Category: The Reason for No God

Keller’s next clue to the existence of god is the presence of beauty. Keller says that true beauty elicits in us a desire for god and the existence of this desire indicates that a god exists, just as hunger indicates that food exists. Keller begins this section by saying

If we are the result of blind natural forces, then what we call “love” is simply a biochemical response, inherited from ancestors who survived because this trait helped them survive.

Keller disparages this interpretation implicitly, suggesting that love cannot be only this. This seems weird to me on several levels. First, it is simply amazing to think that we, a complex collection of atoms, through evolution over billions of years have developed brains complex enough to experience love. Love seems more meaningful as the culmination of a million generations of evolution than as an abstract notion bestowed on us by a vague creator. Second, since love, and beauty and justice and other Keller examples, are entirely internal phenomena, their origins cannot diminish their impact. Love feels as nice and is just as wonderful whether it’s a gift bestowed by god or an evolved method of gene replication. I see no need for Keller’s bias against a materialist interpretation of these concepts.

Moving on to the main argument, that a desire for god is evidence of god, I call bull. First, not everyone feels this desire for god. Like, say, Hindu’s, or animists, or secular humanists. I mean, if beauty inspired a longing for a monotheistic father figure in everyone, why aren’t all religions monotheistic? Keller has been taught to interpret the emotions elicited by art as a desire for god, but that’s clearly not the only interpretation of those emotions. So if you believe that a desire for X is evidence that X exists, in the case of this beauty argument, X is not god.

I don’t think art, or beauty, make you desire anything. I think it makes you feel things devoid of usual context, and people can fill that context with whatever they want. Even if you disagree, the notion that wanting something is a clue that it exists is absurd. The whole practice of science has been developed to determine if the things we feel are true (desire to be true), are in fact true, because just feeling it is not sufficient. Further, all the things associated with god are just logical extremes of mundane things that do exist. Like, if God exists, then we live forever. Well, life exists, and we want it, so it makes sense to desire life, but that doesn’t mean infinite life exists. God will dole out perfect justice. As a social animal we have an evolved sense of fairness, and it makes sense to want justice, because it does exist to a certain extent in our society, but that doesn’t mean the perfect justice exists. Just like it makes sense that we get hungry, because food exists, but that doesn’t mean infinite food exists.

Just think of all the things other people desperately want to exist, that you are not at all compelled to believe in. Xenu, Santa, unicorns, bigfoot, Allah, faith healing, fad diets, etc. etc. forever and ever.  Why is what you desire any more likely to exist than what I, or Tom Cruise, desire?

This argument was made by believers, for believers. It is designed to make someone who already believes in god feel better about that belief, but anyone who isn’t motivated to accept it uncritically can’t help but see it as nonsense.

Keller’s third clue to the existence of God is the regularity of nature. Meaning that observations of the past are useful for predicting the future. Keller says that this feature of the universe is taken for granted and overlooked, but that science depends on it. He admits that this is not rock solid proof, since one can always say, “We don’t know why nature is regular,” but contends that it is a clue to the existence of god nonetheless.

Unfortunately, for those who want to believe in a god, this “clue” is just an extension of the last clue, that the cosmos is nice for life. As a result my arguments against clue 2 also work here.

It is true that science relies on the basic laws of the universe remaining the same to function (or at least very close to the same) but science is not the only thing that relies on this. Suppose the laws of the universe were free to change within bounds that would allow life to develop, at random. So, things could change quite dramatically, but slowly enough for life to adapt to it, and nothing so drastic as to make matter incohere or planets dissolve. Life in such a universe would be challenging, but possible. However, intelligent life would never evolve. In such a universe knowledge of the past would not be useful in predicting the future, so evolution would not favor intelligence beyond reacting to immediate threats. Memory would not need to last, tool making would be impossible, since the way to make and use a tool would change frequently, etc. Basically, life like us would not exist to question why the laws of nature are so changeable. In this way it is exactly like the cosmological constant argument, either life like us can exist, or it can’t. In the case that it can’t, we can’t know it, so it is impossible to determine the odds of these things.

You can also think of this as just another cosmological constant. A nob that defines how quickly the other constants change, or within what range. In our universe they change very slowly, or within very small margins, or not at all. This is now just another aspect of the “fine tuning” of the previous “clue” that I argued against.

My final problem with this “clue” is that the regularity of nature doesn’t suggest there is a supreme intelligence at all. In the bible God is always messing with the laws of the universe to perform miracles. Modern Christians, and other religious people, argue the miracles still happen and pray for specific ones. The regularity of nature actually argues against a god, or at least against a god that interferes in our lives.

This “clue” really just seems like desperate padding.

Keller’s second “clue” that god exists is the anthropic principal. (read the link and it argues against Keller…) As he describes it there are many cosmological constants that must be tuned within a small margin of error for the universe to be as we see it. Keller says it is as if some supernatural force created the universe by tuning several dials very carefully so that we could exist. Keller grants that this argument is not a slam dunk and gives the multiverse hypothesis as an alternative explanation, that is, that there are many many universes so one is bound to be as this one is. He dismisses this explanation, though by relaying two analogies. One is that a man deals himself four aces in twenty straight games of poker. The other is a man sentenced to death by a firing squad of fifty expert marksmen and is not hit. In both cases you could say that there are infinite universes, so one in which this rare thing occurs is probable, or certain, but in both cases Keller says nobody would be convinced by this argument.

This completely misunderstands that anthropic principal, however. Both analogies are false. The point of the anthropic principal is that no one could exist to observe any universe that wasn’t capable of supporting life. In both analogies there is no accounting for this, which is why they are not applicable. So ignore those, they’re just distractions, straw men.

Lets get back to the actual universe. It is true that the cosmological constants, if not as they are, would not allow a universe as we know it to form, and many possible combinations exist where it is difficult to imagine life existing at all since stars and planets would not form. However, this doesn’t mean anything. Although there are infinite possible values for the cosmological constants (assuming there aren’t some unknown constraints somehow), there are really only two categories. The universe could exist in such a way that life exists, or not. In the first case the life that exists will evolve to fit whatever conditions exist as best they can, so the universe will seem “fine tuned” to them. If not, then nothing will exist to observe the universe and it will go unremarked. Because of these two possibilities it is impossible to calculate the true odds of a universe supporting life, except that we know it is non-zero. (Unless we can somehow detect, count, and determine the cosmological constants of other universes) Since observers can only exist in, and observe, one part of the fraction, the other part is indeterminable. From what we can observe the odds of a universe supporting life are just as likely to be one as one in a trillion trillion.

Another way to think of this is from the perspective of a null hypothesis. Lets assume there is no god, that’s the null hypothesis. What is predicted? We would expect the universe to appear to be fined tuned for any life within it, for the reasons explained above. Now lets compare to an alternate hypothesis, that there is a god. What is predicted? We would expect the universe to be fine tuned for life within it. Since these two predictions are identical the fact that the universe is fined tuned is not useful in determining if there is a god or not.

Keller, in his Intermission chapter, wrote some things that indicated to me that he knows how science works. He should be able to see that this argument is useless.I don’t know why he chose to keep it in his book.

This next section is as short as the last was long and I might have skipped it but it angers me some, so I wanted to write about it.

Keller says that you have to trust the bible enough to let it contradict your beliefs. He says you cannot pick and choose what to believe in the bible. He makes reference to Stepford Wives, saying that if God cannot contradict your beliefs, through the bible, then you cannot have a true, intimate, personal relationship with him. You will create a Stepford God.

The logic of what Keller says here, such that it is, is sound. If you believe that the bible is written by God then you do have to believe everything it says. You can’t pick and choose. But just a few sections ago Keller was picking and choosing, and admitting that it is difficult to tell what is literal and what is poetic in the bible. Choosing to believe that parts of the bible are poetic is equivalent to not believing what it says, since I could interpret any piece of the bible I personally disagree with to mean something poetic I do agree with. Keller offers no acknowledgment or defense of this practice, but I assume he doesn’t think of his God as a Stepford God.

I’m sure Keller believes that what he is doing is accurately interpreting God’s word and what others are doing is distorting God’s word purposely or otherwise, but there is no evidence for this. He has no basis for which to claim he is correct, and I, or anyone else, incorrect. If you follow Keller’s advice, you will never know if you are interpreting the bible as the author’s intended, or if you are projecting your own desires onto an ambiguous text.

And really, which is more likely, that an omnipotent benevolent force that wants to spread his message wrote an incomprehensibly ambiguous self contradictory book, or that you, and many before you, unconsciously interpret a mundane text in a way consistent with ones personal desires?

Throughout this chapter Keller has tried to persuade us that the bible is a text worthy of complete trust. He has told us to ignore any faults we see in it as unimportant, and now as necessary. He has waved some of the fault away as poetry. He has explained some of the faults away as cultural, or temporarily biased. But even if you do all of those things, even if you get past all the objections I have raised, Keller still asks you to trust the bible completely, just because. He has no reason for why you would do this. Given the title The Reason for God one might hope for more. Ultimately, though, it still comes down to the old circle, the bible is true because the bible says so.

If you’re following along at home you know we’re now out of the science chapter and have moved to the bible chapter. This seems much less fun to me, but where Keller goes I will follow. You also might have noticed that this first section is very large, so I’m going to have to take a broad strokes approach.

Keller decides to only focus on the four canonical gospels, Mathew, Mark, Luke, and John. Keller makes several core claims to back up the gospels as historically accurate. First, he says that scholars believe they were written around 40 – 60 AD. He says this would be within the lifetime of eye witnesses to the life of Jesus. He says the gospels are counterproductive to the causes of the early church leaders, that if they were just making up whatever they wanted they would have made it more useful and flattering of themselves. He also claims that the details of the gospels provide evidence that they were not fictionalized, because fiction of the time lacked details.

Keller finishes this long section by defending the bible culturally. He first explains that 1st century Roman slaves were not at all like more modern slaves that we think of and that is the slavery referenced by the bible. He then argues that any moral fault you find in the bible is because of your temporal bias, the notion that the values of today are superior to values of all other times. He argues that this bias should be avoided, just as cultural bias is.

Okay, well, Keller doesn’t give rigorous sources for his claims, but to my understanding his time frame for the writing of the gospels is extremely conservative. Just check wikipedia… that should have a general picture of what most scholars think. Even if you take Keller’s earliest number, 40 AD, and assume that the authors were about 25 when Jesus died… they were still really old for the time. Seems strange that they would wait until the end of their lives to write down the most important thing ever.

His point about the writings being counterproductive to early church leaders, like the apostles, only matters if his dates are right. If the mainstream is correct, and the apostles were all dead, then making them look bad in the pursuit of other goals would be no problem.  His points about women be prominent and Jesus himself not looking perfect in the gospels seem flimsy. Maybe women feature prominently in the gospels to attract female converts. Maybe the early Christians could rationalize Jesus’s apparent infirmities just as modern one can.

There are similar possible explanations for the idea that the gospels have too many unnecessary details to be fictionalized. Perhaps the authors wanted to make it seem like and eye witness account after the fact. Maybe the gospels are the earliest example of “found footage”. Remember how people thought the Blair Witch was real? Maybe the authors recorded the stories of many witnesses, or witnesses once removed, to get such details. Maybe someone was insane, and thought they were recounting things they had seen, but were actually just making things up. Keller frequently, in this section, asserts that there is “no reason” for something in the gospels other than the gospels being true accounts. Whenever you read that, be careful. There’s always at least one other reason, that someone wanted to make it seem like it was a true account, and there are usually many more reasons than that if you think about it.

And as for his argument against cultural or moral displeasure with the bible, it makes no sense to me. He mentions that we today think many of the ideas of our grandparents as antiquated and regressive, and says that there is not reason to think this won’t continue, that our grandchildren won’t think our ideas outmoded. He makes no argument to suggest that this process is cyclical, though. If he believes that, I don’t know why he would. There is no historical pattern of cyclical moral leanings on say, individual liberties or the rights of women. I agree that the currently held norms will be improved upon and soon, and when I am an old man some of the notions I hold now may seem antiquated. This seems like a great reason not to use a 2000 year old book to get moral guidance, though.

Keller again in this section encourages readers to ignore minor qualms, like the treatment of women or the acceptance of slavery (which btw wasn’t exactly great in the 1st century either) and focus on the core messages of bible. This is problematic for me. The reason people get hung up on “small” things in the bible is because they are asked to take it as the sole “evidence” that the whole Jesus story happened. Keller asks that you ignore all the things that make you question the credibility of the bible when deciding whether it is true. That doesn’t seem like a good idea to me.

So what if you believe everything Keller says and don’t care about any of my arguments above? What you are left with, in the best case of Keller’s argument, is four guys telling you some other guy came back from the dead. If four random people came up to you on the street and told you some guy in Venezuela had risen from the dead would you believe them? If they said, ask this other guy, Rupert, and Rupert corroborated their story, would you believe them? What if they had ten friends that corroborated them? You still wouldn’t believe them. And that’s not even how good the evidence is. Really the four guys would be writing a story forty years after the fact, 2000 years ago, in a language you don’t speak, and since then it has been translated and copied countless times. That’s what Keller’s arguing for, that’s the best case.

Hey, sorry, I’ve been neglecting the series for a while. I’ll try to be consistently back now, though, so here we go.

In this section Keller starts by saying that Christians take a wide variety of positions with regards to evolution, and that the direct conflict approach is only one, the most publicized one. He goes on to say that the obvious goal of Christians who “accept the bible’s authority” is to interpret the writing as the author intended.  He gives examples of where the bible is meant to be read as a history and places where it is meant to be poetry. He then states that the interpretation of Genesis I is up for debate, and gives his own personal views on the subject. He says that it is false logic to conclude that if one part of the bible can’t be taken literally than none of it can. Then he asks what conclusions we can draw and decides that evolution is not important and should not be considered until after one has made decisions about the central tenants of Christianity. He ends the section by telling his personal views on evolution.

As you might expect I have a lot of problems with this section. Keller, throughout, tacitly implies that all the various interpretations of the scientific evidence are equally valid, which is incorrect. He actually recommends the policy of determining your faith, and then fitting the science to your now inflexible religious beliefs. This is backwards, one should use evidence to inform beliefs, not the other way around.

Keller is correct when he says that evolution is not central to Christianity. There is, in fact, no reason why there needs to be conflict between Christianity and evolutionary theory, unless you are a biblical literalist. And Keller is correct that there is no logical rule that states if one part of a text is not taken literally that no parts must be. However, this misses the point. When a skeptic points out that some parts of the bible are taken literally, and some parts aren’t, what he’s really asking is why? How do you, Keller, decide? Is it you that’s deciding? And if it’s you deciding than why does it have to be right?

The bible, at least by some Christians, is held as a perfect record so that anything within can be unquestioningly believed. When Keller says that some of the bible is to be literally true, and some not, he takes this away. He changes the rules so that now whichever parts of the bible he wants to, are unquestioningly true, and the rest is not. From a logical argument perspective he switches the assumption you are asked to accept from “The bible is true,” to “Pieces of the bible selected by me are true”.

You may be thinking, but Gene, why do you care? You don’t believe the bible is the inerrant word of God anyway. That’s true. I don’t accept either premise. However, if I am to debate with Keller, or someone like him, the former assumption is possible to work with. It is unchanging and defined. I can work within the limitations set and form an argument. The later is not defined and can be changed at any time by Keller to his own advantage. It is like playing a game where one side can change the rules. That’s why it’s not allowed in logic.

In this section Keller redefines what people mean by the bible. If you define the bible as the inerrant word of God then evolution does disprove that. You cannot believe both. I think this is the definition of “bible” that most people think is important. Keller uses the bible as any other text, one that must be parsed by the reader, and interpreted with careful and difficult thought to make any use of it. If you take this definition of the bible then it is essentially the same as any other book, and it is true that evolution does not disprove it. However, who cares if evolution disproves it or not, it’s just a book.

Side Note:

This dual nature problem keeps cropping up. There is the religion and bible that Christians, like Keller, use when they are trying to be logical, and then there is the one they use when they are selling the religion. On the selling side the bible is the word of the one true God and holds the answers to all your questions and if you just follow it you will live a good, happy, and just life and will be rewarded richly after you die. When in a logical debate the bible is a complicated text with difficult to parse nuances and subtle poetic wording that’s meaning is up for debate within the Christian community. I mean, who could really say what it says. You can understand why skeptics like me get frustrated.

Keller takes a lot of time in this section, but it boils down to one claim, that Christianity is compatible with science. He cites for evidence of this a survey of scientists in which 40% responded that, yes, they believe in a god who communicates with humans in some way. Keller admits that there are forms of religion that are in conflict with science, but none the less argues that it does not have to be so, citing Ian Barbour’s four possible relations, conflict, dialogue, integration, and independence. Several prominent scientists are also held up as examples of scientists who are also Christians, or at least believe that religion and science are not in conflict.

One of those examples is the philosopher Nagel, who I will use as a jumping off point for my reply to this section. He is quoted as saying,

“I believe the project is doomed [reductionism] — that conscious experience, thought, value, and so forth are not illusions, even though they cannot be identified with physical facts.”

This is treading very close to a god of the gaps argument. He lists things that are not currently understood well by science, asserts that they cannot be (and that they exist) and therefor that they are in the domain of religion. What will he do when science does understand those things better? This is the issue with a god of the gaps argument. In the the past people like Nagel could have included the motion of the planets, the weather, and the origin of humanity on the list of topics off limits to science, relegated to religion. In the future people of this mindset will have to make an even smaller, even more specific lists. If we follow the trend lines to the truth, we conclude that this line of reasoning is invalid.

Worse than invalid, it is destructive. Removing from the realm of science various subjects greatly reduces scientific progress in that subject. There is much historical evidence for this in practically all fields. If people believe that a question cannot be answered be science, then it probably won’t be. Similarly, if people believe a question has already been answered by religion, and that that is sufficient, then it is unlikely to be explored scientifically. These are two reasons why science truly is in conflict with religion.

Science is a methodology for understanding the universe. Religions, at least most of them in the present time, are doctrines that make claims about the nature of the universe. As such, they are in conflict. Science cannot tolerate any information about the universe it does not verify itself, so it cannot accept any claims of religion. A person thinking scientifically will, therefor, have to ignore any religious claims, and therefor not be religious. Further conflict arises when science investigates a claim made by a religion and disagrees. If religions are not willing to alter their claims about the universe in the face of evidence, then they will be in conflict with science’s claims.

To address Keller’s examples of scientists who believe in god, this is not good evidence of a lack of conflict. Individuals are often internally conflicted. Individuals are also adept at compartmentalizing and self deception. As a person, even a scientist, it is easy to think that god exists and affects the universe, just not where I’m looking. But if everyone is doing that, then were is god? If you look at the big picture, there is no escaping the conflict between science and religion. This is true by their natures, and is not up to a vote.

This is all religions as they are today. Some are much better, like, I believe, Buddism, which changes to fit the evidence. Any religion that does this will end the conflict with science. All claims it makes will be modified, at least implicitly, to read “unless science proves otherwise” which will put them firmly in the independent or integration category of relationship with science.

Keller also mentions the role of media in this issue. On this, I agree with him. The apparent conflict between science and religion is greater than the actual one because of the media’s need for conflict in it’s stories. For most people, most of the time, there is no meaningful conflict between most religions and science. Some very conservative or fundamentalist religions, this cannot be said for, however. Keller also mentions the conflict model as some sort of secular conspiracy theory strategy in the early 20th century. This sounds far fetched to me, though he doesn’t go into it in enough detail for me to know precisely what he means. Fortunately, it matters not to the core issue.

Ultimately, there is no escaping a conflict between religions, at least as they are known today, and science. Science will ever increase in it’s explanatory power, and make religion less and less relevant. Science may never explain everything to the satisfaction of everyone, but this is immaterial. So long as science continues to explain more and more things better and better, the need for religion, at least in the explanatory capacity, will reduce. Until religions give up on the explanatory area of their nature, the conflict will remain. Maybe Keller and I agree on this, but only if he redefines Christianity to these criteria.

Alright science. Finally getting to some good stuff. I’m going to hold back on all my issues in this first section, and others to come, on the assumption that Keller will address them at some point. If he doesn’t, I’ll probably indulge on the last section of this chapter. We have just started chapter 6 if you couldn’t tell and are following along.

This section is pretty short and sweet. Keller’s main point is that science cannot say that miracles, and through them God, do not exist. He points out that science limits itself to the material world by necessity (it is the only domain the methodology makes sense in) but as a consequence cannot state with authority on the subject of the existence of any metaphysical reality. Keller says that these are common assertions masked by more innocuous statements like, “miracles don’t happen,” since they are hidden assumptions of such statements.

Technically I agree with Keller here. Science cannot disprove the existence of a metaphysical reality. However, science cannot ever state anything with certainty, 100% certainty, either, so that’s not really very meaningful except as a loophole through which to keep your preexisting beliefs.

Science doesn’t (and can’t) directly speak to the metaphysical, but it still impacts it. The mere fact that science works indicates a very limited interaction from any metaphysical source. Any metaphysical interaction with the physical could not be accounted for by science, and so would decrease sciences accuracy. The ever increasing accuracy and effectiveness of science precludes strong metaphysical interaction with the physical. See for evidence, your GPS… or basically our entire modern enviornment.

Further, science provides a model of the universe that requires no metaphysics and Occam’s Razor states that the simplest explanation (the one with no unnecessary metaphysics) is the one to go for. The Occam’s Razor argument works for religion as a whole, but is also an effective way at looking at individual claims, like miracles. The church might claim that a statue of the virgin Mary is crying holy water tears or blood or whatever. However, this is a claim about the physical world, so science can be applied. Upon investigation it might be found that a tube and pumping mechanism were in place, or perhaps capillary action could have pulled water from a basin on the floor. Science does not prove with these observations that the statue isn’t miraculously crying by the hand of God, but it is obvious the more likely answer is the pump.

Finally, Keller misplaces the burden of proof. Science does not make the claim in this case, religion does. Religion claims that miracles happen and they should have to provide extraordinary evidence to support that claim. Performing rigorous scientific testing to eliminate mundane explanations would be a first step. Publishing their findings in a peer reviewed journal. Then we’d like to see some replication. All of this should be possible, and should be in the interest of the church, or any religion, to find. Why haven’t religions produced this compelling evidence for miracles in thousands of years while science finds new things all the time (Higgs Boson in 50 years anybody)? I think it’s because miracles don’t exist.

This section is pretty short, and my post on it can be even shorted because Keller and I agree. Last section in the chapter, though. The next one is about Science vs. Religion so… that’ll probably get heated.

In this section, Keller addresses the idea that someone can’t believe in the Christian God (I guess, it is unclear) because they believe in a “god of love”. Keller says that there is no evidence of such a god, physical or historical (ka ching) and that if you consider biblical evidence you must accept that the bible describes God as loving, but also just. He says that a belief in a god of pure love, who accepts everyone equally, is not supported by any sort of evidence.

And there’s really nothing to argue with. There is no physical or historical evidence for a loving god (or any god). If you consider the bible evidence, then you must accept certain aspects to God that are discriminatory. He has a chosen people, some people go to hell, so a perfectly loving god is not supported. However, since I take the bible as evidence of nothing but the folk beliefs of ancient peoples, I think the belief in a perfectly loving god is as valid as Keller’s belief in a god that will send me to hell, and frankly, I prefer the former.