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Shafer-Landau on why believing in God isn't like believing in fairies

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Tue, 10 Nov 2009 00:35:41 -0500

From Russ Shafer-Landau, Moral Realism: A Defence:

Does this [view that science has done away with minor supernatural entities because they play no explanatory role in the world] mean that the progress of the natural sciences has given us equally good measure to deny God's existence? Not necessarily. Scientific progress would supply such reason only if theistic assumptions were in direct competition with naturalistic causal explanations. The reason we shouldn't believe in demiurges and sprites is because they are entities whose existence was to have been vindicated by citing their role in explaining the very phenomena that the natural sciences can now explain better. For most theists, God no longer plays that role. God isn't introduced to explain why a volcano erupted, or a hailstorm destroyed the crops, but instead for a variety of functions (e. g. as the author of the moral law) other than that of actively intervening in earthly affairs so as to continually cause all that occurs in the natural world. That sort of God would be one whose postulated existence would be in direct competition with the causal explanations offered by the natural sciences. But theists needn't take such a view, and so needn't fall prey to the argument that has entitled us to dismiss the minor supernatural characters (leprechauns, trolls, etc.) from our ontology. (114-115)

Random Monday morning thought

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Mon, 19 Oct 2009 09:12:25 -0400

Note to the New Atheists: What we need isn't less religion, but better theology.

Can spiritual vitality be institutionalized?

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 22:03:00 -0400

I'm currently reading through Harry Lee Poe's Christianity in the Academy. Poe, a prof at Union University, tends to make claims about Christian academia that are over-generalized and under-documented, but here and there he makes some very wise observations. Here's one:

Christians build institutions. Usually the result of a movement that emerges from a period of spiritual vitality or awakening, institutions are well intended as a means of carrying on the work or contribution of the genius of that period. It did not work with the monks of Cluny in the early Middle Ages, and it did not work with the YMCA. Spirituality cannot be institutionalized. This observation is central to the problem of maintaining a Christian college or university. If an organization with such a clearly defined purpose as the YMCA can go from being the leading organization for evangelizing young people in America to the largest franchised health club, then one should not expect that a college with such diverse interests can remain Christian for long. Institutions assume the character and agenda of the financial interests that support them.

A Great Satire on the New Atheists

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Tue, 14 Jul 2009 15:27:49 -0400

Our Smear Campaign. By one of the new atheists.

Milton Friedman on the Virtues of the Free Market

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Tue, 16 Jun 2009 12:39:00 -0400

The recent hubbub about stimulus plans, socialism vs. capitalism, government takeover of corporations, etc. has got me thinking again about the value of the free market. Milton Friedman was one of the most important economists of the twentieth century. Not only did he think very clearly about the virtues of capitalism, he was a master at articulating those virtues. Here he is taking Phil Donahue to economics school in the '80's:

Key quote: "Is it really true that political self-interest is nobler somehow than economic self-interest?"

On a related note, one of my new favorite bloggers is the MetaLutheran of CЯЦISIИG DOШИ ТНЕ СОДST OF THE HIGH БДЯБДЯEE. He understands economics much better than me. Here is a great example of one of his posts on our current economic situation.

Update: This is actually from 1979. My good friend Trent Hunter has more videos from this interview, along with some commentary.

Reconciling Christianity and Science

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Fri, 29 May 2009 12:22:58 -0400

Michael Spencer of iMonk fame has asked for responses on a great open thread:

This thread is for this question: How have you resolved the tensions in your own life and thinking between science and your faith? What has been your journey? What was particularly significant in that journey?

I’m especially interested in those who were brought up in conservative Christian environments with typical conservative assumptions about the Bible.

The thread has attracted numerous interesting responses, some from professional scientists. The comments represent numerous perspectives, but almost all of them are from believers who have realized there is no substantive conflict between Christianity and the deliverances of science. Here's a sample from "Theo":

I didn’t encounter much tension between my faith and science growing up. We went to a Baptist church that occasionally taught on creationism and such, but they didn’t really shove it down our throats or make any “you must believe this or else..” sort of statements. My high school AP physics teacher was also the Bible club sponsor. I attended a Christian affiliated university (Baylor) and all my professors were Christian (or at least signed a statement of faith to get their job). So I breezed all the way through college with a masters in physics without ever having really been challenged in my faith as a scientist.

Now I am at a state university working on my Ph.D. My thesis adviser and many people that I work with are openly hostile toward Christianity. It is certainly a more challenging environment, but having known so many Christian scientists (not those kind) has left me with a confidence that I’m not alone in my faith.

Just one observation on the evolution debate. As an experimental physicist, I deal with exact equations and extraordinarily precise, repeatable measurements. All that is required of an evolutionary biologist is the ability to tell a good story (”the shape of the pig’s snout evolved over millions of years to be just the perfect tool to hunt out truffles”, or whatever.) I know they are doing their best with the facts they have available (and there is a bit more to it than just a story), but I find it humorous that it gets equal billing under the single term “science” along with physics or chemistry.

There are some great responses in the thread. I recommend reading through them if you're interested in the relationship between Christianity and science.

Relaunch of Evangelical Outpost

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Tue, 26 May 2009 06:55:00 -0400

It looks like The Evangelical Outpost has relaunched in an online journal format, with multiple contributors and Joe Carter as the Senior Editor. It's good to have you back, Joe. I'll put EO back on my Google Reader feed now.

Pray for Charles Juma

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Mon, 25 May 2009 09:50:00 -0400

My friend Charles Juma, a recent Southern grad, does missions in his native Kenya every summer. While Christianity is retreating in the West, it's growing in Africa and other nations due to the work of faithful missionaries like Charles. See his blog for the details on what he's doing this year and how you can support his ministry.

For more on how Christianity is growing in the rest of the world, see here. Numerous studies and books have recently come out detailing how Christianity is growing globally. The latest is God is Back, written by a Catholic and an atheist. The guys at Cadre Comments review and recommend it here.

Closer to Truth

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Tue, 19 May 2009 09:36:00 -0400

Mike Almeida at Prosblogion points out Closer to Truth (based on the PBS series), a very well-done website with interviews and videos on "cosmos, consciousness, and God." I'm currently watching an interview with Alva Noe on the mystery of consciousness. Very good stuff.

The "Muslim Shift" in Europe

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Sat, 16 May 2009 15:31:00 -0400

This video has been very popular on Youtube recently, with over 6 million views:

I've blogged about this before, and this is the drum that conservative commentators like Mark Steyn have been beating for years. However, projecting long-term cultural change from current demographic data is always a tricky business. Cultural and demographic changes are often the results of numerous processes and trends. It's true that fertility rates are a huge factor in projecting these types of cultural changes, maybe even the biggest, but there are other factors to consider. The Network for Strategic Missions has a few quotes up by missions researchers about the video. Hence Jason Mandryk of Operation World:

One element that we cannot possibly accurately estimate (at least I cannot see a mechanism for accurate estimation) is the secularizing effect of European society on immigrants with a religious affiliation and on the children of religion parents . . . Can we have ANY idea about how effective secular materialism will be in converting Muslims, Hindus, non-Western Christians, etc to non-religion? I don’t know, but on an anecdotal basis, the large majority of the Muslims I know in the UK – which would consist of about 40 people, predominantly male and Pakistani and under 35 years old – demonstrate high degrees of nominalism and almost all of the same traits which have seen the exodus of a younger generation from Christianity to non-faith in the last 10-20 years. Many younger Muslims in the UK (and in other Western nations) show the same social values that nominal Christians do - and as great a personal commitment to secular materialism as to their religion - and as such, make for perfectly acceptable and indeed welcomed citizens of a pluralist society.

And Peter Crossing of the World Christian Database questions some of the stats used in the video:

The grain of truth that the Muslim population percentage is increasing in Europe is correct, but WCD projections show Europe overall at 7% by 2050. It may partly be the difference between a straight mathematical extrapolation, and a projection which includes factors that change current growth. (Large growth rates are only sustainable for small populations and inevitably level out as the percentage increases. ie. it’s easy for a population to increase from 20 to 40, but much harder from 20m to 40m).

The base data too, from which the extrapolation is calculated, is very different to WCD:
e.g. Britain Muslims (WCD)
1970: 635,000 1.14%
2010: 1,680,000 2.73%

(as against YouTube’s something like 80,000 in 1970 to 2.5m in 2009–big difference in the extrapolation!)
WCD has 2050: 2,850,000 4.15%

And, by the way, it just seems really unlikely that 1m Muslims in the Netherlands are having the same number of children as 15m non-Muslims. UN says 180,000 births per year, which would mean 90,000 Muslim births. There are 500,000 Muslim females, but say 250,000 at a stretch of child-bearing age–that’s almost every second female giving birth, every year.

If I were a betting man, I'd say the demographic shift described in the video is definitely happening, but not quite at the drastic rates reported. I'll remain skeptical about any supposed certainties that such demographic numbers can deliver about the future. However, it's definitely something to think about. If the numbers about European and American birth rates are even close to correct, then it seems clear that the combination of secularism and affluence is poison to a culture's ability to reproduce itself.

[HT: My mom for the video, Andrew Jackson for the responses of missions researchers]

Response to Uncle Skeptic, ver. 2.0

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 16:59:00 -0500

Brian's note: My Uncle Brad, a religious skeptic, recently asked me to debate issues related to the Christian faith. We decided to have an ongoing public debate here at my blog. This is my latest response to some of his comments on my previous post. You may want to read that post and the comments for more context. My series of posts on Richard Dawkins also comes into play. Here I've put his comments in purple; mine are in black. Feel free to interact in the comments section.

Brian, I looked up the Dawkins’ quote you cited and he clearly directed it to people who, “feel trapped in the religion of your upbringing. . .” In this specific context I’m even more convinced he’s making a very valid point. Here are my responses to your last blog.

I really don't think it makes any difference that he is addressing people who feel "trapped in the religion of your upbringing," whatever that means. I doubt Dawkins would say that his quote doesn't apply to people who don't feel trapped. Likewise, my objections would apply equally to people who do feel trapped in their religion as to people who don't.

Just what sociological questions do you think I’m confusing with what epistemological questions?

I think I've made that clear already, but I'll go over it again. A sociological question is one like, "Why is there a higher percentage of people in Colorado Springs who believe in the divinity of Christ than in Mecca?" To this question we can give sociological answers. "Christianity is the dominant religion practiced in Colorado Springs." "There's an evangelical church on every corner in Colorado Springs and a mosque on every corner in Mecca," etc. An epistemological question is, "Are there good reasons for believing in the divinity of Christ?" To this we can give epistemological answers. "There is good manuscript evidence that Christ claimed to be equal with God, and there is good historical evidence for the Resurrection," etc. If your subject matter is the origin of people's beliefs about Christ's divinity, you can move between sociology and epistemology. But if your subject matter is the truth status of their belief about Christ's divinity, you can't move between sociology and epistemology. That's bad logic. No doubt there are many beliefs that are culturally conditioned and culturally transmitted but that are also true, and that can be known to be true independent of the role they play in the culture.

Continue reading "Response to Uncle Skeptic, ver. 2.0"

Response to Uncle Skeptic on Dawkins

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Sat, 11 Oct 2008 17:24:00 -0400

In the comments section of my last post on a typical silly argument by Richard Dawkins against religious belief, Uncle Skeptic said:

Allowing for some literary license with regard to generality and geography, the Dawkins quote is right on. If we can’t, in general, “judge an individual’s justification for her beliefs by the cultural soup from which those beliefs arise”, then how do you explain the overwhelming correlation between religion and geography? If you look at the geographical distribution of religions, it’s obvious that the vast majority of religious people do, in fact, acquire their religion based on the prevailing cultural soup.

A few points here. First, you are confusing sociological questions with epistemological questions. There are simple sociological reasons why we find high levels of religious uniformity among entire cultures, nations, and races: such uniformity allows for social cohesion, national identity, and a shared set of values. That people often adopt the beliefs of those around them is not new or surprising. Suppose 99% of the people of a culture believe the same thing on a particular religious subject - say, that humans are made in the image of God - and they believe simply because that's what their parents or their culture told them. This fact has exactly zero bearing on whether people actually are made in the image of God or not. As for me, if I'm trying to determine for myself what my view on human nature is, sociological facts about how and why this belief is widely held in my culture are entirely irrelevant. What only matters is whether I have good reasons for accepting it or not, and that is an epistemological question that is independent of sociological ones. If I have a suspicion that I have been duped or "indoctrinated" either for or against this belief, I need only to investigate the matter for myself. Just because a belief is held widely in one particular culture does not automatically make it wrong.

Continue reading "Response to Uncle Skeptic on Dawkins"

Dawkins on "childhood indoctrination"

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 09:45:00 -0400

Here is Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion:

If you were born in Arkansas and you think Christianity is true and Islam is false, knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in Afghanistan, you are the victim of childhood indoctrination.

Before we take this quote too seriously, we should consider the fact that this is the same Richard Dawkins who claimed that raising a child Catholic is worse than sexually abusing him. Credibility issues aside, what can we make of statements like the one above? This sort of reasoning is very prevalent in the writings of the new atheism of Dawkins, Harris, et al. But this is a typical Dawkinsian non-argument. There is no there there. What is the point of such statements other than to offer intellectual kudos to those who already disbelieve in any particular religion? Consider the following variation on the above quote:

If you were born in Arkansas and you think representative democracy is the best form of government and that Islamic theocracy is the worst, knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in Afghanistan, you are the victim of childhood indoctrination.

Or how about this one:

If you were born in 1980 and you think the world is round instead of flat, knowing full well that you would think the opposite if you had been born in 1089, you are the victim of childhood indoctrination.

If you can understand the silliness of the two latter statements, you should be able to understand the silliness of the first. You don't necessarily judge an individual's justification for her beliefs by the cultural soup from which those beliefs arise. Consider the following three facts:

(1) I live in a culture where a majority of the people believe Christianity is true.
(2) My parents taught me to believe that Christianity is true.
(3) I believe that Christianity is true.

And these:

(4) Aziz lives in a culture where a majority of the people believe that Islam is true.
(5) Aziz' parents taught him to believe that Islam is true.
(6) Aziz believes that Islam is true.

Now, it's obvious that facts (1)-(3) have no bearing on whether Christianity is true or not, just as (4)-(6) have no bearing on whether Islam is true or not. Let's add one more fact to our list:

(7) If I had been born in Aziz' family, I would have believed that Islam was true instead of Christianity.

Dawkins' contention is that if I am aware that facts (1)-(7) are true, then I should conclude that I am a victim of "childhood indoctrination."

But why? The circumstances under which I form a belief are different animals from the reasons I have for holding that belief. I suppose that by Dawkins using this sort of reasoning he means to hold up a simple truism: we shouldn't believe something just because it is widely believed in our own culture. This is obvious, but trivial. Dawkins is attempting to twist this simple truism into some sort of cudgel against religious belief. But just because it is true that some religious people hold their beliefs because they were raised in a religious culture, and because they themselves have not done enough reflection to have good reasons for their beliefs, does not mean that all of them do. And just because some parents indoctrinate and propagandize their children into religious belief does not mean that all of them do. I think most religious parents attempt, to the best of their ability, to give their children good reasons for why they think their religious views are right and others are wrong. That some parents fail miserably at this task is probably a contributor to the apostasy rate of children of religious believers, but that too is a different discussion altogether.

Consider again my above variations on Dawkins' statement. Suppose someone were to use my first hypothetical statement to mock Dawkins for believing that representative democracy is superior to Islamic theocracy. What would his response be? I think he would simply point out that representative democracy is the best form of government for Reason A, Reason B, Reason C, and so forth. If he is justified in doing this, why is the religious believer not justified in doing the same thing? Facts about what someone would believe in a possible world in which they were raised in a different culture are irrelevant to the justification for the beliefs they hold in this, the real world. If we were to adopt this sort of skepticism, then it wouldn't just be religious beliefs that we would have to be skeptical about, but our moral beliefs, our political beliefs, and any other beliefs that fall short of being justified by naked logic or direct experience. Once again, for all his blustering and cuteness, the darling of the new atheists poses no convincing argument against the justification of religious belief. Dawkins always disappoints.

The Falling Man: Humanizing the Horrors of 9/11

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 08:13:01 -0400

Today markes the seventh anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. Here is one of the most tragic and revealing videos about the horrors of that day. It is not graphic, but I do not advise you to watch it if seeing real-life tragedies upsets you.

For more on the identity of one of the jumpers, see here.

Chesterton on worship of the "Inner Light"

nospam@example.com (Brian Trapp) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 17:00:29 -0400

While rearranging books today, I opened my copy of G. K. Chesterton's Orthodoxy to a passage where he discusses what we would associate today with New Age thought. There I found this remarkable quote:

Of all conceivable forms of enlightenment the worst is what these people call the Inner Light. Of all horrible religions the most horrible is the worship of the god within. Any one who knows any body knows how it would work; any one who knows any one from the Higher Thought Centre knows how it does work. That Jones shall worship the god within him turns out ultimately to mean that Jones shall worship Jones. Let Jones worship the sun or moon, anything rather than the Inner Light; let Jones worship cats or crocodiles, if he can find any in his street, but not the god within. Christianity came into the world firstly in order to assert with violence that a man had not only to look inwards, but to look outwards, to behold with astonishment and enthusiasm a divine company and a divine captain. The only fun of being a Christian was that a man was not left alone with the Inner Light, but definitely recognized an outer light, fair as the sun, clear as the moon, terrible as an army with banners.

Is there a Christian writer alive today who writes with such clarity and common sense? If there is, I am not aware of him.