Atheists are raising all kinds of interesting questions these days, and I'm glad to see those being debated in the public square. After a while it is tiresome to debate politics, politics, politics. We could use a broadening of the national agenda.
One question raised by the neo-atheists like Richard Dawkins and Sam Harris is: who made God? After all, one of the traditional arguments for God is that the chain of causation in the universe points to a first or ultimate cause. This argument was given its most clear expression by Aquinas.
Dawkins and Harris raise the problem of infinite regress. Why can't the chain of causation stretch back infinitely? Or if God made the universe, then who made Him? The neo-atheists think they have scored a very clever point. Take that, Aquinas!
In my Townhall column this week, I explore whether this critique of Aquinas works. Actually it does not. But to assess all this fairly you have to consider the arguments with an open mind. You can read more about the Aquinas-Dawkins showdown here. Hint: Aquinas retains the title.
Reader Comments ( Page 3 of 8)
31. You know what really gets my goat about this... nothing.
Of course Christians want to go to Heaven...
Of course atheists say that there is no Heaven...
In the end... no one can 'prove' anything... solipsism... and that is only 'provable' to yourself ... 'til you die.
There is NO God... why would he hide his worshipfull self from me... unless he is a capital d...i..c...k
pboyfloyd at 12:43AM on Jun 13th 2007
32. Well, it is like some old thinker (I do not remember who) said; belief in God is a no-lose proposition.
For the sake of example, let's imagine you are not sure about God, but you decide to honestly keep an open mind and/or try to believe in Him and follow His commandments (i.e., love God above all, and love your neighbor as yourself), and you spend your life trying to follow Him. If you live like that you will have lead a decent, kind, and reasonably happy life. Now when you die, if in fact there is no God, you have not lost anything. If God exists and is there waiting, then you are in good shape.
Now let us imagine a person goes through life professing atheism, or even a distain for God, blaspheming and purposely offending Him at every turn. This guy roars through life selfishly, doing only the things he wants to do without regard for God's commandments. Now when this person dies, if there is no God, he is not out anything. However if God exists, then he will have lost big time.
The first scenario is; win-win. The second scenario is; win-lose, and the stakes are very high.
The upshot is you don't lose anything by at least trying to believe in God and trying to follow the golden rule.
Ken Berg at 11:08AM on Jun 13th 2007
33. I should have said the upshot is you don't lose anything by at least trying to keep an open mind about God and trying to follow the golden rule.
Ken Berg at 12:00PM on Jun 13th 2007
34. @ Ken Berg (comment 33)
Yea, that's Pascal's Wager. What Pascal seems to be saying is that I could believe in God if I want to... like I could believe in Santa Claus if I want to..
There's plenty evidence that Santa exists... all those children that truly believe... all those parents willing to stand in for him. There are books and movies...
But Ken, there are solid reasons why there are no supernatural causes. Scientists have been exploring nature for a few hundred years now and as our knowledge grows, it is becoming clearer that whenever we look a phenomenon... we can measure it, collect data and make some kind of predictions.
Of course there are areas where things are too big and far away like astronomy or too small like quantum physics that are at the edge of measurability... and it is in these areas that God seems to be able to get an 'in'.
There are areas in human activity where people are doing 'good' work and can feel that they are doing 'God's' work if they want to. That's fine, that's excellent, but that is hardly supernatural.
If something sounds too good to be true... it usually is.
If I opened the door to the possiblility of God then I have to open the door to the possibliity of miracles and angels and the power of prayer and all kinds of weird stuff like predicting the future that don't make any sense to me.
So, Pascal's Wager sounds good to a Christian who already believes in his/her heart that there is a God... but it sounds like a silly game where I'd be acting that I believed... for purely selfish reasons of getting myself to heaven... which I don't believe exists anyway.
I believe that when I die, it will be like I am in a deep dreamless sleep... but that is the way that I can decribe it from my now living perspective... what I mean is that the I that is me will simply be gone.
That is not bad, Ken... that is just life.
pboyfloyd at 4:07PM on Jun 13th 2007
35. Another problem with Pascal's Utterly Refuted To Death Wager is the problem of avoiding the wrong hell. Maybe there is a god, but it's not the one Kenny believes in. He's screwed if that is the case.
Knight_of_BAAWA at 5:40PM on Jun 13th 2007
36. Wes,
We could argue all day long about which hypothesis is "more plausible" but it isn't my intention. You base your reasoning on what you can see/observe/feel/experience. I also base my reasoning on what I can see/observe -- but in an opposite way -- until I can scientifically observe that something other than an intelligent being created the earth (and by scientifically, I mean a predictably repeatable experiment that proves a hypothesis), then I will continue to believe in said intelligent being. But that wasn't the point of my original posting. I'm not trying "prove" that my hypothesis is better than yours.
The real point of this was belief -- and trust me (you already know this) the strength of your belief in the non-existence of God does match the intensity many religious figures feel about the exact opposite hypothesis. So you continue to prove my point about belief, in which you took umbrage initially by calling out my post.
eM at 10:35PM on Jun 13th 2007
37. "We could argue all day long about which hypothesis is "more plausible" but it isn't my intention. You base your reasoning on what you can see/observe/feel/experience. I also base my reasoning on what I can see/observe -- but in an opposite way -- until I can scientifically observe that something other than an intelligent being created the earth (and by scientifically, I mean a predictably repeatable experiment that proves a hypothesis), then I will continue to believe in said intelligent being. But that wasn't the point of my original posting. I'm not trying "prove" that my hypothesis is better than yours.
The real point of this was belief -- and trust me (you already know this) the strength of your belief in the non-existence of God does match the intensity many religious figures feel about the exact opposite hypothesis. So you continue to prove my point about belief, in which you took umbrage initially by calling out my post."
Of course I believe that there is no intelligent being that contributed to the existence of the universe. We agree on that I believe that there is no such being.
However, here is the point I'm making: My belief is more plausible than the belief that there is a God. We might disagree on this issue.
But some beliefs are more reasonable than others.
This is not a tough issue. What is making this tough?
Wes at 10:50PM on Jun 13th 2007
38. I don't know that there is no intelligent being that contributed to the existence of the known universe.
But I'm overwhelmingly warranted in inferring that no such being exists.
Wes at 10:52PM on Jun 13th 2007
39. The real point of this was belief -- and trust me (you already know this) the strength of your belief in the non-existence of God does match the intensity many religious figures feel about the exact opposite hypothesis.
Maybe so. But here is the point I'm trying to make: There probably is no such being. I'm probably right that there is no such being. Just as I'm probably right that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone. That is the key issue for me. And that is what is so interesting. I'm probably right. And you are probably wrong. That's life. That happens sometimes. Sometimes people get things wrong. Some people think that the known universe is less than 10,000 years old.
Wes at 10:55PM on Jun 13th 2007
40. I also base my reasoning on what I can see/observe -- but in an opposite way -- until I can scientifically observe that something other than an intelligent being created the earth (and by scientifically, I mean a predictably repeatable experiment that proves a hypothesis),
------
An intelligent being did not "create the earth." You can read about planetary formation on the internet. It is commonplace. Some humans know quite a bit about planetary formation. I have a family member who is an astrophysicist, and one of her main areas of research is planetary formation. She can talk your ear off about it. There is nothing magical about it. An intelligent being didn't intervene and use some power to cause Pluto, Earth or Jupiter to be in the orbits that they are in. Moreover, we have found planets outside our solar system. There are probably many, many planets in the known universe. Maybe billions and billions.
What is not well-understood by any human at this point is what series of events triggered the onset of the matter and space that is the known universe. Maybe our ideas of causation don't event apply to that phenomenon.
Wes at 11:13PM on Jun 13th 2007
41. Here is a link to a Wikipedia article that deals with the issue of planetary formation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planetary_formation
Wes at 11:18PM on Jun 13th 2007
42. "This is not a tough issue. What is making this tough?"
Indeed. I will take that as your own rhetorical question, judging by the multiple answers you give afterward. :)
eM at 11:46PM on Jun 13th 2007
43.
eM-
I think you are ignoring Wes's point. The existence of God is a matter of belief if, and only if, you assert his existence to metaphysical processes we do not as yet understand. This means, at this point in time, you would need to believe that God created the matter which resulted in the Big Bang and began the process of "time" as the universe expands from that explosion (That is what I have come to believe, in fact). You really can't believe any other story of creation because they have been disproven as they are written, and the fact that they have been disproven despite claims that the Bible and God are perfect and infallible calls into question his existence at all, at least under Christian (or any other organized religion's) storytelling. God cannot be disproven, but there is a lot of evidence to show that the Christian (and other faith's) definition of him and his various interventions with mankind are untrue, and thus people are believing a lie which organized religion perpetuates by openly denying science.
It is not a question of "belief" to assert that the world is only 10,000 years old. It is not, we can prove that it is not, so that is a lie. I can't believe that the concept of gravity does not exist: If I jump off a 200 foot cliff, I'm going to die, because it is a matter of observable truth, and not belief.
It's okay to challenge the beliefs of others if they are believing a proven lie and calling you a liar for presenting the evidence against their beliefs to them. Is the concept of God a proven lie? Absolutely not, and that is a matter of belief, but only God within the parameters science has outlined for us, not outside of them.
Peter at 5:50PM on Jun 14th 2007
44. a) I was addressing Wes' response to my post about unbelief -- I was not ignoring his points.
b) Science is the result of humans' systematic way of exploring the universe. It is an evolving concept, and I think we all know that humans are limited in their knowledge in any given place and time in history. For example, phrenology was once considered a completely accurate science that was used to "scientifically prove" racism. If you go back and read the "scientific claims" of phrenologists in the 1800s, it is laughable and sickening at the same time. Therefore, I enjoy science and all the mysteries that it attempts to solve, and I welcome its pursuit in all forms, including astronomy, but I also take it with a bit of a grain of salt. And I have a right to that belief -- it is not irrational. We have now observed the births and deaths of stars in our planet... but we have not necessarily re-created through scientific experiment the creation of a planet with multiple forms of intelligent life that have used their power/intelligence to make changes to the surface and atmosphere of the planet.
Therefore, my point is that belief is a necessary factor in both viewpoints. Whether or not one belief is more "valid" than another really helps it eventually become a circular argument, which I have no interest in getting involved in. I think I stated that several times.
eM at 7:16PM on Jun 14th 2007
45. eM wrote: "Therefore, my point is that belief is a necessary factor in both viewpoints. Whether or not one belief is more "valid" than another really helps it eventually become a circular argument, which I have no interest in getting involved in. I think I stated that several times."
That is ridiculous. Some beliefs are more plausible than others. I know that the universe is not less than 10,000 years old. People who believe that the universe is less than 10,000 years old are wrong. That's life. And it is not circular.
eM wrote: "We have now observed the births and deaths of stars in our planet... but we have not necessarily re-created through scientific experiment the creation of a planet with multiple forms of intelligent life that have used their power/intelligence to make changes to the surface and atmosphere of the planet."
Of course we have not "re-created through scientific experiment the creation of a planet with multiple forms of intelligent life that have used their power/intelligence to make changes to the surface and atmosphere of the planet." But it is not necessary for humans to see an alleged event in order for me to know that an event occurred. I've never seen a living T-Rex, and I'm quite sure some T-Rexes drank water and ate other animals. I never saw George Washington cross the Delaware, but I'm quite sure he did. So, that humans have not "re-created through scientific experiment the creation of a planet with multiple forms of intelligent life that have used their power/intelligence to make changes to the surface and atmosphere of the planet" is irrelevant to whether I know that self-replicating molecules formed on earth and evolved into all the complex organisms that have lived on earth.
Wes at 8:33PM on Jun 14th 2007