h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I would counter the statistic that "for Agnostics BIG=0.5" as a piece of utterly meaningless regimentation of a non-fact. That equation puts agnostics on the fence, which is not their position.

Dawkins has been saying that he's only slightly more Atheist than the staunchest Christian. He merely adds just one more to the list og gods he doesn't believe in.

That doesn't cover all Theists, though. Some have faith in some sort of vague god thingy that they can't quite define. One idea is that all Gods are the various religions' attempts to nail this shared god thingy down.

It's seems like your party is in full swing - And I am like that guy on the 'Fast Show' - "I'll just get my cost".

In parting I'd ask you to reflect that IMO we all need BOTH faith and reason to make sense of the world, they exist as a symbiotic pair. Without faith your reason takes you in post-modern irrationality and other places you probably dont want to be.

Irrespective of your POV on the BIG question I'd nevertheless ask all people to reflect on Non-Tolerance and Misology, I think these are the hallmarks of Fundamentalism and you can find them in Atheists as well as Theists.

'I'll just get my coat'

Oh, don't go! I think you're wrong - but it's a thought-provoking argument. We need people like you to stop us getting too cosy.

OK - As I stand in the doorway

If we had this conversation running some 1900 years or so ago in Rome, apart from the Latin (give me a Babel fish ), we might be arguing something like" "these 'Christians' are a danger to our Roman secular civilization - we need to stamp out these 'Atheist Fundamentalists'!".

Huh?

Secular powers of Rome considered Christians to be ATHEISTS - and called them such and martyred them accordingly, since they refused to add their 'God' to the pantheon of god's of Rome (that included Caesar). Early Christians has a revolutionary idea that God was one and for all and was (syncretically) based on the Hellenic concept of God is Logos (reason and meaning) as well as the Judaic concept of God is One and God is Love. An integrated reason and faith-based worldview.

All other previous 'gods' and deities in their worldview where either simply human constructs or pre-figured glimpses of the true nature of the one God.

Early Christians denied the Roman pantheon as having any reality beyond a pluralistic political gesture to keep the secular peace. And when faced with martyrdom they accepted it - in the Roman secular perspective making them dangerous revolutionary FUNDAMENTALISTS.

When they read their scripture they now read it in a revolutionary way - the meta-narrative was that it was a 'journey' of revelation, taking rather useless, cracked and broken clay pots of mankind and bit by bit (some horrible acts by modern standards along the way) fashioning something new. Leading up to a messiah figure that would bridge the gap between a perfect God and imperfect man. This Christ would redefine the old law (that he specifically references that was made for man because he was so pathetic) into a simple summary, that we should:

"Love (Know) God with all our mind (rational intelligence), heart (emotional intelligence), body (genetic/memetic intelligence) and soul (numinous/collective unconscious intelligence), and love our neighbor as we love ourselves."

We are asked in this POV to committ to God before the Knowing of God. Since only through an act of Selfless-Love will we truly Know God.

This ultimate meta-narrative replaces the mosaic law. A revolutionary moral perspective. An axiomatic faith-based principle. A top-down revelation. This and the meaning that one can take from the beatitudes and passion of Christ gives Christians Meaning to their Being.

Faith and Love brings Hope to Reason.

So indeed I am an 'Atheist Fundamentalist' (from a Secular Ancient Rome perspective)

"I'll just get my coat"

This article was brought to my attention the other day, take a look at it. It explodes the myth of the rational objectivity of some popular atheist fundamentalists.

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl01_.html

Dawkins is like Dr Johnson stubbing his toe on a stone to refute Berkeley's subjective idealist dictum that "to be is to be percieved". His objective is not to argue the case but to dismiss, ridicule and keep a stone-head! Dawkins manufactures, obfustacates and misrepresents facts to make his case, obsessed with his fundamantalism.

Consider the following excerpt, echoing my earlier thoughts about both atheist fundamentalists and theist fundamentalists sharing the same misological worldview with one aspect excepting (the BIG question)...

"What, one wonders, are Dawkins’s views on the epistemological differences between Aquinas and Duns Scotus? Has he read Eriugena on subjectivity, Rahner on grace or Moltmann on hope? Has he even heard of them? Or does he imagine like a bumptious young barrister that you can defeat the opposition while being complacently ignorant of its toughest case? Dawkins, it appears, has sometimes been told by theologians that he sets up straw men only to bowl them over, a charge he rebuts in this book; but if The God Delusion is anything to go by, they are absolutely right. As far as theology goes, Dawkins has an enormous amount in common with Ian Paisley and American TV evangelists. Both parties agree pretty much on what religion is; it’s just that Dawkins rejects it while Oral Roberts and his unctuous tribe grow fat on it."

Both are as bad as the other. Intolerant, radical, militant misological fundamentalists.

I'll just get my coat

This is also my gripe with Dawkins - he hits (hard!) at the easy targets. In fairness, this mops up *most* of religion...but it does leave a lot of 'nyah nyah ni-nah nah' room for the 'serious' religious 'thinkers' (Provocative quotation marks ).

Yes, I'd like to see him (or someone) take up the Popperian approach of strengthening the opponent's argument in order to defeat it more comprehensively. His pal Daniel Dennett *sort of* does this in his recent attempts to engage with the Theists and try and understand what they're actually saying (it slightly defeats them. He concludes that they seem to have 'a belief in belief'). This is a decent starting point, though...the oppostition between Rationalism and belief/faith.

It's a little bit unfair of the religious, though, to expect the Atheists to fight on their theological turf. Why should they choose which bits of the theological shebang we have to take seriously or ignore - especially when they all disagree amongst themselves? It's quite reasonable for Dawkins to seek out 'leading authorities' such as Aquinas. When the Theists get their way, you end up (as Dawkins did) having to argue about meaningless trivia such as the (non)-'Problem' of Free Will.

As a counter - why don't the Theists study science? Why don't they at least try and get to grips with concepts such as empiricism and the limited role of proof in science?

Your counter comment I think is fair in that of course theists, if they value truth, MUST accept it from whatever quarter it comes from, and work that into their worldview with good grace. It (truth) will after all set them free.

And many theists do that (I try to), its a vocal minority that consider reason and faith to be at loggerheads (irrespective if that comes from theists of atheists - I kind of distrust both when they make such fundamental exclusive and dismissive claims for one mode).

As you say 'belief in belief' (or I would offer "belief in meaning" as a better alternative), is a way of characterising a theist.

You can test that statement by looking at it as a dialectic issues - what in the anti-thesis of that statement? - would it be 'disbelief in meaning'?

Heidegger the philosopher took a view on this that there is no meaning in the world from a pure rational perspective (See A656787).

For me therefore reason and faith must learn to co-exist if we 'want' meaning. You must have faith in reason AND reasoned faith, utlising the whole of our facilty for understanding - fully engaged meaning.

You see, I think we in fact reason with more than just a 100% rational only faculty (it's the mode easiest to verify though - so its the most used by emprical analysis for those excellent reasons). Yet we can reason with a variety of our human faculties other than "mind", we have emotional intelligence for example (and others that I have posted on before - so I'll resist repeating myself again )

I'll just get my coat!

I feel like accusing Dawkins of being a closet Jesuit. He should know that religion is not to be defeated by stamping

You may take the shamrock from your hat and cast it on the sod
It will take root and flourish there tough underfoot tis trod

And the reason why this will not work is psychology, dammit! Religion is not in the area where decisions are made rationally! And that doesn't mean that it's insufficiently rational, it's out the other side, along with aesthetics (as Wittgenstein noted).

Compare the science of acoustics. It can measure a whole lot, but it cannot explain (sufficiently for the purposes of reproduction) what makes a Guarneri violin sell for more than a Strad.

Other example: they now have ways of measuring the chemical balance of wine, and have more or less eliminated the scourge of a 'bad year' for growers. But we do not expect a machine to become the world expert on vintage wines. Why? Because unlike chess, taste is a human phenomenon that cannot be coralled.

Religion is not going to go away while people feel a reason (even if they can't explain it) to remain fiercely loyal to their group. You may call it politics, and you may be right, but it doesn't look like a candidate for eradication. The most we can hope is that it continues its trend towards atheism.

Don't boo me, shoo me, as the man said when he got cold feet about jumping off the Campanile in his proto-hang glider.

You're onto something with 'belief in meaning'. I think you've hit on what makes me an Atheist Fundamentalist. There *is* no inherent meaning in the universe. Yes, there is order to be discovered - but 'meaning' implies to the Theists (I think) an underlying reason for our existence, and by implication an intelligent creator. I simply have to reject that for want of evidence.

At this point you may be thinking I'm a nihilist. Weeelll...looking at things dispassionately, I guess one could make a case for nihilism. Observably nature is ammoral - kiddies dying in eathquakes etc. etc. - BUT...now we get onto your bit about ' variety of our human faculties other than "mind" '...I think.

I am a biological entity. I am the result of a series of accidents, as are we all (bonus points for recognising the quote ). One of those accidents is that I have ended up with the endowments of self-awareness and emotion. My ancestors developed emotions for their survival value (Ripe fruit - Good! Snake - Run Away!), and by a long process of abastraction they allow me to feel the love of a good woman, the beauty of a Jackson Pollock.

Meanwhile, my genes compel me to go on living, eating, engaging in breeding-like behaviour. I am compelled to act 'as if' there is meaning. That meaning is in human pleasures and relationships. But they don't have any grand place in the universe; they all came about as the result of some fairly run-of-the-mill biochemistry. And on Gamma Ursa Majoris 3, they don't give a damn.

So...in summary, I reject the concept of 'meaning' as (I understand) the Theists mean it. I also question whether 'other ways of thinking' - eg non-rationality, emotional intelligence have relevance to the Theism/Atheism debate. They're only biology!

(But note Woody Allen: "What's so 'only' about it?")

Recombentman - I think you see the light. But be careful not to worship Rationality over Humanity, or that which gives meaning to us all.

As for the trend to Atheism, have you read the "Twilight of Atheism" by Alistair Mgrath?

The trend is that Atheism globally is falling rapidly now. Whereas Theism is rising. It is mostly a Western (and West European Christian at that) phenomena that "belonging" to a religion is falling. Census statitics indicate over the past 100 years that the proportion of people believing in a Deity has remained the same in the UK, whilst Church attendence in many (though not all denominations is falling, eg., Pentacostalism).

That last sentaqnce had its brackets wrong...

whilst Church attendence in many is falling (though not in all denominationsis, eg., Pentacostalism).

Edward,

But if one finds meaning, and it is true and consistent to reality as we accurately perceive it (to the best of our ability) - what then of your argument?

It maybe that this meaning is not based on an argument of 100% rationality, but including your own personal subjective experience and emotions etc. That makes it less empirical and reational of course, but I do not deify that aspect at expense of human truth.

Take a look at the EAAN argument by Alvin Pantinga. It puts in a box and buries the Evolutionary Argument from a Naturalism perspective. A short precis; it is hard to argue that our cognitive refined ability could have been developed through evolution (based on competitive adaptive selection) to provide us with a trustworthy mechanism to arrive at judgements of truth, beauty and goodness reliably. Yet somehow we seem to manage to do that.

(I am not an advocate of ID by the way. Merely I am not a Atheist/Nauralist)

What you are doing in excercising your genetic-argument-only is indulging in faith-based reasoning based on the metaphysics of evolution, with a meta-narrative of the selfish gene. You cannot verify the axiom, but you nevertheless credit it with meaning and belief. Perhaps you are right to say you are an Fundamentalist (but it's based on a Faith you have in Naturalism/Atheism according to my analysis of your argument).

"The trend is that Atheism globally is falling rapidly now. Whereas Theism is rising."

- and that's a good thing?

Reading Dawkins' book as I am now, one thing that strikes me is the lucidity of the prose. Dawkins has little need to rely on mental constructs whereas the attack by the theologian above requires a serious amount of philosophical gymnastics to understand where he is coming from. Gymnastics that I suspect are in place because of the basic assumptions that underly all theology and the problems that these basic assumptions have subsequently caused. Occam's Razor, anyone?

I'm actually not sure if the theologian actually *read* Dawkins' book, because he makes a claim that Dawkins thinks that theists believe in a bearded man in the clouds, when Dawkins goes out of his way to refute this claim right at the beginning of the book. The God Delusion is certainly challenging and robust in places, but not in the "all theists are stupid" way at all.

>>But if one finds meaning, and it is true and consistent to reality as we accurately perceive it (to the best of our ability) - what then of your argument?

It is unnecessary, obviously. But...in the opposite case, wherein subjectivity is the guide to *everything*...we tend towards a random probability of being able to decide the best way to live our lives or predict how our environment works.

Of course...religions, at their best, aren't that silly. They agree with rationality at many points. So...does it matter if one person's life is guided by a god while another's isn't, provided they're both decent? Well...to a point, no...except that religions aren't like that, are they? They set the bar for testing out an idea at 'It seems right to me.' Historically, people have had to be dragged kicking and screaming away from their superstitious beliefs about how the universe works...But so what? They mostly get there in the end. The problem, though, is in the arena of human behaviour. What argument can a decent Theist possibly have against another Theist who sincerely believes in, say, the flying of aircraft into tall buildings?

>>It maybe that this meaning is not based on an argument of 100% rationality, but including your own personal subjective experience and emotions etc. That makes it less empirical and reational of course,

Correct. We are emotional beings. That is empirically observable. Our biology compells us to impose our own meaning on life. But that meaning is not external to ourselves.

>>...but I do not deify that aspect at expense of human truth.

And neither do I. Being an Atheist, I don't 'do' deification. But I suggest that you're making the same error as many theists...that of proposing a false dichotomy. There is *no* incompatibility between Rationalism and Human Emotion - as I've explained above. It is not at all difficult to grasp the rational origin of emotion, the search for meaning, etc. But the Theists...if I understand them right...seem to distinguish between the Rationalist perspective and (and here I get stuck), some 'other' way of thinking. I can't for the life of me see what this 'other' is that I'm misssing. Things like emotion, beauty, awe, the 'spiritual' - it seems to me that they all fit quite easily in an Atheist worldview. Am I right in thinking that, to the Theists, they're in the purview of Something Out There?

Is there any point in discussing religion as an individual's mindset? It occurs in the world as a mass phenomenon. Mass psychological phenomena are something different to talk about; very tricky indeed.

Woodpigeon,

I hope you had a look at the link for the reviewer. Form his (and my) perspective take on Dawkins he makes too many 'straw men' arguments, setting up the anti-thesis of theists POV as simple and easy ones to knock down.

Either he is unaware of the fact he is doing this (bad research). Or his is aware but does not choose to take on the heavier and harder arguments (a kind of intellectual cowardice). Either way in terms of Public Understanding of Science, Dawkins is not setting a good example - IMO

If a theist reads an theist apologetic (for example on say ID) he may find it succinct, but if the evolutionary position that are being put up are fallacious, mocked and ridiculed (for example taking some out of date views on archaeopteryx fossil findings) you would take the theist to task for abuse right?

Same point. If Dawkins just toned down his rhetoric (so as to be sensitive to others feelings). Accepted that not all theists are "clearly" in the wrong. Accepted that faith is a part of his worldview in some respects also (not necessarily Belief-In-God), then things would be more tolerant and even handed. But the hallmark of the Fundamentalist (atheist or theist) is an unwillingness to reflect on that possibility that they are wrong.

>>But...in the opposite case, wherein subjectivity is the guide to *everything*...we tend towards a random probability of being able to decide the best way to live our lives or predict how our environment works.<<

I would not suggest that living a life of pure subjectivism is not safe. We need to bedrock our worldviews on some objective truths. This is hard, we should IMO approach it from both a bottom-up scientific method, as well as a top-down method. Augumenting them with personal subjective experience if approapriate. Thus building a worldview that's consistent with truth in all respects. Truth from Science canot be disregarded. Tradintional perspectives on Human truths, about morality say, should not be disregarded a piori either.

>>What argument can a decent Theist possibly have against another Theist who sincerely believes in, say, the flying of aircraft into tall buildings?<<

It is wrong for any worldview to set itself up as a judge of other worldviews in an intolerant and violent way. In history there are many examples of theists of one persuasion doing this to others, as well as atheists and vice versa. The common factor is intolerance and willigness to committ violence. This was the subject (in part of the recent Regensburg speech by Benedict XVI - that unfortunetely blew-up becuase of other naive commentary)

Let's agree not that one POV is right and others are wrong (its not going to work even if you could do it and I dont think anyone can), but that expressions of misology, intolerance and violence cannot be supported in our society.

I have no problem with secular society being seperated from religious institutions, to in part ensure that this principle is defended. But this defense would include for example the restriction of free speech if that speech is designed to inflame hatred of other races and creeds.

>>But that meaning is not external to ourselves<<

Such a statement is an article of your creed, your faith. It's OK with me that you hold it (I happen to disagree, but thats my choice I trust you support my having). But let's call a spade a spade.

>>Being an Atheist, I don't 'do' deification.<<

Its true that theists and atheists certainly differ on the Belief-In-God proposition. But faith is more than just that. Otherwise you would have to say that Buddhists (who have no conception of God) have no 'faith'. What atheists (some but not all IMO) is to deify something else, eg., Awe in Nature (God is Nature is what Spinoza said), or Rational Empricism (leading to Scientism).

It may be the case that some atheists avoid introspection of the their deep beliefs and faith axioms since to do so would lead them to either an understanding of the foundational irrationality of their prized rationality (according to Heidegger) or an embryonic-deity by way of an incomplete set of axioms - a kind of working faith derived from bottom-up only reductive thinking.

One final remark for your reflection (since I am the only theist that has the nerve to withstand this 'conversation' I hope you find some value in my remarks!)

Sigmund Freud is now mostly discredited as a chap who as an adolescent had sexual feeling towards his mother and hated his father (for being "weak" in face of an anti-semitic beating he saw his father take) and manipulated his psychological theories (e., Oedipal complex) to justify these, as well as some dubious case data manipulations. His tirade against theism (mostly Christianity) is seen in the terms of his own psycho-analysis as a repressed reaction to guilty feelings. I think some folks are atheists becuase they have a strong, maybe unconscious personal need for things to be that way, consider ...

'...I want atheism to be true and I am uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and well-informed people I know are religious believers. It isn't just that I don't believe in God, and naturally hope that I'm right about my belief. It's that I HOPE there is no God! I don't want there to be a God; I don't want the universe to be like that'. (The American philosopher Thomas Nagel)

'(of his Near-Death-Experience) ... slightly weakened my conviction that my genuine death ... will be the end of me, though I continue to HOPE that it will be.' (Prior to his death in 1989 A J Ayer the English philosopher, a lifelong and famous religious skeptic, had a vivid near-death experience after choking on a piece of smoked salmon that stopped his heart for at least four minutes. He attending doctor said 'Ayer told me he saw the Supreme Being.')

Why such expressions of HOPE - if not Misology?

Recumbentman,

You are right, but only just!

Actually "religions" just need 2 or 3 individuals to discuss God, for God to be there for them as an actual reality some theists would say (Matthew 18:17).

This is a very interesting point BTW. Why not 1, and why a minimum of 2?

Berkeley would (probably) answer becuase an external agent (God) is needed to sustain the fabric of existence created through the perceiving consiousness of one party so that it can be communicated to another, that communication requires 2 parties as a minimum. hence his theory of subjective idealism (and why IMO it is different from solipsism). In his Principles of Human Knowledge he says:

"…For as to what is said of the absolute existence of unthinking things without any relation to their being perceived, that is to me perfectly unintelligible. Their esse is percipi ('being is to be percieved'); nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds of thinking things which perceive them… all the choir of heaven and furniture of the earth, in a word all those bodies which compose the mighty frame of the world, have not any subsistence without a mind ; that their being is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some eternal spirit: it being perfectly unintelligible and involving all the absurdity of abstraction to attribute to any single part of them an existence independent of a spirit. To be convinced of which, the reader need only reflect and try to separate in his own thoughts the being of a sensible thing from its being perceived. From what has been said, it follows, there is not any other substance than spirit, or that which perceives."

Just a thought!