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Problems with the New Atheist Movement

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I consider myself a fan of the New Atheist Movement. I'm especially a fan of Richard Dawkins. However I have always felt they were missing something, some kind of solid foundation to stand on. Which I think is what Objectivism could be for them. I found in all their interviews and public discussions they don't quiet make a complete argument. They always seem to still fall into the same moral base as the religions they argue against. And, maybe I'm wrong, but I think that is why they fail to convince more people than they could.

Anyway, I read this article "The Mystical Ethics of the New Atheists" by Alan Germani (http://www.theobjectivestandard.com/issues/2008-fall/mystical-ethics-new-atheists.asp) which I thought kind of pointed out the problems I was having with the Atheist Movement. So I sent the link to the nobeliefs.com website thinking this might open some Atheist's eyes to Objectivism. Below is the reply I got from the site:

Thanks for the link to the article but unfortunately Germani distorts the atheists position with falsehoods and misconceptions. For example:

"Although Hitchens may be adept at pointing out religious absurdities, he not only fails spectacularly when it comes to providing a valid secular alternative to the moral guidance provided by religion—he endorses essentially the same ethics as do religionists (altruism) and he arrives at this ethics by essentially the same means (mysticism)."

Actually Hitchens and other atheists DO provide a valid secular alternative to religious morality, and it is certainly not mysticism. Secular morality is based on what works best for a society (from observable actions) whereas religious morality is based on a set of beliefs built on non observable actions (the alleged word of God or priestly decrees).

Indeed secular and religious people both have innate moral feelings but they have different ways of expressing them. Religious morality is fixed and "absolute" based on mysticism, whereas secular morality is flexible and adapts to changing conditions. Of course secular morality is not perfect but it evolves as better information comes in. It is basically the same as the scientific method. Germani tries to connect the imperfection of secular morality as if it were similar to religious morality but he fails to provide the vast difference between the two.

Secular morality today is like the first Wright Brother's aircraft: crude and incomplete, but it works and can evolve. Religious morality, on the other hand, always leads to crashes and has no way to improve.

For these reasons and more, I'm not going to help spread Germani's memes.

Regards,

NoBeliefs.com

Just curious what you guys think. Thanks.

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"Innate moral feelings" and "moral intuitions" are examples of appeals to mysticism. No God is required, just the technique of revelation as means to knowledge.

edit: Get used to the idea that atheists are not necessarily your natural allies.

Edited by Grames
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"Although Hitchens may be adept at pointing out religious absurdities, he not only fails spectacularly when it comes to providing a valid secular alternative to the moral guidance provided by religion—he endorses essentially the same ethics as do religionists (altruism) and he arrives at this ethics by essentially the same means (mysticism)."

"Actually Hitchens and other atheists DO provide a valid secular alternative to religious morality, and it is certainly not mysticism. Secular morality is based on what works best for a society (from observable actions) whereas religious morality is based on a set of beliefs built on non observable actions (the alleged word of God or priestly decrees)."

Does this person not have reading comprehension? He equates "secular" with "non-mystical", so his argument is "it's secular, therefore not mystical". He simply says that Hitchens provides a valid secular alternative. He assumes that it works because there is a standard (what works best for society) Maybe he is right on a superficial level that Hitchens doesn't arrive at his ethics via mysticism, he essentially arrives at it from *nothing*. Hitchens himself even says that his ethics is not even based on observable action, but innate feelings.

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Actually Dawkins is a 6-6.9 on a scale between 0 and 7. And the only reason he is not a 7 is because it would require him to make the absolute positive statement "There is no God or anything remotely like it" which any good scientist would never make since we do not have complete knowledge about the universe. He's "agnostic" to God in the same way as he is agnostic about fairies, leprechauns, invisible pink unicorns, and Thor. So, basically, he rejects the idea of them as stupid and arbitrary, which is essentially the same thing Objectivists do.

I agree that many atheists do fall into the pragmatic/utilitarian camp, or argue that we have a somewhat innate moral sense that can be explained by evolution (there actually are some pretty good arguments that human's have evolved with emotions that lead them to adopt a benevolent morality). I think they are far better than religionists though, and would much rather live in a world filled with people at least explicitly committed to reason than a world explicitly committed to faith. Even lip-service to reason is better than faith (at least you've got an in).

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"There is no God or anything remotely like it"

The two cases of God and "anything remotely like it" are rejected for different reasons. God as an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient entity is out because of the nature of identity and non-contradiction. "Anything remotely like it" is rejected because it is arbitrary. It is at least metaphysically possible (the capability exists) that a powerful alien intelligence exists and has been interfering in human affairs, but it is not epistemologically possible because of the lack of evidence in favor of that hypothesis. Quite a few good science fiction stories have been written assuming this 'powerful alien' premise.

"There is no God" is an absolute which holds throughout the universe in all possible contexts. "Something remotely like God" would not be God.

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Actually Dawkins is a 6-6.9 on a scale between 0 and 7. And the only reason he is not a 7 is because it would require him to make the absolute positive statement "There is no God or anything remotely like it" which any good scientist would never make since we do not have complete knowledge about the universe. He's "agnostic" to God in the same way as he is agnostic about fairies, leprechauns, invisible pink unicorns, and Thor. So, basically, he rejects the idea of them as stupid and arbitrary, which is essentially the same thing Objectivists do.

I agree that many atheists do fall into the pragmatic/utilitarian camp, or argue that we have a somewhat innate moral sense that can be explained by evolution (there actually are some pretty good arguments that human's have evolved with emotions that lead them to adopt a benevolent morality). I think they are far better than religionists though, and would much rather live in a world filled with people at least explicitly committed to reason than a world explicitly committed to faith. Even lip-service to reason is better than faith (at least you've got an in).

Who uses a scale of 7? :D

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Who uses a scale of 7? :confused:

It came from the seven ways he could readily come up with to express level of certainty.

It runs like this: 1 There is absolutely certainly a god, 2 there is probably a god, 3 More likely than not there is a god, 4, 50/50, 5 More likely than not there is no god, 6 there is probaly no god (Dawkins' position), and 7, there is absolutely, positively, no freaking way on this earth or any conceivable other world or alternate universe that there is a god (the correct position).

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Steve, the validity of your assertion that 7 is the proper position depends on your definition of a god. Dawkins, from what I remember, includes such things as a being which created the universe but was also physical (let's not get into a debate about how "universe" is "Everything" by definition, because physics suggests that the universe we see around us is not the only space-time that there is, others may exist, and, for example, black holes may create new ones), or an alien species which seeded life on earth, or some creature with the powers attributed to god (which are possible according to the laws of physics, at least possibly, using nanotechnology, etc.), etc. If you include all of those, since they do not violate the laws of physics, you cannot say that there is absolutely no conceivable way that there might even possibly something that might be called "god" in any sense of the word. So Dawkins places himself at 6.9 on his scale. That's where I place myself as well.

There is a difference between the logically self-contradictory personal God of Christianity and vague sorts of dieties that can be found in other religions. One is impossible (logically), the other is not if re-interpreted naturalistically (they are simply extremely unlikely or arbitrary).

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There is a difference between the logically self-contradictory personal God of Christianity and vague sorts of dieties that can be found in other religions. One is impossible (logically), the other is not if re-interpreted naturalistically (they are simply extremely unlikely or arbitrary).

There is a huge difference between the arbitrary and the highly improbable. What evidence do you have that "there probably is no god?" (which is a positive statement, and hence requires evidence). You are correct that the Christian God is impossible, given its usual definition. The other kind of "god" you mention is worse than impossible: it is nonsense. By this, I mean that when people say they believe in "a higher power" or some such vague thing, it literally does not mean anything at all; they may as well have uttered a series of unintelligible grunts. It is not possible to assign a probability to a statement that expresses no specific meaning (the most such a statement can express is a vague emotional connotation, which does not qualify as a specific meaning). When someone utters such a statement, the proper response is a mental "huh?", not a statement such as "that is probably false". What is "that"?

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I would also like to add that the concept of "probability" is used very freely by many modern intellectuals, who seem to think that invoking it makes their ideas more "precise" and "scientific". In fact, these invokations are often not valid at all. One example is when creationists argue that the existence of human life is "improbable" without a creator, as though one could assign a probability to a fact of reality. In the case in question here, we have people like Dawkins assigning probabilities to non-specific claims, in the absence of any evidence either way. This is a meaningless use of the concept of probability.

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Actually Dawkins is a 6-6.9 on a scale between 0 and 7. And the only reason he is not a 7 is because it would require him to make the absolute positive statement "There is no God or anything remotely like it" which any good scientist would never make since we do not have complete knowledge about the universe. He's "agnostic" to God in the same way as he is agnostic about fairies, leprechauns, invisible pink unicorns, and Thor. So, basically, he rejects the idea of them as stupid and arbitrary, which is essentially the same thing Objectivists do.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is NOT the same thing Objectivists do. Doesn't Objectivism hold that your mind is fully competent to know the facts of reality and that we can not only dismiss the concept of a God or any of the other things you mentioned because they are arbitrary with no proof, but also because they are logical contradictions of the laws of nature, thus rejecting any form of agnosticism?

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Correct me if I'm wrong, but this is NOT the same thing Objectivists do. Doesn't Objectivism hold that your mind is fully competent to know the facts of reality and that we can not only dismiss the concept of a God or any of the other things you mentioned because they are arbitrary with no proof, but also because they are logical contradictions of the laws of nature, thus rejecting any form of agnosticism?

Specific claims about the existence of god can be dismissed as impossible using reason (the word "god" has to be given a specific definition first). If the claims are vague and non-specific, then there is nothing to dismiss; no coherent statement has actually been made, and the proper response is to ignore the claims completely. Even seemingly specific claims (eg: "the world was created by a magical green elephant on mars") may fall into this category if they have no relation to reality at all; i.e. they actually don't mean anything. This is basically what Leonard Peikoff says about the issue in OPAR, in his discussion of theism, and the difference between the false and the arbitrary.

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Steve, the validity of your assertion that 7 is the proper position depends on your definition of a god. Dawkins, from what I remember, includes such things as a being which created the universe but was also physical (let's not get into a debate about how "universe" is "Everything" by definition, because physics suggests that the universe we see around us is not the only space-time that there is, others may exist, and, for example, black holes may create new ones), or an alien species which seeded life on earth, or some creature with the powers attributed to god (which are possible according to the laws of physics, at least possibly, using nanotechnology, etc.), etc.

It should be obvious to you that if there were "more than 1 universe", then each individual universe should not be called a universe. It should have a new name (miniverse, multiverse, etc). And those multiverses are part of the universe. I mean, isn't that obvious? You'd still come up with the same issue: What created the "first universe"?

"Like god" isn't god. Grames already addressed that.

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And in response to Grames' objection that "something like God" is not "god" that doesn't matter, because Dawkins is including such an entity in his definition. God can be defined a consciousness enormously more powerful than humanity who is capable of doing the feats that are often ascribed to gods. A hyper-powerful alien or an actual deity are basically the same when it comes to how we would have to interact with it, because both are dramatically more powerful than we are. So including "something like God" in the above sense in his scale does not seem like a bad idea.

Dawkins places the "something like God" possibility as very very unlikely because as far as we can tell there is no evidence at all for it. Which is why he is a 6.9. He is certain there is no God in the Objectivist sense of the word (there is an enormous amount of evidence for that position, and no real evidence for the existence of a god, he explicitly states he feels the same about god(s) as he does about unicorns and fairies). He simply defines "certainty" in the absolute, omniscient way that the vast majority of the population of this planet does; namely, that certainty is when there is no conceivable way that you might be wrong, you have all evidence there is (even hypothetically possible) to have, etc. Granted, that isn't a reasonable definition of certainty for finite beings, but that's the definition he uses (he isn't, after all, an Objectivist). So, by his definitions of the terms, he (and we) are at 6.9. You can say that using proper definitions 7 is the correct position, but that doesn't negate that his actual position (when translated into Objectivist terms) is the correct one. His definition of 7 is something unattainable by man or any finite being and as a result wouldn't even be considered by an Objectivist as a viable option.

Oh, and Eiuol: Scientists generally call the multiplicity of universes the multiverse, for simplicity's sake (the universe is everything we can see around us, and renaming it to something else would take a lot of effort without increasing clarity at all).

Edited by nanite1018
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And in response to Grames' objection that "something like God" is not "god" that doesn't matter, because Dawkins is including such an entity in his definition. God can be defined a consciousness enormously more powerful than humanity who is capable of doing the feats that are often ascribed to gods. A hyper-powerful alien or an actual deity are basically the same when it comes to how we would have to interact with it, because both are dramatically more powerful than we are. So including "something like God" in the above sense in his scale does not seem like a bad idea.

If you include things that didn't "create the universe" then of course you'd have to be a 6.9. Why would anyone's definition of god include things besides a "creator of the universe", though?

Oh, and Eiuol: Scientists generally call the multiplicity of universes the multiverse, for simplicity's sake (the universe is everything we can see around us, and renaming it to something else would take a lot of effort without increasing clarity at all).

If you define the universe as "everything we can see or is detectable around us", then you could say there is more than one universe. But I define the universe is "all that exists". "The universe is everything that exists. It is made up of multiverses" is more clear than "The multiverse is everything that exists. It is made up of universes". Either way when people say god, they're referring to "the conscious being that created existence". The definition of universe shouldn't really matter, only your definition of existence. If you say god is just what created the universe, and your definition of the universe is something besides "all that exists", then it would make sense why you're a 6.9 rather than a 7.

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If you include things that didn't "create the universe" then of course you'd have to be a 6.9. Why would anyone's definition of god include things besides a "creator of the universe", though? If you define the universe as "everything we can see or is detectable around us", then you could say there is more than one universe. But I define the universe is "all that exists". "The universe is everything that exists. It is made up of multiverses" is more clear than "The multiverse is everything that exists. It is made up of universes". Either way when people say god, they're referring to "the conscious being that created existence". The definition of universe shouldn't really matter, only your definition of existence. If you say god is just what created the universe, and your definition of the universe is something besides "all that exists", then it would make sense why you're a 6.9 rather than a 7.

Exactly, and that's how I, and I presume Dawkins, uses the term universe. God didn't have to, in this case, create existence itself (that's impossible), but "he" could have created the Big Bang, and that's why 6.9 is, I think, the proper location. In terms of how you live your life, 6.9 and 7 are the same (you ignore the idea of deities completely) but 6.9 is the more scientifically rigorous position.

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You can say that using proper definitions 7 is the correct position, but that doesn't negate that his actual position (when translated into Objectivist terms) is the correct one.

His actual position makes reference to probability, and is therefore not the correct one at all. The Objectivist notion of certainty has nothing whatsoever to do with probability. Calling the existence of a god "highly improbable" is at once a capitulation to theism and an abuse of the concept of probability.

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It came from the seven ways he could readily come up with to express level of certainty.

It runs like this: 1 There is absolutely certainly a god, 2 there is probably a god, 3 More likely than not there is a god, 4, 50/50, 5 More likely than not there is no god, 6 there is probaly no god (Dawkins' position), and 7, there is absolutely, positively, no freaking way on this earth or any conceivable other world or alternate universe that there is a god (the correct position).

But how does he arrive at a given level?

The listing should include evidence. So 7 would be the correct position if it read: "There is no hard evidence as to the existence of a god, and plenty of evidence as per the laws of anture (such as the various conservations laws) that indicate the existence of a god to be impossible."

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His actual position makes reference to probability, and is therefore not the correct one at all. The Objectivist notion of certainty has nothing whatsoever to do with probability. Calling the existence of a god "highly improbable" is at once a capitulation to theism and an abuse of the concept of probability.

This brings up a good point. If Dawkins allows any degree of possibility at all to the existence of God, then why is he not persuaded by Pascal's Wager? I see the Wiki article gives Dawkins' response to Pascal, but I judge Pascal wins here because he is appealing to an expectation value based on an infinite gain, while the loss Dawkins points out is always finite.

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I've looked through Dawkins' "The God Delusion" again, and the only reason he does not rule out the possibility of something like a god is because you can't prove the nonexistence of something. So, perhaps his use of "probable" in his definition of 6 isn't the best use of the term. In any case, his position is that the idea of God is as unlikely as anything that isn't self-contradictory can be to a finite consciousness, which, I think, is roughly what Objectivists mean by arbitrary. Its the same as the assertion that there is a flying teapot between Earth and Mars (to use Bertrand Russell's example, which Dawkins quotes), you can't prove it doesn't exist, but to say it does is to be "talking nonsense."

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"Innate moral feelings" and "moral intuitions" are examples of appeals to mysticism. No God is required, just the technique of revelation as means to knowledge.

... many atheists do fall into the pragmatic/utilitarian camp, or argue that we have a somewhat innate moral sense that can be explained by evolution (there actually are some pretty good arguments that human's have evolved with emotions that lead them to adopt a benevolent morality).

(LOL, by "benevolent morality" you mean altuism? :P)

These are interesting points. Yes if these "moral intuitions" come out of thin air, then they are appeals to mysticism, that seems pretty clear (although not clear to some atheists I guess). But what if, as some biologists claim, they are actually just natural instincts developed by evolution? Ayn Rand said that humans have no natural instincts (correct me if I'm wrong about that), but most animals do, so why not humans as well? Also, perhaps she did not have access to the latest scientific research on the subject (since most of this seems to be pretty new research). What would the implications be to Objectivism? (If any?)

I have read (somewhat uncomfortably) articles that talk about Altruism found in nature, a natural instinct in some animals. Developed via evolution. I guess if it was a proven fact that wouldn't necessarily change anything. Just because something is an instinct doesn't automatically make it good. Some animals instinctually kill their young when they feel danger is around, then there's those voles that jump off cliffs... lol...

It would however end up being more fodder for those who preach the virtues of altruism.

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(LOL, by "benevolent morality" you mean altuism? :P)

Any concern for strangers is not altruism, it may be benevolence. There is a difference between respecting and sympathizing with other human beings because they are human beings and feeling you must sacrifice your own values to their desires. General concern for others is rational (better to live in a world where someone will likely give you a lending hand than to ignore you), and also is a trait based in evolutionary advantage. Those who helped others were publicly showing how well off they were, that that food or whatever wasn't valuable to them, and so they were more desirable mates. You shouldn't compromise your values to help others, or ever help people you don't like, but if it costs you very little and it will help someone (who you have no reason to think is bad person) then why not help?

An example is Roark feeling bad when Mallory was drunk in his apartment and cried. Roark felt bad because he was seeing human suffering and sympathized with the plight of another rational being. It wasn't altruism, it was benevolence. Its not a virtue onto itself, but it is rational (in a similar way as a benevolent universe premise is rational).

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