Nipate
Forum => Controversial => Topic started by: GeeMail on October 15, 2014, 11:47:54 AM
-
http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/10/13/notes-on-an-unanswerable-question/?_php=true&_type=blogs&module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=The%20Stone&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body&_r=0
g.g.: The immediate impetus came from the poll I cited at the beginning of the first interview: 73 percent of philosophers said they accepted or were inclined to atheism, while 15 percent accepted or inclined to theism. Only around 6 percent identified themselves as agnostics. I would have expected a good majority to identify as agnostics.
G.G.: Why did you expect that?
g.g.: The question of whether God exists is a controversial one: there have been, and still are, lots of smart, informed and sincere people on both sides. So it would seem that philosophers, committed to rational reflection on the big questions, wouldn’t be atheists (or theists) without good reasons. But it is also obvious that the standard arguments for and against God’s existence — first-cause arguments, the problem of evil, etc. — have stimulated an enormous amount of debate, leading to many complications but to no consensus. (To get a sense of contemporary discussions on theism see the Stanford Encyclopedia’s articles on the cosmological argument and on the problem of evil.) Given this, it seemed to me that at least a good proportion of philosophers would be agnostics, undecided about God’s existence.
-
It's a very interesting chat, that one. You can tell the interviewee is not an idiot or overly biased on either side. But this particular statement is a zinger!
g.g.: The weakest intellectual aspect of current atheism is its naïve enchantment with pseudo-scientific biological and psychological explanations of why people believe. There are no doubt all sorts of disreputable sources for religious belief, and the same goes for rejections of religion. But it’s just silly to say that there’s solid scientific evidence that religious belief in general has causes that undermine its claims to truth. Here I think Antony in her interview was right on target: “Theists are insulted by such conjectures (which is all they are) and I don’t blame them. It’s presumptuous to tell someone else why she believes what she believes — if you want to know, start by asking her.”
Thank you, Antony! (Whoever you are) This hubristic presumption of "I will go ahead and pretend to tell you why you believe in God" is the worst. It comes from this thought process, "Theism is dumb. Since I don't accept it---because as you know, I have this big brain and all--- I will just assume that the only reason intelligent people could accept any faith is if they have a bug implanted in their brain telling them or something. I have no way of discounting their experiences or their own judgments of their experiences, but I will assume they don't know what they are talking about (though, I, of course, do know) and go ahead and tell them how their experiences, which I don't know, are due to the bug in the brain, which I am competent to judge but not them." Contempt from an assumed pedestal masquerading as an attempt at a discussion. How about, I will go ahead and tell YOU exactly why you are an atheist? Lets discuss that for a second, shall we? Hmm? :zen:
I also disagree with this here,
G.G.: So are you saying that the atheists don’t have any good arguments?
g.g.:No, they do, but they’re against specific forms of theism. There’s a very strong case — nicely developed by Tim Maudlin in our interview — against arguing for the existence of God (in any religiously relevant sense) as a scientific hypothesis. And Kitcher gave a powerful formulation of the case against believing the doctrines of a particular faith. The point is that there’s often no more reason for believing those doctrines (say, the triune nature of God, God becoming man, the Last Judgment) than there is for believing those of other faiths. Therefore, if you deny the doctrines of other faiths, then you should also deny the doctrines of your faith.
I certainly think there are very good reasons to believe in Christian claims over other faiths. Not absolute, but they are good enough for me, who did a bit of "exploration". :)
-
Thank you Little Bella. I also found the debate very interesting from the fact that it brought together such a mixed crowd of participants, and of course, the results of the poll. One would have thought that most philosophers outrightly reject God in favor of the atheist position. It must be remembered though that God does not always use majority rule (Gideon/Jerubbaal defeated Israel's enemies with a heavily diminished force of 300 soldiers - I Kings 6). I haven't read all the debates but certainly will.