One of the curious features of modern religious apologists is how they try to use the latest scientific research to argue for the existence of god. Of course, science makes the traditional idea of a personal god who intervenes in the world utterly preposterous and few religious intellectuals outside the evangelical community argue in favor of it. So sophisticated religious apologists have resorted to arguing for the existence of a highly abstract form of god that has no practical consequence whatsoever but for some reason seems to meet some sort of emotional or psychological need. But in order to make their case, they have to cherry-pick scientific research and hope that their audience is not aware of the full science.
The latest attempt is in the area of cosmology. The following very nice video (via Skepchick) exposes how some Christian and Muslim apologists try to use the latest cosmology research in selective ways to make their case.
If the latest developments in cosmology comprise the best arguments for god, then you might expect that cosmologists might be the most religious of all scientists. And yet, as the above video shows, even the scientists quoted by the religious apologists are nonbelievers, suggesting that the cosmological arguments for god are a distortion of the actual science. This paper by cosmologist Sean Carroll titled Why (Almost All) Cosmologists are Atheists explains why.
He first addresses what it would take to require a god hypothesis to be taken seriously.
There are several possible ways in which this could happen. Most direct would be straightforward observation of miraculous events that would be most easily explained by invoking God. Since such events seem hard to come by, we need to be more subtle. Yet there are still at least two ways in which a theist worldview could be judged more compelling than a materialist one. First, we could find that our best materialist conception was somehow incomplete — there was some aspect of the universe which could not possibly be explained within a completely formal framework. This would be like a ”God of the gaps,” if there were good reason to believe that a certain kind of ”gap” were truly inexplicable by formal rules alone. Second, we could find that invoking the workings of God actually worked to simplify the description, by providing explanations for some of the observed patterns. An example would be an argument from design, if we could establish convincingly that certain aspects of the universe were designed rather than assembled by chance. Let’s examine each of these possibilities in turn.
He examines both these possibilities and weighs their merits using the normal ways that scientists use to compare theories and finds the god hypothesis wanting, arriving at the following conclusion:
Given what we know about the universe, there seems to be no reason to invoke God as part of this description. In the various ways in which God might have been judged to be a helpful hypothesis — such as explaining the initial conditions for the universe, or the particular set of fields and couplings discovered by particle physics — there are alternative explanations which do not require anything outside a completely formal, materialist description. I am therefore led to conclude that adding God would just make things more complicated, and this hypothesis should be rejected by scientific standards. It’s a venerable conclusion, brought up to date by modern cosmology; but the dialogue between people who feel differently will undoubtedly last a good while longer.
I for one am glad that people religious apologists are advancing these sophisticated cosmological arguments for god. While they may think they are rescuing religion from science, they are the ones, not atheist scientists, who are going to ultimately destroy religion because in order to salvage the idea of god, they have made it so abstract and remote that it will not appeal in the least to most religious people who want a father figure who listens to them when they talk and who will answer their requests at least some of the time. The idea of god persists because children are indoctrinated at an early age with the idea of a Santa Claus-like figure who will both look after them and punish them if they are bad. That basic childlike idea is what gives god its appeal. The cosmological god is unlikely to have much appeal to a child.
If the cosmological view of god gains ground, it will become the sole preserve of a few intellectuals who will comfort themselves with the idea that a disengaged god exists somewhere out of reach of science. But such a god is a far cry from the warm and fuzzy invisible friend that can command mass appeal.
Surely you know better, Dr. Singham. When confronted with irrefutable arguments against the ordinary believer’s conception of an anthropomorphic, interventionist deity, theologians have often argued for abstract conceptions of God that may lack the same emotional appeal, but also lack whatever traditional properties are the target of the criticism. When confronted with criticism, believers — theologians and ordinary believers alike — point to these abstract, more-or-less deistic concepts of God and say, “Our thoughtful, sophisticated conception of God isn’t vulnerable to your crude, unsophisticated criticisms! So there!” And then the believers — theologians and ordinary believers alike — go right on believing in and worshiping the same old anthropomorphic, interventionist deity they always have. I’m fairly certain that this blatant bait-and-switch malarkey has been religion’s secondary defensive strategy (the first, of course, being violence and intimidation) since the first time a thoughtful critic pointed out that the properties attributed to some pagan god directly implied some consequence in the world that clearly wasn’t true.
What’s happened to old fashioned faith? The believers, whether theologians or experts of various types, seem to have this completely silly notion that logic or reason is required in what is by definition a mystery. Instead they should merely state that they believe because they believe. The need for a rational explanation baffles me. It merely results in endless debate, which is a complete waste of time and more importantly divisive. If the believers’ response is simply their beliefs are based on faith the atheists will be neutralized as they have nothing to pin their arguments on. The only response left would be that all believers’ are deluded. Who cares? As someone so aptly put it, “For a man of faith no explanation is necessary, for a man without no explanation is possible”. I keep wondering why people are attempting to explain the unexplainable. The atheists are equally stupid because they seem to get a kick out of making all sorts of arguments, when arguments are in fact irrelevant. Unfortunately both sides seem to have an action reaction response, where both the action and reaction are both equally redundant
Religion works in the way it is supposed to work. Religion unites people. It gives people sense and purpose of their lives. It helps people find fulfilment. And for Christians, it gives us a framework in which to know and worship God. On top of that, it gives individuals who are struggling strength to fight through their hardships, hope for a better future, and it often succeeds in turning peoples lives around. So religion will survive because it works for people. I never mentioned the idea of “veracity” in this context.