Polish edition of 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists

Pssst, pass it on: a Polish edition of 50 Voices of Disbelief: Why We Are Atheists will be released early in 2011 (scheduled for March).

Now we need a few other languages! :)

Uthman Badar on religion (4): Moral objectivity

It's close to time to round off this series. This will be my penultimate post on Badar's article.

So far, the main point I've made is that Badar is incorrect in his claims that atheists rely upon, or need to rely on, any overly narrow conception of rationality. Philosophical atheists are well aware of traditional arguments for the existence of God and of how they are supposed to work - but we are also aware that these have proved inconclusive over the centuries. Far from being ignorant of them, most of us support continuing critique of them. However, it's not surprising if some prominent atheists reach the point of ranking this as a relatively low priority.

Towards the end, Badar makes a couple of points that are more interesting and perhaps scarier. One relates to the objectivity of morality. The other, which I'll get to in the final post in this series, relates to secularism - which he rejects. First, let's look at the question of moral objectivity.

Badar seems to be claiming that atheists can find no objective basis for morality, whereas theists can. The obvious problem here is that the concept of moral objectivity is itself very murky. As I'm currently re-re-reading The Moral Landscape by Sam Harris, I'm painfully conscious of this. Notoriously, Harris thinks that morality is objective. A bit less notoriously, I don't think morality is objective and I think he misunderstands what is actually at stake here. But then again, I find that many people want to side with Harris ... and, whether or not it is just my inarticulacy on the point, I often find it difficult even conveying what I think is at stake. When people are forced to think hard about the concept, some immediately think it's obvious that morality can't be objective in the way I'm describing. Others just seem to find the whole concept baffling. Some seem to get very uncomfortable, even aggressive. It's all a messy business.

One thing that can be noted in favour of people like Harris is that we don't need to believe in any deities to find lots of objectively-true claims that at least seem to be relevant to morality. That seems correct on any plausible understanding of what morality is all about - what its point might be - and I'll come back to this.

There's a strong conception of objectivity in morality - and it may be the conception of the folk, and perhaps even the conception built into moral language - but it's surprisingly difficult to pin it down. However, Richard Joyce's analysis seems about right to me: it involves "non-institutional desire-transcendent reasons and non-institutional categorical imperatives". It's hard to see how such reasons and imperatives exist or even make sense, whether God exists or not. God may, of course, issue a command. But whether or not I have a reason to follow it will depend on my desires. Perhaps God can back up his command with a threat to torture me if I disobey. Fine. But my reason for obeying will relate to my desire not to be tortured.

I may, of course, have other reasons to obey. Perhaps God commands me to do something I want to do anyway - perhaps to be kind to a little old lady who is having difficulty crossing the street. But here my reason for obeying will depend on my desire to help this person, or simply my desire that things go better for her. But what if God commands me to murder, torture, and rape? Well, I may have a strong reason to obey - my fear of being tortured, myself, if I don't - but again that reason does not transcend my desires. My fear of torture can be rephrased as a kind of desire not to be tortured.

The mere fact that the command comes from God does not make it somehow "objectively" correct. Indeed, if God gives commands to murder, torture, and rape, although we may have desire-based reasons to obey we will not say that murder, torture, and rape are now the "morally right" things to do. Nor will we say that the commands are binding on us in some way that transcends our fear of being tortured ourselves (such that, if we could somehow get away with disobedience we would still be bound to obey). Rather, we will conclude that we are confronted by an evil God, a being that should be opposed if at all possible (unfortunately, opposition may be futile if this evil being is omnipotent and omniscient).

Even an omnipotent being can't turn our reasons for just any action at all into desire-transcendent and institution-transcendent reasons, though it can certainly provide us with desire-related reasons that are so strong as to be psychologically irresistible.

The point is that secular thinkers can't deliver objectivity in this strong sense that Joyce is talking about, but neither can religious thinkers! Insofar as the folk crave this kind of objectivity, they are doomed to be disappointed. Insofar as our moral discourse presupposes this kind of objectivity and/or continually makes assertions that certain actions are objectively right or wrong in this sense of "objectively" ... well, our moral discourse is pervaded by error.

Of course, there can be interesting questions as to whether the folk really crave objectivity in such a strong sense. Perhaps some weaker idea of objectivity will satisfy them. And perhaps, when pressed, they are confused about what they want. Even if weaker ideas of objectivity are not enough to be completely satisfying, psychologically, they may be perfectly adequate for building and assessing moral systems. As I said earlier, there are plenty of objectively true statements that at least seem relevant. But of course, secular thinkers have just as much access to weaker forms of objectivity as the religious do.

To be honest, there's a qualification to be made here. If the religious really did have access to the knowledge and wisdom of an omniscient (or at least cognitively superior) being, they would have an advantage over the rest of us. Whereas we might need to struggle to find out facts about what leads to human happiness (or fulfilment or satisfaction, or whatever), or what kinds of societies are most stable, or whatever other facts appear to be relevant, the religious, or a sub-set of them, might have easy access to these facts. It's not, then, that religious morality would be more objective than a secular morality, but merely that it would be vastly better informed. That, however, would be no small thing.

I'll leave it to you to make up your own mind, given the actual content of various holy books, given how they are actually interpreted and applied, given the content of esoteric moral systems such as that of the Catholic Church, and given other facts available from the record of history, whether any religious morality really is informed by the knowledge and wisdom of an omniscient (or cognitively superior) being. I think you can guess where I stand on that one.

Uthman Badar on religion (3)

Having claimed, implausibly, that atheistic thinkers rely on some kind of narrow, self-serving conception of rationality, Uthman Badar illustrates what would be involved in his "broader" and true rationality by referring to the traditional arguments for the existence of God.

This is rather strange, since so much has been said by philosophical atheists about these arguments. They are, indeed, part of the religious heritage that merits rational critique. Accordingly, it's quite misguided to claim that neglect of these arguments is a weakness in contemporary atheism. If relatively little is said about them by some atheists who currently have a high profile, it's because they are so widely acknowleged, even by many (probably most) theistic philosophers, as being inconclusive. There are, of course exceptions - philosophers who think that one or more of these arguments is strong. But of course there are also plenty of atheists (as well as plenty of theists) who have produced searching criticism of each of them.

To his credit, Badar doesn't even say much to defend any of the traditional arguments and acknowledges that much has been said in response to them. His point seems to be that atheists are ignorant of the arguments or discount them from the start (because they fall outside of atheists' narrow, self-serving conception of reason). He almost seems to be saying that the existence of these arguments is news to people like me. But if that's what he thinks, it's obviously not the case.

In any event, Badar offers a version of the Kalam Cosmological argument as the strongest proof in his - or perhaps his organisation's - estimation. A problem here is that he does not set out the argument in a form that makes very clear what premises he relies on or how they are supposed to lead deductively to a conclusion. Usually this argument begins with a claim to the effect that anything that has a beginning, or that begins to exist, has a cause and that the universe itself is a thing that has a beginning (or, speaking tenselessly, begins to exist). The conclusion is thus that the universe itself has a cause. There then has to be some footwork to show that this can't go on forever and that there must be some kind of first or ultimate cause, which must be a thing that has no beginning, and must also be shown to have such attributes as personality and volition.

This all gets very murky very quickly. Do we really know that everything that has a beginning has a cause? If so, what is the meaning of the word "cause" here? It's not as if our notion of causation is entirely straightforward. If quantum events have "causes" in some sense, are the "causes" (perhaps statistical laws) necessarily the kinds of things that can be said to have beginnings and thus require causes of their own? If our notion of causation is such that quantum events don't have causes, doesn't this mean we should reject the major premise of the argument?

And why adopt it anyway? It looks like a contrived way of avoiding the more obvious, but disastrous, claim that everything has a cause - which very quickly provokes the question "What caused God?" There are questions as to whether the universe itself had a beginning in the same sense that objects and events within the universe do. That line of thought can quickly take us into conceptual issues about what it even means to say that something has a beginning, as well as to the latest cosmological theories and how well they line up with our concept (whatever it is) of something having a beginning.

There's then some footwork to try to show that the cause of the universe must be a personal agent rather than something impersonal, such as an unknown (to us) mindless mechanism that exists from eternity. Again, this footwork is typically very suspect, and I doubt that any assumptions supporting it have a rational basis.

Badar starts his version of the argument as follows: "the material world ... comprises of [sic] temporal phenomena that depend for their existence on other temporal phenomena and so forth. Such a series cannot continue to infinity, for if it did no one thing would satisfy its dependence and nothing would exist. The fact that things do exist necessarily implies a finite series and, in turn, the existence of a being who determined both the existence of this series and the specific attributes or properties that define it."

This is all very quick and confusing, but I suppose something like the standard version of the argument can be found here with some ingenuity. The idea seems to be that we can't have an infinite regress - an actual infinity - of caused things with beginnings in time. At some stage the regress must come to an end in something (Badar tendentiously calls it a "being") that was not caused and had no beginning. This is very dubious. He tries to give it some support - more rhetorical than anything else - later on in his article. But really, the most we can really say is that actual infinities are mind-boggling to beings like us. It's not at all clear that they are logically impossible (mathematicians seem to be able to work with them okay) or that they are any more mind-boggling than any of the alternatives once we start down this path of thought.

In any event, Badar tells us: "By rational extension, this being [sic] must be eternal and without beginning, otherwise it is temporal and forms part of the series. It must also be sentient for a timeless cause producing a temporal effect requires an independent will. Finally, effecting so grand a creation as the universe and all that it contains necessitates knowledge and power."

But none of this follows without a helluva lot more. E.g., where does Badar get the premise that "a timeless cause producing a temporal effect requires a rational will"? Perhaps he can support this somehow (some theistic philosophers have attempted to do so), but as it stands it is just a bald assertion with no particular evidence in its favour, and not even any particular intuitive appeal, at least to me.

And where does he get the premise that creating something as "grand" as the universe requires knowledge and power? I suppose that an intelligent being that consciously designed and created the universe would, indeed, have to be powerful and knowledgeable, so perhaps we should accept it if we get to the point of accepting the conclusion that an intelligent being consciously designed and created the universe. But we also know that highly complex outcomes can be produced over time through processes that don't possess power in anything like the sense that God is supposed to (though they must be "powerful" in the trivial sense that they can indeed produce such outcomes). Nor are such processes "knowledgeable" in any relevant, non-metaphorical sense.

I'm not going to claim that the Kalam cosmological argument is just hopeless. It can be refined in various ways to (purport to) give support to the various premises that it relies on in one place or another. However, even the best expositions of the argument end up being murky, puzzling, and inconclusive. I doubt that the version offered by Badar would convince anybody, relying as it does on assertions that simply do not appear at all self-evident.

Theists who believe that some kind of cosmological argument is adequate to prove the existence of something remotely recognisable as the Abrahamic God are welcome to keep trying. From historical experience so far, it seems like a futile effort, but no one can be certain of that in advance. Perhaps one day I'll encounter an argument that convinces me. I'm open to it. However, it will need to rely on premises that really are self-evidently true, or are supported by some kind of evidence sufficiently powerful to persuade an outsider to the belief system.

It hasn't happened, and I expect it ain't gonna happen ... but philosophical theists are always welcome to develop and refine their arguments.

Uthman Badar on religion (2)

Uthman Badar accepts that religious claims, like other truth-claims should be subjected to rational scrutiny. He and I are in furious agreement at this point. In a sense, I don't need to go further, because we are both expressing opposition to the idea that religious claims should somehow get a free pass, that it's somehow too impolite or uncivil to scrutinise their truth.

But he adds an interesting point. They should be subject to rational scrutiny, he says; but then he says: "Rationality in its true broad sense, not in the narrow self-serving sense all too common from atheist circles."

What can this possibly mean? Since he is answering my earlier piece, you'd think perhaps he was referring to something I wrote, but of course I said nothing about applying some narrow, self-serving standard of rationality. That said, religious thinkers (and even some secular philosophers) sometimes wish to employ standards of rationality that presuppose much that is controversial in the claims that they want to defend. I've sometimes seen moral philosophers, and other thinkers involved in policy and applied ethics, claim that such and such a course of action is required by reason, while using a standard of rationality that is already moralised. There is then a question as to why an opponent should accept that standard of rationality. Some theologians think it's okay to begin with espistemic principles that contain far more assumptions than secular people are likely to use, for example the principle that a certain holy book is inerrant.

So, I was on my guard when I saw Badar claiming that we should use some sort of "broad" rationality. Generally, though, that isn't the problem. His idea of rationality is not greatly different from mine. His complaint seems to be that atheists confine themselves to scientific arguments, while ignoring other arguments that are not, strictly speaking, scientific. To support this, he cites a definition of "atheism" used by the Atheist Foundation of Australia, though not by me (not in my piece on The Drum's site or anywhere else). This definition of atheism is as follows: "the acceptance that there is no credible scientific or factually reliable evidence for the existence of a god, gods or the supernatural."

Personally, I am happy to work with a fairly loose conception of atheism. A person who has no belief in any deity is an atheist, at least as far as I'm concerned, especially if this lack of belief is an informed one - the person has actually deliberated on it at some point (unlike, say, a newborn baby). But we can use different definitions in different contexts as long as we make our meaning as clear as is needed for the context concerned.

Badar draws the conclusion that atheists use only scientific arguments when they should be open to using and discussing other kinds of arguments, such as deductive ones. This is actually a bit odd because science uses deductive arguments all the time. Perhaps one of the things that makes science distinctive is that it relies heavily on hypothetico-deductive reasoning, but scientists could not get by without using ordinary logical principles such as modus ponens. Intellectually-motivated atheists certainly do not adopt an approach that throws out ordinary deductive reasoning, and it's hard to see how trying to do so would be self-serving; what is there to be gained by trying to draw conclusions about the world without accepting, for example, the validity of arguments with the following format?

P1. If A then B.
P2. A
Therefore
C. B

Atheists are just as likely as anyone else to employ ordinary deductive reasoning such as described in any first-year logic course. The idea that we'd contrive things by throwing out this kind of reasoning is, to be blunt, ridiculous.

Obviously we also accept reports where they are credible - but there can be interesting discussions of when a report is or is not credible - and we can use conceptual analysis, which is basically about trying to nail down what we really mean by certain concepts (perhaps by testing whether certain situations, physical things, events, and so on, intuitively fall within our concepts).

So, let me be clear. When I say that religious claims should be subjected to rational analysis I most certainly do mean that the analysis should involve the full range of tools that we have available to us when we conduct our rational investigations. I don't mean that I am going to accept a concept of reason that comes freighted with controversial assumptions, such as moral assumptions or the assumption that a particular holy book is truthful. The standard is a secular (i.e. worldly) one, but there is no reason why it should be especially narrow or why it should itself have any unfair assumptions built in.

All of this should really go without saying, and I doubt that Badar has actually confused many people - judging by the negativity of the comments he is getting. Still, it's worth making the point explicit. I am not claiming that the much-needed critique of religion should rely on some contrived, artificially narrowed conception of rationality, or one that is already freighted with legitimately controversial assumptions. I do, however, intend to help myself to scientific claims that are well-evidenced, as and when it's helpful to do so.

The suggestion that any serious atheists act in some other way is without merit. It could, potentially, create some confusion, though I doubt that it's actually done so much in this case. Before we go any further, at any rate, it's best to repudiate it in clear words.

Uthman Badar on religion (1)

I'll probably disappoint some of y'all by not replying at full length to Uthman Badar's recent piece over at The Drum, which is meant to reply to my own article in the same forum. There are many aspects that I want to say something about, and I'd end up writing a book if I dealt with them all exhaustively. I'll do what I reasonably can, but it will take me more than one post. This one deals with an assortment of preliminary points.

I see that Badar has ended up with over 800 comments, most of which seem to be unfavourable. So it's not as if his views have gone down well with his audience. On the other hand, he has been given the opportunity to propagandise in a fairly high-profile forum for the organisation that he represents, which is a rather unpleasant one to say the least. On the gripping hand, that may not be such a bad thing on this occasion: the audience has had a chance to learn of the existence of Hizb ut-Tahri and its presence in Australia (which many would not be aware of). They've also had a chance to learn something about what the organisation stands for and why it is dangerous. We can only hope that the experience proves to be salutary.

In any event, I don't share the views expressed by some of Badar's commenters that he should have been denied a platform.

Freedom of speech doesn't entail getting a platform, just that the government won't shut you up. Getting a platform is still your responsibility, and if your views are especially hateful you might struggle to find one. Indeed, I'm not sure that I would want to share a stage with somebody from Hizb ut-Tahri - that tends to give the organisation legitimacy and requires engaging in pleasantries with someone whose views are inevitably going to be highly illiberal, theocratic, and misogynist. There's a limit to how far we should play nice with opponents. Reasonably progressive evangelical Christians are one thing; Hizb ut-Tahri  is quite another.

In this case, though, the views put by Badar are probably best aired. I'm not going to argue at this stage of events that Hizb ut-Tahri should be starved of platforms for its views in Australia. It's a matter of judgment, no doubt. Even on the most benign interpretation, this is not a benign organisation. However, whether we like it or not, it exists, exerts influence worldwide, and should be seen in action (at least where "action" is no more than offering its viewpoint and arguments). I wouldn't necessarily support it getting a platform on every possible occasion and in every possible circumstance, and as I said I wouldn't necessarily want to appear on the same stage, but I think that the ABC was well within its reasonable discretion to let us sample Hizb ut-Tahri's thinking this time.

It does seem sort of odd that the ABC didn't use someone more anodyne, such as a local Anglican bishop - I might have expected a reply from somebody like Tom Frame - but getting an Islamist replying to me certainly makes life that much more interesting.

The bottom line of Badar's piece is one that I don't actually disagree with. He says: "In any case, our response to the call for rational scrutiny of religious teaching is, quite simply, bring it on." To Badar's credit, that's a refreshing approach - compared, say, to that of Chris Mooney. While he says many other things that are highly dubious, at least he is not telling atheists and others who are sceptical about religious claims to shut up. Whatever his underlying views, his piece welcomes intellectual scrutiny of religion, and to that extent it's consistent with mine.

Needless to say, however, there's much to take issue with. It's not just the detail of the traditional arguments for the existence of God, though I'll have to say something about those - however brief and unsatisfactory - but various assumptions that he makes as to where people like me might be coming from and what motivates us. That, however, can wait for my next post.

Hizb ut-Tahrir guy replies to my Drum article

The Drum Unleashed has now published an article entitled "Rationality, religion and atheism", which responds to my own piece there from a couple of weeks ago, "The state, religion and the need for rational scrutiny".

Consider this current post to be a placeholder - I'll get back to this, because it raised a number of issues that need to be teased out a bit. For now, just note the person who got the job of replying to me: Uthman Badar, the PR guy for Australia's local branch of the Islamist organisation Hizb ut-Tahrir. Even on the most benign interpretation, this is a pretty scary oufit, but that's okay. Let them say what they want, and perhaps that will expose some of their thinking - with its strongly theocratic and totalitarian elements - to the educated world. But do look up what the organisation stands for, and not just its (arguably) "nice" "anti-Imperialist" policies. Hizb ut-Tahrir has a frightening agenda that would involve suppressing important freedoms anywhere where it actually gained power ... not to mention the likelihood of a violent clash of civilisations of the kind that most of us would dearly like to avoid.

Culture is a Weapon on the Institute for Science and Human Values

Over at Culture is a Weapon, this post says some kind things about 50 Voices of Disbelief in the process of plugging a new forum created by the Institute for Science and Human Values. Looks interesting.

To be honest, I have some reservations about the Institute for Science and Human Values, which is Paul Kurtz's new organisation. I can't sign off on its Neo-Humanist Statement, which goes into all sorts of specifics on which I am not committed or even sceptical. Still, I'm happy to draw attention to it; perhaps you'll be more willing than I am to embrace the rather comprehensive view of the world that it has to offer.

Axel Alonso named as Marvel's editor-in-chief

Axel Alonso has been named as the new editor-in-chief at Marvel Comics, in a restructure that apparently enables Joe Quesada to drop the position and concentrate on his broad role as Chief Creative Officer of Marvel Entertainment (which involves movies, TV, digital, as well as publishing). In recent times, Alonso has been the Executive Editor at Marvel with responsibility for the X-Men/mutantdom, but he has far deeper roots in comics and in editing more generally.

On his watch, and before, the X-Men line has been going through interesting times (and controversial ones, though I generally approve). The current political situation within the X-world is fascinating if you're a long-time reader and not too invested in the original status quo, and I'll be fascinated to see how its potential is developed from here.

[Digression for X-aficianodos: We now have most of the world's mutants, including some of the villains, holed up on an island (which they call Utopia) off the coast of San Francisco. Scott Summers is in charge, making him effectively the ruler of a small, but powerful, nation; and some very unexpected characters (if you view the scenario historically) have become his chief barons. Namor (the Submariner) has built a new Atlantis beneath the island for his undersea people, as the result of a deal with Magneto, who originally created the island as one of his asteroid bases back in the day and briefly took charge of the problems confronting Utopia when Scott was indisposed at one point. Magneto has, nonetheless, sworn fealty to Scott and is still loyal so far. Scott is still an item with Emma Frost. Namor, Magneto, and Emma - all of whom have been villains in the past to various extents, and none of whom are especially nice people - now have the most influence on how Scott runs things. In effect, the four of them provide Utopia's core executive team. Professor X himself is somewhat on the outer, after making some questionable decisions, though he and some other long-standing X-Men still have places at the leadership table.]

It will be interesting to see if Alonso's promotion causes any particular shake-up to Marvel's overall content, though I really have no idea how likely that is. It's also not clear (to me) whether he will continue to have a special focus on the X-world or whether someone else will need to step up to fill that role.

Edit: I see that Tom Brevoort also gets a promotion in this restructure of top editorial positions. I'm still trying to get my head around who exactly fits where now.

Third most popular post of 2010

This will be the last post in this series, and I'm not so much seeking to revive old battles (though obviously that may happen). I'm mainly interested to reflect on which of last year's posts received, by my relatively humble standards, very large numbers of hits. In all cases, it was as a result of being picked up or linked to by other sites; however, some posts that were picked up or referred to elsewhere attracted more interest than others.

Number three, i.e., the third most popular, was entitled: "The next step is to prohibit religious expression" - really? I'm still quite proud of this post because I think it deals with a very important point: the way so many of the religious can't conceive of societies in which they are free to express their religious views, and even proselytise for them, in public, but in which governments will not be swayed by religious teachings when making policy. To these people, advocacy of secularism - of a separation of the state from religious influences - is heard as advocacy of suppression of public religious speech and expression. It's as if they just have a mental blank about the possibility they might be accorded freedom of speech, but that they and others will also be accorded freedom from state imposition of religious teachings.

This is a situation that's worth a lot more pondering by secular-minded people, including people who are, themselves, religious but don't expect their controversial religion-based opinions to be imposed on others by the coercive power of the state.

My second most popular blog post of 2010 - and perhaps all time

This one - which dealt with issue of political correctness when discussing Islam/Muslims. The discussion over there eventually became a dialogue and I declared it closed after a while when it got stale. But it was a long thread that attracted a lot of thoughts about the sensitivities involved. This is obviously a hot-button topic, and one that will doubtless come up again in 2011.