Posts Tagged ‘God’

|

There is strength in not pursuing every possible argument

Wednesday, October 7th, 2009

My last entry was about the phrasing of questions to cut off common retreats from the question itself. The last improvement left the question as:

Atheist: Why do you worship a God that allows suffering?

I mentioned that it’s still not a great formulation, and a few comments commented that I was leaving a cliffhanger. What further improvments could be made? Quite a few in my estimation:

Tactic: make specific claims, ask for specific claims. Use clear examples and ask for clear examples.

This ‘tactic’ is a completely symmetric burden for theist and atheist alike. Add specificity to the suffering. It’s much easier to dismiss or trivialize suffering when talked about in the abstract. So take a very specific example of the worst kind of suffering you can come up with: the murder of Jessica Lunsford, the 9 year old girl who was repeatedly raped and then murdered by being buried alive.

Atheist: How can you worship a god that allowed the suffering of someone like Jessica Lunsford?

Now, the question, as it’s worded is confrontational, and we’re going for conversational. Does this mean blunting the criticism at all? No, but it means delivering the full impact of the punch without giving the person you’re talking with a bunch of things to legitimately complain about — those would just be distractions. So, start the interaction from the right mindset. Let me say now that I have read Christian “witnessing guides” that mention witnessing to non-Christians by becoming their friend so that the target is more accepting the Christian message. I disagree with this tactic profoundly, and I am not advocating that atheists try to befriend a person they argue with the goal of sneaking in a deconversion. The goal ought to be effective communication, and with that in mind, try to keep in mind a few suggestions.

Conversational Atheist: Help me understand your mindset — because it is honestly a mystery to me — I cannot conceive of ever praising a god that had full power to prevent the suffering of Jessica Lunsford, yet stood by and watched it happen. If such a god existed, I might understand withholding condemnation out of deference to some kind of unknowable reasoning. But it is truly inconceivable to me that you could actually praise such a creature. Do you see where I am coming from?

We are getting close to the best approach that I can think of from the starting question, “Why does God allow suffering?”

Few more nuances: So, as I say elsewhere, fight for the argument that is easiest to defend that is contrary to a fundamental belief. I suggest that it’s unthinkable to praise such a God without knowing the specific reasons for allowing it, and that it’s possible that a person could remain a “is god moral” agnostic. Could I argue that if such a god exists we ought to condemn it? Sure, but there are ways out that the theist has available that take time to wrap up.

Here’s how I would deal with the most common response. Notice that I chose a phrasing that anticipates the response, “But, isn’t it possible that somehow, God has some kind of plan where… greater suffering was averted by this seemingly atrocious event?”

So many ripe targets from such a response, but don’t take the bait. Many atheists are very good at identifying every single logical fallacy and error. They honestly could wrestle every single misstep to the ground, but I’m suggesting that there is considerable argumentative strength in not pursuing every possible argument. Concede as much as you can while retaining a rock solid case on your main point.

Conversational Atheist: Sure, it’s conceivable that a creature that had this power could have a good reason; it’s also conceivable that a creature is a sadistic and evil being. So, I could imagine withholding judgment, and I can imagine condemnation for allowing what appears to be an unfettered evil occur, but, seriously, how could you praise such a creature without knowing the specific good reasons?

Comments, questions, and suggested improvements welcome! As are, especially, if you have tried this approach out yourself: report and success or failures you’ve had.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Religious Interaction, debate | 6 Comments »

The atheist vs the Christian theologian

Thursday, September 10th, 2009

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!

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , ,
Posted in Anti-Thinking, Religious Interaction, Theology, debate | 16 Comments »

Failed prophecies and intellectual honesty

Sunday, July 19th, 2009

I am posting an email response that I wrote up to one of the many people that email me. The background context you need is essentially: she claimed that there was a prophecy that Herod would kill the children of Bethlehem because of Jeremiah 31:15. After telling her the reasons why I thought this was inadequate, she pointed me to an article called: The King Fulfills Prophecy–Part 2. The following is my response.

I fully read the article you recommended to me (I read the version here: http://www.biblebb.com/files/mac/sg2186.htm) regarding whether Jeremiah 31:15-17 was a prophecy of the coming messiah, or not.

Jeremiah 31:15-17 (NSRV) “Thus says the Lord: A voice is heard in Ramah, lamentation and bitter weeping. Rachel is weeping for her children; she refuses to be comforted for her children, because they are no more.
Thus says the Lord: Keep your voice from weeping, and your eyes from tears; for there is a reward for your work, says the Lord: they shall come back from the land of the enemy; there is hope for your future, says the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country.”

I found it an interesting article for a number of reasons. I agree entirely with the scene that the author of the article vividly paints: “I can imagine the terror that those bands of soldiers caused as they went from house to house, chasing fleeing mothers who clutched to their breasts their little ones. Torn out of their mother’s arms, the babies were pierced with swords until they were all dead. That’s what went on in Bethlehem because of the rage of this man.”

Indeed, if this happened it’s an atrocity. This is what happens when soldiers are sent in to kill every infant in an area.

This bring me to my first question. For all the hatred and condemnation brought down on Herod for his ordering male infants under the age of two to be slaughtered, how can you worship a God that previously commanded the same? I’m thinking specifically of:

1 Samuel 15:2-3 — “Thus says the Lord of hosts, “I will punish the Amalekites for what they did in opposing the Israelites when they came up out of Egypt. Now go and attack Amalek, and utterly destroy all that they have; do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.” ’”

God, Himself, apparently ordered His followers to kill every infant, child, man and woman — He orders an even greater genocide. Are the scenes of terror and slaughter any less vivid in your mind when you think of the consequences of what God ordered in 1 Samuel? If they are, how can you possibly worship such a God — and I mean this entirely seriously — if you think that God ordered such a terrible act, how can you think that God is worthy of worship?

Now, onto the alleged prophecy:

“The prophecy about Ramah is recorded in Jeremiah 31:15, and what’s interesting about it is that it doesn’t appear here to be a prophecy. But it is a prophecy because Matthew said it was, not because it’s inherent in this text.”

I agree entirely with half of this statement. Jeremiah 31:15 does not appear to be a prophecy at all. I disagree that it is a prophecy because Matthew said it was — that is just an intellectually dishonest way of thinking.

By the way, you are claiming something much greater than what this article claims.

You said, “it was prophesied … that Herod would kill the children in Bethlehem”.

No, that is simply a false statement. If the ‘prophecy’ does not contain the name “Herod” — it cannot predict that “Herod” would do anything. So, at best, you should fix your claim to say something like, “it was prophesied that children in Bethlehem would be killed.”

Of course, that is false, too because “Bethlehem” is not mentioned, and thus, as before, the prediction cannot be said to predict anything specific about “Bethlehem”. With that consideration, you should fix your claim to say something like, “it was prophesied that children near Ramah would be killed”.

But darn it all, it doesn’t say anything about killing either — it says, “the Lord: your children shall come back to their own country.” So the prediction is about children in Ramah who are ‘no more’, but will come back to their own country. So… how do we fix the prophecy further? “It was prophecied that children would be ‘no more’ — perhaps killed? — in or around Ramah (which is close to Bethlehem) but that they would return from the enemy country.”

But now the prophecy isn’t true (the children didn’t return from the enemy country), so I can see why you wouldn’t want to properly state the ‘prophecy’ — resist the urge, and embrace intellectual honesty. The article you sent me to is very forthright about what they are doing: 1. Realize that Matthew thinks that this verse in the Old Testament is a prophecy. 2. Since Matthew is inspired by God, he’s not mistaken, so we have to figure out exactly why this verse that no one else thinks is a prophecy — from the Old Testament, to the New Testament — actually is a fulfilled prophecy.

You do not work backwards starting with the assumption that a prophecy is true then force the interpretation to guarantee that it is true.

There are even more problems, but by now I feel that I’ve sufficiently countered the claim, so I’ll retire my effort on this unless you honestly think you still have a case.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , ,
Posted in Prophecy, Religious Interaction | 6 Comments »

Some strange results from a recent article…

Sunday, June 28th, 2009

I spent some time reading through the more than 180 Reddit comments for my Tough Questions: “Can God do evil?” post. As of this writing, my article has 102 upvotes and 48 down votes — fairly contentious!

One thing that I find odd about the atheism subreddit of reddit.com is the very specific (and inconsistent) notion of what “belongs on the atheism subreddit”. As far as I can tell, an article that focuses on how atheists can debate and engage religious people is definitely not mis-labeled by being in the atheist subreddit.  An argument might be made that a hyper-specific atheists-arguing-with-theists subsubreddit is a better fit.

Now, onto some of the criticism of my article. I got a number of challenges like, “Why would an atheist ask anything about something that doesn’t exist?” — Which is an inexcusable challenge from theists, but blows my mind as criticism coming from fellow atheists.

Other criticism: “They will say ‘no, God doesn’t commit evil’.”

More criticism: “This is the same as asking ‘Can God create a rock so big that He can’t lift it?”

Still more criticism: “This doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist.”

I imagine that most of the criticism comes from people who did not read the whole article. If not, then I have to work on my clarity. Take the last criticism “This doesn’t prove that God doesn’t exist.” — My article also doesn’t prove that oatmeal is a better breakfast than waffles. This criticism only works if I failed to do what I set out to do. I make fairly tight claims that I try to argue, and I write them out explicitly. Let me know if I fail to persuasively argue a claim that I’m actually attempting to prove.

The simple logic of the article goes:

B or ~B

If B, then C.

If ~B, then D.

Asking whether it is possible for God to commit evil is rather straight forward. It is not asking whether you judge God to be moral (at least not initially). If God is ‘limited’ in some way — ie He cannot do evil — I would not argue that this is a strict contradiction of God being all-powerful yet, powerless to do an entire class of actions — I argue that His status as a “moral creature” becomes tenuous.

On the other hand, if God is capable of doing evil, the next question becomes not one of logical possibility, but one of epistemology — how do you know what evil He has done or not done?

If a theist would have a strong issue with either conclusion: C or D, then the argument as a whole is effective.

One funny sidenote — stumbleupon is a great source of traffic for my site overall, but Can God do evil got recommended (hooray) and favorably reviewed (hooray), but categorized under porn (huh?).

I’ve submitted a ‘change category’ request — so it should be fixed soon, but I can imagine anyone hoping to stumble across porn and ending up a religious debate site would be disappointed.

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , ,
Posted in Announcements | No Comments »

Can God do evil? — Tough question…

Thursday, June 25th, 2009

I’ve posted a new article. Atheists can ask a number of tough questions in the course of a conversation or debate with a theist that quickly lead to some interesting conclusions. The following question can be very effective:

Can God do evil?

It’s important to get the types of questions straight. A few entries ago I mentioned that an atheist should focus on asking a theist to explain his own actions rather than God’s — Why worship an apparently evil God? Rather than: Why does God allow evil?

It’s another matter all together to ask whether God is actually capable of doing evil. If He cannot do evil (for whatever reason), His omnipotence and praiseworthyness become highly suspect. If He can do evil, then there are some very interesting problems that arise for the theist.

Anyway, I entertain this question in a new article: Tough Questions: Can God do evil?

Let me know what you think!

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , , ,
Posted in Announcements, Religious Interaction, Theology, debate | 3 Comments »

How atheists should respond to claim atheism caused Nazism

Monday, April 13th, 2009

A German bishop has argued that atheism causes and has caused all manner of suffering/genocide/mass murder. Which is to say, he thinks that atheism is as evil as the God that he worships.

The story can be found here: German bishop: Atheism responsible for Nazis and mass murder

The story quotes several atheist organizations that attempt to correct the factual errors of what Bishop Mixa has said. By continually arguing the facts of the matter, we atheists are allowing our opponents frame the debate. When an atheist organization claims that the majority of Nazis considered themselves Christian, modern day Christians are likely to think something like, ‘well, they obviously weren’t very good Christians, but if they were atheists instead just think how much worse it could have been!’

I think a more fruitful approach for an atheist organization and atheists in general would be to respond with something like the following:

Hypothetical Atheist Organization Response:

The bishop can argue that atheism leads to behavior as terrible as that of the God that he worships. Of course, as atheists we have no issue condemning the mass murder that God commanded as well as the mass murder that Hitler commanded.

A major defining difference between our two organizations: the church is the only one seeking praise for the actions of a mass murderer.

We welcome any moral progress that the bishop wishes to demonstrate by condemning the acts of God that he would otherwise so rightly criticize: mass murder and genocide.

For reference I have included two very evil verses that demonstrate the actions and commands that the God of the Old Testament that the bishop has praised.

Deuteronomy 20:16-18

16But as for the towns of these peoples that the Lord your God is giving you as an inheritance, you must not let anything that breathes remain alive. 17You shall annihilate them—the Hittites and the Amorites, the Canaanites and the Perizzites, the Hivites and the Jebusites—just as the Lord your God has commanded, 18so that they may not teach you to do all the abhorrent things that they do for their gods, and you thus sin against the Lord your God.

Joshua 10:38-40

38Then Joshua, with all Israel, turned back to Debir and assaulted it, 39and he took it with its king and all its towns; they struck them with the edge of the sword, and utterly destroyed every person in it; he left no one remaining; just as he had done to Hebron, and, as he had done to Libnah and its king, so he did to Debir and its king. 40So Joshua defeated the whole land, the hill country and the Negeb and the lowland and the slopes, and all their kings; he left no one remaining, but utterly destroyed all that breathed, as the Lord God of Israel commanded.

When it comes to mass murder and genocide, we need to stop letting the debate be framed in a way that continually forces atheists on the defensive! There is a moral difference here, and we have the upper hand. Repeatedly demonstrate this fact!

Reblog this post [with Zemanta]

Tags: , ,
Posted in Religious Interaction, debate | 3 Comments »

|