Fox Valley Thinker

Bad Argument for God: Why is there something instead of nothing?

2010-12-14T08:12:00.009-06:00

This is the second in a series of bad arguments in support of a theistic god.

Argument: The universe exists, therefore God exists.

I will start by restating my premise for this series...that this is a deconstruction of some common arguments for a theistic god that intervenes in our world...a personal god that answers prayers...a god that has ostensibly revealed himself, his codes of conduct, and his dietary preferences. The theistic gods that have significant market share these days are 1) the god of Abraham [Judaism, Christianity, Islam] and 2) the gods of Hinduism. We smart apes claim to know something about these gods...their desires...their intents...their previous/current activity.

For this brief discussion, I will be using Christian/Abrahamic references...because, being in the U.S., it is what I am typically surrounded with. The examples and arguments, though, can be similarly applied to any theistic god.

FAILURE 1: The argument relies on the presupposition that it is only an intelligent creator that could have created "something from nothing". Certainly, the origin of the universe is probably the least well understood aspect of our cosmology...but saying that God did it is unambiguous hubris. By saying so; one ostensibly knows all the other possibilities of what preceded the Big Bang and has dismissed them in favor of their own God. The finest minds in the world are barely teasing the most preliminary flecks of understanding from the earliest moments of our universe. I suggest that our species will go extinct well before we have any compelling evidence as to what preceded the Big Bang.

The professionally curious scientists [i.e. Stenger, Hawking] have, at best, hypothesized various scenarios that, by their nature, are deeply unsatisfying and non-intuitive to the lay person...myself included. It's important to recognize, though, that their hypotheses are grounded in empirical understanding of the nature of matter. We have tested the non-intuitive idea that matter is another form of energy elegantly described in E=MC² and successfully leveraged that to create nuclear bombs. Stenger and others have suggested that this duality and our observations would suggest that the net sum of our universe, even today, is zero. In effect; our universe is 'nothing' separated into its component parts. Of course that is a completely non-intuitive definition of 'nothing' for a lay person. We need to recognize, though, that non-intuitive does not mean non-true. Consider Einstein's idea that time was not constant and and varied with your rate of speed. We eventually proved it to be true and many of us rely on it daily by using GPS navigation.

This is classic god-of-the-gaps thinking. Just because we don't know what may have preceded the Big Bang is not evidence in support of God. It only means that the religious apologist and the theoretical physicist have nearer the same amount of evidence...and it is objectively wrong thinking to insert an explanation in the absence of evidence and wait to be disproved.

FAILURE 2: Such an argument only supports the idea of a deistic god...not a theistic God. This is a classic false dichotomy (the understanding of which seems totally lost of many many religious apologists). The range of options here is not No god or My God, but rather No god or Some god. The believer is still light-years away from demonstrating that their creation story is true while every other creation story is a myth.

I should say, too, that I do not concern myself with deistic explanations of the universe. For the most part, I only argue against theistic explanations because theism is what insinuates itself into public policy. The deist, I feel, is a much nearer to being an atheist, than a theist. (To pick nits: word deconstruction means that a deist IS an atheist) In matters of morality and policy, the deist (not claiming to know the mind of god) relies on the same introspective exercises that the atheist so well exploits. While I hold the position that deism is an invalid mode of thought; it cannot lead to the extremism and xenophobia that theism seems so well suited for.

Next time: The effectiveness of prayer.

Bad Argument For God: The Popularity of the Bible

2010-12-02T14:06:00.008-06:00

This is the first in a series refuting some of the bad...yet still common...arguments in support of a personal god.

Argument: The Bible is the most popular book in history, therefore it must be true.

This isn't an argument for truth, but rather an argument for popularity. The most common number I have seen is that there have been around 5-6 billion bibles printed [ref] [ref]. This would, easily, make it the most reproduced book of all time. One thought that immediately comes to mind is "How do they know that?" Well, the truth is they don't know that with any real precision. There was never any formal census of publishers to get an accurate count of such a thing. Still; I am willing to go with that oft-repeated estimate. Christianity is the most popular religion and some version (more on that later) of the Bible is pretty much standard issue for Christians since the advent of broad literacy and movable type...6,000,000,000 it is then.

It should be obvious to the casual observer (but obviously isn't) that mere popularity does not infer any higher truth. The number two book in history is Mao Tse-tung's Red Book (aka Quotations from the Works of Mao Tse-tung). Like Christianity; Mao had an obedient captive audience that made ownership of his musings on communist ideology required. Does the popularity of The Red Book mean that communism is a truer form of governance? Is the Toyota Corolla a divine form of automobile? Is a McDonald's hamburger a more inspired form of sandwich? Of course the answer to those examples is a resounding "No!"...and I shan't bore you with saying why the answer is "no". If it needs explaining, then you need a serious intellectual intervention...and you can't get it on a blog post.

Moreover; there are many versions of the bible and they do not all differ merely from translation biases [ref]. Even the Ten Commandments...something ostensibly chiseled in stone by God himself...varies in content [ref] in important ways. Most importantly; the interpretations of those bibles is all over the map...even when using the same version. It would seem to me that, if a book were genuinely divine, then there would be only one consistent interpretation regardless of how it were translated.

But maybe the bible isn't the most popular book....

Think about all the basic mathematics textbooks that have every been printed. Effectively; every person in the world getting a formal education from the 1500's to present made use of a math textbook. [of course early on not every student had their own textbook, but populations were small and wouldn't skew the number too badly]. Let us consider the printing of myriad versions of math texts analogous to the printing of the various derivations of the bible. I would estimate that there have been 7,000,000,000 algebra texts printed ... because I can invoke my own unsourced number to compete with the unsourced 6,000,000,000 of the bible.

Even if I pulled my number from an orifice on my lower torso [I did], it is not insignificant that, while there are far more versions of math texts, there is only one interpretation of their content. If we are looking for a yardstick for determining truth; I would submit that there is far more truth in any math textbook than there is in any version of the Bible.

Next time: "Why is there something instead of nothing?"

Bad Arguments For God

2010-10-19T14:35:00.009-05:00

For the last few years, I have been relatively active in discussing/debating the existence of a god or gods [myself arguing on the "not existing" side]. By mere virtue of living in the United States, this generally means a focus on the biblical god of Abraham...but I am an equal opportunity disbeliever in any god that interacts with our world...that is to say...a theistic god. My motivation is not to demean any given god-believer, but rather to demean and ridicule bad arguments. If the god-believer can be shown that their argumentative position is unsupportable yet they remain married to that argument, then the god-believer brings that ridicule upon themselves. I strongly believe that there is no such thing as a thought crime and an individual is free to believe what they will...though it does trouble me that children are inculcated with mythology-as-fact before they are able to reason for themselves.

So...In my years of discussing belief, it quickly became apparent that there is a very limited arsenal of arguments for the existence of God. Here I wish to present a list of common arguments for the existence of a theistic god and show how they fail. To my mind, the arguments cited below should simply be taken off the table if the god-believer wishes to have any intellectual credibility.

Over the coming weeks/months/years, I will provide provide a brief dissertation on how each of these arguments fail. Feel free to suggest other arguments if you feel I have missed some important ones. Remember...I am only refuting arguments cited for the existence of a personal, involved, theistic god and, for this exercise, am unconcerned with arguments for the "some higher power" deistic god.

1) The bible is the most popular book in the world
2) Why is there something instead of nothing?
3) Effectiveness of prayer
4) Personal experience
5) My holy book says so
6) The miracles of my deity
7) Prophecies
8) Irreducible complexity
9) The morality of humankind
10) The argument from consequence
11) The uniqueness of Christianity
12) All societal benefits of religion
13) The inerrancy of my holy book

Secular Parenting

2010-07-20T15:32:00.002-05:00

I was contacted recently by the organizer of the “Fox Valley Secular Parenting” Meetup group upon my [ill-tended] blog came to her attention. (‘Fox Valley’ here referring to the shallow valley formed by the Fox River running from southern Wisconsin to the Illinois River and passes about 40 miles west of Chicago). I myself live very near that river with gives its name to this blog.

I, myself, have ruminated on parenting without religion for some time and have touched on the topic several times on these pages [here] and [here]. I think it is important and valuable that support groups such as “Fox Valley Secular Parenting” exist for non-believers…particularly new parents surrounded by religion and newer to the secular worldview. I imagine that it is the specter of parenting, itself, that brings a good many people to become introspective for the first time and come to terms with what they really believe…and in the end realize that they cannot inculcate their child with the religious mythology of their childhood. For myself; there is no role of greater import than imparting a strong ethical and intellectual framework to a child. That responsibility forced me to answer questions about myself that I hadn’t considered before.

I came to parenthood somewhat later than some in my early thirties. My wife and I have a hard time deciding what kitchen cabinet finish to choose.... so choosing when to start a family was similarly onerous. By this time, I was well on my way to being the ‘strident atheist’…but I didn’t recognize it. I still had the ingrained Catholic guilt of my childhood that knew that an 'atheist' had cloven hooves and serpents for pets. I knew I wasn’t THAT (an atheist)…so I assumed I was something else but hadn’t analyzed it much further by the time my wife was waddling around with her swollen belly. I knew there was the ‘agnostic’ term, but that seemed too vacant. I wouldn’t call myself agnostic with regard to Unicorns or trolls…I didn’t believe in them. The same was true with the god of the popular monotheisms. (after substantially more rumination I now know that the terms are in, no way, mutually exclusive)

My point here was that, by the time my son came into the world, religion meant nothing to me. I conducted myself ethically and responsibly. I at least realized that religion was not important to being either ethical or responsible. In my parenting, religion was a non-issue despite most of my family being Catholic and being predominantly surrounded by church-going households. Sure; my mother worried about my son not being baptized until the Pope said all the limbo stuff was just made-up s**t [ref]. For some years I wanted to have my son baptized just for the family tradition aspects but knew that I would have to lie about my intent to bring him up as a Catholic. Beyond that; I had no difficulties.

Some parents, on the other hand, may not be as far along in their turn away from religion. Maybe family and community pressures make it very difficult. Maybe you don’t know any non-Christians (you would be wrong). For these parents, support groups like Fox Valley Secular Parenting and social groups like Fox Valley Atheists can be a great place to go. The more you study; you realize that there are far more non-believers than you might realize.

Catholic Church: I DEFECT!

2010-05-21T13:03:00.005-05:00

I finally got around to it. I just sent off my official request for defection from the Catholic Church. I have been a lapsed Catholic since about puberty, but it has gotten to the point that the mere thought of my name on their rosters seemed offensive to me. Given their actions on child sexual abuse, their positions on contraception, women, gays, etc. etc. etc, I felt the need to put as much distance as I could be me and the Pope.

There is a formal process for defecting and you can read about it here. I just filled out a form and sent it via certified mail to Cardinal George in Chicago. I included the following letter (some personal information changed for posting here)

21 May 2010

To: Cardinal Francis George

From: Mike Burns

Subject: Defection from the Catholic Church

Mr. George,

I write to you today request that my name be formally removed from the official roll of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). I do this with a clear head and with the full understanding of its implications (as perceived by the RCC).

What motivates me to this action is the final and full recognition that the RCC, at its highest levels, is more concerned with the power structure it maintains than the congregants that it purports to serve. Most recently, the Irish abuse revelations, the Wisconsin abuse revelations, the RCC’s position on contraception in Africa, the demand of clergy celibacy, the status of women, and the status of homosexuals (to name but a few) make it clear that I cannot allow myself to be, even informally, associated with the RCC.

The Wisconsin abuse revelation brings involvement to the very highest level of your organization. The teachings that condoms make the AIDS epidemic worse can only be described as primitive, dangerous, ignorant and evil.

I have been a lapsed Catholic for over thirty years now and recognize that there is no compelling reason to believe in any supernatural actor (creator) at work in our universe. I further believe that religion is an abysmal basis for a moral/ethical framework. I actively educate interested parties to the facts of science and the history of religion in a conscious effort to dissuade others from adopting a theistic worldview.

I have informed my family that I no longer wish to be associated with the RCC at any level.

I have enclosed a self-addressed, stamped envelope which I request be returned to me with documentation/acknowledgement that my formal defection has been affected and that I no longer appear on the RCC register. Pertinent information for the request is:

Full Name: Michael Burns

Parents: ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

DOB: ~~~~~~~~~

Diocese of Baptism: Chicago

Parish of Baptism: Mount Carmel, Melrose Park, Illinois

Date of Baptism: Unknown

It should be noted that I will be documenting these communications and efforts publicly on my blog site. Staff may contact me at FVThinker@gmail.com or [phone number] if necessary.

I also included a document to be returned to me in a self-addressed, stamped envelope. It read:

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT OF DEFECTION FROM THE ROMAN CATHOLIC CHURCH FOR MICHAEL BURNS

This document is for the purpose of documenting the formal defection of Michael Burns. It may be substituted with a document of your choosing as long as the substituted document contains at least the same information below.

I (printed name) _______________________________ can verify that Michael Burns, baptized in Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Melrose Park, Illinois has been formally removed from the registers of the Roman Catholic Church.

Signature:____________________________________________

Date:______________________________________________

_____________________________________________________ Title/Position/Role within the Roman Catholic Church:

My irreverent depiction of Mohammed worthy of death

2010-05-05T09:43:00.002-05:00

For all you primitive minds...try and make something of it.

Can their be a greatest quote of all time?

2010-02-28T20:40:00.006-06:00

My nomination for the Freethinker's best quote of all time:

"Ignorance is preferable to error, and he is less remote from the truth who believes nothing than he who believes what is wrong." --Thomas Jefferson: Notes on Virginia Q.VI, 1782.

Honorable mention goes to:

"It ain't what you don't know that gets you in trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so." - Mark Twain

Yes, religion is anti-science...and it all comes down to Darwin.

2009-11-16T14:44:00.015-06:00

It has been my observation that, more than any other precept, it is Darwin that is the most intractable issue for a sizable portion of the God-believing public. Of course, I understand (as should everyone) that the broader concept of Evolution by Natural Selection (ENS) goes far beyond the seminal thesis of Charles Darwin. ENS is really a superset of scientific fields that all point to precisely the same conclusion…that humans, hawks and hydrangeas are all evolved from a common ancestor. What Darwin observed and documented is merely one portion of the evidences for ENS. Moreover; Darwin's work has been corroborated and refined in ways that he could not have even dreamed of.

I couldn't begin to relate all the evidence for ENS here…and that is not my intent. The 150^th anniversary of On The Origin of Species has seen a number of new books (i.e. Coyne and Dawkins) that attempt to lay out all the evidence for ENS…and that evidence is suffocating. In my opinion; anybody that had the aptitude to understand the evidence (it is not really that complex) and is not so impaired by ideology would have to conclude that there is no reason to dispute ENS as, hands down, the single best explanation for the diversity of life on this planet (and probably any other planet).

There are many believers who do recognize ENS as the best explanation for the diversity of life. In fact; the Catholic church's official position is that ENS is, indeed, the better explanation over the creation story of Genesis [ref] (albeit that God started the process with the express intent that ENS would result in us humans…after several billion years…and several hundred thousand years of untold suffering…when he would finally reveal himself to an illiterate desert tribe…but I digress.)

My trouble (and, I believe, your trouble also) is that 40% of the US population deny ENS its due as the most successful theory on biological diversity (with only fundamentalist Islamic Turkey being worse) [ref]. I have to assume that there is a portion of that 40% that, were they exposed to the broad body of evidence, would move from their divine creation beliefs to the well recognized process of ENS. The most troubling aspect is how those theists disbelieve in ENS. Instead of saying they don't understand ENS or they have trouble with some aspect of the science, ENS is portrayed variously as crazy, bulls**t, a fraud, fantasy, a failed hypothesis, and (the ever-popular chestnut) "only a theory" (the latter being another blatant display of ignorance).

It seems obvious that our educational system does a poor job of informing our youth on the importance and breadth of what we know in this area. I believe in evolution because I am familiar with the breadth of evidence. Yet I recognize that my academic exposure to the subject (that I can remember anyway) was a grade-school or junior-high science text that showed the ubiquitous example of the giraffe exploiting the food source high in the trees. It seemed reasonable, but hardly a comprehensive overview of ENS. This trifling exposure would be at a notable disadvantage when competing with the theistic creation story hammered home each Sunday morning. It is important that our youth be exposed to ENS in a broad and comprehensive way.

The most troubling aspect of the ENS deniers well demonstrates just how much damage religion and ignorance can do to the human mind. Those that angrily dismiss ENS as bulls**t are effectively making the argument that every biologist and physical scientist in the world is wrong or in on some anti-God conspiracy. I do not have words to describe the pitiable nature of such a position. It is tin foil hat territory to think so many thousands of unaffiliated scientists could maintain such a front and speak with such a consistent voice. Never mind that, for those scientists that want notoriety in their field, they would benefit immensely from discovering and documenting the thing that is not common knowledge. Were a scientist to offer something compelling to supplant ENS, they would be showered with awards and medals and notoriety and research grants. They would achieve a place in the pantheon of the great minds of history alongside the likes of Copernicus, Gallieo, da Vinci, Pascal, Newton, Bohr, Einstein et. al..

Another troubling argument from the believing side is that ENS says that the universe or life sprang from nothing. Of course, anyone with even the most rudimentary understanding of what ENS actually is, knows that ENS says nothing about the origin of the universe or how life began. ENS only describes how the diversity of life arose once the first self-replicating entity came to be. This, again, points back to our failure to educate our youth. (If any anti-evolutionists are reading, please note this fact.)

Yet another troubling aspect is the fabricated controversies underwritten by conservative religious organizations. "Teach The Controversy" is a catch-phrase started by The Discovery Institute (and parroted by our past, ideological president Bush. Ronald Reagan also stated "I have no chimpanzees in my family," ). It is all wrapped up in trappings of the open-society ideals of freedom of speech and information, but is (as determined by a U.S. court) a blatant effort to insert religious creationism into our public school science classes. The effort is to convince the scientifically illiterate and credulous public that there are major rifts amongst scientists that threaten to destroy ENS like a house of cards in the wind. Don't get me wrong…there is a controversy, but it is not within the ranks of evolutionary biologists. There are debates about very narrow aspects of ENS such as where Ardi fits on the evolutionary tree, but nothing that even remotely disputes the core concepts of ENS. The controversy is that religious organizations are making a concerted effort to feed creationism to our vulnerable youth and to undermine science to neutralize a challenge their theistic beliefs. 'Teach The Controversy' is tantamount to demanding that we teach the stork theory of conception in science class…or that we teach that the devil buried dinosaur bones to make it look like they were old. These efforts, at best, are ignorant but well intentioned or, at worst, insidious and dangerous.

Most believers have zero problems with anything else that science says or provides. They are perfectly fine with the concept that matter is made up of atoms…which are in turn made up of protons and neutrons surrounded by a cloud of electrons. Never mind that Niels Bohr's model of the atom is quite theoretical and we have never seen an atom to see if it looks like the model. What is important is that the model accurately describes what we observe in real life and makes reliable predictions of phenomena that we have yet to observe. If we ever got a real look at the structure of an atom; science would eagerly and giddily abandon our current understanding of atomic structure. Believers are also perfectly fine with the idea that microorganisms and genetics are the prime sources of disease (as opposed to demons espoused in the bible).

Is religion anti-science? It all comes down to Darwin. I would have to say, yes… religion is, in one important measure, anti-science. Are all believers anti-science? …of course not. Virtually all believers are able to assimilate and accept most real knowledge that science provides...but it is not a trivial observation that it is only the religious that mount an offense against ENS with rhetoric such as 'Evil-lution'. As far as I know, there is no other body besides the offended religious that has any problem with what the scientific community effectively regards as fact. Were there just one other identifiable group that challenged ENS, we might be able to point the finger of evidence denial elsewhere...but there is no other group. Evidence denial, in this case, is owned wholly by religion. The correlation is clear and cannot be dismissed.

Let us recognize this…Let us ridicule this…and let us educate our children.

The world’s best defense of religion (reprise)

2009-05-01T08:05:00.013-05:00

[This is a reprint of an earlier post. With recently increased traffic to Fox Valley Thinker, I wanted to give new readers a better chance to see some of the older stuff]

Several days ago, after yet more contemplation of the positive and negative aspects of religion, I provided myself with a new (to me anyway) defense of religion. In the way of background; I am the father of a high school freshman. I have always considered the imparting a moral and ethical framework to a child to be one of the highest purposes of parenting. In my relatively recent self-identification as a non-theist, I have analyzed child-rearing from a new perspective. There are groups of theists that will, quite assuredly, say that non-belief is synonymous with amorality . . . that a moral framework cannot exist in the absence of belief. I know this to be wrong. I know this from personal experience and I know this through empirical evidence; but trying to convince some believers of this is tantamount to convincing them that up is down. There is much evidence showing non-theists to be at least as moral as theists. This should allow us to dismiss the amorality claim as naïve; still it pours forth from the pulpit that atheists have no moral center.

I hope it is obvious to all readers that the single most effective way to communicate morals and ethics to a child is through personal example, irrespective of faith. If the people that the child knows, loves, and respects practice charity, show empathy toward others and generally puts other’s need before their own, that is what the child will emulate. Hands down; a parent’s example is what defines the child.

Still . . . If parents had some sort software they could install into their child’s brain, a “Morality v1.0” if you will, that would be convenient, wouldn’t it? It is not going out on a limb to say children do not posses the intellectual acuity to interpret the nuance of a proper philosophical discussion of right and wrong. Heck, many adults appear to lack that ability! But let us leverage the innate credulity of a child and posit a story that is accessible and comprehensible to a child. To that end; tell them that there is a god that watches everything. If you do bad things (he has provided a list), you will go to hell and spend eternity in a lake of burning sulfur. Your child believes you because the immature human animal is wired to do so. Just like they believe you when you tell them about the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, they believe that God is prepared to strike them down and condemn them to hell. There it is . . . simple, concise and oh-so-time-saving for the on-the-go Bronze Age parent.

And, right there, that’s the first major rub. The list was created in the Bronze Age. At the time, it was probably a nice dovetail into contemporary Bronze Age morals. Granted, most of what was laid down as commandments generally fits much of today’s generally accepted framework of ethical conduct . . . but it does show some age. For instance; rule number 10 states:

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.”

I don’t know about you, but it makes me uncomfortable that God decided to list the wife as a piece of property . . . and not even the first in the list! The ‘progressive’ Catholics at least broke this inventory list into two statements, ostensibly giving the wife some special status over a man’s ox and slaves . . . regular Susan B. Anthonys they are!! At least the Catholics had the good sense to apply some editing to the word of God. Wh . . Wh . . What was that?!? One of the very few times God himself hand delivers a communiqué to humanity and some feel the need to tweak it a bit?!?!? Wow!! Talk about brass ones!! Still; for the time, this was probably a no-brainer list of do’s and don’ts with no controversy to be found.

Of course the first half of the list of rules had nothing to do with “do unto others” kind of thinking. It was all about the self-protection of the story; the more that God was deserving of respect and the scarier he was, the less likely that kids would wander. To my mind, the whole thing it is the perfect parental shortcut. After all, the busy parents of the day had their day full . . . er . . . herding and . . . er . . . other stuff. I have little doubt that the biblical story, used this way, was quite effective.

The whole thing might be perfectly useful if 1) there was some universally agreed upon list of moral codes that would evolve as we gained new, real understanding of the human species and condition and 2) we let the kids in on the story once it was no longer useful (like we do with Santa Claus and other fables). Now some of you already have your pants in a bunch because of item ‘1’. “That is wishy-washy moral relativism” you might say. Relative to what? . . . our growing understanding of the human species and our growing body of empirical knowledge and philosophical understanding? Maybe you would prefer that we stick with moral absolutes that value the female spouse somewhere between your condo and your cat. Hmmmmm. Relativism doesn’t sound all that bad to me. In fact, the enlightened believers have always practiced moral relativism . . . that is why they are enlightened.

In honesty, though, I would give less than even odds that some universal list of do’s and don’ts could be created, but it would be an interesting experiment. I know the United Nations has a “universal” document but it is a) probably not universal for primitive theocracies and dictatorships and b) limited to human rights. Still . . . the effort would be interesting and actually give us important new insights into fundamental human ethics and morals.

The failure of the whole premise was that point ‘2’ (letting the kids in on the story) was not incorporated into the program. As an individual (hopefully) matures intellectually, they are able to better understand and reflect on the nuances of what is right and wrong. This nuanced understanding is far better than some terse list written down by moral leaders of ancient times.

So there you have it . . . the best defense of religious fables that I have yet to hear (or concoct). To my mind, this could even put an aspect of religion into the ‘defensible’ category . . . wrong and false, but defensible. Sometimes I impress myself . . but I am easily impressed.

Hate Crimes Legislation Update

2009-04-29T22:36:00.006-05:00

As a follow-up to my previous post, I see (via The Associated Press) that H.R. 1913 passed through the House decisively today with a vote of 249-175. For those of you don't know what H.R. 1913 is; it is an extension to our existing hate crimes laws that allows federal funds to be provided to local agencies to prosecute crimes of prejudice. The Religious Right has their pants in a bunch because it includes 'gender identity' and 'sexual orientation' to the list of classes protected by hate crime laws. Probably the most telling synopsis of the conservative opposition to this bill came from bill supporter Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla.,:

"I wonder if our friends on the other side of the aisle would be singing the same offensive tune if we were talking about hate crimes based on race or religion," she said, referring to Republican opponents. "It seems to me it is the category of individuals that they are offended by, rather than the fact that we have hate crimes laws at all."

How very true Rep. Wasserman. I have come to think that hate crime laws can't really affect the rates of crime for things that are already illegal anyway. I feel the greatest benefit of this bill is the the religious right must talk openly and loudly about their position on homosexuality and why they didn't have a problem with the same laws that didn't include homosexuals. They have to lay it on the table for all the world to see (not that it has been a secret), that they feel there there are some groups that it is OK to persecute. So; if it makes the Religious Right spastic and desperate (i.e. claiming it offers protection to pedophiles!!!....WTF?!?), then at least THAT is some good that comes out of it.

Is Religious Anti-Gay Speech a Hate Crime?

2009-04-27T15:32:00.006-05:00

At this writing; House Resolution 1913 had just passed Judiciary Committee review and will, ostensibly, appear on the House floor for debate at some point. The nature of the resolution leads me to believe that it would then be voted on as a bill that would somewhat expand our existing Hate Crimes laws. The terse description of this reads as follow:

To provide Federal assistance to States, local jurisdictions, and Indian tribes to prosecute hate crimes, and for other purposes.

This comes to my attention because of the flurry of e-mails from conservative Christian organizations that are up in arms saying that it will stifle their free speech and keep them from promoting the biblical view on homosexuality. My initial reaction is that anything that makes the butt's of the religious right pucker must be a good thing, but I wanted to investigate further.

In reading this bill, it expands our existing laws that recognize violence based on prejudice against gender, race, color, religion, national origin, or disability to include sexual orientation and gender identity. The operative word here is 'violence' and there is no mention of speech. The bill would (in my reading) merely apply different sentencing guidelines to violent acts that are already illegal.

Contemplating the bill, several questions come to mind:

Can hate crime laws actually reduce violent crimes on the part of xenophobes? My opinion is that the fear of those that are not like ourselves is a most primitive and instinctual reaction and probably served ancient man well (in a survival context). It is our higher intellect that allows us to recognize our innate xenophobia and overcome it. Will someone resist killing an immigrant because they will get 25 years in prison as opposed to 20 years? Will someone be uniquely shamed for killing another because they were motivated by bigotry instead of more pedestrian reasons? …I think not.
Can organized inculcation/indoctrination of large groups in the persecution of some minority (i.e. left-handed individuals, Hispanics, homosexuals) rise to the level of a 'violent' crime even in the absence of physical violence?

The latter of these two points seems to be what is getting the religious right's pants in a bunch. It is being portrayed as making it illegal to speak against homosexuality in church. Despite my sooooo wishing we could make organized persecution of a minority a shameful practice (well…actually it already is), I don't believe that, constitutionally, there would be solid grounds to make it against the law. I believe it could easily be argued that the practice is immoral; we would be hard pressed to make it illegal.

I would guess the best we could hope for is that organized persecution would be looked down on in that same way that adultery is looked down upon. That said; while I now think that even our existing hate-crimes laws are feel-good legislation, I will support H.R. 1913 just to scare the religious right despite thinking that it poses no threat to them.

UPDATE (28 Apr 09): This morning I got an e-mail from the American Family Association that said (among other things)

"Congress is set to give legally protected status to 30 sexual orientations, including incest."

I also see that Liberty Counsel (whoever they are) is extoling how this bill will protect pedophiles.

(I purposely did not link to their sites to avoid inadvertently promoting them)

Are these people serious?!?! They are either intellectually stunted or stunningly desperate.

The Godless Threat - The Godly Threat - Oh The Irony!

2009-04-23T12:22:00.005-05:00

For all of the bluster of the religious right; I have heard nothing of the stunning irony that the our most feared cold-war enemy...the enemy that most wanted to destroy our way of life...the 'godless communists'...has been replaced with the most supremely godly people around.

Another Biblical 'Miss'

2009-02-06T14:17:00.008-06:00

So the bible says that God gave us dominion over everything. Furthermore, the bible never mentions...not even hints at...the existence of microorganisms!

Check out this interesting video:

In it, Martin Blaser (chairman of the department of medicine at NYU School of Medicine) relates a stunning statistic: 60% of the biosphere, by weight, is bacteria!! For a book that is purported to have all the answers, this seem like something that might have been mentioned. Moreover; most any way you look at it, it is microorganisms that have dominion over US!

UPDATE: I just came across this amusing video that touches on this very topic...

I am looking forward to viewing other videos from NonStampCollector

Book Review: The Age of Reason

2008-12-04T23:13:00.003-06:00

Book Review: The Age of Reason - Being an Investigation of True and Fabulous Theology by Thomas Paine

While I concern myself with many things (scientific and historical primarily); this [ill tended] web log is dedicated to matters of theism, church/state separation, morality and things related. It is a rare event indeed that one finds a book that touches on so many subjects that I find compelling. For a forum such as this, there would be a number of writings that might be considered ‘required reading’. I have read tomes from Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett, Harris, and Stenger. In addition, I have read an increasing number of Christian apologetic works by authors recommended to me (such as C.S. Lewis, Strobel, Aquinas, Geisler/Turek).

One work that has eluded me (until now) is American patriot Thomas Paine’s late-life work The Age of Reason. Paine's story is, to my mind, a rather tragic one. Paine was a patriot and gained great notoriety with the publication of his pamphlet Common Sense in 1776 which was not insignificant in awakening and forming public sentiment in the cause of independence from British rule. He was admired by and corresponded with many of the ‘who’s who’ of our nation’s founding. Moving back to Europe, he later penned The Rights of Man which was critical of monarchies and supported the French Revolution. This, too, was quite influential but it landed him in a French prison. In anticipation of that eventuality and his expected execution, he hastily penned ‘Part I’ of The Age of Reason which he had always planned to write late in life. The Age of Reason is a highly critical deconstruction and condemnation of organized religion. It had long been his intent to write this work but, knowing that he would be roundly criticized for disparagement of Christianity, he waited purposely to make it his swansong. The expectation of beheading seemed to give him a pretty firm date to work with. In the end, he escaped execution and was able to write ‘Part II’ of the book. It will primarily be this second part that I discuss.

First let me note, that Paine was NOT an atheist, but rather a Deist. In ‘Part I’, Paine makes the usual philosophical arguments against theistic belief such as the veracity of revelation, the corruption of the church. These, of course, are common and valid arguments, but it is in ‘Part II’ where Paine really brought something to the table. In ‘Part II’, Paine skillfully and thoroughly used the bible against itself to demonstrate that the claimed authors of the various books could NOT have been authors. Paine, in great detail, dissected and refuted the Old Testament [OT]. I must confess, since most contemporary Christian sects have dismissed the OT as being fables, this section was somewhat like white noise for me. In Paine’s day, though, the OT was still a revered portion of the book that many considered to be the ‘Word of God’.

Paine, using ONLY the Bible as reference, pits each of the books of the New Testament [NT] against themselves and each other. Even today, many believing Christians believe the NT to be the actual, inspired word of God and the be-all end-all in … well … most things of consequence. Paine witheringly shows the gross inconsistencies between the books of the NT and within themselves. Paine went into the effort knowing he would find inconsistencies, but he surprised even himself with just how flawed a document the Bible is.

Examples of what Paine details:

- Purported authors speaking of events that transpired after their own death
- Proof that some writings had to be CENTURIES removed from the events they describe
- Grossly conflicting accounts of the same event.
- Major events conspicuous in their absence of some of the books of the NT

The Age of Reason would be a devastating deconstruction of the Bible (and religion) even if it were half its length. I initially picked up the book just as an historical work, but found it to be the most rigorous deconstruction of the bible I had seen. It wouldn’t surprise me that some would scoff at the validity of a 200 year old book…but then again…apologists might not want to bring up the age of their book!

The Age of Reason is a highly recommended read.

President Palin – A Bullet Dodged, and A Party Warped

2008-11-16T19:51:00.003-06:00

It seems only sensible to follow up on my last post “President Palin - A Dark Possibility”, which I penned shortly after John McCain announced his announced that Sarah Palin was his selection for Vice President. It was an unsettling time when her initial popularity put McCain ahead in the polls and there was an actual possibility that we could have and End-Of-Days theologist just one [feeble] heartbeat from the most powerful military machine in history and a whole list of biblical prophesies in need of fulfillment.

Well…the world learned more and more about just how much Sarah Palin has NOT learned in her isolated life and, while still giving the Religious Right a woody, became a boil on the McCain ticket. It seems generally agreed that Ms. Palin turned what could have been a reasonably competitive campaign into a crushing electoral landslide for Barack Obama. It had been obvious for some time (after the initial Palin ‘bump’) that Obama was going to walk away with the election. … and until the recent California wildfires, the media seemed to spend half of their time talking about the marginalized Republican Party and what they would get back in the game. It almost seems like a sort of ‘Chapter 11’ bankruptcy for the party, but the bankruptcy here was intellectual and ideological instead of monetary. Their business plan wasn’t working anymore and they need to spend some time restructuring.

I had never affiliated myself with a political party and, to be honest, I always thought it rather silly to be a strict partisan of any flavor. Still…had I been forced to select a party, I would have identified myself as a Republican because I grew up thinking it was a party of fiscal conservatism…or at least fiscal pragmatism. Clearly the Republican Party, somewhere along the line, became the party of Religious and Social Conservatism. This, I think, is not just veering off the path a little bit, but converting the party into something totally foreign to American and Constitutional ideals and bearing little or no resemblance to the party that I grew up with.

I was down at Grant Park on the night of Tuesday November 4^th and watched Mr. Obama become President Elect. It was an emotional time and tears welled on more than one occasion. It was a new chapter in America. It is an era that will turn us from the brink of our Supreme Court interpreting our secular constitution through a religious lens. It is an era where the Republican party can do some soul searching and return to their roots…or so I had hoped.

The media and the talking heads talk about the ‘new faces’ of the Republican party, and they are….Palin, Huckabee, Romney, Gingrich and other religious conservatives!! What are they thinking?!?!?! There is still a good deal of time. Maybe there will be that face that comes out of the crowd (much as Obama did) that can be our next Teddy Roosevelt or Lincoln. Instead; the talking heads only offer the names of religious ideologues that delivered us the mess that we have right now and want to (in Mike Huckabee’s words) “change the constitution to meet God’s word”. If the Republican Party were a struggling car company; you can’t get back in control by putting a new grill on the same undesirable car. The Palins, Romneys , Huckabees and Gingrichs are just a new grill on a car that people no longer want.

Message to the GOP: There is still time to learn your lesson. Dig deep.

President Palin - A Dark Possibility

2008-09-13T11:33:00.002-05:00

It could be argued that we stand witness to the most epic of political battles in the recent history of our marvelous republic. Based on television viewership, surging voter registration, and the sheer volume of water cooler and bar stool talk; It seems that many voters feel that this is the most important election in their lifetime.

Both McCain and Obama have done the necessary dirty deed of pandering to the religious right to try to secure that voting bloc. And, yes, I do not think that neither of these intelligent and honorable men has nearly the religious conviction that their rhetoric would have you believe. The unfortunate truth is that, if one wants to serve this country (or state or community), they must feign strong spiritual belief…and both have done so in spades.

McCain raised the ante, however, with the selection of Sarah Palin as his running mate. It is my sense that her selection was a ‘Hail Mary’ effort to get a leg up on the Obama juggernaut. As a political move, I would characterize it as brilliant and has likely delivered the evangelical vote to McCain signed and sealed.

My problem lies in some cold, hard facts. Social Security actuarial tables indicate that there is about a 15% chance that John McCain will not live through his entire first term. I have also read that there is roughly a 7% chance that Mr. McCain could have a debilitating illness or injury (not sure of the veracity of that number, but it sounds reasonable). This puts us at a 1 in 5 chance that we are actually electing a President Palin…not even good odds for Russian Roulette! With those kinds of odds, we need to ask ourselves is Ms. Palin fit to be President Palin? By any reasonable standard, NO!

In Palin, we have someone who pretty obviously believes our actions in the middle-east are God’s will. In my estimation, there is nothing so dangerous as to have public policy defined by supernatural worldviews. Palin’s religious beliefs are so deep that she believes her motives to be unassailable…just like al Quaeda and the Taliban. If Palin turns this into a religious war, or even gives that impression (which she already has), we will make the world a far more dangerous place and there cannot be any winners…just divisions and conflict and death.

The original colonies of our country’s fledgling days became mini theocracies. It is not insignificant that our founder’s very first amendment to our constitution was to separate religion from government and address the clear dysfunction that ensues when they merge. Governor Palin, while very possibly an otherwise capable person, must not place her religious convictions on the world stage; and we cannot risk the possibility of there being a President Palin.

The Origin of Morality

2008-03-10T13:38:00.005-05:00

In theistic / non-theistic debates, the short list of contentious topics invariably includes the issue of morality. More specifically, how does the non-believer know what is right and wrong without the edicts from the supernatural? Many enlightened theists acknowledge that [their particular] religion is not the sole arbiter of morality. Other, less enlightened, theists proclaim that non-believers, by definition, are variously amoral, immoral, degenerate or evil. In a recent discussion that on-line discussion, a newspaper letter writer stated (as though factual) that “atheists deny God to justify their degenerate lifestyle”. I must say that I cannot resist confronting the rantings of a bigoted simpleton so I jumped into the conversation. You can read it here. The letter writer was, pretty much, universally condemned, but there were those that thought the letter writer “was hinting at” a bigger, important question. If you read his original comments; it is clear that he was not asking questions, but rather condemning and demonizing…all with no evidence.

That conversation seemed to winnow itself down to two or three contributors, so I suggested that we move the conversation here. The ‘Cliff’s Notes’ of my part in that conversation is a follows:

My contention is that the core impulses that our advanced brain interprets as ethics and morality are evolutionary traits. To my mind, the concept of “The Golden Rule” or “Do unto others …” is the distillation of [what is known as] reciprocal altruism. I have the great fortune to have a very good body of empirical knowledge on the matter to back up my contention that morality (or at least proto-morality) exists in other higher species and not only pre-dates Christianity, but predates our species. In fact, every species tested for altruistic traits or empathetic behavior exhibited such traits.

Such a contention is in stark conflict with theistic claims that human-kind was created uniquely and separately from other animal species, created in God’s image and imbued with special privileges, responsibilities, and concepts of right and wrong. (Just calling the human species an ‘animal’ is offensive to some). I don’t have a problem with the last concept…that we, possibly uniquely, know the ethereal philosophical concepts of right and wrong, but the evidence shows that other species also know right and wrong even if those other species don’t understand the concepts. Our mutated larger brain allows us the ponder such abstract concepts to, apparently, the exclusion of all others.

Nicholas Wade (a science reporter for the New York Times) had a nice distillation of some of the empirical evidence that we have. He writes:

“Some animals are surprisingly sensitive to the plight of others. Chimpanzees, who cannot swim, have drowned in zoo moats trying to save others. Given the chance to get food by pulling a chain that would also deliver an electric shock to a companion, rhesus monkeys will starve themselves for several days.”

These are just two examples of many that show actions that benefit others with no direct benefit to the actor. It is hard to take those types of behaviors and paint them with something that does NOT include core components of (what humans would call) ethics, morality, and empathy.

In these discussions, I do NOT take the stance that “Morality IS an evolutionary trait and you are stupid to think otherwise”. My stance is that the theory that morality is an evolved trait makes sense and has broad empirical evidence that supports it. I only feel this is worthwhile to discuss because there are some that will dismiss the evidence that there is (if they know about it) and claim that their particular deity is responsible for right and wrong. This, in itself, is perfectly within the rights of any person to believe. The rub comes when, by extension of their theistic claim of ownership of morality, the theist demonizes non-believers by claiming that, by denial of their religious creed, the non-believer is (as I said before) variously amoral, immoral, degenerate or evil. This stance victimizes a segment of society that is demonstrably as moral and ethical (sometimes more so) based on NO EVIDENCE BEYOND A BRONZE-AGE TEXT. This latter position, I consider to be immoral in itself. I operate on this simple code: "If there is a victim to my actions, then it is probably wrong". Demonizing a person or a group without warrant creates a victim, hence it is wrong.

Book Review: “On Being Certain: Believing You Are Rights Even When You’re Not” by Robert A. Burton, M.D.

2008-03-06T10:15:00.004-06:00

Book Review: “On Being Certain: Believing You Are Rights Even When You’re Not” by Robert A. Burton, M.D.

In my theistic discussions; I am often fascinated (stymied) at the level of certainty that some theists have in the validity of their religious narrative…often in the face of clear contradictory empirical evidence. Over the years, I have taken a keen interest in neurology and how the brain works; enough so that I have a passing regret for not having gone into neurology instead of engineering (it’s never too late, right?). Over these years, I have amassed a mental library of various illustrations that show how malleable and unreliable the mind (as manifested in the brain) can be. Still; the inexplicable certainty that some possess was never addressed directly in my readings. Hence, when I saw a brief blurb about the book “On Being Certain”, I immediately went and bought a copy (my library had ordered it, but they did not yet have it ready for lending).

Dr. Burton’s sole focus of “On Being Certain” is that sense of certainty that we all recognize. He provides evidence that the feeling (or ‘emotion’ more accurately) is a ‘primary emotion’ and refers to it as the “feeling of knowing” (he did not shorten it to an acronym, I think, because of the obvious, awkward acronym that would result).

Burton cites the rapidly accumulating knowledge that we have with regard to brain function and perception to good end. The less diligent reader, though, might not find the reading deeply satisfying as we cannot, based on our current knowledge, fully answer specific questions (i.e. why do we create gods to address the unknown). Still, the empirical evidence cited is often clearly in conflict with some common presumptions. This, in my mind, is the true purpose of the empirical method. While we may be unable to answer a specific, granular question on a topic, we can effectively eliminate the wrong answers…and Burton’s book does go a long way in eliminating some of those wrong answers (at least for those open to empirical evidence).

One interesting point Burton makes is there are some emotions that we can induce through direct electrical stimulation of very specific regions of the brain. One example is the “sense of another presence” (i.e. that there is someone or something nearby). Another example is the disruption/manipulation of the “sense of self” where we can feel separate from our bodies (floating) or feel “at one” with our surroundings. The point of his book, of course, is that “feeling of knowing” which can be elicited through electrical stimulation. Burton calls these “primary emotions” and are localized to very specific areas of the brain. On the other hand, we have no evidence of being able to similarly induce higher order emotions such as the “sense of irony”. Burton effectively demonstrates how these primary emotions (particularly the “feeling of knowing”) do not necessarily reliably correlate with facts or reality.

Reading the book, while mentally critiquing it, is a bit of a mobius-like conundrum. You are simultaneously judging and amassing knowledge, while you are reading about how your judgment and knowledge is not reliable. WHEW! I will confess; I feel that Burton, on one or two occasions, overstepped the implications of bits of evidence. In his defense, the book was written for a more general audience and some background that might have been omitted might justify his positions. In all, the book offers some fascinating insights as to how our brains and minds work and an astute reader can learn much from it.

Pascal's Wager [reprise]

2008-02-29T14:54:00.004-06:00

In another conversation with one of my deist friends, the topic of Pascal’s Wager came up again. This argument in favor of theism has been refuted innumerable times but, in my experience, an important aspect of its failure is too seldom elucidated…hence my being compelled to write some more on Mr. Pascal.

In the way of background (for those of you that are new to theistic debates), Blaise Pascal (the brilliant 17th century mathematician, physicist and philosopher) offered the following in support of believing in the God of Abraham:

It is better to believe in God and be wrong, than to NOT believe in God and be wrong.

This is based on the Christian religious narrative that those who deny the existence of God will be out of favor with the Supreme Being and be cast down into hell with its associated burning sulfur lakes and gnashing of teeth. [It should be noted that Mr. Pascal didn’t really buy into the validity of his argument as much as the theists who bring it out in their defense.]

The argument has been refuted by others far more scholarly than me, but I wish to point out (what are to me) the two most cogent failures of Pascal’s Wager.

Belief is not a conscious choice. The idea that one can, as an act of will, just decide to believe something is ludicrous. In my discussion at a local watering hole, I pointed to the paper coasters at the corner of the bar where we were seated and asked “Is there any way that you can make yourself believe, as an act of will, make yourself believe that those coasters are actually woven from hair shaved from the heads of fairies?” We had some fun with the fact that he hadn’t been drinking long enough so say so, but the rhetorical question has an obvious answer. One cannot, as a matter of will, believe something without some body of evidence to support it. When the theist brings out Pascal’s Wager to a non-believer and asks us to believe for no other reason than the potential upside, they might as well ask us to pass a live walrus out our rectum.

The false assumption that there is no cost to belief. What is assumed when offering Pascal’s Wager as an argument is that there is absolutely no cost that comes with theistic belief. This, in my experience, is the aspect that receives too little attention when refuting the argument. The underlying premise is that you have the possibility of “eternal reward” with belief in God versus “eternal punishment” without that belief and that even the slightest chance of its truth makes it a good bet.

This fails because there is, indeed, a cost to belief. On the surface, one could readily identify myriad personal costs to belief. These could be things like not being able to sleep in on your holy day, limitation on foods that you might otherwise enjoy, special requirements for clothing and garments. Still these are personal costs that involve no victim (other than the believer who has willingly decided to believe). These costs (and they are costs) could be perfectly justifiable to the believer so the argument hasn’t failed yet. Where the argument fails is when that conscious belief involves others as victims. Depending on what theistic narrative you decide to believe, there ARE victims. Let’s use Catholicism and homosexuality as an example (being raised Catholic it is low hanging fruit for me). Part of the official narrative of the Catholic Church is that homosexuality is an evil choice and thereby demonizes all homosexuals. By electing to believe in this particular narrative, the participant has willingly demonized a segment of society…they have willingly decided to hate somebody because they were told to do so. That is just one example of many. There is the cost of subjugation of women; the cost of stifling medical research and education; etc. etc. etc..

Yes there is a cost to belief (depending on what dogma you hang your hat on). There is a cost to society and it is not insignificant. If your belief makes a victim out of others, then it is immoral…plain and simple.

My 'New Atheist' Interview

2007-09-09T20:43:00.000-05:00

[Note from FVThinker: I was recently interviewed by John of the blog Evolutionary Middleman. John is a long-time atheist interested in the motivations and thinking of individuals that recently self-identified as atheists. You can click here to find out his rationale for the series of interviews. I had provided him with some of my background information prior to the interview. What follows is that interview]

The Atheists Interviews - Mike Burns of Fox Valley Thinker

_______________________________________________

John: The first thing I'd like you talk about a little is this thing of you having a degree in engineering. One of the interesting statistical facts is that those with engineering degrees are somewhat less likely than those in other sciences such as biology, genetics and physics to be atheists. Indeed, you personally didn't come to a strictly atheistic outlook until your mid-forties. What is it about "engineering"?

Mike: The fields of biology, genetics, and physics place the practitioner directly into the areas that are in conflict with the truth-claims of many religions. This, I would imagine, forces those scientists to either reconcile those conflicts or abandon one of the two explanations. An engineer is not a ‘pure’ scientist like those studying molecular biology or sub-atomic physics. We are rather removed from that level as we contemplate things like the load bearing capacity of a beam or how to store information in a magnetic media. The bible/Koran/torah doesn’t generally come into conflict in matters such as these. Still, I love all the sciences . . . and physics is one of the most valuable things that I have studied. There are probably many similarities between the ‘pure’ scientist’s mode of thinking and the engineer’s mode of thinking; the former just confront the big questions more directly.

An interesting statistic shows that 74% of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences is specifically atheistic. Fully 93% do not believe in a personal god (one who answers prayers or interacts with our world). When one really looks for answers to the big questions (as those in the sciences do), you come to realize that the supernatural explanations for things are unsupported and that there are, almost always, natural explanations.

I cannot say for sure, but I have to imagine that the vast majority of human-kind has no interest in doing the arduous, rigorous research that the scientists do for a living. That does not mean that the human animal does not want answers to the big questions. I contend that we, as a species, will always put an explanation to virtually everything whether we have genuine knowledge about it or not. Prior to an enhanced understanding of our solar system, some used to think that the sun was a flaming chariot being pulled across the sky (we almost always invented an anthropomorphic being for these things). Now that we have real understanding and it was disseminated to the population, most people understand that earth is orbiting a large ball of boiling gas. It is that dissemination of knowledge that needs to occur on other natural explanations of our world.

John: I think I read on your blog about the birth of your son and your mother's horror, when you were still more of an agnostic, at the thought of her unbaptized grandchild. Apparently she actually got you to examine your faith at that time and it actually had kind of the opposite effect she had hoped for. How is she doing with all of it now that she (in part) has actually led to the problem being worse, from her perspective?

Mike: My mother is not yet fully aware of my position. She does know that I have serious problems with Christian dogma and Catholic dogma. With regards to her grandchild, she is doing better, since the Pope decided that the concept of limbo (where the unbaptized go) was a boo-boo and that the unbaptized are eligible to get to heaven. If you are not familiar with the concept of ‘infallibility’ within the Catholic church; it means that *whatever* pope says is absolutely true because he got his information directly from God. One of the recent popes was a little uncomfortable with this and modified it to say he should be treated as if he were infallible. Of course this is no consolation to all the parents of deceased, unbaptized children who thought their babies were languishing in this isolated no-where-land. I just makes me more angry with the church that the pope can say “Ooops! My bad. We just made that shit up.” and that the cult-members will respond with “Thank you your holiness”. Another story made up by the popemeister is the ascension of Mary. There were stories floating around about what happened to Mary when she died. One of them was that she ascended bodily into heaven, but it was just one version of the folklore. The pope sits down and ponders and thinks his thoughts and decides that, yes, Mary did ascend bodily into heaven . . . and hence is born a new Catholic ‘fact’.

John: What do you say to your child about god, the beliefs of others and how you view our life in the universe?

Mike: I tell him everything that I know when I get a chance to get into the incredibly perplexing teenage brain. I took him to the World Trade Center site and talked about the role that religion played. I talk of the role that religion has played throughout history; both good and bad. Many of our good friends and neighbors are devout Christians. I tell him that everyone is our friend unless they prove otherwise. I certainly have my biases, but I certainly don’t tell him that he is an atheist or must be an atheist.

John: You talked about reading Dawkins "The God Delusion" and other books and authors. A frequent criticism of him (as well as Harris, Dennett, Hitchens, etc) is that they are arrogant, overbearing, condescending, dogmatic in their own way. It seems obvious that this is not what you took from it. It's also said that all they do is "preach to the choir". You may have already been fairly certain that you didn't buy into all of the dogma of Catholicism, but you were hardly a Dawkins choir boy. Is this approach to free thinking (espoused by Dawkins, et al) the best way to bring others over to rationality?

Mike: I don’t recall criticism of Dennett putting him in league with Dawkins, Harris and Hitchens. I greatly admired Dennett’s book [Breaking the Spell] in that he merely framed and forwarded arguments that, to my mind, had virtually inescapable conclusions. Most certainly, there is a sizable segment of the theistic population that does take great offense to even the most casual questioning of faith. This, I feel, is why many theists consider these authors so rabid. Indeed, there are some very unflattering things said by some of these authors (with regards to religion), but the level of rhetoric in criticizing them often outstrips the authors criticisms.

One common criticism is that these authors don’t appreciate the nuance of the critics brand of religion. But this is a red herring. While these authors are much more scholarly than most (with regards to religion), the criticism of nuance has nothing to do with their arguments. The authors posit that religions are merely mythology. The critics, instead of demonstrating that their religion is NOT mythology, take the tack of (effectively) saying my mythology is better than the other guy’s mythology. The authors (and I) maintain that decisions and public policy are much better when based on real knowledge instead of mythology.

I do think that they are ‘preaching to the choir’, but the choir is much larger than most realize. I would not expect that a Jerry Falwell-type theist would pick up ‘The God Delusion’ and turn into an atheist. Even a less devout theist would not just ‘POOF’ become an atheist. I have a casual understanding of brain physiology and an appreciation for its complexity and malleability. The brain becomes what we need it to be but it can be persistent in holding onto old information. I consider it nearly impossible that someone firmly in the theistic camp could, in the span of one book, become an atheist. When you spend your life surrounded by people who believe in the [regionally prevailing] religious stories, your brain is literally ‘wired’ to accept and these stories. It took me decades to really formally move from my weak theistic position to atheism. But, as a demonstration of brain physiology, even today, my brain tells me that Jesus’ resurrection is more plausible than Mohammed flying to heaven on a winged horse. . . even though I know both are equally improbable! It takes time and great effort to overcome inculcated beliefs.

As far as “the best way to bring others over to rationality” . . . I suppose there are different techniques for different audiences. The authors mentioned speak to the audience of closeted skeptics like me. For me, Dawkins hit a home run and I will remember his book as an epiphany in my life; allowing me to realize that my concerns with regard to religion were well founded. The fact that they sell so well, speaks to the fact that the audience is large. I honestly don’t know how to reach the deeply inculcated. I like to think that the growing visibility of skeptics will force more and more theists to question their position.

John: I think your point about how the mind works, and your personal example of finding the resurrection of Jesus to be less fantastic than Mohammed flying to heaven on a winged horse, to be very interesting. So, let me ask - what if we toss in Jesus' ascension to heaven? I am pushing this a little because, for me, I see absolutely no difference. Maybe it's just that I've been an ardent atheist for so many years that all mythology sounds very much the same to me. The only difference I can appreciate is that there are some mythologies that many people currently believe and others that you don't really need to argue about. Worshippers of Horus are fairly hard to find.

Mike: It is rather hard to describe, and maybe I didn’t do a very good job of it earlier. My point was that the brain wires itself (literally wires itself) based on information that it is exposed to. After years of hearing and accepting the story of Jesus’ resurrection and being told it was truth, my brain seems to have wired a region of the brain so that I don’t recoil from the absurdity of it. Throw a new mythological story at my brain (Mohammed’s horse) and I, like you, recoil at the silliness of it. I know full well they are equivalent impossibilities, but through inculcation, my brain has developed (and maintains) a tolerance for the Christian narrative. In no way am I saying that I give Christianity any more credence than Islam or any other religion. I merely make the point to illustrate the amazing complexity of the human brain.

Sam Harris said something that well illustrates the same thing. [I paraphrase] “Which is more ridiculous? 1) God speaks to George Bush and tells him to conduct this war. . . or 2) God speaks to George Bush through his hair dryer and tells him to conduct this war.” Familiarity with the Christian narrative makes the first statement seem more reasonable even when it is not. The introduction of a completely insignificant detail (the hair dryer) in the second statement makes it seem ridiculous . . . probably even to many devout theists. The brain is a wondrous thing but is capable of tremendous bias and warped interpretation. One thing that people should recognize is their minds are not the perfectly reliable, trustworthy things that most would like to believe. The utter certainty that some feel in their faith is merely what the brain has been trained to do.

John: Philosophically, do you now follow in the style of these authors when talking to people or writing in your blog, or do you take a less aggressive posture?

Mike: I have a couple of points on this. I have noticed that Dawkins is more aggressive in his book, but is more pragmatic in interviews and debates. [Christopher] Hitchens is unbelievably caustic in debates and interviews, while his book was more tame. I must give Hitchens credit though. I have never seen anyone so consistently destroy his opponents in debates. He is a freaking razor blade. He is also rude and doesn’t follow rules, but he is a debate machine! I have heard him described as the best justification for two martini lunches (he is apparently a heavy drinker).

I recently read a piece by Michael Shermer from Skeptic Magazine and eSkeptic.com that, at least in part, fits my position. In it, he said that anti-anything always fails. My feeling is that simply lambasting the theists for their wrong-doings or religious ills will, for the most part, only make people angry. An important part of my position is to demonstrate that there are other naturalistic explanations for our world. I have to imagine that there are a lot of people who don’t realize that there are other plausible explanations for things. This can be difficult as it often requires that some science education be included. In a nutshell, I am more pro-knowledge than anti-theistic.

All that being said; I cannot help but get pretty in-your-face when someone offers patently ridiculous arguments. If you read my essay on the “milk miracle” on my blog, that was one of those cases.

John: Speaking of Michael Shermer, I have a very ambiguous feeling about his style. I really like the guy, and I say to myself that I like his way of discussing issues of skepticism much better than I like Dawkins, yet I find myself more drawn to Dawkins writing. It’s ironic, because I would rather emulate Shermer. Is there perhaps a little arrogance in us that enjoys sticking it to the theist?

Mike: I am not broadly familiar with everything that [Shermer] has said on the topic of religion, but I greatly enjoyed what I have read and seen. For instance his “Skepticism 101” video on www.skeptic.com is inspired. It clearly demonstrates what the mind is capable of just as I mentioned in your previous question. Things like this video fall into the ‘pro-knowledge’ area that can probably do more good than the anti-theism. He has also written on empirical studies that intercessory prayer has no effect. I often do as he does and offer the facts (knowledge) that shows proto-ethics in other species, prayer having no effect, less religious societies having fewer societal ills, atheists being grossly underrepresented in prisons, etc. I offer this to give others knowledge. Do I emulate him? I don’t know his work well enough to say so.

John: Did you find any particular aspect of atheism to be repugnant or problematic to you as you contemplated "coming out" and declaring yourself to be an atheist?

Mike: Not at all. First of all, atheism (in its strictest sense) defines nothing of a person’s worldview. It merely says that the person is not-theistic. If we were speaking of hair colors it would be like saying that someone’s hair is not brown. It doesn’t say anything as to the person’s actual hair color. Growing up, the Catholic interpretation of an atheist was that they were cloven-hoofed with serpents crawling from their mouths. Very little rigorous, empirical research has been done specifically on atheists and their role in society, but there is some. Unfortunately for the theistic camp, it is all quite flattering to the atheist in virtually every aspect (racism, intelligence, education, tolerance and more). One study I read from a Canadian university only showed ‘charitable giving’ as an area that theists lagged behind . . . but calculating how church monies get divvied up between proselytizing and social services even makes that cloudy. I am proud to be in the company of clear thinkers.

John: I'm certainly proud to have people like you on our side! As to this problem of charitable giving, a couple of things: Isn't it likely that the community function of a religious group would tend to encourage this? We have to be honest and say that this is one positive from religion. But, again, it's a bit superfluous if we can do the same through a secular community. Is it possible that as we create more secular communities (like the on-line one that is growing) that those communities will ask members to do things in the public interest and that, many times, that's all any human being needs - a little direction in an area that's tough to navigate, if you have to figure out on your own where and when to contribute?

Mike: I would tend to agree that the aspect of community is a genuine positive of religion (of course that community is too often intolerant of other communities). I don’t think the on-line community could ever be an analog for this type of interaction though. I have the very great fortune to live in a small, historic residential community . . . an actual community. The neighbors converse, watch out for each other and their children, have barbeques together, have philosophical discussions and more. Having moved here from just 10 blocks away (where very little of this interaction occurred), I am stunned by how enriching and satisfying a real community can be. Just thinking aloud . . . I wonder if the decades-long trend of sprawl (placing homes further apart, homeowners driving into their attached garages and disappearing until the morning commute) has had an inadvertent isolating effect that makes them seek out other ‘community’. It would seem to me that real ‘community’ is a bit of an endangered thing in today’s society. I actually looked into the local Unitarian Universalist church here as they don’t follow any dogma, and accept atheists and theists into their ranks. While I laud the organization, I found that to be too ‘spiritual’ for my liking.

All that being said; there really isn’t an atheist community of the type that religion offers. After all, the religious community is motivated by the worship of [a] god. The atheist is motivated by everything but the worship of a god; hardly a unifying interest. Possibly the single greatest factor uniting atheists would be political activism in support of church-state separation; but that is by no means universal. The likelihood of real atheist communities forming would be helped if so many of our ranks were not closeted.

John: You mentioned to me in an aside that the blogging with the Fox Valley Thinker has been going a little slow lately. Any future plans for the blog, or in other areas, that you'd like to announce?

Mike: It goes in fits and starts. It is quite cathartic to write about these things and it helps me really analyze my position. Even if nobody reads it, it is helpful for me. I have no grand plan for the blog, but I would like to figure out how to conduct an anonymous survey of our lawmakers in Washington asking about their religiosity. I feel that a lot more would admit their non-theism if they knew it was anonymous.

Won't anyone stand up for God? [Response]

2007-07-07T09:47:00.001-05:00

[Note: The following is a response to a column on a UK website. I intended to post it there, but didn't realize that I was so limited to size. You can read the original column (and other responses) here and my response is as follows:]

Well the author posits many things to refute as she (I couldn’t find the name) treads down the same worn path that many theists have tread. Her arguments range from inaccurate to unsupported to wishful thinking. Unlike the theistic side, though, we non-theists (aka atheists) actually have to have our facts and evidence lined up.

I do appreciate the author’s dismissal of the holy books as ancient, unreliable and generally questionable. I have hypothesized that, were it not for bronze/iron age morals and ethics codified in unchangeable texts, religion would be a benign force which would offer little more than personal comforts. It is the writing down of these ancient ethical standards that gives us the texts that fundamentalists/literalists pervert to support their cause and worldview. It would not make supernatural beliefs real or true, but we would have removed an important source of societal ills.

I do not have time to refute everything that I would like, but let me address a few from my American perspective.

The author brings out the old Hitler/Stalin argument. This has been refuted by many far more scholarly than myself, but Hitler invoked God on a number of occasions. Stalin used the credulity of the religious in order to accomplish the horrors of his regime. Even if you accept the failed argument that they did what they did BECAUSE of atheism, you neglect something in your comparison to religious killing. If the same 20th century technology of war existed during the Inquisition, can anyone argue that it would not have been used to their ends and many more would have died? Indeed, we now have nuclear and biological weapons that could fall into the hands of twisted fundamentalists; and they are trying to get them. Certainly the disappearance of religion would not be the disappearance of bad behavior; but we would have less reason for good people to bad things.

The author ponders the big, fundamental questions of “why is there something, rather than nothing?”. This is a valid, important and ponderous question. The position of science is (barring some hypotheses) that we don’t know. . . and the proper position is that we need to look closer. Let me say that again . . . the proper response is to say “we need to look closer”. Saying that there is a conscious creator does nothing in terms of explaining anything and only extinguishes inquiry. It is our species anthropomorphizing a being to explain the unknown. We (as a species) have done this since time immemorial. It does not mean that there is any truth or even any PROBABILITY of truth to it. More importantly, the position of the creation of the universe says nothing about a personal god much less the specific gods described in the Abrahamic faiths.

Going on, the author seems somewhat tortured by the “why are we here” question. This is rather self-induced. She seems to PRESUME that there MUST BE a ‘why’ even if none exists. I can say from experience, that there is no wonder lost by abandoning the ‘why question’. In fact, I find the universe that much more wondrous now than in my theistic days.

The author then brings up the sheer numbers of believers as something of an argument. I feel rather silly for having to point out the obvious; the ancients believed just as fervently in Zeus and Poseidon and Osiris and the thousands of other dead gods on the scrap heap of mythology. If you are told from birth that you will burn in a lake of fire if you don’t believe; indeed you warrant death by your mother’s hand . . . I think that might influence a few minds.

Another point is on the author’s contention that “Without faith - belief beyond evidence - life would be unlivable.” It would seem that she feels abandoning supernatural beliefs would immediately throw her into a chasm of despair and hopelessness. This is completely and utterly unsupported. Dogmatic teachings tell you clearly that life only has meaning with God, but there is no evidence for this. I, for one, feel invigorated and stand in greater awe of our world and universe. Clearly the author cannot have been on both sides of this argument. It would seem if atheists were all cast into this emotional abyss, they would kill themselves off and we would not be having this conversation.

My final point from the original article is the “believing scientists”. Indeed; some scientists believe in a personal god . . . even the occasional ‘notable’ scientist. But, by way of statistics, the numbers are quite small. Here in the US we have a body called The National Academy of Sciences. This is an assemblage of our country’s preeminent thinkers. In a very recent survey, fully 74% specifically self-identify as atheists. Add to that the scientists identify as agnostic and it brings the total to 93% that have no belief in an active supernatural being. Yes, there are scientists that believe in God, but they are a very small minority. I believe that mathematicians make up a greater portion of the ‘believers”. Those fields that deal with cosmology and biology are almost exclusively atheist. I presume the same holds true across the pond in the UK.

In conclusion, we should all hold this truth to be self-evident . . . As a whole, society is ALWAYS better served if decisions are based on knowledge as opposed to mythology. The obvious implication of that truth is that the church or believer must demonstrate that their position IS something more than mythology. The reason the pope and theologians are not bringing out the big guns is because they do not have big guns. The best arguments HAVE been put forth . . . and they have failed.

Do not fear a loss of faith. Dogma teaches you that loss of faith means loss of meaning in life, but it is just the opposite.

The Milk Miracle

2007-07-02T22:14:00.000-05:00

I took place in a debate of sorts recently at an Oregon newspaper’s website. It started, as many of these things do, with someone making some remark about how atheists ignore clear evidence and that the liberal media bias suppresses spectacular evidence of a god. I routinely challenge these claims (Hey . . . you have to do SOMEthing to entertain yourself!) This debate took a little bit of a different turn for me though.

My ‘opponent’ in this debate (I will call him Mark) made frequent accusations of non-theists being bigots (not that unusual) but then he pulled out the Milk Miracle as his trump card (more detail on that in a bit) and claimed, emphatically, that a clear, multi-national, well documented (on video no less) miracle is being suppressed by and dismissed by the liberal media and elite. None of this too uncommon for the well indoctrinated, but he was quite emphatic and gave me a web site with the challenge “explain this!”

The web site he provided was http://www.milkmiracle.com/. This is an assemblage of TV clips of a 1995 incident where statues of Hindu gods were drinking milk by the spoonful.
This was a real incident and I vaguely remember hearing a bit of it when it occurred. Word spread of the miraculous events across the country and around the world. Milk supplies depleted from many stores as people flocked to local temples to see if the Hindu gods were lactose intolerant. The media was all over it and there was much video footage of the faithful putting spoonfuls of white liquid to noses or mouths of their religious statues and the praises of god were heard as the spoon was drained to empty.

Of course skeptical groups came out describing a combination of effects (absorption through capillary action and surface tension and the like). I am an engineer and I had no problem formulating any number of natural explanations for this, so I quickly dismissed it.

Mark, however, was emphatic and restated his challenge. So I began to do some actual research. One of my first steps was to google ‘debunk milk miracle’. This pulled up surprisingly little information. It was clearly a real incident. It was well documented. If true (as described) it would be a pretty stunning event so I would expect that there would be a good deal of rational debunking going on, but I could find virtually none.

At this point in my research I am starting to contemplate why there might be this dearth of information to refute the miracle. Was it so ludicrous that nobody even bothered? I even contemplated whether there might actually be media suppression. I continued my research. I found testimony from a witness in Bombay who ran across the street from his school to the local temple to watch the crowds. What he saw stunned him. He saw believers put spoonful after spoonful of milk up to the statue and watched the spoons drain of their contents. He also saw the milk collect in a trough below the statue were it was collected and he saw priests take the milk away by the bucketful. And yet he still heard the praises of god and the miracle of the milk!!

OK. One internet post does not a position make, so I mentally set the eyewitness account aside and returned to the videos. Going to YouTube, I found a fair amount of Milk Miracle video, but most of it was the footage from MilkMiracle.com. I sat down to take a critical look but, given the universally poor video quality, I didn’t expect to see anything. What I did see astounded me. One of the first scenes clearly showed milk running down the chin of the statue! Keep in mind that this was the video being used as PROOF of the miraculous event . . . AND THE MILK WAS RUNNING DOWN THE CHIN! I saw the same thing happen a couple more times throughout the video. It was rather apparent on the painted (non-white) statues. Many of the religious icons are a shiny, white plaster which, of course, would have made a miniscule stream of milk almost invisible to even an eyewitness. I then went to the kitchen and grabbed a white porcelain coffee cup and was able to ‘feed’ it a spoonful of milk AT LEAST as convincingly as the videos showed.

Sitting here now, I actually feel a little silly that I put this much time into this purported miracle, but the effort got me thinking. I have an ever-increasing awe of the human brain and its manifestation of ‘mind’. We are just at the tip of the iceberg in our understanding of how the whole mess works. It is fascinating to see how we learn; how we think; how we interpret . . . and how we bias. I look at the Milk Miracle and contemplate how the mind can ignore unambiguous visual evidence if it does not reinforce a person’s worldview. We are not talking about abstract debatable theories that are being ignored; we are talking about milk running down the face of a statue. Of course there are other psychosocial factors here like group-think or not wanting to be the one who DOESN’T see the miracle. I am sure that social psychologists have names for all these things.

What it comes down to for me is an angry atheist moment. That’s right, I am angry. I am angry that a supernatural belief system can so impair [what could otherwise be] a sound mind. I am angry that said belief systems are so culturally protected from criticism. I am angry that such belief systems are so heavily represented in our government and our supreme court. I am angry that an individual is LESS trusted if they lack a belief in the supernatural. I know that your pants are in a bunch right now. I know that it is a select, indoctrinated, desperate minority of the faithful that are so impaired. Still; it is the demonstration that these inculcated beliefs have the ability to destroy the mind. It you believers wish to keep these belief systems in general circulation, you had better damned well prove that they are true.

Intelligent Design as Science?!?

2007-06-29T09:51:00.000-05:00

OK. I am going to say this very slowly for you I.D. folks or those swayed by the “teach the controversy” argument. I am going to give several examples. Please read them slowly and completely. Read them twice.

The following is an example of science:

What Person ‘A’ does: Looks around at the complexity and diversity of life in our world in wonder and contemplates how that diversity came to be.

Person ‘A’ says: “I have been thinking that maybe life as we know it evolved from a common ancestor through small changes over long periods of time. If this were true, I would PREDICT that many species would have similar features.”

What Person ‘A’ does: They go out and analyze evidence as best they can with the tools available to them

Person ‘A’ says: “I have OBSERVED that, indeed, many features are shared amongst species (i.e. bats, whales, dogs and humans (and more) all have appendages with five slender, articulated sets of bones [fingers]). I have further observed that nearly identical species have subtle variations that seem to be advantageous to their specific environment. I do not have the tools to determine that age of my fossils but, because my observations seemed to match my predictions, I have a certain level of confidence that my original idea is accurate and I offer this as a THEORY. I offer this theory for the scientific community to analyze and criticize in the hopes that some new insights might be gained or that my errors may be identified.”

[Much time passes and new technologies are developed]

What Person ‘B’ does: Through archeology and efforts not available to Person ‘A’, many, many more fossils are exposed from deeper and deeper layers of earth. These are analyzed and compared to the predictions originally made.

Person ‘B’ says: “I (and others) have found many more fossils that match the predictions originally made by Person ‘A’. The ability of a theory to predict results or future findings is a good indication that the original theory is, at least, reasonably close to the way things really are. I have a greater level of confidence that the theory is accurate.”

[Much more time passes and more new technologies are developed]

What Person ‘C’ does: Uses several new techniques that can accurately determine the age of ancient relics and fossils using radioactive decay.

Person ‘C’ says: “I have determined with this new, proven technology (which has already gone through scientific vetting as we are discussing) has determined that the age of some of these deeper fossils are indeed millions of years old. This gives an accurate time frame previously unknown to Persons ‘A’ and ‘B’ and is consistent with Person ‘A’s idea that changes occurred over vast periods of time. I have a yet greater level of confidence that the original theory is close to reality.”

[More time passes and new technologies arise]

What Person ‘D’ does: Uses the newfound tool of DNA analysis to compare differences amongst species.

Person ‘D’ says: “I have used the stunningly accurate new tool of DNA analysis to compare variations amongst species. This tool was unimagined by Person ‘A’. If the original theory was correct, then we should see nearly identical DNA in closely related species (i.e. higher primates and humans) and much greater differences in more primitive life forms (i.e. starfish and humans). This tool has demonstrated that very clearly and has even allowed us to correct some errors we have made to date. I have an extremely high level of confidence that the theory of Evolution Through Natural Selection is a stunningly accurate description of how the DIVERSITY of life (including human-kind) as we know it came to be. The likelihood that all the predictions that naturally stemmed from the original theory could erroneously be made is virtually impossible. We have used many different, unrelated technologies to arrive at this conclusion. We have few other theories in science that can be considered (as Evolution is now), virtually undeniable fact.”

The following is NOT an example of science:

What Person ‘X’ does: Looks around at the complexity and diversity of life in our world in wonder and contemplates how that diversity came to be.

Person ‘X’ says: “I do not understand the complexity and diversity of life in our world. Therefore some intelligent designer outside of our ability to understand and test was probably involved.”

Now that you have read (and re-read) the examples of science and ‘non-science’, can you honestly say that ID should be in the science classroom? . . . not the philosophy classroom, but the SCIENCE classroom? There is NOTHING about ID that that has ANY relation to the scientific method. If there is a controversy to be taught, it is the motives of the Intelligent Design proponents and their vigor in trying to get it taught as science.

The world’s best defense of religion

2007-04-24T09:53:00.000-05:00

OK . . . the title is a little over-reaching, I will admit, but I had a bit of an epiphany the other day. I have always felt a little guilty that I found no theistic arguments for belief at all compelling. Many, in fact, I find laughable and deluded. By never seeing the other side’s argument as having validity, I worried that I might be too closed off intellectually on this matter. I finally heard the best argument yet for the purpose of dogmatic faith . . . and it came from me!

Several days ago, after yet more contemplation of the positive and negative aspects of religion, I provided myself with a new (to me anyway) defense of religion. In the way of background; I am the father of a high school freshman. I have always considered the imparting a moral and ethical framework to a child to be one of the highest purposes of parenting. In my relatively recent self-identification as a non-theist, I have analyzed child-rearing from a new perspective. There are groups of theists that will, quite assuredly, say that non-belief is synonymous with amorality . . . that a moral framework cannot exist in the absence of belief. I know this to be wrong. I know this from personal experience and I know this through empirical evidence; but trying to convince some believers of this is tantamount to convincing them that up is down. There is much evidence showing non-theists to be at least as moral as theists. This should allow us to dismiss the amorality claim as naïve; still it pours forth from the pulpit that atheists have no moral center.

I hope it is obvious to all readers that the single most effective way to communicate morals and ethics to a child is through personal example, irrespective of faith. If the people that the child knows, loves, and respects practice charity, show empathy toward others and generally puts other’s need before their own, that is what the child will emulate. Hands down; a parent’s example is what defines the child.

Still . . . If parents had some sort software they could install into their child’s brain, a “Morality v1.0” if you will, that would be convenient, wouldn’t it? It is not going out on a limb to say children do not posses the intellectual acuity to interpret the nuance of a proper philosophical discussion of right and wrong. Heck, many adults appear to lack that ability! But let us leverage the innate credulity of a child and posit a story that is accessible and comprehensible to a child. To that end; tell them that there is a god that watches everything. If you do bad things (he has provided a list), you will go to hell and spend eternity in a lake of burning sulfur. Your child believes you because the immature human animal is wired to do so. Just like they believe you when you tell them about the Easter Bunny or Santa Claus or the tooth fairy, they believe that God is prepared to strike them down and condemn them to hell. There it is . . . simple, concise and oh-so-time-saving for the on-the-go Bronze Age parent.

And, right there, that’s the first major rub. The list was created in the Bronze Age. At the time, it was probably a nice dovetail into contemporary Bronze Age morals. Granted, most of what was laid down as commandments generally fits much of today’s generally accepted framework of ethical conduct . . . but it does show some age. For instance; rule number 10 states:

“Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house; thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.”

I don’t know about you, but it makes me uncomfortable that God decided to list the wife as a piece of property . . . and not even the first in the list! The ‘progressive’ Catholics at least broke this inventory list into two statements, ostensibly giving the wife some special status over a man’s ox and slaves . . . regular Susan B. Anthonys they are!! At least the Catholics had the good sense to apply some editing to the word of God. Wh . . Wh . . What was that?!? One of the very few times God himself hand delivers a communiqué to humanity and some feel the need to tweak it a bit?!?!? Wow!! Talk about brass ones!! Still; for the time, this was probably a no-brainer list of do’s and don’ts with no controversy to be found.

Of course the first half of the list of rules had nothing to do with “do unto others” kind of thinking. It was all about the self-protection of the story; the more that God was deserving of respect and the scarier he was, the less likely that kids would wander. To my mind, the whole thing it is the perfect parental shortcut. After all, the busy parents of the day had their day full . . . er . . . herding and . . . er . . . other stuff. I have little doubt that the biblical story, used this way, was quite effective.

The whole thing might be perfectly useful if 1) there was some universally agreed upon list of moral codes that would evolve as we gained new, real understanding of the human species and condition and 2) we let the kids in on the story once it was no longer useful (like we do with Santa Claus and other fables). Now some of you already have your pants in a bunch because of item ‘1’. “That is wishy-washy moral relativism” you might say. Relative to what? . . . our growing understanding of the human species and our growing body of empirical knowledge and philosophical understanding? Maybe you would prefer that we stick with moral absolutes that value the female spouse somewhere between your condo and your cat. Hmmmmm. Relativism doesn’t sound all that bad to me. In fact, the enlightened believers have always practiced moral relativism . . . that is why they are enlightened.

In honesty, though, I would give less than even odds that some universal list of do’s and don’ts could be created, but it would be an interesting experiment. I know the United Nations has a “universal” document but it is a) probably not universal for primitive theocracies and dictatorships and b) limited to human rights. Still . . . the effort would be interesting and actually give us important new insights into fundamental human ethics and morals.

The failure of the whole premise was that point ‘2’ (letting the kids in on the story) was not incorporated into the program. As an individual (hopefully) matures intellectually, they are able to better understand and reflect on the nuances of what is right and wrong. This nuanced understanding is far better than some terse list written down by moral leaders of ancient times.

So there you have it . . . the best defense of religious fables that I have yet to hear (or concoct). To my mind, this could even put an aspect of religion into the ‘defensible’ category . . . wrong and false, but defensible. Sometimes I impress myself . . but I am easily impressed.

I Hold This Truth to be Self-Evident

2007-04-11T22:24:00.000-05:00

Some of my essays have elicited comments that would characterize me as ‘militant’, ‘evangelical’, ‘religious’, or ‘intolerant’. It does not surprise me. Given religion’s historic immunity from criticism; it is not unusual that even casual questioning of religious doctrine is often interpreted as being aggressive. Still . . . I wish to make clear my position on how I feel about belief and believers. The bigger, subtler points of most of my missives are often never stated directly . . . so I will state them here.

On the tolerance side:

I feel religion is a natural phenomenon and will always exist.
There are people of high intelligence (and less so) on both sides of the theistic fence.
I am ultimately tolerant of an individual’s right to believe whatever they care to believe.
I will vigorously defend an individual’s right to believe whatever they want.
It is not my intent to deny no one the emotional comfort of their faith.

On the intolerant side:

I am NOT tolerant of public policy being driven by religious doctrine.
I am NOT tolerant of statements that give religion credit where none is due (i.e. religion is the sole source of morality)
I am NOT tolerant of social divides created by religious differences
I am NOT tolerant of societal ills promoted and enforced by religion
I am NOT tolerant of the denigration of non-theists (as a whole) when it can be shown that non-theists are every bit as (or more) tolerant and ethical than theists.
I am NOT tolerant of public funds (taxes) going to religious organizations that proselytize.

Most of my writings stem from my vocalizing the points from the ‘intolerant’ list. I feel that ALL decisions, big and small, should be based on facts and the best knowledge available. The truth of the following statement should be self-evident to believers and non-believers alike:

It is ALWAYS better to make decisions based on real knowledge rather than mythology or superstition.

Often, the unstated message of my writings challenges the faithful to demonstrate that religion is, indeed, something more than mythology. I have yet to see anyone do that in a rigorous or intellectually sound way. In my research, I have not found one scintilla of compelling evidence to support the validity of any supernatural belief. I have, however, found vast amounts of empirical evidence that conflicts with much religious dogmatic teaching. I have had the faithful throw this, that, and the other ‘fact’ at me in support of their faith, but they were trivially easy to refute. You can get a taste of some of this in one of my other essays [here].

As soon as it clearly demonstrated that their religion is more than mythology, I (along with many vocal non-theists) will likely become a believer.

Who Can Properly Defend Faith - Feedback

2007-04-02T10:30:00.000-05:00

Below are several published letters in response to my essay "Who Shall Properly Defend Faith". My response follows, but but has yet to be published. You can read the original essay [here].

Misuses of religion does not render faith invalid
I would like to share my thoughts on the recent letter to the editor titled “Who can properly defend faith?”The author asks whether extremists (many of whom are said to be the cause
of major world conflicts) and moderates in a given religion are not distinguishable from each other since their sources are the same. I think this question raises another: Are faith, religion and the actions some people take in the name of their religion one and the same? I would answer no.

Faith, by one definition is individual and personal. By another definition, “a faith” is similar to “a religion” which is more widely scoped and organized. What people do in the name of their religion is up to the individual’s free will. Sadly, as the author mentioned, much evil has been done in the world in the name of religion, including the unrest in the Middle East, the long-standing conflict in Northern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics, and even the crucifixion of Jesus.

The next question: Do these misuses of religions render religion invalid and evil for society? My
answer is no — it only points out more emphatically how vitally significant religion is to humans and how important it is to understand its concepts. The Islamic religion is based on submission to God’s will, and a cohesive existence. The Judeo-Christian religion (to over-simplify it) is based on love and service to God and fellow humans. In the Gospels, Jesus used the Pharasees and Scribes (who were authorities of the Jewish religion at the time) as examples of misuse and hypocrisy. His regard for them was an example of honoring your faith, but not letting those who misuse it define it for you.

The author challenges readers to defend their holy books in an intellectually sound way. Here’s one defense of the Holy Bible: Jesus referred to scriptures repeatedly during his ministry, thereby validating them. How do we know Jesus was the son of God? Because, besides his teachings, which were profound and radical for his time, he left us a legacy of his actual flesh and blood, miracles, apparitions by his mother, and the saints as modern day witnesses, among other things. A saint is only declared so upon proof of a miracle performed in his name or having been party to one himself while alive. The miracle has to be proven as an occurrence which defies natural law.

Also many saints’ bodies have been found to be pure; not subject to decay after death (another miracle). So we are given many validations of this religion, if we want to find them. Another
proof is the effect prayer and truly living according to one’s faith has on their lives, and that of their loved ones. An organization called Prison Fellowship Ministries can give numerous examples of this.

What about the hundreds of societies in the world who use their religion as their code of living and they have peaceful, harmonious, and productive lives? We don’t see them in the news, but they make up a big part of our world.

Rita S******
Geneva

Send letter-writer to Iraq for peace
After reading Mike Burns’ letter “Who can properly defend faith?” it is obvious that his wisdom can be used for the cause of peace. Since there are very few car bombings of Methodists by Episcopalians in the U.S., his talents are wasted in this country.

I am asking [this newspaper] to send him to Iraq, where he can show the Sunnis and Shiites the error of their ways. He can supply the paper with a series of articles about his efforts. While we American Christians may not appreciate him, I’m sure he would be recognized as a great teacher by the factions in Iraq. If he succeeds, I’d be the first to nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize.

Thomas Z******
St. Charles

What follows is my response to the letter writers above, but it has yet to be published.

Ms. S******, Mr. Z****** and Faith

While I do not feel this “letters” forum is the place to conduct an ongoing debate, I feel compelled to respond to critiques of my letter “Who can properly defend faith?”. Ms. Scobey maintains the validity of scripture because Jesus himself referred to them repeatedly. Were it established as fact that, indeed, Jesus was the divine son of God, her argument might carry some weight. If it is not obvious, my position is that there is no compelling evidence for divinity anywhere in history.

As far as her proofs of his divinity (miracles, apparitions, and saints corpses) . . . I must say I am profoundly under-whelmed. In fact I am surprised that these can be tendered as arguments not thinking that they could be challenged. I have been doing research on the documentation and validation of miracles and, to be honest, I find rigor and independence to be laughably absent. I can honestly say that, should I see real, verifiable evidence of something that defies the laws of nature (restoring a lost limb, parting a sea), I would be among the first to acknowledge a failure of my hypothesis. Unfortunately, it would seem that many believers are not so open-minded to evidence.

Apparitions are similarly unconvincing. Seeing vaguely feminine human features in an office window or in a cheese sandwich is hardly evidence. We see random craters and geological lunar features as the man in the moon. It does not take much to make the human animal see faces . . . we are hard-wired to do just that. When a weeping statue or some other such phenomena is subjected to real scrutiny; none hold up. Even a small group of like-minded people seeing the same thing has plausible psychosocial explanations.

In regards to the “pure” bodies of deceased saints not decomposing; please let me know where they are. I would like to see them. If I can, I will bring a couple universities in tow. Assuming that these bodies did not have some other form of preservation, this would be very important. Unfortunately, the only examples that I am aware of have been found to have preservation techniques applied to them.

Finally, Ms. Scobey offers the proven healing power of prayer. Indeed, it has been demonstrated that prayer has been shown to be effective in a number of regards. It has also been shown that placebos are similarly effective. A very large, rigorous, double-blind university study on the effectiveness of prayer demonstrates clearly that prayer is only as effective as placebo. I do not wish to deny anyone the comfort of prayer, but facts are facts.

I was amused at Mr. Zeiser’s letter lauding me as a great teacher of peace to be sent off to Iraq to be beheaded. He says that “we American Christians” may not appreciate my commentary. He is absolutely right; many believers do not appreciate criticism . . . ever. He further (and accurately) assessed that there are not warring factions of Christian faiths here in the states. We can thank our secular government for that stability. Unfortunately, as comparatively tame as things are here, we still have faith demonizing segments of the population, subjugating women, stifling medical research, trying to drive public policy and change the secular “holy grail” that we Americans have in our U.S. Constitution. All this because of an (arguably) indefensible holy book.

I do not challenge Christianity. I challenge mythology, superstition, and the supernatural. In the end, I do not care what anyone believes as long as it doesn’t affect me or my neighbors.

Mike Burns
Geneva
http://fvthinker.blogspot.com/

“Theory”, “fact”, “truth” and “Truth”

2007-03-11T22:43:00.000-05:00

In discussions on religion, the term “Truth” (with a capital ‘T’) is often used by the theist side as in “Let the Lord open your eyes to reveal the Truth to you.”. I must say, though, that I am a bit flummoxed by the theists use of the term, as I seen no relation to my understanding of the expression. Merriam-Webster lists the following for “truth”:

2 a (1) : the state of being the case : FACT
(2) : the body of real things, events, and facts : ACTUALITY
(3) often capitalized : a transcendent fundamental or spiritual reality
b : a judgment, proposition, or idea that is true or accepted as true
c : the body of true statements and propositions3 a : the property (as of a statement) of being in accord with fact or reality
b chiefly British : TRUE 2
c : fidelity to an original or to a standard

If you took the test “which one of these is not like the other”, 2a-3 should jump out at you. I am of a rather scientific or rational bent and sometimes use the word “truth” synonymously with “fact”. Saying that the water molecule is comprised of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom I would consider to be true or factual. Now taking the argument to its (possibly very boring) philosophical end, I realize that we have not actually and literally seen those atoms per se, but we have staggering amounts of supporting and empirical knowledge on the subject of water that allows us to consider this true or factual in virtually any context that humans might ponder.

In fact our understanding of elements (those of periodic table fame) is really quite staggering considering that we cannot see them and some may have a vanishingly brief lifespan. We know these things because of science and testing. When, in 1913, Niels Bohr published his theoretical model of the atom, with its cluster of protons and neutrons surrounded by electrons orbiting in discrete energy layers, it was, by necessity, completely abstract . . . impossible to verify visually and existing only in the minds of those that could grasp it. When the concept was introduced to this chemistry student around 25 years ago, I was initially hesitant to accept all of the model’s functional aspects. After all, how can we “know” so much of the architecture of something that we may never actually see? But Niels Bohr was a brilliant man and arguably one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century and his theoretical model would demonstrate that.

The hallmark of a good theory is its ability to hold up to testing and (more importantly) that predictions based on the theory prove accurate. Indeed this chemistry student was very impressed to find that the Bohr model of the atom was so robust, that every elemental and chemical prediction (that I know of) based on that model was dead-on. From 1913 to today, this model has held up time after time after time.

Where this leads me is one interpretation of “truth”. We have a working model of an atom that has not failed in any significant way for over 90 years. Within the scientific community, we consider this description of the atom to be “true” or factual within the framework of what we know; though it is always a possibility that new knowledge may eventually replace that time-tested model (at which point scientists will giddily and happily embrace their newfound knowledge). What started as an abstract theory gains more and more credibility with testing. Each time the theory is affirmed through experimentation and the model performing as expected, the theory eventually gains more and more credibility and approaches the [arguably unreachable] status as undeniable fact. Yet, even after all this time and testing, the Bohr model of the atom is still a theory and will likely never be anything more.

Let us now take Mr. Bohr’s atoms and make something familiar. Most of us would not dispute the claim that water is made up of two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom. Again, we know this because back in 1800, water was split to produce hydrogen and oxygen gases. Experimentation since then has always confirmed this and we consider this a fact. It may surprise some to know that Darwin’s theory of evolution is every bit as robust as the theory of the model of the atom and the composition of water. What many vocal theists claim is that, by simple presence of the term “theory”, that there are vast chasms of doubt and uncertainty in Darwin’s revolutionary postulation. In the time since Darwin put forth his radical idea, it has held up empirically untold thousands of times. Even through simple observation of living and extinct species, the theory held up nicely. With our relatively recent understanding of DNA, we gained yet another completely independent tool to substantiate the theory and bring the evolutionary tree into much clearer focus. Evolution is in a small and respected set of scientific precepts that are effectively considered facts. There is no scientific body of repute that disputes evolution . . . none.

To the extent that we can say so; the Bohr model of the Atom is true. The H20 is true. Gravity is true. Evolution is true.

Let us now capitalize the ‘T’ and discuss “Truth” as it is used by vocal theists. I have no doubts that many that bandy “Truth” about in their theistic discussions genuinely believe that they are discussing “truth”. Unfortunately, attaining “truth” takes far more rigor than attaining “Truth”.

I feel I have to wade into some of the things that we know about the brain and neurobiology. All the tremendous advances in our understanding of human physiology are wonderful, but they underscore how little we really know (“potatoes are good for you . . . oh wait . . . now they are bad for you”) At or near the top of the heap of things we DON’T know about the human body is the brain and how it does the amazing things that it does. How do visually indistinguishable, clay-like globs of neurons allow you to comprehend what you are reading now and allow you contemplate what you might eat for your next meal? We, basically, have no idea. Of course we have recently developed tools that allow us to just start the journey to answering those questions. We now know, for instance, that a certain glob of neurons gets busy when we are reading. Similarly, we know that another glob of neurons gets busy when we are contemplating lunch. This knowledge is, of course, light-years away from a level of understanding that might approach our understanding of, let’s say, the functioning of the heart. (by the way, the term “light-years” is a measure of distance . . . not time. It is the distance traveled by light in one earth year.)

Still; we have gained some tremendous insights into the brain’s workings in the human animal. It is quite malleable (in an abstract sense) in its ability to rewire itself based on input. At the risk of using an example that some cannot relate to . . . think about driving a car with a manual transmission. The driver has to coordinate two feet, three pedals, engine speed and gear shift based on road grade, road condition, engine noise, speed, and traffic (along with many less obvious sensory inputs and thoughts). All of these inputs and resulting actions must be executed properly in real-time. Failure to do so can result in property damage or injury to yourself or others . . . or at the very least, personal embarrassment. Anyone who has mastered the skill of using a manual transmission has gone through the same process; combining the many disparate actions into one, single, fluid, motion. What started as a seemingly impossibly list of tasks soon becomes a single, simple unconscious act. During this learning process the driver has, quite literally, rewired their brain with new connections and effectively created a “manual transmission” region of the brain. At this point, your conscious self need not worry about that aspect of your drive; your brain simply offloads that task to your newly created brain region. OK. Neurobiologists would probably have a little constructive criticism of my analogy, but the point holds true; your brain becomes what it needs to be.

These learned behaviors can be incredibly persistent too. Once I learned to drive a “stick”, I had no problem getting into other manual transmission cars and driving safely. Years and years can pass without driving a “stick” and I could still drive one when the need arose . . . and this after just some short hours behind the wheel. It would seem that once your brain is wired, unless there is some information that supplants it, it can hold onto information for a lifetime.

Now let us return to “Truth”. Imagine instead of a few hours learning some aspect of driving a car, you spent years, your entire lifetime actually, being told that a couple millennia back, a fellow was born to a woman who had never had sex. This fellow was actually sent by an all powerful fellow in the sky. He was generally a good guy (he had his moods, though). He got some people mad at him, they nailed him to a cross . . .etc, etc, etc. You get the idea. Much of this religious narrative is unverifiable and implausible, but you spend your whole life being told these stories as fact by people you know, love and trust. You grow up in a country where the story is virtually institutionalized and almost inescapable. You are pretty sure that your neighbors felt the same way too. No one told you otherwise. After all; if something didn’t hold up in this story, wouldn’t someone say something? [Unfortunately, no!]

Now imagine your brain awash in these precepts; from the time before you even have memories, when your brain was still forming physically. Imagine the wiring in your head. Imagine how those stories became a part of you . . . literally became a part of you in the arrangements of neurons. As you have grown, you have successfully dismissed the doubts regarding things that didn’t add up. Your faith’s dogma has taught you that not questioning is a virtue. Your faith’s dogma has taught you that . . . well . . . “faith” is a virtue. Your faith’s dogma has taught you that, with devotion to God, you will know the “Truth”. Your brain becomes, in effect, a belief organ. Just as your liver is adapted to filter blood and your lungs are adapted to extract oxygen, all the higher functions of the brain are influenced by inculcated religious tales to rewire into an entity that is supremely well adapted to accept and interpret dogma.

I have no doubt that those that know “Truth” feel that they know “truth”, but dispassionate analysis (and hopefully this humble missive) demonstrates that, in reality, there is a vast ocean of difference between the two; and that may be a conservative assessment. Mock-pundit Stephen Colbert coined the term “truthiness” which can be aptly applied to “Truth”. Wikipedia defines “truthiness” as:

“things that a person claims to know intuitively, instinctively, or "from the gut" without regard to evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or actual facts.”

“Truth” (capital T) can be experienced through many avenues; reading scripture, spiritual music, eloquent sermons, and meditation to name a few. “Truth” (capital T) seems to ring true to the religious brain just as my analytical brain would be similarly stimulated by contemplating an apple falling to earth under the (theoretical) force of gravity. I have to imagine that the sensations are the same when the religious and non-religious brains see or hear things that fit or reinforce what that brain has wired itself to be. It should not be surprising that the religious-brained are flummoxed when information that does not fit their theistic worldview is presented. On matters where science and religion overlap, I imagine scientific, analytical reasoning feels, to the religious-brained, like the wacky fun houses where a house is built on a slope making it appear that water pours at an angle and people stand when they should be toppling over.

In my estimation, the owner of one brain would find the other brain’s interpretation of what is plausible to be oddly non-intuitive and, well, just wouldn’t feel right. I would think it natural that this brain would like to help the other brain to a more sensible, comfortable worldview . . . their worldview. The believer wants to show the non-believer the “Truth”. The non-believer wants to show the believer the “truth”. Neither is well prepared to make such a change.

I have come to revere “truth”, being based on genuine, verifiable, testable knowledge. I have come to regard “Truth” as merely the sensory interpretation of religious tales passed down through the ages. To their respective brains they feel fundamentally the same, but “Truth” is, at best, flawed and, at worst, delusional and dangerous.

Can we unwire the religious brain? For several reasons, it is very difficult. It would seem that we, as a species, have some fundamental need to understand and explain our world. We want to understand how to stay warm. We want to understand how to find food. We want to understand how the sun moves across the sky. We want to understand the change of seasons. Primitive man clearly could figure out much that was needed for survival better than any creature previously existing. That ability and curiosity does not turn off once an individual has achieved a certain level of security or comfort. Indeed, that innate intellect is put toward questions that were clearly beyond the ability of primitive man to answer; questions like “Where does the Sun go at night?”, “Why do the stars and moon move across the sky?”, “Why do they seem no closer even from the highest hill?”, “Where did we come from?”, and “Why am I good to my neighbor?”. When evidence, logic and reason cannot provide an answer, mythology fills the void as something of a place-holder until empirical knowledge (hopefully) replaces it. In the end, the human species seems to require an answer (or at least an avenue of thought) to attach to virtually all of life’s questions.

Religion cannot simply be debunked; it must be replaced with another set of answers. The scientific community certainly has debunked a great many gods throughout history. Science has similarly discredited great swaths of today’s popular religious teachings. What has not occurred, though, is that these scientific insights have not been stated loudly, clearly, and repeatedly for the masses. This is, in part, because religion has been beyond criticism. That has to change and there are indications that religion is becoming more and more the target of dispassionate analysis.

Growing up Catholic, it took me many years to fully realize my atheistic outlook. I did not do this by unlearning Catholicism, but by seeking “truth”. That empirical truth, amassed over YEARS, eventually created its own brain region which competed with religion. I asked the big questions and I researched what we really know about those questions. Many of those questions can be answered quite satisfactorily with empirical evidence. Some, though not answered, do at least seem to have plausible, non-supernatural explanations. There are, of course, unanswered questions such as the origin of the universe. To me, though, religion had failed so many times on much more pedestrian questions, it seemed intellectually irresponsible to credit a god simply because I didn’t (yet) know the answer.

So let all of us Freethinkers take up the torch and get the naturalistic explanations out where people can hear them repeatedly. When you hear someone give religion credit where none is due, be gracious, but don’t let it go unchallenged. After all, decisions are ALWAYS better if they are based on true knowledge . . . with a little “t”.

Documentary to Debunk Resurrection Story?

2007-02-26T13:14:00.000-06:00

I cannot help but be excited about and upcoming James Cameron documentary (or Titanic fame). The documentary supposedly used rigorous scientific methods to determine that a burial chamber, found almost 30 years ago, is indeed the final resting place of Jesus (yeah, that one!) along with his family. This includes Maria (the virgin Mary), Mariamne (Mary Magdalene), two brothers and (potentially) his son (The bloodline of Da Vinci Code fame!!). You can see the Discovery channel's on-line promo of the documentary here. The Discovery channel will be running it a number of times, but it is to premier on March 4th at 8:00pm (central time).

Of course the controversy has already started and criticisms are being proffered by those who have not seen the film or the book. Even if this showed irrefutable proof that Jesus is just another dead guy, the religious apologists would be able to spin it. The resurrection story that I grew up with was 1) he died, 2) they put him in a tomb, 3) they sealed the tomb, 4) they came back and he was gone!!! There was no ambiguity in the story I heard untold times . . . he was gone . . . poof. I understand that not all sects of Christianity fully endorse the physical ascension, but rather a spiritual ascension. BORING!! That is not NEARLY as interesting a story as what I grew up with.

I really expect little or nothing to come out of this film. Even if convincing, what should be a fatal blow to a central tenet of the faith will simply get spun and reinterpreted for the followers. Give them about two years for the religious 'scholars' to create the least disruptive explanation and to build a framework of other supporting 'facts' that can be easily fed to the flock.

My PVR is already programmed.

FVThinker

Faith: Lost and Found

2007-02-24T09:06:00.000-06:00

This is a brief essay that I published in a Canadian publication (National Post) in a series related to individuals stories about gaining or losing faith.

Faith Lost . . . But I didn’t notice.

I have been an atheist for much longer than I actually realized. I grew up Roman Catholic near Chicago, Illinois, USA. It never really “stuck” though. I never thought the communion wafer or the wine were anything more than (something like) a rice cake and bad wine. I always felt that the body and blood of Christ was a poor metaphor. I now understand that some really really buy into the transubstantiation thing but, back in the day, I would have been incredulous if someone told me they really believed it. Anyway . . . I grew up a good kid, but only went to church because I was told to. Once I was into my teens, I basically stopped going and haven’t been back for the last 30 years (except for weddings and funerals). The Roman Catholic dogma very much stigmatized atheism and likened non-believers to have serpents crawling out of their mouths. I knew that I was just as moral as everyone around me, but church just didn’t work for me. I figured that I would live my life as though it was immaterial whether God existed or not. If I was a good person but didn’t go to church, I figured God wouldn’t get too ticked off when I met him.

This lasted about 20 years. Then I had a child. My mother, who had become more faithful over the years, was mortified that her grandson was not going to be baptized. She then started delivering bibles for me to read. I took the cue and decided to analyze my faith . . . after all; I wouldn’t want to deprive my son of valid spiritual background. It didn’t turn out like she had hoped. Understand that I am an engineer and very analytical. I couldn’t just read one biased document to make a judgment on faith. I had to look at all sides and weight all the facts. Religion didn’t stand a chance.

Still . . . it was a private matter. If faith helped some people, gives meaning to their lives, provides comfort then that is fine for them. Just because I wasn’t religious, doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t be religious if that worked for them. This started to change over the years as I saw dramatic Christian right influence shaping public policy. Another transformative period was 9/11. I soon realized that it wasn’t radical Islam, it wasn’t Islam, it was religion that changed our world that day. It was the perversions of the (purportedly) holy texts that created so much hatred and intolerance. We are fortunate to have a secular government so religious zeal is reigned in. If we became a Christian theocracy, I feel we would be indistinguishable from the Islamic theocracies. I got more and more uneasy with so many people making decisions based on mythology. But still, it was a private matter. I never challenged anyone . . . but I wanted to.

After reading a magazine article that referenced Richard Dawkins “The GOD Delusion”, I picked up a copy and it changed my life. I don’t necessarily agree with everything that Dr. Dawkins says or the tactics he suggests, but his basic premises are dead-on. Those premises are 1) Religion should not be immune from criticism, 2) Religion, while there are positive aspects, is a source of intolerance, subjugation, and worse, 3) Religion does not hold up to even cursory intellectual analysis, and 4) the failings of religion needs to be communicated loudly and clearly and publicly and repeatedly. Upon completion, I formally self-identified myself as an atheist . . . and it was liberating. No serpents slithered out of my mouth. No demons erupted from beneath my flesh. I still loved my neighbors and was still the same caring person that I have always tried to be.

I have since consumed a good deal of scholarly research on the matters such as the origin of ethics, the origins of religion, and separation of church and state. In addition, I have read more personal, impassioned writings both in support and opposition of religion. At present, I am a struggling activist trying to find the best way to use my energies to serve humanity by trying to communicate the failings of religion. Do I want religion to disappear? Well . . . that would work for me, but probably not for a lot of people. I just want enough doubt about God so that, before someone chops the head off someone else in the name of religion, they might think twice.

FVThinker

A literate theist/atheist debate

2007-02-09T16:20:00.000-06:00

I have participated in a number of debates on the subject of theism/atheism. Today I read what I feel in the most literate, and compelling debate in my memory. This debate pits Sam Harris (author of "The End of Faith" and "Letter to a Christian Nation") and Andrew Sullivan (journalist, blogger , and gay Catholic).

It is not short, but you can read the debate here. It is worth it.

FVThinker

Who Shall Properly Defend Faith?

2007-02-09T15:15:00.000-06:00

Below is one of my essays to be published in some regional papers.

Who Shall Properly Defend Faith?

I have entered into a number of debates recently on a subject of crushing importance to world society. Few would argue that the role of religion in current and historical world conflicts is not significant. Indeed, many conflicts have faith as their central engine. I would argue that, were it not for the warring Sunni and Shiite Islamic sects, most of our troops would be home from Iraq. The Iraqi people might even have a fighting chance at creating a government based on human rights and the rule of law.

The debates that I have entered into generally revolved around the discussion of whether religion is good or bad for society. After much deliberation on those discussions, I see two points that never seem to get addressed adequately; neither in my debates nor in those that I have read from others far more scholarly than myself.

Point 1: Distinguishing extremists from moderates. Every thinking person (as near as I can tell) recognizes the extremists of any faith as being the “problem child” of that faith. It is the extremists that fly planes into buildings. It is the extremists that relegate women, minorities, and other segments of society to second-class stature. It is the extremist that kills in the name of their deity. (I speak of ALL Judeo-Christian faiths) Every thinking person would like to stop those perversions of logic. As a result of my debates, though, it is becoming clearer to me that believers consider the extremists to be a separate entity which should be addressed separately while leaving their moderate faiths untouched and unchallenged. Many non-believers, on the other hand, see moderates and extremists merely as points on a continuum. Both moderates and extremists interpret the same holy texts to get the message and the justification that best suits their stance and actions in the world. Hence, the non-believer feels that only through challenging the ENTIRE faith, can extremism be addressed; this, at the cost of moderate faith also.

Point 2: The provenance of the holy books. All the Judeo-Christian faiths officially purport their holy books to be the inerrant word of God. During debates, this is invariably thrown down as a challenge to the believers. I have YET, to see anyone adequately defend this attack on scripture.

It is here where I throw down the gauntlet. Believers need to defend their holy books in an intellectually sound way. Hint: Do not ask non-believers to read your holy book and “see the truth”. I would ask you to read “To Kill a Mockingbird”. There is truth in that book too, but no one claims it to be of anything but of human origin. Non-believers (and believers) need to understand why you think your book comes from a divine pen while no others have such origin.

Believers need to demonstrate that extremists are clearly distinct from moderates . . . and identifiable as such. I have to say, that this will be a supremely difficult challenge. After all, moderates and extremists are working from the same owner’s manual. It takes very little effort to cite clearly unambiguous passages on genocide, treatment of women, slavery, homosexuality, and more. Moderates simply choose to exclude them from their discourse and, hence, become moderate. The extremists simply do less editing.

Belief is the target of every increasing scrutiny and belief is no longer immune from criticism. In my humble opinion, addressing the points above is crucial to the defense of faith. Take on the challenge for yourself. You may find a new truth yourself.

Welcome

2007-02-09T14:14:00.000-06:00

Welcome to my first blog site. I have created the FVThinker blog to support my growing interest and communications in the areas of :

Atheism
Separation of Church and State
The role and place of religion in society
Any ills related to religion
Extremism
Secular society
Science
Rational Thought
and anything else that tickles my fancy.

I am a recently self-identified myself as an atheist. Raised as a roman catholic, it never 'took'. I always knew that the communion wafer was . . . well . . . just a piece of unleavened bread. Once I left home I, effectively, never went to church again. Still I held no contempt for the church (Catholicism specifically, nor church in general). As I grew older, I saw how religious dogma insinuated itself into public policy and became more and more uncomfortable with that aspect of religion.

Then two pivotal moment in my life came to pass.

1)I became a father and my faithful Catholic mother was terribly distraught that her grandchild was not going to be baptised. It was bad enough that I was not a church-goer, but now the salvation of her grandchild was in the balance. She delivered various bibles to the house on the hope that I would read them and suddenly see the truth of the Lord. Until then, I was happy to be a tacit agnostic but she forced my hand.

Indeed, I elected to analyze my faith to decide just where I stood. It didn't work out for my mother. I came to the conclusion there there was no way, short of willfully abandoning reason and suffocating my own intellect, that I could find any reason to believe in a supreme being the likes that the Judeo-Christian faiths sketch out. Most of life's big questions could be answered by very satisfactorily through our current, mortal understanding of the sciences. When it came to THE big question of the origin of the universe, I make no claims to know, but I find it intellectually irresponsible to credit a deity simply because we don't know. History is replete with fallen gods that were at one time credited with various aspects of our universe (i.e. the movement of the sun, thunder, storms).

2) 9/11. It wasn't long after 9/11 that I saw "the elephant in the room". It was religion that took down the World Trade Center, and took down two other airplanes and part of the Pentagon. It was absolute belief in a theology that created that horror. It was the absolute belief in a demonstrably flawed premise that shook the world that day. While Islam is the most visible right now (and, arguably, subscribing to the most violent holy book [and that is saying something]), I don't distinguish amongst the faiths. The absolute reliance on myth to form one's view of the world is what represents one of the greatest threats to our world.

I am an atheist and I am proud of my journey. I am invigorated and feel moved to action to dispel myths surrounding theism and atheism. I hope you will find this blog useful and enlightening.

FVThinker