Groan. An Atheist writes....

Some interest has been shown in a posting by someone calling himself 'James'. For any who think that this contains original or interesting challenges to my view that religious belief of any kind is a self-interested choice, I have wearily inserted my responses in his posting below, marked***. It doesn't. As usual, he is free to reply at length if he wishes.

 

'James' writes: You've changed my mind on many things, drugs and addiction, grammar schools, the crisis in Ukraine, the goodness or otherwise of the European Union and better affirmed things I already believed regarding liberty and free speech. You (and your brother) have done a great deal to get met to think independently and to not be concerned with the consensus or with fashion.

So I comment here not as a closed minded, unthinking, dogmatic atheist, but as someone genuinely interested in having my mind changed. But some of the things you say on the topic of God and his existence seem to me to be wrong.

Belief in what is true and what is not true is not a choice, this is the case for every single idea with which we are faced, including God. I do not chose not to believe in God, it is simply that there exists no evidence for such a being, nor any good argument.

****PH writes: This is simply silly. As I said in the podcast, the question is not whether there is evidence, but whether his prejudice will allow him to admit that evidence. The existence of a vast and intricate universe engineered to very fine tolerances is strong evidence, though not proof, of the existence of something which might be called 'God'. History is full of eloquent arguments, logical, philosophical and moral, for the existence of God. There is a persuasive case for saying that Einstein was a theist in this matter, though not a follower of any religion. And Richard Dawkins's speculation on the possible intervention of aliens (whose existence remains unproven) seems to me to be essentially Theist in nature. It is not necessary to accept the many arguments for the existence of God to grasp that they are powerful even if they are not conclusive. Likewise, I accept that there is evidence, but not proof, for the non-existence of God, and arguments against his existence which are powerful but not conclusive. ***

'James ' : And when faced with no evidence and no good argument

(***PH writes: Which he isn't, see above)

what is one to do other than reject the claim? ������You don���t believe in addiction because no objective proof can be presented. I don���t believe in God because no objective proof can be presented.

***This is a rather boring multiple category error, which could only be made by someone who is not thinking as he writes. Belief in God, once it is accepted, requires the individual to reform and govern himself according to eternal laws which he cannot change - often to his own severe disadvantage. 'Addiction' is a concept (not a *belief*, as it happens, but a thing claimed by its adherents to be known and true, without evidence) which releases the individual from obligations and rules, and permits gross self-indulgence by excusing it and denying responsibility for it. Also, equally importantly, religious belief *is* a belief,which those who hold it recognise as a belief, as distinct from knowledge.

Now, if anyone ever said merely that they *believed* that addiction existed, that wouldn't especially trouble me. By doing so, they would be giving me permission to disagree with them, and making it a matter of choice - as is belief in God. But supporters of the idea claim (baselessly) that it is a matter of proven *knowledge*, and invariably respond to my informing them that it is not, by demanding that I disprove it. This reverses the normal process of scientific enquiry and discovery, which requires that the advocate of the proposition collects and rigorously tests the evidence for it. . In the case of 'addiction', we have an official state creed of personal irresponsibility, which demands belief in it, and alters law and medical practice to behave as if it did exist . A lot of my taxes, for instance, taken from me under threat of imprisonment, are used to pay for methadone programmes based on a fantasy, with which I profoundly disagree. They also pay for police forces and courts which absolve proven criminals of repeated crimes, much against my desire. ****

'James' :There isn���t any other motive. And this is where I must pick you up on something, the idea that those of us who don���t believe are all selfish hedonists who want to behave in ghastly and immoral ways without fear of punishment.

***PH writes: I do not believe I have ever used the word 'all' in this case . I have praised Thomas Nagel for his generous and thoughtful approach to the subject. And no doubt there are some atheists who live ascetic, selfless lives, though I have to admit I can't think why they bother. In the lives of the non-ascetic, and the non-selfless, I should have thought that, in this fallen world, unrestrained hedonism must play some part. What else is the loud, petulant (and severely mistaken) whine 'Nobody has the right to tell me what I can with my own body' , which we hear so often nowadays, but a demand for unfettered selfishness? Those who utter this whine invariably turn out to be atheists as well as advocates of unrestricted drug abuse and sexual liberation. They often combine in gnat-like clouds to berate me on Twitter for not being my brother ****

Is the characterisation of atheists in this way treating your opponents with due respect and decency that you always ask (and seldom find) in your opponents?

****PH: Why wouldn't it be? I am not making any individual or even universal claim, and any of my opponents are free to show that it is not their motive. But they never do. They encourage me in my belief by ludicrous verbal manoeuvres aimed at avoiding the idea that their belief is a choice, or that they have made such a choice. I long to find atheists who are prepared, like the great Thomas Nagel, to concede that they have reasons for their belief, and that it is a belief, rather than a passively imposed mental vacuum. Our old friend Mr Bunker cited some mysterious nameless force which somehow prevented him from believing in God. Others equally ludicrously maintain that they 'have no belief' in their NoGod, that they have never felt the need to consider the matter and that the theist concept has never even briefly entered their heads at any time in the lives. I simply don't believe them, and am, encouraged in my incredulity by their frantic desire not to discuss this question. A lump of soap may have no belief, or a puddle or (possibly) a toad. Toads, for all I know, may have perfect knowledge of God. But a reasoning being makes a choice. It would be as ludicrous for me to claim that I had never doubted the truth of the Resurrection. Of course I have. I doubt it many times a day, and even more at night. But I conquer my doubts through my desire to believe in it. . ***

'James':It doesn���t seem to me that it is. If I were to say that your reasons for conservatism were not actually your reasons, but because you secretly hated women and homosexuals and the poor, you would quite rightly criticise me as being hostile and foolish.

***PH writes: No, I'd invite you to provide evidence of it, if you made the individual claim. If you made such a *general* claim against conservatives, then you'd have some evidence to support it, for there are such people on my side of the argument and I'd be a fool to deny it. There are also many who do not fut this description. Social, moral and political conservatism is a far broader and less specific position than absolute atheism. In my case, I rather think you wouldn't be be able to come up with such evidence against me personally, so you'd be wrong to claim it against me personally. Frankly, I'd be glad to argue with any atheist who admitted that he *did* have motives at all. It;s their own ridiculous position, that they didn't choose their beliefs, which prevents them from defending themselves against my accusation. That's a problem for them to solve, not for me to solve.

'James' So why is it acceptable to characterise atheists as hedonists who deny the existence of God because they want to behave anyway they can?������

***PH writes : Because it was certainly one of my motives during my long atheist years, which is how I know in grim detail where this path actually leads . Because this is the demonstrable default position of humanity anyway, because it is equally true of many nominal religious believers, whose faith can quite rightly be judged by how well they keep to the precepts they claim to espouse. Because of Somerset Maugham's eloquent and honest description of his own motives in his autobiographical novel 'Of Human Bondage', which chime with my own experience and seem to me to truthfully and persuasively expressed, And because very few atheists are willing to discuss it, at all, preferring the wearisome and comical pretence that they didn't choose their creed. ****

'James:I would be happy to know what you think is evidence of God,

PH writes :No he wouldn't, and I won't oblige. This is just clever-silly stuff. he knows perfectly well what believers think is evidence for God's existence. By claiming he doesn't, he's making a (chosen) declaration of the closure of his mind to the theist case.***

James: and explain to you why I do not find it persuasive.

***PH writes. I know already why he doesn't find it persuasive. He doesn't want to find it persuasive. Next question : 'Why not?'. But we cannot ask him that, because he refuses to admit that his belief is a choice. Snore.

James : But please do not imagine that my atheism is held for any other reason then one of fact, reason and logic.

***PH writes: No need to imagine. It's a demonstrable fact that it's not held through fact, reason and logic. He cannot hold it on those grounds. Knowledge of God's existence or non-existence is not available to us. Fact, reason and logic cannot take anyone any further than agnosticism, as he well knows. Why doesn't he content himself with that? Because he has a reason to be discontented with it. Even acknowledging the *possibility* of God disturbs him deeply. Until he gives me another explanation, I'll assume this is for the normal reason, as it has been among unbelievers for many thousands of years.