Hi JazzTrance. I'm an orthodox Christian, so not surprisingly I disagree with much of what you write and do not find your arguments persuasive. Not long ago in this very forum I said that "Most of the arguments that atheists toss at me are so absurd and illogical that they tend to strengthen my conviction that Christianity is true." Your posts are fine examples of that phenomenon, for reasons that I'll state below.
First let me note a few things that I do appreciate about your blog. I like the title. I like the fact that you mentioned Orwell's essay Politics and the English Language. That's one of my favorite essays and I think people should pay more attention to the way that language is used to undermine and circumvent logical thought. And I do take an economic position similar to yours, preferring a market-oriented approach but acknowledging the need for some regulation. Now on to the criticisms.
First of all, you present no argument at all for why I shouldn't believe the claims of Christianity. You write things such as "a religious view (the meaning of which herein should be understood as an assertion in the truth of a God as per the world’s major, and minor, religious scriptures) is easily dismissed philosophically, scientifically, historically and sociologically/economically". That, of course, is begging the question of why religion can be so dismissed. I've met countless atheists who claim that they have arguments against religion. but only a couple who are actually willing to tell me what those arguments are. (Needless to say, in those couple cases I did not find their arguments persuasive.) If most atheists can't tell me their reasons for rejecting religion, I think I can be forgiven for suspecting that they don't have any reasons.
Regarding the simple question that your post refers to, I will be happy to answer. I was raised by atheist parents and was an atheist until age 23. At that point I was sinking into a morass of depression, alienation, hopelessness, and suicidal thoughts. I knew that it was impossible for me to save myself. Then Jesus Christ saved me. Because He Saved me, I now believe in Him. That is why I believe in God.
You say that "religion conservative". This is untrue, obviously. Some religious believers and movements are conservative, others liberal, and others don't fit well in either category. You say that religion is "the antithesis of scientific enlightenment". If so, then why were the earliest scientists such as Jean Buriden, Nicole d'Orisme, Nico da Cusa, and Nicolaus Copernicus all clergymen? Why were so many prominent scientists from Galileo to Kepler to Newton to Faraday deeply religious? Why is it that a country like the USA, which is well known for having a very religious population, produces so much scientific research, while countries where religion is banned such as Cuba and North Korea produce exactly none?
You say "Religion is truly irrelevant". If so, why do you write so much about it? If we judge by the space devoted to it on your blog, it would seem that you think that religion is not only relevant but the most important thing.
You also say this: "I understand that the natural response of the relatively uneducated will be to draw attention to the ‘vast array’ of god-fearing scholars at respected universities and colleges. ... The sheer minority into which these experts fit should provide further contextualisation." I'm unable to make any sense out of this. An educated person such as yourself certainly knows that on average, religious people in our society are better educated that the non-religious. (But just in case anyone wants to dispute the point, I've included below two links to posts on my blog where I've collected sixteen studies supporting that conclusion.) Since the religious are better-educated than the non-religious, how exactly do you conclude from that that the facts point against religion being relevant in academia? Logic would seem to point in the exact opposite direction of what you claim.
Hi AlexBP,
Do you not find my arguments persuasive in light of your Christianity? It seems suspect that you happen to have adopted the only philosophical position, of the thousands available, which run contrary to my arguments, broadly speaking (i.e. it seems unlikely that you should disagree objectively with my reasoning if you weren’t already predisposed to a rejection of my premises).
When you say that my posts are absurd, do you mean absurd in the everyday use of the word, or in the post-War French ‘existentialist’ sense of the absurd? I can’t respond fully unless you re-phrase that slightly, as I don’t want to misrepresent your argument. Illogical, on the other hand, I fully understand – your issue with my lack of presentation of logical arguments against God’s existence is correct, however I specifically stated that I believe arguments for God’s existence are an extremely soft target for logical critique – rather than lowering myself to that level, I contend that should the mad-made nature of religion be articulated more specifically, then ‘nitty-gritty’ arguments become superfluous.
Please let me know whether you would be interested in debating the existence of god – I’m more than happy to do so, using formal logic trees, showing proper deductive technique from a foundationalist viewpoint to show not that god does not exist, but that there is no justified reason for believing that ‘he’ does. Alternatively, should you subscribe to a more systems-theory type view of epistemic justification, i.e. the total coherency of a metaphysical model being either strengthened or weakened by the insertion of a particular belief, then I’m happy to debate along those lines, whereby the belief in question carries a burden of proof (i.e. it is your position which requires justification, not the absence of your position, or an argument against the existence of God as you put it) and our model is represented by both knowable physical laws, the laws of causality based upon these natural laws, as well as potential a priori knowledge. Having said this, perhaps an email thread would be best suited to such an argument (happy to give you my email address).
It strikes me as surprising (not really, but for the sake of elucidation of my blog posts!) that you were ‘saved’ by Christ during a period of depression, alienation, hopelessness, etc. Do you believe you would have been ‘saved’ had you not been in such a state? Most adult religious converts I meet are of such a nature/emotional state. They need something. It would appear that their own state predisposes them to buying into a firm, easy-to-understand world view. I understand that ignorance is indeed bliss for a select few people, unable to confront the absurd (in my sense of the word). Incidentally, how indeed did said salvation occur? Was this a transcendent experience? Does it not bother you slightly that adherents to all world religions, both those that you and I have heard of and those that we haven’t, claim to have similar experiences? I think one should suspect their own motives to such an extent that if I was to undergo such an experience I would look very closely at my own disposition and needs before building my life around a suspension of the laws of nature in my own favour.
Regarding enlightenment versus conservatism – liberal (in a non-politicised sense) is not the opposite of conservative, progressive is. Religion is absolutely not progressive, and if any of its proponents are then this speaks volumes for their own deviation from their scriptures. Religion requires blind-faith in a bronze-age book/s and is, by definition, static at its core. Moral enlightenment has progressed in light of this; clergymen you mentioned (and others like William of Occam) existed in a time of more widespread religiosity, achieving their greatest work in spite of said religiosity, not because of it (incidentally Galileo was placed under house-arrest for proposing theories which ran contrary to the church’s teachings of the time, only recently receiving a formal ‘apology’ from the Vatican). Today, not historically, but today, religion certainly stands in opposition to progress of all kinds (look at the gay marriage debate, the proposed teaching of creationism in the classroom, a misrepresentation of the implications of scientific theory beyond the comprehension of non-academics, to name a few examples). If you are indeed also a student of economics, then the idea that research in the Western world and research in failed states like North Korea is most accurately delineated by their respective rates of religion is truly bizarre. Incidentally, ‘religion’ in the broadest sense as per my recent post, is well and truly alive in both of those countries in the form of strong personality cults.
My own blog does indeed state that religion is irrelevant, and I stand by this. Believe you me, my blog is not my primary occupation; any religious comments therein represent more of a ‘pet-hate’ rather than an all-important grievance. I am a postgraduate law student, with undergraduate degrees in both economics and engineering. I have studied both analytic and continental philosophy. I travel to the US once a year to play on the New York jazz scene, travelling also to Cambodia frequently to engineer houses in remote villages (devastated by a US-induced Khmer Rouge tyranny in the ‘70s), Ghana as part of a microfinance initiative aimed at empowering women (where the church driven inquisition against “witches” is alive and well), and country Australia working native-title in order to establish self governance in indigenous communities. I also work professionally part-time. My own reading deals with religion very rarely (I have just finished Bob Dylan's autobiography 'Chronicles', highly recommended from even a literary point of view). Religion is very much irrelevant in both my own life, and the lives of the intellectuals I surround myself with.
The suspension of one’s critical faculties is the antithesis of progress – ‘progress’ under a false guise is completely superficial. Suspension of one’s critical faculties runs completely contrary to the enlightenment ideals, which you alluded to in my written pieces (Renaissance ideals on the other hand, represented a period of enhanced ornamentation in the arts and architecture intended to inspire awe and fear in religious constituencies, harshly condemned by great Viennese architect Adolf Loos in his book ‘Why a Man Should Be Well Dressed’
. Intentional and premeditated subservience runs contrary not to enlightenment ideals but to fundamental humanistic values. The articles to which you draw my attention regarding academic performance in children show either a) a causal link between religious belief and ‘academic’ performance, which one should not endorse if it is indeed predicated upon ignorance, or b) a false causal link, more correctly attributed to quality of teachings in more religious regions, greater social welfare in said regions, etc. Academic performance here has been equated almost entirely with performance in adolescence, hardly a tertiary level achievement (or a post-graduate tertiary level achievement, the true litmus test for quality research and progress). I cannot pass up this opportunity again to state that the idea of the ‘religious child’ makes me feel sick in the gut; while I disagree flatly with Professor Dawkins’ foray into philosophy (his science is, obviously, ground-breaking) I completely endorse his labelling of adolescent religiosity as child abuse (your blog indicates you are all too familiar with the God Delusion, the atheist movement’s own soft target, but an important publication in principle).
By the way, religious people in my society are not usually the better educated – I am not from the United States, the most religious country in the Western world (discounting that statement for tiny states, like my mother’s homeland of Malta). Western Europe (the seat of most great scientific paradigm shifts), Japan, Australia, Canada and New Zealand are testament to first-world progression's detachment from religion (American progress on the other-hand is testament to your own countrymen’s progress in spite of religion).
Anyway, should you wish to discuss atheism at an analytic level (re. order of argument, epistemic justification of religious experience, a priori justified true beliefs, etc. or at the level of metaphysics re. causality and its idiosyncrasy to our universe/conception of time), do shoot me your email address and I’ll be in touch. Apologies in advance for any ill-founded assumptions regarding your personal circumstances – metacognitive considerations aside, I am truly glad that you are doing well and appreciate your comments/critique.
Kind regards,
Scott
