The Smug Baldy Speaks

I’m very excited about being able to attend this year’s Amazing Meeting in Las Vegas. For those of you who are unfamiliar with it, the Amazing Meeting

is a celebration of skeptics and skepticism sponsored by the James Randi Educational Foundation. Thinking people travel the world to share a few days of learning, laughs and life with fellow skeptics and distinguished guest speakers.

Yup - a couple days listening to The Amazing Randi, Michael Shermer, Penn and Teller and others discuss logic, science, pseudoscience, magic, and critical thinking. (OK - Teller won’t likely discuss anything.) What could possibly be more fun? Doing this in Las Vegas, that’s what.

So, on the eve of our departure to Vegas, I bring you this letter to the editor that appeared in this morning’s Mobile Press Register. Now, while I am certainly not above poking fun at some of the minor aspects of life in the Deep South of the US, I am not presenting this as an example of what you may take as some sort of Southern Backward Thinking. That, my friends, is a myth. Instead, I believe this letter reflects a level of thought that commonly passes for logical debate and scientific understanding in a broad range of our society. That it concerns itself with science and religion makes it interesting to me. I’ll present the letter in its entirety, and then address some specifics after that.

Belief in God not a matter of Intellect

Here is a novel idea. In a Dec. 27 letter to the editor, titled “A commission can study God’s role,” the writer said, “What the world needs now is another Baker Commission to study if God exists.” The writer must have an exceptionally high opinion of the Baker Commission’s findings.

The writer also makes the bold claim that no living man, woman or child has seen or talked to God. It would take an exceedingly wise person to speak so emphatically for all 6 billion people on this planet. Humans can only see a small portion of the spectrum, which proves that just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

Thousands speak to God daily. It’s called prayer.

The assumption that there is no “logical evidence” that God exists is also an error. Modern cosmology predicts that an expanding universe must have a beginning, and that requires that it have a “beginner.” The creator must exist aside and apart from the universe he created and is not dependent on it for his existence.

These things are true and logical because of the law of cause-and-effect. Whether you believe this first cause is the God of any of the religions of today is of no consequence. Because of the obvious design in nature, logically the first cause, or creator, must be of superior intelligence. Design implies intelligence.

Here’s the truth: No matter how many facts are presented, those who chose to believe will continue to believe and those that choose not to believe will not believe. This is true because one’s relationship to God is not a condition of the intellect, or what one knows. It is dependent on the condition of the heart, or what one believes.

RC
Wilmer, Alabama

Now let’s analyze this:

Here is a novel idea. In a Dec. 27 letter to the editor, titled “A commission can study God’s role,” the writer said, “What the world needs now is another Baker Commission to study if God exists.” The writer must have an exceptionally high opinion of the Baker Commission’s findings.

First, studying whether God exists isn’t a new idea, and neither is doing so by committee. Google something like “Does god exist” for supporting evidence.

The writer also makes the bold claim that no living man, woman or child has seen or talked to God. It would take an exceedingly wise person to speak so emphatically for all 6 billion people on this planet.

It’s quite possible the writer read his Bible. In Exodus 33:20 the Lord clearly states that no one can see him and live. Also, John 1:18 is pretty emphatic that no one has ever seen God. At best, these statements are simply evidence of the self-contradictory nature of the Bible - a common trait in human literature, though somewhat unexpected in one’s holy texts. At worst, these statements are simply wrong (or lies) and the Bible again becomes fiction. Somewhere in the middle are the claims that these statements are misinterpreted. Really? How do we misinterpret something like, “No one has ever seen God, but God the One and Only Begotten who is at the Father’s side, has made him known.” Any person of faith should rightly believe that the writer’s claim is not so bold after all.

Humans can only see a small portion of the spectrum, which proves that just because we can’t see it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.

This argument is illogical. Indeed, it falls prey to the logical fallacy known as the “fallacy of four terms“.

The argument has the form:

Humans cannot see all of the spectrum
The portion of the spectrum we cannot see exists.
Therefore God exists.

The fallacy arises from the fact that the terms in this argument - Humans, the spectrum, and existence - appears in both premises, but there is no mention of God until the conclusion. In this argument, there is no connection from either of the premises to the fourth term, God, which makes the argument invalid. This argument also appears of reach an irrelevant conclusion, which is another logical fallacy in which the proposition supported by the argument is actually something other than that which it appears to support. In this argument, a proper conclusion would be that Humans cannot see all that exists, which is a long way from saying that God exists.

Thousands speak to God daily. It’s called prayer.

That’s likely an great underestimation of the number of people who pray daily. Even so, the fact that people pray isn’t proof that God exists. Does speaking into a phone prove that someone is listening on the other end? (This may be a bad example in the US, but the NSA can’t be everywhere, can they?)

The assumption that there is no “logical evidence” that God exists is also an error. Modern cosmology predicts that an expanding universe must have a beginning, and that requires that it have a “beginner.” The creator must exist aside and apart from the universe he created and is not dependent on it for his existence.

These things are true and logical because of the law of cause-and-effect. Whether you believe this first cause is the God of any of the religions of today is of no consequence.

This is not entirely true. It is true that one can create a logical argument for the existence of God. Here’s one:

The universe exists.
God created the universe.
Therefore, God exists.

Of course, a logically valid argument isn’t the same thing as scientific evidence. This argument, as any syllogism, relies on the truth of the first two premises. We can probably agree that the universe exists and isn’t some sort of illusion, so the truth of the first premise is probably established. It’s that second one that hangs up everyone. If you’re a person of faith, then you accept it as true, and the argument holds. If you’re a scientist, then the absence of any corroborating physical evidence that God created the universe puts the whole argument on shaky ground.

Now, as far as cosmology and causality are concerned, there are a few problems here. It’s true that most scientists accept the notion of time’s arrow, and an expanding universe. Indeed, much thinking about causality seem to match our subjective experience - that is, that for every effect, there is a cause. Unfortunately, classical notions of causality were upset in 1927, when Werner Heisenberg presented his famous paper about the uncertainty principle:

In the sharp formulation of the law of causality– “if we know the present exactly, we can calculate the future”-it is not the conclusion that is wrong but the premise.
–Heisenberg, in uncertainty principle paper, 1927

Indeed, modern cosmology is informed by Quantum Mechanics, in which the so-called “Law of Cause and Effect” doesn’t always apply as we expect. From this, our personal experience with causality may have nothing at all to do with causality in the early universe.

The creator must exist aside and apart from the universe he created and is not dependent on it for his existence.

I took this out of context because it actually speaks about something that exists outside the context of our existence. If it were true that something can exist outside the universe, as RC claims of God, then there is no reason to expect that something to be bound by any laws of physics, or space-time, or causality that exist within the universe. In addition, there be no reason to expect that something to be able to interact with the universe - or any of it’s occupants in any way. Furthermore, as a being “aside and apart” from the universe, it’s unclear that any of us within the universe could actually interact with it since it’s on the outside. In many ways, this is similar to the classic problem of Cartesian Duality, in which the Body and Soul are seen as distinct entities, each governed by their own rules. The problem, of course, is of interaction: Is it possible for things that are bound by physical laws to interact with things that are not so bound - assuming they even exist?

Because of the obvious design in nature, logically the first cause, or creator, must be of superior intelligence. Design implies intelligence.

Here, RC confuses complexity with design. Nature is complex, and this doesn’t imply anything concerning its origin. While it’s true that design implies intelligence, it’s not true that the complexity of nature implies a designer.

Here’s the truth: No matter how many facts are presented, those who chose to believe will continue to believe and those that choose not to believe will not believe. This is true because one’s relationship to God is not a condition of the intellect, or what one knows. It is dependent on the condition of the heart, or what one believes.

RC
Wilmer, Alabama

This part made the most sense to me. It is true that those who believe will continue to do so in the presence of contradictory facts. They will continue to believe when their arguments are shown to be flawed, or simply dead wrong. Ultimately, faith clearly defies reason. So all I want to know is why a person of faith would even attempt to couch what is, at its core, an irrational set of beliefs within any sort of logical conceptual framework? This is unnecessary for the faithful. I respect the faithful that embrace the illogic of their beliefs much more so than those that attempt to make rationalizations for them. You don’t need reason - accept it.

More likely, it seems, in the few centuries since the advent of modern Rationalism and Empiricism, the faithful are necessarily becoming increasingly adept at logic and rational thought. Armed as they are, this may lead to some self-examination, from which I would expect a certain measure of cognitive dissonance. Better then to deny the evidence, look past facts, and keep on writing those letters to the editor.