An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar
Page 1
Published 2016 by Prometheus Books
An Atheist and a Christian Walk into a Bar…: Talking about God, the Universe, and Everything. Copyright © 2016 by Randal Rauser and Justin Schieber. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a website without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Rauser, Randal D. | Schieber, Justin, author.
Title: An atheist and a Christian walk into a bar…: talking about God, the universe, and everything / by Randal Rauser and Justin Schieber.
Description: Amherst : Prometheus Books, 2016. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2016029166 (print) | LCCN 2016033689 (ebook) | ISBN 9781633882430 (pbk.) | ISBN 9781633882447 (ebook)
Subjects: LCSH: Christianity and atheism. | God (Christianity) | God.
Classification: LCC BR128.A8 R38 2016 (print) | LCC BR128.A8 (ebook) | DDC 261.2/1—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2016029166
Printed in the United States of America
Acknowledgments
Introduction
CHAPTER 1: WHY GOD MATTERS
Should You Care If God Exists?
Is God as Ridiculous as an Invisible Pink Unicorn?
How Do You Define God?
What about an Evil God?
A Debate about Mere (Classical) Theism
Should You Hope That God Exists?
CHAPTER 2: GOD, FAITH, AND TESTIMONY
Good and Bad Faith
Defining Faith
Faith in the Messiness of Life
Faith in Your Sherpa
The Principle of Total Evidence
Faith in the Extraordinary
CHAPTER 3: THE PROBLEM OF MASSIVE THEOLOGICAL DISAGREEMENT
What Is Evidence?
Does Religion Lead to Violence?
Disagreement about Landlords, Parents, and God
The Argument from Massive Theological Disagreement (MTD)
Debating Premise One
Evaluating Premise Two
Relationship with God and Knowledge of God
Could God Give Incompatible Revelations?
Doctrine and Salvation
CHAPTER 4: GOD AND MORAL OBLIGATION
Setting Up the Moral Questions
Introducing Ethics and Desire
Debating Desirism
Unqualified Moral Judgments
Moral Perception
The Problem of Changing Moral Perception
The Faculty of Moral Perception and Desires
Moral Obligation and Moral Calling
Could God Command Something Morally Heinous?
Moral Knowledge and Skepticism
CHAPTER 5: THE PROBLEM OF THE HOSTILITY OF THE UNIVERSE
A Most Unusual Birthday Gift
Theism, Anthropocentrism, and a Battle of Analogies
Why Would God Create a Hostile Universe?
Does Atheism Predict a Universe Less Hospitable to Life?
But Why Did God Create at All?
CHAPTER 6: GOD, MATHEMATICS, AND REASON
On the Unreasonable Effectiveness of Mathematics
Numerical Patterns as Architectural Motifs
Debating the Architectural Motif Argument
Why Explanations Need Not Have Their Own Explanation
The Mathematical Blueprint Argument
CHAPTER 7: EVOLUTION AND THE BIOLOGICAL ROLE OF PAIN
Preliminary Comments on God, Evil, and Suffering
Evolution and Atheism: A Match Made in Heaven?
Atheistic Alternatives to Evolution?
New and Improved Competitors
Consciousness and Material Creation: Which Is More Surprising?
God's Hidden Reasons?
Into the Icy Depths of God's Hidden Reasons
Conclusion
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Randal and Justin would like to thank their editor, Steven Mitchell and the rest of the team at Prometheus, who caught the vision of this book and have carefully shepherded it through to completion.
Randal also wishes to thank his wife and daughter for their enduring support, as well as his beloved parents, who raised him into the faith he still holds. Thanks also go to Randal's dogs—Maggie the chubby Maltese and Sonny the emotionally detached Lhasa Apso—for providing comic relief and the welcome daily opportunity to pick up some poo in the backyard. Finally, a nod must go to the humble HP Pavilion on which Randal typed his share of the manuscript: you may not be the coolest laptop, but you get the job done.
Justin wishes to thank his Reasonable Doubts comrades Jeremy Beahan, David Fletcher, and Luke Galen. Thanks also go to Alexander Delorme and the University of Alberta Atheists and Agnostics, as well as Yorgo Veenhuyzen, for organizing a debate between Randal Rauser and himself that served as the catalyst for this project. Thank you to Jennifer Beahan, Ed Brayton, Jeff Seaver, and the rest of the gang at the Grand Rapids, Michigan, chapter of the Center for Inquiry. Thanks also to Brandon McCleary, Jeff Lowder, and Hasan Mohammad for their friendship and encouragement.
RANDAL'S INTRODUCTION
In October 2005, Jon Stewart, the former host of The Daily Show, appeared on CNN's Crossfire, a debate program that regularly pitted a strident conservative opinion against an equally strident liberal opinion in a no-holds-barred, no-compromise-allowed, debate.
But this episode wasn't merely another conservative vs. liberal dispute. Instead, Stewart proceeded to eviscerate the format of the show, arguing that it encouraged polarization while distorting complicated issues in favor of simplistic sloganeering and partisanship.
These days, debates on God's existence are often carried out in the manner of Crossfire, with theistic and atheistic apologists each aiming to demonstrate the truth of their position while showing their opponent to be not only wrong but plainly irrational or even morally suspect. It is not uncommon, for example, for atheists to denounce theists (and in particular Christians like myself) as faith-heads, a derogatory term popularized by Richard Dawkins. Alas, many Christian apologists respond in kind, as they attribute the atheist's unbelief to sinful rebellion against God.1
Irrational faith-head theists and sinful, rebellious atheists. As if these are the only options? Yikes!
Indeed, “Yikes” doesn't quite convey how damaging this kind of marginalizing rhetoric is. The reality is that atheism and theism are both intellectually serious, rationally defensible positions. Each position is supplemented with dozens of arguments that have been ably defended by many of history's great minds (and more than a few less-than-great minds as well!). And if we are to have any hope of learning from one another on this most important of questions, we had better start by learning to listen, even as we contin
ue to argue our points with conviction and charity.
That's what this book is about. Justin and I may find ourselves at opposite ends of the God question, but we respect each other and acknowledge that we are bettered by serious exchange with those with whom we disagree. We're not attempting to reinvent the wheel in this book. But we are attempting to polish the rim and try on some new tires. In short, we're aiming to provide a helpful model for rigorous and charitable intellectual exchange. Along the way, we also hope to defend some important arguments in favor of our worldviews.
You may have noted that I referred above to both theistic and atheistic apologists. Alas, the word apologist often has negative connotations today, as if an apologist is little more than a glorified used car salesman who is merely interested in closing the sale.
Needless to say, I have no interest in that kind of apologetic. The Greek word apologia refers first and foremost to a formal defense of one's beliefs. And what could be wrong with that? But while I definitely resonate with that pursuit, I also believe that one should only defend one's beliefs because one believes them to be true. This means that I view apologetics as a quest for truth. And if we're really serious about that, then apologetic debate should be as much about revealing weaknesses in one's own views as illuminating their strengths, for if our views fail to match up to the truth in any way, we should want to know. Serious dialogue is a fantastic testing ground for our beliefs in the manner of iron sharpening iron.
For this reason, in one of my books I define apologetics as “the rigorous pursuit of truth in conversation.”2 The fact is that I believe I am right to maintain that God exists, and Justin believes he is right to maintain that God does not exist. But above all, I believe we should both be committed to pursuing and knowing the truth, and a conversation that is friendly, rigorous, honest, and directed at the truth reflects and embodies that commitment.
With that in mind, my hope (dare I say my prayer?) is that this conversation can help us in that journey. If God exists, Justin wants to know, and if God doesn't exist, I want to know.
So let's get started!
JUSTIN'S INTRODUCTION
When my family left the Catholic Church in which I was raised for a church in another part of town, I wholeheartedly approved. Not only were the services of our new evangelical Protestant church adorned with occasional distorted guitars and drums, the man at the helm was less than two hundred years old. I viewed this as a clear improvement.
It was around this time that I allowed myself to begin taking Christianity seriously. I began playing worship music for the various youth programs and dove deep into what I believed to be the Word of God. Prompted by my noticeable enthusiasm, I was approached by one of the youth pastors and encouraged to take the next step—baptism. I wanted to. I really did. But I took the invitation so seriously that I wanted to be absolutely sure that I was ready for an honest commitment to Christ. It was roughly six months later that I eventually did experience the power of water-based human rituals. I came out of that water before the entire congregation and, more importantly, to the cheers and tears of family and friends. It was a profound experience.
To the dismay of my parents, this religious high didn't last another year. Doubts slipped in and grew like an unchecked cancer. I'd always believed that the claims in the Bible were spiritually true, but at this point I was having an increasingly difficult time thinking that the events to which the texts referred were real events that happened on earth to persons like you and me. Also difficult for me was squaring the concept of love with certain divine actions and commands attributed to the character of God in the Bible. When the most violent text you read as a child is that of your religious, theistic tradition, it can induce a moral confusion with the power to stain your entire web of beliefs.
Moreover, the silence on the other side of my prayers, which, up to that point, I had interpreted as God intently listening, was now just that—a deafening silence. I called out. I heard nothing in return. I fought like a good Christian soldier to preserve what little confidence I had in the truth of Christianity, but I lost that battle.
However, I never fully lost interest in the topic. Since the rejection of Christianity doesn't entail a rejection of theism, and since theism is a much simpler hypothesis than Christianity, I wanted to know if theism had any substantive intellectual merit. To learn the answer to my question, I decided that I needed to hear from the best critics and defenders of theism. I therefore dove headfirst into the deep waters of academic philosophy of religion in my spare time. This was the better baptism, a renewal of an entirely different sort.
Undergoing dramatic changes of worldview can be a frightening and exciting time. For me, coming to believe that I had been profoundly wrong about things of which I once felt certain birthed a kind of struggle in me. On the one hand, it humbled me epistemically. What else could I be so profoundly wrong about? On the other, it ushered in a brief period of arrogance and condescension toward persons of religious belief. In my experience, this is a common phase for many who fail to maintain the religious faith of their childhood. I eventually grew past that sad attitude. Books like this are what can happen when persons of two opposing sides work to mature past stereotypes and oversimplifications in an effort to uncover even just a portion of the rich philosophical landscapes surrounding one of the biggest questions: the existence of God.
Randal: Justin, thanks for agreeing to have this discussion on God, the universe, and everything.
Justin: Randal, you’re very welcome. I'm always up for meaty conversations on big topics with interesting people.
SHOULD YOU CARE IF GOD EXISTS?
Randal: And I'm always up for meaty conversations with folks who think I'm interesting, so this could definitely work!
As you can guess, since I'm a theologian I'm always interested in talking about God. But I admit that a lot of people don't share that interest. About a decade ago, Jonathan Rauch coined a new term, apatheism, in order to describe his attitude toward God. The word was a portmanteau of atheism and apathy. As you can guess, Rauch's point was basically that he doesn't care whether God exists or not.
Justin: Yes! I’ve heard that before and, well, I must admit to being a sucker for a good neologism.
Randal: Yeah, me too. (Although I admit that I was less impressed when Bill Maher came up with the term religulous, a portmanteau of ridiculous and religious.) Anyway, these days I find a growing number of people share Jonathan Rauch's attitude. They may call themselves atheists, but at an even deeper level they’re apatheists. They may believe God doesn't exist, but more fundamentally they don't really care whether God exists or not.
Justin: I certainly have come across people with similar attitudes toward God and religion. One interesting thing about Rauch's concept of apatheism is that it can be found on all sides. Rauch writes that apatheism is “a disinclination to care all that much about one's own religion, and an even stronger disinclination to care about other people's.”1
Here he uses the word religion broadly to mean any belief system—theistic, atheistic, or other. For example, you can have a disinterested atheist who, for whatever reason, just doesn't care about the concept of God. You can also have a disinterested theist who, while believing in, say, Christianity, never bothers to read the Bible or attend church on any regular basis.
Randal: Good point. Apatheism is an attitude you can find across the spectrum of professed belief. In fact, I’ve met more than a few apatheists who attend church regularly. Apparently it's just what they do. But it doesn't seem to change anything in their lives. It's merely perfunctory, a matter of inertia. Those folks are sometimes called practical atheists. They may accept Christianity, but for practical purposes they might as well be atheists because they don't live out the beliefs they profess.
But apatheism isn't just a matter of failing to live out your beliefs. After all, no Christian fully lives out the beliefs they profess because no Christian is exactly like Jesus. At its core, apathei
sm within the church is found in a broad indifference to theological belief and spiritual discipleship. Within this context, apatheism might manifest itself in a religious commitment that reduces Christianity to a Sunday morning self-help seminar where God is a mere life coach who wants us to have (in the words of Joel Osteen) our “best life now.”
Justin: Right. For example, self-identified Christians might be less interested in the big points of their theology and more interested in the more common moralistic aspects. It could be seen as a kind of weekly moral therapy.
Randal: Yup, the First Church of Apatheism!
Justin: These churches resemble social clubs more than they do places of worship. It's an interesting phenomenon, to be sure. Though, if I might ask, what do you think lies behind the religious apatheism?
Randal: A good question, and a complicated one too. For starters, I think one must identify the growth of secularization. The word secular comes from a Latin word meaning world. So a process of secularization is a process by which folks become less focused on matters of God, religion, and spirituality, and more focused on everyday mundane matters. To be sure, this isn't necessarily a bad thing. After all, life is about balance. Not even the most spiritually attuned person can live 24/7 with her head in the clouds. But once your religion is limited to a Sunday morning pep talk, it's hardly surprising that religious indifference becomes the norm.
Justin: That makes sense to me. It's a kind of a reorienting of cultural priorities. As a secularist myself, this is just par for the course. Given that we are sharing the same planet, any reorienting of religious attitudes toward more practical, ground-level concerns is certainly something I endorse.
Randal: I hope you’ll forgive me if I'm not quite as enthusiastic about secularization as you are! If you view secularization as clearing the air, I view it potentially as a build-up of smog that prevents us from seeing the sky.
Justin: Ah, I have to disagree with the implication that an increase in, or a reorientation toward, the world must serve as a kind of smog polluting our view of our proverbial sky, which I take to mean a sense of awe. In fact, learning the very real processes of science can be a huge source of awe and empowerment. For me personally, the notion that I am connected in a very real, biological way to every living being on this planet is capable of bringing with it a crippling sense of awe at times.