Quote of the Day by Alvin Plantinga
Yep, this one comes from fundamentalist Christian philosopher Alvin Plantinga, who wrote:
Because time after time in order to defend what they believe, Christians must continually retreat to what is possible rather than what is probable. I hope to gather a bunch of these types of quotes in the weeks/months ahead.
So, let's assume this scenario by Plantinga, that there are natural processes that produce religious belief such that neurologists have an explanation in terms of natural processes of religious belief. Okay so far? That is, science can explain the brain processes that produce religious faith. Actually, I think neurology has already gone a long way to explaining religious/paranormal beliefs, but we'll leave that aside.
So here comes fundamentalist Christian philosopher Plantinga poised to attack, that even if this should prove to be the case his religious faith could possibly still be true. What should we say to this? We say what is obvious, yes, it is still possible, Alvin. But what has he gained? Nothing at all. For what we want to know is what would be probable given an explanation of religious faith in brain processes, not what is possible. If all we had to be concerned about was what is possible then maybe the Loch Ness Monster exists but is smart enough to escape being detected by us too. Get the point?
Furthermore, if Plantinga can say this in defense of his fundamentalist Christian faith then a Mormon or a Muslim could say the exact same things he did in defense of their faith. And hence all religious faiths could still be true despite neurological science. And where does that get us? Nowhere as in NO WHERE.
My claim is that at crucial places in defense of religious faith, believers must punt over and over to what is possible rather than what is probable. My claim is that the more believers must do this to defend what they believe, then the less likely their faith is true.
"To show that there are natural processes that produce religious belief does nothing, so far, to discredit it; perhaps God designed us in such a way that it is by virtue of those processes that we come to have knowledge of him. Suppose it could be demonstrated that a certain kind of complex neural stimulation could produce theistic belief. This would have no tendency to discredit religious belief....Clearly, it is possible both that there is an explanation in terms of natural processes of religious belief, and that these beliefs have a perfectly respectable epistemic status." Warranted Christian BeliefWhy is this the quote of the day?(p. 145).
Because time after time in order to defend what they believe, Christians must continually retreat to what is possible rather than what is probable. I hope to gather a bunch of these types of quotes in the weeks/months ahead.
So, let's assume this scenario by Plantinga, that there are natural processes that produce religious belief such that neurologists have an explanation in terms of natural processes of religious belief. Okay so far? That is, science can explain the brain processes that produce religious faith. Actually, I think neurology has already gone a long way to explaining religious/paranormal beliefs, but we'll leave that aside.
So here comes fundamentalist Christian philosopher Plantinga poised to attack, that even if this should prove to be the case his religious faith could possibly still be true. What should we say to this? We say what is obvious, yes, it is still possible, Alvin. But what has he gained? Nothing at all. For what we want to know is what would be probable given an explanation of religious faith in brain processes, not what is possible. If all we had to be concerned about was what is possible then maybe the Loch Ness Monster exists but is smart enough to escape being detected by us too. Get the point?
Furthermore, if Plantinga can say this in defense of his fundamentalist Christian faith then a Mormon or a Muslim could say the exact same things he did in defense of their faith. And hence all religious faiths could still be true despite neurological science. And where does that get us? Nowhere as in NO WHERE.
My claim is that at crucial places in defense of religious faith, believers must punt over and over to what is possible rather than what is probable. My claim is that the more believers must do this to defend what they believe, then the less likely their faith is true.
75 comments:
"Because time after time in order to defend what they believe, Christians must continually retreat to what is possible rather than what is probable."
Hi John
I don't think that's what Plantinga is doing. He seems to me to be saying that we should be wary of claims that suggest that if we can explain X naturally, we've said something about X's truth value, especially when the naturalistic explanation says nothing about X's truth value. Here's the quote in context:
"But the general project under which the efforts of Freud and Marx fall is that of giving naturalistic explanations of religious belief, explanations that don’t involve the truth of the beliefs in question or the truth of any other supernaturalistic beliefs or hypotheses. Many (in addition to those cited above) have joined them in this effort, and by now there is quite a variety of naturalistic explanations of religious belief. But of course giving a naturalistic account of a kind of belief isn’t automatically a criticism of that kind of belief.
"Consider a priori belief, belief in such propositions as the laws of logic, perhaps, or the basic truths of arithmetic, or the proposition that if all cats are animals, and Maynard is a cat, then Maynard is an animal. Perhaps it is possible to give a ‘naturalistic’ account of our knowledge of these truths: an account, that is, that stands in the same relation to them as a naturalistic account of religious belief stands to it. Such an account would not invoke the truth of these a priori beliefs as part of the explanation; it would proceed instead by outlining certain salient features of the causal genesis or antecedents of these beliefs, perhaps pointing to events of some kind in the nervous system. The existence of a causal explanation, of this sort, of a priori belief would not show or tend to show that such beliefs are unreliable.
"The same would go for religious belief. To show that there are natural processes that produce religious belief does nothing, so far, to discredit it; perhaps God designed us in such a way that it is by virtue of those processes that we come to have knowledge of him. Suppose it could be demonstrated that a certain kind of complex neural stimulation could produce theistic belief. This would have no tendency to discredit religious belief—just as memory is not discredited by the fact that one can produce memory beliefs by stimulating the right part of the brain. Clearly, it is possible both that there is an explanation in terms of natural processes of religious belief (perhaps a brain physiological account of what happens when someone holds religious beliefs), and that these beliefs have a perfectly respectable epistemic status.
"If we are to have a criticism of religion by way of a naturalistic explanation, what we need is something that in some way discredits religious belief, casts doubt on it, shows that it is not epistemically respectable—in a word, shows that there is something wrong with it. And the criticism, of course, is that religious belief (including Christian belief) is irrational."
I don't think Plantinga was "punting to possibility" here at all, no more than the claim that a naturalistic explanation of the laws of logic doesn't necessarily discredit the laws of logic is a punt to possibility.
@ John
How can you tell people what is probable?
"Christians must continually retreat to what is possible rather than what is probable"
John, you've misconstrued what is happening here. Plantinga is defending religious belief against an objection. That objection involves the assumption that the rationality of Christian belief is impossible given a certain set of facts. Plantinga's response, therefore, concerns what is possible.
Far from being a retreat, Plantinga's line of argument hits the target dead on.
Stay away from philosophy if you don't understand it.
Eric,
I think you're missing the point (and so is Plantinga). If it can be shown that messing with your brain chemistry can induce religious experiences, then the question is immediately raised: Are all religious experiences merely brain chemistry (either drug induced or by strong emotion)? And if so, how do we tell the difference between a true religious experience and one that was induced by some hallucinogenic effect. And then you have to ask how frequently do religious experiences tend to happen under conditions that are prone to produce them artifially, or more normal everyday conditions. And when you do that, suddenly true religious experiences start looking a whole lot less probable.
You can not, of course, rule out true religious experiences entirely even when they might be drug induced or triggered by strong emotions (which is the point that Plantinga makes, restated within this context), but at the same time, they don't look all that probable given the breadth of religious experience that people have around the world and the conditions under which these experiences occur. Ultimately you're stuck trying to figure out how to detect a true religious experience vs. one that was triggered artificially. And no one has really figured out how to tell the difference in these instances other than by playing the "I know that I know that I know" card, which is unacceptable in my opinion.
Glenn, you are wrong, dead wrong. Let me rephrase: "That objection involves the assumption that the rationality of Christian belief is improbable given a certain set of facts. Plantinga's response, therefore, is irrelevant because it concerns what is possible."
You just don't get it do you? These types of objections are almost always improbable objections not impossible ones.
Maybe YOU should stay away from philosophy if you don't understand what's going on.
This is also why Plantinga's formulation and objections to classical foundationalism are misguided. But that's a different lesson for a different time. Stay focused here for now.
It also demonstrates the Christian tendency to view everything with blinders on ... Plantinga never considered whether the god neuron could justify animism, mormonism, schizophrenia, islam, or belief in UFOs.
Glenn, while I'm at it, why is it that a young person like you treats someone like me with such disdain? Did you graduate from schools where everyone thought the same? When someone had a different thought did you blurt out in class to them, "Stay away from philosophy if you don't understand it." If so, I bet your fellow students loved having you in class. It seems as if you hang out in a forum where you learn from juveniles (yes I know where). Grow up my friend. Treat adults who disagree with a measure of respect that Eric does, who is only a PhD student.
Hi John,
I agree with you, but I have not read Platinga at all, so I am only seeing what you provide her. I think what is important is that if brain chemistry can explain why people have visions or religious experiences, it does not take away from the experience of the vision. It would, I think, actually show that the "truth" value of any statements based on these visions to be nil insofar as ontological truth is concerned.Have you seen the Shermer vs Chopra debate on ABC?
Steven,
Plantiga was discussing "theistic beliefs" while you were addressing "religious experiences". Those two aren't necessarily the same thing, are they?
Eric,
Plantinga is indeed resorting to what he hopes is not an impossibility rather than what can be known to have a respectable non-zero probability. There is no good reason to think that gods are even a possibility given that so many have come and gone without asserting any of the powers their faithful have believed to be true. Man has had tens of thousands of gods which have simply died away without any of the warned adverse consequences ever being witnessed.
Today it is observed that many whole societies and subcultures have dumped the god of the Bible only to have their quality of life significantly raised. If Bible God had any power - power it is fabled to have had in the Old Testament - we would see it. If it existed I would be one of the first targets of its wrath. I fear your silly version of a god no more than you fear Loki, or any of seven hundred gods of the Celtic pantheon. Like your god many of them were said to be nasty vengeful bastards, but then, also just like your god, Eric, they were imaginary.
Naturalistic explanations are far more intellectually consistent, plausible, and they don't play with people's minds as do the inherently ad hoc apologetic explanations. It is just too kooky that the religious fail to see that their own god had things so screwed up that people had to make up excuses for it and explain what it really meant. Think that one through: the creator of the universe, the creator of writing and language and everything else, had to have some lowly human explain its words. We know they were lowly since we can have a different lowly human explain those same words and we will be treated to a very different creator of the universe. Actually, yea ol' creator of the universe never speaks for itself; it always needs an intermediary. We have no reason to think that there has ever been a god, but we have very good reasons to think that concerning the words we've been told are the revealed wisdom of gods that intermediaries are all there have ever been. Man's gods, including your Yahweh, have always been only as savvy as those who appear to have invented them.
The naturalistic explanation has a much greater explanatory power. For instance, it accounts for why it is that even amongst religionists in same-named religions like Christianity, Islam, Judaism, Hinduism and Buddhism, there is not and need not be a consensus concerning any point of theology, doctrine or praxis. The likelihood that there is some god in the great out there lying to all but one chosen group is vanishingly low.
The naturalistic explanations tell us that the psychology of group dynamics provides us a better explanation of why people remain religious adherents even though they are called on to profess belief in notions that are just plain bizarre. The actual beliefs are more incidental. It is group belonging that matters, not what the group generally claims to believe. Go ahead, Eric, try this out. You invent a body of beliefs, any body of beliefs, and I will guarantee that you can drum up devout and pious followers, believers, or adherents who will swallow it hook, line and sinker. Truth has no importance whatsoever. Look at what Scientology has been able to do in just a few decades; Mormonism in a handful more decades; and, the myriad Christianities in only a couple hundred. We know the beliefs are immaterial since few believers are at all concerned that others with very different beliefs are just as devout and just as likely to assert their beliefs to be true. Believers are not concerned with actual truth, they are merely enamored with the group idea of their having it while being certain that others do not.
Few of today's believers can provide an explanation of their own personal beliefs; they can't give anything close to an explanation that would be accepted by the professional God-whisperers, the theologians, of their particular sect. The hypothesis that there really is a god out their telling the theologians one thing while the layman is left believing something else, is untenable. That different believers all have different imaginations leading them to imagine the purportedly same god differently is far more likely and realistic than are any of the apologetic workarounds for the same issue. Especially considering that the apologetic workarounds conflict with and contradict each other. The naturalistic explanations account for why it is that new gods are continually being imagined and used as the basis of new religions.
Those currently embracing a specific religion do not accept new gods or the new god's miracles because their group will not allow it. It has nothing to do with veracity of claims or the remote possibilities most of the religious pin their hopes to; it has everything to do with peer pressure and fear of group ostracization.
John is right.
You know, I heard or read something the other day; a mathematical argument relating to probabilities. It went something like this:
.99^1,000 is effectively zero.
In other words, a series of 1,000individual data points, each with a likelihood of 99%, when taken together still ends up at zero probability (the answer comes out 4.317^-5 in case you want to check my math), because statistically, the data are multiplicative.
How much less probable is a belief system such as Christianity given all the "possible" arguments Plantinga ALONE has advanced?
In Plantinga's EAAN, he quoted some statistics (that he had to have another guy compute for him because presumably he didn't study enough math himself). He said,
"...If I have 1,000 independent beliefs, for example, and the probability of any particular be-lief’s being true is 1/2, then the probability that 3/4 or more of these beliefs are true (certainly a modest enough requirement for reliability) will be less than 10^–58. And even if I am running a modest epistemic establishment of only 100 beliefs, the probability that 3/4 of them are true, given that the probability of any one’s being true is 1/2, is very low, something like .000001."
"Evolution vs. Naturalism: Why they are like oil and water"
A couple of points:
While each of us may hold 1,000 beliefs, many of those beliefs are either utterly trivial (e.g., "I believe that large plant over there is called a "tree"), informed by perceptions of physical properties (e.g., "I believe that is a RED dress") or subjective (e.g., "I believe that the Democratic Party in the U.S. is trending toward socialism").
In other words, his estimate of the NUMBER of beliefs one might have that are GERMANE to the discussion is VASTLY OVERSTATED; second, his default position of 50/50 regarding the chance that what I believe is true is REALLY true is absurd (e.g., "I believe that things will fall 'up' tomorrow, since I'm not sure that there's any reason to believe that things will fall 'down' like they have been since I can remember" is an example of the 50/50 condition).
OK, now that I have punked out Plantinga's math, let me kick this out:
something that's no better than POSSIBLE will have a probability approaching 50% from the low side (this is being generous; something considered "probable" by rights should fall between 50% and 100%, which is presumably where Plantinga gets his 75% number from that he uses to call his math 'modest').
Like I said, I'll be generous and let possible = 49.9%.
How many instances of "possible" can we compound before the probability of the truth of Christianity is less than 1%?
Seven.
Do the math.
.499^7=.0077 or 0.77%
John, no. The objection that Plantinga responds to concerns whether or not some claim about religious belief serves as a defeater for that belief.
But clearly it's only a defeater if it indicates that the belief isn't true. And clearly, it's just the genetic fallacy to infer from the way a belief formed that the belief is false or unlikely to be true, because the way a belief is formed in many cases is not the truth-makler of that belief. Since it's clearly possible for the belief to be formed int hat way and still true (and hence *possible* is indeed the relevant reponse for Plantinga to make here), the defeater is de-fused.
You can confidently say that this is dead wrong, but philosophically, you're simply mistaken. And age does not qualify anyone for a free pass. Your philosophy is off base, and you are (by your own admission, I would suspect) not qualified or terribly experienced with analytic philosophy and epistemology. I won't patronise you by implying that there's some merit to your critique, now would I expect you to want me to.
I suppose I could note, while I am at it, that Plantinga is a distinguished scholar in his seventies, John, but you brush him off more than once as a "fundamentalist," and you've miscontrued him as retreating when actually he is merely responding to an argument on its own terms.
I was sincere in telling you to stay out of matters you don't understand, just as you are often sincere when you (rather elss politely) describe the way you see Christian apologetics. Sorry if it offends.
John, you are wrong here. Plantinga is merely showing why a naturalistic explanation for religious belief commits the genetic fallacy. Even if one could show that "natural" processes can explain religious belief, it says nothing about the truth value of the content of those beliefs. It's a double-edged sword as well. If natural processes explain religious belief, they also explain all beliefs, rendering all beliefs as non-rational, no matter how "rational" the subject thinks they are.
Chris also asked you a question that has gone unanswered. In terms of what criteria do you judge what is "probable"? How are you in a position to tell people what is and is not "probable"?
Plantinga used statistics in his Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism. But his math is screwy. Here's what he said:
"...If I have 1,000 independent beliefs, for example, and the probability of any particular be-lief’s being true is 1/2, then the probability that 3/4 or more of these beliefs are true (certainly a modest enough requirement for reliability) will be less than 10^–58. And even if I am running a modest epistemic establishment of only 100 beliefs, the probability that 3/4 of them are true, given that the probability of any one’s being true is 1/2, is very low, something like .000001."
"Evolution vs. Naturalism: Why they are like oil and water"
Let's see where the statiscics REALLY takes us...
First, Plantinga's estimate that each of us has 1,000 beliefs is absurd.
1) Most beliefs that we hold are utterly trivial: "I believe that is a tree" (while looking at a tree).
2) Most of the remaining beliefs are informed by objective evidence: "I believe that dress is RED" (while looking at a red dress).
3) Most of the beliefs that remaion after THAT are completely subjective: "I believe that I should vote for the Democratic candidate" (because that's the way my parents voted all their lives).
Second, Plantinga holds that 75% (3/4) of beliefs being true in the absence of anything more than a 50/50 toss up is a reasonable assumption.
But at least two of Plantinga's arguments back up to mere possibilities: the EAAN, and the Free Will Defense.
I will be GENEROUS, and grant that for something to be POSSIBLE, it has a probability approaching 50%. using the SAME EQUATION Plantinga does (0.5^1000*(1000!/((1000-750)!*750!)) But with my numbers for the POSSIBILITY of Christianity being true, and finding the number of beliefs it requires to achieve 13% probability, we have:
0.5^36*(36!/((36-18)!*18!))
Again, a generous estimate, where
.5 represents the chance of belief being correct,
36 represents the total number of "possible" beliefs,
18 represents "true" beliefs.
----------------------------
If I make the same "modest" assumption Plantinga does (that, given the probability of "possible" beliefs ranges from 0% to 50%, and taking the mean of 25%), this gives,
0.5^36*(36!/((36-9)!*9!)), or 1.37%
Not very good probabilities.
Ladyatheist: "Plantinga never considered whether the god neuron could justify animism, mormonism, schizophrenia, islam, or belief in UFOs."
That's because the objection was that there exists an account of the origin of religious belief, therefore undermining the truth of that belief. So the only relevant question here is whether the objection is a successful defeater.
I notice in your comment you didn't claim that child molestation is evil. Got a soft spot for child molestors eh? (see the point now?)
'To show that there are natural processes that produce religious belief does nothing, so far, to discredit it; perhaps God designed us in such a way that it is by virtue of those processes that we come to have knowledge of him.'
Who exactly did God design?
Did God design Plantinga? Then why does Plantinga wear glasses? Is this a design fault?
Can Plantinga name one person who was designed by God?
Did God design Hitler?
Does Plantinga know where babies come from?
Here is a clue. They don't come from God's design factory.
I think this is a general problem with philosophers.
I quote Neil Godfrey.
'The question reminds me of the joke about a technician explaining how a television set works to a technically-challenged enquirer who thought there must be a little man inside who makes it all work.
The enquirer listened attentively as the technician explained carefully and slowly the nature of radio waves, the cathode ray tube, the antenna socket, electronic circuits and electromagnets.
When he had finished, this thoughtful enquirer paused for a moment to take it all in, and finally said, Yes, but just the same, isn’t there possibly still a little man in there to make it all work?'
"I think you're missing the point (and so is Plantinga). If it can be shown that messing with your brain chemistry can induce religious experiences, then the question is immediately raised: Are all religious experiences merely brain chemistry (either drug induced or by strong emotion)?"
Hi Steve
First, I think we have to be a bit more precise: Plantinga is talking about natural explanations of religious belief, while your post addressed natural explanations of religious experience. I think this is an important distinction to keep in mind when reading the quote. Plantinga is looking at the relationship between naturalistic explanations of beliefs and the truth values of those beliefs. Now while beliefs can have truth values, experiences cannot. An experience can be veridical, but it can't be 'true' (in the sense Plantinga is using the term). So, it seems to me as if we'll get muddled here if we don't keep these terms straight.
But that aside, if I may address your question as it was put, why wouldn't your skeptical concerns, by parity of reasoning, apply to vision, memory, emotions, etc., all of which can be induced or affected by "messing with brain chemistry"?
The rest of your post, which deals with distinguishing "true" religious experiences from "artificial" ones is (though a great question), it seems to me, a bit beside the point (given, as I said, that Plantinga is talking about belief, not experience).
Hi Russ
You've gone way off topic. The issue is whether naturalistic explanations for X that don't address X's truth value say anything about X's truth value ("But the general project...is that of giving naturalistic explanations of religious belief, explanations that don’t involve the truth of the beliefs in question..." " Such an account would not invoke the truth of these a priori beliefs as part of the explanation; it would proceed instead by outlining certain salient features of the causal genesis or antecedents of these beliefs, perhaps pointing to events of some kind in the nervous system" "If we are to have a criticism of religion by way of a naturalistic explanation, what we need is something that in some way discredits religious belief, casts doubt on it, shows that it is not epistemically respectable—in a word, shows that there is something wrong with it").
Your two posts didn't address this issue at all.
Glenn, I understood analytic philosophy when you were still in your diapers. I don't know how many times I have to tell people this but my target audience is the university/college student. I do not write for people with doctorates like you who want proof I understand these issues, and so I'll not bother telling you the classes I had, who taught them, and the papers I wrote within the analytic tradition.
Plantinga was writing about Marx and Freud's critiques of religion. They never used the word "defeater" in writing their critiques as far as I know. So what interpretation are you using when you accept Plantinga's formulation of their critiques?
First we need to properly understand their critiques. They were not trying to show religious faith is impossible! Hence there is emphatically NOT a genetic fallacy here. Christians repeatedly mischaracterize these skeptical arguments, and you do too (and yet, you're trying to teach me something, right?). Show me otherwise with the relevant primary quotes and the secondary scholarly discussions. They are offering improbability arguments, not impossibility arguments.
Now what do you say about them rather than strawman versions of them?
Sheesh.
John, how does appealing to probability rescue this argument from the genetic fallacy? It seems to me a probability argument for or against theism is totally separate from the issue of explaining the origins of religious belief. Can you please explain why you think a naturalistic explanation of religious belief makes those beliefs any less probable? Moreover, can you explain how a naturalistic explanation of belief in the laws of logic makes them any more probable? Aren't you just cherry-picking which beliefs you are deeming to be "probable" and "improbable"?
What's the probability that the mind, as a product of evolution, is a reliable instrument for reasoning at all? Recall Darwin's doubt:
"With me, the horrid doubt always arises whether the convictions of man's mind, which has been developed from the mind of the lower animals, are of any value or at all trustworthy. Would any one trust in the convictions of a monkey's mind, if there are any convictions in such a mind?"
Aside from the genetic fallacy, you are also mistaken in thinking that on naturalistic terms, a naturalistic explanation is only needed to account for religious beliefs, when in fact it would logically have to account for all beliefs, not just religious ones. By trying to explain them naturalistically, a naturalist denies any distinction between "religious" and "non-religious" belief. There could only be one kind of belief, those that can be accounted for naturalistically. Whether or not they have religious content is irrelevant. By advancing this argument you undermine your own position.
Eric and Do or Do Not,
I think you're making a distinction that doesn't make (much) of a difference. Plantinga's argument assumes that belief arises via naturalistic means. This implies that religious belief does not exist in a vacuum, it comes from somewhere, via some causal chain of events. If we can show that the chain of events in question can be artificially induced and that the chain of events occur naturally under certain questionable conditions, then we're right back where we started, and we have to call into question our knowledge of the truth value of those beliefs.
And Eric, yes, my critique most definitely applies to common sense data as well. I don't see where that raises much of a dilemma though. I think we'll both agree that our senses are often unreliable. They are good enough most of the time, but I'm sure you have had experiences where you later realized that you shouldn't trust what you saw, felt, etc. I know I have had such experiences.
@ Glenn: uhhhh no
Makes no sense at all, much like almost everything in religion.
Because time after time in order to defend what they believe, Christians must continually retreat to what is possible rather than what is probable.
That succinctly and perfectly summarizes the essential flaw in another of Plantinga's arguments: the evolutionary argument against naturalism (EAAN).
He raises the mere logical possibility of non-truth tracking beliefs (in, for example, his absurd tiger story) as if this was all that was required for his argument to succeed.
To quote Plantinga on this topic:
Perhaps Paul very much likes the idea of being eaten, but when he sees a tiger, always runs off looking for a better prospect, because he thinks it unlikely the tiger he sees will eat him. This will get his body parts in the right place so far as survival is concerned, without involving much by way of true belief. ... Or perhaps he thinks the tiger is a large, friendly, cuddly pussycat and wants to pet it; but he also believes that the best way to pet it is to run away from it. ... Clearly there are any number of belief-cum-desire systems that equally fit a given bit of behaviour.
And this guy is widely considered one of the best living Christian philosophers.
It boggles the mind.
John, you are wrong here. Plantinga is merely showing why a naturalistic explanation for religious belief commits the genetic fallacy.
Not all arguments against a belief based on the origin of the belief involve the commission of a fallacy. Things are not so simple as that.
If, for example, we find that Ralph's belief that he is in telepathic communication with extraterrestrials is the product of his schizophrenia then we have ample reason to think he probably ISN'T actually in communication with extraterrestrial (sure, it's possible---but far from plausible). This is especially the case when the belief involved requires a series of ad hoc adjustment to avoid falsifiability (the aliens/God don't like to be tested, they/God want us to have the opportunity to accept or reject their message of our own free will, and so on).
I am not a philosopher, but it seems to me that Plantinga is using the word "belief" in a different way from common usage. Perhaps if one used the word "understand" instead it would clarify things.The religious use of the word "belief" inplies blind faith without evidence.
Deluded individuals such as schizophrenics are absolutely convinced that their delusional "beliefs" are true. We know they are not because they are either impossible or extremely improbable in their context. For example a vision or hallucination is not heard or seen by others who are in the vicinity.
If you saw Eric or Glenn talking out loud to an invisible God, what would you conclude?
"Not all arguments against a belief based on the origin of the belief involve the commission of a fallacy. Things are not so simple as that."
"If, for example, we find that Ralph's belief that he is in telepathic communication with extraterrestrials is the product of his schizophrenia then we have ample reason to think he probably ISN'T actually in communication with extraterrestrial (sure, it's possible---but far from plausible)."
But there's nothing about the origin of the belief itself that makes it invalid, even such an extreme example as this. Plausibility arguments must be stated in terms of assumed limiting conditions such as the uniformity of nature. In order to be able to mount a probability argument, you also have to have a framework that delimits the possible and the probable. What one considers plausible is dependent upon such a presuppositional framework. Does an atheist have such a presuppositional framework? Has he justified those presuppositions? Has he justified the exclusion of others? Probability arguments are based on inductive reasoning. Has the atheist justified his belief in inductive reasoning? Does he have an answer to Hume's skepticism?
When we say that something is "implausible", we are just saying that it is difficult to believe given one's a priori belief system. It is not surprising then that atheists find God to be "implausible". The real question is whether he is justified in his assumptions about the world.
What one considers plausible is dependent upon such a presuppositional framework. Does an atheist have such a presuppositional framework? Has he justified those presuppositions? Has he justified the exclusion of others?
Yes, what a person considers plausible depends on his background beliefs, knowledge and experience.
Which is, of course, not to say that all plausibility assessments are equally sound.
You are talking about presuppositional frameworks as if there is any reason for them to be different for the atheist and theist.
My "presuppositions" include no religious nor anti-religious assumptions. Which is exactly how things should be if one is examining the question of whether the claims religions make are true (otherwise one's is simply deciding the issue beforehand and, almost inevitably, constructing rationalizations to support that predetermined conclusion).
Do you include propositions like "God exists" in your presuppositions? If so, why do you think you should?
Eric said,
"...I don't think Plantinga was "punting to possibility" here at all, no more than the claim that a naturalistic explanation of the laws of logic doesn't necessarily discredit the laws of logic is a punt to possibility."
From the original quote:
"...perhaps God designed us in such a way..."
"...Suppose it could be demonstrated..."
"...Clearly, it is possible..."
Also seems that there are no mathematicians in the crowd of philosophers here...
I'll spell it out for you guys:
Plantinga's EAAN concludes through mathematical means that the chance for our beliefs to be reliably true 75% of the time is vanishingly small ("less than 10^-58")
I claim his math is faulty and without support in its premises, and provide a counter-example using the SAME math to show that with only a FEW (not 1,000) things that are "possible", the probability of Christianity being true is also vanishingly small.
Plantinga invokes math to claim possibility; I invoke Plantinga's math to show that Christianity is an outlier on the range of "reliable" belief systems.
"Which is, of course, not to say that all plausibility assessments are equally sound."
Exactly the point. Which brings up the question. Why is an atheist in any position to tell us what is plausible?
"You are talking about presuppositional frameworks as if there is any reason for them to be different for the atheist and theist."
But obviously they are. The atheist takes a presuppositional bias againt theism.
"Do you include propositions like "God exists" in your presuppositions? If so, why do you think you should?"
To preserve science, rationality, morality, etc.
I prefer to state it in the negative formulation "God does not exist" and draw the necessarry conclusions from that premise. In other words, if the premise leads to conclusions such as "if there is no God, all is permissable", or Hume's skepticism, or that man's mind cannot be trusted as a reliable instrument of reasoning, these are all good reasons to reject the premise.
Ed, Plantinga isn't punting to possibility "*in defense of religious faith*" here, which is John's claim, but is rather showing that naturalistic explanations of X, whether X is religious belief or anything else, don't *necessarily* say anything about X's truth value. That is, he's making basic a point about the nature of the *logical* relationship between a naturalistic explanation and the truth value of its explanandum, and is not defending the faith by resorting to the notion that it (i.e. his faith) is possible. Do you see the difference between the two?
"I think you're making a distinction that doesn't make (much) of a difference."
Steven, it makes quite a difference, since religious experiences can't be true or false, or rational or irrational. Plantinga makes it clear that he's talking about the logical relationship between naturalistic explanations of religious *belief* and the *truth value* of religious belief. To say, as you did, that he's talking about the logical relationship between naturalistic explanations of religious experience and the truth value of religious experience is, besides being completely point missing, literally incoherent.
"Plantinga's argument assumes that belief arises via naturalistic means."
No, he's talking about attempts to explain religious belief naturally; he doesn't assume "that belief arises via naturalistic means."
"This implies that religious belief does not exist in a vacuum, it comes from somewhere, via some causal chain of events."
This is correct (though the causal chain of events need not be limited to natural causes).
"If we can show that the chain of events in question can be artificially induced and that the chain of events occur naturally under certain questionable conditions, then we're right back where we started, and we have to call into question our knowledge of the truth value of those beliefs."
All you've done with this implication is restate your disagreement with Plantinga's conclusion that naturalistic accounts of X don't necessarily say anything about X's truth value. Where's the argument?
"And Eric, yes, my critique most definitely applies to common sense data as well. I don't see where that raises much of a dilemma though. I think we'll both agree that our senses are often unreliable."
Yes, of course "our senses are often unreliable," but this comment tells me that you didn't understand Plantinga's argument. If we can give a naturalistic explanation of your belief that you're currently seeing a computer, does *that fact* -- i.e. the fact that we can give a naturalistic explanation of your belief that you're seeing a computer -- say anything about the truth value of your belief, "I'm seeing a computer?" We both agree that it may be the case that your belief is false (you may be dreaming, hallucinating, etc.), *but the truth value of your belief isn't called in question by virtue of the fact that we can explain your holding the belief naturalistically*.
The problem I have with Plantinga's point is that he would disagree with it's implications based on his faith. He is a Calvinist and therefore a strong monotheist but if belief in his god is rational then wouldn't it also be rational to believe in gods other than his? His illustration of god belief seems to make polytheism the most rational position. This idea has further force when I consider his comparison of god belief to logic. Logic is a multi-cultural device that operates despite nationality but god belief differs by culture therefore if we are to inclusive of god belief antecedents as we are the antecedents for logic then the most rationale position one should take is polytheistic belief which of course is heresy in Plantinga's faith tradition.
Alonzo Fyfe has a compelling insight into Plantinga's POV at his blog.
http://atheistethicist.blogspot.com/2010/08/god-exists-therefore-what.html
Eric,
Implicit in your statement to Ed,
Ed, Plantinga isn't punting to possibility "*in defense of religious faith*" here, which is John's claim, but is rather showing that naturalistic explanations of X, whether X is religious belief or anything else, don't *necessarily* say anything about X's truth value,
is the idea that naturalistic explanations of X, whether X be of a religious nature or not, can always be deemed inadequate since you imagine there to be perfectly legitimate reasons to accept that unnatural realms exist through which the true explanation can be known.
Also, you said to Steven, making it explicit,
This is correct (though the causal chain of events need not be limited to natural causes).
Clearly, you think that gods exist, and that there are supernatural places from which answers can be plucked. You think these are real possibilities, but as was the point of my earlier comments, there exists no good reasons to accept that gods and their supernatural hangouts are real. For you to include these things in your causal chain there must exist very good verifiable reasons, not simply imagined or wished for reasons, to think that these things really are possible. For us to accept them as possible, there must exist more than a bunch of philosophical folderol honed to a fine edge during a couple of millenia of destroying all dissent. There must exist something observable to distinguish your religious quackery from all the other religious quackery beside the fact that until recently you religious types were the sole source of information about your own virtue and efficacy. When we were finally able to compare your words about yourselves and your gods to the people and the world we see about us, we find you and your gods to be horribly wanting.
I know I'm not telling you anything new when I say that the reliability of theological explanations has always been nil, especially relating to things that are mechanically verifiable, things like geocentrism, demon theory of disease. You reject out of principle what theologians from other religions have to say, yet, you want us to respect your religion above theirs by accepting it as a viable possibility. That theologians from a great many religions have imagined well-populated realities beyond our own, speaks to what they have in common, their brains which harbor their similarly common imaginations. They also share these imaginative minds with millions of past and present authors of myths, legends, fairy stories, novels, science fiction, movie scripts, plays, and fables, so we know humans have always had great capacity for making things up, but what people make up rarely squares with the real world; this is especially true of religious making up. Religions merely capitalize on the human penchant for wanting to be part of a group. That there are so many conflicting religions tells us that what people believe makes no difference to them as long as they are accepted within the group. Today, the world has billions of people believing the tenets of tens of thousands of religions, and almost every one of those believers is content in their having ended up in the right religion. Obviously little of what the religious say around the world can be true, but nobody cares, Eric, if any of it is true. That's not what they're going for. They just want to be socially connected; they want to belong and professing to believe silly things is part of the price of admission.
Eric,
That your own version of a god says so many distinct things to different people in your same-named Christianity tells us that you are all just making up the words and ideas that you attribute to your god. We have no valid reasons to accept that gods are even possible, Eric. None.
Plantinga does indeed rely purely on his imagined possibilities not on anything constituting a legitimate reason to accept that naturalistic explanations are insufficient. The likes of you and Plantinga have married yourselves to the notion that if a human mind can imagine a thing, then what is imagined is possible, but that is not the case. Until someone shows us that at some time some god actually existed as evidenced through its capacity to influence the world in the ways that its religious believers claim, there exists no reason whatsoever for us to think that any god exists now or ever has.
You said to Steven,
Plantinga makes it clear that he's talking about the logical relationship between naturalistic explanations of religious *belief* and the *truth value* of religious belief.
If we're concerned with logical relationships, then what are we to make of the fact that the religious beliefs of differing Christians are sufficiently different that all Christians are destined to Hell according to the religious beliefs of one or more other Christianities? Is it necessary for us to accept that where religious belief is concerned both parties to a logical contradiction can be assumed to be right, that contradictions do not matter? As I said earlier, religious explanations for religious belief have no legitimacy, while naturalistic explanations provide broader explanatory power and alleviate the contradictions. Religious explanations for what we can verify have been wrong essentially every time so there exists no reason to think them correct concerning things unverifiable.
To revisit an earlier point, you tell us that Plantinga is
showing that naturalistic explanations of X, whether X is religious belief or anything else, don't *necessarily* say anything about X's truth value.
This is, of course, trivially the case. Naturalistic explanations, especially as explicated by science, are provisional by their very nature, which allows for newer or better explanations to supersede the former explanation as the latest provisional finding. Naturalistic explanations, however provisional they might be, have the advantage of being much closer to truth than do the arbitrary, subjective, ad hoc and unreliable assertions of the religious. Being a religious believer yourself, Eric, you don't have to like it or believe it or accept it or acknowledge it, but naturalistic explanations are the best that we humans have. Though you may find great comfort and solace in the religious burrow you inhabit, none of what you attempt to pass off as explanations works when we examine it through the same eyes that leave other religions just as wanting as yours.
Eric,
While you've researched almost no religious beliefs to determine their veracity - there are too many thousands of them, you gladly join me and other atheists in rejecting any which are not your own. Through purely social circumstance you have landed in a religion where you feel you belong; you feel comfortable; you're one of the guys; and, you feel the need to defend it. But, let me ask, do you not experience at least a fleeting twinge of irony when you realize that you are being called upon to defend a notion that is wholly unreliable and unneeded? Notice that just as with all other religions, current and past alike, the believer's gods never did anything. People brandishing the Christian moniker, not terribly unlike you, Eric, still take up arms to defend, not their god, but rather their idea of a god and what their various imaginings tell them their god wants from them. No one has ever defended a god, they only defend what their parochial group agrees among themselves to call a god. For that matter no one has ever studied a god, they only study what others have said about a god, while they freely embellish the idea to suit themselves or their group.
As an aside, the US is the most religiously diverse country on the planet, and I'm thoroughly convinced that if secular controls constraining the religious were allowed to lapse, Christians would be back at public executions and torture in no time at all. Those of us who visit this blog would be among the first to go up in the flames as various Christians defend a imaginary god incapable of doing anything for itself.
I think John here gives too much away when he says,
Why is this the quote of the day?
Because time after time in order to defend what they believe, Christians must continually retreat to what is possible rather than what is probable.
I think it's worse than Christians retreating to what is possible. To defend what they say they believe, they retreat to what they hope is possible or what they wish to be possible. We have no reason to think that religious "beliefs have a perfectly respectable epistemic status." Plantinga's assertion that "To show that there are natural processes that produce religious belief does nothing, so far, to discredit it," relies entirely on giving religiously imagined possibilities exactly the same "respectable epistemic status" as Harry Potter, Vishnu, Indiana Jones, Thor, leprechauns, Marduk, trolls, or Kitchen God.
Russ you said,
"Plantinga's assertion that "To show that there are natural processes that produce religious belief does nothing, so far, to discredit it," relies entirely on giving religiously imagined possibilities exactly the same "respectable epistemic status" as Harry Potter, Vishnu, Indiana Jones, Thor, leprechauns, Marduk, trolls, or Kitchen God."
Which I think is well said.
Hi Eric,
I understand what Plantinga's saying, I just think it is a useless exercise that leads to mysticism at best, and solipsism at worst, and I don't find either of those options acceptable, although Plantinga himself does make an appeal to mysticism in attempt solve the problem.
I'll concede that we can't make a logical connection between a naturalistic explanation of a belief and its truth value, however, everyone behaves as if that connection exists and Plantinga himself certainly seems to think so as well, as he tries to establish such a connection via mysticism in his evolutionary argument against naturalism, where he concludes that God mysteriously steps in and solves the problem. Although as GearHeadEd (and others) have pointed out, Plantinga's math is faulty, and that we can indeed expect that our experienced based beliefs should have at least a probabilistic connection to the truth of the world we find ourselves in, even if we can't develop a clean, logical justification for it.
In addition, if the connection of our beliefs to truth is probabilistic we should expect to see cases where we form beliefs that don't necessarily line up with reality, and in those cases where they don't align with the truth (or are actually orthogonal to it), we should expect to see great variations in belief since reality does not have a good means of exerting a controlling pressure on beliefs that have little or no connection to reality...
"the idea that naturalistic explanations of X, whether X be of a religious nature or not, can always be deemed inadequate since you imagine there to be perfectly legitimate reasons to accept that unnatural realms exist through which the true explanation can be known."
Russ, this is very confused. Plantinga isn't denying the "adequacy" of naturalistic explanations. Rather, he's saying -- correctly -- that *even if* you could provide an *adequate* naturalistic *explanation* of religious belief, it would say nothing about the *truth value* of religious belief, *just as* my ability to give a naturalistic account of your belief, "There's a computer in front of me" says *nothing* about the truth value of that belief.
"You think these are real possibilities, but as was the point of my earlier comments, there exists no good reasons to accept that gods and their supernatural hangouts are real."
First -- and this is a purely logical point -- you don't need good reasons to think X obtains to conclude X is 'really' (whatever that means) possible.
But second, all you've done here is restate the modernist atheistic position; this issue is where the whole debate lies. You don't think there are good reasons supporting theistic beliefs, and some theists -- the sorts who would bother to engage in these kinds of discussions at all -- think that there are.
"Plantinga does indeed rely purely on his imagined possibilities not on anything constituting a legitimate reason to accept that naturalistic explanations are insufficient."
The lack of a logical relationship is an illegitimate reason for rejecting a claim? Hmm, that's news to me. See John's latest post: it's about this lack of a logical relationship between (at least) two propositions called a 'non sequitur.' Be sure to let him know that this particular desideratum is an illegitimate reason for rejecting a claim.
"The likes of you and Plantinga have married yourselves to the notion that if a human mind can imagine a thing, then what is imagined is possible, but that is not the case."
Wrong again. Why don't you point out to me *precisely* where Plantinga says that if we can imagine something then it's possible? I'll be waiting for that reference, and when you fail to supply it I'll be sure to point it out.
"Naturalistic explanations, especially as explicated by science, are provisional by their very nature, which allows for newer or better explanations to supersede the former explanation as the latest provisional finding. Naturalistic explanations, however provisional they might be, have the advantage of being much closer to truth than do the arbitrary, subjective, ad hoc and unreliable assertions of the religious."
Yes, this is all true, and not a word of it contradicts anything Plantinga has said. When you can see that, you'll perhaps understand Plantinga's point a bit better than you currently do.
The rest of the issues your multiple posts address are not relevant to the topic of this thread. (Incidentally, I've noticed that this is a common 'internet atheist' strategy: whenever the subject is narrow enough to address it with some logical rigor, such as the relationship between a naturalistic explanation of a belief and that belief's truth value, the unschooled internet atheist immediately attempts to broaden the discussion to encompass, well, the whole barrel full of issues that separates atheists and theists.)
"I understand what Plantinga's saying, I just think it is a useless exercise that leads to mysticism at best, and solipsism at worst, and I don't find either of those options acceptable, although Plantinga himself does make an appeal to mysticism in attempt solve the problem."
Steve, what precisely leads to mysticism or solipsism? Certainly nothing Plantinga said in the quote John provided does so (as far as I can see).
"as he tries to establish such a connection via mysticism in his evolutionary argument against naturalism, where he concludes that God mysteriously steps in and solves the problem."
The EAAN doesn't do any such thing. All the EAAN does (if successful) is show that the conjunction of naturalism and evolution is self defeating, and that therefore naturalism is false. You seem to be referring to Plantinga's development of his conception warrant and the notion of proper function in his epistemology, but even here it's a ridiculous caricature to say "he concludes that God mysteriously steps in and solves the problem."
Eric,
I will keep it simple.
I get hung up on Plantinga's antecedent illustration. Reliability or unreliability in logic, arithemetic or observation are not dependent on neurological sourcing their antecedents because all can be tested empirical methods.
I guess I raise my hand and call BS right there. He seems to be equating certain ways of knowing that could have naturalistic reasons for their antecedents with the same observation of naturalistic reasons for religious beliefs.
My concern is that he is assessing those illustrative ways of knowing as if naturalistic explanations are what allow us to say with confidence that they are true.
I don't think we've come to accept the antecedents of each simply because we've concluded our natural minds construct them. I think we conclude their truth because they consistently work (well in the case of logic and arithematic where there are rules - observing a cat may not have hard rules but there is speciation to lean on).
If the same inconsistencies existed in logic and arithematic in practice as we see in religious belief yet a similar commitment were made to them as we see in religious adherence it would seem that a naturalistic explanation of that commitment would be parsimonious in determining the commitment.
I just don't see how naturalistic explanations of the antecedents for logic or arithematic should even be considered in this argument because their independent consistency (despite a priori cultural beliefs) is how we render them true.
His philosophy may work. I'm not a philosopher. I just see that slices the situation so fine that I respond with, "So what."
"I just don't see how naturalistic explanations of the antecedents for logic or arithematic should even be considered in this argument because their independent consistency (despite a priori cultural beliefs) is how we render them true."
Chuck, they should be considered because they provide counterexamples to the claim that naturalistic explanations of a belief discredit the veracity of that belief. *How* we examine logic or arithmetic vis-a-vis religious belief *aside from* whether they can be explained naturally (e.g. for logical consistency, consistency with science, etc.) is irrelevant as far as Plantinga's fundamental point in John's quote is concerned.
Eric,
I guess what I'm getting at is that Plantinga's defense feels like a "strawman" because the naturalistic explanation for religious commitment has been proposed due to the inability to use any other rubric to assess its consistency.
We wouldn't assess the antecedents for logic and arithematic in the same way because our commitment to them does not have the same troubling inconsistencies in practice that religious commitment has.
Do you understand my hesitancy with Plantinga's illustration?
And again, I am probably falling down because I don't practice philosophy (although I am becoming more interested in it).
And I affirm your criticism of Internet atheists with my past behavior during our dialogues and thanks for fielding this current POV.
"I guess what I'm getting at is that Plantinga's defense feels like a "strawman" because the naturalistic explanation for religious commitment has been proposed due to the inability to use any other rubric to assess its consistency."
Chuck, I'm not sure I understand what you mean here, but let me take a stab at it.
Religious beliefs, both across cultures and through time, exhibit a number of inconsistencies. However, if they had a divine source, we would expect not inconsistency, but consistency. Since we have been unable to explain religious belief in a non-naturalistic way that accounts for these manifest inconsistencies, we're compelled to look for naturalistic explanations instead; and, therefore, there's an opposition between naturalistic explanations of religious belief and non-naturalistic explanations such that if a naturalistic account succeeds, it does in fact discredit religious belief by precluding a non-natural source. Now the same is not the case with logic, arithmetic, etc. because they don't exhibit the inconsistencies religious belief does.
Is that accurate? (I had to add a few premises to fill out the enthymemes in your post; if you reject any of them, let me know.)
Eric,
That is a perfect articulation of my confusion and I never heard of an enthymeme (I thought I might need a topical ointment for it).
Talk to me. Why shouldn't I simply pause where I pause with Plantinga and claim it seems dubious based on the response you articulated for me?
Eric, I don't always revisit something after I make my initial case like I did here. But perhaps you can suggest reasons why a God like yours created the universe and man in such a way that there are natural explanations for why we exist, how we think, who we are, and why we behave as we do. As far as I know there are natural explanations for everything you claim a supernatural deity did. You don't think these explanations are good ones, okay, but they exist and they persuade many if not most scientists working in those fields.
Why then is it that your God created this world as he did and revealed himself as he has done that are indistinguishable from him not creating or revealing himself at all?
...and Glenn, are you still there?
Once again, many theistic arguments create strawman versions of the arguments they criticize. It changes everything when it's realized that most all of our arguments are not to be construed as impossibility arguments (which would raise the ugly head of the genetic fallacy). Rather they are improbable arguments. That is, it's improbable that a God exists when there are natural explanations for this and that phenomenon.
"But perhaps you can suggest reasons why a God like yours created the universe and man in such a way that there are natural explanations for why we exist, how we think, who we are, and why we behave as we do. As far as I know there are natural explanations for everything you claim a supernatural deity did. You don't think these explanations are good ones, okay, but they exist and they persuade many if not most scientists working in those fields."
John, here's a quick response (I'll respond to Chuck when I have more time, since the issue with him is more complex):
I do, in almost all cases, accept the naturalistic explanations you do (aspects of consciousness and morality excepted, but then there aren't yet good scientific explanations in these areas; going further, I think there are good reasons to think they *can't*, in principle, be explained scientifically, so my position isn't premised on a 'god-of-the-gaps' move). I just don't think, as you do, that scientific explanations preclude complementary theistic explanations. That is, I distinguish mechanistic explanations on the one hand from explanations that appeal to agency on the other, and I don't think that they're mutually exclusive. If you ask why the water in the pot on my stove is boiling, a mechanistic account in terms of physics is acceptable in some contexts, and an agent centered explanation in terms of my desire for pasta is acceptable in other contexts, and the one doesn't exclude the other.
If you want to respond with an appeal to Ockham's razor, I'd retort that this begs the question. If I've concluded that there are good reasons to think both that (1) scientific explanations of natural phenomena succeed, and (2) god exists, then I'm not multiplying entities beyond necessity, but am dealing with the entities I believe reason compels me to work with.
Eric, your view is in a precarious position then. In the first place this is emphatically not what any history of theology will show you the church believed or taught so it is a new theology based on the scientific revolution which is condemned in the NT itself Of course, this is an indictment of Catholic progressive theology which you would reject.
In the second place if natural explanations succeed then what good reasons do you have for thinking a God like yours exists? There are good naturalistic accounts of the arguments for the existence of God too.
So granting that naturalistic explanations succeed you have no ground to stand on but faith in a human organization that you have faith represents God on earth.
Faith. It can and does justify anything and everything whenever there is a lack of probability. We have natural explanations for this kind of certainty for faith too.
Eric,
I know if must be quite frustrating for you to know that you have all the answers rolling about in your highly tuned-in philosophically sharpened mind of yours, only to have to deal with real lowlifes who you assess as unable to think their ways out of paper bags. Then, too, it must be in many ways more frustrating yet to know that through your training you have learned a very different understanding of the gods of the Christianities than are the common understandings of the run of the mill layman. We're treated to another healthy portion of that twisted irony when it is understood that your work at St. John's, or whatever Boston area school you're at, to come to a deeper understanding of some god constitutes a redefinition. Your god is not the layman's god. So, I understand your frustration at having gotten yourself all schooled up and schooled away from your fellow men, the man in the pew and the man on the street. Thank you for condescending to come here to Mr. Loftus' blog, DebunkingChristianity, to grace us with overpowering intellect as I am sure is rightfully reflected in your elevated jargon and dismissive and demeaning tone. I'm sure we all here are better for it.
But, sadly, as is the way with the profoundly ignorant masses, as you see those who are not you, I will not grant you Plantinga's silly contention that
To show that there are natural processes that produce religious belief does nothing, so far, to discredit it; perhaps God designed us in such a way that it is by virtue of those processes that we come to have knowledge of him.
Now, Eric, I will freely acknowledge that my forty years of studying the Christianities count for naught beside the esteem in which you view yourself, but let me relate the humble idea that Mr. Plantinga is at odds with others, theologians mind you, of the Christian ilk whose conception of religious belief is that no natural process can lead one to it; religious belief only comes from their version of a deity. For them, demonstrating that some natural process leads one to religious belief would indeed discredit it, depending, of course, on the exact semantics one chooses for the nebulous word discredit.
Eric,
Plantinga is commonly called a "Christian philosopher," but the word "Christian" tells us nothing about what someone thinks or professes to believe, and, clearly, he does not speak for those Christian philosophers who say that showing that there are natural processes that produce religious belief will constitute a disproof of it. Many of these people also deny any science that disagrees with the Bible.
Many more Christian theologians tell us that to believe things differing from what they believe, in seemingly insignificant ways, makes you a non-believer. For them the wrong belief is no belief.
But, let me proceed permitting Plantinga to be ideally postured to speak for everyone exactly like him.
You being all religious and philosophical and theological and stuff might disagree, but I'm gonna say that teaching is a natural process. Yet, teaching leads to both Christian belief and wrong belief. Teaching does in fact lead to Roman Catholic Christian belief and the wrong belief of Missouri Synod Lutheran Christianity. Don't you agree? But, then it's demanded of us to go digging for the precise semantics of Plantinga's words "religious" and "belief." If I say that it is my religious belief that there are no gods - there are Christianities like that - does Alvin include me or not. Perhaps, I can make the claim - and, I do, by the way, that it is by virtue of those processes that I come to have no knowledge of him.
You have the answers, Eric, so, perhaps, you will enlighten us with the exact semantics of the words "religious" and "belief." For Alvin, does "religious" always mean "theistic religious." If so then he should have been explicit about it since a great many people worldwide count themselves religious, even Christian religious, without being theistic religious.
Guaging what he means by "belief" can take us on a semantic ride, too. Is "belief" a noun or a verb? Does it mean a hunch, a guess, an opinion? A state of mind where one thinks a thing like a person or a god to be reliable? Does belief mean to be convinced of the truth of something base on evidence? Does it mean the act of believing? Does it mean the act of giving in to peer pressure? Does "belief" mean mindlessly repeating religious rituals and platitudes while having no thought as to the content?
Christians constantly tell us that belief alone does not lead to salvation. They tell us that it is the content of belief that is important. Well, then, the natural processes of schooling children leads to contradictory beliefs and so it clearly discredits religious belief as a divine hand me down from the one and only god.
When we think through the "discredit" of religious belief, we run into the following quandry: if wrong religious beliefs force one or more of the Christian versions of a God to send persons with those beliefs to hell, are those beliefs discredited? If so, then all Christian beliefs are thus discredited by the beliefs of other Christians in other Christianities. In the same manner, natural processes "discredit" all religious belief and beliefs. Depending on how one parses the individual words.
With the near omniscience you possess for your being a Roman Catholic Christian theological philosophical God believer, you should be able to illuminate these concerns for us.
Eric,
I appreciate your having taken the time to try to force us intellectual lightweights to accept your divine understanding by giving us your own personal opinion, all ornamented up with formal analytical philosophy, insults, rudeness and name calling. However, perhaps you fail to see that Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief is itself an opinion piece. It was written for those who start with theistic assumptions, but it is not convincing others to adopt Christianity. Christianity is observed to be losing ground everywhere in the developed world and is only expanding where it can leverage money and power to foist its claims on others. Those of you having religious belief regularly show us what your belief gets all of us and it's not a pretty sight.
Showing that there exist natural processes that produce religious belief will leave religious belief without discredit only if it can be shown that those beliefs can arise via some other, some not so natural, process. It seems the density of your dazzling intellect makes you impervious to the notion that there exists no valid reasons for anyone to accept that otherworldly realms are real. Any reasons you might cite for accepting the supernatural have the same self-interested opinion status as Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief. Without providing an alternative to the observed natural processes known to induce religious belief - with you I guess I need to be careful to add that it must be an alternative that can be shown to be other than a purely imagined abduction of those same natural processes for your own purposes - the natural processes stand as the default means whereby people contract the infection of religious belief, and those natural processes do indeed discredit it, not as a merely observed behavioral phenomenon, but discredited as a conduit carrying knowledge and understanding unavailable via human sources. But, no such non-subjective, non-imaginary alternative exists.
You reject what I've said above, but it is all relevant to the 100 percent non-supernatural processes that lead to religious belief. You got your religious belief through an all-natural social process; someone taught you. I didn't teach religious belief to my children and they've not become afflicted with it. In some people religious belief comes and goes as their social situation changes.
Plantinga clearly speaks the words you like to hear, but you make more of what he says than what should be reasonably taken from the vagueness he presents. Alvin's approach to defending religious belief does itself discredit that same religious belief. That gods never show themselves requires the likes of you and Plantinga to resort to a sophistry which either divorces itself completely from the real world, or looks to the real world only for confirmation bias. Such an approach is an intellectual malignancy that discredits religious belief.
All the best, Eric.
John and Chuck, I'll respond when I have more time. For now, I want to apologize to Russ for having offended him. Russ, your posts are often so condescending, I thought I'd dish out a little of my own. Apparently, you can't take it as well as you can give it, though. So, as I said, I apologize. But I do want to turn the mirror on you for a moment and review some of your patently condescending remarks:
"I fear your silly version of a god no more than you fear Loki, or any of seven hundred gods of the Celtic pantheon. Like your god many of them were said to be nasty vengeful bastards, but then, also just like your god, Eric, they were imaginary."
"It is just too kooky that the religious fail to see that their own god had things so screwed up that people had to make up excuses for it and explain what it really meant."
"Go ahead, Eric, try this out. You invent a body of beliefs, any body of beliefs, and I will guarantee that you can drum up devout and pious followers, believers, or adherents who will swallow it hook, line and sinker. Truth has no importance whatsoever."
"Believers are not concerned with actual truth, they are merely enamored with the group idea of their having it while being certain that others do not."
"For us to accept them as possible, there must exist more than a bunch of philosophical folderol honed to a fine edge during a couple of millenia of destroying all dissent. There must exist something observable to distinguish your religious quackery from all the other religious quackery beside the fact that until recently you religious types were the sole source of information about your own virtue and efficacy."
"Obviously little of what the religious say around the world can be true, but nobody cares, Eric, if any of it is true. That's not what they're going for. They just want to be socially connected; they want to belong and professing to believe silly things is part of the price of admission."
"Being a religious believer yourself, Eric, you don't have to like it or believe it or accept it or acknowledge it, but naturalistic explanations are the best that we humans have. Though you may find great comfort and solace in the religious burrow you inhabit, none of what you attempt to pass off as explanations works when we examine it through the same eyes that leave other religions just as wanting as yours."
"Through purely social circumstance you have landed in a religion where you feel you belong; you feel comfortable; you're one of the guys; and, you feel the need to defend it. But, let me ask, do you not experience at least a fleeting twinge of irony when you realize that you are being called upon to defend a notion that is wholly unreliable and unneeded?"
"I'm thoroughly convinced that if secular controls constraining the religious were allowed to lapse, Christians would be back at public executions and torture in no time at all. Those of us who visit this blog would be among the first to go up in the flames as various Christians defend a imaginary god incapable of doing anything for itself."
"Plantinga's assertion that "To show that there are natural processes that produce religious belief does nothing, so far, to discredit it," relies entirely on giving religiously imagined possibilities exactly the same "respectable epistemic status" as Harry Potter, Vishnu, Indiana Jones, Thor, leprechauns, Marduk, trolls, or Kitchen God."
Eric,
If EAAN succeeds, then it follows that some supernatural force is at work at some level, making sure that our interpretations of our experiences are more or less accurate. That's mysticism in my book.
Eric,
There's little chance you will change Russ' mind. His experience indicates that he sees the faith you trust illegitimate. He has good data to support his opinion.
You might be wasting your time responding to him. You will convince him that your faith is legitimate probably as much as he could convince you the Catechism is superstition.
Just my two cents.
Still looking forward to hearing your take on my confusion (and no, this is not a bait and switch ploy - I'm trying to keep my wits about me as a dialogue with people who hold views I find difficult to accept. I think it is the only way I can become more intelligent.)
I don't endorse your Roman Catholicism but don't think insulting you will be a means to articulate my morality.
You said Internet atheists fail to stay on point when discussing theology and philosophy. I agree and have been guilty of it. This atheist would like to dialogue if you are willing to continue to show the kind of charity you have with me in this thread (contrary to what I may have shown so far).
Russ will never agree with you and will always insult you. That's just a fact. I can understand his choices, religion too often gets a free pass to make judgements without facing any shame, but don't think it leads to intellectual development. He also seems a whole lot smarter than me so he might not need to dialogue with someone of your education as I do.
It might be good for you to focus on guys like me who are looking to dialogue.
Eric,
My wife thanks you for your compilation of excerpts of what I wrote on this thread. She commented that she can't see why you'd think condescension to be at all disagreeable since all of religion is condescension in one form or another. The act of convincing others to think and behave as you do based on your claim that you possess truthful information handed down from invisible realms is nothing short of condescension. Saying that the information that others claim to get from the invisible realms of their gods has to be incorrect is also nothing but condescension, looking down on those you deem inferior. My wife is quite insightful.
No need to apologize to me, Eric. Your words don't offend me. I was just making note.
But, I'm nothing like the religious who take great pride in their capacity to feign offense, and going so far as to hire professional offense-takers for their causes. People like Donahue of the Catholic League and the solipsists wanting displays in public spaces to be restricted only for their Christian propaganda. Mind you, self-identified Christians constitute, what? around 90 percent of all Americans, yet they're the ones taking donated, tax-free money under the guise of being charities to employ professional offense-takers.
Does the thing that is revered for having destroyed all but eight human beings - including killing every single human infant while it spared cockroaches - actually need those same humans to be offended on its bahalf? Can it do nothing for itself? Shh, just between you and me, Eric, people know it's not real. They know no god is out there or down here doing anything. People defend whatever their cherished group says to defend, whether or not it's real or true.
The simplest objective of religious offense-takers is to prevent having the truth about themselves from becoming well-publicized. They want facts like Roman Catholics having the highest abortion rate of all religious self-identities in the US to be hidden from view. None of that "truth will set you free" bullshit for them. They want the fact that Roman Catholic legal teams have been pleading in US courts to be allowed to "deal" with their "pedophile concerns" on their own, away from public view, in the same way they've seen fit to "deal" with them thus far. Still don't want any of that "truth will set you free" bullshit. The religion itself retards their capacity to act morally, so they instead snivel about hurt feelings.
While I'm not offended by your words, I am offended by religious idiocy. I take personal offense to the institutional victimization of my fellow human beings, especially defenseless children, as has been standard practice in Roman Catholicism forever. Perhaps, you could ameliorate my offended mind and heart by addressing an issue you must be quite knowledgeable of. It's not off topic because it's related to that non-natural place from whence you and Plantinga hold to be an alternative source for religious belief.
Eric,
Since you're going to be a Roman Catholic priest yourself, Eric, perhaps you could share with us the Vatican Standard Roman Catholic Christian Pedophile and Rapists Apologetic. Pedophilia and rape have been observed standards of Roman Catholic clerical practice for centuries, meaning that covering it up and vilifying the victims can't be the only approaches to it. I'm sure there must have been a whole legion of divinely inspired crack Roman Catholic theologians assembled to work out all the details for this one as they put their abuses in a favorable light. I'm sure, too, they've divined language that sounds all mysterious and theological to reconcile the following:
we are rapists and pedophiles;
always have been rapists and pedophiles;
not gonna stop being rapists and pedophiles;
we are still moving the rapists and pedophiles from one herd of childhood victims to another; it's the child porn version of manna from heaven;
from the pope on top to the man in the pew on the bottom, we all know about our rapist and pedophile ways, but we do nothing to help the victims or stop the practice;
when word gets out the faithful have no capacity to act morally by informing the victim's only possible salvation, the secular authorities, or by leaving the foul institution;
on finding out about the rape and pedophilia, the faithful keep throwing money, in fact, they play bingo, hold Vegas nights, bake sales and all-you-can-eat fish dinners to raise money to help the rapists and pedophiles and to assist in condemning and further victimizing the victims, their families, neighbors and friends.
It is a complete discrediting of religious belief that Roman Catholic parents often abandon their abused children to the demands of their religious beliefs, heaping more physical and psychological abuse on their own child - eight, nine, ten years old - if they bring to light their molestation by the hands of one or more priests. Truth doesn't matter. Morality doesn't matter. Their own children do not matter. Only group belonging and group respect matters. Remember "the truth will set you free!" I'll bet Mr. Loftus here would allow you to post as a guest blogger. I'm looking forward to it.
I can see that it would be easy to be offended if you were a Christian, though. The diversity of notions that are found among the Christianities, notions like there is a god/there is no god; the resurrection was literal/the resurrection was spiritual/the resurrection was metaphorical/the resurrection never happened; and the like, make it damn near impossible for anyone to say anything without offending one or more of their varied and ever changing absolute truths, evidently handed down from the same not natural place where religious belief hails from in the first place.
Eric,
Though I'm may not come off as warm and fuzzy, I could be convinced to turn over a new leaf. I promise to make a wholehearted attempt to refrain from being insulting or condescending when the Christianities start to make sense. I'll be less caustic when the Christianities as a whole present a coherent and sensible narrative making claims that seamlessly coincide with what we observe in the real world and that don't need centuries-in-the-making twisted, confusing apologetic workarounds to give them the false appearance of making sense. I'll be sweeter and kinder when the gods of the Christianities can stick up for themselves, and don't exhibit thoughts and behaviors that are mirror images of the conflicting condescensions of the persons claiming to act as instruments of those gods. I'll be rather pleasant when the Christianities stop trying to abuse the religious freedom granted by our secular laws to give rapists and pedophiles unrestrained access to virgin crops of victims. I'll be downright nice when the Christianities openly admit that their religions are no better and no more likely to be true, than the ones they reject purely on principle. I'll be friendly when the Christianities actually encourage intellectual honesty and truth seeking in everyone, rather than goading great minds, like that of Alvin Plantinga, for instance, to be wasted cramming religion's square pegs into reality's round holes and apologetically puttying up the cracks. And, when the Christianities can universally protect their children by, in part, not raping them, not killing them as witches, not letting them die of easily treated diseases, and not screwing up their minds and their futures by lying to them about truth, other Christianities, other religions, atheists, the sciences, and the observably ineffectual malarkey called faith.
These are all possible if miracle working, prayer answering gods actually exist and actually do what is claimed for them. Right now, your appetite for a bit of apologetic cuisine is building, isn't it? But, like me, you know they'll not happen. To sate yourself you'll need more than one course. Like me, you know there are no gods. By now, you'll be full binging on apologetic excuse-making. Soon, you'll just bury your face in whatever selection is next on the buffet. After all, gods can never be wrong, so one of these salads or entrees or desserts must be the right stuff since theological chefs have been perfecting these dishes since time out of mind. But, when you've gorged yourself to exhaustion, it will still be the case that your god will have done nothing. Your unrestrained indulgence will have accomplished nothing. You will have said nothing about the god you like that will not also be true for all the other gods man has contrived.
Until Christianity straightens up its act I'll call dumb, dumb; dreck, dreck; drivel, drivel; and, immoral, immoral. It's not my fault that in the Christianities believers are trained to take offense when what they hold to be absolute truth is pointed to as the dumb, immoral, dreck-filled drivel that it is.
Eric said,
"Ed, Plantinga isn't punting to possibility "*in defense of religious faith*" here, which is John's claim, but is rather showing that naturalistic explanations of X, whether X is religious belief or anything else, don't *necessarily* say anything about X's truth value. That is, he's making basic a point about the nature of the *logical* relationship between a naturalistic explanation and the truth value of its explanandum, and is not defending the faith by resorting to the notion that it (i.e. his faith) is possible. Do you see the difference between the two?"
I didn't say that Plantinga was "punting to possibility "*in defense of religious faith*"", John did, as you point out.
THIS is what I'm saying:
What Plantinga is doing with the EAAN, if it IS a "punt", is actually trying to ADVANCE an argument where he has identified what most people call (either wrong or right) a religious or epistemological paradox.
And if Plantinga's main argument takes the form
"...naturalistic explanations of X, whether X is religious belief or anything else, don't *necessarily* say anything about X's truth value."
The issue here isn't the truth of the matter, as Plantinga rightly claims (if that's his contention); the issue IS the implication that religious belief does not suffer when a perfectly reasonable naturalistic explanation is advanced to explain the same thing.
While it's not impossible for BOTH explanations to have merit, generally only one is CORRECT, and in this case, parsimony SHOULD inform us as to which is "true".
And in this case, what Plantinga is saying, if I've read this correctly is in effect that
"I will continue to believe in theological explanations, even when a better (more parsimonious) naturalistic explanation works in the same place, because naturalistic explanations don't *necessarily* say anything about Christianity's truth value".
In other words, an HONEST philosopher (and I said this before in a general sense on St. Brian's blog) will reason from a position that Christianity is either false or impossible, and work his way IN, rather than the Plantinga / Aquinas / Anselm / etc., etc., method of premising that it's true and working to defenses of it's impossibility from the unsupported premise.
I bet if YOU tried this approach, you'd come to a somewhat different conclusion than what you have; and THAT in itself is an indictment of the concept of Christianity.
If you work in philosophically from two different angles on the same problem, and come to different conclusions, then the primary question is either unintelligible or false.
Mind, I'm not saying that you or Plantinga are DIShonest; just wearing Jesus-Colored glasses.
GearHedEd,
You said to Eric,
Mind, I'm not saying that you or Plantinga are DIShonest; just wearing Jesus-Colored glasses.
Why you kissin' his ass? You have every right and every reason to call dishonesty exactly that.
If we know someone to be truly ignorant, say a child without knowledge or experience, we can make allowances since being innocently ignorant is not dishonest.
But, Alvin and Eric are not innocently ignorant. They even maintain themselves to be so well connected intellectually that they have the ear of the thing that created the universe. They use what they say that creator whispers to them to selectively misread the world so they can pretend to have miracles and answered prayers, while being certain that the dreams and visions of ancient mystics are absolute truths. That's dishonest.
They both know that Jesus-Colored glasses can't be showing them truth since those same glasses cause others to see things as radically different from the way either of them does. If we could get them to articulate the details of their beliefs, we'd see that in important ways they disagree with each other.
I think you should call dishonesty what it is when you see it. Stop kissin' his ass.
Hasn't AP in the past argued that beliefs can be naturalistically explained they lose their claim to be based on any appropriate rational foundation?
To put it in a nutshell, didn't he insist beliefs can have reasons but not causes?
Russ said,
"You said to Eric,
Mind, I'm not saying that you or Plantinga are DIShonest; just wearing Jesus-Colored glasses.
Why you kissin' his ass? You have every right and every reason to call dishonesty exactly that."
Well, I don't know Alvin Plantinga, and I've only been acquainted with Eric for about 2 years and only through blogging. Having engaged in debates with Eric over numerous topics, I feel that Eric believes what he says he does, and therefore is not dishonest.
I still think he's wrong, and I don't hesitate to call bullshit on him when he says something I disagree with.
Fair enough?
Russ said,
"...If we could get [Eric and Plantinga] to articulate the details of their beliefs, we'd see that in important ways they disagree with each other."
Well, duh!
Plantinga is a Calvinist, and Eric is Catholic. Put them in the same room?
"Two men enter, one man leave."
GearHedEd,
I was just ribbin' you. I know you don't pull your punches when you're going toe to toe.
I have to differ with you on whether Eric believes what he says he does. I doubt it very much. I would go so far as to say I know he doesn't believe what he says. He mechanically steps up to the plate for his side, bravely, confidently asserting and defending what his group tells him to, but he doesn't believe it any more than you or I do. I'm not trying to exercise some semantic detour, here. I've looked at this issue for several decades and I've never met anyone who acts as if they believe their religion is true. Like you, I don't know Eric or Plantinga personally, but without hesitation I would lump them with all the other believers I've known or read about. Every person claiming to be a believer I've ever known or studied has been willing to mouth the words demanded among their social peers; stand up, sit down, and sway in ritualistic bliss; and, often demean those not like themselves; but, none of them acts in a way consistent with their believing the words.
Most Christianities have a tool which invalidates what they say are their beliefs. They call it forgiveness, or divine forgiveness. Their beliefs are demands to think, act, and speak in certain ways. But, this forgiveness is their version of the universal out from those demands. Forgiveness is the infinite number of lives in the video game. Forgiveness tells us they have given up even caring about what they believe. What one says they believe is of no consequence when they can always invoke forgiveness to eliminate any transgression of belief or behavior. They don't believe. They don't want to believe. Observably, most don't know what the general beliefs of their group are. So, they guarantee that they will not, and can not, be held to account for what they believe, as well as for not reflecting those beliefs in their behaviors.
They believe gravity, though. How do I know? I can see it in their behaviors. Gravity is real. It's always there and it does not forgive anyone ever. Apologetics don't work for things that are real. So, they use ladders and stepstools to extend their reach, and if they momentarily fail to respect gravity and find themselves unsupported mid-air beside a third floor balcony, gravity reminds them in no uncertain terms that it's still there. They believe gravity and they act accordingly.
But, they don't believe gods do anything. Nothing that is real needs all the excuses for why it behaves exactly as if it isn't real. There are thousands of times more words of excuse making for why the Bible's words don't mean what they say, than there are words in the Bible. It's not real. They know it's not real. So they make excuses. And, oh my, how they do love their excuses, lots and lots and lots of excuses. But, the excuses themselves loudly say over and over: it's not real and we don't believe it. They make excuses for their own personal behaviors, but they also continually make up new excuses for why the wholy-inspired word of their god isn't to be trusted. In fact, A and E fancy themselves to be professional excuse makers, called apologists.
GearHedEd,
Why they can't ask their god for stuff through prayer and expect it to be given to them requires excuses on top of other excuses. On the whole the Bible offers up few words related to prayer, but historically the excuse making words regarding prayer runs into the trillions. Lots of excuse-makers over lots of lifetimes makes for lots of words. That they must make excuses for why their praying is uselessly unreliable says it all. By the apologist's theological reckoning there are an infinity of conditions under which prayers won't work, while the finite circumstances under which prayers have the post hoc appearance of working show them to be the 100 percent supernatural-free product of nature proper or human intervention. How many religious parents have bamboozled their child by "answering" her bedtime prayer? And, why would they do that if they believed that a real god existed who could answer the young one's plea? Because like you and me they don't believe it. They know its not real.
The Bible does not define their belief. The apologetics defines their belief. If we can place any significance whatsoever in words, their apologetics is the anthology of their unbelief. Bible says god answers prayers, but the apologists know beyond doubt that prayers are not predictable or reliable, and that answered ones are answered only through post hoc all-natural means. So they - including Alvin and Eric - pen mountains of words telling us again and again what they truly believe. They don't believe the Bible, but they truly believe the extra-Biblical reasons for Bible God's inaction. Their real faith resides in explaining away that their god does nothing.
What A and E do to gain respect within their social groups is altogether different from what their behavior reflects their beliefs to be. What they believe according to their behavior, especially the excuse-making, is essentially the same as any atheist: gods do nothing. Atheists and theists both agree that gods do nothing, so the conflict between us amounts to trifling over who has the better excuses why.
I really don't think either Eric or Alvin believes what they say they do. They are paid, or will be, to be professional belief justifiers. It's their job. They will argue on behalf of their group's objectives in the same way a defense attorney repeatedly argues the innocence of his career-criminal client. In neither case will truth be the objective, and in neither case will their arguments require that they believe what they say.
Sorry for running on so long, GearHedEd. Hey, next time you're headed east on 55 toward Lake City, think of me. My Mom and Dad live out that way near Pointe East. I have a sister in Lake City, and until recently one of my brothers lived not far from Cadillac High School and taught at Baker.
GearHedEd,
Concerning believers actually believing what they say, a few minutes ago I watched this short video(4:30 in length). I note it because it makes many of the same points I did about the relationship of believer to belief.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m12mZiiaWuw
I happened on to it at Pharyngula.
Russ said,
"...Apologetics don't work for things that are real."
Converse:
Real things are in no need of apologetics.
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