Forgive this long post but Richard Dawkins was the star attraction of the Atheist Convention and I assume readers would prefer more rather than less of his presentation.
“The fact of your own existence is the most astonishing fact you will ever have to face. Don’t you ever get used to it.”
With those words Richard Dawkins launched an interesting, and less-polemical-than-the-others, talk spanning the origins of species, of life, of the universe and perhaps of billions of universes.
The universe we live in and the fact of our existence is truly a cause for gratitude. Gratitude for our individual existence and for the process of evolution which from the blind forces of physics produces all that we know and gives it the illusion of design.
Dawkins spoke of predictability and luck as the two halves of the creative process (although, no, I don’t think he used that loaded phrase). “Natural selection is the great engine of the predictable half of what I am talking about today,” he said, while blind chance is the other half.
“If some catastrophe wiped out the mammals today, the surviving vertebrates would evolve into a similar range of ecological types.” Dawkins referred to the work of Simon Conway Morris Cambridge Professor of Evolutionary Palaeobiology who argues that humans would have evolved again if the tape of life had been rerun. Perhaps he is right, says Dawkins, although he parts from Conway Morris who uses it “as evidence for his weird belief in Christianity.”
But, said Dawkins, the predictable engine of natural selection requires luck at certain critical points, the most obviously at the origin of life (self replication coded information that influences the world) is the most obvious case. This first step in the chain of evolution might have been a very lucky step indeed. How lucky? Dawkins asked.
We don’t know. Theories of the origin of life are hardly plausible at this stage. To ask the question is tantamount to asking how many times life has arisen around the universe. Do we live in a universe teeming with life or, at the other extreme, one where life has arisen only once? “For what it’s worth, and that is not very much,” Dawkins said, “my gut feeling is that life is probably reasonably common.” But the number of planets is so vast, that even a million independent planets with life might have no contact with one another.
But one thing is clear: if you believe that life has arisen only once, then a consequence is that the event that we call the origin of life has to be of such stupefying probability that any chemist looking for it is wasting their time. Any plausible theory would result in life arising many times. Only an implausible theory would result in life arising only once in the universe.
Dawkins spoke of what physicists call the ‘fine tuning’ of the universe explaining that there are a number of physical constants such as the gravitational constant that govern the laws of the universe. He referred to Martin Rees, the Cambridge Cosmologist and Astrophysicist who wrote Just Six Numbers. These are numbers that we can calculate but which we don’t have a rationale for why they have these particular values. We might think of them as six dials that have to be set exactly right at the very beginning. Many physicists have argued that the origins of the universe and laws of physics result from a stroke of blinding luck that left each of these dials at exactly the right position. Any other setting on any one of the dials would have given a no universe result.
Dawkins rebuffs any divine conclusions from fine tuning of the universe. This is not proof of conscious intelligence he says. “To postulate a divine knob twiddler who knew the exact value doesn’t explain anything.”
Rees resorts to what is known as the anthropic principle, “which theists think is their domain, but is deeply atheistic.” It holds that all universes that are observed must have the correct values (or there would be no observers). This can be combined with multiverse theory which holds that the one universe we observe is only one of billions of universes mutually incommunicado, all of which have different values of the fundamental constants. Now, with billions of universes with different values of fundamental constants, we can say that we live in the one that has the fine tuned properties necessary for us to be around to observe it.
Dawkins also cited a more Darwinian theory of the origin of the universe, the idea that universes “give birth to baby universes” which are slightly mutated versions of the parent. This is evolution on a universal scale where fitness is defined as the ability for a universe to last long enough to give birth to offspring. While not popular amongst physicists, Dawkins said, it’s hard to find strong objections.
From cosmology Dawkins moved back to human evolution emphasising that both seem to owe their beginnings to an enormous shot of luck. Both are wondrous, amazing and a cause to give thanks. But to whom? To providence? The gods?
What are the evolutionary roots of gratitude and of religion? The fact that such characteristics of humans seem to be universal demands an explanation. Dawkins suggested that religion might be a by-product of another predisposition. For example, the child mind is predisposed to obey authority, a characteristic which has strong survival value. But a by-product of this predisposition might be vulnerability to “mental viruses such as religion,” just as a computer is vulnerable to viruses because it has no way of knowing whether a program is good or bad.
As for gratitude, Dawkins suggested it might be the by-product of the need, prior to the use of money, to keep mental accounts of what is owed and owing. Children early on develop a sense of fairness and in some cases it operates without a real target, for example, “it’s not fair that it is raining on my birthday.” Sexual lust too still operates although its original reproductive benefit is no longer ‘the target.’
Dawkins suggests “we have a similar lust to calculate debt, gratitude, fairness and it’s so powerful that it goes off in a vacuum.” Such psychological dispositions might also lead us to postulate God, he said. In a pastoral moment Dawkins assured us that “this sort of vacuum activity is nothing to be ashamed of” and that the first part of his talk gave sufficient reason for gratitude to be alive even though it is “gratitude in a vacuum.”
One of the questions after the talk gave the audience a lesson from the master communicator when a Christian prefaced her question about DNA with her gratitude to God. The crowd started heckling but Dawkins quietly calmed the storm and went on to answer the question with seriousness and at length.
Another questioner asked whether Australia getting its first saint would do us any harm. “That’s pure Monty Python,” said Dawkins referring to the Pope as “Pope Nazi.” And, he said, it’s the sort of thing that “gives the lie to the claim that sophisticated theologians should be able to look down on fundamentalist wingnuts. They are all the same.” [See below for a correction to this paragraph.]
When asked when he would be willing to criticise Islam as he did Christianity, the response was pragmatic. “I personally believe we shouldn’t go out of our way to do things that will get our heads cut off.” To the Islamist he would make it clear that this reticence is “because I fear you. Don’t think for one moment it’s because I respect you.”
A question about how to talk to Christians “when let’s face it we think we are smarter than them?” brought the following reply and applause from the audience: “We aren’t necessarily smarter than them. Respect them and honour the reasons why they believe.”
Another question about the differences between atheism and agnosticism was answered: “I don’t actually call myself an atheist in that sense: I’m a 6.9 on the scale of 0 to 7. We are all agnostic about almost everything. I’m an atheist in the same way I’m afairyist.”
And: “Might there be a chink in my arguments? Of course there are all sorts of chinks, but the onus is on those who want to believe in religion. … It’s odd that people who in everyday life use perfectly logical reasoning don’t do so when it comes to religion… Religion certainly poisons your ability to use your brain.”
Overall an interesting talk with vitriolic moments but less polemic than I expected and tempered with the mellifluous tones of an Oxford don.
[Correction: After listening to an audio version of Richard Dawkins' answer it seems clear that when he used the phrase 'Pope Nazi' he was not referring to the current Pope but to Pope Pius XII, the Pope during the Second World War. Click here for the question and Dawkins' response.]
Chris Mulherin has degrees in Engineering, Philosophy and Theology and is currently writing a doctorate on scientific and religious knowledge. He is an Anglican minister and lives in Melbourne.
Listen to Richard Dawkins speaking to “How Do I Misunderstand Thee? Let Me Count the Ways”
Part One Speech [Dur: 41.11; Size 37.7 MB]
Part Two Questions [Dur: 23.44; Size: 21.7 MB]
It’s interesting you found this talk less polemical than you expected. Why do you think that was?
As for the question about DNA, it was inappropriate for that time and place and deliberately inflammatory to preface it by stating ‘I am not an atheist and give thanks to god for that’ (roughly).
Nevertheless the response of the crowd was equally inappropriate. If dawkins wanted to take umbrage at the question that was his prerogative, not that of the huddled masses. I felt embarrassed to call myself an atheist then as I did at several other points in the program. Good on dawkins for demonstrating that rationalism doesn’t preclude manners and empathy, but if that conference, with it’s Collingwood cheer squad atmosphere was the ‘New Atheism’ I think I’ll stick with the old.
Thanks… er, well, I can’t really call you by your nickname can I… ?
Anyway, to answer the question: less polemical than things Dawkins has written… but it’s not really here nor there. Suffice to say I enjoyed it. A good note to end on although the stench of the previous act lingered on. The crowd makes laughter easy but associating that sort of ‘humour’ with an atheist convention won’t do the cause any good. As for the DNA questioner: I didn’t catch that, I thought it was “I give gratitude to God (rather than in a vacuum) for … (life, whatever).”
I attended a talk by Dan Barker at my local Bowling Club last Thursday night, and Dan Barker made it very clear that he considered belief in the divinity of Jesus Christ to be totally unreasonable. How then can professed atheists such as Richard Dawkins ask his followers to “respect (Christians) and honour the reasons why they believe”? According to Dan Barker, Richard Dawkins and his ilk, Christians can have no reasons worthy of the name. Then, a bit further down in Chris Mulherin’s account of Richard Dawkins’ talk, I read that “religion certainly poisons your ability to use your brain.” If my belief has so damaged my capacity to think, why should anyone respect my “reasons”?
Richard Dawkins presenting natural selection as evidence for evolution. Ho hum. He does it all the time. But natural selection is wholly non-controversial. I know of no creationist that denies natural selection. It’s a straw man. It’s a bait and switch tactic. Google “bait and switch evolution” to find out why. Better still get the whole package and Google “The Greatest Hoax on Earth: Refuting Dawkins on Evolution”.
The concept of a ‘god’ cannot be used to explain anything as it is indistinguishable from the concept of ‘fairies at the bottom of the garden’. Both ideas are entirely subjective and have zero intrinsic value.
Using the unexplained ‘God’ to explain the unexplained ‘origin of life in the universe’ does not stand up to even the most basic scrutiny, let alone Ockhams Razor the first and fundamental test of logic.
Throughout the conference, it was very difficult to actually be able to ask a question of any of the speakers – there was a lot of enthusiasm, and very little available time.
The DNA question, which was off-topic, earned a groan from the part of the audience I was in. I can understand, if not quite approve of, the heckling from elsewhere. I doubt the questioner was really interested in the answer – I suspect disruption was the goal of the question. The “I’ll pray for you” comment is also quite offensive to an atheist.
Dawkins, always an educator, and with a clear natural grace, answered the question eloquently. I was deeply impressed with his statesmanship.
By the way, Tas Walker, your comment makes no sense at all, and is devoid of facts and rationality.
@ Phillip Gissing… ‘If my belief has so damaged my capacity to think, why should anyone respect my “reasons”?’
You can respect something without agreeing with it. Elsewhere, Dawkins has said that when someone says ‘isn’t my wife the most beautiful woman in the worlds?’ you don’t go ‘objectively, no, she’s barely above average’.
And – although I don’t think Dawkins has ever said this – ‘the’ reasons aren’t always the same as ‘your’ reasons: if you’re a Methodist, say, the ‘reason’ is almost certainly because at least one of your parents was a Methodist.
‘The “I’ll pray for you” comment is also quite offensive to an atheist.’
I’d never be offended, it’s just meaningless and silly. But it was clearly meant disrespectfully, and that’s the offensive part. In any given Christian wedding service, half the congregation are thinking ‘what a load of old nonsense, I can’t believe people come to this place voluntarily’, but none of them actually *say* it.
‘Richard Dawkins presenting natural selection as evidence for evolution’
Er … if you accept *natural* selection, you’re accepting that life developed as a result of entirely physical, extremely simple processes, without any need for intervention for God.
You’ve got your creationist propaganda point a bit confused, I think.
Sarfati’s a well-known, utterly debunked, good example of what a young earth creationist believes, and why they believe it. I would recommend people seek something of his out, although there’s plenty online from him, so there’s no need to give him money.
http://creation.com/jonathan-d-sarfati-physical-chemistry-in-six-days
His argument boils down to ‘the Bible says the universe was created in six days, so it’s true’ and ‘it would be nicer if …’. His God punishes homosexuals and all abortion, even incest/rape.
Chris
I appreciated your lengthy post “giving thanks in a vacuum”. It is a poor substitute for not being there but at least gives me an inkling of what Dawkins said and how his audience responded.
I hope your title, “giving thanks in a vacuum”, is not meant to suggest that there’s no point giving thanks if there is nothing there to receive them. On the contrary, gratitude, the attitude of thankfulness for life’s gifts, is worthwhile whether or not it is directed to some person or entity, real or imagined.
I recall a “spiritual” writer, Timothy Miller, recommending gratitude, attention, and compassion as the keys to a good life. That sounds fine to me, god or no god.
I do note your tone of surprise that Dawkins should seem so reasonable. Perhaps your expectations were shaped by the common media characterisation of Dawkins as “strident”. To me that characterisation disrespects his ideas and focuses on the perceived irritation caused by them to people whose beliefs he challenges.
Dawkins is certainly not strident in the sense of being harsh or shrill. As you say, he speaks in the mellifluous tones of an Oxford don. But he can be acerbic or biting.
On another point, I hope “God’s” post above is not accurate about the “Collingwood cheer squad atmosphere”. A mob is a mob, regardless of whether it has god or godlessness on its side.
Steve Jeffers,
Regarding “I’ll pray for you” being offensive, you are quite right. The offense is not in the words, or even the prospect of prayer, but the offensive subtext that goes with it (as it did in the convention).
If it were a true expression of concern and piety, or even merely ceremonial, rather than a display of disgust and disrespect cloaked in a literally “holier than thou” attitude, it wouldn’t be offensive.
Michael, I didn’t sense a “Collingwood Cheer Squad” atmosphere. There was, though, a distinct headiness about being able to discuss contradictions in the bible, excess money and power of religious institutions, civil rights for people that religious types disapprove of, the strong role feminism has in leading women to atheism, and other such heretical ideas in an environment where you aren’t considered out of line.
Ideas could be bandied about freely as long as they were grounded in reality, without needing to worry about respect for ungrounded ideas.
It was a liberating experience, and heady, but by no means mindless. Also, there were plenty of signals throughout the conference that it isn’t religious people that are the enemy, as much as the power religion has beyond the scope of it’s own followers – i.e. the power to suck money from public institutions, to damage public education, to subjugate people for being a specific gender or sexual orientation. It is important to recognise that even religious followers can be our allies In fighting abuses of power by religious institutions.
It is clear that there would exist Catholics who are sickened by institutionally protected pedophilia, and Muslims who are sickened by judicial stoning of rape victims.
Atheists are not necessarily smarter or wiser than religious friends, but we do have the advantage of seeing the effects of religion from the outside, especially those atheists who have been through it as deeply as Dan Barker.
I thought I hit submit before closing the window, this morning but apparently not, since my comment is nowhere to be seen. Luckily, it was still #9 on my clipboard. Repost:
The whole, “Just Six Numbers”, subject is a vacuum in itself. When you don’t know that those physical constants could be any different in the first place, dwelling, in awe, of an entirely hypothetical other-verse, is a pointless exercise.
You really shouldn’t approach it, like you would a close call with death: mulling over what the consequences might’ve been, had you been standing a foot to the right. You at least have the illusion of choice or variability – two things we know nothing of, in the birth of the universe and of which we require a multiverse, or ‘divine knob twiddler’, just to accommodate such a thought experiment.
With the regard to the “Pope Nazi” comment, this was in relation to the creation of saints. Richard Dawkins was saying it was ridiculous to make Mary MacKillop and the Pope of the Nazi era, Pope Pius XII (who was also up for beatification around the time Mary MacKillop was), into saints. Unfortunately, he forgot the Nazi-era Pope’s name and referred to him as “Pope … Nazi” (with quite a gap between the words “Pope” and “Nazi” as he tried to remember the correct name). He wasn’t calling the current Pope, Benedict, a Nazi (or even Pius XII for that matter).
Well, there was no opportunity lost to take a cheap shot for laffs, and there was so much of the ‘applaud when you agree’ going on I kept looking around for a giant flashing ‘applause now’ sign. I understand a lot of the uni student types present were still waiting on a certificate of electrical compliance for the wiring to their pre frontal lobes, but really I found it a pretty disappointing event. I guess I had hoped 2500 atheists might say ‘OK, 60,000 years is enough arguing about nothings, nobodies and nowheres, let’s move on. What do we do next?’ But it seemed like several speakers just didn’t want to let go of contemplating the nuances of a question which has been decided for some time now.
The best response to “I’ll pray for you” is “I’ll think for you”.
Still waiting to use it though!
As an Atheist I resent and will continue to complain loudly at the self righteous attitude of religions folk that assume a moral high ground, with out any visible authority and are prepared to demonize me on the basis of their religious dogma.
My world view is grounded in logic and reason, not dogma and superstition but I would never be so offensive to assume that I am a better person than any other, regardless of their beliefs.
In regard to the latest comment by “God” (sic): I unfortunately could not afford to get down to Melbourne for the conference so I can’t comment on the vibe or tone of it. I agree with you that things should move on to a coherent way forward from here. However, while the arguments for atheism are certainly not new, having a public, organised front is very new for atheism.
I went to a local meeting of atheists (only their second meeting), I was disappointed to find that there was no coherent plan or purpose for the group. It was about 5 or 6 people sharing stories showing how “dumb religion is”. Much like other grass-roots movements in the past, it takes a while to “grow out of the weeds” to further the analogy.
So, “God” (sic), don’t expect things to be exactly as they “should be” according to your expectations. Take initiative, be involved, put forward your own long term goals and convince people that it is a priority. As atheists and appreciators of reason, if you put forward a rational agenda, it will be accepted – or parts thereof.
I agree that the event was quite good, particularly the philosophers although I was slightly disappointed at how little time was devoted to practical activism and how the momentum in the atheist/secular community can be harnessed as a political/social movement. Leslie Cannold and, to a lesser extent Max Wallace did address this directly but in the context of a 2.5 day conference I feel that this was too little. I’m of the opinion that the major philosophical questions are to a large extent closed (compellingly in the negative for religion) and that working toward a truly secular state in Australia, for a start should be the primary goals of the movement. This would be through elimination of state religious funding and removal of the privileged microphone religious organisations enjoy today e.g. school chaplains. I enjoy reading the scholarly and polemical works, which serve to spread the valuable arguments and idea of atheism/secularism, but what do we do then?
I was at the convention and one thing that annoys me about the media on the event, here and elsewhere is the concentration on Dawkins speech. Whilst his speech was excellent the two small controversial comments at the end about the Pope Nazi and the Christian womans question are taking up all the media space.
As for the DNA question, it was indeed out of place. Several people commented that asking Dawkins “What is DNA?” is like asking Steven Hawking “what are stars?” To explain this to her he would have had to give her a basic high school science lesson which the audience was clearly beyond. Thankfully Dawkins gave the questioner respect and also answered the question in a much more intellectually stimulating way for the audience.
The conference as a whole was so much more than that.
It was a celebration of reason and logic with a strong emphasis on separation of church and state. Public Policy should never be made on the base of anyone’s religious beliefs, especially when those beliefs make claims that are completely unproven, untestable and incompatible with the views of the majority of people.
I think a great misconception is that Atheists want to take away peoples right to believe. Far from it, everyone I spoke with at the conference was a great believer in allowing people ultimate personal freedom of belief whether religious or otherwise.
Where Atheists differ is that while the feel freedom of belief is important, so is the ability to question beliefs and ideals with the same vigour as we attack politions for the choices they make.
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“I contend that we are both atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.”
Stephen F. Roberts
I was annoyed with the christian timewaster who asked about DNA. That could have been googled anytime. I wanted questions asked that required an opinion of Dawkins. Because that banal question and the long drawn out answer cut short the Q and A time, I feel I didn’t get enough bang for my buck.
Plus the Christian wingnuts protesting with placards outside the convention centre on sunday made me think: How would they/the media react if atheists did the SAME outside THEIR churches on a sunday! Think about it…
Glen, well what do you expect. The man claims to be a champion of logic yet he masticates it everytime he shifts from biology (his area of expertize) to religion where he shines as a rank amateur).
http://mattstone.blogs.com/christian/2010/03/atheist-synod-affirms-dawkins-as-saint.html
Hi Linda… if it were my church I’d welcome the ‘interest’ people were taking in our activities, not to mention the fact that it would stir up the congregation to think about things (which would be a good thing)… but I know many Christians might not agree with me. And I’m assuming a quiet conversational protest not throwing rocks through the stain glass windows (which might also be a good thing come to think of it…)
Sorry Chris, but the media coverage since the event has demonstrated that there is absolutely no welcome for atheists showing an interst in the activities of religion. It’d be swell if people could stop pretending that disagreeing with religion & it’s practices equals not knowing what they are. A large majority of atheists were once indoctrinated into one religion or another & frankly it ain’t rocket science.
I wonder how many people here who claim ‘logic’ and ‘rationality’ as the foundation of their
Weltanschauung actually have studied it and fully understand its ramifications?
{Background: I am a Christian with a PhD in music (my doctorate also has a considerable amount of mathematics within it) who studied honours-level pure mathematics at USyd for 3 years as part of a BMus(Hons)[1st-Class + University Medal] degree; the mathematical aspect of my studies included both Boolean and 20th-century logic (the work of Kurt Gödel and Alan Turing) – i.e. metamathematics. (I’m also a Fellow of the British Chess Problem Society.) I mention these qualifications simply to indicate that I am *very far* from being a dimwit, and uphold logic as much as anybody else here. My temperament is very much like that of Prof. Dawkins (i.e. I try to be polite, but don’t suffer fools gladly), who I greatly admire and actively defend in Christian circles.}
The work of Kurt Gödel on logic, together with the whole metamathematical project, shows surprising limitations to the power of logic and rationality, of mathematics, hence of science itself! The very nature of Gödel’s Incompleteness Theorem shows that it’s impossible to locate precisely these limitations (e.g. whether or not something like Goldbach’s Conjecture from Number Theory – which ‘looks like’ being true [hence might actually be a
Theorem] – is an example of a ‘Gödelian’ Theorem, is very likely unknowable). The ramifications of Gödel’s work upon science as a whole are real, yet undetectable. (En
passant, I’m yet to meet *any* biologist who is conversant in metamathematics! It’s probably not part of their university curricula…)
Anyway, the point of all this is that metaphysical thought is by no means contrary to – and is, indeed, legitimized by – logic. Atheism therefore cannot claim any higher intellectual ground than Christian theology, since ‘God’ is not necessarily an irrational option. In fact, the (Christian) mathematician Georg Cantor – famous for his work in Transfinite Mathematics (the existence of different infinities helps me get my own head around Jesus: ‘finite man yet infinite God’) and in Set Theory – defined the Absolute Infinity Ω in a manner almost identical to the Cappadocian Fathers’ apophatic ‘definition’ of God the Father. And Cantor was *the* man who, in the early 20th century, set mathematics on a firm foundation for the first time, being lauded by the celebrated mathematician David Hilbert for “creating a Paradise” from which mathematics – hence all of science – shall never be ejected. Irony of ironies: the whole logical, mathematical and scientific edifice is built upon the work of a devout Christian!
In this regard, ‘proof’ is a word that must only *ever* be used in the realm of mathematics; so “proof of God’s (non)existence” is a category error. Metamathematics PROVES that theism and atheism are compossible world-views; granted, there will be jousting over territory at the unknowable (fractal?) boundary regions. That’s OK.
For me it will be a red-letter day when atheists – particularly atheistic life-scientists (such as Prof Dawkins) – begin to display *fully* their much-valued ‘logic’ by humbly engaging with metamathematics and its ramifications, thereby admitting the limitations of their own scientific knowledge.
“‘God’ is not necessarily an irrational option.”
I’ve started to call this line of thinking ‘we don’t know, therefore God’. It’s the Underpants Gnomes school of theology.
OK, you’re only saying ‘God isn’t technically impossible’, but that’s not exactly a glowing endorsement. Atheists are often accused of being dismissive of theists, or of just not getting why people want and need religion – but it’s disingenuous to suggest that, as a Christian, the sum total of why you feel justified in worshipping God is because Godel says it’s not impossible he might exist.
It’s a logical loophole, not a positive assertion, or a reason to worship, let alone a reason to worship a particular deity.
The Christian God is said to have properties and powers beyond ‘his existence is not ruled out’. He’s said to have created man, separate from other animals, quickly. That’s not to rehearse creationist arguments, it’s just to say that the Bible makes claims for him beyond ‘he might exist’.
As a Christian, what properties do you think God has, and are any of them scientifically testable? Why worship him?
@Steve, who wrote: “… it’s disingenuous to suggest that, as a Christian, the sum total of why you feel justified in worshipping God is because Godel says it’s not impossible he might exist”.
I didn’t suggest that at all, Steve: I have plenty of other – suprascientific – justifications that I simply do not choose to divulge here. I merely point to what you refer to as a “logical loophole”, in the hope that atheists (a) will learn more about logic (i.e. metamathematics), hence (b) understand that metaphysics is a perfectly legitimate exercise sanctioned by the consequences of rationality itself.
You seem not to have grasped yet the severe constraints as to what is actually “scientifically testable” arising from metamathematics. I would suggest that the probable answer to the latter part of your question “what properties do you think God has, and are any of them scientifically testable?” is “none” – because God (in God’s absolute infinitude, perfection, and sovereignty) lies utterly beyond the boundary region of what is scientifically knowable. This is not a cop-out; one finds exactly this thought in Cantor’s quintessentially scientific work on transfinite cardinalities where he tackles the Absolute Infinity Ω. To the first part of your question, my answer is “Love”. Do you dare to deny the reality of love? And yet is ‘love’ in any way “scientifically testable”?
I conclude by observing that one of the most sublime (scientific) minds of all time, Kurt Gödel – the Prince of Logicians and a close friend of Albert Einstein – was a theist. Indeed, towards the end of his life Gödel constructed an extremely recondite logical ‘proof’(?) of the existence of God.
“God (in God’s absolute infinitude, perfection, and sovereignty) lies utterly beyond the boundary region of what is scientifically knowable”
No he doesn’t, though.
First of all, there are two Gods under discussion here, and let’s get this absolutely clear and on the table: this Godel’s God is in no way the God of the Old and New Testament. Godel’s God is also *specifically designed to be untestable*. ‘I think unicorns exist, but one of their properties is that you can’t test for them scientifically … a-ha, prove me wrong you foolish scientists. See how limited your puny science really is?’. Er … no.
‘Scientifically observed’ is not a terribly high bar to jump. You are ‘observing’ your screen at this moment.
Is love testable? No, but its effects are. Love can’t be reduced to the chemical responses of an individual body, but those responses caused by love can be measured. You don’t ‘observe love’, but you do observe the knock on effects.
The whole basis of Christianity is precisely that God *was* observed here on Earth, doing things, meeting people, saying things, (performing miracles, but leave that aside because it’s not actual necessary for this discussion). The Old Testament starts in exactly the same way. Time and again, it’s precisely the *presence* of God, the *influence* of God that’s actually the most important message of the story.
But it’s more than that – many modern Christians seem to dismiss just about any bit of the Bible that seems silly, and talk in far more vague terms. Personally, I think most of them seem to be worshipping the Force, not the God of the Bible, but leave that aside, too.
Every Christian believes that God has affected the outcome of at least one event. You’re a Christian – you presumably have to believe that. Again, it’s not exactly asking much of God – it’s saying that God had, a minimum of once, the effect one a single photon has thousands of times a second. Is God more powerful than a single photon? In theory, yes.
The point’s this: if God has ever affected the outcome of even one quantum event, He is within the scientific realm.
The ‘magisteria’ argument is a sop to theists, and it’s complete nonsense.
It’s also biased purely in one way. If scientists invented a machine that could view any point in the past, and scientists used it and made scientific observations of Jesus performing a genuine miracle, one that couldn’t possibly be explained away as a magic trick, would Christians say ‘no, actually that’s science intruding on religion’s magisterium, and so we can’t use this’? If we used the machine and it showed us Adam in the Garden of Eden, would we say ‘well, that has either scientific or theological implications, but not both’? I suggest the answer is ‘no’.
Would we recognize God’s influence? A different question, but a valid one. *That* might be an area for debate. But you can’t say ‘God created the universe, by the way that’s not a scientific claim’. To paraphrase first century Judean religious icon Mandy, Mother of Brian, ‘not a scientific claim? How much more of a scientific claim could you get!?’.
“Atheism therefore cannot claim any higher intellectual ground than Christian theology”
Do you think the Christian God would be bound by the limitations Godel proscribed? Seeing as the answer is ‘no’, isn’t your argument just another variation on the theist argument that there’s an absolute, universal, no exception law, oh and by the way God is an exception.
‘Everything has a cause, therefore there was a first cause, the first cause was God … who didn’t have a first cause.’
“I have plenty of other – suprascientific – justifications that I simply do not choose to divulge here.”
That’s nice for you. I have plenty of ultratheologicial justifications that demonstrate conclusively that God doesn’t exist. I guess, in the interests of balance, I won’t divulge those, either.
“First of all, there are two Gods under discussion here, and let’s get this absolutely clear and on the table: this Godel’s God is in no way the God of the Old and New Testament. Godel’s God is also *specifically designed to be untestable*.”
No, Steve, there’s only one God: the God of all Being – not “designed” by Gödel (or anybody else), let alone “specifically designed” by something in such a manner as to be untestable. This is a statement of belief, admittedly (yet neither more nor less so than your own assertion) – but one that cannot be adjudged worthless or nonsensical, thanks to metamathematics.
“The point’s this: if God has ever affected the outcome of even one quantum event, He is within the scientific realm.”
This isn’t necessarily so. Plenty of things occur within the physical realm that lie outside the ken of science – such as music or love (as already discussed). You rightly say: “Love can’t be reduced to the chemical responses of an individual body, but those responses caused by love can be measured”. Indeed: the map is not the territory; why, then, cannot the same reasonably hold true for God? *Science itself* – Gödel and Georg Cantor’s “Absolute Infinity” Ω – *proves* that there are realities (even physical ones, since Gödel’s work, being mathematical, impacts somehow upon the physical sciences) that are in some way fundamentally unknowable. Here’s a concrete example: uncomputable numbers – those which cannot be generated by any algorithm (they form a subset of the transcendental numbers) – are known through rigorous proof to exist, yet are utterly unidentifiable *ipso facto*. Now this isn’t make-believe magical thinking, it’s *science*!
Steve, you still seem not to have grasped the delimitng ramifications for science of metamathematics – that phenomena truly, provably, exist which are outside the understanding of science; and that it is innately impossible to pinpoint them as such.
One of my former mathematics lecturers at USyd, Dr Gordon Monro – an avowed atheist whose PhD is in metamathematics – once confessed to me that no mathematician had the slightest clue as to why mathematics is so efficacious in mapping onto the physical world; they just ‘take it on faith’ that it does. Beautiful: an atheist admitting that the very foundations of science are faith-based! Why, then, must atheists be so readily dismissive of all other faith-based systems? I ask simply that they not be.
“… you can’t say ‘God created the universe[;] by the way that’s not a scientific claim’”.
Well, Steve, one *can*: it’s a COSMOGONIC claim that may well – and I was being deliberately ambiguous just here on account of the ramifications of Gödel’s work – be beyond the grasp of science.
“Do you think the Christian God would be bound by the limitations Godel proscribed?”
The answer to that is inherently unknowable! I would add only that Gödel did not ‘invent’ his theorems (still less their implications) but, rather, *discovered* them. My “argument” – actually ‘belief’, to be honest – is that “there’s an absolute, universal … God” who is “exceptional” by way of being infinitely beyond any human attempt to pigeon-hole Him. *Science itself* – via Cantor’s Ω – points this way, let’s not forget.
“I have plenty of ultratheologicial justifications that demonstrate conclusively that *God doesn’t exist*. I guess, in the interests of balance, I won’t divulge those, either.” [emphasis added]
That’s nice for you Steve. But I have just one straightforward question: Have you thoroughly searched everywhere *beyond* the Universe (let alone throughout the whole Cosmos itself, within every one of its 10^85 or so atoms, across 15 billion light-years or so of space)? Hmmm, thought not… Because to demonstrate that God DOES NOT EXIST would require that, if you want to be strictly scientific about it.
(And how would you recognize God anyway, assuming you encountered Him?)
“… See how limited your puny science really is?” Er … YES.
But I have deliberately kept my own argumentation here, as much as possible, upon science’s turf – without straying into (nonapophatic) theology – since the weaknesses of atheism’s case (such as the sidestepping of metamathematics and its implications) lie within science itself.
“Steve, you still seem not to have grasped the delimitng ramifications for science of metamathematics – that phenomena truly, provably, exist which are outside the understanding of science; and that it is innately impossible to pinpoint them as such.”
And you’ve missed my point – just because there’s a set of ‘unknowable things’ in no way implies that there are gods in that set, let alone gods we’d recognize from human tradition. The door to my spare room is closed so I can’t see in there. God might be sitting in my space room right this second. I suspect he’s not.
“‘Do you think the Christian God would be bound by the limitations Godel proscribed?’ The answer to that is inherently unknowable!”
The question I asked was ‘do *you* think’? It’s a crucial question, but either way there’s an atheist case: if God has/could have a way round Godel, that means there’s a way round, so the argument collapse (as I say, same as the ‘first cause’ argument collapses). If God doesn’t have a way round Godel then he’s not the omniscient God of the Christians. More to the point, such a God would be in the unenviable position of being bound by Godel yet impossible to know. He wouldn’t be able to know of Himself. Both of those are seemingly absurd positions, and the only way to resolve that is to say it makes more sense if there’s no God.
“That’s nice for you Steve. But I have just one straightforward question: Have you thoroughly searched everywhere *beyond* the Universe (let alone throughout the whole Cosmos itself, within every one of its 10^85 or so atoms, across 15 billion light-years or so of space)? Hmmm, thought not… Because to demonstrate that God DOES NOT EXIST would require that, if you want to be strictly scientific about it.”
I thought you were arguing that not even that would be enough?
Again, what you’re saying is true, but an extremely weak case for basing a religion around. It’s like building several unicorn zoos in every town, employing vast workforces of unicorn zookeepers and unicornologians and people going there every Sunday, and when anyone wonders why, saying ‘well, until we search every single planet for unicorns, there might be unicorns’. Thing is: if they also claim the unicorns created the universe, and we know as far as it’s possible to know that they didn’t, then it’s absolutely fair enough to set down what else is being claiming and assess that. It’s also enough to start doubting the core claim. If the unicornologists then say ‘actually, they’re invisible unicorns that science can’t possibly detect’, I think it would be fair to characterize that as desperation rather than some amazing paradigm shift in the progression of human awareness.
The thing for me … this God you’re describing sounds like a fugitive, not a God. A scam artist constantly on the run from crack teams of scientists. Is he the one that makes earthquakes? No. Is he in the origins of the universe? No. We’re still searching the quantum underworld.
Am I really being naive or unmodern if I say that the God of the Christians is meant to have physical presence in the world? That he’s meant to hear prayers? That he can affect the outcome of events?
I suppose the question I’m asking … is the God you’re describing, this one who’s not ruled out by Godel, who never does anything we could ever measure, who can never, ever be known, and who is solely defined by his undefinability … Is that *actually* the God you worship? Do you think other Christians worship that God? Why would anyone do such a thing?
Because it seems to me that isn’t what anyone would worship, let alone Christians. It utterly rules out Jesus, for one thing, which would seem to put a crimp in traditional Christian belief.
Steve, why are you threatened, or at least concerned, by the idea that obviously intelligent people, in some cases exceptionally intelligent people, hold beliefs that you don’t seem to be able to get your head around?
Did you have a religious upbringing, is it something you have rejected, perhaps in early adolescent? Because sometimes your tone seems to be that of a man fighting to keep something at bay.I am not trying to be ’smart’ or offensive, I am genuinely interested in people’s psychological reasons for holding beliefs, and I have many atheist friends who HAVE rejected previously held strong religious beliefs and are particularly strident in their rejection of anything that has the faintest smell of transcendence.Needless to say, in conversation we don’t ‘go there’ much!
You class yourself as an atheist, and I have no problem with that. I can follow the reasoning that leads to that conclusion as I can follow the reasoning that leads to the theist position.
Dr Ian Shanahan was merely pointing out, as I have been in my various posts, that reason doesn’t occur in a vacuum, it starts from premises which are themselves unprovable and then elaborates from there to concomitants and conclusions. The reasoning itself can be faulty, arguments can be invalid, when the structure of the argument is such that, given true premises it is possible to have a false conclusion.But the truth or untruth of the initail assumption is a matter of conjecture, belief or faith.
“why are you threatened, or at least concerned, by the idea that obviously intelligent people, in some cases exceptionally intelligent people, hold beliefs that you don’t seem to be able to get your head around?”
Because I’m not sure they’ve got *their* head around it, is the glib answer. I think any belief like this should be able to be discussed and questioned. I’m genuinely grateful that people here are answering my questions, and there’s no snark or anger.
I don’t know what an ‘unscientific truth’ looks like. I’d love to know.
The people who’ve thought about their religion don’t terrify or threaten me. The revealed faith lot … well, they do. I’m happy for people to talk to God, but if they ever hear God talking back, that’s the point you break out the meds.
“Did you have a religious upbringing, is it something you have rejected, perhaps in early adolescent?”
Absolutely not. Atheist, no religious upbringing of any kind. Never baptised. My parents just weren’t interested in it, still aren’t. My fascination with religion is as someone who never caught it, so’s never been cured, never wants to catch it, but is interested in in.
“I am genuinely interested in people’s psychological reasons for holding beliefs”
I’m a Douglas Adams rationalist, I think. Read his stuff in Salmon of Doubt. I agree with him that ‘God’ used to have explanatory purpose, but that we just have better explanations, now. I just don’t see the need – to me it’s like asking why I don’t follow a Lacrosse team.
I like Colin McGinn’s idea of post-theism – Christianity is a fantastic story, that people should study and which people used to take far too seriously. You can take all the moral lessons, all the role models, all the splendour, but it has as much ‘truth’ as King Arthur or Neighbours.
“But the truth or untruth of the initial assumption is a matter of conjecture, belief or faith.”
Yeah … but ‘2+2 always equals 4′ is a simpler assumption to make than ‘Christ died for our sins’, isn’t it? We all make assumptions, but we should all question them from time to time. The idea that we can assume that helium atoms all have one proton and one neutron isn’t a ‘faith position’ to anything like the degree that ‘God hears my prayers’ is.
It smells a bit of the ‘you’re just as bad as me’ school of argument. Fine – be *better* than me, then. When theists say ‘atheism’s just a faith position, they’re just as fundamentalist, they make the same stupid mistakes we do’ … that’s not an argument *for* theism.
Thanks for your honest answers Steve