replacing god

Quantum mechanics gets a bit less spooky

2012-02-25T17:18:00.003-05:00

Quantum mechanics is a very robust theory of the small-scale phenomena in the universe. It has been repeatedly verified in the lab, and has been become a fundamental tool to explore the rest of the universe. But it does imply some rather bizarre things, that certain types of theists have used to attempt to (a) discredit science and simultaneously (b) prove the existence of their fairy tale gods. New work now suggests multiple ways of reconciling quantum weirdness with the regularity of the human-scale universe - without requiring god.

First of all, if you don't "believe" in quantum mechanics, then you need to understand that the computer you're using this second runs because of quantum effects. So turn it off, and go check yourself in to the nearest asylum, because that's where you belong.

For those of you who are left, you may know of some of the weird quantum effects that I'm talking about. Einstein called one of them "spooky action at a distance." Perhaps the most famous (and irritating) artifact of quantum science is Schrodinger's Cat, which was both alive and dead in a box with a randomly released poison till it was observed. This led to all manner of new-age nuttiness. Also, diverse theists immediately tried to interpret quantum weirdness as a sign from or of god.

Eventually, a new concept, decoherence, was developed to reconcile micro-scale quantum effects with meso-scale "reality" as we observe it. But it was often seen as a bit of a kludge, a spit-and-baling-wire approach to patch together two different and far more elegant systems.

Recently, an alternative to decoherence has been developed by Dagomir Kaszlikowski and colleagues, which is far more elegant than decoherence and yet shows quite neatly how quantum effects combine at the meso-scale to create the kind of reality we observe every day. It's still early days for Kaszlikowski's theory, so it's too soon to declare it the winner.

But that's not really the point I want to make.

Instead, consider the "society" in which this work has gone on - the scientific community.

In that society, the evidence for quantum mechanics - coming as it does from hundreds of diverse areas of research and consisting of thousands of replications of carefully designed experiments - is overwhelming. QM both allows the explanation of existent phenomena and the prediction of other phenomena. A sure sign of a good theory is when it successfully predicts things that couldn't otherwise be predicted.

QM isn't dogma, it's only the best model that fits the facts. Even Einstein, who couldn't really accept QM, did not deny that it was the best model available for very real physical phenomena. He might not have liked it, but he knew that the evidence rules.

Some thought the search for connectivity between QM and the Newtonian mechanics of the human-scale universe was a desperate attempt by scientists to justify their "spooky" quantum weirdness. In fact, however, it was a test: if no connection could be found, then there had to be something substantive wrong with QM.

First, decoherence was developed. Then, because scientists were not willing to settle for only the decoherence explanation, we also have Kaszlikoski's alternative treatment.

Both developments were driven entirely and only by the evidence, and the cumulative body of scientific knowledge. Throughout this work, the scientists largely got along, listening attentively to each other, arguing respectfully, pointing out errors in reasoning rather than flaws of character (the latter of which are entirely irrelevant to the matter at hand), never hesitated to cooperate quite selflessly in the interest of discovering an objective truth about the universe. And they did all this without god.

Now, of course, I'm sure there were disagreements and occasional arguments, rudeness, etc. After all, scientists are just human beings. But if one stands back far enough to look at the overall development of QM, one sees a very collaborative and surprisingly orderly movement from a state of relative ignorance to a state of relative knowledge.

Now compare this to the childish bickering, not to mention the suffering and death caused by religion. From the Taliban to Rick Santorum and every religious nutjob in between, we see every textbook form of irrationality, delusion, and outright malevolence of which human beings are capable on display under the umbrella of god.

That's the point I want to make here.

The name of this blog is "replacing god." Here's one piece of that puzzle: science and scientific thinking. Modulo the foibles of human nature, the way in which scientists think and work is far more sensible than any other approach ever devised. I can say this will full confidence because when compared to every other form of collaborative knowledge development, science is the most robust, most reliable, and least likely to cause harm. It is, in every measurable way, better than the alternatives. It's light-years better than anything religion has to offer.

So let's dispose of homily, and of proselytizing, and of witnessing, and conclaves, and of all those other foolish religious trappings of the search for understanding. Let's use a scientific approach instead. It'll work.

What if science were run like a religion?

2012-02-24T20:49:00.001-05:00

Religion and science are fundamentally and philosophically at odds with one another. Please note that I'm not talking about scientists versus religious people here. I'm not talking about people at all. I'm talking about the world views, the conceptual frameworks that science and that religion propose. These frameworks are utterly exclusive of one another, and will never, never be compatible. Science is based on evidence; religion is not. In science, one pleads ignorance where evidence is lacking; in religion, one claims some kind of reflective, ineffable, "inner experience" (which I reckon is just unconscious cognitive processing). In science, facts external to those discussing them are the primary concern; in religion, sentiment, opinion, and personal prestige (aka power) rule. In science, the only thing that matters is understanding real phenomena; in religion, everything is based on a non-falsifiable assumption for which no evidence exists and against which significant evidence exists. Science in itself doesn't, hasn't ever, and will never move people to harm others; religion does that all the time.

Ask yourself what would happen if science were run by religion.

Think of something specific, to keep things grounded. Like, say, the question of faster-than-light neutrinos.

(Quick backgrounder; skip this paragraph if you already know the story. In 2011, some scientists found some experimental evidence that some elementary particles called neutrinos had exceeded the speed of light, which Einstein and many after him argue is not possible, and which has never been observed in nature. This caused real excitement in the science community. Most were of the opinion that there was probably an error somewhere. This was largely because the experiment had been done only once, and scientific consensus only emerges on the basis of many repeated instances of an experiment done exactly to eliminate sources of error and bias. In the press, the evidence was seen as everything from a catastrophic failure of science to the dawn of a golden age for humanity. By early 2012, however, it had been pretty much worked out that it was only equipment error that resulted in the FTL data. This means that Relativity, and pretty much all of modern physics, was once again safe.)

Nuns are excommunicated for trying to save lives, holy men stood silent in the face of genocide, soldiers are killed for burning the Quran, holy men remain silent in the face of genocide, and even just making fun of a deity is enough to invoke violence. It seems reasonable to think that if the FTL barrier were dogma as important to religion as it is a principle central to modern physics, then the scientists who recorded the original data would have been excommunicated at least, if not ritually murdered. It is also likely that any further investigations into the matter would be treated as heresy. All scientists would be told that such research was forbidden. Research grants would be denied or withdrawn from researchers who even appeared to be heading in the same general direction as the original heretics.

And, if absolutely necessary, the truth of the FTL claim would be settled not by experiment but by a bunch of old farts who probably wouldn't have done any real science in decades, and who sit around pontificating on whether FTL violations contravene the physics of Ptolemy.

None of this happened, of course. Sure, some of the scientists got a little… excited at the prospect of FTL particles, but there was no violence, not even harsh language. And I'm pretty sure that, now, they're all having a pint together and having a good laugh at the scare they gave themselves. This is because they understand that even if they disagree on specifics, they know they are all working toward the common goal of understanding the universe.

Why a mandatory religion course in Quebec is a good thing

2012-02-18T00:39:00.000-05:00

It was reported today that the Supreme Court has ruled that Quebec students must take a mandatory religion/ethics course.

Why is this a good thing for atheists & humanists?

Here's where it gets interesting. The case was brought before the Supreme Court by a family wanting their children to be exempt from the course.

I know what you're thinking: the kids' parents are non-religious and don't want their kids to be brainwashed with religious fairy tales. Right?

Wrong.

You see, the religion/ethics course in question teaches about a number of different religions found among Quebecers, even including aboriginal religion. One of its main themes is to convince people of different faiths to tolerate each others beliefs through understanding.

And the parents in question don't want their children to know about other religions. From the CBC article linked above: "They claimed their children would suffer serious harm from contact with a series of beliefs that were mostly incompatible with those of the family."

Sorry - give me a minute; I think I wet myself laughing....

I think this decision by the Supreme Court is an excellent step in the right direction. One of the biggest causes of the fractious relations between people of different (or no) faiths is bad information about the "other side." If kids grew up knowing more about multiple religions, they'd be less likely to think along the lines of religious tribalism and moral brinksmanship. Heck, it might even nudge a few more students towards secularism.

So, I guess the inbred, dumb-fuck parents who brought the case forward have a point. They want to keep their children ignorant for the sake of keeping them in the fold of their own religion. They should fear a course like this. Education can be a terrible thing if you're deeply religious.

Draft "secularist card"

2012-02-15T05:01:00.000-05:00

Catholics are being handed "faith cards."

I find that so surreal that I decided to try my hand at a "secularist card."

I believe the image is publicly usable. If it isn't, please let me know and I'll change/delete it at once.

The text is all mine, save the "dress rehearsal" line which is courtesy Clive Adams.

Thoughts?

A message to theists

2012-02-13T19:26:00.000-05:00

Dear theists,

Do you believe

that every single person, regardless of gender, skin colour, race, culture, sexual orientation, income, position, or any other superficial characteristic, should be treated equally under the law?
that truth must be based on evidence and not superstition or power or money?
that wealth should be measured by the good you do and not by the goods you have?
that you should earn in measure to what you actually do and the merits of that work towards the well-being of others as well as yourself?
that value means more than cost or price?
that no one should go hungry?
that health care should be equally available to everyone who needs it?
that diversity should be universally celebrated but also tempered by the lessons of the past?
that war should be universally recognized as an unacceptable solution under all circumstances?
that education should be always free?
that our actions should be based on understanding that the earth and humanity are not two different things?

Well, good! Most atheists believe in exactly the same things!

Of course, not all of you theists will agree. Some theists are also psychopaths or sociopaths (e.g. Anders Breivik). Other theists are terrorists (e.g. the Taliban). Still others are just frickin' nuts (e.g. Santorum, Bachmann, Perry,…). Still others are malevolent, deluded bigots (e.g. Westboro Baptist Church). And others are spineless cowards who refuse to stand up for what they themselves believe is right (e.g. the Vatican's silence while Catholics in Africa cause tremendous suffering and death by preventing birth control, allowing people to be burned alive as witches,…).

These malevolent and sickening theists are, however, relatively rare. They're loud and sometimes very powerful, true; but in numbers they are thankfully few. Most theists are good, kind, and honourable people.

Similarly, there are some atheists that are useless bags of skin. They're not really known as such, and they're generally harder to find, but they're out there. Here's one list of a few evil atheists. I'm sure there are others.

Thankfully, as with theists, most atheists are good, kind, and honourable people.

It strikes me, considering all this, that the conflict between theist and atheist isn't really one of religion or of god. It's one of well-being versus suffering. Among both theist and atheist populations, there are those who would live at the expense of others, who use their belief systems as drivers for intolerable acts of cruelty, pain, and death. But also among both theist and atheist populations, there are those who care, who work to make the world a better place for everyone, and who understand the tremendous benefits that we all gain from working toward general well-being.

I think the real battle - no matter what the politicians, pundits, and media sensationalists would have you believe - is not between theist and atheist, but between those who wish for a good life for everyone, and those who don't.

If you prefer, it's between good and evil.

So here's my advice: for now, let's understand that any theist can be good or bad - and that any atheist can be good or bad. We good people need to get together, to set aside differences of faith and religion, and stand together against those that will cause suffering on this earth. Let's make this earth as good a place as we can, full of people who are, for the most part, happy, healthy, and as fulfilled as we can let them be.

And when we have that world at hand, we can all sit and have a nice cup of tea, and discuss in calm, inoffensive, and rational tones, whether god exists.

Postscript: Those of you who fear I may be losing my anti-theist edge can relax. I'm still completely convinced the whole notion of god is obsolete. But I also think that arguing about god isn't going to get us anywhere till we overcome the common areas of concern among both theists and atheists, which all have to do with well-being in this life.

Journalism gone wild (and not in a good way)

2012-01-31T11:22:00.001-05:00

The rag known as the Mail published a piece in favour of Alain de Botton's atheist religion and taking a swipe at Richard Dawkins. It's cheap and ridiculous. I've already written about de Botton, but this tripe in the Mail deserves special comment.

Starting with a statement by David Attenborough in which he accepts the possibility of a "supreme being," the witless Rev. George Pitcher (obviously deep in a conflict of interest) builds a house of cards favouring some kind of accommodationism.

Pitcher writes, "There does seem to be a growing tolerance of faith among the faithless." Really? Where? In the UK? Nonsense! The government there is kowtowing to religious groups, but that doesn't mean atheists are becoming tolerant. They may be gaining a tolerance of different cultures - not that they have much choice, since cultural tolerance is the only path to a truly unified human race, but that implies a tolerance of neither the abuse of human rights nor religious zealotry.

"Those of us of religious faith need to concede that atheists might be right, however much we believe that they are not," the noodle-headed Pitcher writes. "And, by the same token, unbelievers, such as Attenborough and de Botton, need to affirm that we might be right - and they variously and increasingly are, by their words and deeds."

In other words, the last 2,000 years aren't enough for the religious. They want to control the next 2,000 years too. And let's not forget that de Botton's so-called Atheism 2.0 excludes supreme beings.

And then there's the surreal accusations that Dawkins is shrill.

Shrill? I've rarely heard a man less shrill than Richard Dawkins.

And the photo of Dawkins, sporting a rather dour expression, was clearly selected to emphasize this personal attack, especially when juxtaposed with the gently smiling de Botton right beside it.

This is so typical of the religious. Unable to produce anything remotely resembling a proper counterargument to those of atheist scholars like Dawkins, they get right down into the gutter and launch pathetic ad hominem assaults. Yet another example of the laughably inept strategy of fundiots everywhere: atheists must be lying because they're "bad people."

That Pitcher would stoop to this level of misinformation is typical of religions. That the Mail would print it is a pathetic commentary on the state of journalism.

Co-opting the rituals of religion... Really?

2012-01-30T12:56:00.000-05:00

Alain de Botton has come up with a rather ridiculous notion he calls "Atheism 2.0." (As if slapping a "2.0" after something immediately makes it better.) He argues that there are some aspects of religious behaviour that are of benefit to society, and so should form the foundation of a new brand of atheism. Jerry Coyne rightly calls it an atheist religion.

It seems to me that all de Botton is trying to do is co-opt the trappings of religion for secular purposes. In this sense, I don't mind this turnabout; rather like turning religion against itself, which I find in some ways quite poetic.

But in the final analysis, I find the notion of "Atheism 2.0" to be quite perverse, because the goals that de Botton seems to think can be achieved through religious rituals can be achieved by a variety of existent and secular means already.

First of all, let's set aside those who require intense religious ritual just to get by in life. Those people may well be suffering from a mental condition like OCD (try this google search for more on that).

Once we eliminate those, we're left with people who, in essence, find certain routines and habits helpful. We don't need all the woo of religious ceremony and ritual for that.

Want to build community? There's lots of community activities in which one can participate. Why do people go to church events anyways? Salvation, or showing off. If you really just want to participate in community, you can do that anywhere - at the coffee shop, at the skating rink, at town council, at cultural celebrations, class reunions, family get-togethers....

If you need the aspects of advice-giving that come from religious behaviours, go to a therapist, or a "life coach."

Need guidance on how to live? Again, see a counsellor. Or read some books on the subject. Talk to friends and family that you trust. Get an education.

Want to get connected to the rest of humanity and nature? Go to art galleries and museums and planetariums. Travel. More education.

Learning "oratory" (de Botton's term; "public speaking" for the rest of us) is easy to learn if it's done in a friendly environment. And it can be done in school if we could just stop pandering to idiots when it comes to curriculum design.

De Botton also claims that art should be didactic. Let's set aside the prescriptive arrogance of this suggestion. What can be said of art can also be said of science, and of watching grass grow. We do need to communicate with one another more, and about important things, and fully expressing well-thought-out arguments. That requires education, not art. And that requires forums in which can converse freely. I've already named some such forums.

It's all already there. What more does de Botton want?

And his latest pile of tripe is the notion of building a monument to atheism at a cost of one million GBP. This is absolutely surreal. How much good could any one of us do with a million pounds sterling? A lot more than erecting a frickin' monument! Is that where atheists would go to beat their chests about religion-based genital mutilation, rather than invest the money to actually address that crime? Ditto for educating the poor, birth control, gay rights, and a whole litany of global problems.

Anyways, most atheists already recognize the ultimate "monument" is already in existence and is all around us: the universe with us in it. Anything else pales by comparison, as does de Botton's silly notions.

Some thoughts on free speech

2012-01-26T20:17:00.002-05:00

Because it didn't have to do directly with atheism, I posted this on my other blog. It's some observations from a non-American about the problems of unfettered free speech.

Direct link to the post: http://filsalustri.wordpress.com/2012/01/23/some-thoughts-on-free-speech/

I've joined the Atheist Blogroll!

2012-01-08T00:42:00.000-05:00

I'm very pleased to report that replacing god has been added to The Atheist Blogroll. You can see the blogroll in my sidebar. The Atheist blogroll is a community building service provided free of charge to Atheist bloggers from around the world. If you would like to join, visit Mojoey at Deep Thoughts for more information.

I owe Chris Hitchens

2011-12-17T19:29:00.001-05:00

Those of you who live under a rock may not have heard: Christopher Hitchens died two days ago (15 Dec). My writing is far too weak to comment on his life and work as it should be. I will leave that to others. Instead I would like to share a few of the moments of my life that were enriched by "Hitch."

It was some years ago that I first heard of Chris Hitchens. I was driving to work and someone on CBC was interviewing him. I have no idea when that was, but I do remember the profound effect that his words had on me. The snapshot memory I have is of him explaining why he thought of himself as anti-theist.

At the time, I was already atheist, but I generally kept this from others, not because of fear of discrimination or of embarrassment but rather because I just didn't see why it mattered to others.

Listening to Hitchens, though, was a lightning bolt to my brain. His words distilled thoughts that had been jumbled up in my mind for years. He was so pure, so clear, and so utterly rational in his speech that I was immediately and completely changed. I knew at that moment that I too was anti-theist and that I would not be able to keep it to myself any longer.

This is not just some kind of intellectual crush, however; it is a deep, intellectual agreement with his arguments on religion and god, which I learned to appreciate more and more over the years as I read more and more of his work. It matters not one whit to me that it was Hitchens that made those arguments; it is rather that the arguments themselves were made.

In this sense, I owe Hitchens. His lucidity and intellectual power gave me the means to improve my own thinking substantively. I hope I can live up to the standards I've set for myself as a result of my exposure to him.

He was honest - brutally so sometimes - and unequivocal. He had a clarity of speech that made listening to him a joy. Some people think he was arrogant. Wouldn't you be too, if you had his education, his knowledge, his skill? He can easily be forgiven for having human failings because his successes were so much more important.

And I'd also dispute the charge of arrogance. If one listens to him speak, one will note a fairly common tendency to sound rather humble. He referred to himself as a jobbing hack; he often professed a single-minded and absolute devotion to his children; his fierce and emotional defence of Stephen Fry (not that Fry is incapable of defending himself very well, thank you very much) at the Intelligence Squared debate - all these things are symptomatic not of arrogance but rather of incredible self-awareness, of having understood exactly what he was, what he wanted to do, and that it was, in the long run, the right thing.

Was Hitchens perfect? Of course not! So What? Neither was Einstein. Neither was Martin Luther King. Neither was Orwell, or Steinbeck, or Hemingway. This in no way diminishes the good that they all did during their lives. And it's the good we need to remember, to incorporate into our own lives, because that's how we progress.

I'm trying to figure out how to end this entry in a way that Hitchens would approve. Given everything I know about him, I think I can only say this:

Thanks Hitch. Bye.

A disappointing study, disappointingly reported

2011-12-04T23:32:00.001-05:00

I'm upset about a recent study at UBC that suggests atheists are distrusted about as much as rapists. I'm even more upset about the weak journalism that went into reporting it at CTV.

The study is upsetting because it is weak. They surveyed 351 Americans between the ages of 18 and 82.

Americans? It's a Canadian study, presumably funded by Canadian research dollars. Considering how rampant both fundamental religion and ignorance are in the USA, asking an American about atheists would be like asking Anne Frank about Nazis. There are wild extremes of "opinion" in the USA, ranging from Rick Perry on the irrational end of the spectrum to Sam Harris on the rational end. A sample size of 351 is probably just large enough to demonstrate how under-sized your sample size really is.

Why Americans? Was it because der Führer Stephen Harper - a born-again nut-job himself - has made it clear that this sort of research is unacceptable in Canada?

Also, the age range is troubling. Polls are clear that they young people are not into religion anywhere near as much as the older generations. (Google can point you at various sources on this.) So by conflating the age groups - and not being clear on how many in the sample were from specific age sub-groups - there seems to be a distinct possibility that trends found in the data are not representative of the general population.

The study's authors also polled over 400 UBC students. Oh, so now Canadians are good enough? Furthermore, what do you expect to find out from students, except the depths of their ignorance and naivety? Doesn't anyone think that there might be differences between students at UBC and students at some other school?

As if these issues were not troubling, CTV gets its hands on the story and pronounces its headline as if it were a new law of thermodynamics: "Atheists roughly as distrusted as rapists, UBC study finds." CTV is clearly trying to suggest that the whole world's behaviour can be intuited from 351 Americans and 400+ Canadian students from one university. Nor does CTV raise any of the issues I have here, thus lending tacit support to the study.

Now, don't get me wrong - discrimination against atheists is sick and disgusting. But this research, and how it's been reported by CTV, isn't helping at all.

Of course, I may have some or all of this wrong, so I invite corrections.

Afghan justice is no justice at all

2011-11-26T07:22:00.001-05:00

Gulnaz was raped by her cousin's husband when she was 19. She was impregnated and gave birth. She was also imprisoned for adultery. Now her choice is remain in prison for 12 years, or marry her rapist.

You can read more of Gulnaz's story - if you can stomach it - here.

This really makes me sick. That a judge could sit in court and pronounce a girl guilty of adultery for having been raped is pretty much the definition of "evil." That such a "justice" system exists based on a pathetic fairy tale is an insult to humanity. Everyone who has acted against this poor woman should be locked up, including all the politicians who think that this way of running a society is anything more than a sick joke.

And Afghan law, if it permits this kind of revolting travesty, is also a sick joke. There is no argument, no foundation on which anyone, let alone religious apologists, can justify such acts.

Please remember this if you ever try to justify tolerance for religions: those religions that you think are doing good in the world are actually at the root of the most vile political and judicial practises we have. We must never accept any legal, judicial, or political system that is rooted in such lies and evil as we see here in Afghanistan.

There are plenty of good people in Afghanistan. This isn't about them.

This is about the power-mongering, tiny-dicked assholes who think that irrational lies found in an old book are a reasonable way to run a country. These sub-humans have, I think, forfeited all due process for their crimes. If they honestly think that the kind of things done to Gulnaz are how a whole society should be run, then there's no room for them on this planet. If they really believe that women are property, then they have abdicated every possible right to which they would be otherwise be entitled. They should be locked away forever, and humanity would be only the better for it.

Coming soon: summary pages

2011-11-14T09:36:00.001-05:00

It has occurred that some of the information I want to share in this blog may be as useful in the form of lists as links embedded here and there in various posts. So I've started to keep track of links that support or augment my arguments, and I'll be adding them to pages as quickly as I can.

The pages will appear across the top of the blog. Right now there's only one page, and it contains only one link. Be patient; more will come soon.

Rabbi encourages ignorance

2011-11-14T07:41:00.001-05:00

In a recent blog in PuffHo, Rabbi Adam Jacobs, the great yutz of New York, tried to argue "why really everyone believes." Presumably, we're talking about god here, though the only thing I believe having read his ridiculous post is that Jacobs is an evil prick who promotes ignorance for the sake of peddling his fairy tales.

Jacobs's post has already been properly deconstructed by Jerry Coyne; I'd like to follow up on a couple of other points.

Jacobs prelude contains a vile insult, one that immediately relegates him, in my opinion, to the contemptible charlatans of religion. He writes: "Often, I've inquired of non-believers if it at all vexes them that nothing that they have ever done or will ever do will make the slightest difference to anyone on any level?"

Here, he asserts that the only way one's life can have meaning is when rooted to belief in a fairy tale god. This is bullshit of the first order. I look at my wife and my children, and I know that I've made a difference. I look at my students, and I know I've made a difference. I look at the smile of the street musician when I drop some change into his guitar case, and I know I've made a difference. I don't need some imaginary god to validate me. I detest that people can have such low self-esteem that they think the only way to achieve meaning is to believe in a myth, and I positively hate people people like Jacobs who project their own limp inadequacies onto everyone else.

Still, for the sake of completeness, here are my thoughts about the rest of Jacobs's prattle.

He proposes a simple three-point test to identify if you "believe." Here's a quick summary.

1. "Would you be willing to sell your parent's remains for dog food?"

Apparently, believers find something wrong with the notion of not treating a dead body with "respect." I'm not sure why. If there is an afterlife, then my parent's soul has gone there, rendering the body but an empty shell. If there isn't an afterlife - hey, guess what? Still an empty shell. Everything that is left behind of my parents is in my mind and in the minds of the others who knew them. So why shouldn't I sell their remains?

Jacobs writes: "Could it be that subconsciously you suspect that it's just wrong to do it -- wrong in a way that transcends your temporality? If not, and if you would sell your mother's corpse so that it can be made into pet grub, congratulations: You are an authentic non-believer."

If it's subconscious, then it's probably just an instinct derived from evolution, or learned behaviour from your childhood - neither of which gets us near believership. Notice too how Jacobs insidiously attempts to repulse you by choosing something distasteful: having one's mother's corpse turned into "pet grub." How about donating her corpse to science? There's lots of things that "desecrate" a body but which aren't that bad really. And what's wrong with being turned into pet grub? What do you think happens to a decomposing corpse in a buried coffin?

(Full disclosure: both my parents are dead. I haven't sold their remains because no one wants to buy them, and because I gave them my word that I would respect their wishes. Notice this has nothing to do with their wishes, and everything to do with the value I associate with my being honourable with respect to my own standards.)

2. "You and someone you dislike are stranded on a desert island with a functioning ham radio. One day you hear that there has been a terrible earthquake that has sent a massive tsunami hurtling directly for your island and you both have only one hour to live. Does it make any difference whether you spend your last hour alive comforting and making amends with your (formerly) hated companion or smashing his head in with fallen, unripe coconuts?"

False dichotomy. Jacobs tries to make you think you only have two alternatives: make nice with your enemy, or beat his brains out. There's lots of other options. Given the circumstances, I personally would just go for a swim and let my mind wander till the tsunami hits.

Also, the question is not really different from asking you what you will do with your life. Basically, the issue is that you have a short life followed by an inescapable death. On the island is one hour long; in reality it's around 80 years, composed of about 508,800 one-hour units. What you do with each of those one-hour units is treated by exactly the same question as Jacobs stupidly asks of his readers.

3. "Is love, art, beauty or morality intrinsically significant?"

Here the question is really whether any of these things exist except in the mind. Is any one of them, as Jacobs puts it, "one that transcends chemical reactions and meaningless groping towards cell mitosis?"

Appealing to one's innate sense of these things is not enough, because it has been clearly shown in the research on the human brain and mind that there are direct correlations between brain function and those innate senses. Furthermore, Jacobs discounts entirely the notion of emergent properties - complex things that only exist as a result of the interactions between simple things. This too is extremely well documented.

There's a certain theme running through all of Jacobs's arguments. They're all based on appealing to the ignorance of the common folk. There's no sense here that he's appealing to people based on scientific knowledge - in fact, he categorically ignores it. Nor are his arguments well-constructed. As both Dr. Coyne and I have shown, each in different ways, there are all kinds of holes in Jacobs's arguments, holes that comprehensively invalidate them.

This is, in my opinion, the evil bit. Either Jacobs is willfully ignorant (if he hasn't bothered to educate himself about logical argumentation and science) or a liar (if he does know about those things and chooses to ignore them for the sake of making a point). In either case, by appealing to - and even encouraging - ignorance and naive reasoning, he is endorsing exactly the sort of myopic and hateful thinking that has held back humanity for the last couple of millennia.

Are those things really stars?

2011-11-07T19:48:00.000-05:00

I have written before about the difference between science, the sciences, and scientists. It's bad enough that members of the anti-science movement cannot seem to distinguish between those three concepts. But even within a single concept, it seems that many ignorant and malevolent people seem to get utterly lost.

I recently came across a post on Google+, consisting of an exchange by such an anti-science idiot (identity unknown), and Tris Stock, someone who understands science very well. The argument, it seemed, revolved on whether stars are real. (I know - try not to laugh too hard.)

You can see the original conversation, and a series of comments by others, at https://plus.google.com/109717575157128771241/posts/869gP2699hr. As far as I'm concerned, the person arguing against stars being as scientists describe them is just a troll. Nonetheless, the argument is so similar to so many other anti-science arguments, that I really wanted to write about it.

First, let's get specific. The argument isn't about science - i.e. the endeavour and process of acquiring scientific knowledge - but rather about the qualities and extent of scientific knowledge. That is, the troll does nothing to argue against science, but rather suggests that science cannot be trusted because of the nature of scientific knowledge. That's like saying that someone who's never seen an orange tree must assume that, unlike other trees, an orange tree must be orange in colour.

The troll's arguments hinge on a few key points.

The troll has never seen a star. That is, he has seen those points of light that normal people call stars; he just is unconvinced that they are as scientists claim they are. This is puerile. He's saying that the thousands of scientists who have devoted their lives (totalling millions of person-hours at least) to studying the nature of stars have been unable to convince him of their nature. If the troll is aware of the evidence, then he is obviously suffering from either a massive superiority complex or paranoid delusions. If he is not aware of the evidence, then is here exhibiting the very worst kind of arrogance: he's not only ignorant, but he's also too stupid to recognize his own ignorance - basically, a textbook study of the Dunning-Kruger Effect as it applies to the unskilled and incompetent. Either way, he's a troll.

"Theory" and "evidence from technology" do not guarantee validity. When Tris calls him on his first inane claim about stars, the troll retreats to a weaker position. Here the troll argues that only his own eyes and mind are trusted sources of knowledge, and that external sources (theory and evidence from technology) are not so trusted.

The "theory" of which the troll presumably speaks are the bodies of knowledge known as astronomy and cosmology. However, everything we think we know is also just a theory. Since we can only perceive the objective universe via our senses, our entire mental content is basically just a big, rather vague, grossly incomplete, and error-ridden theory of the universe. So when the troll complains about the suspect nature of theory, is he also complaining about the human mind? Presumably not, because he seems to afford human beings a special privilege of understanding the universe. This is called a contradiction. It signifies that he is wrong.

The same error - logical contradiction - permeates his notion that evidence from technology is suspect.

We use optical telescopes to study stars. If the technology of telescopes is suspect, so must be the field of optics (a theory), and therefore so are contact lenses, eyeglasses, and mirrors. Yet I can only assume that the troll would accept that contact lenses, eyeglasses, and mirrors work. Therefore, contradiction.

We also use spectroscopes to study stars; so, spectroscopy (a theory) must be suspect. But you can demonstrate spectroscopic principles in any high school physics lab. Therefore, contradiction. He's also casting doubt on chemistry, so he's denying everything from internal combustion engines to batteries. More contradiction.

We use radar, microwaves, x-rays, gamma rays, and infrared telescopes to study stars; so, our theory of electromagnetic radiation must be suspect. But surely he would accept microwave ovens, radar-based aircraft navigation, medical imaging, radiation therapy, and TV remotes as real, functioning things. Therefore, contradiction.

The point here is that the scientific body of knowledge is not a collection of disparate claims. It is a single, massively interconnected collection of facts. True, at its edges there are some hypotheses - things we're currently studying - but all those hypotheses are firmly rooted in scientific fact. And as the scientific body of knowledge grows, it becomes more and more robust. One cannot just pick and choose whatever bits of science are convenient, and ignore the rest. It's an all or nothing deal.

In any case, our sensory organs are really nothing more than "technology" of a different kind that the stuff we make. He trusts his eyes, but not a telescope. Yet what is the eye but an organic camera? (And it's a pretty piss-poor camera at that. By some estimates, as much as 90% of the information received by the eye never gets to the brain.) If he doubts technology, then he must also logically doubt his eyes; yet he obviously places special privilege on his eyes' ability to see real things. Again: contradiction.

There is no conclusive evidence that our sun is a star. Near the end of the exchange, Tris attempts to explain things by reminding the troll that our sun is just a star. The troll then writes "You can alter the example if you like." This indicates that the troll does not believe that the sun is like the points of light we typically call stars. And yet all the same tests and experiments one can perform on the stars, one can also perform on the sun - and get entirely consistent results. The only truly substantive difference between the sun and other stars is that the former is billions of times closer to Earth than the latter.

Finally - and this is what really pushes me over the edge - the troll suggests that Tris (and others who think like him by extension) is intolerant and dogmatic because he is unwilling to accept other belief systems that "don't hurt others." This claim is typically used to put the speaker on the moral high ground. The attempt is cowardly because the troll should have just had the cojones to claim his own moral superiority. Furthermore, the discussion is not about beliefs but about facts. The troll clearly thinks of science as a series of beliefs that can be used or ignored as required. One might argue that facts are a type of belief and thus as strong (or, more importantly, as weak as beliefs; but that would be like arguing that skyscrapers are as weak as termite hills because they're both "structures," or that serial murder is as mild as jaywalking because they're both crimes.

Nothing could be further from the truth. Scientific knowledge is a collection of facts, claims that have been demonstrated true in so many ways that the odds of any of them being false are infinitesimal. Scientific knowledge is the best, most robust knowledge that humanity has at its disposal. There is absolutely nothing that can compare. If you need proof, look around you. Everything humans have added to the Earth is based on it. To dismiss scientific knowledge as just a "belief system" is an argument intended to lower science to the level of superstition and legend. I really, really hate that kind of lie.

Now, of course, as is so often the case with anti-science cowards, they choose words that are ambivalent and might be subject to diverse interpretation. For instance, the troll's remark about altering the example could be taken to suggest that the argument is not about questioning technology vis-a-vis the sun. However, there are two problems with offering this kindness to the troll. First, it behooves him - indeed, it behooves us all - to speak plainly and clearly. It is evident that the troll has a reasonable grasp of english. It is therefore not too much to expect him to be specific and precise. Second, the entire discussion is so glaringly typical in style and form of anti-science jerks that can be found trolling on any social network that it is rather natural to infer that he is as he presents himself. If he has any interest in science, he would know this because the evidence is so readily available. So either he has no interest in science - in which case one must question why he even bothers to engage Tris (unless he is a troll) - or he's staggeringly ignorant - in which case he is a troll and an anti-science prats.

Now, to his credit, Tris mentions in a comment to his post that his investigation suggests the troll may have in fact just had a momentary brain fart (my words, not Tris's).

This may well be, but I stand by my assessment. Whoever it was who argued with Tris assumed the posture, language, and style so very typical of anti-science gits. His arguments are so fetid and ridiculous that he must either be an utter moron (with good language skills - therefore, unlikely), or a malevolent prick trying to undermine science.

A few more thoughts on humanist community

2011-10-22T00:51:00.003-04:00

While the twitter furor over the possible structures for a humanist community have settled down, my brain is still churning - because I see this as a design problem. So whether you want them or not, here are some more thoughts on the matter.

I read with interest PZ Myer's post of 19 October, What #HumanistCommunity, and that got me thinking even more about the perceived and real mismatches between the (apparently) three camps - no structure, some structure, chaplaincy structure.

Off the top let me say that I'm with PZ on two specific points: the notion of atheist chaplains is absurd, and, as attributed to PZ in a comment "No gods, no masters, no dogma, and no goddamned priests…not even atheist priests."

Let's start with some comments.

PZ identifies some of Epstein's complaints.

Other organizations, like SSA, are "loose knit." PZ rightly questions why that is necessarily a bad thing. There's absolutely nothing wrong with a loose knit organization, so long as it's functional.
The SSA apparently has no official format for minutes of meetings. Again, so what, so long as the organization gets things done? The question here revolves around the purpose of keeping standardized minutes. If that purpose serves the overall goals of the organization, then there should be a standardized format. Otherwise, it's absolutely unnecessarily (and probably harmful).
While some SSA events are noted as "service projects," Epstein identifies others as "atheist proms." This implies that service projects are more important than other events. The question is, again, why?
The SSA apparently retains no institutional memory, because, according to Epstein, "their membership turns over every four years." I will agree here that maintaining an institutional memory is important. As Santayana put it, those who do not know their history are doomed to repeat it. But the membership turning over every four years is a stretching the facts a bit too far. It may be true that most students will only spend four years in SSA, every senior student that graduates and leaves the Alliance can be replaced by a new freshman. With a little mentoring, a very significant continuity can be maintained.

PZ then argues that a "[m]aybe a 'carefully thought out infrastructure' would be exactly the thing to crush the spirit of the movement." This could very well be. But what if the infrastructure were malleable? What if it were fluid, emergent, and constantly evolving? Couldn't such an infrastructure allow the efficiencies that all organizations need without crushing the spirit of the movement?

There's many types of organizational structures. Why is that?

The flippant answer is: because we've not yet found the best structure. Ha ha. The problem is in defining "best" here, because what's best in one context isn't necessarily what's best in another. A richer answer is this: each organizational structure is based on certain assumptions regarding the context in which the structure is to be used. Different contexts will be best treated by different organizational structures.

One common feature of most organizational structures is that they implement a hierarchy of responsibility and control. The problem, as I see it, with these conventional structures is that power (i.e. responsibility and control) is attached to a position in the hierarchy rather than the people who occupy those positions. This enables the appointment or election of complete putzes to positions of significant power (think: George W. Bush).

If the humanist community is looking to do something new and meaningful, its members should attribute power where it best belongs: to individuals, not positions, based on the capabilities and expertise of those people.

PZ can advocate as strongly as he likes for no "masters," but masters do exist. Few would argue, for example, with Stephen Hawking's leadership role among cosmologists, or with Frank Gehry's leadership in architecture, or Jerry Coyne's leadership in evolutionary biology, Or Muhammad Yunus's leadership in social business, or.... You get the picture. A hierarchy does exist in science, in technology, and in the humanities. But this hierarchy is not fixed by articles of incorporation or statutes of law. This hierarchy is based on the merits of the individuals, and it changes - it evolves - in a very natural way that for the most part is driven by the work that individuals do.

Let's also consider the biomimetic notion that a well-functioning humanist community could be rather like an ecosystem, constituted of individuals that exist in a complex, fluid, and responsive structure - a structure that changes based on the needs of the moment.

So, while I'm with PZ that the rigid structure for which Epstein seems to advocate is very probably the worst structure that the humanist community could adopt, I can't exclude some other type of structure.

You'll note an underlying theme here; that an organizational structure is good when it is well-balanced with the environment in which the organization exists. Its constitution and how it manifests is secondary to the purposes it is intended to achieve for the organization's members. And since the environment changes, the structure must be able to respond and change with it.

So I still think that if the humanist community is to have a beneficial structure to it, it must be designed to achieve goals and to be responsive to environmental changes.

The first step in this process would be to identify and reach consensus on what those goals are. I don't know what they are. I have an idea of what I would think would be good goals, but I'm not right. I know I'm not right because I know that others will have different goals. We need to reach consensus on those goals before any resolution to the matter of organizational structure can be achieved.

One word of warning: it will likely be impossible to find a non-trivial set of goals that can be agreed to universally. I would therefore expect the generation of criteria by which good goals can be identified based on local needs. The goals of humanists living in the southern US states would likely be quite, though not entirely, different from the goals of Canadian humanists, or European humanists, or Japanese humanists. The structure should be able to accommodate that localization of goals; in so doing, it would not only accommodate geographic and cultural differences, but also differences over time.

I personally find this enterprise fascinating and exciting. It's a design problem - so I'm definitely "there" - but it's also a matter that I think could very dramatically improve the state of the world when we finally achieve it.

Harold Camping was wrong. Again.

2011-10-21T10:03:00.000-04:00

So, it's just past 10 am, 21 October 2011 in Toronto.

Harold Camping's third (or fourth, depending on how you count his attempts) prediction of the end of the world called for an apocalyptic wave travelling time zone by time zone around the Earth.

Well, it's already 22 October in parts of Australia, Russia, etc. They're still there. All of 'em. Everything is just fine.

Maybe Camping's god got stuck in traffic or something.

This apocalypse stuff is, quite frankly, getting stupid. How much money was wasted on Camping's stupid, childish bullshit? Not to mention the poor schmucks who blew their life savings supporting Camping's crap, like this guy?

I'm convinced that Harold Camping is a criminal. Specifically, I think he's guilty of fraud, which can be defined as "an intentional deception made for personal gain or to damage another individual." It's ridiculous to think that someone can calculate, based on an obviously inaccurate set of documents (the bible or whatever the fuck Camping used). It's certainly obvious now, after the fact, that he was wrong. It's ridiculous to think that his intent was pure and not deceitful, because if his intent was pure, then he's nuts and should be locked away. If he's not locked up (and he isn't), then he's not nuts, and therefore must be deceitful.

Given the huge amount of money spent promoting Camping's insane prediction ($100 million by some estimates), this is not just some petty fraud. This is massive. Indeed, even a christian has enumerated some of the things that could have been done with that much money.

Undergraduate students at my University pay something on the order of $7,000 a year in tuition. $100 million dollars would provide completely free education for over 3,500 students. I find that the education of 3,500 young people is superseded by the brain fart of some pathetic, ignorant shit-disturber like Harold Camping borders on a crime against humanity.

Here's a project for the atheist community world-wide: let's start pressuring governments to make failed predictions of the apocalypse criminal offences. Let's make sure that anyone stupid enough to try it gets to pay, in kind, for their abhorrent fear-mongering.

And let's all take a moment to tell Harold Camping to fuck off.

Structuring the humanist community. Or not.

2011-10-19T22:03:00.001-04:00

There was a bit of a fuss on twitter today (19 October) about the kind of organizational structure that the humanist community should have. Unfortunately I was teaching and so missed it, but I did catch a few of the later tweets. I'll pitch out a few thoughts of my own, coming from a design background.

The basic argument seemed to involve not so much what structure one should expect for a functional humanist community, but rather whether there should be a structure at all. This part of the discussion is well summarized by Leah Libresco. PZ Myers tweeted and blogged about it a lot. He was rather vocal, if I read him correctly, that no structure based on a hierarchy of positions that provide its holders with power is acceptable. This a-structural approach flies in the face, as PZ himself notes, of religious hierarchies, but also of pretty much every other social organization - government, business, NGOs,....

There's two thoughts that come to mind.

Thought #1.

This one is rather obvious. The real conversation is about institutionalizing positions in a hierarchy, and not whether any one person should "lead" any particular activity for any length of time. What I suggest is that PZ is right on this point - if the humanist community is to learn from the mistakes of the past, it should seek are structures that do not institutionalize power.

I think Leah may have one very good idea in her references to the scientific community, in that leadership in science is generally based on merit, which in turn is based on performance, and that the positions themselves are fluid, responding to the needs of the moment, rather than being fixed by fiat based on the intentions of some relatively arbitrary group of "founders." The structure needed, in this view, is not a structure of positions and power, but rather one of process. That is, what's needed here is a process structure that defines how issues are identified, how temporary/local leadership is allocated, how projects start and end to address those issues, and how to rank the merit of individuals based on their records. Such a system could be entirely fluid, yet support sufficient structure for any specific purpose to keep things organized.

My second thought is that some of the friction that occurred in the twitter discussion exists because there is an underlying, tacit disagreement on why a structure is needed.

This is where I get design-y. You don't design something if you don't know what it's for. Clearly, from the discussion - even just the teeny bit of it that I saw on twitter - it is evident to me that not enough discussion has been had about the purpose(s) an organizational structure would serve. Too many things have been designed without purpose (my favorite example is the Apple Lisa). Considering how much is at stake in defining any kind of structure for humanist communities, it rather behooves us to try to get it right the first time.

So I'd suggest that some effort should be expended to define, as crisply as possible, why some kind of structure is needed for humanist communities. There's ways to do this. I happen to know about those ways. And though I may regret doing this, I would be happy to help with such an exercise, if there's enough interest.

Final thought: I find this whole discussion very interesting in that it is, as far as I can tell, something new and suggestive of a positive change in the humanist/atheist community. Yay team!

Theists love ad hominem arguments

2011-10-09T19:44:00.002-04:00

So someone going by the name tarheeltroll on twitter posted this on 9 October:

"Atheists are overconfident narcissistic intellectuals who refuse to believe that anyone can be more omnipotent than them." (source)

I'm sure that there are some atheists that fit the description tarheeltroll proposes here. But that also describes a certain number of people in any category, anywhere.

What concerns me is that tarheeltroll is missing the whole point of the atheist stance generally. (This is not an uncommon argument raised by theists, so everything here applies not only to tarheeltroll, but to all other theists who use this kind of reasoning.) And that point is this: we defer to the evidence, which exists outside of us. If we have confidence in anything, it is that an objective universe exists, the operation of which we can understand. This is itself evident from what we see around us.

I suppose one could argue that nothing is real and that everything is just illusion. But if that's so then one who believes that may as well just do whatever the fuck one wants. This will likely land one quickly in an asylum, and that will be that.

No, the only reasonable thing to do is to assume that what we perceive is (roughly) how things are. From that assumption we build science, which lengthens our lives, increases its quality, and allows us to - in some tiny way - control the universe for our benefit (or harm). If we accept anything science has to say, then we have to accept all of it, based on the evidence provided, until such time as a better explanation presents itself.

The evidence points quite strongly to there being no god. If there were good evidence that some god or other existed, I'm quite sure it would be accepted. But the evidence is lacking, and so one must set aside theistic beliefs if one accepts at all the notion of an objective universe.

It is also quite sad to see people like tarheeltroll conflate the atheist stance with atheists. This is a very serious error in thinking. Just as too many people conflate science, the sciences, and scientists (something about which I've written elsewhen), so too is the conflation of atheism and atheists rife with fallacy. One does not discount mathematics because a mathematician made an error. Similarly, one does not discount scientific knowledge because a scientist made an error. To do so is a case of an ad hominem argument, which is by definition fallacious.

Regarding tarheeltroll, it doesn't matter what atheists are - it matters whether the atheist stance is better than the theist stance. I wish theists would at least come to understand that, if anything, about atheism.

Harold Camping's special kind of bullshit

2011-10-09T16:21:00.001-04:00

I've already written one open letter to the ridiculous Harold Camping. I repeat it here, because this guy is a particular kind of jack-ass that deserves the most vulgar and vile derision we can possibly heap upon him.

For those of you who don't know, Camping is the witless wonder who was surprised ("flabbergasted" was his word) when the world didn't start ending last May 21. He's rejigged his "calculations" and now he gets October 21 as the universal expiration date. Before his last deadline, I wrote the above-noted blog, offering Camping a deal, wherein basically I become his god's fuck-buddy if he's right, but if he's wrong he owes me everything he has in this world.

I'm not surprised he didn't reply. He probably didn't even find out about it.

But my hope springs eternal. And since we've got another few days, I can hope that this time someone brings my post to his attention and that he accepts my challenge.

However, I want to change the deal. If he's right, I still promise to be his god's fuck-buddy for eternity. This is a pretty strong deal for an atheist to make. In return, however, Camping can keep his worldly possessions. Instead, if I win the wager, Camping has to pucker up and kiss my bare atheist ass, on camera, which I will then post.

So, Camping, have you any balls at all? Or are you just a stupid coward like all the other doomsday sayers throughout history? I think you're a demented waste of life. Prove me wrong.

Response to an apologist

2011-09-21T01:12:00.001-04:00

I'm on LinkedIn, and occasionally participate in discussions that end up having to do with god and religion. I recently got into one that included, on the theist side, an assortment of horribly misinformed and rather malevolent characters. Of course there were also a number of very lucid posts - by atheists. The entire discussion is accessible online at http://lnkd.in/gVimSE.

Just now, a theistic apologist in that discussion asked me: "Filippo you talk of what they spread does that make what you say any more superior then them. You talk about others why do you show so much hatred to those you do not know. Just because you believe in what others do does not give you the right to belittle them. Why dies religious stuff bother you so much?"

Please ignore the typos - posts to these discussion fora are often typed in great haste; these fora are often considered much like emails, and so some typos are to be expected, even from the best writers.

I ended up writing a bit of a rant in response, and I was sufficiently pleased with it that I thought it was worth posting here. I'd've written more, but there's a limit on the size of posts. It's probably just as well, or I'd've written a hundred pages....

So here's my response (I've fixed no typos, just tweaked the formatting for legibility):

Fair question(s).

After decades of careful study, I was confronted with the inescapable truth that science is reliable and religion is not. Religion explains little and what it does try to explain, it explains wrongly. Without religion to support the god concept, there is no reason to believe in god. Without the belief in god, the history of god, its writing (e.g. the bible), and its practises in the past and today, hold no special place amongst human philosophies. Without that privilege, it is clear that religion (god is irrelevant at this point, having been dispatched a few sentences ago) has caused immeasurable pain, suffering, and death throughout it's sad history. It has held back technological and scientific progress; it has wasted horrendous amounts of money (consider all the money being spent by dip-shits like Perry, Bachmann, etc. that could have been used to fund cancer research, or malaria nets for Africa, or cheaper HIV/AIDS medications, or better education for American children....)

I cannot convince anyone that science is better than religion. It is something one must learn for oneself, by studying science. However, even though the means to study science exists in large supply (in the developed world, at least), there are those who are either unable (weak) or unwilling (malevolent) to correct their own errors by learning about science.

It takes relatively little thought (though more than neanderthals like Rauchenberg or Chantal can muster) to notice the benefits of science to modern humanity. Some argue that science has caused harm. Well, sometimes there have been mistakes. And religion gave us the Taliban, the Inquisition, the Crusades.... Mistakes on both sides. But can god extend the healthy years you have on this planet? No; science can. Can god cure you cancer? No; but science may (and it's getting better all the time). Can god help you see your grandchildren better? No; but science gave us eyeglasses and lazik surgery. Can god stop pneumonia from killing you? No; but science can. Can god bring peace to the world? Obviously not; science can't either, but it has shown us that we are really all one species, one community, one race. And that's a damned sight better than the hatred that religion causes between cultures who believe in different fairy tale gods.

Because there are such morons that use religion to segregate, discriminate, cause suffering and death - and this includes the catholic church, not just nutjobs like Rauchenberg and Chantal - I not only refuse to admit their lies and harm into my life, I refuse to admit them into the lives of others - insofar as I can do that without violating another's rights.

The hate I feel is directed at people who would willfully and purposefully harm others because they think they're better than those others for no reason other than some fairy tales. That's a good use of hate. The hate I feel for them is because of the hate they feel to others. Chantal is a great example. Classless hypocrite that she is, will in one sentence say "God bless" to me, and on the other call me all kinds of demeaning names. Well, fuck her. Rauchenberg does the same thing - with slightly better language skills, but still remains utterly irrational. Fuck him too.

Do I have the "right" to belittle them? Yes! Would you belittle Hitler? Well, Pius XII didn't lift a finger to help the Jews escape the holocaust. Just as so many others who are condemned as nazi sympathizers. Fuck Pius too.

It's a simple case of every action having a consequence. Someone wants to spew filth? Fine. I respond.

It is not a matter of "superior" versus "inferior." It is a matter of correct and incorrect, of truth versus falsehood.

You wrote: "Why dies religious stuff bother you so much?"

As my students would say: "Freud much?" (Terrible construction, but highly efficient.)

I trust this addresses the question of why religion bothers me.

Young earth creationism: reductio ad absurdum

2011-09-06T21:09:00.000-04:00

I've come up with yet another reductio ad absurdum argument against young earth creationism. At least, it's new as far as I know. I welcome references to existent instances of this argument, as well as corrections and suggestions to improve it.

Here's the argument.

Creationists say the earth is as old as the bible says it is: about 6,000-10,000 years. (We'll say 10,000 for our purposes here.)
There are things on this earth, both natural and artificial, that are much older than 10,000 years.
If both (1) and (2) are true, as creationists tend to admit, then god must have made the earth with things in/on it that appear older than they actually are. That is, god made the earth 10,000 years ago, with hundred-million-year-old fossils on it.
If (3) is true, then we cannot trust our senses, so there's no way to know anything external to one's minds.
The bible and god are things external to one's mind.
Therefore, there is no reason to believe the bible and god, as both these are entities external to our own minds.
Thus, starting with a creationist belief in god and in the bible, we can argue to the conclusion that we cannot believe in god and the bible.

QED

Step (2) deserves a little attention. One might argue that the dating methods of scientists are wrong, and that things are actually younger than they seem. If this were the case, then either (a) geologic history must be compressed to fit a 10,000 year period, or (b) the dating methods are so utterly flawed that there's no connection at all between their results and the actual ages of things.

Neither of these options makes sense. If the first is true, then ancient events would have actually occurred during our lifetimes - which they didn't, or we'd have observed them. If the second is true, then we cannot trust any observations at all, which means we cannot believe anything we perceive, including the bible and god - essentially the same as step (3). This is in form the same argument as in step (4), which I discuss next.

So this means that the only reasonable interpretation a creationist can make is that the earth is young and has very old things on it.

The guts of the argument are in step (4). Step (3) tells us that our direct and indirect observations cannot be trusted, regardless of how solid that observation may be. For instance, we cannot trust radioactive carbon dating, which is calibrated to work well to as far as 50,000 years into the past. Likewise with other radiometric dating techniques that are used to date older things, like the earth itself. We cannot trust archeology either, nor any of their discoveries. Nor can we trust evolutionary biology.

Now, if there were a source of information that clearly indicated which observations we could trust and which we couldn't, we might be able to investigate this further. But there's nothing in the bible, nor in any other scripture, nor in any other document of roughly the same age, that indicates the fossil record and related scientific knowledge was demonstrably wrong back in the time when the bible was new. That is, no one in biblical times knew about fossils and ruins, and we have no way at all of knowing which of our perceptions and observations are right and which are wrong.

Indeed, using this reasoning, god may have created the universe just this morning, and everything else you think you remember from the past was just part of his divine plan that he built into the universe.

Now, some fundamentalists advise us that they can be trusted to guide our decisions on what observations are and aren't correct, but they cannot decide amongst themselves who of them is to be trusted, nor do they propose any justification to make even a moderate skeptic accept their claims. I think that a reasonable claim would be, for instance, correctly predicting events based on godly/creationist principles such that their record indicated statistical significance. Unfortunately, it seems that their record at predicting things is wrong, and wrong in a very statistically significant way.

So, without the means to determine which, if any, of our observations are correct - and no such means is forthcoming - there is no choice but to believe none of them.

Step (5) is also important in that it identifies the bible and god as entities that are external to the human mind and thus within the realm of perception. It's obvious that the bible is external to our minds. Children, for instance, have no idea what the bible is because it's a book. It is clearly external to their minds - to everyone's minds.

Superficially, it's somewhat trickier to deal with the notion that god is external to our minds. After all, if god is really god, and it created everything, then it rather makes sense that we'd all have some built-in sense of god.

But this isn't so. For one thing, there are many people on this earth who have never even heard of any god, let alone the christian god of these foolish creationists. For another thing, if god exists, and existed before we did, then it must be external to us. And finally, there are many of us who, having heard all about god, find nothing within us that seems of god. All these things together indicate clearly that god, if it exists, must be external to our minds.

Overall, I think this argument is pretty reasonable. What do you think?

Atheists need to change their approach

2011-08-13T22:48:00.000-04:00

[Originally posted 23 May 2011]

Religious zealots target the weak, the ignorant, and stupid with their arguments. Atheists don’t. This is our mistake. To combat the scourge of religion, we need to communicate in ways that even the weak, ignorant, and stupid will understand and believe.

A great example of this is Jerry Coyne’s post rebuking Anthony DeStefano’s piece in USA Today describing atheism as a superstition. DeStefano is both conniving and factually incorrect. Here’s a couple of examples:

Example 1. DeStefano claims that atheism is based on the philosophy of materialism, which holds that only the physical world exists. This is not true. There are all kinds of atheists, including those that do not believe in god but do believe in other, non-physical entities. This is a scurrilous attempt to paint all atheists with the same brush. He also chose a term – materialism – that is rife with connotations disconnected from its philosophical sense that are also generally frowned upon in society. This was clearly intended to associate those pejorative notions of materialism with atheism. He’s also undermining science by trying to insist that the immaterial is at least as important as the material. And that’s a special kind of bullshit that deserves particular ridicule. DeStefano could have used physicalism or positivism to describe atheists and been closer to the mark. But that wouldn’t have served his purpose of proselytizing for the fairy-tales of religion.

Even more fundamentally, DeStefano is wrong, because atheism is not about reducing everything to “materialistic” terms, it’s about working only with the things we can directly perceive. Atheism isn’t about denying the existence of things we cannot or don’t yet perceive; it’s about seeking to explain them meaningfully. Religion and god cannot explain things meaningfully.

Example 2. DeStefano claims that “our thoughts, our emotions, our hopes, our ambitions, our passions, our memories, our philosophies, our politics, our beliefs in God and salvation and damnation” cannot possibly be the result of a purely “materialistic” perspective. This is just factually wrong. It is evident to anyone who knows of the literature of brain research, psychology, cognitive science and related fields, that these things are precisely the result of the operation of our brains.

Note the circularity of this argument. Belief in god requires non-materialism, only if we already started with a non-materialist view that admits god. Circular arguments are for morons.

Zealots will quickly point to various shortcomings in our current understanding of how the mind works, and use those to argue that there are things science cannot understand. Unfortunately, to make that work, one must assume that we cannot learn more about the mind than we already know, which flies in the face of everything that happens in brain science every single day. Consider:

If it weren’t for science, diseases like schizophrenia would still be regarded as demonic possession.
If it weren’t for science, the average lifespan of a human would be 40 years, not 80.
If it weren’t for the science, we would not know how to preserve ancient artifacts and thus would have lost most of our own history to war and other conflicts – conflicts often based on religious disagreements.
If it weren’t for science, DeStefano wouldn’t have a technological forum like USA Today from which to spew his intellectual filth.
If it weren’t for science, we would have no reason to believe that the different human “races” are really all the same.
If it weren’t for science, we wouldn’t know that visions God can be easily induced by electromagnetic brain stimulation or hallucinogenic drugs.

I could go on, but you get the point. Science is in many ways a revolution against superstition and religion. And science has done pretty well for itself.

But, unfortunately, all this doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter how rigorous the atheists are in their arguments; it doesn’t matter how many times we tell the zealots “We told you so!” and it doesn’t matter how many times science overturns religious beliefs about the universe. The zealots will always have the upper hand in the long run because their arguments are not addressed to atheists. The targets of the zealots’ arguments are those who are too weak, too ignorant, or too stupid to think for themselves.

Religion is a drug, developed to stun people into automaton-like states. Religion feeds the basic insecurities of people. The meek shall inherit the Earth. Turn the other cheek. Obey your holy men because they have god on speed-dial and you don’t. It doesn’t matter how ugly or unsuccessful you are, you will be beautiful and have only joy in heaven. You don’t need aspirations now; just do God’s work and he’ll give you an eternity of bliss later. And you’ll never have to deal with “bad” people in heaven.

While I personally find this all utterly repugnant, I can also see how some – perhaps most – people could become addicted to the drug of religion.

The atheists, on the other hand, come up with robust, reasoned arguments based on solid evidence and verifiable logic. This does not appeal to the weak, the ignorant, and the stupid. Most of them can’t even understand the atheists’ arguments. They don’t understand that the feeling in the pit of their stomach that screams “There Must Be More!” is just the instinct of survival. But they do “get” the rants of the zealots because they appeal to their own insecurities, fears, and oversimplified, parochial views of the universe.

And there’s always plenty of people who are weak, ignorant, or stupid.

Until atheists realize this and start pitching atheism as the natural way for people to be and address the concerns of the weak, the ignorant, and the stupid, atheism will never overcome the duplicitous powermongering of the zealots.

Because that is, in the end, the purpose of religion – to keep a population controlled. The best way to do that is to weaken them, to praise stupidity, and to encourage ignorance.

Yet another attempt to undermine science with rotten logic

2011-08-13T22:05:00.002-04:00

[Originally posted 23 May 2011]

I’ve written before about the difference between science, the sciences, and scientists. These kind of differences are essential to make if you want your arguments make sense. Confusing science and scientists is like confusing biology and a medical doctor – it’s stupid. Making these kinds of mistakes ends up letting one prove things like 1 = 2 and that the moon is made of blue cheese and that murder is perfectly acceptable.

Here’s an example. In a recent post, Jerry Coyne quotes Jackson Lears as the latter tries – and fails miserably – to dissemble the work of Sam Harris. Lears wrote: “To define science as the source of absolute truth, Harris must first ignore the messy realities of power in the world of Big Science.”

No, Mr. Lears, you are wrong. Science is what it is, regardless of how poorly humans may undertake it. Science is a process of iteratively improving one’s understanding of things by making observations, developing predictive theories that explain those observations, and then making more observations to either verify or falsify those theories. Every single human on earth uses this basic approach to learn. We use it to learn how to ride a bicycle, how to find the fastest route home from work, how to negotiate social situations, and how to play poker. Even Jackson Lears uses science.

Science is what it is.

Scientists, on the other hand, are fallible human beings. Scientists make mistakes. But that’s not bad, because we only learn from our mistakes. And that’s why replication of experiments is so fundamental to science: it weeds out the mistakes. Science is, overall, self-correcting, because scientists, more than anyone else, know they make mistakes.

So here comes Jackson Lears, a professor of history for crying out loud, telling us that science cannot be trusted because scientists make mistakes. Wow. Does that mean penicillin is bad medicine because doctors can make mistakes? Is mathematics wrong because a mathematician makes a mistake? Of course not. This kind of ridiculous reasoning is the type you expect from freshmen who party too much.

Jackson Lears is a fountain of childish prattle. He is categorically, utterly, and totally wrong.

An Open Letter to Harold Camping

2011-08-13T12:17:00.001-04:00

[Originally published 19 May 2011]

Dear Mr. Camping,

It has come to my attention that you and your fellow freaks of nature have been peddling the notion that the world will end this Saturday, May 21st. Even though your attempts to justify your claim are laughable, I find that simply laughing at you and calling you obscene names – enjoyable though that is – just isn’t enough.

So, Harold Camping, I dare you to put your money where your mouth is.

If the world really does end according to your prediction, then I will:

publicly endorse you as a messiah,
accept the one true God as my personal God, and
willingly commit my soul to Hell for all eternity, to make room for one more in Heaven.

For an anti-theist like me, I hope you’ll agree that that’s a major commitment.

If, on the other hand, the world just keeps on running, then you owe me everything you have. Everything. Every dollar, every car, every stick of furniture, every candy bar in your pantry, every bible you have will belong to me.

That’s the dare. Are you sufficiently committed to your beliefs to take it?

Or are you just another coward, like all the other losers in your sad and pathetic cult?