John G. Messerly's Blog, page 123

Deceptive Language

Continuing our discussion of  Crimes Against Logic …

Empty Words – Language is often empty, vague and obscure. Still precise terminology (or jargon) is sometimes needed for clarity and precision, as in the sciences. But other times jargon disguises simple ideas under a barrage of verbiage, often to sound impressive.

One way language misleads is with weasel words—words that appear to make little or no change to the content of a statement, but actually drain all or most of the content from the statement. Typical weasel words are may, can, could, might, might, arguably, etc. Other devices for deception are hooray words—justice, life, freedom—and boo words—murder, taxes, Hitler. Politicians love to use such words because then the listener believes the politician shares their concerns. Also the use of quotation marks—to show that what some word means is only alleged—leaves you unsure of the author’s meaning.

Deceptive Language – Language is often used to persuade and confuse people. To see this consider that words have cognitive meaning and emotive meaning. For example the terms bureaucrat, government official, and public servant may not be that different cognitively, but they elicit different emotional reactions. Con artists, advertisers, and politicians manipulate our desires and beliefs by appealing to these emotions.

Recent examples are endless. Why was the name of the US “War Department” changed to “Department of Defense.” If you want to get rid of the “Clean Air Act” don’t call it the “Dirty Air Act” call it the “Clear Skies Initiative.” Don’t say torture, say enhanced interrogation; don’t say insanity, say battle fatigue; don’t say we attacked first, say preemptive action., don’t say occupation forces, say coalition forces; don’t say terrorists, say freedom fighters, don’t say freedom fighters, say terrorists (this is not a typo); don’t say war, say “Operation Desert Shield” or “Operation Iraqi Freedom.” And this is just military doublespeak; there is legal, bureaucratic, governmental, and political doublespeak—language that deliberately obscures. To understand this better read George Orwell.

Inconsistency – I can’t say “every adult in France drinks wine” and then say “every adult in France doesn’t drink wine” without contradicting myself. Both statements can’t be true. Contradictions may be easy to spot if one states them explicitly like this, but often the inconsistency is harder to spot. Suppose I make the following argument:

Everything denounced in the Bible should be illegal
Abortion is denounced in the Bible, thus
Abortion should be illegal

To be consistent I must denounce and praise everything the Bible denounces and praises. Independent of the fact that there is no clear Biblical prohibition against abortion, if one consistently followed the Bible on moral matters one would have to also condemn, often under penalty of death: working on the sabbath, eating shellfish, approaching an alter with poor eyesight, getting haircuts, touch the skin of dead pigs, planting two different crops in the same field, contacting women on during menstruation, cursing, and more. Thus, to be consistent, you can’t pick and choose to suit your prejudice.

Equivocation – In logic an expression is used equivocally in an argument when it has two different meanings—it is used in one place one way and another way in another place. For example, if I say that clubs don’t hurt because I joined one and I’m fine, whereas you say you were hit by one and they do hurt, then we are equivocating on the use of the word club.

Similarly, the words Mormon or Republican or Marxist have many different meanings. For example, suppose I say that being a Mormon makes you a moral person. Suppose that you respond that Mormons killed a number of people traveling through Utah in the late 19th century. I might then say “but those weren’t real Mormons!” The problem here might be that we are equivocating on the term Mormon; we are using the term differently.

One of us might be referring to the acceptance of Mormon doctrines—Joseph Smith was led by an angel to dig up and interpret gold plates with the use of a magic hat, etc.. whereas the other might mean “not being murderers.”  To defend my claim that the killers weren’t real Mormons, I would have to show that being Mormon isn’t just accepting the stories in the book of Mormon, it also involves not murdering. But then I have changed the definition of Mormon. Now it means accepting the story of Smith and not murdering.  Of course on this definition, all it means to say that being a Mormon leads you do good things is that being a Mormon leads you to do good things.

In the above case the definition of Mormon has been changed, and emptied of all meaning. If you do this continually, you can never be refuted. For example, if you were a government who wanted to torture people you could simply change the definition of torture to mean something you don’t do. If government critics say “you do torture by the standards set out in the Geneva Convention” then you could say “we don’t torture,” because by torture we now mean “by our standards which are worse than those conventions.” (Unfortunately such equivocation has awful real world consequences.)

Equivocation is used to deceive people, to make them draw unjustified conclusions. We could use any word—wealthy, criminal, democratic, free, great—to describe a person or a country and mean many different things.

But I Just Believe!

Continuing our discussion of  Crimes Against Logic …

Prejudice Disguised As Logic – If you don’t have good reasons for your beliefs, you can give them up, or stick with them because you’re like them. You could also claim that your beliefs transcend thoughts and words, that you know they are true “in your gut.” But this is just prejudice dressed up, you still haven’t given any reason to support your beliefs. There are a number of ploys by which the prejudiced attempt to substitute sanctimony or other grand irrelevancies for evidence.” (32) He considers each in turn.

Mystery – The fact that I find auto mechanics mysterious tells you nothing about auto mechanics and something about me. It tells you I’m ignorant of auto mechanics, not that auto mechanics is mysterious. Yet people often draw this conclusion about important matters. They believe outlandish things by saying that they are mysteries. For example, I might defend my belief that Santa Claus flies around on his sled by saying that its just a mystery how he does this. The idea of mystery allows you to believe whatever you want however silly.

Furthermore it’s dishonest to believe what is obviously false. There is nothing mysterious about saying the Green Bay Packers won the first super bowl and the Packers lost the first super bowl—instead it’s something that can’t be true. Of course there are genuine mysteries. Some things are mysteries to me because I’m ignorant of them, and some things are mysterious to even the experts. Mystery, in large part, is a measure of the current state of our ignorance. To say something is a real mystery tells us nothing about it, only that we don’t understand it. The proper reaction to a mystery is to study the issue further or forget it, but not to say that we are justified in believing whatever we want.

Faith – “Rather than trying to obscure your prejudice, boldly declare it a virtue. You have no reason to believe what you do, no evidence, no argument. Of course not. This is a matter of faith!”(36) Faith doesn’t provide evidence, it merely shows that you have none. And if you say that faith is necessary when knowledge is lacking, you are claiming that all opinions are equally valid and mere prejudice. When one declares they have faith in some proposition, you can be sure they cannot defend the proposition any other way.

Odds – Pascal argued that believing in a god is a good bet. Bet for the proposition and you either win big or lose small; bet against the proposition and you can either lose big or win small. Hence it’s in your interest to be for god’s existence. There are a number of problems with this line of reasoning. First, the gods might see through your wager and not reward you for playing the odds. Second, even if this were a good bet, this says nothing about the truth of the proposition. Third, the bet doesn’t tell you which god to bet on. Should you bet on Jehovah or Allah or some other god? And, since there are an infinite number of gods to bet on, the chance you bet on the right one is small. In addition, reality might be set up different from Pascal imagines. Maybe the gods reward skeptics and non-believers for thinking for themselves and punish believers for not rejecting superstitions.

Weird Science – Maybe science is a conspiracy to destroy culture and impose its truths on us. But even if that’s true, which it isn’t, your non-scientific ideas are still probably false. Sometimes when people speculate, they like to appear scientific and discuss things like quantum mechanics to impress others. Many students over the years have told me that since quantum mechanics is weird, other weird things might be true. That may be trivially true, but most weird things we believe are false. “Anyone who thinks that her favorite weird ideas—about reincarnation, astral travel, or whatever—are intellectual bedfellows with quantum mechanics ought to read some of the latter.”(44)

But Still – You can appear reasonable by admitting evidence for a view you don’t hold and saying “but still…” For example, you might say: “I agree that before the American Civil War the north had greater population than the south and more railroads, industry, ships, and artillery, but still I think the south will win. Or you could say: “I know what you’ve told me about the overwhelming evidence for evolutionary biology, but still it just doesn’t feel true.” In both cases, your “but still” will encounter the facts if you’re honest.

It’s Obvious – If people says something goes without saying or is obvious, then it’s probably not. The big problem with sloppy thinking—thinking that doesn’t care what the reasons and evidence are—is that it can support anything. If I believe that little green dogs rule the world, then you won’t likely change my mind if I’m committed to that belief, even though you now know that I’m crazy.

Don’t Go There – Another clue that someone has little or no evidence on their side is when they engage in moral positioning when their beliefs are challenged. “My position is very important to me, don’t go there.” People with evidence rarely get so upset.

Bad People – It doesn’t refute someone’s argument to say they’re bad persons.  It doesn’t refute a position to say they aren’t allowed to speak.  And it does not refute an argument to say that you’ve never heard it before—truth is often boring and fiction often exciting. (Which is why people believe so many weird things.) The best refutations show how beliefs are inconsistent with well-known truths. That’s why one shouldn’t believe in telekinesis because, if true, it would mean that many well-known principles of physics are mistaken. Now consider the claim that truth is relative to culture. This is contradicted by the fact that cultures believe things which we know aren’t true.

In short, arguments stand and fall on the strength of the reasons and evidence offered for them. I may be a bad man, but my argument for the truth of relativity, quantum, atomic, or evolutionary theory may be irrefutable. Similarly, I may be a wonderful person, but that doesn’t mean my beliefs about physics, chemistry, and biology are any good.

Who Should I Believe?

Yesterday’s post discussed the beginning of a book I used some years ago while teaching a college class: Crimes Against Logic: …. Here are some of the issues raised in the book with my interspersed comments.

Motives – The motive fallacy refers to the notion that exposing someone’s motives for expressing an opinion tells us whether the opinion is true or false. Suppose I tell you that my church is the only true one because I want you to contribute money to it. That is my motive. Still my church might still be the one true one. Money may motivate lawyers, but that doesn’t tell you whether their clients are innocent or guilty. Only the evidence, with varying degrees of certainty, can tell you what’s true.

Yet motives are relevant when dealing with someone’s testimony. If I know that you enjoy making up fantastic claims, then I have good reason to doubt your story of having been abducted by aliens. Or if I know that your motivation is to make money—say you are an oil company—then I have reason to be suspicious of your claim that climate change isn’t happening.

Politics has become so rife with consideration of self-interested motives that the benefits or harms of a policy is often secondary. If a politician says “we must worry about voter fraud. That is what these illegal aliens and poor people do. They go to polling places using false IDs.” I certainly have reason to be skeptical of this claim, since voter fraud is virtually non-existent and voter-suppression omnipresent. The only real “voter fraud” is stealing elections or when the mega-wealthy buy both candidates.  So motives are sometimes relevant.

Authority – “Because I say so.” If you heard this as a child, it might have been your parents way of saying, “stop asking questions!” But suppose you ask a factual question: “Why should I believe in the virgin birth” or “Who won the 1967 baseball World Series? The answer, because I said so, doesn’t work here.  And that’s because parental authorities may determine when your bedtime, with or without a reason, but they don’t have the authority to determine whether someone was conceived without sex or who won the 1967 World Series.  Of course on many topics the experts are more likely to be correct than non-experts. In physics or biology, subjects that are objective and precise, appealing to authorities makes sense.  If a non-experts says: “no way time is relative to motion or evolution is just a theory, we should reply “you need to go the national academy of sciences website where you will find both of those claims are false.”

People – So the fallacy of authority occurs you confuse people who have power or unusual influence over you with people who are experts. You may love your parents or some celebrities, but that doesn’t mean they are experts on the history of baseball or scientific theories. Of course authorities may threaten you if you don’t believe them, and this may motivate you to believe their claims,  but that doesn’t provide evidence that something is true. “For those interested in believing the truth the unsupported opinions of the ill-informed are of no help and are not improved by being offered up at gunpoint.” (21)

In the past authority figures held more sway, making it harder for people to understand the authority fallacy. Now the idea of “the people” has become an authority. They are constantly cited in support of various views, but the people are typically not experts on almost anything. Consider that most Americans are scientifically illiterate but that doesn’t mean that science is false. Public opinion may decide which policy is adopted, but it doesn’t decide which policy is better—only the facts do that. The public may decide that they want to continue to have millions of people go without health care, but whether that is morally or economically better than having everyone covered—as is typical of most western democracies—is independent of the people’s opinion. The people often choose the wrong policy, and are more likely too if they lack critical thinking skills.

Opinions – Facts do not depend on opinions. The claim that Jupiter is a gaseous planet isn’t true because many people believe or don’t believe it.  It’s true independent of people’s opinions. “No fact can be made just by being believed.”(24) Of course some things are a matter of taste—carrots taste good to one person and bad to another. And that’s all you can say about carrots—they dont really taste good or bad. But don’t confuse this with thinking that everything is like—who won the 1967 World Series or the first Super Bowl or whether Apollo lives on Mt. Olympus do not depend on what you think.

Victims – Since we fear being undemocratic, disagreeing with the general consensus “is not merely bad luck for a politician who would like to be elected; it is looked upon as some kind of moral failing.” So we are expected to consult victims of crime, for instance, as if they are experts on social policies. But they are not experts, and their personal experience may cloud their judgment about what is the best public policy. It is astonishing how person’s ignorant of all sorts of things are asked their opinions, and often on national television! Who cares what a plumber thinks about monetary policy or a moose hunter thinks about geopolitics or a philosopher thinks about quantum physics? This is not to say the plumber, hunter and philosopher might not be nice people, and they might know a lot about plumbing, hunting, and philosophizing, but that doesn’t make them experts on other topics.

Celebrities – Actors and musicians should usually not to be consulted about the current state of evolutionary biology or whether you should drink coca-cola. Isn’t this obvious? I suppose not, since celebrities are used to sell all sorts of things. To spot the authority fallacy, try to determine if someone is really an authority, and whether there are authorities on the subject matter. There really are experts in evolutionary biology and quantum physics, but there are not authorities in whether carrots or coca-cola taste good. Some subject matters are precise, like the natural sciences, and you can feel confident about what the experts tell you. Others, like the humanities or film studies, are less precise, and you can feel less confident about what those so-called experts tell you.

You Don’t Always Have A Right To Your Opinion

A number of years ago I taught the critical thinking section of an introduction to philosophy course from a small book:  Crimes Against Logic: Exposing the Bogus Arguments of Politicians, Priests, Journalists, and Other Serial Offenders. What follows is a brief discussion of its preface and introductory chapter.

Bad thinking bothers the author, and he suffers when he hears it expressed. “If anyone cared about our suffering, talk radio and op-ed pages would be censored. Even Congress is now broadcast, as if no torment were too great.” (x) To spot bad reasoning we must learn good reasoning, for without it we are left with “a nation of suckers, unable to resist the bogus reasoning of those who want something from them, such as votes or money or devotion.” (xi)

Let’s begin by asking a question: Are you entitled (do you have a right) to your own opinion? This is not only false, but is often invoked when it would be irrelevant even if it were true. Consider how the phrase is typically used. For example, you claim that evolution is “just” some theory. In reply I point out that the word theory has a very special meaning in science—it means what the normal person means by “a fact beyond dispute.” I also show you that the “theory” of gravity or relativity or of the atom are theories in the scientific sense. In addition I explain that multiple branches of science converge on this evolution—zoology, botany, genetics, molecular biology, geology, chemistry, etc. I demonstrate that there is virtually no such thing as a legitimate biologist in the world who denies evolution. Now suppose your response to all this is to say “well I disagree, and I have a right to my opinion.” But this is irrelevant. I wasn’t claiming you didn’t have a right to an opinion, I was showing you that your opinion is wrong. Being entitled to your opinion doesn’t show your opinion is true, it just shows you believe it.

You could say that all of your opinions are true but this is problematic. If we both have rights to our opinions which are always true, and our opinions differ, then one of us must be having their rights violated because we can’t both be right. But to know whose right is being violated we need to know whose belief is false. And that depends on the facts. So even if we say that all of our opinions are true this is irrelevant to what’s really true.

Now you do have a right to believe anything you want if by entitled you mean the political or legal interpretation. In that sense you have a right to believe anything no matter how groundless. But you do not have a right to believe anything if by entitled you mean an epistemic (knowledge, concerned with truth) right. In that sense you are entitled to believe something only if you have good evidence, sound arguments, and so on. This is the distinction that causes difficulty. “Many people seem to feel that their opinions are somehow sacred, so that everyone else is obliged to handle them with great care. When confronted with counterarguments, they do no pause and wonder if they might be wrong after all. They take offense.” (5)

To understand why you don’t have an epistemic right to your opinion ask what duty I have to your right to hold some opinion. (The idea that a duty corresponds to a right is almost universally held.) Do I have the obligation to agree with you? Surely not, since supposedly I have a right to my opinion which might be different from yours. Do I have the obligation to listen to you? No, since I can’t listen to everyone. Do I have the obligation to let you keep your opinion? Not always. If you don’t see an oncoming car as you start to cross the street, then I ought to try to change your mind about crossing that street, assuming that you don’t want to hit by a car. And if someone is really interested in what’s true, they won’t take the presentation of counter evidence as an injury. Of course many persons aren’t interested in what’s true; they just like believing certain things. And if pressed about their opinions, they find it annoying and say: “I have a right to my opinions.” If someone says this, you can be assured they aren’t interested in whether their opinion is true or not.

Is Love Stronger Than Death?

For many people dying is like moving to a better neighborhood. This is not surprising, as belief in the afterlife is widespread. To sustain this belief, people cling to any indirect evidence they can—near death experiences, tales of reincarnation, stories of ancient miracles, supposed communication with the dead, pseudo-scientific studies, and the like. But none of this so-called evidence stands up to critical scrutiny. Many believe, not because there’s good evidence, but because they want to.

Yet such faith is hard to sustain. Every single moment we are alive confirms at least one truth—those who are dead are dead. We may hear the voices of the deceased in our heads, but we don’t take the departed out to lunch. We could live in a world with evidence for the afterlife—for example one where the dead regularly appeared and described post-mortem existence—but we don’t. Belief in the afterlife is probably just wishful thinking.

As for science, it generally ignores the so-called evidence of an afterlife for many reasons. First, the idea of an immortal soul plays no explanatory or predictive role in the modern scientific study of human beings. For instance, doctors no longer attribute mental illness to demonic possession of our souls—only Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia and the scientifically illiterate might do that.

Second, the overwhelming evidence suggests that consciousness ceases when brain functioning does. If ghosts or disembodied spirits exist, then we would have to abandon scientific ideas that we hold with great confidence—like the notion that brains generate consciousness. In fact, the idea of a soul is incompatible with everything we know about modern physics—best-selling books to contrary just prey on human credulity.

Professional philosophers also tend to be skeptical of the afterlife, as good arguments for it are virtually non-existent. Moreover, almost all philosophers today are physicalists  regarding the mind. This means that mind—or soul if it even exists—depends on the body. In other words, when the body dies our consciousness is extinguished; there is no ghost in the machine.

Of course this cursory treatment doesn’t establish the impossibility of an afterlife; after all, reality is mysterious. Still, given what we know about how our brains work, disembodied consciousness is unlikely. Clearly the scientific and philosophical winds blow against such ancient beliefs, and people increasingly reject belief in god, miracles, and the afterlife.

But if death is the end, how should we feel about it? We might be undisturbed by death, finding consolation in the words of the Greek philosopher Epicurus: “When I am, death is not; and when death is, I am not.” Epicurus taught that fear of the gods and death is irrational. If we think about death, we will see that it’s not bad for us since we have no sensations after death. Yes, the process of dying can be bad, and our deaths may hurt others, but Epicurus argued that death can’t be bad for the deceased. For how can what we don’t know hurt us?

We could reject this argument, claiming that we can be harmed by something without being aware of it. For example, intelligent adults reduced to the state of infancy by a brain injury suffer a great misfortune, even if unaware of their injurious state. Perhaps the dead are similarly harmed. But we can still ask, how can the dead be harmed? Perhaps Epicurus is right after all, death shouldn’t trouble us.

Yet despite Epicurus’ argument, we may still find the idea of our death unsettling. For one day the sun will set for the very last time for us, and every thought and memory we have ever had will … vanish. When we are gone we will no longer read books, take trips, or hear familiar voices. We will never take another walk, catch another baseball, or play in the snow. We won’t know about new music, inventions, ideas or what will happen to our children or grandchildren. This is why we don’t want to die.

In response we could hope that science and technology save us, and there are plausible scientific scenarios whereby death might be overcome. Still, such technology probably won’t be developed in time to avoid our own deaths. We could also buy a cryonics policy, but there are no guarantees this would work, or that we would wake up in a reality that we would want to live in.

Moreover, even if we did extend our lives indefinitely, the universe itself is doomed. In that case, life seems pointless. For how can anything matter if all ends in nothingness?  The only way around this conclusion is if our descendents become gods and somehow escape the death of the cosmos. Unfortunately, such fantastic futures aren’t only unlikely, they also don’t comfort us when we look at our spouse or our children and realize that someday we’ll never see them again. Never. Death doesn’t care about our desires; our attitude toward death appears irrelevant; raging against death seems futile. As Philip Larkin wrote:

… Courage is no good:

It means not scaring others. Being brave

Lets no one off the grave.

Death is no different whined at than withstood.

For now, with the reality of death looming, resignation and acceptance probably serve us best. Yet we can find some consolation—all is not lost. For if our interests are large enough, if we detach ourselves from the concerns of our little egos, if we identify with something large like the future of cosmic evolution, then there is a good chance that what we care about will continue. Maybe such thoughts can lessen the sting of death.

Most importantly, if we truly feel the reality of death, we might be kinder to each other. If the thought of our non-existence has any value, this may be it. For all the pain we cause each other is pointless against the backdrop of eternal nothingness. If we are all dying together, why not be nicer to each other, why not fill our little time with less pain? Maybe, if we could see ourselves from this cosmic point of view, we could even say with the poets, that what survives of us is love.

This may be too poetic, and it may not be all we want. But love is remarkable. It appears in a world of cruelty and savagery, in a species whose roots are “red in tooth and claw.” Love brings the peace of knowing that someone cares for us, waits for us, listens to us. In the unfathomable infinity of space and time, in the infinite cold and darkness which surrounds us, love relieves loneliness, love connects us, love sustains us. And perhaps the traces of our love do somehow reverberate through time, in ripples and waves that one day reach peaceful shores now unbeknownst to us. Perhaps love doesn’t disappear into nothingness; perhaps love can be perfected; perhaps love is stronger than death.

American Gods and European Atheism

What follows are a few excerpts from a lectured entitled:  “Attack of the Atheists” by Reverend James Kubal-Komoto, Saltwater Unitarian Universalist Church, Des Moines, Washington, April 1, 2007. It provides some interesting information about religion. (I can’t seem to find the original lecture on the internet, but I took these notes when the lecture first appeared.)

… there was a fascinating study released by Baylor University last fall titled American Piety in the 21st Century, and unlike most studies, which only ask very basic questions about people’s religious beliefs, this one went further in-depth.

One of its main findings is that while most Americans say they believe in God, Americans really believe in four very different kinds of Gods. Some Americans (31.4 percent) believe in an “Authoritarian God” who is very angry with the sins of the world and regularly supernaturally intervenes in the affairs of the world. You might think of this as Pat Robertson’s God. Another group (23 percent) believes in a “Benevolent God” who also regularly supernaturally intervenes in the affairs of the world, but is less wrathful and more of a positive influence. You might think of this as Oprah’s God. Another group (16 percent) believes in a “Critical God” who is not happy about the affairs of the world, but doesn’t intervene, preferring to mete out rewards and punishments in the next life. You might think about this as the “Wait until your father gets home!” God. Finally, another group (16 percent) believes in a “Distant God.” Individuals who believe in this sort of God tend to think of God as a cosmic intelligence which set the law of nature in motion at the beginning of time, but neither intervenes in the affairs of the world nor cares about them. You might think of this as Thomas Jefferson’s God.

And guess what? Which one of these Gods people believe in does have a lot to do with how they live their lives. It also has a lot to do with how people believe about all sorts of other things such as sexual morality, politics, the environment, the “war on terror,” discrimination of all sorts, whether God favors the U.S. in world affairs. And if you’re wondering, those who believe in an angry, intervening “Authoritarian God” tend to have the values most divergent from many of us in this community.

Other research studies show that people who believe in a personal God who loves them and also loves everybody else—a theology similar to many of the early Universalists—tend to be less judgmental, more compassionate, and more involved in social justice making than others, and these are qualities I greatly admire, and the world might be a better place if there were more people with this kind of belief in it.

… [ the reverend now turns to another issue.]

For example, why is it that some countries in this world tend to be very religious while in other countries traditional religiosity seems to be on the decline? Why is it that in many European countries, atheism is at an all-time high? What explains this variability better, evolutionary adaptation or social changes?

Well, in 2004, the United Nations commissioned a Human Development Report, which ranked 177 nations on a “Human Development Index” which measures societal health according to indicators such as life expectancy at birth, adult literacy, per capita income, and educational attainment. According to this report, the five highest ranked countries – – Norway, Sweden, Australia, Canada, and the Netherlands – – also are countries that have the lowest degree of traditional religiosity. All of the top 25 countries on the list have low degrees of traditional religiosity.

In fact two scholars – – Pippa Norris and Ronald Inglehart – – have found that high rates of individual and societal well-being are the leading factor in predicting a country’s degree of traditional religiosity.

In other words, when people have access to quality medical care, education, and jobs that pay enough money to live comfortably, they tend to be less traditionally religious.

What about the United States? Aren’t we one of the most religious countries in the world? Yes, we are. But the sad truth is that we also lag behind many other developed nations in terms of individual and societal well being. In many ways, the United States can be a scary, unpredictable place to live. Is it any wonder that lots of folks believe in an angry, punishing, authoritarian God?

Finally, if we’re truly concerned about some of religion’s negative effects in this world, let’s try to figure out to the best of our ability the root causes of these negative effects. It seems to be that the best evidence suggests they result from fear, from hopelessness, from despair, from need, and it doesn’t seem that simply labeling them as irrational or delusional is the best course of action. (In some ways, attacking people’s religions that we may find irrational is like attacking people for poor eating habits during a famine.) It seems the best thing we can do to moderate or mitigate the dangers and excesses of religion in this world is to work toward a world of love and justice.

In other words, we won’t make the world better by getting rid of bad religion, but we may get rid of bad religion by making the world better. From my perspective, Dawkins, Dennett, and Harris confuse the symptoms with the disease, and bad religion is the symptom, not the disease …

No, religion is the human quest for connection and meaning, and this being on this quest is part of what it means to be human. But in a more loving and just world a lot of religion might look different than it does today, and that wouldn’t necessarily be bad thing.  So may it be. Amen.

Some Interesting Biblical Prescriptions

While this pokes fun at Biblical literalists, and irrationality should be open to ridicule, I don’t post it to make fun of all religion. After all, there are good things in Biblical prescriptions too, like the command to love your neighbor. Still what follows should remind those who claim to have a monopoly on the truth that the truth isn’t found in your favorite book, subjective experience or preferred guru. Truth is something found at great cost. It is easy to claim to know the truth, it is much harder to search for it. That’s what I think is important, the search.

Dear Dr. Laura:

Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God’s Law. I have learned a great deal from your show, and try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination… End of debate.

I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some other elements of God’s Laws and how to follow them.

Leviticus 25:44 states that I may possess slaves, both male and female, provided they are purchased from neighboring nations. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans, but not Canadians. Can you clarify? Why can’t I own Canadians?
I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as sanctioned in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness – Lev.15: 19-24. The problem is how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord – Lev.1:9. The problem is, my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. Should I smite them?
I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2. clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself, or should I ask the police to do it?
A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination – Lev. 11:10, it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don’t agree. Can you settle this? Are there ‘degrees’ of abomination?
Lev. 21:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle- room here?
Most of my male friends get their hair trimmed, including the hair around their temples, even though this is expressly forbidden by Lev. 19:27. How should they die?
I know from Lev. 11:6-8 that touching the skin of a dead pig makes me unclean, but may I still play football if I wear gloves?
My uncle has a farm. He violates Lev.19:19 by planting two different crops in the same field, as does his wife by wearing garments made of two different kinds of thread (cotton/polyester blend). He also tends to curse and blaspheme a lot. Is it really necessary that we go to all the trouble of getting the whole town together to stone them? Lev.24:10-16. Couldn’t we just burn them to death at a private family affair, like we do with people who sleep with their in-laws? (Lev. 20:14)

I know you have studied these things extensively and thus enjoy considerable expertise in such matters, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God’s word is eternal and unchanging.

Finally! Kant’s Ethics in Two Pages

Kant says that pure reason can’t decide things like whether gods, freedom, or immortal souls are real. And if reason can’t say much about metaphysics, what can it say about ethics?

Kant’s most basic presupposition regarding ethics was his belief in human freedom. While the natural world operates according to laws of cause and effect, the moral world operates according to self-imposed “laws of freedom.” Here is his basic argument for freedom:

1. Without freedom, morality is not possible.

2. Morality exists, thus

3. Freedom exists.

The first premise is true because determinism undermines morality. The second premise Kant took as self-evident, and the conclusion follows from the premises. Kant also believed that freedom came from rationality. Here is his argument:

1. Without reason, we would be slaves to our passions

2. If we were slaves to our passions, we would not be free; thus

3. Without reason, we would not be free.

We now have the basis upon which to connect between reason and morality.

1. Without reason, there is no freedom

2. Without freedom, there is no morality, thus

3. Without reason, there is no morality.

Kant believed moral obligation derived from our free, rational nature. But how should we exercise our freedom? What should we choose to do?

Kant’s ethics is the study of our duty. Since we are free, rational beings we can choose between actions. unlike non-human animals who are guided by instinct. Moral actions are actions where reason leads rather than follows. Such actions must take into account other beings that act according to their own conception of the law. Put simply, to be moral we ought to conform our free will to the moral law; that is our duty. The moral law ultimately comes from God, but can be known by rational people. Reason can overcome our impulses, the non-rational parts of our nature.

Kant says that the only thing that is completely good is a good will—the desire to conform itself to the moral law. But what is the moral law? Kant assumes that there is a moral law, and he further assumes that there is some rational representation of the moral law that we can understand. And when he thinks about laws, one of the key characteristics of true laws of nature are that they are universal. So the moral law must be characterized by its universality. Just as an equation of the form a(b+c) = ab + ac is universally applicable and needs only to be filled in by numbers, the moral law must have an abstract formulation by which to test actions.

Kant had seized upon the idea of universalization as the key to the moral law. To universalize a principle of our action we ask, “what if everybody did this?” We should act according to a principle which we can universalize with consistency or without inconsistency. This is what he calls the categorical imperative. By testing the principle of our actions in this way, we determine if they are moral. If we can universalize our actions without any inconsistency, then they are moral; if we cannot do so, they are immoral. For example, there is no logical inconsistency in universalizing the maxim, whenever we need a car we will work hard to earn the money. However, there is something inconsistent about universalizing the maxim, whenever we need a car we will steal it. A world where everyone stole cars would be a world where there were cars to steal but no cars to steal—since they would all already be stolen! (This is the basic idea, this is actually quite complicated.)

Of course, we can act contrary to reason because we are free, just like we can say that 2 + 2 = 6 or we can say there are round squares. But we violate reason when we say these things just as, for example, bank robbers violate reason when they rob banks. Why?  A bank robber wills a world where:

banks exists as the necessary prerequisite of the bank robbery intended and
banks don’t exist as the obvious consequence of bank robberies.

Kant’s basic idea is something like this. If I say you can taste my wine, I should be able to taste yours. Moral actions are rational, immoral actions are irrational.

In short, we act ethically if we freely conform our will to the moral law which it understands as the categorical imperative. The imperative prescribes action that are rationally consistent. If we act in this way, we may not be happy, but we will be moral. We will have done our duty.

If There Are Gods, They Are Evil

Here is a brief summary of a piece by B.C. Johnson, “Why Doesn’t God Intervene to Prevent Evil?” It offers a devastating critique of the possibility that there is an all powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving god. 

Are there any good excuses for someone (or a god) not saving a baby from a burning house if they had the power to do so? It will not do to say the baby will go to heaven, since one suffers by burning to death. The key is the suffering.  If the suffering was not necessary, then it’s wrong to allow it; if the suffering is necessary, the baby’s going to heaven doesn’t explain why it’s necessary.

It doesn’t make sense to say that a baby’s painful death will be good in the long run, and that’s why the gods allow it. For that is to say that whatever happens in the long run is good; since if something happened it was allowed by the gods, and it must therefore be good in the long run. We could test this idea by burning down buildings to kill innocent people.  If we are successful, then we know that this was part of some god’s plan. But this is absurd.  Moreover, this doesn’t show why the gods allow babies to burn to death, it merely says there is some reason for this suffering, a belief we have since we assume the gods are good. But this argument is circular; it merely assumes what it is trying to prove. (That the gods are good.) “It is not unlike a lawyer defending his client by claiming that the client is innocent and therefore the evidence against him must be misleading—that proof vindicating the defendant will be found in the long run.”

In conclusion, we simply cannot excuse a bystander who could save the child but who doesn’t.

We might say that we ought “to face disasters without assistance,” so as not to become dependent upon help. But this suggests that the work of doctors and firefighters, for example, should be abolished. But if this kind of help is good, then good gods should help like this. But they do not. If this kind of help is bad, then we ought to abolish it.

Similarly, we could say that the gods would reduce the moral urgency to make the world better if they intervened in evil. But should we abolish modern medicine and firefighting since they help people, but thereby reduce our urgency to help people? Of course not.  Moreover, this argument suggests that the gods approve “of these disasters as a means to encourage the creation of moral urgency.” 85 And if there were not sufficient baby burnings, the gods would have to bring them about. But this too is absurd. We shouldn’t create moral urgency by burning babies.

Maybe suffering is necessary for virtues like compassion, mercy, sympathy, and courage to be exercised. But even if this is true, the non-believer is simply claiming that we could do without burning babies and still have plenty of suffering to elicit these virtues. Furthermore, we value efforts to improve the world, and we don’t consider the possible reduction in opportunities to practice virtue a good reason not to improve it. If we can’t use this as an excuse not to improve the world, then neither can the gods. Developing virtue “is no excuse for permitting disasters.” The argument that the gods allow suffering to humble us is open to the preceding objections.

One could claim that evil is a by-product of the laws of nature and the gods interference would alter the casual order to our detriment. But lives could be saved if serial killers had heart attacks before committing their crimes. Such occasional miracles wouldn’t necessitate changing the laws of nature.  How often should the gods do this? Johnson says often enough to prevent particularly horrible disasters like child torture.

As for the claim that the gods have a higher morality such that what seems bad to us (child torture) is really good, and what seems good to us (modern medicine) is really bad, it is hard to make any sense of this. You could say we just don’t understand the god’s ways like children don’t understand their parent’s ways, but as adults we might conclude that some of our parent’s actions were bad.

The main reason all these arguments fail is that they are abstract. None of them really explain why all good, all powerful beings watch helpless infants burn to death, since none of the excuses such being would offer seem convincing. One could claim that the gods just can’t prevent the evil, but it is strange to believe in gods less powerful than fire departments and medical researchers.

At this point one may retreat to faith, simply believing the gods are innocent, like you might believe in the innocence of your friends even if the evidence is against them. But Johnson argues that we don’t know the gods well enough to trust them like friends. In addition, we have good reason to believe the gods are not good, since in the past they have allowed so much evil.  You could still claim that you trust in the gods and nothing anyone can say will undermine your belief, “but this is just a description of how stubborn you are; it has no bearing whatsoever on the question of God’s goodness.”

Furthermore all the reasons offered as to why the world’s evil is consistent with good gods could be used to show why it’s consistent with evil gods. For example, we could say that an evil god gives us free will so we can do evil things. Or we could say that evil exists to make people cynical and bitter (instead of compassionate and courageous), or it exists so that we quite caring about others (instead of becoming morally urgent.)

In short there are 3 possibilities concerning the gods: 1) they are more likely to be all bad (a theist doesn’t want this to be true; 2) they are more likely to be all-good (but this can’t be true since any evidence for this thesis will also support #1); or 3) they are equally likely to be all-bad or all-good. But if 3 is true, then what excuses do the gods have for allowing evil? They have none. And the reason is because for any excuse for evil’s existence to be justified, it must be highly probable that the excuse is true. But note that option 3 rules this out, since according to 3 there is no more reason to think the excuse is valid than that it is not valid.

Why then don’t the gods intervene according to Johnson? Because they don’t exist.

Finally! From Descartes to Kant in Two Pages

In almost thirty years of college teaching, I wrote many things for my students, most of which are long since lost. I have been perusing the surviving material and have found some that might be of interest. Here is one such piece. (This particular file originally came with this disclaimer: “This overview was written hastily this morning without consulting the book. If any of it conflicts with the book’s explanation, favor that explanation.”) I still issue the disclaimer.

Descartes wants to know what’s true. He begins by doubting everything and argues that knowledge derives from the certainty of the existence of one’s own consciousness and the innate ideas it holds. Primary among these innate ideas are mathematical ideas and the idea of a God. Upon this foundation he claims all knowledge is built.

Locke argues that innate ideas are just another name for one’s pet ideas. Instead, he argues, knowledge is based on sense data. Locke realizes that we only know things as we experience them, we don’t know the essence of the substances that make up the world. Retreating from the skepticism this implies, he accepts the common sense view that our perceptions correspond to external substances in the world.

Berkeley realizes that we can have perceptions without there being an external world at all. He believes that things exist only to the extent they are perceived, and thus non-perceived things don’t exist. All reality may be in the mind! Recognizing the implications of this radical philosophy, Berkeley claims that his God is constantly perceiving the world and thus the world is real after all.

Hume follows this thinking to its logical conclusion. We have perceptions, but their source is unknown. That source could be a god or gods, other powerful beings, substances, the imagination, etc. He also applies this skepticism about the existence of the external world to science, morality and religion. Scientific knowledge is not absolute because there are problems with the idea of cause and effect as well as with inductive reasoning. Still, Hume believes that mathematics and the natural sciences are sources of knowledge.

Hume’s attack on religion is one of the most famous in the history of philosophy, and he ranks with Feuerbach, Marx, Nietzsche, and Russell as one of religion’ great critics. His article against the possibility of miracles is the most celebrated piece on that subject ever written. He argues that miracle stories are almost certainly myths.

For example, take the case of virgin births or resurrection from the dead. Such stories are found in many religions and throughout pagan mythology. But Hume asks whether it is more likely that such things actually happened, or that these are myths, stories, lies, deceptions, etc. Hume argues that its always more likely that reporters of miracles are deceiving you or were themselves deceived, than that the supposed miracle actually happened. Lying and being lied to are common, rising from the dead not so much.

Hume’s philosophy also set the stage for the coming of the man considered the greatest of modern philosophers, a man who said that Hume had “awakened him from his dogmatic slumber,” a man who wants to respond to Hume’s skepticism and show that mathematics, science, ethics, and the Christian religion are all true and compatible. His name was Kant.

Immanuel Kant was one of the first philosophers who was a professor. He was a pious Lutheran, and a solitary man who never married. He was the author of some of the most esoteric works in philosophy, and he devoted nearly every waking hour of his life to philosophy. Troubled by Hume’s skepticism, Kant looked again at both rationalists like Descartes and empiricists like Locke, Berkeley, and Hume. Kant believed that the problem with rationalism is that it ultimately established great systems of logical relationships ungrounded in observations. The problem with empiricism was that it led to the conclusion that all certain knowledge is confined to the senses.

Kant thought that if we accept the scientific worldview, then belief in free will, soul, God, and immortality were impossible. Thus Kant’s project was to reconcile rationalism and empiricism, while at the same time showing that God, free will, knowledge, and ethics are possible. (In some ways all of philosophy since Descartes has attempted to show how the scientific worldview can be reconciled with traditional notions of free will, meaning, God, and morality.)

Kant’s Epistemology – Kant argues that rationalism is partly correct—the mind starts with certain innate structures. These structures impose themselves on the perceptions that come to the mind. In other words, the mind structures impressions, and thus knowledge results from the interaction of mind and the external world. (Kant describes many of these mental structures, which he calls categories of the understanding and forms of sensibility. These forms and categories—like cause and effect, time, and space—shape what the senses receive, thus making some sense of perceptions.) Thus both the mind and sense data matter in establishing truth, as the success of the scientific method shows.

Kant’s Copernican revolution placed the mind, rather than the external world, at the center of knowledge. What we can know depends upon the validity of what’s known by the structures of the mind. But is metaphysical knowledge justified? Can we know about the ultimate nature of things, things beyond our experience? Can we know if God, the immortal soul or free will exists?

What he realizes is that all we can know are phenomena, that is experience or sense data mediated by the mind. Since all our minds are structured similarly, we all generally have the same basic sense experiences. But we cannot know “things-in-themselves,” that is, things as they actually are. Thus there is a gap between human reality—things as known to the mind—and pure reality—things as they really are. We can know things as they appear, but we can’t know things as they really are.

To bridge this gap Kant proposes regulative ideas—self, cosmos, and God—which serve to make sense of our experiences. We must presuppose a self that experiences, a cosmos to be experienced, and a cause of the cosmos which is God. Kant grants that we can’t know if any of these things exist, but he thinks it is a practical necessity to act as if they do. We cannot have experiences without there being a knower, a known, and God. Since we do have experiences, Kant concludes that these regulative ideas probably correspond to real existing things.

Summary – Descartes was responding to the faith of the Middle Ages. His skepticism led eventually to the full-blown skepticism of Hume. Kant tried to reconcile Cartesian rationalism and Humean empiricism. He tried to reconcile science with religion, reason with ethics, and more. Whether he was successful is another question.

(Tomorrow I will go into some detail about Kant’s ethical theory.)