Dawkins’ Faith in Foam
John on October 23, 2006 at 4:10 pm
British zoologist Richard Dawkins offers a new religion-bashing essay today at the Huffington Post. The real cause of this present discourse is to pimp his latest book The God Delusion. I haven’t read the book itself and don’t intend to for two reasons. One, I’m not keen on giving Dawkins any of my money. And two, the book hasn’t exactly won rave reviews, even from sympathetic outposts like the NY Times. If I want to have my cherished beliefs insulted I’ll pick up Voltaire or J.S. Mill, men who really knew how to bash!
Dawkins latest begins with the great man comparing himself to Churchill. The mark of a Churchillian atheist, according to Dawkins, is that he is unwilling to compromise with any theist, even those that are superficially reasonable. He goes on about this for 4 or 5 paragraphs. Aside from writing his own commendation, it’s worth noting that Churchill’s name is an appealing one because of the specific history it recalls. He was the British leader who stood up to Adolph Hitler and the Nazi’s. So, while he doesn’t say it outright, I don’t think it’s too much of a strech to say that Dawkins is insinuating Christians, Jews and theists of all stripes are Nazi-like. This is the sort of clear-thinking produced by the scientific outlook.
The rest of this piece is devoted to laying out his case for atheism, or rather against theism. I suppose this is representative of the sort of argument found in the book. He begins, ironically, in agreement with Aquinas:
Either Jesus had a father or he didn’t. The question is a scientific one, and scientific evidence, if any were available, would be used to settle it. The same is true of any miracle – and the deliberate and intentional creation of the universe would have to have been the mother and father of all miracles. Either it happened or it didn’t. It is a fact, one way or the other, and in our state of uncertainty we can put a probability on it – an estimate that may change as more information comes in.
Fair enough. Dawkins continues:
Accepting, then, that the God Hypothesis is a proper scientific hypothesis whose truth or falsehood is hidden from us only by lack of evidence, what should be our best estimate of the probability that God exists, given the evidence now available? Pretty low I think, and here’s why.
First, most of the traditional arguments for God’s existence, from Aquinas on, are easily demolished.
Show us, how:
Several of them, such as the First Cause argument, work by setting up an infinite regress which God is wheeled out to terminate. But we are never told why God is magically able to terminate regresses while needing no explanation himself.
Perhaps that’s because it’s intuitively obvious to most people why God can terminate regresses. It’s not that this argument allows one to define all of the characteristics we call God, it just that when one looks at an infinite regress and looks at God, he seems a likely candidate for the job.
The God of the Bible has certain characteristics. His Old Testament name is “I am that I am.” Long before the infinite regress argument postulated by Aquinas, His nature was described as being eternal and without cause. Secondly, the Bible describes him as willing or choosing to create the world. In the parlance of crime fiction, God has both motive and opportunity to be first cause or prime mover. Dawkins continues:
To be sure, we do need some kind of explanation for the origin of all things. Physicists and cosmologists are hard at work on the problem. But whatever the answer – a random quantum fluctuation or a Hawking/Penrose singularity or whatever we end up calling it – it will be simple.
Yes. I think we all agree that the Hawking/Penrose singularity — the one that uses imaginary time to forestall the necessity of a genuine beginning of time — is simplicity itself. For the record, Hawking’s theory doesn’t solve the problem, it cleverly avoids it.
Complex, statistically improbable things, by definition, don’t just happen; they demand an explanation in their own right. They are impotent to terminate regresses, in a way that simple things are not. The first cause cannot have been an intelligence – let alone an intelligence that answers prayers and enjoys being worshipped. Intelligent, creative, complex, statistically improbable things come late into the universe, as the product of evolution or some other process of gradual escalation from simple beginnings. They come late into the universe and therefore cannot be responsible for designing it.
Did you get that last bit? Intelligence is the product of evolution, ergo intelligence can not be a first cause. This is a beautiful example of assuming the thing you’re attempting to prove. One could break it down this way:
- Intelligence is a product of evolution.
- Evolution is a strictly material process.
- Therefore, intelligence can not precede material processes.
See how simple that is? If you grant Dawkins strict materialism, Dawkins can turn right around and — quick as you can say “Hawkins/Penrose singularity” — prove strict materialism. Brilliant!
What Dawkins offers here is a rather stupid circular argument. He does go on to make hay of Aquinas “Gradation” argument, which was a variation of sorts on Anselm’s ontological argument. I don’t think this particular argument has a lot of fans today. Dawkins is essentially setting fire to straw men.
Finally, Dawkins turns to the teleological argument, aka the argument from design. Here, you would think, he would have his best lines. After all, this is the drum he has been beating since the 1980s if not earlier. In fact though, Dawkins merely returns to his circular reasoning:
Design is a workable explanation for organized complexity only in the short term. It is not an ultimate explanation, because designers themselves demand an explanation. If, as Francis Crick and Leslie Orgel once playfully speculated, life on this planet was deliberately seeded by a payload of bacteria in the nose cone of a rocket, we still need an explanation for the intelligent aliens who dispatched the rocket. Ultimately they must have evolved by gradual degrees from simpler beginnings. Only evolution, or some kind of gradualistic ‘crane’ (to use Daniel Dennett’s neat term), is capable of terminating the regress.
First of all, you said that already. Second, Dawkins reference to Crick and Orgel’s alien rocketship is deceptive. At the time it was written, there was no suggestion whatsoever that it was meant to be a “playful” explanation. On the contrary, it was a completely serious attempt to get around a problem. Dawkins understands the problem well enough:
The origin of life on this planet – which means the origin of the first self-replicating molecule – is hard to study, because it (probably) only happened once, 4 billion years ago and under very different conditions from those with which we are familiar. We may never know how it happened. Unlike the ordinary evolutionary events that followed, it must have been a genuinely very improbable – in the sense of unpredictable – event: too improbable, perhaps, for chemists to reproduce it in the laboratory or even devise a plausible theory for what happened. This weirdly paradoxical conclusion – that a chemical account of the origin of life, in order to be plausible, has to be implausible – would follow if it were the case that life is extremely rare in the universe. And indeed we have never encountered any hint of extraterrestrial life, not even by radio – the circumstance that prompted Enrico Fermi’s cry: “Where is everybody?”
How unlikely was it?:
Suppose life’s origin on a planet took place through a hugely improbable stroke of luck, so improbable that it happens on only one in a billion planets. The National Science Foundation would laugh at any chemist whose proposed research had only a one in a hundred chance of succeeding, let alone one in a billion. Yet, given that there are at least a billion billion planets in the universe, even such absurdly low odds as these will yield life on a billion planets. And – this is where the famous anthropic principle comes in – Earth has to be one of them, because here we are.
I think Dawkins estimate is far too generous. At present astronomers have discovered just north of 200 extrasolar planets. Thus far nearly all of them are gas giants which, because they probably lack liquid water, are incompatible with life. In addition most of the planets so far discovered have had wildly ecclectic orbits, which once again would make them unlikely candidates for life. So there may be a billion billion planets in the universe but so far it seems vanishingly few could possibly support life of any kind. As Dawkins says, we have no support for any such claim at this point. It’s purely supposition.
But even if we accept Dawkins numbers, what does it get us? According to him the fact that we’re here arguing about it is all the proof we need that humanity is one of the lucky freaks, holder of the cosmic Wonka ticket. In other words, we’re here so that proves the impossible happened. Let’s diagram that:
- Life originates by chance material processes.
- We’re here.
- We originated by chance material processes.
Well. I’ll give Dawkins this much, he’s consistent. If you grant him materialism he can explain the whole thing as the result of materialism. He doesn’t seem to see this as circular reasoning. On the contrary, he revels in his own sophistry:
The beauty of the anthropic principle is that, even in the teeth of such stupefying odds against, it still gives us a perfectly satisfying explanation for life’s presence on our own planet.
Dawkins then returns to cosmic beginnings, using the anthropic principle as a kind of materialist panacea:
Physicists have suggested that the laws and constants of physics are too good – as if the universe were set up to favour our eventual evolution. It is as though there were, say, half a dozen dials representing the major constants of physics. Each of the dials could in principle be tuned to any of a wide range of values. Almost all of these knob-twiddlings would yield a universe in which life would be impossible. Some universes would fizzle out within the first picosecond. Others would contain no elements heavier than hydrogen and helium. In yet others, matter would never condense into stars (and you need stars in order to forge the elements of chemistry and hence life). You can estimate the very low odds against the six knobs all just happening to be correctly tuned, and conclude that a divine knob-twiddler must have been at work. But, as we have already seen, that explanation is vacuous because it begs the biggest question of all. The divine knob twiddler would himself have to have been at least as improbable as the settings of his knobs.
God is improbable. So here’s what Dawkins thinks is probable:
Again, the anthropic principle delivers its devastatingly neat solution. Physicists already have reason to suspect that our universe – everything we can see – is only one universe among perhaps billions. Some theorists postulate a multiverse of foam, where the universe we know is just one bubble. Each bubble has its own laws and constants. Our familiar laws of physics are parochial bylaws. Of all the universes in the foam, only a minority has what it takes to generate life. And, with anthropic hindsight, we obviously have to be sitting in a member of that minority, because, well, here we are, aren’t we?
Foam. Foam is science.
Richard doesn’t offer any of the hard evidence for foam, and I can tell you why. There isn’t any. Foam (the multi-verse, string landscape, etc.) is a theory or group of theories that exist for one reason: To give materialists the probabalistic resources to avoid thinking about God. Foam is mathematical speculation which in all likelihood can not be proven or disproven. In other words, it is a kind of faith. But you don’t get that sense reading Dawkins’ triumphalist conclusion:
We explain our existence by a combination of the anthropic principle and Darwin’s principle of natural selection. That combination provides a complete and deeply satisfying explanation for everything that we see and know. Not only is the god hypothesis unnecessary. It is spectacularly unparsimonious. Not only do we need no God to explain the universe and life. God stands out in the universe as the most glaring of all superfluous sore thumbs. We cannot, of course, disprove God, just as we can’t disprove Thor, fairies, leprechauns and the Flying Spaghetti Monster. But, like those other fantasies that we can’t disprove, we can say that God is very very improbable.
Whenever you hear a raving atheist like Dawkins pull out the list — Thor, fairies, leprechauns — just remember that his own explanation for our existence rests on something which is every bit as unproven, unprovable and unlikely. Dawkins says it very well. Materialism rests on “foam.”
Category: Atheism |
Nice analysis, John. I would almost consider buying the book for you, just to have you read it and give it a proper overview.
Dawkins is a striking example of scientist as raving zealot with an eye on “the prize” and on nothing else. In order to make his theories work and to make his multi-verse-foam-theory seem plausible, he is forced to violate so many generally accepted guidelines of logic, science and philosophy that his credibility is being severelly compromised.
How many assumptions can a scientist make before the theories that he builds out of them become suspect?
Richard Dawkins has become a scientist who has left his field of gifting and has attempted to tackle a different field that he is not capable of dealing with and/or is not willing to deal with on an intellectually honest and philosophically sound level. He is as bad as Gregory S. Paul, Sam Harris, etc…bound and determined to create a proof for a system that he already believes in, regardless of anything else that might prove him wrong.
Scott
October 24, 2006 @ 11:31 amGod – the One who Sticks Out like a Sore Thumb. Dawkins has no idea he has just created a new image for “Holiness” – the divine “set-apart-ness” that makes God unique. I’ll bet Robert Cappon never thought of that one in his search for God-images.
A Sore Thumb. Nice.
October 25, 2006 @ 4:43 pmCanada’s CBC ran a two-hour “documentary” on Dawkins and pumping up his new book. The “doc” was entitled: “The Root of All Evil — The God Delusion”.
During the “discussion” with the carefully hand-picked studio audience afterwards (with Dawkin involved via sattelite), it was absolutely hilarious to have a Jewish scholar (and scientist) rip Dawkins from pillar to post on bad reporting, bad logic, and bad science.
The Muslim Iman was equally intelligent and articulate, and was so appalled by Dawkin’s work that he even defended the token Fundamentalist on the panel!
The hysterically paranoid conspiracy-theory approach Dawkins took (suggesting at one point that agnostic think tanks have to meet secretly in America for fear of reprisals from evangelical Christians) sounded very much like a certain website that attacks PDL, emergent, Bell, etc. I found that to be funny all by itself!
October 28, 2006 @ 11:47 pmIf you were to ask Dawkins if he really believes that this foam exists, I’m willing to bet that he would say, “I don’t know.” In fact, he begins his thought by saying Some theorists postulate, suggesting that he himself is not committed to the idea at all, and is merely offering an alternate explanation.
Which is all he really has to do in this case. The argument for the existence of God, here, rests on the premise that God is the only possible way to account for the correct tuning of the “knobs.” All that Dawkins has to do in order to combat this argument is challenge that premise, by suggesting other possibilities, and that is what he has done.
May 6, 2007 @ 8:11 pmFrank,
I agree that it is a valid option for those seeking to avoid belief in God. My point is only that, as a theory, it is no less faith based than belief in God. Therefore we are on equal footing.
May 6, 2007 @ 11:41 pmI agree that belief in the multiverse foam would be unfounded at this point in time, and perhaps for all time (as far as I know…I actually know very little about it). I don’t know if I would characterize it as valid only “for those seeking to avoid belief in God”, though. It should be valid enough for everybody. That is, if you have an argument for the existence of God as follows:
(p) God is the only possible explanation for a Universe that is fine-tuned for life.
(p) The Universe is fine-tuned for life.
(c) Therefore, God must exist.
All that you have to do in order to demonstrate that this argument is unsound is show that one (or both) of the premises is false. In order to demonstrate that the first premise is false, all one has to do is offer other possible explanations for the way that the Universe is tuned. Those explanations need not be proven or probable; only possible.
Of course, that wouldn’t disprove the conclusion at all. I think Dawkins does a good job at obliterating this argument for God’s existence. However, that is not the same as arguing for God’s non-existence. There are, perhaps, other good arguments for God’s existence. I mean, if I were to say, “All stars are hot because boiling water is hot”, you would correctly identify that argument as invalid (what does the temperature of stars have to do with the temperature of boiling water?), but you’d agree that my conclusion is correct (just for other reasons).
So I think that Dawkins would be correct in saying that the so-called anthropic coincidences are a poor argument for God’s existence, however that doesn’t mean that God doesn’t exist, and that there aren’t plenty of other good arguments for his existence.
May 7, 2007 @ 9:58 amFrank,
I would agree that the argument you offer for God’s existence is not “proof” because it’s possible the argument is unsound, i.e. there may be other ways to explain a fine-tuned universe. However, if you read Dawkins piece, which I was critiquing, he is not offering “foam” solely as a way to undermine an argument about God. He is offering it as a scientific explanation of the universe.
1) Nigh infinite random universes exist.
2) In an infinite system very highly unlikely things are bound to happen by chance.
3) Life is the result of chance.
That’s, essentially, his argument. All I’m saying is, sorry Richard, that argument is unsound because there is no proof whatsoever for point 1. It is a guess being driven by the assumption that materialism is true.
Dawkins “scientific” argument is just as faith based as any argument for God (such as the one you proposed). When Dawkins says he’s doing science here, he lies.
Both the scientific and Christian world views rest on unproven and unprovable assumptions. Personally, I don’t think this is an accident. It’s a situation uniquely suited for an economy of faith.
May 7, 2007 @ 1:01 pmWell I think I would have been a little more impressed with the author’s attempt to debunk Dawkin’s arguments if he had not so many times said things like “this is wrong” or “this is circular logic”, without stating why.
I mean if that’s fair game then god is not real because its stupid.
May 10, 2007 @ 7:39 pmSo what you are saying is that if you assume that god exists, then you don’t have to bother with explaining where the universe came from? I thought the whole point that Dawkins was making is that you CAN’T ASSUME that god exists, and that the best way to determine what is true is by weighing the evidence.
This only matters if the bible is the word of god though. Using the word of god to define the nature of god is a tautology. This is exactly the thinking error that Dawkins is fighting against: You guys seem to think that the bible has the authority of truth simply because it is the bible. This only works if you check your brain at the door. Truth doesn’t come from authority. Authority comes from truth. You have to prove the bible is true BEFORE you start using it as a standard against which to measure the world. ANYONE who does this in an honest way, will quickly realize that the bible fails miserably in this regard.
You are missing Dawkin’s real answer here (deliberately I think). What he is saying is simply this: We don’t know where the universe comes from, but making up a story that involves a god is a non-answer. It is also dishonest. You don’t have any support for the divine creation theory of the universe. What you are doing is simply looking at the big hole in our knowledge and filling it in with your story without any evidence to support it.
This is a key difference between science and religion: When science comes to uncertainty, they say “I don’t know” (although they may speculate and test in order to push the boundaries of knowledge). When religion comes to uncertainty they say “god did it” as if this is any kind of answer at all. FIRST you prove that there is a god, THEN you get to use him as an explanation. You don’t get to use the phenomena you are trying to explain in order to show that your explanation is right. This is circular.
This is simply wrong. Showing that in a materialistic universe a deity would have to come late in the game doesn’t prove strict materialism. It simply proves that in a materialistic universe your concept of a divine creation fails. Unfortunately for you, we appear to live in a materialistic universe, and all the evidence shows that consciousness is a product of our brains. If you want to show us that we don’t live in a materialistic universe, then you can make your little “evolution is circular reasoning” argument, but the onus is on YOU to show that magic exists. Until you do that, your argument fails.
John, it seems to me that this entire exercise rests on you’re a-priori assumption that god exists and that you are assuming that the onus is on Dawkins to prove that he doesn’t. This is not how reasoning works. I think you are smart enough to know this. This leads me to the question:
What is going on for you that you are unable to put aside your belief in favor of reason?
Again and again I have observed that perfectly reasonable and intelligent people are able to be perfectly reasonable and intelligent, except when it comes to their religion. Once you start talking about god, the bible, genesis etc, they give up on rational thought and start thinking in this really reactive and emotional way. What is interesting about this is that it really doesn’t matter what they believe. I could be talking about Krishna and Vishnu and get the same response.
I have a theory about why this is: I think that people go through a kind of psychological imprinting process on stories. These stories become the foundation for their sense of self. When I challenge the stories, I am not challenging their beliefs about the world, I am challenging their sense of who they are.
So if I were to say: A Mac is better than a PC – you might disagree with me and argue reasonably why you think a PC is a better system, and I bet that if I could show why a Mac is better, you would agree with me and maybe even change your next computer purchase.
But if I were to say: Jesus was not the son of god. Chances are there is no god and Jesus, if he existed at all was just an ordinary man – chances are that no amount of reasoning in the world would get you to agree with this position. I can show you how the bible is wrong about a lot of things. I can show you that it doesn’t meet any reasonable standard of evidence for the miracles described in it etc. etc. It simply won’t matter.
So what’s going on here? What is going on psychologically that causes you to accuse Dawkins of circular logic even as you employ circular logic? My interest rests on two things:
1) What are the psychological processes that your belief helps you with?
2) What role does the lack of insight play in these psychological processes?
That second question is the kicker for me.
If you stop and think about it, reasoning is a tool. It is an approach to thinking. It is a strategy for getting on in the world. It is by no means the only cognitive strategy we have. We have LOT’s of ways of thinking.
We can get all emotional and not think things through -a very effective strategy for falling in love.
We can exist in the moment without thought – A great thing to do when you are in a time-limited situation where performance matters (coaches say “don’t over think it”)
We can practice meditative awareness – noticing your thoughts coming and going without trying to judge or control them.
We can be credulous and decide to believe what we are told without question (like a child toward an adult).
We can be cynical and decide not to trust authority (like a petulant teen ager trying to differentiate from his parents)
We can apply reason and question things on the basis of the evidence.
And many more I am sure.
These different strategies are all useful. They all help us in different ways at different times in our lives.
If there is one behavior that I would point to to differentiate the rationalist and the deist it would be this: A rationalist applies reason to his religious beliefs (and then stops believing). The deist refuses to apply reason to his religious beliefs but has no insight into his refusal to do so.
Now let me qualify this: I think that a deist will apply reason to his beliefs, but he won’t apply reason to the authority of his source for beliefs. So I don’t see you guys EVER starting with the assumption that the bible is just a book and looking for proof of its divinity. You ALLWAYS start with the idea that the bible is a divinely inspired book and argue against its ordinariness.
In just the same way, you are starting with the assumption that there is a divine, supernatural intelligence at the foundation of the universe, and arguing against proof that there is not, instead of starting with the assumption that the universe is ordinary and looking for evidence of divinity.
The fact that you do this so consistently suggests to me that there is a psychological payoff for your willful ignorance. I was wondering if you can tell me what it is? More importantly, I am wondering if you have the insight to be able to tell me what it is?
December 24, 2008 @ 10:14 amNo, that’s not what he is saying. He’s saying we don’t know yet, but we will one day and we can safely assume, when we do know, that explanation will be materialistic.
I didn’t fill it with anything. I merely pointed out that Dawkins is looking at the big whole in our knowledge and filling it with atheism without anything to support it.
That’s right. It doesn’t prove anything, except perhaps that Dawkins isn’t as sharp as his press clippings have led him to believe. He has assumed the thing he wants to prove, seemingly without realizing it.
Again, I haven’t asserted any proof for God’s existence. I’m pretty sure it’s you that is filling in my blanks with all sorts of things I haven’t said. No assumptions about God’s existence are required for my point about Dawkins’ poor reasoning to stand.
Here’s a psychological puzzle for you: Why does a man want to spend hours arguing about this with a relative stranger on Christmas Eve? I’ll let you ponder that…I’m off to church.
December 24, 2008 @ 12:52 pmSusac, I too wonder why you spend so much time here. Many of us have converted from agnosticism/atheism to the faith. Essentially, you’re not going to win anybody over. I’m sure by now you’ve “blown off” the book I recommended as being some type of inferior work. In any case, have a Merry Christmas.
December 24, 2008 @ 12:59 pmOf course I do. I’m a Christian! It’s not just a book to me. It is my version of materialism, it is my humanism. It is my worldview. It is my faith. But the critique points out how materialists fail to admit the faith that they operate on, and won’t tolerate those who do. Look, I’m glad you’re not a Churchillian atheist, but Dawkins is.
Truth is authority. Chrisitians believe that God is the way, the truth, and the light. Truth and authority become one and the same for me as a believer.
ANYONE? I guess I don’t count as a person. I came to Christ as an agnostic adult in college- oh, and sometimes people say I’m “pretty smart” when they need to know something. And I get good grades. Am I smart? Or maybe I just don’t count?
Kind of like when people who say the founding fathers were all desits, because the only founders that count are two or three possible deists out of at least 55 founders/framers. Or when we say that God is not found in the founding documents of our republic, because only the ones that don’t mention God count as founding documents. Or how the atheist blood-baths of the 20th century don’t count as the fruits of atheism. Or maybe how I don’t count- like when theists tell atheists that they are worthless in a discussion about ethics? I know you really love to chime in when you see that going on!
I don’t? What if I believe that the big bang theory is support for the creation depicted in Genesis? Check out a book called “Genesis And The Big Bang” to see what I am talking about, if you don’t know. Or does Schroeder not count as a person either?
December 24, 2008 @ 9:03 pmEarl, we’re casting our pearls before swine. Regardless of the sound evidence upon which our faith stands, Susac will refuse to believe that we have anything of substance to believe in. Only God can change this guys heart. I hope He does. The alternative (hell) is not a good option. Jesus said it is a place of eternal torment. I wish this for no one.
December 25, 2008 @ 12:22 pmWow! So much to respond to!
Hmm. I don’t think you can use “non-belief in a deity” as a place holder. I understand your argument, but I don’t agree that that is what Dawkins is doing. I think that if you start with the proposition that “I don’t know what caused the universe or if it is even meaningful to say that a universe can have a cause” there is no honest way to get from there to “god did it” without first proving that there is a god. I understand that you disagree, but I think that there is a tendency among theists to become so attached to the idea that there is a god that they have a hard time saying “I don’t know what caused the universe or if it is even meaningful to say that a universe can have a cause.” So you guys often start with an assumption that clouds your reasoning. But then I don’t know you so, hey, I may be wrong.
I think that what you are doing is that you are looking at Dawkin’s speculation and assuming that he is asserting it as fact. He’s not. He’s speculating. That means he is assuming the position that “I don’t’ know – but here’s my best guess.” Is he doing this from a materialistic point of view? Absolutely! But I notice a tendency in the Christian community for you guys to get your panties in a bunch about speculation. There is a BIG difference between speculating on the basis of assumptions and asserting a faith position.
December 30, 2008 @ 3:40 pmHere’s a psychological puzzle for you: Why does a man want to spend hours arguing about this with a relative stranger on Christmas Eve?
Susac, I’ll simply enjoy the life I currently have. And it won’t be God torturing you if you reject the Christian gospel – I think you know that.
December 30, 2008 @ 4:04 pmGreat pet theory. Don’t know how much originality you can claim for it though. I agree with it. People often identify themselves by their associations, their social experiences, and their social goals. Humanistic psychology 101; Maslow’s Pyramid I believe. Out of these things come many stories- “what I’ve been through, what I’m going through, what I’m trying to do.”
December 30, 2008 @ 4:45 pmA question: Are you exempt from your pet theory? Do you define yourself and your behavior by evolutionary caveman stories or anything? Many atheists do. Do these stories provide a filter for you to determine what “fits” and what doesn’t when you are presented with new information?
Sorry, I forgot to finish my thought. Stories about where we’ve been and where we’re going… it’s not hard to imagine people starting to relate to people who have similar stories. Its not hard to imagine people finding ancient stories to relate to. It’s not hard to find a story that rings true and speaks to you; a story worth repeating. It’s not hard to imagine people aspiring to the characters in stories. Sometimes I aspire to be what I once was at a certain point in my own life. Obviously I aspire to have Christ-like love for strangers (a struggle of mine.) Obviously I find universal truth in the story of Genesis and it speaks to me.
December 30, 2008 @ 5:02 pmI’m glad that you enjoy your life Jim, I really am. However I definitely do NOT know that I will be tortured at ALL, simply because I don’t believe in your book or your God or your mythology.
In fact I think that part of Christian ideology is just a fear tactic used by priests as a time-honored form of mind control. I reject the idea of hell categorically (unless you count hell on earth – which we are most capable of creating).
Oh yeah – one other reason I like to post on this blog – it’s good practice for expressing my ideas to people who I’m pretty sure will disagree with me.
Oh absolutely not! In fact I would frame the conflict between faith and reason as a conflict between mythologies. Faith-based mythologies vs. evidence-based mythologies to be specific.
I think that creating a sense of self out of stories is an unconscious process. I don’t think you can escape it. One can, however, be aware of it. One can have insight about how one construct’s one’s self-image and one can make conscious choices about what stories to use. The trick is to become aware, since we all have blind spots. There can be no evaluation, no judgment and no choice about one’s mythology without insight.
See, now to me this is very cool. I have a great respect for the value of Christian and Jewish mythology as a psychological tool, provided that one uses it with good judgment. For example, I think that the story of Christ’s sacrifice is one of the powers of servant leadership – the moral authority that one assumes when using one’s power for the benefit of others. Jesus is a very powerful symbol of this (a perfect symbol of this to be precise)- So is Moses, but he is a flawed leader – he indulged in hubris and was barred from the promised land as a result.
The virgin birth is a symbol of the idea that he represents our higher selves – divorced from our animal nature – this same symbol appears in several other mythologies as well – for example the Buddha was born from a slit in his mother’s side – symbolizing his emergence from the heart chakra.
Looking at these stories, they are powerful metaphors and guideposts for the morality, awareness and growth. They are “true” in the sense that they represent something true about ourselves. Where I part company with the standard Judeo/Christian worldview is the idea that these stories are “true” in the sense that the actually happened. But you don’t have to believe in their veracity in order to believe in and benefit in their message.
That said there are other aspects of Christian mythology that I find extremely troubling. Hell is an example – the idea that being divorce from God (that is divorced from our spiritual nature) is a pretty good metaphor – it’s also a Jewish idea. The problem that I have with hell is that Christianity uses it as a punishment for disobeying authority. This is bullshit, plain and simple, and it is a way that con artists and hucksters (aka priests) use the mythology to get money and power and status (and to hurt people).
Another horrible idea that Christianity foists upon the world is the idea of original sin. The idea that we are born bad. I understand that the concept is more subtle than this – but most people don’t see it that way – most people really think they are going to hell if they don’t believe in the superstitious mumbo-jumbo of the faith. This is a form of culturally sanctioned cruelty. Our base selves, our animal natures are GOOD. This is a radical idea in some circles (probably on this blog). Our desire avoid pain and to kill and to fuck and to lust after power and status and wealth are all there to help us. If it was all that we are we would not be human, but it is equally dehumanizing to deny that it is a part of what we are. The sane thing to do is to make friends with that part of ourselves. Your mythology doesn’t support this idea too well though.
What do you mean by this? Can you say more?
December 30, 2008 @ 8:15 pmSusac, I’m pretty much done with you. I find this whole thing to be quite boring. You’re just interested in arguing with Christians.
One last thought – when one is part of an exorcism team, and the girl with the demon has never met you or any of the other team members (other than her pastor), and when a male voice speaks out from her telling everyone in detail sins they have committed, down to the exact time and place of the sin in order to shame you, you have irrefutable proof of the existence of Satan. And when this demon is cast out in the name of Jesus, you have more proof of His power and that He lives! All of your babbling and arguing and pop psychologizing on this blog will never change those facts. Our God is not a mythical figure. He is real and the enemy is real. Game. Set. Match. End of story.
December 30, 2008 @ 10:38 pm