The Top Ten Reasons I Don't Believe In God, Part 2

In yesterday's post, I offered the first half of a list of The Top Ten Reasons I Don't Believe In God. Here is the second half.

6: The physical causes of everything we think of as the soul.

The science of neuropsychology is still very much in its infancy. But there are a few things that we know about it. And one of the things we know is that everything we think of as the soul -- consciousness, identity, character, free will -- all of that is powerfully affected by physical changes to the brain and body. Drugs and medicines, injury, illness, sleep deprivation, etc.... all of these can make changes to the "soul." In some cases, they can make changes so drastic, they render a person's personality and character completely unrecognizable.

And death, of course, is a physical change that renders a person's personality and character, not only unrecognizable, but non-existent.

So given that this is true, doesn't it seem far more likely that consciousness and identity, character and free will, are some sort of product of the physical brain and body?

With any other phenomenon, if we can show that physical forces and actions produce observable effects, we think of that as a physical phenomenon. Why should the soul be any different? Whatever consciousness and selfhood and the rest of it turn out to be, doesn't it seem overwhelmingly likely that they are, in some way, a biological process, governed by laws of physical cause and effect?

More:
Why I Don't Believe in the Soul
"A Relationship Between Physical Things": Yet Another Rant on What Consciousness and Selfhood Might Be
A Ghost in the Machine, again by Ebon Muse on the Ebon Musings website. I know, I keep citing the Ebon Musings website. What can I say? Dude can write. Dude can think. Dude has a really well-organized site map that makes it easy to look stuff up.

7: The complete failure of any sort of supernatural phenomenon to stand up to rigorous testing.

Not all religious and spiritual beliefs make testable claims. But some of them do. And in the face of actual testing, every one of those claims falls apart like Kleenex in a hurricane.

Whether it's the power of prayer, or faith healing, or astrology, or life after death: the same pattern is consistently seen. Whenever religious and supernatural beliefs have made testable claims, and those claims have been tested -- not half-assedly tested, but really tested, using careful, rigorous, double-blind, placebo- controlled, replicated, etc. etc. etc. testing methods -- the claims have consistently fallen apart.

I'm not going to cite every one of these tests, or even most of them. This piece is already ridiculously long as it is. Instead, I'll encourage you to spend a little time on the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry and Skeptical Inquirer websites. You'll see a pattern so consistent it boggles the mind: Claimants insist that Supernatural Claim X is real. Supernatural Claim X is subjected to careful testing, applying the standard scientific methods commonly used to screen out both bias and fraud. Supernatural Claim X is found to hold about as much water as a sieve.

(And claimants, having agreed beforehand that the testing method is valid, afterwards insist that it wasn't fair.)

And don't say, "Oh, the testers were biased." That's the great thing about the scientific method. It is designed to screen out bias, as much as is humanly possible. When done right, it will give you the right answer, regardless of the bias of the people doing the testing.

Plus, here's a point that defenders of the supernatural never effectively address when they accuse scientists of anti-religion bias: In the early days of science and the scientific method, most scientists did believe in God, and the soul, and the metaphysical. In fact, many early science experiments were attempts to prove the existence of these things, and discover their true natures, and resolve the squabbles about them once and for all. (Not God so much, but the soul and the supernatural.) It was only after decades upon decades of these experiments failing to turn up anything at all that the scientific community began -- gradually, and painfully -- to give up on the idea.

Supernatural claims only hold up under careless, casual examination. They are supported by confirmation bias (i.e., our tendency to overemphasize evidence that supports what we believe and discard evidence that contradicts it), and wishful thinking, and our poor understanding and instincts when it comes to probability, and our tendency to see pattern and intention even when none exists, and a dozen other forms of weird human brain wiring. When studied carefully under conditions specifically designed to screen these things out, they vanish like the insubstantial imaginings that they are.

More:
A Lattice of Coincidence: Metaphysics, the Paranormal, and My Answer to Layne

8: The slipperiness of religious and spiritual beliefs.

Not all religious and spiritual beliefs make testable claims. Many of them have a more "saved if we do, saved if we don't" quality. If things go the believer's way, it's a sign of God's grace and intervention; if they don't, then, well, God moves in mysterious ways, and maybe he has a lesson to teach that we don't understand, and it's not up to us to question his will. That sort of thing. No matter what happens, it can be twisted around to prove that the belief is right.

That is a sure sign of a bad, bad argument.

Here's the thing. It is a well-established principle in the philosophy of science that, if a theory can be supported no matter what possible evidence comes down the pike, it is a completely useless theory. It has no power to explain what's already happened, or predict what will happen in the future. The theory of gravity, for instance, could be disproven by things suddenly falling up; the theory of evolution could be disproven by finding rabbits in the pre-Cambrian fossil layer. These theories predict that these things will not happen; if they do, then the theories go poof. But if your theory of God's existence holds up no matter what happens -- whether your friend with cancer gets better or dies, whether natural disasters strike big sinful cities or small God-fearing towns -- then it is an utterly useless theory, with no power to either predict or explain anything.

What's more, when atheists challenge theists on their beliefs, the theists' arguments shift and slip around in an unbelievably annoying "moving the goalposts" way. Hard-line fundamentalists, for instance, will insist on the unchangeable perfect truth of the Bible; but when challenged on its specific historical/ scientific errors and moral atrocities, they insist that you're not interpreting those passages correctly. (If the book needs interpreting, then how perfect can it be?)

And progressive ecumenical believers can be unbelievably slippery on the subject of what they really do and do not believe. Is God real, or a metaphor? Does God intervene in the world, or doesn't he? Do they actually even believe in God, or do they just choose to act is if they believe in God because they find it useful? Debating with a progressive believer is like wrestling with a fish: the arguments aren't very powerful, but they don't give you anything firm to grab onto.

Once again, that's a sure sign of a bad, bad argument. If you can't just make your case and then stick by it, or genuinely modify it, or let it go... then you don't have a very good case. (And if you're making any version of the "Shut up, that's why" argument -- arguing that it's rude and intolerant to question religious beliefs, or that letting go of doubts and questions about faith makes you a better person, or that doubting faith will get you tortured in Hell forever, or any of the other classic arguments intended to silence the debate rather than address it -- then that's a sure sign that your argument is totally in the toilet.)

More:
A Self-Referential Game of Twister: What Religion Looks Like From the Outside
Why Religion Is Like Fanfic
What Would Convince You That You Were Wrong? The Difference Between Secular and Religious Faith
The Problem of Unfishiness: Religion, Science, and Unanswered Questions

9: The failure of religion to improve or clarify over time.

Over the years and decades and centuries, our understanding of the physical world has grown and clarified by a ridiculous amount. We understand things about the world and the universe that we couldn't even have imagined a thousand years ago, or a hundred, or even ten. Things that make your mouth gape open with astonishment and wonder just to think about.

And the reason for this is that we came up with a really good method for sorting out the good ideas from the bad ones, the more accurate theories from the less accurate ones. We came up with the scientific method: a self-correcting method for understanding the physical world, which -- over time, and with the many fits and starts and setbacks that accompany any human endeavor -- has done, and continues to do, an astonishingly good job of helping us perceive and understand the world, predict it and shape it, in ways we could not have possibly imagined a thousand, or a hundred, or even ten years ago.

(And the scientific method itself is self-correcting. Not only has our understanding of the world improved by ridiculous leaps and bounds; our method for understanding it is improving as well.)

But our understanding of the metaphysical world?

Not so much.

Our understanding of the metaphysical world is exactly in the place it's always been: hundreds and indeed thousands of sects, squabbling over which sacred text and which set of spiritual intuitions is the right one. We haven't come to any sort of consensus about which sect has a more accurate conception of the metaphysical world. We haven't even come up with a method of deciding which sect has a more accurate conception of the metaphysical world. All anyone can do is point to their own sacred text and their own spiritual intuition. And around in the squabbling circle we go.

All of which clearly points to religion, not as a perception of a real being or substance, but as an idea we made up and are clinging to. If religion were a perception of a real being or substance, our understanding of it would be sharpening, clarifying, being refined. We would have improved prayer techniques, more accurate prophecies, something. Anything but people squabbling with greater or lesser degrees of rancor, and nothing to actually back up their belief.

More:
The Slog Through the Swamp: What Science Is, And Why It Works, And Why I Care
"A Different Way of Knowing": The Uses of Irrationality... and its Limitations

10: The complete and utter lack of solid evidence for God's existence.

This is probably the best argument I have against God's existence:

There's just no evidence for it.

No good evidence, anyway. No evidence that doesn't just amount to opinion and tradition and confirmation bias and all the other stuff I've been talking about for the last two days.

And in a perfect world, that should have been the only argument I needed. In a perfect world, I shouldn't have had to spend the last month and a half collating and summarizing the reasons I don't believe in God, any more than I would have for Zeus or Quetzalcoatl or the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

As thousands of atheists before me have pointed out: It is not up to us to prove that God does not exist. It is up to theists to prove that he does.

In a comment on this blog, arensb made a point on this topic that was so ridiculously insightful, I'm still smacking myself on the head for not having thought of it myself. I was writing about how theists get upset at atheists for rejecting religion after hearing 876,362 arguments for it, saying, "But you haven't considered Argument #876,363! How can you be so close-minded?" And here's what arensb said:

"If, in fact, it turns out that argument #876,364 is the one that will convince you, WTF didn't the apologists put it in the top 10?"

Why, indeed?

If there's an argument for religion that's convincing -- actually convincing, convincing by means of something other than authority/ tradition, personal intuition, confirmation bias, fear and intimidation, wishful thinking, or some combination of the above -- wouldn't we all know about it?

Wouldn't it have spread like wildfire? Wouldn't it be the Meme of All Memes? I mean, we all saw that video of the cat trying to wake its owner up within about two weeks of it hitting the Internet. Don't you think that the Truly Excellent Argument/ Evidence for God's Existence would have spread even faster, and wider, than some silly cartoon video?

If the arguments for religion are so wonderful, why are they so unconvincing to anyone who doesn't already believe?

And why does God need arguments, anyway? Why does God need people to make his arguments for him? Why can't he just reveal his true self, clearly and unequivocally, and settle the question once and for all? If God existed, why wouldn't it just be obvious? (See #2 above, in yesterday's post.)

It is not up to us to prove that God does not exist. It is up to theists to prove that he does. And in the absence of any genuinely good, solid evidence or arguments in favor of God's existence -- and in the presence of a whole lot of very solid arguments against it -- I am going to continue to hold the null hypothesis of atheism: that God almost certainly does not exist, and that it is completely reasonable to act as if he does not exist.


So. What do you all think? Atheists -- are there arguments against God's existence that you think are more convincing than these? And theists -- do you have any thoughts on these arguments? I don't promise to debate every one of you ad infinitum, or indeed any one of you; but I'm curious to hear what you have to say.

Comments

[Greta Christina]

Adam: That's what we call "the argument from authority," combined with "the arugment from popularity." "Some other famous or important people think X, therefore X must be true." It's a terrible argument. There are lots of reasons people believe in God, from cognitive errors to wishful thinking. The fact that some people believe is not an argument for why those beliefs are true. I'd be interested in seeing some actual arguments for why God is real and/or the Bible is a trustworthy source of information -- but "some other people believe it" isn't one of them.

(And even if that were a good argument, it actually goes against the case for God. Rates of non-belief are going up at a dramatic rate, all over the US and all over the world. Including among many smart people, and many former believers and theologians. Using your logic: Why would that be true, if religion were plausible?)

[Kodanshi]

Greta, this marks the first time I have read your blog and I absolutely love your thoughtful and intelligent, clearly–detailed posts. I must say you’ve given a fabulous and convincing list there.

I would like to add a few points to the whole ‘theists must prove god exists’. I don’t believe they need only do that. They also need to show that their particular brand of deity exists (I come from a muslim background, so would need convincing that the god shown to exist does or does not match allâh). In addition, they need to show why we must worship god. Why can I not simply acknowledge god’s existence intellectually and then go on living my life as I normally do?

[Blondin]

I'm sure you know the names of many of them without needing to see a list.

I wouldn't mind seeing a list...

[John Prichard4]

How would you catagorize things such as ESP, remote viewing or the near death experiences? I believe that not all hunches are correct but would not put that in the same catagory as true intuition. There were some very compelling studies done on remote viewing by Berkley University years ago that found a select group of people DO exhibit amazing abilities not to mention the occasional usage by police orginizations to find clues to missing people. I'm not trying to make an arguement for spiritualism or any religion or higher power. I simply think there are things about the human experience that can't be explained nor discounted as irrational. Haven't you ever said to yourself " Damnit, I knew I shouldn't have done that"? or felt someone staring at you? Your thoughts?

[DMG]

I have a problem with the cosmological argument advanced by Eric R.

Firstly, the property of "self-existence" could just as easily be a property of the universe itself. Since it already exists, we have no evidence as to whether it began to do so via an external cause or through its own innate property of "self-existence". Viewed this way, it's no greater a leap to suggest that the universe is "Brute Fact" than to suggest an external cause - they both postulate an unobserved (indeed, unobservable) property of self-existence. The argument is at best neutral with respect to the "supranatural".

The second and deeper problem I have with this argument is one of relevance to the question of God. Regardless of what this item with property P might be, there is nothing in the argument that suggests it should have any of the properties associated with God, such as consciousness, intent, design, omniscience, omnipotence, judgement, receptiveness to prayer or tribute, existence and intervention in present times, etc.

To put this another way, let's say I've lost my key to my garage. Because I can't get into my garage to look, I can't verify what might be inside. Shall I then claim that I am on equal rational footing to say that unicorns do or don't exist, because there's something in my garage I can't observe, which could thus be a unicorn?

That is the missing link in the cosmological argument. If you are using the argument solely to demonstrate the existence of something currently unknown to science, it (sort of) works. But as soon as you try to claim that this unknown is evidence for any particular class of entity (such as something a theist would worship), you are no longer on solid ground.

[OSU_Matthew]

Yet another riveting and well thought out deliberation, Greta. I always thoroughly enjoy reading your works as everything you write is so wonderfully clear and concise. I have no doubt I will be referring to this article in the near future.

I guess my one specific qualm, if I may, is the argument that religion is inherited. While that is certainly the case for many people, I personally know just as many (myself included) who have been raised in a fundamental protestant church and never for a minute have believed the heap of lies, contradictions, and thinly veiled hypocrisy that characterizes the church (in my personal observations).

Perhaps that is an argument for the religious gene though?

[tjallen]

Nothing to add except "Thanks!"

[Dick Weed]

God is as real as you believe him to be.

[Tom]

Brilliant piece, but the most astonishingly brilliant part comes at the very end, "in the absence of any genuinely good, solid evidence or arguments in favor of God's existence -- I am going to continue to hold the null hypothesis of atheism: that God almost certainly does not exist. In all my years of being an atheist and a scientist, this elegantly simple explanation just never occurred to me, at least not as overtly as you've put it. Of course! Atheism is simply the hull hypothesis that god does not exist! Thank you for putting the entire argument so succinctly. I look forward to quoting you the next time I find myself engaging with one of my "enlightened" believer friends in that circular argument, in which I am admonished to produce the "proof" that god does NOT exist!...thank you for your excellent writing!

[Dawn]

I stumbled upon your blog because I was wondering what hedonist thought about dieting. I like pleasure and I don't like the pain of dieting so I thought I would research and see what I found. I enjoyed your thoughts on exercise and eating healthy and then stumbled on these 2 posts and the plethora of comments.

I am a follower of Christ. I was raised in a house where reason and logic were highly praised and I am very analytical by nature.

I was not instilled with any particular belief as a young person. I basically tried to live a good life treating others well and assumed that if there was a God or a heaven he wouldn't punish me for that.

The problem was I was never satisfied. There was never enough of friends, marriage, hobbies, career, fun, partying, etc. to make me feel that I was full or purposeful.

It didn't help that my son started asking me questions that I couldn't answer about God, heaven, creation around us - because I didn't know.

I started searching for my own answers and realized that there was a "soul" inside of me. Something separate from my body. I guess I just came to believe that inspiration, morality, creativity and those other intangibles like love are "super" natural. They are not in the physical world and I don't believe they are merely chemical process either.

My story is mine because I believe God is real and that he is knowable and He made himself known to me. I have experienced him working in my life and I have experienced the truth of the scriptures to work in my life.

My evidence is me. I am different, I am changed, I am better because I allowed God to have his proper place in my life.

Things are not perfect, but I have more joy, peace and contentment than I did before.

I still have bills, I still have hormonal issues, I am still witchy to my husband sometimes.

But, I am a better person than I used to be and I have hope, a hope that saved me.

I think it is good that you do not accept what "man" says is true. It has to be a personal meet up with God that convinces you - and I pray that you have it and that you love it.

I have also enjoyed reading some of the intelligent individuals who set out to prove Christianity wrong who then proved to themselves that it was the way after all. Josh McDowell and Lee Strobel are the first 2 that come to mind.

Just my two cents :)