Quentin Smith, God and Nothingness: What evidence would be sufficient for atheists to falsify atheism and naturalism? Naturalism as a commitment of the WILL and the unfalsibility of naturalism among leading, contemporary atheistic thinkers

Atheists' main complain is that there is not sufficient evidence for God's existence. But rarely they make clear exactly what would constitute "sufficient evidence" for establishing the existence of God, since often in their writings they make clear that even "miracles", if actual, don't provide sufficient and convincing evidence (for any reasonable person) that God exists. So, a "reasonable person" could keep his atheism in place despite the evidence for a putative miracle.

For example, in his book "Arguing about Gods", Graham Oppy says:

even if it were conceded that the parting of the Red Sea occurred, it is not clear that the parting of the Red Sea demands a supernatural explanation; and, more important, even if the parting of the Red Sea does demand a supernatural explanation, it is not clear that the best supernatural explanation is to suppose that it is the result of the actions of an orthodoxly conceived monotheistic god (p.377)

The "it is not clear" that the parting of Red Sea demands a supernatural explanation could be available to the atheist as an excuse even if hard evidence for the parting of the Red Sea were available. Hence, based on such an excuse, the atheist would have a reason to avoid accepting the existence of God.

One suspects that such an excuse is a kind of psychological self-deception or protection mechanism for atheists, a protection from the cognitive dissonance caused by certain actual or possible evidences in order to make feel comfortable the atheistic chorus: "Don't worry my atheist friend. Even if the universe began to exist, if the parting of the Red Sea occurred, if Jesus' resurrection happened, if the Universe is fine-tuned for intelligent life, if an afterlife exists (add your own example), keep in mind that "it is not clear" that God is the more likely explanation. So, atheistic naturalism is unaffected!".

Now, I ask honest and open-minded truth seekers (including atheists): What possible EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE could God provide for making an atheist, who reads and agrees with Oppy's book and his "it is not clear" cavil, to accept that such evidence is best explained by God? What kind of evidence would make Oppy's "it is not clear" excuse to dissappear?

Perhaps a reasonable atheist could suggest a kind of public miracle, a miracle which not only is clearly contrary to known natural laws but empirically available to everyone, including atheists themselves. Does such evidence, if exists, would constitute "sucfficient evidence" acceptable to the atheist? 

Not so fast!

According naturalist J.J.C Smart, not such evidence could ever exist, because the possibility of another explanations (for example that the atheist experiencing the miracle in question has gone mad or is dreaming) has not been ruled out:

Someone who has naturalistic preconceptions will always in fact find some naturalistic explanation more plausible than a supernatural one... Suppose that I woke up in the night and saw the stars arranged in shapes that spelt out the Apostle's Creed. I would know that astronomically it is impossible that stars should have changed their position. I don't know what I would think. Perhaps I would think that I was dreaming or that I had gone mad. What if everyone else seemed to me to be telling me that the same had happened? Then I might not only think that I had gone mad-- I would probably go mad" (J.J.C. Smart in his contribution to the book Atheism and Theism, pp.50-51. Emphasis in blue added)

So, the naturalist has a unfalsifiable assumption in favor of naturalism which precludes the efficacy of any evidence for the contrary. The naturalist position is being treated like an unfalsifiable hypothesis (and hence, like an unscientific one).

This seems to be more like wishful thinking than serious, honest pursuing of the truth. In this case, it is hard to tell the difference between a atheistic ideologue and a atheistic truth-seeker.

In the case of Oppy and Smart, the implicit assumption of their position seems to be that the mere existence of another possibility is, by itself, a defeater of the God hypothesis. In other words, for believers in naturalism, the existence of God is so monumentally improbable, that even the most absurd alternative explanation will be more acceptable than the God hypothesis, so that "it is not clear" that was God (instead of another explanatory entitiy) which performed the miracle, either the Oppy's Red Sea parting or Smart's Stars arranged in shapes that spelt out the Apostle's Creed.

But then, what possible evidence for God would be "sufficient" for the atheist? Using the language of philosophy of science, what possible empirical evidence would FALSIFY the atheistic-naturalistic hypothesis?

Perhaps we could suggest, on behalf of the case for atheism, that God would be acceptable as an explanation only if there is not other possible explanation, that is, another competing explanatory entity which explains the phenomenon in question. In other words, if you have God (as a possible explanation) on a side, and in the other side you have nothing (i.e. no other possible explanatory entity), then since nothing cannot explain something, God wins by default. This would be the extreme case in which God, as an explanatory entity, wins due to the absence of competitors. Isn't it?

Not so fast!

According to atheist philosopher Quentin Smith (and many other atheists), "Nothingness" is a more reasonable explanation than God!. 

Being against the ropes by the scientific evidence of the universe's absolute beginning to exist (which implies that no natural cause could be the explanation of the entire universe's absolute coming into being), Smith is forced to argue that "Nothingness" is the best explanation of the universe's beginning to exist (this, in passing, shows how much Smith is open-minded about the empirical falsification of naturalism):

The fact of the matter is that the most reasonable belief is that we came from nothing, by nothing and for nothing... We should instead acknowledge our foundation in nothingness and feel awe at the marvellous fact that we have a chance to participate briefly in this incredible sunburst that interrupts without reason the reign of non-being ." (Theism, Atheism and the Big Bang Comsology. P.135. emphasis in blue added)

Note Smith's expressions "without reason", "nothingness", "non-being", "we came from nothing, by nothing and for nothing"... Do you think that Nothniness, Non-Being and "without reason" are better and more rational explanations for the universe's coming into being than God? If so, then what would constitute a good reason for believing in God? What would be the "sufficient evidence" demanded by the atheist in order to accept God's existence?

Would atheists accept "nothingness", "non-being" and "without reason" as likely explanations in physics, chemistry and biology? If not, why exactly is the universe's absolute coming into being the exception?

Naturalism seems to be more like a commitment of the will, an existential choice made by a person, not a position sensible to the evidence (except when the evidence seems to support it) and hence not sensible at all to falsification.

THE UNFALSIABILITY OF NATURALISM

Since Popper, philosophers of science (not only Popperians), recognize that a necessary methodological condition for a scientific hypothesis is that it be falsifiable, namely, that it could be specified in advance what evidence, if available, could be relevant to refute or falsify the hypothesis in question. This lies in the heart of science as a critical, rational activity in opposition to dogmatic modes of thinking which are typically inmune to falsification.

Since naturalists consider themselves to be "scientific", and naturalism is supposedly a scientific philosophy, one would expect that naturalists would consider naturalism as a falsifiable hypothesis too, namely, an hypothesis which could be falsified IF certain kinds of empirical evidence were available.

I ask the readers of this post: Based upon Oppy and (above all) Smart and Smith, do you think these authors consider the naturalistic hypothesis as a falsifiable hypothesis? Do you think they are really open to contrary evidence which could falsify naturalism?

Consider Smith. He says that the most reasonable position for explaining the origin of the universe is nothingness. According to Smith, "without reason" at all, we come from "non-being". We come from nothing, by nothing and for nothing.

Since "nothingness" is ALWAYS available as an alternative to God, it follows that when a given evidence could be explained by God better than by other explanatory entities, atheists like Smith (who consider that Nothingness is a more reasonable explanation than God) will appeal to nothingness as the best explanation. Therefore, God could never be the best explanation for any fact, not even the beginning to exist of nature itself. It follows that, for all purposes, naturalism cannot be falsified. 

Naturalism is logically falsifiable, but some naturalists like Smith defends it in a way which makes it unfalsifiable, because an ad hoc hypothesis (in Smith's case, that Nothingness explains something better than God) is added to protect naturalism.

NOTHINGNESS AND ITS PROPERTIES: BAD PHILOSOPHY AND ATHEISTIC FASHION IN THE NAME OF REASON

One is deeply disappointed by the intellectual level of contemporary atheistic philosophical thinking. Sophistry, instead of serious and honesty reflection and no-holds-barred pursue of truth, seems to be the main motivation among many contemporary writers.

When a world's leading and sophisticated atheist philosophers like Smith attempt to convince us that "non-being", "nothingness" and "without reason" is a good reason to keeping atheism live in the face of the universe's coming into being, we can be sure that something is seriously wrong with atheism. When another leading atheist like Smart prefers to think he has gone mad instead of considering that naturalism has been empirically refuted, then you suspect that the commitment to naturalism is emotional and irrational, not rational (let alone, scientific).

Consider atheistic philosopher John Shook's self-contradictory assertion that beyond nature perhaps there is... more nature!:

This is so absurd as saying that beyond my country (e.g Japan) there is... "more of my country", which even the most stupid person would see that it is self-contradictory. If beyond my country is more of my country, then I haven't moved  beyond my country at all: All of I've done is moving through/across my country, that is, from a part of my country to another part of my country, not beyond my country simpliciter. But this simple, purely conceptual and analytical consideration seems to be beyond the intellectual reach of a "philosopher" like Shook.

If nature is all what there is (as naturalists think), then the proper reply by Shook should be that "beyond nature" there is not anything, and hence you cannot go beyond nature (more technically, that nature is fully co-extensive with reality, so there is nothing real beyond nature). But claiming that beyond nature is "more of nature" is stupid, inept, irrational, sophomoric, self-contradictory and unworthy of a serious, intellectually sophisticated philosopher.

But the most egregious examples of atheistic bad philosophy, which is sheer sophistry, consists in conflating "nothing" with "something" (in particular with a "simple or basic something") and in adscribing properties like "unstable" to "nothing". Since "nothing" proper, in its ontological sense, is "non-being", it is impossible that it has properties like unstability. This obvious point seems to be simply beyond the reach of some atheists. 

The whole atheistic project of using nothing as something is sheer sophistry, intellectual mediocrity, ignorance and obscurantistic misdirection.

Consider how "nothing" is used here by atheist John Loftus:

Or Lawrence Krauss:

Even Stephen Hawking has written "Because there is a law like gravity, the universe can and will create itself from nothing" (The Grand Design’, p. 25), which is sheer stupidity and bad philosophy.

Philosopher Edward Feser comments on the charlatanism, dishonesty, stupidity and intellectual mediocrity of atheists who conflate something with nothing: 

You might as well say: “Let me explain how this whole house is held up by nothing. Consider the floor, which is what I really mean by ‘nothing.’ Now, the rest of the house is held up by the floor. Thus, I’ve explained how the whole house is held up by nothing!” Well, no you haven’t. You’ve “explained” at most how part of the house is held up by another part, but you’ve left unexplained how the floor itself is held up, and thus (since the floor is itself part of the house) you haven’t really explained at all how the house as a whole is held up, either by “nothing” or by anything else. Furthermore, you’ve made what is really just sheer muddleheadedness sound profound by using “nothing” in an eccentric way.  

The “scientific” “explanations” of the origin of the universe from “nothing” one keeps hearing in recent years are really no less stupid than this “explanation” of the house. They aren’t serious physics, they aren’t serious philosophy, they aren’t serious anything except seriously bad arguments, textbook instances of the fallacy of equivocation

In conclusion, the case for contemporary atheism rests, in part, in bad, unserious and dogmatic philosophy:

-The use of nothing as something (a basic sophomoric mistake).

-The use of "nothingness", non-being, no reason at all as a valid reason to keep atheism alive (Smith), which is sheer dogmatism.

-Seeing naturalism, as a scientific philosophy, in a way contrary to the spirit of science: namely, the spirit of being open to contrary evidence (Smart). Sheer dogmatism too.

-Basic conceptual and logical mistakes, like "beyond nature perhaps there is more nature".

-Egregious, ignorant and sophomoric misrepresentations, like Sam Harris' "What caused God?" objection to the cosmological argument.

It doesn't mean that all contemporary atheistic philosophy is sophomoric or irrational. But it is dissapointing that a position so influential as atheism is defended with so bad arguments and objections, which actually suggests that atheism is a kind of fashion, not a serious position based on rational reflection and evidence.

As I mentioned in a previous post, contemporary naturalist philosopher Thomas Nagel suggests an explanation for such rampant irrationalism among contemporary atheists:

I believe that this is one manifestation of a fear of religion which has large and often pernicious consequences for modern intellectual life.

In speaking of the fear of religion, I don’t mean to refer to the entirely reasonable hostility toward certain established religions and religious institutions, in virtue of their objectionable moral doctrines, social policies, and political influence. Nor am I referring to the association of many religious beliefs with superstition and the acceptance of evident empirical falsehoods. I am talking about something much deeper—namely, the fear of religion itself. I speak from experience, being strongly subject to this fear myself: I want atheism to be true and am made uneasy by the fact that some of the most intelligent and wellinformed people I know are religious believers. It isn’t just that I don’t believe in God and, naturally, hope that I’m right in my belief. It’s that I hope there is no God! I don’t want there to be a God; I don’t want the universe to be like that.

My guess is that this cosmic authority problem is not a rare condition and that it is responsible for much of the scientism and reductionism of our time. One of the tendencies it supports is the ludicrous overuse of evolutionary biology to explain everything about life, including everything about the human mind. Darwin enabled modern secular culture to heave a great collective sigh of relief, by apparently providing a way to eliminate purpose, meaning, and design as fundamental features of the world (The Last Word, p.130)

I think Nagel is right.

Naturalism is.... A COMMITMENT OF THE WILL, not a position based on the evidence.

The following summary of atheism is perhaps simplistic, but it is not very far from Smith's overall view on the universe's coming into being in atheism: