God. Real. Right.

A note on terms in the argument: in this post, biology serves as the representative of material reductionism or just of naturalism, since it is the closest a reductionist can come to anything complex or progressive enough to explain the features which non-reductionists claim to exist. Similarly, evolution in this post is simply the most consistent model with which to explain biological advantages. In both cases, the position given to naturalism is intended to give it the most favor available.

Humans have many behavioral and functional characteristics which are biological by nature, none of which makes us human. To be clear, they may be necessary to being human, but they are not sufficient. For example, it is necessary to eat to be human. But many non-human things eat. So what separates humans from, say, pigs? Not much, biologically. But plenty, if Aristotle has anything to say about it; reason, to be specific. So Aristotle calls man the rational animal. From his perspective the definition is sufficient because it distinguishes humanity from every other thing.
There are characteristics other than reason which could be used to pull humanity out of the category of all other animals: consciousness, spirit, aesthetics, or ethics, for instance, depending on who is doing the pulling. But the one of most interest here is ethics.
Long since Aristotle, skeptics regarding human nature have argued that there is no cut-and-dry distinction between other animal species and humanity. There are differences of degree, but nothing absolute, they contend. Previously, value-laden characteristics like ethics seemed inexplicable in terms of biology alone. But once evolutionary theory takes on a social element, that explanation no longer seems Read the rest of this entry »

The teleological argument is also called the argument from design. It goes like this:

• Things that are designed have a designer.
• The universe is designed (as appearances reveal).
• Therefore, the universe has a designer (what we call God).

David Hume points out a major problem with that argument in this way: Sometimes it is not so apparent that the world is well-designed. A night sky is fine, but what about spiders that eat their mates, or children who starve to death? The response of Christians is generally eschatological in nature–that is, it appeals to a future, perfected state. “Of course things don’t appear perfectly designed right now, but that’s because of the fall. Once Adam sinned, the design became marred or obscured by evil.” But then Hume’s point hits home. “You want me to believe an argument based on the appearance of design yet claim that the design actually is not apparent, but will be at some point in the future. That kind of argument appeals not to reason but to a leap of faith into invisible data. It’s not rational; it’s purely religious.”
The interesting thing is that evolution can do exactly the same thing. Consider Read the rest of this entry »

In one of his famous letters to John Adams, Thomas Jefferson makes the case that when arguing for the existence of God the teleological argument is better than the cosmological argument. His reasoning is straightforward and dependent on the rise of science’s authority in the world of his day.
The cosmological argument traditionally claims that the universe must be caused by something, and the thing that causes it is God. (A very brief but better form of the argument is here.) But Jefferson objects with a foundational principle of the scientific worldview, the law of parsimony (Occam’s Razor). If a scientifically minded person must choose between Read the rest of this entry »