I think Dallas is going in the right direction here. It’s not enough to convince someone that God is impossible- you need to give them a replacement. (And convincing someone that the Church is a harmful force- when they don’t get the impression their local church is- is difficult and probably not worthwhile.) For example, as mentioned elsewhere the primary argument of Mere Christianity is probably “Christianity is an optimized meme for getting humans to believe it- that’s evidence for humanity being built around the meme.” The counterargument is that the meme is built around humanity- but to do that you need naturalistic explanations for all the pieces that Christianity relies on, like the feeling of universal (i.e. built-in) morality.
If you are going to recommend Dawkins, I suggest The Selfish Gene, as it’s the best explanation of evolution that I’ve come across (and once they believe in evolution, they’re on the path to realizing God is unnecessary).
once they believe in evolution, they’re on the path to realizing God is unnecessary
This may be true in places like the US where creationism is strong, but not everywhere. For instance, for decades Christians in the UK have almost all accepted evolution, and most varieties of Christianity (even quite conservative ones) have no problem with it. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t any tension between evolution and those varieties of Christianity, but because Everyone Knows that the two are compatible, reading a good explanation of evolution won’t necessarily make a Christian rethink his or her religious beliefs.
(I was a Christian for years and years, and so far as I can recall I never found creationism at all tempting. And when I finally got out of religion, evolution had very little to do with it.)
Today, the Church’s unofficial position is an example of theistic evolution, also known as evolutionary creation,[2] stating that faith and scientific findings regarding human evolution are not in conflict, though humans are regarded as a special creation, and that the existence of God is required to explain both monogenism and the spiritual component of human origins. Moreover, the Church teaches that the process of evolution is a planned and purpose-driven natural process, actively guided by God.
I think that if you understand how evolution works on a really intuitive level — how blind it is — it’s very difficult to believe both in human evolution and a guiding divinity. “Genes which promote their own replication become more common over time” is not a principle which admits of purpose. Vaguer understandings of evolution’s actual mechanism probably contribute to the apparent reasonableness of “theistic evolution”.
Sorry, but that sounds like motivated stopping to me. Coming up with ways by which blind evolution and guiding divinity might be compatible isn’t really hard at all.
For one, a gene mutation can only be selected for once it exists. Whether a mutation comes into existence or not is a random process. God could influence the mutations that come into existence.
Secondly, the course of evolution is determined by the environment. Put life in a cold environment, and it will evolve to have adaptations for the cold. God could manipulate the environment to select for the adaptations He wants. There are a lot of papers arguing that the evolution of intelligent, tool-using life requires a very specific environment, which God could have helped arrange.
Thirdly, in addition to choosing the environment, God could influence what happens in the environment, for instance by causing catastrophes that lead to population bottlenecks, helping select specific traits by influencing who survives.
This is consistent with the Toba catastrophe theory that suggests that a bottleneck of the human population occurred c. 70,000 years ago, proposing that the human population was reduced to perhaps 15,000 individuals[4] when the Toba supervolcano in Indonesia erupted and triggered a major environmental change.
Fourthly, there’s genetic drift, again essentially a random process.
Vigorous debates occurred over the relative importance of natural selection versus neutral processes, including genetic drift. Ronald Fisher held the view that genetic drift plays at the most a minor role in evolution, and this remained the dominant view for several decades. In 1968 Motoo Kimura rekindled the debate with his neutral theory of molecular evolution, which claims that most instances where a genetic change spreads across a population (although not necessarily changes in phenotypes) are caused by genetic drift.
...and these were just ones I could come up with off the top of my head.
Sorry, but that sounds like motivated stopping to me. Coming up with ways by which blind evolution and guiding divinity might be compatible isn’t really hard at all.
What is hard is to make compatible evolution and all-loving divinity. To watch how ones creations torment and devour each other for hundreds of millions of years is not exactly my idea of love.
Coming up with ways by which blind evolution and guiding divinity might be compatible isn’t really hard at all.
Ok. That doesn’t matter though- my point is it’s no good to try and make God vanish in a poof of logic. What seems far more effective is getting people to the point where they can say “I have no need of that hypothesis.” Apologists have spent a long time making the logical basis of the church difficult to attack- which can be subverted by pointing out an alternative to the church.
What seems far more effective is getting people to the point where they can say “I have no need of that hypothesis.”
I agree with that, but I would note that this is a highly intellectual route which won’t work on people whose reasons are non-intellectual. I was a theist once: less so because of any intellectual issues, but because of the emotional comfort and feeling of safety that it provided. I’ve also talked to religious people who acknowledge that on an intellectual level, there’s no reason to believe, but on an emotional level there is.
I often get the feeling that LW focuses exceedingly on the intellectual reasons, while not always realizing that the emotional reasons can by themselves be enough for someone to believe. (On the other hand, purely emotional belief tends to be compartmentalized and harmless, so focusing solely on the intellectual belief is probably a good thing. But it does risk creating an incorrect model of the psychology of the believers.)
Right. I’ve said elsewhere that most people choose religions based on who their fellow worshipers will be, and that needs to come up in any conversation about conversion.
I understand what you are saying here, but I think it’s phrased a bit inaptly. The only choice that most people make about religion is the choice to continue practicing the religion they were raised with. Limiting the discussion to converts, you are, of course, correct.
Evolution is no threat to religion. Natural selection, explaining and predicting evolution is a threat to religion.
Indeed, one can usefully define any belief system as quasi religious if it finds natural selection threatening. If that belief system piously proclaims its admiration for Darwin while evasively burying his ideas, attributing to him common descent, rather than the explanation of common descent, then that belief system is religious, or serves the same functions and has the same problems as religion.
The trouble is that natural selection implies not the lovely harmonious nature of the environmentalists and Gaea worshipers, but a ruthless and bloody nature, red in tooth and claw, that is apt to be markedly improved by a bit of clear cutting, a few extinctions, and a couple of genocides, and of course converting the swamps into sharply differentiated dry land with few trees, and lakes with decent fishing, by massive bulldozing. And a few more genocides. Recall Darwin’s cheerful comments about extinction and genocide. It is all progress. Well, if not all progress, on average it will be progress.
Evolution, paleontology and geology and biology in general are definitely threat to religion in both forms most popular today—strict Bible/Koran conservative literalist faith and fluffy liberal one.
The first is simply proven wrong—the world was not created in six days, there was no worldwide flood, etc.
And the case for all-loving, all-forgiving god or “spiritual force” is refuted even more decisively.
What is left open is the case for the supreme bastard of the universe, the obssesive-compulsive psychopathic sadist who painstakingly designs 500,000 species of beetles and then watches how they devour each other. ;-)
Evil: God isn’t interested in technology. He cares nothing for the microchip or the silicon revolution. Look how he spends his time, forty-three species of parrots! Nipples for men!
Robert: Slugs.
Evil: Slugs! HE created slugs! They can’t hear. They can’t speak. They can’t operate machinery. Are we not in the hands of a lunatic?
Evolution, paleontology and geology and biology in general are definitely threat to religion in both forms most popular today—strict Bible/Koran conservative literalist faith and fluffy liberal one.
Firstly, looks to me that the predominant religion is environmentalism, and evolution is no threat to environmentalism, but natural selection is.
Secondly, if you insist on religion strictly defined, religions that frankly admit that they are religious, these days most of them propose theistic evolution. Only a minority of believers propose that the world was created a few thousand years ago.
What the Fish and Wildlife service attempts to enforce, looks very much like theistic evolution also. Consider, for example, the red wolf controversy and the Californian spotted owl controversy. If you believe in natural selection, they should not attempt to enforce their official government species definitions on nature, when the creatures concerned keep having sex with each other regardless of official species boundaries. The barred owl is superior to the spotted owl, which may well be the reason why female spotted owls like to have sex with barred owls. If you believe that nature should take its course, let nature take its course.
And the case for all-loving, all-forgiving god or “spiritual force” is refuted even more decisively.
Natural selection refutes the case for a nice god. However, the Fish and Wildlife service is attempting to enforce a concept of nature and evolution that owes more to Disney films such as “Bambi”, which version of evolution is entirely compatible with a nice guy god.
that is apt to be markedly improved by a bit of clear cutting, a few extinctions, and a couple of genocides, and of course converting the swamps into sharply differentiated dry land with few trees, and lakes with decent fishing, by massive bulldozing
My understanding is that wetlands are massively useful from an ecological point of view, particularly when it comes to absorbing large amounts of water (like you get during floods or other extreme weather events).
The idea that destroying the environment will make the remaining species “better” by making sure that only the “fittest” survive betrays a near-total misunderstanding of evolution. Evolution is just the name we give to the fact that organisms (or, more precisely, genes) which survive and reproduce effectively in a given set of conditions become more frequent over time. If you clear-cut the forest, you’re not eliminating “weak” species and making room for the “strong” — you’re getting rid of species that were well-adapted to the forest and increasing the numbers of whatever organisms can survive in the resulting waste.
And if you massacre coyotes and deport grey wolves so that the alleged red wolf “species” will not have sex with other canids, what are you doing?
If you slaughter barred owls so that they will not compete with or have sex with spotted owls what are you doing?
We are preserving dead wood so that spotted owls will have suitable nests, but due to fire prevention, there is a lot more dead wood in forests than would ever happen naturally, a lot more dead wood than there ever has been in the history of the earth. The spotted owl really is an inferior species to the barred owl—and female spotted owls don’t seem to think it is a species at all.
I think Dallas is going in the right direction here. It’s not enough to convince someone that God is impossible- you need to give them a replacement. (And convincing someone that the Church is a harmful force- when they don’t get the impression their local church is- is difficult and probably not worthwhile.) For example, as mentioned elsewhere the primary argument of Mere Christianity is probably “Christianity is an optimized meme for getting humans to believe it- that’s evidence for humanity being built around the meme.” The counterargument is that the meme is built around humanity- but to do that you need naturalistic explanations for all the pieces that Christianity relies on, like the feeling of universal (i.e. built-in) morality.
If you are going to recommend Dawkins, I suggest The Selfish Gene, as it’s the best explanation of evolution that I’ve come across (and once they believe in evolution, they’re on the path to realizing God is unnecessary).
This may be true in places like the US where creationism is strong, but not everywhere. For instance, for decades Christians in the UK have almost all accepted evolution, and most varieties of Christianity (even quite conservative ones) have no problem with it. That doesn’t mean that there isn’t any tension between evolution and those varieties of Christianity, but because Everyone Knows that the two are compatible, reading a good explanation of evolution won’t necessarily make a Christian rethink his or her religious beliefs.
(I was a Christian for years and years, and so far as I can recall I never found creationism at all tempting. And when I finally got out of religion, evolution had very little to do with it.)
Seconded. Heck, even the Catholic Church says there is no conflict.
I think that if you understand how evolution works on a really intuitive level — how blind it is — it’s very difficult to believe both in human evolution and a guiding divinity. “Genes which promote their own replication become more common over time” is not a principle which admits of purpose. Vaguer understandings of evolution’s actual mechanism probably contribute to the apparent reasonableness of “theistic evolution”.
Sorry, but that sounds like motivated stopping to me. Coming up with ways by which blind evolution and guiding divinity might be compatible isn’t really hard at all.
For one, a gene mutation can only be selected for once it exists. Whether a mutation comes into existence or not is a random process. God could influence the mutations that come into existence.
Secondly, the course of evolution is determined by the environment. Put life in a cold environment, and it will evolve to have adaptations for the cold. God could manipulate the environment to select for the adaptations He wants. There are a lot of papers arguing that the evolution of intelligent, tool-using life requires a very specific environment, which God could have helped arrange.
Thirdly, in addition to choosing the environment, God could influence what happens in the environment, for instance by causing catastrophes that lead to population bottlenecks, helping select specific traits by influencing who survives.
Fourthly, there’s genetic drift, again essentially a random process.
...and these were just ones I could come up with off the top of my head.
What is hard is to make compatible evolution and all-loving divinity. To watch how ones creations torment and devour each other for hundreds of millions of years is not exactly my idea of love.
Ok. That doesn’t matter though- my point is it’s no good to try and make God vanish in a poof of logic. What seems far more effective is getting people to the point where they can say “I have no need of that hypothesis.” Apologists have spent a long time making the logical basis of the church difficult to attack- which can be subverted by pointing out an alternative to the church.
I agree with that, but I would note that this is a highly intellectual route which won’t work on people whose reasons are non-intellectual. I was a theist once: less so because of any intellectual issues, but because of the emotional comfort and feeling of safety that it provided. I’ve also talked to religious people who acknowledge that on an intellectual level, there’s no reason to believe, but on an emotional level there is.
I often get the feeling that LW focuses exceedingly on the intellectual reasons, while not always realizing that the emotional reasons can by themselves be enough for someone to believe. (On the other hand, purely emotional belief tends to be compartmentalized and harmless, so focusing solely on the intellectual belief is probably a good thing. But it does risk creating an incorrect model of the psychology of the believers.)
Right. I’ve said elsewhere that most people choose religions based on who their fellow worshipers will be, and that needs to come up in any conversation about conversion.
I understand what you are saying here, but I think it’s phrased a bit inaptly. The only choice that most people make about religion is the choice to continue practicing the religion they were raised with. Limiting the discussion to converts, you are, of course, correct.
Evolution is no threat to religion. Natural selection, explaining and predicting evolution is a threat to religion.
Indeed, one can usefully define any belief system as quasi religious if it finds natural selection threatening. If that belief system piously proclaims its admiration for Darwin while evasively burying his ideas, attributing to him common descent, rather than the explanation of common descent, then that belief system is religious, or serves the same functions and has the same problems as religion.
The trouble is that natural selection implies not the lovely harmonious nature of the environmentalists and Gaea worshipers, but a ruthless and bloody nature, red in tooth and claw, that is apt to be markedly improved by a bit of clear cutting, a few extinctions, and a couple of genocides, and of course converting the swamps into sharply differentiated dry land with few trees, and lakes with decent fishing, by massive bulldozing. And a few more genocides. Recall Darwin’s cheerful comments about extinction and genocide. It is all progress. Well, if not all progress, on average it will be progress.
Evolution, paleontology and geology and biology in general are definitely threat to religion in both forms most popular today—strict Bible/Koran conservative literalist faith and fluffy liberal one.
The first is simply proven wrong—the world was not created in six days, there was no worldwide flood, etc.
And the case for all-loving, all-forgiving god or “spiritual force” is refuted even more decisively.
What is left open is the case for the supreme bastard of the universe, the obssesive-compulsive psychopathic sadist who painstakingly designs 500,000 species of beetles and then watches how they devour each other. ;-)
I think Evil had the right idea.
Firstly, looks to me that the predominant religion is environmentalism, and evolution is no threat to environmentalism, but natural selection is.
Secondly, if you insist on religion strictly defined, religions that frankly admit that they are religious, these days most of them propose theistic evolution. Only a minority of believers propose that the world was created a few thousand years ago.
What the Fish and Wildlife service attempts to enforce, looks very much like theistic evolution also. Consider, for example, the red wolf controversy and the Californian spotted owl controversy. If you believe in natural selection, they should not attempt to enforce their official government species definitions on nature, when the creatures concerned keep having sex with each other regardless of official species boundaries. The barred owl is superior to the spotted owl, which may well be the reason why female spotted owls like to have sex with barred owls. If you believe that nature should take its course, let nature take its course.
Natural selection refutes the case for a nice god. However, the Fish and Wildlife service is attempting to enforce a concept of nature and evolution that owes more to Disney films such as “Bambi”, which version of evolution is entirely compatible with a nice guy god.
My understanding is that wetlands are massively useful from an ecological point of view, particularly when it comes to absorbing large amounts of water (like you get during floods or other extreme weather events).
The idea that destroying the environment will make the remaining species “better” by making sure that only the “fittest” survive betrays a near-total misunderstanding of evolution. Evolution is just the name we give to the fact that organisms (or, more precisely, genes) which survive and reproduce effectively in a given set of conditions become more frequent over time. If you clear-cut the forest, you’re not eliminating “weak” species and making room for the “strong” — you’re getting rid of species that were well-adapted to the forest and increasing the numbers of whatever organisms can survive in the resulting waste.
Even if ignore all problems ofderiving ought from is, there is problem which parts of nature we are supposed to follow.
If Darwin says “kill them all, the strongest will survive”, then Kelvin would say “kill yourself, why bother waiting to heat death of the universe?”
And if you massacre coyotes and deport grey wolves so that the alleged red wolf “species” will not have sex with other canids, what are you doing?
If you slaughter barred owls so that they will not compete with or have sex with spotted owls what are you doing?
We are preserving dead wood so that spotted owls will have suitable nests, but due to fire prevention, there is a lot more dead wood in forests than would ever happen naturally, a lot more dead wood than there ever has been in the history of the earth. The spotted owl really is an inferior species to the barred owl—and female spotted owls don’t seem to think it is a species at all.