Science vs. Faith...Again

I've previously written about whether science and faith can be reconciled - they can't. But, today in the HuffPo, I find someone trying to argue that only good Xians accept evolution.

What?

Apart from the obvious problems of reconciling the Bible with a naturalistic account of the origin of the universe and then subsequently with the origin of species...

Wait, what?

Apparently Mr. Dudley's claim is that Xianity has always embraced science, so standing in the way of science now is un-Xian.

In theory, if not always in practice, past Christian theologians valued science out of the belief that God created the world scientists study. Augustine castigated those who made the Bible teach bad science, John Calvin argued that Genesis reflects a commoner's view of the physical world, and the Belgic confession likened scripture and nature to two books written by the same author.

This, of course, only tells half the story. Sure, Xians have always embraced science, so long as they were in control of what it said and they could easily fit it into their pre-conceived notions of how the world was supposed to work. IOW, as long as they could control the content so that it only said what they wanted, they were all for it. Look at what happened the moment scientists started to speak out and show that long-held "truths" of the church were not actually true. Galileo anyone? And, that's just one example. A more modern example is the creationist movement that attempts to hijack science classrooms and force their beliefs down everyone's throats.

But, even when Xians were supposedly supportive of science, they really were not. They were attempting to force the facts to fit their pre-determined conclusions. It was anti-scientific from the get-go. That is because science in its essence is the eschewing of faith, while religion relies on faith.

Not that everything Dudley says is bad:

Because no amount of talk about "worldviews" and "presuppositions" can change a simple fact: creationism has failed to provide an alternative explanation for the vast majority of evidence explained by evolution.

It has failed to explain why birds still carry genes to make teeth, whales to make legs, and humans to make tails.

It has failed to explain why the fossil record proposed by modern scientists can be used to make precise and accurate predictions about the location of transition fossils.

It has failed to explain why the fossil record demonstrates a precise order, with simple organisms in the deepest rocks and more complex ones toward the surface.

It has failed to explain why today's animals live in the same geographical area as fossils of similar species.

It has failed to explain why, if carnivorous dinosaurs lived at the same time as modern animals, we don't find the fossils of modern animals in the stomachs of fossilized dinosaurs.

It has failed to explain the broken genes that litter the DNA of humans and apes but are functional in lower vertebrates.

It has failed to explain how the genetic diversity we observe among humans could have arisen in a few thousand years from two biological ancestors.

Yes, exactly. Evolution explains the data, creationism is sadly lacking. But, then he goes back to claiming that it's un-Xian, and even says that those who reject the data ought to rip pages out of their Bibles:

Those who believe God created the world scientists study, even while ignoring most of the data compiled by those who study it, might as well rip dozens of pages out of their Bibles. Because if "nature is as truly a revelation of God as the Bible," it's basically the same thing.

The only way to "reconcile" the Bible with the natural world is to ignore the data. It's not the creationists that should be ripping out pages, it's Dudley. He's engaging in post-hoc rationalizations in order to shoehorn his Bible into the scientific knowledge of the day and greatly distorting it in the process - it would be better for him to simply jettison the superstitious mythology known as Xianity. It would be great if he were correct and we could maybe convince Xians to stop ignoring the scientific data and even actively fighting against it, but it wouldn't be true.

Respect

Must we respect people's religious beliefs?

We often hear theists complain that atheists don't properly respect their beliefs, that we don't give them the proper deference. Because the theist holds deep beliefs, about serious, religious stuff dealing with the nature of the supernatural, these beliefs are to be held sacrosanct, by all. One is not allowed to question those beliefs, or else one is intolerant. One must simply accept those beliefs as valid and rational and act as if those beliefs are very important and worthy ones to have. (The theist, of course, is under no obligation to reciprocate or treat theists of other religions with the same deference.)

Well, sorry but "Homey don't play that." People should be respected. Rights should be respected. People have the right to believe as they do and I respect that (just don't try to foist it on me or complain if I also speak out). Beliefs themselves, however, are not automatically worthy of respect. Beliefs must be rational and defensible before they are worthy of respect. A belief in magic crystals is not worthy of respect when (because) there is no accompanying evidence for it. Same goes for a belief that one is physically eating the flesh of her god when taking communion. If a theist wants their beliefs to be respected, then that theist should present respectable beliefs. I am, however, under no obligation, morally or in terms of rights, to treat all beliefs as if they are worthy of respect.

In fact, I would go further than that. I am under an obligation to speak out when one presents beliefs that are irrational, unsupported, and are detrimental to society. This is why I speak out against religion.

Do you Have Enough Faith?

Many apologetics have sprung up to explain away the passages in the Bible that declare that those who pray will get what they ask for - in light of the fact that this seems to not be demonstrably true. In a previous post I give the passages in question and I took on the apologetic excuse that god only answers prayers that are concurrent with his will. There are other excuses though, and one commenter continually decided to try and harp on one (even though I explicitly stated that the OP was about a different argument). I've also previously argued against other apologetics, like the argument that prayers are answered, but on god's timeline and that Jesus was only empowering the specific people he spoke to (although the latter one does not deal with this verse specifically, it's good enough for the purpose of dispelling any notions that the issue has been dealt with).

Never-the-less, I decided that perhaps I should deal with the others. So, this post will focus on the apologetic tactic of trying to interpret the phrase, "If ye have faith." This argument from the apologist focuses on the conditional phrase that is uttered in Matthew 21:21

Matthew 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. 22:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

So, the obvious tactic here is to claim that Jesus was not incorrect, and that those prayers that are not answered are coming from people who don't have faith - which is generally interpreted to be not having enough faith or not having the right kind of faith. How convenient - and how very post hoc. This allows the Xian to claim after the fact that an "answered" prayer fit the description and a "non-answered" prayer did not. It's the same as painting a bulls-eye around an arrow that has already been shot.

Yet, it still falls apart under investigation, as no Xians claim to have 100% success rate for prayer (that I know of at least). If any do claim this, then we only need to have them pray for something immediate (like the regrowth of an amputated arm for instance) to test and see if this person can validate their success rate claim. Invariably it will fail.

Also, this is nothing more than the no true Scotsman fallacy, writ large. I can imagine someone saying, "True Xians have their prayers answered, so if a prayer is not answered, then the Xian in question is not a true Xian." It's fallacious though, no matter how you slice it. Once again, we see apologetics that fail to answer the objections brought forth.

Prayer vs. god's Will

The Bible claims in a few places that whatever one prays for, god will answer that prayer. For example:

Matthew 21:21 Jesus answered and said unto them, Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do this which is done to the fig tree, but also if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou removed, and be thou cast into the sea; it shall be done. 22:22 And all things, whatsoever ye shall ask in prayer, believing, ye shall receive.

Or maybe this one (although one could argue that it's specifically talking about asking for god to show himself, but that's a bad argument to make since it's demonstrably not true):

Luke 11:9 “So I say to you, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be opened to you. 10 For everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it will be opened. 11 If a son asks for bread[d] from any father among you, will he give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will he give him a serpent instead of a fish? 12 Or if he asks for an egg, will he offer him a scorpion? 13 If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him!”

Or maybe this one does it for you:

Matthew 17:20 And Jesus said unto them, Because of your unbelief: for verily I say unto you, If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you.

For the Xian, these passages are troublesome for the obvious reason that prayer is rather ineffective. It is obviously not true that whatever one asks for, one receives. So, they have to conjure up reasons for why this is not so. I want to focus on one of those reasons, which is the idea that god only does what is according to his will, so the prayer must be in accord with god's will for it to be carried out.

And, in response to that, I have to say that it's a rather spectacularly bad argument.

First, the text does not give mention that what one prays for must be in accordance with god's will. Secondly, having to pray for things that god is going to do anyway completely negates the idea that prayer does anything at all. If the apologist is right, then prayer is completely ineffective, since one must first ask for something that was going to happen anyway, since it was part of god's will. The prayer has no effect since everything that happens was always a part of god's will or it wasn't. So, in trying to save the efficacy of prayer, the apologist has thrown it out the window and hoped that no one would notice. But, drastic measures must be taken when your beliefs do not agree with reality I suppose.

Hypocrisy

A new study shows that the more religious one is, the more likely one is to seek (aggressive) treatment in order to stay alive.

I find this to be rather hypocritical and logically inconsistent. For those that are so faithful, shouldn't they be confident that they are moving on to a better place? Yet, they scrap and fight as hard as they can in order to keep themselves from going to heaven. IMO, this represents what religion is all about. They are fearful. They are afraid of death, and even the stories they invent to help placate some of that fear are not enough. They fear death so much that they cling to these stories while not truly believing in them. If they really believed that which they profess, they would welcome the chance to go to heaven and be with their god.

(HT: Pharyngula)

PS: If you click on the picture, you can see what the text says.

Can You Feel the Supernatural?

How many times have theists claimed that they can sense god? Apart from the obvious problems that come with this, one that is not very often discussed is what if they actually are sensing something supernatural?

So, let's say that something supernatural is talking to people, how do they know which supernatural entity it is? Many Xians believe that Satan is a supernatural being that tricks people in order to damn their souls. Most Xians, however, would claim that they know how to tell Satan apart from god, but I find this claim to be highly suspect. If Satan does have supernatural powers, how would one know that Satan can not accurately represent god enough to fool the believer? Perhaps Satan is leading all Xians away from the one true god, who happens to be Thor or Allah or any other god. Yet, these Xians in their smug, self-righteousness never even consider that they might be wrong about their interpretations of who or what is speaking to them.

Reconciliation? (Part Three)

Now that I've dealt with Giberson's questions, I want to turn to the question that started it all - can we reconcile science and faith?

In a word, no.

Science is the process of setting aside preconceptions and assumptions and getting to the actual data and evidence to figure out the world.

Faith is the process of holding onto preconceptions and assumptions against all evidence to cling to made up stories about the world.

Science deals with empirical data.

Faith is purely made up.

Science is about rationally studying the world.

Faith is about abandoning reason.

Science is a way of actually knowing something about the world, and it actually works.

Faith is purported to be a way of knowing about the world, but has yet to show any success.

I don't see any way to reconcile what looks, to me, like completely disparate things.

Do You Have Faith in Science?

Some apologists try to set up a situation where they claim that atheists "have faith" in science, and then they wonder why that is any better than their faith in god. Both are unfounded beliefs, they claim. Problem is that they are making a very bad argument.

To say that one "has faith" in science is to misstate things a bit. Sure, we don't know for a fact that objects that are dropped will fall towards the Earth the next time we do it, so one could conceivably claim that one has to have faith that the findings of science will continue to hold true. But, it's not really a faith position, is it, since it is a tentative conclusion based on real data and empirical results. If one could call that faith, it is certainly justifiable due to the nature of science. To call religious faith justifiable or quibble over whether it truly is faith, however, is a long shot at best. Religion can not rely on the type and breadth of evidence that science brings to the table. Religion can not rely on its results the way science can. In short, to try to equate scientific "faith" to religious faith is to seriously understate one while overstating the other. It's just bad, sloppy, and or dishonest apologetics...but we're used to that, right?

Faith

Do we need faith? There are those, theists and non-theists alike who claim that we do. They claim that people need to believe in something; need to have hope in something. Some claim that people can't be good without big brother watching over their shoulder (ironically, many Xians also claim that we can't be good even with god watching over our shoulders!) I find all of these ideas to be condescending, however, and part of the larger problem that religion instills in us - that we should consider ourselves to be unworthy, lowly creatures, worthy of only disdain and scorn and eternal hellfire.

Do we really need some god looking over us to be good people? I don't think so. But, when we are conditioned from an early age to think that we are evil, sinners is it any surprise when people act that way? Yes, some people act badly, but do they do it because they think god isn't watching or because they don't believe in god? No. They do it in spite of the existence or non-existence of god. Similarly, most people do good not because they are constantly calculating what god wants, but because they have values instilled in them from their upbringing and their culture and most importantly from their evolutionary history. Sure, some people perform good acts simply because they believe god is watching them and will reward them, but this actually makes their actions less moral in that they are only doing good to gain a reward.

Anyway, I'm curious to see what other people think. Do we need faith? Do we need to believe in something?

Irrationality

All you theists out there, take heed - your beliefs are irrational. I know, it's shocking. I mean, there are so many of you out there that think that you believe for perfectly good reasons, like how you think you've experienced god or how you think we can't exist without god and that you think you've logically gotten to this position. You say, "Hey, there's all these apologists out there telling me my faith is rational, there's philosophers, there's theologians, and they all say the same thing." Well, sorry to have to tell you this, but you can't get to god belief through logical or rational means.

All god belief comes from a breakdown in logic. If you arrive at god belief because of an anthropic argument, then you are guilty of begging the question and god of the gaps thinking. If you arrived through experience, then you are guilty of begging the question and special pleading. There is no logical path that leads to god belief.

Now, of course I fully expect someone to chime in with a cliched, "Well, that's YOUR opinion and only an opinion so I can simply ignore it," but I wonder if anyone who comes to make that statement can present a logical argument for god. So, how about it? Anyone got one?

God's House

If anyone is unaware of the current financial situation in our country, go read a newspaper before you continue.

With the sub-prime mortgage issue, one might think that perhaps god would help those Xians in need. Of course, that's not what is happening. In fact, it seems that god has told people to get into this mess. Yes, god will provide, especially if you take your hard-earned money and put it into the church instead of into paying your mortgage. Of course, we know what's really going on, and that is that snake-oil salesmen are fleecing people out of their money in order to perpetuate the Xian myth. (This isn't new of course as we can see from the televangelists' scandals over the last couple decades as well as other examples.)

Why do people keep falling for this stuff? A possible answer would be Xianity's disdain for knowledge, science, and education as well as reason and logic. Once you get people to eschew all of these things, it's rather easy to feed them lies about things to make them feel good and then part them with their money.

Infallibility

When Xians claim that they know that god exists and that they can not be swayed from this belief, because they are 100% certain that god exists, they are making a rather extraordinary claim. And, the claim I'm speaking of is not simply that god exists, but that they are incapable of being wrong about this claim. This is nothing less than a claim of infallibility, which is ironic considering that a central Xian tenet is that humans are fallible beings and only god is infallible.

"Wait," you say, "The theist has only claimed certainty in one aspect of the real world, not all aspects, hence the theist has not claimed infallibility." Even if the theist only claims knowledge in this very limited sense, it is still a claim that the theist can not be wrong, hence is infallible. But, that's not really what the theist is claiming is it? The theist is also claiming that their religious opinions (how they shape their views on god) are infallible, that their senses (how they view evidence) are infallible, etc. To claim certainty in any one area means that there must also be certainty in other areas, since our thoughts and views are interconnected with other thoughts and views we hold.

We can never be 100% sure of anything. We can be reasonably sure of things - to a degree that it is rational to hold the position that those things are true, but 100% certainty is never attainable. When the theist claims this ability, they are stepping beyond the bounds of what is rationally or reasonably possible.

How do you know?

Some Xians claim that god speaks to them or that they feel god's presence. OK, so how do you know that it is god's presence? In order to know that it is supernatural, that would require that one be able to eliminate all possible causes, both known and unknown - good luck with that.

But, let's say that some supernatural entity is talking to theists. How would a theist know that it is god talking to them and not some other entity? Many Xians believe in Satan and demons, and they automatically assume that anything that brings them closer to god is from god and anything that leads them away from god is due to Satan or his demons. This presumes that the theist knows and understands what leads to god, however. So, for Xians, what if Allah is the one true god? Then, demons might be leading you to Yahweh and they would be leading you away from the one true god and towards your eternal torment. How would one know?

There are, of course, other problems, like why god would allow demons to lead humans (that he supposedly loves) to their destruction, and the inherent confirmation bias of having one's personal views confirmed automatically leading to god, as well as the count the hits and ignore the misses inherent in such an exercise. In short, claims about hearing specific gods, etc., are patently absurd and useless.

Knowing?

I recently asked a theist how he knows his beliefs are true. I kid you not, the answer I got was, "Because I have faith." Are you kidding me? For any theists reading this, faith does not equal knowledge. Simply because you believe that your mythology is true doesn't make it so, even if you really, really, really believe in it. Having faith in something that lacks evidence does not mean that your beliefs somehow counteract that lack of evidence and make it true. If this were the case - if god existed because people believe in him - then there wouldn't be just one god but one god per theist, as I'm sure no two theists have the exact same conceptions of god.