My friend Hemant Mehta (FriendlyAtheist) had a great interview with blogger Nancy Duke on the Chicago Coalition of Reason billboard, atheism, and religion.  The questions gave away her semi-hostile position, but I feel like Hemant did a great job answering in a positive way:

ND: What is ChriFSMas?
HM: Christmas for the Flying Spaghetti Monster followers.

ND: Are you equating Jesus to a Flying Spaghetti Monster? That doesn’t sound like a “Friendly Atheist.” In fact, it sounds a little mean.
HM: Well, the ChriFSMas thing is just a play on words, but there is a FSM movement where the argument is: There’s as much evidence for a Flying Spaghetti Monster as there is for any other God. So, why not worship the former and not the latter? It’s tongue-in-cheek, but I think it makes a good point. In any case, I think Christmas is a good time for everyone to give presents and spend time with loved ones. It’s not limited to Christians.

Oof.  She’s clearly looking for a fight.  An interesting exchange came near the end:

ND: One more question and then a few quick hits to wrap it up. You mentioned that after research, you couldn’t find evidence to support any of your previous religious ideas. But isn’t that the point? Isn’t faith supposed to be based in a belief of not needing evidence, not needing proof? It wouldn’t be faith if you needed evidence and facts, because that’s called science. So, why use science or atheism or anything else to debunk religion when religion is based on embracing something you cannot prove, i.e. faith?

HM: Yes, relying on faith is the opposite of relying on evidence. However, I was always taught my beliefs as if they were facts. I don’t know of any Christian churches that say, “We believe Jesus resurrected after three days but we don’t actually know that for sure.” No, they say it as if it were true and proven and factual.

I discovered at 14 that my beliefs, which I always believed were factual, were just ideas that people of my faith shared and there was no good reason to believe any of it was true. I guess I discovered that my faith was indeed faith. And I decided I wanted to rely on things that were evidence-based and actually factual. That led me to atheism. It doesn’t say that God doesn’t exist, but atheism says that there’s no good evidence for God’s existence, so why bother believing in one. To me, that’s honest.

Bewildering image and caption:

---

Facts are fun! …
Sometimes.

This meme is what we need to combat in America, and Hemant does a good job explaining why he dismissed faith.  It’s not a reason to belive something is true.  It’s funny that both sides are saying “there’s no evidence for this belief!” but meaning it in completely opposite ways.  It is central to our arguments that people need reasons to assert something as true.  If they don’t accept that basic tenant of thinking, literally any belief is acceptable.

A big distinction that I make time and time again is that we’re never looking for proof – we’re looking for a reasonable amount of evidence to support the level of belief.  It would be a positive step if churches did what Hemant suggested – admit their own uncertainty and instead use stories as non-authoritative metaphors about life.

I’m a bit puzzled – and concerned – that Duke had a small clipart of someone pointing to a chart with the caption: “Facts are fun! … Sometimes.”  What in the world is that supposed to convey?  In context of the discussion – it was right next to the above blockquote – it wasn’t saying that sometimes the world isn’t as we wish it to be.  No, it seems to be dismissing the very value of facts when assessing a worldview.  “Facts are great unless they contradict my beliefs!”

How do you respond to such brazen disregard for logical thinking?

[Update:] You raise the point that this might be a Poe, especially given the “Keeping democracy intact since 1912″ slogan. If it’s satire, it’s remarkably subtle. I’m looking into it. What do you guys think?

I’m always astounded at how poor data-gathering devices we humans are.  Forget all the hallucinations and misinterpretations, we simply don’t notice or retain most of what happens around us.  Here’s a great demonstration (via Richard Wiseman’s blog)

I was pretty pathetic. How did you all do?

This is one of the reasons we developed the scientific method. Trusting our senses and powers of observation failed us too many times. We recognize our own shortcomings and try to overcome them.

Shortly after I became a Christian, I saw a book about Jesus at the library. I couldn’t get enough of Jesus, so I brought it home and began reading. Excitement turned to horror as I realized it was arguing there was hardly any evidence that Jesus even lived, much less was a miracle-working god who rose from the dead. I was appalled. But I was also a little shaken. I never realized someone could question the existence of Jesus. Could my new found belief be wrong?

After much prayer and counsel, I decided to stop reading the book. I was convinced it was Satan trying to attack my faith, and I took that as evidence my beliefs were correct — if Satan was trying to convince me I was wrong, then I must be right!

I didn’t have any doubts about Jesus for another decade.

I was a fool.

Doubt Can Be Scary

Doubt can be frightening for a believer. It can be so frightening that some people suppress any doubt, no matter how much counter evidence they are presented with.

But you’re different, aren’t you? I know that because you’re reading this essay. You know you’ve been wrong in the past, and now you are beginning to question some things about your faith. You’re not as certain as you used to be.

Perhaps you’ve been scolded about your doubt. People of faith rarely look at doubt as an opportunity — instead, they see it as a danger. That’s why they talk about ”battling” doubt. They fear it. They tell you to pray to God and ask him to remove your doubts, to read your holy book until you believe it again, and to learn to doubt yourself instead of “God” (by which they mean whatever they teach about him).

Pullquote: Doubt shouldn’t be feared and battled. If we love truth, it should be embraced.

You’re not stupid. You realize that would be brainwashing yourself, just like people do in every other religion. What you want is evidence. And that it is lacking is causing you to doubt.

You are being given an opportunity that few believers get. You are actually searching for truth. While many say they are searching for truth, really they are searching for an experience, a community, and/or comfort. And that’s why you’re different — you want the truth, even if it’s not what you want to hear.

Doubt shouldn’t be feared and battled. If we love truth, it should be embraced. Here are 10 ways a truth-seeking theist can embrace doubt.

1) Accept that doubt can be good.

Doubt is not evil — it is a tool for discovering truth. That you are doubting is a good sign. It means you’re thinking critically and not simply accepting things because someone says so. As Peter Abelard said, “By doubting we come to questioning, and by questioning we come to truth.” If we love truth, we must embrace doubt.

The only reason to fear doubt is if you fear truth. Fundamentalists of all stripes fear doubt. Is this a coincidence?

2) Be open-minded.

You don’t want to defend faith — you want to believe whatever is true. Seek the truth, no matter where it leads you.

When people speak, listen. When others challenge your beliefs, consider they might be right. In other words, be humble. There’s no reason to think we’re right about everything, so why act that way?

3) Learn to love truth, not being right.

Truth is beautiful. Unfortunately, none of us possess the entirety of truth. That’s why we see arrogance as a vice — nobody likes a person who think they are always right. We all know people like this. Don’t love being right and telling others they are wrong — love seeking the truth. This requires humility and skepticism.

By doing these things, you’ll be well on your way to embracing and using doubt instead of fearing and repressing it.

4) Learn to ask and consider hard questions.

People of faith fear hard questions. That’s one of the worst things about faith.

Hard questions lead us closer to truth. It helps us break out of false paradigms and shows us inconsistency in our logic. Hard questions should be encouraged and embraced — not feared or condemned. If those around you don’t want to think through hard questions with you, perhaps that is a sign you’re asking the wrong people for answers.

5) Look for historical and/or experimental evidence for claims of your religion or philosophy.

Look especially for evidence for supernatural claims. If this evidence is not accepted by any scholars outside your religion, then chances are it’s not reputable. Now ask yourself if you would accept a different religion’s supernatural claims with this kind of evidence. Bonus points if you look into evidence for other popular religions.

6) Pray to your god for a week. Then choose another and try again.

You probably have some doubts about prayer. Fortunately, there is a way for you to know if your God answers prayers or not. Follow these directions:

1. Pray to your god for a week. Make your requests specific and something that could only come about through supernatural intervention. I’m not talking about getting a front row parking spot, which happens to us all every now and then. I’m talking about regrowing limbs, people coming back from the dead, walking on water — things that are impossible on our own.
2. Keep a record of all your requests and mark the ones that were answered (if any).
3. Next week, pray just as fervently to a different god (like Baal or Zeus) and keep track of your requests.
4. Then the week after, don’t pray at all — but still write down your requests.

Does prayer to your deity really work? The evidence (or lack there of) will be before you.

7) Read your holy book.

Yes, read your holy book, but also look at it from a viewpoint of an outsider. Then read up on the history of the book from secular scholars. Ask yourself if this book is really written by God, when history shows it to be written by mere men.

Have you read any other holy books? If not, now is the time to learn about them. Every religion has millions of followers who believe it is the only true religion, and that their holy book(s) are inspired by God. What makes yours any different?

8) Find other doubters.

When you start embracing doubt, you’ll discover many fairweather friends — they love and support you when you think like they do, but when you start questioning, they begin to back away. Forget these “friends.” Seek out those who are comfortable with doubt and view it as a friend instead of a foe.

If you can’t find any locally, there is a thriving community online. Participating in blogs, forums, and social networking can be helpful to doubters.

9) Read widely.

Pullquote: Read other subjects and expose yourself to different viewpoints. You can only be better for it.

There’s nothing like reading other perspectives to encourage doubt. That’s how I began having serious doubts about my Christian beliefs. First, I began questioning whether the Bible was accurate about the age of the earth. Then it was about if it was right about how animals was created. Then it was Adam and Even. Then Noah’s Ark. I kept going from there. But it all started out from reading outside my perspective.

Too often we only read from authors we already agree with. I remember once, when debating with some doorstep Mormons I asked, “Don’t you guys ever read outside your own religion?” Their reply was, “Why should we, when we know we have the truth, and others are still looking?”

Narrow reading will only confirm what you already believe. If we’re always right it wouldn’t be a problem. But who of us are right even 50% of the time? As Dale Carnegie said:

If you can be sure of being right only 55 percent of the time, you can go down to Wall Street and make a million dollars a day. If you can’t be sure of being right even 55 percent of the time, why should you tell other people they are wrong?

Reading people on our side is satisfying, but why not branch out a little? Read other subjects and expose yourself to different viewpoints. You can only be better for it.

10) Always ask yourself, “How do I know that?”

Pullquote: The more extraordinary a claim is, the more extraordinary evidence there must be in order to believe it.

This is a powerful question because it gets at the root of belief. On matters of religion, you will probably find there is nothing to stand on but “faith.”

Here’s an example of how a thought conversation can go when asking yourself this question:

I believe Jesus was born of a virgin.
…Hang on a minute. That’s an impossible event. How do I know it really happened?

Well, the Bible says so.
…That’s true. It does say Jesus was born of a virgin in the later gospel accounts, though not the earlier ones. How do I know the later accounts can be trusted about such an extraordinary claim — made almost a century after it was claimed to happen? Are there any contemporary witnesses? Is there any positive evidence for it?

No, but it’s in the Bible, and God himself wrote it. That’s amazing evidence, isn’t it?
…Well, maybe. But how do I know God wrote it?

Hmm. The Bible says God wrote it, but that’s what all holy books say. So that’s not a very good reason, is it?
…Afraid not.

Unless a belief has positive evidence, then it usually isn’t worth believing. And the more extraordinary a claim is, the more extraordinary evidence there must be in order to believe it. By asking “how do you know that?,” the burden of proof is put on the asserter.

When the answer comes down to “faith,” there’s a problem. Why put your faith in one belief over another? Based on faith alone, why believe in a god at all, much less a very specific version of him? What are the chances you are actually right about such a belief, especially since there is no evidence?

So doubt isn’t something to fear. It isn’t something to repress and fight against. It is something to be embraced. It is a powerful tool to find truth, and I hope you’ll use it.

Science has always reserved its greatest accolades for those who prove what came before to be wrong, and every scientist in the world knows the best way to become famous is to prove everyone else wrong. Nevertheless, pseudo-scientists always argue that scientists have some vested interest in preserving the current order (and thus dooming their careers into obscurity when they could have become famous Nobel prize winners).

This argument has never made any sense, but that doesn’t stop them from making it. So, one more example won’t make any difference to them — people who advocate a bad argument that runs counter to evidence are not dissuaded by more evidence.

The point is, if a scientist found evidence against evolution, he would have every incentive to publish it and argue against evolution. If they could make their case, then they would earn their place in the history books, along with Kepler, Copernicus, Darwin, and Einstein.

If evolution isn’t true, we don’t want to believe it. We don’t have unreasonable faith in evolution — we accept it because of the massive amounts of evidence for it, and how it allows us to predict future findings (which often come true). If new evidence comes up that shows we were wrong, then we’ll happily believe the new theory.

“You are showing the fact that you are a godless idiot! We must not believe punks like him, we must believe the Word of God!”

Ah, the golden age of American television…

We spend a lot of time talking about evidence for God — as we should — but I can’t help but think we’ve skipped a couple of steps.

Consider this excerpt from George H. Smith’s Atheism: The Case Against God:

Mr Jones: “A unie exists.”
Mr White: “Prove it.”
Mr Jones: “It has rained for three consecutive days—that is my proof.”

If this exchange is less than satisfactory, much of the blame rests with Mr. White: his demand for proof is immature. Mr. Jones has not specified what an “unie” is; until and unless he does so, “unie” is nothing but a meaningless sound, and Mr. Jones is uttering nonsense. Without some description of an “unie,” the alleged proof for its existence is incoherent. (source)

Before we can even begin to discuss the evidence for God, we need to establish a few things first. For the believer, here are two questions:

1. What do you mean when you say the word “God?”
2. Based on your answer from the above, how do we go about learning about this “God?” To put it more concretely, how do we judge between two claims about the nature of God?

Let me try and head off some common problems. If you use the word “infinite,” you’re going to have problems providing a deFINITion. Defining something means putting boundaries around it.  If God is boundless, then it’s beyond definition. Words like “ineffable” and “transcendent” have many of the same problems.

Phrases like “outside of time and space” share some of these problems as well.  All our language is geared towards describing a space that is ordered by time.  We simply don’t have the words or the concepts to describe something that is outside our universe. So phrases like “timeless” join the heap of words that simply indicate that we cannot meaningfully talk about God.

So, believers — what do you mean by “God” and how can we learn about this being?

Today’s argument for the existence of God is from Christian persecution. Believe it or not, this argument has been given from a number of Christians in the comments, though not quite as amusingly as this:

120. ARGUMENT FROM PERSECUTION (I)
(1) Someone made fun of my faith.
(2) Therefore, God exists.

121. ARGUMENT FROM PERSECUTION (II)
(1) Jesus said that people would make fun of Christians.
(2) I am an idiot.
(3) People often point that out.
(4) Therefore, God exists.

122. ARGUMENT FROM PERSECUTION (III)
(1) You atheists are mean!
(2) Therefore, God exists.

(source) ]]> http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/04/08/god-exists-because-christians-are-persecuted/feed/ 27 http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/04/04/god-exists-because-theres-no-evidence/ http://unreasonablefaith.com/2009/04/04/god-exists-because-theres-no-evidence/#comments Sat, 04 Apr 2009 18:49:26 +0000 Daniel Florien http://unreasonablefaith.com/?p=3494 Today’s argument for the existence of God is from the lack of evidence of God:

138. ARGUMENT FROM LACK OF EVIDENCE (I)
(1) I believe that if God exists, there will be no evidence for his existence.
(2) There is no evidence for the existence of God.
(3) Therefore, God exists.

139. ARGUMENT FROM LACK OF EVIDENCE (II)
(1) God, if you exist, please give me absolutely no sign.
(2)
(3) Therefore, God exists.

(source)

It appears the Templeton Foundation may have finally discovered the ultimate gap in which to stash God:

A leading quantum physicist who believes science alone cannot explain “ultimate reality” has been awarded the world’s largest monetary prize for his contribution to religious thought. (”Bernard d’Espagnat wins £1m Templeton Prize“)

The Limits of Knowledge

Pullquote: The concepts we use, such as space, time, causality, and so on, … are not applicable to ultimate reality.
Bernard d’Espagnat

I have to be careful here. I know just enough about quantum theory to embarrass myself, but not enough to dig myself out afterward.

Bernard d’Espagnat is a proponent of the “veiled reality” concept. The idea is that quantum physics describes the effects of the forces at work in the quantum level, but not the forces themselves. In other words, there is a reality beneath time, space, matter and energy, and our scientific tools cannot reach it. As he explained it to the Christian Science Monitor:

“It’s not that science will explain the ultimate reality of certain objects or events,” d’Espagnat said. “Rather, it is that the concepts we use, such as space, time, causality, and so on, … are not applicable to ultimate reality.”

Fair enough. If fact, I find it intuitively appealing. As an atheist, I believe that the universe was not created for us, and is therefor under no obligation to make itself comprehensible to us. I am neither surprised nor appalled to hear it suggested that there are things we simply can’t know.

Entanglements — Quantum and Otherwise

Pullquote: For generations theists have been finding God in the spaces outside human knowledge, but each time scientists have shown up to spoil the fun.

Where it gets dicey is when it gets religious. Those who have read Ken Miller’s Finding Darwin’s God may remember his final chapter, where he locates the actions of God at the quantum level. Since we cannot say what caused a particle to go this way instead of that way, perhaps we can say that God made it happen.

For generations theists have been finding God in the spaces outside human knowledge, but each time scientists have shown up to spoil the fun. Miller has found a gap where scientists can’t ruin the game, and d’Espagnat has taken this a step farther: he has given theists an entire playground to themselves. And if no one can say what goes on there, no one can say what doesn’t. As d’Espagnat says:

“I would accept calling it God or divine or Godhead but with the restriction that it cannot be conceptualised for the very reason that this ultimate reality is beyond any concept that we can construct.”

One Gap They Ignore

Pullquote: Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.
Ludwig Wittgenstein

I’m tempted to start up an organization of my own. Call it the “Florien Fund” after our dear host. Once a year this fund will shell out a large cash prize to the physicist/theologian who enters an American megachurch and explains their conception of God to the congregates. They will be expected to explain how God is not really an all-powerful loving entity who watches over us, but just a way of speaking about the level of physical reality behind quantum mechanics. For the full prize, they should also explain what this idea does to the divinity of Jesus.

And then get out alive. No payments to next-of-kin. Since I don’t think we’ll ever have to pay out, this fund should be a cinch to run.

Shouldn’t the authors of these “quantum God” theories be more alarmed by the huge divide between the God of their philosophies and the God fervently believed in by the majority of humanity? Shouldn’t this gap make them leery of using the word “God”  — the most loaded word in our lexicon?

But of course, that’s the point. The goal is not honest inquiry, because that would require an honest answer: “We don’t know.” The whole point of this quest for mystery is to say, “We don’t know, but it could be God…” The goal is to find some definition of God that they can use and still be feel they’re upholding scientific principles, then smuggle in as much of their theology as they can.

I have some sympathy. I’m aware there are some who value the texture of mystery in their lives, and who desire to explore those mysteries, despite knowing there can never be an end. The fact that I’m content to shrug off all matters of spirituality doesn’t mean that others don’t need them. I agree with Wittgenstein, they don’t have to.

But I would appreciate honest fideism more than this disingenuous deism. Believe because you believe, not because you’ve found a conveniently placed gap.

Vorjack is a librarian/archivist and a public historian, living with his wife in history-soaked Albany, New York.

What is the outsider test? It’ll take you 13 paragraphs to get to it, so I’ll highlight it for you:

The outsider test is simply a challenge to test one’s own religious faith with the presumption of skepticism, as an outsider. It calls upon believers to “Test or examine your religious beliefs as if you were outsiders with the same presumption of skepticism you use to test or examine other religious beliefs.”

Its presumption is that when examining any set of religious beliefs skepticism is warranted, since the odds are good that the particular set of religious beliefs you have adopted is wrong.

This is how religious people evaluate other religions. It’s why they think they are all absurd — well, all except for their own.

When we are on the outside of a religion, we see its errors and absurdities as obvious proof of its falsehood. But when we are on the inside, we attribute those same errors and absurdities — if we admit them at all — to our own limitations.

Here is the challenge of the outside test to Christians:

To the Christian theist the challenge of the outsider test means there would be no more quoting the Bible to defend the claim that Jesus’ death on the cross saves us from sins. The Christian theist must now try to rationally explain it. No more quoting the Bible to show how it’s possible for Jesus to be 100% God and 100% man with nothing left over. The Christian theist must now try to make sense of this claim, coming as it does from an ancient superstitious people who didn’t have trouble believing Paul and Barnabas were “gods in human form” (Acts 14:11; 28:6).

The Christian theist must not assume prior to examining the evidence that there is an answer to the problem of horrendous suffering in our world either. And she’d be initially skeptical of believing in any of the miracles in the Bible, just as she would be skeptical of any claims of the miraculous in today’s world supporting other religious faiths.

Why? Because she cannot start out by first believing the Bible, nor can she trust the people close to her who are Christian theists to know the truth, nor can she trust her own anecdotal religious experiences, since such experiences are had by people of all religious faiths who differ about the cognitive content learned as the result of these experiences. She would want evidence and reasons for these beliefs.

Christian, just ask yourself whether the initial reasons you had for adopting your faith were strong ones. Just think about the problems you’ve experienced in your churches along with the intellectual problems you wrestle with in meetings like these. If you could go back in time knowing what you know now about how Christians behave in the church would you still choose to believe? And those initial arguments that convinced you to believe would surely be thought of by you as simplistic and unworthy of your consideration today. Just ask yourself if you would’ve become a Mormon instead, had a joyous friendly Mormon group approached you at that same vulnerable time in your life.

Most all of us, most all of the time, do not have good initial reasons to accept our religious faith, which from that time forward acts like a set of blinders with regard to how we see the evidence. We just end up believing what we were taught to believe by people we trust in a Christian dominated culture.

If more people were willing to honestly submit themselves to the outsider test, I think our debates and conversations would be far more intelligent and productive. Don’t you?

As I’ve become a regular reader of Unreasonable Faith, and waded in to the comment threads, I keep asking believers the same question. It’s really a pretty straightforward question, and it goes to the core of my atheism.

Where’s the evidence for god?

Show me some quantifiable, measurable, testable evidence that god exists and I will gladly go back to being a believer. Show some solid evidence that your god exists and I will come to church, synagogue or mosque with you.

Curiously, the responses from believers have been lacking.

When I was a believer I didn’t think about this question much. I assumed that my parents who raised me in belief, and all the adults and authority figures who believed, knew things I didn’t. I thought they could be trusted to tell me the truth about something as fundamental as the existence of god.

But as I matured, learned, and asked questions, that nagging evidence problem always came back. When I finally turned to fully examine the evidence, my journey to atheism was relatively quick. I assume this process is fairly common, but that believers who have thought about evidence for god have found it to be sufficient.

Overwhelmingly, the most common response from believers is to ignore my question. Obviously that’s not very helpful.

The closest I’ve gotten to an actual response is something along the lines of “I just feel god/holy spirit/jesus in my heart.” But that is subjective evidence. It is not evidence of anything except the existence of the feeling itself. Can you imagine the state trying to prosecute a criminal based solely on evidence that the arresting officer “just felt in his heart” the defendant was a murderer? I didn’t think so.

So rather than trying to ask this in different comment threads, Daniel has been kind enough to lay it out here.

What say you believers?

Can you give us some evidence?

Bill Noorlander is a lawyer in Milwaukee, where he live with his wife and four kids. He blogs at Bill Post.

What a silly pattern-recognizing mammal we are.

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