The social protections
Georges Rey says many pointed and relevant things about belief in “God”: meaning “a supernatural, psychological being, i.e., a being not subject to ordinary physical limitations, but capable of some or other mental state, such as knowing, caring, loving, disapproving” who “knows about our lives, cares about the good, either created the physical world or can intervene in it, and, at least in Christianity, is in charge of a person’s whereabouts in an ‘afterlife’.”
Now, it doesn’t seem to me even a remotely serious possibility that such a God exists: his non-existence is, in the words of the American jury system, “beyond a reasonable doubt.” I am, of course, well aware that plenty of arguments and appeals to experience have been produced to the contrary, but they seem to me obviously fallacious, and would be readily seen to be so were it not for the social protections religious claims regularly enjoy.
That’s exactly it, and that’s what puts the “gnu” in “gnu” atheism – the fact that it doesn’t seem to us even a remotely serious possibility that such a God exists and that we don’t feel inhibited about saying so in public discourse. It’s exactly that, at heart, that so annoys the unfans of gnu atheism. It’s supposed to be rude or intolerant or fundamentalist or conceited or vain or we think we’re so smartish of us to think that and to say it.
Yet that doesn’t apply to other obviously preposterous claims or beliefs or stories. Just the goddy one. Just the local goddy one, pretty much.
Odd.
Some people have recently been upset over the apparent change in the astrological signs.
There is a portion of society that takes astrology seriously. They have a complex belief system enshrined. Although none of the serious believers would put much stock in the daily horoscopes, there are still small sections of the newspaper devoted to appeasing the more mildly deluded. It is mostly harmless.
There has been some small backlash over the astromomers’ pooh-poohing of astrology from the sometime readers of the daily horoscope. It has been a bit more harsh from the ‘true believers’.
The gnu atheist have more ‘true believers’ to deal with although there is an equivalence of evidence for both astrology and God.
In regards to ” plenty of arguments and appeals to experience have been produced to the contrary”, I discovered this awesome blog post the other day:
http://www.totryanewsword.com/2010/07/how-star-wars-destroyed-my-faith-in-god.html
He says, in regards to his past attempts at Mormon apologetics:
I really liked that phrase, “trying to create enough intellectual space for belief.” Indeed, that is clearly the point of apologetics, and perhaps there is some argument somewhere that accomplishes exactly that… so what? If you have to do backflips to make your beliefs intellectually tenable — nevermind attempting to show that they are likely true, you are engaging in huge mental effort just to make it not obviously false — well, maybe you should find some new beliefs…
The astrology kerfluffle is a good analogy, Frankus. People are outraged that they spent their lives believing they were, say, a Scorpio, when now it turns out they were Virgos. Imagine spending your whole life thinking you were mysterious and sexy only to discover you were actually, well, whatever Virgos are. I sense an impending crisis of self-esteem.
The bulk of religious believers really don’t follow their assertions that far along to pipe. They know “enough” — they *feel* that they know enough — about the issues to reach a sort of mental inflection point, where further curiosity will either require more thinking or social challenge that they don’t feel will provide them any benefit. If this point is determined in childhood it ossifies and can become essentially immovable and impervious to argument. They “know” what they “know.”
The number of seminarians that drop out after study history of religion is probably an indicator here. Devout students who — when REQUIRED to actually deal with such issues as getting their heads around “proofs” etc — either have their faith deflate or (in some cases) drop out because they’d rather stick with simpler fundamentalism that’s impervious to such eggheaded talk
Yeah, I like pointing out that the efforts to put forth a particular argument aren’t resulting in positive evidence, but merely trying to rule out a particular negative argument. The net result, even if successful, is null Not ‘plus one’ or ‘minus one,’ only ‘zero.’
I’ve also reminded people that things like the Kalam/Cosmological Principles, even if someone manages to fix all the bugs they carry, don’t lead where they want them to. There’s a huge gap between something that started the Big Bang, and their god that fusses over sin and faith – and that gap would still need to be resolved. There’s so much work to be done, the faithful struggle to achieve even one tiny crack to wedge a portion of their belief into and hope it stays put, and this becomes their entire goal.
Another example is Pascal’s Wager, which only works in an either/or scenario and doesn’t offer any reason to support it, just the avoidance of consequences. I never liked Richard Dawkins’ video response to the question, and posted what I thought was a better reply to such a weak argument.
Rey’s paper looks pretty good, actually – I have to take some more time to read it thoroughly. I normally don’t like philosophy, for the very reasons he brings up only three sentences in – he seems to be aware of the shortcomings, at least. And he’s addressing something I’ve long suspected, so my confirmation bias is happy so far ;-)
The idea of ‘intellectual space’ is a good one, because as in the example that James Sweet used, it was not the discussion on God that destroyed Kuri’s (see his blog post) faith but the intellectual discussion about Star Wars.
Shift the ‘intellectual space’ onto the subject outside of the delusion or self-deception, and the believer starts engaging their critical thinking skills and stop using their bullshit (apologetic) skills.
Now contemporary atheists are taking up new intellectual spaces, in terms of morality, politics, culture, a far broader intellectual space. This space was out of bounds thanks to nonsense like the Non-Overlapping Magisteria.
In the past, we atheists clashed into the delusion zone of apologetics, each time engaging the believer in their own space. Each time, the believer would only improve on their apologetic skills. This method failed. Their apologetics on their own intellectual space made enough sense to remain self-deceived.
And here is where we also win in terms of our own ‘intellectual space’ otherwise known as science. You can’t bullshit science, and creationism and ID got burned by attempting it. Apologists simply can’t get away with apologetics in science for long.
Believers always use a wedge strategy when using their apologetics, because that’s how apologetics works. It’s always a germ or seed based on a false premise that forces its way into otherwise coherent fields of knowledge or ‘intellectual spaces’. Once that premise is refuted by reality, the entire wedge collapses.
Attempting to disprove the wedge ‘God’ is a futile attempt. Rather, the believer must somehow show where God fits into reality. Moving the wedge over into our own intellectual space where it gets destroyed.
So the metaphor of ‘intellectual space’ is an insightful one, because it shows that we’re making ground, we’re pushing the boundaries further out and that is why believers are upset and confused, because their apologetics just doesn’t cut it. In our intellectual space of science, God is obviously false.
[…] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Skeptic South Africa and Wayne de Villiers, Ophelia Benson. Ophelia Benson said: The social protections http://dlvr.it/F0d14 […]
I went over to the blogpost mentioned by James Sweet. It truly is ‘awesome’. It occurs to me that it largely explains why it took me so many years to migrate from fundamental evangelicalism through agnosticism to fully liberated atheism. Starting out in a preacher’s home left me with quite a bit of apologetics material to root out and discard. The comfort factor, the ‘intellectual space’ are very real phenomena, but phenomena nevertheless.
I also like the phrase “intellectual space” because it evokes the image of a special area where it’s perfectly respectable to throw out the normal rational demands for consistency, clarity, and curiosity and still think of yourself as wise. Different rules apply here — softer, friendlier rules that, like the caring universe itself, are deeply concerned with the personal.
Maybe that’s why so many critics of gnu atheism go into what I call “Therapy Mode” — and demand that the gnu atheists do, too. A good therapist doesn’t try to “fix” their patient’s religion, or politics, or views on literary theory. Instead, they start out with where the other person already is and focus only on whether or not their lives are working for them. That’s what matters. In religion, this means that the question “did Joseph Smith discover golden tablets revealing the history of ancient America?” is re-translated as “is the Mormon religion helpful to Heather? Does it fulfill her needs and allow her to be the kind of person she wants to be?” If so, then criticism needs to stop. Atheists need to shut up.
“Does God exist?” becomes “can people believe in God and not be too bothersome?” Can they do it without violating any major tenets of science or stepping too far into politics? Well, all right then. You can carve out an intellectual space which will act like what as a kid I called “being on gool.” “Here are the reasons I believe in God: they are my reasons, my very own, for me, they work sufficiently well and that should be sufficient for anyone so I’m safe.” We’re in Therapy Mode now. They want to believe. Don’t fix what’s helping someone achieve their goals, because if it’s working in that respect it isn’t broken. They’re on gool.
This plea for gentle forbearance would I think be more compelling if they didn’t then turn around and wonder endlessly among themselves how anyone could be so blind, stubborn, and impoverished as to not believe in God.
@Just AI
http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/arxiv/26276/
Evidence Emerges That Laws of Physics Are Not Fine-Tuned For Life
“So what value of the cosmological constant best encourages galaxy and star formation, and therefore the evolution of life? Page says that a slightly negative value of the constant would maximise this process. And since life is some small fraction of the amount of matter in galaxies, then this is the value that an omnipotent being would choose.
In fact, he says that any positive value of the constant would tend to decrease the fraction of matter that forms into galaxies, reducing the amount available for life.
Therefore the measured value of the cosmological constant, which is positive, is evidence against the idea that the constants have been fine-tuned for life.”
Well, maybe not.
I’d like to point out that this demand that skeptics avoid saying the obvious and tread gently and lightly is also frequently made to those in the skeptic groups/movement. It’s not just the mainstream religions. Go as far out and find stuff as preposterous as you want. Psychics, UFO Abductees, reiki practioners, Loch Ness Monster fans, homeopaths, crystal gazers, you-name-it pseudoscience or woo-of-the-week. And see that skeptics are routinely accused of being “rude, intolerant, fundamentalist, conceited, vain” and, above all, close-minded.
The believers scold us, of course — but many people who don’t believe get huffy and indignant at the idea of “going after” people who want to believe. What’s the harm? Who cares? Anything is possible. Why tell people they’re wrong? Critics have a problem; they’re mean.
It’s the same damn thing. It’s not really just the goddy belief that brings on the call for social protection and “respect.” Self-designated Therapists apparently leap up to defend the weak argument the minute there’s anything ‘spiritual being invoked.
Sastra,
That’s a good point about the switching to therapy mode. There are others: switching to racist-card mode, or switching to its-only-a-fad mode, or shrill-atheist mode, or ‘framing’ mode. All these are switching to a different ‘space’ that ignores criticism.
Sastra, hmmmmmm, yes, I suppose that’s true. But it doesn’t seem as mainstream – it seems more of a niche thing. Or am I just wrong?
Maybe I don’t pay as much attention, because woo doesn’t have the same kind of social power. Or maybe because I’m wrong.
Ya gotta love that.
Regarding the link James posted to the ex-Mormon writing about Star Wars fandom and his deconversion: I think the general point holds, but I find the specific examples the guy picks out to be a little weird.
There’s plenty about Star Wars mythology that’s nonsensical and whatnot, but deciding that it’s hooey based on the two points “kuri” mentions seems to me a bit like deciding to reject Christianity because you find it implausible that a mother would stick her newborn baby in a manger. With all of the bizarre, illogical elements of the mythos, it was that one that spurred the final “this I cannot abide” reaction? Eh….
@ Felix
Thanks for the link! It actually reflects something I said much earlier in response to the Anthropic Principle, where the values we assign to something are biased by the numbering system we use – we cannot say that .0000001 percent change is very small, or indeed very large, in terms of what’s “possible” from universal constants.
But that’s about as far as I can go with it, and I’m not comprehending the replies well enough to know if they’re offering legitimate rebuttals to the findings or not!
OB (in comment #14) said:
How are you ever going to develop a comforting sense of self-righteous certitude with that kind of attitude, Ophelia? Don’t you know that there is NOTHING worse than feeling unsure or uncertain about anything at all important, and that no standard — not reason, not even bare intellectual coherence — can ever be permitted to undermine the warm, comfy feeling of just *knowing*whatever it is that you really want to be true?
Hmph! Some people just don’t get it.
Ophelia Benson #13 wrote:
I don’t know. It depends on the forum, of course. There are certainly areas where it’s okay to make fun of woo, but not religion. These might be balanced out, though, by those places where it’s okay to make fun of religion, but not woo. Then add the two together with the places where you’re supposed to respect anything that is heartfelt, deep, personal, and scientifically implausible.
Both God and ESP seem to fall under the category of “spirituality.” As I recall you’ve written in the past about your own experiences with trying to attack — or at least pin down — what the hell is so damn special and sacred about being a “spiritual” person. I think it’s this whole idea of the sacred at work here, of seeing and knowing things that are so above ordinary material existence that those who see and know them take on some of the same lofty, untouchable stature.
Sastra, that goes to the old classic Rushdie quote, doesn’t it?
I thought that’s exactly what made them such good examples… both of the Star Wars “apologetics” he cites work, I guess, on some level. It’s certainly possible that George Lucas had already thought through the whole Senate thing when he made A New Hope, and intended the remark about “you served my father in the Clone Wars” to mean what the apologists want to make it mean — it’s just really unlikely, and the much simpler explanation (that Lucas is just making this shit up as he goes) is so much more reasonable.
It proves the point, because it shows that even if apologetics are successful, so what? Why not just go with the much simpler and logical answer?
Oh, I have no quarrel with that point; but it seems to me that it’s much stronger when the apologists are attempting to cover for something totally ridiculous, such as the notion that Darth Vader is Luke’s father but that Ben Kenobi’s initial description of Vader (“He betrayed and murdered your father”) is nonetheless something other than an absurd falsehood. In contrast, in the piddling cases examined in that post, I don’t think the critic’s account is all that “much simpler” than the apologists’.
If the idea is that the many minor nits to pick in the Christian (or Mormon) mythos are somehow more consequential or troublesome than the huge problems (say, that an all-powerful deity is forced to incarnate itself in a human body and get itself tortured and executed in order to forgive random transgressions by billions of people who had nothing to do with any of the above), I guess I just disagree. I think it’s the big, irreconcilable problems that are the most telling, not the small, debatable ones. Some continuity and story-logic problems are minor enough that I think complaining about them is a violation of the suspension of disbelief that any fictional narrative deserves. Others are massive mistakes that destroy the basic plausibility of the story. And surely there’s a spectrum of levels in between. I just think it’s odd at best to pay attention to minor quibbles when there are so many major problems to choose from within all of the narratives (Star Wars, Christianity, Mormonism) in question.
I’d note that that’s not a necessary premise of the apologist case. Quite possibly Lucas did change his mind between 1977 and 2002; writers are allowed to do that. The question is just whether the recontextualization of Leia’s statement renders it implausible. I don’t see what’s so hard to accept about it (rendering the depiction of Kenobi-and-Organa a perfectly acceptable literary approach, whether it represents a change of mind or not), whereas “kuri” seems convinced that it’s ridiculous. I think he’s wrong.
Dammit, I hate this commenting software, and its insistence on hacking up all my formatting every time I hit Preview. I did actually put paragraph breaks into that comment.
Sigh.
Better? Right places?
[…] repeat the bit I quoted from Georges Rey: Now, it doesn’t seem to me even a remotely serious possibility that such a God exists: his […]