Atheist philosopher Philip Goff becomes a Christian

by slimboyfat 12 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

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  slimboyfat

  Philip Goff, professor of philosophy at Durham University, in the past few weeks has said that he has become a Christian of a fairly liberal and perhaps somewhat heretical variety. It’s been a long journey from staunch atheism in his teens, to questioning the basis of his atheism and a purely materialist conception of reality as a professor of philosophy specialising in consciousness, to now considering himself a Christian.

  He says it’s the result of coming to terms with the fact that atheists and theists both have good arguments and looking for a middle ground that accommodates the best arguments of both. On the one hand, he finds the fine tuning argument a compelling reason to believe in God, and on the other hand he finds the presence of evil and suffering a compelling reason to reject an all powerful God. The solution he has landed on is that there is likely a God who is not all powerful but has to work within constraints, resulting in suffering and evil. He rejects traditional Christian doctrines such as the virgin birth and substitutionary atonement, but finds the story of Christianity compelling and “likely true”.

  I bought his book Why? The Purpose of the Universe last year when he was still an atheist or agnostic. Basically that book argued that the evidence for some kind of design or fine tuning of the universe is becoming so strong now that it is getting difficult to maintain the position that the universe has no purpose while paying attention to the scientific evidence. He was exploring whether it is possible for the universe to have a design and a purpose without a God. Now he has concluded the most reasonable explanation is that the apparent purposiveness of the universe indicates there is a God.

  In other news, I see Dawkins is on a farewell tour and struggling to fill seats at some venues. From the heady days of New Atheism in the early 2000s, is a purely materialist view of reality beginning to lose plausibility and mass appeal?

  https://aeon.co/essays/i-now-think-a-heretical-form-of-christianity-might-be-true

  https://youtu.be/vM_Thg165O8?si=yUrsJFEZfH1PZWlM
  
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  cofty

  Big questions like why is there something rather than nothing are beyond our grasp.

  Christianity - and theism in general - is a non-answer. 'God' is nothing but a placeholder for people who can't live with 'I don't know'.
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  TonusOH

  The solution he has landed on is that there is likely a God who is not all powerful but has to work within constraints, resulting in suffering and evil.

  There could also be a god who is all-powerful and unconstrained by morals when it comes to the sandbox universe it created for the purposes of research. Not the sort of being to give us any hope of a future for ourselves, but is a less problematic explanation for our universe as it exists.
  
  
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  slimboyfat

  There could also be a god who is all-powerful and unconstrained by morals when it comes to the sandbox universe it created for the purposes of research.

  That’s the other logical possibility and he gives his reasons for rejecting that option in the interview. JWs also get a mention at one point. (Only to say he doesn’t find their picture of paradise credible.)
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  Touchofgrey

  Seems like he is edging his bets with Pascal's wager, doesn't believe in majority of the bible and it comes across that he is unsure as to what he believes.

  SBF you should look on YouTube you can find that many biblical scholars who were fundamentalist Christians become atheists while they are doing their studies into their chosen aspects of the bible.
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  Nathan Natas

  Here's what I think:

  If he's the guy in the photo above, he is past the bloom og youthful manly vigor.

  He's balding. What other personal tragedies has he recently experienced?

  Weak men look for crutches when faced with adversity. A cross makes a fair crutch, even if it has some dude nailed to it.

  I'm not influenced by weaklings. I'm 75 and have a big part of The Catalog Of Human Ills on my plate, but what you won't find on my plate is a piece of unleavened bread and a nice Chianti.

  Rejoice, weak Xtians! Soon enough I'll be dead. So will you.

  "Death comes UNEXPECTEDLY" -Rev. Paul Ford
  

  https://youtu.be/XpUBKw6i538
  
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  Phizzy

  He said that though he describes himself as a Christian, he is only "close to 50%" sure that his version of Christianity is true." He seems somewhat a rather confused Philosopher to me !

  Goff, Philip (1 October 2024). "Why This Famous Atheist Became a Progressive Christian (Dr. Philip Goff)" (Interview). Interviewed by Bertuzzi, Cameron. Capturing Christianity.

  Another Philosopher, Galen Strawson, in a review of Goff's Book has this to say :

  "The question of "Cosmic Purpose" is genuinely difficult. I’m bothered by the fact that many of the arguments for fine-tuning depend on varying the fundamental physical constants (eg the charge on electrons) while holding the existing laws of nature fixed. I can’t see why engaging in this curious activity could ever be thought to explain anything, or support any interesting conclusion. And if – as Einstein and I suspect – nothing could possibly have been different, the fine-tuning arguments collapse, as Goff acknowledges."
  
  
  
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  slimboyfat

  I think saying he’s 50% convinced doesn't make him confused, it makes him unusually honest. It’s unrealistic to have stupidly high levels of confidence in beliefs that are widely contested. I’m not 100% convinced about anything because there’s always room for being wrong. That doesn’t mean I don’t believe in things enough to act as if they are true. It’s reasonable to act as if the garden path is solid as it always has been, even though something could have hollowed it out from underneath when I wasn’t looking. 👀

  I often think it’s useful to attach percentages to things to beliefs, not because it’s even possible to be exact about these things, but because it makes you reflect on the relative confidence you have in various beliefs. I would say I’m about 70% confident there is a God and 40% confident the Bible is inspired by God. For comparison I’m about 80% confident that humans are causing climate change and about 60% sure that the CIA was involved in the assassination of JFK. I’d say there is about 2% chance the moon landings were faked and less than 0.1% chance the earth is flat. I’m more than 90% sure there is a genocide going on in the Middle East right now and worried there might be a 5% chance the Ukrainian war will turn into a nuclear conflict. I think there’s maybe 30% chance Scotland will be independent by 2050 and this has gone down at least 10% in the past week. I think realistically there’s a 20% chance Sturgeon will go to jail, but wish it was higher. I think there’s a 30% chance AI will kill us all and a 20% chance there will be radical life extension in the next few decades. I think it is more than 50% likely that the original NT contained the divine name as JWs claim but less than 5% chance they are correct about 607 BC being the date of the fall of Jerusalem.
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  Touchofgrey

  SBF

  What makes you have a 30% uncertainty in a god?

  What makes you have a 60% doubt that the bible is uninspired by god ?
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  slimboyfat

  Because of suffering and because it might, I suppose, be possible that everything we know exists just exists all by itself, although that seems unlikely to me. There’s always the simulation hypothesis too, although I think it doesn’t really help with the question of God either way because there still needs to be an explanation for base reality. Maybe there is a third option outside of “God” and “no-God” that is even stranger than we can imagine?

  For the Bible, I’m not even sure what I mean by “inspired”. I think it’s a unique book and history points toward it being prompted or instigated by God. But there’s a chance that’s wrong too. I think 70% and 40% are relatively high confidence levels to have in such widely disputed concepts. What do you believe and how confident are you?