In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Alma claims, “All things denote there is a God.”
All things?
The problem of evil in picture form
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Tag Archives: Philosophy
What is atheism?
I recently wrote that defining Mormon doctrine is difficult. It’s worth noting, though, that the definition of atheism is also debatable.
This video argues (and I think persuasively) that atheism is best described as the “lack of belief in god.”
Do extraordinary events require extraordinary evidence?
Most of us would answer, “Of course!” We consider that evidentiary demand a truism. But Christian philosopher and apologist Dr. William Lane Craig disagrees, calling it a “demonstrably false” presupposition.
Something is awry in his argument from analogy, I think. That a particular number was the winning lottery number doesn’t strike me as “extraordinary.” There had to be a winning number—why not that one? Still, Craig’s objection is an interesting one. I’ve also heard him argue that, granting the existence of an omnipotent being, nothing is truly extraordinary.
Introducing Alvin Plantinga
Alvin Plantinga is a philosopher and Protestant theologian from the University of Notre Dame. The bulk of his philosophical corpus has been in defense of Christianity.
Plantinga retired from Notre Dame earlier this year, so a lot of people are discussing his legacy. I’m in no position to assess his legacy, but I know that he’s a huge name and that we ought to be better acquainted with his philosophy.
Here, I will only present two of his most famous arguments: the free will defense and the evolutionary argument against naturalism.
Humean, all too Humean: The Problem of Induction
The most enduring challenge to science has come not from religion, but philosophy. David Hume, an 18th-century Scottish philosopher, articulated what we now call “the problem of induction,” and it has wreaked epistemological havoc on the foundation of science for centuries.
Induction, for the purposes of this post, is a form of reasoning that makes inferences about what will happen from what has happened. Science relies heavily on induction in making generalizations and predictions. But Hume believes that we can reason absolutely nothing about the future from the past. To do so presupposes the uniformity of nature—that the future will resemble the past.
There is a temptation to respond that we know that the future will resemble the past, because past futures have resembled past pasts. This begs the question, however. It assumes the very thing it attempts to prove, and is thus circular.
Atheists need to understand the implications of Hume’s argument. Hume is not saying that we cannot know with a certainty that, for example, the sun will rise tomorrow. He instead says something far more radical: that we have no reason whatsoever to believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. The fact that the sun has risen every day of recorded human history is immaterial; again, the future need not resemble the past.
So are we atheists who trust science guilty of the same faith that we accuse religious people of having? In a later post, I’ll introduce a few possible solutions to the problem of induction. But I’d first like to hear your thoughts.
Help end global poverty
Attention secular humanists: Criticizing religion and other dogmas is important, but at the base of any humanistic philosophy are human beings. And as I write this, hundreds of millions of people are afflicted by and dying from hunger and disease. This can change, though.
The video was inspired by the work of moral philosopher Peter Singer, and particularly by his most recent book The Life You Can Save. At the book’s website, you can take a pledge (as urged in the video) to help end global poverty. If you call yourself a humanist, I hope you take the pledge.
The sorry fact is that many of us won’t actually bother to donate. I may be among the hypocrites, we’ll see. But others’ inaction is no excuse for our own.
God is hiding
If god exists, he/she/it (I’ll use ‘he’) has gone to great lengths to conceal that fact. In Biblical times, the evidence for god’s existence seemed ubiquitous and undeniable. God helped the Israelites in their exodus from Egypt—sending plagues, parting the Red Sea, and so on. Miracles were also replete in the New Testament. According to the gospels, Jesus cured the deaf and blind, raised the dead, walked on water, and performed countless other miracles.
So what miracles are there today? Celestial cameos on burnt toast and coffee stains don’t compare to the attestations of god in the Bible. From a Mormon perspective, too, there is a relative dearth of miracles. In the early church, reports of angelic visitations, demonic encounters, faith healings and speaking in tongues were commonplace. And whereas Joseph Smith regularly received revelations, god seems to have put today’s church leaders on hold.
Noam Chomsky vs. God
Being a Chomsky nerd, I just have to share this (which I found at Common Sense Atheism):
