Atheism: Proving The Negative: Three Lectures on Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology

Friday, April 18, 2014

Three Lectures on Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology

7 comments:

Anonymous said...: Thanks for posting this, but the second video has no sound.; April 23, 2014 at 3:01 PM
Anonymous said...: Hmm never mind it seems to be working now.; April 23, 2014 at 3:03 PM
Anonymous said...: Feel free to delete my first 2 comments.

I enjoyed this set of lectures and I think it is nice of you to share this with people on the internet. I also think you did relatively fair job of explaining Plantinga.

When I read his refutation of classical foundationalism I thought it was ingenious and I was quite impressed. It was one of the few times in philosophy I left thinking “this is progress in our time.” And I thought if I could do something like that as a philosopher it would be well worth the career.

I was a bit sorry you didn't give more of your own thoughts on whether you found his refutation convincing.

I felt a similar way when I read Gettier's objections.

Plantinga and Gettier were both young teachers Wayne state and a philosophy teacher told me that the professors were meeting one time and told Gettier that he had lots of great thoughts and he should just write them down. So Gettier did that. He wrote 3 pages and well the rest is history.

http://faculty.wwu.edu/~tdowning/wsu1963.htm

As far as your objections to Plantinga's approach here are my thoughts:

Great Pumpkin: It seems this is somewhat of a slippery slope objection. Do people really get the sense that the great pumpkin is disappointed with them when they do wrong? I sort of doubt this concern is real.

But even so people have to start their beliefs with some that have no evidence right? Or we do run in circles? It also seems that epistemic beliefs can't arise based only on classical foundations. This is what Plantinga gave us reasons to believe. (and you really didn’t take issue with his argument there) So somewhere we need to add some other beliefs which by definition will have no evidence supporting them. So what is it we are to add that won’t have the great pumpkin objection?; April 23, 2014 at 5:20 PM
Anonymous said...: In many of your objections you seem to assume that 2 rational people cannot disagree on something. You seem to imply that to accept God as properly basic we must assume anyone who doesn't is irrational. It may be that Plantinga argued that, but I do not think that is true.

Throughout many of you objections I tended to just shrug my shoulders and say yeah its possible rational people can disagree. How does that prove that belief in God is not properly basic?

I might suggest that you have some faulty thinking along the lines of the argument from ignorance. That is you seem to think that if someone is rationally believing something they must be able to prove it to others. And that their inability to prove it to others proves their belief is unjustified. But I think that is, if not fallacious, at least wrongheaded.

Our experiences are often subjective. Perhaps Courtney feels pain. That may be difficult to prove other than through Courtney saying she feels pain. But that doesn't mean she isn't feeling pain. Nor does it mean her believing she is feeling pain is irrational.

Someone like an insurance adjuster may decide they think the Courtney is lying for personal gain in a personal injury case. The evidence might in fact be quite high that she is lying about her pain. Perhaps she had 10 other cases, and an ex husband testified that she lied about her pain in all those other cases. It might be rational for the insurance adjuster to believe Courtney is not in pain now. I wouldn't say the adjuster would be irrational. Yet Courtney might actually be in pain this time and she might therefore reasonably believe she is in pain.

You argue what if someone said I just got this feeling that the defendant is guilty. Well I think that is somewhat similar to the argument from the great pumpkin. It is sort of a slippery slope argument.

But as a juror you would be asked to base your decision on the evidence. If this hypothetical person couldn't do that then he would be asked not to sit on a jury. But again the very idea is if we are going to have foundations without evidence (or run in circles) then yes for some questions we shouldn't be on a jury. This is the basic problem that arises regardless of what beliefs we decide are basic or foundational.

This argument will apply to any sort of foundational belief you have right? It is something you have no evidence to believe and so you can always ask what if someone said they believe the defendant is guilty even though they have no evidence.; April 23, 2014 at 5:21 PM
Anonymous said...: Ad Hominem:

I don’t think this is a classic case of ad hominem. Also I don’t think Plantinga is pulling any dirty tricks. I would respectfully suggest your own “in group” bias might lead you to want to think negatively about him in that way when he in fact is just giving his honest opinion.
Consider whether committing evil clouds your judgment about what is right and wrong.
I am listening to history book called the Bloodlands. In the book the author refers to a letter that was written by one of the Germans who killed many of the Jews. He said that at first when he was order to kill the men women and children his hand trembled and he had some difficulty. But then after a while his aim was reliable and he could kill men women and children without problems. It seems to me that when people do evil (what Plantinga and I would call, sin) they sort of deaden their senses to the truth that it is in fact evil.

Now you may disagree whether that goes to judgments outside of what is moral or not moral. But would you agree with that as to morality? Or would you say my claim that people who do evil tend to lose sight of the truth of morality is an ad hominem?

My view might be right or wrong but I don’t think it’s an ad hominem. I am not saying that the person is a bad person so don’t believe argument X. I am saying that I believe doing evil actions can numb our sense of right and wrong. Since I am a moral realist what I am saying is that doing evil can impair our ability to determine the truth of what is right and wrong.

Why isn’t God more obvious? Here I think this question is beyond the scope of the issues presented by Plantinga. I mean it’s a fine question to ask. But it really doesn’t deal directly with what Plantinga is doing here. It seems you might as well ask why is there evil if God in omnipotent or through out any other objection. I think there are reasons why God might not stand over us all the time and make his presence known all of the time. I think it would effect our free will and we wouldn’t learn about ourselves as much in this life. So I think there are different answers to that question but I think you are going adrift to the specific moves Plantinga makes here.

I think the same applies when you talk about different Gods and doctrines. I don’t think Plantinga is saying he thinks the sense is particularly the Calvinist God. He might I don’t know enough about him. But I don’t. For me it would be just that there is a God. As to whether thor exists we can look at evidence to sort out what the God is. Is there some interplay between the senses we get of who God is and our determination of what religion we pick? I am not ruling that out. But the choice of which religion and which doctrines is not completely decided by this divine sense. Other evidence can come into play at that point.; April 23, 2014 at 5:22 PM
Anonymous said...: Let’s put the faux-analytical hyperbole away for a while and look at reality: Kalaam Cosmological Argument, teleological argument, First Cause/Unmoved Mover, the impossibility of infinite causal regress, the necessity of at least one unconditioned reality, the Argument from Reason, Fine Tuning of Universal Constants, irreducible biological complexity, the argument from morality… While you sit there in your Hitchens-Dawkins parroting bubble and regurgitate pseudo-intellectual douchisms, your entire world view lies shattered at your feet. If you truly honor the gods of reason and critical thinking half as much as you claim, you would plant your face firmly into your hand, step away from the device, find a quiet place, and rethink your life. But otherwise, thanks for your steaming pile of regurgitated pseudo-intellectual neck bearded blather, you r/atheism inspired, GNU obsessed, faux-analytical proto-basement dweller. Yours is a worldview so petty, so trivial, so earth bound, so unworthy of the universe.; November 14, 2014 at 5:18 PM
John said...: Hi Matthew,

Bought your book recently and have just finished reading it. The best part of all of this was that, instead of paying the full price of $35 Australian dollars, I only paid 10 at a remainder bookshop

The worst part of that is that even 10 was way too much.

And I guess another bummer is that, being almost 60 y.o., I feel I've wasted a few weeks of my precious, now quickly dwindling life reading it.

Any chance of getting my money back, Matthew?

BTW, I'm not some unedookated dumbfuck: I have a pretty good degree in Philosophy and Religious Studies. I earned this at 45 while holding down a couple of hands-on type jobs. Know what they are?; March 16, 2015 at 1:25 PM

Books:

Schellenberg, J.L. Divine Hiddenness and Human Reason
God and the Problem of Evil, ed. William Rowe
Stenger, Victor. God: The Failed Hypothesis
Ehrman, Bart. Lost Christianities
Mackie, J.L. The Miracle of Theism
Everitt, Nicholas. The Non-Existence of God
Gale, Richard. On the Nature and Existence of God
Martin, Michael. Atheism, A Philosophical Justification
Russell, Bertrand. Why I Am Not a Christian
The Cambridge Companion to Atheism. Ed. Martin.
The Improbability of God. Eds. Martin and Monnier.
The Impossibility of God. Eds. Martin and Monnier
Dawkins, Richard. The God Delusion.
Dennett, Daniel. Breaking the Spell.
Harris, Sam. The End of Faith, Letter to a Christian Nation.

Quotes:

"Science. It works, bitches."

"The God of the Old Testament is arguably the most unpleasant character in all fiction: jealous and proud of it; a petty, unjust, unforgiving control-freak; a vindictive, bloodthirsty ethnic cleanser; a misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully." - Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion

"Religion easily has the greatest bullshit story ever told. Think about it. Religion has actually convinced people that there's an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry for ever and ever until the end of time. But he loves you! He loves you and he needs money!" George Carlin 1937 - 2008

Many Paths, No God.

I don't go to church, I AM a church, for fuck's sake. I'm MINISTRY. --Al Jourgensen

Every sect, as far as reason will help them, make use of it gladly; and where it fails them, they cry out, “It is a matter of faith, and above reason.”
- John Locke, An Essay Concerning Human Understanding

If life evolved, then there isn't anything left for God to do.

The universe is not fine-tuned for humanity. Humanity is fine-tuned to the universe. Victor Stenger

Skeptical theists choose to ride the trolley car of skepticism concerning the goods that God would know so as to undercut the evidential argument from evil. But once on that trolley car it may not be easy to prevent that skepticism from also undercutting any reasons they may suppose they have for thinking that God will provide them and the worshipful faithful with life everlasting in his presence. William Rowe

Unless you're one of those Easter-bunny vitalists who believes that personality results from some unquantifiable divine spark, there's really no alternative to the mechanistic view of human nature. Peter Watts

The essence of humanity's spiritual dilemma is that we evolved genetically to accept one truth and discovered another. E.O. Wilson

Creating humans who could understand the contrast between good and evil without subjecting them to eons of horrible suffering would be an utterly inconsequential matter for an omnipotent being. MM

The second commandment is "Thou shall not construct any graven images." Is this really the pinnacle of what we can achieve morally? The second most important moral principle for all the generations of humanity? It would be so easy to improve upon the 10 Commandments. How about "Try not to deep fry all of your food"? Sam Harris

Religion comes from the period of human prehistory where nobody--not even the mighty Democritus who concluded that all matter was made from atoms--had the smallest idea what was going on. It comes from the bawling and fearful infancy of our species, and is a babyish attempt to meet our inescapable demand for knowledge (as well as comfort, reassurance, and other infantile needs). Today the least educated of my children knows much more about the natural order than any of the founders of religion, and one would think--though the connection is not a fully demonstrable one--that this is why they seem so uninterested in sending fellow humans to hell.
Christopher Hitchens, God is Not Great

We believe with certainty that an ethical life can be lived without religion. And we know for a fact that the corollary holds true--that religion has caused innumerable people not just to conduct themselves no better than others, but to award themselves permission to behave in ways that would make a brothel-keeper or an ethnic cleanser raise an eyebrow. Christopher Hitchens, God Is Not Great

If atheism is a religion, then not playing chess is a hobby.

"Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him. Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything--anything--be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous than the world we are living in." Sam Harris, The End of Faith, 36.

"Only a tiny fraction of corpses fossilize, and we are lucky to have as many intermediate fossils as we do. We could easily have had no fossils at all, and still the evidence for evolution from other sources, such as molecular genetics and geographical distribution, would be overwhelmingly strong. On the other hand, evolution makes the strong prediction that if a single fossil turned up in the wrong geological stratum, the theory would be blown out of the water." Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion, p. 127.

One cannot take, "believing in X gives me hope, makes me moral, or gives me comfort," to be a reason for believing X. It might make me moral if I believe that I will be shot the moment I do something immoral, but that doesn't make it possible for me to believe it, or to take its effects on me as reasons for thinking it is true. Matt McCormick

Top Ten Myths about Belief in God

1. Myth: Without God, life has no meaning.

There are 1.2 billion Chinese who have no predominant religion, and 1 billion people in India who are predominantly Hindu. And 65% of Japan's 127 million people claim to be non-believers. It is laughable to suggest that none of these billions of people are leading meaningful lives.

2. Myth: Prayer works.

Numerous studies have now shown that remote, blind, inter-cessionary prayer has no effect whatsoever of the health or well-being of subject's health, psychological states, or longevity. Furthermore, we have no evidence to support the view that people who wish fervently in their heads for things that they want get those things at any higher rate than people who do not.

3. Myth: Atheists are less decent, less moral, and overall worse people than believers.

There are hundreds of millions of non-believers on the planet living normal, decent, moral lives. They love their children, care about others, obey laws, and try to keep from doing harm to others just like everyone else. In fact, in predominately non-believing countries such as in northern Europe, measures of societal health such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, education, homicide, suicide, gender equality, and political coercion are better than they are in believing societies.

4. Myth: Belief in God is compatible with the descriptions, explanations and products of science.

In the past, every supernatural or paranormal explanation of phenomena that humans believed turned out to be mistaken; science has always found a physical explanation that revealed that the supernatural view was a myth. Modern organisms evolved from lower life forms, they weren't created 6,000 years ago in the finished state. Fever is not caused by demon possession. Bad weather is not the wrath of angry gods. Miracle claims have turned out to be mistakes, frauds, or deceptions. So we have every reason to conclude that science will continue to undermine the superstitious worldview of religion.

5. Myth: We have immortal souls that survive the death of the body.

We have mountains of evidence that makes it clear that our consciousness, our beliefs, our desires, our thoughts all depend upon the proper functioning of our brains our nervous systems to exist. So when the brain dies, all of these things that we identify with the soul also cease to exist. Despite the fact that billions of people have lived and died on this planet, we do not have a single credible case of someone's soul, or consciousness, or personality continuing to exist despite the demise of their bodies. Allegations of spirit chandlers, psychics, ghost stories, and communications with the dead have all turned out to be frauds, deceptions, mistakes, and lies.

6. Myth: If there is no God, everything is permitted. Only belief in God makes people moral.

Consider the billions of people in China, India, and Japan above. If this claim was true, none of them would be decent moral people. So Ghandi, the Buddha, and Confucius, to name only a few were not moral people on this view, not to mention these other famous atheists: Abraham Lincoln, Albert Einstein, Aldous Huxley, Charles Darwin, Benjamin Franklin, Carl Sagan, Bertrand Russell, Elizabeth Cady-Stanton, John Stuart Mill, Galileo, George Bernard Shaw, Gloria Steinam, James Madison, John Adams, and so on.

7. Myth: Believing in God is never a root cause of significant evil.

The counter examples of cases where it was someone's belief in God that was the direct justification for their perpetrated horrendous evils on humankind are too numerous to mention.

8. Myth: The existence of God would explain the origins of the universe and humanity.

All of the questions that allegedly plague non-God attempts to explain our origins--why are we here, where are we going, what is the point of it all, why is the universe here--still apply to the faux explanation of God. The suggestion that God created everything does not make it any clearer to us where it all came from, how he created it, why he created it, where it is
all going. In fact, it raises even more difficult mysteries: how did God, operating outside the confines of space, time, and natural law "create" or "build" a universe that has physical laws? We have no precedent and maybe no hope of answering or understanding such a possibility. What does it mean to say that some disembodied, spiritual being who knows everything and has all power, "loves" us, or has thoughts, or goals, or plans? How could such a being have any sort of personal relationship with beings like us?

9. Myth: Even if it isn't true, there's no harm in my believing in God anyway.

People's religious views inform their voting, how they raise their children, what they think is moral and immoral, what laws and legislation they pass, who they are friends and enemies with, what companies they invest in, where they donate to charities, who they approve and disapprove of, who they are willing to kill or tolerate, what crimes they are willing to commit, and which wars they are willing to fight. How could any reasonable person think that religious beliefs are insignificant.

10: Myth: There is a God.

Common Criticisms of Atheism (and Why They’re Mistaken)

1. You can’t prove atheism. You can never prove a negative, so atheism requires as much faith as religion.

Atheists are frequently accosted with this accusation, suggesting that in order for non-belief to be reasonable, it must be founded on deductively certain grounds. Many atheists within the deductive atheology tradition have presented just those sorts of arguments, but those arguments are often ignored. But more importantly, the critic has invoked a standard of justification that almost none of our beliefs meet. If we demand that beliefs are not justified unless we have deductive proof, then all of us will have to throw out the vast majority of things we currently believe—oxygen exists, the Earth orbits the Sun, viruses cause disease, the 2008 summer Olympics were in China, and so on. The believer has invoked one set of abnormally stringent standards for the atheist while helping himself to countless beliefs of his own that cannot satisfy those standards. Deductive certainty is not required to draw a reasonable conclusion that a claim is true.

As for requiring faith, is the objection that no matter what, all positions require faith? Would that imply that one is free to just adopt any view they like? Religiousness and non-belief are on the same footing? (they aren’t). If so, then the believer can hardly criticize the non-believer for not believing. Is the objection that one should never believe anything on the basis of faith? Faith is a bad thing? That would be a surprising position for the believer to take, and, ironically, the atheist is in complete agreement.

2. The evidence shows that we should believe.

If in fact there is sufficient evidence to indicate that God exists, then a reasonable person should believe it. Surprisingly, very few people pursue this line as a criticism of atheism. But recently, modern versions of the design and cosmological arguments have been presented by believers that require serious consideration. Many atheists cite a range of reasons why they do not believe that these arguments are successful. If an atheist has reflected carefully on the best evidence presented for God’s existence and finds that evidence insufficient, then it’s implausible to fault them for irrationality, epistemic irresponsibility, or for being obviously mistaken. Given that atheists are so widely criticized, and that religious belief is so common and encouraged uncritically, the chances are good that any given atheist has reflected more carefully about the evidence.

3. You should have faith.

Appeals to faith also should not be construed as having prescriptive force the way appeals to evidence or arguments do. The general view is that when a person grasps that an argument is sound, that imposes an epistemic obligation of sorts on her to accept the conclusion. One person’s faith that God exists does not have this sort of inter-subjective implication. Failing to believe what is clearly supported by the evidence is ordinarily irrational. Failure to have faith that some claim is true is not similarly culpable. At the very least, having faith, where that means believing despite a lack of evidence or despite contrary evidence is highly suspect. Having faith is the questionable practice, not failing to have it.

4. Atheism is bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing.

These accusations have been dealt with countless times. But let’s suppose that they are correct. Would they be reasons to reject the truth of atheism? They might be unpleasant affects, but having negative emotions about a claim doesn’t provide us with any evidence that it is false. Imagine upon hearing news about the Americans dropping atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki someone steadfastly refused to believe it because it was bleak, nihilistic, amoral, dehumanizing, or depressing. Suppose we refused to believe that there is an AIDS epidemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people in Africa on the same grounds.

5. Atheism is bad for you. Some studies in recent years have suggested that people who regularly attend church, pray, and participate in religious activities are happier, live longer, have better health, and less depression.

First, these results and the methodologies that produced them have been thoroughly criticized by experts in the field. Second, it would be foolish to conclude that even if these claims about quality of life were true, that somehow shows that there is theism is correct and atheism is mistaken. What would follow, perhaps, is that participating in social events like those in religious practices are good for you, nothing more. There are a number of obvious natural explanations. Third, it is difficult to know the direction of the causal arrow in these cases. Does being religious result in these positive effects, or are people who are happier, healthier, and not depressed more inclined to participate in religions for some other reasons? Fourth, in a number of studies atheistic societies like those in northern Europe scored higher on a wide range of society health measures than religious societies.

6. Atheists and atheist political regimes have committed horrible crimes against humanity. Josef Stalin, Chairman Mao, Pol Pot, perhaps Hitler, and their atheistic tyrannies tortured and murdered millions.

Given that atheists make up a tiny proportion of the world’s population, and that religious governments and ideals have held sway globally for thousands of years, believers will certainly lose in a contest over “who has done more harm,” or “which ideology has caused more human suffering.” It has not been atheism because atheists have been widely persecuted, tortured, and killed for centuries nearly to the point of extinction.

Sam Harris has argued that the problem with these regimes has been that they became too much like religions. “Such regimes are dogmatic to the core and generally give rise to personality cults that are indistinguishable from cults of religious hero worship. Auschwitz, the gulag, and the killing fields were not examples of what happens when human beings reject religious dogma; they are examples of political, racial and nationalistic dogma run amok. There is no society in human history that ever suffered because its people became too reasonable.”

7. Atheists are harsh, intolerant, and hateful of religion.

Sam Harris has advocated something he calls “conversational intolerance.” For too long, a confusion about religious tolerance has led people to look the other way and say nothing while people with dangerous religious agendas have undermined science, the public good, and the progress of the human race. There is no doubt that people are entitled to read what they choose, write and speak freely, and pursue the religions of their choice. But that entitlement does not guarantee that the rest of us must remain silent or not verbally criticize or object to their ideas and their practices, especially when they affect all of us. Religious beliefs have a direct affect on who a person votes for, what wars they fight, who they elect to the school board, what laws they pass, who they drop bombs on, what research they fund (and don’t), which social programs they fund (and don’t), and a long list of other vital, public matters. Atheists are under no obligation to remain silent about those beliefs and practices that urgently need to be brought into the light and reasonably evaluated.

Real respect for humanity will not be found by indulging your neighbor’s foolishness, or overlooking dangerous mistakes. Real respect is found in disagreement. The most important thing we can do for each other is disagree vigorously and thoughtfully so that we can all get closer to the truth.

8. Science is as much a religious ideology as religion is.

At their cores, religions and science have a profound difference. The essence of religion is sustaining belief in the face of doubts, obeying authority, and conforming to a fixed set of doctrines. By contrast, the most important discovery that humans have ever made is the scientific method. The essence of that method is diametrically opposed to religious ideals: actively seek out disconfirming evidence. The cardinal virtues of the scientific approach are to doubt, analyze, critique, be skeptical, and always be prepared to draw a different conclusion if the evidence demands it.

Atheism: Proving The Negative

Friday, April 18, 2014

Three Lectures on Plantinga's Reformed Epistemology

7 comments:

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Morality and Atheism

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Naturalism, Magic, and Religious Belief

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Evil and God

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