1. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165524 by iamb_spartacus on April 21, 2008 at 2:54 pm

It is always a pleasure to see Professor Dawkins employ terms such as "lying," "propaganda" and "fact-checking" because it gives his readers a chance to recall that he has still not apologized for his slander of Mary Midgley, in his repeated insistence (as recently as last Fall on this site) that she had not read The Selfish Gene before discussing it in the journal Philosophy, in 1979 and that he had been told by the journalist Ullica Segestrale that Midgley had confessed as much to her. Both assertions are plainly false.

Anyone inclined to check facts before printing something damaging and hurtful about a fellow academic could have spared himself the painful task of taking accountability for such a serious misrepresentation, whether intentional or otherwise, but it is hard to see why anyone should take Dawkins' righteous indignation about Ben Stein seriously when he won't--or can't--face the fact that he engaged in the same species of deception (readers can decide for themselves whether or not it was more or less "deliberate and calculated" than Ben Stein's film.)

2. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24736 by iamb_spartacus on March 8, 2007 at 9:15 am

Drachasor,

Occam's razor does not apply parsimony to facts, it applies parsimony to explanations. So it would really have no place in determining whether all objects have the same mass: we can measure a representative sample and observe the facts for ourselves. However, when we move to the question of the equality of humans we encounter a problem. With what instrument do we measure inherent human equality? I think we must agree that equality is not an objective fact, but a value we decide to ascribe to our fellow homo sapiens.

And again, I ask the question, why? Your response is that it is rational to treat all human beings equally, but you have still not made a compelling case for why this would be so. Rational to whom? You indicate that it is in the interest of humanity (the "long run") that our species live in harmony, but "humanity" cannot make rational decisions, only individual humans can. And the question remains, why should we care what happens after we die? To look out for the interests of the species is to ascribe a value either to our genetic or our cultural heritage. There is nothing inherently rational about this.

Reason begins only after we select a desired end. The end itself cannot be rationally determined, unless it too serves an end, and we will find ourselves in an infinite egress if we chase that line of thinking too far.

Religion is merely the admission that humanity must make choices. There is no objectively self-evident path to follow. We must, all of us, decide that, at bottom, something is "sacred." Not because God said so, or because it's the way we were raised, but because there is no alternative. It is an abuse of reason to claim otherwise.

You concede that your ethical system begins with a starting point, "what people want." But this is so broad as to be meaningless. People want many differing and conflicting things, and furthermore thier desires are often shaped by the ethical systems transmitted by their cultures. It is in this way circular. There is no such thing as objective "goodness" or "badness." These must be defined before you argue how to maximize them.

As for science, your claim that it has increased human happiness runs into similar problems. How do we quantify happiness? If it is possible at all, it must be done by observing the living organism. This presents a challenge when we attempt to compare our findings to those of humans from times past, who can no longer be observed.

There is more than a small kernel of faith behind the assertion that science has made human life "better." No serious study has been conducted to investigate this. Observations such as "lifespan has been extended" and "diseases have been eradicated" do very little to approach the core issue of happiness, which is after all not contingent on either longevity or good health. The reason it may appear so is that in our world there is an enormous inequality in how good health is provided. The people on the short end of this proposition know full well they are not getting it as good as the rest of us. But comparisons in space are not the same as comparisons in time. We don't feel that our mortality is an obstacle to being happy; we accept it as a fact of existence. But if we knew that people in another country were living to be tens of thousands of years old, and the science enabling this longevity were denied to us, we might be a little bitter about it. It is the perspective that makes it so, not the actual length of life.

Radical rationalism likes to pretend that it does not have to account for perspective. It is this tendency that proscribes its religious nature. I don't mean that as a slur, I mean it in the sense that there is no such thing as a non-religious perspective. Even for us atheists.

3. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24642 by iamb_spartacus on March 7, 2007 at 8:04 pm

Neander,

I don't mean inquisitive; I mean mythical and pre-rational. In that sense of the word, atheists' morals, like all morals, are "religious."

4. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24636 by iamb_spartacus on March 7, 2007 at 7:22 pm

Drachasor,

How is a theory that some people are more important than others "more complicated" than a theory that everyone is of equal importance? This is like theorizing that all objects have the same mass, because presuming objects with differing properties of mass would violate Occam's razor.

Part of the problem is that you are trying to assign value (importance) scientifically, without defining what any inherent objective components of that importance might be.

So I repeat the question: on what grounds do we determine that all humans are equally important? Also, do we extend this distinction to only those members of our own polity, or to all humans everywhere?

Regarding science's ability to increase happiness, the evidence is meagre. This is not to knock science, which is good for many things, but to suggest that people are necessarily happier now than 1,000, 5,000, or 30,000 years ago, is a fairy tale. For one thing, happiness is contingent upon a social context, and since science has changed society, the markers of happiness have changed with it. Happiness cannot be isolated as a variable like luminosity or velocity.

Again, my point is not to criticize utilitarianism, but to dispel the notion that it is entirely rational.

5. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24634 by iamb_spartacus on March 7, 2007 at 6:53 pm

Livliest Crib,

I think we see eye to eye. I would not use the word "sentimental," though. That assigns too much importance to objective "reality," when we are agreeing that we organize our lives, individual and social, around moral principles, which are pre-rational. It would be inconsistent to downplay this.

Going back to my original point, in defense of Campos, even atheists are necessarily "religious" in the sense that they need to contextualize the factual world in narratives of meaning. Ironically, the myth of the fully rational perspective, is one of these narratives.

6. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24619 by iamb_spartacus on March 7, 2007 at 3:52 pm

Drachasor,

I don't quarrel with your ethics. But you still haven't answered the question of where they came from. Why is it "better" to structure a society around the idea that its members are equally deserving of happiness? Why not divide the society up into castes, and treat them inequally? Why not separate but equal? Why not a slave class? Why not every man/woman for him/herself? Why have a society at all? At bottom all ethics imply that something is valued over another thing. Progress, human dignity, sustainability--we can rattle off innumerable ideas of value. On what basis do we choose aomng them?

The only points of contention are going to be where one person's wants/needs/desires interfere with another's.

What you've described here is libertarianism. Everything is permitted as long as it doesn't impinge on another's liberty. Of course, society has defined liberty in very specific ways. For example, we have a "right" to property. But this can easily be seen as antagonistic to the environment, when natural resources are "owned" by private individuals.

That's just for starters. Your ethical position is enormously complex, and remains foundationally unexamined. "Simple" has nothing to do with it.

7. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24610 by iamb_spartacus on March 7, 2007 at 2:42 pm

Drachasor,

I assume you use the standard definition of religion which means a set of beliefs dealing with the supernatural. You don't need supernatural nonesense to develop morality.

I don't use that definition. You can see my operating definition in my post above.

I think the most rational system for a society to follow is to try to ensure the well-being/satisfaction of all its members, as best as possible. This is a long-term goal, and if in the short term some members have needs/desire/etc that are antithetical to the existence/happiness of others, then those needs and desires should be curtailed as much as is reasonable possible.

Well that sure sounds reasonable! Except: Who defines well-being and satisfaction? What are the best methods for ensuring these elements? What protections do we afford to those members with "antithetical" needs? How do we avoid encouraging the tyranny of the majority? These questions and more are all subject to a certain amount of debate and interpretation, and neither reason nor science can make these interpretations for us. At a certain point it just comes down to drawing straws.

Drilling down deeper, why do we decide that the greatest good for the greatest number is a virtue?

At any rate, your argument is a far cry from M31's, since you admit that humanity is inseperably social, and whatever the chemicals coursing through our brains say, there's far more to be considered.

No need for religion there, rather one simply acknowledges that no one person deserves happiness/satisfaction/well-being more than any other. From there society can try to plan its future accordingly.

This is stated as though it were obvious. But it is preceded by the concession to certain virtues; among them: of equality, equal protection, and the right to happiness. How have these been decided upon? If you think your position through you'll realize it rests on a number of presumptions that have no objective factual basis. I don't disagree with them, necessarily. But to call them reasonable is to beg the question.

8. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24602 by iamb_spartacus on March 7, 2007 at 2:20 pm

Homo economicus,

You assume that religion developed to give us moral values. What do you base that assumption on?

I believe the name for our engagement with the unknown is "religion." Most cultures that preceded our own did not even have this word in their languages, because this effort was so intertwined with "everyday" life. We know many things that were not known by those who preceded us. But there is a great deal we don't know, and cannot know, and we continue to require a language for this.

Even RD is prone to make "religious" assertions, such as that evolution is "headed" toward greater enlightenment. There's nothing wrong with that. But we shouldn't pretend we haven't burst through the confines of science when we make such statements.

If we go back to the dawn of Homo sapians, did religion develop for other reasons? To explain the sun rising and falling. To make sense of death. To offer explanation.

Has science "made sense" of death? Ask a grieving person, or a terminally ill person, whether they feel like looking at the matter rationally.

The enlightenment is called such because of the realisation that we did not have to rely on tradition and superstition to answer questions about the natural world, or ethical behaviour. It was a revolution in thought, and religion slowly began to loose it's privledged position in society and monopoly to answer these questions for us.

Things are not as neat as that. There was reason before the enlightenment, and there remains myth a-plenty. Logos and mythos have been intertwined throughout human history. They both serve an important function, and they are not at war.

9. Why there are almost no genuine atheists

Comment #24590 by iamb_spartacus on March 7, 2007 at 1:35 pm

You are ALL missing the point of Campos' essay.

The question he is asking is: from where do atheists get thier values?

Petter writes:

We define our own values.

Fair enough. But on what grounds? Not scientific ones, surely; No science experiment has ever yielded a value statement. Not reason; reason can analyze and evaluate value statements, but it can't generate them. In fact, reason itself requires a premise before it can do its work. From whence this premise?

M31 says:

I say something ought be done because my brain prefers certain outcomes and will have good or bad feelings when different things happen (they are either hardcoded in to begin with, or they may be preferences that are generated over my life by the interaction between the machine that is my brain and its inputs).

Well, what if your brain just happens to "prefer" that you run around chopping people's heads off who disagree with you, or that life is best spent lying, cheating, and stealing one's way through it? By the way, this is not a very Dawkinsian statement: the point of The Selfish Gene is that biology may be have "hardwired" us with a certain dictat, but because we are conscious, we need not obey it. We can choose a life that runs counter to "nature red in tooth and claw."

But the question remains: On what grounds? To whose benefit do these values extend?

You don't need "god" to answer these questions, but you do need something called "religion"--that is, a starting place that is itself not subject to reason or science.

10. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18688 by iamb_spartacus on January 22, 2007 at 12:23 pm

I definitely agree that the root of the problem is faith itself.


Quite apart from the fact that i care about the truth, i think faith is inherently dangerous because it allows people to think and act as if something was true whether it is true or not. It is not that believing things for the wrong reasons invariably leads people to accept destructive beliefs. But because such reasons don't discriminate properly between true or false claims, it is more or less "by accident" what doctrines you end up accepting.

Sam,

As I am alleging in my discussion with Chris Davis, there is an enormous burden on you to demonstrate that the aggregate of your belief systems are based on an empirical truth. I think that when someone asserts that "only science matters," they have done a very incomplete inventory of thier own beliefs and how they arrived at them.

As Popper and Kuhn have argued (not to mention a myriad of philosophers), the power of science to adjudicate truth claims is far more limited than one might have claimed a half century ago. Furthermore, we do not personally appeal to scientific method in the normal course of our lives, and we are nonetheless filled with certainties. There's nothing evil about that. There may be a difference of degree between believing that, for example, nobody has poisoned your water supply, and the belief that god or gods exist, but neither is scientific. The former may be subscribed to on the basis of probability, and on those grounds considered "reasonable," but reasonability is not certainty.

So I think it is utterly unfounded to claim that the "rationally" derived belief is based on "truth." Let's be honest about this. In most cases, certainty is a chimera. So on what grounds do we draw a line of separation between types of beliefs?

Faith is just another word for "belief in the absence of evidence" or "belief for the wrong reasons". The same kind of wrong reasons that motivate some believers to dedicate their life to helping the poor motivate others to fly planes into buildings or blow themselves up on a bus. [...] The main evil that we have to fight is above all faith.

This is not logical. If faith causes some people to blow up buildings, and some people to help the poor, that would make it effectively neutral, not evil.

Additionally, I think faith can act in a way exactly opposite to your definition. Not as a generator of certainty, but as an embrace of uncertainty. I don't pretend this is the way it is most often considered, but it is a real and valid model for many people in the world. Under this definition, one is not contradicting what is "known," but rather enabling themselves to act in the face of the unknown. In this sense it acts as a kind of synonym for "courage." So, for example, on the first Project Mercury mission, using new technology to exit the atmosphere at speeds never before attained, there was a reasonable assumption that the engineers had got it right, and the astronauts would return safely--but no certainty of that fact. It would diminish anyone who undertakes a scientific mission to say she or he only agree to participate when her or his safety is guaranteed, and that's certainly true of early space travel. I'm not saying these astronauts were explicitly religious; merely that you could call thier determination to act in the face of unknown outcome a type of "faith." I did not invent this definition; it is in wide use among the more esoteric branches of religion, and one that I think contributes to a communication breakdown on this subject.

I have no doubt that believing in certain religious doctrines dramatically increases the likelyhood of commiting certain attrocities and i think that in itself imakes religion dangerous.

So I gather. And here we have an assertion of total certainty ("no doubt") based upon what iron-clad data? Of all the arguments that have been put forward by the anti-religion crowd, some have been logical, and some have been rational, but none have been in any way conclusive. What is the source of your absence of doubt? Where is the science that compares atrocities committed by monotheists, polytheists, atheists, agnostics, and draws conclusions about probabilities? If it exists I'd like to see it!

I have some alternate explanations for the phenomena of religious violence. I don't claim them to be unassailable, but they seem to me to be as reasonable (if not moreso) as the ones offered by Dawkins and Harris. For one thing, the political element cannot be abstracted out of the jihadi movement. That's not to assert a simple 1:1 correlation, but I think to ignore the role of Western powers in the Middle East in the last 800 years, especially in the last 100, is to fail to see the complexity of the situation.

Another factor that I think is paramount is the dilemma posed by materialist science. There are a significant number of people who take no issue with the findings of modern science, but who are uncomfortable with the part of the package that delegitimizes any nonscientific thought. By making it an all or nothing proposition, and asking people to choose between "reason" and "faith," some portion is going to choose faith. I think the fundamentalist movement in America is partly a reaction to what they perceive as a significant part of thier identity being challenged by the cultural orthodoxy. Don't forget that 100 years ago, scientific materialism was in a much cruder form than it is now. It made bold claims of reducability about what it meant to be human. You would have to be incredibly naive not to think this would be profoundly unsettling to many people. Just like many animals are only viscious when threatened, the extreme acrimony directed toward science by the fundamentalists is an expression of their defensiveness. Dawkins' warm, dulcet explanations that they have nothing to fear from science are insufficient to alleviate this unease. The same applies, to a degree, with the jihadis. The clash is widely perceived as an attempt at domination.

If you want to call these "secular" motives, you are welcome to.

Another problem with religion is, as Sam Harris has pointed out, that it gives people bad reasons to be good, when better reasons are in fact available, and prevents people from recognizing the good reasons. If all religions were abandoned today, then all the good reasons to be good would still be avalable, but some of the bad reasons to be bad would not.

Undoubtedly. The question is, who gets to decide what they believe, and why?

One more thing:

It is rather ironic that the same people who deny any causal link between believing in violent religious doctrines and practicing the very same doctrines, are often more than willing to credit religion for any good deed by religious individuals. It is another example of the double standard Sam Harris is criticizing.

This criticism cuts both ways, which I way I wrote above that religion or faith is best thought of as culturally neutral. Perhaps someone is prepared to do a calculus of all the good and bad acts done in the name of religion, and come up with the correct valuation. Until such time, there is no defensible basis for claiming that the balance is on the "evil" side.

Clearly you oppose superstition, intellectual timidity, xenophobia, and closed mindedness, as do I. You have my full cooperation in anathemizing them. But to equate the totality of religious experience with these ills is to misunderstand that full totality.

11. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18663 by iamb_spartacus on January 22, 2007 at 9:21 am

Sam,

I am cross-posting this to the forum (see the link above in Chris Davis' post). Please feel welcome to respond there.

1. Do religious extremists actually believe what they say they believe?
2. Is there a real conflict between really believing what religious extremists claim to believe and peaceful co-existence in a pluralistic society?

Leaving the first question aside for the moment, i would like to challenge you once more to tell me - honestly - what you would do if it was definitely true that:

The one true creator of the universe wants those who believe in him to wage war on those who don't and wipe them of the face of the earth. Those who do God's work will have an eternity of bliss after death, while those who don't will have an eternity of suffering. All of this is both good and just for reasons that are only known to God and nothing for us to worry about.

This proposition is so radically different than the conditions of the world I live in that I don't know how I would respond. I grant there's a very good chance that I would observe this divine law.

Have said that, I think you enormously overstate the pervasiveness of this particular myth. I'm not a Quranic scholar, but I don't believe it actually contains a doctrine of extermination of non-believers. If you can cite the book to the contrary, please do.

And I know the bible does not advocate the extermination of all non-Christians (or non-Jews, for the books of Moses.) The Crusades were not a mission to wipe out the "Saracens," just to expel them from the "holy lands" (or more accurately to keep them out of power in the holy lands). Not that I'm defending the Crusades by any means! But I merely want to suggest that the idea that Abrahamic religions are at war to the death is baseless.

So I do not agree with you that "millions of people" share the worldview you describe, wherein God commands the genocide of false religions, and rewards those who obey with heaven, and those wh refuse with hell. Again, if you can cite evidence that these beliefs are held on this scale, please do.

Now let me go to the matter of the centrality of religious texts, since this is one of Harris's major points. In many places (for example his article Bombing our Illusions), Harris argues that religious belief derives directly from religious texts, and therefore, if a text says something palpably hateful, it is proof that this is the belief held by practitioners of that religion. For example, if it says in the Quran that unbelievers are the scourge of Allah, this demonstrates that this is a "mainstream" religious belief. Anyone who ignores a particular citation from the text is "cherry picking."

This is not how religion actually functions in the world. The Bible, Torah and Quran are not like the owner's manual for your DVD player. I realize that even religious people (American fundamentalists, notably) use this metaphor, but it is inapt. Religion is--and has always been--mediated by a priestly class. There is no tradition of Abrahamic faith that does not involve a congregation, whose readings of their texts are commonly shared.

This is an important distinction, because it breaks the causal chain from words to action. The Abrahamic books are not a set of instructions; they are a starting point. They provide a basis for religious belief and practice, but they are just the first of several cultural vessels that transmit those beliefs and practices.

Harris can claim otherwise, but he needs to familiarize himself with the way Islam is actually preached and practiced throughout the world. Millions, if not billions, of Muslims feel no need to take literally (or even heed at all) the passages about fighting the infidels.

To use a more familiar example, even the most literal-minded bible thumpers in America do not subscribe literally to the strictures of Leviticus and Deuteronomy. The same people that believe the earth is 6,000 years old and that Darwin was a charaltan do not show any sign of believing it is acceptable for them to own slaves, or murder their neighbor for not keeping the sabbath. On the whole, fundamentalist Christians are law abiding, restricting their attempts to affect the mainstream culture by more or less legal means--electoral politics, school boards, etc. This doesn't mean thier ideas should not be challenged as a matter of policy. But to say these beliefs can't peacefully co-exist in a pluralistic society is just not true.

Finally, do the extremist believe what they say they believe? I think they do. However this is not the same as saying that their religious beliefs, specifically, motivate thier behavior. I wrote in a comment on another site:

That people account for their actions in certain ways is no kind of evidence of thier actual motivation. To suggest otherwise would imply an accuracy and purity of motive in self-reporting that does not square with any modern understanding of human psychology. We are all unreliable witnessness of our own lives.

Furthermore, that an act is supposedly justified in some way or another does not explain it. If someone breaks into my home, I might be justified in beating them with golf clubs, but I might also lock myself in my room and call 911, or I might sneak out the back, or I might try to rationally persuade the intruder to leave. The fact that I have the legal right to subdue the intruder does not compel me to do so. My motivation is something else entirely, and may be influenced by any number of things. (In fact I could eschew justification entirely and kill the intruder, then find his house and murder his whole family. Justification and motivation are two separate things, and the latter is in a black box we can never see directly.)

12. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18383 by iamb_spartacus on January 20, 2007 at 8:42 am

Janus,

May I pause to note how much I love your username? I find it interesting not just that you chose the name of a god, but a god of inherent contradiction: the god of opening and closing, of forward and backward. He is, in an important sense, a god of perspective, representing the ability to view an object both as a thing in itself, and a component of a larger whole--what Koestler called the "holon."

Having said that, I think there are a few unsupported assumptions underlying your argument.

The point that Atran originally made at the Salk conference was that religious believers aren't really that irrational (or at least, not more than someone who's in love)

The assumption here is that life should be rational in its totality. Or that life that includes unreason is inherently flawed or dangerous. I contend neither.

After all, that some claims can't be falsified empirically or logically doesn't mean that making such claims is justified and rational. I may not be able to show that immaterial, invisible imps don't exist, but I can certainly demonstrate logically that belief in these imps is insane.

Again, your equation of sanity with reason seems to me premature, and a contradiction of a large portion of valuable human experience.

And the only example Atran can come up with is a situation where the religious believers are so nutty they're willing to kidnap people, in countries that often are theocracies, and where the secularist's purpose has nothing at all to do with promoting secularism or reason or science, but with saving people's lives.

I don't know if it's the only example he can come up with, so much as he sees it as an excellent illustrative model.

Also, Harris has already made the linkage between promotion of secularism as saving lives, so it's not quite the non-sequitur you suggest. If the stakes are as high as Harris claims (which I don't believe) then the whole globe is a hostage situation, and how we proceed does matter. In other words, Atran is just responding to Harris on his own terms.

It's rather obvious if you think about it; a debate is about truth, a negotiation is only concerned with truth if it happens to be a useful tool to achieve your goal.

Perhaps, but Harris and Dawkins use the word "debate" much like the creationists use the "teach the controversy" angle. The conjuring of a friendly collegial contest of ideas conceals a not-so-hidden agenda to, as you say, "deconvert." If you are out to deconvert, you've already made up your mind, and can't really be said to be "debating" anything.

The shifting moral zeitgeist is about change in the overall moral beliefs of a civilization's population. Atran's argument is about as relevant as pointing out that the murder rate has increased in the last 100 years, which is to say not at all. A relevant argument would have been to say that the population's concept of what is 'horrible' and 'cruel' in war has changed for the worse in the last century (which obviously isn't the case).

Point taken. Although the response could be made: what good is a progressive moral zeitgeist if you can't enforce it?

Dawkins and Harris have said again and again and again, both in their books and at the conference, that they don't think religion is the "root of all evil", and that they acknowledge the existence of non-believing suicide bombers such as the Tamil Tigers.

I've read TGD, and I disagree. "Root of all evil" is a red herring, and besides thier disavowal of it, the very clear subtext of the larger argument is that eradicating religion will not just dramatically increase the moral content of our civilization, but might just well "save" us. I think this idea might properly be called "quasi-theological."

The thing about religion, however, is that despite what Scott Atran believes, it can be fought and eradicated relatively easily. People like you and I are clear evidence of that, as are countries like Sweden.

You'll notice, though, that Scandinavia did not arrive at its present secular condition by external persuasion, which is an important point. I'm not saying, and I don't see Atran saying, "let's keep the world's theological quotient just where it is!" I think change and conceptual evolution are essential.

...the basic human tendency to divide the world into Us and Them, which unlike religion is probably an intrinsic part of human nature.

I would take the opposite view: that Us versus Them poses the greater danger. Religion without a "them" is fairly innocuous, even if "false"--no?

Isn't it obvious that if a sizeable part of humanity is rational and atheistic, it's at least theoretically possible for all (or almost all) of humanity to become rational and atheistic? Does Atran think that countries like Sweden are anomalies, that it's just an accident that so many atheists live over there?

You presume that secular atheism means "more rational" which I do not grant you, and furthermore that the more rational, the better, which I also do not concede. We are humans, not Vulcans.

13. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18376 by iamb_spartacus on January 20, 2007 at 7:18 am

Chris,

Yes, let's take it to the forum. The others can come along too. See you there.

14. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18335 by iamb_spartacus on January 19, 2007 at 9:26 pm

How is is something like, "The creator of the universe sent his son to Earth to die for our sins" literally senseless in that it altogether lacks truth conditions? Yes, it's stupid, but no Christian except perhaps a handful of theologians and bishops thinks of it as a poetic metaphor. Anyone who's spent a few hours talking with a few Abrahamic believers knows their beliefs are statements about objective reality, regardless of how certain they are of them.

Janus,

You leave out the second part of the quote, where he re-states his idea: "that is, there are no logical or empirical criteria for judging whether such utterances are true or not." I think this renders your interpretation questionable. The point is not that religious people don't "really" believe their myths, or that they don't "literally" believe them, but that they aren't contestable the way scientific truth claims are. (Yes, you have people pointing to Mount Ararat and the Shroud of Turin, but that's just sensationalism. It runs against the current of the majority of religious thought and experience.

Before you dismiss the idea out of hand, I would propose that you do a little more research into the religious experience than "spending a few hours talking to Abrahamic believers."

As for the second, Atran's reasoning could be reworded like this: "In a hostage negotiation with Muslim fundamentalists, explaining how preposterous Islam is will get you and your hostage killed, therefore brutal honesty isn't a good way to deal with religious irrationality."

It wasn't a geometric proof for pete's sake, it was an concrete application of the idea that people don't take kindly to being mocked or dimsissed, and in fact it tends to make them more entrenched than when you started. Wouldn't you agree? Have you never found yourself becoming more attached to an idea because of pride? Even if you haven't, surely you've encountered it in others.

The point is that it is naive to demand that other people get with the program, and expect to have good results. It's not about the relative virtue of honesty or dishonesty, it's about basic human relations.

Dawkins pointed out that a hostage negotiation isn't a very representative case. Atran just ignored him and kept talking.

I never said Atran wasn't rude. He's not my hero or anything.

But I disagree that it's not a representative case. Dialogue is better than war, if you have any cards to play at all (and we do), whether it's a hostage negotiation, or a so-called "Clash of Civiliations."

If you've watched the Salk videos, you might remember a few more of Atran's non sequiturs:

- Wars get progressively more horrible as time goes on, therefore Dawkins' theory of the shifting moral zeitgeist is wrong.

It wasn't a refutation, it was merely an observation that the notion of progress is far from patent.

- Muslim suicide bombers have usually formed a sort of family-like bond between them, which seems to strengthen their desire to martyr themselves, therefore the doctrines of jihad, martyrdom, and eternal bliss for the families of martyrs contained in Islam have nothing to do with suicide bombings.

Again, you are inserting "therefores" where there are none in the original. The point is not that religion has "nothing" to do with it, but rather it has been presented as the sole causative influence, when in fact there are a complex set of social factors involved, such as kinship bonds.

I will repeat my question from an earlier post: where is the evidence that of all the social and political factors at play, belief in god is the secret ingredient which makes people murderous?

15. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18322 by iamb_spartacus on January 19, 2007 at 5:54 pm

How can you not laugh out loud when you hear nonsense like:

"core religious beliefs, like poetic metaphors, are literally senseless in that they altogether lack truth conditions."

or read a blatant non sequitur like:

"If I employed Harris's recommendation for dealing with irrationality in such cases, by lambasting the conflicting parties with how preposterous are their core beliefs, I would probably be kicked out or killed (and in misjudging the ways reason is best advanced, I have on a few occasions been very nearly killed)."

Janus, I must confess I don't follow your argument. Could you spell out for me the logical fallacies you find in these citations?

16. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18299 by iamb_spartacus on January 19, 2007 at 12:36 pm

Chris,

Great post. I can see I'm not going to get much work done today.

Bit utilitarian, what? Weinstein's final phrase was, you will recall, that 'to get good people to do evil things' requires religion. Meaning that people who are otherwise good - even extremely good adherents to universal moral principles - may be induced to do evil things by religion. Two points: a) Obviously, in doing evil things, they ipso fact cease to be good, and b) in their own minds they're still doing good, because they're faithfully following the dictates of their religion, perhaps sacrificing a great deal in the process.

To clarify: I'm not making the utilitarian argument; merely trying to employ Weinberg's own terms as (presumably) intended. He contrasts "good" people with "evil" acts. Yet, he offers no basis for ascribing "goodness" to a person externally. The definition is self-defined. So you can either have a "good" or "bad" person, considered subjectively, who commits a "good" or "evil" act, considered subjectively, or you can apply the terms externally, in which case you need to state on what grounds you do so.

In this sense Weinberg's quip is a syllogism. It only makes sense if you agree with the believer's self-imposed definition of goodness, which sounds to me an awful lot like an endorsement of religion.

The point is that religion, being a non-rational mental construct, can encompass pretty much any conceivable element.

The first part of your statement is true enough. Religion, like love, lust, passion, and all of emotion, is largely non-rational. And it can encompass, in theory, most anything. But in reality it tends to stick to certain limited patterns, as mythographers have shown. My point is only that it seems to me alarmist to say religion "can encompass pretty much any conceivable element." That's the slippery slope argument, and it tends to reflect a disquiet with irrationality in general, making it into a bit of a boogey man. It is similar to phenomenon of repressing one's feelings because one is afraid of who one "really" is. The truth tends to be that this repressed self is far milder and more acceptable than was feared. It is, in fact, when we repress it that it becomes most "unpredictable."

In many case[s] they include a concept of an evil incarnate, which a follower is duty bound to fight and kill.

In what religion do you find this concept? I know of none. I grant you that a strict sharia intepretation of Islam is harsh and unforgiving in many ways, but it provides no grounds for a literal war to the death with all infidels, and it is certainly not a concept shared by the vast majority of Muslims.

Bin Laden and his crew appear to something like that, and point to the Quran and Hadith as guiding them to this conclusion. But it is an incredible stretch. We might as well blame Thoreau and Audobon for Ted ("The Unabomber") Kaczynski's string of environmentally motivated mailbombs, which killed 3 people and injured over 20 more.

Religions are dangerous to the same extent that drunk or mad people are dangerous: their motivations and actions are logically unpredictable. That's scary.

I agree, but only to the point that you extend your statement to include all humans. Do you really believe that rationalists are "predictable"? Would you really want them to be? Unpredictability is not the greatest of evils. There is such a thing as a pleasant surprise. As far as the impact of unpredictability on our security, well, life is scary. I don't oppose efforts to make civilization safer and more harmonious, but security is not my highest organizing principle, and I would suggest that it isn't yours either. I don't know you, but you seem like a decent person, and I expect you believe in basic human rights, the following nonwithstanding.

Can you not imagine an individual or group so deranged by a loony belief system that their very existence is dangerous to life?

Without question. However, that is a far different thing than saying that I have the right to kill them--or in fact penalize them in anyway--based strictly on what is in thier heads. Talk about your slippery slopes! How do you encode such a principle in law? At what degree of danger do you set the threshold? How do you align an individual's fredom from danger with the public interest? Orwell had a name for this concept: Thought Crimes. With or without a Bill of Rights, there's no way to square this with the essential principles of liberal democracy.

For me, capital-s-Science is nothing less than the search for (capital-T) Truth.

As I wrote earlier, I think anyone arguing in this day and age that any finite being can access Capital-T Truth has his work cut out for him. I wish you luck.

The only truth, furthermore, that I consider worth having: subject to adversarial scrutiny, tests of repeatability and so on. Within that framework, if it's true, it's scientific; and if it's not scientific, it's not true. Dogmatic though that sounds even to me, I can't - sitting here - think of anything that is true but doesn't at least come within the compass of science.

I don't think you really mean this. Are your feelings "true"? If you said you were angry with me, and I asked you to prove it, how would you proceed? Have you personally verified, scientifically, all of the scientific theories you hold to be true? Have you ever read a history text that didn't conflict in any factual way with another history text, but you felt had conveyed its subject more accurately? Have you ever thought, about two conflicting histories "well, they're both right"? Has someone ever referred to a person you revered as a wanker, prompting you to say (or think privately) "that's not true"? By what experiment do we determine that Labour is "right," or the Tories, or none of the above? Or that so-and-so is a "good" person, and such-and-such, not so much?

When the person of your deepest affection tells you "I love you" do you reply "that's nice, muffin, but as a truth not subject to scientific verification I must say I can't ascribe it much value"?

Of course not. Only an emotional cripple really wants to live in a completely reasonable world.

17. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18280 by iamb_spartacus on January 19, 2007 at 9:30 am

Sam,

Your post covers a lot of ground and I will try to touch on most of it.

I usually challenge people to tell me what hidden secular purpose is being served by:

- Stoning people for breaking the sabbath.
- Ritual human or animal sacrifice.
- Celebrating the martyr death of your own son.
- Letting your children die rather than allowing any medical treatment.

Is it your understanding that there is a current practice anywhere in the world today of stoning people for breaking the sabbath? Or human sacrifice? In fact it was the arising, during the Axial Age, of the major religions we see today that displaced the practice of ritual sacrifice (mostly--you still see animal sacrifice in Santeria even here in Chicago, and it is not unknown in other animistic religions in Africa and the Far East).

Now, it's true, stoning people for adultery and other offenses persists in parts of the Arab world, but this is a pre-Islamic practice and has nothing to do with religious matters. That's not a defense of stoning, but merely a reminder that we cannot so easily separate single strands from a culture in order to push it in the direction we want.

As for the second two, as you say, we cannot know what is in another person's mind. The operative question would be, is the motivating factor pure subservience to "God's law" or is it something more self-serving? Or is it a mixture of the two? The only answer I can provide is that I'm sure it is not a simple matter. I wouldn't defend either practice--I think both are pernicious. But the existence of either one of these practices does not constitute a serious argument that religion is harmful.

see how easily everything falls into place by simply assuming that people tend to do what they think is best, whether or not they have good reasons to think this.

Setting aside the fact that you don't define in what sense things "fall in to place," I don't see how this statement advances the argument either way. People can do what they think is best in a religious context, or in a rationalist one.

Consider, again, the following set of beliefs:

The one true creator of the universe wants those who believe in him to wage war on those who don't and wipe them of the face of the earth. Those who do God's work will have an eternity of bliss after death, while those who don't will have an eternity of suffering. All of this is both good and just for reasons that are only known to God and nothing for us to worry about.

What religion does this pertain to? I understand that you are trying to reconstruct the reality tunnel of a jihadi, but "Jihadism" is not a religion in any meaningful sense. If we are going to judge any belief system by it's most extreme practitioners, then we'll have run through most of our "isms" right quick. That includes capitalism, socialism, and, yes rationalism.

Remember, what Harris, Dawkins and Weinberg (and to an extent, Dennett) argue against is not fundamentalism or extremism, but religious belief itself. And the method they propose is not "to each his own," but to actively agitate against religious belief as a social danger. And yet, to date, they have presented no compelling logical or empirical proof that religious belief is a social danger.

Dorothy Day, menace to society. Martin Luther King, dangerous ideologue. Mohandas Gandhi, public enemy number one. Is that the take-away?

One could just as easily say that devotion to rational thought sometimes leads to people being closed minded and ideological. Should we on those grounds ramp up the war on reason?

Your final point is about hidden meanings, and secret plans. Of course these words suggest a "hider" and "planner" that as an atheist I can't subscribe to in any literal way (though I enjoy some of the stories of the Hindu cosmology for thier metaphorical value).

However that does not meant that all truth and knowledge is humanly discernible. That's a long discussion of its own, but my response to Chris Davis begins to address it. Is it not a matter of "faith" that science and reason are capable of revealing all things, or that the objective world is exactly as we perceive it to be? On what grounds do we decide that our knowledge is, or can ever be complete? I would contend that it is on the grounds of hubris, the need for us to be an important part of the narrative of the universe, and that this belief itself is profoundly religious.

18. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18268 by iamb_spartacus on January 19, 2007 at 8:07 am

Roach,

I'm really not qualified to defend Atran, as I'm not that familiar with his work. I also haven't read End of Faith (perhaps I should) though I've read a number of Harris' articles, as well as Dawkins' God Delusion (and a few of his science books).

But I think when Atran says that "scientists should do science" what he means is they shouldn't make unsupported truth claims, especially when it comes to deciding whether or not people are entitled to thier beliefs. It may have been snide of Atran to respond to Harris during the debate, sarcastically, "How very empirical of you," but it was a point well taken. Harris had just finished a litany of assertions about Islam for which is there is no evidence.

That is not to say that Atran's theories are is correct--on that I am agnostic--but he is right to ask for more documentation of the idea that Islam or any religion causes people to become violent.

You mention Dawkins' biological arguments and Weinstein's physics arguments. What are they? I've read them both, and find no scientific basis for the idea that religion is a social danger. No scientific basis. The fact that both are distinguished scientists does not give them carte blanche to issue pronouncements on human psychology and social theory--fields in which they are not trained. And frankly the philosophical arguments seem to me squirrelly at best. We can talk about that more if you like.

Consider the gravity of what Dawkins, Harris, and Weinstein are suggesting: that we should, as a society, actively oppose the belief systems of other parts of the world (and segments of our own). Essentially, that we should engage in epistemological war. Then consider the standard of proof you would like to ensure before launching such an enterprise.

19. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18145 by iamb_spartacus on January 18, 2007 at 3:13 pm

Mintcheerios,

Just for clarity, I don't advocate anything "trampling" reason, and I haven't read Atran extensively but I doubt he does either.

I do not have Atran's research at hand, but I'd be curious to see it, and decide for myself if it meets a standard of credibility. His summary of it made sense to me, but I confess I don't have any proof of its truth.

But it seems as though we are equally guilty of the appeal to authority. The difference is that the authority I am calling upon at least claims to be involved in actual scientific experiment investigating the issue of suicide bombers, whereas Harris and Dawkins presented as "evidence" that religion makes people violent only anecdote and so-called "common sense" (like "calling a spade a spade.") Atran may be mistaken about the motivation of jihadis, but I am going to suggest your reaction to it is not based on contrary data (since you did not present any), so much as on a pre-existing belief that Islam (or certain fundamentalist strains) make people crazy.

The point is not that I am right. I may not be. But I am not going on nationwide book tours preaching the evils of a certain mindset. In addition to being not very logically rigorous, the case against religion that I have seen made, to date, seems severely blinkered by a lack of understanding of social theory, and of recent philosophy. Atran's assertions, by contrast, seem to me complex and subtle, and most importantly, fairly humble when it comes to truth claims.

I will read his book when it comes out and see if my initial impression is confirmed. Will you do the same?

20. Beyond the Believers

Comment #18139 by iamb_spartacus on January 18, 2007 at 2:53 pm

Chris,

Thanks for your thoughtful response.

...any religion has such a tendency [toward terrorism], as best summed up in the line about good people doing evil things: a weltanschauung based on supernatural fantasy will do that to ya, almost inevitably.

As I've written elsewhere, this is an unsupported, if not unsupportable, claim. Weinstein's line is clever, but it is a circularity. On what grounds can we define people as good or bad besides their actions? (I'm not suggesting we even should define people in manichean fashion; I'm merely responding to the terms of Weinstein's statement.) Do we look into thier souls? Failing that, why assume that a religious person doing evil would otherwise be "good"?

It seems to me if people want to defend science and logic as superior modes of experience, they should not resort to anecdote and commonsense in that defense. Saying things like "any religion has a violent tendency" or "religion leads good people to do evil" as though this were more than cicumstantially demonstrable does not do the rationalist view any favors.

I would like to know through what experiment Dawkins and Harris have isolated religion as the secret ingredient in cultural violence. I think excellent cases have been made for other social and political factors being at least as influential, if not more so. Perhaps it can never be decided with any authority, but let's not talk as though the matter has been settled.

I can envisage a belief system so horrible that killing its adherents would be not just an ethical act, but perhaps the only response.

You are welcome to your own ethics, but we are a nation of laws. How do you square this principle with the constitution, especially the 1st, 5th, and 14th amendments?

Do you have a detailed view on the idea that 'humans require narrative structures to maintain sanity both as individuals and social groups'? I assume this is arguing for the Noble Lie, on the basis that without their opium, the masses will go nuts.

I do not argue for the Noble Lie, and I don't consider religion (necessarily) as an opiate, though it does often function that way. Please note that I did not say that "religion" was required, but narrative structures, of which what we call religion is a notable example. For the detailed view I would consult any number of sources from Whitehead, to Plato, to Muriel Rukeyser, to Karen Armstrong, to Alan Watts.

To me it seems patently obvious (though I am open to argument) that we humans cannot know or experience anything without narratizing it. That includes history, science, law, in addition to religion. All are based on a kind of 'myth,' not in the sense of lie, but in the sense of story. The fact that Darwin's story of natural selection is a "true" story doesn't make it less of a story. No amount of language can actually re-create objective reality; our understanding will always be an approximation. And of course our sense array has its limits, so even if could speak with utter precision about our world, how could we know what we still didn't know? No scientific theory, and no religion will ever get it "right." That doesn't mean either is of no value. But it does mean we should watch our tendancies towards dogmatism, both scientific and religious.

I think science is a marvel, and we would be a much less happy species without it. But when it takes that extra step and declares, like the turtle in Charles Fort's phrase, that "its shell contains all things" we begin to create a problem.

21. Beyond the Believers

Comment #17974 by iamb_spartacus on January 17, 2007 at 7:56 pm

Harris had an opportunity, as an intelligent person, to at least try to engage the ideas he finds so "in need of deflation." Instead he resorts to name calling and misrepresentation and leaves it at that. The speakers at the Beyond Belief conference that Sam derides present complex, intelligent, and thoughtful arguments, all of which appeal to real science (which is more than you can say for Harris when he makes unsupported contentions such as "there is a direct link" between Islam and terrorism, or ""Some propositions are so dangerous that it may even be ethical to kill people for believing them." ) and none of which rely on the defense of superstition or faith to forward their arguments.

I encourage to commenters above to familiarize themselves with the findings of Scott Atran, who has done significant research on jihadi "martyrs" which casts doubt on many of our widely held assumptions on what their motivations are. At the conference (which you can see for yourself on video), Harris is unable to provide anything more than anecdotal rebuttal. Contrary to the way he presents it in this essay, Harris argued from "common sense," and Atran responded with actual data.

Likewise, Harris mocks the idea, put forward at the conference by Philosopher Loyal Rue, that humans require narrative structures to maintain sanity both as individuals and social groups. Rue is hardly the first to present this idea, which he supports with serious scholarly attention, never resorting to faith or even a priori logic, and rather than engage the idea on its own terms, Harris reponds, in essence, Nanny Nanny Boo Boo.

Is this who you want representing the forces of "reason?" I think it's time more people asked Sam Harris to put his money where his mouth is. Where is the data?

22. Reason, Unfettered by Faith

Comment #17089 by iamb_spartacus on January 10, 2007 at 5:16 pm

In a recent interview on German TV, the Poop said he feared that we were undergoing a "mini-Enlightenment" and turning away from God, which was the first time I'd encountered the rather curious notion that enlightenment might be something undesirable.

Let's not confuse enlightenment with "The Enlightenment." There are very intelligent and thoughtful critiques on the role of the latter as it contributed to monism and totalitarianism. See, for example, Isaiah Berlin, who built on John Stuart Mills' ideas of Positive and Negative Liberty.

The Enlightenment was a social movement, and as susceptible to groupthink, dogma, hubris, and error, as any other social movement. Sometimes "enlightenment" means recognizing there isn't always a solution to every problem.