Thought of the Day 08.05.08

A skeptic is someone who is impossible to please, the sort of person who will find a way to be dissatisfied no matter what happens. If the politician does bad, well, he’s a scoundrel. But if he does good, well, he’s an even bigger scoundrel for whatever scheme he’s really got cooking.

The key to dealing with the skeptic is to ask what evidence would satisfy him. He’ll usually refuse to answer because then he would have to enter the discussion legitimately as someone vulnerable to being persuaded. But sometimes he’ll simply give you unreasonable criteria.

Either way, you’ve shown that the problem is with the skeptic and not with the evidence. Consider the problem of evil. Suffering proves there can’t be a good and powerful God. But imagine if all the world were heavenly. The skeptic would then complain that God clearly had lied in saying He gave us free will.

If the presence of evil disproves God and the absence of it disproves God, one might reasonably ask the skeptic why he bothers making arguments at all. He’s simply unwilling to believe. And at least if he said that I’d respect his honesty.
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13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Ay-yi-yi! I didn't realize when I first started to reply to you what I was getting into :)

You say: "A skeptic is someone who is impossible to please, the sort of person who will find a way to be dissatisfied no matter what happens."

I'm sure you are skeptical of a great many things in your life, as it is normal to do. Are you "impossible to please" regarding these things? No, being skeptical means that you require evidence before belief. In using such a broad brush to paint skeptics, you can't help but get some on yourself.

Why are you so sour on skeptics that you would portray them they way you did above? Would it be just as correct (or incorrect) for me to say that all believers are nuts?

People may be stereotypes, but stereotypes are not people.

August 4, 2008 at 7:55 PM
Anonymous said...

Yeah, I had more to say about this one. You wrote:

"Suffering proves there can’t be a good and powerful God. But imagine if all the world were heavenly. The skeptic would then complain that God clearly had lied in saying He gave us free will."

This is not my experience with non-believers. Many of us (me included) see nothing contradictory at all with a perfect world where free will is still present.

In fact, one common argument from unbelievers is: "Why didn't God make a perfect world (with free will) when he began with Adam and Eve?" It is usually the *believers* who argue that because God gave Adam and Eve free will, that the world fell from being perfect.

To take this even further, isn't Heaven supposed to be a perfect place? Unless believers give up free will when they go to Heaven then clearly perfection and free will can co-exist.

I think you need to find out what arguments *real* non-believers use, rather than knocking down straw men.

I am a "skeptic" and I would certainly believe in God, Jesus, or anything else given good evidence. The problem is that what some believers think is good evidence, really isn't upon closer examination.

August 4, 2008 at 9:12 PM
cary said...

This is where the believers should be asking you, Theophage, what criteria would be required to satisfy your skepticism.

I don't speak for Andrew, but in my experience I have yet to find a non-believer who has outlined what it would take to convert him, since he doesn't know himself. You say you want "good evidence" but how good? As a believer, I take on faith that the Bible is the infallible Word of God, and that is the basis of my belief - yet I have had more non-believers say that the Bible is not acceptable to them - so right there, we have no common starting point and there is no way to show a true skeptic anything if no common start, or truth, is allowed by the skeptic. Anything the believer presents as a starting point is shot down by the professional skeptic, and the believer has nowhere to go with that lack of logic on the unbeliever's part.

Andrew - this is a good thought of the day. Thank you for sharing. And, thinking back to a recent Wednesday show, would you really want the converted skeptic in your fellowship, if you had to continue to convince him?

August 5, 2008 at 8:33 AM
Anonymous said...

I just sent a comment that I think was eaten. I'll try again, pardon me if it shows up twice.

Howdy Cary,

If I told you that I could walk on water, or that I could raise dead pets back to life, would you believe me? Probably not, and I wouldn't blame you. Being skeptical is not anything strange or mean, we all have things we are skeptical of. It is a normal part of using reason. Being skeptical just means withholding belief without evidence.

What is "good evidence"? Good evidence is objectively verifiable, meaning that other people can check it out and confirm that its right. Good evidence shows that one particular explanation is more likely to be true than another. Good evidence fits in with everything else we know to be true.

What would I consider good evidence of the existence of God? Believe it or not, this is a pretty common question that gets asked on skeptic and atheist message boards all the time. I'm sure if you Google it, you'll find plenty of answers people have given.

As for me, I can think of a million things which would convince me, but let's take a simple one: I would be convinced that God is real if He gave consistent, audible answers to questions asked by prayer. Note this doesn't mean responses which are feelings, or coincidental happenings the day after I asked. Just direct, audible, consistent responses; like as if I was talking on the telephone.

Now I'm sure you'll tell me why God simply doesn't do this, and that is perfectly fine; it's His prerogative, He can do whatever He wants. But that is an example of something that would convince me.

Note that it would be considered "good evidence" by the outlines I gave above because:

1) An audible, English response couldn't be misconstrued by me easily.

2) If it were outwardly audible, I could record it, and therefore be sure it wasn't just my imagination.

3) Even if it weren't outwardly audible, if the answers given were consistent, I could corroborate them by asking others what they heard when they prayed.

You mentioned that the reason you believe is by faith, but I have found that faith doesn't really help at all when determining whether or not things are true. Take a look at all the crazy things the humans believe all over the world and have believed throughout history. No matter how strange some things may sound someone somewhere at sometime had really strong faith that it was true.

Faith does not help you determine what is true, faith is simply believing that something is true. Faith can be in anything true or false, unlike good evidence. How much evidence is there that 2+2=5, or that the Earth is flat?

I'll stick with evidence, thanks.

(I thought the first response I typed was actually worded better, but apparently it was blasted to bits. :( This one will have to do)

August 5, 2008 at 2:21 PM
cary said...

This is where my faith and belief in the Bible isn't accepted as evidence, right?

I know that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 - not because I witnessed it, not because he told me in a clear and audible voice, but because it is recorded as a fact of history.

This is the same way that I know that God exists, and He sent His son to die for everyone's sin on the cross. It says so in the Bible, which I hold to be the infallible Word of God. I also know that Jesus rose again on the third day, and lives even today.

I also know that I have heard God talk to me, and the words were as clear as talking to another person in the same room. Could those around me hear it? No, because first I was being still, to hear Him, as He instructs. Second, because there was no one around me, so I could be still.

As long as you stick with evidence you determine to be acceptable, you are going to miss out on the greatest gift ever given, and it is not one to be earned, only rejected.

(By the way, two groups of one item each plus two groups of one and a half items each equals five items.)

August 5, 2008 at 2:33 PM
Andrew Tallman said...

I hate when I feel I worded something better the first time and lost it to the computer fairies. My new habit is to copy everything to Word before I submit it just in case. =)

On the definition of a skeptic: I mean a true skeptic, not a mere proof-seeker. They are very different. You so far sound like a proof-seeker to me, but if you want to persist in calling yourself a skeptic instead, I'll go with Skeptic 1 and Skeptic 2. Skeptic 2 is the sort who is just unwilling to believe. Skeptic 1 is what I'm calling a proof-seeker. In any case, they can be distinguished by asking for criteria for belief.

However, if they give unreasonable criteria, and persist in such unreasonability, then they look more like skeptics masquerading as proof-seekers.

I would describe your set of criteria as unreasonable. Though I hear from God regularly (for the most part whenever I take the time to listen to Him), I have yet ever to even meet someone who claims to have heard an audible voice. In fact, the absence of verifiable miracles (one subset of which would be auditory communication) is so normal that there is actually an entire school of Christian theology called Cessationism which denies that God performs such miracles today. They say He only did so in the past as a way of authenticating the messengers which He sent to construct the Bible.

I agree one doesn’t normally hear atheists complaining about the lack of free will in an evil-free world. But this is because they don’t happen to have that one to complain about. As a former agnostic/nearly atheist, I’m certain that I would have lodged just such a complaint about “heaven on earth” if I had been privileged enough to have been given the proper circumstance and the ability to dissent from it. That was the point of the dilemma.

As for whether there will be free will in heaven, I honestly think it’s a very interesting question. I’m inclined to say yes because it’s in our nature and also because it doesn’t do much good to respond to the problem of evil by saying God needed a world of free beings to achieve His purposes and then say that those purposes change so radically at the end of this world that a heaven without free beings is equally compatible with His purposes. But how, then, can we have free will in heaven without evil and yet be forced to suffer the evil which in this world we ascribe to free will? If God could have it then, why couldn’t He have it now? Great questions! My supposition is that our ordinary thinking about why there is evil in this world is mistaken.

Rather than thinking of evil as an undesirable consequence of a world built with freedom, it seems more consistent to say that what we call evil is itself also part of God’s purpose, not a violation of it. Calvinists might appeal here to God’s sovereignty. Others might retort that God is not the author of evil. Still others recoil at the idea of a God who doesn’t merely allow suffering but actively causes it for some greater purpose yet to be named. My only reply is that the Wrath of God was poured out on His only Son on the cross in the most blasphemous and holy event in history. If I can ever truly wrap my mind around that one moment in time, I’ll give my theoretical hand a try at simpler problems like cancer and hurricanes.

There are many things about God which I may be wrong about, including many which terrify me about Him. My own faith tells me that I will worship God no matter what I think of Him. Contrary to many Christians, I don’t worship God (I hope) because I approve of Him. I worship Him because He is God. Whether I approve of Him is irrelevant. But here we have the difference between us, I expect. You presume to judge God, placing yourself as the infallible evaluator (or at least reliable enough to make such judgments. That’s fairer, I think) whereas I have long ago abandoned the idea that I am fit to so judge Him.

One (almost) final thought, since you're fond of proof. Can you prove to me that only provable things are true? The most profound things in life are unprovable: the wisdom of most decisions, the reality of love, and certainly the nature of the spiritual realm. Nonetheless, the things we choose to believe about these things not only matter greatly. I say they are the most significant beliefs we form.

None of this offers you proof. I don’t intend to. I also don’t believe that you can be coerced into belief by experience or reason. It is a choice you make in the presence of uncertainty. God has seen fit to grant you such uncertainty (and me, too). Who am I to try to take away what God grants? My goal would be to represent faith in an honest and beautiful enough way that you would find it a desirable (though not compulsive) option. How am I doing? =)

August 5, 2008 at 2:56 PM
Anonymous said...

Hi Cary,

I know that Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492 - not because I witnessed it, not because he told me in a clear and audible voice, but because it is recorded as a fact of history.

And this is a very good point. We don't need to personally witness something to reasonably believe in it. I also have never personally seen or been to Antarctica, and yet I believe that it exists.

The question then becomes, "Why are some things more reasonable to believe in that other things?" "What criteria do we use to determine if something is true or not?" And most importantly, "Is the same amount of evidence needed to believe every claim?"

There is a saying "Extraordinary beliefs require extraordinary evidence". What this means is that some things are common and ordinary that it really doesn't take much evidence to believe them.

If I told you I was a male, you wouldn't really know for sure, based solely on my word, but it is common enough that it would be reasonable to believe. If I told you I was really the movie star Bruce Willis, would you believe me just because I said so? Probably not, because that would be much less probable, though still possible. What If I told you I could walk on water or that I came back after being dead for three days? What evidence would you require to believe me?

I also know that I have heard God talk to me, and the words were as clear as talking to another person in the same room.

Well then I'm not surprised that you believe. If that happened to me, I'd be a believer too! (Just as I said above) But am I going to believe because you tell me you heard Him? No, your say so is not enough evidence for me, just like my say so should not be enough evidence for you to believe that I can walk on water or that I was raised from the dead. There is nothing wrong with not believing when the evidence isn't strong enough.

As long as you stick with evidence you determine to be acceptable, you are going to miss out on the greatest gift ever given, and it is not one to be earned, only rejected.

It isn't just me, Cary, we all believe on evidence that we determine is acceptable. See my examples above. Some of us just also use faith, which is belief without or in spite of evidence. I don't use that kind of faith.

(By the way, two groups of one item each plus two groups of one and a half items each equals five items.)

That's a very creative example, kudos to you! The problem is that only works if you compare apples to oranges. Note that each "two" is groups of one and a half items, yet the resulting "five" is not, they are single items. Yes it is true that if you compare apples to oranges, you can get false statements to turn true, and vice versa.

This is also related to the fallacy of equivocation, which Andrew mentioned in a earlier posting regarding homosexuality. Equivocation is comparing apples to oranges.

August 6, 2008 at 5:40 PM
Anonymous said...

Howdy Andrew, (That is also my son's name!)

On the definition of a skeptic: I mean a true skeptic, not a mere proof-seeker...In any case, they can be distinguished by asking for criteria for belief.

I still don't understand what you mean by skeptic here, other than "person who asks for evidence, but won't believe anyway". I don't want to misrepresent you here, but that is what I'm getting. I don't consider that true about me, and yet I do consider myself a skeptic regarding all supernatural or paranormal claims. I certainly would believe given good evidence.

I would describe your set of criteria as unreasonable. Though I hear from God regularly (for the most part whenever I take the time to listen to Him), I have yet ever to even meet someone who claims to have heard an audible voice.

This strikes me as very odd indeed. Jesus loves me, doesn't want me to burn in Hell, got Himself tortured and died for me, but won't speak some words to me. I don't think my wife would do all that, and she talks to me all the time!

It's not like I'm asking God for something he couldn't do, or even something that would be difficult to do, that would be unreasonable. There is even Biblical precedent for God speaking to humans (though I don't know if you consider those accounts metaphorical or not.) He will even, apparently, speak to Cary, but it is unreasonable for Him to speak to me?

Maybe that is true, maybe it is unreasonable. Or maybe since God does not exist, and therefore can't talk to anybody, believers have to say it is an unreasonable request in order to cover up an embarrasingly obvious hole in their reasoning. When I look at the evidence and reasoning, it looks to me like the latter is more correct.

They say He only did so in the past as a way of authenticating the messengers which He sent to construct the Bible.

And yet if God spoke clearly to everyone, there would be no need for people to have to try to figure out what God wants and means in the Bible. People have been disagreeing about those things since the Bible was put together. Wouldn't it make more sense to be able to talk to the Creator to (objectively) sort this stuff out?

To me, the reasoning is pretty clear: If God exists, God could talk to people instead of people relying solely on interpretations. If God did not exist, believers would have to pass their knowledge down through the generations in storytelling or book form. What do we find in reality? god is not speaking directly to people, and beilevers have to pass the knowledge of God through storytelling in a book. The reality matches more closely to the "God does not exist" hypothesis.

Is this proof? No, as you know, absolute proof cannot be had by humans, and the reasoning above is strictly inductive. But it is a very reasonable conclusion given the evidence above.

As a former agnostic/nearly atheist, I’m certain that I would have lodged just such a complaint about “heaven on earth” if I had been privileged enough to have been given the proper circumstance and the ability to dissent from it. That was the point of the dilemma.

Yeah, but that sounds like someone trying to weasel out of belief, rather than someone who uses reason and evidence to guide their beliefs. Of course, that would be right inline with the impression that I got from your definition of skeptic above, and if that is correct, again I must protest about trying to paint skeptics as some ridiculous stereotype.

As for whether there will be free will in heaven...Great questions! My supposition is that our ordinary thinking about why there is evil in this world is mistaken.

It is a great question, perhaps you should do a radio segment on it? I have personally used the idea of freewill in Heaven in arguments about the problem of evil. Speaking of which, I'm sill hoping you'll write a reply to my comment on your post on the problem of evil. I read you paragraph above, but this particular section is getting further off topic by the minute; It's better to keep things grouped by themes.

There are many things about God which I may be wrong about, including many which terrify me about Him.

Which again goes back to what I wrote about about God speaking clearly and directly to people. If He really did that, you would have no problem and I would believe that He exists.

"But here we have the difference between us, I expect. You presume to judge God, placing yourself as the infallible evaluator (or at least reliable enough to make such judgments. That’s fairer, I think) whereas I have long ago abandoned the idea that I am fit to so judge Him."

"Daniel" does mean "Judge of God", though not in that sense :) But whoa there a minute. Where did you get the impression that I place myself as "infallible evaluator"? I certainly never said that, nor do I feel that way. Am I reliable enough to make decisions based on reason and evidence? I certainly hope so, but I am always open to new reason and evidence.

One (almost) final thought, since you're fond of proof. Can you prove to me that only provable things are true?

Another "whoa there", I think you're misrepresenting me again. I haven't been talking much about proof, only reason and evidence. Proof is only found in mathematics and whiskey. And no, I'm not a Positivist.

I also don’t believe that you can be coerced into belief by experience or reason.

Now that's just silly, who was talking about coercion? We all use evidence and reason to believe things every day in our lives. It is nothing strange or evil or something only skeptics do. Believers simply use faith in addition, whereas I and other skeptics do not. And please do not equivocate faith in the religious sense with belief in induction, etc; the two are very different.

August 6, 2008 at 6:48 PM
cary said...

It seems I missed making my point.

I learned of Columbus' adventures in the history books.

The Bible is the history book of Chirstianity.

As long as you don't accept that, we will not be able to go forward.

Good luck in your search, theophage.

August 7, 2008 at 8:16 AM
Anonymous said...

Cary, isn't the Book of Mormon also a history book? Why or why not? What about the Vedas or the Upanishads? How about the Koran? Should we believe them all?

I understood the point you were trying to make, yet you apparently don't see how you are treating what is written in the Bible as different than what is written in the other books above.

In the Iliad, Homer wrote about the history of the Trojan War. Yet that history also included the acts of Gods and monsters. Since historians accept that the Trojan war was real, should we also believe the parts about the Gods and monsters?

I don't think so, nor (I'll bet) do you. Remember when I mentioned above about extraordinary claims requiring extraordinary evidence? I have no problem with the normal historical parts of the Bible, what I do have a problem with are the many extraordinary supernatural claims made. Just as I have a problem with the extraordinary supernatural claims made in the Iliad. If you believe those kind of claims in the Bible, why don't you also believe in those kinds of claims made in the Iliad, or any of the other books I mentioned?

As a skeptic, I don't treat any of those books differently, I believe them (or disbelieve them) all on the basis of reason and evidence. You, as a Christian, treat the Bible differently because that is what you chose to put your faith in.

I cannot believe due to faith, it just isn't in me. People can have faith in the craziest things, and it doesn't make them any more true. That's why I call myself a skeptic.

But I can believe due to reason and evidence. If the evidence is there that the miraculous claims in the Bible are true, then I will believe them. So far, all of the things I have seen which believers call "evidence" (and I've seen alot, I even own two of Lee Strobel's books) have simply fallen short. In fact, I doubt that the evidence would convince you either, if you didn't already have faith that the Bible was true.

August 7, 2008 at 11:26 AM
cary said...

I cannot believe due to faith, it just isn't in me.

Then I've nothing for you.

Without belief, there is no faith; without faith, there is no salvation.

My only suggestion to you would be to find a church that is based on the Word of God, and ask the Pastor to sit down with you and ask him the questions you have.

August 7, 2008 at 9:44 PM
Anonymous said...

The fact that Christianity rests on faith rather than belief is really sort of the point; both you and I agree with that.

The problem is when Christians claim that it is based on reason and evidence. It most assuredly is not.

I really don't have any questions that I'm seeking an answer for. Like you (I assume), I've done my seeking and I've found what to me is the truth. I'm always open to new evidence and argument, but I haven't seen anything new in a long time, nor do I expect that anything new will come along. That is why I am no more seeking a Pastor than you are seeking an Imam or a Guru.

The whole point of my replying to Andrew's original posting was to complain about his use of "skeptic" as a ridiculous stereotype which denigrates rather than informs.

Just as it would be wrong for an non-believer to write "A Christian is someone who is impossible to reason with", so it is equally wrong for Andrew to write "A skeptic is someone who is impossible to please".

It is a shame when people have to resort to treating those who disagree with them as strawman characatures rather than dealing with them realistically.

Don't you agree?

August 8, 2008 at 11:32 AM
Anonymous said...

Ack! That first sentence should just say "faith" not "faith rather than belief".

And the last sentence was speaking to Andrew as well: Don't you agree that we shouldn't represent those who disagree with us as strawman characatures? Because that is what your original post was doing.

August 8, 2008 at 11:39 AM

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