Jamie asked:

I watch a lot of online debates and discussions with Atheists and theists I watched many with the late Christopher Hitchens who was one of the first people to interest me in the subject. In the opening of one of his debates he made the point that if we knew at the infancy of of species what we know now religion would never have had the chance to really take off. He said that we have much better explanations to our questions now and religion even though it may have benefited us in the past has been made redundant. He said that the chances of any religion being true was in the highest degree improbable but how does one measure those odds? Is it because there are many other different religions and Christianity is only one of them or is it because the actual concept of a god is unlikely? What is the method or tool he used to determine the probability? Thank you.

Answer by Jürgen Lawrenz

Writers of this ilk are a tiresome lot; and when one considers the brain power they claim to possess, one wonders why they leave them at home so often.

So Hitchens posits an “infancy of the species”? Which year was that? Two million BC? But maybe 1935 when Albert Einstein told Niels Bohr that God doesn’t play dice — presumably from his lack of advance on hominid belief systems? Moreover it seems to me that old and new religions are still infecting highly educated and knowledgable people in every corner of the globe, and it would be presumptuous in the highest degree to call them primitive or stupid.

As for the concept of god(s) being unlikely, Tertullian knew it 2000 years ago and said, it is precisely because of its absurdity that faith is such a powerful magnet on our intellects. Kant 200 years ago proved with cast-iron logic that we humans don’t command the intellectual wherewithal to nail down an argument for or against god(s). Therefore neither faith nor atheism are genuinely philosophical positions; the only choice a disbeliever can adopt with a clean conscience is agnosticism, namely the intellectual honesty to say “I don’t believe in god(s) because I cannot reconcile this idea with my conception of the constitution of the world.” Which could then be reinforced with the only two factual arguments at our disposal, namely (a) that all gods are anthropomorphisms and (b) that all documentations of human commerce with divine beings are products of a human mind — with all the ramifications such claims might entail.

After such thoughts, what’s left of Hitchens and likeminded confreres? Methods and tools? Well, what are they if not discrediting without evidence? Or sleight of hand with unproved presuppositions? Sorry, buster, but on questions like these, one has to do better than bluster!

Jamie asked:

I watch a lot of online debates and discussions with Atheists and theists I watched many with the late Christopher Hitchens who was one of the first people to interest me in the subject. In the opening of one of his debates he made the point that if we knew at the infancy of of species what we know now religion would never have had the chance to really take off.

He said that we have much better explanations to our questions now and religion even though it may have benefited us in the past has been made redundant. He said that the chances of any religion being true was in the highest degree improbable but how does one measure those odds? Is it because there are many other different religions and Christianity is only one of them or is it because the actual concept of a god is unlikely? What is the method or tool he used to determine the probability? Thank you.

Answer by Peter Jones

Christopher Hitchens knows very little about religion. I would advise you to read people who know more. It a strange world we live in where such an ill-informed person is considered to have a worthwhile opinion.

His comment about the ‘infancy of our species’ is blatantly idiotic. Philosophers should not get personal but when a person is guilty of poor scholarship and sloppy thinking on the scale of Hitchens there seems no other choice. If you look around you’ll see that thanks to the internet the human race is beginning to realise the true meaning of religion and any interested layman can quickly exceed Hitchens’ level of expertise.

Do you see today’s scientists and philosophers sitting around  patting themselves on the back for having disposed of religion? Of course not. Hitchens seems to equate religion with some sort of naive monotheism so of course it looks daft to him. It’s his idea of religion that is daft, not religion. This will become obvious to you if you continue to study the subject.

The atheistic academic establishment does not have better explanations for metaphysical problems than it had two thousand years ago. Sure, we’ve learned some science, but all the important problems fall outside of the natural sciences. This hardly needs saying.

He said that the chances of any religion being true was in the highest degree improbable but how does one measure those odds?

I see no purpose in measuring the odds. The fact that Hitchens mentions the chance of a religion being true tells us that he cannot prove it is not. We need not measure the odds, we need to establish truth of falsity or at least logical consistency and coherence.

Is it because there are many other different religions and Christianity is only one of them or is it because the actual concept of a god is unlikely?

The multiplicity of religions is often used as an argument against the truth of any one of them, and on the surface it’s a powerful argument. However, it only works if we take a superficial view. There is a profound interpretation by which all significant religious traditions arise from the same underlying truth. I would recommend Frithjoff Schuon’s wonderful book The Transcendent Unity of Religion, or perhaps Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy. These two authors actually know something about religion.

The concept of a God is not necessary to religion. This is the catastrophic flaw in many arguments against religion, that they argue against some naive anthropomorhpic idea of God. The best arguments against such naive ideas are found in religion. Meister Eckhart would dismiss Hitchens’ writings as meaningless prattle.

It is very easy to interpret the teachings of Jesus as endorsing the ‘non-dual’ view shared by all traditions within the Perennial philosophy. If you visit the home page for the publishers of the Christian book A Course in Miracles and read the explanation and summary you’ll  notice that this is an explicitly ‘non-dual’ presentation and explanation of the teachings by which ‘God’ is nothing at all like the straw-man Hitchens’ and most atheists argue against. This is the sort of literature Hitchens seems never to have read despite the vast quantity of it. Opponents of religion rarely take the trouble to read the literature and mostly tend to argue against the Sunday-school ideas they grew up with and never allowed to evolve.  Sometimes it seems like they’re arguing against the theory that babies grow under gooseberry bushes.

What is the method or tool he used to determine the probability? Thank you.

He appears to have no method or tools.  To a large extent logic can establish the plausibility of a theory, and generally where a theory causes contradictions we reject it. But logic cannot establish the truth of a theory of Reality unless we know Reality obeys the rules, and to speak of its probability is probably meaningless. In this context probability would be just a measure of our ignorance for a religious doctrine must be true or false.

This answer is something of a rant, admittedly, but it agitates me to think anyone would consider Hitchens worth reading on religion. He has no more understanding of metaphysics than Carnap, Russell, Rand or Dennett. He is baffled and waiving his arms around. You should note his poor scholarship, lack of metaphysical understanding and temperamental approach and be very suspicious.

If you’re asking this question as a wavering Christian I’d recommend the writings of Paul Ferrini for the simplicity of his approach, with A Course in Miracles as the post-grad version of the same message.  If you do some research and are averagely intelligent you’ll soon know a lot more about this topic than Hitchens.

Carla asks:

To what extent does Descartes dream argument threaten our knowledge of the external world?

Answer by Martin Jenkins

In the first Meditation of his Meditations on the First Philosophy, (1641), Descartes is seeking for a secure, indubitable foundation on which to base human knowledge. He begins by exploring what he perceives by means of his senses.

The senses have been and are deceptive so cannot be afforded uncritical accuracy. Yet surely they cannot be excluded from providing perception tout court? Descartes writes that he is aware of him sitting by a fire, attired in a dressing gown with a paper in his hand. To doubt the truth of this would be an act of madness — on a par with people who suffer from delusions and hallucinations.

Yet when sleeping, Descartes remarks that he dreams of equally improbable things — such as being seated by the fire ‘whilst all the time I was lying undressed in bed!’. So, he concludes that there are no certain marks distinguishing waking from sleeping. Surely the images experienced in dreams are copies and compositions of perceptions experienced when awake as they do display a certain regularity. More, such copies and compositions are based on the corporeal nature of objects in the world experienced when awake. Objects of a corporeal nature display extension, shape, quantity and magnitude and endure through time and in space. Disciplines which deal with such objects such as arithmetic, geometry employ content that is ‘certain and indubitable’.

“For whether I am awake or dreaming, 2 and 3 are 5, a square has no more than four sides; and it does not seem possible that truths so evident can ever be suspected of falsity.”

So there are certain truths which, whether sleeping or awake, are beyond doubt. These deal with a real, independently existing world that continues to exist when we are sleeping. Objects are real and sleeping with dreams is precisely that. Unfortunately, such ‘a priori’ truths can be doubted as, contends Descartes towards the end of Meditation One, a malevolent demon can be deceiving him into thinking they are correct.

The ‘Dream Argument’ begins Descartes dialectic of questioning what can be construed as providing Truth and certainty. In itself, I don’t think it threatens our knowledge of an external world. Firstly, the distinction between dreaming and not dreaming is employed which betrays an already existing epistemological understanding between the two. This distinction is pace G.E. Moore, part of our everyday, natural living. Secondly, the distinction between dreaming and waking can be upheld on the grounds that regularity and order are experienced when awake; whereas dreaming is qualitatively different. Thirdly, the questions can only be asked by means of Language. Language is arguably socially acquired and used. This presupposes the existence of other human beings existing in a social world. So the very use of language refutes the sceptical doubts Descartes is pondering.

Jamie asks:

I watch a lot of online debates and discussions with atheists and theists. I watched many with the late Christopher Hitchens who was one of the first people to interest me in the subject. In the opening of one of his debates he made the point that if we knew at the infancy of the species what we know now religion would never have had the chance to really take off. He said that we have much better explanations to our questions now and religion even though it may have benefited us in the past has been made redundant. He said that the chances of any religion being true was in the highest degree improbable but how does one measure these odds? Is it because there are many other different religions and Christianity is only one of them or is it because the actual concept of a god is unlikely? What is the method or tool he used to determine the probability? Thank you.

Answer by Craig Skinner

The view of Dawkins, Hitchens and other “new atheists” that religion is irrational and based only on ignorance and superstition, and will fade away in the bright light of modern scientific understanding, is tedious and misleading. Plenty of well-educated and science-savvy people are religious. The two components of religion are the religious impulse and religious practice. The first is a feeling that there is something purposeful behind the world of everyday appearance augmented by scientific understanding. The second, religious practice, is communal activity based on shared beliefs about the source and nature of that purpose for us. None of the religious people I know relies on the flawed cosmological, ontological, design and moral “arguments” for god’s existence (many havent even heard of them). Rather, for them, belief in god is a basic belief around which other beliefs are fitted. Just as for atheists, disbelief is basic and other beliefs fit around that. In neither case is the basic belief irrational. And deciding the matter is not like deciding whether, say, string theory is an advance on QM/GTR. Belief in god is not another scientific conjecture about the natural world (the “God hypothesis”), so using evidence about this world plus, say, Bayesian analysis, to estimate the probability of god’s existence, is misplaced. And likening belief in god to silly beliefs, in fairies say, doesnt help either. All we can say is that if god exists his existence is necessary, and if god doesnt exist his existence is impossible. But we dont know which it is. And that doesnt mean it’s a 50/50 shot, or that it’s highly improbable one way or the other. We just dont know full stop.

Of course, in our attempts to grasp the nature of what is behind the scenes (if anything), all kinds of fanciful notions arise, and since some conflict with others, they cant all be true. But this doesnt mean it’s all nonsense or irrational superstition. Theism (and Deism) are just as respectable as atheism.

For the record, I’m an agnostic, and against denouncing or killing each other, or forcing our views on others, over something nobody can be sure about.

Finally, for a less militant and less shallow atheist view than that of Dawkins, Hitchens, Dennett and Harris, try Tim Crane’s The Meaning of Belief, Harvard University Press (2017).

George asks:

What is meant by “being gone through” in Aristotle’s Physics Book 3, Chapter 4 (204a): What is incapable of being gone through, because it is not in its nature… Examined? Analysed?

Answer by Craig Skinner

Here “gone through” is meant literally, not metaphorically as in perused, examined, analysed. So a better translation is “What is incapable of being traversed, because it is not the kind of thing that can be traversed.” Here he speaks of infinite physical magnitude — we can set out to traverse it but the journey never ends.

The main Aristotelian view on infinity which is still relevant is that an actual infinity cant exist, only a potential one.

We can apply this both to the infinitely large and to the infinitely small.

Thus, the natural numbers are a potential infinity. No matter how many we list, there is always a next one. But we cant collect all of them at once as an actual infinity (we can of course deal with the notion of different sizes of infinity and give them symbols, as Cantor does).

As regards the infinitely small, consider division of a finite line. We can divide it in two, divide each of the halves, then each of the 4 pieces, and so on as long as we like but we never reach an end because each line segment, however small, can always be further divided. So a line is potentially infinitely divisible, but not actually. It contains an infinity of potential points. If we divide it, say, exactly in the middle, we create one actual point. We can divide it anywhere, creating as many actual points as we want, but cant divide it everywhere to produce an actual infinity of points. So the potential here cant be completely fulfilled (as in an acorn’s potential to be an oak tree) only fulfilled as completely as possible in the process of division ad infinitum.

All this is relevant to the modern view of the continuum, that a line consists of an uncountable infinity of points. But it cant: a point has no size, and no matter how many we lay down, infinite number or otherwise, the totality has no length. So, whilst a line can contain an infinity of points, it cant consist of an infinity of points. I wont go into attempts to resolve this with the notion of infinitesimals, discredited in the 18th century but respectable again these days).

This is only one of very many ways in which Aristotle’s views are highly relevant today.

Robin asked:

Hi, before asking my question, I just wanted to say that I’m 17 years old and this question just came into my mind.So excuse me if it sounds somewhat strange.

A few days ago, I read an article that proposed that separation is an illusion. I personally think this thesis can be expressed in multiple ways. For instance, scientifically speaking everything is made of stardust. Therefore, everything in the universe is actually one and the same. Even though we do not perceive it this way. Another way this thesis can be read, is on a more ‘down to earth’ way: pretty much all humans live with the idea of separation. People from Africa for instance, feel more connected and can identify themselves more with other Africans, than with let’s say Asians. Even though, we are all humans and share the same ancestors. But (most) humans see themselves as separate from each other instead of one with each other.

Thinking about this, I thought ‘If more people would be aware of this, this would put an end to racism, sexism etc.’ However, would it really? Would it really change anything? Is this statement convincing enough to stop all of these problems?

Answer by Peter Jones

The idea that separation is illusory is not about connectivity. If two things are not separated then they are not two things and cannot be connected.

The idea is deeper. It is the claim that the Universe is a Unity such that there are not two things. In Indian religion the word advaita (not-two) is used to refer to this view. If you search for this word you’ll be overwhelmed with information. This idea of the Unity of All is basic to the Perennial philosophy or ‘mysticism’ and the literature is vast.  A doctrine of Unity is ‘non-dual’.

The idea is not that we are all made out of stardust since even two specks of stardust are separate phenomena.  They would be two instances of separate phenomena.

The idea would be that we are not made out of anything but are living in something like a dream, a creation of Mind, a little like Neo in the Matrix. Extension in space and time would be a self-deception and metaphysically-speaking all points in space and time would be the same point. You are always here and the time is always now.

A short explanation is not possible but there are many non-duality teachers on YouTube and more books than you could ever read.

You’re right about Unity putting an end to racism, prejudice and so forth. But this is not the case where non-separation is only a theory.  If it is an experienced reality, as it is for the realised meditator or mystic, then no fundamental separation is experienced and none of the negative results of feelings of separation occur. To get to grips with this idea as a theory you’d need to study Buddhism, Taoism, Sufism, Advaita and so forth. To really get to grips with it you’d have to follow the advice of the Oracle at Delphi and ‘Know Thyself’.

It’s a big topic but well worth pursuing. Good luck.