Is life really worth it?

Existentially, what does atheism have to offer atheists? An atheist answers:

Q: At 42 I feel like I've fulfilled my obligations and done everything I needed to do in this world. I'm not sure that it's necessary for me to remain in here any longer. There's really nothing more that I want or need to do. Is it time for me to go?

A: Sure. You have to ask yourself, “what is the point to being alive”. There is no point. Procreating to protect the race against extinction can be handled by the other 7 billion people. Other than that, living is . . . living. What is the point of a tree, a turtle, a bacteria? Why should we be any different?

Q: What is the best thing that’s happened in your life?

A: Living to 76 years old. The alternative is terrible.

Q: Is life really worth it?

A: No. I’m 76. I’ve backpacked through more than 100 countries since 1957, many with my two sons. Started four successful companies. Retired at 45 and again at 49 after stumbling into another successful company. I’m married to an Asian woman 27 years younger than me who was a model in Japan for six years. I can buy what I want, when I want. And, no, it isn’t worth it. Mainly because there really isn’t any point to any of it. I’m sitting in front of my computer at 10:48 pm wasting time typing this reply to you. Why? Is this reply “worth it”? Hell no. Your life at any point in time is the result of memories that don’t exist. There is nothing but “now”. Is “now” worth it? I guess the answer is subjective.

Q: Is it possible to improve myself as a person while homeless? I’ve been pretty financially unstable and crashing on various couches for the last six months, and it’s been very hard to keep up with my spiritual side.

A: Why bother? If you have enough to eat, are in good health, and have a place to crash, why bring on problems by “improving yourself”. Spirituality has nothing to do with bucks. I think you mean “self esteem”, which is highly over-rated. Civilization hasn’t made anyone happier. Owning “stuff” doesn’t make anyone happier. Read, “Richard Corey” online.

"Richard Cory"
Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
We people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
Clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
And he was always human when he talked;
But still he fluttered pulses when he said,
"Good-morning," and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king—
And admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
To make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
And went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
And Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
Went home and put a bullet through his head.

Cuteness

Given atheism and evolution, it's odd we find small furry animals "cute". From an evolutionary perspective, wouldn't it make more sense (such as be better for our survival as a species) to be neutral about cuteness?

If we didn't find small furry animals cute, then we could kill and eat them without hesitation. It's not as if other animals seem to find small furry animals cute. Like foxes don't find bunnies cute. Like sea lions don't think about baby penguins that way. (Not that penguins have fur as such, but you get the idea.)

Perhaps evolutionists will explain it by saying we only find small furry animals that look most like our own babies cute. We see our own babies as cute since it helps us bond with our own babies which in turn helps us want to raise our own babies rather than toss them aside the moment they're born. However, even if so, why should that apply to babies that aren't our own? It's not as if chimps think of other baby chimps as cute when they kill other baby chimps (e.g. here).

God of the gaps

Militant atheists of the Dawkins variety often raise the God of the gaps argument. They think the religious are just saying "Goddidit" for an unexplained phenomenon. Say like how Norse pagans used to think thunderstorms were due to Thor. But now that we know what causes thunderstorms, there's no need for Thor.

However, one problem with this point is it's a false dichotomy. At least when it comes to classical theism let alone Christianity.

For example, now that we know the scientific explanation for thunderstorms, does this mean we should no longer attribute the thunderstorm to God? Christians believe God is the one who made a planet with phenomena such as thunderstorms, that God made lightning as electrical discharge, indeed that God made the laws of physics from which such phenomena result.

In other words, positing God as the ultimate source of thunderstorms is perfectly consistent with understanding the scientific explanation for thunderstorms. It's not either/or but both/and.

It's like if scientists discovered a sophisticated alien spacecraft. After years of studying it, scientists have figured out how the alien spaceship works. They know how to turn it on, how to fly it, how to use its navigation and weapons systems, how to land it. They know how its engine and other internal mechanics work. They know its energy source for fuel. They know what material it is built out of. And so on. Basically, scientists know everything there is to know about the alien spacecraft.

But now that scientists understand all this, would it make any sense if they then said, "Welp, now that we understand everything about this spacecraft, no need to posit that it was built by an intelligent alien species, for that would be superfluous"?

Of course not. It's not inconsistent to say scientists understand everything there is to understand about an alien spacecraft and the alien spacecraft was possibly built by an intelligent alien species.

Similarly, it'd make no sense on Christianity to say now that we understand how phenomena like thunderstorms work, we can therefore abandon the idea of God.

(Besides, science itself doesn't always close gaps. Sometimes science in fact opens gaps as it closes gaps. Sciences brings more questions. Nothing unreasonable about that.)

To catch a predator

(Background: See Richard Carrier's recent announcement that he is polyamorous, etc.)

A colony of bacteria

Richard Dawkins once claimed in "The Richard Dimbleby Lecture: Science, Delusion and the Appetite for Wonder (1996):

For the first half of geological time our ancestors were bacteria. Most creatures still are bacteria, and each one of our trillions of cells is a colony of bacteria.

Hm, "each one of our trillions of cells is a colony of bacteria"? Sorry, I couldn't leave this glaringly inept bit unchallenged. I'll try to keep it short and only say a couple of things for now:

1. What does Dawkins mean by "each one"?

   a. For starters, "each one" of our cells is a single cell, not a "colony" of cells (let alone bacterial cells). But maybe Dawkins simply expressed himself poorly here.

   b. Or does Dawkins mean all the constituent parts of a cell within a single cell are themselves "a colony of bacteria"? If so, then that's just dumb. Are the constituent parts of a bacterial cell likewise "a colony of bacteria" within a single bacterial cell such that we have an infinite regress of "colonies of bacteria"? It's turtles (or bacteria) all the way down!

2. By the phrase "each one of our trillions of cells," I presume Dawkins is referring to a group of the same type of cells within the human body. Say brain cells like neurons. But how are neurons equivalent to "a colony of bacteria"?

   a. Does Dawkins mean neurons are literally "a colony of bacteria" residing in our brains? If so, there are several problems. For one, it fails to distinguish between self and non-self. If neurons are indeed "a colony of bacteria" in humans, then wouldn't we expect our immune system to recognize them as such and deal with them accordingly? (Or are they like gut flora, which if so would raise other issues which would appear to contradict established medical science?)

   b. Does Dawkins mean evolutionarily speaking neurons originated from "a colony of bacteria"? If so, that's a pretty big ask. And of course there are many arguments against neo-Darwinian theory as a whole (such as from the ID community).

As an aside, if we are "a colony of bacteria," does that make the Earth a Petri dish (or at least the appearance of a Petri dish)? :-)

Acute porphyria

According to an atheist named porphyryredux:

The reason this philosophy [i.e. empiricism] is likely true or else the best one within the competing marketplace of ideas is that those who attack it, cannot do so unless data comes to them via one of their 5 physical senses, and they send out data intending to stimulate one of the 5 physical senses. If you are using empirical data to disprove empiricism, that is sort of like biting the hand that feeds you, isn’t it?

I should start by saying: although there are probably more sophisticated arguments for empiricism, at this point I'm just assuming porphyryredux means traditional empiricism. After all, it's not as if porphyryredux offers anything more.

1. Who uses "empirical data to disprove empiricism"? Who does he have in mind or what arguments does he have in mind?

2. As others like William Lane Craig have pointed out, empiricism is too narrow. It would exclude logical truths, mathematical truths, moral truths, aesthetic truths, etc.

3. Why should we think our sensory experience is a reliable source of knowledge anyway? Something like Plantinga's EAAN could be relevant for the atheist, for instance. What about arguments for solipsism, to take another example?

4. Why couldn't empiricism coupled with atheism logically lead to a denial of morality, value, meaning, purpose, etc.?

5. Also, what if the empirical data give us conflicting facts or truths?

6. Likewise, there's no empirical data for the existence of certain objects (e.g. the mutliverse, theoretical sub-subatomic particles). Presumably there never can be empirical data for the existence of say sub-subatomic particles either, at least short of building a particle accelerator the size of the solar system.

7. Finally, here is another way to look at empirical knowledge, and if true then it seems our knowledge is mainly a matter of probabilities rather than proofs. If so, then I presume probability type arguments for theism or against atheism would be relevant (e.g. Tim and Lydia McGrew, Richard Swinburne).

A quick and dirty intro to ID

This is just a quick and dirty intro to Intelligent Design (ID).

Obviously, I think it'd be best for people to go straight to the source and read about ID directly from websites like Uncommon Descent and Evolution News & Views. To say nothing of the plethora of published works by ID theorists William Dembski, Stephen Meyer, Michael Behe, et al.

However, since I've had friends and others ask me to explain ID, I thought it'd be worth summarizing what I think is the main point of ID to them.

---

Francis Crick, who co-discovered the structure of DNA along with James Watson, once said:

Biologists must constantly keep in mind that what they see was not designed, but rather evolved.

By the same token, the militant atheist and evolutionist Richard Dawkins has said:

Biology is the study of complicated things that give the appearance of having been designed for a purpose.

As ID theorists have pointed out, the key word is "appearance." Individuals like Dawkins believe living organisms merely "appear" to have been designed when in fact they are anything but. They believe living organisms have instead come into being via unguided and purposeless natural processes. And that these natural processes are best explicated in neo-Darwinism.

By contrast, a reason ID theorists use the term "intelligent" in ID is because they wish to distinguish between an unguided and purposeless natural process vs a guided and purposeful process best explained by intelligent agency.

Now, virtually everyone recognizes there are many things in this universe which look like they're designed. Obviously we know things like computers, cars, and buildings have been engineered by humans. Likewise, various works of art, literature, music, movies, computer games. Similarly, we could say many inorganic materials like various plastics have been artificially designed. We could further include nanoparticles and arguably the synthetic elements in the Periodic Table too. Almost everyone including atheists like Dawkins would probably agree most if not all of these have been designed by intelligent agents i.e. humans.

But when it comes to living organisms, while everyone agrees life looks designed, atheists like Dawkins think actual design is an illusion. (I suppose in some ways similar to how some atheists think of consciousness.)

Worse, they practically become apoplectic if anyone so much as hints the design may not be an illusion but may in fact be actual design by an actual intelligence of some sort. That it may not have been unguided and purposeless after all. Or to put it another, if anyone casts doubt on the neo-Darwinian paradigm.

As an aside, it often seems as if it's all but a thought-crime to question Darwinism. This isn't hyperbolic language for effect, I don't think. There have been very real and unfortunate consequences. For example, many people's reputations have been unfairly marred. Many have lost their jobs and thus livelihoods and/or been blacklisted from future jobs due to their dissent from Darwinism. For starters, check out what happened to Richard Sternberg and Guillermo Gonzalez.

Getting back to the point, given living organisms appear designed, the next logical question should be: are living organisms, in fact, designed? Not: how or by what mechanisms have living organisms come to appear designed? Nor: who or what designed living organisms? (Dawkins, Coyne, Wolpert, and their kind react as equally irked by theistic evolution as they do by ID theory.) Yet neo-Darwinists often get ahead of themselves and confuse and/or conflate these and other questions and their related issues. They proceed, for example, to shout down ID theorists as Young Earth Creationists (YEC) in disguise, even though it's clear to anyone with a modicum of fair-mindedness and an ounce of familiarity with the movement that ID most decidedly is not. (Sometimes to the chagrin of many actual YECs!) Of course, these are good questions to ask, and questions which we should ask. But my immediate point is ID doesn't strictly speaking deal with these questions, not as their first port of call.

So, how can we tell if a living organism is truly designed? This is where intelligence comes in. Indeed, intelligence is what makes the crucial difference between the mere appearance of design vs actual design. In other words, there's a significant distinction between unintelligent design vs intelligent design, for unintelligent design means an unguided and purposeless natural process (i.e. neo-Darwinian theory), while intelligent design is, as I've already noted, the reverse.

Specifically, according to ID theorists, intelligence is a causal power that can arrange and adapt means to bring about teleological ends. This stands in distinction both to brute necessity which does not arrange or adapt means as well as to random chance which is not teleological or goal-oriented.

What's more, ID theorists have come up with ways to detect intelligence. I think Dembski's scheme is the most analytically rigorous. It'd be beyond the scope of this post to go into detail, but Dembski does point out three marks of intelligence: contingency, complexity, and specificity. By contingency he simply means if an object or event is unnecessary or, if you like, optional; if it occurred, even though it need not have occurred. Complexity refers to the fact that an object or event is difficult to reproduce by chance alone. And specificity is if an object or event exhibits an independent pattern. Dembski terms his theory of intelligence detection, specified complexity, and argues only intelligence can originate or generate specified complexity when prior to intelligence there was no specified complexity. Note this isn't the same as unintelligent natural processes making use of specified complexity.

If specified complexity is successful, then at a minimum it means we have sound and reasonable scientific and mathematical criteria to detect intelligent design in nature.

A cornucopia of village atheists

I recently replied to a bunch of atheists in the combox of David French's article "It's Imperative that Christians Use Explicitly Biblical Arguments."

I'm reproducing all my comments in this post. They should be in chronological order, with the earliest at the top, and the latest reply at the bottom.

I'll update this post and add my replies to the bottom if I make further replies.

Misotheists

The End of Infidelity

Hot off the presses! Check out The End of Infidelity.

By the way, Triablogue has a new eBooks section on their right hand sidebar.

No exit

The following excerpt is from Bertrand Russell:

That man is the product of causes that had no prevision of the end they were achieving; that his origin, his growth, his hopes and fears, his loves and his beliefs, are but the outcome of accidental collocations of atoms; that no fire, no heroism, no intensity of thought and feeling, can preserve individual life beyond the grave; that all the labors of the ages, all the devotion, all the inspiration, all the noonday brightness of human genius, are destined to extinction in the vast death of the solar system, and that the whole temple of man's achievement must inevitably be buried beneath the debris of a universe in ruins - all these things, if not quite beyond dispute, are yet so nearly certain that no philosophy which rejects them can hope to stand. Only within the scaffolding of these truths, only on the firm foundation of unyielding despair, can the soul's habitation henceforth be safely built.

By the way, here are the top five regrets of the dying. Of course, if Russell's statement is true, then the regrets are ultimately meaningless. They, too, are headed for the black.

Now please check out this article.

It is not well with my soul

Atheist Joel Marks writes:

A helpful analogy, at least for the atheist, is sin. Even though words like ‘sinful’ and ‘evil’ come naturally to the tongue as a description of, say, child-molesting, they do not describe any actual properties of anything. There are no literal sins in the world because there is no literal God and hence the whole religious superstructure that would include such categories as sin and evil. Just so, I now maintain, nothing is literally right or wrong because there is no Morality.

Get 'em while they're young

Get them while they're young. This is the unspoken (and not so unspoken) mission of churches everywhere. They understand how critical it is to gain converts before they become adults...before they're exposed to science, history, other religions and other points of view. They aggressively target children and youth with marketing campaigns that rival many advertising companies. They sponsor events, activities, games and lots of free food for the opportunity to influence impressionable minds. - The Thinking Atheist

Now check out this video:



So how are atheists and agnostics in this video significantly different? Aren't there hundreds if not thousands of atheists and agnostic "freethinkers" gathered at the annual Texas Freethought Convention? Aren't they inviting star guests like a cancer-stricken Christopher Hitchens to do Q&As and perhaps give a speech? Doesn't he offer recommendations on "freethinking" literature for children to read? Aren't "freethinking" parents teaching their kids to subscribe to "freethinking" beliefs and values? And so on and so forth. (Of course, "freethought" is really just a euphemism for misotheistic beliefs and values.)

Hitchens takes liberal Christian to task

(Source)

Christopher Hitchens has died

Doug Wilson on Christopher Hitchens.

I'd expect Peter Hitchens will have something to say about his brother's death. Update: Peter Hitchens weighs in.