Dmitry Chernikov’s Blog

Natural Atheism: A Postscript

David Eller complains that my review of his book Natural Atheism, though providing “a wide-ranging and sophisticated analysis of certain points in the book, much deeper than any review would go,” “selects only those certain points for commentary (on the assumption that you find everything else acceptable?)…” Well, since the book touches on numerous issues, any review must needs specialize by focusing on particular points. No, of course, I do not find everything else acceptable; for example, I do not think that Eller’s rejection of natural theology in Chapter 1 is interesting enough to merit a review.

I define religion as “the service and worship of God or the supernatural.” Eller thinks this is problematic: “Not all religions even have a concept of god(s), so that will obviously not do, unless one wants to define certain beliefs right out of the category of religion. Buddhism (at least Theravada) makes no claims about any god(s). Many tribal religions have no god(s). And most theisms contain more than one god, so ‘worship of God’ is a false and prejudicial view. Even more, not all religions have a concept of ‘service’ or ‘worship’ either.” Yes, I want to define certain beliefs out of the category of religion. Buddhism and “tribal religions” would then be worldviews lacking any religious element. Remember that a worldview is “an interpretation of all things, and as a precept for action…; an explanation of all phenomena and… a technology.” When a Buddhist meditates, he is using a technology in hopes of reaching enlightenment and thereby increasing his well-being. When a shaman of a tribe is doing a rain dance, he, too, is employing a technology, though a faulty one, in order to curry favor with the spirits or whatever. Christian theism is, too, a worldview with its own technology (such as prayer and works of mercy), but it has a peculiarly theological underpinning, insofar as it tells us something about the ultimate reality. Eller writes that religion is “also stories and poetry and song and ritual and genealogy and many other things; it is even rules for everyday life — what foods you eat, what clothes you wear, how you wear your hair, etc.” Sure, but inasmuch as these substitute for — rather than complement — (loving) service and worship of God (that is, of the thing which theology describes), they are, again, worldviews or morals. Polytheisms might qualify for the honor of being religions, if they (mistakenly) split the virtues of God and assign them to a multitude of deities; so let’s change our definition to “the service and worship of God or gods…” Any belief system which does not include either service or worship, whatever it is, is not a religion. Or, anyway, such distinctions it seems useful to me to make.

Saying that “the assumption is the negative” is going a little too fast. Suppose I tell you: “I claim that you did not eat cereal for breakfast today.” (Or, perhaps more to the point, “No cereal in your stomach exists right now.”) That’s a “negative” statement. Who has the burden of proof? Suppose we could see God and His glory even in this life. Let’s say that most of us did see Him, yet Eller didn’t. Why couldn’t I say that his intellect was defective; that there’s something wrong with him for failing to see the obvious? Suppose, finally, that I am of the mind: “I don’t know if God exists, but I really hope He does.” Isn’t the burden on me to investigate the evidence both for and against God’s existence? At any rate, Eller and I agree that the theist should present the arguments for God’s existence, and the atheist, try to shoot them down. But the shooting down must be intelligent and open to the possibility that some theistic arguments may evade the attacks and hit the mark.

Eller goes on: “Rather, there is no such thing as a ‘genuine religious experience’ unless and until one can prove it, which throws experiencers back in the same boat as before.” He seems to forget that experience is all we have. Natural science itself is an abstraction from experience, dealing with law-like, mechanical aspect of experience though repeatable or reproducible experiments. “‘God’s grace comes with a guarantee that it is from God’ is also a mere stipulation, and a circular one at that. Substitute any other name for ‘god’ here and see the results: ‘Zeus’s grace comes with a guarantee that it is from Zeus.’” Well, Zeus has never bestowed grace, has he? But if he did, and it came with a guarantee that it was from Zeus, then it would be evidence for Zeus’s existence. “I go one further: there is no such thing as a ‘religious experience’ at all.” So much for going where the evidence leads. If Eller rejects religious experiences a priori, no pun intended, then we have little to discuss. Eller’s atheism is unfalsifiable. No matter which piece of evidence is presented to him, he’ll reject it out of hand. So much the worse for him. “[A]theism does not have to be falsifiable, since it is the default presumption. That is like saying, ‘There is no Santa Claus’ is unfalsifiable; one does not have to falsify no-Santa, one has to prove Santa.” The two are equivalent, and that’s why “[t]here is no Santa Claus” is eminently falsifiable: one only needs to present compelling evidence for Santa’s existence. But if Eller has resolved once and for all that no amount of evidence will ever convince him that God exists, then we might as well quit right here. And I think that’s the direction we are heading in: “But I would give you this as constraints: it must be some evidence that points to your god and no other and that cannot be interpreted in any possible way other than your god. I expect that, on principle, this is an impossible standard to meet, since any conceivable experience or evidence could be plausibly interpreted in some other way. So, in a word, your burden of proof is unbearable.” Unbearable. On principle. “Any claim about the ‘supernatural’ is automatically false.” End of discussion.

Furthermore, it may well happen that no experience in a person’s life will clearly qualify as “religious.” But an entire life lived with a mind open to the Light may display a pattern of God’s influence on and love of the person. The sum of one’s experiences may be convincing wherein no single experience will. Even Eller, I venture to guess, has had contacts with the divine, though he has interpreted them away. He summarizes that “to presume that those experiences ‘tell us about God’ is again prejudicial. Perhaps they tell us about space aliens, ascended masters, brain states, or the nature of delusion.” Well, perhaps. But then perhaps not. To reach that conclusion one must look carefully at lots of experiences. It appears that the common consent is on my side, not on Eller’s; else atheists would outnumber believers.

Yes, the existence of Hercules, Harry Potter, Santa Claus are legitimate questions, sometimes historical, sometimes not. I have reasons (good, in my estimation) to believe that Hercules never existed in reality, while Jesus did. What about, say, Marcus Aurelius or Herod? Wouldn’t Eller say that those guys did exist? Why does he liken Jesus to Hercules and not to Marcus Aurelius? It’s arbitrary and prejudicial.

Our author writes: “I, for instance, acknowledge the possibility that Christianity is correct. … As I argue in chapter 1, if there are 100 religions in the world, with equal chances of being right (and from here, we cannot tell the difference), then each has only a 1% chance of being right. That’s nothing to get too excited about.” No, they don’t all have equal chances to be right. Yes, you can tell the difference, unless you are from the very beginning prejudiced against all religions. One would think that a trained anthropologist would at least be capable of assigning rough probabilities to the religions he studies. (Let Eller consider me to be an expert or, at least, an expert-in-training on philosophy of religion, as I consider him an expert on anthropology. I have probably read and reviewed on this site more atheistic books than any other writer. Christian theism has far more evidence in its favor than other religions.) But Eller doesn’t bother to evaluate each religion on its own merits. He dismisses them all and precisely because of their very variety. I find it hard to believe that with so many traditions and practices to choose from, Eller has found nothing to his liking. I suspect that he is instead committed to atheism with the same fanaticism with which any fideist clings to his faith. But suppose that the probability of Christianity is indeed exactly 1%. Then Pascal’s wager enters into the picture here specifically for Eller and with a vengeance. Crudely speaking, non-belief is highly dangerous, while belief is highly rewarding. And 1% of everlasting happiness and 1% of hellfire are still the same everlasting happiness and everlasting misery, as 1% of infinity is infinity still. Now Eller will of course object by saying that this still does not tell him which religion he should favor. But a simple reply is available: that which threatens the most and promises the most! As far as threat, hell is the worst thing in the world. A million years of intense physical torture is as nothing compared to it. As far as promise, the leader in that is Christianity, too, or so I argue.

Yes, religion has a methodology. Though vastly varied, it is fundamentally based upon realizing that the world is triply incomplete without God in terms of (1) imperfections and limits of nature, (2) incapacity even of perfected nature, and (3) the ultimate victory of evil.

Now suppose for the sake of argument that most religions have been man-made. There is no truth to them. Don’t humans turn out to have excellent imaginations? No! They have terrible imaginations. They couldn’t theologize their way out of a paper bag. Zeus the — ha ha — Thunderer! Very funny. And scarcely imaginative. Christianity, at least, cannot have been invented. It’s natural aspect is too sophisticated, far beyond what the imagination of common folk could conceive. God’s essence is his existence? God is a simple being? God knows certain things through scentia media? God has 3 levels (a claim I have defended). Say what? It’s revealed aspect is too odd… not “absurd,” so Tertullian was mistaken, just impossible to make up. So, get real.

Eller “condemns missionization… [as] unwelcome interference in another culture.” Will he condemn his own “missionization” of atheism? Isn’t it an “unwelcome interference” in our culture? Why, not at all, he will answer, because atheism is true. But that’s precisely where we disagree. Why not then allow missionaries of all religions and worldviews, including atheism, to preach to whoever will listen and debate in peace?

Methodological individualism is a scientific principle governing the study of economics. If “[n]ot all cultures would recognize or endorse that,” then they are in big trouble. Says Mises:

It is uncontested that in the sphere of human action social entities have real existence. Nobody ventures to deny that nations, states, municipalities, parties, religious communities, are real factors determining the course of human events. Methodological individualism, far from contesting the significance of such collective wholes, considers it as one of its main tasks to describe and to analyze their becoming and their disappearing, their changing structures, and their operation. And it chooses the only method fitted to solve this problem satisfactorily.

First we must realize that all actions are performed by individuals. A collective operates always through the intermediary of one or several individuals whose actions are related to the collective as the secondary source. It is the meaning which the acting individuals and all those who are touched by their action attribute to an action, that determines its character. It is the meaning that marks one action as the action of an individual and another action as the action of the state or of the municipality. The hangman, not the state, executes a criminal. It is the meaning of those concerned that discerns in the hangman’s action an action of the state. A group of armed men occupies a place. It is the meaning of those concerned which imputes this occupation not to the officers and soldiers on the spot, but to their nation. If we scrutinize the meaning of the various actions performed by individuals we must necessarily learn everything about the actions of collective wholes. For a social collective has no existence and reality outside of the individual members’ actions. The life of a collective is lived in the actions of the individuals constituting its body. There is no social collective conceivable which is not operative in the actions of some individuals. … Thus the way to a cognition of collective wholes is through an analysis of the individuals’ actions. (Human Action, 42)

Finally, our author claims that I am wrong about agnosticism. But if that term is to be distinguished from atheism and fulfill some function, then it has to be defined my way. Eller objects: “I know what the Christian concept(s) of god is/are, but I recognize it/them as nothing more THAN concepts, and as having no actual referent. Any agnostic who understands agnosticism would say the same.” My point exactly: an agnostic will accept the concept but be unsure of whether this concept refers. “You are again inventing a straw-man agnostic and knocking him down. What, for instance, would an agnostic in India say: that he knows what Shiva is but [not] that he is?” Absolutely. “If so, then Shiva exists, by your argument.” In semiotics there is a distinction between the meaning of a word and its referrent which is at work here. So, no, once again, an agnostic would be familiar with the concept of Shiva, but would disclaim knowledge of whether Shiva exists.

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