“All religion, my friend, is simply evolved out of fraud, fear, greed, imagination, and poetry.” Edgar Allen Poe
Blaise Pascal (1623 - 1662) was a French physicist, mathematician, writer, inventor, and Christian philosopher. He developed an argument in apologetic philosophy called Pascal’s Wager. The idea of a wager is not surprising given the fact that Pascal and Pierre de Fermat both were early developers of probability theory. Keep in mind that probability is a measurement of how likely any event will occur, and ranges from zero (impossible) to one (absolute certainty). For example, the flip of a two-sided coin (one side heads and the other tails) has a probability of one-half (.5) of being heads and one-half (.5) of being tails.
The expected value (E) of any event is equal to the value (V) of the event, times the probability (P) of the event occurring, and can be expressed as E = V * P. For example, if I bet a friend ten dollars that the next flip of a coin will be heads, V would equal ten dollars and P would equal .5. In this case, E = 10.00 times .5 = five dollars, thus making my wager very foolish. It would not be smart to risks ten dollars when the expected value is only five dollars.
Pascal used probability theory to argue that betting on the existence of God is the “best” bet. At the heart of his argument is the idea the value (V) of heaven and everlasting life is infinite. Therefore the expected value is also infinite because infinity times any non-zero probability is also infinite. Remember the probability of God’s existence cannot be zero since it is not possible to prove a negative. For example, if a friend tells you that he saw and heard a talking snake in his garden, no one can prove that he did not.
According to Pascal it is smart for a rational person to live as though God exists and seek to believe in God because even if God does not exist, there is only a finite cost associated with believing, whereas there is an infinite cost (eternal damnation in hell) for not believing in the chance that God does exist.
The argument sounds reasonable. Right? The major flaw can easily be seen by remembering that God is and must be omniscient (all-knowing). An omniscient God will know immediately which “believers” are treating divine theology like a gambling parlor. In other words how does one “live as though God exists and seek to believe in God?” There is the additional problem of knowing which God to believe in. Jews, Christians, and Muslims are all quite clear about the fate of those not accepting their only true God. In essence the salvation-seeker only has one chance in three of selecting the correct “God.”
There is also the matter of “only finite costs associated with believing.” The time and monetary investments in religion are actually quite high. Many religious require a tithe of 10%, and the cost to any society can be extremely high. The time and money invested in religion could be allocated to other endeavors such as education and public health. Jared Diamond’s 2005 book, Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed relates how religion caused the total demise of the Norse settlement in Greenland. These Norsemen settled in Greenland in the tenth century and their numbers peaked at four thousand inhabitants before they went extinct due to over investing in religion. Ruins reveal that they had built sixteen churches at the expense of procuring and storing food for the long winter.
History provides ample examples of the high cost of religion. What was the cost of all the crusades in blood and treasure? What was the cost of 2001 attacks on the Twin Towers in New York City and the Pentagon? The dollar cost has been estimated to be more than thirteen billion dollars not to mention the 2,996 innocents who lost their lives. Finite costs? Yes, they are both finite and incalculable.
There are also intangible costs of religion that are perhaps even greater than the monetary ones. William Blake noted that “Prisons are built with stones of law, brothels with bricks of religion.” Blake’s point is that when people attempt to live by a code that is incompatible with their nature, bad things happen. Mankind’s basic survival mechanism is logic and reason. Accepting anything on faith both undermines progress, and mental and emotional equilibrium. The idea that man was born into sin as an object to be sacrificed is a threat to his survival. Thomas Jefferson stated the idea very clearly when he said, “Mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs.” Modern educated people are not bound by the superstitious ramblings of ignorant and illiterate bronze-age shepherds.
Atheists and skeptics standing on the backs of giants such as Galileo, Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Feynman, and Hawking all see further now and have no need for mysticism in any form. They have replaced ignorance and superstition with knowledge, logic, and science. Pascal was correct when he said, “Sickness is the natural state of Christians.” I would throw the net wider to include all the theistic religions.
Sources:
1. Blog: Why Religion? (August 31, 2012) - Needlefish Chronicles
2. Blog: Free Will (May 14, 2013) - Needlefish Chronicles
3. Blog: The Gospel Truth (January 28, 2013) - Needlefish Chronicles
4. Blog: The Origins of Religious Belief (April 17, 2013) - Needlefish Chronicles
Tuesday, May 14, 2013
Saturday, May 4, 2013
Free Will
"One can't prove that God doesn't exist, but science makes God unnecessary."
Stephen Hawking
According to theists a deity must possess the following powers: omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (all-powerful), and omnibenevolence (all-virtuous). According to theists any entity claiming to be a deity must possess all three of these powers. In this essay I will refer to this being as God and use the conventional masculine pronoun “he” in referring to “him.”
The debate between theists and nontheists has been going on forever. Of course, the existence of God cannot be proven or disproved. This does not imply that each position has the same chance of being true. Nontheists can examine the alleged powers of God and then use the same reasoning methods employed in other everyday pursuits to check for internal consistency. If the concept of theism is logically coherent, then it might be valid and true otherwise it must be considered false at least as stated.
Theodicy is an attempt to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering in the world with the traditional powers of God. The concept of evil in this essay is divided into two categories. The first group includes “acts of God,” such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornados. In the case of “acts of God,” critics and skeptics argue that God was either unwilling or unable to stop the suffering of innocents at the hands of natural disasters. If God is able, but unwilling, then he cannot be considered virtuous. If God is willing, but unable, then he cannot be considered all-powerful. Therefore, God either exist and is evil, or he does not exist. People of faith respond to this logic with the notion that mortals are incapable of comprehending the infinite wisdom of God and that God works in mysterious ways. This is a creed, not an argument.
The second group of evils are those resulting from mankind’s actions such as the recent Boston Marathon bombings. Skeptics ask how could a virtuous God allow atrocities such as the September 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City to happen? Apologists use “Free Will” to resolve this problem. They argue that God gave mankind “Free Will” to choose and then bear the consequences of their choices. Sin is therefore the cause of evil and suffering not God. This is a very clever and convincing argument until its fatal flaw is revealed.
The fly-in-the-ointment of the “Free Will” argument is the incompatibility of “Free Will” and omniscience. Keep in mind that “all knowing” requires perfect knowledge of everything that has happened in the past, perfect knowledge of everything happening in the present, and perfect knowledge of everything that will happen in the future. One example should make it clear why “Free Will” cannot exist in the same space with omniscience. Bill, an atheist lives and dies. An omniscient deity would have known that prior to Bill’s life and death. If Bill had changed his mind and became a Christian before he died, that would contradict God’s prior knowledge and thus invalidate his omniscience. Apologists must make a choice, “Free Will” or omniscience, they cannot have both!
If God is omniscient then man cannot have “Free Will.” In this case God is responsible for all mankind’s evil acts and he cannot be considered omnibenevolence. If mankind has “Free Will” then God cannot be omniscient. Therefore, God either exist and is evil, or he does not exist.
So far science has not established the existence of “Free Will.” However, there are three hypotheses that deny its existence. The first one is the quantum theory argument and involves the idea of reductionism down to the particle level of matter. At this level of analysis everything that happens in nature can be explained by the behavior of particles which can be described by a body of mathematics. This of course includes the operation of the human brain and at this level is beyond the control of the person. Therefore, “Free Will” cannot exist.
The second argument was presented by Stephen Hawking in his book, A Brief History of Time (1992). Hawking along with others is pursuing what is called the “Grand Unification Theory" (GUT). Their quest is to develop a single mathematical model that will integrate and explain the four forces in nature: gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. According to Hawking when this is accomplished, scientists will be able to predict the outcome of any system “simply” by determining the initial state and then applying and solving the equations of the GUT. This would include all of human behavior! If this happens, “Free Will” join the ranks of failed ideas.
The third argument is one made by Neuroscientists such as Dr. Sam Harris who proposed the following thought question: Are you free to do that which does not occur to you to do? Of course action follows thought, and you obviously cannot do anything without the thought first occurring to you. Therefore, “Free Will” cannot exist.
Epistemologically a personal God based on the three classical theistic powers cannot exist. Does this mean that there is no God? The above arguments demonstrate the God of theism cannot exist, but it does not preclude the existence of Einstein’s deistic God. Deism does not arbitrarily attribute powers to their God. Instead they entertain a hypothesis whereby there exist in the universe a power that established the laws of natures and then withdrew allowing these laws to create and operate the universe. Deists refer to this power as nature or the universal architect. Anytime a deist refers to “God,” they are referring to the impersonal “God” of Spinoza and Einstein. Deism does not anthropomorphize their “God.” The universal architect does not interfere in man’s affairs, does not perform miracles, does not provide for life after death, does not answer prayers, and does not demand any form of sacrifice or worship. “He” reveals his existence only through the laws of science and mathematics.
Some people might ask the question, “What is the difference between a deist and an atheist?” Deists allow for some slight possibility that God might exist. Atheists maintain that God absolutely does not exist in the same way that theists claim God does exist. The atheist and the theist both accept faith without proof as a basis for their belief. Deism is more compatible with the scientific method and is favored by scientists. As a deist I doubt seriously based on science, history, and logic the existence of a personal God. Furthermore, I am happy with the thought that the God of theism does not exist.
Stephen Hawking
According to theists a deity must possess the following powers: omniscience (all-knowing), omnipotence (all-powerful), and omnibenevolence (all-virtuous). According to theists any entity claiming to be a deity must possess all three of these powers. In this essay I will refer to this being as God and use the conventional masculine pronoun “he” in referring to “him.”
The debate between theists and nontheists has been going on forever. Of course, the existence of God cannot be proven or disproved. This does not imply that each position has the same chance of being true. Nontheists can examine the alleged powers of God and then use the same reasoning methods employed in other everyday pursuits to check for internal consistency. If the concept of theism is logically coherent, then it might be valid and true otherwise it must be considered false at least as stated.
Theodicy is an attempt to reconcile the existence of evil and suffering in the world with the traditional powers of God. The concept of evil in this essay is divided into two categories. The first group includes “acts of God,” such as hurricanes, earthquakes, and tornados. In the case of “acts of God,” critics and skeptics argue that God was either unwilling or unable to stop the suffering of innocents at the hands of natural disasters. If God is able, but unwilling, then he cannot be considered virtuous. If God is willing, but unable, then he cannot be considered all-powerful. Therefore, God either exist and is evil, or he does not exist. People of faith respond to this logic with the notion that mortals are incapable of comprehending the infinite wisdom of God and that God works in mysterious ways. This is a creed, not an argument.
The second group of evils are those resulting from mankind’s actions such as the recent Boston Marathon bombings. Skeptics ask how could a virtuous God allow atrocities such as the September 2001 terrorist attack on the Twin Towers in New York City to happen? Apologists use “Free Will” to resolve this problem. They argue that God gave mankind “Free Will” to choose and then bear the consequences of their choices. Sin is therefore the cause of evil and suffering not God. This is a very clever and convincing argument until its fatal flaw is revealed.
The fly-in-the-ointment of the “Free Will” argument is the incompatibility of “Free Will” and omniscience. Keep in mind that “all knowing” requires perfect knowledge of everything that has happened in the past, perfect knowledge of everything happening in the present, and perfect knowledge of everything that will happen in the future. One example should make it clear why “Free Will” cannot exist in the same space with omniscience. Bill, an atheist lives and dies. An omniscient deity would have known that prior to Bill’s life and death. If Bill had changed his mind and became a Christian before he died, that would contradict God’s prior knowledge and thus invalidate his omniscience. Apologists must make a choice, “Free Will” or omniscience, they cannot have both!
If God is omniscient then man cannot have “Free Will.” In this case God is responsible for all mankind’s evil acts and he cannot be considered omnibenevolence. If mankind has “Free Will” then God cannot be omniscient. Therefore, God either exist and is evil, or he does not exist.
So far science has not established the existence of “Free Will.” However, there are three hypotheses that deny its existence. The first one is the quantum theory argument and involves the idea of reductionism down to the particle level of matter. At this level of analysis everything that happens in nature can be explained by the behavior of particles which can be described by a body of mathematics. This of course includes the operation of the human brain and at this level is beyond the control of the person. Therefore, “Free Will” cannot exist.
The second argument was presented by Stephen Hawking in his book, A Brief History of Time (1992). Hawking along with others is pursuing what is called the “Grand Unification Theory" (GUT). Their quest is to develop a single mathematical model that will integrate and explain the four forces in nature: gravity, electromagnetism, weak nuclear force, and the strong nuclear force. According to Hawking when this is accomplished, scientists will be able to predict the outcome of any system “simply” by determining the initial state and then applying and solving the equations of the GUT. This would include all of human behavior! If this happens, “Free Will” join the ranks of failed ideas.
The third argument is one made by Neuroscientists such as Dr. Sam Harris who proposed the following thought question: Are you free to do that which does not occur to you to do? Of course action follows thought, and you obviously cannot do anything without the thought first occurring to you. Therefore, “Free Will” cannot exist.
Epistemologically a personal God based on the three classical theistic powers cannot exist. Does this mean that there is no God? The above arguments demonstrate the God of theism cannot exist, but it does not preclude the existence of Einstein’s deistic God. Deism does not arbitrarily attribute powers to their God. Instead they entertain a hypothesis whereby there exist in the universe a power that established the laws of natures and then withdrew allowing these laws to create and operate the universe. Deists refer to this power as nature or the universal architect. Anytime a deist refers to “God,” they are referring to the impersonal “God” of Spinoza and Einstein. Deism does not anthropomorphize their “God.” The universal architect does not interfere in man’s affairs, does not perform miracles, does not provide for life after death, does not answer prayers, and does not demand any form of sacrifice or worship. “He” reveals his existence only through the laws of science and mathematics.
Some people might ask the question, “What is the difference between a deist and an atheist?” Deists allow for some slight possibility that God might exist. Atheists maintain that God absolutely does not exist in the same way that theists claim God does exist. The atheist and the theist both accept faith without proof as a basis for their belief. Deism is more compatible with the scientific method and is favored by scientists. As a deist I doubt seriously based on science, history, and logic the existence of a personal God. Furthermore, I am happy with the thought that the God of theism does not exist.
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