What's in a word?

A friend of mine posted the meme shown below along with this comment:

The willful ignorance of true science that leads one to believe that the universe is intelligently designed and the stubborn rejection of the notion that there is a God that requires obedience.

I should note that my friend believes the Bible to be 100% compatible with science. So when he referred to "true science that leads one to believe that the universe is intelligently designed", you should understand the phrase in that light. For him, "true science" means "biblical science".

I responded as follows:

If you have a beef with cosmology, take it up with cosmologists. If you disagree with the claims of biology, then, by all means, engage with biologists. Ditto, the laws of physics. But once and for all, can we please stop glomming on to atheism all these unrelated notions?

Throughout history, humans have worshipped thousands, perhaps millions of different gods. You, friend, are an atheist with respect to every single one of those gods, but one. And a good number of those gods were claimed to be the one true and living God.

Why don't you believe in those gods? Well, largely because neither you nor anybody else remembers anything about them. But do you feel some responsibility to seriously study every one of their claims before you definitely reject them? I would be surprised if you did. You have too much sense for that. If one of these gods comes up in conversation, such as Zeus or Quetzalcoatl or Hanuman the monkey god, I imagine you place it in the same cognitive bucket as all the rest -- the "Mythical Creations Of The Human Imagination For Which There Is No Evidence" bucket.

Because of this, if you were to suddenly travel to the time and place where one of these gods was worshipped, obeyed, and sacrificed or murdered for, you would be considered an outcast or a heretic or an infidel for your heathen unbelief. You would be considered that most maligned of beings, An Atheist.

The people you dismiss, deride and mock for their unbelief in the God that you worship are exactly the same as you, except they have one more drop in their "Mythical Creations Of The Human Imagination For Which There Is No Evidence" bucket. That is all an atheist is, nothing more or less.

And regarding your equating the term "true science" to things found in the Bible, I must ask you to desist. You're only embarrassing yourself. There was an entire civilization that believed the notion that the universe was created by the epic ejaculation of a deity. Otherwise rational people killed or died in defense of this notion. Your claim that the bible contains "true science" is exactly equivalent to that civilization's beliefs.

This is not a question of which God is right. That is an unanswerable question and one for which millions have suffered torture and death because they have had the wrong opinion.

It is rather a question of epistemology. That is, which method we use for deciding what is Truth. I know you don't like that word, but it's the best one we have. It is the question that asks "should we form conclusions based on verifiable, testable, falsifiable facts and evidence" or "should we form our conclusion first and then choose or make the facts fit the conclusion"?

The former has given us every technological advance we enjoy in this world. The latter has given us millennia of war and bloodshed. So please, stop labeling people as ignorant or stubborn or evil who think the former is superior to the latter.

 

Posted with Blogsy

A Belief in Belief

I have observed that evidence is inconsequential, one might even say irrelevant, to religious believers. When confronted with facts that appear to contradict their belief, I have observed people exhibiting a whole range of reactions. On the extreme 'accepting' end, my favorite type of comment is the mind-bending "this only serves to deepen my faith." On the extreme 'rejecting' end, my favorite comments are the ones that claim it is all the result of a conspiracy.

The common factor is that no evidence, however high the quality, however great the quantity, however reliable and disinterested the source, would ever suffice to alter the person's convictions.

This is because, at its root, religious belief is an epistemological approach to life where the conclusion is concrete and the facts are malleable. So, when confronted with a fact or claim, a person with this approach to belief will do whatever it takes to ensure that the conclusion is not ever jeopardized. Any claim, however incredible, that supports the conclusion will often be accepted with total credulity. Any claim that contradicts the conclusion, will be subjected to the utmost skepticism or simply rejected out of hand, or rationalized away, or treated as a lie, or disposed of in some other way. Or the presenter of that fact will be discounted as evil or 'anti' or having some other characteristic that nullifies his credibility.

This approach is the opposite of the scientific method, in which facts are concrete and the conclusion malleable.

When interacting with religious believers, then, if your aim is to persuade them that their conclusion is incorrect, the stating of facts or evidence does not advance your purpose. Every fact will ultimately end up supporting their conclusion either because it directly favors it or because it reinforces the notion that contrary facts must be the inventions of detractors.

To have any hope of success in curing people of belief, you must help them realize that their epistemological approach to life is faulty and ultimately harmful. The key is to help them start to wonder why 99% of their life is governed by the scientific approach, but the religious aspects are not. Many people don't see this until it is pointed out to them. They must start to wonder why it is necessary for them to suspend the faculty of reason and the standard rules of evidence in order to maintain their belief. They must ask themselves what type of person stands to benefit most from unquestioned belief: an honest one or a charlatan.

Only when one willingly accepts and embraces the notion that the epistemology of belief is faulty will one be amenable to altering one's conclusion to fit the facts and not vice-versa. It is at this point and only at this point that it becomes a productive exercise to introduce actual facts, evidence and logical reasoning. Of course once that epistemological shift occurs, the person usually no longer needs you to point out your evidence. He or she will seek it with more avidity and hunger than even you have.

 

Posted with Blogsy