Comments
As explained in the “Ground Rules,” this is a different kind of blog, and the main blog posts are for discussion between the two main participants. We invite your comments and further discussion here on this page instead.
If you are commenting about a specific blog post, please try to provide a link to it in your comment.
October 29th, 2009 at 11:49 am
I’m looking forward to this conversation, especially because Tom holds the Christian view that the people I care for hold. Luke, I think, on the other hand is more representing the position I support. So, I hope you guys will keep up the warm tone and openness.
Cheers,
Marco
October 29th, 2009 at 7:27 pm
Wow! A fascinating personal history, Luke! But it has made me exceedingly curious: for if your position is correct and that of Willard/Craig/Swinburne is incorrect, it can only be due to one of a few explanations:
– you have more information than they do
– you are smarter than they are
– you are less susceptible to cognitive biases than they are
– are there others?
Which one do you think it is?
Doug
October 29th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
Doug,
I don’t know the answer to your question but I can eliminate some possibilities. It is not because I have more information than they do or because I am smarter than they are. I suspect it is because I fought my cognitive biases harder than they did, but I really don’t know.
Remember, you can always flip that question around and compare everyone to the greatest atheistic philosophers of religion. Most young people who studied philosophy of religion recently will have read William Rowe and Graham Oppy. If they still rejected their atheism, was it because they had more information or were smarter or more able to overcome their cognitive biases or for some other reason?
Luke
October 31st, 2009 at 8:19 pm
I’m sure that you are aware that any such symmetry does not exist in a Christian world-view?
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:53 am
What do you mean, Doug?
October 30th, 2009 at 3:02 am
Luke, in your first letter to Tom you said that “Christian theism is definitely false”. Are you sure you didn’t want to say it is highly improbable? Perhaps you know of some logical contradiction within it’s theology or of an ontological argument that falsifies it. If you do please let me know what that is. Cheers and good luck with the debate!
Taranu
October 30th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Hi all! This is already the most interesting exchange between a Christian and an atheist that I have read, listened to or seen …. more or less ever. It is wonderful that you both seem to be committed to a meaningful and civil dialog in a medium that seems to encourage ad hominem attacks and social fragmentation.
Keep up the excellent work, and I look forward to reading Tom’s next post!
-Matt
October 30th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Taranu,
By “definitely” I just mean “highly, highly, highly, highly improbable.” Even a deductive disproof of Christianity (and I think there are several strong candidates) only gives us probable knowledge (technically) because we could be mistaken about the logical validity of the argument somehow.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Matt,
I agree! I think this is going to be a great conversation. Spread the word.
October 30th, 2009 at 11:41 am
Yikes! The pressure’s on!
October 30th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Greetings,
I’m surprised to read the article, The Moral Crisis (http://lukeprog.com/essays/crisis.html) was flooring to you. It has some basic errors in it and perhaps unknowingly to the author, he ultimately betrayed his own suggestions by offering hints at moral *truths* which are *not* relative.
He writes: “Every moral system is arbitrary”
And then suggests how to live your own moral life: “Focus your action on the few causes you are (1) most sure to be beneficial to yourself and others”
The hint here, is that he suggests that it is moral (ie good) to pursue what is beneficial to others. This is altruism. He’s unknowingly just espoused an objective truth, not a relative one. Why didn’t he suggest “do what makes you feel good…period”? Perhaps because he has a properly basic belief that altruism is objectively truly good, and selfishness is objectively, truly bad.
He continues: “Try complimenting everyone you meet for a day.”
And again “start a business to create jobs and a service that people value.”
So, three times so far he betrays his own theory that morality is relative by returning to the notion that altruism is good, while selfishness (by deduction) is bad.
Would his article have been as persuasive to you if in his suggestion section, instead of offering selflessness as a new moral code, he had written the following?
“Focus your action on the few causes you are most sure will be beneficial to you and only you”.
or
“Try insulting everyone you meet for a day in an effort to build up your own ego.”
or
“start a business to make yourself rich. It doesn’t matter how you get rich, even if others get hurt in the process, just as long as you’re rich enough so that generations of your children will be rich too.”
My point is obvious. If it’s true that “Every moral system is arbitrary”, then you should have found my replacement suggestions *just* as persuasive as his originals. That they’re not, points to the falsehood of his premise that morality is relative. This is old-hat stuff, but yet it remains relevant. If morality is relative, then what Jeffry Dahmer did is not objectively wrong or bad or evil. Neither would the Holocaust be objectively wrong or bad or evil. It would not be objectively wrong to skewer little children on the ends of bayonets, reason than to bring delight and pleasure to the soldier.
Do you *really* believe that these examples of evils I’ve offered are *not* wrong….period? Is there *really* a possible world, no I retract, is *this* world a really a place that those things are morally good or neutral?
October 30th, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Well, color me foolish. I new-tabbed your two links and obviously got my tabs backward and thought the moral nihilism essay YOU authored was the new essay that changed your mind away from nihilistic moralism
Silly me. My foot is officially in my mouth. Or is it? Do you now see the obvious errors in your moral relativism essay?
In any case, carry on
October 30th, 2009 at 2:18 pm
Unfortunately, I can’t access the audio to your link on Universal Desire, but I did find my way to this blog http://thelockeronline.blogspot.com/2007/06/desire-utilitarianism.html which summarizes it.
If that summary is accurate, then the concept could be further summarized by this portion of that link:
“When a person asks, “What, morally, should I do in this case?”, the best interpretation one can give to this question is, “What would a person with good desires do in this case?” Where a ‘good desire’ is a desire that, if universal, would be such as bring about the greatest fulfillment of all the desires without regard to whose they are.”
Which, in my view, is nothing more than a restatement, of the Golden Rule. The weakness of course is that, given relativism, there is no way to determine if it’s true that a “good desire” is a desire which is universally agreeable to all. It could just as easily be said that a ‘good desire’ is one that fulfills the desirer most completely. How could one objectively compare those two opposing claims, given relativism?
We must get to the root of morality—good and evil. Do they or don’t they really exist? If they don’t really exist then all efforts to suggest ‘goodness’ means some form of the Golden Rule are cheating—for the subject itself would be meaningless.
Nietzsche would be right and the moral relativist must deal with that honestly and as courageously as Nietzsche does.
November 1st, 2009 at 6:34 am
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November 1st, 2009 at 10:47 am
As an ex-christian, I’m also reading the discussion with interest.
Tom’s recent note regarding which Christianity is being rejected doesn’t seem to hit home to me. Maybe there are ex-christians out there who rejected Christianity mainly because they felt they failed to measure up and couldn’t deal with the guilt, but I don’t see how one can be a practising Christian for any serious length of time without coming to grips with one’s own imperfection and the continuing need to ask Christ for forgiveness.
I remember well the cycle of the New Christian:
(1) You think as a Christian you’re doing pretty well. You’re living the Godly life. You’ve got it covered.
(2) You fail miserably.
(3) You are overcome with guilt at your failure
(4) You realize that being a Christian does not make you perfect.
(5) You realize that being a Christian still means asking for Christ’s
forgiveness on a regular basis, and you ask for it.
(6) After a suitable interval, you go back to 1.
However, as one’s Christian life develops and matures, increasingly you realize
the pride pitfall of (1), and the inevitability of (2), and you spend less time at (3) and more time through (4) and (5). This is maturity.
But I would agree with Luke that the time spent at (3) was still “needless
guilt”, in light of the grander context of where I am now and what I believe.
November 18th, 2009 at 12:32 am
Woodchuck,
I consider myself a “seeker,” so I read these posts with great interest.
I would be curious to know more of your Christian history, especially after reading your experience with those “steps.”
It seems to be a good description of sin/forgiveness, but does not reflect what others point out in Christian scripture about Grace. I am not surprised you’d leave the system you have described, as that cycle seems tiring.
November 1st, 2009 at 5:08 pm
After giving several reasons in favor of thinking Christianity was true, Luke says this in his 2nd letter.
I’m hoping he goes into more detail because it doesn’t make sense. I will keep reading….
November 3rd, 2009 at 11:52 am
I’ll await Tom’s questions to direct the discussion of my own beliefs.
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:25 am
Tom,
Your first-person experiences changed when you changed your religious practice. I don’t find that remarkable at all. It’s what we would expect, whether or not God exists. You’re reflecting differently, invoking different parts of your brain in your meditation, and that will change how you feel.
Of course, it’s logically possible that a God could be responsible for altering human consciousness in this way, but for you to rationally conclude that such a God is in fact involved in your experiences, you would want to eliminate the noise, false positives, etc. You would want to account for human subconscious bias with controlled experimentation. You need to study whether atheistic meditation also changes one’s first-person experiences of the world, e.g., as in Buddhism.
If Buddhists have similar religious experiences, does that count as evidence against your theory that God was making grass greener for you?
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:06 pm
doctor(logic)
This would not count against Christianity, necessarily. Christianity says that God can work in the life of anyone, including the non-believer.
However, I don’t see how it would count in favor of atheistic Buddhism so perhaps your complaint is best reserved for the Buddhist, not the Christian. Who, or what, does the Buddhist say is making the grass greener, and by what measure is it actually greener?
November 3rd, 2009 at 12:32 am
So.. it doesn’t count against Christianity, but it does count in favor of it?! You can’t have it both ways.
Tom is saying that P(Christianity|meditation + greener grass) > P(~Christianity|meditation + greener grass). Now you’re contradicting him.
I’ll put it another way. Suppose Tom accepted Christ, then drank a bottle of Jack Daniels, with the result that he got a good buzz. Tom takes this experience as evidence that accepting Christ generates a buzz, therefore Christianity is true. Would the discovery that Jack Daniels generates buzz in the absence of accepting Christ defeat Tom’s inference? Of course, it would.
November 4th, 2009 at 11:22 am
doctor(logic),
Where did you see me saying that meditation was part of the process?
November 2nd, 2009 at 12:42 am
I find interesting Tom’s accusation. Namely that Luke rejected a different version of christianity. As an apostate myself I have found this accusation to be fairly common, and I’d like to bring to light the implications of such a statement:
if apostates such as ourselves have sought the truth in christianity and still got the wrong version, just how elusive is Christianity in the first place? If you concede that Luke has sincerely sought God as Truth, then you must assume that his rejections indicates that God did not want him to find it.
so to say that we rejected the wrong ‘type,’ is to say we were irrational not sincere, or that God is malevolent towards us and intentionally doesn’t want us to know him.
November 2nd, 2009 at 5:59 am
Mic,
I find it interesting that you think that was an accusation. There are a whole lot of different versions and understandings of Christianity, and I was exploring to see what version he might have rejected.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:32 am
How do I reply to individual comments?
Anyway, Tom, I didn’t see it as an accusation, either.
November 2nd, 2009 at 10:51 am
There’s a faint gray “reply” link just below and to the right of every comment. Maybe later today I’ll darken it up and make it more visible. I’m about to go into a meeting right now.
November 2nd, 2009 at 11:06 am
Multitasking–is it visible enough now?
November 2nd, 2009 at 9:51 pm
Cool, I can see it now. Thanks!
November 2nd, 2009 at 7:32 pm
Yup, quite visible now.
Very much enjoying the debate so far, keep it up guys!
November 3rd, 2009 at 8:23 pm
Thanks, Allenthar.
November 3rd, 2009 at 10:48 pm
doctor(logic)
First, I said it doesn’t necessarily count against it. Second, if my theology agrees with the experience then a) it makes no sense to say that the experience counts against my theology and b) it also makes no sense to say it doesn’t count in favor of it. So I don’t understand why you are bothered by ‘having it both ways’. If a certain experience is in favor with F=mA then it seems obvious to me that it also doesn’t count against it. If physics can have it both ways, why not Christianity?
How so?
I think most can see that this example doesn’t work at all. Most obvious is the fact that the buzz of Jack Daniels is nothing like the experience of Christ so nobody would seriously try to equate the two. Next, the discovery that X causes Y doesn’t preclude Z also causing Y or Z causing X to cause Y. You also seem to forget that personal beings use material and efficient causes to carry out final causes – and that final causes are neither random nor determined by past events. They are formed out of the will.
November 5th, 2009 at 10:55 am
“Which worldview offers the better explanation of our world: Christianity or atheism?”
For what it’s worth, I fear there is too big a divide between the two for much progress to be made in this discussion. A better focus, in my view, would be to examine and compare the cases that can be made for atheism and for theism.
The reason is that “Christianity” is a *specific* form of theism, whereas “atheism” *generically* denounces all forms of theism.
In other words, one can’t get to “Christianity” without first getting to “general” theism.
When I was an atheist, I used to rhetorically ask of my theistic friends {paraphrasing} “how can one possible choose which religion is correct—they all think they’re right, so they all must be wrong!”. My actual skeptical question was more detailed but I trust the reader understands the intent.
Anyway, I’m enjoying following along and hope my hunch is proven wrong and that you two can make much progress in spite of this divide!
November 5th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Luke writes:
Really? I can understand what it means to act on something you want or on something you don’t want, without constraint by any person. But since wants/desires are causal, this can’t apply to an understanding of contra-causal free will. Further, the first definition of “will” in Merriam Webster’s Online is “desire”. So if most people believe they have contra-causal free will, they must either understand “free will” to mean “a desire that is free from desire” or they are confused on what “contra-causal” means, seems to me.
November 6th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Tom writes
I think you’re zooming out too far. Steven Pinker has a great essay on this.
But maybe I’m stepping on Luke’s response…
November 6th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
I read this comment after my latest post, and I see we both linked to the same Pinker article.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
Is it more rational to attribute the healthiness of Scandinavian countries to their recent trend toward irreligion in preference to their millenium of Christian influence?
November 8th, 2009 at 7:16 pm
Doug,
I do not attribute Scandinavian success to irreligion. Indeed, I attribute irreligion to societal health (see Inglehart’s research).
What positive effects does Christianity have? All of the poorest and worst countries in the world are highly religious – including Christian ones.
November 8th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
It’s a side issue I don’t care to get into myself, Luke—but surely you know you’re playing fast and loose with the correlation/causation problem. You’re also dealing with a host of potential confounds, like the ecological effect (whereby the presence of religion in a society has a very complex interactive effect on the society’s health), the fact that the Gospel was meant to be good news to the poor and the needy, the effects of different religions and belief systems, and so on. You’re also disregarding a very, very large body of evidence (some of it here) that shows that spirituality and personal health go together, meaning not just physical health but also social, emotional, economic, relational, and so on. Sociologists and psychologists who have reviewed the literature on this do not all agree on the reasons, but they do agree with the results: spiritual life shows up in the research as being a positive.
Feel free to pick and choose your research to prove otherwise if you think that’s a responsible thing to do, but know that specialists in these fields have concluded that the bulk of the research is supportive of spirituality’s correlation with personal and social well-being.
November 9th, 2009 at 4:58 am
Tom,
It would not surprise me that spirituality contributes to health and happiness. I certainly think it contributes to my own health and happiness, even as an atheist. (I have an upcoming post on Atheist Spirituality if it’s not clear what I mean.)
November 11th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
I wouldn’t say that all the worst or poorest nations are religious. China, Vietnam, Mongolia, Croatia, Moldova and several other countries in Eastern Europe. Plus, there’s a correlation between secular societies and higher rates of suicide.
Furthermore, do you really believe that if you took the religion away from countries that are poor, the worst (whatever that means) and religious that that would solve all their problems? You seem to be implying this, yet it seems to ignore any historical facts about why the world is the way it is.
November 13th, 2009 at 11:42 am
Ebrian,
Yes, I should have clarified. What I want to contrast is nations with organic religion and organic atheism. Obviously, nations who had either religion or atheism forced upon them by brutal dictators are not faring well.
Also, I have already said that I do not think a lack of religion leads to societal health. I think societal health leads to a lack of religion. See Norris and Inglehart: “Sacred and Secular: Religion and Politics Worldwide.”
November 14th, 2009 at 1:19 am
Luke
I fail to be convinced by the argument! Many of the countries that have good “societal health”, and are prosperous, were also prosperous and successful societies prior to their secularization.
Is it coincidence that the world’s “worst” (still not sure what that means) countries were also exploited through colonization, whilst the western European countries were not? Plus, many of the social programs we associate with secularization in Europe are rooted in Christian charity or are descended from social policies that existed prior to the secularization of the 20th century.
It seems a more convincing interpretation of the facts to suggest that the modern developed nations (in Europe, at least) inherited their sense of moral responsibility in large part from Christian ideals.
Bear in mind also, that many developed countries that are viewed as progressive, were also ethnically homogeneous – and some still are to a great degree. This includes nations like Sweden,Denmark, Japan, S. Korea, Finland, and Norway. The image of the progessiveness of these countries takes quite a knock if you investigate their record on racial discrimination, police harassment of minorities and even homophobia, as their societies become less homogeneous. Denmark has been called the most racist country in western Europe! Sweden is one of the largest producers of “White Power” music. Clearly, the dissemination of progressive values throughout societies are complicated by diversity – despite the lip service paid to these ideals by many progressive nations.
It’s misleading to present a case for a secularization driven progressiveness when the historical and social conditions that may have lead to a nation’s success are not taken into account.
November 14th, 2009 at 8:32 am
Ebrian,
You said:
“Many of the countries that have good ‘societal health’, and are prosperous, were also prosperous and successful societies prior to their secularization.”
I know. I have said this several times. I do not think atheism causes societal health. I think societal health causes atheism.
You also said:
“It seems a more convincing interpretation of the facts to suggest that the modern developed nations (in Europe, at least) inherited their sense of moral responsibility in large part from Christian ideals.”
But then you go on to say that these nations are actually racist, immoral societies. So… are you saying Christianity is immoral? I’m confused.
November 14th, 2009 at 9:22 am
Luke
In letter 8 you stated quite plainly that…..
You are clearly insinuating a causal correlation between secularism/irreligion and moral and social progressiveness. The entire tone of letter 8 was a kind of boast about irreligion being correlated with progressiveness. I contend that the moral progressiveness that you would like to attribute to secularism is, in fact, inherited from Christian charity and not from secularization. Certainly there may be a combination of secular and religious philosphies that contribute to the progressiveness of the developed world.
Luke said..
I think you may have misunderstood what I said. What I said was that the progressiveness of social programs that you suggest might derive from irreligion, are probably inherited from Christian charity and philosophy. My response was to the simplistic notion that secularism is responsible for progressiveness. Racism in places like Sweden and Denmark are occurring at a time when, as we all acknowledge, Christian morality is being rejected.
If societal health leads to atheism whilst racism increases then you must be drawing a correlation between atheism and increased racism!
November 14th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
Ebrian,
I have not seen any research correlating progressiveness with racism, or atheism with racism. I have seen some research correlating progressiveness and atheism with egalitarianism, though.
Again, I do not think atheism causes moral progress. But I would like to REBUT the common claim that leaving God behind condemns us to immorality and chaos. That claim is directly contradicted by the facts.
November 15th, 2009 at 4:42 am
Luke said..
“I have seen some research correlating progressiveness and atheism with egalitarianism, though.”
You seem to be missing the point a little bit. There are many factors that correlate with the prosperity and societal health of the developed nations. The vast majority have a strong historical Christian tradition. None were ever exploited through colonization. All were homgenous until very recently. Many were already very wealthy prior to secularization. All benefitted from heavy post WWII US economic aid and miltary protection. Attempting to correlate progressiveness with atheism fails to integrate all the facts and therefore fails to provide an appropriate explanation for the phenomenon.
As I’ve mentioned, the social progessiveness of the secularized west has it’s roots in social programs of its Christian past.
Luke…
Given that it can easily be established that moral progressiveness of the developed nations is correlated with the existence of Christian social welfare thinking of the pre-secular period, your statement is not a strong argument for atheism. If atheism does not cause moral progress, and the moral pogressiveness of the developed world can be seen to have been inherited from its Christian past, then why should atheism figure in the equation of moral progressivenss at all?
Furthermore, regardless of the existence of studies, both Sweden and Denmark are experiencing a dramatic increase in racial discrimination and violence. Both are highly irreligious. That’s a correlation.
November 15th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Ebrian,
You still seem to think I am saying that nonbelief causes societal health, though I have explicitly denied it many times. You cite plausible causes for the societal health of Northern Europe such as homogeneity, avoidance of colonization, and so on. And I AGREE these are plausible causes for the societal health of North Europe. I do NOT think nonbelief causes societal health, but I have said that many times already.
You said:
“Given that it can easily be established that moral progressiveness of the developed nations is correlated with the existence of Christian social welfare thinking of the pre-secular period, your statement is not a strong argument for atheism.”
Yes! Exactly! This is what I keep saying!
“If atheism does not cause moral progress, and the moral pogressiveness of the developed world can be seen to have been inherited from its Christian past, then why should atheism figure in the equation of moral progressivenss at all?”
I did not say that atheism leads to moral progress. I said that societal health seems to cause nonbelief, because people don’t need a magical sky daddy to comfort them anymore. See What Causes Atheism?
I love it how you want to attribute all the healthy parts of current Scandinavian society to Christianity but the unhealthy parts to atheism.
November 15th, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Ebrian:
What would be your argument for Japan here? Japan has no Christian past but a fairly uniform lack of belief in God (number 5 in the survey referenced by Luke), as well as low crime rates and a highly moral society.
Can you point me to more information here? I think peaceful integration of immigrants is a problem in all developed nations, more so in a society that has few racial minorities to start with. The non-nuanced view is that immigrants steal jobs and medical care, for example, so they tend to become scapegoats at every economic downturn. (In reality, immigrants more often than not contribute economic growth.)
November 15th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
Luke said…
“You still seem to think I am saying that nonbelief causes societal health, though I have explicitly denied it many times.”
Okay. From letter 8…..
You certainly do seem to be associating irreligion with moral progress. But fair enough, we agree that atheism has not been the factor that has driven moral progress in the developed world.
That doesn’t seem like a very convincing argument. It fails to explain why many (in the tens, maybe hundreds of millions)in the developed world still believe in God.
November 15th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
woodchuck64…
Well, Japan was never colonized, it’s largely homogeneous, it has been largely prosperous since the early 1900′s, and has benefitted from US military and finacial aid post WWII. Plus, the influence of American egalitarianism on Japanese society cannot be underestimated.
Plus, do you know for certain that Japan was less moral and had more crime before it became developed? What was the crime rate in Japan 100 years ago?
Well that what makes Luke’s notion that comfort leads to atheism so interesting and might offer a clue as to why racism is increasing in the primarily irreligious Sweden and Denmark.
If all people have is the comfort of faith in their meds, food and water supply, political system, houses and jobs then it makes sense that they would react with hatred to an immigrant that wants a share. All they have for comfort is their stuff.
Just a thought…..
November 8th, 2009 at 8:17 pm
Would someone want to make the argument that a country that abandons God and embraces atheism is somehow rewarded with low-crime, health, wealth and happiness merely because they happened to be Christian in the past?
It seems beyond argument that global violence has dropped significantly since the middle of the 20th century. It also seems beyond argument that countries have become a lot more secular over that time period. Is there a correlation? How does Christianity explain this?
November 8th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
1. It’s not beyond argument.
2. It’s been a short time in view of the whole course of human history.
3. See above, my last response to Luke.
4. “Merely because they happened to be Christian in the past” is a pretty weak view of the profound and lasting impact made by following Christian principles for centuries. Scandinavia has shed its belief in God but not the accompanying Christian cultural principles (yet).
November 9th, 2009 at 6:44 am
The first officially 100% atheist country in the history of the world was… Albania. You know, that shining beacon of health, wealth and happiness. Hand-wave THAT away
November 9th, 2009 at 6:49 am
Sorry if I was too subtle
Check your history: Albania went from nominally religious, to nominally atheist, and back to nominally religious in a single life-time. Guess what? The aggregate health, wealth, and happiness in Albania didn’t change considerably over that life-time. Cultural principles last much longer than self-identified belief.
November 9th, 2009 at 7:26 am
For reference:
Religion Map
Freedom Map
Well-being Map
Happiness Map
November 8th, 2009 at 9:31 pm
It seems beyond argument that global violence has dropped significantly since the middle of the 20th century. It also seems beyond argument that countries have adopted better eating habits over that time period.
Just sayin’
November 10th, 2009 at 4:50 pm
If these are not beyond argument, I would appreciate a pointer to anything reasonable to the contrary. Tom posted criticisms of the Gregory Paul study, but those criticisms were aimed at refuting the notion that “religion correlates with all kinds of nasty things”, not the same.
One Christian explanation given above for these trends (assuming they are true), is that founding Christian principles have an affect on a society regardless of self-identified beliefs of the majority. I take this to mean that a society’s religious cultural practices can have God leeched from them completely and still work fine for more than a generation with no obvious ill-effects.
Religious cultural rules stripped of God seem to default to humanistic; that is God becomes replaced with man as the center of society. Is it strange to claim that humanism has its roots in Christianity? In any case, this argues that humanism works quite well as a model for society (at least so far), and I’m certainly in agreement with that.
That said, I believe that technology is the ultimate source of increased social well-being and decreasing global violence, not secularism. Technology and the economic growth that result from it has greatly reduced resource conflicts by bringing billions out of poverty. Societies with reduced conflict, dropping crime rates, rising wealth just don’t find religion that big of a deal anymore.
November 16th, 2009 at 9:24 pm
Tom,
It looks like you may have forgotten to close an emphasis tag in the HTML of your last post. Everything after that is in italics.
November 17th, 2009 at 5:54 am
Thanks, Luke. I had closed it, but I did it outside the double parentheses of the footnote delimiter, and that’s what caused the trouble.
November 17th, 2009 at 5:47 am
Luke,
I do not believe you have addressed the thrust of Tom’s latest letter (“Why I Believe (1)”) in your reply, which appears to be (at least in part) that Tom asserts that the Christian paradigm has great explanatory power re: the human condition – especially its paradoxical nobility and ignobility. Perhaps I have missed this part of your reply.
While I believe it would have probably been helpful to all of our apprehension had Tom abbreviated his letter a bit, some of your reply attends to subjects [e.g., the Trinity, God’s agency in the process of evolution ("tinkering"), sin and condemnation, etc.] that Tom did not explicitly introduce in this missive.
I hope your hyperbole (“werewolves”) and hackneyed dismissives (“party tricks”) don’t belie your claim of wishing to have a civil and rational discussion.
November 17th, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Werewolves are more plausible than Christian theology, yes. That was not hyperbole.
And neither is “party tricks.” Jesus turning water into wine at a wedding, etc.
I did not meet Tom’s argument because, as I said, I wasn’t sure what his argument was. That’s why I asked him to clarify it.
November 17th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
November 17th, 2009 at 7:15 am
How does what Luke writes match what Christians believe, generously?
“…God created the universe …, then kicked off … “life,” …. Eventually, God tweaked the primate design into … the modern human. He then injected a supernatural ’soul’ into these humans. And this is the origin of ‘man.’”
So far, so boring… but less than 50% of the original approximates “stickiness”. The next paragraph fared even worse:
“…God … provide[d] a way for man to be ‘redeem[ed]’ …. And the best way God could think to do this was to send himself in human form….”
That’s only 25%, Luke. It is, perhaps, telling that when your editorializations are removed, the story reads very much less like “the rantings of a strung-out madman”?
The most illuminating error was to completely mischaracterize the Biblical concept of “belief”. It is true, of course, that you share this misunderstanding with many Christians, but you aren’t debating them.
How about sticking to what TC writes next time?
November 17th, 2009 at 10:07 pm
Doug,
Please tell me which part of the summary of Christian theology you disagree with, and why. To my knowledge, this is standard doctrine updated to fit with big bang theory and evolution.
November 18th, 2009 at 3:25 pm
“this is standard doctrine” ? — you jest!
Why do I not believe those parts I didn’t quote (for the elision indicated those parts I don’t believe in)? Because there is no tradition to teach them, no revelation to teach them, and they represent an intellectually dishonest representation of actual Christian doctrine!
Perhaps you meant “this is standard atheist misrepresentation of Christian doctrine” ?
November 17th, 2009 at 7:47 am
Incidentally, when TC and others talk about Christianity making sense, it is a fair approximation to say that they are (at least) claiming that Christianity makes sense of the human condition. You know, the human condition that includes such trivialities as free will, consciousness, art, morality and love… those things that are so easy to give “clear, logical” definitions of… NOT!
In fact, if CSA would be willing to provide clear, logical definitions of some of the above aspects of the human condition that everyone could agree on, I’d wager that TC would be delighted to reply with a “clear, logical” argument to the effect that Christianity makes sense of them.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
It seems to me that, in his letter #9, Tom said he was going to do one thing (out of two) but then proceeded to do the other thing instead. He wrote:
But, instead of telling the story of Christianity, he proceeded to argue that Christianity is a better explanation of the human condition than natural evolution is. That’s an argument for Christianity, not an explanation of Christianity. To put it another way, Tom seems to be confusing (a) making sense of Christianity with (b) telling us how Christianity makes sense of the human condition.
I think Luke was just asking Tom to deliver on what he appeared to be promising: an explanation of those aspects of Christianity which, to a non-believer, don’t seem to make sense.
November 17th, 2009 at 1:12 pm
Nothing, it seems, does as much for my faith than reading the rantings of an unbeliever. Luke’s “Letter 10″ is as thoughtless a response to the ideas raised by Tom in his “Letter 9″ as one might possibly imagine.
After what I though was a very promising beginning by Luke in the preliminary exchanges he simply goes off the deep end. Faced with having to respond to a very insightful view of humanity and the complex nature of our existence, essential nature and beliefs, he simply tosses every invective he can find up against the wall.
He uses, without any real explanation, unbelievably broad generalizations to describe religious beliefs and understandings. His description of the development of the universe and those who populate it is a barely comprehensible mishmash which tells us much about Luke but little about what any Christian actually believes about any of those subjects. His negative spin is so profound as to make almost any attempt to bring the discussion back to earth very questionable.
One need look no further than the tone of the “response” by Luke compared to his own writings in the previous letters to see how far a-field he has gone. Comparing him to Tom would simply be unfair. There was nothing in Tom’s post to engender such a response. His presentation was thoughtful, cogent and coherent. His apologetic response to Luke’s rantings and subsequent restatement was unnecessary. There was plenty in his first post for Luke to reply to thoughtfully if he had so desired.
November 17th, 2009 at 10:10 pm
Bill,
You complain of generalizations, but your comment is so vague I’m not sure what, exactly, you disagree with. Which part of the Christian story I summarized do you disagree with? Do you disagree that God created the universe? That he let it evolve gradually for 13 billion years? That 99.9% of species that have ever existed have gone extinct? Which part do you disagree with? Please be specific.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:26 am
Luke,
For you to claim that your broad brush stoke generalizations of Christian belief are in any way representative of the faith is so disingenuous as to be laughable. Approaching Christian beliefs by rattling off a bunch of “facts” about the formation of the universe and throwaway snippets of theology doesn’t constitute a serious discussion. In fact, it is just the opposite. It’s a barely disguised, if disguised at all, attempt to mock Christianity.
Not that this is surprising. This seems to have become the accepted methodology of the “new atheists” and you do an admirable job regurgitating their very tired out formula. However, if you really think you have posted a cogent reply and if you really failed to understand Tom’s initial post and his quite unnecessary reiteration, I think I can safely say you are probably the only one.
November 17th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
One of many things putting me in mind of Chris Hitchens these days.
November 18th, 2009 at 6:10 am
Luke
I don’t see why you are finding Tom’s letter so difficult to understand. It’s not concise, but I fail to see how it could have caused you to froth at the mouth the way you seem to be doing.
Despite your claim that you don’t “mean to be abrasive”, it seems like you actually do mean to be abrasive. It’s impossible to believe your claim that you are an indifferent audience. You seem quite vehemently anti-Christian.
The fact is that many people who are indifferent and even hostile to Christianity have found its doctrines to be persuasive.
November 18th, 2009 at 10:42 am
No, I’m not an indifferent audience. But imagine you told the story of Christian theology to somebody who had never heard anything for or against religion. It would sound like madness, especially if he asked some very basic questions like “So why would God create such imperfect creatures by such a long, tinkering process and then punish them for following their design?”
November 18th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Luke
I fail to see why you think that you are presenting such a compelling argument. Some of the answer to your question has already been given in Tom’s letter which, unfortunately, you don’t understand.
Imagine the slew of atheists that have heard the story of Christian theology and accepted it. What’s your point? You think it’s silly! Well, we don’t, so there!
November 18th, 2009 at 11:57 am
So why would God create such imperfect creatures by such a long, tinkering process and then punish them for following their design?” It’s really hard to believe that you think you have somehow described the reality of Christian beliefs with this statement much less convinced us. Calling man an “imperfect creature(s)” misses the entire message of the fall. Calling man’s creation “a long, tinkering process” makes so many assumptions one can hardly know where to begin. Thinking that God is “punishing” man is completely contrary to scripture and Christian teaching.
But then an accurate description of Christian beliefs isn’t really what you were looking for was it?
November 18th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
Luke,
“So why would God create such imperfect creatures by such a long, tinkering process and then punish them for following their design?”
Your question is loaded with misunderstanding. God created perfect creatures in the sense that they were perfect for what God intended. Free will and the ability to choose one thing over another is an example of this perfectly intended quality. The ability to commune/relate to God is another.
The punishment comes not from the way God created them – as spiritual image bearers who have the ability to commune with God and the ability to reject him – but from the choice they make to reject him.
November 18th, 2009 at 9:47 am
I wasn’t going to get further involved in the debate over religions’ effects on society, but this was too interesting to pass by. Be watching for a blog post on it at Thinking Christian.
November 18th, 2009 at 11:54 pm
So many people have complained about my tone. Would somebody please tell me specifically what part of Christian doctrine I misrepresented?
November 19th, 2009 at 1:19 am
Luke,
Those are two subjects; it is a mistake to conflate them.
*I believe you have a keen mind and that you are (at the very least relatively) perceptive, therefore the types of responses/posts you have provided of late (such as the one to which I am replying) give me pause.
Your recent responses don’t seem consistent with what I (and probably most in here) believe about you (see *). If you’ll permit me to put it another way, I simply have a hard time believing that you just don’t “get it” and that you’re not aware that posts such as the one you just made (November 18th) are intellectually sloppy, if not disingenuous.
Furthermore, both your response to Tom and your defenses of your response to Tom lack the integrity of (at least) thought I believe you would expect of others in a format such as this.
Perhaps you have been pressed for time and haven’t been practicing careful word choice/phrasing; perhaps your astonishment that others could believe a system which you have concluded is without merit overwhelmed your commitment to reason and rational discourse. I don’t know. (The other possibility is that I and others have projected greater facility with constructing sound arguments on you than you possess, but given my above thoughts about you*, I do not think that is the case).
My hope is that you’ll choose to return to the discussion with the gusto and rigor you have stated led you to your positions about theism/Christianity/atheism and ostensibly, this discussion.
November 19th, 2009 at 2:45 am
Okay.
Readers, I’m serious.
I really, really, really want to know WHAT, specifically, is incorrect about my representation of Christian theology. WHAT, specifically, do you think was intellectually sloppy of me? WHAT, specifically, do you think was disingenuous? WHAT, specifically, do you think shows that I lack integrity?
Also, you suggest that I cannot project a sound argument, but I don’t know why. Tom is the one presenting an argument, and he hasn’t yet made the least attempt to present it in a form that would allow us to analyze it for soundness – even though I asked him to do so from the start. Now I understand that Tom is taking “steps” toward a defense of his faith instead of presenting a logically valid argument, but given the fact that I haven’t even presented an argument yet (and it is not my turn to do so), it is bizarre to conclude that I cannot present a sound argument.
I have been specific and detailed in my letters and in my comments here. My critics have been very vague. Please understand how that looks.
November 20th, 2009 at 3:01 am
Luke
You have already acknowledged in letter 10 that your tone was abrasive, yet you still want us to believe that you are confused about our criticisms of your tone.
You have accused Tom of obscurantism yet given that you had difficulty understanding what he wrote, in addition to your inability to comprehend the difference between what you said and criticisms of the way you said it suggests that it’s not Tom who’s being obscure or his readers that are failing to answer your challenge. The problem is that you seem to be exhibiting immense obtuseness in apprehending what is being said.
November 19th, 2009 at 5:04 am
Hey Luke,
I have enjoyed all of your posts.
I’m gonna try to be specific about where you might be misrepresenting Christian Doctrine. It is here:
“…you believe that God created man in full awareness that his imperfect nature would lead him to sin, and then condemned him to death (and later, eternal torment) for sinning”
I think maybe Christians could say that the first humans were perfect (even on evolution) and that THEIR poor choice is to blame for their sin, and NOT God’s poor design.
So you may have misrepresented Christian doctrine by saying something which seems to imply that the reason why humans sinned is because of their imperfect nature as opposed to their free choice.
(I am not saying that this Christian doctrine is plausible, I am just saying that what you said sounds different from what I think is the orthodox Christian belief.)
Let me know what you think.
Thanks again for your letters!
November 19th, 2009 at 6:08 am
Hi,
First of all thanks to Luke and Tom for a great start to a debate, I really appreciate you trying to arrive at points of agreement first and wish this sort of approach on the internet especially was more common.
Roman I’m going to ask you about something you said,
” I think maybe Christians could say that the first humans were perfect (even on evolution) and that THEIR poor choice is to blame for their sin, and NOT God’s poor design.”
But the problem remains…if God created us perfect, we wouldn’t have sinned, if he created us with the ability to sin (free-choice) he must have known also in advance we would sin. So why punish us (for eternity) for something he made us to do? I know God also on the Christian side offers us salvation from this but strangely this salvation is not based on doing something good at all.
Tom perhaps you could take this up in your next letter step by step as I do see it’s relevance to your argument about man’s nature, I just can’t apply it logically yet.