Philosophers debate God's existence in book

The TImesDaily ^ | 9/28/2003 | Richard N. Ostling

[ZeitgeistSurfer]

Oxford University Press gets the prize for the year's snappiest book title: "God?''

As the subtitle explains, this is "A Debate Between a Christian and an Atheist'' about whether God exists, one of humanity's great questions.

The book doesn't assess any old deity but the Bible's unique, all-loving and all-powerful God.

This ancient question became quite current with two recent opinion pieces in The New York Times.

In one, Tufts University's Daniel Dennett caustically championed those like himself who don't believe in "ghosts or elves or the Easter Bunny – or God.'' Dennett said atheists are "the moral backbone of the nation'' and (ignoring opinion polls) its "silent majority.'' He called atheists "brights,'' implying that believers are "dims'' or "dumbs.''

In the second piece, the Times' own Nicholas Kristof lamented a growing, "poisonous'' divide between "intellectual and religious America.'' He blamed believers for clinging to tenets he finds unreasonable, and implied that they lack applied brainpower.

However, there's ample intellect with William Lane Craig of California's Talbot School of Theology, God's defender in "God?'' In fact, he presents the opposite problem, employing new twists taken from physics and mathematics that will flummox ordinary readers.

Quick: What do you get when you subtract infinity from infinity? And do you favor the Oscillating Universe, Chaotic Inflationary Universe, Vacuum Fluctuation Universe or Quantum Gravity Universe?

Craig's equally able counterpart is Dartmouth College atheist Walter Sinnot-Armstrong. (The book is based on two face-to-face debates they held.)

Alvin Plantinga of the University of Notre Dame, an estimable Protestant philosopher (who must have escaped Kristof's notice) has proposed "two dozen or so'' arguments for God. But Craig thinks just five make the case, if taken cumulatively:

* One is the evidence for

supernatural miracles that display God's power, using as an example the resurrection of Jesus Christ. Not a bad argument, but it's unlikely to convince non-Christians.

* God makes sense of the existence of the universe (which is where math and physics come in). Craig says it's good logic that "something cannot come from nothing,'' and God is the only reasonable explanation.

* God also makes sense of a universe that's "fine-tuned'' to support the existence of intelligent life despite the astronomical odds against it. He thinks it's more plausible to believe an "intelligent Mind'' caused this than that it just happened.

* God's existence explains the moral values whose objective reality we recognize, even when they're violated. (The Holocaust was evil even if the Nazis had won; child molesting is always wrong, and so forth.) Where do these absolutes come from, if not from God?

* Hosts of people profess that God can be immediately known and experienced. There's no way to absolutely prove this reality, but we all follow such basic beliefs drawn from experience in other contexts, and "it is perfectly rational to hold them.''

Sinnot-Armstrong, of course, finds Craig full of fallacies, as follows:

* Miracle accounts are "feeble testimony'' from "self-interested parties.''

* On origins, we just don't know enough, and citing God as the cause "is to explain the obscure by the more obscure, which gets us nowhere.''

* Even if "fine-tuning'' for intelligent life is highly improbable, what's to say a Mind created it? Maybe we're just lucky, like lottery winners.

* If moral values are objective, they're true whether or not God commanded them, so "God is superfluous.''

* Religious experiences don't suffice because they contain competing ideas of God. Anyway, if there were a God, he'd have the power to directly make his existence obvious to everyone.

Sinnot-Armstrong also uses what Craig acknowledges is "atheism's killer argument,'' how to explain the reality of human suffering.

[Hank Kerchief]

...the Philosophers will kneel before God and try to defend their miserable exhistance ...

Anyone who would bother to explain anything to a being that demands obesience is not a philosopher. Any being that demands obesience is just another tyrant. (I know, "God is love.")

People mean different things by love. Mine would definitely not include tormenting the majority of mankind from all of history for all of eternity with suffering the most evil of humans never even imagined.

Hank

[Revolting cat!]

Dennett said atheists are "the moral backbone of the nation''

Baloney, Dennett! If there is no God, then anything goes. That's not even an original or a recent thought!

[RightWhale]

And a CDL.

[Hank Kerchief]

Who made cows, chickens and other domesticated animals?

Mommy and daddy cows, chickens, etc.

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

The truth of God's existence does not require one single athiest's belief.

Which God? Allah, Zeus, the God of the Zoroastrians? There is equal evidence for them all. In fact, it's the same evidence.

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

If there is no God, then anything goes

Are you a nihilist or anarchist? That's the very thing they said, "God is dead, everything is permitted (or sometimes, nothing is forbidden.)"

But both you and they are wrong. It is God that "forgives," and allows people to get away with things. It is always religion that finds a way for people to do wrong and then, through confession, absolution, salvation, or some other gimmick, be able to escape the consequences of their actions.

No, if there is no God, nothing is permitted. Truth is ruthless and reality never forgives. You cannot defy the truth and escape the consequences. You cannot do wrong and get away with it, unless there is a God, of course, who'll let you get off.

Hank

[NutCrackerBoy]

Dennett said atheists are "the moral backbone of the nation" and (ignoring opinion polls) its "silent majority."

The second statement is probably more illuminating than the first. He so misunderstands the culture war that he doesn't even see a contrast of moral outlooks.

[txzman]

Personally I like the Orthodox Jewish viewpoint on this topic - NO debate needed. Their view is get up, go outside and look around.

Argument closed.

[Revolting cat!]

No, if there is no God, then there are no moral absolutes, rules, or some pesky 10 Commandments. Anything goes, every man decides for himself what is right and what is wrong. There is no common ground, no common behavioral denominator. (Some philosopher, saint or poet has said it better once.)

[Hank Kerchief]

No, if there is no God, then there are no moral absolutes, rules, or some pesky 10 Commandments. Anything goes

So, if there were no God, people could have sex indescriminately, and never get sick and never get anyone pregneant. If there were no God, people would not have to work and produce to eat and live. If there were no God, people could do just anything, and there would be no bad consequences. Looks like all the problems are because there is a God. I mean, if your right. You aren't.

Hank

[azhenfud]

"Which God? Allah, Zeus, the God of the Zoroastrians? There is equal evidence for them all. In fact, it's the same evidence."

The Creator of the Universe we call home. That's a fairly limited selection.

[Revolting cat!]

What? No, if there is no God, people can make their own moral rules, as the Communists, whose fundamental claim is that there is no God, have been doing for the past century (Hello, whare have we been?!) I cite an example of one Woody Allen who likes to strike moral postures and at the same time loudly proclaim that there is no God! Well, then, why should anyone listen to ro follow the moral rules of some Woody Allen? The human disaster of the 20th century has the authorship of the those who claimed that there is no God.

[Hank Kerchief]

No, if there is no God, people can make their own moral rules, as the Communists, whose fundamental claim is that there is no God, have been doing for the past century ...

No, people, like the communists, say they can make their own rules and even try to, but, it doesn't work, as history proves. No one can make the rules of right and truth, they are determined by reality. They are absolute, and even God, if there is a God, is subject to them.

Hank

[Hank Kerchief]

The Creator of the Universe we call home. That's a fairly limited selection.

Oh, you mean Allah.

I don't believe in Allah.

Hank

[RadioAstronomer]

BTTT!

[Revolting cat!]

Moral rules are "determined by reality"? Whose reality? Woody Allen's? Hank Kerchief's? Or perhaps Osama bin Ladden's reality? And why not, I say. Again, if there is no God, then anything goes, anybody's rules go, evidence: 100 years of crimes of godless Communism.

[Peelod]

God gave us the rational human brain.

Faith is a belief without hard, objective evidence.

Therefore, faith in God is a misuse of His creation.

Since God is perfect in all aspects, He has a perfect sense of humor.

[Dan Evans]

That's what I would have said, Hank. But are domesticated animals like chickens manmade, or Godmade. They sure aren't natural animals. I say they are the product of evolution. Or perhaps you could call it un-natural selection.

[Revolting cat!]

Osama bin Laden - bad example. We're in the western culture realm, for better or worse. Let's replace him with Leon Trotsky and his "reality", which once competed with Josef Stalin's "reality" and its moral rules, which, for all we know and care, were just as good as Woody Allen's moral rules.

[Hank Kerchief]

Moral rules are "determined by reality"? Whose reality? Woody Allen's? Hank Kerchief's? Or perhaps Osama bin Ladden's reality? And why not, I say. Again, if there is no God, then anything goes, anybody's rules go, evidence: 100 years of crimes of godless Communism.

There is only reality. There are not different versions of reality, it belongs to no one, and if you have any doubts about it, try defying it.

Hank