What Religionists Can't Refute
A recent article and book by Mr. Dinesh D’Souza argue that atheists can’t refute the possibility of God. From there, Mr. D'Souza goes on to argue for an affirmative belief in his god: the god of orthodox Christians. It seems like Mr. D’Souza misunderstands atheism and because of this inadvertently supports the argument of the atheists: Whether God is real or not is a separate argument from what we can know. Religionists claim to know that a god exists and typically which god it is. Atheists simply say there is insufficient evidence to call this knowledge.
Might there be realities that we finite humans can’t perceive? Of course! The claim that there could be gods or a god that we can’t perceive is valid. But to call this knowledge, and then to engage in the slight of hand that takes one from this ambiguous opening to religious assertion is absurd.
There might be fairies we can’t perceive. There might be djinns we can’t perceive. The world might rest on the back of an imperceptible turtle. There might be an invisible warrior waiting to whack my head off outside my front door. I can’t say there isn’t because if he’s there, he’s invisible. And if I survive when I go out to feed the chickens, maybe it will be just because he moved on to my neighbor’s house. And if I survive tomorrow, perhaps it’s because he only appears once in 2000 years. Neither I nor you can rule him out.
You can see where this leads—to a paralyzing lot of mental clutter.
In order to function, humans generally limit themselves to making claims about things that they can perceive using logic and evidence. And, in fact, this is exactly what religionists do. Believers say that their beliefs rest on faith, when in reality what they rest on is frail and faulty evidence—the same kinds of evidence that have always been used to support the existence of magical creatures: anecdote, emotion, testimonial, folklore, and inexplicable sensations of transcendence, otherness, or transformation. Religionists don’t see that this kind of low-grade evidence fails to differentiate among the many magical gods and creatures that have populated human history, and, therefore, a position of integrity would require that one argue for the existence of them all.
The reason we don’t hear this argument is because each supernaturalist is actually believer of a specific sort. Each has been infected with a specific viral ideology that creates an emotional inclination, a desire to believe in a certain kind of magical being or a fear of not believing in this being. This emotional valence in turn protects that single set of supernatural beliefs from the ravages of reason.
To make matters worse, if the resonant beliefs are tried-and-true handed-down religions, they fit the structure of human information processing the way that heroin fits receptors in the brain—damn near perfectly, even though that isn’t what the receptors were made for. All of the rational argumentation about whether god could exist is just window dressing, people making abstract arguments for an abstract deity because they want to believe in a personal deity, the image of which has been virally implanted in their brains through social contagion.
Mountains of evidence doesn't affect the beliefs of true believers. Why? Because, the rationality of believers is in fact a false rationality. To some extent this is true of all of this; most of the time we use reasoning simply to support our emotional preferences. In the case of religionists, supernatural beliefs are not bound to follow logic and evidence to their rational conclusions. Argumentation may appear to seek truth, but it does not. It seeks to maintain the status quo. That is why arguing with true believers is so maddening. Even the most lucid arguments put forward against specific magical creatures ultimately are a waste of breath. They may change the minds of a few people who are more compelled by evidence than their peers. (Ironically these may be people who have an emotional aversion to not following the evidence where it leads.) But this has always been and always will be a small minority.
If this were not the case, our devout friends would be subject to rational argumentation. We now have excellent reason to posit that the gods humans believe in (Yaweh, Shiva, Allah, Zeus, and company) are modeled on the human psyche. Evidence abounds that they are the products of human culture and evolutionary biology. Increasingly, we can describe where they come from, both in prior religions and in the structure of our brains.
In addition, as knowledgeable former Christians and ex-Muslims have demonstrated over and over again, the claims of traditional monotheistic dogma are refutable because they are internally contradictory and they are empirically contradictory. They violate morality, evidence, and logic.
Mr. D’Souza makes his abstract arguments in the service of his religion, orthodox Christianity. But we shouldn’t waste our time arguing with him about either philosophy or specific orthodox doctrines.
Perhaps the best argument against the time-worn understanding of Christianity is that it is vile. It is selfish, materialist, and morally repugnant. The heart of orthodox theology is a god who demands human sacrifice. The Bible gives sacred status to some of the ugliest impulses of the human heart: tribalism, sexism, vengeance, rape, genocide, and a host of other brutish self-indulgences. Ironically, it corrupts the deepest values of Christianity itself, the love of Love and the love of Truth. It promises an afterlife in which the saved will be as rich as Paris Hilton (not just gold jewelry, streets of gold; not just gem studded purses and high heels, gem studded walls; not just good make-up but eternal youth) and as blissfully indifferent to the exquisite suffering of their brethren as, well, Paris Hilton (partying it up with their riches and friends including the Jesus friend-- while Baghdad or Southern California or Hell--burns). It isn’t just misguided. It’s disgusting.
Valerie Tarico, Ph.D. is the author of The Dark Side: How Evangelical Teachings Corrupt Love and Truth.
46 comments:
Whats this "truth" the author keeps whining about?
What truth?
I suppose, as a theist speaking to a non-theist, what constitutes proof or evidence?
Sure, we can't technically 'prove' any negative, including that there is no God. Of your other examples we can't prove: We can say it is highly unlikely the earth rests on the back of a giant turtle because we have sent things into orbit that have not hit it. So it is nearly impossible. We can say it is slightly more likely that fairies, perhaps a species of tiny people who are very secretive, exist, but since we haven't found bodies or evidence, they would have to very careful and secretive indeed, so they are also unlikely. And we can say that AS DEFINED, it is inconsistent and illogical for there to be both an all powerful and merciful God capable of miracles who lets terrible suffering happen. We can look at what is claimed to be true of God and show that logically God cannot exist because those claims are incosistent and impossible to co-exist in one entity. That is not true technical proof, but it is good enough for me.
I would say a pretty good definition of evidence is verifiable observations.
Ugh... I fear I am beginning to get annoyed with some of the nonsense coming out of atheist circles that appears in this little writing. To say for example that there is "proof" that the Christian God is a product of evolutionary psychology is absolute irrational nonsense. The comparison of the existence of God to that of fairies is equally jejeune. Finally, Miss. Tariaco seems to very confidently propound that the only reason we arent atheists or whatnot is we arent being REASONABLE. We need come to our senses. Of course, a rational theist can say the exact same statement, for one statement with no support behind it is equal to its opposing unguarded statement, and in this writing we see absolutely not even a slighlt attempt to deal with the standard arguments for and against. Simply writing about how God doesnt exist and providing no reason otherwise is quite rediculous indeed, though of course if the author intellectually accepts that religion came about from evolution then perhaps it should not surprise us so quickly that she is quick to pass a more rational approach.
Just one more thing, which I find ironic... Miss Tarico seems to want to say that Christianity "offends" or "contradicts" love. In support of this she pigeon-holes afew Old Testament laws, which is a standard objection and which is easily dealt with when one realizes the social norms of the time and how the Old Testament was written, applied, editted and interpreted. As is standard she doesnt actually come to terms with this but lets let that pass, namely because I doubt she has any intention on doing so. My point is that what is so special about this love business if its purely naturalistic? Its just a bunch of neurons and chemicals telling me to love people on Miss. Terico's view, and as such to place a transcendent value on such words is lunacy and, quite frankly, just as irrational as she claims "religionists" are.
I apologize for a THIRD writing but the more I read this the more disgusted I am by the authors obvious lack of understanding about what the Christian religion teaches. It does not surprise me she left it if she viewed the Christian religion as teaching that everyone just goes off to heaven and can ignore the suffering of the poor and afflicted... interesting I do believe Jesus... and Paul... and every other early Christian commentator says something quite different. Certainly it is not the gospel which teaches us to ignore the poor or invade countries with traditions we dont like or oil we dont have. That view of Christianity is essentially restricted to a certain sect of Conservative-Evangelicals in the US and it is disgusting. Unfortunately for the author, it is also explicit heresy which no mainstream denomination would ever consider appropriate... again, I dont think Miss. Terico is terribly concerned with accuracy here. After all, how much easier it is to simply fling mud and create strawmen.
Gordon -
My apologies for a lack of clarity. My intention was to highlight the very scriptural proposition of the Christians partying in heaven while hell burns, and to draw an earthly analogy rather than to diminish the prophetic voice which is also present in Christian scripture. It is interesting that the earthly analogy offends the moral sensibilities of many thoughtful, progressive modernist Christians, yet the supernatural eternal equivalent - those blissful hymns of praise that will accompany the screams of the damned-- doesn't.
I wouldn't claim proof that religion has its roots in evolutionary biology -- just a growing mound of fascinating information about how our brains process information, the errors this makes us prone to, and how comfortably successful religions fits those structures.
You accuse me of is asserting that people are religious because they are not rational. Yes. Religion is not rational. Religions make assertions and these assertions are not accountable to either rationality or empiricism in their rigorous forms. There further is little reason to believe that the religious impulse is a rational one, nor that the distribution of adherents among religions is predictible by anything other than heritage and social contagion.
--oh. And those literalist evangelicals in the U.S. happen to be over a third of the population. Furthermore, their form of belief is spreading rapidly through Asia and Latin America. I agree that their beliefs (my old beliefs) are disgusting, but one can hardly exempt the main current of Christianity from association with them.
Thank you for your very reasonable and polite response. Concerning the idea of Christians partying in Heaven while people burn in Hell I cant think of anything at the top of my head which propounds this. The oldest source I can think of who seems to take solice in this is Tertulian, but one has to keep in mind that he would be very bitter against the people trying to kill him. Certainly the Christian vision is not that we are glad we know the truth and everyone else can rot in hell, now what the nature of hell is (eternal, conditionalist, universalist) and the nature of that reality is a huge debate and certainly not clear cut. My point about whether or not "religionists" are rational is well taken, in the sense that obviously some religions are necessarily irrational. I dont think any Hindu or Buddhist would argue that they have good reasons to believe in them. The same is true, in my own perspective, with Islam. However (and I dont think any of us really want to get into this issue deeply on a blog) I do feel the Christian religion offers historically strong reasons to accept it. Certainly I believe that if Christianity isnt true the first person who would wish us to abandon it is Christ himself, followed very quikcly by St. Paul. While I reconize that roughly 1/3 of Americans are fundamentalists of one stripe or another but instead of making statements I would ask two questions and leave their conclusions to you. 1. Do they really care about what they believe? 2. Are they, quoting Walter Breugemann, Americans reading the bible or are they reading the bible American-ly? Philip Jenkins ( a fairly moderate Anglican) wrote a very book concerning the third world spread of Christianity entitled The Next Christendom and he argues that while there are some similiarities between them and American fundamentalists there are also considerable differences, especially the focus on social justice and following the Gospel message seriously, something which im sure you would admit most American Christians do not (just look at the adultery rate in southern states).
GORDONBLOOD
In support of this she pigeon-holes afew Old Testament laws, which is a standard objection and which is easily dealt with when one realizes the social norms of the time and how the Old Testament was written, applied, editted and interpreted.
GORDONBLOOD
I apologize for a THIRD writing but the more I read this the more disgusted I am by the authors obvious lack of understanding about what the Christian religion teaches.
CARR
Well, at least we ignorant atheists know that the Christian religion teaches that these Old Testament laws were allegedly inspired by a god, and were allegedly a product of that alleged god, not a product of the 'social norms of the time'
Steven you make things sound so clear cut. Churches disagree on the nature, interpretation and origin of the laws themselves. Certainly to say that all the laws in the Old Testament came straight from God to man is not true, Christ himself alludes so much (especially concerning divorce but other things as well). The Old Testament is not just a religious book, when it was being written it included secular laws and interpretations of more religious based laws. So dont try to just say "its in the bible, therefore God must have said it". Its not that simple and most Christians (and atheists whom I have talked to) recognize that. Im not saying God had no contact or didnt give moral truths to the Jewish people, I most certainly believe God did, but that does not mean every single thing in the Old Testament is a part of that interaction. But even if we ignore that, alot of the time people read certain things completely out of context of the land, the people and the situation and that is simply a triumph of, as you might wish to call it, ignorance. Jews certainly interpret the bible the way I am proposing, most Christians do the same and have no problem with recognizing this. That is the fact of the matter, even Thomas Aquinas (who I have turned to once before) says clearly that the Jews had not received pure revelation which was, obviously, in Christ.
It's funny to me that as I read what you write about how "we" do this and do that, I think the exact same thing about "you."
BTW, when you attack religion and man's ability to do what is right, I'm with you. When you attack God is where I struggle. It is faith alone that ultimately accepts God, yes, and I rest in that, but through that faith I have seen my understanding of Him grow. And, it is true what you say of djinns and other "imaginary" creatures, but there is a distinction. Billions of people haven't worshiped and followed djinns or leprechauns or fawns or fairies or claimed to know such personally. For whatever reason, faith in such creatures has not lasted for any that I know of, but faith in God has changed lives and lasted for many millions of people's lifetimes. Faith in religion has generally either not lasted or resulted in something ugly.
This is no different than deterring kids from a life of crime by showing what happens in prisons.
I'm sorry, Gordon, but it's very clear in the Pentateuch that Moses received the Law from Yahweh. The ONLY reason you want to claim otherwise is because you are embarrassed by those backward laws--kind of like a country cousin you don't like to claim relation to. Oh, and Jesus is most commonly thought to have disagreed with the rabbinical interpretations of the Law, NOT with the actual laws themselves. Read the sermon on the mount again. "You have heard it was said..." was a direct attack on the scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the Law. In many cases, the Pharisees had tacked on hundreds of little laws all their own, in an attempt to live out the Law to its fullest.
Gordon Blood said: "So don't try to just say 'its in the bible, therefore God must have said it.' Its not that simple and most Christians (and atheists whom I have talked to) recognize that."
Really? What about 1 Timothy 3:16? Paul had in mind the Old Testament when he said "ALL Scripture is God breathed." The fact is, even if we just took the quotations attributed to Yahweh (and even Jesus), we still have MORE than enough to trouble anyone of sound mind.
Gordonblood -
Actually both hinduism and buddhism in their abstract forms strike me as more rational (more moral, more internally consistent, less easily refuted with data) than Christianity. I suspect you think otherwise because you are imbedded in the Christian perspective. You reject the more obviously superstitious manifestations of Christianity, yet find the abstractions reasonable. Scholarly buddhists and hindus do the same.
goprairie says:
We can say it is slightly more likely that fairies, perhaps a species of tiny people who are very secretive, exist, but since we haven't found bodies or evidence, they would have to very careful and secretive indeed, so they are also unlikely.
Unlikely? You are obviously unfamiliar with their fossil record, which is incontrovertible proof of their existence.
Speaking of "proof"- I find it revealing that gordonblood complains: To say for example that there is "proof" that the Christian God is a product of evolutionary psychology is absolute irrational nonsense.
As Ms. Tarico said:
I wouldn't claim proof that religion has its roots in evolutionary biology
...and nowhere did she, or anyone else, claim "proof", just that the evidence seems to point that way. "Proof" is not forthcoming in scientific descriptions of the world, but some believers seem to be obsessed with absolutes.
I suspect this is because if they feel that their belief is less than 100%, then it will crumble. And likewise, believers often seem to feel that if science is not 100% sure of something, or 100% complete, than it too must crumble. The pitiful attempts of the answers in genesis folks to cast doubt on evolution and the age of the Earth by pointing out gaps in our knowledge are a good example of this all-or-nothing approach to understanding.
gordonblood said...
"Philip Jenkins ( a fairly moderate Anglican)"
and
"So dont try to just say "its in the bible, therefore God must have said it". Its not that simple and most Christians (and atheists whom I have talked to) recognize that."
Wow.... I know its been quite a while since I had a chat to Philip Jenkins, but I'm pretty sure he'd take issue with sure a hermeneutic . I'm pretty sure he is on the puritanical evangelical end of the Anglican spectrum.
Of course last time I talked to him so was I, and now I'm not, so maybe he's changed too.
This is of course a complex subject Joseph, but we are talking, generally, about what I consider the select verses in the Old Testament, not the over-arching law itself. Concerning Jesus he makes it very clear that God hadnt intended divorce to be allowed but Moses allowed it to happen in the law as the people simply wouldnt accept such a law at the time. Concerning scholarship however we know that the Old Testament was editted for the Jewesh people at different times, which makes sense. It had to be interpreted by rabbi's, nevermind the fact that certain laws we not read as case-law like today but as a prescriptive law. For example, the whole issue of "disobedient" sons being stoned. Though it certainly reads that way we know of no historical cases where such actions were actually done. Also, concerning Tim 3:16 you know absolutely well that is open to all sorts of interpretations of what that actually means. What I am trying to say is that Jews were well aware that the Torah was meant for a particular people in a particular time and place, not as an eternal code of law for all individuals. The realization of this explains why some Old Testament laws were discarded and the punishments changed to reflect the surroundings and nature of the place they were in. The problem is when Christian fundamentalists (or people who used to be in that camp) get there hands on these laws and completely disregard the context, surrounding area, ANE ethics and, of course, the meaning of the law. It is, as Keith Ward put it, a triumph of ignorance to do this. And Joseph, surely you recognize the Old Testament was editted considerably over time, any good historian would recognize that Moses probly didnot recieve every single law ascribed to be from God, as Jesus says in the New Testament Moses must have had some liberty or he would not have been able to allow for divorce.
Dr. Caotica the last online lecture I heard Dr. Jenkins discuss issues like this he certainly seemed to have a great deal of disdain for a fundamentalist interpretation of Old Testament laws.
Zilch my point was that there is basically NO reason to believe religion has its roots in darwinian evolution. Certainly evolution gave us the capacity to have religious ideas and understand them but that its circular logic, because we are here talking about religion evolution necessarily allowed us to understand such things. Of course I should say however that even if it were the case (I dont see how you could scientifically prove it though) id have no problems with that, the Judeo-Christian tradition recognizes that there were plenty of religions around before Abraham.
Valerie of course Buddhism and Hinduism are religions less easily refuted by data; they offer no data in which to believe them. Personally I think Christianity offers good reasons to accept it but it is a religion which can fall if certain things arent true, particularly the life, death and ressurection of Jesus, as opposed to things like the age of the earth or biblical inerrancy.
Zilch my point was that there is basically NO reason to believe religion has its roots in darwinian evolution.
I wouldn't be so sure, gordonblood. While there's certainly no consensus yet, there are some indications that predilection for religiosity may be inherited:
One bit of evidence supporting a genetic basis for spirituality is that twins separated at birth tend to have similar levels of spirituality, despite their different upbringings. And identical twins, who have the same DNA, are about twice as likely to share similar levels of spirituality as fraternal twins.
I'll hasten to add that this research is very preliminary and contentious; however, to say that there is no reason to believe that religiosity evolved is not justified. Of course, as an atheist, I would say that it's obvious that religions evolved; it's just a question of how much of the evolution is genetic, and how much cultural.
Oh well if your talking about simply a "predisposition" for religion im fine with that. One would expect that there will be naturalistic factors involved in ones coming to faith. It seems to me at least that does almost nothing to disprove any religion, including Christianity.
I looked around to try to find some sort of source to more clearly explain the sort of thing im trying to put forward here in understanding the nature and practice of the Torah. Keith Ward does a fairly good job I think of how at least I believe the Old Testament has to be understood.
http://www.gresham.ac.uk/event.asp?PageId=45&EventId=499
Gordonblood said:
Oh well if your talking about simply a "predisposition" for religion im fine with that. One would expect that there will be naturalistic factors involved in ones coming to faith. It seems to me at least that does almost nothing to disprove any religion, including Christianity.
May not disprove a religion, but it does take us back to the question of ability to believe or to choose to believe, does it not? If someone is not so predisposed, how are they to be blamed for not believing?
Well Stargazer that is a fair question but ultimately it is just a predisposition and not a deterministic thing. Some people who may be inclined, for whatever reason, to not believe in God almost certainly do. Indeed the opposite is true as well.
Can you give examples? I know that if I do not believe something, I can't honestly say that I do believe it.
It must be that early on, science and religion were more or less the same thing: an attempt to explain how and why things are, were, and will be. For example: If you are out in nature in a heightened state of arousal and awareness because all your senses are awake as you are on high alert for predators and on high alert for resources for food and shelter, you can feel that 'oneness with all things' and attribute it to some external force or you can attribute it to something about your own self. As some early humans went to attributing to to some external force, such thoughts cause one to look for more and more evidence of that and stories put forth as speculation become proposals of 'truth' and so it grows - and becomes 'religion' - and the religions that demand that it is your obligation to 'save' others by bringing them to it become self-replicating organizations of their own and grow until some horribly obvious mistruth causes them to collapse. meanwhile, those that attribute it to the working of the person lead to studying the body and eventually the brain and to observing when and how from a factual basis.
The more science knows and the more religion makes up, the farther they get from each other. They began as attempts to answer the same questions but branched due to different ways of thnking about it, so it is hard to even talk about them with the same sets of words. What the Christian sees as 'truth' demands faith, and what the scientist sees as 'truth' demands hard physical evidence. Different paradigms make discussion with even the same language sometimes meaningless.
With absolutely no offence intended Stargazer I think you are confusing belief with whether or not one wishes to believe something. To my knowledge the whole work question is whether or not some people maybe genetically more likely to believe in things (not just God) than others. So for example, lets say one doesnt want to believe that there father is a rapist (that a child would not want there father to be a rapist seems obvious). However, if the evidence warrants it (witnesses, DNA work etc) then whether or not they wish to believe or not believe is irrelevant. I recognize this is a crude example but it does mark out the difference between whether or not one believes something and whether or not one WANTS to believe something.
gopraire- Well that is certainly one interpretation of how religion and science interact. I find for me its quite unsatisfactory, I think the two need to basically agree. However its not a scientific question if a man raised from the dead, its a historical one. Scientists can only work in the repeatable and unless there are any scientists about who can flat out defy the laws of nature then science automatically becomes unimportant to the question. Of course science is important when referring to question like the age of the universe, the origin of biological life etc because that development can be seen and certainly any orthodox Christian who is being honest would conclude that our senses give us more-less reliable information about the world.
neither history nor science support any claim that any man was actually raised from the dead.
Thanks for your response, gordonblood. When I have found myself in that position, of 'choosing to believe' in spite of the evidence, I have always known that I did not really believe.
In fact, I am now trying to find a way of expressing dependence on evidence and getting away from even the use of the word believe. Does my husband love me? He says so, I have no reason not to trust his statement, his actions support his statements, so I can say, Yes, he does.
Maybe it's just reactionary on my part, and I will be able someday to use the term belief in some context I will consider valid, but right now, early on in my "getting my mind free" state, I'm practicing saying I know or I don't know; is there evidence or is there not? Belief is not a term I will apply to myself for a while.
Bryan,
You said:
"And, it is true what you say of djinns and other "imaginary" creatures, but there is a distinction. Billions of people haven't worshiped and followed djinns or leprechauns or fawns or fairies or claimed to know such personally. For whatever reason, faith in such creatures has not lasted for any that I know of, but faith in God has changed lives and lasted for many millions of people's lifetimes. Faith in religion has generally either not lasted or resulted in something ugly."
Fair enough, the worship of fairies is probably not that big, I am sure there are a few out there somewhere. Where do you draw the line though Brian? Look through history, do you know how many people worshipped Zeus? Mithra? The Muslim God? The list can go on..... How many different versions of the Christian god exist. Everyone can created god in their own image. I would like to know where that line is drawn.
With respect,
JP
I'm sorry, Gordon, but it's very clear in the Pentateuch that Moses received the Law from Yahweh. The ONLY reason you want to claim otherwise is because you are embarrassed by those backward laws--kind of like a country cousin you don't like to claim relation to. Oh, and Jesus is most commonly thought to have disagreed with the rabbinical interpretations of the Law, NOT with the actual laws themselves. Read the sermon on the mount again. "You have heard it was said..." was a direct attack on the scribes, Pharisees, and teachers of the Law. In many cases, the Pharisees had tacked on hundreds of little laws all their own, in an attempt to live out the Law to its fullest.
Being a Christian, I agree with you.
Remember that God visited ten plagues on Egypt. The Jews knew that if Moses misrepresented or fabricated God's Laws, he would receive the ten plagues.
I certainly was not questioning, both Micheal and Joseph, the overarching authority of the ten commandments or the over-arching law. However, it is a matter of historical fact whether one likes it or not that the Torah does not contain nearly all the laws which the nation of Israel would have kept nor are the punishments the only ones which could be prescribed. However, there was considerable editting done on the 10 commandments post- Moses. This is not a bad thing, it just was a necessitiy to change the law in certain ways to reflect the new situations which the Jews found themselves in. Again, the relationship between God, Torah and Jew is not nearly as clean cut as people wish to make it seem, Jesus (again) makes it very clear that God did not wish for divorce to be allowed yet he allowed Moses to institute it.
I miswrote something, there was almost certainly no editting on the 10 commandments but rather on the Torah itself*
Andrew's comment prompted me to write an article at exchristian.net: What's with all the Whining about Truth? It has provoked an interesting thread on the topic.
Valerie here's the link. Great post!
Gordonblood, you seem to be taking our position on the old testament. We know the torah was written in bits over a long period of time, revised, altered, changed. We know it fits the social situations of the time. The point is that why would this be the case if an all powerful and frankly, rather homicidal god was involved in the mix? If God really did keep appearing to the israelites, do you think they'd be stupid enough to change his laws? Surely god would just change them back, or more old testamently, kill lots of people until they sorted it out and changed it back.
You keep mentioning god not being in favour of the divorce laws but allowing them anyway. That seems hugely out of place for god in the old testament. More in tune would be
a) Israelites whinge to Moses (again) about wanting divorce
b) moses changes the law (foolish, he should know better)
c) God lays some serious death and mutilation on the Israelites.
d) the terrified Israelites change the law back.
Thats the way the old testament god tends to work. And since the ISraelites have seen many examples of god doing just that, it seems ridiculous that they would venture to tempt gods fate in such a way.
It simply doesn't make sense, unless you acknowledge that there was no god. The torah was not divinely inspired and the Israelites didn't witness all those god-kicking-butt miracles.
As for your claim that a man raising from the dead is not a scientific claim, what nonsense.
Science is perfectly placed to answer such a question.
a) there have been no dead people raised back to life that has been verified by scientists.
b) we therefore have no current data to believe that this can happen.
c) anatomically its impossible. Dead people are dead, we cannot raise people from the dead unless they have very freshly died, and even then, not if they have mortal injuries (like a spear in the side)
d) we have to rely on historical records.
So, too history, did the rulers of Judeah write about this miraculous occurence. No. Did the Roman occupation forces write about this miraculous occurence? No. Did anyone except the dead guys closest cult members see him again. No. Did he leave any physical evidence of his resurrection? No.
So basically all we have to go on regarding his resurrection is the verbal and written record of the members of his cult.
So, can they be trusted? Cult members are generally quite imaginative about their leaders (check out the survivors of the Branch Davidians, still waiting for the return of David Koresh). Given that we don't even really know where Christ was buried for sure, nor that his body was actually removed and we could simply be looking at a case of cult members simply saying that Christ would rise again and from there it only takes one member of christs followers to claim they actually saw christ and the whole thing kicks off.
We have to look at this sensibly. What is more likely.
1) a dead man was actually a god, rose from the dead and then flew to heaven, while leaving behind no evidence at all and only appearing to members of his cult.
2) Jesus didn't defy medical science and in fact just died. At some point later, one of his followers simply made it up.
Remember that everything else, everything in Christianity follows on from this event. The bible, the spread of the church, everything happened after this event and so cannot be used to support this event. The biblical description of these events were written by people that believed it anyway, they are not trustworthy historical sources on this issue.
http://audio.markcahill.org/Heartbeat.pdf
Gribble -
You made me laugh, several times. Thank you!
here is my refutation
http://metacrock.blogspot.com/
link
I would like to hear a few arguments as to what the basis for morality is in a materialist framework. Is morality based upon social consensus, harm minimization, propensity to produce productive societies or some other basis? And why does it matter if some or most people accept one basis if you reject it? If something is not in a person’s short or long term interests why should they not do it, even it involves assault, theft any other number of 'socially unacceptable' behaviours? Is it more than fear of punishment?
I'm asking these questions as an agnostic who is not sure whether 'God' exists. I'm literally '50-50' on the question. Every argument I read or think of myself that would seem to support one side over the other is soon met by a counter argument of some kind. The main issue I am having difficulty with at the moment is why should anyone behave 'morally' if we are just incredibly intelligent animals? If a person can get away with, say, murder, why should they not do it? I'm not talking about entire societies based upon such a principle but rather I am trying to exclude questions of punishment and social disadvantage by focusing upon a scenario where the only restraint upon a person’s behaviour is 'morality'. Is the sanctity of human life just an assumption maintained through threat of force?
I have other questions, like what it means to talk of love and beauty and truth and all that as somehow transcendent when all of them are ultimately stimuli of various kinds that elicit electrochemical responses in the brains' of observers. When atheists talk of 'wonder' at the universe etc what exactly does that mean for a materialist to do that? Why should anyone care if one animal has some deep emotional response to specific stimuli? I would have thought that were they consistent, they would acknowledge that light emitting sources forming particular shapes in the sky is objectively no more wondrous than a set of dice or a stick in the mud. One elicits different emotional responses to the other. So what does wonder mean in that context?
If there are classical responses to these questions from an athiest perspective then I would appreciate any links to them.
Big questions, tjw, and there are no "classic" atheist responses to them; at least, there's no consensus on them, as you can see at this thread.
My brief answer to our senses of wonder and beauty: of course they can be reduced to chemistry and physics (at least theoretically- whether it will ever be possible in reality is another question). But so what? That's just the substrate: what I feel is an emergent complex I can never fully understand, but I can certainly rejoice in it. I'll match my sense of beauty and wonder with anyone. As Feynman said, just because you know something about the biology or physics of a flower, doesn't take away the beauty of it one whit.
And, I'll add, just because you don't believe in an Absolute Dispenser of Morals, doesn't mean that you aren't moral. We are social animals, and that means we have the beginnings of morals built in. And we have reasoning minds, that tell us what works to build societies. Not perfectly, but well enough to have gotten us here. No absolute underpinnings necessary.
I would argue strongly that the question "what is good" is answered the same way as "what is peanut" or "what is chair"...it is what the societal consensus says it is, and in the absence of meaningful consensus between communicators it is a meaningless term. Any linguist will give you the same answer. Philosophy and theology both work at saying what people ought to think is good, but the ultimate definition is by societal consensus.
Fortunately, evolution has given us a baseline for morality that is very hard to overcome. Don't kill people without a good reason. Sacrifice your interests for the greater gain of your family, and to a lesser extent your tribe. Humans have added onto this basal morality, but it does exist as a kind of shared foundation that is hard to struggle against. Even the most fanatical of genocide cults only succeeded when they were able to convince their followers that the targets of genocide were some kind of alien "other".
Richard Dawkins made a very substantial hypothesis that higher morality and other ideas are propagated as independent replicators; that is, ideas such as morality exist for their own purposes. In other words, an idea of morality can thrive not because it is good for the success of the people expressing it, but because it is good at spreading itself among people, even at the expense of the people who hold the idea. There is a lot of active research studying related hypotheses under the heading of cultural evolution.
Exactly, shygetz. At first, I was going to say that it's easier to draw lines for "chair" than for "good", but then I started thinking about chairs: is an ottoman a chair? A barstool? A swing? Of course, no lives hang in the balance on our definition for "chair" or "peanut" (so far...).
I agree that any system of morals must start with our nature as social animals. But that's no longer sufficient for the modern world: we've long since reached the point where our survival depends upon extending our genetic recognition of kith and kin with reasoned inclusion of the whole biosphere as our tribe. Easier said than done, of course.
Dawkins' concept of memes as replicators in the ideosphere, which can spread even at the expense of those holding them, helps to explain the tenacity of many irrational ideas. But as Dawkins and Daniel Dennett (for instance, in Darwin's Dangerous Idea) also point out: luckily, another powerful factor in the spread of memes is their utility for us: science is a meme (or memeplex) that spreads because it works, for instance.
Here's hoping that our reason, and love for the world, outbalance our irrationality and hatred.
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