The question of definitions (what is an atheist vs agnostic) and all that nonsense have been popping up again. Especially the recent exchange between Larry Moran (here, here and here) and John Wilkins (here, here, here). Before I post on this I thought it might be interesting to look at a comment Agno the Agnostic made on my post If There’s No God, What’s The Point? where I addressed [one form of] the idea that everything in life is meaningless if a god does not exist.
Agno’s stuff is in italics and my responding comment is in plain font. I’ve interspersed them and edited some of my comments for ease of reading as a standalone blog post.
Hmmm. I think what people mean when they say “what’s the point”? is that if we are basically only chemical machines that respond to external stimuli based on these chemical reactions, then we are no better than a pot of water that boils when exposed to heat (like bouncing atoms). If that is all we are, then arguments that are pro atheism are just as silly as those that are pro Supreme Being.
Hi Agno,
You might not see this since I’ve only been able to reply now which is ages since you’ve posted but I still thought it was worth doing a full response.
Yes, we are made of atoms, that is what we are but I wouldn’t say that’s “all” we are since that expresses the value judgement of disappointment that I don’t share. But regardless, how does that make “pro atheism” arguments silly?
In the end, what does being a good or bad person do if we are just a biological robot? When you die, the computer crashes and there is no memory of it either way. Those that you affect will die in time as well, and the best you can hope for is to be remembered in some historical context, not that you would care because you no longer exist.
No disagreement that when you die the best you could hope for is the memory of people which you no longer care for — but tautologically being a good or bad person does just that — the state of being a good or bad person. If that’s not meaningful during a person’s life, why is it then meaningful in an afterlife? Why does meaning require being deferred unto eternity to be activated?
Also, being contemptuous of the morals of those that believe in a “higher power” is pretty pretentious. People do or don’t do things because of consequences and our programed aversions to them. People do or don’t do things because they think they will go to Hell, or maybe because they will go to jail, or maybe because it would cause a chemical reaction that would make them have an unpleasant emotional response.
As for being contemptuous, I think for everyone there is at least someone whose morals they are contemptuous of — I don’t think it’s necessarily a bad thing. But I doubt many people are contemptuous of the morals of anyone who believes in a “higher power” simply because they do. As you said, this group is diverse with diverse moral behaviour. I might think it’s ridiculous for people to claim that as the CAUSE of their morals just as the idea that the shape of your skull is ridiculous to us. But that does not speak to having contempt for the specific morals of religious people (or believers in phrenology in the 2nd case).
The psychology of human motivation has a long way to go as a science so we probably can’t speak of “why” people do things — but we know that it’s for a complex set of reasons. We also know that a particular consequence needn’t play a crucial role. For instance, there seems to be no correlation between having the death penalty and reduced crime. Which means that it’s unlikely that people do or don’t commit a crime “because they think they will go to” the electric chair, or at least that this influence is dwarfed by other influences. But in any case, I’m not sure what you mean, are you saying that therefore the idea of hell is a useful means of social control?
For my part, I’m agnostic. Yes, that is sitting on the fence you might say, but when you look at how small each of us is, it would be pretty arrogant of me to pretend like I know one way or the other what the deal is. I am not saying I have the answers, but I am smart enough to know that I can’t discount an idea outright because neither I or anyone else on the planet could really know one way or the other.
You mention “discount[ing] an idea outright,” which I assume is what you think atheists do — but surely you can’t be serious? If I’ve ever seen someone discount the idea of a god outright it wouldn’t have been more than a few times out of hundreds, do you really think that’s the prevailing MO for an atheist?
Is there a third choice I am not aware of? Wouldn’t it be cool if we were all just stuck in a holodeck? That is just as likely as any of the religious or atheist arguments. “End program!” Damn…
Each of us might be small but we can still assign probabilities to any questions that arise — in the case of the universe, whether it’s a simulation or not, whether it’s one with a god or not and so on. Are you really saying we have to assign all claims of that nature are equally probable? What about the claim that the universe was created by an omnipotent god who hates squirrels and vowed before said creation to never allow them to develop?
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I’m a theist, and I thought perhaps my comments might be welcome here.
Firstly, I’m not here to evangelize or try to prove anything. I simply wish to state my thoughts on this, and am happy to leave it at that. I don’t expect to change anyone’s mind.
First, I’d like to say I owe a debt of gratitude to atheists. I’ve listened to many debates of great thinkers like Dawkins, Sam Harris, and my personal favorite Christopher Hitchens vs. the theistic counterparts of William Lane Craig, D’Souza, Boteach and others. And while I have not agreed with, nor been persuaded by enough to discard my faith, I have learned perhaps the next best thing from them, which is to live my life as if eternity will never come. Living in the here and now, is something too often taken for granted by people of faith, because life is often portrayed as an obstacle to the afterlife. This is not an Abrahamic nor Christian teaching, but a side effect of those too comfortable in their faith, a sort of spell I’m glad to be broken of by those with perhaps a better grasp on the importance of this life, regardless of your views on the hereafter.
I find the question of if there is no God, what’s the point, poignant in my faith. It’s not because I get a level of moral superiority over others. I find morality to be something inherently gifted to us by the creator. It is silly to think atheists are any less moral than Christians. That’s like assuming not believing in the eye causes one to go blind.
I’ve heard it put to me, the lack of evidence against the existence of God is not proof of one. That goes the other way though doesn’t it? The lack of evidence of a God, is not proof there isn’t one. Otherwise, we’d have proven long ago, so many things we discovered later to be true in the natural world. Believers assume God works outside the universe as we know it, and therefore nothing in the universe can prove or disprove his existence. All we can do is decide if we wish to believe in him or not, and thus it’s really not a question for science as much as our human brains would like it to be. We like things to be tangible and tidy. Even a chaotic universe has to be put into equations and proven by falsifiable means doesn’t it? It’s just who we are, and the curiosity is unquenchable.
As I looked into the position, at first I was extremely challenged by the Atheist philosophy; painfully so. Yet, there was one thing I simply couldn’t reconcile. The idea that we live and die, and barring being one of the few to make history in some way, we perish entirely upon death, made life so futile and so pointless in my mind. I concluded if I were to believe that position were true, I would curse the universe for ever being so cruel as to allow a creature to evolve to become aware of its own mortality. The thought of living my life with that understanding, was to relive the death of everyone I’ve ever loved, thinking they were gone forever. It was to reckon all the experiences and achievements of philosophers, artists, writers, scientists, would be lost at death. And, imagining myself laying in some death bed contemplating with my last moments, the futility of even the best life spent on Earth, it could not be escaped that everything I had done in life had no resonance after I was gone. And I felt hopeless, incomplete, and incredibly alone.
I thought of God, and our existence being the discovery of Him in both the natural world and the spiritual one, and that this limited yet important existence was but a step towards something more, something better, though nobody knows what that really is, gave me hope. And I sensed God guiding my steps and no longer felt these other views as a threat, but realized we are all on the same journey, trying to make sense of this life. And, I’ve learned a lot about my own faith, and why it’s called “faith”. That word doesn’t belong in science, and that’s okay. It’s what makes science work. But, there is more to this world than what is quantifiable, even if you don’t believe in God. Imagine a painting. We can deduce the dimensions, the medium, the positions of any object therein, and in one way, that’s a complete representation of the art. But, that misses the most important part of the painting, which is the meaning being conveyed by the artist. Plainly put, God gives life meaning for me. He gives it a point, and hope, and a closeness to him that I can’t explain because it would be like recounting an event a person would have to have experienced to understand. I hope that doesn’t sound pious, it’s not at all how I intend it.
You may say it’s in my head, and I can understand from your point of view why you’d think that way. I understand more than you’d think a Christian would. But in the end, for my part at least, I feel like the only thing worse than not believing in God and being wrong, is not believing and being right.
Hi Scott
Sorry I didn’t reply sooner but was overseas when you posted and have just gotten back into full swing. Firstly I don’t see the problem in trying to persuade people who think otherwise of your point of view — people’s brains should not be treated as precious little butterflies in my view.
I don’t see proof as having much to do with it either way. We can consider the existence of a god more or less likely and to me the lack of evidence should simply cause us to shift our initial estimate strongly towards the “less likely” end of the scale. It would never reach 0 or 100 in either way. However, for most descriptions of a god/gods I’ve heard, we would expect there to be some evidence so the lack of such evidence is counted against this god/gods by me. While nothing in the universe would be “proof” either way, neither would anything be “proof” that the table I’m sitting on exists — it’s more about being more/less likely.
You say that you would “curse the universe for ever being so cruel” if you were to consider it godless — I don’t understand this at all since that still anthropomorphises the universe. But let’s simply rephrase and say that you would be upset that everything you’ve done in your life would come to naught. I don’t see how mentioning this is anything other than admitting to wishful thinking, to confessing that you believe in a god because you want to be true. I mean you might prefer to live in a universe with a god AND believe in god but why would those two things relate to each other?
Finally I don’t accept your example of the painting. Firstly, even if it were demonstrated that some facts were beyond the reach of rational enquiry, I don’t see how that would make a god more likely. But the main problem I have with all such limits is that their imposition always involves some (inadvertent) trick. For instance, in the painting example, you seem to claim the scientific description would miss out some fact that you mention (in this case the meaning conveyed by the artist). But this would only work because we can’t know this with current science — however are you saying there’s something there that in principle would prevent us from ever working out things like that?
In my experience, the question “if there is no god…” is usually posed by those that are seeking a more practical explanation of how one’s life should continue if they knew there was no god.
For example, a personal example, is how my wife is reacting to my recent decision to stop attending church so I can take a step back to reevaluate my beliefs and current body of knowledge (without someone trying to shove rhetoric at me). She asks the same question in many different forms. What’s the point of homeschooling? What’s the point of living in here? Why don’t we just go our seperate ways? It’s all the same question…what’s the point if there is no god?
A true believer in god, a god, or a worldview has a hard time conceptualizing meaning in any ‘lesser’ form than what they currently believe. It’s almost like a drug. A teenager may say, “Video games are fun, but they are more fun if you are high!”. Eventually, this person would have a hard time understanding why anyone would play video games when they aren’t high. What’s the point?
It’s nearly impossible to tell a true christian believer that there are meaningful pursuits that are not spiced with the ‘glory of god’ or heightened by an eternal meaning. Other worldviews ask the same question all the time. A raft of greek mythology based movies have come out in the last decade. What’s the main motivation for the fierce heroes? Glory! Honor! What a drug these can be made into! Without the eternal memory of their presence on this earth, again it’s asked, ‘What’s the point?’
To be honest with you. I’m in the middle of asking this question. The answer is evasive. It’s a struggle, and sometimes think my family life would be happier, my kids would be healthier, if I just acquiesce to a christian life. So, for me, my internal sense of survival of the fittest is actually urging me to be religious, lol. While the scientific/reasoning man inside of me yearns for more truthful knowledge of the universe.
Michael,
The point of the painting analogy, is to point out that there is more truth to the universe, than science can ever discover and quantify. Philosophy, religious based or not, is an example.
John Lennox puts it well (and similarly to what I gave earlier) when submitting the example that his wife bakes a pie, which he submits for scientific study. We can conclude the pie is 12″ in diameter and 3″ deep. It’s made of apples and crust which consist of their own elements. It’s one day old, and weights 2 pounds. In a way, that’s a complete representation of the pie. But what it doesn’t tell us, is that the pie was baked for their granddaughters birthday. That is the meaning and implications of the pie itself.
Meaning, and intent, are outside the realm of science. People like Richard Dawkins, like to make philosophical deductions on scientific discovery. However, those deductions are not proven true by science, simply may be implied. But, implications can be used either way depending on your worldview, which includes far more than scientific discovery.
One cannot simply look at science and conclude it’s either science or God. That’s like pointing to a car driving down the road, and asking me to choose between Henry Ford and the internal combustion engine. You need both.
Ryan,
I highly recommend Youtubing 2 men, to help you on your journey. John Lennox, and Ravi Zacharias (I know that name rings of Benny Hinn, but trust me). Read C.S. Lewis if you have time as well. At this point, I find them to make the best case for belief in God I’ve came across.
If something cannot be discovered or tested, in what sense are you speaking of it as “true”?
But this is an aside — are you actually saying that science has nothing to say about the state of Lennox’s wife’s brain when she was baking the pie? Lennox’s example seems to require that thoughts be absolutely immaterial — is this where you’re going too?
[...] commenter recently reminded me of the pie argument used by apologist John Lennox: John Lennox puts it well (and similarly to what [...]