Salvation By Grace

Lennox – Hitchens Debate

Saturday August 9th, 2008 at 11am the Christian apologist John Lennox and “new atheist” Christopher Hitchens will debate at the Usher Hall in Edinburgh on the topic ‘The New Europe should prefer the New Atheism’

Dr John Lennox Fellow in Mathematics and Philosophy and Chaplain at Green College Oxford.

Christopher Hitchens journalist, author, television commentator and one of the ‘New Atheists’.

Moderated by James Naughtie, journalist, political commentator and presenter of BBC Radio 4′s Today programme.

order debate on DVD: http://www.fixed-point.org/store/shop.asp?ItemID=88&CategoryID=102

I’ve just received the following short report of Saturday’s debate, followed by a much longer and extended report for those who are interested in the specific exchanges during the proceedings.

SHORT REPORT

The event was held in Usher Hall, one of Edinburgh’s largest indoor venues and the organisers estimated that there were around 1,400 people attending the debate. The motion that The New Europe Should Prefer the New Atheism, was debated by Christopher Hitchens (Social commentator and author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything) and John Lennox (Oxford University Lecturer and author of God’s Undertaker: Has Science Buried God?). An initial show of hands showed that the audience was quite evenly split (with perhaps a very slight advantage to those opposing the motion) and that there was a good proportion (perhaps 20%) of people who were undecided.

The format of the debate was 15 minutes for opening statements (with Hitchens going first) followed by 5 minutes each for rebuttals. There was then 30 minutes of questions from the floor followed by a 5 minute concluding remark from each of the speakers (With Lennox going first this time). The debate was moderated expertly by James Naughtie, a well-known radio 4 presenter.

The final result was that Lennox won the debate (the motion was not passed) with a small, but discernible shift, in favour of his viewpoint from the previously undecided camp. To his credit, Hitchens conceded that there were more in favour of John, even though the moderator was initially unsure.

EXTENDED REPORT

Opening Statements

Hitchens reminded the audience that Edinburgh was one the centres of the enlightenment and he warned that the secularism was under attack in the New Europe from a number of sources. These were:

1. The threat of Islam. He focused upon the demanding of special rights for Islam backed up by violence and used the example of the reaction to the Danish cartoons as showing that freedom of speech was being eroded through fear.
2. The revival of Russian imperialism, founded upon the Christian orthodox faith. He spoke of the conflict in Georgia, as well as the recent flexing of muscles against Poland (for agreeing to the missile defence shield) and the Ukraine (for being more pro-western).
3. The non-scientific ideas being propagated in some schools by Christian fundamentalist teaching.
4. The capitulation of the European churches to Islam (e.g. the pope retracting his comments about Mohammed after there was a backlash, the archbishop of Canterbury suggested sharia law should be recognised in Britain and Prince Charles saying he should be defender of the “faiths” rather than of the “faith”) .

He concluded by saying secularism is at the core of our constitution and that he hoped that the fact back started here.

Lennox responded by saying that he agreed with much of what Hitchens had said, and continued:

1. He too was appalled by extremists, but said that saying “religion poisons everything” is the same as saying “science poisons everything” – it is nonsensical. You can’t blame science for giving you pollution or napalm and therefore you have to distinguish use from abuse.
2. That Jesus spoke of rendering unto Caesar what was Caesar’s and that you have to distinguish between the abuses of Christendom and the teachings of Christ.
3. That Christianity provided the educational establishments and the freedoms upon which new Europe is based, yet the atheist’s want to get rid of it (they are forgetting their history and they can’t have it both ways).
4. That atheists say the world would be better without religion, but the world would have been better without the communist regimes (and that Marxism is underpinned by atheism).
5. That science cannot explain everything (e.g. why are we here?) and that the discipline itself was only possible through the belief in a creator/law giving. He said that atheists have “faith” in the rational intelligibility of the universe, but their worldview gives no basis for believing this. He said it was a false dichotomy to speak of science or faith.
6. That if you do not believe in absolute morality and you think that we evolved from mindless processes then you cannot trust your own rationality (as rationality does not come from irrationality).
7. Likewise you have no grounds for saying something is right or wrong as you are merely “dancing” to your DNA (quoting Dawkins). DNA serves evolutionary pressures not the truth (quoting atheist John Gray). Therefore concepts of good and evil, right or wrong evaporate, as do any notions of justice. If you believe in a creator then you have grounds for saying people have innate morality as they are made in God’s image.

So John concluded by opposing the motion and pointing out that the atheists couldn’t even use the word “should” anyhow (as they are unable to establish the grounds upon which to make a moral statement).

Hitchens’ Rebuttals

Hitchens took John’s comment about the basis for morality in good humour. He said he understood the problem with getting an “ought” from an “is” and therefore said that he was changing the motion to the new Europe “must” adopt the new atheism (rather than “should”). His rebuttals were:

1. He didn’t need 5 minutes to rebut the resurrection (but then did not attempt to do so)
2. That Jesus said he came to bring the sword (not peace)
3. That European universities owed a lot to Islam initially (not Christianity)
4. That you used to have to be in a holy order to even study at Oxford
5. That historically many scientists have also held some very wacky superstitious beliefs
6. That religion is totalitarian and that this round-the-clock supervision included condemning you for thought-crimes and continuing to supervise even after you are dead.
7. There is no evidence to believe there is truth in Christianity
8. That Stalin’s regime was a religious one founded upon the previous quasi-religious reign of the tsars
9. That North Korea (thought to be secular) is actually a highly religious regime based upon leader worship
10. That there has been no atheistic regime based upon the teachings of Hume, Spinoza, Jefferson, Bertrand-Russell and others and if there were it wouldn’t be a violent one.

Lennox’ response

1. Jesus was not referring to a physical sword in that passage and his views on violence were demonstrated by the fact that he even resisted violence at his own arrest
2. That the idea of a law-giver is not a wacky belief, but it is a serious intelligent theists (Whitehead’s thesis)
3. That the debate was not about certain beliefs about science, but it is about whole worldviews. This is why Francis Collins and Jim Watson (both of whom headed up the human genome project) have differing views. There are scientists on both sides of this debate and therefore it is not about God or science – it is about worldviews.
4. Your view of justice depends on which side of the fence you are on (i.e. the oppressed crave justice). He used the example of marriage to respond to Hitchens’ portrayal of a divine supervisor regulating your behaviour. He said that your wife is someone who watches over you and who regulates your behaviour, yet marriage is not seen as bad thing for that reason, because it is someone who loves you, etc.

Question and Answers

The question and answer session was quite mixed with various people (from both sides) making statements which were not questions (e.g. an elderly scot tried to evangelise to Hitchens in a long-winded manner and another person accused Lennox of consigning her to hell because of her beliefs – John responded to this by saying that we are all given a freedom to choose and that God does not want to consign anyone to hell).

One person highlighted the fact that Hitchens had commended secularism rather than new atheism to the audience. He asked how he could he say that the new atheism would not lead to the ramification of old atheism (e.g. the regimes of Stalin, etc). Hitchens responded to this by saying fascism was another name for the Catholic far right.

Someone asked about miracles and John responded by affirming the existence of a creator who had shown himself historically and that he was quite capable of feeding events into the laws of nature. He pointed out that although atheists like to attack the likelihood of the resurrection, he pointed out that some atheists prefer to propagate the “multiverse” theory, where there are supposedly many different parallel universes in which, for example, you and I don’t exist in some or where one of us has a green moustache in another. John pointed out that if you are willing to believe that, then you are willing to believe anything.

Another person asked about whether “Intelligent design” was associated with a “lunatic” fringe. John replied “not necessarily”, which prompted some gasps amongst the audience, but he went on to explain that the words “intelligent design” and “creationism” had been hijacked by some and caricatured by others, when in fact, the idea that there is a creator and that there is intelligence behind the design is a very credible scientific thesis (i.e. it is not one to be dismissed out of hand).

Another person asked whether in fact Christianity had been shaped by society (the prevailing zeitgeist) rather than the other way around (mentioning than Lucretius and Epicurus had not been influenced by Christianity). John responded by pointing out that Greece was not a wonderful utopian society when these ideas were being disseminated and it was Christianity that revolutionised Europe.

A number of people touched upon historical violence in the name of Christianity, which John rebuffed by pointing out that these instances were people disobeying the explicit teachings of Christ. Another person asserted that people were just products of their own religious upbringing and that religions contradicted one another so most of them must be wrong. John denied that people blindly followed their upbringing and he agreed that religions contradict one another and so couldn’t all be right.

Concluding Remarks

John started by pointing out the difference between the “soft” atheists (Dawkins, Hitchens, etc) and the “hard” atheists (Sartre, Camus, etc). Whereas the soft atheists cling to the things that they cherish in society (morality, justice), the hard atheists were under no illusion as to where their views ultimately led (to the destruction of all values, morality and hope).

1. He challenged the new atheists to justify how they were able to say humans were more significant than just slime, when their views give no basis for this (e.g. Peter Singer saying a human baby has no more value than a piglet).
2. He also reiterated the importance on being able to debate these issues in the public sphere, but that he wasn’t sure that the atheists shared this notion of freedom of expression (given Sam Harris saying that there are some circumstances where you maybe justified in killing someone because of their beliefs).
3. He questioned whether the new atheists should be allowed to decide for everyone what was right and he pointed out that atheism nurtures a need for meaning (and therefore religion).
4. He said the atheists lose their pretension of intellectual credibility when they lump all religion in together.
5. He then pointed out that Christianity played a major role in the creation of the new Europe in the first place (e.g. in helping to overthrow the old atheism in communist East Germany) and he finished by quoting the recently deceased literary nobel prize winner Solzhenitsyn: “if I were called upon to identify briefly the principal trait of the entire twentieth century, here too, I would be unable to find anything more precise and pithy than to repeat once again: Men have forgotten God”.
6. John said he wished they hadn’t forgotten God and finished by saying Christianity helped pull the wall down in Europe, do we really want to build another one?

Christopher Hitchens responded by asking how we know all this and where John was getting all of his information from.

1. He said he didn’t need to call upon an invisible means of support from a totalitarian God who provides divine assurance.
2. He criticised the idea of “vicarious redemption” and said that you shouldn’t want someone else paying your debts for you (as he said it cancels your responsibility).
3. He said that this offer is then backed up by a threat of hell.
4. He asked how we even know about hell when all the religions contradict each other and therefore by definition that most religious thinkers throughout history must have been wrong (assuming that one religion is right). He says this causes moral chaos (as people can’t agree).
5. Finally he concluded with a challenge to name a moral action done by a religious person that couldn’t be done by a non-religious person and then said to think of an evil action done in the name of religion. [He meant to finish by saying that would not be done by a non-religious person, but he didn’t say this, which meant his final point wasn’t quite as he had intended).

General comments about the debate

Debating style:

The debate was an interesting clash of styles, with Hitchens favouring less points, but made very forcefully with humour and quips to strengthen his argument. He did make a couple of isolated “low blows” by interrupting one of Lennox’s points during the rebuttal (by dismissing it as a weak point), as well as saying “he didn’t need 5 minutes to dispel the resurrection” without then attempting to do so.

Lennox by contrast had a huge number of points and quotes (many from atheists) and therefore if you transcribed the debate he would have been the overwhelming victor. However, because of Hitchens’ strong oratory skills, he was able to reduce the gap, in spite of Lennox’s great charisma.

Format:

It seemed that Hitchens going first turned out to be fortuitous because his opening statement focused upon politics and religion and it included much that Lennox could agree with. Lennox was then able to attack the ideas underpinning new atheism, which left Hitchens with only the rebuttal and concluding remarks to reply in kind. However, the format did at least allow Hicthens to have the last say, when it would have been nice to have been able to respond to some of his final comments, particularly those concerning the cross.

Atmosphere:

The other interesting thing to note was the palpable level of aggression and derision from atheists in the audience towards Christianity (e.g. people were vigorously nodding and muttering in agreement with Hitchens’ points, irrespective of whether it was a stronger or weaker point that was made). I found the level of this to be quite surprising and it seemed to me that this refusal to concede any ground to the opposition greatly weakened their case, as this dismissive attitude (possibly based on a perceived intellectual superiority) suggested that they weren’t prepared to engage with the evidence at hand. This also highlighted how important it is for Christian to be different to this (as John was) by being fair with the evidence at hand, in order to properly engage with those who disagree with us (rather than being immediately dismissive). Likewise, it also demonstrated the important challenge of attempting to communicate the gospel effectively and positively to those who – for whatever reason - already have very negative picture of what the Christian faith is all about.

Recording of the Debate:

The TV footage was recorded by the Fixed Point foundation and they will be making it available as a product shortly. It is possible that the audio may become available before this.

Next Event

Another interesting point was that Richard Dawkins was also in the audience. He even stopped by the bookstall selling copies of Lennox’s book, to ask why Hitchens’ book was not also on sale (he received the response that Hitchens’ publisher had not arranged for this to happen!). Dawkins and Lennox will be debating each other in October (their second live debate) at an event commemorating the 150th anniversary of the famous debate between Bishop Wilberforce and Thomas Huxley (in the same Oxford venue that the previous event occurred). This will inevitably attract a huge amount of attention from the world’s media, so we look forward with great excitement to this next fascinating exchange! Hitchens has also expressed an interest in repeating the debate (in the US), so this maybe another debate to look forward to.

Thank you once again (on behalf of John and the Zacharias Trust) to all of you who have supported him and prayed for him during this time.

Report by Simon Wenham, Zacharias Trust Events Manager
Posted by Chris at 23:38
Labels: apologetics, atheism, europe, islam, Jesus, politics, science, secularism, values, worldviews
38 comments:

Samuel Skinner a dit…

Why should atheists concede ground? They happen to be right! It would be like biologists conceding ground to creationists...

Conceding ground only works in situations where you are horse trading. Otherwise it is not warrented.

As for being dismissal... we get to do that in the absence of evidence. If you have no evidence to back a claim we can respond as assholy we want. Or put you in a mental hospital. It is what we do with people who hear voices and think God is communicating to them. Of course, if the healthcare proffesionals can't get there first, than they start their own cult.

Sure I sound harsh- except NOTHING in the entire debate put foward by the theist is a reason to believe in the Christian God. Alot of diest arguments (flawed and easy to discover), but there is no reason to not apply them equally to any other religion- Hinduism and Shintoism perhaps.

And honestly? Commies? Yes, yes the commies were evil and this is atheisms fault because? Does he forgot the fact that they acted the way they did because they were commies? Or are all secular motives ascribed for atheism?

As it is the Japanese and the Germans were both theists- The Japanese with there whole "God-Emperor" being a blatant case of insane theism.

...
This is silly. Just use google if you want the rebuttals. Type in atheism and you'll get a bunch of sites. Some of them are by atheists. I suggest Austin Cline- he is rather through in his rebuttals and he doesn't treat all religion the same- he has an entire line dedicated to the history of many regional variations. Of course, he declares the whole thing false and dangerous anyway.
12 août 2008 1:17
étrangère a dit…

Samuel, the debate was on the motion The New Europe should prefer the new Atheism, not actually on God does not exist. From this report the debaters seem to have picked up on this (that it's an issue of preference) and debated on religion and politics lines more than the existence of God. You may think this was daft, but don't blame Lennox for not giving 'reasons to believe in the Christian God': blame Hitchens for setting the topics at the start. However, as it happens I think that Lennox would've done well to pick up on Hitchens' dismissal of the resurrection of Jesus without argument - and that would've been his reason for believing in the God who revealed himself in the man Jesus. Still, I wasn't there and I'm sure they were both pressed for time and which things to respond to!
12 août 2008 13:01
Samuel Skinner a dit…

...

I... does ANYONE read philosophy anymore? Anyone? Didn't the Greeks already have this dicusion about wheter or not lying to people about their whole world was acceptable?

More to the point, I was under the impression that the truth value of a statement was important... otherwise you can simply LIE about if it is beneficial or not.

What is next? It doesn't matter if blacks and whites are equal- would racism be beneficial for Europe? How about facism? Communism? Why not just white wash the history- wouldn't that make everyone feel better?

I'm sorry for the hysterics, but this has got to be the stupidest thing... well, not ever. That would be something so... unholy it made my mind temporarily crack. I now hate John Ringo for that... abomination.

This is just banal level stupid. If Hitchen's choose this, he is an idiot. I'll give him the benefit of the doubt- he probably got Lennox to agreee belief was based on faith.

Seriously though... antitheism is BASED on atheism. You have to show atheism is valid before you can show antitheism is! What where these people thinking? Does the truth hold NO VALUE to them?
13 août 2008 7:38
Samuel Skinner a dit…

I'm sorry if I sound ranting, but "is theism good for Europe" is the classic "it is BS, but the poor people eat it up!"

Are these people TRYING to make "opiate of the masses" literal? China has done it with "religion: promoting social cohesion". It is nice to see in Europe some want to follow in the footsteps of a totalitarian police state.

Speaking as a person who would be under the "lied to" category, I find this INSANELY offensive.
13 août 2008 7:42
Chris a dit…

err, hi samuel. I wasn't at this debate. Were you? This is just a report I received. You're certainly right that we should prefer what's true, but Rosemary is right: the task of liberal politics is to deal with the problem of diverse views of what is right or true.

You do sound like you're ranting. I found it hard to decipher what you want me to respond to. Blogs are frustratingly inadequate sometimes, aren't they. Tell you what, I'm based in London. If you would like to meet up, we could talk properly over a pint. If not, I'm afraid a blog clearly isnt going to make progress.

As for "does anyone do any philosophy", I can only refer you to contemporary religious epistemology, notably from Alvin Plantinga (Notre Dame), Brian Leftow (Yale/Oxford),Nick Wolterstorff (Harvard) & William Alston (not sure) - specifically on your suggestion to put people who claim they've encountered God into mental homes. If science is more your thing, you can't do better (IMHO) than Denis Alexander's critically acclaimed volume, Rebuilding the Matrix.

If you would like to meet, let me know. Otherwise, please accept my apologies, but I simply haven't the time to debate this here with someone I've never met.
13 août 2008 18:04
Chris a dit…

(at least I don't believe we've met - very sorry if I'm mistaken! In fact, I am slightly intrigued where you found this site? Have we met?)
13 août 2008 18:07
Steven Carr a dit…

Alexander's book is a good history of science/religion, but contains zero evidence for a god.
13 août 2008 20:31
Chris a dit…

Hi Stephen. I didn't suggest it did.
What constitutes "evidence for a god"?

(either you agree with Aquinas that there are some things called miracles which demonstrate "action that can only be divine", or you think Aquinas is wrong, but in that case, I'm no longer sure what you're asking for.) Could you explain?
13 août 2008 23:59
Samuel Skinner a dit…

Err sorry- guess I shouldn't jump on you. Wasn't there, but thanks to the miracle of you tube I can dig it up. I'm in the states so no chance of actually talking to you.

And the point of liberal politics ISN'T to accomedate differant views of what is true. To this day we don't accomedate conspiracy theorists, holocaust deniers, creationists, UFO nuts and others.

The point of liberal politics is to gain power and to use it to affect change. Said change depends on what definition of liberal you use, but, by definition, some people are excluded. It is the nature of politics.

Sorry. Shouldn't debate. I usually just leave my thoughts and debate on things I am sure are wrong. In this case I have no idea what your position is and so can't debate!

Yes, I have a pathological need to get in the last word. I'll go in a sec- I'm loooking at the philosophers...

This was just sad. He seems not to realize that science doesn't need a framework- its methods are empirically derived. As for getting people to behave morally... that would be known as the field of morality.

The other ones look better- I'm hoping they won't be an idiotic rehash of the transendential argument.

On the other hand I have a link to a bunch of philosophers. Thanks!

Well see if the field has advanced at all...
14 août 2008 5:46
Samuel Skinner a dit…

Scrolling down you state there are "actions that can only be divine".

You are aware of Clarks third law, right? Alot of "miracles" could easily fall under the SG-1 explanation (not the one I use).
14 août 2008 5:54
Chris a dit…

Samuel: if you must continue to comment, please read others carefully (case in point re: miracles) and edit your own. They're quite unconnected.

on liberal politics, see Rawls, Habermas & Taylor.

Since we can't meet, I prefer to refer you to professional peer-reviewed work, rather than the trash talk one finds on the internet. I hope you find that more constructive. All the best, Chris
14 août 2008 10:27
Samuel Skinner a dit…

Wow!

To be fair about my philosophy comment I was refering to the fact that alot of people who were writing were completely ignorant of the Euthyphro dilemma.

Anyway, thanks for the links.
15 août 2008 2:50
Takis Konstantopoulos a dit…

There is a scientist (Mathematician) who claims that he believes in miracles, and you take him seriously?

For god's sake [sic] do you really take this person seriously? Sorry, of course you do, because you choose to believe what he believes and there is no way to argue about beliefs.

Incidentally, here is a list of people canonised by the ex-Pope. According to the definition of the verb “to canonise”, each of these people had performed a miracle. How can this be? And how can an arbitrary person (the Pope) decide that they actually performed miracles?

OK, I’m sorry, I DO KNOW your answer: The Pope is not arbitrary. He has been elected by god, and god tells him who did miracles and who didn’t.

So, you see, by arguing in this way, I can explain everything: It’s a miracle I found an extra pound in my drawer (Lennox’s idiotic example), it’s a miracle I passed the exam, etc.

Don’t you realise that all these things are done for POLITICAL REASONS? By believing in miracles, you are stepping on a very dangerous ground. You accept that, any time you cannot comprehend something, that you have the choice to attribute it to a miracle. And WHO will decide whether it is a miracle or not?

There is, of course, a deeper reason for belief in miracles: it’s biological. It’s all part of our evolutionary nature. We’re still too primitive to accept the universe as it is, and seek to believe in absurdities.
16 août 2008 10:07
Steven Carr a dit…

I have an article on the miracles in the New Testament at Miracles

As always, the explanation of fraud , lies and sheer deceit is easily seen to be more plausible than a miracle.

Hume is proved right, once more!
16 août 2008 20:13
Takis Konstantopoulos a dit…

The most disturbing thing about scientists who tell people to go ahead and believe in miracles is that they are giving an extremely dangerous message.

Let us temporarily accept the fact that these scientist-preachers (Lennox for example) can distinguish a miracle from a physical phenomenon. Clearly, the layman can’t.

(1) And it is extremely easy (for we all want to follow the path of least action) to attribute something we cannot understand to a miracle.

(2) Or do we have to wait for the learned scientist-preachers to tell us what constitutes a miracle and what not?

In either case, most people will, essentially, behave like dumb sheep, either because (1) they will give an easy no-brainer explanation or (2) they will obey the word of a superior person, i.e they will be subject to authority figures.

Did I say SHEEP?

Hm… I’m sorry, but it IS SHEEP that the religion of Lennox wants to create (the reference to sheep and lambs and all, supposedly stupid animals is present in new testament as well as everywhere in christianity).
17 août 2008 10:46
Chris a dit…

Hi Takis. Were you at the debate? Having spoken with Dr Lennox at length, yes I do take him seriously.

I must admit that I was a little taken aback by your comments. I’m inclined to reply that since I’m (apparently) a Roman Catholic fideist and beliefs are caused by survival-mechanisms not truth-forming faculties (*read the Stanford Encyclopaedia entry), there’s no point responding. It’s just a matter of will, right? (Sorry to be flippant, but if you expect to be taken seriously, please afford others the same dignity)

You do raise a serious worry: why doesn’t the same reason Christians reject God-of-the-gaps inferences a la Michael Behe or weeping statues equally discount Jesus’ “miracles”? I’ve asked this myself. Can you think of any disanalogies?
17 août 2008 13:44
Chris a dit…

Hi Stephen: not sure what the relevance is to this post. Your paper looks interesting, but I’m not going to debate any old thing here, especially since you didnt respond earlier. Sorry.

Although I’ve nowhere stated my own views, I am surprised you cite Hume. It’s the only serious argument I’m aware of against the possibility of miracles, but Hume rejects miracles by rejecting causal laws altogether. If you follow Hume, you can never say that anything causes anything – which is as bad as saying every event is a miracle. For Hume, Laws are just “regularities in what actually happens”, but combined with his problem of induction, you’re left with “what actually happens”: basically one damn thing after another. If miracles are supposed to be “violations” (Hume’s definition) of such laws, his profound conclusion is that “nothing happens which violates the law which states that what happens is what happens”. Impressive! Any 1st year philosophy undergrad could tell you it’s a very complicated way of saying very little indeed.

At best, it’s a metaphysical commitment (certainly not a logical deduction or an empirical induction). To his credit, he does then offer a (weaker), epistemological constraint. At least now we’re asking when we can actually know that a genuine miracle has occurred. He says: miraculous explanation is always infinitely less probable than naturalistic explanation, nomatter how convoluted. I’m not going to go into this. If you’re interested, I can only suggest you read Hume’s Abject Failure, by John Earman (world renowned philosopher of science), or even C.S. Lewis On Miracles.
17 août 2008 14:44
Takis Konstantopoulos a dit…

Chris:

I am aware that people feel the need to believe in religion. They can’t do otherwise because they’ve been influenced by their environment when they were young and also because, somehow, it’s part of biology.

I’m not against your beliefs or anybody else’s as long as they don’t harm people. For example, I am against those Christian fundamentalists (in the so-called deep south of the U.S.) who carry guns in churches. I’m also against muslim suicide bombers. And I’m against those african religions who insist that clitorises should be removed from women’s genitalia. And I’m against those religious people who support murderers (e.g. GW Bush). Incidentally, I also don’t like atheists (like Hitchens) who support wars.

But I become furious when I see that a scientist tries to explain his beliefs using “science”. He can’t. First, Lennox is an algebraist, I doubt very much he has any knowledge of Physics, let alone cosmology. Virtually impossible. He has done work on normal subgroups, etc, but nothing in Physics. Also, his use of probability is so naive!

I grant him the choice to believe in absurdities, say, miracles, but he can’t use Science to explain them. He says (I think) something like this: Miracles are explainable because God can decide when to invalidate the Laws of Physics.

Also (I’m sorry you are Catholic) how can it be that the ex-Pope decides who performs miracles or who doesn’t? Isn’t the Pope a human being? What does he have to do with god? How can he decide when the laws of nature are stopped? I do salute the morality, ethics, help to humanity, non-selfishness, etc, etc, of many of the people he canonized, but they did so without performing miracles.

People like Lennox who are not mere believers, but are preaching pseudo-science to the laymen who hungrily wait for confirmation of their beliefs by authority figures, learned academics, etc, should be really stopped. They do a lot of harm.

Chris, I’m trying to read your last paragraph.
…
You do raise a serious worry: why doesn’t the same reason Christians reject God-of-the-gaps inferences a la Michael Behe or weeping statues equally discount Jesus’ “miracles”? I’ve asked this myself. Can you think of any disanalogies?
…
I can’t parse it: I can’t understand it. Can you state it again, please, in simpler terms?

Finally, I see you are in Belgium. So it is no wonder you are Catholic. You were influenced by your environment. If religion had to do with anything else but environment, then we would expect lots of Shamans in Belgium and lots of Catholics in Mongolia. But, as I say, believe what you are brought up with, but please accept the fact that science has nothing to do with it.
17 août 2008 23:06
Takis Konstantopoulos a dit…

Oh, by the way, the proposal “should Europe adopt new atheism or not” is silly. I wonder why smart people like Hitchens (is he?) or Lennox (same question) accepted to debate on a nonsensical question.

Europe should adopt nothing. Rien du tout.

Adopting something like atheism is like accepting that Europe will be a totalitarian State. There should be no official support or condemnation for atheism, astrology, shamanism, catholicism, islam, buddhism, whatever. People’s choice of life and beliefs cannot be dictated by the State!

Even if some politicians in Europe would like to adopt (silly verb) new atheism, that would never ever happen in practice. I’m fully aware that people’s beliefs, being a biological need just like sex, will not seize to exist by a mere state decision!

But the state should adopt a firm policy against preachers of any kind.
17 août 2008 23:19
étrangère a dit…

Takis, I’m loathe to interject when you’re happily venting away, but I just thought I’d let you know you can save your sorrow at Chris being RC, as he was being sarcastic at that point (perhaps it was culturally veiled). Neither is he any longer in Belgium (I know, he should change his profile), where in fact you’d be more likely to find people being so-called libre penseurs because of their background and education, than to find people who are RC because of their background and education. I know, this rather takes away from your gunning for the Pope, as Protestants think the whole canonisation sheebang wrong. Heyho.

Out of interest, on what basis do you say religion is part of biology? On what basis do you object to gun-carrying, war-mongering, FGM, etc.? I can think of good bases on which to object to them, but you don’t give any. You just seem to be merrily pronouncing your opinion as obvious on no basis while objecting to the bases for others’ views. On what basis do you pronounce that a state should (moral implication?) “adopt a firm policy against preachers of any kind” when you also claim that religion is biologically determined and also claim that Europe isn’t a totalitarian state? Or perhaps, determinism inconsistently aside, you think that states should be totalitarian – what but totalitarianism bans preaching of any ideas, in any manner, by anyone?!
17 août 2008 23:54
Chris a dit…

Hi Takis.

I fully share your fears about blind faith and violence, and I absolutely agree that “choice of life and beliefs cannot be dictated by the State”. But it’d be naive to think your view of politics can come from “rien du tout”, a religiously neutral culture; it comes from one formed by Christian concepts. So Etrangere’s “WHY” is a good question.

It’s a pity you didn’t get the irony of my response (spot the “apparently”?). I was frankly astonished how much you simply assumed about me.

I did spend some time in Belgium, but Etrangere’s right: I’m no Roman Catholic, and no fideist! My comment on the pointlessnes of reasoning with you was also tongue in cheek, because if anyone is a fideist, it’s someone who reduces rationality to biology.) And if you also think the cultural embeddedness of human thinking leads to relativism, read Alasdair MacIntyre or Michael Polanyi.

Interested to see your own field. I did some actuarial work a few years back and got into stochastic calculus, but my own background is in Physics and Analytic Philosophy. I assume you’ve not done any particle Physics because otherwise you would know the significance of Abelian Lie groups (the subject of Lennox’s monograph). I don’t know if you’ve ever explored the applications of stochastic maths for molecular biophysics but the informatics of emergent properties is one of John’s current interests. He’s also an Oxford Philosopher of Science, so *just might* have thought science through a little more than you give him credit for. I’ll leave that aside.

Where does Lennox “use science to explain miracles” anyway?
If you’re going to keep replying, either quote him, or be very clear what you’re referring to.
18 août 2008 9:20
Chris a dit…

Finally, you said you couldn’t parse my last paragraph. It was attempting to do justice to the fact that you did raise one real and important question. I’ll explain it in 3 steps.

1) if you’ve never encountered Christians who don’t attribute the unknown to God, then read Denis Alexander, Rebuilding the Matrix. The God of Jesus Christ is not so small he can squeeze into explanatory gaps. He transcends the whole show. As UCL Geneticist RJ Berry put it, “miracles are certainly not invasions by God into an otherwise natural working of creation, for this would deny that in some sense God is there already”. Perhaps God is more involved than you think?

2) That’s why sensible Christians reject God-of-the-gaps hypotheses; (“cant understand it therefore God did it”) such as Michael Behe’s idea of irreducible complexity to demonstrate divine intelligence (Behe reveals a startling ignorance of exaptation: even if we can’t yet see a function for which a trait could be adapted, it still could be co-opted from an unknown function) BUT it’s also sub-biblical: Christians (such as Lennox) see divine intelligence in the whole show not just occasional details. Or as Oxford Philosopher Richard Swinburne expressed it, “I am not postulating a God-of-the-gaps…merely to explain the things that science has not yet explained…I do not deny that science explains. I postulate God to explain why science explains”.

3) I hope you can now see the problem I stated: Surely the same reason Christians reject Behe’s bacterial flagella & weeping statues also (by analogy) rules out Jesus’ supernatural miracles? Good question. I’ve asked it myself, so I’ll ask you again: can you see any possible disanalogies?

Sorry to spell that out so much. I still don’t see what this has to do with Politics. Hope it’s clearer though. I’m going away so hope you find the links constructive. Take care, Chris
18 août 2008 9:34
Takis Konstantopoulos a dit…

Chris,

Thanks for making the effort to spell out these complicated arguments of yours for someone like me who has not read all these books you’re referring to and who is not familiar with all this philosophical terminology, such as sub-biblical, god-in-gaps, cultural embeddedness of human thinking, relativism, fideism, etc. I don’t think I can discuss on the basis of these concepts, simply because I don’t know their definitions.

I will reply to your comments when I go back home (I’m in Finland now) .

A couple of quick things though:

First, I apologise if I mistakingly classified you together with the majority of those stupid (in the sense of naive-simpletons) religious people who perform rituals in churches, mosques, etc, without having thought of why they’re even doing this.

Second, I said that Lennox uses science to explain religion, for example, when he states that during the last 40 years more evidence is found by physicists and cosmologists that the universe is finely tuned, e.g. that the electromagnetic and gravity forces have to be exactly they way they are, otherwise the universe wouldn’t exist; i.e. that if their ratio differed from the observed one by more than 0.0000000000000000000000000000000000000001 that would be detrimental for our universe. This is a correct statement. So? What IS the point? He is not teaching physics, but he’s somehow using this to support his belief that Brahma, say, created the universe. Doesn’t this mean that Lennox uses science to explain his religious beliefs and therefore preach and influence the audience?

—
étrangère, your interjection is welcome. Any clarification of the subtle points will enlighten me. I can only think in some very straightforward way and can’t catch jokes or sarcasm, unless they’re very explicit. (You see, I’m a simpleton too!). OK, news to me: protestants don’t have saints. Thank you for educating me on this. Do they have miracles? Or is miracles in the domain of catholics or orthodox etc religions? By the way, do muslims have miracles?
18 août 2008 22:44
Takis Konstantopoulos a dit…

Hello étrangère,

Let me reply to your questions.
At the outset, I will refrain entirely from being cynical, as earlier when
I mentioned that christians are sheep. I was only referring to one of the
supposed virtues of christianity.

—-

Your writings below are in italics.

—-
you can save your sorrow at Chris being RC, as he was being sarcastic at that point

As I said earlier, I interpreted his saying literally. If he is not a catholic
then he is some other variant of else. I see that there are hundreds of
variants (random names picked from the article on christian denominations
wikipedia):

Catholic, Anglican, Eastern Orthodox, Protestant, Lutheran, Calvinist,
Presbyterian, Congregational, Baptist, Anabaptist, Methodist, Brethren,
Apostolic, Pentecostal, Charismatic, Neo-Charismatic, United, Evangelical,
Quaker, Restorationist, Millerite, Adventist, Mormon, Unitarian,
Swedenborgianist, Messianic, and even a variant of christianity
which uses the term science: Christian Scientist!!

So there are many sects and flavours, perhaps very different between themselves,
but I guess when somebody says she or he is a christian then she or he
belongs to a certain flavour of christianity.

I also accept the fact that there could be some christians who find
all these sects, for example, so ritualistic, that they either decide
to start their own or be christian without participating in the
rituals of a particular group. The latter could very well be the case
for Chris, in which case several of the things I said do not
apply to him. But

—–

Out of interest, on what basis do you say religion is part of biology?

It’s the most rational and common-sense explanation. When homo sapiens evolved
from prior homo species, he developed an awe for the universe and fear for
the unknown which, for survival reasons, eventually became a set of dogmas
and which let to a set of rules known as religion. There is a recent book
“Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief”,
by a guy called Lewis Wolpert which tries to say something like this, but
fails miserably. I don’t like the book, and, in fact, I have criticised
its logical mistakes and as being a sloppily written book (review on amazon).

Regardless of biology as science, the basis upon which I say
that religion is part of biology is the same reason I’d say that
yawning is part of biology. Everything we do is part of biology
merely because we are part of an evolutionary tree, the various nodes
of which represent different products of nature. We happen to be, in some
sense, the most advanced nodes of this tree and that is why we are here
and talk about it. Give it another million years or so and some other primates,
chimpanzees (the descendants of them), say,
will be wondering about religion too. Give it a few hundreds of millions of
years and then even the offspring of broccoli will perform in a novel ways.

—-

On what basis do you object to gun-carrying, war-mongering, FGM, etc.?

On the basis that I feel extremely happy and lucky that I and you exist and we
should do whatever we can to preserve us.
Indeed, out of the millions of spermatozoa bombarding your eggs when you
have sex, only one will result in your offspring and your offspring will,
eventually, learn that that survival is a collective affair.

A few days ago, a female Gorilla’s baby died in a German zoo.
According to observers,
her grief
was astonishing. The Gorilla (Gana) had mistreated her children before.
Last year she almost lost another baby because she completely neglected it.
The zoo staff intervened and saved it. This year, they decided not to
intervene early. (They have found, by experience, that interventions of
this kind result into unnatural growth of animals later. Such is the
case with the bear Knut of the Berlin zoo
who grew up entirely in the company of humans and now has a problem
because he can’t find a female partner.)

Eventually, gorillas (who are not our closest species actually) will learn
to take care of their babies and more things, such as not to conduct wars.
It will take a million years, say, but they will. If they don’t, they’ll become
extinct and new species will have replaced them by that time.

As for me, it is second nature to me that I will never harm anyone
(well, maybe verbally I will , i.e. when I call some religious
people sheep…, but not physically), neither will I participate in wars,
own guns, or get into fights. I need no other basis other than the fact
that I feel this way. It’s very simple, really!

—-

On what basis do you pronounce that a state should (moral implication?) “adopt a firm policy against preachers of any kind

On no moral obligation, actually. Simply because preachers are fraudsters.
And they try to deceive people, either intentionally (when they lie)
or unintentionally (when they bullshit), and certainly because preachers
attempt to mind-fuck their subjects.

Now, what is the definition of a preacher? I don’t have a good one, but let’s,
roughly, say that a preacher is someone who teaches without
explaining, without logic, by contradicting himself, by deceiving,
by not applying his teachings to himself, by being incoherent… Lennox
is a preacher because he uses his science hat to talk about god, and, while
that may be fine, people in the audience may have the tendency to become
members of some organised religious groups, and that is a big a problem!

—-

you think that states should be totalitarian

No I do not. I’m quite liberal. That is why I don’t want to have a boss,
such as a head of a church telling me what to do.
Of course, I’m fully aware that some of the things I wish society
and states operate upon may be, for the moment, utopias. I am just
expressing my desire.

—-

you’re happily venting away

I agree on that. Every time I hear that someone belongs to a
church, I become angry. Every time I see someone goes out of
his/her way to preach (like Lennox), I do become angry.
Whereas I was venting, as you observed, the adverb preceding this
(happily) did not actually apply to me.

But I do recognise that there are many good
and smart people who are members of some of these churches I mentioned.
Most of them though do so because they have no other choice. In a sense,
I have no choice either. Most of the culture I was brought up with is christian,
most of the society I belong to is so too, and, therefore, culturally,
I’m some kind of christian too. However, I do not belong to any of
the sects I mentioned. Certainly, the religious people I associate myself with
don’t mix science and religion or use the former to explain the latter.
Moreover, they never go out and talk about their religion, they never preach
and so we are good friends. I recognise their need to have a faith
and they admit that ethics has nothing to do with religion.
20 août 2008 22:57
Takis Konstantopoulos a dit…

Chris,

I am sorry but, despite the fact that you spelled out so much for me
(don’t be sorry for that), I still don’t have a clue about some things you are talking about or asking.

So, let me ask a few things (reference to your writings are in italics):
1)if you’ve never encountered Christians who don’t attribute the unknown to God, then read …

I accept that there are Christians who who don’t attribute the unknown to God.
You are saying you belong to this group right? But you still state there
is some God. That’s fine. You can state whatever you like. I respect that.
But what does this have to do with (organised) religion and science?

2) By the way, there are far too many links, and if you want to reply,
please reply by simple sentences without telling me to read books.
I have no time, normally, to do that.

3) How does someone like you who, apparently, is a
sensible/sophisticated christian, treat the fact that all (organised)
religions are senseless collections of rituals and dangerous institutions?
Or if you think there is one (organised) religion that is not dangerous
and fraud, please let me know which one it is. I’m asking you,
essentially, to identify which group/sect you belong to. For example,
is it eastern orthodox? united methodist? scottish episcopal?

4) Surely the same reason Christians reject Behe’s bacterial flagella & weeping statues also (by analogy) rules out Jesus’ supernatural miracles? Good question. I’ve asked it myself, so I’ll ask you again: can you see any possible disanalogies?

The word disanalogy does not exist in standard English. It is, probably, one
of the terms of the discipline you are studying; whose definition perhaps
I can guess: it is the opposite of analogy. Both the word and the prefix you
add (dis) are greek, so I suppose that its usage in english should refer
to the negation of analogy. But, really, what are you asking?

First, I’m not familiar with Behe. I looked a bit and he seems a complete moron.

Second, you seem to be saying in a complicated fashion, using technical
words) that the miracles of Behe (what is bacterial flagella?),
some common miracles (weeping statues) and those of Jesus
(supernatural miracles) have or have not much in common. Which of the two?

I don’t know what you’re saying because you use complicated language.

Simply stated, let me ask you then: do you claim that miracles exist?
That statues can weep? What are the supernatural miracles?

—-

Back to Lennox now:

Lennox, as I said, states that miracles exist/take place/he believes in them.
He’s quite clever rhetorically to avoid making use of explicit words that
would immediately classify them amongst the non-sensible christians.
Apparently, since you take him seriously, he thinks (and you think so)
he belongs to the class of sensible christians. (Which must be a very small class, don’t you think so?)

Lennox says he believes in the christian god and that this is both
his choice and his explanation based on science. But I say he does so
he has no other choice (he was brought up in a christian environment).

Lennox uses (silly) arguments. Have you heard his argument about his aunt
Matilda? He says that he has an aunt (Matilda) who bakes wonderful cakes.
He also has an atheist friend who can tell, upon Lennox’ questioning,
the organic and inorganic constituents of the cake.
But then when Lennox asks the friend to tell him why Matilda baked the cake,
the chemist can’t give an answer. Lennox avoids to draw conclusions (as I said,
he’s possesses certain rhetorical skills), but there is an implicit conclusion
that he wants the audience to draw. The quote is from a Lennox talk, and have
no written reference to it.

Lennox uses his mathematical hat as follows. He goes to the blackboard,
draws a few diagrams and writes down the mathematical symbols for `there exists’
and `for all’ and then turns to the (largely non-mathematical) audience
stating that he’s used to them, being a mathematician, and can’t do otherwise.
I suppose, at this point, the audience thinks that this is funny (I don’t)
and that, indeed, the speaker is a mathematician who will tell them
in scientific terms why god exists.

Lennox argues that the new testament consists of historically documented
sources; that their authenticity is much more provable than other
documents of the same period. Fine. I agree with Lennox. He then goes
on and says, in order to support one of his preachings, that it
was written in the Apocalypse (Revelation) of John.
And I ask: So? Why does something written in these documents
called new testament constitute proof for anything?

If Lennox argued for the existence of god only, that would be fine, say.
But he is a priest!!! This means he belongs to a church. To a particular
religious group. And so he has a boss in this church. I don’t know who
the boss is, it could be the Pope, it could be Rowan Williams… But I know
that any member–let alone a priest!– of an organised relgion is,
when preaching, quite dangerous! And more dangerous if he or she is
pretending to be using science (or his scientific title) to support his
or her claims.

—-

Finally, I posed the following question to some of the people after the
Lennox-Hitchens debate: Why does Lennox (and they and everybody else
for thousands of years) refer to god as if god possessed male genitals?
They reply: What do you mean? Nobody said so. I say, “you did, by
using the pronoun `he’, for you say God bla bla… He did that…. We
believe in Him…” And their reply is: But it is in the bible! God
himself says so, therefore we say HE.

So, Chris, what is your answer to this corny question of mine?

—

But, please, Chris, whatever you write first write it simply,
for someone like me who does not know th meaning of the terms

exaptation, sub-biblical, cultural embeddedness, relativism,
fideism, etc.

You see, we are talking about something simple. You say that you take Lennox
seriously, and I say that Lennox is a preacher, and, therefore dangerous.
I am not aware of the philosophical terms you are using,
and cannot and do not want to engage in a philosophical discussion of any kind.

Likewise, I use no mathematical terminology.

Second, these references are great. It does prove (no pun intended) that
whatever you do, you do it seriously, but do not expect me to study them
in the short term.
20 août 2008 23:08
Takis Konstantopoulos a dit…

Another inconsistency of Lennox

He claims that the fact that he is a christian is not accidental but it is the result of his choice. When he was young he was given several books to read, including the communist manifesto, but he chose to be christian.

Let’s accept this. I have no doubt that he is telling the truth. But he surely realises that the same response will be given by most of the people who are asked the same question. Some of them will add that they had some personal experiences.

Now, Lennox is a scientist who uses probabilities in his arguments for religion. So he should realise that probabilities (very simple mathematical models can be cooked up) do not support his argument. Namely, it is really unlikely that almost all eventually religious people who grow up in a christian enviroment become christians by choice or personal experience/revelation. This clustering of alike-religious people does not have a significant probability.

Therefore, while it is likely that Lennox (being a trustworthy scientist and therefore speaking the truth) did have a choice, it is quite unlikely that everybody in his environment became christian for the same reasons.

So, to summarise:

FACT:
If Lennox is a scientist who uses probabilities correctly then Lennox understands that not all people become christians independently of their upbringing.

There are now two possibilities now.

POSSIBILITY 1:
It seems to me that Lennox thinks that not only he, but also his neighbours and the neighbours of his neighbours, and so on, became christians independently of their environment.

Therefore Lennox is not not a scientist who knows how to use and apply probability theory. So his usage of probability in the defence of whatever he wants to defend (god? religion?) is fortuitous: he is merely quoting well-known scientific facts about the universe.

POSSIBILITY 2:
The only possibility left is that Lennox does know how to use probability theory, but he thinks he is the only one in his neighbourhood who became christian by choice.

CONCLUSION:
Either Lennox does not understand probability theory or he thinks he is the only one in his neighbourhood who became christian by choice.
21 août 2008 12:44
Takis Konstantopoulos a dit…

Also, for your information, I was at the debate. It was a boring one. Both speakers quoted things they’ve said before. Only the questions by the audience were different.

The topic of the debate is whether Europe should adopt new atheism–which is a stupid question in the first place and I don’t understand why Hitchens accepted to participate.

The report above is more or less accurate. It was I who asked Hitchens about his upbringing, and to be exact, I’ll tell you what I exactly asked him.

In debates like this, the time for questions is limited. I was told that I have 20 seconds to ask a question and there would be no time for replying to the speaker’s answer.

So I said, as fast as I could (I’m quoting from my little notebook; the actual question was a slightly shortened version of the one below for lack of time):

Dr Lennox, last time you gave a talk in Edinburgh I pointed out to you that your arguments were extremely naive, despite the fact that you are a mathematician. I also do maths for living and do not see any use of mathematics or science in support of religion. Today I noticed at least three contradictions in your talk:

1) You say you had a choice of religion and you but you really didn’t because it is the result of your upbringing.

[I expanded on this question above.]

2) You say that what believe in god because of Jesus Christ’s teaching but what you don’t realise is that the majority of the dogmas you subscribe to have been decided by fiat by the ruthless murderer emperor Constantine in the 4th century (whose statue is in the city of York and who is now a saint of a christian church).

3) You say that you accept christianity but have no problem with other religions. This is a contradiction because other religions preach different things, almost the opposite of christianity, they have different gods, etc.

His replies were lukewarm:

1) I have a choice. I was given lots of things to read, including the communist manifesto, but I chose christianity.
[see above for how this leads to a further contradiction in the sense that even if this is true, it can't be true for all people in his neighbourhood].

2) I believe in whatever Jesus taught and not in Constantine.
[I had no chance to reply and say that when I said "Lennox believes" I really meant that "Lennox's church and the boss of his church believes" and that, whichever particular church he belongs to, the fact that he, for example, believes in the concept of trinity is due to Constantine.]

3) To be honest, I don’t remember what he replied to this. Nothing profound though.

I was then asked by the moderator to return to my seat for there was no time.

Voila. That is, more or less, what we “discussed”.

—-

To his credit, I said afterwards when interviewed by the BBC, he didn’t ridicule himself as much as last time when he went on the board, drew Venn diagrams, wrote down a few logical quantifiers and excused himself for not being able to refrain from doing so as being a mathematician. This time (there was no blackboard actually) he did stick to the point, he replied (in a preaching style) to Hitchens, but his replies contained contradictions.
22 août 2008 10:20
Takis a dit…

Chris,

I’m dissapointed I have not received a reply to my explanation why John Lennox and, more generally, any smart scientist who preaches religion, is dangerous.

I did apologise for my initial cynical tone when I was referring to christians as sheep, but I was referring to the majority of christians who accept this religion without having any clue why they do so.

I later posted explanations and replies here.

In brief, my thesis is that:

1) John Lennox not only talks about god in abstract but he is, very concretely, a member of a particular Church, a priest in fact. However, organised religion is dangerous because, provably, the leaders of most organised religious institutions support murderers.

2) Either Lennox does not understand probability theory or he thinks he is the only one in his neighbourhood who became christian by choice.

3) His use of science is very childish. He uses nothing profoundly scientific, other than the things anybody can read in popular science magazines.
30 août 2008 17:00
Chris a dit…

err hi Takis. I’ve been away for 2 weeks & find 3800 words of “comments”. Slightly ironic that you ask me to “reply by simple sentences without telling me to read books” because you “have no time”. I have to say, words like “mind-f**k”, “bul****t and “stupid religious people”, when you yourself “do not want to engage in a philosophical discussion of any kind” don’t give me much incentive to respond. I’m not sure what you expect me to say!

1. Just because people haven’t thought something through doesn’t mean they’re irrational, or wrong. We all do and think tons of things we’ve never thought through. With respect, there’s an awful lot you’ve not thought through properly, giving you uncritical preconceptions about what I or John Lennox, or Christians must mean. One of the reasons I asked you questions (eg disanalogy = a difference which weakens any analogy) was to help you notice/examine them. I know you dont want to read but seriously, a primer on worldviews would benefit you greatly.

2. Sorry for using technical language. Since you’re an academic, I assumed a certain familiarity with science/religion discussions (eg on rationality, adaptationism, miracles, fine-tuning, complexity…), beyond a 2 minute youtube video out of context. You’ll notice John didn’t say anything like “therefore God exists” on that video. I wonder what conclusions you think/assume he draws from the fact of tuning?

3. If anyone “uses their science hat to talk about God”, it’s Richard Dawkins, Peter Atkins and Lewis Wolpert. John Lennox is generally responding. He’s also doing what the New Testament encourages Christians to do in having intellectual integrity in his Christian faith just as in his professional life. Same with Denis Alexander. Here, however, the “debate” was not between “organised science and religion”, but which ideology (secular or atheist) would safeguard European flourishing.

4. I know exactly the “venn” diagram you refer to, and the shorthand John uses. I think you’ve misunderstood it if you think he’s being underhanded. It’s not an argument or proof in quantificational logic! It’s just a visualisation of 2 worldviews: one materialist, one theistic. John simply asks with which view of ultimate reality the scientific method sits most comfortably. Fair question!

5. John Lennox will have agreed with you: religions are fundamentally different, so can’t all be right. But it’s ridiculous to think that the cultural-roots of our rational choices leads us to relativism (ie Christianity is true means it is true for me, but might not be true for you) or fideism (ie beliefs have causes but no reasons). Otherwise, stop reasoning! Presumably you don’t think you’re an atheist by chance, but by choice and rational reflection?

6. Some religions are dangerous, as is any ideology that puts final responsibility into finite hands (of the local gods, or the state, or individuals). 500 years before Jesus, an Old Testmant prophet promised Israel a baby boy who would be called “mighty God…prince of peace”, whose kingdom was the only hope for world peace. Before he went to die, King Jesus was actually put on trial precisely for being a terrorist threat and was publically exonerated. He didn’t send others to their deaths, like Mao or Mohammed; he suffered God’s judgment in our place for our wrongdoing, so that we could be judged in his place for his goodness. What a swap! Jesus once told a story, of someone who’d been forgiven a debt of £100000 then going and forcing someone else to pay their debt of £10. It’s impossible to be forgiven by God and then to be vengeful ourselves.
30 août 2008 17:49
Takis a dit…

Hello Chris,

I am interested in discussion. In fact, the whole debate between Hitchens and Lennox triggered my interest so much and that is why (i) I keep writing here and (ii) today I bought Lennox’ book and will read it. I am an academic, but, surely, not a philosopher!

These words you mention are unkown to me, and did not mean to escape discussion. You gave me too much homework, and, honestly, even though I can, eventually, read these references, I am being honest when I say I have no time. To read something like this, is not like reading a novel, you know that better than me–I’m sure.

I have read the new testament in its original, so the story you are referring to (and everything else in it) is familiar to me. I have been subject to religious classes, unwillingly, for 12 years in Greece, so I know what it says.

I am going to *partially* reply to one of your comments, basically to make myself understood when I use the terms “idiot” and “stupid”.

When I’m referring to “stupid christians”, I am talking about the majority of them. Most of the people who go to Church in Greece, for example, are idiots. This is an adjective I use for someone who goes and listens to someone read a text in archaic Greek which cannot be understood by the listener. The majority of listeners cannot understand the readings of the new Testament. That is why I call them idiots!

I also call idiots those christians I met in the US (and, again, it is the vast majority) who believe that guns and wars and murders are compatible with their religion. The majority of christians in the so-called Bible belt of the U.S. carry guns in churches, after the murderer G W Bush, as governor, allowed them to do so. Here is but a small example. It says that they carry guns in churches to shoot the devil. I’ve been documenting such events for long time, and I was then so fed up with the idiocy of American Christians that I quit my career and left the country! Fortunately, people in the UK are *much* more reasonable. Clearly, the christians here are not the typical american idiots.

I call idiots those christians who decided, for example, that the last Czar of Russia (Nicholas) is a saint and put his picture in churches and go and kiss it. (There are a few millions of them.)

The list is not exhaustive.

Look, I don’t doubt that there is a small percentage of christians who do not belong to the above categories. But then the question is: Which church do they belong to? The rational response would be:

None.

They believe what they believe, and keep to themselves. For if they are members of a particular Church, how can they compromise the fact that the leader of this Church is, directly or indirectly, supporting warmongers and wars?

Thank you again for your reply. I will continue later. It’s already 2 am…
31 août 2008 2:03
Takis a dit…

Hi Chris,

OK, I guess I’m awake enough now to reply to your points.

The word mindfucking is not my invention. It is a word that describes exactly what happens when your brain is being manipulated. I gave a reference.

1. You said something about miracles, when you used the word disanalogy. I still don’t undestand what you meant. You referred to (1) weeping statues and (2) supernatural miracles.
Do you assert that (1) and (2) exist?
Or that (1) but not (2) exist?
Or that (2) but not (1) exist?

2. You say:
You’ll notice John didn’t say anything like “therefore God exists” on that video. I wonder what conclusions you think/assume he draws from the fact of tuning?

That’s precisely what I said. Lennox is rhetorically savvy: he avoids to draw any conclusions.
So it is *I* who asked *you* the question:
What conclusions YOU think/assume he draws from the fact of tuning?
I aready gave you my reply:
He is quoting a well-known fact. He is correct about this fact. The universe would not have existed had the ratio of the two observable forces been different.
So *my* conclusion is: The fact quoted by Lennox is correct.
What is yours?

3. You say:
If anyone “uses their science hat to talk about God”, it’s Richard Dawkins, Peter Atkins and Lewis Wolpert. John Lennox is generally responding.
I disagree. Lennox is very much using his mathematical fact to impress the audience. I have witnessed it. Incidentally, talking about Wolpert, I am very critical about his book `Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief’ because it is a bit naive and unconvincing. Also, I am not saying that Dawkins or Atkins are not using their scientific hats to impress the crouds, and that only Lennox does.
I am saying that they ALL do so!

You also say:
the “debate” was not between “organised science and religion”, but which ideology (secular or atheist) would safeguard European flourishing.
I AGREE 100%: THE DEBATE WAS ABOUT WHETHER EUROPE SHOULD ADOPT NEW ATHEISM. And Hitchens did not respond properly.

But I’ve already replied to this: the very proposal that Europe should adopt an ideology (new atheism in this case) is silly. Ideologies cannot be adopted or imposed unless we are talking about a totalitarian regime. (Had I been in Hitchens’ place I would have stressed precisely this.)

Moreover, regardless of what some new atheists would like to impose, they are, simply, fooling themselves in believing that there is an (imminent)”end to faith”, an “end to religion”: Unfortunately, our society is built on conventions like religion and it is impossible to change people’s modus vivendi. People do whatever their parents told them to do and they’ll keep doing it because of social convention.

4. About the Venn diagram: Lennox should feel no need to use mathematical symbols on the blackboard. He does so to impress the audience.
You also say:
John simply asks with which view of ultimate reality the scientific method sits most comfortably. Fair question!
Fair question, but IRRELEVANT. Why should scientific method care about whether theism is true or not. One can decide, ad hoc, to adopt such a point of view or not. It’s a convention.

5. You say:
John Lennox will have agreed with you: religions are fundamentally different, so can’t all be right.
To put it otherwise, the probability that all religions are correct is zero. Moreoever, the probability that there is a correct religion which is not yet invented is positive. So, why choose christianity? It’s arbitrary.

You also say:
Presumably you don’t think you’re an atheist by chance, but by choice and rational reflection?
I never said I’m an atheist.
I never said I’m agnostic either.
I also did not say I’m a believer.
I am, simply, nothing! There is another choice: That all these adjectives are irrelevant.
And, to use Lennox’ argument (as I said, I’m reading his book), Godel showed that when we have a proposition we can either prove it is true, or we can prove it is false, or prove that it cannot be proved. In the latter case, we can, if necessary, arbitrarily accept its truth or not.
Therefore, since the god hypothesis is unprovable, it’s up to the individual to accept it or not, IF necessary. In my opinion, it’s not even necessary to talk about it.

6. You say:
Some religions are dangerous, as is any ideology that puts final responsibility into finite hands (of the local gods, or the state, or individuals).
Indeed, indeed, I agree. But I’d say that most religions are dangerous. Christianity, definitely is. Christianity (or, I’d say, its INTERPRETATION by heads of states 1700 years ago and onwards) led to the destruction of Science, as, for example, the death of Hypatia, one of the last mathematicians of the ancient world: she was, allegedly stoned to death. The majority of christians hated science and hated thinking! E.g., the so-called-Saint Agustine said: “There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity… It is this which drives us to try and discover the secrets of nature, those secrets which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing and which man should not wish to learn.” Thanks to the Arabs, some of the ancient works were saved. More recently, Pope Pius 12 supported the Nazis. And so on… and so on… So, christianity (i.e. its interpretation and [ab]use) is dangerous.

Scholars like Lennox do admit this. And they do say that he feels terrible that so many (thousands of instances throughout the history) crimes have been committed in the name of christianity. Eventually, of course, Christians recognise these mistakes and apologise. Well, it takes, on the average, 300 years for an apology!

Good things have been done in the name of Christianity too. No doubt about it. But any social system, no matter how terrible, when adopted for long time, will produce some gems, because humans, by nature, need to think, need to be both good (and bad), need to help other humans… (*)

You also say:
500 years before Jesus, an Old Testmant prophet promised Israel a baby boy who would be called “mighty God…prince of peace”, whose kingdom was the only hope for world peace.
The Old Testament should be referred to as Torah, more appropriately.
But what is your point here? The Torah is a collection of myths, some of which are based on true stories, some not. So is the Odyssey. There are other myths in the ancient world, the Torah is but a collection of them, isn’t it? (**)

You also say:
Before he went to die, King Jesus was actually put on trial precisely for being a terrorist threat and was publically exonerated. He didn’t send others to their deaths, like Mao or Mohammed; he suffered God’s judgment in our place for our wrongdoing, so that we could be judged in his place for his goodness.
Many people behaved altruistically like Jesus. Socrates, for example, died willingly (so we are told by Plato), in order to obey to the laws of Athens. He could have chosen to say he died for the sins of his fellow citizens and that it was one of the gods who told him to do so. We would then have, possibly, another religion, right?

…………….
Footnotes
…………….
(*) Another example showing that humans’ need for creativity cannot be restricted by religion: Islam prohibits depictions of god(s) or anything concrete, like humans, animals, flowers, etc. Only abstract things are allowed in mosques. (There is one exception: The version of Islam in Iran which allows the depiction of flowers. But this is due to the fact that the Islam of Iran is mixed with a dose of Zoroastrianism.) Well, Muslims started decorating their mosques with beautiful geometric patterns: they became tesselations, or tilings, of walls and ceilings. Until relatively recently, we believed that with a finite number of tiles we can only create periodic or totally random tesselations, when Penrose discovered the so-called kite-and-dart tesselation which is neither random nor periodic. The very same tesselation was found in an Uzbekistan mosque, having being invented (empirically? that would be astonishing!) 500 years ago.

(**) Prophets abound in “primitive” religions. Greece had its prophets, the so-called “manteis” in Greek, who could allegedly tell the future in oracles like Delphi and Dodoni. But even nowadays, people crave for prophesies. They pay mega-bucks to astrologers, fortune-tellers, tarot card players, hand readers, etc.
31 août 2008 16:37
Chris a dit…

Hi Takis. I appreciate your inquisitiveness, but this is getting a little distracted. I think I’m beginning to understand, but can you see that you’re importing a load of issues from a cultural setting (American fundamentalists/Greek Orthodox obscurantism/Roman Catholic masses) which are affecting the way you’re hearing what Lennox or myself are saying?

I can’t debate any old thing here. Thanks for explaining the reference to Colin McGinn. I’ve heard him speak, but I’m afraid he’s kinda stuck in the 60s and not wanting to move on or engage. He’s simply out of step with contemporary epistemology.

You asked for an example of a religion whose leader doesn’t condone violence so I explained the biblical example (yes, by implication, I would question the christianity of the people you mentioned, not by personal whim but by going back to Jesus). Jesus isn’t an arbitrary choice, but I’m not going to be sidetracked by questions of other religions & cultural forms here. Blogs are really inadequate aren’t they, but you’ll have to read better people than me. I suggest C.S. Lewis.

You have got me thinking, so I’ll try to post relevantly. In future.
1 septembre 2008 1:54
Takis a dit…

Hi Chris,

You did get me thinking too, so I, too, have to spend a little more time familiarising myself with, e.g., John Lennox’ book.

I know this was going off the main discussion. I thought about it quite a bit while writing my posts. All I wanted to show is that, while speaking abstractly about religion, god, origin of the universe, etc, is fine, the concrete applications of such things have led to one disaster after another. As I said, I have seen more damage around me than good. So my choice has been not to be a member of an (any) organisation that somehow is responsible for pain and suffering amongst humans. True, the original messages attributed to Jesus in parts of the New Testament books are moving and point towards an ethical system. We both agree on that.

I have been using my observations and experiences with those *loads* of issues stemming from cultural settings, but how can I judge a system independently of its consequences?

—
Blogs are, indeed, inefficient! Like emails, and other modern types of information exchange, they can surely lead to misunderstandings and misinterpretations.
1 septembre 2008 14:23
Takis a dit…

Here is another reason why I am very much against religious scientists who preach. They often come up with very silly proposals and can be quite dangerous because their non-scientific audience will take what they suggest for granted.

This is the case with a certain Prof. Michael Reiss, a biologist, but also a priest, who, in his capacity as director of education of the Royal Society proposes that creationism be taught in schools as one way of understanding the universe!!!

UNBELIEVABLE BUT, sadly, TRUE…
12 septembre 2008 17:40
Chris a dit…

takis, sorry i didnt see this.

Did you even read that article?
Reiss said nothing of the sort.

This is just the kind of uncritical sensationalism that alienates & polarises people (precisely what Reiss was trying to avoid). It was a media frenzy whipped up by crass spokesmen like Harold Kroto. In an open letter to New Scientist, Richard Dawkins regretted his own part in what he called a “witch hunt”, admitting Reiss was following the exact same line as the US National Academy.

TheGuardian retracts their comments here. Too bad it’s too late for Michael Reiss’s dignity & reputation. Kroto’s cronies should be ashamed of themselves.
24 septembre 2008 8:35
Takis Konstantopoulos a dit…

Hello Chris,

I only read the BBC page, the one I quoted above, according to which Reiss said:

“I have referred to science teachers discussing creationism as a worldview’; this is not the same as lending it any scientific credibility.”
“Now I would be more content simply for them to understand [creationism] as one way of understanding the universe.”

* If he didn’t say the latter, my apologies. I did not read any other article.

* But if he did say it then, clearly, it is very dangerous! It also funny

(I read the BBC and consider it, generally, a credible source of news-it’s not like CNN! Also, I have never heard of the name “Kroto” before, let alone his cronies. I only commented on a statement that, allegedly, the director of education said.)
25 septembre 2008 1:51
Takis a dit…

On a different topic (but somehow related to the original topic of this thread, i.e. Hitchens vs Lennox), something you may find interesting if you don’t already know, is that I watched (about 3/4 of it–then I got bored) a debate between C Hitchens and his brother, P Hitchens:

On one hand, C Hitchens is a big enemy of religion, as you very well know.
(His brother is the opposite.)

On the other hand, C Hitchens supports wars to establish democracy in countries like Iraq which, allegedly, threaten our enlightenment.
(His brother believes the opposite.)

It is quite amusing to see a slight contradiction here: he, indirectly, supports GW Bush who conducted the war because (a) he thinks God speaks through him and (b) he consulted with God.

Guns, killings, wars, in my humble opinion, are not justifiable, no matter what.
A religious friend of mine tells me that “some wars are justified when the people of God are threatened” (and referred to Jeanne d’Arc claiming that it was God who told her she has the right to kill).
A non-religious, not friend of mine (C Hitchens) claims that some wars are justified for the establishment of democracy.

The bottomline is that if we had understood the unity of all life, the vastness of the universe, the things that we do not know in comparison with the things we know, and if we devoted our time in knowing the world, without reference to lords, gods or despots, then we’d have no need to kill. But this is an advanced state which humans have not yet reached. I want to be optimistic that such a state is reachable, but it will take some million years (if we exist by then).
25 septembre 2008 3:50
Takis a dit…

About Reiss again:

You were right. He didn’t quite mean what the news reported. I looked around, read some other articles, including an article in “Nature”. Reiss meant to say that:

If you want to respond to creationist-minded students, don’t tell them right up front they are idiots, but discuss with them and tell them that creationism is an ad hoc belief, while biology is science, based on experiment, theory, another experiment, observation, modification of theory, and so on.

In this sense, I agree with Reiss. But the way the media presented his case was biased.