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14 Responses to “Taking the good with the bad” 

1. 1 Benjamin  Jan 22nd, 2006 at 4:19 pm

   “The rest of the article is your standard misunderstanding, illogical argument”

   Try reading it again. It sounds to me like you’ve caught the same virus as Dawkins. Can you be at all more specific about why Ward’s article is illogical?

   Why is believing in a deity based on rational argument stifling of rational thought?

   Theology is a philosopical area of study that uses scripture as a tool to come to an understanding of god. In the case of the Bible you have many texts collected together comprising a mass of myth, history, law, poetry and prophecy inherited from Judaism making up the Old Testament. The New Testament contains accounts of Jesus of Nazareth, letters and further prophecy. Furthermore these documents have been translated numerous times and the exact content has been heavily debated. It is quite clear that this is not a manual for how to live. Only the most idiotic type of Christian thinks this. The idea that the Bible holds literal truth is very far from representing the long stream of Christian thought.

   “texts are just as full of hate and barbarism as they are tolerance and peace”

   So what? Christians don’t read in their Bible about hate and barbarism and go out and put it into practise! Any serious person does not have that kind of simplistic approach to an ancient text.

   “and the whole thing is on a foundation of no evidence”

   Do you mean the whole Bible? What exactly does this mean? Why do allegorical stories require evidence?

   “it’s pointing to the logically inconsistent nature of the whole institution”

   Given the multi-textual nature of the Bible interpretation is complex and not all parts are of equal use. You can not just brand it as inconsistent and with that rubbish the whole of religion.

2. 2 Krypto  Jan 22nd, 2006 at 4:44 pm

   That’s exactly my point. Many people do not view the bible as a way to live, but equally many people do, and most are somewhere in-between.

   If Person A reads the bible and decides to love his neighbour, I think that’s obviously a good thing.

   If Person B reads the bible and decides all homosexuals are evil and must be killed, I think that’s abhorrent.

   The problem is that I can’t say B is wrong and A is right without using some exterior moral compass. Both these ideas come from the same writings. You said that ‘Bible interpretation is complex and not all parts are of equal use’, but your judgement as to the true meaning is just as valid as anybody else’s. Because religion by its very nature has no way of pinning down this true meaning, as the whole existence of the deity is based upon faith rather than evidence, you reach a stalemate where abhorrent behaviour is exactly as justifiable as wonderful behaviour.

   The point of the post was to counter the claims that Dawkins and others ignore the benefits of religion, which undoubtedly exist. It’s not that these are ignored, it’s that the good is intertwined irrevocably with the bad. That’s why there is the continual focus on the unpleasant effects of religion. I didn’t post to get into another debate over religion’s lack of evidence and stifling of rational thought - I’ve already done that elsewhere.

3. 3 Benjamin  Jan 22nd, 2006 at 8:47 pm

   “The problem is that I can’t say B is wrong and A is right without using some exterior moral compass”

   I would dispute this because religion is based on much more than just scripture, furthermore religion is not necessarily dogmatic in its opinion and evolves over time as society changes. I certainly admit that there are many examples of religion that are very dogmatic but I am not trying to defend them, as an agnostic myself I can find much to critise in the practise of religion. However, religion in general is not at fault.

   Your example of using solely the bible as a source for moral guidance which has contradictions in certain details does not favour atheism over religion. This is because without religion you don’t have any moral compass at all. Furthermore the fact that some people use religion to justify their abhorrent behaviour is just the same as those who use the idea of science and progress to justify their equally abhorrent behaviour as has been in evidence to an extreme in the last century. Therefore this anti-religion argument holds not water either.

   “Because religion by its very nature has no way of pinning down this true meaning, as the whole existence of the deity is based upon faith rather than evidence”

   You do stubbornly stick to this idea of faith being nothing but “blind trust” yet you provide not evidence for this definition. Acceptable evidence would be that religious writers actually use this definition themselves when refer to faith. I therefore challenge you present this evidence.

4. 4 Krypto  Jan 23rd, 2006 at 12:58 am

   It wasn’t really my intention with this post to get into religious debate. I just wanted to counter a criticism I saw as invalid. But, since it’s fun…:-)

   What else is religion based on, if not just scripture? I guess this is linked to the perennial evidence question, of which more below.

   It may well be the case that religion changes over time, but my point is that when the foundation is based on nothing substantial it doesn’t matter what pronouncements it makes. There’s no way to access the true meaning, so all interpretations are valid.

   I think it’s entirely possible to build a morality outside of religion, but that’s secular humanism and is a whole other topic
   You’re making an error by thinking of atheism as a belief system. Atheism is saying that there is no evidence for the existence of a deity. That’s it. It’s putting a deity at the same level as everything else with no evidence, like Santa and the Easter Bunny. Atheism is that and only that - it does not promote any way of life and is not a positive belief in the non-existence of a deity, so is in no way comparable with religion in the way you claim. People who use science to justify abhorrent behaviour are not doing it in the name of atheism, they undoubtedly have their own crazy reasoning. There is no one way in which non-religious societies will behave, because atheism has no teachings. You can’t compare religion and atheism like they’re teaching opposite doctrine, when that’s not the case.

   Plus, if you want to discuss the harm caused by religion you can’t get around it by saying ‘other people are just as bad’. That’s irrelevant. If religion is causing the harm - it either it or it isn’t. If other people behave badly I’m anti-them too, it’s not an either/or.

   Finally, there’s no point debating the definiton of the word ‘faith’ like it’ll make any difference. Defining faith as something with evidence won’t make this evidence appear. Even if I, everybody else and the dictionary are using a different definition from theologians, the evidence that faith is anything other than blind trust is not forthcoming. It’s not up to me to prove that faith means what I think it means. If the claim is that evidence exists, it’s up to the theologians to provide it, no matter what words they choose to use.

5. 5 Benjamin  Jan 23rd, 2006 at 7:55 pm

   When you criticise a emminently sensible theologian and describe his arguments as illogical it kind of implies a religious argument. It certainly is fun!

   “What else is religion based on, if not just scripture?”

   It certainly is based on a lot more than that. Theology has been a major philosophical study for millenia and certainly in the case of the monotheisms some of the world’s greatest thinkers have contributed to their development. It’s very inaccurate to think that religion is just based on some old books and that people read and then decide how to act depending upon which bit appeals most. Religious people claim to have personal experience which affects their beliefs - although I have no knowledge of this myself and have a natural skepticism of it, nonetheless it certainly constitutes evidence (debatable maybe, but is there any fundamental reason why people should reject this?). There is also the personal explanation which is commonly used in ethics. This is a very different beast from scientific explanations but philosophy often views things in quite a different manner. This again cannot be rejected out of hand as unthinking - many widely regarded thinkers in many different academic fields hold this form of explanation to be of immense importance. In short, as a science graduate I find many of these ideas very alien but I am attempting to understand them. Moreover I think it’s quite obviously unfair to dismiss them for not looking like science when they clearly come from highly rational streams of thought.

   “It may well be the case that religion changes over time, but my point is that when the foundation is based on nothing substantial it doesn’t matter what pronouncements it makes”

   That the foundation is based on nothing substantial is quite unfair. There is a progressive chain of reasoning that includes the likes of Augustine and Thomas Aquinas to present day theologians. This has led to an evolution as well as a revision of ideas that is very similar to other areas of philosophy. The obvious comparison is with science which although it shows a growth of knowledge it routinely undergoes conceptual shifts as it lurches from one paradigm to another.

   “There’s no way to access the true meaning, so all interpretations are valid.”

   Just because absolute truth is not forthcoming (and never is any practical field) this does not equate to all interpretations being equally valid. Some interpretations are clearly based on no or fatuous arguments and have no place in a theological explanatory model. Others are much more clearly reasoned and form part of a body of ideas that are mutually supporting. In other words some explanations are better than others on the grounds of simplicity or elegance: exactly the criteria used in science.

   Atheism is a term that I have always associated with belief in non-existence of god. This is how I believe the term is usually meant to imply and certainly what the etymology of the word implies. However, I am aware that some ‘atheists’ like to distance themselves from the positive statement of not-god and just define themselves as being without a belief in god. To me this is agnosticism and an emminently sensible standpoint if a little dull. Semantics aside, Dawkins I think is clearly a atheist of the ’strong’ or god denying type and indeed one who, like you, completely refuses to accept that the ‘theory of god’ is anything more than mumbo-jumbo. This is what he gets wrong. And because to him it is nonsense he sees that anything relating to it is similarly nonsense and worthy of contempt so therefore our argument really lies on whether this is a far series of steps starting from a reasonable assumption.

   There is much point in debating the definition of faith because Dawkins constantly refers to it as seemingly an automatic proof that all religious people are irrational. The fallacy here is that faith clearly means different things to different people. I know that dictionaries define the word as ‘blind trust’ - amongst other definitions, but my point is exactly that this is not how it is used when people discuss their ‘faith’ (try reading that sentence with: blind trust = faith, no one would make such a statement). Christian faith or Islamic faith are terms implying whole sets of beliefs and values based on a potentially huge variety of thoughts and arguments.

   The idea that religion is good or bad is just a bit too silly to lend itself to proper argument. People do bad things because or their nature and/or their environment, that their belief system can become tied up in their justification for being violent is no more or less likely if that belief system is religious or non-religious. That some people hang their bad deeds on the say-so of a god does not make it the sole cause. In reality non-pyschotic violence is normally for political reasons with whatever justification it may be convenient to give.

6. 6 Krypto  Jan 23rd, 2006 at 9:42 pm

   Eloquently put, but…

   My point all along is that no such evidence exists, and never has done in millenia of thought. I strongly object to the claim that there is a philosophical method of rationality that does not rely on actual evidence. There may well be logical arguments, but just as an entire maths paper is rendered invalid by an incorrect initial assumption, everything that is built upon the assumption of a deity, no matter how logical the arguments after that, must fall apart. Philosophical arguments based upon the assumption of the existence of a deity are invalid, and all papers that attempt to prove a deity’s existence using logic have been rigorously debunked by modern philosophy.

   Dawkins, most critics of religion and I are most definitely not of the strong type of atheist - that viewpoint is just as ridiculous as claiming there definitely is a deity/deities. Atheism is saying that as there is no evidence, it’s reasonable to make the tentative hypothesis that no such deity exists. If you want to call that being agnostic, be my guest, but it doesn’t change what is said. The only way to back up a belief is by evidence, and when that belief has no evidence it’s irrational to pay it any attention - it doesn’t matter how much linguistic trickery is used.

   It’s the old china teapot argument - I can’t prove there isn’t a china teapot in its own orbit around the sun, but given that there’s no reason to think there is I am happy to be 99% certain as to its non-existence. Show me evidence and I’ll change my mind.

   You may well not be able to get back to any universal truth in any field of study, but there’s a hell of a difference between ‘kill homosexuals’ and ‘be nice to your neighbour’. That’s not the kind of contradiction you expect if there’s a sound basis to any religious teaching.

   Dawkins is arguing against the idea of ‘blind trust’, not the word ‘faith’. Messing around with definitions does nothing to alter this. People may think that their faith is justified, but when their faith is analysed properly it’s shown to be indistinguishable from blind trust, because of the complete lack of evidence. The claim isn’t that all people with faith are irrational - far from it - it’s that their faith is irrational because it is based upon nothing. There’s a difference between calling the faith ridiculous and criticising the people. I’m lucky in that my upbringing has allowed me to analyse and look at religious faith, but there are a huge number of reasons why people cannot or may not analyse the idea of faith.

   There may well be more rational religious arguments (based upon an invalid assumption, I would point out) for behaving in a good manner than there are for behaving badly. But that’s irrelevant when the basis is vacuous. If I tell you that the china teapot wants you to kill everybody, then somebody else tells you that the china teapot wants you to be nice, and here’s a piece of paper that says the same thing, there’s no way to make any rational decision between the two because both of the evidences are completely made up.

   If people simply believed in a deity and made a special case for excluding religion from rational thought, that would be fine. But the faith comes with baggage - ban homosexuality, stop people using birth-control etc. It is this kind of harm that is directly attributable to faith, and that’s why I argue against it so strongly. Sure, there are psychological reasons why people are willing behave that way, but that’s the blame argument that always ends up with the Big Bang as prime originator of all problems in the universe. I think it is religion that inspires people to behave badly in many cases - that they are capable of behaving badly in the first place does not automatically mean that they will, it’s religion that makes them. I’m not claiming that religion is responsible for all ‘evil’ (the title of the programme was a complete misnomer), just a very large amount. That and the fact that religion actively stifles rational thought by encouraging people not to analyse their beliefs, which I’ve gone over elsewhere.

   Our disagreement eventually comes down, as always, to the question of evidence. It is up to religion to provide evidence for the existence of a deity, because it is religion making the claim that one exists. In exactly the same way, it’s up to those who say religion causes harm to provide evidence to back up their case, and that’s what Dawkins etc. do.

7. 7 Benjamin  Jan 24th, 2006 at 12:07 am

   “It is up to religion to provide evidence for the existence of a deity”

   If there is no deity then the universe has to exist with nothing external to influence it. In other words it has to be totally self-explanatory. A perfectly valid alternative to arguing for god is to argue against the possibility that the universe just popped into being on its own. Peter Atkins - surely a strong atheist - tries somewhat pathetically to claim that the universe can just pop into existence in line with quantum laws following the Big Bang when its diametre is less than the Planck constant. So Prof. Atkins where did the laws come from? Alternatively there is the approach that says that the singularity of the Big Bang amounts to nothing and so the universe literally arose from nothing. This requires a bit of creative word play and a very clear fallacy of reference. Either are what are required as the only logically possible alternatives to a deity. Your brand of atheism is just a cop-out: withdrawing from one explanation but offering nothing (literally) in its place. The question just remains without an answer, even an attempted one. Primary evidence for god is the existence of the universe itself with no conceiveable mechanism for it to come about on its own. You are probably about to tell me that this is no explanation because (as Dawkins repeats ad nauseum) it adds complication. But that is to ignore the descriptions of god that all monotheisms use where simplicity is the essential element and absolute values replace the physical complexity of the universe in the causal chain. This is what any mathematician would call elegant. Yours, Dawkins and Bertrand’s use of the ‘teapot’ analogy does not do any justice to this description of god. Similarly comparing god to santa or the tooth fairy detracts from the essential point: that god is the explanation for all things. It is a bit different from inferring a goblin who lives in a well!

   To get an appreciation of evidence for a deity you have to avoid these childish snubs and see the idea of god (specifically monotheism) as one of the greatest philosophical developments of all time. Indeed the idea that monotheism is the essential development that allowed science to flourish is often argued by historians of science. Simply put, man could only see nature as subject to orderly laws once there was no longer the belief that a pantheon of capricious and cruel gods was controlling the physical world. The notion of a single intelligence is needed to allow the belief that nature is non-random. (I firmly recommend a book by Allan Chapman (a previous tutor of mine) - Gods in the Sky).

   That nature is non-random and conforms to orderly laws is indeed a piece of evidence that something has ordered it - namely god. The same god that Einstein referred to. Is it just a given that the universe conforms to laws. Why should science work at all? The fact that laws are uniform across the whole universe is potentially very odd. And why for that matter do we have minds capable of understanding the nature of the universe? Very nebulous ideas I know but others have put it a lot better than me and whether you (as I’m sure you won’t) agree or not, it is evidence.

   Another piece of evidence that I find most compelling is what has become known as the teleological argument and has sprung from science itself. This is the idea that our universe has certain laws and certain physical constants that describe its nature. These relationships and values are fixed across space and time. Firstly, why are the fixed? Secondly, who fixed them? (Both special cases of argument above). Thirdly, what would the universe be like if they were different? Let’s take gravity as an example. If the gravitational constant was set just a little bit higher then there would be no life - the universe would have hardly got going before the Big Crunch. If the gravitational constant was set just a little bit lower then again there would be no life - there would not have been stars big enough to give the heavy elements that life would need as a raw material. Furthermore this fine-tuning is found in many other constants and relationships. This is known as the anthropic principle and demands some explanation to my mind.

   Here’s your evidence. It does exist, but not if you don’t look and allow yourself a bit of objectivity.

   Just a final thought: if there was no universe would 2 2=4? If you think yes, then how is this possible in complete nothingness. If you think no, then why not? What’s your evidence for that belief?

8. 8 Krypto  Jan 24th, 2006 at 4:00 pm

   A couple of quick points: that the idea of a deity is all-encompassing is nothing to do with the amount of evidence it has in its favour. In terms of evidence, a deity is at exactly the same level as the omnipotent goblin in a well - religion gets no merit for simply being a grander idea!

   “The notion of a single intelligence is needed to allow the belief that nature is non-random” - that’s a massive, massive leap of logic from the idea that science flourished under monotheism. It’s entirely possible that monotheistic-based societies can be stable for longer than others (I have no idea whether that’s true), but you can’t just link that to actual discoveries in science as a cause-effect scenario.

   And Einstein used the word ‘god’ to refer to the wonder of the universe. In other writings he lambasted religion. Anyway, so what if Einstein said something? If it’s wrong, it’s wrong
   So, your evidence for the existence of a deity, simply put, is:

   The universe exists and something must have created it, and that must be a deity.
   The universe has orderly laws, which must have been put in place by a deity
   The universe has constants that are fine-tuned to our own existence, so a deity must have created them in that way.

   You’re right - the questions you ask are without answers, currently. But that’s not a cop-out in the slightest. Science makes no claim that it can explain everything, and never has. Why does this gall you so? We just don’t know why the constants seem so fine-tuned. Any theory you can put out there is as valid as any other.

   Before the theory of evolution was developed, it was thought that only a deity could have created mankind, since we certainly appeared to have been designed. Evolution showed that this was unnecessary, and it could happen via completely natural processes. Throughout history, religion has always filled in the gaps in knowledge. Whatever we couldn’t understand we attributed to some magic onmipotent figure/figures.

   That deities have always been invoked is evidence neither way, but can you see that the progress of science has always shown that a deity is unnecessary? Religion always retreats into the unknown, claiming to explain it, then retreats further when science shows that there’s a ‘natural’ explanation. This says nothing about future events, but doesn’t it suggest that maybe you’re on the wrong track?

   The strangest thing about invoking a deity to explain the universe is that it in fact explains nothing. Where does it live? How does it work? Can it create a rock so heavy it can’t lift it? Who created the deity? A greater deity? Is it turtles all the way down? You’re explaining one mystery with a much larger one, doubtless with the claim that god is mysterious and we’re not capable of understanding it, or some such.

   As it happens, there are plenty of ideas to explain why the constants are so finely balanced. There are current theories that ‘through’ black holes exist other universes, with slightly altered physical constants. By this theory there are Very Large Numbers of universes, and if that’s the case, it makes sense that we’d find ourselves in a universe in which we can exist That’s just an idea, but it’s makes just as much sense as some all powerful deity setting the constants for us (I’d actually argue it’s a more reasonable suggestion, as the deity explanation is far more extraordinary - saying ‘god is simple’ doesn’t make it the case).

   The evidence is all that matters when judging theories. When asking ‘how come the universe is here?’ you can’t say ‘god did it’ and use as your evidence that ‘the universe is here’. That’s begging the question. Equally, there are plenty of causes other than a deity that could explain laws and constants. There is no evidence for any of the theories that answer the questions you ask, so there simply is no logical answer as yet.

   No, it’s not known how the universe exists. It’s not known why the laws or constants are as they are. But we’re working on it, and a wonderful journey it is, too.

9. 9 Benjamin  Jan 24th, 2006 at 6:19 pm

   “religion gets no merit for simply being a grander idea!”

   This not true. Explanations and models are judged by what they explain, that is the reality of how science works in practise. The better of rival explanations becomes the working paradigm if enough people accept that it is better. In the case of a deity, the very fact that it explains so much is why its a compelling explanation for the universe.

   ““The notion of a single intelligence is needed to allow the belief that nature is non-random” - that’s a massive, massive leap of logic from the idea that science flourished under monotheism”

   This was me quoting someone elses argument and therefore not giving it in full, needless to say the point is backed up by a wealth of historical evidence.

   “It’s entirely possible that monotheistic-based societies can be stable for longer than others…”

   This is not what I meant. The idea of monotheism implies that nature is under the control of a single intelligence and that it is therefore amenable to investigation to elucidate the how that intelligence has ordered nature. This is a conceptual leap from ideas such as: if there’s a storm it’s because the sea god is angry - rather than seeing things as the result of weather patterns. This point was not meant to imply a piece of evidence for god since the idea is historical and could coexist with either atheism or theism. However, it does attack the historically weak notion that science and religion are at odds and in fact claims that they are mutually self-supporting.

   “Einstein used the word ‘god’ to refer to the wonder of the universe”

   That’s exactly how many religious people use the word. And indeed Einstein may have criticised organised religion but he, like many other great physicists, saw the potential for something non-physical. A very telling quote of Einstein’s is ‘the greatest mystery of science is that it works at all’. This is a very pithy statement of the argument from cosmology.

   “The universe exists and something must have created it, and that must be a deity.
   The universe has orderly laws, which must have been put in place by a deity
   The universe has constants that are fine-tuned to our own existence, so a deity must have created them in that way”

   As an agnostic I don’t firmly believe that any of these pieces of evidence entail a deity of themselves. However, they are phenomena that are explained by a deity. The first point, essentially that the universe exists, is, by my reckoning, logically not amenable to scientific investigation. Brute existence is really the greatest mystery of them all and I don’t think there’s any point in waiting for a scientist to figure it out in the lab.

   Order within the universe again is not the type of question that science answers - a “law for laws” suffers from being a self-referential paradox. Personally I struggle to see a way out of this one.

   So, for these two pieces of evidence the only real explanation is a deity. Simply no other explanation exists, there are no rivals and can’t be.

   Thirdly, the teleological argument, this does indeed suffer when you invoke the multiverse theory however you get there. This I find really interesting, but far from obvious that a godless multiverse is simpler than god universe, especially when you add in other arguments. Infinity of universes vs one god? It probably depends on your conception of god.

   “You’re right - the questions you ask are without answers, currently. But that’s not a cop-out in the slightest. Science makes no claim that it can explain everything, and never has”

   Indeed science doesn’t expect to explain everything (much though various foolish scientists have claimed imminent advances) and I agree that in some cases - those discussed above - it is unable to. And this is really what I mean when I say that you need other explanations.

   “Throughout history, religion has always filled in the gaps in knowledge”
   The old ‘god of gaps’ argument is very annoying. From their inception the monotheisms have answered questions that science cannot touch and theologians from different ages could readily engage in dialogue without disagreeing over the nature of god. In this respect scientific development has not altered central theological concepts. That people have used god to explain physical phenomena that science has since explained does not imply that science will continue to march over the whole of theology because the core concepts are untouchable by science.

   “The strangest thing about invoking a deity to explain the universe is that it in fact explains nothing. Where does it live? How does it work? Can it create a rock so heavy it can’t lift it? Who created the deity? A greater deity? Is it turtles all the way down?”

   Your criticism surely is not ‘that it explains nothing’ but that it is not simple. God to you seems to imply some personification. This is not the right way to look at it and can lead to confusion. God is non-physical so the idea of him living anywhere is obviously preposterous. As I have already said the idea behind god is that he is without cause or a necessarily existent being: an end to causation. This is doubtlessly a strange idea but the fact of existence is very strange and there cannot be no prosaic answer. I am the not the person to attempt to explain the inferred nature of god but it has been a philosophical work for generations and should not be so carelessly dismissed.

   “It’s not known why the laws or constants are as they are. But we’re working on it”

   I don’t actually agree with you here. I don’t think you can find a lab where scientists are genuinely researching why there are laws. This question is outside of the general paradigm of science and those that look at these questions are generally called philosophers and theologians.

10. 10 Krypto  Jan 25th, 2006 at 2:15 pm

    “Explanations and models are judged by what they explain, that is the reality of how science works in practise. The better of rival explanations becomes the working paradigm if enough people accept that it is better. In the case of a deity, the very fact that it explains so much is why its a compelling explanation for the universe.”

    Nearly, but not quite. Explanations and models are indeed judged by what they can explain, but based upon experiment and evidence in the real world, not just the idea. String theory has large amounts of wonderfully elegant mathematics, but has not yet produced any testable predictions, so remains just an idea. It’s impossible to judge whether it’s true, because the concepts say nothing about reality. A deity that created the universe may explain everything in theory, but unless it makes predictions that are verifiable in the real world it’s of no real use, so as a concept is on a par with string theory / superdonkeys / goblins.

    So, let me get this straight: the deity you’re reffering to is outside of logic, time and space, and the evidence it exists is that you can’t think of any other explanation for the existence of reality? Do you see how this seems to me like complete nonsense? It doesn’t mean anything by any reasonable standard of thought, although this is likely considered a virtue. Doesn’t it seem strange to you that every reasonable question anybody could ask is neatly sidestepped by ‘it’s outside of logic’, or ‘non-physical’, or whatever? Your logical arguments take a massive leap of faith when you go from ‘we can’t explain how the universe exists’ to ‘it must have been created by some omnipotent illogical thingy’. It seems far more likely that that this is what you want to believe, rather than what you’ve logically decided to believe. I’ve no doubt there are philosophical arguments, but I fail to see how ‘there’s no logical explanation so there must be an illogical one’ could ever be a reasonable conclusion - can you give me any pointers?

    Nobody knows anything about why we exist, or even if that question has an answer. When I said we were working on it, I didn’t mean that there was active research into the questions you pose. Clearly, our knowledge is nothing like advanced enough to even begin. But arguing that you can’t see any answer other than some incorporeal nothingness doesn’t mean that there aren’t other explanations, it’s just that we haven’t found them yet.

    I’d like to say that, bonkers as I think this idea is, it’s at least charmingly harmless. But I can’t, because it’s exactly the kind of nonsense which stifles rational thought. Saying that a deity is non-physical and an end to causation is so completely ridiculous that when people can’t understand it they start to think themselves stupid, rather than seeing that the thought itself makes no sense. It just seems very similar to religion’s normal tactics of exerting control: I understand this, you don’t, so you must listen to me.

11. 11 Benjamin  Jan 25th, 2006 at 6:07 pm

    Practical science is greatly helped by verifiable predictions but philosophical ideas are far removed from that kind of practical element. How can an explanation for existence make predictions? Maybe ideas in science do not make predictions but are fully subsumed into the body of science. Evolution is a classic example of this. It is very rarelyA, if at all, observed in practice at least in so far as speciation is concerned. The epistemological gap between the timescales of paleontology and ecology are is where evolution happens in the form of speciation and so direct evidential access to this fundamental process is generally denied. However, this does not count as an argument against evolution or detract from the powerful nature of the explanation. A particular example of this is the infamous debate over the mechanism of evolution of ‘objects of perfection’. Dawkins nicely illustrates a potential mechanism by which this could happen but this is an explanation wholly without evidence - the evolution of an eye is never seen. However, just the fact that it can be explained by a plausible mechanism is enough for evolution to not be undermined by this issue. This principle of inferred explanation can also be seen with Mendel who was able to demonstrate the presence of a unit of inheritance by phenotypic effects. Darwin made a similar inferrence. The proposed ‘unit’ was only truly discovered very late in the development of the theory of evolution but this lack of evidence did not make the theory any less plausible.

    “So, let me get this straight: the deity you’re reffering to is outside of logic, time and space”
    “every reasonable question anybody could ask is neatly sidestepped by ‘it’s outside of logic’”
    “Your logical arguments take a massive leap of faith when you go from ‘we can’t explain how the universe exists’ to ‘it must have been created by some omnipotent illogical thingy’”

    At no point did I say that a deity was outside logic. Indeed some would say that god is the embodiment of logic, much like the platonic world of forms or the forum for the independent existence of mathematical or logical truths.

    “but I fail to see how ‘there’s no logical explanation so there must be an illogical one’ could ever be a reasonable conclusion - can you give me any pointers?”

    I am arguing FOR a logical explanation. As in the examples I gave above there is nothing illogical about inferred something’s existence (genes) or an explanation (evolution in the case of objects of perfection) in the absence of physical evidence.

    “But arguing that you can’t see any answer other than some incorporeal nothingness doesn’t mean that there aren’t other explanations, it’s just that we haven’t found them yet”

    So you have a faith that there are other explanations for all physical existence? Explanations that are entirely physical? Or perhaps you believe that this just cannot be explained in which case you are just left with a permanent mystery. Either way why adhere so strongly to these beliefs when there’s a simpler alternative. Why shy away from what is the current best explanation in the hope of another yet to be found or just give up on the whole question?

    “…it’s exactly the kind of nonsense which stifles rational thought”

    Do you see this argument we’re having as stifling your rational thought? Are my statements irrational? Please give me an example.

    “very similar to religion’s normal tactics of exerting control”

    this statement is nothing more than you living up to your polemicist mentor: Dawkins - (who’s chair should be renamed: the public misunderstanding of religion). This is very unfair, in practice, religious people are constantly taught to examine their faith and, not all, but many denominations encourage thinking that is far freer than is found in scientific circles.

12. 12 Krypto  Jan 27th, 2006 at 5:15 pm

    Evolution is entirely based upon evidence. Speciation, or ‘macroevolution’ as it’s commonly referred to, it not at all ‘wholly without evidence’. There is plenty - here’s an excellent page that explains it. But even if it weren’t, the method of the evolution of the eye is simply the effects of ‘microevolution’ over time. There’s plenty of evidence for this, so the logical hypothesis stands. We don’t ’see’ the evolution of the eye directly (although we can to an extent through the evidence of fossils) but the mechanism behind it makes predictions, which can and have been tested. It’s entirely different from a theory on which the theoretical explanatory power is given merit on its own.

    You called a deity “the end of causation” - how is that not outside of logic?

    “Why shy away from what is the current best explanation in the hope of another yet to be found or just give up on the whole question?”

    The ‘current best explanation’, as you put it, requires vast amounts of assumption based on nothing at all. You claim that a deity is “a simpler alternative”, but only because the normal laws of reason supposedly don’t apply. ‘How does it exist?’ and ‘How did it create the universe?’ are sidestepped by saying it’s outside of the laws of time, space and logic. This isn’t answering the question, it’s just saying the question is void, and is an explanation of nothing. Playing word games to avoid answering reasonable questions doesn’t suddenly make the explanation ’simple’. It’s just too big a stretch to create something with no evidence at all to back it up.

    I really don’t understand what you’re talking about in the final paragraph. “many denominations encourage thinking that is far freer than is found in scientific circles” - oh, yes? What denominations would this be? And do they all work under the assumption of the existence of a deity to start with? The whole point of science is that any idea is allowed, providing there’s evidence to back it up - what could improve this?

13. 13 Benjamin  Feb 1st, 2006 at 7:54 pm

    I did not claim from my earlier blog that speciation - and I meant specifically speciation not macroevolution - was ‘wholly without evidence’ this is not the case. However, there is a serious sparsity of evidence since it is an event that happens rarely on our human timescale such that ecologists can rarely chart its occurrence, and too frequently on a geological timescale such that paleontologists only see gross anatomical change. This is not an argument against speciation actually occurring I have no doubt about that. But what I am trying to say is that it is an event that is inferred more than it is shown. In order words science does not work in the strictly empirical way that you imply and evolution is a prime example of this. Indeed Popper and other philosophers of science have debated whether the theory of evolution is strictly speaking ’science’. This obviously depends very much on your definition. Essentially evolution offers a mechanism for how biological history unfolded to give us our present day ecosystems or rather life in general. This is not like most science and there is little that can be done to directly show that this happened. It is, however, by far, the best explanation for life. And therefore we hold it to all intents and purpose as ‘fact’ (barring radical theory change). I am not saying that I find anything wrong with this. Exactly the opposite, I think that inferred explanation is just as useful as empirical explanation. So, if you are prepared to accept an evolutionary explanation of life why do you criticise the god theory on grounds of lack of empiricism?

    “You called a deity “the end of causation” - how is that not outside of logic?”

    Does cause and effect go on ad infinitum? Why do you assume it does? Surely either position is just as much of an assumption as the other. And logic doesn’t come into it since it’s only one statement.

    “Playing word games to avoid answering reasonable questions doesn’t suddenly make the explanation ’simple’”

    What exactly are my word games? I can’t answer this point unless you give me a specific example from what I’ve said.

    I really feel here that you are making comments about both religious and scientific communities that you don’t have any first-hand experience of. Certainly in the more sane christian denominations followers are encouraged to have a personal connection with their faith and the priest is a facilitator who helps them to improve their understanding. “And do they all work under the assumption of the existence of a deity to start with?” This is not a dogmatically held fact or a kind of ‘either you’re in or you’re out’ requirement. Those who think about their faith are constantly challenging it, seeing it in a new light, feeling that it’s been undermined, losing it or strengthening it. It is far from this intellectually dead position that you insist on describing.

    Sciencific communities are also not the wonderful bastions of entirely free and independent thought that you seem to think. They are, like all human institutions, corrupted by a range of social influences such as corporate involvement, government demands for results, and personal animosities. Moreover, it is very convincingly argued that scientific progress does not proceed as a smooth acquistion of knowledge but is subject to revolutions and periods of ‘crisis’ when the old beliefs of one generation are overturned by the new in what Thomas Kuhn describes as the ‘paradigm shift’. I have personally witnessed how individual scientists who do not have the right friends within a department are held back. And there really is not much ‘blue skies’ research funded throughout the sciences.

    The general theme of warfare between science and religion seems to be an underlying thought that permeates much of what you say. I don’t know whether you’d agree with this? If this is the case I would criticise this strongly. The idea that these two areas of thought are at odds is just not backed up by a proper historical analysis and is rapidly losing sway.

14. 14 Krypto  Feb 2nd, 2006 at 4:16 pm

    Evolutionary theory is based upon evidence. I think you do it an injustice to say that much is inferred; the same could be said of quantum theory or electrodynamic theory. Evolutionary theory makes predictions that have been verified, just as these do. But I haven’t read Popper etc., so let’s say you’re correct about that. Even so, there’s a large difference between evolution->speciation and existence of universe->omnipotent deity. The former is a logical step that requires only things that have been proven to be true. The latter requires a huge amount of belief. It’s just too much. I don’t say evolution->speciation(but put in place by visiting aliens) because there’s no reason to think aliens did it. Sure, it’s possible, but the requirements for belief are vast - aliens exist, have saucers, stay hidden etc. etc. etc.

    Regarding logic - I don’t think those questions make any sense.

    During school assemblies we were lectured on christianity (at which time I believed in a deity, I should point out) on a daily basis, and I was taken to a local christian outh group on occasion. There was nothing of this questioning of belief that you claim exists. Every religious text or authority figure I’ve ever seen has taken nothing like this position. Their religion is the fundamental truth, and that’s all there is to it. As for claiming that believing in the existence of a deity is not a necessary requirement - I have no idea where that’s come from. All religions clearly do assume this - that’s obvious.

    Of course scientific communities aren’t perfect - I do not claim they are. But the scientific method has built in self-checking mechanisms so that corruption does not affect the final results. That’s the point. Sure, research is stifled and there is of course debate around what should be funded and what shouldn’t be, but the truth should always be revealed via the scientific method.

    Throughout history religion has had to retreat before science. Not because science has anything against religion, but because science has exposed truth which contradicts religious doctrine. The only ‘warfare’ I see is from religious nuts (normally) who dispute proper evidence and claim their made-up beliefs have some relevance. I don’t think all religious people are like this, but it’s a threat to rationality that’s increasing. In this respect science is indeed fighting back, as standing by and waiting for it to die out hasn’t worked at all. Otherwise, science has no agenda, so ‘warfare’ isn’t the correct term. It’s entirely possible to believe in a deity and adhere to scientific principles, but the problem comes when science shows that something you believed in isn’t true. It makes far more sense to say ‘we don’t know’ than to believe in fairy tales.

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