Sunday, December 7, 2008

Russell's teapot -- not grandiose enough?

I visited the Maverick Philosopher, who also responds to comments under the name Bill Vallicella, about a week ago, as I like to do from time to time. He had the most interesting post on Russell's teapot and why he felt it was not a persuasive example, which seems to be a reprint of an earlier post.

Let's start things off with his quote of Russell:
Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time.


Vallicella first acknowledges the obvious points that just because there is no evidence A does not exist, we can not conclude A exists. However, he then seems to go into a third point that strikes me as not only being irrelevant to Russell's main point, but also completely avoids Russell's actual third point: belief in God, or the magic teapot, is not sustained based upon the evidence, but upon the inherited traditions and the tremendous amount of social pressure to be a believer. The number of believers who come to believe in God because of arguments like the Cosmological argument is very small, indeed. However, instead of addressing this point of Russell, Vallicella takes a turn which seems to take the analogy and discard it because Russell's teapot doesn't have a history of belief.

But the real appeal to atheists and agnostics of the Teapot passage rests on a third move Russell makes. He is clearly suggesting that belief in God (i.e., belief that God exists) is epistemically on a par with believing in a celestial teapot. Just as we have no reason to believe in celestial teapots, irate lunar unicorns (lunicorns?), flying spaghetti monsters, and the like, we have no reason to believe in God.

Sticking with Russell's teapot for the moment, why don't we have any reason to believe it exists? I'm drinking tea right now, and typically drink 2-4 quarts of iced tea each day. On the days where I don't drink it, I get headaches. I can certainly interpret that as a the divine retribution of Russell's teapot to my failure to offer an appropriate worship for the day.

But perhaps we should distinguish between a strong and a weak reading of Russell's suggestion:


S. Just as we cannot have any reason to believe that an empirically undetectable celestial teapot exists, we cannot have any reason to believe that God exists.


W. Just as we do not have any reason to believe that a celestial teapot exists, we do not have any reason to believe that God exists.


Vallicella does not provide a reason for making this distinction. It's just as well, because (S) is not a valid interpretation of Russell's proposition. Unlike the teapot, any putative omnipotent God certainly could offer us any manner of reasons to accept Their existence, of essentially any possible level of reliability. Of course, that such proof has not been offered is not proof of Their non-existence, but that is very different from saying we can not have proof.

Now it seems to me that both (S) and (W) are plainly false: we have all sorts of reasons for believing that God exists. Here Alvin Plantinga sketches about two dozen theistic arguments. Atheists will not find them compelling, of course, but that is irrelevant. The issue is whether a reasoned case can be made for theism, and the answer is in the affirmative. Belief in God and in Russell's teapot are therefore not on a par since there are no empirical or theoretical reasons for believing in his teapot.

This is an interesting standard of evidence: it doesn't matter if the arguments are compelling or not, they just have to exist and be made into a reasoned case. It occurs to me that this is not a difficult thing to accomplish for the Russell's teapot (the Teapot); I can make a reasoned case, that almost no one will find compelling, for it's existence. First is the evidence I have already presented, which we might call the Argument from Compulsion: when I stop performing acts of worship to the Teapot, I have physical symptoms. Then there is the Argument from Dominant Language: of all the Western European countries, it is England whose language has become the commercial language of the world, because they are known for drinking tea, and the Teapot has rewarded them for it. I will end this list with the Argument from Antioxidants: the Teapot wishes to encourage our worship, and so has made our worship healthy for us.

Another suggestion embedded in the Russell passage is the notion that if God existed, he would be just another physical thing in the physical universe. But of course this has nothing to do with anything maintained by any sophisticated theist. God is a purely spiritual being.

Here in the USA, for most theists, their putative God at one time or another had a very physical incarnation, and many of them believe He still has that incarnation. Now, if you are a Jehovah's Witness (JW), or some other sect who believes that Jesus was not God, then you might accept a purely spiritual God (as the JWs do). If Vallicella belonged to such a belief system, I do not believe he would enjoy the positive reputation he has among a variety of Trinitarian bloggers, so I will venture that he does accept some sort of physical part of God at some point in God's existence,and so does not himself believe God is purely spiritual.

Also, there is nothing in Russell's logic or analogy that relies on the Teapot being a physical thing. The analogy works perfectly well with objects that have no physical instantiation, like the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM). I am curious how Vallicella can specifically note the FSM earlier in his post, and yet forget here that the FSM meets his criteria here for being a purely spiritual being.

Another problem with the teapot analogy is that God as traditionally conceived in the West is not an isolani — to use a chess expression. He is not like an isolated pawn, unsupported and unsupporting. For if God exists, then God is the cause of the existence of every contingent being, and indeed, of every being distinct from himself. This is not true of lunar unicorns and celestial teapots. If there is a lunar unicorn, then this is just one more isolated fact about the universe. But if God exists, then everything is unified by this fact: everything has the ground of its being and its intelligibility in the creative activity of this one paradigmatic being.

That's a pretty remarkable jump, from simply being a purely spiritual being to being the grounding of the universe. More to the point, it seems to be saying that the analogy is invalid because this putative God has a good story behind it. Perhaps Vallicella is unaware of how easy it is to compose such background stories for the Teapot. For example: the Teapot did create the universe just to put our planet in the perfect position to grow tea and have a species to worship it through drinking that tea. That the universe is perfectly suited for the drinking of tea is all the proof you should need for the Teapot.

This is connected with the fact that one can argue from general facts about the universe to the existence of God, but not from such facts to the existence of lunar unicorns and celestial teapots. Thus there are various sorts of cosmological argument that proceed a contingentia mundi to a ground of contingent beings. But there is no similar a posteriori argument to a celestial teapot. There are also arguments from truth, from consciousness, from apparent design, from desire, from morality, and others besides.

That Vallicella fails to see how much these arguments favor to the Teapot jut as much as his putative God seems to be due to some blindness or lack of imagination on the subject.

The very existence of these arguments shows two things. First, since they move from very general facts (the existence of contingent beings, the existence of truth) to the existence of a source of these general facts, they show that God is not a being among beings, not something in addition to what is ordinarily taken to exist. Second, these arguments give positive reason for believing in the existence of God. Are they compelling? No, but then no argument for any substantive philosophical conclusion is compelling.

The interpretation of the evidence to provide inductive support for a putative God fails to account for the lack of specificity: the same arguments can be used to support any such construct, including the Teapot or the FSM.

People like Russell, Dawkins, and Dennett who compare God to a celestial teapot betray by so doing a failure to understand, and engage, the very sense of the theist's assertions. To sum up. (i) God is not a gratuitous posit in that there are many detailed arguments for the existence of God; (ii) God is not a physical being; (iii) God is not a being who simply exists alongside other beings. In all three respects, God is quite unlike a celestial teapot, a lunar uncorn, an invisible hippopotamus, and suchlike concoctions.

I am quite at a loss to explain why anyone should think the Teapot analogy any good. It leaks like a sieve


To sum up, each of Vallicella points can be applied equally easily to the Teapot, much less the FSM. His own critique of the argument fails under the weight of the expectations he feels the need to employ for his God.

14 comments:

Anonymous said...

The burden of proof is on skeptics of *basic* i.e. foundational dogmas/beliefs. For example, the burden of proof is on the solipsist, since belief in an external world and other minds arises naturally and spontaneously in us.

Theists ought to take their beliefs as basic, produced by a God-given epistemic faculty. Atheists also ought to take belief in *theism* as basic, since there are many plausible stories about how religious belief is adaptive and was favored by natural selection. Religious and theistic beliefs arise naturally in people. We have this innate tendency to project powerful, supernatural agents out there in the world. As atheists are fond of pointing out, if humans don't have an explanation for something (e.g. volcanoes erupting), we're more than happy to attribute it to a supernatural agent (e.g. an angry god).

So everyone ought to agree that theistic belief is basic. In this way, it's not at all like the celestial teapot. That's why Russell's analogy was inapt, and that's why the burden of proof is on the atheist. The atheist is more akin to the solipsist than he is to the skeptic of the celestial teapot.

One Brow said...

Theists ought to take their beliefs as basic, produced by a God-given epistemic faculty.

This does allow them to, in effect, beg the question, saying that belief in God is the default because God made them to believe in God.

Atheists also ought to take belief in *theism* as basic, since there are many plausible stories about how religious belief is adaptive and was favored by natural selection.

I do believe theism exists, and is natural. It's the actual God/gods that I don't believe in, and don't see why the existence for any of them should be considered a basic fact.

Religious and theistic beliefs arise naturally in people. We have this innate tendency to project powerful, supernatural agents out there in the world. As atheists are fond of pointing out, if humans don't have an explanation for something (e.g. volcanoes erupting), we're more than happy to attribute it to a supernatural agent (e.g. an angry god).

So everyone ought to agree that theistic belief is basic. In this way, it's not at all like the celestial teapot.


I agree. A belief is the the result of an emergent system withing the brain, and thus not at all like a physical object such as a teapot.

That's why Russell's analogy was inapt, and that's why the burden of proof is on the atheist. The atheist is more akin to the solipsist than he is to the skeptic of the celestial teapot.

Russell's teapot is not intended to question the existence of theistic beliefs, it is intended to question the existence of (an) actual God/gods. It is fallacious to say that our epistomological tendencies need to translate into ontological commitments.

Think about this same argument applied to superstitions about black cats, or to ESP. These sorts of superstitions derive from the same epistomological processes that produce God/gods? How can it be the burden of the skeptic to prove black cats are not unlucky? How is it our burden to show telepathy doesn't work? Yet, you would make it our burden on the third category, which has no more evidence in favor of it.

Anonymous said...

I said:
>>Theists ought to take their beliefs as basic, produced by a God-given epistemic faculty.>>

You said:
>>This does allow them to, in effect, beg the question, saying that belief in God is the default because God made them to believe in God.>>

I would have thought that the question was whether God exists or not. Theists are not begging the question by saying that belief in God is basic, foundational, naturally arising, etc. Atheists agree with all of that. Theists and atheists disagree about WHY theistic belief is basic, foundational, naturally arising, etc. For theists, the explanation has to do with God. For atheists, it doesn't. But we don't have to discuss these explanations. The point was just that we can agree that theistic belief is basic, foundational, naturally arising, etc. And the fact that theists and atheists can agree on that before deciding whether or not God exists shows that neither camp is begging the question against the other.

I then said:
>>Atheists also ought to take belief in *theism* as basic, since there are many plausible stories about how religious belief is adaptive and was favored by natural selection.>>

You replied:
>>I do believe theism exists, and is natural. It's the actual God/gods that I don't believe in, and don't see why the existence for any of them should be considered a basic fact.>>

I never suggested that the existence of God should be considered a basic fact. I said that *belief* in God is basic, foundational, naturally arising, etc. Humans seem hardwired to believe in God, just as we seem hardwired to believe that there are other minds (i.e. that solipsism is false). This can all be true even if God doesn't exist.

I said:
>>Religious and theistic beliefs arise naturally in people. We have this innate tendency to project powerful, supernatural agents out there in the world. As atheists are fond of pointing out, if humans don't have an explanation for something (e.g. volcanoes erupting), we're more than happy to attribute it to a supernatural agent (e.g. an angry god). So everyone ought to agree that theistic belief is basic. In this way, it's not at all like the celestial teapot.>>

You replied:
>>I agree. A belief is the the result of an emergent system withing the brain, and thus not at all like a physical object such as a teapot.>>

I can't tell if this is a disingenuous sort of "gotcha" response, or if you really had trouble understanding what I was saying. I should have said "So everyone ought to agree that theistic belief is basic. In this way, it's not at all like *BELIEF* in the celestial teapot." This clarification should satisfy you, no matter what the motivation of your response. Now perhaps we can go on to discuss this very important disanalogy between theistic belief and belief in celestial teapots, flying spaghetti monsters, etc.

I said:
>>That's why Russell's analogy was inapt, and that's why the burden of proof is on the atheist. The atheist is more akin to the solipsist than he is to the skeptic of the celestial teapot.>>

You said:
>>Russell's teapot is not intended to question the existence of theistic beliefs, it is intended to question the existence of (an) actual God/gods.>>

I certainly never thought that the teapot was intended to question the existence of theistic beliefs. But I also don't think that it's intended to question the existence of God. I take it to be making a point about the burden of proof in this discussion. Russell thinks that the theist is in the same position as the believer in the teapot: the belief is irrational unless supported by good argument or evidence.

What I've been trying to tell you is this: There are many beliefs we have that are NOT irrational unless supported by good argument or evidence. Take your belief in other minds, for example. Chances are you don't have any good, non-question begging arguments or evidence for that belief. And even if you did, the fact is that you don't believe in other minds as the result of some argument or evidence. You just find yourself believing in other minds, naturally. You're hardwired to do it. Your brain just projects other minds out there into the world. And it's perfectly reasonable for you to believe in other minds in this way. The burden of proof is on the skeptic, on the solipsist.

Well, the same thing may go for theistic belief. Theists very often don't believe in theism on the basis of any argument or evidence. They just find themselves believing in theism, just as you find yourself believing in other minds. We're hardwired to do it. And so, as in the case of other minds, the burden of proof is on the skeptic. Just as the burden of proof is on the solipsist, the burden of proof is on the atheist.

That's why Russell's teapot analogy was inapt. Humans are not hardwired to believe in celestial teapots. But we are hardwired to believe in theism. And if we're hardwired to believe in X, then the burden of proof is on the skeptic of X. In the case of other minds the skeptic is the solipsist. In the case of theism, the skeptic is the atheist.

So, the burden of proof is on the atheist, not the theist.

You also said:
>>It is fallacious to say that our epistomological tendencies need to translate into ontological commitments.>>

I agree with you that epistemological tendencies don't entail ontological commitments. Humans have an epistemological tendency towards belief in other minds. Some humans encounter what they take to be defeaters for this belief, and therefore give up any ontological commitment to other minds. They become solipsists. So I completely agree with you. I've never suggested otherwise. I've only suggested that in the case of an epistemological tendency to believe X, the burden of proof is on the skeptic of X.

You also said:
>>Think about this same argument applied to superstitions about black cats, or to ESP. These sorts of superstitions derive from the same epistomological processes that produce God/gods?>>
I don't think so. Do you? If so, why?

You concluded:
>>How can it be the burden of the skeptic to prove black cats are not unlucky?>>

Um, I never said the burden of proof was on the skeptic to prove that black cats are unlucky. Now *if* someone were to say "I believe that we were endowed by evolution (or God, or whatever) with a reliable epistemic faculty designed to produce beliefs about the unluckiness of black cats," then yes, I think the following response would be inadequate: "Regardless of whether or not you really were endowed with this reliable faculty, you have insufficient evidence for your belief in the unluckiness of black cats, and so your belief is irrational." That response is inadequate, given the claim of the black cat believer.

The only adequate responses would be to the *truth* of this belief about the unluckiness of black cats, or the *truth* of the claim about this endowed epistemic faculty. A response concerning the rationality of the belief regardless of its truth would be inadequate.

And the same goes for the atheist. The only adequate response to the theist concerns the *truth* of theism, not the rationality of theism regardless of its truth. So Russell's point about the teapot is inadequate, since it concerns only the evidential justification of theism, and not the truth of theism.

Joe said...

Hello I posted this at dangerous idea but I thought I would post it here as well since there seems more interest in the topic here.
Vallicella: "Now it seems to me that both (S) and (W) are plainly false: we have all sorts of reasons for believing that God exists. Here Alvin Plantinga sketches about two dozen theistic arguments. Atheists will not find them compelling, of course, but that is irrelevant. The issue is whether a reasoned case can be made for theism, and the answer is in the affirmative. Belief in God and in Russell's teapot are therefore not on a par since there are no empirical or theoretical reasons for believing in his teapot."

One Brow: "This is an interesting standard of evidence: it doesn't matter if the arguments are compelling or not, they just have to exist and be made into a reasoned case. It occurs to me that this is not a difficult thing to accomplish for the Russell's teapot (the Teapot); I can make a reasoned case, that almost no one will find compelling, for it's existence. First is the evidence I have already presented, which we might call the Argument from Compulsion: when I stop performing acts of worship to the Teapot, I have physical symptoms. Then there is the Argument from Dominant Language: of all the Western European countries, it is England whose language has become the commercial language of the world, because they are known for drinking tea, and the Teapot has rewarded them for it. I will end this list with the Argument from Antioxidants: the Teapot wishes to encourage our worship, and so has made our worship healthy for us."

You are switching out what he said. He said the arguments are not compelling "to the atheist." You then make it sound like he is saying the argument doesn't need to be compelling to anyone.

The arguments Vallicella refers to are compelling to some theists. If they were not compelling to anyone then it would be like your teapot argument. In the end if you want to address the reasonableness of the belief in God you have to weigh the arguments pro and con.

I think the teapot analogy may describe how some atheists or agnostics view God. But that’s because they view all the reasons to believe in God as no more compelling than a reason to believe in a celestial teapot. It’s a description of their view not really an argument.

BTW
I like the way you explicitly seem to leave the door open to personal attacks against you :)

One Brow said...

Anonymous,

First of all, I want to say how much I appreciate your discussion so far. I think I did not understand your intent as well in your first post, so I am cutting much of the discussion that seems moot.

You said:
Theists are not begging the question by saying that belief in God is basic, foundational, naturally arising, etc. Atheists agree with all of that. Theists and atheists disagree about WHY theistic belief is basic, foundational, naturally arising, etc.

I agree. The question being begged is the source of the belief. Even if, for the sake of the argument, a God/gods exist(s), that is not sufficient evidence to conclude God is the source of an inclination to believe in a god/gods. You have additional, non-trivial assumptions to get to that statement.

What I've been trying to tell you is this: There are many beliefs we have that are NOT irrational unless supported by good argument or evidence. Take your belief in other minds, for example. Chances are you don't have any good, non-question begging arguments or evidence for that belief.

The difference is that, assuming I can rely on my ability to interpret sensory information to a reasonable degree, I can devise tests to see whether some of the other living things around me do or do not have minds similar to mine. I can even set up a gradation for different populations of animals, and very closely correlate that gradation to a physical structure. I know of no such tests for a God/gods.

And even if you did, the fact is that you don't believe in other minds as the result of some argument or evidence. You just find yourself believing in other minds, naturally. You're hardwired to do it. Your brain just projects other minds out there into the world. And it's perfectly reasonable for you to believe in other minds in this way. The burden of proof is on the skeptic, on the solipsist.

The burden of prof falls to the skeptic only after evidence has been gathered of the type a skeptic requires (objective, testable).

That's why Russell's teapot analogy was inapt. Humans are not hardwired to believe in celestial teapots. But we are hardwired to believe in theism.

I’m not sure if here you mean that we are hardwired to believe in supernatural entities. It seems odd to say we are hard-wired to believe that certain ontological systems exist.

I said: Think about this same argument applied to superstitions about black cats, or to ESP. These sorts of superstitions derive from the same epistemological processes that produce God/gods?

You replied: I don't think so. Do you? If so, why?

They both derive from the tendency to take unexplained natural phenomena and produce a supernatural explanation for it. This is true regardless of whether the phenomena is thunder (a god) or two or three unfortunate things happening together (a the curse of a witch, all of whom like black cats).

And the same goes for the atheist. The only adequate response to the theist concerns the *truth* of theism, not the rationality of theism regardless of its truth. So Russell's point about the teapot is inadequate, since it concerns only the evidential justification of theism, and not the truth of theism.

Evidential justification is not an important component of determining truth?

One Brow said...

Joe,

Thank you for your response, it was intelligent and considered. I will try to prove adequate to it.

You are switching out what he said. He said the arguments are not compelling "to the atheist." You then make it sound like he is saying the argument doesn't need to be compelling to anyone.

Is there a minimum number and/or competency level? If I convince my five-year-old that the magic teapot is real, does that make it compelling to enough people?

More seriously, this looks to me like a variation on argumentum ad populum. I agree that atheists are likely to have a higher standard for reasonable evidence for the existence of a God/gods than theists, but this does not make the teapot analogy invalid. Russell’s whole point is that the belief rests not on the strength of the evidence, but the traditions and pressures applied by society.

The arguments Vallicella refers to are compelling to some theists. If they were not compelling to anyone then it would be like your teapot argument. In the end if you want to address the reasonableness of the belief in God you have to weigh the arguments pro and con.

I agree. However, in the course of all the weighing, the teapot will be there in the background, asking to provide some way to distinguish between the proofs for its existence and the proofs for the existence of God/gods.

I think the teapot analogy may describe how some atheists or agnostics view God. But that’s because they view all the reasons to believe in God as no more compelling than a reason to believe in a celestial teapot. It’s a description of their view not really an argument.

It’s more of a meta-argument, a description of the level of evidence the theist needs to surpass to a have a convincing argument.

BTW
I like the way you explicitly seem to leave the door open to personal attacks against you :)


I have a thick skin, and would hate for anyone to stifle themselves on my account.

Joe said...

This is how I see arguments. Arguments are either sound or unsound. I think many of the arguments listed by Plantinga are sound. That means 1) the premises are true and 2) the conclusion necessarily follows from those premises. Now certain people may not find the argument persuasive because they don't acknowledge the truth of the premises. Or I suppose they may fail to see how the conclusion does indeed follow from the premises.

So the mere fact that some people don't find an argument compelling may be more of a problem with the person who is unconvinced than a problem with the argument. I do not think it is a proper objection to an argument to say "some people don't find it compelling." I think you would probably agree.

Consider those creationists who reject any idea of Darwinian evolution. Does this mean the evidence for Darwinian evolution is lacking? If they say “believing in Darwinian evolution is like believing in a celestial teapot” wouldn’t you properly say something like this? “Wait a second there are plenty of reasons to believe in Darwinian evolution that don’t apply to a celestial teapot. Moreover the mere fact that you and your creationist friends do not find the arguments for Darwinian evolution compelling does not mean that my belief in Darwinian evolution is the same as the belief in a celestial teapot. Your just *assuming* all the arguments in favor of belief in Darwinian evolution get nowhere and then saying see its just like the teapot!”

Now when we consider the various arguments for God’s existence like the argument from fine tuning of the universe, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the ontological argument historicity of the gospels (and variations of all of these) etc. we see that none of these apply to the teapot. I would point out that at least a few arguments against god's existence such as the problem of evil etc do not apply to the teapot either.

So the "teapot argument" just sort of pretends all these arguments and counter arguments that apply to God's existence don’t exist then and therefore belief in God is like believing in a celestial teapot!

If the teapot looms in the background of this debate it looms in the background of every debate.

You say: “Russell’s whole point is that the belief rests not on the strength of the evidence, but the traditions and pressures applied by society.” Yes Russell may have believed this is so, but it’s not really an argument, it’s an assertion.

One Brow said...

This is how I see arguments. Arguments are either sound or unsound.

I agree that this is a very basic, important criterion. However, determining soundness can be much more difficult than determining validity.

So the mere fact that some people don't find an argument compelling may be more of a problem with the person who is unconvinced than a problem with the argument. I do not think it is a proper objection to an argument to say "some people don't find it compelling." I think you would probably agree.

In and of itself, that is not much of an object. However, pretty much all of the arguments for theism have had their premises debated many times over. I honestly have no objection to any argument that begins with a premise of God’s existence, as long as there is no claim that the argument proves god’s existence. I also think there is a difference between saying that a line of argumentation has a proper basis in proposing its premises, and saying that it is a convincing argument in favor of those bases.

Consider those creationists who reject any idea of Darwinian evolution. Does this mean the evidence for Darwinian evolution is lacking? … Your just *assuming* all the arguments in favor of belief in Darwinian evolution get nowhere and then saying see its just like the teapot!”

I would be able to add a couple of other things, such as discoveries that were predicted by Evolutionary Theory (I prefer not to use the term Darwinian evolution, since there are so many different things people mean by it) that acted as test of its understanding of the world. The teapot is not testable, God is not testable, but evolution is.

Now when we consider the various arguments for God’s existence like the argument from fine tuning of the universe, the cosmological argument, the moral argument, the ontological argument historicity of the gospels (and variations of all of these) etc. we see that none of these apply to the teapot. I would point out that at least a few arguments against god's existence such as the problem of evil etc do not apply to the teapot either.

Actually, of the arguments you list, only the one about the historicity of the gospels can be considered to point only to a specific version of God and not the Teapot, the others work just as well for any particular omniscient deity you care to name. That was the point of my post, if you add enough back-story to change the teapot into the Teapot, its existence is supported by the arguments of the same type, and some of the exact same arguments.

So the "teapot argument" just sort of pretends all these arguments and counter arguments that apply to God's existence don’t exist then and therefore belief in God is like believing in a celestial teapot!

If you reject the premise of an argument, the argument still exists, but has no meaning.

You say: “Russell’s whole point is that the belief rests not on the strength of the evidence, but the traditions and pressures applied by society.” Yes Russell may have believed this is so, but it’s not really an argument, it’s an assertion.

This is correct, but it is also an observation based upon how different societies act with respect to their religious traditions.

Thank again for commenting. I am greatly enjoying the discussion.

Joe said...

Thanks for the compliments. I too enjoy discussing these issues.

I think I may have glossed it if you meant what you said here:

"Actually, of the arguments you list, only the one about the historicity of the gospels can be considered to point only to a specific version of God and not the Teapot, the others work just as well for any particular omniscient deity you care to name. That was the point of my post, if you add enough back-story to change the teapot into the Teapot, its existence is supported by the arguments of the same type, and some of the exact same arguments."

To the extent you are changing the characteristics of a "teapot" that we ordinarily understand a teapot to have and create some new "Teapot" (with a capital T) which is really nothing like a teapot but instead has the characteristics of God, then ok it will be a better analogy. It might even be a good analogy based on the historicity of the Gospels. It’s really no longer a teapot but God. So to the extent you change it so that the term "Teapot" means the term "God," then yes I'd agree that the likelihood of there being a God is the same as the likelihood of there being a "Teapot."

Now to the extent you don't change what we mean by teapot to mean something other than what we ordinarily understand a teapot to be, then none of the arguments for God's existence work for the teapot.

It sounds like you are trying to create some sort of teapot/God hybrid. In that case we would need to consider carefully each of God's attributes you are giving this “Teapot” and then consider each of the arguments and ask whether this redefined teapot suffices for that attributes that the argument demands. But why do that? Why not just acknowledge that the reasons people believe in God has no bearing on why they would believe in a celestial teapot and address those reasons directly?

I mean are you saying this Teapot has A) an infinite understanding B) created the universe and C) allows us to make sense of morals beliefs etc? I mean before I go on I’d say this is getting to be a pretty unusual teapot.

You say:
"I would be able to add a couple of other things, such as discoveries that were predicted by Evolutionary Theory (I prefer not to use the term Darwinian evolution, since there are so many different things people mean by it) that acted as test of its understanding of the world. The teapot is not testable, God is not testable, but evolution is."


Ok but it’s not testable by "their tests." Your evidence won’t pass their tests. They will say something like well there "must be more" fossils during this time or there "must be more" fossils showing transitional states in order to rationally believe in evolution. Or they will simply say what you think is evidence is no evidence at all! The fossils were put there by God to trick the unbelievers! Maybe the test they are looking for is to appear before God and have God tell them "No really I didn't put those fossils there to fool you. Those were actual little tadpoles existing much earlier than 4000 years ago." But whatever the test/argument you have its not compelling to them. Just like whatever tests/arguments theists have they are not compelling to atheists.

This is not so different than those who believe in God telling the atheist "look at the way the universe seems to have been fine tuned for life - that is evidence of God." "Look at your understanding of morality is it compatible with there being no God? If not then its more evidence for God." "How could the universe have started from nothing? If that seems unlikely then this is some evidence as well." etc. These arguments are the tests.

If it so happened that I could really have an understanding of morals the way I do and not believe in God then it wouldn't be evidence of God. But I can't - it doesn't work out. If the constants in the universe could have been any which way and still produced human life then again that argument wouldn't work. If instead of saying his Gospel was based on reports stemming from eyewitnesses, Luke said his Gospel was a wonderful work of fiction then this would also have an effect. These arguments only work because we examine reality and find evidence of God. If reality were different then maybe there wouldn't be this evidence and God’s existence wouldn’t pass the tests.

The atheist says well the fine tuning arguments and the others are no evidence at all. Or they say the test isn’t hard enough. They have a stricter test that needs to be passed. But their saying its no evidence doesn’t make it so that there is no evidence.

Its our background beliefs that make some aspect of reality into "evidence" or "no evidence at all." You may be able to give some characteristics that show your evidence for evolution is in some ways different than the evidence from the arguments I mention. But in the end the arguments I list are valid. The premises are either true or false. If they are true then believing they are true is certainly evidence for their conclusion.

You start to talk of the reasons to believe the premises. Of course, maybe I could give you new premises that support those and that can go on and on. I think it’s important to understand that what constitutes “evidence” is a tricky topic. I think whether something is considered “evidence” is in fact subjective in at least one sense.

Consider the fact that the girl Tyson was convicted of raping was seen “making out” with him in his car shortly before she followed him up to his hotel room. His defense was that she consented to having sex with him. The Judge took the position this “making out in the car” bit is not evidence because the sole issue is whether she consented at the time not earlier. Well the defense clearly thought this was evidence that she may have consented. Ok my point is not to say the judge or the prosecutor is right or wrong. My point is people can disagree about what amounts to "evidence."

The idea that we will ever have something that everyone agrees is sufficient “evidence” for God (or evolution) is unlikely. (I mean I often wonder if the second coming itself will not be convincing to some.) So in the meantime to the extent some people think there is “no evidence” of God then the teapot analogy works but for the rest it really doesn’t. IMO talk of celestial teapots ignores the reasons people believe in God and simply pretends they don’t exist. It doesn’t really add anything to the discussion.

Anonymous said...

Hi One Brow,

I had said:
>>Theists are not begging the question by saying that belief in God is basic, foundational, naturally arising, etc. Atheists agree with all of that. Theists and atheists disagree about WHY theistic belief is basic, foundational, naturally arising, etc.>>

You replied:
>>I agree. The question being begged is the source of the belief. Even if, for the sake of the argument, a God/gods exist(s), that is not sufficient evidence to conclude God is the source of an inclination to believe in a god/gods. You have additional, non-trivial assumptions to get to that statement.>>

So you think there is a question being begged, namely the source of theistic belief. I suppose both atheists and theists are begging a question then, since they both have beliefs about the source of theistic belief. Here's how I understand the dialectic, though:

Russell: Hey theist, theism is like belief in a celestial teapot: whether or not the belief is true, it must be supported by evidence for it to be rational. So your theism is irrational -- whether or not it is true -- since you don't have adequate evidence supporting it.

Theist: Russell, you said that my belief is irrational *whether or not it is true*. But that's wrong, for suppose it is true. Suppose God really does exist. Recognize also that we all seem hardwired to believe theism; that is a natural, basic belief in humans. Well, if God exists, he probably endowed us with this cognitive faculty to reliably produce beliefs about him. And if my theism is the product of a reliable belief-producing faculty, then I have reason to believe it; it's not irrational for me to believe it, even if it is not supported by evidence. In this respect, theistic belief may be like belief in other minds: rational, even in the absence of evidence.

To put it another way, one premise of Russell's argument is:
(1) Necessarily, a belief B is rational only if B is supported by argument or evidence.

Theists are challenging the truth of this premise. They are saying that it's not necessarily true. It's possibly false. For example, it fails in the case of belief in other minds. And, if certain conditions are met, it fails in the case of theism. The conditions under which (1) fails may include the existence of God. But that's OK, since (1) is a claim of necessity. *No matter what*, Russell thinks, this principle about evidence holds. The theist is saying that the *no matter what* part is false.

So no questions are being begged here.


I also said:
>>What I've been trying to tell you is this: There are many beliefs we have that are NOT irrational unless supported by good argument or evidence. Take your belief in other minds, for example. Chances are you don't have any good, non-question begging arguments or evidence for that belief.>>

You replied:
>>The difference is that, assuming I can rely on my ability to interpret sensory information to a reasonable degree, I can devise tests to see whether some of the other living things around me do or do not have minds similar to mine.>>

I disagree. I don't think any such test would deductively entail or even render probable the proposition that minds exist. But maybe you can tell me more about these tests...


I also said:
>>And even if you did, the fact is that you don't believe in other minds as the result of some argument or evidence. You just find yourself believing in other minds, naturally. You're hardwired to do it. Your brain just projects other minds out there into the world. And it's perfectly reasonable for you to believe in other minds in this way. The burden of proof is on the skeptic, on the solipsist.>>

To which you replied:
>>The burden of prof falls to the skeptic only after evidence has been gathered of the type a skeptic requires (objective, testable).>>

This is false, since the fact is that there is no such evidence for other minds, and yet the burden of proof is still on the skeptic. All the evidence you could gather is perfectly consistent with the hypothesis that other people (and animals) are all unconscious automatons. So no evidence you gather can support your belief in other conscious minds.


I said:
>>That's why Russell's teapot analogy was inapt. Humans are not hardwired to believe in celestial teapots. But we are hardwired to believe in theism.>>

You replied:
>>I’m not sure if here you mean that we are hardwired to believe in supernatural entities. It seems odd to say we are hard-wired to believe that certain ontological systems exist.>>

This is another case where I'm not sure whether your reply is of the disingenuous "Gotcha" variety, or whether you really did have a hard time understanding me. Let me clarify: "Theism" is ambiguous. The term can refer either to the proposition that at least one god exists (as it does when people say "I think that theism is true"), or to the *belief* that at least one god exists (as it does when people say "Theism is on the decline in Europe").

So when I said "we are hardwired to believe in theism," you had two ways to interpret that. Either I was saying that we are hardwired to believe in a certain proposition, namely that at least one god exists, or I was saying that we're hardwired to believe that at least some people *believe* that at least one god exists. Clearly the first option is the more sensible, charitable interpretation. So I'm not sure why you would even entertain the second interpretation.


You said:
>>Think about this same argument applied to superstitions about black cats, or to ESP. These sorts of superstitions derive from the same epistemological processes that produce God/gods?>>

I replied:
>>I don't think so. Do you? If so, why?>>

You said:
>>They both derive from the tendency to take unexplained natural phenomena and produce a supernatural explanation for it.>>

Sure, I'll agree that people have some innate tendency to be superstitious, to fabricate causal connections, etc. But it doesn't follow from that that these superstitious beliefs come from *the same cognitive faculty* that produces theistic belief. I also have an innate tendency to believe in other minds, and to believe that there is a tree before me when I have a certain kind of visual experience. But these are distinct cognitive faculties.

I think the faculty that produces superstitious belief is unreliable, whereas the faculty that produces theistic belief is reliable. The latter was designed by God to be reliable (on my view), whereas the former wasn't. So I'm not committed to saying that superstitious beliefs (like belief in ESP and belief in stuff about black cats) are rational.


Finally, I said:
>>And the same goes for the atheist. The only adequate response to the theist concerns the *truth* of theism, not the rationality of theism regardless of its truth. So Russell's point about the teapot is inadequate, since it concerns only the evidential justification of theism, and not the truth of theism.>>

You replied:
>>Evidential justification is not an important component of determining truth?>>

Um, maybe. That doesn't really seem relevant.

One Brow said...

To the extent you are changing the characteristics of a "teapot" that we ordinarily understand a teapot to have and create some new "Teapot" (with a capital T) which is really nothing like a teapot but instead has the characteristics of God, then ok it will be a better analogy. It might even be a good analogy based on the historicity of the Gospels. It’s really no longer a teapot but God. So to the extent you change it so that the term "Teapot" means the term "God," then yes I'd agree that the likelihood of there being a God is the same as the likelihood of there being a "Teapot."

Well, there are a few differences between the Teapot and Jehovah (or any name you prefer). The Teapot still has a physical residence in the asteroid belt. The Argument from Compulsion, the Argument from Dominant Language, and the Argument from Antioxidants don't work for the Judeo-Christian God, just as the argument for the historicity of the Gospels does not work for the Teapot. However, you are also correct to a degree. To the extent that "God" might mean any omnipotent Creator, the Teapot is one of the possible versions of God.

Now to the extent you don't change what we mean by teapot to mean something other than what we ordinarily understand a teapot to be, then none of the arguments for God's existence work for the teapot.

Was Russell's teapot something other than a teapot, by virtue of being in orbit? Normally when we think of a teapot, we don't think of it as being in outer space. My Teapot has all properties of a standard teapot, you could even pour a very nice cup of tea from it (although it might eternally damn you to permanent caffeine withdrawal for the effrontery). It just has a few extras, or perhaps Extras.

Why not just acknowledge that the reasons people believe in God has no bearing on why they would believe in a celestial teapot and address those reasons directly?

Actually, I see that as Russell's point: people believe in God for reasons that have nothing to do with the proofs offered for His existence.

Ok but it’s not testable by "their tests." Your evidence won’t pass their tests.

For many people, there will and can never be enough evidence, I don't consider them to have tests to pass. One of the terms I see being discussed by people who blog on science is "denialism", a term for people who engage in an effort to deny a proposition with no regard to its truth. The classic, relatively neutral example would be the tobacco companies denying the impact of smoking on health for decades.

Or they will simply say what you think is evidence is no evidence at all! The fossils were put there by God to trick the unbelievers!

Generally, people who are eager to believe in the promises of an afterlife proposed by a God are also reluctant to portray said God as one that lies and/or plays tricks with the truth.

This is not so different than those who believe in God telling the atheist ... etc. These arguments are the tests.

It's not a test if if you can't fail (or pass) it. There are two very large differences between the fine-tuning argument and the sorts of tests the Theory of Evolution has encountered: the universe can't fail to be fine-tuned, and fine-tuning doesn't tell us what to expect in future discoveries.

The atheist says well the fine tuning arguments and the others are no evidence at all. Or they say the test isn’t hard enough. They have a stricter test that needs to be passed. But their saying its no evidence doesn’t make it so that there is no evidence.

Any atheist who says the arguments in favor of God are no evidence, or constitute an insufficiently hard test, are missing the point in my opinion. The arguments (both in favor of and against the existence of God) are much more like proofs than like science, in that they are designed to produce a specific conclusion. If the proof doesn't work just right, you only need to tweak it a little. They are evidence to the degree that you accept the premises, and they are not a test of any sort to pass or fail.

I think whether something is considered “evidence” is in fact subjective in at least one sense.

I agree. I fully expect that, regardless of the quality of the arguments, humans will believe in God/gods because that is what humans do, and they will accept whatever argument justify that belief.

The idea that we will ever have something that everyone agrees is sufficient “evidence” for God (or evolution) is unlikely. (I mean I often wonder if the second coming itself will not be convincing to some.)

I think that would convince me something was going on, at any rate. :)

IMO talk of celestial teapots ignores the reasons people believe in God and simply pretends they don’t exist. It doesn’t really add anything to the discussion.

All it is intended to add, as far as I can tell, is an approximation of the level of evidence needed, followed by a quick description of why Russell thinks people exist. I agree it adds nothing else.

One Brow said...

Theist: Russell, you said that my belief is irrational *whether or not it is true*. But that's wrong, for suppose it is true. Suppose God really does exist. Recognize also that we all seem hardwired to believe theism; that is a natural, basic belief in humans. Well, if God exists, he probably endowed us with this cognitive faculty to reliably produce beliefs about him. And if my theism is the product of a reliable belief-producing faculty, then I have reason to believe it; it's not irrational for me to believe it, even if it is not supported by evidence. In this respect, theistic belief may be like belief in other minds: rational, even in the absence of evidence.

This almost seems to say that any belief that happens to provide a correspondent result is a rational belief. I don't think that's what rational means. Correct or not, if your belief is not the result of an intellectual exercise (as opposed to based on experience or emotion) nor based on evidence, they are not rational.

However, being irrational is not a fault. I am very comfortable saying that there are things I believe correct that I have no rational basis. I don't try to rationally justify my skepticism, the basis for my moral beliefs, nor love for my wife. The choosing of the starting position for any rational argument is ultimately irrational. Contrast the meanings of rational and reasonable.

To put it another way, one premise of Russell's argument is:
(1) Necessarily, a belief B is rational only if B is supported by argument or evidence.


That's pretty much what rational means.

So no questions are being begged here.

Your argument above, where you use your belief in God to say that means He probably exists and created you to believe in Him, could be a textbook example of begging the question.

>>The difference is that, assuming I can rely on my ability to interpret sensory information to a reasonable degree, I can devise tests to see whether some of the other living things around me do or do not have minds similar to mine.>>

I disagree. I don't think any such test would deductively entail or even render probable the proposition that minds exist. But maybe you can tell me more about these tests...

As a quibble: tests are inductive processes, that don't deductively prove things by their nature. Also, you can't render something probable unless you have a way to assign a number representing a probability. My apologies if this seems overly picky.

To the main point: any time you ask a person to create an original story, combining disparate elements in a new way, you are testing for the presence of a mind. The whole point of the classic Chinese Room scenario is that this is possible to test. We can disable capabilities of the mind by performing certain surgeries on the brain, resulting in different behaviors before and after the surgery.

However, perhaps we mean something different by "mind". For me, the mind is aggregate functioning of a brain that results in the capability to input, store, and act on information, resulting in the activities of a body. If you are referring to something more mystical, akin to a "soul, then I agree you can't test for that. For me, saying you can't test for a mind is like saying you can't test for the existence of software on a computer disk.

This is false, since the fact is that there is no such evidence for other minds, and yet the burden of proof is still on the skeptic. All the evidence you could gather is perfectly consistent with the hypothesis that other people (and animals) are all unconscious automatons. So no evidence you gather can support your belief in other conscious minds.

Since "conscious" means you are aware of your surroundings and can interact with them, I am again unsure precisely what you mean. I can certainly test whether a person is aware of their surrounding and interacting with them. It is possible I do not believe what you describe as a "mind" even exists, in which case I would possibly agree we can't test for it, and possibly disagree that we are hard-wired to accept it exists.

I said:
>>That's why Russell's teapot analogy was inapt. Humans are not hardwired to believe in celestial teapots. But we are hardwired to believe in theism.>>


You replied:
>>I’m not sure if here you mean that we are hardwired to believe in supernatural entities. It seems odd to say we are hard-wired to believe that certain ontological systems exist.>>


This is another case where I'm not sure whether your reply is of the disingenuous "Gotcha" variety, or whether you really did have a hard time understanding me.

I'm not trying to play "Gotcha", but I am trying to make sure that we are careful to distinguish different levels of meta-analysis. I am not sure you would have claimed, "Humans are not hardwired to believe in celestial teapots. But we are hardwired to believe in gods." After all, at the very least the Teapot is a god, and therefore entitled to the same level of presumption based upon your argument. My original point is that Vallicella's argument basically says that, if we all all the truly remarkable and rare properties to the teapot and create the Teapot, it somehow becomes more believable. Also, you have been using the argument that our innate inclination to theism is evidence of God, so I wanted to be sure of the clarification.

Sure, I'll agree that people have some innate tendency to be superstitious, to fabricate causal connections, etc. But it doesn't follow from that that these superstitious beliefs come from *the same cognitive faculty* that produces theistic belief. ... The latter was designed by God to be reliable (on my view), whereas the former wasn't. So I'm not committed to saying that superstitious beliefs (like belief in ESP and belief in stuff about black cats) are rational.

Do you have any justification for saying they are fundamentally different, or that one is reliable and the other is not, other than only one being designed by God?

>>Evidential justification is not an important component of determining truth?>>

Um, maybe. That doesn't really seem relevant.

Based upon my choice (irrational, but reasonable) of being a skeptic, it is the only sort of justification I would accept for the existence of God.

Joe said...

One Brow thank you for the response I am enjoying this discussion with you as well. I hope you and your family have a merry Christmas and Christmas eve. Here is the skinny of where I stand on some of what was said.

"To put it another way, one premise of Russell's argument is:
(1) Necessarily, a belief B is rational only if B is supported by argument or evidence."

"That's pretty much what rational means."


I think there are other attributes for being rational. Some are more important - like not having contradictory beliefs.

Moreover if this is what rational means then of course then all of our beliefs are either 1)irrational 2)based on irrational beliefs or 3)based on circular reasoning. In other words its just the infinite regress problem.


You say that science makes predictions and is in some ways different than other forms of proof. I think I haven't decided how clear I think that line should be drawn. I mean the predictions we may make in the future doesn't change the strength of our current belief. So to the extent we believe something in science right now its based on what we have seen in the past. So why would the fact that we may be able to test something in the future make us believe that more strongly or less strongly?

Consider the cosmological argument. I mean we found evidence that supports the big bang. This in turn supports the cosmological argument. So if we simply don't know what tests to do in the future to further explore this issue does that mean its no longer scientific?

I am convinced that the line between scientific evidence and other evidence/proofs is not as clear as many believe. But I admit I am not really sure where that line should be drawn. I do have allot more thoughts on this but I'm curious what your thoughts are.

With the teapot I think your just changing the way we spell God from G-O-D to T-e-a-p-o-t and also giving God the capacity to pour tea. I don't think changing the spelling of a word does anything significant. Whether adding the ability to pour tea does anything significant - I'm not sure. : )

One Brow said...

Joe,

I hope you also had a Merry Christmas, and will have a joyous New Year.

I think there are other attributes for being rational. Some are more important - like not having contradictory beliefs.

Technically, any position that leads to contradictory results is not supported by argument.

Moreover if this is what rational means then of course then all of our beliefs are either 1)irrational 2)based on irrational beliefs or 3)based on circular reasoning. In other words its just the infinite regress problem.

I agree with your analysis and the conclusion. I don’t pretend that my choice of a skeptical outlook is a rational decision. It is a reasonable decision, in my view.

You say that science makes predictions and is in some ways different than other forms of proof. I think I haven't decided how clear I think that line should be drawn. I mean the predictions we may make in the future doesn't change the strength of our current belief. So to the extent we believe something in science right now its based on what we have seen in the past. So why would the fact that we may be able to test something in the future make us believe that more strongly or less strongly?

This is, last I heard, an active discussion among philosophers of science. One example would be string theory. I have read that some question whether string theory is really a scientific proposition, since we have no good way to test whether it is true.

I do draw a distinction between predictions and tests. Science does not just make predictions, it invites tests of those predictions.

Consider the cosmological argument. I mean we found evidence that supports the big bang. This in turn supports the cosmological argument. So if we simply don't know what tests to do in the future to further explore this issue does that mean its no longer scientific?

If all we can do is speculate on the origin of the Big Bang, without any way to test the speculations, I agree that no one speculation has a clear claim to being science. The Tegmark Sea is not more rational than God for the cause of this event, and people will choose which one to believe for irrational reasons.

I am convinced that the line between scientific evidence and other evidence/proofs is not as clear as many believe. But I admit I am not really sure where that line should be drawn. I do have allot more thoughts on this but I'm curious what your thoughts are.

Well, I’m not going to replace the discussions of decades of science philosophers on one blog, but a fairly decent starting position is that science is the product of using natural means to create and test hypotheses for events with natural effects.

With the teapot I think your just changing the way we spell God from G-O-D to T-e-a-p-o-t and also giving God the capacity to pour tea. I don't think changing the spelling of a word does anything significant. Whether adding the ability to pour tea does anything significant - I'm not sure. : )

The aim of the Teapot is not to propose anything significant, rather to satirize the notion that it is correct to be skeptical of the existence of an undetectable piece china with unusual characteristics, but if we add even more unusual, undetectable characteristics, then it is not longer correct to be skeptical.