Faith, Dawkins and sillyness
Richard Dawkins’ new show is on tonight. The Root Of All Evil is entertaining. If you believe yourself to be intelligent-ish, and are somewhat anti-fundamentalism and pro-science, it’s obviously a joy to watch a well-read academic who understands logical argument debate a succession of hardcore religious types who have little concept of logic, argument or evidence.
I have a major problem with Mr Dawkins, though: he’s too often guilty of the same fallacy as the people he argues with. He believes there is a necessary conflict between Religious Faith, which is silly and rubbish and responsible for all that is bad, and Science, which is more or less the opposite. And sure, speaking as someone who’s never been touched by faith, this take is superficially tempting.
Sometimes, people try and counter this kind of argument by taking it the other way round – roughly, “the likes of Stalin and Hitler were just as bad as any deists, so you atheists should shut up”. This is a stupid point, in that Stalin and Hitler succeeded because people had the same blind faith in them that they have in deities, while the humanists and scientists were generally the ones being sent to gulags and concentration camps. If anyone makes this point, they’re probably Glenn Reynolds (I’m told ‘Glenn Reynolds’ is a generic term for ignorant right-wingers who believe themselves to be centrists, although I’m unsure where it derives from).
However, there are clearly also people in real life who profess a belief in a higher power, who are humanists and believers in the scientific method and whose position is not logically ludicrous. So we can pretty much conclude that faith is a necessary, not a sufficient, condition. To be the kind of Creationist-y fundamentalist loon that Mr Dawkins despises, you don’t just have faith, you have to have faith combined with a strange set of beliefs and character traits. As long as society discourages people from getting the latter, deterring faith is as unimportant as it is impossible.
Worse, by conflating the issues of is-science-roughly-right (clue: yes) and are-people-with-faith-all-awful (clue: no), Mr Dawkins happily perpetuates the same “having religious faith entails believing every word of drivel written by some drugged up goat molester 3000 years ago” nonsense that the rednecks want everyone to believe. Intellectual masturbation has its price…
Oh, arse. Much as I’d like to argue against the thrust of this post, no good argument comes to mind. I presume, however, you’re making an in-gag about Glenn Reynolds. For those (like me) not in the know, Wiki Article sorts it out.
Btw, you should post here more, John B.
Good post, John – I shuddered with fear on opening it, but was pleasantly surprised. Two slight niggles:
First, if someone says “the likes of Stalin and Hitler were just as bad as any deists, so you atheists should shut up,” they probably mean “theists” and not “deists.” Deism typically involves belief born purely of reason and emphatically not faith, and usually entails the belief that God created the world but now has better things to do, or is dead, or whatever. Most of the famous Deists were quite thoughtful, philosophical chaps and not at all liable to burn witches, etc.
Second: “This is a stupid point, in that Stalin and Hitler succeeded because people had the same blind faith in them that they have in deities, while the humanists and scientists were generally the ones being sent to gulags and concentration camps.” I agree with your overall point, but there’s a slight dodge here; you’ve moved from ‘atheists’ to ‘humanists’ – from non-believers-in-general to warm-and-cuddly-Hampstead-non-believers. By the same token, you could say that, amidst religious tyranny, “those true to Christian teaching were always the first to be burnt at the stake.”
A non-specific belief in a higher power may be consistent with the scientific method, but belief in e.g transubstantiation or that Jesus walked on water/came back from the dead, or most specific beliefs espoused by specific religions, are not, I would argue. They simply fly in the face of the evidence.
To that extent, there is a necessary conflict between science and any sort of religious faith used to justify factual claims about physical entities within the universe.
It doesn’t make people who believe such things awful, mind you, and I agree with you that secularists desparately need moderate religious types as allies in the battle against fundamentalism.
Larry – if you believe in God as an infinite power, prior to the universe, then expecting Him to obey the rules of that universe seems a bit rum, surely?
If Jesus’ resurrection were physically possible, then we wouldn’t need to worry about the God question after all. You’re right about the conflict emerging where there is a claim over a physical entity in the universe (i.e., fairies in the garden), but in the case of the resurrection, that is a claim about a specific, historic interruption. The argument is, as such, exceptional – it doesn’t require you to question physical laws to believe it; in fact, its symbolic power is enhanced by a belief in those physical laws.
Belief in the resurrection is inconsistent with scientific method. If you proceed solely by a dispassionate examination of the worldly evidence (and aren’t either a liar or a fool), the inescapable conclusion is that the available evidence is totally inadequate to support a claim of such enormity. So you then either appeal to religious faith, if that’s your thing, or you reject the claim. The scientific method demands the latter.
Ok, so it’s a claim about a specific, exceptional, historic interruption. I accept that many of its propenents can and do embrace the scientific method in most other instances. That’s great, and I’m I’m happy to welcome them as allies in those instances.
But that doesn’t stop the fact that the resurrection is a point of inconsistency, albeit an isolated one.
Blimpish,
… but in the case of the resurrection, that is a claim about a specific, historic interruption.
Sorry to be boring, but lets apply Occam’s Razor here. Is it more likely that:
a) an all-powerful God, who’s existance we cannot being to explain, and very occasionally, under somewhat dubious circumstances, affects life on Earth, actually exists; or
b) The resurrection never happened, but was merely a rumour which started and eventually got written down.
Now, I see lots of examples of (b) happening in the modern world, but no examples of (a). It hence seems somewhat more likely that (b) is true, given what we know of human nature etc.
In short, the resurrection requires faith, pure and simple.
More, with our ‘God-given’ reason, let us approach the question in the manner of the progressive natural philosophers of the 19th Century. They argued that, given that we had reason, and given that we could apply this to understand the world, doing so was the revelation of God’s will. These men were deists, rather than theists. Now, if we are not dealing with a literal Bibilical God, then the revelation of his will that we see around us suggests, more strongly than a book of dubious origins, that the ressuraction never happened. If we are dealing with a Biblical God, then the revelation of his will that we see around us by the use of God-given reason contradicts the events of the ressurection (and countless other Biblical points). This would mean that he is a trickster God, and most certainly not ‘wholly good’*, especially if faith is a necessity for entry to heaven.
*If you reply and say that God is good in ways that mere mortals cannot understand, then you may as well say that ‘God is wholly gyhsagfjkgash’ for all the sense it makes to mortals.
Larry: I think you miss the point – if it was describable and explainable in terms of physical laws, it therefore wouldn’t be at all a matter of religious interest, just a plain ole’ freak of nature.
Matt: I agree entirely, it’s a claim of faith and not of science. I didn’t say otherwise – my point to Larry was that because the resurrection is a one-off exception (transubstantiation is very different here, obviously), there is no conflict between faith in the resurrection and the rigorous pursuit of scientific understanding. The only conflict would come if science allowed us to measure directly the events of 2000 years ago – which is not presently on the horizon, to put it mildly.
Andrew: first things first, belief in a Deist non-biblical God is ultimately an act of faith. In that case, belief in God doesn’t rest on Him being good. So, your argument matters little there – and indeed, in most non-Christian religion.
But, to the specific point on Christian theodicy. Theologically speaking, we’re here on this earth because Eve (and then Adam) ate of the tree of knowledge – and therefore, we chose to know good and evil rather than live in paradise (i.e., a creation of pure good). So, the fall from grace, Cain and Abel, etc. From the choice for knowledge comes our life in a cosmos with its own physical laws (which we now know a fair bit about, thanks to science).
If our eating of the tree of knowledge and the subsequent fall meant anything, it means that we as people can do evil. But more than that, the NT fully accepts that this world is not always a nice place, not as God would want (start with John 1:10) – if it was, would we ever be tempted by evil? The whole point is that the fall was a break in creation, opting for imperfection – Adam and Eve’s actions, in defiance of God’s good will for them, had consequences. The resurrection is a sign that all is not lost, that He shares in our suffering and that there is the hope of redemption and a return to paradise.
“Andrew: first things first, belief in a Deist non-biblical God is ultimately an act of faith. In that case, belief in God doesn’t rest on Him being good. So, your argument matters little there – and indeed, in most non-Christian religion.”
No, that was my point. A theist has to answer the question of why God-given reason and the God-created natural world lead us to understandings that contradict events in the Bible. They must conclude god is a trickster, a deliberate deceiver, and thus not wholly good. This would contradict the beliefs of most Christians. However, the contradictions in the Bible ought do this anyhow, but we won’t get into that.
A deist, on the other hand, takes his god-given reason and the god-created natural world and rejects the events of the Bible, it being a dubious historical document and thus a less reliable guide to God than the objects that are certainly* of his creation. Now, I never said that this God need be all good, merely that a deist belief that does not adopt the epistemology of an unknowable world is bound to conclude that the ressurection did not happen.
However, a roughly Christian belief in an all good God, combined with a non-literal approach to the Bible ought also lead to the above conclusion, as God-given reason and the revelation of God’s will in nature ought trump a badly written, internally contradictory book of dubious origins. When something that purports to be God’s will in in contradiction to something that plainly is God’s will – the natural world – then the dubious evidence has to be tossed.
*At least according to a deist.
Blimpish, I’m not missing the point. My original contention was that belief in the resurrection is inconsistent with scientific method: if you proceed by the scientific method, you *must* reject the resurrection-hypothesis.
You say that for many people who believe in the resurrection, that belief is a one-off exception. In other words the resurrection is the *only* point where their religious beliefs clash with the scientific method. In all other scenarios they fully embrace the scientific method.
I accept that. I’m simply saying that the fact that it’s the *only* point of conflict between their religious belief and the scientific method doesn’t change the fact that it *is* a point of conflict, which is all I initially claimed.
Andrew: Outside of literalist forms of Christianity, it’s been accepted since at least St Augustine that scripture is not without its subtleties (ahem), and is often interpreted more symbolically than literally. Certainly, the Vatican (hardly lightweight on the Christianity) has fully embraced Darwinian accounts as against Genesis’s literal creation story.
Remember that, in Christianity, scripture is not the direct word of God, but its reporting by historic witnesses (i.e., the Prophets and the Apostles). It’s accepted (except by literalists, but for them your point is more than valid) that articulating His revelation is a difficult job at the best of times, and all the more so when we’re a few thousand years apart and speaking very different languages.
So, there’s no reason to “conclude god is a trickster, a deliberate deceiver, and thus not wholly good,” because it might be that we’ve misunderstood a message down through the ages. That’s why we have theology, the application of that God-given reason to achieve (we hope) an ever-better understanding of His revelation, especially as it applies here and now rather than in Israel two, three or four thousand years ago. None of this invalidates scripture – it just means we should treat it with a certain detachment, understanding that it has an awful lot of detritus around the revelation – and telling them apart is never an easy part.
Now, if we did have some concrete evidence that we understood God exactly right, and that he’d told us things wrong and it wasn’t our failings, that would change things. We might decide he was a trickster, as you say – although he might’ve deceived for a good reason (in the way we tell kids about the tooth fairy), of course. But really, it’d all be an academic exercise – if we had that concrete evidence, we’d necessarily have concrete evidence of God Himself, and that means He’s entered the universe and that means it’s probably the Apocalypse so don’t make any long term plans…
Larry: er… ok. I guess my somewhat mangled point back was that, because it is posited as an exceptional historic incident, faith in the resurrection isn’t incompatible with being the best god-damned (or blessed, hopefully) scientific mind around. That makes it a lot different to, say, literal belief in Genesis.
“if we had that concrete evidence, we’d necessarily have concrete evidence of God Himself, and that means He’s entered the universe and that means it’s probably the Apocalypse so don’t make any long term plans…”
Blimpish, I like this point. Can I nick this idea?
I’d be honoured. And, heart-warmed that we had a discussion about God and not only avoided a futile comment death-duel but could show that the exchange was fruitful. Who’d have thunk that was possible..?!
Dawkins is right. The only problem is that there are not a majority that think like him.
If the 20% of the population who claim not to believe in God went out and preached as much as the Evangelicals, we could finish the religious nutters off in no time.
Lets all be like Dawkins and free ourselves of this religious oppression that victimises homosexuals, women who have abortions, discourages condoms and is trying to destroy our scientific advances with ignorant tripe.
It is all the liberal religious (who never go to church and never read the bible and probably don’t ‘really’ believe in God if truth be known) that allow the religious nutters to flourish. My advice to these liberal nutters is actually spend some time and effort reading the bible. The bible is the best way to encourage atheism because it is full of such crap.
This is God’s advice for what you should do to a friend or family member if they suggest believing in another deity.
Deuteronomy 13:7-11: “If your brother, the son of your father or of your mother, or your son or daughter, or the spouse whom you embrace, or your most intimate friend, tries to secretly seduce you, saying. “Let us go and serve other gods,” … you must show him no pity, you must not spare
him or conceal his guilt. No, you must kill him, your hand must strike the first blow in putting him to death and the hands of the rest of the people following. You must stone him to death, since he has tried to divert you from Yahweh your God.”
In the book of Numbers 31:18, Moses when ordering the massacre of all male prisoners and older women.
“But all the women and children, that have not known a man by lying with him. Keep alive for yourselves.”
In the book of Judges 19:24; A priest has some people come to his door demanding to rape his male guest, this is his response;
“Behold here is my daughter a maiden and his concubine, them I will bring out now, and humble ye them, and do with them what seemeth good unto you, but unto this man do not so vile a thing”
So go ahead rape my daughter, but don’t rape my guest, he is male after all.
Why won’t God heal amputees?
Neil, why won’t God strike down stupid, ignorant embarassments like you, to save us all having to read your utter crap? Having seen MatGB’s excellent hatchet job on you, I think we can leave it there.
Neil, as a fellow atheist, you, once again, miss the point entirely.
If you feel the need, reread Matthew (I think), New Testament, the bit wherein Jesus asserts that the old testament is now replaced and the old laws should no longer apply.
Just because religious extremists don’t understand their own faith, that’s no need to denigrate those that have read and understood the teachings of Jesus, who, from what I can see, was probably a nice bloke, he just had a few delusions about a mythical father.
Typical Blimpish, rather than answer the points just attack the man. Keep it up MR Blimpish. For someone who has argued against democracy itself on his blog, it comes as a bit rich for you to criticise me for supporting the respect agenda (admittedly with a clumsily written article that raised much ridicule).
So MatGB, we can safely disregard any religious writing before Jesus can we? I agree that the image of Jesus is pretty good, communist even. But what about all the terrible stuff in the Koran? If we are going to have Religion at all, and they are going to state that the the religious scriptures are the word of God, how can they justify picking and choosing like this?
No Neil, quite untrue. It’s only you who gets that treatment. One might inquire why? Might it be, lo, that you’re deserving? Possibly?
“For someone who has argued against democracy itself on his blog, it comes as a bit rich for you to criticise me for supporting the respect agenda.”
I don’t recall arguing against democracy as such, only as a universal principle – which is a view I’m happy to defend. But regardless, you’ll find you’re in error on the last bit – I never criticised you for supporting the respect agenda. I didn’t say a word. If I did, though, it would’ve been not so much rich as elegant, rigorous, and plain scathing.
As for your reply to MatGB, it’s the most confused crap I’ve seen so far this year. You seem to be under the view that all religions are one; therefore, Christianity might be fine, but as the Koran says stuff you don’t like, it’s wrong. Strangely, Neil, Christians don’t believe the Koran to be scripture.
Really – you are some kind of automated spamming device unleashed by Downing Street, aren’t you?
I think your wrong about faith and science being in conflict, of course they conflict with each other. At least the Christian form of religion. Whats odd about your entire argument is that it presupposes it’s the Christian religion only that should be discussed.
The Christian religion makes real world claims, claims that can then be subjected to the scietific method or dismissed.
‘, the bit wherein Jesus asserts that the old testament is now replaced and the old laws should no longer apply.’
Perhaps you should read the verses where he says not a jot of the OT law will pass away and that he came not to destroy the OT law but to uphold it. By the way one of the few passages of which there is little disagreement as to what he meant.
‘Just because religious extremists don’t understand their own faith, that’s no need to denigrate those that have read and understood the teachings of Jesus’
And who would that be? The Catholics? Baptists? Methodists? and on and on. The one true scotsman fallacy. I think the literalists ARE reading the religion correctly. Everyone else trims the edges.
The truth is, Neil Harding is reading the bible for what it says. You folks are attacking him for simply quoting from a book you deem to be infallible. It is an odd reversal. All he is doing is quoting passages as they where written.
Well said GH, cheers. I’m glad someone sees sense.
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