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In this episode, Pat shares his story out of atheism from a philosophical perspective and why he thinks the position is (ultimately) absurd. First, he explains what atheism is (along with the implications of metaphysical naturalism). Then, he offers a series of objections against the claim that God does not exist.
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Many “atheist” non-specialists simply refuse to make intellectual distinctions between agnosticism and atheism. The ultimate problem is the refusal to engage intellectual distinctions. Therefore, no amount of philosophy ever seens to remedy an emotional head buried in the sand. This is not to say that these types never use an intellectual facility, they just put all these efforts into a shallow confirmation bias.
“Therefore, no amount of philosophy ever seems to remedy an emotional head buried in the sand.” – And to that I would say, amen.
Not surprised at your comment that you have to explain atheism to people who claim to be atheists. There are a lot of people who claim to support something (whether it be a religion, evolution, socialism, capitalism) who really haven’t thought about it. I never knew agnosticism was a psychological state. Interesting. I always thought it dealt with belief in God rather than other areas. Always learning thanks to the Pat Flynn’s Sunday School. Religious pluralism is interesting too. I’m going to look into that, not because I believe it, but I’d like to see what people are arguing to support this view. Thanks for pointing out some of these atheist beliefs. It boils down (for me) that some people overthink things to the point where they’re deluding themselves. Rosenberg’s beliefs are delusional. By the way Pat, what do you think of Christopher Hitchens’ claims about religion in his book “God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything”?
Personally, I think Bentley Hart’s review of Hitchens’ work is spot on. I’ll link the article (https://www.firstthings.com/article/2010/05/believe-it-or-not), but first, a quote:
“In the end, though, all of this might be tolerated if Hitchens’ book exhibited some rough semblance of a rational argument. After all, there really is a great deal to despise in the history of religion, even if Hitchens gets almost all the particular details extravagantly wrong. To be perfectly honest, however, I cannot tell what Hitchens’ central argument is. It is not even clear what he understands religion to be. For instance, he denounces female circumcision, commendably enough, but what—pray tell—has that got to do with religion? Clitoridectomy is a widespread cultural tradition of sub-Saharan Africa, but it belongs to no particular creed. Even more oddly, he takes indignant note of the plight of young Indian brides brutalized and occasionally murdered on account of insufficient dowries. We all, no doubt, share his horror, but what the hell is his point?
As best I can tell, Hitchens’ case against faith consists mostly in a series of anecdotal enthymemes—that is to say, syllogisms of which one premise has been suppressed. Unfortunately, in each case it turns out to be the major premise that is missing, so it is hard to guess what links the minor premise to the conclusion. One need only attempt to write out some of his arguments in traditional syllogistic style to see the difficulty:
Major Premise : [omitted]
Minor Premise : Evelyn Waugh was always something of a bastard, and his Catholic chauvinism often made him even worse.
Conclusion : “Religion” is evil.
Or:
Major Premise : [omitted]
Minor Premise : There are many bad men who are Buddhists.
Conclusion : All religious claims are false.
Or:
Major Premise : [omitted]
Minor Premise : Timothy Dwight opposed smallpox vaccinations.
Conclusion : There is no God.
One could, I imagine, counter with a series of contrary enthymemes. Perhaps:
Major Premise : [omitted]
Minor Premise : Early Christians built hospitals.
Conclusion : “Religion” is a good thing.
Or:
Major Premise : [omitted]
Minor Premise : Medieval scriptoria saved much of the literature of classical antiquity from total eclipse.
Conclusion : All religious claims are true.
Or:
Major Premise : [omitted]
Minor Premise : George Bernard Shaw opposed smallpox vaccinations.
Conclusion : There is a God.
But this appears to get us nowhere. And, in the end, I doubt it matters.”
Just to state that I am truly thankful for your podcasts.
I listen to them and share them. I have always believed in God, and have always managed to maintain scientific inquiry/reasoning/ scrutiny while keeping my faith.
I have, though, met a few atheists who tried to sabotage my believes, and ridicule me. I think they did not have ill intent, but it has been frustrating, at times.
One insisted strongly on Richard Dawkins, which I have read along with Hitchens.
What do you think of Dawkins?
Thank you for your work!
Hi Claudia,
Now, I don’t want this to sound *too* insulting, but to be perfectly frank, I would sooner take seriously a hog’s opinion of predestination, than anything Richard Dawkins has to say on the existence of God. Why bother?
Very few people–theists and atheists alike, at least on the academic level–take Dawkins seriously when he speaks on any subject pertaining to philosophy or religion. He just doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Now, so far as his work in biology is concerned, he may have some interesting things to say, but none of the arguments he’s laid out in favor of atheism have ever amounted to anything so much as a laughable aside. Take, for example, the “central argument” in his book The God Delusion.
1. One of the greatest challenges to the human intellect has been to explain how the complex, improbable appearance of design in the universe arises.
2. The natural temptation is to attribute the appearance of design to actual design itself.
3. The temptation is a false one because the designer hypothesis immediately raises the larger problem of who designed the designer.
4. The most ingenious and powerful explanation is Darwinian evolution by natural selection.
5. We don’t have an equivalent explanation for physics.
6. We should not give up the hope of a better explanation arising in physics, something as powerful as Darwinism is for biology.
The first thing to note is this argument is that it’s simply invalid–no laws of logic would ever permit a person to draw the conclusion Dawkins has from the premises he’s working from. At most, a person may have a probabilistic case for why a person shouldn’t infer the existence of God from the appearance of design in biology, but what does that prove? Perhaps people believe in God because of other arguments: Such as the cosmological argument, moral argument, intelligibility argument. Or, maybe the Kalam argument? What about the ontological argument, or just personal experience? Even more: How about the evidence of design from the initial constants and quantities of the universe? That last one is really where the design argument is at in philosophy these days, and the hope of discovering any explanation for this aside from God is growing ever the more slim.
But even if we were to concede each of the premises in Dawkins’ argument, the conclusion would still fail to follow. So, it just isn’t a good argument. And, seeing how this is the “central” thesis of his book, his error is unforgivably egregious. Also, it’s not like he hasn’t been corrected on this. People on every side of the debate have called him out on his basic, philosophical errors–again, and again–and he’s done nothing to fix them. He just doesn’t seem to care.
But furthermore: Why should we concede to each of his premises? I would submit that at least one of them is false.
Take, for example, the “who designed God” premise. This is wrong on two accounts, but only one of them matters for now. One response, which would take more time to develop, is that no one designed God: As a necessary reality, God could not in principle have failed to exist. But put that aside a moment–that is not necessary to show the problem with this particular premise. The problem with this particular premise is you don’t need an explanation of the explanation, for something to be a good explanation. The fact that science yet lacks an adequate explanation for how evolution began (the origin of life) doesn’t mean that evolution isn’t a good explanation once life did, in fact, begin. (Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t; I’m just giving an example I’m sure Dawkins would agree with.) Or, the fact that I know the room is cool because the air conditioner is on, even if I do not know who put the air conditioner on (or who even built the air conditioner), does nothing to show that the air conditioner isn’t the best explanation for why the room is at the temperature it is. So, even if God needed a designer (He doesn’t) and even if we didn’t know who or what that designer was, it just wouldn’t follow that God still isn’t the best explanation for the existence of the universe. The premise is simply false.
To be fair: While I think atheism is ultimately an incoherent position to hold, I do think a person can be reasonable and be an atheist and have reasonable things to say as an atheist. I just don’t think Richard Dawkins is one of those people.
Thank you, I did read Dawkins, it was tiring, and I am truly thankful for your thoughts about him.
On a side note, today I was listening to your recent podcast “Why You Need to Be Selective With Your Friends” while driving my adolescent son. It is the second time he listens to you. It matters to me that he liked your podcast. Adolescents have to rebel somewhat in order to grow, and occasionally, their first action is to NOT listen to what their parents echo all the time (eventually they do listen though, it is a process). Thus, thank you for doing this work. You do not realize how much it matters.
I think it was a phase you had to go through in your life journey to go through atheism so that you’ll be able to share your now personal conviction regarding it. The problem though is the first thing we have to consider before sharing this to an atheist friend is if they’re the type whose willing enough to listen, I have some acquaintances and friends who claim to be atheist but now that you’ve explained it better, I would actually have to say some of them are actually just agnostic. Haha, love the sound of you sipping coffee, it makes me crave some hot chocolate from my end. I would definitely give it a shot and share this podcast to atheist friend, the content is worth listening and discussing. Thank you for taking your time to discuss stuff like these, I do not see a lot of people who tend to take on topics like these so it’s great that you keep in these kind of segments. God is the source of all reason, seeking truth will lead to God. Keep being awesome, Pat! I mean it. 🙂