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I have really appreciated the dialog that authors like Sam Harris, Daniel Dennett, Christopher Hitchens, and Richard Dawkins have brought to our contemporary society. They have provided a framework outside of religion to create meaning for those of us who have rejected the Christian god. I believe all of them are atheists and weak or not at all agnostic on the question of god. They would assert that any god would be impossible within their understanding of reality.
They would say that even agnostics, who hold out the possibility of a god, still live their life as if there were no god. Thus in all practical terms they, too, are atheists.
Many of them have said that once you get past the egocentric idea that your spirit has to live forever, life still can be meaningful. I believe this to be true and even though I am an agnostic to the idea of a greater power than myself, I still live my life within a humanistic viewpoint.
The only method of truth they allow is a method of scientific verification. In reality it really is the only method of truth we have available to us as human beings. All other so-called methods of truth aren’t verifiable in any way. They require a certain amount of “lying” to oneself to technically be called a truth. It is essentially a word substitution game where the meaning of truth is mystified and has no meaning. In practical application you are still left in ignorance and supposedly truth removes ignorance.
The byproduct of holding on to this method of truth is we then live in a mechanistic universe. This means that if you had the technology to measure every phenomena and process the data you could predict every single event in the future. We aren’t even close to this level of understanding of the universe and the suggestion is that free will and consciousness is an illusion provided by our ignorance. This mechanistic idea suggests that in reality time is marching on with predetermined events already set in motion in a universe governed by strict laws of cause and effect. There really is no such thing a chance or random events. They only appear random because we don’t have the technology to measure the forces in enough detail driving these so-called random events.
The religious version of this idea is radical Calvinism in its doctrine of predestination. This suggests that we are not who we are by any choice of any consciousness. The only thing that I have within myself to argue against this is my sense of consciousness, illusionary or not. This is the one element of my inner self that I have to take on a choice to believe. It “seems” to me that I have consciousness. I choose this because it opens up to me the whole world of subjective experience. This includes love, joy, excitement, curiosity, and other preferences. It also allows me to take personal responsibility for my life. It has been from this single idea of personal responsibility that I have found a way out of the despair of self-centeredness.
I choose to hold out for some type of power greater than myself. I don’t have any idea of the nature of this power or if it is conscious or if it has any interest in me. I would imagine that if it did exist, it would be beyond my ability to explain or even perceive. Hence I am an agnostic that lives life as if there were no god.
There are some interesting scientific phenomena that suggest that energy brings order. Entropy or chaos only exists in closed systems. Those systems are matter and energy systems closed off from the rest of the universe. They tend to decay into chaos through entropy. Entropy doesn’t exist in open systems where there is a continual input of energy into the system. In open systems order is the stronger tendency. There are even selected experiments where order emerges from entropy suggesting that we may not completely understand entropy.
Thanks Richard. I too appreciate who are called the “new atheists”. They have shaken up the conversation in I think valuable ways. I don’t agree with them always, but I hardly agree with the me that wrote stuff 2 years ago. I am more interested in the quality of conversation than the outcome I guess. Which is why I think they sometimes prevent further discussion in some ways. We all play our part. Good thoughts I’m going to think about.
AnonymousI appreciate anyone who wants to talk about God, whatever their position. I am a fan of the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics, it dovetails really beautifully with my inclinations to believe that God is omnipotent, omniscient and omnipresent. I also am comfortable to continue to worship and reach out for connection with God, all the while believing that what I think is really a subject of pure conjecture for our limited mortal minds. Sometimes I think the only real “proof” of God is our unquenchable thirst for explanations in this life. Our minds are amazing and powerfully demanding puzzle solving, bio-computers, I see God in that, in my spirit/soul I think I can even feel it.
Yes, the 4 horsemen…
That’s a neat parallel – that of Dennet’s hard-determinism and the radical Calvinist doctrine of pre-destination.
I sit with the “free-willers” and I like how you described “love, joy, excitement, curiosity, and other preferences”. And when Richard described “holding out for some type of power greater than myself” – I think I have to, I can’t live otherwise. For me, life without hope is one of despair, and ultimately death. I cling to hope.
I like how David stated, “but I hardly agree with the me that wrote stuff 2 years ago”. Ha, this is liberating. It gives permission to see ourselves as individuals who are evolving, growing, changing. And it makes me less judgemental about myself, and others.
Kathy – am now going to happily explore the Copenhagen Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics !
AnonymousFor all you deep thinkers – I have stumbled upon a resource that may interest you:
The last couple Sundays, I have watched some very interesting live conversations on Ustream at http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ncg-studios. Every Sunday there is an all day live broadcast of very respectful on-going dialogue between Dr. Michael W. Jones (a Theist, knowledgable linguist in Greek and Hebrew, who does NOT believe the Bible is inerrant, he does not believe in hell – definitely NOT an Evangelical fundamentalist!), and various guests like Greg Brahe (an atheist), Bob Greaves (the Unconventional Pastor), etc.
He is always looking for non-traditional Christians, atheists, non-Theists, etc. to be “live guests” (via Skype) to participate in the discussion. He is NOT saying he is right and they are wrong. He is very open to different beliefs and feels it is important to have a meaningful dialogue with people of various viewpoints. Intellectual/spiritual honesty is of huge importance to him.
He recently had P. Z. Meyers (well known biologist and atheist) on his program. Bob Greaves (The Unconventional Pastor – LOVE him!), and Greg Brahe (an atheist) appear regularly. Even though Bob and Greg have their own “shows”, there are usually 1 or 2 other “live” guests occasionally asking questions or making comments. Each “speaker” also addresses questions or comments submitted by the listeners. It is very much like TLS in the sense that everyone is seen as having an important place at the table and everyone’s viewpoint is valued and treated with respect.
Yesterday, Bob Greaves talked about Faith vs. Reason. Dr. Jones asked his guests to weigh in on the question: “Is Church Harmful?” which sort of morphed into a discussion on the supposed inerrancy of the Bible, whether the Bible should have been canonized, whether the Bible carries any more weight than the words of great philosophers and other great literature. Dr. Jones feels the framers of the “Biblical canon” should never have tried to dovetail all those separate books into one book and then have the audacity to call it “the infallible Word of God.”
I hope I’ve piqued your curiosity enough that you will check it out. I’d love to hear your feedback. (They occasionally have technical difficulties and short commercials, but it is still worth watching.)
For Sunday live streaming dialogues go to: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/ncg-studios
For Dr. Jones’s The Place website go to: http://newcovenantgroup.com/ (lots of short You Tube videos he has done on various subjects)
Hey @Jo White. I was interviewed by Bob on that show. It was indeed fraught with technical difficulties. Anyway… here it is: the nakedpastor interviewed by the unconventional pastor.
Thanx for the info Jo White!! I will check that out next weekend!
AnonymousJadedFool – You’re welcome. I’d love to hear you thoughts after you’ve checked it out.
Admin David – I watched your interview with Bob. It was really good!
Richard – I think you would be a great guest on one of Dr. Jones’s programs. Your positions are so well-thought out and you are so articulate. No pressure. Just sayin’ if you’re interested, I’m sure he would invite you to be on the show. He is appreciative and receptive to what Athiests bring to the discussion.
richard and i hope to do a webinar together in the near future.
AnonymousAwesome! I look forward to that webinar!
Haha I too wouldn’t necessarily agree with the me two years ago admin David
In the space of about a year I have shifted from being very anti-atheist to becoming a lot more accepting of their views. I would criticize their world view for being too fundamental and closed-minded, dislike them for how they berated those who did not believe the same as them, assumed that those who were not Atheist were simply too stupid to be (Richard Dawkins definitely falls into this category). In my experience, I have encountered a lot of Atheists who fall into the categories I have just listed but I recently come to realise that there are those who do believe in God, who also fall into these categories, and will tend to slate the acquisition of reason and science because they perceive it to be the “weapon” of Atheism (which is just absurd).This is why I love this forum, because no one seems to be coming from one end of the spectrum of debate. Everyone’s viewpoint is heard, considered and respected and there is no dealing in absolutes which I have to say, is SUCH a breath of fresh air from my experiences!
The so-called New Atheists were needed I think as admin David said, despite the fact that I do tend to disagree with them a lot of the time (like them hopelessly trying to blame religion as the sole reason for all conflict in history). They presented a challenge to the church and to religion which inspired a growth in rational thought, many books have been written by great minds and of differing beliefs on this debate and there has been some fascinating arguments from both sides. I just wish the elitism surrounding it could be abandoned…
I think that believers often perceive elitism when it is confidence among the New Atheists. The main reason that Richard Dawkins started speaking out was because of the movement to discount evolutionary science in American Schools by Evangelicals and introduce the philosophy of intelligent design or creationism as legitimate science. And when you combine that with the massive amounts of ignorant hate mail that come to atheists and the gross misrepresentations of atheism in the public perception there became some very good reasons to become concerned and to raise the awareness of what atheism really is.
To match all the loud Christian evangelical voices spouting a lot of nonsense required a much more aggressive approach that is not the natural way for most scientifically minded atheists. Most educated atheists prefer a well reasoned dialog, but the leadership of the evangelical movement weren’t generally interested in any reasoned dialog. The emergence of atheism is largely due to the increased offensive intrusion of Evangelical Christianity into American politics and education.
It becomes frustratingly obvious that many people speaking on the creationist/intelligent design side don’t understand the scientific method. Sometimes there is so much to correct in terms of definitions that it becomes frustrating to communicate. There is also a general lack of understanding of even informal logic. So, to the scientist, many of the claims made by the most vocal evangelicals are in fact ignorant. So it becomes difficult to not sound elitist when pointing this out.
When interviewed in a more intimate and less threatening settings the “four horsemen” as they are called, are less strident. The effect, I think, of this emergence of atheism is the hemorrhaging of church membership and a rapid rise in non believers. I think the dialog has proven to be quite compelling for many people.
I agree Richard. BTW Richard Dawkins’ book, “The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution”, is really a beautiful book. His intelligence and passion for science and truth come through those pages. IT is almost like he is primarily a scientist who was pulled into being an apologist out of necessity.
I agree with a lot of what you are saying Richard, but you have to understand that I come from a very different society. I know that Atheism in the USA is very much a minority and they have to shout to be heard, and that the mass evangelical community can shout them down, but here in the UK and perhaps a lot of Europe too, independent churches really don’t have a voice at all. Here, Atheism is championed by the popular media, they will take everything it says and sprout it the population as truth. I mean we are talking about Richard Dawkins, well he wrote most of his books in this country and has most of his support here and throughout Europe among other popular Atheists. Besides, although this rampant elitism is sometimes required to make the point, I don’t think the necessity to speak out against creationism justifies his sometimes abusive manor towards those who believe in anything spiritual. Its an attitude I have encountered with a lot of Atheists unfortunately which was one of the reasons why I tended to dislike them. I have now, fortunately, taken time to see past that attitude and perhaps understand why its there, and also see that such an attitude exists with those on the opposite side of the debate too. As admin David said, I think the discussion is the most important aspect with the debate, because there is no outcome at the end of the day, its just one world view against the next, nothing ultimately within this debate can be proven or disproven. Hence why I yearn for a civilized discussion into the matter, with all points of view considered and respected, something which I believe can occur here.
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