Siegel is a moron whose piece reveals the failure of most "enlightened" brains.

Idiot.

PS -- scientists as a whole are certainly devoid of truth and decency, so I guess Siegel has a point.

Col. Jessup was right: we can't handle the truth. At least, it's exhausting to believe ONLY in what's scientifically verifiable. Most people have moments, or intervals when, even if they can't accept a reality based on the primacy of deistic will and intervention, they can subside into a reassuring (unexamined) notion that something or someone is watching out for what happens, pretecting the good, ignoring the indifferent and punishing evil. Then, when they're rested up again, it's back to physical cosmology and biological destiny. Siegel thinks the rationalists are trying to take away his down-time.

PS -- Kevin, you should care about the promotion of rational thought. Else we're stuck in a world where people believe they must kill infidels, fly planes into buildings, protect stem cells at the cost of real human suffering, etc, etc. As Harris and even the loathsome Hitch points out, "faith" in that which has no support or evidence (and tolerance thereof) really does cause significant suffering.

Siegel isn't saying that we shouldn't appreciate or find happiness in beauty, goodness, decency, etc. He's just pointing out saying that they don't actually exist outside of human brains any more than God does. So, at some level, believing in them requires some irrational faith too.

I've read a lot of claims that atheism doesn't require a disbelief in morality, the value of human life, etc. I really don't understand how. If you really believe that the universe just consists of atoms and molecules bouncing around, I just don't see how you rationally justify morality, beauty, etc. That's why I'm agnostic... I see no evidence for God, but don't really want to live in a universe where everything truly is meaningless, so hold out for the possibility that I'm wrong.

Greg, even though there is nothing, at the base, but matter and energy, life is an emergent property. Consciousness and emotions are also emergent properties. Being a committed rationalist / atheist doesn't keep me from feeling happiness at spending time with my wife, or love for my daughter. Those feelings are real, and provide a concrete purpose to life. I don't need to hold out hope for some invisible friend in the sky to make love and joy real and meaningful.

It's a strawman argument - rationalists aren't making the argument that there can be no truth, beauty, goodness and decency without god. Quite the contrary, they are helping to dispel the greatest obstacles to achieving these things.

Many blindly accept the false assumption that religion is somehow the origin, explanation and facilitator of everything good and wondrous in the world. It is not. All the religion really does is provide a context for the suspension of rationality and the promotion of blind obedience.

Almost everything in religion is just the convenient interpretations of cherry-picked passages that make whatever point the (religious) leader wants to make.

People who believe the bible is a source of morality simply haven't read the new or old testaments objectively. People are simply blind to the many horrible examples of immorality in the bible simply because it falls under the catch-all exception they have all been brainwashed to accept: god's will. Psychologists have even conducted morality tests of the bible where the overwhelming majority of people will approve of the morality of a passage from the bible when it is identified as such, but overwhelmingly disapprove of the very same passage as being immoral when names are changed to make it sound like a real world event.

Siegel should really think through his emotions before putting them to pen.

Greg,

If you cannot find your way to grasp how somebody could "rationally" construct a morality that, for example, condemns wanton acts of murder, then you really may be living in one of those other universes posited by String Theory.

Hopefully, one that does not take a dim view of the "weak wager" that "something like God" exists.

Cheers! :)

Lee Siegel is — what? Nervous? Uncomfortable? Anxious?

"An educated fool" ought to cover it.

The problem is not that people believe in Weird Things, everyone does.

People get into trouble when they think that they believe in something, therefore it's true.

I am a confirmed agnostic, Kevin, but a world in which a 41 point underdog can win on the opponent's home field is evidence there is a god out there somewhere.

Amen, Kevin.

Siegal talks as though all "leaps of faith" ought to be treated equally. Science requires primarily only a couple of very basic "leaps of faith" - that experience isn't solipsistic and that there are tests we can apply to our sensory experiences that tell us something about their reliability (granted that those tests often rely a great deal on intersubjective agreement). But guess what, everybody pretty much makes those very same leaps of faith no matter what other beliefs they have! It is no accident that God (as that term is usually applied) is relegated to explanatory gaps left or not yet filled by science. In the former case (gaps left by science) one does not need to promulgate supernatural entities to find explanations (e.g., what is valuable and what is considered morally right is what humans decide are valuable and morally right). In the latter case (not yet filled by science) one need not proliferate superfluous entities when plausible scientific explanations are available though not yet tested.

No, not all leaps of faith are created equal. There are hundreds of different kinds of religious leaps of faith and each contains within themselves grounds to reject the others. Isn't that reason to be suspicious of all religious leaps of faith. (As atheists often say, an atheist only rejects one more belief out of the hundreds of religious beliefs religious people already reject.) Doesn't the fact that the leaps of faith that science requires are ones that everybody, no matter what their religious beliefs, tends to accept anyway demonstrate that those leaps of faith are not equal to others that are rejected by everyone not accepting of a particular religious faith.

I don't get scary when doing ninety as long as I got Mother Mary siting onthe dashboard of my car.

If the distinction 'were,' subtle, not 'weren't.'

Anyone who wants to postulate religion as the last bastion of imagination, is beyond retarded.

In their contempt for any belief that cannot be scientifically or empirically proved, the anti-God books are attacking our inborn capacity to create value and meaning for ourselves.

Well that's just not true at all-- you can have morality without religion and people do all over the place.

Also, I don't think people are really full of contempt of religion. They just don't think religion should be running things to the exclusion of everything else.

In some ways, the saddest part of these kinds of debates is that they almost invariably degrade into personal attacks and shouting matches. This is too bad, since belief (including atheism) is itself at least partly a creative expression. And we can't understand the world or ourselves any better without healthy debate.

I'm Christian, incidentally, and am troubled when my fellow "believers" deny that non-Christians can't be moral, wonder-filled people. We don't have exclusive access to these things; and many of us are responsible for horrible, destructive, immoral behavior.

After all, you cannot prove the existence of truth, beauty, goodness and decency; you cannot prove the dignity of being human, or your obligation to treat people as ends and not just as means.

Wow, that's quite a leap of logic. How did he figure that out?

He should try telling a psychologist that there's "no such thing" as truth, beauty, goodness, decency, or dignity without God. And be prepared to get laughed at.

Hey, Siegel! Put a sock in it.

and believing that human emotions are real even though they have no physical existence? This isn't really a subtle distinction. If it weren't, then Siegel's own lack of religiosity would undermine his ability to engage in flights of imagination.

I don't know, everything is physical that we perceive. Even a deranged person's delusions have a physical basis, the imbalance in chemistry effecting the brain. You could go to a behavioral psychologist and ask them to do a study on people's beliefs about decency, and they could poll a bunch of people and then hand you a document with their results that would be a pile of pieces of physical paper with ink on them. That's decency- the behaviors recorded in the document as reflecting peoples' beliefs about decency. It's pretty simple. I'm sure Siegel would notice that if the psychologist did a similar study with people who don't believe in God, he'd get a pretty similar report on what decency is to those people (although I'm sure it would differ a little).

Lee Siegel should be congratulated for somehow writing a non-answer to a total non-issue, thereby proving his total ignorance on the subject of religion. Let it end with that.

This is too bad, since belief (including atheism)

Bzzzzt! Logical violation.

Sorry, not believing in a cult is not itself a cult.

Nice catch, craigie. Calling atheism a faith or religion etc. is either desperate or dishonest (or both).

Geez, are you guys going to spend all day agreeing with each other?

I see a lot of misunderstandings and false framings in the comments here. First of all, the setting really isn't a conflict between science and religion, but more of a three-way conversation between science, philosophy, and "religion" if the latter is defined as beliefs deriving from some tradition rather than philosophizing that just happens to be about religious subjects like whether something more created this worlds etc. Philosophy deals with the ultimate framing questions, and about even what science is or should be etc. (well, it isn't a scientific experiment that proves the arguments about what is or is not scientific etc, is it?) It cannot be brushed aside.

Science could be defined as a subset of applied philosophy, not as the entirety of how we are to come to beliefs about things. Like every more narrow application than philosophy as a whole, it has its strengths and weaknesses, and its limitations. I don't mean just traditional ultimate questions, but even banalities like, what you and friends said at an unrecorded conversation yesterday or etc. Because of atomic motion and uncertainty, there is no way *even in principle* to reconstruct that conversation, so all you really have is your memories - there is no "scientific way" to find out what was said for sure, nor can it even be properly *defined* by strict tenets of logical positivism (such are typically hypocritically applied depending on partisan advantage - scientism is such a political operation, really.)

As for the misunderstanding that the question of God/creator etc. hides in explanatory "cracks" or gaps. Maybe that is based on confusing some challenges to evolution with the more fundamental background issues like why the universe exists at all, is the way it is etc, (the philosophically "mature" field to ask about instigator/s/, what if any is "behind" all this etc.) No, really it is more about issues like the following: the getting off the ground problem of existence as such, delving deep into issues like modal realism, contingent and necessary existence, etc, why this universe and not something different instead, why the properties of the universe are life-friendly, if many universes then why and where does the range of that stop and why, etc. Explaining and especially defining "existence" per se is not, despite pretensions from some who should know better, something we can pull out of the machinery of explaining what happens, like explaining nuclear decay in terms of some fundamental givens about particle behavior. But explaining *those* givens (from scratch?) is a whole other conceptual enterprise. Frankly, I don't see why this stuff should just be here and be like it is. That violates an existential analog of the well-supported principle of sufficient reason. For a given universe to just "be" among all "logically possible universes" is like the number 23 just being brass numerals somewhere, and not other numbers. And if you say, OK, they all exist (as in modal realism), then why not heaven/hell/gods/God etc, the latter in effect fleshing out Anselm's argument when no limitations on "to be" are in effect.

There is still a very good discussion going on a Cosmic Variance, "Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?" Believe me, that is a real deep muddle taxing the best thinkers, and not a facile play toy or easy to dismiss, by smug scientism (or smug religionism either.)

Link

As a scientist and thorough atheist, I'd suggest that the existence of religion, and concepts such as morality, ethics, altruism, and shared cultural values are a testament to the amazing capacity of human beings to transcend simple biological imperative. There's nothing preventing a system of secular ethics just as good as religious ethics, since both concepts require a belief that there's something to human society beyond a bunch of apes driven by nature to fuck and kill each other. Only a thorough sociopath or psycopath doesn't have this kind of faith. (Unfortunately, it's possible to be a sociopath and psychopath and still believe, as is frequently pointed out by secularists.)

On a side note, any believer who has been exposed to the sanctimonious preening of the loathsome Richard Dawkins can be forgiven for thinking that atheists are amoral sociopaths. Dawkins doesn't fantasize about flying airplanes into buildings, but his self-satisfaction and contempt for believers don't cast atheism in a very good light.

Amen Brother....

If you start with the assumption that the universe doesn't have invisible beings (deities) running it, then morality can't be an intrinsic property of the universe, and thus is a human-invented thing.

The problem is that if you have multiple, human-invented (i,e, secular) moral systems, then there's no way to adjudicate conflicts between them, since there's no larger moral context they fit into. So in theory, a theologically-based morality can be universally enforceable while a secular one can't.

Of course this theoretical advantage to theologically-based morality dissolves in the real world when you have conflicts over theology going hand-in-hand with conflicts over morality. If people can't agree on their god(s), they won't be able to agree on the moral systems the god(s) are supposed to enforce.

One difference between secular and theologically-based morality is that the latter imagines itself to be universally applicable, meaning that its proponents may feel justified in going to any lengths (say, flying airliners into buildings) to promote their point of view. Secular moralists, OTOH, won't be as likely to go to such extremes. So generally, secular morality is better at promoting overall peace than theological morality.

I think you can see this in practice by noting that the middle east (an area of the Earth where theological morality is arguably taken more seriously than elsewhere) is one of the most war-torn bits of geography we have.

BTW, in philosophical theology of the sort exercised in fabulous works like The Mind of God by physicist Paul Davies, if there being a contingent need for "God," then "God" means only whatever it is that the universe has to be contingent on if such particular configurations couldn't just "be" on their own! It doesn't mean any particular claim about whatever is a fundamental ground of existence, certainly not "running things" in any sense other than the framer of the principles involves (ie, like Deism in more abstract form.) As for ethical realism, sure, I believe the principles just "exist" in a logical realist sense and aren't dependent on what put us here (would you want to think that unplanned children literally had no human rights compared to planned ones?

As for Dawkins and like ilk: They won't often take on good theological philosophers, folks like Davies in other words. They want to make it easy for themselves by picking on "religious believers" which really means those who believe based on faith/tradition. But there is a whole practice of philosophical analysis, answering for example "yes" about the existence of God etc. "Religion" then is not defined as what your position on such topics is, but rather *why* you believe what you do. Dawkins and kins are like teenage punks (snooty Limbaugh-like scientism hacks) who beat up on children (the religious believers), because they don't want to fight real grownups (the independent theological philosophers.)

You can see my several cents worth at that Cosmic Variance thread.

Neil B,

Nice comment.

Oh (not mine either) God. I think I agree with Lee Siegal and disagree with you (both experiences are painful in the extreme).

In the passage you quoted (I will *not* read the rest of what he wrote) he didn't in any way suggest that religious faith is required for belief in, say, gooness. He argued that the scientific method can't show us what is write and wrong, what goodness is or tell us why to be good. This will come as no shock to anyone familiar with science and as a cliche to anyone familiar with the philosophy of science. His claim is so obvious that you can't believe he meant that which he clearly wrote.

Seigal is, quite clearly, criticizing logical positivism not atheism. The logical positivists always had great difficulty explaining why they didn't consider all statements about right and wrong to be hypocritical meaning in fact "I like this. Do so as well." That was a real philosophical problem. It helps explain why it is hard to find logical positivists in philosophy departments these days (meaning since about 1945).

The idea, central to logical positivism, that any claim which can not be tested empirically is nonsense is philosophical poison, with which logical positivism committed suicide (it asserts itself to be nonsense as it clearly can not be tested).

Dawkins et al haven't heard about the apostasy of the logical positivists. Seigal objects to their argument, roughly that which is not science is false or meaningless, not their conclusion.

It is not necessary to doubt that one can believe in right and wrong without believing in God to accept logical positivism. I believe in right and wrong but not in God or logical positivism.

Dawkins and kins are like teenage punks (snooty Limbaugh-like scientism hacks) who beat up on children (the religious believers), because they don't want to fight real grownups (the independent theological philosophers.)

Courtier's Reply

If you start with the assumption that the universe doesn't have invisible beings (deities) running it, then morality can't be an intrinsic property of the universe, and thus is a human-invented thing.

Not buying that. Monkeys and apes, for two, exhibit the same kind of "Golden Rule" morality that we (mostly) do. I don't think morality, in the purest sense of "don't hurt other people for no reason", is uniquely human - it's part of the life force that is expressed more or less strongly in various species up and down the food chain. And the reason for that is that it is usually a good strategy for survival.

jimBOB, I looked at the Courtier's Reply, and it is junk. It takes the claim that the Emperor has no clothes to be a given (as if a deep question like the first principle "Why" is just shown to us, in the negative, like an unclothed person - what kind of idiot would believe that unless very shallow and totally arrogant, etc?) Then of course on can ridicule finer description of non-existent clothing, but that is not even a barely suitable analogy. Putting up an ostensible "comparison" story is of course a typical cowardly way to avoid debating the actual substance of a real argument.

I take it you didn't read much theological philosophy. Do you realize that "religion" means belief systems based on tradition and faith, and "philosophy" is defined by intellectual inquiry from first principle of thought? Neither is rightly defined by the position taken. Many religions (Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto to some extent) do not profess a "God" as such, and philosophers simply disagree on the question as they do on nominalism versus realism or anything else.

Note that the "rationalists" in the New Atheism are not above using fraudulent arguments, for example the following phony answer to the question: "Why are the physical laws of the universe just what they need to be for life to prosper?" Well, they are, and I don't mean duh issues like life starting on a planet already suited to begin with. I mean, the laws proper, like the fine structure constant, a dimensionless ratio with the very mysterious and logically off-beat value of around 1/137, not a logically neat value like "one." - If it was very different, life could not exist (read up on that, that much isn't very controversial.) Some sophists though have answered, "Because otherwise we wouldn't be here to ask the question." Well, this stands logical causality on its head, since our being here is supposed to derive from the original conditions, not the other way around. In any case, laws and outcomes make a logical unit, to be explained together versus other such units. So, the real question is, why this universe with laws and outcomes (like us being here) instead of another universe/s, with other laws and their other respective outcomes (such as maybe us not being here to ask about it.) The hilarious irony, that the original fallacy oddly inflates human beings to world-creating importance, is lost on the crowd which otherwise delights in saying how small and insignificant we are, with no purpose behind us etc.

Neil B., you will notice that when I used the term "God" I said that I meant it as the term is usually applied. And I do think that as it is usually applied it is meant to relate to an idea of a supernatural entity that can intervene in way the universe "works" and change things in ways that are not consistent with the laws of nature as we understand them. In addition, most believers use the term in a manner that suggests they accept the notion that they can have a personal relationship with this entity - with a great many feeling that they can appeal to this supernatural entity to provide miracles (actions outside of the laws of nature as we understand them).

Of course, there is no reason you would have to be using the term the same way. But that is one of the really significant problems with these general discussions of theisms - the term "God" in the general sense is so nebulous that it is difficult to know exactly what one is talking about. For the sake of brevity I chose to apply the term as I expect it is most commonly understood by the audience (in general) of the Political Animal. I don't believe most of the audience thinks of God in a narrow "principle of existence that determines the basic qualities of existence", high Deism sort of way. And I have my doubts as to whether or not that is what Siegel was largely thinking of when he used the term "God".

I will grant you that the questions of necessary existents and such are very difficult and interesting and if one chooses to apply the term "God" exclusively to that context then you do have a point that that MAY be a context where there MAY be no explanation outside of positing some "maker of guiding principles of existence". I say "MAY" because I don't see the issue as being anywhere near decided and I am not willing to take it for granted as a given.

I'm an atheist. I also believe in truth, beauty, goodness, and decency. Only theists think that there is a contradiction.

Yes TK you have a point, and all the more reason to carefully distinguish the 3-way "circus" of philosophy, science, and religion instead of talking loosely of "science versus religion." I don't think it's even that simple, since some thinkers (including myself) who start philosophically think there is some "personality" in the ultimate Godhead of metaphysics (due to it's partaking of the all-encompassing "Plenum," which is a sort of "opposite of nothing" - whew!)

On this subject, I suggest the book *Aristotle's Children*, which goes back to the original historical split between the natural sciences and the earlier, traditionalist worldview:

http://tinyurl.com/2gpr5m

The earlier worldview depended on Platonism via St. Augustine, which held that what was "really real" involved things that were intangible, but important qualities--mostly having to do with human character and experiences, like Truth, Beauty, etc. The new Aristotelianism held that what was "really real" should rely on the natural sciences, reason, observable phenomena... It seems that this is an old Western cultural problem. We should treat it that way, despite the New Atheist dogmatists claim that if we just throw off the chains then we'll be free of conflict forever. I think the cultural roots of these issues are deeper than they think and not so easily dismissed as just pretending that cultural traditions, the transcendent, or at least the need for the transcendent, simply doesn't exist.

When a man has to resort to insults and personal attacks on the intelligence of those he is debating, when he makes it clear that he will consider no fact or opinion other than the ones he believes or agrees with, when he arrogates to himself the moral high ground and looks contemptuosly down on those who disagree with him, you can sure of one of two things- you're dealing either with a liberal talking about anything or an atheist discussing religious faith.

mhr, you are so right about most of the latter, but regarding liberals - "My God" (whoever or whatever that is, I am humble actually) can you never have listened to Limbaugh, Coulter, Hannity, Savage, or even the Republican candidates, like Ghouliani, or Cheney-Bush-Rumsfeld-Addington et al? Your comment is massively ridiculous, more so than almost any religious believer *or* atheist would ever come up with!

I'm with Siegel (and, rarely for me, against Drum) on this one. I have a friend who has read some the recent books attacking religion, and have found his attitude in support of atheism to be annoyingly dogmatic and unscientific. To me, the atheists in general go too far by asserting more than can be reasonably be asserted (in a manner similar to that described by Robert Waldmann above with reference to "logical positivism", which I had not heard of before).

God means all sorts of different things to different people, so it's hard to prove that the concept of God doesn't exist. God can just be an idea, or God can be the consciousnenss of the universe as a whole.

Thanks also to Neil B's for some interesting comments and references on this issue.

jimBOB noted that the Middle East is bedeviled by war, while also being a region with extreme "theological morality". Consider our European heritage. Wasn't it founded on a similar theological morality? It seems that religion has played a role in cultural evolution up to now, with theological morality being identified with the surviving cultures. Yes, Middle East today is a moralistic mess, but modern European civilization, including its offshoots in the US, Australia, etc., was forged in such a crucible.

Let's keep our minds open. No need or value in digging in our heels with regard to God and religion. If something is disprovable by science, or clearly threatening to our societal health, let's attack it on those grounds. Let's not rely on sweeping religious or atheistic generalizations...

Many religions (Buddhism, Jainism, Taoism, Confucianism, Shinto to some extent) do not profess a "God" as such, and philosophers simply disagree on the question as they do on nominalism versus realism or anything else.

This objection to Dawkins is discussed in great detail in the comment thread of the link I provided. The short version is that Dawkins isn't attempting an exhaustive refutation of all philosophical traditions that go by the name of religion (and says as much in his book). Instead he's dealing with theological understanding as held by the vast majority of western believers, virtually none of whom have any notion of your particular concepts in philosophical theology.

As many in the comment thread note, it's possible to build philosophical constructs that don't depend on a simplistic "invisible sky daddy" understanding of God and religion. But to the extent these are tenable in the face of arguments such as Dawkins', they end up looking more and more like atheism proper. And in any case they have nothing to do with what the huge majority of believers think.

Monkeys and apes, for two, exhibit the same kind of "Golden Rule" morality that we (mostly) do.

Yeah, this is morality as an emergent property (i.e. morality evolves as groups with varying moral views contend, and certain kinds of moral views come to dominate as those holding them do better than those holding other moral views).

The problem is that this kind of morality tends to be vague, and in some circumstances, counterproductive. (Example: a moral code developed by bronze age tribes ends up being espoused by 21st century nuclear-armed nations, and it doesn't necessarily work so well.) So we still end up having to adjudicate differing moral viewpoints without any external guidance.

When a man has to resort to insults and personal attacks on the intelligence of those he is debating, when he makes it clear that he will consider no fact or opinion other than the ones he believes or agrees with, when he arrogates to himself the moral high ground and looks contemptuosly down on those who disagree with him,

Look in the mirror often, mhr?

Siegle: In their contempt for any belief that cannot be scientifically or empirically proved, the anti-God books are attacking our inborn capacity to create value and meaning for ourselves.

SG: What I find curious is Siegle's use of the empirical evidence of these book, to make his 'meaningful' case ... err ... about 'values'

Snerd

jim: they have nothing to do with what the huge majority of believers think.

SG: I thought the 'majority of believers', believed!

Snerd

Guys -- as far as I can tell from the quote in Kevin's post, Siegle isn't saying that you can't have truth, beauty, etc., without religion. He's saying you can't have them without the capacity to believe in things that aren't scientifically provable. He's not attacking atheists, he's attacking the idea that something that isn't provable via science must be wrong. I think Kevin and others, as atheists and agnostics, have taken offense at Siegle's language, but they shouldn't: obviously Kevin has the capacity to believe that it's morally right not to hurt others, and that belief, at some level, must be based on something beyond cold hard facts. So Siegle wasn't talking about Kevin. He was saying that, taken to its logical end, the argument that these anti-religion books (none of which I've read, so I don't know if he's right about this) is somewhat troubling.

It's hardly as if religion really has a better handle on any basis of morality.

A very real question is how believing in God somehow really sets a foundation for morality otherwise absent in the universe.

Even Socrates raised the question, is something good because the Gods will it, or do the Gods will it because it's good?

There's a big problem in saying that something is good because God wills it -- it makes the good basically arbitrary, and subject to the whim of his will. How does the particular ungrounded command he happens to choose really make something good? If, instead, God wills it because it's good, well, who needs God for morality, then?

In fact, of course, one of the big problems with acceptance of the Christian concept of God is that he is held to be all powerful, all knowing, and all good. But how then does evil occur in people's lives? Why does he permit earthquakes, for example, to kill or make to suffer purely innocent children? Whenever we ask these questions, we assume we have a basis for right or wrong that is independent of God. Somehow, we just know that allowing an innocent to suffer when we can easily prevent it is an evil, and we hold God to the same standard. It little assuages our moral concerns to say that, well, God wills it, so it's just fine -- forget about all that misery visited on innocents -- no problem!

"Beauty is truth, truth beauty. That is all ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know."
-- John Keats

...a liberal talking about anything or an atheist discussing religious faith. mhr at 4:19 PM

jimBOB, I looked at the Courtier's Reply, and it is junk. It takes the claim that the Emperor has no clothes to be a given (as if a deep question like the first principle "Why" is just shown to us, in the negative, like an unclothed person - what kind of idiot would believe that unless very shallow and totally arrogant, etc?)

What's being ridiculed isn't some deep question about "why." What we're talking about is the question of whether or not the world is being run by an omnipotent personality (aka "God" in the understanding of nearly all religious believers). Now either it is or it isn't, and if it is, this fact has some profound consequences. The courtier's reply is trying to do an end run around the basic question using various rhetorical strategems (such as appeals to irrelevant detail) to obscure the situation.

In their contempt for any belief that cannot be scientifically or empirically proved, the anti-God books are attacking our inborn capacity to create value and meaning for ourselves.

There are different kinds of beliefs. A moral belief is not necessarily a claim about physical reality. When I say that I believe in the golden rule am I making a claim about the universe (maybe I am) or am I stating the opinion that the golden rule is good advice.

It might be empirically verifiable that our lives tend to go better when we follow the golden rule, but there will also be plenty of counter-examples. Statistics are a bitch.

"Why Is There Something Rather Than Nothing?"

Are we mistaking Nothing for Something? Or, maybe Nagarjuna nailed it:

"There is neither existence nor non-existence, nor both, nor neither."

"There is neither existence nor non-existence, nor both, nor neither."

But there is suffering, and thus the utility of sound moral advice... such as the golden rule.

frankly0 - Yes, better that God wills it because it's good, or else (it's good because God wills it) He/She could just have easily picked completely different strictures to *make* right, and what kind of morality is that? There must "be" a Good in some platonic ideals sense, or else there really isn't a Good at all.

jimBOB et al, yes I see you have a point to some extent. However, I don't think Dawkins et al are mostly just attacking the most crude religious beliefs. They and other skeptics get very involved in just that sort of philosophical theology, to cast doubt even on "higher" notions of God (which are *not* equivalent to atheism, sorry, since there's a source, a creator, a ground other than just this, and most important - the reason for the constants being anthropically friendly, in a genuine intentional sense.) I know, I have looked at their arguments of that type.

Here is the supreme irony and hypocrisy of their doing that: They effectively admit that philosophical inquiry into the subject is worth doing and yields insights, or they wouldn't be trying to get an answer at all, albeit a negative one. But once you do that, then it's all a game point and you are just saying your argument is better, not disallowing the whole inquiry - you could be wrong, if you didn't do as good as you thought you did or missed some factor, etc, like in any other argument. They are philosophical theologians, just with an alternative opinion! Hence, they have no grounds for arrogance, certainty, contempt for the opposition, etc.

BTW, my answer for God allowing whatever is, this Ground of Being (or what we snooty philosophically religious types often call Godhead) is: IT really can't do things like that. It "grounds" all this, it literally is not able to do specific things in a universe (except perhaps in some very mystically indirect and symbolic ways of "doing.")

I had an insight of a message from "God" once, which you can think of as an intuition about the highest Good and by no means depending on God "really existing" as a Person or thing etc. It was:

I am your eyes and ears,
You are my hands and feet.

Later I found similar sentiments had been experienced by Julian of Norwich and St. John of the Cross. It means, "God" gives or is our insight and conscience, but we must do the good in the world. No March on Washington: no civil rights will just fall from Heaven. If we screw this up or let it get screwed up, it will be screwed up. Can we agree on that?

BTW, in philosophical theology of the sort exercised in fabulous works like The Mind of God by physicist Paul Davies, if there being a contingent need for "God," then "God" means only whatever it is that the universe has to be contingent on if such particular configurations couldn't just "be" on their own!

Sounds like God of the Gaps.

"God" gives or is our insight and conscience,

Science is now undermining this supernatural idea as well as so many previous. Any concrete, rational idea about God may at some point become accessible to science, like so many already have (and none the better for it.)

Siegel isn't really defending religion; he's defending magical thinking, and ignoring all of the consequences that follow from taking "concepts, ideas and values that cannot be scientifically verified and that have no practical usefulness" and trying to pretend they can be used as the basis for coping with the real world.

You can take his arguments in defense of religion, and adapt them to defense of all the moralistic hokum that was used to justify the invasion of Iraq with very little effort.

Siegel is also being suspiciously naive when he asserts:

To be sure, the current assault on religious faith is the product of a centuries-long movement, beginning with the Enlightenment, toward the supremacy of science and empiricism and a rejection of unverifiable beliefs. But that campaign against religious faith and superstition triumphed long ago in the West, where we now live in a technological, irreligious age beyond the wildest Enlightenment hopes./blockquote>

That campaign is far from over; religious faith/superstition is being embraced and advocated as official government policy (abstinence only education, "teach the controversy" on evolution, etc.) and science is being subjugated to political ends regardless of facts.

Not for nothing has Al Gore found it necessary to write about "The Assault on Reason" at a time when Faith-based initiatives have replaced rational policy.

Siegel may claim to be defending Imagination - but I think he has gotten it confused with its close cousins: Delusion and Folly.

It takes the claim that the Emperor has no clothes to be a given

You've misread the story. The boy who laughs at the naked emperor doesn't know whether the emperor wears no clothes. And frankly, whether the clothes exist or not has no bearing on the analogy, since clothes that have no physical impact on anything or anyone are of no more consequence than no clothes at all.

Boronx: lots of muddles and misunderstandings. First, God of the Gaps had more to do with God being an agent in areas where there were explanatory gaps, as perhaps in evolution etc. But the existence of the universe is not a mere explanatory gap existing in a structure of nearly complete explanations, like it would be for the why of weather, volcanoes etc. We don't have a clear handle on the why of existence, compared to those "phenomena" which we explain from other things which are already here - you have made a logical category mistake, as I explained some above.

As for response,
Neil B: "God" gives or is our insight and conscience, ...
You: Science is now undermining this supernatural idea as well as so many previous. ...
Again, a logical category mistake. This is not about whether some being made us that way or intervenes in our mental processes etc., or not - it is the platonic existence of the Good, which would be incorporated into the ultimate being if we consider it to exist. You will just have to study this abstract theology more if you don't want to work in the basement level of argument between crude religionists and crude anti-religionists.

If something is responsible for this being here, that is certainly a "physical consequence" even if there are no "further consequences" in the sense of meddling with what happens after that. In any case, it's funny that you and some others say that clothes that have no physical impact are of no consequence. If so, then why bother to say that you lean to a "no" answer, or consider it superior to a "yes" answer? It shouldn't matter at all, right?

Well, maybe they are saying it's "meaningless", but even then here's the real problem: *We decide* what is to be of "consequence", it isn't an objective matter. You may not care about something that has no observable consequences, but I do - that literally *makes* it have consequence for me. And of course, whether specific things were said in a conversation in the past have no specific "physical consequence" as I explained (loss of causal tracing), but most of us care and etc. What to argue or philosophize about is a choice, and you can stay out of it if you want to.

BTW I did not misread the actual original story, whatever further spin some have put on it. The boy could look and literally see that the Emperor had no clothes, it was not a case of something unobservable that "didn't matter." My case against that issue stands in any case.

Xaxnar - again, someone not making a clear three-way distinction among religion, philosophy, and science.

As an amateur student of History, I became interested in "what" is religion several decades ago. As far as I could discover, every society develops some kind of religion. And the one common theme in all is an attempt to explain, with non-scientific resources, how the world works and what humanity's place in it is.
My personal belief is that religion is simply a pre-scientific attempt to explain why the sun "comes up", where lightning comes from, why you shouldn't marry your sister and on and on. And humans being human, some took advantage of that and began using "religion" as a means to power. And in order to maintain that power it became mandatory that everyone in the group/city-state/nation/empire believed the same, otherwise the Creator would not favor them. Sound familiar?
The result is that for ages, human society has been defined by religion and just from my own observations, I would say that most humans are small-c conservatives; if it works, why change it? That reasoning also applies to religious beliefs.
Modern science directly assaults religious beliefs; replacing, one-by-one, old ideas (the earth is the center of the universe,) with facts. And rarely do those facts support any religious ideology.
The direct power of religion (Catholicism, Protestantism, Judaism) is declining in the West. Part of this decline is due to the spread of science, part of it to the spread of democracy. Most people do not care what the religion of their neighbor is as long as they can practice their own. And most people are smart enough to realize that actions taken against another person because of their religion can also be taken agains them.
The result is that no longer does religion corellate to society. France is still Catholic, so is Spain; but you are no longer ostracized (or killed) for being a Protestant. I rather think that is what is worrying the various Islamic groups. And some of our own denominations.
As to the notion that one must have some form of religion in order to ideate great thoughts - sheesh.

I don't think Dawkins et al are mostly just attacking the most crude religious beliefs. They and other skeptics get very involved in just that sort of philosophical theology, to cast doubt even on "higher" notions of God

I don't know who these "other skeptics" are or why they are germane, but the Dawkins I read was pretty determined to keep the inquiry focused on clearly stated concepts (i.e. not vague references like "a source, a creator, a ground other than just this"), as anything else is just an invitation to obscurantism.

Monkeys and apes, for two, exhibit the same kind of "Golden Rule" morality that we (mostly) do. ... And the reason for that is that it is usually a good strategy for survival.

I can't believe it took some 30 comments in for someone to state the obvious rebuttal to Siegel -- that morality is a selective advantage.

My personal belief is that religion is simply a pre-scientific attempt to explain why the sun "comes up", where lightning comes from, why you shouldn't marry your sister and on and on.

Sounds like the Enlightenment view. What that sort of thing doesn't do a great job with is things like this:

http://www.harpers.org/archive/2007/06/hbc-90000341

See also Isaiah Berlin on the Counter-Enlightenment:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv2-11

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Enlightenment

See also Isaiah Berlin on the Counter-Enlightenment:

http://etext.lib.virginia.edu/cgi-local/DHI/dhi.cgi?id=dv2-11

(Whoops, sorry for the double post.)

Two points: First, I agree with the commentator who says Spiegel is worried about reductionism, and I think you should realize that saying one shouldn't make reductionistic arguments against religion is not the same as saying one should make *no* arguments against religion. There are different (and frankly, more philosophically serious) ways to argue this point than the ones Hitchens et al are using.

Second, Kevin wrote: "Human beings wall off different things in their minds all the time, and an intellectual belief in a Newtonian universe has no effect on whether you love Mozart or think Keats is sublime. Nor does it have any practical effect on one's sense of morality."

No, it doesn't. But it *should.* You can call it "walling things off," I call it intellectual inconsistency. If your ontological beliefs really have no effect on your actions, it can only be because A: you haven't fully thought through all the repercussions of those beliefs, B: you don't actually hold them as completely as you think you do, or C: you're some kind of post-modernist who thinks two contradictory things can simultaneously be true.

Of course atheists can be moral. I'm more interested in whether they can give any coherent account of morality. (Or to quote the old joke about the French diplomat: "Well, I can see its practical applications, of course, but does it work in theory?")

Aargh, Siegel, not Spiegel, sorry.

By the way, Coleridge hated Newton (but I bet he would have thought 20th century physics an improvement).

More in the Wikipedia article I linked to above:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Counter-Enlightenment#The_Romantic_Revolt_Against_the_Eighteenth_Century

There must "be" a Good in some platonic ideals sense, or else there really isn't a Good at all.

Is that a tautology?

Suppose there is no "platonic Good." Does that mean 'good' is a meaningless word? Of course not.

Like virtually all human ideas, 'good' is provisional, and nevertheless a very useful term. But its utility traces back to the human desire to be free from suffering. Actions are judged 'moral' and 'good' because they tend to minimize human suffering.

What can we be certain about other than our desire for pleasure and our aversion to suffering? Very little. But when we look into it we begin to see that desire and aversion themselves are direct causes of suffering.

By the way, interestingly, this writer for Alternet suggests Isaiah Berlin as a good antidote to New Atheist thinking:

http://www.alternet.org/blogs/video/42125/

Of course atheists can be moral. I'm more interested in whether they can give any coherent account of morality.

Isn't that clear by now? The golden rule is good, practical guidance because it tends to minimize suffering- mine and all those who come into contact with me. Rocket science this ain't.

I'm more interested in whether they can give any coherent account of morality.

I hate to say this but...

Can theists give any coherent account of theism? I haven't seen one.

I'm more interested in whether they can give any coherent account of morality.

Religion, like most other human institutions, is about collecting as much power as possible in as few hands. I'm not sure how this particular mechanism for command and control managed to associate "morality" with itself, especially given its distinctly immoral history.

But what do I know, I'm rational...

In winter I'm a buddhist, in summer I'm a nudist.

The problem isn't rationality, it's a *reductionist* rationality--a heavy-handed rationality that doesn't allow anything but itself. It devalues things that are intangible, but shouldn't be devalued just because a bunch of people think everyone has to think identically to Betrand Russell (and not like Coleridge)...

The "updating reader" is way wrong, whether Siegel actually believes that, or the reader is putting words in Siegel's mouth.

I can appreciate great music, and its emotions and spirit, including Bach's B Minor Mass, Mozart's Requiem or Schubert's Ave Maria, just as much from an atheistic perspective as I might have at one time from a religious perspective.

And, no, Siegel can't handle that truth.

"Reductionism" is a bugaboo even to many posters here. (Dan Dennett has called it other things besides a bugaboo, noting there's good reductionism and not so good reductionism.)

I blogged in part about that, in my comments on Siegel:

Finally, Siegel trots out this old chestnut:

For the imagination is what embodies concepts, ideas and values that cannot be scientifically verified and that have no practical usefulness.

I can surely appreciate the spirituality, or whatever, even of Mozart’s Requiem or Bach’s B minor Mass as much as any religious person, and said so in a newspaper column.

As for the “soulless reductionistic science” idea, I put up the quote of evolutionary biologist and science writer Robert Sapolsky:

Science is not meant to cure us of mystery, but to reinvent and reinvigorate it.

I find the comment that one should believe in human emotions "even though they have no physical existence?" strange. Why don't they have physical existence??? Even if we can't reductively explain human emotions in physical terms, that doesn't deny them physical existence. They are just as real as national economies, universities, and corporations--all things that have physical existence despite the fact that we can't give a physicalistic explanation of them.

Neil B. wrote:
But the existence of the universe is not a mere explanatory gap existing in a structure of nearly complete explanations, like it would be for the why of weather, volcanoes etc.

Not to long ago, volcanoes and weather occupied a gap as wide as the existence of the universe. Why the universe exists appears to be another such gap. There's no particular reason why the question should remain totally impenetrable from a scientific perspective forever.

Neil B wrote:

...it is the platonic existence of the Good, ...

If there is any notion in Western thought more able to waylay great minds, more fantastical, and more destructive of lives and freedom the Platonic Ideal, I don't know what it is.

Neil B. wrote:

If something is responsible for this being here, that is certainly a "physical consequence" even if there are no "further consequences" in the sense of meddling with what happens after that.

I agree. The cause of our creation, if any, had a physical consequence.

Neil B. wrote:
In any case, it's funny that you and some others say that clothes that have no physical impact are of no consequence. If so, then why bother to say that you lean to a "no" answer, or consider it superior to a "yes" answer? It shouldn't matter at all, right?

The philosophical reason: If you are willing to believe in the clothes exist theory, then any theory of the clothes will be equally valid as long as they explain the clothes' non-physicality.

But two practical reasons are better:

The first is that you won't be tempted to waste your life reading the great Invisible Clotheologans.

The second is that if you don't believe in the existence of the clothes, then addressing the nakedness of the emperor because a tractable problem, physically if not politically simple.

Neil B. wrote:
You may not care about something that has no observable consequences, but I do - that literally *makes* it have consequence for me.

Because you think a thing has consequence for you doesn't mean that it actually does. If you choose to think about something that has no physical affect on anything then in no way does that thing influence your thoughts. In other words, the existence of non-existence of a such a thing would have no bearing on whether you believed it exists, just as it has no bearing on anything else that happens.

Neil B. wrote:
And of course, whether specific things were said in a conversation in the past have no specific "physical consequence" as I explained (loss of causal tracing), but most of us care and etc. What to argue or philosophize about is a choice, and you can stay out of it if you want to.

A subtle causal trace is not the same as no causal trace.

It's funny to contemplate, but any study to determine whether specific things said in conversation had physical consequences would either succeed in proving physical consequences by examining it's own database, or would fail to determine what anyone ever said in any conversation.

Cold hard reality is the beauty in the world. It works without us, you, me - and yet we are here, able to make our mark on it, and since there are so many of us marking it - here to make it a beautiful place.

Honestly, the idea you need a sock-puppet god breathing down your neck to be ethical, dreamy, or beauteous strikes me as inane. The fact that there isn't a god there means that what you do in the world is all that matters - and ethicality is all on who and what would make a better world.

Of course, if you don't want a better world, I similarly don't see how having a non-existent god breathing down your neck will help...

The problem isn't rationality, it's a *reductionist* rationality--a heavy-handed rationality that doesn't allow anything but itself.

Better you should show specific examples of what you're talking about. Otherwise you sound like you're projecting your own lack of confidence in your beliefs onto others.

"Scientists won't let me believe in being good!!"

What if I don't trust someone like Daniel Dennett to tell me what good and bad reductionism is? (Which I don't.)

As for an example, just off the top of my head, haven't pharmaceutical companies talking about "chemical imbalances":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chemical_imbalance_theory

Say I'm feeling blue. And someone tells me my problem is that I have a "chemical imbalance." Could be. (Admittedly, I'm not an expert on this subject.) Or a better explanation could be that I lack meaning in my life, and someone else other than the drug company might have a better explanation than "chemical imbalances". Can life really be reduced to norepinephrine and serotonin?
Sounds like Aldous Huxley would have had a ball with this.

Honestly, the idea you need a sock-puppet god breathing down your neck to be ethical, dreamy, or beauteous strikes me as inane. The fact that there isn't a god there means that what you do in the world is all that matters - and ethicality is all on who and what would make a better world.

Belief in God as the font of morality or "the good" always struck me as a childish attempt to shove the harder questions onto someone else.

In their contempt for any belief that cannot be scientifically or empirically proved, the anti-God books are attacking our inborn capacity to create value and meaning for ourselves.

Here is one instance where Siegel is not correct. Many people (atheist, believers, agnostics) simply resist the aggressive efforts of the religious to impose their beliefs on public policy, other people, on science itself. Believers have a great capacity to despise and even hate. I’ve seen it all my life and I do not trust them because of it.

There was a time when I was a serious believer (I was raised that way) and I assure you that I remember in great detail how my fellow believers turned on me when I came to disagree with their politics. I changed my mind about civil rights and it was the believers who attacked me the most viciously and in the most personal way. Same thing for Vietnam, same for Nixon, same for Watergate, same for Nicaraguan contras, same for Iraq today.

I don’t know about you, but it’s the believers, the receivers of direct knowledge via the supernatural who really get after my ass. The “contempt” factor is far and away stronger in the believers than any other group I can name.

a lefty: But the idea that minimizing suffering is "good" is itself a concept, you are in effect admitting to such an ideal. Any idea at all given as a reason, is an example of what I meant (so few get the wide reach of that category.)

Boronx: You haven't made much sense. At this point I'll refer to just one canard/non-sequitur (I can say more if you come back): According to modern physics, there is "no trace" of something like conversations a day old, and certainly years old - it is impossible to determine in principle. Yet they happened, since we can know it at the time. If the machine failed, well, it would have just failed - that wouldn't mean that nothing was said, would it? Your whole way of reasoning is so kinky...

little ole jim: "Believers" in this context means believers in religious tradition, which I carefully explained earlier is not the same as philosophical exploration of the same issue and happening to come down "yes" instead of "no" about some relevant questions. The militant atheists are indeed very arrogant and religious-like. That isn't the way Paul Davies or even a religion-affiliated theistic philosopher like Alvin Plantinga are like.

Neil B. wrote:

According to modern physics, there is "no trace" of something like conversations a day old, and certainly years old - it is impossible to determine in principle.

No more or no less than anything else. All you are saying here is that it's physically impossible to prove beyond any doubt that one event in particular occurred, but it is possible to prove such a thing to a better certainty than the certainty of someone who thinks they know what happened because they were there.

It sounds to me, Neil, like you are lumping events which we can't be sure ever happened, such as a word spoken in conversation, with events for which we have no evidence that they ever happened, such as the emperor putting on clothes this morning.

Niel B: I am addressing the "contempt" issue. Note that the founding fathers of the United States consistently voted down all the efforts to include references to God in the constitution.

Today, many ignorant people would accuse them of contempt. Today, many ignorant people think our founding fathers created a Christian nation. Evidence suggest otherwise, and the people who have directed the most contempt toward me when I discuss this are religious people, believers in received knowledge.

I have no problem with Paul Davies and doubt he has any problem with me, much less contempt. I certainly get the impression that he considers himself to be, first and foremost, a scientist.

Boronx: (BTW, sorry I was a bit snippy sometimes before.) First, you don't appreciate what happens to atoms and molecules after people stop talking - they dissipate in a random way, including the irrecoverable quantum uncertainty. It isn't a matter of being certain versus having some degree of scientific reach to it - it is gone. People's memory is much better, it's all we really have, and their memories can't be backed by outside "physical evidence." Or really, do you have or know how to make a device that can pull together the unrecorded sounds made by people months ago? Lawyers and cops, the CIA, and many spouses would pay you dearly for that. Let me know how it works, we'll keep it a secret ;-)

Second: No, I am not equating things for which we don't have evidence of the details (like past conversations) with things for which we have no material evidence, like God (although logical arguments should have some weight, not just "stuff" type evidence.) I used the former as an example of something (the *content* of a conversation) that science cannot provide us, but that is (was) real, and that we go ahead and believe in. An example to show a certain point isn't implied to be just like some other point that happens to be argued about in a given stretch of debate. There are several issues here, one is the scope of science and proper belief (for which I gave the conversation example), another is God, etc.

Or a better explanation could be that I lack meaning in my life, and someone else other than the drug company might have a better explanation than "chemical imbalances". Can life really be reduced to norepinephrine and serotonin?

I agree this is a sticky issue.

But what is 'meaning' in this context? I would say: merely a synonym for 'satisfaction.' Satisfaction tends to be a result of being engaged in and highly attentive to ones affairs. Best to keep metaphysics out of it.

Neil B, this strange conversation point you keep coming back to is pretty strange and not very illuminating. In fact, the conversation you describe most certainly does leave physical evidence, at the very least in the minds of the two individuals having the conversation. Memories leave a physical imprint on the brain. There is no magic. There is also likely to be some impact on the behavior of the individuals. If, as you say above, you do not equate this with your argument for the existence of God, then, well, why do you keep bringing it up?

Also, I don't think the question, "why is there something rather than nothing?" is all that helpful to the theist argument. One could ask, in the universe as you imagine, why is there a God rather than no God? If God must exist to explain the existence of the universe, then what must exist to explain the existence of God?

I realize that this is a pretty obvious response, one many a child has come up with, but I've never heard a non-circular answer to the question.

The fact of existence, rather than non-existence does need explaining. However, exclaiming "God" is no sort of answer. It is the complete lack of an answer, just as exclaiming "God" has been the non-answer for every scientific question in history.

Getting back to Siegel's point that rational arguments against God somehow undermine belief in all "unprovable things"--Siegel engages in what I like to call argument by convenient definition. Truth, beauty, goodness, and decency are all abstract concepts. God is a theoretical being about whom those who believe in him can agree on very little. Combining both of these and defining them as "unprovable things" is convenient to Siegel's argument but is fatuous.

The existence, or lack thereof of an abstract concept is a vastly different animal from the existence or lack thereof of a super powerful being that no one has ever seen or found evidence of. I'm perfectly willing to acknowledge the existence of the abstract concept, "God-ness," as defined as the quality or act of being God. However, saying that a being exists possessing this quality is not something I'll acknowledge so easily. To give a parallel example, the concept of perfection exists. It is doubtful if anything exists that is actually perfect.

"Satisfaction." Hmmm. Sounds like what you feel after a good meal.

Even Scarface was a metaphysician:

Tony: Is this it? Is that what it's all about, Manny? Eating, drinking, snorting, f*cking? Then what? You're fifty and you got a bag for a belly and tits with hair on 'em and your liver's got spots and you're looking like these rich fuckin' mummies in here? Is that what it's all about?

(From the restaurant scene in Miami...)

Even Scarface was looking for some teleology...

I don't mean to offend anyone--I just think people can be excused for wanting something more than philosophical naturalism. Maybe there's a reason why people have an "instinct" for non-reductionist explanations. Science as an institution was explicitly built to avoid questions involving teleology. That doesn't mean those questions should be ignored or dismissed. To me, the New Atheists often sound like they're just shouting them down.

Even Scarface was looking for some teleology...

We're all looking for an answer. But are we simply telling ourselves comforting stories and confusing that with reality? I'm making a distinction between satisfaction and pleasure. Pleasure is a low grade of happiness, although let's face it, it's a big part of what we live for. But feeling good about our livelihoods, feeling good about our relationships with people (having the feeling that we are contributing to the well-being of others) is a different and more lasting source of peace than enjoying an ice cream cone.

but I've never heard a non-circular answer to the question.

My view also. It may be easier for me because I was raised by non-religious parents, but from my perspective 'god' is simply a word which is used to "put a stopper" in our unanswered questions. Using the word is functionally no different than saying "I don't know" except for the strong tendency of humans to confuse words with understanding.

JJ, did you happen to hear Terry Gross' interview with Shalom Auslander on NPR's 'Fresh Air' yesterday? If not you can listen at their website.

A poignant story about a man raised orthodox Jewish who is struggling to unlearn the heavy conditioning of his childhood. For me, it shows how a 'comforting story' which is ultimately not based in reason can easily be transformed into a nightmare by us fallible human beings.

Not to mention the horror-show of mayhem-in-the-name-of-god ongoing in the middleast right now.

To me, the New Atheists often sound like they're just shouting them down.

I mean this in a friendly way: There must be a word for the opposite of "cherry-picking." "Turd-harking?" Many times we have the tendency to select isolated examples of what is most offensive or threatening to us and to use those probably-not-representative examples to characterize a broader issue or movement.

There must be a word for the opposite of "cherry-picking." "Turd-harking?"

But that's what the New Atheists do, in spades:

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html

Not that there aren't criticisms to be made of religion. I thought Jonathan Miller's interview on Bill Moyers was constructive. He simply said what he believed and why. There was no sneers toward people who don't share his worldview.

Again, from what I've seen of the New Atheists is that they substitute simple sneers for seriously delving into the philosophical questions. It's kind of like Bertrand Russell with all the contempt and almost none of the rigor.

My feeling is that Eagleton (linked to above) is right, that this is coming out of a certain tradition, and it's blinding itself to the possibility that any other philosophical approach is possible. For instance, in the German Enlightenment tradition, things are quite different:

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=7084

Again, I think Richard Rubenstein (who wrote *Aristotle's Children*) is onto something. Both the Platonic and Aristotelian traditions are important parts of our background as a culture. If we just demand that everyone cleave to the Aristotelian tendency that sees observable nature as the be-all and end-all (or the opposite, the Platonic, or Augustinian view as everything) then we lose something culturally.

If we just demand that everyone cleave to the Aristotelian tendency that sees observable nature as the be-all and end-all (or the opposite, the Platonic, or Augustinian view as everything) then we lose something culturally.

Well, we shouldn't demand that people think a certain way. Also, we should be careful about letting overheated rhetoric get us too much on the defensive.

Peace.

Peace.

It's been fun.

By the way, just a disclaimer, not a credentialed on this stuff at all. Just an enthusiastic amateur...

So all my errors in the above are the fault of the books I've read and the web pages I've visited, and not my own...

Also, I don't think the question, "why is there something rather than nothing?" is all that helpful to the theist argument. One could ask, in the universe as you imagine, why is there a God rather than no God? If God must exist to explain the existence of the universe, then what must exist to explain the existence of God?

I realize that this is a pretty obvious response, one many a child has come up with, but I've never heard a non-circular answer to the question.

That's because you don't look, for example reading Alvin Plantinga or even the better Medieval Christian/Arab etc. thinkers for that matter. Of course the existence of God and the universe can't be equivalent, silly, or else it would indeed be the same problem. We could almost *define* philosophical theology as looking for why God's existence would be necessary but that of the universe, only contingent. That was a child's question because only a child doesn't realize it would be, and has been, incorporated into the argument for a long time.

tyrannogenius