Earlier (much, really) I responded to an atheist named Tommy's various critiques of Rodney Stark's new book Discovering God. Dr. Stark is one of the nation's foremost sociologists of religion, and was formerly an agnostic or atheist, and who is now apparently some variety of theist.

In my last response, I raised several problems with many of Tommy's comments, including showing that normal societal conventions should cause one to refer to the Judeo-Christian god as a "He", and that Tommy seemed to argue that the only kinds of Gods who could exist were those who prevented all progress -- a view which should require some justification. I also argued that his assertion that belief in a masculine God must be particularly linked to anti-female attitudes was false, given historical evidence that early Christians were far more pro-woman than most goddess-worshiping pagans. More importantly, I also pointed out that, contrary to Tommy's arguments, atheists can't really appeal to a transcendent "good" or "bad", and that a fear of merely temporal consequences doesn't prevent many kinds of wrongdoing.

These seem like rather important points, as they cut to the core of Tommy's arguments, but, for whatever reason (good or ill -- life is busy, after all), these and other comments made by Ryan on Tommy's blog remain unanswered. (And I tend to believe if you can't resolve even one core point, you won't do well at thinking or dialoging about many others.) So it would seem that attempts at such a dialog would indeed seem to be "an exercise in futility" -- to apply the title of Tommy's blog.

But I'd initially planned to follow his comments through the book, so, without further ado...

Part 2 mostly consists rather minor quibbles, some where I agree with Tommy (there's a meaningful difference between gravity and God) and some where I don't, or don't care enough to comment.

But I found this particular comment rather amusing (excuse the language):

On the heels of Pascal Boyer, Stark proceeds to the eminence grise of the present day atheist movement, Richard Dawkins. In particular, Stark focuses on Dawkins popularizing the concept of memes. Stark's condescension towards Dawkins seeps through like baby's piss coming through a urine soaked diaper.

If condescension is somehow wrong, one could not pick a more hilarious "victim" to defend than Dawkins, whose own writings are, at times, utterly dripping with it. The complaint seems a tad, shall we say, selective, if you catch my drift. Moreso when you consider his tone towards Stark. (At one point, he admits "Stark does get one thing right..." on a specific topic.) It would seem that the proper role of an atheist to condescend, and it's quite incorrect for anyone else to respond in kind.

(I suppose that might come from over-reliance on that particular tactic.)

Near the end of Part 2, Tommy writes:

While correct in his statement that primitive peoples had very practical fears, he adds that by calling on the supernatural, "they acknowledge the fundamental principle that the supernatural is the only plausible source of many things that human beings greatly desire." (Bold mine). On what does Stark base his claim that the supernatural, or god, represents the only plausible source for the things that we desire? He does not say.

I can't speak for Stark, but many possible answers seem obvious: Humans want a sense of ultimate meaning, a basis for using the words "right" and "wrong" or "good" and "bad" in a meaningful way, a belief that justice exists somewhere in the universe, control over seemingly uncontrollable events (nature), and the possibility of continued existence after death. On a more mundane level, there needs to be some basis for organizing society, for influencing behavior even when no-one is looking, a basis for altruism, charity to strangers, etc.

I'm not advocating all of the above, simply listing them. These are indeed things which many or even all human beings desire -- and most (though not all) of of these desires can only be answered or even addressed within some kind of metaphysical framework.

I'm not saying that Tommy must agree these desires lead inexorably to belief in some particular religion, but it astounds me he apparently cannot even identify them. Perhaps that's a natural correlation of some of the unaddressed issues I mention above.

In Part 3, Tommy sadly loses it, and the crack-up is not pretty.

Stark proposes the rather modest theory that perhaps normal, sane people can, through practices such as prayer, have an experience of or communication with "the divine." I'm not here to defend the idea, though I personally agree with it -- I can see others taking another view, such as that such experiences are subjective or rooted in biochemistry or neural activity, etc.

Instead, Tommy pretends that Stark has claimed that all people who claim to receive revelation or an experience of God are to be taken seriously, unconditionally. For example, he posts a picture of David Koresh, with the caption:

David Koresh, a normal man with no indications of mental illness whatsoever, who believed that he received revelations from God and whose personal sacrifice of his own life at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas was utterly incompatible with fraud.

The form of the response is as you had argued that perhaps some restaurants served good-quality seafood, and I had jeered back, claiming you said I could find high-quality live lobster on the menu at McDonald's. Similarly, if someone proposes God exists and answers anyone, ever, then they must certainly be saying ALL such claims are true.

To Tommy, this sort of fallacy seems to pass as a coherent argument. (I guess anything works if said with enough of a sneer.)

As I said, it's sad to see.

One example Stark gives is that of Roger W. Kimball, the Mormon "prophet" who was confronted with his church's discriminatory stance against blacks. Kimball, apparently in writing, "described the process by which he gained this revelation as the result of many hours of prayer that ended in the sudden, absolute certainty that this was God's will."

Gee, ya think so Professor Stark? Or was it more of a case of "Holy s**t, we better come up with a face saving way of allowing blacks to become Mormon priests because in a post-Civil Rights America, we're starting to look awfully raycist!" Why Stark does not consider this possibility is beyond me.

I suspect Stark did consider that possibility -- and undoubtedly recognized it was indeed a crises which precipitated that particular appeal to God. But there comes a certain point at which you have to decide: Must we assume all people who say or describe something contrary to our beliefs are deliberate liars?

Keep in mind, Tommy isn't simply claiming that Kimball was mistaken in his impressions, or that they arose from biology, etc. Instead, Tommy implies that the most likely possibility is that Kimball decided in advance that the church's doctrines had to change to match our culture, and thus must have concocted his account about having prayed and received a feeling of strong conviction that God wants us to treat the black humans he created as equals.

If so, that's a huge difference between Tommy and myself. I also went through a phase where I considered atheism. But (among other problems) I noticed that a huge percentage of people on earth seemed to have claimed some supernatural experience. Certainly, we don't need to take all such accounts at face value, but neither do we need to dismiss them all simply because we find the implication unacceptable. Dismissing contrary evidence merely or primarily because you don't like its ultimate implication is the exact opposite of rational thought.

Stark is actually somewhat of an expert on Mormon church history. No doubt, he's probably intimately familiar with Kimball's biography and thinks that Kimball, whether he agrees with his beliefs or not (and I don't think Stark does, or he would have mentioned Joseph Smith, not Kimball) was at least a decent guy and not an outright liar, and thus doesn't believe Kimball lied about his experience and what he went through in that crisis.

Me personally, I think Mormonism started as a cult, and now is a bit more like a huge social club with some weird beliefs nobody pays much attention to. (A bit like the Masons.) Like Tommy, I also tend towards the suspicion that the church's about-face during the 70s seemed a tad, shall we say, convenient. But that's because I don't know anything about the people involved. If someone who has studied the Mormon church, and isn't otherwise inclined to be a defender thinks Kimball isn't an outright liar -- and thus prayed, and subsequently felt a conviction, then I'm willing to be persuaded of that much.

I think it would be fair to question the source of that sudden feeling of strong conviction -- to seek, perhaps, a physical origin. In the quotes Tommy gives, Stark clearly seems to have considered this. But, in contrast, Tommy's implication is more that people who disagree with him are crazy or, in Kimball's case, liars who actually know their religion is false (not really from God) and would consciously and cynically change it at will to fit cultural developments -- and lie about how that came about.

That's always possible, but there's no need to assume it as the first or even most likely explanation, especially given some evidence to the contrary.

There's one final thing I'll mention before closing: the apparent poverty of Tommy's mental model of religion. Stark mentions the possibility of revelations being subject to misunderstanding, exaggeration, etc. and Tommy responds:

Then again, a God could solve that problem by revealing the same message to a number of people in a particular group simultaneously. After all, if two people approach you within the same time period, both claiming to have received different revelations from God, how are you to know which one to believe?

Apparently, in Tommy's mind, religion works like this: Someone claims they're heard from God, you believe them. Period. We're done. Since there are, apparently, no possible tests one could apply, one is simply left with a take-it-or-leave-it proposition, based on a decision "to believe" (based on nothing but someone's say-so) and most people in the world seem to think that's enough.

You can't oppose something effectively if you don't even understand it.

Of course, there are all kinds of tests. Does what is said match up with human nature or other evidence? How does it mesh with the faith tradition from which it supposedly arises? Does the individual in question seem to have a sound mind and good character? Does he receive contradictory revelations which seem to be incredibly convenient? Does the revelation also carry correct information nobody was likely to have known at the time? Does it ultimately lead to an improvement in conditions, or ultimately lead to a degeneration of them?

A purported revelation from a good God would fit only certain criteria.

Tommy seems to think this argument proves a point: If God were real, he'd send a revelation to more than one person. If so, then: well, yes, that does apparently often happens in such cases, and is the whole point of prayer. Saul goes from killing the first Christians to suddenly wanting to join them, and the new believers suspect, quite reasonably, that his claim to have heard from God is simply a cunning ruse. So they pray about it, and one is told: Yes, you can trust this guy. He needs your help now. And so it was, apparently.

My point here isn't to refute Tommy atheism. (There are, in fact, many atheists I like and admire.) But it's instructive to examine the sort of misbegotten arguments offered: the straw man responses, the tone, and, most importantly, the apparent lack of basic understanding of the thing he opposes.

What human desires can only religion satisfy? Are there any possible tests one could apply to a revelation? Does the god of any religion offer a system which provides any redundancy? Tommy doesn't seem to know the answers to such questions, though they're the sort of starting questions any open-minded individual would need to consider -- much less someone who claims to have sorted through the whole process and arrived at a particular answer.