From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Wednesday, February 13, 2002 10:38 AM To: alt.atheism.moderated Subject: Re: The psychology of Atheism "Gurnemanz" wrote > > And even better, we atheists have scientific and epistemological > > reasons for doubting the veracity of reports of religious > > experiences: > > * They make claims (about the efficacy of prayer, survival of > > the mind after death, etc.) that a) are inconsistent with the > > known laws of nature and b) have never been successfully > > verified. > > You seem to be somewhat confused here. It is not inconsistent > with the known laws of nature to hold that it is possible > that there is life after death. You "seem to be confused" about whether I was talking about mere "possibility". I wasn't. I didn't say life after death is not "possible". I said it is "inconsistent with the known laws of nature". Do you dispute this? > prayers will be responded to in a manner > beneficial to the petitioner *not* that they will be > responded to in the manner *desired* by the petitioner. > Plainly these claims are not verifiable The "response" can hardly be very "beneficial" if the response cannot be verified as existing at all. If you believe otherwise, I've got some "benefits" I'd like to sell you. Caveat emptor: they're "not verifiable". :-) > it does not follow that they are impossible. They are of course not *logically* impossible, but they are indeed *physically* impossible under our best understanding of physics. > I certainly think that it is quite coherent to posit > an afterlife. Coherent, but not justifiable. > > * They consist of feelings (awe, superstition, etc.) that > > have more-parsimonious naturalistic psychological explanations. > > > [ to use 'superstition' here seems to beg the issue]. Hardly. Superstition is part of the natural human propensity to at least consider many kinds of possible explanations for an event. After my infant son died in my arms last September, such natural superstition left even *me* unable to keep from my mind the fleeting and ridiculous feeling that his death was a punishment from some god or other. I of course am equipped to recognize such feelings for what they are, but most people are not -- hence they become part of your (invalid) evidence for theism. > And it is debateable whether psychological explanations > - where there are such-are more parsimonious. anyway. Unless you're willing to say that all such religious feelings are actual experiences of the divine, then you have to posit both divine *and* psychological explanations. I need only posit the latter. QED. > > * They fit a pattern of past failed supernatural explanations > > A religious experience is not an explanation No, but a supernatural (as opposed to naturalistic psychological) explanation for such an experience IS an explanation, and fits a pattern of past failed supernatural explanations. Do you really not see the analogy between "gods caused this plague" and "gods caused this religious experience"? Now back to the original point: you said earlier > I have theological reasons for doubting the veracity > of such reports [of ghosts] Many theists complain loudly that naturalism is an assumption of atheists rather than a conclusion, and that it therefore prevents them from properly evaluating evidence of e.g. miracles. If you get to use your theology to discount ghost-reports, why don't we get to use our metaphysics (i.e. naturalism) to discount religious experiences? > > Can you identify the experience or class of experience > > that is least explicable as any of hallucination, delusion, > > hysteria, intoxication, wishful thinking, misinterpretation, > > misperception, misunderstanding, ignorance, gullibility, > > or deception? > > > You have the burden of proof to show that > religious experiences are hallucinations or psychotic > episodes. I'll take that as an admission that you cannot identify a religious experience or class thereof as being any less naturalistically explicable than the others. Since even *you* seem to recognize that many religious experiences are naturalistically explicable, we can conclude that all religious experiences are equally naturalistically explicable. > many of those who have religious experiences are not > known to be mentally ill or to be subject to hallucinations. > Nor need religious experiences involve anything that could > even be interpreted as an hallucination Strawman. I didn't mention *only* "mental illness" and "hallucination". I challenge you to assert the following: Religious experiences need not involve anything that could even be interpreted as hallucination, delusion, hysteria, intoxication, wishful thinking, misinterpretation, misperception, misunderstanding, ignorance, gullibility, or deception. > > Then give us what you think is the single most credible report > > or set of reports. If those reports have naturalistic explanations, > > why should we give any weight to the myriad of other > > less-credible reports? > > > Why shouldn't a religious experience have a naturalistic > explanation? You need at least some of them not to, if you want to parsimoniously claim that some religious experiences are evidence for God. Or do you claim that even though all religious experiences are subject to naturalistic explanation, some of them nevertheless constitute evidence for God? Indeed, it appears that you recognize that such explanations are unparsimonious, as you are once again trying to downplay the importance of parsimony. > > no credible evidence that [..] revelation has been competently > > attempted by any god(s). > > > There is no compelling empirical evidence, but I am arguing > that that is what one might expect if the claims of Christianity > are true. Christianity allows that the creator does not > wish to effectively 'compel' belief This of course is the saddest argument of theists. Does anyone know how old it is? I suspect it is quite modern, and that historians will say that it marked the beginning of the end of philosophical theism. > which would be the case > if the sort of evidence you require were available. It was "available" in ancient Palestine from the time of Adam all the way to Paul's conversion on the road to Damascus. Your argument is refuted by Christianity's own documents. El/Yahweh had no compunction about "compelling" belief in the Old Testament, and Jesus had no compunction about "compelling" belief in the New Testament. It's simply immoral for a deity to threaten eternal punishment of non-believers while intentionally denying them any credible evidence of his existence. (Note that you must here admit that no philosophical "proof" of God's existence can be convincing, as such a proof would "compel belief".) Also, you conveniently deleted your previous assertion: > Religion claims that those who resolutly reject the deity > ie most atheists , will not receive any sort of revelation. > When they make a genuine effort to seek out religion they > can expect to receive guidance. Can you elaborate on the difference between "guidance", "credible evidence", and "compelling evidence"? Do you simply define "genuine" as only those "efforts" that result in coversion to theism, or do you have a non-question-begging definition of it? > > As I noted in our discussion last year, your version of > > the Teleological Argument (the argument from design) reduces > > to the Cosmological Argument (the argument from > > first cause). > > > Please demonstrate this 'reduction ' by referring > directly to the argument which I posted. It's the "JH: Design Argument" thread that culminated in my unrebutted posting of 27 Jun 2001 (to which I referred you in the very article you are quoting). If you don't know how to use Google Groups to view it, let us know and someone will explain it to you. The crescendo was this: > science could not explain *all* apparent design > - it would always be arguable that the > highest level laws were the product of design. Ah, so I was right: there is *no* possible pattern of empirical evidence that could dissuade you from theism. It seems that your teleological argument in fact reduces to one or both of the ontological and cosmological arguments. This perhaps explains why, in a thread devoted to your argument from design, you've talked so much about metaphysics, and so little about empirical evidence of design. :-) Another indicator is that you edited out this part of the posting you are quoting, rather than answer it: Do you admit that, aside from the need for a first cause for the initial boundary conditions, all the apparent design in the universe can be explained without an intelligent designer? If not, please identify the relevant apparent design. > > And your Ontological Argument > > for the necessity of God's existence fails, as I showed > > in an unrebutted posting of 27 Jun 2001 in the "JH: Design > > Argument" thread. > > > Please post your 'rebuttal' again with my 'Ontological argument'. Here: > > > one can, I consider , show that necessarily > > > if God exists he exists necessarily. > > > The above is *not* a statement of the ontological argument. If it's not, then isn't it just a tautology derived from the definition of "God"? (Feel free to give us your definition. :-) A quick check of The Encyclopedia Of Philosophy confirms that your statement is the heart of the ontological argument as formulated by Hartshorne and Malcolm. Their argument then adds that God's existence is either necessary or logically contradictory, that it is not logically contradictory, and that thus it is necessary. As the article notes, the argument "fails" due to its "illicit shift between the notions of ontological and logical necessity". "In modern philosophy, logical necessity is a concept which applies only to propositions; a proposition is logically necessary if it is true in virtue of the meanings of the terms composing it. And it is a basic empiricist principle that existential propositions cannot be logically necessary." And: "existential propositions are always synthetic, always true or false as a matter of fact rather than as a matter of definition." So do you in fact agree with the ontological argument of Harshorne and Malcom, or for that matter with *any* ontological argument for God? If not, I'll be happy to replace "your ontological argument fails" with our agreement that "ontological arguments fail". > > An anthropic argument like the above similarly does not > > stand in need of an ordering cause. Of course, both > > arguments still need a necessary cause, but the one that > > omits God is more parsimonious. > > > You;ve taken the above out of context. I do *not* > maintain that anthropic arguments can be used [..] No, you simply misunderstood the context. "Like the above" referred to *my* previous paragraph, in which I said Cosmological Arguments for the necessity of God's existence are no better than anthropic arguments that our universe is logically possible and that its (perhaps illusory) existence would necessarily seem apparent to its (perhaps non-existent) inhabitants. > I do claim that they are something of an embarrasment > for atheism. The ultimate question -- of why there is something rather than nothing -- is likely not subject to a definitive answer, and so what is "embarrassing" is the theistic position that the answer is the three letters G - o - d. > > > The argument aims to establish that a designer is the > > > best explanation for the apparent design of the universe, > > > it does not attempt to explain from whence came the designer. > > > That is a separate argument. > > > > No, it's clearly not. Part of being the "best explanation" > > for something is being the most parsimonious explanation. > > > Parsimony is one of a number of criteria that can be employed- > and it is not the case that the most parsimonious explanation > must be the 'correct' one. By "most parsimonious" I of course mean ceteris paribus. It is indeed the case that of explanations with equal explanatory power and equal logical consistency, the most parsimonious is the one to be considered correct or true. Truth itself should be understood to be "logical and parsimonious consistency with evidence and with other truth". If you want, we can get into a big debate over the relationship of parsimony to truth, but it won't make us "ignore that unexplained explanandum behind the curtain" -- i.e. God -- while you complain that for us the universe is an unexplained explanandum. > >If (an unexplained God creating the universe) is as consistent > > with the evidence as (an unexplained universe itself), then > > the "best explanation" omits any reference to God. > > > Recall that my point was that the atheist camp was *not > positing any explantion* for the universe at all- just > asserting that it 'just was'. Your point, as I understand it, was that theism is a cosmology with more explanatory power, simply because it "explains" the universe by introducing an unexplained extra entity. My contrary point is that theism is therefore a less parsimonious cosmology with in fact only *equal* explanatory power, and thus should be considered incorrect. -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net