Category — Religion

Or, at least, a guess at what it might consist of.

There’s an interesting debate going on between Jerry Coyne and P. Z. Myers on the provability of God’s existence. The standard atheist position on this matter seems to be disbelief for lack of evidence to the contrary, but that in principle it might be possible to conjure some piece of evidence that might prove, beyond reasonable doubt, that “God” exists. Coyne offers, as an example, a series of highly unlikely events, all perpetrated by a being calling himself Jesus. Myers rightly insists he still would not believe in God or Jesus if these happened. [Read more →]

There is something rather premature about the recent “controversy” over Hawking’s statements on God’s existence. Firstly, there is nothing at all new in what we know of Hawking’s views. Theists (and believers of all varieties in a creator) might have held open the possibility of Hawking’s agnosticism, but this agnosticism was only ever a purely theoretical one anyway. The hope seems to have arisen largely from the concluding paragraph in A Brief History of Time:

However, if we do discover a complete theory, it should in time be understandable in broad principle by everyone, not just a few scientists. Then we shall all, philosophers, scientists and just ordinary people, be able to take part in the question of why it is that we and the universe exist. If we find the answer to that, it would be the ultimate triumph of human reason—for then we would know the mind of God.

“The mind of God” is naturally an alluring term that sounds like the product of an agnostic brain. It carries with it an appeal to our civilization-long search for the answer to the question, why are we here? But it really only shows the usefulness of God as a metaphor. “God” is simply the origin of all our laws—and clearly, if this was all that a theist believed in, he would be no theist at all. [Read more →]

There is a fascinating article in Slate about an experiment conducted by a psychologist in the 1950s. Three men who each thought they were Jesus Christ were brought in to Ypsilanti State Hospital to live with each other. The premise was simple. Psychologists have known for a long time of cases in which people with delusions about their own identity met others with similar delusions, and very quickly realised that if the other was mad, then they must be too. But if that was all there was to Milton Rokeach’s experiment, it wouldn’t offer anything new. Rokeach had a hunch that there was some connection to be drawn between delusions and one’s sense of identity in general. [Read more →]

More information can be found here and here.

Many theists believe that whenever something terrible (and often arbitrary) happens, it somehow fits into God’s plan. For instance, the earthquake in Haiti, some say, might be taken to be God’s way of making non-Haitians better people because it wakes them from their moral slumber and provokes them to do something good for those suffering, thus raising the general level of goodness in the world. As with many theistic arguments, it is often difficult to show, to one making the argument, that it makes the world less meaningful, rather than more so. But the argument, which implies that God is the sole arbiter in any question of morality, when taken to its conclusion leads to a contradiction. [Read more →]