They’re enlightening, because they tell us just how screwed up his preconceptions are. His two questions are:
1. Do you hope you are right or wrong?
2. Do you ever doubt your atheism?
What’s most interesting is how Prager answers the questions, exposing his own assumptions. So in response to his first question, this is how he thinks atheists ought to answer.
I respect atheists who answer that they hope they are wrong. It tells me that they understand the terrible consequences of atheism: that all existence is random; that there is no ultimate meaning to life; that there is no objective morality — right and wrong are subjective personal or societal constructs; that when we die, there is nothing but eternal oblivion, meaning, among other things, that one is never reconnected with any loved ones; and there is no ultimate justice in the universe — murderers, torturers and their victims have identical fates: nothing.
I don’t think he understands atheism at all. It doesn’t mean that existence is random, since the universe actually has physical laws that allow some predictability; if I mix hydrogen and oxygen gas, and apply a spark, I’m going to get the release of a lot of energy fairly quickly, and water. I won’t get bunny rabbits, or marzipan, or a sheet of cellophane. That there is no ultimate meaning to life means I am free to set my own goals, and I don’t have to worry about, for instance, getting enslaved in a celestial choir after I die. We can establish an objective morality, based on human needs and desires, which is far superior to a morality built on the arbitrary caprice of an imaginary deity (or, more accurately, the self-serving demands of the imaginary deity’s priests). Death is just an end, and while endings are to be avoided, they are a part of our existence. That believers think they will be reunited with loved ones after death does not mean that they will. Finally, I’d rather see justice in this life, where it counts. I also do not consider the Abrahamic idea of justice at all just — murderers are to be tortured with endless misery for all of eternity? Really? You consider that justice?
As for how I’d answer it personally, I consider it a stupid question. I’m not hoping for one answer or another; my aspiration would be to understand reality accurately, and learning that there is a cosmic overlord deciding my fate is about as unpleasant as learning that oblivion follows death, but I don’t reject the idea because I don’t like it — after all, I accept my inevitable death despite not liking it one bit — but because the evidence for a deity is nonexistent, while the evidence for naturalism is overwhelming.
There’s also a bit of a scientific attitude behind that. If you go into an experiment hoping for a specific, desired result, you’re doing it wrong. Any hope you have should be for an unambiguous result, no matter whether it’s positive or negative.
His second question is just as bad: do you ever doubt your atheism? Again, he delivers what he thinks is the right answer, by telling us about a debate in which he asked the audience that question, and none of the atheists did.
As I explained at the debate, I never met a believer who hadn’t at some point had doubts about God. When experiencing, seeing or reading about terrible human suffering, all of us who believe in God have on occasion doubted our faith. So, I asked the atheists, how is it that when you see a baby born or a spectacular sunset, or hear a Mozart symphony, or read about the infinite complexity of the human brain — none of these has ever prompted you to wonder whether there really might be a God?
Oh, Dennis Prager…when you hear a Mozart symphony, do you ever stop and think, “Well, golly, maybe there really is a Flying Spaghetti Monster”? When you see human suffering, do you stop in awe and bow down before the glory of Cthulhu? Do sunsets inspire you to praise Huitzilopochtli? Then I guess you don’t ever truly doubt your faith.
The thing is, atheists know that there are all these phenomena that they don’t understand. I’m a developmental biologist, and when I see a baby, I know some of the processes that led to its assembly in utero, but I also know that there are million complexities I don’t understand, and that’s OK. Atheists don’t fill in the mysteries of life with “a god did it”. It’s an example of oblivious egotism to expect us to caulk up the unknowns of the universe with your peculiar, idiosyncratic, unbelievable god-stuff, and to dismiss atheists as unthinking because we don’t spontaneously assume a sky god named Jehovah hand-assembled our nervous systems.
As for his examples, sunsets aren’t magic. They’re a product of the filtering properties of an atmosphere illuminated obliquely, and by the scattering of light from particles of water and other substances in the air. They’re beautiful, but why think that some invisible magic man in the sky is rearranging photons to please us?
I don’t expect my answers to please Prager. He has intentionally composed a pair of questions for which he has his pat answers, and he’s not asking out of honest curiosity to find out how atheists think — he’s just looking for excuses to reject atheism. It’s as if he asked the question, “What is 1 + 1?”, so that he could sneer at all the ignorant materialists who answer “2”, by informing them that obviously the answer is “3”, gosh aren’t atheists dumb?
But then, this is the kind of thing I’ve come to expect of dishonest religious apologists.
I am completely indifferent as to whether I am right or wrong, because I am prepared to change my opinion if provided compelling evidence.
My atheism is doubt. Isn’t that the point?
No marzipan?
But do you ever doubt your doubt? And in moments of crisis, doubt your doubts about your doubt?
1.) I hope I’m right. At least when it comes to the religions’ gods that I know of; those motherfuckers would be scary if they were real. I guess you could imagine a nice god, but that would still conflict with reality, so what would I make of such a nice god? It’s nice but incompetent?
2.) Nothing is for certain. But in practical terms, I don’t doubt it, no. Think of it as “beyond a reasonable doubt”, that’s not 100% certainty, either.
1. Do you hope you are right or wrong?
I hope I understand things as well as I can, which usually leads me to understand that very very few things are as simple as “right or wrong” So I hope for understanding, because “right or wrong” is a subset of that. Don’t be so easy on yourself, Dennis! Aim High!
2. Do you ever doubt your atheism?
There are an infinite number of possible ideas. I don’t worry about even a fraction of them. I stopped worry about whether god was real a long time ago; now I worry about people who believe god is real – there’s plenty enough to doubt there.
Nonsense. Science is agnostic regarding your hopes. It does not demand that you do not have them, it only demands that you do the science correctly. If this were so, then I suggest that every scientist on LIGO and every physicist involved in a particle search was “doing it wrong.”
1 + 1 = 1, 2, or 3 when you round down or round up decimals to the nearest whole number, e.g. 0.6 + 0.6 = 1.2 => 1 + 1 = 1.
I’d prefer oblivion to having everlasting life with that Christers’ fucking asshole of a god in charge. I mean, I’d have to try to straighten the bugger out, but I’d have a cat’s chance in Hell of succeeding.
I, for one, hope to God (haha!) I’m right, because I don’t want to live in a universe where the religionists – pretty much any of them – are right about their weirdo conceptions of a deity. Cold, heartless universe? Yes, please, in preference to the lunacy of just about every religious conception I’ve ever encountered.
1. Do you hope you’re right or wrong?
I hope I’m right. Simple logic: if there IS a god and he’s actually a GOOD god, then there’s nothing to look forward to after death except mindless praising and NO accomplishments since everything I could possibly do is now rendered meaningless…plus with no motivation to ever solve non-existent problems, I’d be bored in no time with no hope of release from it. If he exists and is an EVIL god (the bible seems to lean that way when you read it…) then I’m as doomed as a christian knowing they are going to hell. On the other hand, if there is NO god then I won’t even be aware of my death, and will be as peaceful as I could hope to be.
2. Do you ever doubt your atheism?
Has he installed enough doubt yet through harassment? In other words…”are you really Really REEEALLY sure there’s no God?” This is just childish. But to answer, sure, it’s called “having an open mind”. But to me, if a god is just toying with us by refusing to reveal themselves tangibly despite multiple reasons to do so, allows so much suffering when even a simple “I AM HERE AND I AM REAL!!!” physical appearance would end it, and yet expects us to mindlessly praise him even though he clearly gets off on suffering, then he’s a bully or a tyrant and I want nothing to do with him. (if you don’t think god gets off on suffering, show me ONE example where someone was helped WITHOUT first a sacrifice or humiliation attached. From spiting in the eyes of the blind to making Moses wander through a dessert to jesus having to die for forgiveness, you won’t find a single one where he just did something good because someone asked nicely.)
So it’s more pleasant AND easier to just look at the facts of life assume that he does NOT exist, since if he does he’s proven he’s not worth loving anyway and we’re just ants to him…and he seems to enjoy holding the magnifying glass like the spoiled child he is shown to be time and time again in your stories.
I received a revelation from God last Thursday.
God has decided that the system of Heaven and Hell was just not working. Torturing prisoners had grown boring, and hymns of praise even more boring. So he has abolished Heaven and Hell and set up a new system of sequential reincarnation. When you die, your soul will go to the back of a line. When you reach the front of the line, you go into the next available human body.
He has declared a general amnesty for the residents of Hell, and put them into the line. Those who were good enough to get into Heaven, all twenty-seven of them, volunteered to go into the line as well, so they could teach virtue and goodness by example.
He hopes that we will have enough sense to treat each other well and care for the Earth. If not, we will just have to live in the mess. He is turning his attention to other galaxies, where he has other children to raise. He said, “You’re on your own now. It’s time to grow up.”
Babies are gross, sunsets are banal, Mozart is boring, and the complexity of the brain gave my bf epilepsy. Kinda hate when theists try to appeal to my sense of aesthetics and just assume that everyone’s aesthetics are the same as theirs.
Anyway, this is just the pragmatic fallacy.
done.
I’m struck by the sheer greediness of people like Prager. They like to go on and on about how grateful they are to God for every little thing (a sunset! a baby’s smile!), but really, they aren’t. Implicit in Prager’s argument is the notion that nothing matters unless it’s forever. If life isn’t eternal, then he thinks it’s sad and bleak and terrifying and hardly worth the bother.
That beautiful sunset? Ending in darkness in a few minutes from now. The Mozart symphony? Ending in… however long the piece is. Sure, you get to keep your memories of those moments, but according to Prager, that’s not enough. Keeping your memories of loved ones is just a raw deal according to him: if you don’t get reunited with them for eternity, then life is rubbish. Prager is like a child who is never satisfied no matter how many scoops of ice cream he gets — he wants unlimited ice cream, damnit!
A small bone of contention, re Abrahamic religion condemning murderers to eternal torture. That ain’t the way it works in the second largest of them, Catholicism. If you are up to date in your confessions and you receive last rites, you’re in like Flynn. Bot my father and grandfather had audiences with popes, and both received indulgences for them and their families, saying that if any of simply say the name of Jesus at the hour of our death — or if incapably of speech, merely think the name of Jesus — then we get into Heaven as quick as a saint or martyr, no waiting line in Purgatory. Which would be mighty convenient, as I get hit by the bus and think: “Jesus Fuck, where did that come from???”
And let’s remember that John Kerry was denied communion because he carried out the will of his Massachusetts constituency in allowing reproductive choice, while communion was never denied to Mussolini or Battista or Somosa or any other butcher of thousands. The Catholic Church doesn’t give a rat’s ass about rape and murder, only that you do the hokey-pokey with their magic words, and boom, paradise.
My answers are pretty close to those of Siobhan — what I hope is true doesn’t much matter, and certainty is the end of inquiry. But I see the questions more as:
1) Do you ever long to believe in a universe that transcends the natural, where everything that presents itself to us as natural is actually the product of a cosmic mind that it is capable of deceit?
No. I firmly hope the universe is not lying to us, and that our attempts to understand it are not completely in vain.
2) Do you think that it is possible that the universe is indeed deceiving us, and that a scientistic reliance on reasoned inquiry must therefor ultimately fail? Is evolved intelligence not only a doomed failure, but a bankrupt concept?
Yes, I’m afraid that the existence of minds like those of Dennis Prager and Donald Trump make me believe that it is entirely possible that the evolution of biological intelligence will prove to to have been a bad bet; and if that is the case, maybe it was all just a cosmic joke of a truly demented Creator God.
But that doesn’t mean I have to give up hope.
I hope I’m right and wrong. I will not explain that.
Eternal oblivion seems like a pretty good way to have it end. “Phew, got through all that life nonsense, now I can get down to the business of naps for eternity.”
Plus, I consider it a lot better to be able to set your own personal meaning of your own life, which makes you irreplaceable in that meaning.
1) What is he asking? Yes, I hope I’m right in the sense that I like to believe true things and I would be disappointed to have misunderstood so much. But, no, the prospect of dying doesn’t exactly thrill me. Is he asking if I wish there was a next life? Sometimes. But I have never wished to live in the Christian’s vision of the afterlife, so I’m not sure what he thinks this proves.
2) Maybe as a child before I learned about critical thinking, but I can honestly say I’ve had no cause to doubt my atheism in a REALLY long time.
No.
Wait, is this meant to be a binary question? “Do you [hope you are right] or [hope you are wrong]?” I don’t really hope either way, but I find the utter cruelty and viciousness in the world much more tolerable when I work under the assumption that there’s no god guiding it all. Yeah, sure, if that’s true then there’s nobody at the wheel, and that sucks. It’s scary. But if this was the world that some being wanted? If this was the plan? That’s unsettling. The idea that there might be a god who orchestrates things, and this world is what they want to see? I do not find any comfort in that.
What’s wrong with random? Even if that were a necessary conclusion from the lack of a god, even if the universe was random, randomness produces some fine things.
Who cares about ultimate meaning? I am neither a spoon, nor a power drill, and I do not need to have meaning imposed from without. Meaning, at least in this context, is meaningless.
There is no reason to believe that the morality dictated by a god would be objective, and those presented to us by religions are quite clearly just the views of ancient men who wanted to dominate their peers. My morality is subjective, and I understand that, but it is absurd to claim that a supposedly objective moral system that commands the murder of people who do not adhere to meaningless social conventions is better than mine simply because it is, supposedly, objective.
That death is probably the absolute end of each person’s existence is simply a reason to cherish those around you, distance ourselves from those who needlessly hurt us, and ensure that we are not needlessly hurting others.
There is no ultimate justice in the universe. That much is obvious even without considering gods. If we want justice, we have to work to make sure we have it here and now, not simply wait until we die to get our chosen reward or punishment.
Sure. I also doubt my liberalism, my feminism, the perfection of my recipes, my strategies in Crusader Kings 2, the way I tie my shoes… doubt is a healthy thing. Why wouldn’t I doubt my atheism?
Erm… bees.
I’ve never really seen a baby born. I mean, I’ve seen tv hospital programme thingies where it’s all “push!” “hrrgh!” “waah!” “it’s a girl!” and then there’s a funny little cute bald monkey covered in blood… I’m not sure how I’m supposed to see a god in that? It’s interesting, it’s awesome, but it’s also astonishingly mundane. I agree that sunsets are pretty, but I don’t see how the way light goes wibbly when it comes through the atmosphere near the horizon implies a god? Yes, music is lovely… but how god? I’m not sure the human brain really is infinitely complex. I’d go with very. I don’t see why something being complicated means a god had to be involved, though.
Aww… I ran out of questions. Did he have any more?
1) Stupid question, what does the evidence say? That there is no phantasm.
2) Ready at any time to look at real physical evidence that meets my criteria. Your inane examples don’t fit that criteria, nor are they even close. They are explained by science.
About what? I did make the wrong choice for desert today, is that what is meant?
Filling in the bit I suspect is meant, , makes clear it is, as poopyhead suggests, a confused and not very enlightening question.
I also made the wrong choice for how many s are in dessert.
His questions come from the “in the box” position of someone who hasn’t considered alternatives beyond a binary “I’m right or I’m wrong.” If I doubted my doubt, I have no more reason to think the Christian God is real than I do to think the Hindus are correct and I’ll be reincarnated or that I’m a brain in a jar living in a matrix type universe.
I hope I’m right that there isn’t some Grand Snuff-Pornographer In The Sky continually specially-creating encores to his alleged tenth plague of Egypt–this Zika virus, for instance.
I doubt the GSPITS exists, but if he does*, then choosing to worship him would be horrid.
(* Me, doubting my doubt.)
I doubt it.
But, Mr Prager, are there not millions of billions of people already in eternal oblivion. Those peole who were never born. I doubt that it bothers them very much.
#6: Nonsense back at you. I design my experiments so that I learn something no matter what the outcome, so I literally do not hope for any particular answer.
About what? Atheism in general or the existence of a certain god in particular? Either way, the answer is “no”. I don’t hope I’m right or wrong… it’s a silly question.
I would ask the author, however, if he thinks he’s right or wrong with his god selection when you consider the thousands of gods humans have fabricated over time. It’s a very watered down Pascal’s wager question as I see it.
Well, no. I’ve been an atheist for my entire life and so far not one of the thousands of gods has bothered to take the time or effort to demonstrate it’s existence. They’ve had over 50 years to figure it out, too. So if they do exist they’re either all collective horribly incompetent, collectively disinterested or collectively dishonest. Far more likely to be, they’re all collectively nonexistent.
#26,
Then you are a saint among sinners. If you think the scientists who spent 10^8 dollars and years building detectors to look for the Higgs only hoped they learned something no matter the outcome, you are delusional. They would have been extremely disappointed if they didn’t see the Higgs, even though they would have learned that the threshold for its mass (if it existed at all) was beyond the dynamic range of the LHC.
And whether you don’t succumb to the “sin” of hoping for a positive result is irrelevant. Science didn’t care about what they hoped for, nor does science reward your stoic lack of hope, it reveals the truth regardless. If you don’t hope to see a positive result, more power to you, I suppose. But It would not mean you do science right and they (the Higgs searchers) did it wrong because they sullied science by hoping to find the Higgs–which was your claim:
and it is, on the face of it, nonsense.
@ 28 Bill
Let me ask you this if I may… how many discoveries have been made by accident, by looking for one thing and finding something completely different? Would that not be amazing as well? Besides, even finding nothing can be exciting. You’ve still learned something and narrowed down the possibilities.
Of course it wouldn’t occur to him with that first question to think that the answer might have nothing to do with Christianity. I don’t “hope” either way, but if he were to ask me, I’d consider answering that I hope I’m wrong and when I die I get to go be with Freyja in Fólkvangr.
As for “objective morality”, ugh. I got caught up on Twitter the other day with a Christian who was trying to play gotcha with the sin/morality question and yes, ended up bringing it around to Nazis. That I find the “morality” of the god character as portrayed in the Bible quite monstrous never seemed to phase him, because Nazis.
The most profound statement by a scientist looking at results can be “that’s funny” (Isaac Asimov) and one checks it out with further experiments. Happens often enough in basic research to be a meme. Video explaining some of those moments (scroll down for video). A classic example is Fleming and penicillin.
#30,
Lots of discoveries have been accidental. That has nothing to do with my point which is that, contrary to PZ’s claim, if you go into an experiment hoping for a positive result it does not mean you are doing science wrong.
Finding nothing can be exciting. In fact some physicists hoped that the LHC did not find the Higgs. But those working on the search, doing the experiment, certainly hoped they would find it–and their science was spectacular. They were not, in any imaginable sense, doing science wrong.
Why do religious people always sound like con artists and why do they always try to make things complicated.
1) Neither, I understand that, while there may be something bigger, or more powerful out there somewhere, I know that it isn’t your god and I know that it doesn’t care about us individually.
2) It’s not a belief, it’s and understanding of the world around me so there is nothing to doubt.
If Mighty Cthulhu suddenly rose from the depths and started shouting commands at me personally, I would probably re-evaluate my position, but see #1.
Forgot to add a link to Fleming in my #31,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Fleming
The relevant part (scroll down) has the heading “Accidental discovery”.
#30 because Nazis – most of whom were Catholics IIRC.
The universe is basically unfair: If Prager is right, both he and we will eventually know, and he’ll get to crow about ut. If Prager is wrong, neither of us will know, and we’ll never get a chance to crow about it.
This is the Fallacy of Argument from Wishful Thinking. It’s very stupid.
Reality doesn’t care what you wish was true.
Also very stupid.
The universe is a very large place with lots of stuff going on. So what? The gods are simply irrelevant.
@johnhodges @10 – Close. There’s only one of us. We just keep getting re-incarnated throughout the past and future. I am you and you are me and we are all together mad. The next time “I” die, I could come back as a viking in 832 CE or I could come back as the last human before the great beetle race gains power some time in the far future. You could be me after I die a few more times or I could be you after you die.
I have no idea who first came up with the idea that we are all the same same soul reincarnated into every living person. If my wife were here, I’d just ask her. But can’t be arsed to google it. :)
I agree that Prager’s questions and pat answers are very silly. But when I think about question #1, I realize that I kind of do hope that there is some ultimate meaning to existence — and I do hope (without any expectation that it will happen) that there is some sort of pleasant existence after death for decent people. I recognize that, logically, this is as useful as hoping that I will gain super powers (which, occasionally, I do find myself hoping for).
I don’t know what that says about me, but it is true for me. I fantasize about an afterlife in which we all get our own Holodeck, with an infinite library of experiences to call upon.
Prager’s nonsense about “objective morality” is amusing and risible. Like far too many of his sort he assumes that since God, allegedly, said such and such is moral and such and such immoral that is objectively moral. In other words “objective morality” is little more than the subjective choices of God. This is of course also an appeal to authority, i.e., the creator of the Universe said X is mortal and y moral so x and y are those things. This is also the same as what is right and wrong is the will of the stronger.
So in the end according to Prager right and wrong are little more than God’s whims.
doubt? so what it does not matter if I doubt or not. That is not what he is really after with that question.
If I doubt it does not make his idea of god any more real that any other numberless gods . I sure as hell can’t parse out the true god from all the gods created by the human mind for all our history. So what do I do? I try to understand what is because finding out things is fun. I try to live my life being true to myself and that includes trying to be kind and fair to everyone. I may fail because I am not flawless and am subject to internal conflicts and contradictory impulses.
Do I worry about being judged by the god of my youth having grown up christian not really. If their is some “guy” waiting to judge me after I die then he will know who I am and what I did and why I am them completely at the mercy of that judgement I am still left where I am right now to do the right thing and be true as I can whether there are gods or not.
If he is really asking me to choose his god does not even make the first cut
The old gods of nature the personification of forces and things of nature that were revered of old hold more reverence for me than the Abrahamic Tyrant he loves so dearly.
I am even more interested in the metaphor of Brahma and who it is that is reincarnated than I am in the historicity of Jesus. It does not matter any way.
I am a western educated human being and take my understanding using the language of science. All that blather from the godists trying to convince and offer rationalization for faith do not reach me any longer.
What I really get from them is the offer of the believers acceptance of myself if I believe as they wish me to. From experience and observation that acceptance is never realized it is continuously re-evaluated it is provisional at best and carries with it being continuously judged by the community of believers. Thus are the christians regardless of any protestations to the contrary.
uncle frogy
If I lived in the Marvel universe I’d believe in Thor – dude’s right there on the news whacking alien invaders with a big hammer.
Given everything we see about the world, it’d take some pretty serious and repeated evidence to convince me into theism. If one of my bushes caught fire and started issuing commandments, I’d assume I was being punked by teenagers, or someone slipped LSD into my cereal – it’s just so inconsistent with the rest of the world. Rivers running with blood? Eh, probably phytoplankton. Hail falling from a clear sky and burning as fire upon the ground? Gotta be some crazy pollution. President Trump? OK, God, I concede, now please stop screwing with us.
Terrible consequences! As far as consequences go, a bit of existential sadness hardly stacks with the devastation that theism has wrought upon the world. I’ll take some hurt feelings over witch burnings and the crusades any day.
Naively, I can suppose that it would be nicer if I were wrong, and there was a loving god who made the universe a better place than it is. Except the universe isn’t better than it is, so it’s clear that it wouldn’t actually be nicer at all. Plus you’d have to have an excuse they shouldn’t make things better, and most of those quickly make the idea more miserable than not.
@jd142 #38:
That sounds to me a bit like John Wheeler’s electron.
@erichoug #33:
You wouldn’t be able to, at least not to any objective effect — you’d already be insane.
1. ‘Hope’ is primarily a wish for something over which you have no control. Several times, I found myself at the end of an exam hoping I’d scored high enough to pass it. My failure was to not put sufficient effort into studying earlier. Leaving things to hope is generally bad planning, or a response to a contingency forced upon you unexpectedly. It’s better to think, to plan, to try and to do. If I think I might be wrong about something, I’ll try to find time to learn more and attempt to come to a more accurate result. I won’t waffle on about ‘hope’ instead.
2. I’ve been waiting 40 years for any significant cause to turn up that would give me a good reason to sit down and re-evaluate my atheism. All I’ve heard in that time is a near-stifling quantity of apologetics and a mass of arguments so lacking in reason and facts that they would shame a lobotomised sheep.
No.
I’d very much like there to be an afterlife (no gods, those are creepy) and being a writer with way too much time on my hands I even came up with a great deal about how the afterlife would work. However, wanting something to be true doesn’t make it true, and hope requires at least the faintest possibility of the hoped-for thing actually happening.
So I don’t hope I’m right because that’s undesirable but I don’t hope I’m wrong (about the existence of my own afterlife) because the odds of my being wrong are effectively zero.
Hey, everybody has a fantasy life. Most of us are just mature enough to understand our imaginary friends aren’t real.
So laws of physics don’t exist? What did that poor straw man ever do to you?
Not sure what you mean by “ultimate meaning.” My life has the meaning I give it; no other meaning could even theoretically be valid.
Somehow, this comic springs to mind…
Nope. There is objective morality. Luckily, beating up straw men is not a serious offense.
Gee, can you imagine the horror of living in a universe where you don’t get everything you want when you want it for all eternity?
People who think justice already exists won’t pursue it.
This is why murderers and torturers are allowed to get away with their crimes (and even rewarded for them) while their victims are further punished.
Before I answer this, I need you to be clear on what you think the word “doubt” means. From context, people who write soppy articles about religion tend to use “doubt” as a rough synonym for “crimethink,” ie, to doubt is to commit the shameful act of questioning what an authority has ordered you to believe. If this is the case, any answer I give will go right over your head.
Personally, I’ve never understood this attitude.
Yes, I’ve seen beautiful things and felt the inescapable conclusion that there’s just so much more to the universe than humanity. I just don’t get how can anybody feel that and say: “Yep! There’s humanity and a being who is omnipotent but functionally indistinguishable from a human, who trivially created the entire universe and everything in it for the benefit of humanity!”
Incidentally, I do find it curious that Mozart’s symphonies are included on that list. Last time I checked, those symphonies are quite clearly the product of intelligent design— considerable evidence confirms that they were created by a dude named Wolfgang. Are we supposed to worship him or something?
Do I hope I’m right, or wrong?
Sounds like a non-question disguised with a punctuation mark.
to be a more pedant style of answer:
I don’t hope I’m right or wrong. I know I’m either ‘right’, or ‘wrong’, as there is no other option. either ‘right’ or ‘wrong’, no ‘maybes’ as a third option. If this was a second question following a more specific question, Then I dislike using Or as part of the question, as it can be used to list the possible options vs the boolean logic symbol that includes Yes as a valid answer,
I infer the question was implying: do I hope: (1) I’m right about the existence of gawd, or (2) secretly, that I’m wrong about it?”
i don’t know what to say about this question (or even if it even is one and not just a rhetorical assertion)
I’ll admit that it sounds like the usual jello style of words that cannot be nailed to a wall to examine more closely. The meme style answer could easily be .
Ah, I borked the italics. Sorry about that.
Incidentally, here’s a question I wish to pose to PZ and/or the internet at large:
Suppose you died and found yourself in an afterlife. For whatever reason, you know that this is not a dream or a hallucination; you are actually and truly dead and you are actually and truly in an afterlife which is real and exists. However, you don’t yet know anything about this afterlife as of yet. You have no reason to suspect it resembles that of any religion, and you have not yet seen a shred of evidence for any gods. (After all, while the two tropes often go hand in hand, definitive proof of one would not offer any evidence for the other.)
What would your first reaction be? If, shortly after arrival, you spotted an information kiosk for new arrivals, what sort of questions would you ask first?
Sorry, it’s just been increasingly bothering me that nearly all fictional portrayals of the afterlife are the same to the point that when an apologist asks about “an” afterlife, we instantly know what their afterlife looks like and answer accordingly, often disregarding the idea of other afterlives outright.
Prager gets everything wrong. This isn’t aimed at thinking beings, it is to reinforce the believers and maybe puts some dollars in his bank account.
His nonexistent “objective morality” isn’t morality or ethics. It is obedience to a kludgy old book of mostly fiction and mythology modified by cherry picking.
You’re telling me that physics spent 10^8 dollars on a wild ass gamble, that the LHC would have been considered a failure if it didn’t find the Higgs? That’s nuts, and I don’t believe it.
But if true, it’s time to cut funding to physics and spend it in biology instead, where we know how to design experiments.
no more than the sight and knowledge of Hiroshima, the holocaust or the san francisco earthquake of 1906 does.
uncle frogy
I never knew that only robots conducted scientific experiments.
Science has tools to try and help you overcome your biases and/or hopes but there isnt any requirement that you cant hope for a positive result.
A side point to your irrelevant comment. They spent more than that. Way more. That was the detector cost. It does not include the cost of the LHC itself, which I believe is something like $45 billion. (FWIW by comparison the Apollo program, in today’s dollars, cost something like $250 billion. The never-to-be-repeated biggest big-science project of all time.)
Your comment is irrelevant because I never wrote that the experiment or the LHC would have been a failure if they didn’t find the Higgs. (I might agree with that, but I never wrote it. ) What I actually wrote was quite narrow, and that is, again:
a) The experimenters hoped (no doubt fervently) they would find a Higgs and
b) contra your statement, they didn’t do science wrong because they hoped for a particular outcome.
Ah I see you have responded to something similar.
If you came up with say a medicine that cured cancer – you are saying that you would design your double blind experiment and then say that all you hope for is an unambiguous result ? You wouldn’t want your medicine to work ?
That if you were testing something that represented a breakthrough in your field – a nobel prize winning , career defining breakthrough , you wouldn’t hope for the experiment to show the breakthrough ?
@Jake Harban, 48
My first question? “What’s with all the cats?” This serves two purposes:
1) If cats are present, this will lead to my being informed of that which is with them, which is good to know.
2) If no cats are present, this will confuse the information kiosk staff, giving me enough time to escape from this cat-free hellscape.
Err, no. Hopefully they’d have a brochure or something. It’s not like you could just ask “how is this place different from where I just came from?” I mean, I suppose you could, but that only works if they know where you came from, and then it might be a very long list of differences. I’d certainly like to find out of it was an equalitiarian utopia, but if I just came out and asked about it, could I be sure they were honest with me if they said it was good? Hmm…
1: Would I want some specific truth? Sure, why not. It would be nice if the world was inherently just and fair, that there was no suffering, pain or misery. But I don’t get to choose, so the best I can do is try to understand what reality.
Someone mentioned wishing for a good grade. I recently completed a 2-year stint, and I don’t think I ever wished for that for any test. Wishing for a good grade doesn’t help, so why bother? I rather spend that time working.
2: Sure, but then again doubt is a good thing.
Correction: “try to understand reality”
1. While I wouldn’t call indulging wild fantasy scenarios “hope” regardless, this seems like the sort of thing that depends highly on the specific way in which atheism is wrong. Prager can pretend that the only alternative are the Abrahamic religions all he likes (sure, technically “a God” only restricts the field to monotheism, but even that restriction is pretty telling), but anyone even slightly intellectually honest knows that’s not true. This question can be broken down into an infinite series of questions about different monotheistic gods, pantheons, systems of animistic spirits that fall within the god umbrella, etc. For instance:
Do you hope that the psycopathic monster depicted in Abrahamic monotheism is real? Hell no, that particular god being real would be a bad thing.
Do you hope that the deist god who kicked off the big bang and has done nothing since is real? No, and as fictional characters go that isn’t really one that evokes much of a response. I’m pretty neutral on that one.
Do you hope that there is some sort of pantheon of superhumans that have dominion over the different parts of environment, but fundamentally human psyches? No, but while this isn’t an ideal scenario it still appeals over a lot of instances of monotheism. It’s also a lot more plausible, so there’s that.
Do you hope that there are a bunch of minor deities in individual rocks, trees, rivers, etc. which are generally benevolent, and both interested in and capable of protecting the natural objects to which they are associated? No, but I can say that it might be nice.
The lack of an actual written out alternative really is a galling indicator of shallow thinking. I’d also generally point it out as an aspect of privilege, except that Prager allegedly belongs to a minority religion and as such really should be in a good position to see that the lack of an alternative is a problem. Maybe it’s an indicator of even shallower thinking than it looks like at first blush, maybe it’s an indicator of sucking up to the majority religion. Either way, intellectual honesty is nowhere to be found.
2. It depends on the definition of doubt. I consider all my beliefs provisional, and based on the best evidence at hand, and there’s pretty much always at least some evidence for an opposing position, even if it is astoundingly weak sometimes. By that definition, there’s always some doubt. Sunsets, Mozart, and brain complexity as things that would go on the counter-evidence pile though? Really? At least the whole “look at these people who are simultaneously very smart and believe in god” has something going for it, even if it is still pretty damn weak and completely overwhelmed by the null hypothesis (that people can be pulled up for a number of mutually exclusive god hypotheses is also not a point in favor of that argument). That things exist that are beautiful and/or impressive is just sad as a line of argument.
You guys are too verbose. I like the fact that my answers can be concise and to the point.
“No and no. Got anymore questions?”
I hope I’m wrong because I’d rather not die than die.
If I’m ever thrown out of an airplane, I’ll hope I’m wrong about my ability to fly.
Right now I’m hoping I’m wrong about all the bad things that keep happening all over the place.
My hopes don’t seem to do help, though.
I hope I’m wrong about that.
#38: “I have no idea who first came up with the idea that we are all the same same soul reincarnated into every living person.”
You may be thinking of the short story “The Egg”, by Andy Weir (author of The Martian). You can read it online here (and probably other places, but that’s the first page I found in a Google search).
re 1st question to ask at the afterlife kiosk:
1) “Where’s the bathroom?”
2) “Any empty beds available for sleeping?”
I’d would stick to the feeling’s I had when I visited Japan the 1st time, and felt I was suddenly illiterate. Unable to keep the various symbols of writing as unique identifiers rather than random squiggles. Unlike Europe, very few spoke English so not only illiterate, but effectively mute (incommunicado). I’m pretty sure that appearing in the afteflife would appear very similar, as in everything being unfamiliar and brand sparking new. But that’s all hypothetical, proving what?
Yes, many LHC scientists wanted the Higg’s Boson to NOT be detected, expecting something a little different to be found, to open up new areas of inquiry and give them something else to “figure out”. By sticking to rigorous procedures they avoided subjective biases that might force such conclusions unwarranted. One key part of the procedure is to keep “hope” purely internal. “trying” to achieve a certain result is the shenanigans region. Hoping a certain result comes out is valid motivation to perform the experiment, analyzing the data could be handed off to a 3rd party for analysis to avoid bias.
/pedant
@28 “If you think the scientists who spent 10^8 dollars and years building detectors to look for the Higgs only hoped they learned something no matter the outcome, you are delusional. They would have been extremely disappointed if they didn’t see the Higgs, even though they would have learned that the threshold for its mass (if it existed at all) was beyond the dynamic range of the LHC.”
Someone here is delusional, but I don’t think it is the person you were talking to (about?).
The LHC has delivered enough results to make it worth the cost even if the Higgs particle (or particles) had been proven entirely absent by them. Instead it provided strong evidence for at least one of them. If you already *know* the outcome of the experiment there’s no reason to do it. If you can’t accept that your experimental results may disprove your assumptions going in, then you can’t do science at all.
Exactly. It’s called the Scientific Method.
What does that mean? Why is hope in quotes? You can call it internal hope or external hope or whatever woo-words you choose, the bottom line is that they hoped to see a Higgs.
WTF, is that comment supposed to address something I claimed? I never said they could not accept not finding the Higgs, I said they hoped to find it, and that their hope didn’t render their science bad.
Ed Seedhouse @64:
I think someone (you, and apparently PZ too) has trouble understanding a fairly clear comment from Bill Buckner.
Er, right. How does hoping for (or against) a particular result equal *knowing* anything? How does hoping for a result equal not being able to accept another result? Where did Buckner say anything like the things you’re talking about?
Some were hoping the Higgs would be found, others hoped it wouldn’t be, but their hopes/disappointments were irrelevant to the science.
Last night’s sunset was very boring. Therefore, there is no god.
I’m working with some devout religionists right now, and overhearing some discussions. There is no god.
“Your questions are stupid and leave me alone can’t you see I’m try to pee here? “
1. I know I’m right
2. No.
One thing I know for sure: there is no omnibenevolent, omniscient, and omnipotent god who also cares about me personally.
How do I know this?
Easy: if there was such a being hydrogen explosions *would* in fact produce marzipan.
Sign me up for that universe, it’d be awesome!
Jake@48: I think the first thing I’d want to know are what the basic physics and biology of this environment was. If I’m dead, and yet appear to be still basically human (implied by the setting – otherwise I’d already have some answers I wouldn’t need the kiosk for), then I’d want to know how that happened. Was I recreated somehow? Am I a digital simulation? Do I still need to eat, breathe, sleep? Can I still feel pain – can I still die? Can I fly, or teleport, or go FTL?
As Athywren@55 notes, there would presumably be some sort of FAQ or something.
In answer to the first question, I have no need to hope that I am right – the evidence overwhelming supports an atheistic interpretation of the universe. That said, to indulge Prager’s smug and idiotic attempt at a gotcha question, being right about the non-existence of god would be a vastly preferable outcome to being wrong. No person who stops to think about it for ten seconds would willing wish to be the slave of any of the supposedly omnipotent, sadistic sociopaths that most theists worship. Allah or Yahweh, Brahman or Ahura Mazda, Zeus or Jupiter, Odin or Ra – not one of them would begin to be worthy of the fealty of any decent human being if they actually existed. Happily, all evidence indicates that they don’t.
As for the second question, I have little need to doubt my atheism since it is entirely consistent with the available evidence. As such, I see no more reason to doubt my atheism than I do to doubt my non-belief in the existence of other classes of mythological supernatural creature. I no more waste my time agonizing over the potential existence of Prager’s imaginary god than I do worrying over whether I should load up on sharpened stakes, garlic and silver bullets before I go out after dark.
madtom1999 @ # 35: … Nazis – most of whom were Catholics IIRC.
Hitler was Catholic, and acknowledged as such by the Church hierarchy, but most of his party came from the Protestant majority within Germany. The more devout Catholics tended to prefer the authoritarianism they were raised in above the new one promoted by uncouth thugs.
Somewhere on my history shelves that I can’t be bothered to hunt down tonight, is a quote from some SS leader’s memoirs about a meeting in which they realized that the map of German SS recruits per capita resembled almost exactly the map of Protestants per capita.
It does’t matter what people wish they were wrong about. I wish I was mistaken about the bombing of Dresden, but that has absolutely no bearing on whether it really happened or what its implications are.
Ooh an answer! :)
Certainly a good answer. Still though, perhaps the cats are just not in front of the kiosk? If any of the pamphlets say: “How To Get Your Free Cat(s)” you might want to take that one. :D
Yeah, I wasn’t thinking that question through all that thoroughly.
For what it’s worth, I always imagine the afterlife as having an “orientation seminar” provided by a grumpy bureaucrat who died in 1988.
It’s not really supposed to prove anything. I just didn’t like the idea that “an afterlife exists” is logically equivalent to “(the speaker)’s afterlife exists.”
That answer is quite a bit more serious than I was expecting.
I suppose the answers are: “Similar enough for now, very carefully, yes and no, technically no, technically no, technically no, yes, yes but it doesn’t stick, not without special dispensation, not without VERY special dispensation, and that’s not really an issue for reasons you’ll ultimately find out” respectively. Any more detail than that and I risk turning this thread into a
creativewriting forum.Jake@75: So if I’ve parsed that correctly, I can still feel pain but I can’t permanently die? So is this some sort of Hell-analogue then, or was that just an oversight in the design process? How do I apply for special dispensation, and are there any other superpowers I could apply for at the same time? Is there an economy? Are resources scarce – do I have to earn credit somehow? Or more succinctly – “What is there to do around here?”
If I were to run a clinical trial with a new vaccine, you bet I’d hope it would be better than the placebo. But my hope wouldn’t (or at least shouldn’t) affect the actual results in any way. Because I’m worried it might, I’d use tricks like randomizing and double-blinding it and whatnot. I’d still hope for the positive result in the end, though.
1. I know this makes me a bad atheist and all, but I rather wish I were wrong. I’m sorry, PZ, but you haven’t convinced me that I love the entropy. I’d rather go on after I die than not. I’m just convinced by the evidence that it is not so. I’d also like to be wrong about there being no such thing as unicorns, but my wanting that to be so is not going to make Twilight Sparkle knock on my door one day.
2. Um, sure. I enjoy a good ridiculous hypothetical as much as the next person and more than most. And I recognize that my beliefs about the world are based on certain untestable assumptions. If I really am a soul being held captive by a mad demon who is controlling everything I experience then all bets about reality are off: I simply don’t know anything about it. But again, I don’t base my life on that possibility.
@Siggy #11 – Well, I do like babies, sunsets, Mozart and the complexity of the brain, so I share most of Prager’s sense of aesthetics. However, I always fail to see how aesthetics would imply a God, because that is basically his argument. His assumption is that atheists appreciate the world less than the religious do because we do not accept supernatural explanations. Which is funny, because I always think that religion makes people appreciate the world less.
@ 78 Dianne
@78 Dianne
Go on where and how? And if you did, wouldn’t it get rather boring after the first million years or so?
Yes.
I don’t want to go into too much detail (which is easier said than done in my case), but a few years ago I started writing a story about a man who died and got stuck in the endless bureaucratic hell of the afterlife. Then I got sidetracked trying to imagine exactly how the afterlife worked. Eventually, I came up with a general-purpose afterlife that I kind of liked as a concept but it still bears the hallmarks of its origins in the endless-bureaucratic-hell story.
Not so fast. First, you need to customize your body (if you want). Then you need to sit in the waiting room for thirty years (there’s free wifi). Then you have to sign a consent form to have your psychology altered— there’s nothing you won’t get bored of eventually, so unless you want to spend eternity in a state of permanent ennui, you’ll need to let them make a few alterations to the rules on which your brain operates so that you’re psychologically capable of handling an infinity of time. You’ll find a Form 299-D Request For Dispensation For Superpowers underneath the ten pages of warnings and disclosures regarding the psychological alteration.
I could go on like this for some time.
Well, once you’ve been admitted to the afterlife properly, you’ll be Judged. Unless you’re deemed worthy of reward or punishment (and most people aren’t), you’ll have to find a job. Yes, there’s an economy. Due to a quirk of its design, resources are scarce while the afterlife is open to new arrivals, but will become unlimited once humanity goes extinct on Earth.
Just don’t ask what connection there is between your job and the production of said resources.
Just sign the consent form for psychological alteration and all will become clear! :D
@78 Dianne
That does make you a bad atheist. Report to the punishment booths at once!
I don’t think the existence or non-existence of a god really says anything about afterlives, though. For all we know, this could be some weird VR sim aptitude test or something? When we die/the test ends, maybe our successes and failures are tallied up, and we’re assigned to a job that best suits our strengths and weaknesses. Me? I’m hoping for squirrel impersonator.
Beats the crap out of me, but I’m willing to try it out. I’ll send an interim report back at 500,000 years.
Ooooh. Is there spanking involved?
Don’t let Iris hear you say that!
Actually, if I could design my universe, I’d make one with no god or gods but with immortal souls. Because if there’s a god/gods then all we do is meaningless, just amusing our petty little minds, whereas if there isn’t, but life of some sort goes on forever, then we have an infinite chance to help each other and make the universe better.
Oh, and as ofttimes before, the questions of some Christian apologist to atheists aren’t really questions, just a way to express his own presumptions. Lying for Jebus again.
I like to “answer” those pseudointellectual-gotcha-questions with another question “Do you really think you’ll go to heaven?” Which can lead to a ridiculous holier-than-thou retort or to a silent introspection.
@dianne #84
I’d desperately hope there would be a way to switch immortality for souls off, though. I want to live a long time, much longer than humanly possible, yes. But I can’t imagine the hell a true eternal existence would be. Maybe it would take a million years, maybe a billion, maybe a larger number than I can properly pronounce, but I might grow tired of it, I might want to have a way out. If the time comes, I don’t want to be forced to continue existing. Hell, imagine eternal existence in a heat-death universe.
As a pantheist pagan polytheist, I have to admit I hope I’m wrong about the existence of an afterlife. If only because it would mean centuries of decision fatigue before I decided which one I was supposed to be experiencing! Oh, and I have doubts about the existence of any number of the deities I purportedly believe in – but since I tend to also believe said deities are just a form of cognitive shorthand for “something complex I don’t want to have to pull to pieces right this second” anyway, it all works out.
Then again, my favourite joke about the afterlife is the one where a person dies, and winds up in a heaven which is filled with all kinds of people celebrating every type of religion known to humanity. There are Buddhists meditating in beautiful Zen gardens, there are Greek philosophers debating the meaning of Life with Confucians and Wiccans in sacred groves, there are beautiful temples for Sikhs and Hindus, wonderful cathedrals for Catholics, Anglicans and various forms of Orthodox Christians, gorgeous mosques, there’s even a small, tin-roofed tabernacle which manages to be freezing cold inside (despite the pleasant temperature immediately outside the front door) for the benefit of the sort of Calvinist Christian who believes in a degree of self-mortification with their religious practice. But in one area of heaven, there’s a high wall, with signs along it saying “Quiet Zone”, guarded by angels who bear, rather than flaming swords, some kind of weird trumpets which blast forth pure silence at anyone who makes too much noise in the area. And the person wonders about this, and decides to speak to the Management. So the person heads to the centre of Heaven, and confronts the Deity (a majestic form which switches constantly between all the things they’re expected to be, according to the perceptions of the people they’re speaking to) about it.
And the answer comes: Behind that wall are the various groups of Christian fundamentalists – the Westboro Baptists, the Christadelphians, the Exclusive Brethren, and so on. Each of whom think they’re the only ones up here.
(I love this particular joke because quite frankly, the only sort of deity I’d think worthy of the worship would be one willing to do something like this.)
Meg Thornton @88: One of my favourites is a recent arrival asking about the old guy in a white coat, and being told “Oh, that’s God. He thinks he’s a doctor.”. The others involve nuns.
I hope I’ll win the lottery and Mark Harmon will leave Pam Dawber and marry me you are just breaking my heart here.
I hope we’ll find life any life off planet because that just might shut the religious up.
Sadly science … or Mark just doesn’t care what I hope.
While I feel no doubt about my atheism nor wish that things were otherwise and I agree with much of the talk here about the evils of religion, I don’t agree that it “poisons everything” as Hitch said. I know some good religious people quite well whose faith appears to give them great peace of mind as well as impel them to good works. Does it seem that way to anyone here?
1. Do I hope I am right or wrong?
No. I don’t hope either one. I have concluded I’m more likely right, or I wouldn’t be an atheist.
2. Do I have doubt?
So, I asked the atheists, how is it that when you see a baby born or a spectacular sunset, or hear a Mozart symphony, or read about the infinite complexity of the human brain — none of these has ever prompted you to wonder whether there really might be a God?
I have never understood why experiencing any particular thing should immediately cause thoughts about any kind of god. See baby born, I think about babies and moms and dads and families and human beings. See a sunset, I think about colors and skies and suns and astronomy, and evening, and family and experiences. Hear Mozart, feel wonder about the genius of Mozart. It would never occur to me to import some weird alien unrelated un-understandable non-thing as “God” into any such experience. I don’t get why religionists go there.
I found that, once I got free from the Christian viewpoint, it started to look like monotheism one of the LEAST likely of all the various hypotheses. This world doesn’t look anything like a place designed by a single, rational deity, but I could just barely imagine that it might have been designed by a committee that didn’t get along with one another very well. If doubts over atheism ever overwhelm me, I think my fallback position would be Greek pantheism.
Remember the original Star Trek episode “Who Mourns for Adonis,” where they find the planet where the Greek gods holed up after they gave up on earth? Those are the kinds of gods who seem almost plausible — they were messing around without knowing what they were doing, and they walked out on the job several centuries ago.