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[operating-neuron]

Philosophical approach to Atheism

General social survey, which is a sociological survey department created by national opinion research center at the University of Chicago. In their statistics claims that in the year 2000, 8 percent of the U.S. population identified themselves as atheists, which grew exponentially to 21 percent in the year 2014 and has gained momentum, since then. Atheism taking its roots, it’s time we ponder over atheistic approach to life. Simply put, it’s a lack of belief in the existence of God or any metaphysical or spiritual being for that matter. But what drives this “lack of belief”?  Which, I believe itself is a belief system. Atheist also call themselves rationalist, which in philosophy means a person who ‘regards reason as the chief source and test of knowledge’. Being rationalist, not all atheists deny the existence of a supreme power, some argue the lack of evidence, some call it a hypothesis and some claim that the theist belief stems from evolutionary adaptation for the belief in which God gives purpose to life. Philosophy however, being a study of knowledge, reality and existence has an unbiased take on both atheism and theism.

If theist have the challenge of proving the existence of all an powerful God, Atheists have the burden of solving the problem of abstract concepts that we know is present viz. wisdom, civility, intuition, morality… and many more, The disbelief gives rise to complexity in understanding of innumerable abstract concepts that is derived from the belief in a higher super natural power. Let’s take a look at how atheism explains morality, one of the abstract concepts, possibly the most crucial of all.

Is morality Intelligible?

    Morality is one of the factors that distinguish the Human race from rest of the animal kingdom. It determines our methodological approach to good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unfair, just or unjust… the list could go on. An intangible, indefinitive abstract idea that shapes our behavior, way of life and even the law of the land we live in. But what is morality and where does it come from? Well, for theist the answer is simple, a God given gift, something that makes Homo sapiens superior and for some simply the proof that God exists. Let’s talk about the atheistic philosophical approach to morality or/and if morality even exist in an atheistic world view. There are numerous approach to morality in the philosophical realm in a quest to understand or define morality, for instance, the 18th century utilitarian theory put forward by Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill which states that,

“A person ought to act so as to maximize pleasure and minimize pain.”

They stress on the idea that the moral grounds are determined by the outcome of the act. something is morally good if it increases pleasure or decreases pain and bad if it decreases pleasure or increases pain. Sounds like a valid point. But isn’t pleasure subjective, i.e., doesn’t it depend on personal experiences and preferences. If so, why is that something called core morality even exists? Why do we know for sure that killing or rape is definitely wrong? That knowledge stems from our core morality. Even if we, for the sake of argument nod our heads to the definition of morality proposed by atheistic world view and agree to the argument posed, that morality is a product of evolution over time derived by the acts of pleasure and pain, from a robbers perspective robbing is pleasurable does that make stealing morally sound? Or even a murder for that matter? It is inconceivable to accept or relate to the idea that morality or ethics are psychological evolutionary results like there are biological. As Rosenberg Alex, in his book ‘The atheist’s guide to reality’ states,

“Is natural selection so smart that it was able to filter out all the wrong, incorrect, false core moralities and end up with the only one that just happens to be true? Or is it the other way round, Natural selection filtered out all but one core morality, and winning the race is what made the last surviving core morality the right, correct, true one. Which is it? It can’t be either one. The only way out of the puzzle is nihilism.”

In layman language atheism cannot uphold morality, therefore moral nihilism i.e., nothing is morally right or wrong is the only position atheists can hold. Which I believe we all agree to that is not true, morality is very real and it does exist. Not only it exist but also shape the world around us and the denial or inability to even explain the existence of something as basic and influential as morality is what makes me wonder how our rationalist fellow humans reason with the existence of morality.

An argument for God.

An argument generally posed by atheists is the absence of scientific evidences for the existence of God. This particular argument reveals the lack of understanding of science or scientific analysis. Science is the study of observable physical or natural world through observation of structure, behavior and patterns to arrive at a conclusion. It is as ridiculous a question as to expect science to provide us an answer for the purpose of life. It is simply beyond the scope of science. And that is the reason for the existence of a field called philosophy, to deal with intangible concepts. As philosophers are reputed to deal with what science doesn’t, many philosophers have made an attempt to deal with or prove the existence of a uncreated, free willed, all powerful, Intelligent and transcendent being who we know as God. Anselm, a philosopher from Canterbury in 11th century gave an ontological (metaphysics, that deals with nature of being) argument to prove the existence of God. Thomas Aquinas also a theist, nearly 200 years later refuted Anselm’s theory with one of his own, as in philosophy you don’t just disagree; you disagree with an argument of your own. Aquinas presented a five pointer argument to prove the existence of God, which is as follows.

1)     Argument of motion

2)     Argument of causation

3)     Argument of contingency

4)     Argument of degree

5)     Teleological argument.                                                  

The first three arguments deals with cosmology and hence are called cosmological arguments. Aquinas in his argument of motion argues that, If you see a ball moving, subconsciously without giving a thought you know there is a mover, someone who set the ball in motion, which is well explained by the Newtonian law of motion, or we can say that an object in motion has set the ball in motion. But this leads to another mover who has set that object in motion and if we go on that would lead to an infinite regress i.e., a never ending chain of moving objects that has set the next object in motion unless we place a static or stationary mover in the chain of movers. But why are we talking about the movers? Universe as we know is filled with massive moving objects and hence needs a stationary mover, one who has set things in motion. Similarly, in his second argument the argument of causation, he talks about the causes of things that exists around you, everything present has a cause, every effect necessitates a cause, if something ‘caused’ has caused a cause, then, that something requires a cause and that again would lead to an infinite regress (Read that again but slowly). And this chain of causes would again require a being that is uncaused. Who, has begun the process of causation.

Every being in philosophy has been segregated into two categories ‘necessary being’ and ‘contingent being’. Contingent, in other words those whose existence won’t affect the reality as we know it, you and me my friend are contingent. Aquinas in his third argument which is really dramatically similar to the first two arguments in its aim at avoiding  infinite regress, states that every contingent being has been caused by another being, and if that being is contingent too, guess what? Infinite regress!!!  And to avoid that a necessary being is needed to cause all the contingent beings. Okay! But why is infinite regress such a problem? Well let’s take a practical example of infinite regress, if you ask me for a rupee, and me not having a rupee, asks a friend for the same, and that friend asks another one and the chain goes on, the rupee would practically never reach you, would it?, For the rupee to reach you someone initially has to have the rupee. For the rupee to reach you, have to avoid the infinite regress. Similarly, for the stars and the planet to be in motion, for you to be caused, we have to avoid the infinite regress or nothing would exist, the same way how the rupee would never reach you.

What is happiness without experiencing sorrow? What is relief without pain?  Or good in the absence of bad?  The argument of degree argues the existence of degrees for properties and states

“Properties comes in degrees,

In order for there to be degree of perfection, there must be

Something perfect against which everything else is measure.

God is the pinnacle of perfection.”

How do we know that an ‘F’ grade is bad? Because we compare it to ‘A’ i.e., something perfect and hence understand the degree of value of the remaining grades. How do we know that a person is good? We compare one’s properties to the perfect being. The last and the most popular of all of Aquinas’s argument the Teleological argument, teleology being the explanation based on an objects purpose of existence. What would come to your mind when you see a smart phone? An intelligently designed object made by its creator keeping its purpose in mind. Now take a look at the human body, every body part in a perfect ratio, 15 trillion cells, 3 billion nucleotide pairs to form one human genome, makes up 79 organs that work together in coordination with the brain and the heart to keep you alive from the day you are born to the day you die. As Stephen J Gould an evolutionary biologist states “Reply the tape a million times… and I doubt that anything like Homo sapiens would ever evolve again.” The human body is a biological and a chemical marvel. This is intelligent design. The same way none of us would assume that the smart phone came into existence without a purpose because of its intelligent design, Aquinas argues the intelligent design of human body or of the universe for that matter can’t simply be purpose less.

Yes, my article is biased towards the existence of God, that’s because the reality is biased towards the existence of God. What’s your take on the arguments… and remember in philosophy you don’t just disagree; you disagree with an argument of your own.