Way Beyond Atheism: God Does Not (Not) Exist

[DavidRoss]

Way Beyond Atheism: God Does Not (Not) Exist
Why Richard Dawkins is a fundamentalist, and why most atheists reject far too little
By Paul Wallace

http://www.religiondispatches.org/archive/atheologies/3820/way_beyond_atheism:_god_does_not_%28not%29_exist/

[Gurn Blanston]

Oh, thanks, Dave.

[Brian]

1. Here we go with one of these threads again!
2. To the extent to which commenters are able to focus their comments on the article linked, I do in fact look forward to reading this thread.
3. The Terry Eagleton Dawkins take-down linked to by that article is much more satisfying, for me, but that's because I can sort of cheer him on from the sidelines rather than do mental battle with the ideas provided.
4. Speaking of which, I'm not quite smart enough to be able to reply to the linked article just yet. I'm going to bookmark it and read it a few more times, closely/critically, just to take in the ideas and see how my brain feels about them. A longer reply may or may not be forthcoming.
5. My initial suspicion is that its primary target is the dogmatic belief in science as mechanism for knowing, and I don't think that I am guilty of such a thing because my unbelief is really not too concerned with science. But it is concerned - as all human lives and human philosophies need to be - with how to know, or how to understand the surrounding world. So I need to read the article more carefully to see where exactly he draws the borderlines and where the traps of dogma are set.
6. Thanks, David! 

[MN Dave]

Good luck!

[DavidW]

Most of the punchline seems to focus around the misconception that most atheists were once Christians and gave it up.  They're not shopping around for another religion, they denounce all religions equally.

The author also stipulates a hierarchy, that higher degrees of negation are increasingly sophisticated, but I don't think that sophistry = insight, and somehow atheist philosophy is lacking in depth simply for lacking in sophistry seems to be assumed by the author but is clearly wrong.

Anyway this is just another gasbag playing games with words, it was a waste of my time.

[Brian]

Anyway this is just another gasbag playing games with words, it was a waste of my time.

I'm training for a master's degree and about to pursue a PhD, and all my mentors say this is not an option. 
Well, except when dealing with Harold Bloom. They all hate Harold Bloom.

[Antoine Marchand]

I'm training for a master's degree and about to pursue a PhD, and all my mentors say this is not an option. 

Well, one of the merits of a good education should be to allow to think for yourself.

Believe on me, Brian, this is not a passive-agressive post; I just couldn't refrain from writing this stupid idea. 

[Antoine Marchand]

I believe you, if anything, my post was the more aggressive one, since I was implying that in the academic world, a lot of people get and keep jobs because you have to pay attention to "gasbags playing with words."

I know, I know. The smile on your post was eloquent enough, so it was unnecessary to read behind the words... 

[Daverz]

I think the author is creating a strawman argument.  For example

"What is at issue here is, Dawkins refuses to examine the ground on which he stands: science itself. That is, Dawkins may change his mind about evolution, but nothing will change his mind about science. He will never question—in a serious way—the sufficiency of science as a guide to truth. Perhaps he thinks the success of science makes it a self-evident choice when it comes to grounding his worldview; what he does not and will not consider is the very real possibility that science is so successful precisely because it is so limited. To reject this possibility out-of-hand is nothing but intellectual laziness. Dawkins is dogmatically rigid and fixed in place. He is a fundamentalist."

There are a few too many claims there about what Dawkins will or will not seriously question or consider or has not seriously questioned or considered for me to take seriously.

Some of the rest seems like a variant of the Coutier's Reply.

I haven't read The God Delusion, though.  (I don't think I'm really the audience for the book.  I'm more interested in Dawkins's pop-biology books.  But  I may have it around in a box of my father's books.)

[DavidW]

Some of the rest seems like a variant of the Coutier's Reply.

That sounds dead on to me, especially what the writer thought of as interesting or serious.

[Bogey]

"Faith is trust or commitment to what you think is true.  Why a person thinks Christianity is true may differ from individual to individual. For one person, it might be because God speaks to his heart and produces in him a conviction..... I certainly believe this is valid.  To another person, though, it may be more hardheaded intellectual exploration of the evidence that leads him to the same conclusion.  But neither comes to faith until he makes that act of trust or commitment to what he thinks is true." -William Lane Craig from the book, which I am currently reading, The Case for Faith by Lee Strobel. 

I need to update my Good Reads page.

or, more simply put:

"Don't expect faith to clear things up for you.  It is trust, not certainty." (Flannery O'Connor)

....and do not always expect faith to be found easily, either.  Many of us will not be struck with it like St. Paul.  As Thomas Merton points out, if you find God easily, perhaps it is not God you found.

[greg]

What about the possibility that God does not not not exist?...


(of course, we can only go so long until we get another one of these threads, eh?) 

[(poco) Sforzando]

Most of the punchline seems to focus around the misconception that most atheists were once Christians and gave it up.

Quite so. I was once a Jew and gave it up.

[snyprrr]

....zzzzZZZZzzzzz......

             .......zzzzzZZZZZZzzz.......

                                         ....zzzzZZZZZzzzzz.......

[MishaK]

Most of the punchline seems to focus around the misconception that most atheists were once Christians and gave it up.  They're not shopping around for another religion, they denounce all religions equally.

The author also stipulates a hierarchy, that higher degrees of negation are increasingly sophisticated, but I don't think that sophistry = insight, and somehow atheist philosophy is lacking in depth simply for lacking in sophistry seems to be assumed by the author but is clearly wrong.

Anyway this is just another gasbag playing games with words, it was a waste of my time.

This largely sums it up. The author further perpetrates some logical sleights of hand by supposing that one particular argument from Dawkins' book contains the entirety of his conception of theology, when in fact that one argument is merely a counterargument in response to the nonsense offered up by some creatoinists. There is indeed a veritable army of straw men marching around that article.

The fundamental problem with all these atheists vs. theists debates, and why they will continue to be pointless, is that it boils down to this:

1. Faith, by definition is not an evidence-based construct. If it were otherwise, it would not be faith. You need to make a leap of faith where the evidence is insufficient to provide a complete picture of that which you wish to understand. Where the evidence is sufficient, you do not need faith.

2. Conversely, science is intolerant of leaps of faith. Where the evidence is insufficient to support a claim to truth, no hypothesis can be stustained. Scientific rigor demands that no theory unupported by hard evidence be accepted.

3. 1 and 2 were able to coexist just fine for centuries, as long as science was preoccupied with small matters, leaving the universal questions to religion. But once science gained the capacity to factually contradict specifc claims of foundational religious texts, the trouble began.

4. This trouble has been building by the ongoing parallel education systems of public secular science education and sunday/religious schools. The apparent contradictions between literal theology and science are too much to handle for the feeble-minded among the flock of believers. They are not content with taking away the highly useful and instructive moral and social lessons of theology. No! They have an emotional need to prove the truthfulness of their faith to those who do not believe it, using science and logic, or what they perceive to be such.

5. This is from the outset designed to fail for the simple reason that it ignores the axiom described in 1. above. If hard evidence in support of your faith exists - if indeed the flood can be proven to have happened using archaeological evidence, etc. - then your saying "I believe" is a completely meaningless utterance. It takes no faith to believe uncontrovertible evidence. Your God would not be asking you for a courageous leap of faith if it were that easy! If confirming your faith just involved finding the right rocks to look at and the right theologian to explain their meaning, then the Christian God would hardly have dreamt up the kind of brutal separation of believers and non-believers in the final judgement that the Bible describes. What is the point of that if no leap of faith is involved and evidence corroborating all aspects of the Bible is freely available for all who look? Why would God reward anyone for doing something that takes no courage and no overcoming of doubt?

6. The fundamental clash between atheists and theists comes from the following two sides of the same equation: a. The theists who engage in these debates (I realize this is a subset) are unwilling to accept that it is possible for any human being to live a moral and fulfilled life without God, because that puts into question all of their self-imposed carnal deprivations and insecurities about their own faith. They feel a need to missionize for their faith because it is impossible to believe in the singular truth of their Bible while letting other parallel truths coexist. b. Many atheists feel equally offended by being subjected to what they see as worldly decisionmaking based on a fantastical belief system, and accordingly feel a need to correct what they see as mere misperceptions by gullible uneducated people who just haven't thought through things properly. They are equally doomed to failure in these efforts because matters of psychology cannot be overcome with mere presentation of facts.

7. The only way to resolve this clash of mutually exclusive worlds is the following: both sides need to realize that faith is not evidence-based and that an evidence-based discussion of faith is completely pointless. The logical next step is that: a. Theists should abandon this urge to try to "prove" their faith through bizarre pseudo-scientific nonsense like creationism. Even if it were true, it would render their faith meaningless due to 5. above. b. Atheists should accept that religion can provide great value in clarifying moral choices and facilitating coexistence in many respects; but to this end theists need to realize that religious texts must not be taken literally. This imperative not to take foundational texts literally combined with an inescapable need to allow for tolerance of other beliefs, or no belief at all, may be too much for some theists to stomach. But without it we're doomed.

[karlhenning]

2. Conversely, science is intolerant of leaps of faith. Where the evidence is insufficient to support a claim to truth, no hypothesis can be [sustained]. Scientific rigor demands that no theory [unsupported] by hard evidence be accepted.

Behold, the crux of the biscuit!  This is perfectly right for science.  It's awful naïve to apply it thoroughly in one's life.

[MishaK]

Behold, the crux of the biscuit!  This is perfectly right for science.  It's awful naïve to apply it thoroughly in one's life.

Oh, it's not naive at all. As long as you understand what science is and what it is not. The real question is how much uncertainty are you willing to live with? Current science can only explain so much, and some of it is based on studies within very limited experimental parameters that may not apply universally. You have to be aware of that level of uncertainty. If you're fine with that and are happy to embrace that uncertainty, you positively don't need a God to fill in the rest. As long as you are honest to yourself that you are indeed living with that level of uncertainty.

[karlhenning]

Oh, it's not naive at all. As long as you understand what science is and what it is not. The real question is how much uncertainty are you willing to live with? Current science can only explain so much, and some of it is based on studies within very limited experimental parameters that may not apply universally. You have to be aware of that level of uncertainty. If you're fine with that and are happy to embrace that uncertainty, you positively don't need a God to fill in the rest. As long as you are honest to yourself that you are indeed living with that level of uncertainty.

That's interesting.

The corollary I shall offer is:  people of faith in general do not so much "need a God" "to explain uncertainties," as feel that they know God to some extent.

That is, if we are honest, we must acknowledge that the religious experience is something mroe experiential, and less an intellectual weighing of certain propositions.

We might even say that, for most people for most of the world's history, everyman's life is not particularly any matter of intellectually weighing certain propositions.  And there isn't anything particularly wrong with that.

[MishaK]

That's interesting.

The corollary I shall offer is:  people of faith in general do not so much "need a God" "to explain uncertainties," as feel that they know God to some extent.

That's a matter of perspective.

That is, if we are honest, we must acknowledge that the religious experience is something mroe experiential, and less an intellectual weighing of certain propositions.

Absolutely! That's precisely the point. The debaters of both sides confuse the religious experience for an "intellectual weighing", as you call it, which leads to inevitable piles of nonsense.

We might even say that, for most people for most of the world's history, everyman's life is not particularly any matter of intellectually weighing certain propositions.  And there isn't anything particularly wrong with that.[/font]

Here I can't and won't necessarily follow you. For much of the world's history, and indeed in the present day, confused applications of religious dogma caused untold pain and suffering to innocents. Where hard evidence is available for the "intellectual weighing" of a course of action that affects the lives of people, religious dogma is quite out of place in the decisionmaking. Conversely, outside of science *and* religion, good instincts can be an excellent thing when there is no time to think and weigh the evidence. As with science, you need to know the limitations of religion and instinct. There is a proper place for each.

[karlhenning]

Here I can't and won't necessarily follow you. For much of the world's history, and indeed in the present day, confused applications of religious dogma caused untold pain and suffering to innocents.

And that's only part of the story.  Please don't pretend that religion has not also been a source of good (and some very great good) in the world.