“Wired for War: The Robotics Revolution and Conflict in the 21st Century.”
A talk by Peter W. Singer, senior fellow, Brookings Institution.
Wednesday, Sept. 23, 2009

“Sun in a Bottle: The Strange History of Fusion and the Science of Wishful Thinking.”
A talk by Charles Seife, physics journalist.
Wednesday, October 28, 2009

“Age of Entanglement: When Quantum Physics Was Reborn.”
Louisa Gilder, science writer.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009

“The Evolution of God.”
A talk by Robert Wright, journalist and founder, Bloggingheads.tv.
Wednesday, December 2, 2009

All events are free and open to the public. For more information, contact Center for Science Writings Director John Horgan at John.Horgan@stevens.edu. The CSW is part of the College of Arts & Letters.

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In my last post, I presented 10 responses to the question: “God: Who Needs Him (or Her)?”, which my pal Garry Dobbins and I recently debated at Stevens. One of my responses was this: “Childhood cancer. Tsunamis. Earthquakes. If God is all-powerful and loves us, why do bad things happen to totally innocent people? This is the problem of evil. No theology has ever answered this question adequately. The philosopher of religion Huston Smith calls the problem of evil ‘the shoal on which all theologies founder.’”

I also said that I’m an agnostic. When asked if God exists, the agnostic answers: I don’t know. Believers and atheists often criticize agnostics as too lazy or apathetic to decide one way or the other. My friend Harold Dorn, who teaches history of science here at Stevens and is an atheist and proud of it, thinks my agnosticism stems from my sentimental attachment to Catholicism, the religion of my childhood.

Actually, I have two good reasons for being an agnostic rather than an atheist. One is what I call the problem of fun, which is the flip side of the problem of evil. Life isn’t always painful and unfair. Sometimes it’s, well, fun. Joyful, beautiful, wonderful, exciting, cool–pick your adjective. Just as believers in a good God should be haunted by the problem of evil, so atheists should be haunted by the problem of fun, as well as friendship, love, truth, humor—all the things that make life worth living.

Life is also so dramatic, with such an astonishing story line—from the Big Bang through dinosaurs and Neanderthals right up to life as we find it here in 2009—that I have a hard time accepting that it’s just an accident. Although nobody has come up with a theology that makes any sense to me, I can’t be absolutely sure that there isn’t some plan and hence planner behind this whole crazy show. By the way, the British biologist and religion-basher Richard Dawkins, who’s often called an atheist, once told me that he’s actually an agnostic, for this same can’t-be-absolutely-sure reason.

My other reason for rejecting atheism is that atheists can be just as dogmatic and unyielding as many religious believers are, and I reject this sort of ideological self-righteousness, no matter what the ideology. After all, rejection of religion and adherence to a supposedly scientific worldview aren’t sure-fire ways to achieve salvation. We should never forget that the two most vicious regimes in history, Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin, were inspired by the pseudo-scientific ideologies eugenics and Marxism. Secular faith can be just as deadly as the religious variety.

Opposing self-righteousness is easier said than done. How do you denounce dogmatism in others without succumbing to it yourself? One philosopher who tumbled into this pitfall was Karl Popper, who railed against certainty in science, philosophy, religion, and politics and yet was notoriously dogmatic. I once asked Popper, who called his stance critical rationalism, about charges that he would not brook criticism of his ideas in his classroom. He replied indignantly that he welcomed students’ criticism; only if they persisted in arguing with him would he banish them from the classroom.

Of course we feel validated when others see the world as we do. But when it comes to the really Big Questions—Does God exist? What’s the purpose of life? What’s the best way for us to live together?–we should resist the compulsion to insist that we have The Answer. Especially since the best answer to these Big Questions is: I don’t know.

Garry Dobbins, a philosophical rabble-rouser who is my friend and colleague at Stevens, and I debated the question above on October 21 in front of a couple dozen students and a handful of faculty. I was raised Catholic but have been an agnostic since I was 12 or, except for brief periods of weakness. So I took the skeptical position, offering reasons why people don’t need God or associated ideas, like heaven. For those poor souls who couldn’t make the event, here are 10 reasons not to believe:

1. 9/11. Israel versus Palestine. Pakistan versus India. The US versus the Taliban Sri Lanka. Northern Ireland. The Crusades. The Inquisition. Jihads. I.e., religious wars. Too many people have killed and been killed in the name of God. Religion causes more conflict than it quells.

2. Childhood cancer. Tsunamis. Earthquakes. If God is all-powerful and loves us, why do bad things happen to totally innocent people? This is the problem of evil. No theology has ever answered this question adequately. The philosopher of religion Huston Smith calls the problem of evil “the shoal on which all theologies founder.”

3. Santa Claus. Grown-ups smile at childrens’ belief in Santa Claus, who tallies up our niceness and naughtiness and rewards us accordingly. But a just God who sends us to heaven or hell depending on how we behave is no more plausible than Santa Claus.

4. Religious morality is a contradiction in terms. The Bible’s commandment “Thou Shalt Not Kill” refers only to Israelites killing other Israelites. People outside of the tribe are fair game. In other words, there is one set of moral rules for members of your group and another set for outsiders. (My friend Susan Schept, who attended my debate with Garry, objects strongly to this interpretation, which I’ve borrowed from other scholars.)

5. “The scandal of particularity.” This is a theological term for the notion that God gives some people special treatment. He parts the Red Sea for Moses and his people and lets the Egyptians drown. The idea that God plays favorites, which fuels so much religious intolerance and bloodshed, is one of the worst ideas that humans have ever invented.

6. Heaven can wait. Forever. Heaven is a fantasy that our ancestors invented to console themselves because life was often so awful. Belief in an afterlife distracts from living as well as we can in this life. It also motivates religious fanatics to do really dumb things, like flying a jumbo jet into a skyscraper.

7. The Man in the Moon. Scientists have compiled evidence that our intuitions of God stem from our innate tendency toward anthropomorphism, toward imputing human attributes to non-human things. Just as we discern the man in the moon, so we see God in clouds, shrouds, and all of nature.

8. We don’t need God to be good! Some believers claim that without religion we’d descend into savagery. But natural selection has embedded capacities for kindness and fairness in all primates, including humans. These moral instincts–plus our reason, which helps us see the wisdom of the golden rule–are all we need to get along with each other.

9. Shakespeare beats the Bible. The arts can help us appreciate the mystery of existence without all the ideological baggage and mumbo jumbo that comes with religion. Read Hamlet rather than Genesis, go to a museum, not a church.

10. Save yourself! Just as heaven distracts us from making this life better, so does the notion of a savior or messiah who will supposedly save us. It’s time for us to grow up and accept responsibility for saving ourselves.