Religious Debate Forums Are Everywhere

[thegreypilgrim]

Even on the Internet Movie Database there exists a message board dedicated to Religion. I've actually been involved with this board for quite a few years now, and there's quite a bit of history to it.

The website appears to have a message board forum for every movie and every major entertainer logged into the database, and the "Religion" board actually originated as the message board for Mel Gibson's film The Passion of the Christ. It was utterly dominated by atheists (both neo- and moderate atheists, while the former comprised the majority) who were locked in the all-pervasive feud with the occasional fundamentalist Protestant rolling through the internet armed with their Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel type apologetics.

The flurry of off-topic posts led to the admins of IMDb creating a separate board titled "Philosophy & Religion" which was subsequently divided into 2 separate boards dedicated to each. The Religion board has actually evolved into something like a community of regular posters over the years.

Many of the hardcore champions of both sides have left, but there do remain a significant number of neo-atheists who continue to post in the usual style enumerated in unklee's pretty much authoritative post on the matter. There are virtually no Christians (or theists) left apart from myself, and those who do remain rarely (if ever) engage in any sort of debate.

It's hard to gauge the board's overall disposition toward me. I seem to get on with most people there on a personal level, but there seems to be a level of underlying resentment/animosity. The majority of what I have to say in response to various arguments/diatribes against theism (or Christianity) is not the standard sort of apologetics internet atheists are used to hearing, and to be honest I don't think they know what to make of that. To this day, I do not believe I have received an intellectually respectable (or charitable) point-by-point response to any argument I've ever made there.

In fact, one poster replied to someone (who thought what I had to say in response to one of those patented lists of "Questions for Christians" threads was a good reply) in such a way that just perfectly encapsulates the mentality of the sort of neo-atheists I run into on a near daily basis:

"I'm sure you think so considering you're already a Christian. Those answers [mine] read like a bunch of apologetics designed to appeal to those who already believe and need to sound intellectual and very high-minded in order to reinforce their beliefs.

What it comes down to is that in order to be a Christian, one must suspend rationality and believe in things that are downright silly. People don't rise from the dead and virgins don't have babies. No matter how many big words and vague philosophical phrases you use, Christianity is based on the suspension of disbelief and compartmentalization of the highest order.

Not to say that I don't like thegreypilgrim as a person... I do. I also think he's very intelligent... which is where the compartmentalization comes in."

I just think this is sad - that someone could consider this to be an appropriate reply to someone who's just spent a good deal of effort formulating a pretty in-depth response to anything. Whether the topic is religion or something else.

[merkavah12]

Grey,

I wholeheartedly agree with you. It is tragic to think that this sort of garbage is what passes
for an argument in NA circles these days. I have seen paragons of atheism (at least on the internet) react with horror and revulsion when dealing with the kind of empty rhetoric that you have described.

As an atheist friend of mine once told me, "I now know what it's like to have a fundamentalist fruitcake on my side."

[unkleE]

My views on this are already known, but it is refreshing to offer this thoughtful post by an atheist as evidence of at least occasional honesty and sense, even if it was almost 3 years ago.

If only more christians and atheists could be so fair-minded!

I have long thought that the Infidels website is one of the most fair-minded out there (they include some theistic as well as atheistic papers in the "library"), and while the forum isn't so different to others, the fairness of its parent may rub off a little (just as the snide tone of the Why Won't God Heal Amputees? website may rub off on the tone of its forum).

[humphreyclarke]

'What it comes down to is that in order to be a Christian, one must suspend rationality and believe in things that are downright silly. People don't rise from the dead and virgins don't have babies. No matter how many big words and vague philosophical phrases you use, Christianity is based on the suspension of disbelief and compartmentalization of the highest order.'

There is a problem with this statement which is that reality is weird and often downright silly. As Haldane said 'my own suspicion is that the Universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose'. Niels Bohr in particular used to rebuke his students because their theories were 'not crazy enough to be believed'.

Take myself as a good example. A large chunk of the body parts and behaviours I exhibit were actually invented by fish. My hands are very similar to fossil fins, my head is organised like that of a long-extinct jawless fish and a substantial part of my genome functions like that of worms and bacteria. The pairs of sense organs I have, the two eyes for binocular vision, the two ears to localize sounds, the twinned nostrils and the backbone that holds me upright are all fish inventions. Now I have to admit, this is slightly crazy and a bit silly, but it also happens to be true and hence I shall make a point of feeding my brother's goldfish when I next see him.

Now, does the materialist have an advantage in the silliness stakes?. Well as far as I can see, in order to be consistent (rather than one of those irritating fence sitters) you have to beleive the following.

1) Free will is an illusion and conciousness is a mere epiphenomenon with no causal efficacy. In other words, the brain pretty much controls itself according to evolved programming and then fools an illusionary self into believing it is controlling it. Or as Descartes would have to say, 'I think; Oh dear, I think this might be incompatible with materialism; therefore I don't exist'. Moral choice is something determined by your programming, morality is determined by what aids gene survival, not what is 'right' and 'wrong'.

2) As far I as can see, fine tuning can only be got around by invoking an infinite multiverse in which everything that can exist does exist. If this is the case then the materialist is committed to believing in virgin births, angels, daemons and fairies who rise from the dead; they just happen to exist in different pockets of the multiverse. It seems a bit glib to say that, 'oh thats ok, just as long as they don't exist in this universe'.

3) In order to get around the philosophical implications of the Copenhagen interpretation a lot of materialists I know are tempted to go for the many worlds interpretation of quantum physics. This solves the measurement problem at the expense of creating a reality with multiple branches. So the spacetime we live in is constantly splitting off into ever multiplying segments in which different events happen, all without anyone noticing.

4) The religious experience held by the majority of humanity is 'nothing but' a malignant mind virus which has created itself through memetic evolution and now holds vast numbers of people under its spell, enslaving generation after generation.

5) We have been created for and live solely for the purposes of tiny mindless robots (see 'The Selfish Gene' and 'Freedom Evolves') which are unaware of our existence and don't care about us. We serve their tiny, mindless whims and live only so they can promulgate.

Now all these *might* be true, although I seriously doubt it. But you can't claim that they aren't 'bat nuts crazy'. Actually they sound like something from a Philip K Dick novel. I mean listen to this from Susan Blackmore:

www.edge.org/q2009/q09_5.html#blackmore

When memes coevolved with genes they turned gene machines into meme machines. Temes are now turning us into teme machines. Many people work all day copying and transmitting temes.... We go on thinking that we are in control, but looked at from the temes’ point of view we are just willing helpers in their evolution.

So what is the step that will change everything? At the moment temes still need us to build their machines, and to run the power stations, just as genes needed human bodies to copy them and provide their energy. But we humans are fragile, dim, low quality copying machines, and we need a healthy planet with the right climate and the right food to survive. The next step is when the machines we thought we created become self-replicating. This may happen first with nano-technology, or it may evolve from servers and large teme machines being given their own power supplies and the capacity to repair themselves.

Then we would become dispensable. That really would change everything.

Question. Is the universe set up in such a way as to make materialists look as ridiculous as possible?. Its a distinct possibility.

[bvgdez]

Humphrey said that for a consistent materialist: 1) Free will is an illusion and consciousness is a mere epiphenomenon with no causal efficacy. In other words, the brain pretty much controls itself according to evolved programming and then fools an illusionary self into believing it is controlling it. Or as Descartes would have to say, 'I think; Oh dear, I think this might be incompatible with materialism; therefore I don't exist'. Moral choice is something determined by your programming, morality is determined by what aids gene survival, not what is 'right' and 'wrong'.

Although I know next to nothing about philosophy (OK, about anything really) I had also independently arrived at the same conclusion, i.e. that where only the material exists everything that happens is a result of physical processes inexorably following physical laws leaving absolutely no room for free will of any kind. However, I'm not sure by what mechanism you envisage us having been given free will by God. If you accept that the whole of evolution is just a result of natural processes without any outside interference then it raises the question of how humans can have such a thing as a free will. Or do you imagine God intervening at some point? And don't animals also have free will and consciousness approximately commensurate with their position on the evolutionary ladder? Would that be God-given too?

[humphreyclarke]

Great question. The answer is that I don't know, but that should never be a barrier to unbridled speculation.

There is no getting away from the fact that our universe appears to be determined by physical laws. Neuroscience shows us that all that is going on in my brain is essentially physics and chemistry (although Roger Penrose suggests that there might be quantum effects going on in microtubles). How can you get free will out of that?. Must we deny the blatantly obvious?.

Well one option is the much maligned and misunderstood dualism of Descartes. The caricature of this is that the real 'you' is some kind of mind which becomes inconveniently attached to the body at some stage and becomes a 'ghost in the machine' before flying away again when the body disintegrates (this was the view of some of the ancient greeks). Actually this isn't what Descartes argued, in fact his dualism was a kind of trialism of mind, body and mind-body compounds (persons). The current state of play in philosophy of mind is a sort of non reductive physicalism because mental events are proving impossible to reduce to mere brain states. Actually Penrose has suggested that there might be separate laws of physics that dictate the relationship between physical and mental states (again this is something that Descartes argued). I have no idea how this model would work theologically; perhaps by some process of ensoulment?.

Another option, the one I happen to most favour, comes from the study of other highly complex systems in nature which operate top down control. See for example this paper by George FR Ellis:

tinyurl.com/d6qedn

So this would be a sort of compatibalist approach which acknowledges the material nature and evolutionary history of the brain but shows that the mind is a higher order system which is causally effective and isn't determined by micro level laws. You are starting to see a move away from reductionism and I expect this would be the most fruitful approach.

If its true that higher level systems have these properties then an evolutionary account would look something like this.

From the origin of life to the present day, organisms have become, larger, multicellularly complex, taxonomically diverse, and energetically intensive. One significant trend that has emerged in life's history is what is known as selective interorganismal investment which is represented by high degrees of parental care and social reciprocity. This is effectively a directional trend that selects for reduced fertility, higher consumption, greater investments in juveniles, and longer life. Among some primates this has resulted in larger brains, and increased capacity for attachment, altruism and moral commitment (but also manipulation, spite etc). In our particular species our brain has evolved into an advanced higher order system and we have the hard to define properties of 'awareness' and 'understanding' which increases our capacity for freedom of choice. In other words, our freedom itself is a product of an evolved process of chance and the necessity imposed by natural law. A theological account could then point to this as congruent with the 'divine purpose' of the cosmos.

[thegreypilgrim]

Thank you humphrey (and all others) for your interesting reply.

I have a question, however, regarding this:

Another option, the one I happen to most favour, comes from the study of other highly complex systems in nature which operate top down control. See for example this paper by George FR Ellis:

This is most interesting. I had not heard of this model and shall look into it further as I have been becoming drawn to non-reductive physicalism of late. I'm wondering, though, wouldn't this position also be available to a materialist? If not, why not? Unless an argument can be made that this "top down causation" model cannot evolve given metaphysical naturalism I don't see how one could respond to a materialist who wishes to adopt a non-reductive physicalist theory of the mind.

[humphreyclarke]

May 7, 2009 4:52:23 GMT thegreypilgrim said:

This is most interesting. I had not heard of this model and shall look into it further as I have been becoming drawn to non-reductive physicalism of late. I'm wondering, though, wouldn't this position also be available to a materialist? If not, why not? Unless an argument can be made that this "top down causation" model cannot evolve given metaphysical naturalism I don't see how one could respond to a materialist who wishes to adopt a non-reductive physicalist theory of the mind.

Well, Materialists can and certainly do formulate non reductive models. The hard line materialist won't be too happy doing so however because the implication is that human thoughts, emotions, ethics and social constructions are both causally effective, and cannot be compassed by present day physics. In fact reductionism has tried to explain away the complexity that emerges from the underlying physics and chemistry. If such complexity emerges from the underlying laws of physics and chemistry (which it must do) then it's a pretty outstanding fact about the universe. It also seems mind blowingly improbable under metaphysical naturalism; but then so is so much else. Doesn't seem to stop it being popular though.