“Atheism” is a fine word, and I’m happy to describe myself as an atheist. God is an idea that has consequences, and those consequences don’t accord with the world we experience any better than countless other ideas we’ve given up on. But given a choice I would always describe myself first as a “naturalist” — someone who believes that there is only one realm of reality, the material world, which obeys natural laws, and that we human beings are part of it. “Atheism” is ultimately about rejecting a certain idea, while “naturalism” is about a positive acceptance of a comprehensive worldview. Naturalists have a lot more work to do than simply rejecting God; they bear the responsibility of understanding how to live a meaningful life in a universe without built-in purpose.
Which is why I devoted my opening statement at “The Great Debate” a few weeks ago to presenting the positive case for naturalism, rather than just arguing against the idea of God. And I tried to do so in terms that would be comprehensible to people who disagreed with me — at least that was the goal, you can judge for yourself whether I actually succeeded.
So here I’ve excerpted that opening ten-minute statement from the two-hour debate I had with Michael Shermer, Dinesh D’Souza, and Ian Hutchinson. I figure there must be people out there who might possibly be willing to watch a ten-minute video (or watch for one minute before changing the channel) but who wouldn’t even press “play” on the full version. This is the best I can do in ten minutes to sum up the progress in human understanding that has led us to reject the supernatural and accept that the natural world is all there is. And I did manage to work in Princess Elisabeth of Bohemia.
I am curious as to how the pitch goes over (given the constraints of time and the medium), so constructive criticism is appreciated.
Norm wrote: ‘Humans who experience positive emotion—“love”—toward sexual partners, offspring, relatives, and fellow group-members, have had greater reproductive success than those who did not.’
That’s a neat idea. How do you propose to test it empirically? And how are we defining “love”? The majority of humans on planet earth probably see romantic love as bound up with monogamous commitment – but such commitment does not necessarily confer better reproductive success.
And does the evolutionary history of a certain human behavior like love, really tell us that we do not create purpose or meaning in the world through our engagement in the behavior? Doubtful. Love between homosexuals seems fairly well divorced from the evolutionary drive towards better reproductive success. Or take another example – I’m an artist. Art may have evolved as a means of enhancing reproductive fitness, but does this mean we can’t create and convey new meaning through our art? Further, there are artists who have chosen abstinence and a life of solitude in order to further explore their creative pursuits. So we can easily reappropriate an evolutionary adadptation for other ends.
Yes, John, if our life provides us with appropriate stimuli, we can “easily reappropriate an evolutionary adaptation for other ends.” Pie-eating contests might be an example. Innumerable ways have evolved among humans to elaborate on our biological inheritance.
Perhaps I should have said “pair-bonding” instead of “love,” although I think the two, loosely defined, are often associated among human beings. There are other ways to promote reproductive success as well, Genghis Khan being a good example. Biologists interested in behavioral evolution have done research that explores which circumstances lead to which reproductive adaptations . A good introductory lecture by Robert Sapolsky of Stanford is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0Oa4Lp5fLE
The key word in Sean’s statement and in your comment that I find problematic is “create.” Feelings and behaviors are constantly emerging from brain processes, but to say that we create them as if they were free from causality is a mistake which won’t hold up to scrutiny. We can’t successfully divorce ourselves from the causal machinery of the universe. I’m an artist, too, but I realize that every piece I make is a result of interactions among everything I’ve ever been exposed to.
“Love” is not the issue, free will is the issue, and we don’t have it. Here’s the latest on that subject from Psychology Today: http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/sapient-nature/201205/free-will-is-illusion-so-what
#74, brucem: Leon Lederman’s editor was the one who came up with the “God Particle” nickname. Lederman wanted to call it the “goddamn particle” because it’s been so hard to find. I agree, that editor should probably be slapped.
Norm: Sean and John are both using “create” correctly.
Your inference that this implies events “free from causality” is wrong.
When I create a new work of art, there is no gap in the causal chain of events. It just means that I didn’t copy the art from someone else, I did all the work myself, etc.
Similarly, an act is free when it isn’t coerced, when the person was awake at the time, etc. It requires no spooky a-causal or extra-causal agency.
This “no free will” idea is a prime example of philosophically uneducated scientists trying–and failing badly–to reinvent the wheel. Professional philosophers overwhelmingly are “compatibilists”, meaning that they are both naturalists and believers in free will. But even a scientist as brilliant as Penrose can’t seem to get this.
In the absence of God and metaphysics, we are still free, we can still be creative, and we can still find ourselves intellectually AND emotionally involved with the social and natural contexts in which we exist.
Sam Harris would probably not be considered a professional philosopher, but he has a reasonable argument against compatibilism in his book, “Free Will,” and at 27:15 in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCofmZlC72g
What it comes down to is that compatibilist philosophers define free will in terms that have nothing to do with what anyone else thinks of as free will.
Daniel Dennett is one of the best-known of professional philosopher compatibilists, and his work is riddled with inconsistencies, contradictions, and absurdities. Here’s my review of what he considers his defining work on the subject, “Elbow Room.” http://www.amazon.com/review/RICW8SZ79UVUT/ref=cm_cr_pr_viewpnt#RICW8SZ79UVUT
Compatibilists will someday be categorized alongside flat-earthers.
If we were free from causal input, then we would also be devoid of causal output. Thus really lacking any meaning or purpose. We are what gives meaning to our causality. Like a sentence would be meaningless without context, as the context would be incomplete without the sentence.
The message in the medium and vice versa.
Pingback: May 10, 2012 - Science and Religion Today
Sean – great stuff! I watched the whole debate and thought you did the best job, followed by D’Souza even though I don’t agree with his stance.
However, I think you need to be careful on what topics of debate you agree on. To me, you guys lost the debate when the title was announced: “Has science refuted religion?”. No… it hasn’t. And I don’t think it can. It seems to argue that science has refuted religion is a near equivalent to arguing “there is no god” which is impossible. If people want to believe in an invisible being that has no measurable impact on the world, you can point out that it’s nonsense, but you can’t refute that it’s possible (much like FSM or Russell’s Teapot).
My question is: Why shift the burden of proof onto science to demonstrate that “there is no god”? It seems much more reasonable to address the issue by requiring the religious to provide evidence for the claim that “There is a God”. I agree with your stance, but I think you walk a fine line when you try to argue “there is nothing more”, which shifts the burden of proof onto you. Throughout the debate, D’Souza pointed out this flaw quite easily.
Constructive criticism after all those excellent comments? [expletive deleted for brevity]
But one word is bothersome. Hope. Hope is faith that things will work out. It’s often believed in spite of evidence. It seems necessary. There needs to be a new word or something. Spin isn’t going to be enough. Hope someone has thought about it.
Coherently, the structure of elements in nature deliver a dual parrallelism that demonstrates a beginning and an end. The force of nature still constitutes same direction in plausible opinion. To extricate the beginning from the end, a defining line is given to introduction and the measure is definitive in its model on expansion. The expandable process beginning with an end, is the common notion on design, in collaborative effort to demonstrate duality as a reason of truth. The systematic delivery in terms of ‘realism,’ is relativity nature. The expandable process foments the adaptation of new design at a commensible process. This term relates to relativity theory in the way of principle structure in design. As the term coagulates the super relativity, the delivery is succintly different and delivers an expansion in two worlds. The higher coordinates mask the intelligence of a new equillibrium. A higher design in the expandable process of equilibrium directs the line of synthesis in the constant equilibrium. An expanded principle lies in the manifolds equilibrium, as a constant relativity design. The manifolds is representative with dual arcs in a hypothesis frequency in which, the eleventh manifold is the state of coordinances in the super field relativity. This demonstrates a lack of correspondence in terms of logical assessment design.
I think that the fact that the universe doesn’t care about us is actually the good news. The bad news is that our society hasn’t learned how to deal with this fact in an honest way.
Craig – If naturalism includes spiritual experiences, near-death experiences and physical/shared phenomena actually seen during such experiences then this form is acceptable (all these are active areas of research by scientists BTW). Otherwise not. But it is, you are correct, a question of honesty – and a little enlightenment!
Brucem,
“There is a problem with the words atheist and atheism. The -ist implies someone who actively does or believes in something. And the -ism implies a formal doctrine, a proper noun, something that’s existentially positive. The -ist in “atheist” allows religious people to more plausibly argue that “atheism is just another religion.””
The problem, I find, is with missing the implied hyphen.
Read correctly, the terms are a-theism and a-theist. “A-” as in “not” or “non-.
Just as “non-white” is not a color, a-theism is not a faith statement about gods.
As for the “just another religion”, that is a category error. Atheism is to theism as irreligion is to religion. I always point out that there are millions who follow atheistic religions, and millions of theists who belong to no religion, which takes care of that particular argument.
We don’t stop using the term “evolution” just because creationists misinterpret it. We don’t stop calling the Higgs the Higgs just because sensationalists call it the “God Particle”.
We shouldn’t cede control of language to those who seek to misuse it.
Sean,
Marvelous! How can I get a transcript?
Thanks.
But for a rationalist/naturalist/atheist your conclusions maybe arent so rational or natural or atheist! The problem is that the 21st Century doesnt appreciate that the religious and atheist positions are essentially equally ludicrous. You end your piece by saying” We can create lives very much worth living”. But in this view what defines “worth”? And if my definition disagrees with yours, does that matter? If the “universe doesn’t care” then where is the rationality in looking for something called “worth”?
Well, here are my two cents: had you been speaking another language, I would have thought you were acting as the religious participant in this debate. This is because in no language does it take ten minutes to say “Leave this room, go out into the world, and explore for yourself.” That is all an honest man can say, and if you feel the need to add anything else then you are just another fucking preacher. No worries, though, because tomorrow is a new day. Good luck, dude.
I’ve started posting my case for naturalism over at The Secular Outpost. I’d be most interested in your feedback on it:
http://secularoutpost.infidels.org/2012/06/index-evidential-arguments-for.html
Erosion control is a bad issue in many tropical environments. Tallgrass can assist.