Occam's Razor

Applying the "Law of Parsimony" (aka - Occam's Razor) to Christianity highlights its fundamental lack of credibility. For each of the thorny challenges to Christianity (the problem of evil, the failure to answer prayers, god's invisibility and elusiveness, the lack of solid and uncontroversial evidence, god's ability to defy laws of physics, the existence of an afterlife, angels and demons) Christian apologists have handy, glib, overly ornate, ad hoc explanations:

• God doesn't let us see him because he is testing our faith
• If god gave us incontrovertable evidence it would interfere with our free will
• He allows evil in the world for a whole variety of stunningly incompatible and far-fetched reasons
• The fossil record gives the appearance of an ancient past to test our faith, or even that fossils were planted by the devil
• Atheists don't accept miracles because they have closed their mind and heart to god.
• God sometimes does and sometimes does not answer prayers, depending on his mysterious mood, etc.
• The bible is inerrant - you're just mis-reading it!
• Why would someone (i.e., Christian martyrs) die for a lie?

Each of the above explanations favors an active god to account for experiences that could better be explained by the complete absence of a god. The god explanation is strained and reeks of artifice. That is, it feels ad hoc, designed merely to cover the facts but provides no additional predictive or descriptive power over and above the secular explanation. It is designed to provide a cover story for what has already happened in our universe (e.g., the six days of creation, the flood, etc), but is utterly incapable of making novel predictions about future events, or even mundane predictions. It is completely untestable, and designed to be immune from refutation. Philosophers would say that the secular theory and the religious theory are "underdetermined" by the facts (i.e., the observations underdetermine several competing theories), in that each accounts for the facts so far. Occam's Razor is a tool that can be used to help decide between competing, seemingly equivalent theories.

It was named after William of Ockham, who is thought to have originated the most well-known version of it 700 years ago. The word, "razor" is part of the name because this principle is used to "shave away" needless embellishments and unnecessary assumptions from from hypotheses and explanations. A formal phrasing of it is,

Entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity

which means we would be wise to seek out the most economical explanation that will fully account for the facts. We see this restated and reinvented from time to time, as with the "KISS" principle ("Keep it simple, stupid"), and a phrase commonly used in medicine where there can be a tendency to over-diagnose, “When you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras”. It is also called the "Law of Economy" or the "Law of Parsimony". They all mean basically the same thing - choose the explanation which requires the smallest number of "inventions". For the teacher hearing a student's story about why they didn't turn in an assignment, the explanation which involves the student being lazy requires a smaller leap of faith than that the dog ate the homework.

This guideline does not PREVENT us from denying the existence of these extra entities (i.e., the destructive dog, the rampaging zebra). Dogs are occasionally the guilty party, and probably there has been the rare case of the zebra on-the-loose. But experience shows that it is usually the simpler explanation - the student procrastinated, the hoofbeats were those of a horse. However, it allows us to refrain from including superfluous ornamentation of the explanation in the absence of a compelling reason. In part, this is because human beings can never be sure they know what is and what is not “beyond necessity”; the necessities are not always clear to us.

The application of the principle can help shifts the burden of proof in a discussion to the party making the exaggerated claims. The Razor is a "best practice" for approaching problems. It states that one should utilize simpler theories that can fit the evidence and explain the process or phenomenon under investigation. The simplest available theory need not be most accurate. The exact meaning of "simplest" may be debatable, and people will argue of what "fitting the evidence" really means. Also, since the only reason to abandon the guideline is be confronted with a "compelling reason", the apologist will therefore construct such reasons, typically using one of the standard arguments such as the Cosmological Principle, the Fine Tuned Universe, the Ontological Argument, or the Design Implies a Designer argument. These, and others, are discussed in other sections of this blog.

Applied to Christian apologetics, we are presented with two explanations. One posits god's involvement vs. one that does not. The second is less complex and should be preferred in the absence of a reason not to. It does not require the invention of a super-being who is certainly is far more complex than the universe he created and continues to control (although I have heard Christians perversely argue that, on the contrary, god is the simplest of beings!). So, barring any compelling evidence to the contrary, the non-supernatural reason should be preferred. By the standard of Occam's Razor, the explanation that does NOT involve a god, afterlife, heaven, hell, virgin births, parting seas, pillars of salt, burning bushes, talking snakes and donkeys, exorcisms, stopping the sun, walking on water, resurrections, salvation and assorted miracles is, by far, a superior explanation for what we see here in our lives. As additional confirmation, it doesn't hurt that the naturalistic explanation has a perfect 500 year long batting average (I am starting with the Renaissance, here, though it could be argued that it began with the Greek philosophers). Never has a natural explanation fallen to a supernatural one, though the opposite frequently occurs.

If we have no good evidence for likely candidates for a supernatural event, then we clearly have no reason to postulate supernatural causation. Refusing to accept the existence of supernatural causes, however, is not equivalent to rejecting their existence. Accepting the natural explanation requires us to deny the existence of supernatural causes altogether. Occam's Razor provides us with grounds for denying the existence of supernatural causation rather than remaining agnostic about it. If we have no convincing evidence in support of the supernatural explanation for our experiences, the simplest explanation is that there are no supernatural causes influencing the natural world. Second-hand testimony, apocryphal stories, ancient documents, testimony based on personal experience, revelation, and other weak evidence for possible supernatural events can always be explained more simply than the actual occurrence of such events. It is far more likely that the testimony or evidence can be more cleanly explained in terms deception, fraud, exaggeration, imagination, poetic license, hallucination, memory errors, misunderstanding, wishful thinking, propagandizing, perceptual errors, mistranslation, or misinterpretation.

Issac Newton, although a very devout Christian, had no tolerance for what he called “occult causes” both because he saw them not only as unnecessary, but positively unhelpful. They had no explanatory power, but were simply excuses for explaining away what we didn’t yet understand. In his day, the nature of magnetism, electricity, gravity, optics, cohesion, friction, thermodynamics, fermentation, cell biology, and other natural phenomena were not well understood. Pretty much 80% of what is in a Freshman College physics textbook had not been discovered yet (he did have Galileo to rely on, but not a lot more). He envisioned that from the confusion that then reigned, laws of nature would emerge to resolve those mysteries. He criticized the Aristotelians (as we criticize Christians) for ascribing occult causes to incomprehensible natural phenomena by correctly observing that “such occult qualities put a stop to the improvement of natural philosophy, and therefore of late years have been rejected. To tell us that every species of things is endowed with an occult specific quality by which it acts and produces manifest effects is to tell us nothing”. Even so, he himself subscribed to two seemingly occult entities – the invisible force called “gravity”, and the luminiferous ether through which he believed light traveled.

However, it is important to keep in mind that he lived on the historical edge of the scientific revolution. During his lifetime, there was not a clear distinction between chemistry and alchemy, between the natural and the supernatural, between science and magic. He helped to refine those distinctions in many ways, not the least of which was an often reprinted work of just a few pages called “Rules of Reasoning in Philosophy”. It was a simple guide to help thoughtful observers make sense of their experiences in the natural world.

He enumerated four rules for understanding real world “natural philosophy” (i.e., science) problems. I won't present all of them, but one in particular applies in this context:

We are to admit no more causes of natural things such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. To this purpose the philosophers say, that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain, when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity, and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.”

Newton was not alone in originating his own version of the Razor. Other philosophers such as Aristotle, Scotus, Maimonides, and Ptolemy restated this principle. According to Ptolemy, "We consider it a good principle to explain the phenomena by the simplest hypothesis possible." Phrases such as "It is vain to do with more what can be done with fewer" and "A plurality is not to be posited without necessity" were commonplace in the middle ages.

Even religious scholars such as Thomas Aquinas followed this rule. He said, "it is superfluous to suppose that what can be accounted for by a few principles has been produced by many".

Anselm's Ontological Argument

Around 1100 AD, the theologian/philosopher, Anselm, proposed the following set of propositions which seem to flow logically and prove the existence of god. This was among the first (of many) "ontological arguments" for the existence of god. Ontological, in this context, means the use of logic to prove that god is metaphysically necessary. In other words, using pure logic to show that there is no alternative to god's existence:

1. Our understanding of God is that he is a being, a being greater than any other being that can be imagined or conceived.
2. The idea of God exists in the mind.
3. A being which exists both in the mind and which exists in reality is greater than a being that exists only in the mind.
4. If God only exists in the mind, then we can conceive of a greater being, a being which also exists in reality.
5. We cannot be imagining something that is greater than God.
6. Therefore, God exists.

QED, right? Not so fast. This is a perfect example of Christians' slippery and dangerous use of logic to prove that their fiction is reality. This was the first of many attempts to show god to be "logically necessary". It was followed by other ontological proofs by Descartes, Kant, Leibnitz, Godel, Plantinga and many others, which I won't repeat here. They are extremely tedious and academic. However, they can easily be found here on the web if you are interested.

Immediately after Anselm presented his case, a contemporary named Guanilo showed the argument to be nonsense, or to result in absurd consequences if the same argument were to be applied to the "greatest island" or the "greatest pencil". There is an infinity of "greatest" entities that can be shown to "exist" using the above logical "recipe". This fact does not necessarily disprove Anselm, but shows that its application results in assertions that we cannot reasonably accept. For example, Guanilo's reply to Anselm was along these lines:

1. The "Lost Island" is an island greater than any other island that can be conceived, full of riches and beauty and joy.
2. It is greater to exist in reality than merely as an idea.
3. If the Lost Island does not exist, one can conceive of an even greater island - that is, an island that does exist.
4. Therefore, the "Lost Island" exists in reality.

When reduced to this trivial form, or even sillier ones such as a "greatest pencil" or "greatest bar of soap" you can easily see how what appears to be a valid and sound argument can lead you to ridiculous conclusions. Hume, Aquinas, Kant, and others have picked it to shreds, pointing out problems with several of the assumptions that go into the premises. Kant said (and most philosophers since then agree, though it continues to be contested by apologists),

‘Being’ is obviously not a real predicate; that is, it is not a concept of something which could be added to the concept of a thing.…. By whatever and however many predicates we may think a thing…we do not make the least addition to the thing when we further declare that the thing is.

In other words, existence is not a quality that something has, like size or shape or color. Existence does not add to the essence of a being, but merely indicates its occurrence in reality. Though syntactically, a statement about existence is structurally identical to to a statement attributing qualities to a thing, it is a very different type of statement. The two statements, "the tree exists" and "the tree is tall" have a similar sentence structure, but they are saying two very different types of things about the tree. Kant concluded that it is conceivable for a completely perfect being to not exist in reality - only conceptually, like a perfect triangle or Guanilo's perfect island.

David Hume argued that nothing can be proven to exist using only a priori (purely logical) reasoning. You could only prove this sort of existence if its opposite (non-existence) generated a contradiction with one or more of the premises. With the god argument from Anselm, the non-existence of a perfect being is just as viable as its existence, so the argument fails to accomplish its goal. Simply imagining a perfect being doesn't cause that being to exist. This is starting to sound like Anselm was into the same wishful thinking as followers of "The Secret" and the "Law of Attraction", who believe that if you imagine things hard enough, they become true!

Despite the deficiencies and logical shortcomings of this type of argument, early ontological arguments like Anselm's serve as a model for today's crop of apologists (such as Plantinga and Craig), who continue to defend the logical proofs for god's existence which they have derived from it and augmented with their own additions.

False Balance / False equivalence

It is a case of "false balance" (assigning equal weight to two sides of an unbalanced argument) to argue that Christianity and Naturalism are just separate world views, each one making extraordinary claims - that they each have their share of pros and cons, that they are equivalent, but opposing views or "belief systems". Naturalism, although admittedly a worldview, is specifically not a belief system. Or if it is a belief system, it is one that attempts as much as possible to avoid overlaying human beliefs on reality. To the largest degree possible, it suspends and puts aside preconceived, agenda-driven explanations, and attempts to let reality speak for itself. It does not impose human expectations on nature, but lets nature teach us. Obviously any human interpretation of reality will involve some biological and psychological filtering, but naturalism is the least intrusive one imaginable.

Naturalism removes Animist preconceptions require that all natural events have a purposeful agent behind them. It removes supernatural preconceptions that spirits, both benign and malevolent, manipulate nature. It removes Aristotelian preconceptions that events unfold according to their purpose - fire "wants" to go up, and stones "want" to go down, because that is where they belong, they seek their "natural places". It removes religious preconceptions that god is behind all natural events. It removes teleological expectations that nature has an conscious, agency-driven agenda and purpose which it is trying to achieve. It removes New-Age preconceptions that everything unfolds and develops for a reason (i.e., a mystical, hidden reason). One could argue that naturalism does have one fundamental preconception - which is that it is preferable to avoid imposing human preconceptions on our observations. That is a charge that I can live with. It's like admitting you have just one flaw - and that flaw is excessive modesty :).

Naturalism does not approach nature randomly, naively, and blindly, though. Obviously, there are filters that underlie this interpretation of the universe. Without some sort of expectations and preconceptions and categories, all experience would be a blinding mix of colors, sound, and movements. It would be as William James described the experience of the infant, "as one great blooming, buzzing confusion". We investigate and categorize according to our interests, not randomly or purely objectively. Because of our human self-interest, we find some things more worthy of inspection than others, some questions more interesting than others. Naturalism generally assumes the rules of logic are valid tools for learning and understanding, that the world is real and is full of objects and forces, both with properties that can be described and understood, that these objects that interact with each other, of processes that unfold in a manner that can be understood, that the world is knowable and comprehensible, that the universe is orderly, having regularity, pattern, and structure known as "laws of nature", that all phenomena have natural causes (some known, and some yet unknown), unexplained things can be used to explain other phenomenon (e.g. gravity is thus far unexplained but it is used to explain the movement of planets and the bending of light), etc. It does not presume to catelog all of the entities, properties, and phenomena which exist in the universe, but that when we encounter them, they can be understood as natural entities, properties, and phenomena.

People who defend the religious worldview say that their view and Naturalism are just different ways of viewing the world and different ways of interpreting same evidence. They assert that proponents of both worldviews have their respective biases and filters which restrict the set of possible conclusions they will reach upon consideration of the evidence. This is emblematic of just how weak a position that the religious worldview is. They may admit that their worldview is not a science, but then they say the same thing about Naturalism - that both are just belief systems - trying to drag Naturalism down to the level of Faith by incorrectly equating them. These arguments are not valid. Naturalism is backed by actual science that makes predictions and could, or can, be falsified. It has multiple independent lines of evidence supporting it, while the religious worldview isn't a scientific theory - it can't be tested at all. There is no equivalence whatsoever. Its defenders are free to make whatever claims they want and are absolved from the requirement to prove them.

However, even with these assumptions, Naturalism is a respectful, humble, and wise way to approach the unknowns of the universe. It avoids imposing ill-informed human biases on nature, and allows nature to reveal its secrets to us. It is an approach that systematically avoids extraordinary explanations. It is, by definition, limited to "ordinary" (or natural) explanations, and it is open to the real possibility that the domain of natural explanations can and will expand as we increase our understanding. In the last 500 years, it has been shown to be the "correct" world view time and again. Going back 2500 years to the ancient Greeks, the explanations of the world that have held up over time are those that were based on an empirical and naturalistic world view (with some notable exceptions, such as "atomism", which was deduced mostly apriori but turned out to be roughly correct). The most rational explanation for the success of science is that the Naturalistic world view, which is intimately tied up with science, is correct. If one has even a single pragmatic bone in their bodies, the success of naturalism in explaining the world we live in (and the failure of all other approaches) speaks volumes!

Everyone is a naturalist at the most basic level. For everyday events, like hearing a noise and looking for its source, or watching out for obstacles to walk around, to looking for food and shelter, to interacting effectively in social situations - we all use the evidence provided by habit, nature, and our senses to try to determine how best to react. Animals do this without thinking - they have no "belief system" in place that allows them to navigate the world, and humans don't need one either. Unique among the animals, humans are driven to figure out how the world works. One thing that sets us apart from the rest of the animal kingdom (with the possible exception of ants, beavers, and a few other creatures) is that we are able to exploit the natural order of the world, leverage it, make tools to manipulate it, and control it. And we do this by understanding the way it works, and then applying that knowledge. Supernatural explanations don't help us accomplish this at all. Even the most devout Christians use this naturalistic approach in all other areas of their lives. Christians make fine mathematicians, engineers, accountants, and even scientists (though the overlap of Christianity and Scientists is smaller than average). It is ONLY in the religious sphere that they add on the superfluous and needless layer of religious belief. It can be completely stripped away with no diminution in our ability to survive, prosper, and be happy in the world.

Religious apologists frequently try to shift the burden of proof to Naturalists, off their own shoulders. OK, we can take that challenge. For the last several centuries, since the Renaissance, and arguably since ancient Greece, Naturalism has made claims for how the world works, and those have been validated and shown to be correct each and every time. Anything new that we have learned about about the world, about the universe, has come through Naturalistic discovery, not religious. Religion is stagnant and unable to discover new information. It has systematically inhibited and sabotaged intellectual growth, and seen forward thinkers as heretics. As an approach to thinking about the real world, as a source of knowledge, as an epistemology, Naturalism continues to chip away at religious (including Christian) explanations of "how things work". Prior to the intellectual advances spearheaded by Naturalism, Science, Empiricism, and Rationality, conventional wisdom informed by religion was that Earth was the center of the Universe, disease was caused by demon possession or "bad air", stars were fixed in the sky in a "firmament" hanging over the flat surface of the Earth, storms and earthquakes were the acts of an angry god or gods, wars were won or lost based on a a deity's whim, comets were signs from heaven, the earth was 6000 years old, that we all descended from Adam and Eve, that slavery, rape, and torture of outsiders were acceptable, that snakes could talk, and that followers of other religions and neighboring tribes were practically sub-human and needed to be either exterminated or, at least, conquered.

Many philosophers and scientists have concluded that the best explanation for our ability to develop successful scientific explanations for such a wide range of phenomena in terms of natural causes is that there are no genuine instances of supernatural causation. As Keith Augustine wrote in "In Defense of Naturalism"

Barbara Forrest, for example, describes Naturalism as "a generalization of the cumulative results of scientific inquiry". In other words, the best explanation for the success of science is that Naturalism is true. Given the proliferation of successful scientific explanations for phenomena, Forrest concludes that there is "an asymptotic decrease in the existential possibility of the supernatural to the point at which it is wholly negligible". If Naturalism were false, there would be some phenomena that could not be explained solely in terms of natural causes. However, because science can explain all of the "uncontroversial phenomena" we have encountered (i.e., known to have actually occurred) in terms of natural causes, there probably are no phenomena which cannot be explained in terms of natural causes. Therefore, Naturalism is probably true.

However, because this is an inductive conclusion, we can never be 100% sure, but as sure as we can be of anything in our experience. The possibility of it being wrong asymptotically approaches zero.

Individual theories may be disproved, but the overall body of science is fundamentally “right”. Its theories are able to explain what we currently see, to anticipate events that will occur in the future, and to predict discoveries about what occurred in the past (as in geology, astronomy, and paleontology). Its epistemological basis is nature itself, rather than mythology, tradition, personal testimony, or revelation. Apologists insultingly disparage the naturalistic worldview as "man centered" while theirs is "god centered". On the contrary, naturalism is not man-centered but focuses on all of nature, which includes man. It is universe-centered. Ironically, the Christian worldview, which claims to be god-centered, is really the man-centered worldview, since god and the bible which are the source of its epistemology, are both man-made inventions.

The increase in knowledge that results from the application of the naturalistic worldview passes through the rigorous filter of the scientific method. It is coherent (it does not contradict itself), self-correcting, consistent, reliable, open and responsive to criticism, and it makes continual progress and theoretical refinement. Further, there is no compelling reason to disbelieve it. The religious alternative is a concoction of ad hoc, dogma-driven, just-so stories that attempts to insert god as the central figure of the universe. Religious explanations contribute no new empirical success to any field they attempt to address. The explanations provided by religions are specifically suited to provide cover for what has already happened in the universe, but are utterly unable to make any worthwhile predictions or theoretical explanation for future events, and are completely incapable of being tested. They also fail in their complete inability to retrodict past events in the geological or biological history of the earth, and in any past cosmological events. They fail because they are terrible models of the universe, and so have none of the predictive power of a useful theory.

No credible competing acceptable explanation, including the religious explanation, has been proposed. And the religious explanation is missing a key ingredient required of all claims about the real world - it is not supported by evidence. This doesn’t constitute irrefutable deductive proof (which is probably not possible for any explanation of reality), instead utilizing “inference to the best explanation”, meaning that among the only set of available explanations Naturalism is by far the strongest both because of its explanatory power, and because all the evidence collected over a span of hundreds of years supports it.

Religion, on the other hand, has done nothing to advance intellectual progress in explaining the source of natural phenomena. They do no research outside of clarifying of old texts, commenting on each others writing, or trying to find fault with non-religious thinking. On the contrary, it has a history of suppressing scientific discovery (Galileo's assertions about atomism and heliocentrism, discoveries in evolutionary biology, new information from geology about the age of the Earth, discoveries from astronomy about the size, age, origin, and extent of the universe, advances in neuroscience that are beginning to uncover the source of consciousness, anthropological and psychological advances in the study of morality, current scientific attempts to unravel the mystery of life and the origin of the universe, and more). Only reluctantly and belatedly does organized religion accept the findings of science that go against entrenched dogma. The primary books they publish for the general public are of two flavors - praise-the-lord books for the already converted, and Apologist books to convert skeptics. So, when they are not celebrating amongst themselves, they are trying to sell something.

The God of the Bible is a moral monster and restricts human freedom

God, particularly as depicted in the Old Testament, is a hateful, violent, self-involved, vengeful, murderous, and immoral criminal. His restrictions on such things as sexual behavior, abortion, personal freedom, euthanasia, and life itself undermines human dignity and autonomy in all its forms. His promotion of torture, murder, rape, pillaging, and cruelty is unconscionable. You can't argue that the new testament god has become more tolerant and should be considered separately from the old testament god. God (of whom Jesus is part, according to the father/son/holy ghost formula) doesn't change his character. All Christians should agree with that because it says so in the bible:

Malachi 3:6 - For I am the LORD, I change not.

Richard Dawkins says in The God Delusion

The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.

Further, Jesus didn't just come along 2000 years ago and decide to shake things up. Apparently, he always existed, alongside God. In John 8:58, John is having Jesus say he had a pre-human existence as an angelic being in heaven, and that he existed even before Abraham was born:

“Truly, truly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I am.”

So, according to the biblical theory of the Trinity, and by his own words, Jesus was right there at God's side, along with the Holy Spirit, when all the old testament atrocities were occurring.

Consider these passages from the bible that show what a horrible and cruel being god actually is. They demonstrate how strongly he supports genocide, slavery, torture, murdering children, child sacrifice, and oppression:

• 1 Samuel 15:3 - This is what the Lord Almighty says ... Now go and strike Amalek and devote to destruction all that they have. Do not spare them, but kill both man and woman, child and infant, ox and sheep, camel and donkey.
• Psalms 137 - Happy is he who repays you for what you have done to us / He who seizes your infants and dashes them against the rocks.
• Leviticus 20:13 - If a man has sexual relations with a man as one does with a woman, both of them have done what is detestable. They are to be put to death; their blood will be on their own heads.
• Leviticus 25:44-46 - ...You may acquire male and female slaves from the pagan nations that are around you. Then, too, it is out of the sons of the sojourners who live as aliens among you that you may gain acquisition, and out of their families who are with you, whom they will have produced in your land; they also may become your possession. You may even bequeath them to your sons after you, to receive as a possession; you can use them as permanent slaves.
• 1 Peter 2:18 - Slaves, submit yourselves to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle but also to the cruel.
• Exodus 22:29-30 - You shall not delay to offer from the fullness of your harvest and from the outflow of your presses. The first-born of your sons you shall give to me. You shall do likewise with your oxen and with your sheep: seven days it shall be with its dam; on the eighth day you shall give it to me.
• Exodus 12:29 - At midnight the LORD struck down all the firstborn in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn of Pharaoh who sat on his throne to the firstborn of the captive who was in the dungeon, and all the firstborn of the livestock.
• 1 Ezekiel 20:25-26 - So I gave them other statutes that were not good and laws through which they could not live; I defiled them through their gifts — the sacrifice of every firstborn — that I might fill them with horror so they would know that I am the Lord.
• Exodous 21:20-21 - Anyone who beats their male or female slave with a rod ... are not to be punished if the slave recovers after a day or two, since the slave is their property.
• Ephesians 5:22 - Wives, submit to you husbands as to the Lord
• Deuteronomy 3:6 - And we utterly destroyed them, ... utterly destroying the men, women, and children, of every city.
• Deuteronomy 13:15 - Thou shalt surely smite the inhabitants of that city with the edge of the sword, destroying it utterly, and all that is therein, and the cattle thereof, with the edge of the sword.
• Deuteronomy 7:2 - and when the Lord your God has delivered them over to you and you have defeated them, then you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy
• Joshua 6:21 - And they utterly destroyed all that was in the city, both man and woman, young and old, and ox, and sheep, and ass, with the edge of the sword.
• 2 Chronicles 15:12-13 - They entered into a covenant to seek the Lord, the God of their fathers, with all their heart and soul; and everyone who would not seek the Lord, the God of Israel, was to be put to death, whether small or great, whether man or woman.
• Deuteronomy 2:34 - And we took all his cities at that time, and utterly destroyed the men, and the women, and the little ones, of every city, we left none to remain.
• Exodus 22:17 - You should not let a sorceress live.
• Numbers 21:3 - And the Lord hearkened to the voice of Israel, and delivered up the Canaanites; and they utterly destroyed them and their cities.
• Numbers 31:15 - “Have you allowed all the women to live?” he <Moses> asked them. “They were the ones who followed Balaam’s advice and enticed the Israelites to be unfaithful to the Lord in the Peor incident, so that a plague struck the Lord’s people. Now kill all the boys. And kill every woman who has slept with a man, but save for yourselves every girl who has never slept with a man."
• Judges 21:10-12 - So the assembly sent twelve thousand fighting men with instructions to go to Jabesh Gilead and put to the sword those living there, including the women and children. “This is what you are to do,” they said. “Kill every male and every woman who is not a virgin.” They found among the people living in Jabesh Gilead four hundred young women who had never slept with a man, and they took them to the camp at Shiloh in Canaan (the Israeli army then gave the captured virgins to the Benjamites to use as sex slaves, with the approval of god, of course.)
• Romans 1:27 - In the same way also the men, giving up natural intercourse with women, were consumed with passion for one another. Men committed shameless acts with men and received in their own persons the due penalty for their error.
• Jeremiah 51:20-21 - You are my hammer and weapon of war: with you I break nations in pieces; with you I destroy kingdoms; with you I break in pieces the horse and his rider; with you I break in pieces the chariot and the charioteer;

Etc. The list is very long, and it could go on here for pages and pages, but you get the point - don't cross god or you'll end up dead or worse. Atheist, John Loftus, wrote:

"Today's Christians say the churches of the past that committed atrocities were wrong. And that's correct. They were wrong. But not for the reasons stated. They claim the Christians of the past were wrong because they misinterpreted the Bible. The truth is that they were wrong to believe the Bible in the first place. They were wrong just like Christians of today are wrong, and just like the Christians of the future will be, too. My contention is that there is not a single statement in the Bible that reveals a divine mind behind the human authors. Everything in it can be more credibly explained by the hypothesis that it's just the musings of an ancient, superstitious, barbaric people--period."

These bible quotes are not god's words, but the words of primitive and pre-scientific human beings. These passages reflect the mores and customs of the violent, xenophobic people who wrote them. The desire to annihilate enemies, persecute individuals who don't respect the power structure, and exact violent retribution don't come from a god, but from man. The bible is the work of men, falsely ascribing their words to a god.

The answer to the question about why the bible is all over the map with respect to its moral guidance (from elevated to depraved) is that it is a book written by men, one that reflects their strengths and weaknesses, their vision and their myopia, their kindness and generosity, and their cruelty and selfishness. It is not inspired, but mundane.

See "Skeptics Annotated Bible" or "Murder in the Bible" for more examples.

Differing worldviews of Christians and Philosophical Naturalists

Philosophical naturalism describes a metaphysical point of view. It is essentially the view that the only reality is nature, as gradually discovered by our intelligence using the tools of experience, reason, and science. Choosing to view the world though the filter of Philosophical Naturalism (or just Naturalism) is not something one does because of the outcome of a debate between supporters of superstitious dogma and supporters of empiricism and rationality. One is not argued or debated into this way of looking at the world. Instead, we are drawn to it because it is right, it works. It is the only "system" that works. All other methods of gaining knowledge and making sense of the world fall far short of the naturalistic approach in their record of success. Naturalists don't reject gods because they want to disbelieve, or have a vested interest in proving that gods don't exist, or want to believe only in Nature. It is because these types of people value having their beliefs correspond to reality, and a Naturalistic world view promotes that goal. It is the only way of looking at things that doesn't require miracles to make everything function the way it does. Quoting Hilary Putnam, a modern philosopher of science, "Realism is the only philosophy that doesn't make the success of science a miracle". This is called the "no miracles argument for Realism". I think that this use of word, Realism, extends to Naturalism.

Philosophical Naturalism has the best track record of teaching us about what we can expect from our experiences living on Earth. People who want to view the world as it really is, not how they wish it were, are naturally attracted to a Naturalistic philosophy. Naturalism is not on trial, and is certainly not on the defensive. Rather, it is on the ascendent in America and throughout the civilized world. It moves our understanding of the world forward not through debate, argument, reference to ancient texts, and arcane, twisted logic. It doesn't spend time on pointless issues such as how many angels can stand on the head of a pin, how many souls can fit into heaven, whether god is one or three persons, whether salvation is through faith, predestination, or good works, or whether or not we should be sprinkled with water or fully submerged. It doesn't attempt to justify the randomness of a seemingly impersonal universe. It doesn't make up unprovable fairy tales about super beings in another dimension who care about us and will save us. It is forward looking, empirical, and methodology-driven. Let the religious faithful continue to throw stones at the unstoppable engine which is Naturalism. They have been losing ground for half a millennia, and their losing battle shows every sign of continuing in all First World countries of Western Europe, and is beginning to lose ground in America as well.

To those who take a reason-based and evidence-based approach to questions about life and the world, the answers to those question come from logical analysis, informed by both reason and empiricism, subject to correction and refinement, and ultimately decided upon by informed judgement which also has to take unknowns and risk into account. To those who approach philosophical questions from a religious or mystical point of view, their answers reflect whatever concepts they feel are enlightening, thrilling, comforting, uplifting, or that allow them to persist in their irrational (by definition) and incoherent (i.e., disorganized and internally inconsistent) god-based world view. The epistemologies feeding our different world views (science/evidence/experience/observation/reason/naturalism vs mystical/religious/irrational/revelatory) fundamental differ. One is better than the other.

Each side thinks the other side is talking gibberish. The religious worldview is based on revelation, inspiration, emotion, ancient texts, community, myth. When logic is employed to support this worldview, it is based on invalid and antiquated premises. The scientific/naturalistic world view is based on observation, experiment, measurement, evidence, theory, review, and methodology. It constantly reexamines its premises and assumptions and reevaluates them. It is difficult, probably impossible, to bridge the gap between these diametrically opposite positions. A debate between people representing these opposing perspectives will be very much like two tennis players, each delivering blistering serves, but on separate courts. It is almost inevitable that they will end up talking past each other, not to each other.

Apologists present the conflict between Naturalism and Theism as being a struggle between two different but equally respectable, "belief systems". This is false equivalence, or false balance. It is an attempt to elevate an evidence-free, faith-based belief system to the same stature as an evidence-based, faith-free way of interacting with the world. Naturalism is not a "belief system", unless you choose to use that word in what would today be called a "Bayesian" sense, as did the philosopher, David Hume:

“In our reasonings concerning matter of fact, there are all imaginable degrees of assurance, from the highest certainty to the lowest species of ... evidence. A wise man, therefore, proportions his belief to the evidence.”

It is economical - it does not create unnecessary complexities. It is parsimonious. Parsimony is not a "belief system". It is a conceptual technique that experience has show to be an extremely reliable guideline for working with the natural world. Failure to employ parsimony (or, Occam's Razor) would put us at liberty to invent any convenient "just-so" stories to help us make sense of things. This is how ghosts and demons get created. On the contrary, Naturalism eschews unwarranted beliefs so that reality can speak for itself. It relies on induction and inference to help us navigate reality. Everyone, even the Christian theist, is a Naturalist when it comes to 99% of their interactions with the world. We all use the evidence of our senses and our experience to stay alive, to avoid disaster, and to prosper in the world. Christians then go beyond that and layer on top of Naturalism a superfluous structure of religious beliefs that account for nothing, but provide a framework for their story of sin and salvation.

No other way of considering reality allows as reliable a path to achieving the goals of discovery, invention, theoretical progress, and publication as Naturalism. It alone is able to generate theories about the world that can actually predict future events, or retroactively predict historical/geological/cosmological events that happened in the past. It is a frustrating, but inescapable, truth that worldviews cannot be "deduced" or proved, as most convincingly demonstrated by David Hume in the 18th century (for more information, see this summary of Hume's philosophy). The best we can do is make inferences based on all our experience as to which is the most reliable way of perceiving the world. Realists, or Naturalists, argue persuasively that a very good reason for subscribing to their view is that it has an unsurpassed record of success and achievement, and no record of being wrong. That is worth repeating - the Naturalistic worldview has never been shown to be wrong. Individual theories may prove wrong, but the overall process is right. The theories produced by this worldview and practice both explain the existing state of affairs and predict future outcomes with unequaled power.

Naturalism's explanatory scope and power are its most compelling features. For a detailed examination of exactly what this means see my other blog entry on "Criteria Of Adequacy". The cumulative set of theories and facts from all the sciences demonstrate extremely high coherence and mutual support that could only be explained by their being correct (or by Descartes' "Evil Demon", which is not even a serious concept, or by some other collection of ad hoc miracles). The related approaches of Scientific Realism and Philosophical Naturalism have a remarkable and unequaled track record that attests to the extremely high probability that they are the right way of viewing the world.

The Fall From Grace

Thanks to my friend, Chuck, for bringing this to my attention!

Since most Christians (i.e., all of them except for the Literal Fundamentalists) take the book of Genesis as a metaphorical and poetic account, I think it makes complete sense to also consider the so-called "fall from grace" or "original sin" as a metaphor. Just as God didn't really create the universe in 6 days, and just as Eve didn't really come from a rib, and just as a serpent didn't really make them eat an actual piece of fruit, there was probably no literal fall from grace (i.e., a falling out with god). And even if there were, I don't accept that I inherit a sin one of my ancestors committed - that's not how things work. You might inherit their hair color or nose shape, but not their sins (unless some new discovery in genetics shows how that gets passed between generations).

Given that, there is nothing to be saved from. Religion created a false problem (original sin), and then gives a solution to the problem (salvation through religion). According to the story, Adam and Eve disobeyed god by eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Good for them - I'm glad I know good from evil. Clearly, most people feel the same way. We all like being able to make that distinction. There are a couple of terms we use to describe those who don't know good from evil - "insane sociopath" is one, "mentally handicapped" is another. Insanity and incompetence to stand trial are a common defenses in court: the defense lawyer tries to show that the defendant did not have the "ability to determine right from wrong". If god wanted us to remain ignorant, insane, or "mentally challenged", then I have no time for a god like that.

OK, I recognize that it isn't such an easy open and shut case as that. If you listen to what the Christians are really saying about being saved, it is mostly about saving you from a separation from god, and from sin, and when pressed, they kind of gloss over the original sin part. Obviously, when the Genesis reason fell through due to its glaring factual flaws and inherent implausibility, Christians had to fabricate some other reasons to remain relevant. So, we are being saved from sin. I don't quite see how that works. I know lots of Christians, and they are sinning right along with the rest of us - if by sinning you include envy, bragging, coveting, having sex, thinking about sex, looking at pictures of people having sex, lying, cheating, perversion, physical cruelty, psychological cruelty, laziness, anger, stealing, irresponsibility, passing the buck, fraud, neglect, greed, procrastination, abuse, disrespect, gossiping, slander, and all the other naughty behaviors. Being baptized doesn't suddenly stop people from being human and doing that stuff. So, if salvation is such a powerful thing, it is not very obvious by looking at Christians. They are about the same as any other demographic when it comes to the sin dimension.

And as for separation from god - who even knows what that means? On the surface, it seems to make sense. But I would first challenge Christians to come up with a single coherent definition of god that we can all agree to before I start trying to join up with him. If you wonder what I mean by a definition of god, then please go look at a few entries in my other blog, Conceptions of God

Pascal's wager

The wager is:

All humans bet their lives that either god exists or god does not exist. Given the possibility that God actually does exist, and assuming the infinite gain or infinite loss associated with belief in God or with unbelief in god, and the finite effort required to exercise a belief in god, a rational person should live as though god exists and seek to believe in god.

Problems with it:

• First, this wager is childish, superficial, and really just plain silly. This is not how religion and faith are supposed to work. It is so simple-minded, devious, and calculating that seriously contemplating its implementation is revolting. Anyone who would act based on this argument is either naive, not thinking clearly, or dishonest. It's probably more the case that people who accept this argument already are convinced on other grounds, and this just serves to bolster that belief.
• It assumes a 50/50 chance of god existing or not. There is no reason to believe this to be the probability distribution. It is entirely possible that the chance of god existing is infintesimally small, which would completely alter the wager. Or visa versa. Unless one first addresses the prior probability of either outcome, the wager is meaningless.
• The choice in the wager that "god exists" requires us to ask "which god?".

  • If it is the god of another religion, but we choose to believe in a Christian god, we may be punished by that other god if he turns out to be the true god.
  • If we choose the wrong god, the right god might punish us for choosing a competitor, but leave the person who disbelieves in all gods (or in no gods) alone. So, it might be safer to withhold belief.
  • There have been thousands of gods that have been worshiped throughout history. There is no particular reason to think one of them is more likely than another. So, even if we grant that there is a 50/50 chance of existence/non-existence, it is really a 50% chance of non-existence, vs 1/1000 * 50% (or 0.05% chance) that your favorite god exists (if he is competing with 1000 other contenders). So it is not "god exist" vs "god does not exist", but in fact "god exists" vs "one or more of these thousands of gods, demons, spirits, or avatars exists". To even draw the line at 1000 is conservative. I could postulate an infinity of slightly different gods: god #1, god #2, ..., god #n. Is there a version of Pascal's wager for Zeus, Odin, or Ra?
  • what if there is a god that is the true god that actually would punish us for believing in him? I know that it doesn't make sense, but remember, "god works in mysterious ways", and this would qualify as mysterious. If we grant that god is ultimately beyond comprehension, then an apologist could never successfully argue that god would not do that, because that would presume that he could understand god's intentions.
  • Or there could be a god who is indifferent to our belief or unbelief. In that case, all the effort we put into believing would be completely wasted.

• No god worth worshipping would respect a belief based on a cold calculation of the probability of infinite gain/loss in the "truth table" that is ususally drawn up to explain the wager. For those who cannot believe, feigning belief to gain eternal reward is the epitome of insincerity. This would be dishonest and unethical. In addition, it is absurd to think that God, being just, wise, and omniscient, would not see through this deceptive strategy on the part of the "believer", thus nullifying the benefits of the wager.
• Just as there is an potential infinity of other gods who we would have to consider in this wager, there is also a near infinity of other things to worry about that might need to factor into the wager. Most of us are doing nothing to ward off vampires or werewolves. Maybe, just to be on the safe side, we should hang garlic from the rafters, keep a wooden stake nearby, a pistol loaded with silver bullets, and some holy water, as well. Or what about the meteor that might strike our house? The chances are very small of it occurring, but not zero. Would it be wisest to move out now and seek refuge in a bunker? One could add items to this list indefinitely, all items whose occurrence would signal disaster, even if they seem unlikely to occur. We can't reasonably react to all of them. Which should we pay attention to? We can't live our lives worrying about things that are almost certainly not going to occur. We have no way of knowing which of these unlikely scenarios to concern ourselves with, anyway.
• Of course it is "possible" that Pascal was right. We don't really know for sure that he was wrong, do we? Correct - anything is possible - Pascal's scenario is not logically impossible. Likewise, it is possible that the molecules in an apple could simultaneously decide to move straight up and cause a dropped apple to fall up rather than down. It is possible that a meteor could crash through the roof of my house in the next five seconds. Both events are highly unlikely though. Although possible, they are not probable. Pascal's wager deals in possibilities, not probabilities. There is no evidence to suggest that the "possibility" of the Christian version of salvation and heaven is any more likely than any other religious story. This is a key distinction which many Christians overlook. We would be wiser to focus on what is a probable outcome rather than on an infinity of unlikely possible outcomes.
• An irony of Pascal's Wager is that even if it was otherwise completely sound it would become a huge disincentive for convincing an unbiased party to worship the Christian god specifically. By definition, worshiping the Christian God requires you to NOT worship every other deity or potential deity (see the First Commandment). In the absence of evidence for a specific deity, the theist-to-be would be better off directing some worship to one or more proposed deities that do not require exclusive worship. This would increase the overall odds of benefiting by spreading the risk across several gods.

You either believe in god or do not believe it. No sincere person would alter their belief by coldly calculating the odds of certain outcomes. You cannot "will" yourself to believe something you don't. Leave it to a mathematician like Pascal to suggest that we do exactly that. This far-fetched scheme sounds more like a plan that Sheldon Cooper from The Big Bang Theory would come up with than a serious proposal by a respected philosopher and mathematician.

Pascal - an excellent mathematician, scientist, and philosopher - was in no position to evaluate the merits of Christianity relative to Islam, Hinduism, or any other religion. He had become a very accomplished Christian philosopher, and "reasoned" his way to the conclusion that of all the religions, Christianity was right and the others were wrong. In fact, the story is more prosaic. Like many people, he had been brought up a Christian, fell away from it for a while, and then came back to it later in life. As much as we can admire Pascal for his mathematical accomplishments, this in no way qualifies him to give us spiritual advice. We can't rely on his authority as a mathematician to translate to equal mastery in the realm of salvation.

The Fine-Tuning argument

This Creationist argument proposes that the constants in physics are so precisely established to support life that the universe could only have been created by god. There is no way these constants could be accidental. To them, this proves that a personal god fashioned the universe so that humans could come into existence and worship him. This argument has much in common with two concepts in Cosmology known as the Weak Anthropic Principle and the Strong Anthropic Principle, though those principles are more philosophical in nature, and not explicitly religious:

One formal statement of the argument is:

1. The combination of physical constants that we observe in our universe is the only one capable of sustaining life as we know it.
2. Other combinations of physical constants are conceivable.
3. Therefore, some explanation is needed why our actual combination of physical constants exists rather than a different one.
4. The very best explanation of the given fact is that our universe, with the particular combination of physical constants that it has, was created out of nothing by a single being who is omnipotent, omniscient, all-loving, eternal, and interested in sentient organic systems, and that he "fine-tuned" those constants in a way which would lead to the evolution of such systems.
5. But such a being as described in (P4) is what people mean by "God."
6. Hence [from (P4) & (P5)], there is good evidence that God exists.

The atheist response:

• One response might be, "why is an explanation necessary?" There is no reason, within anything we currently understand about the ultimate structure of reality, to think of the existence and persistence and regularity of the universe as things that require external explanation. Indeed, for most scientists, adding on another layer of metaphysical structure in order to purportedly explain these fundamental facts is an unnecessary complication. We may discover even deeper levels of explanatory detail that underlie our current understanding, but there is no imperative that we arrive at anything resembling a complete explanation for existence right now.
• No one knows why the constants of physics have the values that they possess (the gravitational constant, the strengths of the weak and strong nuclear forces, the ratio of electron to proton mass, the energy density of empty space, and many others). It could be that there are no alternatives to these values, or if there are alternatives, they are within very narrow bands. We don't have enough information to state what the possible range of values for any of the constants are, so it is impossible to ascertain whether the actual values are likely or unlikely. To speculate about what it would take to find a universe where they are different is beyond our current understanding. Also, to assert that god had something to do with it is appealing to a god of the gaps - ascribing divine influence to yet another thing we don't yet understand. Science taught us about the constants, and science discovered their values. We would be wise to exercise some patience before jumping on the god hypothesis and give science a little more time to figure out where these values came from.
• Although there appears to be about two dozen physical constants that are considered to be fine tuned, science has only recently begun to understand these in any depth. Most particle physicists believe that there is another, more comprehensive theory that underlies the Standard Model of Quantum physics (such as String Theory, Quantum Gravity Loop Theory) that will simplify and reduce both the large number of particle and fundamental constants to a smaller, more manageable number. If such a theory is discovered, it may well be the case that instead of dozens of constants, we have just one.
• You can't say how likely something is or isn't from a sample size of one. We live in the only universe we know, so it is impossible to say if this is a likely universe or not, since we have no other ones to compare it to. We cannot point to other universes and note that they are lifeless and thus affirm that the appearance of life in our universe was so unlikely that a supernatural force had to jump start it.
• How does one use the fact that life exists as a proof of god? It proves nothing. It simply means that life is here. And even if you stipulate that a god created it, who is to say that is the Christian god? It could be some other god (or devil) from some other religion, or a god of no known religion, or an advanced Alien culture so far beyond us that we can't even comprehend their creation process. It could be that we are living inside an advanced simulation, which would explain why all the conditions are right for life. Any one of many unprovable and extreme possibilities could be true.
• We can freely admit that the fine tuning of the physical constants is baffling and intriguing. Physicists and cosmologists are fascinated with these. But instead of, once again, ascribing the things we don't understand to god's influence, this mystery should instead help focus scientific research. There is no doubt a very interesting order to how the universe is structured. Saying that god is responsible for it tells us absolutely nothing. It is just putting all of the unknowns into a black box labelled "god" and having done with it. Instead, we should (and we will) dig in deeper. I have no doubt that in the coming years we will know more about these constants than we do today.
• If god is responsible for all of existence, and if the point of the universe is for Humans to come into being so they could have a relationship with god, and god had an interest in sentient organic systems, why did he take so long to bring them about? And why did he confine his efforts to the planet earth?
• Some say that if a very small change were made to one of the physical constants, life could not exist. For instance, if the strong force (the nuclear coupling force) were 2% stronger than it is, diprotons would be stable and hydrogen would fuse into them instead of deuterium and helium. This would drastically alter the physics of stars, and presumably preclude the existence of life similar to what we observe on Earth. However, if that would have happened (or any of a number of other small changes) then there would be no life, certainly no intelligent life, and no one here asking these questions. So, it is not surprising to find ourselves here, since here is the only place we could be. Of course the universe has intelligent life in it. It would have to in order to generate beings such as us which can ask this question. In any alternative universe where life did not come about, there would be no one to ask it. In that light, it is not that unusual that we find ourselves in a universe capable of sustaining life, even intelligent life, capable of asking metaphysical questions. If the universe had turned out any differently, we would not be here to even ask the question. So, naturally we are in a universe that supports life. We would not be here if this were not the case.
• (From "cdk007 fine tuning" on the web) The universe is mostly very unsuitable human life, or life of any kind. We occupy a small portion of a very thin shell on a single planet in the entire universe. Our presence in the universe is infinitesimally small. To give a sense of proportion, it is analogous to saying that if on 3.5 billion Moon-sized planets we found only a single virus, that those planets were fine-tuned for life! Likewise, it is proportionally similar to having 6 million Olympic swimming pools that collectively contained a single water molecule, and asserting that those pools were fine-tuned for water storage. That is not very fine tuned at all! If the universe were really fine tuned for life, it seems there would be far more of it. In fact, the vast majority of the universe is poisonous, deadly, and hostile to life of all kinds! And also, consider that the span of time humans have lived on Earth is only a small fraction of the elapsed time of the universe. If the age of the universe were a 24 hour clock, Homo Sapiens would have lived just a fraction of a second on that clock. How can the universe be designed for human life, when we have occupied such a minute sliver of its entire spatial and temporal span?
• Some physicists speculate that there may exist parallel universes - that our universe is part of a "multiverse". Each universe in the multiverse would have its own laws of physics and values for the physical constants. Our universe just happens to have the laws and constant values that we find in it. Each universe would be equivalent to the roll of a die. Given an infinite number of universes, one would eventually be created that looks like ours. Some of these would be able to support life, but the vast majority would probably not (or at least not support life as we know it). Because we are intelligent beings, we are by definition in a universe that can support life. Because life would self-select for a universe such as ours, it should not be surprising that we should find ourselves here. Obviously this is all unproven and still being investigated. It should be noted that the multiverse theory did NOT come about as a response to the fine-tuning argument. It was a natural outcome, and predicted by, quantum theory. Numerous physics theories independently point to such a conclusion. In fact, some experts think the existence of hidden universes is more likely than not. It does fit as a possible explanation for why the constants are what they are, but was definitely not contrived just to fit as a response to the fine-tuning argument. It is not currently possible to see these other universes (if they exist), though some experiments involving new analysis of Cosmic Microwave Background have been proposed. The theory does, however, provide an explanation for the state of our particular universe.
• If anything, the excessive amount of tuning that characterizes the immensity of the universe is a bigger problem for the god explanation than for a non-god explanation. If the point of arranging the universe was to set the stage for the eventual evolution of intelligent life, why all the excess represented by the universe’s hundred billion galaxies? Are those other galaxies really necessary for life on Earth? Are they just a side effect of the Big Bang? Was it easier for god to toss those into the mix than to not have them, and if so, does god have to choose the easy route if he is capable of anything? Actually, cosmologists have calculated this - it turns out that almost all other possible histories of the universe that involve Earth as we know it don’t have any other galaxies at all! It’s unclear why God would do so much more fine-tuning of the state of the universe than seems to have been necessary.
• Given the universe that we have, it is not fine tuned for life, rather life is fine tuned for the universe. Given any universe capable of forming matter and having chemistry, and producing life, that life will compete and evolve over generations, bettering itself to survive in that universe.
• It may be that life and intelligence is more generic than we think. It might be the case that in a universe with different constants, a different sort of life may have formed, based on different fundamental principles.
• Many theists believe that life came about by a miracle from god. But if that is the case, then the universe was never fine tuned for life in the first place. According to them, the fact that life exists is literally is a miracle. If the universe was fine tuned just so life could exist, then life would have required no miracle - it would have arisen out of the perfect, fine-tuned, environment which was created specifically for it. Was it fine tuned "almost enough" for life, and just required a little miraculous nudge to get going? If god is real, he could have made life arise spontaneously in this universe, or allowed life to come about any any universe whatsoever, under any conditions, fine tuned or not. So, how can theists look at the conditions in the universe and say that they are evidence for god? Requiring a miracle for life to come about, and also insisting that the universe if fine tuned are contradictory positions.
• The discovery of the existence of these fine tuned constants, as is everything related to astronomy, cosmology, and the search for the origin of the universe, came from theoretical and empirical scientific efforts. Future discoveries that shed light on these issues will also come from these same types of efforts. This is an area that has never been moved forward by religion and armchair philosopy. In fact those have done nothing but to cause us to stagnate and become attached to old and incorrect ideas. We don't know how to unravel the mysteries of the physical constants today, but it is practically certain that input from the religious community is not going to help move the base of knowledge forward.
• Just looking at the prior probability of a god who did all this tuning, we seem to live in a universe that is very different from what I would expect if a god were in charge of putting it all together. One would have expected a far different reality than what we have. There are billions of worlds in billions of galaxies, but humans (who Christians seem to think are the whole point of the universe) live on one small world. Very wasteful. And why would a god with a plan for life come up with a solution that required 14.7 billion years for life to evolve, and to evolve in such a haphazard and seemingly undirected manner. Why would the process of evolution (which is how life is transformed) rely on a mutation process which generates thousands of destructive mutations for every beneficial one? Why would god, the chief executive of the universe, provide such shoddy and ambigous instructions (in the bible and other religious texts) that would cause his worshippers to fight wars over them for the last several millenia? And then after providing such shabby and unclear direction, punish those who didn't know what he was talking about by sending them to hell forever? And to allow all the random suffering and evil that exists. A simple reason is that there is no god, and the bible is the work of men - not the inspired word of god. The Christian religion is the creation of flawed and simple uneducated primitive men two thousand years ago.

Religion has never taught us anything about the structure of the universe. In fact pretty much all the statements that religion has made about physical reality have been shown to be wrong. All this information about physics, the constants, and the cosmos have come from science, not religion. So, I will look to science for any new information about how the universe is organized, about how to interpret the physical constants and determine what they mean. I will look to science to clarify the universe's initial starting conditions, and to shed light on why the universal constants have the values that they do. I certainly won't look to religion. It has been wrong since the childish and naive Genesis story, Noah's flood, Moses parting the red sea, Jonah living inside a "big fish" for 3 days, stars affixed to a solid firmament, and the sun stopping in the sky. Religion is the last place I would look for guidence about how the universe works. It should stick to its particular areas of expertise: singing hymns, hosting bingo games, praying, and the rest.

Finally a paraphrased quote from a counter-apologist podcaster who I follow, Justin Shieber:

Assuming the truth of the existence of a first cause who created the universe and finely-tuned its constants, and absent any argument showing that there is a statistically significant correlation between an interest in tuning-based activities and the practice of necromancy among an acceptable sample size of deities, I see no reason whatsoever to expect that a deity fond of fine-tuning should also be fond of the activities of one species of primate (us), and in particular raising first-century preachers from the dead.

Religious Dogma is Absurd

The reason why the majority of people don't believe in Scientology, reincarnation, Mormonism, Greek Gods, etc. is not because they have extensively researched the historicity and veracity of the claims made by these faiths. It is because they don't believe that the types of things these faiths claim actually happen in the world. Miracles, resurrections, battles between gods, parting of seas, angels visiting earth, humans flying up to heaven, chariots carrying the sun across the sky, and the rest are things that supposedly occurred long ago in the ancient mythology of these religions. They don't happen today. Everything in our experience tells us that they probably didn't happen in antiquity, either. In other words, common sense tells us that when someone makes an absurd exaggerated claim, almost anything is more likely to be the case (i.e. they are lying, they are delusional, they are relying on misinformation, they are relating myths, or they have been fooled) than for the absurdity to be real. As Carl Sagan said, "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". There is nothing more extraordinary than a claim of eternal life after death, the existence of heaven and hell (and maybe purgatory depending on your particular branch of Christianity), angels, demons, an all-powerful god with an unusually strong interest in a certain species of primate (us), who has a special relationship with a small bronze age Semitic tribe, and a particular preacher from that tribe, etc.

Those claims are far more wild and outlandish than the more mundane claims we sometimes hear of perpetual motion, anti-gravity, time-travel, transmutation, bigfoot, telekinesis, ESP, UFOs, or extra terrestrial life. For any of those we would (and should) require an incredible amount amount of highly reliable, repeatable, clear, unambigous, and demonstrable evidence. We would be naive and gullible to accept them without hard proof. Even more so for the far more extravagent claims that most religions make.

The Bible isn't proof. A book cannot be the evidence of its own veracity. That requires outside corroboration. Christians are so committed to the habit of quoting passages from the Bible to make a point - these are called "proof texts" - that they either forget, or are unaware, that the words of a sacred text are not acceptable evidence to an unbeliever. Reading passages from Moby Dick is not proof that an enormous white whale exists.

Even if the greatest scientists in the world all gave testimonials, endorsements, and signed affidavits to the truth of some amazing scientific claim, we would still need to produce the phenomenon in a controlled environment before we should begin to believe it ourselves. If Louis Pasteur announced that he could cure smallpox, had written a scholarly article about it, got all of his associates to vouch for him, but refused to show us that he could do it, no one would have believed him. Likewise, no one would or should believe that a person has ESP or Telekinesis, or that belief in a certain scripture will make you live forever, in the absence of an immense volume of high quality, reliable, repeatable evidence.

Christianity makes hard and definite claims about how events in the real world happen - it is not only about praying, singing hymns, listening to sermons, bingo, and bake-sales. It lays out in precise detail what a "soul" is, what happens to that soul after you die, what happens to your physical body on judgement day, how the world came into existence, how life forms emerged, the age of the earth, how the first man and woman came into existence, the formation of the earth, the sun, and the stars, and the origin of morality. It contains descriptions of a large variety of different miracles. It describes exact rules of human relations, like endorsing slavery, subjugating women, exterminating enemy tribes, and outlawing homosexuality - but over time it has softened opinions on some of those.

But, the only evidence for Christianity are anecdotes, personal testimonies, mind-bending logical discourses, rationalizations, and a 2000 year old book, itself a hodgepodge of chapters by different writers (none of whom actually knew or ever saw Jesus) long after the main events supposedly occurred, and a billion or so believers. The only physical evidence is the one book. Without that book, there would be absolutely nothing backing it up other than legend. It is possible or even likely that a person named Jesus did exist (as described by Josephus and Tacitus), but they don't mention any miracles or resurrections - just his execution and the religion that was springing up in his name. I wouldn't accept a claim of transmutation, cold fusion, ESP, levitation, or any other extravagant phenomenon just because it was written down in a document, nor should we accept the even wilder claims made by Christianity.

The claims made by religion, and Christianity in particular, are indeed extraordinary, even though we have grown used to them, having heard them all our lives. The standard of evidence - the rule of evidence - should be proportionally higher, as it should be for any other extreme claim.

The Problem of Evil - Theodicy

“Epicurus's old questions are still unanswered: Is he (God) willing to prevent evil, but not able? then he is impotent. Is he able, but not willing? then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? then whence evil?”
    ― David Hume

The so called "good" god allows horrible things to happen on earth - exactly the same kind of horrible things that would happen if he didn't exist at all. I see a few options:

• He doesn't exist
• He is powerless to fix things
• He doesn't care
• He is so perverted that he thinks evil is a good thing
• Somehow he thinks evil has a good side (likes it teaches us compassion or some other incomprehensible good results from it).
• He is actually punishing people who he thinks deserve it

Christians jump through amazingly complex hoops to explain it all away. They generate every type of ad hoc reason to show why it is perfectly normal for god to allow these things - ad hoc in the sense that the reasons given are designed specifically to address the obvious and glaring moral inconsistencies, but able to explain nothing else. It is really not the kind of behavior or outcome any sane person would expect from a super-being of god's stature. One of the explanations is that "god works in mysterious ways". How can that be offered up as an excuse, immediately to be followed by attributing good outcomes from disease, misfortune, and other of life's problems to a well-intentioned and benevolent god? When something good happens, the apologist is ready to attribute it to god's good intentions, but when something bad happens they are ready with "god works in mysterious ways". You can't have it both ways. You either know how god thinks and why he does things, or you don't. Either he is mysterious and we can't figure out why he does what he does, or he is a good guy who deals with our problems the way we would hope a god would do. Christians want to have it both ways - he is both a complete mystery and simultaneously, a giver of easy-to-understand treats and bonuses.

Obviously the first four choices, above, would be unacceptable to most Christians. They generally split between the last two choice - what we perceive as evil is just us not seeing the big picture, or evil is a result of people abandoning god and separating themselves from him. Evil is not caused by god, but is a separation from god. That's quite a stretch.

Regarding the question of god allowing evil in the form of natural disasters so that humans will have the opportunity to learn compassion, here is a hypothetical situation that illustrates just how bizarre that is. Assume that we discover that some form of natural disaster, for example tornadoes, are not natural at all, but are being caused by an evil super-villain in a hidden fortress who is manipulating the weather, shooting mysterious rays into the atmosphere which cause the tornadoes. We catch him. He confesses to it, but says his motives were good - the tornadoes help communities come together and allow individuals to help their fellow man and practice compassion and generosity. We would consider him a dangerous psychotic and would lock him up and throw away the keys. But when the apologist says that this is god's motive, we are expected to accept that as a legitimate explanation.

From another perspective, consider typhoons and hurricanes. I am sure if you asked one of the selfless members of Doctors Without Borders whether they are happy that they have a chance to practice compassion on the victims of these disasters, they would each gladly trade that opportunity for self-improvement for the hurricane never having happened. They certainly would not consider the limited good that comes from their actions after a hurricane to be at all worth the horrible suffering caused by it.

Atheists ask why an all-powerful god cannot just create a perfect world without suffering and evil. The common Christian response is that god wants us to use our free will, and that suffering results from our misuse of that free will - of humans making evil choices. Well, it certainly is possible for god to eliminate evil and bring a perfect world into being - he did just that when he created heaven (according to Christian mythology). This perfect world (heaven) is full of angels who can think for themselves. They aren't robots - several of them make cameo appearances at various points in the bible, and they appear to be pretty rational creatures. One would assume that Angels have free will. From biblical writing they don't appear to be mindless automatons. Certainly Satan/Lucifer had the free will to leave god's side. Gabriel and Michael seem to think pretty fast on their feet and make choices and decisions without having to check in with god every five minutes. So, clearly (according to Christian dogma), it is possible for god to create a world without suffering in which the inhabitants also have free will. With us, for some inscrutable reason, he decided to create a realm of suffering here on earth. I'm sure there is a Christian rebuttal for that, but it's clear enough to me that they struggle when it comes to responding to the problem of evil with anything other than an embarrassing and shameful set of excuses.

Short response to Christian evangelizers

Debating religion rarely change anyone's mind. Occasionally one side or the other may learn something new, and it is possible that over time, one's point of view may gradually shift through exposure and maturation of ideas as they are mulled over. But usually, theists and atheists don't share enough of a common ground to even have a useful conversation.

I am unconvinced by any claims that anyone has ever made about the existence of a divine force operating in the universe. I don't accept the basic premise that the bible is a historic document. I don't see indication that this book is anything other than a work of fiction and fables, mixed with bits of real history, based on 2000 year old Middle Eastern mythologies. The bible is a collection of propaganda pieces (hagiographies of old testament patriarchs and the new testament savior) aimed at promoting the religion, not an objective history. Basically, it is "sales literature" which attempts to convince its readers of something that is otherwise not believable.

I don't accept that the miracles described in the bible ever happened or happen now, that people rise from the dead, that they ascend into heaven or descend into hell, that a god and/or angels are watching us, that supernatural causes exist, that proper rules for human conduct come from a god, that the body is inhabited by a "soul", or that consciousness is anything more than an emergent process generated by the brain/mind/body. I don't accept a source of knowledge based on apocryphal writings by mostly anonymous authors or what you perceive to be a god talking to you. Nor do I consider a warm feeling in your soul caused by possession by the holy spirit to be a proper epistemological source. I don't buy into the convoluted logic that Christian academics use to "prove" that a god created the universe, or created the laws of nature. These arguments literally date from medieval times, and have barely been updated as the discipline of Metaphysics has matured (through Kant, Hume, Russell, Carnap, Ladyman, and others). They are just scholastic sophistry clothed in the vernacular of logic, intended to overwhelm the audience with intellectual-sounding double-speak and complex jargon, but loaded with unclear and ambiguous premises and antique conceptions of how the universe works.

The historical abuse of reason and contempt for evidence shown by past Christian philosophers convinces me that your warped use of logic is just another tool to win converts to a belief in what is ultimately a fairy tale. Anselm's and Descartes' ontological arguments, Paley's designed universe, Aquinas's five proofs of god, and countless others have been thoroughly refuted, or at least shown to be incoherent, as far as I am concerned.

I base what I know on what I see happening in the real world. I don't require a deductive proof of my worldview or of yours, and frankly, I don't think such proofs are even possible. I am an empiricist, and I move through the world as do all living creatures, following the evidence of my senses, relying on instinct, and using what intellect and emotion I can bring to bear. In nature, animals hunt where the game goes, the hunted hide where they can't be found, plants turn their leaves to the sun and send their roots towards the water. Humans, like all of living creatures, are part of nature. We all follow the basic life functions of seeking what sustains us and avoiding what does not. We use our talents, our gifts, and our strengths to make our lives. Instead of teeth and claws, we have big brains and civilization.

In spite of centuries of systematic and rigorous searching, no uncontroversial evidence for a god or gods has been found. The lack of existence of a god or gods has been confirmed to such a high degree that it would be perverse and stubbornly contrary to continue to deny it. Everywhere we look, there is no god, and no need for a god to explain what we see. The evidence for god is of the same low quality as that for the Loch Ness Monster, Chupacabra, and cold fusion - a few people claim to have seen these, but when asked to produce them, they are unable to. If there were good evidence, there would be no need for faith. And where faith is needed, it is principally due to a lack of good evidence.

I can see no compelling or persuasive reason to believe the fantasy put forward by religions. Given the alternative explanations for my experiences in the world, inference to the best explanation, and all available evidence supporting that inference, leads me to conclude that we live in a naturalistic universe that does not include supernatural beings controlling events behind the scenes. Until evidence to the contrary is produced, and only if the overwhelming evidence in favor of naturalism is overturned, I will continue to disbelieve in supernatural causes like gods. Produce a god for me, and you will get my attention.

No reasonable person today should believe 2nd / 3rd / 4th handed testimony coming from a lone part of the ancient world as we find in ancient manuscripts written by pre-scientific biased and superstitious people who doctored up and forged many of these texts, who cared more about swaying public opinion and promoting their new religion than accurately representing history. If I were asked to commit to "Yes" or "No" on the god question, to take a stand, without hestitation I say "No". I don't need to be saved, because I'm not lost. I am doing very well without a religion.

I agree with David Hume who wrote:

If we take in our hand any volume ... of divinity or ...metaphysics ... let us ask, "Does it contain any abstract reasoning concerning quantity or number?" No. "Does it contain any experimental reasoning concerning matter of fact and existence?" No. Commit it then to the flames: for it can contain nothing but sophistry and illusion.

Getting Started

I just finished my "Conceptions of God" blog, and quite a while ago finished my "Scientific faith vs Religious faith" blog. I was inspired to begin a 3rd one. I frequently feel inundated by Christian propaganda whose goal is to convince me that the Christian worldview, of all the many worldviews and thousands of god-based mythologies, is the one true way of seeing reality. As in "Conceptions of God", I decided to compile a list of problems with that proposition.

There are web sites and books that go into excruciating detail in the subtle and complicated arguments for and against Christianity. Debaters on both sides are highly educated, extremely well-read, have encyclopedic recall of thousands of relevant facts and arguments. Within minutes, the discussions and references to arcane logical constructs and religious jargon become overwhelming and incomprehensible. This blog will specifically attempt NOT to overwhelm, but to present the layman's response to Christian evangelical proselytizing. It will give you just enough to understand why it makes sense to reject Christianity.

Ignoring, scorning, belittling, or ridiculing religious arguments do not constitute a rebuttal! Although the best policy may be to simply ignore the persistent Christian and hope they eventually go away, I am motivated to organize a response. This blog is that response.