Craig Minns,

I would disagree that we are talking at cross purposes.

<<I have no stake or in trying to "prove" that the religious explanation is "correct", therefore asking me to do so is pointless and non-constructive.>>

I have no stake in asking you to prove that the religious explanation is correct. At no point have I requested this of you. Reminding you that it is not as useful or as rational as science, however, is necessary if you’re going to claim that what Dawkins et al. do is pointless, and that their approach is lazy. Because not only has religion's usefulness waned to a point of relative insignificance, but the attributes that used to serve ancient humans and their communities well have now largely become harmful to modern society. Creationism is a good example of this. The explanations that once used ease our anxieties of not knowing something have now become poison to people’s minds and a hindrance to progress when scientists have to waste their time combatting pseudoscience.

Dawkins et al. attack the irrationality of religious belief and highlight the damage it does, while defending science and reason. Whether or not religion and science used to address the same questions is a side issue; but if religion still attempts this, then that’s probably even a cause for concern.

<<All I am saying is that it is defensible as a response to some kinds of human experience, whether those types of experience are able to be explained some other way or not…>>

Understandable maybe, but whether or not it’s defensible has everything to do with whether or not certain experiences can be explained in other ways. If you disagree, then I would invite you to give an example of any situation in which ruling out the possibility of rational or naturalistic explanations for unexplainable phenomena or experiences is justifiable. And even if you could, you’d only be half way there. You’d still need to find evidence for the accepted explanation, otherwise you’re just committing the Argument from Ignorance fallacy.

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<<...just as the various "explanations" of quantum behaviour are to some extent defensible, despite none of them presuming to be comprehensive.>>

But the problem with religious explanations for phenomena is not that they’re not comprehensive, it’s that they have other more rational explanations that don’t have potentially harmful flow-on effects.

QM is still a natural phenomenon too, and there are no people fighting scientific research, spreading pseudoscientific nonsense, opposing the rights of women to have autonomy over their own bodies, influencing governments with powerful lobby groups or killing other people over QM. So your analogy has problems on two levels, thus demonstrating that your criticism of Dawkins et al. is misguided.

Your next paragraph strays even further from any relevance to the positions/motivations of Dawkins et al. I’m not sure what point the fact that some experiences can be interpreted in different ways, depending on the context of the observer, is trying to make. There are critical thinking tools that we can make use of in order to reduce the influence that contextual biases may have, and increase our chances of arriving at the most rational conclusion.

I agree, too, that Kekule's dream wouldn’t be any less interesting if it were assumed to be divinely inspired, but I’m not concerned (and neither are Dawkins et al., I dare say) about whether or not the assumption of a divine revelation makes something more or less interesting. I’m interested in whether or not it’s rationally justified.

As for you questions, I was a Christian because that’s the way I was brought up. I became devout because I thought I felt the love of Jesus in my life and that it was evident in everything; I wanted everyone else to experience that “love” and I feared for the souls of those who hadn’t “found God” (praise Jesus for alcoholism, eh?); I enjoyed the comforting feeling of a celestial father figure watching over me; and I was good at pushing uncomfortable realities about my beliefs to the side.

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I’m sure there were many other psychological reasons that I was never aware of. I was very involved with the church. I like kids so I started teaching Sunday School at 19 and later when on to being a Youth Group leader. I attended Bible study regularly too.

My de-conversion happened gradually over a few years. Slowly over time the inconsistencies, injustices and absurdities of my beliefs became harder and harder to ignore, and the excuses that I used to ignore them became less satisfying. One specific memory I have was when the curiosity of what “evolutionists” believed got the better of me. Suddenly my assumption that atheists believed that monkeys started giving birth to humans didn’t seem realistic anymore and so I had a look into what this evolution thing really was. I remember feeling annoyed when I realised found out how wrong I was. It felt like I had been lied to, and I was guilty too.

I tried to reconcile it with my beliefs for a short while there, but the fact that it effectively destroyed Christian theology (i.e. no Adam and Eve = no need for the resurrection) eventually ended in my church attendance dropping off. I continued to believe in God and pray from time to time for a short while there, until that dropped off too and I started referring to myself as an “agnostic” after a while. I then started to read the opinions of atheist authors because I was big on apologetics as a Christian and wanted to see what others had to say about the arguments that I had once used to defend my belief. I remember feeling really stupid when I saw just how easily the rationalisations that I had used my whole life were discredited (I’d heard some arguments in discussions with atheists before but never absorbed any of it). It was then that I finally accepted that I was an atheist and have had a keen interest in counter-apologetics ever since.

My apologies for the length of this response.

Constance,

When did I "....pendanticaly [sic] and wrongfully...." do what you complain of?

Ah's waitin'.

AJP, we are indeed talking at cross purposes, unfortunately.

Of course religious explanation is irrational, that is and should have been recognised by now as a given, however that does not invalidate its value, any more than the irrational nature of complex numbers invalidates their value (although algebraic geometry makes their use less necessary). The point is that if we take the a priori view that the explanation for a particular observation must be strictly rational, then we exclude the possibility of learning from those who have irrational explanations for observations that may nonetheless be informative.

More fundamentally, we establish a barrier between religious and non-religious people that is likely to cause human ill-will to no good purpose, which as a group species is about as irrational as it gets.

Thanks for the honest account of your own journey through the faith experience, it's one I've encountered before, including from a very close friend sadly no longer with us, who spent many years as a "counter-apologist" (nice term, BTW) and earnt considerable respect for his efforts from Christians. The site Theology Web took the trouble to send a representative to his funeral, which I thought was a very moving gesture.

It is easy to consider the religious explanation to be dishonest and I have no doubt that there are shonks and spivs who take advantage, but was Jesus himself dishonest? Mohammed? Even Joseph Smith? Or were they simply trying to explain things they had honestly observed in the only way they knew how? Are there things we, as rational people, might be able to learn from their experiences if we look at them with our own eyes and apply our own knowledge?

It's worth a shot, surely?

Jayb,

You addressed Poirot where it should have been me.

You have mixed up St Francis Xavier with St Francis of Assissi.