Nonsense of a High Order

Moshe Averick

Ch 1: Introduction to Modern Atheism 101

p3 Moshe Averick is an orthodox rabbi, and starts his story telling that he has returned to Chicago after living 14 years in Jerusalem. Struck by all the new atheist books, he determined to read them, expecting an intellectual challenge worthy of his 30 years experience in teaching philosophy and theology.

p4 "I had hoped to find .. at least a little bit of cutting-edge intellectual searching and honesty. I was sorely disappointed."

Quotes Dawkins' "God Delusion" as a "stance, rather than an intellectual inquiry" and levels opening barrages at both Dawkins and Hitchens.

p4 Excellent response to Dawkins' tirade about the God of the Old Testament and a good quote of historian Paul Johnson.

p6 Source of his title is a quote from Hoyle in New Scientist.

p7 Responds to a Hitchens them "The moral necessity of atheism" by quoting Hitchens as he makes all life equivalent as an argument against racism, and therefore denies the significance of any life. Denial of the special significance of any life in order to argue against racism does seem like nonsense of a high order.

p9 Hitchens argues for democracy in an equally illogical way, and Averick counters with a quote from Chesterton and points out with examples from George Bernard Shaw, Havelock Ellis and H. G. Wells that atheism leads to euthanasia and clearly a lot of other non-democratic ideologies.

p11 "One of the most egregious intellectual blunders of atheists like Hitchens is to espouse noble ideals (like democracy and equality) that only make sense if a transcendent God/Creator exists, and when no one is looking simply drop him out of the picture. Then then hope nobody notices (including themselves) that removing God from the equation effectively destroys any rational foundation for the very ideal they are promoting."

p11 Quotes Freud, Steven Weinberg and Will Provine on the absence of meaning and value of life.

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Ch 2: The Ground Rules - Guidelines for Discussing the Existence of God

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Ch 3: Yes, Professor Dawkins, How Does Life Get Started?

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Ch 4: Objections to a Supernatural Creator

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Ch 5: Actually, the Watchmaker Has 20/20 Vision

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Ch 6: The Existence of a Personal God

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Ch 7: "Spirits in the Sky": The World of Spirituality

p143 Dealing with the fact that atheists believe that mind and consciousness is entirely material, he has a good response statement: "For them it is an article of faith. Once they have chosen to deny the existence of God, they have no choice but to also deny that there can be any type of reality besides one that is exclusively material."

p144 A very good treatment of the concept of the "I", which deals with what is sometimes termed the "Cartesian theater" (Wiki Cartesian theater). Named after Decartes, it is the idea that there is an observer that is observing what you think, a non-material observer. The Wiki referenced above says "The Cartesian theater is a derisive term coined by philosopher Daniel Dennett to pointedly refer to a defining aspect of what he calls Cartesian materialism". Daniel Dennett dealt with that in his address at GSU in 2011 when he dogmatically asserted "Your mind is your brain". Averick is obviously quite familiar with that debate, as he cites Dennett's phrase, the "problem of consciousness" on p144. This is something I need to think about more. Averick, suggesting that there is an "I" that is watching the things going on in my head that is "clearly separate from everything else going on in my head" is addressing this problem that Decartes raises.

p 144 A touch of humor helps: "Who is doing the watching? No matter how we explain it, somebody is certainly watching something. Is the 'I' also a configuration of electrons? Electrons watching electrons? Do the other electrons stare back?"

p 144 Challenges Decartes' famous "I think, therefore I am." by proposing "I am, therefore I think.","I am, therefore I feel.","I am, therefore I perceive."

p 144 Cites Kauffman and his doubt of emerging consciousness, even though an atheist biologist.

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Ch 8: The Amoral World of Atheism

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Ch 9: Euthyphro: A Philosophical Dinosaur

p200 Baggini's version of this atheist argument against theistic morality. Plato in dialogue with Socrates who poses the question 'do the gods choose what is good, because it is good or, is the good, good, because the gods chose it'

p201 Averick's summary of the euthyphro, also called DCT for Divine Command Theory

• God commands us not to steal, etc, because
  • A. the actions are wrong
    • Then there is a standard beyond God, so DCT false
  • B. they are wrong because God commands us
    • God has reasons for the commands
      • Those reasons are a standard beyond God, so DCT false
    • God has no reasons for the commands
    • God's commands are arbitrary and therefore effectively meaningless.
• Either DCT is false, or divine moral values are arbitrary and meaningless.

Averick does a careful job of making the case that such objections are meaningless for the monotheistic God of the Bible who created it all and stands outside the creation. It is obvious that he has dealt with this discussion for a long time and has a series of complementary counter arguments to it. Part of the case is that the universe was created with the idea of the good as a part of it, and another part deals with morality associated with a relationship with the Creator.

Ch 10: The Source of the Inborn Moral Imperative: One God

p 211 Dismissing the "God does not exist" option as giving no real moral boundaries, he pursues the parts of our experience that point to God as the source of our inborn morality. Those indicators include our need for self esteem and our need to be good.

Ch 11: Closing Thoughts

Brings up some of the tough questions for believers:

• What about evil and suffering in the world
• What about evil committed in the name of religion
• Does the existence of evil religious people imply the non-existence of God?

Denying any pretense of a covering of such profound issues, he touches on them to make the assertion that they affect the nature of our relationship to God, but do not bear in any realistic way upon the question of whether their is a God.