IDoNotGetIt

I just read this article on foxnews.com. Texas Teen Basketball Player Dies During Tourney

Here is a quote from that article.

“Robert was a great, great human being,” Escobar told The Monitor. “I’m very, very sad. The Lord asked for an angel to come to Him today. He took care of his body. He ate all the right things. I don’t know how else to explain it.”

Then don’t explain it! Most likely it was caused by an undiagnosed preexisting condition but this repulsive person admits that he doesn’t know what he is talking about immediately following his idiotic explanation for why it happened.

Read this and tell me what is wrong with it: “I do not have an explanation for what caused this event, so let me offer this explanation for what caused this event” As far as reasoning goes, it’s a logical fallacy called Argument from Ignorance. When put that way, isn’t it clearly nonsense?

I’m paraphrasing this so I don’t have to post the whole paragraph. This is from a one star review of Carl Sagan’s Demon Haunted World on Amazon. The commenter was trying to make the point that Sagan puts forth invalid comparisons and gives this as an example.

“The story about Mary appearing in Lourdes, France is based solely on faith, whereas the tabloid headline about NASA hearing voices in space is based on nothing.”

It’s just so damn sad that he doesn’t realize that faith is the same as nothing!

I had an interesting conversation in my office today. It began when my office mate told another co-worker (I’ll call him Don) that he “don’t believe shit ‘till I see it”. At that point, yet another co-worker (I’ll call him Eric) entered the conversation and said “you have to believe some things without seeing it”. At that point, I couldn’t resist jumping in and said “Of course you don’t. You should never believe anything without reason.” To this Eric said “Is the earth round or flat”? You can imagine where this went; he assumes that we accept that the world is a spheroid on faith rather than good reason. I explained that you can easily prove that the earth isn’t a flat surface by simple measurements and math and humans have known this for thousands of years now (i.e. it isn’t necessary to go into space and actually look at the planet). His reply was “where does math come from”? Presumably we accept math on faith. As I was trying to contain my exasperation, Don, who I’ve had arguments and discussions with previously, was trying to discourage Eric from continuing this particular argument. He said, in reference to me “He lives for this kind of argument, he just likes to argue”. I later talked to Don in his office and explained why this question makes no sense, because math, being an abstract concept, didn’t come from anywhere. It is a fundamental consequence of the universe. It isn’t faith that leads us to accept math as real. To deny math is to deny objective reality.

It is true that I enjoy a good argument, however, not just for the sake of arguing. In fact, when I’m arguing with someone and realize that the argument isn’t going anywhere and I can’t think of anything to get it back on track, I usually get disinterested and find a way to end it. The real reason I enjoy a good argument is because it gives me a chance to either learn something new or to correct some misinformation that another person believes or is spreading. Later, when I talked to Don about math as an abstract concept, that discussion is the reason I like to argue. Those earlier arguments lead to an opportunity to teach someone something awesome about reality. Whether I’m learning or teaching, that is why I enjoy a good argument.

The first lie I intend to expose is definitely a favorite.  Theist who try to live by rules and information from a book that is millennia old are, inevitably, going to run into conflicts as our understanding grows beyond what the men who wrote said book knew.  However, many religious folks have taken the approach of “if you can’t beat them, join them” or more accurately, make them join you.  They have decided that since they can’t beat science, they should just try to make science look like it is just any old ideology, no better than the one that they are trying to propagate.

This lie takes on many forms but goes something like this: “Science is just a religion” or “Science requires just as much (or more) faith as my religion”.

This is just another way in which people dilute the meaning of words so that they become meaningless.  I’ve talked to people who tried to use this argument on me before and my question to them is always “can you define faith”.  My definition of faith is pretty simple, accepting a claim as true without evidence or in the face of contradictory evidence.  This is also the definition of faith that EVERY Christian I have ever had the displeasure of talking to uses by the end of their argument when they have lost on every other front.  The dreaded “Well, you’ve just got to have faith”, i.e. “I don’t have a good reason, I just want to believe it”.  Yes, I’m ashamed to say that I’ve used it myself many times when I was a Christian.  But every time I’ve had this particular argument with a Christian, they define faith differently.  They have to in order to make science fit the definition of faith because in reality, science is the antithesis of faith.

Lets compare and contrast science and religion a little bit.

Some religious person makes a claim about God. A religious leader is consulted (i.e. the Pope or some other church leader).  The church leader declares the claim as true or false and everyone is expected to accept unquestioningly this ruling.

Vs.

Some scientist makes a claim about some aspect of the observable universe.  This claim is expected, by the scientific community, to be laid out with evidence and the procedures used to evaluate the evidence.  Other scientist review and replicate the experiment and results.  If the experiments are replicable and a through review by the scientific community confirms the findings, the claim becomes accepted science.  But that is not the end.  Later, new information may require revisiting the original claim to make modifications.  It never becomes unquestionable.

Science is not a faith and science is not a religion.  Science is the method that we use to understand the reality that we exist in.  Even religious people use it in every other aspect of their life.  It isn’t simply faith that lets you know that you still have to stop when the light is red or that the sun will rise in the morning.  That is science.  Religious people don’t use faith to decide whether or not to loan money to a stranger.  They use credit reports.  That is science.  In every other aspect of life, even religious people will differ to science over faith.  That alone should be enough to tell you that there must be something to this science stuff, maybe it has more to offer me than faith.  But that is only true if you prefer reality to fantasy.

I got in a rather heated debate the other day that made me want to write a post about opinions.  We were talking about a certain political figure in this state (South Carolina) who decided to take an interesting vacation out of the country.  Anyway, he was giving his opinion about what happened and I was thinking “this is totally out of line with the evidence that we have so far which actually indicates the opposite of what he is saying”.  So I said “hold on, you’re wrong” and then proceeded to give my opinion and state the facts that I based it on.  Well, he went completely off the handle, essentially telling me that I had no right to tell him that he was wrong because he was just stating his opinion.

When did opinion come to mean the same thing as “I’m just sayin”?  Tagging something as opinion doesn’t release one from responsibility.  As I told him at the time, I believe he was simply under the mistaken impression that by telling him that he is wrong, I was categorically stating that I am right.  Considering how he started calling me a know-it-all, I’m pretty sure that that is the problem.  This is a common problem with people who “don’t like to argue”.  I pointed out that it is possible that we are both wrong but his analysis does not add up to the evidence available and that is all I mean by saying “you’re wrong”.

But I’ve noticed often how people think that prefacing their comments with “opinion” makes them immune to challenge.  It doesn’t.  And your opinion can still be wrong if your facts are wrong/incomplete or you have misinterpreted the facts. 

This is probably elementary school’s fault.  I recall learning the difference between fact and opinion and we were taught that opinions were things like “blue is a pretty color”.  Since “pretty” is completely subjective, that statement can’t really be wrong.  However, the opinions we were expressing were not this subjective.  They were based on, though incomplete and unverified evidence, evidence none the less which means it is possible to be WRONG.

A recent argument had me defending assumptions in science.  It’s one of those interesting things how theist will defend their untenable position by attempting to show that your position is also untenable.

Sure science makes assumptions.  We don’t have any eye witnesses from 65 million years ago so when we find dinosaur fossils, we have to make some assumptions about it.  To me, there is a very clear distinction between these assumptions and the assumptions that a Christian must make. 

For instance, we assume that the bones were connected together and covered with muscle and skin.  On the other hand, a Christian assumes that Jesus had the magical power to walk on water.  Those two assumptions are incredibly different.  Every creature on this planet with bones, has muscle and skin covering them.  It is reasonable to assume that creatures in the past would have a similar design.  However, we have never witnessed a human being walk on water.  It’s not possible as far as we know.  So to assume that someone did it is an incredible leap that is unjustified and in no way comparable to the assumptions that science makes.

The point is this, when science makes assumptions, those assumptions are based on what we already know.  Religions like Christianity make assumptions that are completely unfounded and sometimes, even, beyond our ability to verify.

In my last post, I mentioned the theist propensity to make up things and present them as truth.  I suggested that they probably don’t realize that they are lying but perhaps they do and just don’t care.  Today I got involved in a discussion that began with “absolute truth” but, as conversations with theist’s invariably do, rapidly jumped from one subject to another without actually coming to any meaningful consensus.  However, I did want to talk about this part of the absolute truth discussion that, honestly, the more I think about it the scarier it seems.

Not surprisingly, “white lies” were introduced as an example of something that is mostly wrong but not (in my opinion) necessarily wrong.  One of the theist stated that lying is always wrong, there is no such thing as a “white lie”.  Lying is wrong regardless of the intent.  But he admitted (as any reasonable person would) that he does it.  I said to him that that makes him a pretty corrupt person and he said “sure it does”.  He admitted that he was corrupt and began the patented Jesus saves crap.  It’s no wonder these people are so corrupt, they believe all will be well after they die.

I must have been a bad Christian because I never, consciously, did things like that.  When I started to actually think about what I was doing and believing, I rejected that crap.  I could never be that kind of hypocrite.  I don’t think it is wrong to tell a lie if it will abate hurt feelings or is for the greater good.  And being that my belief is perfectly inline with general human behavior, I consider that to be objective evidence that my belief is based on fact and therefore, correct.  My beliefs are inline with reality.  His premise that lies are always wrong is antithetical to reality.  An adult person who was 100% truthful would be intolerable to pretty much anyone else.  If it were true that is is always good to tell the truth, you’d expect the opposite.  Everyone should live this person.  And if it would actually make people feel worse to be perpetually truthful, what is the rational for saying that it is “good”?

So far, we’ve got:

1. Realization that the bible is 100% man made crap.
2. Realization that I can’t force myself to believe something that I know isn’t true.
3. Realization that Heaven/Hell are merely emotional terrorism designed to entice/scare me.
4. Realization that rationalization is a critical ingredient for sustaining faith.

I heard someone say yesterday that no theist has ever been turned by hearing contradictions in the bible and my first thought was “I was.”  But then I thought about these series of post and remembered that is was actually much more complicated than that.

Rather than having one realization or “thing” be the “most important” factor in my loss of faith, I had a change in attitude.  Although, I have always cared about whether or not my beliefs are true, I realized that, that attitude was so important that nothing was above it.  I began to care about whether or not the things I thought I knew where, in fact, justified.  In short, “faith” had to go.  Relieving oneself of unfounded beliefs is the first step of a journey that is filled with amazing wonders that make religious experiences look tame in comparison.

Sometimes I still feel like a fool for being so credulous for so long.  How could I let a fear of the boogieman scare me into believing something so silly for 20+ years?  Freedom from this kind of fear is what you become immune to when you start to care.  And that is all it takes, don’t just care about what you believe in, care about whether or not the things you believe in are true.

The natural cause of the human mind is certainly from credulity to skepticism. – Thomas Jefferson

Oh, this is awesome, just to make sure I got the American Freethought link correct before moving on from this post (but after writing the whole thing), I visited their blog and read a few past post that I had missed.  Well on Jan. 31, they linked to this video on YouTube.  So if you want to see a pretty girl explain this on a video rather than read my long post, follow the link instead. 

I had an argument that I had to just give up on, about atheism/agnosticism with two guys I work with.  I thought about posting about it but decided that it was boring so I didn’t.  But today, I was listening to the American Freethought podcast in which they were interviewing Neil deGrasse Tyson.  In the interview, he told a story about how he attempted to change his own Wiki article, to say that he was agnostic rather than atheist.  This reawakened my desire to talk about this so I’m going to post about it after all.

Here is my problem with this.  If I ask you, “Do you believe x?”  There are two acceptable answers to that question and one meta-answer.  First the meta-answer.  If I haven’t explained x sufficiently, you may not understand the question.  In other words, you aren’t answering the question because you don’t understand it.  But assuming you understand the question, your answer is either yes or no.  I got a conversation going about this at work today and had another of my coworkers trying to say that there was a third answer which is “I don’t care” but that isn’t an answer to the question.  It is refusing to answer the question.  To illustrate this point I ask him the above question literally just to remove the emotional response that “God” creates, and then illustrated to him that his default position on the concept “x” is disbelief.

Now back to the atheist/agnostic thing.  Every creature that is capable of higher reasoning and holding a belief is either theist or not theist (aka atheist).  In other words, they either have some belief in a higher power/god/intelligent designer/supreme being/etc. or they don’t.  If there is some adult out there who has never heard of a god or conceived of one themselves, they are by default, atheist because they do not have this belief.  So if I ask you are you a theist/atheist, a valid answer to the question is not neither, I’m agnostic.  If you don’t want to answer the question, just say so; don’t try to make your non-answer sound like an answer.

This leads me to another extremely annoying thing about people using the term agnosticism as if it means “I don’t care”.  Apathy and agnosticism are not equivalent.  I don’t care and I don’t know are two entirely different things!

I don’t have a problem with Tyson editing his page to remove atheist or to add agnosticism.  I just wish people wouldn’t imply that agnostic is some third option to the belief question.  It is dishonest.  They are two different questions.  It seems that some people would like to believe that belief and knowledge always go hand in hand but that isn’t necessarily true.  As any theist is quick to point out, belief (in god) isn’t possible without faith (faith=no evidence=no knowledge).

So to summarize:

• theist – has an affirmative belief in god (or a god equivalent)
• atheist – does not have an affirmative belief in god

If you’re wondering how that title relates to this particular subject matter, I’d better explain.  While I was trying to think of a title, one of my favorite childhood stories came to mind.  When I was a kid, like many kids, I went to a summer camp.  On the final day of camp, they had an award ceremony where they gave out ribbons and trophies for the assorted competitions that we had during the week.  On one of these occasions, one of the camp counselors (a very pretty lady in my 14 year old opinion), called up my little brother who would have been around 10 at the time.  When she called him, she was kidding him and said “Robin Morris?  Are you any kin to those other two Morris boys?”  His reply was “Heck no, they’re my brothers.”  I guess it’s the opposite (thinking two things that are the same are different) from what what I’m discussing but I like the title and wanted to use it anyway.

Miracles (God is the absent father)

A plane crashed in freezing water the other day, everyone survived.  Every news article I’ve read about it mentioned “miracle” at least once.  What is a miracle?  The word is use cavalierly these days.  Judging by its usage, it just means something highly improbable.  However, when I point this out to a theist, they categorically deny that and say that it means God’s direct intervention.

The miracles I was thinking about were quite different.  In the bible, God speaks directly to people, causes seemingly magical transformations of water into wine, parts seas to let people cross, and much much more.  God was all over the place, telling people who to attack, what to do with the spoils, who to take prisoner, who to kill, how to kill them, what to do with their foreskin (not kidding).  What happened to this God?  You would be a fool to not believe in God if you lived in the Old Testament.  He was obvious to them.  Today he the opposite of obvious.  Today, if we want vehicles to fly, we have to invent technology to make it happen.  If we want to keep people alive when the technology fails to keep the plane in the air, we have to extensively train the pilots who will be flying them to handle specific emergency situations.  What happened to this God?  Today, we have discovered genetics and have used science to come to an understanding of how species have evolved over the eons.  The more we learned about how things work, the more absent God became.  Today, God is totally irrelevant, and not surprisingly, he is totally gone also.  No more miracles because they aren’t necessary.  How sad is it that God went from parting a sea to helping our favorite sports team win their game?

The lack of miracles today when they were a dime-a-dozen in the old testament was a huge problem.  It is just more evidence of the true source of the bible, man.