Monday Debate!

News: First of all, I’ve decided to go to UCSD for graduate school in astrophysics.  

I also met An Atheist for a far too brief chat out in San Diego while I
was out there. (That was my fault because I had an astro meeting that I
had to get to).  Hopefully we’ll get together again sometime in
the
fall, cause I had a good time.

That being said: I’ve fleshed out the rough outline from the previous
entry. So this is first draft of the actual words I’ll be saying on
Monday’s meeting.  Any and all criticism encouraged!

 Let me being by stating that I am not out to convert this
audience to atheism. I hope to make my position to be discovered a bit
more clearly, and I hope to give you many different ideas and questions
that perhaps you haven’t thought of before. So, let me explain why I am an atheist.
::Drop a pen::
How do we explain
why this pen dropped to the floor? Generally, we say the force due to
gravity. Is that the only logically possible explanation? Of course
not. There could be an air current that blows this pen from my hand and
sticks it currently to the floor. There could be tiny strings attached
to the pen that you cannot see that ants pull it quickly to the floor –
or wandering into the mythical, and invisible unicorn could have put
it’s majestic hoof and thrown it to the floor, or into the
supernatural, a demon could have wanted this pen in hell with him, so
he brought it as close to hell as he could take it – the floor just
happened to stop it. Thinking even a short time about possible
explanations should convince anyone that there are an infinite number
of logically possible explanations. Does the fact that, logically, an
invisible unicorn could have been the cause that we normally think of
as an effect due to the force due to gravity, of this pen falling to
the floor cause anyone concern? Does the availability of a possible
alternative explanation – which we could all agree would actually
explain the phenomenon give us any reason to think that this possible
alternative explanation is correct? No, of course not. So, I am going
to explain my position – which I think is shared to an extent by
everyone in this room. We start by required claims about the external
world to have some kind of evidence to back it up. In other words, we
should reject claims that have no evidence – either through some
similarity or probability, or by direct evidence. The more
extraordinary the claim, the more extraordinary the evidence is needed
to back it up. If I told you that I ran 2 miles without stopping this
weekend, I would say that you’re fairly justified in giving a
provisional assent to this claim. There is nothing at all extraordinary
about this claim – I have legs, I hope I look fit enough to do it, and
you’ve either ran this far yourself at some point, or have witnessed
many people accomplishing this feat. If I claimed that I ran 2 miles in
under 3 minutes – I would say that you should provisionally reject this
claim unless and until I gave some extraordinarily good evidence to
back it up. This is an epistemic principle – it is not a statement of
fact about the external world, but a recipe for acquiring the most
accurate beliefs that you can hold. And, I think that all claims about
the external world ought to always be provisional. So, you should say,
“I do not believe that you have run 2 miles in 3 minutes based solely
on your testimony.” Might I have run 2miles in 3? Yes. Does that change
the fact that you should not believe it without more evidence? No.
Because I’m sure it’ll come up, let’s talk about “the beginning of the
universe.” My honors thesis in physics is on big-bang relic neutrinos,
so I have a comfortable enough understanding of big-bang cosmology.
That being said, people often ask, “So, where did the universe come
from?” Or, “everything has to have a beginning, so what was the
uncaused cause?” Even though I feel like I have something of an idea,
let me respond as weakly as possible: I don’t know, but I’m willing to
try and find out. I am personally OK with not having definite answers.
As Feynman said, “I’d rather be uncertain than to accept an answer that
might be wrong.” At this point in the conversation, offering a possible
solution like, “well, God created the universe” is find and dandy, but
until you can come up with evidence for this claim, we ought to reject
it. Sure, it is a logically possible explanation, but so is saying that
the universe was created by a committee of elves. Why pick one
explanation over the other?
Several thousand years ago, wind-god
and thunder and lightning god theists might have asked a non-theist a
similar question, “where does this wind, or thunder and lightning come
from if not a god?” This non-theist would be best to say, “I don’t
know, but, I’m willing to try and find out. ” If everyone in the past
had accepted the “gods did it” as an explanation, we might all still
believe that today rather than have figured out that wind, lightning
and thunder are caused by a number of factors – none of them
supernatural. Positing the answer “got did it” instead of “I don’t
know” only stops inquiry.
Next, I would like to address feeling
from god. First of all, it is important to realize that feelings for
and about some subject can be completely real and powerful without that
subject being real at all. This should be an uncontroversial claim. The
animated movie, Bambi, can evoke strong emotions. Bambi’s mom getting
shot will make me cry every time I see that movie, even though I know
that nothing “really” died. So, let me clarify, even though I don’t
believe that God exists, I completely acknowledge that the very real
emotions and feelings people experience.
So, I am an atheist
because it is and ought to be the default position of everyone until
they see a sufficient amount of evidence to convince them of God’s
existence and his nature. And, as you could probably infer, I do not
think that I have seen any evidence to suggest that anything like any
supernatural god exists. And, I do not think that God as one possible
explanation of an infinite number of possible explanations, or feelings
can give us reliable information about the external world; real as
these emotions are. These critiques apply generally to all forms of
theism that I can think of.
Now, because I’m probably going to be
opposed most strongly by Christians, I’ll say several reasons of why I
am specifically not a Christian.
As I’ve stated before, any claim
about reality needs to be either met with evidence or with a history of
similar claims that are well-attested, and the Bible makes far too many
extraordinary and unsubstantiated claims to take the Bible as a whole
all that seriously. For example, the Gospel accounts of things that
they did not witness – from the knowledge that Jesus’ mom was a virgin
at the time of his birth to the time when Jesus walk off for 40 days
and the devil takes him to a mountaintop high enough to see all the
nations of the world (which clearly has problems in its own right). I
would go one, but let’s say for the sake of argument, that I allow for
you who are Christians to have a much stronger case, and see what
follows. So, let’s assume that the Gospels are an accurate description
of what occurred; that it’s as good as a clear video documentarycompletely convincing to everyone that sees it of all of the alleged
events that occurred when Jesus was around. We see miracles: fish and
loaves and lepers and walking on water and rising from the dead and the
claims that Jesus makes. What ought we conclude from this display? I
would say that we should conclude what the evidence tells us: that
Jesus was a local deity that lived 2,000 years ago. He didn’t
explicitly make claims of being all-powerful, but let’s assume that he
did. Did he ever once do a miracle that was even world-wide in scope?
No, it appears that he had power very locally, only people near him got
miraculously cured. He could have shown his power over the world by
curing all leprosy everywhere at once, and it would be attested by
civilizations the world over at the same exact date. Or, he could have
demonstrated that his power extends over the entire universe by carving
out his message in a 3-D arrangement of stars and galaxies readable
only from the perspective of the earth-affirming our special place in
the universe and demonstrating his power over things beyond earth, and
could instantly let his message be visible everywhere on earth. He made
claims about the after-life, which are great, but we have no way of
knowing whether they are true. But here’s a bigger problem, once a
creature has demonstrated to you the extent of his power and that it’s
far larger than anything we have ever encountered before, you can no
longer be convinced through demonstration of any other characteristic
of this powerful creature. If Jesus were some evil eternal spirit with
an incredible amount of power, it would be completely easy for him to
possess a person for 30 some odd years, and to convince people of the
time that his host had died and risen from the dead. But, Jesus did
good works, drove out demons – why would an evil spirit do that?
Exactly because it is not “what you would expect an evil spirit to do.”
If driving out a few demons from a few people for a few short years
could convince thousands more that you should be worshipped, then
that’s exactly what you would do – it’s strategically sound and not
that difficult to come up with. Hence, the significant and unsolvable
problem of determining any property about a being so different and so
powerful. His moral goodness his knowledge, etc.
One final reason
that I reject Christianity is a moral one. My view on this is usually
foreign to most people, so it can best be described through a short
parable (those are more familiar).
Let’s say that to be admitted to
Vanderbilt, Chancellor Gee states that you have to take a “moral test”
that will occur in an examination room. To be admitted, you have to
pass the test. Otherwise, you will be rejected. When you get into the
room, you are given a multiple choice exam, and only you and a proctor
are in the room. When you finish the exam, you bring it up to the front
and the proctor tells you that he’ll grade it in front of you. A
passing grade is 70, the proctor tells you. And you have made a 56.
You’re crushed and start to leave the room when Gee enters the room and
tells you, “listen, I can only accept people who have a 70 or higher on
their transcript as their score, but I’d be willing to write down that
your score is a 100 – all you have to do is accept the offer. In fact,
I want you to accept my offer, it is the right thing to do, and I want
to be with me at this fine institution.”
What do you do? What is
the right answer if you want to get into Vanderbilt? Or, in evaluating
the moral thing to do, is it better to stick to principles you know are
correct – or for the result that gives you the most pleasure in the
end? Is the “test” the questions on the exam, or is the real “test”
whether you accept something that you KNOW you do not deserve?
It
could be that by accepting the offer, that you do indeed get into
Vanderbilt, but couldn’t Gee’s response equally plausibly be: This was
your test – whether you would take what you know you don’t deserve; or
if you would accept what you do deserve, regardless of what you think
the consequences will be. You have failed the moral test by accepting
my offer. Only if you had accepted what you deserve would you have been
morally worthy of our university.
The parallel with Christianity
should be clear. This example could be modified in non-relevant ways to
encompass those denominations of Christian that state that faith is a
necessary but not necessarily sufficient condition for acceptance to
heaven. It’d be like saying that you need to have had certain grades in
high school to even get the test offered to you in the first place, for
example.
The point of the story is to show that it’s entirely
questionable over which course of action will get you into Vanderbilt;
but if that’s what you’re focusing on, you may have missed the broader
point that you should not accept something that you do not deserve,
especially with a stated moral test.
Do I think that this is how
things really are with God and heaven and faith in Jesus and allowing
our sins to pass onto Jesus? No. I’m an atheist and I don’t think that
this exists. What I am saying, is, that even granting that God exists,
that he will judge us, and that He himself tells us that we all fall
short of the requirements for heaven, and that while we do not deserve
heaven we can still get into heaven by accepting the sacrifice that He
has made of himself, it is debatable over which course of action is the
morally correct choice. Personally, my ethics says that if a Just Judge
(which I am assuming God is at the moment) tells me that I deserve what
is behind door number 1 based on the life I lead, but tells me that I
won’t like it, and that I could go to door 2, which I don’t deserve,
but I would like it; I will every time choose what I am told that I
deserve. Severing Justice and taking the personal responsibility for my
actions and receiving the punishment that I deserve, if it be
punishment, is how I choose to act.
In conclusion, there are
several layers of objections that I have to theism in general and
Christianity in particular. First, there are many claims without any
basis for believing them. Second, even if we do believe the claims, the
conclusions we are meant to draw are far from what the evidence
suggests. And finally, even if we accept the conclusions we are meant
to draw, the morality of accepting what you KNOW you do not deserve is
enough of a problem to consider the possibility that the real test that
God gives you is if you accept the personal responsibility and
punishment that you deserve and in so doing, only then are you rewarded
with heaven.

With that, I open it up to questions. Try to keep
the questions under a minute or two, and I’ll try to keep my answers as
succinct as possible as well. I’ll allow for one immediate follow-up
question, but I really want to get as many different people’s questions
as possible.