Mysterious WaysI imagine most anybody familiar with (a)theist discussion has encountered a believer whom, when backed into a corner about, say, the unimpressive findings of various prayer studies, resorts to the rejoinder that “God works in mysterious ways.” Personally, I don’t endorse that as a legitimate response to the unimpressive findings of various prayer studies, but that’s not what I’d like to talk about today.
I’d like to talk about the viciousness with which atheists often handle the “mysterious ways” response, then suggest that atheists are often just as guilty of the essentially the same “mysterious ways” rejoinder themselves.
I Feel Your Pain, Neal Grossman!I’ve often been dumbstruck by the similarities between hardcore materialists and religious fundamentalists. Along these lines, Neal Grossman wrote:
One of my earliest encounters with this kind of academic irrationality occurred more than twenty years ago. I was devouring everything on the near-death experience I could get my hands on, and eager to share what I was discovering with colleagues. It was unbelievable to me how dismissive they were of the evidence. “Drug-induced hallucinations,” “last gasp of a dying brain,” and “people see what they want to see” were some of the more commonly used phrases. One conversation in particular caused me to see more clearly the fundamental irrationality of academics with respect to evidence against materialism:
Inconsistency & Personal Attacks: Why You Should Be Skeptical Of John W. Loftus, IIIn his post, Listing of Cognitive Biases, Loftus states, unequivocally, the following:
We should all ask for positive evidence for that which we accept as true.
Okay, if there’s one thing I admire in (a)theist discussion, it’s a firmly cemented goalpost, and I think the above certainly qualifies. How about you? If you agree with me, perhaps it won’t be much of a stretch to gain some empathy for my consternation at the transactions that follow.
Alonzo Fyfe: Atheist Preacher?Enter Alonzo Fyfe:
Ultimately, when we think about “meaning” and “permanence”, I invite you to think of a woman devoting huge amounts of time each day to the care of sick and abused children, providing them comfort and love, seeing that they are well fed and protected.
Then, I want you to imagine pulling back a bit from this image and seeing that woman merely going through the motion of caring for children in a large and empty room. While she insists that the children she comforts, protects, feeds, and teaches are real, they are figments of her imagination.
This illustrates the “meaning” that we find in a life devoted to the service of a God. There are those who look at this and see that it provides no meaning at all. Yet, when one comforts, protects, feeds, and teaches a real child and improves the quality of a real human life, this has real meaning and real purpose.
You cannot get real value from an imaginary God.
Compared to this, the rabbit has a more meaningful and fulfilling life. The bunnies that it raises and protects are real. [-Alonzo Fyfe]
Aside from the obvious bigotry against believers, Alonzo’s “argument” uses the same fallacious reasoning as William Lane Craig’s we addressed yesterday. The only difference is that they’re on opposite sides of the same coin: Craig argues that atheists can’t have real meaning or purpose in life without God. Fyfe argues that theists can’t have real meaning or purpose with God.
Barbara McBeath On GhostsI recently read an essay titled My Ghost Theories by Barbara McBeath. I found much of what she said pertinent to the ongoing discussion of anomalous phenomena myself and others were having last year. For example,
Researching and studying the subject of ghosts for so many years, and having my share of ghost experiences, I know that this is something that cannot be researched in the lab. The scientists and serious researchers must go out into the field and study this where it takes place. This may be one reason why such a large part of mainstream science seems to have ignored this phenomenon. It is something that cannot be studied in the enclosed and controlled laboratory. This phenomenon seems to occur on it’s own terms and conditions. And, another thing – to me there are so many amateur and professional ghosthunters and researchers who appear that they feel the need to claim to be psychic, just so they can give some answers. I acknowledge that there are some people that have psychic abilities, but very few can back up what they say, so it does not prove anything. So, like I said, some ghost researchers may have had many ghost related experiences, but there are no experts – just a whole lot of personal beliefs and theories!
An Analogy For Penal AtonementI’d like to share an experience I had this evening. A mother was tending to her crying baby, presumably related to the pain of teething. While trying to comfort the baby, the mother said,
Aw, I wish I could take the pain of teething for you…
I feel confident in asserting that the majority of individuals would both approve of the mother’s loving intentions, and encourage her to take the pain if she had the means. So why is it that such a disproportionate subset of people object when Christians preach a God both willing and able to take the pain of sin for us?
An Interesting Snippet That Caught My AttentionToday'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.
Conducting Single-Agent Evaluations With The Hierarchy-Of-Desires MethodWe discussed the method and some preliminary objections here. I think the best way to illustrate the method’s strengths and weaknesses would be to just dive in and play around with it.
It is my opinion that any moral theory worthy of being considered “the best” should be able to guide both isolated individuals and interactive groups towards the “moral good” at any given time. So, I’ll begin by considering the effects of any particular desire on the affected desires of an isolated individual, in order to specifically determine whether or not the particular desire tends to fulfill or thwart other desires. My hypothesis was that if desirism’s definition of good is sufficient, the numbers should line up with our moral intuitions most of the time.
I’m Burning Out! And Thoughts On HaitiI never thought it would happen, but I'm afraid I have to admit it's true: regarding blogging, my general feelings so far in 2010 can be summarized in the statement, "for the birds." Nothing really interests me anymore, at least not on the atheist blogs I've grown accustomed to reading. However, I will say that jim's series Proof of God's Existence is probably the best thing going in the aetheosphere right now, and I do hope he keeps at it.
Now, I am definitely not saying I've lost interest in writing or philological work, because that's not true at all. Actually, I'm now more enthused in my work than ever. Lately I've been spending quite a bit of time fine-tuning the new homepage, last updated February 2nd 2010 and currently presenting just short of 100 arguments pertinent to (a)theist discussion. I'm doing work, it's just not immediately visible. So that explains the reluctance to write new posts every day. I've burned out on the aetheosphere, and decided to put my work where I imagine it might count for something more: the book.
That being said, by no means am I through with the blogosphere. In fact, just this morning I read a post over at MS Quixote's that got the gears turning: A Problem of Evil…
Conservatively Stated Belief: Proof Of God’s Existence, 5I’ve been slowly digesting jim’s series Proof Of God’s Existence for the past month or so. I hope he keeps it going.
We ended 4 with a provisional definition of justified belief as, “conservatively-stated beliefs or conclusions that correspond to face value observation and are not sufficiently challenged by anomalous data.” We also discussed an hypothetical auto accident and noted that since drivers don’t normally crash into each other intentionally, most people refer generically to most traffic collisions as automobile accidents.
If we see a Mazda t-bone a parts truck at noon on some weekday, our justified belief conservatively stated is that we saw a collision between a Mazda and a parts truck at noon on some weekday. That’s it. We could responsibly paraphrase that by saying we saw some sedan slam into a truck, or that a work-truck got hit by some car, but any description that adds unconfirmed assumptions or omits confirmed facts exhibits some degree of inaccuracy. In the everyday world where pragmatism overrides commitment to technical accuracy, I wouldn’t take issue, but in philosophy and logic such laxity can be lethal.
Some might be tempted to say that since most traffic collisions are in fact accidents that we’re justified to begin with that assumption. While there is certainly enough of an argument there that I wouldn’t call that assumption irrational, at the same time I would not consider the assumption conservatively-stated. Although most likely true (because most traffic collisions are in fact accidents), that we saw an accident between a Mazda and a parts truck is not conservatively stated. It adds the unconfirmed assumption that the collision was accidental. In everyday or pragmatic usage reasonable speakers understand what is meant, but imagine the catastrophe oversight like that might cause in some nuanced philosophical discourse. We should be responsible interlocutors and say no more or no less than statements or data permit. Anything less is a disservice to clarity.
That being said, let’s get back to The Boxes.