George H Smith, "Atheism: The Case Against God"

[ciphergoth]

I've read all four of the recent books by the "four horsemen", and for the most part none have made me feel "yes, this is the book I want to press into the hands of believers". I would like there to be at least one book that I might be able to recommend, and having heard good things about this 1974 book, I ordered it from Amazon on a whim.

It certainly comes a *lot* closer than any of those four. It has a very dry style; there are no witty personal stories, few anecdotes, and only a smattering of historical background. But all four of the horsemen books seem somewhat scattershot in their approach, except perhaps Dennett, whose book seems like not so much an attack on religion as a hastily-repurposed discussion of religion originally intended for an atheist audience. This book is much more bulldozer than scattershot, and methodically dismantles the "sophisticated" defences of religion I actually hear from believers.

Its bulldozer-like nature may be seen in its chapter structure; first, clarify what atheism is and establish that the burden of proof lies with the theist; then tear down obfuscation as a means to confound rational discussion of the issue; demolish the idea that faith and revelation can supplement reason as guides to the truth (discussing and destroying a variety of attempts to defend the idea of faith). Only then are the traditional arguments for the existence of God, such as the cosmological argument, painstakingly taken apart; and only after that are the negative moral consequences of religion discussed.

There are a few problems. Smith is (or at least was) an Objectivist, and this leads to some sad errors; his defence of the idea of moral facts in Chapter 11 Section 2, for example, is just embarrassing. And it seems a shame to discuss the argument from design without even mentioning evolution; I can see that as a philosopher you want to show that the argument is *inherently* flawed, and of course it is, but it's evolution that robs it of its emotional impact. I still find myself thinking that I may have to write my ultimate book on the subject, but I have quite a few other books I'd have to read first to know if there was a gap in the market, and I can't afford quite that many whims :-)

No argument, no matter how good, can turn the head of someone who is prepared to say in terms that they intend to cling to an idea no matter how much they have to embrace irrationality in order to do so, as many sophisticated believers openly say. But still, when I read the four horsemen books, I felt I knew how believers were going to evade the conclusions they were pushing for, and I would love to know how a serious, philosophically knowledgable believer would go about avoiding the conclusions of this book.



Update: as usual, anonymous comments should be signed to be unscreened.

Comments

[zwol.livejournal.com]

This is a bit late, but there are two things that don't seem to be addressed by the argument in the book (as you summarize it) and haven't come up in the comments as far as I can see.

First, I'm uncomfortable with requiring logical consistency in definitions on this topic, because I'm personally familiar with two independent lines of theological reasoning (Taoism and Jewish kabbalism) that claim that as finite beings, any definition we can put forward for "god" is necessarily incomplete and inconsistent. How much does the book's argument depend on the notion that we need to be able to define this term in a logically consistent manner, and why does he take this position in the first place?

Second, and this might not be addressed in the book at all, but I would like to raise the issue of direct subjective experience of the supernatural (not necessarily of "god"). A lot of modern philosophical debate of atheism .vs. theism (from both sides, AFAICT) takes it as an axiom that this just doesn't happen, but I think if you asked a random sample of "ordinary" believers you would get a substantial number of them saying yes, I have personally experienced something for which my only available explanation is supernatural. [This is not to say that there might not be a wholly natural explanation available to e.g. someone with more knowledge of the workings of the brain; only that a supernatural explanation is the only one the questionee's got.]

I raise this because it seems to me that as long as argument from the atheistic side dismisses all such experience in terms like "well, of course there is a natural explanation, you're just not edumacated enough to know it, and we're not going to consider it any further" they're not going to get anywhere. In fact, I would imagine that that would be a hurl-book-with-great-force moment for anyone who's had such an experience.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

You should clearly read this book - it is exactly the book I'd recommend for both these questions, this is just the sort of thing it discusses at length.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I'll try to find it, but that is very much not what I understood you to be saying. In particular, you said (not in the main text, I guess):

He demonstrates very well that no coherent meaning can be applied to the word "god"...and that this is enough to rule it out with no further consideration.

I understand that to mean Smith takes as axiomatic that there can be no useful discussion of any concept of divinity unless it has a fully consistent meaning. But Taoism (for instance) takes as axiomatic that there is no such thing. These are irreconcilable axioms, so either that's an inaccurate representation of his argument or his argument cannot be applied to that type of theological tradition.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

He doesn't take it as axiomatic; he explicitly tackles what you're discussing. I'm amazed at the delight believers show in repeating things that by their own free admission they don't understand, but I'm afraid I'm not going to get into it here as I have enough debates going on and I feel the book answers it well enough.

[djm4]

I'm amazed at the delight believers show in repeating things that by their own free admission they don't understand...

This is probably going to sound snarky, but I don't mean it that way - I'm trying to puzzle out a distinction that I know exists in your head but which I don't fully understand. You say, above, of the principle of induction:

"I don't base my use of it on anything, I just use it, which is why I call it an axiom"

If I've elided key context there, I'm sorry - although I think it's worth noting that the context I take for the remark is as a direct comparison to my assertion that I use the principle of induction because of my experience that it works.

You also say 'the principle of induction is in principle unjustifiable', and claim this as a reasonably uncontroversial philosophical statement. (It's worth noting for context here that as far as I can tell you're using 'justifiable' in the (to me) fairly strong sense of 'provable', and that by that definition of 'justifiable', I agree.)

Unless I'm much mistaken, the principle of induction underpins pretty much everything that you, or I, would term reasoning. So you are using, for all your reasoning, a tool that you don't have any evidence-based reason for using but 'just use', and believe that there's no justification for.

I'm honestly not criticising yor for doing this. My own view of the principle of induction is, I think, fairly close to this (I'll reply on the other thread, but don't have time now), and my views on free will and consciousness also rather similar (if anything, they're odder, because I act and reason 'as if' free will were real, without believing that it is).

However, I would have thought that the views were at least similar enough in nature to someone 'repeating things that by their own free admission they don't understand' that you wouldn't find it that amazing.

Edit - just to reiterate what I said at the start, I'm fairly certain that you don't see the two positions as at all similar, and I wonder if you've got any way of explaining to me why. I realise that it may be as simple as you saying: 'no, I can't see why you think they're at all alike, so I don't know where to start', and if that's the answer, that's fine.

[ciphergoth.livejournal.com]

I can't justify the principle of induction, but I do think I understand it.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Feel free not to respond, but I feel like taking a whack at the implicit question.

There are lots of things that I (wearing my randomly-selected-individual hat) don't understand in full detail, may even understand in a self-inconsistent manner, yet am quite comfortable discussing at length, even teaching. Just about every neuroscience discussion section I've ever led, for instance, involved at least a few "this is what we think is going on here but we could be totally wrong" caveats.

The Taoist stance is that the nature of the Tao is just another of those things. It is a necessary rather than a contingent truth that we don't fully understand it, but that doesn't stop us trying to understand it as best we can, and talking about it in order to do so.

[babysimon]

In fact, I would imagine that that would be a hurl-book-with-great-force moment for anyone who's had such an experience.

I have had such an experience, and I'm an atheist...

[zwol.livejournal.com]

What philosophical stance do you take toward that experience?

[babysimon]

That the brain plays tricks on you.

[djm4]

In my case, I find it hard to conceive of a 'supernatural' experience that I would explain as anything other than my having gone a bit (or a lot) mad. I make no such claims for other people, though.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

Certainly that's a valid stance. I think I may have left a bit out of the "hurl book with great force" assertion -- that was meant to characterise the response of readers with priors inclined to belief, ones who aren't comfortable writing such experiences off as down to wonky brain chemistry or whatever. It matters because if you're writing to persuade, you need to avoid that kind of reaction especially from people with priors that don't match your own.