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PaperclipPerfector  5mo ago (text post)   26696 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 11, 2023

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Nobody seriously defends the superstitions of Christianity

The different bubbles that we are in fascinate me. If someone asked me, I would say that Christianity has never been more or better defended before now. In fact, I have heard a Catholic Bishop thank New Atheism for revitalizing Christian Apologetics.

The content coming out from Capturing Christianity, Jimmy Akin, and Bishop Barron is both sophisticated and unafraid to defend the foundational positions of Christianity, dive into thorny philosophical weeds, take atheistic arguments seriously, and approach topics from a scientific, rational perspective.

I can feel your disbelief across time and space, so let me give an example: In his video on "Time Travel Prayer," Jimmy Akin explains the methodology of a study where patient records from prior years were randomly assigned to a prayer group or control group. After praying for the patients in prayer group to have gotten better in the past, the researchers looked at the outcomes for the patients and found a statistically significant correlation between the prayer group and recovery.

Despite this result supporting his argument, he took the time in his show to talk about how studies can be done hundreds of times, with only the results that the researchers like getting published. And that this practice can make even random chance look statistically significant on paper. And that, though he has no evidence this happened in this case, it is important to keep in mind when papers shows weak significance around surprising things.

Sounds a lot like how a rationalist would approach a topic, no? I highly recommend checking out Jimmy Akin's Mysterious world - most of the topics are not religious in nature but they are a lot of fun. He has pretty soundly debunked the Loch Ness Monster, Loretto Staircase, and a number of odd things.

Sounds a lot like how a rationalist would approach a topic, no?

Yes, it indeed sounds so much like a rationalist that it also sounds like he's not defending the superstitions of Christianity at all!

I should have said "nobody relevant defends the superstitions of Christianity", i.e. there might be some, but no major public intellectual does it and gains any sort of traction. Ayaan Hirsi Ali was the most prominent defense in recent times which got a fair degree of traction, and not a single sentence in her defense was about the actual superstitions.

Jimmy Akin has defended the efficacy of prayer. He does defend the supernatural and paranatural.

I had never heard of Ayaan Hirsi Ali before her conversion, meanwhile Bishop Robert Barron's Word on Fire Institute has a global audience, streaming service, publishing company, etc. What qualifies someone to be a major public intellectual?

What qualifies someone to be a major public intellectual?

People from outside their religion regularly taking their arguments seriously would be a good start. Modern Christian apologetics don't seem to be having much headway with people who aren't already looking to be sold on Christianity.

Bishop Barron has been on the Ben Shapiro Show, delivered lectures for the Heritage Foundation, been interviewed by Lex Freidman, and many more. If you look in the comments on his Youtube channel it does seem like many atheists, protestants, and members of other faith traditions watch him regularly.

On a whim I decided to watch a bit of the Ben Shapiro interview, and I'm thoroughly unimpressed. When Ben asked him what his favorite argument is for the proof of God, he says what essentially boils down to the First Cause argument, something that's been trounced in the internet atheist debates for decades. When pressed with a follow up of what caused God then, he responded with special pleading. He dressed it up with fancy words like "that which is properly unconditioned on this reality", and his presentation is polished, but he's just regurgitating arguments from a debate that was largely settled over a decade ago. After watching a bit more and hearing nothing but a few "God of the Gaps" arguments I closed the tab.

I am very disheartened to hear that you have deemed the Cosmological argument 'trounced... for decades." I have seen atheists like Dawkins completely misunderstand the Cosmological argument and refute caricatures of it. I have seen some philosophers provide interesting propositions that make supporters of the Cosmological argument need to add details and rebuttals. This is not a stagnant field, and no side has won (though there are several theist arguments that have no good rebuttals yet.)

In your link, rebuttal 1 shows that the author does not understand what is meant by "Cause," because radioactive decay absolutely has a cause. I don't like Craig's argument because the premise "The Universe Had a Beginning" is harder to defend than other premises, and I will not defend WLC's Cosmological argument. A flaw with Rebuttal 2 is that not every event needs to be separated from its cause in time, there are many causes that occur concurrently with the event it causes, like all Essentially Ordered Causes. My ire for Rebuttal 3 increases every time I see it. Just going to quote Feser on this one:

“What caused God?” is not a serious objection to the argument.

Part of the reason this is not a serious objection is that it usually rests on the assumption that the cosmological argument is committed to the premise that “Everything has a cause,” and as I’ve just said, this is simply not the case. But there is another and perhaps deeper reason.

The cosmological argument in its historically most influential versions is not concerned to show that there is a cause of things which just happens not to have a cause. It is not interested in “brute facts” – if it were, then yes, positing the world as the ultimate brute fact might arguably be as defensible as taking God to be. On the contrary, the cosmological argument – again, at least as its most prominent defenders (Aristotle, Aquinas, Leibniz, et al.) present it – is concerned with trying to show that not everything can be a “brute fact.” What it seeks to show is that if there is to be an ultimate explanation of things, then there must be a cause of everything else which not only happens to exist, but which could not even in principle have failed to exist. And that is why it is said to be uncaused – not because it is an arbitrary exception to a general rule, not because it merely happens to be uncaused, but rather because it is not the sort of thing that can even in principle be said to have had a cause, precisely because it could not even in principle have failed to exist in the first place. And the argument doesn’t merely assume or stipulate that the first cause is like this; on the contrary, the whole point of the argument is to try to show that there must be something like this.

It is not special pleading, it's basic logic. The Causal Principle is defined as "whatever begins to exist has a cause." This is a good defense of the Causal Principle. If someone can give a very good argument that A)There exists a series of causes and effects and changes, B) It is not the case that the series has an infinite regress, and C) It is not the case that its members are joined together like a closed loop, then they have given a very good argument that D) Therefore, the series has a First Cause and a first change. And many people have indeed made very good arguments on this, here is one of the latest

If there is a first, uncaused-Cause, and whatever begins to exist has a cause, then the first uncaused-Cause did not begin to exist. If the First Cause did not begin to exist it is not some sort of special pleading to say that it has no cause.

If you then go on to say, "The Universe didn't begin to exist, therefore it does not need a cause," the universe is a set of things that change, and this provides a good defense of "It is not the case that the series has an infinite regress."

When I open your links, and the first thing I see is stuff like this:

Ekyroptic universe, and Penrose’s conformal cyclic cosmology

It's indicative of someone trying to do what Scott described here. I'm not touching that stuff for the same reason I wouldn't try to go toe-to-toe with a Holocaust denier on the precise chemical compounds in Auschwitz gas chambers. I'd probably lose, and not necessarily because I'm wrong. Make your point legibly if you want to continue on this particular axis.

Instead, I'd zoom out and say the entire argument is the classic motte and bailey of God of the Gaps. Pointing out a gap in scientific knowledge does not mean the alternative is Christian theology. At best it simply muddies the waters, but why should one believe your specific God is the logical alternative, when there are many other gods that people believe in, or perhaps that science just hasn't had the capabilities of studying the ultimate cause yet?

A huge problem is that you are wading into a discussion that has a lot of back and forth. It's not the same as a Holocaust denier that is talking only to Holocaust deniers. Loke is formulating a response, referencing well-known models and terms, to atheistic philosophers of religion (there are many, such as Linford who is referenced throughout Loke's argument.) Unlike the disdain that people who argue with Holocaust deniers might express, atheistic philosophers of religion find the whole topic of great enough importance to devote a lifetime to, and support the position that "it is possible to rationally believe in God."

The Ekyroptic universe is a physics theory you might have heard popularized as "The Big Bounce." It was proposed by some pretty important theoretical physicists, Burt Ovrut, Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok. Using the accurate scientific term to refer to a theory is not a knock against the argument.

The cosmological argument is explicitly not a God of the Gaps argument. It is not pointing out a gap in scientific knowledge. It is not:

  1. We don't know what started the universe
  2. Therefore God.

The above would be a God of the Gaps argument. Instead, the Cosmological argument is a logical argument based on the same metaphysical assumptions required to conduct scientific inquiry in the first place.

Edit: I don't really want to argue for the First Cause here. I realize I end up presenting a lot of arguments for the first cause in order to support my point, but I am not going to "make my point legibly" because my point is not that God exists.

The point that I am arguing for is that your arguments are incredibly outdated, and were wrong even back when you formed them. But despite this, you are completely, irrationally, confident in your belief that the cosmological argues for something it does not.

It would be like if I said, "I closed the tab once your scientist started talking about evolution. Don't you know that was debunked a century ago?" and then I link to an old web page that asks where the missing link is. Then I say, "If your scientist believes in evolution as the origin of living species, explain how non-living viruses can cross between species?"

It's fine to not follow this debate in detail, everyone has their own bandwith. But you never understood what theists ever meant by the cosmological argument. That is my point I am trying to make legibly.

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The biggest issue with that line of sophistry is that it precisely nothing to imbue the definition of "God" with other relevant properties, such as the whole omniscient, omnipotent and omnibenevolent shtick.

Great, you've shown there "must" be an Unmoved Mover/Uncaused Cause. What exactly does find and replace with "God" for "the Big Bang" lose out on?

“No one has given any reason to think that the First Cause is all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, etc.” is not a serious objection to the argument.

People who make this claim – like, again, Dawkins in The God Delusion – show thereby that they haven’t actually read the writers they are criticizing. They are typically relying on what other uninformed people have said about the argument, or at most relying on excerpts ripped from context and stuck into some anthology (as Aquinas’s Five Ways so often are). Aquinas in fact devotes hundreds of pages across various works to showing that a First Cause of things would have to be all-powerful, all-knowing, all-good, and so on and so forth. Other Scholastic writers and modern writers like Leibniz and Samuel Clarke also devote detailed argumentation to establishing that the First Cause would have to have the various divine attributes.

Of course, an atheist might try to rebut these various arguments. But to pretend that they don’t exist – that is to say, to pretend, as so many do, that defenders of the cosmological argument typically make an undefended leap from “There is a First Cause” to “There is a cause of the world that is all-powerful, all-knowing, etc.” – is, once again, simply to show that one doesn’t know what one is talking about.

To give these arguments takes pages and pages, here is a very hasty version missing all the background for the purpose of fitting into a comment. Chapter 6 of Five Proofs of the Existence of God provides a much more detailed argument.

Several attributes seem to follow immediately and obviously from God’s being Pure Act. Since to change is to be reduced from potency to act, that which is Pure Act, devoid of all potency, must be immutable or incapable of change (ST I.9.1). Since material things are of their nature compounds of act and potency, that which is Pure Act must be immaterial and thus incorporeal or without any sort of body (ST I.3.1–2). Since such a being is immutable and time (as Aquinas argues) cannot exist apart from change, that which is Pure Act must also be eternal, outside time altogether, without beginning or end (ST I.10.1–2).

As the cause of the world, God obviously has power, for “all operation proceeds from power” (QDP 1.1; cf. ST I.25.1). Moreover, “the more actual a thing is the more it abounds in active power,” so that as Pure Act, God must be infinite in power (QDP 1.2; cf. ST I.25.2). In line with the mainstream classical theistic tradition, Aquinas holds that since there is no sense to be made of doing what is intrinsically impossible (e.g. making a round square or something else involving a self-contradiction), to say that God is omnipotent does not entail that he can do such things, but only that he can do whatever is intrinsically possible (ST I.25.3).

The Fifth Way, if successful, establishes by itself that God has intellect. Furthermore, intelligent beings are distinguished from non-intelligent ones in that the latter, but not the former, possess only their own forms. For an “intelligent being is naturally adapted to have also the form of some other thing; for the idea of the thing known is in the knower” (ST I.14.1). That is to say, to understand some thing is for that thing’s essence to exist in some sense in one’s own intellect. Now the reason non-intelligent things lack this ability to have the form of another thing is that they are wholly material, and material things can only possess one form at a time, as it were. Hence immaterial beings can possess the forms of other things precisely because they are immaterial; and the further a thing is from materiality, the more powerful its intellect is bound to be. Thus human beings, which, though they have immaterial intellects are also embodied, are less intelligent than angels, which are incorporeal. “Since therefore God is in the highest degree of immateriality … it follows that He occupies the highest place in knowledge” (ST I.14.1). This argument presupposes a number of theses in the philosophy of mind and cannot be evaluated, or even properly understood, unless those theses are first understood. We will explore these theses in chapter 4.

We can also conclude, in Aquinas’s view, that “there is will in God, as there is intellect: since will follows upon intellect” (ST I.19.1). Why do will and intellect necessarily go together? For Aquinas, things naturally are inclined or tend towards their natural forms, and will not of themselves rest, as it were, until that form is perfectly realized; hence the acorn, for example, has a built-in tendency towards realizing the form of an oak, and will naturally realize that form unless somehow prevented by something outside it. What we are describing in this example is of course the goal-directedness of the acorn as something having a final cause. But other sorts of thing have final causes too. In sentient beings, namely animals, this inclination towards the perfection of their forms is what we call appetite. And in beings with intellect it is what we call will. Thus anything having an intellect must have will. (We will return to this topic in the next chapter.) Of course, since God does not have the limitations we have, he does not have any ends he needs to fulfill, any more than he needs to acquire any knowledge. Thus, as with our attribution of power, intellect, and other attributes to God, our attribution of will to him is intended in an analogous rather than a univocal sense.

Since something is perfect to the degree it is in act or actual, God as Pure Act must be perfect (ST I.4.1). Given the convertibility of being and goodness, God as Pure Act and Being Itself must also be good, indeed the highest good (ST I.6).

Feser, Edward. Aquinas: A Beginner's Guide (Beginner's Guides) (pp. 95-96).

Oh not Aquinas again.

Since to change is to be reduced from potency to act, that which is Pure Act, devoid of all potency, must be immutable or incapable of change

What's the "must" coming from? Not obvious at all to me.

Since material things are of their nature compounds of act and potency, that which is Pure Act must be immaterial and thus incorporeal or without any sort of body (ST I.3.1–2).

This is all frankly confused. Just because you can out the words "Pure" and "Act" together and the poor English language doesn't throw a segfault doesn't mean it means anything.

Since such a being is immutable and time (as Aquinas argues) cannot exist apart from change, that which is Pure Act must also be eternal, outside time altogether, without beginning or end (ST I.10.1–2).

Without beginning? Sure. Without end? Why?

He's correct in the sense that modern physics considers time to be meaningless in the absence of anything that can serve as a clock.

Hence immaterial beings can possess the forms of other things precisely because they are immaterial;** and the further a thing is from materiality, the more powerful its intellect is bound to be.**

Bruh

I admire the sheer audacity of that statement, if literally nothing else.

Now the reason non-intelligent things lack this ability to have the form of another thing is that they are wholly material, and material things can only possess one form at a time,as it were

Quantum superposition says hi.

But other sorts of thing have final causes too. In sentient beings, namely animals, this inclination towards the perfection of their forms is what we call appetite

???

Since therefore God is in the highest degree of immateriality … it follows that He occupies the highest place in knowledge

Ah, I knew Anselm would get a shout out somewhere. Tell him that his ontological argument proves the existence of the perfect pizza, which alongside the other necessary qualities for perfection, such as existing in my hand (clearly better than not existing isn't it?), also comes with more laudable/necessary properties such as banishing his spirit to the aether.

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Great, you've shown there "must" be an Unmoved Mover/Uncaused Cause. What exactly does find an replace with "God" for "the Big Bang" lose out on?

What does replacing the Big Bang with God lose out on? Both of them share the attribute of serving as a termination point for materialistic explanations. Anything posited past that point is unfalsifiable by definition, unless something pretty significant changes in terms of our understanding of physics.

If there's an unmoved mover/uncaused cause, that means that there's at least one non-materialistic answer that's unavoidable. Materialism's whole point is that no non-materialistic answers are necessary, that it offers a seamless answer to all our questions. This is a seam, and not a small one either. And as I argued in our last go-round, it's not the only such seam.

What does replacing the Big Bang with God lose out on? Both of them share the attribute of serving as a termination point for materialistic explanations. Anything posited past that point is unfalsifiable by definition, unless something pretty significant changes in terms of our understanding of physics.

Simplicity, in the information theoretic sense, since you're dispensing with all the complexity involved with God. And that is the case, while waffling about omniscience and the lot might sound simple in natural language to a brain that, at the first go around, doesn't see all the glaring issues with that package deal, good luck showing the Kolmogorov complexity isn't ridiculous. And complexity needs to be justified, and boy does God not constrain expectations in the least.

If there's an unmoved mover/uncaused cause, that means that there's at least one non-materialistic answer that's unavoidable. Materialism's whole point is that no non-materialistic answers are necessary, that it offers a seamless answer to all our questions. This is a seam, and not a small one either. And as I argued in our last go-round, it's not the only such seam.

Explaining "all but one" beats the alternatives on offer. Mathematics is not considered invalid because it begins from base axioms. Besides, our intuition is hopelessly flawed in such matters, whether or not the Big Bang was an Uncaused Cause remains an open question in physics, and the universe doesn't give a shit about how much of an affront it is to our sensibilities it is to have things like that around. Time itself ceases to have meaning both before the Big Bang (which started the clock), or in more prosaic entities like black holes.

Besides, why isn't the Big Bang covered by "materialism"? It can very well accept such a primitive, since nobody claims that black holes are a failure of the same. Our intuitive notions of causality went out the window the moment quantum mechanics, with all it's superposition, entanglement and reference-frame/observer dependent definitions of cause and effect arrived.

If it conflicts with intuitions or our notions of "satisfying" answers, so much the worse for the latter. The math does a better job, or at least works while our intuitions halt and catch fire.

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