Dawkins' answer to someone who has experienced God: You hallucinated

Here. 

Notes on the Courtier's Reply

In response to the Skeptic Zone here.

The Courtier's Reply is a term that has come to be used for the response to the
Courtier's Reply, and so you are right to say that it might be more proper to call it the Courtier's Reply Reply, but that gets awkward to say.


Here is the problem. Sure, I don't have to understand the difference between, let's say, Sunni and Shiite Islam if my disagreement with Islam has primarily to do with whether I believe that Allah, through the Angel Gabriel, dictated the Qu'ran to Muhammad in Arabic. Both Sunnis and Shiites agree on this, and the question of how the succession in the Caliphate should have gone is not relevant to the fundamental issue between myself and Muslims of either stripe.



On the other hand, if something is relevant to the reasons why one believes that Muhammad did receive this revelation, then I had better understand the reasons Muslims have for believing this I am going to seem pretty ignorant to my Muslim interlocutors. I need to know what their best reasons are. Or, I should at least show that I have tried to understand it. A person's time is limited, so I could reject Islam without this kind of information. But if I want to write The Muslim Delusion, then I need to know what the best Muslim scholars have to offer on why they think Islam is true. If I write a book that makes no attempt to understand this, then they have every right to complain that I am arguing from a position of ignorance, even if Islam is delusional.

When you do something like say that all forms of the Cosmological Argument fail to the "Who made God" question, there are some obvious ways that argument defenders have of responding to this, and you ought to know what those are and rebut them.

Now, I think there is further discussion which might develop the "Who made God" response to more sophisticated version of the Cosmological Arguments. For example, some people argue that if there was a time prior to the beginning of the universe, the causal principle should apply that whatever begins to exist must have a cause, but if there was no prior time, and time began at the Big Bang, then the causal principle should not be applied.  But a popular kind of response to arguments like Aquinas's and Craig's, sometimes given in intro philosophy classes, makes it seem as if they somehow didn't think to ask the question "Who made God," a question asked by most grade school children.

On the famous Trilemma argument, he gives a two paragraph rebuttal the completely ignores a wide range of arguments on both sides. John Beversluis wrote a chapter in his revised C. S. Lewis and the Search for Rational Religion, which he considers to be an effective take-down of the argument, but in a footnote criticizes as too quick and too easy Hitchens's three-paragraph refutation. I'm sure he would say the same thing about Dawkins's two paragraphs.

Now Dawkins has a quadrilemma concerning those who believe in God, (or, as he puts it, don't believe in evolution) and that is that they are either ignorant, stupid, insane, or wicked. But I think he think that theism is really a stupid position.

So, if Dawkins has reasons for rejecting theism in general, then, sure, he shouldn't be expected to know understand, for example, the filioque controversy about the procession of the Holy Spirit. But he should be expected to understand, or at least make an effort to understand the reasons why someone might think that the evidence for God is reasonably good, or that it can be justified as a properly basic belief.

Another example: Dawkins assumes that if believers just believe on tradition and pay no attention to evidence. Reading him, you would never guess that one of the most popular books on Christianity is Josh McDowell's book Evidence that Demands a Verdict, or that there is another book called Faith Founded on Fact. Now, these people may be all wrong, and it could be that they don't have good evidence, but a well-informed anti-apologist should be aware that there are Christians out there who think the evidence favors them.

Myers' presentation of the Courtier's reply appears stupid because he takes discussions that take place on the assumption that the emperor is clothed as a basis for answering the question of whether or not he is clothed, when in fact he appears naked. But if there are books offering reasons for thinking that the emperor is really clothed, then it is fair to expect someone defending the emperor's nudity to consider them.

I'm sure Dawkins is an intelligent person, but my complaint is that he projects and impression that he doesn't have to bother to understand his opponents in order to attack them. He has I believe an earned reputation for lucid explanations of Darwinian biology, but the lack of effort to understand the people he is criticizing, (and his excuses for making no such effort), means that if anyone is going to talk me out of my religious beliefs, it won't be him.

Dawkins' failure to debate Bill Craig

In any event, Dawkins' failure to debate Craig is not something I have a problem with per se.

However, I find the charge of "defending genocide" to be somewhat misstated. Could an omniscient being ever be justified in ordering a genocide if he thought that the overall balance of good over bad would be enhanced by so doing? Regardless of what you think the answer is on this, I don't think you could use that as a basis of supposing that your opponent was an evil person, or that you shouldn't be seen on stage with someone like that. Unless you thought this person could end up advocating a present-day genocide, I don't see that such a position would render someone dangerous. And if you really thought someone might end up justifying a real genocide, wouldn't you want to debate them to make sure that such ideas were effectively refuted? I certainly would.

But the fact is, I have no trouble with Dawkins not debating Craig, except that I consider it to be symptomatic of an overall unwillingness to be responsive to critics of his atheistic programme. An atheist might think that a public debate format is a bad setup for that person to engage the points at issue betwee Craig and himself, which is fine. What he has not done is shown either the ability or the willingness to engage, say, Craig's Kalam Cosmological argument, beginning with an effort to state the argument clearly enough so that his audience can be sure he knows how to distinguish that argument from other versions of the cosmological argument. To take a page from Jesse Parrish's book, anyone who writes about the credibility of belief in God should be able to pass this Simple Test For Understanding. Otherwise....

Propaganda, Mockery, and Following the Argument

An important distinction has to be made about the whole mockery issue. If we are talking about mockery in and of itself, I don't see the harm in that. When I watch Life of Brian, for example, I see things within Christianity that no doubt deserve to be mocked. However, I don't think people should be making decisions about something as serious as religion based on mockery. You can mock, for example the theory of evolution with no trouble. And you can certainly mock people who have a quasi-religious devotion to the theory of evolution. The trouble is that perfectly good ideas can be made to look ridiculous.

Usually when I hear people mocking what I believe, it makes it seem less likely that they understand what they are mocking. I could be wrong, the could be capable of taking the time and effort to engage in a serious critique. But evidence of mockery points the other way. Of course, the mocker can come back with the Courtier's Reply: Your position is so ridiculous that I don't even have to understand it to critique it." I think there are difficulties inherent in the situation when you want to criticize something, but you don't want to give it a place at them table of dialogue. If atheists want real dialogue with believers, they have to treat them with respect at least in the interests of the discussion. If they just want to engage in propaganda, they can do that, but they should at least have the honest to call it what it is.

In philosophy we do have a argument method called reductio ad absurdum. But if absurdum doesn't involve an actual contradiction, then it's always possible to just say "So? Not that there's anything wrong with that!," and just reject the reductio. That's just life in the world of thought.

But I have a real problem with mockery as a strategy of persuasion. It functions pretty much like peer pressure, which is always a lousy way to decide what to do. I also think it undercuts dialogue and drags discussion down. It is tempting to think that what we believe is so important that whether someone comes to believe it for good reasons or bad, the important thing is that they believe what we agree with. But that is a huge mistake.

Real dialogue just follows the argument where it leads. What someone does with the argument once you are done is up to them. I think Lewis had a point when he separated apologetics from evangelism. These are two different operations, whether you are on the theist side or the atheist side.

I think Dawkins' strategy also leads to something else--people treating the person with whom they are engaging the discussion almost as if they weren't there, and shouting over them to possible "fence-sitters" who will be somehow peer-pressured into accepting atheism through the display of naked contempt. The message is "You're a hopeless faith-head who won't listen to reason. But maybe if I express enough contempt for what you believe, people who are thinking of agreeing with you will tip my way instead, since they don't want to be laughed at." The process matters, and if we are engaged intellectual dialogue, we have to respect that process. Propaganda is essentially anti-intellectual, regardless of what propositions are being supported by it.

C. S. Lewis was the first president of the Oxford Socratic Club, dedicated to following the argument where it leads. His time there led to two things that might be regarded as setbacks: his exchange with Elizabeth Anscombe, and the launching of Antony Flew's career as an atheist philosopher. But, in neither case was the setback the end of the story.

I think we have to face the fact that the most intelligent people in the world are divided on these religious issues, for whatever reason.

Dawkins and evidence: Obama, Clinton, and Lincoln were probably atheists

Does anyone find it just a tiny bit ironic that Dawkins is trying to get everyone to hold beliefs based on evidence and only on evidence--and then makes assertion after assertion with no evidence for them whatsoever?

Understanding, Critique and Ridicule

I had made the claim that while you don't need to understand something in order to reject it, you do need to understand something in order to critique it.

From an exchange on Debunking Christianity.

Robert Corfield: If someone took seriously the flying spaghetti monster and claimed it existed, do you think you would need to study The Gospel of the FSM and make a thorough study of pastafarian theology to make sure you understand the position in order to critique it?

VR: The FSM was invented as a concept that could not be taken seriously by people attacking, in this case, intelligent design (though it does make for a good reply to fideism). Understanding is needed for critique because we need to get inside the intellectual tempation to believe something in order to provide a response that shows that this apparent justification is illusory. No one I know claims to be rationally justified in believing that the Flying Spaghetti Monster exists. If someone did, we would have to understand why someone thought that--otherwise our critical response is not going to get at what is supporting the belief.
Let's take an example from theistic arguments: various forms of the cosmological argument. People like Dawkins, and Russell before him, presume that you can refute all forms of the cosmological argument by presuming that you can just answer it by asking "Who made God." In other words, they presume that the argument is based on a principle that everything has a cause. The "naive" cosmological argument was attributed to Aquinas as late as 1998, as going as follows, by Theodore Schick.
http://www.infidels.org/librar...

1. Everything is caused by something other than itself2. Therefore the universe was caused by something other than itself.3. The string of causes cannot be infinitely long.4. If the string of causes cannot be infinitely long, there must be a first cause.5. Therefore, there must be a first cause, namely god.
The most telling criticism of this argument is that it is self-refuting. If everything has a cause other than itself, then god must have a cause other than himself. But if god has a cause other than himself, he cannot be the first cause. So if the first premise is true, the conclusion must be false.

But Aquinas never said that, he said that whatever exists contingently needs a cause of its existence. God, by definition, isn't a contingent being, and therefore needs no cause. Now, there could be all sorts of things wrong with this argument, but that isn't it, and making this mistake signals to readers who do know something about this argument that the critic doesn't know what he's talking about. This is particularly of interest because Russell, for example goes on to say that this reply should be so obvious that the fact that people are persuaded by this kind of an argument requires a psychological explanation. Perhaps we need a psychological explanation for why Russell didn't do his homework.

Remember what I pointed out earlier, that it is easy to ridicule evolution. The evolutionist can rightly respond by saying that such ridicule is based on a lack fo understanding. But Christians and defenders of natural theology will say the same thing about misguided attacks.
Creationists, whatever else you might want to say about them, are armed to respond to the tactics of the New Atheists.
http://creation.com/ridicule-t...

Does Chesterton Refute Dawkins

Compare these two quotes and see what you think.

This is what Dawkins says about child abuse

A redated post.

It's my contention that these statements go well beyond the sensible things you might say about religious education, and implies that all religious education is abusive because it subverts the mind (from the "proper" view of atheism). Gosh, what if Duane Gish compared teachers of evolution to pedophiles? Well, he might actually have. I'm not a great reader of Gish.

Why Atheists Care about Defending Atheism

Bob: A lot of academic atheists, when I was involved with secular philosophy departments, took relatively little interest in their position. They were dismissive of religious belief, but they sometimes complained about having to cover the problem of God in classes. 

But some atheists blame religious belief for 9/11, and they think President Bush's unfortunate response to it (in particular, invading a country in no way responsible for the attacks), was the work of a "praying President" who wore his religious beliefs on his sleeve, and so they see the conflict over terrorism essentially the effect of the damaging effects of religion on the minds of its followers. They also see the rearguard action of religious believers against biological evolution as of a piece with the failure to accept the scientific consensus in the area of global warming, and these are also intellectual tendencies that are damaging to our society. Joe Sheffer once told me that all evolutionary biologists receive a lot of hate mail from Christian fundamentalists. Whether we go forward in civilization, or backwards, according to people like Dawkins, depends on whether we are willing to chuck our antiquated religious beliefs and embrace science as the measure of all things. So I can see why some atheists care about sharing the Four Atheist Laws with believers.

Why there won't be a Craig-Dawkins debate

Actually, it's Craig that is ducking, according to Paul Manata.

The Dog Delusion

HT: Tim Boyle

On Engaging the Real Arguments

I disagree pretty strongly with Craig's way of defending such things as the ban on the Amalekites. At the same time, if I refused to engage anyone who held a position that I considered to be morally repugnant, there probably aren't going to be a whole lot of people to talk to.

I don't really have trouble with the idea of Dawkins refusing to debate Craig, if, for example, he thought that the sort of timed debate that Craig excels at would be a bad venue for him. The problem is that his work attacks religious belief but never comes to grips with such things as the Kalam Cosmological argument, or some of the other arguments Craig uses.

It's one thing to be poorly informed about theology. It is another thing to be poorly informed about the kinds of arguments that are used to defend belief in the existence of God.

Dawkins makes the claim that the theist is delusional, by which I take it he means that the case against theism is overwhelming. Yet he doesn't, in any serious way, engage any of the arguments in natural theology, and he seems to imply that it is beneath him to engage leading defenders of belief in the existence of God, and their arguments. I don't care whether he does it in a debate format or some other format, but somewhere, somehow, he needs to show that he knows how the Kalam Cosmological Argument and the Thomistic Cosmological Argument restrict the class of what needs a cause, so that a simplistic "Who made God" can't refute them in any direct way.

Craig is a leading defender of arguments for the existence of God. Regardless of whether some of his statements are morally repugnant, Dawkins needs to come to terms with him and those like him if he is to have any credibility with respect to his delusion charges. Putting his nose in the air with the "Courtier's Reply" does not replace confronting the actual relevant arguments.

Subjectivism and Evil Moral Positions

To hear Dawkins' talk, it sounds as if he's refusing to debate Craig because he holds an evil position, on killing the Canaanites.

But the fact is in Dawkins' universe, statements like "It was wrong of the ancient Hebrews to kill all those Canaanites and Amalekites" is neither true nor false. He may dislike it pretty intensely, and no doubt he thinks it conflicts with some strong moral intuitions that he has, but his philosophy doesn't even allow him to charge Craig with error on this point.

It isn't that Craig holds such a preposterous position that this proves his total irrationality. In fact, he holds a view that Dawkins himself would not consider to be false, let alone refutable.

Somewhere in England, an emperor is missing his lab coat.

Dawkins explains his refusal to debate WLC

Now it's not about resumes, it's about genocide.

Hope Springs Eternal

From William Lane Craig's calendar. 


Tuesday 25th October 2011
7.30pm Lecture "Is God a Delusion?" A Critique of Dawkins' The God Delusion
[or a debate with Richard Dawkins if he should accept the invitation]
Sheldonian Theatre, Broad Street, Oxford, OX1 3AZ

Christian Physicist Polkinghorne on Dawkins

"Debating with Dawkins is hopeless, because there's no give and take. He doesn't give you an inch. He just says no when you say yes."

I have just linked to the essay on Polkinghorne where I got that information. I'm becoming rather a Polkinghorne fan.

Why Dawkins Almost Deserved his Name

Interestingly, Angus Menuge's essay "Why Eustace Almost Deserved His Name: Lewis's Critique of Modern Secularism" in The Chronicles of Narnia and Philosophy (Open Court, 2005), develops this theme, though without the wonderful graphics on this post by Patrick Chan of Triablogue.

On trying to get things right: Why I think the New Atheism is bound to backfire

A redated post.

When I was a young Christian I read some anti-religious writings like those of Bertrand Russell, and I found that as brilliant as he might have been in other respects, he made no attempt to get anything right about his believing opponents.

Dawkins seems to be proud of not taking his opponents seriously. See here.

I went onto the Dawkins site and found that people who write books critical of the New Atheists referred to as fleas, and my book was mentioned as one of Dennett's fleas.

Look, I went through an entire Ph.D level education in philosophy from undergrad on up in secular philosophy departments. I can tell you that the failure to take theistic perspectives seriously in response to them left me unimpressed with the religious skepticism of many of my professors. Some, of course, were notable exception. When you read a book by Russell on why he isn't a Christian and he can't get Aquinas' cosmological argument even close to right, it makes you think that a lot of unbelief is fueled by personal hostility rather than careful evaluation. In some classes the impression I got was everyone was supposed to assume that the case against religious belief was made on the day you were absent. "Well, of course, we've grown up." "Everybody is a materialist." Etc. Etc. Etc.

At the same time, I encountered Christian after Christian of undeniable intellect and intellectual fairness. They may not be right, but I found it hard to believe that refuting them was a slam dunk.

Going around saying that the emperor has no clothes on is quite different from providing real arguments. For this reason I think the New Atheists' strategy is bound to backfire. They don't have to be nice, they do have to take the time and effort to understand positions they don't like.

People who take completely opposed positions to my own have praised my fairness. How many Dawkins opponents have said that about him?

P. S. I put the link on the title.

Here is some exchange on Michael Medved with Richard Dawkins

ID advicates are really creationists, so if we can beat Kent Hovind, we've nailed intelligent design.

Why Dawkins should debate Meyer and Craig

The reason I put the word "entertaining" in the previous post is because I do have some reservations about public debate as a venue for the adequate airing of issues. The blogosphere, public debate, and peer reviewed journals all have strengths and weaknesses as loci for dialogue about issues like this.




By the same token, Dawkins' career, and even his previous academic position (1995-2008), the Simonyi Professorship for the Public Understanding of Science, are dedicated to the defense of evolution to the general public. The ordinary complaints about public debate as a setting for the exchange of ideas go by the boards here.



It is quite true that if you have a public debate between Bill Craig and someone who is a good atheist philosopher of religion but who is not at home in the debate setting, you could complain that a debate might unfairly disadvantage the atheist cause. Similarly, a good evolutionary biologist might bomb in a debate with Duane Gish, and that this might tell us little about the credibility of evolution.



But Dawkins writes for the public, not only to accept evolution in full, but also to reject belief in the existence of God. He is an excellent public speaker. So he is not in a position to use what would ordinarily be the best arguments against debating someone like Craig or Meyer.



To make a career of making the case for atheistic evolution to the general public, and then to hide behind academic snobbery when challenged to a debate by academically qualified opponents, is trying to have your cake and eat it too.