Atheist Ashamed of New Atheism

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By Prayson Daniel

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“The God Delusion makes me ashamed to be an atheist”(Michael Ruse)

Michael Ruse (1940 Birmingham, England) is a philosopher of biology at Florida State University. Here is his comment on New Atheism:

Let me say that I believe the new atheists do the side of science a grave disservice. I will defend to the death the right of them to say what they do — as one who is English-born one of the things I admire most about the USA is the First Amendment. But I think first that these people do a disservice to scholarship.

Their treatment of the religious viewpoint is pathetic to the point of non-being. Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion would fail any introductory philosophy or religion course. Proudly he criticizes that whereof he knows nothing.

The Validity of Plantinga’s Ontological Argument

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By Prayson Daniel

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Ontological Argument

1. It is possible that a greatest conceivable being exists.
2. If it is possible that a greatest conceivable being exists, then a greatest conceivable being exists in some possible world.
3. If a greatest conceivable being exists in some possible world, then it exists in every possible world.
4. If a greatest conceivable being exists in every possible world, then it exists in the actual world.
5. If a greatest conceivable being exists in the actual world, then a greatest conceivable being exists.
6. Therefore, a greatest conceivable being exists.

The nonmodal propositional and quatificational inference rules of 2QS5(fromGustason and Ulrich)

Existential Generalization (EG), Universal Instantiation (UI), Modulas Ponens (MP), Equivalence (Equiv), Simplification (Simp), Commutation (Com),  Modal Equivalence (ME), Double Negation (DN), and Necessity Elimination (NE)

Let:
Ax = _dfx is maximally great
Bx = _dfx is maximally excellent
W(Y) = _df Y is a universal property
Ox = _df x is omniscient, omnipotent, and morally perfect

Deduction:

1   ◊(Ǝx)Ax                                                                       pr

2   ☐(x)(Ax ≣ ☐Bx)                                                            pr

3   ☐(x)(Bx ⊃ ☐Ox)                                                           pr

Lugwig Wittgenstein On God

Lugwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951), one of the founders of analytic philosophy

According to Encyclopedia Britannica (1997), “Wittgenstein is the greatest philosopher of the 20th century.”

1.  “To believe in God means to understand the question about the meaning of life.

To believe in God means to see that the facts of the world are not the end of the matter.

To believe in God means to see that life has a meaning.” (Wittgenstein, as cited in Arthur Allen Cohen and Paul Mendes-Flohr, Contemporary Jewish Religious Thought, New York, Free Press, 1988, 567).

2.  At one time, Wittgenstein had begun each day by repeating the Lord’s prayer. Concerning this prayer, once he told his friend Maurice Drury:

 

“It is the most extraordinary prayer ever written. No one ever composed a prayer like it. But remember the Christian religion does not consist in saying a lot of prayers, in fact we are commanded just the opposite. If you and I are to live religious lives it must not just be that we talk a lot about religion, but that in some way our lives are different.” (Wittgenstein, as cited in Ludwig Wittgenstein: Personal Recollections, editor – Rush Rhees, Oxford, Basil Blackwell, 1981, 109).

3.  The diaries that Wittgenstein kept during the First World War (in which he was a volunteer) reveal that he often prayed, not that he should be spared from death, but that he should meet it without cowardice and without losing control of himself:

 

“How will I behave when it comes to shooting? I am not afraid of being shot but of not doing my duty properly. God give me strength! Amen!

If it is all over with me now, may I die a good death, mindful of myself. May I never lose myself! Now I might have the opportunity to be a decent human being, because I am face to face with death. May the spirit enlighten me.” (Wittgenstein, as cited in Norman Malcolm, Wittgenstein: A Religious Point of View?, London, Routledge, 1993, 8-9).

Erwin Schroedinger On God

Erwin Schroedinger – Nobel Laureate In Physics

Nobel Prize: Erwin Schroedinger (1887–1961) was granted the 1933 Nobel Prize in Physics “for the discovery of new productive forms of atomic theory.” Schroedinger also contributed to the wave theory of matter and to other fundamentals of quantum mechanics. He is the founder of wave mechanics.

Nationality: Austrian

Education: Ph.D. in physics, University of Vienna, Austria, 1910

Occupation: Professor of Physics at the Universities of Stuttgart, Jena, Berlin, Zurich, Oxford, and Vienna

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1.  Schroedinger claims that science is a creative game with rules, which are designed by God himself:

“Science is a game – but a game with reality, a game with sharpened knives.

If a man cuts a picture carefully into 1000 pieces, you solve the puzzle when you reassemble the pieces into a picture; in the success or failure, both your intelligences compete.

In the presentation of a scientific problem, the other player is the good Lord. He has not only set the problem but also has devised the rules of the game – but they are not completely known, half of them are left for you to discover or to deduce.

The uncertainty is how many of the rules God himself has permanently ordained, and how many apparently are caused by your own mental inertia, while the solution generally becomes possible only through freedom from its limitations. This is perhaps the most exciting thing in the game.” (Schroedinger, as cited in Moore 1990, 348).

2.  “I am very astonished that the scientific picture of the real world around me is very deficient. It gives a lot of factual information, puts all our experience in a magnificently consistent order, but it is ghastly silent about all and sundry that is really near to our heart, that really matters to us. It cannot tell us a word about red and blue, bitter and sweet, physical pain and physical delight; it knows nothing of beautiful and ugly, good or bad, God and eternity.

Science sometimes pretends to answer questions in these domains, but the answers are very often so silly that we are not inclined to take them seriously.” (Schroedinger 1954, 93).

Albert Einstein On God

Albert Einstein – Nobel Laureate In Physics

Nobel Prize: Albert Einstein (1879–1955) was awarded the 1921 Nobel Prize in Physics for his contributions to Quantum Theory and for his discovery of the law of the photoelectric effect. Einstein is one of the founders of modern physics; he is the author of the Theory of Relativity. According to the world media (Reuters, December 2000) Einstein is “the personality of the second millennium.”

Nationality: German; later Swiss and American citizen

Education: Ph.D. in physics, University of Zurich, Switzerland, 1905

Occupation: Patent Examiner in the Swiss Patent Office, Bern, 1902-1908; Professor of Physics at the Universities of Zurich, Prague, Bern, and Princeton, NJ.

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1.  “I want to know how God created this world. I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts, the rest are details.” (Einstein, as cited in Ronald Clark, Einstein: The Life and Times, London, Hodder and Stoughton Ltd., 1973, 33).

2.  “We are in the position of a little child entering a huge library filled with books in many different languages. The child knows someone must have written those books. It does not know how. It does not understand the languages in which they are written. The child dimly suspects a mysterious order in the arrangement of the books, but doesn’t know what it is.

That, it seems to me, is the attitude of even the most intelligent human being toward God. We see a Universe marvellously arranged and obeying certain laws, but only dimly understand these laws. Our limited minds cannot grasp the mysterious force that moves the constellations.” (Einstein, as cited in Denis Brian, Einstein: A Life, New York, John Wiley and Sons, 1996, 186).

3.  “If one purges the Judaism of the Prophets and Christianity as Jesus Christ taught it of all subsequent additions, especially those of the priests, one is left with a teaching which is capable of curing all the social ills of humanity. It is the duty of every man of good will to strive steadfastly in his own little world to make this teaching of pure humanity a living force, so far as he can.” (Albert Einstein, Ideas and Opinions, New York, Bonanza Books, 1954, 184-185).

Michael Faraday On God

Sir Michael Faraday (1791-1867), founder of Electronics and Electro-magnetics

1.  “I bow before Him who is Lord of all, and hope to be kept waiting patiently for His time and mode of releasing me according to His Divine Word and the great and precious promises whereby His people are made partakers of the Divine nature.” (Faraday, as cited in Jones 1870, Vol. II, 471).  

2.  “The book of nature which we have to read is written by the finger of God.” (Faraday, as cited in Seeger 1983, 101).

3.  In one of his sermons (London, 7 July 1861), Faraday stated: “And therefore, brethren, we ought to value the privilege of knowing God’s truth far beyond anything we can have in this world. The more we see the perfection of God’s law fulfilled in Christ, the more we ought to thank God for His unspeakable gift.” (Faraday, as cited in Eichman 1993, 93-94).

4.  Concerning the nature of the contemporary Church in one of his sermons (7 June 1863), Faraday said: “Think for a moment, brethren, of the Church of Christ, what it means and what it ought to be. Where the Word of God has sounded, there His people are drawn together; in small companies (and we may consider there are many such scattered over the world of whom we know nothing), gathered out of the world, to the obedience of all things that Christ has commanded.” (Faraday, as cited in Eichman 1993, 94-95).

Galileo Galilei On God

Galileo Galilei (1564-1642), founder of Experimental Physics

1. “To the Lord, whom I worship and thank,  

That governs the heavens with His eyelid

To Him I return tired, but full of living.” (Galileo, as cited in Caputo 2000, 85).

2.  “When I reflect on so many profoundly marvellous things that persons have grasped, sought, and done, I recognize even more clearly that human intelligence is a work of God, and one of the most excellent.” (Galileo, as cited in Caputo 2000, 85).

3.  “The Holy Scripture cannot err and the decrees therein contained are absolutely true and inviolable. But its expounders and interpreters are liable to err in many ways.” (Galileo, as cited in Ross 1991, 20).