Yet another theist spouting unfalsifiable, unempirical superstition is hardly "science" and is a waste of a Saturday diavlog.

Its always fascinating to listen to two poeple, an atheist, a theist, who are working from the same pool of facts and information but one interprets a Loving God and the other Interprets the facts and information.

how come God hates me?

Yet another theist spouting unfalsifiable, unempirical superstition is hardly "science" and is a waste of a Saturday diavlog.

He wasn't spouting, and the science was the research in psychology and human biology at some of our best universities. It's true that the dialogue did have a slightly medieval quality to it since it's been somewhat ridiculous to defend theism intellectually for the past few centuries. Paul's explanation of supernatural beliefs is considerably more plausible -- to say the least -- than Michael's. Theologians, in my humble outsider's opinion, should acknowledge the non-rational aspects of their vocation. When they engage in debate with science, it always ends up a little like the Scopes Trial, bringing out the worst in them. Billions of people love and appreciate religion on its own non-rational terms. That should be enough.

He was spouting, I say! Spouting!!

Yes! Michael Murray! Someone up there likes me.

Quoting Wonderment: It's true that the dialogue did have a slightly medieval quality to it since it's been somewhat ridiculous to defend theism intellectually for the past few centuries.

Just for the record, a lot of excellent philosophers, mathematicians, and scientists have, for the past few centuries, been theists who defended their beliefs. As a sampling: Descartes (17th century), Leibniz (17th), Locke (17th), Berkeley (18th), Kant (18th), (arguably) Hegel (19th), Kierkegaard (19th), Gödel (20th), Newton (17th), Samuel Clarke (17th), Malebranche (17th), Saul Kripke (20th), Bas van Fraassen (20th), James Clerk Maxwell (19th), Johann Carl Friedrich Gauss (19th), and Leonhard Euler (18th), just to name a few.

Kierkegaard (19th)

"Credo quia absurdum est." Nice!

Well, he was quoting Tertullian. EDIT: And Tertullian, from what I understand, was arguing as follows:
(1) some consequences of adopting Christianity are counterintuitive;
(2) normally, if a belief-system has counterintuitive consequences, that is reason to doubt the belief-system; however,
(3) the counterintuitive consequences of a belief system is (sometimes, at least) evidence that that system is not just made up from whole cloth, but is instead a correct mapping of reality, for reality has surprising features.
(4) Therefore, one reason to accept Christianity is precisely that it has surprising consequences. Or, in slogan form, "I believe because it is absurd." And anyway, from what I gather Kierkegaard actually gave arguments for leading a Christian life, even if he thought that the arguments characteristic of natural theology (the big three: ontological, cosmological, and teleological) put the cart before the horse (i.e., could only have persuasive force for someone who already believed in God on the basis of religious experiences).

A few scientists interested on the cognitive science of religion have taken up the question of non-human "religion" (Jesse Bering and Gordon Gallup in the Journal of Cognition and Culture volume 1, for example). As far as I know, all have concluded that nothing like religion exists in other species. Of course, it might depend on what we mean by religion. But if, as is common in these discussions, we mean something like "belief in disembodied (minimally counter-intuitive) agents who possess strategic information about human behavior and have some measure of concern for human morality or rule-following" one can see why such is unlikely in other species.

Nice to see that you're commenting, Professor Murray. I think, though--and I could be wrong--that a lot of the commenters here are verificationists or Popperian falsificationists, so if you intend to comment further you might want to freshen up (if you need to) and reasons for rejecting those approaches.

Well, what would anyone think? I think the first thing we would think is "some very powerful and intentional agent is messing with the stars!" Given that I think I have very good reasons to accept theism, I would conclude: (a) there are really powerful intelligent agents elsewhere in the universe, (b) those agents are evangelistic atheists, and (c) those agents need someone to sit down and give them a good course in philosophy of religion!

Doesn't ogieogie think that science has implications for domains outside of science? After all, that was the issue on the table: does the cognitive/evolutionary science of religion have implications for religion itself?

Quoting Michael J Murray: Given that I think I have very good reasons to accept theism

Hi Michael, I wonder, what do you think those reasons are? Are the reformed epistemology kind of reasons, are they natural theological (if so, I'm guessing the CA, given your Leibniz scholarship), or something else?

This question by bjkeefe brings out something that struck me during your discussion of such a miracle. Wouldn't the miracle lie in that the arrangement of stars and the linguistic content of a message that is spelled out in the sky would be causally disconnected? It doesn't have to be that meaningful, emotionally, to have a similar effect (as Dr. Murray seemed to suggest). For instance, it would be just as shocking to find the first recipe in "The Joy of Cooking" as it would to find Gen. 1:1. I think this is why the, apparent, predisposition for belief in non-physical minds doesn't, for a skeptic, have the same weight that as such a miracle would (the fact of such predispositions and the fact of wide-spread religious belief can be explained plausibly in a cause and effect way). At another point, Dr. Murray seemed to suggest that we have no empirical reason to believe in other minds (whether God or Maude). This strikes me as absurd. While it's true that we don't experience other's minds in the same way we experience our own, this does not entail that all of the

Quoting nkirby: Wouldn't the miracle lie in that the arrangement of stars and the linguistic content of a message that is spelled out in the sky would be causally disconnected? It doesn't have to be that meaningful, emotionally, to have a similar effect (as Dr. Murray seemed to suggest). For instance, it would be just as shocking to find the first recipe in "The Joy of Cooking" as it would to find Gen. 1:1.

I don't understand the boldfaced part of your comment. If the arrangement of the stars was causally disconnected from the linguistic contents of the message that the stars spelled out, wouldn't that make it NOT a miracle? Are you saying it would BE a miracle because such an arrangement, if unintended by any powerful agent(s), would be so improbable? Or are you saying that if it were brought about by a powerful agent, then it would not be a miracle because it has an understandable causal mechanism? In any case, one could define a miracle as an intervention in the normal order of things--i.e., normal causal laws--by a divine agent. That's, of course, if one thinks there are such things as causal laws. If

What also goes unmentioned is that a cluster of stars appearing to spell out a significant text, would only be so from a small percentage of viewing angles. From almost any other point in the universe it would simply be a cluster of stars. Even so, given something that specific occurring, I could grant theism slightly more respect, but we haven't seen anything like that yet. How many years have we been waiting now? But I'm wary of attempts to find deeper meaning in natural occurences. We humans seem so desperate to see "something" out there that we often see it everywhere (see george Johnson's "Fire In the Mind".) Does the fact that a rock formed like the face of a man on the side of granite in New Hampshire have anything to do with God? What about Jesus' image on a grilled cheese sandwich? The probability and string theorists tell us of the possibility of infinite versions of the universe where Botzman brains and monkees pumping out War & Peace are not only likely, but would just be a matter of time. In such a view, Genesis in

I took a Philosophy of Religion class in college entitled "Pokemon: Real or Fake?"
yeah, i'm pretty much an expert now. not tryin' to brag or anything but....

Of course, it might depend on what we mean by religion. But if, as is common in these discussions, we mean something like "belief in disembodied (minimally counter-intuitive) agents who possess strategic information about human behavior and have some measure of concern for human morality or rule-following" one can see why such is unlikely in other species.

Yes, I, an atheist, think that's too narrow a definition of religion. It restricted the debate too much. For one thing, the sentience of dogs and other animals may be important to a "deep ecology" sort of religion, in which individual selves and minds are not necessarily key features. Also, one can appreciate the "spiritual"/emotional life of nonhuman animals, --- the nonhuman apes, other highly intelligent mammals like wolves, dogs, dolphins, whales, elephants, and nonmammals like birds -- without any particular interest in god-centric religion. One might find some common ground of interest between religious people and atheists, however, in looking not at Genesis written in the stars but rather at the foundation of emotions like love, joy and sorrow in nonhuman animals. Many social animals have family bonds, friendships, loyalties. They care for one another, (empathy?) they make believe (theater and ritual?) they reconcile after disputes, they grieve loss and

Quoting Bobby G: Hi Michael,

I wonder, what do you think those reasons are? Are the reformed epistemology kind of reasons, are they natural theological (if so, I'm guessing the CA, given your Leibniz scholarship), or something else?

I think that the evidence consists of a variety of lines of argument which, taken in conjunction, make a strong theistic case. I will just mention a few of those lines in bullet point fashion (much of this is covered in more detail in my Intro to Philosophy of Religion, Cambridge, 2008): *The Cosmological Argument
*Fine tuning design arguments
*The Argument from objective moral normativity
*The Evolutionary Argument against Naturalism
*The Argument for the historicity of the Resurrection
*The Argument from the Explanatory Value of Simplicity

Quoting uncle ebeneezer: What also goes unmentioned is that a cluster of stars appearing to spell out a significant text, would only be so from a small percentage of viewing angles. From almost any other point in the universe it would simply be a cluster of stars. Even so, given something that specific occurring, I could grant theism slightly more respect, but we haven't seen anything like that yet. How many years have we been waiting now?

I find it interesting that if a cluster of stars spelled out a significant text, and was moreover pointed in such a way that as many people as possible on earth could read it, that you'd "grant theism slightly more respect". It leads me to believe that there is, in fact, no evidence such that you'd think it could raise the probability of theism to greater than .5. Which is fine, I guess, but then it shouldn't be surprising to you if no one can convince you that theism is true.

I'll have to get that book; just wondering, re: the fine-tuning argument. How do you respond to the claim (raised by Cory Juhl and, I think, the McGrews, that the probabilities involved in those discussions are suspect? That is, a lot of physicists think that there is an incredibly small chance that life-permitting universes could arise, but it seems to me that they're operating with a "if I can imagine it, then it's possible" kind of modal epistemology, rather than an "if I can conceive it, it's possible". To me, it seems hard to imagine that the probabilities the physicists use are anything more than suggestive. But perhaps you (or someone like Robin Collins, perhaps in the new Blackwell Companion to Natural Theology) has responded to this objection somewhere?

so, without having any real evidence you still decide to be an apologist for a designer. what's the point of this?

The Argument for the historicity of the Resurrection

You're joking, right?

yeah, that one made me chuckle too. i saw all the bullet points and thought "hmm, i was thinking the cosmological constant was pretty much the only piece of evidence that gave their side even a scrap of hope".....then i started googling the other ones and it was immediately condensed down to (the first) one. maybe we should tell him we've got some pretty smart people around here and he might want to step up his game

Quoting Bobby G: Yes! Michael Murray! Someone up there likes me.

and i was thinking it was the fact that Natalie Portman is now posting here was proof of God's existence . . .

Bobby G,
Sorry if I was unclear. I meant to say that according to physics, the arrangement of the stars is governed by gravity (not by anything to do with messages). So that is what I meant by causally disconnected (there is no law which would suggest that the stars should align to spell out the Illiad, except, perhaps, the law of large numbers).
Whether there are laws or not is not for me to say (what I can say is that in the first lecture found here, Feynman makes a convincing argument that physics is deeply undersold given how amazingly accurate certain predictions are).
As to whether I consider unthinking robots to be thinking...well, it seems that the deck is stacked. In a sense, the notion is kind of incoherent to me. What would it be like for me to meet someone who acts like they have a mind, but really don't? Would I feel foolish having believed that they have a mind? How would you convince me that this person I met doesn't have a mind? I guess, I could assume that anything that isn't made of the same stuff as me doesn't have a mind, but

Quoting Wonderment: For one thing, the sentience of dogs and other animals may be important to a "deep ecology" sort of religion, in which individual selves and minds are not necessarily key features.

Also, one can appreciate the "spiritual"/emotional life of nonhuman animals, --- the nonhuman apes, other highly intelligent mammals like wolves, dogs, dolphins, whales, elephants, and nonmammals like birds -- without any particular interest in god-centric religion.

Speaking of the sentience of dogs---I wonder what Frazier thinks about all of this? I might have to message him on facebook and see.

Speaking of the sentience of dogs---I wonder what Frazier thinks about all of this? I might have to message him on facebook and see.

While contemplating my Shredded Wheat this morning, I noticed that "Frazier Dog" spelled backwards is "God Rise Arf!" which I take as proof of the Argument for the Historicity of the Resurrection.

This is spouting: From Frank Rich's column in the NYT today:

[Robert] Draper’s biggest find is a collection of daily cover sheets that Rumsfeld approved for the Secretary of Defense Worldwide Intelligence Update, a highly classified digest prepared for a tiny audience, including the president, and often delivered by hand to the White House by the defense secretary himself. These cover sheets greeted Bush each day with triumphal color photos of the war headlined by biblical quotations. GQ is posting 11 of them, and they are seriously creepy.

Take the one dated April 3, 2003, two weeks into the invasion, just as Shock and Awe hit its first potholes....On April 2, Gen. Joseph Hoar, the commander in chief of the United States Central Command from 1991-94, had declared on the Times Op-Ed page that Rumsfeld had sent too few troops to Iraq. And so the Worldwide Intelligence Update for April 3 bullied Bush with Joshua 1:9: “Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”

When the dialog between these distinguished participants started, I was eagerly waiting for them to discuss their disagreements. But I must say that I felt a little let down when the disagreement turned out to be about Paul Blooms' research not supporting the existence of God, and not about any conclusions he made about the evolution of religion.
Since the existence of God was made the primary focus, I would like to know at which point of the following conclusions I would lose the endorsement of Michael Murray: Dogs have no religion.
Therefore, dogs have no immortal soul.
Man developed through the process of evolution.
Therefore, mans accestors at some point where at or below the level of a dog.
Therefore, those ancestors had no immortal soul.
Man has an immortal soul. (Michael Murrays working hypothesis)
Therefore, the immortal soul snapped into existence at some point in evolution.
This last conclusion is hard for me to take.

Quoting Wonderment: This is spouting:

From Frank Rich's column in the NYT today:

Thanks for the heads-up, Wonderment. Pretty creepy stuff, not least of which is the strong suggestion that Rumsfeld so obviously knew how to play his (nominal) boss. If George Bush were any sort of a real leader, he would have fired Rumsfeld for brown-nosing. For others: here are links to Rich's column and the images he refers to. [Added: Draper's article is also worth a look.]

Quoting Wonderment: This is spouting:

From Frank Rich's column in the NYT today:

bottom line is, for democrats to rule their country, some of their number will have to volunteer for career military combat arms service. How is it that Bush and Cheney were right, that the surge could work and that Iraq could be stabilized? My answer is that since democrats dont serve on the front lines, they dont have the on site knowledge needed to reach sound judgements.

Quoting Wonderment: While contemplating my Shredded Wheat this morning, I noticed that "Frazier Dog" spelled backwards is "God Rise Arf!" which I take as proof of the Argument for the Historicity of the Resurrection.

You win this thread.

Quoting DenvilleSteve: bottom line is, for democrats to rule their country, some of their number will have to volunteer for career military combat arms service.

How is it that Bush and Cheney were right, that the surge could work and that Iraq could be stabilized? My answer is that since democrats dont serve on the front lines, they dont have the on site knowledge needed to reach sound judgements.

This does not surprise me, but your view that "the surge worked" and "Iraq is stabilized" is so far removed from reality that I felt it worth quoting your comment to preserve it for posterity. Your understanding of the situation appears to be gleaned entirely from those Rumsfeld-prepared cover sheets. Perhaps someday you will snap to, and you will be able to look back on this as a measure of just how insane mindless partisanship once made you. I don't have much hope, but maybe. In the meantime, you might contemplate the juxtaposition of your claim that "Iraq is stabilized" with a review of how many US troops are still there. And maybe get some news from sources other than Fox and Rush Limbaugh.

Quoting Bobby G: I find it interesting that if a cluster of stars spelled out a significant text, and was moreover pointed in such a way that as many people as possible on earth could read it, that you'd "grant theism slightly more respect". It leads me to believe that there is, in fact, no evidence such that you'd think it could raise the probability of theism to greater than .5. Which is fine, I guess, but then it shouldn't be surprising to you if no one can convince you that theism is true.

Many of us (I mean the atheists commenting on this board) here were brought up in households where theism was assumed to be the truth. I'm sure everybody has had their own journey, but I think it's safe to say that most of us started from theistic assumptions. "You wouldn't believe such evidence if you saw it" really doesn't seem to be a coherent hypothesis. Let's assume a degree of confirmation bias on the part of most observers. I think the real issue would be disagreement between theists and atheists about whether such evidence really implied whichever interpretation somebody might

I think that cognitive/evolutionary science can explain quite well the origins of the cognitive errors that comprise religious belief, and that psychology and sociology can explain the development of religious systems. But I'm not so sure about setting up "religion" as a category within those fields. Cognitive evolution treats human cognition as a whole. I don't believe there is a separate "religion" component that can be studied in itself in any interesting way. Moreover, I think that maintaining such a category is of use only to religious people who wish to valorize their superstitions/authoritarian systems so as to elevate them to the status of a separate "field of study."

Good to see Dr. Murray commenting. Another excellent discussion from Dr. Bloom.

Keefe, I saw your post about the cover sheets. WTF?! It really shows how stupid Bush was if that level of sucking up didn't offend his dignity.

Quoting claymisher: Keefe, I saw your post about the cover sheets. WTF?! It really shows how stupid Bush was if that level of sucking up didn't offend his dignity.

Or at least, how deeply inside the bubble he was, and by then, how long he'd been there. BTW, thanks for stopping by.

Quoting AemJeff: Many of us (I mean the atheists commenting on this board) here were brought up in households where theism was assumed to be the truth. I'm sure everybody has had their own journey, but I think it's safe to say that most of us started from theistic assumptions. "You wouldn't believe such evidence if you saw it" really doesn't seem to be a coherent hypothesis.

I was basing what I said about you on what you said about yourself--that seeing the stars spell out, "I am the Lord, your God, and Jesus is my only-begotten Son" (or whatever) would make you have "slightly more respect" for theism.

Let's assume a degree of confirmation bias on the part of most observers. I think the real issue would be disagreement between theists and atheists about whether such evidence really implied whichever interpretation somebody might divine within it.

That's fair enough, but of course the same thing is true of all scientific and (even) mathematical disagreements as well. (For more on mathematical disagreement, see this and follow the links).

By analogy I note Professor Murray's citing the cosmological argument (and listing it first among his bullet points.) That's not an argument

You might want to read this paper.

Quoting Bobby G: I was basing what I said about you on what you said about yourself--that seeing the stars spell out, "I am the Lord, your God, and Jesus is my only-begotten Son" (or whatever) would make you have "slightly more respect" for theism.

I think you mean what Uncle Eb said. My point of view is that I’d be surprised if you couldn’t find that message, and just about any other message you care to consider encoded somehow among the almost infinite variety of signals available to us if we care to observe the universe beyond our reach. Such a discovery would not change my opinion much at all. I’d probably view it as yet another instance of pareidolia, like finding the Virgin on a piece of toast. You asked what assumptions about time and causality I was thinking of. Mainly that the idea of linear time is an example of a naïve assumption about the world. And if that’s not true then our ideas of causation are suspect, as well. That isn’t to say that it isn’t or can’t be true, but any argument about first causes will need to find a proof

Quoting AemJeff: I think you mean what Uncle Eb said.

Oops. You're right.

My point of view is that I’d be surprised if you couldn’t find that message, and just about any other message you care to consider encoded somehow among the almost infinite variety of signals available to us if we care to observe the universe beyond our reach.

Fair enough, but there are messages and there are messages. The Virgin Mary appearing in the toast is easily explicable as the result of what you call "pareidolia" (new word to me). However, if astronauts went to Alpha Centauri and literally saw great big statues that were in the shape of humanoids, and saw lots of them, you could once again dismiss it as pareidolia, but it would be a pretty desperate move made to avoid positing intelligent life on Alpha Centauri.

You asked what assumptions about time and causality I was thinking of. Mainly that the idea of linear time is an example of a naïve assumption about the world. And if that’s not true then our ideas of causation are suspect, as well. That isn’t to say that it isn’t

Quoting Bobby G: ...
Fair enough, but there are messages and there are messages. The Virgin Mary appearing in the toast is easily explicable as the result of what you call "pareidolia" (new word to me). However, if astronauts went to Alpha Centauri and literally saw great big statues that were in the shape of humanoids, and saw lots of them, you could once again dismiss it as pareidolia, but it would be a pretty desperate move made to avoid positing intelligent life on Alpha Centauri.

As you say, there are messages and there are messages. At some hypothetical threshold there'd be little choice but to believe. But I hope that skepticism would mount a mighty struggle before we gave in to such a message.

Quoting Bobby G: ...
Well, if you throw out causation because you're throwing out linear time, then you're pretty much throwing out all science as well, right? I mean, you can still go around saying "the black hole sucked in the light", but if you think that ditching linear time means ditching causality, you have to conclude that it's just as much a possibility that the light emerged from the black hole. This leads me to

Sorry for the delay here. First, it is not clear that there is a "god gene." For folks like Bloom, we have a cluster of mental tools which, as a matter of chance, dispose us towards supernaturalistic belief. For those (unlike Bloom) who think that such beliefs (or dispositions) are not mere byproducts, the disposition towards such belief is adaptive because it helps us solve the problems associated with group cooperation. Large interacting groups face the problems of managing the temptation to defect. That problem gets harder as the group members come have "theory of mind" since they can now also seek to intentionally deceive one another. For adaptationists, belief in supernatural agents is a way to get groups to take themselves to be under watchful (and perhaps punishing) supernatural eyes. In order for "solutions" to the problem of cooperation like that to work requires lots of cognitive processing powers, and it is not clear any other organisms have what's needed.

Two points quick. First, you lose me at the first inference. I am not a committed dualist so for all I know dogs are immortal in the same way we might be: through acquiring resurrected bodies. Second, in light of this, we need not think of souls as "emerging at the moment human beings emerge." Cognitive capacities might come in (evolutionary) degrees, and future, resurrected organisms will have those capacities in the degree appropriate to their kind.

Collins has responded to this in, among other places, my much earlier anthology, Reason for the Hope Within. First, it is surely possible that such a universe could arise "by chance." The problem is that it is irrational to believe that this is in fact the case (Compare: it is possible that the lottery ticket I am holding is the winner; and it is irrational for me to believe that it *is* the winner; the probability is too small to rationally believe that).

Those who think this argument has no merit haven't looked closely enough. I don't think any of these arguments are such that they have to be accepted on pain of irrationality. What I do think is that they provide support for their conclusions in the way that arguments for compatibilism, or occasionalism or physicalism or (take you favorite philosophical doctrine) provide support for their conclusions. As in those cases, you have to make an all things considered judgment based on the strength of the sum total of the arguments for and against.

Could be, though it is worth pointing out that most of the folks involved in this field are not themselves religious believers, and they take themselves to be carrying out a systematic study of a carefully defined domain of cognitive and behavioral phenomena that (at least scholars in religious studies would say) count as religious.

Those who think this argument has no merit haven't looked closely enough.

"Historicity of the resurrection" is not an argument, Michael. It's barely more plausible than historicity of Santa Claus.

so he actually gets paid to do this? michael, what about the koran and all the other religions? should we use them as "evidence" of a creator too?