getting ready for the lecture |
Michael made reference to what is sometimes known as “New
Atheism”, explaining that he had had academic correspondence and meetings with
Prof Richard Dawkins. He was saddened by
the fact that the language employed in the media and in books by certain
commentators has become more strident and pejorative than in past
times; otherwise he argued that there is nothing new about the arguments for
atheism that are proving so popular with the public today.
What he then spent his talk doing, was trying to get us
thinking more exactly about what we understood to be the relationship between
atheism and a religious view.
Michael introduced a number of definitions and logical
arguments to show us how we mix up ideas and categories of thought. He showed that there are usually many
different narratives about why any circumstance should be the way it is, and
these different narratives do not trump, invalidate or generate conflict
between each other. For instance, it
can be explained why a light is on in a room in two ways: (a) because someone
wanted it to be on and (b) because the electrons in the electrical supply are
flowing through the light bulb. Similarly,
two friends run across each other in the street – it turns out that one person
was seeking to make the meeting happen, whilst the other had no thought of it
but is always there at that time during the week. One experienced it as random, but is only able
to say this through ignorance of the hidden motive of the other.
Science and religion are different narratives about how the
world works and it is a mistake to think that one has to be explained in terms
of the other. Michael particularly
rejected the model of “God in the gaps”, in which people imagine that contemporary
science can only describe the universe so far and then everything that science
has not so far described can be put down to God. He argued that, instead, to sort out what is
in the gaps people have to become better scientists – rather than turn God into
a leftover bit of the scientific model.
He suggested that the words “faith” and “belief” are identical
in meaning and they both mean “non-evidenced trust”, that is to say a trust you
have of, or in, something despite having no evidence on which to base your
trust. Talking about evidence, Michael
showed us that jurisprudence can be used as a useful model for belief. In court cases, evidence can either be
direct, such as the eye-witness accounts, or indirect, where inferences can be
drawn from scientific measurements. In jurisprudence
also there is the idea of the “weight” of evidence, where we accept the idea
that an accumulation of small pieces of evidence can build up to provide
substantial evidence on which we convict.
Science also operates like this. Yet
people are very willing to reject a religious view of life, built upon direct
experience or revelation, or indirect evidence from others, and supported by a
great body of personal experience over many centuries.
In amongst much more that Michael spoke about, we heard that
there are problems with some very commonly accepted comments heard today. “There is no absolute truth” – if this
statement is deemed false then it may be ignored, whereas if deemed to be true
then it destroys itself (because it says that 'the truth needed for it to be
said' does not exist). Michael also
showed that changes in language cause us problems. “Truth” used to mean a correspondence between
a thing and a statement about a thing – something we understand better when we
hear phrases similar to “she was being true to herself.” However, in current usage, “truth” often is
used as a synonym for the word “acceptable”.
So: “what is true for you is not true for me” would be more accurately
phrased as “what is acceptable to you is not acceptable to me.” Similarly, “to
prove something” used to mean “to test or probe something,” whereas now we tend
to use it where we might better say “to place this matter beyond any possible doubt.”
There was a lively questions session after the talk and of
course no overall agreement was found between participants. But it was agreed that the evening had been
enjoyable and stimulating and worth the effort of coming along to. We look forward to perhaps putting on a
similar style of event in Ringwood next year.
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