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New atheism, bad philosophy

If there’s one thing that distinguishes the so-called “New Atheists” from the old atheists, it’s that the New Atheists are notoriously bad at philosophy, something I’ve said before. Edward Feser writes on this topic,

Philosophers and theologians are constantly told that they need to “learn the science” before commenting on quantum mechanics, relativity, or Darwinism.  And rightly so.  Yet too many scientists refuse to “learn the philosophy” before pontificating on the subject.  The results are predictably sophomoric.  What an arrogant and clueless amateur like Hawking or Dawkins needs to hear before putting on his philosopher’s toga is this.  And if he doesn’t get the message, this.  Instead, the reaction from equally clueless editors, journalists, and “educated” general readers is: “Gee, he’s a scientist! He’s good at math and stuff.  He must know what he’s talking about!”  It really is no more intelligent than that.

The new atheists are, for the most part, scientists, or at least adherents to scientism, the thinking that science is the answer to everything. Sam Harris even claims that science is a proper foundation for morality.

Something else that I’ve pointed out before is that science, which is a great tool for studying the physical world, suffers from some philosophical problems, mostly stemming from the so-called Enlightenment. The Enlightenment turned man’s ability to reason into an object of worship, as well as doing some other things for which we are still suffering.

As an example of bad philosophy, the new atheists love to refer to David Hume’s thoughts on miracles, however they ignore his thinking on inductive reasoning and science. Hume argued, I think correctly, that conclusions of causality are inductively, not deductively, reasoned; and he went on to propose that such inductive reasoning is justified by its success (which begs the question, “how does one measure scientific success, unless we have already determined what the desired results are?”).

Hume also concluded, again I think rightly so, that such inductive conclusions are limited to past causes and effects; one cannot predict the future based on past evidence. Predictions about the future are based on faith that the past will repeat itself, not on any proof that A always results in B.

What this means is that just because A has caused B for the last 100 years doesn’t mean that A will cause B tomorrow. Science simply cannot tell us that for sure. If science is at all successful, past evidence of cause and effect should give us, at best, a probability for what could occur in the future. If a certain drug worked for these other folks, it should work for you. Maybe. However, science’s ability to replicate past results is now being challenged.

The Decline Effect

In December of 2010 Jonah Lehrer wrote an interesting article for the New Yorker discussing the so-called Decline Effect, which has been noted over the past few years. Basically, what is happening is that conclusions proven by past studies, to the extent they are considered scientific facts, are suddenly showing themselves to be not true. Drugs that worked 10 years ago show no sign of working today. He writes,

But now all sorts of well-established, multiply confirmed findings have started to look increasingly uncertain. It’s as if our facts were losing their truth: claims that have been enshrined in textbooks are suddenly unprovable. This phenomenon doesn’t yet have an official name, but it’s occurring across a wide range of fields, from psychology to ecology. In the field of medicine, the phenomenon seems extremely widespread, affecting not only antipsychotics but also therapies ranging from cardiac stents to Vitamin E and antidepressants: Davis has a forthcoming analysis demonstrating that the efficacy of antidepressants has gone down as much as threefold in recent decades.

Lehrer posits that some possible causes of this decline effect is the subjectivity of the scientists (tending to prove things they want to believe), and bias in scientific reporting. Of course, this doesn’t explain why scientists today who want to confirm past findings are suddenly unable to do so, or why the law of gravity doesn’t give predictable results.

How Firm a Foundation…

Regardless of the cause of this decline effect, the reality is that science, at least at the present time, is not able to establish sufficient causation to predict future results, or to even correctly establish past causation. Medical and pharmaceutical beliefs are suspect, as are some of the “facts” of physics.

So, while I still believe that scientific studies have value, it seems that the ability of science to serve as a foundation for morality or religion—or atheism—is quite suspect. The decline effect just re-emphasizes some of the philosophical issues of those who hold science in too high a regard, and who have put their faith in man’s ability to reason and be objective (neither of which can be reasonably shown to be exist). The New Atheism—holding itself out as the pinnacle of reason and objectivity—suffers from bad philosophy, and a resulting misplaced faith in science’s ability to give us answers.

Written on 17 February 2011 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt, Philosophy with 11 Comments
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A little philosophical diversion: Why the Outsider Test for Faith fails

Okay, every once in a while I just have to comment on the ridiculous nature of certain atheists’ attempts to appear superior to people who don’t think “faith” is a bad word. I really should just unsubscribe to the Debunking Christianity blog, but it’s like a train wreck — as bad as it is, you just have to watch.

Today John once again promotes his outsider test for faith, “to test their own adopted religious faith from the perspective of an outsider with the same level of skepticism they use to evaluate other religious faiths.”

It’s an interesting challenge, to be sure. I don’t disagree that this proposal has some merit; too many Christians don’t understand why Christianity is a uniquely valid belief, and we should. As Peter wrote, we should be ready to give an answer for our faith (1 Pet. 3:15).

The problem is to do so without accepting without question another belief system in the process, which can potentially “stack the deck” against Christianity. As I’m certain I’ve mentioned before (I don’t have the energy or time to search the archives), it seems that many people who leave Christianity do so because they unquestionably accept certain facets of modernism.  Trying to make Christianity fit into a completely modernist worldview is like fitting the proverbial square peg into a round hole.

All of us in the western world have been raised breathing and eating modernism since we were born; we cannot really conceive of a different way of thinking, and accept without question that our worldview or paradigm is simply “the way things are.”  In reality, modernism is a grid developed through which to view the world. Prior to Descartes, it didn’t exist.  The Bible doesn’t conform to modernist thought, because it was not written by modernists.

This creates issues for doctrines like inerrancy, where writings from an ancient oriental culture are held to modernist standards; it is exactly like forcing a square peg into a round hole.

But, we in the west are all now modernists, whether we like it or not (even so-called post-modernists). What is frustrating for those of us who realize that modernism is not necessarily the way things are is that we can’t even analyze modernism without resorting to modernist methods.

The Problem With Modernism

This creates a problem, as explained by series of philosophers from Hume to Godel (and beyond). Hume began by challenging the core principle of causality. While we can predict based on past events that flipping a switch will turn on the lights, we can never guarantee that this will happen the next time, or prove that it was the switch which caused the lights to come on.

Kant explored this further, discovering that there must be limitations to reason itself, as reason must be limited by the limited categories of the mind. Skipping ahead, Godel showed mathematically that a system can only be substantiated by something outside the system. In other words, we can show that reason is limited and flawed, but we can never prove that it is not. So far, no one has been able to refute the basic challenge issued by Hume.

Modernism is essentially the worldview that says everything can be analyzed objectively and rationally, but cannot prove that it ever works. In other words, you must accept modernism and rationalism by faith.

The Failure of Loftus’ Outsider Test For Faith

The OTF fails because it requires someone to subject a non-modern belief system to a modernist analysis, which cannot be proven to have any validity whatsoever. The only thing it can do is to mislead someone into thinking that modernism is, in fact, the way it is.  Because the square peg cannot fit nicely into this imaginary round hole (a better analogy, perhaps, is trying to stuff the entire universe into a hat), people are left having to choose: a flawed faith in modernism, or Christianity.  It is, of course, a false dichotomy, but as we know, lies are the devil’s only real weapons.

But of course, Stephen Hawking, who has assured us that we no longer have any need to believe in God, also asserts that philosophy is dead. Obviously, Hawking’s reason has met its limitations.

Written on 24 September 2010 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt with 3 Comments
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Romans 1:22 proven once again.

I look at it this way. If science disappeared from human memory, we would soon be living in caves again. If theology disappeared from human memory, no one would notice.

Thanks to Debunking Christianity, which seems to post one incredibly stupid thing after another, I was directed to this opinion piece in the Guardian UK by Terry Sanderson, who is the head of something called the National Secular Society.

As I’ve followed various atheists over the past 2-3 years, I’ve found that the writing is getting more and more ridiculous, and at times desperate.

Oh well, on to bigger and better things…

Written on 27 May 2010 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt, Romans 1:22 with 14 Comments
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There Are Stupid Questions

From Debunking Christianity:

Tell us. What would you believe? THAT is the question. My claim is that biblical criticism is an undercutting defeater for what Christians believe such that without the Bible they would become agnostics and then afterward possibly atheists. At that point they would see the arguments for the existence of God as little more than a shell game.

How would you respond?

Written on 20 March 2010 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt with 5 Comments
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Peter Hitchens: The Rage Against God

Peter Hitchens, well-known journalist, author and brother to outspoken atheist Christopher Hitchens, has just written a book entitled The Rage Against God: How Atheism Led Me To Faith.   Here’s a short trailer:

And from the back cover:

With unflinching openness and intellectual honesty, Hitchens describes the personal loss and philosophical curiosity that led him to burn his Bible at prep school and embrace atheism in its place. From there, he traces his experience as a journalist in Soviet Moscow, and the critical observations that left him with more questions than answers, and more despair than hope for how to live a meaningful life. With first-hand insight into the blurring of the line between politics and the Church, Hitchens reveals the reasons why an honest assessment of Atheism cannot sustain disbelief in God. In the process, he provides hope for all believers who, in the words of T. S. Eliot, may discover ‘the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.’

This should prove interesting.

Written on 17 March 2010 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt with 4 Comments
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Hunter on the Conflict Between Science and Religion

From Cornelius Hunter at Darwin’s God, discussing The Real Conflict Between Science and Religion:

But as Henry Kissinger described academia, the battles are so fierce because the stakes are so small. From the outside the conflict between atheist evolutionists and theist evolutionists is rather meaningless. For the atheists, in spite of all their bluster, are no different than the theists in their religious beliefs. They call themselves atheists, but their convictions about god are as strong as anyone’s. (see examples here and here).

So yes many evolutionists are atheists, but as usual the theology rules. Evolutionists are either theists who hold strong religious convictions or atheists who hold strong religious convictions. Either way the science suffers. I guess you could say there is a conflict between religion and science after all.

Interesting perspective.  But does the science have to suffer?  I’m not necessarily convinced.

He also states (earlier in the post),

… a recent poll showed that a majority of scientists (51%) say they believe in God or a higher power. And that is up from the 42% who responded similarly almost a century ago in 1914.

The problem is not so much that religion conflicts with science as it co-opts science.

Again, interesting perspective – and I’ll let it go at that.

Written on 28 February 2010 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt with 2 Comments
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Why believe in Christianity?

It seems that I just can’t stop reading the terribly unimaginative things that most atheists blog about; for me, it’s like watching a train wreck.  I just have this morbid fascination.  Perhaps it is more of a fascination with modernism, as atheism – or at least materialism, which results in atheism – is a logical conclusion.  I use “logical” here not to agree that materialism is logical, but to say that if you start down that road based on the false premises of modernism, materialism  and atheism are expected destinations.

This morning I happened across an article called Vetting Supernatural Knowledge by Matt McCormick on his blog Atheism: Proving the Negative that I at least found interesting. He begins

I frequently get accused of making the mistake of narrow mindedly demanding empirical proof for things that are not empirical, tangible evidence for the intangible, or applying scientific standards of proof to all knowledge claims when not all knowledge is empirical or scientific.

He goes on to explain how Christians typically argue that atheists ask for material proofs of the supernatural, which by definition is non-material.  He thinks this is changing the subject, and explains that asking for reasons for belief is not asking for material proof:

In looking for an answer to this question, the atheist does not need to insist, at least in principle, that the only way to acquire knowledge of the world is by empirical or scientific means. We can grant that this supernatural, subjective, or non-empirical knowledge is possible. A lot of things are possible, and we’d be foolish to try to argue for their impossibility on the basis of insufficient information.

Matt is the one of the few atheists I’ve read to actually recognize this point, which is a very good one. The problem with Matt’s point is that the vast majority of modern atheists are materialists, and they typically ask for empirical proof.  So, in response to most atheists, there is no changing the topic; it’s a very valid response to the demand, “Show me scientific proof!”

So if the theist has another method for learning about the reality of God, we’re prepared in principle to accept that. First issue: if it is not something publicly tangible that can be experienced by the rest of us, what is that method? Is it a voice in your head? A strong feeling? A powerful sense of presence? An overwhelming awareness of a transcendental reality? Something ineffable? Do you come by that knowledge by praying? By thinking? By talking to yourself? Do these ideas come to you when you get yourself into an altered state by fasting? Hallucinogenic drugs? Chanting or meditating? Does it feel like what you figure being overcome by the Holy Spirit must feel like?

Second issue: What are the criteria that you are employing to determine the reliability of this method to acquire supernatural knowledge? How can we tell when the voices or the feelings are lies?

Now, at least, we have something to discuss, although Matt is still a modernist, and still would like everything to fit neatly into one or more boxes.

Last week I came across a passage in G.K. Chesterton’s book Orthodoxy that is perhaps the best response I have seen to the question why does one believe in Christianity.  While opposing turn-of-the-Century British Modernism, he maintains that he is still a rationalist, and so provides a very rational answer:

If I am asked, as a purely intellectual question, why I believe in Christianity, I can only answer, “For the same reason that an intelligent agnostic disbelieves in Christianity.” I believe in it quite rationally upon the evidence. But the evidence in my case, as in that of the intelligent agnostic, is not really in this or that alleged demonstration; it is in an enormous accumulation of small but unanimous facts. The secularist is not to be blamed because his objections to Christianity are miscellaneous and even scrappy; it is precisely such scrappy evidence that does convince the mind. I mean that a man may well be less convinced of a philosophy from four books, than from one book, one battle, one landscape, and one old friend. The very fact that the things are of different kinds increases the importance of the fact that they all point to one conclusion. Now, the non-Christianity of the average educated man to-day is almost always, to do him justice, made up of these loose but living experiences. I can only say that my evidences for Christianity are of the same vivid but varied kind as his evidences against it. For when I look at these various anti-Christian truths, I simply discover that none of them are true. I discover that the true tide and force of all the facts flows the other way.

Chesterton’s book is well worth reading, so I won’t quote any more here.  If you don’t mind the lack of formatting, the book is available online here.

While science has indeed progressed since Chesterton’s day, man’s intelligence hasn’t, and Chesterton’s thoughts are as pertinent now as ever.

Written on 07 January 2010 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt with 3 Comments
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There are stupid questions (my Christmas post)

I know I said I would be ignoring atheist blogs, but I ran across this post and I felt that it met the criteria to warrant a mention here, and as I said, sometimes I just can’t help myself, even on Christmas morning (at 1am).

I once had a lot of hope for Common Sense Atheism, but aside from a few thought-provoking posts some time ago, I’ve been greatly disappointed.  This post is a good example, where he repeats a question he read elsewhere, “Can you prove to me that God exists in a way that will also show that Zeus does not?”

Basically, what we have here is a case of GIGO – Garbage In, Garbage Out.  If you want intelligent answers, you have to ask intelligent questions.  We’ve all heard the example of, “Do you still beat your wife?”, in which no answer is the right answer.  The question asked above has a similar problem, in that no answer will be sufficient, because the question is flawed. It seems like an intelligent question, but looks can be deceiving. What he has done in his short discussion is confuse two issues:

  1. Does a Supernatural Being exist?
  2. Assuming a Supernatural Being exists, which Being is the true God?

Now, I tend to believe that the existence of God cannot be proven using deductive logic.  That is, you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink.  You can make inductive arguments, but the best you can do is create the possibility – or probability – of a God.  As I have said before, I would tend to agree with the notion of a Kierkegaardian leap to faith.  At some point, we all choose what we believe, based on the evidence – in which I would also include subjective and emotional evidence – that we have.  We do this every day, about any number of things; as has been said, the only sure thing is that there is no sure thing.  Certainty, which I believe we can have, is a matter of faith.  Not until we sit in a chair are we certain that the chair will not fail.

I think Hume may have had one of the best discussions about this in his analysis of miracles, which falls within his thinking on cause and effect.  We can never be sure of causality; even though A has caused B a thousand times doesn’t mean that A will result in B the 1oo1th time.  We can be reasonably sure, but we won’t arrive at certainty even through one more experiment.  What about the next time?

We can discuss possibilities, probabilities, and evidence, both for the existence of a Supreme Being, and also make a strong case that the Christian God is the One True God. I believe the evidence on both issues is overwhelming and compelling.  However, in the end, what we choose to believe is up to us.  I suspect that many atheists (not all) take some comfort in flawed reasoning, as it provides an illusion of evidence in support of atheism.  However, philosophers and scientists alike know that it is important to ask the right questions.  That is, if they want to really find truth.

Christmas is one of those holidays when people tend to at least think about spiritual things; no matter what you do to the season, it is hard to avoid the spiritual dimension of the season.  However, I believe that even atheists can appreciate many elements of Christmas, like family, giving, serving others, and even egg nog.   Whatever your inclination, I hope you’ll allow me to wish you a very Merry Christmas, and continue to ask good questions.

Written on 24 December 2009 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt with 1 Comment
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Atheism: nothing new under the sun

Atheism

[About the motivational poster:  It's a double-entendre.]

I think about atheism more than probably most people, perhaps because I have friends who are atheists.  I am interested in their motivations and thought processes. I also find some of the philosophical arguments for and against the existence of God somewhat intriguing, although I’m not one to hang my hat on any particular philosophical argument.  For that matter, I don’t think many people do – including many who say they do.  I suspect that on either side of the question, philosophical arguments are often merely comforting myths and bedtime stories, meant to put our minds to rest.  (Real faith, on the other hand, is something much deeper.)   For both of the above reasons, over the past few years I’ve read some of the top-selling atheist books (which I’ve reviewed here occasionally), and I’ve been subscribing to some of the better atheist blogs.

Overall, I’m quite disappointed in the state of modern atheism.

I had expected to find new and fresh thinking – after all, these are the self-proclaimed free-thinkers and intellectuals – but instead have found that there’s very little free-thinking or deep-thinking going on.  An exception would be someone like Bradley Monton, who is perhaps more of a free-thinker than most atheists prefer.  What I typically find are ad-hominems, straw-men (or straw-gods), false appeals to authority, question-begging, hand-waving, red herrings and a lot of bluster.  Much of the time it seems atheists are merely trying to prove to themselves that they haven’t missed something; at least that’s how it often comes across.

Frankly, I’m bored with it.  Real philosophy and theology are so much more interesting.  Unless atheism starts going outside the “why evangelical Christianity and modernism don’t mix” box, it’s pretty much a waste of time (I would tend to agree that they don’t mix, anyway).  Most “de-conversion” stories I’ve read seem to result from failed attempts to rationalize Christianity with modernism, which is in my opinion an exercise in futility.

I have a theory that if many of these deconverts had looked to a pre-modern faith – say, Eastern Orthodoxy, Lutheranism or even Anglicanism – they would not have deconverted.  From reading various deconversion “testimonies,” it seems that most issues – when they weren’t simply moral issues – had to do with disillusionment with a Christianity that wanted badly to fit within a rather small modernist box.  Exposure to a Christianity which disregards that box, or at least downplays its importance, may have actually opened their minds rather than closing them to anything spiritual. But, I could be wrong.  If people were highly committed modernists, which many atheists seem to be, perhaps that is barrier enough to any sort of religious influence.

But I digress.

Atheistic arguments that target modern, redacted versions of Christianity are typically uninspiring and unproductive.   Besides being bored with the repetitive atheistic responses, I have no desire to argue for a modernist version of Christianity.  So, you see, I find most of the discussions rather inane.  While some atheist blogs will do what they can to keep the dream alive, I probably won’t even bother to read or comment about them any longer (unless I run across anything out of the ordinary).  If someone says something remarkable, feel free to let me know.

In the meantime, I’ll continue studying and writing on more substantial issues, such as continuing my series examining the differences between Western and Eastern Christianity, as well as tossing in the occasional post on atheism, because sometimes I just can’t help myself.

Written on 16 December 2009 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt with 28 Comments
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Evidence? What evidence?

Over the years I’ve sat through a number of civil trials as an observer.  Over 2 or 3 days (sometimes more) I would hear the plaintiff put on their side, and the evidence always seemed overwhelming.  It wasn’t until I heard the defense evidence that things were put into perspective; at times, the plaintiff’s case would simply evaporate in light of the rest of the evidence.

We’ve been hearing a lot lately from folks like Bart Ehrman about the many problems with the Biblical texts, yada, yada.  His rhetoric can sound pretty convincing if that’s all you hear.

A blogger who calls himself Makarios has put together a short series of posts listing just a partial listing of facts that start to tell “the rest of the story.”

In Can you trust Luke? he mentions all of the valid historical facts in the Gospel of Luke; enough to certainly give any historian credibility (except, of course, if he’s talking about Jesus).  With ancient history (or current history, for that matter) credibility is important.  He continues that discussion here.

Then, in I’m an expert!, he provides some facts that support the historicity of the New Testament in general, and compares the NT docs to other ancient historical documents. The comparison is striking.  With regard to the NT, he writes:

When it comes to the New Testament, especially as it attests to the reality of Jesus the Christ, His life, His death and especially His resurrection, there is more witness testimony than for any other document in ancient literature. With respect to the accuracy and continuity of the documents:

. There are more than 5,700 Greek copies of the New Testament.

. There are 10,000 copies of the New Testament in Latin.

. Take into consideration copies that are available in other languages and we have available to us 30,000 handwritten copies of the New Testament.

. Take into consideration all the quotations of the early Church Fathers and you will find over one million more verses that have been preserved from the first century onward.

Comparing the ancient documents that we have,

At the latest, there is only a 75 year gap between available copies and the time that the New Testament was completed. For the early Church’s creed that Paul passes on to the Christians in Corinth and which he most certainly got from the apostle’s oral, eye witness reports, we are looking at within 5 years of Jesus death and resurrection at most.

For copies of materials from other ancient historical writers, a gap of 1,000 years is not unusual and what we have in those cases are mere fragments of their works.

and he continues,

. The history of Thucydides has just eight copies dated 1,300 years after he wrote.

. Copies of Aristotle’s poetics are dated 1,400 years after the originals and only five copies exist.

. Copies of Caesar’s “Gallic Wars” are from 1,000 years after the originals and only ten copies exist.

Even though the time between the original and copies seems very long indeed, no classical scholar, or atheist for that matter, would ever conclude that the copies are not dependable because they were written over a thousand years after the original. They do however complain if a document that’s been included into the New Testament is dated 30 years later than the original. (You may roll your eyes now)

He concludes this series of posts here.

None of this is, of course, conclusive. It merely provides credibility to what we have as the New Testament documents.  But, that’s what history is all about.

Written on 04 September 2009 by me under Faith, Science & Doubt with 6 Comments
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