There is so much atheist-bashing appearing in the popular press that I can’t keep up with it. And so much of it is repetitive that there’s no point in taking it all apart. Someone should simply write a piece on “common journalistic criticisms of atheism and how to answer them,” but that person ain’t gonna be me. I wonder about the sudden outpouring of vitriol against unbelievers, but would like to think it’s the defensive reaction of believers on their heels, and the sympathetic feeling of faitheists.
Here’s one such piece from yesterday’s New York Times (fast becoming the Salon of intellectuals), brought to my attention by reader Alberto. It’s called “A Christian apologist and an atheist thrive in an improbable bond.” How can any reader not get a warm feeling from a title expressing such comity?
This reader didn’t, and neither did Alberto. The article is about the friendship of two men with opposing worldviews. One is David Skeel, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania’s law school and a Christian apologist who believes that faith and reason can be reconciled. The other is Patrick Arsenaut, a postdoctoral fellow at Penn’s school of medicine and an atheist.
Arsenault wrote to Skeel, and so began a relationship that resulted in a book on theology by Skeel. But the writer can’t resist a bit of editorializing, giving a trope that is fast becoming tiresome (my emphasis below):
To use the theological term, Professor Skeel was a Christian apologist, one who explains and defends the faith against doubters. Dr. Arsenault was an atheist, as he explained in the email, who had attended the public discussion with his own humanist loyalties. Yet he wrote that he appreciated Professor Skeel “for choosing to pose the big difficult questions of Christianity.” The next day, Professor Skeel sent a note suggesting they have coffee and talk.
So commenced the unlikely friendship and intellectual partnership of the atheist and the apologist. Since then, their relationship has transpired through private emails and chats. Two months ago, though, it became public with the release of Professor Skeel’s book “True Paradox: How Christianity Makes Sense of Our Complex World.”
Sadly, the book isn’t selling well: despite its release on August 28, only about five weeks ago, it’s in position 74,287 on Amazon and has garnered only one customer review. The article continues:
Not only is Dr. Arsenault acknowledged in the book, and not only is he quoted in it as a “materialist friend of mine,” but the true paradox of “True Paradox” is that the volume night not have existed at all, or certainly would not exist in its present shape and voice, without the secular scientist as its midwife. And that odd reality is testament to a rare brand of mutual civility in the culture wars, with their countervailing trends of religious fundamentalism and dogmatic atheism.
How many times must we hear that “dogmatic atheism” is the same as “religious fundamentalism”? They are similar in only two ways: both deal with the validity of religious belief, and both have passionate advocates. Other than that, their worldviews and methods for ascertaining “truth” are at complete odds. It’s as if one could equate the segregationists of the 1960s U.S. South with the civil rights advocates who opposed them.
And what is “dogmatic atheism,” anyway? The claim that “I know for sure there is no god”? Few would say that, but, given the absence of any evidence for God, one is perfectly entitled to say, “I’m almost certain that there is no God,” as Richard Dawkins does. Is that “dogmatic”? If so, it’s no more dogmatic than the views of non-fundamentalist believers who are even more certain that God exists than atheists are that God doesn’t. Remember, a Harris Poll taken last year showed that more than half of all Americans—54%—professed absolute certainty that God exists. That means that 54% of Americans are “dogmatic believers.” Let’s see the New York Times characterize them in that way!
The article has a lot of mutual back-patting between the two men and is notable for the complete absence of what these guys should really be arguing about: “How do you know the things you claim so strongly?” Why is that missing? Perhaps for the reason Alberto noted in his email: “My experience is that posing the simple question ‘How do you know that you know?’ will lead to be called “dogmatic”, which is a contradiction in terms.”
A few more bits:
. . . Dr. Arsenault, 31, put it this way: “I can tell David that resurrection isn’t plausible in the least. And he doesn’t flinch. I don’t have a desire for David not to be a Christian. If he came to me tomorrow and said he was dropping it, I’d be concerned. This is his family and his community. I’d feel like I had taken away a lot.”
. . . During a van trip to the West Coast the summer after his sophomore year, Professor Skeel opened a Bible to the first verse of Genesis and read all the way through. Though he did not formalize his ties to a particular congregation until several decades later with the Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, he recalls in “True Paradox” that “the sheer beauty of the Bible is what first drew me in, and it’s what I go back to when I’m asked over a beer late at night why I believe that Christianity is true.”
In both cases Skeel’s belief is validated not by evidence, but in the first case because he’d lose his “community” if he gave up belief (so would fundamentalist Baptists!), and in the second it’s because the Bible is beautiful (so is Homer!).
And verily did this intercourse become The Book:
Amid all the respect and comity, though, the atheist and the apologist ducked no fights, especially concerning Professor Skeel’s belief that God endowed humans with humanity. Dr. Arsenault asserted in one email that men and women “are not so different from those unconscious computers.” In another, he suggested that human beings, far from being the most advanced form of life, would pale next to bacteria in terms of survival under duress. As for love, Dr. Arsenault attributed his ardor for his wife to “a neuronal change induced by mutual oxytocin release.” He referred to Professor Skeel’s God only with a lowercase g.
The effect of the emails, the coffee chats and edits was to sharpen Professor Skeel’s arguments and to encourage him to reckon with the findings of scientists like Dr. Pinker. “True Paradox” became a book of engagement rather than avoidance.
Even so, nothing that Professor Skeel wrote ever changed Dr. Arsenault’s nonbelief. [JAC: Did anybody expect it would?] What the book did confirm, though, was their shared value of principled disagreement.
Call me cynical, but what is the “value” of principled disagreement, at least for Arsenault? Of course religion can benefit from the input of scientists and nonbelievers. Much religion always has, for the truth about nature has forced liberal theology to revise its tenets. The creation story of Genesis didn’t happen, nor did the exile of Jews in the desert, their captivity in Egypt, the descent of all of us from Adam and Eve or the Roman census preceding Jesus’s birth. But how do nonbelievers benefit from engaging with religionists? Only by learning a bit about the history of faith (which you can do from books), and coming to grips with the religious mindset—the ability to believe what is unbelievable. But reaches a point where you don’t learn much new by further engagement with believers about faith. Life is too short.
Nevertheless, I’m not decrying Arsenault’s and Skeel’s friendship. More power to them if they like each other despite their disagreements. I have a few friends who are believers, and we know each other’s stands. We just avoid the topic. I’ve always wondered, though, how a husband and wife could have a harmonious marriage when one is an atheist and the other a strong believer. Can you avoid the discussion for a lifetime?
At the article’s end, there’s a bit more editorializing on the part of the writer (my emphasis):
“The thing that really sticks out with me,” Dr. Arsenault said, “is that in the culture wars, the rhetoric is acerbic on both sides. On the humanist side, there’s this tendency to view people of faith as not rational. And David is clearly rational. He’s just looked at the same evidence as me and come to a different conclusion.”
If that’s not a contradiction, I don’t know what is. Homeopaths, UFO and ESP advocates, conspiracy theorists about 9/11, global warming denialists—all of these people look at the same evidence as we do and come to different conclusion. Why? Because there are factors other than reason at play: emotional commitment and confirmation bias. Are they irrational? Of course! Here’s how the Oxford English Dictionary defines “rational” (the first definition is “having the faculty of reasoning”):
If you look at the facts and decide that there is a supernatural being, immanent in everything, who cares for all of us, and sent his Son to Earth to be nailed to sticks; or that Mohamed really did receive dictation from God and flew from Mecca to Jerusalem on a wingéd horse; or that Joseph Smith found golden plates pointed out by the angel Moroni—if you believe any of this, then you are not exercising sound judgement, but either surrendering to emotion or evincing the brainwashing you received from your family, church, and peers. I call that irrational—in exactly the same way that belief in homeopathy is irrational.
It may be rational to pretend to believe, as Arsenault alludes to above, for you might be ostracized by your family and friends if you give up your faith. I’ve met many nonbelievers who suffered that fate; Jerry DeWitt is a poignant example. But that’s different from holding the beliefs themselves, which, to my mind, is a supreme irrationality.
Yes. Next question.
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…definitely yes…
Interesting, as usual. One question —
“I’ve always wondered, though, how a husband and wife could have a harmonious marriage when one is an atheist and the other a strong believer. Can you avoid the discussion for a lifetime?”
Didn’t Darwin endure that daily existential conundrum?
Indeed. Maybe that’s what made him ill. 🙂
🙂
When we married, my wife was a Catholic, I was an atheist. On Sunday morning she went to church and I went to the gym. We almost never discussed religion.
We were both past the age of having children and she was not a strong believer – I probably knew much more Christian doctrine than she did – which reduced potential conflict.
Today, she is a dedicated Falun Gong practitioner and would like me to be one too, but has just about given up trying to persuade me after I read two Falun Gong books and insisted some factual claims were untrue, some parts were vague and often incomprehensible opinion, and acknowledged that other parts were common sense practices for living a decent life in harmony with other people.
The crucial disagreement in our discussions of FG can be summarised as “There are more things in heaven and earth than dreamed of in your philosophy” versus “How do you know this is true?” Since FG is quite humanistic despite the hocus pocus, it doesn’t cause any significant conflict.
They do have teachings against race-mixing; apparently different races go to different heavens, and mixed-race children can only get to heaven through the personal intervention of Li Hongzhi, the founder. He believes mixed-race people should be outcasts of every society.
Also, gays are demonic and a priority of the Gods will be to one day eliminate homosexuals.
I think there are enough instances in history to show that when religions have these beliefs they aren’t slow to start acting on them if they get the power to do so. I wouldn’t call a religion that sees the necessity of removing a whole classes of people in order to achieve harmony very humanistic.
I’m a nonbeliever cohabitating with a Christian for 16 years. The topic hasn’t come up! It works for us somehow.
Is the sky blue?
sub
Reblogged this on The Atheist of Melos and commented:
Take a look at one of the best blogs on Word Press as they take a look at the turn of the media against atheism.
Here’s AronRa’s (Texas Freeddom Network) take:
http://youtu.be/fvg3mRZXut4
*Freedom
It’s a response to a “Prager University” video titled “Is it Rational to believe in God?” with Peter Kreeft, Philosophy Professor at Boston College.
Terrific video, I love his stuff.
Great video – thanks for posting.
Yeah, love the video. Thanks.
I’m not sure I’d consider this article either another example of atheist-bashing or much of a pushback against gnu atheism. It’s not real clear. What impresses me most about this friendship is that both men apparently seem not only willing but eager to debate. They “duck no fights.” They delve into the issues and ask each other hard questions.
That’s not strict accomodationism. An accomodationist scenario would be one where the believer and atheist get together to agree to disagree on the controversial matters and speak only about what they have in common. “Isn’t it wonderful we both like the Golden Rule!” Never say the other person is wrong — share how you think “different.” Respect the other person’s identity and don’t try to change their minds. And so forth. (Trust me, I recognize accomodationist tropes from personal experience.)
Getting together to argue is new atheist stuff. We need MORE debate, not less — and when it takes place in a civil manner it’s much more likely to be effective. The fuzzy part is where Arsenault reassures everyone that he has no desire to “take away” his friend’s beliefs. That doesn’t mesh with engaging in rational argument.
I disagree — there’s no ‘of course’ about it. There’s different meanings of the term “irrational.” It can indicate reason distorted and it can indicate reason completely abandoned. And for us skeptical rationalists, that’s a very important distinction.
The religious may be allowing their emotions, biases, and subjective experiences to sway them towards error, absolutely. But as long as they are still giving REASONS WHY they believe — rationally defending their claims on the common ground and assuming that it is in principle possible for the other person (us) to listen and be persuaded — then they are being rational.
And wrong. Because they’re unaware that their evidence and arguments aren’t legitimate.
At its core new atheism asserts that religious beliefs are hypotheses and need to be treated that way. They ought to pull their weight on the ground of reason, not cop out under the mewling manner of faith.
Whether they’re conscious of it or not, homeopaths and paranormalists and conspiracy theorists AND THE RELIGIOUS are at least initially treating their beliefs like hypotheses. Here’s the evidence. Here’s the argument. Here’s why you ought to change your mind and believe in this garbage. They’re playing on the field of reason. Badly, yes. But still, they’re trying to stand there.
Because consider the difference and change which occurs when they drop the apologetics and pseudoscience and go straight to “faith.” Mysticism. Revelation. Wisdom of the Heart. “I just know.”
There’s no debate. Instead of the emotional and subjective factors swaying and distorting their attempt at reason, they’ve taken over completely. It’s now pure irrationality. “I’m enlightened and you’re not because I opened my heart and accepted truth and you didn’t.” A genuinely irrational believer holds that there is no point reasoning with the nonbeliever (“It’s not about reason!”) and so they slip from trying to convince someone to converting them. It’s going to end up being pure propaganda about how the Bible is beautiful and God is love and don’t you want the comfort of spiritual truths?
Apologetics engage — usually. They attempt to make a case. It seems to me that the only completely irrational theistic argument is presuppositionalism, which begins and ends with the conviction that the other person already agrees so there is no case to be made, no reason to employ, only scolding and shaming. Or, in other versions, smiling and changing the subject.
It seems to me that Skeel the Christian is riding two horses: faith and reason. He’s therefore in danger of slipping. He wasn’t so much trying to convert Arsenault as to convince him. Good. This is exactly where we gnus want religion to go.
I don’t know. I think calling a behavior “rational” simply because the individual(s) in question have any old reasons is a pretty low bar.
A. C. Grayling likes to point out that “ratio” is the root of “rational”. Rationalism involves proportioning one’s confidence in conclusions drawn to the strength of the available evidence. Of course theists will argue this point, but there is no strong evidence for religious baloney.
So I think it’s ok to call theism irrational.
“They’re playing on the field of reason. Badly, yes. But still, they’re trying to stand there.”
I think calling a conclusion or a behavior “rational” strongly implies that you are playing the game well.
Theists mostly rationalise, instead of rationally reasoning.
Just the definition of “rational” I was thinking of.
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Of course it’s a pretty low bar — my point is that it’s still a bar and a crucial one at that. It’s the distinction between “really crappy reasoning” and “faith.” You can argue against the first and conceivably come out on top — particularly if your case is stronger. The whole point of the second one though is that there IS no argument: heart, not head.
When emphasis is placed on religion being about the “heart, not head” it seems to me that atheists are automatically screwed in a way that can’t be fixed if we just smile and agree to play nice. Yes, I’m an atheist because I am closed to love; you all go on thinking that and then we will all ‘respect’ each other and recognize that reason is worthless here. You believe on faith.
I think that is playing their game. We are atheists not on faith, but on reason. And the vast majority of religious and spiritual believers in the world are not dancing around insisting that they have an irrational faith based on nothing. No. They think they have a reasonable faith. They reasoned their way to it. Evidence, observation, experience, conclusion.
Our territory. The common ground.
Is religion irrational? Yes and no. It’s irrational the way homeopathy is irrational. But homeopathy is also demonstrably wrong. Its advocates are making errors in reasoning. Head, not heart. We can debate that.
It’s okay to call them irrational — unless you want to refute them. That’s when you say they are attempts at reason which went wrong. And that’s when we hope and expect the other side will grant us the same courtesy. The minute an argument goes to ‘faith’ its not only over — it gets ugly.
I see what you’re saying here, and I basically agree with it. Tactically speaking, we have a better chance of arguing successfully if we can get theists to approach the issue with the attitude of “how do I support my propositions”, ie, make them play our “head game” rather than try to play their “heart game”.
However, I still think “attempts at reason which went wrong” are rightfully described as “irrational”.
Jerry describes flawed reasoning as irrational; I guess you’re saying that flawed reasoning is still a form or reasoning, and should be engaged with. I’m not convinced.
I suppose that if I’m discussing Christianity with (say) an open-minded teenager with little formal scientific training, then my response to “flawed reasoning” would be to engage generously, to discuss evidence and methodology.
Beyond that, I really don’t think that humanity will shrug of its shackles of superstition by rational engagement on a personal level. I don’t think that you can convince somebody to BE rational by directly engaging them with rational arguments about their irrational (or rational-but-flawed, if you prefer) beliefs.
Instead, I think these things are important:
(1) More extensive scientific training, in the broad sense – educating children how to think critically;
(2) Removing the social stigma attached to rational views such as atheism;
(3) Exposing preposterous IDEAS (but not people) to the continual public ridicule that they deserve.
These kinds of change have already massively reduced the overall level of superstition in the world.
But on an individual level, I don’t think people respond well to direct personal “rational engagement” with their flawed or irrational ideas. If people change, the process is realized from within, in their own time.
I think that most modern believers are on a cusp. They want their religious beliefs to make sense. They want their faith to be accepted as fair conclusions even by outsiders.
That’s why rational engagement works sometimes. And I think that as time goes on and more and more religions start trying to compete with science and humanism in this “doesn’t this work for everyone” department we atheists are really going to start getting through to the mainstream culture.
All your 3 strategies are fine — but we’re not in conflict. As I see it rational engagement is entailed in explaining WHY atheism is more reasonable than theism and helps with critical thinking. The social stigma against atheism is more likely to lift if people think “hmmm… I’m starting to understand why you aren’t convinced by what I thought WAS convincing.” And ridicule will still be frowned on if the accomodationist approach of “religion is faith and faith is exempt from reason” is allowed to prevail.
I think the general point you are explaining is relevant, but I don’t quite agree with the specifics. I don’t think there are two different types of “rational” at play, I think rather that believer’s you would categorize as rational have fewer incidents of irrationality in their arguments and claims than those you would categorize as irrational. But even the most liberal believer bases their religious belief on something that it is irrational to believe.
And I am not even sure that is a particularly potent criticism. We all have some irrational beliefs at base. Partly because of our evolutionary history, and partly because of the nature of reality, i.e. there are always things we don’t have or can’t have sufficient evidence to make any reliable probability assessments of.
But when it comes down to it there is no rational reason to believe in gods. The more specific the god, the more irrational it is, because the more irrational things you have to believe. But, the most liberal christians who will argue the nearly deistic ground of being god that doesn’t ever really intervene, but still consider themselves christians, are still basing their belief on the same kind of irrational beliefs as a fundementalist. They just are holding on to fewer irrational beliefs.
Sure, there’s irrational beliefs at the core of all the religions and spiritualities. No argument there. Yet I think bad reasoning is “irrational” in a different way than a faith which is defiantly irrational and that this does make a difference we need to recognize. Frankly, many traditional or conservative believers are easier to find common ground with than the liberals or even the deists. In some ways they actually grant us more respect because they give us more standing.
Nothing is harder to deal with than the idea that your conclusion is not flawed reasoning, but the overflow from your flawed heart. This problem would be just as bad in other areas. It’s just that religion and spirituality are embedded in this idea. The more emphasis we place on how they reasoned-their-way-to-god the more credibility we grant our own position — and so do they.
In “Dictionary.com”, “irrational” is defined as:
(1)
without the faculty of reason; deprived of reason.
2.
without or deprived of normal mental clarity or sound judgment.
3.
not in accordance with reason; utterly illogical:
irrational arguments.
4.
not endowed with the faculty of reason:
irrational animals.
If we consider the distinction that Conan Doyle’s character of Sherlock Holmes makes between “synthetic reason”: reasoning from assumptions to consequences and from a past event to a future result- and “analytic reason”: reasoning from a result to a cause- deducing the past from the future, some religious folk are quite good at the first and engage in a rather flawed version of the second.
Often the fact that a religion seems to reveals some sort of pattern behind the chaos of data is often bought into as a reason for believing a religion. It helps much else about the world make sense.
So it’s rational up to a point.
But much Judeo-Christian religion instills fear in the believer about doing any revisionist thinking once beliefs are adopted, so the meme becomes a parasite.
Yes. “Losing one’s faith” has to be turned into “changing one’s mind” for anything to get through.
“Faith” is imbued with such . . . bling, we should probably hire a marketing expert to come up with something a little more glamorous than “changing one’s mind.” Or maybe just have a contest to see who can come up with the best phrase to go head to head with “Faith.”
Of course, a major aspect of what you are saying is to remove all of the glamorous baggage so that it is reduced to an easy simple change of mind.
Atheist bashing is a lot like any other kind of bullying behavior or mass marketing. The goal is simply to repeat a claim (truth is beside the point) often enough that it is reinforced sufficiently to become essentially revealed truth. It’s a useful tactic when you don’t have anything substantive to offer. Not surprising since that’s been a method religions use against their own followers to keep them in line.
Thought-terminating cliche, to use the delightful phrase coined by Robert Lifton.
“But how do nonbelievers benefit from engaging with religionists?”
I have come to admit a beneficial result from engagement with the religious, both in present interaction and through examinations of the efforts of religious institutions several centuries ago.
While pursuing my family genealogy a decade or two ago, it was advantageous to obtain microfiche spools of film from the libraries of the Latter Day Saints (or Mormons). LDS members hold unusual notions concerning after death enrollment of one’s ancestry, so have tackled genealogy with a passion. Mormon genealogy is less an historical examination and more a head count or hording of names. None the less, my knowledge of my family history benefited from this association.
As well, sacramental scribing by clergy of religious institutions hundreds of years ago, and the maintenance of these records until 20th century government assumed these duties, allowed me to track back my own ancestry. For these efforts, do I tip my hat to civil service performed centuries ago, by religious clerics.
If the bible is beautiful then so is mein kampf.
Heh. I sometimes like to imagine what would have happened had Hitler been victorious, but fascism incapable of stemming the rising tide of humanist values and ideals. Then other political systems start to compete and hurl accusations.
In a few hundred years, you’d have Nazi apologists arguing that no no no, in Mein Kampf Hitler didn’t mean actual Jews — he only used the term “jew” as a metaphor for “our baser instincts.” The real message of Mein Kampf is one of love and forgiveness, of purging our own selves of our faults and flaws and judgmental tendencies.
That — and that no country is better than any other. “Aryan” and “Germany” refers symbolically to our personal ethnic background, whatever it may be. You have to know how to interpret the book. Hitler-bashers don’t understand how to do that.
“It may be rational to pretend to believe, as Arsenault alludes to above, for you might be ostracized by your family and friends if you give up your faith.”
That, sadly, is so true.
Do bears pope in the woods?
b&
And nearly as interesting, do popes bear in the woods?
Well there was that naked pope at CMU.
http://www.ibtimes.com/naked-pope-incident-cmu-indecent-exposure-charges-dropped-student-katherine-oconnor-photo-1298809
I’ve got no problems with that pope. But who does? A catholic leader, of course, who demands that the student be punished. Not only a lack of imagination, but an idiot as well. Demanding the student be punished is not only boorishly cliche but brings negative attention to him and the RCC. If I were his boss I’d demote him.
Our society is still way too uptight about nudity. That nudity in the circumstances of this incident is illegal and can get one sent to jail, expelled or suspended, is ridiculous.
I agree, and am glad they dropped the charges. Why are Americans in particular so offended by G*d’s divine creation? Rhetorical…but still.
If she’s a pope, then so am I. (And so are you.)
b&
Naked pope?
So that would be a pope with bare wood?
Actually, this pope had a bare bush….
b&
Presumably not of the burning variety.
Although if so, antibiotics may be in order.
You guys are too f’n funny!!!
Arsenault:
“And David is clearly rational”.
I think it’s a pretty safe bet that we all have issues about which we think irrationally. You can’t look at how rationally someone behaves in some areas of their life and conclude that everything this person does is therefore rational.
Theism is just a particularly virulent and harmful instantiation of irrationality.
Yes. To say someone is rational, as in a general statement about the person, can only mean something like they are more rational about more things on a regular basis than the average person. Or, as it is often used, it may be a claim that the person is in their right mind, that they are not cognitively disabled in some way, like from trauma, drugs, etc.
In the context of arguing about beliefs it is not very meaningfull unless you are talking about specific claims or arguments that the person has made. A 10 step line of reasoning can be spoiled by a single step being irrational.
And when one bases one’s life on something which is false using methods which are dubious it tends to seep into other areas.
The skeptics have a term called “crank magnetism.” It refers to the observation that people who have one bizarre belief are quite likely to have some other seemingly unrelated bizarre belief. Ant-vax and holocaust denial; creationism and zero point energy; 9-11 truther and ESP.
It’s not that one leads to the other. It’s that when you’ve abandoned rational principles and fallen for one conspiracy theory, there aren’t a lot of brakes when you run into something else you need to analyze.
When someone believes something on faith it is always something that they want to be true. So faith is merely a polite word for wishful thinking, which is not rational, it is irrational and not something to be proud of.
As for saying “I know for sure there is no god”, well, I for one can say that, just as I can say that I am sure that the Earth is round, it orbits the Sun, and is made of atoms. The idea of a god is so ludicrous that I cannot believe it for a moment, and the fact that there are so many thousands of gods proves to me that they are human inventions. Indeed, psychologists can explain why human psychology leads some people to believe in supernatural beings.
Tellin’ it plain. I like your style.
Incidentally…
I have yet to encounter a coherent definition of the term, “god,” which can be construed as anything other than a fictional literary device. As such, I am as confident that there are no more gods than there are married bachelors.
If one wishes to propose a lesser standard, then, pace Epicurus, I am as confident that there are no powerful agents with humanity’s best interests at heart as I am that the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow. It’s hypothetically conceivable I could be subject to some profound delusion in either case, but I have no use for such insane paranoid conspiracy theories.
Cheers,
b&
And, considering that they all contradict well established laws of physics, I think it’s perfectly reasonable to assert there are no gods, just as it is thought reasonable to assert there are no fairies or dragons.
Exactly!
Few would feel compelled to express agnosticism towards ghosts, save perhaps in the most obscure abstract of epistemological contexts. Why, then, should it be unreasonable to similarly withhold even the pretense of open-mindedness from the rulers of realms where only ghosts live?
If you know that thy redeemer liveth, you should be able to demonstrate as such as easily as you can that thy house standeth and thy car runneth. Yet, when this simple request is posed, all we get is the standard runaround.
b&
Dogmatic atheists. Those are almost as bad as those dogmatic Copernicans.
The conclusion that Jesus flew up in the sky on a cloud! (Presumably still orbiting the planet I guess!)
The conclusion that he doesn’t care about reality, he’s going to believe whatever he feels like.
The other aspect of this article that annoys me is where Skeel describes Arsenault as his “materialist friend”. Materialism is often used as a synonym for atheism with the implication that atheists are shallow, unfeeling, uncaring etc. – in theist-speak, we have no soul. It’s wrong, ignorant, nasty, and insulting. The wonder and beauty of nature, for example, is, imo, increased by thinking about the evolutionary processes that made a living thing what it is today. I personally see far more materialism among the religious.
“Materialism” is one of those deepity words: two definitions which are easily slurred together. Since religion basically grounds itself in sloppy thinking, thinking that a metaphysical materialist is a money-grubbing consumer with no poetry is a common one.
I can tell David that resurrection isn’t plausible in the least. And he doesn’t flinch. I don’t have a desire for David not to be a Christian. If he came to me tomorrow and said he was dropping it, I’d be concerned. This is his family and his community. I’d feel like I had taken away a lot.
His family and his community should reconsider their priorities, then, because this is both ludicrous logic and a damningly shocking reveal. If David or his family and community are foolish enough to base their attachments on a commitment to nonsense, then any complaints made when someone starts criticizing that nonsense is simply the emotional blackmail of dogma. Its logic is no more sophisticated than “Believe this story or else I won’t be your friend!”
It’s ridiculous that Arsenault doesn’t see this for the dirty little mind-screwing, emotion-tugging, underhanded bit of skulduggery and social trickery that it is. If a conspiracy theorist lost favour with their community because he/she had changed their mind about the craziness, then so much the better for him/her. They should know craziness isn’t any less crazy simply because they attach their emotions to it. That’s an appeal to emotion, the lowest of all arguments.
Any scientist who discouraged criticism for his pet theory simply because he’d emotionally invested so much in it would be branded a misguided fool at best, a dirty manipulator and obstruction of science at worst. To do the same for religion doesn’t make it any less problematic.
If the intention was to engender sympathy for poor David’s plight, then it’s had the exact opposite effect on me, with a vengeance.
Well said.
However, I did once tell a friend who was having doubts about her religion to save them for later. She was suddenly undergoing a number of unexpected traumatic issues in her life and it seemed to me that this just was not a good time to either try to start examining theology … or abandon her major support network.
But the idea that the religious are ALL weak, dependent and vulnerable is a Little People Argument.
I appreciate that there are two different things going on in such scenarios. One of them is the intellectual position of someone’s beliefs or some community’s ideas. The other is the social web of friends, family, and so on, who may share those ideas and beliefs but who, first and foremost, are your social and emotional and personal support. That’s why even I would hesitate if asked to disillusion a dying religious grandparent.
Where I draw the line is when the two are hobbled together as if one and the other were inextricably linked, because the inevitable result of that is to blame the skeptic for being honest and give the believers a pass for monstrous tactics, whether deliberately intended as such or not. The first people to blame for putting the grandparent – and by extension, myself – in this predicament are the ones who brought the grandparent up religious to begin with.
That’s why I become significantly less charitable when religious apologists expect to make us feel bad for being honest about what we think of their beliefs. Every time they suggest how painful or unpleasant it is to give up their beliefs, I hear some sheltered little kid who expects his teacher to let him off academically because homework “distresses” him. Tough luck. Instant fail.
My wife is agnostic and I’m an atheist and it works fine. But I don’t think I could fall in love let alone marry a deeply religious person. I dated a couple in college and we always ended up in bad arguments- and breaking up. Rationalism and irrationalism do not play well together. Plus there is the issue of respect. I simply don’t respect religious beliefs of any kind, and therefore struggle to respect religious people.
And becoming a Christian because the “bible is beautiful” is about as stupid a reason to become religious as any imo. Is that the only book Skeel has read? Some passages are indeed beautiful, but so what? Based on that premise, why not worship Shakespeare? After all, he was a far better writer than God was. And a hell of a lot funnier!
With the weight of evidence falling firmly at the foot of natural selection and evolution IT IS irrational to believe in a myth.
God believers can finally (if they only would) give it a rest for the sake of humanity.. and that I suggest is the paradox.
One can behave irrationally and not believe and vice versa. Like during a spat with one of my now adult children, my wife would call.. one of us is the adult here.
But that is not what we have been asked, so no amount of believing in a myth is rational in the light of what we now know of our natural world.
There is mention of the time factor and I agree, it can take time to reposition yourself,(laziness was my issue)ha! and consequently I simply did not know where to look. Serendipity also played a hand.
Hmm. A friend of mine (very spiritual) recently told me that she defined both ‘dogmatism’ and ‘fundamentalism’ as “telling people you’re right and they’re wrong.” I wonder. I thought this was idiosyncratic — but could this be what they usually mean?
An atheist who is 100% sure there is no God but doesn’t get into any discussions with the religious is NOT “dogmatic.”
An agnostic who thinks the probability that God exists is slightly less than 50% IS “dogmatic” the minute she opens her mouth and tries to support her position.
Shut the atheist up. What do you want to bet?
Shut the atheist up. What do you want to bet?
If I bet a cup of coffee against you on that, it would only be because I wanted an excuse to make you a cup of coffee.
b&
LOL, so every mathematician, logician, scientist, teacher, and engineer in existence is a fundamentalist every time they correct someone. What drippy asininity is this?
I can’t stop laughing whenever people fall for this mushy-headed, relativistic garbage. It’s like they’re drunk or something and have to go around trying to hug everybody. Do people really fall for this?
Yes. Yes they do.
*sigh*
How do believers and atheists live together happily? Simple, the topic just isn’t that important to either, and when the topic does come up, mutual respect and love allows for disagreement.
I do think thought that this is much more implausible if one person is a strong believer as Jerry states.
Religious experiences such as mystical feelings are not “irrational” but “suprarational;” they (paradoxically) violate the laws of reason in order to relate immediately and positively to the ultimate meaning by the via negativa, this ultimate meaning being God (in the Abrahamic religions), the first reason of the world. Religious feelings are ineffable experiences that are claimed to possess their own certainty and truth, a truth that, being suprarational, cannot be evidentially communicated to people who have not experienced them but must be taken on “faith.” This create the standard division between “reason” and “faith”, a division that is relative to the rational perspective. The rational/mystical division falls within the sphere of reason.
“to relate immediately and positively to the ultimate meaning”
“a truth that, being suprarational, cannot be evidentially communicated to people who have not experienced them”
This sounds like some kind of vague mystical/spiritual experience that might occur in mediation or from drugs. Perhaps there may be insights into the nature of the universe gained in that way that are not obtained through reason. Personally I doubt it, but it seems harmless.
But since when is that what religion is about? Religions make truth claims, most of which are preposterous. Believing them is irrational, not “suprarational”. And I’m not sure how an appreciation of God through the via negativa always seems to lead the religious to believe that he really, really hates gays.
In addition to hoping vocabulary alone will do much of the work of supporting your argument, you are being intentionally vague. Specifics, Simon. What religious/mystical experiences, specifically? You are hoping that “religious experiences” will sneak past this argument’s gatekeeper and be given a pass as something legitimate, while referring specifically to burning bosoms, NDEs, or “visions” would be easily invalidated via completely natural explanations.
Translation: you have a trippy hallucination or an experience you don’t understand, assume without further ado that it is pointing to a grand fact about the world at large, can’t discuss it adequately with others so demand it be taken at face value, and declare yourself above petty reasons and explanations.
Pull the other one; it has got bells on.
Prof. Coyne, you ask: “I’ve always wondered, though, how a husband and wife could have a harmonious marriage when one is an atheist and the other a strong believer.” My father was an atheist and my mother is an Anglican (~Church of England) and their marriage lasted 63 years until my father’s death. I think it lasted because of mutual respect, love and the understanding that you can openly talk about your opinion but you can’t force someone to think as you do.
A remarkable couple and hopefully there are more like them than commonly believed. Thanks again for your work and look forward to the albatross.
Clearly, before accepting a story as true, the rational thing would be to examine the sources of the story to try to gauge reliability. What christians do is to studiously ignore the reliability of the sources in favour of accepting someone else’s interpretation of that story. So Mark, Matthew, Luke, John, Saul of Tarse for example , are all considered equally reliable and truthful, despite the impossibility of that simply because of their serious contradictions. None of them even talk about teh same christ figure.
The fact that we have no original sources and that what we do have is only a hodge-podge of corruptions and downright forgeries, which anyone can ascertain for themselves by a little study of scriptural criticism, should mean to a rational person that these sources cannot be regarded as truthful. The search cannot end here, it must go on. But it doesn’t; it ends right here with ‘truth’ having been found. This is not rational for a truth seeker.
The second part of all of this is the uncritical acceptance by christians of other peoples’ interpretations and musings and noodlings. Thus writings of Irenaeus, Justin Martyr, Augustine, Tomaso di Aquino, to name just a few, also beome part of the accepted unchallenged sources of belief.
Uncritical acceptance of interpretations and extrapolations of a story that has no reliable foundation is not a hallmark of rationality.
After Luther, reinterpreting christian scripture became a major industry and there are now extant many ‘authorities’ who while not being universal figures are accepted as definitive by one or another of the many, many groups of christians. Again they are all accepted uncritically by someone.
Now if some version of the christian story were in fact true would it be rational to think, without personal investigation, that just by happenstance my pet version is the true one because my parents and my church told me so?
The most important idea in the definition that you cite of the concept of “rational” is denoted by the word sensible. Too many people seem to think that mere logical inference is all that is necessary for one to claim rationality, but logical inference bereft of the data provided by our senses is not a path to the truth.
The Bible is “beautiful”?
That’s not the adjective I would use. Grotesque, boring (all those begats), implausible, anti-human, bloody, and stupid are the adjectives that immediately occur to me (and I was raised in a house where we often had the Bible read to us at dinnertime).
I save “beautiful” for sunsets and canyons and mathematics and algorithms and the poetry of A. E. Housman and Philip Larkin.
…and cats….
b&
Not cats for me, unless you enjoy projectile sneezing for hours.
Well said. To this day, I can’t get through more than a few minutes at a time when I try to read it. I’d add irrelevant to your list of adjectives as well.
Dear Jerry, I share your insights which I agree wholeheartedly – if one is to be a good scientist, one cannot entertain the fantasy of a god that created life etc. I shared the link to this post and some imbecile responded with the following quotes: The first gulp from the glass of natural sciences will turn you into an atheist, but at the bottom of the glass God is waiting for you.”
and
“The [logical] positivists have a simple solution: the world must be divided into that which we can say clearly and the rest, which we had better pass over in silence. But can anyone conceive of a more pointless philosophy, seeing that what we can say clearly amounts to next to nothing? If we omitted all that is unclear, we would probably be left completely uninteresting and trivial tautologies.”
I would appreciate your no doubt cogent rebuttal to this inane statements.
Should we be vegetarians? Should we drink less? Should we exercise more? What is the rational life? We all do deserve a brownie once in while, maybe not the best thing, but what’s life worth then?
Religion imports irrationality directly to an epistemological level. And it’s done, generally, voluntarily. It’s poisonous and it’s not science. Is it irrational…mostly.
Religion is irrational *now*, given what we know about the universe including what we know about how we know. People in some places can be forgiven their irrationality still. However, the vast majority of people that the people that read this site would know should know better to varying degrees, and hence are more or less “culpable” accordingly. What should happen? We should try, patiently, to improve education in critical thinking, etc.