The Twilight of Atheism? Professor Alister McGrath Oxford University

The Twilight of Atheism? The Twilight of Atheism?

Professor Alister McGrathProfessor Alister McGrath

Oxford UniversityOxford University

The Origins of Modern AtheismThe Origins of Modern Atheism

- Desire for autonomy

- Oppression by church

- Longing to break with the past

William Wordsworth (1804) on the French Revolution:

Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive

But to be young was very heaven!

The Golden Age of AtheismThe Golden Age of Atheism

A period of exactly two hundred years

1789: the fall of the Bastille, and the beginning of the French Revolution

1989: the fall of the Berlin Wall, and the collapse of atheist regimes in eastern Europe

The French Revolution: 1789The French Revolution: 1789

The Dawn of the Golden AgeThe Dawn of the Golden Age

Hostility towards the French Catholic church

Church seen as oppressive

Christianity seen as holding people back from their true destiny

Voltaire (1694-1778)

VoltaireVoltaire

VoltaireVoltaire

Is it any wonder that there are atheists in the world, when the church behaves so abominably?

But revolution doesn’t need to be But revolution doesn’t need to be atheist!atheist!

Think of the American Revolution of 1776!

Hostility on the part of Americans to the established Church of England did not translate into hostility towards Christianity itself

Dostoyevsky (1821-81)Dostoyevsky (1821-81)

DostoyevskyDostoyevsky

If God exists, then everything is His will, and I can do nothing of my own apart from His will. If there’s no God, then everything is my will, and I’m bound to express my self-will.

The Berlin WallThe Berlin Wall

1989: The End1989: The End

The Origins of Modern AtheismThe Origins of Modern Atheism

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72)

Karl Marx (1818-83)

Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)

Richard Dawkins (born 1941)

Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72)Ludwig Feuerbach (1804-72)

The Essence of Christianity The Essence of Christianity (1841)(1841)

Basic idea is that belief in God is a “projection” of human longings

There is no God – so we invent one

Later developed by Freud into the idea of God as a “wish-fulfilment”

Problems with FeuerbachProblems with Feuerbach

• Things don’t exist because we want them to - but it is nonsense to say that, because we want something to exist, it cannot exist for that reason!

• The argument works against both theist and atheist

• Christian doctrine of creation has much to say here!

Atheism todayAtheism today

A new form of atheism has emerged in the last few years, partly in response to 9/11

Leading figures are Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris

As Dawkins’ book The God Delusion has now been published in Dutch, we will explore some of its basic arguments

Richard DawkinsRichard Dawkins

Richard Dawkins (born 1941)Richard Dawkins (born 1941)

The Selfish Gene (1976)The Extended Phenotype (1981)The Blind Watchmaker (1986)River out of Eden (1995)Climbing Mount Improbable (1996)Unweaving the Rainbow (1998)A Devil’s Chaplain (2003)The Ancestor’s Tale (2004)The God Delusion (2006)

The God DelusionThe God Delusion

“If this book works as I intend, religious readers who open it will be atheists when they put it down.”

The God DelusionThe God Delusion

Four major points

1. Belief in God is irrational

2. Science shows us there is no God

3. Faith in God can be explained away on scientific grounds

4. Faith in God leads to violence

1. Belief in God is irrational1. Belief in God is irrational

Faith in God is infantile

Faith is irrationalFaith is irrational

Belief in God is “a persistently false belief held in the face of strong contradictory evidence.”

Faith and ProofFaith and Proof

Can God’s existence be proved?

Or disproved?

Arguments about God’s existence have been stalemated for generations

Atheism and theism are both faiths; neither can prove their case with total certainty.

If the natural sciences necessitate neither atheism nor religious faith, we seem to have two broad options about belief in God:

1. The question lies beyond resolution;

2. The question has to be resolved on other grounds

Inference to best explanationInference to best explanation

Gilbert Harman, "The Inference to the Best Explanation." Philosophical Review 74 (1965): 88-95.

More recent explorations include:

Peter Lipton, Inference to the best explanation. London: Routledge, 2004.

““Inference to the best explanation”Inference to the best explanation”

Idea developed by Gilbert Harman

There are many potential explanations of the world

So which offers the best fit?

The simplest? The most elegant?

Not a knock-down argument – but an important attempt to evaluate how we make sense of complex situations

The idea of "empirical fit"The idea of "empirical fit"

What worldview makes most sense of what we observe in the world?

What "big picture" offers the best account of what we experience?

“Inference to the best explanation" is about working out which explanation is the most satisfying


Richard Dawkins:

"The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind pitiless indifference."

River out of Eden, 133.


C. S. Lewis:

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen – not only because I see it, but because by it, I see everything else."

C.S. Lewis, "Is theology poetry?", in Essay Collection and Other Short Pieces. London: HarperCollins, 2000, 10-21; 21.

God as a “virus of the mind”?God as a “virus of the mind”?

Problem 1:

Real viruses can be seen – for example, using cryo-electron microscopy. Dawkins’ cultural or religious viruses are simply hypotheses. There is no observational evidence for their existence.

Tobacco Mosaic VirusTobacco Mosaic Virus

God as a virus?God as a virus?

Problem 2:

On the basis of Dawkins’ criteria, isn’t atheism also a virus of the mind? He has no objective, scientific method for distinguishing between his own faith (atheism) and that of others (such as Christianity).

Are Are allall beliefs beliefs “viruses of the mind”?“viruses of the mind”?

Dawkins holds that belief in God is a “virus of the mind”.

But there are many other beliefs that cannot be proven – including atheism

Dawkins ends up making the totally subjective, unscientific, argument that his own beliefs are not “viruses”, but those he dislikes are.

2. Science shows us there is no 2. Science shows us there is no GodGod

If so, why are so many scientists Christians?

Francis Collins, The Language of God

Owen Gingerich, God’s Universe

Dawkins: real scientists don’t believe in God!

The limits of scienceThe limits of science

Dawkins argues that science proves things with certainty

Anything worth knowing can be proved by science

Everything else – especially belief in God! – is just delusion, wishful thinking, or madness

Science and Knowledge:Science and Knowledge:One ViewpointOne Viewpoint

"Whatever knowledge is attainable, must be attained by scientific methods; and what science cannot discover, mankind cannot know."

Bertrand Russell

Science and Knowledge:Science and Knowledge:Another ViewpointAnother Viewpoint

"The existence of a limit to science is, however, made clear by its inability to answer childlike elementary questions having to do with first and last things – questions such as "How did everything begin?"; "What are we all here for?"; "What is the point of living?"

Peter Medawar, winner of the 1960 Nobel prize for medicine.

A qA q uestion . . . uestion . . .

If the sciences are inferential in their methodology, how can Dawkins present atheism as the certain outcome of the scientific project?

Richard Feynman: scientific knowledge is a body of statements of varying degree of certainty – some most unsure, some nearly sure, but none absolutely certain.

3. Explaining the origins of religion3. Explaining the origins of religion

Are we predisposed to believe in God?

Dawkins suggests that there is some psychological need to believe in God

Basic argument:

There is no God

But lots of people believe in God

Therefore they invent God to meet their needs

The “meme”The “meme”

Dawkins invented the “meme” in 1976

Nobody else takes it with great seriousness

But it’s crucial to his argument in The God Delusion

So what is a meme . . . .?

Four fundamental problems Four fundamental problems about memes . . .about memes . . .

1. There is no reason to suppose that cultural evolution is Darwinian, or indeed that evolutionary biology has any particular value in accounting for the development of ideas.


2. There is no direct evidence for the existence of “memes” themselves.


3. The case for the existence of the “meme” rests on an analogy with the gene, which proves incapable of bearing the theoretical weight that is placed upon it.


4. Quite unlike the case of the gene, there is no necessary reason to propose the existence of a “meme” as an explanatory construct. The observational data can be accounted for perfectly well by other models and mechanisms.

Simon Conway-Morris on Simon Conway-Morris on MemesMemes

Memes are trivial, to be banished by simple mental exercises. In any wider context, they are hopelessly, if not hilariously, simplistic. To conjure up memes not only reveals a strange imprecision of thought, but, as Anthony O’Hear has remarked, if memes really existed they would ultimately deny the reality of reflective thought.

4. Belief in God causes violence4. Belief in God causes violence

Dawkins rightly points out that religion has caused lots of problems – such as intolerance and violence

But so did atheism in the twentieth century – witness its attempts to forcibly eliminate religion

The real truth is that beliefs (religious or atheist) can make people do some very good and very bad things.

Religion and ViolenceReligion and Violence

Religion provides a transcendent motivation for violence

But what about transcendentalization of human values?

Example of Madame Roland (executed 1792”

“Liberty, what crimes are committed in your name!”

What about Jesus?What about Jesus?

“Jesus was a devotee of the same in-group morality – coupled with out-group hostility – that was taken for granted in the Old Testament. Jesus was a loyal Jew. It was Paul who invented the idea of taking the Jewish God to the Gentiles. Hartung puts it more bluntly than I dare: ‘Jesus would have turned over in his grave if he had known that Paul would be taking his plan to the pigs.’”

Religion is a bad thingReligion is a bad thing

Now "science has no methods for deciding what is ethical." - A Devil’s Chaplain, 34.

So how do we determine that religion is "bad" empirically?

W. R. Miller and C. E. Thoreson. "Spirituality, Religion and Health: An Emerging Research Field." American Psychologist 58 (2003): 24-35.

A key review of the field:A key review of the field:

Harold G. Koenig and Harvey J. Cohen. The Link between Religion and Health : Psychoneuroimmunology and the Faith Factor. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001

Of 100 evidence-based studies:

79 reported at least one positive correlation between religious involvement and wellbeing;

13 found no meaningful association between religion and wellbeing;

7 found mixed or complex associations between religion and wellbeing;

1 found a negative association between religion and wellbeing.

Alister E. McGrath, "Spirituality and well-being: some recent discussions." Brain: A Journal of Neurology 129 (2006): 278-82.

ConclusionConclusion

Who is this book written for?

How should Christians respond?

What does this tell us about the present state of atheism?

Documents

The Twilight of Atheism? Professor Alister McGrath Oxford University