Burnee links for Thursday

The Blair Hitch Project | Politics | Vanity Fair
Christopher Hitchens gives his account of the clash.

Sarah Palin's Camp Says Depraved Liberals Blame Sarah Palin for Mass Murders
Is Palin is digging her own political grave? Let's hope so.

Dave, Andy, and Georgia and their unbelievable, ridiculous fable : Pharyngula
Ugh! Creationists.

The Importance of Critical Engagement | MandM
Some Christian teachers are prepared to engage with teenagers on a basis other than indoctrination.
(Via Patient and Persistant)

Tessera: Should you join a gym in January? No.
Sound and comforting (and realistic) advice.

Sadly ironic « Why Evolution Is True
Jerry Coyne on the Gabrielle Giffords shooting.

BBC News - Cases dropped against malaria homeopaths
This is a less than desirable result. People may have died because homeopaths recommended ineffective "medications" in lieu of vaccination.

How incorrect reports of Giffords’ death spread on Twitter - Lost Remote
Maybe we need different rules for different times. The internet changes everything.

Anonymity and the Dark Side of the Internet - NYTimes.com
Stanley Fish reviews The Offensive Internet by Nussbaum et al.

Salmaan Taseer, Aasia Bibi and Pakistan's struggle with extremism | World news | The Observer
Reading about what's happening in Pakistan it's hard to disagree with Christopher Hitchens that religion poisons everything. Here's a place where religion has infected the minds of ordinary people with what can only be described as evil.

Doctors criticise chief rabbi's edict against donor cards | World news | The Guardian
Who does he think he is — the Pope? Yet another case of a high priest thinking he knows things he clearly doesn't.

Bloggers' word choice bares their personality traits, study finds
Interesting. But to me though, it seems awfully lazy — and worse, depressing...

Into the Hands of Strangers « Choice in Dying
Read it.

Mary Warnock on Morality and Religion « Choice in Dying
Forthright and lucid post from Eric MacDonald on morality and government. The final paragraphs should be pasted onto the walls wherever laws are made.

Jesus and Mo
Disgusting! Write to the network!

Kicking the creationist ladder

Earlier today James Thomas posted an article on his posterous about a recent visit he made to the Natural History Museum, accompanied by a friend who happened to be an ardent creationist. James's article raises some important points about how we deal with creationists and why they appear to us to be so closed-minded to the evidence for evolution. You should go and read it. (Don't worry, I'll wait...)

James and I had a brief Twitter exchange about the issue he raises, which is that it doesn't help to characterise creationists as ignorant fools, because a sincerely held belief in a six-day creation only 6,000 years ago is fundamental to their faith. To accept that even one part of the biblical creation story is not a literal record of historical fact would undermine their whole belief system. This is why, as James points out, they will not accept the evidence for evolution even if presented with overwhelming masses of it, such as that found at the Natural History Museum.

But if an assault on creation "science" isn't going to work, that leaves only the fundamental beliefs themselves. My own understanding of creationism is that where there's conflict between what the Bible says and what science teaches us, creationists insist that the science must by definition be wrong. It matters not a jot that the science is backed up by rigorous research and incontrovertible evidence — creationists have to find some way of making it wrong because the alternative, that the Bible is wrong, is too shocking to contemplate.

So rather than reiterating the evidence for evolution and an old earth, should we instead be attempting to undermine belief in the inerrancy of the Bible? Such a course, I fear, is unlikely to win many friends in either camp. I can imagine the responses — "You've no right to interfere with people's faith. Let them believe what they want." Or, "How dare you attack us for simply stating our beliefs! This is typical New Atheist militancy!"

During our brief exchange today James suggested that "Maybe our job is to cushion the fall as well as kicking the ladder?" That's a nice metaphor but it's also a difficult strategy to get right. The problem — as anyone who's had a ladder kicked from under them would probably testify — is that the fall is really frightening. It's only after they've landed on the cushion do they discover they were going to be perfectly safe all along.

What conversion stories have in common

I've heard or read quite a few stories of religious people who have lost their faith. I'm also aware of (fewer) stories of atheists becoming religious. And though these could not be regarded as anything like a representative sample, they do appear to have certain common characteristics.

Religious people who give up their faith seem to do so because of nagging doubts that increase to the point when they can no longer, in all honesty, continue to lie to themselves.

The non-believers who become religious appear to do so as a result of some emotional experience. Not because of reason, or persuasion, but because of some susceptibility to an emotional appeal.

My reaction to the first set — the believers who lose their belief — is, "What took you so long?"

My reaction to the second — people who convert from non-belief to belief — is plain bewilderment. How can they be suddenly convinced of the existence of God when there is, as far as I can see, no justification for such a belief? (I appreciate that this could be my failing rather than theirs.)

I've examined and refuted to my own satisfaction all the "arguments for the existence of God" I've encountered (and I'm willing to consider others), but it's clear that while these arguments aren't convincing to me, neither are they the cause of belief in converts. Believers of all stripes may attempt to bolster their faith "after the fact" with these arguments, but I don't think the arguments play any part in conversion from non-belief in a deity to belief in a deity.

Religious converts have rarely become believers as a result of rational argument, so it's no surprise that only rarely can they be subsequently reasoned out of their faith.

An Atheist's Journey

Like many atheists, I used to be a Christian. At least, I called myself a Christian — it was how I was brought up. Not that I understood what being a Christian actually was. As a child I was told that there were things I wasn't meant to understand, and there were other things that would become clear to me as I grew older.

Prayer, for instance, was one of many things I had to take on faith. Prayer seemed to me like attempted telepathy — attempted, because it was always one way only, despite contrary depictions in the Bible, with its profusion of "And the Lord said unto..."

Although as a child I had no concrete evidence of the existence of God, I assumed this was because I was a child, and in the fullness of time God would make his presence known to me. As a teenager I expected God's presence to become apparent, either gradually or as a Damascene revelation.

It never happened. My puzzlement at the absence of revelation eventually gave way to relief as I realised that most of the hard problems of faith would disappear if I took on the proposition suggested by the lack of evidence: that the God of the Bible didn't exist. This was a revelation of sorts. Without a belief in God, the absurdities of religion no longer had to be resolved, and just faded into nothing. Suddenly the Universe made a whole lot more sense — and so I found I was an atheist.

At the time, the fact that the majority of the world's population was more or less religious didn't bother me. Clearly belief in supernatural agents is a hangover from ancient animism, and has helped the human race survive. (Tribes are much better at conquering other tribes, inventing things and creating cultural heritage if they're not preoccupied with the eternal verities — let the priests and theologians deal with all that stuff.)

There remained, however, one intractable problem, which meant that though by age 15 or so I self-identified as an atheist, I was not a vocal atheist. People could believe in a god if they wanted. I didn't, but I was nonetheless troubled by the notion that without God there is no moral authority.

Like many, for me it was the attack on the World Trade Center that transformed me from a godless but passive observer to an atheist prepared to defend my position. I had witnessed the destruction caused by the folly of delusion, and felt the need to stand up and be counted. I read Richard Dawkins' The God Delusion and discovered whose side I was on — when previously I'd hardly been aware there was a side.

As for moral authority, I came to understand that morality does not originate in scripture as I had once thought — which had caused me to subdue any atheistic declarations I might have been inclined to make — but from our innate human intuition. Our moral conscience has evolved with us as a human race, but only been distorted by scripture (indeed scripture contains much that is morally repugnant).

These days I'm happy to be counted as an "out" atheist, though I'm not evangelical. In my day-job I mix with religious people and see no reason to challenge them about their faith. It's only when wrong-headed beliefs have an adverse impact on the well-being of innocents that I'm likely to become vocal. In my own time, however, I'm willing to engage in discussions about faith, especially online. I may have little chance of persuading a hardcore fundamentalist out of his or her irrational beliefs, but you never know who's listening.

Burnee links for Sunday

Science, Reason and Critical Thinking: Hello, I'm an Atheist: Awe
...and I'm an RC. (Actually I'm not, but you knew that.)

Why Are Believers So Hostile Toward Atheists? | Belief | AlterNet
Greta Christina ponders hostility.

A successful campaign against a new ‘faith’ school | HumanistLife
Whether or not the South West London Humanists' campaign was instrumental in the decision (and it may not have been), this is a fine example of consciousness-raising and engagement.

The time machine | The Rather Friendly Skeptic
There are stories of true believers becoming skeptics through exposure to "the skeptical movement" but this is clearly a case of someone finding their own way out of the woo. (Shame Hayley won't be bringing the time machine to QED though...)

Nox’s Wall of Text, Part 1. | Unreasonable Faith
Custador quotes at length from the Unreasonable Faith forum on the subject of the truth of the Bible (with more to come).

Taxonomy of the Logical Fallacies
Neat!
(Via Philosophy Bites Daily)

Purpose in Puebla — more on the Mexico debate

After listening to William Lane Craig's discussion with Justin Brierley on the latest Unbelievable? programme* on Premier Christian Radio (about the recent debate in Puebla, Mexico) I'm becoming more convinced that he's mired in a philosophical dead-end. It's all about purpose — the universe's purpose and your own personal purpose. Craig appears to think that if the universe doesn't have a purpose, then no-one can have a purpose, and therefore any purpose atheists might claim is merely illusory or "pretend". (Incidentally, I have been similarly accused.)

Craig makes a clearly false distinction between "pretend purposes" and "real purposes", as if only those purposes validated by a deity are "real". This is nonsense. A purpose is a purpose is a purpose. If someone has an intention (whoever they may be) then their purpose is no less "real" than any other purpose. The only pretend purposes are those "intended" by fictional characters — and a great many deities fall into that category.

The more I hear of this argument about purpose, the clearer it becomes that the theists cannot conceive of a universe without an overarching purpose — it's the foundation of their argument from design. They seem to assume that a universe without some purpose or other is a physical impossibility, and therefore simply take it as read: of course the universe has a purpose — how could it not?

Well, as Richard Dawkins pointed out in the debate, we accept that a mountain doesn't have a purpose. So why should we assume that the universe does have a purpose?

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*The relevant Unbelievable? programme can be downloaded here:
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/28c90db3-db8d-405d-adde-88bdb6290ee5.mp3

Simulated research: an experimental life

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, a group of research scientists set up a simulation experiment using multiple artificial intelligences running on a vast array of extremely fast supercomputers. The simulation was of the emergence of life on an insignificant little blue-green planet orbiting a small unregarded yellow sun in the uncharted backwaters of the unfashionable end of the Western spiral arm of the galaxy.*

The scientists entered certain values into an instance of this simulation, such that sooner or later simulated life would not only emerge on this simulated planet, but would develop simulated intelligence, income tax and rice pudding. And this is what in fact happened.

The intelligent simulated life-forms began to wonder what it was all for, and some speculated about the group of scientists (though of course they did not call them such) who had instigated the whole thing. They came up with a number of theories, including the suggestion that the research scientists themselves (though of course they did not call them such) didn't actually exist. "There's no compelling evidence," they said, "that the universe we live in was created by a group of research scientists" — though they did not use those exact words. "The burden of proof rests with those who claim that the universe was created by a group of research scientists." (Though the words they used might not have been exactly those.)

Some others felt that the doubters were obviously wrong. "Look at the simulated trees," they said (or words to that effect). "The evidence for the existence of the group of research scientists is all around us. How else could simulated life arise, if not by the intentional actions of a group of research scientists?"

The doubters, however, were not impressed. Some of them had done scientific research themselves, and had discovered that much of the simulated life around them, including themselves, exhibited signs of common structure, as if all the various examples of complex simulated life were derived from a much simpler simulated life, and had developed, over a long period of time, from such simple simulated life. They found that they could tinker with that structure and cause certain types of simulated life to develop in particular ways. By examining the structure of all simulated life, they were able to document how it had developed from, ultimately, something very simple indeed.

Those who held to the theory that the simulated universe was instigated by a group of research scientists had to agree that it was not necessary for said research scientists to tinker in any ongoing way, except occasionally in response to special appeals. Sometimes it was felt necessary that events should proceed in a way that did not conform to the established, well-known pattern. Such non-conforming events (if indeed they were non-conforming — some of the doubters disputed even this) were naturally taken as evidence for the existence of the group of research scientists. But though the doubters had shown that the research scientists were not strictly necessary in the normal run of things, they had not shown how everything could have started off at the beginning of time. Surely, therefore, the group of research scientists were responsible for that?

"Not necessarily," said the doubters. "We know how all complex simulated life has developed from simpler simulated life, right back to the least complex simulated life. It seems likely that we will discover how that simplest simulated life came into being."

"But you don't know, do you? It's reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the research scientists were responsible."

"No, we don't know," said the doubters, "but that's no excuse for falling back on an entirely unsupported theory that has no evidence and cannot be falsified."

"You just don't want there to be a group of research scientists, do you? Clearly you're in denial. Or maybe you can't bear the thought of a group of research scientists watching your every move and taking notes."

The doubters were unmoved by what they considered to be appeals to emotion. They had looked at the evidence for the group of research scientists and found it wanting. They were aware that their own research was incomplete, that they still lacked information, but felt justified in reserving judgement regarding the existence of the group of research scientists.

Others did not agree. "How come," they said to the doubters, "that the universe we live in is just the way it is — a way that appears exactly right for us? It must have been made that way so we could be here. And we know who made it. It was obviously the group of research scientists."

"No," said the doubters. "You've got it backwards. We are exactly like we are because we live here. Our universe is what makes us what we are, not the other way around."

"But what made our universe? It must have been the group of research scientists!"

"What made the group of research scientists?" asked the doubters.

"Now you're just being silly."

Of course the group of research scientists observed all of these exchanges and did indeed take notes. Eventually they decided — for no particular reason — that the experiment was complete, and they switched off the simulation.

*With apologies to George Lucas and Douglas Adams