More On How Can We Know Who is Wrong
Here's the discussion continued from How Can We Decide Who is Wrong?
Face it John, chapters 2 & 3 in The Christian DelusionMy response:are just as true about atheists as they are about Christians. You see what you want to see and believe what you want to believe. It’s not about science. It’s about your conscious & subconscious choices. When you wrote this:
I really think that given the way you are forced to argue your case above (very lame) that you are blind. The reason we cannot agree is because you are not willing to be consistent nor can you allow yourself to even consider that you are living in a cult group surrounded on every side by many other Moonies......you could just as easily be talking about atheists as well as Christians. I say you’re blind, you say I’m blind. I say you’re inconsistent, you say I’m inconsistent. I say your sources are weak, you say my sources are weak. I’m willing to say it’s an intellectual stalemate, but you believe you have intellectual superiority. If the answers were as obvious as either of us thinks they are, this issue would have been settled during the Enlightenment.
It is emphatically NOT an intellectual stalemate!
Not even close. Not a chance. You lose. It's a done deal given chapters 2 & 3 in TCD.
Given chapters 2 & 3 we should all be agnostics. It's the default position. Don't you get it?
Again, for emphasis. Given chapters 2 & 3 we should all be agnostics. It's the default position. Don't you get it?
Or do you really think that given chapters 2 & 3 your god hypothesis wins over the many others? Do you not see that a Muslim or Christian Scientist, Moonie, or Mormon could say the same things you do. A Moonie could say to me:Face it, chapters 2 & 3 in TCD are just as true about atheists as they are about Moonies. You see what you want to see and believe what you want to believe. It’s not about science. It’s about your conscious & subconscious choices......you could just as easily be talking about atheists. And then he could declare a stalemate like you do and go on believing he is correct about his religious faith.
IT DOES NOT WORK LIKE THAT!
No affirmative or positive claim about religious faith (as opposed to a denial) can be taken seriously without passing the Outsider Test for Faith given chapters 2 & 3.
What has intellectual superiority is agnosticism. That's what has the superiority.
Metaphysical naturalism is NOT what I argue for, although I am a metaphysical naturalist.
John
41 comments:
When will these Christians realize that atheism is not a designation indicating group allegiance? It is simply a negative response to a positive truth claim. Does this guy realize his equivocation in equating Christians and atheists? Yes, atheists can have cognitive biases as much as Christians but the entire practice of Christian theology is one long cognitive bias. History doesn't support. Neither does science. And it withers under post-enlightenment philosophical notions of ethics and the individual.
It is only an intellectual stalemate if this Christian creates a strawman in equating atheism as an equally presuppositional world-view. Which it isn't.
I cant believe half the stuff this person is saying to John here.
It amazes me that people actually try to argue intelligent points from the supernatural?
On what grounds does someone argue from the supernatural?
The bible of all things is not a consistent book as many christians on here try to argue it is, nor is christian theology consistent.
How people argue the truthfulness and authenticity of biblical truths with all its inconsistency, its gross contradictions of our scientific understanding, and its claims that defy logic and nature to our understanding?
How do people argue this from a source which has no original documents ( a copy of copies)?
How do people argue in favor of divine revelation which comes to us second,third,fourth hand hearsay testamony?
How do people agrue in favor of divine miracles when there is absolutely no substantial proof in which to stand on?
Go ahead and believe if you feel convinced, but dont try to argue is if you have some scientific,logical,rational information to do so!!!!
"On what grounds does someone argue from the supernatural?"
On the basis of theistic implication in scientific observation as well as personal experiences which corroborate scientific necessity for such Creator...as well as the conviction of God's Spirit IN an actual day to day relationship.
"The bible of all things is not a consistent book as many christians on here try to argue it is, nor is christian theology consistent."
Christianity existed long before the bible was published to the masses. It also existed before the canons of Jamnia of Carthage.
The so called "bible" exists because of Christianity...Christianity does NOT exist because of the Bible.
"How people argue the truthfulness and authenticity of biblical truths with all its inconsistency, its gross contradictions of our scientific understanding, and its claims that defy logic and nature to our understanding?"
The is a pseudo question because it is a question whith a false assumption. Scientific observation which is falsifiable doe NOT contradict the writings of the apostles or prophets. The inconsistencies are easily explained when you employ wisdom and perspective (point of view) as well as understanding the identifiable errors. Imperfection is everywhere whenever their is an imperfect language...THAT doesn't change objective TRUTH nor the Perfection of the reason/word/logic of God that is contained in the "medium" of these imperfect languages.
Someone in ancient times would think that the skeptic is being absolutely ridiculous in employing hyper-technicality at many of the so called "alleged" errors.
"How do people argue this from a source which has no original documents ( a copy of copies)?"
Every source on the internet is
a copy until you hold the original in your hand or visit it and see it at a museum, institution, library or a place with artifacts.
That doesn't mean you can't trust the source until you have the original. It is the credibility of historical orthodoxy that carries the greater weight...NOT the new source.
There is NO reason to believe that the thousands of manuscipts and fragments are somehow not accurate.
The science of textual criticism has its own standards (often induction leads some scholars into gross error) but the manuscript evidence that corroborates each text verifies "what was written" - but not necessarily "who" wrote it.
Breck,
You said, "On the basis of theistic implication in scientific observation as well as personal experiences which corroborate scientific necessity for such Creator...as well as the conviction of God's Spirit IN an actual day to day relationship."
And I read, "Solipsism"
How do people argue in favor of divine revelation which comes to us second,third,fourth hand hearsay testamony?
"How do people agrue in favor of divine miracles when there is absolutely no substantial proof in which to stand on?"
Many people like myself witness them. We can only answer your questions about the absolute philosophical consistency of born-again Christianity and hope that you will pray for protection from deception/lies. Many Christians have been healed right during and after prayer. These are personal gifts from God and are His Grace/Mercy to receive such. The
miracles that bear testimony to the Power of God and glorify Jesus Christ corroborate other evidence (such as historical evidence that something happened at the tomb of Christ that cause His enemies to make up stories that the disciples stole His Body from armed Roman Soldiers).
"How do people argue in favor of divine revelation which comes to us second,third,fourth hand hearsay testamony?"
It is the writings of prophets who represented the Truth of God to the Nation of Israel. The Jews knew their own sacred books and canonized these at the Council of Jamnia. There is of course other writings (considered apocryphal)
that corroborate the canons of both the NT and the OT.
The divine revelation is the message that is given in whatever language you translate it into..
it is NOT the Paleo Hebrew or koine Greek that makes it the Perfect and Holy Word of God.
If you react to positions which are slightly inaccurate for the sake of safety...you can also reject the truth which was never
properly explained to you.
Over-reacting leads many people
into liberalism..because they failed to pray for protection.
"You said, "On the basis of theistic implication in scientific observation as well as personal experiences which corroborate scientific necessity for such Creator...as well as the conviction of God's Spirit IN an actual day to day relationship."
And I read, "Solipsism""
You should stop reading something philosophical into the text and start praying, perhaps.
God doesn't just exist in people's minds. His Existence is going to be made known to your regardless of how you try and worm out of scientific arguments that first clearly lead to agnostic theism.
Information, complex mechanical working systems, and IF-THEN algorithmic programming all come from Intelligence...and you don't
have to be a scientists to see the
absolute obvious with an ounce of honesty.
Agnostic theism is the first step in that honest process.
Breck,
"You should stop reading something philosophical into the text and start praying, perhaps."
Do you realize how insulting you are.
Breckmin,
I understand how real it seems when you "witness divine miracles."
I'm just curious if you consider the fact that - if you witness something that defies naturalism - that maybe you didn't fully realize what you saw. What appeared to be a miracle was actually something you mis-viewed, or misunderstood.
Doesn't that seem more likely? That you were under a false impression, given what you know about reality and how that reality doesn't allow for the miracle you saw?
Of course, up until this point, the examples I've given don't include things like a family member recovering from a disease when you prayed for them. Because that certainly IS something that happens in reality, and it can be proven that reality allows for people to recover from illness.
But with the family member recovering example, you still have to weigh both "recovering via God" or "recovering via natural/medical help". Because as I'm sure you know I'll say, we only have the latter option as something which is proven. So why would you think it could ever be the latter?
And aren't you aware of all the tricks your mind plays on you?
I'm betting all the examples of what you've seen and then identified as miracles by Jesus, are things you've seen and identified only AFTER being taught about Jesus. So how can you honestly say you KNOW it's Jesus who performed the miracles when you may have been saying it was a different God who did so if you were raised in a religious household that believed in a different God?
So there are the problems.
1) Weighing the possibilities of what you've experienced to be the result of natural causes we've proven in other examples.
2) Weighing the fact that your mind tricks you in many ways. Think optical illusions, and think about all the times you thought you saw a person when it was really a shadow, or some other object.
3) Weighing the fact that if you were brought up believing in a different God, you'd be just as sure that the miracles you saw were done by that other God.
Aren't these three things much too heavy to be outweighed by the idea that your brain, saw correctly, something that could NOT be explained in any natural way (explained now, or likely explained by science in the future), but an act that was absolutely performed by the God you happened to be brought up with, a God which is absolutely not any other God from any other religion?
The scales just seemed to be tipped too much against your favor.
Breckmin
Why don't you give us one, just one, example here, on this board, of these christian miracles.
Not something along the lines of "My uncle John once ..." but something with real, verifiable facts, something that we can maybe follow up on online, or something with proven facts, setting a parameter trhat can lead us to the same conlcusion that you have reached.
Jesus had no problem with sharing his, um, miracles in the NT, so follow his lead and show us.
I'll be waiting right here, and thanks in advance.
Breckmin.
Just because you and other christians claim to experience a relationship with God, that is no testamony to me!
For all I know you just have an imaginary friend!
Your own personnal relationship claims are not science.
It doesn't matter whether christianity existed before the bible, in this day it is the bible in which all christian sects take their doctrines.
Also, the bible is a good example of the opposing views and creeds that christians had amongst themselves.
NO the inconstencies are not easily explained, they are just easily explained for christians who are willing to accept stupid answers.
I have not found many attempts at answering these inconsistencies very good, mostly desperate!
Yes every source on the net or in a book is a copy and not the original.
But....not every source claims to be the inspired,unfallible word of God, now does it?
Also, what im saying is that- without any original documents to actually study, the bible as we have it may very well be changed, edited, deleted, added, from what it was originally!
As far as the writtings of the prophets and all that, like I said, if a person really did recieve a revelation from God, and then shared it with the nation, and then a scribe decides to record the revelation...etc..its no longer a revelation at all!
It would only be a revelation to the first person (prophet) after that it becomes hearsay!
Therefore why trust some so called prophet from 3-4 thousand years ago who says he recieved a revelation just because he says so????
The problem of miracles...
* People often lie, and they have good reasons to lie about miracles occurring either because they believe they are doing so for the benefit of their religion or because of the fame that results.
* People by nature enjoy relating miracles they have heard without caring for their veracity and thus miracles are easily transmitted even where false.
* Hume notes that miracles seem to occur mostly in "ignorant" and "barbarous" nations and times, and the reason they don't occur in the "civilized" societies is such societies aren't awed by what they know to be natural events.
* The miracles of each religion argue against all other religions and their miracles, and so even if a proportion of all reported miracles across the world fit Hume's requirement for belief, the miracles of each religion make the other less likely.
I'll admit, people do tend to believe in what they want to believe or least hope it to be true.
But what alot of believers here dont realize or least tend to forget, is that people like myself and John Loftus and majority here were believers at one time!
I cant speak for every ex-christian here, but permit me to say that we believed in the same bible, the same God, and roughly the same theologies.
We lived the life of faith, prayed to the invisible God, thought we experienced miracles and divine interventions!
We read and studied the bible....and where are we now?
We all came to the point where we realized it just isn't, it cant be true!
Most of us know the christian arguments and have weighed them agianst the secular ones.
Unless any of you christian people have read a decent amount of secular literature and have a good grasp on its concepts, then your just preaching to the choir here!
Amen Shane!
Thanks Chuck.
How can we know who is wrong?
-The bible claims that demons exist, and that they have possessed man at times and they have been prayed out of people through their faith in Christ.
Is there or was there ever any shred of evidence that demonic spirits exist or possess people and can be responsible for illness and handy caps?
-The bible claims that people who truly believe in Christ can be born again of the spirit.
Is there any substantial proof that such a supernatural event has or ever did take place in a believing person?
-The bible claims that Jesus raised people back to life and He Himself was raised.
Is there in all our (accepted) history or scientific understanding that a dead person could or has been brought back to life?
-The bible claims a virgen brith.
Can anything like this happen, can a womens egg grow without being fertilized by a man?
The bible (foundation of christian faith) has too many unlikely claims to be argued seriously!
The bible records king David having an amount of gold and silver which wouldn't even have existed in the known civilizations of his time let alone Palistine!
It records Noah's ark holding two of very kind of land animal and bird on a boat that was only 450 feet long, 75 feet wide, and 45 feet high.
Yet, there is roughly 10,000 species of land animal known to exist!
Not to mention the diverse food storages.
I hate to recap information we have all heard and known and there is so much more, but seriously, how can any intelligent adult in this modern day try to argue these events as actually taking place????
I would apprecaite any comments anyone has on this question at my blog: Does Naturalistic Atheism Entail Nihilism? http://wp.me/pUHmd-1h I've had some very good and enlighting comments from people from here. Thank you for the questions you raise John.
My understanding was that John Loftus is supposed to be a sophisticated atheist who grapples with modern apologetics, but this is just rehashed and watered down logical positivism.
Bayesian statistics? Ring a bell? Subjective priors based on background information? Hello? Hello? I suppose that atheists might try to invoke the principle of indifference, but (1) virtually everyone takes Bayesianism as a subjective theory of how rational people update their priors, not an objective theory of beliefs in proportion to evidence. (2) the principle of indifference is a heuristic, not a claim to objective truth, (3) the principle of indifference runs into paradoxes.
Or forget all that Bayesian stuff. Virtually everyone champions either moderate foundationalism or the coherence theory. And on neither of those do we have an epistemic duty to be agnostic.
Hi Justin Martyr. I see you're back from the grave. Nice to have such a dignitary as you here!
I don't know where you heard I was a sophisticated atheist, but if it's true at all you would probably never know it from reading one post of mine. You should at least read two of them. So may I suggest reading this one, with a link there to a third one. Beyond that you should choose to read some of them here and there and probably even read my books. If that doesn't change your mind then I guess I'm just your average run-of-the-mill atheist after all. Shucks.
Technically, no-one can prove for absolute certainty that there is no God. Most atheist would admit that and I am one of them. However being 99.9999 percent sure that there is not a God is good enough for most of us. You can call that agnostic if you like, but most agnostics are really atheists to all intents and purposes. They live their lives as if there were no God. It just sounds more acceptable to be "sitting on the fence".
Regarding miracle cures, how many people with amputated limbs can grow them back? How many Down's syndrome babies can be cured? Most miracle cures are in illnesses that have a psychosomatic element, or ones that spontaneously go into remission anyway such as MS, Leukemia to name a couple.
Of all the millions of pilgrims that have visited Lourdes, there have only been about fifty recorded miracles- hardly statistically significant.
Hi John,
Thanks for the kindness of a reply!
I extract the main thrust of your link post as making the case for the outsider's test based on (1) GE Moore's realism, and (2) explanatory foundationalism. Before I address those points I will back up and explain the reason why logical positivism and other ideas in its spirit have already been proven to be failures.
1. The evil demon, solipsism, a universe created five minutes ago, and all those other beliefs. This point you address, but unsucccessfully, in your linked post.
2. The regress problem. All epistemologies must grapple with the regress problem and that means allowing beliefs without evidence.
3. The world is NP-complete. This is similar to #2 but from a Bayesian perspective. Solving problems with Bayesian statistics is inractible. That's why people have subjective priors based on background information.
4. Many beliefs cannot be tested in isolation. The Duhem-Quine point. Suppose I have worldview W and am wondering about the truth of proposition P. If P is true then my worldview is incoherent. If P is false then it is sound. If worldview W already has justification then I am not intellectually obligated to be agnostic on the truth of P.
5. Auxiliary assumptions. This is related to #4. Beliefs cannot be tested in isolation because they come with auxiliary assumptions that can be questioned. For example, the Copernican theory was technically falsified from the start. It predicts that other planets will get further away from the Earth and then closer depending on where they are in their cycle. But we do not see this. Of course, in hindsight we now know that it was the auxiliary assumption that the naked eye was strong enough to percieve the difference which was falsified. Overturning a belief often means overturning a whole host of auxiliary assumptions. This means that beliefs cannot be easily tested in isolation.
6. Social learning. You don't need to get into fuzzy-headed memetics for this. People can learn from others and simple models of social learning show that imitation can lead to improved decision making. But of course, this also circumvents agnosticism and the outsider's test.
So, those are all the reasons why I think your outsider's test is false. It is well out of step with the state of modern epistemology, social science, and statistics. Your response is only targeted towards point #1. The others stand independently.
Now onto your post. GE Moore's realism actually violates the outsider's test. He is basically asserting that his support for the premise "here is a hand" is stronger than the support for the premise "the world is the illusion of an evil demon." But he provides no actual evidence for this.
The other arguments fall into the category of explanatory foundationlism - provide an inferential argument for these beliefs. I think this can often be done in regards to solipsism, the Matrix, the universe created five minutes ago and others. But there are a few problems. (1) inference does not explain the strength that we hold these beliefs. We have an intellectual duty to proportion our beliefs to the degree of justification. Inferential arguments are weak and lead to cautious, tentative beliefs. No one believes "the world is real" cautiously and tentatively. (2) inference doesn't work against the evil demon because a world of just you and the demon is simpler than the complex universe we think we inhabit.
So in conclusion, your argument against point #1 does not work. You are just retreading ground that has already proven over and over to be a dead end. But that's the thing about dead ideas - you can't kill them!
Justin Martyr, I'd recommend reading my books at this point. I take it you have not and I'm not inclined to carry on a protracted conversation with someone as intelligent as you seem to be who reads two or three posts of mine and jumps to the conclusion I'm wrong without reading my answers to objections. Only afterward will I engage you. If you don't bother then neither will I. I can't. I hope you understand. To say I know nothing of Bayesian background factors means you need to be brought up to speed. Just read the first paragraph in my chapter on the OTF in WIBA.
You see, I don't wish to continually re-invent the wheel for every person who visits here or emails me and pronounces any argument of mine dead who does not wish to read them.
Cheers.
@Justin Martyr: "So, those are all the reasons why I think your outsider's test is false. It is well out of step with the state of modern epistemology, social science, and statistics."
I don't even pretend to understand all of your references to Bayesian probabilities and epistemic frameworks (foundationalism, logical positivism,etc.)... for starters, you've given me some good wikipedia time ahead. I did want to inquire what you thought of a rather simple reason for the OTF, namely:
- Man has been inventing gods and practicing religious rituals for at least 25,000 years (most likely far more) [1]
- These invented gods and religions of old are now seen as explaining either 1) unknown phenomenon (why the sun 'travels across the sky') or 2) based on faulty premises (burying clothes, jewels, food, etc. with the dead to take with them for the afterlife, removing certain organs, etc.)
- As we have established clearer understandings of the world, we have tended to disregard these early religions as false (at least my understanding is that hardly any still subscribe to Roman or Greek mythology, etc... perhaps evidenced by the fact that we even label it as 'mythology')
- Individuals largely take on the beliefs of their parents and begin by practicing belief according to concepts for which they could not possibly comprehend the apologetics (being a Catholic, this would include professing that the Eucharist is the true body and blood at the age of ~7, for example). Children are also brought up in belief at quite an emotional level (children's bible stories which highlight triumphant tales of Daniel or Samson while leaving out a tribe requesting another tribe to be circumcised and then slaughtering them all in their weakness...), which is quite different than adults seeking intellectual justification for life-changing belief systems.
So, given those 4 facts (the first 3 are all in the same bundle), do you see any justification for the OTF?
To be continued...
While argument from analogy is fallacious, just for a moment imagine that belief in a flat, star-shaped, or prismatic earth was passed down via one's parents. Also, countries tend to have one of these beliefs more prominently than the others. Even based on this one fact about the nature of acquired knowledge, would one be justified in suspecting their belief due to its somewhat arbitrary means of being perpetuated? Throw in the fact that there is no way to currently identify which belief is actually correct. Each has a rich history of justification and may apologetics who believe it to describe certain aspects better than the other two. Maybe each even has a sacred manual going along with it that condemns other beliefs as false and says it alone holds the truth to proper navigation of the earth.
Sure, silly. But just remove the religious white lace 'do-not-touch' sign from belief for a moment and look at it as simply something that is true or not true. Then also add in that forms of it have been being invented to explain the world since man had half a brain (literally!). Then add in that the primary mode of spreading a belief is through parents to children with little objective grounding, evidence, or arguments provided but simply via means of obedience, an exalted mindset toward not-see-but-still-believe faith, and awe-inspiring stories and/or facts ('god created the whole world and everything in it, little Johnny. And he loves you. Isn't that amazing?'). No questions asked.
Do you think these two combinations provide any reason for one to be skeptical about their particular religious view? Do you think that one is even 'fully free' to contemplate being wrong about a belief held from childhood? My experience is telling me know. Even with 'weak' believers (who provide few answers or poor reasons when questioned) do not experience their lack of any tangible explanations as reasons to doubt. Every time I've gotten into a conversation and run into something they can't answer, I'm simply pointed toward 'this really smart guy I know' or 'this really great book I read' and so on. They keep assuming someone up the chain knows the definitive answer that will make me believe or set me straight. It's just odd that hardly anyone I meet is prompted to actually dig around themselves and see if what I'm saying has any merit! Doesn't even cross the mind.
I think it's a miracle for anyone to 'cross the aisle' into disbelief or belief if raised in the opposing tradition.
'Nuff from me. I'd be interested in what you think.
Whoops... [1] from my first post was supposed to link HERE
Hiya Hendy,
Thank you for the thoughtful response. I appreciate it.
My response for this post is not about all of atheism versus all of Christianity. It was simply a specific argument that the outsider's test of faith is irredeemably flawed. That's all.
If I were to broaden the subject my position is that Christians are prima facie justified in their belief (and atheists are prima facie justified in their non-belief). However, there are defeaters. Atheists have defeaters of Christianity and Christians have defeaters for atheism.
If I am correctly extracting the main thrust of your comments, you are raising the points that (1) the diversity of religions, and (2) the fact that faith is spread by cultural methods such as family. In light of these points, faith is clearly a social construct and extraordinarily unlikely to be true.
You are not giving enough credit to culture. I do not believe in memetics, but I do believe that culture is processed and aggregated information about how to make good choices in life. The concept of social learning is very simple to show. Suppose a community of farmers was deciding whether or not to switch to planting hybrid corn. The farmers were experienced but they did not know enough the hybrid to make a fully informed decision. Let's say that each farmer has a certain amount of private information about whether to plant the hybrid corn. Let's suppose their private information gives them a 60% chance of making the right decision.
Farmer A has private information in favor of the hybrid. He plants the hybrid, giving him a 60% chance of making the right decision. Then Farmer B has to decide. His private information also says to plant the hybrid. That means he can be 84% chance he is right (the odds of each of their private information being wrong is 0.4 x 0.4). That's just the tip of the iceberg and there is a lot more to social learning, including the fact that it can lead to systematically wrong decisions.
Choosing what to plant is a fairly mundane example. Social learning is most important for decisions that are very hard to evaluate using information-greedy methods. That includes the choice of personal identities which has subtle long term consequences and diffuse benefits or costs upon others.
Stepping back one step farther, the fact that cultures are in competition with each other is another pretty good aggregating method for this. Cultural competition moves very slowly, but it is efficient because it does not make systematic errors, and because it allows people to economize on their decisions.
God is not a gnostic or an atheist. He did not make a technocratic religion for the intelligent and highly educated. He made a faith that the simplest people can understand and follow. Moreover, he made a religion that people approach out of the presuppositions in their hearts rather than intellectual weight. But of course the consequence is that different cultures have different practice different religions or none at all.
"But as the proverb says, "It's easier to smell a rotten egg than it is to lay a good one." I'm an egg smeller type of feller. ;-) Christianity is a rotten egg."
John, so we could say of you, as John Adams said of Thomas Paine, "He's much better at tearing down than he is at building up"? ;)
John Adams was no Christian Eric and he definitely was not a defender of your RCC.
"He's much better at tearing down than he is at building up"? ;)
Eric, yes, and here's how it works. I want to force Christians to think for themselves. They are already atheists (skeptics) of all other religions, so all I need to do for the most part is to get them to be atheists (skeptics) of their own religion. If I can do this they will be forced to think for themselves and not rely anymore on the Bible or Christian theology for the answers to existence. I've decided to do for others what I myself experienced. It is/was liberating to become a freethinker rather than, as Voltaire quipped, "a nonthinker." you do see, don't you, the difference between a historian and an apologist, right? Historians want to know what happened. Apologists quote mine from the Bible and theology to bolster their faith. Apologists cannot say, "Oh, maybe the evidence isn't there after all." Nope. They feel a huge responsibility to defend the faith for their respective clientele.
And you do know, don't you, that I can even grant you that some sort of deity exists, right? Big deal if she does! As I have argued a hundred times before It makes no difference.
Justin,
I don't think your point on information learned culturally is as good as you do. It seems pretty muddled to me. There is probably something to it, but I don't think you've made your case.
Your farming example shows that farmers are ultimately learning from experience. There most definitely is an external feedback loop coming from the success or failure of their crops, and that's an evidential result that can be externally verified, even if the information is being passed socially.
With regard to religion, at best, all you can say here is that there is something about religion that provides *some* societies, *some* benefit, but there is nothing in your analysis to indicate there is any truth value in these cultural phenomena, and given the breadth of contradictory spiritual beliefs, the logical conclusion is to say that religious beliefs provide some benefit, regardless of their truth.
@Justin:
Thanks for the response.
- Re. both sides being 'prima facie' justified in their belief/non-belief. Interesting. I would not have supposed you to think that. What about the defeaters, though? Isn't that what this post is about? Whose defeaters ultimately prevail?
- Re. my 'main thrust.' Kind of. It's more than just 'religious diversity.' I think it's much more convincing to keep in mind that humanity as a species has been obsessed with [false] religions for more than 10-20 times the age of Christianity (in other words, for 20-40k years). It's like the boy who cried wolf. As a species, we have been showing our tendency to constantly reinvent deities and answers to life's questions, continually shouting 'Hey everyone! I got it now!' And the contemporaries of that age/culture generally fall down and worship. They're easily duped.
So, given this track record (even applying your farmer analogy), if we look back over the last, say, 25,000 years at all of the religions we now believe to be false, we see that they have continually been proven wrong throughout the ages. Who knows how many religions have existed over that many years... so I think that 40% chance of being wrong ends up being extremely high in the case of religion.
To use your analogy, it would be like the same farmers planting rocks instead of seeds for 23,000 years (conservative estimate). Then, 2,000 years ago, they are supposed to have planted a tree that ended up bearing fruit in the form of gold bullions hanging from the branches?
That's a reasonable extension of the analogy.
I do agree that culture has a huge influence on belief. From my current perspective, I'd say that parental influence (which is a smaller scale form of culture) is about the only reason for belief in the extreme majority of cases. I agree with your use of the term 'presuppositions in their hearts.' But again, to return to the post, we're trying to establish how one can evaluate these presuppositions, for the world paints a very convincing picture that they are obviously wrong. You happen to (I assume) believe that [The] god created a [The] faith so that individuals can believe according to [True] presuppositions in their hearts. Yet those presuppositions lead us to believe such radically opposing 'truths' that someone has to be wrong.
Returning to the cultural/familial influence... again, I believe it is about the only reason most people believe what they do. It is for this reason alone that almost everyone is content with whatever religion they currently have and it never dawns on them that they could possibly be wrong.
Thanks for the continued dialog.
Hiya Hendy
- Re. both sides being 'prima facie' justified in their belief/non-belief. Interesting. I would not have supposed you to think that. What about the defeaters, though? Isn't that what this post is about? Whose defeaters ultimately prevail?
This goes back to prima facie justification. If your gut feeling is that the world is not the illusion of an evil demon then you are prima facie justified in that belief. If your prima facie justification is strong then you are not epistemically obligated to seek out evidence or defeaters. But that only means that you are justified! It does not mean that you are right. I think that the evidence is decisively against atheism and that informed people should at least be deists.
I think it's much more convincing to keep in mind that humanity as a species has been obsessed with [false] religions for more than 10-20 times the age of Christianity (in other words, for 20-40k years). It's like the boy who cried wolf.
I agree! But let's not be question-begging. If atheism is true then people are irrational and superstitious and keep making up religions for personal comfort or to create an opiate for the masses. If Christianity is true then people are irrational and superstitious and keep making up "religions" because they have hardened their heart against God. On that view, atheism is just one more religion even though it does not make supernatural claims (assuming atheism is hooked up to metaphysical naturalism, you can be an atheist and believe in ghosts or Platonic Forms).
The question is who is right?
In that sense my response is two-pronged. The first prong is that social learning is not irrational because it aggregates private information (although sometimes it does this quite poorly). The second prong is that false beliefs are no more troubling for a Christian than they are for an atheist.
@JustinMartyr:
"But that only means that you are justified! It does not mean that you are right. I think that the evidence is decisively against atheism and that informed people should at least be deists."
Point taken on justified vs. right. I'm still not convinced re. deism; if your posting with Tristan is representative, though, you believe this because of cosmology? Just wondered what your top reasons are.
"If Christianity is true then people are irrational and superstitious and keep making up "religions" because they have hardened their heart against God."
Well, this is like playing Sesame Streets' 'one-of-these-things-is-not-like-the-other' game. My point is that we have just reasons to suspect that any attempt humans make to describe god is likely to be false, proven by tens of thousands of years of evidence. If Christianity is true, it means that atheists were simply wrong after all. It can hardly mean that all other ancient religions were created due to 'hardness of heart.' The vast majority of them came along before god even supposedly created the earth... well, at least far before the patriarchs. How would they know? If they didn't know, there's nothing to harden their hearts against.
I think I get the gist of your 'prongs', although since more than once I've been told we can never 'prove' god, the discussion shifts to how to decide the default position. Since false beliefs are in the same category into which Christianity falls (religious beliefs positing the existence of a supernatural being), then we have a better case for being skeptical every time someone emerges from their desert cave or from under their fig tree or upper room to proclaim, 'At last! I have the truth!'
Also, I'm fairly open to deism, though this would translate into practical atheism, wouldn't it? As far as I'm concerned, non-intervening/loving beings will do what they want with us when we die anyway and haven't revealed themselves to be loved and served anyway.
Hiya Hendy,
I've been enjoying this discussion. If you are looking for a token Christian blog to raise Cain in, I'd be happy if you visited mine.
if your posting with Tristan is representative, though, you believe this because of cosmology? Just wondered what your top reasons are.
I'm a Christian because I had a religious experience. At the time I remember thinking "either God exists or I'm having a flashback." I initially went with the latter interpretation, but subsequent events proved me wrong. However, having grown up on Dawkins I had a very weak faith so I got into apologetics. Now I've come to realize that it is all part of God's plan. My blog only gets about 30 unique visitors on a good day, but hey, that's 30 more people than if I initially had a strong faith.
If Christianity is true, it means that atheists were simply wrong after all. It can hardly mean that all other ancient religions were created due to 'hardness of heart.' The vast majority of them came along before god even supposedly created the earth...
Well, I take the old earth view of Genesis. But moving on, God attempted to enter into a loving relationships with Man long before Christianity or even the Patriarchs. Adam and Eve rebelled against God. Cain rebelled against God. The people from Noah's time rebelled against God. Noah's sons rebelled against God. All of Abraham's contemporaries were rebelling against God (except Lot). A good clue: pagan religions are almost always sensual and promiscuous. And how does atheism line up compared to Christianity on sexual morality? Atheism is clearly a rebellion against God.
Also, I'm fairly open to deism, though this would translate into practical atheism, wouldn't it?
Yes, I'm not making a plea for deism. I'm just pointing out the minimum that follows from the evidence.
"And how does atheism line up compared to Christianity on sexual morality?"
You once again prove your ignorance oh Arrogant one.
Atheism says nothing about sexual morality. It is simply a negative response to a positive truth claim. Learn that if you wish to be respected by an Atheist.
Secondly, check out studies of teen pregnancies and abortions and you will see that Christians over-index on both.
Heck the current standard bearer for your Dark Age mentality, Sarah Palin, has a daughter who by biblical standards should be stoned to death for her whoring that led to a bastard.
But besides that idiot how about you rationalize the sexual purity of John Ensign, Ted Haggard or the trans-continental Catholic Clergy. Prominent Christians all.
Hi Chuck,
Atheism says nothing about sexual morality. It is simply a negative response to a positive truth claim. Learn that if you wish to be respected by an Atheist.
1. This is a common argument made by atheists, but I do not think it succeeds. If a belief is to be held rationally then it must cohere with one's other beliefs. Thus atheism can only be held rationally if part of an examined mind and a fine-tuned worldview. Irrational atheism does not entail a worldview, but rational atheism does.
2. Atheism, even as a worldview, does not entail anything about sexual morality. But it remains true that atheists and Christians generally disagree about sexual morality.
Secondly, check out studies of teen pregnancies and abortions and you will see that Christians over-index on both.
Actually, according to recent data discussed in this post by the progressive blogger Matthew Yglesias, the rates of teen pregnancy in blue states and red states is about the same. The difference is that people in red states get fewer abortions and have more babies. Considering that red states have more minorities, and that minorities have higher rates for many social pathologies such as teen pregnancy, I suspect that whites in red states probably have lower rates than whites in blue states.
Moreover, in red states as well as working class neighborhoods, Christianity is a high status belief system. That means that many people "talk the talk" but don't "walk the walk." If you index to church attendance of three times per month - a pretty low bar - then you do see that Christians have significantly lower levels of social pathologies like teen pregnancy and abortion.
@JustinMartyr
Thanks for the discussion. I've been lurking in the Catholic Answers forum but it's getting tiring. Something in my likes to test my conclusions as I go, so thanks for the invite to another potential proving ground.
- I wasn't sure all of the OT even lined up historically. Can you mention all of those people as actually having existed? You don't believe in Noah and the flood, do you? Plus a lot of it seems to be written by who knows who -- different authors under the same pen name. I pretty much dismissed the OT history as nowhere near accurate.
- Here's one for you, then: how does the fall align with evolution? I figured it would run into numerous issues:
--- Were there natural disasters and flesh eating bacteria back then? If so, how was man spared from them since no suffering existed? If not, what geological or archaeological evidence can we expect to find in support of that?
--- How were the first humans even intelligent enough to understand god's commands to such a degree as to reject then with enough culpability to warrant eternal punishment?
--- When did we get souls such that the first whatever-they-were had them and their parents did not?
- How would you know that god was trying to reveal himself prior to Judaism? The Bible is written as though it was somewhat of a continuous lineage. Even though it began with Abraham officially with the flaming pots through the split goat, wasn't Noah the bridge between the failures and the chosen such that he'd still be in direct contact with human all that time?
- Re. the sexuality thing... is that more of a historical feature than specifically a non-Christian one? I would have figured it was more about misunderstanding sexuality than being hardened about god
--- For example, thinking procreation or lack thereof was a blessing/curse (language like this is in the Bible), or that power emanated from sexual things?
--- Though Judaism and Christianity did some different things in this area, it doesn't mean they always got/get it right. I recall reading that one of the reasons for only male Catholic priests is due to Aquinas' belief that the male was 'active' in providing 'seed' whereas the female was 'dormant', only providing a 'field.' We now know that both contribute to the ordeal.
- Though surveys are no way to discover religious truth, it is interesting to read stuff like THIS.
One quote: "In general, higher rates of belief in and worship of a creator correlate with higher rates of homicide, juvenile and early adult mortality, STD infection rates, teen pregnancy, and abortion in the prosperous democracies."
Good post Hendy.
Let's hope that Justin comprehends the data and realizes he is wrong.
Justin I am an atheist. Please extrapolate my views on all other social subjects based on that assertion.
Hiya Hendy
1. The fall and the flood. I agree with Richard Dawkins that the origins of life are best explained as an act of intelligent design.
I am ambivalent about the first 11 chapters of Genesis. I think that if you take an old earth view and believe in intelligent design then it can be defended literally. But it would take a lot of research and I don't know as much about archeology as I do about philosophy and social science. So given that I'm perfectly happy with Augustine of Hippo's view that Genesis has a poetic form that should not be taken literally. (note that this does not mean that Adam and Eve never existed or that God did not create life or the universe. It just means that the description we have in the Bible is too poetic to extract an accurate historical account).
- Re. the sexuality thing... is that more of a historical feature than specifically a non-Christian one? I would have figured it was more about misunderstanding sexuality than being hardened about god
--- For example, thinking procreation or lack thereof was a blessing/curse (language like this is in the Bible), or that power emanated from sexual things?
You should read some evolution. Once you understand arms races ("the red queen"), sexual selection, and group selection you will understand Christian sexual morality. Alternately, just read Roissy. The key word is hypergamy.
--- Though Judaism and Christianity did some different things in this area, it doesn't mean they always got/get it right. I recall reading that one of the reasons for only male Catholic priests is due to Aquinas' belief that the male was 'active' in providing 'seed' whereas the female was 'dormant', only providing a 'field.' We now know that both contribute to the ordeal.
First of all, I'm a Protestant. Second of all, while I think the Middle Ages are underappreciated, both science and philosophy have advanced since then. I'm sure on your Catholic forum everyone is still somewhat beholden to Aquinas, but the fact that he had some silly ideas along with some good ones is not troubling for me. I think that is par for the course, even for the greatest minds.
- Though surveys are no way to discover religious truth, it is interesting to read stuff like THIS.
That's an ecological study. I just put up a new post on my blog (link) specifically to show the historical roots of these cultures.
Case in point, in the United States the Northern blue states were settled by a bunch of Puritans. By contrast, the southern states were settled by lesser nobility and the standard "give me your poor" immigrants. The North has had lower rates of violence and out of wedlock childbirths going back to the 1500's (see Albion's Seed by David Hackett-Fischer). In recent times New England has secularized, but its moral ways were not built on secular morality. Quite the opposite.
I think you can plausibly argue that societies are fated to secularize as they get wealthy. But the data is not there to show that secularization actually got them there. The causation works the other way. That's also what the studies that look at individual people (indexed to church attendence) also find.
@JustinMartyr
Thanks for the continued discussion.
- Does Dawkins say that Intelligent Design is the best explanation? I read God Delusion and, while I didn't actually think it was amazing, don't remember him saying that intelligent design was the case.
- I hear you about Genesis. Being a Catholic (or former one?), I only know 'The Church's' stance... They did ditch Gen as being not necessarily historical. Here's were we get into tough water for me, though:
--- Where are we justified in accepting a doctrine or hypothesis without any supporting evidence?
--- For example, even though 'the fall' might explain our 'good vs. evil' complex, it offers nothing to the curiosity of 'how' it happened.
--- Doesn't this support that it's quite likely that Genesis was just someone positing a hypothetical myth to everything just like the Romans/Greeks did with the weather?
--- In other words, why is the explanatory story right this time but not every other time?
- Just to continue specifically on the fall:
--- Without understanding how a human choice the first human(s) could affect all subsequent humans, how do we proceed with this hypothesis as likely?
--- Would you hold that god initiated evolution or that he did something special only with humans to break them free from the rest with souls/minds and the like?
--- If he initiated it, what were Adam and Eve? If the precursors to modern man, was their intelligence sufficient to understand god's commands? When did they get souls?
--- We do still have the lingering question of how we were protected from evil or evil was absent prior to the fall (no death/suffering/pain), right?
--- Also, why would the world undergo a change here and now via humanity's sin on the front end but not be repaired by Jesus on the back end?
--- Lastly, since I did not have to personally accept the sin of Adam to be damned, why must I accept the gift of Jesus to be saved?
- I'll read up on the link you posted.
- Don't know that I get the graph... Percent of people who trust people vs. GNP/capita? How do you even quantify that? What does it show? Historically protestant countries trust people more and are richer?
--- Also, my link, though 'ecological', deals with a lot more areas than GNP/capita.
--- To disregard the study I posted, I think you need to claim (and I think you may be doing so) that it doesn't matter what the religion is now, but what matters is what the religious basis for the culture is? Am I reading you right?
In other words, it seems like you will base the results on the fact that the 'healthy' countries were founded religiously and therefore have religious principles of morality at work even though they have since secularized?
@JustinMartyr:
Read some Roissy. Wouldn't want to be on that guy's sh*t list. No idea what his credentials are, but his 'public blog face' certainly isn't earning points with me.
If his first post currently there is what you wanted me to see, it is striking how high teen pregnancy rates are, however I'd be curious:
- What other factors are at play?
--- Specifically, what about intelligence? Income?
--- Though I hate the divide that money creates, in general, poorer areas tend to have increased crime and such.
- He suggests that poor sexual consequences are the result of these:
1. Effective and widely available contraceptives (the Pill, condom, and the de facto contraceptive abortion).
2. Easy peasy no-fault divorce.
3. Women’s economic independence (hurtling towards women’s economic advantage if the college enrollment ratio is any indication).
4. Rigged feminist-inspired laws that have caused a disincentivizing of marriage for men and an incentivizing of divorce for women.
Though these exist, what about the role of the individual? Should we be about focusing on what makes an individuals committed in a relationship, other societal focuses (endless electronic stimulation, for example), why individuals are more/less responsible?
For example, #4 only works if we believe that married poeple are primarily focused only on money, right? Men don't want to risk it and woman have everything to gain by getting out? This seems like a straw man, to me.
It's just interesting that he makes such a cut-and-dried case out of it.
I'll keep poking about his site, though his derisive style doesn't make it too enticing. I don't get how you can have that much fun posting about a tatooed guy walking his small dogs and then psychoanalyzing everyone's 'contrast game' tendencies...
Hi Hendy,
1. Dawkins. He was interviewed by Ben Stein in Stein's ID documentary Expelled. Stein kept pressing him about the creation of the first living cell and Dawkins gave was that it might be aliens.
2. Genesis. A vulgar statement of the God of the Gaps argument would say "science can't explain X, therefore God must have done it." (I don't think the vulgar form has much relevence to Christianity, but more sophisticated versions have at least some force.) You seem to be working from a parallel perspective: theologians can't explain X, therefore X can't be caused by God. But I don't think that makes even less sense when applied to theology than it does to science. In theory we may have a "theory of everything" but we'll never fully know the mind of God.
3. Studies. The graph assumes a fairish amount of background knowledge in economics. To economists, the central riddle of civilization is how you get genetically unrelated strangers who are not in an ongoing reciprocal relationship to cooperate with each other. None of the evolutionary mechanisms actually work. The degree of trust between strangers is a good proxy for this ability to cooperate. The graph makes a strong case that this is a cultural endowment from Christianity (although Confucian cultures do pretty well too). In other words: the reason why all those secularized nations are so well off is because of their historic roots in Christianity.
4. Roissy. I wasn't referring you to a specific post, just trying to save you some time and money over buying a bunch of books on sexual selection and group selection. The gist is that promiscuous sex is a high stakes power game that has the ability to suck up a lot of resources, and which undermines the foundations of cooperation between people. Roissy makes that intuitively accessible to anyone who has passing familiarity with the bar scene. But the stuff he describes is straight out of sociobiology.
Post a Comment