Some more really great answers to some questions people have...
These answers address every single one of the false and absurd spins that I have heard Brum and gregster put on the facts. It is an excellent overview of the fallacies which superstitious people use to uphold their "God-given "right" to be Chosen People`--superior to (and preferable) to all others in all of existence!
Damn good stuff!!
10 Answers from an Atheist… [part 1/2]
Religious belief April 11 2009 Comments: 14
Recently Alison gave her answers to the 10 Questions for the Atheist from the web site LifeWay. Since I’ve answered this sort of thing before, I decided to have another go at it.
But before we start, a word on their definition of atheism:
Atheism, by definition, holds that there is no God and nothing beyond this world of matter, space, time, and energy.
We already have another word for that, it’s called “materialist.” Atheists are not beholden to hold to any positive claim about whether there is something “beyond this world” (whatever that means exactly). There are atheists who believe in supernatural things like souls, ghosts, weird energies, and so on. So we have to assume that their whole set of questions here is not actually about atheists at all, but rather about materialists.
That being said, I am a materialist, so I have no objection in continuing.
1. Creation
The overwhelming consensus of science is that the entire cosmos (including space and time) came into existence at a finite point in the past. All of our observations, equations, and physical laws testify to a point of origin for this universe.
In light of the troubling evidence for a beginning, and that we may not even be able to find a natural cause in principle, what explanation is given to the questions, “Why is there something rather than nothing?” and “Where did it all come from?”
As I’ve answered in the past, asking “why is there something rather than nothing” is a fallacious question since “is” implies existence and “nothing” implies non-existence. It’s a question that Christians like to ask because it’s by definition unanswerable, not because atheists have no ready answer but because the question itself is contradictory. It’s like asking “have you stopped beating your wife yet?” to shut someone up: the question is contradictory (insofar as the person questioned does not actually beat his wife) but there’s no good way to answer except “the question is fallacious.”
The question “where did it all come from” is rather puzzling, since we have already established that they are asking questions to people who believe that there is nothing “beyond this world of matter, space, time, and energy.” Therefore the answer must logically be “it comes from this world of matter, space, time, and energy.”
It is not clear here if the “all” in “where did it all come from” refers to all matter or only this observable universe. If it refers to all matter, then the answer must be “it doesn’t come from anywhere, it has always existed” since all matter is everything there is, from the materialist standpoint.
Note that this is not my personal opinion, but a simple, direct deduction that follows from their own definition of “atheist.” One can answer the question posed by simply using their own words. Whether they’d like those answers or not is another matter (no pun intended). But if they had an issue with these deduction, then they should have asked more pointed questions, instead of the commonplace generalities they went with. “Why is there something rather than nothing” and “where did it all come from” are extremely vague and general questions which do not touch to the core of anything important or valuable for the materialist. However, because of Christian projection, asking a Christian these questions is much more interesting: a Christian can have no non-trivial answer to “why is there something rather than nothing” (because God got bored, or wanted little toys to play with?) and “where did it all come from” (some supernatural dimension? somewhere in space?).
2. Order
The past several decades have added profoundly to our knowledge of chemistry, physics, and cosmology. It has become increasingly clear that we live in a universe finely tuned for the support of complex life. This fact is so universally acknowledged that even secular scientists have coined the term “Anthropic Principle” to describe it.
How is it that we live in such an exquisitely fine-tuned universe? Even assuming that the universe could have popped out of nothingness, why should it have been such an orderly and hospitable one? Is there a scientific, testable answer for this question that does not simply appeal to imagination?
First of all, one must point out that LifeWay apparently does not know what the anthropic principle actually is. The anthropic principle does not support the fine-tuning argument at all. What the anthropic principle actually says is this: we live in a universe compatible with our own existence. From the scientific standpoint, it means we can make predictions based on the fact that we exist (because we exist, the parameters of the universe must be hospitable to life).
Creationists use the anthropic principle to argue that the universe was “fine-tuned” by a designer to permit the existence of complex life. Implicit in this argument is the belief that the parameters of the universe could take any quantity. For example, an article by the Creationist outlet Discovery Institute states many instances of what they see as fine-tuning, including gravity:
Calculations by Brandon Carter show that if gravity had been stronger or weaker by 1 part in 1040, then life-sustaining stars like the sun could not exist. This would most likely make life impossible. (Davies, 1984, p. 242.)
And they go on to say:
Imaginatively, one could think of each instance of fine-tuning as a radio dial: unless all the dials are set exactly right, life would be impossible. Or, one could think of the initial conditions of the universe and the fundamental parameters of physics as a dart board that fills the whole galaxy, and the conditions necessary for life to exist as a small one-foot wide target: unless the dart hits the target, life would be impossible.
These quotes clearly illustrate the creationists’ fallacy in their assumption of fine-tuning: they set up a field of possibilities that simply doesn’t exist. Just because we can imagine the gravitational constant being, not 6.674×10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2, but rather 6.252×10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2, does not mean that it can actually be 6.252×10^-11 m^3 kg^-1 s^-2. Just because we can write it down and make calculations based on it doesn’t mean it’s actually possible. The only way to know what range of values are possible is to gather evidence on how these values came about, i.e. to do actual science instead of being “imaginative” in making up scenarios that are not based on reality. To take the Discovery Institute analogies, there are no dials and there is no dart board, but Creationists surround the target with these imaginary devices out of thin air and scream “AHA! Look how big the board is!”
Once again, this is a case of projection. From the Christian viewpoint, there is a fine-tuning problem because God presumably can choose to make G whatever it wants (or even not make a G at all), and thus for a Christian it should be extremely surprising that our universe is the way it is. From the materialist viewpoint there is no question to answer until it can be demonstrated that the question actually makes sense, and is not just a flight of the imagination. To paraphrase the initial question, “is there a scientific, testable demonstration of fine-tuning that does not simply appeal to imagination?”
As an aside, there has also been a lot of work done by cosmologists on the issue of multiple universes and whether universes with variable parameters could produce life, and they have found that if you treat each parameter as interrelated to the others, as they actually are, and not as independent variables like Creationists do, you end up seeing a lot of viable universes. A materialist who believes in a multiverse model could use this as a further argument against “fine-tuning”; not only is it an imaginary argument, but even if we concede that it’s not imaginary, it’s simply false.
As for the question “why should [the universe] have been such an orderly and hospitable one?”, it should be obvious that the use of “why” presupposes teleology, and therefore a Creator. So this question is entirely circular. There is no purpose for the universe to be the way it is, any more than there is a purpose for the sky to be blue instead of green. We can explain how it came to be hospitable, or how the sky gets to be blue, but there is no “why.”
3. Abiogenesis
The problem of abiogenesis (the origin of the first lifeform) is one of the thorniest and most intractable issues in chemistry. Our increasing knowledge of microbiology and earth history has only added to the complexity of what needs to be explained. The simplest life is equivalent to modern bacteria, which is loaded with complex activity, information, and molecular “machines.” The fossil record does not give evidence that there was a “prebiotic soup,” or that there were any biological precursors to the first organisms, or that the atmosphere was the ideal mix to yield the necessary molecules, or that there was the expected long period of time between when the Earth could support life and when it actually appeared. Evolutionists regularly segregate the abiogenesis problem from the issue of evolution because (1) it is a challenge they’d rather not be saddled with, or (2) it is the most logical point for possible divine intervention. However, for the atheist there is no escaping this issue; they are obliged to seek out some purely natural explanation.
What hope for an explanation do you have? Are you satisfied to have problems like this that are unanswered, or even unanswerable?
In telling the tale of life on earth science writers often unconsciously use the word “miracle” for the appearance of the first organisms.
What kind of evidence is needed before we are to actually accept that something like this really is a miracle?
This question tries to make a case for how “intractable” abiogenesis is. But the fact that a problem is difficult to crack is entirely dependent on your level of intelligence and knowledge. To a cat, “how to open a door” is an “intractable issue.” To humans a century and a half ago, “what is the basic structure of matter” was an “intractable issue.” So the fact that an issue is intractable does not indicate anything about that issue. It is only a statement about ourselves. We may not have enough evidence to get to the solution. There may even be limits on what human intelligence can comprehend, and a problem may remain intractable forever.
But all that means is that our intelligence is finite, not that we are faced with a “miracle” and that we must jump to “divine intervention.” The question posed by Lifeway is merely a modern iteration of the “god of the gaps” argument: “we can’t figure out how abiogenesis actually happened, there is no hope to ever explain it, therefore God did it.” The fact that we are unable to prove which hypothesis of abiogenesis is correct (or even if we were unable to ever prove such) implies nothing about the nature of abiogenesis itself. It speaks only to our own ignorance.
That being said, there are many extremely problematic statements in this question. For instance, the assertion that “the fossil record” does not contain evidence of the origins of life. How in the hell could there be? Fossils form from hard structures like bones or the imprint of organisms in soft soil. Despite the bizarre demand posed by the question against the fossil record, I feel the need to point out that atmospheric conditions and bacteria do not actually fossilize ( with some exceptions).
There is also an outright lie, in the statement that “[t]he simplest life is equivalent to modern bacteria.” No abiogenesis hypothesis actually states that the simplest life is as complex as modern bacteria, and if it did, it wouldn’t be a very good hypothesis at all. I suppose one should not be surprised that Creationists lie, since they do so with regularity, but it is particularly egregious here since the lie is necessary for the question to make any sense. If, as most abiogenesis researchers posit, we start from the premise that the first forms of life were simple chains of organic molecules available in areas of the Earth at that time, then the spectacular complexity problem that Creationists set up is shown as a scam.
A Creationist is not likely to be satisfied by my answer, and would say something like “but you don’t KNOW whether that’s how it happened!” That’s true, of course. We don’t know yet how it happened… but neither does the Creationist. Saying “God did it” is not an explanation of cause and effect, it is a statement of belief designed to shut down all doubt and all questions. Therefore, even if we accept the statement that the origins of life is a “miracle,” the question remains unchanged: how did it happen? Even if Christianity was true, the Creationist would be no closer to an answer.
One final point, regarding the “most logical point for possible divine intervention”: one would think rather that the most logical point for divine intervention lies in the incredible survival of god-belief despite its nonsensical nature. And indeed they do ask about this on question 8, as we will see.
4. Transcendent Principles
Logic and mathematics are abstract principles that have been discovered rather than invented. We cannot do science, communicate, or navigate this world without them. They appear to stand outside of nature to describe and measure it. As Albert Einstein said, “The most incomprehensible thing about the world is that it is comprehensible.”
What is the source of math and logic? The existence of this remarkably fine-tuned universe aside, how is it that we have these “languages of reality” to so elegantly describe and interact with it?
While it may seem very different indeed, this question is actually very much related to question 2 on fine-tuning, because it participates in the exact same fallacy as fine-tuning. David Mills gives a good analogy for fine-tuning thinking in his book “The Atheist Universe.” A man looks at a map and thinks, “hmm… isn’t it interesting how all the bodies of water are close to so many cities? Isn’t that nice of the water to do that,” until his brain kicks back in gear and realizes that it’s people who have established themselves near water, because they needed water, not the water that moved to accommodate people.
Fine-tuning is the same kind of fallacy. A person might go “hmm… isn’t it interesting how the universe and the Earth seems made to accommodate us specifically as complex life forms? Isn’t that nice of the universe to do that,” until they realize that it’s us humans that have evolved in that universe and biologically adapted to its parameters, not the reverse.
The same principle applies to Lifeway’s astonishment at how nicely “tuned” logic and mathematics are to our understanding of the universe. To them, there is something fishy with the fact that logic and mathematics are such great tools to describe the universe, therefore the universe must have been made to fit them. The universe was made comprehensible (dixit the Einstein quote, misused of course) by God so that we may understand it with logic and mathematics. But this is the wrong way of going at it. It is our understanding of logic and mathematics which was molded by the universe’s particular kind of order, not the reverse.
So what is the source of logic and mathematics? Like all other concepts, they stem from our observations of reality. For mathematics, all you need is the concept of the unit and addition/substraction, two things which are natural to human perception. Mathematics in fact started as a tool of trade. In order to trade, you need to figure out how many of a thing you have, and how much it costs, and humans have been using that simple form of mathematics ever since there was civilization. Logic is far more complicated, and the fact that it arose much later in our intellectual evolution proves that to be a fact. More abstraction is involved in getting started with logic: even for something simple like “not-A,” you need to understand the unit of the proposition as well as negation, but the basic process is pretty similar.
Logic and mathematics “appear to stand outside of nature” because they deal in abstractions, in the manipulation of units without consideration to whether they actually exist or not. If you use abstract concepts like numbers (to represent clusters of units) or letters (to represent propositions), you can manipulate them all you want without concern to whether “236/3? represents an actual cluster of 236 things (oranges? electrons?) being divided in three groups, or “”if all bachelors are unmarried then the speed of light in a vacuum is constant” really tells us that there is a relation between the definition of a word and the speed of light.
The elegance and “fine-tuned” nature of logic and mathematics are therefore basically illusions.
5. Morality
Another transcendent entity that is a problem for atheism is morality. With no divine author or judge there is no reason to think that there should be any moral laws that we are obliged to recognize and keep, except for self-serving reasons. And yet, morality aligns with our deepest intuitions: we expect others to recognize it; we urge our kids to exercise it; therapists get rich repairing the effects of its abuse; we judge criminals insane if they do not recognize it; and all cultures affirm it in common principle if not in individual application.
Do you deny objective morality; that the difference between Mother Teresa and Hitler is not just a matter of preference, like chocolate vs. vanilla ice cream? If not, then how do you ground morality; how do you explain where it came from and why we ought to be moral tomorrow?
Skeptics often bring up the “problem of evil” as evidence against God, i.e., if there is a good and all-powerful God, then why is there evil in the world.
Do you think that this is a valid objection? If so, are you admitting that there is evil in the world? What is “evil,” and do you not admit its opposite: “good?”
The problem of evil objection only makes sense if such things as good and evil are objectively real, not just preference statements.
This is a long, confused and convoluted question. Lifeway seems to assume that materialists (whom they call atheists) must believe that there are “no moral laws” and that “the difference between Mother Teresa and Hitler is just a matter of preference.” As a moral realist, I agree that moral laws do exist, and that the difference between Mother Teresa and Hitler is more than a matter of preference (they were both depraved and corrupt human beings, but I don’t disagree that they were very different).
As for whether I believe “good and evil are objectively real,” that would entirely depend on what they mean by “objectively,” because in my experience that word means five things to five different people. If they mean that good and evil exist as more than concepts, that there are beings that incarnate them somewhere in another dimension, then no, I don’t believe in such nonsense. But if they mean that good and evil is a concept that applies universally, then yes I do agree (in fact, the universality principle is, in my opinion, central to morality).
The only question left is, how is this an argument for Christianity? Is it because they believe that a “divine author or judge” is necessary for moral laws? But that’s just an argument from design, just as circular as the others. To say that a “divine author or judge” is necessary for moral laws is to assume that moral laws are authored to begin with, instead of being things to discover in oneself or in the world around us. Since it is true that “morality aligns with our deepest intuitions: we expect others to recognize it; we urge our kids to exercise it; therapists get rich repairing the effects of its abuse; we judge criminals insane if they do not recognize it; and all cultures affirm it in common principle if not in individual application,” and nary a divine principle needs to be invoked in that whole process, then how does the author of the question intend to show that a “divine author or judge” is necessary for us to accept moral laws?
It seems to me that, by putting the emphasis on how ubiquitous morality is, the question puts itself into its own quagmire. Either morality is created by God, or morality already exists in ourselves and in everything we do and think; there’s no middle ground here. As long as the Christians’ argument remains circular, there is no reason to accept it as being superior to the naturalistic explanation.
Click here for part 2.
10 Answers from an Atheist… [part 2/2]
Religious belief April 17 2009 Comments: 5
For those of you who missed my first entry, I am going through the questions on this list. I already went through questions 1 to 5, and we are now on the last five.
(Roderick T. Long posted his own answers on his entry Ten Answers from an Austro-Athenian. Check it out after you’re done.)
6. Meaning
In the atheist worldview we are products of time, chance, and blind forces – there is no objective meaning and value to our human existence. Yet our deepest longing is for our lives to count for something. We intuitively know that humans have rights and dignity.
Does life really have no point other than what you pretend for your own sake? Will you say, like atheist philosopher Albert Camus, that the only serious question is “suicide?” What values and purpose will you instill in your children? Will you be honest with them, or will you borrow ideas from some non-atheistic belief system so as not to disappoint?
Now I think I see the problem with their previous question about morality, because it’s the same as this one. Apparently the people who wrote these questions believes there is an “atheist worldview.” But that’s ridiculous on the face of it. Not believing in God doesn’t make a worldview. My guess is, he’s taken the opinions of some atheists he’s seen on television or talked to in person and now thinks this is “the atheist worldview” that all atheists believe in. “The atheist worldview” says that “we are [solely] products of time, chance, and blind forces” and that “there is no objective” (there’s that word again) “meaning and value to our human existence.”
I don’t believe either of these propositions falsely attributed to “the atheist worldview.” So now we have the same problem as for the previous question: how does this put us anywhere closer to proving the Christian worldview or disproving my own? That I need to “borrow ideas from some non-atheistic belief system” in order to find rights, dignity, values and purpose? But as I already pointed out, these things are innate in every human being (and the author of the questions seems to agree, which makes his reasoning all the more puzzling), and there’s no reason to believe that they come from some “divine author” except circular arguing, and there’s no reason to believe that they are restricted to “non-atheistic belief systems.”
What we are seeing, in fact, is a more sophisticated version of fine-tuning, albeit an unconscious one, on the part of the questioner. He seems to be assuming that our innate moral values and virtues somehow conform to those of Christianity, and that this bears explaining. If I am correct in assuming this, then the answer is simple; as usual for Christians, he’s got it all backwards. It is Christianity which, insofar as it is accepted, conforms to our innate moral values and virtues, and not the reverse. In fact, Christian churches and hierarchies always have to be dragged, kicking and screaming, towards new moral understandings after the wider society has accepted them and made them impossible to ignore.
It seems to me that the question that the author really wants to ask is the following: “how did the innate moral values and virtues come to be?” This would be a fair question, if he did ask it, but it would, once again, not bring us any closer to disproving “the atheist worldview” or proving that Christianity has any credibility. It would merely mean pushing back the circularity one step further, as the Christian would assume that innate moral values and virtues must come from a “divine author” (a coy phrase to use when one means “God” but doesn’t want to repulse “atheists,” I suppose) because the “divine author” is the author of morality and that’s the end of the discussion.
It further seems to me that questions 4, 5 and 6, which proceed from the same circular way of argumenting, are rather disingenuous and do not seek to pursue constructive dialogue between Christians and “atheists.” They rather seek to smuggle in hidden premises (such as “moral laws can only come from a divine author”) in order to “logically” stump the “atheist” without actually appealing to his morality or sense of order. I don’t really see the point of proceeding in such a manner.
As for the issue of raising children, I have already elicited more than enough controversy on this blog regarding the topic of whether having children is moral or not, so I don’t particularly want to come back to it. It will suffice to say that, if for some reason I take leave of my senses permanently and decide to “have children,” I would be honest with them and not corrupt their minds with some “non-atheistic belief system” out of cringing fear that they might turn out badly or out of cringing fear of tradition. I would teach them the truth, which is that values, virtues and purpose are things that exist inside of them, and that they don’t need to listen to sky-fairy drivel to figure out something as simple as who they are and what they are doing here.
7. The Mind
In the world of atheism, where there is no soul or transcendent “self,” humans are simply biological machines, and our minds are just computers made out of meat. With this in view there is really no room for something like freewill, since we are all just operating according to our “programming” and our environmental influences. And there are great difficulties in conceding that chemistry can produce something as abstract as “consciousness,” or at least anything qualitatively different from what we ourselves might ultimately produce using computer technology.
Are you prepared to accept the idea that no one is really morally responsible for their bad behavior and, conversely, that virtuous behavior is not commendable? In what way will you seek to convince me that I am really not a conscious and self-aware being; that it is just a complex biochemical illusion? Can you accept that computer programs may one day be just as much “persons” as you, yourself?
We continue in the straw-man characterization of “the atheist worldview,” or in this case “the world of atheism” (as if labeling atheism a worldview wasn’t enough of a gross exaggeration, now it’s a world!). Apparently “the world of atheism” prohibits free will, consciousness or moral responsibility. But why?
I have debated presuppositionalists (Christians who argue that materialism is bankrupt and that only Christianity can explain logic, science, morality, and so on), and there is one thing that is really salient about them. They really like to smear materialism as being about “mere atoms banging about” and so on, omitting all that is sublime about it and keeping only what they find alienating. But, even for all they are worth, they are always utterly unable to justify exactly why they believe that materialism cannot generate whatever it is they think it cannot generate. Why can a material being not generate free will? Well, it just can’t. Why can a material being not generate consciousness? Well, it just can’t. Why can a material being not rationally hold moral responsibility? Well, it just can’t.
The argument is once again circular, and goes a little something like this: materialism is merely nasty atomicism with no redeeming value whatsoever, therefore materialism cannot explain X, because Christianity can [pretend to] explain X, and Christianity is better than nasty atomicism with no redeeming value whatsoever because Christianity says that it has no redeeming value… repeat again and again until your voice becomes too hoarse to complain about “atoms banging around.”
You might say I am being rather unfair to these questions, because I don’t know whether the person who wrote them is a presuppositionalist or not, and that is a fair criticism. Although the questions 4 to 7, as I’ve discussed, show all the signs of being written from the presup handbook, I will not belabor the point any further. Suffice it to say that there is zero evidence present in the question to justify its own premises, and that therefore I consider those parts null and void, just as I did for the previous circularities.
Which brings us to the three closing sub-questions of this question (mega-question?) 7.
Am I prepared to accept the idea that no one is really morally responsible for their bad behaviour? No, because it is false. The individual is morally responsible for his bad behaviour. Let’s use murder as an example, since it’s universally recognized. I believe that the American soldier who murders Iraqi protesters in cold blood is morally responsible for his crimes, certainly. Whether he has free will or not, he is the individual who committed the actions that led to innocent deaths, he is the most direct person to blame for the actions (although it must be noted that there are many other people to blame and to hold responsible), and he is therefore “morally responsible” in the plain meaning of the term. We must deal with him as a guilty party out of a desire to stop murderers, not out of a misguided desire to save his soul.
In what way will I seek to convince him/her (the person who wrote the question) that he/she is really not a conscious and self-aware being? In no way would I do such a thing, since the person who wrote these questions must have been conscious in order to be able to write them, and, presumably being a human being, was also self-aware.
Can I accept that computer programs may one day be just as much “persons” as myself? Yes. One wonders what fear or dread this prospect might elicit in the Christian who wrote this strangely specific question.
Here is another return to sender: since when do Christians give a damn about free will and moral responsibility? Christianity is ferociously against free will and moral responsibility, by preaching submission to God and the extermination of all philosophical thought about morality that does not conform to said submission, as well as the elimination of all questioning about one’s social role, unless of course said social role goes against the needs of the Christian churches. Why should “atheists” explain the existence of something Christians don’t even believe in? I will explain this in more detail at the end of this entry.
8. Supernatural Experiences
Every known time and culture is rich with stories of near death experiences, ghosts, angels, demons, prophetic dreams and visions, and miraculous healings. While some of these are certainly spurious or not well documented, others have reasonable experimental support. In addition to this, humans seem to be incurably religious; the idea of God and the spiritual is deeply entrenched in the human psyche, if not in its actual experience.
What are we to make of all this? If man is simply an adapted biological organism, then how is it that we did not manage to adapt to our natural environment in this area – why are we not “naturalists” rather than theists? Can’t any of this be a hint toward reality, or must we think that the bulk of humanity flirts with insanity?
I am glad to report that we have finally left the presuppositionalist streak of questions and are back to more interesting fare. However, the premises of this question are not any more supported than the premises of the presuppositionalist questions. Exactly which phenomena in the list of “near death experiences, ghosts, angels, demons, prophetic dreams and visions, and miraculous healings” have “reasonable experimental support”? I think this was a spelling mistake: he surely must have meant “experiential” (i.e. relating to experience), not “experimental” (i.e. relating to scientific experiments). I do agree that some of the things listed have experiential support, but none have any experimental support whatsoever.
But this is mostly nitpicking. The real issue under scrutiny is, why are human beings not instinctually naturalists rather than instinctually theists? Why did we not manage to adapt to our environment and, presumably, believe that gods, angels and demons are all nonsense? This way of posing the issue presupposes that there is a clear and strictly delineated dichotomy between disbelief in the spiritual and belief in the spiritual, between naturalism and theism, that they are as distinct as reality and insanity, and that evolution should have sorted it all by now.
But this is a gross misunderstanding of evolution. Our gene pool does not reflect the conditions in which animals (such as ourselves) live today, it reflects the conditions in which animals lived millions of years ago. For example, there is not enough time from the invention of the automobile to today for human beings to adapt to automobiles and develop instincts meant to deal with automobiles. Our gene pool is well adapted- to homo sapiens living in a low-technology, nature-dependent state, not to homo sapiens as it lives today.
In a low-technology, nature-dependent state, it is entirely reasonable to think that the gene pool of a species of higher intelligence would develop superstitions and beliefs about things which are not immediately accessible to its organisms. Superstition and beliefs are precisely how all animals with some intelligence, from birds to humans, use to fill in their lack of knowledge. When telescopes, airplanes and modal logic are not available, the best available substitute is probably some form of religion.
“AHA!,” I imagine our questioner thinking at this point, “you’ve just said that religion is better adapted to reality!” But what I am saying is that religion is better adapted to our daily life in a low-technology, nature-dependent state, not to our daily life today. We fortunate few who sight-see the universe on the shoulders of giants do not need religion to make sense of natural laws or universal laws. It is the gap between the state that gives rise to religion and our current state that makes religion look insane, not either state in and of itself. Religion survives because it is a belief system that is good at surviving, because it excels at systemically exploiting human foibles (desire to belong, desire to conform, need for comfort, fear of death, fear of the unknown), not because it is still adapted to the way reality appears to us.
9. Case for Christ
The case for the Jesus of Scripture is extremely compelling. There is good evidence that the New Testament was written in the generation of the Apostles. We have thousands of copies of these documents in their source language, some of which go back inside of 100 years after Jesus’ death. There is no evidence of significant corruption in the known manuscripts. There is no motivation and evidence for fraud among the apostles and church fathers – most died martyr’s deaths. The trend of archaeology is toward validation, not denial, of what it is possible to confirm in Scripture. Even non-biblical manuscripts support various key details of Christian theology.
The burden of proof is generally on the one seeking to deny historical records.
What alternative explanation do you offer to the New Testament documentation and the tradition of the church, and what support do you have for your theory?
Is it because of the miracles that you doubt the Scriptures? If Jesus really were God in the flesh, how would you expect Him to confirm that fact?
There are many premises in this question. Each and every one of them is completely and spectacularly false. All the evidence tells us that the New Testament books were written at least 30 years after Jesus’ fictional death. There is significant corruption in the manuscripts, unintentional and intentional. There is plenty of motivation for the first Christians to fradulently claim that the being they worship actually existed in the flesh, and to use written material from a previously existing rabbi (called the Q Document by scholars), turning it into a present time (insofar as they were concerned) narrative designed to preach their personal vision of the future religion (also, there is no evidence that any of the Gospel writers died martyr’s deaths, as we only have a general idea of who they are). The “trend of archaeology” is to ignore the silly claims of Christian literalists; the trend of Christian literalists is to point to pieces of driftwood and scream “come all, see the landing place of Noah’s Ark!” There are a few non-biblical manuscripts that support the hypothesis that Jesus actually existed, but none that are actually credible.
The only thing that is true at all in these premises is that we do have thousands of copies. Unfortunately, thousands of copies of a fraud does not make it less of a fraud; it just makes it a popular fraud.
The burden of proof is generally on the one seeking to deny historical records.
Entirely correct; too bad that no such records actually exist in the case of Jesus. One might more pointedly say that the burden of proof is generally on the one seeking to establish extremely extraordinary claims with no valid corroborating evidence.
What alternative explanation do you offer to the New Testament documentation and the tradition of the church, and what support do you have for your theory?
I don’t need to offer any “alternative” explanation when the official one suits me just well: there existed a list of sayings by a man called Jesus, which was used by the Gospel writers to pierce together all sorts of different stories (remember that there were hundreds of Gospel narratives written, not just the four that were chosen) putting forward their own version of a new religion that would free the Jewish people from the oppression of the Roman Empire and their exclusion from the mainstream.
If Jesus really were God in the flesh, how would you expect Him to confirm that fact?
I can’t make heads or tails of this question. How can a person both be God and be flesh? What does that even mean? Of course, I know this question has been asked for centuries, and Christians just repeat “Jesus was fully divine and fully human” as a pat non-answer… so this is a very unfruitful avenue of discussion.
10. Rational Faith
Christians are often accused of being simple-minded, superstitious, or irrational.
Is it so unreasonable for us to believe that the universe had a beginning because it actually was created; the laws of physics are so fine-tuned because it had a designer; people are preoccupied with good and evil because they are real things; we long for purpose and meaning because they exist to be had; life from non-life really is miraculous; consciousness and freewill seem real because they are; people are incurably religious because there is actually something real in religion; and the historical case for Jesus is so tenacious because it is actually true?
If there really is no meaning or purpose to life, no objective good or evil, and the existence of “truth” itself is open to debate, by what standard will you condemn the beliefs of Christians?
Before I answer, I must point out the excellent use of the semi-colon in that long middle sentence. This is completely unironic; I have in fact been reading a book about punctuation that has made me understand the elegance and usefulness of the semi-colon, and I really appreciate its use here. I would have added a “that” at the start of each phrase, though, but that’s just me.
Punctuation aside, this seems to be, not a question, but rather a final parting recap, followed by one last presuppositionalist potshot (you don’t even believe in truth!) which must have been too irresistible to pass up.
From my materialist standpoint, there is meaning and purpose to life, there is good and evil, and the existence of truth is not open to debate. That being said, the “atheist” is here asked the following: “by what standard will you condemn the beliefs of Christians?” This is a fair question.
I condemn the beliefs of Christians based on two main concepts: moral responsibility and free will.
In substance, Christianity’s doctrines can be seen as an extremist formulation of a general blanket denial of moral responsibility. This is not particular to Christianity; most religions and spiritual worldviews share this blanket denial of moral responsibility (either through the “law of attraction,” karma, or other such devices). Let us first start with what is widely considered the most attractive part of Christianity, the statement of John 3:16:
For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.
According to John 3:16, man is saved, redeemed, made good, by belief, not works. Whatever we do can be redeemed as long as we believe. Is it any wonder that Christianity attracts the worst kind of criminals and frauds? The statement of John 3:16 is the simple and straightforward credo of the criminal and the twisted. It is a statement of open defiance against any moral responsibility for one’s actions.
In fact, the Christian’s very conception of justice (concretized in Heaven and Hell) is predicated on the statement of John 3:16. Believe and you will be judged worthy, do not believe and you will be judged unworthy. But this is the exact opposite of any sane conception of justice. Its implementation in any society would result in the equivalent of Soviet Russia or Nazi Germany: those who believe in the new order are innocent, those who fail to believe are criminals.
What about the evil that salvation exists to resolve: original sin? How does an individual acquire this original sin? He acquires it for being a descendant of the first man and woman. Once again, this is the exact opposite of moral responsibility: universal evil is imputed to all human beings on the basis of their lineage, instead of their own actions. This leads Christian literalists to claim that the Flood was perfectly moral because everyone who lived at that time was absolutely evil and deserved to die. Well, you don’t need to look at what each person actually did, you see: they didn’t believe in God, and that’s all it takes.
This blanket denial of moral responsibility has permitted, and still permits, people of all religions to commit the worse atrocities known to man. Whether it be the Marxist belief in a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” the democratic belief in the “will of the people,” the capitalist belief in profit, the Christian belief in original sin and salvation, the terrorist’s belief that his race (whether Occidental or Middle-Eastern) is a superior race, or the belief of the mass murderer that he is a victim of pulsions he cannot control, abandoning moral responsibility can only lead to ruin.
The natural result of abandoning moral responsibility is the rejection of free will as a guiding principle for the individual, his groups and families, his societies or his world. This rejection negates the most fundamental freedom, more important than any political right: the freedom to think. It channels people’s energies and sense of self into the narrow confines of political and religious dogma. Christianity, like all other such worldviews, keeps man a beast. It sets man as the enemy of his own free will and the enemy of everyone else’s free will. It disconnects the individual from his innate sense of morality, from his natural compassion and intelligence, substituting them with fear of others and obedience to the group.
Fortunately, people are starting to wake up to the deleterious effects of religion. Christianity is fast becoming a mostly harmless tradition to which people pay lip service while worshiping at the altar of consumerism, which dissolves and co-opts all belief systems in the name of the almighty dollar. So, as a guise of conclusion, I will say that perhaps it is not “atheists” that Christians should target with their questions, but rather capitalists…
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