a shot'. Well, if we could get past all the talk of pixies and snake-oil, it would be easier. I already suggested the following in one way or another.
(1) Worldviews - see above
(2) People are more absolute about morality that they often admit, especially when they are the victim, this too is observable. (in other words, maybe we ought to address this inconsistency)
(3) People do 'stuff' to others, so we need to think in terms of the action and the perpetrator and the victim when we think about morality. It can't be reduced to 'a label'. People are involved.
(4) Labels need definitions. This means that people actually have 'reference points' when making moral decisions. For example murder usually = wrong. (always, depending on the definition) And anyway, even if we're going to argue about any 'grey' areas in relation to murder, (like 1st degree, 2nd degree and so on) we need definitions of what we mean, which are our reference points (and they are, in practical terms, fixed; murder, without writing a legal document, means the pre-mediated, unlawful killing of an innocent) Indeed we can only have and define the grey areas when we have said that murder is wrong in the first place; again, this is a reference point, and a fixed one at that. In fact we can't have a discussion without a basic assumption in the first place. And let's face it, there aren't many people suggesting our assumption should be 'murder is right'.
"I'm not trying to convince you that there IS NO fixed reference point" - I know, but don't worry, you're not being convincing, you just keep saying there isn't one. Do you know why you hold this view? Then again I already asked that.
And so to why people don't commit crimes. Basically what you are saying is that it is the threat of getting caught which stops people committing crime. (But don't you think the word crime has lost some of it's meaning here?) So we tell our kids that it's OK to steal (whatever that means) the cookies as long as they are not caught.The burglar weights up his options, makes a choice, steals your stuff, runs over the dog, doesn't get caught - what then - good luck to him? Do you feel anything? Was it wrong? Yes - why? No - why not? Do you applaud his decision making abilities? And yes, I know that when people feel they can get away with it that they often do 'bad things' (but you don't accept the validity of the concept of 'bad things', isn't that what you said?), but this doesn't mean they are not unwelcome or unacceptable or 'wrong'. So my question will come again, even if you dismiss wrong in an absolute sense how will you determine what is unwelcome what we should make unlawful, I do presume you are not lawless. I suggest again you need a reference point.
I'm saying let's begin with, 'Don't murder' and 'don't steal' as a fixed reference point. Then, I will acknowledge (and even argue for) the possibility of mitigating circumstances, a hungry child taking food from the rich for example, but in order to make this judgment I first must have a definition of what 'stealing' means, in other words the fixed reference point I've been banging on about. And note too that if the child were found not guilty of 'stealing', that that does not change the definition of what 'stealing' is. What it means is that the child didn't 'steal', it did something else. And yes, we make these decisions all the time, but we make them with reference to some standard or other.
Everybody has a behavioural standard, everybody. And everybody holds their views about them for some reason or other.
Brian, at the end of all that there should be enough for you to comment on with regard to variable reference points, indeed there may even be areas where I will agree with you on that! Mitigating circumstances anyone?
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Peter:
What you actually wrote was:
"You seem rather taken with the selflessness of the central character, yet you don't appear to like the concept of Christian redemptive history - curious"
You defined the concept of Christian redemptive history roughly as the actions of God which redeem humankind. Not a very good definition because it repeats the word to be defined.
I take it you mean 'saved' or 'set free'. Now, I certainly don't object to the concept of individuals or groups or governments attempting to set humans free.
What I object to is anyone who demands to be followed on pain of hell, as the Jesus of the Gospels did. I like his pacifism and message of reconciliation but not his arrogant claim to be a saviour, especially as he offers no means except himself. The boys in the film give something real to each other, not promise pie in the sky if one follows the other or 'wailing and gnashing of teeth' if he doesn't.
As for this being 'history', well, if that means that it all happened including a resurrection then I don't for one minute believe it.
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Hi Brian
In theological terms, 'Redemptive History' emphasises the 'historical' aspect of the actions of God in saving, rescuing, (redeeming) people. That was why I felt no need to define 'redemptive' focusing instead on the simple definition of God's actions in history.
There are, as I said, all sorts of things which I could say regarding the differing emphasis various Christian traditions place on how redemption works. I didn't however think that would be helpful.
In the context of the movie, which I have yet to see, yes, I can see how your description of the interactions of the boys is real, indeed valuable and worthwhile, in no way do I object to these actions.
Personally I think the 'love me or go to hell' is a weak understanding of the life of Jesus, and is what colours people's objections to the story, but maybe that's a debate for another day.
Funny thing is that I think you suggested earlier in this tread that the film might be seem by some theists as a form of christian redemption.
So in one way you recognise part of what christians are saying, and like aspects of it, as you have explained, while rejecting other bits, that's all I mean by 'curious'.
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Graham, Bernard:
Although you both say you 'reject' the ontological argument, it is apparent that neither of you can let go of it, because you both try to reintroduce it or a variant of it by the back door.
Maybe that's because, as Kant demonstrated, all the other 'proofs' boil down to it, since they all assume that we can extrapolate from concept to existence (e.g. the concept of a necessary cause).
If you genuinely reject it, then move on, forget about Anselm and Anscombe and give us your own thoughts on the foundations of morality.
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Peter:
'Curious' is a curious word to describe a logical position in which one accepts some humane elements of a fictional story while rejecting its claim also to be a fact.
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I see that in the Belfast Telegraph yesterday (Monday) Malachi O'Doherty had a go at the 'new atheists' like Dawkins and Hitchens because they 'tell us nothing that is new'. Perhaps he ought to read some of the theists on this blog, who are constantly, via their reading of Craig, Plantinga or whoever, trying to recycle tired old arguments which they even admit never proved or substantiated anything.
In any case, Malachi misses the point, which is that the atheist's case has rarely been put before a wider public. It has been treated in the past as less than 'respectable'.
Scientists and polemicists who are saying plainly what they think on the topic of religion are labelled as 'aggressive' largely because few have dared to be so open in the past. They have the moral courage that perhaps others lacked, or perhaps they live in an era when one can say what one thinks about religion without being burned at the stake or ostracised for 'sinister' opinions.
Malachi also contrasts them with John Waters, whom he calls a religious 'liberal'. Holy Smoke! Is this the same John Waters who in April wrote a paean to the pope in the Irish Times, entitled 'Radicalism at the heart of this brilliant Pope's reign')?
The word radical, to use Peter's term, is 'curious' when you consider that Benedict XVI is even more reactionary than his reactionary predecessor.
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Brian,
I do reject the ontological argument. You agreed above that Anscombe's re-interpretation was no longer an "ontological" argument.
I haven't even had the chance to re-read it, so I'm not even sure of the details, I was merely pointing out that perhaps Anselm's argument wasn't ontological at all, but something more subtle. I think the re-interpretation was persuasive, and the misplacing of the comma seems factually correct, so perhaps Anselm wasn't making an ontological argument at all.
As for morality, I think it is totally polymorphous, and does take many different forms, strives to achieve many different goals, and utilises many different methods.
But the motivation is the same, and always tends towards the "good". The idea of the good develops and progresses, but the motivation to define it is itself constant.
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Brian;
"which is that the atheist's case has rarely been put before a wider public. It has been treated in the past as less than 'respectable'"
Well, not since, say, the early nineteenth century...
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Bernard:
Many non-believers in the 18th and early 19th centuries had to hide behind the label of deist. Shelley was scorned for his avowed atheism. Darwin felt that he had to suppress his lack of belief. Few politicians ever admitted it because they felt they wouldn't be elected.
Even in some countries today, America being an obvious example, it would be more difficult for an atheist to become President than a Gay or a black man.
People like Dawkins who are upfront help to make atheism respectable. 2 million people have bought The God Delusion. No book by Plantinga or Craig (or Malachi O'Doherty, for that matter) would ever sell in such numbers. That's the real reason why believers don't like his approach. By 'aggression' they really mean 'honesty'.
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Sorry, I thought you were talking about persecution...
Because, as far as scorn goes, you'll just have to dry your eyes. People are perfectly within their rights to pour scorn on atheist beliefs, just as they are within their rights not to vote for an atheist. If they sincerely believe in God, why would they.
As for Dawkins, he's certainly "upfront". And if you'd like to go on numbers, fair enough. 2 million people would never buy the Summa theologiae, for that matter. but they might buy the Da Vinci code, and new age mysticism sells very well, I believe.
And anyway, I've no problem with Dawkins. I just think he's wrong. When it comes to respectability, Schopenhauer and Nietzsche were respectable in western Europe in the second half of the nineteenth century, and Russell and Sartre were perfectly respectable in the early 20th. I don't think this is a very recent thing, is what I'm saying. the theists' responses are probably more widespread and populist than they were at those times, perhaps that's the problem you see.
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Bernard:
It wasn't just a question of pouring scorn on the beliefs. It was indeed persecuting or stigmatising the non-believer. It was implying that there was something 'evil', 'subversive' or 'abnormal' about them because of what they believed.
I don't think you are are right about many of the examples. Philosophers were generally regarded by the body politic as rather 'odd', ivory tower, impractical but dangerous individuals, and non-believing ones even more so.
You are totally wrong about Bertrand Russell. During WW1 he was imprisoned as a conscientious objector.
During WW2 he was dismissed as Professor of Philosophy at the College of the City of New York. After a court case, the judge called his post a 'chair of indecency' and ruled that Russell was morally unfit to teach philosophy because among other things in his books he advocated sex before marriage.
In 1961 he was imprisoned for 'inciting civil disobedience' for participating in a ban the bomb demonstration.
Clearly, throughout his career he was generally regarded as a troublesome subversive because of his views on politics and religion.
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Brian,
I'm only saying that it's been a long time since people were persecuted for being atheists. As i understand it, Russell was persecuted entirely for political reasons, and certainly not by the church.
As for "stigmatising", theists have every right to claim that atheism is "subversive" and "evil". It is. When you get thrown in prison for your atheism, I'll certainly support you. Betrand wasn't thrown in prison for his atheism, nor were Schopenhauer (an early example), Comte, Nietzsche, Sartre, Wittgenstein, Popper, and loads more
if your argument is that "philosophers are regarded as odd", then yes they are. Theists as well as atheists.
And scorn....slap it into ye.
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Brian/Bernard
What round are you two on now?
Graham Veale
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Brian
What exactly have the New Atheists said that Russell didn't say better?
GV
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There may be a "moral panic" among Atheist intellectuals in that they can no longer claim, like Russell, that atheism holds the academic high ground. (This is because people looking for research grants hold the academic high ground).
As a simple statement of fact most of the arguments that are shot down in "Introductions to Philosophy" have serious proponents. And with the demise of classical foundationalism Religious Belief doesn't look as irrational as it did in Russells day. Sociologists and Psychologists of Religion are not expected to be skeptical about Religion. Fine-tuning makes Theism look all scientific.
(For academic philosophical responses to Dawkins - http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html
and the reviews by Mary Midgely and Thomas Nagel).
And all this happened just when it looked as if Atheism was going to emerge triumphant. But then Theism hasn't triumphed either. It's credible, but hardly popular. John Gray has noted that the greatest danger to atheism is that no-one bothers with big questions anymore. Why bother rebelling against something so inconsequential as religion?
I suppose this might be at the root of it all. But more likely New Atheism has mobilised the core vote against George Dubya and Al Quaeda - and wants to lump everyone else in with them.
GV
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Bernard:
Thanks for your Christian comments. I suppose you are merely echoing the wrath of God. Russell was persecuted for the fact that his views in each case were non-establishment and dangerous. It doesn't really matter what label you put on them or that he was not persecuted by the church. The fact is that his views were not mainstream or 'respectable'.
In America, he was sacked for his views on morality which were related to his views on religion. As for Wittgenstein, who knows? He is a tricky customer and, i suppose, "Whereof we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent". But I have seen him labelled a fideist.
Graham:
I agree that Russell said many things as well or better. That was not my point, which was that the New Atheism has succeeded in reaching mainstream readers and the wider public to a degree unheard of before. That's what annoys so many Christians.
You also have to bear in mind that their books - Hitchens, Dennett, Harris particularly - were written partly in response to the right-wing evangelical ascendancy in the US.
I have just seen your latest post and will respond when I return from a dog walk/retail therapy session.
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Brian;
I'm not sure which "Christian comments" you're talking about, I haven't been echoing anyone's "wrath"!
What I'm saying is that people are labelled all sorts of things, by all sorts of people, for all sorts of reasons.
The point is that you can no longer blame "religion", or "the religious establishment"....all you can blame now is (mostly secular) society.
That Russell was sacked by an American University has absolutely nothing to do with religious people trying to demonise other people's thinking.
The most recent case we have of something of that sort occuring is this case of Michael Reiss, and theists certainly aren't responsible for that.
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As for the second part of your post, I agree that the standard anti-theist arguments are probably more widespread now than they have been in the past.
This doesn't annoy me in the slightest, on the contrary I think it taints such views with the smeck of populist pseudo-philosophy. It also makes the responses much more vocal and widespread.
I don't see all of these Christians getting annoyed or afraid. I see many many more Christians actually engage with the arguments, and provide their own rational responses to the populist mumbo-jumbo of the day. And that's a good thing.
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It may rather seem as if I am revisiting old ground as the discussion has moved on but I felt I had to reply to a couple of comments made in response to my last posting.
JW asks me to explain what I mean when I suggested that the existence or non-existence of God was not really a factor in my thinking. (Rowan Williams seems to share this view - I will have to read his new book). John thinks that "existence is pretty damned pertinent".
I would suggest that the importance of objective existence when we speak of God is related to function - what one thinks God is for. If you posit God as creator of the universe or are relying on him to raise you up on the last day then I would suggest that objective existence is a consideration, indeed, as you might put it, a pretty damn big one. If, like me, you do not think God is for anything (not creator, not judge, not resurrector) then objective existence becomes rather less of a requirement.
You suggest post modern thinking is either difficult or bulls41t, I am insufficiently agricultural to comment on the latter possibility but I do not, however, see it as difficult - it simply requires flexible thought.
As humans we adopt multiple standards for credence or acceptance. At one end of the spectrum few intelligent people would say that quantum physics is bulls41t though far fewer can even begin to understand it. Complex equations buy intellectual respectability for speculation about existence and non-existence. Science asks our brains to turn greater somersaults than is required by my proposition that I know a God who in terms of empirical enquiry cannot be said either to exist or not to exist.
At the other end of the spectrum we all of us accept in our everyday lives the coalescence of existence and non-existence in all sorts of ways. The best example I can give is that of geographical coordinates. One can locate the North Pole by means of coordinates which describe a point - a point so precise that it has no magnitude. Do we say, or indeed even think, that something which has no magnitude in the physical world does not exist? Do we we say that it does? Do we consider the thinking involved difficult?
Post-modernism merely exposes and uses the conundrums we many of us live with unthinkingly day by day.
I do not want to over-extend the metaphor but for me the word God describes the coordinates of a locus. A where in which one can think, pray, contemplate and find grounding and perspective. It is the singularity of love. I would regard those coordinates as establishing my fixed point in the determination of what is good, a term I much prefer to moral.
I will respond to Brian, in the form he merits, hereafter.
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Bernard:
Are you saying that the people who sacked Russell and the court which upheld the decision were not religious and were not motivated by their religious beliefs? If you are, then this is entirely wrong.
Malachi says in his article that the implications of Darwin's theory of natural selection were available in the 19th century, but Darwin himself was reluctant to proclaim his agnosticism about religion because he wanted to avoid offence and controversy, and atheists and agnostics were largely marginalised and ignored by the western media throughout the 20th century.
The new atheists have broken the taboo against talking about religion seriously in the public domain. They have popularised secularism and made non-belief in a god respectable. The fact that Dawkins's book alone has sold 2 million copies is testimony to the success of this open, honest and frank approach.
Religious believers may label Dawkins, Hitchens and others as 'aggressive', but by their moral courage they have shown that there should be nothing to fear from speaking the truth as you see it.
As for the label 'pseudo-philosophy', I think that is better reserved for the work of modern-day theologians, and their mumbo-jumbo attempts to resurrect discredited arguments for a god.
Graham:
In a 1998 poll, only 7% of the members of the US National Academy of Sciences, the elite of American scientists, said they believed in a personal god. To stress the point, the overwhelming majority of American scientists has concluded that God does not exist. Get it?
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Portwyne
I think of all the contributers to this blog, your comments about God fascinate me the most.
Submission to God, I 'get'. Hatred of God, I 'get'. Rejection of God, I 'get'. The same is true of worship of, distain for, unbelief toward, love for, fear of and so on. I think I can also (I think I can also!) take tentative steps towards understanding the language you use, of God's non-existence, although what you mean by that and what I think you mean might be two different things. And so, given that Malachi has identified a shift in the 'where' of faith or Christian belief from the pulpit to the wider community (and I think he is right, and I think it has been happening for a long time and that Ireland, as usual, is just catching up), might I propose an exploration, in this 'community', of how you understand these concepts, of God and faith, and what this might 'look like' in practice?
It probably doesn't matter where we begin, so maybe we could run with the last few comments of yours which have prompted my thinking.
You have described God as a where. A 'where', one can pray ... and so on. Does this mean that there is, for you, a One to whom we pray? A One whom we contemplate? A One from whom we derive our perspective. For sake of clarity, understand that I am trying to be deliberately specific in my use of the words 'One' and 'whom', (I probably want to capitalise the 'w' in whom!) and am thinking of (among other things) a transcendent yet immanent, personal and infinite Being.
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Portwyne- You don't believe in God. You are, effectively, an atheist or agnostic. What you're doing is using the word "God" to describe something other than a deity (in this case you're referring to some kind[s] of meditation). With regard to belief in a deity - a maximally great being, in one widely accepted definition - you don't believe. This is useful knowledge for us engaged in discussion with you!
By the way, you've confirmed my suspicions about postmodernism as a way to use language fluidly to the point where it is no longer useful as an aid to understanding: it is rather a way of clouding understanding, so that one can sound as though one has a comprehension of abstract thoughts or so that one can approach subjects by encouraging a search for deeper meaning. Christians do this too, by the way: the Ikon group in Belfast uses language to give the impression they're dealing with very fresh or profound ideas, yet in reality we could just describe them in a conventional way and understand them for what they are (which is less exciting, obviously, but more honest). I'll give you this: it's sometimes a useful way of helping people see things in a fresh light, but in this case we're speaking about two different things, a deity and a mental state.
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Brian your post #107 - Beware the curse of the monkey's paw! Earlier I wished to find another post-modernist on this blog and, Lo!, what do I find but Brian comes out as a post modernist beyond the dreams of avarice: just a word of caution though, there might be a few nuances you haven't quite got the hang of yet!
You say that what is real or known to an individual falls within the range of semantic possibilities in the words 'objective existence'. The logic of your contention is that there is no difference between saying "I have just seen a horse" and saying "I have just had a conversation with a unicorn". All you schizophrenics of the world come unto Brian and he will tell you to throw away your medication - anything that is real to you has an objective existence and is right there where you see it.
You ask (to what end I wonder) if I had seen I'm not Scared and, yes, I have. I confess I found the regional Italian a little taxing but I was able to follow it reasonably well. It is a very good film but, I repeat, just because one can see the influence of Neo-realism does not make the work realistic. A child of ten does not, in general, have sufficiently developed ability in the assessment of risk to make dangerous choices heroic.
You state that I must have "a very poor view of human nature" and that is surely the proverbial understatement of the year - I know from daily experience of the world in which I move what human nature is like, moreover, I know from looking unflinchingly into my own heart the huge capacity for evil that lies within. I seldom think, and that in a mind flowing with remembered poetry, more often of any quotation than William Shakespeare's "What a piece of work is man!" - but you know I'm not thinking in terms of nobility!
I do not think of the Jesus story as being in the same league as flying pigs. I might think, with Bishop Jenkins, that the Resurrection was "much more than a conjuring trick with bones" and consider its historicity of little import but I have to agree with Rowan Williams - icons (and iconic images) bring power from another dimension into this.
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John and Peter
Thanks for your replies, my response will probably have to wait until Thursday - I see a long day of catch-up ahead of me tomorrow.
Just a quickie though before I head to the sack - the point about language. Language is central to understanding - what we cannot express we do not understand. I think human understanding operates on a much broader spectrum than the rational. The person who hears language with the reason only is tone-deaf.
There is a great affective power in well chosen words and well constructed sentences - they touch not just the mind but also the emotions, they come closer to engaging the whole person. I have no doubt that that is what the Belfast group to whom you refer and with which I am not familiar are doing whether consciously or unconsciously. It is not only valid - it is necessary for the language of faith must touch the whole man.
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Portwyne:
Here are two scenarios.
1. Your religion is a fantasy. The God with whom you communicate has no 'objective existence' and your relationship is as real as having conversations with a unicorn. God is nothing more or less than your imaginary friend. He is all in your mind. Praying to him is really talking to yourself.
2. There is objectively 'another dimension' from which Jesus came. He rose from the dead 'spiritually' but not 'physically'. God is... love. God is ... good.
He neither exists nor does he not exist. He just is.
It seems to me that you want to have your cake and eat it. So there is a little bit of both scenarios in your position.
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Portwyne:
BTW: In post 107 I wrote:
"A theist must surely assert the objective existence of God". That is exactly what you do. Now, you are only quibbling over the meaning of 'objective' and 'exists' because you are asserting the existence or 'presence' or whatever of a god, even if only to you
Now, what I meant was that FOR YOU God has an objective existence. Whether or not you are bothered if other people believe in him is not clear. Whether you think you are privileged to have a hotline, is not clear either. Why this God hides himself from everybody else is not clear.
What relationship he bears to traditional deities isn't at all apparent either. indeed, there are a lot of unanswered questions about your particular take on the almighty.
Of course, I don't believe that a God has an objective existence outside human minds FOR ANYBODY! In that sense all theists are conversing with a unicorn of some sort or another.
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Portwyne:
As Columbo would say, just one more thing. Your reference in #169 to mental illness reminds me of the question: why is it when we talk to God, we're said to be praying, but when God talks to us, we're said to be schizophrenic? Is your talk a monologue or two ways?
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PeterM and JohnW
First, John, just as a matter of record, much though I excoriate many of my fellows, I would include myself in the set 'Christians'.
In response to your post #168 I want to return first to the question of language. Post-modern usage pushes language to its limits, something which requires of the user an absolute precision in the use of words to avoid justifying your charge of clouding meaning.
I am but an amateur post-modernist so I'm sure I often miss the mark; I attempt nonetheless to be exact in what I say. I realise this is a blog: I am often tired when I write; readers have multiple interests, they could well be tired too, they skim posts, get the gist, think they know what's being said, and react. This approach will not work when the material requires detailed scrutiny and attention to nuance to appreciate the point being made. (Whether or such scrutiny is merited is, of-course, another question).
I believe God is beyond rationality and nothing rational can be said about him; accordingly I have been very careful to speak only of my experience of God, not of God himself. One means, though by no means pre-eminent, of experiencing God is through meditation and in a certain mental state - I do know God in this way but I do not claim that that is what God is. God may be more than my experience of him. It is therefore incorrect to suggest that I identify a mental state and a deity.
In the same way when I spoke of my usage of "the word God" I meant precisely that - the word, not the totality of that which it labels.
Graham, in post #109, is incorrect in his presumption that I regard God as "a very useful and very powerful fiction" - absolutely not; he goes on though to pass a very perceptive comment on my position when he says "I get the impression that he [portwyne] believes that something metaphysical gives us meaning and moral purpose. He just thinks that we do not have, and do not need, knowledge about what that is". (I might quibble with metaphysical and insert empirical before knowledge but otherwise that is a pretty fair summary).
I know only what I have experienced but the nature of that experience causes me to suspect my knowledge of God is not even the tip, just a minute protuberance on what might well be an infinitely large iceberg.
So John, just as I reject your attempt to simplify my position into an elaborately fronted atheism, I have to reject Peter's attempt to lead me gently into a personification of that which I call God.
Peter, you present me with a temptation I must resist - the attempt to make God in my own image. I can see no reason why something wholly other than anything in material existence should have any quality that we would recognise as personal.
What most I experience in God is love: absolute, boundless, unconditional, transforming. I know nothing else about God than that he is love and I need to know nothing more than that.
I postulate, being human, and make presumptions but they are, in the end, only speculation. I think a being of boundless love did not create this universe of suffering. I suspect God may be so different from matter that he is unaware even of the existence of the universe. I believe such is the transcendent magnitude of God's love that we humans, if we will, can experience the power of that love through those functions of cognition which lie beyond reason.
I accept absolutely the validity of ultra-rational perception. It is a major failure in modern Western thought to see reason as the sole valid interpreter of experience. There is a whole other world of perception waiting to be experienced - a beautiful world but also a dangerous world - in that world, as in this, love is our anchor.
Further explication follows in my response to Brian...
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Brian - your post # 171.
First of all thank-you for giving me an opportunity to write the sort of sentence of which we post-modernists dream - a perfectly symmetrical antithesis:
As I do not believe any empirical evidence or satisfactory logical argument can be adduced to prove the existence of God, my concern is not having a cake and eating it; my concern is not having a cake and eating it.
That said, the term in common use for something that only an individual would regard as 'objective reality' is 'subjective' and there is a considerable subjective element in my conception of God - I have indeed already defined prayer in an earlier post as 'talking to oneself in the medium of God'.
I regard something as objectively real if it can be empirically verified - it is then within the sphere of science and reason. Just as reason is the hand-maiden of science so, of necessity, science is the mistress of rationality. The limitation of science, as I see it, is measurability - science fails where measurement fails - it cannot deal satisfactorily, for example, with infinity. Science and reason are then the tools of choice for dealing with the mechanistic universe we describe as a result of empirical investigation.
If there are other dimensions to reality which are or which host infinite or immeasurable beings or states then nothing from those dimensions will be capable of empirical verification or be usefully denoted by the term 'objective'.
I regard Jesus as very much a human being, absolutely from this dimension, this material universe. Where he differed from the common run of humanity is that he lived in the God the rest of us at most manage but fleetingly to visit.
For me one of the most fascinating utterances in the whole Bible is Paul's quotation in Acts 17 of Epimenides' line about Zeus: "in him we live, and move, and have our being". What makes this especially interesting is that Epimenides was a very high level shamanistic initiate - Paul is identifying the Christian experience in the minds of his audience, with a naturalistic, organic, mystical concept of God. We can see in Jesus the perfection of that mystic union and perpetual communion with God and through him realise in our lives and this dimension the power of something far beyond it.
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Brian - your post #172
You ask some specific questions:
(1) Am I bovvered whether or not other people believe in him?
No. I am not on here to persuade: just to poke, prod and needle - hope there are no Freudians on the blog!
(2) Do I think I am privileged to have a hotline to the Divine?
No - the lines are open but beware, while calls are free, it may cost you all you've got. (Although meant seriously there is a certain glee in imagining how much some people will hate lines like that).
(3) Does this God hide himself from everybody else?
No - absolutely not - he is to be seen in the faces of the poor, the marginalised, the afflicted. In the parable of the Good Samaritan it is remarkable that both the Priest and the Levite saw the half-dead traveller but passed by and so missed seeing God; the Samaritan who saw the need saw God.
(4) What relationship does my God bear to traditional deities?
Very little so far as I can see.
Post #173
As to prayer - see my last post. As to schizophrenia - my advice is unequivocal - if you hear the voice of God coming from some object in the material world see your GP at once or get right back on your tablets.
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Portwyne
I set out to write a rather long reply, however I have deleted it, deliberately. Why? Well the reason is your comment, "Peter, you present me with a temptation I must resist - the attempt to make God in my own image." that, and a recent one about contemplating the machinations of your own heart. And as I set out to disagree with you I realised that both of these ideas are central to my faith.
You understand of course that I do disagree with you, I passionately disagree with you (!), but idolatry and the misunderstanding my own deceitful heart are particular weaknesses! If I might offer an illustration, these twin transgressions are noticeable when I open the Church Hymnary and begin to sing something like:
"Jesus, I my cross have taken,
All to leave, and follow Thee;
Destitute, despised, forsaken,
Thou from hence my all shall be."
Sometimes I sing such dreadful lies!
However I will say this by way of response and antidote; I have come to understand that it is God Himself who guards me from idolatry, that it is God Himself who transforms my heart and that He has done this and continues to do this through the revelation of Himself in Jesus - this is how I know Him. Not because we humans can either reason or experience ourselves to Him, but because He has come to us.
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