Does Atheism Need Principles?

In a new book, Victor J. Stenger (physicist, author of "God: the Failed Hypothesis") puts forward four key principles of New Atheism:

1. Naturalism- the view that all of reality is reducible to matter and nothing else-is sufficient to explain everything we observe in the universe.
2. Absence of evidence for God is, indeed, evidence of absence when the evidence should be there and is not.
3. The Bible fails as a basis for morality and is unable to account for the problem of unnecessary suffering throughout the world.
4. The "way of nature" of nontheist beliefs of Buddha, Tao, and Confucius is far superior to the traditional supernatural monotheisms, which history shows can lead [to] evil.

By "New Atheism," he is most likely referring to the beliefs of Sam Harris, Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Daniel Dennett, and others in that vein. I can't speak for their beliefs, but I would be very surprised if they agreed with this characterization of their "key principles." I certainly don't agree. There's a big problem with this whole idea, but I'll get to that later. First, let's take them one by one.

1. Naturalism- the view that all of reality is reducible to matter and nothing else-is sufficient to explain everything we observe in the universe.

This begs the question: what is matter? If he means the traditional definition of "anything that takes up space" I'm certainly not comfortable making that statement with regards to something like light, of whose properties we only have the most basic understanding. And who's to say there is nothing else in the vastness of the universe that can't be classified as "matter." Isn't antimatter, a concept that's very popular in the scientific community, by definition, not matter?

2. Absence of evidence for God is, indeed, evidence of absence when the evidence should be there and is not.

This is just silly. Absence of evidence is never evidence of absence. There is no evidence of the absence of god. A rational person simply refuses to believe a positive claim that god exists because of this lack of evidence. Being an atheist (even a "New Atheist") doesn't mean making a positive claim as to the non-existence of god. It just means you lack such a belief.

3. The Bible fails as a basis for morality and is unable to account for the problem of unnecessary suffering throughout the world.

I agree with this. This likely accurately describes the beliefs of the "New Atheists" (although, include all holy books, scriptures, etc. Not just the Bible). But I don't think it's a prerequisite to being an atheist. Atheists don't disbelieve the Bible because it fails as a basis for morality. They disbelieve it because it's demonstrably false. Someone could easily believe that the Bible provides good moral lessons and still think it isn't true.

4. The "way of nature" of nontheist beliefs of Buddha, Tao, and Confucius is far superior to the traditional supernatural monotheisms, which history shows can lead [to] evil.

Wow. First of all, any belief system can lead to evil, including one based on atheism. Certainly Buddhism, Taoism, and Confucianism can, and have, led to something most people would describe as "evil" at certain points in history. Second of all, these belief systems, while plausibly described as nontheist, are certainly spiritual, and just as irrational as any supernatural monotheisms. While I may prefer Confucianism to Islam, I'm certainly not going to hold it up as an example of an ideal philosophy. I don't think the "New Atheists" would either.

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Apart from my specific objections noted above, I take issue with the idea that "New Atheism" has any "principles." New atheism is the same as the old atheism. It's just attracting attention now because people are writing books and not getting murdered for it by religious fanatics. Atheism, new or old, is not a belief system, code of conduct, or community. It has no beliefs, principles, or rules. Atheism is just a lack of belief in god. It is not a positive statement of anything. I wish people would stop trying to make it one.

Religious Extremists Make Way More Sense Than Moderates

One in three Americans believe that the Bible is the literal word of god. These are the people who put prayer in, and take evolution out of, our schools, brutalize homosexuals, oppose stem cell research, practice faith healing, and every other thing you've heard of horrible fundamentalists doing. These people are (rightly so) usually the target of Richard Dawkins' wrath. You seem them on full display in Bill Maher's movie Religulous.

These people are crazy, they are deluding themselves, and they are dangerous. But they're not deluding themselves nearly as much as religious moderates.

Being a biblical literalist takes one leap of faith: the Bible is true. It's quite a leap, but it's a single leap. Once a person believes that, all kind of crazy behavior is consistent with that belief. Contrast that to the religious moderate. A religious moderate has to make 10 leaps of faith before getting up in the morning. Everyone's belief system is different, but a lot of American moderates share certain beliefs, such as:

a) god exists, and he resembles the god described in the Bible
b) he loves everyone
c) he loves me personally
d) he chooses not to give us evidence of his existence
e) only the parts of the Bible that I like are true. The rest was made up or misinterpreted by writers or translators.
f) god wants me to do, coincidentally, what I'm already doing now, or something similar.

There are many more, but I think you get the point. Since there is no source a person can point to and say "that is true," every individual belief is a new leap of faith. It's a new willful suspension of rationality.

A person who really believes that the Bible was written by the holy spirit should be a complete ass. He should prostheletyze relentlessly. What's an annoying afternoon compared to eternal damnation? He should attempt to stop anything (science, acceptance of homosexuality, etc.) that causes people to disbelieve the Bible. And he should use any method permitted by the Bible. Moderates tend to look down on these people, but extremists are simply living up to their beliefs.

Moderates tend to invent their own belief systems based on what they wish was true. They can clearly see that parts of the Bible can't be true. But instead of admitting that the Bible is not a credible source of information, and refusing to believe it, they just excise the parts they don't like, which tends to be most of it. They keep the broad outlines, cherry-pick a verse or two that they saw on a bumper-sticker, and fill in the rest with whatever makes them feel good. As usual, Sam Harris puts it best:

[Religious moderates] perpetuate the myth that a person must believe things on insufficient evidence in order to have an ethical and spiritual life. While religious moderates don't fly planes into buildings, or organize their lives around apocalyptic prophecy, they refuse to deeply question the preposterous ideas of those who do. Moderates neither submit to the real demands of scripture nor draw fully honest inferences from the growing testimony of science. In attempting to find a middle ground between religious dogmatism and intellectual honesty, it seems to me that religious moderates betray faith and reason equally.

Making a leap of faith, I can understand. It (unfortunately) happens to the best of us. But making that many? All the time? That is what seems really crazy to me.

Easy Answers

Trinley Gatso, the 12th Dalai Lama, was asked, "What is god?" by an accolyte. He responded:

If I take a lamp and shine it toward the wall, a bright spot will appear on the wall. The lamp is our search for truth, for understanding. Too often we assume that the light on the wall is God. But the light is not the goal of the search; it is the result of the search. The more intense the search, the brighter the light on the wall. The brighter the light on the wall, the greater the sense of revelation upon seeing it! Similarly, someone who does not search, who does not bring a lantern with him, sees nothing. What we perceive as God, is the byproduct of our search for God. It may simply be an appreciation of the light, pure and unblemished, not understanding that it comes from us. Sometimes we stand in front of the light and assume that we are the center of the universe. God looks astonishingly like we do! Or we turn to look at our shadow, and assume that all is darkness. If we allow ourselves to get in the way, we defeat the purpose; which is to use the light of our search to illuminate the wall in all its beauty…and in all its flaws. And in so doing better understand the world around us.

This sounds very, very wise. It's not. This is what I call a "middler's answer." It's the type of wisdom that those that fall between the faithful and the faithless love. These answers generally take one of these forms:

The search for god is god. (as above)

We are a part of the universe / god attempting to understand itself.

The realization that we are not god is god.

We are all one.

Enlightenment is the end of the search for enlightenment.

Etc. If it's punchy and tautological, odds are it belongs in the middling category. All too often, these concepts are taken from one of the eastern religions (Buddhism being the most heavily borrowed from) without the context of the rest of the faith. A lot of Americans are willing to spout off the Essence of Oneness, while omitting the Path of the Bhodisattva. (Don't worry if you don't know what that means, that's kind of the point -- Wiki has some great articles on Buddhism).

What's important here is that these seem like answers. They sound as though they settle the question of where man fits in the universe very tidily, without leaving around some absent deity. They don't settle anything. What they do is take a very positive concept and rephrase it away as something mystical or spiritual.

Hidden in the examples listed above is one of the great fundamental truths of existence. It is every person's duty to find what truth they can. When you get down to it, this is all we have. We are born with our faculties and our instincts, and nothing else. Everything we learn about the universe stems then from our attempts to understand it. This is the crux of philosophy, science, and religion. If mankind has a universal feature, it is that we all must search for meaning, in some form. The middler's answers play to this fact. We are all looking for truth, and these ideas seem to provide it.

But they don't . The middler's answers are just that: answers, not wisdom. Read again the quote above from the Dalai Lama. What has he said other than, "keep looking," in so many words? So do keep looking, that's all we've got. Please don't think this Starbucks-cup "wisdom" will actually teach you anything.


Now onto my super-secret second point of this article. It really, really irritates me the extent to which westerners idealize the eastern faiths (specifically Buddhism, Shinto, and Hinduism -- for some reason the Jainists, Sikhs, etc. don't get the same treatment). From t-shirts to making your blog posts sound more impressive, eastern wisdom is everywhere. Consider these two statements:

"The secret of health for both mind and body is not to mourn for the past, nor to worry about the future, but to live the present moment wisely and earnestly."

"Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content."

They are both relatively wise statements, and express a good point eloquently -- life is about living. Which would you put up as a status message in your favorite chat program? What if you had to source them? The first is attributed to the Buddha, the second to the Apostle Paul.

To nail this point home, I opened this post with a quote from the Dalai Lama. At least I told you that I did. That speech was actually delivered by a reptilian alien on the TV series Babylon 5. Does it seem quite so wise now?

Be well,
Chris.

While I'm away...

I've been on vacation all week, but while I'm away, I'd like to direct your attention to Andrew Sullivan's blog. Andrew has been away all week as well, but his stand-ins are having a great discussion about atheism. In predictable fashion, the bloggers are making all of the usual "atheists are irrational/impolite/need to get over themselves" arguments, but getting an incredible amount of pushback from readers. The latest installment is here. List of relevant posts here.

The Law of Truly Large Numbers, or Why Miracles Have to Happen

One of the most persistent, and difficult, types of arguments that atheists tend to run into is the dreaded personal anecdote. This is the story that a person of faith tells you that sums up for them why they are absolutely certain that their faith is correct. It will be a story of some incredible coincidence or miraculous recovery. It "couldn't have just happened that way." There was clearly a "greater force at work". And nothing you could ever say will convince them otherwise.

It won't help to point out that personal experience is not the same thing as observation (in the rigorous sense). No matter how many times you say, "The plural of anecdote is not data," most people don't realize a simple, fundamental fact of existence:

The least likely outcome is the one in which nothing unlikely occurs.

Think about that for a moment. I don't intend to make this a post about probability theory or anything so complex. Simply put, what the Law of Truly Large Numbers states is that any system with many outcomes will inevitably produce the unlikely (less probable) outcomes and that, more importantly, they will be noticed more because they are unusual.

As an example, consider the Jesus on a tortilla / grilled cheese sandwich / potato "miracle" that seems to occur every three years or so. The markings on these objects are essentially random. This means that there is a slim, but non-zero, possibility that these markings will resemble a face*. Say that in a year a billion tortillas are fried (the actual number is much, much higher than that. The average Mexican consumes close to 150 lbs. of corn tortilla yearly). In this scenario, assuming there's a greater than one-in-a-billion chance of a "face-like" tortilla being fried then it is statistically likely to happen. Even more, it very unlikely to not happen. Of course, because it is an unusual outcome it gets noticed more than the remaining millions of banal, faceless tortillas.

This particular failing of the human intellect happens constantly. Consider all the stories you've heard of dreams literally coming true. Your friend dreams a particular event, and then it happens! Inexplicable! Take that, science!

Well, no. Of course not. First off, your dreams have a fairly narrow set of permutative elements -- the people you know, the places you've been, and things on your mind. Therefore, your dreams must be necessarily close to your actual life -- they're populated by the same concepts. If your dreams then combine these elements in different ways (and are affected by your desires, fears, hopes for the future, etc.) then it is an inevitability that you will dream an event that will occur at a later time. There's nothing magical going on, it's just math. Looked at from the reverse, it seems obvious. How many thousands upon thousands of dreams have you had that have not come true?

Strange, coincidental, and downright spooky things have to happen. There will, inevitably, be those times when lives are saved by freak accidents. Twins will die minutes apart. Taking a detour seen in a dream will save someone's life. These are not evidence of the supernatural or the paranormal, they are just the probabilities playing out exactly as we should expect them to.


* And by "face" I mean, "maybe if I squint and assume Jesus looked like Jeff Spicoli."

Self-Awareness and an All-Loving God

One of the most common defenses of religious belief is something along the lines of "if it makes people feel good, what's the problem?" See this, for an example of this argument (scroll to Day 5 - "I know plenty of religious people who believe because it helps them in life and makes them feel better. That seems a pretty good reason to me, even if I don’t share the view"). While there are many problems with this approach, I'd like to highlight one: it encourages people to have an inflated impression of themselves. Here's some science:

Thomaes found that people with unrealistically inflated opinions of themselves, far from proving more resilient in the face of social rebuffs, actually suffer more because of it. Some psychologists hold that "positive illusions" provide a mental shield that buffers its bearers from the threats of rejection or criticism. But according to Thomaes, realistic self-awareness is a much healthier state of mind.

The experiment dealt only with 9-12 year olds, but I don't think it's too much of a stretch to extrapolate that to adults, as well. I don't think it's too controversial to assert that people with artificially high opinions of themselves suffer more when they encounter evidence that they may not be as great as they think they are.

Part of the appeal of most religions is that they stress the cosmic importance of the individual. The fact that there's a higher power isn't really the significant part. The significant part is that this higher power cares about YOU! Most religions artificially elevate the importance of each individual as being part of "God's plan" or something analogous.

The problem with this is that people aren't that important. People's importance comes from themselves and other people (and sometimes pets). People can be massively important in the world, but they can never be as important as religion promises that they are. Evidence of this is everywhere. It doesn't take a lot of life experience to realize that every individual is not that important to any grand scheme of the universe.

When religious people encounter enough of this evidence, it's crushing. People get used to this idea of themselves an indispensable part of a perfect plan. Once enough evidence to the contrary is amassed, people generally go one of two directions. They either get really depressed, or they embrace full irrationality, ignore the evidence, and recommit themselves to their beliefs. Readers of this blog will probably recognize that neither of these is a positive outcome.

Of course, there are a lot of other problems with the "I believe it because it feels good" argument, but we'll save those for another day.

Atheist Camp?

Our old friend Richard Dawkins is at it again:

The author of The God Delusion is helping to launch Britain’s first summer retreat for non-believers....

Budding atheists will be given lessons to arm themselves in the ways of rational scepticism. There will be sessions in moral philosophy and evolutionary biology along with more conventional pursuits such as trekking and tug-of-war. There will also be a £10 prize for the child who can disprove the existence of the mythical unicorn.

While I'm pretty firmly against the idea of mainstreaming atheism as a political force, this strikes me as actually a pretty good idea. Although I'm still somewhat conflicted about it.

One one hand, it would be nice to have a place where children can go to learn the value of rational thought, and have lessons in critical thinking, as an alternative to faith-based camps (some of which I was exposed to, despite coming from a relatively secular household). On the other hand, it's still indoctrination. It's an authoritative figure giving lessons on the "proper" way to look at the world. I think I might send my [hypothetical] kids for a week, but with a stern warning about the dangers of believing something just because an authority figure tells you it's true.

What do you think? Is this a good idea? Just another church? The end of the world?