R/Atheism's Best Questions (1)

I asked reddit's r/atheism what their best questions for a theist were. Although it looks to have changed now, when I checked to see what they asked, this was the top question (by Philo):

Where does this argument fail? 

(1) Necessarily , there is no evil in heaven (premise).
(2) If there is morally significant free will in Heaven, then it is not the case that, necessarily , there is no moral evil in heaven (premise, from free will defence).
(3) Therefore, there is no morally significant freedom in heaven.
(4) Heaven is a domain in which the greatest goods are realised (premise).
(5) Therefore, the greatest goods are realised in a domain in which there is no morally significant free will.
(6) A perfect being can choose to create any domain that it is logically possible to create (premise, appeal to omnipotence).
(7) Therefore, a perfect being can choose to create a domain in which the greatest goods are realised and in which there is no moral evil.
(8) A world that contains the greatest goods and no moral evil is non-arbitrarily better than any world that contains the greatest goods, incomparably lesser goods, and the amounts and kinds of evils that are found in our universe.
(9) If a perfect being faces a choice among options and one of those options is non-arbitrarily better than the others, then the perfect being will choose the non -arbitrarily better one.
(10) Therefore, it is not the case that a perfect being made our universe.

First of all, thank you to Philo for the question. Philo is trying to attack the free will defence, made famous by Alvin Plantinga. He does that by trying to show that there's no free will in heaven, and asserts that heaven is a better "world" than the earth we live on. Therefore, given a choice, he says that a perfectly good God would surely not have created this world (but created something much more like heaven).

I don't agree with many of the premises in this argument, and even if I did accept them, it seems to me that the argument is invalid (that is, that the conclusion doesn't actually follow from the premises). In my humble option premises (1), (4) and (8) are pretty much speculation, and to use (9) in the way it is would require an extra premise which seems unlikely to be true.

Personally I don't know whether or not free will exists in the universe, and much less if it exists in heaven. But Philo tries to prove that it doesn't exist in heaven in steps (1)-(3). The first premise, that there is necessarily no evil in heaven is subtle. Philo doesn't mean that there's no evil in heaven - but it is impossible for evil to ever be there.

I guess this is where we ran into the first problem. On Philo's view Satan couldn't have rebelled - which is almost the exact opposite to what Philo is saying. I think Philo would have to show that it was impossible for Satan to rebel in heaven.

There is also another common illustration of heaven that people think about. CS Lewis paints several pictures of heaven and hell in his books. But the clearest view is probably "The Great Divorce" where people are constantly given the choice of whether they want to forgive, and heal the hurts or whether they want to hold on to the grudges that hold them back.

On both CS Lewis view, and the traditional view of Satan rebelling premise (1) is in fact false. Now I'm not really wedded to either of these ideas, as both are pretty much entertaining speculation (from outside the Bible). But for the argument not to fall over, Philo would have to show both the traditional view of Satan rebelling, and CS Lewis' views are actually impossible.

Premise (4) seems unjustified too,

(4) Heaven is a domain in which the greatest goods are realised

Even though we colloquially say "Going to heaven", the Bible talks about the earth being renewed. On one view, the world is restored, the hurts becoming healed, and in the other (which Philo seems to be presenting) the world is done away with and we go and have some ethereal existence. It seems to me that the argument is only relevant if it is referring to Philo's view, whereas - at least from a Biblical point of view - it's not clear to me how it actually applies. If this world is something of a prerequisite, and it's not even clear they constitute two totally different "worlds". I'd be interested how Philo would you explain passages like 1 Corinthians 15, we are described like a seed?

On the other hand if Philo means this to refer to heaven in the traditional sense, containing only God, angels, and perhaps some martyrs as they wait for the new earth (again, this is all depends on how literally you can take visions) - I don't agree that it is the domain in which the "greatest goods" are realized. At very least, all of creation praising God, restored and reconciled is a tremendous good, which is completely missing if you only include heaven, and ignore the restored earth.

Premise (8), I also have problems with. This is getting long, so I'll just mention briefly that I'm not convinced that, in general, morality is a well ordered set - and it's often not possible to compare, or to say definitely that  one is the best, strictly better than another. I'm not convinced in this situation, because whenever I think of it practically, there seem like there's a million ifs and buts which aren't justified here (such as having different types of good made possible in both worlds - and it seems hard to compare the two). There could be many options which are good, and would be open for God to choose whichever he liked.

But even if I accepted all these premises (I don't) - then the argument doesn't even seem valid to me. Point (9) says:

(9) If a perfect being faces a choice among options and one of those options is non-arbitrarily better than the others, then the perfect being will choose the non -arbitrarily better one.

That's a pretty big "if". Traditionally, both heaven and earth exist together - so God doesn't face such a choice. Clearly he could create both. On a Christian view, he has. So, this is clearly not a choice which God faces. To make the argument valid, Philo would have to add the premise (or prove) that God actually faced this choice. Otherwise the argument isn't valid.

Thank you, Philo. I don't agree with your argument, but you've clearly put a lot of thought into it. I hope you (or anyone else) feels free to respond either on a blog, in the comments, or even on reddit! I look forward to continuing this with you.

Having at Efrique (2)

So here is the second part of Efrique's questions:

If you have some evidence, I'd like to know about it.

I think there is plenty of evidence if you are prepared to look. I've already mentioned some of the areas that I think theism makes more sense than atheism. I wouldn't claim any sort of proof, but I certainly think it is more reasonable to believe God exists than that he doesn't.

Do you have a stronger basis for it than liking to think so?

I don't think that wanting or liking was ever really a factor - more the difficulties that I had holding disbelief together. I constantly felt like the assumption of atheism painted me into a corner which would be more reasonably solved if I allowed for God - and that happening in a whole series of different areas. It was only later that I realized that it had any relevance to me personally.

I use those figures in the plot specifically because more countries are present in the Gallup data than for any other I have found.

Gallup is certainly a better source than Zuckermann (who seems distinctly dodgy to me - for example look at his Chinese numbers)...

I am guessing your parents aren't 60%-70% unbelievers.

No. My dad is an atheist, and my mother is Christian. 

I will note that we still have weekly religious classes in government primary school and the early years of secondary school.

I didn't have religious classes in primary school, and the early years of my high school were spent in an International School. I am actually disappointed that I didn't have these classes. I would have understood the literally thousands of references in our society a lot better.

 We now have chaplains in primary schools paid for by our taxes (yes, my taxes pay for a chaplain to proselytize to my children, any time they're vulnerable enough to need help. How this fits with sec. 116 of the Constitution is beyond my understanding). 

Chaplains are explicitly not allowed to proselytlize (point 9 of the code of conduct) and have to respect your wishes as a parent (point 2). I humbly suggest that attempting to isolate your children from people with beliefs different from your own is unrealistic. Most likely they will come into contact with lots of different beliefs, whether you like it or not.

I was a theist for quite a few years before I was an atheist, so quite possibly the same would have happened.

Tell me more. Any particular religion or denomination? Why did you stop?

I know numerous atheists of Indian origin, some I have met in person, a few via the Internet, so it seems like it's probably no harder, ceteris paribus to become skeptical of Hinduism than of Christianity, even if one is a believer in it originally.

Right. Christianity is growing in both Nepal and India too. And of course, if we want to compare with an atheist country, in China Christianity is exploding (to the point where there is a shortage of Bibles). So I'd say the attraction of Christianity is widespread as well.

Presumably you invited conversation because you have something further to say after the point at which conversation starts.

I've enjoyed it so far. I hope you have too!

To Jim

Jim commented on my earlier post "Ridicule is not a valid tool". I thought I'd take the time to reply as a post. This is that reply.

You couldn't find an answer to why there is something rather than nothing without a god? 

Right. I didn't find a good answer on atheism. Have you considered the same questions? What is your answer? What answer do you think was best?

I read many speculations about it. One claim in particular got me thinking - that whatever mathematically could exist actually does actually exist. If I were to accept that, it would mean believing in Santa Claus and the tooth fairy, believing in literally everything, rather than God. It was after reading that that I started to wonder if skepticism about God had gone way too far. God's existence seemed far simpler, and straightforward than explanations offered on atheism.

Doesn't this raise even more difficult questions?

Yes, it leads to many more questions. What a God who can create the universe is like, for one! Answering one question almost always leads to more questions.

What [God] it composed of?

When you ask, what is God made out of, you seem to be assuming God is some type of physical object - insisting that he only be part of creation, rather than the creator of it. That's obviously quite a big assumption, which I don't share. Is that what you're asking, and if so how could any creator of the universe be composed of things which are part of the universe?

How did [God] come to exist?

Similarly, I'm not even convinced it is even logically consistent to ask for a God who is the creator of time who is not eternal. I don't understand God could have a beginning in time, which he himself created. Why assume God isn't eternal?

For me, it seems only logical to say that God is eternal, and that he is not made of material objects inside the universe. I cannot see how claiming the opposite makes sense at all. Of course there are people who believe that. There's long lists of literally thousands of pagan gods who do apparently have those properties. In contrast, what Christians, Jews and Muslims believe about God makes good sense to me.

Why did [God] create cruelty, dishonesty, and suffering?

I would say neither cruelty or dishonest are created "things", and that they are actions - our actions. We live in a world in which there is cruelty, dishonesty, and there is suffering. So, why is that? I think a straightforward answer is because we can be cruel, we can be dishonest - and that these things have effects which do cause suffering.

I'm no theologian, but I hope that any atheists stumbling through here enjoy reading the questions and responses so far. Feel free to ask any questions, especially from your own blog. I'm just an ordinary guy, but I'll do my best to respond. Get a conversion going with a real theist and stop talking the void of the faceless internet!

James Webb Telescope

The James Webb telescope, successor to Hubble, has been running into trouble. The US House of Representatives Appropriations Committee proposed cancelling the project because of bad management. Put it this way: If I were American, I know which one of these three I'd like to have:

Of course, it's none of my business how the US government spends their hard earned taxpayer money, but if you are American and you share my concern, then consider signing the petition.

Android App for learning Chinese

I made an Android app for learning Chinese. I am finding it really useful for increasing my vocabulary. You can get it here.

Ridicule is not a valid tool

Raging Rev suggests that the main reason for having a religion is fear. He asks of Christians:

Is [your belief] it the product of fear of hell? Disappointing god or your family? What drove you to believe what you believe and furthermore, do you think this is a good reason for you to hold on to belief?

I can only speak for myself. I was motivated because of a search for the truth. I was dissatisfied with the answers that my assumptions that atheism was continually pushing me to. It gradually became harder and harder to justify not seriously considering belief in God. Right across the board - from questions about the universe, why there's something rather than nothing, why the universe should be ordered the way it is, to the seemingly totally unrelated subject of identity and morality, where I found no good atheist answers. It seemed that belief in God provided far more substantive answers and made much more sense of the world.

For me, Christianity came after many, many sleepless nights of thought, reading, considering... I wasn't after religion or even God in particular, I was after the truth.

I think I share you dislike of trying to socially engineer beliefs (or disbelief). There is a much more commonly used tactic to socially condition people though. I humbly suggest that making fun of people, aggressiveness and rudeness are tools used to shortcut real consideration of the issues. It's hardly possible to stand there and calmly and carefully consider an issue if someone is launching into a tirade of aggressive and loud mouthed ridicule. The most likely response is to keep their mouth shut and their not mention their thoughts for fear of being laughed at or ridiculed.

Ridicule and overly aggressive rhetoric are not valid tools to use to persuade people. All they do is drive these real issues from people's minds - and socially condition them to avoid the topic. Unfortunately they are all too common, and I think both atheists and certainly Christians should not be using them.

Having at Efrique (1)

I'm not exactly the type of guy to "have at" anyone, but here's my best shot. There's a lot here, so I'll probably have to split it into parts too.

I see you tracked down my blog...

Yes, I did. Thought I should know who I'm talking to. I particularly liked the post about Venus. It's a pity that it rises so early in the morning right now - close to the sun.

The first desktop PC I wrote a program for would have been on a Vic20 in, oh, 1978 I think... These days when I write any code at all, it's almost always to code up some algorithm I've been thinking about into R. I wrote some today actually - to investigate the possibility of a new algorithm I came up with this week to deal with a particular issue at work.

That is fantastic! I remember the VIC20. We had a Spectrum, but only later. I haven't used much R. Is it worth learning?

> Because Christianity makes the most sense to me
Most sense compared to what? Have you really done a comparison? 

Most sense compared to atheism, Islam and Judaism mostly. Although I would always have ticked the "Christian" box if I was asked, I didn't always hold the beliefs I do now. During my teens I went from not really believing in God, through a type of deism and, to my surprise, to theism. While I certainly don't claim to know everything, I do feel comfortable with what I believe.

Have you put effort into studying other religions? Or into whether you can make sense of the world with no religion?

I guess in atheism's case, I've read quite a few books: Dawkins, Hitchens, Sam Harris, or on the more thoughtful side, Steven Jay Gould (who I actually like), Anthony Flew, and some Mackie - and obviously any Christian on the internet has a constant stream of atheists trying to deconvert them, so I feel like I've heard most arguments before these days. Islam I mostly know from people trying to convert me, and listening to a few lecture series online.


How about you? What type of theist were you? Have you seriously considered other major worldviews?

Really? Christianity says next to nothing about most of the world we see.

I guess we'll have to disagree on that. Just as a couple of examples: It makes good sense of morality, and why there's reason, hope and purpose in life - and how that is grounded in reality. It makes good sense to me why we should expect to find order and consistency that's required to do science - and why we should expect that science should work in the first place. I guess you don't care about these, but for me it makes sense why God's promises to Abraham came true, of Jesus, and how we can relate to God not based on philosophical speculation.


In contrast, on atheism, I don't see any reason to expect to see what we do see. I don't see a worthwhile answer to nihilism (feel free to suggest one), and the answers often seem to be internally inconsistent. I see all sorts of claims being made on the basis of atheism- which have far-reaching consequences- but there is no evidence that they are actually true. Dawkins, for example, claims (in the last chapter of River out of Eden) that at base there's no good or evil, and that all events of life (both bad bus crash, and also anything good) are meaningless. Despite their wide consequences, I don't see anything other than assumption backing these claims. Some simple other simple questions, you might like to answer are, why, based on atheism, should we expect that there even something rather than nothing? Why should we expect that the universe be ordered? Why do humans have intrinsic value?

It's the position of a skeptic.

I think that there's a sliding scale between skepticism on one end (eg. denying holocaust, and the moon landings) on one end, and gullibility (eg. the unicorns you mention) on the other. If denying the moon landings is a 1 and new agers are a 10, where would you put yourself on the scale? Do you think it is important to believe things which are true or only to reject things which are false?


You seem to judge that the existence of God is incredibly unlikely ("extraordinary"), even before we even begin to consider the evidence. Why?


I think I'll have to stop there for now. I always feel on these topics that we've just touched the surface. Hope things are good with you Efrique, and I'll reply to the rest when I can - hopefully in the next day or two.

Answering RickRussell's questions

I'm guessing RickRussell comes from Texas, and I'd link to his blog, if I knew which one it was. These are his questions and my answers:

When you do science, do you apply epistemological rules like falsifiability, reproducibility, parsimony, logical consistency and an assumption of natural causation?

Sure.

If the answer is yes, do you apply those same rules to spiritual claims? If not, what exempts spiritual claims from such requirements?

In general, I try to apply tools appropriate for the job. So, for example, reproducibility is not a particularly useful criteria for thinking about history, because Julius Caesar isn't going to invade England again today so we can watch him do it. Similarly, it would be wrong to demand "an assumption of natural causation" to questions like whether God exists, or how he acts, because would be blatant begging the question. So, even though I think scientific criteria are great in studying the natural world, I don't necessarily think that they are the best tools for all questions.

If I had to name some criteria for determining if something is a good worldview, I'd say (1) explanatory power, (2) internal coherence, (3) logical consistency, and (4) the degree to which that worldview makes correct predictions about what we will observe, and (5) fits with what we have already observed.

If we expect science to answer whether humans have any inherent value or not , we will both likely to be dead long before it provides an answer (even if it ever could). In the meantime we have to live. Just assuming that only what science has proved is the true, and rejecting everything else, could lead someone to even reject the value of human life. An attitude like that would lead us to reject many things which are in fact true, and potentially even lead to damaging actions.

Would you say that all your beliefs are purely scientific?

Questions for atheists, and all about my beliefs

A mysterious anonymous commenter commented,

While saying “I’m an atheist” means one thing: “I do not hold a belief in any deity.”

I'm sure you personally think more than that though. Here's some questions for you and for any atheists who stumbles on this blog:

• Do you personally believe God doesn't exist?
• If so, why? If not, how open are you to the possibility of God?
• Are you actively looking? If not, why not?
• Are you anti-theist? If so, why?
• Do you identify with the new atheists? Why or why not?

If you do answer them in a blog then if you link or comment back here, I can see your reply and respond!

I would have to begin by asking you to tell us what kind of Christian you are?

I'm Anglican and Protestant. I'm pretty ecumenical though.

Do you believe the bible is literal or metaphorical, or a vague combinations of the two?

A combination. There's many different types of genres in the Bible. Obviously it takes much more work to try to consider the different contexts, but it seems like the only honest way to go about it. I'd regard the early church as setting important boundaries of how far it's possible to push interpretations.

Is salvation reserved for believers, good doers, only 144,000 select individuals, is it available posthumously and/or pre-birth? 

Salvation's by faith in Jesus alone. Whether that's possible posthumously, or for how many I have no idea. Generally I'm not in the business of judging if someone or other will ultimately be saved or not.

What is the nature of your god: are you a triune polytheist, a triune monotheist, is he omnipotent, omniscient and omnibenevolent or 2 out of 3, or none of the above? 

Yes, I'm a monotheist. I believe God is a trinity. All three omnis.

Is he a personal god who listens to and answers prayers, or a deity who maintains a definitive and unchanging plan for all people? 

Both. God is sovereign, and his plan takes into account us.

Do you believe in miracles and modern supernatural phenomena?

Yes. I'm Christian and think (at a minimum) that God raised Jesus from the dead, which is a miracle in anyone's book. God is supernatural and modern.

What is the nature of the soul?

I am not sure what I think about souls. I think a lot of conceptions we have of it aren't particularly Christian, more Greek. As I understood it (correct me if I'm wrong) originally having a "soul" just meant living.

What is your belief in other gods: only those mentioned in the Bible, gods not mentioned in the Bible, none at all?

It seems to me there can only be one God, and in my humble opinion that God is the same one mentioned in the Bible.

Answering Efrique's questions

Here are my answers to fellow aussie Efrique, who has recently been blogging about Harold Camping.

What kind of scientist are you?

I'm a physicist.

What type of programing do you do?

I guess I've been able to program since I was small, when I learnt by looking over my dad's shoulder. I do mostly scientific computing for work, I used to be a software developer (mostly making GUIs and databases), and for fun I sometimes make phone apps, and recently dabbling in some image and sound processing. I also love compilers, especially to do with static analysis, but I don't have enough time to do all I'd like!


How about you? Do you program much?

Why are you a Christian?

Because Christianity makes the most sense to me, and the most sense of the world we see.

Why are you an atheist?

If you' d been born in Pakistan or Tibet , wouldn't you almost certainly have been Moslem or Buddhist instead?

Yes, most likely. However, given a level playing field I would like to think that I would become Christian again. I notice that according to your blog we live in a country which has some 60%-70% unbelief, so I don't simply mirror the society which I grew up in. If you had been born in India wouldn't you most likely be Hindu, not atheist?

What is it you want to say to atheists?

I would like to start a conversation with you.

To everyone who disagrees with me

I am a Christian, and also a scientist. I don't like politics, except international relations (where continued third world poverty continues to be the greatest moral failure of the rich nations of the world). Global warming is a reality. War is an abomination. I dislike dishonesty, cheating, lying and real estate agents.

To all those who disagree with me: welcome. Let's start up a conversation between our blogs. All you have to do is link to one of my posts and the conversation has started.

On the other hand, if you're a geek like me who loves programming, astronomy and God, hopefully you sit back and just enjoy this blog!