Destroying Russell's Teapot (With Lasers!)

[Solus_vistor]

This thread is not about proving God exists, it’s about addressing the Teapot analogy, or Flying Spaghetti Monster, or any other of those things.

Any concept of God whose existence can be investigated by scientific methods — like e.g. the existence of a remote galaxy, or the Easter Bunny, the Tooth Fairy, Flying Spaghetti Monster, Russel’s teapot, or Dawľkins’ Boeing 747 — or a magician-god who performs tricks on demand, is not a God I could believe in. I presume most 21st century educated Christians will agree with my rejection of such a God amenable to scientific scrutiny.

Russell’s example addresses only a philosophically rather naive understanding of God.

For example, David H. Hart provides the following “definition” of God in his recent “The Experience of God: Being, Consciousness, Bliss” (Yale UP 2013). As all such “definitions” of basic concepts it must assume something that some can understand and agree with and others don’t:

“God is not only the ultimate reality that the intellect and the will seek but it is also the primordial reality with which all of us are always engaged in every moment of existence and consciousness, apart from which we have no experience of anything whatsoever. Or, to borrow the language of Augustine, God is not only superior summo meo - beyond my utmost heights - but also interior intimo meo - more inward to me than my inmost depths.”

And he adds,

“Only when one understands what such a claim means does one know what the word “God” really means, and whether it is reasonable to think that there is a reality to which that word refers, and in which we should believe”.

 

[Partinobodycula]

“God is not only the ultimate reality that the intellect and the will seek but it is also the primordial reality with which all of us are always engaged in every moment of existence and consciousness, apart from which we have no experience of anything whatsoever.”

I may be mistaken, but I don’t believe that most agnostics, and indeed most atheists, would have a major problem with this statement. Where they may have some difficulty, is in the personification and deification of this “primordial reality”. To believe that there is some self-aware, Romanesque God sitting in judgment over humanity, stretches credulity. With all due respect to Aquinas et.al, there is no evidence or reasoning to support the claim of a self-aware, conscious “God”.

And beyond that, the idea that anyone, not just Christians would have some exclusive knowledge as to the nature, purpose, and intentions of this “God” smacks of sanctimonious self-delusion. People are historically prone to believing in all manner of outrageous and unsubstantiated claims, and in doing so with the utmost passion and conviction. They seem to hold to their beliefs so fervently, as much out of a need to assure themselves, as out of any desire to convince others. But certainty in defense of one’s beliefs is not always a virtue, and is quite often a sign of denial. Those who aren’t capable of admitting the weaknesses in their arguments are the most likely to be deceived by them. It seems that quite often, those who are the most vocal in defense of their beliefs, are the poorest choice to defend them. If you want me to believe that you have truly examined your beliefs, then at least have the candor to admit that you might be wrong. If you can’t do that, then I have no reason to believe that you have sincerely questioned them.

We humans have a seemingly innate aversion to the conceitedness and arrogance of others. We admire humility. We dislike those who claim to have a sense of reason that is in some way superior to our own, not because we’re conceited, but because we have a natural tendency to distrust those who claim a position of preeminence and wisdom to which they are not entitled. We question those who hold uncompromising beliefs, as much for the arrogance with which they hold them, as for the beliefs themselves. Most of us are gracious enough not to belittle the reasoning which has gone into the beliefs of others, so long as they are gracious enough not to belittle the reasoning which has gone into ours.

Others may question my beliefs and my reasoning, as should I, but when they belittle the sincerity which with I have forged them, then they draw a line between us that will be difficult for either of us to cross. It’s not so difficult for men to look at the world and believe in God. What is difficult is to look at the behavior of those who claim to speak in His defense, and believe in God.

 

[Solus_vistor]

Partinobodycula,

Sorry, but I fail to see the relevance of your post to my comment about the Russell teapot. You obviously do not believe in God (in the way Christians usually understand Him), and you have problems with your unbelief, otherwise you would not have used this thread as a kind of psychotherapist’s coach.

Nevertheless, let me react to one thing I see hidden behind your spilled emotions.

You are right, that to believe in a “primordial reality” that is beyond the reach of science does not imply anything about the nature of this reality. The same as to believe in the existence of physical reality (as practically everybody does) does not imply anything about its nature, about which scientific theory better represents it. There are people - Spinoza and Einstein are perhaps the best known - who believe in something that they call God but do not believe in Him as a person who can communicate with us, as do theists like e.g. Christians.

You have to live with the fact that there are people who believe in a personal God, more precisely in a certain “representation” of the “primordial reality” modelled on our concept of “person” (there are as many such “representations” as there are religions), and that there are those who do not believe in anything that could be called God (and those in-between, like Spinoza and Einstein).

Nobody is forcing you to believe anything about “primordial reality” that is against your life experience. Asking for the evidence for God’s existence is like asking for e.g. the evidence for time’s existence: you cannot give a definition of time to build your “evidence” on, and the same for other basic concepts, including that of God. Therefore, for instance, the title of the book I quoted from was not called “The Evidence for God” but “The Experience of God” and its aim is to help those who had that experience to understand it better, and eventually help also those who never had that experience to understand what it could be like.

The proof of the pudding is in the eating, and the “evidence” for the God of Christians is in the Christian faith.

 

[trleith]

Hmmmmm. What We Owe the New Atheists – Edward Feser

 

[ANewWorld]

I may be mistaken, but I don’t believe that most agnostics, and indeed most atheists, would have a major problem with this statement. Where they may have some difficulty, is in the personification and deification of this “primordial reality”. To believe that there is some self-aware, Romanesque God sitting in judgment over humanity, stretches credulity. With all due respect to Aquinas et.al, there is no evidence or reasoning to support the claim of a self-aware, conscious “God”.
.

You are not wrong in saying that most people of any stripe would not have a problem with the statement that “being, bliss, consciousness” exists. Where David Bentley Hart goes completely of the rails is in pushing back God into the realm of the unfalsifiable. Essentially, his experience of God is everything that exists. What gets left unsaid in his most recent book is that for the vast majority of Christians, this experience translates to very specific doctrines and dogma.

Hart’s God in his latest book is very close to, if not identical to, a pantheistic God. The unsaid part are very specific claims including the Trinity, the Resurrection of Jesus body and soul into Heaven (is this literal or metaphorical; if the former, that’s a very specific claim in violation of the known laws of Physics with material disappearing into another realm; if the latter, a metaphor for what?) We need look no further than this forum for miraculous claims such as Padre Pio’s bilocation and holy scent, healing waters, apparitions of Mary, healing abilities of “holy sites,” Eucharistic miracles, etc. to see the point Russell was trying to make with his teapot.

The teapot is a useful sound byte that is a part of a bigger worldview. All of the above (and many more) are claims that are concrete and empirical within the world we live in; this is the core of Russell’s argument. Why give credence to these beliefs on insufficient evidence?

As for David Bentley Hart, his latest book amounts to shifting the goalposts. Any “caricature of God” that he claims New Atheists has is immediately and fully dismissed by a waive of the hand and a statement (or in Hart’s case, books) that amount to “that’s not the God I believe in either,” as if this alone is justification to then by default believe in whatever Hart’s definition of God happens to be. If it’s being, consciousness, and bliss, well fine, I believe in that too. Just don’t attach rituals and dogmas to it that not only have caused harm in the world, but come with some revealed knowledge of eternal torture or bliss, of which he again provides no evidence for.

 

[Solus_vistor]

Hmmmmm. What We Owe the New Atheists – Edward Feser

Thanks for the link. It favours an attitude to our Catholic faith that is helpful to some of us but I doubt Thomism is a good background on which to conduct a dialogue with open-minded atheists. Nevertheless, I wholly agree that “If the Faith is going to be defended effectively … its metaphysical presuppositions must be carefully set out” because it is on the level of metaphysical presuppositions that atheists and theist differ from the beginning, not on things that are subject to scientific scrutiny. As I keep on saying, there is only one thing worse than religion masquerading as (natural) science: science masquerading as religion.

As for the last sentence about being thankful to New Atheists for “prodding Catholics”, this is expressed in a colorful language in the book Patience with God by the psychotherapist priest and professor of sociology with an atheist upbringing (his First Communion at the age of 18) Tomas Halik:

“It would be a reprehensible neglect if Christianity failed to use for its own benefit the fact that, during the modern era, it was subject, more than any other religion, to the purgative flames of atheist criticism; it would be just as unfortunate to lack the courage to enter that smelting furnace as to renounce, in the midst of the flames, the faith and hope that are intended to be tested and refined.”

 

[Solus_vistor]

What gets left unsaid in his most recent book is that for the vast majority of Christians, this experience translates to very specific doctrines and dogma.

There are many things left unsaid in the book addressing the experience of God in its generality.

We need look no further than this forum for miraculous claims such as Padre Pio’s bilocation and holy scent, healing waters, apparitions of Mary, healing abilities of “holy sites,” Eucharistic miracles, etc. to see the point Russell was trying to make with his teapot.

I do not think Russell had these particularities in mind when presenting his argument against belief in God. He was an atheist philosopher, not an atheist preacher like many public atheists today.

All of the above (and many more) are claims that are concrete and empirical within the world we live in; this is the core of Russell’s argument. Why give credence to these beliefs on insufficient evidence?

This is exactly what I had in mind when I stated that these claims - unlike that about the existence of a transcendent God - can be investigated by scientific methods applicable solely within the empirical world. You might or might not believe that this world is all that is, to use Carl Sagan’s words. And if you do not, you might or might not believe that the concept of a personal God reflects the nature of that what is beyond this “concrete and empirical world”. These are all basic worldview presuppositions, and there are many arguments for or against this or that, convincing for some, not for others (and arguments for the personal nature of God must necessarily reflect the - well - person who presents that argument), but asking for an evidence to support your basic worldview presupposition is as silly as asking in mathematics for a proof of an axiom.

Just don’t attach rituals and dogmas to it that not only have caused harm in the world, but come with some revealed knowledge of eternal torture or bliss, of which he again provides no evidence for.

This emotional outburst is as irrelevant to Russell’s teapot and the question of God’s existence as it could be.

 

[trleith]

@Solus Visitor Unfortunately, it seems Thomism is not a good background on which to conduct a dialogue with Catholics either.

I have been thinking a lot about adult catechesis lately (say age 17 or so on up) and I am convinced we simply must take modern philosophy head-on before anything else will be possible. Adult catechesis today must ***begin ***with philosophy. But Aristotelian/Thomistic philosophy should pervade Catholic education from infancy. Why study mathematics? Because mathematics is a special case of reason, and we are created in the image of a Reasonable God who gave us an intelligible universe to reason about so as to discover Him. And so on. Some sentence like this should be said at the beginning of every class period.

The commenter “Vaal” on Professor Feser’s article must be answered – he asks a good question “are your motives for credibility reasonable?” He is not motivated by the motives for credibility we can offer, at least thus far, but he nevertheless deserves an answer that draws the line between “knowledge” and “belief”, and (of course) demonstrates the reasonability (not mere plausibility) of belief. But I think can ask him whether his skepticism is reasonable. I don’t think it is, and I think the Aristotelian/Thomistic system is the best description we have of what’s really real. In that sense, it is true and so a direct contradiction of it is false.

 

[ANewWorld]

I do not think Russell had these particularities in mind when presenting his argument against belief in God. He was an atheist philosopher, not an atheist preacher like many public atheists today.

Yes, you are right that he probably did not have those particularities in mind when it comes to the concept of God. Where the teapot argument comes into play is when particularities of these sorts are asserted by theists and either explicitly or implicitly used as evidence of not only God, but God acting on the world.

This is exactly what I had in mind when I stated that these claims - unlike that about the existence of a transcendent God - can be investigated by scientific methods applicable solely within the empirical world.

This speaks to part of what I was saying in my previous comment. There is somewhat of a misconception in this thread (as well as in many discussions like these and I’m not accusing you specifically) that the New Atheist movement declares that there is absolute proof that any god doesn’t exist. The first step is to define God, which for most people in a broad sense is The Creator of the Universe with varying levels of belief into how and in what way God interacts with the world. So to say that the New Atheists are dismantling a Straw Man and “that’s not the God I believe in either” and then dismiss everything they have to say is disingenuous at best. Most of their books speak to a very specific belief system that poll after poll has shown a large majority of theists to accept. As Richard Dawkins stated, he would’ve written a very different book than the one he did if this were not the case.

What Hart does is lay out a very subjective experience of life and attributes it to God, but presents nothing in the way of why anyone else should accept his interpretation and the criticism lies in the fact that we have an overwhelming body of evidence demonstrating how subjective experience is easily misinterpreted.

This is exactly what I had in mind when I stated that these claims - unlike that about the existence of a transcendent God - can be investigated by scientific methods applicable solely within the empirical world.

I agree with you here. You may (or may not) be surprised to hear that many of the outspoken atheists in the world agree too. The issue lies not in testing a transcendent God, the issue lies in asserting the transcendent God and then asserting specific actions He causes. That does like within the empirical world. To clarify, one could always assert that God acted within natural laws to cause an event, and that’s not testable either. But, there are certainly miraculous claims that don’t fit nicely into this mold. With regard to an untestable transcendent claim, an equally untestable claim is that there’s a transcendent Creator of this Universe, but that Creator lies within another realm which also has a transcendent cause. Without any form of evidence, both these claims have equal probability (whatever that may be, and I wouldn’t even begin to try to put a number on it).

but asking for an evidence to support your basic worldview presupposition is as silly as asking in mathematics for a proof of an axiom.

I see where you’re going with this, but I see the analogy as slightly flawed. Mathematical axioms can be viewed as the foundation upon which more complicated logic can be built. Yes, we have no choice but to simply accept or reject them, but it is quite demonstrable that these axioms prove useful in showing how the world works. The axioms are abstract concepts but they map to observable reality. Assuming they are wrong at best results in no progress and at worst results in outcomes demonstrably opposed to goals. Everything we do in modern society would cease to work if we relied on axioms contradictory to what we’ve determined accurate. E.g. we can rely on abstract mathematical concepts to map to the reality that I can get on a jet and fly from New York to Los Angeles. Assuming an Unmoved Mover/First Cause/Prime Mover/etc. doesn’t map to anything that can be demonstrated and in light of modern Physics has been shown to be unnecessary. I stress that this is not the same as saying that it is proven to be absolutely untrue, just that it isn’t necessary to explain the world. Try to adequately explain things without, for example, the communicative property of addition (or, if you’re braver, contradicting this property) and we won’t get very far. The main point is that certain presuppositions can be shown to be more reliable than others both actively and by contradiction (assuming something directly opposed to them is true).

This emotional outburst is as irrelevant to Russell’s teapot and the question of God’s existence as it could be.

Your definition of emotional outburst must be different than mine. I’ll clarify. There’s not many people who care if belief in a transcendent cause has no effect on one’s actions. Awful things still done in the world today are done in the name of a transcendent cause supporting it; that is precisely where Russell’s Teapot comes into play. Even given transcendence, it is an entirely separate matter to claim that a specific person or group of people has special subjective insight that not only shows the transcendence is capable of wanting something but tells these specific people precisely what it is. But I will concede this point for now as it does have the potential to digress far from the topic at hand. I only meant to put it out there as one of the motivations for the argument and am also not trying to paint with such a broad brush as to say that belief in transcendence hasn’t motivated people to do good as well; however, Hart’s argument could just as well be Being, Consciousness, Agony.

 

[Solus_vistor]

I have been thinking a lot about adult catechesis lately (say age 17 or so on up) and I am convinced we simply must take modern philosophy head-on

I think there is difference between dialogue with open-minded atheists (the Zacchaeuses that Halik refers to in the book I quoted from) and adult catechesis. I agree that one cannot have a good understanding of contemporary philosophy without understanding Aristotle’s and Aquinas’ contributions. However, this is different from trying to make an open-minded atheist understand what we Christianity, especially Catholicism, is all about, and thus — as we would call it — eventually prepare the ground for the Holy Spirit to take over.

Why study mathematics? Because mathematics is a special case of reason, and we are created in the image of a Reasonable God who gave us an intelligible universe to reason about so as to discover Him.

True, but this does not mean one should teach mathematics using medieval knowledge and concepts. Aquinas could not use insights provided by modern science about the nature of physical reality, but we can profit from those provided by both modern science and Aquinas.

Everybody, atheist or theist, thinks his/her worldview is based on “reasonable” presuppositions or beliefs, and some people think that other worldviews are unreasonable. I think that perhaps instead of arguing that what we believe in is reasonable and the alternative unreasonable, one should only argue that our beliefs are not unreasonable since they cannot by falsified by science.

 

[Solus_vistor]

Where the teapot argument comes into play .

I thought Russell’s teapot metaphor was about the existence of God, not about what is called Divine Action, that you seem to have mostly devoted this post to. This is not an easy topic, but most of what a Christian sees as Divine Action (God’s interference with the physical world) can be explained by a suitable interpretation of known scientific facts or theories, (often involving those of as yet little understood consciousness), interpretations that, of course, are meaningless for an atheist. The notable exceptions are Christ’s Virgin Birth and His Resurrection, but even these are unfalsifiable statements about exceptional historical events, as highly improbable as they might appear to an atheist.

So to say … “that’s not the God I believe in either” and then dismiss everything they have to say is disingenuous at best.

I do not see what is disingenuous if I say that you claim I believe something that I actually do not believe. There are naive understandings of many concepts, and the more abstract the subject (like in theoretical physics) the more widely spread are they. So why should this not be true about abstract concepts that Christian beliefs deal with? One does not attack theoretical physics for naive understandings of the Big Bang, QM, superstring theory etc. The difference, of course, is that very few people seek a deeper understanding of things theoretical physics is about, whereas everybody has a worldview and many ask what their life is about, the philosophically sophisticated as well as the ordinary, “philosophically naive” folk, theist or atheist.

Hart … presents nothing in the way of why anyone else should accept his interpretation

I think Hart was trying to explain what is meant by the experience of God, and like any explanation, you either understand it or not. No explanation is understood by everybody, but obviously some did accept it, otherwise the book would not be published by the Yale University Press.

we have an overwhelming body of evidence demonstrating how subjective experience is easily misinterpreted.

We also have an overwhelming body of evidence that many people are liars. What does this imply about any particular person?

The issue lies not in testing a transcendent God, the issue lies in asserting the transcendent God and then asserting specific actions He causes.

As I said, you seem to be concerned not with the existence of God but with Divine Action, which is a different problem, meaningful only for those who believe in God.

With regard to an untestable transcendent claim, an equally untestable claim is that there’s a transcendent Creator of this Universe, …. Without any form of evidence, both these claims have equal probability (whatever that may be …).

I never said belief in God, or Christian interpretations of scientific findings, are testable or that there could be scientific evidence for God’s existence (like there could be for that of Russell’s teapot), and you are right that speaking of probability in this context does not make much sense.

I could contradict you on what you wrote about mathematical axioms but I shall not since you apparently are not a mathematician.

Awful things still done in the world today are done in the name of a transcendent cause

That is true, but has nothing to do with whether a belief in God — as contemporary educated Christians understand Him and their faith — is reasonable or not. You can do more harm with nuclear power than with gun powder and more with that than with a sword, nevertheless one does not ban these “more efficient” providers of energy, which can be not only destructive.

it is an entirely separate matter to claim that a specific person or group of people has special subjective insight that not only shows the transcendence is capable of wanting something but tells these specific people precisely what it is

This is not about “specific people” having some special insights but a belief that my faith gives me that insight, including a way to interpret the world around me in the only way that makes sense to me, and does not contradict what is universally accepted as scientific facts or theories.

 

[MPat]

We need look no further than this forum for miraculous claims such as Padre Pio’s bilocation and holy scent, healing waters, apparitions of Mary, healing abilities of “holy sites,” Eucharistic miracles, etc. to see the point Russell was trying to make with his teapot.

And they do tend to have far more evidence than the “teapot”…

The teapot is a useful sound byte that is a part of a bigger worldview. All of the above (and many more) are claims that are concrete and empirical within the world we live in; this is the core of Russell’s argument. Why give credence to these beliefs on insufficient evidence?

Just don’t attach rituals and dogmas to it that not only have caused harm in the world, but come with some revealed knowledge of eternal torture or bliss, of which he again provides no evidence for.

OK, so, are you claiming that the main problem is that there is no evidence at all, or that there is some evidence, but it is insufficient…? There is a difference.

As for David Bentley Hart, his latest book amounts to shifting the goalposts. Any “caricature of God” that he claims New Atheists has is immediately and fully dismissed by a waive of the hand and a statement (or in Hart’s case, books) that amount to “that’s not the God I believe in either,” as if this alone is justification to then by default believe in whatever Hart’s definition of God happens to be.

Well, showing that the arguments of the other side are fallacious might not be a very strong argument in favour of one’s position by itself, but it is stronger than arguing against a strawman…

 

[ANewWorld]

I thought Russell’s teapot metaphor was about the existence of God, not about what is called Divine Action

Indeed, it can be applied to both. The metaphor is regarding burden of proof, not just one specific claim.

I do not see what is disingenuous if I say that you claim I believe something that I actually do not believe. There are naive understandings of many concepts, and the more abstract the subject (like in theoretical physics) the more widely spread are they. So why should this not be true about abstract concepts that Christian beliefs deal with? One does not attack theoretical physics for naive understandings of the Big Bang, QM, superstring theory etc.

You are conflating your subjective beliefs with the beliefs of the target audience for those books. 46%, give or take, of Americans believe in Young Earth Creationism, despite not just an overwhelming body of evidence against this very falsifiable claim, but in addition, zero evidence at all to support it. And to claim that people, again I emphasize not you specifically in this thread, do not attack naive understandings of scientific concepts is absurd. Look no further than these Young Earth Creationists who present blatantly incorrect ideas about Evolution, then proceed to happily destroy them; likewise, they do this with the Big Bang. I’ll give you a pass on the QM and String Theory since having a naive understanding of those concepts is quite a more difficult thing to do given their abstract nature and limited circulation in the public sphere. However, on all fronts, people can and do attack scientific topics and they are corrected when they do it.

There is a key difference here though; literally no one believes in the incorrect ideas Creationists put forth about evolution (such as chimps turning into people), yet these fundamentalist religious people run around presenting these ignorant ideas as scientific consensus and then assert that God actively works in the world in ways that contradict science. That very much IS the God that many of these people believe in. So, while it may not be disingenuous for a theist to assert “that’s not my God,” it is disingenuous to assert that these books do not have valid points and the authors simply don’t understand what the common believer believes. Many people sincerely believe in a God in direct opposition to our scientific understanding of the world.

We also have an overwhelming body of evidence that many people are liars. What does this imply about any particular person?

The similarity between people’s propensity for fooling themselves and people’s propensity for lying implies that further assessment needs to be done to determine the veracity of a claim.

As I said, you seem to be concerned not with the existence of God but with Divine Action, which is a different problem, meaningful only for those who believe in God…This is not about “specific people” having some special insights but a belief that my faith gives me that insight

This is where we’re worlds apart in this discussion. I will grant the second point you made that no one can deny your subjective insight into your own beliefs, that is perfectly fine.

But, your subjective beliefs not conflicting with scientific theories is not a reason for me to believe them. You said in a different post that “one should only argue that our beliefs are not unreasonable since they cannot by falsified by science.” I’d really like to question if this is what you honestly believe if you think it through. Under this paradigm, I could assert that my friend Seamus, the invisible green leprechaun composed of undetectable substance which can only act on my body, runs around behind me and ensures I don’t trip, except on the occasions I do trip, in which case Seamus was distracted by dark matter passing through his body and this claim is as valid as any other claim about the world. My example is intentionally ludicrous, which is the original point of Russell’s teapot–to demonstrate where the burden of proof lies and whether it is reasonable to reject it when there is either insufficient or nonexistent evidence.

Additionally, as I stated above, with the volume of anti-science religious people and their actions which they base on their perception of divine action, to declare that it is no business of the atheist is again absurd. It is nearly a statistical certainty that their were atheists in the twin towers on 9/11. 3000 people died because some terrorists thought that they had divine mandate to take down those buildings. Divine action most certainly mattered to the people in those towers who didn’t believe in it.

I could contradict you on what you wrote about mathematical axioms but I shall not since you apparently are not a mathematician.

I will not address the ad hominem attack other than to allow you the chance to clarify that you were not implying that I am either too stupid to understand your point or too arrogant to believe I can be mistaken. If you can contradict my point, by all means do so. I’m interested to know whether I was genuinely incorrect in a point I made or whether I failed to present it a clear way and caused you to misinterpret it.

 

[ANewWorld]

Well, showing that the arguments of the other side are fallacious might not be a very strong argument in favour of one’s position by itself, but it is stronger than arguing against a strawman…

I believe my last response to Solus vistor sufficiently addressed this claim of the straw man argument. The New Atheists books are not addressing any one specific individual, nor are they saying that every single person who claims belief in God believes the same thing. Here is one of the more recent polls on religious belief: harrisinteractive.com/NewsRoom/HarrisPolls/tabid/447/ctl/ReadCustom%20Default/mid/1508/ArticleId/1353/Default.aspx

Clearly, there is much more to belief than a Ground of Being or consciousness and bliss. The numbers of people who believe things not only that are not supported by evidence, but things that are in direct contradiction to scientific facts is not small, and that is the audience they are targeting. Richard Dawkins even states with regard to the more sophisticated arguments among theists who take a reasonable approach to accepting science, “If only such subtle, nuanced religion predominated, the world would surely be a better place, and I would have written a different book. The melancholy truth is that this kind of understated, decent, revisionist religion is numerically negligible. To the vast majority of believers around the world, religion all too closely resembles what you hear from the likes of Roberson, Falwell or Haggard, Osama bin Laden or the Ayatollah Khomeini. These are not straw men, they are all too influential and everybody in the modern world has to deal with them.”

 

[trleith]

I think we’re on the same page here.

 

[Solus_vistor]

Indeed, it can be applied to both. The metaphor is regarding burden of proof, not just one specific claim.

Please read it in e.g. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell’s_teapot. There is no reference to anything that could be seen as assuming God’s existence but critical of Divine Action. Russell explicitly refers to existence (of God) as being affirmed in ancient books, and accepts the narratives and mythologies contained therein literally, thus allowing him to compare the concept of God with that of a teapot. This I referred to as naive, (although necessary for the ancient and contemporary philosophically unsophisticated “common folk” to understand the message).

There are many educated and highly intelligent people with naive ideas about mathematics (believe me, I am a mathematician) and the same with religious concepts, be they theists or atheists. So this is not to disrespect Russell as a philosopher (his History of Western Philosophy is still my default source of reference). My favourite joke is that I can understand Russell but I do not agree with him, whereas I agree with Alfred N. Whitehead but I do not understand him.

You are conflating your subjective beliefs with the beliefs of the target audience for those books.

If Young Earth Creationists, or other biblical literalists, were his only target audience, he should have said so, and he would not have had most of the criticism that he received.

46%, give or take, of Americans believe in Young Earth Creationism,

I am afraid you are right, That, however is an American, not Chistian or even Catholic, phenomenon. Although a non-American I am aware of it, but do not understand the reasons for this cultural curiosity which is practically non-existent in other Western countries.

it is disingenuous to assert that these books do not have valid points and the authors simply don’t understand what the common believer believes.

I do not know of anybody who would have made this sweeping statement, see e.g. my quote from Halik in post #26 on this thread. Again, if Dawkins et al attacked only “what the common believer believes” they should have made it explicit and they would have received different reactions. One thing is to criticise naive ideas about mathematics, and another to “preach” in order to discourage people from trying to get involved with mathematics, any mathematics, good or bad, naive or sophisticated. Not the same but similarly in case of belief in God and religion in general. (Not the same, because attitude towards religion, positive or negative, involves — more than in case of mathematics — not only the intellectual, rational dimension of the mind.)

Many people sincerely believe in a God in direct opposition to our scientific understanding of the world.

Perhaps so, but not the majority of educated Christians who believe in God in direct opposition to scientism, i.e. science as ersatz-religion, not science as such.

The similarity between people’s propensity for fooling themselves and people’s propensity for lying implies that further assessment needs to be done to determine the veracity of a claim.

Well, I am more optimistic than that. People’s propensity for lying does not make me doubt a priori the veracity of what you are saying.

I could assert that my friend Seamus, the invisible green leprechaun

And it would merit discussion if belief in your leprechaun had as many adherents, including a legion of scientists, as the belief in God, and if thousands of books would have been written on why, how and why not believe in your leprechaun. You could claim that spacetime has 2014 dimensions, and nobody would listens, however this is different when respectable physicists discuss the possibility that it could have 11 dimensions.

I am sorry I made you react the way you did at the end of your post. I do not see how 9/11 is related to Russell’s teapot and I share your disapproval of “anti-science religious people” (there are also non-religious anti-science people, c.f. the “Science wars” of the 1990s).

:sad_yes:And I sincerely apologise for what you took as an ad hominem attack.:sad_yes: I certainly did not mean it, I only thought that protracted discussions about the nature of axioms in pure mathematics would be an unnecessary distraction from the topic of Russell’s teapot.

So perhaps I should not have used mathematical axioms in a metaphor. I just lost patience for a moment with people who ask “prove, give evidence, for what you are assuming, believing”. If I had that proof I would not have to assume it, I would simply present it as a fact that had to be accepted by everybody. This is not the case with basic worldview presuppositions (assumptions).

 

[ANewWorld]

Please read it in e.g. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russell’s_teapot. There is no reference to anything that could be seen as assuming God’s existence but critical of Divine Action.

You are right there is not, but my statement was that the concept can be applied to both. The first sentence of the Wikipedia article precisely states that it is used to demonstrate burden of proof for a claim (there’s no distinction for transcendent claims). Russell does go on to apply this to the God claim…I think we are largely in agreement here despite having framed things a bit differently.

Russell explicitly refers to existence (of God) as being affirmed in ancient books, and accepts the narratives and mythologies contained therein literally, thus allowing him to compare the concept of God with that of a teapot. This I referred to as naive, (although necessary for the ancient and contemporary philosophically unsophisticated “common folk” to understand the message).

You would not be alone (atheist and Catholic philosophers alike have raised this complaint). There is a whole other big discussion that could be had about whether a divine message would need to be watered down in some nonsensical way if interpreted literally, but I’ll try to bring this conversation back to the topic of the thread as we’ve both raised multiple points that entire books can and have been devoted to.

My favourite joke is that I can understand Russell but I do not agree with him, whereas I agree with Alfred N. Whitehead but I do not understand him…

If Young Earth Creationists, or other biblical literalists, were his only target audience, he should have said so, and he would not have had most of the criticism that he received.

I would say the same about Hart as you say about Russell. Perhaps target audience isn’t quite the right term here (obviously part of his target audience would be those already in agreement), but my earlier response in this thread where I quoted Dawkins is straight from the horse’s mouth as they say. There’s no reason to take issue with what Dawkins writes if he’s not representing your beliefs correctly, but then to dismiss the valid points he has about rampant irrational beliefs on the grounds that some religious people don’t have them is to do the very thing that Dawkins is being accused of–building a straw man.

I am afraid you are right, That, however is an American, not Chistian or even Catholic, phenomenon. Although a non-American I am aware of it, but do not understand the reasons for this cultural curiosity which is practically non-existent in other Western countries.

I would agree that it is principally an American phenomenon in the west, though some things such as the anti-vax movement are widespread in parts of Europe too. If we don’t confine ourselves to just the west, there is plenty of fundamentalism elsewhere inside and outside of Catholicism.

I do not know of anybody who would have made this sweeping statement, see e.g. my quote from Halik in post #26 on this thread. Again, if Dawkins et al attacked only “what the common believer believes” they should have made it explicit and they would have received different reactions.

I will grant you that a valid criticism could be made on this front. However, like with your notion that the “common people” need things explicitly laid out in a literal way (much less a literal way that is rife with contradictions when an equally understandable way could be laid out without them), I disagree, but I’ll shelve that for now as it won’t add to this topic).

Well, I am more optimistic than that. People’s propensity for lying does not make me doubt a priori the veracity of what you are saying.

This too is valid, there’s a whole background against which our minds quickly evaluate statements, a background against which our own biases and life experiences act. I do not doubt a priori everything someone says with the idea that they are being untruthful. For example, in this conversation, I believe we both have made honest attempts to correct misinterpretations of each other’s points and converse in an honest way. Could one of both of us be lying? Absolutely, but there’s no reason for either of us to think so. This ties back into Russell’s Teapot, both of us have gathered evidence to support the claim that we’re being honest. The assertion that we’re lying could be dismissed for the moment as not having supporting evidence.

And it would merit discussion if belief in your leprechaun had as many adherents, including a legion of scientists, as the belief in God, and if thousands of books would have been written on why, how and why not believe in your leprechaun. You could claim that spacetime has 2014 dimensions, and nobody would listens, however this is different when respectable physicists discuss the possibility that it could have 11 dimensions.

Agreed, based on the idea that so many people for so long have discussed the concept of God, but Russell’s teapot still holds whether an unevidenced claim has many adherents or even no adherents. However, it is a useful mechanism, for deciding conflicting truth claims, of which there are many, both inside and outside of religion. I appreciate the effort you put into this conversation as I’ve seen many religious people in discussions such as these assert something along the lines of, “We don’t have to justify our beliefs, we have faith,” and go on to make unfounded claims about the honesty with which a nonbeliever may approach the discussion; i.e. the assumption that the opposing side knows you’re right and is just being intentionally obtuse.

Rest of reply to continue in next post…

 

[ANewWorld]

I am sorry I made you react the way you did at the end of your post. I do not see how 9/11 is related to Russell’s teapot and I share your disapproval of “anti-science religious people” (there are also non-religious anti-science people, c.f. the “Science wars” of the 1990s).

Absolutely agreed again on this front, there is nothing about irrationality that mandates religious belief and I think one point you could criticize Dawkins on (which I personally feel he has somewhat remedied in the last few years) is that the core of the criticism should be towards world views that reject what we know to be true (and I am using know here in the sense of the near certainty with which scientific consensus is formed) in favor of that which can’t possibly be shown to be true (Russell’s Teapot); or, much worse, in favor of unevidenced ideological beliefs explicitly contrary to empirical findings. With regard to 9/11, you did not make me feel that way, I’m just driving home the point of this Russell’s Teapot–the Islamic terrorists asserted that Allah wanted them to fly planes into buildings. There’s no evidence that this is the case nor would there likely to have been a way to reason them out of doing so, for they valued their unevidenced belief about eternal paradise as a reward for these heinous acts over anything reason or evidence could show them. This is one of the more, but certainly not most, vile examples of the destructive effects blind faith can have and I’m glad you agree that operating that way is no way to live.

:sad_yes:And I sincerely apologise for what you took as an ad hominem attack.:sad_yes: I certainly did not mean it, I only thought that protracted discussions about the nature of axioms in pure mathematics would be an unnecessary distraction from the topic of Russell’s teapot.

So perhaps I should not have used mathematical axioms in a metaphor. I just lost patience for a moment with people who ask “prove, give evidence, for what you are assuming, believing”. If I had that proof I would not have to assume it, I would simply present it as a fact that had to be accepted by everybody. This is not the case with basic worldview presuppositions (assumptions).

Apology accepted. Thanks for clarifying. I think to directly answer the original post in this thread, I would say in the context of any general claim, Russell’s Teapot is valid. Attaching a transcendent claim (and wording that people such as Hart and Platinga use asserting that God can’t even be said to exist in the way you or I exist) doesn’t do anything to change it. If God doesn’t exist in this way, does he exist in another way? If so, the claim of existence is still there, although now less clear since a muddled definition of existence has been raised. If not, then the claim isn’t there and there’s no point in asking for the evidence (just like with your point about mathematical axioms). In either case, I don’t see how Russell’s Teapot is refuted, much less destroyed as a valid argument. The best you can claim is that the existence claim isn’t being made so the argument doesn’t apply. This is where my initial posts about applying it to divine action come in and go along with my assertion that attaching a transcendent claim about something to other claims, which aren’t transcendent doesn’t simply remove the burden of proof from the entire thing.

I would be interested in more of your ideas about why a claim of a transcendent God transfers to not being able to test empirical claims about His actions, but transcendent claims about mathematics do not prevent us from empirically testing what they imply in objective reality. For instance, it was either you or someone else here who previously claimed that Jesus’s Resurrection is unfalsifiable, but this seems to go against the idea of what is generally accepted as unfalsifiable, which is understood to be a way in which the claim could be shown to be false, not whether anyone actually does it; nor does it necessitate that the claim cannot be tested. This is not to say that a claim cannot be both unfalsifiable and untestable. But, that might be better discussed in a different topic.

 

[Ion]

It’s a tricky abuse of logic. Not only makes an analogy with a situation where is no gain anyway, but puts unique events out of reason. For example the coming into existence of the first living cell: either way you can’t get any logical conclusion using his pot.
The trick comes when getting something out of reason gives you the liberty of doing nothing, which is the atheists desire when it is about God.

 

[Solus_vistor]

then to dismiss the valid points he has about rampant irrational beliefs on the grounds that some religious people don’t have them

I don’t think a person would dismiss points he/she considers valid. As far as I know, those who criticise Dawkins do not do it on the grounds that some people don’t have “irrational beliefs” (what are then “rational beliefs”?) but on the grounds of what he has written about belief in God, religion etc as such.

I appreciate the effort you put into this conversation as I’ve seen many religious people in discussions such as these assert something along the lines of, “We don’t have to justify our beliefs, we have faith,”

I usually do my conversations on forums frequented mostly by atheists, since they make me articulate my thoughts for my own benefit, as well as broaden the perspective of my own worldview (and hopefully also of that of my partner in these discussions).

You are right, there are people who say that, as there are people who say “We do not have to justify our rejection of any form of belief in God or religion, because we know they are all irrational, superstitious, unscientific, comparable to some silly claims (like that with the teapot) etc”. And you are also right that it is useless to debate such people. Since I spent so much time trying to answer your objections, I obviously do not see you as one of those, in spite of feeling that we have started to go around in circles, our dialogue degenerating into parallel monologues.

I would be interested in more of your ideas about why a claim of a transcendent God transfers to not being able to test empirical claims about His actions, but transcendent claims about mathematics do not prevent us from empirically testing what they imply in objective reality.

You touch upon FOUR topics here. One thing is the belief in God, another His interaction with the physical world. And also, one thing is pure mathematics, another the applicability of this or that part of it. In both cases the second part, Divine Action or applicability of mathematics, is the more complicated thing to analyse and explain. This thread, as I understand it, was only about the first of these four topics. Nevertheless, let me try.

In mathematics truth is purely formal, one actually does not use it very explicitly. Mathematics is built on undefinable, elementary concepts like set, natural number, relation etc, and concepts derived from them with properties a priori assumed about them. These a priori assumptions are called axioms and the function of pure mathematics is to study what can be derived using pure logic from these axioms.

Another thing is the application of mathematics, more precisely of mathematical models, of some phenomena of physical reality and their adequacy, for a particular practical or theoretical (explanatory) purpose. Refer to Eugene Wigner’s “unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics” or Einstein’s “as far as the laws of mathematics refer to reality, they are not certain; as far as they are certain, they do not refer to reality”.

The other two topics are even more complicated, so I can be only sketchy, concerning naturally only the Christian position.

First of all, perhaps you are right that I should have called Jesus’ Resurrection untestable rather than unfalsifiable, although the distinction here is murky since strictly speaking it is not clear how to translate it into contemporary scientific language in which it could be shown to be true or false. The same with Virgin Birth.

One general comment about “miracles” (other than the two above): Events that can be recorded by scientific instruments as violations of known natural laws would simply be absorbed by science as new observations, new facts. A new, more embracing, theory (and/or natural laws) would be sought by scientists to explain them. Seeing these unexplained events as the result of some direct divine act would simply mean a return to the many times discredited god-of-the-gaps argument. Also, a “miraculous healing” always involves some willpower, some faith in the source of healing (c.f. Jesus’ “your faith has healed you”), even when contemporary medicine cannot explain this acting of the mind on the body. No prayer has yet brought back an amputated leg.

However, a Christian — scientist or not — who believes in God will probably not agree that everything he/she sees as God’s intervention can be this easily explained away. A Google search for “divine action” will provide over one hundred and fifty thousand links. Most of these display a naive understanding of science (or theology or both), but not all, including some from authors who are established scientists.

Some make use of quantum physics, chaotic systems, evolution, emergence, complexity or top-down causation “overpowering lower level causal forces”, etc in order to find clues in contemporary science that allow for an account of special, providential divine actions, without postulating violation of natural laws. However, no interpretation has been found that would satisfy all Christian theologians and would not contradict accepted physical theories. There are many things, not only concerning Divine Action but also science as such, that still lack satisfactory explanation — just think of the epistemological enigmas of quantum physics or human consciousness.

Sorry, I feel I did not answer your request, but this is all I could put together.