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God’s problem with Professor Bart Ehrman

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When Professor Bart Ehrman speaks at the Fox Theater this week, I will have a question for him. My question comes from an interview I heard on the radio program Fresh Air several years ago. I distinctly remember I was driving just outside of Ephrata in central Washington when Ehrman discussed his latest book “God’s Problem.”  I remember because I hold a high esteem of his scholarship, and I was aghast at what I heard.

Ehrman was 16 when he had a born-again experience. He acted on his new Christian faith in a zealous manner that would characterize much of his venerable career. He became a member of Youth for Christ, trained for the ministry at the Moody Bible Institute, and went on to earn his doctorate in religious studies at Princeton Theological Seminary.  At one point, he was able to recite entire books of the Bible from memory, and viewed himself as a Christian fundamentalist. He now holds the James A. Gray Distinguished professor of Religious Studies position at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As an agnostic, however, his views have changed. He no longer sees himself as a Christian, and he describes this transformation in “God’s Problem.”

As Ehrman talked with Terry Gross on Fresh Air, he portrayed his struggle to reconcile an all-powerful and loving God with the suffering in the world. “If there’s a good God who can stop people from suffering, then why doesn’t God do it?” He further conveyed his travail in “God’s Problem”, “The problem of suffering has haunted me for a very long time. It was what made me begin to think about religion when I was young, and it was what led me to question my faith when I was older. Ultimately, it was the reason I lost my faith.”
The issue at the core of Ehrman’s quandary, commonly called theodicy, isn’t hard to see. Plain logic dictates that if God is all-powerful and all-loving, then he would certainly have to do something about evil. Attempts to reconcile these positions seem like copouts. After all, God must submit to plain logic just the same as you and me, right?

Not so fast. If God has to submit to logic, then is he really God? Is he really all-powerful? Should we instead be bowing down to logic? Without getting too technical, there are differing ideas on logic and how it operates in reality. The view assumed by Ehrman is called Realism. If you’ve ever heard a preacher or a teacher say that God must obey this law or that, then that teacher is viewing logic as a higher existence, either on par or perhaps even higher than God. The enormous achievements of math over the last few hundred years have prompted many scientists to take this view. Christians, especially more recent varieties tending towards fundamentalism, also look at reality in this manner.

But mathematicians, scientists and fundamentalist preachers aren’t necessarily authorities on philosophical logic. Another view is more popular among philosophers who study this sort of thing for a living. They see logic more as a language to express a common way of thinking, something like collective human wisdom. We don’t really know why logic works, and we don’t really know the full extension of its application. We can’t say with any certainty that any particular logic applies outside of our immediate situation in the universe, and especially not to God.

Take Douglas Adams’s “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” as an example. If you’ve read the book, you know that the ultimate answer to life, the universe and everything = 42. It’s funny because it’s so ridiculous. The answer to life and everything can’t possibly be reduced down to a mathematical formula. Yet this is exactly what Professor Ehrman does in “God’s Problem.” He’s minimized one of the basic questions of human existence. Think of all the art, all the literature, all the debates of scholars for millennia questioning good and evil, pleasure and suffering, life and death. Now Ehrman throws it all out with simple logic? You think nobody thought of that before?

My question for Ehrman is: did he consider his view of logic as a possible culprit in his decision to become an agnostic? Is the matter that God and suffering cannot possibly coexist, or is the matter a mystery beyond comprehension where human logic may not even apply? Perhaps God’s problem is really that, while Ehrman may not see himself as a Christian, he has never stopped being a fundamentalist?

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyerhttp://www.dominsions.com
Bruce Meyer writes about the relationship between the physical universe and the pursuit of spirituality.

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26 COMMENTS

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Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

Ok, so…

The reason Ehrman’s reason fails is because he’s using reason? Isn’t this a bit like saying that God is so transcendently powerful that he can even transcend his own non-existence?

You ask: “think nobody thought of that before?”
This rhetorical question sets up a kind of straw man. Ehrman’s comment (as you present it here) simply states that this is the dilemma that lead him to question his faith and ultimately lose it. He makes no claims that he was the first person to think of it (he’s not stupid after all). Theodicy is a branch of theology that attempts to answer Epicurus’s observation that:
1. If an all-powerful and perfectly good god exists, then evil does not.
2. There is evil in the world.
3. Therefore, an all-powerful and perfectly good god does not exist
Personally I figured this out at age 15, and I’m not a famous Greek philosopher. Is it so hard to assume that Ehrman independently came up with this observation on his own?

Here are a couple of other observations: First Theodicy IS a branch of theology. Think about that. This one question deserved a whole branch of a millennia-old intellectual tradition, and TO THIS DAY, no consensus has been reach as to the answer to this problem. What does that tell you?

I think that at the end of the day, all theists can come up with are arguments for God’s existence. Not evidence, only arguments. These arguments don’t change much. What I am certain of is that I DON’T KNOW if God exists, and YOU DON’T EITHER. Let’s just agree on that and move on, shall we?

Personally, I find the question of God’s existence to be un-interesting. What I do find interesting are the motivations underlying belief.

What are your motivations for believing in God?

Martin Elfert
Martin Elfert
10 years ago

Fabulous article, thank you Bruce! Major points for working Douglas Adams in.

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer
10 years ago

Paul- Thanks for taking the time to read the post and especially for your comment! I certainly agree with you. Neither of us knows if God exists or not. And I understand where agnostics are coming from. If God exists, he has made himself very hard to find. My criticism wasn’t that Professor Ehrman was an agnostic, but that he used the argument of suffering as his reason.

To answer your question, I don’t know if I believe in God or not. I would like to believe. I’d rather live in a world with God than without one. That doesn’t mean there is a God. As the saying goes, hope springs eternal.

Here are some questions that keep me awake at night:

1) Why do I exist? Why does anything exist?
2) Why do people have such a need for religion (Sartre’s God-shaped vacuum)? Why do I want for God to exist?
3) What would perfect humility look like?

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer
10 years ago

Thanks Martin! I appreciate the kudos. I guess twisted minds work alike.

Lace Williams-Tinajero
Lace Williams-Tinajero
10 years ago

Thanks for tackling this sensitive subject, Bruce. It reminds me of the importance of community and being anchored in the core of the gospel, which is God with us, even when things don’t go our way.

Dennis
Dennis
10 years ago

If God is God, then it’s totally up to Him how He chooses to reveal Himself. All things are measured against Him as the standard. No ones falling away from believing changes anything about Him, because as the God He reveals Himself to be in scripture, He never changes. We are arrogant to set ourselves up as judges over how God should or should not act, as if we were superior in any way to Him. I believe because Jesus Christ has given me both the capacity and the desire. As I study the Bible I find it able to continually make more sense of this twisted world than anyone else’s musings. If you really need something to prove the veracity of scripture then study Israelogy. It is the central theme, with the church as a grand parenthesis. Do you really think it’s just a coincidence that Israel is back in the land, has turned it into a second Eden, once again speaks Hebrew and that Jerusalem is at the center of world conflict just as the Bible predicted? It’s enough for me.

Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

Bruce said: “My criticism wasn’t that Professor Ehrman was an agnostic, but that he used the argument of suffering as his reason. “

My impression was that he was simply describing the point in his journey where he stopped believing, not that he was making an argument. There are lots of arguments for or against the existence of God. What seems to happen is not that one argument or another is convincing, what seems to happen is that the person takes a stand on a particular value, and based on that value belief or non-belief follows.

So for me, I don’t believe in God because I value intellectual honesty. Since I don’t know that God exists, I have to assume that he doesn’t as the default. I do know that humans anthropomorphize EVERYTHING, that we unconsciously apply a theory of mind to things, and that we are comforted by explanations whether or not we are true. These features of human psychology are enough for me to understand where BELIEF in God comes from, but they are not, in themselves evidence of God.

So for me, non-belief was a consequence of my values. What values do you express when you decide to believe in God?

“1) Why do I exist? Why does anything exist?”

Darn good question. See also, where does consciousness come from? And What does it mean to exist?

Here is a question for you to ponder: Does money exist?

“2) Why do people have such a need for religion (Sartre’s God-shaped vacuum)? Why do I want for God to exist?”

Also darn good questions. See also: What is meaning?

“3) What would perfect humility look like?”

I don’t like this question. Perfect and humility don’t go together in my mind. Isn’t it our imperfections that make us humble?

Dennis,
Israel is a great example of the self-fulfilling prophesy. A bunch of people believe that the nation of Israel is the will of God, so they make it happen. This isn’t evidence of God, it’s evidence of BELIEF. Frankly I find Israel to be a great example of the harm that religion can do, and I’m terrified that the same self-fulfilling prophesizers will believe that God wants global thermonuclear war, because the Bible says the apocalypse is coming.

Remember to look for evidence that your beliefs are wrong. It’s a responsibility so few live up to.

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer
10 years ago

Dennis- Thanks as always for your comments on my posts. I appreciate your input.

“We are arrogant to set ourselves up as judges over how God should or should not act, as if we were superior in any way to Him.”

I agree, and that was my point of why human logic does not work when stacked up against the infinite.

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer
10 years ago

Paul-

Professor Ehrman can describe his spiritual journey with his friends. That’s fine. But he purposely published a book, and that is taking a public stand.

“Since I don’t know that God exists, I have to assume that he doesn’t as the default.”

Why would that be the default? Do you have a better explanation of why anything exists? I see theoretical physicists standing on their heads trying to get around this question. See Max Tegmark. The assumptions almost border on the ridiculous. The default of thousands of years of human civilization has been that God does exist.

“Remember to look for evidence that your beliefs are wrong. It’s a responsibility so few live up to.”

Excellent! We are in complete agreement on this statement. I hope we can both live up to it!

Dennis
Dennis
10 years ago

Bruce,

Thanks, your posts always serve to raise my interest and make me think!

Paul,

To say that Israel’s current situation is self-fulfilling prophecy seems like a denial of the obvious in order to continue to hold to a faith-based belief system (that God doesn’t exist). Little Israel has done what no people have ever done before in the face of continual (even to the present day) persecution, genocide and un-merited anti-semitism and worldwide scattering. God Himself has revealed these things centuries in advance and no one could have made it happen humanly speaking. But it has also been revealed that this hatred of Israel will continue and intensify until they call out for their Messiah Jesus. It has also been revealed that rejection of God’s existence and even hostility toward Him will intensify. That will not discourage the true believer but will purify him or her to allow the love of Jesus to spill out instead. His love and kindness toward men and women of this world is what will turn those to repentance and faith in Him.

As far as what the default position should be, God says in the epistle to the Romans that looking out into the universe and around us in our world will in itself be enough to hold us responsible to believe in His existence, ergo the default position.

Jim Downard
Jim Downard
10 years ago

One shouldn’t get too bogged down in trying to lasso god with pure logic (which are dependent on the character of the assumptions and so can run off the rails too easily, as Douglass Adams skewered regarding the Babel Fish proving the nonexistence of god) but this doesn’t mean there are no reasonable applications here. If a human who has the ability to intervene to prevent an injustice or suffering failed to do so, we rightly glower at them. Why then should gods be held to a lower standard? If one tries to circumvent that with a “god’s standards or logic are not necessarily ours” then you might as well translate that into normal English as: no matter what god does or fails to do, I’m nto going to have a problem with it. As a skeptical rationalist (even without putting on an atheist hat) that position strikes me as a pretty lame one. Each person has to figure out for themselves where they stand on these things, but I for one find myself more nodding in agreement with Ehrman than not. By the by, as I attended Ehrman’s talk I found him a sort of scholarly Bob Newhart, droll and measured.

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer
10 years ago

If then you say you have a reasonable standard by which God does or does not exist, what is that standard and what is the justification for applying it to God? If you apply a standard such as there should be no suffering in the world, why should that be so? What is your reasonable rationale? And where did that standard come from? Does God exist to make me happy? Does God exist so that the human race should feel no pain? And if the human race feels pain therefore God cannot exist?

I don’t see any kind of reasonable application to the existence of God. That is what doesn’t exist.

Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

Dennis said: Paul, To say that Israel’s current situation is self-fulfilling prophecy seems like a denial of the obvious in order to continue to hold to a faith-based belief system (that God doesn’t exist).

This is not my position. My position is that God’s existence or non-existence is not knowable. Therefore I refrain from belief. I am an agnostic atheist. Because of this position, it is very explicitly NOT obvious to me that Israel’s existence is the work of God.

To lay out my logic it goes something like this:

Hypothesis 1: Israel was created by people of faith in order to fulfill a bible prophesy, according to their faith. Israel’s existence is a (tragic) example of a self-fulfilling prophesy.

Hypothesis 2: There really is a God who is pulling the strings of history in order to make things come to pass.

Now I know that there are lots and lots of historical examples of self-fulfilling prophesies. Heck, I’ve even caused a few to happen in my own life. The US idea of manifest destiny is a good example, I’m sure Jim Downard could give several more (he’s quite the historian). On the other hand, I know that I DON’T know that God exists.

So which is more likely? That humans engage in self-fulfilling prophesies (sometimes with tragic consequences) or that a book written in the bronze and Iron ages of the middle east has accurate (if extremely vague and metaphorical) predictions of the future? More to the point, given that I know that self-fulfilling prophesy is a real thing, why should I disregard this knowledge and hold onto the idea that the Bible is true?

You assume that the bible is true. I don’t. I don’t assume that it’s not true either. I just think it’s a book, like any other book, and that some of the ideas in it are true and some are not. If you can show me why I should (as a non-believer) take bible prophesy seriously, I’ll be happy to change my mind.

All that said the thing that strikes me about your post, is how you immediately go from “The nation of Israel is the fulfillment of bible prophesy” to “Jesus’ love is awesome!” My impression is that there is a huge emotional attachment to this belief for you. The ways that humans for beliefs has a lot to do with emotion. I’m curious how your feelings about Jesus are influencing your decision to believe in bible prophesy.

Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

Bruce said: “Why would that be the default? Do you have a better explanation of why anything exists? I see theoretical physicists standing on their heads trying to get around this question. See Max Tegmark. The assumptions almost border on the ridiculous. The default of thousands of years of human civilization has been that God does exist.”

Let me answer your question with a question: How old were you when you decided to believe in God? Was it before, during or after your birth?

If you are like most people, you will answer “well, it was after I was born.” If that’s you, then once upon a time, you were ignorant of the idea of God. God was an idea that you had to be taught. So even for you this IS the default. “I don’t know” is always the default position of all knowledge.

This points out a common mistake that all of us make in our reasoning. We assume that because we decide that something is true, it IS true, then we FORGET that we made a decision. In other words, we confuse our ideas ABOUT reality with REALITY. Once upon a time you decided that God is real, then you proceeded through your life with this as an assumption. Erhman and I have examined that assumption, and we recognize that we did not have sufficient evidence to make that decision in good faith.

It’s the “in good faith” part of this explanation I want to emphasize here. I have an ethical responsibility to being intellectually honest. If I am honest with myself, I don’t know if God is real or not. Therefore “I don’t know” is the default. This means that I have to assume that he doesn’t exist until there is evidence to the contrary, in the same way, and for the same reasons I assume that bigfoot doesn’t exist: If I go running around deciding things are true as the default, I leave myself open to all kinds of wild-eyed distorted thinking. This is why it is an ETHICAL concern that I refrain from belief in God. If I go running around believing this stuff, I might go on a crusade, or fly a plane into a building or something. Doubt is a great source of humility after all.

Now there is an important difference between the idea of Bigfoot, and the idea of God. Bigfoot presumably has to follow the laws of physics and cause and effect. This means that if you bring in a bigfoot carcass, we now have proof (not just evidence, proof) that bigfoot exists. But this doesn’t really work with God does it? The idea that most people have about God is that he doesn’t have to follow the laws of physics and cause and effect. So evidence doesn’t really apply there. So God is an UN-FALSIFIABLE idea.

As for physicists and science in general, this is exactly the same logic they are using. Many physicists believe in God, and they are trying to figure out how he created the universe, but when it comes to doing science, you MUST start with “I don’t know” as your answer. Admit that you don’t know, and then look for evidence to build hypotheses and theories upon. Then try to DISPROVE the theory. Otherwise it’s not science. Un-falsifiable ideas are simply ignored by science.

The fact that you are pushing back against this position tells me that you have an emotional stake in the outcome. Can you identify it and discuss it? I’d be curious to learn more.

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer
10 years ago

Paul- Thanks so much for all your engagement on this topic! It is much appreciated.

I agree that most people fail to realize their assumptions when they consider belief. I have the same problem when I ask Christians to consider the biblical critics. Most refuse to listen. My problem with Ehrman is that he hasn’t gone far enough in examining his assumptions, and that logic is also an assumption just like the existence of God.

I don’t have a problem with “I don’t know” as an answer. But the problem I have is that something (usually math or physics) is put at the top of the food chain in God’s place. Then it is no longer an “I don’t know” answer. Math has now become the supreme being, and I have a problem with that. Tegmark has ascribed incredible creative powers to math equations. To me that doesn’t answer anything, and it creates a lot more problems.

When I push the point that “I don’t know” about math or logic, most atheists and agnostics get rather upset. They get upset just the same as believers get upset over God. So it is obvious to me that atheists and agnostics still have a God, it just has a different name. God has been replaced with math. But if the answer is really “I don’t know”, then the answer can’t be math or logic any more than it can be God. It has to be simply “I don’t know.” Math has no more (and I think a lot less) power to create than God does.

Yes, I do have an emotional stake in the outcome. It is easy for me to identify. I really don’t want to live in a cold and empty universe ruled only by math and logic.

Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

Bruce, thanks for your thoughtful reply.
I think that you and I live in very different universes, and not only because your universe has a god in it.

This is a lead in to a VERY big topic, but I’ll take a crack at it.
First you appear to be assuming a several false dualities
1) Either God is the supreme being or man is the supreme being.
2) Either I worship God or I worship math.
3) Either we live in a god-created universe or we live in it or we live in a “cold and empty universe ruled only by math and logic.”
#3 is the most important of the three in my mind. What that says to me is “If all we are is material beings, then my existence has no meaning.” I don’t know if you experience this dilemma, but for now I will assume.

These are all either/or positions, and what they all have in common is that you are defining my beliefs on your terms, and in doing so, you are applying dualistic thinking to what you assume are my ideas about reality. This is really, really understandable because for most of the last 300 years, science has been an empirical and reductionistic discipline. In other words, in science you understand the world by breaking it into parts and measuring the parts.

What you may not know is that science is changing. In fact science is going through a massive paradigm shift, and it is, frankly one of the few things about our culture that really gives me hope for the future. This paradigm shift has many names: Complexity, emergence, relationality, chaos theory, process metaphysics, etc. There is a growing recognition that empiricism and reductionism have reached the limits of their explanatory power in many disciplines. This is not to say that they have no further uses, quite the contrary, but if you are going to understand the world, you have to build theories that incorporate the findings of empiricism, and integrate them back into an understanding of the processes that hold them together.

Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

Continued…

My study of this insight has been deep and transformative of my thinking about the universe and my place in it. It is, to put it bluntly how I experience what you would call spirituality. For me this word doesn’t fit, and it’s definitely not a theistic understanding of the universe, but it is a strong empirically supported awareness of how I am interconnected with everything that is.

It’s too big a topic to cover here, but to give you a taste of this idea consider an example:

Consider graphite and diamond. Graphite and diamond have massively different properties. One is used for pencils because it is soft and dark. The other is a diamond. But both of them are simply carbon atoms. The properties of these two substances is not in the material they are made of (which is identical) , the properties are in the RELATIONSHIP between the atoms. The arrangement of these parts give rise to properties that are not found in carbon atoms.

YOU are the same way. You are made of the same stuff as the rest of the universe. In fact the proportion of hydrogen, nitrogen, carbon etc. in your body closely matches the proportion of such elements in the universe. What makes you you is not the stuff you are made of, but the arrangement of that stuff.

Now consider that arrangement. It is almost certainly evolved from natural processes, it is constantly changing as you metabolize food, water and air. You are not an object in the universe. You are a PROCESS going on in the universe. You are a process that has gained the ability to know that you are a process, and the ability to know that the universe exists, and that you exist. You even have a psychological need to have meaning to your existence.

But there is more. You are part of a society. That society made you, it gave you birth, it taught you how and what to think, it constrained and structured your choices, even while you exercised your ability to choose. Like a carbon atom in a diamond, you are embedded in a matrix of social relationships, and those social groups have properties that are greater than the sum of their parts. This is what allows our nation to reach across the world with its military and economic power. This is what allows your church to reach across the world with acts of charity. Perhaps YOU can’t do those things, but because of your participation in culture, others can.

All of this the universe gave you, but more importantly THIS IS WHAT YOU HAVE TO GIVE TO THE UNIVERSE. The universe knows that it exist because you are part of it, and you know that it exists. You are the part of the universe that knows that it knows and that calls itself Bruce.

This process of parts giving rise to new properties is called emergence and it’s a process found throughout the whole universe. It is not evidence of an intelligence at work as far as I can tell. In fact, as far as I can tell, intelligence is itself is an emergent property of mater and energy.

Personally I find this amazingly meaningful. I feel all “spiritual” just thinking about it. But notice, this reality isn’t defined by science and math, it is REVEALED by science and math.

This understanding transcends your either/or logic. It doesn’t require agency (that is a deity), or worship, but it does fill me with awe and wonder.

I take heart because I know for a FACT that I don’t live in a “cold and empty universe.” I know this because I’m in the universe and I am a warm and fulfilled person. I am not a supreme being. I’m just an ordinary run-of-the-mill ape. I’ll be dead some day. But I’m an ape who evolved the capacity and the need to love and be loved. Because I’m ordinary, I have great confidence that I am also surrounded by apes who need to love and be loved as much as I do. So I’m pretty sure that if I give most people a chance they will love me. This doesn’t mean they won’t hurt me of course, but pain was also evolved as one of my survival tools, so it is also my friend, if I use it wisely as a learning tool.

I am sharing this with you, not to dismiss your perspective, but to show you that my way of thinking is NOT theistic, it doesn’t require a supreme being (including me), and it is one that is rich in love, meaning and belonging. It also has the virtue of giving me some really good insights into how and why people are violent and mean, so it helps me to stay safe as well. But the one thing it’s not is “either/or.”

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer
10 years ago

It’s great that you’ve found such beauty, purpose, and meaning in the universe. Thank you for sharing your perspective on the universe. The complexity is certainly overwhelming, and fills me with a sense of wonder and amazement. I’m not sure if I share your optimism that from a naturalistic perspective there is no need for a Deity to be involved. For example, for intelligence to be an emergent property of matter and energy is not intuitively obvious to me. That’s kind of like the old joke about mixing baby powder and water together and out pops a baby. Something tells me it’s not quite that easy. I have three problems with your view that I’m not able to reconcile:

1) I understand that you’ve found purpose and meaning in that you are part of a complex process called the universe, but I don’t see how you come to an overarching purpose for the existence of the universe as a whole. Why does anything exist at all? It seems like an awful much ado about nothing. To say that I give my energy and my particles to the universe when I die doesn’t quite do it for me. It still feels pretty cold and empty. Why does the universe exist at all?

2) What is the first cause? Where did everything start? How can you have a universe if there’s no first cause? I’ve heard a lot of physicists standing on their heads to get around this one, and none of them are very compelling. I don’t find the steady state model, that the universe just is, or that it’s just been this way forever, very satisfying. To me that’s not an answer. The only other answer I’ve heard is some math constructs, which sounds even less satisfying to me.

3) As an electrical engineer, I have a hard time with the optimistic view that the universe just moves right along all on its own. That strikes me as pretty far fetched. Do you know anything in life that just works without someone tweaking it now and then? The universe is far more complicated than anything I’ve ever built, and nothing I’ve done lasts. Why would the universe, which makes the stuff I work with seem completely silly? Where is the Supreme Being to hold everything together? I guess I just don’t get this view.

Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

Hmm, well, lots of stuff to talk about here.

First off, the relationship between consciousness/intelligence and our physical being: To be clear, I don’t know what the source of consciousness is. This is another of the big “I don’t know’s” of atheism. What I DO know is that there is a clear mapping of consciousness onto the physical body. This is VERY clear to me because I have worked with all kinds of folks who had things wrong with their brains, perceptual systems, endocrine systems etc. and all of these physical impairments had a direct consequence on the mind. If you wish to run an experiment that will illustrate this to you, go down to the pub and drink a few beers and notice how it impacts your conscious experience.

As an electrician, you are surely aware of the regulatory feedback loop of a common household thermostat. This is an example of a VERY primitive sense organ that has nothing to do with life. Multiply this by many many orders of magnitude and you have the complex adaptive system that makes up a human body and that IS alive. There is a continuum of complexity between a thermostat and you, and as you go up that continuum you pass a few benchmarks: Self-replication, sexual reproduction, evolved nervous systems, emotional responses, nurturing young, complex communication, self-awareness, the ability to imagine the future, language. Each of these steps can be found in non-humans except language, and that’s up to debate.

This gradient of complexity is our evolutionary history, and it contains many, many more steps. In principal there is no special step that MUST have occurred by divine fiat. They all provide an evolutionary advantage over their predecessor, at least in some species, some of the time.

As for your numbered items:
1) We humans like to (unconsciously) apply a what psychologists call a “theory of mind” to things. In other words, when we look at a person, we interpret his behavior as having motivation and meaning. In other words we ask “why does that behavior exist?” When you ask the question “why does anything exist” you are making the mistake of assuming that the universe has to have a reason, in the same way that a person has a reason. Motivations come from agency. People, animals, organizations are all agents. The universe is not an agent, so it is a mistake to ask why it exists. It doesn’t need a reason. YOU may need for it to have a reason, but that says more about YOU than it does about IT (nothing bad though, don’t worry).
2) What is the first cause? Ok, so here there are three choices that I’m aware of for answers to this question. You may find these reasons unsatisfying, but remember, the universe doesn’t owe you satisfaction.
a. The theistic answer is “God did it” but why it’s just one god, why it’s the Christian god are not explained by this answer. Nor is the question, where did God come from? This answer fails for these and many other reasons.
b. The Lawrence Krause reason is beyond me – he is a physicist who says the universe came from nothing. He asks us to trust him on this, saying that science has shown us again and again that common sense can lead us astray, and that his findings are sound. I’m inclined to trust him on this, not because he is a swell guy, but because I’m pretty sure that some other physicist would have proved him wrong by now if they could.
c. Then there is my answer. My answer is “I don’t know.” I want to point out that this is a REALLY REALLY good answer! It leaves the option open for learning, which “God did it” doesn’t. It is also a very intellectually honest answer, which “God did it” is not, since you can’t possibly know that.
3) The universe doesn’t run along on its own. In a few trillion years, it will eventually die a slow heat death. Right now the whole universe is travelling down a long, slow heat gradient, and in so doing, it is creating little pockets of complexity along the way. We are the product of that complexity. Emergence is the process of self-assembly that the universe seems to be capable of. According to current theories of astrophysics, the universe is winding down, and will die someday. Of course they may be wrong, but that’s science for you: Provisional knowledge.

Remember, your need for meaning, and your emotional responses to these ideas are not arguments to refute them. One of the hardest things about talking with people with differing views is that we attach to our beliefs, and we use them to make sense not only of our world but of ourselves. I invite you to consider how these ideas challenge your sense of who you are as a person.

I do not consider myself a fallen, and I don’t need to be saved. I find the idea that Jesus died for my sins to be revolting, not comforting. How we understand ourselves in the world has a huge impact on how we respond emotionally to the ideas on these forums.

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer
10 years ago

Thanks again for your responses and your wisdom. I can tell that you’ve thought much about these ideas. That’s great, because it seems like so few people give them a second thought, and that was one of my reasons for being involved with this blog.

For the record, I’m not pushing Christianity. I see Christianity as a myth, the same as Islam, LDS, Hinduism, etc. That doesn’t mean they are false, but they are not meant to be true in the historical or scientific sense of the word. Myth is true in that it forms a connection between the worshipper and God. Which one you choose depends upon your culture. I think our myths are changing, which is why religion is undergoing so much stress.

I’d like to go back to the beginning, where I shared I would rather live in a universe with a God than without one. I find a universe without a God to be cold and empty. Obviously that is not a proof for a God, but it does explain why someone would choose religion over something else. Now let’s review your statements above:

1) I hear you saying that the universe doesn’t have to have a purpose. Fair enough, it certainly doesn’t. Perhaps we live in a realm without a god and without a purpose. It just exists as a machine exists.

2) I hear you saying you don’t know. Fair enough again. For the record, I’ve looked into Krause’s book and I can’t accept his ideas. He’s using the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle to say that particles can pop into existence out of nothing, which is not technically correct. Heisenberg says particles can borrow energy from the fabric of space-time and pop into existence as long as that time is extremely short. But this principle does not hold outside the fabric of space-time, which is what would have been pre-existent.

3) The universe is dying a slow death.

My question for you: Why would anyone feel warm and fuzzy giving their life for a universe that has no purpose, we have no idea where it came from, and it’s dying a slow death? I can’t get very excited about giving my atoms and my energy to such a place. I can’t imaging getting up every morning thinking I’m giving my life and my effort for a universe that has no purpose and is dying. Who would ever want to live there? Do you?

This is why I would rather live in a universe with a god than without one, and I believe so would most people who choose religion over atheism. I hope that makes some sense?

Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

“I can’t imaging getting up every morning thinking I’m giving my life and my effort for a universe that has no purpose and is dying. Who would ever want to live there? Do you?””

Well, let’s peal back a layer shall we? Right now you are assuming an “I/other” relationship with the universe. You exist, and you live in the universe. This is a good and valid way to look at your situation, but it’s not the only one. The “I/other” relationship ignores the fact that right now you are actively exchanging matter and energy with the universe. You are it and it is you. YOU have meaning, passion, love and curiosity, and as such you ARE the meaning, passion, love and curiosity OF THE UNIVERSE! This sounds all flowery because I chose nice qualities you have, but it is existentially true. In my prior post I said that the universe doesn’t have to have meaning. But in fact it DOES have meaning. It has 6 billion meaning makers living on planet earth. Perhaps it has billions of such earths.

Now for me, I don’t find any of this particularly meaningful. I’m just not able to take much emotional satisfaction from such enormous ideas. Instead I find meaning in more parochial pursuits: my work with students, my family, trying to make a difference in my community and my society, the pursuit of financial goals etc. Meaning is a curious thing. We tend to look for it in the large, and we tend to find it in the small.

I have an idea about meaning I want to share with you. I get this from a book called “the story of B.” Imagine that you are a hunter in the jungle. You are stalking a dear and you come upon some dear tracks and some lion tracks. Now immediately you get scaired. The lion might be hunting you! But you look closer and you see that the dear tracks are on top of the lion tracks. This tells you that the way is safe, because the dear can probably smell the lion, and if he’s walking around here the lion probably left the area, so you keep hunting.

I like this story because it illustrates some important things about meaning. First, the ability to construct narratives out of clues in our environment is a process that we use for making meaning. Second that our emotional response system is completely wired into this process because (third) making meaning of our world is a survival skill. Evolution has equipped you with a need for meaning and a passion in your heart for finding meaning in the world around you. It also equipped you with a passion in your heart to love people, find community and to use that community in a mutually prosperous relationship (this is why you feel guilty or defensive when you exploit people).

Personally, I get a lot of meaning from figuring this stuff out. I suppose this is the same feeling that people of faith get when they study and try to understand the bible. But I find the bible small-minded and untrustworthy, so I look directly at the universe (including my own psychology) instead. It’s endlessly fascinating and quite humbling I can tell you.

As for the heat death of the universe, I take comfort in the fact that 30 years ago they thought the universe was closed, and 60 years ago they thought the universe was static. I don’t need eternity to make something meaningful. Death is a part of life. It makes sense to me that the universe ends. Everything in it does. What I find more satisfying is working to understand the nature of consciousness. Now THERE is a meaningful puzzle!

Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

“I think our myths are changing, which is why religion is undergoing so much stress.”

Yes definitely!

We all need myths. Stories that we use to understand the world and construct our identities. I prefer to take my mythology from the findings of science. This makes some people uncomfortable because science is provisional, but I find it exhilarating. I think that the difference between most atheist and most theists is the ideological foundation for our beliefs & identities. I think that theists use God (an un-falsifiable, idealized moral being) as the bedrock for their identities. This gives them an unshakable certainty about who they are.

Atheists use something just as unshakable, but something that is factual and certain. We have found truth with a capital “T” if you will. Our foundation is doubt. We doubt our knowledge, we are certain of our uncertainty. This doubt gives us a unshakable point of reference from which to understand the world. As a younger man, my experience was that I was easily persuaded, and easily lead into harmful situations, because I was confused about who I was and where I was going. Eventually, I realized that my doubt was the one constant in my experience and that I could use my doubt as a reference point for decisions. In other words, I realized that even though I was uncertain, I still had an ethical responsibility to use my judgment to make best decisions I could. Owning up to my doubt was a watershed experience for me, because it helped me to be more confident of myself, and to choose better relationships to surround myself with. I know that I am uncertain. This is a fact. I can work from there. It is a reliable (if uncomfortable) truth.

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer
10 years ago

I definitely like your idea of doubt. I agree that’s a great foundation for seeking truth. I’m also glad you’ve found such harmony with the universe.

If I’m understanding you correctly, you’re saying the universe gets its purpose from me, or from the 7 some billion people like me in the world. But when I look at the universe in the manner you described, it doesn’t work very well for me. The problem is, I can’t find any purpose in myself alone. When I get up in the morning, I can’t figure out why I exist. The only thing that’s ever worked for me is to get my purpose from God. Now if God doesn’t exist, and the universe get’s it’s purpose from me, but I get my purpose from the universe, well I think you get the picture. There’s a big cosmic roundabout of purposes going on. Something doesn’t compute.

Would this be a great time to bring in your use of that unshakable doubt?

Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

Well, it seems to me that finding meaning (or making meaning) is a pretty personal thing. You have community, family, future generations of humanity, opportunities for self development and wonder.

Do none of these things light your fire?

Here is an idea that I have about finding meaning: Recent studies show that the reward center in your brain is hooked into all kinds of things, including sex, pleasure, learning, drug use, etc. etc.

People who have depression suffer from both a lack of experience of pleasure/reward (called an-hedonia), and a lack of meaning or hopelessness.

This suggests to me that there is a psychological link between rewarding behavior and meaningful behavior. Seek out experiences that you find rewarding (especially experiences that grow your long-term wellbeing and the wellbeing of others), and see if that helps you gain a sense of meaning.

It works for me.

Bruce Meyer
Bruce Meyer
10 years ago

Thanks Paul, I’m glad that works for you!

For me, for something as large and grandiose and magnificent as the universe, or something as small and beautiful and incredible as a tiny mite; I’m looking for a little more than that.

Paul Susac
Paul Susac
10 years ago

Do you think that you’ve found it? If so, do tell!

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