{"id":413,"date":"2008-12-03T07:30:33","date_gmt":"2008-12-03T15:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/secularright.org\/wordpress\/?p=413"},"modified":"2008-12-05T18:17:52","modified_gmt":"2008-12-06T02:17:52","slug":"mr-fesers-serious-arguments-for-religion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/mr-fesers-serious-arguments-for-religion\/","title":{"rendered":"Mr. Feser’s “serious arguments for religion”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed Feser continues to argue for the scientific and rational basis of religion:\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you really think that denying that religion is \u201cunscientific\u201d amounts to endorsing lame exercises in pop apologetics like the Templeton prayer experiment, then I\u2019m afraid you\u2019re simply proving my point. That you focus on such easy targets \u2014 here and in your other writings on this subject \u2014 seems to me pretty strong evidence that you know nothing about serious arguments for religion.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Readers of Secular Right still await Mr. Feser\u2019s proposal for a \u201cserious\u201d \u201cscientific\u201d test for religion.\u00a0\u00a0 We would like to know on what \u201cscientific\u201d basis he would have potential believers decide whether to attach themselves to Mormonism, say, rather than to Islam or to Christianity.\u00a0 He claims that only someone \u201csmugly unreflective and dogmatic\u201d would say that such decisions rest on \u201cblind faith.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

So let\u2019s move beyond \u201cblind faith.\u201d\u00a0 Unfortunately, the runic tablets read by Joseph Smith with his magic spectacles have been transported back up to heaven, so we are unable to subject them to the usual tests for historical authenticity.\u00a0 But we can at least investigate the claims of those golden tablets, such as that the United States was populated by the lost tribes of Israel.\u00a0 If an archeological investigation determines absolutely no basis for such a revelation, will Mr. Feser declare it a delusion if not a fraud?\u00a0 Or does he have in mind a different kind of science that is more appropriate to religious claims?\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Perhaps I am being crudely materialistic.\u00a0 I await any other objective, rational test that will allow me to distinguish between the truth claims of various religions, and that will be accepted by their adherents, who, according to Mr. Feser need nothing as crude as \u2018blind faith\u201d to attach themselves to this and not that religion.\u00a0<\/p>\n

What Mr. Feser calls \u201ceasy targets\u201d are simply the day-to-day claims made by the religious and by religious leaders.\u00a0 Somehow, it is viewed as impolite and \u201cignorant\u201d to ask that these claims meet the most elementary standards of plausibility.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Apologists like Mr. Feser want to turn our attention to Medieval metaphysics; I ask him to turn his attention to the actual practice of religion and defend its \u201crational basis.\u201d\u00a0 As I noted in my Beliefnet exchange <\/a>with Michael Novak, last year, Pope Benedict XVI canonized an 18th century friar, Antonio de Santa Ana Galvao, as Brazil\u2019s first saint.\u00a0 Nuns in Brazil dispense pills containing little scrolls with prayers to Fra. Galvao wrapped up inside.\u00a0 In canonizing Fra. Galvao, the Church declared that ingesting those pills had helped cure a young girl of kidney disease and had allowed a woman who had had a series of miscarriages to carry a child through the first two trimesters of pregnancy after doctors declared her incapable of doing so.\u00a0<\/p>\n

It would be great if Mr. Feser proposed a scientific test for the efficacy to the Fra. Galvao pills\u2014would he support a double-blind experiment regarding their usefulness in treating kidney disease?\u00a0 What is his theory for how they work?\u00a0 There is a product peddled on late-night TV called Kinoki Detox Foot Pads.\u00a0 These large Band-aid-like strips are applied to the soles of the feet at night to remove \u201ctoxins\u201d and cure arthritis, diabetes, cellulite, and insomnia.\u00a0 Mr. Feser is an educated man, so\u00a0 I assume he would share my confident rejection of such a claim.\u00a0 He might even share my distress that educated Westerners with all the benefits of scientific education would not ask by what imaginable biological theory could such a product work.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure therefore that he also would hope that educated Westerners ask the same questions of the claim that a piece of bone in a jeweled case, say, or a medal to a saint, has curative powers\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr. Feser asserts that \u201ctheism is true, indeed rationally unavoidable.\u201d\u00a0 Let\u2019s look at the \u201crational\u201d part.\u00a0 I am puzzled by the following logic:\u00a0
\nSituation A: A mine collapses and the miners are trapped in terrifying blackness and waning oxygen for five days.\u00a0 Rescue efforts prove successful, however.\u00a0 Their rescue shows God\u2019s love for humanity, that he cares for every one of us.\u00a0
\nSituation B:\u00a0 A mine collapses and the miners are trapped in terrifying blackness and waning oxygen for five days.\u00a0 Rescue efforts prove unsuccessful, and the miners die.\u00a0 Their death shows God\u2019s love for humanity, that he cares for every one of us.\u00a0
\nX (miners live) = proof of God\u2019s love (Y).
\nNot-X (miners don\u2019t live) = proof of God\u2019s love (Y).\u00a0 So X = not-X.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 There is no imaginable occurrence that a believer in God\u2019s loving personal attention to each individual will ever accept as inconsistent with that proposition.\u00a0 Saved from cancer, died from cancer, rescued from the tsunami, drowned in the tsunami, pulled out of the burning house, incinerated in the burning house, all mean the same thing: God loves us as a loving Father and exercises his omnipotence and omniscience on our behalf.\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0
\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 I am grateful that medical science and engineering do not rest on such a \u201crational basis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ed Feser continues to argue for the scientific and rational basis of religion:\u00a0 If you really think that denying that religion is \u201cunscientific\u201d amounts to endorsing lame exercises in pop apologetics like the Templeton prayer experiment, then I\u2019m afraid you\u2019re … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[67],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=413"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":573,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/413\/revisions\/573"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=413"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=413"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/secularright.org\/SR\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=413"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}