This blog emphasizes epistemic humility, where one might say that the only genuinely mistaken position is claiming certainty about metaphysical matters (as well as many other topics beyond this blog’s scope). That’s why I describe my views as a hope rather than a certainty, and I maintain this is the only truly rational stance anyone can adopt given the inherent uncertainty in our knowledge. This means we make a choice — we are not convinced by proof, the presence or absence of evidence, or even profound personal experiences. None of these can be completely determinative; they serve only as data points around which we construct the narrative in which we choose to place our hope.
Continue readingTag Archives: philosophy
From Nihilism to Love: Searching for a Life of Purpose
Although compelling arguments exist on both sides of the debate between atheism and Christianity, each worldview is often associated with a central philosophical difficulty. For atheism, the most intractable challenge is nihilism. For Christianity, it is the problem of evil.
Nihilism, in this context, is the claim that if reality is purely physical and devoid of any transcendent source of purpose, then life ultimately has no intrinsic meaning. This conclusion seems to stand at odds with our lived experience, which instinctively points toward purpose, value, and significance.
The problem of evil—or suffering—presents an equally serious challenge for Christianity. It asks how a benevolent, omnipotent God could permit profound suffering, especially the suffering of the innocent. The emotional and philosophical weight of this question has made it one of the most enduring objections to Christian belief.
Yet both worldviews have developed thoughtful responses to their respective challenges.
Continue readingWondering About Truth and Science
Science is often celebrated as humanity’s most powerful tool for uncovering the nature of reality. From the mechanics of the cosmos to the intricacies of biology, science has radically expanded our understanding and transformed the way we live. Its success, particularly when applied through technology, is undeniable. But should we take this as a sign that science is the only valid way to seek truth?
Continue readingThe Conscious Universe: A Counterpoint to Cosmic Indifference
There is a statement made by Richard Dawkins that is often quoted as a succinct, simple description of the mechanistic nature of the universe. It is from his 1995 book called “River Out of Eden”:
“The universe we observe has precisely the properties we should expect if there is, at bottom, no design, no purpose, no evil and no good, nothing but blind, pitiless indifference.”
—Richard Dawkins in River Out of Eden, 1995.
This oft-quoted statement presents a stark view of our universe—one devoid of design, purpose, good and evil, and possessed only of “blind, pitiless indifference.” While this mechanistic perspective may appear compelling when contemplating the vastness of cosmic scales, it falters significantly when we consider the extraordinary phenomenon of consciousness that exists within this same universe.
Continue readingCritical Thinking and Religion
I’ve heard it said by atheists that religion lacks critical thinking. The general idea seems to be that there’s no rational basis for being religious, so anyone who is, must not be thinking carefully about it. If they did think carefully, they would presumably realize that they were in error.
Although the term “critical thinking” is not always used, I think it does capture the essence of the critique.
Obviously, I don’t agree with this viewpoint; I think that there are many religious people who think carefully about their beliefs. While it might be interesting to address this idea directly, when hearing such a statement being made recently, I started thinking about what we mean by “critical thinking” and what some of the challenges are in general with thinking carefully.
A simple place to start is with the Wikipedia entry for Critical Thinking, which lists a number of abilities that critical thinking calls for. These include things like recognizing problems, thinking clearly and logically, understanding and communicating well, and so on.
One particular group of items in the list has to do with the necessity of seeking information on a topic and testing our existing ideas. This group from Wikipedia is:
- Gather and marshal pertinent (relevant) information
- Put to test the conclusions and generalizations at which one arrives
- Reconstruct one’s patterns of beliefs on the basis of wider experience
These seem to describe the need to look around and get relevant information, use it to test our beliefs, and do this on an ongoing basis as new information becomes available and perhaps as our life experiences grow. Implied in the first bullet, I think, is to make sure the information gathered covers the topic completely and is not cherry-picked such as when we fall prey to confirmation bias and echo chambers.
In a nutshell, to test our beliefs on an ongoing basis.
Whether this is a perfect list or not, I think it presents the idea that we need to be open and that doing so is a deliberate and ongoing choice.
All too often, and perhaps this is one place where religion falls short, we limit our search for information to places that are likely to have the same biases that we do, thereby reinforcing our opinions rather than testing them.
This is well-known behavior for religious people, reinforced by communities of faith, regular church activities, and so on. As a result, it can take real effort for religious people to learn about other metaphysical views and to test their own. Considering the list above, this may, indeed, be one way that religious people lack critical thinking, if they are not engaging with alternate viewpoints.
It’s less clear that secular people encounter such regular reinforcing activities other than the fact that our culture is increasingly secular. However, this is not a trivial influence, especially in today’s science and technology-dominated world. If I was a secular person interested in learning more about carefully considered religious views, I probably wouldn’t know where to start, unless I was lucky enough to know someone.
Certainly the popular presentations of religious beliefs wouldn’t work.
As a result, whether intentional or not, it seems that secular people can fall into the same trap as religious people of not really learning about different views in the variety and depth needed to test one’s own perspectives. Both groups being composed of people, the common tendency to stay in our own intellectual comfort zones likely operates both ways.
Personally, I’ve had a hard time finding places for deep, considered discussions of such metaphysical topics. If we were talking about something that had little or no practical impact on society and life, perhaps like sports, this might not be a big deal. But these issues are society-shaping questions that influence how we treat each other, and they form the basis of our systems of morals and ethics.
It seems to me that if one is going to feel strongly enough about these matters to comment on other’s beliefs and perhaps even work to silence them, then it’s incumbent upon us to think critically about these things from both sides, and this includes listening and learning carefully.
Dismissing Experts
I recently finished reading Daniel Dennett’s book “Consciousness Explained”. It was a significant read, full of detailed arguments and illustrations. Although there were some provocative ideas in it, most of them seemed a bit dated, probably because the book is now nearly 30 years old. In addition, the tone of the writing was a little off-putting, with Dennet apparently very confident in his model, even to the point of often deprecating other possibilities in a cringy manner.
The thing is, it seems this sort of writing often shows up when the author is making a point that seems strained, not totally convincing, and it’s as if the writer knows that and feels the need to resort to emotional manipulation. Of course, it may just be the writer’s personality, but it does seem that if a writer feels the need to resort to emotional manipulation, one can’t help but imagine that this is done because even they don’t feel that the rational arguments are sufficient.
Continue readingPretending Expertise
During the Covid pandemic, there were strongly differing opinions about things like social distancing, vaccinations, masks, and so on. Although experts gave recommendations, in most cases with good alignment between them, it was common for people to say that “I did my own research”, and claim a different, generally “better” understanding of any given topic. This phrase was so common that it became a catchphrase that’s still used to highlight people’s tendency to distrust experts.
However, it has also taken on the connotation of bad decision making because experts are generally correct much more often than lay people, and it’s not hard to find examples where someone’s “own research” was wrong. This aspect of the phrase was captured by a popular meme that circulated for a while in which the phrase was on a headstone.
Although this quote was mainly about people investigating Covid-related topics, the principle can be applied elsewhere. And perhaps it illustrates a general tendency for us to approach matters with a level of overconfidence.1
Continue readingA Set of Hopes
In an earlier post I suggested that, because of fundamental limits of what we understand, an appropriate way to think about metaphysical matters is as “hopes”. In other words, because we cannot be certain about things like the existence of God, or life after death, or the ultimate nature of reality and the destiny of the universe, we need to hope that certain things are true about these questions.
In related posts1, I describe some examples of using this way of thinking to compare Christian and atheist perspectives, describing both as specific hopes. This post will focus on describing just Christianity as a series of hopes in certain metaphysical perspectives.
Continue readingBoundaries of Physicalism
A common objection to the idea of any sort of transcendent domain is that, if that domain can affect the physical domain, then it is simply an extension of the physical domain and therefore not transcendent. As such, truly transcendent domains do not exist.
When discussing supernatural claims in particular, this argument is often used to assert that there is no such thing as the supernatural because if it can affect the natural, then it is simply a part of nature. Similarly, this argument is used to disprove mind-brain dualism since, if the mind can affect the world (specifically, the brain), then the mind cannot be immaterial because it is interacting with the material.
This objection makes sense at some level, but also seems to miss the mark when it comes to explaining the phenomena that people refer to when invoking transcendent domains like the supernatural or the mind. Even if the assertion is logically valid, it has no explanatory power and adds no detail to support exploration, model creation, testing, or any other sort of careful thinking.
Even when domains are fundamentally similar in some way, understanding is usually improved by articulating persistent differences and the nature of any boundaries and interactions.
Continue readingExtraordinary Claims About Consciousness
A famous statement by Carl Sagan suggested that extraordinary claims need to be backed by extraordinary evidence.1 It’s interesting to apply this claim to physicalist statements made about consciousness.
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Kelvin's Clouds 