First, Penn claims atheism is “not believing in God.” Aside from the fact this is the non-traditional definition, it also ignores the fact that theism is the proposition “God exists,” while atheism is negating that proposition. The position he describes more closely resembles that of classic agnosticism. Further, he fails to distinguish atheism from agnosticism on this view (what makes one different from the other on this view?).
Perhaps then Jillette would say God’s existence is coherent, but yet one cannot prove a logically coherent being does not exist.[1] As his example, he postulates an elephant in his trunk. Yet such a being is defeasible in the sense that all one must do is open the trunk. That is one way to prove a being does not exist; if the parameters are of a sufficiently limited scope, one may examine those parameters and see if such a being exists. He then proposes to redefine elephant to include abstract properties and a “spare tire.” But in that case we can still prove the non-existence of a being. If a being has the essential property of being a spare tire, and there is no spare tire in the trunk, then there is no such being in the trunk!
Third, Jillette admits his belief that no God exists is a leap of faith. The reasons he gives for not believing in God are mostly pragmatic and are at times puzzling. For instance, he offers that his atheism does not prevent him from being happy. But why think that what one ought to believe in order to be rational comports with happiness? Or that if a belief makes you happy, it therefore ought to be considered true, or at least not plausibly false? He also claims atheism prevents him from being solipsistic. This is truly baffling, as there seems to be no link between belief in God and belief in other minds, except to say that if one believes in God then he believes in other minds![2]
He continues on to set a straw man, implying Christians claim belief in their “imaginary friend.” I know of no Christians who think God is imaginary. He sets up a false choice between no God and a God who “causes” suffering. He simply does not bother to show why this must be the case. He then claims that no God means the possibility of less suffering in the future. But this is not at all clear. After all, on atheism, sooner or later, man will go extinct and the heat death of the universe will take over. Ultimately, suffering and death win. There is no physical possibility to avoid it. Penn’s view is really just rhetoric, and not particularly good rhetoric at that. It’s what passes for New Atheism these days.
[1] Interestingly, this track admits the first premise of the modal ontological argument, and hence God must exist of necessity. It is unlikely Jillette recognizes this problem.
[2] It is also not at all clear he understands the meaning of the term from the paragraph in which the term appears.
Dear Randy,
I absolutely love the fact that I can depend on the apologetics page to always find wonderfuly thought out work. Im convinced we are like a feather.
Per my usual business though, Id like to bring something up to suppurt Penn’s metaphor of ‘the elephant in the trunk’. You try to debunk his idea by saying that all one had to do to know that their was no elephant was to open the trunk and finally see that there is nothing inside. Id like to share that that’s not how the metaphor works out. You see, openning the trunk to see whats inside would be comparable to us dying, because we wont be able to witness whats beyond our universal existance until we do die off. So the metaphor’s parameters would be something like ‘we dont know if theres an elephant in the trunk, we can open the trunk door and see whats inside, but can only do this when we are in a position where we wouldnt be able to share the news’. So you see, his metaphor is actually a good metaphore to use to best explain this perdiciment.
For a couple more cents back to you, I think that athiests arent aggressive wih their beliefs denying the existance of God. Its been my experiene to see athiests holding strong only to the idea that the nature of God holds too many inconsistancies for the belief to be adopted. It seems like their stance is something like “No, I wont pretend to have a conclusion that I havent actualy arrived at yet.” The strictness at which it comes, I promise you, is only as much to equel the amount of pressure that they are receiving from the opposite end.
Further, I hope it can be recognized that this is a very special, very sensative, very controversial issue. Managing ones way through such a precious and sensative topic is very diffiult and takes a lot of practice and experience to learn the discussion without blowing the guts – it’ tough. Christians and athiests both have a realm of aspiring new warriors that will primarily be unversed with tendency to yield high emotion. Let not a new wave of philosophers make the call for the entire tribe.
Thank you Randy for giving me something to think about. Keep’em comin!
-Chris
Hi Chris, thank you for your kind words, and sorry I didn’t get to this sooner. Let me address some of your concerns briefly.
First, the metaphor’s author doesn’t actually state (nor imply) any of this, but in the interests of charity let’s assume that it does. So, in essence, the metaphor claims that we are not in an epistemic position to know whether or not God exists. But why should we think this is so? After all, the entire point of the metaphor is to show that we can’t prove some being does not exist. Now if the metaphor said, “suppose there is an elephant such that it cannot in principle ever be observed not to exist, and it is in this trunk,” well then that would be something. But the problem is that this metaphor says no such thing–it says that there is an elephant in the trunk, with a spare tire as an essential property. No spare tire, no elephant. Further, though, suppose it lacked the spare tire (or at least a visible one). In that case, all we can say is that we cannot directly observe God’s non-existence. But it still wouldn’t even come close to discussing why we couldn’t evaluate even indirect observational evidence (such that “if there were to be such a being as God, then we would observe X. We do not observe X,” and so on). Further still, empiricism is not the only, or even best, way of disproving God. Finally, a major problem with these types of disputes is the fact that they miss the point. Suppose you have shown that one being or type of being cannot be disproved. In that case, what follows? It certainly doesn’t follow that all beings cannot be disproved, much less that God cannot be disproved. It must be shown that there is at least one type of being that cannot be disproved, and that God is this very same type (for at least the relevant reasons).
Thanks for the dialogue!
Yo!
It *is implied, isn’t it? The idea is simply, we can’t find out what is in the trunk until we have the means to open it and look inside. Same with the God dilemma ;we won’t be able to see what’s within the domain of after-life until our one chance to experience the life-to-death turnover.
I wouldn’t put it past me if I’m missing a point, but this might also be where many opponents of deism are stuck as well.
Cheers Randy!