Category: Religion

Angela’s Reasonable Religion

This is a response to Angela’s Reasonable Religion, which in turn was a response to my comments here.

Yes, there are some generalisations we can make. All theists are, well, theists – a belief in God. The fact that the generalisation covers a wide variety doesn’t detract from the generalisation. If you don’t believe in God then you are an atheist – though precisely how that is interpreted and used does vary.

The charge you make against Dawkins isn’t unique, but nor is it true.

“Many will happily throw away all scientific objectivity to take a pop at religion…” – Can you give instances, or are you too making sweeping statements.

“as though ‘religion’ is a genus” – Well, it is sort of like a genus, with lots of species below it. Or maybe religion is the family, Christianity a genus, and the various versions of Christianity a species. But then, just as in our species there is a variety of individuals. And just as there are evolutionarily determined common features across species, such as some of the morphological similarities between humans and apes, then so there might be some similarities across Christian species. So, yes, some sort of taxonomy might well be used to describe theists.

Can you show me one piece from a Dawkins book, or site where Dawkins makes any such generalisation? The problem is that in context Dawkins may be speaking about one particular type of believer, or one particular aspect of theology, and he’s usually clear about that; but it’s the reading thesis who says, “Hold on, that doesn’t apply to me. Dawkins is making sweeping generalisations.” As I said originally – selective reading.

“…but most people are too willing to sacrifice reason on the altar of prejudice.” – This is precisely what the religious do when they put their faith in their dogma above reason. Note I don’t say all religious all the time. Wouldn’t want you to make the same mistake again of assuming I meant that.

“What fascinates me is the way in which those more interested in blaming…” – Well, here’s a quote from a reasonable theist:

“What has science actually done for us to date in this regard? Probably – on balance – exacerbated the problem rather than done anything to ameliorate it. Your faith in science is touching!”

You can find this here, for context (Mike’s 23 June 2010 18:39 comment).

Science or atheism are often blamed for the ills of the world, sometimes in the context of, “You can’t be good without God.”, or, “Look what atheists like Hitler/Mao/Pol Pot have done.”

Sometimes we do blame religion for certain problems. With good reason. In the case of abusing Catholic priest it’s actually individual humans to do this, not the religion as such. And the cover ups that have occurred have been performed by individual or collectives of humans within the church, so again it’s not the religion as such. But it is the religion that sustains the authority that allows these things continue. It’s religious authority that allows religious fanatics to manipulate the gullible into acts of terrorism. It is the religion that helps to maintain a sectarian division in Northern Ireland.

Sometimes science, or at least scientists deserve blame too. It’s an impartial view. The difference is that science doesn’t hold itself up to be following the perfect word of anyone. All science claims is to be the best method we have of acquiring knowledge, and even then it has specific means of dealing with the fallibility of the humans that implement it.

Science is just one more system invented by humans. It’s the best we can do, given our limited access to knowledge and all our fallibilities. This isn’t to say science is perfect. But science is the best we can do.

“The Social Sciences may have proven…” – The social sciences haven’t proven anything of the sort. They have acquired some supporting evidence. We have to be careful how we use the term ‘proof’. It has a very specific meaning in logic, and is generally inadequate for describing scientific ‘truths’. And ‘truth’ is another word we have to use with care – it’s something we strive for, but not something we can be sure we have found.

“You [God] have repeatedly shown us that the violence that really destroys this world begins in ourselves.” – We’re nearly on the same page here. The scientific atheist view is that there is no evidence for God. Everything we worry about, all our problems of morality, come from us, as an evolved species that has developed innate and culturally evolved behaviours into a moral system. Given both the common ancestry and individual variety it is to be expected that there will be a some common features and plenty of variety in the belief in God – which is what we see. If there really was a God that revealed himself to us, either he made a very bad job of it, or he created us so that to us it looks as if belief is a human invention that comes out of our evolutionary and cultural history – how else would you explain the variety, inconsistency and contradictory nature of belief.

This isn’t to say categorically that there isn’t a God (and Dawkins is specific about this too: there might be, but there’s no evidence.) The problem with all theologies is that they start with this basic unknown – is there a creator agent or is it all non-anthropomorphic cosmic fluctuation?; pick one of them, that there is a creator; and then go on to create all fantastically unsubstantiated theologies, without the slightest bit of evidence.

Theists are keen to tell us what God wants. “You [God] have repeatedly shown us…” – How do you know that? All your claims about God are based on what one particular branch of a whole group of societies made up: ancient superstition. Even the most basic attempts to verify any of this (such as experiments on the power of prayer) have failed utterly.

“Thank you [God] for the gift of reason…” – If you’re using reason, and we know reason is fallible (that’s why we need science, to compensate), how do you come to reason that there is a God? The only difference between those people who believe they are Napoleon and the faithful is that the Napoleon’s are adamant they are in the face of irrefutable contradictory evidence, whereas the religious are relying on the fact that there is no data whatsoever, and also relying on the momentum that the organised religions provided.

“We may have mapped the human genome, but to the best of my knowledge, we have yet to find a way of accurately and predictably mapping the thoughts of a single human mind.. Even though we know this, even though we know that we cannot really know the mind or heart of another human being, we persist in pretending that we know enough to identify, label and blame..” – Even though we know we can’t know the mind of God, and can’t establish there is a God, some of us persist in pretending we know what he wants of us.

Violence with Violence

Talk about selective reading. This is a joke. It’s a bit of religious promotion based on some scientific studies that are confirming common sense. And for some it’s too good an opportunity to pass up.

“You can’t fight violence with violence” doesn’t require detailed science, or God. It’s common sense that some members of most societies have figured out is a good general rule, and that goes back well before Jesus. So, it’s hardly as if it was a new idea – but fair enough, Jesus and some of his followers have made a significant contribution to the popularisation of that view and are to be congratulated on that.

And it’s not as if science was around to figure this stuff out. As a science psychology is still relatively new, has many methodological problems, and the detailed thorough science is difficult to do. So, no surprise that science is late in the game.

But hold on, who is it that creates wars, and on what basis do wars begin? It’s usually based on ignorance about differences and dogma, and religion has had a great input here (as have non-religious dogmas). It’s religious politicians, like Bush and Blair that have wanted war on terror; it’s religiously motivated political divisions that have caused conflict, from the Christian crusades to Northern Ireland and former Yugoslavia, to the continuing tribal, racial and religious divisions in Africa.

It certainly isn’t to religion’s credit that it has not sorted these problems out so far, and it is to religions discredit that it has contributed so much to the problems. Perhaps the question should be why has it taken science to step in and provide rational reasons to explain the complexities? It’s because ignorant politics and religion have failed, and reason and science have had to come to the rescue to provide a less biased view that can be taken on board whatever one’s politics or religion (dogma permitting). Science is for everyone everywhere. It doesn’t matter if you’re black or white, Muslim or Jew or Christian, Roman Catholic or Anglican – there are no divisions in science, and no dogma (except when fallible humans screw it up and become dogmatic about the science).

Thorough science isn’t easy. The scientific method is used to overcome the foibles of the human mind, by trying to account for biases, such as those that religion and politics is likely to enforce. It’s thanks to sciences like anthropology, sociology, psychology, and the engineering sciences and technologies like print, radio, TV and satellite that have provided a greater understanding of the natural variety of human nature and culture and education, and the dissemination of that knowledge, that has led to slow but positive progress in lifting the veil of ignorance of a non-scientific view.

But “You can’t fight violence with violence” is a general rule. We are not that good at science yet; or more specifically we are not that good at listening to science yet. We still get ourselves into some serious fixes, through political gaffs, intolerance of the religious and non-religious alike, through ignorance. And sometimes we are left with no choice but to defend ourselves, even if it’s our own fault that got us into the mess.

We are dumb apes – which is what science tells us, and helps explain quite a lot, but which many religious deny. This denial, and the ignorant notion that we of some particular religion or other are chosen in some way fuels the ignorance.

Science fails often, in the hands of fallible humans, despite attempts to develop a scientific method to overcome our fallibilities in seeking truth. Religion fails far more. So, less of the back slapping, a little more humility, and get on with promoting the views of Jesus the peace loving mortal man, and less of the religious dogma.

The Kneeler’s post is typical of the selective reading that the religious have to develop as second nature if they are to make any sense of the Bible. And of course they always apply it to science. Science is great when it’s curing ills – though it hasn’t been beyond the religious to thank God for those cures. But where are most of the religious on evolution? Still in the dark ages. It’s also typical of the religious to claim prior credit for scientific discoveries – though Muslims seem particularly good at this as they often claim the Koran said it first, no matter how vague the reference, and no matter that they got it from the Greeks. No, it only requires the holy book to come up with some common sense notion, like ‘thou shalt not kill’, which anyone can now see is an evolutionarily driven survival strategy, for the religious to claim with self righteous indignation that it’s God’s law, and
they, by association, are the righteous ones.

The Bible is just a book, written by men. Genesis has as much scientific validity and truth as The Flintstones – sure there were dinosaurs, but not at the same time as man (tell that to the curator of the Creationist Museum); see the similarity (talking snake?). The whole Bible is an invention of minds that today would be considered uneducated – not in language, not unintelligent, just ignorant of very basic science and the methods of science and critical thinking that would have debunked many of their ideas in their own day had those methods been available. So there’s no shadow of disgrace on them – they were working with what they had.

The Bible bashers of today have no excuse. It doesn’t take much to pick holes in most of the theological crap. We don’t know how our particular universe started, so we remain ignorant of many things. We have no idea whether there is some ultimate intelligent agency behind it all, or if it is really all soulless fluctuations in nothingness – the metaphysics is beyond our data, just not beyond our imagination. But it’s foolish to build whole systems of belief on that one speculative imaginary idea about the metaphysical inaccessible, and to pile theological bunk on theological bunk on top of ancient books that have to be deciphered in ever more obscure ways to make the theology fit reality (or not).

Science is the best we can do, for now. Ridicule it viciously when it’s wrong, by all means – that’s what it needs, that’s part of the very method itself. We must be challenging our knowledge all the time, because we are not capable of being certain. We don’t have the equipment, whether it’s equipment we’ve invented or that which has evolved between our ears. But for God’s sake don’t rely on religion to tell us anything useful – and I mean ‘for God’s sake’, for if there really is a God, he’s going to be very disappointed in his own creation, if he’s endowed us with brains, and we refuse to use them, to paraphrase Galileo.

BBC Mythos and Logos

The BBC programme
Something Understood – Mythos and Logos (h/t Lesley) discusses the roles of Mythos and Logos: Mark Tully explores the difference between a scientific understanding of the world and a mythological understanding; between the rational language of science and the poetic language of myth.

My view is as follows:

Mythos – Myth, fantasy, didn’t actually happen. Fine for fictional novels. Some fictional novels are intended to portrait philosophical or sociological metaphors or allegories, from which we can learn stuff, so okay on that too – but care is required not to read too much into it (as is done with the Bible).

Mythos had a greater place in the past because there was less logos. The mythos of the ancients is viewed retrospectively with rosy tint of modern theology and myth. My guess would be that if you could go back in time and offer some of the ancients a bit more of our logos so that they didn’t need so much of their mythos, then they’d bite your hand off. There’s a tendency to over glamorise the past.

There’s also two categories of mythos in the current post modern mind. I don’t know if it was present in earlier ideas, but it’s here now, and it does cause confusion. There’s (a) the mythos that is really just creative imagination, and there’s (b) the mythos that is believing fantasy to be true; and they are confused at will by theists. It goes like this: the theist makes a claim (b), and the atheists says there’s no evidence, to which the theist responds with (a), which obviously the atheist didn’t intend to dispute. Angela Tilby gives fine examples below.

But first Tully introduces words from Karen Armstrong.

Karen, “There were regarded as complementary ways…” – Not surprising. if you had little logos available, what else did you have to turn to in your uncertainty?

Karen, “myth was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning…” – Because they didn’t have the logos to tell them that there was no meaning, as they understood that to be, and as I think most theists still understand it to be.

Karen, “Logos…it must work efficiently in the mundane world. We use…when we have to make things happen, get something done, or to persuade other people to adopt a course of action.”

Karen, “Logos is practical, unlike myth…” – What price pragmatism? – “..to elaborate on old insights” – i.e. correct the mistakes of the myths – “…achieve a greater control over our environment…” – our only known environment.

Tully, “We may have regressed spiritually, because of our suppression of mythos.” – Note the negative defensiveness. Alternatively we may have progressed, not by suppressing, but by outgrowing mythos. Lucretius sounds as though he was onto it. Can you honestly say that the old mythos was reasoned? Wasn’t it just more of the same nonsense you might attribute to some of the crazier believers of today? Trouble is, once you mistake mythos for truth all bets are off – you are capable of believing anything; or sometimes more significantly, you can’t deny someone else’s right to believe their crazy mythos.

Tully, on Peter Gabriel, “…overcome by the power of music and ritual, the mythos” – No. Just hypnotised by it. A brain state. Many animals can be lulled into these states too. Think of it as your computer freezing up momentarily for no apparent reason – it’s doing something, it’s just not obvious to consciousness.

Angela Tilby, and Anglican Priest and theologian…

Angela, “You might think … scientific..is logos… clearly right in the way science practises itself. But it probably isn’t right in way scientists sometimes use their imagination, use their instincts, use their sense of adventure to inhabit the whole enterprise; mythos carries on even when it’s denied.” – Bollocks. This is not the same mythos at all. This is an attempt (maybe unintended) to conflate mythos as myth with straight forward human emotion, personality, involvement – all potential for scientific explanation in themselves. Scientists don’t pray for guidance in their work, unless they’re scientists who happen to be religious. They don’t look to ancient books for eternal truths, they look to older evidence and challenge it, or reproduce it, they question older truths, mythos or logos – all is up for questioning.

Has logos won? Not entirely, on two points. The first, is that if logos itself implies that mythos is nonsense as a route to truth, then there’s no room for complacency, mythos is still influencing irrationally. The second, the very nature of logos (certainly now) is that it’s an ongoing quest for truth, and so again there’s no room for complacency – there is no winning, there is only progress. Winning implies the job is done. There is no know reason to think we will ever be able to say, job done.

Angela, “Mythos does continue to hold great sway” – Only for those that believe it. There’s not inherent place for mythos. I see it as a temporary fluctuation in the evolution of one particular species – think evolutionary time scales, where will we be in 1,000 years, 10,000. There’s no reason to suppose the remaining elements of mythos, the Rollins view if you like, won’t go the same way as sacrificing to Gods. As protestant Christians, do you really see RC transubstantiation surviving as a credible truth? The resurrection?

Angela, “We delight in story telling, in narrative…” – Yes. That’s how we came to grow into our language, to be able to make connections with each other, reporting non-local non-current events, transmitting knowledge – all when logos was particularly scarce that it was indistinguishable from myth.

We know soaps and novels are fiction, but yes, we can relate to stories that they tell. We do not really think that Gail McIntyre actually spent time in prison, but some of us do really think Jesus arose from the dead. The problem isn’t the stories, the fantasies, the myths, it’s believing they are true – and the more literally we take them, the more danger they pose as falsehoods.

Angela, “Mythos doesn’t die just because logos is in the ascendancy…” – Conflating mythos (believing fantasy to be truth) with fantasy again. This really is a mistake the Mythos crowd make. They see both the pleasure and the practical value in telling stories, using them as metaphor and allegory – this is fine. But they lump that in with truth claims about ridiculous fantasy.

We put too much emphasis on logos, underestimating mythos?

Angela, “I think there is an imbalance … live in a world of pure fact … if you do that you end up in a very impoverished way.” – Again, the mistaken conflation of wrong headed fantasy as truth, with the very commendable use of story telling, emotional involvement, and all the other fluffy stuff that scientists are equally (more so says Feynman) capable of appreciating – not impoverished at all.

Angela, “Truth doesn’t contradict truth…” – Another problem. The issue, from the logos point of view is that it’s difficult to be sure when we have got at the truth, particularly any ultimate truth. Science refuses to make that claim. It’s only theism and other mythos adherents and pos modernist woolly thinkers that use this move. In essence it relies on ‘stories’ (the mythos kind not the soap opera kind) to entitle people to their own versions of the truth, as they see fit. It demands respect among the mythos crowd for each other’s myths, and prevents any serious questioning from the sceptical logos community – or at least the mythos crowd think it should…. Angela, “I think that’s absolutely true” – which becomes true since all truth claims (stories) are true, by the mythos principle. Bollocks of course.

Angela, “As a person I believe [1] thoroughly in the scientific method and in evolution. I want to use antibiotic drugs, I’m interested in space exploration; [2] I’m interested in the strangeness of new physics. At the same time [3] I want to respond to the world as God’s good creation and to live in it a creative and ethical life that has meaning and fulfilment beyond myself and physical death.” – The mythos team think [3] is made compatible with [1], but they really mean there’s no conflict between [3] and [2] – and many theists are comfortable with science processes. But [1], if followed to where it leads, through whatever evidence there is – and [1] relies on evidence – then they are not compatible: there’s nothing that leads a rational scientific mind to [3].

Angela, “It isn’t a problem to live with those two truths.” – I agree. It’s not a problem to live with the truth that London is in France, as long as you don’t try to visit London. You can even visit France, without visiting London, and still believe that false truth, while believing the truth that you are in France. And so it is possible, that if you don’t think clearly enough about what you’re, well, thinking about, you can make incompatible beliefs co-exist in your head quite comfortable – even though some of them are myths (the fantasy kind).

Angela, “I don’t think they contradict each other.” – Set theory: A and B are independent sets. 1) x is a member of A; 2) x is a member of A and B. Statements (1) and (2) don’t contradict each other, but (2) happens to be false. Again, woolly thinking. Contradiction isn’t the issue. Mythos being the route to truth is the issue.

Angela, “I won’t choose. They’re both valid ways of being a human being.” – I agree. Logos is a valid way of being a rational human being; mythos is a way of being an irrational human being. Don’t get me wrong. In backing logos I’m not saying we must always be perfect rational human beings – the whole point of my argument is that we can’t be, and that recognising this helps us to realise that mythos is one of our more dramatic failures – particularly in the hands of fundamentalists.

Angela, “I think I would be less human if I wasn’t trying to hold the two together.” – Well, such low self-esteem seems to be one of the attributes of the religious. They seem to need the God mythos to validate their lives. Note the inherent insult to non-believers – we’re less human. That’s a clear message that’s been spelled out to the irreligious for centuries – sinners destined for hell – and it’s no less clear simply because it’s disguised in woolly post modern terms. Thankfully we’ve got broad shoulders – or maybe it’s just that we know there’s no weight, no mass, no substance to this nonsense, so it doesn’t bother us. But there are times when it matters.

Angela uses Bach as an example of mythos and logos coming together. She points out the rigour in the maths and the precision behind his work, “…and yet he produces this astonishingly heart rending music.” – Conflating mythos with music now? The creativity of human beings is a distinct imaginative skill, facet, characteristic, whatever you want to call it. There’s no logical attachment of imagination to believing fantasy is truth.

Angela, “..[Bach] goes right to the soul and speaks of realities far greater than that of the scale itself.” – Well, no. It says nothing at all about other realities, greater or otherwise. What music does do is resonate. It may do this literally and physically, in that it does cause resonant conditions within the brain, particularly if it’s loud enough to feel more physically through the body rather than just through the ears. It can also do it psychologically, in that it invokes emotions, sometimes associated with events and experiences, or even with fantasies. This latter is less well understood, and requires much more from brain science disciplines to understand more fully – but that current gap in our knowledge is not one for a God of the gaps, or in this case a mythos of the gaps, to fill in. Of course that’s the tradition our ancient much-mythos less-logos has left us with, so it’s understandable some are easily persuaded of this.

Angela, “…[Bach’s music] says something about how Western civilisation can bring these two things [logos mythos] together” – Only because Angela wants it to, and because she categorises creativity and human physio-psychological responses to that creativity as an element of mythos. Now if she wants to do that, if that’s how she wants to define mythos, great. Except that then causes confusion in debates about theism and mythos, about the mythos of Genesis, and so on. Not very helpful.

I find it curious that the mythos team seem to think that if they can only give us on the logos team good examples then we’ll get it. They read us poetry, excerpts from the Bible, sayings of wise some wise sage, or maybe play us some music – as Tully does here with Bach. we get it. We are moved by the music and the poetry too. What we also get is that what the mythos team lump together with their fantasies we see as something distinct. No amount of reading poetry and playing music is going to make us magically lose the logical difference.

So, there are four distinct topics recognised so far here: logos, creative-mythos, fantasy-story-mythos, and fantasy-truth-mythos.

Logos is compatible with creative-mythos. We recognise the blend of art and science in many of our most creative polymaths. We can also accommodate fantasy-story-mythos, using the vehicle of story telling, narrative, to show us allegorically the many twists and turns of human nature. the Bible is often quoted in this respect, and it does have some good human stories that strike a chord. Shakespeare does it better for me personally, and often with a damn site more humour – always a bonus.

What isn’t compatible with logos, and what goes against the grain of any sort of rationality that we humans are capable of, and what flies in the face of science’s greatest efforts to understand this world, this universe, ourselves, is the make-believe of fantasy-truth-mythos. There is no evidence for a God, no matter how much some people would like him to be there – wishful thinking does not make it true. The miraculous appearance of Adam, and the use of his rib, transubstantiation, resurrection – all fantasy by all rational standards.

Tully on Kant: Reason has it’s limitations and philosophers can be too dependent on it. Quite. So, why does Kant reason, quite reasonably, that we can’t go beyond what we can know, and then go on to describe in some detail things that are beyond his reasoning capacity?

Listen to this Philosophy Bites. Kant is okay, up to the point where he recognises the limitations of our perceptions. In Kant’s terms we can never take the spectacles off – okay. We have to put to one side all metaphysical question that are beyond us – including any deity. We can ask the questions – that isn’t the problem. But we can’t know what is out there. We can speculate. We are at liberty to have faith, but you can’t have knowledge of whether that’s true or not. This is the atheist logos position and offers nothing to the mythos.

In supposing noumena exists Kant goes too far – beyond our fallible human capabilities.

Kant is motivated to maintain faith. And he’s prepared to give up all his hard work in order to sustain this. Like many philosophers, he can’t stop himself going beyond his own claims.

Spiritual Mumbo Jumbo, or Hypnosis?

I wanted to give an example of religious wooly thinking, and here’s one. You can watch the video here (h/t Lesley), and you might want to do that first to get the flavour of it. Or, you could read this first, and then go back and listen with some of these questions in mind. By the time you read this the full video may have been taken down, so here I’m working on the part-transcript I took while it was up.

This piss-take video gets right to the point (h/t Lesley again).

Rob starts off criticising what he sees as obviously ridiculous ‘signs’, as if he’s the rational one, appealing to you too as rational Christians, not prepared to believe what are clearly nonsensical claims. This is the psychological technique of inclusion whereby he invites you into his circle of knowing believers that aren’t fooled by false claims of miracles and prayer. Little pauses and glances aside for dramatic effect always add to the performance – and Rob is a performer. Is it me, because I don’t get it, or does he come across as really insincere to you?

“…old man…long white beard…” – He’s setting up his own straw man to show how he can knock it down.

But from here on in, it gets really woolly. So much so that it’s hard to critique in it’s entirety. It’s hard to pick out any meaningful idea to criticise because the way it’s presented is in a dreamy hypnotic style that drifts in and out of sense. There’s nothing for it but to dive right in and comment as it goes. From here on the words are Rob’s – my comments are italicised in square brackets – I’m going to have a quiet word with Rob, by interjecting in his consciousness, just as God does. I’m not entirely sure if this will work.

Rob continues with his observations on and criticisms of an existent God…

“..concept of God is a God who is outside of everything; a God who is essentially somewhere else. A God who made the world and who then stands back, and then, like, watches it from this other vantage point. A God who’s there [Pointing dramatically helps, Rob?] and then from time to time comes, here [Overdid the theatrical pause there Rob – looked a little fake (but this is quite muted compared to your Resurrection video)]. But the problem with this concept of God is you end up you haven’t even proved that this God even exists [That’s right, you haven’t; and nor do you ever prove, or give evidence for, or even a rational reason to accept, any of the bullshit that you invent to replace this God]. And so what happens is we start with real life, we start with existence, this, what we all agree actually exists [This is a good start]. And then people end up arguing and debating and discussing whether there’s a God somewhere else who has something to do with this [Well, some Christians will persist in believing God exists as an entity, and some will come back to it some time after denying it. But note what’s really happened here, Rob. You’ve managed to distance yourself from any requirement to define an existent God, without actually denying that God actually exists – which comes in handy later when you allude to God’s existence by saying what God ‘is’ or what God ‘is like’, or when you talk about why we were created, by God. Rob, I accuse you of woolly thinking, but really it’s quite an astute move – you been reading up on hypnosis techniques on how to confuse the listener?].

But the writers of the Bible seem far less interested in proving whether God exists, and far more interested in talking about what God is like. [How would you expect to find out what something is like when you’re not even sure it exists – or do you really think God exists, but you just choose to skip that bit because it’s an inconvenient problem? So, Rob, have we forgotten Genesis then, God as creator; you’re sure?] Like in the book of Exodus, a man named Moses wants to know God’s name and God responds “I am”[‘I am’, as in I exist? Confused Moses? You will be.], and then later God reminds Moses that when Moses heard God’s voice he saw no shape or form [Moses wouldn’t see God if Moses was hearing voices. When people ‘hear voices’ it’s real. Though the ear isn’t receiving any sound the auditory cortex is actually active, just as if they were really hearing a voice. So, we’ve established that the religious are hearing things. But, if God doesn’t exist, what is it that’s actually speaking to Moses? Couldn’t be Moses’s own sub-conscious could it? No, that’s way too straight forward for a Biblical story; heaven forbid – and apparently it does forbid the bleedin’ obvious. But, let’s continue Rob.]

God is beyond anything our minds can comprehend [But, Rob, theists are still keen to tell us God is love, etc., as you do later. So let’s keep this incomprehensibility in mind for when you get round to comprehending him, which is what you do when you describe him.] What does it mean to have a personal relationship with this kind of God? [Good question, let’s see how it goes.] That’s, like, hard to get your mind around [Well, it would be, Rob, since you haven’t told me anything yet, except there’s a non-existent God, or a God that exists but you don’t want to get into that, or a God who’s beyond comprehension – it is a tall order when you don’t appear to know what it is you’re talking about. Could it possibly be you’re inventing a relationship with yourself as a duality, as if there are two Robs, or is this friend completely imaginary?]

But you know I believe that God listens and God cares and God’s involved [Why? Given what you’ve just said, Rob, this statement is right out of the blue. Here’s an idea, why don’t we give this ‘out of the blue’ unsubstantiated belief that doesn’t rely on any reason whatsoever, why don’t we give it a name, like…’faith’ – oh, you already have? OK.], but I find the whole relationship idea hard to comprehend [You should, Rob! And you should be asking yourself serious sceptical questions, not trying to affirm it, not trying to use flaky pshyce techniques to influence your audience into falling for it too. But, so far, all you’ve said is you believe that God does a few things. But why do you believe that?]

And then, loving this kind of God [Whoa! What kind? You haven’t been able to comprehend him to say what kind he is.], what does that look like [You mean what does love look like, what does a relationship with a non-entity look like? What are you really asking Rob?], what does it mean [That’s a better question. No answer due any time soon.], and … how do you do it? [Another good one. No Answer coming.] Well when I think of God I hear a song [Nutty attempt coming up, but no real answer. This is semantically okay, but meaningless, unless you take it literally, that when he thinks of God he does actually hear a song. But, let’s take it that you’re about to use the act of listening to a song as a metaphor for constructing a relationship with God, or of hearing God. Doesn’t seem like a great metaphor to me – there’s supposed to some way of tallying the metaphor to the target, but this seems a little flaky. But, I forget; the whole point of this babble is to cuase confusion in the mind of the listener; sorry Rob. ].

It’s a song that moves me, it has a melody and it has a groove. It has a certain rhythm. [So, it’s a relationship that moves you? Is the metaphor really necessary for this bit? I would expect any good relationship to be like this, so the metaphor isn’t really meeting it’s objective, which is to explain a relationship with an incomprehensible being.] And people have heard this song for thousands and thousands of years across continents and cultures and time periods. [All Christians, or other theists too? And is the song we’re hearing now God, or is he saying many people have had relationships with God, which seems like a song? Confusing.] People have heard the song and they have found it captivating [So far this is song as a metaphor, not for God, but just what it feels like to those who have a relationship with God – they’ve had a captivating experience – okay, but again, this could be any relationship, not one specifically with an incomprehensible entity.] and they’ve wanted to hear more [okay, they are hooked on the song, but really they are hooked on the experience of the relationship. Got that].

But there have always been people who say there is no song and have denied the music, but the song keeps playing [Why don’t you just say there have always been atheists, or if that implies too much non-existence that you don’t want to get into then just say non-believers. The metaphor isn’t doing much work – but you’ve started it Rob, so you’re stuck with it I guess. But, yes, we atheists say your ‘song’ is only in the heads of those having the delusion]. And so, Jesus came to show us how to live in tune with the song [How to remain deluded? How to continue to fool yourself? How to convince yourself that the song inside your head is real in some sense, or that the relationship you have constructed is a real relationship with something real (yet incomprehensible) and not just like a relationship with a child’s imaginary friend?] ..way and the truth and the life [What does this mean? These are favourite meaningless tropes, rhetorical devices use for hypnotic effect. They are nonsense].

This isn’t a statement about one religion being better than all the others. The last thing Jesus came to do was start a new religion [Oops! What have those damn Christians gone and done? But, good point. How does that work with religions, Rob? A Jewish man comes along with some neat ideas, but not wanting to start a new religion, but inadvertently does, based on him (through no fault of his own). Would he reject Christians as idolaters?] he came to show us reality at its most raw [What? In what way did he do this, and what does it mean anyway? Was he explaining evolution red in tooth and claw? Don’t think so. And what has that to do with the song as metaphor for relationship with God? Don’t forget the song Rob.], and came to show us how things are [We didn’t know already? What did he actually show us? He had some nice cultural ideas, which were great, but that’s about it. Is this meant as in the hippy ‘tell it like is man’ phrase, was Jesus merely a hippy?] Jesus is like God [But we don’t know what the incomprehensible God is like yet, so what’s the point of saying Jesus is like him, unless Jesus is incomprehensible too?], and in taking on flesh and blood [Thought Jesus was God? He was like God in taking on flesh and blood? But God only took on flesh and blood in Jesus? Confusing meaningless hypnotic rhetoric], and so in his generosity and in his compassion, that’s what God’s like, in his telling of the truth, that’s what God’s like, in his love and forgiveness and sacrifice, that’s what God’s like [So, now we are defining God, through Jesus, as a simile? Hold on. I thought God was incomprehensible. Or is this another metaphor, Jesus’s behaviour as metaphor for God? The only incomprehensibility here is you Rob] That’s who God is, that’s how the song goes. [Utter bullshit. This has turned into a definition of God – remember the incomprehensible God that can’t be explained? And I thought this song was about one’s relationship with God, not a declaration of what this non-existent incomprehensible entity is].

[Something I’ve noticed here Rob, is how the sentences aren’t always complete, how the subject switches subtly from what is, at one moment, clearly a concept, to later being assumed to be fact. Admire your grasp of hypnosis Rob Oops, hold on, you’re back to the song.]

The song is playing all around us all the time [Just in your head, Rob, but you can’t tell the difference] the song is playing everywhere [No it isn’t Rob. Honestly. Unless you mean everywhere to you – which it would if it’s constantly playing in your head]. It’s written on our hearts [you mean you really feel the experience that you have just self-induced. Fair enough]. And everybody is playing the song [I thought we were listening to it, just hearing it, but now we’re playing it too. But, no we’re not Rob. Honest. I don’t know who’s supposed to be the most confused, Rob, you or the listener (I mean listener to you Rob, not listener to the song – sorry, I’m just confusing you/me/them all the more).].

See, the question isn’t whether or not you are playing the song [You just said we were! but now that’s not significant?], the question is are you in tune? [So, are we all playing, but some not in tune, or are some not actually playing the song but only hearing, in which case how can they get in tune if they aren’t actually playing?].

Like it’s written in the book of Acts …God gives us life and breath and everything else. God is generous [which is easy for a non-existent entity who relies on the faithful to not only to invent Him, but to invent his generosity]. So when I’m, like, selfish and stingy and I refuse to give, I’m essentially out of tune with the song. Later, in one of John’s letters he says that God is love; unrestrained, unconditional love [Another definition of that which is beyond comprehension – so you learned this trick from John?] So when you see somebody sacrifice themselves for another, for the wellbeing of somebody else, it’s like they’re playing in the right key, that’s why it’s so inspiring and powerful; they’re in tune with the song [Not just in tune, but also in the right key, ok. In tune with the person they are helping or in tune with God or in tune with the relationship with God? And suddenly sacrifice is related to the tune – I thought the tune was about a relationship, with God. Well, if any of your audience are having trouble keeping up with this, then good, they’re supposed to, right Rob?]

Now some people know all sorts of stuff about music, and they’ll talk about pitch, and modes, and keys [yes, you just did] and instruments, so they can hear things that maybe other people don’t, they can hear subtlety and nuance in the song, they appreciate things other people might miss, but it’s also possible to be so caught up in the technical aspects of the song that you miss the simple pure enjoyment of the song. [It’s also possible to be so caught up in the bullshit of presenting the message that there ends up being no discernible message – you might be stretching it a bit here Rob.] And there are people who talk as if they know everything about being a Christian, and yet they can seem way out of tune[Nice one Rob, distancing yourself from those Christians that claim to know, without acknowledging that through this message you are sort of claiming to know yourself. You are so slick]. And there are others who would say they don’t know much at all about the Christian faith, and yet they can see very in tune with the song[i.e. you Rob? – Say it Rob, don’t be bashful. Okay, so this snippet is just using the same ongoing metaphor, but this time to conjure up how some people may be interpreting scripture wrong, or God wrong? It’s so confusing it’s difficult to determine what the real point is. Does it make the audience feel in-group or out-group? If they’re in already they feel warm and cosy, if they’re out they’re missing out and want to get in? More rhetorical psyche trickery – excellently performed Rob].

I’ve met lots of people who struggle with what it means to have a relationship with God, but they haven’t lost faith and love and hope and truth and compassion and justice and generosity [They haven’t lost their faith, love, hope, etc., or they haven’t lost faith in God’s love; but then is it God’s hope they haven’t lost faith in or their hope…? This is yet more syntactically correct but semantic hypnotic nonsense Rob – your audience must be fully entranced by now]. They maybe have this sense, like, you have no relationship with God because of all these ideas about what that means, all these things that you’ve been told about what it is or what it isn’t [And Rob, you think you’re helping?]. And an infinite massive invisible God, that’s hard to get our minds around [Yes it is, but you’re skipping that bit, or are they okay to continue to believe the existence of the incomprehensible? All that’s left is the song in your head that isn’t heard by anyone outside. Your own auditory cortex, your God module, is convincing you that you’re hearing things and your pushing at it, willing it to be true. And all the while you’re sort of telling the audience to forget the big God issue, though avoiding actually saying it]. But truth, love, grace, mercy, justice, mercy, compassion, the way that Jesus lived; I can see that, I can understand that, I can relate to that [So you can relate to human emotions and feelings – well done. Why the God bit?] I can play (in) that song [Don’t you mean you can hear it, in this context?]“

Okay, back to reality. Thanks Rob, that’s as clear as mud.

When we talk of mixed metaphor it’s usually that someone has tried to relay a concept using elements of two or more metaphors, so it sounds a bit silly. But this is a more obscure mixture. The metaphor is the same throughout, but it’s use changes as it appears to be applied to a relationship with an unfathomable being, as a notion for this being, for some human actions of love, or maybe sacrifice, for the misunderstanding of scripture, for what Jesus came to do, the way Jesus lived, or as a definition of God, etc. But not only that, the metaphor switches so that to be in the game you have to hear the song, or to play the song, or to play in tune with the song – and I’m not sure if it’s any of those or all.

Encountering a theist like Rob is like receiving the Chinese Whispers, where every time you pin down a point with a question the answer doesn’t quite seem to match the case being questioned; so you ask another question, and the answer has moved on to yet a different meaning – until eventually, as if by magic, the very first statement you were questioning is stated again as if it answers the last question. There you are, right back at the beginning, with nothing learned, and nothing really said. There’s no temptation to feel as if you’ve lost the debate, as if your objections have been shown to be unfounded, because you can see they haven’t; but there is a frustration that comes from knowing that no matter what you ask, the theist is locked into their own self-deception that what they are saying is actually meaningful.

So the question remains, does God exist or are we knocking Genesis on the head? Are we relinquishing the idea that this God actually exists as some entity, either ‘out there’ or in your head, or in any respect by which he is the creator God? I don’t think so, and this is where the muddle headedness comes in. Theist will say, or suggest, or imply, or sidestep, as Bell does, that it is wrong to take the creation as literal, in the sense that some powerful entity created the universe and us, and that the notion that God exists as an entity out there isn’t of concern, as if they don’t need it. But, you can guarantee that somewhere along the line Genesis will be mentioned, and in that discussion there will be no reasonable way of taking it other than literal – that God actually created the world (though they may not read it literally in the six days Adam and Eve young earth Creationism sense – there are obviously grades of literalism). In fact it’s hard to get a theist to commit to anything along these lines, which is odd, since commitment and faith are supposed to be big pluses.

Given that these ideas are developed and dispersed in the theological institutions of the church or colleges it’s not surprising that the search for a common understanding results in something that is difficult to explain for the faithful and difficult to refute for the atheist.

I’ve often asked how you tell the difference between the delusion of being Napoleon and what I see as a delusion of belief in God. Rob Bell’s explanation just seems like self-induced delusion, and I guess that’s how I see the difference between a mad man who is off in La-La land, and the theist who appears to have their madness under self-control. And because it is self-induced, under the influence of the particular religion a person holds to, it is also well controlled, with affirmations for like-minded self-inducing people.

Note I’m not saying the theists don’t believe in their God, that there is intentional underhandedness – just that the belief is so strong and so intricately supported by the church that they are incapable of willfully applying reason beyond the point where it starts to seriously challenge their faith.

Some get past this point, and become atheists – the internet has plenty of ex-theists who now pave the way for others.

And some are on the cusp – they see many of the problems with their faith, but still maintain it. They question their faith seriously and have moments of doubt. But if you suggest that they have in fact reached the point where they can let go of their faith, they are likely to backtrack and re-affirm many of the points that they have otherwise put up for questioning.

And they rely on the likes of Rob Bell to help them maintain their faith. Have I already said this is woolly thinking? Well, it’s also a psyche trick to make the audience feel left out if they say no to any of this stuff. It’s meant to draw them in, isn’t it? It’s a standard hypnosis technique. It starts off with ordinary language, slowly calmly yet still lucid, but then introduces babble that the brain can’t quite focus on and draws you into the hypnotic state – the mind, in confusion, looks for someting to hang on to. Can’t remember who said it, but, “A drowning man will clutch at a straw; so hold him under water, then offer him the straw”, but it does describe the way this video is supposed to work. Listen to a Paul McKenna CD, or get a free DIY hypnosis download, or any relaxation CD. They draw you in with babble, slowing the pace of the words, not quite enunciating them, whispering in parts to make to lose mental focus.

Look up the definition of a cult and tell me it’s different from plain old religious belief. Look of explanations for hypnosis and tell me that’s not what’s going on in Rob’s beautifully scripted video. Welcome to the world of religious language.

Religion has nothing to do with science – and vice versa

Thanks to Alan’s comments for this link, where he say’s “Just found this story with which I agree.”:

Religion has nothing to do with science – and vice versa, by Francisco J. Ayala

Well, though I agree with some points, there are many specific ones with which I don’t agree, and I don’t agree with the general notion that Ayala makes.

Let’s start with this:

“On the other side, some people of faith believe that science conveys a materialistic view of the world that denies the existence of any reality outside the material world. Science, they think, is incompatible with their religious faith.”

and within that, this:

“denies the existence of any reality outside the material world.

First, that’s false. Many don’t deny it. They say there’s no evidence to show it. Why? Because we are material creatures. We have senses that detect the material world. We have a material brain that operates in the material realm. How the heck are we supposed to detect or otherwise see something that is non-material? Do the religious magically have access to a realm that all of science, including religious scientists, has been unable to detect in any way. Our instruments are designed especially to extend the scale of human experience – but nowhere, never, has there been evidence of supernatural forces. Everything that has been discovered has fallen within the bounds of natural laws.

“If they are properly understood, they cannot be in contradiction because science and religion concern different matters.” – Only to the extent that the religious want this to be the case, along with the odd atheist exception, such as Stephen Jay Gould, who just wanted to let us all get on.

“The scope of science is the world of nature: the reality that is observed, directly or indirectly, by our senses. Science advances explanations about the natural world, explanations that are accepted or rejected by observation and experiment.” – This bit is right.

“Outside the world of nature, however, science has no authority, no statements to make, no business whatsoever taking one position or another.” – This bit is right too. But what the religious don’t get is that it applies to them too! Science uses reason and the senses – exactly the same faculties available to the religious. There is nothing the religious can get at that scientists can’t. In fact it’s the other way round. Science has given us access to the brain – albeit we’re still in the early stages – so that there are many examples of the brain doing weird things that one particular example, experiencing God, is really no big deal. We have no examples of anything that confirms that an experience of God is actually that and not some trick of the brain.

“Science has nothing decisive to say about values, whether economic, aesthetic or moral” – Simply not true. Science has plenty to say about all these.

“…nothing to say about the meaning of life or its purpose.” – Simply not true. Results of science suggest that there is no purpose or meaning in the sense that religion would like there to be.

“Science has nothing to say, either, about religious beliefs, except…” – No exceptions. Science can say quite a lot about beliefs, and I’m sure will be saying more and more as the various branches of brain science expose more.

“People of faith need not be troubled that science is materialistic.” – Only if they want to ignore it and pretend it doesn’t have anything to say. Wishful thinking will not make science go away.

“The methods and scope of science remain within the world of matter.” – True. Same applies to you.

“It [science] cannot make assertions beyond that world.” – And neither can you or anyone religious. Well, not quite true. You can make the assertions – and often do, but based on nothing at all.

“Science transcends cultural, political and religious beliefs because it has nothing to say about these subjects.” – Warning! Pseudo-intellectual postmodern claim! What the hell does it mean by ‘transcends’ in this statement? The word is usually the reserve of the religious, to say what they know of is above or beyond, bigger and better (e.g. Lesley’s Rollins video). The word is sometimes used to mean ‘encompasses’, as in Venn diagrams when one encompasses another: the outer includes all that’s in the inner but ‘transcends’ it by encompassing more than is in the inner.

“That science is not constrained by cultural or religious differences is one of its great virtues.” – True. It can address anything the human mind and senses can address, because it is an instrument that expands the human mind and senses. If science can’t get at it then we can’t.

“Some scientists deny that there can be valid knowledge about values or about the meaning and purpose of the world and of human life.” – This is true, but curiously this isn’t the point he then goes on to describe with regard to Dawkins. He’s confusing the point about what we have access to, what we can know, which this statement is about, with some things that we actually do have ideas about: the denying of purpose (in the religious sense) (not values – Dawkins isn’t denying that)

“There is a monumental contradiction in these assertions. If its commitment to naturalism does not allow science to derive values, meaning or purposes from scientific knowledge, it surely does not allow it, either, to deny their existence.” – This totally misunderstands the point. The point is that science shows there is no inherent purpose in the universe, not even the characteristics that give rise to us (essentially issues regarding Entropy – it all just happens as the universe ‘winds down’, to give a simple expression). This in no way prevents us, as organisms with brains that evaluate our surroundings and our selves (echoes of the free will issues here), and to derive values and purpose for ourselves, based on non-teleological evolutionary directives.

“In its publication Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, the US National Academy of Sciences emphatically asserts that religion and science answer different questions about the world…” – And this is supposed to tell us what? With all the kerfuffle in the US about religion, evolution, ID’s ‘teach the controversy’, etc., this is just a conciliatory nod to the religious that evolution won’t step on their toes if they don’t step on science’s. other than that, the specific issue of evolution doesn’t cross swords with liberal religion, since liberal religion accepts evolution and evolution doesn’t address ultimate origins; but it does very specifically deny Creationism’s young Earth claims.

“People of faith should stand in awe of the wondrous achievements of science. But they should not be troubled that science may deny their religious beliefs.” – Of course they should. Science, like any common sense approach to life, demands that we have evidence for what we are being told – otherwise you will be conned all to easily, by email scammers for one. The fact that these scams succeed is a testament to the gullibility of the human brain when left to it’s own devices. Belief in religion is another.

“Religion concerns the meaning and purpose of the world and human life” – for all it tries to do that, for all it makes claims, it has nothing to back that up. basically, even when you dress up liberal religion in postmodern ‘opinion’ truths, it says nothing more than, “What’s our purpose? Go is our purpose, or gives us our purpose, or demands our purpose, or loves us so we have the purpose to be loved, …”, and on and on with all sorts of unsubstantiated drivel that basically means they don’t know either, but they’ll have damned good fun making something up.

“[Religion concerns] the proper relation of people to their Creator and to each other” – Whoa! Hold on. “The proper relation of the people to the creator” – More postmodern bollocks. Without any evidence of a creator, or without the capacity to access the creator in order to establish there is a relation (remember, we are material beings. We don’t have access to the supernatural) Note how this grammatically reasonable but nonsensical sentence is given some semblance of meaning, “make sure we include something human, our relation to each other, just to give this nonsense some grounding in reality.”

“[Religion concerns] the moral values that inspire and govern their lives.” – Only because the religious make that claim, and then espouse morality as if they are the only ones with access to it.

“Science, on the other hand, concerns the processes that account for the natural world: how the planets move, the composition of matter and the atmosphere, the origin and function of organisms.” – And, one of these concerns is the workings of the human brain: neuroscience and evolution and anthropology suggest that internal personal ‘religious experiences’ are just brain anomalies, even if within normal bounds of variation; psychology and sociology and anthropology and evolution all suggest that external religious experiences and organisations are cultural memes that satisfied some requirement in the past.

“Religion has nothing definitive to say about …” – Well, about anything really. Religion is made-up stuff.

“According to Augustine, the great theologian of the early Christian church…” – And therein lies another problem. Augustine and other theologians concerned themselves with explaining what pertains once a belief in God is given. This puts anything else they have to say into doubt.

“Successful as it is, however, a scientific view of the world is hopelessly incomplete.” – Incomplete, yes, of course. It’s work in progress. Humans first appeared about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago – and this might be the point when we really began to use our brains, but the details are unclear. The first human markings on pottery go back about 5500 years. What we call science now had it’s base in Greek thought, but really took off just over a thousand years ago – about 1% – 2% of human existence? So, yes, we are still in our scientific infancy. We have no real conception of what science will be telling us about the brain, about religious belief, in another thousand years.

Because religion has been around for a while and science is so young, the religious seem to have the conceited view that theology has and continues to have access to great insights into the makings of the universe. But given that most of our current religious systems are not much different that those of two thousand years ago, give or take a bit of theological jiggery-pokery in the middle ages, I don’t see that religion has had anything to offer.

“Scientific knowledge may enrich aesthetic and moral perceptions and illuminate the significance of life and the world, but these matters are outside the realm of science.” – No they are not, because that would put them outside the realm of human beings, when it’s human beings that create both science (the process) and these perceptions (in our brains).

Ayala made some similar statements at the Buckingham Palace reception where he received his Templeton Foundation prize. Probably is best statement was this:

“Properly they cannot be in contradiction because they deal in different subjects. They are like two windows through which we look at the world; the world is one and the same, but what we see is different,…”

My response to that is that they could be. If religion stuck to it’s organisational and pastoral care roles then it has a lot to contribute to human affairs. It differs from science in this respect in that science is best at finding things out, telling us how the world is – even though through understanding the brain and human social issues it can contribute data to be used by religious organisations. This also seems in accord with what Alan has said on his blog – he sees the pragmatic value in religion, what it can do for us.

But if religion wants to tell us how or who created the universe, what interaction the personal brain is having with as yet unknown agents (i.e. God), then these are real questions of science. Cosmology and particle physics tells us much more about how the universe actually is, and as much as we can yet know about how it began, and no amount of theological navel gazing is going to improve on that. The branches of brain science are examining how the brain works, and how it doesn’t, how it fools itself, how gullible it is, and no amount of theological navel gazing and introspection is going to tell us anything better.

The religious need to move on. I haven’t read anything by some of the more liberally religious, such as Richard Holloway, recommended to me by Lesley. Though science can’t yet answer many of our questions about our origins and our interactions with internal agents, neither can religion, and science is in the best position to get those answers, eventually.

The Populode of the Musicolly

Terry Sanderson’s Guardian article discusses the issue of theological language, which I’ve been trying to interpret without success: Theology – truly a naked emperor (h/t http://richarddawkins.net)

First things first, it helps if you know what theology is about…

“What is theology? I think one of the best definitions was given by the sci-fi writer Robert A Heinlein:”

Heinlin, “Theology … is searching in a dark cellar at midnight for a black cat that isn’t there. Theologians can persuade themselves of anything.”

…
Down to business, the language…

“They can twist the language, invert the meaning of words, tie themselves into logical knots and then get admired for it.”
…
“Take Rowan Williams, for example, who is lauded far and wide for the vastness of his theological knowledge. He is said to have a brain the size of Jupiter because he can produce convoluted writing that nobody with their feet in reality can comprehend. And because no one can fathom it, it must be very important, right?”

Sanderson treats us to a few words from Williams…

Williams, “The word of God is not bound. God speaks, and the world is made; God speaks and the world is remade by the word incarnate. And our human speaking struggles to keep up. We need, not human words that will decisively capture what the word of God has done and is doing, but words that will show us how much time we have to take in fathoming this reality, helping us turn and move and see, from what may be infinitesimally different perspectives, the patterns of light and shadow in a world where the word’s light has been made manifest. It is no accident that the gospel which most unequivocally identifies Jesus as the word made flesh is the gospel most characterised by this same circling, hovering, recapitulatory style, as if nothing in human language could ever be a ‘last’ word.”

“But when he has reached the very depths of his profundity what does it amount to? I can do no better than HL Mencken, who said:”

Menken, “For centuries, theologians have been explaining the unknowable in terms of the-not-worth-knowing.”

“Theology is an excuse for grown men to spend their lives trying to convince themselves, and others, that ridiculous fairy tales are true.”

And Sanderson’s view of TV evangelists…

“Five minutes after tuning in to such a session, you will begin to wonder whether you’ve had one of those strokes that make your native language incomprehensible to you. You recognise individual words as English, but they have no meaning. … This is theology.”

“Theology is a completely and utterly useless pursuit. It is self-indulgence of the first order.”

Sanderson finishes by treating us to a use of language that is intentionally obscure, yet far clearer and easier to follow that the clip from Rowan Williams…

“If you wish to hear a really brilliant theologian at work, here’s a great one.”

Good Books and Pervasive Ideas

I watched Michael Mosley’s BBC Story Of Science (Episode 5) yesterday (get it while you can).

There were two messages I took from the programme, mainly because of the debates I’ve been having over on the blogs of Lesley and Alan. Those messages are:

  • The fallibility of the good books


  • The power and pervasiveness of science

Good/Bad Books

The story starts with Galen, the Roman physician and philosopher who mad remarkable progress in understanding the human body, its structure and it’s processes. He created what became the ‘good book’ of anatomy and physiology. This work was revered and studied for over a thousand years and became the ‘Bible’ of medicine.

The analogy with the Bible I want to draw out is the conviction with which its anatomy was held to be a true representation of the human body. The flaw lay in the fact that it was based on animal dissections. So despite it’s value it contained many inaccuracies that were propagated from teacher to student for centuries. But because of the authority of Galen’s book, and that of the teachers, the mistakes were believed to be truths.

Galen wasn’t challenged and further significant progress wasn’t made until Andreas Vesalius at University of Padua. Because the university wasn’t affiliated with the church the dissections of the human body, of criminals, as opposed to animal, at last began to give up its detailed secrets. Another break with tradition was that Vesalius got stuck in and found out for himself – where traditionally the teacher would have guided the demonstrator to do the dissecting by reading from Galen, describing, prescribing, what would be found, rather than what was found by the demonstrator, and all the students would nod and agree, they would bow to the authorities of the teacher and Galen’s good book.

Only when traditional boundaries and authorities were challenged would the good book’s flaws be exposed, and only when reality was dissected was the truth discovered. This should be a lesson for the religious. But sadly, for many, the old authority still rules. Even for the liberal Christian the Bible holds sway and influences their interpretations of what are personal experiences. That’s why there is no reasonable response to the charge that one good book, the Bible, is no better, no more true, that any other good book, such as the Quran. It’s all a matter of faith.

The Pervasive View of Science

The other message from the programme is one I’ve been trying to express in several ways. That is that science is not a completely different way of looking at the world.

It isn’t a new World View against which traditional Holy views must be rallied. It’s the same view we’ve always had. Science is, if anything, just a process of looking at the world more rigorously, in more detail and with finer precision, and with greater reliability.

Science does no more than account for and compensate for our own limitations, which it does through its methods for devising experiments and observational techniques, which are repeated by different people at different times in different places to rule out any local or biased influences, using instruments that extend the range of our natural senses.

This isn’t a magic against which we should be fighting. It isn’t telling us anything that is unbelievable. In fact quite the opposite, because it raises our confidence that what it’s telling us is true, increasing our trust in what it is showing us. We trust science every time we go under the surgeon’s knife and the anaesthetist gases; every time we take a trip in a plane; every time we type a blog post; every time we use a phone. We know science is the best use of the only tools we have of accessing knowledge: our reason and senses.

There is no other World View to be had that isn’t make-believe. If we can’t reason about it and sense it then we don’t know much about it – effectively nothing at all. If we can’t apply science to it, from our basic reason and senses to any of the specific methods that make up the scientific method, then what can we know about it? We have nothing else! Everything else that we make up just in our minds is fantasy. Our ideas, concepts, our nightmares, dreams, our monsters, goblins, unicorns, witches and gods – they are all fantasy; unless we can back them up, corroborate them, with our reason and senses. And the more strange our ideas the more confirmation we need before we should believe them.

If you believe you communicate with God; if there is an inner experience that is so convincing that you really believe it, if you have faith in it, I can’t offer more than say that the human brain sees and hears plenty of things that aren’t there, and we all know that this is the case. If you can’t review these examples and see that this might apply to you in some way, then what more can I do? If you think the vague paradoxical nonsensical irrational mystique of religious language is offering you an explanation for what you can’t otherwise demonstrate to be true, if you are prepared to be bamboozled into your faith, then I think you’re stuck with that.

Only the sceptical application of our reason and senses, most rigorously at work in science, will be able to set you free from the strangle hold of tradition. This isn’t some other way of knowing; there is no other way of knowing.

Belief in Belief & Practical v Factual Realism

I seems to go unsaid by ‘believers’, most of the time, but occasionally on blogs it might be admitted to explicitly, that there might be no God. Or it might be said that it doesn’t matter if there is no God.

To some extent this is a step in the right direction. But I can’t help but feel it smacks of being ungenuine; there appears to be a dishonesty there, buried somewhere deep in the otherwise honest view that faith is good for us, even if it’s a faith in something that doesn’t exist. If faith developed by some evolutionary mechanism and had some purpose in the past, is it okay to go on believing now, even if you feel there’s nothing there, or if you feel it doesn’t matter if there’s something there of not?

Dan Dennett, in his AAI 2007, Good Reasons for “Believing” in God talk covers a number of reasons for believing, and addressed this particular notion.

He identifies a self-censorship by preachers, who wouldn’t dream of saying openly that God does not exist. Maybe some are more open in their true beliefs – certainly enough to say it on a blog, and for those this might turn out to be a brave move. Fessing up to this hidden truth is something Dennett concedes is courageous in his talk.

Dennett says the God of old, Yahweh, is like Mount Everest – it’s there for all to see and exists without question. But, he explains, God has been watered down, until it has become like low rolling hills – not quite so obvious. But in the minds of the modern theologian it resembles more of an insubstantial mist, a fog.

What follows is some of Dan’s talk. Towards the end Dennett includes words from David Sloan Wilson’s book, as if in debate. In what follows the two parts are identified by DD and DSW.

DD – Gradually, over the years, the concept of God is watered down. These personal revisions are passed on without notice. not just from preachers, but from parents talking to their children. Gradually, from what started out as a Mount Everest type concept of God, becomes a sort of amorphous cloudy mysterious concept that nobody really knows what it is. Mystery is itself elevated and considered to be wonderful. And we get the privatisation of the concepts – this is particularly true in the cases of the mega churches in this country [USA] where, “We don’t care what your concept of God is, just so long as you’re One With Jesus and you come to the church.” So they’re actually allowing to freelance and come up with your own concept of God. It doesn’t matter what concept of God you have, “[whisper] because nobody believes it anyway.”

DD – So we get the almost comical confusion of today. It’s very important this happened [the change in what God is] imperceptably. If it was sped up it would just be hilarious; the revision piled on revision; and all in one direction.

[…]

DD – Here’s a quote:

“It is the final proof of God’s omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us”

DD – Now, that’s a wonderful joke by Peter De Vries in his hilarious novel The Mackerel Plaza, back in 1958. But…

“God is so great that the greatness precludes existence.” – Raimon Panikkar in The Silence of God: The Answer of the Buddha (1989)

DD – That is not a joke. That is said in all po faced seriousness.

[…]

Dennett finally addresses one of the ways of treating this God that isn’t there, as a myth, as another form of reality. He tackles David Sloan Wilson’s account of ways of believing, form Wilson’s book, Darwin’s Cathedral, 2002, in which Wilson uses the terms:

Factual Realism and Practical Realism. He quotes from the book…

DSW – It’s true that many religious beliefs are false as literal descriptions of the world, but this merely forces us to recognise two forms of realism: a factual realism based on literal correspondence, and a practical realism based on behavioural adaptiveness. An atheist historian who understood the real life of Jesus but who’s own life was a mess as a result of his beliefs would be factually attached to and practically detached from reality.

DD – So he ought to believe a myth even at the expense of his factual knowledge in order to keep his life not a mess? That seems to be the implication.

DSW – Rationality is not the gold standard against which all other forms of thought are to be judged. Adaptation is the gold standard against which rationality must be judged, along with all other forms of thought.

DD – If this were a philosophical audiance and it weren’t so late at night I’d take issue with that, but I just draw your attention to these passages.

DSW – It is the person who elevates factual truth above practical truth who must be accused of mental weakness from an evolutionary perspective. If there is a trade off between the two forms of realism such that our beliefs can become more adaptive only by becoming factually less true, then factual realism will be the loser every time.

DD – So he seems to be giving what he thinks of as an evolutionary endorsement for practical realism over factual realism.

DSW – Many intellectual traditions and scientific theories of the past decades have a similar silly and purpose driven quality once their cloak of factual plausability has been yanked away by the hand of time. If believing something for its desired consequences is a crime, then let those who are without guilt cast the first stone.

DD – I want to point out the fundamental difference betwee factual realism and practical realism is that the truth or faslity of factual realist theories is always an issue. Imagine if a priest were to say, “of course there really isn’t a God who listens to your prayers; that’s just a useful fiction, an over simplification.” No, even the Unitarians don’t just blurt out the fact that these may be useful fictions, since it’s quite apparent that their utility depends on their not being acknowledge to be fictions. In other words, practical realism as recommended by David Sloan Wilson is paternalistic and disingenuous.

DSW – It appears that factual knowledge is not always sufficient by itself to motivate adaptive bahaviour. AT time a symbolic beliefe system that departs from factual reality fairs better.

DD – At what? At motivating behaviour. Well, you know I think he’s right about that. Is this a recommendation that one should lie when it will lead to adaptive behaviour? Does Wilson recognise the implication of his position?

[Dennett shows a photo of the Bush Adminsitration team: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld]

DD – Let us consider, practical realism of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. In a chilling article several years ago by Ron Suskind, White House correspondent, we get the following quote, “The aide said that guys like me were ‘in what we call the reality-based community,’ which he defined as people who ‘believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.’ I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. ‘That’s not the way the world really works anymore,’ he continued. ‘We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality — judiciously, as you will — we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.’“

DD – There’s practical realism for you. It seems to me that David Sloan Wilson hasn’t thought this through. He maybe though actually saying that we are confronted with a sort of tradgedy. It may be that our quest for scientific truth has somehow trapped us: It’s too late for practical reality, that was for bygone days, we’re stuck now with factual reality, which some times won’t motivate us. We just know too much. We can never again act honestly, and honestly follow the path of practical realism.

DD – I don’t believe it. But that might be the position that he holds. Well if so we will just have to do the best we can guided by our knowledge. We will have to set ‘practical’ realism aside; it’s too late for that. there’s no going back.

DD – But, I’m actually optimistic. here we see the Vatican [picture]. Twenty years ago If I had stood up and said in a few years the Soviet Union woill evaporate, it will not exist any more, people would have laughed. If I’d sai Aprteid will be gone in just hew years, people would have laughed. Sometimes institutions that seem to be massive and have tremendous inertia can just pop like a bubble. So, how do we know until we try? Maybe within our childrens’ lifetime the Vatican will become the European Museum of Roman Catholicism. And maybe mecca will become Disney’s Magic Kingdom of Allah. If you think that’s funny just bare in mind that the hagia Sofia in Istanbul started off as a church, then it was a mosque, and today it’s a museum.

Of course Dennett is seeing the possible consequences of the lying that is implicit in this position of holding to a fictional practical realism over a less comfortable factual realism. It’s no good simply saying that continuing to believe in belief, while knowing that the belief you’re believing in is false, is okay because if makes people feel good, or behave well. Those you incite to believe false beliefs have a habit of interpreting those beliefs for themselves.

So, no matter how stupifying the belief is, I don’t think it’s worth it in the end.

According to Dennett, “it’s quite apparent that their utility depends on their not being acknowledge to be fictions. In other words, practical realism … is paternalistic and disingenuous.”

It’s also dangerous.

God Speaks

In the previous post, Psychology of Belief, perhaps the most interesting of the videos is this one: Psychology of Belief, Part 6: Hallucinations.

One of the believers in the video said, “God speaks in a whole bunch of different ways”, and there’s the rub. For the believer who avoids inflicting some of the psychological influences on others, do they check to see if they’ve been influenced that way? I think this particular psychological effect is probably the trick that holds it all together, the self-affirmation, the self-reassurance, that all the other psyche effects are in fact valid, because we’ve experienced God speaking to us. But have we?

Being told to listen and God will speak can lead us to interpret that in any way that seems to fit – confirmation bias – and so maybe our own intense feelings are interpreted as God speaking. When we think of how our brains work, using what little we yet know, we have a mechanism that consists of neurons, chemicals and electrical impulses, and out of that come feelings, sub-conscious events, and conscious awareness and thoughts. The latest thinking is that the conscious thoughts we have are the outcome, the awareness that comes to the fore, of other events in the brain; so that conscious thoughts are post-event stories that we use to monitor what the brain is doing and to plan and feedback down to the sub-conscious and the motor areas. This is a mechanism that builds from birth and is something we take from granted as much as speaking – when in the full flow of free conversation we have no idea how the vague notions that we want to express are formed into grammatical words and syntactic sentences, it just happens.

Using this model it seems plausible that we could mistake rising awareness of feelings and sub-conscious thoughts as being from elsewhere. We have so many instances where thoughts just pop into our heads, and if we have the time to consider we sometimes wonder, where did that come from. We notice it most when we’re with someone and we’ve been trying to remember a name but can’t quite get it, so we forget the search, and sometime later up it pops, and we wonder, where did that come from? This particular type of event is so noticeable that we even comment to each other – if I suddenly say the name, ‘out of the blue’, the other person will ask, where did that come from?

Some pop ups have an obvious cause. If I’m thinking about a topic in full concentrations and something comes into my field of vision, or the phone rings, it’s clear that the interruption, the pop up, has an external source. If I suddenly get an itch, or a stomach ache, I know the noticeable has come from my body. But how do we judge were subconscious thoughts and feelings come from. The sudden intense rush of inspiration or insight or overwhelming awe or a divine intervention such as words from God, I think, are all events that occur in the brain through the stimulation of intense thought, the power of stress, or any number neurological stimulations.

That the brain is capable of intense feelings from neurological events is indisputable – that is how the brain works after all. But to put it in context we can think of the images of brain seizures, such as epilepsy, as an extreme case of brain event that is out of control. I’m not say that clinically these inspirational events are the same in any way – I don’t know the neurophysiology of what’s happening – but as an extreme model it seems plausible. The fact that epilepsy has been speculated to be the cause of many recorded events in history is an indication of the similarity, whether it be possession by demons, appearances of visions or words from God.

This video is one in a series on epilepsy. Though this series is focusing on the clinical condition of epilepsy it does give some insight into how the brain can have extreme events; and it’s something like this I’m speculation could be the mode of operation of inspiring brain events – as opposed to real words from God or possession by demons. Which seems more likely? Video #1 is also of interest in this context.

Having a feeling that we are in touch with God, or that we experience God does have a possible neurobiological explanation. There’s the notion of the ‘God module’ in the brain. I missed this Horizon programme. I don’t know to what extent Dr Daniel Giang, neurologist and member of the church, is right in his medical opinion, or to what extent he has confirmation bias. The important point is not that is a module that is specifically for seeing or hearing or experiencing God, but that it is one area of the brain that has several functions, and one apparent effect, possibly a side effect, is that it causes or interprets brain effects as divinely inspired and generally cause the subject to believe in the divine.

The brain has the ability to convince itself of something, even when on another level the subject knows intellectually that his own brain is mistaken. This is a well know example of a woman experiencing a man behind her. Other direct brain stimulations have been recorded as causing familiar songs to be hear in the brain, even though the subject knows there is no music playing. And in another case it has been possible to cause out of body experiences. Out of body experiences can also be induced with VR.

Also, to figure out whether a divine event is real, consider: are you measuring the misses as well as the hits? Or is a cognitive bias persuading you you’re hearing God speak, when it’s your own internal experiences, of yourself. Watch for the auditory illusion towards the end – “You can’t miss it when I tell you what’s there.” To what extent are interpretations of inner messages influenced by religious priming, so that just a ‘feeling’ can be interepreted as divine?

Hearing God speak, either as an auditory signal in the audio cortex, or as a deep emotional experience, doesn’t seem to need divine intervention – the brain can do this all by itself, and convince the subject that it is a divine intervention. If the subject is primed for this it might even be inevitable that the subject is convinced.

Psychology of Belief

I’ve been discussing the relative merits of a scientific world view versus faith, with Lesley over on her blog. To clarify my view, basically how I get to my world view, I’ve added a couple of posts on this blog:

Contingency of Knowledge – How I get started, about what I can know.

Human Fallibility – Why we have to be careful about what we conclude.

Lesley has responded today with this post on Human Fallibility.

The distinction I would make, between our two positions, is as follows.

What Lesley is describing are the effects of actually believing, some of which are good, but others bad. The problem is that choosing to believe on faith leaves people open to persuasion or even indoctrination, and the way that goes, good or bad, seems to be the luck of the draw. If it goes the wrong way then faith can be used to justify awful behaviours.

The other side of the distinction between religion and a scientific approach is that the critical thinking that is promoted on the science side encourages self-analysis to an extent that faith doesn’t – some Christians being exceptions rather than the rule.

As a result of this, another bad effect of faith is that it provides justification for avoiding the effort to think too much. This can be carried over to other areas of human interaction, where it’s easy to let a view on marriage, sex, law, education, or politics, be so guided by one’s religion that it’s natural to just decide on the basis of what your own religion or you local or personal spiritual leader says. But this is often disguised by the fact that some critical thinking does go on, but only within the framework of the faith – the faith trumps reason.

Further, though each religion may recognise the existence of other religions it tends not to scrutinise them too publicly, too critically, particularly in a multi-cultural society like ours, because, I think, that there is genuine apprehension about exposing it’s own inconsistencies. This leads to an odd form of cultural relativism within religions that is somewhat like the left wing secular cultural relativism – where for the latter, you say anything goes, and for the former, you keep quiet about uncomfortable differences because of the uncomfortable similarities. We end up with daft compromises, like Rowan Williams on Sharia, in order to maintains one’s own privilege.

Here is a guide that demonstrates potential problems with thinking processes, with particular reference to belief in God. It’s a little bit geeky, but if you can get through it, it should shed light on what I think is wrong with religious thinking.

Psychology of Belief, Part 1: Informational Influence

Psychology of Belief, Part 2: Insufficient Justification

Psychology of Belief, Part 3: Confirmation Bias

Psychology of Belief, Part 4: Misinformation Effect

Psychology of Belief, Part 5: Compliance Techniques

Psychology of Belief, Part 6: Hallucinations

And, here’s another quick guide.

Top 25 Creationist Fallacies

Like all theories based on psychological research there are often controversies and new research results, but generally these modes of influence on thinking are well recognised, and identifiable in much religious discourse. Some of the above are also associated with logical fallacies in reasoning.

Of course this requirement for critical thinking applies to our side of the debate too. We too are human and not immune to error, and have to listen to criticism fairly.

Secret Agents

In many of the arguments about God and mind-body dualism there is the underlying notion of agency, or of an agent – an entity that has some autonomous control of its actions, some intent (i.e intentionality). If we can challenge the notion of agency then we can take a different view of the universe.

Dualists have an appreciation of the mind as something distinct from the physical brain. This dualism may be adapted to create the similar notion of the soul, as used by religions. The mind or the soul is the agency that to some extent or another exists or emerges out of the human brain and body; and familiarity prevents us accepting that we are totally physical entities.

This notion of mind, soul, or even self, conscious self, identity, seems to be a natural instinct that on the face of it appears difficult for the physicalist to explain. What seems clear to a physicalist, particularly one that also accepts Darwinian evolution as a satisfactorily explained process, is that this notion of agency has been projected, extended, by human creative imagination, to hypothesise the existence of gods. But from the physicalist evolutionary point of view there seems little doubt that this God is made in man’s image, not man in his. God is a construct of the human imagination.

If we imagine and follow the developmental and evolutionary path, from physical inanimate objects, to the first replicators, through simple life forms, lesser animals, mammals, primates, and on to man, it is clear that there is no evidence of any mechanism, or any intervention, that suddenly switches on or enables agency. Agency, like free-will, and consciousness, are illusory, so the physicalist hypothesis goes. They are simply hypothetical models of complex systems in action. The fact that we, in the complex biological process of responding to our environment and our current inner physical (chemical and electrical brain system) state, respond as if we are agents, as if we have free-will and consciousness, is merely an efficient mechanism that helps us to operate.

Watch the video clips of the ‘insects’ created by Robert Full’s and other teams. I challenge you not take an inner or explicit gasp as you inevitably look on these machines as being alive in some crude sense – that is your agency recognition system kicking in and recognising agency where there is none. We recognise agency in ourselves, in other animals, in some robots, in cartoon characters, in toys. We are built to perform this recognition of agency.

Did I say “We are built to perform this recognition.”? See? “We are built…” We are not built, in the active sense that someone built us. That’s precisely the point. We can’t help but think in this way. Richard Dawkins did the same throughout his book The Selfish Gene – his actual words, the title, imparted apparent agency upon genes, when of course this is precisely what he didn’t intend. We use phrases implying agency all the time, even when that’s exactly what we are arguing against. The phrase “We evolved (intransitive) to do …” itself could be interpreted as “We actively, through our own will, evolved (caused) ourselves to do …”, or as “We were evolved (transitive) by the agency of Evolution itself to do …” Our language is so evolved to inherently assume agency we have to resort to quite contrived language to describe the physicalist view without agency. So, when talking about something I do, to make it clear there is no intention and free-will in my action I have to resort to words like, “This complex responding organism (me) responded in such a way…”

Agency is a vehicle that gets us through the journey of life efficiently and quickly. But we need to get out of this vehicle now and then and ruminate in the grass, stroll through the woods, take in the view. Once we park agency on the road side we can proceed to walk carefully through life examining in more detail the arguments that tell us that agency is all there is, and just suspend that notion. Simply review the arguments as if there is only physical stuff; put agency to one side.

Some theists will happily tell you how necessary God is to explain the physical universe – he’s the first cause, he’s infinite, etc. But let a physicalist propose that the universe might be infinite, or that there might be multiple inanimate universes, with no agency, and the theists will ask how this is possible. They will raise paradoxes that physicalism appears unable to explain. But there really is no difference between any hypothesised cause of the universe, whether it be theistic or physicalist – except for the presence or absence of agency. Both theists and physicalists have to struggle with the fact that they don’t know what lies beyond the known; we don’t know if it’s infinity all the way or not; it’s hard enough to be sure that the concept of infinity has any significance, any reality. So, the only difference between any proposed God creator and an equivalent non-theistic beginning is the presence of God as the agent.

But if there is no concrete evidence for agency’s instantiation, no evidence of it springing into existence, then there is really no argument for it existing outside the universe, as God. And since we are the only agents we do have evidence for, if we figure we are complex stuff but not agents, then there is no known concrete evidence of agency anywhere.

Now, having said all that I’m still happy to use terms like agency, free will, consciousness, mind, etc., as creative notions, as convenient models, for complex physical systems and processes, like ourselves. I’m happy to say “evolution built us this way” without any teleology implied. It’s how I’ve evolved to think, so I can’t help it.

Wager On An Atheist’s God

Getting bored with arguing with theists, I thought it might be easier if I just give up and join the club. I’ve been trying to find a God hypothesis that comes close to working for me. There are none out there that completely satisfy my needs.

Though I’m not prone to believing God stuff without evidence, from my point of view it is legitimate to concoct hypotheses and check them against what my reason and senses tell me. Here’s one.

There is a God. He created the universe as we have come to know it through our senses, reason and science. He wanted nothing more than to create a universe to see what would happen. He is not omniscient, so he was curious. Being alone, but otherwise a good scientist, he is very hands-off and observational.

Jesus Statue
“Look, I know you don’t exist, right, … but if you did …”

Continue reading “Wager On An Atheist’s God” →

God On My Mind – BBC

This new programme from the BBC pulls together some strings from evolutionary biology and neuroscience to attempt to explain religious and other beliefs.

I think these programmes will only be available to UK listeners, but if I can find a transcript I’ll put up a link.

From the programme information…

Part 1: Evolution:

We are programmed by our genes to believe in supernatural powers and to obey moral codes. Is this because it gave our ancestors an evolutionary advantage? Iranians, Scandinavians, Papuans, chimpanzees, twins and wedding rings offer some startling answers.

Part 2: Neurology

Almost half the population claim to have felt the presence of a power beyond themselves. But what happens in the brain during religious experiences? If magnetism can produce visions, then what price mysticism and meditation? What’s the difference between sainthood and schizophrenia? And why are many believers convinced that God speaks to them in their dreams?

They’re Up The wall

The BBC news report on Women of the Wall shows the hypocracy of the religious mind, and the lack of a sense of humour that makes them fail to spot irony.

“…rabbi Ovadia Yosef denounced women’s prayer groups that wear the tallit at the Western Wall as acting to promote a feminist cause and not out of piety.” – A well-put pious argument rabbi, and not at all promoting male domination of the relgion, eh?

And, don’t the women get it? They’re claiming unfair treatment on religious matters in a society dominated by dogmatic relgious males? Why bother. Pick a relgion where women are already treated as equals – granted you’re going to have to skip all the mainstream religions. Sod it, become atheists.

Some Notes on Theism

I’m prompted to write this post as a general account of my opinions about the existence of God in response to an exchange with Aaron on Sam’s blog: Comments. In particular I wanted to respond to this comment by Aaron: “At the very core, Christianity is nothing more than following Christ. The word itself means simply one who follows Christ’s teachings. All of the sacraments, all of the ritual, all of the dogma is man-made artifice that is at times either helpful or harmful to a given individual or even to the world at large.”

There’s nothing new in what follows; it’s just a summary of my views on the subject of theism in the above context.

I don’t find anything wrong with following the teaching of any particularly wise person, but is it really likely that all the professed teachings of Jesus were all his own work? Even if it could be shown that many of the teachings of Jesus were attributable to his followers and biographers that wouldn’t necessarily diminish the wisdom inherent in the teachings.

But anything in addition to this is where my problem with Christianity, and theism in general begins.

First, to make Jesus anything more than simply a mortal teacher requires the presupposition of God. This presupposition is at the heart of all the main monotheistic religions. Without an initial God everything else fails, theistically. Theists sometimes argue that atheists aren’t in a position to comment on some aspects of theology that they haven’t studied, but without the presupposition of God the theology is worthless.

I find no rational reason to presuppose God. I have not seen one single argument supporting theism that doesn’t presuppose this, for any of the God religions. And this brings me to the degree of my ‘agnosticism’ or ‘atheism’ as discussed with Aaron. The metaphysical idea that a God is one possible cause of everything is fine, but that’s all it is, an idea, a concept, with no more weight than any other metaphysical idea. I could equally presuppose two Gods, and infinite number of Gods, or no Gods, a single once-only universe from nothing, a cyclical single universe, multiple parallel universes, metaphysical ideas that have mathematical support and those that don’t, and even pure fantasy universes – metaphysically, anything goes. So, in response to Aaron, I am ‘agnostic’ to the extent that the God hypothesis is one of many, and I am ‘atheistic’ to the extent that I don’t find the God hypothesis a particularly convincing one. I’m so unconvinced I’m prepared to accept the label ‘atheist’.

Without presupposing God it becomes necessary to say why one would think there is a God.

All the so called proofs of the existence of God, the ontological, teleological, cosmological, and other ‘logical’ arguments are all based on some unsupportable premise, that is usually based on some human intuitive requirement that there should be some cause, that it should be intelligent, and that it should be loving. God is made in the image of the best of what we would like to be, not we in his image.

Terms such as ‘infinite’ and ‘perfect’ are often used in relation to God. These are mere concepts that are useful in describing something beyond what we can see, measure or reach. There is no reality to them, as far as we know. There’s no good reason that they are attributes of or have anything to do with God.

Discussions about the ‘probability’ of any of these possible ideas, and in this context that there might or might not be a God, are metaphysical speculations and have no mathematical basis to take them any further. In order to calculate probabilites about God’s existence we need information we just don’t have.

Some theists don’t require proof or evidence or probabilistic likelihood, since they find some ideas ‘obvious’, when considering these issues. For example, it’s ‘obvious’ there must be a ‘loving’, ‘intelligent’, ‘omnipotent’, …, creator. To such a theist I’d ask the following. How would you know that? How many universes have you witnessed being created to come to that ‘obvious’ conclusion, deductively or inductively? What experiences do you have, on the scale of universes, that make you think this or any universe requires a creator at all? And as for ‘His’ attributes, how would you know what they were? Revelation? Well, revelation presupposes there’s a God to do the revealing, as opposed to there having been a number of fallible humans through the ages that have misunderstood, willfully lied, or been deluded about revelatory events. There’s that presupposition again?

Another approach theists sometimes take is with respect to what might be called ‘ways of knowing’. When all the rational arguments have been put forward – basically saying there’s no evidence or proof that God exists and so we should act as if he doesn’t – theists have been known to question the appropriateness of these arguments, by questioning the ways in which we can know things. All I want to say for now on this is that the best and most useful ways of knowing consist of supporting our personal experiences with rational critical and sceptical thought and, when appropriate and possible, employing what is commonly know as the scientific method. I accept that when we follow this path the best we can hope for is the accumulation of common experiences that give us some grasp of how things work, and to a limited extent why they work; but I also accept that in no way does that lead us to any ultimate and absolute truth about anything; it only provides us with a degree of confidence. What about meditation and other ‘spiritual’ ways of knowing? As far as I can see, moving to what is essentially a different mind-state is no different than chewing on magic mushrooms – anything goes; and there’s no reason to suppose anything valuable or real is being revealed.

Yet another idea that theism embraces whole heartily, and which is also a necessity for some non-theists, is the requirement for purpose or meaning. I think this idea is often behind the ‘obvious’ discussed above. But there is no requirement that the universe, or any part of it (i.e. us), should have any purpose or meaning. This need that some people have for there to be purpose and meaning in the universe at all is a quirk of human nature, akin to the need to bite ones nails or pick ones nose or scratch an itch. Can I prove this? No, but the parallels are sufficient to explain it without conjuring up an agent such as God.

Now, I can accept a ‘concept’, call it God if you wish, as an aspiration, a goal to which we would like to aim; but it’s entirely a human construct – it certainly isn’t theistic in the usual sense, and not even deistic. In that respect it’s a form of Humanism. I think that this is what some versions of Christianity have come to be, though I can’t understand why there remains the insistence on the truth of, say, the resurrection, or even the continued association with Christ.

Much of this aspiration for the unreachable perfection is fine. But because we can’t actually reach it we have to settle for less. And that ‘less’ that each person settles for is subjective. I don’t have a problem with different individuals or groups of people deciding that they think they should live by certain rules, constructing their own morality – I’ve seen no evidence or good argument for objective morality. And I think it makes sense that as a society (and collections of societies) that we should agree that compromises have to be made – we can’t all have our own particular moral codes enforced just as we choose. The problem with religion in this respect is that it has aimed for the heady heights of the infinite and the perfect, and has decided there is a real God, and has then interpreted its own subjective moral codes as being determined by this fictitious character. All theistic religions, and sects within religions, and individuals within sects, all have their own take on what God is, to what extent he interacts with us, to what extent he commands us, or requires us to worship him, etc. Religion is probably the most variable and subjective of human enterprises, in terms of what is believed, and yet often its adherents claim to have access to absolute and invariant truth. This is pure nonsense.

Take any individual, whether it be Jesus, his apostles, Mohammed, the Pope, or anyone claiming to be divine or to have been in touch with some divine being, or to have received a message, a revelation; take any of them; any claim they have made can be accounted for by down to earth explanations. But, you might say, at least some of the claims could be true. Well, how would you know? How, in fact, do you distinguish between a truthful claim about the divine and any of the many consequences of simple human frailty: mistakes, dreams, delusions, lies, intuitions, group-think, etc. There is no known way of making such a distinction, and since ultimately all supposed sources of divine information result from such claims, one way or another, they must all be seriously suspect, at the very least. Add to the shear variety the fact that no matter which religion you follow, and no matter how dedicated you are and to what extent you submit yourself and obey the commands and pray, there’s not a damn bit of difference made in this world. From the most pious to the most ‘sinful’ – not a jot of difference that anyone has demonstrated.

All that pretty much takes care of my view about God. I think it’s a strong case. I’d be happy to expand on any individual points, or to consider any angles I haven’t already. I’d even believe in God if I thought there was sufficient reason.

The ABC Of Putting Your Foot In It

Lot’s of coverage of ate ABC’s comments this week. I think Julian Baggini got it wrong on this one. Funny comment though, “People often say how intelligent Williams is, but I think they confuse intelligence with being thoughtful, well-intentioned and in possession of a fine beard.” You can imagine Blackadder delivering such a cutting line, which is coincidental since Sky News attributed the ABC’s comments to Rowan Atkinson (ht:The News Quiz).

Most of the other contributors on the Baggini blog topic made the case well enough.