A Dialogue Between a Theist and an Atheist
*It feels good to get this post out. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I haven’t written a proper one in a while.
I’ve been meaning to blog about this series of exchanges between Ebonmuse (the man behind Daylight Atheism, and the atheist naturally) and one of his regular readers, MS Quixote. Here’s a short introduction by Quixote himself:
I’m philosophically and theologically trained, and even have a semester of Philosophy of Religion under Keith Parsons, who I remember as an excellent, fair-minded, atheist professor. I enjoyed him very much, and was even able to catch him in action at a psuedo-science seminar, at which my Christian brethren acted out a bit, but that’s another story. I only provide this brief background on myself by way of introduction, and to say that I will make myself available to all, and to answer each and every comment directed specifically to me, whether it be a criticism of theism or Christianity, or a specific question you may have had but have never been able to get a straight answer on. I only ask that due to the amount and presumed depth of the comments, that you understand it may take me as a single responder multiple days to get to every comment, not to mention follow-ups.
One reason I’ve been putting off writing about it is the heaviness of the topic. The exchanges are not an easy read, especially the replies from Quixote, who writes in a much more verbose manner than I’m used to, and quotes many philosophical arguments which I am not acquainted with at all. So I decided to read through the exchanges again before I blogged about it.
This dialogue (from what I see) mainly argues over the reasons why theists believe, and why atheists do not (I hesitate to use the word ‘disbelieve’, as I believe in the burden of proof and the word implies the burden of disproof for the omnimax God). It’s a civil exchange and it’s not likely to make you change your position, but it gives readers at both ends of the argument insights, or at least a glimpse, into the inner workings of such different minds. There are seven pieces of writing in total, and I have posted the links below. If your level of the English language and grasp of philosophical arguments is anywhere near as bad as mine, you’ll want to set aside a fair amount of time to read it (it probably took me more than an hour to read all seven posts in a single go), and you’ll want to (like me) read this with two tabs open - Wikipedia and Webster. Even now, I still don’t fully understand some of the arguments made, but I promise you, if you are interested in debates on religion, this will not be an exercise in futility. The arguments are, however, heavily skewed towards Christianity. They are Americans after all =p.
A Dialogue with Quixote, Part II
A Dialogue with Quixote, Part III
A Dialogue with Quixote, Part IV
A Dialogue with Quixote, Part V
A Dialogue with Quixote, Part VI
A Dialogue with Quixote, Part VII
I’m still hoping that there will be a final reply from Quixote; this is another reason why I’ve held off blogging about this.
One point that really interests me is the ‘awareness of God’ that theists experience. As Quixote describes in Part IV:
Can I describe this awareness to you in more detail? I doubt it. The closest I might bring you to the experience is your encounter with the sublime or perhaps the numinous, so let’s take a quick look at both.
Certainly you’ve encountered the sublime: a gaze at a sunset, a fascination with the stars, a sense of something greater than yourself. In fact, I believe I recall your exposition of the sublime from an atheist’s perspective in one of your essays. I’d not suggest to you that your confrontation with the sublime is equivalent to the awareness I’ve mentioned. It’s not; however, theists tend to meld the two in their minds, so perhaps that experience of the stars at night is as close as I can guide you to my personal experience. I suspect it is.
But, perhaps the numinous, a term coined by Rudolf Otto as far as I know, is more fertile ground. Otto described the sense of contact with a being wholly other as the numinous. While I would not describe God as wholly other — there must be some common frame of reference for contact with God if we were to know him — the conception of a being similar to the attributes customarily ascribed to the Christian God should engender a sensation of the numinous. The feeling produced by the holy God described by Christianity may cause this aspect of Otto’s numinous: the mysterium tremendum, an unsettling awareness, one perhaps of fear. Moreover, there’s the mysterium fascinas: as the phrase suggests, an awareness of a being so infinitely wonderful that it’s irresistible in its allure.
Hopefully, that gives you an inkling of the experience. It’s an odd situation. I have no doubt of your honesty when you claim to possess no like experience, yet I’m certain that billions of theists would report similar experiences. They’ll know what I’m talking about, but collectively we won’t be able to adequately explain it to you.
Ebonmuse has his own take on the numinous in another post:
I remember standing in the rain of El Yunque, touching the leaf of a plant and contemplating our kinship, our both belonging to that unbroken tree of evolutionary history that unites all life on Earth. My sense of the transcendent was not undermined, but deepened and magnified by that knowledge, the insight into the vastnesses of time and space and the twisting paths of contingency that led to we two living things side by side in the rainfall. I look at my hands with the knowledge that they are shaped from the dust of exploded stars, and that looking up at the night sky, I am looking at the place of my origin. Many more examples like this could be given, proving that true understanding does not diminish awe, but enhances it immeasurably.
(Let me also refer you to yet another of his posts, which while does not address the topic of the sublime or the numinous directly, provides beautiful instances of it.)
I guess everyone will have experienced the sublime at certain points in their life, or even the numinous (as vague as the term still is to me). It is rather fascinating for me how different groups of people can come to such different conclusions about the nature or origins of what I think are rather similar experiences. I have never associated such experiences with a supernatural being or an ‘awareness of God’ myself, or even felt the impulse to. I don’t know whether to contribute this to my cynical nature, my rather sparsely religious upbringing, or just the lack of a ‘God gene or some other neurological peculiarity’. Whatever the case might be, it brings me to the main point of contention with some of Quixote’s arguments – you need to have a prior belief in the existence of God for them to work. Quoting Quixote himself in Part II:
And, I concur; considering the Bible and Christianity without a prior God belief is meaningless. There’s a reason Christ told Nicodemus you must be born again before you can see the kingdom. The Bible and Christianity will appear particularly foolish to any naturalist, and I don’t hold this against any particular naturalist in the least. Conversely, I predict it.
Personally, I am unable to see the validity of arguments where you have to presuppose its verity to deductively conclude that it’s true (assuming A is true, it follows that B, C, D is true and therefore A is true). It’s all much too cylical for me.
Either way, it’s all a good read. If you have the time and tenacity, do trawl through the comments (they’re longer than the orginal posts!) to get a better appreciation of the whole exchange. I must admit I haven’t done so myself, but from what I’ve seen there are fresh perspectives in there, and both Ebonmuse and Quixote do post replies too. I’ll write an update if I find something interesting.
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Here’s a paragraph by William James you might find interesting
Of whatever temperament a professional philosopher is, he tries when philosophizing to sink the fact of his temperament. He trusts his temperament. Yet his temperament really gives him a stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises. It loads the evidence for him one way or the other, making for a more sentimental or a more hard-hearted view of the universe, just as this fact or that principle would. Wanting a universe that suits it, he believes in any representation of the universe that does suit it. He feels men of opposite temper to be out of key with the world’s character, and in his heart considers them incompetent and ‘not in it,’ in the philosophic business, even tho they may far excel him in dialectical ability.
Source:
http://www.brocku.ca/MeadProject/James/James_1907/James_1907_01.html
btw, I have it on good authority (though you may call it faith) that Keith and Quixote actually share a common denominator in terms of sponsorship, and might even be the same person. This is nothing more than speculation, but it would appear someone by the name of “Greg S. Lucian” appears to be the person behind this. The plot thickens.
Interesting. More research into the name “Greg Lucian” (man behind the puppets) actually reveals that this name was taken from G.K Chesterton’s theological 1936
thriller “The man who was Thursday”. It was published the year before his death. The last two chapters in his book read as such:
CHAPTER XIV. THE SIX PHILOSOPHERS
CHAPTER XV. THE ACCUSER
Judge for yourself what the meaning of this is, if it is meaningful at all.
“I see everything,” he (Gregory) cried, “everything that there is. Why does each thing on the earth war against each other thing? Why does each small thing in the world have to fight against the world itself? Why does a fly have to fight the whole universe? Why does a dandelion have to fight the whole universe? For the same reason that I had to be alone in the dreadful Council of the Days. So that each thing that obeys law may have the glory and isolation of the anarchist. So that each man fighting for order may be as brave and good a man as the dynamiter. So that the real lie of Satan may be flung back in the face of this blasphemer, so that by tears and torture we may earn the right to say to this man, ‘You lie!’ No agonies can be too great to buy the right to say to this accuser, ‘We also have suffered.’
The name Quixote is obviously also (obviously) taken from literature. Perhaps there might be some hidden connection between the two books which might reveal the intentions of the “men” behind this hoax. Or this might all be empty speculation?
Not surprisingly, daylight atheism’s domain is registered under a proxy, a domain parking service.
Registrant:
Navigation Catalyst Systems, Inc
2141 Rosecrans Ave.
Suite 2020
El Segundo, CA 90245
But check out the domain expiry date! The exact day of the end of the world in the Mayan long count calendar!
Record expires on 12/21/2012
I apologise for this really slow reply! I’ve been rather busy lately.
First, I’d like to ask where you obtained the names “Keith” and “Greg S. Lucian” from? I could not find the links myself.
As for Quixote, I assuming you are referring to Don Quixote. But ‘Quixote’ by itself, is a valid last name isn’t it? Even if it’s a pseudonym, I wouldn’t read too much into it. Too many people choose to adopt one nowadays without ascribing too much significance to it.
But I must say the domain expiry date is a curious coincidence! Maybe I don’t know much about domains and proxies but maybe someone there likes the winter solstice. Or are you hinting at a more pagan connection?
Anyway, I think all these aren’t too important. The crux of it still lies in the arguments made; so long as they are reasonable and well thought-out, does it really matter who made them?
what did you think of the william james quote?
It seems to be quite sound, but I don’t really know what he means by “Yet his temperament really gives him a stronger bias than any of his more strictly objective premises”.
Facts are facts. With enough data and sound reasoning, it should only point to one logical conclusion, regardless of temperament no?
the statement “facts are facts” is a tautology, isn’t it? what exactly do you mean by that?
Ok. Let me rephrase that. Certain properties can be objectively measured (red is red, regardless of whether everyone perceives it the same way. It can be defined by its wavelength). With a set of these objectively measured properties relating to a theory, it should be possible to to derive only one possible conclusion from them, regardless of the temperament of the observer.
Aha. Yes, I understand you now. The answer is certainly “Yes”, of course. However, the point made is psychological, not philosophical. As people we operate heuristically, drawing conclusions from data gained through our senses (i.e it’s impossible to be an expert on all topics which demand an opinion). To that effect, since the conclusions themselves affect the data received, bias is inevitable.
This happens all the time – to draw a few extreme examples, creationists, holocaust denialists, etc. My point is however that atheists are not exempt from this principle. It’s important (and perhaps this is a straw man) not to confuse “I don’t believe there is a God for personal reasons” with the statement “It is an inescapable conclusion for the rational man that there is no God”. Philosophy, in this respect, is more an art, than a science.
“the philosophy which is so important in each of us is not a technical matter; it is our more or less dumb sense of what life honestly and deeply means. It is only partly got from books; it is our individual way of just seeing and feeling the total push and pressure of the cosmos.”
Just a few examples from the dialogue, taken from both parties, for fairness
“The first reason is that, when I look at the world, I get the strong impression that no one’s in charge. History lacks a discernible moral order. Happiness and misery are distributed randomly, without regard to morality; good people sometimes succeed and sometimes suffer, and evil people sometimes are punished and sometimes prosper.”
vs
“My most intimate observations and intuitions argue against Naturalism — consciousness, the soul, good and evil, a sense of God, personality — and, likewise, the very borders of the universe, its beginning, the great sub-atomic realm, and the existence of abstract objects and properties, by definition are at the fringes of what can be known or tested scientifically; yet, they are crucial to a systematic consideration of faith or non-faith.”
These are clearly opinions, not logical arguments. Hence the W.J quote applies.
Hmmmm.. I think you make a very good point! Perhaps everyone will be clouded by a certain bias, but I I’m still of the opinion that it is possible to string facts together to form only 1 logical conclusion is most cases. Maybe that is my bias, or perhaps short-sightedness.
As for the case of religion, it might never be possible to reach an inescapable conclusion die to its very nature, but I think there’s another argument to be made for that – probability. You might never be able to prove conclusively that there isn’t a five-tailed giant gorilla-fish chimera living in the depths of the Amazon forest, but how probable is it?
I think the question is best phrased in terms a cost-benefit analysis. To the causal observer (us) it is quite improbable of course! Surely to venture into the jungle to capture such a creature would be misguided.
But let us imagine, for the sake of argument, that to someone it is a worthwhile enterprise. Perhaps it gives, to him, a sense of adventure, or purpose. Now if one were to question this hunter about the reasons behind the quest, and he were sufficiently intelligent, the last thing he’d do would be to acknowledge the plain fact that he’s doing it “for fun”! Quite the contrary, he’d build an impenetrable ‘wall of logic’ round his own seemingly absurd reasoning, defending it at all costs against the slightest hint of attack. He’d be glad to fight and contend this issue with great zeal and emotion. He’d be quick to accept terrible arguments in his favor, but with painful audacity deconstruct every other in conflict.
This, I think, is the fool’s quest for God (or to disprove God), because when all is said and done, this little tale is the story of my life, and perhaps all our lives, we are people on a quixotic crusade – and this is all well and good! I just say, never lose sight of this fact.
Summary + Footnote (I rambled on a little there)
tl;dr: Probability is a reflection of one’s subjective beliefs (if you are a Bayesian). To keep this figure high, we use rationalization. Most arguments are rationalizations (even this one). Hence any view of the world, however absurd, is reasonable and on equal ground.
P.S I didn’t mean to imply any shortsightedness on your part, nor that you are wrong. Bias is inescapable, trying to overcome bias is folly. One should, instead of searching for “truth” when it comes to unprovable questions, choose a world-view which maximizes happiness. This is not a exhortation, however, I am sure you are already doing so.