Captain's Quarters -

He also makes a very important assertion that popular atheists refute cartoon versions of Christianity because they're totally unresearched in scholarly theology of as Augustine, Aquinas, Anselm, Origen, or in our century Maritain, Gilson, Lonergan, etc. etc,

Reading Dawkins & the others is like fingernails on a blackboard, reminding me of a talk radio comedy parody I once heard where a doped up caller whines, "yeah Dick, if there's a God, why did he let President Kennedy, who was a Catholic, be assassinated?"

When a scholar sits down to write a critical review of existentialism, he actually reads the leading existentialists. He knows Sartre, Marcel, maybe Dostoevsky, Jaspers, etc. Why don't atheists read the leading theology of our day?

Because they're not out to argue, they're out to propagandize.

I see a lot of holes in the arguments I'm reading here, but here's the most glaring and immediate one... how is any of this specific to Christianity? Looking at all of the reasons given above for defending Christianity, I could just as easily worship Poseidon and throw offerings off the Bay Bridge.

Second, who says there -is- a why? Can you accept that maybe there isn't? And if you can't, can you see how maybe all religion is just wish-fulfillment, that it's got everything to do with making you -feel- better and nothing to do with reality?

"The atheist movement has gained tremendous strength and intellectual vitality in the past few decades"

Atheism has gained in cultural strength--in truth its arguments possess the same types of weaknesses that C. S. Lewis pointed out 50 years ago.

I'm glad for DeSouza's book but I wouldn't be surprised to see that it retreads arguments that have appeared in J. P. Moreland's "Scaling the Secular City" (1987) or scientist-turned-theologian Alister McGrath's "The Twilight of Atheism" (2003), among others.

The Christian mind is alive and well, thanks in no small part to philosopher Alvin Plantinga.

Hitchens is an engaging communicator and generally a good mind, but his arguments for atheism are rather simplistic (if I do say so myself).

Say David, if believing there is a God is a wish fulfillment, one could also say that believing there is NO God is the fulfillment of a wish too.

For example, a person bound to a wheel chair could have a dream wherein he walks, this is a fulfillment of the wish that he was not crippled.

Similarly, atheists understandably wish that human nature was not flawed, but instead could be perfected by Reason, by building a Utopia that will cure all the murderers, and all the poverty, and all the racism, etc.

Seems to me we religious folk are the reality based community, and atheists are psychologically stunted folk who try to escape from the basic facts of human nature through wish fulfillment.

Is atheism such a quantifiable entity like a particular religion?

Just finished reading "The Faiths of Our Fathers: What America's Founders Really Believed," by Alf J. Mapp, Jr., Scholar Emeritus, Old Dominion University. Most of our Founders started out Episcopalian or Anglican, a Catholic and a Jew or two were also part of this troop of revolutionaries. Most of them, while young, in their 20's or 30's, were strong adherants to Reasoning, which at the time was the latest philosophical fad.

As they grew older, and as they had major life events confront them, at the point of dying, most expresed genuinely religious views, acknowledging God, many quite deeply.

One of my favorite political phrases over the years is:

"If you are 18 and not a liberal, you have no heart. If you are 50 and not a Conservative, you have no brain."

I'd like to change that a bit, a propos to this thread:

"If you are 20 and not an atheist, you have no brain. If you are 50 and are not a Believer, you have no heart."

A good Christian, a good Christian, will never stop questioning his/her faith and his/her place in God's plan. It is in this questioning, searching for D'Souza's "Why?," that faith is daily reborn, made stronger, able to handle the deeper questions. Mother Theresa herself questioned her faith. So did John Paul the Great. So do many many many good Christians.

On the other hand, in the manner of Nobel Laureate Al Gore, atheists never seem to be able to question their atheism. To them, it is settled science.

One has to ask, are athiests really content in the knowledge that this is all there is?

I am an atheist because rationally compelling evidence for the existence of God is still wanting.

There is no serious disagreement about the existence of the Sun, or the planet Earth, or Venezuela.

When the evidence for the existence of God is uncovered, I'll be only to happy to believe it.

If that is faith, I'm Billy Graham.

My favorite question along these lines is: why is reproduction possible?

After all, organisms do not choose to reproduce; it comes as part of the package. And yet, organism have it coded in their DNA to not only make more of themselves, but to do it in the most efficient fashion.

Which means that, somehow, either someone was aware of the concept of time and prepared for it, or it's sheer f***in luck that a combination of atoms formed various elements that, when put together, created life capable of reproducing itself.

I guess this is what comes of too much pot as a teen.

My copy arrived yesterday and this old man is reveling in it and its message. As to proof of God's existance, pray tell me what you require? You say "When evidence for the existence of God is uncovered, you'll believe." What "evidence" will satisfy you? A personal visit from Him? But His visits to others over the centuries mean nothing? You are willing to believe what the media tells you, what bloggers tell you, without putting your hands into it, but you reject the reports of His servants. I've heard it said that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds . . . perhaps so, but I believe.

I think books like D'Souza's keep atheists on their toes and books like Dawkin's keep believers on their toes.

One needs to question atheists and one needs to question believers because both are capable of spouting nonsense.

It is interesting to note that D'souza says he is not defending Christian "fundamentalism." I wonder why, since many Christian fundamentalists will be happy to endorse his book.

Hey, Billy (Randall). Do you use the same standard in judging the existence of a prescriptive morality as you do for the existence of god?
;)

I was brought up Lutheran and had many unanswered questions so I studied other faiths. I still have a deep regard for my christian faith.

Science has also given me questions about human creation and god.

I still believe in God but different than when I was young.

Today scientists are working with DNA and bio-engineering. We are altering plants and animals and it seems have the ability to alter their forms and functions.

In Genesis of the Bible it talks about Gods in plural. There is also talk about the angels mating with the daughters of men.

Also in my reading of ancient books there is talk about past civilizations that were more advanced than ours in medical practices.

Could it be that sometime in ancient history man was a sub-human species that was genetically altered to become what we are today?

In this respect creation and evolution could really be tied together.

Just a thought.

Like Randall, I too am an atheist. I can not rationally accept an irrational 'why' as proof that the 'why' is a rationally defensible fact--without "compelling evidence".

"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike."

coldwarrior415,

That is one heckuva comment! Thank you - very well done.

This modern debate between "religionists" and atheists has been raging back and forth since the beginning of the 20th Century. For those interested in arguments in favor of religious faith the two giants are the ex-atheists C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton. Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" is a tour de force from a writer whose depth and range of intellect is unmatched in the present day. Two related books, "The Question of God" by Armand Nicholi, which compares and contrasts Freud's atheism with Lewis' theism, and "The Clash of Orthodoxies" by Robert George, which makes a strong case for the rational superiority of Judeo-Christian teachings on controversial moral issues to secular "rationalism," are both worth reading. "Joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian" - G.K. Chesterton.

Randal

The whole idea behind faith is that there is little direct evidence available to you yet you still can arrive at a conclusion. You believe something because it makes sense to you.

A good example of this is the belief that life started spontaneously. Just about every scientist believes that life started from random combinations of inert chemicals, yet there is no real proof to this theory. No one has been able to create a cell from scratch in a laboratory. No brand new lifeforms have spontaneously appeared in all of recorded history. And not one single example of life has been found outside of Earth's environment. Despite a complete lack of "rationally compelling evidence" (proof), this theory of the spontaneous generation of life exists and is widely accepted by many people. Why is this? It's because the people believe that the current theories make a lot of sense. It's a form of faith.

Science and religion doesn't have to be an ether/or situation. Science is just a means we use to discover and explain the processes that govern the observable universe. It is an attempt to answer the question of how things react. Religion (or philosophy), on the other hand, is a means to discover and explain the process of that which we can't observe. It is an attempt to answer the question of why things react. The two are not incompatible. Knowledge is never complete until we understand both the how and the why.

To quote Terry Pratchett:

"In the Beginning there was nothing, which exploded."

Why? Why? This is merely warmed over Aristotle. He said that if you drop a rock, it falls because its nature is that it wants to be closer to other rocks. TheOnion recast this as the Theory of Intelligent Falling. Once you frame things in terms of "why" you can create your own theory of everything on the back of a stamp. Aristotle had literally all the answers because he used "why" as his starting point. It took another 1500 years before people realized he was wrong about most things.

Oh, and Aristotle was a polytheistic pagan, so if you want to use this line of reasoning, it may be a better justification of Paganism than Christianity.

"The invisible and the non-existent look very much alike." ~ Gary

Well, this Gary has a few questions for you:

Do you believe in radio waves?

Do you believe in air?

Do you believe in sound?

Simple questions, Yes, but then that statement about the 'invisible' is pretty Damned Simple to begin with. I hope no deep thinker came up with that one.

All I have time for tonight, this Believing Catholic with a degree in Geology must be moving on.

The basic flaw in the Darwinist/Athiest argument is that biological evolution is what physicists call a background dependent theory. It takes the origin of life as separate event from the origin of the universe. From this perspective life does look like a fortuitous accident. However, you cannot separate the evolution of life from the origins of the physical universe because the processes that led to the origin of life are implicit in the creation of the universe. You don't have to believe in "intelligent design" theory to accept this. The atheists can still be correct in that there was no spirit that caused the universe to become into being but even if it is merely a physical process the conditions for life are still traceable to the origins of the universe.

Physics in a state of crisis. The profession has become enamored with string theory which is no more scientific then the bible. It replaces the scripture of the ancients with a new scripture of a set of non-provable mathematical relationships. Unlike the old scriptures the new scripture of string theory is only accessible by an elite priesthood. No less a believer then Stephen Weinberg, the Nobel Laureate who discovered remnants of the Big Bang, has said that we need to look a science in a new way that ends the necessity of empirical proof. The dominance of string theory has left physics at the same point that it was 30 years ago. An unprecedented event at least since Newton. I recommend a book by Professor Lee Smolin called “The Trouble with Physics.

The general public believes that science has the answer to all the mysteries of life and if we don’t know something now then we eventually get the answer. This is false at the very heart of the physical universe. Cosmologists admit that they can only know the properties of the universe down to the size of a golf ball. Knowledge of a universe smaller then that is unknowable. As Weinberg says in his book “The First Three Minutes” is that the initial conditions were destroyed in the creation of the universe. Incompleteness is therefore a fundamental property of the universe. Complete knowledge is inaccessible as practical matter. Ultimately belief or non-belief is a faith statement. You can neither prove nor disprove the existence of a Supreme Being. The only thing you can say that is true is that we are all creationists now. The universe was created by God(s), beings or forces both unknown and unknowable. Anybody who says he “knows” rather then believes more then this is either a fool or a charlatan.

Physics in a state of crisis. The profession has become enamored with string theory which is no more scientific then the bible.

Don't forget quantum mechanics. This is perfectly scientific, but it says many things which the believers in scientism would recoil at, such as that particles of matter spontaneously spring into existence from nothing. It even says that you can walk through a wall, in a process called quantum tunneling.

Capt Ed: "Physics can explain, for example, the motion of a glass of water when struck by a human hand and predict the outcome, but it can't answer for why the hand struck the glass."

Yes it can answer that question (well science can anyway)- What it cannot answer is: What exactly made the person whose hand we are talking about want to or decide to move the hand so that it strikes the water. We can answer the immediate reason (he was thirsty), but that is not the whole of the answer. The whole of the answer is to watch the chain of events that led up to that moment in time. This cannot be accomplished at this stage of humanity. But that's not to say it can never be accomplished. And I believe one day science will be able to answer that question. I also don't think science conflicts with theology, even if an individual scientist is an atheist or whatnot. You can always say god created the principles of physics etc.

I suggest the notion of PSR (principle of sufficient reason) as a starting point for an argument for God. Religious philosophy has never been able to come to a legitimate conclusion that there MUST be a God unless they use assumptions such as PSR. The catch 22 is that they cannot prove there is no God either.

I think David makes a great point too... He says these arguments are not christian specific. He's right. Even if we do want to assume there is a god (which is all we are doing at this point), we can't presume to know which religion is favored, if any. Especially when you consider that most religions do believe in 1 god, it seems to make little sense to attribute religious philosophy with 1 religion.
------
Ed/D'Souza says that something with a beginning has to have a causative event. That's not entirely true. It's true in what we see everyday, but we cannot be sure this holds true throughout the universe. In fact you argue that very point when you reference Kant. What we know is limited to...what we know...i.e our perceptions. So for you or D'Souza to try and argue that it must be a certain way (based solely on only what we know at this point) is completely contrary to the point he uses to make his point.

And lastly - Kant argued that we really can't know anything based on the fact that we are limited to our perceptions. How can you argue the existence of a caring God, partially using Kant, when he stated the exact opposite? Sure, he said it's fine to live your life thinking there is a caring god, if that makes you happy... But you can't use logic to persuade someone, because there really is no true universal logic behind it.

Why read D'Souza? Read the actual religious philosophers! You'll come to understand that you can't be convinced one way or the other. All the arguments have flaws in them! I suppose that's why religions so often tell their followers that they MUST have faith. There is no logical way to explain it.

God can never be proved as such. However if for the sake of discussion we ascribe to a god transcendence over time, making him four dimensional, we can no longer describe his qualities with our three dimensional language, thinking and comprehension. This is same dilemma faced by a two dimensional being describing us.

Yes, you are right I stole that from "Flatland" the great 1884 novel of a two dimensional being running into a three dimensional one. Akin to our running into a Jesus Christ type--we immediately describe them with our limited view of god. On occassion, to mess with us, they rise from the dead--it's that time thing again!

Having been born and raised Catholic, I reached a point in my late teens where I realized that I had fundamental questions to which those whose advice I sought within my faith could only answer: "You just have to take it on faith." That was four decades ago. It was the catalyst that sent me on a lifelong quest searching for the answers to "why".

Like Conrad, I studied numerous other belief systems. And I discovered that we are a very complex global community, filled with a multitude of cultures whose history is interwoven with a cornucopia of organized belief systems, including: Judaism, Buddhism, Hinduism, Christianity, Islamism, Gnosticism, Deism, Native American and other Aboriginal Beliefs, Scientology, Wiccanism, Satanism, Atheism, Paganism, and others.

Within Christianity alone there are numerous denominations including: Roman Catholics, Protestants, Charismatics, Methodists, Baptists, Jehovah's Witnesses, Mormons, Presbyterians, Quakers, Episcopalians, Lutherans, Eastern Orthodoxy, Evangelicals, Anabaptists, Pentecostals, Seventh-day Adventists, and others.

And within each organized religion, belief system, denomination, sect, faction, etc., many were created as a result of a claimed direct visitation or directive, "Word" of God (as "God" is perceived by that spiritual institution). In most cases, its followers are devout believers in that faith being the one true faith.

Is it any wonder at all that there is confusion about which one of the multitude of organized belief systems might actually be the "One True" faith, or, conversely, that faith, or any organized belief system, is a man-made creation to provide answers for the, as yet, unknowable and perhaps unprovable?

Like Conrad, I've read countless books in my quest for the answers to the "why" of human existence. Thanks to Captain Ed's excellent book review, it seems to me that, for me, the next logical book to read will be Dinesh D'Souza's newest book, "What's So Great About Christianity?".

Surprisingly, throughout this quest I've found the answers to many questions that I'd been initially told would have to be taken on faith. Yet as an intelligent, thinking and reasoning human being, I'll probably be questing until the day I die. Like politics and government, it's become a passion that I've come to enjoy greatly as more than just a hobby.

Speaking from a Hindu point of view, I agree with the Captain's assertion that science explains what/how things are and not the why. Science and faith can and do coexist. That is the beauty of what God has created. Science could be thought of as a system for deciphering what God has created. As to why God created the Universe and why did He devised the cyclical nature of the Universe (according to Hinduism) is a mystery.

I agree that belief in God is of course faith. By definition there is only God. There can not be gods. God was not created and therefore can not end. God just *is*.

This (my) faith does not deny other ways of worship or even non-worship (atheism). If one believes in science and not God, that is ok. The atheist scientist is still helping unravel (as much as can be possible) God's Universe.

God could have been created - Our God could just be another part of the series. We don't know.

And again, I would like to reiterate that D'Souza probably isn't the best source for this information. He's taking it from other religious philosophers, so why not actually read those philosophers?

There is no answer at present. God could or could not exist. It comes down to what makes you comfortable. Most people find some form of religion comfortable. If we lived 1000 years, I wonder how many people would be religious for their first 900, and how many would become religious in their last 100? We die, and that's the basis of religion as we know it. Obviously it isn't about what Jesus taught, or I don't think we would be in as many wars as we have been in. So I'm pretty sure religion is primarily based on death - which is a bit of a downer...

ck ~

"I would like to reiterate that D'Souza probably isn't the best source for this information. He's taking it from other religious philosophers, so why not actually read those philosophers? "

Every generation needs it's rehash and reformulation of the previous generation's "originals". Sometimes, it merely makes it more accessable to the masses, like a remake of an old movie. In this case, I agree, the originals are often, but not always better. Sometimes, something "new" emerges. I haven't read the book but put it on my Christmas wish list...I look forward to seeing if it moves the discussion forward. I'll even be happy if it serves as a Cliff's Notes to several of the old philosophers and makes me think.

I think it was Picasso, while viewed as such an original, pointed out that there is nothing original...something along the lines of "we all steal. I just steal from the best". Hopefully, D'Souza is a good thief.

Evidence....

Not *proof*, but evidence sufficient to convince a skeptic in the absence of proof. Proof eliminates doubt. (It also eliminates faith). Evidence reduces it below the "reasonable" threshold.

Proof requires no further explanation, by definition. Evidence, on the other hand, demands an explanation.

The evidence is overwhelming that within a few years of the alleged event, large numbers of people believed that Jesus of Nazareth rose from the dead. That historical event is at the heart of Christianity.

But *why* did they believe? After many years of investigation into the alternative explanations, this former atheist and skeptic became convinced that the leat unlikely explanation was that it really happened.

Of the alternatives, that explanation required the smallest leap of faith.

Today's "atheists" aren't atheists: they're antitheists. This is a philosophy just as fundamentalist as that of those they call "fundamentalists". They're just as sure -- on faith alone -- that there is no God, as sure as any evangelical is sure that there is.

My position is a humble one: that I cannot know what I am not given to know, or cannot discover on my own. Believing is a dangerous position: millions have lived their entire lives believing things that are completely wrong.

Example: millions have lived believing that the earth is flat. But looking -- and really seeing -- a large body of water reveals the truth. Just hold up a straightedged object at arm's length: line up the ends with the horizon. Then look in the middle: there's a big bulge. Simple reason does the rest. I think it was Ptolemy who used this observation to make a reasonable guess at the circumference a whole lotta years ago. Yet for centuries after that, millions still believed: flat.

I think my years at a Methodist seminary left me at graduation with a good understanding of the methods and limitations of science. And a healthy aversion to hubris.

Oh, and for those who disavow quantum mechanics, you might want to check the schematics on your own computer for any Josephson Junction devices, or Schottky amplifiers. Without quantum tunneling, they wouldn't work. Sure, there's "spooky actions at a distance" as Einstein said, but these are things we can know, and as time goes by we'll understand more and more of it.

As for the so-called "Darwinists", they need to actually read Darwin, and understand his observations, and how circumscribed his conclusions really were. Then perhaps they could limit their extensions from there, unless supported by further observation. Science is simply a process of observing and generalizing, after all.

"Example: millions have lived believing that the earth is flat. But looking -- and really seeing -- a large body of water reveals the truth. Just hold up a straightedged object at arm's length: line up the ends with the horizon."

Uh--that wouldn't work. The horizon is the top of the bulge.

The inference that helped establish the spheroid nature of the earth came more from the appearance of a ship's mast. That placed the hull of the ship beyond the horizon (the bulge you talked about).

Referring to the Big Bang for supposed justification of any religious view is a mistake, and typical of a petty vulgarization of science - and quite likely to backfire on someone trying to exploit it in D'Souza's manner.

Big Bang theory remains a theory (and there are numerous competing versions of the theory). It has NOT been proven: What has occurred is that certain experiments have verified certain predictions made according on the basis of the same ideas that produced Big Bang theory, but alternative views of the universe can also be derived from those ideas.

There are many implications of Big Bang theory that would surprise people who think, along with D'Souza, that it simply implies a single universe with a single unexplained and inexplicable beginning point. For reasons far too complex to go into here, it may in fact be impossible to sustain Big Bang theory without referring to the idea of a multiverse - meaning that "our" universe would have to be one of unimaginably many universes.

There is another attractive theory currently making a serious bid to replace Big Bang theory. Much of the universe picture, at least for this universe, remains unaltered, except that one key implication is that this universe itself need not have had any beginning at all. The events that correspond to the Big Bang would be a kind of repeatable rupture in space-time that would occur when this universe - already at least trillions of years old, possibly infinitely old - came into contact with neighboring parallel universe (as explicable in one derivation of string theory).

Over the next few years, a big face-off between Big Bang and Cyclical Universe theories may be decided. Or it may turn out that both theories are disproved. For people interested in cosmology and physics, it's one of the most exciting things about being alive today - that we have the tools to test out answers to these truly fundamental questions.

For a comprehensible-to-the-layperson exploration of the alternative Cyclical Universe theory, including an expansive view of Big Bang theory in its contemporary versions (not the vulgar one adduced by D'Souza), try ENDLESS UNIVERSE by Steinhardt & Turok.

http://www.amazon.com/Endless-Universe-Beyond-Big-Bang/dp/0385509642/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-6351350-0741201?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1192858165&sr=8-1

"What we know is limited to...what we know...i.e. our perceptions."

And we are capable of changing our perceptions. I have learned that my projections (judgements)determine my perceptions. If I change my learned judgement about a person, place or thing my perceptions change.

I think today our ability to comprehend our existance goes beyond such recent philosophers as Kant, Hume, and leibniz.

Science has opened up our minds to the possibility of a comprehension of God in our own being, because it is now bordering on metaphysics to explain the mechanics of the universe.

God to me is not a father figure like I thought in my youth. God to me is much more than that, yet with my human thinking I cannot explain it.

I have found in my search that my body has it's own reasoning in desires, my brain has it's own reasoning from what it has learned, my heart has it's own desires apart from my body and brain, so what am I observing all this from?

My inability to explain what is observing all this activity in the functions of myself is equal to my inability to explain god, except that, for myself, I know something is there.

We know very little human history. Our records only date back a few thousand years.

It appears from the monuments and manuscripts that we do have from the past, our current civilization did not spring up from the stone age.

Something happened in history to cut us off from our past - perhaps the great flood that is talked about by all cultures?

I do not read the bible literally. I am not interested anymore in what others in the past had to say about god. I am searching for my own truth about god.

In my own opinion, I think humanity is on the verge of finding the truth.

Bryan:

You haven't actually done it, I can tell. Go to a big body of water (it was the Atlantic Ocean for me), hold up a straightedge, and tell us what you see. Then tell us what conclusion you can draw from that. You don't need ships and masts and such. The simplest most direct observation is usually the best.

Don't overthink it, don't outsmart yourself. Just take what the real world gives you, and actually look at it. I got this one when I was 10.

Just take your your own measurements and crank your own numbers. You'll probably do better then Ptolomy did.

In regards to the Big Bang ...

there is most definately a why, a what for, and how started.

While i dont regard myself as an athiest, since i believe we have seen way too little of the universe to state our certainty that there is no god(s) in it,let alone outside it. That being said, i dont see how any rational person can adere to any of the existing faith on earth solely on account of the statements they make...many of them are outright laughable the biggest joke being the silly idea that god(s) sit in judgment of creation. if the universe was created by an all powerfull God then everything in the universe MUST be precisely as the allpowerfull God wants it to be and judgment occured AT THE MOMENT OF CREATION...essentially,everything God liked was created and everything God didnt like Wasn't...seems pretty self evident to me.

Well, if I understand the argument(s) that have been given, many atheists don't believe in God because God is not seen. Yet, don't both areas of belief rely on Faith?

The Christian has faith (as do many other religions) as he/she believes in something that can not be proven. The Atheist also has faith, in that he/she believes in something that can not be proven. Is Atheism a religion (just like Evolution)?

If there is no God, what have I lost in the process if I believe there is one?

If there is a God, what have the atheists lost in the process if there is one?

Who is the one that has lost the most? It sure is not me.

I really have no description of what I see in the interconnection and cross-connection of things. It is described by no religion, and, yes, I have looked at quite some few of the major ones, major branches and off-shoots. I cannot properly describe it as the process by which I look at things appears very different than that of my fellow humans here on Rock 3 from the Star Sol.

Science tries to explain what is seen. Give the universe a question and it answers truthfully, although our measurements may not measure that entire truth, we do try to limit the external variables. Science, itself, has grown very complex to look at the wide variety of things about us. That test of expirementation yields results: sometimes understandable, sometimes cloudy, sometimes incomprehensible. Often the wrong question was asked and so, as the computer sciences would put it, 'Garbage In, Garbage Out'. The need, then, is to ask better questions, not argue over poor results save to refine the questions to its simplest form. That is why particle physics looks at particles and examines where they rest in the greater knowledge of physics and mathematics.

Science is a *process* and more than ready to invalidate previous views based on evidence not explained by existing views. From geology there is a sociological view of that: we have to wait for the fossils to die off in academia before new views are given wider examination. I am amazed at how many argue about darwinian evolution, when anyone looking at evolutionary theory and how the evidence plays out will tell you he got large sections of it wrong. That does not invalidate the concept as a whole, but led to greater examination of the world because what he theorized did not fit with what was observed. The Darwinian method of inheritance was wrong and that led to testing of populations, study of plants and that would lead, haltingly, to genetics. Mind you the chemists and biochemists played a huge role, as did particle phsyicists and those building technology for all of those realms. Darwin's method of inheriting features was discarded as genetic theory fit far, far better and still *does*. Genetic research is a leading area of evolutionary research due to that, and studies of populations are giving insight to how the genome changes under stress conditions in populations.

That does not tell you *why* the conditions changed, but it examines the aftermath of those changes. You do not come up with exact answers as climate, sea level, and starting genome all play their parts and their interaction is unpredictable with exacting specificity. The changes are not exactingly predictable, due to the variables at each of those levels. The KT extinction event saw a wide and diverging population of single celled foraminifera: a plethora of shell shape, size and construction. Only one species of the uncounted large number of species made it through that event and its still existing descendants tell us one thing that may have been crucial to their survival: they could go into hibernation and sink in the water column until conditions changed to awaken them... they were polar forams.

To me it is astounding that so much pseudo-science is pressed forward when the actual tools to do science are so cheap. Humans love a mystery, but we love it even more when we can explain something and have *new* mysteries to explain. As an example things like hauntings and poltergeist are a staple of horror fiction and other fiction, with only a poorly recorded and examined case here or there. We gain assertions that a place is, indeed, haunted, and yet sub-par tools are brought to the task. By recording limited evidence and asking poor questions we do not get reasonable results. Yet, today, wireless microphones and videocams (even IR ones!) are relatively inexpensive, as is data storage and computing power. Analysis software for reconstructing sound placement and image placement in 3D is available and the cost for such a rig to cover an entire family home no more than $30,000 with that price dropping year on year. No longer are reel-to-reel tape players and unsteadily held cameras needed: put down wireless ones with GPS positions and you now have limited fuzziness in data capture. The questions to be asked are basic: how much energy budget does this phenomena expend in a given known location? To make sound you need to excite air molecules and that takes energy. To change air temperature by a number of degrees from surrounding ambient you need energy. Energy is neither created or destroyed as we are taught in the laws of thermodynamics. So what, exactly, *is* the energy budget at a haunted or poltergeisted site? We know sunlight and insolation, available other energy sources from thermal conditions and rock structure conditions. We are now in an era where we can start limiting the unknown, concentrate on fundamentals and get to the bottom of this.

Yet, in doing so, you tread into religious ground, do you not? Mind you, you are not asking questions of after-life or not, you are examining phenomena which may or may not lead you to traditional views on it. We may not be able to pin down the global 'why', but we can, most certainly, pin down the local phenomena and give it measurement and analysis. Settle for the resultant mystery and its spooky implications and you refuse to step into the unknown. Step into the unknown and you get some view of the original phenomena, removing of possibilities and examining of the phenomena with other parts of our knowledge. We don't know what the result will be once investigation starts: you start with fundamentals and work your way up to something that gives coherent results. To do that you need basic data and knowledge.

While holding no religion is it not true that we, as humans, love to explore and explain? While holding many different religions, cannot we agree that this universe is here and worth knowing in all of its mysteries and the glory of how it works, and let each other decide on the deeper implications of that? Our founders, seeing the wisdom of Westphalia, to let every man decide on religion for himself, put forward that all people in the Nation must come forward to 'form a more perfect Union'. If we cannot agree on what is common between us and understand that on final issues differing religions give different answers, then how are we to have a commonality within the Nation? I give high honor to those that have found meaning in their religious views, but mine are not yours and we must, as citizens, do our duty to reconcile ourselves that others see things differently than we do. Because if we cannot do *that* then we have betrayed the very essence of what brings us together in this Nation for the duty to make 'a more perfect Union' is not that of government to do it for us, but for We the People to use all avenues beyond and including government to do it for ourselves.

That is what is betrayed by absolutists and is the enemy of this fine Nation and its People. We are mortal and frail and cannot make things perfect.

But 'more Perfect'?

Surely that is within our grasp and leave that to be built upon by those that follow, should we be so lucky to keep the compact between all of Us.

Ludwig wrote:
"if the universe was created by an all powerfull God then everything in the universe MUST be precisely as the allpowerfull God wants it to be and judgment occured AT THE MOMENT OF CREATION"

That doesn't follow, though it does represent the teachings of some Christians, including some Calvinist groups.

Once you allow that omnipotence and omniscience require self-consistent descriptions before being employed in argument, you realize that a universe that includes free will cannot be planned in advance even if it were known (and it can only be known as fact in advance if its future reality is assured).

These are the types of spurious arguments on which atheists have long relied--people like Dawkins and Hitchen simply keep that tradition going.

Niccolo,

Your method would work--I misinterpreted what you had suggested.
It's not that important a point in the first place, though, since knowledge of shape of the earth is ancient and widespread.

True Christianity is the belief of a Triune Godhead who existed in eternity past, time and eternity future. To me this is a personal belief rooted in Bible teaching and faith and not a function of 'religion'. You can't see God - that would defeat the whole purpose of faith - to believe in something that is not seen. Anyone who observes nature and cannot see the hand of God has no faith.

You don't want to believe in God - that's up to you! Just think about this - the Bible teaches that EVERYONE will live forever in eternity. The only thing that is up for grabs is - you want to spend forever in Heaven or Hell? Your choice!

There is another attractive theory currently making a serious bid to replace Big Bang theory. Much of the universe picture, at least for this universe, remains unaltered, except that one key implication is that this universe itself need not have had any beginning at all. The events that correspond to the Big Bang would be a kind of repeatable rupture in space-time that would occur when this universe - already at least trillions of years old, possibly infinitely old - came into contact with neighboring parallel universe (as explicable in one derivation of string theory).

One of the things De Souza will assuredly have included in his book is some form of the Kalaam Cosmological Argument, which casts radically serious doubt on the possibility of an infinitely old universe.

In brief, the notion of infinite age carries with it the implication of a series of events. If one supposes an infinite series of event that stretch endlessly into the past, then an infinite series of events would have to take place before our present could exist.

To illustrate, suppose you were allowed to drink a glass of water after you performed a specific duty. All you have to do it is deal out an infinite number of playing cards. Deal them out as quickly as you like (a trillionth of a second or faster) but you'll never sip that glass of water.

"God exists." "God exists not exist." Observe that all the pro and con arguments are from HUMAN BEINGS. GOD could very easily put this debate to rest. But there is only that empty silence from Him. I rest my case: God is and He is a Silent God.

Science answers a particular class of questions, and it's important to know what it can and can not do. The great chemist-philosopher Michael Polanyi described it roughly as follows:

In the best possible case, in principle, one could measure every atomic element in the universe, its position and velocity, and solve the proper equations to know the position and velocity of those elements a year from now.

In other words, it is possible in principle to obtain a complete description of the atomic facts of the world at some time in the future.

But that description does not and cannot answer questions like "will this particular rose bush blossom next year?" "will my dog still be alive?" or "will there be religion in 50 years?" or "will I be in love 10 years from now?" or "will the United States exist 5 years from now?"

If you ask a scientist to show you the answers to these questions in the mathematical solution, he'll shrug his shoulders and tell you he has no idea. He'll know the position and velocity of every atomic element, but will completely lack the ability to answer the questions you would most hope he could answer.

Science describes physical facts according to material laws. It has no knowledge of what those facts mean, or their significance.

I've read all the comments and have one indelible conclusion. I suspect that Capt Ed, as a father and grandfather would agree with me that despite all the blathering here about science and of worlds outside of and beyond this one, D'Souza's most meaningful contribution to our society as we plough on in the 21st century is his reminder on the Greatness of Christianity as emphasizing the need of parents to rescue children from the control of the antitheists and the mechanics of the state (Part I Chapter 4); on its Greatness as the Origin of Human Dignity (Part II Chapter 7). D'Souza's notes about the proper place of women and the respect which Christianity brought to them (p. 69-70) despite the efforts of the brights of ancient as well as of modern times to treat them as no differnt than hogs in a farrowing pen, honor his efforts.

I could not, as I read, avoid comparing the candidates and their "families" (and I use the word loosely) who want to occupy Casablanca next year. Does a believing and faithful Christian throw rocks at their neighbor? That's a strange way to respect the commandment of Christianity to love one's neighbor as one's self. Such actions and others may bespeak one's reflection of their own unworthiness of respect and honor.

What of candidates who treat women as toys for self-satisfaction and treat the offspring of their play as unwelcome "things" to be thrown away? Or returned to their land of origin as "having too much lead." What of candidates who pretend that their private lives are no reflection of their inner rules of honesty, integrity, virtue and loyalty? Are we composed of two or more ids to be displayed as we perceive the needs of our audience?

D'Souza says (and I jump ahead) "Christianity enables us to become the better persons we want to be. The decent and honorable things we do are no longer a matter of thankless routine. This isn't just morality we made up for ourselves. Rather, we are pursuig our higher dignity as human beings. We are becoming what we were meant to be. Christianity not only makes us aspire to be better, but it also shows us how to be better. In marriage for example, Chistianity teaches that marriage is not merely a contract." (p. 302) That is not a mere rehash of Socrates nor of any of those brights who followed him. We need help and D'Sousa suggests where we can get it.

"In the best possible case, in principle, one could measure every atomic element in the universe, its position and velocity, and solve the proper equations to know the position and velocity of those elements a year from now.

In other words, it is possible in principle to obtain a complete description of the atomic facts of the world at some time in the future.

But that description does not and cannot answer questions like "will this particular rose bush blossom next year?" "will my dog still be alive?" or "will there be religion in 50 years?" or "will I be in love 10 years from now?" or "will the United States exist 5 years from now?"
"

Actually, all these questions could in principle be answered by the first. But in practice it can't, since it would require more computing power and more accuracy than is possible (a ridiculous amount of computing power and accuracy, in fact).

Ich Dien,

I agree. I also see a lot of people assuming arguments from D'Souza and prejudging them to be a "rehash", rather than reading the book and finding out for themselves. I warned people that I could not possibly cover the breadth and depth of D'Souza's work in this review.

Fortunately, we'll hear from the author himself on Monday. Don't miss the Heading Right Radio show at 2 pm CT, and call in with your questions and counterarguments. I'm sure Dinesh will welcome them.

I would contend that the scope of science is quite a bit broader than some circumscribed, reigned in school of philosophy.

What do we mean when we say something exists? If something did not affect the universe in any way, was not coupled with any of its state variables, we would have no reason to believe in its existence. If, on the other hand, something did effect the universe, then the information of its effect would propogate. Careful observation of the effects can be traced to the cause and the nature of the cause can be sounded out with repeated experiments. This goes for everything that exists for any meaningful definition of the word exist.

The use of science and other non-religious arguments to support Christianity sounds like an interesting read. However, it is exactly the wrong way to defend the Christian faith. It assumes the unbeliever is capable and willing to engage in objective, rational thought on the merits of the Christian faith.

Aside from the problem of misjudging the unbelieving audience, it also makes incorrect assumptions about the Christian believer: Paul gives defense of the Christian faith as a duty for all Christians, regardless of their level of education. Most Christians throughout the ages could not answer the latest scholarly sceptic's arguments drawing only from the sceptic's field of expertise.

Even Captain Ed noted that the arguments in Dinesh D'Souza's book are too complicated to summarize in a book review.

Compare that to various transcendental arguments that even children can master:

The Christian world view has explanations for how people actually live, and atheists (and other non-Christian religions) fail in this area.

Those who deny moral absolutes will cry out for justice when they are wronged. Those who say truth is relative know they cannot go to the bank and write large checks because they feel like they are worth millions, and have the bank cash the checks.

Those who assert a random universe cannot explain why they feel a need to argue logically in that kind of universe. Those who insist on evolution cannot explain how their thoughts are more than chemical reactions, and how a debate between two people just two "weeds" doing what their chemicals determine (like the odd idea of talking about the truth of their opinion).

Atheists cannot even properly ask the "Problem of Evil" because without moral absolutes, they are left with "If God is all powerful and could prevent evil (things that are unpopular and most people do not approve of, like murdering innocents) then why do these unpopular things happen?" This is a very weak statement, and hardly a logical contradiction - unless you can support moral absolutes while also denying God.

I recommend the transcendental arguments of Van Til, instead of D'Souza's approach for dealing with these questions with people you will actually meet. Otherwise, the unbeliever is treated as if the Christian faith has to satisfy all his objections before it is worth believing.

"That doesn't follow, though it does represent the teachings of some Christians, including some Calvinist groups."

Not really no. Calvinists believe that some people were created for the purposed of being damned and that nothing will ever change that. This is not at all what i m saying. I dont believe that there is an ongoing judgement of creation to begin with.

"Once you allow that omnipotence and omniscience require self-consistent descriptions before being employed in argument, you realize that a universe that includes free will cannot be planned in advance even if it were known (and it can only be known as fact in advance if its future reality is assured)."

That argument makes absolutely no sense at all. Free will is only the ability to choose between all the available options, all of which were purposefully created by God. And those choice we make are driven by whatever impulses traverses our minds at the moment of choosing,all of which were also purposefully created by God. And those choices are directed by the environement we occupy,all of which was also purposefully created by God. So therefore there can be no independance from God in what we choose to do,why we choose to do it and where teh choice occurs...just the ILLUSION of independance...because our perspective is limited to linear time...God's would not be. God would not even be part of linear time,making our past,present and futur available to his perspective as if they were all the same instant...in other words,from our perspective,God created the universe 6000 years or 14 billion years ago,depending on whom you ask whereas from the perspective of God,he would be creating all of it RIGHT NOW.

"These are the types of spurious arguments on which atheists have long relied--people like Dawkins and Hitchen simply keep that tradition going."

Not at all...athiest dont believe there is a God to begin with. on the other hand,the "free will" argument is typical christian self deception when it comes to the nature of reality because christians,like many other humans,like to believe that we are the cornerstone of creation and place themselves as the agency that all of us supposadly "need" to avoid the consequences of our so called damned status in what they call the judgement of God. the entire philosophy of independant free will arguments is 100% self serving and does not wistand an objective examination when compared to the available facts.

Well, here's another example, then: can physics and nature in itself explain the concept of trust?

A man and a woman get married. The wife goes off to work each day and leaves the husband at home at his own business. She trusts him to refrain from sexual encounters during her absence. Why? Where does the concept of trust come from? It can't be from experience alone, since the trust precedes her absences. And even if she left him alone for 10,000 days in a row, it's not a conclusive indicator that he wouldn't have a nooner on Day 10,001 with the next-door neighbor.

In truth, humans operate on faith every day, faith that has no real basis in reason and rationality. We send our children to school with faith that they will return safe. We leave our spouses to themselves with faith that they will not leave us or cheat on us. In fact, those who do not act with that kind of faith -- and who act to control their families to keep them from being injured or unfaithful -- begin acting in ways that most consider quite irrational.

Faith is a necessary component of rational behavior. It cannot be explained in physics or nature, or even reason as defined by the "Darwinists", to use Dinesh's terms. It exists separately from those scientific arenas and yet is essential to the human experience. How can this be, in terms of what Dawkins and Hitchens argue?

(This argument does not appear in the book; it's one I used to describe faith to a confirmation candidate a few years ago.)

Oh come on!

Faith is by definition irrational behaviour. To take your exemple about the wife who "lets" her husband off to work without installing a GPS in his penis to review where its been during the day when he gets back home,its not faith....its about knowing her husband...knowing the kind of man he is and that knowledge comes from experience...if she knew him to be a remorseless philanderer,there would be no doubt in her mind that his reason for being late tonight had nothing to do with "getting that important shippement out the door for tomorrows deadline". On the other hand,if all her experiences with her husbad shown him to be a loving dedicated life partner who would never do such a thing to her,then the idea that he might cheat on her today would actually be quite irrational and unreasonable.....faith as a rational response....please...

Bryan:

You quote "...possibly infinitely old - came into contact with neighboring parallel universe (as explicable in one derivation of string theory)."

As Lee Smollin points out there is no such thing as Sting Theory. There is merely a family of mathematical forumlation of string theory. In fact there may be an infinte number of string theories. String theory is not science. It is little more then mathematical masterbation that has lead physics on road that ends with no outlet.

By the way Hawkings gave a paper last year that pretty much shoots down the infinte universe theory. It was the result of an error which he has since corrected

You haven't answered the question. Faith exists, whether you think of it as irrational or not, and not just in terms of religion. Please explain why humans have trust and faith as a consequence of physics and nature. You've already asserted that it's counterproductive, so why would it not have been weeded out of the human instinct through evolution?

This gets to the heart of D'Souza's efforts to show the benefits but limits of science and reason to explain the totality of existence.

MRM, I don't disagree with a word of what you said except you ought to follow your statement to its conclusion. When you said it is possible in principle for a computer to answer the questions that science can't answer, but practically impossible, I couldn't agree more. But why is that so?

If you had all the atomic facts from the relevant equations (Laplace's vision), and someone says "is Captain Ed still writing his blog 10 years from now?" You have to admit the equations don't tell you.

What's needed to answer to the question is a method for recognizing the pattern that is Captain Ed.

But notice we've slipped out of pure mathematics into psychology, we're talking about the act of recognition. Of course there is artificial intelligence, and again the fact we're slipping into psychological language here shows we're treading on thin ice.

I'm actually in that field, and I can tell you point blank that you can make a computer appear to think, to grasp an insight, to recognize, but it's still only an appearance. IBM's big blue didn't beat Kasparov, a large team of computer programmers, working feverishly behind the curtain and learning Kasparov's strategies, beat him. Real human cognition can't be modelled by closed systems of equations. I think Godel's theorem had something relevant to say on that score.

I believe the pop-atheists take advantage the fact that many folks believe science can address ultimate issues, the questions we're really interested in, as scientific hypotheses, but fortunately many pretty smart folks know this is nonsense.

I do agree that Faith exists but not that its a rational response to anything....rational thinking relies of evidence...faith relies on ABSENSE of evidence. And what you call faith is actually a combination of transmited knowledge with experience and the realisation that its useless to worry about thing you cant control...that why people can go about their daily business without being scared of their own shadow...now as to your question concerning why faith has not been weeded out YET bu the evolutionary process...give it time...we re still a work in progress...:)

Ludwig, a scientist, qua scientist, uses unproven facts every minute of his day.

Every time you test a theory, there are literally thousands of tacit links in the deductive chain, what we call background knowledge, or auxiliary assumptions like measurement models, that you are forced to accept as given. You can't even get off the ground unless you're willing to put a stake in the ground, and say "given X is true."

Those are faith words, dude.

Randall: You posted yesterday late in the afternoon, and said, inter alia, "When the evidence for the existence of God is uncovered, I'll be only to happy to believe it."

I tried to ask what "the evidence" for the existence of God was, that you would accept. If you answered, I missed it. Can you tell us, please, what would make you happy? Thanks.

"Today's "atheists" aren't atheists: they're antitheists." --Niccolo: Oct 20, 2007 12:19 AM

Speaking only for myself, I am an atheist so long as I remain unconvinced. No amount of argument can replace indisputable evidence.

And besides, several of by best friends are theists. *wink*

"Please explain why humans have trust and faith as a consequence of physics and nature." --Captain Ed: Oct.20, 2007 11:18 AM

I trust and have faith in the largely Christian servicemen and servicewomen of the U.S. Armed Forces to protect me and my family from harm. My atheism does not prevent me from appreciating the benefits of close association with people of theistic faith whose behavior is trustworthy for being predictably benign to an atheist in their midst.

Well, this thing has gotten long and cumbersome, so I'll try to synopsize responses to arguments sent my way.

With regard to whether or not I believe in "prescriptive morality," and if so, does this not invalidate my suggestion that God's "invisibility" is a good reason to doubt His existence:

This is a bit of a tar pit, but I'll wander in. "Prescriptive Morality" is a code of behavior that serves the purpose of stabilizing and strengthening a society. It exists in the same sense that "Freedom" or "Love" or "Friendship" exist. It is an IDEA, or more properly a collection of ideas that take root in a human mind like a seed in a field, and grow.

Similarly, I think "God" can be thought of as a concept that serves a social function, but not as any more real, live an entity than the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny.

Also, the idea that the spontaneity of the origin of life is comparable to belief in God is also false.

I believe life originated spontaneously because that is what scientists believe/suspect/hypothosize - provisionally - at this time.

However, should the evidence lead away from the suspicion that life originated spontaneously, scientists will follow it.

This is what separates scientifically informed speculation from belief in God.

It's still not answering the question. If science explains everything, it has to have an explanation for faith -- which is supposedly antithetical to science, according to Dawkins, Hitchens, and others who do not allow for the existence of both God and science. Faith is an essential component of the human experience, and it is primarily non-rational. As you note, even atheists operate on the basis of faith every day.

Now, if faith exists apart from rationality, logic, and science, why can't God? And since science hasn't disproven God, isn't atheism itself a faith (as opposed to agnosticism)? Dawkins and Hitchens operate on the fundamental *belief* that God does not exist, not on any proof derived through the scientific method. They only propose than an absence of evidence equates to evidence of absence, a logical fallacy -- especially since, as Kant notes and D'Souza points out, the limit of scientific method ends at our own powers of physical observation of our physical universe.

Randall,

Perhaps you should read the book. D'Souza notes several of these scientists have publicly stated that one of their primary motivations is to disprove religion. It's an inherent bias in modern science, and one that has only been introduced in the last several decades. Scientists actively work around anything that indicates purpose in the establishment of the universe and the origin of life.

Ray in Mpls:

"Science and religion doesn't have to be an ether/or situation"

I don't know if that's a typo, but if not, congratulations. That's funny enough I will appropriate it for myself.

Randall was game:

This is a bit of a tar pit, but I'll wander in.
"Prescriptive Morality" is a code of behavior that serves the purpose of stabilizing and strengthening a society.[/quote]

It's more than that, actually. A descriptive morality can serve the purpose of stabilizing and strengthening a society.

One doesn't ask if a descriptive morality is truly right or truly wrong. That question only makes sense of a prescriptive morality. The way you address the question, Randall, implies that it doesn't matter whether or not the prescriptive morality is true (real) if it accomplishes the purpose of stabilizing and strengthening society.

It exists in the same sense that "Freedom" or "Love" or "Friendship" exist. It is an IDEA, or more properly a collection of ideas that take root in a human mind like a seed in a field, and grow.

Do freedom, love, or friendship come in descriptive vs. prescriptive forms? The analogy is stretching a bit too far for me to follow at the moment.

Similarly, I think "God" can be thought of as a concept that serves a social function, but not as any more real, live an entity than the Tooth Fairy or the Easter Bunny.

If I'm following you correctly, you just told me that morality is just a social construct. So, why would you behave morally (as if it were a duty) any more than you would believe in the Tooth Fairy?

ich dien, thank you for your comment. I will have to read the book.

In regard to free will, I question the notion that we as humans really exercise much free will. We seem to operate as a machine responding to outside influences.

In observing myself I have noticed that I have many automatic responses to outside influences. If I can catch myself to hold my automatic response then the possibility of free will exists.

And where does the word "GOD" come from? I do not think it descends from any one religion but rather originating in antquity - is a symbol of contemplation for each individual to interpret according to one's mental, moral, religious, and scientific cultivation.

The fact those individual religions assign attibutes and qualities to this word God only augments the universal nature of this word so that human understanding can have something to grasp. For myself, the concept of God is beyond my intellectual capacity to comprehend, so the notion of God is left for this observer in me to decipher.

A great historian of the past wrote, "We are a mystery encompassed in mysteries." If we take the time to reflect on the common workings of nature and human nature we see the mystery of generation, maturity, death, and regeneration of life around us. We know of the centripetal & centrifugal forces that keep our solar system intact and make use of electricity and magnetism to power the machines that support our civilized life. We know the effects of all these forces but their causes are beyond our comprehension. We are left to acknowledge something greater than ourselves responsible for the order of our universe.

Qualities emanating out of human consciousness such as trust, faith, hope, love, justice, mercy, and toleration that build character in a person and a nation and dissolve the destructive impulses in human nature, such as, vain ambition, greed, envy, hatred, and lust are qualities that are inspired by something greater than ourselves. This something I call God weather I claim to be religious or not.

In my understanding, religion has no monopoly on God but it can be said that a particular religion contains its perceived truth of God.

Separation of church and state as it is applied to our Constitutional government protects the people from having to accept one form only in the worship of god. It does not imply that there is no God nor that we formulate our laws without the qualities mentioned. There is no meaning in our laws or our "rights" if we do not acknowledge a higher principal than ourselves in justice and order in this mysterious universe.

"If I'm following you correctly, you just told me that morality is just a social construct. So, why would you behave morally (as if it were a duty) any more than you would believe in the Tooth Fairy?"

The law is also just a social construct. Democratic government is a social construct. Banks are social constructs, as are investments, agreements, and contracts. It doesn't mean that just any social behavior will result in the same advantages as moral behavior will. But morality is also something that doesn't exist indepenent of the men who practice that code of morality.

I'm pretty sure that is what he's saying. Saying something is an invention of man doesn't mean that it doesn't matter.

As Lee Smollin points out there is no such thing as St[r]ing Theory. There is merely a family of mathematical forumlation of string theory. In fact there may be an infinte number of string theories. String theory is not science. It is little more then mathematical masterbation that has lead physics on road that ends with no outlet. By the way Hawkings gave a paper last year that pretty much shoots down the infinte universe theory. It was the result of an error which he has since corrected.

No, you are mis-characterizing Hawkings' paper and its admission of error - which had nothing directly to do with Cyclic Universe theory, and more to do with Hawking' particular contributions to one area of questions within Big Bang theory. Smolin's problems with string theory and its proponents are also only indirectly relevant, if at all, to the cosmological question as currently being argued and, more important, actually being tested experimentally.

I don't pretend for a moment to be able to argue with Smolin or anyone else about cosmic strings and n-dimensional universes. All the same, referring to the whole of string theory as "mathematical [sic] masterbation" reflects the same misunderstanding of how physics and this particular area of physics develop as D'Souza's misuse and dumbing-down of the Big Bang.

Again, I refer you to the book I linked in my original post - prior to the one that you lifted - for a cogent exploration and explanation of Big Bang and competing models of the universe. Strings and Hawkings each make contributions, but none of the models rests entirely on some notional entirety of String Theory or entirety of Hawkings' works and speculations.

And about morality in general:

Do we, as Americans, allow each other rights and behave morally only because we desire heaven and fear hell as unrelated carrots and sticks in the afterlife?

Or do we behave accordingly because we desire a free and just society and would want to be treated the same way by our fellow citizens? To secure the blessings of liberty, and all that jazz.

The probelm with carrots and sticks is that they can be used to justify any arbitrary code of morality, even backwards and twisted ones, and have been used to do so historically.

MRM chimed in:
The law is also just a social construct.

Correct, and if that's what it is then were the Nuremberg Trials legitimate? Germans followed their laws but were tried according to the laws of foreigners. Is that OK?

But morality is also something that doesn't exist indepen(d)ent of the men who practice that code of morality.

So what would make one morality made by men better or worse than another morality made by men? Numbers? Power? Flowery language?

I'm pretty sure that is what he's saying. Saying something is an invention of man doesn't mean that it doesn't matter.

Well, not so fast. Why should morality X made by men matter to me when I've got morality Y made by Yours Truly? Maybe I like morality Y better (or maybe I composed it using flowery language!).

"Ludwig, a scientist, qua scientist, uses unproven facts every minute of his day."

science is not in the business of "proving" anything but rather of explaining how the world works. there is no such thing as a proven fact.

"Every time you test a theory, there are literally thousands of tacit links in the deductive chain, what we call background knowledge, or auxiliary assumptions like measurement models, that you are forced to accept as given. You can't even get off the ground unless you're willing to put a stake in the ground, and say "given X is true.""

thats right but when a scientist says "assuming X is true then..." x in this case is a fact that has yelded enough predictability in the past that it can be relied upon as being true until shown otherwise. thats not faith...thats either knowledge or experience. Scientist dont go around forming theories based on facts they really know nothing about or cant predict with any reasonable reliability...at least not the competent ones.

"Those are faith words, dude."

incorrect,dude...thats experience talking.

Do we, as Americans, allow each other rights and behave morally only because we desire heaven and fear hell as unrelated carrots and sticks in the afterlife?

Or, alternatively, according to the carrots and sticks of this life?

Or do we behave accordingly because we desire a free and just society and would want to be treated the same way by our fellow citizens?

What is a "just" society if morality is an invention of men? Anything we say it is?

To secure the blessings of liberty, and all that jazz.

"We hold these truths to be self-evident ..."

The probelm with carrots and sticks is that they can be used to justify any arbitrary code of morality, even backwards and twisted ones, and have been used to do so historically.

That's not just a problem with theistic systems (recall the existence of the U.S.S.R., or contemporary China).

"Why should morality X made by men matter to me when I've got morality Y made by Yours Truly?"

What happens if morality Y results in a backwards, corrupt, obscurantist life-denying hellhole and morality X results in a free society with human dignity. Would it matter where either came from?

If you believe God told you to kill all unbelievers, or that the world's people are your slaves and concubines?

And before you claim that Christian morality is some glorious exception, the high-tide of Christianity's power over society can be placed in the high middle ages (or the dark ages, if you're less charitable), and it was no golden age. All throughout, people were butchering each other over trifling theological disagreements, and fraud and charlatainism were rampant.

A great chain of being with kings and priests at the top and productive men scraping by at the bottom was their theory of government. Merchants were reviled, banking was sinful "ursury", and inventors and scientists were dangerous men (dangerous to the priests' prentensions to knowledge, that is) who were killed and jailed.

What happens if morality Y results in a backwards, corrupt, obscurantist life-denying hellhole and morality X results in a free society with human dignity. Would it matter where either came from?

Are you trying to judge two moral systems that are human constructs based on a higher standard or what?

If we suppose that morality is constructed by humanity and that's it, then your appeal is ridiculous.

If you believe God told you to kill all unbelievers, or that the world's people are your slaves and concubines?

That rather depends on whether or not my perception was accurate, among other things. But here's the thing: Randall said that morality is a human construct. So as a human I could come up with a morality that makes it OK for me to kill all unbelievers (with me deciding what is and what isn't an unbeliever) and make all the world's people my slaves and concubines. And if morality is a construct of man, then what would be wrong with my morality?

And before you claim that Christian morality is some glorious exception, the high-tide of Christianity's power over society can be placed in the high middle ages (or the dark ages, if you're less charitable), and it was no golden age. All throughout, people were butchering each other over trifling theological disagreements, and fraud and charlatainism were rampant.

I figured I'd just stick with the original point, thanks, which is the difficulty atheist world views have in coming up with a coherent system of morality, let alone following it any better than Christians do.

A great chain of being with kings and priests at the top and productive men scraping by at the bottom was their theory of government. Merchants were reviled, banking was sinful "ursury", and inventors and scientists were dangerous men (dangerous to the priests' prentensions to knowledge, that is) who were killed and jailed.

Quite true. On the other hand, it was the (Christian) Reformation teaching that recognized the basic dignity of the common laborer. And again we can turn to China to see how an atheistic worldview treats the situation.

You can only get so far by pointing out the warts on your opponent's system when yours is the one at issue.

"It's still not answering the question. If science explains everything, it has to have an explanation for faith -- which is supposedly antithetical to science, according to Dawkins, Hitchens, and others who do not allow for the existence of both God and science. Faith is an essential component of the human experience, and it is primarily non-rational. As you note, even atheists operate on the basis of faith every day."

If you want a scientific hypothesis to explain faith here goes...its part of what keeps us sane. Human beings are the only species of animals on earth that are able to observe and appreciate how their existance on earth is really a precarious one(that we know of)...just about any number of things could wipe the lot of us out,not the least of which is our own stupidity...faith is the means by which we manage to go on with our lives and essentially make ourselves oblivious the the myriads of dangers surrounding us that we can do nothing about...its not rational so much as instinctive. That being said,there is an enormous difference between that kind of bread "i hope i ll be allright" faith and its corrupted version known as religious faith. The dangers present in this world can be observed and analysed by the mind even as we push them to the back of our mind and pretend they re not really there...but there is no human mind that observes the danger of hell's existance and weather or not some people will go there is they do this or dont do that...having faith that i wont go to hell if i "accept Jesus as my personal saviour" is like having faith i wont turn into goo the next time i go out if i keep a pair of unwashed socks under my bed at home...its an irrational fear of something that most likely doesnt even exist to begin with. A fear that was implanted in the collective superstitious and uninformed psyche long ago by unscrupulous individuals for the purpose of exploiting that fear in order to exact favors or servility. That fear has been passed down from generation to generation until it became so ingrained in society that most people now assume its a real thing,no matter how irrational,illogical or insane that ridiculous belief is. that kind of Faith is something humanity can do very well without.

"That rather depends on whether or not my perception was accurate, among other things. "

Right. The problem is religion provides nothing but raw assertion, and insulates itself from all means of testing accuracy. So naturally the only real conversation that's ever gone on between two religions has been swords, guns, and numbers of followers. There's no reality common between them to discuss.

"And if morality is a construct of man, then what would be wrong with my morality?"

Just about the only people it would benifit would be you and your followers. Everyone on the "slaves and concubines" end of the deal who could would take up arms.

If there existed a morality which benifited no one, on what grounds could it be said to be good? If there existed a morality which benifited everyone to the greatest extent possible, on what grounds could it be said to be evil?

"Quite true. On the other hand, it was the (Christian) Reformation teaching that recognized the basic dignity of the common laborer. And again we can turn to China to see how an atheistic worldview treats the situation."

actually it was christian INDIVIDUALS who decided to interpret the teachings differently that they had been in the past...this sort of re-interpretation goes on all the time in religious thinking which essentially makes religion a scapegoat of whatever you think is "right" or "wrong" at any given moment in time...so as an objective guide of morality,its utterly useless. and by the way most chinese are some form of buddhists.

"Are you trying to judge two moral systems that are human constructs based on a higher standard or what?"

I'd say the best standard to judge anything by is what these two moral systems result in. Do they produce anything desirable or valuable, or do they produce misery and oppression? What they do is more important, IMO, than where they supposedly came from.

"If science explains everything,..." --Captain Ed: October 20, 2007 12:18 PM

Science is a process of sorting the explainable from the unexplainable. Science has had insufficent time to explain all things explainable. It seems unlikely that Science will have sufficient time to explain all things currently unexplainable--particularly things irreducibly unexplainable (aka tangibly intangible).

"Now, if faith exists apart from rationality, logic, and science, why can't God?"

Faith arises from the function of the mind/brain--as do rationality, logic and the philosophy of Science behind Science Process. If faith, why not God?

"And since science hasn't disproven God,..."

I am skeptical of the existence of Nothing even though Science hasn't disproven it, too.

"...isn't atheism itself a faith (as opposed to agnosticism)?"

Belief in the willing suspension of belief? Hmm.

"...as Kant notes and D'Souza points out, the limit of scientific method ends at our own powers of physical observation of our physical universe."

Yes. Science is limted to the credible and has little it can say about the incredible. *wink*

MRM keeps going:
The problem is religion provides nothing but raw assertion, and insulates itself from all means of testing accuracy. So naturally the only real conversation that's ever gone on between two religions has been swords, guns, and numbers of followers. There's no reality common between them to discuss.

So religion offers nothing but raw assertion. What do you offer, in contrast?

Just about the only people it would ben(e)fit would be you and your followers. Everyone on the "slaves and concubines" end of the deal who could would take up arms.

So what? You're not answering my question. What's wrong with the morality I constructed? Does their rebellion make me wrong even if I put a rider on my morality declaring their rebellion wrong?

If there existed a morality which ben(e)fited no one, on what grounds could it be said to be good?

Why isn't my judgment of benefit good enough for everyone? Their proper place might be to be slaves and concubines (certainly my human-based morality seems to indicate as much).

If there existed a morality which ben(e)fited everyone to the greatest extent possible, on what grounds could it be said to be evil?

On what grounds do we judge the greatest benefit, and if it ends up being an entirely human construct then what makes that judgment of benefit better than the one I wish to impose via my human-based morality?

MRM again:
I'd say the best standard to judge anything by is what these two moral systems result in.

I'd say that the best standard is the one I established that makes everyone my slaves and/or concubines.

If our moral systems are human-based then what makes yours better than mine? Or have you subtly decided that it isn't human-based after all?

Do they produce anything desirable or valuable, or do they produce misery and oppression?

Who are you to say that misery and oppression are not desirable or valuable if I both desire and value them?

What they do is more important, IMO, than where they supposedly came from.

Sounds like you're prepared to invoke something beyond human preferences. I'd like to hear more.

I didn't say benifit and harm (good and evil on a personal level) were figments of our imaginations. Those are very tangible real things in many cases.

Systems of morality are inventions of man, how we deal with one another to secure benifits and ward off harm.

"Who are you to say that misery and oppression are not desirable or valuable if I both desire and value them?"

I am me and I would say I don't find it desirable or valuable at all. On my utility function, slavery would rate just a bit below death, and it would prompt me and all my like-minded friends to band together and get rid of delusional jerks who thought that way.

More from MRM:
Systems of morality are inventions of man, how we deal with one another to secure benifits and ward off harm.

Apparently it hasn't quite dawned on you yet that "benefit" and "harm" are terms loaded with morality.

What you haven't done, MRM, is explain how to judge between competing human moral systems without appealing to yet another apparently arbitrary human judgment.
That's a big problem for a moral system.

But he wasn't done:
"Who are you to say that misery and oppression are not desirable or valuable if I both desire and value them?"

I am me and I would say I don't find it desirable or valuable at all.

So, are both of our moral systems correct even though they conflict (contradict)? Or is one right based on something more than your say-so?

On my utility function, slavery would rate just a bit below death, and it would prompt me and all my like-minded friends to band together and get rid of delusional jerks who thought that way.

So apparently tolerance is a bit down on your scale. ;)
But seriously, do you not see that you're not addressing the issue? You're begging the question with your answers.