Fluffy
A fool
I wish to plagiarize a quotation and alter it a bit to explain where I think atheistic arguments fall short. I don't mean to characterise the beliefs of atheists and if any atheist wishes to advance an argument rebutting this quotation then I would be happy to see it. This quotation is merely my reflection, as an atheist, on the extent of my atheistic knowledge thus far.
"Whilst atheistic arguments are largely successful in showing that we rarely or never have religious beliefs that are justified, they do not succeed in showing that our religious beliefs are altogether without value."
Although I am a little bit apprehensive about bringing up his name since debates in which he is mentioned always turn into mudslinging, I do think that the following article gets to the heart of what I mean. In it, Dawkins talks about a scientist, Zahavi, who advanced a evolutionary hypothesis which he found highly counter-intuitive and rebutted. He then says he later changed his mind when another scientist, Grafen, came along and grounded the theory properly. He concludes with this:
Does this fail to give sufficient credit to the place that a widly paradoxical and implausible idea had in advancing this discovery? Would Grafen have worked on the hypothesis if it had not already been advanced? Clearly not. So we can see from this one incidence that at least occasionally, widly paradoxical and implausible ideas have utility.
What about the rest of the time? Surely most of the time it is better to go with the more cautious approach? Maybe not. When Descartes began his project, he claimed to doubt every belief he previously thought to be true. Yet clearly there is at least one belief he held on to. That his project was worthwhile to do. And yet if he doubted every other belief, there is no reason to assume such a thing. In such a "belief vacuum", that belief can be seen as just as implausible as Zahavi's hypothesis. And yet it is absolutely necessary to motivate Descartes to achieve the object of his quest: knowledge. Yes thats right: Faith is necessary for knowledge and this is, by and large, ignored by atheism.
At one end of the epistemological spectrum are the fideists who claim that faith is the only thing that can justify knowledge. Any other sort of justification taints our belief with doubt. There are many, many people who believe this today about religion. At the other end are the sceptics who claim that faith is not a justifier and any belief held on faith alone is irrational. Rather than being at odds, I propose that despite all appearences, these two groups are both right. Faith is not a justifier and yet it is necessary for knowledge. This is not original and has been said many, many times before. However, I have not seen it said on RF before.
There are many other arguments I could cite in support of this school of thought but I will limit myself to two for now. The first is Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism and the second is the Doctrine of Universal Darwinism. I'll state a version fo each of them briefly and then explain how they apply:
Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
1) Natural selection selects for advantageous traits, not true beliefs.
2) False beliefs can be just as advantageous as true beliefs
3) In asserting evolution, we accept that not only is there a possibility that our beliefs are false but that the process by which we acquire beliefs does not allow us to only select the one's that are true. We are likely to be forced to accept some false beliefs.
4) Therefore, in asserting evolution, we have an unknown probability of being right.
The Doctrine of Universal Darwinism
If there is
1) Selection
2) Variation
3) Heredity
Then there MUST be evolution. Memetics is the evolution of information that is replicated by the human brain.
Please don't be distracted by analysing whether these arguments are sound. The first one is definitely flawed but their conclusions are not the point of them in this thread. Both arguments reveal and utilise the same idea about how we acquire belief: That we do not hold beliefs because they are true but for some other reason. In each case, we hold beliefs because they are survivable. We have no choice in the matter. Even if it were the case that a belief is more likely to survive if it were true, we still do not hold beliefs because they are true.
"Whilst atheistic arguments are largely successful in showing that we rarely or never have religious beliefs that are justified, they do not succeed in showing that our religious beliefs are altogether without value."
Although I am a little bit apprehensive about bringing up his name since debates in which he is mentioned always turn into mudslinging, I do think that the following article gets to the heart of what I mean. In it, Dawkins talks about a scientist, Zahavi, who advanced a evolutionary hypothesis which he found highly counter-intuitive and rebutted. He then says he later changed his mind when another scientist, Grafen, came along and grounded the theory properly. He concludes with this:
Dawkins said:
Does this fail to give sufficient credit to the place that a widly paradoxical and implausible idea had in advancing this discovery? Would Grafen have worked on the hypothesis if it had not already been advanced? Clearly not. So we can see from this one incidence that at least occasionally, widly paradoxical and implausible ideas have utility.
What about the rest of the time? Surely most of the time it is better to go with the more cautious approach? Maybe not. When Descartes began his project, he claimed to doubt every belief he previously thought to be true. Yet clearly there is at least one belief he held on to. That his project was worthwhile to do. And yet if he doubted every other belief, there is no reason to assume such a thing. In such a "belief vacuum", that belief can be seen as just as implausible as Zahavi's hypothesis. And yet it is absolutely necessary to motivate Descartes to achieve the object of his quest: knowledge. Yes thats right: Faith is necessary for knowledge and this is, by and large, ignored by atheism.
At one end of the epistemological spectrum are the fideists who claim that faith is the only thing that can justify knowledge. Any other sort of justification taints our belief with doubt. There are many, many people who believe this today about religion. At the other end are the sceptics who claim that faith is not a justifier and any belief held on faith alone is irrational. Rather than being at odds, I propose that despite all appearences, these two groups are both right. Faith is not a justifier and yet it is necessary for knowledge. This is not original and has been said many, many times before. However, I have not seen it said on RF before.
There are many other arguments I could cite in support of this school of thought but I will limit myself to two for now. The first is Plantinga's Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism and the second is the Doctrine of Universal Darwinism. I'll state a version fo each of them briefly and then explain how they apply:
Evolutionary Argument Against Naturalism
1) Natural selection selects for advantageous traits, not true beliefs.
2) False beliefs can be just as advantageous as true beliefs
3) In asserting evolution, we accept that not only is there a possibility that our beliefs are false but that the process by which we acquire beliefs does not allow us to only select the one's that are true. We are likely to be forced to accept some false beliefs.
4) Therefore, in asserting evolution, we have an unknown probability of being right.
The Doctrine of Universal Darwinism
If there is
1) Selection
2) Variation
3) Heredity
Then there MUST be evolution. Memetics is the evolution of information that is replicated by the human brain.
Please don't be distracted by analysing whether these arguments are sound. The first one is definitely flawed but their conclusions are not the point of them in this thread. Both arguments reveal and utilise the same idea about how we acquire belief: That we do not hold beliefs because they are true but for some other reason. In each case, we hold beliefs because they are survivable. We have no choice in the matter. Even if it were the case that a belief is more likely to survive if it were true, we still do not hold beliefs because they are true.
