If you are an atheist, then you are in bad faith.
Frederic Dard
Frederic Dard
first part (of three)
John Stuart Mill argued with reason that has any interest in not reject an opinion contrary to that of the majority because primo, if it is possibly true, it misses the opportunity to learn the truth and, secondly , if false, it also misses an opportunity to better understand what our opinion is true. ( 1) In addition, Mill makes a fundamental principle of rationality in any discussion, the better to understand the views otherwise does not understand that our rival.
He who knows only his own argument in a case knows little. It is possible that his reasoning is good and no one arrived to refute. But if he, too, unable to refute the reasoning of the opposing party, and if he did not even know he has no reason to prefer one opinion to another. The rational position to adopt in his case would be suspended sentences, and not knowing how to be content, or he is guided by the authority, or adopts, like most people, the party for which he feels the strongest inclination. (2)
In the debate between the atheist to the believer, it should adopt the principle of rational discussion of the Mill. If the believer feels uncomfortable with Mill, a good liberal and atheist, you should know that Thomas Aquinas had systematically used the same principle invoked by Mill with his famous method of disputation wishing that the controversy is the best means to achieve true so that any argument, any argument against or objection must be presented and vetted in critical review. Thomas Aquinas did not realize how out of originality since it draws its method of disputation in diretta The Philosopher (Aristotle, especially at the beginning of Book B of Metaphysics ).
In addition to the principle of rational discussion, we must also rely on a version of the principle of charity wanting it to be understood sympathetically the arguments of our opponents as being of interest since ' they are the result of someone as smart as us. In short, people who do not share our views are not necessarily idiots, they are intelligent people worthy of respect.
This granted, let us turn to the arguments in favor of atheism, Claude Braun, as atheist Quebec, lists ten in number (p. 37 to 39). In what follows, I present to every argument for atheism against a statement by Braun-argument or objection. The aim is that the reader may better be able to get a head in the debate between atheism and belief. Any beginning student of philosophy should engage in the same year since it is very formative in terms of critical thinking.
1. The believer is an atheist who does not know . It is true that a believer, a Christian in particular, does not adhere to the beliefs of other religions. The atheist can not understand why Christian beliefs are true, while those of other religions are false. Obviously, this first joined the second argument, as we shall soon see. The objection atheist wants to sum the believer sin by inconsistency: if the other beliefs are wrong, those of the believer should be false, so for consistency the believer should be an atheist. The atheist is also consistent in rejecting as false beliefs of all faiths. The problem with this argument, of course, is that the atheist presupposes, without establishing that all religious beliefs are false.
2. No religion has a monopoly on truth, so it is quite arbitrary to choose one over the other. As I said, this argument is a variant of the first. The same problem sometimes arises: is peremptorily decreed that no religion is true. All that the atheist is allowed to say, in effect, is that religions have a variety of beliefs. Conclude from this factual statement, is no legitimate or true is not valid. The conclusion is not deductively valid because, even if the premise is true, the conclusion could be false. The premise, in fact, relates to what people think of their religious culture of origin; there, people believe so and so, by so and so and so. The conclusion, it concerns what is true regardless of what people believe. In other words, the mere fact that religious beliefs differ, we can not conclude that there is no truth to this.
3. In all religions, the description of the gods is not consistent. They are indeed presented as perfect, then they do things showing they are not. This applies in particular to the Christian God who is presented now as merciful but in some passages of the Bible is cruel and bloodthirsty. Claude Braun cites no incriminating, he is content to say only that there may have one everywhere, "according to the passage of the revelations that we want to consult." He could have quoted this passage from the biblical the prophet Isaiah that brings water to his mill atheist: "I am Yahweh , there is no other. I form light and I create darkness. I'm happy and I create evil. It's me O Lord, who do all this . "(Isaiah 45: 6-7) were could also include acts of violence, war, murders committed by Israel against, inter alia, the Canaanites, etc.. The question then is: why do we tell these stories with a moral unedifying? Is that the Bible is a book that is not confusing a book of history in the modern sense of the term to explain the history and factual events of a people, the Hebrews. The Bible tells the story of the relationship between a people and their God, Yahweh . This is a "sacred history " as it was before. The authors of works that make up this library is the Bible trying to express sense of adventure of the Jewish people in relationship with God, truth is secondary compared to pa meaning of events. This is why it is always risky to take literally the biblical narratives. The so-called 'fundamentalists' literal interpretations these stories. Joshua stopped there in his race the sun around the earth? (Joshua 10: 12-13) Yes, say categorically fundamentalists, because what is written in the Bible is literally true . Long time, biblical scholars have learned to read the Bible in the second degree. We must learn to read the Bible together. There is nothing blasphemous to say that the Bible is a sort of "catch all" of the Jewish tradition, full of historical falsehoods. Again, this is not the truth stories which is concerned that their sense . The scholars know for example that the creation story at the beginning of the end has Genesis two accounts at the end, spun like a quilt, the story "Yahwist" of creation (Genesis 1 1-28) in seven days, being much newer than the other story (circa 500 BC), the story " Elohistic "oldest (Genesis 2 4 and following), dating back to Solomon (1000 BC). In the first story, God appears as an abstract being, a pure spirit ("The spirit of God hovered over the waters"), whereas in the second, God is anthropomorphized ("I heard your footsteps in the garden ... ") An informed and intelligent reading of the Bible requires that take account of exegesis. In this sense, the type of reading is required of the Bible meets the principle of charity admitted earlier, this principle that, what is the authors of the Bible. this is not the truth that the meaning of the events recounted. On this basis it is possible to justify the many apparent contradictions that we encounter.
4. The gods are anthropomorphic. These are the men who invented so they mystify themselves. In a sense, the answer to the question if it is the men who invented the gods or the reverse, is the responsibility of religious studies. But it is an extraordinarily difficult issue so that the science of religions do not address directly. They would rather talk about "the experience of the sacred " located at the heart of all known religions. The great historian of religions Mircea Eliade, has proposed the term hierophany to designate the irruption of the sacred in the lives of men who gather to tell and in society. We may recall the movie Gods have fallen head on (Jamie Uys, 1980) in which a small Bushman hunter receives on his head, fell from an airplane in flight, a bottle of Coca-Cola. Obviously, the tribe of African hunter, without contact with Western civilization, the bottle of Coca-Cola, profane perfectly for us, will become for them a source of hierophany , that is to say, sacred, where, therefore, the gods appear. Obviously, for the Western viewer, the gods do not exist because we know how to make Coke bottles, these are just mere mortals like the Bushmen who make them. The question of the existence of gods is here quickly resolved.
To complicate somewhat the case and to advance our thinking on this complex issue, let us turn to the parable that the ex-atheist Anthony Flew, proposed in There Is A God. How the World's Most Notorious Atheist Changed His Mind (3), work in which the British philosopher explains his change of tack after fifty years of hardline atheism. Here is the parable that offers Flew:
Imagine a phone connected to a communications satellite is released on the shores of an island inhabited by a tribe that never came in contact with modern civilization. The natives tap on the keypad on the handset and hear voices out of the phone. They believe, prima facie, that the voices come from the device itself. Other smarter - scientists of the tribe - are able to reproduce an exact replica of the phone and make up the same numbers on the keypad. They hear the same voices again. The conclusion is self-evident: that amalgam specific form crystals, metals and chemical process produces what looks like human voices, for Therefore, the votes are produced by the device itself.
A sage of the tribe convenes scientific discussion. It has long been thinking about this whole affair and he came to the following conclusion: the voices in the unit are actually people like themselves, people who live like them and who can think like them, but expressed in another language. So instead of thinking that the voices are the properties of handset product, he suggested to his followers to study the hypothesis that these voices actually come from a network of mysterious communication and those of other humans would like them. But scientists scoff at the advice of wise and tell him: "Listen. When the device smashes the voices are silent. Therefore, the sounds are nothing other than the specific mix of lithium and electronic circuits and light emitting diodes. (4)
Through this parable, the former atheist invites those who think the world does not need an explanation involving a transcendent source - to the gods - , it suffices to itself, and that life appeared by accident of matter inert to revise their views because their attitude may well be that "scientists" of the tribe, which is that of dogmatic atheism. The existence of one or more deities nothing crazy and seems perfectly reasonable.
A more open and that atheism would be reasonable to say: "I do not know if God (or gods) exists. After all, it is not impossible that one day we know it exists. For now, I have no reason to believe that allowing me this is not possible. ". This position, which could be described of "open agnosticism" has three advantages over atheism: 1) it is more open and more respectful of the opinions in religious matters, 2) a reasonable belief that although it may be false, and finally 3) does not pray. Let us briefly examine these three benefits.
First, a belief can be rational as well as false. A person with cancer is believing in perfect health is wrong because she has received two diagnoses oncologists assuring that it did not have cancer. Even if the belief is false, it is rational: the two diagnoses show.
Belief in God is rational, even if we do not know if it true (or false), and it is legitimate to teach. It would not be desirable to oppose the religious education of youth. Training of children is indeed incomplete without founding narratives and rituals "hierophanic, they will, in adulthood, to separate things. Moreover, there is nothing irrational to advocate within a political party or civil society; same thing for the believer.
Finally, as surprising, even paradoxical as it may seem, agnosticism leaves open space for prayer. Praying God (or gods) so that its existence becomes clear is not so irrational as it seems at first. After all, the one who cried for help when there is nobody around acts completely rational. The agnostic open also asked for help so that the light that God exists or not. If God exists, He will answer.
5. Do not believing in God has no impact on us. If one violates a tenet of faith, nothing happens. In short, it makes no difference whether God exists or not. existentialist philosophers such as Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus argued that if God does not exist, then life is absurd. However, contrary to the argument by reduction ad absurdum these atheistic existentialists did not conclude that therefore, God must exist, but that existence is absurd existence would indeed be devoid of purpose, of purpose, devoid of meaning . Shakespeare had already Macbeth, " life [is] a story told by a madman, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing ..." (Macbeth, Act V, scene 5). But the program of existentialism is not so black it seems. Sartre in particular is that our only "purpose" or "purpose" is our freedom. This is to give meaning to what has not. Not only humans but the universe in which we live, has no meaning. As Russell wrote on his side:
In the visible universe, the Milky Way is a tiny fragment in which the solar system that fits only a tiny grain in which, in turn, our planet is a microscopic dot. On this tiny point of infinitesimal clumps composed of carbon and water, provided with a complex chemical structure, crawl a few years only after which their components disperse again (5).
Unlike argument that the atheist says, non-belief in God has huge consequences affecting human existence. Affirm that God has no consequence that what is good or evil becomes personal matter subjective. It also argued that for consistency Russell. This is what we call the "moral subjectivism . Russell still listen.
When a man says: "This is good in itself, it appears to assert a fact, as if to say:" This is square "or" This is sweet. " I think this is a mistake. I think it really means: "I wish that everyone wants this," or rather " May everyone want this. " If one interprets his words as an affirmation, it is only the affirmation of his personal desire, for cons, if interpreted in a more general, they n'affirment anything but do that express a desire. The desire itself is personal, but its object is universal. That, in my opinion, this unique tangle of the particular and the universal which has caused such confusion in moral matters.
(...)
If the above analysis is correct, morality does not contain any statement, true or false, but consists of desires of a certain kind, namely those related to the desires of mankind in general - and gods, angels and demons, if they exist. Science can examine the causes of desires, and ways to achieve them, but it can not contain any legal award itself, because it deals with what is true or false.
The theory I have presented is one form of the doctrine of "subjectivity" of values. (6)
I think it's pretty clear that if God does not exist, then morality is not, at least objectively. Then we slide into a moral subjectivism, which leads in turn to surreptitiously moral relativism which is the worst moral situations. This is also one in which we are now.
(to follow) ______________
NOTES (1) See John Stuart Mill, On Liberty , Paris, Presses Pocket, 1990, Chapter 2: Freedom of thought and discussion .
(2) Ibid., P. 79.
(3) Antony Flew in collaboration with Roy Abraham Varghese, Harper One, New York, 2007, 222P.
(4) Ibid., P. 85-86. My translation.
(5) Bertrand Russell, op. cit., p. 68-69. Russell is even more pessimistic in "The profession of faith of a free man", which reads: "That man is the product of causes which made no provision by the end they were doing, and that its origin, development, hopes and fears, his loves and beliefs are nothing but the result accidental collision of atoms, no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling can preserve an individual life from the grave, that all works are for ages to disappear in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of Man's achievement must inevitably disappear beneath the rubble of a ruined world (all those things if they do not escape the discussion, are nevertheless so close to the certainty that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. It is only on the scaffold of these truths on the firm foundation of unwavering despair, that the dwelling of the soul can now be built safely. "in Bertrand Russell, Mysticism and Logic , Vrin, 2007, p. 66.
(6) Bertrand Russell Science and Religion, Gallimard, NRF Ideas # 248, 1971, p. 175-177.
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