Then read on…

I. Why I’ve never trusted large crowds…

(From Leprechaun Sighting.)

II. E-Z Answer Squirrel

(From wondercafe.ca)

III. A funny webcomic…

‘Only the Good Die Jung’ (Click to read high-res version.)

(From here.)

IV. Naturalism vs. Theism debate

Fernandes vs. Lowder

V. On Justice Scalia

With respect to public acknowledgment of religious belief, it is entirely clear from our Nation’s historical practices that the Establishment Clause permits this disregard of polytheists and believers in unconcerned deities, just as it permits the disregard of devout atheists. … The three most popular religions in the United States, Christianity, Judaism, and Islam–which combined account for 97.7% of all believers–are monotheistic. (Bold mine; Justice Scalia, dissenting opinion, McCreary County v. ACLU of KY.)

Wait! Wait! One of these things is not like the other! One of these things just doesn’t belong. Can you tell which thing is not like the others; which one do you think it is? Is it (1) a video about large crowds that believe they saw a leprechaun in a tree, (2) the skit on solving our most pertinent questions with something as random and reliable as a Magic 8-Ball, (3) a webcomic about irony, (4) a poor debate where it’s clear to most parties that the theist needs to stop sucking down helium (and make a better, more intelligent case; I’m serious, I’ve heard far more eloquent words from the believers that have written here), or (5) this guy:

I’d go with the webcomic. It’s too highbrow and self-referential to be funny.

But seriously, one of the most powerful men in the free world believes that both a majority and tradition necessarily dictate civil rights. It ‘is to lift the evil at once and exhibit in its naked deformity the doctrine that religious truth is to be tested by numbers, or that the major sects have a right to govern the minor.’ (James Madison)

(Cribbed sources of quotes from the excellent site, Positive Liberty, in a relevant post to my recent argument on postmodernism in the Right-wing.)

Of course, I respond with: So you have me to believe that without belief in God, you would kill, rape, enslave and torture others with impunity? If so, please by all means continue to believe. But if not, sophistry doesn’t make an argument.

There are numerous other objections to the claim that belief in God or religion provides a foundation to morality that I won’t tear into (it’s likely we’ll hit into them in the comments section), but instead, I’d like to explain that I do have an answer (So where does morality come from?), and while it may not be satisfactory for some, I think it provides a basis for a naturalist system of ethics.

Radio Lab has provided a superb synthesis of several scientific explorations into morality. While I’m sure most have heard of these thought experiments before, the neuroscience behind them is brilliantly conveyed in only an hour. Of course, it’s only a brief overview of a hefty subject. You can hear an .mp3 of it here.

And while you’re at it, you didn’t hear it from me, but someone’s leaked The Atheist’s Bible (.pdf)!

]]> http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/07/13/evolutionary-ethics/feed/ http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/07/04/postmodernism-in-theocracy/ http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/07/04/postmodernism-in-theocracy/#comments Thu, 05 Jul 2007 04:06:45 +0000 drunkentune http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/07/04/postmodernism-in-theocracy/ I. It’s not just angel books, astrology, and acupuncture.

A front-page article in the New York Times of October 22, 1996 (subscription required), delved into the ‘conflict’ between two views of where Native American populations originated—the scientific archaeological account and the account offered by some Native American creation-myths. According to the former, humans first entered the Americas from Asia, crossing the Bering Strait more than 10,000 years ago. This answer, I should hope for most readers, provides an authoritative, extensively confirmed, scientific answer.

Some Native American creation accounts hold that native peoples have always lived in the Americas. That is, Native Americans have been present ever since their ancestors first emerged onto the surface of the earth from a subterranean world called the Lower Regions. If there’s anything we know, it’s that some things are definitively wrong.

That’s one of ‘em.

Yet, the Times noted that many archaeologists, torn between their commitment to scientific method and their appreciation for native culture, ‘have been driven close to a postmodern relativism in which science is just one more belief system.’ Roger Anyon, a British archaeologist who has worked for the Zuni people, was quoted as saying: ‘Science is just one of many ways of knowing the world. … [The Zunis’ worldview is] just as valid as the archeological viewpoint of what prehistory is about.’

That is essentially postmodernism in a nutshell. Apparently science does not provide a unique epistemological path to truth. It is the aim of this fairly lengthy post to demonstrate that this notion is not beholden to members of nutty liberal academia or multiculturalist scientists, but to many positions of the Religious Right. In fact, theocratic belief in the United States is a strange amalgamation of both postmodernist thinking and absolutism, just as manyAs an absurd list of examples of the primacy of politics over science, little tops arguments that come from the feminist movement. There are ways to make science more ‘female friendly’, as Rosser’s recipes prescribe the inclusion and validation of personal experiences as part of the laboratory exercise and a deemphasis on objectivity (1993, 196). feministsRosser recommends that students investigate problems of a more “holistic, global scope,” using “interactive methods” instead of trying to set up isolated systems or controlling variables. Ross also calls for a thorough overhaul of scientific practice: “[We need] to talk, about different ways of doing science, ways that downgrade methodology, experiment, and manufacturing in favor of local environments, cultural values, and social justice. This is the way that leads from relativism to diversity” (1996, 4). did in the 80’sMary Daly, a radical feminist philosopher at Boston College, describes as necrophilia the essential message of science under patriarchy and states that “phallotechnology” has “rapism as its hidden agenda and destruction of life as its final goal” (1987, 217). Sandra Harding claims that in Bacon’s influential writings, “both nature and inquiry appear conceptualized in ways modeled on rape and torture—on men’s most violent and misogynous relationships to women—and this modeling is advanced as a reason to value science” (1986, 116). and 90’sJane Caputi, a professor of American studies, claims to show a “compelling connection between incest and nuclearism” ranging from “the nuclear- father figure” and “the predominantly masculine character of the abusive cohort” to “the cult of secrecy, aided by psychological responses of denial, numbering, and splitting (in both survivor and perpetrator)” (1993, 118). Kathy Overfield sums up this perspective succinctly: “Male science furthers the capitalist, imperialist tradition in which it was begotten: it exploits, rapes, destroys” (1981, 247). attempt to deconstruct much of the epistemic of science and yet retain its authority.

On one hand, these ideologues discount science as a valid epistemological venue, while also claiming to know such truth. If their beliefs are undermined by science, the natural thing to do is to resort to showing that science is not epistemologically unique, to undermining science for political ends, with the result being epistemological anarchy: resorting to pseudoscientific or antirational arguments. But first, I should clarify what exactly postmodernism has to say about science. One telling example is this passage from Collins and Pinch’ The Golem, in a section entitled ‘Science and the Citizen’: The idea that knowing more science would help the public make more sensible decisions ‘ranks among the great fallacies of our age’ (1993, 144). Through their case studies, they claim to ‘have shown that scientists at the research front cannot settle their disagreements through better experimentation, more knowledge, more advanced theories, or clearer thinking. It is ridiculous to expect the general public to do better’ (1993, 144– 45). They argue that students should be disabused of any ideas they might have picked up about the epistemic desirability of reproducible experiments, controlling variables, statistical analysis, and all the other staples of modern science. After describing the bungling efforts of schoolchildren to determine the boiling point of water, they claim that the ‘negotiation’ of their results in the classroom does not differ significantly from the behavior of great scientists working at the frontier: ‘Eddington, Michelson, Morley… are Zonkers, Brians, and Smudgers with clean white coats and ‘PhD’ after their names’ (151). Apparently ‘the natural world has a small or non-existent role in the construction of scientific knowledge,’ as sociologist of science Harry Collins claimsH. M. Collins, “Stages in the Empirical Programme of Relativism,” Social Studies of Science 11 (1981): 3–10, and ‘reality is the consequence rather than the cause’ of the so-called ’social construction of facts,’ as Bruno Latour and Steve Woolgar assertBruno Latour and Steve Woolgar, Laboratory Life: The Social Construction of Scientific Facts (London: Sage, 1979), 237..

I say, when someone confronts you outside of a lecture hall saying, ‘There is an elephant in the room,’ you eyes do not deceive you when you too see the elephant.

II. Now, how are we to make sense of this?

Let us examine the Zuni creation-myth for a moment. The claim that the myth can be “just as valid” as the archaeological theory can be read in one of three different ways: (i) as a claim about truth, (ii) as a claim about justification, or (iii) as a claim about purpose.

Interpreted as a claim about truth, the suggestion would be that the Zuni and archaeological views are equally true. Yet, this is demonstrably impossible, since they contradict each other (something cannot, by definition, be both a and ~a). If I say that the earth is flat and you say that it’s round, one of us is wrong. Postmodernist philosophers like to respond to this sort of point by saying that both claims can be true because both are true relative to some perspective or other and there can be no question of truth outside perspectives. Thus, according to the Zuni perspective, the first humans in the Americas came from a subterranean world, and according to the Western scientific perspective, the first humans came from Asia. Since both are true according to some perspective or other, both are true. But to say that some claim is true according to some perspective sounds simply like a fancy way of saying that someone, or some group, believes it. The one thing not to say, it seems to me, on pain of utter unintelligibility, is that both claims are true.

How does it fare when considered as a claim about evidence or justification? So construed, the suggestion comes to the claim that the Zuni story and the archaeological theory are equally justified, given the available evidence. Now, in contrast with the case of truth, it is not incoherent for a claim and its negation to be equally justified, for instance, in cases in which there is very little evidence for either side. But prima facie, anyway, this isn’t the sort of case that’s at issue, for according to the available evidence, the archaeological theory is far better confirmed than the Zuni myth. To get the desired relativistic result, a postmodernist would have to claim that the two views are equally justified, given their respective rules of evidence, and add that there is no objective fact of the matter which set of rules is to be preferred.

Indeed, it would follow that we could justify the claim that not every rule of evidence is as good as any other, thereby forcing the postmodernist to concede that his views about truth and justification are just as justified as his opponent’s. Presumably, however, the postmodernist needs to hold that his views are better than his opponent’s; otherwise, what’s to recommend them? By contrast, if some rules of evidence can be said to be better than others, then there must be perspective-independent facts about what makes them better and a thoroughgoing relativism about justification is false.

It is sometimes suggested that the intended sense in which the Zuni myth is “just as valid” has nothing to do with truth or justification but, rather, with the different purposes that the myth subserves, in contrast with those of science. According to this line of thought, science aims to give a descriptively accurate account of reality, whereas the Zuni myth belongs to the realm of religious practice and the constitution of cultural identity. It is to be regarded as having symbolic, emotional, and ritual purposes other than the mere description of reality. And as such, it may serve those purposes very well—better, perhaps, than the archaeologist’s account. I’ll discuss this point later.

III. But why postmodernism? And this is the crux…

In the United States, postmodernism is closely linked to the movement known as multiculturalism, broadly conceived as the project of giving proper credit to the contributions of cultures and communities whose achievements have been historically neglected or undervalued. In this connection, it has come to appeal to certain progressive sensibilities because it supplies the philosophical resources with which to prevent anyone from accusing oppressed cultures of holding false or unjustified views.

Even on purely political grounds, however, it is difficult to understand how this could have come to seem a good way to conceive of multiculturalism. For if the powerful can’t criticize the oppressed, because the central epistemological categories are inexorably tied to particular perspectives, it also follows that the oppressed can’t criticize the powerful. The only remedy, so far as I can see, for what threatens to be a strongly conservative upshot, is to accept an overt double standard: to allow a questionable idea to be criticized if it is held by those in a position of power, Christian creationism, for example, but not if it is held by those whom the powerful oppress, Zuni creationism, for example. Familiar as this stratagem has recently become, how can it possibly appeal to anyone with the slightest degree of intellectual integrity, and how can it fail to seem anything other than deeply offensive to the progressive sensibilities whose cause it is supposed to further?

IV. po-TAY-to, po-TA-to.

But I think the vocal domionists today engage in postmodernism themselves, co-opting language from historical and empirical science in all manner of issues while they’re muddying up the waters with alternative ‘facts’. Their goals are accomplished two-fold: (i) they erode respect for science that is unfavorable to their belief (ii) and get a free ride of what remains of lay-people’s credulity for scientific-sounding jargon. What comes to mind from philosophical postmodernists are misused scientific theories, such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle, Gödel’s theorem, quantum decoherence, or relativity. Really, postmodernists don’t understand these highly complex scientific principles, so they can say what they will about how science validates their social theories. There’s Jacques Lacan and Luce Irigaray on differential topology, Jean-François Lyotard on cosmology, Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari on chaos theory, Michel Serres on nonlinear time — the list goes on.

From the theological postmodernists, they too co-opt science: there is abstinence-only education, the belief that condoms don’t work, so teaching about their use is dangerous. Never mind that condoms do prevent disease and do not promote promiscuity. Behind this is a philosophical objection to the very idea of safe sex, and apparently this ‘truth’ must supersede scientific truth. A little white lie is allowed to perpetuate: Abortion increases the risk of breast cancer, even though the ABC method has been fully discounted by the WHO. When does scientific truth matter when another alternative ‘viewpoint’ can mar the one-sided scientific debate?

Apparently, remote prayer cures disease and homosexuality is a choice, and can be ‘cured’. Many in the Religious Right see the immorality of the HPV vaccine, or that ‘Abstinence is the best way to prevent HPV… Giving the HPV vaccine to young women could be potentially harmful, because they may see it as a licence to engage in premarital sex.’ (the Family Research Council’s Bridget Mahr told New Scientist). Of course, this goes far beyond a benign postmodernism, to a national policy dedicated to relativistic belief when it comes to truth, but absolutist on the subject of morality (one wonders, I suppose, on the coherence of such a belief). W. David Hager, a member of the advisory board of the Medial Institute for Sexual Health, a Christian nationalist organization, was nominated to the FDA’s Reproductive Health Advisory Committee. He was an ‘obstetrician-gynecologist with scant credentials and highly partisan political views… best known for co-authoring a book that recommends particular scripture readings as a treatment for premenstrual syndrome.’ It was Hager that blocked over the counter access to the morning-after pill and other emergency contraception. Hager wrote the famous memo, arguing that greater access to emergency contraception would increase ‘risky’ behavior among young adolescents. ‘I argued from a scientific perspective, and God took that information and he used it through this minority report to influence the decision… Once again, what Satan meant for evil, God turned into good.’

There’s a superabundance of other examples, such as ‘post-abortion syndrome’ (see Religious Tolerance), ‘Terri Schiavo could have gotten better’, ‘This is a Christian Nation’, ‘The Founding Fathers were Christian’, ‘the acceptance of evolution causes existential despair’ (or, even in some cases, ‘being the source of every imaginable evil in our society: drugs, crime, prostitution, corruption, war, abortion, death…’, from Panda’s Thumb), the validity of Intelligent Design Creationism, and the supposed demonic objectives of ‘liberal’ organizations. For instance, in 2003, Jerry Falwell broke the news: ‘Seven high school students in Westfeld, Mass., have been suspended solely for passing out candy canes containing religious messages. … The fact is, students have the right to free speech in the form of verbal or written expression during non-instructional class time. And yes, students have just as much right to speak on religious topics as they do on secular topics — no matter what the ACLU might propagate.’ (Whirled Nut Daily) Yes, the ACLU did submit a brief ‘propagating’ something — a defense of the students, on the grounds that ’students have a right to communicate ideas, religious or otherwise, to other students during their free time, before or after class, in the cafeteria, or elsewhere.’ Nevertheless, stories about the ACLU and its evil plan continued to proliferate in the right-wing media. Why should it matter if something is empirically true if the political ends are desirable! How Machiavellian! How postmodern! How amoral!

V. Don’t believe me?

Recall the notorious phrase:

The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.‘ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’ (N.B.: bold added; New York Times)

To put it a bit more explicitly, there is the passage from Three Views on Creation and Evolution, a 1999 book edited by Discovery Institute felows John Mark Reynolds and J.P. Moreland. An essay defending young earth creationism, — written by Reynolds and Discovery fellow Paul Nelson.They are honest enough to admit that the evidence from natural science is against them, but they don’t accept the primacy of natural science over scripture. For them, an old earth has nothing except logic to recommend it. ‘In a postmodern world, we see no reason for traditional Christians to give up on an idea that intrigues them,’ they wrote. These conservative postmodernists have developed their own alternative, parallel research institutions, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, Citizens for a Sound Economy, the Washington Times, the Chalcedon Foundation, the Medical Institute for Sexual Health, the Discovery Institute, and the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality. If the facts disagree with your belief, you can always make up your own and call it a day.

VI.

I believe we can resolve this conflict: I propose a new look at Gould’s ‘non-overlapping magisteria’. Just as liberalism is not invalidated by liberal postmodernists, religion is not invalidated by conservative postmodernists. Science is for discovering truth, and is a unique venue towards truth; religion is not about truth. I care not for the truth of religion, but that it provides a ready vehicle for living justly in a modern society. Religions that properly engage in desirable ends, those religions that have had their claws removed are excellent conduits — that is if they fully accept science, abhor violence. If they meet this requirement, I see nothing really wrong with religion. There is Unitarianism, the Religious Society of Friends, Buddhism, Bahá’í, and many denominations of both Judaism and Christianity.

By the way, Happy 4th of July!

A supplementary

Former Surgeon General Richard H. Carmona told a Congressional panel Tuesday that top Bush administration officials repeatedly tried to weaken or suppress important public health reports because of political considerations.

The administration, Dr. Carmona said, would not allow him to speak or issue reports about stem cells, emergency contraception, sex education, or prison, mental and global health issues.’ (New York Times)

]]> http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/07/04/postmodernism-in-theocracy/feed/ http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/06/20/chew-the-fat/ http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/06/20/chew-the-fat/#comments Wed, 20 Jun 2007 16:08:25 +0000 drunkentune http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/06/20/chew-the-fat/

I’m no theologian, so I only understand (and read) a bit of theology. What I see is that many theologians take as a premise the existence of not just a god, but the god of their birth or culture: prima facie belief.

Those theologians that have attempted to demonstrate the existence of the supernatural — of a god — of the god — have provided far more interesting questions than (and I hate to be so harsh about it), those that pontificate not just on how many angels may dance on the head of a pin, but those who try to discover if angels engage in bowel movementsAn aside: Of course, if ethics that stem from belief in the supernatural work for you, that’s wonderful. Perhaps, if you believed otherwise, you would maim, steal, rape and murder others; thus your belief is a necessary thing, albeit unjustified in my eyes.
But I don’t think that’s true. I hope you can be just as ethical without a system of ethics that relies on, what seems to many nonbelievers, as magic beans.. (Of course, I’m speaking of Aquinas’ Summa Theologica.)

If you’d like to work through, as one would with a scientific hypothesis, several of the classic ‘proofs’ of the existence of (1) the supernatural, (2) a deistic god, (3) a theistic god, let’s talk it outAnother aside: Of course, if any of these proofs should fail, that does not mean that the god you believe in does not exist. And if your proof should succeed some serious scrutiny from doubters, then it is a powerful argument. Either way, believers in this situation will not be put on the spot. If an argument doesn’t work, it doesn’t work; nothing more.
But if an argument works….

]]> http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/06/20/chew-the-fat/feed/ http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/06/05/erring-on-the-side-of-truth-a-mistake/ http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/06/05/erring-on-the-side-of-truth-a-mistake/#comments Wed, 06 Jun 2007 01:02:10 +0000 drunkentune http://philaletheia.thetruthtree.com/2007/06/05/erring-on-the-side-of-truth-a-mistake/ … or, Why Some Atheist are Wrong about what Matters Most.

Christianity makes broad claims about its power to change people and situations. The single largest disproof of our faith lives in its failure to do so, especially in the West. If our faith is proven by experience, then there in lies the realm of disproof. But please take into account the affects of nominalism in all truth-systems and the universal warnings against it in all wisdom traditions. At their heart, no faith endorses such living. There are even atheists that refuse to live by what they know to be true and good to the peril of us all. Nominalism, wherever it exists, is just a fancy name for cowardice, apathy, complacentcy, and laziness which are always contemptable and tradmarked by no system of thought. (Soulster, How to Talk to Believers)

Soulster’s ‘How to’ stands out as a fantastic piece on how to promote the development of atheist/believer relations.

Read it.

And

0. Some clarification on my choice of title

This is an open letter in two parts: the first to the atheists, the second for believers. The dogmatic anti-theists and theists are irrelevant: they are soulster’s ‘nominalists’. As of now, I am speaking to atheists and believers that at a minimum ‘come out of a grand history of philosophers of science.’ I’m speaking of the liberal (but not necessarily Liberal) democratic (yet, they don’t have to be Democrats) atheists and believers; I address those that see science as a necessary way to understand the universe, those that shun superstition and despotism and many other of the power-hungry, violent or ignorant -isms.

So, those that are still with me, have we been going at this the wrong way? What help to foster dialogue is there when Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Dan Dennett & Chris Hitchens, whom I do agree with on matters of fact, unintentionally divide those that value a secular, liberal democracy?

I. Atheists, think of pragmatism

I am a pragmatist (that is, not in the philosophical sense of the word). I must be, otherwise I wouldn’t be involved in politics. Nobody agrees with me on the minutia, but those that are with me on the big picture, I consider them friends. Now, what exactly is the big picture? Atheists, I say we must value moral acts, what matters in this world, who’s with us on the big picture in the politique — I hate to say it — … over truth. These are the culture wars, the cannons firing far off in the distance, and although many of us are not willing participants, we have our part to play.

…Of course, when in friendly conversation, we can take the time to discuss philosophy (or even shout a bit — get in your face! — be angry!), but that’s different.

There is a book written by Issac Asimov, I, Robot. It is one of my favorite books by the man, a book far ahead of its time, and there is a short passage that illuminates my feelings on the subject. Cutie, the newly constructed robot, explains how it came to being:

These are facts which, with the self-evident proposition that no being can create another being superior to itself, smashes your silly hypothesis to nothing. …Evidently my creator must be more powerful than myself and so there was only one possibility… I am talking about the Master …The Master created humans first as the lowest type, most easily formed. Gradually, he replaced them by robots, the next higher step, and finally he created me, to tak the place of the last humans. From now on, I serve the Master.

Cutie, then removes the two men from power, restricts their movements, keeps an eye on them constantly. They soon leave the space station, with Cutie ranting on…

‘…but that’s not the point. We can’t let him continue this nitwit stuff about the Master.’
‘Why not?’
‘Because whoever heard of such a damned thing? How are we going to trust him with the station, if he doesn’t believe in Earth?’
‘Can he handle the situation?’
‘Yes, but–’
‘Then what’s the difference what he believes!’ (Asimov, I, Robot, Reason)

With that in mind, a thought experiment:

Imagine, if you will, that you are at the neighborhood barbeque: you’ve spent some time playing croquet, and have just sat down with a neighbor of yours. The two of you begin speaking on all matters of things: politics, religion, personal ethics, familial matters, the state of the world, &c. You pontificate for a while, and it’s clear that the two of you agree on most things of importance, except for religion.

If you are a believer, step for a minute into the nonbeliever’s shoes and think what it must be like if someone you found quite favorable and reasonable believed in Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny or the Tooth Fairy. The very idea is absurd, so you spend some time — after getting over the shock! — talking to them about their strange beliefs. You try to understand why or how they could come to believe something so odd.

Now, what if you and the believer in the Tooth Fairy, deep in a conversation on the proofs and disproofs of this being (which, by the way, you’re clearly winning. Perhaps they’ll change their mind and drop the silly notion?) when suddenly, you are confronted with a maniac loose from the local insane asylum? The lunatic bursts in through a hedgerow, mouth foaming, eyes bloodshot, and proceeds to attack your families! The paper plates are flying, plastic chairs broken and splintered, the hot dogs and pasta ground into the grass as children run away. What on earth are we to do?

Must we then turn away from such a calamity to continue to attack each other on this most thorny subject? Must we then argue over trivialities after agreeing on all but the existence of irrelevancies — just as the deranged madman begins to rip our loved ones to pieces? I should hope not! (Then what’s the difference what you believe!)

What matters what we believe when how we act and our intended goals are, in this situation, far more imminent? Who is on which side? We need to shift our priorities, we must stand with those that value conversation over violence, even if their metaphysics is, frankly, wonk, making little to no sense to us on why or how they could sincerely believe something we see as utterly bizarre and wrongheaded.

II. Atheists, they’re on our side!

You don’t believe me? I suggest watching the impressive Bill Moyers PBS documentary: The Christian Left for an overview of many believers on the political left. Jim Wallis is the progressive evangelical who founded Sojourners, a ministry devoted to peace and social justice.

Bob Edgar, secretary general of the National Council of Churches, C. Welton Gaddy, the Baptist minister who heads the Interfaith Alliance. Shortly before the 2004 election, he published a statement signed by over two hundred theologians, titled ‘Confessing Christ in a World of Violence,’ rejecting Christianism (ie. Christian nationalism) in the name of Christianity. The ‘theology of war emanating from the highest circles of American government, is seeping into our churches as well. The Language of “righteous empire” is employed with growing frequency. The roles of God, church, and nation are confused by talk of an American “mission” and “divine appointment” to “rid the world of evil.”

‘We reject the false teaching that America is a “Christian nation,” representing only virtue, while its adversaries are nothing but vicious… We reject the belief that American has nothing to repent of, even as we reject that it represents most of the world’s evil. All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God (Rom. 3:23)’

Lastly there is Christian Peacemaker Teams, Quakers and Harmless as Doves.

As these anecdotes demonstrate, I can tolerate the existence of religious belief (but, of course, not the content): a member of my family is readying for a trip to South America, in conjunction with Catholic Charities, to help as a translator. My father as well worked for many years for a Christian organization. He was a practicing Jewish doctor complaining only when the priority of evangelizing came before taking care of children. I’ve also had the privilege of working for several religious charities, most noticeably Habitat for Humanity — a Christian organization — in New Orleans.

III. Believers, step up!

I began writing on religion after seeing the state of the world today, the religious fanaticism and demagoguery, the violent actions across the globe. But I don’t care what people believe — I care about what is true. (Then what’s the difference what you believe!) I care little for what someone believes, other than that I think the truth is of great value, and that belief is a planted seed that grows until it spurs action. What I care about is how people behave, not what they believe. Peaceful, honest people have the right to be left alone to their own wrongheaded thoughts. Of course, Scott Atran is wrong on this one: religions are either epistemologically true or false, and all the evidence, as I see, points to the latter.

I don’t respect your belief. I find it highly irrational, logically the equivalent of Swiss cheese. I think that doing good, moral, decent things because you believe God decreed it so is steps away from doing the utmost evil because you believe God commands it. It boggles my mind on how you could think these things about the world around us (although this article at Edge has some possible reasons why). I see far too many problems in religious faith — in the credulity itself.

I do not understand faith the way you do. Yet, I want to emphasize that I respect the inherent right to believe what you believe; the fact that you must believe what you think is true, even if others think it is false. Or even, more depressingly, if they are in fact false. As Martin Luther said, ‘How I can not do otherwise, here I stand, so help me God.’

But it was Luther that said,

Reason is the Devil’s greatest whore; by nature and manner of being she is a noxious whore; she is a prostitute, the Devil’s appointed whore; whore eaten by scab and leprosy who ought to be trodden under foot and destroyed, she and her wisdom … Throw dung in her face to make her ugly. She is and she ought to be drowned in baptism… She would deserve, the wretch, to be banished to the filthiest place in the house, to the closets. (Erlangen Edition v. 16, pp. 142-148)

We have something in common that Luther and soulster’s ‘nominalists’ dispise: reason; some atheists and believers just can’t not use the great brains we have. We (meaning both atheists and some believers) want what is good and just and right in this world to propagate, and we come to these conclusions through reason. We also, I must say, happen to agree some of the time on what is good, just, and right. Of course, the forms of religion I refer to are the domesticated kind. We are not to be gored by ethereal shadows.

Yet, I cannot be emphatic enough that belief in Heaven and Hell, in Salvation for some and Damnation for all the rest, is not conductive of secularism, pluralism or dialogue.

That aside, what people would we be if we allowed those that run amok like the madman in our little thought experiment any legitimacy? I call many of us culpable and negligent. These peons must be shouted down time and again, pushed out of any public discourse. We need to stop giving legitimacy, credence, any semblance of dignity to these nitwits.

If the Falwells and Robertsons, if the barbarous Ayatollah and bin Ladens of this world preached messages of peace, an openness to ideas, nonviolence and a love of science like some believers, I would have little problem with some highly irrational beliefs.

We’d just sit down at the neighborhood barbeque and talk for a bit, all sides open to criticism. No resolution may be reached, because, as I see, these meaningful delusions are likely necessary for believers to make sense of the world. For good or evil (please, please! be for good), religion persists.

But I must say, at that barbeque, I think I’d thoroughly trounce you.

Extra credit

>The Friendly Atheist, by Hemant Mehta; author of I Sold My Soul on eBay

>Christian Alliance for Progress: read their list of values.

>Every Church a Peace Church: dedicated to nonviolence and pluralism.

>The Center for Progressive Christianity

>CrossLeft: ‘Organizing the Christian Left’

I.

Numerous philosophers tried to tackle the problem of induction. With induction we can know for certain that some statements are wrong, but we can never know they are right. For instance, take the much-overused phrase: ‘All ravens are black.’ (Or, as some may quip, ‘All swans are white.’) (All x are a)

We need only one example of an albino raven

Due to this problem, we discard induction and instead turn to falsifiability: we tentatively accept our theory until shown otherwise, but we do not look for conformations, but disconformations: refutations to our theory.

What Dawkins intended to say, implied in his reserved British tone, was that science knows far more why and how ‘the tides go in, the tides go out, the sun goes up, the sun goes down’, how and why the universe came to be, than any holy text. What’s interesting is that his next words are ‘Physicists are –’ before he is interrupted by the blowhard. Physicists are currently trying to answer all sorts of questions about the universe: they’re searching for neutron stars (Astronomy, 4/07), building the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) to search for the Higgs boson and learning how the proton spins (Science, vol. 315, 3/07); they are looking for dark matter and WIMPs down in the Soudan Mine; they are attempting to show how galaxies formed (Science News, vol. 171, 2/07).

We now know far more about how the universe operates: atoms and blackbody radiation and neutrinos and all sorts of baffling things that seem highly counterintuitive to us. Thus, we search for new evidence, to probe deeper, to ask far more interesting questions, to conduct more tests in attempts to disprove our most beloved theories. We continue to search for the Truth because we can never know in science, due to induction, if we have fallen upon the Truth, only that our current theories far more accurately describe the universe.

We are always ‘working on it.’

II.

But why search for the Truth? Why should we invest so much time and energy? Why can’t we take O’Reilly’s way out and say ‘[I]t’s true for me… I can’t prove to you that Jesus is God, so that truth is mine and mine alone, but you can’t prove to me that Jesus is not,’ as if this will suffice?

There are three reasons, I contend. With infinite interesting questions and answers, curiosity becomes a driving force to discovering the Truth. The universe is a strange, strange place, nothing like we observe it on our mundane level — there is the uber-small of quantum mechanics and the ultra-large distances of whole galaxies. It is interesting, captivating. To discover these ideas is satisfying on a primitive, emotional level, and to know that there are far more undiscovered ideas is wonderful. To skip this adventure to live in placid contentment is bothersome on a basic notion that violates what it means to be fully human.

There is also Truth’s pragmatic utility, its application. If I want to buy eggs, I want to know if the local store sells eggs or not. Theories can be immensely useful at accomplishing tasks, such as coordinating our GPS satellites with Einstein’s theories or building airplanes. If we want answers to our problems, we can find them in Truth.

Then, there is also one other reason besides curiosity and utility why we should search for Truth: it is moral and just and good; it is worthwhile and important to know what is True. It is incumbent on us to search for the Truth. So, the pursuit of Truth is both a never-ending pragmatic and moral quest. The theories that fail fall by the wayside as untruths, myths that never got off the ground, or rose only to crumble under the weight of a better tool. So grab hold of the ones that fly, the ones that momentarily get us closer. We must follow them where they take us.

It is emotionally satisfying, useful at solving our questions, and morally right to do so.

III.

The alternative to this methodology and moral system is non-science: it claims to be absolutely certain that it holds the Truth.

This brings me to Walton’s second statement:

After the debate, you get a feeling that it does take more faith to be an atheist, because Dawkins had no absolute certainty of his atheist worldview.

Walton claims that this lack of certainty is equivalent to faith, but as I explained in Naturalism, An Intermission and Naturalism, pt. II, (1) we can never be certain that experience is coherent or true, and (2) certainty is to be avoided at all costs‘If we demand certainty above that found in science, then philosophy would come before science. If we demand that our a prioris be correct, we would not attempt to prove ourselves wrong and in time refine our beliefs.’.

In fact, I would argue that it is certainty that is faith. It is to rely far to heavily on the myths that have currently survived scrutiny. Or, in some cases like astrology and magnet therapy, where the myths have not survived at all, it resolves to clutching madly to a crumpled theory, splayed on the ground. We don’t know if tomorrow everything we understand about the universe will change, and to call our theories true beyond doubt (such as believers that claim the inerrancy of the Bible or Koran) is to stand in opposition to science.

Of course, there is the small caveat: They could be right. The Bible could be in the inerrant word of God; the Koran could be in the inerrant word of Allah. I leave that as a logical possibility (along with the existence of all other gods), but possibility isn’t enough. We need more. We should never genuflect to a myth, even if that myth is the closest we have to the Truth; we should attempt to destroy that myth. Had we stopped at Kill Devil Hills with a haphazard glider, called it a day, we would not fly. We must be humble in our ignorance, modest in the truth of our conclusions; we must be curious, pragmatic, moral; we must try our hardest to debunk our radical theories after they seem to work; we must seek the Truth.


Then, is faith, this certainty that one is already the keeper of Truth, little more than pride?

IV. Extras

>Here is the interview and an unofficial transcript.

>Dr. Ray Pritchard on the debate

>Hanlon’s Razor looks at Bill O’Reilly

>Atheist Bites Theist!, a conversation between an atheist (Dan Harlow) and a theist (Mike Clawson)!

>Study shows O’Reilly uses name-calling more than once every seven seconds in ‘Talking Points Memo’

We want to make a public statement about how nonreligious people can observe the so-called National Day of Prayer, which we have renamed Gift of Life Day… So on that day, we atheists will be engaging in action that we can prove scientifically has real-life impact on our fellow citizens. (Brian Sapient of The Rational Response Squad)

I’d love to see both atheists and Christians (Matthew 26:28“This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”) get behind this: Donate blood on May 3rd!

There are four options you can take on this day: (1) Participate in The National Day of Prayer, which is scientifically provenThe Templeton Foundation spent ten years and $2.4 million, only to grasp the obvious: “prayers offered by strangers had no effect on the recovery of people who were undergoing heart surgery.” (The New York Times 3/31/2006) to be ineffective“Even in the best studies, the evidence of an association between religion, spirituality, and health is weak and inconsistent. … [I]t is premature to promote faith and religion as adjunctive medical treatments.” (Lancet, 2/20/1999), something I personally think is a waste of time; (2) Give blood, which saves lives; (3) Spend the morning in prayer or quiet meditation, then go out and give some blood; (4) Do nothing, go to work, come home, watch TV, then go to sleep, all this time living in apathy.

I suggest taking option #2.

For everyone else, if you think the site could use an overhaul, then now’s the time for some suggestions. Just comment about the color scheme; font size/style; format… now’s your time to gripe!

This is an exampleThis is a footnote. Anyone notice the problem(s)? of what happens.

And here’s the code in the body:

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color#FAA806;
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text-decoration:none;
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a.tt span{ display:none; }
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color: #3D2B1F;
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Any ideas? You can either comment with your suggestions or email me at drunkentune[at]gmail.com.

It seems some skeptics have adopted this view as well. Frequently, I get the impression that the similarities between religions are considered by some to be a dismissal of them all. After all, if there was something behind religion, something real, something on the level of the divine, wouldn’t we know it, and wouldn’t it establish the one true religion? The multiplicity of faiths, the common theological themes, the similar stories — all are taken as evidence that religion is nothing more than a subset of culture and an adaptation of the species and, as such (and here I think is the greatest error), it is all irrelevant.

Many religious people have severe reservations about this understanding of pluralism, fearing it threatens the reality, uniqueness, and exclusivity of their faith. Rightly so. Arguably, the three largest faith systems in the world rest a significant part of their truth claims on the idea that they are a least a unique way to God, if not the only one. Perhaps religious people feel instinctively what is at stake. If the skeptics are right, and all religions are the same despite their claims and contradictions of each other, then it is likely they are little more than human culture.

This may be not a reaction to “pluralism” as defined by some of its advocates, as much as it is religious relativism. As much as the popular usage of “pluralism” means that all religions are the same, it might be missing the point. For example, Harvard’s Pluralism Project [site] claims to work with both the commonality and real differences in religions. While they use the commonalities to establish dialogue, that dialogue must include the differences as well. Likewise, wikipedia describes pluralism in this way:

Adherents of religious pluralism reject religious relativism. They do not believe that religious truth is relative. Adherents of religious pluralism recognize that different religions make different truth claims. That religions may apparently contradict each other but on closer examination may be widely different claims. Therefore all religions can be true as far as their own truth-claims are concerned. [from “Religious Pluralism” on wikipedia.org]

Of course, this could be simply the PR side of smart people not wanting to alienate the religious majority. After all, the philosophical roots of pluralism are a bit troubling. It properly belongs to the category of metaphysics that says, in its softer forms, there is no one explanation to the universe. In its harder forms, it says that there is probably more than one reality. The problem is, physics in particular and scientific inquiry in general have gotten tantalizingly close to developing one explanation for all reality. Perhaps it’s too early to jump to conclusions, but most of science and religion seem to work on the idea that there is, ultimately, only one reality and explanation of it, at least as far as our existence is concerned. The quote above would have a problem in such a universe. If all religious truth claims are different, and all are true in their own system and understanding of reality, then one could question whether or not they have any true realism.

I’m a fan of “both-and” thinking (as much as either-or) in many cases, but not necessarily a “both-and” view of reality. For example, I think that the idea that religions are both similar and significantly different are both true and both very important for people to discuss and think about. Concentrating on just the similarity or difference is ignorant and absolutely disastrous. Exaggerations of commonality end inquiry, exploration, and introspection. We all begin to talk about “traditions” that cease to be probed, and, like Christmas, are free for corporate exploitation and consumerized use and disposal (or political manipulation as drunkentune explains here). On the other hand, over-emphasis on differences leads to arrogance, division, and conflict, and probably eventually violence. At the very least, it damages the human quest for truth in a way analogous to physicists disowning psychologists.

A friend and I where walking through the Met (Metropolitan Museum of Art) one day. We began in the Asian wing whose entrance hall contains many wonderful buddhas and bodhisattvas. A huge fresco of the Medicine Buddha greets visitors, seated on a lotus and surrounded by complicated religious imagery and twelve fierce generals, weapons drawn. In the center, a gold plated princely figure towers as he once did over worshipers, barely even lowering his eyes to our level. The far corner holds a stone shrine with several buddhas guarded by demon dogs, traced with intricate meridians of power, and sealed by sacred words.

What strikes me is the great variety of emotion contained in these works. Some statues stand over the viewer in regal condescension. Others draw them in with tranquility or parental kindness. Such is an invitation to join the many hundreds of watching witnesses carved in the edges and sides of the sculptures — the “cloud of witnesses” [Heb 12:1] as Christianity would call it.

As we walked on to the Assyrian exhibit, we talked about the great need expressed by this art. It was in the Asian wing and all over the Assyrian exhibit as well — its entrances hemmed by giant cherub temple guards. If there is something divine, then it must be brought into our material experience if we are to experience it at all. Unless we can see and touch, we have no access to know. There is at root in humanity, be it divine placed or evolutionarily developed, and hunger for incarnation — to see God within the human world.

Eventually we made our way back to the European painters. There, in a back room was Caravaggio’s rare composition of the Holy Family. Mary looks extremely strained as if she finds herself a reluctant mother. The toddler Jesus stands on her lap with a look of arrogant distaste in his eyes as he glares over his shoulder at a child John the Baptist. John is innocently attempting to touch Jesus with outstretched finger, but Joseph, firm and strict, is holding back his hand.

Right there the similarity struck me. The Buddha’s generals and demon-dogs, the cherubs, and Caravaggio’s Joseph — within the human expectation of incarnation there is an impulse to protect God-with-us. If humanity has access to the transcendent in our experience, is there not a danger that we will taint him with our vulgarity? Isn’t this why self-prophesying “god-kings” lived in guarded seclusion from the time of Ramsey until David Koresh? Isn’t this why temples were closed to all but the most holy prepared? Could this by why the shaman’s apprentice must be initiated properly before he can touch the magic objects and learn the magic words?

This expectation for incarnation is so wide-spread it is astounding, but to allow such wonder to declare it universal is a mistake. Even though stories of incarnation are found in every religion that I have experienced, to then move to say they are all the same is wrong. For example, when Jesus was arrested in the olive grove, this same expectation appears. Peter draws his sword to protect the incarnation and separates the High Priest’s servant Malcus from his ear in an attempt more likely intended to remove his head. Jesus tells Peter to put his sword away, heals Malcus, and is arrested to be tried and killed.

This is making a statement in opposition to the usual human expectation of incarnation. It is as if Jesus is saying that thinking we need to protect God is a little foolish. After all, why would the creator of the universe fear any action we, in our relative smallness, could take against him. This story says something different: God can maintain vulnerability and access because he has confidence in his own power and identity, leaving him open to act redemptively.

Now this story varies from all other incarnation stories very little — the great bulk of the information is the same — but to say that such difference is insignificant misses the point. Let me use a biological principle to illustrate my point. At the level of DNA, a chimp and a human vary by only 1.2 percent — about 35 million chemical letters. Even though we are 98.8% similar genetically speaking, it is a mistake to negate the significance of the difference that this tiny percentage makes. For the last 6000 years chimps have only evolved to breaking nuts with rocks and poking sticks into ant hills. They are barely into their Stone-Age. On the other hand, the last 6000 years of human history have seen the creation of cities, the development of civilizations, the creation of science, the development of art and music, tremendous colonization of Earth environments, and several journeys to the Moon. In fact, what it means to be human is largely a discussion about the different 1.2% makes.

Yvonne Latte, a journalism professor at NYU, said something at a forum on Race, Violence, and Reconciliation that bothered me. She said that we need to understand we are all basically the same, as if this were a solution to race problems in America. It seems to me to be wishful and unrealistic thinking to suppose racism can be overcome by negating the meaning of race itself. Suppose I, a white man, where to walk a few blocks to the projects near my house and stand at the door proclaiming, “You need to understand you’re just like me.” How would that go over? Most of my closest friends are not white. Our friendships are built on both the great deal of commonality we share as humans, and also an extremely robust respect for how significant our small degree of cultural and biological difference really is. I think any effective approach to religion must take a similar stance.

So here is my “both-and”: we must understand that religions are both very similar in the huge amount of information they share on the human condition and expectations and very different in the ways they approach this condition, work with it on a missional level, and proclaim divine interaction in the human context. To me, this means that it is time for believers of different faiths and people with no faith to build conversations and cooperation on our human commonality. At the same time, everyone should responsibly educate themselves on our significant differences and actively engage in the dialogue of discovery while maintaining personal and communal freedom to choose among such differences.