There is frequent noise made about the "New Atheists" and others who refuse to argue against the sophisticated faith of the Theological-Einsteins whose faith is subtle and nuanced. There are many responses that are possible -- among them that the majority of believers do not believe in gods in some sophisticated way.
I have had many conversations, arguments, and debates with ministers, pastors, clergy of different types, and even philosophy professors who happened to be religious. But, I have not had a chance to have an extended interaction with a professional Christian Theologian, and I have been itching for the chance.
I itch no longer.
I have been interacting with a professional Christian theologian who is a professor of historical theology at a Canadian seminary. His name is Randal Rauser -- and goes by RD. He has a blog on christianpost.com: The Tentative Apologist.
On that blog I comment under the handle: ConverseAtheist (because, like so many other sites, ConversationalAtheist is too long to be a valid username -- sigh).
My interaction with him started when he insisted that an atheist is making a positive knowledge claim about the universe, and that as such, requires evidence and justification.
I asked him if he believed in Zeus; or if by being an azeusist he was making a positive knowledge claim about the universe -- and since this requires evidence and justification; what evidence does he have?
After more back and forth than it was worth the response was:
"I am an agnostic about whether Zeus exists as a lesser-spirit being; but an atheist as to whether Zeus is the perfect creator of the universe."
-- Let me fill in some background --
RD has posted some essays that argue for the existence of a being greater than which cannot be conceived. He further posted about how when he prays to Yahweh, coincidences happen; when he stops praying to Yahweh, coincidences stop happening. When asked if these coincidences could hold up to scientific scrutiny, or some kind of rigorous statistical testing -- he wisely concedes that they would not.
I'll let you into my mind as I planned out my interaction with RD.
When dealing with a trained obsfucator theologian, he may employ a vast array of tactics and techniques to evade answering difficult questions.
First, I set up a situation that mirrored, in every relevant way that I could imagine, a parallel religious belief to what RD believes. I also wanted to make that hypothetical belief be intentionally ridiculous. (I wanted motivation for RD to defend his cherished beliefs from being equated with nonsense.)
I proposed a hypothetical person, Bob, who followed a sort of reasoning to get to his religious beliefs.
Bob starts with something like the ontological argument, and believes that the most perfect being exists necessarily.
Bob, while sitting in his car at a stoplight, prays to Zeus to change the light to green. It eventually turns green.
Based on this evidence, Bob believes that Zeus is the perfect creator of the universe that necessarily exists.
I then asked RD whether his Christian beliefs were indistinguishably well-justified as Bob's belief in Zeus.
Why did I try this approach? Well, for one, I was hoping to actually get an account from a supposedly sophisticated believer about why he believes in specific supernatural claims. I actually thought that I might learn quite a bit from the guy. However, the other alternative is, failing that, I would have the admission from a professional theologian that his religious beliefs are as well justified as believing in Zeus because streetlights turn green.
Win-win for me as far as I could tell: I would either learn some impressive justification for Christian beliefs, or get an admission that Christianity is indistinguishably well-justified as pure nonsense.
The first hurdle, though, seemed to be that RD could not view this challenge as anything but a famous previous argument that has an answer written down somewhere. I honestly could not believe the answers that RD gave.
RD started with essentially: Ah, you must mean the famous argument from evil! -- Here is my response to that!
RD followed up with: Ah, you must mean the famous argument from arbitrary belief! -- Here is my response to that!
RD followed up with: Ah, you must mean the famous ontological argument applies to Zeus! -- Here is my response to that! (his actual quote from that one: "A being that owes its existence to other beings cannot be the being than which none greater can be conceived. Zeus owes his existence to other beings. Therefore, Zeus cannot be the being than which none greater can be conceived.")
Here is a representative note from me on August 17, 2009 -- Me: "... you have missed the question entirely. I was not asking if YOU would be equally well justified for believing in either Yahweh or Zeus; but whether bob-Zeus; you-Yahweh is as justifiable for each of you."
And again on August 20, 2009 -- Me: "In fact, you apparently cannot even distinguish the justification for your belief in Yahweh with Bob's belief in Zeus...And I beg you, if you believe that you have a slightly better justification than this, to state it."
And again on August 23, 2009 -- Me: "I am not asking you to believe in Zeus. I am not asking whether it makes sense for you to believe in Zeus. You have never prayed to Zeus for the light to turn green and witnessed the miracle. Thus, you do not have the same reasons as Bob to believe in Zeus -- I agree. I am talking about a guy, who believes that Zeus is the perfect creator of the universe because Zeus answers his prayers about street lights, and because Zeus punishes Christian churches. And I am asking whether you can come up with a defeater for his beliefs. And if not, to at least distinguish the justifications for each of your beliefs. Or, to admit that your Christian belief is indistinguishably well-justified as Bob's."
And yet still, on August 24, 2009 RD says: "ConverseAtheist has been hammering on this point for awhile now, focusing in particular on Zeus. That is, if I believe in the Christian God, why not believe in the Greek God as well? Or why not the Greek God instead of the Christian God? It would seem that from ConverseAtheist's perspective, the basic problem, I suppose, is arbitrariness."And then, after much arm-twisting, RD claims to have more justification that hypothetical Bob.
Ready?
Christian theologian's belief in Yahweh and his life and professional livelihood is more justifed than nonsense because of the following fact: the majority of people who do not believe in Zeus is larger than the majority of people who do not believe in Yahweh.
Take a second to let that sink in.
I asked whether I could use his reasoning as illustrative of the kind of thinking that gives intellectual vindication to Christian faith.
September 4th, Me: "I'm pleading with you to make the case to the ideal disinterested rational listener that your religious beliefs are more justified for you to believe than a person who thinks Zeus is the creator of the universe because the streetlights turn green when he prays to Zeus. Whatever you think an ideal disinterested rational listener should take into account as evidence, present that evidence as though he will take it into account."
I think this is a generally useful idea: write to what you expect would convince the ideal disinterested rational listener. It's win-win -- either you convince your primary target, or other rational people should be able to read the account for themselves and see that the primary is being irrational.
I continued: "When you mentioned that the majority of people who do not believe in Yahweh is not as large as the majority of people who do not believe in Zeus, I gained valuable insight into precisely what a professional theologian counts as a distinguishing justification for his personal religious beliefs over nonsense.
But -- and this is important -- you have free reign. List defeaters to this guy's Zeus beliefs. List evidence for your beliefs. Or not -- I personally do not have an opinion on this apriori. I want to see what you, a professional Christian theologian, think would count to a disinterested listener that is considering the justification that you have for your beliefs versus the justification a Zeus-believer has for his beliefs."
I was explicit in highlighting the fact that RD has free reign to call in whatever justification/evidence/whatever that he wants.
I finished: "I'm not asking you to convince this listener that one or the other has the correct beliefs. What evidence do you have that supports your personal belief? What do you think counts? What do you think counts in favor of your belief and against this hypothetical nonsense?"
Conclusion: A theologian apparently has an absolutely terrible time claiming justification for his religious beliefs from nonsense. The single justification that he claimed gave his Christian beliefs more validity than nonsense was to argue from popularity.
So far, RD has written 4 entries since that last comment and no response to me. I'll update this post if anything happens.
UPDATE:
You won't believe how RD responded to my entry...
Ok, so in this entry, I criticize RD for not responding to my challenge and insisting that I must be making some previously discredited 'famous argument'.
In fact, I list 3 times, where I say RD says, essentially, Ah, you must mean the famous argument ... blah blah blah!
Here is part of his response that he leaves in a comment on his blog: "To put it another way, it sounds like you are aiming for the Great Pumpkin reductio ad absurdum that Plantinga raised in "Reason and Belief in God" and which atheists like Michael Martin have since taken up."
Ha ha ha! I am meaning the famous reductio-ad-absurdum-argument-mentioned-by-Plantinga-and-which-Martin-has-defended! He guessed it, finally, after all these wrong guesses, he finally got the CORRECT famous atheist argument with a canned theist response! </mirth>
RD alludes to the great time and effort that I've put forward as though this interaction is work or something ... I'm having a blast. The only thing I'm regretting is having taken so long to find a theologian to debate!
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I always sort of admire believers who attempt a decent debate, because, ultimately, they believe in a sky fairy. I have had several attempts at this kind of debate with various people, and they have always petered out, and it is always the Christian who drops the ball. The debate ceases to become anything intellectual, and becomes an arguing/debating competition. I find the whole thing deeply frustrating…
But will it stop me? Doubtful…I need to save those pesky Christians from themselves…
Mat, I'm a Catholic, and by no means do I believe in a "sky fairy." It seems as if you're a bit confused in regards to the God of Christianity.
I assume you consider yourself an atheist or at least an agnostic, is this a correct assumption? If so, why have you come to this conclusion? Or better said, "belief"?
And please elaborate on why you feel it necessary to save those pesky Christians from themselves.
I have the utmost admiration for your tenacity, keep up :)
At the end of the day, though, isn't religious belief "justified" in the mind of the believer by pure faith? It's difficult to carry on a logical discussion with someone who has written off the core of their worldview as an act of will in the face of the absence of evidence.
For me, personally, I take the proliferation of the world's huge variety of religions as an adequate indication that it is a fairy tale, and I think that you have to be not only a rather obstinate individual to believe in just one, but also a somewhat cold-hearted one as well. The full and knowing belief in, for example, Christianity, is to say that the millions who believe in other deities for their own (as you attempted to demonstrate with RD) powerfully justifiable reasons are inferior people and doomed to eternity in hell.
Greetings from reddit, also.
If I were the Christian master debator, I would have calmly asserted that Bob’s faith was faulty because humans created the stoplight, therefore pointing to a higher creator.
Taking on the form of the conversational atheist, I would have retorted with the following: BUT, his belief in Zeus is valid because the humans who created the traffic signals are influenced by Zeus. In the end of this chain, Zeus had total control the whole time, meaning Zeus is the perfect creator.
Christian master debator: But my God gives humans free will, so his belief is flawed.
————
See, I can do this shit all day long in my head. It’s a horrible circle and you always end up at the same exact place – insane, unmovable belief. Removing someones belief is an extremely humiliating thing and it hurts. We don’t like to be proved wrong, it’s obvious. I HATE it. I will run circles over my girlfriend sometimes (which she can’t compete with), even though I know I am wrong. I’m a male with a big ego. This is the essence of belief.
This so called “Christian Theologian” is no more intelligent then my christian conservative, jew blooded, CPA father. He just knows more useless facts than my father. These useless facts are his ammo for inane arguments that always end up in the same circles that my father uses.
Your thirst for an intelligent, well guided conversation is just as futile and misguided as a Christian’s attempt to get into heaven.
Aaron,
I think your comment would be spot on had RD not made the claim that the atheist is making a positive claim that needs justification. By trying to provide insight into his arbitrary dismissal of Zeus in favor of Christian superstitions he was effectively arguing against his own claim.
"The frequent noise" is overrated hype. My father is a minister and he frequent cites his favorite theologians to me ( AW Tozer, CS Lewis off the top of my head). I am surprised you got a secular answer about majority beliefs; I never get anything other than scripture quotes.
The following quote is from Thomas Paine in The Age of Reason and it explains why I don't think less of the New Atheists for not debating the ivory tower Theologians. Kudos to you for engaging them.
“The study of theology, as it stands in Christian churches, is the study of nothing; it is founded on nothing; it rests on no principles; it proceeds by no authorities; it has no data; it can demonstrate nothing; and it admits of no conclusion. Not any thing can be studied as a science, without our being in possession of the principles upon which it is founded; and as this is not the case with Christian theology, it is therefore the study of nothing.”
"the majority of people who do not believe in Zeus is larger than the majority of people who do not believe in Yahweh"
You have a potential winning argument here. I'm not sure whether or not Greeks were more numerous than Hebrews during the classical era, so assume you chose Ra or Amon instead of Zeus. I guess even your theologian won't deny that 3000 years ago, Egyptians were many times more numerous than Hebrews,
Point out to your theologian that even if his argument was valid, it would necessarily be within a limited timeframe – since belief in Yahveh only outperformed belief in the ancient Egyptian pantheon less than 2000 years ago.
So in 50AD, it would have been right not to believe in Christ, because there were more Zeus-believers than christ believers?
Over the years I have engaged numerous believers who view themselves as intellectuals. You can tell them apart from the follower types because they use such phrases as, "According to…. (name a really obscure Christian fanatic)," or "Let me assure you that…..(fill in the blank), and, of course, "Ahh, you must mean the famous argument…:" LOL!
Not-so-intellectual believers are more concrete. "God make coincidences." I learned that from a recovering alcoholic. I also learned that a "higher power" can be anything. It was suggested to me that I could call a door knob a "higher power" if I wanted. The justification for belief in any higher power was this question: "Are you the most powerful person on earth? No? Well, then, there is a higher power." (I tried really hard not to roll my eyeballs.)
And, of course, every argument with a devoted believer ends with, "It says so in the Bible."
To that, I roll my eyeballs.
Those not with us are against us. – Luke 11:23 NIV
The Big Lie of the Big-3 Monster-theisms:
Skeptics cannot undermine beliefs which require spiritual insight to believe!
The Big Lie exemplifies a classic logical failure called an "immunizing strategy." Only a believer can understand another believer’s beliefs. It is a form of begging the question — presupposing without proof the very point at issue.
An immunizing strategy amounts to deflecting away every request for reasoning outside the charmed circle of language which only a believer could use.
But, one pays dearly when immunizing a belief from criticism. It cuts off rational communication. The immunizer gives up the right to be classed as a “reasonable person” — in the common sense meaning used by courts of law.
You cannot respond rationally to critics by saying that only those who are with me can understand what I have to say. There must be some starting point in a discourse common to believer and to critic. Otherwise, there's nothing that can be talked about.
Now you know why a xian “conversion” sales job has always begun with purportedly “absurd” or "paradoxical" claims to induce belief. And to a rational ancient Greek nothing was more conceptually contradictory than a "god on a cross."
Ultimately, xianity cannot be refuted; it can only be dismantled. The de-deification of culture (including the sciences) is our task for the next 100 years.
anti-supernaturalist
"I’m pleading with you to make the case to the ideal disinterested rational listener that your religious beliefs are more justified for you to believe than a person who thinks Zeus is the creator of the universe because the streetlights turn green when he prays to Zeus."
Wow! I love that line!
It is infinitely more difficult for me to be atheistic when I am asked to believe that Creation, with all of its awesome intricacies supposedly just evolved out of substances that had no first cause, than it is to believe that an intelligent Creator (i.e. Jesus Christ) started it all. (1Corinthians 8:6 & Ephesians 3:9)
My problem has never been, “Is there a God?”
My problem has always been, “What is He like?”
I think one of the primary causes of atheism is Christianity’s doctrine of everlasting suffering for everyone who dies without becoming a Christian. I would rather live out my life as an agnostic, and try to treat everyone the same way that I would like to be treated by them, and hope for the best in the next life, than try to love a god who would let anyone suffer forever.
That is why I am glad there is evidence that God is not like that, e.g.
http://www.godfire.net/eby/circularity.html
I'm please to know that the idea eternal punishment irks you. I applaud you for this. I think that's a very good thing that people will question that aspect of religions that teach or imply such things. I grew up fundamentalist and believe my loved ones who didn't believe as I did when to eternal punishment. Hard to live with, indeed! Also, hard to stand against eternal punishment in religious circles such as fundamentalist Christianity.
As for our universe evolving out of substances that had no first cause– no reputable scientist says that. The cause of the big bang is simply an unknown. But something caused it. They level of mystery is no different from the mystery of God existing as a first cause without beginning, end, or explanation.
The big bang is not that crazy of an idea– even if it is wrong. You just have to understand a small amount of the science that points to that idea. The big bang may not be what started our universe, but the idea is a worthwhile one to consider.
The sun releases it's tremendous amount of energy due to fusion. Hydrogen atoms are fused into heavier elements. This process causes the atoms to release a tremendous amount of energy (E=mc^2 is at work here). The light and heat from the sun comes because elements are being created right there in the sun.
Massive amounts of energy converts into mass when it cools. So imagine a release of energy infinitesimally larger than our sun. If our sun can create all the elements in the periodic table just through nuclear fusion, then a massive release of energy can create the building blocks of atoms.
If such an explosion happened, the radiation from it would still be present today. And back in the 1960's, Bell Labs was doing an experiment with satellites. They ran into a lot of static interference and couldn't explain why. At the same time, scientists were exploring the beginnings of the big band hypothesis. When they heard about what Bell Labs was dealing with, they investigated. That background static is the radiation left over from a large release of energy– just like what they figured the "big bang" would cause. The scientists predicted the background radiation– the guys at Bell Labs accidentally found it independently. All scientists involved– including those at Bell Labs– received a Nobel Prize in physics.
So, something exploded billions of years ago. I will admit however, why and how it happened is still a great mystery.
So, you're assuming the main point of religion is belief in a divine being? Funny, we adherents don't regard that as particularly important. It's part of a sociological group to which we belong, for most people one they were born into. I could think of far more concrete, current reasons, e.g., to renounce my citizenship (not to speak of national mythology into which I don't buy and past atrocities committed by the government which I disdain). But I think I'll keep my citizenship–after all, it's part of who I am and I actually like many aspects of it. I think I'll maintain my religious affiliation too for the same reasons.
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