The Theist’s Guide To Converting Atheists: My Response To Ebonmuse
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The atheist blogger Ebonmuse has for nearly a decade now hosted an essay on his website titled The Theist’s Guide to Converting Atheists. I was originally pointed to the essay from a link on another atheist blog asking believers to consider potential facts or situations that would sway them from belief.
What follows is my initial set of responses to this essay.
Ebonmuse’s essay is basically a three-tier criteria describing hypothetical situations he might consider suitable grounds for religious conversion, the argument being that if any of the conditions in categories 1-3 were met, that he would at least consider the religion in question.
As I understood it, one purpose of this exercise was to conceive of a series of conditions that might persuade a believer to conclude that their faith was mistaken. I’m not sure why, but many atheists seem to think that facts hold relevance to believers, when the vast majority of believers are completely uninterested in facts, and even less interested in questioning their own beliefs. At any rate, let’s dig in.
It didn’t take long to find something problematic. Ebonmuse wrote,
"Many theists, by their own admission, structure their beliefs so that no evidence could possibly disprove them…"
Now I don’t disagree with this point. Rather, I would like to reveal its hidden assumption.
What Ebonmuse says is certainly true; many (perhaps even most) theists are indeed a hard-headed, non-intellectual breed. But the hidden assumption is that religious beliefs or God’s existence falls into the category of falsifiable phenomena. Evidence only applies to falsifiable constructs, and to even ask for evidence refuting or confirming God’s existence is to presuppose that God’s existence is a falsifiable construct. I disagree, and would challenge anyone who makes the presupposition on grounds of authority.
For the sake of brevity, I believe consciousness transcends death, and I give the God of the Bible the benefit of the doubt. These are not necessarily a package deal, either. For example, it is entirely plausible for a state of affairs to exist in which the God of the Bible does not exist, but consciousness still transcends death.
So what would it take to make me wake up one day and believe that I was wrong about either of these things? That there was no God, and that consciousness does not transcend death?
Good question. And my responses to Ebonmuse are in full cognitive acceptance of my demonstrated personal propensity towards error and misunderstanding. I might believe consciousness can transcend death, and I might give the God of the Bible the benefit of the doubt, but I also know enough about myself and my own past blunders to know I could be totally, equivocally wrong. Even if one accepts that the Bible is completely authoritative, the reader’s interpretations of it are surely not always so.
That being said, the first thing I thought of that might convince me I was wrong was nothing. Now in saying nothing, I do not mean to imply as some arrogant believers do that there are no arguments, phenomena or potentialities that lend well to atheism.
Because I do not believe the existence of God is a falsifiable construct, there is no ‘thing’ that could persuade me that my belief in God was wrong, but if it were possible, nothing would certainly convince me. When I say nothing, I mean nothing as something: the complete and total cessation of consciousness in the traditional Epicurean vein. If it were possible for me to feel this (an oxymoron in itself, I know) then I might be convinced that my belief in God and the afterlife was mistaken. Since experiencing a cessation of consciousness seems impossible, what else might persuade me I was wrong?
I’ve been thinking about this for some time, and the complete and total absence of love in the world is currently the only thing I could think of that would persuade me that there was no God; at least this side of the grave.
Scientifically speaking, one thing that would not convert me, but that would make atheism more logically acceptable was if the phenomenon of homochirality in the human DNA molecule could be sufficiently explained in an atheist context. Random processes always produce racemic mixtures, yet the double-helix unilaterally displays left enantiomers, and the presence of even a single right enantiomer at any point in our DNA’s evolution is thought to be a fatal error. What series of random, unguided or otherwise non-intelligent events can produce this situation?
I’m not saying that the problem proves we need God, either. That’s the God of the Gaps argument. Even if it could be demonstrated that random processes could produce something other than a racemic mixture, this is of course no proof of God.
Some folks are fond of imagining paradigm-shifting scenarios: "I’ll gladly renounce Position X in light of Evidence Y," such people contend. Unfortunately, I am for the most part not one of them. I’ve been long unable to conceive of any discovery that might convert me to atheism, and I say it is utter foolishness for anybody to offer scientific findings as evidence either for or against God’s existence. Just as I do not believe that a successful ontological argument exists, I equally disbelieve that a successful atheist argument exists, and all of this is rooted to my belief that God’s existence is not a falsifiable construct.
So the relevance to this post is that aside from the absence of love, I can’t offer any conceivable chain-of-events that would make me convert to atheism – again, at least this side of the grave. However, any one of the following three post-mortem experiences might persuade me that the interpretation of God I held while on Earth was mistaken:
1. If, after surviving death, Hitler, Bush 43, Mao, Jeff Dahmer and a cast of other unsavory characters were high-ranking and respected leaders in the heavenly array.
2. If, after surviving death, I was greeted by the face of Jesus, only to have it morph, resulting in my being tortured eternally by some crazed demon who took great joy in the matter.
3. Another thing that might convince me was if God manifested and explained to me point by point where my perceptions were incorrect, but I suppose that need not be limited to a post-mortem possibility.
Now I’d like to address one of the conditions Ebonmuse lists as one that might potentially convert him, that is, if holy books contained scientific knowledge that wasn’t available at the time. I believe the Bible contains several instances of such knowledge.
Relegate it to lucky guess if you wish, but Isaiah stated long before Eratosthenes that Earth was circular, and that is not debatable.
And as far as I know, the Genesis account was the first and only account of the universe’s creation to concur with modern pronouncements concerning the Big Bang. Static-universe theories, fluctuating-universe theories and steady-state theories all crumbled under the evidence. I find Genesis’ first three words compelling: In the beginning… Of course, the atheist is free to interpret these words through a different set of lenses. In short, the first three words of Genesis concur with the Big Bang, and that’s all I’m asking any atheist to concede on this point.
Also, I see more than one accurate foreshadowing of Carnot’s principle in the Bible. Of particular interest are the passages in Romans where Paul speaks of Earth and the heavens as being in bondage to decay and corruption. I see another keen elucidation of entropy with the Psalmist who stated long before Kelvin that Earth would wear out like a garment. Whether these are indicative of revelation or not is of course debatable; what is beyond debate is the fact that these Bible passages concur with our most modern findings of thermodynamics, and that’s all I’m asking any atheist to concede here.
Another odd thing is how the Bible writers would have known a rainbow would not be visible to people on Earth if a canopy of water encircled our upper atmosphere. For those unfamiliar, a careful reading of Genesis 1 suggests Earth had a water-canopy at one point. Genesis also states that rainbows did not exist or at least were not visible until after the Noahic flood. Interestingly, meteorologists are well-known for saying that rain alone could not possibly have produced the amount of water called for in the Noahic flood. Assuming the Noahic flood was caused by a collapse of the water-canopy, a rainbow would have then become a physically observable phenomenon. Also note that whether the canopy existed or not has no bearing on the argument; all of these arguments are internally consistent, and in full agreement with their respective laws of meteorology and physics, so far as I understand them. And this is all I ask any atheist to concede here, that scripture is consistent on these points.
Among other quandaries, Genesis also asserted that man’s body was composed of the dust of the earth. Genesis 2:7 reads, "And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground." The Hebrew word used to denote dust in this passage is apar, and as opposed to dirt, apar refers to the fine or porous particles of the earth. Today, science confirms that the protoplasm which forms man’s flesh is a composition of oxygen, carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, phosphorous, chlorine, sulfur, potassium, sodium, calcium, iron, magnesium, silicon, iodine, fluorine and manganese, i.e. dust, and more specifically, the fine particles of the Earth.
If the sum total of available mass/energy in the universe cannot currently increase, this directly upholds the notion of a fully completed creation event found in Genesis, which states that, "By the seventh day God had finished the work he had been doing…" The law of conservation of energy agrees with this basic premises of the Bible; that no further creation of matter is taking place anywhere in the universe. Does this prove God? Of course not, but atheists must concede as correct the Bible’s assertion that no further creation of matter is taking place.
Although they aren’t as straight-forward as your "Verily, verily I say unto you E=MC^2" example, I feel each of these qualifies as scientific knowledge that wasn’t available at the time. I imagine atheists will simply relegate them to coincidence or non-significance. I’m also aware the Bible makes a few arguments that appear to blatantly contradict modern science, too, but an argument must stand on its own merit and cannot be cited as reason to reject any of the above.
Ebonmuse also has a fourth category, a list of things that would not convert him. I decided to create a similar category of my own. None of the following would convince me of atheism’s plausibility.
The hypothetical situation of scientists unlocking the secret of spontaneous generation in a laboratory would not conclusively prove anything in favor of atheism, and in fact, the occurrence will actually serve to strengthen the validity of the special creation account. Creating life from nonliving chemicals in a laboratory can hardly be argued as proof for spontaneous generation because scientists working towards a desired end cannot be classified as spontaneous. Intelligence is required to know which variables and control factors to select, intelligence is required to approximate the reactions of the various chemicals to one another, and abiogenesis experiments are consistent with the idea that intelligence precedes life.
Others are fond of saying that an alien encounter would be persuasive evidence for this or that, or that ET’s touching down would somehow prove evolution and refute the Bible. For example, if beings of undeniably superior intelligence and power suddenly arrived on Earth, claiming to be advanced products of evolution living in some other nook of the universe. I would find this palely unconvincing, and the occurrence would equally support a biblical worldview.
To me, the science vs. religion dichotomy has always been a presentation of false opposites. What of the Big Bang is incompatible with Christianity, God or the Bible? Defined simply as "the hypothesis that all living, terrestrial organisms are genealogically related," what exactly is so unbiblical about the theory of common descent? Neither the Bible nor science teach any sort of fixity of species and presupposing there is a God, there is nothing heretical or unscientific about the idea that God created organisms capable of significant adaptive response to changing environments. Nature is not static but dynamic, and as such she encompasses a wide range of changing environments; therefore organisms must possess a certain level of flexibility in order to adapt and thrive.
If I may temporarily conclude, atheism has just never clicked for me. That doesn’t make my theism correct, nor does it make atheism incorrect. I’m just saying that per Occam I’m going to believe in whatever is simple and makes the most sense. To me, it’s God and the Bible. To Ebonmuse or you, perhaps not, and that’s your business.
Brad
says...While reading this at school, I have a few initial quibbles.
I don’t think that was “hidden,” considering Ebonmuse spent time to write a huge amount for 5 different, very explicitly stated, anti-theistic arguments. See the site map.
Also, you say you give the God of the Bible “the benefit of a doubt.” And then you say “the first thing I thought of that might convince me I was wrong was nothing.” Do you have a positive belief or don’t you?
You were at one point an atheist in your life. When you were born. (You’ve probably heard of the weak/strong atheist distinction, right?) It is not the plausibility of nonbelief that requires initial scrutiny, it is the plausibility of belief. I can’t reasonably go about my life with the starting assumption of God, the Book of Mormon, etc. I need to investigate them first, just like I would ghosts and the loch ness monster.
Also, nothing will convert me from my devout belief that aether exists in the universe. It is just outside humanity’s time horizon, of course! Nothing could contradict my belief. :)
cl
says...Brad,
I’ve seen the site map, thanks. I pulled Ebon’s essay about nine months ago, and have been periodically referring to the site to cover my bases.
In your opinion: are religious beliefs / gods falsifiable constructs? Y or N
Do you believe there is a “God gene?” Y or N
My hunch is that you just kinda hurried through perhaps the first few paragraphs of the post, evidenced by your misunderstanding of what I meant by ‘nothing.’ If I’m wrong here, I apologize.
The question you ask at the end of your second paragraph is answered in the essay.
Your third paragraph is non-sequitur entirely, relates nothing to the post, and is strangely reminiscent of bible-thumping. I also noticed atheism was missing from the list of ideas you couldn’t reasonably go about your life with starting assumptions about.
Whether I was an atheist when I was born depends on how you define atheism so you get no free lunch there. If atheism = lack of belief in any and all forms, then sure. If your definition of atheism requires that you first investigate God, the Book of Mormon, etc. before rejecting them, as you seem to imply as your own personal criteria in lines 5-6 in pp. 3, then no, I wasn’t born an atheist.
There is a massive categorical divide between the neurophysiological inability to formulate an idea vs. processing a series of datasets and reaching a certain conclusion.
Ebonmuse
says...Although I’m not going to respond to every point raised here, I will comment on this:
“Scientifically speaking, one thing that would not convert me, but that would make atheism more logically acceptable was if the phenomenon of homochirality in the human DNA molecule could be sufficiently explained in an atheist context…. What series of random, unguided or otherwise non-intelligent events can produce this situation?”
Common minerals such as calcite are chirally selective: they preferentially adsorb one or the other enantiomer on opposing faces, which at an atomic level are mirror images of each other. See:
http://www.jstor.org/pss/3055653
There are other natural processes that can select for chirality as well. For example, some compounds follow a principle called “majority rule”: polymers that form from weakly chiral mixtures are completely chiral. Circularly polarized ultraviolet light can also selectively destroy one enantiomer over the other.
cl
says...@ Ebon,
Random. I was emailing you as you were leaving this comment..
I especially appreciate the insight on polarized UV light; it factors into something else that’s been on my mind for some time..
At any rate, while far from even the rudimentary beginning of a hypothesis for the homochirality in human DNA, these facts do begin to sweep away some clouds. Thank you.
I’ll also opine that ascription of the descriptive ‘natural’ to a particular process does not render the process intrinsically atheist. Whenever you tell your average believer that, “…natural process A, B or C can account for phenomenon X, Y or Z,” that believer simply ascribes the descriptive ‘God’ to the process.
The believer believes God set nature in motion, so to them, ‘natural’ is not synonymous with ‘godless.’
Brad
says...(1) Depends which. Deistic gods tend to be hard or impossible to falsify, as well as some theistic ones.
(2) No, why? I haven’t at all looked into whether theism is genetically predisposed.
Am I misunderstanding your conditions for atheism?
Although in one sense you say that ‘nothing’ means literally no conscious experience, you also say that there is no thing which would persuade you, going along with your belief that gods are unfalsifiable. The latter is the position I was referring to. Aether is an unfalsifiable notion, but there is no reason to believe in it. That was my point.
My third paragraph was a response to your last paragraph. (I am hasty, and am only taking time to brush over the easy parts ’till I get a nice period of time to look over your post’s body.)
Lastly,
Like both you and I have already said: weak/strong atheist distinction. In my terms, you’re a theist if you believe in a god, and you’re an atheist if you don’t. (I think these terms are fairly agreeable.) I say this in response to the line, “atheism has just never clicked for me,” to tell you that yes, it didn’t bother you at some time in your life.
From here I don’t think I can continue discussing until I actually get to the major points of your article. Until then, later.
cl
says...@ Brad,
You said,
So what are you if you’re neurophysiologically incapable of formulating any belief whatsoever? It’s no credit to atheism that babies don’t believe in God, because they can’t even ask themselves the question.
In response to me saying atheism never clicked for me, you say,
Atheism has never bothered me. I said it never clicked.
And I offer the fact that atheism doesn’t click for me as no proof of theism, either.
Brad
says...In retrospect, I see clearly that my previous comments were childish rubbish. Oddly, I’ve matured quite a bit in my online commenting since then. So it’s time for a newly fresh, invigorating rebuttal to this post! Sorry for the length of the comment, but you’re on Typepad, so it’s not like I’m costing you ;)
First I’d like to say that although not many people are interested in questioning their personal beliefs, when it really comes down to it, facts get many people interested and so they always hold some relevance. Doubt comes into play when people expand outside their bubbles, their comfort zones, and are presented with new information that they cannot account for. From there forward is a slippery slope on which it’s difficult to be perfectly certain of what one initially believed. “A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions” ~ Benjamin Franklin. When new facts come to light, cognitive dissonance becomes possible, and that tends to get the gears turning in people’s minds. In this case, the endeavor to argue atheism on a societal level is indeed plausible.
Second, at the very beginning, you make the following statement, which I think deserves challenging:
One, the assumption you spoke of is not necessarily inherent in Ebonmuse’s original point. Two, although you disagree with the presupposition, do you have any argument against it? Do you have an argument for the alternative, that God is unfalsifiable? (Perhaps you do, but I haven’t seen it on your site.) Three, I think this axiom is valid, and so I will quote Mark Vuletic’s defense of this axiom from Is Atheism Logical?:
Four, since Vuletic’s idea of “probability” is dubious when applied here, in my opinion, I will quote myself from Daylight Atheism:
If we undertake this version of epistemology, as I try to, then asking for evidence pro/con- God does not necessarily presuppose anything about God’s falsifiability (or verifiability), but rather is just one possible first step to take in making theories about reality that attempt to go by minimal assumptions and maximal explanatory power. From this vantage point, evidence readily lends itself to use in building models, even before we can assess the degree of certainty of its falsity or truth.
From here, with this epistemology, I can answer for myself (as a hypothetical theist) the question “So what would it take to make me wake up one day and believe that I was wrong about either of these things?” My answer is that I would have to discover sufficient reason to believe that the ideas of God and death-transcending consciousness were (1) superseded or usurped by naturalistic explanations and (2) unlikely given the facts of reality not meshing where they should logically be expected to with the implications of my conception of God and afterlife.
Analogously, I can answer the question “What would it take you to make me believe in God/the afterlife?” I answer with the above conditions, but inverted appropriately. And now I feel I must additionally ask, what conditions do you hold for belief? Do you go on the presupposition that God/the afterlife is verifiable (during this time in which we are forming our opinions)? If not, how do you support the axiom that God/the afterlife is verifiable? And last, how do you support that belief in God is more rational than nonbelief?
Third, I don’t regard your postulations of the “cessation of consciousness” and the “complete and total absence of love in the world” as belief-killers to be valid critera, since they require a different world than the one we are in. I think I should qualify Ebonmuse’s request for “a list of things that they would accept as proof that atheism is true” to only include things that do not already contradict facts of this world. To do otherwise, like you do, is an exercise in theoretical philosophy, which is not of genuinely practical concern here.
Fourth, you say:
Earth isn’t circular; it’s spherical. Isaiah uses the term chuwg to describe the Earth, which means “circle, circuit, compass.” If you think it’s not debatable Isaiah said the Earth was flat, then I’m down with that. ;)
Fifth,
And by “modern pronouncements” you mean that there was a beginning in time? That’s assumed in almost every single creation story there is! To boot: it’s not much of a purely scientific discovery; the idea of there being a beginning to time is so simplistic that children could easily posit it without any facts or revelation at all. This breaks the Theist’s Guide criteria: “… contained some piece of knowledge that the people of the time couldn’t possibly have known but that is now known to be true, …”
I concede that, but it’s not conceding much. Plus there’s the exegetical question faced of why to interpret the first three words of Genesis as alluding to a literal fact, and interpreting the rest of Genesis differently.
Sixth,
I do find this debatable. Is “wearing out like a garment” really a concept of thermodynamics? No; once again, it is a concept a child could conceive of without outside help, so I see no reason to interpret these passages so charitably. It’s easy for us humans to destroy things – plus things regularly do tend to run down (on the level of easily observable human experience, not just thermodynamics) – so it’s not saying much about a primitive culture to note this and use it as a metaphor to put forth in their religious teachings. Your scientific argument here once again does not meet up to the Theist’s Guide criteria.
Seventh, where in the Bible is it stated that “a rainbow would not be visible to people on Earth if a canopy of water encircled our upper atmosphere”? I cannot find this in scripture; I can only find fanciful interpretations of the covenant which prescribe a similar idea that there was no rain or rainbows before God’s promise. (This does not equate exactly with the claim that the Bible writers knew this as an empirical fact.) And no, I do not concede that scripture is consistent here. Internally consistent, maybe, but it is not consistent with our scientific and empirical knowledge today.
Eighth,
I do concede here that you have a difficult point to take on. This fact is very hard for me to explain. One thing I can posit is that primitive people may have superstitiously inferred, from the superficial similarities between certain textured “dirt” and human flesh, that God made us out of the ground. (Note: I don’t immediately see that the Hebrew is specific enough for us to know reliably that the author(s) were referring to the same kind of dust that has all the components our bodies do.) Another potential explanation is that, in the same vein of Democritus and atoms, the Hebrews used “dust” as a metaphor for building-blocks or the ‘make-up’ of human bodies. The (admittedly stretchy) reason behind this coincidence is that sand/”dust” can self-evidently make most conceivable shapes (for the primitive especially), and in the spirit of metaphor they might capitalize on this.
Ninth, where does the Bible assert matter/energy cannot be created/destroyed? How can you infer that idea from the passages in Genesis? And, even in the case Genesis did imply this idea (which I do not believe), is the law of conservation of matter not a self-evidently easy assumption for any person or culture to make?
Tenth,
Consistency is a baseline requirement for any position. To be counted as hefty positive evidence for intelligent abiogenesis, the experiments would have to demonstrate it improbable that abiogenesis could occur in the absence of intelligence and in the geological lengths of time relevant to the discussion, but the experiments do the exact opposite by demonstrating it probable given the conditions we understand the past Earth to have had, sans God. What I’m saying is that atheism becomes, in its own right, a more powerful explanation of the universe than before with these experiments, and that they do nothing to increase the explanatory power of theism from before.
Eleventh
Even if we assume a non-literal interpretation of the Bible in relevant parts, I think there’s an indirect issue with the theory of common descent. Namely that it bolsters the problem of evil in opposition to the idea of an omnipotent, loving designer-god.
In conclusion,
Good prediction that I would relegate almost all your points to insignificance. And yes, I am aware I just made a 12-part post. :) My final thoughts go back to my original epistemology: go by which explanations are best. If we’re going to discuss God’s existence versus non-existence, then all of the important logical and probable implications of these positions must be examined to see holistic, cohesive pictures of both and how well the universe as we know it fits into these two pictures. To finish this off, I quote myself once again from Daylight Atheism:
cl
says...Brad,
You make an eleven-point rebuttal followed by a conclusion.
I agree with #1, which is not really an argument but general observation.
I think we’ve covered #2 (falsifiability) and #3 (counterfactuals) fairly extensively over at DA. If you have any further comments to them, feel free to add them here.
Many of your arguments revolve around a common complaint: That I interpret certain verses too charitably. For example, #4,
First a technical note – anything that is spherical and is also circular. Nothing in chowg demands flatness. That Isaiah even got ‘circular’ correct could have been related to observing Earth’s shadow on the moon. Either way, that Earth is circular is exactly what we would expect from a reasonable reading of Isaiah (I don’t have the verse number handy).
Regarding #5, I grant that the idea of a beginning in time might be somewhat intuitive; but I disagree that all or even most creation stories include a beginning, from a void, with light. Either way, I offer such not as a sort of ontological argument or proof, just to note that the Hebrews got their cosmology correct. Again, this is exactly what one might expect if the Bible were true.
Also #9 – the Bible simply states that God is not doing any more creating. This is supported by our observations that matter cannot be created or destroyed.
As for #6, let me do some word studies and get back to you.
As for #7, you ask,
It’s a reasonable inference I believe. Let’s start with Genesis 1:7 – what do you think the “water above the expanse” was? FYI, I don’t grant clouds or atmospheric water very much credit because the Hebrews use another word for clouds in the very same chapter. So, IMO, a hypothetical canopy of water that surrounded Earth is one reasonable reading of the text.
Next, I believe scientists and mathematicians are correct in saying the amount of water called for in the Noahic flood is not acheivable in 40 days’ rain. A water canopy would explain this discrepancy. Now, consider Genesis 9:1-17 which notes several times that “never again will the waters become a flood to destroy all life.” Note also that the rainbow is offered as a sign, or proof of this, in verse 13. How or why would the rainbow be a sign that God would never flood the Earth like that again? Because before, with the water canopy, a rainbow would not be visible to a terrestrial observer (I have yet to hear confirmation from a credible physicist on this; it’s only my own rudimentary hypothesis). Once the sun’s rays hit the water canopy, or ‘watershpere,’ they would refract, and a rainbow would not be visible phenomenon to a terrestrial observer. That a rainbow is visible is possible because the canopy collapsed and light can now enter Earth’s atmosphere unrefracted. Presuming the canopy collapsed during the flood, this would never happen again for obvious reasons. I think the compelling thing about this is that the writer’s depiction withstands the test of physics.
As you note, the whole thing is 100% internally consistent. I also grant that I’m unaware of any compelling cases for the existence of such a canopy. I originally heard the idea from Henry Morris. I’ve tried for years to discard the idea but it makes sense and makes for interesting conjecture over such things as the Cambrian Explosion.
Now, if Genesis clearly mentioned rainbows before the flood, this would have all the bona fide markings of a myth, it would be very difficult for the Bible to explain and I would lose alot of faith in it.
I don’t want to get into #10 and #11 – just yet.
As for this,
Great advice. Been following it for years!