5 posts tagged “god”

Sam Harris

Andrew Sullivan has posted his response to Sam Harris' latest essay in their debate on Religion on Beliefnet. It appears to be the last that he will write as Sullivan says, "Perhaps, then, Sam, we have talked as much as we fruitfully can." For risk that Sam may not offer another rebuttal, I will address Sullivan's essay, at length, here. I hope Sam does, ultimately, offer a final rebuttal and it will be interesting to me to see where we differ.

I'm going to skip the first paragraph and address it a little further down. I'm going to jump ahead to Sullivan's reason for thinking that he could never not exist:

The reason I cannot conceive of my non-existence is because I have accepted, freely and sanely, the love of Jesus, and I have felt it, heard it, known it. He would never let me go. And by never, I mean eternally. And so I could never not exist and neither could any of the people I have known and loved.

The main problem with this is that this is not a reason, but more a quasi-emotion. Under what justification has he "accepted" this to be true? How has he "felt it, heard it" and "known it"? Our own senses are notoriously unreliable for us to accept that he as "felt" anything resembling divinity. From whom has he "heard" this? Has he spoken personally to god? The last verb is that he "heard" it. From whom? His family and friends? A pastor? God himself? These assertions demonstrate nothing but an incomplete analysis of the situation.

Then Sullivan states that he really doesn't think god "exists" per se, but that he is something entirely different:

For me, the radical truth of my faith is therefore not that God exists, but that God is love (a far, far less likely proposition). On its face, this is a preposterous claim, and in my defense, I have never really argued in this dialogue that you should not find it preposterous. It can be reasoned about, but its truth itself is not reasonable or reachable through reason alone. But I believe it to be true - not as a fable or as a comfort or as a culture. As truth. And one reason I am grateful for this discussion is that you take this truth claim seriously on its own terms.

If god is "love" then why not call this phenomena "love" instead of "god?" Is god a being in and of itself or simply a feeling? If so, what are we arguing about? Love? I believe love exists, so in this sense I, myself, am a theist. Then again, what is Sullivan's definition of "love"? Things become incredibly fuzzy when we start substituting "god" for basic human emotions and I don't think that this sort of vocabulary gets us any further in understanding the "truth" of "love" (or, as Sullivan wants it, "god").

The feeling of love can be scientifically measured and there is plenty of data that supports belief in love. At this point, if I was Harris, I would ask Sullivan to define exactly what he means by "god" before moving forward. Such unclear language gets nobody closer to anything resembling a resolution of the issue.

But lets move on, in this next part Sullivan brings up how Jesus fits into this "god as love" hypothesis. He asks the question, "What did Jesus do?" Good question, let us examine what Sullivan says he did.

Sullivan says that "the first and immense thing [that Jesus did] is that he existed at all."

That is certainly debatable. I personally don't think there is any well demonstrated evidence that even suggests that Jesus existed. But for the sake of argument, lets just assume that he did. How is Jesus existing important?

From Sullivan's book, which he quotes in the article:

This, it seems to me, is the true mystery of the incarnation, the notion that in Jesus, God became man. I believe this in the only way I can: that one man represents, for all time, God's decision to truly be with us....

In this nonfundamentalist understanding of faith, practice is more important then theory, love more important than law, and mystery is seen as an insight into truth rather than an obstacle.

The most important part of this quotation is not the conclusions that Sullivan draws from his assertion, but in the assertion itself. How do we know that in Jesus "God became man"? If so, how did this happen? What he draws from this significance can be debated, and I don't think his conclusions are intirely invalid, but the at the heart of these conclusions is the claim that in Jesus we have god as a man. How is it possible to know this is true?

Sullivan continues:

This is what Jesus told people: to treat God as an intimate father, to pray simply, to believe against so much evidence that good does indeed prevail against evil, to know that God is not indifferent to us, and to re-enact his last meal for ever as a way to remind ourselves of his love and experience his real presence. And this is what Jesus lived: a life full of love and friendship and self-giving, even to the point of non-violent submission to violence, as proof of God's love.

Sullivan seems to be confusing the argument, he is wrapped up in the conclusions he has drawn from the assertion of God and Jesus' divinity. I partially blame this on Harris, as he has a tendency to show his distrust of religion through examples of religion's bad things. Sullivan seems intent on showing Harris that his religion isn't the religion of fundamentalism. But that's not the issue. The issue is do we have good reason to think that these conclusions come from a solid foundation? Circularly, Sullivan's justification for believe in Jesus is ... believing in Jesus. The idea that Jesus was allegedly a good guy somehow equates to proof of "God's love".

And that phrase, "God's love" is entirely inconsistent with what Sullivan has previously said. So god is love, but yet we are supposed to revere his love? Love's love? What?! Are we now again talking about God as some sort of entity, or is this some abstraction of language I do not understand? Perhaps the "god is love" thing was more an analogy. Or maybe he just forgot what he wrote only a few paragraphs before this one.

He continues, kind of saying why he can believe these things:

I do not need the proof of miracles to believe this. The universe itself is a miracle to me. If there are aspects of it that science has not yet grasped but that believers have somehow glimpsed, then I am content to allow for the possibility of miracles. But I have not witnessed any but the normal ones: the miracle of the blossoms out of my widow at this time of year or the miracle that someone else actually loves me unconditionally, or the miracle of a newborn child. This is miracle enough for me.

Under what definition does Sullivan attribute a miracle? Is this a joke of some kind? How is normal, everday occurrences that happen billions of times a day in billions of different locations a miraculous proof of god's existence? Silliness aside, these "miracles" certainly don't point to any creator. This argument is on par with the argument from design. Science can certainly discover why these miracles occur. Evolution explains the blossoms outside of his window, evolution explains why we love each other. Evolution explains the miracle of a newborn child. Sullivan's use of "miracle" in this example is closer to poetry than justification for theism.

The universe is certainly a "miracle" to me as well, but it does not point to any sort of god at all. In fact, as Richard Dawkins likes to put it, if there is a god behind the slow evolution of the cosmos and nature he somehow saw fit to create life in such a way that a god would appear to be unnecessary.

Ah, but what of the resurrection. Does he now suggest that the resurrection is merely symbolic language made up by someone in the late first or early second century? Not on your life:

The resurrection? Yes. But I see it as no more and no less remarkable than the incarnation - and it is, in many ways, the only possible consequence of the incarnation. The Gospels and the Acts of the Apostles provide contradictory accounts of what the resurrection actually was. Jesus appeared in the guise of others, as a vision, as a fully physical entity, and in other ways that defy science and logic. I don't know how to understand it except as a mystery. But I do believe in the empty tomb as much as I believe in the cramped manger. They go together - marks of an appearance in human history as mysterious as the divine must always be to human minds.

Pure unadulterated frustration is the only way to express my response to this excerpt. Sullivan doesn't claim to know even what the resurrection was, and instead of coming to the conclusion that contradictory accounts of this event should discredit it he concludes the exact opposite: that it's all the more reason to believe in it's "mystery". Why do you believe in the "empty tomb" and the "cramped manger", Andrew? How do you come to believe these things? Because they were told to you by an authority?

Okay, we're done with that horrible justification of faith. Lets move on, shall we? Sullivan addresses Harris specific points that he laid out in his essay. Instead of asking you jump back and forth between mine and Harris' article I'll just post Harris' point before Sullivan's and then add my own analysis (I think I just realized this will be quite a long essay. Sorry)

Harris (emphasis mine):

Moderation v. fundamentalism: There appears to be no principled separation between religious moderation and religious fundamentalism other than a facility for (and an inclination to) doubt. But how much doubt is too much? Why not doubt the whole shebang, as I do? The pope seems to believe many things which you doubt. Do you have reason to believe that the pope is mistaken about the true doctrine of Christianity, or do you just not like the social consequences of some of his beliefs? Can you justify the intermediate position you've taken with respect to Catholicism in terms of truth and falsity (rather than consolation and its lack)? And if you disagree that the truth of an idea can be neatly separated from its consolations, what does the phrase "wishful thinking" mean to you?

Sullivan says he addressed it at the beginning of his essay, so lets go there:

I argued that because we may be programmed by evolution for faith, faith may be intrinsic to being human and therefore something we should engage rather than deny. You make the solid point that we are also programmed by evolution for rape. Does that make rape defensible? Of course not, even though, as you point out, rape is a very effective and very natural way to disseminate DNA. But my response would not be to say that the evolutionary impulse to inseminate should be resisted entirely. I'd argue that the sex rive should be channeled respectfully toward others, i.e. moderated. So rape cedes to consensual DNA dissemination. Similarly, the drive for faith needs to be channeled respectfully toward others, i.e. moderated. Fundamentalism cedes to toleration. Hence my insistence on maintaining the humility apropriate (sic) for such immense claims about the meaning of everything; and hence my support for a faith that is live-and-let-believe in its social manifestation. I think my project in this respect is far more feasible than yours. By attempting to abolish rather than moderate faith, I fear you deliver an intrinsic human impulse into the hands of those who most abuse it - the fundamentalists of all stripes.

What I take from this is not that if extremism is bad so must be the moderate form of that expression. Harris' question is not wether moderation is nicer than extremism, but under what justification do these things fall. This is the key point that I've brought up before in discussing why I feel that my refuse to be "moderate" in my atheism is justified.

The problem is not whether or not these things are extreme or moderate but if they are true. Sam asks Sullivan to demonstrate his moderate position as "true" rather than merely socially acceptable. Sullivan has completely ignored the point of the question and gone off to show that moderation is itself a good thing. I don't disagree but I don't agree at the same time. The more important question to ask is if these things are themselves true.

Taking the discussion outside of the umbrella of religion can illuminate better what I mean. Imagine that a person is standing in the middle of the street and sees a car approaching them. If they do not move, they car will hit this person. Further, lets assume that the driver is not really paying attention to the road and will not move out of the way.

Now, for a person to believe that they will not be hurt by the car hitting them is clearly a false and foolish idea, no matter if this belief is held extremely or moderately. The problem isn't how moderately or extremely this belief is held, but that it is a false belief.

If a person believes the truth in this matter, that the car will hurt them if it strikes them, that belief is clearly true and not harmful no matter how moderately or extremely. However you feel about the extremity of the situation doesn't matter, as long as you get out of the way of the car.

To continue on, Harris second point:

The inadequacies of the Bible: What is the intellectual justification for considering the Bible to be the inspired word of God, given how much bad stuff (like slavery) is in there, and how much good stuff (like all of science) isn't? Do you really think that no mere mortals could have written Mark, Matthew, John and Luke? Not even the combined talent of a first-century Virgil, Dante, Shakespeare, and Tolstoy? It seems to me that this textual claim really lies at the core of the matter: either the Bible is a book like any other great work of literature, or it's a magic book. Once one accepts it to be a magic book, I agree that a wide range of religious implications follow; but if one doesn't accept this claim, it seems to me that the basis for being a Christian (as a opposed to anything else) evaporates. Would it really surprise you if God told you that the Bible was a product of fallible, human minds? And if this wouldn't truly astound you (in the way that finding out that George Washington never existed presumably would), how can you claim to be so certain of the doctrine of Christianity?

Sullivan's response:

Is the Bible uniquely the word of God? Yes - but it was also first spoken and then written by human beings. I don't believe in its inerrancy or its literal truth. But I believe in the deepest truths of the Gospels, and the truth of the life and death of the man they describe. Has God spoken to us in other ways? Of course. But for me, the words of Jesus speak of God's love more truly than anything else I have ever come across. I'm still looking.

So ... yes but no? Sullivan apprently takes the bible as "divinely inspired" route. If we messed up the translation even a little bit, how does that impact our use of the knowledge currently contained in the bible? If things like slavery are contained in the bible but we reject them today, why can't the "good" things be equally rejected? Of what use is a mistranslated word of god?

Sullivan completely ignores Harris' point about "Ontological fancy footwork." Maybe he didn't understand it. On with Sam's next point:

The contingency of your own faith: As you said, if you'd been raised a Buddhist, you'd probably be a Buddhist. And yet, you also believe that Christianity is really true. This seems to entail that, by sheer accident of birth, you were raised and culturally conditioned to believe the one true faith. Do you really believe this? Doesn't it seem more likely that you just happen to subscribe to the religion into which you were born (as most people do) because of social pressure, emotional consolation, attachment to tradition, etc.?

Sullivan's response:

Contingency? An eternal truth has to enter human discourse at one time or another. It will become necessarily contingent as soon as it touches the human and becomes part of history. There is no other way. So faith's contingency is neither an argument for or against it."

So ... there is some truth to this religion stuff but we humans fuck it up? Well then, certainly Christianity is screwed up the message somewhere along the way. Why not reject it? This is not an argument against god existence, but it certainly poses problems for any one specific faith.

The next point Sam brings up:

The troublesome example of other religions: Don't you think Mormons and Muslims have similar stories to tell about feeling consoled in the presence of death, hearing voices, etc.? Can't both Mormons and Muslims use the same argument you have used about the cultural success of their faiths to vindicate their own truth claims? How is it that you reject their claims, and how is it that in rejecting them you don't find your own religious beliefs coming under pressure?"

Sullivan's response:

Other religions. I'm curious. And I find in many of them many of the themes of Jesus: the unimportance of wordliness, the oneness of God, the equal dignity of human beings, the impulse to charity. But I do find Christ's witness the final truth, which must mean that others fall short. But I do not see this as a reason to hate or condemn or even deny the alternatives, where they also see this deeper truth. Everything is true as long as it isn't taken to be anything more than it is. And I am in no position to judge the sincere choices of others in matters inherently beyond our knowledge.

So ... Sullivan's explination is that "everything is true." You have got to be kidding me. Mr. Sullivan, we are evaluating truth or falsity. Everything is not true. You must justify the differences that you say are true that aren't found in other religions and vice versa. This isn't a matter of taste, Mr. Sullivan.

Harris' next point:

The argument from cultural success: Apart from the fact that the argument from cultural success would vindicate any religion that has millions of subscribers, it's also just plain false. The success of Christianity (or any faith) is not an argument for its truth. While dialogue and consensus (and, therefore, cultural success) play a role in our knowledge gathering, we don't do epistemology by plebiscite. The majority of people really can be wrong-as are the majority of American Christians about the age of the universe and about the evolution of life on this planet."

Sullivan's response:

Cultural success? I agree that such success doesn't actually prove anything about a faith. But it is a sign that a truth has endured the test of time and is more than a sudden spasm of fashion. That the life of Jesus has altered human history in ways rarely equaled is indisputable. That's not dispositive, but it is something."

He's right, it is something. But it doesn't answer any of our questions. The success of an idea doesn't determine its truth or falsity. It must be evaluated and supported by evidence. There is no evidence that points to the god of Christianity existing.

Well ... that was fun, right? 

Philosophers stretch the meaning of words until they retain scarcely anything of their original sense; by calling "God" some vague abstraction which they have created for themselves, they pose as deists, as believers, before the world; they may even pride themselves on having attained a higher and purer idea of God, although their God is nothing but an insubstantial shadow and no longer the mighty personality of religious doctrine.

—Sigmund Freud, The Future of an Illusion 

Vortex Color

Interesting tidbit from Richard Carrier:

Even the Christian proposal that God designed the universe, indeed "finely tuned" it to be the perfect mechanism for producing life, fails to predict the universe we see. A universe perfectly designed for life would easily, readily, and abundantly produce and sustain it. Most of the contents of that universe would be conducive to life or benefit life. Yet that is not what we see. Instead, almost the entire universe is lethal to life--in fact, if we put all the lethal vacuum of outer space swamped with deadly radiation into an area the size of a house, you would never find the comparably microscopic speck of area that sustains life. Would you conclude that the house was built to serve and benefit that subatomic speck? Hardly. Yet that is the house we live in. The Christian theory completely fails to predict this--while atheism predicts exactly this.

The fact that the universe is actually very poorly designed to sustain and benefit life is already a refutation of the Christian theory, which entails the purpose of the universe is to sustain and benefit life--human life in particular. When we look at how the universe is actually built, we do find that it appears perfectly designed after all--but not for producing life. Lee Smolin has argued from the available scientific facts that our universe is probably the most perfect universe that could ever be arranged for producing black holes. He also explains how all the elements that would be required to finely tune a perfect black-hole-maker also make chemical life like ours an extremely rare but inevitable byproduct of such a universe. This means that if the universe was designed, it was not designed to make and sustain us, but to make and sustain black holes, and therefore even if there is a God he cannot be the Christian God. Therefore, Christianity is false.

More in his essay Why I Am Not a Christian.

What would be necessary to prove the existence of a god? Any god? This is a question that I think a lot of religious folks overlook in their zeal to find god and in the process this essential question is not considered fully. Creationists provide false evidence for their god and religious moderates re-define god in such a way that the word essentially becomes useless in the lexicon.

To prove god, we first need to know what you are talking about. One of the huge problems with a lot of god-talk is that it makes no sense and lacks consistency in statement. It leads to a lot of contradictions. God is A, but he is also B and C as well, ignoring the fact that A, B, and C and contradictory. If you're doing this you're talking nonsense.

For example, what is it to speak of a square-circle? Can you try and imagine what a square-circle looks like? You cannot, it is either a square or a circle, it cannot be both at the same time. A contradiction in terms makes the existence of this particular object impossible.

You'd have to define god in some specific way. Just what is it we're actually talking about, here? Is it a supernatural being in another realm somewhere who has control over us in a specific way? Is it the god of the deists who essentially just let the first domino fall? Or, as Kristen suggested, is it enlightenment, "the path" sacredness in living and hope? In which case you've turned god into poetry, or at the very least made what we're talking about here much more ambiguous.

Some people have said, "what if god is nature?" That's how Einstein thought about god. When he said "god does not play dice" he meant "nature." It's essentially poetry. Substituting god for nature like this is very common among highly educated folks, but this type of language is misleading. Fundamentalist Christians have claimed Einstein as their own, ignoring that he never meant any sort of personal god in his usage of the word "god."

Once you define what god exactly is, what you're specifically talking about -- which is essential to understanding whatever evidence you present -- you must then present reasons and evidence of why you believe this is so. Science tells us there is no supernatural world and is by definition supernatural is anti-science, beyond science. If you think this way, that's fine, but you cannot ask the rational person, who does not take things on "faith" to think similarly. Your view of god is irrational, and this is something you must come to terms with. If you've defined "god" to mean nature, hope, happiness, whatever, fine. In that case I agree with you and believe in god. But I find this use of language grotesque and misleading, especially with it's connection to the more "real" gods of Christian, Muslim and Jewish literature.

Lately I've read about a redefining of the word faith (while simultaneously claiming it's not a re-definition but the common definition we've come to know is a perversion). Faith, as I've known it is the belief in god despite evidence to the contrary from the physical world. There are numerous arguments that attempt to reconcile this ranging from claiming that faith and reason are two different ways to get to the same idea or that faith is separate from reason entirely and cannot be compared or used to attain the same thing. These arguments, in short, fail. I will not go into why here because that is beyond the scope of this article.

Kristen suggests that faith is now "about trust, fidelity, and seeing the world in a certain way.  It is a matter of the heart.  The opposite of faith is anxiety, idolatry, and seeing reality as either entirely threatening or completely indifferent." No where in this definition is it mentioned that faith is a way of reaching truth. If this is so, she has removed from her argument the very means by which her belief in god is even slightly tenable. By admitting that faith is not a way to reach god you've concluded that either a) your belief is irrational or b) you have some rational and scientific evidence for the existence of god. Is this the case?

If faith is "trust" that is fine, but "trust" in a god does not give a reason to believe a god exists. The existence of a god is assumed in order to trust this god. To have a fidelity or, "faithfulness to a person, cause, or belief, demonstrated by continuing loyalty and support" does not prove a god, either. Once again, god is assumed to exist. We are asked that we do not bother with the matter of the existence of god.

Kristen goes on with yet another definition of faith as "vision." She notes, "now, instead of faith being an add-on to knowledge, it becomes the lens through which all knowledge is viewed.  It colors everything, and its status is raised at least to the same level as, if not above, factual knowledge." The analogy to rose-colored glasses is very telling, in my view. If you view the world through a specific lens, or a "paradigm" as she calls it, this is known by another common word, "bias." This is an endorsement to look at the physical world in a biased sense (leaning towards god). In such a world proof of god is unnecessary because it has been assumed. But as I've mentioned before, assumption of god is not a reason to believe in god, it is irrational.  Science is fundamentally about an unbiased, evidence supported approach to finding knowledge and in my view far surpasses this view of "faith."

The atheists challenge of proof for the existence of god has not been met through scientific processes. The claim that faith is a separate way of attaining this knowledge is untenable at the very least and intellectual dishonesty at the very worst. Until such a day in which evidence for a god, or a good reason to reconcile faith with science is in place, there is no good reason to believe in god. This is the fundamental question, the fundamental premise, "does god exist?" Without answering that, there is no reason to take seriously anything else you say on the matter.

I can't seem to get enough of Richard Dawkins. A couple days ago I posted a short clip from a Q&A session at Randolph-Macon Woman's College in Lynchburg, Virginia.

In the same town there is another college called Liberty University, which is a Christian college. Students from Liberty went to the Dawkins reading and tried to trip him up. Here is the full Q&A session. Dawkins is funny and insightful. However, In true C-SPAN style you can hardly even see Dawkins. It may be worth it to just play it i the background and listen to it like it was a radio broadcast, because you don't get much watching it.

So if you have an hour or so free time, check it out. Also, if you wish, there is a first part which includes Dawkins reading some excerpts from his book. I've already read the book, so the Q&A session was more interesting to me. You can find that here.