This I Believe: Penn Jillette's Wisdom

[elfs]

On NPR last week, Penn Jillette was asked to write on their series, "This I Believe." And he chose to toss a grenade into the blogosphere with his essay This I Believe: There Is No God. And I have to agree with him when he writes:

I'm not greedy. I have love, blue skies, rainbows, and Hallmark cards, and that has to be enough, but it's everything in the world and everything in the world is plenty for me. It seems just rude to beg the invisible for more. Just the love of my family that raised me and the family I'm raising now is enough that I don't need heaven.

Looking through technorati, I find both strong support for Jillette's essay, and lots of backlash. The backlash is saddening because it's so malinformed; one author goes into the adhominem fallacy that "the largest avowedly atheistic endeavors were calamaties," citing Stalin and Mao, and then asking, "Do we really want people who believe like Penn Jillette running things?" and then argues from authority by quoting Einstein's theism as if somehow that closes down all debate.

Another says she's "saddened" by Jillette's article because her faith is the only thing that gives her hope: that this is all for a purpose. AIDS, earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, drought, famine all begging the question, "Couldn't this have happened some other way?" A third called Jillette "nothing more than a modern-day socialist"; funny, the man seems thoroughly capitalistic to me.

But more than that, over and over there's the smarmy "I feel sorry for Jillette because he can't see it." Well, y'know, I don't see it either, and if there is a God, that's His moral failing and not mine. If there are consequences for not believing, and God dictates who gets sufficient evidence and who doesn't, then the consequences are arbitrary. We have a word for someone with responsibility who doles out punishment from whim: evil.

When it comes down to it, which, really, is harder: to believe that a super-simple universe, emergent from nothing, iterating simple physical properties billions and billions of times, brought about all the wonderful complexity you see around you, or that a super-complicated and mightily all-powerful God built a simple and undignified little universe of pain and sorrow, leaving behind no coherent explanation whatsoever?

Comments

[mothball-07.livejournal.com]

When it comes down to it, which, really, is harder: to believe that a super-simple universe, emergent from nothing, iterating simple physical properties billions and billions of times, brought about all the wonderful complexity you see around you, or that a super-complicated and mightily all-powerful God built a simple and undignified little universe of pain and sorrow, leaving behind no coherent explanation whatsoever?

This does not seem to allow room for third, fourth, and hybrid options. I do not see a conflict between the first view, and the existence of a Unifying Reason and Energy, which is what I see G-d as.

[tagryn]

I don't find "emergent from nothing" convincing as a "coherent explanation," either. It reminds me of the old joke of a chalkboard full of complex mathematical formulae, then just before the solution is presented there's written on the board as a precursor step: "And then a miracle happens."

Until we can scientifically explain and replicate the creation of matter and energy from nothingness, we're still just mucking around in the realm of theory and faith.

[elfs.livejournal.com]

No, you're mucking around in the realm of doubt. When you start ascribing to it properties you can only assert and not demonstrate, then you're tinkering with hypothesis and faith.

[tagryn]

But it remains doubt only if one limits oneself to questioning assertions, such as by saying "the universe was not created by a Divine Being." That doesn't make a statement about how the universe *did* come into being, it just states a negative. However, when one makes a statement like "[the universe was] emergent from nothing," that's going beyond doubt to making a positive assertion/ascription about the origins of the universe.

[creepingcrud.livejournal.com]

Right, but if someone said, "The universe is not the exfoliated dandruff of an extra-dimensional llama," most people would not take time out of their busy lives to argue with that person. Much like, "The universe was not created by a divine being," there is no evidence either for or against that statement, and yet people seem to find the latter proposition far more objectionable than the former.

Would you be happier if the statement was, "There is no reason for me to even consider the possibility that a divine being created the universe, since there is no evidence that this might be the case, and I could not prove it even if there were?"

[tagryn]

I wouldn't propose dismissing something without any consideration, since that's the defense of ignorance against new ideas. I'm open to considering the idea that the universe was either created, as many theists say, or came spontaneously out of nothingness, as Elf!'s hypothetical antitheist is proposing. But then I'd be expecting sufficient evidence to be presented. My original point remains that if neither side can provide proof it becomes a matter of opinion and faith rather than facts. That's fine, lets just recognize it as such.

[creepingcrud.livejournal.com]

I'm not at all convinced that we're discussing the same thing, which means I may have misdirected my initial comment. Is your position, then, that stating that the universe is "emergent from nothing" (as opposed to "came into existence at some point or another, and we're not really sure why or how because we don't know enough to say") is roughly equivalent in validity to proclaiming a belief in a deliberate creative force?

[tagryn]

More or less equivalent, in terms of what little we factually know about the origins of the universe. It comes back to the problem of explaining how energy and matter can come into existence where they previously did not exist, I think.

There was an interesting article in the current issue of Atlantic Monthly by a child psychologist which touched on why humans feel the need to find intentionality even when there is none, I put a few excerpts up on my LJ. I think that may be part of the answer to your question about why people find the proposition "there is no God" more threatening than denying llamavinity, because it goes against the tendency in human nature to believe in a non-material reality. At least in our culture, that tends to be translated into some kind of belief in God, gods, etc.

[technoshaman.livejournal.com]

Interesting that Penn and JMS come up with much the same view.... and that Penn has come up with some wonderful comedy, and JMS a science fiction tour-de-force that, ironically, had a huge spiritual element to it.

Some idiots don't want the godless running things. I don't want those idiots running things, either; bad things happen when folks start shoving religion around. OTOH, Penn Jillette or JMS for president?

Hellyeah. I'd hit that.

We have a word for someone with responsibility who doles out punishment from whim: evil.

HELLyeah.

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[kenshardik]

I don't believe in God^tm either - and by God^tm I mean "Big White Christian God sitting in his throne up in Heaven with St. Peter and the Pearly Gates and all that stuff". I'm sorry, but it just doesn't make any fucking sense to believe in an omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent God^tm who allows war and despair and starvation and cancer and AIDS and the Holocaust just becasue some chick bit an apple.

Granted, I am a Wiccan, so I'm trying to get in tune to the rhythms of life and the Earth and all. I do believe there's something out there, that all this life and consciousness means something, but I don't think there's one big being in control of everything. Becasue if there is, s/he's a bi-polar fucker.

[kyriani.livejournal.com]

Wow... That essay is simple and stunning. I want to print it out and post it on my wall for inspiration. ^_^ Thanks for the link. ^_^