Archive for the 'Philosophical' Category
April 2nd, 2010 by Justin
Ever since first studying Aristotle years ago, the quote has always stuck out at me: Piety requires us to honor truth above our friends. As someone who has had many discussions, arguments and debates with many people on many issues, online and off, the issue of the proper balance between love of human and love of truth to me is eternally relevant. How does one reckon with a person who refuses to accept argument or evidence? At what point does such a person no longer deserve our respect? It is tempting to say, simply, “when they show themselves to be unreasonable” but who among us has always been reasonable at all times? Unreasonableness is an inextricable part of the human condition, and is present in every human to some degree at some time. And yet it is our capacity to reason that sets us apart from lower life forms and allows us to achieve our highest levels of flourishing.
The Aristotelian sentiment points to possibly one of the most extraordinary leaps in human consciousness to ever occur: the radical notion that first loyalty belongs to an intangible thing–an idea–and not a person. From this groundbreaking intellectual development arose the commitment to objective truth, the actual state of the world, separate and apart from the subjective experiences, desires and assumptions of people. And once humans could conceptualize a world outside of personhood, a reality existing of its own accord with or without any person to interact with it, human thinking and consciousness reached an authentically new level, and has never been the same. Whether or not this mindset actually originated with Aristotle himself or the Greek philosophers themselves (which I doubt), it nevertheless has been delivered to us in excellent form by those philosophers, and it remains one of their simplest, most profound and most important contributions to western thought.
To be sure, the concept of fidelity to something outside of humanity existed long before complex civilization arose, in Greece or anywhere else. The awesome power and huge uncertainty found in nature was enough to get the earliest humans worshipping and praying to forces beyond their control, and seeing human life in the context of the larger universe, rather than the other way around. From these animist origins came the polytheistic conception of “gods” with personalities and desires and consciousness. These gods were essentially intangible beings, immaterial creatures who could control the material world. And once humans acclimated themselves to bodiless personalities, the next step was to eliminate the personality, leaving only an intangible thing, the truth, devoid of personhood or human-like characteristics and attributes, and therefore qualitatively outside of humanity itself.
This remains an essential difference between the theist and the nontheist, to this day. Both can maintain fidelity to an objective thing, outside of humanity. But one has taken the leap beyond an anthropomorphized “god” who is still a person, and the other has not.
So my commitment to the truth remains intact, because it is the one thing that has not changed and will not change, is not tied to personhood and is therefore not tied to persons. While truth borrows nothing from humans, humans cannot thrive without it. Friends, personalities, leaders, followers, whims, emotions, life, death–all these things come and go. The truth remains. And that is why it should be honored above all else.
March 16th, 2010 by Justin
In this sixth and final part of the series on god, consider an extension of the problem seen in Part 5. If god is defined as a being not of this reality, then nothing in this reality can be brought as evidence in favor of it. The God believer has defined himself into a corner. Since humans are creatures of this reality, and we grew up and evolved within this reality, we are inherently incapable of knowing anything beyond this reality, which means that if god exists, we cannot know it. Therefore belief in god is unwarranted, and unjustifiable. If it is unjustifiable, that means it cannot be justified, which means it cannot be accepted.
Typically, if not always, the god believer must point to some evidence, argument or idea that originates or has its basis within this natural reality as justification for the existence of god (again, because this is the only kind of thing we humans can know or understand). This inevitably leads to circular logic in that god is justified by something in natural reality; and natural reality, the religious will argue, owes its existence to god.
For example, many offer the complexity of the universe as justification for an intelligent creator. Aside from the simple invalidity of this argument in its own right*, this approach prompts a question: One knows the universe is complex, but how does one know the universe even exists in the first place? The answer the religious will give is simply that the universe was created by god. And how, in turn, does one know that god exists? The answer was already given: the complexity of the universe. Circularity. This same kind of circularity applies to every argument for the existence of god, because every argument that can be created is based on evidence or observation rooted in this natural reality. There is not a single argument that can be proposed that is not rooted in natural reality.
It is important to note that this circularity occurs because the religious will never say “the universe exists” as a first assumption. The first assumption is always that god exists. From this, it follows that the universe exists. If one starts out by assuming that the universe exists, if one assumes this without evidence, on faith, then by definition one does not need god to explain the existence of the universe—one is already accepting the existence of the universe. For this reason, the religious should first assume that god exists, and from there it follows that the universe exists, because god created it.
So the bottom line is that god cannot be proven. The very notion of God, by definition, has ensured this. During the course of this series, we have seen why the idea of “God” is highly problematic, because of the idea of omnipotence, the definitional relationship between god and reality, the notion of the supernatural, and the logical and argumentative issues with “proving” God in the first place. There are many more issues with the idea of God that can be explored, but this series alone is reason enough not to believe. Now, after all this, I am still willing to say that there might be a divine. Just as I am willing to say that, somewhere in the universe, there might be a leprechaun, or a unicorn, or a Loch Ness monster. But that’s not very impressive company.
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*Because something is complex, it does not follow that (1) it was created, or (2) even if it was created, that it was created by an intelligence, and (3) in fact the universe originally was not complex, and subsequently became more complex on its own.
March 14th, 2010 by Justin
In Part 4 of this series, we saw that believing in natural reality is logically prior to and more fundamental than believing in the supernatural, contrary to what many religious thinkers argue. Further problems for the God believer arise when we take a closer look at the belief in the supernatural unto itself.
One major problem for those who would assume the existence of a reality beyond the one immediately perceptible to us is, why stop there? Why stop at a supernatural reality? Why not also assume the existence of a hyperreality? Or a megareality? Or an uberreality? Indeed, what is to stop us from assuming that an infinite number of ever-higher planes of existence exist, each one enveloping the previous one, like a cosmic chain of Russian dolls?
One begins to see the absurdity to which opening the door to non-natural reality leads us. And if one is to respond that, in fact, it is not absurd to assume such realities, then why does no one believe in them? Why is it only ever (1) natural reality alone, (2) supernatural reality plus natural reality, or (3) the two combined in some way? Why does no religion or belief system go on to imagine more realities and planes of existence? Perhaps it is because it violates some deep and profound intuitive idea that humans have about the nature of what exists. And that would be very telling, indeed.
One may respond that we see the evidence of just one level of supernatural reality, not of multiple planes of existence. The religious would then put forward various pieces of “evidence” that supposedly legitimate the belief in the supernatural. But this approach too raises a serious problem for the believer. The only evidence that one can offer in support of the supernatural is something that exists or occurs within natural reality. (For example, someone might cite a miraculous event as supporting evidence for the supernatural.)
But by definition, proving the supernatural is basically impossible, because “proof” only has meaning within a naturalistic frame, because all human knowledge comes in a naturalistic frame. Therefore proving the supernatural by pointing to the natural is logically untenable, if the supernatural is defined as the source of the natural. It leads to circular logic: the supernatural is proved by the natural (citing a miracle, for example); the natural is proved by the supernatural (god created the natural reality, etc); the supernatural is proved by the natural. Circular. Maybe the supernatural isn’t so “super,” after all.
March 12th, 2010 by Justin
Naturalism vs. Supernaturalism
Since God is not of natural reality, belief in God requires belief in a supernatural reality. Generally speaking, secularist and atheist people believe that only natural reality exists, while religious people believe that both natural reality and supernatural reality exist. So which should we believe? The basic problem with either belief is that there is no evidence that can be brought to bear. We cannot “prove” that natural reality exists, for example. So one way to answer this question is to simply ask, which is more logically fundamental? That is, which option does logic command us to accept? I submit that logic requires us to accept only natural reality, and that the acceptance of natural reality alone is the default position of the human condition.
This fact can be seen in the following thought experiment: Imagine there is no natural reality. Logically, can you do that? No, because in order to imagine that natural reality does not exist, you must exist. And if you exist, then natural reality must exist. Now, imagine there is no supernatural reality. Logically, can you do that? Yes, you can. Because whether there is or is not a supernatural reality, we can imagine that there is not a supernatural reality. But if there is no natural reality, we cannot imagine that there is not a natural reality. Therefore assuming that natural reality exists is prior to, and more fundamental, than assuming that supernatural reality exists.
The assumption of the nonexistence of supernatural reality may or may not be metaphysically or actually correct. But it is logically permissible. Logic does not prevent you from making that assumption, but it does prevent you from making the assumption that natural reality does not exist.
So we see that the natural (no pun intended) and default condition of the human mind is to assume that only natural reality exists. Everything after that fundamental, un-evidenced assumption must be justified. Therefore one is legitimate in asking for evidence of some kind for God, and for the supernatural. As we shall explore later in the series, such evidence is inherently impossible, because of the nature of these things.
Further Thoughts
Now the supernaturalist may retort: “in fact, if there is no supernatural reality then we cannot imagine anything either, because natural reality comes from a supernatural force.”
This argument fails for the following reason. The issue is not where this natural reality comes from, if it comes from anywhere. That is a metaphysical question. The issue is if it is logically possible to imagine that supernatural or natural reality does not exist. This is a logical question. Logically, it is inherently impossible for us to imagine that natural reality does not exist. And this is because we are natural beings that have evolved through natural processes within this natural reality—even the religious agree on this.
We are fundamentally incapable of imagining that this natural reality does not exist. Think about it. Imagine that reality does not exist. You can’t do it. It’s not possible. The closest anyone can come to that image is closing their eyes and picturing total darkness, but that too is obviously an image of this natural reality.
It is worth mentioning that if we did not have a naturalistic basis for explaining human thought (and therefore for the process of “assuming”) then there might be some wiggle room for the supernaturalist. But since we do, since we know that everything about human thought can be explained within a naturalistic framework, it follows that only natural reality is required to explain human thought. Therefore supernatural reality is not required. Therefore the assumption of natural reality is logically prior and more fundamental to explaining human thought.
So, to sum up, naturalism or materialism is the default condition of the human mind. Therefore the burden of proof is on the supernaturalist, not the naturalist, despite the fact that the naturalist cannot provide evidence for their assumption. Again, this burden of proof for the supernaturalist is an impossible burden to bear, as we shall see later in the series.
March 10th, 2010 by Justin
I am provocatively titling this little part of the series as “How to Disprove God in 5 Easy Steps.” Not literally, perhaps, but at least it would seem to further problematize the concept of “God.” Here goes nothing.
- Everything that is real is a part of reality
- Nothing can be a part of the thing it creates
- God created reality
- Therefore God is not a part of reality
- Therefore God is not real
R.I.P. God. Now, the God-believer can take issue with #3 and say “God created all reality, except for one part—God itself.” However, it is important to note that the God-believer then is revealed as having no problem with the idea of something being uncreated; he simply has a problem with that thing being reality. The silliness of the God position would then be seen, because if we can believe in an uncreated creator of the universe, we can believe in an uncreated universe—logically, both are equally valid because both require acceptance of an “uncreated” thing. And if the God position has no logical advantage on that count, then one is under no logical obligation to accept a created universe instead of an uncreated universe.
