A Humanist Theodicy?

I have been hearing the word theodicy quite a bit recently. Theodicy is usually talked about in the context of how religious believers deal with “the problem of evil and suffering”. The problem of evil is neatly summarised by the paradox of Epicurus: "Either God wants to abolish evil, and cannot; or he can, but does not want to. If he wants to, but cannot, he is impotent. If he can, but does not want to, he is wicked. If God can abolish evil, and God really wants to do it, why is there evil in the world?" The solution for us atheists is obvious. There is not a God who can or wants to prevent the suffering that arises as an inevitable consequence of a natural world. Stephen Law gave an excellent account of this atheist view at the Centre for Inquiry the other week (Stephen also appeared briefly on the BBC’s The Big Question yesterday morning).

The word theodicy is also used by Weber to describe any system which attempts to provide answers to the ultimate questions of life, the universe and everything - Humanity’s place in the universe, especially when related to moral and ethical issues. Theodicies are are those cultural systems that attempt to address the universal human need for meaning at the highest level. Marxism and Capitalism can be seen as theodocies as well as the worlds religions. What does the Humanist theodicy look like?

The Humanist starting point is to assume that we are alone in this world and that the only justice that exists is the justice we create against a backdrop of a cold, uncaring universe which does not have our interests in mind. This might not seem like a promising start for a theodicy to inspire meaning, yet the human life is worth living despite these assumptions. I think that whether or not Humanism continues to grow as a world belief system depends on whether the positive payoff for facing the world as it really is can outweigh the emotional payoff of living life in a religiously inspired fantasy world.

Dennett, Dawkins and Itchy Ghosts

I am on the train home from three days of lectures and hiking around museums in the capital, beginning with the superlative lecture given by Daniel Dennett at Conway Hall, home of the South Place Ethical Society in Red Lion Square, titled A Darwinian Perspective on Religions: Past, Present and Future, part of the Darwin 200 series of events put on by the British Humanist Association. I think that it was one of the two most enjoyable lectures that I have ever attended, the other being the lecture given by Richard Dawkins with his wife Lalla Ward in Leeds as part of his 1998 book tour to promote Unweaving the Rainbow. I have met at least one other Humanist who attended the 1998 lecture and for whom the talk spurred them on to be involved in organised Humanism as it did me. Dawkins was chairing the meeting on Thursday evening which was the icing on the cake. Other favoured luminaries such as Susan Blackmore (author of the Meme Machine and A Very Short Introduction to Consciousness) were conspicuous attendees (who could miss that hair?). Dennett was mesmerising and the gravitas of his delivery will probably go with me to the grave as a memorable day, one which might not have come to pass as Dennett almost died in November 2006, surviving a major heart bypass operation. This near death experience did not prompt a religious conversion - quite the opposite.
I visited the Natural History Museum on Friday to see the Darwin Exhibition. I also intended to visit Darwin’s memorial in Westminster Abbey but the last admission was at 15:30 and I missed the opportunity. Probably just as well - the entrance fee was £12 - to visit a church!
On Saturday was the second Centre for Inquiry UK event organised by it’s provost, the philosopher Stephen Law, titled God in the Lab. The morning session with Emma Cohen (do ghosts get itchy?) and Michael Jackson (not that one) was particularly good, exploring experiments to investigate religious experience. I thought that Miguel Farias’ experiments on religious belief and analgesia seemed flawed, as did several of the audience members, but hey, I’m not the PhD educated Oxford scientist.

Weird Science

I am writing this on the train home from the first conference put on by the Centre for Inquiry London which was held at Conway Hall in London (left), the home of the South Place Ethical Society. I have had an enjoyable day at the conference, entitled Weird Science (nothing to do with that 1980s movie). The first speaker was the psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman whose book Quirkology I have been reading (my edition has a great cover with a freaky photo like the ones Richard showed during his talk on the front - see below - can you tell what is strange about the cover photo?). Richard started out as a professional magician and included quite a lot of magic tricks to demonstrate perceptual illusions. When he was being introduced we were told that he had been working late last night with that pointy bearded mind fiddler Derren Brown testing alleged psychic mediums. Richard’s performance was very slick and funny which is more than can be said for the second speaker, his collaborator and fellow investigator of all things that go bump in the night, Professor Chris French, who was plagued by technical issues with the laptop he was using to make his presentation - all clips of him on TV. The highlight of his talk was listening to supposed satanic messages in Stairway to Heaven by Led Zeppelin. After lunch it was the turn of the first Provost of the Centre of Inquiry London, introduced by Andrew Copson from the BHA, the philosopher and former postman, whose blog I follow, Stephen Law, who seemed surprised by the large turnout for the event he had organised. Stephen said that they were planning to change the name to Centre for Inquiry UK. His talk was about Creationism and included talking about the infamous Ken Ham and his Answers in Genesis organisation in the USA. Stephen was heckled a bit by questioners in the audience, particularly by someone bringing up Karl Popper’s famous falsifiability test for any scientific theory. The last speaker was Ben Goldacre from the Guardian, whose excellent book Bad Science I read whilst on holiday in Italy this year. He spoke a lot about pseudoscience and wanting to "slam his cock in a door". It was an amusing presentation but he tried too hard. I thought Richard Wiseman was funnier.
(top photo: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Conway_Hall_South_Place_Ethical_Society_night.jpg)