“Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.”
“I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.” — Alice in Wonderland
Like Alice I am woefully unskilled in the art of believing impossible things. Even if I were to spend an entire hour a day I doubt I could develop the proficiency to believe even one impossible thing before breakfast, much less six. This lack of imagination is one of the primary reasons I could never be an atheist. (I figure since I’m already on this rant . . . )
I’m not sure how they do it, how they aquire the skill, but modern atheists have an incomparable ability to believe impossible things. Take, for example, the following list of beliefs. Not all of them are shared by every atheist, but all who claim the label believe at least one of these items:
1. Emergent properties “arise” out of more fundamental entities (i.e., matter) and yet are novel or irreducible with respect to them. Consciousness, for example, is an emergent property of the brain, arising—like magic—from a specific arrangement of molecules. This magical property which is created by the physical can also turn around and affect the physical matter from which it came.
2. Everything that is real is, in some sense, really physical. Therefore, mental states such as beliefs, desires, and sensations do not exist. Mental states—even ones like the belief that mental states do not exist—do not actually exist but are merely physical states in the brain.
3. Our cognitive faculties are the result of from blind mechanisms like natural selection working on sources of genetic variation, such as random genetic mutation, yet are reliable for distinguishing between truth and false aspects of reality, such as the claim that our cognitive faculties have resulted from blind mechanisms.
4. Evolution is a blind process that has no teleology; whatever behavior works is the behavior that survives. Yet ethical norms of behavior should not be based on what works or what will lead to survival but should be based on concepts not found in nature (even though nature is all that exists).
5. The brain is nothing more than a physical system whose operation is governed solely by the laws of chemistry and physics. Nevertheless, a person’s beliefs (i.e., about the existence of God) are not determined by random fluctuations in the natural chemical and physical laws but are chosen by the individual and should be considered rational, reasonable, and respectable.
6. A human being has a finite ability to know, yet human beings should be taken seriously when making claims that no infinite beings can or do exist.
While I’m fairly certain that all Western atheists believe at least one of these items, I am completely baffled at how they do it. Admittedly, I’ve never been much of one for magic or mysticism, and since such alien and exotic concepts are required to maintain a belief in atheism, I am at a distinct disadvantage.
Still, I wonder how they are able to maintain such supple reasoning abilities. I wonder sometimes if, like the Queen of Hearts, they have to practice the skill of believing the impossible.
May 13th, 2010 | 9:28 am
Silly, silly boy…
Why don’t you try talking with an atheist or reading their literature some time? By the sound of things, you’ve only ever heard of what atheists believe from Ravi Zacharias, Ray Comfort or some other apologist nutcase.
For now, I guess I’ll just leave you to your grounded & unimaginitve beliefs, like talking animals, people made from mud and a magic man who says magic words that make things pop into existence magically. Oh, I mean, MIRACULOUSLY…I forgot that there’s a difference.
May 13th, 2010 | 9:30 am
Wow, talk about protesting too much. It must really gall you that there are people who genuinely don’t believe in magical beings like gods.
May 13th, 2010 | 9:50 am
I’m not clear what you find problematic about #6. Surely you aren’t willing to claim that human beings have an infinite capacity to know, and yet you also (presumably) think you should be taken seriously when making claims with respect to an infinite being.
1, 2, and 5 seem to me to be beliefs held by materialists, and all deal with some aspect of the mind-body problem. It cannot be difficult to find non-materialistic atheists, if you look. But even supposing you limit your criticism to the materialistic folks, it isn’t clear how positing the existence of God resolves the mind-body problem.
I’m not sure what you mean to criticize in 3. Is it that an exhaustive explanation of our cognitive faculties must *include* blind mechanisms, or an that exhaustive explanation must exclude everything else? If the former, then I don’t see how you could deny it. If the latter, then again, this applies only to materialists & the mind-body problem.
Finally, #4 is something I would probably hold as true, although I’m not an atheist but a trinitarian. It isn’t quite clear to me what you want to deny about it. Do you want to claim that evolutionary processes have an intrinsic telos? If so, what does that mean, exactly, and how is it related to the existence of God? Or do you want to claim that ethical norms of behavior need to be based on what “works,” in some sense?
I don’t think teleology meets ethics in the teleology of evolution. I think they meet in the teleology of the human person. The human person can have a telos without the evolutionary process having one.
May 13th, 2010 | 9:52 am
Jason By the sound of things, you’ve only ever heard of what atheists believe from Ravi Zacharias, Ray Comfort or some other apologist nutcase.
So you don’t believe any of the six items on this list?
May 13th, 2010 | 10:48 am
Jason: You say that Mr. Carter should engage more sympathetically with atheist thinkers, yet you don’t set an example of sympathetic engagement, to say the least.
For example, some of Carter’s points (e.g., about the self-refutation of naturalism) figured in a famous debate between C.S. Lewis and Elizabeth Anscombe (hardly “apologist nutcases”). It seems you need to broaden your reading at least as much as Carter does.
May 13th, 2010 | 10:54 am
Atheists need proof.
It is a shameless cover-up to say everything cannot be proved. So long we don’t have proof, let’s doubt, not accept.
Read religious books. Their God doesn’t even knowledge of geography, leave aside science.
Give credit to science, which dares to question.
May 13th, 2010 | 11:01 am
Jason and Brian:
I’m a devoted Catholic, and yet I have never believed in a “magical” god in my adult lifetime. I’ll let Mr. Carter speak for himself, but I would venture that he does believe in a “magical” god either. For those who do believe in a magical god or gods, the essence of such belief is attempting to manipulate such a being into getting what you want or need. The essence of Christian belief, however, is the exact opposite: a lifetime of service to God in order to do His will.
But then again, what educated Christians actually believe is not really something that interests you, is it?
Cordially,
GR
May 13th, 2010 | 11:09 am
“I’m a devoted Catholic, and yet I have never believed in a “magical” god in my adult lifetime.”
So you don’t believe in e.g. transubstantiation? You know, magically changing wine & bread into the blood & body of christ, yet somehow magically still looking exactly like wine & bread?
May 13th, 2010 | 11:11 am
Very odd post. What’s your criteria for deciding what is real and what isn’t? Yahweh or Zeus? Leprechauns, angels, or space aliens? I’m curious how you discern among these claims.
May 13th, 2010 | 11:20 am
Fitz,
From my knowledge of Joe Carters writing, I can confidently say that he uses critical thinking to discern between competing claims.
May 13th, 2010 | 11:27 am
pranatibanerjee,
So, which of Joe’s points do you not hold to? And on the ones that you do… can you explain why it’s reasonable to do so? Or to put it another way… can you prove why it’s reasonable to hold such a view?
May 13th, 2010 | 11:32 am
Wow, I think you may be running out of straw there. You spent a lot of time building up your distortion of what atheists really believe. Let me sound it out for you:
“a-” Greek prefix meaning without.
“-theism” meaning a belief in a god.
There you go, not having a belief in god; that is what all atheists share in common. Now, as to where all matter, energy, etc. first originated from the difference in atheists and theists is that atheists have theories but admit they don’t have exact answers for this yet. Theists on the other hand have cute little stories about magic men in the sky that they pulled straight out of their own rabbit hole. If you want to examine impossible stories maybe you should examine the wide range of theistic beliefs. I notice that you left off which impossible story you believe in Joe.
May 13th, 2010 | 12:04 pm
Brian:
If I believed that a physical change (i.e. the molecules or DNA or whatnot) were occurring, then you could reasonably accuse me of believing in “magic” as the term is commonly understood: an alteration of a thing’s physical state by non-natural means.
However, transubstantiation is not “magic”, but the application of Aristotelian philosophical terms (“form” vs. “substance”) in explaining a sacrament. The “form” of something is what that something is in physical reality; the “substance”, or essence, of something is its nature or (per Aristotle) “Not an element, but a principle”; Positing the existence of the God that Catholic Christians believe in, something’s “substance” can be described – for simplicity’s sake – as what that its essence is in the eyes of God. Therefore, transubstantiation is not “magic”: the form (physical reality) of the bread and wine remains bread and wine, but their substance or essence becomes the body and blood of Christ.
Thus, transubstantiation does not fit the definition of “magic” as stated and commonly understood. Of course, if you don’t believe in God or in supernatural reality, you will think all the non-physical stuff in the paragraph above is nonsense; if you don’t believe in God, I would expect as much. However, to continue to label my belief in God and/or transubstantiation as “magic” is a misapplication of the term; to do so in the pejorative manner you have thus far is something I would expect from a petulant teenager instead of a person engaging in intelligent criticism.
Cordially,
GR
May 13th, 2010 | 12:20 pm
Hydrogen isn’t wet at room temperature. Oxygen isn’t wet at room temperature. Yet, combine them, and you get water and all its EMERGENT PROPERTIES. Whoops– guess that’s impossible; Joe Carter says water cannot be wet, because emergent properties are magic and cannot exist.
Joe Carter, you’re all wet.
May 13th, 2010 | 12:22 pm
Trey,
Surely you are intelligent enough to realize that such a lack of belief has many logically inescapable results that follow. These are what Joe is discussing. All atheists accept one or more of these premises because they logically follow from their lack of belief. So instead of simply trying to parody other beliefs, why not try instead to discuss things civilly and rationally with people to whom you disagree.
May 13th, 2010 | 12:25 pm
Just because you don’t understand science doesn’t mean something is impossible. Maybe if you picked up just 1 book besides your ancient scriptures and tried to learn something about the natural world you might just learn something. But I suppose its easier to just disregard everything you don’t want to know and stick to those obviously factual stories in your ancient text…like men that live to be 600+ years old, people that live inside the belly of a giant fish for days, talking serpents, 2 animals of every species on Earth living on a boat for weeks on end while being tended by only a handful of people, taking/burning bushes, walking on water, parting seas, man living with dinosaurs, zombie saviors, etc., etc., etc., and all this in a universe that was created in 1 week less than 6,000 years ago. Ya, all that stuff has to be true. Silly atheists.
May 13th, 2010 | 12:35 pm
Wow, the one commonality I see in atheists is bitterness.
May 13th, 2010 | 1:04 pm
Trey:
You begin by noting that atheists are simply people who don’t believe in God. The flip side, which you don’t acknowledge, is that theists are simply people who do believe in God, “God” in this case being no more than the philosophical concept of an uncaused cause or unmoved mover. This is the God whose existence Aquinas attempted to prove in the Summa Theologica, and it is decidedly not the same as the God of Christian revelation or any other kind of revelation.
So, when you say that theists “have cute little stories about magic men in the sky that they pulled straight out of their own rabbit hole,” you demonstrate the same ignorance of terms that you started out deploring. You then refer to a “range of beliefs” among theists, which contradicts your sweeping generalization of the previous sentence. So which is? Do all theists have these cute little stores, or do only some of them? And what are these cute little stories anyway?
May 13th, 2010 | 1:06 pm
Transubstantiation was only one possible example. Do you believe that Moses turned a stick into a snake? That’s actually an ancient magic trick. Do you believe Jesus was resurrected? Sounds like magic to me. How about turning water into wine? Did the wedding guests say that the wine still tasted and looked like water, or did it really magically change from water into wine?
May 13th, 2010 | 1:08 pm
Ranger,
No, there are not logical inescapable truths that follow from atheism. It is only a lack of a belief in a god. It really is that simple. You can try to feel deep and philosophical about it all you want, but it comes down to the fact that there are some things that we can’t completely explain yet with science. Now, I think the logical thing to do in that instance is work with logic and advance science to try to find out how those unexplained things work (how energy/time/matter/etc. first originated, how the brain works on a molecular/chemical/electrical level etc.). It might do you and the author some good to read up on some of the current research on brain activity, FMRI, etc. The other alternative is to just sit back and go, “oh look… here’s something you can’t explain yet… that means there is a God and he did it!” You know, we have an explanation for thunder now too and Thor seems pretty silly to most people.
May 13th, 2010 | 1:09 pm
SmatthewStolte I’m not clear what you find problematic about #6. Surely you aren’t willing to claim that human beings have an infinite capacity to know, and yet you also (presumably) think you should be taken seriously when making claims with respect to an infinite being.
I think I should be taken seriously when making claims with respect to an infinite being because an infinite being is necessary for the existence of finite beings (using the term “being” to refer to an ontological existing person/place/thing). We all believe in an infinite being, atheists just consider it to be something other than God.
1, 2, and 5 seem to me to be beliefs held by materialists, and all deal with some aspect of the mind-body problem. It cannot be difficult to find non-materialistic atheists, if you look.
That is true. This is probably a good time to point out (if it wasn’t already obvious) that my post is about Western atheists who attempt to reconcile reason, logic, etc., with atheism. Faith-based atheists (e.g., some Buddhists) who believe that everything is an illusion would not be subject to the same criticism. It would be pointless to try to make a reason-based argument with people who think that reason is an illusion.
But even supposing you limit your criticism to the materialistic folks, it isn’t clear how positing the existence of God resolves the mind-body problem.
It doesn’t resolve the mind-body problem, but it shifts it from the realm of impossible/illogical claims (e.g., eliminative materialism) to the realm of the possible. Positing the existence of human beings doesn’t resolve the question of how the software in my computer interacts with the hardware. But it at least makes it possible for there to be a reasonable solution to the question.
I’m not sure what you mean to criticize in 3.
A fuller explanation would require a lengthy argument (which, in fairness, I should make). But the short answer is that if it is true that our noetic equipment was an accident of blind forces, then we have no warrant for trusting in the ability of this noetic equipment to make claims that are true (i.e., that align with reality).
Or do you want to claim that ethical norms of behavior need to be based on what “works,” in some sense?
My claim is that a consistent atheist who believes we were created by non-teleological forces, should accept social Darwinism since they have no way to derive “ought” from “is” if the universe has no purpose at all.
The human person can have a telos without the evolutionary process having one.
How? How does the human person have what does not exist in the universe?
pranatibanerjee Atheists need proof.
If an atheist is merely someone who is awaiting proof, wouldn’t that make them an agnostic?
It is a shameless cover-up to say everything cannot be proved. So long we don’t have proof, let’s doubt, not accept.
You seem to be confusing “proof” with “indubitable proof.” There is all kinds of proof that God exists. The fact that you doubt it—that you require indupitable proof—does not change that.
Give credit to science, which dares to question.
At the fundamental level, science is wholly incompatible with atheism. The fact that Western atheists don’t seem to grasp this obvious point always astounds me. Science rests on certain philosophical assumptions that cannot be derived from an atheist worldview. You can believe in science (and rationality, empiricism, etc) or atheism but it is illogical to subscribe to both.
Fitz Very odd post. What’s your criteria for deciding what is real and what isn’t?
My criteria for deciding what is real is, to be rather tautologous, questioning whether it corresponds to reality.
Yahweh or Zeus? Leprechauns, angels, or space aliens? I’m curious how you discern among these claims.
Mostly in the same way we make distinctions about all truth claims. The difference betweeen Yahweh and Zeus, for example, is that the first is a supreme deity and the second is sub-deity. While there has to be at least one ulitimate divine being, there does not have to be more than one. Also, I’ve never heard anyone make credible claims for the existence of Zeus or Leprechauns in the way that I have for Yahweh and angels (I think we have reason to be agnostic about space aliens).
Trey Let me sound it out for you: “a-” Greek prefix meaning without. “-theism” meaning a belief in a god.
I think confusion lies in a misused preposition, specifically “in.” While it’s a common phrasing, I’m not sure it makes much sense—at least not in the sense you intend it to be used. It’s similar to saying that you don’t believe in guns. Such a claim is not saying that you don’t believe guns exist. No one is a-gunist.
You can have a belief about God but what does it mean to have a belief in God? Obviously, it means that a person has an affirmative, positive belief about God or some aspect of him (such as his existence).
To therefore claim that a-theism is “without a belief in a God” is misleading. You may not have a belief “in” but you have a belief “about.” Failing to have a belief in God does not make one an atheist, only a non-believer.
Now, as to where all matter, energy, etc. first originated from the difference in atheists and theists is that atheists have theories but admit they don’t have exact answers for this yet.
Right, you have a faith-based belief in the existence of some ulitimate reality. That is why I’ve argued before that everyone has a “religious belief” (http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2009/09/01/what-is-a-religous-belief/).
I notice that you left off which impossible story you believe in Joe.
That’s because I don’t believe in any story that is impossible.
Rob Just because you don’t understand science doesn’t mean something is impossible.
Again, let me say that the idea that empirical observations supports atheism is one of the many reasons it is hard to take them seriously. Anyone that can be confused about such an obvious point is not likely to be able to grasp more nuanced aspects of their belief system.
Erin Wow, the one commonality I see in atheists is bitterness.
About twenty years ago, when I first developed an interest in apologetics, I thought the people I should engage were atheists. I assumed that people who claimed to have such a love for reason and science would be reasonable and open to empiricism. How wrong that proved to be. There are very few atheists that have thought deeply about their own beliefs—and even fewer who have tried to fit them into an intellectually coherent framework. I had assumed that atheism was an intellectual position but, as many people are beginning to recognize, it is an emotional response. That is why I think it all but useless to try to dissuade atheists based on logic and reason. If they were logical and reasonable they wouldn’t subscribe to atheism (like Anthony Flew, I think they’d have to accept a minimum of deism).
May 13th, 2010 | 1:12 pm
Erin,
When you are commenting on an article written by an atheist insulting your religious beliefs, then I would consider you to have a legitimate complaint about bitterness.
May 13th, 2010 | 1:23 pm
Pluto Animus Whoops– guess that’s impossible; Joe Carter says water cannot be wet, because emergent properties are magic and cannot exist.
I never claimed that emergent properties don’t exist. I certainly believe they exist within chemistry and biology, just not in metaphysics. Consciousness is not the type of “property” that can emerge because it is not metaphysically reducible to the neurons in our brain. A physical entity (such as the brain) cannot produce an emergent propery that has the power of downward causation on itself. In other words, the neurons cannot produce a non-physical property that is separate and distinct and yet that can cause a physical reaction in those same neurons. This defies the laws of physics and chemistry.
May 13th, 2010 | 1:32 pm
Rob, Just a minor point that might spoil the elegance of your diatribe: though Christians and Jews do tend to be theists, not all are scriptural fundamentalists. That is, not all of them read their Scriptures in the boorishly literalist fashion that you adopt so well. Some of them do employ the elementary tools of textual criticism, adjusting their interpretations to the various literary genres in Scripture. Some of them even accept Darwinian evolution as a scientific theory that helps to explain certain natural phenomena. Again, just some minor distinctions to think about.
May 13th, 2010 | 1:33 pm
Paul,
You don’t get to play those games. OK, so you are a deist. Was my statement a bit of a generalization about theistic beliefs? Perhaps. However, I live in the US, and not just some, but the vast majority of theistic people here believe in the Abrahamic god. Yes, these beliefs do come up with some pretty unbelievable stories which, if you really are a deist, would probably agree are pretty fantastic. I am not ignorant of the beliefs of diests, I just don’t agree that you need to invoke a supernatural creator to anything that you can’t yet explain. In this sense, all theists do share a common thread. And all the philosophical crap about an “uncaused cause” is just verbal and mental masturbation. Call it what it is: something we can’t yet explain.
May 13th, 2010 | 1:46 pm
[...] Joe Carter at First Things [...]
May 13th, 2010 | 1:47 pm
Joe,
It is not faith-based for skeptics to say that there are many theories on the origins of the universe and we do not know which is correct. As a skeptic I can even go as far as to say that we may never know. What is faith-based is to claim knowledge of a deity (regardless of what you call it) without any evidence that one exists. One thing that theistic beliefs and science have in common is that they both fill the natural human desire to explain things we do not understand. The difference is that science goes about systematically trying to elucidate the truth, where theistic belief invokes magic to put their minds at ease.
May 13th, 2010 | 2:01 pm
Joe,
I think you really need some more information on neuroscience. You talk about “consciousness” in an abstract sense not considering the materialistic understanding we have of brain chemistry etc. What do you have to say about the “consciousness” of a worm or fruit fly? We can track the interaction of neural circuits in these animals and see ‘decisions’ based on nerve inhibition, stimulation, and brain chemistry. What about memory? You can have vivid memories with color, smells, retrieved emotions etc. Does your god zap your brain for you each time you have an emotional dream? I certainly hope he doesn’t have a front row seat for all of my dreams.
May 13th, 2010 | 2:17 pm
Trey What is faith-based is to claim knowledge of a deity (regardless of what you call it) without any evidence that one exists.
You seem to be confusing evidence that you find convincing with a lack of evidence. I don’t know of a single theist who claims not to have evidence for their belief in God. Indeed, since faith is a form of evidentiary conclusion, it would be odd that they would be without faith.
One thing that theistic beliefs and science have in common is that they both fill the natural human desire to explain things we do not understand. The difference is that science goes about systematically trying to elucidate the truth, where theistic belief invokes magic to put their minds at ease.
Surely you don’t believe such nonsense? Again, none of the atheists in this comment section appear to have the slightest grasp that science must be underpinned by a set of philosophical presupposition, many of which are wholly incompatible with science. It’s as if they noticed someone else talking about how science is an alternative to religion and mimic the same claims without either understanding what it means or that is is complete tripe.
Trey I think you really need some more information on neuroscience. You talk about “consciousness” in an abstract sense not considering the materialistic understanding we have of brain chemistry etc.
Actually, I supect that it is you who does not understand the implications of your own claim. For example, if the materialistic understanding we have of brain chemistry is true, then conscience does not really exist, it is merely a matter of physical states in the brain. If all thought can be reduced to physical states, then it is subject to the laws of physics and thus you have no free will. You would therefore be an atheist because changes in your brain, which you have no control over, create the illusion of a belief that does not really exist.
May 13th, 2010 | 2:26 pm
from trey:
“There you go, not having a belief in god; that is what all atheists share in common. Now, as to where all matter, energy, etc. first originated from the difference in atheists and theists is that atheists have theories but admit they don’t have exact answers for this yet.”
not so fast: so materialistic evolution is a “theory” after all? not an “exact answer?” have those right-wing fundamentalists been correct all along? please clarify.
in general, if one is to attempt honestly to understand oneself and the universe, it’s simply not enough to stop at “i don’t believe in god.” many of my atheist friends simply refuse to explore the implications of this one belief. indeed, their attitude towards understanding reality can be described as an anal fixation on this one question. such fixation is stunted truth-seeking, not genuine pursuit of wisdom.
if i were an atheist, i’d have significant problems explaining a lot of things that evidently exist. but the same is true of all of us no matter our starting points. the difference, however, lies in the number and size of those problems. i think the theists have fewer and smaller problems than the atheists given the existence of such things as reason, free will, natural laws, moral laws, beauty, and consciousness.
finally, may this thread not degenerate into “a lot of heat but no light.” come, let us humbly reason together toward greater wisdom….
May 13th, 2010 | 2:28 pm
Brian:
Transubstantiation was only one possible example.
An example showing that you didn’t know what transubstantiation is, yes.
Do you believe that Moses turned a stick into a snake? That’s actually an ancient magic trick. Do you believe Jesus was resurrected? Sounds like magic to me. How about turning water into wine? Did the wedding guests say that the wine still tasted and looked like water, or did it really magically change from water into wine?
OK, let’s clarify what is commonly meant by the term “magic”: “magic” is when a person attempts to manipulate a supernatural or preternatural force/being into altering some physical reality.
Now I’ll turn to your questions. Let’s start with the Resurrection. If
– 12 men claimed to witness something, and…
– 11 of the 12 were tortured to death for such a claim (one lived to old age)…
– that for even one man, under the pain of being tortured to death, to stick to a claim he knew to be false is an enormous psychological improbability, and for 11 out of 11 men to do it is a psychological absurdity…
Then I find the witness of the 12 men (11 disciples + James) who encountered the risen Christ (11 of whom were tortured and put to death for this witness; John lived to old age) to have a very high probability of being the truth.
In light of this truth, I find the claims of Jesus to be God Incarnate to be a very likely explanation of his resurrection (not merely resuscitation). As such, Jesus was resurrected by His own power, and not manipulated into it by any human agent.
Therefore, if Jesus is God Incarnate, turning water into wine doesn’t really seem like much of a challenge, does it?
As for Moses, it was not Moses’ own power nor an act of him manipulating or trying to manipulate some supernatural force into doing something (i.e. “magic”), but God who turned the stick into a snake. Whether or not this account is to be taken literally is a question I don’t honestly know the definitive answer to. However, if I accept the premise that God exists, and that He can do what He wants, turning a rod to snake wouldn’t be much of a challenge, would it?
However, since you believe that a god (or gods) does not exist, you will not find any of the above compelling, as we disagree on the foundational premise of whether God exists. Without the existence of God, these accounts are not physically possible and require “magical” explanations. If God exists, these are miraculous (God’s power manifesting itself in physical reality, by God’s own will) accounts, but not “magical” (as the term is been defined above and commonly understood) ones.
Since our difference is one of a foundational premise, is there reason for me to answer each and any forthcoming “Do you believe in _____?” aspect of Catholic Christian belief?
GR
May 13th, 2010 | 2:35 pm
“OK, let’s clarify what is commonly meant by the term “magic”: “magic” is when a person attempts to manipulate a supernatural or preternatural force/being into altering some physical reality.”
Let’s not. Since I used the term, you need to know what *I* meant by the term. And I don’t distinguish between your definition of magic and magic performed by gods.
May 13th, 2010 | 2:51 pm
Brian:
Again, a difference in a foundational premise. Correct me if I am wrong, but you equate “supernatural” with “magic”; neither I, nor any religious person I know, equates the two.
Again, a difference in a foundational premises.
Take care,
GR
May 13th, 2010 | 3:18 pm
Trey,
You state, “It is not faith-based for skeptics to say that there are many theories on the origins of the universe and we do not know which is correct. As a skeptic I can even go as far as to say that we may never know.”
Yet, it seems, that you find it reasonable to argue that there is at least one that is incorrect. In that instance you are not acting as a skeptic but as a detractor.
Faith, as many words do, has more than one meaning. You mistakenly choose one to encompass the whole. While yes, faith can be blind it can also be (and should be) reasoned. A child standing at the edge of the pool while a parent encourages him to jump in has every reason to believe that his parent will catch him and will not let him come to harm. He must still take a step of faith to know if it is true in this instance.
As for your claim that no evidence exist, it is erroneous. There is evidence you just disregard it or consider it untenable.
As well your invocation of the term “magic”. What would you call a random, abiotic process that somehow results in biological organisms if not magic? Why would this be considered reasonable yet accepting that a dead body is brought back to life is somehow fantasy?
You also appear confused on another point. Asserting that God is and that he caused and maintains the Universe is not the same as believing in a “God-of-the-gaps.” So God does not need to “zap” the “brain for someone to have an emotional dream.”
Finally try this. Begin with the axiom that God is and that the Bible contains his revelation to man. Given that this is true, what is the reasonable response?
May 13th, 2010 | 3:33 pm
Why does Joe Carter hate Buddhists so much?
May 13th, 2010 | 4:13 pm
Trey: .
I simply wanted to make the point that “theism” is more of a philosophical than a religious term and encompasses a wide variety of thinkers, including Thomas Aquinas and Aristotle as well as a good deal of Englightenment figures. But all that is just “philosophical crap,” with which you show a certain impatience.
May 13th, 2010 | 4:36 pm
“Now I’ll turn to your questions. Let’s start with the Resurrection. If
– 12 men claimed to witness something, and…
– 11 of the 12 were tortured to death for such a claim (one lived to old age)…
– that for even one man, under the pain of being tortured to death, to stick to a claim he knew to be false is an enormous psychological improbability, and for 11 out of 11 men to do it is a psychological absurdity…”
19 men intentionally flew planes into the side of a building fopr claims they knew to be true.
Why arn’t you Moslem based on their awesome testimony?
You know sometimes people are wiling to die for their beliefs even if those beliefs are msitaken or incorrect. The willingness to die for a belief doesn’t make the belief any more likely to be true.
May 13th, 2010 | 4:55 pm
“Hydrogen isn’t wet at room temperature. Oxygen isn’t wet at room temperature. Yet, combine them, and you get water and all its EMERGENT PROPERTIES. Whoops– guess that’s impossible; Joe Carter says water cannot be wet, because emergent properties are magic and cannot exist.
Joe Carter, you’re all wet.”
Dear Pluto Animus: Hydrogen is a physical element. So is oxygen. Water is also physical, and so is the property of wetness.
Obviously, therefore, this is not the description of “emergent properties” to which Joe Carter was referring.
May 13th, 2010 | 5:08 pm
To all of those leaving comments: I believe you have missed the point Joe Carter was trying to make. Joe Carter is fully aware of his contradictory statements and false assumptions. The ignorance of his statements is willful and intentional with that sole purpose to insult the intelligence of those that garner respect for furthering knowledge. This is an attempt to slow down the progress humans have made in the last 500 years (especially that last 100). All the evidence and truth in the world will not change Joe Carter’s mind for one simple reason, he is afraid of losing his religious beliefs. Joe Carter’s religious beliefs require him to deny, reject, and fight against evidence and truth when they contradict his belief system. This is why Joe Carter deserves only pity or mockery.
May 13th, 2010 | 5:15 pm
“When you are commenting on an article written by an atheist insulting your religious beliefs, then I would consider you to have a legitimate complaint about bitterness.”
Given that First Things is a CHRISTIAN publication I don’t think you have a complaint at all. Were you expecting essays supporting atheism on this site?
Are you equating your non-belief in God to religious beliefs? Sounds like a faith to me. Emotional reactions should have no place in a rational, evidence based discussion backed by objective science. Right?
May 13th, 2010 | 5:25 pm
This is a really cute article… here are my responses:
1) Why pick on consciousness? You’re currently up to your eye-balls in emergent properties that arise out of more fundamental entities, and you don’t deny them because you don’t have a religious beef with them.
2) You’re prejudice against the tangible. That’s not a problem for the non-religious, it’s yours and yours alone. Physical configurations and their dynamics in the world are as real as real gets.
3) “Blind mechanisms” is as far as I got. Try reading a science book. Please.
4) “Blind process” is as far as I got. Try reading a science book. Please.
5) “Random fluctuations”… I guess the pattern is clear by now. Your prejudice against the tangible leads you to dismiss complex physical systems as “merely random”. Two words, chaos theory. Try reading a science book. Please.
6) I’ve never met an atheist who claims that no higher beings can exist. Of course I don’t count angry 12 year olds in comments sections as people I’ve ‘met’.
May 13th, 2010 | 5:41 pm
Joe:
Read my 3rd point again:
“that for even one man, under the pain of being tortured to death, to stick to a claim he knew to be false is an enormous psychological improbability, and for 11 out of 11 men to do it is a psychological absurdity…”
The 9-11 folks did not do what they did for something they knew to be false, did they?
No, they believed Mohamed received the Koran from God was true even though they did not witness it. Were someone to torture them to get them to recant that Mohamed received the Koran from God, it would be a test of belief: it would not be a matter of “Did you see Mohamed receive the Koran from God?” (which they would know to be false), but “Do you believe Mohamed received the Koran from God?” which they obviously did.
However, the 11 men I spoke of did witness to encountering the risen Christ. When they were tortured to death, it was not a merely a matter of belief but a matter of experience: it was not a merely a matter of “Do you believe in the corporeal, resurrected Jesus?” but “Did you see/walk with/talk with the corporeal, resurrected Jesus?”. All 11 men were willing to undergo torture and death rather than say they hadn’t seen and done these things they proclaimed that they had seen and done.
To claim they were lying is to assert a psychological absurdity. Perhaps one could claim that they only believed that they saw Him, i.e. they all had multiple, identical delusions of encountering a corporeal, resurrected Jesus at the same times, or that Jesus didn’t really die on the cross; I find the former assertion to be simply not credible, and the latter one to be laughable.
I hope this clears up any confusion on your part as to what I was asserting.
Take care,
GR
May 13th, 2010 | 5:58 pm
Thank you Soulf2 for psychoanalyzing Joe Carter and for doing so over the internet, no less. You seem to be way ahead of those doctors who require video technology for a long distance diagnosis of their patients. I didn’t realize we humans had made that much progress in the last 500 years.
May 13th, 2010 | 7:08 pm
I looked for at least one intelligent argument in this article, and sadly failed to find one…
If believing mythology makes you happy, then please do so…
Just do not try to foist the supernatural on individuals who believe in reason, logic, science and common sense…
Peace.
May 13th, 2010 | 7:50 pm
“Again, a difference in a foundational premise. Correct me if I am wrong, but you equate “supernatural” with “magic”; neither I, nor any religious person I know, equates the two.”
Ok, so what? Just substitute what I mean by “magic” into my statement.
May 13th, 2010 | 9:25 pm
Trey,
“No, there are not logical inescapable truths that follow from atheism. It is only a lack of a belief in a god. It really is that simple.”
Come on Trey…let’s be serious now. Three things:
1. Do you believe a god(s) exists? Quick! Stop your mind from thinking about it, because as soon as you do, you have formed belief structures pertinent to the question. Unfortunately, these belief structures fall into only three categories. (1) varying degrees of “yes,” (2) varying degrees of “no” and (3) varying degrees of “I don’t know.” If you fall somewhere on that spectrum, then you officially have beliefs concerning the existence of God and saying “I simply lack a belief in a god’s existence” will not do, because you have complex belief structures related to that statement that you need to defend. Rocks exhibit the qualities of atheism that you define because they truly lack belief. You, on the other hand, are a person with a complex organ in your skull and the fact that you are able to discuss the question means that you have formed beliefs concerning it.
2. I know that atheists always want to play this game because it allows them to defend their “lack of belief” with greater ease. They claim to be rationalists and demand evidence for all of their claims, but they also know that if they make a statement such as “I do not believe any god(s) exist” that they are forced to provide evidence for such a claim. Many atheists do not like having to do this, because it removes the other old canard of “only theists have to provide evidence because they are the ones making a positive claim.” In reality, we are both making claims about the nature of the world and should be able to give arguments to support those claims.
3. As such, even if your “lack of belief” statement were intellectually defensible (something psychologists would say is an impossibility), you still deny that anything logically flows from such a lack of belief. If anything, you must deny that many, if not most, of our common sense understandings of reality are false (as Joe shows here along with hundreds of other things). The universe is immensely rational and can be understood through logic. Therefore, any belief (or even a lack thereof) has logical implications for a worldview.
May 13th, 2010 | 10:00 pm
I may not believe in the “mythological,” but after reading this thread, I do believe in the invincible. See you around, maybe.
May 13th, 2010 | 10:05 pm
If you google the word “magic” you will come up with Arthur C. Clarke’s aphorism “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” In other words, when we regard something as magic, it is because we don’t understand how it works. Claiming that there is no such thing as “magic” is a claim that there is no process that is so advanced in its scientific and technological basis that you do not understand it. In other words, you claim to be omniscient, already, about the full range of possible scientific and technical processes. That is a claim that I see no reason to have faith in.
Right now, physics and cosmology tell us that the matter we think of as made of nuclei and electrons, and related particles, is only 5% of the universe. Another 15% or so is Dark Matter, something that has gravity but is not observable in any other way. The remaining 80% of the universe is Dark Energy. We don’t know what it is, but it is accelerating the speed at which the universe is expanding. So 95% of the universe is stuff that has effects, but no known mechanism that explains those effects. In other words, it is “magic”. It is a technology that is past our current ability to comprehend. You cannot deny the existence of this magic just because you don’t know how it works, and don’t want to believe in the existence of magic. 95% of the universe is “magic.” The origin of life (as distrinct form the origin of species) is also due to an unexplained mechanism, and thus, magic. The constants that govern the operation of the universe are both arbitrary (not dictated by any theory) and finely tuned, such that if they were larger or smaller by as much as 1% or 10%, life as we know it would be impossible. We have no idea how these constants were set. It is magic.
The most fundamental aspects of the universe are magical, unexplained. To reject the existence of magic because your cannot explain its operation is to reject observed reality in favor of your own ego’s demand that it cannot admit not knowing those things. If you believe we will someday find the explanation for some of these things, that is an expression of faith in something that is not observed.
May 13th, 2010 | 10:15 pm
“Claiming that there is no such thing as “magic” is a claim that there is no process that is so advanced in its scientific and technological basis that you do not understand it.”
Sorry, I’ll go with non-loony arguments.
May 14th, 2010 | 12:11 am
Nice post Joe Carter; first-time reader here.
I got a kick out of all the atheists whining about it, and an even bigger kick out of the fact that while they accuse you of strawmen, apparently not one of them has denied that they believe at least one of the points you listed.
May 14th, 2010 | 4:23 am
Joe Carter: You list a number of beliefs, shared by, you assert, many, although not all atheists.
But I think that MOST atheists reject number two on your list. In fact the only ones who have seriously asserted it are the philosophers Pat and Patricia Churchland, but even they are backing away from it now. Maybe there are a few others, but not many.
This position, that beliefs, desires, essentially all of our mental lives, are unreal, and can be reduced to neuronal phenomena, is called “Eliminative Materialism”, and hardly anyone in the philosophy of mind, or neuroscience believes it, because it’s obviously self-refuting, and forces one to commit intellectual suicide.
John Searle, an atheist, and important philosopher of mind, effectively shows the silliness of eliminative materialism, in his 1992 book, The Discovery Of Mind.
May 14th, 2010 | 6:16 am
Soulf2: Your complete lack of respect for Joe Carter, and his serious post, is doing a severe disservice to the atheism that you believe in so religiously. Why not try to refute, in an intellectually sophisticated way, Mr. Carter’s claims, rather than engage in childishness?
While I believe that atheism is intellectually respectable,when compaired with theism, it looses. It looses on the atheists own supposed court, of reason, science, and morality.
I believe that one can devise a coherent understanding of morality, science, and reason, from atheism, I believe that one can develop a much MORE coherent understanding of all of those things and more, by believing in God.
May 14th, 2010 | 12:31 pm
Jason? Oh, Jason? It was such a simple question Joe asked you…
May 14th, 2010 | 12:37 pm
AGreenhill: I’ve read a science book. I’m sure Joe has too. I’ve read dozens of them, and I’m willing to bet he has as well. One of the most influential of them all, written by Richard Dawkins, was one whose cover you apparently couldn’t have gotten past. You seem to have some problem with the word “blind,” which Mr. Dawkins used right in the title, of all places. In fact he used it in quite the same sense you object to here.
Oh, I get it: anyone who uses the word “blind” to describe natural processes needs to “try reading a science book. Please.” I wonder: have you made the same suggestion to Mr. Dawkins?
May 14th, 2010 | 1:33 pm
One rather annoying thing I’ve noticed about the atheists in this thread is their tendency to dismissiveness. Nearly all of them attribute religious belief to fear, childishness, ignorance, stupidity, irrationality, inability or unwillingness to accept evidence, or some combination of any or all of these.
In fact, until relatively recently in historical terms, nearly all the great thinkers of our culture were theists of some sort, from late antiquity to the 17th century, specifically Christian. Even the great figures of the Enlightenment were predominantly theists. Descartes certainly was, as was Locke, Newton, and Kant (Hume is the only famous exception). In the nineteenth century Chesterton, Newman, Kierkegaard, Dostoevsky, and Tolstoy were Christian thinkers. In the twentieth century, so were such figures as TS Eliot, Paul Ricouer, Etienne Gilson, Walker Percy, and Jaques Maritain. Even now Christians can claim thinkers like Alasdair MacIntyre, Alvin Plantinga, and Robert George in addition to such scientists as John Polkinghorne, Stephen Barr, and Francis Collins.
None of this, of course, proves Christianity, or theism generally, to be true. It does, however, put paid to the notion that only fools, existential cowards, the irrational, or ignoramuses are believers. Do you atheist commenters really believe that you are more profound or rational thinkers than Augustine or Aquinas? That you have more respect for evidence than Polkinghorne or Collins? That you are more educated or intelligent than Eliot? If so, you evince an egotism bordering on the psychotic.
May 14th, 2010 | 1:55 pm
Brian:
Ok, so what? Just substitute what I mean by “magic” into my statement.
Fine, but you haven’t actually said anything of substance, besides “I don’t believe in magic (the supernatural)” and to incredulously ask whether I believe in this or that Catholic doctrine. Though I have taken the time to write thoughtful replies, you have not addressed my replies in any way except to repeat “I don’t believe in magic (the supernatural)”. As this is apparently all you have to offer to this discussion, I’ll leave you to repeat (and repeat) your unsupported opinions to those with more time and patience than I.
Cordially,
GR
May 15th, 2010 | 7:14 am
[...] Alice, Atheists, and the Ability to Believe Impossible Things at First Things is a table turner. “Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.” [...]
May 15th, 2010 | 11:11 am
Emergent properties are familiar to all of us. Water is one of the most familar substances to us, and its composition from hydrogen and oxygen are well known. Yet while hydrogen is explosive and oxygen is necessary for burning, water can help put out a fire. Neither oxygen nor hydrogen is wet, yet water is. Magic? No, just an emergent property.
We definitely should be wary of folks who believe all sorts of impossible things. But first we need to learn about the topic to determine whether the apparent impossibility is a result of our lack of understanding of the subject.
Emergent properties, I might add, are not only of interest to atheists, but also to theologians trying to incorporate the current state of our knowledge in the natural sciences into their reflections.
May 15th, 2010 | 4:22 pm
As an aside, I fail to see how wetness is an emergent property of hydrogen and oxygen. Neither hydrogen nor oxygen are themselves wet, and I sincerely doubt that two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom combined together into a water molecule become wet. Nor does it seem that a single water molecule would be wet, unless there is some definition of wetness of which I am unaware. Moreover, it seems like anything in a liquid state would be wet, regardless of whether it was composed of hydrogen and oxygen.
It seems, rather, that wetness is a function of the density of a substance, regardless of what that substance is, rather than some emergent property that appears when certain substances (e.g.: hydrogen and oxygen) are combined in particular ratios.
May 16th, 2010 | 2:47 pm
[Note: Since I started way too many posts on atheism and people are commenting on each one, I thought I should put this comment on each thread.]
For most of this discussion I’ve come across as antagonistic to atheism, so let me try a different approach by offering some friendly advice: If you want to convince people to take you seriously they you really have to stop saying that theist don’t have “evidence” that their is a God.
No atheist who was serious about carrying on a discussion would ever make such a juvenile, ridiculous claim. Let me try to explain why.
First, let’s look at the definition of the term “evidence”: that which tends to prove or disprove something; ground for belief; proof.
The theist uses the term in all of these ways:
“that which tends to prove or disprove something” — the theist has a variety of items—from philosophical proofs to religious experiences—that serve to prove (or confirm) the existence of God.
“ground for belief” — There may be theists who believe in the existence of God without having a ground for this belief—but I’ve never met them. As a rule, theists have a ground for their belief in empirical observation, tacit knowledge, etc.
“proof” — Even if we limit this to philosophical proof, the theist certainly has evidence on his side. The philosophical proofs for the existence of God, though not indubitable, are stronger and more sound than their counter-arguments.
What you mean, of course, when you say that the theist has no “evidence” is that you do not find the evidence persuasive. Rather than strengthening your case, it weakens it by showing that you are probably not in an epistimic position to make a relevant judgment.
Consider this analogy. There are some severely autistic people who are unable to read other people’s emotions. They therefore have no direct, personal “evidence” based on their own experience that it is even possible to read other people’s emotions by observing their behavior.
Now imagine if an autistic person were to say that not only do they not have evidence that another person’s emotional state can be discerned by observing their facial expressions but that no one has such “evidence.”
I daresay that no one would take such a claim seriously. We know from our own experience—tested and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt in our minds—that their claim is false. So how should they expect us to respond? For them to claim since they don’t have compelling evidence of the phenomena that no one has it would be quite absurd.
Yet that is the very thing that many atheists claim. They are extrapolating from their own epistimic inadequacies and expecting the rest of us to be persuaded by something that we know is false.
If you truly believe that we have no evidence for our belief in God, then you have to do more than repeatedly restating that silly claim ad nauseum. You have to show that what we consider proof is not only not convincing to you, but that it should not be convincing to us either.
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