Alex’s Heresies – embracing a physical reality

The ‘Problem of Evil’ powerfully challenges a belief in God. It argues that the existence of God, implicitly taken as all-powerful, all-knowing, and morally perfect, contradicts the presence of evil in the world. Such a God should be able to stop or prevent evil occurring and being morally perfect would will it so. Suffering continues so God does not exist.

The evil (or suffering) is pervasive and not just resulting from human immorality. People of all types and ages as well (as other living things) suffer terribly from natural disasters and diseases as well as the immoral acts of others. Suffering is distributed across the innocent and guilty, the religious and the irreligious with no obvious patterns. A similarly behaved parent, class teacher, military leader or political leader inflicting such pain would be charged with a string of heinous crimes. By any human moral standards the inflicted suffering would be comprehensively condemned. However God is supposed to be better than any person, morally perfect beyond our moral capabilities by an infinite measure.

This argument against the belief in God is compelling. The simplest logical argument is:

If you affirm (2), (3) and (4) you are denying (1) or, alternatively, (1) contradicts (2), (3), and (4).

Most philosophers do not support this harshest form of the Problem of Evil: any evil or suffering  disproves the existence of God. Most allow for some suffering for a specific greater good, similar to a parent giving a sick child some bad-tasting medicine. Many support a probabilistic view that with the extensive and indiscriminate suffering in the world the Christian God is highly unlikely to exist.

The strength of the Problem of Evil has forced Christian thinkers for many years to justify the rationality of believing in the existence of such a God while accepting the presence of evil or suffering.

Comments

The ‘Problem of Evil’ attacks antiquated concepts of God and Evil, both inexorably linked to the Middle East of some 2000 to 3000 years ago. These ancient peoples were far removed from today’s protected lives – largely illiterate, tribal societies with superstitions, demons and evil spirits dominating short, hard, and brutish lives. Thirty years or more was old-age; five children per family were needed just to maintain the population; and a tooth absence was a death sentence.

Originally people worshipped gods to survive precarious existences with little interest in or conception of an after-life. They needed protection against a palpably real Evil. Worshipping one all-powerful god introduced problems of responsibility. How could a morally-perfect god create so many everyday hardships and calamities? Warring immoral gods never had that problem. Over time evil spirits and demons transmuted to a personified Evil, a powerful (not as much as God of course) Satan, seeking to undo God’s fundamental goodness. Even the after-life, never a personal part of most polytheist pagan religions and only a later development of Judaism, helped to shore up faith amongst seemingly indiscriminate hardships. Paul’s Christianity later institutionised that as an intrinsic part of Christian faith.

Over the years Christian thinkers have twisted and adapted God and Evil to suit the sensibilities of changing societies. St. Augustine rightfully de-objectified Evil to avoid a devastating dilemma – God, a morally-perfect being, having created Evil. So Evil, at least for the theologians, moved from fearful objective existence to “lack of goodness”, a deprivation – the metaphorical hole in the doughnut of God’s goodness.

So why study the Problem of Evil when the underlying concepts are so irrelevant to today’s secular society? Firstly, it is interesting intellectual puzzle-solving. Brilliant minds have contributed intricate arguments weaving newer and newer clothes for the emperor. Also, secondly, millions of conservative Christians still hold to these concepts.  Famously George W. Bush was one of those who saw very-real Evil lurking around every corner, only kept in check by faith in a super-human God.

Alex McCullie

References

Peter Kreeft, Christian philosopher

Notes on the Problem of Evil (Sandra LaFave)

Problems of Suffering (further arguments) Trevor Major

Video of a debate at University of Melbourne (Last month)

Audio debate on God and suffering with William Craig

Alex McCullie

My dad enjoyed boxing. He used to described in colourful ways previous boxing champions and their personal stories outside of the ring. I took an interest as it meant common ground for both of us. One surprise for me was his saying that an opponent smiling was one in a lot of pain, presumably to hide his anguish.

I read an opinion piece in The Age, Melbourne Australia, by Greg Craven and understand what Dad meant. It’s a boostful, sarcastic attack on “the new hobby atheist is as brash, noisy and confident as a cheap electric kettle” by the vice cancellor of a local Catholic university. Craven equates this group of atheists to a new plague of blowflies or something fictitious from biblical Egypt.

The Roman Catholic Church is apparently a particularly popular target. Is it the endless cover-ups of priestly child abuse around the world? No. Is the use of misleading scare campaigns against the use of condoms to fight HIV infections in Africa? Is the historical distorting of the evolution science message in Catholic schools and communities? Is the selective application of healthcare driven by theology ahead of humanity? Is it the discrimination of women and homosexuals from positions of power within the church? It is none of these: apparently its because the church is big and, unlike their protestant bretheren, they actually believe in something. Craven sees the media as full of Christian attacks as today’s modern blood-sport.

I shall give Greg Craven the closing words:

At the bottom, of course, lies hate. I am not quite clear why our modern crop of atheists hates Christians, as opposed to ignoring or even politely dismissing them, but they very clearly do. There is nothing clever, witty or funny about hate.

Alex McCullie

Tom Scott says it all.

It’s a theme here – stop giving religions immunity from criticism about their human rights attitudes. Religions, faiths and churches should be subject to the same standards as applied to all in our societies. Adverse homophobic attitudes should be unacceptable from all secular and religious organisations. Some (not enough) have highlighted the Vatican’s appalling offer to disaffected Anglicans – homophobes, misogynists and bigots – to join an organisation happy with those attitudes – the Roman Catholic Church. And the same churches are so sensitive to criticism!

Randy Cohen in the NYT comments

Richard Dawkins has a few low-key words, including:

What major institution most deserves the title of greatest force for evil in the world? In a field of stiff competition, the Roman Catholic Church is surely up there among the leaders. The Anglican church has at least a few shreds of decency, traces of kindness and humanity with which Jesus himself might have connected, however tenuously: a generosity of spirit, of respect for women, and of Christ-like compassion for the less fortunate. The Anglican church does not cleave to the dotty idea that a priest, by blessing bread and wine, can transform it literally into a cannibal feast; nor to the nastier idea that possession of testicles is an essential qualification to perform the rite. It does not send its missionaries out to tell deliberate lies to AIDS-weakened Africans, about the alleged ineffectiveness of condoms in protecting against HIV. Whether one agrees with him or not, there is a saintly quality in the Archbishop of Canterbury, a benignity of countenance, a well-meaning sincerity. How does Pope Ratzinger measure up? The comparison is almost embarrassing.

Alex McCullie

In a newly-released book, Genesis Enigma, biological scientist Andrew Parker argues that the Jewish Book of Genesis and modern science have unexpectedly similar accounts on the origins of life. He goes on to suggest that the Genesis authors were divinely inspired to explain such similarities.  I have not read the book: this is my summary from Amazon.

This book, however, raises important questions about whether or not to take such hypotheses seriously. More specifically, how do we separate important claims from spurious ones as ignorant (perhaps), non-specialist readers? This is what I do.

Do the claims make prima facia sense against existing knowledge?

My first stage is to do a quick check of the claims against my existing knowledge and my world-view or perspective. I decide whether it is worth pursuing the book and its claims any further. If so, then I list the issues that need to be addressed in considering the author’s claims seriously. I try to recognise that this is very much subject to my biases.

As a naturalist – all things come from physical causes – I immediately have doubts about Parker’s claims of divinely-inspired Genesis writers. So, admittedly, I start very sceptically. Also there are many cases where people seek to prove or disprove points from selective use of the wildly diverse texts of the Christian Old and New Testaments. It is a popular pastime to find ‘hidden’ numeric meanings in biblical texts and, for me, another reason I should be sceptical.

Most biblical scholars see the Torah (also the first five books of the Christian Old Testament) as an assembly of stories from different Jewish traditions and from neighbouring cultures. They were written and edited by multiple authors over hundreds of years to address religious needs of their specific communities, not as sacred texts. Very few scholars believe Genesis was authored by Moses or was dictated by God.

The original texts were written in Hebrew and then subsequently translated into Greek, Latin, Coptic, and English as well as other modern-day languages. There is no such thing as one version of Genesis, either today or throughout history. Each writing and translation was to meet particular ideological of the authors and theological needs of the communities. At least until the advent of printing, we are better seeing the history of scriptural texts as dynamic. In particular the book of Genesis has two distinct and contradictory origin stories, each representing two different historical traditions and exempified by their different portrayals of God.

I like to see if the book claims are consistent with or challenges existing knowledge and thought. Challenging current thinking is not necessarily a bad thing, though it can make you wary.  Homeopathy is premised on the basis that substances and liquids have ‘memory’. So no matter how many times you dilute a substance in a liquid there will still have an effect from the ‘memory’ of that substance in the liquid.  This is contrary to all our understandings from chemistry and therefore, quite reasonably, I am very sceptical about the efficacy of homeopathy despite claims by practitioners and patients.

Conservatively comparing claims with current thinking is not being narrow-minded or anti-progressive: it is prudential. The breadth of scholarly work itself can be diverse to the extent that is rarely is one view considered orthodox. Typically we talk of one or more mainstream views with still others sitting respectably outside of those positions. In biblical studies, for example, two well-respected religious scholars hold diametrically-opposed views. John Dominic Crossan believes the resurrection of Jesus never happened, while N.T. (Tom) Wright argues it did. Both scholars are highly qualified and operate well within the biblical studies community. If an author proposes a radically different hypothesis, then I like to know if the author is working within his or her scholarly community or just appealing directly to the general reader.

I usually like to see a number of things with new hypotheses:  (1) properly conducted research through experimentation or use of independent historical data; (2) some explanatory models to incorporate the new data; and (3) submission to academic peer reviews via respectable scholarly journals. The more challenging is the claim, then the more demanding should be the evidence. Human wishful thinking is a powerful driver.

In Genesis Enigma, Parker is drawing from modern science and the Book of Genesis, the first book of the Jewish Torah. His comparisons and conclusions seem to have little support in the academic worlds of science and biblical studies. Even the publisher acknowledges that these are dramatic claims. Even though Parker is a well-qualified biologist, he appears unqualified in biblical research. I could find no evidence of his claims being reviewed by recognised scholars, qualified in the fields his covers. I generally place little weight in anonymous and potentially unqualified user reviews, found at Amazon.

What are the qualifications and experience of the author or authors? Are they relevant to the claims?

Being dubious about Parker’s claims of divine inspiration, I would quickly check his qualifications and academic experience in the biological sciences (considerable) and biblical research in the Torah in Hebrew (appears none).

Authors should be able to demonstrate a deep understanding to the material associated with any claims.  In the case of Andrew Parker I would expect to find advanced qualifications with research experience in both the biological sciences and biblical studies, especially associated with the book of Genesis. In the case of Parker, he qualifies for the former but not the latter. Private independent study does not usually qualify for recognised expertise.

At this point I would not consider the Genesis Enigma book any further.

Interview on Australian ABC radio

Our belief in magic continues to haunt humanity – religions, churches, sacred texts, and – now – crazy interpretations of scientific research. Recently the New York Times, copied and extended by the Sunday Age, produced fanciful religious-style speculations of serious empirical research – Large Hadron Collider project near Geneva. The Age article, in particular, makes a seemless transition from some science reporting, well requoting of the NYT article, to a mixing poetical story telling; crazy faith claims of near-death experiences; and stories of saints.

As soon as we find something unexplained in science, out come the gurus, gullibly quoted by unqualified feature writers, to spruke simplistic mixtures of new-age mysticism with traditional religious beliefs, ‘explaining’ the unknowns in such strange worlds as sub-atomic particles. Worst still, even renowned scientists leave their areas of expertise (while still being quoted with those same scientific qualifications) to declare evidences for god, free-will, consciousness or any other mystery, without the slightest shred of empirical evidence. This is speculation at its worst and most dangerous. One such scientist even won the lucrative Templeton Prize for his god-like imaginations, good for his bank balance and great PR for the religious Templeton organisation.

Do not believe that quotations from scientists actually support these ideas. We must remember that scientists often use god-type language to explain wonderous mysteries. But they do not mean anything like the Christian, Islamic or Jewish God. Even Einstein did this while strongly disbelieving in any sort of god. Scientists are excited and often mystified by findings at the frontiers of knowledge and then will use poetic language to describe those mysteries. Most are not seriously seeking answers from 2000-3000 year old writings of Middle Eastern desert tribesmen.

Alex McCullie

Catholic Culture website quotes Msgr. Anthony R. Frontiero, a priest of the Diocese of Manchester (New Hampshire) as criticising a secular approach to tolerance:

[N]eutrality toward world views cannot be truly tolerant and respectful. Likewise, an absence of convictions does not define tolerance; and in the absence of some compelling notion of the truth that requires us to be tolerant of those who have a different understanding of the truth of things, there is only skepticism and relativism.

and later:

An authentic notion of tolerance in pluralistic societies demands that in their dealings with unbelievers and those of different faiths, believers should grasp that they must reasonably expect that the dissent they encounter will go on existing. At the same time, however, secular political cultures must encourage unbelievers to grasp the same point in their dealings with believers. When secularized citizens act in their role as citizens, they must [not] deny in principle that religious images of the world have the potential to express truth. Nor must they refuse their believing fellow citizens the right to make contributions in a religions language to public debates.

Again, the Catholic hierarchy view astounds me. I would have thought neutrality towards religious world views would more naturally lead to tolerance than say an ardent Christian, Islamic or Jewish view. Many religious people love conflating secularism and atheism to be anti-religious. They seem to work on the most intolerant mentality of ‘for us’ or ‘against us’. So who is really intolerant?

The real agenda comes in the second quotation. The Catholic leadership wants to imposed their faith-based morality (derived from revelations and ancient scriptures) onto the modern secular world. I have no problems people having religious attitudes. However, and this is a big ‘however’, discussion in the public space needs to be based in modern-day secular terms. Restricting condom use in HIV ravaged Africa, for example, should not be argued on the basis of God’s will or preventing soul-creation.

Alex McCullie

According to Amnesty International a Texan jury consulted a Christian bible to justify the death penalty in a murder trial. It is good to see Christian scriptures being put to a humane use – perhaps not.

Alex McCullie