My post on limbo has attracted a good deal of intelligent comment, but what puzzles me is how atheists who believe in all kinds of immaterial reality (free will, consciousness, the unconscious, human rights and so on) profess utter amazement when religious concepts like the soul and immorality are mentioned. "So where is this soul?" these radical empiricists demand to know. Yet at the same time they talk about "self-discovery" as if there was a certain kind of "self" hiding inside of them. They speak of their "unconscious" as if it were observable under a microscope. In short, these empiricists are phony realists whose empiricism only seems to kick in when religious ideas are mentioned.
In this context several of them like to respond to theological concepts by asking, "And when will the church resolve the issue of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" No reason to write Pope Benedict about that. For the benefit of humanity, I am going to settle this issue once and for all. Angels, like dreams, are immaterial things. They don't have a bodily existence. Consequently they do not take up actual space. Therefore an infinite number of angels can dance on the head of a pin. Of course the atheist may laugh and say that angels don't exist. But equally obviously the atheist doesn't know that. His premise that they don't is just as faith-based as the believer's premise that they do. And given the premise that there are spiritual beings called angels, my conclusion follows inevitably. You see, my atheist friends, it's a simple matter of logic.
Reader Comments ( Page 1 of 4)
1. Dear Dinesh,
You rant against how "radical empiricists" support their "phony realis[m]" only when it suits them, and then you support your own arguments on "a simple matter of logic"???
My inner self, and my inner conciousness can be measured. How I respond to free choice and how I respond to constraints can be measured. How I respond to breaches of my personal integrity can be measured, and how a whole population will respond to similar breaches (human rights violations) at an aggregate level can be predicted. Neuro-electric signals between different cells in my body constitute ME. My dreams are not immaterial, they have a bodily existence, and are the result of impulses and signals received and sent by my brain. My dreams, too, can be measured.
An angel, however, would only be real to me in a dream. And your argument that the atheist's premise of non-angelic existence is just as faith-based as your premise that angels do exist, is not something I would expect to come from the hand of a university fellow. Angels don't exist to me because we do not have the technology or sound theories to measure them by. Not believing in angels or other divine beings is not the same as believing they do not exist. It is logic that leads me to not believe. Believing in non-existence, however, is just as illogical as believing!
Stian at 4:26PM on Apr 22nd 2007
2.
But it isn't a matter of logic, Mr. D'souza. When you make a claim that something exists it is your responsibility to prove your claim, it is not the responsibility of others to disprove it. If you put forward some evidence that could be argued about, then we would have a debate, but it is fallacious reasoning to throw something out there then say "prove that it didn't happen".
It's impossible to find clear evidence to disprove any religious theory, so by your logic since they can't be disproven they must all bear equal weight and credibility as your own correct? I could suggest that the entire universe exists on the head of that pin those angels are dancing on, and you couldn't prove me wrong. So by your logic, I am right.
Peter at 5:09PM on Apr 22nd 2007
3. Good job, Danish,
You've argued that some of the beliefs of atheists are just as squishily unprovable as those of theists. "...Are phony realists whose empiricism only seems to kick in when religious ideas are mentioned," shows that you're getting it. You see that, viewed empirically, religious ideas are as unfounded and fantastical as your view of atheistic beliefs.
But your list of atheistic beliefs is off. Like Susan Blackmore (and me) many atheists see "free will" as an absurd idea. (Is there some kind of "will" generator that's not part of the structure of the brain ... an organ whose state is produced by genetics and surroundings?) "Consciousness" and the "unconscious" refer to how our brains operate on different tracks at the same time. Duh. "Human rights" are a hodgepodge of expectations people hold for the treatment of themselves and others. They'd usually like to turn them into laws. Where in this do you need a microscope?
But COME ON! Limbo is gone now? Follow the logic: God is perfect and always right. The pope is God's perfect mouthpiece. We've all heard for centuries from him/them that little unbaptized babies go to limbo when they die. Now, nope, they go to heaven. Somebody made some mistake somewhere. Big mistake. Whoops.
And this leads to an odd set-up. If you want to guarantee a soul goes to heaven now, you just make sure the fetus is aborted. It would be bad for the abortion doctor/monster and the mother, but the soul would have a guaranteed trip to heaven instead of spooky, scary, "limbo".
MWR,
Cruller
lil_turk at 6:02PM on Apr 22nd 2007
4. "Angels, like dreams, are immaterial things. They don't have a bodily existence. Consequently they do not take up actual space. Therefore an infinite number of angels can dance on the head of a pin. ... And given the premise that there are spiritual beings called angels, my conclusion follows inevitably. You see, my atheist friends, it's a simple matter of logic."
HAHAHAHA! You fail!
nullifidian at 6:28PM on Apr 22nd 2007
5. "Angels, like dreams, are immaterial things."
They are both hallucinations fabricated by human brains.
But there's a big difference. No one's going to believe that the space ship I was piloting last night in my dream really has an existence independent of that dream. But certain religions require that you believe that angels do really have an independent existence, that they *really* exist in a way that my dream doesn't.
Get it?
You should really give up with the athiest-bashing. You're just looking sillier and sillier.
Joe Bob at 6:38PM on Apr 22nd 2007
6. D'ouchbag continues his public meltdown at being utterly humiliated by atheists and now he can't stop his raving, illogical non-sequiturs.
Brian Westley at 6:41PM on Apr 22nd 2007
7. First of all guys, the name-calling plays on his name is low. If you disagree with D'Souza, state you do and state why. This is coming from someone who disagrees with almost everything D'Souza says but still wants to maintain a modicum of decorum here.
Second of all, have you read Pullman. There's your answer to theists.
Sadaqat at 7:35PM on Apr 22nd 2007
8.
That said I don't think most atheists have a serious issue with the concept of belief in itself so much as the claims the Bible makes which have been empirically refuted by science and the response Christianity tends to make when natural science does not suit those claims (although this is true for any religion, such as Socrates being made to drink hemlock, I'm just focusing on Christianity because it is the dominant one here).
Claims that the Earth is the center of the universe, claims that the Earth is 6000 years old, claims that there was a great flood a few thousand years ago which covered the entire Earth, claims that humanity was magically blinked into existence, all of these are empirical claims which can be and have been proven wrong.
You're right, you can't prove God doesn't exist and you can't prove concepts like human rights do, but you can prove the above claims to be false, and when Christianity does not acknowledge them and alter it's faith to accomodate what has been proven (as they did with Geocentrism) then there is a legitimate complaint to be made.
You cannot believe in something contrary to what
-can- be proven, that is ignorance. I can't believe that the sun is red when I can observe in the natural world that it is yellow.
If you want to believe in something that cannot be proven either way, that's your perogative, but since it cannot be proven you can't claim your argument for God's existence is more meritous than those who deny it.
Peter at 7:47PM on Apr 22nd 2007
9. Mr. D’Souza, I’m at a loss as to how you can conclude that atheists are “radical empiricists.” If so, then Adam Smith can now be considered a radical economist, given that his contemporaries included Hume and Gibbon. And there were atheists well before the 18th century.
Are the skeptical writings of Mark Twain radical as well? What about H.L. Mencken’s? Have you bothered to do your background research?
In my own family, atheism goes back at least as far as my father’s grandfather, who died during the Harding administration. And no, he didn’t live in Manhattan, London or Paris. He was cotton farmer and rancher in Texas, with little formal education.
Atheism is smack in the middle of mainstream traditional empiricism.
It strikes me that, for a university fellow, you rely to an extraordinary degree on identifiable logical fallacies -- straw men and circular reasoning being particularly prominent.
I also wonder if you will ever acknowledge the verifiable fact that religious believers as well as skeptics took you to task for your essay attacking atheists in the wake of the Virginia Tech massacre. I find it remarkable that two groups so often at odds concur on that point.
Mr. Reindeer at 8:36PM on Apr 22nd 2007
10. Dinesh,
Human rights and so on, as you say, are concepts created by the human mind rather than things that exist as part of the universe. If you are arguing that angels, gods, etc. are concepts created by the human mind rather than things that exist as part of the universe I would have to agree with you wholeheartedly. You mistakingly characterize atheism as a stance that suggests all atheists KNOW God doesn't exist. Quite simply, atheists lack a belief in God. That does not mean they claim to know God doesn't exist. Additionally, the burden of proof is not on atheists to prove that God does not exist. Theists make the affirmative claim, therefore, they have the burden to prove it. If I claim to have magical powers, it doesn't take faith for you to lack a belief in my claim when no credible evidence is presented.
The Alpha at 10:04PM on Apr 22nd 2007
11. As long as D'Souza wants to gather all of us non-believers in one place (could be the "flypaper strategy") here's a site I recommend to all atheists, etc.:
http://pointofinquiry.org/.
It has archived interviews of Bill Harris, Pinker, Dawkins, Tawfik Hamid, Tom Flynn, Rushdie, and on and on. The interviewer is pretty adept and refers to things like, "village atheists" (which I surely have become). For a funny atheist's view of the "War On Christmas" I recommend Tom Flynn.
lil_turk at 10:18PM on Apr 22nd 2007
12. Dinesh D'Souza wrote: My post on limbo has attracted a good deal of intelligent comment, but what puzzles me is how atheists who believe in all kinds of immaterial reality (free will, consciousness, the unconscious, human rights and so on) profess utter amazement when religious concepts like the soul and immorality are mentioned. "So where is this soul?" these radical empiricists demand to know. Yet at the same time they talk about "self-discovery" as if there was a certain kind of "self" hiding inside of them. They speak of their "unconscious" as if it were observable under a microscope. In short, these empiricists are phony realists whose empiricism only seems to kick in when religious ideas are mentioned.
There is a self at least in the sense that some aspects of some humans’ brains help them use language. And there is a subconscious in the sense that aspects of our brain cause us to have certain desires, hopes and fears that are there even sometimes when we are not using language to express those desires, hopes and fear. But there probably is not a God. That I can’t see any gods is not why I believe that there aren’t any. I can’t see any electrons and I’m confident that there are some. I doubt there is a God partly because I haven’t experienced anything remotely similar to a God, and I have lots of experiences.
In this context several of them like to respond to theological concepts by asking, "And when will the church resolve the issue of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" No reason to write Pope Benedict about that. For the benefit of humanity, I am going to settle this issue once and for all. Angels, like dreams, are immaterial things.
Angels most definitely don’t exist. But some humans do dream.
They don't have a bodily existence.
They probably don’t exist. There probably aren’t any.
Of course the atheist may laugh and say that angels don't exist.
Right.
But equally obviously the atheist doesn't know that.
I think I know that angels don’t exist. But if I don’t know, it is at least probable that they don’t exist.
His premise that they don't is just as faith-based as the believer's premise that they do.
I’m not sure what you mean by that. But it is overwhelmingly probable that angels don’t exist. There is no event that is known to have been caused by an angel, and nearly every known event has a non-angel as a cause, for instance, dead leaves fall from trees partly because of differences in mass between the earth and leaves. Similarly, it is probable that there are no Tooth Fairies.
And given the premise that there are spiritual beings called angels, my conclusion follows inevitably.
But there aren’t angels. They don’t exist. There aren’t any. Or at least it is very probable that they don’t exist. For no large group of reasonable beings has witnessed an angel; there is no event that has been caused by an angel; and nearly event that is known to have occurred is known to have a non-angel as its cause. For instance, dead leaves fall from trees partly because of differences in mass between the earth and leaves. Similarly, it is probable that there are no Tooth Fairies.
Wes at 10:57PM on Apr 22nd 2007
13. Let me repost that with quotation marks.
Dinesh D'Souza wrote: "My post on limbo has attracted a good deal of intelligent comment, but what puzzles me is how atheists who believe in all kinds of immaterial reality (free will, consciousness, the unconscious, human rights and so on) profess utter amazement when religious concepts like the soul and immorality are mentioned. "So where is this soul?" these radical empiricists demand to know. Yet at the same time they talk about "self-discovery" as if there was a certain kind of "self" hiding inside of them. They speak of their "unconscious" as if it were observable under a microscope. In short, these empiricists are phony realists whose empiricism only seems to kick in when religious ideas are mentioned."
There is a self at least in the sense that some aspects of some humans’ brains help them use language. And there is a subconscious in the sense that aspects of our brain cause us to have certain desires, hopes and fears that are there even sometimes when we are not using language to express those desires, hopes and fear. But there probably is not a God. That I can’t see any gods is not why I believe that there aren’t any. I can’t see any electrons and I’m confident that there are some. I doubt there is a God partly because I haven’t experienced anything remotely similar to a God, and I have lots of experiences.
"In this context several of them like to respond to theological concepts by asking, "And when will the church resolve the issue of how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?" No reason to write Pope Benedict about that. For the benefit of humanity, I am going to settle this issue once and for all. Angels, like dreams, are immaterial things."
Angels most definitely don’t exist. But some humans do dream.
"They don't have a bodily existence."
They probably don’t exist. There probably aren’t any.
"Of course the atheist may laugh and say that angels don't exist."
Yes, it is overwhelmingly probable that angels don't exist.
"But equally obviously the atheist doesn't know that."
I think I know that angels don’t exist. But if I don’t KNOW it, it is at least very PROBABLE that they don’t exist.
"His premise that they don't is just as faith-based as the believer's premise that they do."
I’m not sure what you mean by that. But it is overwhelmingly probable that angels don’t exist. There is no event that is known to have been caused by an angel, and nearly every known event has a non-angel as a cause, for instance, dead leaves fall from trees partly because of differences in mass between the earth and leaves. Similarly, it is probable that there are no Tooth Fairies.
"And given the premise that there are spiritual beings called angels, my conclusion follows inevitably."
But there aren’t angels. They don’t exist. There aren’t any. Or at least it is very probable that they don’t exist. For no large group of reasonable beings has witnessed an angel; there is no event that has been caused by an angel; and nearly event that is known to have occurred is known to have a non-angel as its cause. For instance, dead leaves fall from trees partly because of differences in mass between the earth and leaves. Similarly, it is probable that there are no Tooth Fairies.
Wes at 11:00PM on Apr 22nd 2007
14. Cruller wrote: "You've argued that some of the beliefs of atheists are just as squishily unprovable as those of theists."
At this moment in time, I cannot prove that there is no God. Can I prove anything other than things like all bachelors are unmarried males? But I'm very warranted in inferring that there is no God. Many beliefs that I cannot prove are ones that I'm warranted in inferring are true, for instance, I'm warranted in inferring that I will not be the next President of the United States.
Wes at 11:06PM on Apr 22nd 2007
15. I wrote: "I think I know that angels don’t exist. But if I don’t KNOW it, it is at least very PROBABLE that they don’t exist."
I suppose I don't know that angles don't exist. But it is probable that they don't.
I wrote: "there is no event that has been caused by an angel"
I meant that there is no event that is known to have been caused by an angel.
Wes at 11:11PM on Apr 22nd 2007