From the series: 6 Ultimate Reasons Not To Be An Atheist?
#2 Atheists cannot believe there is objective moral law
To put the argument another way, humans can recognise the force of gravity because it exists. And even without knowing where gravity comes from, it doesn't change the fact that gravity is there. So it follows that an atheist can recognise an objective morality because an objective morality exists. But the nature of morality is unlike gravity, while gravity is a blind force morality is personal. So it follows that if there is objective morality in nature, then there must be a personal (i.e. interventionist) deity responsible.
So again to subject it to the established criteria, is objective moral law necessary for any particular world-view? And like with meaning, I think the answer is no. Again it's an appeal to consequences. We might desire objective moral law, society might even be contingent on having a moral law, but without objective moral law being necessary it doesn't reflect on the truth of whether there are interventionist deities.
What reach does objective moral law have. Is it contingent on the human species existing? Once it exists, does it have any reach beyond our species? Take killing another for example, does it hold that it is objectively wrong for one man to kill another on the surface of Mars? What about at the centre of our galaxy? Or in the far reaches of the cosmos? I would contend not, that is to say morality is a local phenomenon entirely contingent on our existence.
The obvious does need to be pointed out, humans do indeed have an innate moral capacity, a sense of right and wrong and act on moral impulses. This however doesn't necessitate objective moral law any more than sexual attraction necessitates an objective form of what is attractive. I would say the argument ends here, but I would be remiss if I didn't explore the nature of the question further.
So how can a theist account for morality? The question that any theist needs to answer is what is known as The Euthyphro Dilemma, which goes "is it pious because it is loved by the gods or loved by the gods because it is pious". Or to put it in modern terms, is murder wrong because God says it's wrong or does God say murder is wrong because it is wrong? The first part of the dilemma puts any God-given morality as arbitrary, the latter means that any attempt to reconcile morality through God is begging the question.
The argument in this video comes in the form of an authority, that we can only have morality because of a higher authority (God) gave moral instruct. It seems that those who made the video take the first option, that it is obedience to an amoral entity - lest the argument go ad infinitum or falls into a circular definition.
In the video they fall into what Daniel Dennett calls greedy reductionism by the removal of any possible authority in the material world. After all, it's all just material - blind forces acting indiscriminately. One can't help but think back to Carl Sagan's Cosmos where he laid out the raw materials that make us. The point he's trying to make is that life is more than just the atoms that make it up.
This straw man continues in making an analogy with the chair. That we have no moral obligation not to break the chair as the chair has no personal connection to us. They neglect the obvious, the chair isn't an intelligent agent. The chair itself may not have a moral obligation, but if the chair was owned by a friend they wouldn't take "materialism means no obligation" as a valid excuse.
I'd go so far as to say that theism cannot account for morality, the appeals to authority make no sense for the same reason as it doesn't make it right if a leader of a country proclaims a moral dictum. This sense of objective morality is obedience, it's right for the same reason a parent is right when telling a child what to do. It's an infantile way of looking at what is morality, and given its importance to us as a species it is deserving of something better.
Which brings me to how an atheist can account for morality. I'm not going to argue for objective moral law, rather for how certain moral maxims fall out naturally and how we've come to regard some morals as near universals. And far from morality being an exercise in authority, it's something that comes from the self.
I can already hear the cries of moral subjectivism, yet this could only apply if humans lived in complete isolation. To go back to the chair example. If it were just an individual and the chair, then what is there to stop you from breaking it? Perhaps the consequences of having a broken chair. But if the chair was owned by another, then the relationship between the agent and the chair is changed. Breaking someone else's property could affect your relationship with them.
In there a rule emerges, purely out of the self. Acting in a particular way has consequences, and certain actions can help or hinder others and affect ones relationship to them. It stems from a recognition of one's relationship to the environment around them.
It doesn't end there, game theory can show stable survival strategies fall out of repeated interactions even when weighting is put towards "cheating". In the thought experiment of the prisoner's dilemma, at each interaction it pays to defect. But when the situation is put into repeated interaction, reciprocal altruism emerges as a dominant strategy even though against any one individual it can at best break even.
So what of maxims? While such behaviours like murder and lying are still present, too much of such elements and there is a breakdown of society. The murder rate cannot exceed the birth-rate, too much lying and there's the loss of a vital component of success and fostering relationships. While they are not absolute, they are as close as we can get to objective morality.
There's so much to say on this subject and very little space, so I'll just quickly say this. Evolution can give us a sound base as to why we are moral, but it can't prescribe morality. For such precepts like the golden rule, it can explain why we aspire to it but not why we should aspire to it. It's important to note that we have the capacity to take on ideas, and to think through actions to their perceived consequences. This capacity for knowledge of outcomes gives us the ability to learn from actions in the past and work towards our future.
Tuesday, 22 December 2009
Monday, 21 December 2009
All Swans Must Be Green
The classic example of the problem of induction is the statement "all swans are white". Yet this statement was demonstrated to be false upon the discovery of the Australian Black Swan. The logic is pretty simple behind this, if P is not true then ~P. So the statement follows that the discovery of the black swan is that not all swans are white. Not that all swans are black or even that all swans must be green. Yet this is the fallacy of the creationist.
You presume too much
The strategy is quite simple and much employed. Instead of building a positive case for special creation, it's proof by negation, if not natural cause X, then supernatural cause. So much time is dedicated to destroying "Darwinism" as if natural selection is the only natural cause that it could possibly be, and because natural selection doesn't work (in their eyes) it follows that it must be that God did it.
This line of argument suffers from bad logic. That if one thing cannot be explained by evolutionary theory in its current form, then all it does is highlight a hole in evolutionary theory. It doesn't follow that none of evolutionary theory could be true, or that it was created by God. Instead of recognising the new gap for what it is, it's taken that the entire theory is wrong and that special creation by the Judeo-Christian construct of God is true. In other words they have found a black swan and from there concluded that all swans must be green.
Bring yourself back to a time before 1858, and imagine yourself as an evolutionary biologist testing the then popular idea for evolutionary theory of Lamarkian inheritance. You want to demonstrate the mechanism in action so you take a lab mouse and cut off its tail. Then you breed the lab mouse with another lab mouse who also had its tail cut off. And to your dismay, the offspring have tails as do their offspring.
By the current creationist rhetoric of today, by that experiment you have proved creation! After all, the natural mechanism didn't work so there must be a supernatural mechanism at work. Of course the problem in logic should be obvious now. ~P just means ~P. It doesn't mean R.
The presumption made is that God is the alternative, so all they have to do is get rid of the current natural explanation and thus God. Yet in reality all it does is point out a gap in our knowledge. If Lamarkian inheritance doesn't work, then all we can take from that is that we know that Lamarkian inheritance doesn't work. So the presumption that if not current mechanism X then God is as absurd as concluding from finding a black swan that all swans must be green.
Chasing skyhooks
Because of the aforementioned presumption, any argument turns into an argument from personal incredulity. In the case of evolution, those who believe that destroying natural selection will mean JesusTM, no matter what they cannot be convinced of even the possibility of the process working. In effect, their whole case relies on not understanding how the process could work.
Consider some of the arguments that are used against evolution. "Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics", "most/all mutations are harmful", "function X is irreducibly complex", "you can't get specified information by chance". Now such arguments have been demonstrated wrong or irrelevant many times before, I don't need to go over them again. But consider why such arguments are used.
These arguments rest on the premise that all swans must be green. If it did turn out that current evolutionary theory couldn't build irreducibly complex functions, what does that say about what did? It doesn't imply that God came down and muddled with DNA to create those IC structures.
To borrow the terminology of Dan Dennett, the creationists want a skyhook. They can see that there are cranes rising up high from the ground, so by destroying the crane structure they hope to prove that the skyhook will still be there. So whatever crane is being touted as the crane by which the hook hangs, attacking that structure becomes the goal.
By this stage in the game, there is already a concession that evolutionary cranes do exist. The microevolution cranes have proved impossible to knock down, so it is posited that although those cranes are real, they are merely hanging off the skyhook that is God. 150 years since The Origin Of Species and every attempt so far to knock down the crane of natural selection has shown the resilience of the crane, while discoveries of other cranes have been made. As yet, no skyhooks.
Logical underpinnings
Since the whole enterprise rests on the false premise that all swans must be green, I don't expect this line of attack on evolution abate. The fact that there are any white swans at all means that there's going to be the persistent effort to firstly demonstrate that the swans only appear white, and secondly to search for any non-white swan to invalidate the premise.
If one bases their arguments about swans on observations, they are subject to revision upon future studies of swans. But if one doesn't even try to base their arguments about swans on observations, then they'll forever be trying to discredit evidence that doesn't fit their arguments. Whether one can reason philosophically that all swans must be green is irrelevant to the reality of the colour of a swan.
You presume too much
The strategy is quite simple and much employed. Instead of building a positive case for special creation, it's proof by negation, if not natural cause X, then supernatural cause. So much time is dedicated to destroying "Darwinism" as if natural selection is the only natural cause that it could possibly be, and because natural selection doesn't work (in their eyes) it follows that it must be that God did it.
This line of argument suffers from bad logic. That if one thing cannot be explained by evolutionary theory in its current form, then all it does is highlight a hole in evolutionary theory. It doesn't follow that none of evolutionary theory could be true, or that it was created by God. Instead of recognising the new gap for what it is, it's taken that the entire theory is wrong and that special creation by the Judeo-Christian construct of God is true. In other words they have found a black swan and from there concluded that all swans must be green.
Bring yourself back to a time before 1858, and imagine yourself as an evolutionary biologist testing the then popular idea for evolutionary theory of Lamarkian inheritance. You want to demonstrate the mechanism in action so you take a lab mouse and cut off its tail. Then you breed the lab mouse with another lab mouse who also had its tail cut off. And to your dismay, the offspring have tails as do their offspring.
By the current creationist rhetoric of today, by that experiment you have proved creation! After all, the natural mechanism didn't work so there must be a supernatural mechanism at work. Of course the problem in logic should be obvious now. ~P just means ~P. It doesn't mean R.
The presumption made is that God is the alternative, so all they have to do is get rid of the current natural explanation and thus God. Yet in reality all it does is point out a gap in our knowledge. If Lamarkian inheritance doesn't work, then all we can take from that is that we know that Lamarkian inheritance doesn't work. So the presumption that if not current mechanism X then God is as absurd as concluding from finding a black swan that all swans must be green.
Chasing skyhooks
Because of the aforementioned presumption, any argument turns into an argument from personal incredulity. In the case of evolution, those who believe that destroying natural selection will mean JesusTM, no matter what they cannot be convinced of even the possibility of the process working. In effect, their whole case relies on not understanding how the process could work.
Consider some of the arguments that are used against evolution. "Evolution violates the second law of thermodynamics", "most/all mutations are harmful", "function X is irreducibly complex", "you can't get specified information by chance". Now such arguments have been demonstrated wrong or irrelevant many times before, I don't need to go over them again. But consider why such arguments are used.
These arguments rest on the premise that all swans must be green. If it did turn out that current evolutionary theory couldn't build irreducibly complex functions, what does that say about what did? It doesn't imply that God came down and muddled with DNA to create those IC structures.
To borrow the terminology of Dan Dennett, the creationists want a skyhook. They can see that there are cranes rising up high from the ground, so by destroying the crane structure they hope to prove that the skyhook will still be there. So whatever crane is being touted as the crane by which the hook hangs, attacking that structure becomes the goal.
By this stage in the game, there is already a concession that evolutionary cranes do exist. The microevolution cranes have proved impossible to knock down, so it is posited that although those cranes are real, they are merely hanging off the skyhook that is God. 150 years since The Origin Of Species and every attempt so far to knock down the crane of natural selection has shown the resilience of the crane, while discoveries of other cranes have been made. As yet, no skyhooks.
Logical underpinnings
Since the whole enterprise rests on the false premise that all swans must be green, I don't expect this line of attack on evolution abate. The fact that there are any white swans at all means that there's going to be the persistent effort to firstly demonstrate that the swans only appear white, and secondly to search for any non-white swan to invalidate the premise.
If one bases their arguments about swans on observations, they are subject to revision upon future studies of swans. But if one doesn't even try to base their arguments about swans on observations, then they'll forever be trying to discredit evidence that doesn't fit their arguments. Whether one can reason philosophically that all swans must be green is irrelevant to the reality of the colour of a swan.
They Make It Sound So Appealing
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/12/19/2776557.htm
I remember that threesome scene. And that counts as porn? This demonstrates that we don't need an internet filter, it seems that if that is what counts as porn to this group then the internet is self-censoring enough already. From memory, the scene was quite funny. Like most of the sex in that show, it seemed more for comic effect than arousal.
But to be serious for a moment, once again the notion of a nanny state is rearing its ugly head. The guidelines for free to air already put such content on at a late time, but that never really seems to be good enough. The fact that there is a ratings system already should be enough to inform parents about how to make decisions affecting their parental responsibility for their children. But no, it's not enough.
Sue Turnbull makes a lot of sense here, and it's a shame that these moralists don't go down such a pragmatic path. Like the abstinence-only education proponents, it seems to be that those moralists are set on pushing their agenda (in this case the removal of sex from television) than it is for better practical outcomes for children. Why not put forth opportunities to help parents on how to use new technology? Why not push for more awareness of ratings? Instead we get hyperbolic rhetoric and the hysteric cry of "won't someone please think of the children!?!"
What adults watch in their own homes is their business. The law is already quite restrictive on what can be put on television at what times. Even on at adults-only times I've seen sex scenes cut from movies, profanity cut from dialogue, violence reduced, etc. Even something innocuous like Homer Simpson's infamous line "To alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems" doesn't air with the reruns of that memorable episode.
And what is all of this over? Essentially nothing. You can see more arousing television at 9am on a Saturday morning, just that they call them music clips. There's more arousing imagery put on billboards to advertise pretty much everything. Even a recent trip to a clothing store was full of scantily-clad women suggestively posing. Porn at 9pm? I wish. Hyperbolic rhetoric makes the concept sound so much more appealing than the reality.
Just one day after it was made official, there are calls to shelve changes to the code of practice for commercial television stations.I liked Californication when it first came on the air. I got bored of the show midway through season 2 which by that time had descended into the formulaic escalated by the ever-more improbable storyline. So I stopped watching.
Television programs like the crime series Underbelly thrive on on-screen nudity and raunchy sex scenes. And while they attract controversy, they also corner huge audiences.
Now, the Christian group Family Voice Australia is worried that a new code of practice gives commercial TV networks the green light to push the boundaries of decency further.
Ros Phillips, the group's national research officer, says she is concerned that it waters down the guidelines to allow explicit pornography at 9pm, "when many children are still watching".
What has piqued her concern is a change to the guidelines for sex scenes in programs rated MA. Previously, the industry's code of practice required sex to be portrayed discreetly.
But the new guidelines only require sex scenes to follow the storyline and not be high in impact.
"Higher than what?" says Ms Phillips.
"As we've seen over the years, what one person thinks is high is not necessarily what the program manager for Channel 10 thinks."
That is a reference to a long running stoush over the Channel 10 show, Californication.
The Australian Communications and Media Authority has upheld a complaint by Family Voice about one of the show's sex scenes.
"Absolute ... it was a threesome and it was extremely explicit," she says.
"I won't go into details, but if it wasn't for that word 'discreetly' in the guidelines, that complaint wouldn't have been upheld."
But media commentator Sue Turnbull from La Trobe University in Melbourne says the group is overreacting.
"If this particular group don't know what real pornography looks like, then maybe they should see some, so that they can actually make the kinds of distinctions that the people that are doing this classification make every day," she said.
Family Voice Australia is also worried about new guidelines for the new digital channels the networks have launched.
While the core channels will still be required to show only G-rated programs in the hours before and after school on weekdays and in the mornings at weekends, the new channels will not be.
"The new digital televisions provide all sorts of capacities for parents to lock their children out," says Ms Turnbull.
"In fact, if this family organisation is being really sensible, what it should be doing is talking about sex education, media education, media literacy.
"And what parents can actually do in the home as responsible parenting just to ensure that their kids know what's out there, know how to cope with it and are not traumatised by something that they might come across that can just kind of switch on past it and go 'yeah, I don't want to look at that'."
I remember that threesome scene. And that counts as porn? This demonstrates that we don't need an internet filter, it seems that if that is what counts as porn to this group then the internet is self-censoring enough already. From memory, the scene was quite funny. Like most of the sex in that show, it seemed more for comic effect than arousal.
But to be serious for a moment, once again the notion of a nanny state is rearing its ugly head. The guidelines for free to air already put such content on at a late time, but that never really seems to be good enough. The fact that there is a ratings system already should be enough to inform parents about how to make decisions affecting their parental responsibility for their children. But no, it's not enough.
Sue Turnbull makes a lot of sense here, and it's a shame that these moralists don't go down such a pragmatic path. Like the abstinence-only education proponents, it seems to be that those moralists are set on pushing their agenda (in this case the removal of sex from television) than it is for better practical outcomes for children. Why not put forth opportunities to help parents on how to use new technology? Why not push for more awareness of ratings? Instead we get hyperbolic rhetoric and the hysteric cry of "won't someone please think of the children!?!"
What adults watch in their own homes is their business. The law is already quite restrictive on what can be put on television at what times. Even on at adults-only times I've seen sex scenes cut from movies, profanity cut from dialogue, violence reduced, etc. Even something innocuous like Homer Simpson's infamous line "To alcohol, the cause of and solution to all of life's problems" doesn't air with the reruns of that memorable episode.
And what is all of this over? Essentially nothing. You can see more arousing television at 9am on a Saturday morning, just that they call them music clips. There's more arousing imagery put on billboards to advertise pretty much everything. Even a recent trip to a clothing store was full of scantily-clad women suggestively posing. Porn at 9pm? I wish. Hyperbolic rhetoric makes the concept sound so much more appealing than the reality.
Part 1: Meaning
From the series: 6 Ultimate Reasons Not To Be An Atheist?
#1 Atheists cannot believe that there is purpose and meaning to life
It's quite the knock-out argument. The universe is nothing more than indifferent forces acting indiscriminately. Life itself is nothing more than one expression of those laws of physics, as are meteors, supernovae and black holes. For there to be meaning and purpose to life, there needs to be meaningful and purposeful creation.
The first question that needs to be asked, does there need to be purpose and meaning to life itself? Might as well say that a world-view fails because it doesn't have pink unicorns in it. The truth of the world-view is in no way affected about whether there is meaning to the process or not.
Consider the implications of arguing for what Daniel Dennett calls belief in belief. The argument isn't whether to believe in what is true, but what is desired to be true. To put it simply, one could believe that through psychics they can talk to deceased loved-ones. They could engage with psychics and have an overwhelming emotive experience where they come away believing they've connected with their dear departed. But in no way does it mean that physics can really communicate with the dead.
So the notion is dead in the water, it doesn't affect the notion that there's no god in the slightest. But it's hardly satisfying to leave it there.
The next question is what can an interventionist deity to do solve this meaning problem. Well to take the simple answer, by act of purposeful creation it gives inherent meaning to the process. But is it really that simple? I would contend not. Consider the following.
If this argument holds, then it would mean that robots would have meaning while people not because people created robots intentionally and purposefully. Indeed any creation of man would have meaning because of intentionality. We are purposeless beings that give a purpose by intentionally creating with purpose in mind.
But it goes further in its implications than just that. One wonders how there could be meaning in the first place. Is meaning inherent in god? Or is it something else? Is it the intentionality that creates meaning? If so, then all meaning needs is intelligent agents acting causally. Gods at best add that there could be meaning to life, but it is a huge concession and does nothing for meaning in our lives.
Which brings me to the third question, where does this leave the atheist? An atheist doesn't need there to be inherent meaning to life, nor does one need inherent meaning to lead a meaningful life. Richard Dawkins would object to the statement that he admits that it's all an accident, he would agree that there's no meaning but would argue against it being an accident.
If a brick is flying towards a window, is it an accident that the window breaks? No, it's just blind forces acting. The accident comes from intentionality, the thrower of the brick might have been aiming for a different target in which case the window smashing was accidental. But as for the physical forces at play, the forces did exactly as they do. Not accident, not purposeful, just are.
It's important to remember just how we got to be the way we are. The process of evolution works on reproductive success, thus those organisms better suited to life are going to have more offspring. In effect, the process of evolution creates purpose for the organism as it gears an organism towards reproductive success. No intelligent agent necessary, the process is going to inevitably make survival machines.
The meaning that we know to be meaning is not from our creation by an intelligent agent, but our interaction in the world. It seems a leap here so I'll explain. Since the way our minds work have been shaped to find significance in relation to the survival of our genes. We see purpose in relationships with others, in having and raising children, in making technology, in telling stories, in actions that affect others. To think of meaning as anything more is to anthropomorphise reality.
So how does an atheist see meaning in the universe? We see meaning in ourselves, in our actions and in our interactions as causal intelligent agents. Our actions have consequences for not only ourselves but for others as well, and we can recognise as such. So there doesn't need to be purpose to life itself because the process of life generates beings that have purpose.
#1 Atheists cannot believe that there is purpose and meaning to life
It's quite the knock-out argument. The universe is nothing more than indifferent forces acting indiscriminately. Life itself is nothing more than one expression of those laws of physics, as are meteors, supernovae and black holes. For there to be meaning and purpose to life, there needs to be meaningful and purposeful creation.
The first question that needs to be asked, does there need to be purpose and meaning to life itself? Might as well say that a world-view fails because it doesn't have pink unicorns in it. The truth of the world-view is in no way affected about whether there is meaning to the process or not.
Consider the implications of arguing for what Daniel Dennett calls belief in belief. The argument isn't whether to believe in what is true, but what is desired to be true. To put it simply, one could believe that through psychics they can talk to deceased loved-ones. They could engage with psychics and have an overwhelming emotive experience where they come away believing they've connected with their dear departed. But in no way does it mean that physics can really communicate with the dead.
So the notion is dead in the water, it doesn't affect the notion that there's no god in the slightest. But it's hardly satisfying to leave it there.
The next question is what can an interventionist deity to do solve this meaning problem. Well to take the simple answer, by act of purposeful creation it gives inherent meaning to the process. But is it really that simple? I would contend not. Consider the following.
If this argument holds, then it would mean that robots would have meaning while people not because people created robots intentionally and purposefully. Indeed any creation of man would have meaning because of intentionality. We are purposeless beings that give a purpose by intentionally creating with purpose in mind.
But it goes further in its implications than just that. One wonders how there could be meaning in the first place. Is meaning inherent in god? Or is it something else? Is it the intentionality that creates meaning? If so, then all meaning needs is intelligent agents acting causally. Gods at best add that there could be meaning to life, but it is a huge concession and does nothing for meaning in our lives.
Which brings me to the third question, where does this leave the atheist? An atheist doesn't need there to be inherent meaning to life, nor does one need inherent meaning to lead a meaningful life. Richard Dawkins would object to the statement that he admits that it's all an accident, he would agree that there's no meaning but would argue against it being an accident.
If a brick is flying towards a window, is it an accident that the window breaks? No, it's just blind forces acting. The accident comes from intentionality, the thrower of the brick might have been aiming for a different target in which case the window smashing was accidental. But as for the physical forces at play, the forces did exactly as they do. Not accident, not purposeful, just are.
It's important to remember just how we got to be the way we are. The process of evolution works on reproductive success, thus those organisms better suited to life are going to have more offspring. In effect, the process of evolution creates purpose for the organism as it gears an organism towards reproductive success. No intelligent agent necessary, the process is going to inevitably make survival machines.
The meaning that we know to be meaning is not from our creation by an intelligent agent, but our interaction in the world. It seems a leap here so I'll explain. Since the way our minds work have been shaped to find significance in relation to the survival of our genes. We see purpose in relationships with others, in having and raising children, in making technology, in telling stories, in actions that affect others. To think of meaning as anything more is to anthropomorphise reality.
So how does an atheist see meaning in the universe? We see meaning in ourselves, in our actions and in our interactions as causal intelligent agents. Our actions have consequences for not only ourselves but for others as well, and we can recognise as such. So there doesn't need to be purpose to life itself because the process of life generates beings that have purpose.
Sunday, 20 December 2009
6 Ultimate Reasons Not To Be An Atheist?
I was doing my Sunday morning check of what videos my favourite Youtube Vloggers had put up for me when I came across this video that Youtube recommended:
6 ultimate reasons why atheism fails as a world-view. Interesting. In the disclaimer at the beginning it says:
The first thing I'd want to point out is that atheism is not a world-view. You might as well say that not collecting stamps fails as a hobby. The reason for this is simple, atheism is the not-belief, so what follows has to be what the god hypothesis answers that one who is of the belief that there's no such thing as interventionist deities would also have to account for. But to be as charitable as possible, the question is not the validity of atheism itself but of those who profess to be atheists. And from there, let's precede.
So to me there are three questions that stem from each challenge. First question is whether it is necessary. That is will the position hold without being able to account for that. If it is necessary to explain, then two more questions follow. Firstly, can theism itself account for what is being explained? Secondly, in the absence of gods, what is a means to explain it?
The first question should be self-evident. That is if the proposed unanswerable question is not necessary in a world-view, then why should it matter one way or another to the truth of a proposition? If it is desired but not necessary, then the best that could be argued for is belief in belief - that is to persist in a delusion for a reason beyond the reasonable.
To ask what theism can explain is important. It's all well and good to call an interventionist deity an uncaused cause for example, but does that really hold up as a proof for God's existence? Can it follow that an uncaused cause can be interventionist in relation to being inside a causal reality? Just because the argument can be made that non-belief cannot answer a necessary question, it doesn't follow that just because a proposition is out there supporting theism that it is a valid argument or can explain what an atheist can't.
Regardless of whether it is necessary or whether theism can explain it, it hardly seems intellectually satisfying to leave it at that. The questions exist because they hit home at who we are. There's not much in saying "well you can't account for it either". Though for some there may be unanswerable questions, for others tentative answers. It might be that I don't know what I'm talking about, that I've missed some philosophical subtlety in the argument, or that I've made any number of logical fallacies in my arguments.
Part 1: Meaning
Part 2: Morality
Part 3: Free Will
Part 4: Reasoning
Part 5: Logic
Part 6: Truth
Summary
6 ultimate reasons why atheism fails as a world-view. Interesting. In the disclaimer at the beginning it says:
This video does not argue for God's existence...
It simply shows what atheism does not but CANNOT account for.
The first thing I'd want to point out is that atheism is not a world-view. You might as well say that not collecting stamps fails as a hobby. The reason for this is simple, atheism is the not-belief, so what follows has to be what the god hypothesis answers that one who is of the belief that there's no such thing as interventionist deities would also have to account for. But to be as charitable as possible, the question is not the validity of atheism itself but of those who profess to be atheists. And from there, let's precede.
So to me there are three questions that stem from each challenge. First question is whether it is necessary. That is will the position hold without being able to account for that. If it is necessary to explain, then two more questions follow. Firstly, can theism itself account for what is being explained? Secondly, in the absence of gods, what is a means to explain it?
The first question should be self-evident. That is if the proposed unanswerable question is not necessary in a world-view, then why should it matter one way or another to the truth of a proposition? If it is desired but not necessary, then the best that could be argued for is belief in belief - that is to persist in a delusion for a reason beyond the reasonable.
To ask what theism can explain is important. It's all well and good to call an interventionist deity an uncaused cause for example, but does that really hold up as a proof for God's existence? Can it follow that an uncaused cause can be interventionist in relation to being inside a causal reality? Just because the argument can be made that non-belief cannot answer a necessary question, it doesn't follow that just because a proposition is out there supporting theism that it is a valid argument or can explain what an atheist can't.
Regardless of whether it is necessary or whether theism can explain it, it hardly seems intellectually satisfying to leave it at that. The questions exist because they hit home at who we are. There's not much in saying "well you can't account for it either". Though for some there may be unanswerable questions, for others tentative answers. It might be that I don't know what I'm talking about, that I've missed some philosophical subtlety in the argument, or that I've made any number of logical fallacies in my arguments.
Part 1: Meaning
Part 2: Morality
Part 3: Free Will
Part 4: Reasoning
Part 5: Logic
Part 6: Truth
Summary
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