Humility before the Facts or Religious Shell-Games

Eric Macdonald at Choice in Dying has an excellent post that illustrates why I get angry with religious people in their doctrinal certainty and why religious leaders like Al Mohler seem immoral to me. 2 things I disagree with Dr. Mohler in regards to his latest post on the dogma of atheism.

1. He distorts Sam Harris's thesis towards religion by painting him as a person who seeks to eradicate religious liberty. It is a lie about Mr. Harris's thesis against the moral sustainability of competing religions and Dr. Mohler offers no attribution to support it. His slander defeats his premise that the new atheists engage in scientism by necessitating an unattributed assertion to support his conclusion.
2. Darwinian evolution offers a theory on the diversity of organisms and not abiogenesis or cosmology. He conflates scientific terms to make his claim and relies on what seems a non-sequiteur to damn Dawkins with scientism when the theory Dr. Dawkins adjudicates Christianity as false is mute on the subjects Dr. Mohler claims.
   

When I was a Calvinist Christian I would have been cheering Dr. Mohler's authority without any knowledge of my ignorance or possible immorality. As I have moved to disbelief I find Dr. Mohler's position immoral and am sad that he has influence over people who will be confused to the difference between biology (Darwinian evolution), chemistry (abiogenesis) and physics (cosmology) while claiming perfect knowledge in the bible.

I also can infer from my experience that the hardened certainty Dr. Mohler asserts and the epistemic pride his ideas will engender will not lead to the shame it should. The "faith" that will be felt by the believers in the depravity of atheists will be justified in the moral good evidenced by their obedience to their thought-leader with no comprehension how he needs to misrepresent facts as a means to proclaim absolute truth.

How do you deal with your doubts?

My friend and pseudonymous author of "Confessions of God" JohnThomas Didymus asks me a question regarding my post focused on faith vs. evidence.

"Allow me to ask you a question, friend. In what way do you conceive of the reality of your own existence in its subjective dimensions?"

This is a tough question to answer and often seems to be the stopping point for epistemology (the nature and scope of knowledge). I mean do I live in Chicago, Illinois or The Matrix?

What we say we know is predicated on certain basic facts which ultimately we need to accept otherwise we get to an infinite regress of "why?"

The heart of JT's question challenges this basicality and seems to challenge me to consider the nature of my doubts relative to how I come to my knowledge (subjectively speaking).

I of course concede that I am a novice of evidentialism where some sort of objective method must be practiced when considering claims otherwise we become subject to our intuition which, given subjective license, has shown itself to be a poor predictor of what is real.

Therefore I take faith-claims as poor evidence but JT challenges this in fairness by illustrating how my comfort with deduction demands a faith proposition in set-theory (the foundation for mathematics) due to set-theory's honest criticism (like Wittgenstein's critique of set-theory relative to infinities and thus its illusory nature).

I don't share JT's concern however when addressing the question of religious faith vs. testable evidence and my apparent "faith" in set theory.

Set theory works at a primitive level when cultural noise is included.

It simply is and is basically real.

2+2=4 has the same meaning across cultures but not necessarily across all religions as my friend Lady Atheist pointed out when she wrote me and said that 2+2=4 can mean,

"For Unitarian Universalists 2 + 2 = well, that depends on who's counting
For Mormons 2 + 2 = not enough wimmin
For Creationists, 2 + 2 = 22
For UFOlogists 2 + 2 = 42
For Scientologists 2 + 2 = 2384792.19827"

and so although deduction may depend upon faith in the subjective "realness" of set-theory; set-theory can't be twisted by the subjective popular or social response a set-theory believer has in it (or we would have to see Lady Atheist's illustration as computational rather than satirical.)

The question brings to the front for me the nature of doubt. It seems that there are at least two types of doubt when considering faith and what we know. There is emotional doubt and epistemic doubt.

Emotional doubt can use religion as a resolution of it (although the practice of certain theologies like my former Calvinist Christianity actually feeds the doubt due to concepts like sin) while epistemic doubt demands an analysis of data hygiene through methodological means like set-theory.

If one wants to assert that they have had a subjective experience with God and it has resolved their fear of death then it seems the subjective nature of this information offers resolution to a real emotional doubt and it can't be analyzed for its fact or fiction but, if the same person then seeks to extend this experience to an assertion that God is a triune being detailed in scripture, I can comfortably assess the data set of the bible (e.g. it's reliance on similar ancient Near Eastern myth for its narrative, its noted redaction, geographic dependence on discrete Christian tradition) and question the level of epistemic doubt still unresolved by this assertion.

I can further cross-reference the believer's assertion to the fact of a biblical God by inferring motivation due to psychology, anthropology or other sciences.

Subjectivity as JT so rightly challenges me is an essential property for all of our knowledge but how we understand it's meaning relative to the type of doubt it resolves helps indicate how trust-worthy it is.

I have no problem if someone wishes to assert that they know who god is but I do have a problem if they try to convince me that this knowledge is beyond doubt.

The Subjective Ingredient in Faith and Science and Properly Basic Knowledge

I really like all the comments that are responses to my post from yesterday.

Thanks to all who chose to respond.

A recurring theme that rises in all the responses is the notion of subjectivity and this is fascinating to me.

One reason why I'm fascinated is because of how the responses use subjectivity as a faith justification to rationalize the faith and science divide but to me that choice seems to illustrate the faith and science divide even more (relative to examining and discerning what is real).

The responses offer illustration to how variable fact can be when subjective experience becomes evidence for a faith commitment.

Our ability to discern the meaning of our own experience is a poor data set to confirm a phenomenon.

For example, I wonder if the Reformed Epistemology of Alvin Plantiga would have its properly basic epistemic merit if he were to have been born in Thailand. Or, would that cultural context have made him a Theravada Buddhist rather than a Calvinist Christian?

Another way to put it would be to take the trust towards properly basic information and assess its usefulness against a geographic variable.

For example, none of the faith assertions thus far to the question I raised seem properly basic in the way elements of simple deductive arguments are. 2+2=4 is true in both a Reformed Calvinist and Theravada Buddhist tradition but the meaning of God's character and the impact this being (person, force?) has varies wildly depending on the cultural context in which the god concept resides.

In the face of the potential false positives rendered by subjective faith commitments I feel more humbled and confident deferring to the scientific method because it is designed to factor subjectivity in and mitigate against it.

And this is where I see the break between faith and science.

Science admits that our subjective experience is fraught with input error and creates a method to mitigate the probable mistakes this subjective interpretation might make while faith commitments in contrast don't seek to falsify a subjective experience but rather seek confirmation of the subjective experience with subjective experience to make its assertions credible.

This is not an argument against the usefulness of how faith can factor into one's personality (I think that is pretty evident because belief usually precedes behavior) but rather can a faith commitment tell us what is real or does it articulate a subjective experience towards what we wish to be real?

I think the way of knowing reality remains divided between faith and science.

Why "faith" once one understands "evidence"?

Dr. Coyne has a great post at his blog "Why Evolution is True" where he criticizes a recent column by The Templeton Foundation (religious think-tank) supported Elaine Ecklund and her hypothesis that Ph.Ds are more religious than observations suggest (even observations one would derive from her data and methodology if they weren't being financed by an institution whose purpose is to defend and promote religion).

Readers of this blog know that I used to identify as a Christian but that was before I engaged atheist arguments or understood how science worked.

My last two years have led me to see that my religious assertions were not real because they relied too much on emotional pleading rather than testable data.

I've come to see that the religion I once asserted could offer emotional uplift but that phenomenon was more in line with aesthetics.

It might have an ontological interest (the branch of metaphysics that deals with the nature of being) but had no physical reality and therefore the moral conclusions that it claimed were mercurial and self-focused.

It stopped working when I found myself in dialogue with people using their religion like a ventriloquist's dummy to assert whatever emotional bias they might prefer. This sometimes could be wonderful like my friends who spend their time serving the poor or it could be awful when powerful and privileged people argued for things like "Biblical Capitalism" or how Jesus would support George Bush and his pro-war stance.

My doubts with my cultural religion have led me to doubt all religious assertions because I've not seen how any supernatural claims operate as real.

They aren't any more real than one's preference for the uplift found in an artistic genre or culinary category.

I am okay with that if folks want to share their experience with their imagined worlds but no longer find experimental supernaturalism as anything more than an act of imagination and therefore it is dangerous because it is a disconnection from reality.

It can't help us understand what it means to be a living human being in a physical world that demands we cooperate and make choices to sustain life because it defers to a realm that is subjective in its foundation rooted in qualities that can't be observed in an independent frame outside of the person asserting the necessary qualities.

An open question that I'd love to get a response -- why is there an insistence (like Ecklund's) to demand empiricists concern themselves with supernatural assertions?

When one has moved passed a faith-based way of knowing for the more testable world of empiricism (evidence) is it fair to dismiss faith's validity? Why? Why not?

What benefit does religious faith (defined here as a belief that invisible/non-material forces affect reality) have for someone who understands and is curious about how observable phenomenon affect reality?

I don't like Buddy Jesus

Oh my name it is nothin'
My age it means less
The country I come from
Is called the Midwest
I's taught and brought up there
The laws to abide
And the land that I live in
Has God on its side.

(B. Dylan "With God On Our Side")

A friend recently confided in me that he thought my writing here is bullying and hypocritical. He suggested that my examination of faith is cruel. His theory is that deep down, no matter how mature we may be, we are all essentially children needing a Santa Claus to help buoy our hopes. He told me that my analysis of faith amounts to a mean-spirited "Humbug".

I concede that my ideas regarding belief are blunt but, I find the psychology of faith fascinating and often wonder what 14 years of Catholic education combined with 7 years of Evangelical Christianity have done to me. I like to slice open my mind and probe.

I'm not a delicate surgeon and have little bed-side manner.

This is all done because as I grow and view the world, I find I am changing my mind when it comes to belief.

I still believe in belief or, that our brains find solace in it and I think my friend is correct; we all desire to imagine a transcendent possibility beyond ourselves. And most would say this demands theology, doctrine, orthodoxy but, I don't.

I guess I am unorthodox because I don't know what I believe but admit I am awed by the love I feel for my wife as she sighs her way into consciousness every morning.

Is that God? I don't know.

I've heard the term "Agnostic Christian". Maybe that is me.

My theology was once intricate and arcane but now it is simple - to love and be loved. I no longer wish to defend exclusive claims to universal truth based upon shared cultural stories. I find that type of truth divisive. It seems stupid to me.

I admit now that the stories I claimed as truth are incoherent to me and the only reason I agreed to them was because it afforded me popularity, today I crave authenticity.

The stories of the faith I was given demand a level of self-hatred that I no longer consider sane or useful. The theological concepts of Original Sin and Atonement seem products of primitive minds living in a bloody and dangerous world. I don't know how the insistence that I am corrupt and depraved and worthy of an eternity of torture is an animating idea towards mature awareness. And I really don't want to accept that it is my fault that god sacrificed himself to himself so that I might be able to know Heaven and be released from the generational crime perpetrated by mindless innocents in a garden 6,000 years ago.

None of that makes sense and all of that is what the faithful have sought to convince me of with religion and theology.

I do believe the stories we share can help us deal with the mysteries of life but, this past year I've seen that the stories people tell can often times contradict the morality they claim. I've experienced arrogant and ugly attitudes and behaviors supported by exclusive and presupposed truth. I was afraid of it at first, then disgusted, now I am just tired.

That's not to say I don't enjoy the company of my believing friends and for the most part find them incredibly good people. I count many Evangelical Christians, Catholics, Observant Jews and at least one Buddhist as good and trusted people. They are part of my network of "go to" folks.

Unfortunately some of their doctrine is also upheld by another segment that embodies hate, and fear. These are old acquaintances who embrace a "Buddy Jesus"; a tough god with wrath in his hip-pocket; a thick muscled deity who assures them the hatred they harbor against the disobedient is a revelation into his Godhead. They are the ones who are certain that God is on their side. I fear these folks because I believe that, without our secular protections, they'd become drunk on their religious fervor and, like the Calvinists they are, would enjoy burning me, my liberal friends, and the loving homosexual couples I admire. To these people, Christ is not the Prince of Peace but is the Ultimate Fighter ready to kick the tail of those who defy inerrant Biblical theology. They anxiously await his re-arrival clothed in bloody robes at the end times slicing in half those that are disagreeable.

They are the "Prayer Warriors" who told me they were certain Barack Obama was a Muslim because in their scrupulosity God told them so.

They are the Christian Right who whooped it up with Rush Limbaugh's endorsement of Sarah Palin because she humbly upheld the sixth commandment and boldly violated the ninth.

They are the ones who lie for Jesus to ensure the supernatural trumps natural science with their endorsement of Creationism masked as Intelligent Design because it is essential to an open education that all sides are considered; all the while claiming ignorance of Howard Ahmanson, RJ Rushdooney and Dominionism.

And they are the ones who, for the sake of tradition, demand their First Amendment rights extend into every area of society including depriving homosexuals their 14th Amendment rights.

I'm stuck. I like my civilized friends who happen to hold storied faith beliefs but, I can no longer honestly identify with the darker members of their body who allow belief to justify unexamined righteousness.

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote in his essay, "The Christian Witness in a Secular Age" that the church,

" . . .must be embarrassed when it calls attention to itself as a proof of the powers of God. For the very pretension of virtue is yet another mark of the sin in the life of the redeemed,"

but I fear the believers in "Buddy Jesus" would discount the good theologian's admonition as evidence to his sinful Marxist politics and support of the UN. Professor Niebuhr, Dean of Union Theological Seminary and author of The Serenity Prayer, wouldn't be on the side of the righteous. "Buddy Jesus" would consider his pacifism disgusting when he claimed in his wise and paradoxical Christian Realism,

"religiously inspired good will, without an intelligent analysis of the factors in a moral situation and of the proper means to gain desirable ends, is unavailing."

I am looking to avail myself of desirable ends. I have come to doubt it will be found in religiously inspired good will and if that makes me a bully well, please just don't burn me at the stake.

To the brain, faith is fact

Sam Harris of the Reason Project has completed a study that shows people of faith take their "belief without evidence" as fact.

You can read commentary on the study here:

And the study details here:

This seems to offer a hypothesis that supernatural claims of knowing are not what they appear to be. To put it more bluntly, there is no such thing as a Holy Spirit. Victor Stenger in his new book The New Atheism: Taking a Stand for Science and Reason argues for the material manifestation of mind. Harris' study offers confirmation for material reality over supernatural claims and shows that faith as belief without evidence may feel like fact to the person comprehending it but, it does not mean that it is fact.

I find this science fascinating because it supports my understanding of faith and the availability heuristic.

It's amazing that people of faith will activate their brain in such a way to endorse as fact untestable claims. I understand now how people can fly planes into buildings or why James Dobson can shamelessly compare concensual homosexual relationships to some kind of mental illness.

To their brains their faith is a fact and they will do whatever is necessary to animate these facts into righteous action.

It doesn't make faith any more noble but it does explain the power of self-righteous delusions.

Heaven, Hell and the Behavior of God

As we enter Autumn here in Chicago and contemplate Winter, I thought a post about death and imagined suffering appropriate.

This past year for me has been one of existential grumbling. It started with our economic melt-down and gained momentum when I was asked by a friend if I've ever heard a faithful person use the concepts of Heaven and Hell as anything more than a carrot or a stick.

I've discovered that the contemplation of this type of blunt suffering is a specific branch of theology known as theodicy. Theodicy looks to justify the behavior of god.

David Hume in his Dialogues concerning Natural Religion says it this way, "Is God willing to prevent evil, but not able? Then he is impotent. Is he able but not willing? Then he is malevolent. Is he both able and willing? Whence then evil?"

True believers rationalize all sorts of answers to defend their faith and justify their god or gods. There are many and they range from the concept of free will to the concept of impotence. None of these theories however provide me a workable answer to my friend's question regarding the use of Heaven and Hell. A person's imagined concept of each, based on my experience, has been nothing more than either a carrot or a stick to get people to behave in the face of fearful unknowns.

I recently have entered dialogue with a true believer regarding the concepts of god and afterlife who said that, "looking at it without the lens of Christianity- simply by looking at the vast expanse of the universe and realizing our very small and tiny place in it---you must admit that we are not in control."

I agree with him and in observation see this recognition as why we invent concepts like Heaven and Hell; to control our fear in the face of randomness.

Scientists that deal with randomness call this pre-supposition, the availabilty heuristic and it is a fallacy derived from our ability to conceive outcomes.

The theory of the availability heuristic states that simply, "if you can think of it, it must be important." For example, A person argues that cigarette smoking is not unhealthy because his grandfather smoked three packs of cigarettes a day and lived to be 100. The grandfather's health could simply be an unusual case that does not speak to the health of smokers in general

The availability heuristic provides good explanation for our attachment to Heaven, Hell and the Behavior of God. We manifest our personified understanding of a better self in an imaginary relationship with a character in a book (e.g. Jesus, Allah) and then we take actions against fellow humans to protect these imaginary relationships (e.g. The Inquisition, 9-11).

To be frank, I find most of theology to be unjustifiable rhetoric and all of it ignores the exclusivity of its own claims or, to be direct, the historical injustices done in the name of their exclusivity. At a certain point it seems like it has the same importance as discussing what color light saber cuts better, blue or red?

History shows that the enlightened thinker Denis Diderot was correct when he said, "Men will never be free until the last king is strangled in the entrails of the last priest."

There is nothing unfalsifiable or self-evident in the claims theologies make and they rely on a non sequiter.

Major Premise: The universe is a chaotic environment beyond the control of sentient beings

Minor Premise: Humans are sentient beings

Conclusion: God is in control of human beings

This is an argument from ignorance. Thinking people realize they can't control the randomness of the universe and therefore assign meaning to it by creating a more powerful personified "other" who can control it for them.

They place this imagined "other" in control to minimize the conscious understanding they have of their own death. This imaginary relationship then defines their sense of courage and morality which, by definition, delegitimizes all other relationships that don't share their imaginary one.

I can understand the psychological motivation to do such a thing and even accept it as a human need to order our consciousness but, reject the implication that this type of fear ennobles the imagined "other" we create.

The concepts of Heaven and Hell extend from this imaginary relationship. They only serve the one imagining the relationship because they serve to ennoble the imagined "other". This service often comes at the expense of intrinsic life (e.g. The Inquisition, 9-11).

Superstitious revelation becomes the weight-bearing mechanism to leverage the unknown. These superstitions contradict the virute they purport (e.g. "It takes courage to recognize that we need a God").

No, it takes courage to realize no one is coming to save us yet, our common welfare demands that we submit to the self-evident truth all people are valuable regardless of their race, creed, sex and sexual orientation.

They matter because they live and they will die. Their worth is not predicated on how they give god his/its glory.

Theology and religion deny the self-evident truth all people are created equal. They demand sanctioned attitudes, beliefs and behaviors to legitimize intrinsic life and, by doing so, create violent seperation between us.

They are products of our imagination to minimize our fear and therefore will be fearfully defended (e.g. The Inquisition, 9-11) when someone attributes them to be what they are, imaginary.

I've lived within the world-view faith purports and now, am living outside of it.

I feel a greater sense of morality knowing that my exercise of kindness, accountability, respect, and love extend from my humanity rather than some imagined divinity. For me, Heaven is simply a metaphor where I find the authentic freedom to live my life and let others live theirs.

Unfortunately, true believers take ritualistic actions where this metaphor's possibility becomes obscured due to the haggling over its meaning.