Ever since I came to consider myself an atheist (that’s many decades ago now) I’ve maintained that my atheism is nothing more than the lack of belief in any gods. My atheism is not a worldview, though my worldview is necessarily derived from atheism — and I find humanism is the closest fit to that worldview. The “good without God” issue is a clear and straightforward one for me now, though I struggled for a long time with the persistent notion that my moral grounding had to be rooted in Christianity. These days I consider the idea of moral values being based on scripture to be an admission of moral failure — that blindly and unquestioningly following rules handed down from above is an abdication of moral responsibility. It’s far better, in my view, to examine moral decisions based on context and consequences, even if such decisions flout so-called moral rules.
The point about “humanism” being the obvious default stance is a valid one, but humanism as a consensus view needs to be seen in the light of what it’s up against. This is especially important in relation to the question of morality. The Christian view, in this officially Christian country, is that it may well be true that one can live a good life without religion, but that the ability to discern good from evil (even when atheists do it) is only possible because of religion (or to use the jargon — because everyone, even an atheist, is made in the image of God). It’s this erroneous view that humanism endeavours to correct, and why I’m happy to label myself a humanist.
Sunday, 23 October 2011
Why I call myself a humanist
This is essentially a response to a post by Clio Bellenis on the Hampshire Skeptics Society blog, "Why I do not call myself a humanist". I'm posting it here as well for completeness, but any comments ought to go over there.
Wednesday, 19 October 2011
Wanna hear a spooky story?
I don't believe in ghosts. I'm extremely skeptical of the "supernatural", whether we're talking fairies, spirits or gods. But I love a good horror story.
PodCastle is a free audio fiction podcast that serves up a short fantasy story every week, and though it's mainly devoted to fantasy (that is, not horror), about this time each year — approaching All Hallows' Eve — it naturally gravitates towards stories of a ghoulish nature.
I've a soft spot for PodCastle as I was honoured to be asked to narrate its inaugural episode back in April 2008, "Come Lady Death" by Peter S. Beagle. Since then I've narrated a few more, and the most recent has just gone live, "The Gateway of the Monster" by William Hope Hodgson.
Even though I don't believe in ghosts, reading a good horror story several times in preparation for narration, then actually narrating it, and then spending a good deal of time editing the audio, can be a very immersive process — so much so that I can well imagine what it must be like to believe such things are real....
I've a soft spot for PodCastle as I was honoured to be asked to narrate its inaugural episode back in April 2008, "Come Lady Death" by Peter S. Beagle. Since then I've narrated a few more, and the most recent has just gone live, "The Gateway of the Monster" by William Hope Hodgson.
Even though I don't believe in ghosts, reading a good horror story several times in preparation for narration, then actually narrating it, and then spending a good deal of time editing the audio, can be a very immersive process — so much so that I can well imagine what it must be like to believe such things are real....
Sunday, 16 October 2011
Unbelievable?: The Conference — Disc 2
Following my review last month of the first disc of this three-DVD set, here's my assessment of the second, which is the Bible Stream.
First up is David Instone-Brewer with "Can I trust the Bible?" He begins with a reference in John in the King James Version to some aspect of the Trinity, which is omitted in modern translations because it is reckoned to be something a copyist noted in the margin, and which was then erroneously included in the main text by a subsequent copyist. This is the kind of thing Bart Erhman has been pointing out for years and is probably nothing new.
Instone-Brewer goes on to claim that many copies had errors and omissions due entirely to personal whim — such as when someone made a copy for use by his family and censored some passages he considered unsuitable for a family audience.
For me this calls into question the accuracy of even the earliest copies. Even though there are thousands of handwritten copies there are no original manuscripts, but Instone-Brewer claims that the profusion of copies allows scholars to infer the original from the many slight differences between the many copies. That's all very well, assuming that the the copies derive from different levels of the biblical "evolutionary tree". But what if they all derive from a single, early copy that contained significant errors? The closer any early copy is to the original, the fewer examples there will be on which to perform such statistical inference, and the less likely any errors are to be correctable. In fact statistical inference will probably reinforce such errors rather than detect and eliminate them.
Instone-Brewer seems to contradict himself when he says "nothing is lost", only a few minutes after declaring his opinion that the ending of Mark is, in fact, lost. He also claims, "Thousands of copies, thousands of problems, but we've got the original." Except, as he's already explained, we haven't got the original. He claims to be able to derive the original, but I think his confidence is misplaced, especially as in answer to a question he says that original texts are fragile and don't last very long. They could, therefore, have been copied erroneously, perhaps only a few times, before being lost forever. Many of those errors are likely to be undetectable.
He also makes the claim that oral sources are more reliable than written sources. This is a claim I've heard before (from, for example, Michael Licona), but it sounds more like wishful thinking than hard fact. Stories are indeed passed down through the generations, but they are embellished and altered for dramatic and polemical effect — and this is an accepted aspect of the oral tradition. No-one expects these stories to be literally or historically true, especially when those telling them have a specific agenda.
Instone-Brewer mentions a stone inscription (apparently now on display in a Paris museum) that describes a Roman Emperor's edict that moving a body from a Jewish grave is to be punishable by death. Instone-Brewer then hints (I think) that this is some kind of evidence for the resurrection of Christ. To me it seems like evidence that the emperor was aware of a religious cult that had persisted after its deceased leader's body had been stolen from a grave, and was anxious to prevent a repetition.
Not being particularly well-read in the New Testament I must thank David Instone-Brewer for pointing out so many problems within the text that I wasn't previously aware of. It seems to me that every so-called justification of the reliability of scripture merely points up its inconsistencies and unreliability, as well as the lengths to which Bible scholars will go in their attempts to validate its historicity.
I'm not one of those who doubt the historical existence of Jesus, but nothing Instone-Brewer says suggests that the supernatural claims of the New Testament are true.
David Instone-Brewer also delivers the second talk on this disc, "Is God a moral monster?" — which is the title of Paul Copan's recent book (which I've not read).
He begins by quoting Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, where Dawkins describes the God of the Old Testament (he has subsequently stated that he included this over-the-top description largely for comic effect).
Instone-Brewer goes on to describe the morality of the Old Testament, stating that times were different then, but nevertheless the laws of Israel were far more lenient than those of its neighbours. This may have been so, but such an argument skewers the whole idea of objective morality, making it subject to context and prevailing conditions. He confirms this in an answer to a question about the Ten Commandments, claiming that "Thou shalt not kill" doesn't mean you must never kill anybody. In answer to other, harder questions he simply plays the mystery card — apparently morality was different in the past, so much so that we in the modern world cannot understand it.
With regard to sacrifices and slavery he reiterates the claim that the laws of Israel were more lenient than anywhere else. So to modern eyes, it seems, they were relatively less immoral. He answers a question about stoning one's disobedient children to death by going on about drunkards — and I can only assume he didn't properly hear the question. He admits he doesn't understand disproportionate punishment, yet still maintains that God isn't a moral monster.
Inevitably there's a question about the slaughter of the Canaanites, and he gives a good explanation concerning how children are honour-bound to avenge the killing of their parents, and the invading forces knew this, and therefore had to kill them to prevent the grown-up children coming after them years later. Unfortunately this contradicts William Lane Craig's insistence (repeated just this morning on BBC Radio) that the children would be glad to be despatched to Heaven. I think it's safe to say that dishonoured children would not be glad to go to Heaven. This last contradiction is yet another example of the contortions Christians will perform in order to twist their faith into places it will not fit.
Some of William Lane Craig's points feature in the final talk on this disc, given by Jay Smith: "Is there evidence for the resurrection?"
Smith states that the resurrection is central to Christian belief, then says he will use Craig's eight points for discussing the resurrection with Muslims and others. I lost count, but the points he raises are the prophecies in the Old and New Testaments, the mentions by Greeks, Romans and Josephus, the empty tomb and the marble inscription already mentioned by David Instone-Brewer.
As in his talk about Islam, Smith soon gets into preacher-mode, which I found a little wearing, but his confident pronouncements seem to rely more on presentation style than logic. He's no more than superficially persuasive, in my view. For instance, I find nothing persuasive about citing Old or New Testament prophecy in support of the actual bodily resurrection of Christ. As has been pointed out, those who wrote the New Testament were intimately familiar with the Old Testament, and they knew what was expected of them. Smith himself hints at this mechanism when he describes the Mithras legends as post-Christ, claiming that the reason such legends are similar to the Gospel accounts of Jesus is that they were copied from them. To me this is applying a double standard.
Smith also states that when a messiah dies, the movement that follows him usually also dies, but this didn't happen in the case of Christ, and this is evidence for the truth of the resurrection. The followers of Christ, however, would have been aware of this tendency, giving them strong motivation for somehow claiming that their messiah was still alive.
Jay Smith has comprehensive arguments with which to knock down the Qur'an and incidentally claims it was not written by Muhammad, but hearing his (understandably) biased approach to Christian scripture I have doubts about his other claims.
The final disc is titled Big Questions — I wonder what that will be about.
First up is David Instone-Brewer with "Can I trust the Bible?" He begins with a reference in John in the King James Version to some aspect of the Trinity, which is omitted in modern translations because it is reckoned to be something a copyist noted in the margin, and which was then erroneously included in the main text by a subsequent copyist. This is the kind of thing Bart Erhman has been pointing out for years and is probably nothing new.
Instone-Brewer goes on to claim that many copies had errors and omissions due entirely to personal whim — such as when someone made a copy for use by his family and censored some passages he considered unsuitable for a family audience.
For me this calls into question the accuracy of even the earliest copies. Even though there are thousands of handwritten copies there are no original manuscripts, but Instone-Brewer claims that the profusion of copies allows scholars to infer the original from the many slight differences between the many copies. That's all very well, assuming that the the copies derive from different levels of the biblical "evolutionary tree". But what if they all derive from a single, early copy that contained significant errors? The closer any early copy is to the original, the fewer examples there will be on which to perform such statistical inference, and the less likely any errors are to be correctable. In fact statistical inference will probably reinforce such errors rather than detect and eliminate them.
Instone-Brewer seems to contradict himself when he says "nothing is lost", only a few minutes after declaring his opinion that the ending of Mark is, in fact, lost. He also claims, "Thousands of copies, thousands of problems, but we've got the original." Except, as he's already explained, we haven't got the original. He claims to be able to derive the original, but I think his confidence is misplaced, especially as in answer to a question he says that original texts are fragile and don't last very long. They could, therefore, have been copied erroneously, perhaps only a few times, before being lost forever. Many of those errors are likely to be undetectable.
He also makes the claim that oral sources are more reliable than written sources. This is a claim I've heard before (from, for example, Michael Licona), but it sounds more like wishful thinking than hard fact. Stories are indeed passed down through the generations, but they are embellished and altered for dramatic and polemical effect — and this is an accepted aspect of the oral tradition. No-one expects these stories to be literally or historically true, especially when those telling them have a specific agenda.
Instone-Brewer mentions a stone inscription (apparently now on display in a Paris museum) that describes a Roman Emperor's edict that moving a body from a Jewish grave is to be punishable by death. Instone-Brewer then hints (I think) that this is some kind of evidence for the resurrection of Christ. To me it seems like evidence that the emperor was aware of a religious cult that had persisted after its deceased leader's body had been stolen from a grave, and was anxious to prevent a repetition.
Not being particularly well-read in the New Testament I must thank David Instone-Brewer for pointing out so many problems within the text that I wasn't previously aware of. It seems to me that every so-called justification of the reliability of scripture merely points up its inconsistencies and unreliability, as well as the lengths to which Bible scholars will go in their attempts to validate its historicity.
I'm not one of those who doubt the historical existence of Jesus, but nothing Instone-Brewer says suggests that the supernatural claims of the New Testament are true.
David Instone-Brewer also delivers the second talk on this disc, "Is God a moral monster?" — which is the title of Paul Copan's recent book (which I've not read).
He begins by quoting Richard Dawkins in The God Delusion, where Dawkins describes the God of the Old Testament (he has subsequently stated that he included this over-the-top description largely for comic effect).
Instone-Brewer goes on to describe the morality of the Old Testament, stating that times were different then, but nevertheless the laws of Israel were far more lenient than those of its neighbours. This may have been so, but such an argument skewers the whole idea of objective morality, making it subject to context and prevailing conditions. He confirms this in an answer to a question about the Ten Commandments, claiming that "Thou shalt not kill" doesn't mean you must never kill anybody. In answer to other, harder questions he simply plays the mystery card — apparently morality was different in the past, so much so that we in the modern world cannot understand it.
With regard to sacrifices and slavery he reiterates the claim that the laws of Israel were more lenient than anywhere else. So to modern eyes, it seems, they were relatively less immoral. He answers a question about stoning one's disobedient children to death by going on about drunkards — and I can only assume he didn't properly hear the question. He admits he doesn't understand disproportionate punishment, yet still maintains that God isn't a moral monster.
Inevitably there's a question about the slaughter of the Canaanites, and he gives a good explanation concerning how children are honour-bound to avenge the killing of their parents, and the invading forces knew this, and therefore had to kill them to prevent the grown-up children coming after them years later. Unfortunately this contradicts William Lane Craig's insistence (repeated just this morning on BBC Radio) that the children would be glad to be despatched to Heaven. I think it's safe to say that dishonoured children would not be glad to go to Heaven. This last contradiction is yet another example of the contortions Christians will perform in order to twist their faith into places it will not fit.
Some of William Lane Craig's points feature in the final talk on this disc, given by Jay Smith: "Is there evidence for the resurrection?"
Smith states that the resurrection is central to Christian belief, then says he will use Craig's eight points for discussing the resurrection with Muslims and others. I lost count, but the points he raises are the prophecies in the Old and New Testaments, the mentions by Greeks, Romans and Josephus, the empty tomb and the marble inscription already mentioned by David Instone-Brewer.
As in his talk about Islam, Smith soon gets into preacher-mode, which I found a little wearing, but his confident pronouncements seem to rely more on presentation style than logic. He's no more than superficially persuasive, in my view. For instance, I find nothing persuasive about citing Old or New Testament prophecy in support of the actual bodily resurrection of Christ. As has been pointed out, those who wrote the New Testament were intimately familiar with the Old Testament, and they knew what was expected of them. Smith himself hints at this mechanism when he describes the Mithras legends as post-Christ, claiming that the reason such legends are similar to the Gospel accounts of Jesus is that they were copied from them. To me this is applying a double standard.
Smith also states that when a messiah dies, the movement that follows him usually also dies, but this didn't happen in the case of Christ, and this is evidence for the truth of the resurrection. The followers of Christ, however, would have been aware of this tendency, giving them strong motivation for somehow claiming that their messiah was still alive.
Jay Smith has comprehensive arguments with which to knock down the Qur'an and incidentally claims it was not written by Muhammad, but hearing his (understandably) biased approach to Christian scripture I have doubts about his other claims.
The final disc is titled Big Questions — I wonder what that will be about.
Burnee links for Sunday
Matt Slick defends “honor killing”: a woman’s hymen is worth more than her life | The Atheist Experience
So much for "absolute morality".
Guest post: Baroness Greenfield, junk neuroscience, and the dangers of video games – Telegraph Blogs
Dean Burnett puts Greenfield's alarmism in perspective.
Formal debates are a win for atheists - National atheism | Examiner.com
While I support the general thrust of this article — that such debates can be ultimately beneficial to the atheist side, I'm not so sure that "atheists dominate the internet". Straightforward Google searches on "Christian" and "Atheist" appear to contradict that assertion.
C4ID's Dr Noble responds to Attenborough—in the style of a creationist. | British Centre for Science Education
Alastair Noble must be getting desperate. He wants children to be taught about "intelligent design" in science classes, even though he and his cohorts have never presented any scientific evidence to support it. They often claim to have a way of reliably "detecting" design, yet they never produce it — it's all talk.
They object to criticisms that intelligent design is unscientific, yet don't seem to understand what science is. When we try to find a scientific explanation for something we don't understand, we attempt to do so in terms of other things we do understand. With ID there's no such attempt, because ID proponents simply don't have an explanation, or even the beginnings of an explanation.
And school science classes are not the place for speculative ideas — schoolchildren should be taught accepted science only. For in-depth analysis and an effective way forward in science education see James Williams' new book How Science Works.
Apostles have been raised up by God | Butterflies and Wheels
Seriously? I mean, really? Demonstrably off-planet crazy.
So much for "absolute morality".
Guest post: Baroness Greenfield, junk neuroscience, and the dangers of video games – Telegraph Blogs
Dean Burnett puts Greenfield's alarmism in perspective.
Formal debates are a win for atheists - National atheism | Examiner.com
While I support the general thrust of this article — that such debates can be ultimately beneficial to the atheist side, I'm not so sure that "atheists dominate the internet". Straightforward Google searches on "Christian" and "Atheist" appear to contradict that assertion.
C4ID's Dr Noble responds to Attenborough—in the style of a creationist. | British Centre for Science Education
They object to criticisms that intelligent design is unscientific, yet don't seem to understand what science is. When we try to find a scientific explanation for something we don't understand, we attempt to do so in terms of other things we do understand. With ID there's no such attempt, because ID proponents simply don't have an explanation, or even the beginnings of an explanation.
And school science classes are not the place for speculative ideas — schoolchildren should be taught accepted science only. For in-depth analysis and an effective way forward in science education see James Williams' new book How Science Works.
Apostles have been raised up by God | Butterflies and Wheels
Seriously? I mean, really? Demonstrably off-planet crazy.
Saturday, 8 October 2011
What do we know?
Actually, not much.
How do we know that we are not brains in vats? That we aren't software simulations in an advanced super-computer? That the entire universe of which we think we are a part wasn't created intact (complete with all our memories) last Thursday?
We don't. We can make a basic Cartesian assumption that "thinking" of some sort is going on somewhere, by the fact that we use thinking to make that assumption. But apart from that, we really don't know.
This is a scary thought. (But it is, at least, a thought.)
So where do we go from here? If we can't know anything, what's the basis of doing anything? Why go on, in the face of such uncertainty?
We have senses that seem to show us the world in a generally consistent way, so in the absence of certainty we can proceed in what appears to be a pragmatic manner. In the absence of certainty we can construct a worldview based on probability. We can live a life of induction, but we must first assume that induction works. Our senses may subsequently tell us that such an assumption appears to be consistent with reality as we perceive it. And so we build. Of such pragmatism is civilisation wrought — in sweat, in toil, in reasoned argument, in compassion. It is, we find, worth striving for.
For some people this isn't enough. They're unhappy with such uncertainty, and demand to be told in no uncertain terms, how things really are.
Such people will search for certainty, and believe they find it in religious scripture. They will seize upon the sacred text that purports to reveal in no uncertain terms the secrets of the universe. They will base their lives upon it, proclaiming its inerrancy. It must be inerrant — it's the truth they've been seeking, and if someone is so crass or unwise to question the inerrancy of scripture they'll explain, at tortuous length, why it contains not a single contradiction, and how it grounds their very existence.
But they're wrong. They're no better off than the rest of us — in fact they're worse off, having deluded themselves into thinking they are certain, in a world where certainty is impossible.
How do we know that we are not brains in vats? That we aren't software simulations in an advanced super-computer? That the entire universe of which we think we are a part wasn't created intact (complete with all our memories) last Thursday?
We don't. We can make a basic Cartesian assumption that "thinking" of some sort is going on somewhere, by the fact that we use thinking to make that assumption. But apart from that, we really don't know.
This is a scary thought. (But it is, at least, a thought.)
So where do we go from here? If we can't know anything, what's the basis of doing anything? Why go on, in the face of such uncertainty?
We have senses that seem to show us the world in a generally consistent way, so in the absence of certainty we can proceed in what appears to be a pragmatic manner. In the absence of certainty we can construct a worldview based on probability. We can live a life of induction, but we must first assume that induction works. Our senses may subsequently tell us that such an assumption appears to be consistent with reality as we perceive it. And so we build. Of such pragmatism is civilisation wrought — in sweat, in toil, in reasoned argument, in compassion. It is, we find, worth striving for.
For some people this isn't enough. They're unhappy with such uncertainty, and demand to be told in no uncertain terms, how things really are.
Such people will search for certainty, and believe they find it in religious scripture. They will seize upon the sacred text that purports to reveal in no uncertain terms the secrets of the universe. They will base their lives upon it, proclaiming its inerrancy. It must be inerrant — it's the truth they've been seeking, and if someone is so crass or unwise to question the inerrancy of scripture they'll explain, at tortuous length, why it contains not a single contradiction, and how it grounds their very existence.
But they're wrong. They're no better off than the rest of us — in fact they're worse off, having deluded themselves into thinking they are certain, in a world where certainty is impossible.
After some delay, the latest Skepticule Extra is available
Many thanks to James Williams for being our guest on Skepticule Extra. This show covers science teaching, statistical religiosity in Britain and the mendacity (or otherwise) of the Jehovah's Witnesses (including the editorship of the Watch Tower).
http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2011/10/skepextra-015-20110918.html
http://www.skepticule.co.uk/2011/10/skepextra-015-20110918.html
Why I don't care about theology
Theology: "The study of the nature of God."
That's not the only definition, but it's a popular one and it's the one I'm using when I say I don't care about theology.
Take this conversation as an example:
http://fundamentally-flawed.com/2011/10/01/the-slick-files-volume-3/
It's a half-hour exchange between Alex Botten and Matt Slick, when the former called in to the latter's radio show. (It's actually the third such exchange — go to the the Fundamentally Flawed website to find the others.)
As evident in the recording Alex is knowledgeable about the Christian Bible and has several questions for Matt concerning such matters as the omniscience of God, original sin and how Jesus could be fully God and fully human at the same time. Matt is also knowledgeable and had answers for these questions. That's not to say that these answers were acceptable to Alex (or to me), but the point is that Matt had answers. Theologians and apologists always have answers for such questions. On the matter of Jesus being God and man, the answer was plainly nonsensical (as opposed to only vaguely nonsensical in the cases of God's omniscience and the concept of original sin).
But you're never going to get sensible answers to such questions, because the answers are designed to be nonsensical. Take the Trinity, for example — the only answer any theologian or apologist can give as an "explanation" of the three-in-one is to play the mystery card. If the Trinity could be explained in everyday, straightforward language that actually made sense, it would cease to be extraordinary, and without such extraordinary elements Christianity would be a mundane belief system that failed to move people. By including elements that are impervious to explanation and rational analysis, a belief system becomes "special", "mysterious" and "transcendent". In some ways such a system resembles conspiracy theory — belief in something against the trend, being party to secret knowledge, and belief that one has discovered a path to a higher power.
Here are some more conversations:
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/390d6d13-5ee2-4bdd-bcf8-1ed6d7540c7a.mp3
This is the Unbelievable? programme in which Peter S. Williams answered questions from listeners, coincidentally including one of those Alex raised with Matt: "How can Jesus be both God and man?", "Is there any evidence that Christians really have a 'relationship' with Jesus?" and "Was Jesus a failed apocalyptic prophet?" There are theological answers to these questions, and if you accept theology as a path to knowledge you might find Peter's answers acceptable. I don't, and I don't. In fact I find the questions mostly irrelevant in the light of theology's refusal to deal with the fundamental question, "Does God exist?"
Until that's properly addressed, any study of the "nature of God" is begging the question.
That's not the only definition, but it's a popular one and it's the one I'm using when I say I don't care about theology.
Take this conversation as an example:
http://fundamentally-flawed.com/2011/10/01/the-slick-files-volume-3/
It's a half-hour exchange between Alex Botten and Matt Slick, when the former called in to the latter's radio show. (It's actually the third such exchange — go to the the Fundamentally Flawed website to find the others.)
But you're never going to get sensible answers to such questions, because the answers are designed to be nonsensical. Take the Trinity, for example — the only answer any theologian or apologist can give as an "explanation" of the three-in-one is to play the mystery card. If the Trinity could be explained in everyday, straightforward language that actually made sense, it would cease to be extraordinary, and without such extraordinary elements Christianity would be a mundane belief system that failed to move people. By including elements that are impervious to explanation and rational analysis, a belief system becomes "special", "mysterious" and "transcendent". In some ways such a system resembles conspiracy theory — belief in something against the trend, being party to secret knowledge, and belief that one has discovered a path to a higher power.
Here are some more conversations:
http://media.premier.org.uk/unbelievable/390d6d13-5ee2-4bdd-bcf8-1ed6d7540c7a.mp3
Until that's properly addressed, any study of the "nature of God" is begging the question.
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