Tag: Arguments for theism

  • Beliefs can be more or less reasonable

    Sigurd Jorsalfar pointed out that Stephen Law has a recent post related to this subject of more and less reasonable beliefs.

    Beliefs can be more or less reasonable. There is, if you like, a scale of reasonableness on which beliefs may be located. Unfortunately, that reasonableness is a matter of degree is often overlooked. It’s sometimes assumed that if neither a belief A, nor its denial B, are conclusively “proved”, then the two beliefs must be more or less equally reasonable or unreasonable. As we will see, this assumption is false.

    I suspect that happens more with discussions of theism and atheism than with any other kind of discussion, because it’s so damn convenient. We know that most theists don’t like being told that their beliefs aren’t very reasonable, so it’s nice to have reasons for not saying that. There are already reasons based on tact and the like, but they don’t apply to all situations. They don’t apply for instance to situations in which frank, open discussion is expected and taken for granted and freely engaged in. That’s probably why there’s so much obfuscation of the “better or worse reasons” aspect of the god/no god debates.

    Of course, it’s contentious where some beliefs lie. Take belief in the existence of God, for example. Some consider belief God is no more reasonable than belief in fairies. Others believe it is fairly reasonable – at least as reasonable as, say, belief in extra-terrestrial intelligence. Those who claim to have had direct experience of God, or who think miracles and so on constitute fairly good evidence that God exists, may place belief fairly high up on the scale (even while acknowledging that their belief is not “proved”).

    But they’ll be wrong.

    Having set up the scale of reasonableness, let’s now look at a common mistake people make when assessing the reasonableness of a belief.

    …

    Here’s a philosophical example. Even if we cannot conclusively prove either that God does exist or that he doesn’t, it doesn’t follow that the belief that God exists is just as reasonable or unreasonable as the belief that he doesn’t. It might still be the case that there are very good grounds for supposing God exists, and little reason to suppose he doesn’t. In which case it is far more reasonable to believe in God than it is to deny his existence. Conversely, there might be powerful evidence God doesn’t exist, and little reason to suppose he does. In which case atheism may be far more reasonable. We should not allow the fact that neither belief can be conclusively proved to obscure the fact that one belief might be far more reasonable than the other.

    [We also, by the way, shouldn’t refer to “God” as “he” since that implies some knowledge about “God” that is also not reasonable to consider “knowledge.”]

    [I altered the last sentence in the quoted passage, because there was what I think was a stray “not” in it that (of course) reversed the meaning. I reported the (I think) typo in a comment there.]

    Unfortunately, theists sometimes respond to atheist arguments by pointing out the atheist has not conclusively proved there is no God, as if that showed belief in God must be fairly reasonable after all. Actually, even if the atheist can’t conclusively prove there is no God, they might still succeed in showing that belief in God is very unreasonable indeed – perhaps even as unreasonable as belief in fairies.

    And by the same token, theists and accommodating atheists sometimes respond to atheist arguments by pointing out the atheist doesn’t know there is no god. As I said in the two sheds post, that’s true as far as it goes, but it doesn’t go all that far. The atheist has plenty of good reasons to think god doesn’t exist, and I don’t know of any good reasons to think god does exist. If there are good reasons to think god exists, please, somebody present them.

     

  • Squaring the circle

    Part 2 of Julian’s cunning plan. His suggested stripped-down religion isn’t finding many takers.

    But since the main purpose of posting my articles of 21st-century faithwas to find out just how many could support them, the project is not worthless if we find out the answer is hardly anyone at all.

    To recap, there’s a lot of complaint that “new atheist” criticisms of the supernatural aspects of religion miss the point. If that’s true, then it should be possible both to set the atheists straight and establish the credibility of religion by clearly stating what faith without silly, primitive beliefs looks like.

    Sure! You bet. I’ve always said so (provided we use the word “religion” and don’t use the word “faith” – it was a mistake to shift from the former to the latter there). Religion without silly, primitive beliefs looks like people joining together to participate in a ceremony or ritual. I haven’t a word to say against it (assuming the ritual doesn’t include elements like animal or child or woman sacrifice or other kinds of harm).

    The articles aim to set out what is required for reasonable faith in the most general, minimal terms possible. Then, by seeing how many people can agree with them, we can ascertain whether or not there is real and widespread support for a form of religion that avoids the new atheism’s harshest charges.

    Here’s my prediction: no, there isn’t, not widespread. The fans of this line wildly exaggerate how widespread the support for it is. They talk as if it were obvious, and mainstream, and central. But it’s the doctrinal kind of religion that’s gaining adherents, not the “reasonable faith” that Julian has in mind.

    Preliminary feedback is not encouraging. Before posting the articles I approached a few commentators for their opinions.

    Top of the list was Karen Armstrong, since she has been the most prominent advocate of seeing religion as mythos not logos: roughly speaking, as about values and practices, not beliefs about what exists or has happened on earth or beyond. So not surprisingly she agreed with the first article, which asserts that creeds or factual assertions are at most secondary and often irrelevant to religion. She also agreed, with some reservations about the wording, with the second, that religious belief does not, and should not, require the belief that any supernatural events have occurred here on Earth, and the third, that religions are not crypto- or proto-sciences.

    Although she said that she was with me on “religious texts are the creation of the human intellect and imagination”, she said “your wording is prohibitive”, because it “would antagonise a lot of people. It is too bald and needs nuance. There needs to be some acknowledgement that the ‘supernatural being’ is only a symbol of transcendence – something that many religious people understand intuitively – even though they might not express it explicitly. That religious language is essentially symbolic – pointing beyond itself to what lies beyond speech and concepts”.

    In other words you have to do what Armstrong does: bullshit and obfuscate. You have to have it both ways. You have to talk piffle about a symbol of transcendence while at the same time insisting that religion is practice not doctrine. You have to avoid antagonizing people, you have to say things that are not “too bald,” you have to add lashings of nuance so that almost everybody can recognize her/his own brand of religion and go home happy. You have to refuse to be clear and understandable, and instead blow a lot of smoke so that all can win, all can have prizes.

    Mark Vernon thought the wording could be better. Massimo Pigliucci said it’s ok but he didn’t see the point. John Gray said hell yes but wouldn’t sign anything.

    Qualified support, then, but only from a confirmed atheist who is unusually supportive of religion, an agnostic ex-priest, an ecumenical former nun who has rejected all dogma, and another atheist.

    It’s like discovering that central state socialism has its defenders, it’s just that none are actual central state socialists. In this case, the worry is that people who do not at all represent real, existing religion are defending it by appealing to characteristics it doesn’t actually have.

    Exactly – and this is what the gnu atheists have been saying all along, and getting yelled at for saying. But we were right. Julian can’t get any takers.

    If the articles of faith are to provide any hope of establishing the existence of the kind of reasonable faith I think should be possible, we need to get support for them from people who are actually actively and self-consciously religious.

    So far, that has not been forthcoming. Theo Hobson, for example, a self-described “liberal” theologian, says: “I’m afraid I don’t really sympathise with this. Christianity can’t be reformed by the neat excision of the ‘irrational’/supernatural. It is rooted in worship of Jesus as divine – the ‘creed’ side is an expression of this.”

    Nick Spencer, research director at the eminently reasonable public theology thinktank Theos, was even clearer in his rejection, saying, for instance: “Although religious texts are indeed created by human intellect and imagination, that doesn’t mean they can’t be taken as expressing the thoughts of the divine … I don’t see what’s left of the Abrahamics if you do take this out of the equation in this way”. Spencer also provides little hope of finding too many other supporters out there, adding that “there would be precious few Christians I know … who could sign up to all your points. To take just the most obvious example: according to mainstream Christian thought, Christianity is founded on a belief in the physical resurrection.”

    Giles Fraser, even though he is a radical cleric who recently resigned as canon chancellor of St Paul’s Cathedral, says this is “tricky” and “I’m not sure I can assent to any of these. Which is not to say that I agree with their opposite either. These are just not the terms in which I do God.”

    [Chorus] This is what the gnu atheists have been saying all along. Religion really is religion, theism really is theism. They aren’t kidding. They aren’t secretly atheists who just like to go sit with the neighbors of a Sunday morning.

    One source of resistance is that the articles are expressed as beliefs when for many, the whole point is that we need to move away from putting beliefs at the centre. Hence Gray would prefer the second article to talk of “religious practice” not “religious belief”, while Hobson says “believing in God” is “rather unhelpful” and that it’s “better to talk of ‘doing God’,” which is just the phrase Fraser used when expressing his reservations.

    But I’m afraid I find this all too evasive.

    So do I. That word is one of the most tattered and worn in my vocabulary, I give it so much use.

    Julian remains optimistic though.

    However, even if this middle path does vanish, that does leave one intriguing possibility open. Could it be that the common ground I’m looking for is not one centred on belief at all, but something else, such as a commitment to certain values around enquiry and coexistence? I think it might and it’s a possibility I hope to come back to in due course.

    Does one really look to people who have supernatural beliefs for a commitment to “values around inquiry”? I don’t. I think people who have supernatural beliefs are more committed to their supernatural beliefs than they are to values around inquiry. That’s why I’m not a fan of the supernatural beliefs.

     

     

  • Lulu is right

    I read a very fun item yesterday, thanks to a reader who sent me the link. It’s on a site called, with disarming simplicity, Atheism is False. It has a long list of names under the title “Answering Critics”; I look forward to reading each one, because they should be entertaining. ”Answering Critics” is an oddly misleading title, since it implies that each item actually answers critics when in fact, judging by the one I’ve read so far, each item disagrees with people who wrote something that has nothing to do with Atheism is False or its author, David Reuben Stone. The one I’ve read so far is about Me, and my essay in 50 Voices of Disbelief. It’s not very convincing.

    Benson’s brief discussion is misplaced from the very beginning.  Benson claims that the definition of “God” includes the belief that God is a supernatural being about whom no one knows anything (p. 23).

    No, that’s not quite right, I say that’s a tacit part of the definition of god. The claim is also, of course, slightly facetious, in the way the whole essay is. I think that aspect may have escaped David Reuben Stone’s notice. He goes on earnestly to explain that I have it all wrong.

    In response, there is no reason to accept that all theists believe that no one knows anything about God.  Quite the contrary.  Most theists appear to claim to have knowledge of the nature of God, at least to some extent.

    Oh I know that – I know most theists appear to claim to have knowledge of the nature of God, at least to some extent. Notice all the qualifications, and how they inadvertently agree with exactly what I said (or implied): people claim to have knowledge about god, sort of, but in fact they don’t. That.was.the.point.

    Benson fails to respond to the compelling basis for justification of theistic belief as outlined in my latest updated defense of theism in David Reuben Stone (2010), The Loftus Delusion: Why Atheism Fails and Messianic Israelism Prevails, Morrisville, NC: Lulu Press.

    I laughed when I read that, but figured it was a mistake in phrasing – he didn’t actually mean to say I failed to respond specifically to his latest updated defense of theism. Reading on, though, I realized he meant exactly that. He’s right: I failed to respond to it, on account of how I hadn’t read it. (Not surprisingly, since I wrote the essay in 2008.)

    …the Benson quote in the above paragraph might even more accurately be interpreted such that Benson chooses to reject God not due to insufficient evidence, but due to Benson’s frustration that God has chosen to reveal Himself with a measure of hiddenness.  It’s like this: “God, you didn’t do what I wanted you to do, so even though you exist, I reject you anyway.”  In response, it’s not our place as creatures to tell the Creator what to do or how to do it.

    Oh yes it is. That too is my point. Yes it damn well is. Yes if god made us and made everything the way it is, it damn well is our place to tell god, “hey this sucks in a million ways, you fiendish bastard.” This business of saying “god is god because god is god and we have no right to say the service stinks” is slavish and anti-human, and I despise it. Stone’s response is the very idea I’m attacking.

    Also, is God really hidden?  It could be that God is actually maximally revealed, given the nature of the reality of our world.  In fact, my ACPO metaphysics establishes that all physical events (including all physical events described by the laws of physics) not caused by human persons are caused by God.  It folows that we see evidence of God’s existence every day, with every rising of the sun, with every falling rain drop, with every beat of one’s heart.  God’s existence is plainly evident to those willing to see it.  Sadly, light has gone out into the world, but those who are evil choose to reject that light and remain in darkness.

    One, sure, it could be, but there’s no reason to think so, and plenty of reason not to. And nothing follows from a “could be” like that, so it certainly doesn’t follow that we see evidence of God’s existence every day, with every fart of the dog. Two, note that he called me evil.

    Benson assumes God makes no personal appearances (p. 25).  No proof of this claim is provided.

    Benson assumes God sends no authenticated messages (p. 25).  Again, no proof is provided.

    Burden of proof, amigo.

    Benson thinks it is “too convenient” that a limited measure of knowledge of the nature of God could be possessed by those who do not fully understand God’s ways (p.25).  In response, there is no reason to presuppose a possibly existing God would not choose to reveal Himself such that a limited measure of knowledge of the nature of God could be possessed by those who do not fully understand God’s ways.  Thus, we should not immediately reject this possibility because it is “too convenient”.  Rather, we should investigate the nature of the case for possibly existing Gods who might choose to provide divine revelation in this way.  Benson’s “too convenient” response is a poor excuse for failing to properly analyze the case for theism as justified in my latest book.

    That’s the part where I realized he really did mean I hadn’t responded to him, specifically, not just to claims that he and others make. So something I said is a poor excuse for not responding to something written after I wrote the piece in which I didn’t respond. (Plus the part about not responding because I’d never heard of him or his book.)

    Benson refers to lack of evidence for God’s existence (p. 26), but fails to respond to my case for theism. Thus, we may conclude that Benson’s analysis is now obsolete and unjustified.

    HAhahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.

    I love that.

    (And who’s “we,” bub?)

    We may agree with Benson that it is good to reject a God who wants us to reject proper methods of critical inquiry (p. 26).  However, the case for theism may be made consistent with this rejection.  That is, we may establish the existence of God via critical inquiry.  So, Benson has failed to justify rejection of theistic belief.

    Benson claims a possibly existing God has no right to blame people who reject theism (p. 27).  In response, proponents of Benson’s position now have no right to blame God for a lack of theistic evidence, given their knowledge of my case for theism justified in Stone (2010).

    Wheee!

    See why I look forward to reading more?