Title: Why%20I%20Am%20Not%20a%20Naturalist
1Bob Stewart, NOBTS
2You can get this PPT file by emailing me
atdrbobstewart_at_yahoo.com orrstewart_at_nobts.edu
3Introducing the New Atheism
4Their Core Beliefs
- Science and Religion are mutually exclusive ways
of looking at life. In short, Religion and
Science are at war.
5Richard Dawkins
- An atheist before Darwin could have said,
following Hume I have no explanation for
complex biological design. All I know is that God
isnt a good explanation, so we must wait and
hope that somebody comes up with a better one. I
can't help feeling that such a position,
6Richard Dawkins
- though logically sound, would have left one
feeling pretty unsatisfied, and that although
atheism might have been logically tenable before
Darwin, Darwin made it possible to be an
intellectually fulfilled atheist. - The Blind Watchmaker, 6
7Daniel Dennett
- Almost no one is indifferent to Darwin, and no
one should be. The Darwinian theory is a
scientific theory, and a great one, but that is
not all it is. The creationists who oppose it so
bitterly are right about one thing Darwins
dangerous idea cuts much deeper into the fabric
of our most fundamental beliefs than many of its
sophisticated apologists have yet admitted, even
to themselves. - Darwins Dangerous Idea, 18
8Atheistic Shrillness
- It is absolutely safe to say that if you meet
somebody who claims not to believe in evolution,
that person is ignorant, stupid or insane (or
wicked, but Id rather not consider that). - Review of Blueprints Solving the Mystery of
Evolution, Maitland A. Edey and Donald C.
Johanson, New York Times Review of Books 9 April
1989, 35
9Their Core Beliefs
- Science and religion are mutually exclusive ways
of looking at life. In short, Religion and
Science are at war. - Faith is a superstitious blind leap based on
the denial of evidence.
10Faith as Superstition
- Faith is the great cop-out, the great excuse to
evade the need to think and evaluate evidence.
Faith is belief in spite of, even perhaps because
of, the lack of evidence.
11Sam Harris
- Some propositions are so dangerous that it may
even be ethical to kill people for believing
them. - The End of Faith Religion, Terror, and the
Future of Reason, 52-53.
12Their Core Beliefs
- Science and religion are mutually exclusive ways
of looking at life. In short, Religion and
Science are at war. - Faith is a superstitious blind leap based on
the denial of evidence. - Religion is inherently evil.
13Nobel Prize Winner Steven Weinberg
- With or without religion, you would have good
people doing good things and evil people doing
evil things. But for good people to do evil
things, that takes religion. - The New York Times, April 20, 1999
14Christopher Hitchens
- Organized religion is violent, irrational,
intolerant, allied to racism and tribalism and
bigotry, invested in ignorance and hostile to
free inquiry, contemptuous of women and coercive
toward children. - God is Not Great, 56
15Richard Dawkins
- Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can
be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because
it gives people unshakeable confidence in their
own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives
them false courage to kill themselves, which
automatically removes normal barriers to killing
16Richard Dawkins
- others. . . . And dangerous because we have all
bought into a weird respect, which uniquely
protects religion from normal criticism. Lets
now stop being so damned respectful. - Has the World Changed?Part Two, The
Guardian, October 11, 2001
17Their Characteristic Practices
- They have a superficial knowledge of the Bible
18Their Characteristic Practices
- They have a superficial knowledge of the Bible
- They are theological novices
19Terry Eagleton
- Dawkins speaks scoffingly of a personal God, as
though it were entirely obvious exactly what this
might mean. He seems to imagine God, if not
exactly with a white beard, then at least as some
kind of chap, however supersized. He asks how
this chap can speak to billions of people
simultaneously, which is rather like wondering
why, if Tony
20Terry Eagleton
- Blair is an octopus, he has only two arms. For
Judeo-Christianity, God is not a person in the
sense that Al Gore arguably is. Nor is he a
principle, an entity, or existent in one sense
of that word it would be perfectly coherent for
religious types to claim that God does not in
fact exist. He is, rather, the condition of
possibility of any
21Terry Eagleton
- entity whatsoever, including ourselves. He is
the answer to why there is something rather than
nothing. God and the universe do not add up to
two, any more than my envy and my left foot
constitute a pair of objects. - Lunging, Flailing, Mispunching London
Review of Books, http//www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n20/eagl
01_.html
22Terry Eagleton
- All I can claim in this respect, alas, is that
I think I may know just about enough theology to
be able to spot when someone like Richard Dawkins
or Christopher Hitchensa couplet I shall
henceforth reduce for convenience to the solitary
signifier Ditchkinsis talking out of the back of
his neck. - 2008 Yale University Terry Lecture
23Their Characteristic Practices
- They have a superficial knowledge of the Bible
- They are theological novices
- They are primarily anti-Christian and anti-Muslim
24Their Characteristic Practices
- They have a superficial knowledge of the Bible
- They are theological novices
- They are primarily anti-Christian and anti-Muslim
- They are materialists
25Naturalism, Atheism, Materialism
- Naturalists can affirm the reality of abstract
entities such as numbers or minds but these
things exist naturally, not supernaturally - Materialists can affirm the existence of God
(Mormons are materialists)
26Naturalism, Atheism, Materialism
- Atheists can be religious (most forms of Buddhism
are atheistic) - The New Atheists are all threenaturalists,
materialists, and atheists
27Does Science(or Darwin)Disprove God?
28Believing Scientists
- Nicholas Copernicus, Heliocentric Solar System
- Galileo, Observational Astronomy, Kinematics
- Johannes Kepler, Laws of Planetary Motion
- Isaac Newton, Laws of Motion
- Joseph Lister, Antiseptic surgery
- Louis Pasteur, Bacteriology
- Robert Boyle, Chemistry and Gas Dynamics
- Georges Cuvier, Comparative Anatomy
- Charles Babbage, Computer Science
- Lord Rayleigh, Dimensional Analysis
- John Ambrose Fleming, Electronics
- James Clerk Maxwell, Electrodynamics
- Michael Faraday, Electromagnetics and Field
Theory - Lord Kelvin, Energetics
- Henri Fabre, Entomology of Living Insects
- George Stokes, Fluid Mechanics
- Sir William Herschel, Galactic Astronomy
- Gregor Mendel, Genetics
- Matthew Maury, Oceanography
29Agnostic Stephen Jay Gould
- To say it for all my colleagues and for the
umpteenth millionth time . . . science simply
cannot (by its legitimate methods) adjudicate the
issue of Gods possible superintendence of
nature. We neither affirm nor deny it we simply
cant comment on it as scientists. . . . - . . . Either half my colleagues are
enormously stupid, or else
30Agnostic Stephen Jay Gould
- the science of Darwinism is fully compatible
with conventional religious beliefsand equally
compatible with atheism, thus proving that the
two great realms of natures factuality and the
source of human morality do not strongly
overlap. - Impeaching a Self-Appointed Judge Book
- Review of Darwin on Trial by Phillip
E. - Johnson Scientific American 267. 1 July
1992, 119.
31Francis Collins
- For quite a while in my twenties I was a pretty
obnoxious atheist. At the age of 27, after a
good deal of intellectual debating with myself
about the plausibility of faith, and particularly
with strong influence from C. S. Lewis, I became
convinced that this was a decision I wanted to
make, and I became by choice a Christian, a
serious Christian, who believes that faith is not
something that you just do on Sunday, but if it
makes any sense at all, it is part of your whole
life. Its the most important organizing
principle in my life.
32Does Religion Poison Everything?
33Friedrich Nietzsche
- Another Christian concept, no less crazy, has
passed even more deeply into the tissue of
modernity the concept of the equality of souls
before God. This concept furnishes the prototype
of all theories of equal rights mankind was
first taught to stammer the proposition of
equality in a religious context, and only later
was it made into morality. - Friedrich Nietzsche, The Will to Power,
Aphorism 765
34Keith Ward
- But consider a parallel case politics could
also be said to be one of the most destructive
forces in human life. In Russia and Cambodia,
millions of people have been killed in the name
of socialist political ideologies. In Latin
America, millions of people disappeared in
ruthless campaigns of violence propagated by
right-wing politicians. Deception, hypocrisy and
misrepresentation are commonplace in political
life. Might we not be better off in a world
without politics too?
35Keith Ward
- Even science, often thought of as an
uninterested search for truth, produces
terrifying weapons of mass destruction, and the
most advanced technology is used to destroy human
lives in ever more effective and brutal ways.
Would we be better off without science as well? - Keith Ward, Is Religion Dangerous?,
- 179-80
36Thomas Crean
- Still, one point is worth making in answer to
the authors claim . . . that religion causes
people to do evil things. Insofar as this is
true, it has no tendency to show that religion is
itself a bad thing, or that its message is false.
Love causes people to do evil things so does
patriotism. The love of a man and a woman can
lead to unfaithfulness, to the
37Thomas Crean
- destruction of families and even to murder.
Patriotism can lead to hatred and to the
indiscriminate bombing of cities. None of this
means that either love or patriotism is a bad
thing. It simply means that the weakness of
human nature is such that any great object or
cause may stir our emotions as to lead us to act
against our better judgment. If religion
occasions evil as well
38Thomas Crean
- as good, this is no sign of its falsity, but
simply of its power of attraction over human
nature. That in the name of religion good men
may do bad things is no argument against
religion, unless crimes of passion are arguments
against human love. - Thomas Crean,
- God is No Delusion, 118-19
39So Why Am INot a Naturalist (an Atheist)?
40Why I Am Not a Naturalist
- Because Naturalism is Self-Refuting.
41Naturalism.org
- Naturalism as a worldview is based on the
premise that knowledge about what exists and
about how things work is best achieved through
the sciences, not personal revelation or
religious tradition. . . Scientific empiricism
has the necessary consequence of unifying our
knowledge of the world, of placing all objects of
understanding within an overarching causal
context. Under naturalism, there is a single,
natural world in which phenomena arise.
http//www.naturalism.org/tenetsof.htm
42Naturalism as Self-Refuting
- One reason that I am not a naturalist is that
naturalism cannot be proved according to its own
methodology, i.e., the scientific method. What
sort of scientific experiment could possibly be
constructed to test such a hypothesis? The
answer is none. This would not be a problem if
the scientific method were not viewed as the only
meaningful test for truth, but given that it is
this becomes a deal-killer.
43Dawkins Contradicting Dawkins
- As an academic scientist, I am a passionate
Darwinian, believing that natural selection is,
if not the only driving force in evolution,
certainly the only known force capable of
producing the illusion of purpose which so
strikes all who contemplate nature. But at the
same time as I support Darwinism as a scientist,
I am a passionate anti-Darwinian when it comes to
politics and how we should conduct our human
affairs. - A Devils Chaplain Reflections on Hope,
Lies, Science, and Love, 10-11.
44Why I Am Not a Naturalist
- Because Naturalism is Self-Refuting.
- Because Naturalism undermines human rationality.
45Naturalism and Reason
- Naturalism undermines reason by insisting that
reason is the result of an organ produced by a
random process. Why should we believe that
reason is a reliable guide to truth if naturalism
is correct? Why should we believe that any
theory produced by an organism that is itself
produced by random processes is true?
46J. B. S. Haldane
- If my mental processes are determined wholly by
the motions of atoms within my brain, I have no
reason to suppose that my beliefs are true . . .
and hence I have no reason to believe that my
brain is composed of atoms. - When I am Dead, in Possible Worlds ed.
Carl A. Price (New Brunswick Transaction, 2002),
209.
47Patricia Churchland
-
- Boiled down to essentials, a nervous system
enables the organism to succeed in the four F's
feeding, fleeing, fighting and reproducing. The
principle chore of nervous systems is to get the
body parts where they should be in order that the
organism may survive . . . Improvements in
sensorimotor control confer an evolutionary
48Patricia Churchland
-
- advantage a fancier style of representing is
advantageous - so long as it is geared to the organism's way of
life and enhances the organism's chances of
survival. Truth, whatever that is, definitely
takes the hindmost. - Patricia Smith Churchland, Epistemology
- in the Age of Neuroscience Journal of
- Philosophy, 84 (October 1987), 548.
49Richard Rorty
- The idea that one species of organism is,
unlike all the others, oriented not just toward
its own uncreated prosperity but toward Truth, is
as un-Darwinian as the idea that every human
being has a built-in moral compassa conscience
that swings free of both social history and
individual luck. - Untruth and Consequences,
- The New Republic, 31 July 1995, 32-36.
50Why I Am Not a Naturalist
- Because Naturalism is Self-Refuting.
- Because Naturalism undermines human rationality.
- Because Naturalism undermines human free will.
51Naturalism.org
- From a naturalistic perspective, there are no
causally privileged agents, nothing that causes
without being caused in turn. Human beings act
the way they do because of the various influences
that shape them, whether these be biological or
social, genetic or environmental. We do not have
the capacity to act outside the causal
connections that link us in every respect to the
rest of the world. This means we do not have what
many people think of as free will, being able to
cause our behavior without our being fully caused
in turn. - http//www.naturalism.org/
tenetsof.htm
52Naturalism and Freedom
- One way that naturalists will try to show that
we are physically determined is to show that we
can track certain types of reactions in the brain
scientifically. This shows only that our thoughts
are processed by the brain and that certain brain
states can tracked under the right conditions.
But what cannot be observed without some
reference to the world beyond ones brain is the
specific content of that mental activity. A
scientist might be able to
53Naturalism and Freedom
- identify the part of the brain that is involved
in meditation or prayer but he cannot discern
what an individual is praying foror to whom.
This is because the content of thought is not
found in the brain but in the mind. You can look
in my laptop and find the data that translates to
the words of this presentation but you will not
find the thoughts behind the words in my computer
because those thoughts are in my mind, not the
instrument that I use to communicate those
thoughts.
54Why I Am Not a Naturalist
- Because Naturalism is Self-Refuting.
- Because Naturalism undermines human rationality.
- Because Naturalism undermines human free will.
- Because Naturalism undermines morality.
55Atheists Michael Ruse and E. O. Wilson
- Human beings function better if they are
deceived by their genes into thinking that there
is a disinterested objective morality binding
upon them, which all should obey. We help others
because it is right to help them and because we
know that they are inwardly compelled to
reciprocate in equal measure. What Darwinian
evolutionary theory shows is that this sense of
right and the corresponding sense of wrong,
feelings we take to be above individual desire
and in some fashion outside biology, are in fact
brought about by ultimate biological processes.
Moral Philosophy as Applied Science,
Philosophy, 61 (1986) 179.
56Naturalism.org
- From a naturalistic perspective, behavior arises
out of the interaction between individuals and
their environment, not from a freely willing self
that produces behavior independently of causal
connections . . . Therefore individuals dont
bear ultimate originative responsibility for
their actions, in the sense of being their first
cause. Given the circumstances both inside and
outside the body, they couldnt have done other
than what they did. Nevertheless, we must
57Naturalism.org
- still hold individuals responsible, in the sense
of applying rewards and sanctions, so that their
behavior stays more or less within the range of
what we deem acceptable. This is, partially, how
people learn to act ethically. Naturalism doesnt
undermine the need or possibility of
responsibility and morality, but it places them
within the world as understood by science. - http//www.naturalism.org/tenetsof.htm
58Naturalism and Morality
- How do we hold people responsible who arent
responsible? If we arent free, then why do we
call Francis of Assisi a Saint and Jeffrey Dahmer
a monster? If we arent free (or rational), then
why do atheists even write books? It would seem
that we are all just determined to do what we do
and there can be no such thing as persuasion.
59Why I Am Not a Naturalist
- Because Naturalism is Self-Refuting.
- Because Naturalism undermines human rationality.
- Because Naturalism undermines human freedom and
free will. - Because Naturalism undermines morality.
- Because Naturalism undermines human relationality.
60Naturalism and Relationships
- If our actions are the result of physical
causes, then what of love? Why does your husband
or wife, boyfriend or girlfriend, love you? Why
do you love your significant other? Does he/she
do so freely? Do you? Not in a naturalist
world. Love is simply a byproduct of biology
its in our glands, or some other physical
source. In a very real sense, then, in a
naturalist world we can say that love is in our
genesbut so is psychosis. On a material level,
it seems, then, that love and mental illness are
roughly the same.
61Why I Am Not a Naturalist
- Because Naturalism cannot explain human
consciousness.
62Richard Dawkins on Consciousness
- Neither Steven Pinker nor I can explain human
subjective consciousnesswhat philosophers call
qualia. In How the Mind Works Steven elegantly
sets out the problem of subjective consciousness,
and asks where it comes from and whats the
explanation. Then hes honest enough to say,
Beats the heck out of me. That is an honest
thing to say, and I echo it. We dont know. We
dont understand it. - Richard Dawkins and Steven Pinker, Is Science
Killing The Soul? http//www.edge.org/3rd_culture
/dawkins_pinker/debate_p4.html
63Ned Block on Consciousness
- We have no conception of our physical or
functional nature that allows us to understand
how it could explain our subjective experience. .
. . In the case of consciousness we have
nothingzilchworthy of being called a research
programme, nor are there any substantive
proposals about how to go about starting one. . .
. Researchers are stumped. - Consciousness, in A
Companion to Philosophy of Mind, 210-12.
64John Searle
- Physical events can have only physical
explanations, and consciousness is not physical,
so consciousness plays no explanatory role
whatsoever. If, for example, you think you ate
because you were consciously hungry, or got
married because you were consciously in love with
your prospective spouse, or
65John Searle
- withdrew your hand from the flame because you
consciously felt a pain, or spoke up at a meeting
because you consciously disagreed with the main
speaker, you are mistaken in every case. In each
case the effect was a physical event and
therefore must have an entirely physical
explanation. - The Mystery of Consciousness, 154.
66Why I Am Not a Naturalist
- Because Naturalism cannot explain human
consciousness. - Because Naturalism denies the substantial reality
of the self.
67Naturalism.org
- As strictly physical beings, we dont exist as
immaterial selves, either mental or spiritual,
that control behavior. Thought, desires,
intentions, feelings, and actions all arise on
their own without the benefit of a supervisory
self, and they are all the products of a physical
system, the brain and the body. The self is
constituted by more or less consistent sets of
personal characteristics, beliefs, and actions
it doesnt exist apart from those complex
physical processes that make up the individual.
It may strongly seem as if there is a self
sitting behind experience, witnessing it, and
behind behavior, controlling it, but this
impression
68Naturalism.org
- is strongly disconfirmed by a scientific
understanding of human behavior. - Tenets of Naturalism http//www.naturalism.org/ten
etsof.htm
69Naturalism.org
- We are the evolved products of natural
selection, which operates without intention,
foresight or purpose. Nothing about us escapes
being included in the physical universe, or
escapes being shaped by the various
processesphysical, biological, psychological,
and socialthat science describes. On a
scientific understanding of ourselves, theres no
evidence for immaterial souls, spirits, mental
essences, or disembodied selves which stand apart
from the physical world. - Tenets of Naturalism http//www.naturalism.org/ten
etsof.htm
70Why I Am Not a Naturalist
- Because Naturalism cannot explain human
consciousness. - Because Naturalism denies the substantial reality
of the self. - Because even if Darwinism is true, it doesnt
necessarily lead to Naturalism.
71Why I Am Not a Naturalist
- Because Naturalism cannot explain human
consciousness. - Because Naturalism denies the substantial reality
of the self. - Because even if Darwinism is true, it doesnt
necessarily lead to Naturalism. - Because Naturalism has no answer to the problem
of evil.
72Why I Am Not a Naturalist
- Because Naturalism cannot explain human
consciousness. - Because Naturalism denies the substantial reality
of the self. - Because even if Darwinism is true, it doesnt
necessarily lead to Naturalism. - Because Naturalism has no answer to the problem
of evil. - Because Naturalism often appeals to ad hoc
solutions, such as Memes.
73Richard Dawkins on Memes
- We need a name for the new replicator, a noun
that conveys the idea of a unit of cultural
transmission, or a unit of imitation. Mimeme
comes from a suitable Greek root, but I want a
monosyllable that sounds a bit like gene. I
hope my classicist friends will forgive me if I
abbreviate mimeme to meme. If it is any
consolation, it could alternatively be thought of
as being related to memory, or to the French
word même. It should be pronounced to rhyme with
cream. - The Selfish Gene, 11
74Simon Conway Morris on Memes
- Memes are trivial, to be banished by simple
mental exercises. In any wider context, they are
hopelessly, if not hilariously, simplistic. - Lifes Solution Inevitable Humans in a Lonely
Universe, 324
75Practical Strategies for talking to Atheists
76General Strategies
- Use their authorities.
- DO NOT ARGUE EVOLUTION. This is like trying to
get to Baton Rouge by going through Australia. - Dont argue the age of the earth.
- Focus on Physics and Cosmology rather than
Biology. - Use questions.
77Strategy 1
- Ask them if they think they freely dont believe
in God. - Ask them if they think they are rational and can
reason their way to the truth on important
issues. - Ask how certain they are.
- Ask them how this can be the case if naturalism,
i.e., materialism is true.
78Strategy 1
- Ask them which they are more certain
aboutmaterialism or their own freedom and
rationality.
79Strategy 2
- Ask them if they believe in investigation and
research. - Ask them how they have investigated the question
of God. - Ask them how important this issue is.
- Ask them if the intensity of their investigation
has been proportional to the importance of the
issue.
80Strategy 3
- Ask them how old the universe is.
- They will generally say that the universe is more
than 13 billion years old (because thats what
standard big bang cosmology indicates). They
often assume that all Christians believe in a
young universe.
81Strategy 3
- Point out to them that if something has an age,
it has a beginning. - Point out that if something has a beginning, it
has a causeand that they have already agreed
that the universe has a beginning. Therefore the
universe has a cause.
82Strategy 3
- Note We have not proved God, and certainly not
the Christian God, but this cause is consistent
with the Christian view of God. - Note The age of the universe is NOT an issue
with this approach. The key is getting them to
admit that the universe has an age!
83Strategy 3
- When you ask them how old the universe is, they
may say that the universe is eternal. - Ask them why it is that every part of the
universe that we know of shows signs of age, thus
indicating that each and every part of the
universe is temporal, i.e., not eternal.
84Strategy 3
- Note I am NOT suggesting that we argue from the
fact that every part of the universe is temporal
to the universe itself being temporal. To do so
would be to commit (or as least appear to commit)
the fallacy of composition. Asking questions is
not making arguments.
85Strategy 3
- Also ask why it is that they dont accept the
standard big bang cosmology. In other words, why
they are going against the scientific consensus
on this point. - They may say that they believe in either an
oscillating universe or a universe ensemble
(multiverse).
86Strategy 3
- Point out to them that there is no evidence of
either (though each is logically possible). - Ask them how either is a scientific hypothesis,
given that neither is falsifiable (or
observable). - Ask them how either is simpler than the standard
big bang cosmology.
87Q A
88www.defendthefaith.net
Defend the Faith is a five-day, five-night
conference in Christian Apologetics training that
includes outstanding worship. Its held on the
NOBTS main campus January 5-10, 2014, and
features speakers such as Gary Habermas, Greg
Koukl, Nancy Pearcey, Douglas Groothuis, Sean
McDowell, Mary Jo Sharp, James Walker, Robert
Bowman, Brett Kunkle, Bob Stewart, and many
others.
89You can get this PPT file by emailing me
atdrbobstewart_at_yahoo.com orrstewart_at_nobts.edu
90Im on Facebook as Bob Stewart. If you want to
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