Let me begin by saying that this isn’t a conversation. It’s
a monologue. Hopefully it’s not close-minded and unreasonably slanted. What it
is: a summation of a few conversations I’ve had with an atheist, along with some
thoughts and light analysis. It’s neither an argument for God nor against
atheism. Rather, I hope to shed a little light on a common argument against
the traditional idea of theism.
I’ve had a running debate with a self-professed atheist.
Unfortunately, the discussion tends to begin and end in the same place every
time. We don’t pick up the debate at the place we left off a few months earlier.
Instead, we re-begin at square one. That’s part of the reason for this post: to
put it all together. Let me refer to the anonymous atheist as Auggie.
Auggie’s general argument against theism in general and
religion in particular revolves around “science.” It goes something like, “Hey,
back in the day, prior to the evolution of science, we needed God to fill in
the gaps for the things we couldn’t explain. But there’s no need for God now.
Everything we experience can be explained by the physical world.”
One of my major rejoinders to this sort of argument—and this
is where I generally spend most of time on the offensive with Auggie—is to make
the simple point that science is based on materialism, but it doesn’t, and
can’t, prove hard materialism. What I
mean by this is simple: hard materialism is the belief that all that exists, in any sense of the word
‘exists’, is material, physical mass. There’s nothing in science, the
scientific method, or in any discovery of science that can prove that material matter is all that exists. Science only
evaluates physical mass; its tools can only observe physical mass: Therefore,
it’s not any wonder science only gives us proclamations about physical mass.
I could expound upon this by drawing many analogies, but let
one suffice: If we were to analyze the world solely using our ears, then we
would discover only a world of sound. Should we then make the argument that the
study of ears proves that the only thing that really exists is sound? No, of
course not. I could keep going, but what I really want to get to is the common
response to my rebuttal—and then my further response.
A reasonable response to my argument above is, “Yes, yes; I
see your point. Science doesn’t prove
that only physical material exists. But it comes damn close.” If pushed to
explain, Auggie would say, “We only experience physical matter. Yes, that
doesn’t mean we can disprove the
existence of anything else; but it gets you 99% of the way there. I also can’t
prove that there is not an invisible
dragon floating above both our heads right now, but science shows us that that
possibility is rather slim—in fact, slim enough for us to discount, like God.”
I want to briefly elaborate on an assumption built into this
argument. I do this not simply to argue against Auggie but because I believe
most self-professed atheists presuppose Auggie’s assumptions. They implicitly
claim (without much reflection) that most
of our experience of the world is an experience of physical matter. Therefore,
to assume the existence of anything else is both unscientific and unrelated to
our daily experience. But this exactly what I find to be rather preposterous.
Our experience of the world is hardly at all an experience
of physical matter. (By the way, the following set of statements is not an
argument against science or even against hard materialism. It’s a set of
observations.) If you ever felt that something mattered, then you experienced something unlike physical matter. If
you ever felt that there was a right and a wrong in a decision you had to
make—even if you felt the moral decision was subjective—then you experienced
something unlike physical matter. If you ever looked at a sunset—or a painting,
poem, or person—and said, “This is beautiful,” then you experienced something
unlike physical matter. If you ever read about something in a newspaper and
thought, “That is just horrible,” then you experienced something unlike
physical matter. If you’ve ever had a job (or could imagine one) that you did,
at least somewhat, because you felt the job mattered, then you experienced
something unlike physical matter. If you’ve never had a job like that but
instead do a mindless job just so you can bring money home to your kids because
that matters, then you’ve experienced something unlike physical matter. This list
could continue.
None of these are arguments against hard materialism. I
think anyone can see that. But what they do is point out that our experience of
the world, on a daily level, is an experience of something unlike physical
matter. Auggie can claim that all of these impulses—from morality to empathy to
meaning—are illusionary. Perhaps. My point here isn’t to prove the veracity of
these experiences. It’s simply to point them out. Even if they are all caused
by physical matter—which I shall suppose as a possibility for the sake of this argument—they
aren’t experienced as physical matter.
For example, I simply cannot experience a moral
dilemma as physical matter. When I experience it, the moral dimension to the
decision—that there is a right and wrong choice (objective or subjective); that
making the right or better decision is somehow healthier or nobler for me as a
person, as well as for other persons involved—is most definitely not
experienced as physical matter. Perhaps one could use the science of the brain
and evolution to explain my moral dilemma; but this would still not allow me to
experience the moral dilemma as physical matter. Once I truly accepted the moral dilemma as physical matter, the dilemma
would no longer exist.
So what’s the point? I guess one of the points is to shift
the onus of proof. The hard materialist cannot simply rely on his argument that
we only experience physical matter; real or illusionary, this is not how we
experience life.
But more interestingly, for me, what this observation does
is put Auggie in a position that he must argue that all the experiences
outlined above, and their nearly infinite variations, are simply illusions.
Auggie must argue that most of our important experiences of life are
illusionary. Of course this is a possibility, but it’s a far cry from the
science that wants to explain real data by real methods. Instead of applying a
reasonable scientific method to experience, Auggie makes a sweeping claim,
“It’s all just illusion.” This sounds Buddhist, not empirical.
This also breaks down the basic argument upon which Auggie
relies: a) Science shows us only a material world. b) A non-material world is a
possibility, but c) a non-material world is a possibility the same way an
invisible dragon floating above my head is a possibility. Therefore, d) hard
materialism is the most logical possibility. My problem here is with premise C:
I don’t experience an invisible dragon floating above my head, but I, like all
humans, experience a non-physical world of meaning and morality. Even if
illusionary, I still experience it.
Instead of the theist getting pounded for accepting improbable data, the hard
materialist is actually in the position of rejecting
most of our most important human data. To return to the ear/science example
earlier, hard materialists are exactly like the eye-scientists who only look at
what the ear can observe, and then assume that all that exists is sound. These
scientists must argue that all of our other experience—that of sight, taste,
etc.—are illusions. I suppose that’s a possibility, but it’s not all that
scientific.
