Planting Another Objection

In addition to the objections that I have detailed elsewhere (Planting a Demigod, Planting a Special Plea for Warrant

and Planting a Defeat), I reckon that Plantinga commits two equivocations.

First, he equivocates on the term belief.  I'm referring here to the types of beliefs that a pre-human, preverbal hominid might have, and the types of beliefs that modern human fully equipped with language might have.  The first set is an "animal" level of belief, which isn't going to be fully developed and isn't going to be affected by an existing world view that is shaped by cogitation.  Effectively, such a creature may think "potential threat" when confronted by a tiger but it isn't going to reason itself into thinking the sorts of things that Plantinga ascribes to Paul.  An example of "animal" level thinking is that of a horse.  A colt or a filly may be more curious than an adult horse, but it is still wary and all manners of things will scare it (ditto with an adult horse).

Even relatively small changes to a horse's environment will scare it, like a new bin, or a plastic bag rustling, or an unfamiliar human.  They spend most of their time afraid because, historically, being afraid of things and running away from them is a better survival option than being brave (that said, when in a paddock with wire fences, being pointlessly afraid is currently a worse option than being brave).  So what sorts of things are these horses believing when confronted with a new bin, or a plastic bag, or a new human?  Probably not much more than "this might be a threat".  A loud noise is a threat, wind is a threat, small birds are a threat, a hose is a threat (well, it might be a snake, and that’s a threat).  The other sort of beliefs that animals have are generally in the vicinity of "I might be able to eat/drink that" and "I should try to mate with/be mated by that".

The vast proportion of the evolution that resulted in humans, including the psychology of humans, happened well before we developed language.  Sure, our ability converse with each other and think about things might well have messed things up to the extent that someone like Paul might have lived on this planet for a very short time, but that's because his belief system was corrupted by too much thinking.  It's not really about evolution at all.  There's no reason to think that development of language should make humans better at comprehending reality.  It's entirely possible that we have become worse at it, but the ability to talk to each other has had such a huge positive impact that it counteracts any negative impact on reality comprehension and truth seeking.

Second, he equivocates on the term naturalism.  I think he is thinking of naturalism as an ideology which is clung to with the same fervour as a theist clings to her religion.  If naturalism were like that and held to like that by its adherents, then sure, "naturalism-plus" would likely be wrong.  But is there anyone who holds to that sort of naturalism in that way?  I think it's more generally true that those who align with naturalism could say something like "we're not 100% certain how everything works, we've got a good idea about a lot of it, but at the edges it's still quite vague and some of what we know today is provisional and might well be tossed out tomorrow as the result of a new scientific revolution just around the corner ... but that said, what we do know with considerable certainty is that it's not all down to some vaguely defined creator god - that simply doesn't make any sense and those championing the notion tend to be less than completely knowledgeable and completely reasonable, plus some of the god-related stories are frankly bizarre, so it’s not a stretch for us to not believe in that sort of thing".  Breathe, naturalist, breathe.

Xavier and the Queen of Hearts

Xavier sits at a card table, across from Derren Brown.  Xavier has been asked to bring with him a brand new deck of cards, which has placed on the table.  Derren opens the pack, removes the jokers, and begins shuffling the deck.  Then he hands over the deck to Xavier and encourages him to inspect it to make sure that it's the same deck he brought and that it's a fair deck, with 52 different cards in it.

Xavier confirms that it's a fair deck.  Derren then asks Xavier to continue shuffling the pack, face down until he is happy that it's thoroughly blended.  Then Xavier is asked to cut the deck, and deal himself two cards, one face up and one face down.  Xavier is instructed to throw the rest of the deck behind him, away from the table, which he does.  Derren clarified that any card on the table or in Xavier's possession belongs to Xavier.

The card that is face up is the Queen of Hearts.  Call this Card A, and the face down card Card B.

Derren asks Xavier whether he believes that he owns the Queen of Hearts, to which Xavier says "yes".  When asked why, Xavier points to Card A and says "because I can see it right there - Card A is the Queen of Hearts".

Derren then asks Xavier to flip Card A over so it is face down, he points out that the cards on the table belong and asks whether he believes that he owns a Hearts card.  Xavier says "yes" and when asked why, says "because the Queen of Hearts is a Hearts card and Card A is the Queen of Hearts.  It's just there!"

Derren pulls his sleeves up, revealing his forearms, and asks Xavier to watch very carefully.  Then he takes a piece of wrapping paper, slips it carefully under Card B, making sure not to touch it with his fingers.  Then he gets some tape and asks Xavier to fold the wrapping paper over the card.  A few folds later and the card is securely wrapped.  Neither Darren nor Xavier has no idea what the face value of Card B is and the wrapping paper is thick enough to prevent either from seeing though it.

Derren now scoops up Card B, leans over and deposits it in Xavier's top pocket.  So, Card A is on the table and Card B is in Xavier's pocket.  Xavier owns both cards.

Now Derren asks whether Xavier believes that he owns a royal card.  Xavier says "yes" and when asked why, clarifies that the Queen of Hearts is a royal card and Card A (right there) is the Queen of Hearts.

At this point, Derren casually flips over Card A, revealing that it isn't the Queen of Hearts after all, but rather the Seven of Clubs.

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This article is about a question of belief.

My position is that Xavier believed that he had the Queen of Hearts.  When prompted he assented to the notion that he believed that he owned a Hearts card, however, he didn't simply believe that he owned any old Hearts card, he believed that he owned the Queen of Hearts, which happens to be a Hearts card.  When asked about owning a royal card, he responded in the affirmative, but in reality he believed that he owned the Queen of Hearts, which happens to be a royal card.

Derren used the distraction, while putting Card B into Xavier's top pocket, to switch out the Queen of Hearts with the Four of Clubs which he had palmed earlier, during the initial shuffle.

The question revolves around Card B.  Nobody knows what that card is, not even Derren.  It could be a royal card.  If it is a royal card, noting that Xavier owns it, does this make his assent to the notion "Xavier owns a royal card" a true belief, if when asked he no longer owns the Queen of Hearts?

I don't think so, because I don't think that Xavier ever has a partially formed belief that he owns a royal card.  He very specifically believes that he owns the Queen of Hearts, which is a royal card.

Strangely enough, some people don't think this way.  They think that if Card B was, say, the Queen of Spades, then Xavier would have had a true belief that he owned a royal card, despite having a false belief that he owned the Queen of Hearts.

What do you believe?

Planting a Defeat

A while back, I got the following feedback on the article Planting a Tiger (I can’t help myself, so I’ve marked typos in red – I just feel so proud when I notice any typos myself rather than having others point them out to me):

Quote: neopolitan (reddit/r/atheism)

A person, on the other hand, who commences with a huge assumption and then brutally twists logic to form a disparate array of lesser assumptions into a bridge between the state of things as they are and the state one should expect if the initial huge assumption were true, is not a philosopher. He is what we refer to as an "apologist".

But both Craig and Plantinga would argue that they are seeking knowledge and understanding. They would argue that they are following the evidence where it leads and not shying away from reality. You can both be an apologist and a philosopher. It is one thing to say that they are wrong (maybe they are) but it is something completely else to say that they are deliberately twisting the truth and don't deserve the title of 'philosopher'.

The article's well written. Correct me if I'm wrong but the crux of your argument seems to be here:

Quote: neopolitan (Planting a Tiger)

Plantinga totally ignores that the scientific method takes into account the suggestion that, individually, our cognition is faulty but that this may be overcome if we don’t assume our beliefs to be true, we gather evidence to support or refute our beliefs, we have the intellectual courage to accept when evidence does refute our beliefs, we invite others to critically assess our evidence and our interpretations of that evidence where it seems to support our beliefs and we have the grace to accept that we were wrong if the evidence or interpretation is shown to be problematic.

What Plantinga tries to show is that the scientific method can't stand up to the same criteria by which it judges everything else. You said at the beginning of your article that scientists are 99.99999% sure before committing to the truth of a claim. Can scientists be 99.99999% sure that our cognitive abilities align with reality? If not, then what does that say about using science as a criterion for judging truth? If we are not 99.99999% sure that our cognitive abilities are reliable then doesn't science itself rest on an unfounded belief?

I was initially responding to a claim (by another redditor) that I had erred in bracketing the word “philosopher” with quotation marks when using that word in reference to Alvin Plantinga.  My contention, as my quote above indicates, is that Plantinga is not so much a philosopher as an apologist (and possibly theologian) despite his apparently impressive academic qualifications in philosophy.  (To address what might seem like a valid reason to call Plantinga a philosopher – and even Craig, for that matter – please see Draconic Philosophy.)

In Planting a Courted Controversy, I related what happened after I had actively sought feedback from the WLC Fan Club at the Reasonable Faith website.  In the conclusion to that article, I agreed that I had not provided a comprehensive argument against the Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism (EAAN), which is what is being alluded to above with “If we are not 99.99999% sure that our cognitive abilities are reliable then doesn't science itself rest on an unfounded belief?”

Here then is my argument as to why the EAAN fails …

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I’ll explain what the EAAN is, as best I can (generally using Plantinga’s words) and put in comments where necessary:

Step 1 – Develop the probability expression P(R|N&E)

If:

R is the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable,

N is metaphysical naturalism, including the claim that there is no God

E is the claim that our cognitive faculties are the product of evolution

Then:

P(R|N&E)  is the question “What is the probability of R if both N and E are true?”

Step 2 – Argue that P(R|N&E) is low

Since there is no reason to suppose that evolution unguided by God will favour reliable cognitive faculties (see Planting a Tiger for why he thinks this is the case), then P(R|N&E) is “relatively low, somewhat less than 1/2”.

Comment: This is an extraordinarily weak argument.  There is plenty of evidence to support the idea that animals with poor cognitive faculties will die out, this is particularly so if they are delicious – roasted dodo, anyone?

In reality, Plantinga’s argument falls down right here, he fails to provide a convincing argument as to why the beliefs of a human, if they were evolved, would be unlikely to be true.  His argument is so laughable that originally I didn’t think it needed more effort, but let’s continue ...

Step 3 – Argue that P(R|N&E) is inscrutable

Admit that “the argument for a low estimate for P(R|N&E) is pretty weak” and then claim that perhaps it is better to be agnostic with regard to this probability, on the grounds of it being “inscrutable; we just can’t tell what it is”.

Comment: This raises the question of why the argument was presented at all if it’s considered, even by Plantinga, as “pretty weak”.  Cynically, one could suggest that he does so in order that the “inscrutable argument” might appear less weak in comparison.  If that was the intent, it worked … by a narrow margin.

Step 4 – Argue that if P(R|N&E) is inscrutable, then P(R|N&E) is inscrutable

I’ll have to use Plantinga’s words here or it will sound like I am misrepresenting his argument (taken from his lecture notes):

Of course the argument for a low estimate of P(R/N&E) is pretty weak. In particular, our estimates of the various probabilities involved in estimating P(R/N&E) with respect to that hypothetical population (comment - a hypothetical population of creatures rather like ourselves on a planet similar to Earth … (that had) arisen by way of the selection processes endorsed by contemporary evolutionary thought – as indicated in an earlier paragraph – ed.) were pretty shaky. So perhaps the right course here is simple agnosticism: that probability is inscrutable; we just can’t tell what it is. This also seems sensible.

What would then be the appropriate attitude towards R (specified to that hypothetical population)? Someone who accepts N&E and also believes that the proper attitude towards P(R/N&E) is one of agnosticism, clearly, has good reason for being agnostic about R as well.

But now suppose we again apply the same sort of reasoning to ourselves and our condition. Suppose we think N&E is true: we ourselves have evolved according to the mechanisms suggested by contemporary evolutionary theory, unguided and unorchestrated by God or anyone else. Suppose we think, furthermore, that there is no way to determine P(R/N&E) (specified to us). What would be the right attitude to take to R? Well, if we have no further information, then wouldn’t the right attitude here, just as with respect to that hypothetical population, be agnosticism, withholding belief? If this probability is inscrutable, then we have a defeater for R, just as in the case where that probability is low.

So P(R/N&E) is either low or inscrutable; and if we accept N&E, then in either case we have a defeater for R.

Now, trying to turn this into English for the rest of us ... the value of P(R|N&E) with respect to a population of evolved creatures is unknown and, according to Plantinga, unknowable (i.e. inscrutable).   If we, as evolved creatures, accept that both N and E are true, but are agnostic about P(R|N&E), as Plantinga argues we must be, then we should rightly be agnostic about R (by which Plantinga seems to mean P(R) since he refers to “this probability”).

In short, if P(R|N&E) is inscrutable and N&E is true, then P(R) is inscrutable.

Comment: My sarcastic wording of this step reflects the fact that, if N&E is true, P(R) = P(R|N&E), irrespective of what the value of that probability is – inscrutable or low or, indeed, high.

Step 5 – Argue that if P(R|N&E) is inscrutable (or low) then R has a defeater

Actually, I can’t really see how he justified this step, but I can see why he does it.

A “defeater” is a proposition which, if in the possession of a person who otherwise would have a justified true belief constituting knowledge about something, would negate the justification or the belief (but not the truth).  It’s a term from epistemology, the study of knowledge, and it relates a particularly esoteric discussion as regards to what we can “know”.

In the tripartite theory of knowledge, in order to truly know something rather than just believe something to be true:

the something in question must be true;

one must maintain a belief that that something is true; and

that belief must be justified.

If you are deluded in your belief about something then you cannot know it (for example, correctly believing that the sun is not the centre of the universe would not count as knowing if your reason for believing is that you also believe that the Earth is the centre of the universe).

Perhaps you might be in possession of a fact which you do not accept or do not understand, for example the fact that the Bertrand Paradox has a unique resolution such that p=0.5, you can’t really say that you know this if you don’t believe it.  (If you believe this fact to be true, but you don’t understand it, you might still know it if, for example, you had been informed by an expert in the field.  So long as it is true, of course.)

Finally, you can’t know something that is not true.

I suspect that there’s an element of equivocation and conflation involved here.  Plantinga talks about R as if it means:

the claim that our cognitive faculties are reliable, **AND**

the probability that our cognitive faculties are reliable, **AND**

the knowledge that our cognitive faculties are reliable, **AND**

the fact that our cognitive faculties are reliable

This is cheating on a major scale.

Step 6 – The Grand Finale

If you have a defeater for R, then you have a defeater for any belief you hold, including the belief that N&E is true.  Therefore it is irrational to hold the belief that N&E is true.

That’s it.  Well, he does go into a little pre-emptive defence against defeater-defeaters, but that’s largely irrelevant since you’d have to agree with Plantinga’s arrival at Step 6 and still want to hold onto N&E.  That would mean that you’d have to agree with Step 5 (and maybe Step 2) and you wouldn’t do that unless you were already presupposing the whole outcome with respect to N&E.

Let us look at Step 5 a bit more closely.

Plantinga is arguing that if we don’t know how probable it is that our cognitive faculties are reliable then it is probable that our cognitive faculties are unreliable.  Presumably, therefore, the only way that our cognitive faculties could be reliable would be for us to know that it is probable that our cognitive faculties are reliable.  But we’d only know that if they were reliable, otherwise we couldn’t know anything.

What Plantinga seems to be supposing here is some sort of bizarre bootstrapping – if you know that your cognitive faculties are reliable, then they are, and you know they are because those faculties are reliable, making your belief both true and justified.  However, if you are in doubt about the reliability of your cognitive faculties, they are unreliable by default, you know nothing and everything you believe is suspect.

This is, of course, nonsense.

As I have said elsewhere:

All (Plantinga) manages to do … is show that if naturalism and evolution are true, then we cannot know with 100% certainty that naturalism and evolution are true.  In other words, if naturalism and evolution are true, the scientific fact of naturalism and evolution is precisely the same as any other scientific fact – (because) we don’t know anything to be true with 100% certainty.

(There’s an extremely remote, non-zero chance that The Matrix was actually an ironic mockumentary screened by our mechanical overlords to taunt us and we are plugged into vats precisely as shown in what is portrayed to us as “fiction”.  This extremely unlikely possibility chips away from any otherwise perfect certainty we might have had about our world.  Scientists will think you are some sort of batty philosopher if you raise this argument, but eventually will concede that they cannot know that we aren’t in vats.)

What rational people will do is assume that the world is as it appears to be until illusions can be shown to exist.  As we detect illusions, we try to understand them so that we can account for them in our theories.  Rational people won’t deny that our cognitive faculties are limited, and prone to failure.  Nor will they assume that because those faculties are limited, and prone to failure, that they are completely useless.

And they won’t hang onto illusions just because they are comforting.

Now that I’ve explained, as best I can, the EAAN, I’d like to introduce the EAAT, which is the EAAN Argument Against Theism, or to give it its full glory …

“Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism” Argument Against Theism Version 1

Step 1 – Do the whole EAAN thing

Step 2 – Point out that if N&E is true, then it is irrational to believe anything Plantinga has to say, given that he is just an evolved form of tiger food

“Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism” Argument Against Theism Version 2

Step 1 – Do the whole EAAN thing

Step 2 – Consider the following:

·         If N&E is true then, irrespective of whether or not you believe that N&E is true, then it is quite likely that you will hold beliefs that are incorrect

·         If you continually challenge all of your beliefs, then those beliefs which consistently survive challenge will be more likely to be true

·         If a belief which fails a challenge is modified and then, as a consequence of being modified, consistently survives challenge, then that modified belief is more likely to be true

·         If N&E is continually challenged and consistently survives, then it is likely to be true

·         If N&E is challenged and fails, then is modified and the modified variant, N&E*, consistently survives challenge, then it is likely to be true

·         If another belief, say theism (T), is continually challenged and consistently fails, then it is unlikely to be true

·         If a belief is unchallenged and the holders of that belief are not willing to accept challenge, then the probability of that belief being true is inscrutable (you might want to follow Plantinga’s own argument here to reach the conclusion that holding such a belief is irrational)

From all this, we can conclude that:

·         P(R|N&E|S) is high when S is high (where S is the extent to which naturalism and evolution consistently survive challenges), and

·         P(R|S) is high when S is high (because the reliability of our cognitive faculties is also continually challenged)

The fact that N&E have been modified throughout the years, particularly the E component, is an indication that N&E is more likely to be true.  As a consequence, it is entirely rational to believe both that R is true and N&E is true.

On the other hand, however:

·         P(T|F) is low when F is high (where F is the extent to which theism fails being challenged), and

·         P(T|A) is low when A is high (where A is the extent to which theism avoids being challenged – see also being an infidel and apostasy).

Unlike with many other sorts of beliefs, there is great resistance to variations to T, therefore there is no T* as such (where T* is an improved version of theism) and T has no avenue by which to evolve towards a truth statement.

In other words, yes, I agree with Plantinga: many beliefs held by evolved creatures are likely to wrong, especially if they are untreated.  Even some of the smartest humans that ever lived used to believe such things as:

·         everything is a combination of up to four elements

·         phlogiston is a substance that escapes matter when it burns

·         there is an aether that conducts light

·         those enormous bones unearthed by mining and erosion are the bones of dragons

·         narwhal horns belonged to unicorns

These people were wrong.

Who knows, maybe string theory is a load of old cobbler’s.  But the point is, even if this is the case, scientists are actively encouraged to investigate string theory, to uncover how the theory is wrong and which associated beliefs are wrong.  Scientists working in the field will then, collectively, attempt to come up with something that is slightly better, but almost certainly also wrong in its own special way – and the process will continue.

This sounds like a terrible system, and perhaps it is.  A far worse system, however, is to cling unquestioningly to a demonstrably false belief which requires you to brutally corrupt logic in order to divert attention from the wealth of evidence against that belief.

The Roadless Travel

I wrote recently about William Lane Craig’s “Taxi-Cab Fallacy” and what I have labelled the “Optimus Prime Fallacy” (the continual transformation between multiple forms of argumentation, especially if it is never made clear what form of argumentation is being used until challenged).

While writing the latter, I had thought about how I could illustrate the problem but I wasn’t able to come up with exactly what I wanted without incurring the risk of devoting inordinate amounts of time to the project.  I had the idea of a relatively simple network of roads (the path that a figurative taxi-cab would take, illustrating the methodology of science) interspersed with rivers, swamps and lava flows (which had to be traversed in quite different vehicles to the standard albeit figurative taxi-cab, illustrating the tendency of an apologist to regularly abandon the taxi-cab in order to get to a predetermined destination).

Those with an active imagination can conjure up a scene with Craig and a materialist on a road in the wilderness somewhere.  The materialist wants to continue the journey using the taxi-cab, but Craig wants to go across a treacherous stretch of swamp to what he thinks is a road on the other side.  In his head, Craig wishes into existence a philosophical bridge (“This is not a physical argument, this is a philosophical argument”) and bravely sets out across the swamp.  As Craig sinks into the mire, the materialist shakes her head in disbelief, hops into the taxi-cab and heads off towards a proper understanding of the universe.

I wasn’t able to put together a drawing representing that scenario.  I did, however, find a program that allowed me to create a drawing from “road shapes”.  Within a short time, I built up an image meant to represent the journey to truth and understanding by humans over the millennia.

I wanted to illustrate the idea that the god hypothesis, as a simplistic explanation, lies between the understanding of Neolithic humans and what we have developed today.  Initially I thought that this hypothesis should be represented by a blank area in the middle of the map, one that had to be navigated around.

I was going to find an icon to represent the god hypothesis, illustrating the flame to which the theist’s moth is inexorably drawn.  Then I thought, no, the arguments used to defend the god hypothesis are circular in one sense and twisted in another sense.  I should have some road in the blank area, not connected to the rest of the roads (thus requiring a leap of faith to get there from the purely evidential path).

So I inserted something resembling a closed loop race-track circuit with just enough curves to represent the twists and turns of apologetical argument.  In retrospect, I realise that I should have included a couple of switchbacks to illustrate the way these arguments turn back on themselves.

Being a bit of a perfectionist, I still thought it was not quite right.  Craig and his ilk don’t use the same form of argument throughout the entire circuit, they jump from pseudoscience (the eye could not have evolved without design) to pseudophilosophy and pseudologic (Kant argued that reason is faulty which means that reason is faulty, so you can’t use reason) to pseudometaphysics (a transcendent god is not contingent but rather metaphysically necessary) to pseudoethics (you know that rape is bad because of the inherent goodness of god) and so on.  So, I shuffled up the race-track to represent the fact that the arguments for the god hypothesis aren’t coherent as a race-track would imply.

Interestingly, the result is a good illustration of what probably attracts some people to the god hypothesis.  Look at the drawing below.  What do you see?

If I add two roundabouts, the illusion is even more striking:

For those in any doubt, there is not a face in that illustration.  When I put in two circles into the last diagram, these resulted in a stronger activation of the “face detection” zones in your brain.  But even with these circles added, there is no face.  There are only fragmented segments of a race-track with two circles.

We humans are very good at detecting patterns, even if they are not there.

I reckon that it is this ability to detect patterns that leads the religious astray.  We all start off the same sort of way, sifting through our experiences in the search for understanding, but when the religiously inclined see fragments that, if looked at the right way, combine into the image of a god, they leave the path of reason in favour of an argument along the lines of “it must be right because it must be right”.  It looks like it might be a face, so it must be a face.

If you look at the second last diagram and are unable to avoid thinking that the apparent face must have been intentional (that it is a face), despite the fact that I, the person who created it, tell you that I did not intend there to be a face, then you may possibly be the sort of person who can fall prey to religious thinking.

If you think that the hand of god guided me in creating that face, in order to send secret messages to believers out there, then you are definitely the sort of person who can fall prey to religious thinking!

Atheists are Evil

I wrote the first draft of this article the day before the news that D’Souza was having an affair broke.  It’s a pity, because D’Souza says so many stupid things and he was shaping up as good material.  As a leading apologist though, his days may now be numbered.  Now back to your regular service …

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There are two fundamental reasons why atheists are evil.  First, because of what they think.  Second, because of what they are.

This might sound like a controversial claim, but it’s not an uncommon claim, although the vast majority of people making the claim don’t state it quite so baldly.

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Let’s look at the intellectual evil of atheists first, and then we can look at their ontological evil.

For the committed theist, the existence of god is self-evident.  You can see evidence of this in some of their statements and their questions.  There’s an example in the Q&A portion of a debate between Dinesh D’Souza and Peter Singer:

It seems like that when all of the evidence points logically to the conclusion of a God that you tend to come up with a different hypothesis.  So what’s confusing to me, as watching you being the atheist viewpoint, is it seems like, rather than look at the evidence and just see where it leads, you start with the position that God doesn’t exist and see if the evidence can get you there, and when it doesn’t you come up with a different hypothesis and my question is simply is that true what I feel like, you know, or am I wrong?

Peter Singer quite happily told the questioner that he was wrong and that he (Peter Singer) didn’t see any of that “evidence” that apparently points logically to a god but rather a wealth of evidence against the Christian conception of god, focussing particularly on suffering.

Then Dinesh D’Souza had the opportunity for a brief response (I’ve taken his stuttering out):

Look, ultimately here … let’s take one more look at this issue of suffering because in a sense it’s demounted as Job did as a complaint against God and the argument would go something like this: “God, why don’t I have both my hands?”

Now the question you have to ask is, if it is the case that there is a God and if it is the case that He created us, all living creatures have been given something to which they are not entitled in any way, namely life itself.

Even the person who has little, or is suffering, is often clinging to life, which is to say life is valuable to us.  We’re still in the plus column because we want to keep living, and so what I am getting at is do we really have a legitimate complaint against God by saying, in a sense, “I’ve only got one hand, that guy has two. Why did you make me a one-hander?  Why did you give me cancer so I only have 47 years of life when I could have had 70?”

It seems to me that these complaints ring hollow when you consider that our entire life and everything we have is in fact a gift from God so, on the premise that God exists, which was his (Singer’s) premise, it looks to me that He has not done anything to any of us that has put us in the negative column.  We’re still in a sense on the positive side of the ledger because we still have something to which we have no claim and have no right against Him, namely the gift of life itself.

Note carefully what D’Souza is implying here.  Singer has argued throughout the debate that the Christian conception of god is inconsistent with the evidence and presents as his primary case the argument that suffering of non-human animals due to non-human causes is inconsistent with a benevolent god.  He follows a chain something like this:

If your god is omni-omni (my term, not Singer’s meaning omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent, omnibenevolent), why is there suffering?

-       Response, free will is so brilliant that all the suffering in this world is worth the cost, it’s just not possible to implement free will without suffering as a side-effect and, in any case, the longer term goal of salvation makes the suffering inconsequential.

Ok assuming that your arguments are valid; why, if your god is omni-omni, do animals suffer when they don’t have salvation as a pay-off?

-       Singer’s conclusion is that, if he exists, then god is either incompetent or evil, which is not part of the Christian conception of god, therefore god as the Christians conceive him does not exist (another option is that god simply doesn’t care, but that brings god into line with Darwinian evolution – the Christian god apparently does care)

Singer is arguing that the inconsistency in the Christian conception on god is evidence that that particular god does not exist.  Singer is not having a hissy-fit, pouting his little lips and declaring that he’s angry at god because there’s some suffering in the world.  D’Souza however seems to think that if (in Singer’s estimation) God were a bit better at preventing suffering, then Singer would begrudgingly acknowledge Him but until then, Singer’s going to be an atheist just to spite God.

Some theists seem to be unable to get their heads around the idea that atheists simply don’t believe in a god.

My theory is that this is related to the phenomenon by which some theists are locked into their faith, that is by means of a form of wishful thinking – they simply would not wish to live in a universe in which there is no god looking after them.  There’s a beautiful Swedish song, Du Måste Finnas, or “You Must Exist” in which the singer pretty much begs god to exist (this is my translation, not that on the video):

You drove me out, God,

I was ripped from my homeland,

I am refugee and a stranger here

And I find myself in the wilderness*

But you took my child

And now you take me from my husband

I can no longer see a meaning to it all

What is it that you want?

What should I believe …?

My thoughts are dizzying

Before me there is an abyss

I am in turmoil and want to say “no”

[But] the question has been raised.

And now my soul shakes in anticipation of the answer

That you don’t exist

Even though I believed in you.

Who will help me survive this life?

Who will give me the strength that I need?

Who will comfort me, so insignificant in this world?

If you don’t exist,

Yes, then what should I do?

No, you must exist,

You must,

I live my life through you. 

Without you I am no more than a ripple in a stormy sea. 

You must exist,

You must. 

How can you forsake me? 

I would be nothing,

I would be nothing if you didn’t exist.

Never before have I had it in word or thought,

The little word that scares and plagues me so,

The word is “if”, if I prayed all my prayers in vain

If you don’t exist,

Then what should I do?

Who would sense my repentence and later forgive?

Peace in my soul, yes, who would grant me that?

Who would receive me after death?

If you didn’t exist

Then what should I do?

No, you must exist,

You must,

I live my life through you. 

Without you I am no more than a ripple in a stormy sea. 

You must exist,

You must. 

How can you forsake me? 

I would be nothing,

I would be nothing if you didn’t exist.

* Note: there’s a play on words here, “ödet” which I’ve translated into “the wilderness” while strictly meaning “desolation” also means “fate”, “the wilderness” works on both a literal and a figurative level, since she’s in pioneer era Minnesota, a long way from home, and she’s also metaphysically adrift as the following verses indicate

Note that the character is rather conflicted.  In part, she is angry at the god she believed in (for forcing her from Sweden, killing her child, putting her in the wilderness and so on).  But she expresses something which I think a lot of recovering theists probably feel at some time or another – a notion that a universe without god, even a god that one is angry with, is undesirable.  Julia Sweeny vividly describes a form of vertigo experienced while she was losing her religion in “Letting Go of God” (or the TED version).

This believing because not believing would be so terrible is a mirror image of what I think D’Souza and people like him believe is going on with atheists.  D’Souza assumes that there are people who, because of ignorant pride or inappropriate priorities, decide that an existent god is not doing a good enough job and who, as a consequence, decide quite irrationally that the universe would be better without god.  These people, according to D’Souza, therefore adopt the intellectual stance of believing in the non-existence of something that obviously exists – thus becoming atheists.

If this were the case, it would be a type of evil.  If god, being the omnipotent and omniscient creator of everything and the source of all good, were to exist (and that existence were self-evident) but insignificant vermin such as humans took it upon themselves to judge god and turn away from god, that would indeed be an evil act on their part.  No questions about that.

(This might be part of the reason that apostates are looked upon so unkindly, although a better explanation is that the policy of treating apostates poorly – up to and including torturing them to death – makes apostasy a somewhat less attractive option for others, which in turn makes it easy to lock people into your in-group.)

However, as far as I know, this isn’t how the vast majority of atheists see things.  Some atheists are particularly disenchanted with the religious, and they do mock theists by saying that even if god did exist (which, they make clear, he doesn’t) then he’d not be worth worshipping because of all the suffering, or because of how much of a megalomaniac butcher he was in the Old Testament, or because gay people are people too, or whatever.

But … a person who is seriously pissed-off with God for His mismanagement is a pissed-off theist, not a pissed-off atheist.

So, that’s the intellectually evil atheist, or rather the straw-man of the intellectually evil atheist.

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But atheists are not just evil because of what they think, they also evil because of what they are.  The nature of an atheist is inherently evil.  Fortunately, this inherent evil is not unique to atheists.

I wrote before about a miracle testimonial event that I attended at the urging of a Christian friend.  I was sorely disappointed that I didn’t hear about people being miraculously cured of amputations, or third degree burns, or even cancer.

 (I guess remissions don’t always last – it’s somewhat dark humour, but I have in my head the voice of my friend telling me that I should have come last year, because there was this great speaker, a young woman, who had talked about how she had been miraculously cured of terminal cancer, and that I would have enjoyed that.  Oh, yes, I ask, what happened to her?  The cancer came back and she died, my friend tells me – oblivious to the fact that he is telling me that the miracle that I would have liked to listen to was not, in fact, a miracle at all.)

All the “miracles” that evening were mundane stories about how people in the congregation had been nice to each other.  Now I am all for that, I like people being nice to each other and I really like it when people are nice to me, but that’s far from miraculous … unless you have a rather twisted view of humanity.

In the debate between D’Souza and Singer, D’Souza tries to argue that the Ten Commandments are not made up.  I’ve heard him make the same argument elsewhere, but in this particular instance, he makes a comment to the effect that if he were to be a member of the committee responsible for making up the Ten Commandments, he’d toss three of them away for a start (I don’t know how many he’d finally end up ditching) – because D’Souza doesn’t like to be told not do things.  I don’t know which version of the Bible he’s talking about, but it sounds to me that he’s talking about tossing three of the commandments that appear after honouring your father and mother (in the context of the debate, I can’t imagine that he meant that he’d toss out the first three “I am god” commandments or that he has a burning desire to dishonour his parents).  That leaves him with:

Thou shalt not kill

Thou shalt not commit adultery

Thou shalt not steal

Thou shalt not lie

Thou shalt not covet houses

Thou shalt not covet wives, manservants, maidservants, oxen, asses, etc

To be kind, we could assume that D’Souza is very much into coveting.  He enjoys a good covet.  So, that’s two of his three and he’s got one more commandment to discard.  If he’s got any sense at all, he’d go for “Thou shalt not lie”.  Now that lying is ok, along with the coveting, he can happily lie about all that killing, adultery and stealing he does.

(News reports out today, the day of my editing of what I wrote yesterday, indicate that D’Souza could have wanted to ditch “Thou shalt not commit adultery” and “Thou shalt not lie”, I guess that leaves him scope to take out “Thou shalt not covet wives, manservants, maidservants, oxen, asses, etc” – I’m not currently aware of the marital status of D’Souza’s squeeze.)

The point is that D’Souza was basically implying that he would keep the commandments, as silly as half of them are and as bleeding obvious as the other half are, because he’s Christian and he believes that god wants him to obey them.  Without them, he would be like the caricature of an atheist that he depicts: uncaring, totally amoral and intensely covetous.  (Edit – actually, even with them he’s a bit like that.)

It seems to me that people like D’Souza should be theists and even atheists should want people like D’Souza to be theists, because they are psychopaths who are only kept in line (edit – to a certain extent) by a comforting fairy tale.

This viewpoint, that without theism, humans are like wild beasts, is a recurring theme.  D’Souza even went as far to claim that, before the advent of Christianity, there was no compassion.  So, what he’s specifically claiming is that if you are not a Christian, you are highly likely to be an uncaring, dishonest, vicious, baby-discarding, cannibalistic, light-fingered, indiscriminately copulating and covetous beast.

I bet they don’t put that in the travel brochures.

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Please note, I am not really saying that atheists are evil.  Other than Ayn Rand, of course.

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D’Souza really made a mess of the last section of this – it seems that even if you are a Christian you can still be a bit of a beast.  It just means that you are a hypocritical beast.