ToddHDow Studios

Tag: philosophy

  • The Atheist Delusion – Why I don’t agree with Richard Dawkins in 10 parts

    Richard Dawkins has put together an interesting package. His book, The God Delusion, has inspired a great deal of discussion and controversy. After reading the book, I find myself disappointed. I was expecting so much more. For such a great deal of noise, I expected some solid, faith-shattering arguments. Instead, I felt that Dawkins’ arguments were weak, lacking in solid logic and poorly assembled.

    Why then am I going to spend time and effort refuting a book that I found to be so negative? Well… the popularity of the book requires some strong refutations in order to set the record straight. That’s my main purpose in posting this set of responses. Additionally, I can’t stand to see these guys (Dawkins, Sam Harris and the rest of their “crew”) thinking that they’ve got the upper hand. I have a keen interest in apologetics, so refuting this type of writing is a great passion for me. Note, apologetics doesn’t mean apologizing for my faith, but rather defending it on intellectual grounds.

    Before I get started on my critique, a couple of first thoughts. There are a couple of things that Dawkins does quite badly throughout this book. They are:

    1. Lack of respect – Dawkins takes on a very confrontational tone in his writing. His arrogant and offensive tone is off-putting and it distracts from his writing. While he is entitled to his opinion, his negative attitudes towards religious belief can at times be seen as an emotional response rather than a rational one. Thus, his lack of respect towards those of alternate worldviews takes away from some of his arguments.
    2. Stereotyping – Dawkins groups all religious believers into one big pot, confusing the beliefs of many different faiths into his own, convenient negative hodge-podge. Rather than develop a clear and concise definition of his fundamentalist religious targets, he bunches all religious believers together. His glossing over of religious belief leaves the reader wondering if he has a clear understanding of the religious claims of each reader.

    So without further ado, over the next few days, I’ll be tackling the following subjects, one by one:

    1. Straw Men – Dawkins weak proofs of God
    2. The Ultimate 747 – Is that the best he’s got?
    3. Problems with Organized Religion and Sociological Explanations for Religion
    4. The objective roots of morality
    5. The Historical Jesus
    6. The problem with fundamentalism
    7. The slippery slope of abortion
    8. Why not rid ourselves of religion, politics and economics all at the same time?
    9. Childhood abuse and brainwashing
    10. On Evolution and concluding thoughts

    Be sure to check back daily. My goal is to post a new section each day, but this will ultimately depend on how much time I can devote to my posts each day. Please do forgive me if I can’t keep up to the daily writing requirements to get these finished on time.

    Ultimately, I think the answer becomes one of cohabitation. I feel the presence of God in my life every day. And, I appreciate God’s presence, just as I appreciate the scientific progress in understanding the world that God has provided for us. I am thankful for the scientific research that allows us to lead fuller, richer lives. But I am conscious of the limitations that surround practical scientific research. While science provides us with tools for survival, science lacks the moral compass required to be wise with it. for that, I look to God.

    In Him,

    Todd Dow

  • Did the Enlightenment negate God?

    I’d argue no… in fact, I’d argue that the Enlightenment, while enforcing rational investigation into the nature and existence of God, did God a favour. Although the Enlightenment was great at showing us our human limitations, it brought us no closer to God than any other religious faith. And really… didn’t the Enlightenment just trade one religion for another (Mnotheism for Scientism)?

    The Enlightenment is seen as the “Age of Reason”, which has led to the diminishment of church authority in the political and academic realms of society. The Enlightenment marked the transition from medieval “faith” to modern “knowledge”. Enlightenment thinkers concerned themselves with “rational thought”, which led to scrutiny of all things within the natural world. A newfound skepticism arose during this period. Questions of worldview (metaphysics) and what we can know as humans (epistemology) came to mark this period. From Descartes’ “cogito, ergo sum” (I think, therefore I am) to Kant’s “Metaphysics of Morals”, the Enlightenment saw a great deal of thought pertaining to the nature of our world and our place within it.

    In previous generations, education and religion typically ran hand in hand, with one defending the other. Following the development of the printing press and the revolt of the Protestant Reformation, the church’s hold on academic thought dissipated significantly. Francis Bacon’s (1561-1626) scientific method provided an early framework for later Enlightenment thinking. Voltaire’s Dictionnaire Philosophique continued this tradition. And, Voltaire’s wry caricatures of the religious leaders of his day (Candide is a great read in this regard) lent more fuel to the anti-religious fire that was burning during this time.

    There was a tremendous focus on the material world during this time. Rational thought tended towards that which could be measured (empiricism) or explained (rationalism). It was important to be able to explain events within the limitations of the natural world, as opposed to the traditional spiritual explanations given by the church. This led to great debates on the nature of miracles (see Hume’s “On Miracles” in particular) and the value of religion in personal life.

    While skeptical thought did negatively impact the church, it did not disprove the necessity and value of religious belief, nor did it supplant it with anything other than a new religion, namely “scientism”. I find it ironic that the last of the Enlightenment giants, Emmanuel Kant, offered a newfound explanation for God through his idea of moral justification. So much for the skeptical death of God provided by his contemporaries…

  • All the rage

    The irony in this article is too good to pass up. You have to give it a read:

    All the rage from The Walrus Magazine.

  • Should atheists have children? – Part 4

    So… where does this leave the atheist?

    I see two options available to the atheist. The atheist can either live a life of nihilism, suffering under a burden of meaninglessness, pushing the stone up the hill every day for the rest of existence, believing that all of the effort is for nothing. Alternately, the atheist can convince himself or herself that their life has meaning in some way. This meaning would be internally defined, which would lack any external validation. Thus, it would lack objectivity. And thus, it would be considered deceitful to the individual. I don’t know which is worse, living a life of meaninglessness, or lying about it to oneself.

    The question now becomes, is there a moral and ethical responsibility for an atheist to alleviate suffering in the world? Peter Singer, in Practical Ethics, argues that there are numerous reasons to act morally. He cites reason [Peter Singer, Practical Ethics, Second Edition, New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 1993, pg 318.] and self-interest [Singer, pg 322] as two reasons to be ethically responsible. To this list, I would add compassion as another reason. There is no shortage of reasons for the atheist to be morally and ethically responsible. The only difference between the religious and the atheist viewpoints is in one’s motivations. Regardless of the motivation, the results are often the same. The atheist is just as likely to be morally conscious of one’s neighbour as a Christian would be. Actually, Bertrand Russell, like many other critics of Christendom, argues that religion has been historically responsible for some of the greatest atrocities ever recorded. The Crusades were religiously motivated, as were the attacks of September 11. Atheists would be the first to point out the moral inappropriateness of either of those activities.

    Thus, the atheist is just as capable as a Christian to determine right from wrong. Therefore, the atheist is just as morally obligated to protect their children as a Christian would be. By extension, it would only make sense for an atheist to protect his or her children from suffering. This presents a paradox, as the atheist is unable to live a life free of suffering. As I concluded earlier, either the atheist is suffering from an existence stuck in meaninglessness or the atheist is lying to him or herself about their meaninglessness. Looking out over this vast meaninglessness is reckless. The atheist is ill equipped to answer what purpose there is to living life any longer. Why not just quit life now? If life is meaningless, then what’s to stop the atheist from crossing the line now? Wouldn’t suicide be easier than living one more day in the suffering torment of meaninglessness? Life appears to be in vain. For the majority of atheists, the abyss has not yet been contemplated. Instead, many atheists (the masses) simply disregard the abyss. They ignore the fact that they have nothing to live for. These atheists simply go through life pretending that everything is fine. They lie to themselves, trying to convince themselves that their life has meaning. That is worse than accepting one’s fate and still struggling onwards in spite of the futility.

    The clever atheist could counter by asking if the Christian is lying as well, simply masking the nothingness that surrounds the whole religious experience. This argument is simply deferred back to the earlier discussion pertaining to the metaphysics of our reality. Both the atheist and the religious practitioner are equally suited to argue their case. The difference is that the atheist chooses nothingness or a self-imposed purpose in life, whereas the religious practitioner chooses an external, pre-ordained purpose. Both the religious and the atheistic worldview are valid choices, based on the evidence presented to support either argument, but only the latter choice leaves the believer with a purpose of hope.

    This decision is ultimately one of hope… Is the atheist able to instill a sense of hope into a child, or would an atheist be ill equipped to prevent a child from needless suffering in the world? Horrible, horrible actions could happen to a child regardless of whether that child’s parents were atheists or Christians, so the responsibility for bringing a child into a world where evil exists is equally burdensome to either one. However, the moral and ethical responsibility that the atheist fails is in providing hope to one’s child. The atheist is poorly equipped to protect a child from the eventual view of the abyss that the atheist is confronted with on a daily basis. It is one thing for the atheist to accept the burden of pushing the stone up the hill, like Sisyphus. It is yet another for the atheist to introduce this meaningless existence to his or her child. That goes against the moral and ethical responsibility to alleviate suffering in the world, which is especially applicable to one’s children. Therefore, unless a parent is able to perceive meaning in life, it would be cruel and unusual punishment to bring a child into an existence that lacks meaning. Lack of meaning is, as we saw with Sisyphus, the worst kind of punishment that one could inflict on another.

    Todd Dow

  • Should atheists have children? – Part 3

    What is our purpose in life?

    Richard Taylor, in his book Good and Evil, A New Direction, addresses the question of meaning in life. To address meaningless existence, Taylor recalls the ancient myth of Sisyphus [Richard Taylor, Good and Evil, A New Direction, London, England: Collier-Macmillan Ltd, 1970, pg 256-268.]. Sisyphus, after angering the Gods, is condemned to roll a stone to the top of a hill, where it immediately falls rolls back down. Sisyphus then proceeds to roll the stone back up the hill, where it again falls back down. Sisyphus is doomed to repeat this meaningless sequence forever! Taylor uses this story to outline the meaninglessness with which humans pursue life. Looking at this from the outside, Sisyphus is stuck in an endless, miserable loop. His task appears to be meaningless. Consider the engineer who is responsible for building great structures. Are this person’s feats of construction not victims of the same meaninglessness, given sufficient time? Will today’s superstructures degrade to the point of nothingness in 2000 or 4000 years? It can’t be denied that today’s feats of engineering will eventually disappear. How is this any different than Sisyphus and his unenviable task?

    Next, Taylor provides a second, slightly different scenario. What if Sisyphus contained within himself an urge to roll stones? What if, by some strange quirk within his mind, Sisyphus felt that his goal in life was stone rolling? In that case, Sisyphus would suddenly have meaning in life. Sisyphus would have internal meaning, as a result of what many would argue would be a misguided desire to roll stones. Regardless of the motivation, if Sisyphus contained within himself the desire to roll stones, then he would be achieving his purpose in life.

    Thus, we can see two ways of looking at one’s purpose. To an outsider, the monotonous job of rolling the stone up the hill for eternity is seen as a meaningless task. From an insider’s perspective, life could obtain meaning and purpose. Erik Wielenberg summarizes Taylor’s argument as “creating your own meaning” [Erik J. Wielenberg, Value and Virtue in a Godless Universe, New York, New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pg 18.]. Wielenberg offers a couple of additional answers to meaning in life without God, including “Peter Singer’s Way Out: Meaning Through Eliminating Pain”[Wielenberg, pg 23] and “Aristotle’s Way Out: Intrinsically Good Activity”[Wielenberg, pg 31]. Wielenberg’s arguments, while compelling, do not offer the same comfort that meaning from God provides. Wielenberg’s arguments, as listed above, are all internal definitions of meaning.

    Different people can interpret elimination of pain and intrinsically good activity differently. I argue that the elimination of pain and intrinsically good activity arguments are similar to Taylor’s “creating your own meaning”. The elimination of pain argument suggests that one could fashion an existence based on eliminating pain and suffering from the lives of others. The intrinsically good activity argument holds that some activities are intrinsically good and should be followed no matter what. Attempting to live according to either of these arguments appears, at first glance to be worthwhile ventures. I don’t mean to detract from them, but like Taylor’s “creating your own meaning” argument, these two arguments are both very subjective in nature. With many ethical discussions, there are circumstances when the eliminating pain argument becomes difficult to support. For example, consider a sick person suffering from a horrible illness. The patient requests your assistance in committing suicide. Do you comply? This case has two equally compelling conclusions, both of which could be argued to be morally or ethically correct, depending on one’s perspective. Similarly, the intrinsically good activity argument is quickly deconstructed when two people debate the ranking of intrinsically good activities. What constitutes an Intrinsically good activity, and which activities are better than others, is debatable. We can see that both of these examples, the elimination of pain argument and the intrinsically good activity argument, fall under the same “creating your own meaning” argument that Taylor laid out.

    Thus, in Wielenberg’s examples, there is no absolute standard of purpose. With God, we know the absolute meaning or purpose to life. It is well documented. Different religions may have different descriptions of what that purpose is, but within a religious worldview, there is consistency in meaning and a clear purpose of existence. To the atheist, it is this lack of empirical meaning that is difficult to comprehend.

    Based on this understanding, the life of the atheist is a blank slate. It is an existence that is based on internal definition. At what point in the atheist’s life does the atheist become aware of this self-direction? It is possible, for the masses, to get through life without reflecting much on one’s purpose. Considering Socrates: “an unexamined life is not worth living”[ Plato, Euthyphro, Apology, Crito, trans. F. J. Church, New York, New York: Macmillian, 1948, pg 45.]. I think that Socrates was right, but unfortunately, I also think that the masses tend to avoid examining their own lives.

    Next post: What options are available to the atheist?

    Todd Dow