In response to my recent blog, "Why the Universe Obviously Has a Creator (and Why Some Atheists Refuse to Even Consider It)," a biology professor from The University of Chicago, Dr. Jerry Coyne, wrote two blogs on his website, titled: "Wacko Rabbi Tries to pwn Biology and Physics", and "Crazy Rabbi Says that Atheists are Mentally Ill For Not Believing in God."
Now, admittedly, my blog was deliberately provocative, but I was very clear that it was addressed not to all atheists, but only to those who adamantly refuse to even consider the possibility of a Creator and who demean those who do. I wrote that such a stubborn and divisive position seems to be a psychological, not intellectual, issue, but I most certainly did not claim that anyone was "mentally ill." (It's revealing how Coyne implies that anyone who needs therapy is "mentally ill," and he exposes his overt disdain for psychotherapy later in his blog.)
I'd like to publically respond to Dr. Coyne's blogs, not to win or to fight, but to address some of the common misconceptions and stereotypes about religion and faith that his views demonstrate. In this I will be direct and, at times, personal. Being spiritual does not mean that one is always "nice" and gentle; there are times when direct language is needed in order to call harmful things and attitudes as they are.
Below are my responses to excerpts from Coyne's blogs, which are in italics. I also sent this in advance to Dr. Coyne to post on his blog site, if he'd like.
Dr. Coyne writes: Now I'm not going to say that Rabbi Alan Lurie has no business pronouncing on science since he lacks advanced degrees in the field, but his "unique background," as detailed by HuffPo, doesn't give us much confidence that he'll be able to show that all evolutionists and cosmologists are wrong about their trade.
This begins Coyne's approach of writing in absolutes and stereotypes, and using faulty logic. Is he really proposing that ALL evolutionists and cosmologists are atheists? According to the latest Pew study, 51 percent of scientists say that they believe in God, and presumably some of these are evolutionists or cosmologists. It seems that Dr. Coyne assumes that, because I believe in God, I must be a Bible literalist or a strict Creationist who rejects science. But that is one of his many faulty assumptions. If he had read any of my previous blogs he would know how far off the mark that assumption is. Nowhere do I challenge the Big Bang or evolution; in fact, I, like the majority of religious people (again, according to the Pew study) accept both, and I am particularly enthusiastic about both. Secondly, I am not telling them that they are wrong, but just questioning why some -- like Coyne, as we will see -- seem to absolutely refuse to consider a Creator hypothesis in the face of what does seem to be a designed reality. Now, of course, reality may only "seem" to be designed, but why not at least consider that there could be a Designer? I'm not asking anyone to believe this, but only to consider it -- however remotely -- along with other hypotheses. And what does one's background have to do with the validity of their argument?
The fine-tuning argument has become the last weapon in the arsenal of apologists. But although I don't have Marshall McLuhan behind this sign, I do have a smart physicist, Sean Carroll, who, when I sent him Lurie's piece, told me that the good rabbi knows nothing about physics.
Again, Coyne talks in absolutes when he says that I know "nothing" about physics (which I suspect is his opinion, not Mr. Carroll's). I am an architect, and took post-graduate level classes in physics and math. Although challenged by some, Fine Tuning is a well-supported hypothesis, and it is not the "last" argument used by theists; another assertion with no factual support.
... you can be intellectually honest, and take the predictions of your theory seriously. If God made the universe in order to support life on Earth, the skies should be empty. They are not. QED.
QED? First, I never wrote that the only reason for the Universe is to support life on Earth. This is Coyne's child-like vision of religious belief. I assume that the Universe is teeming with very diverse life and holds vast and wonderful mysteries. Second, this is a circular argument that uses the premise, "If I designed the Universe it would look like 'this,' but since it doesn't it must not be designed, or the Designer must be inept." This is, frankly, arrogance and small-mindedness. We know only the tiniest fraction of how the Universe works. The bottom line is that the Universe does exist, that it sustains life, and that we are alive and conscious. The idea of a Creator is not inconsistent with this, no matter how many "flaws" one may find.
Clearly designed? Maybe to Lurie! The rest of us are working on how the hereditary material and the brain evolved. Lurie's creationist explanation would have us stop all this work and just fob it off on Yahweh. ... God is simply a science-stopper, an appeal to ignorance. And, of course, there's not a shred of evidence for Lurie's God, but plenty of evidence for natural selection.
The flat, and completely unsupported, claim that to believe in God is to stop the scientific search is another black and white indulgence that is factually not true (as I addressed earlier) and again logically inconsistent. Where's the connection? Does recognizing that an engineer designed a car dissuade us from understanding how it works? Believing that the Universe is consciously designed actually spurs more curiosity to scientific exploration. Some of the greatest scientists were mystics and deep believers in a Creator: Copernicus, Maimonides, Kepler, Descartes, Newton, Mendel, Einstein and Planck, just to name some giants. The idea that faith ends science is an either/or choice that is a fundamentalist position, as are many assertions in Coyne's blog, like his unfounded stereotypes, his calling one he disagrees with "wacko" and "crazy," and his belief that his way is the ONLY way to know anything. (And I'm not sure if the frequent sarcastic reference to "Yahweh" was meant to offend and provoke, but it also shows Coyne's literalistic views, by assuming that I must believe in one specific super-being with a specific name, and that I'd be offended if this name is "used in vain." Please!) As far as the issue of evidence, I often wonder what type of evidence would be deemed adequate. Please see my last blog, "Who Created God?" for further discussion of this issue.
What is striking here is Lurie's arrogance -- as if he knows what God is like, and anybody who thinks He's different from that is immature. Really, Rabbi, who gave you a pipeline to the divine?
First of all, this is logically inconsistent. If Coyne does not believe in the Divine, how can a pipeline exist? Second, there are in fact immature and mature levels of spirituality, just as there are for emotions and intellect. To conceive of God, the Creator and Sustainer of Everything, as only a physical being that is fully described in a human document and that exists completely outside ourselves is in fact immature -- like a child thinking that electrons are little spinning balls. Those who have directly experienced a hint of the spiritual realm (which is all we can glimpse) across many traditions share remarkably similar understandings. I've seen this in numerous interfaith dialogues and by writers from around the world across thousands of years.
I'll thank god when a stack of thousand-dollar bills drops from the heavens into my lap.
The willingness to saying "thank you" only when one gets what one wants is not gratitude, but greed. And notice Coyne's magical thinking. Again, no mature believer carries such a childish wish. Jewish prayers are not for personal material wealth, but for the health of others, and for peace. (And prayer does not mean inaction. Quite the contrary. Prayer requires and leads to positive action.)
And talk about ridicule! Prescribing psychoanalysis -- a technique resembling religion since it's based on wish-thinking rather than evidence, has its own bearded God, and is unable to discover truth -- for atheists? Really? Who is being strident here?
It's truly shocking that one can rally behind writers who call believers "delusional" (by definition, needing therapy), label parents who teach children about God "child abusers" that should be punished, call for an end to religion -- even violently if necessary -- and think, like Coyne, that anyone who believes in God must be anti-science (i.e., stupid/ignorant), yet when I suggest that someone who adamantly refuses to even consider the hypothesis of a Designer in the face of what certainly appears to be deliberate design is in need of psychological help, the same person is offended. It is cowardly to throw a punch and then whine when hit back. Plus, note Coyne's blanket dismissal of psychoanalysis and Freud, ignoring the shelves of evidence that psychoanalysis works.
Finally, again Coyne's vision of a "bearded God" tells us of his literalistic view. I personally do not know a single believer (over the age of 5) who thinks of God in such childish terms. If that's how Coyne thinks that all believers experience God -- and that this is the ONLY way to conceive of God -- then no wonder he cannot see that science and faith are partners. As his blog clearly demonstrates, though, this is his limitation, not religion's or faith's.
Michael Shermer: Science and Religion: Incompatible?
We know they're irrational. They accept that an explosion clumped together to create us uncaused. Why do we need to go any further than that? Its like talking to an infant.
This is an imaginary group concocted by Lurie for rhetorical purposes.
Can he identify even ONE atheist who has "refused to consider the possibility of a Creator"?
I suggest that virtually ALL atheists have considered the possibility of existence of one or other the numerous "creators" posited by various religions.
Having considered that possibility, and taking into account the strong evidence against any such creator, EACH atheist has ultimately rejected the possibility.
I suggest that it is almost certain that NO atheist has ever demeaned anybody who "considered the possibility of a creator".
I suggest that ALL atheists should vigorously demean individuals like Lurie who decide to accept the possibility of a creator then condemn atheists as "intellectually dishonest" - because obnoxious slurs like that deserve condemnation.
Lurie's basic argument is that "it seems to him" that the world is designed. Atheists point out that although the features of the world appear to be elaborately ordered, there are perfectly straightforward explanations for that superficial appearance - in particular, evolutionary mechanisms, and beneath those mechanisms, the Standard Model of physics.
And by the way, speaking of "intellectual dishonesty", Lurie knows perfectly well that Einstein (the most recent of the "greatest scientists" he mentions) explicitly denied belief in a supernatural creator.
"I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts; the rest are details."
As far as demeaning, please read any of the "New Atheist" books, or the many sarcastic comments in the Religion section. They may not seem demeaning to you because you may agree with them. Look, I'm not usually confrontational, but frankly just got frustrated by so much of the misunderstanding and condemnation of religion and faith.
All the best,
Alan
He said: "What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility. This is a genuinely religious feeling that has nothing to do with mysticism."
and:
"The most beautiful and most profound experience is the sensation of the mystical. It is the sower of all true science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their primitive forms - this knowledge, this feeling is at the center of true religiousness."
You attribute *consciousness* to a supernatural entity which you consider to be a creator.
This is an anthropomorphic god.
Consciousness - one of the activities of a brain - exists only in living creatures. If you have any evidence to the contrary, you're eligible for the Nobel prize.
A brain capable of creating the universe and keeping it in consciousness would be a vast structure. No evidence of any such structure exists.
People are entitled to believe whatever they want to believe - no matter how irrational - if it makes them feel better about things. But as soon as those beliefs are translated into unjust or harmful conduct or policies, e.g. the preposterous characterisation of blastocysts as human beings - then the underlying beliefs deserve to be vigorously attacked.
Your attacks on atheists employ the very ridicule, sarcasm and spiteful misrepresentation that you accuse atheists of. You appear to relish the opportunity to denigrate atheists.
For example:
"Like Jackson Pollack peeing in Peggy Guggenheim's fireplace at a dinner party, or a little boy yelling "poop" in a classroom assembly, the New Atheists seem to want to think of themselves as bad boys..."
"To make the scientific claim that one will "go where the evidence leads," and yet consider such utterly unsupported hypotheses as multiple Universes, alien seeding (which, of course, still leaves the questions of where the aliens came from), mind memes (a total fantasy) and lightening strikes that animated primordial chemical soup to create life (which has never been scientifically reproduced), while not even considering the obvious possibility of a deliberate Creator, is to be intellectually dishonest at best."
Frankly, your writings reveal you to be intellectually dishonest.
rabii, with all due respect, most if not all Atheists have considered this, and have rejected the notion. what makes you think that we have not?
also, did Einstein have a good functioning brain? how bout any of these people:
http://www.celebatheists.com/wiki/Category:Atheist
perhaps it is your brain that is not functioning properly...
No one picks up a stapler and says "I'll assume that this is a natural formation until proof of a designer is found", and yet we can look at DNA and say "Look at what random mutation over time can do." Quite astonishing!
I completely understand, I think that there's a general lack of explanation and understanding regarding the foundations of Judaism, and that's one of the reason that there are so many battles on this site in areas that at face value seem very foreign. I don't know how to answer whether that should be included at the beginning of every article on Judaism; it does take an extensive bit of learning to truly understand. Perhaps one day I'll get there myself.
Of course it's your job to seek out the truth, we happen to live in a world where it's mostly hidden.
What have you discovered so far about the foundations of Judaism?
Science is a fluid, constantly questioning, open ended pursuit of knowledge and understanding of the universe in all its forms. Religion is a rigid, dogmatic set of archaic beliefs based on delusion and fairy tales that go back to the myths and stories of the Sumerians and the Akkadians before them. This was of course 3000 +/- years before Jesus showed up. Science is a process that teaches one to think better. Religion is a process that helps one to believe dumber. I actually have no problem with 'believers' regardless of the brand of silliness they choose to embrace as long as they keep quiet and don't throw it in my face. However, I am really weary of those believers who insist on trying to justify their beliefs by constantly trying to engage in pseudo scientific discussion forced upon the the rest of us in order to "save" us with their version of insanity
You can't, but atheists don't have to disprove the (non) existence of God any more than we do that of Santa Claus, Thor, or the Great Pumpkin. The burden of proof is on those making the positive claim that their Sky Fairy is real.
You atheists are such fundamentalists!
As if fundamentalism was such a vice that all you need to do when confronted with someone openly expressing a viewpoint that you don't like is say "You're a fundamentalist!" or "bigot" or "racist" or whatever and then that's it. The end. No further conversation. Not a second of consideration for atheist arguments. Not a moment of tolerance for them. They are just dismissed. That's is.
Let's observe that this is all based on a number of grossly intolerant and ignorant misconceptions about atheists and about liberal values.
What I do know is that quite a few atheists are just as arrogant, bigoted, and simplistically dismissive of other viewpoints as the most stereotypical "Bible-thumper". They are also extremely thin-skinned.
Awhile back I wrote that I found atheists to be "annoying prigs". In return I was accused of "amazing hatred". I wrote back that saying someone was "annoying" was hardly the same as expressing "amazing hatred". For some reason the discussion ended there.
The reason that I find atheists in general to be "annoying prigs" is that they are so utterly convinced that they, and they alone, are in sole possession of the "Truth" with a capital T. To them, everyone else is superstitious, irrational, or just plain stupid. They are also prigs because while they trumpet how "moral" they are without a "big sky-daddy" to watch over them, they are also casually insinuating that no one else is moral in themselves, but are moral only out of fear that the "big sky-daddy" will punish them.
Frankly I think that people who go around writing "Religion poisons everything" because their great dead hero said it are just as dull-witted as the ones who go around writing "Jesus is Lord" as if that actually meant anything.
No, atheists don't. That's why you have a vibrant discourse amongst atheists and of atheists debating theists. We are happy to be surprised in finding out that we are wrong, that someone knows more. However, just because someone might know more doesn't mean they do know more. The burden is on the theist to justify their beliefs and the theists have failed to do so.
"To them, everyone else is superstitious, irrational, or just plain stupid."
Let's be clear that it isn't some prior prejudice that everyone else has this character flaw of being superstitious or irrational. Rather is it an observation that the arguments for god are irrational and the contents of the belief are superstitutions. Also, no atheist thinks theists are "just plain stupid".
- "being in possession of "the Truth" is something I never heard or read from an atheist, but frequently proclaimed by religious fanatics.
- I have never heard/read any atheist going on and on about "morals" like Bible-thumpers do
- the part about the "big sky-daddy punishment" is what Christians profess. It's not what atheists say.
Please try to actually have some information or at least some quotes before jumping to generalizations. The impression you give is of someone who doesn't understand much about the subject in question, but needs to be noticed.
the Infinite needs to fine tune?
this is little understanding of infinite. if it is infinite it is perfect or it would not be infinite.
those are very very deep words but one must come to understand the term infinite and its perfection. few do, very few.
now the gods may need to fine tune but they are not infiinite but expressions of the Infinite. what there is no such things as gods?????? anyone that thinks that knows little about the evolution of consciousness process. again few do.
even the christian bible uses the term gods and they still dont understand and many christians consider the bible all truth and still dont get it. go figure.
the stuff of life is consciousness and someday humankind will actually study consciousness rather than a materialistic origin of the brain.