Question from Marie-Denise:
If memories and thoughts completely come from one’s brain and not from a person’s soul, then why do we keep our memories even though we know every cell in one’s brain is regenerated every few years? Thanks.
Answer by SmartLX:
Quite simply, they’re passed on.
Memories are stored in the brain as electrical patterns, which don’t reside in individual cells but travel around certain areas of the brain as needed, for instance when you’re figuring out where you left your keys. If a brain cell dies while hosting part of a memory, that part can often be recreated by the rest of the brain, or else there’s another copy in there somewhere, so the impact on your overall memory is minimal. (Daniel Dennett is fond of saying, “Every time you read it or say it, you make another copy in your brain.” He then repeats this twice.)
Actually, brain cells aren’t replaced like the other cells in the body. Glial cells are, but the all-important neurons hardly regenerate at all. Therefore maintenance of memory is not really a matter of tagteaming from old cells to new cells, but rather a process of shuffling between existing cells. The brain is only too happy to do this, because it’s by transferring memories and other thoughts from cell to cell that we “think” about them.
The idea that the soul is the source of certain thoughts carries its own conundrums, chiefly the fact that every known mental process can be permanently impaired or completely disabled by sufficient brain damage. If an ethereal soul is solely responsible for any observable function, that function should be impervious to physical injury, and this has never been observed. If instead the brain functions as a conduit for every “action” of the soul, there is no evidence for the existence of an independent soul. Don’t feel put-upon though – believers in an incorporeal “mind” independent of the brain have the same kinds of problems when justifying their view, so this is not purely a matter of theology.
Category: Text
Post-Quantum Cosmological Apologetic
Question from Andrew:
What if Quantum Mechanics are wrong?
What if the supposed undetermined, random events in quantum mechanics are actually under some kind of law and causality? Wouldn’t this be a stronger reason to think the cosmological argument is true?
Do atheists have other arguments to argue against the main premise of the cosmological argument for God; the existence of causality?
Answer by SmartLX:
Short answers: so what, no, and plenty.
As I mentioned in my original response to the cosmological argument (where you’ll find some other, unrelated objections), the behaviour of particles according to quantum mechanics suggests a possible contradiction to the argument’s premise that whatever begins to exist has a cause. If a cause is discovered for this phenomenon then we lose the contradiction, but this hardly matters because the premise has never been demonstrated in the first place.
We’ve never had evidence of anything physically “beginning to exist” in the way that the universe is supposed to have done. Every object which exists now is made up of material that existed before it, and simply came together to form something we then saw fit to quantify and name. As far as we know the matter that comprises you, me and everything we see has existed since the beginning of the universe, if any, and we have no idea how it first began to exist. Therefore there is no basis for the premise that whatever begins to exist has a cause, because the only available precedent is the very thing for which the argument is trying to establish a cause. Without an unrelated instance of creation or emergence ex nihilo with a known cause, the cosmological argument works by assuming its own conclusion or “begging the question”.
Quantum mechanics actually does suppose that certain particles emerge from “nothing”, but again, no cause is known. If a cause were discovered, then the beginning of the universe would be theorised to have not just A cause but THAT particular cause. Furthermore, if the nature of the cause allowed it to be discovered by science in the first place, it would likely not be a god.
D to the N to the A
Question from Al Jih:
How in the world is DNA created from your theories guys?
Tell me how it’s created and got its beginning.
Answer by SmartLX:
Today’s DNA is created when older DNA makes copies of itself – but the copying process isn’t perfect, so the genome changes over time. By examining the similarities between the DNA of various lifeforms (I won’t go into details just now) it is reasonable to conclude that all known DNA is related, which is to say that it originates from a common strand that existed millions of years ago.
Where the original DNA came from is unknown, but we do have some clues. Experiments in the 1950s showed that an atmosphere rich in chemicals like hydrogen sulphide and carbon dioxide, like that which existed on Earth billions of years ago, can produce amino acids when electricity like that in lightning is applied. RNA, an accompanying chemical, is simpler but can do much the same job, which suggests the possibility that a DNA-based genome developed from an RNA-based one.
With all this uncertainty, why shouldn’t we just accept the ready-made explanation that a god designed DNA in order to create us? There are a fair few reasons, so here are some.
– Investigating DNA and its development leads to a greater understanding of DNA and life in general, so even if we never find the answers we seek we get all kinds of advances in biological and medical science.
– The alternative progenitors, like swamp gases, lightning and RNA, are at least known to exist.
– Even if there is some kind of god, there’s no guarantee that it’s responsible for DNA, or has had anything to do with Earth and its inhabitants.
– If you use a god to explain the unexplained, you end up with an even bigger unexplained phenomenon, namely the god itself. Hardly advisable, especially if you’re not sure it’s real.
The Consistent Electron
Question from Andrew:
How do atheists explain the existence of symmetry?
How do you explain for example; that all electrons have the same charge and mass, and that they are all negative if they are the product of blind chance, and purposeless mechanisms?
How do you explain this, if blind chance and purposeless mechanisms don’t know that this is necessary for life to exist?
Answer by SmartLX:
When a hose or a faucet is dripping, why is every droplet the same size? Because in that particular situation, the weight of the water that gathers at the lowest point of the opening overcomes the surface tension holding it on when it reaches a specific volume, and unless you move things around that volume doesn’t change. Similarly, all the nearby droplets in a given rainstorm are about the same size because each one begins to fall when a specific amount of water vapour precipitates at one point inside a cloud. No one is there inspecting all the droplets on a production line before they fall, they just all end up being alike because conditions are constant.
So it is with the universe as a whole. Outside of certain extremely rare conditions, some properties of matter and energy are exactly the same no matter where you are: the gravitational constant, the strong and weak nuclear forces, the number of spatial dimensions and so on. This means that the amount of matter that forms a proton or the amount of energy that forms a discrete electron is the same everywhere. They don’t need an auditor to check that every particle is built to code, because they simply can’t be any other way.
We don’t know why these properties have the numerical values they do, but as it turns out they are hardly “fine-tuned” for life. In his book Just Six Numbers, Martin Rees finds that the force of gravity for example could vary by up to a factor of 3000 before stars couldn’t form, so there’s a wide range of gravitational constants that would still allow the building blocks of life (carbon, oxygen, etc.) to form and gather. I did a piece on this a while ago, so here it is.
We also don’t know why these properties stay constant and homogenous, but we do know that life couldn’t exist for long if they weren’t. So if there are multiple universes where they may or not be constant, we’re in one of the ones where they are. That’s one possible explanation; another is that a universe simply has that property as part of what holds it together. If you prefer the idea that God ensured and continues to ensure that the fundamental constants of the universe don’t budge, then you’re assuming the existence of an eternal, powerful, purposeful entity which has stayed constant for even longer than the universe without outside help, and should by your reasoning be regarded as even more unlikely. Asserting something unexplained or inexplicable to explain something else does not increase understanding, when there is otherwise no clear evidence that the explanatory entity even exists.
Wired for God?
Question from Dave:
I’m new to this site so forgive me if I’m asking something that has already been asked. I am of the opinion that religion is genetically programmed into humans from birth. I have a number of reasons for believing this and I’m wondering if this is a topic already covered and if so how do I find it?
Answer by SmartLX:
I don’t think we’ve covered it here yet, so thanks for asking.
Religion per se is not likely “programmed” into humans, but some of our instincts do make it very easy for religion to take root. When we’re young we instinctively keep close to our parents and other adult guardians, follow them, keep them in sight, and importantly trust what they say. This is definitely a good thing because it’s how we learn to look before crossing the road and to keep away from fire, but the content of the message is irrelevant to its impact. If we’re told from a young age by every adult we know that God is watching, we believe it before we have the critical thinking skills to decide whether it’s likely to be true. Once that happens, the belief persists even after the critical thinking starts because God becomes a premise in our thinking rather than a conclusion; it’s simply assumed. It can be very hard for a person in this position to even accept that the assumption can be challenged.
Another way our wiring is very inviting to religious faith is the concept of agency. From the caveman days onward, it’s been important to us to know whether what we see has a deliberate purpose to it. If a patch of long grass isn’t moving like all the rest, there might be a tiger in it. If there are carved rocks and tools on the ground, other humans are nearby and you’re on their turf. Unfortunately this is very easy to mis-apply to phenomena we don’t understand, like the orbit of the moon for cavemen or quantum mechanics for us. We tend to assume that everything with any ordered action to it at all has some agency behind it, and when we know humans can’t be behind it we imagine a sort of uber-human, which is how gods are generally visualised. Learning about science helps to dispel ideas like this, as we discover the natural causes of things that otherwise seem designed.
So while there probably isn’t a God gene or a God lobe, the brain is very well positioned to believe in such things, and religions have taken full advantage to their great benefit.
It’s Evolution, Baby
Question from Nichole:
So, I just have a couple questions for those atheists who believe in evolution or those who would call themselves Evolutionists. I’m really curious what you guys think about it. So here are my questions:
1. In your thinking, what is evolution? How would you define it?
2. What do you think is the strongest evidence for evolution?
3. What empirical evidence are you aware of supports evolution?
4. Is there anything about evolutionary theory that makes you wonder about its validity? If so, what?
5. Are you aware of scientific evidence (or mathematical probabilities) that suggests evolution may not be true? If so what?
Answer by SmartLX:
There’s already quite a lot about this on the site so do a search in the top right for ‘evolution’ and other obvious keywords, but there’s no harm retreading old ground. I gather from your language that you’re neither an atheist nor an “Evolutionist”, so everyone has to start somewhere. I’ve numbered your questions for easy reference.
1. Evolution simply means “gradual development”. The demands placed upon followers of the God of Abraham evolved between the Old and the New Testament, for example, when Jesus became a requisite object of worship. Of course what we’re really talking about here is the scientific theory of Darwinian evolution by natural selection, which says that the first primitive life on Earth multiplied and diversified into literally all of the modern forms of life, including plants, animals and humans.
The theory of evolution takes no position on where that initial life came from; that’s a whole other area of investigation. It passes no judgement on the morality of the phenomenon, if indeed morality can even be applied to it, though some scientists have their own opinions. (Even Darwin wrote that “nature is red in tooth and claw”.) It makes no pronouncements on how we ought to behave, as it is merely an explanation and not a set of rules or guidelines. All it does is describe the development of life in all its diversity and complexity, accurately as far as we can tell from the evidence.
2.
I think the strongest evidence for evolution is the genetic and morphological (i.e. shape-related) similarities between living things. Almost every vertebrate animal has practically the same skeleton, but seemingly stretched, squashed and bent by countless generations of developmental pressure. Most of the same organs are there too. Two species of bird on one island may be able to interbreed, while seemingly similar birds from the next island over are incompatible with either species because they’ve been separated for too long. We share over 95% of our DNA not just with apes, but with any given species of mammal. Embryos of different animals look almost identical up to a certain point in their gestation.
In case you think all of this is simply signs that all life had a common designer, it doesn’t speak well of that designer because the similarities are not always a good thing. The appendix is useful to many animals, but about all it can do for us is kill us. Many deadly viruses and bacteria are just as at home in a human body as any other warm-blooded animal, which is why we can catch fatal infections from pigs or birds. The laryngeal nerve connects the brain to the larynx but it takes a detour all the way down by the heart in mammals, because the equivalent route in fish was more direct. (In a giraffe, it’s just ridiculous. Here’s a video where they’re dissecting one – it’s not too gory.)
3.
Everything mentioned above is empirical; you can see the evidence in your own body, anything else that’s alive, the recently dead and even the fossilised remains of ancient lifeforms. Really, the study of evolution is the direct study of living things, so there’s very little evidence for it which could not be called empirical.
4.
There isn’t anything which seriously throws the validity of evolutionary theory into question, or the controversy would be an argument between evolutionary biologists rather than between evolutionary biologists and religious creationists. Religion is the only reason anyone challenges it, which is why there are no secular opponents of the teaching of evolution (except for one fellow I know of, who makes quite a lot of money as a professional advocate). Not every religious person denies evolution as many prefer to see it as a divine method, but opposition to it has just that one source.
5.
Carrying on from #4, creationist evangelists present a wide range of claims about the natural world as arguments against evolution. They all have the same form: “Feature X could not possibly have come about naturally and gradually, or the odds are so small as to be practically impossible, so evolution can’t have produced X.” Even if no evolutionary path to the final result is known, this in all its forms is an argument from ignorance because not knowing how something is done does not necessarily mean it’s impossible. In practice, however, a plausible evolutionary method of producing the feature is often already known before the claim is made – the creationist just hasn’t looked it up.
I think that’s a fair representation of what atheists think of evolution, though any atheists reading this are free to correct me. So, tit for tat: what do you think of it, Nichole?
Where do atheists think they get rights from?
Todays question comes from Lee who asks….
Name: lee
Message: Hello,I have a religious/political question I’ve been wondering about the atheistic point of how on. The Declaration of Independence says, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–“, so in America, our rights are not then granted to us from the government but by God.
My question is, who does an atheist feel gives them their rights? Also, if athists don’t believe people where created equally, but evolved, doesn’t evolution directly teach that things are getting at least physically better and therefore one generation would be better than another generation. What makes people equal in the eyes of an atheist?
Ps, I’m not trying to cause an argument or disrespect, I just don’t understand and can’t find an answer on Google. I really am interest to know who do artists think gives people their rights and where does equality come from?
Wow Lee. You’ve got some great questions there. Thanks for asking them.
First things first. There is no such thing as an “atheist world view” anymore then there is a world view based upon not believing in elves. It’s kind of hard to base a world view on something that you don’t believe in. I’m sure there’s lots of things that you don’t believe in and you wouldn’t subscribe a world view to any of them. Same thing with atheism. The only thing one atheist has to have in common with another atheist is a lack of belief in a god or gods. That’s it. Anything else an atheist believes about the world is their belief alone.
Now to answer your question about the Declaration of Independence, as I understand it, the architects of the declaration were careful to leave out any reference to “god”. Hence the word “creator” which can mean whatever you want it to. It can mean a god, or it can mean the earth, or the universe, or anything else that you would consider to have created you. Austine Cline, a long time writer for About.com said it best when he said…
what little is mentioned in the Declaration of Independence is only barely compatible with Christianity, the religion most people have in mind when making the above argument. The Declaration refers to “Nature’s God,” “Creator,” and “Divine Providence.” These are all terms used in the sort of deism which was common among many of those responsible for the American Revolution as well as the philosophers upon whom they relied for support. Thomas Jefferson, the author of the Declaration of Independence, was himself a deist who was opposed to many traditional Christian doctrines, in particular beliefs about the supernatural.
One common misuse of the Declaration of Independence is to argue that it states that our rights come from God and, therefore, there are no legitimate interpretations of the rights in the Constitution that would be contrary to God. The first problem is that the Declaration of Independence refers to a “Creator” and not the Christian “God” meant by people making the argument. The second problem is that the “rights” mentioned in the Declaration of Independence are “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” — none of which are “rights” discussed in the Constitution.
Let’s also keep in mind that the Declaration of Independence. is not a legal document which is designed to give or take away our rights. Read Austins article and you’ll get a better understanding.
So then, who, if not a god, does an atheist believe gives them rights? I obviously can’t speak for all atheists, but as for my own opinion I would say it’s the same group that gives all of us rights, namely society and by extension, the government. As I understand it’s the social contract which we use to extend our rights to each other. Hence why rights in one part of the world aren’t the same as in other parts. Society defines your rights based upon it’s culture and morality at the time. The USA was unique at the time of it’s creation because it wanted to get away from the idea of an autocracy given power by religion. So instead of rights given by religion, it focused on rights given by the people. This is the heart of democracy, that it’s the people who have the real power and that it is their right to exercise that power.
Now lastly, your question about evolution. I think you may have a misunderstanding of what evolution is. Evolution is simply about adaptation to an environment. Somethings evolve and end up becoming stagnant, somethings evolve and continue on. As Sasha said in her comment to the article “Does evolution say that it’s okay to bully“..
Science is descriptive, not prescriptive. It’s a method to tell us what the world around us is like, not to tell us how we should behave.
So to think that because some atheists believe in evolution means that they don’t think that everyone is equal, is a non sequitur, meaning one doesn’t necessarily follow the other. Besides, equality isn’t about your physical state. We all share the same rights even though some people may be smarter or stronger or weaker or dumber. These rights are given by society equally so that we all start in the same spot and so that one person can’t proclaim dominance over another.
Well I hope that helped. As always Lee, feel free to let us know what you think by replying in the comment section below. Thanks again for the great questions.
Faith in Science
Question from Markus:
Quite frequently I read the argument that it takes faith to “believe” in atheism. It’s quite easy to falsify this argument and I won’t repeat that here.
However, as opposed to answering this question on a logical and abstract level, I see a problem if we apply it in the real world.
All scientific facts we know today are well documented and proven by various methods that are verifiable. But while for science as a whole this holds true for me as an individual it doesn’t. For example I couldn’t reproduce the experiments that are necessary to prove that a Higgs particle is most likely. So I have to believe that these experiments where actually done, that the results were correct, and that the scientists doing it came to the right conclusions and were honest. I lack the resources and the knowledge to be able to verify the results.
But it doesn’t have to be something as complex as the experiment mentioned. There are a lot more basic questions which I might be able to answer had I enough time in my lifetime. The scientific knowledge available today is so vast that even the brightest individual could only verify a tiny part of it even if he dedicated his whole life to it.
It is quite easy to verify that the scientific methodology is reasonable. Furthermore it is possible to verify parts of it and therefore create personal evidence that all scientific facts might be true.
One might say that it is possible to verify random parts of science and therefore create evidence for its validity. But let’s say an individual is able to verify 0.0001% of all knowledge available today during his lifetime does he then really have enough evidence for not having to refer to faith instead?
The issue get’s even bigger if we think about the whole world population. I would say that 90% of all people don’t have the resources or the education to even try to understand basic scientific facts.
So if applied to the real world doesn’t it take faith in science?
Answer by SmartLX:
It’s quite true that although we can all apply the scientific method to some degree and gain justified confidence in its results, we can’t each do all the experiments to confirm the wealth of existing scientific knowledge. So rather than faith in science, it’s more a question of the need for faith in scientists.
Fortunately, we don’t immediately have to resort to faith in the absence of what you call “personal evidence”. Through proper documentation, second-hand evidence can also be valid. For centuries scientists have made public not only their findings but their methodology, their preparation and even the results of individual trials. Nowadays, the physical experiments can be watched online or on educational DVDs as well. Simply seeing something happen in a video and believing it right away is of course a bit dodgy, but it can be part of a body of documented evidence from which one can reasonably conclude that the experiment really happened, really gave the expected results and really does demonstrate a real-world scientific principle. This in essence is the conclusion that must be reached by a peer-review board before the work is even recommended to the public.
So, individual experiments can be researched and confirmed by anyone who’s interested even if the means to actually perform the experiments are hard to come by. There’s still the issue that lay people aren’t about to research and confirm every experiment ever done. For anything you can’t check yourself for some reason, you do have to trust the writings and other materials of working scientists, past and present. Above all, that’s a good reason for everyone to check everything they can themselves, because this kind of trust can end up being simple acceptance of an argument from authority.
That said, even third-hand evidence (e.g. articles on science published by anyone but the scientists themselves) can be justifiably accepted if you know enough. Scientific journals publicise their criteria for peer review, and you can decide for yourself whether the measures they take are sufficient for you to accept what they publish. If the scientists in question have other work available, you can look up the kind of scientific rigour they apply to their lab or field work. Knowledge of and confidence in the methods of a scientist, as opposed to his or her standing in the scientific community, can lead to real confidence in his or her findings even without knowing the specifics of a particular experiment.
It is sadly true that there is a lot of blind faith placed in science as a whole, by theists and non-theists alike. This is sad because it’s a straightforward process to become scientifically literate, to know how science is done and to have ways of judging the merits of a scientific or scientific-sounding claim. Without these tools it’s terribly easy to be taken in by pseudo-scientific scams and anti-scientific zealots using science’s own language against it. So in fact there’s a practical reason to apply as much critical thought to science as to everything else, regardless of the philosophical implications of relying on some form of faith.
Does evolution say its okay to bully?
Scott asks….
Hello, I am from Dallas and I go to a southern baptist school. Recently I had a project in my Logic and World Views class were I had to debate with another classmate on a controversial topic in today’s society, I choose the existence of god because I am an atheist and I wanted to try to convince my classmates that there is not supernatural being. After my debate my schools head master asked me “since evolution proposes that the fittest will survive and the week will die off, is it a good thing if a bigger boy was beating up a small boy?” I responded with no and said that his question was not relevant. But what is the right answer to this question or is there one? Thought you could help, Thanks!
Sent from my iPad
Hi Scott. Thanks for the question.
Your’e teacher doesn’t understand what evolution is. Evolution isn’t about the big beating the small. Some of the smallest things in the world, viruses, kill more people and animals then all of the wars combined. Evolution is about adaptation to an environment. Those that adapt the best go on to have more offspring then those who don’t. The concept isn’t that hard to grasp. I wont go into how it works, there are already enough posts here that answer that (use the search button at the top right hand side if you need to), but I will tell you what I would have said to your teacher.
Are you suggesting that viruses are more fit then humans since viruses have killed billions of people over all of time? Evolution is about adaptation to environments through mutation. Those mutations which benefit survival go on to have more offspring then those who dont. That’s what evolution is all about.
Keep in mind though Scott, that evolution says nothing about if a god exists or not. Many theists believe in evolution. They simply believe that it was god who used evolution to create all of the animals including humans. So if you’re using that to disprove god, I’d find another tactic. Keep trying though. There are some great books out there that can help you learn the basic arguments against the existence of gods. You can check out our book store above to see the top selling books. My all time favorite is George H Smith’s “Atheism: The Case Against God” it’s a heavy reading, but it is by far one of the most comprehensive books on atheism there is. If you want something a little lighter I would suggest Carl Sagans “The Demon Haunted World” or “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins. Both are excellent books to start from.
Hope that answers your question Scott! As always, feel free to chime in using the comment section below.
The Determination Of The Universe
Question from Alejandro:
Message: I was debating (not formally) in my university about the existence of a god, and we ended up in the topic of determinism. My theist opposition argued that determinism would prove the existence of (their) god, that it would prove that, say, life was determined to exist by physics and chemistry, so there is a teleology in it.
In sum, they said the old adage: “Laws require a lawgiver”.
I believe this is a very common argument theists make to atheists, and some don’t know how to answer that.
Does determinism prove there is a god?
Answer by SmartLX:
It’s a common argument all right. Actually it’s two different ones mashed together, so let’s split them up.
Determinism means that everything that’s ever happened or will ever happened was destined to happen from the very beginning, if indeed there was a beginning. God’s plan is one interpretation of this, and a highly disturbing one because it implies that everything bad that’s ever happened was God’s plan, including all the people who’ve gone to hell. There was no way they could have done anything other than commit the sins that damned them.
Another valid interpretation of determinism is that it all simply happened because it had to, without any plan at all. Some very interesting stuff has happened, like the emergence of life and Beethoven’s Fifth and that amazing coincidence that happened to you last week, but in a universe as enormous as ours you would expect at least a few amazing things to happen by chance in a few corners of a few galaxies. If billions of people played the same lottery at million-to-one odds, you’d get thousands of winners.
Finally, regardless of any of the above, determinism can’t establish a god until determinism itself is shown to be true, and it hasn’t been. Decades ago quantum mechanics put paid to our self-assurance that every particle must have a plan, by telling us that a particle’s exact position can be a matter of probability, with no apparent reason why it’s in one spot and not another. Until the accurate predictions of quantum mechanics can all be explained by another completely different and intrinsically determined mechanism, determinism cannot be assumed to be reality.
The second argument is the argument from design, in this case applied to the origin of life. I covered it very broadly in my Great Big Arguments series, and I’ve written a few things on the fine-tuning argument which you might find relevant. Briefly, just because the universe supports life does not mean the universe was designed for life.