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He was interested, for example, in the stars. He knew far less about the nebulae than we do, or than Laplace did. In fact, he knew nothing about them at all. But he employed them for an interesting speculation. Assuming that god can make us feel the presence of a nonexistent entity, and further assuming that he need not go to this trouble if the same effect can be produced in us by the actual presence of that entity, god could still if he wished cause us to believe in the existence of stars without their being actually present. «Every effect which God causes through the mediation of a secondary cause he can produce immediately by himself». However, this does not mean that we must believe in anything absurd, since «God ca
If God had a
This is actually very impressive, and not just for its time. It has taken us several hundred years since Ockham to come to the realization that when we gaze up at the stars, we very often are seeing light from distant bodies that have long since ceased to exist. It doesn’t particularly matter that the right to look through telescopes and speculate about the result was obstructed by the church: this is not Ockham’s fault and there is no general law that obliges the church to be that stupid. And, moving from the unimaginable interstellar past which sends light across distances that overwhelm our brains, we have come to the realization that we also know something about the future of our system, including the rate of its expansion and the notion of its eventual terminus. However, and crucially, we can now do this while dropping (or even, if you insist, retaining) the idea of a god. But in either case, the theory works without that assumption. You can believe in a divine mover if you choose, but it makes no difference at all, and belief among astronomers and physicists has become private and fairly rare.
It was actually Ockham who prepared our minds for this unwelcome (to him) conclusion. He devised a «principle of economy», popularly known as «Ockham’s razor», which relied for its effect on disposing of u
Credo quia absurdum, as the «church father» Tertullian put it, either disarmingly or a
Actually, the «leap of faith» — to give it the memorable name that Soren Kierkegaard bestowed upon it — is an imposture. As he himself pointed out, it is not a «leap» that can be made once and for all. It is a leap that has to go on and on being performed, in spite of mounting evidence to the contrary. This effort is actually too much for the human mind, and leads to delusions and manias. Religion understands perfectly well that the «leap» is subject to sharply diminishing returns, which is why it often doesn’t in fact rely on «faith» at all but instead corrupts faith and insults reason by offering evidence and pointing to confected «proofs». This evidence and these proofs include arguments from design, revelations, punishments, and miracles. Now that religion’s monopoly has been broken, it is within the compass of any human being to see these evidences and proofs as the feeble-minded inventions that they are.
CHAPTER SIX
Arguments from Design
All my moral and intellectual being is penetrated by an invincible conviction that whatever falls under the dominion of our senses must be in nature and, however exceptional, ca
There is a central paradox at the core of religion. The three great monotheisms teach people to think abjectly of themselves, as miserable and guilty si
On the other hand, and as if by way of compensation, religion teaches people to be extremely self-centered and conceited. It assures them that god cares for them individually, and it claims that the cosmos was created with them specifically in mind. This explains the supercilious expression on the faces of those who practice religion ostentatiously: pray excuse my modesty and humility but I happen to be busy on an errand for god.