Dec 14 2010

Debate misses the point about the truth or falsity of God’s existence

Category: Uncategorizedharmonicminer @ 9:24 pm

Speaking about a debate between Christopher Hitchens and Tony Blair about whether or not religion is a force for good in the world, the Gospel Coalition blog comments on the misplaced focus of the debate, in Be It Resolved: Hitchens and Blair Debate Religion.

The debate itself also demonstrates, however, the way in which modernization has shaped the debate. The question at hand was not about God’s existence or religions’ truthfulness, but about their respective usefulness. Is religion a force for good? To begin with this question is to concede the most crucial elements of the debate before it begins.

For example, in Hitchens’ opening remarks he posed several questions:

Is it good for the world to worship a deity that takes sides in wars and human affairs? To appeal to our fear and to our guilt, is it good for the world? . . . To terrify children with the image of hell and eternal punishment, not just of themselves, but their parents and those they love?

Behind each of these questions lies Hitchens’ conviction that none of these claims corresponds to truth or reality. From his perspective, there is no deity who takes sides in human affairs or holds people accountable after death for the decisions made in life.

It seems unlikely that he would ask similar questions about hard realities he believes to be true. Is it good for the world to listen to journalists who takes sides in wars and human affairs (as Hitchens has done time and again)? To appeal to our fear and guilt by informing us that unless we prioritize care of the earth, we will be guilty of its destruction—is it good for the world? To terrify children with the images of nuclear war and the risk it poses not only to themselves, but also to their parents and those they love? If good means nice or safe, then none of these topics is good for the world. If good means true or real, then we must address them.

Exactly.  Hitchens and Blair both seem to tacitly accept a utilitarian view of value and truth.  This may be natural for Hitchens, who “describes himself as a believer in the Enlightenment values of secularism, humanism, and reason.”  The utilitarian philosophy was an outgrowth of the Enlightenment’s fixation with progress and technological improvement, but applied to morality and society.   To make a machine work happily, you do what is good for the machine, and to make people happy, you do what you believe is good for them, without regard to what is exactly “true” in a larger sense.  Morality is assumed to have no root other than the outcomes it produces for the greatest good for the greatest number of people.  That “good” is usually expressed in totally materialist, secular terms, without regard to whether it is good for people to know truth, and whether that knowledge has any spiritual benefit for them, in this life or the next.

But what’s true is true, regardless if it is obviously “good” for people in terms of outcomes we can immediately see.  Hitchens takes a completely utilitarian slant towards religion at any time, though he seems bent on denying the obvious good it has done along with the bad.  Blair is leader of foundation that is interested in discovering the commonalities of all religions and promoting them in the name of common understanding, a perspective which is bound to blunt his interest in the particular truth claims these religions each make that are at variance with the other religions.  That means that neither party is very interested in what truth may underlie any particular religion, a blind spot that is expressed by the topic of this debate.

I suppose my utilitarian question for them both is this:  is it good for people who know nothing about the afterlife or the Creator’s role in creating this life or the next to tell other people that there is no Creator, and no afterlife, and no meaning in anything, ultimately, other than being physically comfortable in this life?

Pascal’s wager comes to mind.

8 Responses to “Debate misses the point about the truth or falsity of God’s existence”

  1. tonedeaf says:

    Everybody wants to be god. They just have different ways of going about it. Christopher is an interesting name for one who doesn’t believe in Christ.

  2. Saxman says:

    There is an interesting debate – Christopher Hitchens vs. David Berlinski. David Berlinski is a secular jew (that is how he describes himself). The debate is … Does Atheism poison everything? …. Also there was an interesting debate between John Lennox and Christopher Hitchens …. Can Athiesm save Europe. If interested, you can see a preview at http://fixed-point.org/index.php/debates/231-can-atheism-save-europe

  3. innermore says:

    Would you suddenly stop trying to be a good person or stop going to church if it were confirmed that God didn’t exist; or suddenly acquire compassion for all humanity if it was announced that God actually does? When the Imperfect attempt to define the Perfect, isn’t that sort of a futile (and narcissistic) exercise anyway? Religion can be admired for trying. But, since it is currently mortal, worldly, and temporary, religion tends to work itself into an intellectual dilemma. And the smart utilitarian people in the room occasionally feel the need to remind us of this situation. 🙂
    Intellectual debates like this are just a bunch of ostentatiousness. These “arguments” are simply a rehash of an old brain trick. Belief is obviously quite dissimilar to knowledge. Faith (especially in God) by definition is not provable, and in that sense, absolutely not intellectually reliable (duh!). God is a choice which you must make freely. Any kind of provided proof would violate this freedom, and therefore turn out to be inconclusive. So ultimately, nobody can really “know” much about the afterlife. Likewise, there is undependably little “knowledge” about God’s role in anything.
    It’s a waste of time to debate this, which would lead me to suspect pretentious motives in doing so.

  4. harmonicminer says:

    Innermore, I’ve made similar points to yours about the limitations of reasoning by analogy from the human condition to God. See the “Next Great Awakening” tab at the top, Parts Two, Five, Six and Nine.

    The arguments and debates mentioned above must be engaged by Christians simply to demonstrate that the atheist side is primarily a non-evidence based position, relying on even more faith than theism. We can’t cede the intellectual high ground to atheists just because they want to claim to be more rational or evidence-based.

    Standards of proof, that we will find reliable, vary with the proposition to be proved, of course. In some sense, nothing whatsoever can be “proved” absolutely. On the other hand, we have little choice but to use our minds as well as we can, and we all live as if we know some things, largely revealed more by the decisions we make than what we say. Most atheists think it is immoral to mug them and steal their stuff, which is pretty funny when you come down to it.

  5. innermore says:

    Miner, I’ve sampled some of your similar points from time to time and, “knowing” you, my usual limited analogical complimentary response has been: it reminds me of Kirk versus Spock. (wasn’t Roddenberry an agnostic?) There’s a difference between knowing mathematics, knowing God, and knowing my wife. Although all of those ways of thinking are valid, it seems (to a mortal) that the trueness (Godliness) of knowledge grows proportionately better with experience more than evidence, intuition more than comprehension, meditation more than thought, honesty more than fact, freethinking more than study.

    While they heavily rely on it, atheists are, by definition, blind to faith; equally as much as theists, by definition, are blind to evidence while heavily relying on it. Funny: it’s the classic blind leading the blind situation. Neither party, by definition, will ever convince persuade out-think out-prove defeat or intellectually dominate the other in this ridiculous self-defeating setting. Who in their right mind would want to stumble around in something as pointless as that?! besides perhaps egomaniacs.

    As believers, intellectual energy would be better spent on defending the moral decisions of others when we recognize them (however ironic), and not arguing about Who deserves the authorship. Just the act of exhibiting a little faith in even an ignorant act of morality validates God more certainly than trying to point “It” out to that blind person right now.

  6. harmonicminer says:

    Innermore, can I recommend a book to you? It is called “Knowing Christ Today” by Dallas Willard, in which the philosopher reclaims the status of “knowledge” for the Christian revelation and faith.

    Most of these discussions seem to include large amounts of mid-sentence definition changing. I don’t claim that Christian faith can be “proved” to be correct by the standards of atheists. I do claim, with scriptural support (I Peter 3:15, not to mention the entire behavior of Paul before Gentiles and scoffers), that we should be intellectually robust, and able to make defense of Christianity against false claims of opposing “truth.”

    I think that this sentence of yours, “the trueness (Godliness) of knowledge grows proportionately better with experience more than evidence, intuition more than comprehension, meditation more than thought, honesty more than fact, freethinking more than study,” sets up contrasts and distinctions that don’t hold up. All of these are required… there is no “this is better than that” to choose between them. That is, comprehension without intuition is probably impossible, there is no possible meditation without thought, you can’t be honest without referring to facts, and freethinking is part of study. I’m not sure why you choose to emphasize some over the others. But all are required.

    The point is not necessarily to convince or persuade atheists of theism, though it’s nice when it happens. The point is that the discussion, held in the public square, is good for all the doubters to hear. It is not irrelevant, nor pointless, nor egomaniacal.

  7. innermore says:

    The discussion really confirms the doubts for all the doubters when the public square upon which it is being held is actually a public right-angle triangle.

    You know about these debate shows, broadcast worldwide, where the host, the audience, the director, the atmosphere, the make-up and the writers have already assigned you your role as the mean-spirited, bigoted, phony, loud sap before you even open your mouth. And you know it! The malicious ones look angelic, and you look like the devil, everyone gets paid and we’ll be back after this message. It’s a set-up. On this stage it doesn’t matter how intellectually robust you are, whatever you say will put your Jesus on a tee and knock him out of the park every time. Ha ha ha. BTW, this set-up also works when a famous atheist gets invited to a debate on some Televangelist show. But I haven’t heard of too many of those.
    So if you already know that you are forever the loser in this high-stakes crooked game, what the hell are you still playing for? It’s like that pip-squeak nerd getting beat up at PE every day. Not a very intellectually robust move to me. Jesus at his trial never said a word to those High Priests. What’s the use, they already hated him. But he did have a persuasively hopeful conversation on the same topic with Pilate, who treated him a tiny bit nicer. Seems he chose his debate opponents wisely. A lamb sitting in a room with goats might get somewhere, but sitting with wolves is completely a waste of time.

    I would offer this scene: let’s get Steven Hawking debating a 5th-grade Sunday-Schooler about God’s existence, at the table with Charlie Rose. Seriously, I think that would be a fair fight.

  8. harmonicminer says:

    Ummm… the “public square” is a great deal larger than pseudo-debate talk shows. I agree, it’s pretty pointless to go on a show like Jon Stewart or Bill Maher and try to have a serious conversation. Call them the High Priests, I suppose.

    But there are many venues and contexts besides those, and we should use them when we can, and be well-prepared for those occasions we didn’t even see coming.

    That’s part of what it means to be “evangelical.”

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