18 Comments:

Evan said...
Feeling particularly atheist of late?

This is great btw:

"On the contrary: to believe something in the face of evidence and against reason -- to believe something by faith -- is ignoble, irresponsible and ignorant, and merits the opposite of respect. It is time to say so."

Amen?
2:10 PM  


Scott Greider said...
Yeah, Zach, what's up with two religously-motivated posts in as many days? After seeming to steer clear of the topic/discussion in so many earlier posts? And then to link to this doozy... Wow!

(Though very tempted, I'll withold comment on the article, as there seemed to be enough of that over there.)
4:50 PM  


Jakob Lodwick said...
Imagine meeting a college freshman whose family loved Back to the Future Part II so much, that they watched it every Sunday. His favorite book was the screenplay, and he refused to believe that California wasn't currently spending billions of dollars installing electromagnets under the sidewalks and roads to make them hoverboard-ready.
4:58 PM  


Jakob Lodwick said...
Scott, your comment would be lost on the article's own page. Why don't you post your thoughts here.

And Zach, Scott brings up a good point. Maybe you should write an explanation for these posts.
6:20 PM  


Zach said...
Scott/Evan: Dawkins' popularity is suddenly spurring new and interesting atheist dialogue and I'm eager to get my social network involved. Pro-religious debate interests me as well, but I haven't seen anything notable lately. Let me know if I've missed something.
6:32 PM  


jeff said...
hey jakob,

could you pass my contact info to your college freshman friend?

he sounds awesome.

thanks,
jeff
6:39 PM  


Evan said...
"Pro-religious debate interests me..."

I'd love a good debate on this, but, from the sounds of it, I'd be preaching to the choir. (Zing! No.)

Plus real debate and faith can't share a room because of the old difference between skyhooks and cranes. Sure, I could play devil's advocate for a while (zing?), but invariably I'd anchor my arguments in something like The God Gene, and that's not very faith-ish.

At the end of the day, it's not worth the breath, because some people need to believe. Shit. That's step two on the damn 12-steps to recovery for God's sake (zi...).
11:43 PM  


sarah said...
Thanks for this link; it put words to thoughts I had just begun to form myself.

It pops to my forebrain with each religious reference I hear, like this one this morning about the Texas legislature and sex toys..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TYXUUsDGxkU&eurl=
12:01 PM  


Scott Greider said...
Jakob, I can't believe I let you suck me in; I'm sure I'll regret it. ;-)

It's funny, when I read the quote to which Evan refers, I, as a person of religious faith, as opposed to atheist/humanistic/materialistic faith, completely agreed. How could anyone, in the face of the evidence, not believe in God? I mean, how does one explain the miracles of Jesus? His resurrection? His ascension? Obviously, the trend today is to simply say they never happened. But is that really faithful, notwithstanding Dan Brown's theory, to the evidence?

But even if that's your bent, what about love? How does the atheist explain love? Or forgiveness? Or Breyers Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream? And FYI Zach, this is a hugely relevant conversation (http://www.usnews.com/usnews/health/articles/061015/23soul.htm).

In the end, everyone should admit they have faith in something (similar to Dawkins' saying everybody is atheistic about certain things). The Christian has faith in the claims of the Bible, even if they can't be scientifically proven; the materialist has faith that nothing exists outside material, even if it can't . The question has always been - and will always be - which is more reasonable to believe.

And I think that's a profitable conversation to have. :-)
3:27 PM  


Jakob Lodwick said...
Scott, if someone approached me today and said that a miracle was performed, but nobody took a picture or a video, I might not believe it. I'd say, "You're just making that up, or a magician tricked you". Without evidence, I would have no reason to believe it.

Your Jesus citations aren't exactly 'evidence'. We're talking about 14 centuries before the printing press was invented. How anyone can take supernatural claims from that dark age of human communication is beyond me. It strikes me as a failure to think critically.

Rational adult brains resist preposterous ideas, but there's a back door. Slip something untenable into the ears of a young child, and she'll believe it anyway. That's why it's so important to indoctrinate your kids early, before their critical faculties develop.

Evolution makes us profoundly gullible at a young age; we'll believe whatever the adults tell us. Would-be ancestors exhibiting skepticism at an early age didn't pass on their DNA to future generations. Instead, their genes ended up at the bottoms of lakes and the stomachs of lions, just a small fraction of the unfortunate trillions who make natural selection possible, in all its cruel beauty.
1:46 AM  


sarah said...
Thanks for this link; it has popped into my mind numerous times already, such as in this
about sex toys and the Texas legislature.

I also feel that this attitude must be extended to the religion of environmentalism and it's offshoots; vegetarianism and recycling worship. You are not a better person with more rights because you believe separating your paper from your glass changes the world in any righteous way.

They are all faiths. The phrase is "I believe" not "I know".
12:12 PM  


N8 said...
Hey old friend... I loved this article. Today, as an out atheist, I fondly remember our discussions at Lou's downtown. If you haven't already, I highly suggest picking up a copy of Sam Harris' "Letter To A Christian Nation". In less than 100 pages he diescts the issue of why faith is a threat to our society. I miss you... let's catch up soon! :)
9:38 PM  


Evan said...
"How does the atheist explain love? Or forgiveness? Or Breyers Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream?"

Love forgiveness and the enjoyment of icecream are all a symphony of chemcicals, hormones, electrical impulses, and the culmination of millions upon millions of years of infinitely complex interactions. All of which obey the laws of physics I might add. This, to many people, may sound very clinical and meanigless, but to me it's the most fascinating way to look at the world. If you don't trust what I'm saying, read / listen-to Pen Gillette's brilliant essay over on NPR's "This I Believe"

As for the US News and World Report article regarding consciousness... At the risk of sounding like an intellectual inbred, I again would like to point people towards Daniel Dennett and his book titled Consciousness Explained.

And since I'm on such a Dennettian kick I'll further the point about Skyhooks and Cranes from my previous comment, as it is an important concept in understanding this non-debate.

A Crane has a foundation and builds upwards. Cranes can use the work done by other cranes to build up ever and ever higher into the sky.

A Skyhook is just as it sounds--an imaginary means of suspension in the sky.

Both are supposed to do the same thing: lift.

For instance, Darwin's theory of evolution relies on Cranes. The whole theory is predicated on the incremental building up of chemical-mechanical processes that gradually grow upwwards (but not necessarily towards anything). At the leading edge of this tower is everything we see on Earth today.

Conversely, creationism relies on a skyhook: God made the universe in 7 days... man was made in the image of God, etc etc.

Cranes are rooted in verifiable facts. Skyhooks are arbitrary and can be summoned to explain anything at any time--logic and proof need not apply.

This is why a real debate can't happen in this arena. It's a loaded deck

In science, you can't simply explain a phenomenon without backing up your explaination with evidence and proof. In the realm of religion and faith however, you can explain that the Earth is 6000 years old and that dinosaur fossils are God's way of testing the faithful. And if you question the words of God (or the prevailing interpretations of them) you're a heretic. Why look for the truth when it's already written down in a handy little book anyway? The world is so much easier with a recipe!

You ask "how does one explain the miracles of Jesus? His resurrection? His ascension?" Any explanation that uses Cranes instead of Skyhooks will fall short in a faithful person's eyes. And why even ask those questions when you really aren't looking for a truly valid explanation? I'd argue that the faithful need that calming illusion to face their own mortalities and unaswerable questions.

"Everyone should admit they have faith in something." This is true. Anything built with Cranes has to have an absolute foundation. The floor. The bedrock. If you follow the causal chain backwards long enough you hit T-zero--the beginning of time. This is where I believe atheists and the faithful share the most common ground. The big difference, at least for me, is that I'm content to have unanswered questions. No answer is better than a make-believe one. Plus they give me something meaningful to contemplate on Sunday mornings.
12:15 AM  


Scott Greider said...
Well, Zach, good job! You got your social network involved in this (non)debate. ;-) Glad to have played a small part.

And though I appreciate the thoughtful and mostly ;-) charitable responses by Jakob and Evan, I'll have to bow out early. I'm sure we're all aware how these "Comments" discussions, can overtake your life. There's certainly a place for them in the public square, but there are only 24 hours in a day, and I've got bills to pay! ;-)

If I can, though, I'd like to reference two reviews of Dawkins book (for any who were not already aware of them):

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/22/books/review/Holt.t.html?ex=1319169600&en=d9a0ba31b41bb2df&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss

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


(Sorry, I don't quite know how to hyperlink to them.)


"Talk" with you all later, hopefully.
10:02 AM  


Scott Greider said...
Sorry, Zach, one more thing. You asked if you've missed any notable recent religious debate? Whether or not you embraced his reasoning, Anthony Flew's conversion a couple years ago from atheism to deism - and the conversations and analysis that followed it - was arguably notable.

http://www.biola.edu/antonyflew/flew-interview.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antony_Flew
12:27 PM  


Eric said...
As a person of faith, I want to suggest the following article for this discussion:

Why I Believe in God, by Cornelius Van Til. There are also some interesting (and technical) articles here if you have the time and inclination.

Zach, you don't know me, but I enjoy reading your blog. I work not too far downtown from you.
12:04 PM  


sarah said...
The guy is 83, this seems like a (close to) deathbed conversion.
However, his "deist" does not in any way ( that I can see) resemble the G-d in this discussion, having nothing to do with good or evil, or humans for that matter, but the original force that created reproducing life...

From the above mentioned Wikipedia entry

"According to the introduction, Flew informed Habermas in January 2004 that he had become a deist [5], and the interview took place shortly thereafter. Then the text was amended by both participants over the following months prior to publication. In the article Flew states that he has left his long-standing espousal of atheism by endorsing a deism of the sort that Thomas Jefferson advocated ("While reason, mainly in the form of arguments to design, assures us that there is a God, there is no room either for any supernatural revelation of that God or for any transactions between that God and individual human beings."). Flew states that certain philosophical and scientific considerations had caused him to rethink his lifelong support of atheism. However, it is clear from the interview that Flew is not comfortable with either Christianity or Islam.

Flew's conception of God as explained in the interview is limited to the idea of God as a first cause, and he rejects the ideas of an afterlife, of God as the source of good (he explicitly states that God has created "a lot of" evil), and of the resurrection of Jesus as an historical fact. He is particularly hostile to Islam, and says it is "best described in a Marxian way as the uniting and justifying ideology of Arab imperialism."[6]

Flew has subsequently made contradictory statements to those given in the Habermas interview as justification for his endorsing of deism. In October 2004 (before the December publication of the Flew-Habermas interview), a letter written to Richard Carrier of the Secular Web, stated that he was a deist and also said that "I think we need here a fundamental distinction between the God of Aristotle or Spinoza and the Gods of the Christian and the Islamic Revelations."[7]. Flew also said: My one and only piece of relevant evidence [for an Aristotelian God] is the apparent impossibility of providing a naturalistic theory of the origin from DNA of the first reproducing species ... [In fact] the only reason which I have for beginning to think of believing in a First Cause god is the impossibility of providing a naturalistic account of the origin of the first reproducing organisms.
12:44 PM  


goodwillsidis said...
I'm a bit late to dinner here but I'd really like to know where Sarah believes her trash goes when the garbageman takes it away...
1:17 PM  


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