What’s Wrong with the World

"Freethinking can only desecrate, despoil and ruin. It can create nothing, because it has no vision of the Good..."

Those words are a pretty good refutation, though Mr. Hitchens would rush to protest. (One of his visions of the Good involves the absence of religion.) He wrote an essay a few years ago - during the run-up to War, I think, about which he was quite enthusiastic (as was I at the time) - in which he took the Pope to task for advising against it. It was on the occasion of the Pope receiving Tariq Azziz in Assisi (I'm doing this by memory). Hitchens was his usual malign self at the sighting of religious authority pretending to know anything about temporal affairs. I in turn wrote an essay, noting that "I haven't figured out what ethical principle makes this war such an urgent necessity for an atheist." I still haven't. When the word 'evil' passes his lips, I simply don't know what he means by it.

One imagaines that a freethinker could retort that rather than pursuing ideas for their own sake, he rather pursues truth for it's own sake. Would this also be a freethinking that can only despoil and desecrate?

I wonder if Hitchens also thinks that mathematics, logic, beauty, and reason are "man made". I doubt I could stand the claustrophobia it would take to be a freethinker.

You all might be interested in a series of posts started yesterday by Douglas Wilson. He did a similar thing on Sam Harris' Letter to a Christian Nation, which ended up being published by America Vision just a few weeks ago. That book is called Letter from a Christian Citizen

Hitchens clearly accepts that the universe has laws (hence science, rational discourse, etc.). Mysteriously he does not believe there must therefore be a lawgiver.

I suppose that saying that religion is man-made is short-hand for saying that God does not exist. In that sense, I would _deny_ that religion is man-made, though some specific religions are. We seek for God because He first made us and then sought for us, revealed himself, etc. If he hadn't, all we'd have would be man-made religions.

Like...animism...Islam...Wicca...environmentalism.Not a good world.

When the word "evil" passes the lips of an atheist, I can only imagine that he means by it something on the order of, "I don't like this." After all, what else could be the significance of such a judgment in a materialist universe, in which physical states (however conceived/configured) simply are? That one random, purposeless, yet wholly determined state of affairs is superior to another such state of affairs, and that in a universe which is bereft of the presupposition of all such judgments, namely, teleology? Vituperative atheists like Hitchens ply their trade on the capital of the Christian heritage that they so vehemently repudiate, transposing moral judgment into a framework in which it can only sound dissonant, for in an atheist universe, there can be no oughtness, no condition of 'being what one ought to be' beyond what one already is determined to be. The moral sensibility requires both freedom of the will and a nonmaterial realm populated by forms, ideals, archetypes, and suchlike- in sum, the Good; and it is difficult to see how these things could subsist in a materialist universe.

Hitchens ranting about evil would be like hearing an atheist paleontologist bemoaning the fact that an asteroid wiped out the dinosaurs, protesting that the dinosaurs should still exist. Should has nothing to do with natural selection.

Daniel -

I wish you well with your participation in this venture (WWWTW), though I have no idea what the specific operational meaning of "well" in this context is.

For my selfish ends, to the degree that WWWTW absorbs energy that might otherwise go into Eunomia (one of the great joys of my websurfing), I cannot but regret W3TW, but for the pleasure, renewal, and inspiration I imagine it gives you to rage and snark among a congenial fellowship, may you find all you hope for.

You have a stronger stomach (or perhaps some other organ, or perhaps all too much free time, astonishing as that might seem) than I to bother reading Hitchens on any topic at all, but seriously, don't you think the target is beneath you? It would be like Bjorn Lomborg shooting down Jonah "rain is climate change" Goldberg. OTOH, I would pay good money to read you take on Dennett, let alone the likes of Scott Atran, Pascal Boyer, etc.

For me, a Razib-style atheist, I fear such value as I might find in these pages (such as "A Madrasa Grows in Brooklyn": thank you, Lydia McGrew, for that link; thank you also, Jon Luker, for the link to Douglas Wilson) is outweighed by the psychic effort it takes me to recover my attitude toward the WWWTW worldview of appreciation mixed with respectful enmity; I freely if ashamedly confess that I all too often fall into the all-too-common attitude of contempt of the atheist for the theist, which does no one any good. Reading the comments above, apotheosized :) for me by Reactionary's evident (or disingenuous? I wish) conflation of different meanings of "law", sadly confirms my inability to _efficiently_ winnow the occasional fragment of placer from the mounds of sand. I wish it were otherwise but such are my limitations. Back to the productive quartz of Eunomia, Right Reason, Chronicles, et cetera for me.

Hitchens clearly accepts that the universe has laws [...]Mysteriously he does not believe there must therefore be a lawgiver.

Reactionary,
Your use of "mysteriously" implies that you think there is a reasonable link between belief in one and belief in the other. What you seem to be saying, essentially, is that "Belief in the natural necessarily requires (or leads to) belief in the supernatural."

Since everything in existence could be said to rely on the laws of the universe in some way, the logical extension of your implication is that "Belief in any Thing requires belief in a Thing-giver."

Would that be an accurate extrapolation or am I misunderstanding your stance?

Religion is better because of freethinking. Before doubt came along, there was no aporia in faith--it was just a bunch of parasitic witch doctors collecting wealth from their neighbors in exchange for unverifiable promises of healing, fertility or after-death paradise.

These days the religious bring food for the starving, comfort for the sick, and justice for the wronged, and humility to the arrogant. But religion was only forced to do that once it had to compete with the Enlightenment for souls. In this, both you and Hitchens have it wrong--religion is good, but the best in religion was just a reaction to freethinkers, or at least doubt in general.

These days the religious bring food for the starving, comfort for the sick, and justice for the wronged, and humility to the arrogant. But religion was only forced to do that once it had to compete with the Enlightenment for souls.

Right. None of that happened before Voltaire.

On the balance, no, it didn't. Thoughout most of the Church's history, it stole from the starving, couldn't do much with the sick, participated in unjust political systems, and flaunted it's own arrogance with gold and jewels. It's only the competition between belief systems that forces belief systems to be any good--if you had eliminated this competition (whether from the Enlightenment, paganism, Islam, or other denominations of Christianity), your belief systems and religious institutions would end up being deeply evil. Keep your faith if you like, but know that without doubt your faith would have been worthless.

It occurs to me now that this would be a good occasion for believers to show off their much vaunted tolerance for paradox. The possibility that Doubt is good for Faith seems pretty closely tied to all sorts of theodicy concerns.

"It's only the competition between belief systems that forces belief systems to be any good-- ..."

ONLY?

How delightfully manichean. Evil is really good because by competing with good it makes good better through competition, or something: capitalist spirituality.

Thanks for the suggestion, but no thanks. Doubt, scepticism, and more generally critical thinking have their appropriate place, of course; but to the extent you are saying more than that to sell the bogeyman of Big Bad Religion Before Voltaire Made It Honest, I ain't buying.

Historically, I'm quite sure Zippy is right. Monks did a lot of "help the poor" stuff, I believe, for a long time before Mr. Voltaire came along. And one has only to consider the following fact to see that, FWIW, Christianity has good effects on culture: Even though women weren't living in a feminist dream world in medieval Christendom, they were already better off than under Islam. The Koran contains explicit justification for wife beating, whereas not only is there no such statement in the New Testament, St. Paul tells husbands to love their wives as their own bodies and "be not bitter against them." This is not to say wife beating doesn't happen in Christian countries. It is to say that Christianity introduced the fairly radical notion for its time that women are of equal worth with men in the eyes of God and that marriages should be loving, a mirror of the relationship of Christ and the church. Abortion, too, was condemned by Christians from early times, and this was an explicit contrast to the surrounding pagan world. Generally, Christianity has softened social relations and suggested that a Hobbesian "strong prey on the weak" model for society is not legitimate.

In his recent book (reviewed by your humble scribe) How the Catholic Church Built Western Civilization, Tom Woods argues very powerfully that the Church basically invented charity as we understand it; that the pagan world of antiquity did not know its like, and was transformed by it.

Some monks helped the poor, some priests stole from the poor. In times when the faith was secure against competition, the theft exceeded the help. Also note that I credited doubt in general, not Voltaire. I don't deny that Christianity was an innovation over paganism--that's precisely my point.

The problem with the Koran is that in it's day it was a step forward morally, but because it was so much more specific and concrete in it's teachings than Christianity, it's remained locked in one spot, unable to evolve.

Also, not that I'm not saying that your beliefs are good because they've survived the test of doubt, I'm saying that you happen to believe good stuff because if you believed bad stuff it wouldn't have withstood the test of doubt.

Or, as a smart man once put it, "If no religion had ever caused men to live virtuously and flourish, religion would have disappeared ages ago. If no religion had produced saints and cultivated the finest aspects of human nature, very few would adhere themselves to it and even then it would only be the mad and obsessive."

Also, not that I'm not saying that your beliefs are good because they've survived the test of doubt, I'm saying that you happen to believe good stuff because if you believed bad stuff it wouldn't have withstood the test of doubt.

Yes, I understand that you are applying a kind of Darwinian mythos to Christianity. I'm just not buying it, because I think it is, you know, wrong. I don't think Christianity is true as a by-product of a process of natural selection culling out bad beliefs; I think it is true as the religion revealed by, you know, God.

Paul, you wrote: "Tom Woods argues very powerfully that the Church basically invented charity as we understand it; that the pagan world of antiquity did not know its like, and was transformed by it." I believe Dr. Woods is right about this. There is a good deal of discussion in early Christian and late antique studies about how the Church Fathers elaborated the idea of "the poor" to whom others have an obligation, which had previously not existed in quite this form (certainly not in the Greco-Roman world) before the rise of Christianity. Anyone can recognise inequalities of condition and wealth, but I think it does require a genuine spiritual insight to recognise that everyone has an obligation to his neighbour, no matter the neighbour's condition.

And one has only to consider the following fact to see that, FWIW, Christianity has good effects on culture: Even though women weren't living in a feminist dream world in medieval Christendom, they were already better off than under Islam.

What a great slogan this makes.

"Christianity: We're not as bad as Islam! Really!"

Ahhh, the soft bigotry of low expectations.

I was speaking of the status of women in the Middle Ages. (And here perhaps I should add that horrors like female genital mutilation, widow-burning, and foot-binding never took hold in Christian nations.)

As things are today, the divergence is immense. Incredible, really. But I know that if I start talking in this thread about the way even my most "narrow-minded" and fundamentalist friends treat their wives and women as compared with the treatment *today* in Islamic countries, I will be told that, since this is occurring after the Enlightenment, it's really somehow due to the Enlightenment. And indeed, teasing out the strands of historical causation is difficult. But *of course* Christian countries _now_ treat their women _immeasurably_ better than Muslim countries, and this statement includes many of the most religious groups and people in those Christian countries.

I had thought that would go without saying.

I don't think Christianity is true as a by-product of a process of natural selection culling out bad beliefs; I think it is true as the religion revealed by, you know, God.

Well, there's a couple ways to reconcile our views here.

One is that you don't have to know natural selection is working for it to be working--it could be that you think it's revealed by God because beliefs otherwise have been culled out. Indeed, attempts to explicitly embed Darwinism in our beliefs like Social Darwinism and Eugenics tend towards disaster. Perhaps natural selection actually selects against knowledge of natural selection, or at least attempts to make it unnatural.

The other perspective is that natural selection, the tool of God, culls out belief systems that are not inspired by Him. If the clergy did not have to compete with other faiths and doubts, they would be tempted to change their faith in ways that would enable personal corruption. External pressure keeps them honest. Evolution may be about change, but survival is about stability. Life is inherently conservative and "traditional"--it seeks to maintain itself. Think about all the mechanisms our body has to prevent itself from mutating--to prevent a cancer from consuming our body, to make sure that the DNA codes that worked in the past are transmitted to the future. Yet, though life's purpose is to avoid disorder, it is the tendency to disorder and mutation that makes life possible in the first place--if all patterns could maintain themselves with ease, then the universe would be filled with meaningless patterns neither living nor dead.

I admit I was completely unfair in my assessment of pre-Enlightenment Christian institutions. Does anyone want to claim, though, that the Church is actually less compassionate or just than it was in medieval times?

Trust me, if you start telling these Hitchens/Harris/Dawkins/Dennett fellows that their criticisms actually help to purify and strengthen your faith, that'll totally piss 'em off.

I admit I was completely unfair in my assessment of pre-Enlightenment Christian institutions.

OK.

The other perspective is that natural selection, the tool of God, culls out belief systems that are not inspired by Him.

I don't see much evidence for that embedded in history. No century has ever come close to the twentieth in terms of sheer inhuman barbarity; and the nineteenth was no picnic.

Trust me, if you start telling these Hitchens/Harris/Dawkins/Dennett fellows that their criticisms actually help to purify and strengthen your faith, that'll totally piss 'em off.

Despite appearances, pissing people off is not one of my main objectives. (Particularly people like H/H/D/D, who bear a rather pathetic resemblance to the Dwarves in C.S. Lewis' The Last Battle).

No century has ever come close to the twentieth in terms of sheer inhuman barbarity; and the nineteenth was no picnic.

Check this out.

Even if you don't buy that, it does appear that fascism and communism, which caused most of last century's barbarism, have been culled out.

Even if you don't buy that, it does appear that fascism and communism, which caused most of last century's barbarism, have been culled out.

So as long as you aren't the wrong sort of untermensch -- say an unborn child. (That sound you hear is modernity patting itself on the back with a curette).

Perhaps natural selection actually selects against knowledge of natural selection

Dawkins, Dennett, et al. are going to consider this very bad news.

I haven't got much to add to this comment thread. I guess the only thing I would like to bring up is:

Why do you and the rest of the xtian god botherers not accept that South American and Chinese and Japanese (and who knows how many others) predate your conception of religion and who is the true god? Your holy book was never written by anyone else but fallible and prosletysing human beings.

These afore-mentioned cultures predated xtianity which only ever related to Mesopotamia and its surrounds. It didn't even take into account the tribes to the north east of the Caspian, let alone the eastern reaches of our world. Do you want to assert that these peoples didn't exist in your religion's time frame? Do you want to assert that your xtian god (who supposedly created humanity) didn't know of the peoples outside his chosen realm? And what about the billions of planets that we know exist? We are special with a personal god who listens to the prayers of each one of the 6.6B people who inhabit this tiny little planet.

Are you trying to kid me? I think so. So I leave you. You have an extremely small egocentric mind and little understanding. You try to explain the unknowable by putting it in terms of the not worth knowing.

But what makes you think that you have the 'true religion'? (Quote below) Dont you see that everyone believes that they are right and that their 'true religion' excludes yours!? You can't all be right, and even before you get to other religions you need to deal with denomiational differences.

Free thinking is nothing to do with certainty, its about acknowledging the simple fact that we dont have answers and that personal revelation is not evidence of anything any more than a drug induced hallunication is evidence of pink elephants.

If you cant produce some objective evidence for your flavour of religion then you have a problem, and unfortunately you can't because there is no evidence. All that you have is 'personal revelation', which is explainable by modern neuroscience as a figment of your consiousness.

There is no absolute truth, get over it.

'It means that it is not always immediately self-evident and clear which is the true religion, and it means that those who have opted for the sterile, sad path of "freethinking," which is simply to inhabit a particularly wearisome set of prejudices, have simply lost patience in trying to discern the truth of the matter. They do not want free inquiry--they want easy inquiry, an inquiry that never leaves one in aporia, but always promises explanation and resolution.'

This is just one in a long line of attempts to classify people into two camps, the human and sub-human. What the writer is saying is that "freethinkers" are incapable of appreciating the Good (which presumably includes nature, the arts, music and the like, and by extension are incapable of producing anything that pertains to the Good) and therefore fall into the latter camp.

It was an invalid argument when it was applied to black, to Jews and to homosexuals. It has no validity now.

Who let the dogs out?

Larison says [R]eligion is man-made. ... That does not mean that there is no divinely inspired and true religion. It means that it is not always immediately self-evident and clear which is the true religion, and it means that those who have opted for the sterile, sad path of "freethinking," ... have simply lost patience in trying to discern the truth of the matter.

I am not so sure that un-freethinkers spend much time trying to discern the truth of the matter, do they?

They blindly know that they parents brought them up in the divinely inspired and true religion and let that knowledge guide them.
For them, thinking is an unnecessary hinderance to true faith.

I must admire the sometimes pretty shapes the author of this blog's mind makes as it wraps itself up in pretzel-like knotty shapes trying to get to his conclusions. Mind, this argument is nothing more than a variation on the very wrong idea that man's morals come from a law-giver super-entity rather from teachings of parents and "the village" - the moral zeitgeist.

It’s significant how often apologists for religion use the word “sterile” in relation to atheists. It is always used as a pejorative term; well the antonym of sterile is “dirty”, presumably not how they see themselves. I think the word they really mean is “barren”, a word heavy with connotation. They see us as cold and mean-spirited, as spoilsports who prefer fact to fiction, who prefer to describe a sensation rather than to feel it, who think that artistic inspiration is inferior to intellectual rigour.

In contrast the religious invariably see themselves as generous, nurturing, and compassionate, the progenitors of morality, the inspiration for art and culture

How wrong they are. I have been an atheist nearly all my life. I have laughed and cried, I have felt the pain of my son dying when he was 28 while I live on into my sixties. I have three other children and wife and I love them all, I love music, art, sport, food, knowledge, running. I love my work as a designer and writer; I love a pint at the pub and comedy on TV. This is not sterile or barren, this rich and fulfilled*.

And I live this life without religion, without belief of any kind. There is no “lie” as Larison maintains. There is no contradiction between marvelling at the wonders of life and understanding how they have come about.

I strive to be an honest and ethical person but I do it because I know that by doing so I might make life just a little bit better for those I care about and not because a god demands it.

*...this is M&S rich and fulfilled, sorry, I cant stay serious for long!

This seems a fine time to point our new readers to our Posting Rules page.

Excerpt:

The reader is welcome – nay, encouraged – to join the discussion by posting comments; however, he is reminded of his position as a guest here, and urged to keep his comments within the bounds of a decent respect for the opinions of his hosts. We will not tolerate: truculent atheists, irascible Liberals, intransigent Islamists, ill- tempered radicals, petulant nihilists, brassbound freethinking polemicists, cantankerous evolutionists, and the like; nor will we shed a tear for any of the above who, when banned, feel they have been grievously wronged. All of the above, however, are welcome – minus the adjectives.

Neither will we abide personal insults, threats, imprecations, breaches of privacy, or profanity of any kind. The reader is well- advised, if in doubt, to err on the side of caution.

The doctrines of orthodox Christianity shall not be scoffed at; while the doctrines of orthodox Liberalism will be abused and derided with impunity.

So Paul, what you are basically saying is that if we write anything that you don't approve of we can [redacted], while you reserve the right to write anything you like about us.

This is known as christian charity is it?

No. What we are saying is that this is our house, and that, in consequence, while you may write things of which we disapprove philosophically and religiously, you must do so respectfully, and not by way of depositing a steaming load on our carpet.

I trust that the difference is obvious.

"These days the religious bring food for the starving, comfort for the sick, and justice for the wronged, and humility to the arrogant. But religion was only forced to do that once it had to compete with the Enlightenment for souls. In this, both you and Hitchens have it wrong--religion is good, but the best in religion was just a reaction to freethinkers, or at least doubt in general." by consumatopia

Don't forget other Christian values that benefit us such as fight against gays, fight against the use of condoms in Africa, preventing abortion so that those who don't want children have to raise them, fight for the rights of self aware stem cells etc.

Don't forget other Christian values that benefit us such as fight against gays, fight against the use of condoms in Africa, preventing abortion so that those who don't want children have to raise them, fight for the rights of self aware stem cells etc.

Agreed. Properly understood those are all Christian values worth fighting for.

Larison wrote: The desire to know is a natural desire, one implanted in us as part of our created being; we yearn to know and to enter into the unknown because we yearn for unity with the One Who desires that all things be united in Him.

The non-religious explanation is: The desire to know is a natural desire, one that mankind has evolved to possess, because it helps us predict the workings and future of the world around us, and thus helps us survive. Evolution has also evolved a sense of internal satisfaction that goes with successful explanations, which leads us to share them with others. No god needed. Thousands of years ago, religion and god were the most successful explanations going. But not nowadays.

I'm having difficulty differenciating free thinking from cynicism about Christianity.

I'm sorry to say, but to describe the following as a product of free thinking and reason strikes me as silly.
The desire to know is a natural desire, one that mankind has evolved to possess, because it helps us predict the workings and future of the world around us, and thus helps us survive.

To be brief:

There is no God, no devil, no souls, no afterlives. We did not evolve from apes, we are evolved apes.

Religions are all man-made, all variations on the same basic themes of a self-perpetuating cult.

To say that the athiest mind is closed to art and literature and music that has roots in scripture and hymns is simply wrong. We fully appreciate the art, but we simply don't believe the scripture. I can appreciate the form, function, and history of the astrolabe, while fully realizing that it is an thouroughly incorrect representation of the layout of the solar system.

As for the argument that If no religion had ever caused men to live virtuously and flourish, religion would have disappeared ages ago. Tragically for you, most of the world's religions HAVE disappeared ages ago. Each cult eventually being overrun or absorbed by a more savvy one. The early dog-eat-dog history of Christianity and it's sudden weakeining due to the enlightnment is proof of this. Further, in order to propegate itself, religion doesn't have to cause men to live virtuosly, it simply has to take credit for it. Something that it does quite well.

I am prepared to stipulate to the proposition that atheists are indeed evolved apes.

I have some difficulty understanding why it is "tragic" for us that other religions have disappeared, as we are only concerned with the True Faith, which is hardly disappearing, but rather growing rapidly.

Who pointed all the trolls in this direction?

Uncle monkey and I go way back, Paul.

Again, the cult of Christianity, while gaining more numbers, is actually losing ground on the population as a whole. What's that old business maxim? Increasing dominance of a shrinking market is a recipe for bankruptcy, something like that.

Enjoy the downward slide.

There is no absolute truth, get over it.

This is one of the more unintentionally funny statements I've read in a while.

There is no God, no devil, no souls, no afterlives.

Assertions are not arguments. I am sure that you can provide a series of sound syllogisms to demonstrate each of these conclusions. Otherwise I only have your word that these are true statements, and I don't really have any reason to put more trust in you than in any other member of the human species, past of present.

Daniel Larison wrote:"... men have always been slaughtering and oppressing one another and they have tended to do more of it when they are less in thrall to their religious tradition than when they are strictly obedient to it."

Let's examine this important idea so that we may better understand the world, have wisdom, and act based on what we discover.

Daniel Larison wrote: "The religious man not only assumes that paradox will occur, but he takes the paucity of reason to explain paradox as an indirect confirmation that there are realities that not even reason, as estimable and valuable as it is, can penetrate or comprehend."

I must say I'm impressed by the religious fervor of atheism's devotees.

I patiently read through this article, waiting for Mr. Larison to move from unsupported assertions into some realm of evidence, or at least to make some claims that were anything more than purely opinionated generalisations. He never did.

This appears to be one of many theistic works which rely on an approximation of 'poetic' language to give the illusion of grandeur and authority, in order to mask the fact that the author is simply making direct claims about reality, while offering no evidence that what they claim is true. Yet another apparently 'self-evident', non-empirical exploration of a complex issue, which is only meaningful to those who have already come to the same conclusion and only wish to hear their own sentiments echoed back at them.
Dogma, mindless, mere rhetoric.

"But, of course, religion is man-made. Men build the temples, write the prayers, organise the rites and offer the oblations and sacrifices. That does not mean that there is no divinely inspired and true religion".

Leaving self-contradiction aside - how do you discern what is divine and what is not?

quisquam se faciendi erit artifex?--Augustine, Confessions.

Red Foot Okie writes:

I can appreciate the form, function, and history of the astrolabe, while fully realizing that it is an thouroughly incorrect representation of the layout of the solar system.

Okie, you might want to look up some information on astrolabes before you say things like that.

Julian writes:

There is no absolute truth, get over it.

Really ...?

Whoops! No editing capabilities here after the fact. Sorry for misspelling your name, Oakie.

"But, of course, religion is man-made. Men build the temples, write the prayers, organise the rites and offer the oblations and sacrifices. That does not mean that there is no divinely inspired and true religion".

"There is no God, no devil, no souls, no afterlives."

"Assertions are not arguments. I am sure that you can provide a series of sound syllogisms to demonstrate each of these conclusions. Otherwise I only have your word that these are true statements, and I don't really have any reason to put more trust in you than in any other member of the human species, past or present."

So the default assumption is that gods, devils, souls and afterlives must exist unless someone provides absolute proof of their non-existence? With this logic you could assert any manner of nonsence, provided you were careful enough to add that it was undetectable to modern science. If something cannot be reasonably demonstrated as existing then the default assumption is that it does not exist. The onus is on the person making claims about gods / devils etc. to provide evidence of their existence (and not that third hand stuff in the bible, as it falls under your "I don't really have any reason to put more trust in you than in any other member of the human species, past of present" clause.)

"The doctrines of orthodox Christianity shall not be scoffed at; while the doctrines of orthodox Liberalism will be abused and derided with impunity."

_____

Pathetic and shameful--what other kind of behavior would be expected from a group that thinks aligning themselves to a crusade is moral and noble?

Interesting attempt but it fails pretty badly.

First you state that there are no free thoughts no values less inquiry and to this I agree. The Scientific basis for inquiry is quite simple. We inquire to find out what works. What ideas,concepts, inventions and the like actually do something reliably. Once that has been established then society as a whole has some hope of making informed decisions for the greater good. Without knowing the 'Truth' no one can make any sustained progress in any direction. Religion on the other hand offers us 1) Moral maxims and methods that have been shown to work (thou shalt not kill, prayer/meditation) but which have a completly non religious basis and are more effective when stripped of the reigious mumbo jumbo 2) Moral ideas that either do not work (blood transfiusions or bad so we have to let the child die) or are unknown and 3) Outright historical inaccuracies and lies (Creationisim.....) . Yes, every inquiry requires a basis and Science actually has the solid foundation to allow for advancement of humans whereas religions has nothing.

Secondly you need to learn that unsupported assertions (for ex. "we yearn to know and to enter into the unknown because we yearn for unity with the One Who desires that all things be united in Him.") do not strengthen your argument in any way. My argument that wee all 'yearn' because of the special powers of Mr. Bible the elf who lives in my thumb, my argument is no weaker than your.

So the default assumption is that gods, devils, souls and afterlives must exist unless someone provides absolute proof of their non-existence?

No. There are proofs for the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul that are, as far as I can tell, sound. All attempts that I have encountered to show these proofs to be unsound have, in my estimation, failed. This is either because the opponent equivocates, trying to defeat the proof by using a term in a way that it is not used in the proof, or because the opponent disputes the first principles on which the proof relies.

But since the proofs are metaphysical in nature, especially the proof for the existence of God, there is no higher science which can be used to prove or disprove these first principles. My own experience demonstrates the truth of the first principles the proof uses over the first principles my opponent holds. Thus we are left at an impasse.

Of course there is more to reason than proofs, deductive or inductive. There are people who cannot offer any kind of proof, mathematical equation, or repeatable experiment for the physical laws they deal with in their everyday lives. Just because a child cannot tell you Newton's three laws of motion or explain to you the basic physical forces and principles that underlie them does not mean that the child does not intuitively understand these laws and bring them to bear when he is trying to solve problems. In the same way, just because a person cannot give you a proof of the existence of God does not mean that their intuition of being and its cause is incorrect.

brendon wrote: But since the proofs are metaphysical in nature, especially the proof for the existence of God, there is no higher science which can be used to prove or disprove these first principles.

brendon wrote: My own experience demonstrates the truth of the first principles the proof uses over the first principles my opponent holds. Thus we are left at an impasse.

In essence what you require of me is that I replace the truths revealed by God's own creation, with the 'truths' revealed by you, Brendon. I don't mean this as a personal attack, but seriously, can you possibly be any more arrogant than that?

"There are proofs for the existence of God and the immortality of the human soul that are, as far as I can tell, sound."

Where? Have you any that are not "hearsay"? Please share them.

"Of course there is more to reason than proofs, deductive or inductive. There are people who cannot offer any kind of proof, mathematical equation, or repeatable experiment for the physical laws they deal with in their everyday lives. Just because a child cannot tell you Newton's three laws of motion or explain to you the basic physical forces and principles that underlie them does not mean that the child does not intuitively understand these laws and bring them to bear when he is trying to solve problems. In the same way, just because a person cannot give you a proof of the existence of God does not mean that their intuition of being and its cause is incorrect."

A child may not understand the mathematics of Newton's Laws, but she can still drop something and watch it fall, or kick a ball and watch it's trajectory. She can make the prediction that gravity will cause her ball to roll down the hill (based on previous experience), and then test that prediction. This is the proof she can show us for the existence of the "invisible" force of gravity. If the same girl were to tell us about her imaginary friend, she would have no such proof to show us. Do you understand the difference now? :-)

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Jesus was a freethinker. It's what got him killed. Remember? He was a man who challenged the status quo, challenged the Romans and the Pharisees and challenged the conventional wisdom of the time. Regardless of whether he was the son of a god, he was a rebel and did a lot of things the powerful didn't agree with. Without the freethinking Jesus you'd have no religion to comfort you and no argument. Actually, you don't have an argument anyway. Perhaps you should have thought a bit more about it before you started.

Without freethinkers like Charles Babbage and Alan Turing you wouldn't have a computer with which to share your ignorance with a potential audience of millions.

Without freethinkers such as Einstein, Sagan, Newton, Galileo (branded a heretic by your very own church), Darwin (deny him all you want, but explain the FACT that your DNA is only 1% different from a chimp), Hippocrates and thousands of others furthering understanding in every field of human endeavour (often at risk to their own lives) we wouldn't have the world we live in.

Freethinkers demand more from the world than what they're told and they go out and seek it. They refuse to take someone's word for it - especially a man in a robe reading an old book. Freethinkers inspire the rest of us to ask our own questions and find our own answers rather than rely on centuries of flimsy hearsay.

Without freethinkers we'd still be stuck in the dark ages where Popes ruled like kings and anyone asking questions (or offering answers) would be burned at the stake (not for challenging doctrine, but for challenging religious power). New information is the worst enemy of religion and freethinkers are discovering new information every day. The religious power-brokers know this.

The article was highly entertaining. Written by someone with little to no intelligence, but entertaining, nonetheless.

The basics of it is this. You and your ilk want to claim there is a big lovable sky-daddy who looks after your every need, but you fail to acknowledge that there are starving children all over the world. You want to believe that your invisible superman would save a "cross-shaped" piece of I-beam from the fallen WTC, but would allow 3,000+ to perish in the same buildings, you want to pretend that your imaginary friend answers your prayers, but fail to admit that christers get divorced, get cancer, have car accidents and die at the same rate as atheists, agnostics and the like. Talk about turning a blind eye to the world.

You cannot prove that your chosen deity exists, and no.. it isn't up to me to prove it doesn't.. read a little something about logic, rational thought and where the burden of proof lies. You worship a fantasy that you WANT to be true, but wanting something, regardless of how hard you want it, doesn't make it so.

It seems the global village's atheists have put a jihad on this humble site. Again, I wonder why. What outraged freethinker sent them all this way?

The sort of atheism on display in some of these comments is quite aptly called sophomoric - the sort of unsophisticated, self-satisfied rambling one hears from an intelligent but callow and smug fifteen-year-old going through an Ayn Rand phase and convinced that he's smarter than all his elders. It's tedious. I read it and just feel the energy being sucked from my limbs.

Riley,

First off, there are no "higher" and "lower" forms of science.

I would argue that there are, but I should have defined my terms. Sciences relate to each other as higher to lower. A science whose first principles are proved by another science is a lower science than the science which proved its first principles. The science that proves the first principles of another science is a higher science than the science that requires its conclusions as first principles. For example, try doing optics without geometry.

You're either doing science or you're not doing science. What you're doing, for better or worse, is not science.

It isn't empiriometric science (science that deals only with reality insofar as it can be measured and these measurements can be manipulated by mathematics). But the word science was not first coined in the 17th century. Again, I should have defined my terms. I use the word "science" in an older usage, a usage that can still found in many modern dictionaries, which defines "science" as "an organized body of knowledge that proceeds from first principles."

Luthien,

Before I respond I must ask: Do you get your name from Thingol and Melian's daughter; the wife of Beren Erchamion; the mother of Dior, Thingol's heir? If so I must say that I am a little amused. After all, the sub-creator of these characters is on my side. :-)

Where? Have you any that are not "hearsay"? Please share them.

Click on my name for a link to five proofs for the existence of God. Though I would inform you that due diligence requires understanding that certain words are not used in the everyday sense that they have today, but rather in a technical sense. And since the text linked is over five-hundred years old it would be foolish to demand that the use of terms in the text conform to our use of them today. "Motion" is defined in the text; you can get a definition of "actuality" and "potentiality" by clicking the link anchored to the word "potentiality" and reading the linked article "Actus et Potentia."

A child may not understand the mathematics of Newton's Laws, but she can still drop something and watch it fall, or kick a ball and watch it's trajectory. She can make the prediction that gravity will cause her ball to roll down the hill (based on previous experience), and then test that prediction. This is the proof she can show us for the existence of the "invisible" force of gravity. If the same girl were to tell us about her imaginary friend, she would have no such proof to show us. Do you understand the difference now? :-)

I understood the difference before. I was not speaking about subjective feelings or mystical experiences. I was speaking of observable facts about reality. One such fact would be the principle of sufficient reason: everything that exists has a definite reason for existing. Thus, either something necessarily exists in itself, or it comes into existence from another which is its cause. Experience informs me of this because the things I perceive do not randomly pop into and out of existence. Most people would not be able to name the principle of sufficient reason, or even give you a simple statement of it, but they would tell you that things do not simply pop into and out of existence for no reason.

But this leaves me with a problem. I do not exist necessarily. I did not need to come into existence. Moreover, I will die and thus will cease to exist, at least in the same mode of existence that I currently enjoy. But if I look to my parents as my cause I see that the same is true of them. And it was true of my grandparents, who are dead. And it is true of my great-grandparents. And it is true of my great-great-grandparents. Etc. It is even true of the human species as a whole. And it is true of all other species as well. And even of all other physical things, which can be broken down. So the question becomes, "Why is there anything rather than nothing?" or, "What is the cause of existence?" This leads one to that which exists necessarily in itself and is the cause of the existence of all other things.

Now, many people may not be able to lay out such an argument, just as the little girl may not understand the mathematics of Newton's laws. But their intuitive grasp of the principle of sufficient reason through real life experience can lead them to posit that there must be some first cause of existence that exists necessarily in itself and gives existence to all contingent things.

The twisted logic produced by an absolute desire for something to be true is a marvel to behold! That otherwise intelligent people will embrace the most ludicrous reasoning in order for their beliefs to remain intact is mind-boggling.

Thomas Aquinas is your proof of a god? Medieval drivel.

Religion was invented by an ignorant, superstitious population thousands of years ago to explain what they had no other answer for. Earthquakes? It's a god. Lightning? It's a god. Flood? That'll be the gods again. We, or at least some of us, now know better.

Thomas Aquinas is your proof of a god? Medieval drivel.

This is not a refutation. It is not even an attempt at a refutation. An actual, logical attempt at a refutation would require you to dispute the truth of a premiss or point out a logical fallacy, either formal or material. If you want to be rational you have to actually reason. Or is it too much to hope that a so-called "freethinker" actually respond in a manner that demonstrates some actual thought?

To dissect the arguments and engage in debate legitimises those arguments. I'm as interested in doing that as I would be in debating the existence of leprechauns.

However, other people have gone to the trouble: http://www.lhup.edu/~dsimanek/philosop/pudding.htm and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_God_Delusion#Arguments_for_God.27s_existence

I wonder - have you ever considered that you were brain-washed as a child in to some supernatural cult and that brain washing is still preventing rational, logical thought today? If you did consider that, you may end up on http://richarddawkins.net/convertsCorner some day. Just a thought. :)

P.S. This article provided some amusement over at http://richarddawkins.net/article,1122,Freethinking-Ruins-All-Things,Daniel-Larison-Whats-Wrong-with-the-World, hence the unusual number of free thinkers posting here.

Brendon, yes my screen name is from Tolkien, of whom I am a fan. I'm not sure how Tolkien's opinions on the metaphysical or religious should affect my appreciation of his art? I certainly wouldn't change it; I would be like the people who painted clothes on some of the more (as they considered) "obscene" naked figures on the Sistine Chapel roof.

The "proofs" you pointed me to were taught to me at school, and the idea that these infinite regressions must terminate in a god did not sound as plausable to me. It was already obvious to me that things that seemed like they were infinite actually had a natural terminator. If you keep chopping a piece of gold in half, what is the smallest piece you can possible have? As Aquinas would not have known, the natural terminator is the atom. If you split the atom what you have is no longer gold. I also don't see how you can assume that everything else was created without assuming that a god would be created too?

Lastly, I am about to inform you of something disturbing. Something that contradicts your assumption that things do not just pop into existence... because they do, all the time. In a vacuum there are "quantum fluctuations", so although the overall energy is zero, the uncertanty principle means that there are virtual particles and antiparticle pairs being created and annihilated all over the place (these are subatomic of course). This effect can be demonstrated by the "Casimir effect" experiment (google it, and "virtual particles" for more info). Now, the famous equation E = M C(squared) directly relates energy to mass, and shows that they are interchangable. (This is where the energy comes from in a nuclear bomb.)

...if matter is energy then what is the total energy of the universe?

"There are something like ten million million million million million million million million million million million million million million (1 with eighty [five] zeroes after it) particles in the region of the universe that we can observe. Where did they all come from? The answer is that, in quantum theory, particles can be created out of energy in the form of particle/antiparticle pairs. But that just raises the question of where the energy came from. The answer is that the total energy of the universe is exactly zero. The matter in the universe is made out of positive energy. However, the matter is all attracting itself by gravity. Two pieces of matter that are close to each other have less energy than the same two pieces a long way apart, because you have to expend energy to separate them against the gravitational force that is pulling them together. Thus, in a sense, the gravitational field has negative energy. In the case of a universe that is approximately uniform in space, one can show that this negative gravitational energy exactly cancels the positive energy represented by the matter. So the total energy of the universe is zero." (Stephen Hawking, "A Brief History of Time", 1988, page 143 on my paperback copy)

So if the total energy of the universe is zero, is it really useful to invoke some sort of creator as an explanation of where the matter came from, or does the concept become superfluous?

brendon, I replied, but the post has not appeared. I guess the powers that be were threatened by it. Hey ho.

brendon, I replied, but the post has not appeared. I guess the content didn't suit the censors, but as their TOS clearly state, this isn't a forum for open discussion but rather a soapbox for their views.

Luthien,

I wasn't mentioning Tolkien as an argument. I just thought it was amusing.

I am not so sure that virtual particles refute the principle of sufficient reason; many of the articles that I have read on them mention that their objective existence as particles is disputed.

I have done college level physics, though my Bachelors of Science degree is in mathematics and computer science. I know that matter/mass and energy are convertible. Matter can also be broken down and/or combined to change it from one form of matter to another (such and hydrogen and oxygen being combined and converted into water). The same is true of energy (such as the conversion of potential energy into kinetic energy).

But it is not possible to show a person matter or energy simpliciter. The matter or energy that we observe or measure is always some specific form of matter or energy. But these forms are neither matter nor energy themselves, since these still remain under different forms before and after the conversion. Thus it seems that the ancient idea of a substrate is correct. There must be some pure potentiality that underlies the actual existing matter/energy that we can perceive. But since that which is in potential must be brought into actuality by that which is in actuality ("an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force"), there must be something besides this potentiality that brings it into actuality.

Moreover, since this potentiality is relative non-being, it cannot be said to exist except insofar as it is in relation to some act. Thus this substrate cannot pre-exist in itself but must come into existence with the act that forms it. As such act/form (that which makes the thing be what it is) and potentiality/matter (that which a thing is made of) are co-principles (two principles that exist in relation to each other) of that which exists.

I'm not sure I've laid that out as clearly as I might have, but I'm not sure a comments thread is the best place for me to write a treatise on philosophy of nature and metaphysics. If you are open minded and interested in the topic I would suggest looking into the works of a number of philosophers who are also experienced in physics and the physical sciences. I would suggest William A Wallace, Anthony Rizzi, Benedict Ashley and Wolfgang Smith. Most of them should even have some papers available on the internet.

I'm going to bow out of this discussion now, since I don't think that there's much more that I can say that will be of any worth to the rest of you. I bid the rest of you a good day.

RationalRon:

Although the authors of this site reserve the right to moderate as they so choose, there is no automatic moderation queue in place here. In fact, your message was returned from askimet as 'spam'. This is not a service we control.

The authors here have also exhibited immense patience and lenience for comments which do not match the posting guidelines set by this site.

However, failing to read the notice about posting multiple times will run you afoul of me as the notice surrounding such is freely viewable above the link for submitting a comment.

"The matter or energy that we observe or measure is always some specific form of matter or energy. But these forms are neither matter nor energy themselves, since these still remain under different forms before and after the conversion. Thus it seems that the ancient idea of a substrate is correct. There must be some pure potentiality that underlies the actual existing matter/energy that we can perceive. But since that which is in potential must be brought into actuality by that which is in actuality ("an object at rest tends to stay at rest unless acted upon by an outside force"), there must be something besides this potentiality that brings it into actuality...

Hmm... so the matter or energy we observe is in a "form" of matter or energy which is not matter or energy? Have you been at the postmodernist essay generator again? :-P (http://www.elsewhere.org/pomo -simply hit refresh for a new randomly generated essay.)

Seriously though, that does not make any sense. If something can be detected then it exists, if it can't then we either need better equipment, or it does not exist. You cannot detect something that does not exist. I am very suspicious of these "philosophers" who use words like "energy" in a psudoscientific way, and write whole paragraphs of words where the only thing that makes sense is the grammar. Are these people are just trying to obscure the fact that they do not have anything useful to say? There are many excellent science writers out there (Stephen Hawking, John Gribbin, Richard P. Feynman, Carl Sagan, and countless others) who can articulate their ideas clearly and consisely, and give real insight into the nature of the universe.

"RationalRon"
Thank you for the link to Mr. Dawkins's site.

"To dissect the arguments and engage in debate legitimises those arguments. I'm as interested in doing that as I would be in debating the existence of leprechauns."
Then what are you doing here, other than dishing out abuse at your perceived inferiors? And, if that is all you are doing, why should it be tolerated? I haven't looked all over Mr. Dawkins's site, but I'm sure I'm not mistaken in thinking that creationists (which, btw, I am not) would not be treated nearly as civilly there as you are being treated here.

Then what are you doing here, other than dishing out abuse at your perceived inferiors? And, if that is all you are doing, why should it be tolerated? I haven't looked all over Mr. Dawkins's site, but I'm sure I'm not mistaken in thinking that creationists (which, btw, I am not) would not be treated nearly as civilly there as you are being treated here.

Surely any Creationist on that site would be doing what you accuse him of doing here? :-P

The internet is all about the exchange of ideas and information. I think it is wonderful to see such cross-pollination of postings, and you are most welcome to post on the Dawkins site if you feel like it :-)

"Freethinking can only desecrate, despoil and ruin. It can create nothing, because it has no vision of the Good, and it will always be judged as wanting on account of this."

Actually, you should be more honest. What you really mean is "Freethinking BY ANYONE ELSE BUT ME can only desecrate, despoil and ruin. It can create nothing, because it has no vision of the Good, and it will always be judged as wanting on account of this."

As you use your computer, enjoy your medicine and all the other fruits of freethinking that you feast on, remember where you got it from: freethinkers. Who is the real hypocrite here? If you despise freethinking so much, how come your whole life is willingly infused with the fruits of it? Or do you write your "incisive" articles on a stone tablet with a chisel........? Why don't you walk your talk and divest your life of the fruits of freethinking if it is as bankrupt as you claim? That, for me, shows how ludicrous your position really is. You claim no good can come from it yet your life is infused with it and the fruits of it. You and your iron age beliefs are a joke in that light.

I haven't looked all over Mr. Dawkins's site, but I'm sure I'm not mistaken in thinking that creationists (which, btw, I am not) would not be treated nearly as civilly there as you are being treated here.

At times, the best way to refute a silly position is to hand a microphone to its adherents. Personally I am more than happy to see litanies of fatwahs emerge from the Religion of Freethinking. (We Christians issue our own fatwahs at times too, of course; but then we don't proclaim ourselves to be non-dogmatic as a matter of dogma either).

A mind can be so closed that nothing can get in, to be sure. But it can also be so open as to be incapable of containing anything.

At times, the best way to refute a silly position is to hand a microphone to its adherents.

Indeed :-)

Luthien, even granting that particles are "being created and annihilated all over the place" (which seems to be in some dispute), aren't these events taking place in the context of an already existing physical universe, and therefore might not the cause (even if undetectable to us at this time) of these events be attributable to forces already in play? Wouldn't they have to be? Otherwise, we're compelled to assume that certain things are coming into being of their own accord, that is, as the cause of their own existence independent of anything else that already exists. I think the mistake you make is to desire a source of 'coming into being' while at the same time limiting all possible causes of things to the known universe. What I'm getting at is that I don't think you've really answered Brendon's question: "What is the cause of existence?" The atheist ought at least to admit that this is as rational a question as any other, seeing as we know of no time when the mind of man has not asked it.

I don't think you've really answered Brendon's question: "What is the cause of existence?" The atheist ought at least to admit that this is as rational a question as any other, seeing as we know of no time when the mind of man has not asked it.

Oh yes, it is a rational question, but a very tricky one to try and answer.

Luthien, even granting that particles are "being created and annihilated all over the place" (which seems to be in some dispute), aren't these events taking place in the context of an already existing physical universe, and therefore might not the cause (even if undetectable to us at this time) of these events be attributable to forces already in play?...

The “cause of existence” is extraordinarily difficult to pin down. If we take light as an example (although this will work for any subatomic particle, for example an electron) we can do the following experiment known as Young’s Double Slit experiment:

When light from a coherent source (light which is in the same phase, and has the same frequency and wavelength) shines through 2 narrow slits, it interferes to produce a pattern of stripes. This pattern is due to the superposition of waves, i.e. if two waves are in phase, the peaks and troughs are lined up and the resulting wave has twice the amplitude. If the waves are 180° out of phase, then one wave’s peak will coincide with another wave's trough and so will cancel out (the resulting wave having an amplitude of zero).

It would seem from this experiment that light behaves like a wave, but another experiment (The Photoelectric Effect) contradicts this assumption by showing light acting like a particle (Photon). It is also possible to see individual photons as they strike a detector. (The concept that light is both a wave and a particle is known as wave-particle duality.)

Ok, this is where it gets just plain weird…

If the amount of light going through Young’s experiment is reduced so that each photon goes through individually, the pattern of dots created as they strike the detector is the same kind of stripy interference pattern created by the beam of light.
How could the photon be interfering with itself? Was the photon somehow splitting it two and passing through both slits? (If so, how could this fit in with the particle behavior?) Intrigued by these questions, scientists placed detectors on each slit to see how the photons were passing through. As soon as they started measuring this, the wave-like interference pattern disappeared (i.e. only two spots directly beyond the slits were hit by photons).

When this experiment was repeated using electrons instead of photons (with the size of the slits scaled down accordingly), they got the same strange result. So, how can particles behave like waves, and what makes them stop this behaviour?

According to quantum theory, every object in the universe has what is known as a ‘wave function’, which is associated with all the possible paths / interactions it can take / make. In the case of the photon in the experiment, the wave function encompasses travel through both slits. The act of measuring the position of the photon is said to collapse the wave function, meaning that one of the paths / interactions is picked at random and all others are eliminated.

So essentially these particles cannot be actually said to “exist” until they have settled down into their final state, otherwise they are just a range of possible states that both exist and do not exist (Ouch, my brain hurts).

Wouldn't they have to be? Otherwise, we're compelled to assume that certain things are coming into being of their own accord, that is, as the cause of their own existence independent of anything else that already exists. I think the mistake you make is to desire a source of 'coming into being' while at the same time limiting all possible causes of things to the known universe.

The “coming into being” that you mean requires an addition of energy into the closed system of the universe, but the “coming into being” that I am talking about is due to the quantum “uncertainty” at the level of photons and electrons. In the case of virtual particles, the sum total of the energy is always zero, but uncertainty means that sometimes you get peaks and troughs, and these can interact with matter to give a measurable effect. These particles have effectively “popped into existence” if they have interacted with another particle, but the equation is always balanced to preserve the conservation of energy by a loss of energy somewhere else.

Upon scaling this up, we find that gravity and matter also exactly balance each other out to zero, meaning that even the existence of the universe did not violate the principle of the conservation of energy.

Of course this poses many more questions. What does it take to collapse a wave function? Who collapses our wave function? What happens to all the other possible paths, do they disappear, or are there multiple universes for each possibility to occur in (a ‘Multiverse’)?

So essentially these particles cannot be actually said to “exist” until they have settled down into their final state, otherwise they are just a range of possible states that both exist and do not exist (Ouch, my brain hurts).

That is one possible interpretation of the Standard Model (the Copenhagen interpretation), which happens to be the most popular one. There is also the Bohm interpretation: basically, when you give up locality as a constraint you no longer run afoul of Bell's Theorem. A decent book on the subject (and on the relation between formalism and interpretation in general from a scientific perspective) is Quantum Mechanics: Historical Contingency and the Copenhagen Hegemony by James Cushing.

But anyway, the additional discussion while interesting misses Brenden's (and now Bill's) point, because it doesn't really address the question "why something rather than nothing?" That question can't be addressed by invoking other physical somethings, however peculiar they may be. It is impossible to avoid metaphysical questions as metaphysical questions, though positivists and their intellectual predecessors have been trying to define metaphysics out of existence for a good long time.

...it doesn't really address the question "why something rather than nothing?" That question can't be addressed by invoking other physical somethings, however peculiar they may be.

Well my point was that if the total energy of the universe is zero, then something is precisely the same as nothing. Perhaps nothing, in being "nothing", cannot be certain that it is "nothing", since only things that are "something" can have a defined state? :-P

Hehe, perhaps we are not yet equiped to answer these questions, but it's been fun to think about them :-)

Well my point was that if the total energy of the universe is zero, then something is precisely the same as nothing.

Um, no. A quantity in an equation being equal to zero is not metaphysically the same thing as us not existing.

I was joking, as I am pretty sure I exist too :-P

What is required is a set of criteria whereby we can measure the existence or nonexistence of any given subject (or how can we ask why something exists if we cannot agree on a measurable definition of what existence actually is?).

I can't answer the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?", and I am not going to pretend that I do know. I think that working out "how" the universe came to exist will probably make the "why" apparent (in the same way physics makes the reason for lightning strikes apparent, without reference to Thor or Zeus).

What is required is a set of criteria whereby we can measure the existence or nonexistence of any given subject

Some people may "need" that, I suppose. But since I am neither a positivist nor a verificationist I don't need anything of the kind; and indeed I think a quest for "criteria whereby we can measure existence" is misguided metaphysics.

I think that working out "how" the universe came to exist will probably make the "why" apparent (in the same way physics makes the reason for lightning strikes apparent, without reference to Thor or Zeus).

Good luck with that project, including the prerequisite project of making metaphysical sense of what exactly you believe yourself to be doing. When you are finished we Christians will be waiting to hear how you made out. You may find that if you really do attempt in good faith to climb the mountain of ontological understanding you will be surprised at who you find already there, or at least further along the way than your friend the Prophet Dawkins (PBUH). Or you may find that you still believe that there is no God, and Dawkins is his Prophet. Either way I wish you good fortune.

I don't really have anything to add to what Zippy's already said, except maybe in regard to this: I think that working out "how" the universe came to exist will probably make the "why" apparent

There is the scientific "why", which seeks to know what caused this effect, and there is the metaphysical "why", which seeks to know why there are causes and effects at all. I would think that for the dogmatic atheist (I have been assuming that you are among them), that latter question is out of bounds.

When you are finished we Christians will be waiting to hear how you made out. You may find that if you really do attempt in good faith to climb the mountain of ontological understanding you will be surprised at who you find already there, or at least further along the way than your friend the Prophet Dawkins (PBUH).When you are finished we Christians will be waiting to hear how you made out. You may find that if you really do attempt in good faith to climb the mountain of ontological understanding you will be surprised at who you find already there, or at least further along the way than your friend the Prophet Dawkins (PBUH).

I'm curious, why is it that Christians think you can claim superior knowledge about the origin of everything? I'm assuming here that you are basing this "superior knowledge" on the bible?

There is the scientific "why", which seeks to know what caused this effect, and there is the metaphysical "why", which seeks to know why there are causes and effects at all.

LOL, I think you will find that the good people at CERN are planning to do this very soon, although there is nothing "metaphysical" about it at all. "Cause and effect" is all to do with things having a quality called "mass", which photons don't have, but other particles do. If we find out what "mass" actually is, then we can figure out why there are causes and effects at all (incidentally, you may enjoy the fact that the theoretical mass causing particle has been nicknamed the "GOD particle" :-P). They are also planning to recreate conditions during the first few seconds of the "Big Bang".

I'm assuming here that you are basing this "superior knowledge" on the bible?

The Bible is one bit of evidence I suppose, but it is hardly dispositive about physical proximate origins in particular. (I'm Catholic. We Catholics aren't "the Bible alone" sorts of Christians: in fact we get no end of grief from our more fundamentalist Protestant friends precisely because we aren't biblical positivists).

I think you will find that the good people at CERN are planning to do this very soon, although there is nothing "metaphysical" about it at all. "Cause and effect" is all to do with things having a quality called "mass", ...

There really isn't anything to say in the face of such superficiality and ignorance, which is part of the irony of having any discussion like this with alleged "brights". To assert that the Higgs particle "explains" the "existence" of cause-and-effect is simply to empty the terms in question of all meaning.

Belief in a discernible chain of causation is itself a kind of faith -- and a faith basically unique to the men of the West. Civilizations vary in their concepts of causation: for example, Islamic civilization constructs its causation upon the immediate instantaneous will of God. For them there is no "cause and effect" as we understand it, and thus no real science of speculative reason, because every instant is a discrete act of volition from on high. It was none other than the Bishop of Rome himself who made this point some months ago.

But the world does not provide us with causation. It is not, strictly speaking, observable. What is observable is repeated temporal sequence, from which we Westerners (that is, heirs to the Christian/Classical synthesis called Christendom) extrapolate causation.

I'm Catholic. We Catholics aren't "the Bible alone" sorts of Christians: in fact we get no end of grief from our more fundamentalist Protestant friends precisely because we aren't biblical positivists

LOL, I had a Catholic education (in case you didn't manage to infer that from my mention of studying Aquinas at school). All that doctrine really is just a bunch of made up nonsense, and even some catholics don't believe the half of it (so they tell me). It's just an "afterlife" insurance policy that never pays out ;-)

There really isn't anything to say in the face of such superficiality and ignorance, which is part of the irony of having any discussion like this with alleged "brights". To assert that the Higgs particle "explains" the "existence" of cause-and-effect is simply to empty the terms in question of all meaning.

If the examination of a question in real terms has the effect of "emptying it of all meaning", perhaps you didn't really have any meaning there in the first place. Like, for example, if I asked you which foods smell blue. We can easily define blue as a measureable set of wavelengths of light, and smell as the signal from receptors that are triggered by certain shapes of molecuels. At this point we realise that the question does not make any sense (unless you are a synaesthesiac, and have some metaphorical wires crossed in your brain).

I did not assert that the Higgs particle explained existence, in fact I did not even assert that it existed (I just said explaining "mass" might help our understanding of how particles exist).

...Oh, and what do you mean by "brights"?

All that doctrine really is just a bunch of made up nonsense, [...] It's just an "afterlife" insurance policy that never pays out

You've done a good job internalizing the dogmas of your religion.

We can easily define blue as a measureable set of wavelengths of light, and smell as the signal from receptors that are triggered by certain shapes of molecuels

Right. There is no problem of qualia, and consciousness is an epiphenomenon. I am familiar with the Tenets of the Faith.

Hmm, so the best insult you can think of is to say I am "religious" and "dogmatic", and accuse me of having "faith"?

LOL

Atheism is a religion in the same way that the "off" button is a TV channel ;-)

...now I shall leave you alone to enjoy your metaphysical cannibalism in peace :-P

Hmm, so the best insult you can think of is to say I am "religious" and "dogmatic", and accuse me of having "faith"?

It isn't an insult, it is a factual observation; a factual observation which carries more than a little irony when it applies to those dogmatically devoted to the religion of freethinking, as opposed to when it applies to (e.g.) Christians. It isn't self-contradictory for a Christian to be dogmatic. It is self-contradictory for a fundamentalist freethinker to be dogmatic.

Atheism is a religion in the same way that the "off" button is a TV channel ;-)

It isn't a bad analogy, actually. (Though speaking for myself I was talking about the religion of freethinking, not atheism). I got an email suggesting that the kind of dogmatic freethinking on display at Dawkins' site is to religion what plucking one's eyes out is to seeing.

One thing that Larison's piece doesn't go into in detail (one can't discuss everything in a blog entry) is that dogmatic freethinking is a self-inflicted positivist intellectual prison. The dwarves are for the dwarves.

Good Lord (sorry), I mention the metaphysical "why" and you go back to chattering about matter and energy and particles and the Big Bang. You seem to have genuinely reached a place in which the questions that have exercised the greatest minds of our civilization are completely alien to you. It's the materialist's prison, and because its bars are only in the mind, it is a confinement from which no one can free you.

dogmatic freethinking is a self-inflicted positivist intellectual prison

LOL, is that some sort of "post modernist" slogan? It doesn't make any sense. You can't have "dogmatic" freethinking by definition (wikipedia)

Freethought holds that individuals should neither accept nor reject ideas proposed as truth without recourse to knowledge and reason. Thus, freethinkers strive to build their beliefs on the basis of facts, scientific inquiry, and logical principles, independent of the factual/logical fallacies and intellectually-limiting effects of authority, cognitive bias, conventional wisdom, popular culture, prejudice, sectarianism, tradition, urban legend, and all other dogmatic or otherwise fallacious principles.

Since you seem to think that "freethinking" is some sort of religion, let me also give you the definition of a religion:

A religion is a set of beliefs and practices generally held by a community, involving adherence to codified beliefs and rituals and study of ancestral or cultural traditions, writings, history, and mythology, as well as personal faith and mystic experience.

You keep asserting that freethinkers are “dogmatic”, “fundamentalist”, and somehow a “religion”, but you never say why. Do you have a reason for saying this?

I suspect you might assert that what you call the "positivist" part of it is somehow dogmatic, and that a freethinker is "dogmatic" for requiring some sort of evidence before accepting that something is plausible? What is the point of accepting things are true without any evidence to back them up? This is not just silly, it can be dangerous too. Imagine a Doctor giving out untested medications, or a jury convicting someone on the hearsay of an enemy?

…HELP! I’m trapped in the intellectual prison of reality! :-P

A freethinker is dogmatic in the pejorative sense not because he requires "evidence before accepting that something is plausible," but precisely because he so rigidly restricts what he will admit into evidence.

For instance, the fact the about two thirds of history's greatest scientists were believers of some sort -- many were actual churchmen -- is very considerable evidence (though not, of course, definitive evidence) that the freethinker rejects a priori. Or the fact that "science," as man has come to understand it, developed in Christendom and nowhere else* is another fairly large piece of evidence that the freethinker will not deign to even consider.

________
* Please do not read us that stale old lecture about science only developing once the yoke of Christendom was thrown off, in the Renaissance or the Enlightenment. No history of Western science worth its salt can possibly leave Oresme or Buridan, or any of the other great scientific minds of the mediaeval age, out of its account.

For instance, the fact the about two thirds of history's greatest scientists were believers of some sort -- many were actual churchmen -- is very considerable evidence

Evidence of what?

Or the fact that "science," as man has come to understand it, developed in Christendom and nowhere else* is another fairly large piece of evidence that the freethinker will not deign to even consider.

Science is a christian invention? Let me see...

c. 624 BC - c.546 BC - Thales (considered by some to be the father of science)
585 BC - 525 BC - Anaximenes of Miletus
c. 582 BC – 507 BC - Pythagoras
c. 490 BC - c. 420 BC - Oenopides of Chios
480 BC - 411 BC - Antiphon the Sophist
465 BC - 398 BC - Theodorus of Cyrene
c. 450 BC - c. 370 BC - Democritus
c. 417 BC – 369 BC - Theaetetus (mathematician)
410 BC/408 BC - 355 BC/347 BC - Eudoxus of Cnidus
c. 390 BC- c. 320 BC - Dinostratus
384 BC – March 7, 322 BC - Aristotle
380 BC 320 BC - Menaechmus
370 BC - 300 BC - Aristaeus the Elder
c. 370 BC – c. 300 BC - Callippus
c. 360 BC - c. 290 BC - Autolycus of Pitane
340 BC – 278 BC - Polyaenus of Lampsacus
c. 287 BC – 212 BC - Archimedes
c. 280 BC - c. 220 BC - Conon of Samos
276 BC - 194 BC - Eratosthenes
c. 262 BC – c. 190 BC - Apollonius of Perga
c. 190 BC – c. 120 BC - Hipparchus (astronomer)
c. 160 BC – c. 100 BC - Theodosius of Bithynia
c. 150 BC - ? - Perseus (geometer)
c. 70 – c. 135 - Theon of Smyrna
c. 200/214 – c. 284/298 - Diophantus
c. 290 - c. 350 - Pappus of Alexandria
c. 335 - c. 405 - Theon of Alexandria
c. 370 - 415 - Hypatia of Alexandria

...and that's just to name some of the Greeks who were at it, the Persians, Chinese, and most other cultures had their scientists too.

...is that some sort of "post modernist" slogan?

This thread is exhibit #1344094101234 that when you scratch a positivist you find a postmodern.

I will repeat what I argued upthread, in the wane hope that it will make clear the absurdity of rendering my point about science developing in Christendom alone as "Science is a christian invention":

"Belief in a discernible chain of causation is itself a kind of faith -- and a faith basically unique to the men of the West. Civilizations vary in their concepts of causation: for example, Islamic civilization constructs its causation upon the immediate instantaneous will of God. For them there is no 'cause and effect' as we understand it, and thus no real science of speculative reason, because every instant is a discrete act of volition from on high. It was none other than the Bishop of Rome himself who made this point some months ago.

"But the world does not provide us with causation. It is not, strictly speaking, observable. What is observable is repeated temporal sequence, from which we Westerners (that is, heirs to the Christian/Classical synthesis called Christendom) extrapolate causation."

In short, the conceptual understanding of causation which Western man holds, and which is the very bedrock of our science, exists primarily in the mind of Western man; and it exists because of the great fusion of Classical and Christian thought which was achieved in the Middle Ages, giving Western man his faith in an intelligible physical world.

What is the point of accepting things are true without any evidence to back them up?

None, if by "evidence to back them up" you mean "reason to believe they are true". Trivially, there is no reason to believe that something is true if there is no reason to believe it is true. But that is a semantic point which glosses over what constitutes valid reasons for believing that something is true. Take comfort that I do not recommend that you believe things purely arbitrarily without having any reason whatsoever to believe them.

Zippy, you didn't answer my question. You should also note that I was making fun of your statement by saying it was "post modern" ;-)

Take comfort that I do not recommend that you believe things purely arbitrarily without having any reason whatsoever to believe them.

I'm glad to hear that, but then even you do need to have certain criteria fulfilled to persue an idea, and that was my point. :-)

Paul, so "developed in Christendom and nowhere else" is now the "great fusion of Classical and Christian thought"? Hmm…

Here is a "Classical" thought that you should try to meld with your Christianity:

God either wants to eliminate bad things and cannot, or can but does not want to, or neither wishes to nor can, or both wants to and can. If he wants to and cannot, he is weak -- and this does not apply to God. If he can but does not want to, then he is spiteful -- which is equally foreign to God's nature. If he neither wants to nor can, he is both weak and spiteful and so not a god. If he wants to and can, which is the only thing fitting for a god, where then do bad things come from? Or why does he not eliminate them? (Epicurus)

"Belief in a discernible chain of causation is itself a kind of faith"

Oh please! I hope you are not suggesting that my so called “belief” in reality is somehow equal to your belief in virgin births, ascensions into heaven (where ever that is supposed to be), and an invisible bronze age deity?

But the world does not provide us with causation. It is not, strictly speaking, observable. What is observable is repeated temporal sequence, from which we Westerners (that is, heirs to the Christian/Classical synthesis called Christendom) extrapolate causation."

LOL

With exclusive reference to the paradigm of Christian / classical synthesis, it could be said that the premise of cultural discourse holds that consensus is created by communication. An abundance of deconstructions concerning cause and effect force us to make a choice; either accept the positivistic notions of a discernable chain of causality, or admit that a conceptual understanding of causation can only involve the analysis of repeated temporal sequences. In a sense, the postcultural materialism that emerges from the western school of thought implies that truth is fundamentally meaningless.

See, I can write postmodernist drivel as well as any “bishop”. :-P

(oh and FYI the Persians were not an "Islamic civilization", as there was no "Islam" in the time period covered by my list)

See, I can write postmodernist drivel

About that we are in perfect agreement.

Remember, to assume one thing is to exclude another; the freedom of choice, strictly speaking, is likewise not really free, because it presupposes the denial of myriad choices. -Psychic Reader

I'm not really sure why I feel compelled to comment, but I do, so here goes...

Freethought is not meant to be compared to valuation, meaning cost/benefit. It seems the author is using the word "free" as if it's an item to purchase. However, in the sense of freethought, what it actually refers to is forming an opinion free from the usual constraints of rationalism. It's quite easy to be rational, but much more difficult to be a freethinker. For example, a rational person may say the President runs the country and is therefore quite knowledgeable of the effects of the choices he makes, so the choices he makes are the best ones; anyone who disagrees, does so because they are not privy to the same info the President is. However, freethinkers acknowledge that the President has his own wants and needs and therefore will make decisions that fit his personality best, not necessarily those that benefit society best. Which is why a freethinker comes to a conclusion free from authority, on the basis of science and logic.

Now here's something to consider: Are you delusional? If you are, would you know it?

If, for the sake of argument, we assume that Christianity (and all its denominations) are true, then that means about 70% of the world population is, in fact, delusional, since 70% of the world doesn't belong to Christianity. And since Christianity is the largest grouping of people in the world, then if a different group of people "have" the truth, then it means an even larger percentage of the population is delusional.

However, even if Christians were right, they differ on other subjects, politics for example. If we assume half are Conservative and half are liberal, and we assume one or the other is the true belief system, then that means only about 15% of the world population is not delusional. As you can see, this can go on until the most likely truth is that we are all delusional in some way or another.

How do we overcome delusion? The only way is to look outside yourself. I can honestly say that I thought I saw something that wasn't there or was actually something else; I've thought I heard something when the only other person around didn't hear anything; felt angry, fearful, upset, happy, excited, anxious for no good reason; I've even believed something I thought for sure was true that turned out I was wrong. (For the record, all of these happened when I was a devout Christian, and in fact still occur from time to time.)

So the best way to overcome the human delusion is to use science and reason to decipher the truth. How many people can claim to have seen, heard (with their ears), or touched god, that are alive? If no one, then we should start with the assumption that he doesn't exist until proven otherwise.

So where can we look for proof? The Bible? It's full of so many contradictions that it's no wonder that interpretations of the Bible have evolved as man's morality has evolved. People no longer claim it's god's will for humans to enslave other human beings, for example.

The bottom line is that freethinkers look for the truth, believers (of any religion) believe they have already found it and stop looking. They don't consider the possibility that they may have chosen the wrong religion, because they're too arrogant to think they are wrong, or gullible enough to believe their own thoughts or feelings are true.

I once believed in god. It took a long time to change that belief as a result of me imprisoning my own mind into the Christian mindset. When I considered the possibility that god doesn't exist, I'd immediately start chaining a rapid string of thoughts together to get my mind off it. Eventually I came to conclusion that god wanted to me explore that possibility because he wanted me to prove to others of his existence. Unfortunately for him, I found that it's much more probable that he doesn't exist. The only reason for religion's stranglehold on humanity is a result of force, such as burning nonbelievers at the stake. Also, it helps when you can corrupt a mind before it's even been made capable of comprehending the difference between fiction and reality.

Freethought would all do us some good. Just because you use it, doesn't necessarily mean you will become an atheist. I fully believe that if god's existence or a particular religion is true, then rationality, independent of authority, dogma and tradition, will be able to prove it. Since it seems the vast majority of freethinkers become atheist (or at least nonreligious, such as deists) it seems probable that he doesn't exist.

The only question is, how do you get people who use rationality or the results of rationality (such as cars, which I'm sure god didn't create) to apply it to their own beliefs?

Free thinking lead myself to eat Mushrooms. From that, Free thinking lead me to conclude that we are all a part of a collective conscious.

Phrases like -

God is in all of us!
I spoke to god!
In his image!

Are nothing more than references to something most people aren’t willing to admit. That we are all tethered to this field of a single consciousness using all life on earth in varying degrees, with man at the top of the chain becoming more aware of such an existence. While Science/Media/Religion all touch on it in varying degrees…Confounding thought much like language when the tower of babel fell. Hence why nobody agrees on any one thing.

This article must've been linked to an atheist blog and all the "brights" got all wound up. Oddly enough, this is the third (if I recall correctly) of Christian articles critical of atheists & atheism that was spammed. This one got it easy compared to the first one I read threw.

The first article, whose blog usually gets anywhere between 1-15 comments per article, received a record breaking 1,000+ when it gently critiqued a relatively famous inter-comic that mocked religion. AT LEAST 95% of the comments were very smug and condescending. Pick the vilest comment here, on this article, and up that 5x. Yikes. And atheists say they're happy people? Yea right. More like absolute bitter and pissed of people for no real good reason.