Fundamental (Er..uhm, New) Atheism

Tonegod, If you don't see how generalising an attack on Dawkins to an attack on the atheist moral compass is counter to the guidelines I would suggest you might have trouble staying within the lines here--and might choose to go elsewhere. I refer specifically to 'bashing' and asking atheists to jusyify their basical philosophy as things I am not interested in seeing pursued. This is posted here rather than PM to respond to your public question with a public answer.

Hey, I have a new answer for one of the original questions

AMCrenshaw said:

3) What is their source of spirituality?

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And the answer is -- Their serotonin receptors!

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I just read something last night about a study that showed that the presence of a receptor for serotonin correlates with people's ability to have transcendent spiritual experiences.

The short summary I read suggests that it's the serotonin that is causing the spiritual experiences. But since it's a correlation, I guess it could be the other way around -- it could be that it's the experiences that are causing the brain chemistry changes.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting:

Study: The Effects Of Serotonin On Spirituality -- from The American Journal of Psychiatry via Psychology Today via Huffington Post

I agree about Richard Dawkins' writing style. I so much preferred it when he was simply writing about science. His science books are much better, in every way than his atheism books.

I think so too. I pretty much stopped reading Dawkins. I am more in the area of the late Dr Gould on this subject. He had a nice idea about non-overlapping majesterias: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html

Eeek said:

Hey, I have a new answer for one of the original questions



And the answer is -- Their serotonin receptors!

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I just read something last night about a study that showed that the presence of a receptor for serotonin correlates with people's ability to have transcendent spiritual experiences.

The short summary I read suggests that it's the serotonin that is causing the spiritual experiences. But since it's a correlation, I guess it could be the other way around -- it could be that it's the experiences that are causing the brain chemistry changes.

Anyway, I thought it was interesting:

Study: The Effects Of Serotonin On Spirituality -- from The American Journal of Psychiatry via Psychology Today via Huffington Post

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Easy to test. There are lots of drugs that manipulate serotonin availability. Get a bunch of spiritually naive people (that might be hard)
and make sure half of them have lots of serotonin and half get a placebo...then subject half of each of those groups to some spiritual
events (what would those be? I always experience religious ecstasy while watching beautiful women playing Brahms sextets in the nude, but for others there may be some variation: Schubert quartets, car repair, mud wrestling, hockey, specialist acts and so on) and leave the others in a spiritually deprived environment: an full day of classes in macroeconomics might do...and then see who has more spiritual experiences.

veinglory said:

I think so too. I pretty much stopped reading Dawkins. I am more in the area of the late Dr Gould on this subject. He had a nice idea about non-overlapping majesterias: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/library/gould_noma.html

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That's a splendid, humanitarian and erudite article, Vein. Thanks for sharing!

I have only one point of difference with Dr Gould: the majesteria of spirit is not closed to scientists. In other words, using science as the natural and most appropriate tool for understanding the majesteria of the physical world does not disqualify us from commentary on the spiritual world. Neither does ordination or a Doctorate in Divinity make the opinions of a theological scholar more intrinsically valid in the majesteria of spirit than those of ordinary laeity - they may simply be informed by more references.

I claim this because I think that the realm of spirit is the realm of perception more than knowledge; aesthetics more than philosophy; experience more than ideology. To be meaningful at all it must remain consistent with our understanding of the reality of the physical world (and all enlightened religions endorse this), but in terms of morality, relationship, meaning and purpose I feel that there's nobody who for reason of education or its lack, belief or its lack, should be consigned to silence or considered a second-class participant. Indeed, the more authoritarian and authoritative a religion seeks to make the majesterium of spirit, the less relevant I think it will be. So suggestions that (for example) nonbelievers have no spirituality and no say in the majesterium bother the heck out of me. Gould's own writing puts the lie to that supposition.

I strongly advocate people sharing and discussing 'here is how you may live' and 'here is how we agree to live'. But in a pluralist world I strenuously object to spiritual ideology insisting 'here is how you must live', and any dogma that suggests penalties or sanctions for failing to do so. Historically, when such penalties and sanctions are coupled with secular power, we immediately see oppression of the sort that Dr Gould alludes to - and even when they're not, we see intolerance, indifference and contempt.

In this respect I find myself half in agreement with Dawkins and half in disagreement. We know historically (and contemporaneously) how much damage some kinds of religious indoctrination can do to the minds of the young. There's no question that a young mind needs time to grow before it can choose. In the interim, a child's spiritual beliefs are not for parents' or teachers' to shape as they will, but a trust held on behalf of the child. On the other hand, the values of those who love us are critical in seeding our own moral values. Is it possible for enlightened parents to impart values without indoctrinating spiritual beliefs? And more concerningly, if parents withold spiritual beliefs do they also withhold key values?

I don't have an answer to this. Kids need physical truths, an enquiring mind, and good, robust values. I can't help but feel that if you get the good values and enquiring mind right, the truths will follow in time.

Higgins said:

I always experience religious ecstasy while watching beautiful women playing Brahms sextets in the nude

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Is that what religious ecstasy looks like? I'll skip the serotonin then... I can produce that myself.

You believe what you believe. I doubt that it is an actual choice. I don't see how anyone could choose to have faith; you either see God's hand in your life, or you don't.

I believe in God, but for my own reasons.

AMCrenshaw said:

"'here is how you must live'"

Can this statement work within any kind of framework?

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Yes, it can work within an autocratic monoculture (if by 'work' you mean that everyone conforms). If by 'work' you mean that everyone prospers, thrives and celebrates their membership of the community, then I suspect not.

I can only say that the aesthetic of Christianity is something that I can relate to, but not so much the rationality of it all.

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I haven't a bad word to say about people who believe in love, tolerance, peace, kindness, enquiry and forgiveness. I'll happily learn how to be a better person from committed Christians and often have. But I get such inspiration from the people, not the dogma which makes no good sense to me at all.

Ruv said:

"I claim this because I think that the realm of spirit is the realm of perception more than knowledge; aesthetics more than philosophy; experience more than ideology."

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AMC said:

By knowledge you mean like...rational, scientific, or whatever...as opposed to relational/intimate? Just a point of semantics that confused me, sorry. But I agree if you mean the former.

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It's easy to get tripped up here. For the purpose of this discussion I'd distinguish verifiable facts from impressions however strong.

Facts can yield knowledge; impressions can yield insights. Knowledge can be evaluated by its verifiable truths. Insights can be evaluated by how useful they are in discovering new knowledge. Facts dwell in the domain (magesterium) of the physical, they're consistent and can be shared intact; impressions dwell in the domain of the spiritual, they can be inconsistent and can be shared imperfectly and experientially.

So when a theist (say) knocks on my door and says 'I've come to share the truth with you', I mentally translate it to 'I'm really excited and want to share my strong impressions and the insights they've created'. If I hear it that way, I can be friendly, light-hearted and interested. But if I hear it as a claim to objective truth then my analytic mind will immediately pull apart the truth-claims and that's not at all a pleasant discussion.

AMCrenshaw said:

Dodgy? Hey!

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Er.. I meant good questions, but I felt they were right on the boundary of forum charter. The spin-off comments have been really interesting though.

Sarpedon said:

I agree about Richard Dawkins' writing style. I so much preferred it when he was simply writing about science. His science books are much better, in every way than his atheism books.

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Taking this back towards writing: I actually like Dawkin's style - he's robust, concise, and unapologetic. His "God Delusion" is a model for any book taking one side in a controversy. It's big, fat, meaty, but still an easy read.

Or is the issue more to do with his attitude?

hmm, perhaps its a matter of how informative it is. I guess I've already heard most of his god delusion arguments before, whereas his science books were entirely novel to me.

I guess thats not much of a criticism...beyond saying that there seems to be little thats original in his atheism books.

Eeek said:

I wonder, though, if it's harder now to maintain those separate spheres. The creationists have made some unexpected inroads in the ten years since that essay was written.

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I don't see anything in Intelligent Design but rhetoric and huge leaps from small doubts. It's not a scientific theory and doesn't submit itself to scientific testability; it's an aesthetic theory fortified by aesthetic doubts that ignores the huge weight of evidence for evolution as a current, active process.

When I was a student I lived for a while in a somewhat shabby shared flat, and underneath our refrigerator dwelled a squillion cockroaches. One day I tried to kill them with bug-spray and they scattered everywhere haphazardly.

On a social level, the objections mystics offer to scientific fact work much like those cockroaches. They throw out everything they can regardless of truth, in the hope that one cockroach will survive to breed more. And as with the roaches living under the fridge, one usually does. The roaches of mysticism can breed faster than rigorous thought can swat 'em, so it's a fairly effective survival strategy.

But meanwhile, the roaches stop living under the fridge.

That's pretty much been the history of science vs. mysticism. Science advances, mysticism retreats to some even more remote and darker place. In the longer view, I see I.D as a weak rearguard action to buy time while the roaches find a more permanent home.

I also don't see the creationists doing anything different from 100 years ago. They are not testing hypotesis because their hypothesis is not falsifiable. I think even very good religion is bad science, just as science is bad religions and--on its own--bad philosophy, social planning or ethics. It needs to interact with these systems, not overlap with them. That is why I like Gould's approach.

Sarpedon said:

hmm, perhaps its a matter of how informative it is. I guess I've already heard most of his god delusion arguments before, whereas his science books were entirely novel to me.

I guess thats not much of a criticism...beyond saying that there seems to be little thats original in his atheism books.

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I don't think he was writing for people who had read all the arguments - rather he gathered the existing arguments and presented them authoritatively, leveraging his public person in order to make a splash.

I find the athiest reaction to him bewildering, like comedy Marxists bemoning that a left wing government is the wrong kind of left wing.

Eeek said:

I think what the creationists are doing differently than they were at the time Gould wrote his essay is that they've become better organized politically.

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I think that Socrates, Galileo Galilei, Alfred Wallace and Charlie Darwin might disagree, if they were around to do so.

This is a pretty interesting discussion.

The only thing I thought might be worth pointing out, is where Agnosticism fits into this. I view the issue as one where the problem really revolves around the lack of falsifiability of the concept of a "god/spirit/etc.".

I'm agnostic, because I see that the logical hole that both Atheism and religions fall into is that they both require stances of faith. Proving truth, outside of mathematics, is pretty much impossible, however it is possible to say if something is false(as Ruv mentioned above, in terms of swatting roaches). What can be said though is how likely something is to be true(evidence supports blah, etc.).

Do I believe in a god? I'm leaning strongly towards no. Is it possible for a god to exist, however remote? Yes. The reason is because neither case will ever likely be able to be falsified, therefore the only stance to take is to say "I don't know/Not enough info.".

Personally, my views run pretty much parallel to those of Atheism, however I'm not willing to take the leap of faith and say that "I know there is no god.", because it's not a logical claim if unless the counter can be falsified.

To sum up.

1. Truth outside of math is relative. You may be able to say something is extremely likely(99.99%), but it's going to be quite a stretch to say something is an absolute fact.
2. If a question can't be falsified, then you can't really make a claim on it's validity. Unfortunately god falls in that category, and until a means of falsifying gods exists, claims of nonexistence hold little merit. What can be said is that it's extremely unlikely a god exists, but it's possible.
3. Think in terms of margin of error. I can create very sophisticated simulations of real life, however I do accept that at best I can only approximate the "truth". At some point you run into the reality that certain things will NEVER be able to be predicted and modeled(think plank distance, where subatomic particles can roam freely), and it needs to be accepted that there will always be a limit to how much information we have access to. We may be able to make more accurate statements, measurements, or models, but in all likelihood we will never be able to state with absolute certainty ANYTHING.

Dommo said:

I'm agnostic, because I see that the logical hole that both Atheism and religions fall into is that they both require stances of faith.

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It depends, Dommo.

I'm an atheist with (albeit limited) faith in economies and the efficacy of road rules and the viability of powered flight and perhaps you have faith in those things too or you'd never fly or hurtle at hundreds of kph at another vehicle with only a thin strip of paint separating you, or accept your wages in currency.

I don't have any great faith in origin stories though - for or against. All I have is a skeptical refusal to consider physical propositions where the nouns are not offered as verifiable physical objects.

So for instance, if a friend says 'a ghost moved my car-keys', I'll ask which ghost? Else, all we can agree on is that my friend doesn't remember putting her car-keys where she found them.

It doesn't require any faith in the nonexistence of supernatural to proceed in that way. It just requires you to judge each statement on its practical, material merits and discard it if it doesn't parse as a verifiable statement. It's not a terribly clever or principled or philosophical position to take. It just insists that the semantics of the statements we consider make sense before we investigate them.

But not all atheists work that way. Some draw faith-based conclusions too.

Is it possible for a god to exist, however remote?

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A skeptical pragmatist like me might say 'First tell me what you mean by a god'. The answers you get back might vary:

1. A magical creator of life (okay, but what do you mean by magic?)
2. A being who breaks physical laws (well, are they really laws if they're breakable?)
3. A smart being who can do what ordinary humans can't (I can't discount that, but I'm not disposed a priori to worshipping it either - although my grandmother's cooking does sway me back toward superstition at times)
4. A spiritual authority for some group of people (well, these already exist for some faiths - and are embodied as people. Their merit in being spiritual authorities though, is another matter.)
5. A character in a book. (Well, that's a moot question, because books are not reality)

veinglory said:

I also don't see the creationists doing anything different from 100 years ago. They are not testing hypotesis because their hypothesis is not falsifiable. I think even very good religion is bad science, just as science is bad religions and--on its own--bad philosophy, social planning or ethics. It needs to interact with these systems, not overlap with them. That is why I like Gould's approach.

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Dommo said:

This is a pretty interesting discussion.

The only thing I thought might be worth pointing out, is where Agnosticism fits into this. I view the issue as one where the problem really revolves around the lack of falsifiability of the concept of a "god/spirit/etc.".

I'm agnostic, because I see that the logical hole that both Atheism and religions fall into is that they both require stances of faith. Proving truth, outside of mathematics, is pretty much impossible, however it is possible to say if something is false(as Ruv mentioned above, in terms of swatting roaches). What can be said though is how likely something is to be true(evidence supports blah, etc.).

Do I believe in a god? I'm leaning strongly towards no. Is it possible for a god to exist, however remote? Yes. The reason is because neither case will ever likely be able to be falsified, therefore the only stance to take is to say "I don't know/Not enough info.".

Personally, my views run pretty much parallel to those of Atheism, however I'm not willing to take the leap of faith and say that "I know there is no god.", because it's not a logical claim if unless the counter can be falsified.

To sum up.

1. Truth outside of math is relative. You may be able to say something is extremely likely(99.99%), but it's going to be quite a stretch to say something is an absolute fact.
2. If a question can't be falsified, then you can't really make a claim on it's validity. Unfortunately god falls in that category, and until a means of falsifying gods exists, claims of nonexistence hold little merit. What can be said is that it's extremely unlikely a god exists, but it's possible.
3. Think in terms of margin of error. I can create very sophisticated simulations of real life, however I do accept that at best I can only approximate the "truth". At some point you run into the reality that certain things will NEVER be able to be predicted and modeled(think plank distance, where subatomic particles can roam freely), and it needs to be accepted that there will always be a limit to how much information we have access to. We may be able to make more accurate statements, measurements, or models, but in all likelihood we will never be able to state with absolute certainty ANYTHING.

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I'm always a little puzzled when the rhetorical flourish of "falsification" is brought out. Nobody believes anything else Karl Popper wrote about science or anything else so why is "falsification" so popular?
Moreover...in the two cases above it is used to show roughly opposite types of plausibility:
1) in one case that a "creator" (or anything else godlike) can't be "falsified" and is therefore implausible
2) in one case that a "creator" (or anything else godlike) can't be "falsified" and so remains plausible

I would like to suggest that "falsification" doesn't mean much one way or the other, partly because it implies some set of rules about how things are show not to be false (and these rules make "falsification" as related to plausibility pretty trivial) and partly because even if something is falsified or not you can still conclude completely opposite things about the degree of plausibility that leaves one way or the other.

Higgins said:

I'm always a little puzzled when the rhetorical flourish of "falsification" is brought out. Nobody believes anything else Karl Popper wrote about science or anything else so why is "falsification" so popular?
Moreover...in the two cases above it is used to show roughly opposite types of plausibility:
1) in one case that a "creator" (or anything else godlike) can't be "falsified" and is therefore implausible
2) in one case that a "creator" (or anything else godlike) can't be "falsified" and so remains plausible

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Higgins, that may be true in general, but I think you cited the wrong example to support it.

Edit: Nope, I misread your quotes. Right examples after all. Sorry. I note that you picked up the general falsifiability question in Critical Theory & Philosophy of Language. I'll chase it there.