LilySmith’s comments, from several posts beginning with # 20, offer fascinating insights into the arguments at least one theist uses to justify her beliefs. Instead of nesting them and making multiple posts, I’ll italicize them and post once.
We don’t know whether the laws of nature just happened on their own or if they had an intelligent architect. Anyone who chooses to believe an architect is not necessary can do so, but his view is not based on knowledge. It’s based on assumption. No, it’s based on all the available data about consciousness. In every known example, consciousness arises from the organic brain. Theism posits a conscious entity predating matter. Not only is there no evidence for that, it contradicts everything we know about what consciousness is and where it comes from.
Man is an intelligent architect using the building blocks of life that already exist. We don’t know where the building blocks of life came from and how they were put together at the beginning of life on earth. But again, every scrap of evidence we have points to natural origins. Science has made tremendous progress toward understanding how life began.
The term psyche indicates a soul, not just a material brain. The question of whether we each have a soul which transcends a material existence cannot be answered. Man can assume he doesn’t, but most ancient societies believed in the concept to some degree. Why would a completely material brain invent such a concept believed by a majority of people? Oh, so now Ms. Smith adopts the position of radical materialism, a position she completely opposes. Emotion, which is processed mainly in the midbrain, is an aspect of consciousness. People imagine that they have souls because they do not wish to die. Unless Ms. Smith has all her deceased relatives at Thanksgiving dinner - after all, just because they’re dead doesn’t mean they’re not conscious - then she doesn’t even take her own argument seriously. That obvious point also answers her question: “If there isn’t anything beyond this existence, why do so many people believe there is?" And Ms. Smith’s declaration about the “true" meaning of the psyche is just a word game.
Why can man perceive the eternal? [We can’t perceive it but we can imagine it.] Because we are a symbolic species with a highly developed cerebral cortex. We can conceptualize time, do calculus and invent computers. We can even imagine taking a running jump from our backyard and landing on the planet Jupiter; that doesn’t mean we can do it.
If the energetic and chemical reactions of nature produced a man who perceived the eternal and lived in accordance with that belief, perhaps there is a reason for it and it would be unwise to take that away from man. That is a non-sequitur and a form of special pleading.
We already know the theoretical cause—energetic and chemical reactions. The goal is survival. There must also be a reason men who had the ability to perceive the eternal and live according to a religion survived. Perhaps the capability hasn’t run astray, but is integral to survival in societal settings. And society is integral to the survival of the individual. Not everyone is a scientist. Not everyone is a philosopher. Most everyone has a religion and it serves as an anchor for society as a whole. Where religion has been oppressed, society has floundered. So, then, explain the staying power of slavery, or economic oppression. I agree that religion can serve an important and salutary role in life and society but religion and theism are two different things. Religion should be about bringing everything together into a coherent whole, so that we can be at one with each other and with nature. Too many religions do the exact opposite, dividing us based on our respective beliefs – which Ms. Smith admits are guesswork at best – and severing the connection between belief and reality. I live and breathe my religion, every moment of every day. It has nothing to do with belief in a god.
In response to Lois’ comment {“You don’t have proof that a psyche is a material thing or that it can survive death. You’re guessing.“}; Smith responded: We’re all guessing, Lois. Smith doesn’t seem to understand the difference between gradations of certainty in science, or the provisional nature of all science. All the evidence says that when we die, our consciousness ends. The idea that consciousness survives death is a guess, and it’s wishful thinking.
All of this raises a broader question: what is the function of belief? Unlike some of my fellow non-theists, I maintain that belief plays an essential role in life. It orients us and allows us to function without having to re-invent the wheel every moment. For example, doctors believe that medicines work better to cure certain illnesses than chanting incantations; they don’t have to spend an hour or so pondering the matter before deciding which approach to take with a patient but instead can use their training and experience, which have shaped their beliefs, to practice medicine efficiently.
Scientists hold many beliefs about the usefulness of scientific methods. In fields where more definitive or more concrete answers to basic questions may yet be far away, scientists can still make progress by following proven methods. For example, the best theory we have about the universe’s origins is the Big Bang. As scientists continue to gather data, those data will either tend to confirm the Big Bang theory, or tend to deny it. Similarly with our understanding of the origins of life: scientists have made huge leaps forward in recent years. Most great strides forward in science have come about when the uncovering of additional information led to the eventual overthrow of an old theory and its replacement by a new theory; and each step forward was another step toward the truth. We can see the progress achieved through scientific method.
Theistic belief offers none of those benefits. Theism doesn’t propose looking for answers, it proposes finding a way to justify pre-set answers, a field often called apologetics. Not only do theism’s methods produce no knowledge; they tend to shut down the search for more knowledge. That is why I pointed out to Ms. Smith that theism hasn’t contributed a speck of knowledge to our intellectual arsenal in the thousands of years of its history. When we don’t know the answers – and Smith admits that we do not – the best we can do is follow the methods that expand our knowledge. Between science and theology, it’s not a close call, in fact, theism isn’t even in the game. If there is one point I wish she could “get,” probably it would be that one, because unless and until she gets this essential point, she will not understand why science’s methods matter so much. And if we don’t have a citizenry that gets this, then we are all in big trouble.