Tag: Religion

Political Islam

There may be plenty of British Muslims that are perfectly peaceful, want nothing more than to be allowed to follow Islam on a personal basis.

But that isn’t where the trouble for democracy lies. This Telegraph article, and this Channel 4 Dispatches programme, show the real intent of many ‘politicised’ Muslims. But it’s not as if being ‘politicised’ is restricted to a few fundementalists. Islam is both a religious and a political movement, and it’s long term intentions are made clear over and over again. And the concept of infiltrating organisations that have views or policies that are incompatible with Islam (i.e. with Sharia) with the intent of taking control and applying Sharia wherever they can, is perfectly compatible with the long term aims of Islam.

Pay attention!

They’re Up The wall

The BBC news report on Women of the Wall shows the hypocracy of the religious mind, and the lack of a sense of humour that makes them fail to spot irony.

“…rabbi Ovadia Yosef denounced women’s prayer groups that wear the tallit at the Western Wall as acting to promote a feminist cause and not out of piety.” – A well-put pious argument rabbi, and not at all promoting male domination of the relgion, eh?

And, don’t the women get it? They’re claiming unfair treatment on religious matters in a society dominated by dogmatic relgious males? Why bother. Pick a relgion where women are already treated as equals – granted you’re going to have to skip all the mainstream religions. Sod it, become atheists.

Some Notes on Theism

I’m prompted to write this post as a general account of my opinions about the existence of God in response to an exchange with Aaron on Sam’s blog: Comments. In particular I wanted to respond to this comment by Aaron: “At the very core, Christianity is nothing more than following Christ. The word itself means simply one who follows Christ’s teachings. All of the sacraments, all of the ritual, all of the dogma is man-made artifice that is at times either helpful or harmful to a given individual or even to the world at large.”

There’s nothing new in what follows; it’s just a summary of my views on the subject of theism in the above context.

I don’t find anything wrong with following the teaching of any particularly wise person, but is it really likely that all the professed teachings of Jesus were all his own work? Even if it could be shown that many of the teachings of Jesus were attributable to his followers and biographers that wouldn’t necessarily diminish the wisdom inherent in the teachings.

But anything in addition to this is where my problem with Christianity, and theism in general begins.

First, to make Jesus anything more than simply a mortal teacher requires the presupposition of God. This presupposition is at the heart of all the main monotheistic religions. Without an initial God everything else fails, theistically. Theists sometimes argue that atheists aren’t in a position to comment on some aspects of theology that they haven’t studied, but without the presupposition of God the theology is worthless.

I find no rational reason to presuppose God. I have not seen one single argument supporting theism that doesn’t presuppose this, for any of the God religions. And this brings me to the degree of my ‘agnosticism’ or ‘atheism’ as discussed with Aaron. The metaphysical idea that a God is one possible cause of everything is fine, but that’s all it is, an idea, a concept, with no more weight than any other metaphysical idea. I could equally presuppose two Gods, and infinite number of Gods, or no Gods, a single once-only universe from nothing, a cyclical single universe, multiple parallel universes, metaphysical ideas that have mathematical support and those that don’t, and even pure fantasy universes – metaphysically, anything goes. So, in response to Aaron, I am ‘agnostic’ to the extent that the God hypothesis is one of many, and I am ‘atheistic’ to the extent that I don’t find the God hypothesis a particularly convincing one. I’m so unconvinced I’m prepared to accept the label ‘atheist’.

Without presupposing God it becomes necessary to say why one would think there is a God.

All the so called proofs of the existence of God, the ontological, teleological, cosmological, and other ‘logical’ arguments are all based on some unsupportable premise, that is usually based on some human intuitive requirement that there should be some cause, that it should be intelligent, and that it should be loving. God is made in the image of the best of what we would like to be, not we in his image.

Terms such as ‘infinite’ and ‘perfect’ are often used in relation to God. These are mere concepts that are useful in describing something beyond what we can see, measure or reach. There is no reality to them, as far as we know. There’s no good reason that they are attributes of or have anything to do with God.

Discussions about the ‘probability’ of any of these possible ideas, and in this context that there might or might not be a God, are metaphysical speculations and have no mathematical basis to take them any further. In order to calculate probabilites about God’s existence we need information we just don’t have.

Some theists don’t require proof or evidence or probabilistic likelihood, since they find some ideas ‘obvious’, when considering these issues. For example, it’s ‘obvious’ there must be a ‘loving’, ‘intelligent’, ‘omnipotent’, …, creator. To such a theist I’d ask the following. How would you know that? How many universes have you witnessed being created to come to that ‘obvious’ conclusion, deductively or inductively? What experiences do you have, on the scale of universes, that make you think this or any universe requires a creator at all? And as for ‘His’ attributes, how would you know what they were? Revelation? Well, revelation presupposes there’s a God to do the revealing, as opposed to there having been a number of fallible humans through the ages that have misunderstood, willfully lied, or been deluded about revelatory events. There’s that presupposition again?

Another approach theists sometimes take is with respect to what might be called ‘ways of knowing’. When all the rational arguments have been put forward – basically saying there’s no evidence or proof that God exists and so we should act as if he doesn’t – theists have been known to question the appropriateness of these arguments, by questioning the ways in which we can know things. All I want to say for now on this is that the best and most useful ways of knowing consist of supporting our personal experiences with rational critical and sceptical thought and, when appropriate and possible, employing what is commonly know as the scientific method. I accept that when we follow this path the best we can hope for is the accumulation of common experiences that give us some grasp of how things work, and to a limited extent why they work; but I also accept that in no way does that lead us to any ultimate and absolute truth about anything; it only provides us with a degree of confidence. What about meditation and other ‘spiritual’ ways of knowing? As far as I can see, moving to what is essentially a different mind-state is no different than chewing on magic mushrooms – anything goes; and there’s no reason to suppose anything valuable or real is being revealed.

Yet another idea that theism embraces whole heartily, and which is also a necessity for some non-theists, is the requirement for purpose or meaning. I think this idea is often behind the ‘obvious’ discussed above. But there is no requirement that the universe, or any part of it (i.e. us), should have any purpose or meaning. This need that some people have for there to be purpose and meaning in the universe at all is a quirk of human nature, akin to the need to bite ones nails or pick ones nose or scratch an itch. Can I prove this? No, but the parallels are sufficient to explain it without conjuring up an agent such as God.

Now, I can accept a ‘concept’, call it God if you wish, as an aspiration, a goal to which we would like to aim; but it’s entirely a human construct – it certainly isn’t theistic in the usual sense, and not even deistic. In that respect it’s a form of Humanism. I think that this is what some versions of Christianity have come to be, though I can’t understand why there remains the insistence on the truth of, say, the resurrection, or even the continued association with Christ.

Much of this aspiration for the unreachable perfection is fine. But because we can’t actually reach it we have to settle for less. And that ‘less’ that each person settles for is subjective. I don’t have a problem with different individuals or groups of people deciding that they think they should live by certain rules, constructing their own morality – I’ve seen no evidence or good argument for objective morality. And I think it makes sense that as a society (and collections of societies) that we should agree that compromises have to be made – we can’t all have our own particular moral codes enforced just as we choose. The problem with religion in this respect is that it has aimed for the heady heights of the infinite and the perfect, and has decided there is a real God, and has then interpreted its own subjective moral codes as being determined by this fictitious character. All theistic religions, and sects within religions, and individuals within sects, all have their own take on what God is, to what extent he interacts with us, to what extent he commands us, or requires us to worship him, etc. Religion is probably the most variable and subjective of human enterprises, in terms of what is believed, and yet often its adherents claim to have access to absolute and invariant truth. This is pure nonsense.

Take any individual, whether it be Jesus, his apostles, Mohammed, the Pope, or anyone claiming to be divine or to have been in touch with some divine being, or to have received a message, a revelation; take any of them; any claim they have made can be accounted for by down to earth explanations. But, you might say, at least some of the claims could be true. Well, how would you know? How, in fact, do you distinguish between a truthful claim about the divine and any of the many consequences of simple human frailty: mistakes, dreams, delusions, lies, intuitions, group-think, etc. There is no known way of making such a distinction, and since ultimately all supposed sources of divine information result from such claims, one way or another, they must all be seriously suspect, at the very least. Add to the shear variety the fact that no matter which religion you follow, and no matter how dedicated you are and to what extent you submit yourself and obey the commands and pray, there’s not a damn bit of difference made in this world. From the most pious to the most ‘sinful’ – not a jot of difference that anyone has demonstrated.

All that pretty much takes care of my view about God. I think it’s a strong case. I’d be happy to expand on any individual points, or to consider any angles I haven’t already. I’d even believe in God if I thought there was sufficient reason.

The ABC Of Putting Your Foot In It

Lot’s of coverage of ate ABC’s comments this week. I think Julian Baggini got it wrong on this one. Funny comment though, “People often say how intelligent Williams is, but I think they confuse intelligence with being thoughtful, well-intentioned and in possession of a fine beard.” You can imagine Blackadder delivering such a cutting line, which is coincidental since Sky News attributed the ABC’s comments to Rowan Atkinson (ht:The News Quiz).

Most of the other contributors on the Baggini blog topic made the case well enough.

God Releases Linux (Unsubstantiated)

I could quite easily fit my understanding of science into any religious view – God can do anything, so he made the world this way, and even made atheists to challenge my faith. Once I believe in magic I can invent anything. It’s all down to the premises; so that a valid argument can be claimed to be a sound argument, or I can simply claim that it’s beyond reason and the premises stand alone unchallengable.

I could quite justifiably, by the absolutist religious view, believe that in fact there is a God. But my God isn’t omnipotent, though he is omnibenevolent … this world is his software development project.

Linux Earth 1.0 – Code Name ‘Genesis’ – He spontaneously came into existence about 20 billion years ago, came up with a plan for our universe, and currently we are its latest enhancement.

Linux Earth 1.1 – Code Name ‘Jesus’ – He’s really sorry about the crappy mess he’s left us in, and has wanted to atone – that’s why he created a representation of himself as Jesus. That got a little weird, so he added a patch:

Linux Earth 1.1.1 – Code Name ‘Crucifixion Patch’ – He hadn’t anticipated our design flaws, so we screwed that up for him. An online compaign was started by fans of the 1.1 version that there was a resurrection bug.

Linux Earth 1.2 – Code Name ‘Islam’ – He tried again with Mohammed, but that was a real viral cock-up.

Linux Earth 2.0 – Code Name ‘Enlightenment’ – Eventually he settled on the Enlightenment. It was always going to be difficult – unlike his future creation Microsoft he decided to avoid any pretence at compatibility with previous versions – it was his Linux, and it had its own flaws, but did have certain benefits in that it wasn’t proprietary, it was open source! Anyone could contribute and everyone could benefit. As with all good projects the Enlightenment is an ongoing development, new anti-religious security patches are being contributed by many sources. He hopes to eventually convert all customers. And there’s an incentive for existing and upgrading customers alike – a free pass to heaven, where you’ll be met by Steve Jobs with some great gifts.

Unauthorised code branches: ‘Gold Plated Linux’ by rogue programmer Joseph Smith; ‘Scientology’ or ‘Gullible Celebrity Pseudoscienctology’, by RLH.

I suppose if I believed the above I could be aspect blind, in that I don’t see how my premises upon which it all stands can be at fault. But I’d KNOW I’m not wrong, wouldn’t I? Any objections?

Aspect Blindness and Personality

I wanted to note these points here following the reading posts by Ibrahim and Sam on the following blogs:

Sam:
http://elizaphanian.blogspot.com/2008/01/muscles-metaphors-mysteries-on-grokking.html
http://celticchimp.blogspot.com/2008/01/wittgenstein-and-aspect-blindness.html

Ibrahim:
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2008/01/latest-response-to-ibrahim-lawson.html

The charge that atheists suffer from Aspect Blindness regarding religion can be just as easily, if not more so, directed at the religious.

I think part the absolute commitment to the religious view is part of one’s personal makeup, but put more generally it is a consequence of certain personalities.

I have had experience of religion. I was raised a Christian, I had doubts in my teens but wasn’t fully aware of the strength of the atheistic alternative (I was agnostic), and eventually came to realise the flaws in the religious view. But, I’ve been around enough religious people to recognise several types. Some are religious by default, as JustBrowsing describes. Some really are strong unquestioning believers that simply reject any alternative, with some element of fear, either of the spiritual consequences, or simply of the unknown. Many are what I’d class as ‘troubled’, in that they desperately want to find something spiritual as a source of comfort and guidance because they have some sort of difficulty with the basic physical world and what they see as all its nastiness – such as crime and ‘evil’, or natural disasters, things that from my point of view I can classify simply and naturalistically as “some people aren’t nice to each other” and “shit happens”. I’m not troubled by the world and its problems and the fact that I can’t fix them all. I’m not saying I’m heartless or fearless – I feel deeply disturbed to witness human and animal suffering, and I’d be as scared as the next person if I were mugged; but I can put these things into context so that I’m not fretting every minute of the day. I don’t become depressed with the state of the world or my personal life. I do have a driving need to learn new stuff, but I’m not disturbed by the lack of answers.

In some cases the religious view is one of ‘blind faith’, the outright unquestioned denial of the possibility of an atheistic view. But in many case I’d describe faith more as ‘tunnel vision’ or ‘aspect blindness’, rather than simply ‘blind’, as a consequence of personality, where critical reasoning is accepted and used, but sufficiently distorted and abused to affirm the religious view.

Maybe I have personality issues that drive me towards a critical questioning and a general scepticism that results in my atheism, and maybe it’s difficult for me recognise it in myself. I’m open to analysis, by professionals or amateurs.

It might be said that I’m this way because I haven’t had a religious experience, and that if I had I’d know. I can’t refute this categorically, but by the same token how am I supposed to know? And how would anyone else know what I have and haven’t experienced? Maybe I have similar ‘spiritual’ experiences, but just as people have different thresholds of pain I have a low threshold of the ‘spiritual’ experience. Maybe that’s all it boils down to, different strengths of ‘zap’ in the brain, and that the brains of those that perceive a stronger ‘zap’ interpret it all anthropomorphically as some superior presence. How would you tell the difference between that and a real religious God invoked revalatory event?

Crush on Christ

Read Possum’s Essay for the first time today. Very inspiring, and a fine example. Weren’t those Baptists weird though – so many un-Christan Christians around.

On the same blog, a later post got me thinking about crushes. I’m 54 and remember a crush from when I was 5-6 very vividly, except for the girl’s face – I remember the place, the occasion, even her dress. I don’t think of it often, but, as with many deep rooted feelings it is a clear memory – though perhaps it’s the feeling that’s the lasting memory and not the girl herself.

I can only imagine that religious types have similar deeply embedded feelings for Christ, or whoever, created by all the positive hype and threats of damnation that some churches instill in kids; and that that makes it so difficult to give up the faith and the ‘love’, against all reason. Especially if it’s re-enforced every Sunday. I was Church of England, so it wasn’t too strong an indoctrination, but I had a Catholic female cousin of a similar age to me and I remember when we were about 12 she used to admonish me for my evolving doubt and wonder how a couldn’t ‘love’ Christ.

I swear she had a crush on Christ.

Update: Prof Robert Bartlett’s BBC series, Inside the Medieval Mind, Episode 2, Sex, covers the infatuation of the brides of Christ.

Is Religion Dangerous?

This is a response to Stephen Law’s
“Is Religous Dangerous”:

I would agree with William Hawthorne that it is not ‘religion’ in and of itself that is dangerous, but the following combination (including and paraphrasing some of Stephen’s points). The first two conditions might apply to many situations, but it’s the third condition that’s the clincher for religion:

1) Uncritical Gullibility. People with an uncritical mind can extremely gullible and open to persuasion by charismatic unscrupulous, or merely misguided, people, or by weight of numbers, about some ‘truth’ X.

2) Failed Reasoning and Evidence. People of a critical mind are not completely immune from this persuasion, or may not be able to refute X, for many reasons: they are not as charismatic as some of the proponents; the arguments for X are so tortuous, or rely on fallacies that are difficult to put across to those without the training; the arguments are not even real arguments, but statements that can neither be proved or disproved; there is insufficient data, or the problem is too difficult to refute currently; etc.

Conditions (1) and (2) allows for the propagation of X through whole communities, and it may continue and grow over a period of time. However, given enough effort and time it can be established that X is not a worthwhile ‘truth’ and can be discarded. Even then some people will continue to believe in X. Crazy ‘truths’ can sweep the blogosphere in this way.

Condition (2) can result in ‘experts’ believing X for some time, but later finding flaws in the original reasoning and evidence that supported X. This is the case with the early adoption of nuclear energy, where the arguments for it failed to account for the true cost of decommissioning. Of course opinion can just as well swing too far the other way; as it has for nuclear energy. The war in Iraq went ahead as a consequence of condition (2).

The solution to this problem is more critical reasoning and the promotion and teaching of critical reasoning, and better evidence to support or reject whatever X may be.

But, religion comes into its own with condition (3):

3) Faith. By inference faith is the rejection of critical reasoning. Note that critical reasoning might be used, up to a point, but then only to the extent that it supports X. The main principle here is that if reasoning fails, then faith applies, but if reasoning can be used, no matter how invalid, if you can get away with it, use it to bring some apparent credibility to X. William Lane Craig has been trading on his rhetorical skills to get away with some real howlers.

One of the benefits of having faith in your arsenal is that it makes it very easy for those of a non-critical mind, or those struggling with a difficult argument, to simply accept X on faith, and particularly on the word of the leaders of the faith.

This is the case for Christians that treat some source like Josephus as independent corroborating evidence of the truth of the miracle claims for Jesus. Josephus does not more than provide mentions of Jesus, and the currently available sources appear to have been re-interpreted by the Christians to provide a better Christian perspective. But even if we accept them as-is they are no more than comments on what Josephus must have got from other Christians. It’s nothing but hearsay; it’s not independent evidence by a long shot.

4) Hysteria. This isn’t absolutely necessary, but it helps. If you can whip up your followers into a frenzy, then it becomes more difficult for followers to reject X.

If you’ve been discarding all reason, chanting and throwing yourself about in the name of X, calling for the death of apostates and non-believers, can you suddenly see yourself turning round and saying “Oops! Sorry folks, I think I may have been mistaken there.” Such a sudden change of heart is not going to happen very often is it? It rarely happens in policing, politics and business, so why should we expect it to be likely in religion.

There are exceptions: see John Loftus and other ex-Christians.

So, religion is dangerous because of the combination of all these conditions; and there may be more.

Stephen Law’s "Sleight of Hand With Faith" blog

See Sleight of Hand With Faith

Another good blog from Stephen Law. One of the pleasures of his blog is the level of interaction he permits. Some good stuff and good responses. I don’t entirely agree with his points of view on some aspects – particularly the use of the ‘problem of evil’. It’s quite a long post, so my comments here are a bit lengthy too. I’ve stuck pretty much to Stephen’s headings.

Reasonable belief
The tree, Japan, 1066 examples are particularly useful, in that they show there are varying degrees of reasonableness to believe something. The whole of Christian, Jewish and Islamic religious faith is based on ancient scriptures, but these old documents should be considered less reliable than more recent beliefs, such as the existence of a visible tree, the existence of Japan, and the historic records of 1066. And even if we accept that some original ancient document is genuine, there’s no reason to give the same weight to its content as to the authenticity of the document itself.

Getting back to the ‘faith’ position, it’s possible that some atheists believe god doesn’t exist from a ‘faith’ position – they have the same degree and quality of faith that the ‘stong faith’ theist has, the atheist just believes the opposite.

But this isn’t the ‘science based atheism’, or ’empirical atheism’, or ‘rational atheism’ that most proponents of atheism argue for. It may be a position that is strongly believed, but it is borne out of reason and evidence, not pure blind faith. See Problem With Faith for more detail on my point of view on this.

And while we’re on the subject of blind faith, I haven’t yet been convinced by those theists who say their faith isn’t blind faith. The argument goes like this:
A: You have no evidence and reason to suppose God exists.
T: No, we don’t need it, we have faith.
A: Ah! Blind faith!
T: No, it’s not blind faith. We believe based on scripture, etc.
A: So, you do need evidence. Let’s examine that evidence…(atheist examines this evidence and concludes it’s very flimsy and lacks any reason)…and so the scriptures aren’t very good evidence and so don’t provide good reason to believe in god.
T: No, we don’t need it, we have faith….

A similar point is made by Stephen, where theists switch meanings of ‘faith’.

Arguments for the existence of God
I think Stephen is here far too generous on the reasons for believing God might exist. The arguments are fatally flawed, but then he says…

“By saying that the arguments are fatally flawed, I mean not that, while the arguments do provide good grounds for believing in God, these grounds fall short of being conclusive. Rather, I mean that these arguments actually provide us with very little, if any, reason to suppose that God exists”

The first five points provide no good reason at all, they are so poor: (i) childishly poor; (ii)delusion – no there aren’t any miracles – show me some; (iv)Jesus – he is qualified and reliable why?; (v)it only appears to be designed, but that doesn’t mean it is.

Only the sixth is reasonable, to the extent that we have no knowledge of why the universe exists at all, and the proposition that there might be a god that created it is one possibility. But then it’s a far cry from that basic proposition to conclude that this god has all the religious baggage attached to him, particularly that he has any interest in us, that he occasionally allows or causes miracles, that he allows or has any interest in what we call evil.

This ‘source of the universe’ proposition could suggest nothing more than some entity, which we might call god, created the universe. One might as well suppose that this god consist of some phenomenon of super-physics, outside our understanding of physics as it applies in our universe. But, again, there is no reason to suppose any of the religious trappings.

The reasonableness of the belief in god is often compared to the reasonableness of the belief in fairies. Pretty convincing to atheists, but apparently not to thesists.

Perhaps another comparison might be more realistic. An entity ‘god’ as a source of the universe is a reasonable proposition. But then so are many other cosmological theories, such as the cyclical universe, the multiverse, and so on. But how do these other theories impact on our daily lives? I don’t worship a multiverse, or expect it to judge me on my death. And all these theories still suffer from the same ‘first cause’ problem. And, we have no reason to suppose any one of them is a more likely candidate than another. This is the level of reasonableness upon which the existence of god should be assessed. It doesn’t provide much ground for religion does it?

The problem of evil
If the theist can conjure up god based on the flimsy reasons already given, then it’s not too difficult to rationalise away evil.

If god is so all knowing and we understand him so little, who are we to dispute his reasons for including evil in his plans. This is where faith comes to the rescue again. If as a theist I believe evil exists, then my faith would tell me to accept that and deal with it. As an atheist, if I can’t successfully refute or give good reason against the existence of god in his religious form, then I won’t be able to refute the existence of evil. Stephen’s final paragraph on evil beginning “It seems that, if the universe does have a creator …” isn’t then so powerful an argument.

Direct religious experience of God
Consider Stephen’s comment, “…an orange on the table in front of me…” and then “I don’t infer that there orange is there on the basis of evidence”.

Of course that’s evidence. What does evidence consist of if not human responses via the senses – isn’t that empiricism in a nutshell? And so one does infer it exists from that evidence. If I told you there was an orange there but you couldn’t see it, you’d certainly ask for evidence that it is there, because the evidence you are receiving through your eyes says it isn’t.

“We also have powerful evidence – in the form of the problem of evil …” No we don’t. This is a circular argument: that god does not exist because of the problem of evil, so revelatory evidence doesn’t exist, therefore god does not exist.

In fact my preferred argument is as follows.
a) – God doesn’t exist because there is no good reason to suppose he does (with the possible exception of some indeterminate god as a consequence of the source of the universe problem).
b) – Without god this leaves evil as a purely human interpretation of events: natural disasters, illnesses, human actions.
c) – Even if you allow for a ‘source of the universe’ god, that’s not sufficient to then propose evil exists.

When a rotting tree in a forest falls and lands on some plants and animals, is that evil? When a rotting tree in a street falls in a storm and kills a driver in a car, is that evil, is the devil at work there, or is god at work? If that driver had recently knocked down and killed a child while drunk driving, is that evil, and is his later death divine retribution? Or is it all coincidence? How may drunk driving killers don’t suffer subsequently? Shit happens, and sometimes we cause it ourselves. Dressing it up, as some theists do, in a separation of [disasters = acts of god], and [human inflicted suffering = evil], doesn’t work for me. There is no good reason to conclude evil, as portrayed by thesists, exists as a phenomenon.

Direct religious experience of God
My response here is the same as to the problem of evil. If the argument for a religious god is strong enough, then revelation can follow. The significant points are that, first, there is no good reason to suppose god exists, since in our universe natural laws of physics apply; and, second, that any other phenomenon such as ‘revelationary experiences’, can also be explained by natural physical laws.

A better approach is to simply say there is no evidence that these revelatory experiences are real. In all human experience, and certainly in scientific matters, there have to be multiple repeatable and falsifiable evidence for an phenomenon to be taken seriously. We cannot prove these experiences didn’t happen. We can only tar them with the same brush as we do the whole religious god hypothesis.

When an atheist asks for evidence and a theist responds that god doesn’t work that way, the correct response is that without evidence it simply isn’t worth pursuing; and with the contrary and substantial evidence that we know that some people suffer psychotic delusions and some people lie, there are far more good reasons not to accept the revelatory experiences as being real.

“How, then, can it be reasonable for someone in possession of both…” A theist could argue god and evil do exist, and if he occasionally reveals himself, who are we to argue with that. They are perfectly consistent once you accept a ‘religous’ god exists.

The theist/atheist belief/disbelief in evil and revelation are consequences of the belief/disbelief in god. An atheist using any one point to support any other is performing the same circular argument as a theist, but for the opposite position.

Attempts to solve the problem of evil
Stephen’s points here don’t improve the argument either way. Basically, as explained above, if you can accept that god exists with very little evidence, then you can use that alone to propose evil, revelation, or any other flimsy reason to support your original supported god hypothesis.

Some of these attributes of a religious god have strong historical and cultural backing. Suppose historically other poorly evidenced phenomena had been supported. Atheists often use the ‘fairies’ comparison to illustrate how ridiculous is a belief in god. But things could have been very different.

Suppose that all the historical and cultural religious junk had backed fairies instead of angels: fairies do exist; they are small tokens of godliness put on earth to help children believe in god. It’s not too difficult to imagine a whole history of fairy belief as part of a god belief system – all supported by scripture. Then atheists would be arguing the ‘problem of fairies’.

To some extent this type of thing has happened. The big three religions differ significantly. A Muslim could argue with a Christian about the ‘problem of Jesus’ – that he wasn’t god but a mere prophet.

As another example, suppose it was discovered in some obscure scripture that the requirement to worship was a test put down by god, and only those who follow his guidance out of free will and without fear and worship were the truly blessed. We would still be left with the real question – does god exist in the first place?

So, it’s one thing to point out how ridiculous are phenomena like evil and revelation, but you can’t use them as arguments for the non-existence of god. If the weird religious god of scripture exists, then so could these phenomena.

Used as independent points of view they can all provide supportive reasons as to why it’s not reasonable to belive any or all of them. But you can’t use them in a deductive chain to conclude god does not exist.

Where the onus lies
I agree that “..the onus is on you to provide some decent arguments …” and that “It’s down there near belief in fairies.”

And that’s all that is required – to show this through reason.

An extreme form of ‘faith’ and A more common sort of ‘faith’

If faith is absolute and doesn’t require reason, that’s fine, but then an atheist doesn’t require reason to not accept belief in god (though it is generally preferred). But that leads simply to a stand-off: “Is!”, “Isn’t!”, “Is!”, “Isn’t!”,…

Now you might say this is nonsense, and of course that’s right. It is a ‘none’-‘sense’ position. It isn’t an argument, because an argument requires reason.

It’s funny that theists of this kind can glorify god’s creation – man, his consciousness, his free-will, his superior intellect above all other beasts, his power of reason; and yet on this one point we are expected to throw all that reasoning capability away. The position is childish, and worthy of derision – as are the church signs posted elsewhere on Stephen’s blog which also promote the abandonment of reason:
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/11/another-bible-belt-sign.html
and
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2007/11/reason-is-greatest-enemy-that-faith-has.html

Sliding between these two senses of ‘faith’

I agree with this section. Theists use reason, until their arguments are destroyed, when they then revert to ‘faith’. And they don’t always wait until you leave the room. The Dawkins-McGrath debate follows this line: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-6609671681098320091

The arguments behind ‘faith’

“Arguments (v) and (vi) in particular are extremely seductive.” I disagree, as stated earlier, but more specifically:

(iv) – “Jesus tells us that God exists, and we know Jesus to be a reliable source of information. Therefore it’s likely that God exists.”

No. If Jesus existed (I’m not disputing that), and if he said the things he is reported to have said, there is still absolutely no reason to suppose he is a reliable source. In fact, based on current knowledge there’s every reason to suppose he was one or more of the following: deluded, a megalomaniac, a very savvy political motivator.

(v) – “The universe shows signs of having been designed. So God must exist as its designer.”

No. It only appears to be designed. That doesn’t mean it is, and so it is useless as a reason for belief in god. Degrees of reasonableness again.

Having faith in other people

The type of faith discussed here is a mere intuitive assessment of probabilities based on experience. The human mind can perform some amazing feats – that’s why artificial intelligence is such a difficult problem. One thing it can do is assess, apparently instantly, from experience, the likelihood of a particular outcome, which is expressed in this type of ‘faith’.

This type of faith can work quite well. If you have been able to rely on a friend in the past, you could infer it would be reasonable to have ‘faith’ in him/her the next time you need their help. Comrades in arms rely on this type of faith, and it is this faith that makes this type of bond so strong.

However, it can go wrong. As a counter to Stephen’s Beckham example, Beckham has missed a significant penalty when everyone thought he would score. Admittedly there were extenuating circumstances – the turf beneath his standing foot gave way. More incredulously, for those of us who are lucky or careful enough to avoid them, there are plenty of more serious examples: a repeatedly cheated-on spouse thinks that ‘this time’ the offender will change, or a gambler thinks ‘this time’ the long-shot will come in.

In this way I think theists are the inveterate gamblers in belief systems. Despite the complete lack of evidence for the case, and in spite of the very strong evidence against, they still have faith in this long shot – that when they die they will be shown to have backed the winner.

Anthony J. Carroll’s RELIGIOUS SYMBOLS IN STATE INSTITUTIONS

This is a review of some of the points made by Anthony J. Carroll in his paper:http://www.heythrop.ac.uk/images/stories/hirepl/publications/tcarroll/religious_symbols.pdf

Carroll asks:

Is it reasonable [of secular liberals?] to presume that religions cannot judge between unfair proselytism and the reasonable acknowledgement of one’s faith in the public domain? I think not.

On the contrary I think it is. The reason being that most faiths, and certainly the big three, are absolutist in their views about the truth of their religions.

The very fact that this discussion is taking place so openly in secular democratic states is indicative of the fact that there is not (or should not be) any absolutist view from liberal-democratic (or philosophically-atheistic) world views – they should always be open to debate and persuasion.

Carroll says:

The alternative to the liberal position is the so-called ‘Anglo-Saxon’ model. This model acknowledges the positive insights of communitarianism about how learning and socialisation are accomplished within particular communities with distinctive commitments. Communitarianism privileges the good of a particular tradition over the claims to universal rightness of a neutral reason supposedly independent of tradition and cultural context. It readily accepts a pluralism of cultures within the one society. Continental European societies, however, are concerned that such a model will lead to ever greater fragmentation, a fear that is not, in present late-modern or postmodern societies, without foundation. When, therefore, the French state sees headscarves in the classroom, it fears societal atomization and the weakening of the social bond-le lien social. If you let one group do their own thing, the danger is that everyone will simply go their own way. Society will disintegrate, and the result will be nothing other than anarchic tribalism.

This seems a reasonable view. The liberal approach appears to offer the opportunity for more cohesion. Granted, there may be a problem where religious communities object to this approach, and so potentially detract from that possibility of cohesion. But that is generally the nature of such groups, a nature that the secularist liberal is objecting to.

In liberal secularism there is also the objection to the promotion to children of singular absolutist views within religious (or political or any other) communities, since with closed communities this amounts to indoctrination. Note that this is not an objection to the promotion of religious beliefs. Following liberal democratic principles it should be open for any religious, political or other group to express their views to adults, and to attempt to persuade adults within the bounds of law*. Further more, there is no objection to the teaching about religions, atheism and other world views within a well controlled non-indoctrinating classroom.

The problems only arise because some religions, or at least some sub-groups, not only believe that the truth of their religious world view is absolute, but, because they believe so, they assume they have the right to impose that view on everyone else, at the expense of democratic principles. I think Carroll’s solutions require that these groups relinquish such aims.

Imagine, if you will, if you can, an absolutist dogmatic religious world view that includes in it the view that democracy is invalid, evil and must be replaced by the one true theocracy. Further, that world view sees nothing wrong in using all the tools, all the ‘weaknesses’, of that evil democracy to democratically win control of the state, with the intention of making it a theocracy. What road back remains to democracy for those of other faiths, or none? This is the terrible fear that drives the liberal democratic secular movement. And it isn’t based solely on distant historical experiences of religious wars, as Carroll suggests.

However, as I have argued, its [secular liberalism’s] seemingly neutral, rational principles are in reality neither neutral nor independent of material claims. Liberalism is itself an ideology; it is grounded in a particular vision of the world, one that is all the more powerful because it is not explicitly acknowledged.

I think it is explicitly acknowledged, by secular liberals, and I understand that it might not be by those that don’t share the view. It is the more powerful because it is the most cohesive and is not exclusive. It is also the most beneficial to the most people – both as a society and as individuals. It is not perfect, but then perfection is a flawed notion when applied to human social organisation (see Perfection).

For its part, communitarianism respects the particularities and the substantive claims of distinct groups. It supports the freedom to live according to one’s own moral, religious and cultural convictions.

Only coincidentally. This “freedom to live…” is not a requirement in any group, except within liberal democracy where it exists as part of the definition of that world view and is not superseded by any ‘higher power’.

Liberalism stresses freedom at the cost of ideological blindness and naïveté; communitarianism fosters cohesionat the risk of societal atomization. How can one draw on the strengths of these conflicting positions and avoid the limitations of each of them?

I don’t see ideological blindness as a fault – your ideology shouldn’t prevent your access to, for example, education. In suggesting that “communitarianism fosters cohesion” surely there is no suggestion that liberalism does not? Liberalism fosters super-cohesion beyond any particular group, while at the same time imposing no restriction on cohesion within groups, given safeguards.

As for Carrol’s proposals: “Acknowledging Commitments”, “Citizenship”, “Appropriate Assertiveness” – I agree with all his sentiments here.

The examples of the headscarf and the crucifix should pose no problem for state schools, if Carroll’s guidelines are followed. There remains the problem of other forms of dress, such as the complete covering of the face except for the eyes. It has been argued that this form of dress is inappropriate since it prevents full communication between teacher and pupil. So where does this lie in Carroll’s mind?

*If it is felt that a law does restrict religious expression among adults the liberal democratic system allows for that law to be challenged.

Perfection

This notion of perfection is often used to prove god exists. Aquinas employs it in his proofs. It would be stretching credibility even to say it suggests there might be a god – but to say it proves it is ridiculous.

The whole notion of perfection in anything is simply that – a notion. It’s a vague notion of direction or improvement: “this is good”, “this is better”, “keep improving until you get to perfection”, which of course we recognise we can’t achieve – therefore jump to the conclusion that the only entity that can we call God, and so god exists. Nonsense.

If perfection doesn’t exists (that is, there is nothing that is perfect in any practical sense), and there’s no reason to suspect it does, then it cannot be used to conclude God exists. And even if perfection was a reality, and if we chose to call it God, there is no reason to attribute all the usual properties to god that make him the personal god that religions promote.

God and Analogies

On Stephen Law’s Blog he posted a response to his The Jesus Light, by Sebastian*: Jesus Light Switched Back On. This bugged me a little, so I had to get this off my chest.

Analogy – Helpful in the explanation of point A in terms of point B, where A is the subject being explained, and B is a more commonly understood point. But the use of an analogy, however effective, does not provide proof of the correctness or truth of the original point A; or even evidence for it. Analogies can often sound good but can be way off the mark.
Continue reading “God and Analogies” →

The Problem with Faith

Following on from my previous blog, I think the crutial point is faith.

I think Stephen is right in that any point of view can be a faith (http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/ – Faith topic), and that’s certainly the case for most, if not all, religions. And I personally know at least one person for whom atheism is a faith. She has no interest in any arguments one way or the other, and certainly has no interest in science, but believes herself to be endowed with ultra reliable common sense, to the extent that she believes the whole God business is nonsense. It’s as if this faith of hers has grown out of some dissatisfaction with religion and all its trappings, a discomfort in the presence of religious people and proceedings. Continue reading “The Problem with Faith” →