Is God Necessary for Us to be Moral

Last night I listened to a 2008 debate between Christopher Hitchins and Frank Turek on the existence of God. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I9im8SpWB1M) I enjoyed the lively exchanges between the two intelligent, well-spoken men. After the formal presentations, the moderator allowed each to question the other. Hitchins, actually, preferred to let the audience throw the questions, but Turek had one that he repeated many times because Hitchins appeared to miss the point or dodge the question.

(I say "appeared" because a response was made, but not recognized by Turek (and, me, at the time.) Certainly, Turek, and some people who posted to the website, thought Hutchins was ignoring the point. Turek kept repeating the question.

The question was, "Since you [Christopher] are a materialist, explain to me how carbon atoms and benzene molecules can bring about notions of truth, love, empathy, and justice. You can't. Those concepts require a higher entity to instil them in us, a judge of what is moral."

Repeatedly, Hitchins took issue--took offence, really--with the notion that religious people feel that they have to subjugate and enslave themselves to a deity who tells them that they are wicked and need to be cleansed, who demands obedience and worship, and so on. It's humiliating to feel that humans aren't capable of coming up with an appreciation of doing the right thing without a God having to demand it on penalty of eternal torture or human sacrifice.

Turek kept firing the carbon atoms and benzene molecules, to no avail. Hitchins wouldn't bite. (That's not exactly true. He did say that it's up to Turek to establish the insufficiency of the materialist position, but this was lost in the exchange.)

I'd like to respond. Turek's basic point is that God is the source of all goodness (and, presumably Satan is the source of all that isn't good) so that knowledge of good and bad has to be imposed from above. (He went so far as to say the existence of mathematics, information, and the DNA molecule required a deity, but let's keep it simple.) His point is that a bunch of carbon atoms and benzene molecules can't, without divine help, generate sensations of empathy.

There are two answers I could give.

One is "I don't know." The problem with that answer, unfortunately, is that deists jump on it triumphantly and say, "Right. Only God can do it." Their response is nonsense, of course. The existence of God does not depend on whether I or anyone else "knows" the answer or has a theoretical explanation. The existence of God does not depend on how far along in our thinking of science we are.

Going deeper, we could say that the deist's answer was just as inadequate. The deist could have said, "Gzort does it" or "Shublefumph does it" or "Satan does it" for that matter. When the deist says, "You don't know the answer, but I do. It was God." the deists isn't advancing toward knowledge. He's just putting a name to the cause of the phenomenon.

A problem with answering "I don't know" in a debate is that you always have to get sidetracked to explain that "I don't know" does not weaken the intellectual position.

(Hitchins responded a couple of times that had Turek asked the question a couple of thousand years ago, he wouldn't have been using the terms "molecule" and "DNA". Turek became exasperated, saying (in effect), "So what? Just answer the question.")

The second answer to how the accumulation of atoms that composes us instils in us ethics and morality appears, at first, to reverse the issue. An atheist could say, "evidently the laws of chemistry and physics do allow for it, and even if you deists don't know how, that doesn't shake my satisfaction that notions of morality are innate to humans (and to primates, and possibly to other organisms, too.)

An atheist shouldn't want to say this in a debate, because it's really putting the "I don't know" in the deist's mouth and taking unfair advantage.

So let's take this a little farther, but examine something simpler (but just as intellectually significant.) Consider the action of moving your finger. You think, "I'm going to move my finger." Then you move it. How does the thought trigger the actual, physical action? This is a deep mystery. A scientist could respond, "When I think, some electrochemical exchange happens somewhere in my brain which causes an electrical signal to go down the nerve and move the muscle." But the mystery still exists. How did the desire to move the finger cause the electrochemical exchange? We could get into an infinite regress here. But that's no reason to insist that God is in the details.

Consider the Big Bang (which Turek mentioned often.) "How did the universe start from nothing?" the deists scream. We could respond, "Well, not from nothing. Some mass was there." or "Well, not from nothing, some energy was there." or "Well, negative mass-energy went one way and positive mass-energy went the other way, so it still adds to zero." But we always have a "what started it" issue: how did the initial mass, the initial energy, the initial impetus to change things get there?

Infinite regress. There will always be an infinite regress. That does not mean there is a deity.

So, back to Turek's question: How do we humans have concepts of right and wrong? Evolution could help in the discussion. We could propose that organisms without such understanding did not, in the long run, survive. Natural selection among sentient beings could select for cooperation, for adherence to (or, at least, contemplation of) the Golden Rule.

I'm interested in the question. Recent studies with apes, monkeys, dogs, cows, and cats suggest that non-human animals have concepts of morality. Who's side of the debate does that help? The deist just says, "God gave them morality, too." Case closed.

Are molecules and the laws of physics and chemistry sufficient for the appearance of morals in people. Evidently yes, Hitchins says.

I agree.

-Rob

P.S. Hitchins did point out, quite eloquently, that the religious authorities have another problem. Even if one were to accept that there were and entity to get it started, there is no way for them to link that to their conclusion that this same entity interacts with us daily, hears our thoughts when we are sleeping or awake, judges our thoughts and actions, demands that we worship it, and so on.

Belief in God

I just finished sending a comment to “Tim” (http://existence-of-god.com/author-information.html). Sorry, I don’t know any more about his name. Tim’s site provides a huge discussion of arguments for and against the existence of God. Each argument against God’s existence is refuted. The counter arguments, however, are very well presented, though, which is rare on “Evidence for God’s existence” sites.

If you look down the left, you see links to other sites or pages arguing for God’s existence. You see links to proclamations that “So and so rejects atheism.” I don’t see any saying “So and so converts to atheism.” I would feel better had I seen these. I realize, though, that “Tim” has no wish to convince anyone of the unreasonableness of his belief in God. And therein, really, lies the problem. The ideal philosopher, the ideal searcher after truth, should not care whether the statement “A is B” is actually true. The ideal searcher after truth should not have an agenda to convince readers that his point of view is the (only) correct one.

I am always suspicious of people’s objectivity when they have a strong belief in the truth of some statement, whether the statement is “We never went to the moon”, “HIV (virus) does not cause AIDS” or “God exists.” As I said before, though, I commend Tim for the depth of his coverage of both sides of the discussion.

I have a confession to make: I’m an atheist. As a high school physics teacher, I never stated this fact to my class. I taught that there is a separation of science from religion/philosophy/belief. I suggested that if there was any way to absolute truth, only religion could get there. I taught that science didn’t say anything about God; only that science’s goal was to come up with a useful, testable, non-divine explanation for observed phenomena. I never answered the question “Do you believe in God?”

Now, having retired, I can concede that the concept of the existence of God just does not fly with me.

One of the arguments for God’s existence is based on probability: the likelihood of the universe being precisely right for the development of intelligent life on Earth is so small that one concludes that there had to be a designer.

But I use probabilities a different way. Most people follow the faith of their parents. What is the likelihood, of all the faiths on this planet, that the one my parents happened to believe is the only true faith? I don’t think I’m that lucky. The fact that most people believe the faith of their fathers leads me to the conclusion that the correctness of their faith is suspect.

Related to that argument is the statement of humility: So many people believe in other religions, other Gods, other ways that the universe may have come to be, who am I to assume that my way is correct?

Frankly, I find the certitude of believers disturbing. I can’t buy the existence of an entity watching me/us/humanity/the cosmos, caring what we do, (perhaps) interceding (on our behalf), desiring to be worshiped, judging us.

A friend told me, “You are a good person. You have to believe in God because God is the source of all goodness.” Sorry, but I think you can be good without the need for a God (to set a standard, presumably, for ultimate goodness).

And people say, “Yes, but in the Bible it says…” Again, I don’t mean any disrespect when I say that, not believing in the existence of God, I don’t accept the Bible to be the word of (any) God.
I respect people’s belief in God. Fanatics apart, most people I meet are sincerely interested in doing good, sincerely interested in the welfare of others (not just their own kind or own religious group). If belief in a God helps them to be that way, good for them. When their loved ones die and they find solace in a belief that “God had other plans for them” or that they have “gone to a better place”, I’m happy for them. Perhaps I’m even a little envious of believers’ satisfaction, or the peace that a belief in a God has brought them.

I concede that I might be better off if I believed in God. But that is not a valid reason for a belief. I don’t think you can say, “I believe it because it’s advantageous to do so.”

So, do I believe in God? No, but if you do, that’s OK. As long as you don’t discriminate against others who believe differently from you.

God and Why Things Happen

I had an interesting discussion on a car trip last night with my wife Sue and niece, Jenn. We had started with the question of life off the Earth, and touched on parallel universes and extra dimensions, God and science. At one point I mentioned the tube worms and other creatures living around the deep sea vents.
Sue: What is the purpose of them being there?
Rob: Do you mean what role do they play in their little ecosystem?
Sue: No, what is the reason they are there?
Rob: Evolution doesn’t happen for a reason, that is, in order to fulfill something. Like giraffes didn’t evolve long necks in order to eat the leaves of tall trees. Its just that longer necked creatures were able to get more food, so stayed healthy, and had more babies. So over the long run, a long-necked creature evolved.
Jenn: So you don’t believe there was a purpose to their evolution.
Rob: “Believe?” Good word, Jenn. You are asking a philosophical question: what is my philosophy or religious position on the matter. Not a question of science.
Jenn: No, no. Science. If giraffes didn’t evolve long necks there would be more leaves left on the trees. They would shade the ground, changing the temperature. They would fall and rot and change the pH. There’s be a different ecosystem.
Rob: Right. Good point. That’s why we have to be careful because when we engineer a change in the ecosystem, a million other things are affected.
Jenn: Right, like adding rabbits to Australia, or using pesticides. So can’t the purpose of the giraffes be that they are needed for that ecosystem?
Rob: But let’s for a moment assume that there are no giraffes. You would say to me “The reason there are no long-necked creatures is that they would eat the high leaves, there would be more sunshine, so the ground would be warmer at the base of the tree. There would be fewer leaves to rot, and the pH would change.
Jenn: (laughs) Same argument.
Rob: Right. Your original argument was, basically, if there are no giraffes, things would be different. When that argument can be used both for and against the point being examined, that argument is valueless as a scientific statement.
Jenn: I see that.
Rob: You could make it into a valid philosophical argument, though. A religious person could say, for example, that if there were no giraffes, conditions would be different and the difference would be bad. Since God would not have wanted the conditions to be bad, God wouldn’t have allowed that (i.e. no giraffes) to happen, and would have created/evolved giraffes in the first place.
The problem with this argument, though, is that, for consistency, it must be applied everywhere. You could say that the malaria mosquito or the TB virus must have been created/evolved for a purpose. So why are we (even “good” religious people) contributing money to eradicate these creatures? Might not we be acting against God’s will?
There are a couple of ways out of this conundrum. One is to say that we are part of God’s creation/evolution, so our purpose was to alter the ecosystem (for the good) by wiping out the bad bugs. Unfortunately, this argument also has too wide a range, because it could be used by the people eradicating the rainforests and polluting the environment, too.
Another escape is the “free will” argument: God gave us free will to do our best to determine what’s good and what’s bad. We see that wiping out giraffes is bad, but wiping out TB is good. (That leaves the question about why God allowed the TB in the first place, if not to test us when we develop the capability of eradicating it. (This heads towards “Why do bad things happen to good people?”, perhaps the deepest, most important religious question.)
Sue: Rob! Pay attention. You’re heading to Niagara falls!
Rob: [cutting across two lanes highway traffic, and driving on the shoulder until we can get into the correct lane] Sorry.

Thoughs on whether God exists

I often think how lucky I am to be born a Canadian. I could have been born one of India’s teeming impoverished children. I could have had to grow up in the middle of sectarian warfare in Ireland, Serbia, or Iraq, or under a tyrannical dictatorship in the U.S.S.R. or North Korea. How fortunate I was that my parents happened to be Canadians!

The fact that the majority of citizens happen to have the citizenship of their parents is obvious and of little significance. Yet, when applied to religion, the observation leads to some serious questions in my mind. The vast majority of people end up following the religion of their parents. Of course some people convert to other denominations, Anglican to United. Some cross larger chasms, converting from Judaism to Christianity, or Christianity to Buddhism. It is surely safe to say, though, that most people who grow up in a family of a given faith become members of that faith themselves. That is, they accept the beliefs of the faith of their parents, or at least their surroundings during their formative years.

At first glance, this observation seems of as little significance as the citizenship “coincidence”. After all, how can you accept the beliefs of, say, Muslims, if you haven’t been exposed to that faith? The difference comes, though, with the importance believers of a faith usually place on the truth of their beliefs. Canadians do not go about announcing that Canada is the only true country. But many religious believers proclaim that their faith is the only true faith. That is, they feel that their God is the only God, or the practices or beliefs of their faith provide the only way to reach God or heaven, The Roman Catholic Church has, with no embarrassment, openly proclaimed itself as the one True Church. Devout Christians seize upon the word “only” in the scriptures and state that the only way to salvation is to accept Christ as the Son of God. Jehovah’s Witnesses tell the world that those who survive the coming apocalypse will be from their ranks only.

It is at this point that the coincidences become a little too much to accept. The good luck of being born Canadian pales compared to the good luck of being born into the only true faith.

When I think deeply about religious matters, such as the existence of a Creator, whether there is an afterlife, or whether there is a God who can hear your silent prayers, I wonder about the certainty that many believers possess. When I see good, intelligent, devout people disagreeing on what constitutes the absolute truth in these matters, I wonder what right have I to assume that my beliefs are the true beliefs? The conclusion that I have the monopoly on truth seems of low probability, and quite egotistical or chauvanistic.

I would like to pose some questions to religious people about this point. Because of my lack of knowledge of the other world religions, I will address the questions to fundamentalist Christians who consider their beliefs to be absolutely true. But I believe my questions have general applicability to other faiths, if tailored to their specific beliefs.[1]

Question 1: Does it concern you that you happen to believe what your parents believe? Do you ever worry that such a “coincidence” could be the result of indoctrination rather than free choice, uninfluenced by your superiors or upbringing?

Certainly, no one can be uninfluenced by his or her upbringing. No one is, or should be, brought up empty of knowledge and void of concepts of right and wrong. After all, that’s why we have universal education. Suppose, though, a button could be pressed which causes all preconceived notions about religion could be wiped from a 25 year old’s brain. (Perhaps the Men in Black have one!) Gone would be the suggestion that there is a God. Gone would be the assumption that the Bible is the literal truth (the question was addressed to fundamentalist Christians, remember.) I anticipate that the majority of such mind-blanked people would attain a belief in God. There seems to be a universal human nature or need to feel that someone is looking out for them, or there is life after death, or that their presence on Earth has a grand purpose. But would most pick up the Bible and say “You know, I this script seems to be the actual Word of God.” My guess is that many would see the Bible as representing something else: what ancient people thought was the word of God, or what early religious leaders wanted their flock to think was the word of God, or what early devout leaders though God would say if He were currently speaking to them. The point of my question and this subsequent impossible (some would say ludicrous) hypothetical scenario is to try to find out if fundamentalist Christians accept (their interpretations of) the teachings of the Bible because they have been told the Bible is absolute truth or because they have concluded, independent of their upbringing, that it is absolute truth.

I would be more satisfied intellectually to accept claims of religious fundamentalists if I felt that their ideas and passions did not come from parents or upbringing. Please remember that I am not claiming that the beliefs of religious fundamentalists, or any religious people for that matter, are untrue. I am saying that if I were to hold these (or any) beliefs myself, the “my parents thought that, too” coincidence would give me pause.

Question 2: Have you ever wondered what changes in your beliefs would results if the Bible were not absolutely true? Or, more to the point, have you ever wondered if the Bible might not be the literal Word of God?

Again, I would be more impressed with a fundamentalist’s convictions if he or she concluded that the Bible was literate, historical truth after honestly and fairly considering the question. I fear that it may be impossible to fairly question a fundamental tenet of faith that has been part of a person’s upbringing from day 1. True, some people convert to other religions, which suggests that open-mindedness is possible. On the other hand, conversion might indicate that they never actually accepted the article of faith in the first place. Unfortunately, this leads to a situation with no solution:
Convert: Yes I accepted it…now I reject it.
Skeptic: You never accepted it, you just think you did.
Convert: No, I actually accepted it.
Skeptic: No, you just think you actually accepted it…

It worries me that belief in God, based on the Bible’s claim of God’s existence, is subject to circular reasoning:

Person A: God exists.
Person B: How do you know?
Parson A: It says so in the Bible?
Person B: How do you know that the Bible is true?
Person A: Because God wrote it.
Person B: But how do you know that God exists in the first place?
Person A: It says so in the Bible.

Is it possible to come to accept that the Bible is the literal Word of God without first being told that it is? Perhaps. A fundamentalist might say “I get evidence for this every day, throughout my life.” My worry here is that such acceptance occurs in other situations which are too similar to be ignored: the concept of the self-fulfilling prophesy, the Rorschach ink-blot test, vision of God in the clouds or the devil in the smoke from the World Trade Centre, the “my horoscope sounds like it applies to me” claim. My grandmother says “I’ve played Bingo all my life and I think I’m a little ahead.” No bingo player thinks otherwise.


[1] (For the purpose of this essay I am defining fundamentalist Christians as those who believe that the Bible is the absolute word-for-(Hebrew)-word literal truth. This would take in standard Baptists and Nazarenes. Fundamentalist, but not Christian, would apply to Jehovah’s Witnesses’ interpretation of the Old Testament. For example, they would say that there actually was a Daniel in a lion’s den who plucked a thorn from the lion’s paw. Anglicans and Catholic standard doctrine would see the same passage as a fable showing the value of belief in God and charity to your enemy. For a non-fundamentalist, the Bible’s truth would be of a more general nature: a moral or educational truth, rather than a literal one. Similarly, for a fundamentalist Adam and Eve were real people. For a non-fundamentalist, Adam and Eve were characters in a creation myth that tells us many truths about how God wants us to behave. Of course there are many Anglicans and Catholics, and people of other faiths, who would consider themselves fundamentalists, so the questions that follow are not directed solely toward Baptists.

Blind Acceptance

I little while ago I attended a friend's church service. The pastor give an interesting sermon--they call the Message. At one point she said "Just as twins separated by great distances can feel each other's distress, so can ..."

I wrote her a letter. In it I explained that one of my goals as a physics teacher is to have students think, examine, and test hypotheses and claims before accepting them. Many students enter my classroom being firm believers that Earth has been visited by aliens, that we have not gone to the Moon, that ghosts exist, that mysterious disturbances happen in a Bermuda triangle, that people can read minds and move objects by pure thought, and so on. I try to persuade the students to look at these claims sceptically. And here she was talking pseudoscience.

I mentioned to the pastor that there was no reputable scientific evidence that separated twins can sense, for example, when the other breaks an ankle or has a bad dream. I requested that she refrain from stating dubious, unsupported claims as fact(and using them to support her argument).

But this brings up an interesting question: Where do I stop with my request? Obviously, I can't ask her to stop repeating untestable claims about the existence of God. To her God's existence is a fact. I'm trying to be fair to her, here. Regardless of whether I'm believer, agnostic, or atheist, I feel I have to let her state claims about God as facts as she sees them. But I want her to stop stating OTHER unsubstantiated claims as fact.

I think there's a line here that the pastor, priest, rabbi shouldn't cross, but it's a little tricky justifying it.

I am reminded of the requirements for good science fiction. We allow certain breaches of the laws of physics (warp drive; transporter beams; instant communication, perhaps). But having granted this limited latitude, we want consistency with the rest of the known laws of physics. I have a hard time explaining to my wife why I allow one "magic" device but not another. If you are a sci.fi. fan, though, I expect you know what I mean.

(I remember one episode of Star Trek, the Next Generation where Geordi and Ro were in a semi-dead state, or a different dimension, or something ("cloaked and phased", actually, they need the anyon beams to wipe out the chroniton fields!). Anyhow, they couldn't be seen by normal matter (i.e. everyone else). They could run through walls! My 10 year-old daughter saw the inconsistency: If they pass through the walls, she asked, why they didn't fall through the floors!)