Response to Fun with Religion – Atheism, Skepticism, and Faith

I normally don’t reply to comments to the controversial stuff on my blog for a number of reasons:

1. hardly anyone reads my blog,
2. it almost never accomplishes anything useful,
3. it takes me an awfully long time to come up with a reasonable response.

However, considering the nature and thoughtfulness of the comments received regarding my original post, I feel that the commenters deserve a reply. What you are reading now is the result of hours days weeks of thinking, talking out loud to myself, reading, making notes, doing research, editing, and fretting about my response.  I’m not a writer and I’m not an authority on any given subject, but I have been personally studying the question of religion, faith, pseudoscience, and the supernatural for nearly 22 years.  It was only in the past decade that I came to understand my position as one of skepticism, rationality, and critical thinking rather than simple atheism.

It should be plainly obvious that the images in my original post were not created by me, but discovered from various sources online. That being said, I stand behind the messages carried by the images in that post… some a bit more than others. A few are poignant and revealing while others are simply jabs at the irrationality of religious faith.

Steve comments that I am “employing the tactics of an extremist”, which may be true in a sense.  Though the use of the word “tactic” implies that I have an agenda.  I suppose that’s possible if my agenda is to get people to consider thinking critically about their world. Which I suppose I am.

I suspect, however, that both Steve and Mike are eluding to the position of skepticism or atheism as one of extremism.  While it’s true that there is a spectrum of atheistic belief (as described in Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion), I’m not sure there is such a thing as an extremist rationalist.  Either you are rational or you are not. I write of rationalism here not in the strict philosophical sense, but of the common requirement for utilizing reason and evidence in deriving knowledge.

Also, in case the word “extremist” is meant to represent “extreme minority”, it should be noted that non-believers (atheist, agnostic, humanists, non-religious, etc.) in the United States (one of the most deeply religious countries in the world) constitutes anywhere from 9% to 15% of the population (from various sources).  That’s upwards of 45 million people in the country whose deeply religious beliefs seem downright archaic to the rest of the modernized world (see quote below).  A minority for sure, but a growing and growing minority.

Jeremy Thomas, the Oscar-winning producer of Creation, a new movie that details Darwin’s “struggle between faith and reason”.  The movie can’t find a distributor in the U.S. because it is “too controversial” for the U.S. ignorant masses…

“That’s what we’re up against. In 2009. It’s amazing,” he said.

“The film has no distributor in America. It has got a deal everywhere else in the world but in the US, and it’s because of what the film is about. People have been saying this is the best film they’ve seen all year, yet nobody in the US has picked it up.

“It is unbelievable to us that this is still a really hot potato in America. There’s still a great belief that He made the world in six days. It’s quite difficult for we in the UK to imagine religion in America.”

—–

I am an atheist to be sure, but more appropriately I am a rationalist, scientist, and critical thinker.  There are many other terms that may apply as well: skeptic, humanist, non-believer, etc.  I should also point out here that atheism is not a denial of the existence of a god. It is the absence of a belief in a god, which are two very different logical positions. An atheist believes that god most likely does not exist due to a marked lack of evidence.

If you are thinking, “but wait, isn’t that agnosticism?”  Nope, that’s not quite right.  Agnosticism as defined by T.H. Huxley is not the commonly held belief that one is “holding judgement until further proof” (that’s atheism!), but rather that god is forever unknowable. An agnostic wouldn’t even try to find evidence and would disregard it when presented.

But by any means, agnosticism as differing from atheism has been revealed to be an absurd concept by Richard Dawkins via Bertrand Russell and his famous Celestial Teapot, which is an absolutely classic and fascinating thought experiment. (highly recommended reading!)

I subscribe to the idea that evidence is required to believe a given proposition about the world.  Our existence is meaningless without belief, as belief is the sole cause of action within our lives.

I believe that I will be hungry later, therefore I must find food.

Also, in order to make sense of the world, beliefs must maintain logical coherence.

When visiting my friend, I cannot simultaneously believe my friend lives in Boston and my friend lives in New York City and then act on my beliefs.

Requiring evidence, coherence, and causality is at the core of relying upon reason to yield truth.

Above all, I subscribe to the scientific method, and the general idea that knowledge is always subject to additional investigation and, if necessary, revision.

Statements [within the comments of my original post] such as, “What makes you think we know all there is to know about energy, matter, the universe?” hint at a lack of understanding of the scientific method.  The first image in my post illustrates the idea in a very simple way. Science never deals in absolutes.  Nothing is absolute fact, and everything is always open to re-evaluation. Absolutely everything.

Given sufficient evidence (which is typically rendered “beyond a reasonable doubt” via repeatable unbiased, experiments), any critically thinking rational person will accept any new knowledge.  If Zeus himself appeared before us and demonstrated his godly nature beyond a reasonable doubt, rational people would have to admit that we were wrong all along.  And we would be happy to do so.

The James Randi Educational Foundation offers $1 million reward to “anyone who can show, under proper observing conditions, evidence of any paranormal, supernatural, or occult power or event”.  Nobody has been able to claim it since it began in 1964.   Scientists are the ones with the most desire to see somebody claim that prize.  How exciting that would be!  A new world would be open to explore.

Scientists are always open to changing their world view.  And therein lies the main difference between people of faith and people of rational thought. And yes, faith is irrational by very definition.

Definition of “reason”: a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense; especially : something (as a principle or law) that supports a conclusion or explains a fact.

As George Smith argues in Atheism: The Case Against God,

“The core of faith entails conflict with reason. Knowledge requires justification in the form of evidence, however, faith is belief in something without adequate justification.”

Or, as Mark Twain put it (much better),

“Faith is believing what you know aint so.”

Faith offers no explanatory power. That’s the whole point of it. And it’s also why being a “believer” is such an easy thing to be… especially if you are a moderate believer (the vast majority) who blatantly ignores sections of the “holy book” (the authentic, inspired record of the revelations of god himself) due to the barbarism found within or the absurdity of certain ideas illuminated by the light of modern understanding.

Sam Harris illuminates the absurdity of faith bluntly in his wonderful (and highly recommended!) book The End of Faith:

It takes a certain kind of person to believe what no one else believes. To be ruled by ideas for which you have no evidence (and which therefore cannot be justified in conversation with other human beings) is generally a sign that something is seriously wrong with your mind. Clearly, there is sanity in numbers. And yet, it is merely an accident of history that it is considered normal in our society to believe that the Creator of the universe can hear your thoughts, while it is demonstrative of mental illness to believe that he is communicating with you by having the rain tap in Morse code on your bedroom window. And so, while religious people are not generally mad, their core beliefs absolutely are. This is not surprising, since most religions have merely canonized a few products of ancient ignorance and derangement and passed them down to us as though they were primordial truths. This leaves billions of us believing what no sane person could believe on his own.

…such as when Catholics take the body and blood of Christ in communion. There is nothing symbolic about this. You are Catholic only if you believe that you are eating human flesh and human blood that just happens to magically look like bread and wine. How many people in a typical Sunday mass have even heard of transubstantiation, let alone understand and actually believe it to be true?

—–

John asks, where is my scientific proof that all babies are not born with an innate belief in a god? A few of my selected images illustrate this type of question, which asks for a negative proof. The degree of certainty by which I assert that babies are born atheist is an assertion based upon a lack of evidence, not an assertion of proof.  The null hypothesis, that babies are likely not born with any innate knowledge is probably the correct default position.

This leads me into another idea that illustrates the absurdity of religion in the modern world. If you were born in Iraq, you would most likely be a practicing Islam right now. If you were born in Japan you would practice Shinto or Buddhism. Born in Mumbai? Hinduism. How can intelligent people know this and still believe that their randomly “selected” religion is the right one?

—–

The picture of the Pope in his Pope-Mobile is not in any way an endorsement to shoot the Pope!  It is, however, an incredibly revealing image that clearly illustrates the lack of logical coherence exhibited by faith.

Does the Pope have faith or not?   If there is anyone on the planet who doesn’t need bullet-proof glass, wouldn’t that be the Pope?  Is bullet-proof glass stronger than the will of a god?  Is his god omnipotent or not?  (The Catholic Dictionary says he is – which is a logical paradox)  Would not the finger pulling the trigger be guided by god himself, as is every atom in the universe at all moments throughout eternity?   If the bullet-proof glass stopped a bullet, would that be the will of god, or would that be thwarting god’s plan?

But then, perhaps god instructed the Pope to purchase the Pope-Mobile so as not to reveal Himself.  After all, god works in mysterious ways… which is conveniently any way that happens to fit any situation at hand.  This is, of course, why both sides of a conflict can confidently proclaim that they are both doing the holy work of god.

“God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East.” – George W. Bush quote as reported by a 3rd party

“We, God willing, will continue to fight you and will continue martyrdom operations inside and outside the United States until you abandon your oppression and foolish acts.” – Osama Bin Laden

That’s the problem with magical thinking. There are no real answers because everything can be wished any way you want without any justification. Once again, Richard Dawkins put it best,

“I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.”

“God’s will”, becomes an acceptable answer for anything and everything.

—–

Regarding the Prayer image, it is definitely a jab.  Of course, it depends upon what you mean by “prayer”.  Prayer can obviously have a positive affect on the person doing the praying as a physiological stress reliever in the same sense as meditation.  Fine.  But this image is clearly referencing prayer as telepathic communication with an omnipotent being, asking for intervention on behalf of another individual (intercessory prayer).

Verifiable evidence as to the efficacy of this phenomenon so far?  Extremely little.  In fact, the recent STEP study demonstrated that individuals may fair more poorly in hospitals when they know they are being prayed for.  And there are other ways in which prayer is absolutely harmful.

That being said, the full story on intercessory prayer is yet to be determined, but all available verifiable non-anecdotal evidence (the only kind that matters) as to the efficacy of prayer points towards no effect.

—–

John’s evocation of Hitler (and others) and atheism is a common theistic argument. Aside from it being a logical fallacy (post hoc ergo propter hoc [false cause]), it is irrelevant to the argument at hand. The flawed logical argument goes like this:

If atheism leads to evil, it cannot be true.
Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot were atheists.
Atheism cannot be true.

One reason why this doesn’t hold is discussed here.

It is debatable whether or not Hitler could be classified as an atheist. Here are some choice quotes:

“Therefore, I am convinced that I am acting as the agent of our Creator. By fighting off the Jews, I am doing the Lord’s Work.” – Mein Kampf

“Christ was the greatest early fighter in the battle against the world enemy, the Jews … The work that Christ started but could not finish, I — Adolf Hitler — will conclude.”

“I believe today that I am acting in the sense of the Almighty Creator. By warding off the Jews, I am fighting for the Lord’s work.”

“We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.”

“I am now as before a Catholic and will always remain so”

Not sure what else there is to say about that. I have, however, read that Hitler was a prolific public liar and first and foremost a politician. Someone obviously more knowledgeable than me in this area indicates that:

“The historical evidence is clear: Hitler was neither an atheist nor a Christian, but an syncretistic blend of scientific racism, Social Darwinism, and Teutonic neopaganism that worshiped the German Volk as the chosen of the universal force underlying the universe. Attempting to cast him as either a Christian or an atheist is both ahistorical and generally a sloppy attempt to use Godwin’s Law in lieu of an actual argument.”

Which is probably the most accurate statement one can make in this case.

—–

I hope this ramble served to explain my thoughts and actions at least a little bit. More likely it will open the door for further refutation and potential debate. That’s natural and expected, but I wouldn’t necessarily expect a response from me as this takes up way too much time for too little gain.

It has recently been argued in the skeptical community that oppositional debates (as opposed to internal) at best do no good and at worst present a false dichotomy illusion that lends weight to an opposing view that otherwise would never be considered an equal alternative.  Magic vs. Scientific Method are absolutely not on equal footing with respect to their ability to render truth about the world.

—–

Recommended Reading:

1. Sam Harris, The End of Faith
2. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion
3. Theodore Schick and Lewis Vaughn, How to Think About Weird Things: Critical Thinking for a New Age
4. Victor Stenger, God: The Failed Hypothesis
5. Richard Dawkins, The Blind Watchmaker