Sense & Goodness Without God. Philosopher David Wood critically review Richard Carrier's book

Atheist and naturalist Richard Carrier wrote a book entitled "Sense & Goodness Without God" defending metaphysical naturalism and atheism. Christian philosopher David Wood reviewed it, and exposed a mass of inconsistences and fallacies used by Carrier.

Let's see some examples:

1)One of the "arguments" used by Carrier is this: "Since there is no observable divine hand in nature as a causal process, it is reasonable to conclude that there is no divine hand. After all, that there are no blue monkeys flying out my butt is sufficient reason to believe that there are no such creatures, and so it is with anything else"

Any of you, even hard-core intelligent atheists, would laugh in a so silly and ridiculous argument like that. David Wood explains: "This may be the worst argument ever offered by anyone, and it gives us some insight into Richard’s position. Let us ponder his logic here. Richard draws an analogy between the absence of an observable divine hand and the absence of blue monkeys flying out of his butt. Just as we reject the idea of blue monkeys, so also we should reject the idea of God. Since this is an analogy, his conclusion about God can only be as strong as his conclusion about blue monkeys. But how strong is that conclusion? Richard says the fact that blue monkeys aren’t flying out of his butt is “sufficient reason” to conclude that blue monkeys don’t exist. The tremendous weakness of this argument should be obvious. Presumably, there are no monkeys of any color flying out of Richard’s butt. Are we to conclude that monkeys don’t exist? Neither are there fire trucks, books, planets, horses, or bees emerging from his butt. But all these things exist".

However, perhaps you're thinking Wood' reading of Carrier's argument is very uncharitable. Let's to grant this, and let's to interpret Carrier's argument like this: when he wrote "such creatures" he was not refering to monkeys in general, but only to "blue monkeys flying out of his book". In such reading, Carrier didn't commited the error of argument pointed out by Wood.

But even in that charitable interpretation, Carrier's argument is very poor. God, by definition (at least in the Christian tradition) is not a natural/material entity or process. Thus, expecting an "observable" divine hand is attributing a false property to God. In my opinion, this is the basic fallacy used by Carrier: he's arguing against a straw man. His argument refutes only a caricature of God, not the God that most theists have in mind.

Let's suposse I want to deny that Carrier is a good person. I can say "If Carrier is a good person, we'd observe that he donates all his money to African children. Given that Carrier hasn't donated his money to African children, Carrier is not a good person". Obviously, the fallacy of my argument consist in conditioning Carrier's property of being "a good person" to the fact of he donating all of his money. Truth is that he may be a good person, even if he doesn't want to donate all his money to African children.

2)Another of Carrier's silly "arguments": "The adoption of Metaphysical Naturalism will benefit the survival of any society, by eliminating fatal or exhausting religious conflict and instead managing disagreement with reasonable debate, by stopping the waste of time and other resources on falsehoods and taboos, by encouraging humanistic cooperation and preservation (especially against extremism, apocalypticism, fatalism, and religiously-inspired apathy, bigotry or panic), and by instilling the proper values necessary for an enduring, contented culture, one actively interested in exploring and colonizing the universe and ending misery and want"

Wood replied: "Here Richard argues that Metaphysical Naturalism is better than any religion, because if society were to adopt his view, there would be no religious conflict. Since everyone would have the same worldview, we could concentrate our energies on more important things, like colonizing the universe.
This seems pretty straightforward, but there is a gaping problem. Richard claims that the adoption of his view by society would bring an end to religious conflict. But what does he mean by “adoption”? He can’t be referring to a simple adoption of his view by a government, for this would not put an end to religious conflicts, whether internal or external. For instance, if Congress suddenly voted in favor of a Metaphysical Naturalism Amendment to the Constitution, there would still be Christians, Muslims, atheists, agnostics, Hindus, Jews, Mormons, and others contending for their faiths. Thus, there would still be conflict.
Nor can Richard be referring to the adoption of Metaphysical Naturalism by a majority of citizens in a society. Muslims will still contend for Islam, even if they are in the minority. So what does Richard mean? Apparently, he is claiming that if everyone in a society were to adopt his view, then no one in that society would be arguing about whether or not his view is true. His argument, then, amounts to this: “If we all believed in Metaphysical Naturalism, then there would be no disagreements about the truth of Metaphysical Naturalism.”

3)Look in this Carrier's comment: "The multiverse is eternal, in the sense that it exists at every point of time that exists, has existed, or ever will exist. And for that reason it did not come “from” anywhere. There was never a time when it did not exist, so it did not come from “nothing,” because there has never been “nothing.” There has always been “something,” from which every universe is born."

I ask: how does Carrier know that? If extraordinary claims needs extraordinary evidence, Carrier should provide extraordinary evidence for his extraordinary claims regarding the multiverse theory and its eternal attributes. But the multiverse theory hasn't been proved, and there is not hard evidence that it could be true. The faith of Carrier in that theory is not supported by empirical evidence, but imposed in his mind and will by his faith in the philosophical doctrine of metaphysical naturalism.

Carrier can't prove that multiverse theory is true, and that it's eternal. He doens't use the "extraordinary claim" motto to himself, only to the view of his opponents (to make his opponent's claims more hard to prove), in a typical pseudo-skeptical fashion. As explained in this excellent article on pseudo-skepticism: "Pseudoskeptics of course would argue that they simply do not have the resources to be skeptical about everything, so they have to concentrate on the obvious targets. But that doesn't get them off the hook. Pseudoskeptics apply the "extraordinary evidence" standard only selectively to controversial phenomena- namely, precisely when they fit their ideological preconceptions! When Doug Bower and David Chorley made the extraordinary claim that they had created all of the thousands of crop circles that had appeared in English fields between 1978 and 1991 (some of which had appeared on the same night in different regions of the country), there were no armies of skeptics loudly insisting that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence". Apparently, as long as the extraordinary claim is one that agrees with what the pseudoskeptics have "known" all along, it does not even require ordinary evidence. Bower and Chorley were never able to substantiate their claim, let alone prove it, but the "skeptical" community accepted it on faith - and without a trace of skepticism." (Keep in mind that the author of that article isn not arguing against Carrier, but against pseudo-skeptics in general. All of them use the same kind of fallacious arguments and strategies)

As argued Wood: "While it is amazing to think that atheists would be willing to deny the principle of cause and effect in their desperate efforts to defend their views, it is just as startling to find Richard suggesting that the multiverse is eternal when it has supposedly developed through a process of evolution. If the universes get simpler and simpler as we go back in time, wouldn’t we eventually get to a beginning? Richard’s view suggests this, yet he claims that the multiverse would still be eternal, for the beginning would be “an eternal fixed reality.” Frankly, I just can’t make sense of this (and neither can Richard). But it isn’t because I deny the possibility of something uncaused and eternal. On the contrary, this is what theists believe about God. Yet the physical universe is a different matter altogether. Richard’s view entails that our universe came from another universe, which came from another, which came from another. If he says that it goes on forever like this (and he presents this as an option), he must accept the possibility that we have crossed an infinite amount of time, events, and universes to get where we are today. This, of course, runs into all of the problems addressed by the Kalam Cosmological Argument.[85] The Kalam argument demonstrates that it is impossible to traverse an actual infinite, so the fact that we are here demands a finite number of past events."

4)See the following Carrier's gratuitous claims and unsupported assertions: "Evevery possible planet that could be (given the universe and its physical laws) probably has been, is, or will be. Thus, that one or more planets should have all the right properties for biogenesis is probably a forgone conclusion, and our planet is known to be one of those rare few. . . . [S]cientific research upholds all the elements of [biogenesis]—the vast size and variation of the cosmos, the law of big numbers, the suitability of Earth for natural biochemistry, the ease with which a biochemistry can arise in such conditions, and the abundance throughout space, and especially our solar system, of all the chemicals needed to get life started. Everything from amino acids to sugar, from water to sulphur, from oxygen to nitrogen and carbon dioxide, has been found in space, sometimes in great quantities. And these are the things of which life is made. . . . Furthermore, experiments have proved that amino acids naturally chain into proteins, the building blocks of life, when subjected not only to many possible kinds of natural forces, but forces we know were common on the early earth, and beyond. Finally, scientists have manufactured proteins that naturally reproduce themselves without the aid of any additional enzymes, proteins so simple that we now know the odds of such things forming by chance are well within the realm of cosmic possibility. . . . Once reproducing chains of amino acids exist, mutation inevitably takes hold. . . . So, in fact, not only is random mutation in reproduction inevitable for the first life, such life would experience a very rapid rate of mutation"

Wood replied: "He says that “amino acids naturally chain into proteins” when subjected to forces that were common on the early earth. There are so many problems with this claim that it’s hardly worth responding to. First, when molecules join to form amino acids in nature (usually in extraordinary circumstances), they form equal proportions of left-handed and right-handed amino acids.[95] Yet the proteins in living cells are made up of left-handed amino acids only. Hence, Richard must explain how a pool of exclusively left-handed amino acids formed by chance, and he doesn’t do this. Second, amino acids react with a number of other molecules more readily than they react with one another, so Richard must explain how his pool of left-handed amino acids arose free from contamination by other molecules. Again, he doesn’t do this. Third, even if there were such a pool of uncontaminated, left-handed amino acids, the rate of amino acid polymerization (amino acids joining together to form chains) in water is extremely low. Peptides (chains of amino acids) tend to break down in water, and each increase in the desired number of amino acids decreases the probability of formation dramatically. Additionally, life requires specific polymers, not the random byproducts of chance. If Richard wants his more skeptical readers (i.e. readers that aren’t biased in favor of his view) to believe that proteins—the right proteins—were forming in any significant quantities, he needs to provide evidence, which he doesn’t do. Fourth, even if a number of proteins formed, against incredible odds, this isn’t life. The most basic functional living cell imaginable would require far more than just a couple of random proteins. And Richard still has to account for molecules like DNA, which is composed of nucleotides, not amino acids. Further, Richard would have to explain how all the necessary biomolecules, arising by chance, ended up in the same place and then joined together, in just the right order, to form life. Richard dismisses all of this as insignificant, yet this is one of the most crucial topics if his theory is to stand. One can only interpret Richard’s failure to support his view as the silence that comes from a complete lack of evidence.
Richard’s next claim is that “scientists have manufactured proteins that naturally reproduce themselves without the aid of any additional enzymes.” Again, since he doesn’t give references, it is difficult to examine his statements (though he advises his readers to “always ask for the primary sources of a claim you find incredible”[96]). I'm familiar with an experiment by David Lee’s team, in which it was found that a peptide taken from yeast had the ability to catalyze its own synthesis.[97] I also know of a molecule called “amino adenosine triacid ester,” which acts as a template to reproduce itself.[98] But such experiments are usually forced and rarely reflect anything that would happen naturally. However, even if we assume that a number of self-replicating proteins formed in the primal seas, this still doesn’t give Richard anything remotely resembling life. In addition to several hundred functionally correct proteins, he still needs many other macromolecules to perform numerous coordinated functions in the cell.
As for Richard’s claim that once “reproducing chains of amino acids exist, mutation inevitably takes hold,” I challenge him to provide evidence that such mutations will result in an increase in complexity, or that these mutations would ever give rise to life. Richard’s well of evidence has obviously run dry, and it’s frightening to think that someone could have so much faith in a view that is so overwhelmingly improbable.
Nevertheless, let’s grant Richard the existence of a living cell. What’s he going to do with it? Would such a cell, by random mutation and natural selection, ever produce the variety and complexity of life that we see all around us? Further, would we expect such a cell to eventually give rise to consciousness, the epitome of complexity? Though this topic is also critical for Richard’s case, he again fails to offer any evidence as to how consciousness arose. His section on “The Evolution of Mind” is just a page in length, and it merely describes his view of what a mind is, rather than providing a reasonable evolutionary pathway for the development of consciousness"

You should read the long Wood's review of Carrier's book.

Probably, you're wondering how a person can post so ridiculous and fallacious arguments like the ones used by Carrier (and hope that the readers would be so stupid and credulous to swallow them). Some people can argue that Carrier is not a trained philosopher, and it explains his tendence to fallacious reasoning and silly arguments. However, being true that Carrier is not a philosopher, he's a graduate student of history, and any graduate student of any field should be able to explain his views in a rigorous logical manner. It is not needed to be a professional philosopher to do that.

A final example suffices to shows Carrier's ignorance of philosophy and logic. Regarding philosopher J.P. Moreland's distinction about final causes and efficient causes (and his discussion of free will), Carrier wrote: "So Moreland is attempting to state a tautology (A is B) as if it were a distinction (A is not B), a fundamental violation of basic logic."

That a graduate student wants to teach a professional philosopher like Moreland what a tautology is, is evidence of the blinded arrogance of Carrier (common in many atheists). But it's more annoying when the graduate student of history doesn't know what the hell he's talking about. As explained by philosopher Wood: "This statement is enlightening for several reasons. First, Richard believes that final causes and efficient causes are equivalent. While he can argue that one is ultimately reducible to the other, there is nevertheless a distinction between the two, so they are not equivalent. Second, he claims that stating a tautology as if it were a distinction is “a fundamental violation of basic logic.” Pick any logic book you like and turn to the “Fundamental Violations” section. You won’t find anything like, “Whatever you do, don’t treat a tautology like a distinction!” (Richard loves to toss around accusations like this, even when they aren’t true.) Third, it is significant to note that Richard doesn’t even understand what a tautology is, though he uses the term several times in his book. In Richard’s lexicon, the terms “tautology” and “equivalence” are interchangeable, but this just isn’t true. A “tautology” is a proposition that, in virtue of its form, is necessarily true. Just as a contradiction is a statement that can’t possibly be true, a tautology is a statement that can’t possibly be false:

Contradiction: The cat is on the mat, and it’s not on the mat.

Tautology: The cat is on the mat, or it’s not on the mat.

Whereas the first statement can’t be true, the second statement can’t be false. (A statement that is neither a tautology nor a contradiction is said to be “contingent.”) Hence, an equivalence can be a tautology (“Richard is Richard”), but these aren’t the kind of equivalences Richard is trying to use. The statement “Final causes are efficient causes” is not a tautology, nor is the negation of that statement “a fundamental violation of basic logic.”
I took the time to explain these concepts because a single tautology or contradiction is sufficient to destroy Richard’s entire position"

Another example. Carrier wrote: "If we can find any proposition that has meaning but does not make any predictions, or that makes predictions but does not have any meaning, or that can be confirmed as true or false without any reference to what it predicts, then this principle would have to be revised, and my entire philosophy reconstructed from the ground up (unless the revision had no other consequence than to expand or qualify what was already established)"

Thus, Carrier is presenting the counterexample that would refute his worldview. But that counterexample exists. As explained by Wood: "Richard says that if there exists a proposition “that can be confirmed as true or false without reference to what it predicts,” his entire philosophy will have to be reconstructed. But such statements are known to exist—tautologies and contradictions.

Proposition: Tomorrow it will either rain or it won’t rain.

I confirm that this statement is true based on its logical form. There is no way it could ever be false. But I do this without reference to its prediction. The proposition says that it will either rain or not rain. No one would ever say, “Oh yeah? Well, we’ll just wait and see if you’re right!” It has to be right.
We can also construct a statement that can be confirmed as false without reference to what it predicts:

Proposition: I am both married and not married.

This statement is false, but no one needs to ask for my marriage certificate to know that it’s false. It’s false because it is a contradiction. Now, Richard said that he would need to revise his entire philosophy if such statements could be shown to exist. Thus, if he is a man of his word, he will begin dismantling his worldview. But will he ever do such a thing? Is he really concerned with methodology? While some atheist apologists try their best to arrive at a correct worldview by careful reflection, most merely want to appear as if their worldview is based on sound reasoning. A careful examination of their writings usually reveals their biases."

Arrogance, elitism, biases, ignorance, irrationality and bigotry are very common in many atheists and metaphysical naturalists (even thought not only in them). Carrier's book is a good summary of many atheists' set of unsupported and illogical beliefs based upon the insane and self-refuting ideology of metaphysical naturalism. Carrier's book is useful as a handbook of metaphysical naturalist's fallacies.

Fortunately, metaphysical naturalists are few in the world. And given the evident intrinsic irrationality of many of the ideas of this worldview, it probably will remain confined to a few uncritical believers. But it's necessary to expose the fallacies, self-refuting dogmas and ignorance of its main apologists.

In my modest opinion, metaphysical naturalism has destryed the mind of otherwise intelligent and smart people. But as all ideological dogma, its uncritical believers and followers can't see in themselves the inconsistences, moral weaknesses and irrational beliefs of that worldview. Maybe some of them will escape from it in a future, and become real free critical thinkers (not limited by any religious or cuasi-religious dogma like that).

Professional debunker Stephen Barrett of quackwatch.org has been exposed in court

The "skeptic" Stephen Barrett has been exposed as a liar: "At trial, under a heated cross-examination by Negrete, Barrett conceded that he was not a Medical Board Certified psychiatrist because he had failed the certification exam. This was a major revelation since Barrett had provided supposed expert testimony as a psychiatrist and had testified in numerous court cases. Barrett also had said that he was a legal expert even though he had no formal legal training. The most damning testimony before the jury, under the intense cross-examination by Negrete, was that Barrett had filed similar defamation lawsuits against almost 40 people across the country within the past few years and had not won one single one at trial"

Let's to examine some facts:

1)He failed a certification exam as a certified psychiatrist. However, he provided "expert" testimony as a psychiatrist. In other words, he LIED.

2)In other case of Barrett's falsified data about his credentials, he presented himself as a legal expert, but he hadn't any expertise in law. Again, he LIED.

3)Barrett filed tons of defamation lawsuits, losing all of them. Thus, his "defamation lawsuits" were unsupported and unjustified, and it was proved in court.

Recently, this " professional skeptic" loss another trial against Illena Rosenthal.

A Court Ordered Barrett (and one other "skeptic" called Polevoy) to Post $433,715.93 Bond!!!!

There are some interesting facts regarding Barrett's dishonesty and the skeptical community:

1)You won't see any "skeptical" publication (Skeptical Inquirer, The Skeptic Magazine, etc.) debunking Barrett. Pseudo-skeptics only apply their "skepticism" to the view of his opponents (e.g. non-materialists, non-atheists/agnostics, etc.)

2)You will see that most skeptical publications and websites keep silent regarding Barrett's actions, and give him a direct or indirect support (e.g. linking to his website, etc.). This is a direct example of intellectual pseudo-skeptical dishonesty.

3)Barrett (and other pseudo-skeptics) defends conventional medicine as the only scientific medicine. But they keep silent regarding the burocratic and finantial interests that guide most of the conventional research in medicine. Also, they say nothing regarding the number of deaths pear year (only in USA) caused by the use of the official medicine (according the the Journal of American Medical Association, 225,000 deaths per year are from iatrogenic causes)

As professional pseudo-skeptics are ideologically obsessed with promoting metaphysical naturalism, materialism, secular humanism and atheism (and fighting or criticizing alternative worldviews), they don't realize (or it is not important to them) that they're defending things that deserves valid criticism.

Their materialistic-obsessive opossition to alternative medicine blinds them to see with critical eyes the official medicine's flaws.

This selective and biased use of "skepticism" (applied only to the views they disagree with) is another example of the essential dishonesty and irrationality of many pseudo-skeptics.

More information on Barrett's activities here.

The irrational atheist by Vox Day. A refutation of the New Atheists' fallacies.

The best-selling books of Dawkins and other so-called "New Atheists" have produced many critical responses from the non-atheists fields. Some of the responses are good, other not so good. I think you should to choose the book according to your needs, for example:

-Philosophers should to read Edward Feser's The Last Superstition. It contains a philosophical argument against the new atheism, based on the Aristotelian-Thomistic philosophy.

Also philosophers should read "Atheism is False" by David Reuben Stone.

-Theists will enyoy "God's Undertaker" by John Lennox, and John Haught's "God and the New Atheism".

-Open mind atheists, agnostics, theists and the rest of the people will enjoy Vox Day's book "The Irrational Atheist". Day subjects some of the atheists' certainties, arrogant and fallacious arguments to critical scrutiny.

In that book, Day doesn't defend Christianity (even when he's a christian), but tries to expose the inconsistences and fallacies of the atheists' rhetoric as exemplified by Richard Dawkins, Daniel Dennett, Sam Harris and Christopher Hitchens.

Often, Day uses humour and clever comments that make the reader to get a laugh. However, in some cases, he drives his sense of humour to subtle ad hominem attacks against atheists.

The intelligent reader will distingh the factual and logical arguments of Day, of his sense of humour and ad hominem comments.

The good news is that this book is available online, you can download it here.

Richard Dawkins on moral values, ought statements and the possibility of killing people in some circunstances.

In this interview, we can read some shocking comments by Richard Dawkins:

"Now, if you then ask me where I get my 'ought' statements from, that's a more difficult question. Firstly, I don't feel so strongly about them. If I say something is wrong, like killing people, I don't find that nearly such a defensible statement as 'I am a distant cousin of an orangutan"

That's a very interesting concession, because if you can't rationally defend "ought" statements with the same force of factual or theoretical ones, how can atheists be so sure that religion is bad (the origin of all evil") on rational grounds? How could be Dawkins so sure that religion is "bad" if he doesn't feel so strongly about ought statements? Isn't Dawkins view only a subjetive and relative "ought" statement against religion (that is, that religion ought to desappear)?

But let's see the following Dawkins' comment:

"The second of those statements is true, I can tell you why it's true, I can bore you to death telling you why it's true. It's definitely true. The statement 'killing people is wrong', to me, is not of that character. I would be quite open to persuasion that killing people is right in some circumstances"

Killing people is right in some circunstances? Is Dawkins conceding that selective murder may be correct in some cases?

If values aren't objectives, who decides which are the "right" circunstances to kill people? If values aren't objective, then they're subjetive and relative; and in that sense, they're arbitrary too.

Remember that for materialists, the difference between a living thing and a non-living thing isn't ontological, but chemical. There is not essential ontological difference between them. As argued former atheist Antony Flew: "The difference between life and non-life, it became apparent to me, was ontological and not chemical. The best confirmation of this radical gulf is Richard Dawkins' comical effort to argue in The God Delusion that the origin of life can be attributed to a "lucky chance." If that's the best argument you have, then the game is over. No, I did not hear a Voice. It was the evidence itself that led me to this conclusion"

It doesn't mean that materialists are willing to kill people (even thought the communist experiment can give us some arguments against that idea). The point is that a materialist can't justify his respect for life based on ontological considerations (I mean, in a special status of life in comparison with non-life, because both of them are only matter). He can only arbitrarily accept moral values as correct, or if he's consistent, refuge himself in ethical relativism. There is no trascendent source to founding moral values; they're essentially contingent and relative (to our emotions, to each culture, to practical considetations, etc.).

Even a emergent materialist that consider life as a "emergent property" is only accepting different levels of matter organization; but that difference doesn't imply ethical consequences.

This can explain why Dawkins is quite open to the persuasion that killing people is right in some circunstances (the respect for life isn't an absolute value, but a relative thing conditioned by contingent circunstances)

21 days into the afterlife by Piero Calvi-Parisetti. The best introduction to the evidence for the survival of consciousness

I've read many books on the afterlife and survival of consciousness, but each of them is for different people. For example, philosophers should read professional philosopher Robert Almeder's book Death and Personal Survival to a philosophical discussion of the evidence. Also, they may have interest in philosopher Stephen Braude's book "Inmortal Remains".

Scientists will enjoy psychologist David Fontana's book Is there an afterlife?.

But most people (not only scientists or philosophers) should read Piero Calvi-Parisetti's book "21 days into the afterlife". This is the best summary of the evidence for the survival of consciousness (or afterlife hypothesis).

The good news is that that book is free!. You can download it here.

Share this book with your friends.

Read and think for yourself!

How Debunkers and (pseudo) Skeptics work by Rupert Shaldrake

Hear a talk by Rupert Shaldrake about pseudo-skeptics tactics to debunk, lie and suppress the research on psi. You can download it here.

Also, see the following lecture of Dr.Shaldrake about scientific experiments on psi