Taking up a thread from my Facebook Post, "God's Plan, first installment..."

Facebook is a great place to have an exchange of ideas, but not so much when the exchange evolves into a more protracted discussion.  This, my first real post on my new blog, takes up a discussion that came about when I posted a cartoon on Facebook with the caption noted in the title above.  I won't put any specific names here out of respect for privacy, but I sometimes have long discussions with this person, and we both realized that Facebook comments do not provide a very good forum for a serious and detailed dialogue.  Which, I'd like to point out, is what is missing in most of the world – has been missing, in fact, for nearly all of human history: open dialogue about the nature of our beliefs; I myself am truly grateful for the opportunity to participate in such a discussion.  My friend prepared what I characterized as an eisegesis, going line-by-line through my previous comment.  Instead of counter-exegesing this person's points individually, I'm going to respond to what I think are a couple of general points of disagreement.  If we had a better forum, like a book, I would still present the claims below, but would also include detailed responses to the points raised line-by-line.  The first general point of digression or misunderstanding between us I think is on the nature of belief itself and how that relates to what we think of as evidence.

The reason beliefs are important to me (and should be to absolutely everybody) is that when it comes down to the nitty-gritty, all of our actions are driven by our beliefs.  I keep my car on the right side of the road because I believe that oncoming traffic will do the same; I just gulped down a glass of milk because I believe that it has been pasteurized and that the date on the jug is accurate; I work to create software and hardware to test cellular phone components using a test platform that I believe is reliable and repeatable because I believe I will receive a paycheck that won't bounce; I don't jump from very high places because I believe that the speed at which I hit the ground will increase as a function of the distance I fall; I try to act kindly and with justice towards my fellow humans and other living creatures because I believe this is what makes the world a better place for all of us; you get the idea.  There are also many things that I do not believe: the moon is made of cheese; the earth is less than 10,000 years old; animals can safely consume anti-freeze; putting a loaded gun into the hands of an irresponsible person is a good idea; you get the idea here also.  All of these beliefs, along with the non-beliefs, guide my behavior in ways both general and specific; I think that all of our behaviors, and in fact all of what we might call knowledge, can be looked at this way: the facts we present to ourselves (and use when we reason) are based on beliefs we hold – we believe that what we hold as facts represent the true state of the world.  Now, when I survey my beliefs I see that the ones about which I am most confident, the ones upon which I am (or should be – see Shermer’s discussion of the effect of reward-level on perceived risk in The Believing Brain) generally willing to stake the most important facets of my life, are the ones for which I have the greatest amount or the strongest evidence; those having very high standing are those for which the evidence is corroborated and agreed upon, especially by those who may have disagreed with the initial premise or who suspected bad evidence or evidence that had been tampered with and who have therefore approached evidential affirmation with skepticism.  Evidence vetted many times over by different actors all employing skeptical inquiry in varied ways has perhaps the greatest standing of all classes of evidence.  Now if you think about it for a minute, evidence amounts to just another layer of belief, really, but it's a layer that of course depends on beliefs that have themselves been previously vetted.  So you can see that the strength of a belief necessarily depends on all the beliefs (or assumptions I guess might be another word) that the belief itself presupposes.  The fact that human beliefs form the foundations of human behavior is not obvious but is critical; that beliefs play such an important role in human knowledge itself is just as critical.  Both of these facts point to the importance of understanding the nature of our beliefs, and also to the importance of approaching such understanding with a skeptical eye.

Now, I don't think there is a being in existence who could justify each and every held belief down to the very root.  We can of course also be mistaken about the ground or assumptions behind any particular belief.  However, just because perfect knowledge and complete awareness is impossible in practice does not mean that the general principle doesn't apply.  When we have tension between us due to differing beliefs, our only recourse is to examine the presupposed assumptions and evaluate them with respect to the things upon which we can all agree; if we cannot agree on the immediate presuppositions, we must peel back to the next layer of presupposition, and continue this until we find common ground; only then can we gradually work our way back up the chain, examining and resolving our points of difference with respect to the things we agree (or come to agree) are foundational.

 Now, you clearly have any number of beliefs that I don't share; the obverse is certainly just as true.  One of the beliefs you hold that I do not is that god exists; another belief that I also do not share is that god influences your life.  However, the belief that god influences your life clearly presupposes the idea that god exists; so, the belief that god influences your life is actually three beliefs:  1) god exists, 2) something outside of your knowledge or control influences your life, and 3) that influential something is in fact god.  That god could still exist but not actually be the thing influencing your life or thinking in any given situation is still a distinct possibility.  Another possibility is that there are multiple gods and that several of them are colluding to influence you, or that a god other than the one you assume is influencing your life.  I think it obvious that we can both agree that there are things that neither of us completely understands that have influenced your decisions on many occasions; where we disagree is on the cause or nature of such influence.  If you concur, then we have found our first commonly foundational belief: something is influencing your thoughts and/or behavior.  I also hold this belief with respect to myself – I am certain that there are things outside the scope of my direct knowledge or control that influence me personally.  The next step is to look for evidence that supports each of our contrasting claims: you claim that the (or at least, an) influence is god while I claim that the influence is most likely a product of the unconscious processes that under-gird one's awareness.  It is true that the evidence for either claim is in a sense subjective – at some level investigation of the phenomena surrounding consciousness will always rely on the testimony of the subject.  That does not, however, indicate that all such evidence is equal – contrasting testimonials do not by definition cancel each other out perfectly.  I'm sure you have heard that there are experimental methods in psychology, psychiatry, and neurology which are designed to eliminate bias; some use misdirection, for example, so that any bias possessed by the subjects may only be interjected in a manner that is inconsequential to the study's true aims.  Neurologists perform real-time scans during experimental questioning to study activity in areas of the brain that have been previously established to correlate with, for example, willful deception.  These techniques are of course not perfect but they are peer-reviewed and replicated.  Taken together they constitute strong evidence for a number of fascinating and revealing attributes of our personalities: our brains are active in the subconscious decision-making regions for anywhere from fractions of a second to tens of seconds before we ourselves become consciously aware of a decision; our personalities can be altered in specific, predictable, and repeatable ways by either damage to or intentional stimulation of particular areas of our brain.  It has repeatedly been shown that persons can be induced to feel all of the reported occurrences that have traditionally been ascribed to supernatural influence, including out-of-body experiences; the sense of a separate, and oftentimes loving presence nearby; auditory and visual intrusions; continuity of oneself with nature or a feeling of oneness with things external to one's physical body; feelings of bliss or peace; sensations of being touched; feelings of terror; the sensation of another's presence within one's own body or mind.  We know from other studies that our brains are largely driven by their pattern-recognition engines, and that those regions of the brain responsible for recognizing patterns can be exhibit hyperactivity (or the opposite) which profoundly affects our perceptions and behaviors.  There are also many studies that look at belief-bias (what Shermer calls Belief-Dependent realism) which also affects our perceptions and our interpretations.  I see these empirical results as evidence of a very strong type – corroborated, replicated, and often approached with skepticism (or at least employing double-blind or other methodology that suitably shields the results from any bias the investigator may have). 

On the opposing side there is compelling and what I'm sure is heartfelt personal testimony.  I have no doubt that those who put forth such testimony are convinced of the reality of their experiences; I also have no doubt that they have indeed experienced something strange or mysterious and that such occurrences are well worth our serious attention.  As I pointed out above, though, such statements invariably entail more than one belief, and I can certainly agree with some of those beliefs while disagreeing with others.  Those beliefs on which all of us can (must, really) agree are directly supported by strong forms of evidence or by causal or logical links to foundational presuppositions; those about which we disagree are in such a state either because they are not supported by the evidence, or because we cannot agree on any logical/causal connection between them and our agreed-upon foundations.  If we are truly at an unbridgeable impasse on a given point then we must acknowledge that the thing about which we disagree cannot be claimed by us to be objective – it isn't knowledge in any meaningful sense.  Before we resort to this, however, we are obliged to go through the exercise of examining presuppositions, if we are indeed serious about resolving our differences.  This is the magic of the scientific method – any and every claim or connection of this sort is always open to question; when something is discovered that calls into question a previously assumed claim, that previous assumption is again subjected to scrutiny and possible revision based on new evidence.  I know I've stated before that I am not (nor is virtually any other atheist) wedded to the absolutist claim that there is no possibility whatsoever of a god existing; it's just that there is absolutely no evidence, in any but the very weakest sense, that this is true.  You cited a number of things such as testimonials of life-after-death experiences and the like, but those types of claims are problematic for a several reasons: they themselves actually entail multiple beliefs that are co-dependant and whose presuppositions are almost never brought to light; they always turn out to be suspect in some way or another when they are investigated closely (i.e. there are zero or perhaps one witnesses); they are never able to be replicated under anything close to controlled conditions; they tend to exhibit strong cultural biases. 

However, even if a particular individual (or even more than one) objects to a claim, we are not thereby automatically obligated to abandon that claim's status as objective; we are obligated instead to ascertain if the claim is acknowledged by many (or any) others to be valid, and whether it is supported by evidence or logical/causal connection. If evidence contrary to an assumed position is presented, we are obligated to treat it as we do all other evidence: with skepticism. We should also not be fooled by what may initially seem like a large amount of evidence: the volume of evidence is never so important as its quality. As Stenger has noted, the plural of anecdote is not data.

In addition to the lack of supporting evidence and paucity of logical connections to foundational concepts, I would have to add that there are also many very good reasons why it makes absolutely no sense for it to be true that there exists an omniscient, omnipotent, and omnibenevolent deity who intervenes in human affairs.  There is also plenty of evidence that the kind of thinking that goes along with such beliefs has deleterious effects on society and human progress in general.  While I can already feel the heat of your objection rising in response to that last sentence, I fully acknowledge that there are plenty of other modes of thinking are just as (and perhaps more) damaging to humanity.  If you also agree with that statement, then we should be on the same page with regard to shining a spotlight on such modes of thinking.  One of the differences between us is that I feel that I should not only follow where the evidence leads, but I should also verify with at least some degree of skepticism that what I am calling evidence is the real thing.  And this is where we part ways on the testimony of your personal experiences.  As I said above, I don’t doubt for a minute that you have had transformative and transcendent experiences.  I do doubt, however, that those experiences in any way prove the existence of anything supernatural.  The ‘evidence’ as I see it is that you have had such experiences; what that evidence is evidence for is up for grabs.  If you want to posit that the evidence points to the existence of something, then you are of course free to do that.  I have of course also had peculiar things happen that seem to stretch the limits of coincidence, although not in the numbers that you seem to have had them happen, but for my part I have an obligation to investigate further – I feel the need, and an equally strong desire, to keep peeling back layers of understanding until I reach some kind of bedrock, or the limits of understanding.  I feel that this obligation is never more true than when the thing in question is something around which one is potentially going to organize one’s life.  The greater the impact on one’s life-direction, the more important it is to seek a deeper understanding.  This doesn’t mean that I would (or could) coerce someone into my way of thinking or reasoning, but thankfully I live in an Age that has inherited the benefits of the Enlightenment and in a country which has sanctified freedom of thought, so I can think as I do and speak my mind as I would.  

The other major topic on which we diverge is inspiration. It always seems assumed that someone like myself, who places great stock in reason and science, can have no basis for inspiration other than what is tangible and in immediate view.  I see the key ingredient of inspiration as being imagination, and I guess I just assumed it was obvious that nothing I have said or written disabuses anyone of imagination's power and reach. There is no need to believe (in the strong sense that equates belief with fact) anything that is not supported sufficiently by evidence and reason in order to imagine virtually any possibility, even the most fantastic.  Nor does it follow that the level of one’s intellectual discipline must be inversely proportional to one’s imagination.  Nor does it mean that such persons cannot be excited to the point of action by some of those possibilities.  Now if the essence of inspiration isn’t imagination plus excitement, I don’t know what you are talking about.  If it were not for the imagination and enthusiasm of people like Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and Feynman, science would not have come very far at all. In fact, to turn this around, their inspiration would have amounted to nothing at all were it not for their intellectual rigor. And I'm sure they imagined things that they later discovered were unattainable or even ridiculous – the key would be that they first imagined what might be true then discovered if those things were in fact true – they didn't just believe things to be true. Granted, the particulars of their discoveries were different from the particulars of, for example, personal experiences, but those differences do not negate the underlying principle.  Inspiration drove their inquiries but was far from the whole substance of those inquiries.

Now, I understand that the source of our inspiration isn’t always obvious – you are sitting there, drinking coffee, and a wonderful and intriguing thought pops into your head.  Where did that thought come from?  It could have come from a god; it could have been that the previous cup of coffee’s caffeine started kicking in and caused some idle neurons to fire inside your head; maybe it was an idea or a thought you had previously but have totally forgotten about (I know that I have had thoughts that I’ve forgotten…); in the same vein, perhaps you unconsciously noticed something two days ago that stimulated unconscious processes in your brain resulting in your wonderful thought.  There are many possible explanations, but what’s important to note is that from whence it comes is a matter that can itself be investigated.  What is really a mystery (and a source of inspiration) to me is, why doesn’t everyone want to know the answers to these questions too?  How can anyone be happy just with the simplest possible explanation that withers under even a casual investigation?

Aversion to Controversy

In a previous post (located here) I wrote about the technique of avoidance employed by religious institutions, and postulated that such avoidance can be thought of in terms familiar to those interested in the science of evolution, albeit with the transmission medium consisting of memes instead of genes.  Although I was speaking in general terms, with a note that there were some such conversations in which I had personally participated, I feel I should expand upon this a little more, and include a few more specifics.

I said at the outset of creating this blog, and still have in my very first post, that I am interested in provoking conversation.  I have found that it often takes a blatant poke in the eye to get some folks to actually engage with passion and commitment.  In fact, the creation of this blog originally stemmed from what I'd thought was an interesting series of exchanges that started with what some might characterize as an offensive cartoon - the cartoon indeed contained the words, "shitting my pants," but that's not a characteristic of the cartoon that most folks would have found the most offensive.  One of my earliest blog posts was my effort at continuing that conversation. The thrust of the cartoon was essentially to point out the problem of theodicy, or the theological problem of the existence of evil.  Now, I could have easily written a paragraph pointing out the philosophical difficulties posed by theodicy, but that would hardly have garnered any reaction at all (and wouldn't have been nearly as much fun!):  today's bumper-sticker and sound-bite attention-spans wouldn't have given it a second's thought - most folks probably wouldn't have bothered to read a whole paragraph; that's just too much work {insert nasal whine}.  The reaction to that cartoon by a several people indicated that the subject itself was important, but it took a provocative cartoon for anyone to think seriously about it for more than a few seconds, and to actually react.

Nonetheless, it was inevitable that the conversation would end, but it ended a bit prematurely as there was to be no reply to that last post.

What I encountered was a point beyond which there existed virtually zero interest in pursuing the matter to a point of resolution.  I am left wondering why this is the case - if a topic has any importance to someone, what's the point of not finishing out one's arguments?   I guess that it's just so much easier to surreptitiously un-friend and ignore someone than to complete a thoughtful exchange or to even think about things that might be unpleasant or disagreeable.  Of course there are those that will claim hubris on my part, but I submit that this is just another case of self-preservation (of one's tenuous claims) by avoidance.  Exchanges between myself and this person were spirited but always respectful, so the abrupt end took me kind of by surprise, especially since this person is an author with a decided penchant for lengthy passages of florid and very descriptive language whom I thought would take advantage of the opportunity to expound on her beliefs.  I chalk it up as a learning experience, but I don't feel what I've learned is anything like the lesson that may have been intended.

Not quite so surprising was a previous case that has similarities.  This involved a person whose political leanings are opposite mine and which occurred during the political campaigns of the 2012 election.  I would not infrequently post links and comments about what I perceived to be inconsistencies and outright falsehoods coming from the other side (I still enjoy doing this), and I would also occasionally comment on posts that I saw as outrageous or ridiculous.  Some of my comments and posts were fairly acerbic and sarcastic in tone, but never more so than I perceived those coming from the other side to be, and these devices were always used in the service of illuminating a valid point.  Other folks, including the person in question here, would do the same for (or to) me.  Surely, this is both in the nature of, and the very strength behind, a public forum.  As part of this, which I thought of as rather a lot of fun, I would keep tabs on these posts and was always interested when someone replied or had something to say.  One day, all of these links simply disappeared from the list of recent activity that a particular social media site maintains under my profile.  I was a little mystified; I then noticed that this particular individual was no longer in my "friends" list - I assumed she had had enough of social media and deleted her profile, since there was no record to be found when I searched the name.  However, what I found was that she was still active on this particular site, but had simultaneously un-friended and blocked me.  I was struck by the hypocrisy of this person, as she had once sententiously proclaimed in a public post (which I remember very well) that she had never un-friended someone of the opposite political bent, while she herself had been un-friended more than once by those in the other camp because of their distaste for her political views.  While I've tried to word things a little more politely up to this point, I can't help but call this out for what it really is: chickenshit, reactionary, and cowardly.  Once again, I leave it up to the reader to judge the level of hubris when I claim that this was done primarily to avoid engagement once the tide had turned against her (which it clearly had, since the political side I favored won the presidential election by a substantial margin).

I'm sure that nearly every reader has at least one similar story: expressing passion or excitement about a topic leads to others disengaging completely.  What is it that makes people pull away from interacting with one another?  I think there are several candidates.

The reason might simply be that I come across as an asshole, and that I've misperceived the frequency with which others encounter the same phenomenon.  While I certainly hope, and definitely believe, that this is not the case, it is a possibility.  I console myself with the fact that in no case of which I am aware do I fit the strict definition of such as laid out in Aaron James' fine book, Assholes: A Theory.

Many folks let themselves be driven to a large extent by what amounts to a very poor guide for self-regulation: an obsession with what they imagine are others' perceptions of them.   I have found that in some people this is nearly the entirety of what constitutes their self-image.  This, taken to the extreme, can be the root of narcissism if all one cares about is that others have a constant positive image of oneself - I have to look good in the eyes of everybody!

If such a person (A) interacts with another (B), and B's behavior obviates the fact that B will never have a completely positive image (or will have a decidedly negative one) of A, then A will usually make decisive, immediate, and sometimes histrionic efforts to affect separation from B, and also to negate any association of him- or herself with B in the minds of C, D, E, etc.  This is like cutting away tainted flesh when tending to an infected wound.

Another reason I imagine folks tend to pull away is that they may have an innate, and probably unacknowledged, fear of reaching the limits of their ability to defend a particular position, especially when that position holds meaning that goes beyond rationality or when there is strong emotional attachment either to that position itself or to its consequences.  When we are emotionally attached to an idea we tend to cling tenaciously and vigorously defend that idea much more so than when our attachment is derived solely from reason; this can be a good thing if the idea is worth defending, but of course the only way to be sure of this is by means of rational consideration.  It may be true that sometimes (perhaps often for select individuals) one has an initial attraction to a particular idea that is reflexively emotional and that later on, when one has a chance to apply reason, one discovers that the idea is in fact worthy of respect.  Even if this is true, it clearly does not exonerate the neglect of reason; it just means that instinctual or subconscious reasoning can be accurate but must at some point still be verified by overt, conscious effort.  I trust my gut instinct only up to a point.

When folks exert themselves to defend a position that has no firm basis in reason, their exertions are of course just as ramshackle as the original idea itself.  A valid complaint lodged by Sam Harris against many of his critics is that they never engage his arguments directly, but instead use sideways attacks against a farrago thrown together using a variety of Harris' ideas and out-of-context statements.  It's not always clear whether these thinly veiled straw-men are construed intentionally or are merely the result of poor debating skills, but I think the technique is more common that we might realize.

Whatever the particular reasons behind the two aforementioned folks "un-friending" me on social media, we could as a species certainly do a far better job of communicating and validating the reasons behind our actions.  Without a doubt we would be much better off for the effort - lets us hope that we realize this sometime soon!

What if you are wrong (Part I)?

Whenever the subject of one's skepticism towards the existence of a god and the efficacy or desirability of religion arises in more than a passing fashion the posing of this question seems inevitable. Although it is just a restatement of Pascal's Wager, which has been addressed in any number of ways over the years, I would like to share a few additional, and I hope fresh, thoughts.

The first (and most obvious) implication is that I am a fool to not conform to the questioner’s religious beliefs – in essence, the question is really an assertion that while no possible harm could come from such conformance, any outcome would for me be either positive (eternal life) or neutral (no different than if I had stuck with unbelief).

This strikes me as both a weak and a selfish argument. It is weak with regards to the power it holds to convince someone holding any but than the most cursory objections. It is normally employed as a last-ditch effort when all other means have been tried and failed. It offers no compelling reason; in short, it is a childish, playground-style challenge.

The deeper objection I have to this position stems from its oft-ignored selfish implications. In order to see this clearly, it is necessary to consider our moral framework.

Morality at its most essential is the mutually agreed-upon set of norms governing the interrelation-ships among individuals. It has to do with the bonds and tensions we share as a society and as cultural beings. In much the same way that we could not be what we understand as “human beings” without shared culture, morality could not exist without a society; in this sense, society is a place where individuals’ (and clustered groups') self-interests clash with those of others. The resolution of such conflicts over time by negotiation, mutual cooperation, discussion, and all the other means at our disposal are what bring about, define, and sustain morals. Without such interchanges there is neither place for nor need of the concept of morality. Pure self-interest, and action based on such as the only consideration, emerges as the antithesis of true morality when considered in this way.

The motivations behind our actions therefore speak to their morality. An act must be judged thus in part by the presence or absence of consideration for the concerns of those other than the actor, not just by whether its consequences are beneficial to only others, and not just by the balance of beneficence and maleficence in its consequences. An inattentive and careless man that accidentally bumps into a bystander and thus prevents her from mistakenly stepping into the path of an oncoming truck is not committing an act that we could call moral, nor would we label as strictly immoral the same act if it resulted in her death – he clearly has neither benign nor ill intent outright. Only actions taken where it is fully and correctly realized that there are no consequences beyond the self are truly amoral actions, and only actions taken with full knowledge and intent of (or with callous disregard for) pernicious effects on others with no attempt at mitigation can be completely immoral actions. An act that one knows will affect others, for better or worse, can be called a moral act or an act with moral implications.

Intentions, though, are only part of what defines the quality of moral actions; changes in the relationship of oneself to the rest of society or to individual elements existing within it carry significant weight in this regard. For example, if an ostensibly altruistic act changes the relationship, the nature of that change speaks to the moral caliber of the act on an equal footing with its intent. If I were to throw myself in the path of a bullet to save the life of a stranger's child, this would certainly be considered altruistic, but such claims would likely ring hollow for my own children, my wife, my extended family, and close friends. No doubt many who commit suicide do so in the belief that they are somehow “helping” society but instead end up causing enormous despair and suffering in those to whom they were closest. In both cases intentions may be noble but the consequences can be devastating.

We understand that an act which alleviates suffering appears higher on the moral scale proportional to the amount of suffering it alleviates. We can also talk similarly of acts that elevate the human condition in general, where human condition refers to the ability of individuals to plan, direct, and lead productive, beneficial, fulfilling, and happy lives of their own.

If we believe in a shared moral code that in any way obligates us to help those in need, then clearly we should target our efforts first at those we are able to help whose need is greatest, and we should measure out our assistance proportional to the amount of need. All other considerations are secondary to these aspects of the moral imperative, and any actions that counter or impede them are to some degree immoral, or at best serve to diminish what can be imagined as the “optimal good.”

So, what if I am wrong?

Since a decision to conform with the questioner’s wishes merely by the force of the questioner's statement (the “challenge”) would be made on the basis of a completely self-centered concern, such a decision is not moral (in the sense of a “good” moral act) – it is amoral at best, but I contend that it would be in effect an immoral one – that is, the quality of such a decision can and should be evaluated using the moral framework and by this measure comes out to the negative.

Now without claiming that I am a paragon of charitable virtue, I can state with confidence that were I to suddenly agree with the questioner and conform, there would be some subset of my current efforts that would be redirected towards my new-found religious endeavors. This subset could be a small or a substantial portion of my total output, and if we assume that at least some of those efforts are beneficial in their present form to society at large, without prejudice or preference, it becomes obvious that a decision to conform would in all probability be a moral decision – that is, it would fall within the sphere of judgment as either moral or immoral. A simple example would be if I joined a church that expected me to tithe 10% of my income, whereas before I had donated 4% of my income to Doctors Without Borders (which the tithe makes me unable to afford any longer). I might also have volunteered at the local public school, but now, due to obligations at church, I can no longer devote time to this service for the school.

Consider also how plain it is to any observer that the demands imposed by the religious camps of the most vociferous and persistent questioners are typically much higher than the demands coming from those who are driven by lower urgency. That is to say, religious concerns take the largest amount of effort and devotion from the lives of those who proselytize the most vigorously. Those who are less motivated (and thus less pressing in their urging of others to conform) come from traditions that have fewer demands on their adherents.

If I were to agree to accept the challenge, I would therefore redirect some portion of my efforts, on a scale that would likely be proportional to the effort put forth towards pressing my conformance, away from the benefit of society at large and instead towards religious observance.

An objection may be raised here which points to the charitable work done by religious institutions; it might even be suggested that I may be so motivated by my new-found faith that I would engage in a larger amount of charitable work through my religious ties.  Historically, however, churches have proven the least efficient means for delivering charity¹. They are inefficient both in the percentage of what is taken-in that comes-out as true charity, and in the scope or reach of that charitable output. While it is true that there may be many very effective faith-based charitable organizations, none of those objectively recognized as efficient is a church in and of itself.  Furthermore, religious institutions tend strongly to filter their charitable works to exclude as recipients those whom they see as unlikely to accept their teachings. Nearly all connect proselytizing with charity, which is thinly disguised and re-branded as mission work.

Churches painstakingly count all of this in the ledger under “charity” both as a claim to moral high ground (a retort offered in the face of even the most casual challenge) and for tax purposes.  If true charity is indeed a “good” moral imperative, it is plain to see that a large share of the “charity” arrogated by religious institutions is perched on the thinnest moral ice.

It is obvious that any redirection of charitable efforts on my part away from modes that are blind to ancillary attributes of recipients and towards those that restrict or attach conditions to the recipients (other than unmitigated need) is an immoral one, clearly going beyond the sense that it adds elements of pure self-interest to the decision process. This latter of course gets folded in if the charitable work I am performing is not done in an effort to elevate the human condition in general but is instead done to elevate my own condition (either in this world or in a promised hereafter).

If people perform charitable work as part of their church’s activities we may still inquire regarding their underlying motivation. If that motivation is driven by the purely self-interested desire to please a deity or to ensure a place in a desirable hereafter, then we must judge the motive to be amoral as it takes no heed of concerns that are not self-directed, and this diminishes the overall good in what may in other ways be morally positive acts. If the charitable acts themselves direct resources away from what the wider society has identified as the most-needy or most-deserving recipients and towards a more select group, then to the extent that they do so the acts themselves are to be judged as immoral.

As was stated at the beginning of this section, if I change my belief system to conform to the questioner’s desires, I would at best be doing so for reasons that are divorced from any semblance of true morality and that would have implications which are upon reflection seen to be immoral.

I have noticed that those who ask this question of others absolutely never ask it of themselves, so I would like to briefly explore this important possibility, followed later by a third form, in Part II.

1“Research Report: How Secular Humanists (and Everyone Else) Subsidize Religion in the United States” [http://www.secularhumanism.org/index.php?section=fi&page=cragun_32_4]

What if you are wrong (Part II)?

In Part I, we looked at some of the basic principles underlying our moral framework and saw how those principles conflict with conformance to Pascal's Wager.  Here in Part II, we turn the question around and examine the consequences if instead it is the believer who is wrong.   I leave it up to the reader to judge which case has the worst outcome for the individual and indeed for humanity.

If the questioner is wrong and I am not, then results with far-reaching consequences can be seen just by examining material conditions as they exist now.  Assuming my questioner is from one of the established religious traditions, we need but look at the physical holdings possessed by the establishment comprising that tradition: church buildings, vehicles, tracts of land, decorative items, artwork, and so forth.  Also, if the deity is fictitious, the resources devoted to its worship can be seen as a ridiculous and nearly complete waste of effort and material, well past the point of absurd tragedy when opportunity cost is taken into account. For example, most church buildings remain unused and empty for 85-90% of the time¹, and even when they are used, the vast majority of that use-time is devoted exclusively to members of the congregation – imagine how that space could be used to house the less-fortunate or to prepare regular meals for the hungry. How many coats and shoes could be bought for the price of the statues and various accoutrements in the average Christian church’s sanctuary, or even for the cost of the fancy paneling and wall-coverings?   How many textbooks are displaced by the cost of a church van that gets used perhaps once every two to three weeks?  Could that van instead be used as general transportation for those lacking it, or to reduce the overall use of limited and dirty resources?

Many churches near my house (and there are indeed very many) have more than one outbuilding that functions as a fellowship hall, gymnasium, or Sunday-school facility; the utilization rate of these buildings is even less than that of the typical church’s worship hall, as can be observed with random drives through the neighborhood.  Church establishments take in money as charitable contributions and use that money to construct, heat, furnish, and maintain these largely unused structures.  Not only do goods and services given and used for such purposes exist outside the bounds of true charity (in the sense of a moral good), they displace charity that could be of far greater benefit elsewhere.  Yet the fact remains that nearly every penny devoted to these endeavors is claimed as a charitable contribution, which of course reduces the amount that would otherwise be available (through tax revenue, for example) to serve the wider public good.

If the questioner is wrong, it is also true that the basis under which she is operating is immoral and has led her to commit immoral acts – that is, her acts do not seek to maximize the common good but instead target a select and specifically limited subgroup of society. The acts are justifiable only on grounds stemming from self-interest. In anticipation of an objection that believers are convinced that their actions work to the expansion of the common good, I would suggest that if such is their claim then a heavy burden of proof lies with them.  Their case is not an easy one to make, for as we all know the same argument is used to justify suicide bombings – these zealots are just as (and most likely far more) convinced of the righteousness of their cause and of the benefits to mankind should their efforts succeed overall.

The best retort the questioner can possibly make is that she causes no overt or “extra” harm, but this merely places her actions in the realm of amoral, and I doubt the average believer would find such a label any more palatable than immoral.

If the questioner is wrong it is also instructive to look at effects of belief in a god or gods (and all that entails) on the engine of human progress, especially (but certainly not limited to) intellectual and moral development. It is well documented that religious institutions have resisted progress in scientific thought at every turn, often with violence. The execution of Giordano Bruno in 1600 for heresy is a telling example, but consider also that modern opponents of abortion are able to base their beliefs on sacred religious texts yet simultaneously commit utterly ruthless acts of intimidation, humiliation, and even terrorism (all while criticism from religious institutions is muted or completely absent).  The teaching of evolution through natural selection is vehemently opposed by many in the United States to this day prompted by the cheer-leading of the dogmatists even as the rest of the civilized world furrows its collective brow in puzzlement.  It is also plain from just a cursory examination of history that believers in god(s) have opposed every advance in moral ideals, no matter how well reasoned or argued, that clashed with established dogma; ideals that have overcome this immense barrier have inevitably proven themselves over time to be beneficial to the human condition overall, and many have become so ingrained as to be reflexive or thought of as self-evident.  The practice of slavery, for example, was staunchly defended by virtually every religious institution for thousands of years, even after the forces of secular reason had recognized it as barbarism.  Adolph Hitler and his “final solution” had the tacit support of the Catholic Church from his early ascendancy throughout the times of most of his heinous acts.  In fact, I have yet to discover any single moral advance humans have made whose cause has been led by a religious institution.  Recent examples including the abolition of slavery, woman's suffrage, and the struggle for minority civil rights have all been originated and championed by secular as opposed to religious efforts.  To be sure, there have been folks self-identified as religious who participated in and in some cases headed these endeavors, but none has been lead, initiated, or even proposed, by a religious body or institution per se.

This is indeed a poor track record and is in stark contrast with one of the chief (and loudest) claims of religion which states that we derive our moral basis from it.  At best, the reverse would seem to be the case, although the term theft might be more apt.

A defining feature of the convicted religious adherent is the certainty possessed with regards to the absolute and unquestionable rightness of the system.  Such certainty by definition leaves no room for compromise or even discussion.  This means that there is no “engine of human progress” of which to speak, and that our moral and intellectual development is frozen at the moment of inception of the adherent's religion.  If such certainty were to have prevailed we would still exist in the Stone, Bronze, or Iron Age.   Thank goodness the failings of religious dogma are both inherent and obvious to free-thinking persons.   It is depressing, however, to imagine how much earlier we would have enlightened ourselves and how much further along we would now be were it not for the staunch resistance of the hard-headed, stone-faced zealots who, oblivious to the irony of their self-proclaimed modesty, crown themselves as the righteous.

What if you are right?

Since saying that I am wrong does not carry the same implication as saying that you are right, this is the final permutation. If we ignore the vast majority of the history of all religious traditions and look only on, say, the last thirty to fifty years, most of us would agree that the focus of much of today’s religious discourse (and the carrot which is frequently used in conjunction with the titular question of this essay) is that the ultimate practical, immediate outcome of universal religious observance is a harmonious and peaceful human existence. In such a society, no human being would be hungry or want for any of the basic necessities of life, no wars would be fought, and all would have the opportunity to pursue what many think of as nobler ambitions. This stems from the very modern concept of a god as chiefly a being of love and compassion with equal concern for all human life, who wishes us to emulate those same ways and attitudes. This modern concept of a god is a union or aggregation of the reflected goodness inherent in each of us and in our better social establishments: in short, what modern spiritually-minded people imagine as “godly.” In the dual-spirit of both brevity and levity I will hereafter refer to these Major Attributes of a God Of Goodness as Magog.

It is easy to see how out of sync the majority of religious establishments are with Magog. This might stem from, in the case of Christians, the incompatibility of the jealous, tribal god of the old-testament with the only slightly more enlightened god of the new-testament. There are simply too many contradictions among them for any one system to encapsulate them both consistently; the result is a bewildering myriad of sects, each of which picks and chooses from the bible’s long menu to suit their tastes. A topic for a longer essay might consist of an exploration of the reasons underlying Magog's rise and what that says about the deficits of organized religion in general.

A being of boundless love and compassion is by necessity one that can encompass no hubris whatsoever.  By this standard the practice of our adoration and worship must be utterly repugnant to Magog. Enlightened humans understand that we do not show love and compassion to one another through worship; we instead prove it through our feelings of empathy, expressions of sympathy, and acts of kindness.  Overt worship, and all the baggage that comes with it, is more than a mere waste of time, it is a diversion of resources that Magog wishes us to put to better use.  We should expect such a being to place lowest on the list those who spend their time in fawning adoration instead of expressing, through thoughts and actions, concern for all fellow human beings. Who among use does not rightly despise the sycophantic tag-along who gets the job promotion ahead of us merely due to acts of flattery?  Is this any different than prostrating oneself before Magog in an effort to be first in line for the hereafter?

A being that has equal concern for all human life does not judiciously choose those on whom to bestow blessings or good will.  If unconditional concern for all human life is a feature of Magog’s that we ought to emulate, then the filtering of recipients of our good will based on any criteria other than need is incongruous with the will of Magog.

Furthermore, if the questioner is right this would of course mean that all other religious traditions are wrong (in addition to the mere absence of religious conviction), which is an assertion to which all major religions hold fast.  Since no religious tradition can come close to claiming a majority of the human population in its following, this means that the vast preponderance of humans that now exist (and that have ever existed) are wrong.  Most religions assert that such non-followers are permanently excluded from the presence of their god; a fair number of traditions with which I'm sure the reader is familiar go infinitely further and condemn nonbelievers (and indeed all different-believers) to an eternity of torment.  The very idea that a being with any similarity whatsoever to Magog could condemn one to an eternity of the most abominable torture imaginable merely for the transgression of being wrong, ignorant, or even willfully skeptical flies in the face of all that we know of both compassion and reason.  If one were to believe in the existence of pure evil, such a lopsided sentence would surely be the very definition were it to be the product of deliberate intent.

Clearly, such a question as stated in the title can only be asked by those with little to no capacity for introspection, or at least only by those who have omitted sober reflection from their lives.  They fail to perceive the self-directed and exclusionary nature of their beliefs, much less any of the deleterious effects on humankind brought by them.  And that is precisely what is wrong with such a question and also with those that ask it.

1This assumes for example that the church is used for a full 16 hours out of a 168 hour week, perhaps a generous estimate.

Sticks and Stones are nothing compared to words!

Welcome to my blog!  I hope to start and maintain discussions on a number of topics here - if you are interested in philosophy, politics, or science (or any combination of these...) I think you will find something of interest here!  But beware, you may also be challenged and offended, either of which I see as good jumping-off points for long and interesting conversations.

How does the conversation begin?

When you think about good conversations that you have had (or heard about) – those that accomplished a goal, convinced you (or someone else) to change a position, or just really made you re-examine your own perspective – what do you remember precipitated such conversations? Did you just feel an urge to state your position to the world regardless of who was listening? Did someone issue a challenge that touched on something about which you feel strongly? Were you offended by something that you overheard or saw? Did someone's actions so move you that you simply had to speak up, whether for or against? Perhaps you felt that your rights or civil liberties were at stake. I think one thing the world needs is more conversation-starters of all kinds, but this assumes that there are parties willing to participate in an actual conversation instead of simply exchanging volleys of words against which at least one side has inoculated itself. If you think you may have been in a deep conversation at some point, yet you have never questioned the rightness of your own position, you have not in fact participated in a deep conversation. If you are listening to someone else state their position while not honestly entertaining the possibility that the other person may in fact be right, you are actually not conversing – you are doing something else entirely, and you may as well be a politician in a scripted and televised-debate. If you have never seriously considered the arguments against your own position, you are not prepared (nor are you really entitled) to defend your own. If you are so full of opinions that there is no space for rumination, then you may as well be a wooden-headed ventriloquist dummy or an ideological lap-dog.

I know that there are other conversations to be had that are just as important and that don't start off as (or that were never intended to be) adversarial – these would be conversations with intimate partners, close friends, or one's children or parents. The conversations I'm concerned with here, however, are those that touch on things of interest to society as a whole – pick your hot-button issue du jour: abortion rights, same-sex marriage equality, religious freedom, freedom of conscience, etc. Opinions are indeed like a-holes here – everybody's got one. Does that really mean that all opinions are equal, though? Can we somehow boil this stew of opinions and find one capable of withstanding the heat?

And, if there are indeed issues that ultimately reduce to matters of taste, isn't it critical that we find some means of agreeing exactly which issues fall in this category? Now that seems like a decent starting place for a conversation on just about anything.

Would the real Faithful please stand up?

Since the rise of ISIS/ISIL there has been a proliferation or articles and opinion-pieces claiming that its members are not really Muslim, or that they don't represent the true Muslim faith. The president made this remark directly in his speech to the United States. We hear this type of claim all the time, most often when a sect within a particular faith has exhibited what many of us agree is bad behavior. One thing that interests me is what statements like this really mean when one unravels the underlying principles.

In the case of Islam, the situation is unclear because there is not much in the way of organization or hierarchy. Islam has four guiding principles: the Koran, the Hadith, the consensus of orthodox religious scholars, and the method of reasoning by analogy. Thus the only real heirarchy other than the authority of the actual written words resides in the consensus of religious scholars. The leader of ISIS, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, has a PhD from the Islamic University of Baghdad in Islamic Studies, so if he doesn't qualify as an Islamic religious Scholar I don't know what else would. Courts in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Iran, and Egypt regularly dispense and uphold sentences of death, stoning, and public lashing for offenses against Islam. These brutal and unbalanced sentences (for victimless- or thought-crimes, no less!) are the product of direct readings from either the Koran or the Hadith and are certainly the consensus of the leading Islamic scholars in the respective states. In fact, in many of these states it is the religious scholars that hold the very reins of power. Most if not all of al-Baghdadi's proclamations and actions are rooted directly in the writings of either the Koran or the Hadith. So too were those of the Taliban. Without a doubt there exist many Muslims of a more moderate mindset, but it is not at all clear that the scholarly consensus is completely against the actions of groups like ISIS. It is difficult to get even a moderate Muslim to agree that anything in the Koran or the Hadith might be untrue or even problematic - to even suggest such a thing in many parts of the world is to invite a death sentence. How, then, can an outsider judge with any accuracy what is the truest version of Islam?

What about Christians? Their case is thankfully less fraught with outright violence, but this was not always so. There are any number of organizations and sects within Christianity, and they run the gamut from pacifist (as are many Quaker churches) to angry Old-Testament bible-thumpers (such as Joseph Kony or the Westboro Baptist Church). As is the case with Islam, I'm sure that the majority of members are in the middle and would prefer to keep their heads down and remain out of the way. Where do we look for a firm and undisputed definition of what comprises the true faith? We can listen to the words of those throughout the entire spectrum from fundamentalist to liberal, all of whom believe just as ardently that what they profess is the true essence of Christianity. The largest Christian denomination is the Catholic Church, and they also have perhaps the most rigid and well-defined hierarchy. Are they the keepers of true Christianity? They can lay claim to many of the most influential thinkers and have the longest history - they say that they are in fact the original Christians, and they make a good case for it. On the other hand, they have certainly done some despicable things, such as running the Magdalene Laundries and shielding pedophile priests from common justice. It's unfair to judge all members of the Catholic church by the actions of its clergy, of course, but the clergy are the ones that maintain the official theology of the church (to which its members are called upon to profess their agreement), so we should at least pay attention to their pronouncements on what makes a true Christian. We could also look to The Church Of Jesus Christ Of Latter Day Saints - this too is an institution with a well-defined order but also with what many would characterize as some very bizarre notions - is there anything that inherently gives their opinion lower standing than the official Catholic church, though? In truth, there are very probably nearly as many interpretations of what makes a true and pure Christian as there are professed Christians. Should we take some kind of "average" from among them all? Does the largest group's conceptualization carry the most weight?

In one respect, Christianity and Islam share a common problem - the texts which are their foundational bedrock each contain writings that speak to our better natures as well as writings that are barbaric and backward. In another important respect they are very different: for the most part, Christian theology has softened to the point where it is capable of jettisoning the deplorable aspects of the text (and of the faith itself) while Islamic doctrine remains rigidly attached to the inerrancy of each and every word in the Koran and the Hadith. Thus, outsiders find themselves unable to engage in any serious dialogue about what they percieve as problematic with Islam. For example, watch just about any conversation where a Muslim is asked whether the proscribed sentence of death for apostasy is just and right; you will very likely hear either a straightaway affirmation of the fitness of such a sentence, or the respondent will perform a fantastic contortion of semantics to avoid admitting directly that it is (or might be) wrong while simultaneously trying to give the impression that he does in fact believe it is wrong. Apart from the distortion this reflects in the mind of the respondent, it poses an untenable difficulty for the rest of us: there seems to be no means of distilling such a faith down to its essence - everything is fundamental in a system that affords neither discussion nor disagreement with any of its tenets. Any attempt at distillation would merely pass the entirety of the original contents through - one always ends up with exactly the same thing with which one started.

All this indicates that to say so-and-so is not adhering to the true such-and-such faith carries little of coherent practical value. I think it is time we admitted that when one says things like, "He's not a real Christian," or "ISIS does not truly represent Islam," what one really means is that such persons or institutions do not represent one's own vision or understanding of the faith. Disagreement with this represents a lack of imagination, or perhaps a failure of empathy, that everyone who professes to believe what they say really and truly believes what they are saying; this is especially true when what they say is in clear opposition to what we ourselves honestly believe.

So, what does this mean with regard to utterances such as that made by our president? Surely, he is trying to make the best of a bad situation. It would be unproductive for him to attack the ideology of Islam directly in a presidential speech; it is clearly not something that can be done given that the only diplomatic way to accomplish it would of necessity be so thorough that it would in all likelihood fall victim to the short attention-span of today's viewer - this kind of argument requires deep thought, reflection, and can't be reduced to 10-second sound-bites. Such an attempt, while failing to make headway with the majority of his potentially sympathetic audience, would simultaneously provoke the anger and resentment of the Islamic faithful.

I believe the key to understanding this is to see that, in large part, the harshness of Christianity has been attenuated due to close contact with a culture that is neither in thrall to nor subject to the absolute authority of a faith. Western culture, and in particular those aspects of western culture profoundly influenced by the Enlightenment, has unwittingly waged a war of ideological attrition against the most rigid aspects of faith, and has gained considerable ground. There has been no such cultural war in the sphere of Islamic influence; at least, not until very recently with the advent of easy access to global communication networks and cross-cultural social media. While repressive regimes have always sought to limit and control access to information, we can see that modern versions are ever more desperate and brutal in their attempts at this - they fully realize how swiftly the tide of modern culture will weaken their grip on power. So, given our apparent reticence to prosecute this war of ideas directly and with full awareness, we are left with only one alternative: continue our efforts to culturally encroach upon the isolationist mindset of such ideologies. The question then becomes one of how long we can wait for this approach to make significant headway.

The Importance of Disagreement and Resolution

As some readers may already know, I work in telecommunications engineering.  Many of the meetings I attend are what I would call "working" engineering meetings, where we discuss technical details.  Often, there is disagreement on at least one particular issue.  When disagreements become apparent a discussion normally ensues where everybody in the room takes a much closer look at the issues and events surrounding the point of disagreement.  Sometimes a point needs to be clarified, as when a customer on the call wants to take a deep dive into the meaning of particular data or into the methodology under which the data were acquired.    

The rules that we all understand surrounding engineering and scientific best-practice then take over in large part.  A statement of fact is made, the status of that fact as a fact may be called into question, which leads to discussion and hopefully resolution about what exactly constitutes fact and what constitutes conjecture or assumption – if assumptions are in-play, then the foundations behind those assumptions are examined as well.  This goes on, hopefully in the direction of resolution of the original dispute or misunderstanding, until all or most parties are satisfied.  There are a number of niceties about this way of doing things:

·         Everybody in the meeting has, at least in principle, equal standing to question assumptions or factual bases.

·         Consensus plays the major role in disputes about factual matters.  Of course, authority can step in and trump or short-circuit the development of a consensus but this rarely happens in a real engineering meeting.

·         Every single detail is up for discussion or is otherwise open to dispute.

·         If a question is raised about a particular element, that question is resolved.  Questions that have an impact on the outcome or the data are emphatically not allowed to remain unresolved, no matter how much effort it takes to resolve them.  Sometimes the meeting is adjourned or postponed so that deeper investigation can take place or so that more data can be obtained.

During one such meeting I attended recently, I was struck by the exacting thoroughness of this approach, and how it tends to minimize error and maximize understanding among all of the group’s members.   Why is it that we don't use this same rigorous approach in other disciplines or facets of our lives?  

Dilbert notwithstanding, think about how much of our progress has been made as a result of this type of engineering collaboration.  Phones, cars, vaccines, planes, trains, antibiotics, bridges, buildings, medical diagnostic equipment, the power grid - none of these would exist without intelligent people finding ways to bridge their disagreements in a logical, reasonable, orderly fashion.  When people work together in a way that considers the validity of everyone's position as judged by the same metrics (where those metrics are also the result of similar process), ideas tend to converge into things both durable and  practical.

We all tend to approach any given problem or issue with a pre-formed opinion, and therefore our disparities of opinion are a barrier that must often be overcome; it is important to note, however, that differences in opinion can also be an invaluable source for expanding one's own knowledge-base.  How can we separate the trash from the treasure?

If there is one human truism, it is that we all have opinions.  Opinions are our representations of the way in which we understand the world to be.  In general, an opinion is a synthesis of facts, assumptions, and deductions that one holds to be valid.  An opinion may be any combination of these - one opinion may relate purely to a factual matter, another might consist of a deductionary chain based on a particular set of assumptions.  Since opinions can be thought of as constructed using these discrete elements, each of which is necessary for the opinion to be true, we can methodically evaluate any opinion's validity by examining the validity of the constituent elements themselves.  

Now, we can immediately see that some opinions may consist of elements that are purely subjective in nature and can thus be validated only by the subject herself - statements like "Rocky-Road is the best tasting ice cream" or "I see an image of the Flying Spaghetti Monster in those clouds" express opinions that are either dependent on things unable to be apprehended by anyone other than the one making such statements, or that express matters of subjective taste.  Granted, we could in principle evaluate whether the speaker is intentionally making a false statement (using some kind of perfect lie-detector test or real-time brain-scans looking for evidence of willful deception) but this would only occur in extraordinary and bizarre conditions far removed even from atypical social interaction.  Such things might become commonplace in the future, but that doesn't prevent us from attempting to define some kind of reasonable boundary here and now between the purely subjective and the veridical - we can always adjust the boundaries later on.

 I fully acknowledge that this boundary will itself probably be the subject of immediate disagreement, but if we can merely agree that such a boundary indeed exists, regardless of where it lies, then we are already well along the way to resolving most or our disagreements.  The very act of acknowledging and resolving the dispute over the boundary dividing the subjective and the verifiable will teach us quite a lot about each other.  We now know, at the very least, how to look for those elements informing our opinions that result in the differences between those opinions whose resolution is important to us.

Consider the opinions people hold on virtually any hot-button issue: abortion, gay marriage, gun rights in the U.S. and then think about the elements underlying those various opinions.  Those opposed to the legalization of gay marriage are often heard saying that homosexuals are exercising a distinct choice in their lifestyle and are choosing an immoral path.  They also claim that such relationships are detrimental to society and are unnatural.  All of these statements contain elements that are factual as well as those that stand upon assumptions and deductions.  These statements, and others that would be made were we ever to get a complete accounting of the basis for such opinion, give substance to the opinion itself and also provide the framework around which individuals can structure a productive discussion - the only discussion that has any chance of resolving the dispute to everyone's satisfaction. Granted, an opposing opinion's elements must also be laid bare and opened up for discussion as well - it may turn out that both sides have misconceptions or other errors in the framework of their opinions, and that a true resolution involves the construction of a whole new framework that may or may not use elements of either.

We must learn to employ constructive ways of handling our disagreements in all areas of our lives and society.  It is not just the engine of human progress that depends on this:  paradoxically, the better we get at using these means in technical or scientific fields the greater the chances that a non-technical disagreement will result in humanity's obliteration.

A Critique on the Values and Effects of the Family of Religions - Part 1

 There never seems to be a dearth in the promotion of those espousing religious family values, or of those extolling the positive social benefits of religious practice. These concepts, however, possess little in the way of true specificity owing to the wide variance of religious traditions (as well as the numerous interpretations of each), and are therefore useful mainly as salutary lubricants to ease the ingestion of what might otherwise be interpreted as a set of dubious pronouncements: one is supposed to think something like, “Oh, these are family values with a basis in religion – I am certainly going to hear some altogether decent, selfless, and noble advice.” The fact that such disarming preambles are so prevalent should perhaps induce one to reflect on the nature of values evinced by the intents and actions of the world's family of religions: what is to be discovered when examining the attributes and behaviors of the institutions themselves?

There are without doubt many striking contrasts between the world's religious establishments – we might then well wonder whether it is at all accurate to group them all together as the same “thing.” When we look at the values they hold in common, I strongly suspect the reader will agree that, although they are indeed distinct from one another, they are all of the same kind. Our first task will be to find the threads that are woven through them all

In addition to the delineations between the major religious organizations there exist noteworthy variations within any given establishment. The most common categorization of this phenomenon follows gradations on a scale spanning the gap between fundamentalists and liberals. These intra-religious divisions can be surprisingly deep and bitter, and sometimes lead to permanent schism. One cannot fail to notice how religious liberals and moderates (RLMs) take offense when they become lumped together with their more fundamentalist or extremist brethren. They act as if any perceived association with such types tarnishes their own credentials and gives them lower standing then they had heretofore enjoyed; they offer criticisms of those whom they openly agree are the deserving targets of society's condemnation. They sometimes act confused or surprised that they have not been overtly granted exclusion from such criticism even before any accusations are made, or that they have not been called in as 'expert' consultants as to the nature of the fundamentalists' errors. An important part of this undertaking, therefore, will be to consider whether any substantial difference exists between liberal, moderate, and fundamentalist sects with respect to either values or outcomes.

Persuasive arguments have been offered by others to the effect that religious moderates offer cover to extremists in no small part by demanding (and receiving) respect for their own variably less dogmatic views. Once validity is ceded to any single position not based in reason or evidence then all other kindred positions can immediately claim elevation to the same unearned status. This can be observed in the uncomfortable stammering of spokespersons on the left when they are pressed for explanations on the muted or sideways response of some RLMs to religiously-based terrorism, especially when reminded of the existence of clear and unambiguous religious textual justifications for such acts. These pundits can be heard loudly decrying extremists yet clearly lack the means for substantive criticism. They have disarmed themselves by failing to either see or acknowledge any link between extremists and moderates, either due to lack of insight or fear of giving offense. They may very well suspect, or subconsciously realize, that a true and significant critique of the extremist position will in all probability be just as legitimate when employed against a moderate stance. Something similar can be intimated with regard to pundits on the right who are blind to the obvious parallels between their ideologies (which are, predictably, based in religious dogma) and those of, for example, the foul extremists of the middle east.

In any case, the left's efforts to exhort points of cross-traditional solidarity are just as likely to be counterproductive. The eagerness with which RLMs of one religion tend to seek out and uphold RLMs of other faith traditions may serve to further distance the non-RLM members of those other traditions more so than it may induce positive feedback in moderates. Members of a particular sect or faith (and in fact virtually any social group) tend to see that membership as extending properties of both exclusion and inclusion – the group's members see outsiders as excluded from participation in their deliberations, and themselves as bound to one another by inclusion in the group and its activities. Members in disagreement with each other over an internal matter typically neither desire nor tolerate unsolicited opinions from non-members, especially when such opinions favor one member over another; moreover, the faction with which the outsider is in disagreement often feels a lasting resentment at the intrusion. This attribution of exclusive/inclusive membership is something that all religions, as socially cohesive units, share and indeed nurture.

Siblings in this family of faiths share many other important features. If one spends any time pressing a convicted religious adherent on the ground of his or her beliefs, one will notice that there is never any evidence offered that is not anecdotal or purely subjective: personal revelations, visionary or auditory experiences, intense feelings of being loved or watched over protectively, a strong conviction that circumstances have conspired towards one's favor or fortune, a sense of someone listening (and responding) when one adopts a prayerful attitude, powerful impressions of awe and wonder, perceptions of a nonphysical yet intimate relationship with a divine being. Evidence of this sort can be neither validated nor reproduced, and so cannot really count as evidence in any strict sense. There is no doubt that these kinds of transcendent experiences can establish a powerful grip on one's mind, but this does not speak to the truth or falsity of any particular interpretation of them, and still leaves in question all derivative claims. Similarly, the validity of any evidence offered to such persons counter to their experience or belief is typically either denied or ignored: recent discoveries in neuroscience and brain chemistry, the ability to induce identical states of feelings and perceptions using hallucinogenic substances or targeted electrical stimulation, emergence of complex systems from simpler ones by the process of evolution, deterministic causality in physical systems. Ignoring or denying evidence does not by itself indicate truth or falsity; however, such averments do not follow logical premises or accepted methodology for evidential refutation. This implies that the kind of thinking religious traditions engender results in individuals who are either unable to understand empirical and logical proofs or who reflexively shy away from exposure to them. Many religious traditions overtly state their contempt for reason and rationality, promoting instead as virtue a noxious smog of incoherence¹. Those rare few that do in fact claim some basis in reason apply it to a very limited subset of their systems.

This may be due in no small part to another common and salient characteristic: the appeal to emotive responses. This plainly accounts for a heavy preponderance of the allurement of religion while a far lesser (insignificant?) portion is based in reason. Affective experiences are by definition intensely personal; however, when one observes another experiencing the same emotive reaction given a common stimulus, one may feel close to that other in way that is impossible to duplicate with any other type of shared experience. If I observe my future wife shedding tears during a movie by which I am also profoundly moved, this affords me a connection to her that is far more compelling and resilient than, say, my lab partner and I together discovering the solution to a vexing physics problem. Such affective stimuli can thus become deeply embedded as resonance-points for shared emotional responses. These types of interpersonal, affective bonds can endure for great lengths of time, often for life, because they exist on such a firmly-ingrained level of the self. Religious traditions have 'learned' (evolved?) strategies on the exploitation of both the depth and durability of these experiences. One of these techniques involves the special care taken to utilize them from the youngest age possible – most often this occurs well before the full development of reasoning faculties, when the individual is at the utmost vulnerability to such manipulation. Use here of the word manipulation is deliberate; the opposite of this would be persuasion which is indicative of a case based at least partially in reason, or that at a minimum contains a fair opportunity for the individual in question to offer refutation or to reflect on what is presented. There is, however, no successful religion whatsoever that attempts to compete using only the persuasive power of its ideas on the basis of reason. Such a religion would suffer rapid diminution given the lopsided advantage of emotional indoctrination used by rivals; competing religions have survived because they utilize similarly powerful means of attracting and retaining adherents, and as can be seen, the most coercive means is through an appeal to affective as opposed to cognitive experience, even more so when applied during a period of minimal or immature cognitive ability.

Go to Part 2

1With apologies to Dan Dennett and his notion of the “pious fog”