Stark Lunacy, Part 1
Faith and Philosophy
| November 1, 2007
| Tim
Perhaps I should take a hint from the blog title, but I thought I'd write a few words in response this critique of Rodney Stark by "Tommy". I'm pleasantly surprised that Stark has apparently moved from agnostic (where he was last time I checked) into, apparently, at least a weak form of theism.
Moving from Stark, for the moment, one thing I immediately like about Tommy is that he's willing to read people he disagrees with. This is something, I think, increasingly lacking in our culture: Democrats who take the time to understand Republicans, Republicans who take the time to listen to Democrats, Atheists or Christians who bother to figure out what their opponents think, etc. Obviously, from what I'm writing here, I think debate and dialog is important and helpful, and can be done respectfully: I don't have to agree with a person's ideas or views to see them as a fellow human being and someone of worth and importance.
I, too, feel I'm in a rut if I don't periodically take time to listen to people who disagree with me.
Also, Kudos to Tommy for taking the time to portray Stark's position accurately (or so it seems to me, since I haven't read the book). So often, we do ourselves harm (or at least waste our time) by refuting straw men. Similarly, if you catch me summarizing something incorrectly, please correct me as well.
One final introductory note, I have not read the book in question yet (I'm mainly drawn to Tommy's tangential statements), so I'll be taking it for granted, unless I have hints otherwise, that Tommy is right on the mark in his summary of the content. He certainly seems fair so far.
Now, to address some of the points raised, in no particular order...
1. Could God have a gender?
As an aside, unlike Stark, I refuse to refer to god as a male. Unless one is going to argue that god has a penis, how can a being with no shape or form have a gender?
Why the refusal? I can give two or three good reasons not to.
One is that we usually speak of hypotheticals within the hypothetical. If you tell me you have a rich aunt I don't need to believe you in order to refer your hypothetical aunt as "her". Likewise, I certainly don't believe in the Indian goddess Kali, but, in discussing that goddess, I refer to her as "her" because that's how "she" is presented to the world. Whether she exists, much less has actual genitals, is not of concern with regard to this convention.
Second, we tend to think of intelligent beings as "he" or "she". In cultures where they have genderless people (eunuchs or hermaphrodites), such a person is almost always given a nominal gender, usually "he". If a person who was born sexually ambiguous asked to be referred to as one gender over another, most of us would certainly do so. Likewise, we are even so uncomfortable referring to even a dog (who undoubtedly wouldn't care) as "it" that we quickly try to ascertain a gender: "Is it a he or a she?"
So unless one means it as a sign of deliberate disrespect (which I could understand -- and if so, just say so) it would otherwise seem odd not to want to extend that same potential courtesy to a being which would be hypothetically even more sentient and self-aware than we.
Finally: how could a being which would have no physical characteristics be a "he"? "If one posits the possibility of a god that is so powerful and intelligent that it can create this vast universe in which we live", then in order to cram some understanding of such a being into any finite-sized brain (much less one with the rough dimensions of a gourd) a little "rounding off" or "approximating" might be necessary.
To an outside observer, the main visible physical difference between parents and children would at first be their height. Upon closer inspection, we learn that parents produce their children by means of sexual reproduction. So how could the universe-creator, who has no height nor sexual organs, be possibly thought of a parent, much less "Father"?
Because there are more than outward differences between parents and children; there are inward (emotional and relational) ones. Whereas a child is born into the world with nothing, parents are the ones who provide much of the environment and resources the child uses. Parents usually have more knowledge than their children. Parents are older and more powerful. Parents must typically care about their children and sacrifice for them more than the other way around. Children are still forming; parents are more static. Sometimes parents appear to children as stupid, inflexible, or arbitrary in ways which will make sense later on.
So in trying to communicate all of this and more, an analogy of "parent" to "child" is used. Since we're comfortable thinking in terms of parents and children, Jesus tells his followers one way to understand God, in relation to their own situation, is to think of him as a parent, specifically a father.
Likewise, despite the contemporary trend to pretend otherwise, there are more than superficial anatomical differences between men and women. Men are generally more assertive, and more likely to attempt to perform feats of daring-do (large or small) to win the affections of a woman. Women, in contrast, are generally more "receptive"; even in our culture (go into any bar and watch) women often prefer for men to take the first step. Men are more likely to be judged by what they do (what do men first ask each other at a party, still? It's usually a question of occupation), whereas women are more likely to be prized for what they are. Even in our culture, there is no "Mr. America" contest where men are judged on their looks, poise, ability to read a poem, and stated concern for the poor or cute-but-endangered animals.
Testosterone and estrogen have very different effects on a human, much more extensive than just our external appearances.
So, knowing people in most cultures readily understand these inner differences, the Christian God is portrayed as wanting us to understand "him" as being more male, in contrast to our nature, which is, by comparison, more female. In specific, the analogy of a man and woman lover is often employed, where God is presented as seeking us, and we depicted as having the option of responding, or not. And the Christian God as presented more like a "Father" than a "Mother", with all the baggage that entails, both good and bad.
(Side note: I refer to potential universe-creators with a capital-G, (much as the Internet gets a capital I), and also use a capital when using the word "god" as a name, as we would with any other name. I use lower-case-G otherwise, including when referring to objects of worship which are not presented as universe-creators, such as Elvis or Kali.)
2. Preferences
Furthermore, writes Stark, "humans will prefer an image of God[s] as rational and loving." Again, this is likely true. However, in debates I have had online with theists where I argued that the god of the Bible, if it really did exist, was not a being worthy of love and veneration because of its cruel behavior in the Bible, those theists would retort that I wanted a god that suited my preferences. Well, according to Rodney Stark, religions grow in popularity precisely because the god or gods worshipped by those religions are preferred by the people who convert to those religions.
Tommy hasn't said it (though he seems to hint otherwise with the word "worthy"), but atheists are in a position where they can only accept or reject a potential God, morally, based on their own preferences. Dawkins (for example) can certainly say (as he does), that he finds the God of the bible personally distasteful; but he cannot imply God is truly immoral (as he also seems to) since non-subjective morality can't exist for him. So for an atheist to reject any God based on morality, and simultaneously imply that criteria is more than mere personal taste, is to beg the question.
But if one doesn't have a belief there is no transcendent morality, we can instead start by asking: "Well, if there could be a universal morality, what would it look like? What kind of effects would we expect it produce?" and based on that, we could attempt to build models of that morality, and see what philosophical systems match. Or do the reverse, where we look for good effects and try to figure out what system produced that.
(Which is, it seems to me, is what Stark's lifelong study of religion and history has been, or become, for him.)
It seems to me that Tommy's critique smuggles more into the word "prefers" than is warranted. It seems to me he implies that "prefers" means that a person uses only arbitrary subjective bases, with no attempted reference to external non-subjective universals -- such as when an intellectually consistent atheist dislikes this or that God.
But the word doesn't necessarily imply that at all: A scientist might "prefer" one theory over another because, she argues, it matches the predicted results better. In the end, of course, we all make subjective judgments about everything, but she can coherently use words like "works" or "matches the results" because she believes in an objective physical reality, and thus believes there are such things as results, and can thus claim her 'preferred' theory matches up with that larger reality. But, without an over-arching mind, there cannot possibly be similar moral universals nor tests.
There can, of course, be preferences we mostly agree with, and an atheist is welcomed to appeal to those*, but we can't truly make claims like "bad" or "immoral" without really meaning "I don't like." In contrast, an open-minded seeker, particularly from another religion, admits they believe there is (or might be) such a thing as "goodness", and is free to make non-irrational models and even judgments from within that paradigm.
[* And even that's likely to fail, because the very place the atheist most needs to appeal to a common morality -- such as the Christian God being a rather despicable character -- is the very place he's least likely to find it, given that most the globe tends to fall into the other camp. That leaves only two responses: (1) Charge hypocrisy (claim your opponents have the same moral values you do, but aren't applying them consistently to their God), or (2) engage in a vague moral elitism, wherein you (incoherently) claim to have "better" morals than the majority.]
3. The problem of progress
Many atheistic arguments boil down to: "I could never believe in a God which made this universe", which, in turns, implies: "This universe sucks. If I were God, I could have done a lot better." Of course, when we say "better", we're back to value judgments: if someone shares our values, they'll share our judgment, but if not, well, we're done. We can't say they're wrong, really, just that we see things differently in an arbitrary fashion, as with color or food preferences.
Unusually, the thing Tommy singles out as objectionable seems to be the idea of progress:
If one posits the possibility of a god that is so powerful and intelligent that it can create this vast universe in which we live, then it should not be a substantial leap to posit a god that can create humans with a far greater capacity to comprehend it....
In other words, if there is a god that can do just about anything, then it should be possible that god could create humans with the capacity to achieve 21st century technology within the first generation, especially if that first generation really did have a 900 year lifespan!
Stark lays out the case that over time, "human images of God will tend to progress from those having smaller to those having greater scope."
Unlike (apparently) many atheists, I'm not particularly good at thinking about universes which are fundamentally different than this one, so I also have a bit more trouble drawing sure conclusions as to whether this one bites or not, or whether I have a better idea about how things should have gone, had an uber-intelligence been involved.
But it seems to me we only have three configurations for universes: static ones (where there is no time at all, or at least no meaningful changes), degradation (when things start out 'great' and go downhill), or progress. And it seems to me that moral choice is ruled out in universes which lack time (as I understand, from my limited perspective, a choice to be like a crossing or changing of tracks), so I don't think you could even allow moral free choice in timeless or static universe.
That leaves only progress or degradation. Me, I certainly certainly prefer the former.
But that always leaves one (as creator) open to the argument that "God could have done better." After all, if things are progressing, it means that at moment X, things aren't quite as good as they will be at moment X+1. God should certainly have started at X+1. If progress continues infinitely, there is no "reasonable" place for God to start. If there is a maximum level of perfection, God should have started there, and we should be back in the static, changeless universe.
Tommy seems to say that God certainly should have at least started with "21st century technology". What this would have accomplished, I'm not sure: It certainly would not have insulated God from charges by alternate-universe atheists ("Why didn't he start with 42nd century technology?"), and the very argument seems to imply that God would have benefited from not having had to wait through, say, single-celled animals -- and that God is impressed with, say, iPods.
But a universe-creator would stand outside of time. Such a being would only be able to communicate this patience by saying things like: "A thousand years to you is as a day to me." Unlike us, such a being wouldn't have been "annoyed" (or even slightly perturbed) if it "took" billion of years to produce a being worthy of (or ready to be) "ascended to the next level", whatever that might mean (and from our perspective, we would be unable to comprehend it anyway).
Well, sorry for the abrupt ending, but I need to run. Best to all.
Thanks for the interesting post. I have an observation/question that may be a tad ignorant, but why not ask and be enlightened.
Do you think that the Garden was a static or progressive universe or creation? It seems that moral choice didnot exist until after the fall (perhaps I have that wrong?). And perhaps the fall changed the game, so to speak, and necessitated a progressive understanding of God. Adam certainly seemed to have a very close relationship and understanding with God, one that doesn't seem to have been achieved by humans to this point. (And won't be until the end of time?)
Interesting question. Some random observations:
(1) In the first several chapters in Genesis, there seems to be quite a bit of changing and progress going on: each chapter describes the appearance of something new, and ends with God saying the new thing is good.
(2) I have been told, by numerous sources, that actually
The word "adam" is the neuter-gender Hebrew word meaning 'humanity.' It encompasses both male and female, relating to the initial creation of man and woman simultaneously rather than sequentially.
If so, the story might have referred to a group of people, not just a single individual. (C.S. Lewis seems to have thought this, too.) But no matter, in the story of the garden, there seems to be change. The first people are developing words for things, interacting with nature in a positive way, etc. -- and eventually making choices about their relationship with God.
(3) Seems to me that people had free moral choice before the "fall", otherwise, how could they have decided to do the wrong thing?
(4) The fall reminds me a bit of the story of kids growing up, or the prodigal son. Initially, the kids have a very close relationship with their parents, but it's not one they've chosen: they've never known anything else. As they grow older, sometimes they rebel and challenge parental authority. As they grow older still (in a healthy relationship) some realize that perhaps mom and dad weren't so stupid after all, and return, becoming true friends by choice, not mere dependents. That is certainly progress, qualitatively (if you view a chosen love as better than unchosen love), but it's certainly not a simplistic upward slope in each case.
And indeed, there seems to be anthropological evidence for that; in many cultures, when you look backward far enough, you find evidence of an original monotheism preceding polytheism.
Hi Tim,
Thank you for your remarks above.
Yes, apart from my flippant title, I strive to be fair in my assessment of Stark's book, noting where I disagree with him, even specifically acknowledging valid points he makes that some atheists prefer not to acknowledge.
First, I would say that based on Stark's recent writings, he is more than just a weak theist, he is actually a Christian. He certainly makes an interesting case that Christianity, particularly the Catholic variety, lies at the roots of capitalism, the scientific method, and the rise of Western Europe. But that is a book review for another day! :-)
Okay, allow me to respond to your points.
1. While there are obvious biological differences between men and women(!), I believe some of the behavioral characteristics are more a matter of cultural conformity, rather than men being naturally greater daredevils than women. And it is done at a very early age. Girls rooms tended to be painted pink or lavender, while boys are blue. Girls are given Barbie dolls, while boys get GI Joe action figures.
I just finished reading Carl Sagan's "The Demon Haunted World", and he discusses why there were so few women scientists years ago. Women were taught that they should not be scientists, and since there were no scientists who were women, any woman who wanted to be a scientist would be discouraged. It became a self perpetuating thing. Because there were no women scientists, male scientists drew the assumption that women were not capable of being scientists, because if they were, then there would be women scientists.
I do believe that the insistence in referring to god as a HE or HIM reinforces sexual stereotypes. Since the god of the Bible comes out of patriarchal cultures, it leaves open two possibilities. Either the god of the Bible really exists and has male attributes, or the god of the Bible was created by men who could only imagine that a supreme being must naturally be a male.
2. On preferences, and I come across this all the time from theists, one can develop a coherent moral system without a belief in god. And, for an atheist such as myself, the value system I try to adhere to is one that serves as a check on actions I would prefer to partake in. I try to make an effort to donate blood on a regular basis. However, I WOULD PREFER NOT TO! It takes up time that I would rather spend doing something else, and sometimes afterwards I feel tired and lethargic. But I do it because I recognize the value in doing so.
My beef with religious belief is that it serves as a means of sowing conflict between people, either because they disagree with each other over the right way to practice what should be a common faith, or because they have to mutually incompatible different faiths. As an atheist, I am somehow able to conceive of a vision for humanity that transcends that.
Granted, my values are subjective, but as you admit, many people of different faiths and no faith at all have overlapping values. Christians will claim that theirs is an objective moral system because it is what god wants. But, that is conditional on the god they worship actually existing. If it does not exist, then a Christian's worldview is just as subjective as mine.
Even the Bible itself, if my memory serves, provides a precedent with a human telling god that what he wants to do is wrong and god relents. Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe there is a passage in the OT where Moses dissuades God from some violent act. If everything that god wants to do is moral, according to a Christian, then god would not have listened to Moses. Indeed, again assuming my recollection is correct, Moses stands in sharp contrast to Noah. The book of Genesis has god telling Noah that he is going to wipe out all humanity except for his wife, sons and their wives, Noah's brothers and sisters are among those who are going to die. Noah does not utter a peep of protest. But Moses is able to persuade god to change his mind.
I would argue that like any other species on the planet, our primary instinct is to survive. We instinctively do not want to be killed or harmed. Since we also have to share the world with each other, our actions have consequences. Theists like to claim that atheists don't want to believe in a god because we do not want to be held accountable for our actions. That is nonsense, because in the absence of the existence of a god, or at least a god that cares about what we do, we are held accountable for our actions by each other.
Let's pretend for a moment though that I do become what theists claim an atheist wants to be. I am going to do whatever I want. I am going to engage in frequent promiscuous sex, I am going to lie to everybody, not pay my bills, not show up on time for work, if I show up at all, I am going to drink alcohol and take drugs to excess. And the worst thing of all, I AM GOING TO PARK IN HANDICAPPED PARKING SPOTS!
Where will this likely lead me? I will be homeless, diseased, unwanted and untrusted. In short, I will have suffered horrific consequences for my behavior. In the absence of the existence of a god, I am still being held accountable for my behavior.
3. I would disagree with your description of atheist objections to god in your opening paragraph for #3. I would believe in the existence of god, or the god of the Bible, if its existence were proven to me to my satisfaction.
You seem to equate trivial preferences for things like vanilla ice cream over strawberry ice cream or blondes over brunettes with value systems that guide our conduct.
My point is that the "divine accomodation" argument serves as a convenient way of explaining away why god didn't reveal things about the universe to people who could not have possibly known about them based on the technology of knowledge available to them at the time. For instance, when a Christian asks me what would make me accept their religion, one of my answers is that if the Bible contained information in it about the cosmos that know one could possibly have at the time. For example, if Jesus had mentioned a planet with rings around it. For centuries, theologians would have wrestled with what Jesus meant by such a thing. Then, when astronomers started peering at the sky with telescopes in the 17th century, and noted the rings around Saturn, it would have become immediately clear. That was what Jesus meant! To me, that would have been devastating evidence in favor of the divine origins of the Bible.
I have to get back to work now, so I apologize if my responses are inadequate.
You are also welcome to check my other posts critiquing Stark's book if you haven't already. I still have several more posts to go before I am finished.
Cordially yours,
Tom
Tim:Likewise, I certainly don't believe in the Indian goddess Kali, but, in discussing that goddess, I refer to her as "her" because that's how "she" is presented to the world. Whether she exists, much less has actual genitals, is not of concern with regard to this convention.
However in Judiasm, it is forbidden to make graven images and actually draw pictures of God, which is not true in Hinduism.
You make a good point about male and female characteristics. Corresponding with this, I'd note that there are also various references to "the feminine aspect of God"
and attributing feminine characteristics to God, for instance the tradition of describing and welcoming the sabbath as a bride. I'm not intimately familiar with this line of thinking, but lecha dodi (a song which refers to the 'sabbath bride' metaphore) is a staple of modern temples.
Shekhinah is the English spelling of a feminine Hebrew language word that means the dwelling or settling, and is used to denote the dwelling or settling presence of God, especially in the Temple in Jerusalem.
Tom:Since the god of the Bible comes out of patriarchal cultures, it leaves open two possibilities. Either the god of the Bible really exists and has male attributes, or the god of the Bible was created by men who could only imagine that a supreme being must naturally be a male.
Well, there are other possibilities. Perhaps men are more likely to morally go astray. Presenting God as a man would be a way to compensate
for that need for extra help. Or perhaps God has male and female aspects.
Where will this likely lead me? I will be homeless, diseased, unwanted and untrusted. In short, I will have suffered horrific consequences for my behavior.
For the most part, I agree. However this is partially becuase you are living in a lawful nation. Historically, most places are not like that. And many people really believe their actions won't be discovered or used against them. I've known a lot of very moral individual atheists. But atheistic nations or groups seem to be less good at establishing rule of law in the first place, thus allowing some 'cheaters to prosper' if you will. And unfortunately, a lot of people want things bad enough that they believe they can escape the consequences of their actions. I had one female friend who told me that it was okay for her to have sex with a particular guy who was known for sleeping around because "he only slept with virgins or married people" and thus would be clean. Mmm hmm. Likewise, a lot of people believed that the discovery of antibiotics meant that 'free love' was a viable way of living. Then came a whole host of viruses and antibiotic resistant bacteria. And so on. People lie to themselves, unfortunately, sometimes fatally. And like with chinese medicine and many forms of traditional healing, people often discover what works and what doesn't a long time before they get a grasp on why things work and why they don't.
For instance, when a Christian asks me what would make me accept their religion, one of my answers is that if the Bible contained information in it about the cosmos that know one could possibly have at the time.
You know, I've spent a huge amount of time wrestling with this notion. I just reccommended Sagan's book "Contact" to my girlfriend and we're discussing it as she reads. The changes that they made to the story when the book became a movie are especially interesting. (They totally rewrote what was already a very interesting ending, removing the sort of 'prove God' notion that you refer to.) I won't spoil the book. But it does seem that religion gives us a lot of the tools to discover things for ourselves. The academic process of citation has its root in the Talmud, for instance. And you can find a number of health-related laws in leviticus which seem to outstrip the conventions of that time, at least. (i.e. if an object is dirty, clean it in fire. If you cannot, then wash it in water.) Ritual bathing in a time when people would go for years without washing is worth something. This certainly doesn't prove an all-knowing God, of course. It does suggest a mindset which is slightly better at finding and filtering knowledge, though.
But I do wonder sometimes what 'omniscient' actually refers to, in regards to God. Does it simply mean that we "feel guilty! Someone is watching and you will be judged!"
Does it mean God knows and accounts for all events in the present and past and accordingly offers a perfect plan? Does it mean understanding the emergent behavior of societies? Does it mean knowing every single event which will ever happen and every fact which can be known? I really don't know, and personally I'm a little unsure about the last scenario.
To paraphrase a comment that Tim made a while ago which I'm still mulling over; the point is not to prove that God exists. Rather, it's about selecting for those who are predisposed to love God.
Tom
For example, if Jesus had mentioned a planet with rings around it.
I imagine that something like that would be mis-interpreted and vauge. Especially with the difficulty of describing what a 'planet' was to people of that time.
I seriously doubt that there's anything in the bible which actually matches what you describe.
But I'll toss this out;
Light tends to symbolize justice and law in Judaism and Christianity. (A symbolism shared with other mid-eastern faiths such as Zoroastrianism, but the Old Testament claims to have influenced that faith.) Occasionally, it also represents knowledge, which seems to be similar to more Mediterranean cultures. The equation of light and laws seems to be a very odd sort of symbolism, which is the kind of form that we would expect the proof you ask for to take, but it is used repeatedly.
Psalms 27:1 "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?"
Proverbs 13:9, "The light of the righteous rejoices, but the lamp of the wicked goes out."
Psalms 112:4, "They rise in the darkness as a light for the upright; they are gracious, merciful, and righteous."
'Light' in Judeo-Christian symbolism is eternal law or righteousness.
What is light according to our understanding of modern physics?
Special relativity describes how if you're on a spaceship moving at near the speed of light and you turn on a flashlight the light will appear to move away from you at a constant speed (186,282 miles per second in a vacuum.)
Lets say there's an observer stationary relative to the spaceship who is able to measure the light coming at them. What do they see?
If only Newtonian physics were real, we might expect an object thrown from the fast moving ship to be seen by a person who is stationary relative to the ship as moving at the speed of the train + the speed of the object. This doesn't happen.
Similarly, if a fast moving boat created a wave in the water beside it, the wave would move at a constant speed for the particular medium (water in this case), possibly falling behind the fast moving boat. But while light has some wavelike properties, this also doesn't happen.
The spaceship measures the light moving away from the ship at exactly the speed of light.
And an observer in front of the ship who is stationary relative to the spaceship will measure the light as moving towards them at exactly 186,282.
Which is pretty strange.
In other words, time and distance are relative for the spaceship and the observer. They experience time dialation and length contraction. But the speed of light is constant for all observers.
It's a very odd effect. And interesting symbolism.
Light is the universal constant in both the bible and modern physics. But I don't think that this would prove anything to a skeptic.
Or if you prefer; As Sagan mentions in Contact the Caduceus
which symbolizes life in pagan Greek healing, was a sort of double helix.
Totally different belief system, I know. I don't imagine these things would (or should) change your views. I don't know if God would produce a proof like what you're asking for. But if he did I don't think it would persuade anyone who wasn't already predisposed to believe.
If neither of these things influence your views on religion, maybe it would be worthwhile to reconsider what criteria you use for determining your faith?
Re:Either the god of the Bible really exists and has male attributes, or the god of the Bible was created by men who could only imagine that a supreme being must naturally be a male.
It is usually noted that there is a difference between masculine/feminine and male/female. God is masculine, not male. Masculine is initiatory, while feminine is responsive. God is masculine to creation, while there are feminine aspects to the relationship within the Trinity. Remember, this is not male/female, which is physical gender.
However, the masculine traits are predominate in human males. Jesus, who is the Son, and initiatory in salvation and is masculine and male.
There is a lot to be said along these lines, but that gives you the drift.
Well, things have apparently developed quite interestingly in my absence. Perhaps I should go away more often!
To Tom, should he drop by again:
First, I would say that based on Stark's recent writings, he is more than just a weak theist, he is actually a Christian. He certainly makes an interesting case that Christianity, particularly the Catholic variety, lies at the roots of capitalism, the scientific method, and the rise of Western Europe.
As best as I know, at this time, Stark was describing himself as an agnostic. He also has said a number of positive things in the past about Mormonism and even the Moonies, and I don't think he's a member of those religions either.
Since Stark is one of the nation's foremost sociologists of religion, I'd think that being able to see positive aspects of systems people join voluntarily would be a rather necessary skill.
Not to mention in other situations: Dennis Prager, for example, is a Jew. He does not believe in Jesus in the slightest. Yet he and a number of other influential conservative Jews credit Christianity with being instrumental in creating the religiously pluralistic society we have in America.
Similarly, I'm not a Mormon, and believe Joseph Smith deceived people. I also think Mormons seem better behaved, on average, than many others who call themselves Christians.
You don't have to espouse some religion or worldview to admit it has some positive characteristics or impact on the world. The "all or nothing" / "take no prisoners" approach which seems so popular these days (especially among Dawkins and associates) discourages that sort of intellectual honesty.
I believe some of the behavioral characteristics are more a matter of cultural conformity...
Some, of course. I don't think I implied otherwise -- that there were NO cultural impacts.
But have you heard of testosterone? Just asking. There's a reason male cattle (bulls) are more aggressive than female cattle (cows), and it's not because the bulls are merely socialized differently. Same for dogs, and horses, etc, etc, etc. Inject more testosterone in a woman (or a man), and she (or he) will have a higher sexual drive. Conversely, I had a high-testosterone female friend who was being given high estrogen doses and her behavior changed markedly during that period.
Experiments in animals leave no doubt that androgens, including testosterone, produced by the testes in fetal and/or neonatal life act on the brain to induce sex differences in neural structure and function. [1]
It's odd to hear that girls identifying more with dolls and boys more with fighting and aggression are "cultural" differences, since I can't think of a single culture where most the little boys tend to arrange dolls into social gatherings, and most little girls tend to play at war and fighting. If it was something that varied from culture you culture, you'd expect some, um, variance.
Since the god of the Bible comes out of patriarchal cultures, it leaves open two possibilities. Either the god of the Bible really exists and has male attributes, or the god of the Bible was created by men who could only imagine that a supreme being must naturally be a male.
I suggest you might need to study the religions of the world a bit more. Ancient Hinduism, for example, could be far more "patriarchal" than ancient Judaism. A woman could not own property, she could have her ears and nose amputated for leaving the house without permission. [2] The husband was the wife's god; she was even burned to death (alive) upon his funeral pyre. And even today there is a huge problem with aborting girls, who are often unwanted.
Yet Hinduism is replete with goddesses: even Brahma could not create the universe without assistance from his female consort.
Similarly the ancient Greeks tended to view women as mere property; little more than land in which a man could plow his seed and develop offspring. (For pleasure, it was better to turn to other men.) Wives were treated as having little more intelligence than children, and were generally kept sequestered in homes. "Wives were thought to be a particularly stupid group of people with whom a man would want to spend as little time as possible." [3]
And yet, as you know, Greek goddesses abounded.
Similarly, pagan Romans also worshiped many goddesses. And yet, like the Greeks, they tended to toss out their baby girls, and forced their daughters into young marriages with much older men. Meanwhile, the "patriarchal" Christians living among them, who worshiped a single "male" God kept and loved their baby girls, allowed their daughters to marry at an older age, (to men closer to own age) and gave them a significant say in the selection. Many historians argue that Christianity spread in ancient Rome partially because it was extremely popular among women.
Sorry, Tom, the connection just isn't as simple as you imply. If anything, it seems to be more often the opposite of your statement, above. The people who believed in a single male God frequently treated women more humanely and gave them more rights than people who believed in divine entities having both genders.
On preferences, and I come across this all the time from theists, one can develop a coherent moral system without a belief in god.
You can certainly come up with a set of personal morals. I don't think anyone (of importance, anyway) is arguing otherwise. But what you can't do is appeal to any universal justification for them, beyond hoping your listeners will share your preferences.
You can call some behaviors "right" and others "wrong", but at the end of the day, they're nothing more than your opinion.
(I'm telling you how you need to view your own morals in order to be logically consistent: I can actually think you're speaking a universal moral truth, but you are not allowed to.)
My beef with religious belief is that it serves as a means of sowing conflict between people...
John Lennon, for example, believed that if we just got rid of religion, people would get along better and wars would end. But social experiments to that effect seem to show the opposite: the French revolution and Communist revolutions increased bloodshed compared to the same culture under religion. And it's certainly true that Catholics were intolerant of Protestants (and vise-versa) but neither have held a candle to the zeal with which many secularists have wiped out those who dissented from their religious views.
As an atheist, I am somehow able to conceive of a vision for humanity that transcends that.
I don't mean to be flip, but I think *everyone* can have a mental picture of all humanity holding hands and singing. (Sometimes, not even about Coke.) Likewise, I suspect most men can imagine themselves being utterly irresistible to women, or incredibly wealthy. But the trick here is not simply imagining these things, but achieving them, or moving in that direction.
And to see what works, you have to look at history and learn from it.
Christians will claim that theirs is an objective moral system because it is what god wants. But, that is conditional on the god they worship actually existing. If it does not exist, then a Christian's worldview is just as subjective as mine.
What you believe affects how you behave. If you believe rights are "inherent", then you don't believe society has any right to vote them away. If you believe they're human-created, then you believe the government or other humans can just as easily revoke them.
This is true whether such a God exists or not.
Correct me if I am wrong, but I believe there is a passage in the OT where Moses dissuades God from some violent act... If everything that god wants to do is moral, according to a Christian, then god would not have listened to Moses...
Excellent argument!
You are quite right about the pattern: God wants to bring judgment, but a human being pleads for God to relent, with some apparent effect.
The bible presents a picture of humans as having an influence over what happens here, spiritually. Jesus only acts to the extent that people around him allow him to. Prayer is portrayed as influencing God's actions, as are supplications for mercy, and acts of repentance.
It might very well be that the best system -- the one which produces the most moral behavior among those willing -- is indeed the one where God appears to respond to human action and moral choice, giving a different result depending upon choices people make. If so, the pattern of explaining one possible result, and then allowing a human reaction, then explaining the change, would be a necessary part of that process.
Parents do a similar thing with children. A child wants a certain food for dinner: the parent knows, on one level, that the child will hate that food. But after telling the kid this, and some further dialog, the parent allows the kid to order it anyway, knowing it's likely that the child will end up hating it and realizing he or she made a mistake.
Why? Because sometimes the lesson itself is more important than the wasted food. And the back-and-forth was an important part of that: the same result would not have been achieved if the parent had just said "yes" or "no" and stuck to it. This is just how we humans learn.
Theists like to claim that atheists don't want to believe in a god because we do not want to be held accountable for our actions. That is nonsense, because in the absence of the existence of a god, or at least a god that cares about what we do, we are held accountable for our actions by each other.
Really? That's quite a remarkable statement. Who held Stalin accountable? Or Mao? (He seems to have died quite a happy man.) What about Kim Il Sung? Who held him accountable? Did you know that many of the architects of the Cambodian genocide are still alive and doing fine? How about the despots in the Sudan? Or the people who orchestrated the Ethiopian mass starvations? Hear of any action intended against Kim Jong Il? Not to mention a petty thug like Jack the Ripper. (When was he incarcerated, again?)
I'm sorry, but this one of the most fantastic arguments I've ever encountered.
Let's pretend for a moment though that I do become what theists claim an atheist wants to be. I am going to do whatever I want. I am going to engage in frequent promiscuous sex, I am going to lie to everybody, not pay my bills, not show up on time for work, if I show up at all, I am going to drink alcohol and take drugs to excess. And the worst thing of all, I AM GOING TO PARK IN HANDICAPPED PARKING SPOTS!
Horrors! Will you also engage in "rolling stops"?
Where will this likely lead me? I will be homeless, diseased, unwanted and untrusted...
Christians don't argue that atheists are immoral. (At least, not that I've ever encountered.) But please notice that your entire argument was based on the notion that your bad actions have consequences. You won't do them, you argue, because they will bring you bad consequences.
But what if that's not true?
What if you could be assured you could steal and not be caught? What if you could be assured that if you didn't pay your bills, no harm would come to you? Your argument seems to imply that you would then have no reason not to.
That, my friend, is the difference.
You seem to equate trivial preferences for things like vanilla ice cream over strawberry ice cream or blondes over brunettes with value systems that guide our conduct.
In absence of an "higher" moral standard, there's no reason to do otherwise. If you feel otherwise, feel free to offer supporting reasons.
My point is that the "divine accomodation" argument serves as a convenient way of explaining away why god didn't reveal things about the universe to people who could not have possibly known about them based on the technology of knowledge available to them at the time.
Just to clarify, I understand that you are an atheist. I also understand that you would thus be obligated to take the stance you just described. I have not criticized you for either.
Instead, my criticism, which you are not answering, is that you seem to be making, fundamentally, an argument against progress, since a God who creates a "progressing" universe can always be said not to exist (by your logic) because at any moment X, God failed to cause matter to be in the better in state which it arrived at in moment X+N.
The only types of God permitted by such an argument are those which do not allow things to ever have been less good in the past. A broad, positive assertion of this sort needs to be justified; even when offered by an atheist.
Further, it seems to me your argument is incoherent, in that there is no possible universe in which such a demand could be satisfied. If God made a universe where progress was allowed God could be criticized for having done so. If God then complied with your demand, you could neither believe in him nor even formulate the question, since no positive changes could happen in the universe which you demanded.
To offer a generalization back, I've often observed atheists who have extremely strange, specific, and rather personal criteria for God's existence. They often seem to argue that the only kind of God who could exist would be one who did X, where X usually involves allowing no room whatsoever for doubt.
(Madeline Murray O'Hair, for example, used to insist that if God existed he would strike her dead. Well, now she's dead. So what? Does God exist now?)
Further, I've noticed that atheists seem to believe (and are being taught) that simply by dint of their particular view, they have no responsibility to back up nor explain any of their views or assertions. Many seem to believe they incur no burden of proof when they make positive assertions, as if the very laws of reason are suspended for them simply because they're atheists.
I'm not saying you're like that (no more than your generalizations about theists were meant about me, personally). You still have a chance to justify your criteria, or even admit, no, you don't have any particular reason why that kind of God is the only kind who could exist.
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Thanks for the interesting post. I have an observation/question that may be a tad ignorant, but why not ask and be enlightened.
Do you think that the Garden was a static or progressive universe or creation? It seems that moral choice didnot exist until after the fall (perhaps I have that wrong?). And perhaps the fall changed the game, so to speak, and necessitated a progressive understanding of God. Adam certainly seemed to have a very close relationship and understanding with God, one that doesn't seem to have been achieved by humans to this point. (And won't be until the end of time?)
Posted by: on November 1, 2007 03:10 PM