Loading...This is a brief hiatus in my thread on the Trinity, for a personal reflection. As most members of the blog know, I have definite religious views, but I do not try to impose them on other people – unlike in my conservative evangelical days, when I knew I was right and everyone who disagreed was wrong and therefore better change their mind or they would go to hell forever. Sigh…
As a side note, I have to say I really wish more people had my current attitude, to live and let live. My view is that whatever your view is, so long as you’re not actually hurting yourself or others, you’re welcome to it. Or, in basketball parlance, “no harm, no foul.” It’s when views get hurtful that we should try to do something about it….
Anyway, as probably fewer members know, I have been more-or-less a complete materialist for about twenty years. I do not believe there is such a thing as a non-material, supernatural realm. There’s the material realm, and that’s it, all the way down.
When I say more-or-less I should clarify that over the past few years I’ve become “more.” And I’ve been thinking a lot about that in relation to one of the things that matters to us most: what it means for us to be human. Or to put it another way, What exactly *am* I?
I used to think that we are (I am) made up of two things: a body and a mind/soul/spirit/whatever you want to call it. I don’t think that anymore. Maybe I’ll change my mind again later. That’s the nice thing about an open mind that seeks the truth: you can change your mind if you think the evidence points you in another way.
As another side note, I really, really, really wish more people would come to see that evidence matters, and that you should have reasons for what you think. You don’t (or at least shouldn’t) think something just because someone else says it, or because someone says it and you would like to think they are right. You need to have *reasons* for thinking something. And you shouldn’t mold the reason/evidence to fit what you *want* to think, otherwise it ain’t a good reason and it ain’t evidence.
So maybe I’ll change my view again later. Maybe I’ll come again to think we do have a mind outside our brain, and that we are made up of two things. Or I’ll revert to my views as a fundamentalist, that we are three things: body, soul (with which we have a personality that relates to other humans), and spirit (with which we communicate with God). Or maybe I’ll think we’re made up of seven things – it’s a perfect number! Or….
But for now, I think I am made up of one thing. Matter. I’ve got (by my count) one body, eleven organ systems, 79 organs, roughly 37 trillion (count them!) cells, and god knows how many molecules. And nothing else. If some of those cells die – well they die all the time. If enough of them die in one place at one time, it could be a problem. If one of the organs goes kaput, it could be a very big problem. If one of the vital organs goes, as we used to say in high school, it’s cookies.
This materialist view creates enormous conceptual problems that I wrestle with all the time. If I am just matter, nothing else: how do I have any consciousness? How do I *think*? How do I appear to make independent judgments and decisions? How do I seem to be able to do something? Who is doing it if there is no me within the body, no separate functioning will inside the brain? How can molecules have a will?
I have an answer for that: Damned if *I* know!!!
Philosophers wrestle with this problem ALL the time, as you probably know. Some of them think they do know. I’ve read some of their work. I’ve *tried* to read of their other work. Some of their work is, shall we say, deep, complicated, and, well, virtually incomprehensible to those of us who are non-philosophers-mere-mortals. In any case, some of them think they know. But different ones of them have different solutions. So they all don’t know correctly. Does any? I don’t know. And at the end of the day, well, I myself don’t know. I just don’t.
Even so, it is increasingly surprising to me that so many people think that if a materialist explanation cannot explain why we have consciousness, can think, and appear (appear!?) to have free will (or at least it sure *seems* we have free will; I am after all deciding what to write here somehow) that if a materialist explanation doesn’t know how to explain that, then it can’t be right. And that therefore there must be a spiritual realm out there. There must be non-material entities that influence us. There must be supernatural realities. There must be a God. Otherwise we can’t explain it. And my response is: REALLY???
OK, so here’s the deal. I don’t know how 99.99% of reality works. Let’s get basic here. I don’t know how my microwave works. When I realize I actually don’t have a clue about how it works (except in the most basic lay-person’s way) I do NOT therefore conclude any of the following (these are some of the options) (a) The microwave does not work; (b) It can’t work; (c) Some supernatural power must make it work; (c) There is a God. I don’t conclude these things because there is in fact a material explanation for why/how my microwave works. I just don’t know what it is. Other people do know. What if no one knew? It would still work, even if we didn’t understand how.
Some people won’t accept that that’s the same thing as saying that we don’t understand what humans are. For them, say, “consciousness” is different from microwaves; “free will” is different; “thinking” is different. That’s not the same as asking how a physical process works. But I’m saying it *is* the same. And I’ll add that I think *everything* is different from everything else: there isn’t one category (human interiority) that differs from the rest of the universe and everything else is the same. I don’t buy that. The excitation of molecules under the influence of microwaves is different from photosynthesis; animal ambulation is different from plants growing; inventing tools is different from walking; self-reflection is different from feeling pain. It’s all different. You can’t take *one* thing and say “that’s different!” Yes, it is different. So is everything else.
“Yeah, but what it means to be human is *really* different.” I used to think so as well. I don’t any longer.
Here, for me is the irony. Let me get back to the Trinity. Thoughtful Christian believers (as opposed to those who don’t actually think much about it) realize that there are elements of faith that simply cannot be explained rationally. If they say everything had to have a beginning so God must have created it, they cannot explain where God came from. “Well, he was always there.” But you just said *everything* had to have a beginning. So God must too. “No, he’s different.” Why’s he different? “Because he’s God.” Right, but that means that everything does NOT have to have a beginning. And if you say that God is that thing, why can’t I say that something else is that thing (e.g., the potentiality of matter, space, and time). “Well, because you can’t explain it.” But either can you.
Thoughtful believers will say, “Well, it’s just what I believe. It’s a mystery.” OK, why is your mystery obvious and acceptable but mine completely unreasonable?
Or take the Trinity. It’s a mystery. Or the nature of Christ as 100% divine and 100% human (completely both? Not 50%? No, 100%). Doesn’t make sense, right? Right! It’s a mystery.
Some people say they don’t have enough faith to be an atheist. I completely reject that argument. It is not about having enough faith. It’s deciding what you think is most reasonable given what else you know. Is the religious faith you were raised with, either in your family, or from your culture and environment, *probably* the ultimate truth about ultimate reality? I used to think so. At the time I thought I just happened to be one of the lucky ones, raised in Christian context, because I had the truth. Good for me! But those poor souls in China. Too bad they have to roast in hell….. But hey, I have the truth!
My point is that those of us raised to think and believe one way ought at least to be open to examining what we think and believe to see if we really have reason to do so. I now don’t think I have good reason to have Christian faith. The world is material. Rocks, cacti, squirrels, my dog Nina, and me. It’s hard to get one’s mind around. I don’t understand it (well, the “me” part of it, anyway). But there it is.
You don’t agree? Fair enough! As I said, I have no reason really to want you to share my views on the matter. No harm no foul! Live and let live!
Whatever you believe and think, I hope we can make common cause. Life can be good. We should enjoy it while we can. If there are those who are not enjoying it – if we know of others who are in fact suffering – we should do everything we can to help them. Our human existence is precious. Nothing we think or believe should endanger it or afflict it. Instead we should do all we can to make this life better, for ourselves and others, whatever we believe.
Most important thesis here is the falsity of: If I can’t understand how something can be the case, then it is not the case. We can’t understand how material beings are conscious and free; it doesn’t follow that human beings are not material, conscious and free. We don’t understand why a wholly good being would permit the Holocaust; it doesn’t follow that God didn’t permit the Holocaust.
You contain on the order of 7 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 000 molecules (assuming 70 kg). That’s a 7 followed by 24 zeroes. How could I not calculate it once you raised the question? :o)
Oops. Two mistakes here: 1) it’s the number of *atoms*, not molecules; 2) It’s off by three zeroes. I used kilograms, not grams like I should have. So add three zeroes. 7 billion billion billion atoms.
Oh good. I feel much better about myself….
No wonder I weigh so much. I need to shed a few molecules…
I recently read 3/4ths of Brian Greene’s book “Until the End of Time”. I had to stop when he got to describing the entropy, mass and temperature of a black hole and how they will eventually fizzle. He’s a physicist and in this book he takes us from the big bang, to humans and consciousness, to the end of time. I’ll have to pick it up again later to find out how it all ends. 🙂 Great read and ties in great with your post but as much as he tries to dumb it down for us mere mortals it does get deep.
Yeah, I got a big bogged down in the end of his book too. Kind of felt like I was *entering* a black hole…
I too wish that more people would think rationally and attempt to educate themselves on a topic before mouthing an opinion (especially these days). None of us can claim to know what ultimate reality consists of, or even why there is something rather than nothing at all, but I believe your strict materialist view is no longer a tenable hypothesis in science. At bottom, all matter consists of elementary particles, but these particles are ephemeral entities that pop in and out of existence and don’t even have an exact position in space until we perform a measurement. It’s not simply that we don’t have the knowledge of where they are pre-measurement – it’s that they only exist as a quantum wave function of probabilities extended in space. This wave function (Schrodinger’s equation) is at bottom all that exists. I think your strictly materialist view regarding matter is out of date, and has been since the time of Einstein. As to what the ultimate “stuff” of the universe consists of, it appears to be “probability”, or perhaps more broadly, “potentiality”.
! לחיים
What you are describing is based on the ancient fallacy that has been with our species since we grew the large frontal lobes in our brains: namely confusing agency with process. If anything moved or changed, our ancient ancestors assumed that something with the power to move things, agents, were doing the moving. And since things like the wind, the Sun, planets, rain etc. moved but without someone pushing on these things, the idea that invisible agents exist which cause movement and change in the natural world. And since these agents were invisible, there must be an invisible, supernatural world in which these agents exist.
But we know that natural processes cause these things, not spirits (invisible agents). And we know that consciousness is a process of a heathy, functioning brain. No brain. No consciousness. Elton John says we are all just candles in the wind. When you blow out a candle, the flame doesn’t go anywhere. It just stops happening. When we die, our consciousness doesn’t go anywhere, it just stops happening. No part of our consciousness survives the death of the body. There’s no evidence for the belief in an invisible, immaterial, immortal human soul.
As always, I really appreciate your more personal reflections. Sometimes, I think all religion causes harm because of what it does to critical thinking, especially in kids. Maybe that is too harsh. Probably it is too harsh considering all the good deeds many churches do. Yet, truth matters, I think. And I have been really struck by how much religion has affected/destroyed critical thinking in our politics the last four years.
“I think I am made up of one thing. Matter. I’ve got (by my count) one body, eleven organ systems, 79 organs, roughly 37 trillion (count them!) cells, [ and god knows how many molecules ]” right.. He only knows.
Can this be used as proof of the sub conscience mind speaking?
Well, it would be if I hadn’t put it in there to be humorous. 🙂
Consciousness is a difficult question, but I don’t have any doubt that there are degrees of consciousness. The other great apes certainly seem to be closer to us human great apes as far as consciousness is concerned. Other mammals seems to have some degree of consciousness. No doubt, human consciousness seems special to humans, but I do not see a great break from other creatures.
Neuroscience seems to show that disease, injury, and chemicals can impact consciousness both temporarily and permanently. As a fellow materialist, that makes sense to me even if there are plenty more mysteries to be resolved.
I prefer to think of myself as a secularist (of the Jewish variety) rather than an atheist. The difference is this (present-day definition only): Atheists want God removed from human consciousness. Secularists just want God to leave them alone.
(For “God”, substitute “belief/believers in God.)
Interesting how we all have our definitions!
Thank you for sharing your views Dr. Ehrman. I’m very aligned with this myself as well as R.W Emerson’s view in his writing of Self Reliance. No man knows what he thinketh tomorrow.
Bart,
What you say has great logic and coherence until your final paragraph. There you say: “if we know of others who are in fact suffering – we should do everything we can to help them.” But you don’t explain why. Is it merely because it pleases you to do so; it feels good? I suspect you believe your concern for the suffering of others has a value of some kind. If so, then you don’t really believe it’s all just molecules in motion.
It is a hard problem, and I don’t mean to pretend to an answer. But if you really are committed to 100% materialism, don’t you have to be prepared to say that nothing matters but matter?
Regards,
Tom
Are you asking why we have moral obligations if there is no God? I would argue that there are reasons built into our DNA because of evolutionary processes. But if someone thinks there can’t be a reason for morality unless it is obedience to a superior being, yes, that would mean that there can’t be a reason for morality unless it is obedience to a superior being. I.e., it would be a tautology. I personally think there are lots of reasons for a moral code apart from supernatural direction and enforcement.
I’m uncomfortable with arguments from DNA – it strikes me as deterministic – but will consider it as a last resort. I suggest that a logical argument such as the prisoner’s dilemma is a better answer – that cooperation is more likely to yield a desired result than conflict. I don’t mean to imply that should be the whole answer, of course.
As for religious views of suffering: I am reminded of a New York cardinal (O’Connor, I think) who once declared that the Jews have a special gift of suffering to give the world. He neglected to add that his church was responsible for much of that suffering.
Thanks for sharing your thinking Bart; sets me thinking too.
But it prompts a question; if you are a materialist, are you also a ‘reductionist’?
By the term ‘reductionism’, I am denoting the principle that states that all differences in quality can be ‘reduced’ in principle to differences in ‘quantity’.
I ask the question because I find that many people who identify themselves as scientific ‘materialists’; are in fact proposing ‘reductionism’; that there cannot be a reality that is not, in principle, accessible to ‘scientific’ inquiry; and consequently that any propositions that are not accessible to scientific inquiry can be dismissed as necessarily ‘unreal’.
No reason why anyone who is a materialist should also be a reductionist; but I venture that most Christian theologians would consider religion and materialism to be readily reconcileable – I have a whole shelf of books that argue this. But I don’t think you can be a religious believer and a strict reductionist; though a believer might certainly adopt reductionist methods as helpful simplifications for certain forms of academic inquiry.
My view is that “reductionism” is usually a charge used by those who do not like the views of others. I also think that *everyone* is a reductionist. If you think there are spiritual as well as material forces, do you limit everything to these two options (spirit and matter)? If so, you’re a reductionist. If you you think that there are an infinite number of forces along with the spiritual and material, then I’m not sure what the focus on those two gives you.
Excellent post! I grew up in a fundamentalist milieu but found my way to the same position as you because I found that science and history explained the world far better than the claims of ancient prophets and teachers. It’s too bad “materialism” is understood by so many to have everything to do with money and possessions and nothing to do with people and their relationships. Yet history and the soft sciences are devoted to exploring the meaning of such concepts as persons and feelings. So materialism is not just about the nature of atoms, it’s also about the emergent nature of material human beings and the workings of their material brains, nervous systems, emotions, and lives. The bottom line, then, is this: to insist on dualism or to accept the unity of the natural world.
As you began discussing your materialistic view, I immediately wanted to ask you about the “hard problem” of consciousness, and then you mentioned the topic yourself. As an agnostic, these hard problems, these big questions often bother me, especially since I was indoctrinated for twenty years being taught that my eternal destiny depends upon a right set of beliefs about reality. But I appreciate your exemplary intellectual honesty, your open-mindedness, and your refusal to embrace God-of-the-gaps arguments. You’ve really helped me a lot since my mind was changed about Christianity.
we as humans will probably always wrestle with the two greatest questions of life, the how and why we ARE
It is my belief that the questions “how” and “why” are not two different questions, but the same question.
Off topic question. Was Paul really a certified card carrying Roman citizen just because his father was a Roman citizen? Or did Paul just use that fib to get him out of the occasional jams he got himself into. Or did the author of Acts enhance his/her plot with the Roman citizen story line.
We actually don’t know if his father was a Roman citizen. Acts says so, but nothing in Paul’s letters suggests it. Just the opposite. I think the author of Acts almost certainly made that up. But if he was born to citizens, then yes, he would be a citizen.
Thank you for a good post !
I do not think of body and mind as two things, and there is no contradiction in my mind to involve both qualities in our own “self”.
The whole obstacle for me to think in a way that is only rationalistic is what I get out of science itself. Einstein founded and was also left with question related to the relativization of time and space, which in my mind is only part of the equation. If you add the phenomena “psyche” (call it soul or whatever) that take place in so-called living bodies, the psyche is at the same time also a material quality and not separate. The difference is that this “qualtiy”/property sees the world from the inside out, just as the spirit was incerted in matter, but still one.
Then, from such a persepctive, if the relativisation of time and space through the psyche occur one may also involve conciousness as an inner quality, and a part of the psyche, but even then , still as “one”. From such persepctive the claims from the quantum phisics beome more obvious for me, that “we cannot get behind consciousness.” like the very early Max Planck theorized 150 years ago, when he claimed that matter is a derivative from consciousness.
This is not supernatural realities in my perception, nor are they separate realities. In my mind, they are fully part of our own self even though I accnowledge that my ego with its thinking and feelings is linked to the rational world. Emotions of various kinds come to my mind from within are irrational in nature and come from a deeper level, from the unconscious (perhaps a collective unconscious part), but still “one”.
This view is one I have held to for quite some time. The ‘closed loop’ of conscious minds telling themselves that conscious minds are the special product and specific concern of mysterious supernatural agency is……. understandable. It is something like a telescope becoming clear and powerful enough to see itself; the instrument isn’t built for that purpose. So, too, the mind may be incapable of comprehending its own function. A chief constraint I see is that we are unable to imagine an eternal past. Never-ending is easy, while never beginning (or the absence of time) is nigh impossible to ponder.
So if a materialist explanation cannot explain everything (as I believe you are saying), why isn’t it a matter of faith that you accept it without doubt? And if you say you are not sure, shouldn’t you be hedging your absolute acceptance of materialism and make it clear you are doing so?
It’s not pure faith, I would say, because almost everything I experience suggests it and the things that don’t suggest it allow it. And I tried to emphasize that in fact I do not accept it without doubt. I wonder about it all the time. But it is the view that seems far the most *likely* to me.
I’ve been trying to figure this out for years. You have summarized where I am pretty well. My past is very similar to yours. I think I now appreciate openmindedness as one of the greatest virtues. It’s so freeing not to have to be “right” about everything. I used to “know it all” but it seems the more I learn the less certain I am about anything. Anyway, who really likes a “know it all”. I’m much happier and even more curious. I’ll keep learning and growing and probably changing my mind. And that’s OK. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks for sharing that Bart. I tend to lean in your direction of thought myself, but hold out a *hope* that is totally without reasonable merit that we and the universe are not mere results of randomness. In today’s political and social morass tolerance is in short supply but is needed more than ever if we are to survive as a species. Besides yourself, Robert Pursig (“Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance”, “Lila”) is one of my favorite authors. To quote him roughly: “Billions of years ago a group of inorganic molecules somehow started to organize themselves into an inorganic chemistry professor – what is the motive?!” It would seem the universe has a sense of humor.
It dawned on me a while back that I don’t recall any Bible story that said that “Jesus laughed.” I think that would help convince me more readily that he was a human after all.
Bart wrote: Jesus probably did understand himself in even greater terms; he almost certainly (in my view) did think of himself as the one whom the Son of Man — the cosmic judge of the earth — would appoint as ruler of the future kingdom when he arrived in power in the near future.
I think you have said before this is ‘idiosyncratic’, no prior evidence any prior Jewish rabbi/teacher held a (messianic?) view such as this.
how would Jesus have acquired such a view ?
revelation?
but the only account we have of his receiving a revelation is that Spirit of God said “You are my son, in whom I am pleased”
This revelation does not even imply Jesus has any unique standing , God, accepting revelation as historical, could have many other sons and or daughters and be well pleased with them.
I understand you take some of Jesus’ words as historical and literal, but how would such an idiosyncratic view have emerged in Jesus mind at all? unless you consider him delusional?
do you have an explation you can share
I don’t think this is *highly* idiosyncratic. Lots of Jews believed that the Son of Man was coming (or some kind of cosmic figure) in judgment on the earth. Lots of people thought there would be a future messiah/ruler of the coming kingdom. Some people thought *they* were the messiah. There’s nothing particularly wierd about someone thinking all three at once, especially since the evidence seems to point that way. I think the evidence for Jesus thinking each of these things individually is very strong.
Hi Bart
in this BBC link Prof Peter Urich Tse provides a rational explanation for the existence of real free will ( choosing not picking) Humans may make most decisions unconsciously, but we are capable of making conscious decisions of our own free will, independent of our genes or environment ( although still under their influence but not direction). https://www.bbc.com/reel/playlist/free-will
One of the greatest curses of most modern religions is that they encourage (force?) adherents to abandon all real purpose in THIS life in return for some great reward/avoidance of punishment in the NEXT one. So sad! We are certain we have this one, but certainty of the next is impossible. Totally impossible. Belief in or hope for something “after this” is fine, but it is speculation at its finest.
Faith has its place, we all practice it to some degree or another…such as with the microwave, or the airplane that doesn’t fall from the sky. But, when it comes to life, and purpose, and love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control…I walk by sight, not by faith. And now, THIS life has purpose.
I”m not sure most religions do stress the importance of afterlife, actually. Some forms of Islam and Christianity do. But not all of them, and certainly not all of Christianity — let alone all Christians. Jews, of coruse, have never had that as an emphasis.
It seems to me that the favorite logical fallacy of theists (the one that is “increasingly surprising”) is the Argument from Ignorance, which is to say that my proposition must be true if it cannot be proved false. It is the God of the gaps argument. If materialists can’t explain X, then God must exist. It is to say that a Biblical contradiction is not a contradiction if I can imagine a possible resolution. I think what is called faith is largely the authorization to believe that which cannot be, or has not been, disproved.
What matter actually is has gotten harder to define. So there’s nothing simplistic about being a materialist. Information is another tough one. So if we just restrict ourselves to things that you can deal with in terms of experiments, data, and math and logic, there’s already a rich substrate for the world we live in and the experiences we have. No real need to toss in the “supernatural”. There’s already more than enough stuff we don’t fully understand. Making sense of a “material” universe might turn out to be just as difficult as making sense of the trinity.
Where’s the “like” button?
Is there a materialist aspect to the trinity? For instance, do Christians believe the Holy Spirit is made up of any physical material? Or does it purely exist in a metaphysical/spiritual realm?
Do you mean modern Christians? My sense is that modern Christians tend to think that neither the Father or the Spirit as a material body.
Prof., Mormons do believe in the Father and Son ( Jesus) as having bodies of flesh and bones tangible to ours. The Holy Ghost,which they call, the third member of the Godhead, is a personage of Spirit, that dwells in us with no body of flesh and bones. The three, is their version of the Trinity as depicted by Joseph Smith’s first vision. I know some/many will say, Mormons are not Christians. But they truly believe that they are, hence the name of their churches , The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. Just helping your sense in a hectic life you possess.?
For what it’s worth we still do not understand how electricity works. We only know its properties.
Right. And even if “we” ddon’t know how it works, I certainly don’t. Or, actually, its properties. But I still ain’t stickin’ a wet finger in a socket!
Bart, if you are interested in basic physics, there is a book published in 2009 by Robert Lanza, M.D. called “Biocentrism” that theorizes how consciousness might be the origin of reality. It is religion-free and posits some interesting ideas that supposedly answer some of those enigmas that modern science cannot yet solve. Personally I am of the same overall belief as you that we are a happy cosmic accident and that once we’re gone, we’re gone. But after several readings I find the author does make one think about the possibility that there is something underneath – not God – and he uses scientific evidence to support his claims. Food for thought.
Thanks! Yup, lots of books out there on the relationshiop of consciousness to material existence….
> consciousness might be the origin of reality
Yes, Heinlein was much into the “world as myth” idea in his later years. The universe exists because we tell stories about each other, each story telling stories about other stories.
Doesn’t sound much more weird than standard religions.
This made me think of the book “Mama’s Last Hug” by Frans de Waal, the primatologist. It explores the emotions of animals, which include not just “basic” emotions like fear, but also things like gratitude, a sense of fairness, etc. Emotions are biological functions of our bodies, and then they filter into our brains and shape our actions. And while these mechanisms are more evolved and sophisticated in humans than in, say, monkeys, the basics are the same. I found this book a great read, I highly recommend it.
Thoughtful article. Thank-you
To quote Monty Python, ‘my brain hurts’ after reading that post, but in a very good way. I have heard (or read) that our high level of self awareness and our ability to philosophise are unintentional byproducts of thought processes that have developed purely for evolutionary and survival purposes. That may be so but I think that some of us can’t avoid the conclusion that, to dismiss our intellectual faculties as byproducts, fails to grasp the essence of what it is to be human. And that’s about as far as my thoughts processes can take me for now, I’m afraid.
I just wonder whether ANYTHING exists independently of my perceiving it or is it a part of my overactive imagination.
Even at 65 years old, I just want to get everything out of life if I can, while I can. The idea of “ being” is confusing but the idea of “ nothingness “ is terrifying. Live it up. As Mickey Mantle said about his wild lifestyle “ I’m not gonna be cheated”… my wild time is through distance running though ha
Thank you for this interesting reflection. On a side note: you commented that animal movement is different from the movement of plants growing. I recently read (well, in bits) Darwin’s work on movement in plants. I think he was trying to show that movement was a common characteristic between animals and plants but as usual he largely confines himself to observation. His observations are beautifully written and leave the reader wondering if indeed there is such a difference. And as we share half our genes with plants, why would there be?
I also wonder if we give enough respect to those who believe because others tell them to. It seems to me that this tendency, which is ubiquitous in human society is probably an evolved response, providing, at least in times past, a survival advantage. It is therefore a very human response even though it may lead people to do things like believing in Bigfoot, or rejecting climate change, or invading Capitols.
I’m no scientist, but my understanding is that plants as a rule are rooted and animals as a rule are not. But maybe an expert can tell us. At least I’ve never seen a plant ambulating or an animal growing from the soil! but yes, I agree, it is amost certainly an evolved response, with unusually important consequences for survival.
The “God in the gaps” argument against science has always been a correlation/causation fallacy.
Professor Ehrman, Free Will, judgments and decisions, those who are suffering , we should do everything we can to help them.
There are those who are suffering because of corrupt leaderships … think Venezuela, Somalia, Iran or what may be coming our way some day.
There are those who are suffering because of judgements and decisions, think alcohol, two packs of Marlboros each day, spaghetti, macaroni and cheese, baconators until cholesterol and diabetes is beyond control, being beaten every other night and staying in the relationship because ‘they will change and love me’.
‘God’ is not going to help out here.
But what is our role?
Do we terminate the leaderships who cause the suffering of millions of people by military or clandestine intervention?
What about our neighbors who make their own free will decisions to have another drink tonight … to have two double cheese burgers … whose black eyes will heal and their husband, boyfriend, girlfriend, fiancé will change’?
Is it my responsibility to intervene in the lives of others who make poor decisions? They make their free will decisions …do I have the authority to determine that their decisions are wrong, maybe yes, as their decision caused suffering.
Your thoughts.
I would say that a great deal of suffering is either self-inflicted or caused by other humans agents. And I would say a very great deal is caused by things over which we have no control, and over the course of human history there were many, many *more* things over which humans had no control, esp. prior to the modern period and its developments of science and technology. Starvation — massive starvation — has been a common plight, especially back when there was literally nothing anyone could do about it.
Dr. Ehrman, I’ve never been a religious follower, per se, but I’ve always agreed with you overall on most points. And, I agree with your overall thought here as well, that we should accept others who are of different views. I’d really like to thank you for opening yourself up here. That took some courage. On a closing thought, I sure would love to sit down and discuss some of these things with you over a bottle (or two) of wine. Just dreaming.
Yes, fine wine is one part of my materiality I especially enjoy. 🙂
>This materialist view creates enormous conceptual problems that I wrestle with all the time. If I am just matter, nothing else: how do I have any consciousness…
> I have an answer for that: Damned if *I* know!!!
But it isn’t as if we don’t have some pretty good clues in which direction the answer lies, even if we’re still far from having the entire picture. The development of neurophysiology and related fields since the 19th Century, supplemented by more recent developments in mathematics and computation, strongly support the view that mind and consciousness arise from the functioning of the central nervous system, supplemented by endocrine glands. As said, we don’t today know how that works, but the vastly complex neural system of the brain is certainly the kind of material system you’d expect to support consciousness. It isn’t as if our skulls were filled with undifferentiated goo. (Well, most of our skulls.)
I completely agree. We know SO much more. And neurophysiology a hugely burgeoning field. And lots of people think they have consciousess figured out on neurological bases. But I don’t think anyone has. (I should say that I don’t know how to get my mind around the idea that one should expect consciousness from a particularly complex neural system. If it’s a unique phenomenon why would it be expected at all?)
Bart, I agree fully with your “live and let live” philosophy. Why does what you believe have any influence on what I believe. I believe differently than you, but that in no way belittles your beliefs. Respect for differences in opinions SHOULD be fundamental to all of us. Unfortunately that seems to be the exception in this polarized society. I am a believer, perhaps because I am just arrogant enough to think that I am so important that I simply can’t cease to exist when I die (LoL). I just wonder if a belief in an afterlife isn’t hardwired into our DNA since even Neanderthals seem to have had a concept of an afterlife by leaving grave goods with the deceased. Every civilization seems to have had some afterlife concepts. Ancient Egyptians really got into that idea, especially for the royalty and upper class. All of the major world religions, and even primitive ones have some belief in a post death place. BTW I loved your last book on the origins of Heaven and Hell.
I”m glad! Thanks.
Thank you Bart for your wonderful blog on the history and literature of early Christianity. I really like it!
Consider the following mindset regarding a materialistic view of the world:
Everything in the universe is made up of matter (‘physical substance’)?
What about the meaning of this sentence?
Is the meaning of this sentence also built up of physical substance?
Stig/Denmark
I’d say yes. The meaning gets produced ONLY in human brains. (It doesn’t exist apart from readers who interpret, though we might imagine it does; but it’s a mirage). ANd brains are material objects. Your neurons produce your understanding adn therefore generate the meaning. Nothing else does.
Hi Bart
Do I understand you correctly:
that you believe that your own consciousness is an illusion, without existence, produced by the material activity of the brain (the neurons)?
If so: Do you also believe that your conscious life and all your bodily experience is only found inside your brain?
An illusion? No, I don’t think that. And yes, I think my mind and consciousness is located in my brain. Is there an option to that? My bodily experience, of course, involves my entire body; but the comprehension and interpretation of it all (for example from afferent nerves) cannot occur without the brain.
Thank you, Bart, for your interesting answer. It raises two further questions:
1. Does it mean that you think your experience of the world around you is somewhere inside your brain? For example, as a kind of photograph or video recording?
2. Who does the brain understand and interpret for (or to)?
1. Yes, it is definitely in the brain. THere’s no where else. It’s all the way the central nervous system has been designed.
2. The brain was designed to provide the means for the body to survive. You may want to read or listen to something like Dawkins The Selfish Gene as a starter.
I would love to have an entire blog where we discussed nothing else than this topic! Bart writes “I think my mind and consciousness is located in my brain. Is there an option to that?”
Yes, there is an option. Sort of. Here’s an experiment for you: Take a marker pen and mark exactly the spot where your brain ends and your “body” begins. And then mark where your body ends and your environment begins.
I don’t quite understand your experiment. It’s not difficult at all to know where the brain ends. But it’s not separated from the body any more than any other body part is separated from he body It’s part of the body.
Your materialist viewpoint would make a lot more sense to me if atoms were indeed indivisible entities, as the ancient Greeks speculated, and had definite positions and momentum in space as Newton assumed. If the fundamental particles of the universe behaved in a classically Newtonian way, there would be no reason to think anything else lay underneath. I think the great physicist John Wheeler had it right when he speculated toward the end of his life that the fundamental substance of the universe is information (meaning), and the material world derivative and instantiated from it.
I don’t insist on atoms being the smallest entity, no. Quantum physics complicates the whole thing, but it does not seem to make it non-material in teh sense I”m using the term.
I understand what you’re saying – all I’m saying is that matter isn’t the fundamental, primordial stuff of the universe, and appears to be derivative of some “thing” that is anything *but* material. We don’t need to label this some-thing (i.e. the quantum physical laws, mathematics) as spiritual in the tradition of the Pythagoreans, but I think just by dint of logic that we do need to acknowledge its *meta*-physical nature.
Ah, right. I don’t agree with that at all, and don’t see any scientific reason to think so.
Metaphysics (as I understand the term) literally means “over” or “beyond” physics as we understand it. This doesn’t mean it falls into the realm of the spiritual. Our universe and perhaps many others may have popped into existence due to a quantum fluctuation, but presumably the quantum laws need to have existed in order to give rise to and sustain them(?) I don’t know how we define quantum mechanics except through mathematics, and I don’t know how we can define mathematics as being material in any sense. It may in some mysterious way instantiate physical reality, but presumably it itself is nonphysical. However you slice it, you’re left with a substrate of a preexistent, non-material “something”.
Maybe there are physicists and/or mathematicians who can weigh in on this, but my sense is that mathematics do not *exist* in the same way as stars, chairs, and quarks exist. Mathematics is derived by extraction from various observations of physical reality; it doesn’t exist otherwise. By contrast, an oxygen molecule exists whatever mathematical explanations exist for various aspects of it. Mathematics does not exist as a pre-existent reality: our mathematics works only because of the specific physical laws that came into being with the Big Bang and did not exist before it.
I don’t want to wear out my welcome with this discussion – it’s just that this subject is endlessly fascinating to me. Thanks for your continued thoughts and perspective! You may indeed be right, though there are many mathematicians and physicists (Max Tegmark and Roger Penrose being probably the best known) who do hold to a Platonic view (that mathematics does exist on some non-material plane, and perhaps is ultimately the only fundamental thing that exists).
Regarding the Big Bang – the trend of late has been the idea that the BB was not the beginning of everything – that there was in fact a prior cause which spawned our universe along with many others, throughout eternity – the eternal inflationary model being the most popular these days.
The important thing to keep in mind here, and what I was trying to stress earlier, is that ALL universe-generating models rely on a foundation of quantum probability – the universal wave function that is the heart of quantum mechanics. However you wish to define it, it’s the wellspring of all that exists, in this universe or any other.
I hope we find out! But it won’t be in my lifetime…
I don’t want to re-open this topic at this late stage, but just thought I’d recommend this recent compendium of articles written by eminent physicists and mathematicians, if you’re interested. I think you’ll find much that is thought provoking in these pages (just a guess). 🙂
https://shop.newscientist.com/products/the-nature-of-reality?variant=31977928720481
The opening of this post on materialism is similar to a chapter by Richard Dawkins entitled “A Prayer for My Daughter”, with a subsection called “Good and bad reasons for believing”. He says that a good reason for believing something is that there is evidence for it. Three bad reasons for believing anything are tradition, authority, and revelation. What about powerful feelings deep inside? They are important clues to what might be true, in science as in life. But they might be wrong. So when you have a feeling, you need to articulate it in words, and then check to see if you can find evidence that it is true, or not true, possible or probable.
A tricky area is language, because a child has to absorb it through tradition, without making a critical assessment of what he/she is learning. The test for this comes much later, when the teen-ager or adult can assess the usefulness of his/her language in navigating the world. Some ways of speaking may turn out to be toxic, and an individual can decide, on the basis of good evidence, to not speak in those ways ever again.
What a beautiful piece! Encapsulates many of my own thoughts about truth and the search for it.
I find it so honorably symmetric that people like agnostics, who are genuinely humble with regards to their possible (or rather certain) ignorance, are far more respectful to other people’s ignorance than people with firm beliefs are towards others.
In the end, though, I don’t think it comes down to having faith or deciding what is most reasonable given what we know; I deem everyone has a distinct inclination to either faith or reason – and that inclination drives people’s acts.
Thank you for writing on this subject! I don’t think materialism is talked about enough by people in general, so I appreciate you bringing it up. Quick question: Are you making the positive affirmation that existence is solely material, or do you simply lack belief in anything immaterial? Aspects of your post could be taken as implying one or the other, but I wouldn’t want to read too much into nuances when you weren’t necessarily trying to distinguish between these two possibilities.
Also, I get your pointed about open-mindedness, so I won’t take it as dogmatic if you hold the affirmative position.
Thanks for your time. 🙂
Walter Goodman, who wrote an excellent book on the History of Judaism, makes the following comment in the prologue to the book (paraphrasing): the historicity of what occurred is less important than what people believe occurred because that is what forms theology (i.e. knowledge of God). That is to say, our knowledge of the divine is not resting solely on whether or not events described in sacred texts can be verified, but the ways these texts inform us through poetry, prose, legend, myth and personalized history about experience with and knowledge of God, the creator, Yahweh, Elohim, or whatever name you wish to use. I thoroughly enjoy an anthropological and archealogic walk through the history of monotheism, but I am much more fulfilled through a similar walk through all experiences that describe the relationship of spirit with the cosmos. After all, that is all that is left at the end of the day.
What I find most valuable about your insights is that you have been on the inside looking out, and are now on the outside looking in.
The worldview of most of those with faith, once they have taken their ‘leap’, is self-fulfilling, and beyond challenge. Any search for answers to metaphysical questions is undertaken whilst looking through ‘rose-coloured glasses’- “faith seeking understanding”, as Anselm termed it.
From my science-oriented point of view, I can see no role for an ultimate interventionist Abrahamic-type God.
However, Einstein was certain that Science did not exclude and perhaps supported the case for the ‘God of Spinoza’- a form of Panpsychism.
We are constrained in our capacity to understand the universal consciousness of our Spacetime, as we are like fish in an aquarium unable to comprehend the ‘wetness’ of their environment.
The debate continues….long live the dialectic!
I would be OK with “live and let live” tolerance of other’s beliefs, but then QAnon came along. Unfounded beliefs can be dangerous.
A historical account of how philosophers interpreted the world would give credit to the early Greek materialists like Democritus and Epicurus who got the methodology right and even made a good guess about an atomic world. Later on (to give a very short potted history), we get the rediscovery of Lucretius On the Nature of Things, Spinoza, the Enlightenment, the French Revolution, and Marx and Engels. For materialists there is no “god of the gaps allowed” and theology goes poof. [It’s still fun to learn about the history of Christianity and to read Bart’s blog.]
@TrentWilde: For consistent materialists (as opposed to idealists like Bishop Berkeley), the basic idea is the recognition of real objects outside us, to which objects our ideas “correspond”. In response to arguments of the agnostics (Hume) and Kantians who argue that we can’t trust our perceptions and sensations, the materialists’ reply, go use the objects according to the qualities we perceive in them. If the perceptions are wrong then our estimate of their use will fail. If we accomplish our aims and predict the expected behavior from our interactions with things that exist outside of ourselves then we have verified our understanding of reality.
Hello pueblo2 🙂
It sounds like you’re describing a combination of realism and naive empiricism. Materialism is certainly a realist philosophy, but it isn’t the only realist philosophy; even platonists can be realists, for example. Materialism, being realist, does say there is an objective reality; but it is also monist, suggesting that objective reality is made of only one fundamental “stuff.” Further, it states that this one fundamental “stuff” is a particular type of stuff – matter. While empiricism blends nicely with materialism, there is nothing about materialism which suggests that empiricism should be naive. In fact, I think materialism demands non-naive empiricism. If a materialist sees something that appears to be a “spirit” of a recently deceased loved-one, they are compelled by materialism to regard that sensory experiences as untrustworthy. Rather than materialism implying naive empiricism, I think it requires careful experiment, since that is what uncovers the material facts.
In any case, my question to Bart wasn’t about what materialism is. It was about whether his own view merely lacks affirmation of the immaterial (thus accepting materialism as a default), or whether it makes a positive claim that matter is the only substance and that non-physicality does not exist.
There are some major issues with molecule to man evolution given the irreducible complexity of the world around us not to mention the lack of intermediate species. There has to be an intelligent designer out there somewhere but after reading your books I no longer know who he is.
Oh yes, there are major issues with it that make it extremely difficult at this stage for us to understand. But we are making progress. Quantum physics is also virtually impossible to understand. But it is true nonetheless. My view is that you don’t need a designer. It seems weird, I know (and yes, I know all the old problems: if you found a watch by the side of the road….). But if you’re interested in it, I’d suggest reading the books by Sean Carroll and Brian Greene. Quite amazing what scientists have demonstrated, even if we mere mortals can’t get our mindes around it!
Your question about who created God in the first place is the great mystery. However, I do believe and having experienced the supernatural I have no choice but to believe. That’s not that I understand what to believe or what to do but God has guided me in dreams and when I am on the wrong path He puts the fear of God into me. Sounds bad but actually His Rod and His staff they comfort me. I am probably sounding evangelical but I have seen the dungeons of Hell and the fires of Hell and it’s not place I want to spend time in.
There is no harm in questioning things and I don’t think God has a problem with that. We do have to remember that as He said in the Ten Commandments, it is a ‘jealous‘ love and the real problems arise when we choose (free will) other gods. An example might be sun- worshipping which is a pathway to skin cancer and suffering. Forgive my preachiness but I had to share my thoughts without much tangible evidence to back them up. Ken
I would say I came to the same conclusion un a similar fashion. The difference being my experience of the world in the late 60’s and the early 70’s in relation to the churches (deliberately plural) response to it. I almost went the path of becoming a Methodist minister. Strayed away from that and instead went into working with computers, which is a quite different path. After viewing what other religions beyond Christianity had to say about things, and becoming a more ardent scientist with scientific and materialist views, ended up in the same place you describe in your post. However, I see that as a Humanist instead of a Materialist. Maybe they are the same?
I”m a complete humanist as well. I wouldn’t say they are the same, but they are completely compatible.
“I now don’t think I have good reason to have Christian faith. The world is material. Rocks, cacti, squirrels, my dog Nina, and me. It’s hard to get one’s mind around. I don’t understand it (well, the “me” part of it, anyway). But there it is.”
Dr. Ehrman, I have good news for you! The fact that you are a committed materialist shouldn’t necessarily exclude a sincere commitment to Christian beliefs, albeit not mainstream views:) There have been ‘canonical’ philosophers that were equally committed to both (I would argue that Hobbes was one of them).
Right! I’m afraid I’m not! My view is that if you don’t believe in a God who transcends the material world (or at least is separate from it), then it’s very hard to be a Christian. At least it is for me!
I have come to a different conclusion. Rather than doubting the persistence of consciousness, I have come to question the nature of the material world. As you and several of your readers have noted, one theory suggests that the material world owes its existence to being observed by an intelligent observer.
The whole of our human experience, including scientific inquiry, is limited to our four familiar dimensions, so our definition of nature is also thus limited. Anything beyond that is, by definition, supernatural. But according to various branches of string theory, spacetime may be 10-, 11- or even 26-dimensional.
What if we had access to 26 degrees of freedom in which to scientifically define nature? God, for lack of a better term, might emerge as an essential aspect of that expanded concept of reality. God might be the all-encompassing consciousness and the source of all things, including our consciousness.
So whereas matter may, in a very real sense, all be in my imagination, the one thing of which I am most certain is that “I think, therefore I am.” I will hang my hat on that, even long after my material head returns to star dust.
I once pondered whether there really was a material world, or it was all in my head, until somewhat punched me in the face…
That convinced me.
Professor Ehrman, this is my first time posting a message here so please bear with me. I have started seeking my own answers as to what I believe after realizing the inconsistencies of what I have been taught my whole life. Many of your writings have helped me on this path. Honestly, though, I subscribed to your blog to gain insight as to why you have come to feel you are an atheist. As someone who has many health issues, I can understand your thoughts on suffering, etc. But that is another discussion. In regards to your microwave explanation, my take is this: even if no one knows how a microwave works, it still cooks food and has a purpose; therefore, it was created. Why would a microwave exist with no purpose? Someone created that microwave to cook food. The universe supports life. Why would life exist if not to have a purpose? Therefore, there has to be a creator.
It’s a good question. But I would say trillions of things in the universe have no “purpose,” if by that you mean “of any use to anyone.” In fact, I’d say 99.999999% of teh universe — and far more, has no purpose in the sense of doing anyone any good…. Our galaxy had 100 Billion or so stars; it is one of, what, 200 billion galaxies? And now it appears this is not the only universe? Almost none of it has any bearing on us or on anything else, so far as we can tell. It may not be a comforting thought, but that means we have to find our comfort elsewhere. As many of us do!
You said “Our galaxy has 100 billion or so stars; it is one of, what, 200 billion galaxies?” Actually, latest estimates say upwards of 2 trillion. Then you said, “And now it appears this is not the only universe?” Well, not true. You are referring to the “multiverse theory.” It is postulated by materialist scientists as a long shot attempt to explain why the laws of physics, the cosmological constants etc. are so precise that the slightest deviation from them would disallow the formation of stars, planets and, more importantly, life itself. It’s just too perfect and the odds against a one-shot big bang that had these exact properties is astronomical. So, they say, let’s postulate that there is a multiverse comprised of a near infinite number of universes. With enough of them, one is bound to be “just right,” with the precise constants and laws to support life. And we, amazingly, just happen to be in THAT one. But zero “evidence” to support it. Perhaps they’re pushing for this because the alternative, a creator, is unacceptable?
Yes, I’ve seen that about the 2 trillion, but I have not seen it widely enough to be sure about it. The multiverse appears to be much nmore widely held these days.
200 billion? 2 trillion? Just playing numerical games here. Either is unfathomable. As to the multiverse theory being “more widely held these days,” what would you expect from a predominantly materialist scientific community? Despite there being no evidence to support it, the multiverse theory is “held up” because, to the materialist mindset, what else could there be? What else indeed! But if you were to dismiss the multiverse theory (for which there is NO evidence), what are you left with? According to physicist Lee Smolin (Quoted in link attached), The odds of a life-sustaining universe coming about by chance is 1 in 10 to the 229th power. Is it possible, Bart, that the evangelical certainty that you once entertained, and the knowledge you acquired since that time, has skewed your judgment, to the effect of throwing the baby out with the bathwater? That maybe you are playing within a box within a box within a box? In that box, you have lots of room to play. Outside is a vast, open field. Is it too late to explore a little further? From Scientific American:
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/our-improbable-existence-is-no-evidence-for-a-multiverse/
What would I expect from a materialist scientific community? Scientific research based on facts and the deductions drawn from them (simple example: the universe is expanding is a fact; there was a Big Bang is an almost inescapable deduction). It’s either scientific research or blind guessing or simpyl thinking what you want to think or what someone else told you! I don’t see what the option is.
Bart, I grew up in an extremely fundamentalist house – we did not celebrate Christmas, because it started as a pagan holiday! I can relate to your upbringing. I know the pain of feeling conned about Jesus was the only savior. Fortunate for me, instead of totally rejecting Jesus, I rejected Christianity.
How? By the unbelievable karma of these same parents giving me a book on yoga.
Among many books I read to solve this dilemma, I read “Autobiography of A Yogi” by Yogananda.
What a balm for the mind and have been blessed ever since to have experienced the “mystical” side of existence – beyond the material. Just the start of a long rewarding fruitful journey.
Bart is right. Theology and materialism are by definition mutually exclusive; so no Christianity without the supernatural (aka intelligent designer) force. One philosophical school (materialism) interacts with the real world and tries to understand it, and the other (idealist) gazes at its navel and invents tales and superstition which for some reason always seems to produce a “moral code” that is mostly in tune with the ruling order of the day (not enough of a word limit here to talk about the Protestant Reformation as not a violation of that truism). Once again, no brain=no thoughts.
There are no major challenges or counterevidence to the phenomena of evolution as a fact. However, there is a big problem in the US (and elsewhere) with ignorance about evolutionary science. But most opposition to properly teaching evolutionary science in US schools is really due to (rightwing) politics. To cure ignorance, however, there are plenty of great places to go for help (Bart mentions Sean Carroll and Brian Greene). Some other suggestions (many more are possible):
https://pandasthumb.org
https://sandwalk.blogspot.com
https://www.pbs.org/your-inner-fish/about/overview/ (read anything by Neil Shubin)
https://www.preposterousuniverse.com (Sean Carroll the physicist)
@kara: go here and watch all the “intermediate species” spring forth https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PQr8ldEeO04 (Love Dr. Richard Lenski).
I’m surprised no one has brought up the subject of near death experiences (NDEs). I personally know, or rather knew, 3 people who’ve had this experience. I say “knew” because one has since had a death experience, without the “near” part. But they all have one thing in common: they describe it as the most powerful, transformative, and REAL experience of their lives. And all of them, unequivocally, lost the fear of death. I realize these experiences provide primarily anecdotal evidence for existence outside of the physical body/brain, but in not-a-few cases, the experiencer was, after resuscitation, able to provide details of conversations, procedures etc, often at a distance, than was accurate and unexplainable from a purely materialist worldview. Literally millions of these experiences have been reported in the US alone. That’s an awful lot of smoke for there to be no fire.
Another thing is the out-of-body experience. I personally have had many of these in my life, and I will say this: You only need to have one, and your perception of reality will be forever altered.
A few years ago when I decided to write my book on Heaven and Hell, I used it as an excuse to read a lot about NDE’s, from all sides. It was very helpful, especially seeing that neuroscientists (e.g., Oliver Sacks, but lots of others) have highly convincing evidence that these can be explained on purely physiological (i.e., materialist) grounds.
I have to disagree. Yes, there are hard-core materialist scientists that will accept no amount of evidence. Reminds me of a fundamentalist Christian friend of mine who, despite me showing him multiple examples of contradictions, failed prophecies etc in the Bible, still insists there are no such things. Why? Because there CAN’T be. How does a neuroscientist explain recalling in exact detail a conversation occurring in another part of the hospital far out of hearing range, and while being in full cardiac arrest? How do they explain the case of Pam Reynolds who accurately described medical procedures and instruments used while her heart was stopped, blood drained from her brain, eyes taped shut and clicking devices in her ears to monitor her complete lack of brain activity? Her surgeon stated publicly that nothing in his experience could account for her knowing these things. Then there’s the case of Eben Alexander, himself a neurosurgeon, who had a powerful, lucid and lengthy NDE while his brain was drowning in bacterial meningitis, allowing for no conscious experience whatsoever. Again, a lot of smoke to have no fire.
I would say that Eben Alexander is decidely NOT a hard-core scientist. Quite the contrary, Oliver Sacks, among many others, showed that he was completely misinformed on teh basics of neuroscience. Alexander is not a scientist. He’s a surgeon. And evidently when it comes to the brain, that is a HUGE differenc.e There have been numerous sicientific investigations of NDEs and none of them have adduced any verifiable evidence of them under scientifically controlled conditions. That latter is a crucial distinction.
Agreed, Alexander is not a scientist. But “science” is limited to the material world, natural laws, physics etc. But what if the world experienced by NDErs is not material? How could we test it under “scientifically controlled conditions?” What if it’s a whole different reality that does not conform to the laws of our physical universe? How would/could you test it? And what is it about the brain that causes one to experience, at the point of death (and sometimes without being near-dead), a consciousness far beyond anything we are capable of as humans? One of my friends said he not only knew every moment of his life on earth, but every moment of the lives of EVERYONE on earth, at the same time. How, or perhaps why, would the brain cause that? In the NDE literature, this experience is very common. I think maybe, in the end, it comes down to “you had to BE there.” As an afterthought, this does not mean Christianity is true. What is true may be something that includes, and transcends, all belief systems. And yes, even atheists LOL.
Agreed, Alexander is not a scientist. But “science” is limited to the material world, natural laws, physics etc. But what if the world experienced by NDErs is not material? How could we test it under “scientifically controlled conditions?” What if it’s a whole different reality that does not conform to the laws of our physical universe? How would/could you test it? And what is it about the brain that causes one to experience, at the point of death (and sometimes without being near-dead), a consciousness far beyond anything we are capable of as humans? One of my friends said he not only knew every moment of his life on earth, but every moment of the lives of EVERYONE on earth, at the same time. How, or perhaps why, would the brain cause that? In the NDE literature, this experience is very common. I think maybe, in the end, it comes down to “you had to BE there.” As an afterthought, this does not mean Christianity is true. What is true may be something that includes, and transcends, all belief systems. And yes, even atheists LOL.
One of your finest posts in the past…how long (in the Christmas season with so many greats)? And deeply personal. So i’ll keep mine short ’cause i have to. Your last paragraph directly contradicts the logic of an immediately preceding para about dogs and squirrels (and humans) no different than rocks. Your last paragraph shows the human spirit (caring about our brothers) and suggests Plato was right. Or at least, that enough of his western thought is something that you can’t shake. You know, eastern orthodoxy does NOT have the doctrine of original sin. Nor in the East is Freud’s ego/id/superego construction of consciousness to debate with. Mystics can breathe. And monism can roam. And instead, we can debate how the material and our illusion of separation came about, and who created it (if not God). And like prodigals, we can prefer returning. peace!
I agree with a good deal of your comments.
As for the God argument, I always thought that since God is not a thing, then God is not part of everything.
The real stumbling block I see for materialism is that it all means nothing. Even if the materialist says “no, I find meaning in my family, friends, works, etc.” that is a fine thing to say but the universe, in the vastness of time and space, doesn’t even notice the materialist or for that matter the whole of humanity. Whether you existed or not, whether you thought you had a meaningful life or not – is meaningless to the material universe. No matter the protests or assertions of the materialist – it means nothing. And therefore all human effort is absurd.
So one choice, and it would be mine also if I were a materialist, would be to fly in the face of the meaningless and the absurdity and create meaning, live my meaning………but I would still know in my heart of hearts that it was all for naught and the rock was still at the bottom of the hill.
My attitude tends toward not giving a flip what others might think of me– I’ll do what I see as the right thing. Too bad if others don’t see things the same way. So, in that case, why should I care whether the universe cares? Why should I care what “the universe” thinks? The universe doesn’t think. But I do, and that makes all the difference. The universe can– well, you can fill in the blanks.
The argument I’ve been hearing is this:
Everything that has a beginning has a cause. The Universe had a beginning. Therefore, the universe needs a causing agent to start it. Then the argument proceeds to more or less state that God is the only thing that could cause the universe. How would you answer such an argument?
Well, it means that God did not have a cause. So everything does not need one.
Since I came to realize that faith/spirituality doesn’t click in my head, that no matter how much I may *want* to believe in something I just can’t make that literal “leap of faith”, I’ve encountered people who feel sad for me: “wow, isn’t it sad that you can’t see the beauty and glory of god?” Or “but you can’t experience everything the universe is trying to say to you”
I counter with, or try to counter with: “No, it makes everything so much more beautiful. This fleeting little bubble of a breath we get to take in is all we get. So let’s be good while we can. Let’s love while we can. Let’s learn while we can. Let’s EXPLORE while we can. My descendants will set foot on worlds that we don’t even know exist right now, not because someone/thing ordained it, but because we worked for it. Because we looked over the hill and wondered ‘what’s over there?’ It hasn’t always been pretty, but it’s all we’ve got. We don’t have all the answers and isn’t that more exciting than ‘cause God’?”
Then they think I’m a jerk usually, but that’s probably because I’m not so eloquent in person…
Bart, I’d be curious to know what you think of Rupert Sheldrake and his ideas on morphic fields, morhpic resonance, panpsychism etc.
Thank you.
I’m afraid I’m not familiar with him or his work.
I consider myself a Marxist, a believer (if that is the right word) in historical materialism as my basic outlook. A part of me is Christian, a part of me is Buddhist and two Jewish wives had brought me to admiring Jewish history and beliefs. I look to Christians to be allies in the struggle for a more just and humane world. I am fascinated by the histories of early Christians. My initial readings include Engels and Kautsky on early Christianities, but I realize that some of their formulations were incorrect. Buddhist and Marxist dialectics seem helpful in understanding how the world works.