Driving to work yesterday, my local public radio station was talking about a recent incident in which a student at Fullerton Union High School was disqualified from a competition by an assistant principal. The student, asked onstage where he’d like to be in ten years, said he hoped that gay marriage would become legal and he could be married to someone he loved. The assistant principle thought this was outrageous and immediately pulled him from the competition. Most interesting to me were the uniformly astonished reactions from the radio voices — how could it be, in this age of anti-bullying efforts and growing acceptance of homosexuality, that an authority figure could act so callously? You mean to say that there are still grownups out there who are willing to say out loud that homosexuality is immoral?
There are. And if you want to know why, at least part of the answer can be found in several discussions popping up in my newsreader about what Jesus thought about homosexuality. Here’s a Christian mother who travels the difficult road from hatred to acceptance once she learns that her own son is gay. Here’s a theological debate between Ron Dreher and Andrew Sullivan on the precise degree to which sexuality should be considered sinful. And here’s a moving speech by Matthew Vines, a 21-year-old man who tries his best to argue that the traditional understanding of the Bible as strongly anti-homosexuality is mistaken (essentially because that would condemn gay people to being tortured and unloved, and surely the Bible wouldn’t be in favor of that). Personally I think Jesus probably didn’t approve of homosexuality, but since the Gospels were written decades after Jesus died, by people who probably had never met him, I admit the historical record is not exactly definitive. Maybe Jesus was extremely compassionate toward gay people, although that would have been quite out of character for messianic figures from first century A.D. Palestine, so had that been true it would have been worth an explicit mention. It’s an inevitable problem when you are committed to taking your moral cues from two-thousand-year-old semi-mythical stories about a charismatic preacher, rather than trying to found them on reason and reflection.
Which brings me to the Problem of Instructions. This is a challenge to the idea that belief in God is a plausible hypothesis to help us account for the world, much like the Problem of Evil but much less well known, possibly because (as far as I know) I made it up. I mentioned the Problem of Instructions in our recent debate, but I’ve never written it down, so here you go. (I have no doubt that analogous issues have been discussed by real theologians.)
Let’s imagine that we were to take seriously the question of whether the idea of God serves a useful explanatory role in accounting for the reality we experience. What would we do to evaluate this idea? I would argue that we should use the dreaded hypothetico-deductive method. That is, we should try to forget what we actually know of the world, and imagine how the world would most likely be, under the competing hypotheses (1) there exists an extremely powerful, extremely benevolent divine entity who in some sense cares about human beings; and (2) it’s just the laws of physics, without any supernatural guidance or overseer. Then we compare those imaginations to the world we actually see, and decide which is a better fit.
Obviously there will be many aspects of the scenarios we imagine. Let me just focus in on one: the instructions God would give us if he existed, were very powerful, and cared about us here on Earth.
Now, I’ve written textbooks myself. I understand that it is sometimes difficult to write in a way that is perfectly clear to everyone. On the other hand, I’m not God. I would imagine that God’s textbook (if a book were the medium he chose for handing down his instructions, which seems to be the traditional choice) would be fantastically clear. He’s God, he can be as clear as he wants!
If God existed and cared about us human beings down here on Earth acting in the right way, I honestly believe that the very least he could do would be to make it perfectly clear what that right way was. I would expect God’s book of instructions to have several unmistakable characteristics: it would be unique (everyone would know that it was straight from God); it would be crystal clear (no ambiguities of interpretation); it might very well be challenging (no reason to think God’s instructions should be easy to carry out); and it would transcend the petty concerns of particular human places and times, conveying a truly universal perspective. God’s textbook would get nothing but five-star reviews on Amazon.
Now, let’s compare that to what I might expect if God did not exist. I have no trouble believing that there would still be books that claimed to be straight from God; that’s the kind of thing human beings tend to go around claiming. But there would be many such books. Some of them would be monographs from a single purportedly-inspired individual, while some of them would be edited collections of manuscripts collected over the years. In places they would offer good advice, while in other places they would say things that come across as pretty horrible. In parts they would be inspirational, in parts poetic and moving, in parts boring, and very often they would contradict themselves. They would generally reflect the local beliefs and politics of the environment in which they were composed. And, most tellingly, they would be unclear — some vague snippets of wisdom arranged in an unsystematic fashion, often ambiguous and possible to interpret in just about any way you like.
Now that we have our scenarios laid out, we ask ourselves: which of these is more like the real world?
Of course there’s no question that religious believers can wriggle out of the predictions of this thought experiment; wriggling out of the straightforward implications of belief in God is one of the primary activities of believers. It’s not hard to come up with reasons why God’s word might seem unclear to us mere humans, or be distorted over the years. And many will claim that God’s word is perfectly unambiguous to them — it’s just everyone else that has trouble understanding.
All of these apologetics carry with them the implication that God doesn’t really care that much about us down here on Earth. If he did, it would be the snap of his divine fingers to set us straight — absolutely everyone — on all possible issues of interpretation. Part of being omnipotent is the ability to be perfectly clear if he chooses. We can concoct reasons why God might want us to be challenged by the vicissitudes of life, or face an ongoing struggle to be better people; but there’s no reason at all for God to want to keep us in the dark about what being better people actually entails. Religion requires that we believe in a God who wants us to behave in certain ways, but refuses to be clear about what those ways actually are.
Stop with the bickering and accept as fact this giant rabbit who lays chocolate eggs for us to find.
Sean Carroll is absolutely right. The beliefs in a God can be so convoluted. When people say “God has a plan”, it is an easy way out of a debate when they run out of things to say. In conclusion, there is no God. Religion is pure man made for comforting reason. God did not create man, it is man who created God.
Happy Easter, everyone! May God bless every one of you!
http://img535.imageshack.us/img535/2002/odinq.gif
Took me a second or two to spot the flaw 😉
Earth to Sean, WTF is this doing in a physics/cosmology blog? Slow news day or just getting an ego rush from lots of clunky comments?
jaco – Yes, this blog is written by [astro] physicists. However, [astro] physicists have ideas on things besides [astro] physics. I think it’s useful to see perspectives of different issues from different professions.
So according to you, the existence of God is a cosmologically irrelevant question?
That’s all cosmology was about for most of humanity’s history….
I apologize in advance if this comment is redundant, there are a lot of comments and I did not read through them all.
As a student of Political Science it is hard for me not to consider organized religion and divine texts without considering their utility. Religious individuals typically consider deriving utility from religion to be a perversion of the faith. By deriving utility I mean exerting control. To use the “word of god” for such purposes is often considered wrong and or evil, but it is hard for me (as an individual who doubts the existence of a higher power) to understand the development of any widely but not universally accepted spirituality unless it was invented specifically for this purpose. That is to say, shared spirituality is a tool one can use to organize or create a community.
If one is to accept the premise that religions are invented to create communities (this concept follows from Benedict Anderson’s “Imagined Communities” which explains the flow of power and its relationship to language, i.e. printing press breaks Church monopoly on academia) then the commandments of these religions start to make a whole heck of a lot more sense! You create laws that keep your populace from eating dangerous foods like shellfish and pork, both of which can kill you if they are not properly prepared. You prohibit homosexuality because when your populace gives in to that natural inclination they are not producing offspring at peak efficiency (and since we are talking about a time before prenatal care the vast majority of kids wont reach maturity due to disease, etc.). You establish a hierarchy that centralizes the educated at the top echelons where they will be provided for by the workers and you restrict the flow of information (by not teaching folks to read or by writing in a dead language) so that information can only trickle down from that top echelon to the working populace. Essentially, you do exactly what all religions have done! Now, Benedict Anderson can explain this far better and far more thoroughly than I and illustrate how this transitioned into the forms of government we are familiar with today, but I hope I have made my point. Religious texts are just a set of laws designed to make the best use of a population and designed to give that population the most competitive edge possible.
The following is my argument for why these religious concerns no longer matter. We live in the 21st century, we have 7 billion people on the planet, decent medical care, and a much deeper understanding of our food and how to consume it safely. We are not concerned with a tribe of heathens cresting the hills on the horizons and slaughtering us for our cattle, we are not at risk of losing our harvest because there aren’t enough kids to help around the farm, therefore religious laws designed to increase our population and keep us from preparing our food wrong are outdated and do not need to be adhered to. In fact, if we do continue to adhere to these laws we would restrict our access to foodstuffs and encourage an unsustainable rate of population growth eventually dooming not only our local community but endangering the global community. In conclusion, religion is killing humanity. So please, for the love of humanity, put a condom or play with someone you can’t impregnate/that can’t impregnate you, procreation is NOT a civic duty.
Sean, I useed the hypothetical-deduction method and came to the sad conclusion that there is no Santa Claus. But now that I know Santa isn’t there to check on whether I’ve been naughty or nice, I no longer have a reason or need to be good.
… and thanks for ruining Easter, Sean. I used the hypothetical-deduction method again and have to conclude that zombies aren’t real either.
Sean certainly had not ruined Easter. Yes, zombies are not real as much as Easter bunnies are not real. Religion is destroying humanity. Science, on the other hand, is improving the quality of lives and prolonging lives for many people. All religions have created is hatred and wars among us to this very day. Nothing has ever changed about religions, but science has made tremendous progress and it still is as we speak. Sean Carroll is absolutely right!
The works of Shakespeare seem to me to follow your expectations of what an instruction manual would be like.
To #61 David: Oops … I forgot to paste the 🙂 sign after my earlier comments. I’m a devout atheist, though perhaps if I die and discover an afterlife, then I may become an agnostic.
To #61 David: Don’t knock religion so much. It gave us such great role models as Abraham, who was willing to kill his son to show his faith. Too bad we didn’t have HNN (Headline News?) back then to cover that story.
I can’t speak for religions other than Christianity, but if the primary purpose of the Christian Bible were to serve as an instruction manual for ethical behavior, then I agree that it could be more perspicuous. But further, if the primary purpose of it were simply to convey “Be excellent to one another”, then the Bible itself is mostly pointless and we should all just be Buddhists, since the ethical systems are nearly identical anyway, while the latter has a lot less added baggage.
On the other hand, if the goal of the Bible were to convey stories of how people encountered God, and how others might do the same, then it accomplishes exactly what it sets out to do. I don’t know if it can get any clearer than “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, that whoever believes in him…might have eternal life.” The rest is just details, the public portrayals of school principals and pundits and Rick Santorum notwithstanding.
“I think Jesus probably didn’t approve of homosexuality, but since the Gospels were written decades after Jesus died, by people who probably had never met him, I admit the historical record is not exactly definitive.”
I really do not see the point of such a hypothetical. I suppose it is nice to know how you feel.
Furthermore, what is the necessity for definitiveness? Divorce is condemned outright, and I do not see that such a definite condemnation has had much effect. I suppose we could say that we can be sure divorce is an evil, but we shall ignore this fine ethical point.
I hate to quibble, but Buddhism has a lot of baggage, metaphysical, logical, … you name it.
I think many people are drawn to a stripped-down form of Buddhism, which is interesting.
We’re born with the neurobiological ability to believe; however, we’re not born believers.
Evolution-wise, the idea of the construct of god-like personifications arose, most probably, from the interplay between self-consciousness and the environment. Nature became transcendental beyond understanding. ‘Faith’, that deep and moving feeling, must be a recent one (in evolutionary terms), and the closest one gets to an exterior, “anthropo-independent”, magical entity (with or without ‘instructions’).
Disclaimer: This is an educated opinion of an non-scientist.
Sean– you return to this subject often, and your arguments, as I read them, generally aim either to defend the legitimacy of Science or challenge the claims of Religion. Why? I submit that this approach has no hope of changing minds, either directly, or by arming the like-minded reader to go forth and argue. A more interesting approach might be to ask, what purpose does Religion serve in human life? How has that changed over the course of recorded history, and how has it remained the same?
Scientists have entirely displaced priests as the source of knowledge about how the world works. In my humble opinion, this is an idea that no longer needs to be defended. Governments and lawmen now offer practical answers to questions like “Why shouldn’t I kill my neighbor and take his stuff”, and psychologists at least offer a shoulder to cry on if you are bothered by thoughts like “Why am I here? What am I supposed to do before I die?” All of these were previously the domain of the priest and the shaman.
What is left for the priest to do? People are still tormented by the challenge of growing from childhood to maturity, facing death, find a sense of purpose, etc. and there is really no modern institution available to offer support. The choice is to embrace a 6000 year old tradition that conflicts with just about everything else we know about the world, or to face the “void” head on.
Attacking the Bible from the standpoint of Reason is comically. A more worthy question for a formidable mind might be “why does this phenomenon persist? What human need is being fulfilled by Religion — or at least isn’t being fulfilled elsewhere — and how might it be filled more effectively?”
Unfortunately, this type of argument won’t work on anyone who thinks they are religious. As you say, there are ways to wriggle out of this if one wants to. On the other hand, I think that most “believers” really aren’t religious – they like to pretend. I base this statement on the fact that if I actually believed doing something – anything – would lead to everlasting joy, life, or any other good thing, I would do that to the exclusion of everything else (eg. watching sports, going to the mall, playing golf, etc.). I base this statement on my personal experience – for something as insignificant as a career in science, I’ve spent way more time working my way through text books, journal articles, colloquia, etc. than most religious people have spent being religious (i.e. going to church, reading the bible, doing good works, etc.).
Thanks for writing this down, your idea of the problem of instructions. I like the expression, and this is the first I’ve heard of it phrased this way.
There has been the debate over appeal to the authority of Scripture. In the historical criticism of the Bible, the German scholar Strauss is famous in this field – The Life of Jesus (1846) (looks like the Wiki has a good intro). Although not mentioned on this Wiki page, Thomas Paine in his Age of Reason concludes there is no way that that God (Paine was a Deist, believing in the creator God but not the Christian God) could have anything to do with the Bible, which could have not been divinely inspired. Spinoza was apparently of the same mind set. (I am in no way an expert on these things and cannot study such issues as a full time occupation.)
Although the divinity of the Bible and its historical accuracy has long been in dispute, I really like your term of the problem of instructions and think it is a novel take on the problem of appeal to Scripture (and which was expressed very eloquently at your recent debate). For lack of a better phrase, it is touching how you relate this to your experience as a text book author, not that I could ever hope to understand at a meaningful level your text on general relativity.
I hope your framing of the issue in terms of the problem of instructions catches on as a meme.
And great job with your recent debate! Thanks for taking time away from your full time job to engage the public on matters both scientific and religious. More scientists like you are needed, who can at least engage the public on some level.
“If God existed and cared about us human beings …” First you have to define “God” then define “care”. But how to define “define”? The answer is probably more complicated than the English language. Such a waste of time.
Isn’t this a Straw Man argument?
See http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/rhetological-fallacies/