A good reason to be happy

I realised today that I have a very good reason to be happy. No matter what other misfortune I experience, the fact that the Judeo-Christian god almost certainly doesn't exist is a cause for great cheer. This might seem a strange thing to say, but the Bible describes the character of this god in some detail, and it is not one of absolute goodness. Rather, God is portrayed as belligerent, bloodthirsty, vengeful, jealous, and megalomaniacal. Those who doubt this should read the texts for themselves. It is disingenuous to attempt to define God as omnibenevolent, when the contrary evidence in the Holy books is there for all to see. Words can have no use if we can just redefine to suit our own tastes.

If such a god existed, and was present in our daily lives, then there is every reason to think that life in this theocracy would be similar to that in a totalitarian state. If we go by what the Bible tells us, then there would be no democracy, no freedom of speech and movement, no equality of sexes or races, slavery would be acceptable, blatant homophobia would exist, and death would be meted out for a large range of supposed crimes. Moreover, it would be totalitarian to an extent only dreamed of by leaders such as Stalin, Mao, and Kim Il-sung. As God knows your very thoughts, the level of surveillance and control would be absolute. You can’t even escape through death, as eternal punishment awaits you.

Of course, we might say, contrary to all of the evidence, that God is not like that, and would not institute such a system. However, such Christian luminaries as Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther paint a very different picture, with their support for blasphemy and other imaginary crimes being punishable by death. Some Christians might object that the New Testament gives a far kinder message, as preached by Jesus, and describes the new covenant between God and man. However, the New Testament still contains various odious strictures to hate one's family and abandon it (Matt. 10:35-37, Matt. 19:29, Mark 10:29-30, Luke14:26 etc.), and to kill disobedient children (Matt. 15:4-7, Mark 7:9-10). Furthermore, the second coming will see the destruction of any who do not accept Jesus (Matt. 10:14-15, Luke 10:12, Matt. 24:37, 2 Pet. 3:7,10). And God promises further death and destruction (Rev. 6:8, 8:7, 8:10-11, 9:13, 17-18 etc.).

However, the worst aspect of the New Testament is that it introduces the abhorrent concept of eternal punishment in Hell (Matt. 7:13-14, 13:42, 25:41, Luke 3:17 etc.) - which tells us much about God's personality. In some Christian worldviews, the avoidance of hell comes by accepting Jesus as one's saviour - which therefore condemns to hell all those who existed before Jesus lived, who don't hear his message for any other reason, or who have heard his message but have chosen to reject it in favour of some other belief system or of none. Some other Christians subscribe to the idea of predestination, in which entrance to heaven is down to God's personal whim, with those he rejects for his own inscrutable reasons being consigned to eternal damnation. Some Christians at least preach that entry to heaven is based upon the deeds of one's life, but it is still absurdly harsh to commit sinners (including those whose only 'sin' is a very rational lack of belief) to eternal punishment.

Moreover, the whole concept of the New Testament preaching a kinder message implies that God's personality or teachings have changed from those described in the Old Testament. But surely this cannot be so, as this would imply some sort of moral development or improvement on God's part, but he is by definition omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect. As such, how can he improve, and for what reason could he ever change his mind, since he already knows all there is to know?

For further evidence of God's character we need only look around us. What kind of an all powerful being, given an infinite amount of time, would come up with our world with all its attendant suffering? For most of human history, the majority of people have led short, brutal lives, and have died in pain - being killed by other humans, natural disasters, animals, hunger, thirst, or disease. Every day millions of people suffer and die horribly for no apparent greater reason, and no obvious benefit to themselves or others.

The whole of the natural world is so engineered that animals must compete for finite resources, and must kill and eat each other in order to survive. Sure, it might all be for some mysterious greater reason that only God knows about, but that type of ad-hoc reasoning could be used to justify anything. And trying to justify all of this suffering by recourse to the benefits of human free will, as a means of spiritual or moral growth, or as a test fail dismally too. The existence of human free will is a moot topic in the first place, with determinism and compatibilism arguing that it is fully or partially illusory, but is irrelevant anyway when considering suffering caused by natural disasters (earthquakes, floods etc). Furthermore, an all-powerful God could surely have created a system in which we had free will, but made it a law of nature that we could do no harm to others.

And, when it comes to moral development, surely God could have created humans to be virtuous and morally good in the first place, without any need for self-improvement. Even if some amount of suffering is necessary in order to allow for such virtues as compassion and heroism, the vast quantity of suffering present in the world hugely outweighs any supposed benefit. Was all of death and suffering of the concentration camps justified so that a few people would have the opportunity to be saintly? Further, some good people suffer terribly, whilst other bad people do not suffer at all. Why is that? Also, much suffering goes unseen by others. How is this beneficial to the sufferers?

The idea that our actions and our choices to believe in God and Jesus or otherwise are some sort of test is equally absurd. What need does God have of tests since, being omniscient and omnipotent, he must by already know what the outcomes will be? As he does know these outcomes, to choose to create human beings who he knows will fail his tests, and thus be consigned to hell, is the work of an horrific sadist.

Is the creator of all this the type of being whose rule we would want to live under, and who we should praise?

No, I for one am very happy that such a god almost certainly doesn’t exist

Why privilege reason over faith?

I would suggest that reason is a logical and rational way of justifying a belief. As such, it is a sort of methodology, and so is quite distinct from evidence – although evidence does play a key role when we are reasoning about the real world. It works by utilising such logical tools as deductive reasoning (e.g. all cats have 4 legs, Felix is a cat, therefore Felix has 4 legs), inductive reasoning (e.g. water has always been observed to freeze at zero degrees Celsius at sea level , therefore water always freezes at zero degrees Celsius at sea level), and abductive reasoning.

This last method attempts to find the best explanation for some phenomenon or other by considering which of the proposed explanations simultaneously best fits the available evidence, best predicts what we should expect to find if the hypothesis is true, is not falsified when we search for evidence that we would not expect to find if it is true, and is the most parsimonious (i.e. does not introduce unnecessary ad hoc assumptions). Mere consistency with the evidence is not sufficient, since I could invent an infinity of beliefs that are consistent with the evidence, but they would all be wrong.

In addition to this, the method of reason takes care to avoid a number of known fallacies and other errors of thinking or arguing that can lead to mistaken conclusions – begging the question, non sequitur, equivocation, anecdotal evidence, false dichotomy, argument from authority, ad hominen etc. When we don’t take care, we are liable to fall into one of many possible traps in our reasoning.

As to why we should hold reason in high regard, and privilege above other methods of enquiry, I would answer that it is the most consistently reliable way we have found of determining the truth. Whilst there are issues involving subjectivity, biases, cherished theories etc., these are human failings, or limitations in the evidence that we can obtain, and not a critical failing of the methodology itself. Over time, the application of reason does seem to lead to the discarding of false beliefs and a gradual homing in on the truth. There are still unresolved issues with the methodology concerning such things as the problem of induction, and what we can ever really know without reason or justification (brute facts), but nevertheless the method of reason has proved to be incredibly successful in advancing our knowledge of the world.

Some contend that faith, revelation, and spiritual introspection are more reliable ways of seeking the truth and justifying a belief, but I don’t think that this is borne out by the evidence. Beliefs generated and held by revelation and faith cover a multitude of conflicting theories about the creation, evolution, structure, and future of the universe and ourselves, and of morality. However, as they contradict each other in fundamental ways, they must necessarily all be wrong with the possible exception of one of them. But, since they are held to be absolutely true by means of faith, and are off limits to reason, how can we ever investigate and determine which, if any, of these ideas is true? This method of truth seeking therefore seems to lead to a huge variety of conflicting ideas, with no agreed way of confirming or rejecting them, and believers of each rejecting all the others - an impasse. Whilst we might be missing out on some great truth here, the fact that the religious landscape is one of confusion and contradiction means that we have no reliable way of knowing which this true revelation is, if any.

By contrast, when we hold a belief based upon reason, we can explain why we think the premises to be true based upon our evidence, and demonstrate that the argument is a sound one. The appearance of new evidence would perhaps cause us to revise or reject our argument, and hence our belief. Others can examine our evidence, and our reasoning, and either agree with the conclusion, or explain to us why we have gone astray. Hence, this way of seeking the truth is open to revision, and is therefore error correcting.

Some may argue that intuition is a reliable way to seek the truth. However, this is contentious. It does seem that, under certain circumstances, the processing that the brain does behind the scenes when we intuit leads to rapid and correct judgements. Also, our intuition may sometimes give us with a good direction in which to take our more formal reasoning. However, our intuition can also be highly unreliable. For example, studies have shown that the face to face interview is a poor predictor of how well an employee or student will perform. Computer programmes can do far better than this when they choose based upon a set of fine-tuned preferred criteria and a large range of relevant candidate data. Psychologists such as Richard Wiseman and Stuart Sutherland have studied and written about this at length.

Of course, this does leave open the question of why we should seek the truth at all. I think that there is probably no knockdown argument for this, but there a few possible answers. Perhaps having true beliefs helps us to improve the lot of humankind? After all, the advances that have happened in medical science have helped to prevent and relieve a huge amount of suffering. Before this, we really had no reliable way to deal with illness. Furthermore, if one has unjustifiable beliefs (either metaphysically or morally) then perhaps one is more open to committing or supporting the committing of atrocities. I think that Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities".

So, in general, I am inclined to think that cherishing and seeking truth (or, at least, belief justified by reason) about the universe, ourselves, and the human condition tends to lead to an improvement in conditions for humanity. Beyond that, there is the rather more tenuous idea that we find ourselves at large in a mysterious universe, so perhaps we have some sort of an obligation to try to understand it. Having said all of this, I think that one can make a good case that there is some knowledge that might be so dangerous that we would be better of not knowing it.

For example, I think that one could make a persuasive case that the knowledge of how to make nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons is so dangerous that we might have been better to have never acquired it.

One could object to this assertion in the following way:

1) This knowledge has also given us very useful and benign spin-offs that have been beneficial to humanity.
2) It was inevitable that we would acquire this knowledge anyway.

However, if this knowledge causes humanity to wipe itself out (as well as most or all of the other animals on the planet), as it may yet do, then I think that this would qualify as knowledge that is so dangerous that we would have been better off not knowing it.

I think it is clearly the case that humanity's inquisitiveness, ingenuity, and intelligence have enabled our knowledge and technology to increase at an exponential rate. However, any corresponding reduction in our belligerence, territoriality, xenophobia, irrationality, and our desire to control and dominate others has been far less marked, or perhaps negligible. This might yet be a deadly combination for humanity. To paraphrase Sam Harris, I think that humanity is approaching a bottleneck, and it is not at all clear that we will get through it.

Is God the simplist explanation?

Occam's razor is a very useful rule of thumb, or working methodology, to employ when we are attempting to adjudicate between competing explanations for something. It states that theoretical entities are not to be multiplied beyond necessity when attempting to explain observations. An alternative, broader, formulation is that, other things being equal, we should prefer a simpler explanation. That is, if we have two explanations that explain all the observations, then we should favour the simpler of the two. It is used extensively in science, but needn't be limited to that sphere.

We must be careful not to be misled by the notion of simplicity in Occam’s razor. Simplicity is not usually taken to be a metaphysical implication from the razor. That is, we are not presuming that the universe is inherently simple, and that therefore only simple explanations can be correct. Furthermore, we need to be careful to properly consider any implicit assumptions in our hypotheses.

When we examine the first formulation of Occam’s razor, we are really saying that we cannot assert what we don't know - we only assert what we actually have some proof for. Hence, if you do not need a particular entity to explain all that we observe, then you cannot claim observations support that entity's existence. For example, if I consider the theory of powered flight, I might say that it is explained by our current theories of aerodynamics. Alternatively, I might hypothesise that it requires one additional element: the assistance of invisible, intangible angels to help support the wings. However, this latter explanation falls foul of Occam’s razor, as I am asserting the existence of some entity for which I have no proof, and which is not required to explain the observations, as they are explained fully by our current theories. So, the razor cuts away these superfluous entities.

If I look at the second formulation, then another example might be hearing a knock at my door and, upon opening it, finding the postman standing there with a package for me. Given this, I might reasonably deduce that it was the postman who knocked at my door. However, it is possible that somebody else knocked at my door, but then ran away before I opened it. In the meantime, the postman arrived, but didn’t have chance to knock. However, this latter explanation, whilst possible, is far less parsimonious, and requires the introduction of additional ad-hoc elements for which I have no independent proof. Hence, Occam's razor would favour the first explanation.

These examples illustrate the reasons for the application of Occam’s razor: pragmatic ones. Firstly, if I am to introduce additional ad hoc elements to some explanation, then I could invent an infinity of competing explanations for some observation or other. I could concoct a huge number of explanations for the knock at my door by introducing ad hoc elements. However, only one is the simplest and requires no unprovable additional elements. If I do not give preference to this explanation, then I am in a hopeless position: a countless number of competing explanations that all account for the observations, with no way to discriminate between them.

In addition, we should prefer simpler explanations as these are the easiest for us, as humans, to deal with. They are more amenable to testing, and easier to model. Again, this does not mean that the simplest explanation is necessarily the correct one. In reality, this is often not the case, but we should only proceed along the route to complexity when it is called for by the observations.

Now, I believe that we can apply Occam’s razor to the question of the existence of God. If I can show that belief in God requires the introduction of more entities and assumptions than does a purely naturalistic explanation, then Occam’s razor will favour the naturalistic explanation.

Interestingly, Occam was able to reconcile his razor with belief in God. However, I think it is likely that he took belief in God to be an exception to his razor, as he considered it to be self-evident, and therefore above consideration.

Following the Christian convention, I am defining God to be:

· Omnipotent
· Omniscient
· Omnibenevolent
· The uncreated creator of the universe
· Specifically concerned with human beings
· Essentially immaterial or non-physical
· A person (hence the 3 persons of the Trinity)


When we consider the origin of the universe, there is superficial sense in which attributing this to God appears to be a parsimonious hypothesis. It certainly seems simpler: God did it much less messy and complicated than all sorts of cosmological and evolutionary theories. However, when we unpack the God hypothesis, it becomes obvious that this initial impression of simplicity is quite mistaken, as it contains many implications and implicit assumptions.

• Rather than being parsimonious, the God hypothesis is actually a hugely extravagant and bloated hypothesis. In order to explain the existence of the material universe, which is all we actually know to exist, it posits the existence of some other unseen supernatural realm that includes such entities as souls, heaven, hell, angels, as well as God itself – none of which have any independent proof of existence. This quite definitely falls foul of Ockham’s razor.


• In order to reconcile the God hypothesis with the type of universe and world that we actually see, we are forced to introduce a huge number of ad hoc assumptions to our God hypothesis. Why would God make a universe for us that is so big, almost entirely lethal to life, and that took billions of years to evolve? Why not make it all in one go, far smaller, and just right for us? In fact, why create a universe at all – why does God have any need for a universe. We could just be in heaven instead. Again, this falls foul of Occam’s razor, and we need to introduce all sorts of ad hoc elements in order answer questions such as these.


• Furthermore, why does an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent God allow so much evil in the world (both natural and man-made)? Surely this is not what we would expect from the God explanation? Again, we can attempt to explain this away (theodicy), but it requires the introduction of yet more totally ad hoc elements (necessity of free will, encourages virtuousness and spiritual improvement, all part of God’s mysterious plan etc).


• One advantage of positing God as the creator of the universe may seem at first sight to be that it avoids the regress problem, as God is defined as the uncaused creator of the universe (and therefore answers the First Cause argument). However, if God can be defined as existing with no cause, then we can simply say the same of the universe, and dispense with God. The universe becomes our ‘brute fact’, rather than God. This is more parsimonious.


• All that we really can say for sure is that there is some ultimate entity that exists without cause, and that led to the creation of our universe. The theistic explanation involves positing some immaterial, ultimately complex intelligence that has always existed, without cause, and has a huge number of very particular human characteristics and desires. By contrast, naturalistic explanations currently on the table (e.g. Chaotic Inflation, Smolin’s Multiverse), propose that a multiverse has always existed. These hypotheses are entirely compatible with everything that we know now about physics, are inferred directly from what we know now, predict the type of universe that we see, and do not involve the introduction of ad hoc entities or elements. They are therefore more parsimonious.


• You might think that the multiverse is itself an entirely ad hoc entity, and that it is not at all simple, but this would be a mistake. We are not just pulling the idea of a multiverse out of a hat, as our current scientific theories directly imply its existence, with some other new law of nature being required to limit existence to just the universe that we see. Moreover, the term multiverse is a little bit of a misnomer here, as we are still proposing the existence of just one universe. The difference is that this one universe is split into multiple ‘island’ universes, which are being continually created in ‘big bangs’, and of which ours is but one. Furthermore, the multiverse is entirely natural (matter, energy, space, and time), so it is just more of the same things that we already know to exist. By contrast, we have no experience of supernatural universe-creating entities.


• The reason that it makes good sense to use Occam’s razor when considering the origin of the universe is that, with the introduction of suitable ad hoc entities and elements, we could concoct an infinite number of competing hypotheses. All could be made to fit the evidence that we see, and any subsequent evidence that turns up. Hence, we would be in a hopeless position, with no rational way to choose between these rival hypotheses, as they would not be testable. This is the case with the usual formulations of the God hypothesis. However, if we can strip away these ad hoc elements, we would hope to be able to test our theories, and home in on the truth.

So, with regard to God being the creator of the universe, I think that Occam’s razor definitely favours proposed naturalistic explanations instead.

There are perhaps other things that we should consider at this juncture. How about alleged divine revelations or miracles? Does this give credence to the God hypothesis, and perhaps make God’s existence a more parsimonious explanation for the evidence? I think not.

Firstly, we have other, natural, explanations for supposed divine revelation. We know from experience that people lie, hallucinate, delude themselves, and can be deceived. In the cases of people who say that they have communicated with God, no good evidence is ever produced. None of these experiences has ever been independently proved beyond reasonable doubt, and they can always be explained by more mundane, non-supernatural means.

Furthermore, religious experience is present in many different religions, and produces largely contradictory and inconsistent claims. How are we to adjudicate between these competing claims? Most or all of them must be false, as they are contradictory (unless God is deliberately sending out such contradictory messages). It would be special pleading to accept any particular claims in the absence of any other good evidence. And, what would good evidence be? Perhaps currently unknown but testable scientific knowledge, for example. Of course, even if such good evidence was ever produced, there is still no way to confirm that such apparent divine revelation is actually coming from God, as opposed to any other entity – supernatural or not.

So, as all we have is what the experiencers tell us is going on in their heads, and this produces inconsistent and contradictory information, the parsimonious conclusion is that there is no divine revelation going on here.

The situation with regard to miracles is similar. We have no good, verifiable evidence that even one miracle has ever taken place in the whole history of humankind. All contemporary miracles have far more mundane explanations – tricks, lies, self-delusion, hallucinations etc. Many have been exposed as such. When we deal with historically recorded miracles, such as those in the Bible (including the Resurrection), the evidence is far worse. The people alive in Biblical times were ignorant of the workings of the universe, and were far more credulous generally, with alleged miracles being commonly witnessed. Furthermore, miracles were not confined to the Jews or the Christians, but were present in many other cultures too.

Moreover, with historical miracles, we have the additional problem of the veracity and authenticity of the historical documents in which they are recorded. The Bible, for example, is full of inconsistencies and contradictions - as would be expected of a book that is a collection of material written often years after the events described, by many different people who were geographically dispersed, and contained much previously oral material.

I would agree with Hume’s dictum on the subject of miracles:

"When anyone tells me, that he saw a dead man restored to life, I immediately consider with myself, whether it be more probable, that this person should either deceive or be deceived, or that the fact, which he relates, should really have happened. I weigh the one miracle against the other; and according to the superiority, which I discover, I pronounce my decision, and always reject the greater miracle. If the falsehood of his testimony would be more miraculous, than the event which he relates; then, and not till then, can he pretend to command my belief or opinion."

So, to summarise, based upon the evidence of the existence of the universe and us, upon supposed divine revelation and miracles, and the evidence of the Bible, I think that Occam’s razor strongly favours purely naturalistic explanations and dispenses with God.

Is any type of god compatible with Occam's razor? As soon as we start to start to drop some of the characteristics typically applied to God, it becomes easier to reconcile the existence of God with what we see when we look at the world.

For example, the problem of evil is a powerful argument against the existence of an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God. However, if we imagine that God is not all good, then the argument loses its power, since God then has no obligation or desire to remove all evil from the world. Likewise, if we imagine that God is not all-powerful then, whilst he might want to get rid of evil, he is might not be capable of doing this.

The argument from divine hiddenness is another powerful argument against the existence of the standard Christian God. Why would God’s existence be unknown to billions of people who have lived, or are alive today? Why wait until the last few thousand years, and then only reveal it to a handful of people in Palestine? None of the people who have never heard of God, or who choose to accept some other religion or none at all can enter heaven. Why would an all good God punish people for eternity for failing to believe in him? Why would God allow some much confusion over his true message to persist in the world? Is this the behaviour of a benevolent ruler who want us to be saved? But, again, if we imagine that God has no interest in human beings, then the argument loses most of its power, as God has no desire to give us such clear and unambiguous information.

So, once we start dropping the characteristics of omnipotence, omnibenevolence, omniscience, and interest in human beings, then God becomes much more inscrutable. It is difficult to predict what type of universe such a god would create. For example, our type of universe (very old, very big, and almost entirely lethal for us) might be compatible with such a god.

Furthermore, the concepts of the Holy Trinity and Incarnation would seem to be logically incoherent. How can God be at once immaterial, and a person? How can God be three distinct entities and, at the same time, just one entity? How can Jesus have been both God and man at the same time? Christian theologists have wrestled with these types of questions for hundreds of years, and are still in disagreement. However, if we dispense with the idea of the Trinity, of God being a person, and of Jesus being both man and God, then these problems evaporate.
What about divine revelation and miracles? As I wrote in a previous post, I think that reason and evidence leads us to reject these claims anyway. Moreover, a god who has no interest in human beings would probably have little use for such parlour tricks anyway.

How about the idea of god having some disembodied conscious mind? Well, we have a huge amount of evidence that consciousness requires a functioning material brain, and no evidence that a mind can exist without such a brain. Of course, we might speculate that disembodied minds can exist, but this itself falls foul of Occam's razor, as we are introducing an additional entity that is not entailed by the observations.

So, what are we left with after all of this? Certainly not the type of personal interventionist God that most Christians believe in. Rather, what we have after stripping away the typical divine and anthropomorphic attributes is some sort of minimal pantheistic type of a god.

This minimal god hypothesis is certainly far less extravagant and bloated than the Christian God hypothesis, and so is more parsimonious. However, even then I think that Occam's razor would still favour a naturalistic explanation. Just by introducing any god at all, we are postulating some sort of unfathomable supernatural entity in order to explain the existence of the material universe. Moreover, introducing this additional entity really gets us nowhere, since we still don't know what that god exists at all, why it has those properties, why it created the universe, and it still doesn't terminate the regress problem any better than does taking the multiverse to be our brute fact.

Personally, I would reject even this minimal type of a god in favour of our universe being created in a 'test tube' by some highly advanced alien civilisation, or of us living in a computer simulation, although I don't regard these as very likely either. However, they would still seem to be more parsimonious then god, since they postulate only natural entities. So, all things considered, I believe that Occam’s razor still favours the naturalistic explanation.

CFI London - Opening Ceremony

On Friday 18th January I attended a very interesting day of events for the CFI London Inauguration ceremony (in association with the South Place Ethical Society). Paul Kurtz spoke at the event, as did Stephen Law, Julian Baggini, Nigel Warburton, and others. Richard Dawkins even did an impromptu Q & A session. I have a few nuanced thoughts on some of the issues raised in the talks, and will elaborate on these here.

Stephen Law – Secularism: a Simple Test

His presentation was interesting and enjoyable - definitely one of the better talks of the day. My thoughts relate to a question that I asked him on the possible objection of the religious that secularism could be objected to on the grounds that it is an imposition upon them. Therefore, at the very least, we could be accused of hypocrisy, since we resist having the views of the religious imposed upon us.

My opinion is that a secular state is the best compromise when you have many competing religious and non-religious ideologies in a society, as it prevents the supporters of one idea from gaining total power and suppressing all other dissenting ideas. I think that a healthy society should allow for a marketplace of ideas, with the (perhaps unrealistic) hope that the better ones will eventually win out, but not by suppressing the others. The only ideas ruled out of court in such an environment would be those that violate people's basic human rights (a slightly slippery topic that I address more here), or the harm principle.

So, for example, intolerance of and discrimination against others based upon their sex, race, or sexual persuasion would not be tolerated, whatever the teachings of the ideology in question might say to the contrary. The reason for this is that these characteristics of a human being have no relevance to the ethical treatment that they should expect to receive from others. In other words, they are entirely arbitrary distinctions, and thus have no moral bearing whatsoever. One might as well discriminate against others based upon the fact that they are tall, have curly hair, or were born in Belgium. In order to justify such discrimination, I would need to do a lot of work to show why possession of any of these particular characteristics makes such people deserving of less moral consideration. I can't just make it so by my own fiat. If we allow people to discriminate against others based upon morally irrelevant criteria, then history shows that we are legislating for mass oppression, and possible genocide. In general terms, we are increasing the total sum of human misery, which is the antithesis of an enlightened morality.

There are, of course, morally relevant criteria for discriminating against others. We discriminate against children by not allowing them to drive, for example. But this is for the very good reason that allowing this would most likely lead to a big increase in road fatalities. We discriminate against convicted murderers by restricting their freedoms of movement. But, again, this is for the very good reason that not placing this restriction upon them very much increases the chances of them killing again. We discriminate against people with no medical knowledge when we prevent them from becoming surgeons but, again, the reasons are obvious and justifiable.

Despite what I have said, some religious people would attempt to justify their treatment of women, homosexuals, or non-believers based upon what is written in their holy books, taught by their religious leaders, or what they just 'know' that their god wants. This strategy fails, however, for the following reasons:

1. The morality's authority rests upon it being of divine origin. Without that, it becomes just another human creation, with no particular reason to obey it. Unlike a secular morality, for which we can attempt a justification by appeal to reason and evidence, the morality of divine commands rest entirely on the presumption that it is handed down by god. Take this away, and you are left with nothing. However, there are very good reasons for doubting that such a divine lawgiver exists at all. So, there seems to be no reason why I or anybody else who doubts god's existence should unquestioningly follow such a morality, or allow it to be imposed upon us or on society as a whole.
2. Furthermore, the believer also has no way to know for sure that their god exists. They cannot rely upon philosophical arguments for god's existence, or upon historical evidence of events, miracles or suchlike, since these are all highly contentious. Nor can they rely upon the fact that they are told about god by authority figures in their religion, since these people may themselves be wrong. As to the belief that they communicate with god by prayer or otherwise, they can never know for sure that these feelings are not just a product of their own mind. And the final knockdown argument here is that even if we were to grant, for the sake of argument, some supernatural communication, the believer has no way to ever know that they are not being deceived by some evil demon. If they are being deceived in such a way, then they would have very good reason to not follow the demon's moral commands, since we would expect such commands to be bad. Hence, believers cannot absolve themselves of moral responsibility by thinking that they are just following the commands of their god. They are in the same position as non-believers, in that they must justify their morality by reference to some other moral yardstick.

I list several more reasons for rejecting religious morality here, so I won't repeat myself. Suffice it to say that the case for a divine command theory of morality is very weak.

In the secular society that I propose, free speech would not be curtailed, unless it causes direct harm to others. Moreover, in this context, taking offence does not count as harm. To see why, consider that in any society where a marketplace of ideas is encouraged, people will inevitably take offence at the opinions of others. In particular, different religions make contradictory and incompatible claims about the world, and what we should think, say, and do. Therefore, believers from different religions risk causing offence to each other just by following their own rules. And, of course, non-believers risk causing offence by not following the strictures of any religion. The only way around this is for one religion to gain total control, and force all people to adhere to it - a theocracy. However, this is the worst case scenario for all non-believers and believers of other religions. So, even for the religious, a secular free society gives them the best chance to coexist.

However, by their very nature, many religions are intolerant and crusading, and would dearly like to dominate a society, so we must be very careful in a secular society to not start along the road to appeasement, where we gradually concede our hard-won freedoms. The best way to avoid this is to allow vigorous debate on all ideas. Ideas and beliefs must always be open to criticism and ridicule, for that is part of the process towards winnowing out bad ideas and false beliefs. There is a difference between criticising a person, and criticising their ideas and beliefs, and I have no obligation to avoid doing the latter in order to respect their sensibilities. The reason for this is that beliefs are actions waiting to happen. As Voltaire said: "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities". The men who flew the planes into the Towers on 9/11 believed absurdities, and committed atrocities. I think that society has an obligation to allow such absurd beliefs to be attacked by others, in the hope that people will see them for the crass and dangerous nonsense that they are. If we tolerate intolerance, then we sow the seeds of our own destruction.

Of course, there is one other way that, in principle, might be better than a secular society. If we imagine for a moment that we are in possession of the truth regarding the universe, morality, politics, human nature etc., and know how to organise, run, and educate a state in accordance with this knowledge. In such a case, should this not trump a secular state - in which competing ideas are allowed? After all, if people are allowed to indulge their false beliefs, then you risk having your progress towards the ideal state retarded or reversed. Under this scenario, it is for the benefit of everyone if they are forced to comply with the ideal. This is what Stalin and Mao thought, and is what many religious fundamentalists think too.

There are, however, two very big problems with this line of thought. Firstly, as history has shown in the case of communist states and theocracies, human nature is such that implementing these ideologies always leads to totalitarianism and oppression. This then becomes self-refuting, since such an oppressive and totalitarian state cannot reasonably be held up as the best one conceivable (unless by some very skewed moral yardstick). Moreover, there is no evidence that sticking with the plan eventually removes the need for totalitarianism. Rather, it seems to become self-perpetuating, with a small ruling elite exercising complete control over the lives of all the other citizens.

Secondly, there is no way to be absolutely sure that one's 'truth' is actually true. This latter statement would be denied by some fundamentalist religious believers, who do feel that they have a monopoly on the truth, and have a (literally) god-given right to impose this on others. Some such people would like to see society run according to their religious rules, with no opposition from competing religious or secular ideas. According to their thinking, it does actually make perfect sense for them to strive for this goal, since their god (who supposedly created the universe, and set up our moral code) commands it. If you are that sure of being in the right, then it must indeed seem that you are on a mission. Such a course of action, though, does necessarily presuppose that one is absolutely sure of the veracity of one's position. Without this, one would be guilty of a terrible injustice.

However, as I have shown, the burden of proof has definitely not been met by the religious apologists. Further, even if one could somehow meet the burden of proof required to support the existence of some inscrutable universe-creating entity (e.g. by using the fine-tuning argument), then it does not in any way follow that this universe creating entity is Yahweh or Allah. A great deal more work needs to be done in order to reach this conclusion.

Many people justify their belief in god by reasons other than the intellectual. They might, for example, believe that they commune with god, through prayer or otherwise, and that these religious experiences offer incontrovertible proof to them of god's existence (coincidentally, almost always this is the god of their local culture). They often say that if we atheists were open to such experiences, then we would also know that god exists. However, there are alternative explanations on the table that cannot be ruled out. As I have already said, perhaps their religious experiences are all in their mind. How might they persuade us otherwise? Perhaps they have knowledge that they could not have acquired from any other source? Perhaps there is good evidence of prayers being answered? If so, then no evidence of this has yet been forthcoming, and intercessionary prayer studies are either negative or inconclusive. And, as I said earlier, they can never actually be sure that they are not being deceived by some evil demon (not that I think these exist either).

Consequently, I believe that for believers to pursue a totalitarian strategy based upon the supposed commands from their god is indefensible, as its premises are so open to doubt. It goes without saying that we atheists need have no confidence that the believers are party to some great cosmic truth, and should therefore resist any such impositions. A secular society is in the best interests of us all, so this is what we should strive to achieve and maintain.


Mark Vernon – A Case for Agnosticism

One of the other presentations at the CFI event was by Mark Vernon, entitled: ‘A Case for Agnosticism’. I have read some of Vernon’s articles on the Guardian’s CIF site, where he seems to imply that he has adopted the intellectual and moral high ground by deciding to be agnostic rather than atheist (he was formerly a priest, then an atheist, and now an agnostic). I was therefore interested to hear what his case would be for this position.

Well, he does come across as an affable enough chap, but his arguments were very weak in my opinion - consisting of little more than non sequiturs, repetitions of the tired old canards about ‘militant’ atheism and scientism, and the need for religion to underpin morality. I don’t have a transcript or recording of his presentation, so I hope that I am not misrepresenting him here, but his arguments for agnosticism seemed to boil down to the following:

The ‘new’ atheists such as Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens etc. are militant and aggressive. Therefore Vernon does not want to be an atheist.

Well, it doesn’t take too much effort to figure out why this is a non sequitur. The belief in the existence of god is a metaphysical position, and its veracity or otherwise is not in any way connected to whether ones likes the people who believe it. After all, Hitler probably believed that London is the capital of England, but the fact that he was a nasty piece of work in no way disproves this belief, or causes me to reject it. For the record, I don't find the so-called militant atheists to be objectionable. Rather, I feel that they are merely attempting to take part in this debate with an honesty and passion that is the norm in political and other forums.

Some religious people are very nice (some nuns in the north of England were mentioned in support of this claim), so Vernon does not want to be an atheist.

Again, this is a non sequitur. Some religious people are kind, altruistic, and selfless. But, so are some atheists. The converse is also true. More importantly, the existence of god cannot be inferred from the existence of some nice religious people – the two are entirely independent of each other. As to Vernon’s implication that religion is needed for morality, I have refuted this ubiquitous fallacy elsewhere.

Atheism requires one to be absolutely sure that god does not exist. The non-existence of god cannot be proved, therefore Vernon's agnosticism is the best option.

This tired old canard is repeated ad infinitum, often in the related form that atheism is a ‘faith’ position too. There are three fundamental problems with this line of thinking. Firstly, atheism does not call for such a proof of god’s non existence. Once we move away from the a priori truths of formal logic, and into the outside world, absolute proof of hypotheses is no longer possible. If absolute proof was required, then atheism would cease to have any meaning at all, as it would be an untenable position. If one has no good reasons for believing in god, and lots of good reasons for disbelieving (which is how I would assess the actual situation), then one can be classified as an atheist. Thus, the atheist does not profess absolute certainty that god does not exist but, rather, believes god’s existence to be so unlikely as to be practically negligible.

If we were to follow Vernon’s example, then we would have to be strictly agnostic about the existence of an infinite number of entities. According to his logic, as long as we couldn't prove their non-existence, then we would need to adopt an agnostic stance. Is he similarly agnostic about the existence of Neptune, Thor, and fairies? I have no good reason to believe that they exist, and plenty of good reasons to believe that they don’t. Therefore, as with the Christian god, I dismiss them as possibilities, even though I cannot prove their non-existence. The discovery of good evidence to the contrary might lead me to revise my position, but for now I am happy to reject their existence.

Secondly, agnosticism is the absence of knowledge, and this implies that we are therefore unable to make any judgement at all. We must adopt a state of complete indecision regarding the hypothesis in question. However, this is generally not the case in practice. When assessing a hypothesis, such as the existence of some supernatural being, we are usually able to make a judgement by weighing up the evidence for and against it, looking at whether we can confirm predictions made by the hypothesis about what we would expect to find and not find, and by examining its plausibility and parsimony. These afford us degrees of certainty about the hypothesis in question (from highly unlikely, such as the belief that Elvis is still alive, to highly likely, such has the belief that the Earth is not flat). Whilst we can never absolutely prove that god exists, or absolutely disprove it, I believe that we can be very confident that it doesn't. Hence, atheism is justified. And, when you think about it, how else can we show that something does not exist than to find no evidence of its existence when we look for it in the expected places?

One final point is that the burden of proof rests with the theist here, since they are postulating the existence of some supernatural entity and realm (a la Russell’s teapot). When physicists postulate the existence of atoms, which we cannot see with the naked eye, they are able to give us highly credible and convincing evidence and arguments to support their claims, that we can check for ourselves. When theists talk about god, they are able to offer us nothing in support of this claim other than some deeply flawed metaphysical arguments, a few highly contentious historical documents, and very subjective and unverifiable feelings of talking to god. This fails to come anywhere near to meeting the burden of proof required.

Scientists do not know how and why the universe began, or even if it has always existed. Because of this great mystery, Vernon chooses to be an agnostic.

As Stephen Law put it very succinctly when he questioned Vernon, Sherlock Holmes may not know who killed the murder victim, but he may nevertheless be able to conclusively rule out the butler. And so it is with god. We may not know the origins of the universe, but I think that we can be pretty sure that it wasn't created by the Christian god. To believe so creates more questions than it answers, and is so arbitrary. Why choose this god, and not one of the multitude of others that have been hypothesised? It seems to be nothing but special pleading.

I should say that I am not really happy defining my beliefs in reference to somebody else's metaphysical framework with which I disagree. Therefore, I prefer to think of myself as a naturalist rather than an atheist. There are an infinity of supernatural agents whose existence I doubt, but I do not define myself in their terms. One further point is that people sometimes tend towards agnosticism as it seems to be the middle ground - neither at one extreme nor the other. So, in some sense it seems more reasonable and less arrogant. However, it should be remembered that sometimes the extreme position is the correct one. For example, if I believe the earth to be round, and you believe it to be flat, the truth is not somewhere in between - the earth's a little bit round. Rather, the truth is one of the extreme positions. Such, I believe, is the case with atheism.

So, to sum up, I found Vernon’s case for agnosticism to be weak and specious, so I am not convinced.

Daphne Hampson – Enlightenment 2008

Perhaps the strangest talk of the day was that by Daphne Hampson – a theologist, feminist, and postmodernist. As one might expect from the confluence of such ideologies, her religious views are far from mainstream.

She believes Christianity to be deeply patriarchal and sexist, and the resurrection of Jesus to be untrue. Therefore she rejects the Christian faith. So far, so good. However, she still believes in some concept of god, the power of prayer, and other supernatural actors and actions. In her words:

"I am a Western person, living in a post-Christian age, who has taken something with me from Christian thinkers, but who has rejected the Christian myth. Indeed I want to go a lot further than that. The myth is not neutral; it is highly dangerous. It is a brilliant, subtle, elaborate, male cultural projection, calculated to legitimise a patriarchal world and to enable men to find their way within it. We need to see it for what it is. But for myself I am a spiritual person, not an atheist. I am amazed at this 'other dimension of reality' in which there is; which allows healing, extra-sensory perception, and things to fall into place. I am quite clear there is an underlying goodness, beauty and order; that it is powerful, such that we can draw on it, while we are inter-related with it. I call that God."

Christians criticize Hampson for privileging Enlightenment values such as reason over Christian orthodoxy. However, her reason seems to be applied rather inconsistently, in that she uses it to reject Supernatural events such as the Resurrection, but fails to apply it to questions of god’s existence, the effects of prayer, and the existence of ESP.

As befits a follower of continental philosophy, Hampson’s concept of god seems to be obscure and devoid of meaning. She defines her god as some fuzzy, nebulous “underlying goodness, beauty and order; that it is powerful, such that we can draw on it, while we are inter-related with it”. This amounts to no more than some vague teleological speculation about some inscrutable other dimension, and is not worth our trouble to analyse any further. Nevertheless, her proposition of some ‘other dimension of reality’ does include such features such as intercessionary prayer and ESP - which are open to empirical testing, and thus falsification. Moreover, when such testing has been done, the results have not supported these claims. See, for example, this article about the results of a large study into intercessionary prayer. When Hampson was challenged by a member of the audience about testing her claims scientifically, she gave a rather waffling and unintelligible answer.

I would suggest that her hypothesis has already been falsified beyond reasonable doubt (although this could change in light of some future evidence), and feel that she is being rather disingenuous if she will not concede this. Perhaps she needs to apply some of her much-vaunted reason in order to correct her erroneous beliefs.

As one final point, I noticed that Hampson mentioned some innocuous word or other (innocuous to me at any rate but, then again, I am a man) that she thought was intrinsically sexist, and this put me in mind of Luce Irigaray – another postmodern theorist. She famously said that Einstein’s equation E=mc2:

“privileges the speed of light over other speeds that are vitally necessary to us. What seems to me to indicate the possibly sexed nature of the equation is not directly its uses by nuclear weapons, rather its having privileged what goes the fastest ... “

I never cease to be amazed at the contrived examples of sexism given by some feminists. But what really dumbfounds me is incredible feat of mental gymnastics evidenced by some liberal-left feminists in being at once hyper-sensitive to imagined sexist transgressions in Western society, but in a state of complete denial when it comes to some of the most egregious examples of genuine sexism. I refer of course to some of the deeply patriarchal and intrinsically sexist Muslim cultures, in which women are routinely subject to genital mutilation, honour killings, forced marriages, severe restrictions on the freedoms of movement, dress, and speech, and chance of an education. Such liberal-left feminists are so blinded by their adherence to the deeply flawed ideology of cultural relativism that they refuse to acknowledge the terrible injustices perpetrated on women in many Islamic cultures.

Such thinking is profoundly fallacious, for a number of reasons.

• Firstly, even though we have yet to reach a universal consensus on the best possible morality, any such system is unlikely to include overt sexism, homophobia, oppression, subjugation, and inequality. And yet these constituents feature heavily in the approved morality of radical Islamic countries. Hence, I think that we are entirely justified in judging such moral systems to be reprehensible. I have more to say about morality here.
• The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is a commendable attempt to formally codify basic concepts of human rights. The treatment of citizens (women in particular) in many Muslim countries routinely breaches their human rights, as defined in this document. For human rights to be universal, they need to be applied universally. Therefore, if we are happy to criticise any breaches of human rights in the Western world, we should be equally prepared to criticise them when they occur elsewhere.
• It should be remembered that culture and state is a transient and mutable thing – a set of traditions, religious and political ideologies, and individual, tribal and group power struggles. If a culture or state is oppressive, patriarchal, or tyrannical, there is no reason why its citizens should be forced to endure it.
• It should be further borne in mind that nobody chose to be born into a particular culture and state. The misfortune of being born a woman into a repressive, misogynist society should not condemn one to eke out a miserable life under the rule of one’s father, brothers, and husband (arranged), and to have no freedom of dress, movement, and speech. Such women live under the threat of being beaten, or even killed, if they transgress one of the many religious and cultural rules that govern their existence.
• I would go as far as to say that such cultural relativism is a form of insidious racism: “we wouldn’t want to live like that, but it’s alright for them as it is part of their culture”.
• Such cultural relativism is often born out of misplaced feelings of guilt for being (white)middle-class citizens of countries that are seen as being part of the ‘imperialist’ West. In such a worldview, Muslim states are seen as being victims of the West’s imperialist aggression, and can thus be excused anything. However, it should be remembered that aggression, intolerance, and lust for power are universal human traits, and are not unique to the West. Where we find abuses of human rights, we should condemn them consistently – whether they occur here, or in Muslim counties (or, for that matter, in communist countries). Whilst the West has its own problems with human rights issues, there is no moral equivalency between these and the problems in many Islamic countries (or, for that matter, with those of the current and former communist countries). The residual problems of sexism, racism, homophobia and suchlike still present in our western democratic societies are in no way comparible to that in some Muslim countries, where one can be stoned to death for being gay, acting 'inappropiately' as a women, or the imaginary crimes of blasphemy and apostacy.
• It is truly mind-boggling that some sections of the liberal-left, which should be the supporter of such worthy aims as universal freedom and equality, have managed to reengineer their worldview to such an extent that it now condones repressive, patriarchal, racist, and homophobic societies (for a notable counter-example of someone from the liberal-left who condemns oppression and exposes nonesense, see here).

Azar Majedi - Minority Rights vs Citizen Rights

Azar gave an impassioned presentation, in which she argued that we must resist the imperialist ambitions of political and religious Islam, not turn a blind eye to the human rights abuses happening in Muslim countries, and not appease radical Muslims who live in the West.

She has a particular issue with attempts to instigate Sharia Law in the West. In this, I agree with her unreservedly. A recent poll in the UK indicated the 40% of the Muslims questioned would like to see the introduction of Sharia Law into parts of Britain. This is something that we should oppose unreservedly, as by allowing it to be introduced we would be permitting the removal of what we would call basic human rights for those people under its proposed rule. Whilst we can probably do little to remove it in places such as Iran and Saudi Arabia, we should never permit it to exist in the West. The rights of those who would be condemned to death for imaginary or non crimes trump the rights of those who wish to impose such penalties. Benign cultural differences should of course be tolerated in pluralistic societies such as ours, but we must draw the line at the abuse of basic human rights. Sharia Law codifies and enshrines into law the type of barbaric rules found in the Koran and Hadith (similar ones can be found in the Bible as well), such as the inferiority of women, strict limitations on free speech, and penalties of death for apostasy, adultery, and homosexuality. Those in any doubt as to how it operates in practise should read articles such as this.

I have much more to say about Islam here.

Biblical Interpretation - part 2

In response to an article on the Guardian Comment is Free site, I made some comments that cover related ground to my previous post. Here they are.

In response to the comment “Fundamentalist Christians and fundamentalist atheists share the same delusion: they take the Bible far too seriously.”, I said:

I agree that Fundamentalist Christians take the Bible far too seriously. However, I would extend this to all Christians. By contrast, I do not take the Bible seriously at all. This is because I believe it to be just a book written by humans, and disagree that it contains any divine message, since I doubt the existence of the Christian God (for the record, I also doubt that the historical Jesus ever existed). However, I am forced to refer to it if I want to debate Christians, since so many of them continue to justify their beliefs and actions by reference to the Bible.

That Christians have felt able to do this has historically allowed them to justify the oppression, torture, and killing of so-called heretics, apostates and other undesirables. Even such Christian luminaries as Augustine, Aquinas, Calvin, and Luther felt justified in sanctioning such atrocious actions by reference to the Bible. Perhaps you feel better qualified then these religious scholars to determine how the Christian faith should be interpreted.

“But you still seem strangely hung up on the letter of the text.”

As I said previously, I am only responding to those Christians who insist on quoting chapter and verse in order to justify their beliefs and actions.

“Most Christians couldn't care less about Leviticus, frankly: they haven't read it, and wouldn't know what to make of it if they did.”

Let’s face it, most Christians have barely read the Bible at all. Rather, their epistemology consists of one of the varieties of Christianity that they have taken as an off-the-shelf package (most likely the one into which they were born), and then made their own unskilled adjustments to.

Beyond that, those people who tend to see the world in black and white terms, and who wish to justify their own tendencies towards intolerance and smiting their neighbours will find plenty of support in the Old Testament. They might further believe that the Bible is the inerrant word of God, will generally ignore the fact that it is full of contradictions and inconsistencies, and will have a faith that is largely unshakable in the face of contrary evidence.

On the other hand, those who see the world in much more grey terms, and who wish to justify their liberal tendencies will find more material in the New Testament. They will probably refer rather less to the Bible, as they are aware that it is a can of worms. However, they work very hard to come up with theological justifications for ignoring whole tracts of the Bible (including most of the Old Testament), and interpreting much of what remains. Nevertheless, when they do find something that they agree with, they will happily quote it – as if it can be used to justify some moral precept or other. This rather ignores the fact that it is rather ridiculous to attempt justify some moral or epistemological belief by reference to the Bible if, at the same time, they are forced to ignore all the passages that flatly contradict what they are saying. It is nothing but cherry picking. Anybody who attempted to do such things in other areas (science, law etc) by reference to other books would be laughed at.

Nevertheless, for atheists and people of other religions, they are far preferable to the first sort of Christian, since they are far less inclined towards oppression, torture, and killing. They are also far more likely to doubt their faith. Fortunately, in the more secular Western societies, this type of liberal Christian is currently in the majority.

Most Christians will then also go through such mental pirouettes as are needed in order to reconcile contradictions such as:

1. They believe that their god is onmibenevolent, but the god of the Old Testament is clearly described as a jealous, vindictive, petty, and bloodthirsty tyrant.

2. They further believe that their god is omniscient and omnipotent, and yet it allows a vast amount of human and animal suffering in the world – both man made and natural. The system created by their god is one in which animals must kill and eat each other in order to survive, and most humans and animals throughout all history have led short, painful, and brutish lives. They attempt to explain this away (theodicy) by appeal to such things as human free will (which, in the face of determinism is likely illusory, but is anyway irrelevant in the case of suffering caused by natural disasters etc.), or the benefits of suffering in terms of encouraging more virtue (an abhorrent idea that is just an entirely ad-hoc excuse, and anyway doesn't come close to justifying the vast quantity of suffering in the World, and its indiscriminate distribution. And, why should the cultivation of virtue or courage be worth all that suffering? Couldn't God just make us virtuous or courageous from the start?).

3. They believe that God wants us to understand his message, and thus to be saved. And yet, he only revealed this message to a tiny number of people in the distant past. Furthermore, this message was, or has become, confused and ambiguous. Moreover, the evidence for his existence is very weak. Hence, millions of people have never heard this message, or have rejected it. They will therefore not be saved, as they either have some other religion, or no religion at all. How could an all-powerful and all-loving god allow this state of affairs to persist?

4. They believe that their god would create a universe that is unimaginably old, huge, and lethal to life just so that one species of lifeform could eventually evolve on a planet orbiting an ordinary star – amongst countless billions of stars in billions of galaxies. The stated purpose of this lifeform’s existence is just to give praise to this god.

5. They believe that they can communicate with their god by means of prayer, but only seem to receive banal, unverifiable, or contradictory messages. For example, some are apparently told to help relieve human suffering, whilst others are told to rape and murder women.

6. To quote Richard Carrier, they believe that there is a "disembodied, universally present being with magical powers; that this superbeing actually conjured and fabricated the present universe from nothing; that we have souls that survive the death of our bodies (or that our bodies will be rebuilt in the distant future by this invisible superbeing); and that this being possessed the body of Jesus two thousand years ago, who then performed supernatural deeds before miraculously rising from the grave to chat with his friends, and then flew up into outer space." This they believe in the complete absence of any remotely compelling evidence.

7. They believe that their religion is the source of human morality, and that without it we should all lose our moral compass. This is despite the fact that such basic moral foundations as reciprocal altruism and prohibitions upon murder are present in almost all societies - primitive or complex, Christian or otherwise (and is even seen in some primate societies). Moreover, the Ancient Greeks had a very well developed ethical system long before the Christians came along. Further, there is very good data that shows a strong positive correlation between a society’s level of religiousity and the prevalence of all sorts of ills – crime, illiteracy, mortality rates etc. This doesn't necessarily imply a causual relationship, but it does completely undermine the idea that morality is dependent upon religion. More on the subject of morality here.

8. In the face of such weak reasons for believing in this god as opposed to any other, or to none, they say that unquestioning belief by ‘faith’ is a virtue. Moreover, those who choose not to believe by means of faith run the risk of everlasting torment in a Hell created by their omnibenevolent god. As St. Anselm of Canterbury said, theology is fides quaerens intellectum (faith seeking understanding). This neatly summarises its baselessness. Furthermore, why should this type of faith (i.e. belief contrary to, or in the absence of evidence) be seen as something that is intrinsically valuable? Why would God wish to cultivate such an apparently counter-productive tendency? Of course, it is very convenient when your central thesis is one that does run counter to the evidence.


“Law, I'm not so sure”.

On reflection, I’ll grant you that. Science is to me much closer to the ideal model for how to seek knowledge. To quote Richard Carrier (by the way, I would highly recommend reading the whole article), this is how it works:

“Long ago, people could make up any theories they wanted. As long as their theory fit the evidence, it was thought credible. But an infinite number of incompatible theories can fit the evidence. We can design a zillion religions that fit all the evidence, yet entail Christianity is false. And we can design a zillion secular worldviews that do the same. We could all be brains in a vat. Buddha could have been right. Allah may be the One True God. And so on, ad infinitum. But since only one of these countless theories can be true, it follows that the odds are effectively infinity to one against any theory being true that is merely compatible with the evidence. In other words, not a chance in hell. Therefore, we cannot believe a theory simply because it can be made to fit all the evidence. To do so would effectively guarantee our belief will be false.

Fortunately, people came up with what we now call the scientific method, a way to isolate some of these theories compatible with all the evidence and demonstrate that they are more likely to be true than any of the others. The method works like this (and this is very important): first we come up with a hypothesis that explains everything we have so far observed (and this could be nothing more than a creative guess or even a divine revelation--it doesn't matter where a hypothesis comes from); then we deduce what else would have to be observed, and what could never be observed, if that hypothesis really were true (the most crucial step of all); and then we go and look to see if our predictions are fulfilled in practice. The more they are fulfilled, and the more different ways they are fulfilled, the more likely our hypothesis is true.

But that isn't the end of it. To make sure our theories are more likely the true ones (as any old theory can be twisted to fit even this new evidence), they have to be cumulative--compatible with each other--and every element of a theory has to be in evidence. We can't just "make up" anything. Whatever we make up has to be found in the evidence. For example, when Newton explained the organization of the solar system, he knew he was restricted to theories that built on already proven hypotheses. Every element of his theory of the solar system was proved somewhere, somehow: the law of gravity had an independent demonstration, the actual courses of the planets were well observed and charted, and so on. Nothing in his theory was simply "made up" out of whole cloth. He knew the data on planetary behavior had been multiply confirmed. He knew there was gravity acting at a distance. The rest followed as a matter of course.”

Of course, science is a human endeavour, so it is inevitably subject to such human failings as jealousy, petty rivalries, deference to authority, dogmatic attachment to one’s pet theory etc. However, and this is very important, science is ultimately self-correcting. That’s what makes the scientific method so useful.

Furthermore, and contrary to what the layman might believe, all of science’s theories and laws are only provisional. No matter how well accepted a theory is, and how many times it has passed rigorous testing, the evidence may still be found to refute it. As Popper said, any proper scientific theory should be falsifiable. Hence, scientists are (or should be) never entirely sure of any scientific knowledge. By contrast, what would it take to falsify your Christian belief and cause you to reject it (if, as I assume, you are a Christian)?

“It's about the sort of person who craves certainty, I suppose”

I suspect that you are alluding to the ubiquitous view amongst theists that atheists are fundamental in the disbelief in God. However, in my case (and of other atheists that I know), I am not certain that the Christian god doesn’t exist. Rather, I believe that the arguments for the existence of Christian god in particular (as opposed to some inscrutable universe-creating intelligence) are very weak. They are either logically flawed, or require the inclusion of huge numbers of entirely ad-hoc assumptions in order to square them with the evidence. This process makes the theory unfalsifiable, since the appearance of more contrary evidence will just be explained away by inventing more ad-hoc assumptions. Moreover, the arguments against the existence of the Christian god in particular are very strong.

Hence, I see no reason to favour the existence of the Christian god over an infinity of other gods (or universe-creating intelligences) that I could make up. So, whilst I am not sure that the Christian god doesn’t exist, I consider this likelihood to be so remote as to be safely discounted as an explanation for the existence of us and the universe. The fact that millions of people believe it to be true makes it no more likely to be so. Since millions of religious people have mutually exclusive ideas of creation, it is guaranteed that millions of them are wrong. I would argue that they are all wrong.

The latest scientific thinking is pointing towards the idea that our universe may be just one in an infinite ensemble of island universes that may have always existed. However, we may never be able to know this for sure. So, questions about the any meaning in the existence in the universe may never be answered. In fact we may never know if asking questions like this make any sense at all. On the small scale, we may never be able to penetrate to the smallest constituents of matter, or even know whether such constituents exist. So, in the face of such uncertainty, I am humble in my lack of knowledge. However, I still think that in the (possibly fruitless) search for answers, the concepts of the universe-creating Christian god can be effectively discounted.

“Hang on a minute. How much oppression, torture and killing have Christians been doing lately? That was years ago. Always with the Inquisition”

I think that history, together with a cursory look around our world today, confirms that any totalitarian regime with a dogmatic attachment to a belief system inevitably leads to the oppression, torture, and murder of certain of its citizens. This was the case with Stalin’s Soviet Union, Mao’s China, Hitler’s Germany, and any number of past and current theocracies. The power of Christianity in the West has been very much reduced during the last few hundred years. However, when it had more power, it used it to enforce conformity to its rules (often under pain of death). Evidence from current theocracies (Iran, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan etc.) suggests that this tendency is still alive and well. Even in the States, whilst a lack of religion won’t get you killed (unless at the hands of some lone fundamentalist), it is used in all sorts of insidious ways to make life difficult for atheists. In a recent survey, atheists were identified as the most hated minority in American society.

What I and other atheists are on our guard for is any evidence of a slide away from a secular society, as that is the route away from Enlightenment values such as equality and freedom of speech. We need to be very careful to preserve an effectively secular state (not atheist but secular), as this gives the greatest freedom for all – religious and non-religious alike. If any one religion achieves too much power, then human nature dictates that it will inevitably attempt to coerce others into adherance to that religion.

By the way, it is a fallacy that the atrocities of the communist states in the 20th century are the inevitable result of atheism. Atheism is not an ideology; it is just the absence of religious belief. What happened under Stalin and Mao were the results of totalitarian regimes that held a dogmatic attachment to communist ideals, and set their leaders up as quasi-gods. What I would propose instead is a secular state that is run along humanistic lines. To paraphrase Sam Harris, nobody was ever killed because we became too reasonable.

“I'm not sure about that either. In the sense that they doubt they have all the answers, certainly”

That is indeed what I mean. It seems to me that some liberal Christians must have an unresolved conflict going on in their minds. They would like to believe in some of the fantastical tenets of Christianity (existence of God, virgin birth and resurrection of Jesus, heaven etc.) despite the lack of any good supporting evidence but, in the final analysis, can only justify doing so by means of faith.

Biblical Interpretation

This post is in response to a post on Stephen Law's blog - see here. Stephen was referring to a book called Outrageous Tales From the Old Testament, and somebody left a comment to say that:

"...I would just like to say that I find that Christian fundamentalists and secular fundamentalists read the bible in the same way. How do they read it? Entirely without sophistication, unable to appreciate irony, humor, metaphor, or purposeful moral ambiguity. They leave everything they may have ever learned about literature behind them..."

Comments along these lines are often heard from liberal Christians, who believe that the Bible requires their particular interpretation in order to be understood correctly. Here is my reply:

There are a number of problems with such interpretation in general, including, but not limited to the following:

1) Many Biblical passages containing contradictions, absurdities, atrocities, or intolerance of one sort or another are, on the face of it, explicitly clear in their meaning, and are not really open to any alternative interpretations.

2) It might be someone's opinion that such and such Biblical chapter or verse should be interpreted metaphorically or ironically. However, the onus is surely upon this person to justify why the passage should be interpreted in such a way, and not as it is explicitly written. For example, try to do this with the following Biblical quotes:

"He that blasphemeth the name of the LORD, he shall surely be put to death, and all the congregation shall certainly stone him." -- Leviticus 24:16

"They found a man that gathered sticks upon the sabbath day. ... And the LORD said unto Moses, The man shall be surely put to death: all the congregation shall stone him with stones.... And all the congregation brought him without the camp, and stoned him with stones, and he died; as the LORD commanded Moses." Numbers 15:32-56

"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." Exodus 22:18

“If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them.” Lev.20:13

“Whosoever would not seek the LORD God of Israel should be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.” 2 Chronicles 15:13“

“If thy brother, the son of thy mother, or thy son, or thy daughter, or the wife of thy bosom, or thy friend, which is as thine own soul, entice thee secretly, saying, Let us go and serve other gods, which thou hast not known, thou, nor thy fathers; Namely, of the gods of the people which are round about you, nigh unto thee, or far off from thee, from the one end of the earth even unto the other end of the earth; Thou shalt not consent unto him, nor hearken unto him; neither shall thine eye pity him, neither shalt thou spare, neither shalt thou conceal him: But thou shalt surely kill him; thine hand shall be first upon him to put him to death, and afterwards the hand of all the people. And thou shalt stone him with stones, that he die.” Deuteronomy 13:6-10

“If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear.” -- Deuteronomy 21:18-21

3) It is evident that the Liberal Christian only feels the need to ‘interpret’ those passages in the Bible that do not accord with our current knowledge and morality e.g. those containing absurdities or preaching intolerance or hatred.

4) If we are to allow the text of the Bible to be interpreted in such a subjective and personal way, then how are we to discriminate between what can and can't be interpreted in a way other than it is written?

For example, perhaps the rejoinders in the Bible to do good were meant to be ironic, and not to be taken literally? Perhaps the resurrection of Jesus was only metaphorical? Perhaps Jesus didn't exist at all, but was only a myth that was intended to be symbolic? Perhaps even the whole concept of God himself was meant to be interpreted metaphorically?

5) For me, as an atheist, I have no qualms about ignoring what is written in the Bible, as I consider it a ragbag collection of myths, superstitions, historical events, and often highly dubious morality. However, surely the self-professed Christian does not have this luxury?

For example, if God actually does exist (as the Christian must believe), and did explicitly command that Sabbath breakers (or gays, or witches, or people of other religions) should be stoned to death, and the liberal Christian ignores this injunction (thinking it to be ironic or metaphorical), then surely they are running a terrible risk? For, if this command was not intended to be interpreted or ignored, then the liberal Christian risks spending an eternity in Hell? To rework Pascals' Wager, if the Christian unnecessarily keeps the Sabbath, then they have little to lose. However, if they mistakenly do not keep it, then they risk an eternity in Hell.

Furthermore, if these commands were issued by God, then who do the liberal Christians think they are to presume to know better than an omniscient and omnipotent being?

And, on a lighter note, here is a bit of fun to finish with.