A few years back, I was at work, grading papers, and overheard a conversation at a table next to mine that a couple of other teachers were having. Usually the conversations were kept pretty light, but this one in particular caught my attention as one teacher told another how an eleventh grade student of hers had mentioned that he was an atheist. She found this fascinating and, although she was a devout Christian, she could not understand how one could so confidently determine that a higher power could not exist.
The more they talked about this, what became increasingly clear (and all the more interesting) was the worldview my colleague had. She essentially looked at the world metaphysically from a theistic viewpoint and saw there was quite a good deal of evidence to corroborate that viewpoint. As a result, she was quite baffled how, with all that evidence to refute, her student would be able to say with such confidence there was no God.
This brings up some interesting key similarities and differences in the philosophical approaches between theists and atheists. We might say that each position is “anchored” to a starting point that presupposes a theory about ultimate reality. The theist is anchored in a belief, or theory, about how the world works; in the theists’ theory of things, a God exists, and all other events are filtered through that theory. Likewise, the atheist is also anchored in a belief, or theory, about how the world works. But in this case, the atheist’s view of things, a God doesn’t exist, and events are likewise filtered through that theory.
As far as differences go, of course while my colleague and other theists utilize the existence of God as an anchoring point, Atheists anchor from the perspective of non-existence. Relative to the theist’s paradigm, atheists shift the burden of proof. When the theist asks, “How can you not believe?” the atheist responds, “What reason do you have to believe?” Jake from AfterFaith.com discusses this key difference in his description of what atheism actually is:
So we can say that both the theist and atheist use anchoring premises to construct each view of reality. The question is what is the source or justification of each anchoring premise? Can we claim one position to be stronger than the other? Or perhaps more appropriately: Under what philosophical assumptions (or other circumstances) is one clearly stronger than the other?
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You may find this surprising. knowing my personal philosophy, but I actually believe the theist has the stronger of the two arguments for one simple reason. We exist. That is strong evidence that something or someone had a hand in creating us and everything that exists naturally around us. You can argue over the specifics of how we got here or who or what is responsible, or whether nothing or no one is responsible, whether or not there is a spirit, or what happens when we die, etc., but the simple fact that we exist is strong evidence for the existence (at least initially) of a creator. EVIDENCE -- not PROOF.
ReplyDeleteTo my knowledge, there is simply not any strong evidence that exists to suggest that there is (or was) no creator.
I see little benefit, personally, in choosing to come down on either side of the fence. I feel no personal or spiritual connection to any otherworldly beings, I have had zero supernatural experiences, and I find no personal comfort in choosing to believe one way or the other.
I do believe, however, that many people experience what they feel to be spiritual connections, or that they believe they have experienced something supernatural, or that they find a great deal of comfort in choosing to believe that they are not alone, that their life has meaning, or that death is not the end, etc.
I also believe, on the flip side, that many atheists find comfort in believing that their lives are not pre-determined, that they are in charge of their own destiny, that they are independent of, and not beholden to, any higher being and, in some cases, that they are smarter, stronger and/or better than those who choose to believe in a creator.
Of course, choosing to believe one or the other, and making that choice public, also has it's societal benefits and drawbacks.
I don't fault people either way, but I do tend to stay away from those who feel so strongly about their personal beliefs that they feel they need to try and convert me to their way of thinking. I'm not interested. :)
Whoa, you hit on a whole bunch of things there! As I'm going to write about a lot of those things that you hit on, let me just say a few words here to highlight some of my thoughts. The first is that there are different forms of atheism, for instance strong and weak, similar to the different forms of agnosticism. Having evidence of non-existence is a much more stringent requirement than from having no evidence of existence. The former is what the strong atheist points out and the latter, the weak atheist. See my next blog entry for a fleshing out of the concepts behind strong and weak atheism.
ReplyDeleteAs for the points you raised regarding a creator, let me just point out that are lots of things that exist without a creator, some of which are very significant to our lives. Of course it depends on the particulars of what you mean by "creator" but the impression it gives me is an intelligent actor or group of actors that produce something in a purposeful and intentional way.
Say for instance things like "summer" and "winter" certainly exist, but we now know these are a result of natural processes that we experience, without any creator. Our current understanding of nature allows us to know that the phenomenon of seasons has to do with planetary location relative to the sun, global axis tilt, and geographical location on the planet.
Of course during our agrarian period none of this was known, but having a good harvest season was crucial to our survival. As such, many societies deified the seasons. With enlightenment came a better understanding of the natural processes involved, and with industrialization came less agrarian dependence and greater geographical mobility. Suddenly it was no longer so significant to our survival to have "cooperative" seasons, and there was no reason to appeal to deified creators of the seasons.
Other phenomena that fail to fit these "creator" requirements I outlined above: natural phenomena (waterfalls, mountains, deserts); social systems (the American two-party system, free market systems); and technology (nope, not even Al Gore invented the World Wide Web) to name a few.
Just an aside to this when there is a first mover: Even if you can identify a first mover or "creator" of a thing, you can run into sticky situations in trying to determine what exactly has been created when a thing is complex, can evolve over time, and worse yet, choose autonomously its own path. For instance, can we really say that General Motors is the same company that it was when it was founded in the early 20th century? So much evolution has taken place there, and with so much context change, GM founders have likely played a much less relevant role than other "creative actors" who have participated in the shaping of that company - though historically, they were the first movers. The question is whether the first mover should always be considered "the creator" - especially if the founding principles are no longer relevant or applicable, or have been set aside. If not, then strangely such a firm has no creator, or has creators that do not precede the creation.
Let me take issue with a few things you covered in your last post.
ReplyDeleteYou describe your understanding of a creator as "an intelligent actor or group of actors that produce something in a purposeful and intentional way."
First, I wonder if an intelligence must be present in order for creation to take place. For example, diamonds are created naturally as the result of high pressure, high temperature conditions. Thus it would seem that intelligence is not required in order for there to be creation. Also on this point, a philosophical question comes to mind. If I create a machine that makes widgets, has the machine created those widgets or have I? In other words, if an intelligent actor or group of actors have created the universe, and conditions in the universe have created life, who or what then can be said to have created life? Does it matter if the creator(s) of the universe specifically designed it in order to create life, or if life is simply a byproduct?
Next, I wonder if action is required in order for creation to take place. Is it possible that inaction could result in creation as well? Take the example of penicillin, which was famously created by conditions in a laboratory which came about only because a scientist failed to clean up his work station before leaving one day. Of course, this begs the question -- can inaction, itself, be considered action? In other words, can failure to take action be considered an action in itself? Does it matter if the party failing to act is intelligent and aware of the ramifications that may follow a failure to act?
Finally, I wonder if purpose or intention should be taken into account. For example, Coca-Cola was created by accident. It was not the purpose or intention of the creator to develop that product. However, it exists as a result of his actions.
Moving on, I think I may need some clarification on how it is possible that social systems and technology exist without human creators. The examples you provided seem like things created by humans to me. First, the two party system of U.S. national politics. Humans divided themselves over political philosophy and they created the legislation that shut out additional parties. You also mentioned free markets. Free markets, or markets of any kind, seem, to me, to be created by humans when they enter into trade. Next, you mentioned technology, specifically the World Wide Web. This, too, I believe, is a creation of human beings. We created computers, we created networking capability, we created digital storage, digital content, and the brower technology required to view that content.
As far as naturally occurring things like waterfalls, seasons, etc., I don't think it can be said with certainty that there is no creator for these things, unless we can answer some of the above questions. Unfortunately, I don't know that any of them have answers. My personal philosophy is this: If something exists, it has been created, and if it has been created, is has (or had) a creator (or creators), and I don't necessarily find that a creator must satisfy any other criteria other than to be responsible, in some way, for creation.
Btw, Ali just go a new laptop and she would like you to know that it's awesome.
The requirements of intellgence, purpose, intention are typical traits that theists attribute to their God(s), especially in the Abrahamic religions. I used those because those are probably philosophically easiest to refute with our current scientific understanding. I don't disagree that these aren't necessary, but if you start to wittle away at these, your concept of God starts to look more and more like a natural process, which most theists aren't going to be comfortable with.
ReplyDeleteAs we're pretty much in agreement on that issue, as an aside, you asked about social systems and technologies. In both cases I was refering to self-organizing systems and processes where the whole has different traits than the individual parts. Those individual parts might have been designed for different purposes than for which their greater significance within the whole attributes to them. For more about self-organizing systems, see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Self-organization.
Btw, Ali should post a photo of her beautiful new laptop to Facebook - she's totally slacking!