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我了解「宗教」在維繫社會穩定上的重要性，也尊重「宗教信仰」的自由和權利。只是我對「宗教」沒有研究，對「宗教議題」的興趣也不高。最近這方面討論有增加的趨勢，這是我現在為它另開一個專欄的原因。
我將把亓官先生大作《上帝到底存不存在》那一欄，以及其它幾篇文章陸續移到此欄；讓它充實一些。造成不便，敬請見諒。
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無神論者的謬誤 -- James W. Miller
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下文作者是位牧師，我自然了解並尊重他的「立場」。不過，我無法尊重他的「論述方式」、「思考邏輯」、和「了解能力」。最後一項指的是：他關於各學派和某些歷史事實的「說法」，跟絕大多數學者的了解相差很大。例如，就我所知，沒有一位「經驗論者」(包括我自己)採取他所描述的「經驗論」觀點。
Why Atheists Don’t Understand Evidence
It’s their primary issue with God
James W. Miller, 01/12/26
How religion gave birth to reason
The bent of modern philosophy towards epistemology is entirely a religious issue. The Protestant Reformation of the 16th century ushered in the European religious wars and political splintering in the 17th. This is because Christendom had actually offered structural support to the whole of Western society since the fall of Rome and grounded it in something eternal. In that way, life was better before the Enlightenment.
During religious wars, particularly the bloody Thirty Years’ War, a new breed of philosopher and new school of thought emerged.
Renee Descartes, father of rationalism, was a commander in training in the military in 1618. He was hearing rumors of massacres and watching troops march through. Merely 21 years old, he began to take stock in his life and consider what it was for. That’s when God spoke to him.
He records a dream in his notebooks, in 1619. Three dreams, actually. He felt a violent wind that pushed him to reach out for a church building, something stable. He saw a flash of lightning and a brewing storm. And then he saw himself in a room with a dictionary and a book of poetry, and he was asked what he would choose. The dictionary, he perceived, represented the sciences, and he believed at that moment God was calling him to create a new, unifying foundation for human knowledge.
The father of rationalism got his start from a mystical dream given by a divine Spirit.
His cogito ergo sum gave birth to a new era in the history of human philosophy, to modernism, to the hope that reason alone could bring peace where politics seemed always to lead to war and post-Reformation religion was divided.
Epistemologists divided
Epistemologists, philosophers who discuss what knowledge is, how it works, where we get it, and how sure it is, have never come to any lasting agreement.
* Empiricists hold that our senses mediate all true knowledge, and everything else is constructed out of them. All modern science is empirical.
* Rationalists hold that there are foundational categories in the human mind that dictate how knowledge is acquired and shaped. Innate categories are the source of true knowledge.
* Idealists hold that there is a process through which our minds sort knowledge which separates knowledge permanently from the world outside our minds. In the end, only the thoughts are real, and we may never know the physical world outside our minds as it actually is.
* Fideists and their ilk hold to the idea that there is some kind of blind leap of faith that one must take in regards to theology, and that there is a separate category of knowledge shaped wholly by this commitment and assisted usually by a religious text.
* Communitarians believe knowledge is grounded in relationships and culture. It is never isolated in the individual and cannot be studied outside of community.
* Pragmatists believe knowledge is what survives in our mind after contact with reality. It’s a no-nonsense kind of philosophy.
* Phenomenologists study the experience of conscious life lived. Raw data about the world isn’t as helpful as the raw data of thought.
There are, furthermore, epistemologists who believe that what matters is what holds together coherently, those who believe thought is just froth on the wave of evolutionary survival mechanisms, those who believe healthy minds naturally intuit God’s existence, and those who say that basic beliefs require no justification. Plus some more.
The point being, there is not a “faith vs. science” divide in philosophy. There is a divide as multiplicitous as the fragments of a glass vase that has been dropped.
What atheists get wrong (well, a few of the many things)
Among epistemologists, you will find skeptics of various kinds. The most aggressive claim to doubt everything, suggesting all human knowledge is subject to error, and thus none of it is trustworthy. The problem is that once the skeptic starts writing this idea down, he has already contradicted himself by asserting this philosophy, which is itself a claim to knowledge.
All life, including reading and understanding this article, requires some level of commitment to the idea that knowledge works.
So let’s dismiss the atheists who say they know for sure that you can’t know for sure.
The next batch like to act like God can’t be real unless you can put him under a microscope. They like to say, “I won’t believe it unless it is empirical, replicable, falsifiable, tactile.” I would describe this, and I mean this in the most polite way, as about as stupid as it comes.
First, the claim that knowledge must be empirical to be reliable is not an empirically provable statement. The claim itself is self-referentially refuting.
Second, much of what we know is not empirical. Philosophers have wholly abandoned early empiricism in the wake of a century of psychology.
* We do not make any claims to how reason works on the basis of empirical knowledge, because the principles of reason are abstractions, not empirical observations.
* We do not make ethical claims on the basis of empiricism. Ethical “oughts” do not arise from a physical “is”.
* Our claims about aesthetics and beauty are not falsifiable.
* Mathematical truths are not empirical.
* Metaphysical claims about things like the existence of other people’s consciousness are not testable in any way. We know that wholly by analogy to our own first-person experience of consciousness.
* Eye-witness testimony in courts is not empirical. It’s second-hand information about someone else’s observations, and it’s sufficient to send someone to jail.
* Our knowledge of history is wholly mediated by second-hand testimony which we cannot touch or test.
* Science itself relies on principles like induction which are not empirically testable.
So the atheist who claims they won’t believe in a God they can’t see is simply a liar who pulls out the tools of epistemology that they want to use and hides the ones that are inconvenient.
The good news
The good news for atheists and all the rest of us is that Jesus loves doubtful people enough not to give up on us. When Thomas said that he would not believe that Jesus had risen from the dead until he could touch the holes in his hands, Jesus didn’t evade or scold. Jesus answered his sincere desire by showing himself to Thomas. And then he adds, “The people who will believe anyway without this experience are going to be happy people.”
And that brings me to an important closing point.
What causes atheism
Atheism may in its early forms be a true intellectual quandary, but it rarely stays that way for long. The intellectual problems that one can face surrounding God’s existence have largely been dealt with. Held onto much longer, atheism becomes a bit of a mind virus that fights to keep itself alive, a parasite on the soul of its host.
The three main sources of oxygen for atheism are:
* A desire to maintain autonomy. It’s easy enough to understand, but it’s simply a self-destructive, reality-denying kind of pride.
* Moral negligence. Everyone knows that if there is a God out there, if there’s a judgement day in the end, our moral choices are held to account. I’ve known more than a few people who held God at arm’s length because the other hand was in the cookie jar.
* Anger. Some people claim that God doesn’t exist because they’re mad at a benevolent, powerful God in a broken world. This is a failed understanding of sin and its consequences, the dog trapped in a river that bites at the hand that is reaching to save it. It’s a sad, animalistic fate, but I fear it is the primary driver in sustained disbelief.
Conclusion
In the end, it’s pretty obvious that the most common atheistic claims to disbelieve because of a lack of good information are no more than smoke and mirrors. The real issues with which the soul wrestles are much deeper and personal than ambiguity about the facts. Unfortunately, it does to its bearer exactly what a conspiracy theory about medicine does to a sick person — it keeps them from the thing that actually heals.
Disagree? Let me know. But don’t be a troll. Agree? Forward this to a friend!
Written by James W. Miller
Pastor, Professor, Author, Coffee Roaster, Trivia Night Liability. No AI slop here.
Published in Faith Seeking Wonder
Faith Seeking Wonder explores Christian theology, culture, science, and daily life with curiosity and reverence, in search of meaning, beauty, and mystery.
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從演化論看靈魂 -- Tanner on Truth & Myths
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我是死硬派「唯物論」者，自然不會接受「靈魂說」。轉載下文，給一些就此議題還沒有形成定見的朋友參考。
What Evolution Means for the Idea of the Soul
How the ‘dangerous’ idea of Charles Darwin collided with humanity’s oldest belief
Tanner on Truth & Myths, 08/11/25
From evolution’s march to the spark within — science and spirituality meet in the question of the soul.
For centuries, the soul has been one of humanity’s most cherished ideas. It’s the thing we imagine lives on after our bodies die, the invisible essence that makes us “us.” Religions around the world have built their entire systems on this concept, promising an afterlife where the soul finds reward, punishment, or reincarnation. But then along came Charles Darwin and his theory of evolution by natural selection, and suddenly the neat picture of a God-given, immortal soul sitting inside each of us didn’t seem so secure.
If evolution is true — and the overwhelming evidence says it is — then humans are not a separate, specially created species dropped onto Earth with a ready-made spiritual core. We are part of a long, unbroken chain of life that stretches back billions of years. Our bodies, our brains, and even our behavior evolved from earlier forms of life. That raises a blunt question: If we came from other animals, when did we get the soul? Did fish have it? Did the first mammals have it? Did our ape-like ancestors have half a soul?
Soul’s Origin in Ancient Egypt & Greece
Long before Christianity, Islam, or Judaism, ancient Egypt had one of the most detailed ideas of the soul. They saw it as a set of parts: the ka (life force), ba (personality), akh (transformed spirit), plus the shadow and name. If the body was preserved and the name remembered, the ka and ba could reunite in the Field of Reeds, their paradise.
This belief linked the soul to both morality — living by Ma’at’s truth and justice — and ritual, with spells, offerings, and mummification. Over time, elements of this model spread to other cultures, shaping later religious ideas of the soul.
If ancient Egypt planted the seed of the soul, ancient Greece shaped it into the version most people in the West and the Muslim world still recognize. The Greek word for soul, psyche, didn’t just mean a ghostly spirit — it meant the animating principle of life and mind.
Plato saw psyche as immortal, trapped in the body, and longing for a higher realm — a dualism that still shapes religion today. Aristotle called it the “form” of a living thing, dividing it into the nutritive (plants), sensitive (animals), and rational (humans).
Greek thought blended with Jewish ideas during the Hellenistic period and heavily influenced early Christian theology. Modern religious views of the immortal soul owe more to Plato and Aristotle than to the Bible itself.
Soul in Traditional Belief
In most religious traditions today, the soul is seen as eternal. In Christianity and Islam, it’s created by God, unique to each individual, and destined for an afterlife. Hinduism and Buddhism have different takes, often speaking of a spiritual essence that gets recycled through many lives until it reaches liberation.
In these views, the soul is not something that develops over time — it’s a fixed reality. You either have it or you don’t. That’s why the religious story usually places humans in a separate category from animals. Humans have souls; animals don’t. That clear divide makes the theology tidy.
But evolution shows there’s no sharp dividing line between humans and the rest of life. Our ancestors didn’t wake up one morning and suddenly become human. We are the result of countless tiny changes over millions of years. Which means, if souls are real, they either had to be given gradually (which doesn’t match most theology) or at some random point in history.
Evolution Problem for the Soul
Here’s where things get tricky. Imagine a timeline of human evolution, starting from fish-like creatures that crawled out of the sea, moving to mammals, then to primates, then to early hominins, and finally to modern Homo sapiens. If God gave us souls, at what point did that happen?
If it happened suddenly, then two nearly identical creatures — one just before the soul-granting moment, one just after — would be biologically the same but spiritually different. That feels arbitrary.
If it happened gradually, then the soul would have to evolve like our bodies did — part-soul, half-soul, more-soul — which makes no sense in traditional theology.
The other option is that the soul is not a separate thing at all. It’s what we call the product of our minds: consciousness, memory, personality, emotions. In that case, what we’ve been calling the “soul” is simply what the brain does when it’s alive — and when the brain dies, that’s the end.
Science and the Soul
Science doesn’t set out to prove or disprove the existence of the soul. What it does show is that everything we link to the soul — our thoughts, feelings, and sense of self — comes from the brain. Damage certain parts of the brain, and memory, personality, or moral judgment can change or disappear. That’s strong evidence that our mental life depends on a physical organ, not an independent spirit.
Neuroscience has been adding detail to this picture for decades. The more we learn about how the brain works, the less room there is for a soul as a separate, immaterial entity. That doesn’t mean science can rule it out, but it does mean the soul isn’t needed to explain how we function.
Comfort and the Challenge
Many people find this idea deeply uncomfortable. The soul is tied to the hope that death isn’t the end — that we’ll see loved ones again, that there’s justice beyond the grave. Evolution, by contrast, paints a picture where death is final, and meaning comes from what we do while we’re alive.
But some thinkers see that as liberating. If there’s no immortal soul, then our lives are entirely ours to shape. There’s no cosmic test, no eternal reward or punishment — just the reality we make for ourselves. That can be frightening, but it can also be empowering.
Others try to reconcile the two by redefining the soul. Instead of a supernatural essence, they see it as our inner life — our ability to think, love, and create meaning. This view accepts evolution’s story while keeping a sense of the sacred about human existence.
Could the Soul Evolve?
If we take the soul as a metaphor for consciousness, then yes — it evolved. Primitive nervous systems led to more complex brains, which led to the self-awareness we have today. In that sense, our “souls” are the product of evolution just like our thumbs or our eyesight.
But if the soul is defined as an immortal, immaterial essence, evolution makes it harder to explain. You’d have to believe that at some moment in history, a divine being chose to give this essence to a particular population of early humans, while leaving their parents, cousins, and close relatives without it. That picture feels inconsistent with the smooth, gradual nature of evolution.
One Soul in All Living Things?
Another explanation, which I find the most poetic, is that what we call the soul is not unique to humans, nor to each individual — it’s one universal essence. The same soul exists in you, me, trees, animals, even the smallest insect. What makes each living being different is how that essence is expressed through its physical form, shaped by its genetics, environment, and experiences.
Think of it as light passing through different windows. The light is the same, but the color, shape, and intensity change depending on the glass. In humans, this essence shows up as complex thought, creativity, and emotion. In a tree, it appears as the silent drive to grow toward the sun. In a dog, it’s loyalty and joy. The form limits the expression, but not the source.
This way of thinking also explains why physical damage to the brain can change personality or abilities in both humans and animals — the “window” is cracked or altered, so the light shines differently. And if the same soul runs through everything, it forces you to think twice about how you treat other people, animals, and even plants. Hurting them is, in a sense, hurting yourself, because they are not “other.” They are you in a different form.
However, this philosophy throws the idea of free will under the bus, implying we are entirely the product of nature and nurture. The same ingredient — the universal soul — can emerge as Ted Bundy or Albert Einstein depending on the “container” it’s poured into: genetics, brain structure, upbringing, culture, and life experiences.
The Verdict
The blunt truth is we don’t know if the soul exists. What we do know is that evolution shows we’re part of the animal kingdom, connected to every living thing on Earth. That reality challenges the idea of humans as uniquely spiritual creatures, but it doesn’t erase the human hunger for meaning.
Whether you see the soul as a divine gift, a poetic metaphor, or a comforting illusion, evolution forces us to rethink what it means. It pushes us away from neat answers and toward a messier but more honest view: that whatever we are, we got here through a long, natural process, and that’s extraordinary enough on its own.
It’s your turn now. What do you think — does evolution leave room for the soul, or is it time to let go of the idea? Share your thoughts below and join the conversation.
If you enjoyed this post, subscribe here to get notified whenever a new one comes out.
Written by Tanner on Truth & Myths
I write about the myths that shape society, culture, and politics. Blunt takes, sharp history, no sacred cows. Read with curiosity. Leave with better questions.
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新教教義：上帝的真諦 -- Paul Ian Clarke
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根據下文作者的詮釋，《新約福音》中上帝是：慈愛的、包容的、和具有寬恕胸襟的。請參見下文作者另一篇對「新教教義」的詮釋(該欄2026/01/06)。
What If God Isn’t Who You Think He Is?
Jesus’ most famous parable redefines what it means to call God “Father”.
Paul Ian Clarke, 08/25/25
When I became a father, I didn’t really have a clue what a father was meant to be or do. My mum had filled both roles in my life, so the whole “dad thing” was unfamiliar territory.
Which is why, when the Bible talks about God the Father, it can feel confusing, or even alien, if your picture of a father is absent, broken, or harsh.
It doesn’t help that both the Old and New Testaments were written in a patriarchal society, where the father was considered the head of the household. Add to that the Old Testament’s portrayal of God as a distant, fearsome figure, one who judged and punished, and it’s no wonder some people today imagine God as a scary old man in the sky.
But here’s the good news: Jesus came to shatter that image. He showed us what kind of Father God really is. And he told a story that gets right to the heart of it.
A Shocking Request
A father has two sons. He divides his land between them, something that would normally only happen after his death. Then the younger son does the unthinkable: he asks to cash in his share early.
We might read that and shrug. Kids leave home all the time now, don’t they? They go off to university, or move to cities, or even abroad to chase their futures.
But in Jesus’ culture, this was scandalous. Outrageous. In the eyes of his community, this son was dishonouring his father, abandoning his duty, and bringing shame on his family.
And yet, here’s the kicker, the father lets him. He doesn’t resist, doesn’t scold, doesn’t banish him. The son takes the money and squanders the lot. And when famine hits, he’s destitute. Rock bottom. He takes a job feeding pigs and ends up so hungry he eats the pigs’ food himself. For a Jewish man, pigs were the lowest of the low. The shame is almost unbearable.
So he decides to crawl back home, rehearsing his confession: “I’m no longer worthy to be your son. Let me work for you instead.”
Everyone listening to Jesus’ story knows what should happen next. The father should slam the door, maybe even disown him. But that’s not what happens.
The Father Who Runs
Instead, the father runs.
Not a slow, dignified walk. Not a cautious wait on the doorstep. Not a lecture disguised as a warm welcome. He sees his son and runs. He throws his arms around his filthy, broken son and pulls him in close. Then he throws a party.
Why? Because what was lost has been found. What was dead has come alive again. It’s one of the most outrageous, unfair and beautiful moments in all of Jesus’ teaching.
What It Means for Us
Maybe you’ve never really known what a father is meant to be. Maybe you’ve messed up, hit rock bottom, or felt unworthy of love. Maybe you’ve looked around and thought: Other people deserve God’s love more than I do.
Here’s the thing: the most controversial truth about God’s love is that it doesn’t work like that. He loves us the same, no matter what. And the best part? This isn’t just a story, it’s a reality for us, here and now.
When we turn to God, he doesn’t glare at us in disappointment. He doesn’t keep score. He doesn’t hold a grudge.
He runs.
He runs to embrace us, to welcome us home, and to throw a party in our honour That’s the Father Jesus came to show us. That’s the Father who runs.
Written by Paul Ian Clarke
I’m an Anglican Priest and the Curator of Sacred and Secular, who loves exploring how we navigate faith in our modern lives. If you’d like more reflections like this, I write daily for my Sacred & Secular newsletter here.
I also write about the strange and beautiful places where faith meets ordinary life. Join my newsletter at www.sacredandsecular.co.uk
Published in Backyard Church
Thoughts on applying a 2000 year old religion to 21st Century life
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美國沒有宗教信仰者大幅增長 - Tamilore Oshikanlu
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Americans Reject Religion in Record Numbers, Study Shows
Tamilore Oshikanlu, 12/27/25
The number of Americans who say they have no religious affiliation has reached an all-time high, according to a massive running study.
Data from the Public Religion Research Institute (PRRI) shows that 28 percent of Americans identify as “religiously unaffiliated,” up from 16 percent in 2006. A significant fall-off in religious affiliation among younger people has fueled the rise.
PRRI said that its study, which uses data going back to 2006 and has been conducted annually by the institute since 2013, shows that 38 percent of those aged 18 to 29 said in 2024 that they have no religion, up from 32 percent in 2013. Among those aged 30 to 49, 34 percent were religiously unaffiliated, compared to 23 percent in 2013. The findings were first reported by Axios.
PRRI based its study on a random sample of 40,000 adults across the U.S., conducted by Ipsos—a far more meaningful sample than the polls that are used to predict elections.
The growing tide of irreligion appears to affect all denominations, the study found, and is occurring at a scale and speed that sets it apart from previous generational shifts in belief.
Analysts point to a mixture of factors fueling the trend: declining trust in institutions, growing political polarization tied to religion, and the rise of online communities that offer moral frameworks and belonging outside of traditional faith spaces. Social media, streaming platforms, and digital activism have created alternative forms of identity and meaning that don’t require church membership—or belief.
The shift has become increasingly visible around moments traditionally tied to faith. Even President Trump, who campaigned heavily on evangelical Christian culture war issues, did not attend church on Christmas Day this year. However, he did order airstrikes in Nigeria against fundamentalist Muslim groups that his administration says are persecuting Christians.
The findings also call into doubt claims of a revival, particularly in the Catholic faith. Such claims had been made repeatedly on social media, especially in the wake of Pope Leo XIV’s election as the first American pope.
The census shows unexpected consequences for both parties. PRRI reported that religiously unaffiliated voters account for roughly 34 percent of the Democratic coalition. While Democrats benefit from the growth of secular voters, those voters are harder to mobilize through traditional outreach.
Democratic strategist Sisto Abeyta, a New Mexico–based consultant with TriStrategies, told Axios that religiously unaffiliated voters are significantly harder—and more expensive—to reach. Campaigns, he said, spend about $1.40 per voter trying to engage religious ones, compared to roughly 45 cents for religiously affiliated voters.
“We have to find (religiously unaffiliated voters), engage them and answer their skeptical questions, Abeyta told Axios. ”Rather than just go to a church and pass out campaign literature."
PRRI’s data shows that Republicans remain heavily anchored to white Christian voters, who make up roughly 68 percent of the GOP coalition, while only about 12 percent of Republican voters identify as religiously unaffiliated.
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檢視宗教和「神存在」的論點 - Benjamin Cain
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請參考：
* About God: Four main beliefs about the nature of God: Deism, Panentheism, Pantheism & Theis
* 8 Philosophers Who Destroyed the Idea of God (視頻長：19:37)
下文第0節「前言」部分可視為「邏輯思考」或「理性思考」的入門步驟(「前言」這個子標題是我加上；各節序號是我的標註方式)。相當值得參考。
下文第2節討論：「宗教」的「說得通性」。我曾多次強調：一個「論述」需要「說得通」(該欄「開欄文」第0節第3段)；「宗教」是一種「論述」，自然需要通過「說得通性」的考驗。
我對克恩博士「立論」的意旨和方式兩者都沒有意見。他行文風格明顯對宗教有敵意；如果他寫此文目的在「破除迷信」，我認為它並沒有很大的「說服力」。此外，「宗教信仰」並不屬於「理性」活動的範圍；作者克恩博士的「論述策略」可能也需要修正。除了對宗教來源的分析頗有可觀外，其它部份看看即可。
The Ultimate Test of Religion’s Plausibility
Which worldview best explains the uncontroversial data at hand?
Benjamin Cain, 10/24/25
0. 前言
Each of the world’s religions makes God’s existence seem inevitable because each conveniently takes its traditions to have derived from the founders’ engagement with their Maker. Thus, since the religion plainly exists, its purported supernatural source must likewise be real.
For instance, you’re invited to think that God exists as both the universe’s creator and the backer of the Jewish tribe since that’s how Jews’ mythic telling of their history unfolds. If you think about what God would be like, by confining your contemplation to a religion’s official way of telling its story, God will seem inevitable. The religion takes its divine origin seriously, so you accept God as a precondition of accepting a venerable story. You suspend your disbelief and get swept up in the religious narrative, which is easy if you’re taught to be religious when you’re still a child.
Yet there’s an atheistic argument that follows from the multiplicity of religions.
A problem for religious folks is that our late-modern knowledge of the world’s numerous religious traditions frees the mind to be objective about the possibility of God’s existence. We needn’t presume a religious tradition or use its myths as filters for wondering whether God is real.
Instead, we can ask a deeper question: What kind of God would allow the world’s various religions to have flourished in history? Put more forcefully, the question is whether theism is likely, given the religious data that are undeniable. We can leave aside the dream-like myths, quaint hagiographies, and pious reports of miracles, and take for granted the fact that many conflicting religions have existed in history.
Would God be like a car accident that’s told in numerous conflicting accounts because none of the witnesses can remember what exactly happened? Would God be so confusing that no one can comprehend our ultimate Source, so we must flail and bumble our way through misleading religious ventures?
There are roughly two hypotheses available for explaining the undeniable evidence — again, not the pious religious traditions themselves, but the historical existence of numerous religions, from Judaism, Christianity, and Islam to Hinduism, Taoism, and animistic practices like Shinto or Yoruba.
We can assume either that these religions derive from a reassuring, supernatural source, as in a divine person or power that created everything and wishes us well, or that there’s no such source, and our religions mainly flatter us and are based on shameful confusions.
The history of the world’s religions can be explained in either theistic or atheistic (naturalistic) terms. Given the relevant facts on the ground that both theists and atheists accept, namely the multiplicity of the world’s religions, which is more likely, theism or atheistic naturalism?
1. Assorted religious perspectives
First, let’s summarize some religious conceptions of the deity. There’s Judaism’s paradoxical insistence on how God surpasses all idolatrous expectations, and how God is nevertheless present in Jewish history as a righteous protector of those who adhere to his covenant.
There’s the Christian elaboration that the Abrahamic God is preoccupied with love and mercy, not merely justice or vengeance, so God intervened in history in a Hellenistic manner, sending us his demigod offspring so this avatar could die in our place and demonstrate that our Maker should be loved and treasured rather than feared.
There’s Islam’s depiction of God as a philosophical abstraction, as being greater than all our conceptions and idols. God is a mystical creative power before which we should humbly submit by avoiding vain pretenses to embark on independent, self-destructive projects, as though a chair could work with no legs.
There’s Hinduism’s naturalistic deflation of theological metaphors, as God is depicted as a shaper of some prior, ultimate material (Brahman), and God works through creative and destructive cycles, so that the theistic metaphor encompasses all the world’s conceptions and lifestyles, including atheistic ones. God splits into a pantheon to mark our imperfect ways of stretching our minds to fathom nature’s vast creativity.
There’s Taoism’s identification of God with nature, so that natural processes take on mystical power in their simplicity and spontaneity.
Lastly, there’s animism’s panpsychist interpretation of those natural processes, forces, and materials, which treats them as having personal, teleological, or spiritual properties that fulfill our social inclinations.
Those are only some prevailing religious conceptions. Countless more have come and gone in the history of religions.
2. The test of plausibility
Again, we can ask whether it’s likely that a divine power would have created the universe as we find it, and allowed the world’s religions to have developed by dividing, mystifying, and exploiting us.
The theistic hypothesis loses much of its plausibility when we add scientific knowledge of nature to the mix. All of those religions originated long before the Scientific Revolution, so their myths were framed from a standpoint of gross ignorance, or at least they emphasized the subjective human experience. Religions dealt not so much with cosmology but phenomenology, in that they dramatized what it was like to live in the ancient world. How did the ancients cope with their hardships? By imagining that their civilizations were driven by the mightiest powers, not just a royal dynasty, but the marvelous forces responsible for the sun, moon, and stars.
When we compare modern knowledge of nature’s inhuman extent to the phenomenological standpoint of religious myth-making, the latter as a whole seems petty and self-serving since its human-centeredness is aesthetically disappointing. More precisely, while we’re free to use poetry, fiction, or other artforms to capture the human experience, there’s no need to project that experience onto the universe or its possible source. We might naturally take an interest in our stories, but that doesn’t mean the universe must care about us with equal intensity.
For some theistic account to be true, we must imagine that a divine power that’s somehow conscious, personal, and moral
(a) created the natural universe in which we emerged, and
(b) enabled numerous religious conceptions and practices to unfold in this Creator’s name.
Of course, there are theistic rationales for all possible states of affairs, but that doesn’t mean they’re all equally plausible. We can suppose that God’s act of Creation would result in many conflicting religious conceptions of the Source because God values freedom, so he lets us flounder in our confusions. Or we can imagine that God will one day settle up with us and reveal his fullness in an apocalyptic judgment that will end the natural course of things.
But how likely is either of those speculations? If God values freedom, why would he have created mostly unfree things, as in the universe of physical entities that includes atoms, planets, the intergalactic medium, and so on?
If God will one day correct all our religious or irreligious errors, why would he have allowed the errors to exist in the first place? Moreover, our freedom would end with that apocalyptic judgment, so does God value freedom or not?
If so, why eliminate it with a promised apocalypse?
If not, why has God allowed us to flounder in our confusions for so long? Why didn’t he reveal his existence from the beginning, preventing the errors and waywardness?
3. From theism to deism and atheism
Given what we know about nature and religions, deism (自然神論) is more likely than theism (有神論). That is, if a personal deity created the universe, we can explain his handiwork’s inhumanity (nature’s monstrous scale and amoral physical underpinnings) and the conflicts between the world’s religions by assuming that God isn’t especially interested in us.
God would be like Olaf Stapledon’s deity in Star Maker, an artist who creates for the aesthetic joy of it, but is more interested in the creative act than the product. Religions would be based on a futile longing for God to be a more caring parental figure than he is, not the inhuman bohemian artist that nature’s monstrous inhospitality and mixed vastness would reveal him to be.
Still, deism’s plausibility must be compared with that of atheism or strict naturalism. The notion of an inhuman divine person is oxymoronic. If God is inhuman and monstrous enough to have generated uncountable galaxies, quantum processes, black holes, and the eventual extinction of everything, why assume that this Source is at all personal in the first place? Why wouldn’t deism be a persistent sign of our vanity, our egoistic refusal to be secondary or cosmically irrelevant, as we’re socially inclined to mentally project ourselves onto everything else?
The religions that seem halfway plausible turn out to be consistent with atheism. For instance, if Islam rejects all idolatrous conceptions, including the theistic personification of the almighty creative power, then Islam is atheistic, at least on an esoteric reading.
Likewise, if Hinduism rejects literalistic interpretations of religious metaphors, and amounts to an all-embracing naturalistic cosmology that we nevertheless personify to reassure ourselves and live our best life, given our natural limitations, then Hinduism, too, is atheistic.
The atheistic upshot of such religions (and of Buddhism too) is what accounts for their greater plausibility than the more archaic, tribal-minded religions. In other words, the easiest way of explaining nature’s inhuman vastness and the confusing conflicts between the world’s religions, or their vain, tribal preoccupations, is to start from atheistic naturalism.
Given what we scientifically know about nature, nature’s source would be a monstrous creative power that has nothing essentially to do with personhood. That is, we can philosophize on the back of science. The almighty creative power has more to do with quantum mechanics and Big Bang cosmology than psychology. Minds like ours emerge from an evolutionary process in which nonlife gathers organic tendencies, and self-obsessed hosts of genes are born that fantasize about their all-importance.
The problem is that the least plausible of the world’s religions are too small-minded to account for the evidence that’s available to us in the twenty-first century. If you can accept some such fundamentalist mindset, everything will seem theologically inevitable, but that’s a trick of perspective.
If you wear rose-tinted glasses, everything will look rose in colour, but that would say more about your filters than what’s out there in the world. Only when we take up multiple perspectives, recognizing that various religions have conflicting emphases and dogmas, can we learn to be sufficiently cynical about metanarratives so that we don’t succumb to the temptation of accepting easy answers, such as the ones with which we grew up.
According to the small-minded, tribal religion, God created everything but he cares especially about us, or those who heed his commands. This is a truly implausible scenario, from a perspective that’s informed by twenty-first-century knowledge and hindsight. If God cares especially about you or his followers, why did he create everything else that we now know about? Why did he mostly create impersonal things?
There’s simply no good answer from within an archaic theological perspective. Some theistic answer might seem natural, on the basis of certain theological assumptions, but only at the cost of making those assumptions bizarre and arbitrary.
Paradoxically, everything seems strange from the perspective of atheistic naturalism because everything we care about most, including ourselves and our family, friends, possessions, hobbies, aspirations, and cultures, counts for nothing in the cosmic scheme.
Theology trivializes reality, reducing it to our self-centered preoccupations so that we can ignore nature’s monstrous absurdity. Naturalism expands our minds, confounds our vanity, and re-enchants the universe by abandoning easy, archaic answers.
If we can’t simply project mental properties onto nature, in the intuitive animistic or theistic manner, and nature’s evident creativity is truly mindless, impersonal, and amoral, our mind-first perspectives must be paltry filters indeed. If personhood and morality emerge as by-products in a churning sea of physical possibilities, nature’s creativity must be all the almightier, thanks to its departure from our quaint mammalian limitations.
The personification of nature’s source is the ultimate blasphemy and the most foolish of empty boasts. Atheistic naturalism best accounts for the uncontroversial evidence at hand, and we must decide where to go with that knowledge in mind.
Further reading
The Obvious Way that Science Proves Atheism
Science Made Theism Archaic
The Man-made Gods of Monotheism
I collect my Medium writings in paperback and eBook forms, and I put them up on Amazon. Check them out if you’d like to have them handy and to support my writing. Some recent ones are：
The Torment of Cosmic Mindfulness
The Faltering Uplift of Intrepid Apes
Mirages in a Cosmic Wasteland
Our Oddity in Deep Time
Aristocrats in the Wild
Questing for Epiphanies in a Haunted House
Each of which is over 500 pages and filled with my articles on philosophy, religion, or politics.
Written by Benjamin Cain
Ph.D. in philosophy/Knowledge condemns. Art redeems. /https://benjamincain.substack.com/https://ko-fi.com/benjamincain/ benjamincain8@gmailDOTcom
Published in Philosophy Today
Philosophy Today is dedicated to current philosophy, logic, and thought.
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「反證說」和「科學方法論」
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** 下文原發表於2024/11/29。因更改版面重新刊出；導致不便，尚請見諒。 -- 2025/12/28 **
1. 「反證說」
我讀波普的《科學理論的邏輯》一書大概在40年前，自然記不清楚他理論的細節；此處只能就「反證說」略述幾句。如果有誤解之處，請指正。
波普認為：
1) 科學的功能和優點在於：科學研究成果的應用具有普遍性；「研究成果」一詞在此指：「假說」或「理論」。下文中，理論一詞包含假說，和其它基於科學研究所得到的「解釋」。
2) 「普遍性應用」來自科學理論具有「『預測』未知或未發生情況」的能力。
3) 如果一個理論所「預測」的「未知或未發生情況」與(後來)「實際發現或發生情況」不符合；或該理論根本沒有「『預測』未知或未發生情況」的能力；則根據波普的標準，該理論不具「科學性」。
3-1) 波普舉出兩個不具「科學性」的理論：馬克思主義和弗洛伊德心理分析學說；並稱兩者為「偽科學」(此處請參考以下第2節2)-a中的《什麼是偽科學？》一文)。
4) 所謂「反證」(或譯「證偽」、「否證」，下同)，指上面第3)小段中所說：(後來)「實際發現或發生情況」與(某理論所)「預測」的「未知或未發生情況」不符合；在這個情形下：該理論被(現實)證明「不成立」，或(現實)證明了該理論為「偽」。具有能被「反證」能力的理論，被視為具有「反證性」。
5) 對波普來說，「科學性」等同於「反證性」。這個觀點自庫恩之後，相當被質疑。這個議題當下並無定論；我大概至少要寫個3,000 -- 5,000字才說得清楚；暫且藏拙。
此處可參看此文第5段關於愛因斯坦「一般相對論」的討論(該欄2024/11/28)。
2. 「科學方法論」參考閱讀
本城市20多年來刊登過很多篇有關「科學方法論」的文章(包括「反證性」)，我一時之間沒有空將它們一一找出來。以下只列舉手頭有紀錄的幾篇。
1) 波普的科學觀，請參考：Karl Popper
2) 「科學方法論」的一般性討論，請參考：
a. 關於科學方法的討論 (該欄共14篇貼文，可先看以下這4篇)
* 《科學研究和宗教信仰不同之處》J. Schweitzer，2013/09/14
* 《什麼是偽科學？》P. Ellerton，2014/02/02
* 《10個經常被誤用的科學概念》A. Newitz，2014/06/2 (該文第1、2兩點討論：「證明」和「理論」兩個「科學概念」)
* 《現行科學方法需要修改嗎？》S. Hossenfelder，2014/12/24，以及
b. A few Words On the Scientific Methodology (該欄2006/04/03)
3) 「(兩類)相信」的一般性討論，請參考：What's the Difference Between Belief in Dark Matter and Belief in God?
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科學必需可以否證！-亓官先生
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** 下文為亓官先生大作；原發表於2024/11/29。因更改版面重新刊出；導致不便，敬請見諒。我無法在作者欄位使用亓官先生原有的標誌。在此向他致歉。此外，格式與標點符號略有補足修改。 -- 2025/12/28 **
科學哲學家Karl Popper定義：
如何判斷是否屬於科學問題？
如果一個命題可以否證，就是科學問題；
如果不能否證，不屬於科學問題！
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都是「有神」論者! -- 亓官先生
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** 下文為亓官先生大作；原發表於2024/11/27。因更改版面重新刊出；導致不便，敬請見諒。我無法在作者欄位使用亓官先生原有標誌。在此向他致歉。此外，格式與標點符號略有修改。 -- 2025/12/27 **
有些人相信「神存在」？有些人相信「神不存在」？
哈哈! 這兩派人都是「有神」論者!
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** 下文原發表於2024/11/25。因更改版面重新刊出；導致不便，尚請見諒 -- 2025/12/27 **
科學不能證明「神」存在是因為：沒有人能列舉「神」所有的屬性。如果有人能列出被大多數人都同意的：「『神』的屬性」，證明或反證「『神』的存在」並不困難。
因此，目前無法證明「『神』的存在」，不是「科學能力」的問題；而是一個「科學方法」或「科學證明程序」的問題。
舉兩個例子：
1) 有些大腦神經科學家認為「意識」不「存在」。
2) 有些物理學家、心理學家、和大腦神經科學家認為「自由意志」不「存在」。
在我看來，這些「學者」之所以得到以上兩種荒謬的結論，就是源於前者的論述建立在不夠周全，甚至錯誤的「意識」概念上；後者的論述則建立在不夠周全，甚至錯誤的「自由意志」概念上。
回到主題；由於我不能反證「『神』的存在」，我把自己定位在「不可知論者」。就「神存在嗎？」這個問題來說，因為無解以及其解答沒有什麼「實用」，我對它並沒有很大的興趣。
我必較有興趣的問題是：為什麼有些人相信「神存在」？
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上帝到底存不存在 -- 亓官先生
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** 下文為亓官先生大作；原發表於2024/11/24。因更改版面重新刊出；導致不便，敬請見諒。我無法在作者欄位使用亓官先生原有標誌。在此向他致歉。此外，標點符號略有補足修改。 -- 2025/12/26 **
神到底存不存在？
上帝到底存不存在？
這是各種宗教信仰創立之後一直存有的問題；
在哲學神學理論其實也有解答。
科學發達後，問的人更多了！
神學上認為信仰是一種先驗的不必證實的過程；
否則從古到今許多智者先知為何都不懷疑。
但是科學上事事講求實證，懷疑論者以理性的思考容易走上無神論！
最常聽到的說法：上帝存在，你證明給我看，
你不能證明，所以上帝不存在。
其實上帝存不存在是哲學上的一個「兩難命題」；
所以產生「雙面論證」我只要反問：
上帝不存在，你證明給我看；
你不能證明，所以上帝存在。
就和你的懷疑論打成平手，誰也不能服誰。
所以信仰問題不是從講理辯論解決，
而是從情感經驗入手。
信神的人每天生活在恩典之中，是幸福的！
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