What are the good reasons to doubt God's existence?

Faith & Science Conversation
81

Yeah I remember Francis Collins, theist in DNA research.

I tried searching for an explanation for why such a disproportionate number of the NAS are atheist but couldn’t find any explanation. But I can guess a possible explanation which wouldn’t be some foolish matter of policy. It may simply be that atheist have been more actively recruited by atheists in the NAS whereas theists are only members when they sought membership for themselves.

While the longest tradition in science has been that theological beliefs are irrelevant. There are some atheists in the sciences who have a bizarre irrational bias, for I have encountered one of these myself. I am talking about an irrational belief that theists cannot be good scientists. Perhaps the numbers of these numskulls have been increasing as a result of an intentional atheist zeal for dominating the sciences – and that would make it every bit as much of a power play as we often see taking place in Christianity. This is not a good thing for the sciences, to be sure. And it will not serve atheism in the end either – for irrational thinking ultimately loses in the end.

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82

Goalpost moving at its finest.

SuperBigV was telling us previously …

Also, there is even a verse that teaches you to save others by fear!

And now …

There is absolutely no fear of Hell among the Christians. Thanks for setting the record straight

First, OmegaSuperDooperBigV was telling us that there were verses in the Bible teaching us to convert people through the use of fear. Now he’s just saying Christians have used fear. Two very different claims. Since it is the case that Christianity, not Christians, doesn’t tell us to use fear tactics, the original argument is unsustainable. The new argument is obvious and has never been disputed – but I don’t know what it proves.

SuperBigV should convert to Christianity? Yes.

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I wonder if you’d count Lawrence Krauss among those. Of course you’re in life sciences and he isn’t but I’m pretty sure you would have heard of him. He is my archetype of someone who knows the science but isn’t well enough acquainted with humanity to successfully communicate what he knows without being deliberately provocative and misleading. His dislike of religion and the religious is a failing of his own humanity. I’m not a fan.

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I only encountered someone like this once and he was a postdoc (in the physics department) whose name I cannot recall. So while I know there are people like this, the majority are not. Most simply don’t care about religion and just try to get along with with everyone in a diverse scientific community.

There are of course aggressive atheists like Dawkins, but I don’t know him well enough to put him in the category of irrational atheists with this sort of bias. No, I don’t know Lawrence Krauss.

And I am in physics, not life sciences. My opinions on the topic of life sciences are from personal investigations and not from classes at university or participation in a research project.

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Hi @MarkD, if I may add a thought, which I think may be part of it. Decades ago it was possible to study science, philosophy, math, and theology, and have a decent grasp on all of them. These days research in the sciences has become so specialized that one must focus all one’s energies. Consequently many scientists are terrible when it comes to philosophy.

For example, a brilliant man (Hawking) stated, “Philosophy is dead.” But that’s a philosophical statement! Often they put on their white lab coat and think any comment they make now has authority. The lab coat is the new clerical collar.

Anyway, respect for their science most of the time, but their philosophical notions are often no more informed than “the man on the street.”

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86

Silly, of course. But when the NAS membership’s typical beliefs so badly reflects the general scientist population, it’s obvious there’s a bias.

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Those are great points, well made. I agree entirely.

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It is astounding how far away we’ve moved from the age of the polymaths. Or maybe it would be more accurate to say that people of such intelligence probably still exist (in great numbers even) but that today it takes (as you said) a lifetime’s concentration of endeavor to reach and contribute to the cutting edge of some field whereas in their day what we consider basic insights today were valuable to fuel explosive growth. Still, it is embarrassing when otherwise respectable scientists haven’t even arrived at an “interested-man-on-the-street” level of philosophical understanding.

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I don’t buy it. I know what it takes and mastery in science is not so consuming. Actually making a breakthrough is pretty consuming. However, not only is there plenty of time before that work, but there comes a time when that work is done and you can turn to other things. So it still doesn’t work as an excuse. I think, therefore, it has more to do with the difference in methodology. In science mastery is a mastery of techniques, while in philosophy, mastery consists more of simply knowing what people have said. In a way the latter is more consuming than what science requires. Understanding what some of those guys have said is often just as difficult as the hardest of science if not more so, and the surety of doing so can be more elusive. As a result, it can often be hard for those in the sciences to see the point of wading through what often looks like a great deal of gobble-dee-gook especially when what they have learned in the sciences suggest that key points are just wrong. Not all of their looking down on philosophy is presumption, sometimes science does give one a lofty vantage point. But it doesn’t change the fact that when you don’t have the background in philosophy you can sound a bit naive, uneducated, and foolish to those who do.

P.S. Perhaps this is my vantage point or bias as someone who has done a bit of both – masters in physics and masters of divinity.

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I did not realize that. I wonder if it was divinity school that led you to doubt your faith before reclaiming it more thoroughly as your own?

Even so of course there are so many disciplines which require so much specialization today. Maybe I’m more impressed because I myself no longer have the energy to even imagine trying. Way too late for the science beyond a layman’s interest.

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There are plenty of reasons to fear in Christianity.

Jude’s Epistle talks about being converted through fear (whatever that means)

June 1:23 And others save with fear, pulling them out of the fire; hating even the garment spotted by the flesh.

Bible/NT uses imagery of fear when discussing conversions, as noted previously. Notice, you are trying to make a dichotomy between Christians and Christianity. But everything you and I know about Christianity is from Christians. Jesus himself is thought to not have written anything down. Everything is passed down by other Christians. Good try though

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You could be right. I’m more inclined to agree, in any case, if all we’re talking about is mastery to the point of understanding. Breaking new ground, however, meaning that your name is attached to published results and a household word in mainline [future] textbooks is (I imagine) a whole new level, though. So I still think that polymaths that became major contributors or even virtual “fathers” in multiple fields is still largely (if not entirely) a thing of the past.

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What do you think of Feynman? A nice 7 min video discussing the WHY question. I am not sure Christians can get to this level, because as I’ve experience it, Christianity (and possibly other religions) already have the answers to all of the WHY questions.

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But everything you and I know about Christianity is from Christians. Jesus himself is thought to not have written anything down. Everything is passed down by other Christians. Good try though

The ultimate nonsense in world history. The teachings of Christianity are called the ‘Bible’. Just because Jesus Himself didn’t transcribe these books, doesn’t make anything a Christian does part of Christianity – it’s hard to think of a more absurd idea than that.

Bible/NT uses imagery of fear when discussing conversions, as noted previously.

“as noted previously”? Let’s scroll up to see the verse you gave us before.

Matt. 10:28 Do not fear those who kill the body but are unable to kill the soul; but rather fear Him who is able to destroy both soul and body in hell.

Looks like we’ve got another false statement. The reference of fear in this verse has nothing to do with conversion, rather, we’re just told to fear God. So there was no “previously” at all. At this rate, you’ve managed to break the record on this thread for repeatedly saying something without backing it up. This time, however, you assure us that it’s going to be different – with a nice quote from Jude 1. I’m just going to quote the entire passage, if you don’t mind.

But, dear friends, remember what the apostles of our Lord Jesus Christ foretold.18 They said to you, “In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires.” 19 These are the people who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. 20 But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, 21 keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. 22 Be merciful to those who doubt; 23 save others by snatching them from the fire; to others show mercy, mixed with fear—hating even the clothing stained by corrupted fl[esh.

This passage is directed to Christians, of course, telling them to make their faith strong. Then, verses 22-23 tell Christians to go out and bring other people away from non-Christianity, so that they wouldn’t have to go to hell. Indeed, as Jude shows, Christians should be motivated to saving people from their condemnation, rather than using their condemnation to get them saved. The opposite of what you claimed Christianity says.

Notice, you are trying to make a dichotomy between Christians and Christianity.

Notice, I didn’t make this dichotomy at all. The dichotomy has been a part of Christianity for 2,000 years. Good try, though.

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95

Seems like you haven´t really invested any considerable amount of time to the philosophy of religion/Christianity, because

you have got to be kidding. I expected something groundbreaking, eye-opening or whatever, but these are just minutes I won´t get back. And saying that no Christian/religious person can get to this level i mind-boggling. Which level should that be? I assume that everyone of us already got to a position like that by just thinking for themselves. If this is what we expect from deep philosophy, I want my PhD right now.

Seems like you want to say Christians would answer those questions with “GodDidIt”. Good luck with that

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Well, it’s easy enough to take a shortcut past a seemingly infinite regression of causality to just jump to the prime-mover: “Goddidit”. That’s what Feynman (and others - Christian or not) might understandably refuse to do. Because the normal use of the “why” question is to learn something one level deeper than your present level of understanding so that you can even possibly test or utilize your understanding. So when I learn that somebody fell outside and I inquire as to why: the answer that it was icy shares useful information with me and I can then prepare to encounter slippery surfaces when I step outside. That’s the useful kind of causal understanding we can pursue. To say that God does something (if God is taken to be the un-caused cause is to find the end of that chain.) Now if God does something because I pray, then that might be understood as useful knowledge (faith-healing charismatics certainly take it that way … pray with xyz faith in place and expect the results). But that is still different, if we take God to be a willful and personal agent. Maybe it’s well-known that Aunt Martha will give you $20 whenever you ask. And maybe certain persons learn to count on Martha’s reliable generosity. But her decisions (as reliably consistent in that as they might be) will still fail to be as consistent as the scientific kind of causes that interest us. Free will is still (in its central essence) opaque to us, so how much more so God?

What I found interesting is that at the end Feynman seemed to answer that there was no satisfactory answer that he expects his audience will be able to understand. So he leaves his audience wondering: does Feynman know something more about this that he thinks is simply beyond his audience? The answer to that (so far as I know with only a 4-year electrical engineering degree) is: “no”. With electrostatic forces, he has arrived at one of those “basic elements” as he alluded to that we are presently just forced to accept (like gravity or the other fundamental forces.) The stuff that happens so reliably is the stuff we just get used to so it is no longer seen as magic (like it would to those who had been unfamiliar with it.) I do like how he drew us in to see that the solidity of objects is even so much more familiar to us that nobody asks “why” about that, even though it involves the same amazing principles.

I’m not sure why you think Christians wouldn’t get to “this level”. Any who are educated about electromagnetism would easily discuss and explain everything Feynman did here.

[with edits]

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97

I enjoyed the 7 min. Feynman video you linked … Now I have a video for you and would be curious for your feedback about this one. (It’s about 30 minutes though 1.25 or 1.5 speed on youtube is about right for most of it). What do you think of Bishop Robert Barron’s critique of Stephen Hawking’s book?

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It depends on what you mean by “polymath,” because it is all relative. For example, there was this Chinese professor Dr. Wu in our physics department who seem to have a mastery in so many areas of physics that he practically seemed like an expert in everything. But that was just in physics. But in a very similar way someone can easily master one portion of physics or biology, and then master a portion in philosophy as well. It is all a matter of selecting the things which interest you. Some may never master more than one narrow area in which they do their research, others can do two, some three or four, and there will always be those rare individuals to master five or more – and there is nothing to say that they have to be in the same general area or even all in science. It is like the way people who learn languages can master various numbers of languages.

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Perhaps you are confusing me with someone else. I was not raised Christian – so if anything, doubt is where I started, and I rather tend to only claim a faith when it is entirely my own. Or you can say it was a progression from science, to existentialism and then to Christianity (with other interests dabbled in along the way).

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That’s what I thought but then I didn’t expect to learn you’d been to divinity school. Must have been overwhelmed with cognitive dissonance. I probably need more practice. :wink: