Are "New Atheists" Too Obsessed With Religion?

[gsa]

Nail what home? I agree with Stenger. You can disprove god logically depending on how the apologist defines that god.

Which is why I so tire of hearing reconceptualized or reimagined versions of the Big Guy. Which is also why it is nonsense to insist that atheists keep abreast of the exciting developments in the "field" of theology. I still have no idea what Paul Tillich's god is, and if it can't be communicated effectively it hardly matters whether it exists.

 

[Cephus]

Actually, I did. You and I have never discussed the various books in the Bible, so I don't think you'd know what I've read and studied so I don't see how you could come up with this conclusion. We've never even debated the Bible as I lately I stay out of Scriptural debates on this forum.

I stay out of there too, it's about as silly as watching people debate Dianetics.

 

[lovemuffin]

Exactly! We need to move away from religious thinking - where we think we know all the answers and embrace science - which is all about figuring out what the right question is. Science never takes the position religion does of claiming some sort of absolute knowledge.

I wholeheartedly endorse the point of view that says that figuring out the right questions while being humble about the status of one's answers is preferable to claims of absolute knowledge. It's nice that we have something in common

 

[lovemuffin]

Which is why I so tire of hearing reconceptualized or reimagined versions of the Big Guy. Which is also why it is nonsense to insist that atheists keep abreast of the exciting developments in the "field" of theology. I still have no idea what Paul Tillich's god is, and if it can't be communicated effectively it hardly matters whether it exists.

But they're all re-imagined! It seems like you aren't really saying anything here besides that you are disinterested in theology, which is fair enough, as is criticism about difficulties communicating, but literally every field of human study that's more than 50 years old involves reimagined and reconceptualized versions of the previous state of the art.

 

[Bunyip]

I wholeheartedly endorse the point of view that says that figuring out the right questions while being humble about the status of one's answers is preferable to claims of absolute knowledge. It's nice that we have something in common

Billy Connoly made the comment years ago when asked if he could give one bit of advice to his kids - what would it be.
He answered: I would advise them to avoid like the plague people who know all of the right answers, and instead look for people who are looking for the right questions. (I am probably paraphrasing, it is not verbatim)

 

[Bunyip]

Which is why I so tire of hearing reconceptualized or reimagined versions of the Big Guy. Which is also why it is nonsense to insist that atheists keep abreast of the exciting developments in the "field" of theology. I still have no idea what Paul Tillich's god is, and if it can't be communicated effectively it hardly matters whether it exists.

I know, I laughed so hard when I read that one that I spilt coffee all over my lap. I don't think there has been an exciting development in that field in centuries.

 

[gsa]

But they're all re-imagined! It seems like you aren't really saying anything here besides that you are disinterested in theology, which is fair enough, as is criticism about difficulties communicating, but literally every field of human study that's more than 50 years old involves reimagined and reconceptualized versions of the previous state of the art.

Well part of the problem is I deny that theology, as a field, has a state of the art, insofar as that signifies meaningful development or methodology.

 

[lovemuffin]

Well part of the problem is I deny that theology, as a field, has a state of the art, insofar as that signifies meaningful development or methodology.

As expected. I'm just nitpicking the implication that somehow the fact that someone like Tillich understands Christian theology in a new way is inherently problematic. If theology is entirely make-believe, then that is the criticism. In either case, it's not surprising that the tremendous amount of change in our knowledge about the world and ourselves over the last couple thousand years should involve changes in theology also.

As an aside, it used to be the case in the eastern tradition that theology referred primarily to mystical experience. The author of the gospel of John, and the epistles, as well as St Symeon were called "theologians" not because of their intellectual contribution to a systematic conceptual construct, but because they write about the vision of the Divine. A lot of academic theology in the last few centuries is uninteresting to me in the same way as it is to you. I read prosblogion, a philosophy of religion blog that focuses on analytic philosophical investigations into things like the problem of evil, but most of it seems very unimportant from the standpoint of living a religious life in an authentic way, for exactly that reason: it seems like rather meaningless speculation. To the extent that "theology" is meaningful I think it's not that it provides an objective model of the Divine like a scientific theory, but because it provides the context and symbology that guides religious practice in a heuristic way.

 

[gsa]

If theology is entirely make-believe, then that is the criticism. In either case, it's not surprising that the tremendous amount of change in our knowledge about the world and ourselves over the last couple thousand years should involve changes in theology also.

One important difference: Theologians had access, or so it was claimed, to revealed knowledge concerning God. Now I realize that we moderns doubt this, but theology was far more bounded by tradition in the past. And for a reason: Ecclesiastical authority placed rather strict limits on this field of inquiry, and for some considerable time on the handmaidens of the once haughty queen of the sciences. She only dabbles in change because she was dethroned and robbed of title.

As an aside, it used to be the case in the eastern tradition that theology referred primarily to mystical experience. The author of the gospel of John, and the epistles, as well as St Symeon were called "theologians" not because of their intellectual contribution to a systematic conceptual construct, but because they write about the vision of the Divine. A lot of academic theology in the last few centuries is uninteresting to me in the same way as it is to you. I read prosblogion, a philosophy of religion blog that focuses on analytic philosophical investigations into things like the problem of evil, but most of it seems very unimportant from the standpoint of living a religious life in an authentic way, for exactly that reason: it seems like rather meaningless speculation. To the extent that "theology" is meaningful I think it's not that it provides an objective model of the Divine like a scientific theory, but because it provides the context and symbology that guides religious practice in a heuristic way.

It seems these mystical experiences can be more accurately studied in fields like biology, neuroscience and psychology. Theology seems less like a field of inquiry and moral re like an art class.

 

[lovemuffin]

theology is definitely more like art to me. I'm an aesthetician at heart. That is a word and I don't care what my spell checker thinks

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Just an item of information: I have been making a living doing nuclear science for more then 30 years. What are your credentials?

Then naturally you can readily respond to what I quoted. Alternatively, we could realize that doing nuclear physics is about as relevant here as having a degree in chemistry. I had to past graduate tests in nuclear physics, and the one interesting component of them (IMO) was how much nuclear physics merely an overlap of areas from particle physics, quantum mechanics, and QFT(s). The easy questions were concerned with scattering that one encounters at the origins of quantum mechanics and the rest were mainly quantum & particle physics as applied to radioactivity and nuclear reactions. It's practically applied particle physics without most of the field theories or most of their content. I am not a nuclear physicists, and will not be one even if I obtain my doctorate in physics, because I"m not interested in such a limited field.

However, you can continue to ignore the text I quoted from in response to your scathingly dismissive (and incorrect) comment if you wish. In the meantime, I have decided to provide a short summary of my answer to your original question to "put up" rather than refer you to previous posts. The first problem is the question itself. It is hard to answer "what argument from religious or christian apology have the new atheist not answered or prove incapable of inanswering?" precisely because this is one area they fail so completely at (that is, not being familiar either with previous criticisms of Christian apology- the most well-known- or Christian apology, they don't answer it at all, and as they claim to at times by including sections about Christian apology, one is force to conclude either that they are liars or that they are simply ignorant here, as I do not believe they lack the acumen to understand what they gloss over almost completely). Along with this is something fundamental to Christian apology which concerns the nature of reason, justified true belief (JTB) or epistemic justification, the nature of evidence, etc. Here the new atheists generally start with the assumption of a kind of simplified (for the reader, one assumes, at least in the case of those like Dawkins) version of the scientific approach (they even refer to god as a hypothesis, neatly glossing over exactly what this means in terms even of the philosophy and history of the sciences). Most of Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief concerns the de jure aspect of Christian belief, and the same may be said of any good apology or criticism thereof.

And, to make physics relevant again and even make astrophysics, theoretical physics, particle physics, and cosmology relevant as well, one argument they wholly fail at dealing with is the so-called "fine-tuning" argument. This is not the fine-tuning of species or related in anyway to biology or living systems or whatever. I speak of what physicists find fundamentally problematic (read: requiring an explanation) with the ways in which the universe appears not only to require extremely precise constants for us to exist (or life for that matter), but the organisation and homogeneity of the "unfolding" or expanding of the universe since the big bang. As I've noted elsewhere, this appears to be enough "evidence" of design to motivate physicists such as Weinberg and Susskind to support multiverse theories because they do away with the need to invoke a designer (they don't, as Davies noted and can be seen in great detail in theistic multiverse cosmologies, particularly Amoroso & Rauscher HAM theory). I believe Dawkins addresses this as being unsatisfactory because it just begs the question "who created the designer?" The problem with this argument is firstly that much of physics (and indeed scientific) research is answering one question by proposing another problem. Second it confuses explanation and answer. Once again, epistemology becomes highly relevant but as the new atheists assume one (mostly implicitly), we find that Dawkins is assuming God as an explanation for evidence of a "designed" universe and asking given this explanation, we've explained nothing and introduced the requirement of another explanation. By contrast, the fine-tuning argument is more about an answer. A simplistic illustration might by the difference between providing the answer to 2+2=4 vs. an explanation (a better, albeit still simplistic, illustration would be the nature of entailment: given a premise and a conclusion that logic dictates must follow, explain why it must follow other than that logic dictates it must). Most of the new atheists don't address it or do but with the same problem (conflating epistemology with the methods and nature of scientific inquiry and failing to provide a basis for what it means to be rational or to be justified in ones beliefs and why at even so simplistic a level as the Achilles and the Tortoise tradition in the philosophy of logic that Lewis/Dodgson began).

Other serious failings can be summed up by the word "historiography" and the failure of all of the new atheists to adequately deal with everything from textual criticism to the history of the Western intellectual tradition.

 

[Bunyip]

Then naturally you can readily respond to what I quoted. Alternatively, we could realize that doing nuclear physics is about as relevant here as having a degree in chemistry. I had to past graduate tests in nuclear physics, and the one interesting component of them (IMO) was how much nuclear physics merely an overlap of areas from particle physics, quantum mechanics, and QFT(s). The easy questions were concerned with scattering that one encounters at the origins of quantum mechanics and the rest were mainly quantum & particle physics as applied to radioactivity and nuclear reactions. It's practically applied particle physics without most of the field theories or most of their content. I am not a nuclear physicists, and will not be one even if I obtain my doctorate in physics, because I"m not interested in such a limited field.

However, you can continue to ignore the text I quoted from in response to your scathingly dismissive (and incorrect) comment if you wish. In the meantime, I have decided to provide a short summary of my answer to your original question to "put up" rather than refer you to previous posts. The first problem is the question itself. It is hard to answer "what argument from religious or christian apology have the new atheist not answered or prove incapable of inanswering?" precisely because this is one area they fail so completely at (that is, not being familiar either with previous criticisms of Christian apology- the most well-known- or Christian apology, they don't answer it at all, and as they claim to at times by including sections about Christian apology, one is force to conclude either that they are liars or that they are simply ignorant here, as I do not believe they lack the acumen to understand what they gloss over almost completely). Along with this is something fundamental to Christian apology which concerns the nature of reason, justified true belief (JTB) or epistemic justification, the nature of evidence, etc. Here the new atheists generally start with the assumption of a kind of simplified (for the reader, one assumes, at least in the case of those like Dawkins) version of the scientific approach (they even refer to god as a hypothesis, neatly glossing over exactly what this means in terms even of the philosophy and history of the sciences). Most of Plantinga's Warranted Christian Belief concerns the de jure aspect of Christian belief, and the same may be said of any good apology or criticism thereof.

And, to make physics relevant again and even make astrophysics, theoretical physics, particle physics, and cosmology relevant as well, one argument they wholly fail at dealing with is the so-called "fine-tuning" argument. This is not the fine-tuning of species or related in anyway to biology or living systems or whatever. I speak of what physicists find fundamentally problematic (read: requiring an explanation) with the ways in which the universe appears not only to require extremely precise constants for us to exist (or life for that matter), but the organisation and homogeneity of the "unfolding" or expanding of the universe since the big bang. As I've noted elsewhere, this appears to be enough "evidence" of design to motivate physicists such as Weinberg and Susskind to support multiverse theories because they do away with the need to invoke a designer (they don't, as Davies noted and can be seen in great detail in theistic multiverse cosmologies, particularly Amoroso & Rauscher HAM theory). I believe Dawkins addresses this as being unsatisfactory because it just begs the question "who created the designer?" The problem with this argument is firstly that much of physics (and indeed scientific) research is answering one question by proposing another problem. Second it confuses explanation and answer. Once again, epistemology becomes highly relevant but as the new atheists assume one (mostly implicitly), we find that Dawkins is assuming God as an explanation for evidence of a "designed" universe and asking given this explanation, we've explained nothing and introduced the requirement of another explanation. By contrast, the fine-tuning argument is more about an answer. A simplistic illustration might by the difference between providing the answer to 2+2=4 vs. an explanation (a better, albeit still simplistic, illustration would be the nature of entailment: given a premise and a conclusion that logic dictates must follow, explain why it must follow other than that logic dictates it must). Most of the new atheists don't address it or do but with the same problem (conflating epistemology with the methods and nature of scientific inquiry and failing to provide a basis for what it means to be rational or to be justified in ones beliefs and why at even so simplistic a level as the Achilles and the Tortoise tradition in the philosophy of logic that Lewis/Dodgson began).

Other serious failings can be summed up by the word "historiography" and the failure of all of the new atheists to adequately deal with everything from textual criticism to the history of the Western intellectual tradition.

Because textual criticism is not worth contesting. It is not a concern of the NA, nor is the history. They want the evidence, it is time to put up or shut up - that is the message of the NA.
Textual criticism does not demonstrate the existence of a god, it leaves atheists nothing to contest, other than inference. Inferences you can keep, they are all you have.

The 'fine tuning' argument can be adequately dealt with by simply pointing out it doesn't exist anyway. If the universe is 'fine tuned' for anything - it is in favour of the sterile vacuum of intergallactic space. The NA tend to give very little weight to such things, they were all refuted long, long ago.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

By means of comparison, I've selected part of a criticism of the ontological argument presented by a Christian apologists and in the book Christian Apologetics (by Geisler). One can then compare this portion to how the argument is treated by the new atheists:
“The invalidity of the ontological argument is illustrative of the point being made here. Certainly, a triangle must be conceived as having three sides and, if a triangle exists, it must exist with three sides. But it is not logically necessary that any triangle exists anywhere. In like manner, it is logically necessary to predicate existence of a necessary Existent and, if such a Being exists, it must necessarily exist. But it is not logically necessary for necessary Being to exist any more than it is for a triangle to exist. Of course, if something exists, then the ontological argument takes on new strength, for if something exists it is possible that something necessarily exists. But the point here is that there is no purely logical way to eliminate the “if.” I know undeniably but not with logical necessity that I exist. And this is precisely the point at which proponents of the ontological convertly borrow the fact of undeniable existence in order to strengthen their argument. They know that it is undeniable that that something exists (viz., one’s self). And once it is thereby granted that something is real, they can move more easily toward providing that it is logically necessary that something exists. But even here their argument is misdirected. For God cannot be a logically necessary Being. If there is a God he would be an actually necessary Being, but it is confusing categories to make conceptual or rational necessity constituative of the reality of God. Further, the ontological argument….” It goes on, but as this is just for comparison’s sake, I’ll spare others the remaining portion.

 

[Bunyip]

By means of comparison, I've selected part of a criticism of the ontological argument presented by a Christian apologists and in the book Christian Apologetics (by Geisler). One can then compare this portion to how the argument is treated by the new atheists:
“The invalidity of the ontological argument is illustrative of the point being made here. Certainly, a triangle must be conceived as having three sides and, if a triangle exists, it must exist with three sides. But it is not logically necessary that any triangle exists anywhere. In like manner, it is logically necessary to predicate existence of a necessary Existent and, if such a Being exists, it must necessarily exist. But it is not logically necessary for necessary Being to exist any more than it is for a triangle to exist. Of course, if something exists, then the ontological argument takes on new strength, for if something exists it is possible that something necessarily exists. But the point here is that there is no purely logical way to eliminate the “if.” I know undeniably but not with logical necessity that I exist. And this is precisely the point at which proponents of the ontological convertly borrow the fact of undeniable existence in order to strengthen their argument. They know that it is undeniable that that something exists (viz., one’s self). And once it is thereby granted that something is real, they can move more easily toward providing that it is logically necessary that something exists. But even here their argument is misdirected. For God cannot be a logically necessary Being. If there is a God he would be an actually necessary Being, but it is confusing categories to make conceptual or rational necessity constituative of the reality of God. Further, the ontological argument….” It goes on, but as this is just for comparison’s sake, I’ll spare others the remaining portion.

Sorry, the NA are hardly going to be impressed with presuppositionalism.

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Because textual criticism is not worth contesting. It is not a concern of the NA, nor is the history.

Yet, funny enough, Dawkins cites Bart Ehrman's popular Misquoting Jesus and the new atheist authors all include religious history in various ways, from the reliability of the NT to the contributions of religion to Western, Eastern, and other cultural worldviews and intellectual advancements. Apparently you are no more familiar with the literature by the new atheists than you are apologists.

If the universe is 'fine tuned' for anything - it is in favour of the sterile vacuum of intergallactic space.

Are you joking!!??

The NA tend to give very little weight to such things, they were all refuted long, long ago.

They address it multiple times via multiple media, but I know of such treatments mostly from their publications.

 

[Bunyip]

Yet, funny enough, Dawkins cites Bart Ehrman's popular Misquoting Jesus and the new atheist authors all include religious history in various ways, from the reliability of the NT to the contributions of religion to Western, Eastern, and other cultural worldviews and intellectual advancements. Apparently you are no more familiar with the literature by the new atheists than you are apologists.


Are you joking!!??

Nope, I will happily demolish you on fine tuning if you wish. Dawkins covered it thorougly.

They address it multiple times via multiple media, but I know of such treatments mostly from their publications.

Sure, there is little else to address. Nothing new, or of any weight.
Sadly the nature of counter apologetics is a lot like groundhog day - endlessly refuting the same tired old fallacies, only to have them repeated ad naseum with nothing new, nothing that is logically persuasive. Just a cycle of presentation, refutation and then the apologists happily repeats the same demolished relic all over again in the next 'debate'.

If they are guilty of intellectual sterility, it would be because they have nothing to engage with that hasn't been demolished a thousand times over.

 

[Gerald Kelleher]

Gerald,
I'm sorry, I think your theories end up boiling down to elaborate strawman arguments.

Even though I am a Christian, the religious seemingly hate the disturbance of the status quo every bit as much as the empiricists do. I don't have theories why lifeforms evolved from simple to more complex let alone imposing a social opinion based on civilized/savage as a 'law of nature' because it places a non biological viewpoint of skin color or wealth as a working principle. Darwin doesn't hide his convictions but contemporaries do under 'Social Darwinism'.

I wish Playboy magazine was available to Darwin for attraction plays more of a role in procreation than national supremacy, physical aggression or resource grabbing - ask any romantic here. This removes the Darwinist ideology of superior/inferior 'races' insofar as there is biologically only the human race and everything else are almost worthless social/political distinctions.

Do any of you know exactly what you are following ?. I am sure some do see the horror but seeing it and acting to counter it are two different things.

 

[icehorse]

Even though I am a Christian, the religious seemingly hate the disturbance of the status quo every bit as much as the empiricists do. I don't have theories why lifeforms evolved from simple to more complex let alone imposing a social opinion based on civilized/savage as a 'law of nature' because it places a non biological viewpoint of skin color or wealth as a working principle. Darwin doesn't hide his convictions but contemporaries do under 'Social Darwinism'.

I wish Playboy magazine was available to Darwin for attraction plays more of a role in procreation than national supremacy, physical aggression or resource grabbing - ask any romantic here. This removes the Darwinist ideology of superior/inferior 'races' insofar as there is biologically only the human race and everything else are almost worthless social/political distinctions.

Do any of you know exactly what you are following ?. I am sure some do see the horror but seeing it and acting to counter it are two different things.

Gerald,

I'm not sure I'm understanding you here... are you (still?),somehow lumping the NA in with social darwinism? How did you get there again? If you are, got a citation?

 

[LegionOnomaMoi]

Nope, I will happily demolish you on fine tuning if you wish.

You can't, because you know nothing about the relevant physics here, and as you have provided perhaps the most extreme critique of the new atheists without even realizing it (i.e., your "proof" notions and how contrary they are to the new atheism), I'll wait until you can formulate the argument you seek to demolish. This is what I have frequently done here, including "here" to mean this post, as I have presented arguments by apologists that I deem inadequate.

Also, you have a tendency to define terms (lexemes, constructions, etc.) and act as if your definitions are canon. I'm not interested in debate with someone who is at best minimally familiar with new atheist literature, whose knowledge of atheist literature is virtually non-existent, and whose arguments depend upon circularity and support by repetition.

Dawkins covered it thorougly.

The NA tend to give very little weight to such things, they were all refuted long, long ago.

What a surprise: you backtrack and refute yourself again. How tired.

Sadly the nature of counter apologetics

...is something you'd have to actually be familiar with in order to make statements about it. As your own posts indicate, your beliefs about the irrelevancy or otherwise flaws of apologetic literature is based upon your familiarity with Google (or the internet). You can't even adequately represent the new atheists, as apart from defining them according to your definition your "you can't prove a negative in the context of god" nonsense was rejected by the people you defend.

If they are guilty of intellectual sterility

...you'd have to be familiar with the contrary and possess some basic level of familiarity with relevant apologetic, theological, & philosophical literature you lack. I eagerly await how you boil down the entirety of this post to the few points you can spin to play the victim while continuously ignoring all the points I've made that you've either not read, not recognized, or demonstrated an inability even to understand how to address the points made.

I'm not very interested in debating this with you. Your own approach is to determine definitions and act as if they are objectively true. As we can't agree who the "new atheists" are, considering that you've defined them and asserted (implicitly) your definition to be religiously true, what's the point? In particular, you've contradicted yourself and mocked the idea that god's non-existence can be proved while defending those who have claimed it can.

It's just boring. Sandblasting a soup cracker becomes boring rather quickly.

 

[Bunyip]

You can't, because you know nothing about the relevant physics here

Sure I do. Have at it if you dare.

, and as you have provided perhaps the most extreme critique of the new atheists without even realizing it (i.e., your "proof" notions and how contrary they are to the new atheism), I'll wait until you can formulate the argument you seek to demolish. This is what I have frequently done here, including "here" to mean this post, as I have presented arguments by apologists that I deem inadequate.

Also, you have a tendency to define terms (lexemes, constructions, etc.) and act as if your definitions are canon. I'm not interested in debate with someone who is at best minimally familiar with new atheist literature, whose knowledge of atheist literature is virtually non-existent, and whose arguments depend upon circularity and support by repetition.




What a surprise: you backtrack and refute yourself again. How tired.


...is something you'd have to actually be familiar with in order to make statements about it. As your own posts indicate, your beliefs about the irrelevancy or otherwise flaws of apologetic literature is based upon your familiarity with Google (or the internet). You can't even adequately represent the new atheists, as apart from defining them according to your definition your "you can't prove a negative in the context of god" nonsense was rejected by the people you defend.


...you'd have to be familiar with the contrary and possess some basic level of familiarity with relevant apologetic, theological, & philosophical literature you lack. I eagerly await how you boil down the entirety of this post to the few points you can spin to play the victim while continuously ignoring all the points I've made that you've either not read, not recognized, or demonstrated an inability even to understand how to address the points made.

I'm not very interested in debating this with you. Your own approach is to determine definitions and act as if they are objectively true. As we can't agree who the "new atheists" are, considering that you've defined them and asserted (implicitly) your definition to be religiously true, what's the point? In particular, you've contradicted yourself and mocked the idea that god's non-existence can be proved while defending those who have claimed it can.

It's just boring. Sandblasting a soup cracker becomes boring rather quickly.