If God doesn't exist...

I still don't understand why the claim that reason is opposed to the idea of God suddenly points the onus on reason to disprove the existence of good. In a more general sense, reason could be opposed to many supernatural ideas -- ghosts, vampires, etc. But the extreme difficulty of proving a negative doesn't mean that reason is not opposed to these ideas, or that is therefore reasonable to believe in things that cannot be disproved. To claim that reason cannot be opposed to the idea of God unless it can actually disprove the existence of God is a disingenuous muddling of the idea of God and the existence of God as well as adding extra meaning to the concept of being in opposition. Clearly you don't believe that reason can determine all truth, is reason only allowed to oppose ideas that can be settled on way or the other? (side point: I understand the denotation of antithetical - I have been using opposites as a shorthand in an attempt to improve readability, but I'll be more precise from here on)

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Not all arguments can be settled -- for example, it is impossible to disprove the existence of an all powerful being that exists outside of space and time. Any argument about whether such a being exists would be futile. I believe that diametric opposites can exist in indeterminate cases, where neither is known to be 'correct.'

In reply to:
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Reason cannot "disprove" the existence of god. But with the application of reason, the existence of god is reduced to, at best, a mere probability (rather than the inevitability that ruled before the Enlightenment). When one realizes god is "merely probable at best," then one must face the other part of that probability equation -- that god may not, in fact, exist. As such, the religious really want to avoid applying too much reason in their constructions for proselytizing, lest their entire view of life become undermined.

As suggested up-thread, the arguments for natural religion reached a zenith in the 17th century. Clocks found in "forests" have simply morphed into "irreducible complexity" of eyes, and so forth -- the sort of notions that David Hume demolished so thoroughly so long ago. While recreating Hume's arguments can be the source of much entertainment, I commend those interested to read Hume on their own since the theme of this thread is sin.

At any rate, I, and others, have made the argument for evolution as being the agent for "moral" behavior given that god is, in my opinion, simply mass delusion, engaged in to help deal with desire -- the source of pain in life. So, how does one answer Dostoevsky's famous question posed in The Brothers Karamazov? Restated, why would people act "morally" if god does not exist?

Well, another way to look at the evolution argument is this: People would (and do) act "morally" (the "criminal" element notwithstanding), without the existence of god, because they do not want to be isolated -- they do not want to be left alone.

All primates are social animals, humans included. Primates become mentally ill and die when left alone. Thus, to avoid isolation, humans will act in ways that allow them to be part of a group. Hence, rules of conduct (mores) develop. Follow the group's mores or go your own way in life, increasingly alone, without protection, becoming mentally ill and isolated.

Yet, mores change over time -- they are relative over time. The original poster asked up-thread for examples of changing "sins." I gave some earlier.

To repeat, mores with respect to sex have changed. The Old Testament viewed sex among family members as acceptable at least through Noah (hence the story that the world was populated through the progeny of Adam and Eve). Similarly, in ancient times many western societies viewed sex among males as acceptable, but in traditional Christian society, not so much. Mores with respect to warfare have changed -- Old Testament destruction of women and children are today to be avoided (although mass murder remains likely today with nuclear weapons). Mores with respect to mental illness have changed -- society doesn't put much stock in "casting out demons" (unless you are the Governor of Louisianna, I suppose). The list goes on and on.

To sum up, the basic reason people act in a predominantly "moral" way (as "morality" is then practiced in the culture) is to fit in. To avoid isolation. To avoid being alone.

In other words, to survive.
 
Excellent.

I do wish to learn about Hume, especially from one such as yourself. Please proceed, and if Hornhawk should protest, you can tell him that I forced you into it. I will take full blame in such a case.
 
Sorry that I'm just getting back, there may be no interest but I posted several pages ago asking those that didn't believe

"what scientific proof there might have been to prove there is no God?" and i got something about "well, if there was a jelly fish in the sky....."
What the heck kind of response was that? That was childish at the very least, why would you go so far off base like that? A jelly fish? Forrest Gump is more intelligent than that.

I also got a good response asking

"what scientific proof do i have that he does exist?"

To this i have to say that there were eye witnesses, and a lot of them AND science has not proven away ANY parts of the bible as advanced as science is it has not done it. Also, why would i rely on science to prove anything for me? They aren't any better at times than a quack making up stuff. Scholars of the time thought the world was flat and that the earth was the center of the universe, scientists also thought in the late 19th century (start of the auto) that if you went faster than i think it was 50 or so MPH that you wouldn't be able to breath. Einstein thinks along with many scientists that we can't possibly achieve the speeds of light. Now the last one hasn't been done yet and probably won't in our lifetime and may never be, but alas you guys that are waiting on science to prove it one way or the other can keep waiting for science to prove it one way or the other, I care but if you're set on your beliefs then you're set. I have doubts that if science were to prove he exists that you would believe, i'm sure you and many others would explain it away. Probably by pointing out that science has been wrong in the past as I pointed out.
 
At the insistence of Coelacanth, I am providing a discussion about David Hume's argument against natural religion for your entertainment. It's long, but it does cover the highlights of the Dialogues. I have included background information about David Hume and natural religion at the end.

In his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, David Hume challenges the fundamental premise of natural religion; namely, that by inference from the phenomena of nature, we are obliged to infer a cause that is analogous to a human mind. That is, by looking to the order and benevolence of nature, we must infer, logically, that the cause of that natural order is god -- intelligent, wise, omnipotent, and good.

This cause and effect analogy lies at the heart of the arguments for natural religion.

The analogy has been expressed many different ways through the years. For example, if one discovers an exquisitely written book of which he is unfamiliar -- The Aeneid, say -- in some out-of-the-way place that he's never been to before, one faces two choices. Could the print have coalesced by chance, creating such meaning and beauty and order, as by monkeys typing randomly at a keyboard? Or, can't we reasonably infer that there had to be an intelligent human author of the book?

Likewise, if one comes across an intricately designed watch in Berkeley's forest, with interrelated parts, magnificently designed, precise, one knows -- one must infer -- that a human mind, wise and designing, was involved in the watch's creation. Similar arguments are posited today under the nomenclature of "creation science" or "intelligent design."

By analogy, to what we would have to infer about a human designer of a watch found in the forest, we now must infer that the cause of this universe could only be a mind infinitely wise, infinitely loving, infinitely good, infinitely powerful. And by analogy, and with such power, looking at this universe -- so designed, so adapted, function and form related, harmonious, orderly -- surely we can know god exists?

It is this cause and effect argument that Philo -- the voice of David Hume -- addresses in the Dialogues. Hume first seeks to show that the philosophical limits and weakness of an empirical natural theology have dramatic implications for any religion that claims to be based upon it. Such an argument -- basing religion upon inference from experience -- has four faith-general flaws:

First, it leaves religion merely probable at best. Give all the force one wants to the argument for natural religion, it founds its basis upon inference from experience, which can only be probabilistic. No knowledge from experience is logically necessary, but knowledge is nevertheless always open to revision based upon further experience. Thus, "knowledge" is relative. What we attribute to god today, we don't tomorrow, as the knowledge base expands.

For example, consider a person from the tropics who has never seen ice, and does not believe there could be water one could walk across. After he sees the existence of ice, he revises his sense of the world on the basis of new experience. Everything he believes is therefore merely probable, always subject to revision.

Hume points out that such an argument from the phenomena of nature would leave religion -- one's belief in the existence of an omnipotent, and good, and wise, and designing god -- merely probable at best, and always open to correction by further experiences. God is forever consigned to the gaps in our knowledge base, shrinking, ever shrinking. Thus is the very foundation of supernatural faith undermined. It is this inescapable conclusion that led 18th century evangelical Christians to reject natural religion in favor of scripture and faith.

Secondly, Hume points out the argument for natural religion proceeds on the basis of an extremely weak analogy, because the dissimilarities between the universe and the works of man are far more striking than any similarities. Supposing one had experience with the circulation of blood in animals. Then one sees a tree, and sees it has sap. One is tempted to conclude that there must be a beating heart inside the tree circulating the sap. But in fact there are far more dissimilarities than similarities between a tree and an animal.

And there are far more dissimilarities than similarities between the universe and anything a human being has made -- yet natural religion asks us to infer a cause of the universe analogous to the cause of a work done by a man? It would be foolish to draw inferences from the causes of the one from knowledge of the causes of the other.

Third, the analogy is vitiated by the fact that the universe is the only one of its kind that we know anything about. The reason we know something is a human machine in the clearing in the proverbial forest, rather than a natural product, is because we've had a long number of experiences of both. We know many natural products, and we know many human-designed machines. Thus, we can draw inferences and make often weak, but nonetheless significant, analogies between natural products and man-made ones.

But, Hume argues, we only have information about one universe -- this one. If we had experience of the causes of a large number of universes then we might infer something about the cause of another universe, by weak analogy, but at least by plausible analogy. But not only do we have information about only one universe, we know this universe only very partially indeed! The universe is vast. And we know a very small part of it. And yet we are going to draw inferences from nature about what the cause of the universe must be? Can one really draw inferences about the universe's necessary, or even probable, cause, simply from observing nature?

The issue is not the existence or non-existence of god -- Hume is not addressing this point. The issue is whether we know that god exists by inference from natural phenomena. That is, by looking at the universe whether we must infer its cause must be god -- wise, designing, omnipotent, loving, benevolent.

The fourth fatal flaw is that in all scientific questions negative evidence counts even more than positive evidence in the confirmation or disconfirmation of a hypothesis. But what do the partisans of natural religion argue? They cite the order of the universe. But that just won't do. That's not enough because there is evidence of disorder, too, and both require explanation of the cause that one assigns.

If someone said, "Look at this beautiful room, this house could only have been built by a master architect . . . ," but all the other rooms in the house are falling down, the last inference one would make is a "master architect." Similarly, it makes no sense to say, "The vehicle was crushed in the accident -- his survival was god's miracle" without taking into account the hundreds and thousands of others who perish in substantially the same accidents. You would count the negative evidence even more than the positive evidence.

Well, look at the universe -- Suns are extinguished. Things die and decompose. Children are still-born. The evidence of "look at the miracle of birth" has to be counterbalanced by "look at the tragedy of death during childbirth." You cannot count only positive evidence.

The partisans of natural religion say, "Look at the system -- We get rain and crops grow." And they don't look at the evidence of drought or flood. If we are asked to infer a necessary cause of the universe from the evidence, we must look at all of the evidence, good and bad, and negative evidence counts even more. So what in fact convinces us this universe, with its flaws, its defects, its imperfections, could not have arranged itself by chance without design?

But as weak as the argument for natural religion is, Hume says, let's address it. Let's grant the terms of the analogy and follow its principles -- that "like causes" must be inferred from "like effects": We will simply assume, arguendo, that the works of man and the universe are so sufficiently close that we must infer a similar cause.

What would we logically infer from the universe by the analogy that "like effects" prove "like causes"? Using that analogy, Hume argues, the evidence of the universe would conclude against all of the essential attributes of god. The cause of the world would not have the qualities of god that natural religion seeks.

For example, natural religion wants to say that god is infinite. But the universe has only finite effects. So, by analogy, the cause of the universe should be finite. If you see a finite work by a human being, you don't say, "This play must have been written by an infinite author -- it's very good!" No, if the effect is finite, you infer the cause is finite. Everything in the universe is finite -- why would we infer infinity?

Why would we infer perfection? There are so many flaws in the world. So many things that go wrong. That don't work. So, by analogy, this universe might be a botched and rejected work by some child deity that didn't get it right, whose parents said, "Get rid of this one -- It's a loser!" And we find ourselves inhabiting it, living in the midst of the failure, from which we are supposed to infer the perfection of its cause?

Further, we could not infer the unity of the cause of the universe -- the unity of god -- from this analogy because of the diversity of effects in the world. From the size and diversity of the universe, if we make an analogy to human production, we would infer that many workers created the world. If we come across a building that has fifteen different components involving remarkably different skills, arts, crafts, we know there's been a multiplicity of workers. If we're going to follow that analogy, there would be no unity of god. And so we're back to the many gods of the Hindus and Greeks.

Also, there could be no incorporeality, no spirituality, of god. In all of human experience, we have never seen a work made by a mind without the interposition of a body, of material agencies -- hands, fingers, feet. By analogy, then, the cause of the universe must have a body.

Further, we would not infer the intelligence of the cause of the universe by means of this analogy because the world is not, if one examines it, a machine requiring an intelligent designer. For example, the world is filled with growth and decay. That's not what a machine is all about. Machines break down -- they don't grow, reproduce, and decay. Following the analogy, much about the world appears to be living or animal -- it resembles a living entity more than a human machine -- maybe we should infer the cause of the universe to be a "supreme egg?" Or maybe a "supreme seed?"

Further, if we follow the analogy, we would never infer supreme (let alone infinite) wisdom because human beings improve on the design of nature all the time. That's what we do in medicine. In our care of the young and the elderly. It's what we do in agriculture. In countless improvements and rearrangements of things. Engines, computers, transportation -- we even create new life forms. If we can improve on the work in medicine, agriculture, and technology the last thing we would infer from the work is infinite wisdom.

Further, even in nature, change is a constant fact of existence. Parts relate well for awhile, then they don't, then things die. Is that like a machine made by a perfect and infinitely wise artisan? How do we infer a perfect creator from that?

Massively, there is for Hume the problem of evil. If our experience of nature proves the infinite goodness of its cause, then why does all of our human literature talk about the miseries, pains, and uncertainties of life? If a good and wise parent could save his child from disease, earthquakes, or plague, that parent would certainly do so, because if the parent didn't, we wouldn't call the parent either good or wise. What does this do to the analogy?

If you went to grocery store to buy apples, and the top crate was all bad and rotten, you wouldn't say, "Well, I see from these apples I am in a perfect grocery store. The apples on the bottom must be truly magnificent!" Of course not. It strains logic to infer that the grocery store was "good," much less "infinitely good."

In Hume's day, the partisans of natural religion cited the survival of life as the greatest argument for divine design, but, even conceding the point, that is only partial evidence. We now know that species do go extinct and negative evidence counts even more. Further, Hume argues, how do the species survive? They survive by a mutual war, by a kind of brute and blind force that involves the misery and death of countless individual beings. Is this what one would expect or predict of an infinitely loving and perfect being? To know that the world is not what one would predict of an infinitely loving, omnipotent being -- Hume writes -- "walk into any children's ward in a hospital and then talk about the need to infer an infinitely loving, infinitely powerful cause."

Furthermore, finite, imperfect human beings could improve upon nature if consulted. If Hume were asked how to design a universe better, he could answer. First, eliminate pain. Second, proceed by particular law, not general. Let the good live longer, have the wicked die young. Third, expand the powers and faculties of human life. Make us wiser, smarter, more productive, let us see better. Give us correctly functional spines. Repair the inaccurate workmanship that gives us catastrophic floods from rain and drought from heat.

Hume concludes that there are really only four logical possibilities to be weighed in light of the evidence: That the world could only be as we observe it to be

* If the cause of things was (as the natural religionists claim) infinitely good; or,
* If the cause was infinitely evil; or,
* If the cause was composed of warring opposites of good and evil; or,
* If the cause of the universe was neither good nor evil.

Perfect goodness is disproven by suffering, pain, and imperfection. Perfect malice is disproven by pleasure and well-being. Warring opposites is disproven by the uniformity of nature's general laws. This logically leaves only the last explanation: That the cause of the universe that we observe is indifferent to good or evil, and is neither good nor evil.

As a closing comment, and to relate all this to the thread at hand, Hume argues in another of his books that "[n]othing can preserve the principles of morality in our judgment of human conduct but the absolute necessity of these principles to the existence of society. It is the reality of human and social life, not religion, that gives us our civic duty and our virtues."

In Hume's day, his were dangerous beliefs because people needed religion, and to question religion could land one in jail (or in a coffin). Hume's fear was that the religious would adopt the more superstitious sects of Christianity, and become subject to demagogues. Today we have extreme Protestantism whose demagogues proclaim, "We are not of this world -- our world is in heaven." Thus we note the tolerance of evangelical Christians to the rise of corporate destruction of the environment, opposing the "peace-makers," and worshipping warfare as a means to usher in the rapture.

For the religious, this discussion will have no effect. For the curious, however, perhaps they may find some points of interest.

As promised, here is the background information to help put the Dialogues in context.

Beginning in the 17th century, there was a growing belief and confidence in the culture that by observing nature, and by applying the logic of reason, one could derive fundamental lessons about nature's god. This belief, argued by Christians to this very day (even in this very thread), is that man can learn about god, and about god's wisdom and providence, through the study of god's nature. That is, that one can infer the existence of god by examining god's creation.

The argument for natural religion is by now ancient. For those unaware, the foundation of 18th century optimistic, natural philosophy (and natural theology), derives from two conclusions that were inherited from the intellectual revolution of the 17th century. First, there was the belief that the natural faculties (man's mind), through the medium of nature (god's creation), linked human beings to natural truth and to knowledge of god. The idea is that we see through nature to nature's author and his designs, and know, with confidence, that we live in a wisely and lovingly designed nature. Second, there was the belief that nature and human beings interacted to the benefit of mankind through the providential designs of god.

Back in the day, there were several assaults on the assertions of natural religion, including, interestingly, by evangelical Christianity, which wanted to reemphasize scripture, and deemphasize learning about god through nature. Ironically, today it is the evangelical Christians that have resurrected natural religion under the guise of creation science, intelligent design, and similar notions. But the most influential critic of natural religion back in the day was David Hume.

Hume's most revealing and pointed work on natural religion, unpublished until after his death, but widely known in his life and discussed among his friends (and widely known in the salons of Europe), was his Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion. In theory, because it was written as a dialogue among competing viewpoints, the Dialogues committed Hume to no particular point of view. It was merely a set of competing analyses about natural religion. Nonetheless, Hume's point of view was and is made quite clear in the Dialogues. At the urging of his friends, during the days of his approaching death, Hume gave the Dialogues a relatively safe ending because his friends insisted that an add-on, final chapter was necessary to protect his reputation through the ages. So, Hume did add a final chapter, tacked on, which took back what the Dialogues had established in the minds of his readers. But Hume's was a sort of deathbed recantation -- Hume's other literary works support the conclusions he set forth in his original presentation of the Dialogues.

As a final matter, this discussion derives from David Hume's Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion, as taught to me by Professor Kors many years ago.
 
Xover, thanks for the information. I have some thoughts and will respond tomorrow. But I had to go back to work today, and then tonight is Texas/Ohio State. So, tomorrow.
 
XOVER:

Well, Xover, again I want to say that I appreciate the information. It’s obvious that you worked hard to produce that text. I’ve never really had much commerce with Hume, to this point, and I’m glad I’ve had the chance, through your excellent presentation, to at least understand a bit about his religious views.

But I wonder if this isn’t something of a straw man argument. Not that I think Hume was making a straw man argument in his time – I’ll trust that there were actually advocates of natural religion saying exactly the sorts of things that Hume suggests in his dialogue, as you present it here. But, speaking for myself, I make no such arguments of the type he was considering; nor do I claim – nor have I ever claimed – to be able to make the argument that reason can prove God as a knowledge, either from design or inference. And so I do question whether his argument really applies to my earlier comments. Further, I'm not sure it supports, or even attempts to support, your earlier assertion that reason is antithetical to God, or whether it “in fact… leads ineluctably to the inference that God does not exist.”

What Hume does attempt to show is that the particular argument he’s refuting is antithetical to reason. He does not show reason to be antithetical to God – at least not here.

The four causal possibilities that Hume considers lead him to the conclusion “that the cause of the universe that we observe is indifferent to good or evil, and is neither good or evil.” Or at least this seems to be his conclusion, to the un-careful reader. But remember that the causal possibilities he considers are part of a heuristic exercise, whereby Hume suggests we “grant the terms of the analogy and follow its principles – that ‘like causes’ must be inferred from ‘like effects’.” So, when he “concludes” that causation is neither good nor evil, he is only saying that this conclusion is the logical end of an argument that he plainly does not believe in. It’s not his conclusion, it’s instead his attempt to point out the flaws of the teleological argument that he’s criticizing.

There is more to say, for sure. But that’s a start, and we’ll work from there.
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Coel
I understand your last point, and I don't really want to be snotty, but, I think the broad statement alludes to the more specific thought that there is no information or argument that can change the faith of the faithful?

Your view on this last conjecture? That there is no information that can change the faith of the faithful. Pragmatically speaking.
 
I've enjoyed this thread. I hate it ends with immature Sooner comedy. It would appear our local apologetic lost his mojo. A disappointment considering the amount of education he displayed. Good debate.
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Ah yes, resort to the "straw man" argument. Poor response.

How about this instead: David Hume was completely unaware of black holes. A condition wherein not even light can escape. A condition wherein an "infinite" amount of matter can coelesce. Hence, god can be "infinite," can't he now?

Consider quantum mechanics. Schroedinger's cat. Things can exist simultaneously in different locations. Omnipresence?

There are so many other arguments that undermine Hume's famous expostulation. Can I see some others, please? They are there. Think: quasars, ringed planets, even meteors. What are the implications of black holes that do not have event horizons?

We are The University of Texas, for god's sake. We're not gonna quit with a little David Hume from the 18th century, are we? Jesus H. Christ!

Let's take apart David Hume for a little while -- really, it can be fun.
 
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