For your next post, please explain how human biology permitted Methuselah to live for 969 years.
And later in the same thread, he wrote:
Just answer one simple question: are you aware of one PH.D. expert in the natural sciences who has written one peer reviewed paper to suggest that the human lifespan has ever exceeded, say, more than 150 years?
In a later thread, His Lordship The Gun-Toting Atheist wrote:
Gentlemen, I have read every single comment on this post, and quite frankly, I don't see that any of you has answered TAM's question. Attacking his character or his knowledge of biology does nothing to prove that Methuselah truly lived for 969 years.
The Atheist Missionary moved the goalposts, then the other atheist commenting in the second thread moved them even further.
If you go back to the original thread, you'll see that Peter's post wasn't about Methuselah's lifespan. I doubt that Methuselah's name even entered the mind of anybody else who read what Peter had written. The discussion of Methuselah began because Atheist Missionary wanted to change the subject. And Gun-Toting Atheist changed the subject again by going from Atheist Missionary's original question about what's biologically permissible to raising the subject of "proving that Methuselah lived for 969 years". Those are two different issues.
We addressed Methuselah's lifespan in the two threads linked above, and most of what we said was ignored by these two atheists. For example, it's common for people to accept a specific claim made by a source based on that source's general reliability. We accept a particular claim that Tacitus made about the Roman empire based on his general credibility, even though we can't independently confirm what he wrote on the specific issue in question. Similarly, arguments for the general reliability of the Bible can be applied to accounts about Methuselah in particular. Neither of the two atheists mentioned above interacted with our arguments for the general reliability of the Biblical documents.
Notice how these atheists ignore what other people have written, change the subject, and apply double standards, among other things. I've written before about the tendency of many skeptics to apply far different standards to themselves than they apply to others. What would they think of Christians who behaved the way they do? What if I responded to an article at Atheist Missionary's blog about Methuselah by changing the subject to the origin of the universe? What if I then changed my argument about the origin of the universe and ignored most of what the atheists there wrote in response to me on the subject? What if I made the number and variety of logical and factual errors Atheist Missionary has in his posts at Triablogue? What if I kept ignoring posts at Atheist Missionary's blog about evidence for atheism, all the while repeatedly making vague comments about a lack of evidence for atheism and assuming a lack of evidence for it in my own arguments?
Is it any wonder that atheism is such a small faith when its missionaries behave that way?
Jason, you are correct. I changed the subject and moved the goalpost. I will endeavour to avoid doing so in the future.
ReplyDeleteThe only other point of this post was to describe atheism as a "small faith". My response to that suggestion requires two contentions:
My first contention should be uncontroversial: most people (myself included) are not that smart, not that well read and have little to no sophistication when it comes to formal philosophy.
My second contention is purely anecdotal: very few of those who identify themselves as Christians believe the fundamental tenets of their faith. By fundamental tenets, I mean the following beliefs: that God is a supernatural deity who actively intervenes in the world (such as through the power of prayer), the virgin birth and the physical resurrection of Christ. I don't arrive at this contention lightly. It is the product of hundreds of conversations with professed religious believers. Once you scratch the surface of their professed belief, what you usually find are the following:
1. a sincere desire to believe the things they have usually indoctrinated with since birth;
2. a host of logical fallacies such as the false dichotomy, the negative proof fallacy (i.e. because a premise cannot be proven false, the premise must be true) and the inevitable arguments from ignorance;
3. a general sense that "religion is good" for society and that nihilist anarchy would result if everyone admitted that the myths underpinning Christianity are, at best, improbable and, at worst, absurd; and
4. an honest skepticism with respect to the supernatural claims of their chosen creed.
If my second anecdotal contention is correct, is there anything we can draw from this fact? Probably not. Argumentum ad populum cuts both ways. However, recognition that nonbelief in religious supernatural claims is far more pervasive than current polling might otherwise indicate might help bring more atheists out of the closet.
Does the first contention have any connection to the second? Only to the extent that it does not appear that an increase in IQ and/or philosophical sophistication leads to a greater degree of belief in religious supernatural claims.
It is the product of hundreds of conversations with professed religious believers.
ReplyDeleteAnd thus you commit the same error as you committed with Methuselah. Your sample size, even if it really is hundreds, which I suspect is inflated, is infinitessimal compared to the numbers of Christians out there.
Just like your sample size of human ages. Have you ever honestly grappled with the problem of induction? Surprise me and say you have and that you have a compelling answer.
If you admit you're "not that smart, not that well read and have little to no sophistication when it comes to formal philosophy," and if your second contention is "purely anecdotal," then what you contend here falls apart. Indeed, it self-destructs.
ReplyDeleteIf what you say is "purely anecdotal," then, despite the fact that you've had "hundreds of conversations with professed religious believers," this could simply be representative of your small sample size rather than Christians in general. For all we know your "hundreds of conversations with professed religious believers" could be with no more than two or three professing Christians in your life. Maybe you had "hundreds of conversations" with them. But even if you had "hundreds of conversations" with hundreds of professing Christians, it could still be unrepresentative of professing Christians in general.
If "most people (myself included) are not that smart, not that well read, and have little to no sophistication when it comes to formal philosophy," then we shouldn't deal with the common person's argument for theism or atheism. Rather we should deal with the best and the brightest's most sophisticated arguments for either option.
If you're "not that well read and have little to no sophistication when it comes to formal philosophy," then it's arguably unlikely that you're able to properly evaluate whether someone has committed "a host of logical fallacies."
And so on and so forth.
Rhology, I will be the first to admit that inductive reasoning is fallible but it's often the best we have. I'm not sure what kind of compelling answer you are looking for because I'm not in the business of providing answers, just rejecting those which have no sufficient evidentiary foundation.
ReplyDeleteWith respect to my contention that most professed believers do not really believe the tenets of their faiths, I will provide two examples that I am fond of using:
1. "Pascal's Warsteiner Wager" - If I promise you a lifetime of free beer if you will believe that there is a dragon on my basement, you might well want to believe it but there is no way that you can sincerely believe it.
2. "TAM Walks on Water" - If you saw me walk on water with your own eyes, you would not believe me if I suggested that I was the second coming of Christ. You (quite reasonably) would look for a natural explanation because it is far more likely that what you saw was a magician's trick or optical illusion than the second coming. If this would be your reaction to a miracle that you witnessed with your own eyes, why would you believe a 2000 year old story about someone walking on water? The answer (I contend) is that most people don't - they might want to but they don't because they can't.
Patrick, if I have committed a logical fallacy in this comment, I trust you will let me know.
I will be the first to admit that inductive reasoning is fallible but it's often the best we have.
ReplyDelete1) Not the best *I* have.
2) How do you know it's often the best you have? Is this more inductive reasoning? Isn't that circular and self-referentially unhelpful?
just rejecting those which have no sufficient evidentiary foundation.
May I know how you adduce evidence to know that evidence is a good way to discover truth?
1. "Pascal's Warsteiner Wager"
This is supposed to show that blvrs don't really blv in Christ? Did you forget about the doctrine of the depravity of man and Romans 7, like virtually all skeptics I talk to?
2. "TAM Walks on Water" - If you saw me walk on water with your own eyes, you would not believe me if I suggested that I was the second coming of Christ.
1) B/c I have a preexisting reason to think that you're not Christ. That is, Christ said He'd come back in a spectacular, world-ending and -rending kind of way. Which walking on water wouldn't be.
2) You can't walk on water.
You (quite reasonably) would look for a natural explanation because it is far more likely that what you saw was a magician's trick or optical illusion than the second coming.
The funny thing is that we have all this supernatural and prophetic context surrounding the resurrection of Christ from the dead and you still look for a natural explanation, even when every option (that I've ever seen) is laughably bad.
Peace,
Rhology
"May I know how you adduce evidence to know that evidence is a good way to discover truth?"
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, but this is just silly. Ask a biblical scholar how he knows he should make sure his exegesis accounts for the textual data. Ask a forensic detective how he knows that collecting fingerprints and taking DNA samples will potentially help him catch the criminal. Ask an aerospace engineer how he knows that before a plane is allowed to fly, stress tests should be conducted.
It is a nonsense question to ask whether there is evidence that evidence helps us find truth. That's part of the definition of evidence.
"How do you know it's often the best you have? Is this more inductive reasoning? Isn't that circular and self-referentially unhelpful?"
Our confidence in induction is properly basic, and a kind of natural habit or compulsion, as Pascal and Hume argued. Even if we can't find an inductive justification of induction, we can still have confidence in its reliability unless we have good reason to think otherwise. And if you don't walk around worrying whether the sun will rise the next day, and don't refuse to step on a bridge for fear it will suddenly vanish into thin air, you have confidence in induction as well.
JD,
ReplyDeleteSo you put blind faith in the utility of evidence. Gotcha.
Hey wait, isn't that what atheists accuse Christians of doing??!?!?!
You said:
Even if we can't find an inductive justification of induction, we can still have confidence in its reliability unless we have good reason to think otherwise
1) I think you misunderstood - I wasn't asking you to catechise me on your religion. I was asking for some substantive answers.
2) A Christian can have plenty of confidence in induction. I don't see how an atheist can.
JD WALTERS SAID:
ReplyDelete"Our confidence in induction is properly basic, and a kind of natural habit or compulsion, as Pascal and Hume argued. Even if we can't find an inductive justification of induction, we can still have confidence in its reliability unless we have good reason to think otherwise."
But your worldview can either support or undercut confidence in induction. If atheism is true, then what if we're like birds that keep flying into the same window.
Rhology,
ReplyDelete"So you put blind faith in the utility of evidence. Gotcha."
I'm not even sure what that means. Well-grounded beliefs are beliefs based on evidence, which takes many different forms: there is perceptual evidence, what Pascal calls 'reasons of the heart', propositional evidence, etc. It is a category mistake to speak of having 'blind faith in the utility of evidence'. By definition evidence is useful to obtain truth. Your challenge is more appropriately directed at the connection between specific kinds of evidence and the truths it (allegedly) entails. To challenge the usefulness of evidence in toto is meaningless.
"Hey wait, isn't that what atheists accuse Christians of doing??!?!?!"
First of all, you assume that because I challenged your silly assertions that I'm an atheist. Wrong. I'm a Christian, a conservative one at that, who believes in the Resurrection, the Triune God, the primacy of the Bible in shaping Christian faith and practice, etc. But it says volumes about your critical acumen that you leap to that assumption.
Second, even to a Christian concerned to defend the rationality of the Gospel your tu quoque lacks teeth. The atheist accuses the Christian of basing his beliefs on poor evidence. You counter by challenging the atheist's belief in the usefulness of evidence, which as I demonstrated above is a category mistake, but if it were a meaningful objection you cut the ground out from under your feet as well. Both Christians and atheists are looking for well-grounded beliefs. Your skeptical challenge undermines the possibility of either coming to such beliefs.
But I don't think that's what you're trying to do:
"A Christian can have plenty of confidence in induction. I don't see how an atheist can."
So what you're really after is an argument to the best explanation. You're not doubting that induction works, or that human beings have knowledge. If you were, you'd cut the ground out from under yourself as well. But you'd like to argue that only the Christian worldview grounds induction. By all means make such a case. But don't say silly things like the atheist can't have confidence in induction. Of course he can. God makes his sun shine on both the evil and the good, and sends his rain on the just and on the unjust.
Here's another analogy: in Lord of the Rings Gandalf tells Frodo that the Shire has been kept safe for many years by the watchful eyes of the Rangers, even though the hobbits aren't aware of them. Suppose some hobbits scoffed at the idea that strange Men were keeping the Shire safe. Does that mean that they are in danger now because of their skepticism? Of course not. The Rangers continue to guard the Shire, with or without the hobbits' acknowledgement.
Steve,
ReplyDeleteI guess my main concern with Rhology's approach is that if an atheist raises an empirical challenge to Christian belief, it doesn't work to counter with a presuppositional challenge to the atheist. For example, if an archeology claims to have found Jesus' tomb, that claim has to be refuted on empirical grounds, not by questioning the reliability of induction, much less something like, "Because Jesus is the Logos and is the reason anything makes sense in the Universe, that can't be his body because otherwise the universe would lose coherence." No, the proper response is to question the dating of the artifact, its provenance, etc.
I don't think metaphysical considerations secure Christian faith as a whole. It seems obviously false that one can prove the inerrancy of the Bible, for example, by the impossibility of its opposite.
JD,
ReplyDeleteI think we can take a two-pronged approach, and which approach we favor depends on the situation. Certainly there are many times when we can, or even ought to, answer the atheist on his own terms.
But there are other times when it's worthwhile to point out that he can't even ground induction, or the reliability of the senses.
The Atheist Missionary wrote:
ReplyDelete"The only other point of this post was to describe atheism as a 'small faith'."
No, I made other points as well. I don't know why you'd claim that describing atheism as a small faith is my "only other point", since it's so obvious that I was addressing other issues as well.
The "contentions" you go on to discuss don't refute anything I said.
One question I'm interested in is the dialectic between empirical evidence and metaphysics. Is it meaningful to speak of empirical constraints on metaphysical views? Or are all empirical considerations entirely relative to one's paradigm?
ReplyDeleteThat's a fair question, but any stab at answering it would take a separate post. Maybe tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteJD,
ReplyDeleteIf you re-read my comment with a little more calm and tranquility, less anger, you'll see I never said you were an atheist. I know who you are - the CADRE guy. Yet you broke in on a comment directed toward an atheist, and argued what is essentially the atheist side of things, either not realising or not caring I was engaging in an internal critique of atheism. The former is forgivable; the latter absolves me of any guilt I might have in "thinking" you were an atheist.
I'm not interested, actually, in talking about these questions from a biblical standpoint at this time. Other times, sure, but not here, b/c I was addressing The Atheist Missionary. I am going to answer you as if you were an atheist b/c I've seen these exact same responses from atheists dozens of times. Also, since that's the case, I'd recommend you do some thinking, if your responses are indistiguishable from atheists' responses. That would give ME pause.
To challenge the usefulness of evidence in toto is meaningless.
Unless I were challenging the utility of evidence on atheism.
The fact that atheists DO think that evidence is useful and leads to truth shows that they can't live consistently with their worldview. I know it's useful, but that's b/c I'm a Christian.
But it says volumes about your critical acumen that you leap to that assumption.
Since you're a Christian, is it too much to ask that you deal a little more gently with a brother? Sheesh.
don't say silly things like the atheist can't have confidence in induction. Of course he can. God makes his sun shine on both the evil and the good, and sends his rain on the just and on the unjust.
You do realise, don't you? that atheists don't think there's a God who sends rain...
if an atheist raises an empirical challenge to Christian belief, it doesn't work to counter with a presuppositional challenge to the atheist.
Demonstrating that they have blind faith in their own cognitive faculties and position...what's wrong with that? I can respond to the empirical challenge, sure, but why would I do that since the atheist is just going to refuse it based on his own faith position? I want to show him he's not in any better shape before I make my evidentiary defense. Not that I never will make it, but all in good time.
I wish you more kindness and straighter thinking,
Rhology
The Atheist Missionary said: " .. a sincere desire to believe the things they have usually indoctrinated with since birth;"
ReplyDeleteAtheist, you do know that the bulk of the worlds' atheists come from, or live in Christian countries; or that Charles Darwin himself was the son of a preacher, etc and so on - right?
Underlying your comment, is an absurd and prejudicial presupposition that people are trapped by the beliefs of their parents, which is akin to people having faith only because they have been brain washed.
Just as people can discard their faith in favour of of atheism, faithful can discard their skepticism and pick up faith, because they have warrant to do so.
The underlying issue here, is that some (theists or otherwise) people believe things with warrant, and others believe things in spite of it.
Rhology,
ReplyDeleteYou're right, upon reflection you didn't actually say I was an atheist, although you responded to me as if I were, as if I was one of those irrational unbelievers with blind faith in the utility of evidence. Your tone was definitely the condescending, triumphalist tone you take with your atheist interlocutors, which ticked me off.
It shouldn't give you pause that I happen to agree with some atheists about some things. As Nicholas Wolterstorff says in "Reason within the bounds of religion," there's no reason to expect that Christians, as Christians, will necessarily be better philosophers, scientists or artists than unbelievers. We should welcome truth wherever we find it.
I know that you were engaging in an internal critique of atheism. It's an appealing line of approach to apologetics, to try to prevent a skeptical critique from even getting off the ground by cutting out its cognitive branch from under it. But the problem I have is that, once those discussions are over, the really interesting empirical questions remain, such as the historical attestation of Jesus' life, the challenge of the evolutionary narrative, the goodness of the OT portrayal of God, etc. I want to focus on those, and I think apologists should too. There's a place for a presuppositional critique of atheism, but it can only go so far.
JD WALTERS SAID:
ReplyDelete"But the problem I have is that, once those discussions are over, the really interesting empirical questions remain, such as the historical attestation of Jesus' life, the challenge of the evolutionary narrative, the goodness of the OT portrayal of God, etc. I want to focus on those, and I think apologists should too. There's a place for a presuppositional critique of atheism, but it can only go so far."
I agree with you that there's a place for that, and I myself can operate at that level, too, and often do.