Posts Tagged ‘atheism’

Science cannot reach the places where gods are conceived

November 19, 2024

This post is as an addendum to an earlier post:

Atheism (old or new) lacks “oomph”

The domain of science

There are many questions that science cannot even address, let alone, answer. The process we call “science” starts with many fundamental assumptions (existence and causality for example). Clearly the needs of what we take to be logic require that any field of thought (science in this case) can not penetrate or address its own founding assumptions. It would seem that space, time, matter, energy, life and consciousness are also such assumptions. The scientific method, while incredibly powerful, is inherently limited by its foundational assumptions. Questions like the existence of reality itself, the nature of consciousness, or the ultimate origin of the universe are beyond the scope of scientific inquiry. There are other areas that science cannot directly address:

  • The laws of logic: While science relies on logic to draw conclusions, it cannot prove the validity of logic itself.
  • The uniformity of nature: The assumption that natural laws are consistent across space and time is fundamental to scientific investigation, but it cannot be proven.
  • The objectivity of observation: Science assumes that observations can be made objectively, but human perception and interpretation can introduce biases. All human observations are ultimately subjective.
  • The existence of an external world: While we experience the world as real, the nature of reality itself is a philosophical question that science cannot definitively answer.

Mysteries and unanswerable questions lead to the invention of gods and supernatural beings by humans.  Initially they are just labels for the answers to the unanswerable questions. (Of course they are later imbued with human characteristics, supernatural powers, families and expanded regions of influence).  The process we call science, though, does not (can not) address the unanswerable questions. Setting science and the gods in opposition is incorrect in logic and in reason. Claiming that “science denies gods” or that “gods are unscientific” are statements that are invalid. Science seeks to explain the natural world through empirical evidence and falsifiable hypotheses. Science simply operates within its own framework, and it doesn’t have the tools to prove or disprove the existence of supernatural beings. Religion addresses questions of meaning, purpose, and the supernatural, which often lie beyond the domain of scientific inquiry.  

Gods can only be imagined, conceived of and invented in those domains where science cannot reach.

The invention of gods

It is my contention that while philosophers (thinkers) may have formulated the mysteries which then could only be “solved” by the invention of a god, that it was politically motivated groups (possibly the earliest priests) who used such gods to create religions as a social control tool. So it seems probable that the invention of gods preceded the invention of religions (though gods are not always needed by religions). The invention of gods likely stemmed from a combination of factors:

  1. Humans abhor the unknown: Humans, ever since they became human, have sought explanations for all they couldn’t understand. Gods were labels for the answers to the unanswerable. They provided answers to the impossible questions like “Why does the sun rise?”, “Why does it rain?” or “Where do we go after death?”
  2. Social Control: Gods and their supernatural powers were used to justify and establish social norms and laws. Disobeying divine rules could lead to just punishment, both in this life and the afterlife.
  3. Creating a social “we”: Shared beliefs in gods fostered a sense of unity and belonging within communities. Rituals and ceremonies centered around gods strengthened social bonds.
  4. As a means of explaining and withstanding loss and suffering: Gods or purported sins against the gods could justify and explain misfortune and suffering as divine tests or punishments.  They provided a sense of purpose and meaning.
  5. As a crutch giving hope and comfort: Gods were used as a vehicle of hope for a better future, both in this life and the afterlife. They provided comfort and solace in times of hardship.

In essence, gods served as a powerful tool for explaining the unexplainable, maintaining social order, creating communities and providing psychological comfort.

It is not implausible that it was early thinkers, or shamans, who pondered existential questions and proposed supernatural explanations. However, it is likely that creating religious institutions, was a political exercise with political objectives. The leaders probably acquired status as priests, and they structured beliefs and narratives into formal or organized religions and used them primarily for social control.

While some might argue that the spiritual benefits of religion are merely a byproduct or a marketing strategy, there is no doubt that many religions offer genuine solace, meaning, and purpose. Religion may have originated as a tool for social control, but it has evolved into something much more complex over time. The origin and evolution of gods and religions requires much more space than I have here. But the key point for this post is that gods were invented because explanations for the great mysteries were sought and could not be found.

Different domains

Ultimately science and gods operate in separate domains. Science operates in the constrained world of what can be observed empirically and where foundational assumptions apply. The invention of gods is always in response to some question or mystery that science cannot address.  Of course, imbuing gods – who are merely labels for the unanswerable – with human or superhuman characteristics is nothing but literary (fictional) license. The problem often arises in that such fictions are taken literally. Others interpret scientific findings as weapons to challenge or deny certain religious beliefs. But strictly they live on different planes in different worlds. The bottom line is that science cannot tread in the places where its unanswerable questions led to the invention of the gods. And the gods cannot exist in the domains where science is constrained to hold sway.

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Atheism (old or new) lacks “oomph”

November 4, 2024

Philosophy has two meanings. The word describes either

  1. a way of behaving and living, or
  2. it is the study of the unanswerable questions around us.

The second is the one that interests me the most. But atheism is neither the one nor the other. It has no “ism”. It does not classify as a philosophy. Somebody who tells you he is an atheist is not telling you who he is or what he stands for. He is only telling you who he hates.

Gods, deities, religions (gdr) and the Great Mysteries

I know that gods were invented by man but I find atheism lacking in substance and very unsatisfactory. It is a-theism but effectively has no ism of its own. Atheism, at its core, is no more than a reaction to theism. It defines itself in opposition to the belief in gods or a higher power. Without the concept of a god or gods, atheism could not exist. Gods and deities and religions (gdr) were invented by man when they found mysteries which could not be explained. Gods and deities were labels for the unknown answers to unanswerable questions. Religions came about because it was realised that the labels could be hijacked to coerce people to follow a desired way of life. The second part – the religion part – was nearly always created by the unscrupulous and always as a way of coercing the behaviour of the gullible. Religions always have a political goal and a political objective – the coercion of a particular kind of behaviour. Nevertheless, it seems entirely logical that the gods of the winds and the seas and the mountains and the sun and the moon would be invented when the natural world defied explanation and generated awe and wonder among humans. Gods of creation and destruction and even their anti-gods were inevitable given that humans kept asking but found that there were no answers. (Deities and pantheons of gods probably came about to make for more interesting story-telling and also probably to avoid divine labour disputes and to acknowledge the different skills they possessed)! Man invented gods and then fantasized about men being in the image of the invented gods. Gods and deities were arbitrarily invested with human or supernatural characteristics. Elaborate stories were concocted and theologies built around the concoctions but the Great Questions remained unanswered.

In any event, the Great Mysteries which have been Great Mysteries since the dawn of man and which remain Great Mysteries today are (such as but not restricted to) existence, time, causality, space, matter, energy, life and consciousness. Neither science nor philosophy nor religion or metaphysics or theology are any closer now to providing explanations for these today than homo erectus had available a million years ago. No atheist is closer to answers to the Great Mysteries today than any beatified saint of the Middle Ages. Modern physics and cosmology have no possibility of addressing their own fundamental assumptions. Modern science can not contemplate its own navel. Existence and time and causality and matter and space are merely assumed. They can neither be addressed or penetrated. The spark of life and what makes for consciousness are as mysterious today as in Buddha’s time. The Big Bang is just another creation myth which requires something to come from nothing. Sounds Divine! Quantum mechanics depends upon the God of Random (since random means without cause) and the claim that any form of existence is probabilistic is merely proof of ignorance. (Statistics and probability only come into play in the field of ignorance. If you know something, probability of outcome is meaningless). Physics does not know what the stuff of the fundamental particles is/are. Quantum mechanics does not know what makes waves particles or particles to be waves. (and waves of what, one may ask).

What atheism is

The “new atheism” is really just a virulently aggressive form of old atheism and just as unsatisfactory.

New Atheism is a movement characterized by a group of prominent atheists who argue that religion is not only false but harmful to society. This movement emerged in the early 21st century, primarily popularized by authors like Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, Christopher Hitchens, and Daniel Dennett.

Key characteristics of New Atheism include:

  • Assertion of atheism: New Atheists openly and assertively declare their atheism, often contrasting it with the more passive or private atheism of the past.
  • Criticism of religion: They argue that religion is not only false but also harmful, leading to irrationality, violence, and oppression.
  • Emphasis on reason and science: New Atheists advocate for a reliance on reason and scientific evidence as the primary means of understanding the world, rejecting religious claims based on faith or revelation.
  • Promotion of secularism: They support the separation of church and state and advocate for a secular society where religious beliefs do not influence public policy or institutions.
  • Public engagement: New Atheists have been highly vocal in their public criticisms of religion, often engaging in debates, writing books, and giving lectures.

While New Atheism has been influential and sparked significant debate, it has also faced criticism for its aggressive tone, ….

Atheism has no “oomph”

A denial of gods, deities and religion (gdr) is existential for atheism. If others did not believe in gdr, no atheism could exist. But neither the old nor the new atheism has any “philosophy”, any “ism”, of any significance that it can call its own. It has no philosophical “oomph”.

Attacking gods and their imagined human attributes is not difficult. When an atheist does so it requires no great intellectual exertion. Taking god-labels literally and attacking them is no great feat. But explaining the reasons why gods were invented in the first place is beyond any atheist. What I find particularly irritating with atheists being smug is that when they attack gdr they are effectively saying “I don’t know what existence is either but I know it isn’t gdr”. It is the worst kind of logical self-contradiction there can be. “I don’t know, but I know it isn’t what you say”. They claim to use reason but fall at the first hurdle. Atheists claim a higher level of ignorance. It reminds me of children arguing. “I don’t know but you don’t either. Yah, boo sucks to you”.

I have observed that the high priests of the atheists sometimes claim – almost as a desperate justification that atheism is more than just a criticism of gdr – that it also has its own distinct philosophical base. They invoke the principles of Empiricism, Naturalism, Skepticism, Humanism, and Secularism as being somehow a part of atheism. But atheists did not invent any of these and none of them need atheism for their existence. Furthermore they forget that the regime of logic and reason they espouse is itself a belief like any other, and is a belief which cannot be proved. Naturalism – and obviously also atheism – are silent on the great mysteries of existence, time, causality, life, space, matter, energy and consciousness. Atheists say they are skeptical of claims that are not supported by evidence or logical reasoning, and are particularly critical of religious claims that are based on faith or revelation. And yet all of science and knowledge are based on impenetrable fundamental assumptions. The Big Bang is just another Creation story and we still have no clue as to how gravity is mediated. The curvature of space-time is a mathematical construct and now String Theory has been discredited and Dark Matter probably does not exist. Atheists often claim to be humanists setting great store on the value of human life and on the importance of reason, compassion, and cooperation. These are just assertions, with no connection as to how things actually are. An atheist’s humanism is simply wishful thinking and lacks any logic as to how the lofty principles of humanism can be compelled to prevail. It is little more than sentimental claptrap. Instead of being the champions of a secular society, they have merely created a new intolerant religion.

The “philosophical elements” supposedly underpinning atheism only succeed in showing up atheism as being a religion on its own. Orthodoxy is defended by the new self-appointed high priests. Heretics are subject to inquisition and torture by YouTube or social media. The worst of the blasphemers are sacrificed by cancellation. Unthinking acolytes serve as the foot soldiers, torturers and executioners representing the high priests of the new religion. Admit it or not there is a virtual High Church of the New Atheism. Their ideas and beliefs are effectively “orthodoxies” assumed or asserted to be true or correct. Certain individuals, such as Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris, and Christopher Hitchens, are treated as “high priests” in the sense that their ideas and arguments are blindly accepted without criticism. There is a high level of intolerance and criticism directed towards those who disagree with the views of new atheists. There are undoubtedly modern “inquisitions” with the public shaming or cancellation or condemnation of those considered heretics. The foot soldiers who deify the high priests then become overly zealous and dogmatic as they blindly imitate and reproduce the ridicule of heretics without any exercise of mind. Just as all unthinking acolytes.

I don’t have much time for gdr. They do not offer me the answers I am looking for. But atheism – new or old – has no substance of any kind to offer either. It only offers petty arguments for attacking gdr. It makes no attempt to address the Great Mysteries of existence, time, causality, matter and energy, life and consciousness. Atheism, in fact, is cowardly in that it attacks labels instead of trying to address the mysteries which led to the invention of the labels.

Somebody who tells you he is an atheist is not telling you who he is or what he stands for. He is only telling you who he hates.

Atheism – old or new – has no good purpose at all. It has no “ism” and it certainly has no “oomph”!

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“Random” is indistinguishable from Divine

November 2, 2020

“Why is there something rather than nothing?” is considered by some to be the most fundamental question in metaphysics, and by others to be an invalid question. The Big Bang, quantum mechanics, time, consciousness, and God are all attempts to answer this question. They all invoke randomness or chance or probabilistic universes to escape the First Cause Problem. Physics and mathematics cannot address the question. An implied God of Randomness is the cop-out for all atheists.

Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy

The Commonplace Thesis, and the close connection between randomness and chance it proposes, appears also to be endorsed in the scientific literature, as in this example from a popular textbook on evolution (which also throws in the notion of unpredictability for good measure):

scientists use chance, or randomness, to mean that when physical causes can result in any of several outcomes, we cannot predict what the outcome will be in any particular case. (Futuyma 2005: 225)

Some philosophers are, no doubt, equally subject to this unthinking elision, but others connect chance and randomness deliberately. Suppes approvingly introduces

the view that the universe is essentially probabilistic in character, or, to put it in more colloquial language, that the world is full of random happenings. (Suppes 1984: 27)

The scientific method is forced to introduce random into stories about the origin of time and causality and the universe and life and everything. Often the invocation of random is used to avoid any questions of Divine Origins. But random and chance and probability are all just commentaries about a state of knowledge. They are silent about causality or about Divinity. Random ought to be causeless. But that is pretense for such a random is outside our experience. The flip of a coin produces only one outcome. Multiple outcomes are not possible. The probability of one of several possible outcomes is only a measure of lack of knowledge. Particles with a probability of being in one place or another are also an expression of ignorance. However when it is claimed that a particle may be in two places simultaneously we encounter a challenge to our notion of identity for particle and for place. Is that just ignorance about location in time or do we have two particles or two places? Random collisions at the start of time are merely labels for ignorance. Invoking singularities which appear randomly and cause Big Bangs is also just an expression of ignorance.

Whenever science or the scientific method requires, or invokes, randomness or probability, it is about what we do not know. It says nothing about why existence must be. The fundamental question remains unaddressed “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

And every determinist or atheist, whether admitted to or not, believes in the God of Randomness. Everything Random is Unknown (which includes the Divine).

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Whether “denial of belief” or “lack of belief”, atheism is a non-ism

September 15, 2018

The conventional use of “atheism” is to describe a denial or a rejection of any belief in religions and gods and deities. To try and avoid the negative connotation of merely rejecting and denying the beliefs of others, some have redefined “atheism” to be the “lack of belief” in religions and gods and deities. As the American Atheists state

Atheism is not an affirmative belief that there is no god nor does it answer any other question about what a person believes. It is simply a rejection of the assertion that there are gods. Atheism is too often defined incorrectly as a belief system. To be clear: Atheism is not a disbelief in gods or a denial of gods; it is a lack of belief in gods.

This replacement of “denial of belief” by “lack of belief” is  merely a cosmetic change. A lack of belief cannot define what there is a lack of belief about. To have a lack of belief in something specific requires that “something” to be defined. That “something” is always gods as variously defined by the beliefs of others. To have a lack of belief in the beliefs of others is no different then to a rejection or denial of those beliefs.

Atheism is entirely reactive. It is concerned with rejecting, denying and ridiculing the belief systems of others. It offers nothing itself in answer to the fundamental questions which led to the rise of religion and their gods in the first place. It is not difficult to attack and ridicule beliefs which – by definition – cannot be proved.  Many prominent atheists in recent times have been philosophers who have criticised religions (and their gods). These include such luminaries as Bertrand Russell and more recently, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and Richard Dawkins. They follow a line of thinkers who go all the way back to when religions were invented. For example, atheist schools existed to counter the Vedic religions as far back as  2,500 – 3,000 years ago. But what is striking is that “atheists” could not exist until religions existed and they had something to attack. (And note that even chimpanzees “believe” in a Sun-god). To criticise religions and their gods is not wrong and I have no time for organised religions and their gods. But that criticism is of no substance unless followed up by addressing the questions which led to the very adoption of the beliefs being torn down.

Atheism is not in itself an “ism”. It is not a belief system or a philosophy or even a practice in itself. It has nothing to defend. It avoids attack because it has no beliefs to offer as answers to the fundamental questions of the beginning of time, the universe and everything. As an “ism” it is empty of substance. (I ignore the “agnostic” which is little more than a politically correct way of avoiding being labelled an “atheist”).

Richard Dawkins prefers distinguishing theist, agnostic and atheist positions along a spectrum of theistic probability—the likelihood that each assigns to the proposition “God exists”

It is only when you get to “determinism” – which incidentally includes a rejection of religions and gods – before the “ism” begins to gain some substance. “Determinism is the philosophical theory that all events, including moral choices, are completely determined by previously existing causes”. (But determinism and the limits of science is another story to be discussed elsewhere). To be an atheist provides no substance. You must be something else first.

The proposition that “God Exists” is logically meaningless until “God” is defined. This is the wrong proposition to be addressing. Most religions do not logically come to the conclusion that “God Exists”. They start with that as an assumption which – as with all such assumptions – is taken as self-evident but which cannot be proved. To ridicule this assumption is not difficult. Religions avoid the more fundamental questions by invoking their gods. But this is a method used also by physics and cosmology. The universe is assumed to be homogeneous. The four laws of nature operating in this homogeneous universe are invoked by physicists to avoid the question of why the laws exist in the first place. The Big Bang and Dark Matter and Dark Energy are invoked by cosmologists to avoid the question of why time exists and what time is and what the universe is.

The proposition which must be addressed first is “the unknowable exists”.

 

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Atheism cannot cope with the unknowable

July 8, 2018

I take atheism to be a “lack of belief in gods”.

A lack of belief does not lie in the realm of knowledge. Neither does it lie in the realm of the unknown. A lack of belief is silent about the state of knowledge about the subject in question. A lack of belief does not imply a state of knowledge. A lack of a belief is not in itself a logical negation of that belief. Many extend this and take atheism to be a denial of the existence of gods as professed as a belief by others. I suspect that most of my acquaintances who claim to be atheists use the latter definition when they present arguments to support their denial of the existence of gods to try and negate the beliefs of others. But a denial of some belief is then an attempt to shift something unknown into the realm of knowledge. It shifts the conversation from ” I don’t myself believe in X” to “I know that your belief in X is false”.

This shift from the realm of belief to the realm of knowledge, I think, is incorrect, illogical and invalid. We are inevitably drawn into epistemology. The known, the unknown and the unknowable. The known and the unknown are realms that are self-apparent. Science is the process at the interface of these regions which leads to the growth of the region of the known. All beliefs by definition lie in the region of the unknown. Any statement and its negation ( X and not-X) must both either lie in the region of knowledge, or both in the region of the unknown. It is not possible for one to live in the realm of knowledge and its negation to live in the region of the unknown. A belief in gods lies in the unknown. A lack of belief in gods (which is atheism) is not in itself a commentary on that belief. A denial of the belief in gods cannot then be anything other than belief and cannot shift into the realm of knowledge. A denial of a belief – which by definition lies in the unknown – is to claim knowledge of an unknown thing which is self-contradictory.

Known, Unknown and Unknowable

Is some part (and maybe the major part) of the unknown then unknowable? Some scientists – and some atheists – would claim that the unknowable does not exist; that everything – eventually – can be explained. But I think they delude themselves. This trifurcation into the known, the unknown and the unknowable does not address who the observer is or the time element. “To know” requires cognition. Cognition requires a brain. Known to whom? when? for how long? What is “known” depends upon the brains alive to know. Facts which were once part of knowledge may become unknown, though they may well remain facts. I observe that most of past events are now unknowable, though they were once known. What was once known, may have first passed into the region of the unknown (but was still knowable) and then with the further passage of time may have passed into the region of the unknowable. Most of the past events in my own life are already in the region of the unknowable. The most basic questions of science that we can formulate always lead us first into the unknown and then into the unknowable.  When the unknowable is reached we use labels. Gods, The Big Bang, Dark Energy, Dark Matter, …….. . But they are all just labels for Magic.

But more fundamentally, the Great Unknowable – throughout all of space and all of time – is time and its nature. What came before time, when “before” was undefined, is unknowable. At the most basic level, our causal universe and all its laws and all our logic rely upon the existence of an inexorable and inexplicable Time Magic. (I take all events which occur but which are inexplicable to be Magic. It is my label for that which lies in the region of the unknowable). Beliefs in Gods or the Big Bang also lie in the region of the unknowable.

Atheism is about belief and does not address the nature of knowledge or confront the unknowable. An atheist’s lack of belief in gods then lies in the realm of the unknown and perhaps in the realm of the unknowable (Magic). Even an atheist believes in Time Magic (whether he acknowledges it or not).

 

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