Trying Street Epistemology

Last friday after the office, I went through a shopping street on the way to a good restaurant, for some baked cheese.

A little detachment from a group missionary project was preaching about the prodigal son. I listened for a while, partly out of sentimentality (I know the group from way back), but also because I really like to discuss religion. Nobody approached me, and the sermon was boring, so I moved on.

A guy followed me and asked to talk to me.

He was very polite, to the point of sweetness, very honest, very thoughtful, and had not a bit of that dreadful arrogance that some religious youngsters tend to display when they think they found The Truth.

So I exercised a little bit of what I know from Boghossian's "Manual For Creating Atheists".

It was an interesting and weird experience. On the one hand, I guess you can plant some seeds of doubt in someone's head, which is obviously a good thing. But on the other hand, I ran into a severe case of bite inhibition. That guy was 18, 20 years old. I have it all thought out, time and time again, read about it, listened to talks and debates, written about it. It's just so easy to get a guy like that stunned, stuttering, unable to give a coherent answer. It's almost unavoidable, if you grill him too much.

Of course he had seen my funny walk. Of course he told me about some prayer, where he had prayed for someone and that person was healed. Of course I know the fallacies behind that. Of course I know that memory is a creative act, and anyway it's not proof of anything.

I had him talking about his epistemology, asking how we could distinguish between good and reasons for believing something. He was off his script, and he didn't have all the answers laid out. He had to think.

All of this is good.

But still...

I don't want to do that. I want an honest debate. I want to be on equal footing. I want someone who can stand up to me, challenge me, make me think. I can't have that if my interlocutor just has no chance, due to age and experience and years and years of education.

So I left. I politely refused his offer to pray for me, and we parted ways.

Are Atheists Mentally Ill?

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/seanthomas/100231060/are-atheists-mentally-ill/

This article, aptly titled "Are atheists mentally ill", informs us that, while nonbelievers are more intelligent than believers on average, they're also leading miserable, short lives spent in agony and depression. The article culminates in the claim that atheism is a form of mental illness, the implied conclusion being that one should start believing.

Now, like many commenters to that article, I sincerely do hope that the article is meant as satire. After all, the same site also features a rather clever article explaining why you can't use statistics to show that one individual person is more or less intelligent than one specific other person.

There is a lot to say about why such statistics are extremely dubious, my main contention being, as I've mentioned before, the suspicious absence of the standard deviation. There is also the issue of isolating one variable - faith vs non-faith - from all the others: In a culture where faith is accepted but atheism is not, of course atheists have good reason to be less happy than their religious friends; if you're more intelligent, it might imply that you see more clearly the evils in the world, therefore being unhappy, while at the same time intelligence might correlate with atheism (but not necessarily imply it); etc. etc.

And of course, every time someone mentions "a vast body of research", the dirty smell of a fish market on speed rises to the heavens.

The absolutely hilarious twist, though, is this: if you ask the question whether god exists, then "faith makes you happier" does not answer that question. If we were living in the matrix, controlled by machines, and the real world was a gehenna of destruction and chaos, then my belief in the illusory world created by the matrix does not change that fact. God either exists, objectively, or he doesn't. I I want to know the answer either way, both in case of the matrix and regarding god, even if the truth might make me extremely unhappy. Because, you know, if I don't know it I can do nothing about it.

No, faith is not a virtue, and trying to align one's worldview with actual reality is not "a tragic deficiency". It's merely an attempt to be honest. It's a form of humility strangely missing in those who place so much emphasis on following that most humble of godsons.

I don't get how people can believe that arguments like those are convincing.

It's not even about me defeding atheism against da evulz christians. I'd have exactly the same contentions with statistics biased in favour of atheism. (Only, somehow those rarely ever show up on my tiny screen. Probably because atheism really is inferior. Or because atheists are not stupid enough to even try...).

As I said, I hope that the article is satire. But I'm fairly certain it's not. And even if it were, for every Poe  there are a hundred people subscribing to such b.s. in sanctimonious, ernest sincerety. And that is just sad.

Job, interpretations, and jobs

Seth Andrews posted the following image on his facebook page today:

Christians will love to inform you that this is not the point of the story.

The point of the story is that god will reward you for keeping your obedience and faith in face of severe obstacles.

Personally, I think that one point of the story is that being good is not a ticket to a good life, and that life is simply unfair - I can well imagine that the reconciliation part was added later on. (Most theologians agree that the wager part was a later addition - there seems to have been some uneasiness about the whole oeuvre even in biblical times.) Or that it was not even meant to have a message, and was just an attempt at reflecting the relationship between the law, god, and human freedom.

After all, Job seems to have been written around the same time as such ominous books as Kohelet, Ruth, and Song of Songs. Those books don't seem to quite fit in with the rest of the Old Testament - to me, they always seemed to portray a somewhat deviant, reflective, almost rebellious attitude toward the law, the society of Israel, and all too self-assured righteousness.

But stories like that simply do not have one, and only one, correct interpretation. You do not write a story to make a point, and when someone then points out that there are other points to it that you didn't intend, you steadfastly deny it. I'm sorry, but that's just not how storytelling works.

Homer probably didn't intend us to read Odysseus as an opportunistic prick who had his fun outside of marriage for a while and was not all too unhappy about all the obstacles the gods threw at him (he did actively choose to listen to the Sirens, remember?). But heck, that interpretation is valid, and how!

Much the same way, the prodigal son can be read as a failed coming-of-age story. This one has always bugged me - it seems the superhuman grace of god can only ever be expressed in terms of unfinished or thwarted emancipation. Superdaddy will never let you go. He won't let you fly but he might let you sing. It doesn't sit right with me, sorry. It reeks of old wives' tales designed to instill fear and beat children back into obedience.

That multitude of meanings is there in every story. Of course, that's what makes a good story fascinating and captivating - but there is a price to pay: The author doesn't get to deny one interpretation just because it doesn't fit her original intention. Sorry, you should have written a different story then, or just plain told us what you wanted to say instead. Can't have your cake and eat it, too.

"God is an immoral monster" is part of the message of Job, regardless of whether the author wanted to say that or not. (And that message of obedience is, at the very least, morally dubious.) On a deeper level, of course, that's just what you get when you're an omnipotent being who created the world. It's unavoidable that bad shit happens, and god's outrageous and arrogant speech is nothing but the classic denial of a person in power who refuses to take up the responsibility for the mess they've made. Job shows us precisely what happens when people in power act like that: The subordinates suffer. We see that happening in offices and workplaces around the globe on a daily basis, and Job does a terribly good job (npi) of presenting god as the ultimate uncaring, antisocial villain.

And who knows - maybe that WAS the original intention, after all?

"Faith And Reason" (a letter to Fr Robert Barron)

Dear Mr Barron,

this is probably the first in a series of open letters to you.

Why you?

Simply because you turned up in one of my youtube binges one fine day, you openly perform evangelist and apologetic work as a priest of the roman catholic church, and so I tend to disagree with most of what you say. I dig debates, so I started asking questions on your channel.

Now, you have long ago banned me from that channel, so I can't ask any more questions there. So I'm doing it in my own blog instead.

In your video about "Faith and Reason", you quote Thomas Didymus and Thomas Aquinas as examples for the roman catholic church welcoming questions. "After all", I hear you say, and I paraphrase, "Thomas Aquinas asked whether god exists. If that question can be asked within the church, so can any other question."

I find that a bit ironic. After all, what do those two Thomases have in common beside their name?

Assuming that Thomas Aquinas' answer to the question whether god exists was an emphatic negative, a deeply convinced "NO" -- would you still be quoting him? Chances are, no.  He wouldn't be a "saint" of the roman catholic church. He wouldn't even have lived long enough for that. He would be a sidenote of history, yet another victim of the church's welcoming way to deal with people whose questions, and more precisely whose answers to those questions it dislikes.

No, I do not bring up ancient issues to damn the church. It wasn't me who started quoting Aquinas here.

In other words, my suspicion is that the church, and -- as far as you represent that church -- you, Mr Barron, welcome questions and rational discourse just as long as the answer is exactly the one you like. Yes, one may ask whether god exists, or whether Jesus is the messiah - as long as the answer to both is a loud and clear "yes".  And that seems patently absurd to me. Correct me if I'm wrong...  You strike me as an exceptionally intelligent and learned man, so I wonder what your answer to that might be.

You then move on to talk about Faith being "suprarational, surrender from the far side of reason". And then at the core part of your video, you make a very odd switch... suddenly, the juxtaposition is not about Faith and Reason, but about Faith and Rationalism. You say:

"Is it wrong to question - no. But is it wrong to be so aggressive in one's rationalism that one wants utterly to control the situation - yeah. That's a problem. Cause you'll never get god that way with our grasping, self-asserting minds."

Let me repeat that one more time: CAUSE YOU'LL NEVER GET GOD THAT WAY. Something is wrong because it doesn't lead to the answer that you have already set up to be true. I think that this is a very interesting slip there.

What exactly do you mean by "rationalism"? The textbook definition is "any view appealing to reason as a source of knowledge or justification." That can hardly be what you mean.

See, what I don't get is this odd pairing of rationality and "controlling the situation". It's not like you're the first one to come up with that.  It's an old stock item from the staple of religious apologetics.

Of course, I can only guess what's actually meant by that term. Usually, it tells us something about a person's behaviour in their social relationships. A guy can control the situation by not listening to his girlfriend, by putting words into her mouth, by applying manipulative language or plain old violence. But that's not the context of your video. The context of your video is you trying to set up Faith as a valid source of knowledge or justification. It is trying to show that there are things beyond reason. There is no relationship there. It's a question of facts -- either things do exist that are not to be explained by reason, or not. And the burden of proof is still on your side, of course.

Actually, let me submit an alternative view: Contrary to being a form of self-assertion and control, adhering to reason is a form of submission.  In adhering to reason, e.g. by calling myself a skeptic, I submit myself to a set of well-known, well-defined rules. If I then move on to violate those rules, you can call me out on that. If my syllogisms don't work, or my premises are doubtful, or I show no evidence for my claims - you can criticize me. I may grumble and grouch, but ultimately, I cannot but accept that you're simply right. That's the beauty of reason -- it is universal and takes no sides.

I fail to see how that is "controlling".

Where is the same form of submission in Faith? In Faith, you cannot criticize the sacred doctrines. In Faith, there is no way to have a debate, to amend one's views, to get a better understanding of reality.

Is it not the case that, contrary to your position, Faith is the ultimate form of control? In Faith, you get to choose what you want to believe, and ain't nobody gonna take it away from you, ever. There is simply no way, based on Faith, that I could convince you of anything.  You control the situation much, much more than I do. It's you who ban unwanted commenters, not me. (I'm not butthurt about it, I just made the experience that it is rather symptomatic for apologists.)

But let's not end it here. I know that your reply (in a purely metaphorical sense -- of course you won't ever honor me with an actual reply) will be along the lines of, "that is not what I mean by Faith.  That is not True Faith." And beside the obvious No True Scotsman there, I actually agree.

Let me submit yet another little proposition here: Faith is the position that there is something beyond reason. We cannot hope to falsify that.  But we can safely say that there is no reasonable way to talk about whatever is "there", beyond reason.

I think that you, and your church, completely and utterly fail in going all the way. And that's what we need to do: GO ALL THE WAY. There is probably something beyond reason, and we cannot talk about it, so LET'S STOP TALKING ABOUT IT.

Yes, I do understand submitting to the transcendent. And I think that that is, to a part, what you're aiming at -- most probably it's something that every somewhat mature human being is striving for: transcendence. And of course, we're all failing at it, all the time. And that's okay.

The mistake I see is not having Faith per se; the mistake is having Faith IN SOMETHING. In a doctrine, a dogma. "God is a person", "God is love", "God thinks that premarital sex is wrong". All of those are speculations. Nothing wrong with speculations, but one shouldn't treat a speculation as a fact. (The same goes, of course, for "universal energy", "karma", "the law of attraction", etc.)

You cannot set something up to be beyond reason, and then move on to talk about that something as if you knew it.  It's having the cake, and eating it.  As I'm sure you're well aware after years of academic study in theology and philosophy, in order to talk about something you always need reason.

The mistake is, as I like to call it somewhat cheekily, falling for one's own bullshit.

The moment the roman catholic church stops falling for its own bullshit, and starts recognizing that it has no clue about god, or about Jesus, or about the trinity, is exactly the moment that it may become useful for humanity.

 With kind regards,
Skeptic Tantrika

The Münchhausen Trilemma, the First Cause and the Infinite Regress

This is yet another topic that I have put off for far to long. Initially, I wanted to make a youtube video on the topic, but it never came to be, so here it comes in written form, which is probably better anyway. It's going to be a long ride, please bear with me.

The Starting Point

One favourite argument of First Cause proponents is a reductio ad absurdum of the opposite. I get to hear it from theists, but of course you don't have to be a theist to put it forward (except in the strict philosophical sense, where god is simply the absolute, not necessarily a person or an intelligence).

The argument works something like this:

1. Every event has a cause.
2. An infinite regress of causes leads to an absurd result.
3. Therefore, there had to have been a First Cause.

The Reductio In General

A reductio ad absurdum is, of course, a valid form of argument - some go so far as to say that it's the queen of arguments. It works to exclude answers from the spectrum of possibilities. If an answer leads to impossible results, then that answer cannot be true. That's just simple logic.

This is not at all far-fetched or highly philosophical. Proofs of that nature occur, for example, in computer science, where it is customary to show that if a proposition were true, then it would solve the halting problem. Alan Turing proved that the halting problem is unsolvable, therefore the proposition in question is false. (If you suspect that I have a weird tendency to bring Turing into my articles, you're right. Read up on his biography - the guy was a genius, a war hero, an uber-geek, and a highly tragic figure. He committed suicide by eating a poisoned apple. No kidding.)

It's a way to rule out impossibilities - the Sherlock Holmes way of excluding impossible options so you can focus on those that are indeed realistic.

If you try to use this argument to prove one specific possibility, your success hinges on the following conditions:

1. The premises of your argument must be agreed upon.
2. Your argument must be consistent.
3. You must show that you have actually excluded all options except the one you're trying to prove.
4. The one option you're proposing must, itself, not lead to absurd results.

So let's have a look at the reductio argument for a First Cause to see whether it meets those criteria.

The Premises

"Every Event Has a Cause"

Can we agree that every event is caused by something else? At first glance, it certainly seems that way, as we would be hard-pressed to come up with an event of which we can show that it is uncaused. (As always in such discussions, I hereby make a sacred vow not to invoke quantum theory.) We know that everything is caused - we know it from our experience. Indeed, we know it from every experience that any human being ever had. That's an awful lot of experience!

Aye - but it's still experience. And that's a bummer.

It's called inductive reasoning. A synthetic proposition a posteriori, as Kant would have called it. What that means is that, while it seems extraordinarily probable that the next event we encounter will have a cause, just like all the events we encountered in the past, we don't know that for sure. We cannot be absolutely certain. We can predict, with almost 100% certainty, that it will be the case - but almost 100% is not the same thing as exactly 100%!

So, actually, no, we cannot agree on the first premise. Not to the degree that would be necessary for a point about the absolute, a priori, First Cause.

(Oh, and, by the way - if the First Cause caused everything else, where the heck did causality come from? If the First Cause caused it, then using it to prove the First Cause is, itself, circular. If the First Cause didn't cause it, then what caused it, and how can the First Cause be said to be... well... the First Cause?)

"An Infinite Regress Leads to an Absurd Result"

This is, obviously, the core of the argument. The logic here is pretty impressive and has fascinated me from my first adolescent forays into philosophy until now:

1. There is an infinite chain of cause and effect.
2. An infinite chain cannot be traversed.
3. In order to ultimately explain any given event (like, this moment right now), you have to traverse it's causal chain.
4. Therefore, you can never explain any event.

This is impeccable logic. For as long as I thought that ultimate explanations are a good and even necessary thing, it caused me lots of pain. Then I started to relax. Now I find it rather amusing.

Of course, on top of relying on causality being universal and absolute, this introduces even more premises that have to be agreed upon.

Sidenote #1: Is Causality a Property of Things?

It's an interesting question to ask yourself: What exactly IS a cause? When we say that B is caused by A, do we actually mean that B has an intrinsic property that can be called "is caused by A"? Is a cause a property of things?

I'd like to introduce a little example here. Picture a child throwing a stone at a window. Predictably, the window breaks. But what exactly is the cause of the window's demise?

• The child is the cause? That's one intuitively correct answer, of course.
• The stone? Yet another correct answer.
• The momentum that the stone put into the glass?
• The child's intention in throwing the stone?
• The child's brain's activity that represents said intention? (Note: it does not CAUSE the intention. It IS the intention, on a biological level.)
• The bad upbringing of said child by her parents?
• Society at large?

I'm sure that you can come up with a few more examples, some more useful than others. Some might even be comically absurd or mere esoteric hypotheses.

(And of course, you can put most of them into an order of temporary succession. Did I mention that causality is not necessarily temporal? I won't go into it here, it's a fun little riddle for long lonesome (k)nights.)

The point is, though, that you can invent any number of causes. Some are practical and some might be rather obscure, but they're still possible answers. Nobody can keep you from naming the air that the child breathed as one cause of the child's throwing the stone.

This may lead us to the hypothesis that causality is not simply an attribute of things. If it were, then how come we can come up with any number of possible answers to the simple question "What caused event X", all of which are equally true? If causality were a naturally existing, universal attribute of things outside our brains, then there should be exactly one answer to this question, and everyone should be able to agree on it (stupidity and willful ignorance aside).

I propose that causality is, at least partially, a result of human thought processes. Of course, our brains evolved to work in the real world, so most probably there is some kind of correlation to natural phenomena outside ourselves. But it is not fair game to simply call this outside factor "causality" and leave it at that.

Sidenote #2: Is Causality a String of Events?

In order for the original argument to work, causality must be thought of as a string of causation leading to the past. Picture it as a string of pearls put on a chain. A very long chain. Very, very long.

I think that this is an oversimplification. It is useful (and customary) to distinguish two different classes of causes: necessary and sufficient causes.

"The street is wet." - Well, it rained the whole day. That would be sufficient to explain the wet street. Since there were no other events to explain the effect, it is also its necessary cause.

On the other hand, picture a slightly more complex scenario: A wedding. It is highly recommended for the bride to be present. The same goes for the bridegroom, the priest, and the witnesses. On top of that, it's rather practical if they all agree to have a wedding, and if nobody shows up at the last moment to speak up now, rather than be silent forever. So we can easily say that every person's presence is a necessary cause (all of them, seperately), while the whole array of conditions together form the sufficient cause.

Ah-ha! It seems that there may be any number of necessary causes, and all of them together can be said to be the sufficient cause of an event.

So, if we look only at sufficient causes, then we do get our string back... or do we?

Remember the child from further up. The child had to throw the stone a certain way (necesary). The glass had to be there (necessary). The wind had to blow the right way and strength (necessary). Together, they form a sufficient cause. But every single one of those necessary causes depends on a new string of causation. It is not easy to see how this tree of causation would, at some point, magically collapse into one simple string that leads to one First Cause.

If causality were just a succession of pearls on a chain - shouldn't it then be trivially simple to point out the one cause that immediately precedes any given effect?

I'm not saying it's impossible. But it's yet another telltale sign that the idea of a string of causation leading back to the First Cause is just a bit too simplistic.

Sidenote #3: Do We Have Infinite Regress Anyway?

Furthermore, it seems to me that we can make up any number of causes in-between causes.

"The child threw the stone, and it caused the glass to break." - Yes, and in between this and that, the stone followed a certain ballistic curve. At about 1/3rd of its way, the wind moved the stone slightly to the left. So the position of the stone at this point, its momentum, and the wind, ultimately caused the glass to break. Yes, and about another 1/3rd from this point to the window, a bird flew by and caused pressure in the air, which moved the stone again. So ultimately, the bird caused the breaking of the glass.

See what I'm aiming at? At every single position along its way, it can be said that the stone's current position, plus its momentum, caused its further path.

Between any event and its direct necessary cause, you can always find another cause. Hypothetically, this goes on ad infinitum (again, not taking quantum mechanics into account).

It's a bit like natural and real numbers: Between any two natural numbers, there are always infinitely many real numbers. You cannot traverse them. You can only jump over them to reach the next natural number.

But if that is the case, then it doesn't matter whether we have a First Cause at the beginning. Right between the First Cause and its First Effect, there was already an infinity of causal relationships. We have an infinite regress anyway, always, regardless. So the First Cause doesn't actually solve the problem. Instead, it introduces one more problem by setting up a dogma for no good reason.

Did We Cover All Options?

As stated above, if we want to use our argument from absurdity to show that our favoured option is true, we have to make sure that we excluded all possible options.

The Third Option: Circular Logic

As the title of this article suggests, there is at least one additional option that we have not covered.

In its classical form, the Münchhausen trilemma states that, on top of infinite regress or a first cause, you can always resort to circular causality. Of course, as we all know, circularity is a logical no-go. So is the infinite regress, and so is dogma. That's the whole point of the trilemma: All options are equally absurd.

But I'm aiming at something else here. I'm not exactly certain whether the third option actually is one. Neither am I convinced that it's not. And, reading a few articles about it, I get the impression that really, nobody is to certain in that regard. Circularity might be seen as a variation of the infinite regress, but there is also a point to be made that it's a variation of setting up an absolute. Or that it's a third, independent option. I don't know. And as long as there is no good argument to exclude any of those options, we cannot exclude the possibility that there is at least one more possible answer to the question of the ultimate cause. Maybe there are even more? How would you go about showing that such a thing is impossible?

Ironically, the official doctrine of the catholic church, which obviously opts against infinite regress and in favour of an absolute First Cause, is suspiciously reminiscent of the circularity variation: All existing things need sustenance, but god provides its own sustenance and is therefore absolute... or... circular... or... infinitely regressing... or... To me, this has always seemed a lot like an excuse. They don't want to put the absolute First Cause right in your face, but they want to set it up anyway, so they invent something like an "additional realm of being", in which circularity is somehow allowed.

So, Do I Propose An Infinite Regress?

Short answer: no. I cannot stress this enough. My dear friends on the theist side always seem to get this wrong, pretty much regardless of what I say. I am not proposing that an infinite regress is a good solution. I concur that an infinite regress leads to an absurd conclusion. But I also state that setting up any one "thing" (i.e., god) as an absolute First Cause cannot save us from the anxious question of what caused it. And of course, circularity doesn't help us either.

I think it's an unsolvable problem. And I think that there is a very good reason for why it is unsolvable.

If Causation Is Not A Property Of Things, What Is It?

I think the answer lies in the fact that causation is not a property of things. We should treat it more like part of our model of the universe, rather than like part of the universe itself. A highly successful part of this model, mind you - but still, the model is not the airplane.

That way, we can opt for either one of the three options, depending on what is more practical in a given context.

For example, with regard to societies and human interactions, a somewhat circular approach is probably more than appropriate: Complex systems of interactions looping back to their causes.

With regard to classical Newtonian physics, of course, linear causality makes perfect sense: the ballistic curve is strictly deterministic.

I don't have an example for where it's useful to use a dogmatic First Cause. I'm hesitant to say it, but it might actually make sense in cosmology. It's perfectly okay to say that your model of the whole universe is based upon a First Cause, simply because it may be rather practical to do so - as long as you don't think that you're actually talking about actual properties of the universe itself, there is no issue with that.

Of course, there is probably a very good reason for why we don't seem to find the answer to Münchhausen's trilemma: Causality may be hardwired right there in our brain. The reason for that being that it just works great within nature. (Now we're close to circularity.) The reason for that being that there is a correlate of causality in the universe, which itself has no reason at all. (A dogma!) Or which is caused by something else which we haven't discovered yet, which is caused by something else which is caused...

Summing It Up

So... after all this long-winded talking, here's the executive summary of my contentions:

1. Causality is only derived from experience.
2. Causality is not necessarily linear.
3. There may be infinite causes between each pair of cause and effect.
4. Causality is not a property of the universe, but rather of the way our mind works.
5. All answers that we can give are equally unsatisfying.
6. There may not be an ultimate answer.

If you enjoyed this, you might want to take a look at the addendum here.

Empathy, Reason, Presuppositional Apologetics

The following are very rough, and partly speculative, outlines of how I see empathy, reason, their interrelations, and what kinds of conditioning can overshadow one or the other. As one major example, I show how Presuppositional Apologetics serves as a mind-trick to block out those basic human capacities by way of circular logic and self-referential tautologies.

There are two major basic tools to help a human being connect with another human being: reason, and empathy.

1. Empathy as a visceral tool of connection

We use empathy to understand each other on a non-intellectual level.

We don't need to agree on anything in order to be able to empathize. Using empathy, we realize on a visceral, rather than an intellectual level, that we are all just humans, that we all suffer, that we all desire and love and hate and want our basic needs met, and have the same rights.

When I see a beggar on the street, my empathy triggers - it's not even voluntary. Sure, conditioning and thinking can interfere with empathy, can add a layer to numb it out, and it's sadly necessary to have that additional layer in a modern city where I encounter several beggars each day. In a similar way, the butcher cannot afford to empathize with the pork, and the surgeon cannot empathize with the person on whom she is performing open heart surgery. They have to habitually suppress their empathy with regard to their working material - otherwise, they simply couldn't do a good job. But that doesn't change the fact that there is an involuntary part in my brain going beep-beep, fellow human in trouble. (This is, of course, a hugely oversimplified example - in reality, a lot of unconscious factors play into this, such as the beggar's attractiveness, gender, age, etc.)

It is a capacity deeply ingrained in our brains, and rather astoundingly, it even extends to other species. I can totally empathize with my cats when they meow for their daily fix of Whiskas(R), even though they probably won't agree with me on climate change, or nuclear power, or atheism for that matter.

Interestingly, empathy doesn't seem to extend so much to slugs, snakes, poisonous spiders or the HI virus. It seems that the more removed from humans a species is on the tree of evolution, the less empathy it gets. To take it even further, I don't think anyone really empathizes with a rock - or with 2004 MN4 "Apophis", the asteroid who will probably hit earth in 2036, for that matter.

It is not a "perfect" tool, it is more like an axe than a razor. As such, it is a perfect example of a trait acquired through millions of years of evolution. (And that is also why every metaphysical, religious view of "love" as a superior aether or gift will always fail - it simply is not that.) But it is the best thing we've got for this very specific purpose - to help us connect with each other, and with our environment at large.

2. Reason as an intellectual tool of connection

We use reason to understand each other on an intellectual level.

And here, too, there is a large involuntary part. A trivial classic syllogism can show this: Once you've accepted that I'm a human being, and that all human beings are mortal, you will have a hard time not seeing that I am mortal.

Sure, you can deny it. And there are definitely circumstances that will keep you from seeing the obvious. But, in the absence of those circumstances, I bet that you cannot help going along with correct logic. (We can discuss whether this is an absolute, a necessary presupposition, or an arbitrary set of rules that just works, but that's beyond the scope of this article.) As soon as you have understood why time is relative, it is virtually impossible to convince yourself that it's not, regardless of how counterintuitive the concept seems.

The interesting part, of course, are the factors that can keep us from applying reason: If you're upset, if you have a strong emotion attached to the speaker, if what they say goes against your core beliefs, if you see it as a personal attack, etc.

The trouble is that reason is a much, much more fragile capacity than empathy. Maybe that's because we developed it way later in our evolution from happily floating cell to homo sapiens concerned with the stock index; and on a similar note, it's because reason is less visceral, and more intellectual - because it requires more neocortal activity, a.k.a., thinking - and thinking is hard work. (I'm not even being snide - spend a few hours on a complex philosophical riddle, and you'll see my point.)

But - as with empathy - reason, as fragile as it is, is the best thing we have to connect with each other intellectually.

3. Presuppositional Apologetics as an example of an ideology opposed to empathy and reason

When I watch a video of the likes of Eric Hovind debating an atheist, I cannot shake the impression that those people are not actually engaging in conversation. They seem to be running an automatic program, an autopilot in their head, listening out for a few keywords in whatever their proposed "conversational partner" says, and then spouting the canned answer that was drilled into them in their class on Presuppositionalism.

Now, sure enough, those "conversations" annoy the hell out of me, and they sometimes have me up in arms and annoyed and angry. And I can totally empathize with myself on that.

But ultimately, based on empathy and reason and the understanding they grant, I think I can present a fairly clear picture of what's going on here.

See, people like Eric Hovind have - for whatever personal reason, deliberately or by force - intoxicated their brains with an ideology that blocks it from its own capacities.

Just like alcohol or heroin, Presuppositionalism gives an empty and treacherous promise: the promise that, using it, you can win any debate with an atheist, any time, anywhere.

This promise is empty in that debates cannot be won - in most cases, people walk away having their own prejudices reaffirmed, instead of shaken. It would be interesting to see some stats here - christians, I dare you: When you look at bare numbers, do you actually see a significant surplus of lasting conversions in Presuppositionalist debates as opposed to Thomist ones? If so, I would have to retract that statement. I highly doubt that I ever will...

But the promise is also treacherous: What Presuppositionalism actually does, has nothing to do with apologetics at all. It does not actually have any effect on the brains of the "opponents", the atheists (except, perhaps, the effect of getting them rather annoyed) - but it does have a massive effect on the brains of its proponents, the very apologists who learn that stuff for better conversion stats.

Presuppositionalism starts off with a simple, and as such, innocent premise: The world can only be understood by presupposing god's existence. This is a neat speculation, rather fascinating if done well, and I would sure like to see it in a few pages of fiction à la "The Name Of The Rose".

The presuppositionalist will then venture to say that this assumption is not only one random assumption, but a necessary assumption. The necessary asssumption, in fact. In order to understand the world, it is not only necessary to assume god's existence, but it is also necessary to assume that it is necessary to assume god's existence. Are you confused? Good! Because that's the desired effect! Because if you're confused, it's even easier to tell you what to think.

Because that's not at all where it ends. Instead, it moves on to then forget that this was an assumption, and treat the assumption as if it were a given fact. All in the name of "overcoming the enemy", "being a good christian", "being a good defender of the faith", etc. etc.

It's a bait-and-switch maneuver, plain and simple. It is based on the fact that self-referential assertions can serve to reinforce themselves because trivial tautologies work as reinforcement and the self-reference helps to induce a comforting trancey feeling (in short, a trance). As another example, "The gospel is foolishness to the fools who deny it" serves to reinforce the truth of the gospel while neatly setting up a boogey-man that will further drill the truth of the message into your brain. That sentence does not, itself, set up the truth of the gospel in any way - but, if you're a believer, it makes you feel as if it did. Real-life Jedi mind trick FTW!

Once you've fallen for this trick, your brain simply shuts down. You were taught that you have to treat this assumption as necessary, in order to achieve a goal that is dear to your heart. And then the speaker just silently treats the necessary assumption as fact. And since you believed it anyway, you will lap it up like the cats do with their milk. And since, in all likelihood, you didn't receive any formal training in philosophy, it is terribly easy to overlook the subtle distinction between a necessary assumption, and a fact. You cannot question what you think is fact, and you keep telling yourself that you have to treat the assumption as fact, in order to achieve a goal that is dear to your heart. And then the speaker just silently treats the necessary assumption as fact. You cannot question what you think is fact, and you keep telling yourself... etc. etc.

It is not a trivial task to reason your way out of that trap, and I deeply admire everyone who has managed to do so. The matter gets further complicated by the fact that every religion contains an impressive number of circular statements, which seem to support each other, so it's easy to believe that the whole system is coherent.

3. Back to the roots

But what makes it outright evil is that it cripples your ability to connect with other people, be it emotionally or intellectually. I suspect that this is the main reason why it is popular - just as scientology's "personality tests" are not actually meant to fetch in new customers. Just as Jehova's Witnesses are not made to go door to door in order to gain followers. That may be a nice side-effect, but the real motivation is to keep the sheep in place: by facing the obvious hostility of nonbelievers, the believers become ever more convinced of their religion. By rendering communication with outsiders impossible, the hostility factor is amplified.

Nothing better blocks our ability to empathize, or to think straight, than an emotionally charged, self-referential system of thought. And that is precisely what Presuppositionalism amounts to: the explicit and implicit denial of reason. It is highly ironic to see that Van Till, the inventor of modern Presuppositionalism, designed his system because he was frustrated with traditional Thomistic apologetics - whose main tenet is that reason, as the common ground between the believer and the non-believer, is to be used as the basis for any attempt at conversion.

Seeing Eric Hovind in a debate, I cannot help pity him and other proponents of Presuppositionalism. They have succumbed to a brainwashing technique. They have removed themselves from the playing field. They cannot reach out to their fellow-men, and have to see people like me as fools, liars, enemies. They have to assume that I'm writing this in hatred, spite, with dark sinister motivations. They cannot read this and actually think about it - their brains will automatically go clickedy-click, atheist, doesn't know anything, has to be converted. Well-conditioned, they have reduced themselves to a state far below their own abilities.

I am deeply convinced that those people are actually intelligent, decent folks. As I said above, they're not evil - they're just intoxicated. You cannot trust a drunk person with a car, but that doesn't make them evil - they just shouldn't have access to your car keys, that's all.

All the more, I think it is important that we empathize and reason with those who have fallen into such intellectual traps. Not in a condescending way - those tricks can be played on basically anyone, including myself. But simply in the hopes that they can find back to their own powers, their own capacities, their own strength of empathy and reason.

Thunderf00t vs Kent Hovind at Reason Rally

At the recent "Reason Rally" event, well-known youtube atheist activist Thunderf00t was - umm, well - "interviewed" by creationist Eric Hovind, son of Kent Hovind.

I won't go into the details of how the conversation went down, as all of it has been covered extensively by others. (The following video is one example out of many.)

Suffice it to say that it was a textbook example of presuppositional apologetics, pre-planned and well-designed to make a scientist look bad, simply because the scientist tried to honestly answer questions that were by no means honest.

I think that episodes like this raise a more general question: Do I, as an atheist, want to engage in debates like that? Do I want to train strategies for "winning" those debates?

1. The issue of "winning"

To me, the issue of "winning" a debate is a rather weird concept.

Part of that weirdness seems to stem from cultural heritage. I have the impression that, in the anglo-american countries, debates are more or less seen as sportive events. There is a rich tradition of formalized debates there, that we continentals simply lack.

If you watch a "discussion" in an Austrian or German tv show, you will see 4-8 people talking past and above each other, while a rather desperate moderator tries to maintain some modicum of order.

An American "debate", on the other hand - say between Kent Hovind and Sam Harris - is a strictly formalized exchange of blows between two opponents in several rounds. The two participants are not, actually, engaging in communication with each other - they are performing a stage-play for the audience, much like the ongoing drama of professional Wrestling. And, of course, everybody goes home with the firm confidence that "their side" has won.

Call me naive, but I tend to think that discussions should be entered with an open mind and an open heart. I tend to think that discussions are an exchange of ideas that may or may not change my thinking. Ritualized exchanges of rhetorics and clever semantics designed to make the other party look like a fool simply have no part in a discussion like that.

Of course, I do not stand above the crowd. I do enjoy those shows just as much as any other dude.

On the other hand, it would be nice to see an actual honest discussion between a theist and an atheist, for once.

2. The resulting questions

The question resulting from all this is whether you, as an atheist, want to engage in public debates, recognize them as sportive events, and learn the strategies necessary for "winning". Thunderf00t clearly failed to do so. I cannot tell whether this was his conscious personal choice, or whether he conforms to the stereotype of "naive scientist" mentioned above.

And, of course, I cannot speak for all atheists.

I want to urge everyone to see that many apologists out there do engage in debate tactics. (I think there are  courses out there on "how to win any debate with any atheist, every time" or so.)

On the one hand, you can see debates as a sport, and train yourself to firmly keep the ball in your opponent's field, using deception, always attacking, repeating yourself until the other party gives up, and so on. It does make you seem like a winner. And it sure is a lot of fun.

On the other hand, you might choose to always try and be as honest as you can, in any debate.

In the latter case, I also urge you to ask yourself what to do when a debate like that comes up. It is perfectly valid to simply refuse to engage in it and walk away. You can choose to have the debate, but not in front of a camera (Thunderf00t clearly didn't have those possibilities - he had something to lose!). You may choose to have the debate, at a later point, in private.

If, however, you choose to engage in (public) debates with a schooled apologist, without having been schooled in counter-apologetics yourself, you will most likely be blown to pieces in mid-air. It's not a question of intelligence or quick wit. It's simply a question of having learned the techniques and being prepared to apply them without any regard for the other person's feelings, or for logic, rationality or really anything that could step in the way of "winning". It's a battle of egos, nothing more and nothing less.

Another possibility might be that we atheists have our own schools of counter-apologetics. These would then have to be actual practical courses, instead of mere lectures on logic. You do not learn rhetorics just from a lecture - you have to train that stuff, much like boxing, until it becomes automatic.

Personally, I would like to engage in a course like that. If not anything else, it should be a whole lot of fun!  I'm fairly certain that I would still like to avoid the actual debates, though, for reasons mentioned above. But it definitely can't hurt to be able to counter stupid rhetorics.

Enemies Of The Faith? Enemies Of Believers?

Dear Mr Rowan Williams,

It's easter time. Time of eggs, bunnies, and funny utterances by members of several ritualistic organisations.

For one example, there is this gem: "Guardian" Interview with "bishop" Rowan Williams, in which you are quoted as having a few very interesting stances about "new atheism" and its relationship towards your organisation.

Let me first say that I find it rather funny when a "bishop" of the roman catholic organisation demands a reasonable debate.  I don't want to bash you personally; after all, there is no compulsory sex demanded by law, and having no sense of style in clothing is your personal prerogative, but I cannot help a little chuckle at such an occasion.

I sure hope that you can share in my laugh, though, when I read a few sentences later that "resurrection is a fact".

I will not start to repeat arguments that have fallen on deaf ears for centuries now. I suggest a little experiment you can conduct for yourself in the peace of your living room: Say "reasonable", aloud, ten times. Now do the same for "resurrection".  Now combine the two - "reasonable, resurrection, reasonable, resurrection..." And now try not to laugh.

As I said above, apart from a little friendly teasing, I won't bash you personally.

You see, I think that we should heed the fundamental difference between a person and their beliefs.

In said article, you state that "faith [is] no longer seen as 'a brainless and oppressive enemy' but recognised as a potential ally against a greedy and individualistic way of life that feels 'increasingly insane'".

There are several major issues with that one sentence.

1. Enemies Of The Faith

Abstract: Mr Williams, I am not your enemy, even though I find the teachings your organisation represents to be nonsensical, unfounded and debilitating to the human mind.

First off, faith cannot be an ally or an enemy. We might count this off as just a figure of speech, a lapsus linguae. But the catholic teaching specifically states that Jesus of Nazareth was (and still IS!) "the way, the truth, and the life", and not in a merely figurative way. Indeed, the church's teachings, along with every other religious teaching, are full to the brim with metaphysical entities such as faith, sin, the messiah, the trinity - all said to be "real" in some way. Not simply a metaphor, an image representing something else - no, they're supposed to be real, actual entities. The essential wafer after transubstantiation, to name one of the more absurd ones.

So, seeing as you are an official of said organisation, we have to assume that you're not talking about teachings and logical structures, but about some etherial, hidden, mystical "entity". You are essentially saying that atheists are seeing faith as a metaphysical entity that they can ally with.

Now, of course, atheists can and will sometimes be exactly as unreasonable as theists. Merely recognizing the nonexistence of a deity does not a mature human being make.

Anthropomorphisation is one of the nastiest, most resilient scourges of humanity (as well as one of the most beautiful poetic expressions, of course). It is deeply rooted in our biological system (what you like to call "soul"), serves a few very fundamental purposes, and is an unfathomably dangerous weapon in the hands of demagogues and church leaders.

The good news is that we can educate ourselves not to fall into that trap. Thus (whenever I'm not simply talking tongue-in-cheek and having some teasing in good humour), I habitually make a point of distinguishing between a person and their ideas. You, Mr Williams, are, for all I know, a decent, loving, caring, intelligent, well-educated human being. I might be wrong, since I don't know you, but I'm happy to assume the best about people I don't know, until otherwise proven.

But that doesn't mean that I have to agree with anything you say.

In fact, the teachings of your organisation thrive on such human flaws. They are specifically designed to do just that. They are a highly sophisticated, intricate system of flawed logic - circular, adhominem, no-true-scotsmanesque syllogisms interwoven with invitations for identification, us-vs-them thinking, reification, hyperbole, guilt-tripping, double binds and simple denial - built upon each other and resting on unfounded assertions.

And that, Mr Williams, I see as a huge problem.

Try thinking that the church is the "body of christ", that christ died for your sins, that you are a labourer in the vineyard, and that someone is attacking this very body-church-vineyard-thingie by saying that christ's teachings are utter nonsense. And then try to stay calm. You'll have to be an iceberg to be able to accomplish that with any consistence.

2. An Ally Against A Certain Way Of Life

Abstract: Religious teachings are generally a hindrance, not a tool, for human development.

I agree that greed is bad. I fail to see any reasonable connection between the belief in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth on the one hand, and overcoming greed on the other hand. On top of that, I fail to see how being an individual, and being conscious of being an individual, have anything to do with being greedy. (The "individualism is bad" stance that the catholic organisation has adopted is deeply troubling in and of itself, but more of that later.)

In reality, compassion and rationality are the mental capabilities that can help me overcome my greed. Both can be trained using various methods, and those methods are available to atheists as much as theists. Some of those methods are described in this very blog. But ultimately, everybody has to find their own ways to deal with their shortcomings, and - apart from my own experience and a few informed speculations - I cannot offer any bulletproof system for overcoming vice; and neither can you. If you claim that you can, then please show the evidence.

Well and also, compassion and reality can be scientifically shown to be grounded in human biology - I fancy this as a slight, but definite advantage over a metaphysical overlord who sacrificed himself to himself in order to set humanity free from the punishment he himself imposed upon them in the first place.

If anything, the us-vs-them mentality endorsed by the christian gospels - as well as the catholic teachings purportedly grounded upon those gospels - serve to maintain one's greed while hiding it behind a mask of piety. Do I really need to mention the gold-and-silk escapades of your organisation as one very obvious example?

I will not venture to claim that christians are, on average, more greedy than atheists. But I challenge you to show, based on peer-reviewed academical studies, that people of faith are less greedy than us grim dark heathens.

In conclusion, every christian, hindu, muslim, buddhist, even scientologist can be my friend, and can be an ally in dealing with all the challenges we are currently facing - but that doesn't change the fact that I find the teachings of all those religions ridiculous, destructive and - well, simply plain old wrong.

I am looking forward to your reply,

With kind regards,
Betlamed the Skeptic Tantrika