DESIGN - WISHFUL THINKING and ATHEISM
AT 54 : December 15th 2000
Most people think that they derive their opinions either from fact and logic or from some sort on inner certainty - 'feeling it in my bones that ....' or 'it stands to reason that ....' or 'my conscience tells me that .....' or, more rarely, 'God tells me that ....'
The Gnostics were very much impressed by the inner light illuminating higher truths and people who dismissed such truth-claims came to be called Agnostics and it is these latter who claim to rely solely upon evidence as the true basis of belief and opinion.
Few people admit to the near universal practice of wishful thinking as a source, or at least as a corroboration, of their opinions. Agnostics, just like anyone else, can think wishfully in so far as they may assess evidence in ways that tend towards conclusions that they wish to reach. Wishful thinking is a very human failing.
The thrust of this article is 1) to acknowledge that the various populist forms of creationism and design theory can be seen to rest upon wishful thinking and 2) that wishful thinking can lead us more rationally to a rejection of such notions and to an atheistic view of things.
It is simply unfalsifiable to assert that, objectively, 'God exists'. Whatever we may discover, it is open to a committed believer to say "Yes indeed it is so - God made it so - God did it - God sustains it". Even if I were to produce a cast-iron proof that god is non-existent .... even then ..... somebody would be sure to say that "He has put that erroneous thought in your head simply in order to test your faith in Him".
It is simply a matter of personal choice, upbringing or cultural conditioning whether or not to assert that "God exists and God created all things". Such a statement is a logically possible truth-claim and there is no test whereby it could be proved false; at most, we might argue that it is vacuous.
It is when the statement that "God exists and God created all things" is made the basis of wishful thinking that the possibility of meaningful counter claims comes in.
People, living in a world that is insecure often perplexing often harsh, naturally wish to think that ultimately 'it is all for the best'. It is comfortable to think that we live under the presidency of an all-knowing, all-good, all-powerful god who designed all things for good and who is loving merciful and just to his creatures - especially to us. Even when things that, intuitively, we think to be bad do actually happen ..... even then the wishful thinkers attribute goodness to God and, to ourselves, either the blame or an erroneous perception of badness. If it is good then God be praised and thanked; if it is bad then either it is not bad really or it is our fault for abusing the God-given blessing of free will - so alienating us from Him.
The incoherence of this populist line in theism is remarkable.
One obvious point is that a just god would not only accept praise on account of the good things ..... he would, in justice, accept blame for at least some of the bad things. Instead, populist Christianity asks us to accept that bad things are often His means of achieving greater good. So we are asked to accept that the supposed god acts on the evil principle that the end justifies the means. It is of course a matter of common consent that a good person (and presumably a good god) is one who uses generally acceptable means to achieve generally laudable ends - whatever particular meanings we might attribute to 'acceptable' and 'laudable'.
We will not dwell here upon the fact that, while function is observed, Divine Design is merely inferred. For present purposes ...... let us infer it and let us see what some populist beliefs and observed facts tell us about the inferred Designer.
We are asked to believe that the Designer gave us free will but did not endow us sufficiently with what it takes to avoid its abuse; this is tantamount to saying that the Designer made us likely to fall into Sin; Christians never tire of telling us that we have actually done so.
It is the custom among Christians - from that great writer William Paley to the meanest spirited Bible-thumper in Dixie - to make their points by analogy. (Paley, writing on the watch, gives us an extraordinarily fine piece of work). But both sides can play the analogy game. Let us play it too ....... "gave us free will but did not endow us sufficiently with what it takes to avoid its abuse" is a bit like designing a car with a powerful engine, dodgy brakes and wobbly steering. Such a car would be dismissed at once as an example of atrociously bad design or perhaps of atrociously bad manufacture.
So, by the methods of Natural Theology (inferring what the Creator is like by observing His Creation including many of the believers that He has created) we might infer a) that the Creator is vain in demanding praise while being unjust in not countenancing criticism b) that His practice is ethically flawed in the direction of justifying the means by the ends and c) that He is a very unimpressive designer.
I would be afraid to live under such a god. Wishful thinking drives me to hope that no god, such as populist Christianity asks us to believe in, does actually exist. I am happier thinking that I live in a god-free universe 'ruled' largely by chance and that I am lucky enough to have what it takes for me to have managed my chances satisfactorily so far - with the indispensable help of people around me. My only ethical aspirations are to do as well by other people as they have done by me and to do what I can to protect the planet that supports us all.
The next issue, Number 55, will appear on January 15th 2001.
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