Don Page is one of the world’s leading experts on theoretical gravitational physics and cosmology, as well as a previous guest-blogger around these parts. (There are more world experts in theoretical physics than there are people who have guest-blogged for me, so the latter category is arguably a greater honor.) He is also, somewhat unusually among cosmologists, an Evangelical Christian, and interested in the relationship between cosmology and religious belief.
Longtime readers may have noticed that I’m not very religious myself. But I’m always willing to engage with people with whom I disagree, if the conversation is substantive and proceeds in good faith. I may disagree with Don, but I’m always interested in what he has to say.
Recently Don watched the debate I had with William Lane Craig on “God and Cosmology.” I think these remarks from a devoted Christian who understands the cosmology very well will be of interest to people on either side of the debate.
Open letter to Sean Carroll and William Lane Craig:
I just ran across your debate at the 2014 Greer-Heard Forum, and greatly enjoyed listening to it. Since my own views are often a combination of one or the others of yours (though they also often differ from both of yours), I thought I would give some comments.
I tend to be skeptical of philosophical arguments for the existence of God, since I do not believe there are any that start with assumptions universally accepted. My own attempt at what I call the Optimal Argument for God (one, two, three, four), certainly makes assumptions that only a small fraction of people, and perhaps even only a small fraction of theists, believe in, such as my assumption that the world is the best possible. You know that well, Sean, from my provocative seminar at Caltech in November on “Cosmological Ontology and Epistemology” that included this argument at the end.
I mainly think philosophical arguments might be useful for motivating someone to think about theism in a new way and perhaps raise the prior probability someone might assign to theism. I do think that if one assigns theism not too low a prior probability, the historical evidence for the life, teachings, death, and resurrection of Jesus can lead to a posterior probability for theism (and for Jesus being the Son of God) being quite high. But if one thinks a priori that theism is extremely improbable, then the historical evidence for the Resurrection would be discounted and not lead to a high posterior probability for theism.
I tend to favor a Bayesian approach in which one assigns prior probabilities based on simplicity and then weights these by the likelihoods (the probabilities that different theories assign to our observations) to get, when the product is normalized by dividing by the sum of the products for all theories, the posterior probabilities for the theories. Of course, this is an idealized approach, since we don’t yet have _any_ plausible complete theory for the universe to calculate the conditional probability, given the theory, of any realistic observation.
For me, when I consider evidence from cosmology and physics, I find it remarkable that it seems consistent with all we know that the ultimate theory might be extremely simple and yet lead to sentient experiences such as ours. A Bayesian analysis with Occam’s razor to assign simpler theories higher prior probabilities would favor simpler theories, but the observations we do make preclude the simplest possible theories (such as the theory that nothing concrete exists, or the theory that all logically possible sentient experiences occur with equal probability, which would presumably make ours have zero probability in this theory if there are indeed an infinite number of logically possible sentient experiences). So it seems mysterious why the best theory of the universe (which we don’t have yet) may be extremely simple but yet not maximally simple. I don’t see that naturalism would explain this, though it could well accept it as a brute fact.
One might think that adding the hypothesis that the world (all that exists) includes God would make the theory for the entire world more complex, but it is not obvious that is the case, since it might be that God is even simpler than the universe, so that one would get a simpler explanation starting with God than starting with just the universe. But I agree with your point, Sean, that theism is not very well defined, since for a complete theory of a world that includes God, one would need to specify the nature of God.
For example, I have postulated that God loves mathematical elegance, as well as loving to create sentient beings, so something like this might explain both why the laws of physics, and the quantum state of the universe, and the rules for getting from those to the probabilities of observations, seem much simpler than they might have been, and why there are sentient experiences with a rather high degree of order. However, I admit there is a lot of logically possible variation on what God’s nature could be, so that it seems to me that at least we humans have to take that nature as a brute fact, analogous to the way naturalists would have to take the laws of physics and other aspects of the natural universe as brute facts. I don’t think either theism or naturalism solves this problem, so it seems to me rather a matter of faith which makes more progress toward solving it. That is, theism per se cannot deduce from purely a priori reasoning the full nature of God (e.g., when would He prefer to maintain elegant laws of physics, and when would He prefer to cure someone from cancer in a truly miraculous way that changes the laws of physics), and naturalism per se cannot deduce from purely a priori reasoning the full nature of the universe (e.g., what are the dynamical laws of physics, what are the boundary conditions, what are the rules for getting probabilities, etc.).
In view of these beliefs of mine, I am not convinced that most philosophical arguments for the existence of God are very persuasive. In particular, I am highly skeptical of the Kalam Cosmological Argument, which I shall quote here from one of your slides, Bill:
- If the universe began to exist, then there is a transcendent cause
which brought the universe into existence. - The universe began to exist.
- Therefore, there is a transcendent cause which brought the
universe into existence.
I do not believe that the first premise is metaphysically necessary, and I am also not at all sure that our universe had a beginning. (I do believe that the first premise is true in the actual world, since I do believe that God exists as a transcendent cause which brought the universe into existence, but I do not see that this premise is true in all logically possible worlds.)
I agree with you, Sean, that we learn our ideas of causation from the lawfulness of nature and from the directionality of the second law of thermodynamics that lead to the commonsense view that causes precede their effects (or occur at the same time, if Bill insists). But then we have learned that the laws of physics are CPT invariant (essentially the same in each direction of time), so in a fundamental sense the future determines the past just as much as the past determines the future. I agree that just from our experience of the one-way causation we observe within the universe, which is just a merely effective description and not fundamental, we cannot logically derive the conclusion that the entire universe has a cause, since the effective unidirectional causation we commonly experience is something just within the universe and need not be extrapolated to a putative cause for the universe as a whole.
However, since to me the totality of data, including the historical evidence for the Resurrection of Jesus, is most simply explained by postulating that there is a God who is the Creator of the universe, I do believe by faith that God is indeed the cause of the universe (and indeed the ultimate Cause and Determiner of everything concrete, that is, everything not logically necessary, other than Himself—and I do believe, like Richard Swinburne, that God is concrete and not logically necessary, the ultimate brute fact). I have a hunch that God created a universe with apparent unidirectional causation in order to give His creatures some dim picture of the true causation that He has in relation to the universe He has created. But I do not see any metaphysical necessity in this.
(I have a similar hunch that God created us with the illusion of libertarian free will as a picture of the true freedom that He has, though it might be that if God does only what is best and if there is a unique best, one could object that even God does not have libertarian free will, but in any case I would believe that it would be better for God to do what is best than to have any putative libertarian free will, for which I see little value. Yet another hunch I have is that it is actually sentient experiences rather than created individual `persons’ that are fundamental, but God created our experiences to include beliefs that we are individual persons to give us a dim image of Him as the one true Person, or Persons in the Trinitarian perspective. However, this would take us too far afield from my points here.)
On the issue of whether our universe had a beginning, besides not believing that this is at all relevant to the issue of whether or not God exists, I agreed almost entirely with Sean’s points rather than yours, Bill, on this issue. We simply do not know whether or not our universe had a beginning, but there are certainly models, such as Sean’s with Jennifer Chen (hep-th/0410270 and gr-qc/0505037), that do not have a beginning. I myself have also favored a bounce model in which there is something like a quantum superposition of semiclassical spacetimes (though I don’t really think quantum theory gives probabilities for histories, just for sentient experiences), in most of which the universe contracts from past infinite time and then has a bounce to expand forever. In as much as these spacetimes are approximately classical throughout, there is a time in each that goes from minus infinity to plus infinity.
In this model, as in Sean’s, the coarse-grained entropy has a minimum at or near the time when the spatial volume is minimized (at the bounce), so that entropy increases in both directions away from the bounce. At times well away from the bounce, there is a strong arrow of time, so that in those regions if one defines the direction of time as the direction in which entropy increases, it is rather as if there are two expanding universes both coming out from the bounce. But it is erroneous to say that the bounce is a true beginning of time, since the structure of spacetime there (at least if there is an approximately classical spacetime there) has timelike curves going from a proper time of minus infinity through the bounce (say at proper time zero) and then to proper time of plus infinity. That is, there are worldlines that go through the bounce and have no beginning there, so it seems rather artificial to say the universe began at the bounce that is in the middle just because it happens to be when the entropy is minimized. I think Sean made this point very well in the debate.
In other words, in this model there is a time coordinate t on the spacetime (say the proper time t of a suitable collection of worldlines, such as timelike geodesics that are orthogonal to the extremal hypersurface of minimal spatial volume at the bounce, where one sets 
) that goes from minus infinity to plus infinity with no beginning (and no end). Well away from the bounce, there is a different thermodynamic time 
(increasing with increasing entropy) that for 
increases with 
but for 
decreases with (so there becomes more positive as becomes more negative). For example, if one said that is only defined for 
, say, one might have something like
the positive square root of one less than the square of . This thermodynamic time only has real values when the absolute value of the coordinate time , that is, 
, is no smaller than 1, and then increases with .
One might say that begins (at 
) at 
(for one universe that has growing as decreases from -1 to minus infinity) and at 
(for another universe that has growing as increases from +1 to plus infinity). But since the spacetime exists for all real , with respect to that time arising from general relativity there is no beginning and no end of this universe.
Bill, I think you also objected to a model like this by saying that it violates the second law (presumably in the sense that the coarse-grained entropy does not increase monotonically with for all real ). But if we exist for 
(or for 
; there would be no change to the overall behavior if were replaced with 
, since the laws are CPT invariant), then we would be in a region where the second law is observed to hold, with coarse-grained entropy increasing with 
(or with 
if ). A viable bounce model would have it so that it would be very difficult or impossible for us directly to observe the bounce region where the second law does not apply, so our observations would be in accord with the second law even though it does not apply for the entire universe. I think I objected to both of your probability estimates for various things regarding fine tuning. Probabilities depend on the theory or model, so without a definite model, one cannot claim that the probability for some feature like fine tuning is small. It was correct to list me among the people believing in fine tuning in the sense that I do believe that there are parameters that naively are far different from what one might expect (such as the cosmological constant), but I agreed with the sentiment of the woman questioner that there are not really probabilities in the absence of a model. Bill, you referred to using some “non-standard” probabilities, as if there is just one standard. But there isn’t. As Sean noted, there are models giving high probabilities for Boltzmann brain observations (which I think count strongly against such models) and other models giving low probabilities for them (which on this regard fits our ordered observations statistically). We don’t yet know the best model for avoiding Boltzmann brain domination (and, Sean, you know that I am skeptical of your recent ingenious model), though just because I am skeptical of this particular model does not imply that I believe that the problem is insoluble or gives evidence against a multiverse; in any case it seems also to be a problem that needs to be dealt with even in just single-universe models.
Sean, at one point your referred to some naive estimate of the very low probability of the flatness of the universe, but then you said that we now know the probability of flatness is very near unity. This is indeed true, as Stephen Hawking and I showed long ago (“How Probable Is Inflation?” Nuclear Physics B298, 789-809, 1988) when we used the canonical measure for classical universes, but one could get other probabilities by using other measures from other models.
In summary, I think the evidence from fine tuning is ambiguous, since the probabilities depend on the models. Whether or not the universe had a beginning also is ambiguous, and furthermore I don’t see that it has any relevance to the question of whether or not God exists, since the first premise of the Kalam cosmological argument is highly dubious metaphysically, depending on contingent intuitions we have developed from living in a universe with relatively simple laws of physics and with a strong thermodynamic arrow of time.
Nevertheless, in view of all the evidence, including both the elegance of the laws of physics, the existence of orderly sentient experiences, and the historical evidence, I do believe that God exists and think the world is actually simpler if it contains God than it would have been without God. So I do not agree with you, Sean, that naturalism is simpler than theism, though I can appreciate how you might view it that way.
Best wishes,
Don
My main concern (and the motivation for the Swaddling Baby Jesus experiment, really) is that Jesus seems to have had a low IQ.
Why did Jesus not display the signs of a person with a high IQ? Childhood upbringing could be a reason. This could have been because of various reasons. In particular, it could have because of excessive swaddling. Whether this was because of excessive swaddling, excessive secretion of cortisol and other hormones during childhood, and/or other factors remains an unknown. Perhaps, it will always be.
In Buddha’s name, amen.
Responding to TY’s comments:
James, you are correct that if Isaac Newton hired servants, he would have freed up time. My difficulty was we are just not sure we know enough about him that we can say he didn’t use up the time for picking Granny Smiths, or taking longer breaks under apple trees, rather than doing serious celestial research. So that is why I say we are speculating.
I also fully agree with you on the labour-leisure tradeoff, which means that as the wage rate rises, the wage earner may at some point decide to work less (i.e., enjoy more leisure – free time). But I’m having trouble (still) following the chain of reasoning because the tradeoff analysis is from the person selling the labour and not the person (e.g. Newton) buying it (which is what you are saying). At any rate, don’t waste time trying to explain this technicality. No value-added to the bigger question.
Thanks.
Apropos the Newton question: agreed. Let us leave it at that.
Mistaken yes if ones premise or worldview is that miracles cannot happen, then of course you’ll always be in rejection mode. Please see my comment on April 22, 2015 at 6:07 as I quoted Wall:
“But why are these claims silly? Is it because you have a visceral sense that such things simply cannot happen?
For me, it is not because of a visceral sense. It is because of the arguments (proceeding from a number of other fields – child psychology, sociology, history of philosophy, et cetera). There is very little evidence of miracles in any of these fields.
Furthermore, the results from all these fields seem to indicate that Christianity is based on evidence that was either deliberately falsified, deliberately manipulated or actively suppressed.
Indeed, we don’t have enough evidence to even know which stories to believe. In particular, we don’t know if the Gnostic Gospels were true Gospels. I don’t know if you have read The Gospel According to Judas. If you do, you will see that much of the beliefs of pre-moderns regarding the cosmology of the universe is reflected there. It is conceivable that Jesus believed in such a cosmology and “taught” that as part of his “Earthly Ministry”. In sum, the reason I choose not to believe in any of the Christian miracles is that, at this point, I believe I know too much.
Despite the name “James’, I choose not to believe in any literal interpretations of the Bible. Or indeed, in Christianity at all. It seems like the work of a bunch of politically motivated manipulators of the truth. And this proceeding purely from a motivation to learn The Truth of the matter.
Dr. Page, I was that (||) close to conceding that your last exegesis of a naturalistic universe set in motion by a creator god except for a single necessary redeeming miracle (if I have that right) was a logically consistent position, but then I remembered Sunday School: Daniel and the Lion’s Den; Noah and the Whale, Moses and the Burning Bush, Ten Plagues, Red Sea Parting; Lot’s Wife and the Pillar of Salt; and numerous direct communications of Jehovah or angels to prophets and leaders. It would appear you consider these Paul Bunyanesqe tall tales (as do I), but then you have the issue that Jesus (in whom you seem to believe) is said to have endorsed them (http://www.bethinking.org/bible/q-how-did-jesus-view-the-old-testament ). It seems strange to me that a divinely-inspired set of moral teachings would contain tall tales, some of which (Daniel and Moses) are considered to be inconsistent with independent historical data by scholars. But it they were not divinely inspired, it seems to me that calls the Jesus story into question also.
The other issue which bothers me, already raised by another commenter, is that is very unclear to modern morality and law as to why it makes sense to punish an innocent for the crimes/faults of the guilty. This would not be accepted in any court of law that I know of. It seems to be based on the tradition of animal sacrifice, and in fact the Bible contains one other mandated human sacrifice, the daughter of J__ (can’t remember the spelling), but we have moved past that type of thinking. Why would the creator of this universe need or want animals or humans killed?
I’m sure you have considered and answered these questions to your own satisfaction, since you seem to feel you have an iron-clad position, but it seems to me the speculations required take you further and further from hard data.
JimV, Richard, James, Paul (nontheists), etc….
With respect to the theists here, I think it’s clear by now that they are not generally willing to shoulder the burden of proof/support for their claim by focusing on argumentation wherein they provide evidence to support it. I think some credit might have been given in these regards much much earlier in the thread, but that line was exhausted. I think the current argumentation (and much of the past) however is entirely tangential, and the possible tangents could stretch ad infinitum. To continue on would be to attack an ever-moving goal post. There’s a bajillion possible lines of critique one could consider in any religion. What’s far more interesting is if there’s even one good reason to believe in the religion exists in the first place.
So my unsolicited advice would be that, if the theists aren’t going to acknowledge that they have a positive claim and need to take the proactive stance of providing evidence to convince others on it, then I’d say drop it. Of personal opinion, that’s the stance a non-theist should take in this anyways– resist the tangents, stick to the “why should I accept your claim?”. As the later is not happening, and the interesting part of the original post has long passed, I’d argue to give up the ghost and move on.
To the theists, please don’t take my curtness offensively. If it feels troublesome that the suggestion I’m making is effectively demanding that you be put on the offensive, recognize the difference between us is just an epistemological one. We’re skeptics, plain and simple, and so we’d prefer a state of ignorance until evidence is given on par with the claim.
The conversation really has been great all, but I think unless:
A) Someone wants to dig back up Don’s interesting views (of which there’s a torrent of comments above us)
or
B) The theists would seek to convince us with evidence.
…then I wonder that there may be better venues of thought or more productive things to be about.
JimV, I’m not claiming that the Resurrection of Jesus is the only miracle, but I am focusing on it as the central miracle of Christianity. One can consider the others on a case-by-case basis, but if it could be shown that any of the others were not historical events, I don’t see that the Christianity I believe in would fall, whereas I do if the Resurrection were not an historical event.
So far as Jesus’ endorsing the Old Testament accounts, let me use the example of Jonah and the sea creature (not necessarily a whale). Matthew 12:40 (New American Standard Version) records Jesus’ saying, “for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth.” Now the Book of Jonah is a marvelous story of God’s love for the Ninevites, counteracting the racism or tribalism Jonah felt when initially refusing God’s command to go to preach to them, lest they repent. But suppose it was a fictional story rather than an historical account, and suppose Jesus knew that, similar to the way that most people who quote Shakespeare know that his stories are largely fiction. Could He not similarly compare His coming death and resurrection to the account in the story of Jonah? I see no problem in hypothesizing that Jesus thought the Book of Jonah was inspired (as I do; it really is a great story) without necessarily requiring that it be historical.
There are several different theological ideas (explanatory theories) on how Christ’s death on the Cross accomplished our atonement with God. I’m not an expert on these and would need to study them more to formulate a more definite opinion on which is correct. I don’t have an iron-clad position on this issue (or indeed on many details of the Christian faith), but I do believe that Christ accomplished what was needed to give us complete communion with God.
Josh: what – just as we’re about to resolve this once and for all? But no, you’re right. There have been way too many tangents, such as the Newton/Laplace tangent for which I am largely to blame, from what started as a semi-scientific seminar. I hereby withdraw any implied request on my part for further response to any of my comments, and have no objection to the moderator deleting any or all of them. And once again thank Dr. Page for his time and patience.
Josh: Agreed, this is leading nowhere. I had hoped to hear an argument that wasn’t special pleading, but without evidence, all you get is the special pleading that evidence isn’t needed if you settle for faith.
Hi Don,
Thanks for your thoughtful reply.
On your Bayes analogy I would point out the obvious that your “eternal destiny” does not depend on your knowing Bayesian statistics. To me a Deity that is Omnipotent and Omnibenevolent would do a better job of revealing the ultimate truth upon which one’s eternal destiny is at stake.
Anyway not trying to enter a debate, just share an opinion. I see from other posts the classical apologetics, of which I am quite familiar, having taught apologetics.
As I said earlier, I appreciate your contributions to the philosophical cosmology discussions. I use you as a reference in discussions with believers on Kalam. My point is that if a Cosmologist who would have every theological reason to support Kalam yet does not, it can’t be a very good argument! I think you are getting some Christians really upset (kind of like Francis Collins does with respect to evolution)!
Responding to Richard says: April 24, 2015 at 2:24 pm and comments by various others
“4. To say primates share 99% of human DNA is not equivalent to saying primates are 99% human.”
Richard: True. It is also not equivalent to saying that humans are primates. The fact is that all humans are primates, but not all primates are humans.
“5. To be human if to say we are both physical body and mind.”
Richard: I don’t know if TY is saying that “to be human” implies that we are “both physical body and mind” (logically, H -> B & M), or that the two are equivalent (H iff B & M). Certainly the latter cannot be supported. (“iff” is a common abbreviation for “if and only if”.) I’m not sure at what point on the spectrum “M” ceases to be true. Death? Brain death? Vegetative state? Deep coma? Even neurologists might disagree on that question. But it isn’t certain that H -> B & M, as there are humans in vegetative states and so on. One might also assert that M -> B (all minds require a physical embodiment). I am doubtful that TY would endorse that proposition. But every mind that I have encountered so far has a physical embodiment, and it is a falsifiable proposition. I am far more comfortable with that than I am with TY’s proposition.
“6. The fact of mind or consciousness exists is an argument for theism than atheism.”
Richard: If this means that it is a Bayesian argument, then it is saying p(C|T) > p(C|A), but I have difficulty seeing why that should be. Consciousness is definitely a phenomenon of this universe. So are a lot of other things, like photons. Is there any particular reason to assert that p(P|T) > p(P|A), where P is the statement that photons exist? No special pleading, please. In addition, it is running up against anthropic considerations and those need to be taken into account, which the simple inequality I just gave won’t do.
If “argument” means something other than a Bayesian argument, then it seems like that argument is trying to wiggle itself free of any requirement for evidence.
My response/ comments (revisit #4 after #6):
#5: I meant something much more basic the objective reality of the mind: A human being is more than just a bundle of atoms in the arrangement we know it (head, shoulders, limbs, organs, etc.) but an entity with a mind that enables consciousness, perception, thinking, judgment, and memory. We have both physical and mental properties, and, there are various options in the Philosophy of the Mind for understanding the duality: Cartesian mind-body Dualism, Property Dualism, Hylomorphic Dualism, and Epiphenomenalism (see Don N. Page says: April 24, 2015 at 8:52 am)
If human beings have a mind, and hence self-awareness exists, there exists a fundamental reality that explains everything else. So what are the best candidates? Well, let’s look (I’m not outlining the following as a syllogism or deductive argument).***
1. Is the world mathematical? Yes (from the mathematical nature of physics)
2. Therefore we can say the fundamental reality is one of (1) only maths that actually make the world go round (H1) or (2) the mathematician (H2).
3. If H2 is true, then naturalism wins hands down, because it is a worldview that sees the universe as revealed by the Natural Sciences to be the ultimate reality. By the definition of naturalism all hypotheses labelled as supernatural are either false or the same as the natural phenomena (reductionism).
4. If H2 is true, then we would have a supernatural or Theistic view of reality.
5. We on the theistic side of this debate (Don, Simon, myself in this blog, and others outside the blog) argue H2 is more plausible
*** David Reilly commented on April 25, 2015 at 3:50 am about the Kalam argument and humorously refers to “Kalamites” – I think I just penned a new word — getting a bit upset. David. I’m no fan of ONLY deductive arguments, but it’s one way to make the case for theism. There are other ways, and if you feel sufficiently open-minded and challenged I urge you to read the entire series of essays on Fundamental Reality by physicist Aron Wall and look up: http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/fundamental-reality-index/. The author will happily engage you in a rigorous discussion.
I wasn’t particularly concerned about those medical situations like brain death and permanent vegetative state (PVS), in which case “M” (thoughts and the process in the brain) ceases to exist or may be severely impaired. If there are neurologists reading this blog, I’d like to hear their views on the medical ethics. But clearly if the person cannot breathe without the respirator; or the heart will not beat without the medical device, and the brain is truly dead, then it seems to me that the person is dead. He’s still John Doe, a human being (and not a giraffe), but physically dead.
#“6: As you can see my arguments are grounded in actual observation or evidence. There is no special pleading here, If self-awareness, mathematics, etc are not real, universal, I don’t know what is.
#4: You restated it very eloquently: “True. It is also not equivalent to saying that humans are primates. The fact is that all humans are primates, but not all primates are humans.” Let me agree with you that human beings are rather special primates.
From Bertrand Russell (Study of Mathematics):
“Mathematics, rightly viewed, possesses not only truth, but supreme beauty, a beauty cold and austere, like that of sculpture, without appeal to any part of our weaker nature, without the gorgeous trappings of painting or music, yet sublimely pure, and capable of a stern perfection such as only the greatest art can show. The true spirit of delight, the exaltation, the sense of being more than Man, which is the touchstone of the highest excellence, is to be found in mathematics as surely as in poetry.”
If maths is all that, imagine the ultimate mathematician, poet, musician, and so on, all in one. Bertrand must be turning in his grave at my words.
Richard: you and all (JimV, Richard, James, Paul, David , etc) were made in the image of God. By the way I noticed Josh described yourself as “non-theists”, and so I say:
All atheists are necessarily non-theists, but not all non-theists are necessarily atheists. The non-theist camp is overcrowded by agnostics. So there is plenty of time left for a change of heart and as the Richard Dawkins is quoted as saying: “I can’t be sure God does not exist.”
So my unsolicited advice would be that, if the theists aren’t going to acknowledge that they have a positive claim and need to take the proactive stance of providing evidence to convince others on it, then I’d say drop it.
But of course! Shake the dust of your feet, as someone once said. And I did drop it, myself, over 10 years ago, with few regrets (I quite liked the singing, I guess; and the sense of being part of the cosmic grand plan, that was nice, too). The thing is, it was a colossal waste of time and effort and I’d be a bit remiss if I didn’t occasionally try to encourage others to get out, too 😉
Paul, I think we should do what we can to help others get out of it to, if not out of sympathy then out of hope for a better world. There are some avenues in those regards which I think are effective, and others that aren’t (my comment describing what I thought was the effective way). Given recent research noting how antagonistic factual debate is ineffective in changing views and instead reinforces them (I wish I had the link, but I think a quick google would bring it), one might go further to say that picking one’s methods is crucial, beyond simply saying that some routes are better uses of time than others.
Well while I have enjoyed this debate at times, our lack of success on the theistic side saddens me a little. Perhaps in my case it is partly that I have tried too hard to be seen to be right and clever, or to win arguments, and as Josh said, that is often counterproductive.
Just this morning, I woke up with a renewed sense that God does not want me to try to prove any sort of superiority to others in any sphere. (Which is probably a bit of loser academically here!). Instead he wants me to enjoy his love and acceptance. On a good day at least, I enjoy the presence of God and remember how my life seemed without him. I also find the way different people are made, how God redeems them and transforms them, enjoyable, and hope you find these realities in your lives too in the future. I am also aware that this might not look appealing to you right now and wonder if that is not the real issue. These realities are indeed subjective, but for me they are so all pervasive that they pull round the scientific stuff rather than the other way around.
I may or may not drop out, but I’m sorry if I have sown any unhelpful seeds.
I slightly disagree with Simon only in the sense I did not join the debate to win converts to theism. In a previous comment I remarked this type of discussion wins few converts — on either side. It is in the nature of debates of this metaphysical or philosophical type that there will no consensus, and so I’m not disappointed in the outcome, and so I don’t see winners or losers. Rather, I want to believe this debate would have made people more informed, even just a bit, because ignorance is so much worse than disbelief or skepticism.
You are all in my prayers. I have to leave to get ready for Church in half an hour.
Have a happy Sunday.
Simon, no need to feel guilty or anything like that. Here’s a link that goes through a group of the studies I was thinking about:
http://www.newyorker.com/science/maria-konnikova/i-dont-want-to-be-right
It’s long, but the general idea is that, when it comes to ideas that are related to our sense of self, we could hear a mountain of accurate, contradictory evidence and still remain unconvinced. Effectively, we can be proved wrong and yet end up believing our erroneous ideas even more than when we initially started.
It’s a really scary thing to think about— what ideas might I be blindly holding onto out of personal bias— and it’s present in all parties (theist, atheist, both political groups, anyone, etc.). It seems to me that one way to personally overcome this is to train oneself to begin self-identifying as a person who cares about the evidence (more than the belief) predominately. That’s not necessarily easy to do though, and it doesn’t address how to try and sway others on an idea. The scientists in the article acknowledged a sense of being at a loss for how to effectively do this, but the answer seems rooted in some play of one’s sense of self (how one wants to self-identify and the relationship of a view to that).
Josh
There’s plenty of psycho-babble out there to go with the rest of man’s ‘wise’ thinking. I know people who have been through that mill. I’ll settle for what St. Paul said. For me to live is Christ, to die is gain. My life is hidden with God in Christ. Self-examination gets exhausting and inconclusive beyond a point. I am who I am because God decided who I would be. Jesus said that whoever loses their life for his sake will find it.
My life faces challenges I could inform you about on many fronts. I am trusting God with them at a practical level. For example I just had an issue with driving here in Cape Town and failed to submit for a license transfer within the time scale required partly due to bureaucracy here relating to other things. I could see no way round it. Getting stopped here as a foreigner without a valid license is not good. I phoned someone for help and they told me the local government had extended the timescale a day or two before my license period expired to five years. I have seen God come through time and again in personal, bureaucratic and financial issues. Very often he chooses to do so at the last minute. I was not born yesterday and I work at times with potentially dangerous people.
If you want to live your life for your philosophy or non-philosophy I can’t stop you. But I know you are wrong. If God lets me down, I’ll let you know. We have big challenges and a big job to do.
If this discussion is to be constrained to merely conventional scientific inputs into the theism debate, I would have more inclination to truly consider the atheist side. I don’t, in reality, have any time for atheism. Except to look at the arguments so I am aware of them. I say this because Paul and yourself have begun to make assertions about Christian believers which to me make no sense at all.
Josh
“…a person who cares about the evidence (more than the belief) predominately”
So evidence is critical. Fine. To only admit evidence under controlled circumstances makes sense for science when looking for physics equations. It is not used much in EBNS. It cannot be used much in cosmology. It cannot capture anything except the mundane where human conduct is concerned. Yet if I look back I have quite a bit of very significant evidence regarding God, his wisdom, his supernatural powers, and his love for me and my family.
I am persuaded that I am discoursing with you not primarily to be seen as right, but because what you say makes no sense to me.
I’m done debating this thread. I do hope that some of the theists here may be inspired to skip Sunday school someday and take a hike in the wilderness instead, to experience the fascination of nature without the filter of theism. And perhaps to unlearn the need (which is not innate) for worship and allow curiosity about the universe to develop in its place — the same kind of curiosity that motivated Darwin, Einstein, and others like them. But whatever path you choose, cheers to all and thanks for keeping it civil.
We have got an american IT graduate staying with us who was healed of a gluten allergy, diagnosed at 12 years old, instantaneously after prayer at the end of a church service where he was acting as sound engineer. He was able to eat the muffins.
Simon,
Your response sounds like some of what that article might suggest we humans are guilty of. Check out some of your responses to it:
* “There’s plenty of psycho-babble out there to go with the rest of man’s ‘wise’ thinking.”
In other words, you are foregoing interesting psychological evidence even though it’s pretty compelling at a time when it might suggest you critique your sense of self. This is ironically exactly what that article suggests humans are prone to do.
* “…I could inform you about on many fronts… I was not born yesterday… [the significant bits of self-affirmation of your belief].”
My comment wasn’t critiquing your belief any more but rather discussing how we talk about our beliefs. Noting this, this seems very much like the knee-jerk reaction described in the article. When the sense of self is challenged, we tend to instead discard the evidence (which you did), and respond in kind with even more fervent self-affirmation.
* “…your philosophy or non-philosophy I can’t stop you.” & “Paul and yourself have begun to make assertions about Christian believers…”
As I’m not sure where I made assertions about Christian believers specifically (though I did make generalizations about ALL humans), this sounds a bit defensive.
The second comment again sounds like it’s intention is not as much to add new constructive information to the conversation but rather a bit of self-affirmation. I would challenge you then to think if your response is somewhat similar to what the research suggests our typical human reaction is. If so, that doesn’t mean at all that you would be wrong about god– it would only serve as an example of something we all have to navigate.
I personally have to catch myself on it frequently. It wasn’t until I really took up a passion for truth and evidence-based reasoning that I finally (in my own opinion) was able to escape the oppression, cognitive dissonance, social disjunctions, unnecessary guilt living with god brought. But like I said, that study wasn’t talking about beliefs on religion/irreligion, but rather in how we operate as humans in general when facing an opposing view.
Richard says: April 26, 2015 at 11:21 am :
“I’m done debating this thread. I do hope that some of the theists here may be inspired to skip Sunday school someday and take a hike in the wilderness instead, to experience the fascination of nature without the filter of theism.”
Some comments and an urgent request for information:
1. I won’t skip Sunday School; love it too much and I get to use crayons. Maybe if you have a good wilderness site for me to go, I might skip a few Sundays. See #5.
2. In my church we have worship in the “wilderness”, well not quite, but a big park an old growth forest with old oaks hundreds of years old. It’s our way of appreciating God handiwork. It’s awesome, like my earlier comment about gazing at the heavens from our campfires, and be inspired. We need more campfires.
3. But I don’t believe in pantheism or panantheism. I believe in a creator and that fundamental entity’s awesome creation.
4. It’s funny you said wilderness because Jesus spent 40 days and 40 nights in the wilderness and he became hungry. And the Devil challenged Jesus to make bread from stones. Jesus didn’t fall for it and we learn that the Devil tempted him again — prove what you say you are.
Matthew 4: 1-11:
Then the devil took him to the holy city and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. “If you are the Son of God,” he said, “throw yourself down. For it is written:
“‘He will command his angels concerning you,
and they will lift you up in their hands,
so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”
Jesus answered him, “It is also written: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.’”
One lesson: God tests us; we don’t test God
5. Richard, if you know of a nice wilderness for a family vacation, please send me the link.
Josh
You can doubt my truthfulness and judgement of course but for me the evidence remains good evidence. All the best.
Simon,
That’s not my intent, though I did want to key in on just how dastardly it is for us humans to really be able to talk about things critically we self-identify with, and thus learning to have a zeal for the truth per evidence is quite helpful. You seem agree with this in part by repeatedly mentioning that the evidence is good evidence, though I hope you know you have provided none beyond anecdote or things consistent with your ideology (but not exclusive to it). Anyways, again my original point was about how I felt the discussion should go though and beyond that I’ll try to stop beating a dead horse… such a terrible expression hah.
Josh: you have to be careful in the language when you said on April 26, 2015 at 3:03 pm: ” Simon, That’s not my intent, though I did want to key in on just how dastardly it is for us humans to really be able to talk about things critically we self-identify with, and thus learning to have a zeal for the truth per evidence is quite helpful. ……I’ll try to stop beating a dead horse… such a terrible expression hah.”
A person who believes in reincarnation or the transmigration of the soul might be offended. I’d prefer “I”ll stop beating a (dead) tree stump.”
I felt my response April 24, 2015 at 9:42 pm to the April 24, 2015 at 6:32 pm penetrating comment of JimV was much less thorough than I wished it could have been, as it got into important theological areas beyond my main expertise. Therefore, I asked Aron Wall how he would have responded. He sent me the following very insightful email (including the link at the end to his extremely helpful blog on the Atonement, which I would also strongly encourage you to read) and gave permission for me to post what he wrote, so here it is:
Of course I agree that God did several other miracles in the Bible
besides the Resurrection; it would be completely arbitrary to reject
all but one miracle recorded in the Gospels, Acts and Old Testament
histories. But the Resurrection is the most important one, as well as
one of the most abundantly documented in ancient history. I think we
need to decide on a case-by-case which parts of the Old Testament
books are historical and which are mythical, but I personally believe
that the Exodus really happened and that most of the Old Testament
historical books read like actual historical accounts, though others
like Job and Jonah read more like (divinely inspired) fiction.
For modern day miracles, a good scholarly resource is Craig Keener’s
book: “Miracles”.
Jephthah sacrificing his daughter was hardly mandated by God; instead
he made a rash vow that he would sacrifice whatever he saw first when
returning home if he got victory in battle. The Torah prohibits human
sacrificed (and has equivalent financial penalties for vows involving
human beings in Lev 27). The Bible never says that Jephthah was
morally justified in keeping his vow, the Bible simply records it as
having occured. I always assumed he was just an idiot.
In the somewhat similar story of Abraham and Isaac (before the Torah
was given), God does command the sacrifice but it is a test of
obedience and faith considering that God also promised that he would
have descendents through Isaac—and as we all know, Isaac wasn’t
actually killed. If you look at Abraham’s words in Genesis you can
see that he believed he would receive Isaac back again anyway.
The sacrifices in the Old Testament foreshadow the perfect sacrifice
of Christ in the New Testament. With respect to the question of why
God would command animal sacrifices, I think that it is quite wrong to
say that God demands animal sacrifice because he is bloodthirsty and
then Christ happens to be a perfect satisfaction for that impulse.
The Bible says several times (e.g. Psalm 50, Hebrews 10 & quotations
therein) that God has no need for animal sacrifice and that it is not
at all effective for purging sins.
Rather, I think the comparison works in the other direction: Christ’s
sacrifice is effective for purging sins because 1) he was fully divine
as well as having led a perfect human life, and 2) the Holy Spirit is
given to transfer the effects of his obedience to human hearts today.
The animals were merely symbolic foreshadowing of this event, a
teaching aid, and so God accepted them as an object lesson in order to
teach about Jesus. For this reason, the sacrifices cease to be
offered shortly after the death of Jesus.
As for whether the sacrifice of Jesus is moral, I wrote about that on my blog:
http://www.wall.org/~aron/blog/does-the-atonement-make-ethical-sense/
Blessings,
Aron
PS Feel free to post any or all of this on the thread, if you think
it would be useful.
Josh
I agree with you on the ‘how do we manage to be truly objective’ thing. I was talking with our american guest about how in some cultures it is anathema to expect someone to admit they were wrong, even when there are no immediate legal implications. People from these cultures will often help you solve a problem, even at their own expense, but they are very sensitive about culpability. These issues are strongly related to self-worth of course. However I think all parties here are happy with most aspects of the scientific method. It is a legitimate way of potentially and hopefully filtering out prejudice, though in the final analysis we still do not really know what reality is from logic. I do not see science as we practice it as infallible though, particularly when applied to scenarios with a lot of potential evidence, but also a lot of stacked conjecture and no or few well controlled experiments. These areas happen to relate a lot to theories of origins.
My statements on my faith are reflective of my present convictions. I am not seriously considering adopting the atheist position, rather I am looking at the evidence and the world view associated with it, in part because of the, to my mind, unwarranted, stereotyped and simplistic attacks on Christianity around at the moment. In part, because I want a reconciled worldview.