philosophy

The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism

What does naturalism entail? This is largely a discussion of the ideas contained within the book World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism by Michael C. Rea. An outline of his ideas comes first, followed by a look at a critique of his work.

Michael C. Rea has lofty goals for his book World Without Design: The Ontological Consequences of Naturalism. He lays them out almost immediately: to show that naturalists are 1. committed to rejecting realism about material objects (RMO), 2. are forced to reject materialism,  and 3. cannot accept the reality of other minds (ROM) (Rea, 8).

Naturalism, according to Rea, is best understood as a research program. This he defines as: “a set of methodological dispositions” (Rea, 3). He argues that research programs cannot be accepted based on evidence, but can be discarded based on evidence. “[T]here is no method-neutral basis on which to assess the decision to adopt a particular research program” (Rea, 7). He pushes for acceptance of this view of naturalism as opposed to epistemological, metaphysical, etc. naturalism. While I believe that naturalism can certainly be viewed as a research program (using his definition), I think it is unclear from his arguments as to why exactly the other views of naturalism are to be rejected. Interestingly, however, it seems that Rea’s definition of research program manages to include these various types of naturalism.

Whether or not Rea is successful in his arguments to refocus naturalism as a research program, his arguments stand, as they are directed at this kind of “naturalism-at-large.”

It is important to note that a central concept that must be understood in order to discern Rea’s argument is that he is almost certainly attacking what seems to be most naturalists views that naturalism is unapproachable. Rea’s argument for viewing naturalism as a research method becomes stronger when taking this into account–for if naturalism is accepted without justification, it fits his definition of research program. He quotes Quine (who is extremely important in many fields of philosophy [such as logic], not just naturalism): “The proper answer to questions like ‘What justifies me in believing what I learn by way of scientific method?’ is simply ‘Do not ask that question'” (Rea, 44).

I believe that this stance should be, at the very least, uncomfortable for naturalists, or at least naturalists who attack theists for similar responses as to justification for belief in God, but that’s a whole different subject. I believe that, however, both cases need at least some kind of warrant or justification.

But let’s delve into the meat of World Without Design. Rea, as was said before, argues that naturalists are forced to ontologically give up RMO, ROM, and materialism. What grounds does he have for making these claims? I was initially quite skeptical. Obviously, I have every reason to rejoice in any attempts to undermine naturalism, but to claim that naturalism cannot even justify reality about material objects is, as I said, a lofty claim.

Rea cites The Discover Problem as the main reason naturalists are forced to these consequences. The Discovery Problem is “…just the fact that intrinsic modal properties seem to be undiscoverable by the methods of the natural sciences. Modal properties are properties involving necessities or possibilities for the objects that have them” (Rea, 77). It is this Problem that Rea continues to press against naturalists, and after analyzing his exhaustive arguments, I believe he succeeds.

The problem is that science can discover, at most, extrinsic modal properties, but not those that are intrinsic. Rea frames one of the problems that follows from the Discovery Problem as follows (paraphrased): one man owes another a debt. When the one to whom the debt is owed confronts the debtor about it, he argues that he is not the same person he was when the debt was incurred, for, after all, large amounts of the molecules in his body are no longer there, or have rearranged somehow, etc. The one owed the debt promptly punches him on the nose (Rea, 79ff).

But how is it that one can prove he is the same person? What makes it so that the matter can be said to be arranged “human-wise” instead of merely “collection-wise“? The answer is modal properties. The problem, however, is that in order to successfully point to the debtor as being the same person, one must use intrinsic modal properties, which are undetectable via scientific method, and, according to naturalism, must therefore be rejected.

I can’t type out the whole book here for a number of reasons, so I’ll highlight a few arguments:

“[I]t is possible for belief in material objects to be justified only if it is possible to have at least one justified M[odal]P[roperties] belief” (Rea, 83). This is because 1. one must be able to say this is a material object, 2. that belief can only be justified by beliefs in certain properties that are essential to the object (essential in the philosophical sense), and 3. these kinds of beliefs are MP beliefs (Rea, 83-84).

There are a number of ways naturalists have tried to get around this problem, but ultimately they can, at most, only grant extrinsic modal properties. In order to grant intrinsic modal values, on naturalism, “(a) we must observe it, (b) we posit its existence to explain our observations, or (c)we discover that our theorizing is simplified or otherwise significantly pragmatically enhanced by supposing that it exists” (Rea, 104). But modal properties are not observable, so only (b) or (c) are possibilities.

The possible solution (b) generally points to tying modal properties in with Proper Function. Proper Function is, generally, the belief that certain things that occupy a certain region have an objective function that they are supposed to perform. But even granting that empirical techniques can somehow claim this about anything, Proper Function can only grant extrinsic modal properties (such as saying that cat-arranged things have the proper function of “operating” as cats). The problem remains.

Solution (c) presents a pragmatic argument. Now setting aside some of the blatant flaws with pragmatism in general (i.e. the absurdity that, on pragmatism, it follows that if there are no people, there is no truth), this pragmatic consideration within naturalism doesn’t help in discovering intrinsic modal properties as it is completely unclear as to what pragmatic value there is in considering intrinsic modal properties on naturalism. Not only that, but Rea presents another valuable argument: “If, for example, it cannot be a truth that a thing x has a property p unless it is somehow useful or convenient for human beings to believe that x has p, then it is hard to see how x could have p in a world that does not include human beings.” [As I mentioned.] “So pragmatic theories of truth seem to imply (perhaps absurdly) that every property is extrinsic [ed: in that properties are assigned pragmatically]. hence, they also imply that modal and sortal properties are extrinsic. Thus they are incompatible with R[eality about]M[aterial]O[bjects]” (Rea, 146).

The Discovery Problem thus eliminates the possible of RMO, ROM, and materialism from the naturalist ontology. But these are things that naturalists will be extremely reluctant to eliminate. Rea follows with a discussion of intuitionism–which is another way naturalists might salvage RMO from the implications of naturalism, but the problem with intuitionism is that it is a version of idealism which eliminates RMO to begin with. I’m not going to go into the details of Rea’s argument here, as to do so would take quite a bit of extra space and I don’t think it is all that relevant to the current discussion.

I find Rea’s method quite sound, and his reasoning is certainly solid. Whether or not his book is successful (as I think it is), it certainly is thought-provoking. I expect many a naturalist will be forced to reconsider his or her position and attempt many a rejoinder to the arguments contained in World Without Design. One such rejoinder will be discussed next.

A critique of Rea’s work can be found here. The author (Troy Cross) was quite fair in his evaluation of Rea’s work, but I think the conclusions he drew weren’t quite spot on. For example:

“Rea’s ‘charitable’ proposal on naturalism’s behalf [that of it being a research program], by contrast, is to be avoided at all costs… Rea’s argument is not of the form: there are material objects, therefore, naturalism is false.”

But it is in Cross’ accusing Rea of being unnecessarily “charitable” that he seems to ignore one of the central arguments of the first chapters, which is an argument against naturalism as Cross seems to want to take it [though as I discussed above I am not entirely sure of its success]. Not only that, but while he states specifically what Rea’s argument is not (and I agree with him), he seems to ignore that if Rea has succeeded in his actual argument, then while naturalism may not be untrue or false on an epistemological level, naturalists are forced into some uncomfortable positions. In fact, I don’t really think that Rea is anywhere trying to prove naturalism is false, but only that naturalism forces us to give up much on an ontological level and that some of these beliefs seem basic to naturalism itself. It is in this way that many of Cross’s critiques fail. He seems to miss the general point of Rea’s book, which may perhaps be summed up in Rea’s own words:

“I think it is important to acknowledge that the theses I have said naturalists must give up are theses that many philosophers, naturalists in particular, will be very reluctant to give up.”

and

“We are told that if only we look in the right places we will find everything we want: realism about material objects, realism about other minds, materialism for those who want it, and much more. But when all the shells have been turned over, we find that we have been duped, and nothing is there.” (Rea, 170)

Further, Cross makes a rather bold statement by asserting, “Perception is a science-approved basic source of justification, and on a suitably robust notion, perception delivers real material objects, not merely sense data or mind-dependent objects.” Despite these claims, he offers no evidence to support it. It seems he missed the section on pragmatism, or at least chose to ignore it. In what way does naturalism, with its “science-approved” methodology somehow grant itself the assumption that perception is not mind based? How does his claim rule out idealism? He truly fails in this regard, and he falls victim to his own presuppositions.

Naturalists cannot seem to view their own worldview objectively at all (see Quine’s quote, above). Material objects are simply assumed based on perception and it is similarly assumed that materialism is true. And then it follows from these two assumptions that the mind is at the least supervenient on the physical. But this is nothing other than a circular argument. If any one of these three assumptions fails, then the circle is broken. And I don’t see any reason that all of these assumptions won’t fail. Not only that, but a circular argument is  a simple logical fallacy.

What grounds do naturalists have to accept such a statement as Cross makes? The assumption that perception somehow proves material objects flies in the face of competing metaphysical approaches such as idealism and certainly begs the question against them. And because of this, such a statement is, if not false, at least lacking any kind of epistemic value. It’s nothing but an assumption with no grounds (other than perhaps pragmatism) for accepting it. And if one would like to argue for such a view on pragmatic grounds, the arguments presented by Rea against pragmatism apply.

Naturalists seem to make these kinds of statements all the time. Whatever they say they simply grant because of either pragmatic concerns or some kind of circular argument. There is no reason to accept either of these reasons.

So Cross seems to miss the mark in a number of ways. He is attempting to argue against a point Rea didn’t make. When he argues that Rea fails to give epistemic reasons that naturalism is false, he is arguing against a straw man. Rea isn’t trying to do so to begin with. Rather, he is arguing that if naturalism is true, it forces those who want to accept it to give up many of the things that they may wish to take as truths–those things shown above, namely, ROM, RMO, and materialism. Not only that, but Cross fails to make any kind of argument for a naturalism that escapes Rea’s casting of it as a “research program.” Cross instead states “[Rea] succeeds in aiding and motivating the construction of naturalistic theories.” The problem is that the construction of those theories hasn’t happened. The current naturalism is fully subject to the arguments presented in World Without Design, and the consequences of naturalism are hard to swallow.

I should note, in closing, that the arguments I make above against Cross (particularly my statement that he is making assumptions and/or begging the question for naturalism) might be leveled against my own view of theism. It should be noted, however, that Rea himself addresses these issues briefly. But there are other reasons that such accusations don’t have merit, for theism doesn’t presuppose such things as dualism. There is a huge amount of literature dedicated to the mind-body problem that is readily accessible. Further, claims that God is the basis for intrinsic modal properties and/or intrinsic human worth have also been addressed in many formats by theists. Certainly, theists may make claims that grant certain underlying beliefs, but those beliefs themselves are building blocks that theists at least have arguments that at the least warrant, if not justify those beliefs (I can once again refer to dualism as a prime example). Naturalists have no such warrant. It is simply assumed that scientism or empiricism is the correct method (or argued on the basis of pragmatism), and that somehow this serves as a defeater for idealism, various theistic views, or other explanatory positions. But, as can be seen in Rea’s book and our brief discussion, these claims only lead us to a rejection of those things which naturalists hold most dear: material objects and materialism itself.

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The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

Book Review: The Nature of Necessity

Alright, I managed to finish another book this weekend. This is one I’ve been working through for months. Literally.

The Nature of Necessity by Alvin Plantinga is quite the philosophy book. In it, Plantinga tackles “The distinction between necessary and contingent truth (1)…” He distinguishes necessity de re and de dicto necessity. De dicto necessity he defines as “a matter of a proposition’s being necessarily true (v)” while de re necessity is “an object’s having a property essentially or necessarily.”

The first few chapters compose Plantinga’s argument for de re necessity by showing that such things can be shown in de dicto terms. It is quite an interesting section, and one in which I think Plantinga makes a strong case. Chapter IV I found particularly interesting, as Plantinga’s discussion here starts to turn to modal logic. The discussion of how we should define worlds, books (which I take to mean a list of propositions that belong to a given world), actuality, possibility, and the like. This discussion is extremely interesting and leads to some conclusions like “A possible world… is a possible state of affairs in the broadly logical sense… a state of affairs S is complete or maximal if for every state of affairs S’, S includes S’ or S precludes S’. And a possible world is simply a possible state of affairs that is maximal (45).”

But then, “Equally obviously [as that one state of affairs obtains], at most one obtains; for suppose two worlds W and W* are distinct worlds, there will be some state of affairs S such that W includes S and W* precludes S. But then if both W and W* are actual, S both obtains and does not obtain; and this, as they say, is repugnant to the intellect (45).”

These kinds of conclusions are to be found throughout The Nature of Necessity and it is this that makes the book such a good read. Plantinga’s descriptions of various states of affairs never fails to entertain, as his sense of humor is present at places throughout the book, while he still maintains his extremely rigorous treatment of the items at hand.

In later chapters (notably VI), Plantinga defends his version of necessity from alternatives, and in the process raises some objections to these alternatives. I’d write more of these out, but the fact of the matter is that the Nature of Necessity has that problem that I believe most books that are so heavy on analytic philosophy have: if one doesn’t read the whole, it is hard to understand any one part. This isn’t really a strike against the book, but is rather simply of note. The way that Plantinga builds on each previous point throughout the book helps give his case clarity.

Once Plantinga has gotten the bulk of the text out of the way, having made a strong case for necessity, he gets into how it is that these concepts apply to God, particularly the theistic God. The chapters about God and evil and God and necessity are largely recycled (or perhaps reworked) versions of his book God, Freedom, and Evil. As such, I didn’t spend a lot of time on these chapters, but in them Plantinga presents his case for the “Victorious Modal” version of the Ontological Argument. It is a version that I think has great potential, and has been the subject of some debate (see Graham Oppy, for instance… or the Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology‘s treatment). Plantinga’s defense of theism from the problem of evil is equally impressive. I have written about it in the past, so I will not do so again, but I do think that Plantinga’s various arguments carry some weight and certainly merit discussion among apologists.

The Nature of Necessity closes with an appendix of some length (30 pages) about modal logic. Specifically, it is directed at answering objections (and more specifically, Quine’s objections) to modal logic. I believe that Plantinga does a fine job of taking on this task, and making a valid case for modal logic, but readers must be absolutely warned that a deep understanding of symbolic logic is required to even begin to approach the appendix. I recommend tackling some texts on logic before reading the appendix. As it was, I had to write out a list of the symbols being used in order to understand this section. It took me several days to get through the appendix alone. But once one does so, they will find that it is yet another rewarding section in an overall wonderful book.

The book weighs in at about 251 pages (including the appendix, but not including the preface), but the content that it includes is immense. Not only that, but the text itself is so heavy that a single page can often take minutes to work through and ponder. I recommend The Nature of Necessity to those who wish to explore, well, necessity and what it means further. It is by no means an easy work to read, and will require quite a bit of pondering and rereading, but in the end the payoff is worth it.

Scores (5 is truly average):

Quality of Arguments (if it applies): 10

Overall Content: 8

Difficulty: 9

Clarity: 9

Theology/Doctrine: N/A- other than theism, this doesn’t really have enough to judge the work based on Doctrinal or Theological stances

Value (price): 8- There’s a lot here, and I think it warrants the purchase price.

Relevance: 6- I don’t know how much use I’ll get out of the book as an apologetic work. Plantinga’s God, Freedom, and Evil may be more useful in this regard, but that doesn’t really take away from how much I liked the book

Review Criteria:

The Quality of arguments is just what it says. Obviously this is subjective. Do I think the arguments presented in the book (if there are any) are valid and/or useful?

Overall Content is a general judge of how good I felt the book is.

Difficulty is the amount of work it takes to get through the work. Higher values don’t necessarily mean the book is better, just more difficult to read.

Clarity simply outlines how clear I believe the author was.

Theology/Doctrine is my judgment, clearly based on my presuppositions, of how good I felt the author’s theological or doctrinal content was (if there is any).

Value is a determination of whether I believe the book is worth the asking price.

Relevance outlines whether I think the book has real-life applications. A low score in this doesn’t necessarily mean the book is bad, just that I believe there may not be much to use. In other words, a book could score low on this criterium, but I might still find it quite good.

The Paucity of Objections to George Berkeley’s Immaterialism

Immaterialism is a topic I’ve been reading [and writing] a lot on recently (particularly the works of George Berkeley, and reading Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason to go along with it as a balance of [transcendental] idealism).

The more I read it, the more it appeals to me, and the more I’ve been writing on the topic myself. What continues to shock me is the utter lack of any kind of good objections to immaterialism. The objections people come up with are readily answered by anyone who reads even a bit of George Berkeley’s Principles of Human Knowledge.

So I decided to make a blog on it, of course!

One of my favorite web sites for cursory research on philosophy is the Standford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. They generally provide some awesome work as far as philosophy is concerned, and I highly recommend it for those who want a free, quick research tool. Anyway, they list a few objections to Berkeley’s immaterialism (sometimes called universal immaterialism or dogmatic idealism), and, frankly, not one of them needed more than a few seconds of thought to answer.

For example:

One of the problems that people often bring up with Berkeley’s immaterialism relates to his principle, “Esse est percipi” or “to be is to be perceived.”

The argument is basically the classic question, “If a tree falls in a forest with no one around to hear it, does it make any sound?” A similar objection is written in a famous limerick:

There was a young man who said God,
must find it exceedingly odd
when he finds that the tree
continues to be
when noone’s about in the Quad.

But, it can be answered in a number of ways. The first is a counter-limerick (which I appreciate greatly):

Dear Sir, your astonishment’s odd
I’m always about in the Quad
And that’s why the tree
continues to be
Since observed by, yours faithfully, God (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

In other words, immaterialists could simply reply:

Well, obviously someone hears/sees the tree, God is omniscient, after all.

But, it could be countered that God isn’t a given at all. Is there still a counter to this problem? Well, despite the fact that  I personally think Berkeley’s form of immaterialism makes the existence of God almost necessary, let us assume we aren’t to use that as a way out with his theory. After all, Berkeley himself, I don’t think, would want us to not subject his theory to further investigation. If there is a God to continually perceive everything, then it is a given that things exist, but let us look for other evidence. I suggest there are at least two answers to this objection to immaterialism:

1. So what? What does it matter if objects wink into and out of existence if there is no one to observe them? I think it’s very unclear as to how this objection really serves a defeater of immaterialism whatsoever. The objection suggests that if something doesn’t exist if it’s not perceived, then things are continually coming into and out of existence. But what relevance does that have to the truth claims of immaterialism itself? I think Berkeley would counter by simply saying that even asking this question is begging the question in favor of materialism. Further, there is no way to say whether or not objects actually do come into and out of existence, because if esse est percipi, then no one could ever observe such an occurance!

2. I’m about to make a point that I am continually shocked that people miss in response to such objections to Berkeley, for he basically makes this point himself: If someone asks the a question like that above (“If a tree falls…”), they have already answered the question for themselves, for the fact that they are asking about the tree means that they are actively conceiving of it in their minds, and therefore they are perceiving it actively. Thus, to even ask such a question is unreasonable, for when one asks such a question, he or she is perceiving of the item in question, and therefore it simply does exist, based on the core principle esse est percipi.

It is worth observing that even the Stanford entry misses this rather simple answer entirely.

There are certainly other objections to Berkeley’s immaterialism, but as I have neither the time nor the motivation to go into any more here, that is all for now.

I close with the thought that has been nagging me ever since I first started reading Berkeley: it seems that ever since he published his works, they have been largely ignored or the arguments therein have been made straw men and knocked over. I think that this is due to a few reasons, but the most obvious are that 1. it is a hard philosophy to really even conceive of, and 2. it is a philosophy that stands wholly in opposition to the core materialist assumptions of the Western world. I think that if 1. were answered in a satisfactory way, 2. could possibly be overthrown.

Sources:

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/berkeley/

The Works of George Berkeley, Volume I. Bibliobazaar. [Specifically Principles of Human Knowledge, and Three Dialogues…]

The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy.

The Oxford Guide: Philosophy.

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

Religious Experiences: Providing Warrant for Belief in God

Immaterialism and Idealism within Theism

Immaterialism/Idealism (essentially the same thing) is a philosophy that I believe can prove fertile for theism. I will start with an exploration of the Immaterialist views of Berkeley, an outline of his arguments, a brief critique, and how I believe Immaterialism can be used within theism.

Bishop George Berkeley was one of the pioneers of what he called Immaterialism, a philosophy that can generally be referred to as Idealism.

Immaterialism is the rejection of matter. It is the claim that “two kinds of things exist in reality: (1) minds (or spirits), and (2) the ideas they perceive (Lawhead, 321).”

Berkeley writes, “Some truths there are so near and obvious to the mind, that a man need only open his eyes to see them… all [the objects in the universe] have not any subsistence without a mind, tha t their being (esse) is to be perceived or known; that consequently so long as they are not actually perceived by me, or do not exist in my mind or that of any other created spirit, they must either have no existence at all, or else subsist in the mind of some eternal spirit… To be convinced of which, the reader need only reflect and try to separate in his own thoughts the being of a sensible thing from its being perceived (Berkeley, 89).”

Outside of being perceived, objects do not exist. There is no such thing as matter. Berkeley’s philosophy is probably that which lead to the question: if a tree falls in a forest, and no one hears it, does it make a sound? Berkeley would respond by saying that just the fact that we conceive of such a question means that yes, because by our act of even imaging such a thing, it brings it into our mind and therefore into perception.

It follows from this that we can’t simply bring things into perspective on our own. There must be a cause for these perceptions. Our minds have images of a “w0rld” in them, but it doesn’t follow that these are created by oneself. Berkeley claimed that our perception is directly projected into our minds by God.

Berkeley brought up a few arguments for his Immaterialism, believing that it was wholly rational to hold such a view. He is famously known for saying “Esse est percipi” or “To be is to be perceived.” The first is a set of arguments:

“1. Primary (solidity, motion, rest, quantity, etc.) and secondary qualities (color, taste, etc.) cannot be separated in the mind, because they always appear together and are perceived in the same way

2. Thus, if one quality is mind dependent, the other will be also

3. …Secondary qualities are mind dependent

4. Therefore, primary qualities are mind dependent (Lawhead, 325)”

and

“1. All properties which are relative are subjective

2. Primary properties are relative properties

3. Therefore, primary properties are subjective (Geisler, 145)”

This argument leads to the entire world, including such objects as dirt, flowers, birds, and the like, to be equivalent to imagined things such as a flying pig. All of these things are subjective and have qualities that are mind-dependent.

Another argument was his argument from the mental dependency of ideas:

“1. Sensible objects are things present to us in sense experience

2. What is presented to us in sense experience consists solely of our ideas

3. Ideas exist solely in our minds

4. Therefore, sensible objects exist solely in our minds (Lawhead, 323)”

Again the argument seems sound.

It is telling that Berkeley’s arguments are still debated in philosophy. Generally speaking, the only way any one has ever gotten around them was by arguing either Occam’s Razor (which I don’t think applies, as it’s not really multiplying entites, rather, Immaterialism would vastly reduce the entities involved) or by rejecting them based on common sense (i.e. we can see that there is a material world, so there is one–an argument that seems circular at best). Hume said of Berkeley’s views that ‘Their only effect is to cause… momentary amazement and irresolution and confusion.” I would tend to agree, in light of the following two problems.

The first is that if our thoughts and the things we conceive are projected into our minds by God as defined by Christianity, then why do we have in our thoughts evil things? The problem of evil is particularly strong against Berkeley’s view that all of our thoughts are projected into our minds by God–or at least sustained by Him. Why would God project evil, or why would He sustain evil thoughts so that we could conceive of or perceive them?

The second problem is that of Christianity itself. It seems that, if we are just minds and there is no actual matter or a “world,” there should be no need for Jesus as a physical “New Adam” and savior. Why would God work within the seemingly obvious universe in a historical fashion (i.e. being historically tied into Jesus), if history is so tied into matter and the physical world, which does not exist? It seems backward.

A third problem that I don’t think is valid is the argument that what we see is obvious–there is a physical world. Logically, this argument doesn’t seem to have a foot to stand on, especially given that Berkeley’s arguments specifically break down such an argument. Generally, this third problem is the reason Immaterialism is rejected: we just can’t make any sense of it.

I do believe that Immaterialism could prove a fertile ground for the Christian. The first point I’d make is that the arguments for it seem fairly conclusive. I’ve read some arguments that supposedly refute Immaterialism, but they all generally amount to my third objection. Just because we innately view the world as physical does not mean it is. The second point is that if Immaterialism, especially that of Berkeleyan influence, were true, then theism is unavoidable. These two points seem to make Immaterialism more appealing to theists.

I suggest two ways to approach Immaterialism in a theistic way. These two ways are wholly different.

1. The first way would be to argue that Immaterialism is indeed unavoidable. But rather than embracing the idea that perceived objects are projected into our minds by God, one could rather argue that perceived objects do in fact exist as sustained immaterial (here using “immaterial” only to mean not-made-of-matter) objects.

In other words, Berkeley’s premise that things that are not perceived do not exist is true, but we can focus on the point he follows that with: that all things subsist in the mind of some immaterial spirit (in other words, all “things,” “objects,” etc. exist in terms of being perceived by some being). Further, rather than saying that this spirit then projects these objects and thoughts into our minds, one could embrace the idea that such things are rather projected into a universe–one that is not matter per se but some kind of non-matter substance. Perhaps some kind of idea-substance.

Everything in the universe would therefore be ideas, but individual created minds (i.e. ours) could have some control over how these things interact. Evil is in the universe because God created us and granted us some influence over this universe. Our ideas corrupted it on the fall into sin. While this view seems at first glance rather nonsensical, I believe that it gains footing with Berkeley’s arguments for Immaterialism, as well as the idea that “matter” is itself just super-condensed energy. Ideas, thoughts, and the like, could be energy, but not some kind of undefined substance known as “matter.”

Thus there is a real world and it is the one we experience, but our understanding of it is completely wrong. Rather than some physical, material world, the world is wholly sustained and upheld by the Creator. Matter as we know it is undefined and is, in actuality, incarnations of ideas into the universe. Incarnation here being defined as a “manifestation of a non-material thing (i.e. an idea) into something that can be defined as, for lack of a better term, ‘physical.'” I would call this view Incarnationalist Immaterialism (a term I coin here). It’s not one I’ve read anywhere, but one I’ve developed myself (though I don’t necessarily believe it–see below).

-I tend to think of this first view as a sort of compromise between what I tend to think of as a very solid case for Immaterialism and the “common sense argument” for an actual world.

2. Rather than embrace Immaterialism in any form, a theist could point to such arguments as evidence for God. If we cannot prove that there is even a physical realm, what grounds do we have for assuming such things as naturalism, phsyicalism, and the like. Note that with this view, the theist does not even need to agree with any for mof Idealism/Immaterialism, he or she can simply incorporate it into a general pattern of argumentation, using arguments for Immaterialism to show that the way we perceive the universe, including such basic things as matter, is questionable. Theism points to something unquestionable and objective: God.

-These views are wholly different, and I’m not sure which I myself would conform to, if either. What I do believe, however, is that Berkeley’s argumentation for Immaterialism is nearly flawless. It is when he attempts to incorporate God as the all-perceiver that his argument suffers the problem of evil. Nevertheless, Immaterialism is a compelling view that, while it may not have much sway in the so-called real world, philosophically speaking is of great interest.

Sources (not any particular format):

Berkeley, George. Edited by G.N. Wright. The Works of George Berkeley, Volume I. Bibliobazaar.

Geisler, Norman and Paul Feinberg. Introduction to Philosophy. Baker Academic.

Lawhead, William. The Voyage of Discovery. Thomson Advantage Books.

The preceding post is the property of J.W. Wartick and should not be reproduced in part or in whole without the expressed consent of the author.

Physicalism: Rejected on the Grounds of Unintelligibility

Physicalism is the view that everything is physical. Every thought, mental state, etc. we experience is reducible to physical explanations. It can be said, according to physicalism, that neurons firing or chemicals being released are an emotion or mental state.

I believe physicalism can be rejected on the grounds of unintelligibility. One reason for this is that physicalism forgets the idea of causation. It equates a cause with an entire process. One can agree that there are physical causes for a mental event, but does not have to accept that this means that a mental event itself is physical. An emotion is not a firing of a neuron or some amalgam of chemicals. Mental states are described from a first-person subjective viewpoint, and cannot be equated with the physical world, which is described in physical terms.

The most commonly used argument for physicalism is the “argument from causal closure”:

–“If an event e causes event e*, then there is no event e# such that e# is non-supervenient [edit: supervenient generally means dependent] on e and e# causes e*.” (Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy).

The problem with this view, of course, is that it can be countered by simply rejecting premise 2 “there is no event e# such that e# is non-supervenient on e and e# causes e*.” One can simply point out that it is possible for there to be an event e# to exist.

Further, what exactly does it mean to say that mental states are wholly physical? I believe that is ontologically untrue. One can simply examine one’s own thoughts and realize that, say, thinking about a pink elephant is not ontologically a pink elephant. Physicalists would have to try to describe this mental image wholly in physical terms, for that is all there is to the world according to their methodology. But it is then almost impossible to distinguish between the image of a pink elephant and the pink elephant itself. Try that thought experiment. Describe yourself “thinking about a pink elephant” in wholly physical terms. Do not slip into saying such words as “mental state”, “mental”, “thinking”, “I”, and the like. It may be possible, but it ends up being something utterly ridiculous which doesn’t seem to really describe the event (thinking about a pink elephant) at all. It describes the things that are causing one to think of a pink elephant.

Physicalism also leads inevitably to determinism. If all things are wholly physical, there cannot be any kind of freedom of the will. All things are determined by physical processes, meaning there is simply no individual to possess freedom.

Physicalism can be faulted for either not adequately explaining or completely rejecting: mental states, the will, individuals, liberetarian freedom, freedom of permission, freedom of personal integrity, and freedom of moral and rational responsibility.

What exactly does it mean, within physicalism, to have the “want to do something?” For example, I am moving my things from one room to another. I want to lift up and move my couch on my own, but I cannot. Physicalism does not seem to have an adequate explanation for this. Wanting to do something could be causally linked to certain parts of the brain showing activity, but it could not explain the desire itself.

What would it mean if, say, a scientist could monitor the brain and know every thing a person was thinking about? Imagine being able to do such a thing. Looking at a screen, one could see that a person could think about a “dog” and one would not actually know what that person is thinking. Or, perhaps the technology is such that the dog which the person was thinking of would be entirely described. It’s a black lab the person owned in his or her childhood, it has a scar on its nose from a fight with a cat, its fur has a bluish sheen in certain light, etc. It still does not mean that one could literally read this person’s mind. For the mental image of a black lab, down to the tiniest detail (i.e. fur length, etc.) will be different from one person to the next. Even if we could literally think of every detail, including the length of each individual hair on that lab, etc., the mental image we had would be different, for we all think of such details in different ways. Descriptions of colors, scents, sounds, etc. vary widely from person to person.

But then, what if we could project an image onto the screen of that dog, in every detail? Two things would prevent this from allowing an identical image: 1. any emotional attachment to the image, and 2. the subjective interpretation of sensory imagery.

Another way to try to explain this scenario into possibility for the physicalist would be to say that technology could allow us to transfer that image, with its emotion, etc. into someone else’s mind. But then, we still have problems. 1. Even if we could project the exact image, along with it’s emotional responses, into someone else’s brain, that person’s brain would still interpret that image for itself. It would be presented with certain emotional states, sensory details, etc., but it would be filtering all of those through its own system. 2. There’s no clear way to say that even if we could eliminate problem 1, the image would be exactly the same with both people.

Even if one could project all the emotion, history, details, and the like of an image from one person to the other, it would not be the same. Why not? Because of another problem with physicalism: emotional states are not the same. What one person experiences as pain can be entirely different for someone else. Let’s say that, sticking with the black lab, subject A has a positive experience of this animal. This brings with it the feeling of pleasure at recalling the image, and calmness related to feeling protected by the dog. When it is projected into the brain of subject B, these emotions may not be the same. For even if one could capture the intensity of these feelings, there’s no way to say that the conotations they’d carry would be the same. Subject B would have pleasure related to recalling the image projected into his or her brain, but this pleasure would have to be intepreted by Subject B before it was presented as an image. The pleasure could feel different from subject A to person B, despite the exact same physical processes involved.

But what if we could project literally every aspect of this image into someone else’s mind (from person A to B)? What if we could somehow get past the interpretation problem? Would this then prove physicalism has weight? I don’t believe so. The problem here is threefold: 1. The problem of “self” in regard to the image. If the image were projected in such a way from person A to B, would it then be person B’s thought/image or would it still be person A’s, just projected into another brain (or mind)? For physicalism to be true, the image would have to be person B’s and identical to person A’s, but it seems like this is not the case, both by the nature of the whole experiment and by the fact that the image exists within person A’s brain originally. Not only that, but 2. it ignores the fact that there is such a thing as the image itself. Even if 1. were not a defeater of physicalism in this case, it seems to be defeated by the fact that the image is itself not made itself all the factors that go into making the image, but is simply an image. The image itself is different from the causation. There is not a black lab within someone’s brain. There is the image of this black lab within their brain. The fact that it must be discussed in such terms goes against physicalism. Cause is not equal to effect. 3. If this entire scenario were about an image that was imagined in person A’s head, rather than a real black lab he or she owned, it runs into a whole host of other problems. What does it mean to have something that doesn’t actually exist, existing in two people’s brain/minds? How is it that physical explanations give rise to a non-physical thing (something that is imagined does not exist physically, so it does not have physical space, qualities, etc., and cannot therefore be reduced to physical qualities, as it does not posess any)?

The point of this scenario is to point out that physicalism discounts some of the most self-evident qualia we experience. Physicalism cannot account for such differences in pain, pleasure, and other feelings or emotional states. It cannot account for the differences in experience when the physical causation is the same.

Point 3. has in it yet another blow against physicalism. What of imagined things? It seems possible that we could physically explain how we bring forth the image of something that is imagined (such as a flying pig), but that does not explain in physical terms what exactly that imagined thing is. What is it, in terms of physicalism? It is not real or physical, so how can it be reduced to something physical? And we certainly cannot say the image does not exist, because anyone with an imagination can think of a flying pig! But even if we were to assign it physical properties (i.e., wings, pigs feet, curly tail, etc.), it would not actually possess any of these. It is something that simply does not exist physically, and it would beg the question to assign it physical properties.

Ontologically speaking, physicalism seems shot full of holes. It can be simple to talk about all mental states, images, and the like as if they were merely physical, but in the real world, does it really mean anything to say that? It is evident from one’s own experience that one can think in terms of self, in terms of intentionality,  and in terms that defy physical explanation. What does it show to say that such things don’t actually exist? It makes our personal experiences meaningless.

It is unintelligible to embrace physicalism, for it means nothing to say that our “self” is not a “self” but a mixture of physical explanations. It means nothing to say that our emotions don’t exist except in physical terms. It means nothing to say that the mind is not a “mind” but a physically reducible thing. It means nothing to say that imagined things don’t exist (they exist within the brain [or mind] of anyone with an imagination), and it begs the question to say that they possess physical properties.

Physicalism, at best, can serve only as a causal explanation of mind states, mental images, and the like. Yet the thesis itself claims to have superior explanatory power in that it can explain everything (via physical means). Finally, physicalism has inadequate explations for, or outright rejects, things that are evident simply through introspection (imaginary objects, the concept of “self,” etc.). Its claims about such things are either meaningless or unintelligible. I therefore reject it on the grounds of unintelligibility.

Debate Part 2

Part 2 of a continuing debate. Part 1 can be found here. This is a debate between an atheist and myself. The non-bolded text is his (when he’s quoting he is quoting my responses in part 1). The bolded text is my response.

“He then argues that Jesus does not remove responsibility from the law by quoting Matthew 5:18ff…leaving out (5:18 – I understood) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have not come to abolish them, but to fulfill them.””.

I didn’t intend to argue that point (the fulfillment of the law), and have at least a rudimentary understanding of this. I was attempting to interject some connective tissue into your original comment to more accurately reflect what I thought Harris was referring to. I will at least mention a couple of points that I’ve questions about to get your take on them.

Indeed, Jesus said “I have not come to abolish them but to fulfill them.” (It’s impossible for me to think Harris is not aware of this. I wouldn’t speculate as to why it was omitted. Being that he and likely any of his readers know full well the concept and the passage, it seems something dubious was unlikely).

I would ask how you reconcile the next line, “I tell you the truth, until heaven and earth disappear,…” with the one before it that you mention? ‘Until heaven and earth disappear’ – surely this has not yet happened, and it would follow that the rest of the verse, then, still applies today and until that does happen (“…not the smallest letter, not the least stroke of a pen, will by any means disappear from the Law…”). It seems that that which must come to pass before the law he spoke of would be fulfilled, has not.

I notice as well as the verses continue that Jesus in fact, quite opposed to rendering these laws somehow null by fulfilling them, seems to systematically magnify and amplify each. It follows logically that he has not yet ‘fulfilled’ them in a sense of completion. Anger is elevated to the sin of murder and a lustful look elevated to that of actual adultery. It seems he not only didn’t relegate these laws to the past, but raised the bar quite a lot on what actually constituted sin.

The first and easiest thing to point out is that you’re assuming knowledge you don’t have: what Harris is or is not aware of, and that his readers “know full well the concept and the passage.” How is it that you know this information? Are you suggesting that everyone who reads Harris knows what comes before the verses he cites, and that they know enough of Scripture to interpret it in light of context and other verses?

But your claims to knowing of others’ background knowledge aside, this argument from Harris and others seems to show a misunderstanding of both the concept of justification and the concept of the separation of Law and Gospel. A simple response can be found in one of the greatest Doctrinal works of the Lutheran Church: Pieper’s ‘Christian Dogmatics,’ Volume I, page 532 “Holy Scripture also determines exactly which laws applied only temporarily and locally, for instance, only to the Jews under the covenant of the Law, and are therefore not the divine norm for all men of all times. A great and harmful confusion of the consciences of men is, even to our day, caused by generalizing temporary and  local laws. With reference, for instance to the commandment given Exodus 31:14-15 “Ye shall keep the Sabbath… everyone that defileth it shall surely be put to death,” and Leviticus 19:26 “Ye shall not eat anything with the blood,” and Leviticus 11 and Deuteronomy 14 (the catalogue of clean and unclean beasts), the New Testament distinctly says: “Let no man therefore judge you in meat, or in drink, or in respect of a holy day, or of the new moon, or of the Sabbath days,” Colossians 2:16. We get this result: Only that is divine Law for all men which is taught in Holy Writ as binding on all. Not even the Ten Commandments in the form in which they were given to the Jews (Exodus 20) are binding on all men, but only the Ten Commandments as set down in the New Testament, as we have them… Commandments given to individuals, e.g. the commandment received by Abraham to sacrifice Isaac, do not obligate others. In general, the rule to be applied to the life and acts of the saints is, in the words of the Apology [to the Augsburg Confession]: ‘Examples ought to be interpreted according to the rule, i.e., according to certain and clear passages of Scripture, not contrary to the rule, that is, contrary to Scripture.’”

Acts 10:15 is another example: “’Do not call anything impure that God has made clean.’”

To say that Jesus expanded the Law is inaccurate. He clarifies it and outlines largely which laws God intended for all peoples. Surely one would not suggest he does so for all of Levitical law and otherwise. One of the rules of Biblical interpretation is to interpret scripture in light of scripture, and when one does so in the case of the Law, one can see that to argue that all people are to follow the ceremonial laws and others is not formed on the basis of a Scriptural argument, but on pulling only certain verses and ignoring others.

As far as reconciling “Until heaven and earth disappear,” with what I’ve said, it becomes clear after the previous explanation. Jesus is affirming the presence of the law which continually acts as a mirror to show us our sin and need for Him. He is not abolishing the Law, but affirming it. He’s fulfilling it on our behalf, because we all inevitably fail—especially when compared to the standards He sets in Matthew 5:21ff. His statements must be taken in light of the rest of Scripture. The ceremonial laws set in Leviticus were for the Hebrew people in the Covenant of the Law. We are not bound by these laws, as stated in other passages (Acts 10:15, Colossians 2:16, Galatians 5:6, and elsewhere). To argue otherwise is to argue against Scripture.  It is to argue by selective observation (a logical fallacy).

**I’ve taken a question out of chronological order here, which I generally don’t do, as it felt a bit like a summation to me. As this will likely be the final formal response from me in this particular debate, I thought I’d use it as a conclusion of sorts. It is now the final response**

“Arguing against Christianity by saying it’s bad does nothing to its claims of truth, making the argument an ad hominem attack on the character of Christians rather than an attack on Christianity.”

You mention two separate things here;
1) Arguing that Christianity is bad, and
2) arguing that Christian’s are bad.
Though I would suggest that there is no way to disassociate one from the other. You need only imagine everyone that self labels as a Christian suddenly vanishing from existence – does the religion remain? Of course not. The people ARE the religion.
Arguing that Christianity is bad does indeed call into question the claims of its truth, as it is claimed to be good. If it is shown that it is bad, it is also shown that it is false. Showing that Christians are bad, at best, would show that either the message is terribly unclear (and after two millennium, likely undecipherable to the degree that anything more than a negligible consensus can be achieved), and at worst that it simply, as a system, doesn’t work.

To illustrate with analogy; I imagine a company manufacturing some product. It is shown, let’s say, that none of this company’s worker’s produce anything of merit (or very few if you prefer). Perhaps they are lazy, have a poor work ethic, or arrive to work drunk each day. Whatever the reasons, they each produce substandard products that make it out the door. An outsider visits the company site, and sees all of the substandard products and remarks that the company is substandard. How could one maintain that this company is good despite it continually turning out inferior products? I argue that they couldn’t. Reverse engineer the old garbage in, garbage out saying. If after thousands of years there is still no consensus as to the meanings contained in the bible, and evil is still routinely performed in its name, it is time to reevaluate the merit of the texts.

This is an example of a false analogy. It also again shows a misunderstanding of the core of Christianity. Just as you feel the need to correct me by saying atheism is not a belief, I must correct you by saying that Christianity is not about being good people. To argue against Christianity on the basis that its people are bad is to ignore the central claim of Christianity, that we are sinful, that Jesus washed away our sins in His fulfillment of the law and offering as a sacrifice for our sins, and that Jesus Christ is Lord God over all.

If you want to argue against the track record of the organized religion of Christianity, one can do it in the fashion Harris is doing. But that is to ignore the truth claims of Christianity. Not only that, but Christians acknowledge their own sinfulness that has been around since the fall into sin. It sets up a straw man in place of the truth claims of the argument by saying “you claim to be good [I don’t], and your religion claims to make people good, so you should all be good or your religion is wrong” Christianity is about the core beliefs I outlined above, not about being good. To say a Christian sins is to confirm what the Christian knows: all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God (Romans 3:23). The institution of the church itself is not inerrant.
“(i.e. condom use, etc.) could be valid against Catholicism, which is not the Christianity I (and about 50% of Christians) ascribe to.”

Certainly you aren’t writing off one of the most powerful and influential churches in history, along with over a billion adherents, as not relevant to a discussion about religion?
I think it reasonable to assume that when he addresses those that hold such beliefs about condom use for example, that it’s understood that he is actually speaking to those that have that particular belief, no? He was after all, addressing the entire nation, of which a good quarter of are Catholic.

I must simply point out that once again a stance of the Catholic Church or other church on an individual issue is to argue about points that aren’t central to the teachings of Christianity. The church can mess up, the church can error. This is because we are human, and it does nothing to the claim that Jesus is savior.

“It seems dishonest of Harris to assert that atheists are completely different…”

I would ask that you give a single example of something that all atheists share other than the lack of a belief in god, if you found that dishonest. Or was it merely the comparison?

It was for comparison.

Day states, “By applying his metric to the state-wide voting instead of the more
precise and relevant county,…”

OK, brakes please. Though I dread the thought of this, if you would like to proceed with these mountains of data, I will be obliged to do so – but only after I check all of these numbers for myself, and from both angles mentioned. I am not prepared to take either of these men’s assessments on…faith, any further. I was willing to stick out my neck a tiny bit as to the veracity of Harris’ method, but to debate specific numbers from his and another source, neither of which I have verified myself, is a bit much – not my style. I couldn’t in good conscience do so. This would of course take a bit of time, so let me know if you wish to argue this to its end.
I can be rather obsessive with research, and will hand you the specifics on a platter with references sited, likely with better detail than both of them. But I ask you be certain this is something worthy of your debate, as it will take quite some time to compile, and it was not my original intent. That said, I am willing.

I will continue to assert I believe that either way this statistic is utterly unimportant. I would like to simplify any search you want to make by pointing to the CIA World Factbook on the U.S. (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/us.html ) and its stats on religion: “Protestant 51.3%, Roman Catholic 23.9%, Mormon 1.7%, other Christian 1.6%, Jewish 1.7%, Buddhist 0.7%, Muslim 0.6%, other or unspecified 2.5%, unaffiliated 12.1%, none 4% (2007 est.).” Atheists are decidedly a minority. It seems illogical to point to atheists as the reason for less violence in an area. It also is reading into statistics, a lot. Overall, I just think this entire argument is nothing but irrelevant. Unless you really want to argue that it is relevant somehow, I’d be happy to drop it.

“Day points to a 2001 ARIS study that shows that 14.1% of Americans are atheists.”

Again, the research would need to be done on my end to go much further with this.

“I’ll concede again that I should have been more clear here. Harris does admit that religious people do good things, but it seems to me that his argument centers around the idea that no religion = better people.”

I think that’s a fair assessment of what he says, or at the very least, that religion is not required to do that same good. But I believe what you’ve said here is valid, yes.

“He seems to argue that if religion were removed, more good would be done.”

I believe he does, if for no other reason than the impediments that religion erect – i.e. the issue of condoms mentioned (and the hordes that die because of it), the IUD (birth control) issue and the related cancer tat results, the stem cell research issue… – all of which that, if it were not for the church, would save innumerable lives.
So yes, if religion would stop attempting to legislate morality, much more good could be done. Removal of said religion would likely produce the same effect, though I am not advocating it’s ‘removal’. I’m unclear as to whether or not he is. I didn’t get that impression, but it would depend on how you mean removal, of course – and by what means would be of utmost importance.

This is utilitarianism to the max: What makes the greatest good for the greatest number of people? I don’t think this is a valid moral stance to take whatsoever. The biggest problem is one of the classic examples against utilitarianism: Let’s say that there are 1,000,000 people whose happiness would increase if a minority group of about 100 people were killed. Simply following utilitarianism, one would have to advocate killing these 100 people. A counter argument could then be made that being dead is a very big unhappiness, while the 1,000,000 people wouldn’t be super happy about it, just a little happy. But what if 1,000,000 people would be happier if 1 innocent person were tortured? What if they’d be happier if 1 innocent person were just beaten? Either of these cases seems wholly within the utilitarianist view of ethics. But we can see they are clearly wrong (unless one wants to argue that torture or beating an innocent person can be a good thing). To argue on the basis of a utilitarian view is to accept that ethical stance as a standard of judgment, which, as we’ve just seen, is awkward at best.
“I could stand to reword that part of my blog entry, but again I don’t think I’m attacking a straw man when Harris specifically tries to detract from the good that religious people do (i.e. his Mother Theresa example in which he says she was “…deranged by religious faith.”) If she were not so deranged, she would have been better. That seems to be a valid way to argue from what he is saying.”

When you stated “whether people like Harris want to admit it or not.” you in fact posited something that he did not say, and then refuted it. That is essentially what a straw man is, to set up and refute a position that your opponent did not take.

With regards to Mother Theresa, I have very little information as yet – though it is now  apparently available. Hitchens also has some pretty scathing things to say about her in ‘God is Not Good’. Regardless, I would hesitate to argue her virtues, but would also caution you until you can digest information that surfaced (I believe from her personal letters?). It’s worth taking a look at from what I gather, as it is rather illuminating and casts her in a grim light after all. It was this information that he was basing things on, not the old, untarnished saintly image she’s enjoyed in the past. It’s something I need to look into as well.

Harris wants to discredit the good that religious people do by name calling. Attacking Mother Theresa is simply an ad hominem fallacy. Further, I’ve read some of these things from her diaries, etc. They point to her having the same struggles as all people of faith do—wondering if we’re doing what’s right, wondering if God exists, etc. That doesn’t seem damaging to me.

“…doesn’t do anything to hurt the message of Christ…”

This is one thing we may agree upon, for I have no particular malice towards the figure of Christ, nor much of his teachings. Not all mind you, but much of them. It is religion as a whole, and the behavior of its adherents that I find to be a problem, not the teachings of one philosopher. It is the interpretations of that philosopher, the justification – however ill advised – in his name, the imposition of this code of morality through legislation on to those who do not share the beliefs, etc. Not the man.

Christ claimed to be God. To call Him simply a philosopher does no credit to what He did and said while He was on earth. I’d agree that Christians do not always (or perhaps even often do not) follow the teachings of Christ. This is something I think the church does deserve criticism for—embracing a morality that wasn’t Christ’s. Dietrich Bonhoeffer does a good job in his book “The Cost of Discipleship.” But that is a whole other issue, seeing as how we agree truth claims are untouched.
“It is wholly possible that Christians do good things out of the kindness of their hearts.”

Agreed, it is possible.

“…it implies that the only reason a Christian does good is for reward,…”

I’ve certainly heard this argument, yes. There are many Christians that do just this – as wrong-headed as it may be. But I would tend to focus more on the ‘do good because they are commanded to’ aspect myself. I argue this from personal experience with a rather substantial number of Christians, both on line in and in real life. The quotes from many-a-video for example of Christians stating that;
1) If it weren’t for biblical morality spelling things out for them, they’d likely be completely immoral (I kid you not – perhaps you would be surprised by how many say such things?). -that what prevents them from committing these acts, is that it says so in the bible. ‘How else would one know right from wrong?’ they say.
coupled with;
2) Their complete inability to grasp that an atheist, because they do not have this book that they follow, can still be quite moral indeed. It seems utterly unfathomable to them. That to me says a great deal about their morality.

I am deeply saddened to hear #1 and 2 together. The Bible even says that “(Indeed, when Gentiles, who do not have the law, do by nature things required by the law, they are a law for themselves, even though they do not have the law, since they show that the requirements of the law are written on their hearts, their consciences also bearing witness, and their thoughts now accusing, now even defending them.)”-Romans 2:14-15.

Thus, Scripture itself shows that those without belief can know and do the requirements of the Law. The core argument, however, is based on an assumption [that Christians only do good for reward] that is not a logical truth and is invalid.

“The point you make about the result being the same is interesting, given that you just argued above that it is somehow better to do good things without a responsibility to do so.”

It seems you are confusing the result, with the intent? Yes, I maintain that the intent of said act is important when attempting to assign a value judgment to that act – even if the outcome is identical.
For example, giving a large sum of money to charity when one has little to give would rightly be considered more altruistic, than giving money when you’ve plenty to give because you expect to get a tax write off.

Your correction from obligatory to objective is noted. Though if I were a student of Freud… 😉

Again this whole argument is based on the assumption that Christians have questionable intentions when they do good (i.e. they do it for wanting a reward). This may be true for some, but it is untrue to apply it to all. It also seems to assume that the only reason atheists or nonreligous people would do good is out of the kindness of their hearts. This also seems an invalid assumption, as [you noted] tax write offs and other rewards (a feeling of being a good person, having others see how charitable one is, etc.) could influence some.

“One could make the same argument for the history of irreligion.”

By irreligion, are you referring to essentially every cause not directly tied to religion (as it can mean absence of, indifference to, or hostility towards religion)? If that’s the case, then I would certainly agree. Religious reasons for violence vs. every other possible reason for violence…religion might stand a chance in that instance!

It seems like you had access to “The Irrational Atheist” by Day judging from your more recent e-mails, and so can see that from the Encyclopedia of War one can determine that religion is the cause of 6.98% of war. This seems to undermine the idea that it is a major cause of war in the world.

St. Augustine said “We are never to judge a philosophy by its abuse.” I believe that violence in Christianity is not just abuse of Scripture, but it goes against the core tenants of the teachings of Christ and the beliefs that the church was founded on. The same beliefs that exist in the core of Christianity today.

“I think simply looking at an overall # of death rate, it is possible that irreligion has lead to more violence than religion.”

I don’t know that that would be possible, but I would be interested as well in the results of such a tally. One reason of the cuff, is that the inherent inequalities in technology, transportation, etc. presented by the times would make comparable calculations impossible. Much like how we adjust today’s value of a dollar to day’s of old to see how much something was worth a hundred years ago.

By the time a man could openly admit being atheist without fear of being say, burned alive by the church, technology had progressed by leaps and bounds which always, always translates into more advanced warfare. So certainly these (atheist) leaders that you site had much more gruesomely efficient ways of disposing of their fellow man than did their theist predecessors. I shudder to think of the Catholic church (for example) having in their possession advanced WMDs during the dark ages.
I’d still be morbidly interested in the count if it were possible, but it would hardly be equatable.

Your use of “Dark Ages” exposes a presupposition against religion. Historians in general are completely abandoning the phrase because it paints a picture different than what is historically true.

Arguing that the church being in possession of different technology would mean they would have killed more people is an example of a non sequitur argument. It doesn’t follow logically that the church would have used those weapons. It also is arguing from common sense—yet another fallacy. We can’t know what would have happened in this case. You can only argue that it “makes sense” that the church would have killed more. This does nothing in the sphere of logic.
“It is also worthy of note that Harris specifically tries to get around these people by calling them irrational and makes some attempt to try to put them outside of atheism…His argument here seems to be that these people are irrational, so they can be dismissed. Yet I’d make the argument that Christians in particular who try to use that belief system for violence are irrational. Either both can be discounted, or neither can.”

I think we’ve touched on this already, but it bares repeating even if we have. He attempts to stress, as does any atheist thinker I have read, that one can not be said to do something ‘because’ they are atheist.
This is because there are no tenets, beliefs, dogma, rules, laws, scripture…nothing necessitated by atheism, excepting a lack of belief in a god. This leads to nothing necessarily. Humanism, for example, may indeed have some things to answer for. I’m not the one to ask.
But atheism in and of itself says nothing, asks nothing, certainly instructs or demands nothing. It is a lack of belief. Period.
Therefore, one can not attribute any particular act to an individual ‘because they are an atheist’. I hope this becomes clearer to you as we go.

But one can say that an atheist does an action, i.e. Stalin killing millions of his own people. Also, this argument seems to smack of a double standard, because again, Harris specifically points to rationality as being the judge by which people can disassociate with people of the same background (i.e. atheist). If this is the standard, then those who kill in the name of Christ can be discounted as well.

I, however, don’t want to argue that atheists are violent automatically, and I believe it is wholly false to do so for religious people, especially in light of the evidence (like that of wars).
“1. God is morally perfect   and   2. God commands killing
are incompatible…alternative readily makes itself available: 3. There are some whose moral depravity is such that God will not suffer them to live”

Of course, this only works (assuming for the moment that it does in fact work) if you assume that number 1 is in fact true. I have no reason to suppose this. I would further suggest that this argument places the proverbial cart before the horse. To judge an entity as morally perfect in advance, and then proceed to insist that all of his actions are moral because of this and based on nothing else – certainly nothing objective – is completely backwards for a reasoning animal.

I expect this may come up in our future dialogue, so I’ll leave it at that.

I do indeed assume that God is morally perfect in that post because the argument is against Christian theism, which asserts that God is morally perfect. The argument says that those two points within Christian belief are incompatible. So it is a completely valid presupposition.

Further, Alvin Plantinga points out in “God, Freedom, and Evil” that the theistic definition of God is a maximally great being—maximally great would include maximally great in morality, hence God is morally perfect.

To argue with me on that point is to miss the entire argument. Theists are attacked on their own idea that God is morally perfect, so that premise is simply granted for anti-theists to argue against.

“…clearly not recording stories of massed killings in the name of the Lord for the sake of showing God’s moral imperfections (which, I would argue, points even more towards the innerrancy of Scripture, but that’s a whole other issue),”

Yes, the idea that the more outlandish the possibility, the more true is the statement. I’ve heard many versions of that very peculiar argument, but I wouldn’t mind hearing yours at some future point. This is why the tacking on of miracles to the old, rather dry bible, had such a profound effect. Sadly, it works.
Interesting use of adjectives there. What this paragraph has shown is simply an argument based on nothing. I could call atheists anti-theistic arguments dry and old and have similar logical effect—none. Please refrain from such terminology in the future of our debate. I’d like to keep it at a more intellectual level.

Further I’m not sure what you’re implying when you say the “tacking on of miracles.” Surely you are not implying that miracles were written into Scripture later. That would be an interesting argument to make, and the burden of proof would certainly be on the affirmative.
“Those who argue that the God of the Bible is evil are merely skimming scripture for verses they believe will back them up in out-of-context situations.”

That’s a rather rash and sweeping generalization. Along with many other theists, you rest on the position that if one does not come to the same conclusion as you have, that they must not have read it. I imagine you know full well this is not the case.

I would further submit, that there is simply no context that one can place some stories of the bible in, to somehow make them justifiable (sending bears to rip apart children for teasing a bald man comes to mind, and that’s one of the less extreme stories. There is no proper context for this that would elevate to some moral platitude, no moral justification whatsoever. It’s a disgusting little story used to frighten people, and nothing more).

Are you suggesting that you have the authority to interpret Scripture? Reading is not equivalent to understanding. There is a long line of people whose lives have been dedicated to hermeneutics, exegesis, and other methods of studying scripture who have not come to the conclusion that it endorses violence. The church fathers, St. Augustine, St. Thomas Aquinas, countless studies in Systematic Theology,  and modern voices in the church (Bonhoeffer, Van Til, Walthier [maybe not so modern]) and the like can all be found to assert a central teaching that Christ is Lord and savior. The teachings of Christianity are not of violence. To take the extremists as the norm is to be intellectually dishonest.

Not only that, but to claim that one outside the church (i.e. yourself) can find scriptural authority to back up violence the church has endorsed is to employ the argument from authority. You’re claiming yourself as the authority on scriptural intepretation and as the authority to judge the motivations of the church now, or hundreds or thousands of years ago. That alone is enough to reject such an argument. I’ll not deny that you can read the Bible, but to argue that you have better knowledge of it and its meaning than those within the religion, with accumulated knowledge of thousands of years, is false. And I can say all of this without appealing to God. There’s simply no way to justify you placing yourself in the position to interpret scripture over and above the actual authorities on the text.

Now this is also an argument from authority, but one that trumps yours. And an argument from authority, whilst weak and not formally valid in logic, is informally an argument that can be made within the structure of logic—in that we can show that people who are experts in the field (not us) have this position. The problem is that your authority (yourself) is not even close to the authority of thousands of years of accumulated students of Scripture backed up by entire fields of study that are governed by the rules of logic and have an intimate knowledge of the religion.

“by the assertion that God’s role as Judge could mean He cannot allow certain evils to pass unpunished.”

Again, the evil of teasing a man about his baldness required that children be mauled by bears? Is this god’s idea of the punishment fitting the crime?

“but it is also to argue without a knowledge of the culture that such a text originated from.”
Again, children – teasing – bears. In any age, that is simply sick. We can get more into other stories of course, that one is just so elegantly morbid, it served well.

I don’t really want to go through and discuss every violent story in Scripture. But if you’d like to, I’d willingly go over each one at length. Because the bear story is a hard one, it bears (pun unintentional) repeating:

“From there Elisha went up to Bethel. As he was walking along the road, some youths’ came out of the town and jeered at him. ‘Go on up, you baldhead!’ they said. “Go on up, you baldhead!’  He turned around, looked at them and called down a curse on them in the name of the LORD. Then two bears came out of the woods and mauled forty-two of the youths.” -2 Kings 2:23-24.

An initial point I’d make would be to point out that we are not the judges of the world, God is (according to my worldview—which whoever brings this argument up is arguing against, so my presupposition is valid). Therefore we do not define what is “morbid” or “sick,” God does. Arguing that God is evil because of this act is to stand in judgment of God. This is unacceptable from a theistic view which presupposes His supremacy.

But I do believe a better explanation is needed in this case. I used a couple sources here, but my main one was Geisler’s “The Big Book of Bible Difficulties.”

1. These men were holding the prophet of God in contempt (see previous chapters and verses to see just how God selected this prophet). This was no innocent mocking, but a direct attack on God’s authority, as Elisha was acting as the voice of God to the people. Hence, these young men were mocking the voice of God.

2. These young men were not innocent. Their great number compared to Elisha shows the danger he was in, especially in light of their sin of mocking God. Not only that, but it says the young men came out of town to jeer at him. They didn’t want the confines and authority of the city to limit the actions they could take. Calling him a ‘baldhead’—a reference to the baldness of the lepers was another sign of the contempt with which they held Elisha. He was not safe.

3. Elisha’s curse served as a warning and a sign. He was God’s prophet, and God would not suffer threats or mocking.

4. The nature of their mocking becomes clearer looking at what they say. “Go on up…” When looking at what had happened just before (Elijah ascending into heaven), it can be seen that this was essentially a challenge to Elisha’s authority as God’s prophet. The Hebrew word here, alah refers to “ascend.” It is the same Hebrew word used in 2 Kings 2:11 to describe Elijah’s being taken into heaven. What cannot be seen in the English is revealed in the Hebrew.

God’s punishment can then be seen as protecting His prophet, a warning, an act of Divine Judgment, and a confirmation of Elijah as prophet.
“This is an issue of semantics and I’m willing to concede the point that Harris does not adhere to Jainism.”

Though I appreciate the concession, I have to make this clear.
‘Semantics’ is generally conjured when the difference between words is somewhat trivial, and not important to the point being made. When you pronounce a very well known atheist who’s made it his work to combat religion, an adherent to a religion, that is certainly not just semantics, but an egregious error that I felt needed correction.

“Though it is clear that he has some interesting views on spirituality”

I believe you are referring to the fact that he practices meditation perhaps? I’m not clear on the significance of this? To be clear, it is meditation utterly devoid of anything ‘supernatural’ if that helps.

I was hoping we wouldn’t have to get into this.  http://skepdic.com/news/newsletter74.html#3 “Harris presents himself and atheism as rational, yet he doesn’t apply very rigorous standards of rationality when dealing with the subjects of reincarnation and the paranormal.”

“’These are people who have spent a fair amount of time looking at the data,’ Harris explains. The author … Dean Radin … proclaims: ‘Psi [mind power] has been shown to exist in thousands of experiments.’”

“That Harris would take seriously Stevenson’s beliefs about xenoglossy is disconcerting.”

I also find it hard to believe that this is coming from a man who claims to be a voice of reason. Harris indicates that Stevenson’s stories about xenoglossy are either true or they’re fraudulent, which is a false dichotomy. Stevenson could have gotten the translation wrong, he might be gullible, he may have made a mistake, he may be  exaggerating, or  he could be a pious fraud. Harris says that he can’t see how something could be a fraud if it makes so many people miserable. What about religion?”

“The fact that I have not spent any time on this should suggest how worthy of my time I think such a project would be. Still, I found these books interesting, and I cannot categorically dismiss their contents in the way that I can dismiss the claims of religious dogmatists.”- Harris

http://atheism.about.com/od/godlessatheistpolitics/tp/SamHarrisProfileBeliefs.htm

“Most criticism of Sam Harris comes from religious theists, but secular atheists have also found things to disagree with. The most prominent criticisms from atheists probably focus on his ideas about “rational” spirituality and mysticism which sound to many like little better than the sort of mysticism served up by traditional religions. Harris argues that “we cannot live by reason alone” and that it’s possible to tune one’s brain to perceive the world differently than usual and that this lies at the heart of spiritual traditions, including religious ones. He believes it’s important to cultivate skills in this area, not just to cultivate skills at skepticism, science, and critical thinking.”

Quotes from The End of Faith:

“There is clearly a sacred dimension to our existence, and coming to terms with it could well be the highest purpose of human life.”

“Spirituality can be—indeed, must be—deeply rational.”

“Clearly, it must be possible to bring reason, spirituality, and ethics together in our thinking about the world. This would be the beginning of a rational approach to our deepest personal concerns. It would also be the end of faith.”
“combined to his specific exclusion of Eastern religions from his general attack on religion show at least a predisposition”

Predisposition? No, I wouldn’t extrapolate that at all. If anything, I would guess (and that seems to be what we are doing now), that he prioritizing. That is, focusing his efforts on the religions he sees as the largest threat to our well being (i.e., the Abrahamic faiths).

“Fair enough, then I’ll say that these men were atheists. The people who did violence and were Christian can still be compared to as a legitimate analogy. Atheists who do violence. Christians who do violence. I’d argue both are bad.”

Yes, of course both are bad. No one in their right mind would argue other wise in my opinion. The point being, that a theist has a book chock full of violence that their god has committed or commanded others to commit, on which they base their morality. They have used this for centuries to justify some very nasty behavior indeed!
The key difference when one tried to attach some act to an atheist ‘because’ he is atheist, is that there are no such texts, tenets, dogma, etc. as mentioned. I’m repeating myself too much now, I’m sure you’ve understood.

I’m repeating myself too much too. As my friend pointed out, justifying claims doesn’t make something true or valid. Eisegesis is not the same as exegesis.

“Belief in a God can, however, give an objective standard by which all actions must be judged. Thus there is a better basis by which to reject certain actions than if there is no objective standard.”

I’ve more responses to this than would be manageable. I’d like to merge it with the above questions of objective vs. subjective morality above, and give them a separate debate. It deserves and requires it in my opinion, as I hear nothing more frequently from theists, than the morality questions.

Agreed.

“To argue that Christianity is violent is to go against the core teachings of Christianity from its founding”

Yet it stands in direct opposition to the reality of what the religion has produced in practice. In this case, the intent of the original if it is as you posit, and I’ve no particular reason to object, does nothing to rescue the reality of what it has been, in reality, in practice. The reality trumps the ideal.

Reform in the Church has been needed in the past and will be needed again.

“as we do have a strict definition of what it means to be Christian in the Bible.”

Again, those 30,000 sects scream loudly that the clarity you believe you have is either an illusion, or 29,999 sects have it wrong, and you got very, very lucky by picking precisely the right meaning. Additionally, that number is undoubtedly much larger concerning those that disagree on the meaning. Certainly even you, in your own congregation, disagree about the meaning of some text with another in your flock. I pick that number because it is easily understood.

You’re confusing doctrinal differences with theological ones. Christianity is built on Christ as savior and Lord. The “30,000 sects” have disagreements about things that are not the core of Christianity. I trust I will not have to repeat this again.

“Christians who use the Scripture to justify violence have missed what Christ himself says about violence.”

Ah, but we just got a little closer. I don’t deny this. I am not necessarily saying that all the evils done in the name of the bible, were done in the “true spirit” of what Christ taught.
But it is this vast majority, that are in your eyes ‘getting it wrong’, that comprise the religion, and dictate the policies of the religion on massive scales. It is they that are fighting the wars, killing the doctors, withholding the birth control, mutilating the genitals, retarding scientific progress, urging the end times by deliberately flaming the wars in the middle east, interjecting their pseudoscience into public classrooms, wedging their warped agendas into politics, into ours laws…it is they that OWN your religion and always have. If you are this type of Christian that I think you are claiming to be, you are indeed a minority, and you should be as horrified by their actions as I am. They are a death cult, pure and simple. And these are only the more overt damages caused by religion, speaking nothing yet of the psychological injuries it necessitates among other things.

Ad hominem attacks against Christian actions don’t dispute the truth claims of Christianity. They can dispute individual doctrinal stances, of which there are many differences.

Also, “retarding scientific progress?” That’s utterly false. Newton? Copernicus? Galileo? Pascal? Boyle? Leibnitz? Francis Collins? Bacon? Kepler? Descartes? Faraday? Mendel? Kelvin? Planck? Need I go on? Theists. All of them. I could make a longer list. I’m sure these names are easily recognized. Einstein was a deist, not an atheist. It seems clear that there have been a number of rather major scientific discoveries by theists. I challenge you to claim that someone like, oh, Gregor Mendel, was “retarded” by religion.  These men were not “retarded” by their faith.

“Conceded. Though the atheism you are describing is a “soft atheism” that goes against the definition of atheism as seen in both the Encyclopedia of Philosophy and the Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy”

I would actually refer you, rather than a definition in a book, to the real world community of atheists, where the type of atheism you seem to think is universal, is quite the minority.
http://richarddawkins.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=742
This is one sampling of the community at Richard Dawkins’ forums. Your version of atheism is trumped roughly 2.5 to 1. Incidentally, if you’re still searching for your ‘real’ atheist, they are there as well, and would love to speak with you I’m sure!

Argumentum ad populum. Here you’re arguing from consensus in order to redefine a word. “My version of atheism” is that which simply defines the term. Logically, your claim of a 2.5 to 1 ratio does absolutely nothing to the definition of atheism.

Also I’d at least like to think a book has a better chance of getting it right than a forum on the internet. The Cambridge Dictionary of Philosophy and the Encyclopedia of Philosophy seem to me better sources from which to define a term.

I never claimed my idea of atheism is universal. I claim that those who assert their atheism are actually just agnostics in disguise.
regarding this; “the definition of atheist was written by a soft atheist, afraid to embrace the totality of the stance.”

That’s just silly. I would say ‘offensive’, but I don’t offend easily. The majority of atheists I have met and spoken with (no small number), adopt the position they do because it is the intellectually honest position to take.
One can not know with complete certainty that ‘anything’ does not exist (or for that matter, does exist if you’re in the solipsist camp), and this is conceded by any thinking person. It is simply not possible. To claim such a thing involves FAITH, which most rational minds I’ve encountered, have little use for. It is not out of fear as you suggest, but out of integrity evolving from a carefully thinking, reasoning, logical mind.

“One can not know with complete certainty that ‘anything’ does not exist.” Hence the problem with atheism. Interestingly, “not knowing” is agnosticism.

“This seems ad hominem to me. Rather than attacking any specific argument, he is attacking, say, Catholics, for preaching abstinence”

The argument he puts forth throughout is essentially, that religion does harm. He lists in your example, many ways in which religion is doing harm. I see no ad hominem attack. Perhaps the personal nature of the address is what’s distressing you. It is, more than a formal argument here (which would take a very different form), as if he were standing before a room of people speaking to them. It certainly does contain emotional appeal, granted. But i would hesitate to call it ad hominem, as he is directly addressing the ills he claims are doing the harm.

But what is it that he is arguing then? If he’s arguing that religious people can be violent, I’d agree. If he’s arguing Christians have used scripture to justify violence through eisegesis—incorrect interpretation of the text—I agree. But it seems that he is trying to discredit Christianity with his argument, an argument that is arguing against the people within a religion, not against the beliefs of that religion. Hence it is ad hominem… unless he is simply arguing for reform within the church.
“Another thing I’d love to point out is that Harris is a wonderful example of the argument from atheism”

You’ll get no argument from me on that. I find the argument quite silly. I can appreciate what its inventor might have been trying to do, but I find the delivery completely sloppy, and as you say, never should have included the word ‘atheist’. I find it to be a play on words that just didn’t work well.

I’m glad.

**The following was moved to the end to act as a conclusion. I will break from form some for this reason, but I trust the ideas conveyed are still quite rational, and offer some insight…**

“As far as whether Christianity sanctions bad things, I think that is nothing but an unfair charge…It seems clear that the Christianity Christ preaches is not one that condones violence. ”

That is ‘seems clear’ to you is of little consequence to the reality that it is most certainly NOT clear to many, many millions who use it as their moral compass.

This would be one of the major points of contention. Allow me a bit of a diatribe in an attempt to explain…

But this is not now, nor apparently has it ever been, what the church (and ergo the majority its followers) has actually done in practice. This is indeed, the ultimate no true Scotsman fallacy here.
That the church itself, the institution that presumably has the clearest understanding of the meanings contained within the bible, has been the perpetrator of such unimaginable evil (just peruse the medieval torture devices crafted and implemented by the church for a tiny sampling of its horrific past) is precisely the point.
If the church itself, responsible for disseminating this sacred information to the masses, has acted thusly – what are the masses to take from this? The result is unavoidable – the hatred, bigotry, paranoia, intolerance, etc. that we see daily from the religious. They are only regurgitating what the church has fed them for centuries. This in no way exonerates them from responsibility of course, but certainly the vile men at the top of the heap have much to answer for. This is the ‘religion’ that those like myself are speaking of.

The cry I hear again and again, invariably, is that the other guy simply didn’t understand what the bible really said, or meant. But the one speaking of course, ‘has it’. They, of all the millions of believers present and past, understand the word of God like no other. They have unlocked the code at the end of the labyrinth which is the text of The Holy Bible. This would help explain the 30000+ sects of Christianity. There is simply no consensus as to what the book means or even what it says for that matter, and that, coupled with the unending amount of the physical and psychological brutality it contains…it is no wonder that such evil is committed in its name. It could hardly have resulted in anything else.

I suggest, that complete and unquestioning FAITH without reason or logic or evidence of any sort is the true violence. Blind faith in another man’s doctrine is a violence to the mind – a thinking, reasoning mind, which is truly the only thing that gives us our privileged status on this rock. Through faith, one seeks to extinguish this, and they succeed.
It was after all men that wrote these texts, codified them, rewrote them, translated them, added bits, subtracted bits, enforced them through the ages. And what evidence have we that these men had the authority to do so? These men told us so. They were instructed by God directly the theist proclaims. And we know this, as well, precisely because these men said they were.

At the end of the day though, honestly ask yourself, do you think that I or any other atheist cares in the least what thoughts you have in your mind? What faith you claim to have in some matter? It is precisely because of all of the things mentioned that we would even bat an eye towards a man of faith. I can’t imaging having given such things a second thought if it weren’t for the actions of the theist down through history, and more importantly to me – right now. I am perfectly content having someone believe whatever it is they choose…if they can refrain from attempting to force it on any one else.
So far, theists have been notoriously, almost constitutionally incapable of doing this. That, is the problem with religion.

The “no true Scotsman” argument applies if and only if there is no definition of what it means to be whatever it is that is being argued. Christianity has a clear definition within the Bible, complete with the command “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Any who does not follow that command and claims a Christian action is indeed not a true Christian, based on the central text of the religion.

I, too, shall now conclude.

Christianity has been the central belief of the Western world for well over a thousand years. During this time, there have been huge leaps in science, medicine, human freedom, and the like. The greatest discoveries in the history of science have all been made within a Christian era.

The Bible stands as a whole. Taking any single verse outside of the context and not allow it to be interpreted by the whole of Scripture is arguing from selective observation—a logical fallacy. One need only look at Systematic Theology and find that violence is not the result of the church, it is the aberration. I’m not claiming that I know Scripture well enough to interpret it perfectly. I’m claiming that thousands of scholars of the Bible over the past two thousand years do know it well enough to interpret it correctly. Those who have used it for violence suffer either the flaw of selective observation or they simply use emotional appeals—not scriptural ones—to make their point.

Christ Himself is the Light of the World. Christians are told in Ephesians 5:1-2: “Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” Scripture teaches clearly a life of love and peace for the Christian.

St. Augustine, in one of the greatest works in Christianity, “City of God” says of the Kingdom of God in Book II, Chapter 29, “The Heavenly City outshines Rome, beyond comparison. There, instead of victory, is truth; instead of high rank, holiness; instead of peace, felicity; instead of life, eternity.” This is what Christians look forward to: a city in which the standards of this world are no more. A city where holiness, truth, and felicity are enjoyed for eternity.

He says of a Christian life in Book XIV, Chapter 7: “When a man’s resolve is to love God, and to love his neighbor as himself, not according to man’s standards but according to God’s, he is undoubtedly said to be a man of good will, because of this love.”

The core of Christian faith is not doctrinal concerns over baptism, communion, or the like. Christians believe in the Triune God and Jesus as Lord and Savior. And the commands that are given are to love God and neighbor.

I close, with the words of Peter in 1 Peter 4:11, “If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ. To him be the glory and the power for ever and ever. Amen.”

Outside response to the Debate

A friend who read through the debate responded:

“I would suggest a simpler test; read the text of their holy scripture, and see if it advocates and/or sanctions said violence. If it does, the religion is violent. If its holy scriptures are replete with violent act after violent act, the religion is violent.”

–This is an Appeal to Authority Fallacy where he claims himself as the authority, how pretentious. A non-Christian, even one who once was a Christian, is not an authority on reading the Scriptures on behalf of the Church. A non-Christian CANNOT tell the Church what its Scriptures say and mean. If one would cite a systematics text then perhaps he would be claiming a good authority. Good luck finding one church body whose catechisms endorse or encourage such violence.

–The mere fact that both Christians and Jews claim the Hebrew Testament is proof that one outside of the religion cannot claim authority on the document. Christians look at the Hebrew Testament and see Jesus of Nazareth as the fulfillment. Jews do not. Someone from outside the Church or outside Judaism is incapable of looking at the book and telling us what it says when there are two paramount religions that fastidiously disagree on what it says. This may be accused of the Inflation of Conflict Fallacy, but let it be seen that I am not arguing that because Christians and Jews differ on the Hebrew Testament that the truth of it cannot be known (that would be Inflation of Conflict), I am merely illustrating that someone from outside the religion is an inadequate authority in claiming what the Scriptural doctrine is.

“…which is more moral: helping people purely out of concern for their suffering, or helping them because you think the creator of the universe will reward you for it?”
– or in my own words, ‘because he commands you to do so?’

–The two are not mutually exclusive, plain and simple. Not to mention he forgot the option: helping people in their sufferings and trials because Jesus Christ has helped you in your sufferings and trials… that’s not because God commands us to, it’s showing the same love to others that we have been shown.

“Again, I refer you to the above statements. Christians can use the very scripture their religion is based on to justify the evils they do.”

–I can justify that the Sun revolves around the Earth by standing outside & saying “See! The Sun is moving & I am not.” That doesn’t make it true or valid. This is the case with the Crusades, the Inquisition, the KKK & others who may claim Scriptural support for their prejudice, violence, & hatred. Justifying claims does not necessitate their truth or validity.

–Eisegesis is not Exegesis. & interestingly enough if one would actually read through some of the historical mandates for these violent acts, he would find a surprising LACK of Scriptural references at all!

–Crusades- Perhaps your adversary has not read the five versions of Pope Urban II’s sermon calling for the 1095 Crusade. http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/urban2-5vers.html Let him who is open to truth and capable of thinking and discerning read for himself the words that initiated the Crusades. Fulcher of Charters and Robert the Monk record only Scripture references superfluous to the actual command to march on Jerusalem (in defense of sacred sites). The Gesta Version indicates that there may have been a severe misunderstanding of what it means to take up one’s cross and follow Christ. NONE, Not ONE of the violent sections of Scripture is used to support the 1095 Crusade. Nor are any of the Scriptural references cited used in their proper context and meaning.

–Inquisition- Likewise, perhaps your adversary should read the Ad extirpanda from Pope Innocent IV which instituted the Medieval Inquistion (http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~draker/history/Ad_Extirpanda.html). The Spanish Inquisition was driven by the king and queen with the approval of Pope Sixtus IV, but let there be no mistaking it, it operated under royal authority! Similarly the Portuguese Inquisition came at the request of the King.

KKK- Clearly they did not understand the grace of God was first for the Jew then for the Gentile (and all the World) as it says in the Gospels, Acts, and Paul’s epistles.

I hesitate to call your opponent’s claims Straw Man since they are quite clearly spoken from nothing other than ignorance. How disappointing and frustrating.

The Supposed Explanatory Power of the Computational Theory of Mind

The computational theory of mind was brought up in a response to my other post on physicalism. This is a view that I personally believe can be utterly devastated by even a cursory examination through analytic philosophy.

The Computational Theory of Mind (CTM) essentially states that the mind can be likened unto a computer. This view is also known as the software view of Functionalism. It is the belief that the mind is essentially a computer program. Inputs are fed in, outputs are fed, well, out. The mind can be exhaustively described in these kind of relations. Sensory inputs, behavioral outputs, etc.

This is yet another way for atheists to try to escape the nasty mind-body problem.

There are several objections that can be raised against this view. The first is that the Functionalist/CTM view focuses on defining mental states through causal relations such as the outputs of behavior rather than the internal traits of the mental state itself. In other words, Functionalists could see two mental states as identical when they are not. An example could be the classic problem in philosophy about color.

Suppose Bob and Sally enter a room with various objects scattered about and they are told to find all the objects which are green and put them in a pile. Internally, Sally is able to sense color normally, but Bob is not. However, because they are both supposed to be in the state of sensing greenness, they are both functionally in the same mental state. But Bob senses all green objects as red, and all red objects as green. Therefore, internally, he and Sally are in different mental states, but because they sort the objects in the same way (Bob has always seen green as red, so when told to sort green objects, he picks out those which are red to him), they are in the same mental state according to functionalism.

Analytically, the problem is then that CTM/Functionalism would state that:

If there are two persons who have input x=> output B, then they are in the same mental state.

But it misses the possibility that input x could be A for person 1 but culd be C for person 2.

Thus, Functionalism would state that A and C are identical, despite the fact that they are not, because it has no way of  explaining the inverted qualia (specific experiential qualities).

Further, there is the classic Chinese Room example given by John Searle in “Minds, Brains, and Science.” Summed up, the Chinese Room states that one who has no understanding of Chinese could be in a room in which inputs are given in the form of Chinese characters on sheets of paper. This person has access to a book that gives appropriate responses to these Chinese characters. He or she then selects the appropriate response, enscribes it onto a sheet of paper, and puts it through the output slot. Now suppose the rulebook is so accurate that it can make it seem as though the person always has appropriate, even perfect responses to questions, small talk, etc. in Chinese. The person could then emulate entirely the ability to speak Chinese despite having absolutely no understanding of Chinese whatsoever.

This problem comes up within CTM/Functionalism because it discounts anything but the inputs and outputs. Functionalism/CTM would have to state that this person does literally understand Chinese, but that isn’t the case.

There are, as always, more ways to tear down CTM/Functionalism, but I believe that is good enough for now. As an alternative to dualism, CTM/Functionalism lacks utterly any explanatory power in terms of internalization, inverted qualia, and absent qualia. Adherents to CTM or Functionalism believe that it has better explanatory power. This is false.

Dualism, on the other hand, has explanatory power in terms of all of these. The acknowledgement of a mind that has understanding, direct access to inverted qualia, and can sort through actual mental states, so Dualism does not fail in the sense of absent qualia.

John Searle states it well, “Earlier materialists argued that there aren’t any such things as separate mental phenomena, because mental phenomena are identical with brain states. More recent materialists argue that there aren’t any such things as separate mental phenomena because they are not identical with brain states. I find this pattern very revealing, and what it reveals is an urge to get rid of mental phenomena at any cost.”

Moreland, J.P. & William Lane Craig. “Philosophical Foundations for a Christian Worldview.”Intervarsity Press.2003.

Walking in Faith as a Christian Philosopher

Okay, we all knew that there’s no way I could keep this blog limited entirely to apologetics.

Thus, here is the first non-apologetic post (other than the obviously satirical Evolution of the Rock)!

It is easy as someone who focuses so much on the philosophical proofs of God and the constant defense of Biblical inerrancy, the resurrection and Godhood of Christ, etc. to get completely overtaken in faith life by the scholarly side of faith. It’s so easy to stray from the narrow door that Christ opens. That verse, Luke 13:24 “[Jesus said]’Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to,'”  is one of my favorite things Jesus says in the Bible.It’s a reminder during those times that I tend to lose focus. The way is narrow. The door is narrow. And the only way to stay on that path or enter through that door is Jesus Himself.

It’s sometimes interesting to be aware of the spiritual warfare that is occurring, especially around one’s own life. It’s scary sometimes to realize that the minions of Satan will use anything, even one’s undying interest in Christian philosophy, to pull them away from Christ. I have plainly seen sometimes how I’ve been tempted away from diligent reading of Scripture or seduced into reducing faith utterly into philosophical arguments. It is in those times that I realize how real the battle is. It is in those times that God the Father never ceases to call me to return, and the Spirit never ceases to fill me. The life of a Christian Philosopher is one of continual effort. One must constantly fight the urge to reduce that most important thing–salvation through faith by grace–to philosophy.

There is nothing more wonderful than being called by God. Nothing can match the glory of the Holy Spirit’s presence. Those nights in which Christ calls me home to Him are the best nights of my life. Each day there are so many blocks placed in my path, but it is always the Lord’s call, His hand bearing me across the hard times, that upholds and uplifts me. There is nothing to do at times like this than rejoice and sing His Name. Jesus Christ is Lord over all!

[P.S.: The verse discussed in context, for the more insistent exegetes among us:

Then Jesus went through the towns and villages, teaching as he made his way to Jerusalem. Someone asked him, “Lord, are only a few people going to be saved?”

He said to them, “Make every effort to enter through the narrow door, because many, I tell you, will try to enter and will not be able to. Once the owner of the house gets up and closes the door, you will stand outside knocking and pleading, ‘Sir, open the door for us.’
“But he will answer, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from.’

“Then you will say, ‘We ate and drank with you, and you taught in our streets.’

“But he will reply, ‘I don’t know you or where you come from. Away from me, all you evildoers!’

“There will be weeping there, and gnashing of teeth, when you see Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all the prophets in the kingdom of God, but you yourselves thrown out. People will come from east and west and north and south, and will take their places at the feast in the kingdom of God. Indeed there are those who are last who will be first, and first who will be last.”‘]