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Community, unbelief, and the rise of secularism

Last updated on 21 Jun 2018

One of the things that losing full use of a limb causes, is that everything takes four times as long as it used to. So I haven’t blogged due to my being very busy, tired, or both. Sorry. I promised to reflect out loud on the Global Atheist Conspiracy Convention, but haven’t been able to find time to think. It’s Saturday in the Favoured Nation, so here goes.

This was the first time I attended such an event. I didn’t quite know what to expect. I have been to many ideology-based conferences, events and happenings over the years and one thing that they all have in common is attempting to build a sense of community. Indeed, that is what my friend and Good Twin PZ Myers spoke on. We had lunch the day before his talk and I noted a few things I’d like to share with you now.

First of all if you want to build a community you have to have a set of shared values, rituals and practices. These are, if you like, the nature of the community. Since atheism is defined in various ways, that is difficult, and PZ tried to define the atheist community in terms of truth, autonomy and community. The problem is, these are values also held by many other communities, and they are not the very same communities. I know many liberal religious folk who also value science, truth and personal autonomy, and many atheists who do not. So while I applaud his picking these values, he hasn’t quite picked out the identifier and community builders of an atheist community.

What does achieve this? Well, we can look to other successful community building traditions. One of the most obvious is, of course, religion. What is it that makes religion so socially persistent and able to withstand thousands of years of change? My answer, the one I gave to PZ, was the Costly Signalling hypothesis: what makes a religion stable and causes social cohesion is not the ideas they share, but the absurd and contingent flags they carry. The reason why, for example, a Baptist can go anywhere in the world and find a community among any ethnicity, language, or class, is that what unites Baptists everywhere are a set of practices and beliefs so silly that one can only share them with other Baptists. That is, by the way, why creationism is so socially adaptive: the only folk you can share it with in practice are those who are in your community. Everybody else just laughs at you (yes, Xenu. I’m looking at you).

The Costly Signalling Hypothesis (CSH) is based on work done by evolutionary theorist Amotz Zahavi, who proposed that apparently handicapping traits like the peacock’s tail serve as honest advertisements. They show the virtues of the organism by signalling in ways that cannot be faked. This has been taken up as an explanation of social facets of religion, as the costly signalling hypothesis of religion promoted by Joseph Bulbulia. What makes one a member of the community is that one is advertising in costly ways that one is a member.

Crucifix

Even such apparently easy things as crossing oneself is costly, because the signalling is to be automatic (and in the right direction: orthodox do it the opposite way to Catholics), and it takes a lot of time to make it so. Learning catechisms, going to services, saying rosaries and so forth all take an investment of time and effort, and as time and effort are scarce resources, the result is that one is not able to easily fake being a member of that community.

Atheist badge

Add to this tithing, sacrifices, volunteering in burial societies and charitable work, and so forth, and to be a member of a community like this is not for the dilettante. Atheism has nothing comparable. At best it has the wearing of the Atheist “A” or t-shirts with the relevant slogans. Its charitable work tends to be state run through local government and health agencies. It is hard to identify community when the community is not definable in terms that are positive, and atheism counts as “unbelief” in other people’s defining views.

Now I have argued before that there are many senses of atheism (I am a functional atheist, in that I do not live my life on the basis of the possibility of gods existing; I am a philosophical agnostic in that I do not rule all deities out. Go read my arguments). A positive atheist has a costly belief in our present social context: to positively disbelieve in a deity is to mark oneself out as a baby-killing oath-breaker. But many people, like me, are atheists only in the sense that they happen to lack a belief in a deity. What are our costly signals?

Why this matters is in part due to the very reasons why the social aspect of religions evolved in the first place. In traditional societies, which were small, you knew every person, their relatedness to you (according to some social conventions), and whether you were equals, or one was subordinate to the other. This sets up a “working memory” constraint – we can only track these relationships for a certain number of people (possibly Dunbar’s Number, or about 150 individuals plus or minus). This matters because you need to calculate (or intuit – I’m not supposing that you actually do a computation) the coefficient of relatedness to work out to whom you owe, and from whom you are owed, mutual aid. This is known as reciprocal altruism. I owe my family more aid than I owe someone I am more distantly related to (Haldane’s quip about sacrificing one’s life for two siblings or eight cousins illustrates this). We evolved through kin selection, but when we get into larger societies, that breaks down.

When societies become cosmopolitan, which is effectively to say when they become sedentary, territorial and agricultural, there are too many people to track. You need to know who you owe reciprocal altruism to, and who you do not, and this is an urgent issue. There are too many people to help all the time, or else your resources will become exhausted as parasites exploit you. You need also to know who can be relied upon to help you or your children and family in hard times. In urbanised society, that is a nontrivial issue.

So honest signalling is a way of ensuring this sort of conformity and reciprocality. And atheists do not have it. Anyone can wear the badge or t-shirt, and there is no exclusion of defectors, apart from nasty comments on a blog. Something is needed that is not universally attractive, so that it doesn’t also include humanists, liberal progressives, communists, existentialists, and all the other ideologies in play in the same general intellectual stream.

My experience of the Convention was that most there were pleased to be in a majority of like-minded people (not, I hasten to add, identically-minded people), but this led sometimes to the other side of social cohesion: exclusion. Those who disagreed with the majority view were sometimes sneered at, sometimes mocked and sometimes made the objects of hatred outright. I was very disappointed with the general tendency to demonise Muslims, as if the tribal imamism of the Taliban was comparable with the urbane Islam of a Turkish or Pakistani scientist or public intellectual. The extreme stereotyping was almost laughable in its viciousness, if not for the fact that this was the community that was, according to the slogan of the convention, celebrating reason.

A socially cohesive group that defines an in-group by definition defines out groups as well. You can call them “sheep”, “fools”, or worse, “inhuman”, the traditional way to justify treating the out group badly. Many tribal societies call themselves something like “the people” and outsiders something like “ghosts” or “demons”. We see this more subtly when Christians state as fact that atheists themselves cannot be fully human (because they are immoral, deny their spiritual side, or fail to have the full range of emotions like love).

Atheists, lacking much in the way of a “nature”, seem to find most of their in-group identification in terms of defining the out-group. This makes sense if the movement is defined by the rejection of someone else’s views. This is why I spent so much time trying to identify what the term means in my “Atheism, agnosticism and theism” series. If we can find a set of views that atheists, and only atheists hold, and they are costly and hard to fake, then we have a chance of a community developing. My fear is that there is no such signal. Perhaps we could invent one (maybe rituals involving the reading of famous atheist writings at meetings), but I think that unless it happens more organically, the hope for an atheist community, complete with reciprocal aid, is pretty forlorn.

As I sit in my bedsit, unable to move, I find it interesting that atheists and agnostics have not banded together to come to help me. Instead, I was helped by two people: someone who was raised in Christian virtues and someone who is a secularised Jew. Both are irreligious, and both are atheists, but they are not helping me qua atheists, but as friends, and had I no friends here in Melbourne, I would have been alone. This would not have been the case if I were a Baptist still. Most of the assistance I have got comes from the Catholic hospital I went to in the first place.

I have often complained about the tribalism of atheism. I still do, because I identify myself largely as a humanist rather than an atheist (there’s a set of values for you!). But it should be said that PZ is right: atheists need a community. Religions, along with political movements, sporting clubs, and hobby associations, all have worked out how to do this. Atheists should perhaps observe this and work out how to do it too. Just don’t build cathedrals to atheism, okay, unless you are prepared to fund science in them.

54 Comments

  1. Susan Silberstein Susan Silberstein

    One of the reasons I don’t join the atheist “community” is the demonisation of the other, but you already know that. Okay, I do despise missionaries. As for the rest of the religious, keep it out of government, the schools and access to healthcare (yes, I’m talking about babies/no babies) and they can believe any damn thing they like. Whatever.

    Those who want to get rid of religion are doomed to frustration and failure, but it gives them something to strive for, I guess.

    You know I would help you if I was there, but I’m one of those secular, atheist Jews and you have apparently figured out our secret plan to not do unto others like Hillel said. Even though he wasn’t an atheist.

  2. Cristian Cristian

    I think it makes a huge difference that religious communities are driven by a purpose that is bigger than themselves and aims beyond this life. As delusional as atheists may find it, it gives a whole new dimension to one’s life and their relationships with others.

    • Society itself does that. We are social animals and it’s enough to see oneself as a part of a larger whole. God, in that respect, is just a surrogate for social inclusion.

      • Cristian Cristian

        Society does nothing of that, with all due respect. Society doesn’t care at all, as a matter of fact.

        I honestly don’t really understand where you get ideas like that about God. I don’t believe in God be received in a community, to live a better life here and now. Faith in God is a very complex system of beliefs, reasoning and confirmation in each’s daily existence. I am surprised how persons that have no faith, know so much about those that do.

        It’s like me, after living 30 years in East Europe, making statements about people living in, say, Australia. What do you think, eat, do for fun, etc. etc.

        • There is the reason why you believe something and the reason why you tell yourself you believe it. I think that there are various personal reasons for beliefs in Gods, but there are some general reasons why belief in God spreads. And that is the social aspect of religions. The reason why people wish to believe in something transcendental has more to do with the Hyperactive Agency Detection Device, as it’s called, that we tend to find agency in everything because we are adapted to finding agency in each other.

          And just because I have no faith now doesn’t mean that I never had it. I studied theology in an evangelical college of the Anglican Church. I was a lay preacher. I think I understand faith from the inside as well as anyone. But even if I didn’t, I can still undertake an anthropological study of religion, or else we cannot understand anyone who has different beliefs, which I think is absurd.

        • Cristian Cristian

          I made myself misunderstood. Of course we can understand each others theological beliefs. But it’s the subjective living content of the faith that remains difficult to understand to others. Not completely, but difficult.

          For instance, my wife had a terrible accident last year, and our lives changed completely sine then. One could depict what happened as ice breaking beneath you. Only that for some the ice breaks to a faithless life, and for me was to a stronger faith. You could say that it was to my confort, but I know it’s not.

          What strikes me is that you’re making a series of statements that are, by all means, simple conjectures. Saying that humans are adapted (by evolution) to something, is as well grounded as saying that God made was with the propensity of looking for Him. It explains nothing and everything in the same time. Just because you can point to DNA mutations, and a series of fossils, it’s not really a better ground for your beliefs. Especially that you need to first show how consciousness comes out of those molecules.

          I have noticed that you’re better theologically educated than other atheist and have more balanced views. I respect that!

          I also think it’s only fair to admit what we all hang in thin air with our beliefs.

        • Kel Kel

          Saying that humans are adapted (by evolution) to something, is as well grounded as saying that God made was with the propensity of looking for Him.

          Really? I can see one difference up front, the mechanisms by which evolution operates are known. All you’re doing is adding an unknown unexplained cause and saying it’s just as good as the explanation that has developed through empirical and conceptual inquiry.

        • Cristian Cristian

          I would also like to add the making an extrapolation into the past for a process that we observe today it’s terrible way of acquiring knowledge. People may claim that they know what happend in the past, but what they really do is guessing. The fact that we’re using naturalistic processing in place of “unknown” supernatural ones, just gives us the false impression that it’s more plausible.

          But really we have no way to rule out the supernatural from happening. If it’s out there, we have nothing to say against it, just us we didn’t have anything to say about our own existence or about the laws of the Universe. We’re just observers.

        • Kel beat me to it. I’ll just add that we have reasons in individual cases to think traits are adaptive. I happen to think the underlying causes of religion are adaptive, and that once it arises, religion itself is a (mostly social) adaptation to (mostly social) ecological exigencies. We can check this. We can’t check if God made us with a propensity to search for him, because it is incredibly viciously circular: it assumes the absolute truth of the conclusion to the exclusion of all other possibilities. It may be true; there is no independent way to check. There is with every adaptive hypothesis.

        • Cristian Cristian

          I must disagree. And the reason for me doing this is simple. Whatever caused our propensity for believing in a god happened in the past. The fact that you are able to check the plausibility of a process, doesn’t really certify that the process really happened in the past.

          I’ll give you an example: someone claims that has built a device that looks made with a technology of a factory nearby. And that someone, for some reason, disappears after making the claim. Now, most people would find it reasonable to think that somehow, that someone has stolen the device or the technology from the factory. They know the process, they can check. But, as you also say, it’s possible that in reality the person really had the ability to create the device themselves.

          I find that choosing the evolutionary explanatory hypothesis just because we can “check it” now, rather than later, it’s a commodity. It gives us the impression that we understand how stuff works, but in fact it might put as in a different reality. Plus, it leaves parts of the large picture in darkness. A naturalistic evolutionary explanation will immediately result in the conclusion (if not also a premise) that the Universe is not created, and hence it existed since forever. A fact that we have no way to check, but only the accept as a dogmatic premise/conclusion.

          So, which is it?
          A) A personal self-existing, conscious entity created a immaterial Universe and other personal conscious entities like us,
          B) The unconscious material Universe, with its laws and order, is self-existing and, in ways we still have to figure out, generated self-aware conscious beings.

          Give me a away we can check B and not A!

          PS: Excuse my ignorance, but how do you really check that adaptation causes religions? And if you don’t know how self-consciousness (necessary for abstract thinking) is possible neurologically, aren’t you up in thin air?

          It looks to me like you are betting on a card. You’re trying to build a reasonable scenario for the ‘there is no creator God’ hypothesis. This is a program that will not be completed within your life time. I’d rather not go to God and say “I spent my life trying to demonstrate that it’s more probable that you don’t exists, but I didn’t have time to do it. So here I am!”

  3. DiscoveredJoys DiscoveredJoys

    An interesting subject, and one I’ve been thinking about recently. I’ve been pondering what a modern day version of Epicurus’ Brotherhood of the Garden would look like.

    It would have to have some common set of values and philosophy backing a coherent worldview. It would have to have some ceremonies or rituals (such as the monthly ‘feast’ or Founders Birthday ‘feast’). It would have to step daintily between the extremes of being a secret society and an evangelical society. But the key issue is that the modern Brotherhood would have to have a simple definition of what makes life worth living (happiness, or contentment, or fulfilment etc.).

    The broad definition of atheism comes nowhere near these characteristics. You can create all the ceremonies, rituals, and secret handshakes you want, but I suspect that there will never be a ‘Grand Atheist Club’ as long as there is no positive philosophy at the centre.

    It is some consolation to me that many people ‘on the outside’ would probably reject forming an ‘inside’ for fear of creating yet another costly signalling organisation like religions, big business, or political parties. I don’t think that it is any accident that Epicurus advised against seeking fame or power.

  4. Kudos to John! Pain seems to manure wisdom somehow. This is the best I’ve read on the issue lately. I particularly like the costly signalling hypothesis.

    The only thing I do not understand is why you’d like to have atheism turn into a full-blown community after you identified the dark sides of community, like outgroup bashing etc.

    But if you must have a costly signal, how about injuring ones knee as a signal of atheism. We’ll have a lot of accidental proselytes.

    • Every community has a dark side. It’s an outcome of social relations, I think, and population structure. But having been in the unbelief corner for over forty years now, I think it would be nice to have a community support network, especially for those who are not by nature terribly good at making friends (shuffles feet and looks nervously around at nobody in particular).

      Knees are too easy. I think atheists should lose their left index finger. Oh, look! I did that already!

  5. However much I like what you’ve written here, John, I feel that I am in profound disagreement with your position. At this point, however, I am not altogether clear on where the disagreement lies so this is as much aimed at exploring our disagreement as with stating it.

    The starting point for me seems to be the idea that while religious traditions have played a prosocial function in older societies, they are clearly not necessary for the proper functioning of modern social democracies, as numerous studies show. As I have argued elsewhere, this suggests to me that such traditions have become, to a significant degree, ancestral traits in places such as Australia. The personal experience that illustrates the point for me goes back to the nineties when I was the main caregiver for my father as he was dying of stomach cancer. We were living in his house in Ferntree Gully on the outskirts of Melbourne and were visited everyday by highly competent palliative care nurses who made sure that both he and I were coping as best we could with the situation. These nurses were not coming because my father was a somewhat lapsed Catholic but because this service was provided by the government. I still remember how proud it made me feel to know that I was living in a country which provided this level of care for its citizens.

    The point of the story is that in modern social democracies many of the services that religious communities provided are to a significant though imperfect degree provided by the state. This means communities, religious or irreligious, do not have as much to offer to their members. This is not to say, of course, they have nothing to offer but simply that companionship, understanding and other such psychological needs are much more likely to be at the fore of what people are likely to now seek from their involvement in any community. This also means that the communities are much more likely to be far more loose in their membership – the signals can not be so costly when the community has less to offer.

    The final observation I would suggest is that some degree of demonisation of theists within the atheist community is likely to be part and parcel of the mechanisms that function to maintain the relative cohesion of this community, this being just an example of the unfortunately normal demonisation of the outgroup by all communities. Which, to me, suggests that it is a good thing that communities are likely to be far more ephemeral within social democracies.

    • Well just because the exclusive prosociality of religion was adaptive in the past, doesn’t mean it hasn’t adapted to present conditions too, nor that other social institutions aren’t also prosocially adaptive.

      And I’m not suggesting (or even hinting?) that atheist support should supplant or even compete with other secular forms of support, just that there should be atheist support as well.

      Finally, I would like to think that social relations can be inclusive and egalitarian, even if they haven’t been for very long in any previous case. I think that common law is a good, for example, if applied evenly. I think that social welfare is a good, if supported. I think that universal health care is a sign of a civil society. So I don’t think that demonisation of the Other is inevitable.

      • Jeb Jeb

        C.S.H. is interesting I think you just have to fine tune it when looking in context. I think its the question of land and all those buildings the church had, that would want to make me tune it differently and look at the role of memory.

        Control of shiny things /control of land issue. Church is massively successful on the land issue in comparison to warlords (shiny thing land issue is a matter of ongoing debate); I think the milites christi may have much lower costs in comparison to the warlord. They do not die.

        The successes of the milites christi raises some of the issues you have discussed and a good testing ground to work these ideas.

        http://dare.uva.nl/document/70415

  6. I think the problem for atheists is “what good is a peacock’s tail if you don’t want to f**k peahens?”

    Many, if not most, are reacting against what they found to be stiffling signalling rituals and probably all of them don’t like the political/social policies that are supported/enforced by such signalling. It’s little wonder they are adverse to setting up their own versions.

    That doesn’t help with using our evolved pathways to create communities. Maybe all atheists will have to learn to quote chapter and verse of “The God Delusion” …

  7. John Pieret: Maybe all atheists will have to learn to quote chapter and verse of “The God Delusion” …

    In which case I’ll convert to scientology

    • Nothing Dawkins has written, not even River out of Eden, comes close to anything Elron wrote for sheer mind-numbing badness. In fact if you are going to have an arbitrary holy book, at least Dawkins has English style. Myself, I think it should be somebody from the nineteenth century. Darwin, probably, but also Huxley’s Essays.

      • at least Dawkins has English style

        So does the King James Version … at least at times.

        Maybe making them read Democritus in the original Greek would preen the tail enough …

      • chris y chris y

        Darwin : Huxley’s essays :: Gospels : Pauline epistles

        [I don’t do smileys, but if anybody takes this as a serious proposal I will blow my brains out.]

      • I’m afraid I can’t stand reading Dawkins. I find his writing overblown, arrogant, supercilious and slapdash. I realise that I’m in a minority with this point of view but his writing style gets up my nose. At least with scientology I know it’s crap written by a cretin.

  8. Thony C: In which case I’ll convert to scientology

    Wouldn’t just be simpler to blow your brains out?

  9. John Pieret: Wouldn’t just be simpler to blow your brains out?

    Even that would be preferable to reading Dawkins’ crap

  10. Kel Kel

    Interesting post, it’s given me a bit to think about.

    I never really considered atheism to be some sort of community in itself; that the atheist “movement” if it achieved its ends would make itself redundant. Making a stand against faith-based thinking, to try to move society towards more liberal secular values, and to oppose incursions on individual liberty enshrouded in religious values – that, to me, was the need to be vocal. Are we meant to start digging a trench because the other army has dug theirs? Our “community” is essentially those who are fed up, and why being fed up in not quite the right way often gets described in moral terms. It seems an unstable base on which to build a community.

    Maybe atheism might be a necessary banner to march under now, but in the future I’d like to see that morph into some form of humanism. A community on the basis of being open to scientific, moral, and philosophical advances? That would seem very desirable (at least to me)! That the focal points now are often in being against something (against religion, against pseudoscience, etc.) rather than for something (as Vic Stenger might put it, taking a stand for science and reason), so hopefully the current prominent voices are able to help with that shift towards a form of positive humanism. If all we are doing is feeding our sense of morality merely by speaking out, then to me it seems we’re not going to get very far.

  11. Kel: Maybe atheism might be a necessary banner to march under now, but in the future I’d like to see that morph into some form of humanism.

    I said as much, in almost the same words, to PZ. I think the problem with humanism for atheists is that it is very inclusive, and allows Christian humanists. I don’t see that as a problem, but a virtue, myself. I think, though, humanism has a tendency to become whatever anyone wants it to be, and needs a sharper focus. So I would suggest “militant humanism”: we fight for rights, secular separation, and shared human value.

  12. I don’t know about costly signals, but Spinoza’s Tractatus Theologico-Politicus could serve as the Old Testament in the scriptural canon of the faithless community. Jonathan Israel summarizes the message of this book in eight cardinal points:

    (1) adoption of philosophical (mathematical-historical) reason as the only and exclusive criterion of what is true; (2) rejection of all supernatural agency, magic, disembodied spirits, and divine providence; (3) equality of all mankind (racial and sexual); (4) secular ‘universalism’ in ethics anchored in equality and chiefly stressing equity, justice, and charity; (5) comprehensive toleration and freedom of thought based on independent critical thinking; (6) personal liberty of lifestyle and sexual conduct between consenting adults, safeguarding the dignity and freedom of the unmarried and homosexuals; (7) freedom of expression, political criticism, and the press, in the public sphere; (8) democratic republicanism as the most legitimate form of politics.

    How’s that for an answer to the Nicene Creed?

    • DiscoveredJoys DiscoveredJoys

      Or perhaps the Epicurean values?

      1-5 have to do with ourselves:
      1) Prudence
      2) Self-management
      3) Self-sufficiency
      4) Serenity
      5) Simplicity

      6-10 have to do with our relationship with others:
      6) Friendliness
      7) Honesty
      8) Generosity
      9) Cheerfulness
      10) Gentleness

      You could contrast the Spinozan ‘creed’ of how societies should function respecting individuals, with the Epicurean values of how an individual should function respecting society. Perhaps.

  13. Kel Kel

    Cristian:
    I would also like to add the making an extrapolation into the past for a process that we observe today it’s terrible way of acquiring knowledge. People may claim that they know what happend in the past, but what they really do is guessing. The fact that we’re using naturalistic processing in place of “unknown” supernatural ones, just gives us the false impression that it’s more plausible.

    Your argument, if carried to its logical implications, would suggest that saying that gravity was the cause of the solar system would be just as good as saying “God did it”. Naturalistic processes have real explanatory power, while unknown processes don’t.

    Imagine you came home to find an expensive piece of jewellery missing. Now you could say that God did it, that God supernaturally made the item disappear, but my guess is that you’re going to think that a human either misplaced it or stole it. According to your logic, it’s only superficially more plausible that a human was involved in the shifting of the item than a supernatural entity eradicated it from spacetime. According to your logic, we would have a false impression that natural agency did something over a supernatural explanation.

    Cristian: But really we have no way to rule out the supernatural from happening. If it’s out there, we have nothing to say against it, just us we didn’t have anything to say about our own existence or about the laws of the Universe. We’re just observers.

    Not being able to rule it out says nothing about ruling it in. And the fact that one cannot rule it out says nothing of it being equivalent to processes that have been determined through rigorous empirical and conceptual inquiry. To get back to the example above, that you’re missing an item doesn’t mean that saying “God eradicated it from existence for me” isn’t equivalent to saying “someone has taken it”, even if you can’t be certain about either statement. The latter has explanatory value, while the former is saying “a wizard did it”.

    As an aside, can you even give a coherent positive definition of what “supernatural” is? If “supernatural” is so ill-defined, then does it matter whether or not I can rule it out. Do slithy toves gyre and gimble in waves? I’m going to say that question isn’t so much right or wrong as it is incoherent.

    • Cristian Cristian

      Kel, if can’t make the difference between explaining how a process happens in a present experiment, under your own eyes, and an extrapolation into the past/future of that process, then don’t bother. Don’t want to be rude here, but we risk enrolling into a never ending discussion.

      And you’re kinda falling into a ‘straw man’ trap. The ‘God did it’ explanation is not aiming at ‘why are trees green’, or ‘why is the sky blue’ kind of facts. You can give a naturalistic explanation for the fact, while the ‘God did it’ being still valid. It’s not the laws of Physics against God.

      If you have a system in present state S. And you know the law by which the system evolves, then, theoretically, you can go back in time, on a computer, and see the past states of the system. But, in reality, if the Universe (matter, space and time) didn’t existed at minus T, then you’re off road. This is how I see it.

      If you see a cable coming out of the ground, can you tell how long it is? Heck, they have cables crossing the Atlantic. It could be at least that long. You have to check.

      Only that in the case of the created/uncreated Universe, you can’t check. But, because our death is certain and imminent, we need to take a stance. That’s what we believers do: we believe there’s God, a creator, that expects us to love each other. And we try to live our lives by that principle. I can’t demonstrate you why that is reasonable, and you can’t rule out my faith. You may call it unreasonable, for it is. But I find it far more reasonable to live my life like there’s a loving God expecting us to love one-another, than to live like there’s no God and I’m going nowhere. Plus, I find it more reasonable to believe that a conscious being created the Universe with its laws, than that the Universe is just there, just like that.

      You may say that I take confort in this decision, and I’m weak and it’s just ease of mind.

      However, there’s another angle you could see it from: that’s a dilemma on the table and I have to make a decision before my death. And I do what I think it’s best for me, reasonable and not. Love is not reasonable, but love brings peace, forgiveness brings peace. And it’s reasonable to look for peace and not for a troubled mind and soul.

  14. Kel Kel

    Cristian:
    Kel, if can’t make the difference between explaining how a process happens in a present experiment, under your own eyes, and an extrapolation into the past/future of that process, then don’t bother. Don’t want to be rude here, but we risk enrolling into a never ending discussion.

    But extrapolation to the past an future isn’t an issue; the problem of induction is a pseudoproblem when it comes to scientific explanation. The reason being, science doesn’t rely on induction.

    Take the phenomenon that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west. Why does it to that? We could argue that it always does that and from that we infer it will do it in the future – but that would be unjustified. But scientific reasoning is very different to such an inference. Science instead proposes a model of the system: the reason that the sun rises in the east and sets in the west is because the earth spins on an axis and moves relative to the sun. The scientific explanation isn’t so much that it happens now, but why it happens. If the sun doesn’t come up in the east tomorrow then either the model is wrong or something has changed.

    There is no past, present, or future in this view. There is no problem of induction in this view as there’s no reliance on any particular view of history. That things may have behaved differently in the past or might behave differently in the future doesn’t change the validity of the scientific argument, because again you’re at a point of trying to explain how something is different without giving any reason to how it’s different. You’re left with nothing but the mere possibility of things being different, meanwhile the conceptual and empirical foundations of theories continue to advance.

    One more example. Imagine standing on top of a tall building, would you step off the ledge? I could imagine that you, like most reasonable people would conclude that you would fall to your death. But if the problem of induction is as you say it is, then you have no more recourse to thinking that than thinking you would float. Likewise, if what you say about the power of supernatural explanations is like you say, then you have no more grounds to thinking that you would fall than be held by God in mid-air.

    Yet scientifically, we know we’re not contending with just the idea that people fall down from heights, but an understanding of why: gravity. To say otherwise would be to invoke that either our current understanding is wrong, or that our current understanding can be violated by an unknown force without any reason to do so. We’d still be back with the point that it’s not induction that stops us from jumping, but that our best model of the relation between things explains why jumping would be a bad idea. Just as it’s a bad idea to fill your petrol tank with water, quench your thirst with bleach, or respond to someone online through thought alone.

    Cristian: And you’re kinda falling into a ‘straw man’ trap. The ‘God did it’ explanation is not aiming at ‘why are trees green’, or ‘why is the sky blue’ kind of facts. You can give a naturalistic explanation for the fact, while the ‘God did it’ being still valid. It’s not the laws of Physics against God.

    But if you mean it in the sense that God and naturalistic explanations are compatible, then what good does it do to invoke God? Let’s look at the Hyperactive Agency Detection Device that John brought up. Now if what you’re saying here is the case, then there would be no problem in saying that we evolved in naturally for that would be the way God chose to give us that. But if the evolutionary explanation can explain it, then what does God add beyond one’s own personal preference? Because evolution as an explanation is sufficient to explain it (as John argued), is there anything else added by invoking God? Does God do anything explanation-wise? If so, then it’s not a straw-man to talk of God as an explanation. If not, then it’s irrelevant to even bring up God.

    Cristian: If you have a system in present state S. And you know the law by which the system evolves, then, theoretically, you can go back in time, on a computer, and see the past states of the system. But, in reality, if the Universe (matter, space and time) didn’t existed at minus T, then you’re off road. This is how I see it.

    But what does that have to do with the points that John and I were raising earlier? It’s a non sequitur.

    Cristian: But I find it far more reasonable to live my life like there’s a loving God expecting us to love one-another, than to live like there’s no God and I’m going nowhere.

    This is very far from the original objection that I raised earlier. I would personally wonder to what extent you actually live this, are the relationships with your friends and family only meaningful to you now if they have an eternal component? Are the books you read and things you learn only significant in their potential infinity?

    Cristian: Plus, I find it more reasonable to believe that a conscious being created the Universe with its laws, than that the Universe is just there, just like that.

    This is something I really don’t understand. Consciousness in our universe took billions of years to evolve, we have elaborate neural structures that if we didn’t have them would not allow for conscious thought. That we can see intelligence having a hand in something doesn’t seem much of a stretch to me, but having consciousness as the foundation for all reality does. I don’t know given what is known about the human biological organism, how it can be reasonable to believe that something akin to our consciousness but far greater and completely unexplained can just be said to exist and that be considered an inherently reasonable view. To me, it seems like we have a problem of regression – if we’re requiring of explanation, then having something like us but only more powerful itself seems like it would need explanation too.

    Cristian: However, there’s another angle you could see it from: that’s a dilemma on the table and I have to make a decision before my death. And I do what I think it’s best for me, reasonable and not. Love is not reasonable, but love brings peace, forgiveness brings peace. And it’s reasonable to look for peace and not for a troubled mind and soul.

    I can understand that, but wouldn’t it trouble your mind if the arguments for God didn’t add up? I can respect that you put arguments forward, but if you found those arguments problematic would you consider that grounds to at least doubt your beliefs?

  15. Cristian Cristian

    Kel: Yet scientifically, we know we’re not contending with just the idea that people fall down from heights, but an understanding of why: gravity. To say otherwise would be to invoke that either our current understanding is wrong, or that our current understanding can be violated by an unknown force without any reason to do so.

    This is a rich set of assertion, and it’d be very hard to answer to each of them. Induction is a philosophical problem, not a scientific one. Science makes experiments, builds theories and models to explain the outcome of those experiments. It can’t say that everywhere, all the time the theories that it built are, will and were valid. Our intuition tells us that if a rock fall today it will also fall tomorrow.

    But our intuition can be wrong sometime. Just because I would just off a building, doesn’t mean that I have to accept that the laws of physics as we know them have always been in place. That’s just an untenable assumption.

    Kel: Because evolution as an explanation is sufficient to explain it (as John argued), is there anything else added by invoking God? Does God do anything explanation-wise?

    Firstly, I’m still waiting for an evolutionary explanation for religion, of other type than a simple ‘just so’ story. For me saying that we evolved abstract thinking because it was beneficial to us as a species is really a ‘just so’ story, no better than the God made us with abstract thinking because it was better for us to have abstract thinking.

    Secondly, there’s a problem with what you ask: you ask details about how God did what it did. Since you can’t rule out the possibility that actually a God created the world, you just prefer the evolutionary explanation because you say more about the how.

    But here lies the problem: you’re adding a supplementary criterion to the problem of truth. Not only has the explanation to be true, but it also has to have ‘explanatory power’. You want details. Otherwise it’s magic (a term that I have a hard time understanding in the atheist slang). What’s the problem with magic??? Does it offend us that we don’t how it was done?

    I understand the need to discern and reject all kinds of beliefs that look like the ‘God did it’, but there’re other tools and methods for that.

    Kel: But what does that have to do with the points that John and I were raising earlier? It’s a non sequitur.

    It means that a computer simulation/extrapolation into the past doesn’t really tell you if that past really existed. It’s only on paper.

    Kel: To me, it seems like we have a problem of regression – if we’re requiring of explanation, then having something like us but only more powerful itself seems like it would need explanation too.

    It took me a while to understand that there’s no problem of regression. We can’t say that Universe is uncreated, and we can’t say that there’s no creator God. And we can’t say that yet another God didn’t created the first God. It may be up to one level of creation ‘ex nihilo’ (one uncreated God), it may be two levels, three etc. We just don’t know for sure and we can’t check, and we can’t rule out possibilities. Things are the way the are and although they may seem to be different, our subjective view doesn’t a matter too much. We just have to accept things the way they are, or their possibility of being one way or another.

    My point is simply that the created God can not be ruled out. Thus it’s a probabilistic problem. And I reduced it to two options: a uncreated Universe, one in which I die and nothing happens. I really don’t much about this option. The explanatory power of this options leave me dead cold. 🙂

    Secondly, the created Universe, created ‘ex nihilo’ by a conscious God. There may be other options, too. But this one is most preferable for me, philosophically and theologically. And I choose to live by this hypothesis.

  16. Cristian Cristian

    Kel: Consciousness in our universe took billions of years to evolve, we have elaborate neural structures that if we didn’t have them would not allow for conscious thought.

    This is a conjecture, as Karl Popper said in one his later papers.

  17. DiscoveredJoys DiscoveredJoys

    Cristian:
    However, there’s another angle you could see it from: that’s a dilemma on the table and I have to make a decision before my death. And I do what I think it’s best for me, reasonable and not. Love is not reasonable, but love brings peace, forgiveness brings peace. And it’s reasonable to look for peace and not for a troubled mind and soul.

    This is a reasonable view if you believe there is a reasonable chance that the god of your understanding exists. This argument is known as Pascal’s Wager and many others have contended that it is poor philosophy and poor theology. You’ll find plenty of debate about it on the internet.

    However John’s original post was about atheists (of some stripe) and community. If you think god/s or the afterlife probably don’t exist then Pascal’s wager is not compelling at all.

    • Cristian Cristian

      In my past 10 years of life as Orthodox Christian, I have found hundreds if not thousands of small confirmations that my beliefs are true. But I couldn’t not possibly pass those as arguments for my faith.

      I’m aware that what I’m saying is a form of Pascal’s Wager. I’m trying to reduce the problem to a minimum ground that can be discussed by both believers and atheists. Using a theological language often ends up in confusion, due to lack of common understanding of used terms. I just have been told above that the term “super-natural” is ill-defined. That really leaves my with very few options.

  18. PZ Myers PZ Myers

    I was also disappointed by some of the anti-Muslim (as distinct from the anti-Islam) sentiment that was expressed. But it wasn’t just the atheists: it was Australians. I have now heard from two American black attendees who were distressed at some of the casual racism they encountered in Melbourne, outside the conference venue.

    Oh, and guess what? I disagree with you on part (most?) of your post. Surprise!

    • That is possibly true: Australians are seriously racist (although when you mention this they deny it vociferously), but the anti-Muslim sentiment was expressed by the visiting speakers; especially Harris, Hirsan Ali (of course) and Dawkins. I didn’t encounter anti-Muslim sentiment from the attendees especially. I’m a little surprised the black attendees were treated in a racist fashion though; we tend to be racist to those who are a substantial minority in our own country, and there are few Africans in Australia. Mostly we are racist to Asians and Indians.

      I am very glad to see you took the bait…

  19. Kel Kel

    Cristian: This is a rich set of assertion, and it’d be very hard to answer to each of them. Induction is a philosophical problem, not a scientific one. Science makes experiments, builds theories and models to explain the outcome of those experiments. It can’t say that everywhere, all the time the theories that it built are, will and were valid. Our intuition tells us that if a rock fall today it will also fall tomorrow.

    But our intuition can be wrong sometime. Just because I would just off a building, doesn’t mean that I have to accept that the laws of physics as we know them have always been in place. That’s just an untenable assumption.

    You’ve misread the argument. If you are positing that the universe was different in the past or will be different in the future, it’s a useless conjecture unless you describe what way. Just merely saying “it could have been different” and “you can’t say that it wasn’t” misses the point of how the models work. Which parts of the model change? How do they change?

    If we take the gravity example, in what sense would it be to say that gravity has changed? It doesn’t matter if you personally see the intuition in not jumping, but it doesn’t change that general relativity has the capacity to explain (and to quite a precise detail) what would happen if you were to drop a rock off there. Again all you’re doing is taking a model that has had a lot of empirical and conceptual work put into it and trying to dismiss its validity without any how or why the model would change. While we have a model that works, saying “things could have been different” doesn’t actually add anything. How?

    Cristian: Firstly, I’m still waiting for an evolutionary explanation for religion, of other type than a simple ‘just so’ story. For me saying that we evolved abstract thinking because it was beneficial to us as a species is really a ‘just so’ story, no better than the God made us with abstract thinking because it was better for us to have abstract thinking.

    But even if it is a “just so” story (these are put to the test in a variety of ways, the hypothesises), we still have a difference in that evolutionary mechanisms are known while God is an unknown unseen force that’s said to acted in. Evolutionary mechanisms have been extensively researched and tested, it’s different in that respect no matter how much you try to push their equivalence.

    Cristian:Secondly, there’s a problem with what you ask: you ask details about how God did what it did. Since you can’t rule out the possibility that actually a God created the world, you just prefer the evolutionary explanation because you say more about the how.

    I can’t rule out the possibility that the universe came into existence 5 minutes ago, complete with all memories of the past. The mere possibility of something says nothing for its tenability as a meaningful explanation. To take the example above of the missing jewellery, following your logic it would be mere preference to think someone else stole it because we can’t rule out supernatural thieves.

    Cristian: But here lies the problem: you’re adding a supplementary criterion to the problem of truth. Not only has the explanation to be true, but it also has to have ‘explanatory power’. You want details. Otherwise it’s magic (a term that I have a hard time understanding in the atheist slang). What’s the problem with magic??? Does it offend us that we don’t how it was done?

    It’s useless when we don’t know how something is done, not something to get offended over. I, myself, am sympathetic to what Kurt Vonnegut wrote in Cat’s Cradle where he put into the mouth of a dictator: “science is magic that works.” Or Arthur C Clarke’s third law “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” The problem is that if you take explanation out of assessing something’s potential truth value, then what are you left with? Saying magic tells us nothing about what happens, and worse that giving it the label “magic” can give the illusion that we know what’s going on. It’s just a placeholder for that which we don’t understand.

  20. Kel Kel

    Cristian:
    It means that a computer simulation/extrapolation into the past doesn’t really tell you if that past really existed. It’s only on paper.

    But how does that negate them in any way? The models would still be a success in that they can predict what we see now. That we can’t be certain that the Flying Spaghetti Monster didn’t design animals to have genetic sequences that look like as if it had evolved unguided doesn’t negate the explanatory power that evolution has. The model still works, it still has a capacity to explain that isn’t matched by superficial ad hoc invocations to unknown unexplained agency.

    Cristian: It took me a while to understand that there’s no problem of regression. We can’t say that Universe is uncreated, and we can’t say that there’s no creator God. And we can’t say that yet another God didn’t created the first God. It may be up to one level of creation ‘ex nihilo’ (one uncreated God), it may be two levels, three etc. We just don’t know for sure and we can’t check, and we can’t rule out possibilities. Things are the way the are and although they may seem to be different, our subjective view doesn’t a matter too much. We just have to accept things the way they are, or their possibility of being one way or another.

    The problem of regression that I put forward was that the qualities that God is said to have are qualities that when applied to us scream for an explanation. If God can be like us but more powerful, then doesn’t God demand an explanation in the way we demand for ourselves? The explanations of process, that our qualities come from something other than like ourselves solves this regression problem, meanwhile if we use God as the grounding we get a regression that gets more difficult to explain!

    Cristian: My point is simply that the created God can not be ruled out. Thus it’s a probabilistic problem.

    We can’t rule out Last Thursdayism either, that we can’t rule God out says nothing of God being a probable option (pushing Pascal’s Wager says nothing for the validity of the belief itself, only one’s reason to believe in it). Probabilistically, we’re left with gods being an invention of mankind in the same way that we would consider fairies or unicorns. Is it reasonable to believe in unicorns on the basis of how cool it would be to ride one? I don’t think so. I’d at least want some unicorn droppings as evidence first…

  21. Cristian Cristian

    Kel: But how does that negate them in any way? The models would still be a success in that they can predict what we see now.

    Here’s where you seem to miss my point. Maybe I don’t make myself sufficiently clear. I don’t deny the validity of theories and models in the present. I just put under doubt their validity in the past. It doesn’t prove anything in particular, but it says something about the epistemological status of sciences about the past.

    Plus, we take the existence of the world as it is for granted. We don’t ask ourselves if it exists by itself, thus it’s ontologically independent, or some other entity upholds it into existence. There’s really no way we can tell one from the other.

    Kel: If God can be like us but more powerful, then doesn’t God demand an explanation in the way we demand for ourselves?

    I made a different distinction. Created-Uncreated (ontologically dependent-independent), not powerful/more-powerful. We don’t have the power to created something from nothing, hence an entity that has that power is not just more powerful than us, is also ontologically on a different level. You can admit that an uncreated entity may create an entity capable of creating from nothing other entities. But since something exist, it was either created by something else and has existed since for ever. A materialist atheist will think it’s best to believe that the Universe is uncreated. I don’t believe that.

    Kel: I’d at least want some unicorn droppings as evidence first…

    There’s no evidence there’s life after. Is there life after death? Just because you, and I, don’t believe in Unicorns, Zeus, or Elvis, doesn’t put you, or me, in a better position regarding our deaths. Death is a certain thing. Asking evidence from me, logical proofs, or whatever, is pretty much useless. I will not die your death, and you will not die my death. We’re pretty much on our own, and responsible for ourselves. Death isn’t a game of logic. It’s a brute, real fact.

    As for the concept of evidence, I have the feeling you’re using it wrong. Evidence is fact+interpretation. There’s ton of facts out there. Chances are you are misinterpreting them, concluding that ‘there is no evidence’. I haven’t heard one good possible ‘evidence’ and atheist would expect from God, with a good reason for God to actually do so. Except silly stuff like what Lawrence Krauss said: “align the stars to say ‘I exists'”.

  22. Kel Kel

    Cristian: Here’s where you seem to miss my point. Maybe I don’t make myself sufficiently clear. I don’t deny the validity of theories and models in the present. I just put under doubt their validity in the past. It doesn’t prove anything in particular, but it says something about the epistemological status of sciences about the past.

    But why would the models not be valid in the past? Your lack of confidence in applying the models to the past doesn’t make for an argument against its application to past events. You really need an argument as to why the models would suddenly become invalid when taken out of the present. What would make the present point X in the universe special that previous point W would not be? And if there are certain factors that are contingent at X that are different at W, then why can’t the model take into account those factors?

    I’m sorry, I just can’t seem to grasp what you’re saying.

    Cristian: There’s no evidence there’s life after. Is there life after death? Just because you, and I, don’t believe in Unicorns, Zeus, or Elvis, doesn’t put you, or me, in a better position regarding our deaths. Death is a certain thing. Asking evidence from me, logical proofs, or whatever, is pretty much useless. I will not die your death, and you will not die my death. We’re pretty much on our own, and responsible for ourselves. Death isn’t a game of logic. It’s a brute, real fact.

    Agreed, but life and death aren’t inexplicable non-scientific notions. By understanding what life is and what process death takes into it, it’s not like we’re completely lost on comprehending what death means. Yes, death is a brute fact. But it’s not really mysterious.

    Cristian: As for the concept of evidence, I have the feeling you’re using it wrong. Evidence is fact+interpretation. There’s ton of facts out there. Chances are you are misinterpreting them, concluding that ‘there is no evidence’. I haven’t heard one good possible ‘evidence’ and atheist would expect from God, with a good reason for God to actually do so. Except silly stuff like what Lawrence Krauss said: “align the stars to say ‘I exists’”.

    I’m sure I’m misinterpreting them, and that I’m thinking about things in the wrong way. It’s partly why I’m happier to discuss these things with people who disagree with me rather than who agree. That said, I can think of one evidence up front that would radically change how I think about the universe: showing something there’s causal and non-material to mind, i.e. show that the brain isn’t a closed system. I think that would go a long way to addressing my objections to believing in non-physical entities. Likewise, bringing forth a coherent definition of the supernatural such that God can become something by which we can theorise about the world with in non-circular terms. Or one could take what J.L. Mackie argued in The Miracle Of Theism and used a powerful case of the violation of nature to argue that someone outside nature must be intervening.

  23. Cristian Cristian

    Kel: You really need an argument as to why the models would suddenly become invalid when taken out of the present.

    I don’t know why the world is like it is right now, thus I have no reason to be believe it was not in any other possible way in the past. I’m not making a positive statement: I’m not saying that it was different or it was the same as today. I’m say that I don’t know if it was or not as today.

    If you’re making a positive statement that models that we use today have always worked, then you have to bring up an argument for that. Just because you feel like it’s the default option, the most simple and natural, doesn’t make a valid argument for its truth.

    It’s more like wishful-thinking, that you want the world to always be like it is, so you can explain it.

  24. Kel Kel

    Cristian:
    If you’re making a positive statement that models that we use today have always worked, then you have to bring up an argument for that. Just because you feel like it’s the default option, the most simple and natural, doesn’t make a valid argument for its truth.

    As I argued above, my argument for the validity of a model isn’t time-dependent. I’m not saying the model always works, the model is just the best attempt we’ve got currently in order to explain a particular set of phenomena. If the phenomena from a particular time don’t get explained by the model as it is now, then there would be no sense in continuing to use that model – something would need to give. Either the parameters in the model are incomplete, perhaps some factors weren’t considered, or perhaps some components of the model had changed. In any case, a model that works now isn’t to say that now is like any other point in the entirety of eternity, but that a model is a particular explanation for how a system behaves.

    If we’re modelling a different system (which if what you’re saying that things are different in the past) then the model won’t be of any use. But it doesn’t change the validity of using models, a model can make meaningful predictions about the past. Neil Shubin used evolutionary theory and geology to find a transitional fossil that was only the stuff of hypothesis in 385 million year old rock. There’s been fossil coral found that’s growth rings correspond to the age of the rocks it was found in based on the models of the gradual decay of the earth’s rotation.

    With each of these examples, the models are making predictions that don’t assume that everything’s the same as it always was but put the models to the test. So even if it was different at time W, our models developed at time X that try to measure the state at W haven’t been able to detect its difference yet. Meaningful predictions are being made and put to the empirical sword…

    I’m really not sure I’m following your point at all. My argument is that a model is as good as its ability to make claims about the world that can be meaningfully scrutinised. It’s not about past or present and whether they are the same, it’s about a model’s ability to make meaningful predictions about the world at whatever stage the model is being applied to. Would you be able to elaborate your point with a specific example? If possible, could you illustrate your point with how it would apply to the solar system?

  25. These thoughts come to mind: Do we need a community in order to achieve a majority? I don’t think so. And if we have a majority, and independently mostly vote the same when it comes to politicians who support science and separation of state and church, then won’t we achieve our goals? Then, will being an atheist matter that much when it comes to community? Won’t we be drawn to other communities, based on such things as marital status (singles clubs), sexual orientation (gay), race (minorities), intellect (book clubs), or hobbies (sports)?

  26. August: Can a person count on the members of their singles club, book club, hobby or sports association, ethnic association or other interest group to bring casseroles to a bereaved family? Watch the kids while mum/dad visits mum/dad (or dad/mum) in the hospital? I have known atheists who start going to church when they have kids in order to be able to participate in that kind of community.

  27. Clif Clif

    I want to respond to your statement of faith as being a functional atheist and a philosophical agnostic. It is an interesting stance to take, since one seems to cancel the other out. Ignorance is necessarily a part of the equation, as you are claiming that you are living a life that does not match up with your philosophical beliefs. If you base your life on the findings of science (which I inferred based on your statement at the end of the article regarding building cathedrals to science) how can you accept any untruth in your lifestyle? True science seeks out the modes in which the world works and then changes the lifestyle to conform to that. For instance, through science we understand that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. For this reason, you change your action so that you do not receive an unpleasant reaction (such as kicking a brick wall or jumping into a prickly bush). If you understand that there is a possibility that there might be a god or gods out there, why shouldn’t your life center around the search for them instead of the denial of them? So many who claim to hold to science ignore the findings of many. And yet, they still hold to science as the ultimate arbiter of truth! I feel that the life we live ought to be in line with how we believe.

    • John S. Wilkins John S. Wilkins

      I cannot base my life on things I do not know, as there are way too many things that might be true but I have no reason to think they are. Gods are among that set. I have no reason now to think they exist, and in that respect they are like faeries, vampires and compassionate conservatives – possible entities for which there is no evidence to hand. So basing my life functionally on these possible entities, including seeking evidence of them, is a waste of time. Science, on the other hand, is replete with evidence even if some of it turns out to be misleading. So I should base my life on that positive knowledge. This is not about the authority of science, it is about the weight of evidence and the nature of knowledge. I know that, for example, pathogens cause diseases, not evil spirits, so the potential existence of evil spirits is not something I should pay any attention to in my daily life.

  28. Wayne Wayne

    “Costly Signalling hypothesis”

    I really do not see how that makes sense. I can understand it in a pejorative sense. Making fun of someone because of their religion.

    But, how and why would someone sacrifice their child, or allow someone else to sacrifice their child? I guess I could follow this better if you had shown that cannibalism is the natural state of humanity.

    Wayne

  29. John the Plumber John the Plumber

    As far-fetched as a compassionate conservative – nice one.
    Cathedrals of Science.
    I worry that science is on the way to becoming a religious belief in its own righteousness, rather than a rational one. – It’s an easy trap to fall into, called science is always right.
    Clicking John S Wilkin’s final link in the first post to this thread – ‘prepared to fund science in them’ – took me to The Natural History Museum site where I found the Scott’s Last Expedition Exhibition. (A dyslexic’s nightmare just writing it down.)
    This led me to – “After your exhibition visit, pick up fabulous books, prints, trinkets and toys inspired by Scott’s Last Exhibition. Buy gifts in the online shop.”
    I see. – ‘Line up ‘ere for your relics and rosaries – genuine finger bones of Oates himself – get your plastic spinning compasses – don’t go ‘ome on your knees empty ‘anded.”
    Is this a bad sign – or is it just, as one politician said a year or two back, “Shopping is the growth industry.”’ – Something like, profit is the way to see the truth and the light, I suppose.
    Christian asks about evolution and religion. From his profile picture, he seems young honest open and cheerful – clearly though J S W is a somewhat world weary Gorilla. – What am I to believe. – Are these genuine pictures of two writers? – I am inclined to believe that both really are true representations of the writer’s in question. – I would ask Christian if I am warranted in this belief.

    • re trinkets & toys:
      Agreed that the schlock can get annoying, particularly when the routing of an exhibit dumps visitors into the special purpose-built gift shop at the end of the last corridor. On the other hand, I applaud the idea that the celebrity, fun, and coolness associated (for good or for ill) with the possession of “flair” associated with sports or entertainment stars can be extended to science and scientists.

  30. Jeb Jeb

    John, I hope you return to this subject again. C.H.S. does seem to be coming in for a hard time, not sure why. Been a long time since you discussed anthropology and belief and you are generally rather subtle and sophisticated with you’re use.

    My fav. part of what you write about.

    I find it difficult to disentangle the relationship between warlord and holy-man here, but then a lot of questions remain to be resolved. With regard to early med Northern Europe I feel the need to look at both together. Developing networks that result from the move from face to face, small scale society does seem to be the preserve of elites (they have the opportunity to move the most). Aside from the successes and growth of the monastery the other major question is the development of ethnicity. Its running along the same timeline and you can use C.H.S. for both, indeed I am more use to seeing it applied to the development of ethnicity among early med. elites than religion.

  31. Jeb Jeb

    “I was also disappointed by some of the anti-Muslim (as distinct from the anti-Islam) sentiment that was expressed.”

    I think this should go beyond disappointment and be noted as an alarming tendency with some serious historical form, as the attempt to put racist beliefs on an empirical basis using religious difference can be traced to the roots of early modern skepticism with regard to religion or in particular certain forms of religion belonging to ethnic groups with opposing political perspectives as particularly prone to error and forms of mental instability.

    Frankly I find it deeply disturbing given the tendency of some skeptics who do sound at times like escapees from a mid 17th cen. debate on belief or come far to close to creating such an impression.

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