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Well said, PZ!

It often disturbs me that the religious (and in this I include friends that are of that liberal-religious nature) don't understand the basic inconsistency of faith with rational thought. They insist that atheists have "faith" in things too, but they misuse the term in that context. In common parlance it might be said that I have "faith" in what logic and evidence can prove, but that is a far cry from what's meant when a religious person says that they have "faith" in a deity. The first relies on known and knowable factors, the second on unknown and (by definition) unknowable factors. Few people have the gumption to point out the difference, though I'm afraid that it's thinking like O'Brien's that makes that possible. She's simply too nice to point out the inconsistency to her religious friends, no doubt considering it rude. Our problem often is that we're not willing to be rude enough.

By the way, also well said about religion and politics. The only thing that can still practically guarentee a candidate has no chance of being elected in this country is the revelation that s/he is an atheist, while virtually nothing else will (even criminals can get elected, I've seen it happen, even when their criminal behavior included conduct directly tied to public office like bribery.)

Posted by: Stwriley | June 4, 2006 9:27 AM

It's important, I think, to distinguish philosophical and political disagreement. PZ is exactly correct that faith is a "hole in the brain." But if we impose a test of rationality on those with whom we ally ourselves politically, or even seem to do so, we'll guarantee majorities for the right-wing extremists from here until doomsday, which given their leadership might arrive sooner rather than later. Those of us who are secular need to be able to say to religious liberals, "I'll dissent from your faith in philosophical debate, but we share enough ethical and political values to work together against the religious right." Faith is a hole in the brain. But sometimes the worm in that hole is toxic and pregnant and eager to devour the rest of the brain. And sometimes it is benign and content to rest just in that little hole.

Posted by: Russell | June 4, 2006 10:03 AM

It's not just that con artists in a religiously-centered society can win election through "holiness-by-association", nor even that a major bloc of voters can be mobilized by appeals to ancient and neurotic but sanctified prejudices.

Religion is politically corrosive exactly because it cultivates the mental habit of "taking things on faith", of accepting the premises of significant claims uncritically. While it may be too much to expect the electorate to demand evidence and careful reasoning for each assertion, a less reflexively credulous public might not be so eager to swallow non sequiturs such as "Because we're America, and we're Number One!" used to justify so many absurdities these days.

Posted by: Pierce R. Butler | June 4, 2006 10:28 AM

Barbara is a Buddhist. She believes that sacred scriptures are stories, to be amended when they conflict with reality, mere tools to allow one to reach

are interfaces with realities that confound the limitations of human intellect. These realities also confound the limitations of human language, so they cannot accurately be explained in words. From this perspective any religious understanding that can be explained in words or reduced to dogma is flawed. As it says in the first line of the Tao Teh Ching, "The Tao that can be explained is not the Tao."

Now, arguably, this is a rather different notion of "religion" that anything common to American political thought. Certainly it conflicts with basic Christian and Muslim positions on their respective sacred texts (for those who protest that they think otherwise, read my last paragraph). So I'm not sure that what she's talking about really has any relevance to our crying need to get religion back where it belongs - which is away from the government.

That said, I'm also not sure that her brand of religion is anything different from Einstein's - and, if you read her blog, where she (understandably) goes into much more detail, neither is she.

She closes that guest post with this:

Thomas Jefferson said "it does me no injury for my neighbor to say there are twenty gods or no God. It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg." Likewise, Mr. Seidman need not concern himself with the religious views of others who aren't concerning themselves with the secularist views of Mr. Seidman. Instead of worrying that the Christian Left will contaminate democracy, I recommend that he, like Jefferson, swear "eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man." That's the enemy of us all, religious or not.

I think we can all agree with that much.

But what I'd like to hear from others of "religion's defenders" is some explanation for why they keep silent in the face of the Rabid Right. I hear one or two timidly saying, "we don't all think like that" but I hear no thundering denouncements from the pulpits, no angry letters to editors, no full page newspaper ads. Until they stop playing the "well, it's good to bring people to God however" game, stop pretending that they can put this genie back into the bottle once the evil secular atheist-and-unChristian conspiracy is destroyed, I can't defend them too much, myself.

Posted by: theRidger | June 4, 2006 10:51 AM

Perhaps we can rally these corporate sponsors in our push to deworm the population.

Posted by: coturnix | June 4, 2006 11:04 AM

I wonder if reading this might advance the conversation?
http://speakingoffaith.publicradio.org/programs/evangelicalevolution/transcript.shtml

Posted by: Arun Gupta | June 4, 2006 12:02 PM

I agree with PZ -- of course there are religions which are more rational and reasonable than others, but it seems to me that their being so is mostly a matter of accident, that they adopt an underlying assumption that what makes sense in the world should trump any mystical revelations which don't. But if supernaturalism is nothing more than a prop for what can be gained through natural assumptions, of what real use is it? Why take it seriously?

Imagine a society where people really truly took astrology seriously: the movements of the stars and planets reflect human events and concerns on earth, and they should be studied in order for us to make good choices in our lives. And then we get different schools of astrology. There is a bland, nice, reasonable one such as we see in newspapers, advising people to "be cautious lending money to strangers" or "today is a good day to get to those tasks you have been putting off." And then there is a system which takes itself very seriously indeed and claims to be able to discover real facts not otherwise knowable -- calling for wars, pograms, and "fire your employees, they are cheating you."

As long as we try to argue against the "bad" astrology system by giving credit and props to the nice, sensible "good" astrology system, we're still giving sanction to the system of astrology itself. Yeah, it's fine to believe the positions of the stars are telling us something important. We respect that. Just be reasonable about it.

But once we imply that there is nothing wrong with the view that star positions tell us things, how do we tell what is reasonable? Why would it have to be the case that "of course, astrology doesn't tell us anything we couldn't figure out without it?"

Posted by: Sastra | June 4, 2006 12:56 PM

"Why should a secular person have a problem with non-fideistic religions? Some Buddhists, for example, are also atheists. Their Buddhism is more an ethical commitment than any kind of positive belief. So where is the necessary disagreement between such a Buddhist, and any other kind of atheist?"

I'm not saying that atheists should have a problem with Buddhism. All I'm getting at is that religious belief is far more complex than simply a matter of faith. That's a purely Western viewpoint on religious practice.

On the other hand, Buddhism shouldn't necessarily be given a free pass either. Buddhism has just as long a history of religious and political conflict as Christianity or Islam. A quick study of Chinese history should quickly dissuade America's romantic mythologizing of Buddhism as being a religion of peace. This is where someone like Sam Harris really misses the boat. Any belief system, whether religous or not, can be used for very bad purposes. Yes, even Buddhism.

Posted by: Todd | June 4, 2006 1:13 PM

Supporting faith is not akin to supporting people who refuse to become vaccinated. People have the right to decide what they will believe and how they will think.

Supporting faith is akin to not isolating a person carrying a dangerous and highly infectious disease.

Posted by: Caledonian | June 4, 2006 1:15 PM

Is faith an intrinsic part of the human mind? The only use of the appendix seems to be to produce appendicitis, but railing against people for having an appendix is kind of stupid.

I cannot wait, for that Great Day, when medical science determines the part of the brain which should be surgically removed when someone goes mad, and starts bashing gays, or advocating creationism.
.
.
(Joking aside, I believe the best approach is to treat creationism, bigotry, and faith as treatable diseases, whose treatment we do not yet know.)

Posted by: ulg | June 4, 2006 1:32 PM

Arun Gupta asks, "Is faith an intrinsic part of the human mind?"

I suspect the answer is "yes." It is essential part of our childhood that we are intellectual sponges in our early years, absorbing all sorts of beliefs from the adults around us. Before you were five, you learned that fish swim but not cats, that girls wore dresses but not boys, that B follows A, that for breakfast it's OK to have a bowl of cereal but not for dinner, that little babies don't go to school but older children do, that the vaccuum cleaner and TV only work if they're plugged into the wall, but some phoned do and some phones don't, etc. If you questioned these things, it was more from psychology ("I want Fruit Loops for dinner!") than from careful and critical thought. Indeed, you didn't even distinguish the different kinds of claims these are.

You were a sponge. And there's nothing wrong with that. When you were five.

Clinging to faith is a development failure, rather than a disease. Some people outgrow it. Others cling to it throughout their lives, the way Linus clings to his security blanket.

Posted by: Russell | June 4, 2006 2:45 PM

If she's including direct experience of a supernatural being, then her disavowal is a lie. That's logically impossible, and hence can only be justified by faithfully accepting that it is true.

If she's leaving 'divine' to be defined by the audience, her statement has no real content.

Posted by: Caledonian | June 4, 2006 3:46 PM

I am plagiarizing from another post of mine (excuse me if this is wrong to do), but I wanted to add to this discussion the other worm of religion:

I think the other worm in religion is lack of transaction analysis. Let me explain:

In general when making moral decisions and the like a theist thinks outside of individual transactions. The theist shoots for the broadest set of standards and spends little energy in evaluating life transactions. For example, many theists make the judgment that all pre-marital sex is BAD (for the theist it is NOT a case by case consideration; every individual transaction is BAD regardless of the facts). On the other hand, an atheist hopefully should be more transactional. Thus an atheist probably thinks like this: pre-marital sex is a transaction and is good if the overall true net value to the participants is positive, and it is bad if the net gain is negative.

This is transaction analysis is NOT hedonistic in the least. Rather an atheist simply recognizes the RATIONAL and REAL situational pros and cons, based on values, empathy, sympathy, fairness, etc. and weighs them rationally to make a judgment case by case.

Strict religious theists often refuse to recognize ANY facts about SPECIFIC transactions - they are not transaction oriented - they see and judge things in the broadest of terms - it allows them to minimize thinking.

So, gay marriage, or abortion, can be the abomination it is to them because they can cast it outside of any SPECIFIC transaction that may be overall positive and thus upset their beliefs. Atheists generally will evaluate things more on the value of the individual transaction to the participants.

To me this is another worm.

Posted by: ConcernedJoe | June 4, 2006 6:42 PM

I'm sorry, but with the respect to the previous post I should've made it clear that I was speaking of a dichotomy between faith and reason. Obviously, I think this is a false dichotomy, but even if (like Professor Myers) one appears not to think that, it seems imprudent to me to emphasize this point in certain forums.

Scott Hatfield

Posted by: Scott Hatfield | June 4, 2006 7:04 PM

some claims are (by design? chance?) not amenable to reason. Acceptance of this does not represent a commitment to irrationality as a preferred strategy, but simply a recognition of the limits of reason.

What represents your commmitment to irrationality is your willingness to go beyond reason.

People routinely hold beliefs that they haven't rigorously tested, rationalists included. The difference between their belief and faith is that they don't define those beliefs as true, and they don't insist that they're necessarily correct. Given the appropriate evidence, they will modify or discard their beliefs.

Faith does not modify or discard its tenets; it doesn't encourage challenging the held beliefs. It defines the beliefs to be true and interprets everything that comes after it in light of those declarations.

Posted by: Caledonian | June 4, 2006 8:01 PM

Hi, Scott,

It sounds pretty fair, what you're saying - but let's see what it leads to:

"By all means, put the falsifiable claims of believers to the test in every arena: they have no right to expect that their viewpoint is privileged, nor should they be granted one in the interest of political expediency."

All right then - what falsifiable claims do believers make? Not all that many that I can think of. And when you do put those they make to the test - say, by checking whether or not it's true that the earth is only six thousand years old - half of them will say your test was biased (fundamentalist creationists) and the other half that it doesn't matter anyway (theistic evolutionists).

We do put them to a fair test. We say "prove that God really exists; back up your assertion; show us the difference between a world in which God exists and a world in which you believe he exists" and although Christians talk a good fight they've really got nothing to show for it.

When you say "put the falsifiable claims of believers to the test," does that mean that the unfalsifiable ones should get a free pass? Claims such as:

Life continues to exist after death (but in no form we can detect)
Life goes to one of two places, very good or very bad (undetectable until you die)
There life is ruled over by two entities opposed to each other (undetectable until you die)
I say "undetectable", but in fact believers claim to be able to detect it using a special perception we do not have access to - although they seem unable to distinguish the possession of this perception from the belief that you possess it.
and
That God answers all prayers with "yes", "no" or "not yet" with the exact same frequency as blind chance.

So. I agree; we should put Christians to a fair test. What should we do when they fail it?

Posted by: Interested Atheist | June 4, 2006 8:48 PM

Scott Hatfield repeats one of the hoariest -- and frankly, more silly -- lines of religious propaganda, when he asks, "Does Professor Myers accept that his so-called 'loved ones' really love him because he has attempted to falsify said claims, and failed?"

Now, I cannot speak for PZ. Perhaps his spouse shows him utterly no affection at all, and yet he continues to believe she loves him. That would indeed be faith. It is quite visible in dysfunctional relationships. Any marriage counselor can tell you about couples where one stays in the marriage from a wrong belief that they are loved. Wrong, in the marriage counselor's eyes, because he can see -- from the evidence! -- that that is not so. Believed on the abused spouse's part as a matter of faith.

I hope PZ is not in such a relationship. As for myself, those who I believe love me, show it in numerous ways. I have no need for faith on that issue. And those manifestations of love are tangible and observable, not just by me, but by third parties who are close to us. As is normal in a healthy relationship. I fear Scott's views of relationships has been warped by his relationship with his god. Who is not visible. Who won't say a literal word to Scott. (And no, I don't mean what Scott thinks his god has said to others, in the Bible. I mean what his god speaks, literally, to Scott.) Who requires faith, not just to believe his love, but to believe that he is.

So no, there isn't anything close to an analogy here, between what is real, tangible, and amply evidenced, and what requires a good imagination to believe.

Posted by: Russell | June 4, 2006 10:22 PM

Me, charitable? Aw, shucks ;-) I agree that Marxism &al propagate by the same "faith based" pattern, but...

"Of course not. But what happens is that those of us who aren't fideistic simply don't have beliefs in the way that those who are, do. We recognize that the assertions we recall are each and every one just something stuck away, that when we recall it, either has some remembered provenance that helps us decide how to apply it, or becomes just something "once heard." Each and every one can be questioned, and its related evidences and arguments (if any) reexamined."

I'm sure you do this quite a lot -- I know I do. But if you think you're doing it with everything, then I think you're kidding yourself. Consider that a lot of even your scientific knowledge probably came from teachers, books, or magazines, earlier in your education-- or it depends on data that did. How much of your high-school chemistry education have you actually managed to verify by experiment? Inevitably, you've declared both certain sources, certain principles, and even certain collections of data, as "trusted" info. If you didn't, you'd need to review your entire education for every cocktail-party conversation! (Have you read Heinlein's late novel, J.O.B.? The conceit there is relevant, but too far a digression for this hour of night.)

And even with those limitations, your "habit of doubt" is not without costs... most likely, you make decisions more slowly than the less skeptical sorts. (Sometimes, it really is more important that you do something, now, than it is to do "exactly the right thing".) Perhaps people have considered you to lack confidence because of those slow responses. Reviewing and changing your beliefs might get you tagged a "flip-flopper", or at least unpredictable. I know I've gotten hit with all of those....

Despite my own beliefs, I'd have to say that the "habit of faith" is much more representative of the "human norm", than the "habit of doubt" is. That may be changing, slowly -- but it's way too soon to tell if the new way will continue to spread, or be left to a niche in the memetic ecology.

Posted by: David Harmon | June 4, 2006 11:23 PM

Scott the vacuous here. With respect to Jillian's comment, it is certainly true that abused spouses seem convinced they are "loved" by the abuser despite positive evidence to the contrary. It is also possible to imagine a person who appears to love you, based on all manner of tangible signs and choices, but whom in their heart of hearts cares nothing for you at all. In other words, its a phenomenological problem, akin to Descartes' worry about an 'evil genius'.

Now I know that many folk regard any attempt to traffic in phenomenological language as bordering on vacuous, but there it is: there is always the possibility that other agents, like our senses, might deceive us. In fact, from an evolutionary point of view there's a lot of data that suggests that our species is unusually skilled at deception.

Now, as a practical matter, unless we're paranoid we don't give this line of reasoning the time of day in our personal lives, not necessarily because we've made a conscious decision that it's non-parsimonious (not to mention absurd) based on our experience. Rather, we consciously choose the interpretation that we are loved. It's not just that it's simpler to believe it; it's what we want to believe. Jillian is irritated by this line of reasoning, in part because she is afraid that it legitimizes abuse, but let me suggest it might do the opposite: it helps explain why victims often choose to stay with an abuser, and this understanding is probably key to the victim's recovery, and (not incidentally) the prosecution of the abuser.

Russell characterizes this line of reasoning as "religious propaganda," but let me point out that nature has no obligation to choose either the simpler explanation or the explanation that we prefer. The same line of reasoning could be used to attack claims of religious experience, for example; in fact, I note in passing that I made no claims on behalf of my particular set of beliefs. My interests here are phenomenological, rather than apologetic.

Caledonian's comment reminds me of something Steven Deutsch emphasizes on his rather substantial web site, which is that he insists upon engaging believers upon the question of what, if anything, would cause them to modify their beliefs? The distinction Caledonian makes between faith and belief reminds me of the creationist canard that contrasts the changeable nature of scientific theories with the "unchanging" word of God, with the implied (and of course false) subtext that the latter is supposedly superior.

For purpose of discussion, I'll agree with Caledonian that what he describes as faith really is irrational. My question to him would be: if a believer held their beliefs provisionally, as his described rationalist might, should we describe their belief as 'faith' or as something else? I'm interested in the question, because I am convinced that on more than one occasion my beliefs have (ahem) evolved, hopefully for the better.

Interested Atheist is concerned about the consequences of my objection, asking, in effect, what do we do about the non-falsifiable claims, the ones that must be taken on faith? Well, that's easy: if they do not interest you, or offer no meaning for you, or pose no immediate threat to your liberty, you ignore them.

If, on the other hand, they are offered in such a way that you feel bound to respond, then you attempt to falsify the claims that are falsifiable and you propose other explanations (hopefully more parsimonious and/or to some degree falsifiable) for the non-falsifiable claims. And, if any of this poses a threat to your liberty, you couple your response with a very firm assertion of your legal rights!

But, in any case, I do not see that the consequences of the objection are relevant to the question of whether the objection is correct. That's the question that interests me. If, as I assert, there are quite a few things that can not be ultimately 'proven' but which almost all of us accept not merely as provisionally demonstrated, but as truth, then all of us (even those who of us who believe themselves emptied of superstition) do take some things on faith.

If that's the case, a general fulmination against faith strikes me not only as politically unwise, but somewhat pointless.

On the other hand, if someone can point to something fundamentally wrong with the argument as stated, I'm open to correction. I think that I am still capable of changing my mind. I have my doubts about the electorate, though.

Peace...

Scott Hatfield

Posted by: Scott Hatfield | June 5, 2006 1:46 AM

Teacup says:

"This response doesn't seem to address O'Brien's view, that religion is properly not a faith-based activity -- that is what is meant by mysticism. Her view is, I think, similar to Sam Harris', that direct experience of the divine is possible, where the precise definition of 'divine' is left up to personal interpretation - it could be a supernatural god, it could be Spinoza's god or it could be a pleasant hallucination. How is this threatening to our political system?"

While O'Brien's post has some problems, I think PZ and Seidman does a reasonable job.

There has been discussions, here too, if all religions are fideistic. I believe that Buddism is so, if marginally. I don't think it matters however, since a solid character of religion seems to be that it is reasoning, even philosophy, which is largely disconnected from facts.

It is true that religion is more than faithbased reasoning, it is also faithbased practices without much personal reasoning invested. For some the later is all they use. But the point for PZ and Seidman is that the core of religion is fideistic. Whose faithbased practices are rightly a token of the faithbased reasoning. And for PZ and Seidman this is a bad practice.

There are some small problems in Seidman's article. He leans strongly on Avalos. Avalos is keen to propose close translation of texts as a large problem for religions. When he describes the basis of "group privileging" as based on christian texts, he doesn't describe the freer interpretation I see christian groups do in my neighborhood. He is however correct in that there is a relative sense of group privileging. Therefore Avalos main conclusion that problems stems from real or perceived scarcities of resources stands up, in a relative sense.

O'Brien doesn't adress Seidman's concerns at all. She prefers to claim that literal thinking isn't a problem for religions. That isn't what Seidman says.

Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | June 5, 2006 4:54 AM

I also see some specific problems in both Seidman's and O'Brien's articles.

Seidman first. He says humanity is the universe's first successful attempt to understand itself. Even if we currently seem to be alone we have too little observational evidence to judge either way. He also defines naturalism in a much too narrow way.

O'Brien last. She refers to Karen Armstrong, which claim that "I think some scientists are writing a new kind of religious discourse, teaching us to pit ourselves against the dark world of uncreated reality and pushing us back to the mysterious. They're resorting to mythological imagery: Big Bang, black hole. They have all kinds of resonances because this is beyond our ken."

This is crap due to insufficient knowledge. Neither bigbang or black holes have names from mythology, nor are they wellnamed.

Bigbang is the beginning of our universe expansion. It isn't properly an explosion since everything expands, including the emerging spacetime, but the name is a forceful imagery and it stuck. We can observe the initial inflation that started fractions of a second afterwards, so we aren't studying something mystical here. If the objection is that this observation is twice removed since we look at radiation that emerged freely much later, we can also look at primordial nucleosynthesis. It took place a few minutes after the bigbang. How close to an explosion do we ordinarily observe, while still recognising it for what it is? ;-)

Black holes are also a misnomer. At the time they were predicted the main idea was that these singularities in general relativity gravitation devoured everything including radiation. Ir was Hawking et al that later realised that they indeed radiate thermally so they aren't totally black. (Or rather close to thermally, if probabilities are to be preserved.) Massive black holes and their distinct effects are observed in the center of most galaxies including our own, so they too aren't mystical beasts.

O'Brien also refers to Einstein's view of religion. He abstracted religion to leave morals and the scientific sense of awe for new discoveries, thus being compatible with science. While this seems compatible with O'brien's view I think philosophers would say that Einstein is making a category mistake.

Neither Armstrong's misplaced religious imagery or Einstein's category mistakes help O'Brien. Instead they are supportive of PZ's and Seidman's view of the errors of religious reasoning.

Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | June 5, 2006 4:55 AM

I should perhaps expand on the problems of making a category mistake between faith and fact here, since it feels simple and philosophical.

Something that we can learn from science IMO is that reasoning which are based on observational facts can be made to work successfully. So even if part of an endeavour, be it love life or politics, have evidenciary and trust problems and in practice must be provisionary based on portions of faith, there is also areas where we are much helped with facts and where we can independently observe that it helps.

This supports rather than detracts from the conclusion that we are helped by facts IMHO. Faith may be a scaffolding we have to use at times, but it should be replaced with the solid walls of factbased reasoning whenever we can. Which comes back to religion, of course...

Posted by: Torbjörn Larsson | June 5, 2006 6:43 AM

For purpose of discussion, I'll agree with Caledonian that what he describes as faith really is irrational. My question to him would be: if a believer held their beliefs provisionally, as his described rationalist might, should we describe their belief as 'faith' or as something else?

Given the available evidence, there is no rational justification for holding the tenets of existing religions even provisionally. There is in fact massive evidence, both empirical and logical, that demonstrates specific religious doctrines to be untrue. Ignoring that evidence and believing the doctrines anyway rejects the reasoning that underlies 'provisional' belief.

If in fact you belong to a religion whose doctrines *can* be rationally accepted on a provisional basis, tell us which religion it is and what those doctrines are, Scott Hatfield. I'm sure we would be most interested to learn what it and they are.