Anyone who’s met Nick S. knows he’s smart, insightful, and delightfully droll. When he calls you out on something, it’s worth taking a hard look at yourself. He left a comment on my last post, Three Vague Words on Pottery Prove the Bible True, in which I claimed it was a wild leap of exaggeration to take an archaeological artifact of dubious value and hold it up as evidence of the literal truth of a Biblical parable. (Read the comments thread here.)
His comment was:
Yes, religious minded people can accept silly things to support their view of the world. It’s a consequence of a preference for convenience and comfort rather than truth, I suspect. But then, the non-believers accept equally silly “truths” in their longing to discredit a worldview driven by faith and powered by something bigger than themselves.
Isn’t it just as silly when people say things like, “hey I read the The Da Vinci Code, so now I know the truth, and I can stop thinking about such things”? Scientists too, in their sometimes-mad quest for more knowledge can also believe silly things. (Eugenics anyone?) Last time I checked there wasn’t a lot of compelling evidence to sustain string theories and an 11-dimension universe, but people still talk about those ideas, and ideas like them, as if they were uncontested fact.
I value both faith and science, but I think if you wish to point out the foolishness of some religious folks, then it is only fair to also point out the excesses and foolishness of the knowledge-worshiping or narcissistic non-believers.
Nick, I can always count on you for a thoughtful and challenging comment! I wrote a response but it was too long to go in the comments thread, so here goes:
I think we can agree that anyone anywhere can accept silly things to support their view of the world. So we’re basically in agreement on your point there. Still, I hope you don’t mind if I make what I think are important corrections to some of the points I do disagree with.
For example, you mention that “non-believers accept equally silly ‘truths’ in their longing to discredit a worldview driven by faith and powered by something bigger than themselves.” I’ll set aside the fact that this contains an assertion, “powered by something bigger than themselves,” which you don’t define and if you did would probably be simple to argue convincingly against all by itself. So then, first, I hope you aren’t generalizing “non-believers” to mean “ALL non-believers,” because of course many non-believers have no such longing. (By non-believers, incidentally, I hope I’m correct in assuming you mean non-believers in religion and supernatural intelligence.) Second, among those who DO have such a longing— who publicly promote their own opinions on the matter of supernatural belief—most do not speak out of a desire to discredit rivals, but rather out of a commitment to intellectual honesty.
To speak for myself on the matter, I do not contradict a competing belief because it is a competing belief, but because it is wrong. (A claim I must then corroborate.) A fact isn’t true because I believe it; I believe it because it’s true. This is the difference between faith and reason. Any “non-believer” who accepts a silly truth becomes a believer.
A self-proclaimed rationalist who fails in her commitment to intellectual honesty, and accepts something as “truth” which has not earned the title, is just as foolish as any religious believer who does so. Atheists, for example, are just as capable of using poor critical thinking skills as the devout. So we definitely agree that all people, no matter their personal ideals, are susceptible to bad judgment. The point I make is that a person who is guided by a rational commitment to intellectual honesty has a built-in mechanism for the correction of error. Yes, you will find atheists who have no such guidance; anyone who’s an atheist but doesn’t know why is just as irrational as a person who is religious but doesn’t know why.
You will notice that I do not promote atheism, but rather reason and intellectual honesty. Faith and atheism are not enemies. Faith and reason are. Unlike faith, reason—and I say it again because I believe it bears repeating—has a built-in mechanism for the correction of error.
Reason, the way I describe it, says:
- Believe things which are true.
- Do not believe things which aren’t.
- Find out which is which.
That third point is the “correction mechanism.” Science is merely taking this mechanism and deliberately applying it to the world. “Science” is an expansion of that third step, and can be simply described as:
- Test.
- Never lie about the results.
- Accept the results until better tests arrive.
So if a scientist is wrong, science itself provides the correction. Vapours and humours were supplanted by spontaneous generation, spontaneous generation supplanted by germ theory, germ theory succeeded by a kaleiodoscope of theories regarding bacteria and viruses. The aether was supplanted by the vacuum, the vacuum by the cosmological constant, the cosmological constant by dark energy (with dark energy undoubtedly to be succeeded by something else). Each provided a better model of the world based on what we knew of it. And each time, scientists who believed in a certain theory fought tooth and nail to defend it, then completely abandoned it when the evidence was clear they were wrong. Those who did not were bad scientists. (Just like those who prosecuted witches with torture were bad Christians.)
Now I’m guessing you would point out that science works more like this:
“Piled Higher and Deeper” by Jorge Cham www.phdcomics.com
I love science jokes. Anyway, of course, that does happen but when it does it isn’t science.
Moving right along: your DaVinci Code remark I quite agree with, and anyone who reads that book, clearly marked “Fiction,” and takes it as true just because it’s in Dan Brown’s book, is an idiot. I don’t know why you connected that to scientists, though, by saying “Scientists, too” which, to be frank, is a confusing non-sequitur. It’s like saying “Some people believe hot dogs are made out of leprechauns. Scientists, too…” Just kinda weird. There’s no way to respond to a non-sequitur except merely to point it out.
You mention string theory and claim that “people still talk about those ideas, and ideas like them, as if they were uncontested fact.” The only people who talk about string theory like it’s an uncontested fact are overly excited laymen or well-meaning new-agers who think it proves the Law of Attraction. Scientists themselves are deeply divided about it, and even its strongest proponents don’t claim it’s literally true, but rather a new and promising theoretical model for describing the world and making predictions about it. It’s still brand-new and under vociferous debate, so much so that only this year was its very first experimental prediction made. So if you say that “people” talk about string theory like it’s uncontested, you are right in a general sense, but probably incorrect if I rightly inferred the context of your statement to apply to scientists. I doubt you would find a single actual physicist who talks about string theory (or even ideas like it) like it’s uncontested fact.
Most importantly, I don’t think I can let the little “Eugenics, anyone” comment pass without comment. It reminds me a bit of Ben Stein’s outrageously offensive proclamation that “the last time any of my relatives saw scientists telling them what to do they were telling them to go to the showers to get gassed.”
Eugenics was not a science, nor was it supported by science. It has a sciency-sounding Latin name which rhymes with “genetics”—but then so does “Athletics,” and nobody argues that Oakland’s professional baseball team is a branch of science. Eugenics was actually a social movement based on the tenets of animal breeding, whereby animals which display what the breeder considers inferior characteristics are prohibited from reproducing. This principle was applied to humans by several leading social philosophers, who suggested it might be good for our species to cull the mentally and physically handicapped. (Actually, Nick, do you know Chip Fortier? He co-wrote a screenplay on the subject; it was pretty scary.) Such breeding restrictions over unwanted members of a population (by force, separation, sterilization, or outright killing), whether for medical or ideological reasons, has taken place over many centuries and for many reasons, many well before the development of the scientific method. The fact that a handful of scientists signed up for it in the 1900’s is no more an indictment of science than a handful of racist gardeners is an indictment of gardening.
So I believe you have in that instance committed the fallacy of Cum Hoc, Ergo Propter Hoc, with a lesser dose of Guilt by Assocation. In any case, I hope you’ll grant my point on eugenics. If you have a better example, I’ll be glad to take a crack at it, but that one I have to say is flawed.
Furthermore, I’d argue (and this point is merely an opinion and, unlike a logical fallacy, debatable) that if you look with a historical eye you’ll notice that the more societies have come to embrace a scientific (evidence-based) worldview, the less likely they have been to fall for eugenics and other such damn-fool ideological crusades.
As for it being “only fair to also point out the excesses and foolishness of the knowledge-worshiping or narcissistic non-believers,” you make an excellent point. I’d talk about ’em if I knew any, but none come readily to mind. Outside of the fictional Faust, I can’t think of anyone who worships knowledge—and if they did, they would cease to be “non-believers,” since worship and non-belief are necessarily exclusive. Narcissism, however, I agree is worth condemning—but anyone can be narcissitic (and I should know it—I’m writing a publicly personal blog, for goodness’ sake, which is inherently self-aggrandizing!) but in such a case its the narcissism that’s the problem, not the belief it stands in service of. I dislike dogmatic thinking wherever it appears—a few months ago I read an atheist’s blog and he made a moronically irrational comment just to get a knock in against religion, and I posted a rebuke. But I have to admit I think it’s harder to find irrational statements on behalf of reason than irrational statements on behalf of faith—and yes, maybe it’s merely because people of religious faith so vastly outnumber those without. However, I myself believe it’s also because many more atheists arrive at that position via critical thinking than religious people do. For every CS Lewis (a famous deep-thinking religious apologist) you will find a thousand who are merely followers due to parentage or emotional comfort. Whereas with atheism, I think the numbers would be reversed: for every thousand unbelievers who have deeply and critically thought their way into their position, you might find only one dunderhead who’s only an atheist because his parents were, or for emotional relief. (It doesn’t make sense to turn for emotional comfort to something which puts you in the nation’s most reviled and distrusted religious category. For three recent examples, see US Trust Lowest for Atheists, Arkansas, 5 Other States, Ban Atheists from Public Service, and Atheist soldier sues Army for ‘unconstitutional’ discrimination.
I guess what I’m saying is that while of course it’s quite possible, and there are cases of it, it is hard to be an atheist without first being a solid critical thinker. On the other hand, it’s easy to have faith without ever becoming one. The former rewards critical thinking, while the latter at best does not require it (and at worst punishes it). That’s why, even though it is indeed “fair,” as you say, to point out excesses of non-religious people, it is rarely because of their non-belief that they are behaving foolishly. So I don’t often find something there worth pointing out. Though this blog is new and I haven’t had much chance to do it yet here, I cheerfully point out foolishness wherever it occurs on non-religious subjects as well (see The Choice No One Should Have to Make and You’ve Got to be Shitting Me) and did so a lot more on an older online journal I don’t keep anymore.
Also, fairness does not require giving equal time to religious foolishness versus atheist foolishness if one occurs vastly more often than the other. In fact, fairness demands only that they receive coverage in proper proportion to their rate of incidence.
I should also point out that since this is a personal blog, not a news channel, I have an actual point of view I’m actively advocating and so have no obligation to advocate on behalf of its opposite. The fact that do so at all might in fact be considered a credit to my fairness, rather than my lack of airing contrary opinions in equal proportion being a strike against it. I actually think fairness is not so much about giving equal time to points of view one disagrees with, but rather being sure not to misrepresent them in order to advance one’s own. Fairness does not mean giving equal time to opposing views, it means that on those occasions when you do represent them you do so with intellectual honesty.
Anyway, thank you Nick, for giving me so much brain food to chew on. It may be boring to read, but it was fun to write!
By Cassandra February 25, 2009 - 3:58 am
Matthew, you drew me in with your facebook comment. How could I resist the urge to jump in the discussion regarding faith versus reason? I’ll be honest, I did not have the attention span to read the full length of your dialogue with Nick, especially your second comment as it was extremely long winded and bogged down in details, which seem to be a little off-topic. I’m a little tired, now, and its late at night, which doesn’t help. However, I read enough to put in a few intelligent comments for contemplation and discussion:
You love to talk about logic and logical errors, such as generalization. Yet, to be honest, you commit some of the same logical errors.
First of all, you seem to generalize all Christians into the category of people who lack critical thinking skills and blindly follow whatever is told/preached to them or whatever they read in an article, etc.. This may be true about some Christians, which is a shame because they can be easily deceived, however just because this is true for some Christians does not mean it is true for all Christians. Implying that it is, is generalization. I know my colleges taught me critical thinking skills and taught me that everything written is from the viewpoint and bias of the author. It is simply one idea or interpretation of what the author thinks the truth is, or perhaps it is just an opinion, or perhaps just a manipulation. What is truth, anyway? We could go on and on, back and forth, for a long time arguing what the Truth is; I’ll get back to this point later. A smart person will look at things from more than one side and then decide for themselves what the truth of the matter is, or what is more probably the truth. They will find other studies and read other opinions and will see what the majority think, but that doesn’t necessarily make it truth, either, just because a majority believe it. They will look at the evidence presented for the idea conveyed and decide which evidence seems most sound. They will look at the validity and reliability of the study. Many Christians possess such critical thinking skills.
Secondly, you seem to have many stereotypes, especially concerning “Christians.” Stereotypes are a convenient way of lumping together people with similar qualities, however, they leave out how these individuals within the stereotype may be indeed different from each other. For instance, you seem to lump all Christians into the same category as the “religious,” which indeed we are not. I, myself, am anti-religious and many of my fundamentalist, God-believing friends are as well. The truth is that there are many different types of Christians. I believe there is only one God, though. So I feel a need to clarify what type of Christian I am so communication can become more clear:
I consider myself a fundamentalist, Spirit-filled, evangelical Christian who believes that the Bible is true and is the direct words of God. I believe in the Father, the son, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit and believe all three are part of the same person. I believe God is a real person much like us, because we were created in his image, only he is perfect, always was, always is, and always will be. I believe God always existed and is the Creator of the world. I believe Jesus was/is the son of God, but that he took on flesh and became a man, so that He could be the sacrifice for everyone’s sins and so that people could have eternal life, and be set free from sin, depression, fear, poverty, sickness, affliction, addiction, and all that entangles; That he was the Savior of the World. I believe He didn’t just die, but that He rose again, and lives inside his followers, now through the form of the Holy Spirit. I believe the Holy Spirit is a person who lives inside the believers and talks to them and does good works through them, such as loving others, healing, setting free, etc. I believe He is like a helper and counselor and gives wisdom and revelation as well as comfort, joy, and peace. I believe God can be inside of us the same way he was/is inside Jesus, and that we can learn to yield our will and flesh so that we become more and more one with God. In this way, God can heal the sick and demonstrate his power through us. I believe religion is about rituals, laws and regulations such as what the Pharisees followed, but that Jesus came and died on the cross to abolish the law because nobody could live up to it. So we accept this gift of salvation through faith. This doesn’t free us to sin, but rather it frees us from the bondage to sin and gives us access into the mind and heart of Christ, which teaches us how to love others. I could go on, but this is enough clarification for now.
Side note: The problem is that many “Christians” do not love God full-heartedly, or put Him first in their life, and therefore, have not learned to walk in the Spirit, but continue to walk in the flesh which ends up hurting others, and thus giving Christians a bad name. They use God for a one-way ticket into heaven, but have no intention of submitting their hearts and minds, doing what he says to do, or really changing and becoming sanctified, which is the process of being more pure, holy, and loving. They also go by their own understanding of things, get caught up in legalism and religious rituals, and pass judgments onto others, all the while never taking the time to get to know who God really is or what the Truth really is. Christianity without a real relationship with God is nothing but fluff and garbage. There are many so called “Christians” out there who live just like that.
Now, I know you are opposed to the word, “Faith” because it cannot be scientifically proven. In your mind, faith and reason are opposite and are enemies to each other.
Webster defines faith as, “something that is believed especially with strong conviction.”
Reason is defined as, “a statement offered in explanation or justification” and “a sufficient ground of explanation or of logical defense ; especially : something (as a principle or law) that supports a conclusion or explains a fact.”
Who says Christians cannot be logical? In my opinion, both scientists and Christians/theologians all strive to know what the Truth is, but from different perspectives.
The universe is much larger and more expansive than the human mind can understand, however man has developed “theories” based on evidence from certain experiments or experiences. I love your comic strip about the scientific method because that’s exactly what it is. These “theories” change as man acquires more knowledge and “evidence,” but at best they are educated guesses based on what we think we know. There is a logical defense of the theory, based on what is observed.
Many Christians, likewise, develop what you might call “theory” about the truthfulness of the Bible and the reality of God based on the experiences and observations they have had with the real person God, which they rationally conclude proves His existence.
For example, you have a conversation with Joe and see Joe feed a hungry person. You conclude Joe is a real person. You’ve talked to him and seen him do such things many times before. You laugh and tell jokes together; he makes you feel better when you’re down; he has a lot of good advice to give. He is a good friend. Joe is a real person. You’ve experienced him before. You rationally conclude that he is a real person.
Am I real? Is there truly a Cassandra Donnelly? How do you know? Well, you know me and rationally conclude that I am a real person.
True Christians do not simply “blindly” believe in something that is not real to them, simply on Faith. Faith is definitely a large part of it, but there is also a very real experience that comes with it. Faith says that because these things I experience are true, the rest must be true also. Its very similar to theory which says that because this fact and that fact are true, then the whole theory must be true, too. There are very real facts in the Christian life, an alcoholic suddenly becomes set free and no longer desires alcohol. A very hateful, self-absorbed person gradually becomes more loving and eventually gives up a full time high-paying job in order to feed and minister to the poor over in Africa. These are facts. What accounts for the change? God. There is a very real thing called “evidence” and the Bible explains this as, “fruits.” There are fruits of the Spirit, i.e. love, joy, peace, kindness, long-suffering, gentleness, and self-control, and fruits of the flesh such as bitterness, hatred, discord, lust, jealousy, envy, strife, fear, etc. When someone follows God and allows God to change and sanctify them, then they begin to produce the fruits of the Spirit, however if they do not submit and continue to follow their own desires then they will evidence the fruits of the flesh. Now, such santification takes time, and just because a “saved” alcoholic relapses or a good Christian man falls into sin and decides to have an adulterous affair, does not make them non-Christians, however it means that those persons decided to follow their flesh and not God, even though they know who God is and believe in him. Perhaps they do not know God well enough, yet, because if they did, they would be so overwhelmed and secure in his love that there would be no reason to sin. The deciding factor would be if they decided to admit that their decisions hurt themselves or others and then repented, committed to allowing God to fully restore and change them. After all, Jesus died on the cross to save mankind just because the human is bound to mess up and fall into sin from time to time. However the person following God is going to change and become more loving, overall, despite a few failures here and there; they are not going to stay stagnant. This relationship with God is a two-way street just as in any relationship. God can only change a person if they allow Him. “Christians” who do not show love to one another do not prove that God does not exist, they simply prove that they do not know him or follow him very well.
Side note: Ok, Matthew I did read your entire blog, even though I got weighed down in the whole topic regarding string theory and eugenics which I know nothing about. I kind of skipped over or skimmed those parts because it kind of bored me. I’m not claiming to be scientifically minded or more intelligent than you, therefore there is no argument in this matter, but simply I am claiming to be a critical thinker which can find some errors in your own critical thinking skills. But the reason I ended up reading the whole thing was because I was looking for this,
“So if a scientist is wrong, science itself provides the correction. Vapours and humours were supplanted by spontaneous generation, spontaneous generation supplanted by germ theory, germ theory succeeded by a kaleiodoscope of theories regarding bacteria and viruses. The aether was supplanted by the vacuum, the vacuum by the cosmological constant, the cosmological constant by dark energy (with dark energy undoubtedly to be succeeded by something else). Each provided a better model of the world based on what we knew of it. And each time, scientists who believed in a certain theory fought tooth and nail to defend it, then completely abandoned it when the evidence was clear they were wrong. Those who did not were bad scientists. (Just like those who prosecuted witches with torture were bad Christians.)”
Particularly this sentence: “And each time, scientists who believed in a certain theory fought tooth and nail to defend it, then completely abandoned it when the evidence was clear they were wrong.”
This sentence implies that science and theory can be wrong. It is simply a rational conclusion based on evidence. The Truth of the matter is that our understanding of things changes over time as more knowledge, revelation, and evidence come in. It is the same with the Christian walk and our understanding of who God is. Both are based on rational evidence and experience. Both are in search of the Truth. I personally believe both Truths coincide as one, its just that science is limited by human understanding which is very fallible, so at this point in time they look like two very different things.
Here’s an example where science and faith share the same truth: positive affirmations. Scientists say that positive affirmations will build self-esteem and begin to generate positive energy which will most likely make the positive affirmation come to pass, if it is believed and acted on enough times. Many books are written on this subject. How to be successful, etc. It is the Truth. The Bible also declares that there is life and death in the tongue (Proverbs 18:21). The Bible also says that by words the world was created, “And God said, Let there be light and there was light (Genesis 1:3). The tongue has the power to create or to destroy. Whether or not it creates depends on faith. The tongue can just as easily destroy by saying curses, belittling, shaming, humiliating, verbally abusing, etc. Science has many studies which prove how damaging verbal abuse can be on the self-esteem. Both science and the Bible seem to agree. Life and death are in the tongue. That is Truth.
There are many other such examples, I named only one.
Another point, just because the article, “Proof’ David slew Goliath found as Israeli archaeologists unearth ‘oldest ever Hebrew text” failed to prove the actual existence of David and Goliath does not necessarily prove that it is not true. Failure to prove simply does not make something untrue; it just means there is not enough evidence yet to make a solid, reasonable argument. It very well could be untrue, however the possibility still exists that it could still be true. Example, just because I can’t seem to catch you in a lie, doesn’t mean that you are not a liar. (I’m not referring to you, Matthew, that’s just an example.)
That article chose poorly when using the word, “proof” because there was not enough “proof,” and it made the article come across as manipulative. However, the article merely pointed out a few facts, which supported the possibility that the David and Goliath story could be true. I think its important to make that distinction. I’m not sure how many “facts” we need before something can be proven true, since I am not a scientist, and “facts” often turn out to be “ideas” as science expands its understanding, but clearly we are all in agreement that the article did not present enough facts to prove anything one way or another.
I hope this rebuttal gave you both some good fuel for thought, and I welcome any further discussion/comments/arguments/validation/criticism from anyone.
By Pages tagged "faith no more" February 25, 2009 - 10:52 am
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By key February 26, 2009 - 8:16 pm
I’ll limit my comments for parsimony’s sake.
It is refreshing to see hear this sort of conversation, and I look forward to seeing how it plays out (if it continues).
There are fundamental assumptions (as it turns out, “fundamentals” are important in ways not obvious or comforting) that need to be straightened out. Reason, as you’ve construed it, assumes that truth is out there–somewhere–waiting for us to come upon it. If one (1) only believes what is true and (3) has to discover which is which, how do they know what the criteria for truth is?
In other words, how do we know that what we’re seeing is the truth?
I hate to argue in questions, so I’ll just come out and say it: at some point, we have to make a leap of faith at the most fundamental of levels. A scientist can accept that her theories map onto–or represent–the natural world, or they can accept that her theories only represent predictable phenomena (Niels Bohr’s view, if I recall). Each of these possible foundations are directions to different views of science entirely. It seems futile to “prove” that one of these foundations is more “true” than the next. We simply have to believe what makes the most sense for the moment and build on top of it until the bottom falls out. This is the scientific me
thod that I’m used to.
To live our day-to-day lives, we have to accept something that we cannot justify: the sun will rise tomorrow, there is an external world, there is a God. Perhaps that last one is a leap for many of us–I’m not a theist in any traditional sense–but it is worth saying that God can be one of those foundational beliefs. It precedes evidence for many. It’s not surprising, then, that God is found in cheese sandwiches and wood-grain patterns.
I do believe it is a mistake to count any-old-thing as evidence for God, and soI agree with all of you on that.
By Traveling Matt February 26, 2009 - 8:16 pm
You know, for someone who skipped over large parts of the post and prior comments, you sure had a lot to say about them! 😉
Now I love you dearly, Cassandra, and while we’ve often disagreed on matters of faith, I’ve always appreciated that it hasn’t kept us from respecting and caring for each other personally. So I hope that once again where I disagree with you I won’t offend you by saying so.
To start off with, I have to admit I think it’s a little sneaky for someone religious–someone who prays regularly, believes in the literal truth of the Christian bible, attends prayer meetings, participates in a church and/or ministry, refers to the Trinity (without calling it that name), believes God heals the sick, seeks to rigorously follow the teachings of a 2000-year-old rabbi, and adheres to a religious book–to then turn around and say she is NOT religious in order to sidestep a criticism.
So thanks for informing me about your preference, which I can appreciate–but in the spirit in which I used it before knowing your preference, it clearly still applies. Even Buddhism, the followers of whom are not the least bit religious, is called a “religion,” because you’ve got to call similar things something!.
It is true, as you say, that stereotypes are a “convenient way of lumping together people with similar qualities.” Categorizing for convenience is what all language does by necessity, and is not the same as stereotyping, which is unfairly categorizing for convenience. To accuse a fair generalization of being an unfair one is to mischaracterize it. I used the word in good faith, assuming the reader would respond to my arguments rather than my specific wording, so I did not bother to define it. Nonetheless, I did not mean to offend you by using it. If I did so, I apologize. This is precisely why many people use the word “theists” rather than “religious,” and though I think it’s an aesthetically displeasing word, perhaps I use it more often from now on.
By the way, since I’m the one who doesn’t believe in God, I think it’s ironic that I don’t consider myself “anti-religious” and you do!
“You love to talk about logic and logical errors, such as generalization.” Yeah, I guess I’m starting to, eh? “Yet, to be honest, you commit some of the same logical errors.” Naturally–we all do, after all. I do try to correct them, however!
“A smart person will look at things from more than one side and then decide for themselves what the truth of the matter is, or what is more probably the truth.” Even more importantly than this, a smart person will refrain from doing so when he or she doesn’t know enough about the matter to decide. That’s the real test for smartness. Or at least the most overlooked! Read this awesome article for what I mean. I think there’s an overabundance nowadays of people deciding for themselves what the truth is about things just because they listened to both sides, only one of which–or sometimes neither–they actually understood!
“Many Christians possess such critical thinking skills.” I never said they didn’t.
“You seem to generalize all Christians into the category of people who lack critical thinking skills.” Again, since I never in fact did that, I don’t see how I could have avoided seeming to you like I did. I merely point back to the entry itself. For example, what I actually said was, “While of course it’s quite possible, and there are cases of it, it is hard to be an atheist without first being a solid critical thinker. On the other hand, it’s easy to have faith without ever becoming one.” I don’t know where you perceived the gross generalization, let alone the accusation in particular against Christians, whom I never once named except to defend them against being lumped in with witch-burners.
On faith vs reason: Once again, this is a semantic quibble. If a scientist says “I have faith that this new satellite will prove my hypothesis correct,” he doesn’t mean it in the same way as a woman saying “I have faith that Allah will protect my children.” I think it’s pointless to cherry-pick one out of dozens of dictionary definitions from Webster’s in order to contradict something I said, when that’s obviously not the definition I was using. We cannot argue constructively if we are not both doing so in good faith. (Which, by the way, uses yet another definition of the word. 😉 ) I repeat my exhortation that in order to have a reasonable argument one must represent with intellectual honesty the opposing view.
You also make some statements about the universe and the existence of God, which I’m not debating here and leave it up to readers to make up their own minds about.
What I am addressing here is stuff like the tendency of theists nowadays to put words like “theories” and “evidence” in quotation marks. For bystanders reading this blog: whenever you see someone do it, it’s often a good sign that they either do not know the scientific meaning of those two terms (which I know Cassandra does) or are looking to sow some doubt about their weight and value. A scientific theory is not a “guess,” as Cassandra has described it. It is one of the most excruciatingly difficult things to arrive at, and in order to earn the moniker, a theory has to stand up to an onslaught of validation, substantiation, review, extensive factual and experimental corroboration, repeatability, and confirmation of specific prediction. A scientific theory is not a theory the way it’s used in everyday language, and likewise scientific evidence is not the same as evidence for everyday opinions. If compared to school students, everyday “theories” (the kind that DO belong in quotation marks) would be in elementary school, where scientific theories must graduate in the top thousandth of a percent of their class at Yale. To say a scientific theory is “just a theory” is like calling an aircraft carrier “just a boat.”
“Is there truly a Cassandra Donnelly? How do you know? Well, you know me and rationally conclude that I am a real person.” That’s not why I conclude that. If I knew you but nobody else did, I’d have doubts. If others insisted you were twenty feet tall, or said you weren’t in the room when I was sure I saw you standing right in front of me, or said you were ugly when I know for a fact you’re a very pretty woman, then I definitely would start to doubt both your existence and my sanity.
“…science and theory can be wrong. It is simply a rational conclusion based on evidence. The Truth of the matter is that our understanding of things changes over time as more knowledge, revelation, and evidence come in. It is the same with the Christian walk and our understanding of who God is.” Firstly, of course theories can be wrong. That was my point. Secondly, you were sneaky again and just stuck “revelation” in there in between “knowledge” and “evidence” as if a) it’s an actual method of obtaining new information or b) scientists gave a crap about it. So, no, that’s not the same thing as Christians. Science is the OPPOSITE of revelation. Personal experience is irrelevant except as a component of a large body of evidence, in which it receives only the value it deserves–which is usually not much. And before you make a philosophical jab about how it’s all ultimately personal experience, scientific proposals require extensive validation and exact replication by other researchers before being accepted, and must make specific verifiable predictions about the world which are then either confirmed or refuted. If even a single experimental result contradicts the other evidence, it must be examined and accounted for, and has been known to overthrow an entire paradigm, no matter how inconveniently so. How, then, would a devout Mormon believer, convinced by personal experience, possibly account for the existence of a devout Muslim who had his own experience just as personal and exactly as real? They are mutually exclusive–yet neither yields.
“Scientists say that positive affirmations will build self-esteem and begin to generate positive energy which will most likely make the positive affirmation come to pass, if it is believed and acted on enough times.” Well, as I agreed with Nick about, there are dumb scientists out there. Some of them are quoted in movies like What the Bleep Do We Know, usually talking about other discplines they have no expertise in, leading to comments like this on blogs by people who think that’s what scientists actually say. For the most part, what you just said is just as much a myth as Nick’s assertion that string theory is undisputed. What science actually says is that emotional states affect healing and body chemistry (and vice versa). How is still being explored. Psychologists have plenty to say about self-esteem and its value in a person’s success and well being, but this is not a hard scientific principle and the myriad physiological processes by which mind, body, and emotion interact are still being unraveled, with quite a long way yet to go. Science makes no claim like the one you just attributed to it. “Positive energy” means nothing in science.
“That article chose poorly when using the word, ‘proof’ because there was not enough ‘proof,’ and it made the article come across as manipulative.” I’m glad you agreed with my point. Forgive me if I inferred incorrectly, but when you go on to say, “the article did not present enough facts to prove anything one way or another” it sounds like you are saying essentially “we do not know enough to say”–which I think lets the article off the hook way to easily. Because we DO know enough to say that the headline was outlandishly inaccurate, the portrayal of events was foolishly biased, and the public reaction to it and other shoddily-conceived articles like it tends to be far too permissive when it touches on topics held dear by religion.
p.s. – thanks for dropping by my blog–I love you quite a lot even though I haven’t seen you in a long time!
By Nick Savides March 12, 2009 - 2:47 pm
Yes, it took me a while to respond about a post dedicated to my response. It isn’t every day that others write a post about me, so it is an honor, but you know with the downturn economy being what it is, I am out and about knocking on doors to get my own stimulus funding going. I call it free enterprise. I know, it’s a crazy (maybe even racist?!) concept in this too-big-to-fail kind of world, but hey, I do what I can.
Anyway … my point was not about scientists in general, but about how even science with its sentiment-free reliance on knowledge and reason can lead to a similar kind of foolishness that you like to mock in religion when it sours into something toxic.
In earlier generations, we were much more aware of how focusing on science too much could have negative effects. Hence the Frankenstein story and the idea of the mad scientist. Now days as a society we’ve moved away from that kind of thing and insist on teaching facts rather than ethics or virtue. For example, in the past people would read Plutarch to learn about the character choices of great men. Now the emphasis is on studying Plutarch to learn the facts of the historical people for sake of knowing the facts, to throw them out in a grandiose manner at a dinner party perhaps. (Yes I’m generalizing to make a point, but I think you can agree that we are much less interested in teaching character in general than prior generations.)
But, science does not address everything that is worth knowing. For example, I trust and respect you, to some extent at least, not because of your stellar grasp of reason and philosophy but because you’ve demonstrated occasional moments of decency and courage. (That you’ve managed to do this as an aspiring actor and filmmaker is all the more impressive. As you and I both know, actor and decent person are not always synonyms.) If the only thing that mattered to me was the scientific method, then I would have to place more value on your ability to prove a position and less value on your ability to convey (occasionally and perhaps unintentionally!) admirable character traits to which I respond on a more intuitive level.
If it is not entirely clear by now, my view of the world is much more in line with the Romantics than with the rational-minded fact talkers who so dominate academia these days. Science is good at discovering some things but not so good at discovering everything. For the big decisions, I do trust my feelings, Obi-Wan Kenobi, but I’m not talking about the tempestuous and fickle sentiments of the moment, but the deepest inclinations and whispers of my heart. (That’s right: I’m ending with a Star Wars reference, and I make no apologies for that!)