An Interesting Snippet That Caught My Attention
Posted in Atheism, Quickies, Thinking Critically on | 2 minutes | 18 Comments →
Today's post is just a quickie. A friend of mine said that he would read more often if I posted shorter posts. I used to post shorter posts more frequently. There is a "Quickies" category on the sidebar, but if you notice it's been spared attention for about 4 months now.
I was reading a paper titled Atheist Foundation of Ethics written by John B. Hodges:
If there WERE any Cosmic Parent, it would not need human messengers; it could speak directly to whomever it wished. If a divine being wants me to do something, they should tell me, not you. If they have a message for all humankind, they could write it on the face of the Moon, in letters five miles wide. Any alleged "revelation" DELIVERED BY HUMAN BEINGS is presumptively fraudulent.
It's ironic that the Bible describes a God much like the one Hodges proffers as plausible, that is, a God that can and does share divine Will with individuals (cf. John 14:16). However, I thought that the really interesting part was that last bit about "any alleged 'revelation.'"
Let's say hypothetically that God did reveal something to one of us, perhaps even Hodges. It would certainly be within reason to expect the person experiencing this revelation to share it with others. So I object to any sort of categorical disqualification of a revelation from other human beings. It could very well be that somebody else saw or experienced something far beyond that which my limited mind can comprehend. To judge them as "presumptively fraudulent" beforehand seems to me, well.. presumptive.
MS
says...“It would certainly be within reason to expect the person experiencing this revelation to share it with others.”
Well said, cl. If Hodges received a revelation, he’d be writing about it, instead of Atheist Foundations of Ethics. Who knows…it could happen, and it would be presumptive to think otherwise.
Bobaloo
says...However, if Hodges were to receive a message from a divine being what would give him the motives to tell others. Unless the divine being said, do X and tell everyone else to do X then he would be compelled to ‘spread the word.’ But even if Hodges were to experience some sort of divine being, he would likely dismiss it as natural phenomena and go on writing his atheist memoirs. It seems to me that those who are opposed to supernatural events are also cognitively closed to them. I.E. I cant experience a ghost because I have deleted the possibilities of their being that sort of experience from my conceptual framework.
Beyond the objective worries there seems to be some subjective problems with this as well. CL you said “It could very well be that somebody else saw or experienced something far beyond that which my limited mind can comprehend. To judge them as “presumptively fraudulent” beforehand seems to me, well.. presumptive.” Rational subjectivity requires that any individual must reasonably disqualify any statement that isn’t intuitively justified. Its a very common state of affairs; whenever a statement is made and we think ‘yeah, that just doesn’t seem right,’ we are simply being intuitively reasonable. Now im not saying that we should rely on this intuition but we should pay homage to this process as it seems to be a key component of our faculty of pure reason.
If and only if, Hodges is either intuitively subjective or cognitively closed about/to human interaction with a cosmic parent(s), then presumption of fraudulent claims by humans is logically permissible because Hodges is an objective skeptic.
CL your the man!
bobaloo
says...P.S. Sorry for the previous post’s italicized second half, I’m still learning how to use the blogosphere. Either way CL is the man!
TaiChi
says...Given the assumption that God knows his message would be given much more credence if delivered directly, and the assumption that God could’ve divulged his message directly, we would expect him to do this. That means we have a presumption in favor of direct communication, and conversely, a presumption against indirect communication. Anyone claiming the latter runs up against what we would expect, a priori.
I think it’s a relatively weak presumption in an individual case, although applied to divine revelation as a whole it amounts to the more substantial problem of divine hiddenness.
pine
says...@TaiChi:
You wrote: “Given the assumption that God knows his message would be given much more credence if delivered directly, and the assumption that God could’ve divulged his message directly, we would expect him to do this.”
You forgot a few assumptions. 1. That God wished to deliver the message in a manner in which it was most likely to be accepted. 2. That morality requires God to deliver the message in just such a manner.
Why is one presupposition better than another? It is just as easy to presuppose that God did not intend to reveal Himself (or His message) in the manner through which it would be most accepted, but rather in the way in which His purpose might be fulfilled.
I find it ironic that at times we claim to consider a Supreme God while at the same time thrusting humanity into the center of our thoughts. Our good is the highest good. That which preserves the most (numerically) of humanity is the best. Were there a Supreme Good in the universe, why should we expect their morality is exactly like ours? Doesn’t everything which remains of our senses tell us the exact opposite? Hasn’t history at least revealed our corrupt nature? But ‘tell’ and ‘revealed’ are not strong enough words. Screamed, thrust upon us with unrelenting undeniable truth… we are the broken ones and yet fit to judge God or His motives. But it is the theist who is accused of presumption…
TaiChi
says...Pine,
“You forgot a few assumptions. 1. That God wished to deliver the message in a manner in which it was most likely to be accepted. 2. That morality requires God to deliver the message in just such a manner.”
1 is plausible and you can add it if you wish. 2 I don’t think is relevant: if he intends his message to be accepted, then the reason doesn’t matter.
“It is just as easy to presuppose that God did not intend to reveal Himself (or His message) in the manner through which it would be most accepted, but rather in the way in which His purpose might be fulfilled.”
Why suppose that these two things come apart? He wants us to believe in him, doesn’t he? Of course, he might have some other mysterious purpose which nobody can divine, but if that’s what you’re gesturing at, your essentially arguing that we should presume what we are necessarily ignorant of.
“I find it ironic that at times we claim to consider a Supreme God while at the same time thrusting humanity into the center of our thoughts.”
I find it ironic that you’re offering me information about God whilst simultaneously denying the ability of humans to make judgments about him.
“Our good is the highest good…Were there a Supreme Good in the universe, why should we expect their morality is exactly like ours? ”
It may differ somewhat from ours, but it’d be very similar. Because if it wasn’t similar, we wouldn’t call it “morality”.
“Doesn’t everything which remains of our senses tell us the exact opposite? Hasn’t history at least revealed our corrupt nature?”
I think you’re confusing knowing what is moral with doing what is moral.
Pine
says...@TaiChi:
You asked: “He wants us to believe in him, doesn’t he?”
It depends upon how you mean “want”. 1) I don’t claim to know God’s personal motives. 2) What He has revealed (via the Bible) points to a love for mankind which wants our best and certainly involves accepting His message. However, this ‘want’ is never portrayed as the end goal or even as the highest priority.
You wrote: “I find it ironic that you’re offering me information about God whilst simultaneously denying the ability of humans to make judgments about him.”
The irony is that the presupposition about God proposed is human-centric rather than being concerned with the Divine Being Himself. I merely offered you the opportunity to consider a more appropriate presupposition. After all, if we are to seriously consider what God is like, we must first assume He exists and approach Him as a Divine Being. I agree that this is beyond us, which is why revelation is necessary.
“It may differ somewhat from ours, but it’d be very similar.”
Would it? Lay this out a little better for me please.
“I think you’re confusing knowing what is moral with doing what is moral.”
I find it suspect that I am to appeal to those who have failed to display morality as a guide for how I am to conduct myself morally. I thought hypocrites were fabled to exist only within the walls of a church…
cl
says...Wish I could comment on the thread but at the moment I’m busy.
Bobaloo,
Fixed it. The problem was due to unescaped closing tags. It can get tricky because some forums don’t require them.
TaiChi,
I like your blog and hope you keep at it, though, design-wise, for me personally, black backgrounds and light text tend to strain my eyes.
TaiChi
says...@Pine
“However, this ‘want’ is never portrayed as the end goal or even as the highest priority.”
So? Look, we can only go on what we know, and what we know is that God wants us to know and accept his message. That he has some other, higher, purpose which we do not know of cannot factor into our judgments of fact for the obvious reason that we do not know it. Based on what we know, there is a (mild) presumption that he should reveal himself directly to us.
“The irony is that the presupposition about God proposed is human-centric rather than being concerned with the Divine Being Himself. ”
Since we’re supposedly Imago Dei, this presupposition has biblical support, but nevermind.
“I merely offered you the opportunity to consider a more appropriate presupposition.”
More appropriate, why? You’ve just told me that you have no knowledge of God’s motives. You have no grounds to assert that it is “more appropriate”.
“Would it? Lay this out a little better for me please.”
You seem to think I’m claiming to know what God’s understanding of morality would be. I’m not. All I’m claiming is that if we called his revelations, actions, or anything else which was indicative of his normative strictures “moral”, then it would fall under the human understanding of the term “moral”, and so would be similar other systems of understanding which we recognize as moral systems. Supposing that God’s normative strictures are wildly different from our own and then calling them “moral” makes just about as much sense as supposing that there might be invisible unicorns which are pink.
“I find it suspect that I am to appeal to those who have failed to display morality as a guide for how I am to conduct myself morally. I thought hypocrites were fabled to exist only within the walls of a church…”
I can’t see how this is relevant to what I’ve said. In fact, I’m not sure you’re even addressing me with this.
TaiChi
says...@cl,
Thanks for that advice – I’ll see what else is on offer theme-wise. BTW, I think I may have temporarily disabled comments, but they should work now.
cl
says...I only had time for these right now; I’ll get to the comments from Pine and TaiChi later today, hopefully.
MS,
Ha! I can hear certain [atheist] critics now: “Well yeah, but we could say that about anything. The sun could fail to rise tomorrow, and gravity could stop working, and pink unicorns could exist. This is just the argument from non-omniscience that you theists love to make..”
blah, blah, blah…
Then again, we have to take Hodges’ worldview into consideration: he [presumably] really believes there is no evidence for God, and he [presumably] believes that claims lacking evidence can be assumed false. But I agree with you, MS, that it would presumptive to think otherwise.
Bobaloo,
The same set of facts that would give you motives to tell others if you found $10,000 on the ground: one would be naturally compelled due to the irregularity of the situation, no?
There, we agree wholeheartedly.
Uh, yeah! You hit the nail on the head there, buck-o. These types are no different than Fundamentalists who are cognitively closed to X, Y or Z [where X, Y or Z refer to claims that challenge their beliefs].
For me personally, that doesn’t work, but I think it may just be in the way it’s worded. I’d say that experiences are real regardless of one’s disposition about them, and that in this regard, you most certainly could experience a ghost. However, as you said, it’s likely you would just write it off as something natural.
Very well said, and I completely agree. That’s why – contrary to the lies and defamations of my accusers – I emphatically DO NOT offer the video game incident as proof for things supernatural. However, because I pay homage to the intuitive process you allude to, I neither can I accept uncompelling explanations for the event, precisely because they violate this intuitive process.
If any atheist has a compelling explanation for what happened – one that does not involve the a priori assumption that I’m lying – I’d love to hear it. To this day, the “best” atheists have come up with is insult, and that’s not explanation [except for NAL, who actually attempted a legitimate but ultimately unsatisfying explanation].
Hmmm… if Hodges is intuitively subjective about the matter, I think that might explain his presumption, but personally, I wouldn’t say such logically permits his presumption. Similarly, what if we were to say something like, “Any claim of a switch 360 flip down Wallenberg is presumptively fraudulent?” I don’t think we can logically permit such a claim, because we both know it’s possible. However, if we say, “Any claim of a quadruple backflip down Wallenberg is presumptively fraudulent,” I’m more apt to agree, because we both know such is at least much less possible than the switch 360 flip.
On the other hand, if Hodges is cognitively closed about the matter, I’d say he’s already shot himself in the foot. There are things I’m cognitively closed to, but that doesn’t justify a priori presumptions of fraudulence.
Great comment, though. Made me think, and for that, I say you’re the man.
Pine
says...@TaiChi:
I wrote: “The irony is that the presupposition about God proposed is human-centric rather than being concerned with the Divine Being Himself.”
To which you responded: “Since we’re supposedly Imago Dei, this presupposition has biblical support, but nevermind.”
Sorry, but being “imago dei” places the center of our thoughts on God, not on us. It would be like standing next to someone in the daylight and trying to enjoy the company of their shadow claiming that it (as a reflection of the person) were just the same as the person themselves.
More on the rest later…
Anonymous
says...Are you still around?
John B Hodges
says...(Yes, I am the same John B Hodges that was quoted at the start of this thread)
The general form of “revelations” is for some human being to say to other human beings “I have received a message from a really big ghost. This ghost told me he is the Creator of the Universe, and he has rules for all of us to follow, things he orders us all to do and not to do, and he offers promises and threats.”
I am asking, is it remotely plausible that any such Universal Spirit, if it existed, would communicate in that way? If it wants our obedience, enough to monitor our behavior and deliver rewards and punishments, would it choose to communicate in a way that could be easily faked by human beings? As Thomas Paine said, “He who puts faith in such a report, puts it in the man from whom it comes, and the man may be mistaken, he may have dreamed it, or he may be an impostor and may lie.” Paine concluded, “When it is revealed to me, then I will take it to be revelation; but it cannot be incumbent on me to take it as revelation before then; neither is it proper that I should take the word of a man as the word of God, and thereby put a man in the place of God.”
A man receiving such an experience has to wonder (a) if his experience was real or some kind of hallucination (b) assuming it was real, was this big ghost really who he claimed to be, and not some local demon. He tells other people what he has experienced, and they also have to wonder (a) and (b) and also (c) is this guy some kind of swindler or con artist seeking to make himself the local “representative of God”, seeking to trick us into obeying him and giving him money. All human messengers suffer from these drawbacks. Add to this the fact that there have been MANY such men claiming “revelations” that differ strongly from each other. Would any REAL god use such a messenger, when they could just as easily deliver their message in some unique way that could not be faked by humans?
cl
says...Hi John. Thanks for stopping by. I’m always grateful when authors of various tidbits show up.
Well, I think that’s certainly the general opinion of revelations held by most skeptics, but regardless of how we define a revelation, the common denominator will likely be a message from the divine, spiritual, ethereal, etc.
I think that’s the wrong question to ask, personally. As we’ve learned from science, the barrier of plausibility is constantly shrinking and may literally stop at nothing. I think that – at least from a philosophical angle – it’s better to ask, “Why might God choose this method of communication over some other?” That you or I might find something implausible is not a good argument against it.
Maybe God honors a spirit of searching? Maybe God is weeding out those privy to blind acceptance from those privy to search? You allude to this possibility yourself in your hypothetical scenario (b). The Bible instructs believers to “question the spirits.” In the same way we develop scientific discernment through questioning, perhaps we also cultivate spiritual discernment through questioning.
Believe me, I agree and empathize with your concern about charlatans, but they’re always going to exist. Charlatans can bastardize science to achieve their mischievous ends, and they have.
John B Hodges
says...The problem with using “discernment” as a way to separate valid “revelations” from fraudulent ones is that “discernment” is entirely subjective. It comes down to the “Argument from Spiritual Experience”, and, as William James said long ago, spiritual experience is evidence for the one who has it, but for no one else. It does nothing to establish the validity of one person’s “discernment” TO another person, so any moral guidance implied by the “revelation” remains entirely subjective. Someone wrote “If a man says that God spoke to him in a dream, this means nothing more to me than that he dreamed that God spoke to him.” Further, if God chose means of communication that were entirely subjective, incapable of any objective verification, then his communications would necessarily be individually relative, intended for, and relevant to, only the person to whom they were given. Thomas Paine’s complaint (that I quoted above) would stand.
Paine had respect for the Quakers, because that is exactly their position; that via the “still, small voice” of individual conscience, each of us may receive insight, and that it is a continuing challenge to separate that voice from the louder voices of ego and willful self-deception. The Quakers therefore had no hierarchy, no creed or doctrine (they have a list of “queries” instead) and they did not, and do not, proselytize.
cl
says...I think you’re oversimplifying things, and you’re responding to my thoughts on discernment out of context. I brought up discernment in answer to your question of why God might choose to communicate via revelation. There is no relation to “discernment” and “evidence.”
That said, the implication that communication via revelation “nothing to establish the validity of one person’s discernment TO another person” is not true. In the Bible, we find plenty of revelations that are in fact objectively verifiable [note: not necessarily objectively verified, but objectively verifiable]. Revelations containing claims about future events are not doomed to the specter of subjectivity you assign to all revelation.
I agree wholeheartedly.
The whole reason I wrote this post is right here:
That, in itself, is presumptuous. That was my whole point, and as far as I can see, it stands. Of course, you’re free to employ whatever sort of epistemology you wish in life, but I see no good reason to label all revelations delivered by human beings as presumptively fraudulent.
Syam
says...You’ve really captured all the esealtisns in this subject area, haven’t you?