The crushing weight of silence

Note: I sent this out yesterday via Facebook to a few of the regulars on this blog. Matt suggested I post it (perhaps apple will offer me millions to use it?). Seeing as I have little time to post anything else, perhaps there's nothing wrong with a little personal dramma!

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For those of you all who may be used to seeing me on IM, MSN, FB, etc... you may have noticed a peculiar lack of my presence these last few weeks. I thought I'd offer a bit of an explanation. I do this not because I worry that you've missed me (though doubtless, you have), but because this is the sort of story that only finds its meaning in the telling.

That said, my computer is broke. But wait, there's more...

So I show up to my second day on campus two weeks ago. I calmly pull out my super sweet (almost brand spanking new) macbook pro. As I pop open the screen it becomes apparent that all is not well. There is a massive crack all the way across the screen! I figured it must have hit something while in by backpack. After a brief period of shock I decide to suck it up and order a new $300 screen.

Now, I'm staying with my brother-in-law while I'm down at classes so I give him a call to obtain his address so that I can get the screen overnighted to his place. He picks up and I explain the situation to him.... There's an slightly uncomfortable moment of silence on the other end of the phone... "So I take it you didn't get my email then, huh?", he says. Not waiting for me to answer he continues, "I think I may have drove over your computer this morning."

"What?"

"Ya, I'm pretty sure I did."

"That's impossible! The computer would be mangled had you done that!"

"I dunno, but I think I did."

At this point you may be wondering how the devil my computer found itself in such a place as to make possible the "getting driven over" thing. Briefly: a friend was picking me up for class. He parks on one side of the drive way. I needed to get something in the house. I leave my backpack IN THE YARD next to the drive way; Brother-in-law decides to leave from work; swings wide to avoid friend's car; backs over my back pack containing my lap-top... digital camera... head phones... and ipod. (thankfully, the ipod came out unscathed)

Okay that still leaves me in the position of wondering how it could be that only the screen was cracked after being driven over by a vehicle. As I was later expressing my amazement over this fact the nice boy sitting behind me decided to bring it to my attention that I may be drawing my conclusions a bit prematurely. According to him, my entire lap-top was sort of taking on the shape of a ski jump. After taking a closer look, "according to him" turned out to be "according to reality" as well. Crazy thing is though, the machine still worked fine! For awhile I could still take notes on a three inch section of the monitor that wasn't cracked! (though that didn't last long)

All that is to say that, insurance companies being what they are, my computer is in the process of being "fixed" (even though a new one would have cost only a few hundred dollars more than the "fixing"). Should have it back late this week.

Now... shower me with pity! (or at least have a good laugh at my expense)

Man and the Machine

There came a day when Man awoke. He was all alone with the machine. From the first day he knew he couldn’t live without it, for outside of the machine there was nothing. This isolation reminded him that, though he was free to explore, his freedom was limited. Whatever he was, he was bound to the machine. As Man pondered this he was assailed by a strange sensation — a deep longing that he couldn’t shake. “From where do I come? Where shall I go? To what shall I live?” And the most puzzling question of all, “What am I?” With these questions in hand Man entered the machine.

It was his hope that within the machine he would find the answers to his questions. With great zeal he began his work. As Man explored, he marveled at the complexity of the machine. At times he was overcome with it’s beauty. He would sit silent for hours just experiencing its wonder. “What does all this mean?” he would ask himself. But no answers were forthcoming.

As Man’s quest progressed he couldn’t help but think that the nature of the machine was such that only something like Man, only much greater, had crafted it. There was much that went on within the machine that seemed impossible if it were not by the work of such a being. For what seemed like an age, Man devoted considerable energy to pondering what such a being would be like and wondering why it created what it did.

With time Man came to see that he could manipulate the machine to achieve his own purposes. This was no small revelation, for now he was able to discover so much more than he had ever dreamed! Bit by bit he brought the machine under his control. With each new advance Man’s knowledge of the machine increased and with each discovery he was stunned by what he found. Phenomena that once seemed almost magical, now appeared to have deeper mechanisms that drove them. Man was so impressed by his discoveries that he no longer felt he needed to postulate a “super-man.” With the abandonment of a creator agency, Man returned to his task, but as he worked the questions he was seeking to answer were starting to feel strangely hollow. Or perhaps it was that the field of answers he had to choose from were now starting to feel a bit more absurd. No matter where he looked, all he found was more machine, more complexity, more noise, but no reason for their existence or workings. As wonderful as the machine seemed to be at times, he could find no point for its existence. It was just there, running on a track between an apparently pointless beginning and an ultimately meaningless end.

The more Man struggled to extract answers from the machine the more it began to lose the beauty he had once seen in it. It was as if the machine mocked him. In all its intractable mystery, it continued on its blind path with no care for the pleadings of the man within it. Frustrated with his attempts to find answers by examining the machine, he traced the long journey back to the place he had first experienced it’s beauty. In desperation he screamed with everything in him, “WHAT AM I?” All his strength gone, he fell to the ground, sobbing. His body shook as waves of anger and despair washed over him. All around him there was nothing but the whirr and click of a machine that took no notice of him.

It was at this time that something caught Man’s attention. A soft glow from deep within the machine flickered through a gap in the floor. Wiping his eyes, he peered between the metal plates. Nothing could have prepared him for what he was about to discover.

Far below him he could see a small monitor nestled deep in a tangle of wires and in it there was an image of himself. It was a birds eye view, as if a camera was positioned directly above him. He looked up, hoping to see what was watching him, but as he did he realized something that wasn’t quite right. The image of himself in the monitor turned and looked towards the ceiling a split second before he did. He turned back and looked into the monitor, then quickly, he turned away. Sure enough, the visage of himself moved before he moved his body. Every move he made the monitor displayed just prior to his enacting it! He would wave his arms or shake his head but his visage would begin it’s movements before he could get his body to react.

He was beginning to think the machine was reading his mind until the video began to gradually speed up. He watched himself peering through the crack, then lift himself off the floor and proceed to sit with his hands in his lap. Apart form a slight swaying from side to side, the image of himself simply sat motionless. This went on for quite some time until suddenly the screen flickered and went dark. Terrified, he lifted himself off the floor and sat up. With his hands lying limp in his lap, Man sat. He felt like he should run, or lift his arms, anything just to prove the video wrong. He could do that couldn’t he? He was a free creature after all... He was the originator of his actions, not the machine... Right? Long hours passed as he sat motionless; his body lost all feeling as the deepest truth he had yet discovered slowly saturated his being.

All this time, even now, this very second, his actions, his thoughts... He had never been controlling the machine; it had been controlling him. Why had he not seen it before? He had no autonomous existence. He was, and always had been, merely a part of the machine. His freedom, his experience—they were all illusory. He had never really been searching for answers to begin with—it had always been the machine. Never Man. Only the machine. In a single moment Man’s existence collapsed.

The machine devoured him, and all was silent.

The atheist's choice

Humanists have a long tradition of drawing on literature, poetry and art to illustrate their arguments. Some use the works of Shakespeare, some use that of William Blake.

I'm going to use a late 90s science-fiction TV show.

'Cos that's how I roll.

For those who don't know, 'Babylon 5' was a series whose reach often exceeded its grasp – despite the low-budget and sometimes embarrassing dialogue it was never afraid to tackle philosophical and ethical issues and normally managed to say something interesting along the way.

In the following clip the main character, Sheridan, is caught between life and death (for reasons far too complicated to go into) where he's offered (again for reasons too complicated to go into) the chance to live – but only if he wants it enough.



The reason I've posted this clip is that the decision that Sheridan has to make here is, I think, based on perhaps the most important question that an atheist has to answer: Why should I live?

According to Alex, there is no good answer. We're simply complex units of matter in an indifferent universe. Whether we live or die makes no difference.

But to me this doesn't mean that there are no good answers, only that there are no good a priori ones. The atheist must confront the fact that the universe provides us no good reason to live: Kill yourself and, from the universe's point-of-view, it makes no difference whatsoever.

But that still leaves us with the possibility of good a posteriori answers. Atheists must decide for themselves whether life is worth living. We must look at what we know and how we feel and decide whether it's worth going on or not. It's a personal choice – not one that can be made by anyone else. For some of us this reason will come from our relationships with those around us, or from an appreciation of the aesthetic quality of life. For some of us no reasons will be found – though, given the only alternative, this is quite rare (and often the result of errors of thinking rather than genuine disregard for life).

Only once this choice has been made, once we've learnt to embrace life and “simply be”, can we get on with the business of living. (Although this isn't to say that once answered the question never re-appears: self-evaluation of this kind is likely to be a fairly constant feature of life on some level or other).

Where do we begin?

We have spoken often here about how the only indubitable certainty is "that I am experiencing existence". From there our epistemology exhibits a steady downhill trend. Even so, as finite men we have only one option in our search — and that is to begin with ourselves. And here I think is the dilemma that I've been trying to articulate. (with limited success.)

What justifies such a move?

What justification do we have to begin with our own experience? There is only one answer that holds any weight, and It's not atheism. Atheism destroys any justification to begin with ourself. Within atheism the foundation of all reality is an impersonal something. If you start with impersonal something, then man must be reducible to impersonal stuff. To argue otherwise is to say the stream rises above it's source.

My co-blogging friend Matt seems to realize this (at least the first bit) and thus, has accepted determinism. Man is simply part of the machine. But he can't live consistently within such a world view — none of us can. The implications are too destructive. As such, he clings to one last hope: "My life is meaningful because I find it to be meaningful". I empathize with his sentiment here – we all do – but it's an unjustified leap. It's unjustified because it destroys itself when it tries to answer the question I have asked above. "What gives us the right to start with ourselves?"

It all comes down to this word "personal". If, for the sake of argument, we presuppose atheism, then to avoid having the stream rise above it's source, "personhood" must be reducible the impersonal. Suddenly all the attributes that man has historically thought unique to himself (self-determination, the importance of love, the ability to act for 'better' or 'worse') have been destroyed by man's only option: The decent into behaviorism and determinism. Man is just a part of the machine.

One must watch closely at this juncture as all but the most hopeless of men employ some understandably slippery language in the hope of avoiding the implications. You will hear them say things like, "You are making this all sound much worse than it really is. You simply fail to comprehend the incredible potential of the material world!" and "There is no God needed, just look at all the world can do with out him!" Though I truly empathize with such statements, they are irreconcilably flawed. First off, they simply beg the question. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, they make an unjustified optimistic leap. The leap is to desire one's unique personhood in-spite of what must become a reductionist programme in the absence of God. Any attempts to argue otherwise once again have our stream rising above it's source.

I hope I have made the situation clear. It's a desperate place to come to, but if the foundation is impersonal something we are left with no alternative. Now I often have those who are of the atheist persuasion become angry with me at this point. They act as though I have tricked them. There has to be another way... and indeed there is, but before we can consider it we must feel the depth of our plight. If we begin with the impersonal, man is dead. There is no other alternative.

So what other option do we have? "What right do we have to begin with ourself?". There are only two options here an I am convinced that the presupposition of atheism has utterly failed. Let us now consider that which Christianity holds to be truth — that at the center of all reality lies personality. If this proposition obtains we don't have the dilemma of the stream rising above its source. In-fact, personality becomes irreducible altogether. There is an upward rather than downward movement. In atheism we think we know what material is and what it does, thus we are reduced to it. Under Christianity we are only experiencing diffused personality. We cannot fully grasp what it is to be personal. Our ultimate starting point is not blind matter, but a personal God. Our ultimate relationship to reality is not downward, but upward. The mistake of atheism is that it tries to get to know personality by studying corpses.

In the Christian system, beginning with ourself is justified as we are created in the image of God. Like God, we posses a measure of self-determination. Thus, our search is valid because we really CAN search. Also like God, our mind operates according to reason, thus validating our search for unity within the varity. However an important distinction between man and God is that man is finite (and fallen, but that's for another time). Our finite nature makes necessary the 'search' for truth. We don't arrive programmed. We need to look for it. And so, in these ways our most basic task of beginning with ourselves is justified.

One caveat I must add is this: We must here make the distinction between validating the "starting from one's self" and validating the claims of rationalism which stipulate we can achieve final answers using ONLY man, at the exclusion of any revealed religion. This has been the enlightenment project that has died a thousand deaths, but for some reason continues to resurface in the minds of men. If we choose to reject all forms of revelation the result is predictable as the rising of the sun. Unless an unjustified leap of faith is adopted, man is dead. All is arbitrary. We are lost.

As I continue to grapple with these questions I am increasingly confronted with the fact that Christianity, as a system, answers man's fundamental questions like no other philosophy or religion can. It's coherence and correspondence continue to amaze me. Though there are plenty of peripheral questions I continue to do battle with, I am able to live in the comfort of knowing the big ones have answers that satisfy the deepest yearnings of man.

Unfounded fears

Religion is based, I think, primarily and mainly upon fear. It is partly the terror of the unknown and partly, as I have said, the wish to feel that you have a kind of elder brother who will stand by you in all your troubles and disputes. Fear is the basis of the whole thing -- fear of the mysterious, fear of defeat, fear of death.
- Bertrand Russell, ‘Why I Am Not A Christian’.

I realise this post could be seen as vaguely insulting, I can only say that it’s not intended to be so.

Reading through some of the comments by theists on the posts below, it seems to me that the same objections to atheism keep reoccurring, objections which put me in mind of the quote which I’ve used to kick-start this post.

I want to try to deal with the three main (as I see it) objections. My apologies for being a little brief, but most of them have been dealt with at great length elsewhere, so this is really just a “summing up”. When I get a chance later I’ll put in links to the bits of the site which deal with them in a more comprehensive manner.

Fear of nihilism: As God is the source of all meaning, without Him we’re condemned to a meaningless, unhappy existence.

Meaning is not, however, something which is external to human existence; it is something which we project onto the world: for an object or situation to be meaningful it simply has to mean something to us. Life is often beautiful, bewildering and intriguing – all things that appeal to me on an intuitive/emotive level – and therefore incredibly meaningful to me (especially considering the only alternative: non-existence).

People all over the planet find life to be more than meaningful without depending on a divine power in any way. The theist may counter that life with god is more meaningful, but then it’s incumbent on them to demonstrate that this is so. (A particularly tricky task, given that it would involve quantifying meaning).

Alex adds:
The misunderstanding here is that you take it that I am saying if there is no God it is impossible for anyone to feel a sense of meaning and we all must live miserable lives. This is of course a silly position to take if one believes there is no God. As you point out quite clearly, we exist and we find things to be meaningful. End of story. Believing there is, or is not a God doesn't change that in the least. It's not even a part of the equasion.

However, there is a subtlety to my argument that I feel must be pointed out clearly. The point I have been trying to make is that without God there is no ground for any of our meaning other than our own personal experience. (It is worth pointing out that modern psychology is working hard to write personal experience out of existence as well.)

So it is not that I see the absence of God as causing the absence of happiness, (to be precise, I would regard the absence of God as the absence of anything) but if we choose to imagine a world that exists without God, I would argue that any meaning that would result from this world would be false and would need to be maintained through self-deception.

Matt rejoins:
If you say that any meaning which doesn't come from a higher source is "false", then yes: humanistic meaning is false. But most non-theists would simply reject that definition. All that is required for something to be meaningful - in a "true" way - is for it to mean something to me. So there's no self-deception involved.

Alex re-rejoins: I will respond to this argument here.


Fear of social collapse: Without God sitting in judgement, people will have no reason at all to be good.

If this were true, we’d expect that the more secular the country the higher the crime rate. Yet, not only is this not true, but some have suggested that the opposite may actually be the case.

The reason that most atheists don’t go on rampages of pillaging and murder is that there’s an incredibly strong pragmatic case for supporting certain notions of right and wrong: ask any random person whether they’d rather live in a society governed by law and order or one in which people were completely free to do what they like and, regardless of their metaphysical beliefs, you’d get an incredibly high percentage going for the former.

The reason for this is that it’s in my own self-interest to live in a society which respects individual rights. Not only am I much safer, and therefore able to achieve more of my goals, but the same applies to those I care about. This is the concept of reciprocal altruism, or, to put it more simply, I’ll scratch your back if you’ll scratch mine.

Alex adds:
I must say I am not worried a bit that more "religious" countries have a boatload of social problems. I would be perfectly willing to go along with the charge that "religion" can in fact do more harm than good. Luckily for me I'm not arguing for religion.

I also don't really tend to the fear of social collapse. Most countries that are of a more secular flavor tend to nurture a dishonest view of godlessness. They play down the logical conclusions that are the result of having no God. Even if the bare bones meaninglessness and hopelessness of that ideology were promoted full force, no one would accept it. We are not wired to life lives like that. As you well know we are built to find meaning. We are built to believe that love is true and is the ultimate joy we can achieve in this life.

So again it's not that I so much fear social collapse, it's that without God a societies success depends on how well they maintain their delusion that people have value, that love is true, and that their lives have purpose and meaning.

Matt rejoins:
Again - you're defining things like love and value in a way that most non-theists would reject as pointless. People have "value" if we care about them - which acts on an intuitive/emotional level and has little, if anything, to do with our views on God.


Fear of determinism: If we’re just biological machines, as the theory of evolution seems to suggest, then we’re subject to a strict determinism which obliterates the concept of free will.

This may indeed be true, but religious belief offers only a cheap, and ultimately unsatisfying way out of it.

Whenever I go to make a choice, certain background factors inevitably come into play. If I were trying to choose between two pizzas, then the decision would be made on a number of – fairly predictable – factors such as taste, how much effort I wanted to expend, what I’d recently had to eat, etc. All of which can be seen as determining my choice.

Yet, the existence of a soul, separate from my physical body, does nothing to change this. Unless, of course, we say that God somehow allows us to make choices which, while not determined by our pre-existing preferences, isn’t purely random. But this is a somewhat lazy way out of the problem.

Alex adds:
And now for determinism. First off, I'm not so sure I'm comfortable with the idea of a soul separate from the body. At one point, that was my position, but revvvvd challenged me on that one and I have since done some more reading that has caused that position to be a bit less tenable than it used to be. I would now suggest that we are souls. We are biological bodies, but the trouble comes when we say we are "just" biological bodies. We are body. We are spirit. Different aspects not different substances. Anywho, enough on that.

If, as Matt suggests, This indeed may be true, regarding a strict deterministic world view, how can you live your life without an extreme dose of self-deception? Speaking of laziness, if you were to internalize the concept that you had no free will the level of apathy one would be forced to maintain would be what we now call a type of neurosis. It is impossible for us to have a healthy mental state and truly believe that we have no control over our life, decisions, or actions. To believe that everything will simply be what it will be and we are powerless to affect change of any sort, imparts a feeling of despair that you simply cannot avoid without lying to yourself.

Now the charge that all Christianity has to offer is a cheap, and ultimately unsatisfying way out of it. needs to be demonstrated.

Here's my position: We are created by God. God has told us who He is. He has told us he created us for joy and the fullest of life. He tells us He created us for a love so great we cannot now conceive it. We are free to make our own choices and are responsible for our actions. We are free to affect change in the world for better, or worse. Our thoughts really are our thoughts. They are not simply chemical noise. I can say of my own free will "Matt you are a person I respect and I very much enjoy our conversations."

The deterministic position: We are the product of a mindless explosion. The conditions at this precise moment were determined by the precise conditions at the time of the massive explosion. We are the effects of an uncaused cause. We are complete slaves to the conditions surrounding us. Even our own thoughts are results of causes beyond our control. Our futures are determined, we cannot change it. Matt cannot say, "Alex you are a nice chap.", but the big bang can, not that it really matters since no one is listening anyway.

I don't know about you, but I know which one leaves me feeling unsatisfied.

Matt rejoins:
I didn't say that it was "all Christianity has to offer" - but I've yet to see a convincing theistic argument which demonstrates the existence of the type of libertarian free will suggested here. Either our actions are determined by our preferences (whether God-given or evolved) or they're random.