Falsifying God's Existence -- A Few Thoughts

Suppose it seems to you that, if God exists, then A. Fill A in with whatever you like.

Imagine it seems to you that, if God exists, then Big Macs will be healthy. But Big Macs are unhealthy.

What then? Should you disbelieve in God? Or should you disbelieve that God's existence implies A? Or should you disbelieve in the 'god' whose existence implies A? Or are there some nuances you're skating over with respect to A?

Suppose it seems to you that, if God exists, then every sincere Christian prayer for something good will be answered like magic. But not all sincere Christian prayers for good things are answered like magic.

Should you become an atheist? Or should you stop believing in this magical 'god'? Or are there some nuances you're skating over? What is good? How good? Good in view of what end? What is it for a prayer to be answered? What if all these prayers are answered eschatologically, even if not immediately? Does that still count as an answer?

There are some more troubling things that can be plugged in for A. Is it your duty to be able to solve all of them? Is belief in God unjustified unless you can provide decisive answers to all of these difficult cases? I think this will end up as a matter of personal judgment (which is not purely 'subjective' BTW). If it seems to you that there's too many difficult cases and they're too troubling, then atheism is the way to go. But you can responsibly remain a Christian even if you think there are many troubling cases that aren't easily answered (or maybe not presently answerable).

God As Hypothesis

If you want to, you can consider God as an explanatory hypothesis. That you can do this if you want to doesn't mean it will be helpful or wise or good or interesting or your epistemic duty.

If God doesn't work well as an explanatory hypothesis, this doesn't count against Christian theism. (Though maybe God does work well as an explanatory hypothesis. I'm passing this over for now.)

There's (at least) two reasons why this doesn't count against Christian theism:

(1) It might be that this kind of 'explanatory god' is but an idol. If so, then it would be good and proper for Christians to be atheists with respect to this 'god'.

(2) It's not true that I'm only justified in believing in those things* which pass this test. If this theory of justification seems obviously true to you, then I think you need to revisit the issue and consider it more carefully.

Here's what I take to be a pretty clear counter example: I believe I had yogurt for breakfast, and it seems to me my belief is justified. But it's not justified by its success as an explanatory hypothesis. Why? Because it's NOT an explanatory hypothesis, successful or otherwise. I can consider it as an explanatory hypothesis, if I want to. But it's not my epistemic duty to do this. Or, more modestly, I'm not aware of any good and decisive reasons for thinking it's my epistemic duty to do this.

Epistemology is very subtle, and trying to ram through some sort of naive evidentialism or positivism won't cut the mustard.

* There's an important sense in which God is not merely one more thing 'out there' with everything else. I use 'thing' for convenience, fully aware of both the impiety and philosophical/theological sloppiness of this usage.

Where to Begin?

The most important philosophical decision--the most difficult one for the thoughtful--is where to begin and what to say first.

I just made my choice in the telling.

Democracy is 'Unscientific'

Do the technocrats believe some people have the natural right to rule over the rest of us?

Prediction: Democracy will be officially declared 'unscientific' by the science-puritans. They'll proudly wear their hair shirts to the press conference: a metaphor for how devoutly 'scientific' they're willing to be, regardless of comfort.

"Reason," they'll say, "demands we use a scientific test to pick out a project team to work on a super-algorithm to solve our coordination problems. It's a scientific fact that the herd is predictably irrational. They're uniquely unfit for choosing legislators. Our current legislators don't know the first thing about designing the super-algorithm we need to calculate an optimal solution to the contest of our conflicting interests. Democracy must give way to science and reason!"

If politics is simply a matter of solving our coordination problems, then this is inevitable. I suspect a lot of folks would be very happy under this kind of technocratic rule, so long as they can still fornicate and buy big screen TVs. This the real nihilism. It's the nihilism of the mall. It's ugly.

The first news of democracy being 'unscientific' will come from those awful pop-science books--the one's with the cutesy covers and oh so quirky titles.

I'd Like This, Please (Google Voice)

Free long distance, call display and voice mail too.

The Fundamental Question

The fundamental question is this: build or destroy? Sometimes it is good to disrupt and destroy. Other times it is good to build and bring together. Wisdom and good judgment is a matter of knowing when where to choose each. In the final analysis, there's no hiding behind impersonal principles. In the end, you must render your judgment and act. They key questions are: how will you judge and how will you act?

Vintage Books and Narcissism

We exist during the in between times.

The paper book still hasn't failed as a mass market consumer product. Books have yet to become a 'boutique' item like vinyl records or traditionally tailored clothes have. {FYI - more vinyl was sold this year than in 1991. It's a growth market.} Or maybe they have? Has book reading become quaint? Do people do the lion's share of their reading online?

The e-book reader still hasn't become powerful enough (at a feasible price point) to allow each book's personality to be expressed in an individual way. An e-book reader ought to be able to express all the oddities and peculiar characteristics that set different paper books apart from each other. {Different paper styles, fonts, sizes, etc.} And it would be nice if they could smell like an old yellowed library book. Oh, and we definitely need an open standard 'ecosystem' for e-books.

Wannabe intellectual and artist types will be among the first to fetishize paper books and prize them as boutique items that display their good taste and sophistication. We already do this, but get ready for an explosion. All the ruffians will carry around their Kindles, but we will parade around with our vintage paper books curiously in view.

Is it good to be a principled person?

Is it good to be a principled person? Is it good to live according to principles?

Yes.

But is it more important to be a person of good judgment?

Yes.

You need to exercise personal judgment in order to rightly apply principles, and so in this sense good judgment is more important.

The mechanical application of principles, unguided by good judgment, often leads to terrible results. We've all been the victim of this.

Moderns are hell bent on reducing all personal judgment to impersonal principles, which can then be mechanically--and so 'fairly'--applied. You see this most vividly in politics and ethics. There is a point to this. But the project is bound to fail.

Is veganism an example of principles absolutized and applied without good judgment? Maybe. If it is based upon Utilitarianism, and most all of the philosophically motivated/grounded varieties of veganism are. Obviously not true of people who just "feel sad about hurting animals" though.

The desire for an impersonal, mechanical ethics is a misguided one. Ethics is, at base, a matter of good judgment.

Worst Generation Ever?

The baby-boomers--who used to recommend trusting no one over 30--have suddenly awoken to the horrid evils of ageism.  

Hey wait, you boomers are just now becoming senior citizens, right? 

Fight the power.

Never trust anyone under 60.

Raising Awareness

People are always trying to raise awareness. But isn't our field of awareness already over-saturated? Aren't we already bombarded with far too much?

Maybe we need to raise our ignorance in a targeted way. Maybe we need a carefully orchestrated clean sweep of our consciousness.

Isn't the awareness raising game predicated on the now quaint notion that the key human problem is ignorance? What if the key human problem is selfishness? Yes--awareness of the suffering of others does temporarily keep our selfishness in check, but this fades quickly.

Or maybe ignorance is a problem: ignorance of practical solutions to our problems?

There are many many human problems. But even the saintliest people can only concern themselves, in any serious way, with a few. So then people hawking causes must compete with each other for our limited attention. That's weird. It won't be obvious which causes we ought to support. And so causes become like corporations hawking their wares by harnessing the technologies given to them by the psychologists. That's just part of the bitterness of life.

I Stole This

Too Much? Too Little? About Right?

Lurking bellow the surface of our intelligible practices are judgements like "too much" or "not enough" or "about right". Moderns are deeply embarrassed by these kinds of judgments and so every attempt is made to sweep them under the carpet.

What if this project is doomed to failure?

Concerning this project: How long and how hard should we try? What if the costs are too high?

For anyone with an once of curiosity, these questions are inevitable. But the only answers we can give will take the form of "this is too much" or "this is too little" or "this is about right". And so the project fails.

Faith and Scholarship

Great works can't be adequately appreciated (or criticized) until you take the time to study them. But time is limited and many works are purported to be great. Deciding which works deserve your attention will be a matter of reaching out in faith. In this way all scholarship is rooted in and sustained by faith.

Faith is a matter of personally extending yourself out into the world, reaching out in the face of risk, and committing yourself to a way. There is nothing distinctly religious about faith. 

On Being Transgressive

Suppose you stop to consider whether or not to be transgressive of some order.

The decision to be non-transgressive implicitly endorses the order you might have transgressed.

But the decision to be transgressive implicitly endorses that order too, in a sense.

For you couldn't be transgressive apart from that order.

So if you're happy to be a transgressor, then you'll happy for the conditions that render it possible, right?

And if you're sad to be a transgressor, that too counts as an implicit endorsement of the order, even if a half-hearted one, right?

And if, per impossible, everything is 'transgressive', then true transgression would require a kind of meta-transgressive choice of the non-transgressive.

If you understand this then you understand part of what I mean when I say I'm a conservative (in a certain qualified sense). Which is to say I don't fetishize transgression, even if I value it at appropriate times and places.

Grizzly Bear -- Two Weeks

GBV - Glad Girls

Guided By Voices - I Am A Scientist

I am a scientist - I seek to understand me
All of my impurities and evils yet unknown
I am a journalist - I write to you to show you
I am an incurable
And nothing else behaves like me

Thirty.

I feel the steely cold kiss of my newly acquired tele-future-scope against my right eye. I am spying on my near future. What's this? Something flits about in the distance. Ye gods! Age 30 is storming the gates!!! Release the hounds! Boil the oil! Gird yourselves, my dear 20s, and prepare to fight to the death! I rouse the troops, but in my heart I know they are doomed to die if I send them into battle. The smart move is to negotiate a truce and prepare accommodations for my 30s. Before long they'll be doing my bidding. Fools!

I don't expect an existential crisis on my birthday.

Theism Intellectually Satisifying?

Which is more intellectually satisfying: theism or atheistic naturalism?

I suppose that, on both theism and atheistic naturalism, all inquiry will ultimately terminate at certain brute facts--including contingent brute facts.

So why prefer theism over atheistic naturalism? Well, I suppose there are different kinds of reasons you could whip up. But, if we narrow our view to the matter of contingent brute facts, does theism fare better than atheistic naturalism?

Presumably the atheist will say something like this:

Postulating God is extremely costly--God would be an extremely complex being and so God too would require an explanation. And we should always postulate as few entities as possible. So, if we can get away with it, we must refrain from postulating God. We can get away with not postulating God, so we must refrain from postulating God. Essentially, the contingent brute fact of God personally deciding to do this rather than that, is very intellectually unsatisfying.

But I say that theism is more elegant, parsimonious and otherwise intellectually satisfying than atheistic naturalism.

Why?

(1) One contingent brute fact is more intellectually satisfying than many. I presume that, on atheistic naturalism, all inquiry will ultimately arrive at more than one contingent brute fact. [WARNING: I might be wrong about this, and I presently have no argument for it. But, on the face of it, it seems right.]

Suppose the physicists and cosmologists finally achieve the "unified theory of everything" that they've been searching for. Presumably this unified theory will be elegant and beautiful and parsimonious and all the rest. But presumably it will contain more than one contingent brute fact. [Again, perhaps I am wrong about this?] But, on theism, there'll be one ultimate contingent brute fact: God's personal decision. So theism is more intellectually satisfying than atheistic naturalism.

(2) A personal decision is, in itself, the most intellectually satisfying kind of explanation we can give. Suppose you ask why your lamp is on the ground in pieces. Consider these two explanations:

(i) I hate the lamp, and so I picked it up and threw down, smashing it. Case closed.
(ii) The wind blew the curtains which in turn knocked the lamp off the table. But why did the wind blow the way it did? This kind of questioning will go on and on. Each explanation will in turn call out for another. The case never seems to close, does it?

Only a personal decision type of explanation brings inquiry to a satisfying end. Remember, we're considering ultimate contingent brute facts--which are the unexplainable ultimate ends to inquiry. Personal decision explanations are very intellectually satisfying ends to inquiries. {Full disclosure: there might be some problems with this.}

(3) God is simple and elegant and beautiful. God isn't this good rather than that. God isn't this mighty rather than that. God isn't this wise rather than that. God is goodness. God is wisdom. God is might. God does not have a certain measure of goodness--not even an infinite measure of goodness (in the sense of an infinite number of measures of goodness added on top of each other one by one). God is goodness, and whatever else is good is good in terms of God's goodness.

If God was this mighty, rather than that mighty, this would call out for an explanation--in the same way that the several contingent brute facts of atheistic naturalism call out for an explanation. But God is might itself, not a measure of might, and so God's might doesn't call out for an explanation.

And, in a technical sense, God does not have several properties like goodness, might, wisdom, etc. In a technical sense, goodness, might, and wisdom (etc.) are just different perspectives on the one simple God. God's goodness is mighty and wise. God's wisdom is good and mighty. God's might is good and wise.

So, properly understood, God doesn't call out for explanation. Properly understood, God's personal decision resolves all inquiry in a way that satisfies our deep seeded intellectual passions. God is simple and elegant and beautiful.

Jack Lemmon Was Great

An unforgettable scene from the Odd Couple:

Goodly Advice Part III - This Time It's Personal

Watch no sit-coms with laugh tracks.

Skip all Michael Bay movies. Yes, even Transformers. All of them.

The Island is deeply flawed, but you may watch it. It's an essentially conservative movie that shines a light on some of the thorny ethical issues that advanced bio-medical technologies will unleash.

Never say "no" to any of the projects of the scientists.

Those who dare to wonder if the scientists should do some of their projects are ANTI-SCIENCE. Do not look them in the eye. They will snuff out the Enlightenment and steal your vigor.

You're either with us or against us.

Never question the scientists.

Pay no attention to that corporation behind the curtain.

Move along.

THAT IS ALL.

ATTN: Readers RE: Goodly Advice

Dear sweet reader, fear not--I know you seek GOODLY ADVICE. I know you seek it, and I beseech you: do not deny it. Come clean, into the warm light of day. How do I know you seek GOODLY ADVICE? You are of sound mind and stout heart, and you suffer under the same bitter toils as us all. And so you doubtlessly require GOODLY ADVICE if you are to make a better way through this life. For this reason I am sure you seek hastily after GOODLY ADVICE, as for precious stones or purest bee's wax or the polished beaks of exotic waterfowl. Pray tell, who will provide this GOODLY ADVICE? I will, dear reader, I will.

Gird yourself and rise ready to receive this precious wisdom from the hoary past, this GOODLY ADVICE lovingly handed down from time immemorial, re-heated and served with your choice of sides. Most choose the fries, but fine gentlemen of good taste prefer the pickled beets together with the broken dreams of bespectacled children, minced and then sautéed in the ignominy of their gym class failures.

Be glad, for the felt hat of your soul will soon be festooned with the decorative feather of GOODLY ADVICE.

CLASSIXX - I'LL GET YOU (ROYAL RUMBLE EDIT)

Violence and Religion

Two reasons why a religion might be violent:

(1) It's mission.

(2) It's teachings concerning personal conduct.

Christianity, rightly understood, has both (1) and (2) going for it, in terms of peaceful relations with outsiders. The key tasks for Christians will then be: (a) rightly understanding the Christian confession and (b) living up to the Christian confession. I think that (b) is the really hard part, but we've also had huge failures when it comes to (a).

Is the same true of Islam and Judaism?

Suppose that Islam and Judaism are both peaceful in terms of (2). That is, suppose that both religions teach something like the golden rule.

(BTW - Determining this is the case is notoriously difficult. Why? Because it is hard for outsiders to figure out who rightly speaks for Islam or Judaism. There is something unintentionally hilarious about secular (or even Christian) folks from the west opining that Islam is a religion of peace that certain folks in the middle east have hijacked. This might be true. I'd be happy if it was. But it's not clear these (secular/Christian) westerners have the right to say what the true and proper interpretation of the Qur'an is. There's something rude about this, right? Let Islam speak for itself, and let Muslims sort out for themselves what the true and proper interpretation of the Qur'an is. Ditto for Judaism.)

When it comes to Islam and Judaism, the problem is with (1) I think. As far as I can tell, the mission of Islam (and in a sense Judaism too) is (ultimately) the conquering of all nations and the ordering of all nations under the specially revealed laws of God.

Christianity, rightly understood, is predicated (in part) on the inevitable failure of this kind of mission. Christianity only makes sense if this kind of mission doesn't work. Otherwise, Judaism would be enough, perhaps with some minor tweaks.

Any religion with such a mission is, by the very nature of its mission, bound to be more violent.

Christians routinely mistake themselves to have such a mission. This is an egregious mistake, even if a common one.

Perhaps I misinterpret Islam and/or Judaism. This is what my devout Muslim teacher taught me about Islam in an 'Intro to Islam' class I took at my secular university. BTW - I don't mean to suggest that my observations count as a refutation of Islam or Judaism. Basically, I'm interested in the idea that Christianity differs from both Islam and Judaism in terms of its true and proper mission.

Dispassionate Inquiry?

It is commonplace to hear that, when it comes to serious intellectual inquiry, we ought to be dispassionate.

This is right and wrong, in different senses.

We'd never set out on, or see to completion, an inquiry unless we had the desire to do so. And all inquiry is driven by our deep seeded intellectual passion to seek out an elegant understanding of a beautiful world. In this sense, inquiry can't be dispassionate--it is driven by passion!!!

But when we inquire we're often lead astray by our passions: the desire to be right, the desire to gain control over others, the desire for glory, etc. Suppose that, if a certain theory of yours is proven true, then you stand to make a small fortune and be the envy of your peers. Well, then you might be tempted to fudge the results, right? In this sense, inquiry ought to be dispassionate.