Brian

VandenAkker
Moral Incompatibility: Faith and Reason

Is religious moderation compatible with reason? Lets give Christian moderates the
benefit of doubt. Lets assume that these devout and ethical believers are correct in
what they believe. Many of them state that it was confused religious dogma that
corrupted so many believers before us. The atrocities of the Inquisition and Witch
trials were done against Gods desire. The teachings of the Old Testament can be
subject to the same rationality that Political Scientists give to the reasons our
founding fathers didnt reject slavery. At the time they were aware of the immorality
of owning a fellow person but in the name of pragmatism this unjust must lie
down to a political system that will allow its wrongs to be corrected in the future. In
other words, the God of the Old Testament knew the immorality in many of his laws
in Leviticus and Deuteronomy but the zeitgeist was incompatible in supporting
divine truths. Why the creator of the universe doesnt have the power to correct
these wrongs upfront is beyond me, but again lets assume believers are correct
when they say we cannot understand the mind of God.
There is no question that on the surface most believers of the modern era are
ethical in their behavior. They fall under the zeitgeist of the 21st century which they
claim pays homage to the teachings of Jesus. The Golden Rule comes from divine
knowledge and is shown to be right by witnessing the prosperity of the times in
which we live. This prosperity is due to the ethical and moral structure that was
setup in the New Testament by Jesus. Lets test these claims to see if they hold their
ground.

The ethical structures that we maintain today will be different tomorrow. We only
need to look back to see how differently we view torture, slavery, bigotry,
intolerance, and the countless isms of our time. Its reasonable to believe that this
trend will continue. But where should it go and how should it get there?
The religious claim ethical advances (and we should hold that they are
advancements) have all been an effort to enforce the Golden Rule. We are constantly
improving by finding ways to treat our neighbors, as we would hope they treat us.
All religious moderates and reasonable citizens will agree that we should always
seek to improve our ethical capacity (guided by the word of God or not). If we agree
that ethics has room to improve then we should agree that reason and inquiry offer
tools to advance our knowledge in this realm (unfortunately it requires geneticists
to convince some of the immorality of racism, sexism, etc). Even if we take a
teaching of Jesus based in the Golden Rule we can all agree that this is up for
interpretation. For instance should I want to be treated harshly at certain periods
of my life to encourage happiness at a later point?
I hope we can all agree that reasoning mainly through the process of science
can help us improve the way we live. It has proven to have the ability to right many
wrongs of the past. Is it reasonable to state that God is the provider of these tools for
reason? If not we find a screaming problem.

I should not be a Christian but for the miracles Augustine

All forms of reason require faith. If I were to reason that Im sitting in this chair
pulled a spherical clump of dust floating in an empty space by invisible forces I must
first have faith in the idea that anything exists at all. Descartes takes issue with this
when he says our only true certainty is that we are conscious. We may never know if
what we are conscious of is the truth. Does this mean that all forms of faith maintain
the same merit? Of course upon the reason that our intuition provides it seems
absurd to believe that a teapot orbits the sun as Bertrand Russell claimed in his
famous analogy. We can use our minds to state on belief that it is highly improbable
that a teapot orbits the sun. Any dogmatist who claims this can be dismissed
without need of proof.
Does the same hold for the miracles that the Bible claims Jesus performed? Is
it reasonable to hold without evidence that after three days of quiet death his brain
suddenly became active again? And that he assented to some unknown paradise
beyond the stars? Its fundamental for any Christian believer to maintain these
views. If they do not then Jesus is nothing more than a (wise) philosopher and we
have no problem dismissing other philosophers of the past. So a Christian must
hold these views. Is this compatible with reason? On what grounds should we hold
that these dogmatic claims have the right to hold our faith as true?
The faiths that science and reason hold are sometimes untestable like the
assertion that we are nothing more than brains in a vat. Does this mean that all is up
for grabs? It is possible to believe that in some universe there really is a teapot
floating in space. Despite this we have logic and reason to categorize claims with
measures of probability. We are highly certain, even if reality itself is some
simulated illusion, that there isnt a teapot orbiting our sun.
Lets get back to the claim that modern Christians make about the teachings
of Jesus and how they provide an ethical and overall better world. First we
established that to believe this we must believe its reasonable to assume these
miracles that happened 2000 years ago truly did occur. Doesnt this lower our
standards for reason? Of coarse it does, but this doesnt mean it didnt really
happen. In order to maintain consistency we must raise the probability that a teapot
orbits the sun. Id also like to point out that it raises the probability of all other
world religions being true, though this doesnt seem to worry modern Christians.
How does this increase in the error terms of our probabilistic measures
affect science, reason and ethics of the modern world? Because we put such a strong
faith in these miracles that were performed we should lower our faith in physical
laws. There must be something we are missing in our explanation of the universe far
more fundamental than is currently believed. Therefore we should be skeptical
when scientists argue that Global Warming is a reasonable threat. We should also be
skeptical of biologists and neuroscientists understanding of what makes a human,
human. So we cannot allow embryotic stem cell research because there is a higher
probability that there is a metaphysical substance like a soul (something other than
atoms) making up these cells. Its logical to then conclude that stem cell research is
killing this soul substance, which is obviously unethical according to the Golden
Rule.
Now, taking climate change seriously does have the ability to mitigate
harmful runaway temperature increases. Also, if we hold that there is a high chance
that a zygote is purely physical then there are no ethical concerns when considering
the chances that good research with these cells has to better understand cancer
but we cannot justify this utilitarian approach if there is a deity who sets the rules.
Clearly adjusting the probabilities of certain beliefs has practical concerns. Is
the belief of a divine creator a justified one given the real life implications that it can
have on our ethics the ethics that arise from or are derivatives to the Golden Rule?
These beliefs do effect how we establish policy and govern, so we should be sure
that the beliefs that we hold are at least as strong as the claims that sprout from
them. It seems that in order for us to be fully ethical we must know whether a God
exists or not, and given the religious doctrine if this God truly wanted us to be ethical
he would have made himself known without the need for us to loosen our reasoning
capabilities. Either a hypocritical deity designed us or billions are infected with a
dangerous meme.

Natural Selection if a belief held by biologists today because they have been unable
to believe otherwise. It seems perfectly reasonable to believe that a self-replicating
entity that is subject to mutation will over a long period of time change dramatically
through the processes described by Darwin. We have yet to have a biologist or any
scientist for that matter show the flaw in this idea and if s/he did they would
surely be awarded the Nobel Prize the incentive for this discovery is certainly
there. We then have good reason to believe that its as close to a truth as we can get.
There is a high probability that natural selection explains how Homo sapiens came
into existence. There is a little amount of faith needed to claim this. It seems clear
that in order to arrive at truths we need to work to minimize our faiths. It also
seems clear that once we arrive at these truths there are great practical applications
to these ideas that provide us with better lives. A Darwinian understanding of life
allows for helpful cancer research where a metaphysical limits it.
By minimizing our faith and maximizing our reasoning capacity we should be
capable of living more ethically and prosperously. This is a controversial claim for
many modern religious people (especially Christians). Id ask these people to
consider what religious faith did a few generations ago in medieval Europe. Perhaps
it was the age of reason that changed the zeitgeist rather than the reinterpretation
of the Bible. Regardless, religion does no work to maximize reason and minimize
faith it reasons (weakly) that we should increase our faith.
How does it manage this? Again we can go to Darwin. Imagine an ancestor of
ours wandering alone in a dense woods. She suddenly hears a tree branch snap
behind her. There are two options she has here: 1) turn around and examine what
caused this noise (or I suppose ignore it) or 2) run. If she chose option 1 and the
reason for the branch snapping was because it had just fallen from a tree she would
turn back and continue on with her day. However, if this branch snapped because a
predator was following her she would have a higher likelihood of being eaten. If she
had failed to produce any offspring prior to this event then her genes would not be
passed on. On the other hand, if she chose option 2 she would have probably
survived to reproduce. Now, of course she wouldnt have the pleasure of examining
how gravity pulls tree branches to the ground occasionally if this was the case.
Here we see how a natural process encourages survival (not the discovery of
truth). Youre better off believing theres a threat when there isnt than the other
way around. This natural process of gene selection can help us understand why we
are so susceptible to believing in falsities. It probably increased our ancient
ancestors chance at surviving this trait largely allowed us to exist.
Is this what religion is? It would certainty explain why the threat of hell is a
major component of the worlds most influential religions. Maybe, were at a point in
history where its better to turn and examine the mysterious effects of gravity than
it is to run. Maybe its time we accept the world for all that we can reasonably
assume by casting away age-old religious dogma. Wouldnt that allow us to live a
better more ethical life? I certainly think so. And if reason happens to arrive at there
being a high probability of a creator then so be it but lets not go there before we
have strong reasons to believe it. Lets not let our fears of not believing get in the
way of our capacity to reason. This brief life of ours is far too beautiful to be scared
of it.