Doesn’t it seem like atheism is all over the news? I’m probably falling victim to some form of perceptual bias here, possibly selective perception — like the time when I bought a solid gold baby, and suddenly it seemed like everyone had one. Okay, so either I’m imagining it, or else I became an atheist at the exact time that atheism began to command an unprecedented amount of media coverage. I think the latter — I’m on the crest of a trendy atheist wave!
A lot of the recent articles are from people who aren’t happy about the trend. They liked it when atheists wouldn’t tell people… much of anything… just felt guilty about not believing, and kept to themselves. Now we’re militant totalitarians! Cool! When do we get the uniforms?
It’s sad to see theists turn to blather so abjectly, but I suppose it’s inevitable. Without facts to support them, they have to take issue with the way atheists present their case: atheists are ‘arrogant’ or ‘dogmatic’, or, irritatingly, members of a ‘religion’.
One debate that I keep seeing is this: aren’t atheists turning off moderate theists by being confrontational? Sure, Richard Dawkins and PZ Myers are going after the fundamentalist believers, but aren’t they also alienating religious moderates who would have been likely to slide into the disbelieving camp but for the nasty atheists?
Well, atheists aren’t all that mean, though people do sometimes feel confronted when I get started. Science is like that (and so is truth and so is life). But more to the point: The conflict is not between religious fundamentalism and religious moderation. The conflict is between people who think you can believe what you like, and people who don’t. I could have said ‘between religion and science’, but I think saying it the other way neatly encapsulates the problem.
Some people think that you can believe what you like, as long as you feel ‘good’ about it, or it makes you ‘happy’. These are religious fundamentalists, but it also describes religious moderates and the entire spectrum of new age woos. People who ‘do science’ or ‘accept science’ are different. If you have a scientific outlook, you can’t believe just what you want. There’s an external reality independent of anyone’s perception that can be measured and experimented on, and evidence from that reality is the standard for truth.
A theist on another blog asked this thought-provoking question:
What are your thoughts on interaction with and influence by those of different beliefs/ideals? Do you feel easily influenced when you open yourself up to their opinions? Do you see this as detrimental or beneficial?
And here’s part of my response:
I guess my message for True Believers would be: Don’t worry. Exposure to other beliefs won’t necessarily change your mind, especially if changing your mind would be especially threatening. You’ll be able to revert to whatever you want to believe. People are good at that. … As long as you hold on to the idea that you can believe what you like, your beliefs are safe.
What you should worry about, in my view, is science and reason. Reject those, and you can believe what you like. Accept them as valid, and you can’t. Once you are aware of critical thinking and the scientific method and you decide to apply them to your life, including your belief system, without being afraid of the consequences, then — in my view — loss of faith is the likely outcome. It just so happens that I now think that’s the right answer, but it’s not an easy one to accept.
Reason’s a bully, and once you accept its validity, you can no longer honestly deny facts. No wonder then that many belief systems avail themselves of some variant of ‘believe what you like’, ‘believe what feels good’, or ‘create your own reality’.
UPDATE There’s a really good interview on Salon with Chris Hedges, author of “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America.”
Doesn’t it make sense for the Democrats to reach out to the huge number of evangelicals who aren’t necessarily part of the religious right, but who may be sympathetic to some of its rhetoric? Couldn’t those people be up for grabs?
I don’t think they are up for grabs because they have been ushered into a non-reality-based belief system. This isn’t a matter of, “This is one viewpoint, here’s another.” This is a world of magic and signs and miracles and wonders, and [on the other side] is the world you hate, the liberal society that has shunted you aside and thrust you into despair. The rage that is directed at those who go after the movement is the rage of those who fear deeply being pushed back into this despair, from which many of the people I interviewed feel they barely escaped. A lot of people talked about suicide attempts or thoughts of suicide — these people really reached horrific levels of desperation. And now they believe that Jesus has a plan for them and intervenes in their life every day to protect them, and they can’t give that up.
So in a way, the movement really has helped them.
Well, in same way unemployed workers in Weimar Germany were helped by becoming brownshirts, yes. It gave them a sense of purpose. Look, you could always tell in a refugee camp in Gaza when one of these kids joined Hamas, because suddenly they were clean, their djelleba was white, they walked with a sense of purpose. It was a very similar kind of conversion experience. If you go back and read [Arthur] Koestler and other writers on the Communist Party, you find the same thing.
People who believe what they like are easy to manipulate. It just takes an influential and charismatic con artist to show them a vision they like, and they’re in.
8 January 2007 at 1:52 pm
We know that science isn’t perfect… and not everything can be explained by reason. You’ve got to leave yourself open to possibilities, or (in my opinion anyway) one becomes as bad as a religious extremist. Not everything is black and white.
9 January 2007 at 12:21 am
Fred: Look at this — gravity pulls things down.
Ned: I think gravity pulls things up.
Fred: No, you’re wrong, Ned; look.
Ned: What are you; some kind of religious extremist? Science isn’t perfect, and not everything can be explained by reason.
Fred: Ur…
Ned: You’ve got to leave yourself open to possibilities.
Nobody’s arguing that everything is black and white. Of course there are non-sciency areas where you can say “That’s interesting.” But if the scientific method has failings, non-scientific methods would do even worse.
I’m curious; in what way is science or reason imperfect?
9 January 2007 at 11:06 pm
On the contrary, I think the scientific method does leave one open to possibilities – if some new evidence comes along, you have to accept that and change your view. Which seems very much opposed to religious fundamentalism – you can throw every little piece of evidence at them and they will not leave themselves open to the possibility that they may be wrong. But then, as Steven Novella puts it “You can’t reason someone out off something they didn’t reason themselves into”. Is that something reason doesn’t explain?
BTW Daniel, your post just completely weirded me out. A post I wrote tonight began with a little bit about cognitive bias then a spiel about belief systems. Then I come over to this neck of the woods to see the same thing going on! Atheism really must be everywhere. Or yeah, it could just be coincidence and selective perception. But it makes me happier to believe that the word is getting out and Atheists are finally starting to address the marketing of organised religion. It’s like a counterattack; maybe we really should get uniforms! And I love “people who think you can believe what you like, and people who don’t” I’ll have to use that…
10 January 2007 at 2:53 am
Ho-hum.
You know of course that I’m not in the least surprised that we can’t find God via experiments on the natural world, he being a supernatural being in a supernatural realm and all. But your objection is that only stuff that can be proved via the scientific method is reliable and valid and worthy of your belief/trust/whatever, right? Here I guess is where we disagree. Logic and reason are not peculiar to science. History, archaeology, literary criticism, philosophy, are all studied with logic and reason, and it seems to me that to decide these are not reliable and valid *enough* is entirely subjective.
Anyhoo. So basically I don’t think it’s fair for you to suggest that people involved in faiths supported by these studies believe just whatever they like. I’ll wholeheartedly agree that logic and reason are standards for truth, but I can not accept that only natural-experimental science uses them.
10 January 2007 at 3:38 am
daniel,
Thought you might enjoy this
and this
10 January 2007 at 5:04 am
…he being a supernatural being in a supernatural realm and all.
That’s interesting. How did you find that out about God?
Scripturally? No, it doesn’t seem to be in the Bible…
Experimentally? Oh, wait, God’s outside the natural realm.
Oh, I know… Somebody made it up.
Probably in response to something a scientist said.
Well, believe it if you like.
10 January 2007 at 7:41 am
God is spirit … (John 4:24)
I know I harp on, but you can’t really say Christians et al. believe whatever we like without me responding.
10 January 2007 at 8:05 am
By all means, continue. You’re making my point for me.
Shall we have a prize for the one who makes the 100th comment?
10 January 2007 at 10:13 am
Well, I reckon I put it quite nicely that I do not believe just “whatever I like”, so I guess you mean the point about “turning to blather so abjectly”? Oh, gee, thanks. I’m just rationally questioning a problem I see in your argument. So nyah.
I doubt anything new’ll be said in even 1000 posts.
10 January 2007 at 11:21 am
Dude, if you’re offering prizes, I’m joining in too! I’ll be most upset if it’s a bottle of wine or something though, I hate it when that happens (stupid Medieval History!)
Just out of interest, where do you see me fitting into this? Do you honestly think I’m the sort of person to believe just anything, and that I haven’t thought it through?
I’m curious.
10 January 2007 at 6:17 pm
I’ve annoyed the commenters. It’s terrible. I’d better be nice.
amy, you’re not a blatherer. I was referring to the author of the article I linked to. But I think you’re pulling claims out of the air. Yes, the only way we can say something is true is by the scientific method, i.e. falsifiable hypotheses confirmed by observable data. If you disagree, please name one example of knowledge that we can all recognise as true without using the scientific method.
alarik: Based on your comments here, I don’t think you just believe everything. You’re much more liberal-thinking than most LDS, and you’re probably a good critical thinker. Latter-day Saints can be great critical thinkers on any topic… except their belief system.
Maybe you’ll find a useful parallel in my experience. Back in my believing days, I didn’t just believe whatever was taught. I thought about it all. But my thinking was flawed because they gave me shitty tools to find truth. They told me (and you) that if you prayed about something and you felt good, that meant it was true.
That is wrong. It does not work. How we feel about something has nothing to do with whether it is true (for speaker-external propositions).
So then I learned from psychology about how people deceive themselves to protect cherished beliefs, and I learned from the scientific method that a theory is true if it makes falsifiable predictions that are confirmed by repeatable observations. I then turned my view toward my religious faith and saw that it was a Magical Wishing Ferret. It taught counterfactual ideas, which I saw that people felt ‘good’ about because they prayed.
So where do you fit into this? I think you’re aware of these ideas, but if you’re a theist, you’re not applying them. What I hope you’ll do is be ruthless in applying sound principles to ideas in your life.
I tried being nice, but ended up being challenging. Maybe next time.
p.s. Wine can be exchanged for goods and services.
10 January 2007 at 6:27 pm
I’ll take the bottle of wine. Australian wines are good. So you’re just an atheist because it’s trendy huh? While I know you are just baiting here I would like to talk about some of the points that you dismissed so quickly.
Without facts to support them, they have to take issue with the way atheists present their case: atheists are ‘arrogant’ or ‘dogmatic’, or, irritatingly, members of a ‘religion’.
First of all the criticism of the presentation of an argument is a perfectly valid thing to do. It is included in the scoring of forensic matches everyday. Subjective to be sure but still a very important part of building an argument for a specific target audience. It may not change the “facts” themselves but it does change how the audience perceives those facts. And human perception has very little to do with logic or the scientific method. So I think it IS important to decide what the goal of your argument is. (and I have to admit I’m not quite sure what your goal is here. Other than to goad people who disagree with you into a conversation)
I think that brings us to your second point.
though people do sometimes feel confronted when I get started. Science is like that (and so is truth and so is life). But more to the point: The conflict is not between religious fundamentalism and religious moderation. The conflict is between people who think you can believe what you like, and people who don’t. I could have said ‘between religion and science’, but I think saying it the other way neatly encapsulates the problem.
Talking from the libertarian side of my mouth one of the greatest freedoms that humans enjoy is the ability to make bad decisions and believe stupid things.
While logic may dictate what we can (should?)Or cannot believe I don’t think people enjoy having another person tell them what that is. I think that is a journey you have to make for yourself.
There’s an external reality independent of anyone’s perception that can be measured and experimented on, and evidence from that reality is the standard for truth.
I’m not sure what “truth” is. I would agree that evidence from that external reality is the standard for Facts. But I don’t think facts=truth all the time. There is objective truth and subjective truth. Facts are always facts. and I agree with you that if the facts make you feel confronted then there is probably a problem with your belief system. But any human that claims to know what the “Truth” is begs the descriptions you found so irritating above: ‘arrogant’ or ‘dogmatic’ or members of a ‘religion’. I posit that certainty of the facts IS the domain of the scientific method while certainty of the truth is the domain of madmen, demagogs and religious fanatics.
Enough for now. I’ll be back later for more.
11 January 2007 at 12:24 am
Okay! Falsifiable hypotheses confirmed by observable data! And that’s what I’ve done! The resurrection is falisfiable! And confirmed by observable data! Call it science or history, whatever! These are bemused exclamation marks! Not annoyed exclamation marks!
In all seriousness, that there is my point: I don’t believe just whatever I like because history won’t let me. I still don’t understand what you don’t like about the ‘observable data’. The line of best fit seemed fairly obvious to me. You can’t verify things with repeatable observations and that’s just how it is, but that doesn’t mean you can’t use logic and reason when you examine the observable data.
11 January 2007 at 1:00 am
No available evidence supports the notion that anyone has ever risen from the dead.
For historical claims, it’s important to have another corroborating source. Is there any other non-Biblical source from that time period that corroborates the resurrection?
11 January 2007 at 7:00 am
The problem with wanting a non-biblical source is the people who saw it tended to become writers of biblical literature. Funny, that.
But you know, from all the non-Christian writers we have from that period, they all mention that the Christians were repressed, persecuted, tortued, killed, for superstition, sorcery, denying Greek gods, etc. None of them mention any evidence found against the resurrection claim. Why can you not look at the claim itself?
11 January 2007 at 9:24 am
They couldn’t all become Bible writers. Surely one non-biblical corroborating source?
As to your second paragraph:
1. Astronauts have been to the moon and documented many of its features.
2. None of them mention any evidence found against goats on the moon.
3. Therefore, moon goats.
But you’re welcome to b… yeah.
11 January 2007 at 1:44 pm
Thank you.
No, I mean, if you went to the moon and saw a moon goat, would you or would you not document it? If you were a Jewish historian/writer living in the first century and there was good evidence against a resurrection, i.e. a body in a tomb, would you or would you not mention this fact? If you knew the resurrection was a hoax, would you write, as Josephus did,
“At this time there was a wise man who was called Jesus. And his conduct was good and his learning outstanding. And many people from among the Jews and the other nations became his disciples. Pilate condemned him to be crucified and to die. And those who had become his disciples did not abandon their discipleship. They reported that he had appeared to them three days after the crucifixion and that he was alive; accordingly, he was perhaps the Messiah, concerning whom the prophets have recounted wonders.”
-Antiquities 18. 63-64
?
(And of course, if you yourself knew there was an empty tomb, would you die for that? Ignore the seeing Jesus alive again for now. Start with an empty tomb.)
11 January 2007 at 3:26 pm
Quoting Jesus and Mo: “What empty tomb? That’s part of the same story. You can’t use it as evidence for itself!”
The authenticity of the Josephus passage you’ve quoted is disputed. Even so, all the passage says is that people believed the story.
Yes, people do believe Christianity. People also believe that Elvis is alive, and that was only 30 years ago. Christianity has had 2000 years to iron out inconsistencies. If it hadn’t done so, it would have disappeared, and we wouldn’t be talking about it. So it must have been plausible enough to spread. You’re using that as evidence for its validity: “People believed it, so it must be true”. Instead I say, “People believed it, so people sure do believe lots of different things.”
A question: One of the tests of a good theory is falsifiability. There are lots of things that could falsify my ‘atheist theory’ and change my mind:
– A replicable double-blind experiment showing that some kind of ‘goddy behaviour’ has a significant effect not otherwise explainable (e.g. healing by prayer)
– A religious belief system that makes falsifiable predictions (without using scientific means) that are then confirmed by ordinary data that anyone can observe,
– Repeatable demonstrations of supernatural phenomena
Is there anything that could falsify your theistic theory?
11 January 2007 at 9:47 pm
I think there are lots of spooky and unexplainable things going on in the world. I mean I popped over to Idyllopus’ blog and she was wondering why so many people were visiting this old post of hers:
http://www.idyllopuspress.com/meanwhile/?p=55
what a strange co-incidence!
Does, however, explain why amy’s grasp of ‘evidence’ is tenuous at best.
Although I essentially agree with Jeff that you are talking about ‘facts’ not ‘truth’.
Which is why ‘truth’ is not also factual or evidence-based and therefore not a useful concept in a reasoned discussion. Science is no more ‘truth’ than religion.
12 January 2007 at 12:38 am
You’re using that as evidence for its validity: “People believed it, so it must be true”. Instead I say, “People believed it, so people sure do believe lots of different things.”
I don’t think it’s true because people believe it full stop. People believed it at a time when disproving it would have been the easiest thing, and the most sensible and sought after thing; it would be very difficult to say there was an empty tomb when, in fact, there was not, and very easy to put a stop to Christianity without killing us by presenting Exhibit A. That’s not evidence for the whole resurrection shebang being true, but to me it’s the first logical step, and I’m afraid in all honesty I can not see what’s wrong with that. In which case, I guess, you may say that I am irrational, delusional, and I believe whatever I like. I’d rather you didn’t, but right now I can’t see how to convince you otherwise.
😐
12 January 2007 at 1:40 am
snowqueen: The science/truth distinction is useful. I’ve heard it described this way: There’s an external reality that exists independent of any of our perception. We say that a statement is true (enough for our purposes) when it conforms to that reality.
So the next question becomes: what’s the best way to get at truth?
And then I pop up with a flag and say “Science!”
12 January 2007 at 2:48 am
There’s an external reality that exists independent of any of our perception.
I BELIEVE that is true but here is the exact problem. Science and even logic have no way to verify that statement.
I never said that I don’t think science is our best method for getting to the truth. I was just pointing out that it CAN be important to think about how you present your case.
12 January 2007 at 3:34 am
amy: You’re not any of those things. I certainly wasn’t deluded or irrational when I believed in Jesus. I just didn’t know how to evaluate ideas and I wasn’t willing to ferret out my biases.
If you notice any of these behaviours in yourself, I urge you to get ruthless and turf ’em. It’s not a fun process, but once you’re on the other side of it, the view is fantastic.
13 January 2007 at 12:49 am
“I’ve heard it described this way: There’s an external reality that exists independent of any of our perception.”
This is the fundamental error of thinking that science tells us anything about ‘truth’. There may be ‘things’ out there but our explanations do not tell us anything about ‘reality’ because every explanation starts with a human perception/description. Even Galilleo didn’t make this error – he said that all we could do is describe what we observe but that as soon as we think this means we know what is true about something we are moving into the realm of assumptions. The ‘reality’ which we observe and understand through science is only human reality and so cannot tell us anything about ultimate reality.
now this doesn’t mean that anything goes – as a system, the reality that science provides us with is absolutely the best descriptor for us to make sense of and exert the control we need to in the world. It works extremely well with predictable systems. But don’t mistake that for some kind of ultimate truth. Truth is a myth best left to the religious and parents trying to instill moral behaviour in children
13 January 2007 at 6:26 am
Is that true?
18 January 2007 at 12:08 am
Is that an ironic question or are you asking about Galilleo – if it’s the former then my answer is ‘who cares?’ and if the latter, I can provide you with a reference.
18 January 2007 at 2:21 am
The first. Your comment got me thinking.
What you’re saying about truth seems ‘true’ (heh), but in real life we commonly talk about things being ‘true’ or ‘not true’, and we need to be able to do this. As you’ve defined truth, we can’t. You’ve (quite correctly I think) defined truth as something that we can’t actually use.
I’d like to suggest that when people say that something is true, what they mean is ‘true enough for our purposes’. That’s not to go all new-agey or anything; it just means that truth is to some extent purpose-dependent. Is it true that this line is a straight line? Depends on what I’m using it for. And then that leaves us open to revise our perception of truth as our need for greater precision (e.g.) changes.
I guess there is a danger of thinking that what we see is direct reality. It’s an easy trap to fall into. Maybe we need to recognise that when we say ‘x is true’, we’re really saying ‘There’s a overwhelming probability that x is the case’. But we just don’t say that because it takes too long.
19 January 2007 at 11:41 am
“I’d like to suggest that when people say that something is true, what they mean is ‘true enough for our purposes’. That’s not to go all new-agey or anything; it just means that truth is to some extent purpose-dependent.”
Absolutely and in fact this is the position of people like Richard Rorty who you might be tempted to dismiss because he’s ‘postmodern’. However, if you look at what you’ve said, then you are agreeing that truth is socially, culturally and historically contingent. ‘Truth’ is created not found.
Facts may not always be true and truth may not always be fact.