But what’s the relevant expert population, here? Suppose it’s “academics who specialize in the arguments and evidence concerning whether a god or gods exist.” If so, then the expert population is probably dominated by academic theologians and religious philosophers, and my atheism is a contrarian view.
Have you actually checked whether most theologians and philosophers of religion believe in God? Have you picked out which God they believe in?
A priori, academics usually believe in God less than the general population.
Here are the results of a survey of philosophers of religion specifically. It has lots of interesting data, among them:
Most philosophers of religion are committed Christians.
The most common reasons given for specializing in philosophy of religion presupposed a previous belief in religion. (E.g. “Faith seeking understanding”; “Find arguments in order to witness”, etc.)
Most belief revisions due to studying philosophy of religion were in the direction of greater atheism rather than the opposite. However, this seems to be explained by a combination of two separated facts: most philosophers of religion begin as theists as mentioned above, and most (from both sides) become less dogmatic and more appreciative of arguments for the opposing view with time.
I will admit to not being all that familiar with contemporary arguments in the philosophy of religion. However, there are other areas of philosophy with which I am quite familiar, and where I regard the debates as basically settled. According to the PhilPapers survey, pluralities of philosophers of religion line up on the wrong side of those debates. For example, philosophers of religion are much more likely (than philosophers in general) to believe in libertarian free will, non-physicalism about the mind, and the A-theory of time (a position that has, for all intents and purposes, been refuted by the theory of relativity). These are not, by the way, issues that are incidental to a philosopher of religion’s area of expertise. I imagine views about the mind, the will and time are integral to most intellectual theistic frameworks.
The fact that these philosophers get things so wrong on these issues considerably reduces my credence that I will find their arguments for God convincing. And this is not just a facile “They’re wrong about these things, so they’re probably wrong about that other thing too” kind of argument. Their views on those issues are indicative of a general philosophical approach --, one that takes our common-sense conceptual scheme and our pre-theoretic intuitions as much stronger evidence than I think they actually are, and correspondingly takes the deliverances of our best scientific theories much less seriously than I do. I very strongly suspect that their arguments for theism will fit this pattern (reliance on a priori “common-sense” principles like the Principle of Sufficient Reason, for example).
I am familiar with the kinds of arguments made by people who adopt this philosophical outlook—not in the case of theism specificially, but in other domains of philosophy—and I don’t find them all that compelling. In fact, I think they represent much of what is pathological about contemporary philosophy. So I think there is sound evidence that philosophers of religion tend to practice a mode of philosophy which, although quite sophisticated and intellectually challenging, is not particularly truth-conducive.
Their views on those issues are indicative of a general philosophical approach --, one that takes our common-sense conceptual scheme and our pre-theoretic intuitions as much stronger evidence than I think they actually are, and correspondingly takes the deliverances of our best scientific theories much less seriously than I do. I very strongly suspect that their arguments for theism will fit this pattern (reliance on a priori “common-sense” principles like the Principle of Sufficient Reason, for example).
So you’re saying they practice non-naturalized philosophy? Are you sure these are philosophers of religion we’re dealing with and not AIXI instances incentivized by professorships?
Very good diagnosis. While I don’t recall where the philosophers of religion came out in this area on the survey, some of the popular arguments for the existence of God seem to rely on a very strong version of mathematical Platonism, a believe that there is a one true logic/mathematics and that strong conclusions about the world can be drawn by the proper employment of that logic (the use of PSR that you mention is a common, but not the only, example of this). Since I reject that kind of One True Logic (I’m a Carnapian, “in logic there are no morals!” guy), I tend to think that any logical proof of the existence of God (or anything else) serves only to establish that you are using a logic which has a built in “God exists” (or whatever) assumption. For example, the simple modal ontological argument which says God possibly exists, God is a necessary being, so by a few simple steps in S5, God exists; if you’re using S5, then once you’ve made one of the assumptions about God, making the other one just amounts to assuming God exists, and so in effect committing yourself to reasoning only about God worlds. Such a logic may have its uses, but it is incapable of reasoning about the possibility that God might or might not exist; for such purposes a neutral logic would be required.
I read some of the discussion on philosophy of religion blogs after the survey came out. One of the noteworthy results of the survey was that philosophers who don’t specialize in philosophy of religion were about 3⁄4 atheists. One or two of the philosophy of religion bloggers claimed that their non-specialist colleagues weren’t familiar with some of the recent literature presenting new arguments for the existence of God. As a philosopher who doesn’t specialize in philosophy of religion, I thought they underestimated how familiar people like me are with the arguments concerning theism. However, I admit for people like me it comes up especially in history, so I followed up on that and looked at some of the recommended recent papers. I was unable to find anything that looked at all compelling, or really even new, but perhaps I didn’t try hard enough.
So, sum total, you’re saying that philosophers of religion believe because they engage in special pleading to get separate epistemic standards for God?
(Please note that my actual current position is strong agnosticism: “God may exist, but if so, He’s plainly hiding, and no God worthy of the name would be incapable of hiding from me, so I cannot know if such a God exists or not.”)
Well, I didn’t want to go into detail, because I don’t remember all the details and didn’t feel like wasting time going and looking it up again, but yes, essentially. The usual form is “if you make these seemingly reasonable assumptions, you get to God, so God!”, and usually the assumptions actually didn’t look that reasonable to me to begin with, and of course an alternative response to the arguments is always that they provide evidence that the assumptions are much more powerful than they seem and so need much closer examination.
I’ve got a variant of that. “Assuming God exists, He seems to be going to some trouble to hide. Either He doesn’t want to be found, in which case the polite thing is to respect that, or He’s doing some screwy reverse-psychology thing, in which case I have better things to do with my time than engage an omnipotent troll.”
Has someone asked them why? Perhaps we should be theists.
Yes, they say something like this, this, or this. Whether that is their True Reason for Believing...well, I don’t think so in most cases, but that is just my intuition.
BTW, I’m also a theist (some might say on a technicality) for the fairly boring and straightforward reason that I affirm Bostrom’s trilemma and deny its first two disjuncts along with accepting having created our universe as a sufficient (but not necessary) condition for godhood.
You are correct and I deny that consciousness is unsimulable. The addition of this disjunct does reduce my subjective probability of simulation-theism, but not by much.
Interestingly, unsimulable consciousness would increase the probability of other, more common, types of theism. Don’t you think?
BTW, I’m also a theist (some might say on a technicality) for the fairly boring and straightforward reason that I affirm Bostrom’s trilemma and deny its first two disjuncts along with accepting having created our universe as a sufficient (but not necessary) condition for godhood.
So you believe there exists a Matrix Lord? Basically, computational Deism?
I would believe that their self-reported answer is at least partially the real reason. I would also want to know about any mitigating factors, of course, but saying something about the reasons for their beliefs implies some evidence.
Have you actually checked whether most theologians and philosophers of religion believe in God? Have you picked out which God they believe in?
A priori, academics usually believe in God less than the general population.
Here are the results of a survey of philosophers of religion specifically. It has lots of interesting data, among them:
Most philosophers of religion are committed Christians.
The most common reasons given for specializing in philosophy of religion presupposed a previous belief in religion. (E.g. “Faith seeking understanding”; “Find arguments in order to witness”, etc.)
Most belief revisions due to studying philosophy of religion were in the direction of greater atheism rather than the opposite. However, this seems to be explained by a combination of two separated facts: most philosophers of religion begin as theists as mentioned above, and most (from both sides) become less dogmatic and more appreciative of arguments for the opposing view with time.
According to the PhilPapers survey, around 70% of philosophers of religion are theists.
Has someone asked them why? Perhaps we should be theists.
I will admit to not being all that familiar with contemporary arguments in the philosophy of religion. However, there are other areas of philosophy with which I am quite familiar, and where I regard the debates as basically settled. According to the PhilPapers survey, pluralities of philosophers of religion line up on the wrong side of those debates. For example, philosophers of religion are much more likely (than philosophers in general) to believe in libertarian free will, non-physicalism about the mind, and the A-theory of time (a position that has, for all intents and purposes, been refuted by the theory of relativity). These are not, by the way, issues that are incidental to a philosopher of religion’s area of expertise. I imagine views about the mind, the will and time are integral to most intellectual theistic frameworks.
The fact that these philosophers get things so wrong on these issues considerably reduces my credence that I will find their arguments for God convincing. And this is not just a facile “They’re wrong about these things, so they’re probably wrong about that other thing too” kind of argument. Their views on those issues are indicative of a general philosophical approach --, one that takes our common-sense conceptual scheme and our pre-theoretic intuitions as much stronger evidence than I think they actually are, and correspondingly takes the deliverances of our best scientific theories much less seriously than I do. I very strongly suspect that their arguments for theism will fit this pattern (reliance on a priori “common-sense” principles like the Principle of Sufficient Reason, for example).
I am familiar with the kinds of arguments made by people who adopt this philosophical outlook—not in the case of theism specificially, but in other domains of philosophy—and I don’t find them all that compelling. In fact, I think they represent much of what is pathological about contemporary philosophy. So I think there is sound evidence that philosophers of religion tend to practice a mode of philosophy which, although quite sophisticated and intellectually challenging, is not particularly truth-conducive.
So you’re saying they practice non-naturalized philosophy? Are you sure these are philosophers of religion we’re dealing with and not AIXI instances incentivized by professorships?
Very good diagnosis. While I don’t recall where the philosophers of religion came out in this area on the survey, some of the popular arguments for the existence of God seem to rely on a very strong version of mathematical Platonism, a believe that there is a one true logic/mathematics and that strong conclusions about the world can be drawn by the proper employment of that logic (the use of PSR that you mention is a common, but not the only, example of this). Since I reject that kind of One True Logic (I’m a Carnapian, “in logic there are no morals!” guy), I tend to think that any logical proof of the existence of God (or anything else) serves only to establish that you are using a logic which has a built in “God exists” (or whatever) assumption. For example, the simple modal ontological argument which says God possibly exists, God is a necessary being, so by a few simple steps in S5, God exists; if you’re using S5, then once you’ve made one of the assumptions about God, making the other one just amounts to assuming God exists, and so in effect committing yourself to reasoning only about God worlds. Such a logic may have its uses, but it is incapable of reasoning about the possibility that God might or might not exist; for such purposes a neutral logic would be required.
I read some of the discussion on philosophy of religion blogs after the survey came out. One of the noteworthy results of the survey was that philosophers who don’t specialize in philosophy of religion were about 3⁄4 atheists. One or two of the philosophy of religion bloggers claimed that their non-specialist colleagues weren’t familiar with some of the recent literature presenting new arguments for the existence of God. As a philosopher who doesn’t specialize in philosophy of religion, I thought they underestimated how familiar people like me are with the arguments concerning theism. However, I admit for people like me it comes up especially in history, so I followed up on that and looked at some of the recommended recent papers. I was unable to find anything that looked at all compelling, or really even new, but perhaps I didn’t try hard enough.
So, sum total, you’re saying that philosophers of religion believe because they engage in special pleading to get separate epistemic standards for God?
(Please note that my actual current position is strong agnosticism: “God may exist, but if so, He’s plainly hiding, and no God worthy of the name would be incapable of hiding from me, so I cannot know if such a God exists or not.”)
Well, I didn’t want to go into detail, because I don’t remember all the details and didn’t feel like wasting time going and looking it up again, but yes, essentially. The usual form is “if you make these seemingly reasonable assumptions, you get to God, so God!”, and usually the assumptions actually didn’t look that reasonable to me to begin with, and of course an alternative response to the arguments is always that they provide evidence that the assumptions are much more powerful than they seem and so need much closer examination.
I’ve got a variant of that. “Assuming God exists, He seems to be going to some trouble to hide. Either He doesn’t want to be found, in which case the polite thing is to respect that, or He’s doing some screwy reverse-psychology thing, in which case I have better things to do with my time than engage an omnipotent troll.”
Yes, they say something like this, this, or this. Whether that is their True Reason for Believing...well, I don’t think so in most cases, but that is just my intuition.
BTW, I’m also a theist (some might say on a technicality) for the fairly boring and straightforward reason that I affirm Bostrom’s trilemma and deny its first two disjuncts along with accepting having created our universe as a sufficient (but not necessary) condition for godhood.
The trilemma should be a tetralemma: you also need to deny that consciousness, qualia and all, is unsimulable.
You are correct and I deny that consciousness is unsimulable. The addition of this disjunct does reduce my subjective probability of simulation-theism, but not by much.
Interestingly, unsimulable consciousness would increase the probability of other, more common, types of theism. Don’t you think?
So you believe there exists a Matrix Lord? Basically, computational Deism?
Would you believe their self-reported answer to be the actual reason?
I would believe that their self-reported answer is at least partially the real reason. I would also want to know about any mitigating factors, of course, but saying something about the reasons for their beliefs implies some evidence.