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Why Christians should take Richard Dawkins seriously
by Richard Skinner, Ekklesia
Reposted from:
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5721
It's easy to get annoyed, but Christians really ought to listen to and take seriously what Richard Dawkins has to say. With his high profile books, articles, television programmes and general media coverage, he has become the number one scourge of religion and religious believers of all and every stripe. He is articulate, passionate, an excellent speaker and a formidable intelligence. He has made important contributions to his particular discipline of evolutionary biology, most famously with his first book The Selfish Gene, but no less impressively with the follow-up volume The Extended Phenotype, and a series of subsequent books. He is a major player in his discipline.
His book The God Delusion appeared in 2006. This isn't about evolutionary biology with a few side-swipes at religion thrown in, this is a concentrated assault on religion. He launches a series of exocet missiles at religion, at the concept of God, the 'supernatural', faith-heads (which is his term for religious believers), theology — the whole bang-shoot, in fact. Inevitably he has triggered much response. The theologian Alister McGrath, an Oxford colleague of his, who had already written one book critiquing Dawkins' views on religion, riposted rapidly with The Dawkins Delusion. Another Christian riposte has come from a more evangelical quarter in Andrew Wilson's Deluded by Dawkins? Both authors demonstrate that many of Dawkins' arguments are strewn with error and misunderstanding.
However, in response to the statement "theologians say that Dawkins is wrong" we can echo Mandy Rice-Davies: "Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" It's part of their job description. Perhaps more significant, then, is the response Dawkins has drawn from non-Christian — or non-religious — quarters. Don't get me wrong: there are many who agree whole-heartedly with Dawkins. But consider the review of the book by Professor of English Terry Eagleton, a non-believer, which appeared in the London Review of Books (19 October 2006): it is a high octane demolition job.
Eagleton starts off "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don't believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be." He continues for another 3,500 words to elaborate on this.
Now I think the critics of Richard Dawkins are in the main quite right. I say 'in the main' because Dawkins does make a number of valid points, particularly relating to the role of religion, and Christianity in particular, in the life of this country; but I agree that a large proportion of his book is indeed based on error. However, I don't think it right for us to say, "Ah, well, not only theologians but even atheists have demonstrated where Dawkins has gone wrong, therefore we don't have to take his views seriously."
We do have to take his views seriously, for more than one reason. Wilson suggests, and I agree with him, that Christians should be grateful to Dawkins, because "he has gathered together all of the best arguments against God's existence in one place, with the intention of debating them publicly." Quite so, but I think there's another reason to listen to Dawkins. It's this: theological writers and others can point out at length that what Dawkins does is to set up a straw man — or rather, a straw God — and then demolish it; they can show that Dawkins has not really got to grips at all with a true understanding of God and the religious dimension; but the straw God that Dawkins sets up and then demolishes is often uncomfortably close to the notion of God that we Christians all too frequently seem to talk about, pray to and worship.
What Dawkins demolishes in this book may well be a misrepresentation of God, but it is a misrepresentation, an idol, that we Christians all too have often set up and espoused as the real thing. We should listen to Dawkins because doing so can help us reflect on what we claim to believe, or think we believe, or imply that we believe. His views can act as an acid to eat away the false and phoney elements of our faith.
By way of example, Dawkins refers to 'The God Hypothesis' which "suggests that the reality we inhabit also contains a supernatural agent who designed the universe and — at least in many versions of the hypothesis — maintains it and even intervenes in it with miracles...." (p.81). God, in this understanding, refers to a fellow inhabitant of the universe. Earlier in the book, however, he takes a marginally more subtle line, and the hypothesis is that there is "a personal God dwelling within [the universe], or perhaps outside it (whatever that might mean)" possessing a whole range of unpleasant qualities he has earlier listed (p.59).
I doubt if many of us would fall into the simplistic belief that God is just another thing who inhabits the universe, such that if we went on a tour of the universe our guide would be saying "now ladies and gentlemen, over here is the solar system, over there is the Crab Nebula, watch our for the black hole at the centre; there's a super-nova; there's God, there's a comet...." and so forth. We don't think of God like that as simply an inhabitant of the universe. But what of the suggestion that God is outside the universe? I would guess most if not all past and present members of Sunday Schools and the like have sung, 'He's got the whole world in his hands', and other hymns or choruses with similar imagery which suggests an entity external to the universe. It may be a comforting image, and it may have a lot to recommend it — but there is the danger of it being too comforting and our taking it almost literally, which doesn't do justice to the biblical understanding of God as both immanent and transcendent — God dwelling within all things, but also greater than all things — and of God as a living presence.
Philosophers and theologians over the centuries, grappling with what is meant by 'God', have resorted to a different type of language, making statements such as "God is ultimate reality"; or "God is the ground of our being", or "God is the precondition that anything at all could exist", and so forth. In theological discourse, they can be very helpful concepts, but the trouble with them is that if you're not a philosopher or theologian, you feel your eyes glazing over - God has become a philosophical concept rather than a living presence.
Let's face it, it is easier for most of us to hold a clear but inaccurate image of what we think God is, rather than to live with the discomfort of not being able to pin God down precisely. Many a mystic has said, in effect, that all descriptions of God are false because they are so inadequate, but that is not a comfortable place to be in. We prefer a domesticated God that our comprehension can contain, a golden calf that we have fashioned for ourselves, and that we can see. Richard Dawkins in effect, even though he may not realise it, is pointing at a load of golden calves that we have fashioned over the millennia, and saying, "what a load of rubbish". But of course, to rubbish a golden calf is not the same thing as to rubbish the living God. Dawkins, unwittingly, can help us distinguish between the two!
So, if our understanding of God can be encapsulated in a nice, neat definition; a nice, neat God hypothesis; a nice, neat image; a nice, neat set of instructions — if, in other words, our understanding of God does approximate to a Dawkins version, then we are in danger of creating another golden calf. The alternative, the non-golden-calf route, is to sit light to definitions, hypotheses and images, and allow God to be God.
Challenges to our image of God is not new. Back in 1963, the then Bishop of Woolwich John Robinson published Honest to God. After an extract was published in The Observer newspaper under the heading 'Our Image of God Must Go' the book became a surprise bestseller and triggered off a major rumpus. Robinson was urging us to jettison old images of God - uncontentious in theological circles, but a shock to the person in the pew. Commenting on it twenty years later, Ken Leech had this to say: "The 'god' whose image must go might well have been a caricature of the Christian God, but it was a caricature which corresponded with a widely held view, a view which effectively prevented any real engagement with God as a living reality. Robinson did not create this situation: he merely laid bare the reality of existing confusion and unbelief" (True God Sheldon Press, 1985 p.6). I think Richard Dawkins — though he may well not sanction my saying this — is performing a similar challenging function to that of Robinson
Curious perhaps to compare Richard Dawkins to John Robinson, but whether such attacks on our images of God come from within the church or from outside it, it is no bad thing regularly to be reminded that all images of God fall far short of the reality encountered and witnessed to by Moses and the prophets, and by Jesus and the apostles. We should listen to Richard Dawkins. His understanding might be full of errors, but they are often our errors of understanding too.
---------
© Richard Skinner. The author is a poet, writer, qualified therapist and performer. He is currently undertaking doctoral research in the area of spirituality and evolutionary psychology. He is author of Invocations: calling on the God in all (Wild Goose Publishing, Iona). This article was originally given as an address at St Stephen's Anglican Church, Exeter.
http://www.ekklesia.co.uk/node/5721
It's easy to get annoyed, but Christians really ought to listen to and take seriously what Richard Dawkins has to say. With his high profile books, articles, television programmes and general media coverage, he has become the number one scourge of religion and religious believers of all and every stripe. He is articulate, passionate, an excellent speaker and a formidable intelligence. He has made important contributions to his particular discipline of evolutionary biology, most famously with his first book The Selfish Gene, but no less impressively with the follow-up volume The Extended Phenotype, and a series of subsequent books. He is a major player in his discipline.
His book The God Delusion appeared in 2006. This isn't about evolutionary biology with a few side-swipes at religion thrown in, this is a concentrated assault on religion. He launches a series of exocet missiles at religion, at the concept of God, the 'supernatural', faith-heads (which is his term for religious believers), theology — the whole bang-shoot, in fact. Inevitably he has triggered much response. The theologian Alister McGrath, an Oxford colleague of his, who had already written one book critiquing Dawkins' views on religion, riposted rapidly with The Dawkins Delusion. Another Christian riposte has come from a more evangelical quarter in Andrew Wilson's Deluded by Dawkins? Both authors demonstrate that many of Dawkins' arguments are strewn with error and misunderstanding.
However, in response to the statement "theologians say that Dawkins is wrong" we can echo Mandy Rice-Davies: "Well, they would say that, wouldn't they?" It's part of their job description. Perhaps more significant, then, is the response Dawkins has drawn from non-Christian — or non-religious — quarters. Don't get me wrong: there are many who agree whole-heartedly with Dawkins. But consider the review of the book by Professor of English Terry Eagleton, a non-believer, which appeared in the London Review of Books (19 October 2006): it is a high octane demolition job.
Eagleton starts off "Imagine someone holding forth on biology whose only knowledge of the subject is the Book of British Birds, and you have a rough idea of what it feels like to read Richard Dawkins on theology. Card-carrying rationalists like Dawkins, who is the nearest thing to a professional atheist we have had since Bertrand Russell, are in one sense the least well-equipped to understand what they castigate, since they don't believe there is anything there to be understood, or at least anything worth understanding. This is why they invariably come up with vulgar caricatures of religious faith that would make a first-year theology student wince. The more they detest religion, the more ill-informed their criticisms of it tend to be." He continues for another 3,500 words to elaborate on this.
Now I think the critics of Richard Dawkins are in the main quite right. I say 'in the main' because Dawkins does make a number of valid points, particularly relating to the role of religion, and Christianity in particular, in the life of this country; but I agree that a large proportion of his book is indeed based on error. However, I don't think it right for us to say, "Ah, well, not only theologians but even atheists have demonstrated where Dawkins has gone wrong, therefore we don't have to take his views seriously."
We do have to take his views seriously, for more than one reason. Wilson suggests, and I agree with him, that Christians should be grateful to Dawkins, because "he has gathered together all of the best arguments against God's existence in one place, with the intention of debating them publicly." Quite so, but I think there's another reason to listen to Dawkins. It's this: theological writers and others can point out at length that what Dawkins does is to set up a straw man — or rather, a straw God — and then demolish it; they can show that Dawkins has not really got to grips at all with a true understanding of God and the religious dimension; but the straw God that Dawkins sets up and then demolishes is often uncomfortably close to the notion of God that we Christians all too frequently seem to talk about, pray to and worship.
What Dawkins demolishes in this book may well be a misrepresentation of God, but it is a misrepresentation, an idol, that we Christians all too have often set up and espoused as the real thing. We should listen to Dawkins because doing so can help us reflect on what we claim to believe, or think we believe, or imply that we believe. His views can act as an acid to eat away the false and phoney elements of our faith.
By way of example, Dawkins refers to 'The God Hypothesis' which "suggests that the reality we inhabit also contains a supernatural agent who designed the universe and — at least in many versions of the hypothesis — maintains it and even intervenes in it with miracles...." (p.81). God, in this understanding, refers to a fellow inhabitant of the universe. Earlier in the book, however, he takes a marginally more subtle line, and the hypothesis is that there is "a personal God dwelling within [the universe], or perhaps outside it (whatever that might mean)" possessing a whole range of unpleasant qualities he has earlier listed (p.59).
I doubt if many of us would fall into the simplistic belief that God is just another thing who inhabits the universe, such that if we went on a tour of the universe our guide would be saying "now ladies and gentlemen, over here is the solar system, over there is the Crab Nebula, watch our for the black hole at the centre; there's a super-nova; there's God, there's a comet...." and so forth. We don't think of God like that as simply an inhabitant of the universe. But what of the suggestion that God is outside the universe? I would guess most if not all past and present members of Sunday Schools and the like have sung, 'He's got the whole world in his hands', and other hymns or choruses with similar imagery which suggests an entity external to the universe. It may be a comforting image, and it may have a lot to recommend it — but there is the danger of it being too comforting and our taking it almost literally, which doesn't do justice to the biblical understanding of God as both immanent and transcendent — God dwelling within all things, but also greater than all things — and of God as a living presence.
Philosophers and theologians over the centuries, grappling with what is meant by 'God', have resorted to a different type of language, making statements such as "God is ultimate reality"; or "God is the ground of our being", or "God is the precondition that anything at all could exist", and so forth. In theological discourse, they can be very helpful concepts, but the trouble with them is that if you're not a philosopher or theologian, you feel your eyes glazing over - God has become a philosophical concept rather than a living presence.
Let's face it, it is easier for most of us to hold a clear but inaccurate image of what we think God is, rather than to live with the discomfort of not being able to pin God down precisely. Many a mystic has said, in effect, that all descriptions of God are false because they are so inadequate, but that is not a comfortable place to be in. We prefer a domesticated God that our comprehension can contain, a golden calf that we have fashioned for ourselves, and that we can see. Richard Dawkins in effect, even though he may not realise it, is pointing at a load of golden calves that we have fashioned over the millennia, and saying, "what a load of rubbish". But of course, to rubbish a golden calf is not the same thing as to rubbish the living God. Dawkins, unwittingly, can help us distinguish between the two!
So, if our understanding of God can be encapsulated in a nice, neat definition; a nice, neat God hypothesis; a nice, neat image; a nice, neat set of instructions — if, in other words, our understanding of God does approximate to a Dawkins version, then we are in danger of creating another golden calf. The alternative, the non-golden-calf route, is to sit light to definitions, hypotheses and images, and allow God to be God.
Challenges to our image of God is not new. Back in 1963, the then Bishop of Woolwich John Robinson published Honest to God. After an extract was published in The Observer newspaper under the heading 'Our Image of God Must Go' the book became a surprise bestseller and triggered off a major rumpus. Robinson was urging us to jettison old images of God - uncontentious in theological circles, but a shock to the person in the pew. Commenting on it twenty years later, Ken Leech had this to say: "The 'god' whose image must go might well have been a caricature of the Christian God, but it was a caricature which corresponded with a widely held view, a view which effectively prevented any real engagement with God as a living reality. Robinson did not create this situation: he merely laid bare the reality of existing confusion and unbelief" (True God Sheldon Press, 1985 p.6). I think Richard Dawkins — though he may well not sanction my saying this — is performing a similar challenging function to that of Robinson
Curious perhaps to compare Richard Dawkins to John Robinson, but whether such attacks on our images of God come from within the church or from outside it, it is no bad thing regularly to be reminded that all images of God fall far short of the reality encountered and witnessed to by Moses and the prophets, and by Jesus and the apostles. We should listen to Richard Dawkins. His understanding might be full of errors, but they are often our errors of understanding too.
---------
© Richard Skinner. The author is a poet, writer, qualified therapist and performer. He is currently undertaking doctoral research in the area of spirituality and evolutionary psychology. He is author of Invocations: calling on the God in all (Wild Goose Publishing, Iona). This article was originally given as an address at St Stephen's Anglican Church, Exeter.
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Posted: Thursday, September 20, 2007 | PermalinkComments 201 - 250 of 604 |
Reload Comments | Back to Top | Page Numbers202. Comment #73693 by newatheist on September 25, 2007 at 9:42 pm
Hi Dianelos -Thanks for your response (comment 192) to my rant (comment 182)! If you feel like indulging me further, maybe you can clear something up even more. This might echo Dr B's point above, but at the start you said -
I personally believe that there is a naturalistic explanation for the origin of life. (DG)So, is God natural(istic) or supernatural? Is the supernatural (God) part of nature or separate from it?
Any way like I said, indulge me or ignore me. I'm reading along and I like your new focus (i.e. TDG critique). You still seem to dodge questions i.e. Janus. Maybe I can help in my own stoopid way for simplicity's sake.
196. Comment #73571 by Janus
To say that anything except fundamental simplicity "just exists" is to give up. If you do want to give up, fine, but at least don't introduce a superfluous entity.DG: "But then I can't live forever! WAAAAAA!!!"
132. Comment #72787 by Dianelos Georgoudis
the smartest stance naturalists can assume vis-a-vis people using the argument from design is: "Science does not yet know how life started, but it's working on it . it may take a while; this may turn out to be a very hard problem. If you in the meanwhile prefer to believe that the best explanation for the appearance of life is to posit some supernatural action then be my guest."Ahhh, that's better. Now we can all think we never die, At least until science tells us otherwise. Phew. 196. Comment #73571 by Janus
if the subject matter of this conversation is beyond logic, this whole debate is a sham and always has been.By Jove I think (s)he's got it!
200. Comment #73609 by brother john
Coel, dear member of the human race. The only way you can find out whether theology is a cumulative science or not - is either to ask someone who is competent in the subject - or else study the stuff for yourself.Yeah Coel, time to brush up on your Leprechology!
Brother John OUCH!
[-- end interjection --
Other Comments by newatheist
203. Comment #73696 by Janus on September 25, 2007 at 10:16 pm
If the subject matter of this conversation is beyond logic, this whole debate is a sham and always has been.
By Jove I think (s)he's got it!
Heh.
Well, very few theists will be willing to claim that God is beyond logic if they truly understand what it means to be beyond logic. Even a statement like, "God grants some people eternal life, therefore there is a chance I will live forever" is rendered incoherent if God is beyond logic. Even the concept of God existing is made meaningless if He is beyond logic, because existence itself is governed by logic. The most basic principle of logic is A does not equal non-A.
If "God exists" can be synonymous to "God does not exist", this debate is worse than a sham, it's... plarinqw5eg7mncnzxc9nfno.
Other Comments by Janus
204. Comment #73734 by Coel on September 26, 2007 at 2:40 am
brother john wrote:Coel, dear member of the human race. The only way you can find out whether theology is a cumulative science or not - is either to ask someone who is competent in the subject - or else study the stuff for yourself.You misinterpret my question, which was, how does somebody who has studied theology and knows a lot about it distinguish whether a change is a "step forward" as oppose to a "step backwards" or "sideways"? What is the mechanism for determining whether the change makes it "more correct" or "less correct"? Is labelling something a "step forward" merely personal preference, amounting to "I like this version better? Or is there some objective way of verifying that theology is accumulating improvements?
That is the question relevant to Dawkins's suggestion that theology does not "progress" and is not really a subject at all, since it has no verifiable subject matter, nor any way of verifying any of its statements.
And how revealling that you ignore the question entirely and slew off into displaying your amusing fantasies about atheists.
Other Comments by Coel
205. Comment #73761 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 26, 2007 at 5:08 am
Janus (post 196, or #73571):Thanks for your thought-provoking as well as huge post. :-) And I thought that only I wrote huge posts. On the other hand reality is the hugest subject matter there is so maybe it's only fitting.
As I wish to avoid crashing Dawkins's Internet server, I think I will respond in thematic parts, commenting first on the issue of explanations, then on the issue of describing God's mind, then on the issue of theism's predictions, and so on.
You write:
Explanations like accretion theory, nucleosynthesis, the various hypotheses of abiogenesis, evolution, crystal formation, and whatever theory will explain the laws of physics, if one does. General relativity, and many other scientific theories, is a descriptive theory: It describes a certain kind of complexity and allows us to make predictions, but it doesn't say where that complexity came from.I am not aware of a distinction between explanatory scientific theories and descriptive scientific theories, and in fact think that distinction is spurious. In my understanding "descriptive science" does not refer to scientific theories (which by definition are all explanatory), but rather to collecting scientific facts (such as cataloguing insects, and so on.)
Take the state of the universe before life formation. That state with all its atoms and complex molecules and cluster of galaxies and all the menagerie of bodies such as black holes and quasars and whatnot is clearly quite enormously complex. And that complex state evolved from the simple state present at the Big Bang. And how it evolved is basically explained by general relativity plus quantum mechanics, and is in fact fairly well understood: these theories explain how the simple original state of the universe evolved into a complex one, so they do say "where the complexity came from". And both general relativity and quantum mechanics are themselves complex and ordered explanations.
You continue:
The only way to end the infinite regress of "But what is it that explains this explanation?" is, as I've said, fundamental simplicity. If we're satisfied with an ultimate explanation that is itself complex and "just exists", we might as well cut it out of the theory and say that the laws of physics "just exist" and be done with it.But that's exactly how physicists think. For all we know general relativity and quantum mechanics with all their complexity and order may be the ultimate explanations. Or, should we find even more precise or general scientific theories (maybe something like string theory) it's a virtual certainty that these deeper scientific theories will be even more highly complex and ordered. The idea that "ultimate" explanations should be "fundamentally simple", or that one should not accept complex and ordered explanations standing by themselves, that's all a figment of the imagination I am afraid, which is disproved by the very factual state of physics. It is important not to become like a hammer that only sees nails. The fact that Darwin's theory of evolution, which explains a particular growth of complexity, is itself simple, does not imply that all theories that explain a growth of complexity must be simple too. In conclusion: Naturalists may reasonably argue that the God hypothesis is wrong because it fails to explain this or that as well as naturalism; but it's a clear fallacy to argue that the God hypothesis is wrong because it is complex and ordered.
On the other hand, perhaps you are misrepresenting Dawkins's argument in TGD. I think that Dawkins is not saying that the ultimate explanation must not be complex as you write above, but rather that any explanation must not be more complex than what it explains (which I think is reasonable). So he argues that if God designed the universe then God must be even more complex than the universe, and that therefore the God hypothesis has no explanatory power. The obvious fallacy of that argument is that it fails to explain a) why a designer must be more complex than the design, and b) why a supernatural designer must be complex in the first place never mind more complex than the physical universe.
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
206. Comment #73769 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 26, 2007 at 5:52 am
Janus (post 196, or #73571):Part 2: The mind of God.
Intelligence is, by definition, a process. A process involves changing at least one variable from one state to another, even if it's just changing 0 to 1. Intelligence also incorporates data storage. Both of these things (being a process and incorporating data storage) cannot be done by a perfectly simple thing. In fact, a perfectly simple thing cannot do anything, that's part of the reason it's said to be perfectly simple.Interesting. Now, your first paragraph is a clear example of question begging. For example intelligence is not by definition a process; intelligence is by definition a capability. Further only in a naturalistic understanding of reality must intelligence be the result of some mechanical process (with variables changing from 0 to 1, etc). On the other hand I quite agree with the main claim of your second paragraph above. (I don't quite agree with the last bit in the sense that anything beyond mathematical description is a sham. For example how it is like to see the color blue cannot be described using mathematics, but is clearly not a "sham" for clearly our sense of blueness exists. We know what "blue" is even though there is no description of it. In other words some aspects of reality may be purely experiential and hence beyond analytical description. But that's a detail, I do agree with your main premise.)
If you disagree with the above, explain to me how you can define a perfectly simple intelligence in a way that can in principle be described by mathematics. If you claim that God's mind is somehow beyond mathematics, you might as well say that it is beyond logic, and if the subject matter of this conversation is beyond logic, this whole debate is a sham and always has been.
Let me first explain why I agree with you that any explanation (or any understanding but not necessarily any knowledge) must in principle be describable in the language of mathematics: I think that all explanations represent the discovery of stable patterns present in the field of our experience, and a pattern is by definition a mathematical concept. Further, any explanation must have some predictive power, and predictions are always based on some kind of mathematical (or logical if you prefer) thinking. Interestingly enough one of the most famous ancient Greek philosophers, Pythagoras, taught that numbers are the deepest reality.
So let's take some feat that requires God-like intelligence, say the computation of the 100th "busy beaver" number. ("Busy beaver" numbers grow very very quickly. Only candidates for the first 5 are known. The 5th is probably 4098 which is quite unimpressive, but we know that the 6th must be larger than 10^865. The 100th is large beyond imagination.) Now it turns out that we can easily conceptualize a digital computer able to compute that number and indeed that computer would have to be incredibly complex in the sense that it would require a huge number of parts; just the number of bits of a memory sufficiently large to hold that number is itself large beyond imagination too, not to mention that computer would require an incredible amount of time to compute that number. Now, according to virtually all theists' concept of God, God could compute that number instantly. Does this mean that God must be even more complex than that computer? It appears you think so, but why exactly? God is supposed to be a supernatural being, so presumably God is not subject to physical nature's limitations. So here is my first argument: it's question begging for a naturalist to argue that a supernatural intelligence must be complex because any natural brain that intelligent would have to be complex too.
But I think that's not your point. I think your point is that a theist should be able to describe (and hence describe mathematically) what God's mind is doing to compute that number. But the theistic thesis is not that God's mind must do some work the result of which is the computation of that number. Rather the thesis is that God's mind instantly conceives or realizes the answer to any conceivable and answerable question. I know that in a naturalistic understanding of reality that's impossible, in the sense that the concept of computation entails computing. But you can't project your naturalistic ideas on theism and expect the result of that projection to make any sense. Speaking of which, does theism make any sense at all, is God comprehensible as you say? Well, probably not if you try to visualize God as some particular being inside of reality, some powerful part of reality that is able to manipulate all other parts using some kind of invisible strings. It's not like God is reality's puppeteer you know. Rather God is reality's deepest structure. Now mathematics is part of the structure of reality too, isn't it? (That's why mathematical questions have definite answers.) So God's nature entails mathematics; God instantly knows any possible mathematical fact not because God computes it using some kind of powerful brain, but because God contains all such answers in His/Her own nature. To use an analogy: God finds out the 100th "busy beaver" number by *looking*.
Now you may respond that, by identifying God as the deepest structure of reality, I am actually defining God into existence. Up to a point that's true, and perhaps that's why theologians say that God is a necessary being. But then you may ask why call it "God" and not call it "the deepest structure of reality" and be done with? What exactly does theism add to the obvious? The answer should be clear: Theism's fundamental thesis is that the deepest structure of reality is a person, i.e. a conscious subject, a subject who, just like us, perceives, thinks, wills, etc. How does theism justify that surprising thesis? By arguing (among other things) that this hypothesis has greater explanatory power than naturalism's hypothesis according to which the deepest structure of reality is some kind of machinery.
But let's go back to what you write above, namely that God's mind must be describable mathematically. Maybe you now see what that description (or rather partial description) of God's mind is: all mathematical objects and relations directly describe God's mind. And is God's mind thus (partially) described complex or simple? I wouldn't know how to objectively answer that question. I find that Dawkins waving around concepts such as "simplicity" and "complexity" without giving a hmm mathematical description of what he means makes little sense. I mean it seems to me that the whole issue ultimately reduces to one's subjective taste of what's simple or complex. In my case I would say that God's mind is simple, for I don't conceive mathematics itself as having any parts. But somebody else may feel God's mind thus described is very complex, and that's OK too.
Intentional simplicity reduces to "mechanical" (compositional) complexity.Only in the naturalistic understanding. In the theistic understanding the mechanical order we observe around us reduces to God's intent.
Other Comments by Dianelos Georgoudis
207. Comment #73848 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 26, 2007 at 10:44 am
Janus (post 196, or #73571):Part 3: Some random bits about dogmatism, falsification of theism and of naturalism, the problem of consciousness, infinite explanatory regressions, and why God is unexplainable.
Your definition of dogmatism amounts to saying that a dogmatic person is a person who will never change his mind about one or many of his beliefs.[snip]Not exactly; rather a dogmatic person is a person who has lost to a large degree mental flexibility, and is therefore functionally incapable of understanding ideas different from their own (which I am really sorry to say seems to be a description that applies to Dawkins). It's true that such persons rarely change their minds, but it's also true that many non-dogmatic persons rarely change their minds, so the relationship between dogmatism and propensity to change one's mind is faint at best.
[cont:] It is, in other words, a person who holds an unfalsifiable belief. How could your supernatural/necessary/unexplainable Designer be falsified?I justify my belief in God by its superior (in comparison to naturalism) explanatory power, among other things. The explanatory power of the God hypothesis implies a series of predictions. Some of these predictions apply to my life here and now, and some to my afterlife. If any of these predictions failed to obtain it would amount to evidence against my theistic belief. For example if in the afterlife I found myself burning in hell (which many a fundamentalist theist would argue will come to pass if I keep insisting in my heretical ideas about God) then clearly by belief in God would be falsified. If in this life I found that understanding does not make me experience its subject matter as more beautiful, or if I didn't experience prayer as ethically empowering, or if I stopped experiencing life as ethically challenging, or, in short, if any of the many predictions that my theistic belief implies for the dynamics of my subjective experience of life here and now were violated (more about that in part 4) all of that would also count as evidence against my theistic belief system.
On the other hand, as I have argued in post 162 above, it seems to me that a naturalist who consistently applies the dictum that extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence would find it difficult to state what would falsify their naturalistic belief system at least in this life. But I suppose that if naturalists found themselves experiencing a consistent and complex afterlife then even the most dogmatic ones would realize that there must be something wrong with naturalism. Or, who knows, maybe not. Maybe they would think that they keep existing in a computer simulation.
Sure there's a reason why an intelligent but not self-aware species should "become" (or rather, give birth to a new species) self-aware: It's the next step on the branch of the tree of life which uses complex brains to grow.I agree that natural evolution will tend to produce some species with ever more complex brains that allow them to occupy such evolutionary niches that require complex behavior. But that's not the question. The question is why such brains would produce consciousness instead of producing the same complex behavior without consciousness. (Incidentally, please don't confuse consciousness with self-awareness. It may very well be the case that there are conscious beings out there that are not self-aware; perhaps newborn babies are in that state, or, for all a naturalist knows, thermostats.)
What is important is, does the theistic "explanation" for consciousness and all the things it's capable of amount to giving up on explaining these things, or not? Of _course_ it's giving up.Well, different ontological views create different conceptual problems. For example if you are a naturalist who believes that the deepest structure of reality is matter following mechanical laws then you have the very hard problem of explaining how any material system following mechanical laws can produce consciousness. But if you are not a naturalist you don't have this problem, for according to your understanding it's not the case that material systems become conscious. So clearly this does not amount to "giving up", for you can't give up on a problem you don't have, you see that. Conversely theism has problems that naturalism doesn't, for example the presence of natural and moral evils is problematic for theism for it appears to contradict some of its basic premises, whereas the presence of the same evils is not at all problematic for naturalism, because there is no such contradiction.
In conclusion: To argue that theism has a problem you must conceptually place yourself within theism and argue against it from within (to just apply your own naturalistic preconceptions from the outside and argue that you have found a problem is to beg the question, as is to simply copy naturalism's problems into theism). It's an interesting exercise which I do all the time: I place myself in the naturalistic mindset and check to see all the problems I can find working from within. And in order to do that well I try to study the best of naturalistic thought. So if you want to argue well against theism you must study the best theistic thought too. That's what Dawkins didn't do before writing TGD (because reading serious books about God is like reading serious books about fairies you see), and therefore ended up making a fool of himself by systematically begging the question in chapter 4. (I haven't finished my criticism of TGD by the way; I find its chapter on morality is another textbook example of fallacious thinking.)
If God designed our consciousnesses, who designed His consciousness? If God is responsible for our intentional will, who's responsible for His intentional will, etc?That's just very bad logic, as I explained in post 190 above. Again, you probably imagine God as a particular part of reality that can therefore be explained in relation to other more general parts.
In any case, to fall into the trap of infinite regressions is as fallacious in the context of theism as it is in naturalism. For example suppose you are explaining natural evolution to a fundamentalist and he or she keeps asking you "why" or "how"; you'll see that there comes a moment where you can't give an answer because the questions themselves become meaningless. At some point you'll have to answer a question using chemistry. If the fundamentalist asks you why chemical reactions happen in the way you claim, you might respond using Quantum Electrodynamics which explains chemical reactions. But if then the fundamentalist keeps asking how or why an electron behaves in the way Quantum Electrodynamics describes you will have to respond: "because that's that; that's how an electron behaves." Whether you are a theist or a naturalist, there comes a place where one touches ground.
So maybe here we find a source of confusion in naturalists' understanding of theism: You see, on the one hand it's true that theism's basic hypothesis (i.e. that the deepest structure of reality is a perfect person) turns out to have huge explanatory power. On the other hand it's also true that theism does not explain that hypothesis; i.e. it does not explain how come reality is so structured. But then again neither does naturalism explain its own basic hypothesis that reality's deepest structure is some kind of physical mechanism. You see what I mean? Any explanatory structure must start with some fundamental non-analyzable hypotheses. As Sam Harris puts it: "The point, I trust, is obvious: we cannot step out of the darkness without taking a first step". He was speaking about the necessity of taking a first step in the context of ethics, but the same is true for all fields of knowledge, from geometry to gardening. That an explanatory structure does not explain its basic premises (which is impossible anyway) is irrelevant. As is any critic's subjective sense of the implausibility or complexity of these basic premises. What ultimately justifies an explanatory structure is how well it turns out to work, both conceptually and as a practical matter, in comparison to other competing explanatory structures.
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208. Comment #73852 by irate_atheist on September 26, 2007 at 11:06 am
Comment #73848 by Dianelos Georgoudis - To summarise:
Gibber.
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209. Comment #73872 by Lauregon on September 26, 2007 at 12:38 pm
If in this life I found that understanding does not make me experience its subject matter as more beautiful, or if I didn't experience prayer as ethically empowering, or if I stopped experiencing life as ethically challenging, or, in short, if any of the many predictions that my theistic belief implies for the dynamics of my subjective experience of life here and now were violated (more about that in part 4) all of that would also count as evidence against my theistic belief system. - Dianelos
Dianelos, why, why, why, aren't you content to enjoy your subjective theistic experiences in the privacy of your own life? Why, why, why must you so doggedly try to sell your theism to atheists? Your reasons for believing appear to be entirely subjective, the result of your own personal need/desire to believe in eternal life and receive comfort in this one. What do you hope to gain by obsessing on what can't be proven in this life by persisting in non-stop hard-selling it to those whose subjective experience is different than yours? Why are you so determined to convince non-theists that your subjective perceptions involve an all-powerful, all-knowing, omniscient Creator" God?" What is the practical earthly point to your neo-theism? WHY should rational humans living in this world with these physical bodies try to "be like" a non-visible, non-detectable, non-intervening non-Biblical "God?" You go on and on and on with seemingly endless theorizing, but all you can offer to others as the reason for why we should take your views seriously are entirely personal and suited to your psychological needs. We aren't enraptured or even interested in the prospect of eternal life; you are. Why, why, why, Dianelos, aren't you content to enjoy and involve yourself with your subjective unseen "God" alone and/or in the company of other theists who share your beliefs and needs? That, I think, is the question that truly needs answering.
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210. Comment #73875 by steveroot on September 26, 2007 at 1:01 pm
208. Comment #73848 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 26, 2007 at 10:44 am
I justify my belief in God by its superior (in comparison to naturalism) explanatory power, among other things. The explanatory power of the God hypothesis implies a series of predictions. Some of these predictions apply to my life here and now, and some to my afterlife. If any of these predictions failed to obtain it would amount to evidence against my theistic belief.
Stop! Stop! I can't take it anymore! :-0
Steve
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211. Comment #73877 by Janus on September 26, 2007 at 1:12 pm
Dianelos, are you done replying to my comment? Tell me if, or when you are, please.I might have time to reply later today. I promise I'll make an effort to keep it short and concise. :)
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212. Comment #73883 by _J_ on September 26, 2007 at 1:40 pm
I think I've hit saturation point.I look at this endless proliferation of apparently pointless words and all I can think is:
'Why?'
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213. Comment #73891 by Dr Benway on September 26, 2007 at 2:08 pm
Remember "connect-the-dots"? Buncha dots on a page with little numbers beside them. You draw a line from one to two to three and so on. When you finish, you've got a line drawing of a bunny or a truck.Dianelos looks at a buncha facts. He connects the dots and sees a happy, divine daddy smiling down on him.
Atheists: "Well to get a picture like that, you have to assume there's a few more dots on the page than those we've actually discovered so far."
Dianelos: "So what. You can't prove those extra dots don't exist."
Atheists: "But why not be honest and say, 'I dunno'? Why pretend we know something we don't?"
Dianelos: "But look! The picture comes out awesome this way."
Atheists: "That may be. But we don't like adding stuff to our shared map of reality without corroborative evidence."
Dianelos: "My intuition is evidence. My feelings of ethical empowerment are evidence."
Atheists: "Not everyone feels the same as you apparently. That diversity of opinion is also evidence. And notice how humans often hallucinate agency where none actually exists. Perhaps your brain is playing tricks on you."
Dianelos: "I can't believe that you don't feel something when you look at this beautiful picture of Jesus loving us."
Atheists: "Seems beside the point."
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214. Comment #73917 by Mr DArcy on September 26, 2007 at 2:53 pm
brother john writes:The only way you can find out whether theology is a cumulative science or not - is either to ask someone who is competent in the subject - or else study the stuff for yourself.
If I am not mistaken theology means the study of God. brother john is being mischevious in comparing the study of something for which there is no evidence with a "cumulative science". The theories of science represent the best available explanations of nature in line with observed phenomena. For example; gravity, evolution, quantum mechanics, relativity etc.
To me, theology is completely unnecessary, and a complication. It is in the same frame as dragonology or OxfordDonology, a complete waste of time. First show us your God, then we will study Him. Until then, like Laplace, God is a hypothesis that is not needed.
brother john appears to be part of the Christian counter attack on TGD:
I believe in the utter nonsensical nature of any argument contrary to our beliefs.
In the prelude to his possible future atheist credo, brother john has in fact summed up the Christian attitude to opposing views.
The point is brother john, that you now have to convince people of your point of view, not just state it as given by your almighty.
Piss quick criticisms of Dawkins' arguments are not going to bring you many converts
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215. Comment #73993 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 3:26 am
Janus (post 212, or #73877):Dianelos, are you done replying to my comment?Err, no. I am just about to post the fourth installation, and there is one more to come. But feel free to comment on the previous ones if you feel like it.
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216. Comment #73995 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 3:28 am
Janus (post 196, or #73571):Part 4: The predictions of theism, and the predictions of naturalism.
I think that one of the greatest misunderstanding naturalists entertain about theism, is that the truth of theism is irrelevant: It does not explain anything because it does not predict anything. Whether true or not, all remains the same. Clearly, while naturalists are under this impression they won't even try to understand what theism explains because explanation always implies some predictive power, so if theism does not predict anything then theism can't be explaining anything too. That's why I think it's so important to clarify that theism does make testable predictions.
You write:
You say that theism predicts life after death... but you admit there's no way to test this prediction.I don't think I did admit anything like that. On the contrary life after death is an inescapable prediction. Most other predictions are such that if you try to look away you can manage to avoid testing them. Not so life after death. What's not testable is naturalism's prediction (yes I found one) that there is no life after death.
Next, you say that theism makes predictions about our subjective experiences. And then you admit that neurobiology does too. Um, yeah. Remember that your goal is to show that theism is to be preferred over naturalism. And one of your three big predictions can't differentiate between theism and naturalism.First of all, see how nicely you conflate naturalism and science. Indeed that fallacy must be the primary factor why so many naturalists suffer from the illusion that naturalism is a solidly grounded ontological belief system. In fact science is as valid in theism as in naturalism. (Actually that's putting in generously, there are grounds to argue that some scientific facts contradict naturalism, but no matter.) Science neither implies naturalism, nor contradicts theism to think otherwise is to fall for one of the main modern mythological beliefs, indeed one that many theists have also fallen for. Second, I did not actually write the neurobiology makes predictions about subjective experiences. I wrote that neurobiology can in principle do that. It's an observational fact that peoples' talk about their subjective experiences to the degree that this is at all possible does correlate with physical (and hence objectively observable) processes in their brain. The evidence for this today is rather flimsy but I think it's reasonable to assume that there is indeed a one to one correlation. And we know that the brain works purely on mechanical principles. So, any truth there is about the dynamics of our subjective experience can in principle be discovered by neurophysiology. Here is how: First build an exhaustive translation table between what people say about their subjective experiences and the processes in their brain that correlate with them; then predict the dynamics between these processes by analyzing how the brain mechanically works. So far so good. Now there are several relevant points to keep in mind:
1. Strictly speaking the scientific project described above does not explain the dynamics of our subjective experience, but the dynamics of how we describe our subjective experience. The very existence of our subjective experience is irrelevant to science. And as for naturalism, it can't even explain that conscious experience exists in the first place.
2. Neurophysiology is very far from producing any such predictions, whereas theism does it here and now. And when (or if see bellow) neurophysiology does produce such predictions it will only confirm that our brain (as all of the physical order we observe around us) is designed in a way consistent with theistic knowledge.
3. It may (unfortunately) turn out to be the case that our brain's functioning at that level of scientific investigation is intractable. We know that even simple and deterministic mechanical systems can very quickly become chaotic, and our brain is not simple at all and possibly it can't be analyzed on purely deterministic grounds (some thinkers such as Roger Penrose believe that quantum mechanics plays an important role). I say it would be unfortunate if our brain turned out to be intractable, because it would be very nice indeed if scientific investigation would actually confirm theism's predictions about the dynamics of our subjective experience. And theism's predictions are of course based directly on the God hypothesis.
At this juncture the careful reader may recall that I disagreed with Dawkins's premise in TGD that the God hypothesis is a scientific hypothesis, whereas in the previous paragraph I seem to be speaking as if it is. But it's not like it seems. It's true that ontological claims whether theistic or naturalistic can be falsified by scientific knowledge, because, obviously, reality cannot be such as to fail to produce the objective phenomena that science studies. But science cannot really validate an ontological hypothesis because many different realities (described by many different ontological hypotheses) could produce all of the objective phenomena that science studies. (For example the computer simulation hypothesis produces all of them by definition.) The "scientific confirmation" of theism I mention above works only in the sense that at that level of theistic specificity (namely in the description of the dynamics of subjective experience) it would be impressive if scientific discovery would fail to falsify it.
4. We are here discussing theism's predictions and their testability in our life here and now. The fact that science may one day and in some sense make the same predictions is entirely irrelevant to the issue at hand. Theism does make predictions based on the explanatory power of its basic premise, namely that the deepest structure of reality consists of a perfect person. And these predictions are testable and verifiable in our current life on a level that is extraordinarily valuable: in how we can manage the subjective, i.e. qualitative, dimension of our life. There is nothing more important in our life here and now than to understand and manage the quality of our experience of life. And that's the power that theistic understanding gives. Here and now.
And finally, the most hilarious prediction of all, that all conscious beings will tend to believe in theism. I would point out that since until Darwin the only way we knew that complexity could arise was design, believing in a Big Great Magic Designer in Some Inaccessible Place So That He Can't Be Falsified (like the sky, or Mount Olympus, or Mount Sinai, or a "spiritual dimension", or outside of time) is a pretty obvious thing to do. But never mind that, let's say you're right. In your next sentence you admit that people don't tend to believe in theism. Well gee whiz, I guess theism is falsified then, isn't it?Not at all. What I am saying is that since Darwin and in general since the scientific revolution and its remarkable successes many educated people have tended to become over-specialized in science and illiterate in philosophy, and therefore have become ontologically naive. In such a state of mind, blinded by the success of science as it were, many people (especially educated ones and especially scientists) made a wrong turn in their ontological beliefs. Now my thesis is that theism is by far the best way to understand the whole of our human condition (and not only the physical phenomena we observe and that science studies). I personally find that the most powerful theistic systems (especially so-called idealistic theism) work so much better than the best naturalistic ones that it's really no contest. And as I trust in peoples' cognitive capacity I therefore predict that in the future people will tend to adopt a theistic worldview, and that what we are experiencing now is only a temporal situation. Already some of the most interesting analytic philosophy that is produced is theistic by the way. As far as I am concerned this turn towards theism would be already noticeable if it weren't for organized religion and the respective institutional dogmatism. But I predict that this turn towards theism will happen sooner or later. As I predict that intelligent computers will tend to be theistic too, when we manage to build them.
Indeed my hypothesis that civilizations will always grow into adopting a theistic worldview (by which of course I don't mean anything like religious fundamentalism, or even dogmatic institutional orthodoxy) explains one of the surprising facts we observe, namely that the universe is so quiet instead of swarming with signs of intelligent life. (Many naturalists, as well as I, believe that life can't be so unlikely that it only evolved on Earth, so there must be many other civilizations out there, and some must be many thousands of years or even millions of years more advanced than ours, so where are they?). You see, a naturalistic mindset tends to focus on "quantity", so civilizations with a naturalistic worldview, just as science-fiction writers visualize, would colonize their surrounding space with geometric speed (and not only science-fiction writers think so, see for example the non-fiction "The Age of Spiritual Machines" by Ray Kurzweil). But this has clearly not happened, and my hypothesis explains why: A theistic mindset tends to focus on "quality", and therefore theistic civilizations would assume a humble stance towards existence and be perfectly content to managing well their own planet and leave the rest of the cosmos in peace.
First of all, there is no theory supported by evidence that shows that something within the universe was not designed. This is an obvious fallacy as Plantinga in his review of TGD clarifies: Darwinism explains that the complexity of the species is not necessarily designed, or, in other words, that it is possible that the species are not designed. (Darwin showed pretty conclusively that the species could have evolved through a mechanical, and hence blind and non-intentional, process.) To infer from this true proposition alone that therefore the species are in fact not designed is a colossal logical error.While we are at it, have you ever pondered what exactly naturalism explains? To my mind it explains not a single thing beyond what science explains, but science's explanations of phenomena work equally well for theism too, so science's explanations do not count for naturalism.Needless to say this makes no sense if you define naturalism as I do, but even if you refuse to use my definition, this still makes no sense. Theism says that the universe is designed. Any theory supported by evidence that shows that something within the universe was not designed is a blow against theism, and once we've shown that everything came from mindless processes, theism will be falsified (unless theists redefine God to mean something other than a Designer, as some of them have already started to do!).
To reason correctly is not a simple matter. A good idea (all analytic philosophers do that) is to put one's argument in writing, clearly stating one's premises and why one believes they are true, and then step by step making inferences based on clear logic to arrive at some particular conclusion. And clearly, I am sure you can see that, from "X is possibly true" it does not follow that "X is true". In order to justify that "X is true" you need more than just show that "X is possibly true".
Now I notice you haven't really given any predictions of naturalism, but only have stated that your definition of naturalism is different from mine. (My definition of naturalism is that it is "an ontological belief system based on the hypothesis that the deepest structure of reality is material and follows mechanical laws". You don't say what your definition is, but I have the impression you define naturalism as "the rational understanding of reality". If so, that definition is hugely question begging once again, not to mention a theist could equally well define theism as the rational understanding of reality, so that's only playing with words).
Anyway, let me rephrase my question in a way that is independent of naturalism's specific definition, and only assumes that naturalism opposes theism:
We agree that science does make a lot of testable predictions about phenomena. Now there are two competing views about how reality is, namely theism and naturalism. Both these views are compatible with all of science's predictions, so any of these predictions count equally well for theism and for naturalism. Theism makes some testable predictions over and above the predictions that science makes. My question is this: Does naturalism make any testable predictions over and above the predictions that science makes?
Let me help you along here: One prediction that naturalism makes (and science doesn't) is that we shall not continue to experience life after we die. But this is clearly a non-testable prediction because if true one cannot possibly find out. Now similarly to my third case above, you could argue that naturalism predicts that people in general will turn towards naturalism in the future. I think that's a fair prediction, and we shall have to wait and see whether it or the opposing theistic prediction will turn out to be true. The Zeitgeist changes very slowly (see how much unscientific superstition there is still around; astrology for example may be a more popular belief than any single religion.) So this sociological prediction may take a long while to be tested. But my specific question remains: Does naturalism make any predictions that are testable here and now? Any predictions that are actually useful in one's life? Any predictions that add to one's knowledge?
I think it doesn't. I think that beyond what science says about phenomena, what naturalism says about reality is just completely vacuous in the pragmatical sense. Which entails that neither do naturalism's beliefs about reality actually explain anything (because explanations imply predictions). Interesting, no? Naturalism fails in what it accuses theism of failing, while theism doesn't really.
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217. Comment #74000 by steve99 on September 27, 2007 at 3:55 am
So maybe here we find a source of confusion in naturalists' understanding of theism: You see, on the one hand it's true that theism's basic hypothesis (i.e. that the deepest structure of reality is a perfect person) turns out to have huge explanatory power.
To misquote from "The Princess Bride":
"You keep using this phrase. I do not think it means what you think it means."
In many, many, many posts we have shown that this is simply not the case. The 'perfect person' idea has no meaning because we have no idea what 'perfect' means, or what 'person' means. Zaphod Beeblebrox's idea of the perfect person would be someone distinctly immoral and in two minds about everything. Who knows what the Hive Mind of Sirius thinks what 'perfect person' would be...
And as for explanatory power... well, surprisingly, few particle physicists seem to have extrapolated from their findings to the idea of a loving God... odd that, isn't it?
What it comes down it is that Dianelos desperately wants to believe in Catholic dogma and the resurrection, so has extrapolated from that this idea of a 'perfect trinity person' that, if Dianelos manages to work hard to mentally block off all the destructive counter-arguments, fits what Dianelos wishes to believe about the Universe, even though it goes against all of modern physics, biology, psychology and philosophy.
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218. Comment #74003 by DavidMcC on September 27, 2007 at 4:15 am
"He is currently undertaking doctoral research in the area of spirituality and evolutionary psychology."At first, I thought: "How the hell can he be an evolutionary psychologist and not understand that man created God, not the other way round?" Then, I noticed that he is also a "therapist", and it suddenly made sense! He's in the same predicament as a homeopathist who realises his/her pure water potions are just placebos, but can't admit it, as this would destroy their effect!
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219. Comment #74017 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 4:49 am
Janus (post 196, or #73571):Part 5: Is it theism versus naturalism, or theism versus science?
Correct, but irrelevant. Above I was discussing naturalism, not science.As far as I can see the only thing that naturalism per se produces is a long list of hard problems, paradoxes, and wildly complex, implausible and mutually contradictory suggestions about how reality is.On the contrary, the more we learn about the universe, the more it looks like everything is governed by the same set of rules, and that more complex phenomena emerge from this unique set of rules. Sociology reduces to psychology which reduces to biology which reduces to chemistry which reduces to physics.
But of course the reason that scientific inquiry is such a long and difficult process, while theism provides such an easy explanation for everything [snip]But we are not comparing science with theism; that would be like comparing apples with oranges. Science models phenomena, and therefore scientific knowledge is very useful for controlling phenomena and hence for curing illness or for quickly transporting us around. We agree on that. Science is really really great. But here we are comparing two competing ontological views about how the reality that produces all of our experience of life (including the phenomena that science so successfully studies) actually is. We are comparing two ontological belief systems: theism and naturalism. We are not comparing theism with science, for this makes no sense. Why not? Because theism makes claims about reality, and science makes claims about phenomena. And reality and phenomena are completely distinct things, I trust you see that.
Or maybe not. Here is I think where the confusion lies: When many a naturalist sees the moon the naturalist doesn't only think "I see the moon" (a phenomenal experience) but also "that's the moon out there which I see" (an ontological claim). In other words the naturalist conflates the phenomenon of experiencing the sight of the moon with the ontological premise that there is a moon out there producing this sight. And that's OK, it's a very powerful intuition. We all by the age of three make sense of our experience thinking this same way: We explain the fact that we see some thing in front of us by hypothesizing that that thing pretty much like we see it is really there in front of us. Fine. But then even a little study of philosophy teaches that this kind of thinking is in fact illusory. Many things we see, for example colorful things, are not really there in front of us but are only phenomenal, and (as a naturalist would say) are created in our brain. And our phenomenal experience of colors is only one obvious example. Modern physics has advanced so far in its study of phenomena that it is clear by now to knowledgeable naturalists that physical reality can be nothing like what we see around us. So, in conclusion: We all agree about phenomena (because we all experience life pretty much the same), and we all agree about the order that science discovers in these phenomena. Our disagreement is about the kind of objective reality out there that produces these phenomena. According to naturalism reality is fundamentally material and driven by mechanical laws, whereas according to theism reality is fundamentally spiritual and driven by personal intent. It's true that naturalism is very intuitive, after all reality around us does seem at plain sight to be material and mechanical. And it's true that theism is a more sophisticated hypothesis (Dawkins would say "more complex" hypothesis ;-) as it is true that theism was born out of superstition, and that many theists even today say stupid things some of which moreover contradict scientific knowledge (as do many non-theists by the way). But in the end of the day the fact remains that we can only compare apples with apples, namely theism with naturalism, and not apples with oranges, theism with science.
Finally, as there are many different naturalistic views (naturalists don't even agree if there is one universe or many, or if random events in our own universe exist), as well as many different theistic views (I don't need to give examples), it only makes sense to compare what one judges are the best theistic and naturalistic views. To single out the clearly more naive theistic views (virgin birth etc) as the "new atheists" consistently do is really a pathetic exercise in strawman building. Think of it: if naturalism were really so clearly superior to theism, why do new atheism authors find it so expedient to single out the most naive theistic views? Who cares about the last immoral tidbit they fish out of the Bible I mean who interested in ontological truth really cares about ancient mythology? Beyond all its logical fallacies, I find that much of TGD's content insults its readers' intelligence too.
I don't know what you are talking about. The theist easily explains why the fundamental physical constants are fine-tuned for life by pointing out that God designed the universe with the intent to create life.You do see that the fine-tuning of the fundamental constants does not represent any difficulty whatsoever for the intellect of theists.It only looks like as though it represents no difficulty for supernaturalists because they are not even trying to solve the problem. They have given up.
As for fine-tuning not being a scientific problem, the simple fact that cosmologists have proposed scientific hypotheses to explain fine-tuning disproves that little bit of nonsense.What scientific hypotheses are these?
It doesn't prove that fine-tuning can be explained by science in practice (there might not be enough evidence, for instance), but it does prove that it can be explained in principle.You probably mean the "multiverse" idea of many parallel universes. But that's not a scientific hypothesis, because there exists no evidence for it and because it is by definition not testable (for these parallel universes do not interact with ours). So the multiverse is not a scientific hypothesis because science is supposed to be about objective evidence and testability. Rather, the existence of parallel universes is an ontological hypothesis proposed by naturalists who can't find any better way to solve this particular problem for naturalism but to propose the existence of invisible entities. Sounds a little like claiming the existence of invisible pink unicorns, doesn't it, only now they are clothed in scientifically sounding talk.
Naturalism is a necessary methodological assumption of science.Suppose that reality consists of a supernatural (and proud of it) God directly feeding us each of our experiences, including the phenomena that science studies. Suppose just for a moment that reality is like that. How exactly would such a reality hamper scientific investigation? But if it doesn't then clearly naturalism is not a "necessary methodological assumption"? (Incidentally I hope you are not meaning "methodological naturalism" which means the same as "scientific method" and which is indeed what science uses, but which has also nothing to do with naturalism's view of reality except, for the clever re-use of "naturalism" in its name.)
In other words, the goal of science is to understand realityThat's what naturalists wish. But in fact the goal of science is to model phenomena, as evidenced by the fact that that's what science actually does. Some scientists have tried to clarify this point, for example a terse statement strongly attributed to Niehls Bohr says: "It is wrong to think that the task of physics is to find out how nature is." But I will agree that most scientists, certainly Dawkins, do believe that science's job is to describe reality.
It's precisely how most people understand the concept of designer. To cause something is not to design something. To cause something is to be responsible for an event, to design something is to be responsible for its order and complexity.So you find a significant difference between somebody causing something complex and designing something complex. Well I don't. So let me agree with your meaning of "design" and concede that God did not design the universe as it is, but only caused it to be as it is.
But an intelligent being is only the designer of that which it has designed. It is not the designer of something that happened by itself even if the intelligent being started the process.Actually you are making a good point I think. It's not like God directly designed every little thing. For example I have a slightly crooked nose; what a relief to know that God did not actually design it that way :-)
--
I have enjoyed our discussion so far Janus, but please don't think you have to answer to every little thing I wrote. But feel free to concentrate on what you think is more important, or for that matter to ignore me completely.
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220. Comment #74021 by Geraint on September 27, 2007 at 4:53 am
What amazes me is how some of the philosophers who've reviewed TGD (Plantinga included, apparently) fail utterly to grasp the distinction between a logical deduction from premises and an inference from data. It seems to me that they want Dawkins to play their game of arguing from premises, when this seam of reasoning about gods has been pretty exhaustively mined out. They ignore the fact that Dawkins hasn't chosen to do this, and accuse him of doing what they think he wants to do incorrectly. Yes, we can see it all boils down to the premises you choose under their methods: nothing is proved, and Dawkins makes that point clearly. That's the reason for trying to make a statistical or probabilistic inference instead.If one viewpoint requires the data we observe - say, that science works and that no miracles happen - while another merely allows those data, then that is evidence for the first viewpoint. Not proof, but as has been rehashed again and again, we can't expect proof. I don't think the existence of consciousness helps the argument for theism in this fashion, unless one can argue that conscious inhabitants are a necessary part of any theistic universe.
Statistical inference from data is something scientists do every day but which is unfamiliar to many other people, philosphers included, clearly. Maybe that's why Dawkins' argument is so often misunderstood.
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221. Comment #74023 by epeeist on September 27, 2007 at 4:59 am
Comment #74021 by Geraint
What amazes me is how some of the philosophers who've reviewed TGD (Plantinga included, apparently) fail utterly to grasp the distinction between a logical deduction from premises and an inference from data.
Or to put it another way:
"Argumentation cannot suffice for the discovery of new work, since the subtlety of Nature is greater many times than the subtlety of argument"
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222. Comment #74029 by steve99 on September 27, 2007 at 5:08 am
But in fact the goal of science is to model phenomena, as evidenced by the fact that that's what science actually does.
Ah. I see your problem. You are confusing the goal with the tools.
Science uses modeling phenomena as one tool for studying reality, but so say that this is the 'goal' is as mistaken as to say that the point of most people turning at an airport is to 'get on a plane', whereas in fact they go to an airport to end up somewhere. Modeling is part of the process that helps us on the journey....
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223. Comment #74032 by Geraint on September 27, 2007 at 5:19 am
Comment #74023 by epeeistHehe. There's a good reason Bacon's standing there next to Newton in Trinity College chapel.
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224. Comment #74090 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 7:47 am
Dr Benway (post 198, or #73618):Dianelos: Dawkins in TGD claims that all these designers of our universe "almost certainly" do not exist.Are you are saying the Dawkins 747 argument was designed to refute the thesis that a designer is necessary? Well Darwinism refutes that thesis pretty unequivocally and on scientific grounds, so why would the world need Dawkins's philosophical argument on top? And why does Dawkins himself title the relevant chapter "Why there almost certainly is no [designer]", if his argument was only designed to show something much weaker, namely that a designer is not necessary? That makes no sense Dr Benway. I think it's clear that Dawkins really fancied that he had discovered an "ananswerable" argument that that went much further than Darwinism, and that showed that a designer almost certainly does not exist.
Me: Do you understand the point that argument was designed to refute?
Dianelos: ** crickets chirping **
Me: Necessity. The argument that a designer is necessary.
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225. Comment #74092 by irate_atheist on September 27, 2007 at 8:04 am
Dianelos - Just face it mate, you're talking a load of waffle and making it up as you go. You confuse opinion with fact and ideas with evidence. Period. Now go and have a lie down in a quiet, dark room for a couple of hours. Trust me, you'll feel better for it.
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226. Comment #74099 by _J_ on September 27, 2007 at 8:25 am
Dianelos,Shooting from the hip (I've lent my copy of TGD out):
- the original 747 argument suggests that a designer is necessary for life to have emerged.
- Dawkins' response to the 747 argument demonstrates, as Dr Benway describes, that a conscious designer is not a necessity. It does so by explaining a non-designer based alternative.
- the 747 argument is not the only argument in the chapter of TGD called "Why there almost certainly is no god". (Or, at least - as I'm remembering this from a year ago - it shouldn't be.) Having established that a designer is not required, our consideration of the likelihood of one then kicks in.
- Dawkins also has spent seven of his nine books explaining the nature of the system that he proposes as an alternative to the designer, where we are talking about the neo-Darwinian evolution of life. The evidence for this is overwhelming. He has also at times commented on various theories regarding the initial origins of life. These latter theories may strike you as likely to be correct to a greater or lesser degree. But, even if you're pretty sceptical...
- ...Dr Benway's 'what am I holding my coffee in?' analogy does a good job* of making clear the point that, if you have two possible sources of an explanation, where one of those sources falls squarely within the field of things that are known to exist, whilst the other relies wholly on your powers of invention, the former source is the logical thing to regard as probably true.
[*Notwithstanding your subsequent attempt to re-write the analogy into something you preferred the meaning of.]
As for your comment:
Well Darwinism refutes that thesis pretty unequivocally and on scientific grounds, so why would the world need Dawkins's philosophical argument on top?
Because, very clearly, not everybody in the world got the point from Darwinism alone. Equally clearly, a great number of people still don't get it, even with the addition of the 747 argument and much else besides. Arguing from the ignorance of others does not persuade.
Perhaps I'm misremembering TGD, and the chapter in question really is nothing more than a repetition of the 747 argument stretched way too thing and forced to suggest things that it doesn't. I doubt this very strongly, but even if it's so, the rubbishness of one chapter of TGD does nothing to invalidate the perfectly good arguments that it could have, and should have, contained.
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227. Comment #74104 by Dianelos Georgoudis on September 27, 2007 at 8:39 am
Dr Benway (post 202, or #73640):"Naturalism" as you use the term = "atheism."Right, because I don't know of any naturalistic worldview that is not also atheistic, nor of any atheistic worldview that is not also naturalistic. But if you see any difference please let me know.
We [atheists] don't believe in entities without evidence.Probably implying that theists do that. If so that's just one more mythological belief that naturalists entertain. Well, be my guest and believe that if you feel like it.
Or perhaps you are playing with words pretending there is no difference between "objective evidence" and "evidence". Because if by "evidence" you mean "objective evidence" then it's true that there is none for theism but then there is none for naturalism either.
Or perhaps you are playing with words pretending that what atheism "really" means is not what most people and dictionaries and published atheist philosophers actually mean, but rather means "lack of belief in God" for which indeed no evidence of any kind is needed. If so I have always wondered how an atheist actually knows whether he or she is an atheist. If you think about it you'll see that according to that definition to actually say "I am an atheist" is self-negating. Why? Because before knowing that you are an atheist in that sense you must have thought about whether you lack belief in God, and if so you must have thought what "belief in God" means in the first place, but if you actually thought what "belief in God" means you will have formed at least some belief about God so you can't truly lack such belief :-) In other words you cannot ascertain that you lack belief in the existence of God without actually thinking about God's existence and therefore forming some belief about it. I find it remarkable how atheists always manage to get themselves in such confusing states of mind when playing with words. Why not have the intellectual honesty and come out and say: "Yes, I believe no gods exist for such and such reason". I may be criticizing Dawkins for his philosophical naiveté and many logical fallacies, but at least he stands his ground and does not hide behind word-games.
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228. Comment #74107 by kabaman on September 27, 2007 at 8:43 am
I note that Skinner's positive position towards some of what Dawkins has said i.e an invitation for believers to question exactly what they really think God is, is no bad thing.I must say though that the whole realm of theology just seems like a gigantic diversiony tactic which contributes nothing useful but allows its ranks to feel like they've got some genuine credibility behind their circular arguments.
If you have to have an IQ of 150 and have studied theology for five years or more to prove any ability to understand and hence comment on God - then theologians everywhere should be arguing for the bar to be raised very high before anyone is allowed to gain admission to places like churches.
Why exactly should only non-believers be expected to waste valuable time studying theology - when apparant believers are not required to?
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229. Comment #74109 by steve99 on September 27, 2007 at 8:53 am
Are you are saying the Dawkins 747 argument was designed to refute the thesis that a designer is necessary? Well Darwinism refutes that thesis pretty unequivocally and on scientific grounds, so why would the world need Dawkins's philosophical argument on top?
If I may add something....
Dawkins' 747 argument is actually rather subtle. The argument of spontaneous 747 formation being unlikely was (almost certainly) used by Fred Hoyle as an argument against the formation of life. We know that argument is nonsense, as there are many ideas about how life could form in simple stages. Most sensible theologists have given up the idea of requiring a creator for life, and have moved back to the idea of a creator for the Universe.
When we come on to Universe formation, we aren't even sure if the 747 idea (that we have to explain something complex) is even appropriate. The initial state of the Universe was almost certainly very simple. What some people think we seem to need is an explanation for some fine-tuning of constants, but in multiverse theories even this is unnecessary.
What Dawkins is doing is, I believe, not claiming that there really is any complexity that needs to be explained.... what he is doing is saying that even if you were to assume that there was complexity, then invoking a creator is no useful explanation.
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230. Comment #74112 by _J_ on September 27, 2007 at 9:06 am
DianelosBecause if by "evidence" you mean "objective evidence" then it's true that there is none for theism but then there is none for naturalism either.
Still this unworkable polarisation? Strictly speaking, there is no such thing as objective evidence. Fine. Let's be childish and bin the word 'objective' entirely, then. So, all we have is a sea of subjectivity.
So, how can I judge the difference between, say, the risk of my being run over if I cross the road in front of a speeding truck, and the risk of my being eaten by the giant invisible pterodactyl that may even now be inches behind me if I don't make a run for it?
Because there are degrees of objectivity, aren't there, Dianelos? We've been over and over and over this, haven't we, Dianelos? Yet you insist on treating one man's tried and tested conclusions and another's flight of fancy as empirically equivalent. Well, I can see how that helps your argument, but not why you think it will encourage anyone else to take it seriously.
If you think about it you'll see that according to that definition to actually say "I am an atheist" is self-negating. Why? Because before knowing that you are an atheist in that sense you must have thought about whether you lack belief in God, and if so you must have thought what "belief in God" means in the first place, but if you actually thought what "belief in God" means you will have formed at least some belief about God so you can't truly lack such belief :-)
Oh, for crying out loud, Dianelos, 'lack of belief in God' is just economical shorthand for 'lack of belief in the existence of God', as you are fully capable of apprehending. Of course there are some beliefs involved - belief that the word 'god' has some meaning in the English language, for example. Why do you whisk up these pointless little eddies of semantic irrelevance?
'Belief' is one of those awkward words that, rather like 'faith', is tainted by common usage in contexts where it is silently accompanied by 'without good evidence'. Yes, we sometimes linguistically trip ourselves up trying to tiptoe around stigmatised words. Strangely, though, most of us don't find this a barrier to communication.
If it makes you happier, my particular atheism amounts to 'I believe that it is far more likely that no gods exist than that they do, based on my observations so far.' I would place the border between 'sceptical agnostic' and 'mild/weak atheist' at around the point where people, when asked if there's a god, stop saying 'I really don't know, but I'd guess not at a push', and start saying 'I think probably not, but I don't know for sure'.
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231. Comment #74117 by Philip1978 on September 27, 2007 at 9:26 am
Dear goodness, I am getting paranoid, I am either for the roasting pot in hell for being a naughty atheist, the small men in my tv may go on strike, David Robertson's Elephant might have a sudden change of fridge at any moment and now this giant invisible pterodactyl to add to my problems!! I think I will go further than J on the belief part and say I am convinced there is no God/there are no Gods until I am given proper evidence to say otherwise. Surely that covers everything?
Yikes I hear flapping wings......
Philip
201. Comment #73640 by Dr Benway on September 25, 2007 at 4:59 pm
A 100% supernatural God would be undetectable. A God who interacts with nature in some manner ought to leave evidence of this interaction within nature. Anyone claiming that an interactive God exists holds the burden of proof.
You keep trying to shift the burden of proof to the non-believers. This is cheating.
Cheaters never prosper.
Your pants are on fire.
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