One theme comes out in comments by some Muslims on recent programmes about Islam, "Why pick on Islam?"
I'm not a fan of any faith, given that they all have dodgy interpretations. But Islam seems to be at the centre of many faith conflicts. I just happened to catch a few recent episodes of BBC Radio 4's Beyond Belief.
Try these episodes, while you can:
07 Feb 2011 - Sunni/Shia Tensions - Islam v Islam
24 Jan 2011 - Ayodhya - Hindu v Islam
17 Jan 2011 - Egypt - Christianity v Islam
In addition to the victim question, "Why pick on Islam?", there's also the other element, of minimising the extent to which Islam is often interpreted in a violent manner, such as the persecution of apostates, as described in the 17 Jan episode.
Maybe Muslims feel they are the centre of criticism. But maybe that's because there is plenty to criticise.
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Showing posts with label religion. Show all posts
Tuesday, 15 February 2011
Wednesday, 9 February 2011
Anticipating Islamaphobia-phobia, Again
I think that sometimes those that criticise Islam are seen as Islamaphobes, as if they make stuff up about the extent to which homophobia exists in Islam; or about or how women are viewed; or about how kafirs are viewed; or about how kids are indoctrinated in faith schools; or about the political nature of Islam. As if there is no rational reason to be concerned about Islam, or the reluctance to criticise Islam.
I'll be interested to see what is shown in this programme, Dispatches: Lessons In Hate & Violence , beyond this clip.
Be prepared for the backlash of denials. It's happened before, here in 2007, where complainants managed to convince the police that Channel 4 had it wrong. It appears that if the religious make enough noise, if they can be offended enough, their voices will be heard. But, it didn't end there. There is, or was at that time in 2007, a distinct bias towards tolerating Islamic intolerance. As shown here.
It's not just police that are in denial. Every Islamist's favourite non-Muslim Brit, George Galloway, can be relied on to back them, no matter how vile they are. Here, from 2008, is his response to another dispatches programme that had similar evidence. The ridiculous GG doesn't get how biased he is here. GG seems to lose the plot entirely, and takes on the manner of a berating Islamist speaker. Does GG really think those investigated would say what was recorded under cover if it had been in the open? And GG has the nerve to lecture on interviewing, while making his own political speech. He's right of course, that there are extremist Zionists and Christians. Some of the crazies on the recent Louis Theroux story from the West Bank, and his reports on US Christians attests to that. But to use this to sidestep the points made in the programme on Islam is just bollocks.
I wonder if the new programme will help the government reconsider its position on faith schools. Sure, most faith schools won't be like this. But faith schools, indeed faith itself, facilitates this. Because faith, ultimately, relies on accepting stuff on authority. The ultimate authority may be claimed to be God, but in practice it's the authority of those that claim the authority to interpret the words of God.
And when a religion inherently advocates strong sanctions against those within the religion that criticise it, or against those that want to leave it, or against those that fail to meet its most stringent requirements, then that adds to the stranglehold it has on reason, criticism and scepticism. And when it uses the mechanism of taking offence to attempt to censor non-Muslim criticism of Islam, the results are fiery. I wonder what claims of Islamaphobia will emerge, and to what extent various non-Muslim organisations and individuals ignore the points made in the programme because of their phobia of Islamaphobia - heaven forbid that a post-modern liberal relativist give up their relativism for the sake of common sense and evidence.
So, I'll look forward to the responses to the Dispatches programme as much as the programme itself.
I'll be interested to see what is shown in this programme, Dispatches: Lessons In Hate & Violence , beyond this clip.
Be prepared for the backlash of denials. It's happened before, here in 2007, where complainants managed to convince the police that Channel 4 had it wrong. It appears that if the religious make enough noise, if they can be offended enough, their voices will be heard. But, it didn't end there. There is, or was at that time in 2007, a distinct bias towards tolerating Islamic intolerance. As shown here.
It's not just police that are in denial. Every Islamist's favourite non-Muslim Brit, George Galloway, can be relied on to back them, no matter how vile they are. Here, from 2008, is his response to another dispatches programme that had similar evidence. The ridiculous GG doesn't get how biased he is here. GG seems to lose the plot entirely, and takes on the manner of a berating Islamist speaker. Does GG really think those investigated would say what was recorded under cover if it had been in the open? And GG has the nerve to lecture on interviewing, while making his own political speech. He's right of course, that there are extremist Zionists and Christians. Some of the crazies on the recent Louis Theroux story from the West Bank, and his reports on US Christians attests to that. But to use this to sidestep the points made in the programme on Islam is just bollocks.
I wonder if the new programme will help the government reconsider its position on faith schools. Sure, most faith schools won't be like this. But faith schools, indeed faith itself, facilitates this. Because faith, ultimately, relies on accepting stuff on authority. The ultimate authority may be claimed to be God, but in practice it's the authority of those that claim the authority to interpret the words of God.
And when a religion inherently advocates strong sanctions against those within the religion that criticise it, or against those that want to leave it, or against those that fail to meet its most stringent requirements, then that adds to the stranglehold it has on reason, criticism and scepticism. And when it uses the mechanism of taking offence to attempt to censor non-Muslim criticism of Islam, the results are fiery. I wonder what claims of Islamaphobia will emerge, and to what extent various non-Muslim organisations and individuals ignore the points made in the programme because of their phobia of Islamaphobia - heaven forbid that a post-modern liberal relativist give up their relativism for the sake of common sense and evidence.
So, I'll look forward to the responses to the Dispatches programme as much as the programme itself.
Thursday, 28 October 2010
What Do New Atheists Actually Believe?
Discovery Institute has Michael Egnor asking this question...
And he has some specific questions...
1) Why is there anything?
2) What caused the Universe?
3) Why is there regularity (Law) in nature?
4) Of the Four Causes in nature proposed by Aristotle (material, formal, efficient, and final), which of them are real? Do final causes exist?
5) Why do we have subjective experience, and not merely objective existence?
6) Why is the human mind intentional, in the technical philosophical sense of aboutness, which is the referral to something besides itself? How can mental states be about something?
7) Does Moral Law exist in itself, or is it an artifact of nature (natural selection, etc.)
8) Why is there evil?
Well, here are my answers...
1) Why is there anything?
We don't know.
It's not that this question is nonsense, it's simply that we don't have access to the data that would answer it. From a philosophical perspective we have no firm response to the solipsist. The best we can do is say that what appears to be the case most forcefully to our minds and senses (given our senses might be an illusion of the mind) is that the material world is so convincing that we might as well use it as a model for reality until we figure out a better one that actually fits with those facts that the 'apparent' material world imposes on us.
For example, if we were entirely mental phenomena (or a single phenomenon) why can't we get past the apparent material death of another mind (or my illusion of another mind)? The material non-supernatural explanation fits this and many other problems so easily that it's a sufficient model for now.
The rest of the answers are given with respect to this point of view.
2) What caused the Universe?
We don't know.
So far we, and our instruments, haven't had physical presence far beyond our solar system, and in person not beyond the moon. So, all our observations of this universe are restricted to hypotheses based on remote (in time and space) observations. Some hypotheses have mathematical reasoning to lend them some weight. But really, we don't know.
3) Why is there regularity (Law) in nature?
We don't know. We'd need to resolve problem (2) to get any further with this. We observe regularities, but we can't explain them in any deep sense.
4) Of the Four Causes in nature...
We don't know.
This is philosophy going beyond the bounds of available or accessible knowledge and is more akin to theology.
Specifically, do final causes exists? Well, if we could answer some more questions on causality that would be a start. But then we come up against the same problem of accessibility of the data. And, the question isn't clear on meaning of 'final cause'.
5) Why do we have subjective experience, and not merely objective existence?
Given (1) this can only be answered in atheist materialist terms, and within that context the understanding of matter and how life is just a formation of matter in action, and from there on to evolution. I'll keep this short, but would be glad to expand on request.
All matter responds to interaction with other matter. Things bounce. At some basic levels we have explanations for this - such as the coming together of atoms of my skin with those of the table, where despite that fact that atoms are mostly space, the electric and nuclear forces stop atoms merging or flowing through each other.
Basic life is complex formations of matter. We still don't know anything concrete about the beginnings of life, abiogenesis, but the basic hypothesis is that early replicators began the process - try thinking of something like growing crystals, though even this seems an inadequate analogy. The problem with all of this, life, is that we only have life on this planet to examine, that the origins are in the distant past, and anywhere the same process began spontaneously it would be consumed by local chemical reactions or organisms.
Form there, simple single cell life forms react in very complex ways compared to simple elements and molecules - but their responses to contact with other inanimate matter and other living organisms is basically physical and chemical. They go around bumping into stuff, and when they do chemical reactions on their surfaces give rise to further activity.
Complex cells formed by the combination of different single celled entities - i.e. mitochondria. Complex multi-cellular organisms formed cohesive bodies and functionality was subsumed to different organs. In a soft celled multi-organ organism think of the combination like a turtle and its shell. The inner soft and delicate organs don't need protection from the environment if outer organs are dedicated to that task - e.g. skin.
So, at this stage we have complex systems, of which one component is a nervous system that co-ordinates activity for the organism as a whole. Not all organisms use this approach - e.g. plants. But there seems to be a relationship between the motor capabilities of the organism and the complexity of its nervous system.
Given that one aspect of the nervous system is to respond to the environment in order to direct processes in the organism, and to direct it's motion, required to find food, one natural outcome is that the organism should be able to detect itself. No point in eating your own arm is there. And this is the basis for self awareness, which most organisms have to some degree if they have a nervous system that samples the environment.
Mammals have multi-mode senses - sight, hearing, touch... And these need co-ordination if they are to be useful. The chicken egg answer is that complexity of nervous system and co-ordination of senses probably evolved together, each effecting the development of the other.
It seems a natural progression that when an organism gets to a certain degree of complexity this self-sensing can include sensing the very internal processes of nervous system itself. In us this isn't complete, since there's a big part of our sub-conscious nervous system of which we're not aware. But basically subjectivity is simply what it appears like when an organism senses it's own nervous system in action.
6) Why is the human mind intentional...
(5) pretty much answers this.
7) Does Moral Law exist in itself, or is it an artifact of nature (natural selection, etc.)
It's a subjective (see 5) conceptual product that has evolved in a social sense, but is based on biologically evolved feelings of empathy and sympathy.
See here for more detail.
8) Why is there evil?
There isn't, in any objective sense, any more than there is moral law (see 7).
Evil is simply a classification of behaviour that humans typically ascribe to the behaviour of other humans.
Sometimes it can be conflated with suffering generally, such as the as a consequence of natural disasters, but that notion is only the concoction of those religious people who think natural disasters are associated with demons or with divine retribution.
We don't ascribe the term 'evil' to thinks that animals do which if performed by humans would be classified as evil. This is again due to the confused thinking of the religious who think that humans have some special gift, or some special place in the universe, or some special relationship with some god or other, and that some or all of these misconceptions give special meaning to human actions we generally disapprove of.
Perhaps the main point I'd want to make is that theists are in exactly the same position. They don't know. But what they do is make up an answer with no substantiating data and claim that to be the case. They think that the combination of ancient tradition and pseudo-profound language gives credibility to their view, but it really exposes their gullibility to ancient stories from a time when such ignorance was excusable for lack of any reasonable data.
There has been no evidence for religious claims that can be substantiated by third party examination. All subjective personal claims about religious experience have plausible explanations in a materialist world view, where various results of brain sciences can replicate or account for those experiences.
Wednesday, 1 September 2010
Bring On The Lions
No, I'm not referring to the up-coming England match. It's a much more serious issue than that. Or at least Christians think so.
Even my very fair minded liberal Christian friend Lesley is concerned, after reading this article in GQ
When saying 'damning', who or what does Lesley think is being damned? The nation, for it's loss of faith? Or those that remain Christians, for this reason, "Their case was too weak, their opposition to divorce and abortion and gay people too cruel, their evidence for their claims nonexistent." It does sound a little like role reversal; you know, the rapture of irreligion, and the left behind of the faithful, stuck at the bus stop on a cold wintery day not knowing the last bus has been cancelled.
This point is right, "...it's only natural that we should dismantle the massive amounts of tax money and state power that are given to the religious. It's a necessary process of building a secular state, where all citizens are free to make up their own minds.", which will make it fair for all. But I can understand the fear in the CoE at losing privilege.
When I read this and what followed, "Really? Let's list some of the ways in which Christians and other religious groups are given special privileges,..." I realised that it was religious privilege that the article was damning after all.
This was particularly damning of Mormons in '78, "Until 1978, the Mormon Church said black people didn't have souls. (They only changed their mind the day this was made illegal, and God niftily appeared to their leader to say they were ensouled after all.)"
This "In response, Carey and the Church of England demanded Christians be allowed to break the law" and the recent nonsense at the Gen Synod continues to be damning of the CoE now. And don't get me started on RC and Islam.
Why do we have to resort to law to demand equality from religions? Christians are often quick to tell us of their valiant role in the abolition of slavery and their many other fights against injustice. OK all Christians, put up or shut up. Stop all prejudice and privilege - voluntarily! Let the ABC call for this now (I won't hold my breath - he'd rather have Sharia). Let's move to a secular nation, in education and government, that's equal to all. You'll be surprised how quickly atheists lose interest in your religion. Hold on. That's precisely what Christians are afraid of isn't it. Silly me.
The feelings of persecution even extend to the repeated mistake of thinking atheists want to abolish religion. This is from a comment by Chris, "The New Atheists seem to think a secular society is one that rejects religion" - No, quite wrong. That's what Christians think New Atheists seem to think. You being a case in point :) We (atheists new and old) know what it means, and you too would know that we know, if only you knew more about New Atheists, and old atheists.
Chris, "In fact, most countries with a secular constitution see secularism as protecting religion." - Try telling that to Christians in America, with it's very purposeful secular constitution. I can't figure out why even having such a specific constitution isn't clear enough. Oh, hold on. Got it. After centuries of selectively reading the Bible Christians are primed to read a constitution and see in it the very opposite of what is written.
And, what's more Chris, when you've figured this out, could you let Tony Blair know: "Tony Blair warns that Christians must speak out in 'aggressively secularist' age" - The problem is, Tone, Christians and other faithful have been speaking out all too loudly for centuries now. "But he has since converted to Roman Catholicism and set up the Tony Blair Faith Foundation to "promote respect and understanding about the world's major religions". " - Well, Tone, religions might have earned a little respect if they hadn't been partying on so loudly themselves, indulging to excess in privileges, and then hypocritically protesting as the hurt and offended when the neighbours open a window and shout at them to be quiet while everyone gets some peace.
Preacherwoman isn't keen on Johann Hari from GQ (God Quits? God's Quiet?, Garrulus Quadrigae?), pointing out his selective use of data. She makes a fair point. We do have to be careful not to impart our bias. But wasn't that the main point that the article went on to make, i.e. the whining by Carey and others about persecution, when religion has so many privileges? Hasn't religion always been biased?
It's not just Carey. This is from Cristina Odone, "Afraid to be a Christian? Who can blame you? The authorities, the media and the chattering classes are forever trying to run you down. We don’t have to brave the Colosseum, with its rapacious lions; we don’t have to wear an identifying badge; or meet in secret – yet." - What?! Let's form two queues - one of atheists who want a secular nation with freedom to think and choose our world view without favour to any, and another one of atheists who want to ban religion. I'm sure Carey and Odone think we're all in the near empty latter. They're confused by this secular call for freedom. Being so familiar with the centuries of persecution by the religious they think that once they lose power they'll be burned at the stake.
"Christians need to be as strident as Muslims" she says. Well, that makes a change from Christians bemoaning how strident a few atheists are. But again she makes the mistake of bias again. The strident atheists are calling for freedom for all, and would protect the rights of Christians and Muslims alike - we're just saying we won't protect the current privilege of Christians or Muslims, and won't give in to the strident calls for privilege. The stridency isn't the problem, it's what one is calling for that counts.
"But there is no doubt that many are afraid to be Christian. They will watch anxiously today as Shirley Chaplin will fight the NHS in an employment tribunal." - For heaven's sake, is there no end to the whining. Thankfully the tribunal saw sense.
But Chaplin "...had the support of a number of bishops who claim that Christians are being persecuted in an increasingly secular society." How very Christian. I really do think some won't be satisfied until there's a Colosseum in Trafalgar Square, "Ha! to a mosque at Ground Zero. We Brits will show you how to be persecuted. Bring on the lions."
Even my very fair minded liberal Christian friend Lesley is concerned, after reading this article in GQ
When saying 'damning', who or what does Lesley think is being damned? The nation, for it's loss of faith? Or those that remain Christians, for this reason, "Their case was too weak, their opposition to divorce and abortion and gay people too cruel, their evidence for their claims nonexistent." It does sound a little like role reversal; you know, the rapture of irreligion, and the left behind of the faithful, stuck at the bus stop on a cold wintery day not knowing the last bus has been cancelled.
This point is right, "...it's only natural that we should dismantle the massive amounts of tax money and state power that are given to the religious. It's a necessary process of building a secular state, where all citizens are free to make up their own minds.", which will make it fair for all. But I can understand the fear in the CoE at losing privilege.
When I read this and what followed, "Really? Let's list some of the ways in which Christians and other religious groups are given special privileges,..." I realised that it was religious privilege that the article was damning after all.
This was particularly damning of Mormons in '78, "Until 1978, the Mormon Church said black people didn't have souls. (They only changed their mind the day this was made illegal, and God niftily appeared to their leader to say they were ensouled after all.)"
This "In response, Carey and the Church of England demanded Christians be allowed to break the law" and the recent nonsense at the Gen Synod continues to be damning of the CoE now. And don't get me started on RC and Islam.
Why do we have to resort to law to demand equality from religions? Christians are often quick to tell us of their valiant role in the abolition of slavery and their many other fights against injustice. OK all Christians, put up or shut up. Stop all prejudice and privilege - voluntarily! Let the ABC call for this now (I won't hold my breath - he'd rather have Sharia). Let's move to a secular nation, in education and government, that's equal to all. You'll be surprised how quickly atheists lose interest in your religion. Hold on. That's precisely what Christians are afraid of isn't it. Silly me.
The feelings of persecution even extend to the repeated mistake of thinking atheists want to abolish religion. This is from a comment by Chris, "The New Atheists seem to think a secular society is one that rejects religion" - No, quite wrong. That's what Christians think New Atheists seem to think. You being a case in point :) We (atheists new and old) know what it means, and you too would know that we know, if only you knew more about New Atheists, and old atheists.
Chris, "In fact, most countries with a secular constitution see secularism as protecting religion." - Try telling that to Christians in America, with it's very purposeful secular constitution. I can't figure out why even having such a specific constitution isn't clear enough. Oh, hold on. Got it. After centuries of selectively reading the Bible Christians are primed to read a constitution and see in it the very opposite of what is written.
And, what's more Chris, when you've figured this out, could you let Tony Blair know: "Tony Blair warns that Christians must speak out in 'aggressively secularist' age" - The problem is, Tone, Christians and other faithful have been speaking out all too loudly for centuries now. "But he has since converted to Roman Catholicism and set up the Tony Blair Faith Foundation to "promote respect and understanding about the world's major religions". " - Well, Tone, religions might have earned a little respect if they hadn't been partying on so loudly themselves, indulging to excess in privileges, and then hypocritically protesting as the hurt and offended when the neighbours open a window and shout at them to be quiet while everyone gets some peace.
Preacherwoman isn't keen on Johann Hari from GQ (God Quits? God's Quiet?, Garrulus Quadrigae?), pointing out his selective use of data. She makes a fair point. We do have to be careful not to impart our bias. But wasn't that the main point that the article went on to make, i.e. the whining by Carey and others about persecution, when religion has so many privileges? Hasn't religion always been biased?
It's not just Carey. This is from Cristina Odone, "Afraid to be a Christian? Who can blame you? The authorities, the media and the chattering classes are forever trying to run you down. We don’t have to brave the Colosseum, with its rapacious lions; we don’t have to wear an identifying badge; or meet in secret – yet." - What?! Let's form two queues - one of atheists who want a secular nation with freedom to think and choose our world view without favour to any, and another one of atheists who want to ban religion. I'm sure Carey and Odone think we're all in the near empty latter. They're confused by this secular call for freedom. Being so familiar with the centuries of persecution by the religious they think that once they lose power they'll be burned at the stake.
"Christians need to be as strident as Muslims" she says. Well, that makes a change from Christians bemoaning how strident a few atheists are. But again she makes the mistake of bias again. The strident atheists are calling for freedom for all, and would protect the rights of Christians and Muslims alike - we're just saying we won't protect the current privilege of Christians or Muslims, and won't give in to the strident calls for privilege. The stridency isn't the problem, it's what one is calling for that counts.
"But there is no doubt that many are afraid to be Christian. They will watch anxiously today as Shirley Chaplin will fight the NHS in an employment tribunal." - For heaven's sake, is there no end to the whining. Thankfully the tribunal saw sense.
But Chaplin "...had the support of a number of bishops who claim that Christians are being persecuted in an increasingly secular society." How very Christian. I really do think some won't be satisfied until there's a Colosseum in Trafalgar Square, "Ha! to a mosque at Ground Zero. We Brits will show you how to be persecuted. Bring on the lions."
Wednesday, 4 August 2010
A Biblical Story
The religious like their stories. Postmodern relativist theists love them. It allows everyone to have their own cuddly warm snug safety blanket in which to wrap themselves, without fear of someone nasty coming along and snatching it away - a gift from their father, God. There's nothing nicer than being wrapped up, nice and warm, being told lovely stories about their heroic father protecting them from evil.
But there's another part of their story that's not so nice, but just as necessary, because we all like scary stories. One day a bully arrives in the class, and his name is Atheist. His favourite wicked pass-time is to snatch their faith blankets away and make them cry. His second favourite is to tell a frightful story, of how his own father, Nietzsche, is killing their father God.
But I've got a better story, a predominantly western story (for their are similar stories elsewhere). And it goes like this.
Nietzsche is blamed for killing God. How can that be? There never was a God to be killed. Let's start at the beginning, or as near to it as matters for this story.
Long ago humans evolved along with other animals from some common anscestor with similar characteristics. Humans have many featues in common with all vertabrates. Even more in common with mammals. Even more with primates. Most with the remaining other apes.
They have a mix of traits, that include complex combinations of being able to love and hate, help and kill. Their social evolution has caused them to be mostly loving to those close, and fairly neutral and even co-operative with other groups, suppressing their baser inclinations. However, conflicting interests, fear, misunderstanding, jelousy, etc., all the nasty bits, are just below the surface.
It's difficult to know for sure what real evolutionary mechanism caused religion to come about, whether it confered some direct benefit, or whether it's a by-product of the evolution of the degree of self-awareness. It remains a mystery, but many facts fit one particular idea.
All mammals have a sense of 'other', as in other external creatures: to be eaten by, to eat, to fight, to mate. Few animals are self-aware, so when self-awareness evolved to a certain degree there becomes both 'other' and 'self'. The brain sciences have shown quite clearly that these are in different parts of the brain, but are linked; that the confusion of 'self' and 'other' can give a feeling of internal 'other'. This is very striking in various forms of brain damage - the type and location of the damage can determine loss of this internal 'other' or its acquisition. It can also be induced or inhibited in healthy brains at will, in a laboratory. Many humans have a 'self-self' and an 'other-self'.
There were no brain scientists around in ancient times, but there were a multitude of unexplained awful events. With a familiarity of the powerful capabilities of humans compared to other animals, it might have seemed obvious that there must be some more powerful external hiddden 'others' at work, directing nature, inlfuencing lives.
Put these internal and external 'others' together, and you have gods that are doing things for and to humans, and even invade their minds.
But, some humans aren't quite as dumb as they first appear. Over the millenia, as the population increases, and pouplations merge and compare ideas, as they record their ideas and they spread them, it seems obvious that there are some inconsistencies, competing gods, silly notions of what it is to be a god.
From the recordings of the Greeks onward philosophy and rudementary science bring some critical thinking to the table, which begins the whole process of rationalising and economising on gods and their capabilities. There emerges the most concise God, the Jewish God, with many of his awkward inconvenient inconsistencies explained away into the sky, or heaven or wherever - depending on how critical the analysis has to be to avoid arguments from those that tend not to believe or who have competing gods. God goes into hiding, and leaves the material world behind, and his interactions with us and our world have to be explained by miracles.
The religions provide great social cohesion in times that are still barbaric and brutal. They provide an authority that can't be matched by individual rulers. They help keep the peace mostly, but can still just as easily be invoked for war. Religions are used control the uneducated supersticious masses, for reasons of good for the theologians, for reasons of convenience for the godless powerful.
Despite the reconciling role of great religions there are still independent theological thinkers who challenge the various orthodoxies, causing many schisms in what had been the start of a grand religious project. Other religions emerged on the boundaries of western thinking, the most prominat being Islam which separated much of western thinking from its Greek routes.
Come the enlightnement even more events and wonders of the world, like the rainbow, become explainable as natural phenomena. The Greeks are rediscovered, and Islamic ideas on science filter through. Western Europe becomes the focul point for many revolutions in thinking, and discovering, of ideas, places, animals and peoples. God and his works recede into the distance.
From Darwin and others a unifying explanation develops that shows not only that humans are not special, but that evolution can remove the need for a God, or at least push him back to the moment of creation. Sophisticated theology is required all the more to hide God somewhere safe. The struggle between the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other mirrors the internal dichotomy of the rational internal 'self-self' and the feeling internal 'other-self'.
This vanishing act needn't be the intentional and aware response it sounds to be. It can be a genuine shift in the detail of belief in thologians that have as much access to the enlightenment ideas as any atheist. They have to reconcile what they know with what they feel, but what they feel has a strong hold and won't let go.
So, God remains the primary presupposition that in their cognitive dissonance must override all other ideas. They may even have a sneaky suspision that their beliefs are nonsense, but what can you do if the internal 'other-self' is so convincing? They even see the folly in other beliefs that are similar, or in those of their own religion that have a less sophisticated view of what God is. They know they can't explain their God really, but they can have faith.
Some become so close to atheism in their intellectual disposal of God's inconveniences, that they even confuse what atheism means - Peter Rollins, with his really odd twisting of words is so confused, hence and confusing. No doubt Rollins is sincere. I'm not accusing these theists of being charlatons, though some of the money making TV evangelists may be, I don't know. But many theists clearly have an eye for this world as much as the next.
And so here we are. Nieztshce didn't kill God. There never was a God, just an idea of a God accompanied by a feeling. Nieztshce and many others have been dripping slow acting poisons into the challace, causing a lingering and painful death for the idea that is yet incomplete. Though the feeling remains you can see the agony of self-realisation of the inevitable dawning on the likes of the Arch Bishop of Cantebury, as they struggle to reconcile their faith with the ultimate demise of the God that never was.
Rather than let the atheist kill their God they would rather do it themselves. They suffocate him in an act of kindness, they bury him in the safest place they can find, in the depths of their souls where he'll be accessible to them. He becomes a fully personal God. No longer the need to explain him away, he'll still be close by, feeding ideas through the inner 'other-self'.
They see the problems, yet they still feel God, see God, or see the need for God, or fear the lack of God. What must it be like to have this inner self, the 'other-self', ripped from their hearts?
Those that don't have it can only sympathise. Atheists who see a grand picture of the universe and beyond as a natural unfolding process have no need for God. There's a freedom to think the unthinkable without fear, to find what we find without judgement, to see what the science tells us without thinking it has a moral dimension, that the creation of moral codes are anyway just one more human trait. We can take what evolution has given us and build our moral codes on top of that, and make those moral codes do the best they can for everyone, because the predominant evolved characteristics are to love, to help, not to hate and to kill.
This is just a story. Many different stories can be told, and are told. This one is as close to the observed facts that I know of. Think of it as a docu-drama - a story made to fit the facts; or as a working hypothesis that has evidence to support it. This is a story told by humans, about humans using evidence accumulated by humans.
The predominant alternative story is one written by humans too, but where the main unobserved fictional character is supposed to have written the story himself. And as such, the authors can have the character explain away any inconsistencies by the magic of miracles, or by claiming not to know the mind of the unfathomable character the human authors have created. Now that's some serious imaginative just-so fiction. An incredible story. Really, it just isn't credible.
But there's another part of their story that's not so nice, but just as necessary, because we all like scary stories. One day a bully arrives in the class, and his name is Atheist. His favourite wicked pass-time is to snatch their faith blankets away and make them cry. His second favourite is to tell a frightful story, of how his own father, Nietzsche, is killing their father God.
But I've got a better story, a predominantly western story (for their are similar stories elsewhere). And it goes like this.
Nietzsche is blamed for killing God. How can that be? There never was a God to be killed. Let's start at the beginning, or as near to it as matters for this story.
Long ago humans evolved along with other animals from some common anscestor with similar characteristics. Humans have many featues in common with all vertabrates. Even more in common with mammals. Even more with primates. Most with the remaining other apes.
They have a mix of traits, that include complex combinations of being able to love and hate, help and kill. Their social evolution has caused them to be mostly loving to those close, and fairly neutral and even co-operative with other groups, suppressing their baser inclinations. However, conflicting interests, fear, misunderstanding, jelousy, etc., all the nasty bits, are just below the surface.
It's difficult to know for sure what real evolutionary mechanism caused religion to come about, whether it confered some direct benefit, or whether it's a by-product of the evolution of the degree of self-awareness. It remains a mystery, but many facts fit one particular idea.
All mammals have a sense of 'other', as in other external creatures: to be eaten by, to eat, to fight, to mate. Few animals are self-aware, so when self-awareness evolved to a certain degree there becomes both 'other' and 'self'. The brain sciences have shown quite clearly that these are in different parts of the brain, but are linked; that the confusion of 'self' and 'other' can give a feeling of internal 'other'. This is very striking in various forms of brain damage - the type and location of the damage can determine loss of this internal 'other' or its acquisition. It can also be induced or inhibited in healthy brains at will, in a laboratory. Many humans have a 'self-self' and an 'other-self'.
There were no brain scientists around in ancient times, but there were a multitude of unexplained awful events. With a familiarity of the powerful capabilities of humans compared to other animals, it might have seemed obvious that there must be some more powerful external hiddden 'others' at work, directing nature, inlfuencing lives.
Put these internal and external 'others' together, and you have gods that are doing things for and to humans, and even invade their minds.
But, some humans aren't quite as dumb as they first appear. Over the millenia, as the population increases, and pouplations merge and compare ideas, as they record their ideas and they spread them, it seems obvious that there are some inconsistencies, competing gods, silly notions of what it is to be a god.
From the recordings of the Greeks onward philosophy and rudementary science bring some critical thinking to the table, which begins the whole process of rationalising and economising on gods and their capabilities. There emerges the most concise God, the Jewish God, with many of his awkward inconvenient inconsistencies explained away into the sky, or heaven or wherever - depending on how critical the analysis has to be to avoid arguments from those that tend not to believe or who have competing gods. God goes into hiding, and leaves the material world behind, and his interactions with us and our world have to be explained by miracles.
The religions provide great social cohesion in times that are still barbaric and brutal. They provide an authority that can't be matched by individual rulers. They help keep the peace mostly, but can still just as easily be invoked for war. Religions are used control the uneducated supersticious masses, for reasons of good for the theologians, for reasons of convenience for the godless powerful.
Despite the reconciling role of great religions there are still independent theological thinkers who challenge the various orthodoxies, causing many schisms in what had been the start of a grand religious project. Other religions emerged on the boundaries of western thinking, the most prominat being Islam which separated much of western thinking from its Greek routes.
Come the enlightnement even more events and wonders of the world, like the rainbow, become explainable as natural phenomena. The Greeks are rediscovered, and Islamic ideas on science filter through. Western Europe becomes the focul point for many revolutions in thinking, and discovering, of ideas, places, animals and peoples. God and his works recede into the distance.
From Darwin and others a unifying explanation develops that shows not only that humans are not special, but that evolution can remove the need for a God, or at least push him back to the moment of creation. Sophisticated theology is required all the more to hide God somewhere safe. The struggle between the angel on one shoulder and the devil on the other mirrors the internal dichotomy of the rational internal 'self-self' and the feeling internal 'other-self'.
This vanishing act needn't be the intentional and aware response it sounds to be. It can be a genuine shift in the detail of belief in thologians that have as much access to the enlightenment ideas as any atheist. They have to reconcile what they know with what they feel, but what they feel has a strong hold and won't let go.
So, God remains the primary presupposition that in their cognitive dissonance must override all other ideas. They may even have a sneaky suspision that their beliefs are nonsense, but what can you do if the internal 'other-self' is so convincing? They even see the folly in other beliefs that are similar, or in those of their own religion that have a less sophisticated view of what God is. They know they can't explain their God really, but they can have faith.
Some become so close to atheism in their intellectual disposal of God's inconveniences, that they even confuse what atheism means - Peter Rollins, with his really odd twisting of words is so confused, hence and confusing. No doubt Rollins is sincere. I'm not accusing these theists of being charlatons, though some of the money making TV evangelists may be, I don't know. But many theists clearly have an eye for this world as much as the next.
And so here we are. Nieztshce didn't kill God. There never was a God, just an idea of a God accompanied by a feeling. Nieztshce and many others have been dripping slow acting poisons into the challace, causing a lingering and painful death for the idea that is yet incomplete. Though the feeling remains you can see the agony of self-realisation of the inevitable dawning on the likes of the Arch Bishop of Cantebury, as they struggle to reconcile their faith with the ultimate demise of the God that never was.
Rather than let the atheist kill their God they would rather do it themselves. They suffocate him in an act of kindness, they bury him in the safest place they can find, in the depths of their souls where he'll be accessible to them. He becomes a fully personal God. No longer the need to explain him away, he'll still be close by, feeding ideas through the inner 'other-self'.
They see the problems, yet they still feel God, see God, or see the need for God, or fear the lack of God. What must it be like to have this inner self, the 'other-self', ripped from their hearts?
Those that don't have it can only sympathise. Atheists who see a grand picture of the universe and beyond as a natural unfolding process have no need for God. There's a freedom to think the unthinkable without fear, to find what we find without judgement, to see what the science tells us without thinking it has a moral dimension, that the creation of moral codes are anyway just one more human trait. We can take what evolution has given us and build our moral codes on top of that, and make those moral codes do the best they can for everyone, because the predominant evolved characteristics are to love, to help, not to hate and to kill.
This is just a story. Many different stories can be told, and are told. This one is as close to the observed facts that I know of. Think of it as a docu-drama - a story made to fit the facts; or as a working hypothesis that has evidence to support it. This is a story told by humans, about humans using evidence accumulated by humans.
The predominant alternative story is one written by humans too, but where the main unobserved fictional character is supposed to have written the story himself. And as such, the authors can have the character explain away any inconsistencies by the magic of miracles, or by claiming not to know the mind of the unfathomable character the human authors have created. Now that's some serious imaginative just-so fiction. An incredible story. Really, it just isn't credible.
Wednesday, 28 July 2010
It's A Kind Of Magic
Thanks to Lesley, and indirectly to The MadPriest, for a pointer to this Irish Times article, in which Canon Ginnie Kennerley puts magical thinking in its place, as eloquently and effectively as any atheist could:
"...is a demonstration of “magical thinking” at its most primitive, akin to ritual rain-making ceremonies and tribal rituals designed to control the uncontrollable" - Yes, even Christians are atheistic when it comes to some beliefs.
"While many of us occasionally indulge in magical thinking in small ways, if applied to serious issues it can become a major cause of injustice and handicap to general well-being."
"As I understand it, magical thinking relies on perceived (but un-confirmable) causal links between desired events and the phenomena that appear normally to accompany or precede them."
"It assumes that, by ensuring that there is no change in the supposed link of cause and effect, we can ensure the desired result every time – in effect, we imagine we can control the action of God."
"Those who fall prey to this style of magical thinking in the 21st century may deserve our sympathy and even a degree of respect, given that a high level of anxiety and desire for control, of which they may not be aware, is probably at the root of the matter."
I've a sneaky feeling Canon Ginnie Kennerley nodded off while reading some New Atheist book, and awoke thinking she'd been taking notes for something else entirely. I hope she doesn't mind if I keep these words in mind when I next argue with a theist.
"...is a demonstration of “magical thinking” at its most primitive, akin to ritual rain-making ceremonies and tribal rituals designed to control the uncontrollable" - Yes, even Christians are atheistic when it comes to some beliefs.
"While many of us occasionally indulge in magical thinking in small ways, if applied to serious issues it can become a major cause of injustice and handicap to general well-being."
"As I understand it, magical thinking relies on perceived (but un-confirmable) causal links between desired events and the phenomena that appear normally to accompany or precede them."
"It assumes that, by ensuring that there is no change in the supposed link of cause and effect, we can ensure the desired result every time – in effect, we imagine we can control the action of God."
"Those who fall prey to this style of magical thinking in the 21st century may deserve our sympathy and even a degree of respect, given that a high level of anxiety and desire for control, of which they may not be aware, is probably at the root of the matter."
I've a sneaky feeling Canon Ginnie Kennerley nodded off while reading some New Atheist book, and awoke thinking she'd been taking notes for something else entirely. I hope she doesn't mind if I keep these words in mind when I next argue with a theist.
Monday, 21 June 2010
BBC Mythos and Logos
The BBC programme
Something Understood - Mythos and Logos (h/t Lesley) discusses the roles of Mythos and Logos: Mark Tully explores the difference between a scientific understanding of the world and a mythological understanding; between the rational language of science and the poetic language of myth.
My view is as follows:
Mythos - Myth, fantasy, didn't actually happen. Fine for fictional novels. Some fictional novels are intended to portrait philosophical or sociological metaphors or allegories, from which we can learn stuff, so okay on that too - but care is required not to read too much into it (as is done with the Bible).
Mythos had a greater place in the past because there was less logos. The mythos of the ancients is viewed retrospectively with rosy tint of modern theology and myth. My guess would be that if you could go back in time and offer some of the ancients a bit more of our logos so that they didn't need so much of their mythos, then they'd bite your hand off. There's a tendency to over glamorise the past.
There's also two categories of mythos in the current post modern mind. I don't know if it was present in earlier ideas, but it's here now, and it does cause confusion. There's (a) the mythos that is really just creative imagination, and there's (b) the mythos that is believing fantasy to be true; and they are confused at will by theists. It goes like this: the theist makes a claim (b), and the atheists says there's no evidence, to which the theist responds with (a), which obviously the atheist didn't intend to dispute. Angela Tilby gives fine examples below.
But first Tully introduces words from Karen Armstrong.
Karen, "There were regarded as complementary ways..." - Not surprising. if you had little logos available, what else did you have to turn to in your uncertainty?
Karen, "myth was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning..." - Because they didn't have the logos to tell them that there was no meaning, as they understood that to be, and as I think most theists still understand it to be.
Karen, "Logos...it must work efficiently in the mundane world. We use...when we have to make things happen, get something done, or to persuade other people to adopt a course of action."
Karen, "Logos is practical, unlike myth..." - What price pragmatism? - "..to elaborate on old insights" - i.e. correct the mistakes of the myths - "...achieve a greater control over our environment..." - our only known environment.
Tully, "We may have regressed spiritually, because of our suppression of mythos." - Note the negative defensiveness. Alternatively we may have progressed, not by suppressing, but by outgrowing mythos. Lucretius sounds as though he was onto it. Can you honestly say that the old mythos was reasoned? Wasn't it just more of the same nonsense you might attribute to some of the crazier believers of today? Trouble is, once you mistake mythos for truth all bets are off - you are capable of believing anything; or sometimes more significantly, you can't deny someone else's right to believe their crazy mythos.
Tully, on Peter Gabriel, "...overcome by the power of music and ritual, the mythos" - No. Just hypnotised by it. A brain state. Many animals can be lulled into these states too. Think of it as your computer freezing up momentarily for no apparent reason - it's doing something, it's just not obvious to consciousness.
Angela Tilby, and Anglican Priest and theologian...
Angela, "You might think ... scientific..is logos... clearly right in the way science practises itself. But it probably isn't right in way scientists sometimes use their imagination, use their instincts, use their sense of adventure to inhabit the whole enterprise; mythos carries on even when it's denied." - Bollocks. This is not the same mythos at all. This is an attempt (maybe unintended) to conflate mythos as myth with straight forward human emotion, personality, involvement - all potential for scientific explanation in themselves. Scientists don't pray for guidance in their work, unless they're scientists who happen to be religious. They don't look to ancient books for eternal truths, they look to older evidence and challenge it, or reproduce it, they question older truths, mythos or logos - all is up for questioning.
Has logos won? Not entirely, on two points. The first, is that if logos itself implies that mythos is nonsense as a route to truth, then there's no room for complacency, mythos is still influencing irrationally. The second, the very nature of logos (certainly now) is that it's an ongoing quest for truth, and so again there's no room for complacency - there is no winning, there is only progress. Winning implies the job is done. There is no know reason to think we will ever be able to say, job done.
Angela, "Mythos does continue to hold great sway" - Only for those that believe it. There's not inherent place for mythos. I see it as a temporary fluctuation in the evolution of one particular species - think evolutionary time scales, where will we be in 1,000 years, 10,000. There's no reason to suppose the remaining elements of mythos, the Rollins view if you like, won't go the same way as sacrificing to Gods. As protestant Christians, do you really see RC transubstantiation surviving as a credible truth? The resurrection?
Angela, "We delight in story telling, in narrative..." - Yes. That's how we came to grow into our language, to be able to make connections with each other, reporting non-local non-current events, transmitting knowledge - all when logos was particularly scarce that it was indistinguishable from myth.
We know soaps and novels are fiction, but yes, we can relate to stories that they tell. We do not really think that Gail McIntyre actually spent time in prison, but some of us do really think Jesus arose from the dead. The problem isn't the stories, the fantasies, the myths, it's believing they are true - and the more literally we take them, the more danger they pose as falsehoods.
Angela, "Mythos doesn't die just because logos is in the ascendancy..." - Conflating mythos (believing fantasy to be truth) with fantasy again. This really is a mistake the Mythos crowd make. They see both the pleasure and the practical value in telling stories, using them as metaphor and allegory - this is fine. But they lump that in with truth claims about ridiculous fantasy.
We put too much emphasis on logos, underestimating mythos?
Angela, "I think there is an imbalance ... live in a world of pure fact ... if you do that you end up in a very impoverished way." - Again, the mistaken conflation of wrong headed fantasy as truth, with the very commendable use of story telling, emotional involvement, and all the other fluffy stuff that scientists are equally (more so says Feynman) capable of appreciating - not impoverished at all.
Angela, "Truth doesn't contradict truth..." - Another problem. The issue, from the logos point of view is that it's difficult to be sure when we have got at the truth, particularly any ultimate truth. Science refuses to make that claim. It's only theism and other mythos adherents and pos modernist woolly thinkers that use this move. In essence it relies on 'stories' (the mythos kind not the soap opera kind) to entitle people to their own versions of the truth, as they see fit. It demands respect among the mythos crowd for each other's myths, and prevents any serious questioning from the sceptical logos community - or at least the mythos crowd think it should.... Angela, "I think that's absolutely true" - which becomes true since all truth claims (stories) are true, by the mythos principle. Bollocks of course.
Angela, "As a person I believe [1] thoroughly in the scientific method and in evolution. I want to use antibiotic drugs, I'm interested in space exploration; [2] I'm interested in the strangeness of new physics. At the same time [3] I want to respond to the world as God's good creation and to live in it a creative and ethical life that has meaning and fulfilment beyond myself and physical death." - The mythos team think [3] is made compatible with [1], but they really mean there's no conflict between [3] and [2] - and many theists are comfortable with science processes. But [1], if followed to where it leads, through whatever evidence there is - and [1] relies on evidence - then they are not compatible: there's nothing that leads a rational scientific mind to [3].
Angela, "It isn't a problem to live with those two truths." - I agree. It's not a problem to live with the truth that London is in France, as long as you don't try to visit London. You can even visit France, without visiting London, and still believe that false truth, while believing the truth that you are in France. And so it is possible, that if you don't think clearly enough about what you're, well, thinking about, you can make incompatible beliefs co-exist in your head quite comfortable - even though some of them are myths (the fantasy kind).
Angela, "I don't think they contradict each other." - Set theory: A and B are independent sets. 1) x is a member of A; 2) x is a member of A and B. Statements (1) and (2) don't contradict each other, but (2) happens to be false. Again, woolly thinking. Contradiction isn't the issue. Mythos being the route to truth is the issue.
Angela, "I won't choose. They're both valid ways of being a human being." - I agree. Logos is a valid way of being a rational human being; mythos is a way of being an irrational human being. Don't get me wrong. In backing logos I'm not saying we must always be perfect rational human beings - the whole point of my argument is that we can't be, and that recognising this helps us to realise that mythos is one of our more dramatic failures - particularly in the hands of fundamentalists.
Angela, "I think I would be less human if I wasn't trying to hold the two together." - Well, such low self-esteem seems to be one of the attributes of the religious. They seem to need the God mythos to validate their lives. Note the inherent insult to non-believers - we're less human. That's a clear message that's been spelled out to the irreligious for centuries - sinners destined for hell - and it's no less clear simply because it's disguised in woolly post modern terms. Thankfully we've got broad shoulders - or maybe it's just that we know there's no weight, no mass, no substance to this nonsense, so it doesn't bother us. But there are times when it matters.
Angela uses Bach as an example of mythos and logos coming together. She points out the rigour in the maths and the precision behind his work, "...and yet he produces this astonishingly heart rending music." - Conflating mythos with music now? The creativity of human beings is a distinct imaginative skill, facet, characteristic, whatever you want to call it. There's no logical attachment of imagination to believing fantasy is truth.
Angela, "..[Bach] goes right to the soul and speaks of realities far greater than that of the scale itself." - Well, no. It says nothing at all about other realities, greater or otherwise. What music does do is resonate. It may do this literally and physically, in that it does cause resonant conditions within the brain, particularly if it's loud enough to feel more physically through the body rather than just through the ears. It can also do it psychologically, in that it invokes emotions, sometimes associated with events and experiences, or even with fantasies. This latter is less well understood, and requires much more from brain science disciplines to understand more fully - but that current gap in our knowledge is not one for a God of the gaps, or in this case a mythos of the gaps, to fill in. Of course that's the tradition our ancient much-mythos less-logos has left us with, so it's understandable some are easily persuaded of this.
Angela, "...[Bach's music] says something about how Western civilisation can bring these two things [logos mythos] together" - Only because Angela wants it to, and because she categorises creativity and human physio-psychological responses to that creativity as an element of mythos. Now if she wants to do that, if that's how she wants to define mythos, great. Except that then causes confusion in debates about theism and mythos, about the mythos of Genesis, and so on. Not very helpful.
I find it curious that the mythos team seem to think that if they can only give us on the logos team good examples then we'll get it. They read us poetry, excerpts from the Bible, sayings of wise some wise sage, or maybe play us some music - as Tully does here with Bach. we get it. We are moved by the music and the poetry too. What we also get is that what the mythos team lump together with their fantasies we see as something distinct. No amount of reading poetry and playing music is going to make us magically lose the logical difference.
So, there are four distinct topics recognised so far here: logos, creative-mythos, fantasy-story-mythos, and fantasy-truth-mythos.
Logos is compatible with creative-mythos. We recognise the blend of art and science in many of our most creative polymaths. We can also accommodate fantasy-story-mythos, using the vehicle of story telling, narrative, to show us allegorically the many twists and turns of human nature. the Bible is often quoted in this respect, and it does have some good human stories that strike a chord. Shakespeare does it better for me personally, and often with a damn site more humour - always a bonus.
What isn't compatible with logos, and what goes against the grain of any sort of rationality that we humans are capable of, and what flies in the face of science's greatest efforts to understand this world, this universe, ourselves, is the make-believe of fantasy-truth-mythos. There is no evidence for a God, no matter how much some people would like him to be there - wishful thinking does not make it true. The miraculous appearance of Adam, and the use of his rib, transubstantiation, resurrection - all fantasy by all rational standards.
Tully on Kant: Reason has it's limitations and philosophers can be too dependent on it. Quite. So, why does Kant reason, quite reasonably, that we can't go beyond what we can know, and then go on to describe in some detail things that are beyond his reasoning capacity?
Listen to this Philosophy Bites. Kant is okay, up to the point where he recognises the limitations of our perceptions. In Kant's terms we can never take the spectacles off - okay. We have to put to one side all metaphysical question that are beyond us - including any deity. We can ask the questions - that isn't the problem. But we can't know what is out there. We can speculate. We are at liberty to have faith, but you can't have knowledge of whether that's true or not. This is the atheist logos position and offers nothing to the mythos.
In supposing noumena exists Kant goes too far - beyond our fallible human capabilities.
Kant is motivated to maintain faith. And he's prepared to give up all his hard work in order to sustain this. Like many philosophers, he can't stop himself going beyond his own claims.
Something Understood - Mythos and Logos (h/t Lesley) discusses the roles of Mythos and Logos: Mark Tully explores the difference between a scientific understanding of the world and a mythological understanding; between the rational language of science and the poetic language of myth.
My view is as follows:
Mythos - Myth, fantasy, didn't actually happen. Fine for fictional novels. Some fictional novels are intended to portrait philosophical or sociological metaphors or allegories, from which we can learn stuff, so okay on that too - but care is required not to read too much into it (as is done with the Bible).
Mythos had a greater place in the past because there was less logos. The mythos of the ancients is viewed retrospectively with rosy tint of modern theology and myth. My guess would be that if you could go back in time and offer some of the ancients a bit more of our logos so that they didn't need so much of their mythos, then they'd bite your hand off. There's a tendency to over glamorise the past.
There's also two categories of mythos in the current post modern mind. I don't know if it was present in earlier ideas, but it's here now, and it does cause confusion. There's (a) the mythos that is really just creative imagination, and there's (b) the mythos that is believing fantasy to be true; and they are confused at will by theists. It goes like this: the theist makes a claim (b), and the atheists says there's no evidence, to which the theist responds with (a), which obviously the atheist didn't intend to dispute. Angela Tilby gives fine examples below.
But first Tully introduces words from Karen Armstrong.
Karen, "There were regarded as complementary ways..." - Not surprising. if you had little logos available, what else did you have to turn to in your uncertainty?
Karen, "myth was not concerned with practical matters, but with meaning..." - Because they didn't have the logos to tell them that there was no meaning, as they understood that to be, and as I think most theists still understand it to be.
Karen, "Logos...it must work efficiently in the mundane world. We use...when we have to make things happen, get something done, or to persuade other people to adopt a course of action."
Karen, "Logos is practical, unlike myth..." - What price pragmatism? - "..to elaborate on old insights" - i.e. correct the mistakes of the myths - "...achieve a greater control over our environment..." - our only known environment.
Tully, "We may have regressed spiritually, because of our suppression of mythos." - Note the negative defensiveness. Alternatively we may have progressed, not by suppressing, but by outgrowing mythos. Lucretius sounds as though he was onto it. Can you honestly say that the old mythos was reasoned? Wasn't it just more of the same nonsense you might attribute to some of the crazier believers of today? Trouble is, once you mistake mythos for truth all bets are off - you are capable of believing anything; or sometimes more significantly, you can't deny someone else's right to believe their crazy mythos.
Tully, on Peter Gabriel, "...overcome by the power of music and ritual, the mythos" - No. Just hypnotised by it. A brain state. Many animals can be lulled into these states too. Think of it as your computer freezing up momentarily for no apparent reason - it's doing something, it's just not obvious to consciousness.
Angela Tilby, and Anglican Priest and theologian...
Angela, "You might think ... scientific..is logos... clearly right in the way science practises itself. But it probably isn't right in way scientists sometimes use their imagination, use their instincts, use their sense of adventure to inhabit the whole enterprise; mythos carries on even when it's denied." - Bollocks. This is not the same mythos at all. This is an attempt (maybe unintended) to conflate mythos as myth with straight forward human emotion, personality, involvement - all potential for scientific explanation in themselves. Scientists don't pray for guidance in their work, unless they're scientists who happen to be religious. They don't look to ancient books for eternal truths, they look to older evidence and challenge it, or reproduce it, they question older truths, mythos or logos - all is up for questioning.
Has logos won? Not entirely, on two points. The first, is that if logos itself implies that mythos is nonsense as a route to truth, then there's no room for complacency, mythos is still influencing irrationally. The second, the very nature of logos (certainly now) is that it's an ongoing quest for truth, and so again there's no room for complacency - there is no winning, there is only progress. Winning implies the job is done. There is no know reason to think we will ever be able to say, job done.
Angela, "Mythos does continue to hold great sway" - Only for those that believe it. There's not inherent place for mythos. I see it as a temporary fluctuation in the evolution of one particular species - think evolutionary time scales, where will we be in 1,000 years, 10,000. There's no reason to suppose the remaining elements of mythos, the Rollins view if you like, won't go the same way as sacrificing to Gods. As protestant Christians, do you really see RC transubstantiation surviving as a credible truth? The resurrection?
Angela, "We delight in story telling, in narrative..." - Yes. That's how we came to grow into our language, to be able to make connections with each other, reporting non-local non-current events, transmitting knowledge - all when logos was particularly scarce that it was indistinguishable from myth.
We know soaps and novels are fiction, but yes, we can relate to stories that they tell. We do not really think that Gail McIntyre actually spent time in prison, but some of us do really think Jesus arose from the dead. The problem isn't the stories, the fantasies, the myths, it's believing they are true - and the more literally we take them, the more danger they pose as falsehoods.
Angela, "Mythos doesn't die just because logos is in the ascendancy..." - Conflating mythos (believing fantasy to be truth) with fantasy again. This really is a mistake the Mythos crowd make. They see both the pleasure and the practical value in telling stories, using them as metaphor and allegory - this is fine. But they lump that in with truth claims about ridiculous fantasy.
We put too much emphasis on logos, underestimating mythos?
Angela, "I think there is an imbalance ... live in a world of pure fact ... if you do that you end up in a very impoverished way." - Again, the mistaken conflation of wrong headed fantasy as truth, with the very commendable use of story telling, emotional involvement, and all the other fluffy stuff that scientists are equally (more so says Feynman) capable of appreciating - not impoverished at all.
Angela, "Truth doesn't contradict truth..." - Another problem. The issue, from the logos point of view is that it's difficult to be sure when we have got at the truth, particularly any ultimate truth. Science refuses to make that claim. It's only theism and other mythos adherents and pos modernist woolly thinkers that use this move. In essence it relies on 'stories' (the mythos kind not the soap opera kind) to entitle people to their own versions of the truth, as they see fit. It demands respect among the mythos crowd for each other's myths, and prevents any serious questioning from the sceptical logos community - or at least the mythos crowd think it should.... Angela, "I think that's absolutely true" - which becomes true since all truth claims (stories) are true, by the mythos principle. Bollocks of course.
Angela, "As a person I believe [1] thoroughly in the scientific method and in evolution. I want to use antibiotic drugs, I'm interested in space exploration; [2] I'm interested in the strangeness of new physics. At the same time [3] I want to respond to the world as God's good creation and to live in it a creative and ethical life that has meaning and fulfilment beyond myself and physical death." - The mythos team think [3] is made compatible with [1], but they really mean there's no conflict between [3] and [2] - and many theists are comfortable with science processes. But [1], if followed to where it leads, through whatever evidence there is - and [1] relies on evidence - then they are not compatible: there's nothing that leads a rational scientific mind to [3].
Angela, "It isn't a problem to live with those two truths." - I agree. It's not a problem to live with the truth that London is in France, as long as you don't try to visit London. You can even visit France, without visiting London, and still believe that false truth, while believing the truth that you are in France. And so it is possible, that if you don't think clearly enough about what you're, well, thinking about, you can make incompatible beliefs co-exist in your head quite comfortable - even though some of them are myths (the fantasy kind).
Angela, "I don't think they contradict each other." - Set theory: A and B are independent sets. 1) x is a member of A; 2) x is a member of A and B. Statements (1) and (2) don't contradict each other, but (2) happens to be false. Again, woolly thinking. Contradiction isn't the issue. Mythos being the route to truth is the issue.
Angela, "I won't choose. They're both valid ways of being a human being." - I agree. Logos is a valid way of being a rational human being; mythos is a way of being an irrational human being. Don't get me wrong. In backing logos I'm not saying we must always be perfect rational human beings - the whole point of my argument is that we can't be, and that recognising this helps us to realise that mythos is one of our more dramatic failures - particularly in the hands of fundamentalists.
Angela, "I think I would be less human if I wasn't trying to hold the two together." - Well, such low self-esteem seems to be one of the attributes of the religious. They seem to need the God mythos to validate their lives. Note the inherent insult to non-believers - we're less human. That's a clear message that's been spelled out to the irreligious for centuries - sinners destined for hell - and it's no less clear simply because it's disguised in woolly post modern terms. Thankfully we've got broad shoulders - or maybe it's just that we know there's no weight, no mass, no substance to this nonsense, so it doesn't bother us. But there are times when it matters.
Angela uses Bach as an example of mythos and logos coming together. She points out the rigour in the maths and the precision behind his work, "...and yet he produces this astonishingly heart rending music." - Conflating mythos with music now? The creativity of human beings is a distinct imaginative skill, facet, characteristic, whatever you want to call it. There's no logical attachment of imagination to believing fantasy is truth.
Angela, "..[Bach] goes right to the soul and speaks of realities far greater than that of the scale itself." - Well, no. It says nothing at all about other realities, greater or otherwise. What music does do is resonate. It may do this literally and physically, in that it does cause resonant conditions within the brain, particularly if it's loud enough to feel more physically through the body rather than just through the ears. It can also do it psychologically, in that it invokes emotions, sometimes associated with events and experiences, or even with fantasies. This latter is less well understood, and requires much more from brain science disciplines to understand more fully - but that current gap in our knowledge is not one for a God of the gaps, or in this case a mythos of the gaps, to fill in. Of course that's the tradition our ancient much-mythos less-logos has left us with, so it's understandable some are easily persuaded of this.
Angela, "...[Bach's music] says something about how Western civilisation can bring these two things [logos mythos] together" - Only because Angela wants it to, and because she categorises creativity and human physio-psychological responses to that creativity as an element of mythos. Now if she wants to do that, if that's how she wants to define mythos, great. Except that then causes confusion in debates about theism and mythos, about the mythos of Genesis, and so on. Not very helpful.
I find it curious that the mythos team seem to think that if they can only give us on the logos team good examples then we'll get it. They read us poetry, excerpts from the Bible, sayings of wise some wise sage, or maybe play us some music - as Tully does here with Bach. we get it. We are moved by the music and the poetry too. What we also get is that what the mythos team lump together with their fantasies we see as something distinct. No amount of reading poetry and playing music is going to make us magically lose the logical difference.
So, there are four distinct topics recognised so far here: logos, creative-mythos, fantasy-story-mythos, and fantasy-truth-mythos.
Logos is compatible with creative-mythos. We recognise the blend of art and science in many of our most creative polymaths. We can also accommodate fantasy-story-mythos, using the vehicle of story telling, narrative, to show us allegorically the many twists and turns of human nature. the Bible is often quoted in this respect, and it does have some good human stories that strike a chord. Shakespeare does it better for me personally, and often with a damn site more humour - always a bonus.
What isn't compatible with logos, and what goes against the grain of any sort of rationality that we humans are capable of, and what flies in the face of science's greatest efforts to understand this world, this universe, ourselves, is the make-believe of fantasy-truth-mythos. There is no evidence for a God, no matter how much some people would like him to be there - wishful thinking does not make it true. The miraculous appearance of Adam, and the use of his rib, transubstantiation, resurrection - all fantasy by all rational standards.
Tully on Kant: Reason has it's limitations and philosophers can be too dependent on it. Quite. So, why does Kant reason, quite reasonably, that we can't go beyond what we can know, and then go on to describe in some detail things that are beyond his reasoning capacity?
Listen to this Philosophy Bites. Kant is okay, up to the point where he recognises the limitations of our perceptions. In Kant's terms we can never take the spectacles off - okay. We have to put to one side all metaphysical question that are beyond us - including any deity. We can ask the questions - that isn't the problem. But we can't know what is out there. We can speculate. We are at liberty to have faith, but you can't have knowledge of whether that's true or not. This is the atheist logos position and offers nothing to the mythos.
In supposing noumena exists Kant goes too far - beyond our fallible human capabilities.
Kant is motivated to maintain faith. And he's prepared to give up all his hard work in order to sustain this. Like many philosophers, he can't stop himself going beyond his own claims.
Saturday, 29 May 2010
Religion has nothing to do with science – and vice versa
Thanks to Alan's comments for this link, where he say's "Just found this story with which I agree.":
Well, though I agree with some points, there are many specific ones with which I don't agree, and I don't agree with the general notion that Ayala makes.
Let's start with this:
"On the other side, some people of faith believe that science conveys a materialistic view of the world that denies the existence of any reality outside the material world. Science, they think, is incompatible with their religious faith."
and within that, this:
"denies the existence of any reality outside the material world.
First, that's false. Many don't deny it. They say there's no evidence to show it. Why? Because we are material creatures. We have senses that detect the material world. We have a material brain that operates in the material realm. How the heck are we supposed to detect or otherwise see something that is non-material? Do the religious magically have access to a realm that all of science, including religious scientists, has been unable to detect in any way. Our instruments are designed especially to extend the scale of human experience - but nowhere, never, has there been evidence of supernatural forces. Everything that has been discovered has fallen within the bounds of natural laws.
"If they are properly understood, they cannot be in contradiction because science and religion concern different matters." - Only to the extent that the religious want this to be the case, along with the odd atheist exception, such as Stephen Jay Gould, who just wanted to let us all get on.
"The scope of science is the world of nature: the reality that is observed, directly or indirectly, by our senses. Science advances explanations about the natural world, explanations that are accepted or rejected by observation and experiment." - This bit is right.
"Outside the world of nature, however, science has no authority, no statements to make, no business whatsoever taking one position or another." - This bit is right too. But what the religious don't get is that it applies to them too! Science uses reason and the senses - exactly the same faculties available to the religious. There is nothing the religious can get at that scientists can't. In fact it's the other way round. Science has given us access to the brain - albeit we're still in the early stages - so that there are many examples of the brain doing weird things that one particular example, experiencing God, is really no big deal. We have no examples of anything that confirms that an experience of God is actually that and not some trick of the brain.
"Science has nothing decisive to say about values, whether economic, aesthetic or moral" - Simply not true. Science has plenty to say about all these.
"...nothing to say about the meaning of life or its purpose." - Simply not true. Results of science suggest that there is no purpose or meaning in the sense that religion would like there to be.
"Science has nothing to say, either, about religious beliefs, except..." - No exceptions. Science can say quite a lot about beliefs, and I'm sure will be saying more and more as the various branches of brain science expose more.
"People of faith need not be troubled that science is materialistic." - Only if they want to ignore it and pretend it doesn't have anything to say. Wishful thinking will not make science go away.
"The methods and scope of science remain within the world of matter." - True. Same applies to you.
"It [science] cannot make assertions beyond that world." - And neither can you or anyone religious. Well, not quite true. You can make the assertions - and often do, but based on nothing at all.
"Science transcends cultural, political and religious beliefs because it has nothing to say about these subjects." - Warning! Pseudo-intellectual postmodern claim! What the hell does it mean by 'transcends' in this statement? The word is usually the reserve of the religious, to say what they know of is above or beyond, bigger and better (e.g. Lesley's Rollins video). The word is sometimes used to mean 'encompasses', as in Venn diagrams when one encompasses another: the outer includes all that's in the inner but 'transcends' it by encompassing more than is in the inner.
"That science is not constrained by cultural or religious differences is one of its great virtues." - True. It can address anything the human mind and senses can address, because it is an instrument that expands the human mind and senses. If science can't get at it then we can't.
"Some scientists deny that there can be valid knowledge about values or about the meaning and purpose of the world and of human life." - This is true, but curiously this isn't the point he then goes on to describe with regard to Dawkins. He's confusing the point about what we have access to, what we can know, which this statement is about, with some things that we actually do have ideas about: the denying of purpose (in the religious sense) (not values - Dawkins isn't denying that)
"There is a monumental contradiction in these assertions. If its commitment to naturalism does not allow science to derive values, meaning or purposes from scientific knowledge, it surely does not allow it, either, to deny their existence." - This totally misunderstands the point. The point is that science shows there is no inherent purpose in the universe, not even the characteristics that give rise to us (essentially issues regarding Entropy - it all just happens as the universe 'winds down', to give a simple expression). This in no way prevents us, as organisms with brains that evaluate our surroundings and our selves (echoes of the free will issues here), and to derive values and purpose for ourselves, based on non-teleological evolutionary directives.
"In its publication Teaching About Evolution and the Nature of Science, the US National Academy of Sciences emphatically asserts that religion and science answer different questions about the world..." - And this is supposed to tell us what? With all the kerfuffle in the US about religion, evolution, ID's 'teach the controversy', etc., this is just a conciliatory nod to the religious that evolution won't step on their toes if they don't step on science's. other than that, the specific issue of evolution doesn't cross swords with liberal religion, since liberal religion accepts evolution and evolution doesn't address ultimate origins; but it does very specifically deny Creationism's young Earth claims.
"People of faith should stand in awe of the wondrous achievements of science. But they should not be troubled that science may deny their religious beliefs." - Of course they should. Science, like any common sense approach to life, demands that we have evidence for what we are being told - otherwise you will be conned all to easily, by email scammers for one. The fact that these scams succeed is a testament to the gullibility of the human brain when left to it's own devices. Belief in religion is another.
"Religion concerns the meaning and purpose of the world and human life" - for all it tries to do that, for all it makes claims, it has nothing to back that up. basically, even when you dress up liberal religion in postmodern 'opinion' truths, it says nothing more than, "What's our purpose? Go is our purpose, or gives us our purpose, or demands our purpose, or loves us so we have the purpose to be loved, ...", and on and on with all sorts of unsubstantiated drivel that basically means they don't know either, but they'll have damned good fun making something up.
"[Religion concerns] the proper relation of people to their Creator and to each other" - Whoa! Hold on. "The proper relation of the people to the creator" - More postmodern bollocks. Without any evidence of a creator, or without the capacity to access the creator in order to establish there is a relation (remember, we are material beings. We don't have access to the supernatural) Note how this grammatically reasonable but nonsensical sentence is given some semblance of meaning, "make sure we include something human, our relation to each other, just to give this nonsense some grounding in reality."
"[Religion concerns] the moral values that inspire and govern their lives." - Only because the religious make that claim, and then espouse morality as if they are the only ones with access to it.
"Science, on the other hand, concerns the processes that account for the natural world: how the planets move, the composition of matter and the atmosphere, the origin and function of organisms." - And, one of these concerns is the workings of the human brain: neuroscience and evolution and anthropology suggest that internal personal 'religious experiences' are just brain anomalies, even if within normal bounds of variation; psychology and sociology and anthropology and evolution all suggest that external religious experiences and organisations are cultural memes that satisfied some requirement in the past.
"Religion has nothing definitive to say about ..." - Well, about anything really. Religion is made-up stuff.
"According to Augustine, the great theologian of the early Christian church..." - And therein lies another problem. Augustine and other theologians concerned themselves with explaining what pertains once a belief in God is given. This puts anything else they have to say into doubt.
"Successful as it is, however, a scientific view of the world is hopelessly incomplete." - Incomplete, yes, of course. It's work in progress. Humans first appeared about 50,000 to 100,000 years ago - and this might be the point when we really began to use our brains, but the details are unclear. The first human markings on pottery go back about 5500 years. What we call science now had it's base in Greek thought, but really took off just over a thousand years ago - about 1% - 2% of human existence? So, yes, we are still in our scientific infancy. We have no real conception of what science will be telling us about the brain, about religious belief, in another thousand years.
Because religion has been around for a while and science is so young, the religious seem to have the conceited view that theology has and continues to have access to great insights into the makings of the universe. But given that most of our current religious systems are not much different that those of two thousand years ago, give or take a bit of theological jiggery-pokery in the middle ages, I don't see that religion has had anything to offer.
"Scientific knowledge may enrich aesthetic and moral perceptions and illuminate the significance of life and the world, but these matters are outside the realm of science." - No they are not, because that would put them outside the realm of human beings, when it's human beings that create both science (the process) and these perceptions (in our brains).
Ayala made some similar statements at the Buckingham Palace reception where he received his Templeton Foundation prize. Probably is best statement was this:
"Properly they cannot be in contradiction because they deal in different subjects. They are like two windows through which we look at the world; the world is one and the same, but what we see is different,..."
My response to that is that they could be. If religion stuck to it's organisational and pastoral care roles then it has a lot to contribute to human affairs. It differs from science in this respect in that science is best at finding things out, telling us how the world is - even though through understanding the brain and human social issues it can contribute data to be used by religious organisations. This also seems in accord with what Alan has said on his blog - he sees the pragmatic value in religion, what it can do for us.
But if religion wants to tell us how or who created the universe, what interaction the personal brain is having with as yet unknown agents (i.e. God), then these are real questions of science. Cosmology and particle physics tells us much more about how the universe actually is, and as much as we can yet know about how it began, and no amount of theological navel gazing is going to improve on that. The branches of brain science are examining how the brain works, and how it doesn't, how it fools itself, how gullible it is, and no amount of theological navel gazing and introspection is going to tell us anything better.
The religious need to move on. I haven't read anything by some of the more liberally religious, such as Richard Holloway, recommended to me by Lesley. Though science can't yet answer many of our questions about our origins and our interactions with internal agents, neither can religion, and science is in the best position to get those answers, eventually.
Tuesday, 18 May 2010
Belief in Belief & Practical v Factual Realism
I seems to go unsaid by 'believers', most of the time, but occasionally on blogs it might be admitted to explicitly, that there might be no God. Or it might be said that it doesn't matter if there is no God.
To some extent this is a step in the right direction. But I can't help but feel it smacks of being ungenuine; there appears to be a dishonesty there, buried somewhere deep in the otherwise honest view that faith is good for us, even if it's a faith in something that doesn't exist. If faith developed by some evolutionary mechanism and had some purpose in the past, is it okay to go on believing now, even if you feel there's nothing there, or if you feel it doesn't matter if there's something there of not?
Dan Dennett, in his AAI 2007, Good Reasons for "Believing" in God talk covers a number of reasons for believing, and addressed this particular notion.
He identifies a self-censorship by preachers, who wouldn't dream of saying openly that God does not exist. Maybe some are more open in their true beliefs - certainly enough to say it on a blog, and for those this might turn out to be a brave move. Fessing up to this hidden truth is something Dennett concedes is courageous in his talk.
Dennett says the God of old, Yahweh, is like Mount Everest - it's there for all to see and exists without question. But, he explains, God has been watered down, until it has become like low rolling hills - not quite so obvious. But in the minds of the modern theologian it resembles more of an insubstantial mist, a fog.
What follows is some of Dan's talk. Towards the end Dennett includes words from David Sloan Wilson's book, as if in debate. In what follows the two parts are identified by DD and DSW.
DD - Gradually, over the years, the concept of God is watered down. These personal revisions are passed on without notice. not just from preachers, but from parents talking to their children. Gradually, from what started out as a Mount Everest type concept of God, becomes a sort of amorphous cloudy mysterious concept that nobody really knows what it is. Mystery is itself elevated and considered to be wonderful. And we get the privatisation of the concepts - this is particularly true in the cases of the mega churches in this country [USA] where, "We don't care what your concept of God is, just so long as you're One With Jesus and you come to the church." So they're actually allowing to freelance and come up with your own concept of God. It doesn't matter what concept of God you have, "[whisper] because nobody believes it anyway."
DD - So we get the almost comical confusion of today. It's very important this happened [the change in what God is] imperceptably. If it was sped up it would just be hilarious; the revision piled on revision; and all in one direction.
[...]
DD - Here's a quote:
"It is the final proof of God's omnipotence that he need not exist in order to save us"
DD - Now, that's a wonderful joke by Peter De Vries in his hilarious novel The Mackerel Plaza, back in 1958. But...
"God is so great that the greatness precludes existence." - Raimon Panikkar in The Silence of God: The Answer of the Buddha (1989)
DD - That is not a joke. That is said in all po faced seriousness.
[...]
Dennett finally addresses one of the ways of treating this God that isn't there, as a myth, as another form of reality. He tackles David Sloan Wilson's account of ways of believing, form Wilson's book, Darwin's Cathedral, 2002, in which Wilson uses the terms:
Factual Realism and Practical Realism. He quotes from the book...
DSW - It's true that many religious beliefs are false as literal descriptions of the world, but this merely forces us to recognise two forms of realism: a factual realism based on literal correspondence, and a practical realism based on behavioural adaptiveness. An atheist historian who understood the real life of Jesus but who's own life was a mess as a result of his beliefs would be factually attached to and practically detached from reality.
DD - So he ought to believe a myth even at the expense of his factual knowledge in order to keep his life not a mess? That seems to be the implication.
DSW - Rationality is not the gold standard against which all other forms of thought are to be judged. Adaptation is the gold standard against which rationality must be judged, along with all other forms of thought.
DD - If this were a philosophical audiance and it weren't so late at night I'd take issue with that, but I just draw your attention to these passages.
DSW - It is the person who elevates factual truth above practical truth who must be accused of mental weakness from an evolutionary perspective. If there is a trade off between the two forms of realism such that our beliefs can become more adaptive only by becoming factually less true, then factual realism will be the loser every time.
DD - So he seems to be giving what he thinks of as an evolutionary endorsement for practical realism over factual realism.
DSW - Many intellectual traditions and scientific theories of the past decades have a similar silly and purpose driven quality once their cloak of factual plausability has been yanked away by the hand of time. If believing something for its desired consequences is a crime, then let those who are without guilt cast the first stone.
DD - I want to point out the fundamental difference betwee factual realism and practical realism is that the truth or faslity of factual realist theories is always an issue. Imagine if a priest were to say, "of course there really isn't a God who listens to your prayers; that's just a useful fiction, an over simplification." No, even the Unitarians don't just blurt out the fact that these may be useful fictions, since it's quite apparent that their utility depends on their not being acknowledge to be fictions. In other words, practical realism as recommended by David Sloan Wilson is paternalistic and disingenuous.
DSW - It appears that factual knowledge is not always sufficient by itself to motivate adaptive bahaviour. AT time a symbolic beliefe system that departs from factual reality fairs better.
DD - At what? At motivating behaviour. Well, you know I think he's right about that. Is this a recommendation that one should lie when it will lead to adaptive behaviour? Does Wilson recognise the implication of his position?
[Dennett shows a photo of the Bush Adminsitration team: Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld]
DD - Let us consider, practical realism of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. In a chilling article several years ago by Ron Suskind, White House correspondent, we get the following quote, "The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'"
DD - There's practical realism for you. It seems to me that David Sloan Wilson hasn't thought this through. He maybe though actually saying that we are confronted with a sort of tradgedy. It may be that our quest for scientific truth has somehow trapped us: It's too late for practical reality, that was for bygone days, we're stuck now with factual reality, which some times won't motivate us. We just know too much. We can never again act honestly, and honestly follow the path of practical realism.
DD - I don't believe it. But that might be the position that he holds. Well if so we will just have to do the best we can guided by our knowledge. We will have to set 'practical' realism aside; it's too late for that. there's no going back.
DD - But, I'm actually optimistic. here we see the Vatican [picture]. Twenty years ago If I had stood up and said in a few years the Soviet Union woill evaporate, it will not exist any more, people would have laughed. If I'd sai Aprteid will be gone in just hew years, people would have laughed. Sometimes institutions that seem to be massive and have tremendous inertia can just pop like a bubble. So, how do we know until we try? Maybe within our childrens' lifetime the Vatican will become the European Museum of Roman Catholicism. And maybe mecca will become Disney's Magic Kingdom of Allah. If you think that's funny just bare in mind that the hagia Sofia in Istanbul started off as a church, then it was a mosque, and today it's a museum.
Of course Dennett is seeing the possible consequences of the lying that is implicit in this position of holding to a fictional practical realism over a less comfortable factual realism. It's no good simply saying that continuing to believe in belief, while knowing that the belief you're believing in is false, is okay because if makes people feel good, or behave well. Those you incite to believe false beliefs have a habit of interpreting those beliefs for themselves.
So, no matter how stupifying the belief is, I don't think it's worth it in the end.
According to Dennett, "it's quite apparent that their utility depends on their not being acknowledge to be fictions. In other words, practical realism ... is paternalistic and disingenuous."
It's also dangerous.
Saturday, 8 May 2010
God Speaks
In the previous post, Psychology of Belief, perhaps the most interesting of the videos is this one: Psychology of Belief, Part 6: Hallucinations.
One of the believers in the video said, "God speaks in a whole bunch of different ways", and there's the rub. For the believer who avoids inflicting some of the psychological influences on others, do they check to see if they've been influenced that way? I think this particular psychological effect is probably the trick that holds it all together, the self-affirmation, the self-reassurance, that all the other psyche effects are in fact valid, because we've experienced God speaking to us. But have we?
Being told to listen and God will speak can lead us to interpret that in any way that seems to fit - confirmation bias - and so maybe our own intense feelings are interpreted as God speaking. When we think of how our brains work, using what little we yet know, we have a mechanism that consists of neurons, chemicals and electrical impulses, and out of that come feelings, sub-conscious events, and conscious awareness and thoughts. The latest thinking is that the conscious thoughts we have are the outcome, the awareness that comes to the fore, of other events in the brain; so that conscious thoughts are post-event stories that we use to monitor what the brain is doing and to plan and feedback down to the sub-conscious and the motor areas. This is a mechanism that builds from birth and is something we take from granted as much as speaking - when in the full flow of free conversation we have no idea how the vague notions that we want to express are formed into grammatical words and syntactic sentences, it just happens.
Using this model it seems plausible that we could mistake rising awareness of feelings and sub-conscious thoughts as being from elsewhere. We have so many instances where thoughts just pop into our heads, and if we have the time to consider we sometimes wonder, where did that come from. We notice it most when we're with someone and we've been trying to remember a name but can't quite get it, so we forget the search, and sometime later up it pops, and we wonder, where did that come from? This particular type of event is so noticeable that we even comment to each other - if I suddenly say the name, 'out of the blue', the other person will ask, where did that come from?
Some pop ups have an obvious cause. If I'm thinking about a topic in full concentrations and something comes into my field of vision, or the phone rings, it's clear that the interruption, the pop up, has an external source. If I suddenly get an itch, or a stomach ache, I know the noticeable has come from my body. But how do we judge were subconscious thoughts and feelings come from. The sudden intense rush of inspiration or insight or overwhelming awe or a divine intervention such as words from God, I think, are all events that occur in the brain through the stimulation of intense thought, the power of stress, or any number neurological stimulations.
That the brain is capable of intense feelings from neurological events is indisputable - that is how the brain works after all. But to put it in context we can think of the images of brain seizures, such as epilepsy, as an extreme case of brain event that is out of control. I'm not say that clinically these inspirational events are the same in any way - I don't know the neurophysiology of what's happening - but as an extreme model it seems plausible. The fact that epilepsy has been speculated to be the cause of many recorded events in history is an indication of the similarity, whether it be possession by demons, appearances of visions or words from God.
This video is one in a series on epilepsy. Though this series is focusing on the clinical condition of epilepsy it does give some insight into how the brain can have extreme events; and it's something like this I'm speculation could be the mode of operation of inspiring brain events - as opposed to real words from God or possession by demons. Which seems more likely? Video #1 is also of interest in this context.
Having a feeling that we are in touch with God, or that we experience God does have a possible neurobiological explanation. There's the notion of the 'God module' in the brain. I missed this Horizon programme. I don't know to what extent Dr Daniel Giang, neurologist and member of the church, is right in his medical opinion, or to what extent he has confirmation bias. The important point is not that is a module that is specifically for seeing or hearing or experiencing God, but that it is one area of the brain that has several functions, and one apparent effect, possibly a side effect, is that it causes or interprets brain effects as divinely inspired and generally cause the subject to believe in the divine.
The brain has the ability to convince itself of something, even when on another level the subject knows intellectually that his own brain is mistaken. This is a well know example of a woman experiencing a man behind her. Other direct brain stimulations have been recorded as causing familiar songs to be hear in the brain, even though the subject knows there is no music playing. And in another case it has been possible to cause out of body experiences. Out of body experiences can also be induced with VR.
Also, to figure out whether a divine event is real, consider: are you measuring the misses as well as the hits? Or is a cognitive bias persuading you you're hearing God speak, when it's your own internal experiences, of yourself. Watch for the auditory illusion towards the end - "You can't miss it when I tell you what's there." To what extent are interpretations of inner messages influenced by religious priming, so that just a 'feeling' can be interepreted as divine?
Hearing God speak, either as an auditory signal in the audio cortex, or as a deep emotional experience, doesn't seem to need divine intervention - the brain can do this all by itself, and convince the subject that it is a divine intervention. If the subject is primed for this it might even be inevitable that the subject is convinced.
Thursday, 22 April 2010
Wager On An Atheist's God
Getting bored with arguing with theists, I thought it might be easier if I just give up and join the club. I've been trying to find a God hypothesis that comes close to working for me. There are none out there that completely satisfy my needs.
Though I'm not prone to believing God stuff without evidence, from my point of view it is legitimate to concoct hypotheses and check them against what my reason and senses tell me. Here's one.
There is a God. He created the universe as we have come to know it through our senses, reason and science. He wanted nothing more than to create a universe to see what would happen. He is not omniscient, so he was curious. Being alone, but otherwise a good scientist, he is very hands-off and observational.
He has seen humans evolve with no input from himself other than the initial conditions. He looks on with amusement at all the speculations, guesses, hypotheses about how the universe started. He is amused that some, the theists, guessed right, but went overboard in speculating about him. Basically, other than the guess that there was an agency, him, all religions got everything else totally wrong. He has no interest in morality, that is in making decrees he expects us to adhere to. He pays no attention to prayers and certainly doesn't answer them.
In fact, since he has left no trace of himself, and has made no communication with us, he is amazed and amused by the great intelligence of the atheists who suppose he does not exist, knowing that if he were in their position he'd conclude the same. In fact, given he has left no evidence of himself, he's surprised there are beings still dumb enough the think he exists.
He's so pleased with the atheists that, despite having no former plans, he is considering taking up one of the theists' wrong beliefs - that of the afterlife. But, the twist is that everyone who has died a thoughtful reasoned atheist, he will recreate as equal partners to himself, as gods - thinking it would be nice to have some intelligent conversation. As for the theists, he wouldn't in all eternity want those freaky dictatorial idiots around with any godly powers - he'd have religious wars on his hands that would put the vindictive ancient Greek gods to shame. No, the theists can be left to return to other forms of matter - to go up in smoke or be eaten by worms.
Now on the surface this seems a dumb hypothesis to me, because there's no evidence to support it. Buut hey, hold on! There isn't supposed to be. Perfect! This overcomes some of the problems with the usual theist hypotheses - that God intervenes. And I can say God is unknowable - this is only my hypothesis, I don't know if it's true, and I'm not claiming it is, so I don't have to justify it. It can't lose.
Still, to be on the safe side, in case this is the truth, I'd still be better consigning it to the bin like all the other divine hypotheses - I wouldn't want God to think I think he's there. But on the whole this is a far better bet on which to use Pascal's Wager.
If you can find any flaws with this hypothesis, then by all means contribute. But don't expect an argument from me, I'm an atheist.
Though I'm not prone to believing God stuff without evidence, from my point of view it is legitimate to concoct hypotheses and check them against what my reason and senses tell me. Here's one.
There is a God. He created the universe as we have come to know it through our senses, reason and science. He wanted nothing more than to create a universe to see what would happen. He is not omniscient, so he was curious. Being alone, but otherwise a good scientist, he is very hands-off and observational.
He has seen humans evolve with no input from himself other than the initial conditions. He looks on with amusement at all the speculations, guesses, hypotheses about how the universe started. He is amused that some, the theists, guessed right, but went overboard in speculating about him. Basically, other than the guess that there was an agency, him, all religions got everything else totally wrong. He has no interest in morality, that is in making decrees he expects us to adhere to. He pays no attention to prayers and certainly doesn't answer them.
In fact, since he has left no trace of himself, and has made no communication with us, he is amazed and amused by the great intelligence of the atheists who suppose he does not exist, knowing that if he were in their position he'd conclude the same. In fact, given he has left no evidence of himself, he's surprised there are beings still dumb enough the think he exists.
He's so pleased with the atheists that, despite having no former plans, he is considering taking up one of the theists' wrong beliefs - that of the afterlife. But, the twist is that everyone who has died a thoughtful reasoned atheist, he will recreate as equal partners to himself, as gods - thinking it would be nice to have some intelligent conversation. As for the theists, he wouldn't in all eternity want those freaky dictatorial idiots around with any godly powers - he'd have religious wars on his hands that would put the vindictive ancient Greek gods to shame. No, the theists can be left to return to other forms of matter - to go up in smoke or be eaten by worms.
Now on the surface this seems a dumb hypothesis to me, because there's no evidence to support it. Buut hey, hold on! There isn't supposed to be. Perfect! This overcomes some of the problems with the usual theist hypotheses - that God intervenes. And I can say God is unknowable - this is only my hypothesis, I don't know if it's true, and I'm not claiming it is, so I don't have to justify it. It can't lose.
Still, to be on the safe side, in case this is the truth, I'd still be better consigning it to the bin like all the other divine hypotheses - I wouldn't want God to think I think he's there. But on the whole this is a far better bet on which to use Pascal's Wager.
If you can find any flaws with this hypothesis, then by all means contribute. But don't expect an argument from me, I'm an atheist.
Sunday, 22 November 2009
They're Up The wall
The BBC news report on Women of the Wall shows the hypocracy of the religious mind, and the lack of a sense of humour that makes them fail to spot irony.
"...rabbi Ovadia Yosef denounced women's prayer groups that wear the tallit at the Western Wall as acting to promote a feminist cause and not out of piety." - A well-put pious argument rabbi, and not at all promoting male domination of the relgion, eh?
And, don't the women get it? They're claiming unfair treatment on religious matters in a society dominated by dogmatic relgious males? Why bother. Pick a relgion where women are already treated as equals - granted you're going to have to skip all the mainstream religions. Sod it, become atheists.
"...rabbi Ovadia Yosef denounced women's prayer groups that wear the tallit at the Western Wall as acting to promote a feminist cause and not out of piety." - A well-put pious argument rabbi, and not at all promoting male domination of the relgion, eh?
And, don't the women get it? They're claiming unfair treatment on religious matters in a society dominated by dogmatic relgious males? Why bother. Pick a relgion where women are already treated as equals - granted you're going to have to skip all the mainstream religions. Sod it, become atheists.
Sunday, 17 February 2008
The Power of Extremist Prayer
Perhaps extremists of other faiths could learn from controversial Southern Baptist Pastor Wiley Drake. Why bother going to the trouble of organising terror campaigns when you have God on your side in the first place - employ imprecatory prayer!
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