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Let's talk about the existence of God. The OG internet debate culture war issue. Not about the ethical value of a Christian life, or the enduring influence of Christianity on the intellectual tradition of the West (although we also can't declare a priori that those considerations are irrelevant). But just, the simple question of God's existence.
The existence of God is possibly the culture war issue that TheMotte has the highest degree of internal disagreement about, given that we have a pretty healthy mix of both Christians and atheists here. But we rarely address the issue directly. Possibly because both sides assume that these arguments and debates have been exhausted already, and both sides are intransigently locked into their current positions, so it's better for everyone to just maintain a quiet detente. But given that there's something of a renaissance of religious (or just generally pre-modern) thinking going on, we may increasingly find value in revisiting some of these questions.
Reasons for believing in God can be divided into roughly two camps, which I'll call the rational arguments and the extra-rational arguments:
The rational arguments are (purportedly) valid arguments such that, if you accept the truth of the premises, you are then compelled to believe in the existence of God under threat of irrationality. This includes many of the classic apologetic arguments: the cosmological argument, the ontological argument, the fine-tuning argument, etc. Although apologetics and the philosophy of religion have historically paid a great deal of attention to arguments of this sort, I think it's pretty rare to find a religious believer who claims that their belief rests on the force of these arguments alone. Even if rational argumentation alone could get you a good deal of the way towards a fully Christian theological doctrine (e.g. via considerations like Lewis's trilemma), there seems to be a general sentiment that purely rational belief is missing something crucial if it's not backed up by personal faith and experience.
The extra-rational arguments include everything else: faith, either of the "garden" variety or of the "Kierkegaardian leap of faith" variety ("I believe because it is absurd to believe"), religious experience, either of a single life-defining event or in the more general sense of a sort of continuous and ongoing direct perception of God's existence, belief on pragmatic grounds (perhaps because you think you'll simply be happier if you believe, or it's better for the social order, or you believe because of Pascal's Wager style considerations, although maybe you could argue that Pascal's Wager blurs the lines between "rational" and "extra-rational" argumentation...)
Regarding the rational arguments, I think that arguments from consciousness are probably the most compelling. Consciousness is really spooky and mysterious. It seems spooky and mysterious in principle in a way that nothing else in (material) reality is. Perhaps this is an indication that other spooky and mysterious things are going on too, like God. (That's obviously a very crude way of phrasing it, but I think that captures the basic intuition common to this family of arguments.)
I get the impression that most Christian Mottizens are believers essentially due to some sort of personal experience or personal revelation (please correct me if I'm wrong). This makes me curious though: why do you think that you had this experience, or are perceptually attuned to this truth, etc, while so many other people (namely atheists) aren't? Why are some people capable of simply "seeing" or "realizing" this truth, but not others? (I'm assuming that there's something intrinsically inarticulable about your faith that makes it not amenable to rational argumentation). I'm not trying to do a "gotcha" here, I'm just throwing out some debate starters.
I am an atheist, although not a particularly ardent one. It would be cool if there were compelling reasons to believe, although I don't think that I have any sufficiently compelling ones right now, and I'm also aware that I have an intrinsic bias towards wanting to believe, which means I need to apply a certain level of heightened scrutiny in order to counteract that bias. I would rather the universe not be a boring place. The total intellectual dominance of materialism for going on two centuries now has gotten rather repetitive (which is part of what drives my interest in any and all exotic ontologies, like Kastrup's analytic idealism). I would rather not believe that we have everything figured out, that we have the final true picture of reality in our grasp; at the very least, it would be nice to introduce some epistemological uncertainty into the mix, the presentiment that there might be something new and unforeseen on the horizon. But we also have to prepare ourselves for the possibility that reality might actually just be that boring.
I wrote this three years ago, as a non-rigorous quasi-tongue-in-cheek argument for why I'm not an atheist. The TL;DR: the world I see is one that I would expect to see if God exists, which I consider (weak) Bayesian evidence for God.
Argument 1: Societal evolution and a stabilizing force
As societies evolve they adopt behaviors that benefit the society. Ideas that are destructive are either discarded or are adopted but with subsequent decline in that society, leading to internal or external takeover. Societal structures and frameworks arise from these behaviors and are likewise subject to the survivorship test. Every continent evolved a formal religious structure to promote societal cohesion and to provide society with an ethical or moral framework. The ubiquity of religion suggests that the instinct to religion is strongly embedded within the human psyche, and to remove the formality of religion is not to remove the instinct for religion. In the mid 1800s, Darwin, Marx, and Kierkegaard identified scientific, societal, and mental frameworks that removed the need for a God. For the first time atheism had rigorous answers to questions of existence, societal cohesion, and spirituality. Nietzsche summarized this nicely: "God is dead". But the psychological need for religion did not go away: it was merely replaced by classism, nationalism, communism, fascism, humanism, and many other "ism"s that were either spiritually unfulfilling for the adherents or physically destructive to both adherents and non-adherents. The brain is a physical part of the body and can evolve like any other physical part of the body. Attempting to remove a deeply embedded religious instinct is like trying to remove a hand: both the hand and the instinct evolved for a purpose.
Digression 1: definition of Religion 1
What is religion? It is a group of people gripped with singular purpose and convinced of their moral superiority. This definition is also the definition of a mob. In the Christian liturgical tradition, on Palm Sunday (the Sunday before Easter) the congregation participates in the reading of the triumphal entry into Jerusalem and shouts "Hosanna!" The very next week the crowds in Jerusalem shouted "Crucify!" and in the reading the congregation participates in this cry as well; reminding the congregation that it was our sin that crucified Jesus. But it does two other things as well: it forces us to look inwardly and realize that we ourselves are capable of great atrocities. Probabilistically we would have been in the mob crucifying Jesus, convinced of our moral superiority. How easy and almost pleasant it is for us to read Anne Frank and identify with her fear and suffering. But if we were in Germany at the time it is far more likely that we would have been her tormentors. The second thing shouting "Crucify" does is lets us glimpse the power of a mob in a setting in which no mob can actually form, and is thus an annual warning of the danger and power of untethered collective moral action.
Organized religion is a countervailing force to the mob. It provides a structure and an outlet to the "religious instinct" without it devolving into mob brutality.
Conclusion to argument 1:
The above argument demonstrates the utility of organized religion but says nothing about the truth of organized religion. Certainly not all religions can all be true, since they mutually contradict. Can and should a society be built on a lie? Plato's Republic answers affirmatively, and philosophers have debated this ever since. I personally hold truth as a fundamental requirement for a "good" society; societal structures can only be as sound as its foundations. Thus argument 1 does not hold much weight for me. However, if the thrust of this argument is correct, the onus is on atheists to create a deep, meaningful, and sustainable philosophy that can replace organized religion.
Argument 2: The problem of evil and suffering
Few people would argue that suffering and evil exists in the world. If there is no God, then there is no basis or criteria for categorizing anything as good or bad. Our (almost universal) acknowledgement of injustice and suffering must then be an evolved mental condition which is either to be discarded (along with religion as a yoke of the past) or to be irrationally embraced (in which case why not also irrationally embrace religion!). As most people, including atheists, do believe in concepts such as suffering and injustice, they implicitly behave as if God exists. And thank God that they do! Despite the perversion of our mental and physical world as a result of humanity's fall/sin God's common grace has put a restraint on our depravity.
Discussion 2: definition of Religion 2
If atheism is the null hypothesis, then there is not enough evidence to reject the null. However, the above argument points to inconsistencies in atheist's behavior that would be accounted for if God exists. Likewise, if theism is the null hypothesis, there is not enough evidence to reject the null.
Every logical statement begins with a set of a-priori assumptions or axioms. Where do these axioms come from? Are they truly self-evident or is there an element of the arbitrary or even mystic about these axioms? Described in this manner, the set of axioms or principals by which we structure our reality can be considered, in some sense, a religious dogma. Religion, in this light, is the foundation on which every scientific, social, and physical structure is derived.
While this is an interesting thought experiment it is not all that convincing for my larger argument. There is no line of argument that goes from "postulates are religious" to "religion X is correct".
Conclusion to argument 2:
If I posit the existence of a just and moral God (and indeed, God would define justice and morality), and if I additionally posit that mankind is made in God's image, then I would predict that even in a fallen state that mankind would exhibit tendencies to morality and justice; albeit tainted and obscured by our separation from God. Indeed this is exactly what we see.
On the other hand, if there is no God I would predict that while there are certain evolved cooperative tendencies, that these evolved tendencies would be no stronger than that of "traditional" religion and could be just as easily cast aside. However, we do not see this.
In my experience, the atheistic approach to ethics, morality, and justice feel like a "turtles all the way down" argument. That said, I do acknowledge that just because a position is poorly defended does not make that position incorrect.
Argument 3: reductio ad absurdum
If I were an atheist, I would likely believe that we are living in a simulation. I believe that we ourselves may be capable (given another few hundred years) of creating an advanced simulation that could closely mirror our own; if we are capable what are the odds that we aren’t already in a simulation. There would be only one “reality” but millions of simulations. And that is only assuming that humans are all there are: it could easily be that just as our current video games have characters that are mere shadows of their human programmers, that we are mere shadows of a higher race that has created the simulation.
Someone (a programmer?) has created the simulation. The programmer has created the universe from nothing. The programmer has defined the physical rules and constraints of the simulation. In a very real sense, this programmer is god to the simulated universe. The programmer would want to track progress of the simulation by having the simulated “agents” communicate back. In our simulation we call this “prayer”. If the programmer reads the logs and sees that the simulation is giving some feedback, the programmer could intervene in the simulation to correct some of the parameters. It is also very possible that the programmer didn’t just set physical constraints but also gave instructions for how agents should engage with each other (religion). The programmer may also have added random amounts of “aberrant” behavior in each agent (sin). The aberrant behavior caused divergence from the original set of instructions and led to multiple religions.
Thus if I were an atheist, I would be forced to acknowledge the high likelihood of a god existing. I would need to divine the will of the programmer and would be forced to carefully assess the major religions for glimpses into the original instructions. In short, I would be very religious.
Isn't that evidence against any particular religion's factual truth? If every human culture creates its own myths, it takes a tremendous amount of parochialism to say 'the thousands of other religions that human societies have created are all superstitions, but the particular religion that I was born into is in fact objectively true'.
Doesn't it alternatively suggest that supernatural phenomena are real and universal?
That's something that many, perhaps most, religions would agree with (i.e. it doesn't invalidate or privilege any specific religion.)
The history of humanity is filled with superstitious beliefs, many of which have gone out of style, or are extremely niche.
People believing dumb things, religious or not, is a universal.
In contrast, no religious believer has done a very good job of getting a miracle recorded, or proving faith healing works. Some religions believe their priests have the Power of God, but they can't seem to demonstrate it.
There's the same documentation problem for UFOs and Bigfoot: high resolution cameras are in everyone's pocket for a decade+ now and yet we don't see increasing evidence.
Can you link me to your past examination of medical investigations of alleged miracles demonstrating where they break down?
As I've pointed out to other people on here, we know that certain aircraft (like the NGAD demonstrator) have flown but have never had a high-resolution picture taken and publicized. Do you also disbelieve in the NGAD, or do you concede that it's possible for aircraft to fly without being detected by cell phone cameras? If the latter, why are you making this argument as pertains to UFOs? (I think it's a better argument as regards Bigfoot.)
You asking for me to provide debunkings of claimed medical miracles is an great example of backwards thinking on how to go about evaluating claims of supernatural occurrences.
Weird shit happens all the time, but that doesn't mean it's a miraculous event from the Power of God. No study has ever demonstrated miracle healings working. There's a million dollar prize by James Randi for a demonstration of any occult power under laboratory conditions. There are tons of religious hospitals, why don't they have a track record of better outcomes than the secular ones? Anyone who could actually demonstrate a new power of healing or prediction or weather control would become immensely famous and presumably very wealthy. And yet no one can pull it off under strict scientific standards. Telling.
People used to take pictures of UFOs. They weren't really aliens. People still claim to have alien encounters and see ghosts and all that kind of thing. Yet the evidence never seems to get better. The most recent brand of UFO hype is over military systems detecting strange objects, which often turn out to be balloons and artifacts of the cameras.
If aliens were such advanced fucking space creatures capable of spaceflight then presumably they'd be even more impossible to detect than NGAD if they so chose. (Also NGAD stuff purposely tries to avoid airspace where casual observation would occur and has never been known to try to abduct someone. Note that some portion of UFO claims were in fact US military aircraft, so it's really ironic you bring that up.)
Constant streams of major claims backed by shitty evidence is good evidence of shitty claims due to human foibles, not that there's really something there. If there were something really there, at some point we'd expect strong evidence to emerge. People are certainly highly motivated to look.
What I am actually asking for you to do is demonstrate that you've actually looked into the question at all. There's nothing wrong with not looking into miracles (I haven't, not really something I am all that invested in) and I certainly don't expect you to just to win an argument on the Internet, life's short. But "no religious believer has done a very good job of getting a miracle recorded, or proving faith healing works" suggests that you speak from a position of personal knowledge. If what you meant was "I've never heard of any religious believer saying X, Y, Z," then that's a different claim, and that's fine. But if you've actually looked into the question extensively and documented your findings, I might be interested in reading your conclusions. If you haven't looked into the question, why are you making the argument? It seems to me that arguments from ignorance only incentivize not knowing anything, and while arguing about Nietzsche on Twitter is funny, it's not really an ideal epistemic environment.
I agree with this.
What exactly qualifies as "miraculous healings"? Do studies showing that prayer seems to expedite healing count? Spontaneous remission of cancer? Regrown arm?
No there is not, but you should also understand the difference between alleged miracles and occult power.
Are you unfamiliar with the research showing the positive connection between spirituality and good health outcomes?
Miracles are not the same thing as superpowers. The debunking of a claim to be able to work miracles cannot prove that miracles do not occur (and, similarly, proof of a miracle would not be evidence of superpowers.)
Yes, UFOs =! aliens. In fact, many of the leading "UFOlogists" think that UFOs aren't really aliens.
What's your objective metric for this claim?
Yes, I am aware. In fact a certain portion of the UFO phenomena may be cultivated by the US government precisely to hide advanced aircraft.
Then why did you make this argument at all?
This is also true of next-generation aircraft.
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