Science and God's Existence
by MikeGeneGary Wolf nicely summarizes the logical foundation of the New Atheists and their quest to use Science to evangelize for Atheism:
A few months earlier, in front of an audience of graduate students from around the world, Dawkins took on a famous geneticist and a renowned neurosurgeon on the question of whether God was real. The geneticist and the neurosurgeon advanced their best theistic arguments: Human consciousness is too remarkable to have evolved; our moral sense defies the selfish imperatives of nature; the laws of science themselves display an order divine; the existence of God can never be disproved by purely empirical means.
Dawkins rejected all these claims, but the last one "“ that science could never disprove God "“ provoked him to sarcasm. "There's an infinite number of things that we can't disprove," he said. "You might say that because science can explain just about everything but not quite, it's wrong to say therefore we don't need God. It is also, I suppose, wrong to say we don't need the Flying Spaghetti Monster, unicorns, Thor, Wotan, Jupiter, or fairies at the bottom of the garden. There's an infinite number of things that some people at one time or another have believed in, and an infinite number of things that nobody has believed in. If there's not the slightest reason to believe in any of those things, why bother? The onus is on somebody who says, I want to believe in God, Flying Spaghetti Monster, fairies, or whatever it is. It is not up to us to disprove it."
For some reason, this is an argument that seems to resonate with large numbers of people. Yet to me, it seems incredibly off base.
When Dawkins speaks of a Flying Spaghetti Monster or unicorns, he gives us a window into his mind, helping us appreciate the manner in which he himself views God. For the list of entitities that Dawkins ticks off is a list of entities that would exist within our physical reality. In other words, these are creaturely beings that would be parts of Nature and thus Dawkins thinks that if God exists, he too should be one more thing that is part of Nature. From this perspective, it would make sense to ask Science about the existence of unicorns and God, since Science functions to investigate Nature and all of her parts. But why think that God is just another part of physical reality? Why think of God as one more thing that exists as part of Nature?
This is where the New Atheists go fundamentally astray. Intoxicated with the success of Science, they become blind to the limitations of Science and the essence of reality that is posed by God's existence. God's existence is not tied up in the ability of a microscope or teloscope to find him as yet one more thing that is part of our reality.
God's existence is tied up in the depth of our reality.
November 4th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Yes, this sort of "reified deity" is the same one who requires an infinite regress of gods who create gods. It is the sort of deity atheists refer to when they speak of "a god," rather than, well, "God." Of course, the fact that theists can't point to what we mean by "God" creates a problem, too.
BTW: "Intoxicated with the success of Science, they become blind to the limitations of Science…" Elegant phrasing there, MikeGene!
Comment by Lutepisc — November 4, 2006 @ 12:41 pm
November 4th, 2006 at 1:42 pm
I'm again reminded of that South Park episode. I'm talking about the part where Dawkins tells Ms Garrison about the FSM and she goes "Of course! God is a flying spaghetti monster." It's clear that by having Ms Garrision say that the the writers think the argument is crap. (In the same way that they had Ms Garrison talk about evolution in the way she did.)
Comment by macht — November 4, 2006 @ 1:42 pm
November 4th, 2006 at 2:33 pm
Hello Mike,
For some reason (I may have confused you with someone else maybe) I thought you were an agnostic.
Why think that God is not just another part of physical reality? I'm not trying to be facetious, I'm genuinely interested in the answer.
What about Zeus or Thor or all those other gods? Is their existence tied up in the depth of our reality too?
Comment by Odd Digit — November 4, 2006 @ 2:33 pm
November 4th, 2006 at 2:47 pm
Mike:
"Depth" is a pretty good word, scientifically speaking. As things currently stand, physical science is engaged in the fairly new endeavor of attempting to figure out how many dimensions - out of an infinite number possible - exist in the totality of effectual reality. Part of this is the quantification of our 'big' dimensions as measured per the fine-tuning of physical constants. Along with the attempt to quantify 'small' dimensions with effects we can perceive and/or measure (even though we do not experience or perceive them directly). Primary example: gravity.
If I were to question Dawkins or someone who opines just like him, I would ask whether s/he considers physics to be science. Because if so, then s/he has absolutely no business asserting that all pertinent parameters of existence are known and must conform to their own metaphysical interpretations.
Comment by Joy — November 4, 2006 @ 2:47 pm
November 4th, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Mike:
Personally, I think we need to hold the New Atheists to the standard that they themselves have set: namely that truth must be ascertained through the methods of science. Dawkins, in his newest screed against God, The God Delusion doesn't see any reason why God shouldn't be considered just another hypothesis. In the second chapter of the book he makes the following, rather astounding claim:
So, let us hold Dawkins to his standard. It would be interesting to see the scientific research study that provided the basis for this claim. It would even be more interesting to know what would falsify it. How was the experiment that Dawkins used to test his hypothesis set up? Where was it done? What data did he use? In what peer reviewed scientific journal did he report his findings? Have other scientists confirmed his results?
Of course, I'm being somewhat tongue-in-cheek here, because it plainly obvious that Dawkins has no science whatsoever to back up his claim. It is metaphysical speculation all the way through. But, wait a second, if this is metaphysical speculation, then it would seem metaphysics trumps science, or is at least equal to it as means for discovering truth about the world, nature and reality. That, however, creates a problem for Dawkins, who wants science to arbiter of truth.
The position is clearly unteneable and clearly has several logical flaws.
Comment by DonaldM — November 4, 2006 @ 3:23 pm
November 4th, 2006 at 9:03 pm
[...] The Wired article on the New Atheism leaves one to ask, what is new about it? Atheism went into a decline after Darwin because it turned into a false/fake metaphysics. Dawkins is peddling the illusion that science can establish a post-metaphysical foundation for such questions, and naive and uneducated science specialists will believe him. The studied ingnoramus quality of these promoters is difficult to deal with, because these 'fanatics of a another kind' refuse to learn and simply coast on the social prestige/domination of bad Darwinism. You could request that these people actually confront the history, cite a Buddhist sutra or some of the classics of religious history, deal with the facts of religious culture and history. To even mention such things creates an iron curtain effect of instant silence. These people are trying to create a totally walled in mindset that plays ostrich to the actual facts of religion. A few months earlier, in front of an audience of graduate students from around the world, Dawkins took on a famous geneticist and a renowned neurosurgeon on the question of whether God was real. The geneticist and the neurosurgeon advanced their best theistic arguments: Human consciousness is too remarkable to have evolved; our moral sense defies the selfish imperatives of nature; the laws of science themselves display an order divine; the existence of God can never be disproved by purely empirical means. [...]
Pingback by Darwiniana » The New Atheists? — November 4, 2006 @ 9:03 pm
November 4th, 2006 at 11:34 pm
Hi OD,
I'm more interested in staying on topic. Dawkins' whole argument is premised on treating God as just another part of physical reality. Without doing a single experiment, he has reached a scientific conclusion, and yet even if we all play nice and pretend he has a scientific conclusion, just what does it mean? God is not some part of physical reality. Wow.
Comment by MikeGene — November 4, 2006 @ 11:34 pm
November 4th, 2006 at 11:44 pm
Hello Lutepisc,
That's because they think it terms of flying pasta and unicorns.
What do you mean?
Thanks. Science is, of course, limited by many things. For example, science is a function of our instruments. Just think of the awareness of life and how it has changed as a function of the microscope, the centrifuge, the radioisotope, the electrophoresis gel, the computer, etc. Even if we were to treat Dawkins as if he knew what he was talking about, is there reason to think our instruments are up to the task of God-detecting?
Comment by MikeGene — November 4, 2006 @ 11:44 pm
November 5th, 2006 at 8:13 am
The word "God" is simply a placeholder for "ultimate reality". And everyone believes in ultimate reality. It's just that some people believe that ultimate reality is simply blind, unconscious "natural law" and others believe that those "natural laws" are not blind and unconscious.
Comment by MatthewCromer — November 5, 2006 @ 8:13 am
November 5th, 2006 at 10:07 am
"What do you mean?"
At the risk of going off-topic, I was venturing into theological territory. "Reified deities" are concrete and can be conceptualized and imagined easily: Zeus, Thor, the Flying Spaghetti Monster, and so on. In the Judeo-Christian tradition (at least), concrete deities like these are regarded as "idols," because they are not transparent to the mystery at the heart of "God," who cannot be known and studied as objects are known and studied.
While you're saying the New Atheists disregard the limits of science, I guess I'm saying they're not too astute as theologians either. But training them would be problematic, and isn't what they're after.
(That may still not be too clear, but it's the best I can do this morning!
)
Comment by Lutepisc — November 5, 2006 @ 10:07 am