God, contingency and special pleading — the cosmological argument

As promised here's the first instalment of my review of Evidence for God, edited by Dembski & Licona.

"The Cosmological Argument" by David Beck

Here's Beck's argument, conveniently set out by his own headings:

• Step 1: What We Observe and Experience in Our Universe Is Contingent
• Step 2: A Network of Causally Dependent Contingent Things Cannot Be Infinite
• Step 3: A Network of Causally Dependent Contingent Things Must Be Finite
• Conclusion: There Must Be a First Cause in the Network of Contingent Causes

You'll not be surprised to learn that the First Cause is not only "uncaused" but is also "God". But going right back to Step 1, Beck asserts, "We know of nothing that spontaneously initiates its own causal activity." (p 16.) I think a certain quantum physicist (name of Schrödinger) might have taken issue with this assertion.

Be that as it may, the problem with Beck's argument is that he's refuting himself. He starts off by claiming that everything that has been caused must have a cause that caused it. This is nothing but tautology. It's the same as saying that everything that has been caused has been caused. Anyone can play that game: things that are coloured red are coloured red. But then he goes on to claim that this can't go on for ever, and therefore there must be something that started off all the causing, and because it started off the causing, it wasn't itself caused by anything else (which, you'll note, is yet more tautology — this first cause is uncaused because ... it's uncaused — and it's the first cause because it wasn't itself caused).

It's also amusing to realise that the so-called First Cause posited by this infinity-averse argument turns out to be an infinite and eternal God.

Beck specifically denies the idea of an infinite universe — but I don't think this is something you can simply assert. Our universe may have begun in the Big Bang, but the Big Bang may have been the result of something in an alternative eternal universe. This alternative universe, if eternal, does not need to have been caused. This is similar to the argument about something coming from nothing. The question, "How can something come from nothing?" may be an unnecessary question if there has always been something.

Beck's conclusion, "There must be a first cause in the network of contingent causes," seems to me to be self-refuting special pleading. Beck is also not above a bit of emotional blackmail. In response to the hypothetical objection, "What caused God? If the universe is a network of causes and effects, then you cannot arbitrarily stop at some point and call it God," Beck states (my emphasis):

"This, however, misses the whole point of the argument. The Cosmological Argument shows that a series of contingents must be finite: it must eventually lead to a non-contingent. It would be nonsense to ask what causes this first uncaused cause. So this objection simply fails to understand the argument." (p 19.)

This is similar to insisting that parallel lines meet at infinity. It's confusing a concept with a physical reality. Parallel lines do not meet anywhere, by definition.

My other main objection to this argument, which to be fair to Beck, does admit of incomplete knowledge of our universe, is nevertheless the hubris of assuming any first cause must be God; that if the existence of contingent things demands the existence of something non-contingent, that non-contingent thing must be God, for the simple reason that God is defined as the only non-contingent thing.

God of the gaps, anyone?

Faith schools: suffer the little children — and they do

The BBC Radio 4 programme Beyond Belief is a mixed bag. Each week Ernie Rae speaks with studio guests and includes a pre-recorded report or interview. I've mentioned a few previously on this blog. Often the subject matter is of only marginal interest to me but this afternoon's edition was about faith schools, featuring the Rev Janina Ainsworth — Church of England Chief Education Officer, Ibrahim Hewitt — former head of Al-Aqsa Primary School in Leicester and now an inspector of faith schools, and Andrew Copson — Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association.

The programme is available as a podcast, and this week's edition is downloadable as mp3 audio here:
http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/podcasts/radio4/belief/belief_20110214-1700a.mp3

Janina Ainsworth seemed convinced that faith schools were inherently a "good thing", while Ibrahim Hewitt's views were all over the place. I particularly liked Ernie Rae's question to him towards the end of the broadcast, as to how probability is taught during maths lessons in a Muslim school. Apparently the children are told that there's no such thing as chance: if you throw dice, the results are not random but willed by God.

During the entire discussion Andrew Copson had the firmest grasp on the issues, seeing through the equivocation and appeals to emotion of the other two guests. I suspect that even Ernie Rae has serious doubts about the validity of faith schools. Given his introduction at the start of the broadcast, I don't think he was merely playing devil's advocate here.

But the most telling point in the programme was a recorded interview with Peter Flack, assistant secretary of the Leicester National Union of Teachers, who believes faith schools are a danger to society. He asked:

"What is so different about children who come from families with religious beliefs, that they need to be educated separately, that they need to be segregated from everybody else?"

Later in the day we had a perfect illustration of the danger Peter Flack warns about. Channel Four's Dispatches: Lessons in Hate and Violence, presented by Tazeen Ahmad and broadcast at 8 pm (with a repeat at 2:40 am), showed precisely what can happen to children if they are left in the clutches of faith-based education. We're not talking only of incitement to violence — these children (some as young as six) were being repeatedly hit. The violence was recorded as part of Dispatches' trademark "secret filming". What's worse, the featured establishments had been inspected and passed as fit places for young children to be "instructed".

A trailer clip of the programme is available here:
http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches/video/series-80/episode-1/lessons-in-hate-and-violence

Those in favour of faith-based education often speak of it enabling children to become part of the community. The evidence suggests, however, that the "community" of which they speak is a narrow one, deliberately segregated from the wider society into which it ought to be integrated.

Burnee links for Sunday

You can't overdose on homeopathic remedies; Why won't homeopathy skeptics drink their own medicine?
Talk about spectacularly missing the point! The reason why you can't overdose on homeopathic remedies has nothing to do with "vibrations", it's because there's nothing in them. Truly wonderful nonsense.

Stephen Law: Free schools to teach creationism
Stephen Law is rightly indignant about an insidious practice that's becoming less insidious and more blatant as the control of schools is relinquished to the private sector. And if you want to know who "Dave" is, go here:
http://stephenlaw.blogspot.com/2011/02/strange-case-of-dave.html

CFI Supports U.S. Rep. Pete Stark’s Darwin Day Resolution | Center for Inquiry
Pete Stark: a lone voice in American politics?

I am Denial Girl! Can I get a theme song? | Godless Girl
I'm not sure I would have taken this tack in response to the Reverend's tired old email, but I don't blame Godless Girl for doing so. The Reverend's sentiments aren't original, or logical, and certainly say more about him than they say about Godless Girl.

Jourdemayne: Exorcism: Ancient & Modern
It beggars belief — mine at least — that this stuff is still, in this day and age, thought by significant numbers of people in authority to be a real phenomenon.

Loose Ends and Global Warming. I get angry. - steve's posterous

"May Darwin protect us from the ignorant views of actors and writers who confuse being an exciting rebel with being dumb about science."

People say silly things. When they do, this should be pointed out to them.

Lawrence Krauss: Religious viewpoints need not conflict with science - steve's posterous
Another post from Steve Zara. (As an anti-accommodationist I couldn't resist it.)

Are human values moral values?

Revisiting the Unbelievable? online discussion group this weekend after a period of absence, I noted that considerable to and fro was in full swing regarding the show in which Paul Thompson ("Sinbad") debated Mark Roques on the question of "human value". This is a pretty diffuse term to begin with, and the discussion on the show didn't define it with any precision. The debate illustrated a typical clash of mindsets that could not be resolved during the limited time for the show, and although the online forum discussion allows for greater depth, it isn't any more likely to reach a resolution.

Rather than dwell on that particular discussion in isolation, I'll simply point to its similarities with the 11 September 2010 edition of Unbelievable? — a discussion between Andrew Copson, Chief Executive of the British Humanist Association, and Peter D. Williams of Catholic Voices. The show wasn't explicitly about human values, but it showed the same clash of mindsets as the more recent broadcast.

Andrew Copson is one of humanism's most articulate advocates, and the fact that he made no impression at all on Peter Williams during their discussion illustrates the futility of attacking the theist position on the metaphysics of morality. Unfortunately the show's format prevented this aspect of their disagreement being further explored. Not that such exploration would have made much difference, I suspect.

The theist position is that morality must by definition have a transcendent basis. The humanist position is that such a basis is neither proven nor necessary. While it may be too much to hope that theists such as Peter Williams will be swayed by the arguments Andrew put forward, there may have been theists (and others) listening to the show who don't necessarily buy into a fundamentally transcendent nature of morality, and who will see that Andrew's humanist viewpoint is a perfectly valid stance, and one that is based on reality rather than some disputed, unproven supernatural proposition.

Andrew's point at the end of the exchange was well made: as a result of the discussion he said he was more convinced of his own position than he had been before.

In brief, as I see it, the problem with the "moral argument for the existence of God" as espoused by some theists, is mainly one of definition. A humanist may go into some detail as to how he or she derives moral values without a belief that those values are god-given (as I have done myself), but theists are unable to accept such a line of argument because they believe that any values derived from something other than God aren't "moral" values at all. It's as if they define morality as "a system of values dictated by God". Never mind that such a definition impales itself on the horns of the Euthyphro dilemma — which, despite theistic protestations to the contrary, has never been successfully resolved.

Armand Leroi delivers the 2011 Darwin Day Lecture

Without notes and with just a few informative slides, Armand Leroi delivered his captivating 2011 Darwin Day Lecture to a packed Conway Hall on Wednesday evening. His talk, titled "Mutants, and what to do about them" covered the possibilities, practicalities and economics of screening for genetic diseases. Phrased thus, it sounds like a dry subject, but Professor Leroi spoke with commitment and deep knowledge, in clear and expressive language that allowed his succinct points to hit home. His lecture was introduced by Robert Ashby, British Humanist Association (BHA) Board of Trustees Chair, while the lecture itself and its subsequent Q&A was chaired by BHA Vice President Richard Dawkins. The evening concluded with a few announcements from BHA Chief Executive Andrew Copson.



Though he did not shy away from the eugenic implications of universal screening of human embryos, he was clear in his avoidance of making moral judgements. It's not necessary here to reiterate these or any other points in his lecture, as you can listen to the entire thing yourself — along with some intelligent questions from the floor. The audio was recorded by the Pod Delusion and is available from their website, which incidentally also allows embedding of the player, as below:

The latest regular episode of the Pod Delusion also contains brief interviews with Armand Leroi and Richard Dawkins before the lecture:


There's also a direct mp3 download link for the above episode 71 here:
http://media.ipadio.com/20110211011055.mp3

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UPDATE 2011-02-16: Unfortunately the Pod Delusion embedding feature appears a little flaky for its special episodes, so here's a direct link to the lecture:
http://poddelusion.co.uk/blog/2011/02/09/bha-darwin-day-lecture-listen-live-at-730pm/

Burnee links for Thursday

Richard Dawkins, the Protestant atheist | Thomas Jackson | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
Another unfocussed diatribe against a straw man.

Harris and Pigliucci: On moral philosophy - Butterflies and Wheels
Peter Beattie with a refreshingly serious consideration of The Moral Landscape.

Times Higher Education - Justice for Hedgehogs
Law, ethics and morality. Simon Blackburn remains unconvinced by Ronald Dworkin's book.

Established church aims to re-evangelise us all — New Humanist
Commenting on John Sentamu's General Synod speech, Paul Sims quotes Naomi Phillips of the BHA:

"This is a tension at the heart of the Church of England which demands resolution. The Church of England wishes – as a church – to promote Christianity and of course it should be free to do so, but it should not be privileged in doing so, and it is not legitimate for it to enlist our shared and publicly-funded schools, social services and our parliament in its evangelistic task."

And yes, it probably is time for disestablishment.

Lord Monckton attacked from all sides... by climate sceptics | Carbon Brief
Lord Monckton is not a scientist, so the traction he gets (as evident from the Storyville documentary) is disturbing. But I think the 'swivel-eyed loon' comment is — at the very least — unfortunate.

Blogging every day — a success?

Due to QEDcon over last weekend I seem to have let the momentous occasion of my 300th Evil Burnee post go by without comment. I'll correct that omission with this brief, meandering rant about blogging in general, why I blog, and what it's been like blogging every day this year (so far).

This is actually (I think) the 307th post. I knew I was approaching 300 — and that I'd pass it soon — when I decided at the beginning of 2011 to post something every day for a month. Previously I posted when I felt like it. Sometimes an event in the news, an item on the radio, or something online would prompt me to ponder and urge me to write. That was fine, if I got around to actually writing about it. Sometimes there'd be a delay (life, you know?); sometimes I'd even have a few notes, but often the timeliness of the post in prospect would pass, and it perhaps didn't seem appropriate to post something retrospectively when there were other more pressing items of interest to blog about. If I got around to them.

So I resolved to experiment with (at least) one post per day, and for January 2011 it went well. Five original blogposts per week, plus two lists of Burnee links, kept the stream going. February has been a little different, with QED intervening (not that I stopped blogging during the weekend — operational netbook permitting), and other matters squeezing my blogging time. Nevertheless I'm keeping it up, albeit with a number of slightly backdated posts needing perforce to be retrofitted.

I blog to clarify my thoughts — sometimes I'm unsure what I really think until I write it down — and to let others know my position if they're interested. ("Others" could of course include my future self: Notes from an Evil Burnee provides a record of my position on a range of issues, as well as being a useful repository of links to online articles I've found interesting for one reason or another, at one time or another.)

And the discipline of blogging every day has been useful in encouraging engagement with the issues at hand. It's all very well hearing or reading something during the day and thinking, "Maybe I'll write something about that at the weekend, or next week, or...." Much more useful, productive and motivating to think, "I'll write about that tonight."

So the experiment has been successful, and will continue. Many more words to come.